IBi ■"■■■■'■'■ i ■ ' ;•"■ ■:' ;■■■■■' " ,■■■■■■':■■■■..■' .;■■"'■':.■''■:.'.■ BHPN Tffl '■■■■■■■•■'.■■'■ V, ' ' '•'■ ■ ■Hun ■■'■■ .v' ■:;■ • ■ ..,■:'■ I : S.<9flBT9V3Mvi .".'■'... I A Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES i *-hW . i ■*▼.* ■ I ■ ■■■mBH ■ K is h awpanwgaBB KU9B9K 9 Bgfi ■H ■hi •■'. A MY LYBICAL LIFE: |.1ocms Olli attb «|Uto. By GERALD MASSEY. IN TWO SERIES, FIVE SHILLINGS EACH. LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE. A FEW OPINIONS. " I propose to review the works of no ordinary poet— Gerald Massey. It appears that his station in life is obscure, and his fortune far from prosperous. Such, also, was the condition of Keats, to whom he bears, in many features of his genius, a marvellous resemblance. I have not the honour (for honour I should think it) to know him personally; therefore, if I should err in my judgment of his merits, the cause of my blindness will not be attributed to an over-heated partiality. Here are two stanzas of exquisite and almost unrivalled beauty. . . . There are thoughts and expressions here, and in many other places, which remind us of Shakspeare in the best of his Sonnets. In these there is nothing comparable to the four lines here below. ... I am thought to be more addicted to the Ancients than to the Moderns — wrongfully — for I have never, since I was able to compare, preferred ihe best of them to Shakspeare and Milton ; and at the present time I am trying to recollect any ode, Latin or Greek, more graceful than one in p There is something Oriental in these ideas, something of Hafiz, but chastened and controlled. In the lines on Hood — how august an exordium! and how rich and radiant the exhibition of Hood's wit. " In the first thirty-seven pages there are all these passages, and many more, perhaps of equal beauty. Here is such poetry as the generous Laureate will read with approbation; such poetry as Jeffrey would have tossed aside with derision, and as Gifford would have torn to pieces in despair. Can anything more or better be said of it ? " — Extract from a review by Walter Savage Laxdoe. " July 10th, 1869. " I have to thank you for your two books, which, I imagine, are not published; if they are, there are things in them which deserve a great deal more notice than any which they have a 2 li MY LYRICAL LIFE. received. I mean particularly such things as the passage ' In Memoriam,' from pp. 27—29 (pp. 50-2)." " December 19th, 1869. "On my return home I find your volume, which I am very glad to possess. I have not yet read the maiu poem, but in turning over the leaves of the hook. I have read, and with great interest, many of the shorter poems— • Cousin Wmnie, and 'Thackeray,' in especial. I think I must have read the 'Thackeray 'somewhere or other at the time its subject died, for it seems to come back to me like an old acquaintance. Strahan brings you out at rather a formidable moment in conjunction with Tennyson, whose new volume calls to so many readers and buyers. I do not myself think, however, that iu this new volume of his he proves— except for the first moment of publication— a dangerous competitor. Lver sincerely yours,— Matthew Arnold." " Dear Mr. Massey — I rejoice iu acknowledging my own debt of gratitude to you for many an encouraging and noble thought, and expression of thought, and my conviction that your Poems in the mass have been a helpful and precious gitt to the working classes (I use the term in its highest and widest sense) of the country ; few National Services can be greater than that which you have rendered. Believe me, gratefully yours,— John Ki skin." "I got your book at once, and had not read many pages before I saw that we had another English Poet." — Henky Taylor (Author of Philip Van Artevelde). "Everything considered, we may state at once, and without any hesitation, that we regard this ' Tale of Eternity ; or the Haunted Hurst,' by Gerald Massey, as the most remarkable of all his productions. It is for him what ' Aurora Leigh ' was for Mrs. Browning— the poet's undoubted masterpiece. For weird power, at once iu thought and in language, it is beyond what we had regarded as within the range of Mr. Massey's capacity. Seklom has a young poet of the large promise of Gerald Massey more fully justified, than he himself has done in the present instance, the reputation won by him at a bound when he first adopted literature as his profession."— Charles Kent in the Sun. "It may surprise you to be told that I feel the keenest interest in your 'Cries of '48.' "— Connop Thirlwall (then Bishop of St. Davids). "I am grieved beyond measure that you are wasting your magnificent faculty of Singing on some theological problem A FEW OPINIONS. Ill that a German might go at, but which it is sheer blasphemy against the gift God Almighty has given you, as one in a hundred thousand, for you to weary brain and heart over. I protest against such flinging away of yourself. I don't care what the thing may be, if it does not mean Song. My beloved brother, I would implore you to recognize your divinely- appointed work of Makek with, as I adjudge you, the first, tenderest, subtlest, most cunning gift possessed by living poet." — A. B. Grosart (Editor of Old English Poets). " Mr. Gerald Massey has been so favourably introduced to the public by the ' Ballad of Babe Cliristabel,' and other lyrical poems, that the preseut volume would probably find its way into most circles unaided by any recommendation but that of its own merits and the success of its predecessors. Among the longer Poems, 'The Mother's Idol Broken,' and ' Only a Dream,' are almost perfect of their kind. The re- maining ones are equally well written, and contain lines which might appear to indicate higher flights of poetic power ; but there is a real dramatic interest in the others which always proves the surest passport to the heart. The present volume reminds us more of the modern German Poetry of Redwitz and Geibel than of any English Author. But we must claim for our Countryman a healthier tone and a wiser choice of themes — more of the warm light of common day. His de- scriptions of nature show a close observation of her ways, and a delicate appreciation of her beauties. His images, however subtle and delicately woven, are never false. In ' The Mother's Idol Broken,' which contains some of the most beautiful and striking imagery in the volume, the feeling is never overpowered and hidden by the working of the Imagination. We hardly , know how to choose from it, the beauty of the Poem is so well sustained throughout." — Walter Bagehot in the Economist. " ' The Mother's Idol Broken ' is unquestionably the gem of the book. To speak of it as a cluster of gems would be more just. It is no unworthy companion to 'In Memoriam.' To step aside for a moment from the ordinary path of Criticism, let us confess ourselves of the Class for whom they have been written, and thank the author, in the name of his fellow- mourners, for his complete and beautiful expression of their common woe. There are many rich Libraries and many scanty book-shelves in all the lands where English can be read wherein the Volume containing ' The Mother's Idol Broken ' will be found side by side with ' Dombey and Son,' and ' Uncle Tom's Cabin,' for more years to come than can be predicted. "- James Hannat in the Illustrated Times. IV MY LYRICAL LIFE. "Rejoicing in the new, free eloquence of our Poetry, dis- enthralled from the artificial sing-song of Pope, we are equally ready to hail a fresh si t of poets in our own day who are pushing out on all sides for varieties of style, measi re, and form. Gerald Massey belongs to the New Choir. Pathos and love, and a purple flush of beauty steep and colour all his song. His second volume has all the bloom and richness of tin- first, and more maturity of thought. The whole of ' The Mother's Idol Broken' is excellent, 'Lady Laura 'is full of exquisite poetry. The pieces beginning 'Czar Nicholas,' and 'There was a poor old Woman once,' show a new view — a view of deep, quiet sarcasm. They remind us of Beranger." — Thomas Aird in the Dumfries Herald. "Gerald Massey has produced another volume of Poems, which contains some of the most beautiful things in English Literature. The entire annals of literature afford nothing more beautiful, nothing more pathetic than 'The Motl Idol Broken.' Gerald Mass y's 'Ballad of Inkerman' is de- cidedly the finest War-Lyric ever produced." — Ernest Jones in the People' 's Paper. "With all the marked individuality of original genius, Gerald Massey reminds us more of Keats than of any ■ English Poet; but, with the same rare ; ternal beauty, he adds a lyrical power and a depth of feeling which Keats did not possess. He has but to give his intellect as fill scope as his fancy and imagination, and to bestow on his Poems that elaboration and care which high excellence demands from even the happiest geniuses, in order to become one of the enduring lights of British Literature." — From Hugh Miixer'8 last Leader. " The ' Tale of Eternity ' is unquestionably the most remark- able of Mr. Gerald Massey's productions, replete with fine passages, terribly weird in parts, and showing a force of imagination such as only true poets po-sess. It is laden with such wealth of language, such beauty of description, such felicities of expression, such happy phrases and smooth alliter- ations, that glide past unfelt, and such genuine poetry, that those who can trust themselves on enchanted ground may pick up gold and — diamonds. "Mr. Massey's Poem is full of scientific allusions, and we do not detect any mistakes. "Wheatstone's electric experiments and Humboldt's earthquake experience. Darwin's theories and Huxley's protoplasm, the structure of Saturn's rings and the formation of the Atlantic ooze— all furnish the material fi r beautiful similes; as do also the phenomena of the spectrum, A FEW OPINIONS. V of complementary colours and the velocity of light, singing flames and sunshiue stored in coal, the earth's visibility from the planets, Parry's Arctic experience, Moncrief 's discovery for lifting cannon, the leaf-simulating Mantis, and the facts of botany and philosophy. " The ' Tale of Eternity,' however, constitutes but a fourth part of the volume ; and in the remaining parts we have smaller Poems, exquisite gems of songs — musical, rippling, laughing, radiant, compact, rounded, epigrammatic. Mr. Massey is be- coming more decidedly the poet of private life. Everything homely and healthily natural, everything heartily human, has a special charm for him ; and his judges at last will be not Critics, but Fathers and Mothers. He writes things about children, about married life, and on death, in a fashion that no other poet has reached. The sweetness of his verses on children, the tenderness of his lyrics of love, the hushed sanctity of his poems of the grave, are unsurpassed by any poet that we know. He has sung of the home-circle before, but this time he advances to the inner sanctuary of religious feeling. He is older now and mellower, more loving and more religious. He has suffered, and suffering has had a sanctifying influence. This experience has served him in writing the ' In Memoriam,' inscribed to Lady Marian Alford, on the death of her son, Earl Brownlow, a poem full of thought, and one which Thomas Carlyle, who does not often praise poetry, has called ' Heroic' " — British Quarterly Review. "May the summer day be fair as the spring dawn is bright. "We consider these poems to be most remarkable and interest- ing. The love-poems, particularly, are unusually sweet and elegant. The end of this ' thing' ought to be better than the ' beginning.' " — Times. "In him we have a genuine songster. He has the true faculty of creative life. . . . Few poems in our recent out- growth of poetic literature are finer than some of these. . . . Here is another poet, — and one whose story and position as a teacher and preacher clothe him with unusual interest." ******* " Be the reader as Augustan in his requirements as those who are unreconciled to Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats (and such readers of poetry still exist), he will hardly deny the author of ' Craigcrook Castle ' his letters of enrolment among the poets. His new book is a book of the time, inasmuch as some of its highest strains have been inspired by the war from which we have just issued, our poet thinks, ingloriously ; it is a page, too, from the book of his own life, — a page steeped in the real VI MY LYRICAL LIFE. tears of a great sorrow. Iu both we hear the earnest, sad, passionate voice which would constrain lis to stop and listen, — were the years ever so gay, — were our own hearts ever so ignorant of yearnings for those who will come no more. . . . If we exchange the genial open-air pictures for the house darkened by sorrow, we shall find the music of the song grow truer, deeper, and more impassioned. There are few more touching revelations of Bereavement. 'The Mother's I lol Broken ' is a series of death-poems, which no mother will read without tears. In ' Glimpses of the War ' will be found not a few fiery stanzas and noble lines. Here is a dirge with a music in its wail which reminds us of some wild national keen or coronach. Much more — some ripe in beauty, some rich in promise — could be cited from this volume; but the above will lead many to read it, and justify the enjoyment and the hope we have found in the appearance of one so full of some of Poetry's most gracious gifts." — Alhenaum. "Brave, honest, free-spoken Gerald Massey! Assuredly it is no vain speculation to suppose that the name of such a poet will become a household word amongst millions ; that his writings will be regarded as a precious jewel amongst their domestic treasures ; that wherever the English tongue is spoken, and an English heart beats with paternal love, or throbs for liberty, there will the poems of Gerald Massey be received with welcome." — London Review. "His love-poetry is very pure and sweet, and frequently rivals the most genuine strains of Burns. "To him, indeed, we owe the sweetest songs of courtship, the merriest marriage-ditties, and the most touching lays of child-life, that have ever been given to the world." — London Quarterly Review. "A great Poet still among us only half recognized. Gerald Massey is one of the few genuine Poets in this England of to-day." — Agnostic Journal. " In our own times the trammels of poverty have not kepi down the rising strength and indomitable vigour of Gerald Massey." — Saturday Review. " In whatever part of the field of literature we meet him, he deserves recognition as a writer of earnestness and ability, who has achieved success under circumstances which, in the case of the vast majority of men, would have involved total failure." — The Guardian. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Shakspeare Quarto, pp. 490, price 12s. 6d., sub- stantially a New Work and not a Reprint. LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE. THE SECKET DRAMA OP SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. A New "Work on Old Lines. A Kational Plea on behalf of Shakspeare's Sonnets. A Permanent Reply to his Misinterpreters. A Labour of Love dedicated to his Lovers. A necessary Supplement to all Editions of his Works. By GERALD MASSEY. Our most observant Man, most unobserved ; Maker of Portraits for Humanity ! He held the Mirror up to Nature 's face, Forgetting with colossal carelessness To look into it and refect his own : Even in the Sonnets he put on the Mask. And was, at times, the Player as in the Plays. — G. M. "Mr. Massey published, more than twenty years ago, an exposition of his Theory that ' Shakspeare's Sonnets ' are partly personal and partly dramatic. In the handsome volume before us he has restated that exposition in an emended form, and produced further evidence in its favour. Mr. Dyce had previously declared that, after repeated perusals, he was con- vinced that the greater number of these sonnets were com- posed in an assumed character, on different subjects, and at different times, for the amusement, and probably at the sug- gestion, of the author's intimate associates. Mr. Massey duly admits that this conviction forms the kernel of the nut which he claims to have cracked, only his theory goes much further. For it unmasks, he believes, the characters assumed, unfolds the nature of the various subjects, and identifies the intimate associates of Shakspeare who supplied both suggestion and subjects for his Sonnets. The question whether Mr. Massey has demonstrated the truth of his important and interesting theory is one that we cannot answer unconditionally. But he viii SHAKSPEARES SONNETS. has unquestionably won for himself the right to say, as be does in effect, that his evidence and arguments are armour- proof against the slings and arrows of anonymous criticism. He challenges the Shakspearians, who contend that the con- fessions of the Sonnets are autobiographical, to pick up his i.l ive. Till men, therefore, of the calibre and lore of Profi Dowden and M r. Furnivall answer this challenge and confute the man who issues it, Mr. Mas* ry may be fairly accepted as substantially correct ! And on the assumption that it is, he does not overstep the modesty of nature in calling his present book 'a necessary supplement to all edition Shakspeare's works.' For it wipes away all the spots which a misrepresentation of the Sonnets has brought their readers to see in Shakspeare. Hallam wished regretfully that these confessions had never been written. Carlyle and Emerson sighed over the dismal secrets which they were supposed to reveal. And the mistake made by these distinguished men was ted and exaggerated by C. A. Brown in his confident analysis of 'Shakspeare's Autobiographical Poems,' half a century ago. "We need not mention again the names of those critics who are still bound hand and foot to thai analysis. "But, in justice to Mr. Massey, it must l>e Baid that many of his most important conclusions have been stolen— or let at ' conveyed '—by some critics who are loudest in repudiating his dramatic interpretation. Tut mam qui The gist of his arguments, admirable and valuable as it j> t i the last degree."— St. ■ • He, January 7th, 1 "Your monumental book's a trifle bulky (Five hundred pages turn some critics sulky. My massive Massey), but 'tis full of ' meat,' And sown with Song as masculine as sweet. Mellifluous echoes of the master-rhymes, Whose music filled the Great Armada times Three centuries since, and still moves heart and brain More than the pageantries of Drury Lane. ' Tush ! none but minstrels' like of sonneting,' Sings Shakspeabe's self with an ironic ring. Minstrels at least will thank you; for the 1 - Who have not time or heart fVr the Great Qiest After the Secrets of the Sonnets, these May dip and taste when; there's so much to plea at: Both student bee and social butterfly ; Whilst all will track with grateful heart and eye Your slaughtering of that colossal Sham Egregious Boxxelly's Great Cryptogram! "—Punch. A FEW OPINIONS. ix "Mr. Massey has maintained his theory with so much learn- ing, argument, ami ingeuuity, that he has made a case upon which they aloue who have devoted many years of their lives to the study of Shakspeare, his Sonnets, his friends, and his times, are competent to deliver a decisive opinion. To us Mr. Massey appears to have established his theory far more com- pletely than most theories, which rest to a considerable extent upon conjecture, probability, and the internal evidence of writings, can be established. That he pleads his cause with great ingenuity, and that he has brought immense research to bear upon his labours, is undeniable. His theory, moreover, has the advantage of vindicating Shakspeare's moral character. The work also rendered necessary certain Biographies, which will be found highly interesting. Let the volume itself be read. It certainly deserves very close attention." — Illustratt : London Xeics. " Mr. Massey has explained the Sonnets of Shakspeare with- out any such strange and revolting suppositions as others have brought to bear upon the task. "We believe he has made real aud substantial discoveries in. the subject-matter of these beautiful but perplexing poems .- but we should be compelled, if we thought he had produced a mere Critical Romance, to own that it was a most interesting and a noble one — interest- ing by its intimate connection with the records of several historic characters, and ennobled by the healthy and warm- hearted sympathies which have animated his investigations. "While this new division of the parts gives to the greater number of Sonnets a more rich, delicate, and elevated significa- tion, we find it strongly enforced by the historical memorials with which it is connected in the present copious and thorough commentary. We hope our contemporaries will not generally under-rate the necessary obscurity of the subject investigated, nor the immense value of the light that may have been thrown u^on it.'' — Pall Mall Gazette. "Accept the warmest thanks of two fervent Shakspearians for your noble book on Shakspeare's Sonnets and his Private Friends. My husband and I have read it with thorough delight. Let me especially thank you for the portious headed' Poet and Patron: their personal friendship,' aud 'The Man Shakspeare.' I have often felt, with you, that Antonio and Bassanio were dramatized pictures of Shakspeare and his beloved friend of the Sonnets. That Southampton was this worshipped friend of Shakspeare you have admirably demonstrated ; and thereby confirmed my own long-felt conviction, derived from the evidence contained in the two dedications to 'Venus and X SHAKSPEARES SONNETS. Adonis' aud to 'Lucrece.' Shakspeare was not the man to write lightly aud meaninglessly such words as ' The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end,' and ' what I have done is yours ; what I have to do is yours ; being part of all I have devoted yours ! ' Shakspeare was not the man to write thus to his friend Southampton overtly, and to write to his friend of the Sounets as he there does, unless they were one and 'he same person. Mr. Cowden-Clarxe will add his own acknow- ledgments with his own hand ; and pray accept those offered in earnest gratitude by yours faithfully, — Mary Cowden- CLARK.E." "P.S. — In following the example of my wife — which every man who has a full sense — in every sense of his vow, would do, — I subscribe her testimony of admiration of your noble work, — subjoining as ' rider,' that I cannot name the day when I have received so large a satisfaction from the perusal of a homage dedicated to the Mind of our "World that we implicitly venerate and cordially love. I cannot close this brief testimony of my delight, without reference to a Memoir I read in number 17 of The Working Man. The whole record intensely inter- ested me ; but at the four lines, telling of the poet's mother, I went in admiration (as Essex would say) ' upon the knees of my heart.' — Every good wish attend you and your work, — Yours faithfully, — C. Cowdex-Clarke." From Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. — '• I am deep in the subject which your volume treats with such profound research and sagacity. It was my companion last Autumn when I made an excursion to the North, and I had much pleasure in lending it at Alnwick to Lady , who is a woman quite worthy of such a book aud such a theme. Do me the favour to accept a copy of the small volume of poems which I printed two years ago. If Homer is to be trusted, it will not be the first time that brass has been given in exchange for gold, and you will kindly allow the feeling with which it is oll'ered to make up for the want of intrinsic value. — Believe me, dear Sir, very sincerely yours, Stratford de B." " Come farfalla, che la luce attira, Alia vorace fiamma abbrucia e spira, Cosi, delF arte al sacro fuoco, auch 'io M'incendio tutto, per fatal desio ! Per te Massey la sorte e ben diversa ! L'istiuto che ti sprona non t'avversa. Audraune la salma, sepolta e pesta, Ma con l'opere tue, il Genio resta ! " TOMMASO SaI.VTVI. MY LYKICAL LIFE MY LYEICAL LIFE: l??ocms ©15 anb 'gicxv. BY GERALD MASSEY. FIRST SERIES. IDonixm: KEG AN" PAUL, TEEXCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 1889. [All Rights reserved.] Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & El'ngav. •Ocbkattcnr. ©oob Jrienb Of Jtttne, ^o itte ©nknobm, cSitbc Jfot Uhe ,§ccrct Jrienbship photon, JVcccpt, £n flour (XvAA.*0W\ bz XVlil EXPLANATORY. By "Poems Old and New" it is not meant that all the new ones are recently written, but that they will be new to the readers of the Volumes previously printed. With some obvious exceptions the poems earliest written are collected in the Second series, whilst those that were written Latest appear in the Firet volume. They are not rigidly arranged upon any set plan or system, although there is at times a sort of sequence in the grouping, either of sub or in accordance with the chronology. I have done what I could in thai way to eke out the reader's interest by giving as much variety as was possible within the limited bcoj e of lyrical poetry, which cannot have the advantage of a cumulative interest. It should be remembered, that the writer of lyrical poems is not always the speaker of them ! The Lyrist has the liberty if not the latitude of the dramatist in representing other characters, situations, standpoints, or moods, than those which may be strictly personal to himself. Hence Robert Browning's descriptive title of "Dramatic Lyrics." Many of my Lyrics are also dramatic in the s< of the writer being moved and the poetry Avritten on behalf of other people. As a matter of fact, the poem of "Babe Christabel" was not founded on a personal sorrow of my own. But I do not EXPLANATORY. XIX say this with the object of shirking any personal responsibility for the contents of these volumes. Nor am I about to put forth a private theory of poetry such as might supply the most suitable frame for my own portrait. I am, as a matter of course, aware that in the estimation of some readers, including a few per- sonal friends, the " Last Lyrics " in these volumes may suffice to damn all the rest ! But that cannot be helped. It has been my luck all along the line of my Lyrical Life to fight upon the weaker side — the side, however, that I have lived to see at times victorious. I was a Home-Ruler thirty years ago ! Al^o it was my lot to start in life with something of The spirit that can stand alone As the Minority of one ; Or with the faithful few be found Working and waiting till the rest come round. No one will dare to impugn my patriotism, or doubt that I am English to the heart-roots, even though my latest lyrics are devoted to the cause of another nationality than ours — even though I do think there are other ways of wooing and winning than by brute conquest and brutal coercion, whether in the individual, social, or national life ; and that the time has come for humaner methods x.\- EXPLANATORY. to he applied. Still, it is possible that if we h no sympathy with the sul»j. ter, be it poli- . patriotic, domestic, or spiritualistic, we are more or less incapable of justly appraising the poet Much of my verse is bound op with the political and patriotic life of our time. .Souk- of the pie such as •' Bavelock's March," published in I860, other> on the ''Second Kmpii more properly • ic photographs, rather than Poems in the I Bui they are national; and such things may have their pi illustrations in hist records. Whate ever t: e matter might be, I have always written far the Bubject with all my heart. Also, for the truth's xike I ought to explain • he kii Spiritualism, I I Icism, or ralism to be found in my poetry is no de- lusive Idealism derived from hereditary belief in a physical resurrection of the (hail ! Neither am I making a new attempt to cheat the ignorant by pretences of knowledge. My faith in our future life is founded upon facts in nature and realities of my own personal experience; not upon any falsification of natural fact. These facts have been more or less known to me personally during forty years of familiar face-to-face accpiaintance- ship, therefore my certitude is not premature; they have given me the proof palpable that our EXPLANATORY. XXI very own human identity and intelligence do per- sist after the blind of darkness has been drawn down in death. The Spiritualist who has plumbed the void of death as I have, and touched this solid ground of fact, has established a faith that can neither be undermined nor overthrown. He has done with the poetry of desolation and despair ; the sighs of unavailing regret, and all the pas- sionate wailing of unfruitful pain. He cannot be bereaved in soul ! And I have had ample testimony that my poems have done welcome work, if only in helping to destroy the tyranny of death, which has made so many mental slaves afraid to live. I see myself referred to at times as a poet who has not fulfilled the promise of his early work ! It is true that some twenty years ago my sing- ing on the old lines ceased. First, there was the insuperable difficulty of living by the poetry that one would gladly have lived for ! No one lives by poetry in England except the Laureate. Not even those who have been most generously assisted by such a Prince amongst publishers as was Alex- ander Strahan, who did his best (I fear) to ruin his own business in trying to help poets and others to live by their writings. Independently of this difficulty I had then almost ceased to look upon the writing of poetry as the special work of my literary life ; and since that time, instead of nurs- XX11 EXPLANATORY. ing ancient delusions by poetizing misinterpreted Mythology, I have been strenuously seeking to get rid of them by Explanation. Hence it has been said of me, my life and work, by a friendly singer — " Behold a Poet who could 'even forego The joy pecxdiar to the Singer's Soul, J I is pleasant dream of fame, his proffered seat Upon the heights to which his Spirit soared, To dive for treasures where but few could breathe, And dredge the old sea-bottoms of the Past. Lover of Beauty who gave up all for Truth ! ■sp T^ V ^f T *l* ^ And having wrought through years of sacrifice, And brought his message to the unwelcoming world, He, calm, contented, leaves tJie rest with God ; As if he recked not, though the Bark were wrecked, The treasure being landed safe on shore." 1 The result of this change, which I hope to fully justify before my day's darg is done, is that these volumes contain the lush-leafiness of the Spring- time, alluded to so warmly by Walter Savage Landor, with something of the Summer's bloom, but do not show the ripened tints of Autumn's gold. My "Lyrical Life" may contain the flower, but the fruit of my whole life has to be looked for elsewhere by those who are in sympathy with my purpose. 1 Sheen and Shade, by J. R. and B. M. R. Printed by Richard Clay and Sons, 1887. EXPLANATORY. XXU1 # I had not attained the larger, more objective out- look of my later life when called away from poetry to " prospect " for other treasures in my search for truth. Po-sibly this fact of my breaking-off midway in life may be thought to give me a kind of right to rank with those Poets who died young, and thus invited a gentler judgment for their verse. It was not that I felt the fount and source of song had dried up within or without. Nor was it owing to any spiritual lassitude from lack of faith in man, or woman either. I had neither lost heart in the present, nor hope for the future ; nor had I begun to think that human life had come to the dregs of its days. Although I am growing old myself — at least the years say so — I cannot bewail the changes going on around us fast and faster, for it is by change the world renews and must renew its youth, unheeding all the lamenta- tions of old age, the cries of warning and prophecies of woe that proceed from those who keep on calling for double drags to be put on, whilst we are ascend- ing the hill, because they fear lest the summit ahead of us should only reveal a precipice beyond. We are in the pangs of sloughing ; but we are getting good riddance of much impedimenta be- queathed to us as the burden of the past, which the race has been so painfully, and, as was thought, most dutifully, lugging along ! b* Xxiv EXPLANATORY. The false faiths are fading; but it is in the light of a truer knowledge. The half G »da are soinn in order that the whole G<> y come. There is finer fish in the unfathomed sea of the future than any we have yet landed. It is only in our time that the have been collected for rightly interpreting the P I -Man, and fur portraying the long and vast procession of his slow but never-ceasing progress through the sandy wilderness <>f an uncultivated earth into the world of work with the ever^uickening ious- of a higher, worthier life to come, without this measure of the human j ast we could have no true gauge of the growth thai ssible in the futw Indeed it seems to me that we are only just beginning to lay hold of this life in earnest ; only just standing on the very threshold of true thought ; only just now attaining a right mental method of thinking, through a knowledge of I lution ; only just getting in line with natural law, and seeking earnestly to stand level-footed on that ground of reality which must ever and every- where be the one lasting foundation of all tL.it is permanently true. It is only of late that the Tree of KnoAvL has begun to lose its evil character, to be planted anew, and spread its roots in the fresh ground of EXPLANATORY. XXV every Board- School, with its fruits no longer accursed, but made free to all. I sometimes think the genuine passion for essential truth is growing, with our keener moral sense, so that one may almost expect to see the time when the Writer can earn his living by telling the truth ! *o We are beginning to see the worst evils now afflicting the human race are man-made, and do not come into the world by decree of Fate or fiat of God ; and that which is man-made is also remediable by man. Not by man alone ! For Woman is about to take her place by his side as true help-mate and ally in carrying on the work of the world, so that we may look upon the Fall of Man as being gradually superseded by the Ascent of Woman. And here let me say parenthetically, that I consider it to be of the first necessity for women to obtain the Parliamentary Franchise be- fore they can hope to stand upon a business footing of practical equality with men ; and therefore I have no sympathy with those would-be abortionists, who have been somewhat too "previously" trying to take the life of Woman-Suffrage in embryo before it should have the chance of being brought to birth. Some of the most generous critics of my early volumes prophesied that they contained immortal verse. Whether they did or not remains to be xxvi EXPLANATORY. tested by that fierce furnace and crucible of the future, which await the work of all. Doubtless these will reduce to cinders much of the poetry of the present, and consume to ashes many of the arti- ficial ItnmorteUes that friendly hands have fondly placed upon the brows of the " Immortals prematun ly brought to birth" Personally I form no overweening estimate of the value of my verse. The Prefatory lines of twenty years ago were written in all sincerity. I think the poems real so far as they go, but their range is very limited. They will not let rue speak proudly of them ; yet I do not think they are outgrown and superseded, or I should not have reprinted them. On looking back at these "Writings of my more youthful years, I cannot help wishing that they had been worthier, but I also feel thankful to find they are no worse. I am glad to know the ghost of my former self, now raised, is not appalling as it might have been. And after all the brooding patience of long research, and the painful labour spent in writing big books to stand on library shelves, I feel no shame in confessing the fact that it is very pleasant to come at last and nestle near the warm heart of one's lovers and friends in a Pocket Edition of one's poetry. July, 1SS9. Gerald Masse v. CONTENTS. PACE A Greeting ... xxxiii Prefatory Poem 1 Babe Christabel ... 5 Cousin Winnie ... 17 Hesper ... 22 Apologues : THE YOUTH AND THE ANGEL ... 25 SUNBEAM AND ROSE ... 26 LOVE-LONGING ... 27 THE NEST ... ... 28 HUNT THE SQUIRREL ... 29 THE GLOW-WORM ... ... 31 THE SUNKEN CITY ... 32 HOW IT SEEMS ... 33 THE WILD-FLO WER ... 34 THE BIRD OF MORN ... 35 A BIRD OF NIGHT ... 36 THE LADY OF LIGHT ... 37 LITTLE PEARL .. 39 XXY111 CONTENTS. r\r. E Apologues : THE MAIDEN MARRIAGE ... ... 41 THOU SHALT LOVE THY NETGHDOUR AS THYSELF ... 42 AN APOLOGUE ... 44 In Memoriam ... ... 45 Carmina Nuptialia : WEDDED LOVE ... 56 THE WEDDING ... 57 SERENADE ... ... 59 ARGUING IN A CIRCLE ... 61 AN APRIL WEDDING ... 61 LEAVE-TAKING ... 62 AS THEY PASSED ... 62 EYOE 63 A WAYSIDE WniSPER ... 64 THE WELCOME HOME ... 66 THE BONNY BRIDELAND FLOWER ... 68 a lover's SONG ... 69 THE MARRIED LIFE 70 VIA CRUCIS VIA LUCIS 71 Ancient Egypt 81 Egyptian Elysium ... 83 The Kronian Gods ... 85 Protoplasm 86 CONTENTS. XXIX PA OR A Poet's Love-Letter ... ... ... 92 A Letter in Black ... ... ... 103 Widow Margaret ... ... ... ... 109 Pictures in the Fire ... ... ... 115 Songs : old friends ... ... ... ... 122 sylvia may ... ... ... ... 123 in a dream ... ... ... ... 124 that merry, merry may ... ... 124 A lover's FANCY ... ... ... 125 NO JEWELLED BEAUTY IS MY LOVE ... 126 THE TWO ROSES ... ... ... ... 127 SWEET-AND-TWENTY ... ... ... 128 THE WEDDING-RING ... ... ... 129 LOVE'S WESTWARD HO ! . . . ... ... 130 MY LOVE ... ... ... ... 131 LULLABY... ... ... ... ... 132 AUTUMN SONG ... ... ... ... 133 SYRINX ... ... ... ... ... 134 O LAY THY HAND IN MINE, DEMI ... 135 LONG, LONG AGO ... ... ... 136 A soldier's WIFE ... ... ... 137 robin's song ... ... ... ... 138 the only one ... ... ... ... 139 A maiden's song ... ... ... 140:' XXX CONTENTS. .. FOR EVER CHRISTIE S PORTRAIT PAGE Songs : LOVE NOW AND THEN ... EMIGRANT SONG ... THE SAILOR'S ORPHAN CHI ED ... ... 143 ON DECK TOGETHER ... ... ... 43 A PEARL DIVER ... PARTING ... 140 141 142 Ml 145 » 145 SIIAKSPEARE ... ... ... ••• 146 "ALL READY AND ALL I ... ... 146 ENGLAND ... ... ... ••• 147 TnE OLD LAND ... ... ... ... 148 sea-som; ... ... ... ••■ 150 our native land ... ... ... 151 a national anthem ... ... ... 153 Havelock's March ... ... ... ... 155 Only a Dream ... ... 187 An Orphan Family's Christmas 201 The Bridegroom of Beauty ... ... 222 Poems for Christie : a winter's tale for the little ones 234 for Christie's sake ... ... ... 241 245 THE TWO HEAVENS ... ... ... 247 CONTENTS. Forms for Christie : sleep-walking ... Christie's poor old gran news of christie little willie ... when christie comes again children at play little lilybell our white dove poor ellen the nabob's double the diakka "they sang a new song" flower and fruit pegasus in harness love and death ORPHANS ONE OF SHAKSPEARE'S WOMEN IMPERFECTION SO IT GOES GROWING OLD A GREEK REPLY ... MAN AND HIS TWO MASTERS WOMANKIND A VERY EARLY RISER XXXI PAGE 247 249 251 252 253 257 258 260 263 265 267 268 269 270 270 270 271 271 271 272 272 272 272 273 xxxn CONTENTS. Poems for Christie : a peculiar person delia bacon a painted spray of apple-bl< an angel in the ii"' be souls of animals true poets Hymns : THE LIFE BEYOND THE DIVINE LIKJ THE HIDDEN LIFE JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN POOR MAN'S SUNDAY AT EVENTIDE GONE BEFORE A CRY IN THE NIGHT HIS BANNER OVER ME REST AT LAST ... hymn of the present faith and fact The Haunted Hurst, a tale of eternity PAGE 273 273 273 274 274 271 277 279 279 280 282 283 284 285 286 287 287 288 289 293 XXX111 A GREETING. Annie Besant, brave and dear, May some message, uttered here, Reach you, ringing golden-clear. Though we stand not side by side In the front of battle wide, Oft I think of you with pride, Fellow-soldier in the fight! Oft I see you flash by night, Fiery-hearted for the Right! You for others sow the Grainy Yours the tears of ripening rain; Theirs the smiling harvest-gain. Fellow-worker ! we shall be Workers for Eternity; Such my faith. And you shall see XX XIV A GREETING. Life's no bubble blown of breath To delude the sight till death; Whatsoe'er the IJn-Seeinsr saith. Love that closes dying eyes, Wakes them too, in glad surprise : Love that makes for ever wise. Soul — whilst murmuring "There's no soul"- Shall upspring like flame from coal: Death is Dot Life's final goal. Bruno lives ! Such Spirits come. Swords, immortal-tempered, from Fire and Forge of Martyrdom. You have Soul enough for seven; Life enough our earth to leaven, Love enough to create heaven. One of God's own faithful Few, Whilst unknowing it, are you, Annie Besant, bravely true. PREFATORY POEM. A sixger sang in sleep, and, sleeping, dreamed He sang divinely, while his spirit seemed So far in Music's heaven to soar and sing, They could not follow who stood listening ! For him. the soul of sweetness found a voice. For them, the Singer only " made a noise." Such is the difference in the uttered strain, From that fine music passing through the bram. Such sumless treasures we possess in dreams, To find at waking only mirrored gleams. No revelation of the written word Will render all the spirit saw and heard. So fresh they breathed ; so faded now they look ; My few poor withered flowers in a book. Gone is the glory that once gleamed from them ; The Spirit of Light imprisoned in the gem ! Now the wingecTTife hath settled downin words, These seem but stuffed instead of Singing Birds. Feelings brimful of warmth as is a rose Of its June-red, have lost their perfumed glows ; The heaven-revealing thoughts that star-like shone, The daily kindlings of eternal dawn, All darkened down, like Meteors that have birth ■ I In Heaven, to flash and quench them cold in earth. B 2 PREFATORY POEM. We grasp at diamonds visible in the dew, And open em] ir-wet hands to you ! Weclasp at hearl the daughters of the skies, Their shadow stays with us ; the substance flies. Glimpses divine will peep; pictures will pass, That leave no likeness in the Seer's glass. The Poet's best immortally will lurk In that rare motion of his soul at work. Beedike, he brings you one gold honey-drop ; But the full-swii g, high on the flower-top, Twixt Heaven that rained itself in sweetness down. And Earth — all bloom for him — is ne'er made known. MY poem was in the makin g. These are your Warmth-needy nurslings. Reader! mine no more. The life I gave will no moi-e fill my bn Than the flown birds come back to last year's nest : Aid if these live again, 'tis you must give The reflex thrill to them by which they live. You must make out the music from the hint Prelusive : I but tune the instrument. The glory or the gladness or the grace Must shine for me re-orient in your face. The seed, that in my life took secret root, In yours must bud, and flower, and bear you fruit. MY LYEICAL LIFE. B 2 BABE CHRISTABEL. It fell upon a merry May morn, All in the prime of that sweet time When daisies whiten, woodbines climb,— The dear Babe Christabel was born : When Earth like Danali bares her charms, That for the coming God unfold, Who, in the Sunshine's shower of Gold Leaps warmly into her amorous arms ; When Beauty dons her daintiest dress, And, feci with April's mellow showers, The woods laugh out all leaves and flowers That flush for very happiness ; And Spider-Puck his wonder weaves 0' nights : and nooks of greening gloom Grow rich with Violets that bloom In the cool dusk of dewy leaves ; Green fields transfigure, like a page Of Fable to the eye of Faith ; Where cowslips and primroses rathe Bring back a real Golden Age ; MY LYRICAL LIFE. When Rose-buds drink the fiery wine Of Dawn, with crimson stains i' the mouth, All thirstily as yearning Youth From Love's hand drinks the draught divine ; When fainting hearts forget their fears, And in the poorest Life's salt cup Some rare wine runs, and Hope builds up Her rainbow over Memory's tears, — It fell upon a merry May morn, All in the prime of that sweet time When daisies whiten, woodbines climb, — The dear Babe Christabel was born. All night the Stars bright watches kept, Like Gods that look a golden calm ; The Silence dropped its precious balm, And the tired world serenely slept. The birds were darkling in the nest, Or bosomed in voluptuous trees : On beds of flowers the happy breeze Had kissed its fill and sank to rest. All night beneath the Cottage eaves, A lonely light, with tremulous Arc, Surged back a space the sea of dark, And glanced among the shimmering leaves. And when the Morn with frolic zest, Unclosed the curtains of the night, There was a dearer dawn of light, A tenderer life the Mother's pressed, BABE CHRISTABEL. And she at all her suffering smiled. The Star new-kindled in the dark — Life that bad fluttered like a Lark — Lay in her bosom a sweet Child ! How she had felt it drawing down Her nesting heart more close and close, - Her rose-bud ripening to tbe Rose, Tbat sbe should one day see full-blown ! How she had throbbed with hopes and fears, And strained her inner eyes till dim, To see the expected glory swim Through the rich mist of happy tears ; For it. her woman's heart drank up, And laughed at, Sorrow's darkest dole : And now Delight's most dainty soul Was crushed for her in one rich cup ! And then delicious languors crept, Like nectar, on her pain's hot drouth, And feeling fingers — kissing mouth — Eeing faint with joy, the Mother slept. Babe Christabel was royally born ! For when the earth was flushed with flowers, And drenched with beauty in sun-showers, She came through golden gates of Morn. No chamber arras-pictured round, Where sunbeams make a gorgeous gloom, And touch its glories into bloom, And footsteps fall withouten sound, 8 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Was her Birth-place that merry May-morn ; No gifts were heaped, no bells were rung, No healths were drunk, no songs were sung When dear Babe Christabel was born: But Nature on the darling smiled, And with her beauty's blessing crowned : Love brooded o'er the hallowed ground, And there were Angels with the Child. And May her kisses of love did bring ; Her Birds made welcoming merriment, And all her flowers in greeting sent The secret sweetnesses of Spring. In glancing light and glimmering shade, With cheeks thai touchedandripelier burned May-Roses in aj the lattice yea rned. A-tiptoe, and Good Morrow bade. No purple and fine linen might Be hoarded up for her sweet sake : But Mother's love will clothe and make The little wearer bravely dight ! Wide worlds of worship are their eyes, Their loyal hearts are worlds of love, Who fondly clasp their cooing Dove, And read its news from Paradise. Their looks praise God — souls sing for glee : They think if this old world had toiled Through ages to bring forth their child, It was a glorious destiny. BABE CHRISTABEL. 9 happy Husband ! happy AVife ! The rarest blessing Heaven drops down, The sweetest blossom in Spring's crown, Starts in the furrows of your life ! Ah ! what a towering height ye win, Who cry, " Lo, my beloved Child !" And, life on life sublimely piled, Ye touch the heavens and peep within. Look how a star of glory swims Down aching silences of space, Flushing the Darkness till its face With beating heart of light o'erbrims ; So brightening came Babe Christabel, To touch the earth with fresh romance, And light a Mother's countenance With looking on her miracle. With hands so flower-like soft, and fair, She caught at life, with words as sweet As first spring violets, and feet As faery-light as feet of air. The Father, clown in Toil's mirk mine, Turns to his wealthier world above, Its radiance, and its home of love ; And lights his life like sun-struck wine. The Mother moves with queenlier tread : Proud swell the globes of ripe delight Above her heart, so warm and white A pillow for the baby-head ! 10 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Their natures deepen, well-like, clem-, Till God's eternal stars are seen, For ever shining and serene, By eyes anointed Beauty's seer. A sense of glory al] things took, — The red Rose-Heart of Dawn would blow, And Sundown's sumptuous pictures show Babe-Cherubs wearing/ their Babe's look : And round their peerless one they clung, Like bees about a (lower's wine-cup ; New thoughts and feelings blossomed up, And hearts for very fulness -ung Of what their budding Babe should grow. When the Maid crimsoned into Wife, And crowned the summit of some life, h heir the morning on her brow! And they should bless her for a Bride, Who, like a splendid saint alit In some heart'.- seventh heaven, should sit, As now in theirs, all glorified. 'Twas thus they built their Castles brave In fairy lands of gorgeous cloud; They never saw a wee white shroud. Nor guessed how flowers will mask the -rave. She grew, a sweet and sinless Child, In shine and shower,— calm and strife ; A Rainbow on our dark of Life, From Love's own radiant heaven down-smiled ! BABE CHRISTABEL. 11 In lonely loveliness she grew, — A shape all music, light, and love, With startling looks, so eloquentoL- ^~ The spirit whitening into view. At Childhood she could seldom play With merry heart, whose flashes rise Like splendour-winged butterflies From honeyed hearts of flowers in May : The fields in blossom flamed and flushed, The Roses into crimson yearned , With cloudy fire the wall'-nowers burned, And blood-red Sunsets bloomed and blushed, — And still her cheek grew pale as pearl, — It took no tint of Summer's wealth Of colour, warmth, and wine of Health : Death's hand so whitely pressed the Girl ! No blush grew ripe to sun or kiss Where violet veins ran purple light, So tenderly through Parian white, Touching you into tenderness. A spirit-look was in her face, That shadowed a miraculous range Of meanings, ever rich and strange, Or lightened glory in the place. Such mystic lore was in her eyes, And light of other worlds than ours, She looked as she had gathered flowers, I With little maids of Paradise. 12 MY LYRICAL LIFE. And she would talk so weirdly-wild, And grow upon your wonderings, As though her stature rose on wings ! And you forgot she was a Child. Ah ! she was one of those who come With pledge and promise not to stay Long, ere the Angels let them stray To nestle down in earthly home : And, through the windows of her eyes, We often saw her saintly soul, Serene, and sad, and beautiful, Go sorrowing for lost Paradise ! Our Lamb in mystic meadows played : In some celestial sleep she walked Her dream of life, and low we talked, As of her waking heart-afraid. 1 n Earth she took no lusty root, Her beauty of promise to disclose, Or rouncTlntdTEe WmirTan-Bose, And climb into Life's crowning fruit. She came, — as comes the light of smiles O'er earth, and every budding thing Makes quick with beauty — alive with Spring ; Then goeth to the golden Isles. She came — like music in the night Floating as heaven in the bi'ain, A moment oped, and shut again, And all is dark where all was light. BABE CHRISTABEL. 13 Midnight was tranced solemnly Thinking of dawn : Her Stai'-thoughts burned ; The Trees like burdened Prophets yearned, Rapt in a wind of prophecy : When, like the Night, the shadow of Woe On all things laid its hand death-dark, Our last hope went out as a spark, And a cry smote heaven like a blow. We sat and watched by Life's dark stream, Our love-lamp blown about the night, With hearts that lived as lived its light, And died as died its precious gleam. In Death's face hers flashed up and smiled, As smile the young flowers in their prime, r the face o f their gray murderer Time, AncTDeath for true love kissed our child. She thought our good-night kiss was given, And like a flower her life did close. Angels uncurtained that repose, And the next waking dawned in heaven. They snatched our little tenderling, So shyly opening into view, Delighted, as the Children do The primrose that is first in Spring. 14- MY LYRICAL LIFE. With her white hands clasped she sleepeth ; heart is hushed, and lips ai e cold ; Death shrouds up her heaven of beauty, and a weary way v Like the sheep without a Shepherd on the wintry norland wold, With the face of Day shut out by blinding snow. its widowed nest my hi ai ; sits moan its 3 oungling fled Prom thi.s world of wail and weeping, gone to join her starry j And my light of life's o'ershadowed where the dear one li'-t li dead, I I'm crying in the dark with many feai -. All lasl night-tide 1 near me, like a los( beloved Bird, Beatii g .a the lattice louder than the sobc wind and rain ; And 1 called . 'it with tender name and fondling word ; A I yearned out bl \ i the darkness, all in vain. rt will plead, " J her : they are blind with bears ut' pain ;" And it climbeth up and straineth for dear life to look and hark While 1 call her once again : but there cometh no refrain, And it droppeth down, and dieth in the dark. BABE CHRISTABEL. 15 In this dim Avorld of clouding cares, We rarely know, till wildered eyes See white wings lessening up the skies, The Angels with us unawares. And thou hast stolen a jewel, Death ! Shall light thy dark up like a Star, A Beacon kindling from afar Our light of love, and fainting faith. Through tears it streams perpetually, And glitters through the thickest glooms, Till the eternal morning comes To light us o'er the Jasper Sea. With our best branch in tenderest leaf, We've strewn the way our Lord doth come ; And, ready for the harvest-home, His Reapers bind our ripest sheaf. Our beautiful Bird of light hath fled : Awhile she sat with folded wings — - Sang round us a few hoverings — Then straightway into glory sped. With sense of Motherhood new-found Some white-winged Angel nurtures her, High on the heavenly hills of myrrh, With all Love's purple glory round. Through Childhood's morning-land, serene She walked betwixt us twain, like Love ; While, in a robe of light above, Her watching Angel walked unseen, 1G MY LYRICAL LIFE. Till Life's highway broke bleak and wild; Then, lest Iter starry garments trail In mire, heart bleed, and courage fail, The Angel's arms caught up the child. Her wave of life hath backward rolled To the great ocean ; on whose shore We wander uj. and down, to store Some treasures of the times of old : And aye we seek and hunger on For precious pearls and relics rare, i the sands for us to wear At heart, for love of her that's gone. < > weep no more ! there yet is balm In Gilead ; Love doth ever shed Rich healing where it nestles, — spread O'ei ' pillows, some green Palm ! God's ichor tills the hearts that bleed ; The best fruit loads the broken bough ; And in the wounds our sufferings plough, Love sows its own immortal seed. Strange glory runs down Life's cloud-rents, And through the open door of Death AYe see the hand that beckoneth To the beloved going hence. COUSIN WINNIE. 17 COUSIN WINNIE. The glad spring-green grows luminous With coming Summer's golden glow ; Merry Birds sing as they sang to us In far-oTFseasons, long ago : The old place brings the young Dawn back, That moist eyes mirror in their dew ; My heart goes forth along the track Where oft it danced, dear Winnie, with you. A world of Time, a sea of change, Have rolled between the paths we tread, Since you were my " Cousin Winnie," and I Was your "own little, good little Ned." There's where I nearly broke my neck, Climbing for nests ! and hid my pain : And then I thought your heart would break, To have the Birds put back again ! Yonder, with lordliest tenderness, I carried you across the Brook ; So happy in my arms to press You, triumphing in your timid look : So lovingly you leaned to mine Your cheek of sweet and dusky red : You were my " Cousin Winnie," and I Was your " oivn little, good little Ned." My Being in your presence basked, And kittendike for pleasure purred ; A higher heaven I never asked Than watching, wistful as a bird, o 1 J MY LYRICAL LIFE. To hear that voice so rich and low ; Or sun me in the rosy rise Of some soul-ripening smile, and know The thrill of opening paradise. The Boy might look too tenderly, All lightly 'twas interpreted : You were my "Cousin Winnie," and I Was your " ov,t Hi tip, good little Ned." Ay me, but I remember how I felt the heart-break, bitterly, When the Well-handle smote your brow, Because the blow fell not on me ! Such holy longing tilled my life, I could have died, Sweet, for your sake; But never thought of you as Wife; A cure to clasp for love's heart-ache. You entered my soul's temple, Dear, Something to worship, not to wed : You were my " Cousin Winnie" and I Was your " ov:n little, good little Ned." I saw yon, heaven on heaven higher, ( mow into stately womanhood : Your beauty kindling with the fire That swims in proud old English blood : Away from me, — a radiant Joy ! — You soared ; fit for a Hero's bride : While I, a Man in soul, a Boy In stature, nestled at your side ! You saw not how the poor wee Love Pined dumbly, and thus doubly pled : You were my " Cousi,' Wirmie," and I Was your " own little, good little Ned." COUSIN WINNIE. 19 And then that other voice came in ! There my Life's music suddenly stopped. Silence and darkness fell between Us, and my Star from heaven dropped. I led Him by the hand to you — He was my Friend— whose name you bear : J ha d^piayed for some great task to do, To prove my love. I did it, Dear ! He was not jealous of poor me ; Nor saw my life bleed under his tread : You were my " Cousin Winnie, and I Was your " own little, good little N"ed." I smiled, Dear, at your happiness — So Martyrs smile upon the spears — The smile of your reflected bliss Flashed from my heart's dark tarn of tears ! In love, that made the suffering sweet, My blessing with the rest was given — " God's softest Jlowers kiss her feet On Earth, and crown Her head in Heaven ! " And lest the heart should leap to tell Its tale i' the eyes, I bowed the head : You were my " Cousin Winnie," and I Was your " own little, good little J\ T ed." I do not blame you, Darling mine ; You could not know the love that 1 irked To make my life so intertwine With yours, and with mute mystery worked. And, had you known, how distantly Your calm eyes would have looked it down, Darkling with all the majesty Of Midnight wearing her star-crown ! C 2 20 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Into its virgin veil of cloud, The startled clearness would have fled. You were my " Cousin Winnie," and I Was your " own little, good little Ned." I stretch my hand across the years ; Feel, Dear, (ho heart still pulses true : I have often dropped internal tears, Thinking the kindest thoughts of you. I have fought like one in iron, they said, Who through the battle followed me. I struck the blows for you, and bled Within my armour secretly. Not caring for the cheers, my heart Far into the golden time had fled : You were my " Cousin Winnie," and I Was your "own little, good little Ned." I sometimes see you in my dreams, Asking for aid I may not give : Down from your eyes the sorrow streams, And helplessly I look and grieve At arms that toss with wild heart-ache, And secrets writhing to be told : E start to hear your voice, I wake — There's nothing but the moaning cold ! Sometimes I pillow in mine arms The darling little rosy head. You are my " Cousin Winnie" and I Am your ''oicn little, good little Ned." I bear the name of Hero now, And flowers at my feet are cast ; I feel the crown upou my brow — So keen the thorns that hold it fast ! COUSIN WINNIE. 21 Ay me, and I would rather wear The cooling green and luminous glow Of one you made with Cowslips, Dear, A many golden Springs ago. Your gentle fingers did not give This ache of heart, this throb of head, When you were my " Cousin Winnie" and I Was your " own little, good little Ned." Alone, unwearying, year by year, I go on laying up my love. I think God makes no promise here But it shall be fulfilled above ; I think my wild weed of the waste Will one day prove a flower most sweet ; My love shall bear its fruit at last — 'Twill all be righted when we meet ; And I shall find them gathered up In pearls for you — the tears I've shed Since you were my " Cousin Winnie" and I Was your " own little, good little Ned." 22 MY LYRICAL LIFE. HESPER. We called her Hesper ; for it seemed Our Star of Eve had on us beamed, Like Hesper, from the Heaven abo To latest life a Lamp of love. But for a little while withdrawn She heralds an Eternal Dawn, Above these mists of mortal breath, Our Hesper in the dark of death ! Beyond the Shadow of the night That parted us, she lifts her light To beacon us the Homeward way, Where we shall meet again by day. The Star of Eve may set, but how It shines, the Star of Morning now, And smiles with look of love that dries All tears from our uplifted eyes! APOLOGUES. THE YOUTH AND THE ANGEL. 25 vNv THE YOUTH AND THE ANGEL. Once on a time, when Immortals To earth came visibly down, There went a Youth with an A_ngel Through the gates of an Eastern Town : They passed a Dog by the roadside, Where dead and rotting it lay, And the Youth, at the sickening odour, Shuddered and turned away : He gathered his robes about him And hastily hurried thence ; But nought annoyed the Angel's Clear, pure, immortal sense. By came a Lady, lip-luscious, On delicate tinkling feet : All the place grew glad with her presence ; The air about her sweet ; For she came in fragrance floating ; Her voice most silverly rang ; And the Youth, to embrace her beauty, With all his being sprang. A. sweet, delightsome Lady ! And yet, the Legend saith, The Angel, while he passed her, Shuddered and held his breath. 26 MY LYRICAL LIFE. SUNBEAM AND ROSE. " Pretty Rosebud, are thy em< n ! I Curtains still undraion ? Odalisque of Flowers, — Tender soid o' the fervid South ! I am dainty of thy beauty, All this dewy dawn ; I am fainting for the ruddy Kisses of thy mouth." Sweetly sang the Sunbeam, With a voice made low to win ; Round the Rose-heart playing, Till it touched the tenderest strings ; " Pretty Rose-bud, ope thy lattice, Let thy true love in." And for Heaven down-wavering warm, She waved her leafy wings ! Listen, Maidens, to my Legend of the Sunbeam and the Rose. Out she sprang, kiss-coloured, In her eyes the dews of bliss ; All her beauty glowing With a blush of bridal light ; Gave her balm and bloom for banquet To the Tempter's kiss ; Proudly oped each chamber For a princelier delight. Soon the Snake of Sweetness, Sated, could no longer stay ; LOVE-LONGING. 27 And away he went, a-wooing Every flower that blows ! 'Twas the reign of Roses When her Lover passed to-day : Lonely in her rifled ruin Drooped the dying Rose ! Listen, Maidens, to my Legend of the Sunbeam and the Rose. LOVE-LONGING. Like a tree beside the river Of her life that runs from me, Do I lean me, murmuring ever In my love's idolatry : Lo, I reach out hands of blessing ; Lo, I stretch out hands of prayer ; And, with passionate caressing, Pour my life upon the air. In my ears the siren river Sings, and smiles up in my face ; But for ever and for ever Runs from my embrace. Spring by Spring the branches duly Clothe themselves in tender flower And for her sweet sake as truly All their fruit and fragrance shower : But the stream, with careless laughter, Fleets in merry beauty by, And it leaves me yearning after, Lorn to droop, and lone to die. > 28 MY LYRICAL LIFE. In ray ears the siren river Sings, and smiles up in my face ; But for ever and for ever Runs from my embrace. I stand mazed in the moonlight, O'er Lts happy face to dream; I am parched in the noonlight By that cool and brimming stream I am dying by the river Of her life that runs froni me, And it sparkles past me ever, With its cool felicity. In my ears the siren river Sings, and smiles up in my face; But for ever and for ever Runs from my embrace. THE NEST. I built my Nest by a pleasant stream, That glided along with a smile in its gleam, Bringing me gold that was sumlessj Ah me ! but the floods came drowning one day, Swept my Nest with its wealth away, And I in the world was homeless ! I built my Nest in a gay green tree, And the summer of life went meriily With us — we were Birds of a feather ! But the leaves soon fell, and my pretty ones flew, And through my Nest the bitter winds blew ; 'Twas bare in the wildest weather. HUNT THE SQUIRREL. 29 I built my Nest under Heaven's high eaves ; No rising of floods, no falling of leaves. Can mock my heart's endeavour. Waters may wash, breezes may blow, In the bosom of Rest I shall smile, I shall know My Nest is safe for ever. HUNT THE SQUIRREL. It was Atle of Yermeland In Winter used to go A -hunting up in the pine-forest, With snow-shoes, sledge, and bow. Soon his sledge with the soft fine furs Was heaped up heavily, Enough to warm old Winter with, And a wealthy man was he. When just as he was going back home, He looked up into a Tree ; There sat a merry brown Squirrel, that seemed To say — " You can't shoot me ! » And he twinkled all over temptingly, To the tip of his tail a-curl ! His humour was arch as the look may be Of a would-be-wooed sweet Girl, That makes the Lover follow her, follow her, All his life up-caught, A-dreaming on with sleeping wings, High in the heaven of thought. 30 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Atle he left his sleclge and furs; All clay his arrows rung, — The Squirrel went leaping from bough to bough, — Only himself they stung. 1 le hunted far in the dark forest, Till died the last day-gleams ; Then wearily laid him clown to rest, And hunted it through his dreams. All night long the snow fell fast, And covered his snug fur-store; Long, long did he strain his eyes, But never found it more. Home came Atle of Vermeland, No Squirrel ! No furs for the mart ! Empty head brought empty hand; Both a very full heart. Ah, many a one hunts the Squirrel, In merry or mournful truth ; Until the gathering snows of age Cover the treasures of Youth. Deeper into the forest dark The Squirrel will dance all day; 'Till eyes go blind and miss their mark, And hearts will lose their way. My Boy ! if you should ever espy This Squirrel up in the tree, With a dancing devil in its eye, Just let the Squirrel be ! THE GLOW-WORM. 31 THE GLOW-WORM. The Apes found a Glow-worm, Smiling in the night, — A little drop of radiance Tenderly alight. " Ho I ho ! " shivered the Apes, Grinning all together, " We'll make a fire to warm us ; 'Tis jolly cold weather." With dry sticks and dead leaves, All the Apes came ; Piled a heap and squatted round To blow it into flame ! But fire would not kindle so — Vain their wasted breath ! Only they blew out the glow, And put the worm to death ! Glow-worms were meant to shine, — Apes can't blow them hot, Just to warm their foolish paws, Or boil their own flesh-pot. So the world would serve the Poet, With his light of love : Probably his use may be Better known above. 32 MY LYRICAL LIFE. THE SUNKEN CITY. By day it lies hidden, and lurks beneath The ripples that laugh with light ; But calmly and clearly and coldly as death It looms into shape by night, ■When — the awful Heavens alone with me ! — I look on the City that's sunk in the sea. Many a Castle I built in the air ; Towers that gleamed in the sun ; Spires that soared up stately and fair, Till they touched heaven, every one, Lie under the waters that mournfully Closed over the City that's sunk in the sea. Many fine houses, but never a home ; AVindows, and no live face ! Doors set wide where no beating hearts come ; No voice is heard in the place ; It sleeps in the arms of Eternity — The silent City that's sunk in the sea. There the face of a dead love lies, Embalmed in the bitterest tears ; No breath on the lips ! no smile in the eyes, Though you watched for years and years : And the dear drowned eyes never close from me, Looking up from the City that's sunk in the sea.' Two of the bonniest birds of God That ever warmed human heart For a nest, till they fluttered their wings abroad, Lie in their chambers apart — HOW IT SEEMS. 33 Dead ! yet pleading most piteously In the lonesome City that's sunk in the sea. Oh, the brave Ventures there lying a wreck, Dark on the shore of the Lost ! Gone clown with every hope on deck, When all-sail for a glorious Coast ! And the waves go sparkling splendidly Over the City that's sunk in the sea. Then I look from my City that's sunk in the sea, To that Star-Chamber overhead ; And torturingly they question me — " What of this world of the, Dead That lies out of sight ? and how will it be With the City and thee, when there's no more sea ?" HOW IT SEEMS. Stars in the Midnight's blue abyss So closely shine, they seem to kiss ; But, Darling, they are far apart ; They close not beating heart to heart ; And high in glory many a Star Glows, lighting other worlds afar, Whilst hiding in its breast the dearth And darkness of a tireless hearth. All happy to the listener seems The singer, with his gracious gleams ; His music rings, his ardours glow Divinely : ah, we know, we know ! D 34 MY LYRICAL LIFE. For nil the beauty he sheds, we see How bare his own poor life may be ; He gives Ambrosia, wanting bread; .Makes balm for Hearts, with ache of head. He finds the Laurel budding yet, From Love transfigured and tear-wet ; They are his life-drops turned to Flowers. That make so sweet this world of ours ! THE WILD-FLOWER. A vagrant Wild-Flower sown by God, Out in the waste was born ; It sprang up as a Corn-flower In the golden fields of ( lorn : The Corn all strong and stately In its bearded bravery grew — Gathered the gold for harvest From earth and sun ami dew ; And when it bowed the head, — as Wind And Shadow ran their race, Like influences from Heaven Come to Earth, for playing place, — It seemed to look down on the Flower All in a smiling scorn, "Poor thing ! you grow no grain for food, Or gamer," said the Corn. The bonny Flower felt lonely, Its look grew tearful-sad ; But there came a smile of sunshine And its beauty grew so glad ! THE BIRD OF MORN. 35 Ah, bonny Flower ! it bloomed its best Contented witb its place ; A blessing fell upon it As it looked up in Heaven's face ; And there they grew together Till the Reapers white-winged came — All their Sickles shining ! All their faces were a-flame ; The Corn they reaped for earthly use, But an Angel fell in love With that Wild Flower, and wore it At the Harvest-Home above ! THE BIRD OF MORN. Up out of the Corn the Lark carolled in light, Like a new splendour sprung from the dark hush of Night ; Green light shimmered laughing o'er forest, and sod ; The rich sky was full of the presence of God. A fountain of rapture he lavished around His wealth of bird-fancies in blithest of sound : All through the Morn's sun-city, sea-like his psalm, With melodious waves dashed the bright world of calm : But heavily hang the drooped ears of the Corn: Gathering gold in the dewy morn. And he sang, as on heaven's fire-grains he had fed, Till his heart's merry wine had made drunken his head. D 2 36 MY LYRICAL LIFE. How he sang ! as his honey in Life's cells ne'er dwindled, And bonfires of Joy on all Life's hills were kindled : He sang, as he felt that to singing was given The magic to bnild rainbow-stairways to heaven ! And he could not have sung with more lusty cheer, J lad all the world listened a-tiptoe to hear ! All the while heavily hung the Com, Its drowsy ears heard not the minstrel of Mom. A BIRD OF NIGHT. Sixg, Birdie, concealed in your Bower. Sing, Birdie, for this is the hour, Shake round you the musical shower, Like Larks from their cloud in the Spring The Star of the twilight is twinkling, The bicycle bells are a-tinkling, And I have a prescient inkling That Birdie is going to sing. She sings not for laud or for Lover ; She sings all unseen as the Dove, or The Nightingale hid in her cover ; She sings — her delight is to sing ! I seek not my supper or pillow, My bosom will heave like a billow, I hang up my harp on the Willow, And listen like anything. THE LADY OF LIGHT. 37 Sing, Birdie, when days have been dreary, Sing, Birdie, when hearts are a-weary, Sing, Birdie, till spirits grow cheery, Sing, Birdie, that never takes wing ! Sing, Birdie, in Spring or September, From New Year to last of December \ Sing, Birdie, and. never remember, That any one's listening ! \ THE LADY OF LIGHT. Star of the Day and the Night ! Star of the Dark that is dying ; Star of the Dawn that is nighing, Lucifer, Lady of Light ! Still with the purest in white, Still art thou Queen of the Seven ; Thou hast not fallen from Heaven, Lucifer, Lady of Light ! How large in thy lustre, how bright The beauty of promise thou wearest ! The message of Morning thou bearest, Lucifer, Lady of Light ! Aid us in putting to flight The Shadows that darken about us, Illumine within, as without, us, Lucifer, Lady of Light 1 38 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Shine through the thick of our fight j Open the eyes of the sleeping ; Dry up the tears of the weeping, Lucifer, Lady of Light ! Purge with thy pureness our sight, Thou light of the lost ones who love us. Thou lamp of the Leader above us, Lucifer, Lady of Light ! Shine with transfiguring might, Till earth shall reflect back as human Thy Likeness, Celestial Woman, Lucifer, Lady of Light ! With the flame of thy radiance smite The clouds that are veiling the vision Of Woman's millennial mi.-sion, Lucifer, Lady of Light ! Shine in the Depth and the Height, And show us the treasuries olden Of Wisdom, the hidden, the golden, Lucifer, Lady of Light ! LITTLE PEARL. 39 LITTLE PEARL. " Poor little Pearl, good little Pearl ! " Sighed every kindly neighbour ; It was so sad to see a girl So tender, doomed to labour. A wee bird fluttered from its nest Too soon, was that meek creature ; Just fit to rest in mother's breast, The darling of fond Nature. God shield poor little ones, where all Must help to be bread-bringers ! For once afoot, there's none too small To ply their tiny fingers. Poor Pearl, she had no time to play The merry game of childhood ; From dawn to dark she went all day, A-wooding in the wild-wood. When others played she stole apart In pale and shadowy quiet ; Too full of care was her child-heart For laughter running riot. Hard lot for such a tender life, And miserable guerdon ; But, like a womanly wee wife, She bravely bore her burden. One wintry day they wanted wood, When need was at the sorest ; Wee Pearl, without a bit of food Must up and to the forest. 40 MY LYRICAL LIFE. But there she sank down in the snow, All over numbed and aching ; Poor little Pearl, she cried as though Her very heart was breaking. The blinding snow shut out the house From little Pearl so weary; The lonesome wind among the boughs -Moaned with its warnings eerie. A Spirit-Child to wee Pearl came, With footfall light as Fairy ; He took her hand, he called her name, The voice was sweet and airy. His gentle eyes filled tenderly With mystical wet brightness : "And wovld you like to come with me, And wear the robe of whiteness ? " He bore her bundle to the door, Gave her a flower when going ; " My darling, I shall come once more, WIten the little bud is blowing." Home very wan came little Pearl, But on her face strange glory ; They only thought, " What ails the girl ? " And laughed to hear her story. Next morn the Mother sought her child, And clasped it to her bosom ; Poor little Pearl, in death she smiled, And the rose was full in blossom. THE MAIDEN MARRIAGE. 41 THE MAIDEN" MARRIAGE. She sat in her virgin bower, Half sad with fancies sweet, And wist not Love drew softly nigh, Till she nestled at his feet. "Arise, arise, thou fair Maiden; And adieu, adieu, thou dear ! But meet me, meet me at the Kirk, In the May-time of the year." Up in her face of holy grace The startled splendour broke ; Her smile was as a dream of heaven Fulfilled whene'er she spoke. She felt such bliss in her beauty, Such pleasure in her power To richly clothe her perfect love For a peerless marriage dower. " Now hiss me, hiss me, Mother dear ; He calls me, I micst go /" She went to the Kirk at tryste-time, In raiment like the snow. But he who clasped her there was Death j And he hath led her where No voice is heard, there is no breath Upon the frosty air. 42 MY LYRICAL LIFE. THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOUK AS THYSELF. To love our neighbour, we are told, " Even as thyself." That Creed I hold ; But love her more, a thousand-fold ! My lovely Neighbour ; oft we meet In lonely lane, or crowded street ; I know the music of her feet. She little thinks how, on a day, She must have missed her usual way, And walked into my heart for aye. Or how the rustle of her dress Thrills through me like a soft c With trembles of deliciousness. Wee woman, with her smiling mien, And soul celestially serene, She passes me, unconscious Queen ! Her face most innocently good, Where shyly peeps the sweet red blood : Her form a nest of Womanhood ! Like Baleigh — for her dainty tread, When ways are miry — I could spread My cloak, but, there's my heart instead. LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR. 43 Ah, Neighbour, you will never know Why 'tis my step is quickened so ; Nor what tho prayer I murmur low ! I see you 'mid your flowers at morn, Fresh as the rosebud newly born ; I marvel, can you have a thorn ] If so, 'twere sweet to lean one's breast Against it, and, the more it pressed, Sing like the Bird that sorrow hath blessed. I hear you sing ! And through me Spring Doth musically ripple and ring ; Little you think I'm listening ! You know not, clear, how dear you be J All dearer for the secrecy : Nothing, and yet a world to me. So near, too ! you could hear me sigh, Or see my case with half an eye ; But must not. There are reasons why. 44 MY LY1UCAL LIFE. AN APOLOGUE. It was a goodly Apple, The topmost on the Tree, That golden grew, and sweet all through, As Fruit that few could see. Soft in God's smile it glisten* d, A Crown that might be given, To man, if he would soar and win The Woman nighest Heaven. Ah ! many sighed with longing, To see the fruitage drop, But no one climbed to gather it From off the tall tree-top ! And many ran for Apples That were rolled along the sod ; But this, which did but tempt toward Heaven, Was left alone for God. 45 Tlie dear ones who are worthiest of our love Below, are also worthiest above. Too lofty is his 'place in glory now, For hands like ours to reach and wreathe his brow : A few poor floivers we plant upon his tomb, Watered with tears to make them breathe and bloom. Tlte gentle soul that was so long thy ward, Now hovers over thee, thine Angel-Guard : And, as thou mourn'st above his dust so dear, Thy happy Comforter draws smiling near. Look up, dear friend, our Doves of Earth but rise, Transfigured into Birds of Paradise. m MEMORIAM. Apparelled richly in presence of the Gods, With crown upon his brow, the old Greek stood, And offered up his soul at Sacrifice. Even then the tidings came, — " Thy son is dead." They saw the sharp words pierce him through and through, The firm lip quiver, and the face grow white ; They saw the strong man tremble to the knees : Slowly the big drops gathered in his eyes : Slowly he took the crown from off his head, And let it fall to the ground, as one who feels Heart-broke all over, — for his pride of life Hath faded ; all his strength spilled in the dust. 4G MY LYRICAL LIFE. But, when the Messenger went on to fcell The exulting story — how the valiant youth Had lost a life to win a country's love ; How bravely he h;nl borne him in the battle; How well he fought, bow gloriously he fell ; The weeping Father put his war-look on, And rose up with the stature of his soul — All his life listening at the hungry ear — Eyes burning with the splendour of quenched tears — His pillared chin firm-set, his brave mouth clenched In calm resolve to bear, and on his face A smile as if of Sword-light ! Then he stooped, And gently took the crown up from the ground ; Softly replaced it on his brow, and wore It proudly, as the visible symbol of That other awful crown which darkened down. So, when the word came that our friend was dead, We bowed beneath the burden of our loss, And could have grovelled straightway, prone in dust. But looking on the happy death he died, And thinking of the holy life he lived, And knowing he was one of those that soon Attain their starry stature, and are crown'd, We could not linger in the dust to weep, But were upborne from earth as if on wings ; A sunbeam in the soul dried up the tears, In which the sorrow trembled to be gone ; For his dear sake we coidd afford to smile. IN MEMORIAM. 47 Why should we weep, when 'tis so well with him 1 Our loss even cannot measure his great gain ! Why should we weep when death is but a mask Through which we know the face of Life beyond 1 Grief did but bow us at his grave to show Far more of Heaven in the landscape round ! For such a vestal soul as his, — so pure, So crystal-clear, so filled with light, we looked As at some window of the other world, And almost saw the Angel smiling through — 'Twas but a step from out our muddy street Of earth, on to the pavement all of pearl. Why should we weep 1 We do not bury love ; The dust of earth but claims its kindred dust ; We do not drop our jewels in the grave, And have no need to seek our treasures there. We do not bury life, and cannot feel The grave-grass grow betwixt our warmth and him ; Death emptieth the House, but not the Heart : That keeps its darlings safe though out of sight. Let us uplift the eyelids of the Mind, And see the living Love who dwelt awhile In that frail body, now a spirit of Light, All jubilant upon the hills of God. This gloom we feel, this mourning that we wear, Is but the Shadow of his lordlier height. Why should they weep who have another friend In death ; another thread to guide them through Life's maze ; another tie to draw them home; A firmer foothold in the infinite ; 43 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Another kinsman on the spiritual side ; Another grasp to greet them through the Void; Another face to kindle with its life The pale impersonality of God 1 The dearest souls, you know, must part in sleep, Though lying hand in hand, or side by side, And death is but a little longer night. A little while, and we shall wake to find The clasp unbroken by the dark, and - ( >ur lost ones with us face to face, and feel All years of yearning summed up in a kiss. Why should we fear the Grave ? It is the bed "Where the Kings lay in State with Angels round, And hallowed it for evermore to us. "Why should we fear the Grave ] It is the way The Conquerors went, and made the very dust Grow starry with the sparkle of their splendour, And left the darkness conscious of their presence. We can look down upon the Grave now they Have plumbed it, spanned it, one foot on each side. Through their dear love who have abolished death, We may shut up our Graveyards of the heart, That looked so grim of old, and plant anew This garden of our God to smile with flowers. Why do we shrink so from Eternity % We are in Eternity from Birth, not Death ! Eternity is not beyond the stars — Some far Hereafter — it is Here, and Now f The Kingdom of Heaven is within, so near We do not see it save by spirit-sight. IN MEMOEIAM. 49 We shut our eyes in prayer, and we are There In thought, and Thoughts are spirit-thi?igs — Realities upon the other side. In death we close our eyelids once for all To pass for ever, and seem far away. And yet the distance does not lie in death ; No distance, save in dissimilitude ! Death's not the only door of spirit-world, Nor visibility sole presence-sign : The Near or Far is in our depth of love And height of life : We look Without, to learn Our lost ones are beyond all human reach : We feel Within, and find them nestling near. Flow soft, ye tears, adown my Lady's face, And bathe the broken spirit with your balm, And melt the cloud about her into drops That glister with the light of Heaven's own smile. And thou, God, whisper as the tears do fall, No cloud would rise to rain but for Thy San ! She sorroweth not as those who have no hope, Nor is her House left wholly desolate. Grief, lie lightly on my Lady's brow : She gave her best of life in love for him ! A crown of glory wears the dear bowed head That hath grown gray in noble sacrifice. Ah me, I know the heart must have its way. 1 know the ache of utter loneliness ; The severance between those that were so near . The silence never broken by a sound We still keep listening for ; the spirit's loss Of its old clinging-place, that makes our life A dead leaf drifting desolately free : 50 MY LYRICAL LIFE. The many thousand things we had to say ; And on the dear still face that hushing look, As though it bade us listen and be still ; As though the sweet life-music still went on, Though too far off for hearing — (as it doth). Thrice have I wrestled and been thrown by Death, Thrice have I given my dear ones to the grave ; And yet I know — see it in spite of tears : it. even while the heart breaks in the voice : These are His ways to draw us nearer Him. We climb our heavens by pathways of the cloud. He breaks the image to reveal Himself ! He takes our dearest things to woo us with; Takes, for a little while, the gift He gave For ever : but to better still our best. Feeling for that which fled, our finite love Is caught up in the clasp o' the Infinite, Palpably as though God did press the hand And make the heart well up and flood the eyes "With that proud overflow of fuller Heaven ! Lady, let mine be the songbird's part, That singeth after rain, and shakes the drops Down, with his thrillings from the drooping spray, And sets it softly springing nigher Heaven That twixt the blown-clouds smiles with gladdest blue, As with the eye of bliss that is to be. Your love-ties have but lengthened to release The shadowed soul that needed far more sun. So the fair Valisneria down the dark Beside his lover, yearneth towards the light, IN MEMORIAM. 51 And lives up faster, till he springs afloat, To sun him on the surface of the stream : And now he draws up, even by the root, His Love left pining on the earth below, Lifting her to his side again, full flower ; And 'tis her Heaven to die and get to him ! What did we ask for him, with all our love, But just a little breath of fuller life, To float the labouring lungs 1 And God hath given Him Life itself ; full, everlasting Life. What did we pray for ? Rest, even for a night, That he might rise with Sleep's most cooling clews Refreshed, to feel the morning in his s ml 1 And God hath given him His Eternal Rest. We could not offer freedom for one hour From that dread weight of weariness the) 7 bear Who try for years to shake Death's Shadow off : And God hath made him free for Evermore. L'efore ire hangs his Picture on the wall, Alive still, with the loving, cordial eyes.— How tenderly their winsome lustre laughed ! — The fine pale face, pathetically sweet, So thin with suffering that it seemed a soul : We feared the Angels might be kissing it Too often, and too wooingly for us : The hands, so delicate and woman-white, That clay by day were gliding from our grasp, They used to make my heart ache many a time. I see another picture now. The form Ye sowed in weakness hath been raised in power • E 2 ,32 MY LYRICAL LIFE. A palace of pleasure for a prison of pain. The beauty of his nature that we felt I- featured in the shape he weareth now! The same kind face, but changed and glorified ; From Life's unclouded summit it turns back, And sweetly smiles at all the sorrows past, With such a look as taketh away grief :_ No longer pale, and there is no more pain. His face is rosed with Heaven's immortal bloom, For he hath found the land of Health at last; The One Physician who can cure all ills : And he hath eaten of the Tree of Life, And felt the Eternal Spring in brain and breast Make lusty life that lightens forth in love. Indeed, indeed, as the old Poet saith, He was a very perfect, gentle Knight ! A natural Nob! ; by the grace of God : Affection in the dearest human form. Yet, gentle as he was, how gallantly He bore his sufferings, kept the worst from sight. Having the heroic Hash of English blood. How freely would he spend his little hoard Of saved-up strength with spirit lordly and blithe, To enrich a welcome and make gladder cheer ! And to the Poor he was all tender heart. The very last time that he talked with me His trouble was to know how poor folk lived Upon so small a pittance, and he sighed For life, for strength to do more than he might , And in his kingly eyes great sorrow reigned. No sighs, no weakness now, in that glad world "Where yearning avails more than working here, IN MEMORIAM. 53 And to desire is to accomplish good : For Wishes get them Wings of power, and range Rejoicing through illimitable life ; And we shall find some Castles built in Air Stand good ; are habitable after all ! To me, his life is like the innocent Flower That springs up for the light and spreads for love ; Breathes fragrantly in gratitude to God, And in sweet odours passes from our sight. But there's no jot of all his promise lost : — ■ Each golden hint shall have fulfilment yet — Ail that was heavenliest perfected in heaven. All the shy modesties of secret soul That breathed like violets hidden in the dusk ; The folded sweetness, the unfingered bloom ; The unsunned riches of his rarer self ; With all the Manhood, coyly unconfessed ; Are shut up softly to be saved by Him Who gave us of the Flower, but keeps the fruit. The best his life could grow on earth is given ; The rest can ripen till ye meet in heaven. And, dear my Lady, little can we guess What God hath planned for those He loves so much And beckons home so early to Himself ! May some full foretaste of His perfect peace Fall on you, solacing with solemn joy. Of such as he was, there be few on Earth ; Of such as he is, there are many in Heaven ; And Life is all the sweeter that he lived, And all he loved more sacred for his sake : 54 MY LYRICAL LIFE. And Death is all the brighter that lie died, And Heaven is all the happier that he's there. So, one by one the dear old faces fade. Hands wave their far farewell while beckoning ns Across the river all must pass alone. We stand at gaze upon their shining track, Until the two worlds mingle in a nn>t, And the two lives are molten into one ; Familiar things grow phantom-like remote; Things visionary draw familiar-near; The pictures that we gaze on seem the Real Looking at us ; and we the Shadows that pass. And yet 'tis sweet to feel — as underfoot, < Mr path slopes for the quiet place apart ; Day darkens in the Valley of Death's shade — Our best half landed in the better life; The balance leaning to the other side ; The peaceful evening comes that brings all home, And we are weaning kindly to leave go Our hold of earth ; the Home-sigh of the soul Is daily deepening ; and as the gloom Gathers, and things are growing all a-dusk, "We know our Stars are smiling overhead, In their eternal setting high and safe Where they can look down on our passing night, Glad in the loftier lustre of a sun We may not see, with steadfast gaze of love Unfathomable as Eternity : Dear memories of Hesper gentleness That are the Phosphor hopes of coming day, And death grows radiant with our Shining Ones. IN MEMORIAL. 55 Blessed are they whose treasures are in Heaven ! Their grief's too rich for our poor comforting. Let us put on the robe of readiness, The golden trumpet will be sounding soon, That calls us to the gathering in the Heavens ! Let us press forward to their summit of life Who have ceased to pant for breath and won their Ptest, And there is no more parting, no more pain 1 56 The Story of all stories, sweet and old ; Sweetest to Lovers tlie last time 'tis told. CARMINA NOTTIALIA. WEDDED LOVE. This little spring of life, that feeds the root Of England's greatness, giveth, undergroun 1, Bloom to the Flower, and freshness to the Emit ; Then wells and spreads, with golden ripples round, In circling glory to a sea of might, Embracing Home and Country of our love : Half-mirroring the beauty beyond sight, To take some likeness of the abode above. THE WEDDING. 57 THE WEDDING. All Women love a Wedding ! old Or youthful ; Mother, Widow, or Wife : It lights with precious gleam of gold The river of poorest life : For one, the gold is far and dim ; For one, a glimpse of things to be ; But here it sparkles, at the brim Of full felicity ! And they will cluster by the way ; Crowd at this Eden-gate, with eyes That run, and pray that this Pair may Keep their new Paradise. Green is the garden, as at first ; As smiling-blue the happy skies, Where float the bubble-worlds that burst, And leave us smarting eyes. They seem to think that these must clasp The jewel turned to dew or mist, : The glamour they could never grasp, Though wedded lips have kissed ; That this gold Apple of promise, crowned With redness on the sunny side, Will gradually grow ripe all round ; That this new Lover and Bride 58 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Must reacli the breathing Magic Eose Such cunning spirits hold in air, On which our fingers could not close, Even when we knew 'twas there ! This nest of hopes will bring forth young Unto the brooding heart's low call — Not merely pretty birds'-eggs, strung To hide a naked wall ! So many start thus, hand-in-hand — Few only reach the blessed goal ; But these shall surely see the land Hid somewhere in the soul. And delicate airs creep sweetly through Old bridal-chambers dusty and dim : Down from a far heaven warm and blue, The mellow splendours swim. The Woman's eyes grow loving wet ; They dazzle with the morning ray : The Woman's longing will beget Her own dear wedding-day ! In his network of wrinkles, Age May veil their virgin beauties now ; Faces be furrowed — a strange page Of writing on the brow : 'S The smiling soul cannot erase The sad life-lines it shines above ; Yet, imaged in the dear old face, You see their own young love ! SERENADE. 59 The sleeping Beauty wakes anew Beneath the drops of tender tears ; The Flower unfolds, to drink the dew, That seemed dead for years. All hearts are as a grove of birds Spring-touched and chirruping every one ; And each will set the Wedding- Words To a music of her own. Some withered remnant of old bliss Flushing on faded cheeks they bring, Telling of times when Love's young kiss Was a fire-offering ; And spirits walk in white, as starts This bridal-tint that blooms anew ; And so, with all their Woman-hearts, They fling Good Luck's old shoe I SERENADE. "Awake, sweet Love, for Heaven is awake. And waiting to be gracious for thy sale ! All night I saio thy fairness gleam afar With fresh, pure sparkle of the Homing- Star , Awake, my Love, and be the veil withdrawn From Beauty bathed at the springs of Dawn. 11 Awake, sweet Love, for Heaven is awake And waiting to be gracious for thy sake. 60 MY LYRICAL LIFE. A touch upon some silver-sounding string, As all the harps of heaven were vibrating Within me, woke me, hade me rise and say, ' Aicake, my Love, this is our Wedding-day.' "Awake, sweet Love, for Heaven is aicake, And waiting to be gracious for thy sake. It is the tender time when turtle-doves III >-es: Spirits that all night nestled, in the J lower s Sliake perfume from their wings this hour of hours. " Awake, siceet Love, for Heaven is awake, And waiting to be gracious for thy sake. Thy presence sets my cloudland round about Glowing as heaven were twrning inside out: And all the mists that darkened me erewhile Are smitten into splendours at thy smile. " Awake, sweet Love, for Heaven is awake And waiting to be gracious for thy sake. To feel thee mine my faith is large enough, And yet the miracle needs continual proof I One minute satisfied, the next I pine For just one more assurance thou art mine. " Aicake, sweet Love, for Heaven is aicake, And waiting to he gracious for thy sake. Our great sunrise of life begins to glow, And all the buds of love are ripe to blow ; An I all the Birds of Bliss are gaily singing, And all the Bells of Heaven for bridal ringing" AN APRIL WEDDING. 61 ARGUING IN A CIRCLE. " When first my true Love crowned me with her smile, Methought that heaven encircled me the while ! When first my true Love to mine arms was given, Ah, then methought that L encircled Heaven." AN APRIL WEDDING. O April Wedding, Sad-smiling, shadowy-bright ; The Grave at foot, and overhead The nierry Bird of Light ! April Wedding, The conscious ear at times Detects the Bell that tolled the knell Among the Marriage-Chimes ! April Wedding, Thy hues together run, — Through wet eyes seen, — as Red and Green Will dazzle and grow one ! O April Wedding, Where Love is crowned in tears, And on a ground of deepest gloom, Hope's brightest Bow appears ! G2 MY LYRICAL LIFE. April Wedding, Thy clouds go all in white ; Those that darkliesl wept are now Most glorified in light ! O April Wedding, Glittering in sun and showers The very grave looks glad To-day, And dead hands oiler flowers I LEAVE-TAKING. When the wings are Feathered, The birds forsake their nesi ; So the Bride will leave her Home Leaning to her Lover's breast. The tear was in her e; But the soul was smiling through, I' mful of sunshine As a drop of summer dew. AS THEY PASSED. Within Love's chariot, side by side, Sweetness and Strength did never ride More perfectly personified : One of the dearest Angels out Of Heaven, the Bride was, beyond doubt \ And his a Manhood fit to be The mortal Mansion of some deity. EVOE. 63 All eyes, like jewels, on them hung Glowing with precious life, As at her Husband's side she clung, The nestled, new-made Wife ! Glad were they in the happiness they gave, But in their own proud pleasure they were grave. EYOE. In the presence of Spring, our beautiful Spring, Blithe bird of the bosom ! the heart will sing. A Spirit of Joy in the oldest breast Is stirring, and making it young as the rest : Quickens new life to leap in each limb, And laugh out of eyes that were wintry and dim ; So the old Wine stirs in his winter gloom, And wants to waken, and climb, and bloom, As he used to do in the world outside, When the grapes grew big in their purple of pride. He would laugh in the light, he would flush in the foam ; In a care-drowning wave he would rosily roam ; For his blood is so mellow, so merry, so warm, Into spirit of joy it would fain transform, Rioting ruddily, ripple and play, And in human life keep holiday — Break on the brain in a luminous spray, Tinting with heaven our earthiest clay ; In a fiery chariot mount on his way, With spirit-company, lordly and gay, And pass like a soul that is los f in day. 64 MY LYRICAL LIFE. So the Spirit of Joy in the oldest breast Is stirring, and making it young as the rest ; Wakes a new life to leap in each limb, And laugh out of eyes that were wintry and dim. Blithe bird of the bosom ! the heart will sing In the presence of Spring, our beautiful Spring. English John Talbot, Shakspeare's terribly brave, Great Fighter, lay in his forgotten grave. It was but yesterday they found his dust, The sheath of that old Sword long gone to rust In English earth ; his burial-place recover In lands owned by a certain Lordly Lover. And, lo ! a Rose had sprung from out his tomb, \ nd climbed about the Lover's life to bloom : A peerless flower of the old Hero's stock — The t enderest gush from that heroic rock. Not oft doth Fate vouchsafe so plain a sign, Prefiguring the lives that are to twine. All sweetness to this wedded life be given ; Its root so deep in earth, its perfect flower in heaven. A WAYSIDE WHISPER. " Seven years I served for you, To Love, our lord of life, Ere he made me a Mash r And I won you fur my wife, — A WAYSIDE WHISPER. 65 So faithfully, so fondly, Through a world of doubts and fears, Seven long years, Beloved ! Seven long years. " Seven years you beaconed me — My leading, crowning star, To climb the Mount of Manhood, As you drew me from afar : You made my gray hours golden, You glistened through my tears, Seven long years, Beloved ! Seven long years. "Sometimes you shined so near me — Wide as we dwelt apart — I hardly sought you with my arms, You were so safe at heart ! Sometimes you dwined so distant, I bowed with solemn fears ; Seven long years, Beloved ! Seven long years. " I built my Arch of Triumph Fur you, to ride through ; I kept my lamps all lighted That the warring toirids outllew : I worked and I waited, And I fought down my fears, Seven long years, Beloved I Seven long years. " Xow the perils are all over, And the pains all past, 06 MY LYRICAL LIFE. My fortunes wheel full-circle comes 1 a in m r dear eyes at last ! Fur such a prize the winning Must brief and poor appears, Yet, 'twas seven long years, Beloved/ years." THE WELCOME HOME. Warm is the Welcome ! 'tis our way to grasp The hand in love or greeting till it ache; But to a tender heart our love cloth take The happy pair it doth so proudly clasp. And very tender in its love To-day Is every heart touched with a thought of Him Low-lying in the Cypress shadow dim, From which we came to waft you on your way, And the still face, that looks from Ashridge towers With smile more regnant in its touching ruth, And sad hoar-frost upon the dews of youth. And Widow's weeds to mix with bridal-flowers. Through Him we lost, we have more love to give. some fond Mother yearningly hath breathed Her life out in the new life she bequeathed, Our dearest died that this great love might live. These darling Yiolets eloquently mute, Are rich in sadder bloom and sweeter breath, And that pathetic sanctity of death, Because our buried joy was at their root. THE WELCOME HOME. 67 These Roses blush with a more vital glow Of crimson — like pale buds, whose tips are reel, As though the flower's heart, in breaking, bled — Because of looks so lately wan with woe. These are our Jewels ! tears that purged our sight Like Euphrasy ; they lay above the Dead All drear and dim ; but the sad drops we shed Now live with twinkling lustres in Your light ! The love that darkly wept at heart hath insen Transfigured. See its sunburst in each face ! As Earth, with all her flowers, smiles embrace To Spring, rejoicing from her wintry prison. These Voices, mounting merry as Larks up-spring, But now were praying on the low, cold sod : The night is past — they soar in praise to God ; They make the old English greeting rarely ring. We lean and look to You, thinking of Him. Warm welcome for the sake of One that's gone ; Warm welcome for your own ! Pass on, pass on ; We wave our hands, and shout till sight groAvs dim : And, ere the shouts cease ringing in your ears, We drink a health — all standing — drink to you, While in our eyes the tears are standing too : Old tears, that wanted to be wept for years : But keep a holy hush 'mid all the noise, To match the silent music your hearts make : Pass on into your faery heaven, and take Our gentlest blessing on your wedding joys. F 2 68 MY LYRICAL LIFE. The dawn ivill rise, though golden days be set ; The birds sing merrily, in spite of Death ; Young hearts will love while lasts this human breath ; Rainbows bridge Earth and Heaven for eyes tear- wet. Pass gaily on in glory through the gate Of your new life, beneath this Bridal-Dawn ; And when from future days the veil is drawn All happy fortunes for you lie in wait ! And, looking on your bliss, with proudest flush May the dear Mother's face be glorified. We, now the sound hath ceased, will stand outside Your Portals — all hearts praying 'mid the hush. THE BONNY BBIDELAND FLOWER. In the Brideland sleeping, Nestled Beauty's Flower ; Came the Lover peeping Into her green bower ; On her face hung tender As a drop of dew ; With her virgin splendour Thrilling through and through. Now, the shy, sweet maiden Softly droops her head : All her heart is laden With his coming tread ! THE BONNY BHIDELAND FLOWER. 09 Now the new dawn breaketh In a blush of bliss ; The Beloved waketh At her Troth-love's kiss. In our dull gray weather We have seen her bloom ; Fain as Exiles gather Round some flower from Home ; Seen the face that never Fades away, but gleams, With its still smile, ever Through the land of Dreams. Fair befall the bonny, Bonny Brideland flower ! All things dear and sunny Bless her bridal bower ! Truest love e'er given Feed her new life-root ; And thou God in heaven, Crown the flower with fruit. A LOVER'S SONG. " One so fair — none so fair. In her eyes so true Love's most inner Heaven bare To the balmiest blue ! " One so fair — none so fair. In the skies no Star Like my Star of Earth so near- They but shine afar. 70 MY LYRICAL LIFE. "One so fair — none so fair. All too sweet it seems : Wale me not, world of care, If I walk in dreams. " One so fair — none so fair. my bosom-guest, Love ne'er smiled a happier pair To the bridal-nest. "One so fair — none so fair. Lean to me, sweet Wife : Light will be the load ice bear: Two hearts in one life." THE MARRIED LIFE. O happy love of weans and Wife, Ye make a man's heart dance ; Kindle the desert face of life With colours of romance : A Land of Promise sparkles where Your rosier light hath shone ; Too distant to attain, but near Enough to tempt us on. 'Tis here that Heaven striketh root To give the Immortal birth, Man tastes the unforbidden fruit That deifies on earth. VIA CRUCIS VIA LUCIS. 71 All ye that such a Garden own, Of winged thieves beware, And trifles, light as thistle-down, That sow the seeds of care. Only in singleness of heart, Ye keep the heaven ye win ! When Wife and Husband pull apart The Serpent glideth in. VIA CRUCIS VIA LUCIS. Spite of the Mask Eternal Love doth wear At times, that makes us shrink from it in fear, Because the Father's face we cannot find, Nor feel the presence of His love behind, Nature at heart is very pitiful. How gentle is the hand doth kindly pull The coverlet of flowers o'er the face Of Death, and light up his dark dwelling-place ! With fingers and with foot-fall soft and low She comes to make the quiet mosses grow : Safe-smiling, draws the Snowdrop through the snow. Busy in sun and rain, she strives to heal, Doing her best to comfort or conceal : With tenderest grass makes green the saddest grave, And over death her flags of life will wave. She is the Angel, waiting by the prison, That saith, " lie is not liere, he is a/risen," 72 MY LYRICAL LIFE. When lorn in soul we seek the face we knew, And dream of buried sweetness coming through The earth in spring-time, every flower a -mile < >i that dear Presence we have lost awhile. Thus, on our old Crimean battle-ground, A poor, unknown, dead Soldier's bones were found — (Known with those noble Englishmen of ours !) When the next May came with her sweet Wild Flower-. Nestled they lay ground in a grave Of tall, plumed grass, funereally a-wave In the West wind that breathed of Home: and tender There rose from earth a dawn of such sprini:- splendour, As if the heavens were br< aking through the tomb : Wild Flowers had so buried them in bloom. And, if we lift our eyes up from the ground, We see how surely life is compassed round With the Divine, that doth so kindly bound The pitiless blaze of fires that soon would scorch To ashes and put out our tiny torch Of being; veil the vastness of the Whole, As with drooped eyelids for the naked soul. The silent Ministers of Healing crowd About the broken heart and spirit bowed, To stay the bleeding with immortal balm, And still the cries with lips of blessed calm; Out of the old death make the new life spring, Our earthly-buried hopes take heavenward wing ; And to each blinding tear that dimmed our sight. They give a starrier self ; a Spirit of Light. VIA CRT7CIS VIA LUCIS. 73 No matter in what separate lives we range, We feel a rootage deeper than all change. We know the roses flower to fade : W"e know The roses also fade again to blow. Death is Life's Shadow ! Mute the music looks, And dark and dead when shadowed forth in books : Do but interpret it, all heaven will roll The Life of Music through the echoing soul. So we grow friends, familiar friends, with Death ; Can look up in his face with firmer faith, To see the frowning brows shade tender eyes, Like sunny openings into Paradise. Through all the gloom and stillness of distress, With life all muffled up in silentness, We voyage on — ice-locked, snow-blind, frost- bound — Like Sailors with the Arctic winter round, Who thought they stranded in the dark, and found The solid water all one floating ground ; And drifted through the night, divinely drawn, Out to the open sea, where daylight shone. The Shadow of Death is changed into the Dawn, That radiant Angel of Eternity ! The mourners look up from the grave to see The dark, that bowed them by its awfulness, Fell from the Father's hands, spread out to bless. So, in His own good season, God hath given This beautiful Joy-Bringer from His Heaven, To bear His benediction from above, And be the smiling Presence of His love ! 74 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Though heaviness endurethfor a night, Joy cometh icith the morning. Lo ! the Light. Gone is the winter from our spirit-clime ; This is the herald of our golden time. In all the beauty of promise, Spring is here — Our Spring — that will be with us all the year. 0, beautiful Joy-Bringer ! everywhere Happiness smiles around you, like an air Of glory, which you dwell in — Starrily-fair ! The lives that have in mourning darkling lain Now gather colour ; sun them once again. The tender shine that cometh after rain Illumes the eyes of old heart-ache : the pain Of loss transmuted to all-golden gain. Just now we are in the shadow of great change, And faces darken, and old things grow strange; And from the new Unknown a many shrink. Our world is getting till . 3 .'<■> think. •■ TJie wire: of life is drawn, and the mere lees" All that is left us. Shame on fears like these ! V\'hate'er Eclipse may come, storm-signals threat, We are English yet, my friends, true English yet. We are standing in the shadow of some sublime Wide-winged Angel of the coming time. No need to wring our own hands. Let us clasp Each other's strongly with a manlier grasp. No fear the pillars of the house will fall Because we brush our cobwebs from the wall. Exultingly, storm-winds, rise and roll All misty blight from off the stagnant soul, And lift its trailing wing to winnow through The cloudy heaven, and bare it to the blue. VIA CRUCIS VIA LUCIS. 75 As in the very heart of Hope we'll ride, Borne on the ninth wave of our triumph's tide, That with its new life heaves Old England's breast, To lift the lowly, succour the oppressed ; Only be loyal to the Loftiest. Arise and crown old sanctities anew, By nobler conquest make your lordship true ; Awake the spirit in our English blood, That slowly brightens to the fervid flood, And does not flash till the leap comes that shows Power all the lustier for its long repose. And if the proudest Nobles have to bow, Then let it be as Bowers bend to row A sturdier stroke ; and faint not, though ye know Not under what dark arch we have to go : But win the nod of an approving soul, Even though ye never reach your chosen goal. O ! young hearts, dancing to the rise and fall Of life's most winsome tune at festival, Looking on your new world wherein ye move With all the large, sweet wonder of young love, The moments thronging with the life of years ; Crowded with happiness and quick to tears ; New smiles of greeting in each minute's face ; New worlds of pleasure brimming every space ; This is no winter-withered earth to you. Love comes, and life is deified anew ! And hearts grow larger than their fortunes are. The horizon lifts around, sublime and far, With god-like breathing-space — an ample scope For loftier life, and glorious ground for hope. -, ■ MY LYRICAL LIFE. Turn, happy Lovers, turn on those below A little of the light in which ye glow ; A Little of your sunshine round you shed, And make our ol 1 world blossom where ye tread. Bring back a little seed from Eden-bowers To sow our fallows with immortal flowers. Ah : Nobles, what a chance is yours to be The founders of a lordlier Chivalry ! And, with the proud old fire this people lead. When thev were weak. I threatened; now I plead, < ve eyes' to their blind strength, for great the need. Word of Lift is well-nigh preached to death ; Flower of all sweetness withereth, I shed in the grip of many that handle it, - though they thought Life would but yield its sweet In giving up the breath ; shut the live flower In a dead Book, and kill it every hour By reason of their clasp : ^Ye want the Book Translated into life, not the mere look ( H' Life embalmed and shrouded in the Book. We want the life indeed, quick in the lives Of Father-, Mothers, Children, Husbands, Wives. We need the life itself— lived in the Home On Week-days, ere, the Sabbath-rest will come To many a homeless hungerer for home. We pray " Thy Kingdom Come." But not by prayer Can it be ever built of breath in air. In life through labour, must be brought to birth The Kingdom ; as it is in heaven, on Earth. VIA CRUCIS VIA LUCIS. 77 The light that left Heaven centuries ago Hath not yet reached dark myriads here below : Your lives should be the lamp that bears this light, Still burning, as the stars through all the night. Because ye are looked up to, they would mark Your shining ! O, the spirits lying dark To-day, as jewels waiting but the spark Of splendour that to Love's dear smile is given, To brighten with the best that brighten Heaven ! Look clown, you Shining Ones, look kindly down, And save them, set as jewels in your crown. How beautiful upon the mountain height, The feet of them that bring the Lowly light — O'ershadowing, on wings of gentle Love, The faults and failings that they soar above ! How beautiful the face of those whose smile Doth make rare sunshine in the heart of Toil ; In low, sick rooms a presence as of Health ; The true Rich folk, in whom the Poor have wealth ! A beautiful life begets itself anew In other lives, as perfume stealing through The sense creates the flower to live again ; Its spirit re-embodied in the brain. Heartfull of shiniug love and singing hopes, Come down where life, blind-folded, gnome-like gropes. We house the Poor to lie and die. But give Them room to stand in ; house the Poor to live ; A little touch of clasping hands might prove Mightiest of all the languages of Love. 78 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Give them a glimpse of kindlier, sweeter grace, And be the model of a nobler race — The living Poem that we may not write ; The Picture that we cannot paint to sight ; The Music that we dream but do not get ; The Statue marble never mirrored yet. Now while the Thrush upon the barest bough Stands piping high in azure, telling how The Spring-wind wanders where the Children go A-violeting by the warm hedge-row ; 1 ».iily more rich the Sallow-palms unfold And change their silver-gray for sunny gold ; •• Good-bye, Old Winter" the blue heavens laugh; " The flowers shall write yon a kindly epitaph" Far on a sea of Light the twinkling Lark Is launched, and floating like a heaven-bound bark, In which some happy spirit sails and sings, And stirs us in a dream of waking wings, With homeward yearnings, heavenward flutterings, all about the inner life there plays A breath of bliss from out old innocent days, — Now, while the Spring mounts somewhere up the blue, We bring our firstling flowers to offer you ! Violets, dim and tender ; glad Primroses, That promise, ere the happy prospect closes, Ye, hand in hand, through rosier days shall tread Green earth, with richer glories garlanded ; Where the wild Hyacinths, all a-dreaming, lean, In peeps of deep sea-azure through the green ; And Summer sets that Golden Age of hers A-bloom, in mellow miles of yellow Furze ; VIA CRUCIS VIA LUCIS. 79 While, smiling down the distance, Autumn stands, The ripened fruitage glowing in his hands. And, if among the flowers some few appear Sacred to woe, and leaning with the tear Still in the eyes, I did but seek the leaf Of Healing — gather Heartsease for the grief : Nor are they tears, but rather drops of clew From heaven, that hidden Love is looking through. As, after death, our Lost Ones grow our Dearest, So, after death, our Lost Ones come the nearest : Thev are not lost in distant worlds above : They are our nearest link in God's own love — The human hand-clasps of the Infinite, That life to life, spirit to spirit knit ! They fill the rift they made, like veins of gold In fire-rent fissures torture-torn of old ; With sweetness store the empty place they left, As of wild honey in the rock's bare cleft. In hidden ways they aid this life of ours, As Sunshine lends a finger to the flowers, Shadowed and shrouded in the Wood's dim heart, To climb by while they push their grave apart. They think of us at Sea, who are safe on Shore ; Light up the cloudy coast we struggle for ! The ancient terror of Eternity — The dark destroyer, crouching in Life's sea To wreck us — is thus Beaconed, and doth stand As our Deliverer, with a lamp in hand. We would not put them from us when we are sad : We will not shut them from us when we are glad ; 80 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Nor thrust our Angel from the Marriage Feast, Although he comes, not clothed like the rest In visible garment of a "Wedding-Guest. Now pray we. Lord of Life, look smiling down Upon this Pair ; with choicest blessings crowu Their love; the beauty of the Flower bring Back to the bud again in some new spring ! Long may they walk the blessed life together With wedded hearts that still make golden weather, And keep the chill of winter far aloof With inward warmth when snow is on the roof ; Wed in that sweet for-ever of Love's ki.-s, Like two rich notes made one in bridal bliss. We would not pray that sorrow ne'er may shed Her dews along the pathway they must tread : The sweetest flowers would never bloom at all If no least rain of tears did ever fall. In joy the soul is bearing human fruit ; In grief it may be taking divine root. Come joy or grief, nestle them near to Thee In happy love twin for eternity I They take our Darling's place ; long may they be As glad and beautiful a hope as he Hath left a bright and blessed memory : Their day fulfil the promise of his dawn — That, as with Thee, he may with us live on. ANCIENT EGYPT. 81 ANCIENT EGYPT. Egypt ! how I have dwelt with you in dreams, So long, so intimately, that it seems As if you had borne me ; though I could not know, It was so many thousand years ago ! And in my gropings darkly underground The long-lost memory at last is found Of Motherhood — you Mother of us all ! And to my fellow-men I must recall The memory too ; that common Motherhood May help to make the common brotherhood. Egypt ! it lies there in the far-off past, Opening with depths profound and growths as vast As the great valley of Yosemite ; The birthplace out of darkness into day ; The shaping matrix of the human mind ; The Cradle and the Nursery of our kind. This was the land created from the flood, The land of Atum, made of the red mud, Where Num sat in his Teba throned on high, And saw the deluge once a year go by, Each brimming with the blessing that it brought, And by that water-way, in Egypt's thought, The Gods descended ; but they never hurled A Deluge that should desolate the world. There the vast Hewers of the early time Built, as if that way they would surely climb G 82 MY LYRICAL LIFE. The heavens; and left their labours without name- Colossal as their carelessness of fame — Sole likeness of themselves— that heavenward For ever look with statuesque regard, As if some Vision of the Eternal grown Petrific, was for ever fixed in stone ! They watched the Moon re-orb, the Stars go round, Ami drew the Circle; Thought's primordial bound. The Heavens looked into them with living eyes, To kindle starry thoughts in other skies, For us reflected in the image-scroll I 1 1 it night by night the stars for aye unroll. The Royal Heads of Language bow them down To lay in Egypt's lap each borrowed crown. The light of Asia was of Afric born ; Africa, dusky Mother of the Morn; She bore the Babe-Messiah meek and mild, The Good Lord Horus, the Eternal child : The unhistoric Saviour, — hence divine — Buddha in India ; Christ in Palestine ! The glory of Greece was but the After-glow Of her forgotten greatness lyiug low. Her Hieroglyphics buried dark as night, Or coal-deposits filled with future light, Are mines of meaning; by their light we see Through many an overshadowing mystery. The nursing Nile is living Egypt still, And as her lowlands with its freshness fill, And heave with double-breasted bounteousness, So doth the old Hidden Source of Wisdom bless The nations ; secretly she brought to birth, And Egypt yet enriches all the earth. EGYPTIAN ELYSIUM. 83 EGYPTIAN ELYSIUM. Who ploughed and sowed as Mortals, and their furrows straightly drew, They are Gods that reap, says Horus, in the Aah- en-Ru. The bark of Khepr bears us, with the good fruits that we grew ; Let them sweat who have to tow it to the Aah- en-Ru ! The Gods at rest are hailing the endeavours of our Crew, As the Solar Bark goes sailing for the Aah-en-Ru. Strike the ApAp monster breathless ; break his bones, in pieces hew The coils he rings them with who voyage to the Aah-en-Ru ! We can never die again ; we shall soar as spirits do ; No more turning into Reptiles in the Aah-en-Ru. We shall make our Transformations, and in linen pure of hue, We shall work in white for ever in the Aah-en-Ru. G 2 84 MY LYRICAL LIFE. We shall find the old lost faces and the nestling young thai flew Like Hawks divine, gold-feathered, to the Aah- cii Ku. We Bhall si e the good Osiris and his son the Word- made-Tn Who died and rose— the Karest ! — in the Aah-en- Ru.— He who daily dies to save us, passing Earth and Hades through ; Lays bis life down for a pathway to the Aah-en-Ru. Lo! i oss of life uplifted in the region T.ttui, With its arms tched for welcome to the Aah-en-Ru ! We shall fallow in the Gateways that our God hath travelled through : 1 le will meet us, he will greet us, in the Aah-en-Ku. II. re w ■ talk of all the glory that each morniiu doth renew, We shall share it, we shall wear it, in the Aah- en-Ku. Here we filled the Eye of Horus, here we fed the Eye of Shu, To be luminous for ever in the Aah-en-Ku. THE KRONIAN GODS. 85 THE KRONIAN GODS. Aye keeping their eternal track, The Deities of old Went to and fro, and there and back, In boats of starry gold. For ever true, they cycled round The Heavens, sink or climb ; To boundless dark a radiant bound, And, to the timeless, Time : Till mortals looking forth in death Across the deluge dark, Besought the Gods to save their breath In Light's Celestial Ark. To the revolving Stars they prayed, "While sinking back to Earth ; " In passing through the world of Shade, Oh, give tis thy re-birth ! " And ever a Sun beyond the Sun Quickened the human root With longings after life, that run And spring with heavenward shoot. Their yearnings kindled such a light Within them, so divine, That Death encompassed them with night, To show the starrier shine. 86 MY LYRICAL LIFE. PROTOPLASM. (PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS LOQUITUR.) TnE marvel of it is that when you have Your Protoplasm perfect, Life is there A heady with its spontaneities, Its secret primal powers all at work ; ( 'iirrents of force unfollowably swift ; Unceasing gleams of glory ungraspable; Pulses of pleasure and sharp stings of pain ; Plashes of Lightning fastened up in knots, And passion tires bound down in prison cells. All's there, when we can say 'tis Protoplasm. Lymph, serum, semen, blood, or nettle- juice, Are worlds of life, and glassy seas of life, That heave with life, and spawn and swarm with life; A universe of life that lurks behind The infinitely little as the large ; Life-giving and life-taking ; fierce with life As though the hive of life rushed forth on wing's, Or some life-furnace shed its fire in sparks ; Moving to harmonies unutterable Through the surrounding dark, and beautiful As planetary wheelings in the heavens. PROTOPLASM. 87 Nor can you have your Matter unmixed with Mind; The Consciousness it comes from, with the intent That is fulfilled in Consciousness to be ! For there's no particle of Protoplasm Panting with life, like a bird newly caught, As with a heart-beat out of the Unseen, But comes with all its secret orders sealed Within it, safe as crumpled fronds of fern, To be unfolded in due season ; all Potentialities of tendency, Initial forces of diversity And modes of motion which are forms of thought ; Likings, dislikings, all are there at work When we can say life is in Protoplasm. And that's creation seen ; caught in the act, Although the Actor be invisible. 'Tis no use thrusting in the earth one's head To be annihilated from behind. Here is the fact that must be faced in front. 'Tis no use varnishing the face of things Merely to see one's own reflected there ! This Matter of life will not make Life itself, No more than Matter of thought will make the Thinker. We have more Matter of thought than Shakspeare had, But no more Shakspeares in our mental world. Life is the unfathomable miracle That mocks us mutely, while we prate of Law, At just that distance from the surface where Its features loom the largest as it lurks. 88 MY LYBICAL LIFE. 1 il: life's the running spring. We see the rhythmic thrills that come and go, But Life Ltsel) is always jusl beyond — I - not precipitated, as the pearl, W nliin our grasp, however deep we 'live, i - like the firs! star in the twilight heaven 5 ou lie in wait for, never e e it comii 1 the first twinkle ; suddenly 'tis there, A.s though it watched you while you winked, and The I been, busy, from eternity. In rain you look for life beginning ; B • known to us in its becoming! 'tis Illimitable continuity .' vain you try to untwist it to the end That si the Periwinkle's tail W< fe 1 through all the universe to touch T te physical, and find it all alike, Ei • underfoot the same as overhead, the earth or dory of the star, .Matter yield- no closer clasp of Life. build our Babels higher than of old Firmer, but get no nearer Heaven that way : the outside of things we stand to rear Our scaffolding, while Life works from within. Life haunts me like a Ghost that's never laid, Yet wavering ever as a face in wat< 1 shift my ground, I quit my premi I seek an undisturbed abiding-place, A- the poor Peasant left his haunted house To flee from its old ghostly visitant PROTOPLASM. 89 For peace of mind ; and mid-way on the road To his new dwelling heard the Ghost's wee voice, From, out the middle of a feather-bed, Or God knows where, cry, " And I'm flitting too ! " No sooner do I set my world on wheels, Atom revolving round its fellow mite, The universe in little grasped by Law, Than there's u living face within the wheels, As in the Prophet's vision. I'm no prophet, And had no wish to see a spirit ; wheels Were made to run and carry, not to dazzle And dizzy us until our eyes strike spirits — That puts a new face on the matter, or The Soul of things must make a face at me ! I get a good grip-hold of things themselves, And then am lost in their relationships. No sooner have I pitched my tent in Matter, And feel it firm to rest on, palpable, Tangible as a tombstone underfoot, Than 'tis a sieve that lets the quick life through ; There is a general rising from the Dead, And rending of the veil ; the grave's astir As though each atom were the womb of Life ; Twixt each two atoms there's a gulf of God ; My atom is afloat, adrift with me ; I I rocks and quakes like any modern throne ; No anchorage in all Immensity ! O'erhead I draw the cloud of darkness round About me, proof n gainst the common light, When lo ! the gloom begins to laugh at me ; The life breaks in and out, darts through and through, 90 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Like Lightning playing at hide-and-seek with me ; Darkness is freaked and shattered with that laugh Zig-zagged upon the face of the Unknown. This light within, that will break through the seen, Cannot be phosphorescence from the dead And luminosity of mere decay, A corpse-light of the Grave, or else the Soul Of all were but a gleam through a dead skull, Lit up to show the eyeless emptim And Death would be sole quickener of Life. 'Tis in the shadow cf the Sepulchre Perchance I sit to watch and wait in vain For that which must arise within myself To lighten through me and illuminate My seeing ; touch mine ear to hear the voice — " I am the resurrection and the life ; Presence that lives in light and looks through form;" And he who hides without must bring to light The meaning by his presence in the soul. Perchance God speaks to us in parable, And Matter is but symbol used by Mind, The visible show that needs interpreting By second-sight to read the eternal thought ; And I am as a blind man, one who feels The letters raised, shaped to the sense of touch, But have not learned to read what they reveal, So miss the letter-link from soul to soul. He breathed the breath of life and man became A living soul — with power to propagate The spark His breath yet kindles into soul ? And is He breathing yet, as at the first, PROTOPLASM. 91 This breath of life through all things 1 Is his breath Our motion — wave of the Eternal Will In Evolution welling, warm with love 1 Are laws that fold us arms of His embrace ? And is life visible breathing of His being 1 Matter but so much breath made visible — The cloud-mask shifting on the Protean face ; And is it need of Him that makes us breathe 1 And so we live and have our life in Him Who is the life indeed for evermore ; The heart of Life whose throbs are visible worlds Of men and women and immortal souls ? So the voice murmurs when I shut my eyes And lean and listen on some crumbling verge, And hear the waters in the well of life Sing, as they bubble with an eye to heaven, And might know more could I but drink, but have Nothing to draw with, and the well's so deep ! 92 MY LYRICAL LIFE. A POET'S LOVE-LETTER. You ask me, Friend, to tell you of my Wife ! And on what stair or landing-place of life I met, as 'twere, God's Angel coming clown, Or mine ascending, for her mai-riage crown. I say you sooth, however strange it seem, The first time that I saw her was in dream : A vision of the night did clearly glass Her living lineaments. I saw her pass Smiling, as those may smile who feel they hold At heart safe-hidden, secret fold on fold, The sweetest love that ever was untold. And as it went the Vision flashed on me A moment's look ; a lifetime's memory. But little could I dream that this should prove The whole wide world's one lady of my love. I had never seen that face or form, and yet I knew them both by daylight when we met. Blind World ! to pass, and pass my darling by, My lily of the vale, where she did lie Sheathed in her own green leaves, and never see The flower hid-in-waiting there for me, With cloudy fragrance all about her curled ; And yet my blessings on thee, blind World ! a poet's love-letter. 93 It is so sweet to find with one's own eyes, Led by divine good-hap, to her surprise, Our Perdita, our Princess in disguise ! The eye that finds must bring the power to see ; (Says Goethe's doctrine, comforting to me !) And now she's found, the world would give me much Could I but tell it of another such. Is she an Angel ? Let us not forget, My friend, that we are scarcely Angels yet. At least my modest soul would not be pledged To call itself an Angel fully fledged : Flesh is so frail, nor am I very sure Of being, in spirit, altogether pure ! Snags of old broken sins torment me still With pains that Death itself will hardly kill. If not an Angel, let the truth be told, I have not grasped the glitter — missed the Gold. And lucky is the man who gets the gold, Refined and fitted for the marriage mould ! Still happier who can keep it pure to bear The final features of immortal wear. She is of Angel-stuff ; but I'm afraid The Angels are not given us ready-made : In other worlds, this Wife of mine may be The perfect public Angel all may see ; At present she's a private one for me — My household deity of Common Things, That into lowly ways a beauty brings, Just as the grass comes creeping, making bright And blessed, with its ripples of delight And quiet smiles, all pathways dim and bare. 04 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Is she a Beauty ? "Well, I will not swear A thousand beauties with her beauty blend ; A thousand graces on her Grace attend ; Or that she is so pitilessly fair E ch passer-by must turn, or stop, or stare, And he on whom she looks feels instantly As one that springs from dust to deity. Nor can I sing of outer symbols now — Tbe swan-white stately neck; the snow-white brow; The lip's live rose ; the head superbly crowned ; Eyes, that when fathomed, farthest heaven is found ! I chose for worth, not show, nor chose for them "Who want the casket richer than the gem. That Wife is poor, whate'er her dower may be, Who hath no beauty save what all may see : No mystery of the human and divine ; No other face to unveil within the shrine, Up-lighted only for one worshipper, And to one love alone familiar : No veil to lift from her familiar face Daily, and show the unfamiliar grace. Eyes shine for others, but divinely dim And dewy do they grow alone for him ! And her dear face transfigured he doth find All mirror to the marvel in his mind ! The beauty worn by Bird and Butterfly Lives on the outside, lustrous to the eye : But still as nobler grow hue, form, and face, More inward is shy Beauty's dwelling-place. And there's a beauty fashioned in the mould Transmitted from the Beautiful of old, A. poet's love-letter. 95 That from some family-face its best doth win : But my love's dawneth daily from within ; The loveliness of love made visible, To feature which the sculptor Form is dull : Not the mere charms of cheek, or chin, or lip, That vanish on a week's acquaintanceship ; But that crown-beauty which we cannot clasp, The beauty that eludes Death's own grave-grasp. At forty, what we seek for in a Wife Is a calm haven amid seas of strife : One fresh green summit in the waste of life, That gathers dew of heaven and tenderly Turns it to healing drops for you or me ; A spring of freshness in the desert sand ; A palm for shadow in a weary land ; A being that cloth not dwell so far apart That we can find no entrance save at heart ; One that at equal step with us may walk, And kiss at equal stature in our talk ; To scale the loftiest life, still arm-in-arm, As well as nestle in the valleys warm. And here's my Rest, where sheen and shadow meet O'erhead, the small flowers budding at my feet ; Green picnic places peeping from the wood, Where you may meet the spirit of Robin Hood Crossing the moonlight at the old deer-chase ; A brooding Dove the Spirit of the place ; Gleams of the Graces at their bath of dew ; An earthly pleasaunce ; heaven trembling through ; My Darling sitting with her hand in mine, Here, where amid lush grass the large-eyed kine 9G MY LYRICAL LIFE. Ruminant, stolid, statelily behold The milky plenty and the mellowing gold : And with glad laugh the tiny buttercup Its beaker of delight brimful holds up ; And prodigally glorified, the mead Is all aglow with red-ripe sorrel-seed, And quick with smells that make one long to be A-gathering sweets, bloom-buried utterly. The sylvan world's old royalties around With all their Summer beauty newly crowned : Broad beeches, that have caught alive the swirl 0' the wind-wave — shaped it in their branches' curl ; Proud oaks, from head to foot all feudal yet ; A nd whispering pines, that have in worship met, — Their delicate Gothic sharp against the shine Of sunset h< aven's honeyed hyaline — Black-plumed and hushed as though they were the Hear>e Of day's departed glory, are those Firs When Venus, glowing in the lift above, Laughs down on lovers with the eye of Love, And such a pulse of pleasure as is given To those who reach the promise of her heaven, Luminous in her loveliness, as though The Goddess' self were coming from the glow. I brought my Love here happy months ago, Her winter prison, amid miles of snow. Poor bird ! she felt that she was caged at last. Her forest far away, its freedom pas Her eyes made mournful search, mine laughed to see, She would have flown, and knew not where to flee. A poet's love-letter. 97 The little wedding-ring had grown a round Large hoop about our lives, and we were bound ! Useless was all petitionary quest, No outlet ! — so she nestled in niy breast; And may we always be as wise, my dear, When things look dark around, or foes are near. Peep in at window now and you may see Her leading captive my captivity : Contented with her prison, polishing The grating round her in a shining ring. And now the fragrant summer-tide hath come And isled us in a sea of leaf and bloom. And now the tremulous sweetness, restless grace, Have settled down to brood in her dear face That lightens by me, fair and privet-pale, Soft in the shadow of the bridal-veil : The sunny sparkle of Southern radiance That in her English blood doth bicker and dance, Hath steadied to the still and sacred glow Which hath more inner life than outer show. So many are the mishaps and the griefs In marriage, like Beau Brummel's Neckerchiefs ; Armfuls of failure for one perfect tie ! And have we hit it, do you say or sigh? Time was when life in triumph would have run, And faster than the fields catch fire o' the sun, Or light takes form and feature in the flowers, My answer would have blossomed with the hours I should have felt the buds begin to blow With my love-warmth, another life-dawn glow ; H 98 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Heard all the bells in heaven ring quite plain Because young blood went singing through my brain : Like vernal impulses the verses came ; With soul on tiptoe and my words a-flame, I should have sung that we had reached the land "Where milk and honey flow o'er golden sand, And that far El Dorado we had found Where nothing less than nuggets gild the ground. But 'tis no more the lyric life of youth, When fancy seemed truer than all truth, And standing in that dawn, the sun of love Hung dewy rainbows on each web we wove, And to the leap o' the blood we felt it given To scale the tallest battlements of heaven ; Poor was the prize of wisdom's proudest dower Beside that glory of the flesh in flower ! And now I cannot sing my ladye's praise, Lark-like, as in the morning of those days When at a touch the song would upward start, And, half in heaven, empty all the heart. Tis August with me now and harvest-heat, And in the nest the silence is so sweet ; Moreover, love is such a bosom thing, In words its nestling nearnesses take wing; No flower of speech could ever yet express The married sweetness or the homeliness ; We cannot fable the ineffable ; The tongue is tied too, with the heart at full : Music may hint it with her latest breath, But fails ; — her heaven is only reached through Death. A poet's love-letter. 99 The stirring of the sap in hole and bough — Mere feeling — will not set me singing now ! I thank my God for all that He hath given And ope the windows of my soul to heaven ; I think, in bowed and very humble mood, I must be better, He hath been so good. So would I journey to the land above, Clothed with humility and crowned with love. I look no more Without, and think to win The treasures that are only found Within ; And, after many years, have grown too wise To search our world for some Lost Paradise ; Or feel unhappy should we chance to miss The next life's possibilities in this. 'Tis here we follow — but hereafter find The goal all-golden miraged in the mind. That Age of Gold behind us, and the Isles Where dwell the Blessed are but as the smiles Reflected from a heaven that onward lies, The Gold of sundown caught in Orient skies. And yet, if any bit of Eden bloom In this old world, 'tis in the Wedded Home. And, what a wonder-world of novel life Do these two range through, hand-in-hand, as Wife And Husband ; in one flesh two spirits paired ; Their joys all doubled, all their sorrows shared : Two spirits blending in one heavenward spire, That soars up fragrant from an altar fire ; Two halves in one perfection wed to prove The perfect Oneness of immortal love ! We cannot see Love with our mortal sight, Uut lo ! the singing Angels come some night H 2 100 MY LYRICAL LIFE. To bring His tiny image in the Child Wherewith from out the darkness He hath smiled ; The tender voice whereby the All-loving breaks His silence, and in human fashion speaks ; The gentle hand put forth to draw us near The heart of life whose pulse is beating here. Though seldom do we guess, so dim our eyes, That God comes down in such a simple guise, And yet of such the kingdom of Heaven is ; Through them the next world is revealed in this ! And how they come to us to bring us back What we have lost along the dusty track : The sweetness of the dawn, the early dew, The tender green, and heaven's unclouded blue ; The treasures that we dropped upon the ground, And they, in following after us, have found ! Ah, Love, my life is not so bare of leaf But we can find a nest for shelter if The bounteous heavens should bless us from above And in our branches nestle some wee dove. Nor will my darling lack a touch still warm To finish that fine sculpture of her form ; For if Love dwell in me, the Angel-Elf Shall kiss her to some likeness of himself, And little arms shall bow the pride they deck With other bridal fetters for her neck. At the hill-top I reach my resting-place, To find clear heaven — feel it face to face ; Firm footing after all the weary slips, To hold the cup unshaken at the lips. The meaning of my life grows clear at last, And all my troubles smile back now they're past : A POETS LOVE-LETTER. 101 The clouds put on a glory to mine eyes, My sorrows were my saviour in disguise : And I have walked with angels unawares, And upward mounted, climbing over cares, A little nearer to the home above. Here let me rest in the good Father's love Embodied in these arms embracing me, Serenely as the sea-flowers in deep sea. Tis true, just as we feel our foreheads crowned, And all so glorious grows the prospect round, It seems one stride might launch us on heaven's wave, Thenceforth our steps go downward to the grave. What then 1 I would not rest till spirit rust, And I am undistinguishable dust : And if Love bring no second Spring to me, This is the fore-feel of a Spring to be ; If no new Dawn, yet in the evening hours, Freshly bedewed, more sweetly smell the flowers ; And round my path the glow of love hath made Illumination for the evening shade. Something, dear Lord, Thou hast for me to say, Or wherefore draw me toward the springs of day, And make my face with happiness to shine By softly placing this dear hand in mine Even while I stretched it to Thee through the dark : A something that shall shine aloft and mark Thy goodness and my gratitude upon This Mount Transfiguration when I'm gone? If Thou hasl set my foot on tinner ground, Lord, let me show what helper I have found; 102 MY LYRICAL LIFE. If Thou hast touched me with thy loftier light, Lord, let me turn to those that walk in night And climb with more at heart than they can bear, Though but a twinkle through their cloud of care. Only a grain of sand my life may be, But let it sparkle, Lord, with light of Thee ! I ask not that my Yerse should break in bloom With flowers, to crown my love or wreathe my tomb ; Nor do I seek the laurel for my brow, But only that above my grave may grow Some sunny grains of Thine immortal seed That may be garnered up for human need In Bread of Life on which poor souls can feed ! Of late my life hath gathered more at root, Making new sap, I trust, for future fruit : Lord, sun my harvest, set it ripening With sheaves in autumn thick as leaves in spring! It is my prayer at night, my dream by day, To make some concpiest for the Poor. I pray Thee let me have my one supreme desire, To fill some earthly facts with heavenly fir< ; Give voice to their dumb world before I die ; Their patient pain more piteous than a cry ! Let me work now, while all eternity With its large-seeming leisure waits for me. A LETTER IN BLACK. 103 A LETTER IN BLACK. A-floating on the fragrant flood Of Summer — fuller hour by hour ; All the Spring-sweetness of the bud Crowned by the glory of the flower, — My spirits with the season flowed, The air was all a breathing balm ; The lake a flame of sapphire glowed ; The mountains lay in cloudless calm : Green leaves were lusty ; roses blushed For pleasure in the golden time ; The birds through all their feathers flushed For gladness of their marriage-prime : Listless among the lilies I threw Me down, for coolness, 'mid the sheen : Heaven, one large smile of brooding blue ; Earth, one large smile of basking green. A rich suspended shower of gold Laburnum o'er me hung its crown : You look up heavenward and behold It glowing, coming in glory down ! There, as my thoughts of greenness grew To fruitage of a leafy dream, — There, friend, your letter thrilled me through, And all the summer lost its gleam. The world, so pleasant to the sight, So full of voices blithe and brave, And all her lamps of beauty alight With life ! I had forgot the Grave : 104 MY LYRICAL LIFE. And there it opened at my feet, Reveding a familiar face Upturned, my whitened look to meet, And very patient in its place. My poor bereaven friend ! I know Not how to word it, but would bring A little solace for your woe, — A little love for comforting : And yet the best that I can say Will only help to sum your loss; I can but look and long, and pray God help my friend to bear his Cri I have felt something of your smart, And lost the dearest things e'er wound In love about a human heart : I. too, have life-roots underground. From out my soul hath leaped a cry For help ! Nor God Himself could save : And tears yet start that naught will dry Save Death's hand with the dust o' the "rave. •-' God knows, and we may one day know, These hidden secrets of His love ; But now the stillness stuns us so ; Darkly, as in a dream, we move. The glad life-pulses come and go, Over our head and at our feet ; Soft airs are sighing something low ; The flowers are saying something swe t j And 'tis a merry world. The lark Is singing over the green corn ; A LETTER IN BLACK. 105 Only the house and heart are dark, — Only the human world forlorn. There, in the bridal-chamber, lies A dear bedfellow all in white ; That purple shadow under the eyes, Where star-fire swam in liquid night. Sweet, slippery silver of her talk ; The music of her laugh so dear, Heard in home-ways, and wedded walk, For many and many a goldeu year ; The singing soul and shining face, Daisy -like glad by roughest road ; Gone ! with a thousand dearnesses That hid themselves for us and glowed. The waiting Angel, patient Wife, All through the battle at our side, That smiled her sweetness on our strife For gain, and it was sanctified ! When waves of trouble beat breast-high And the heart sank, she poured a balm That stilled them ; and the saddest sky Made clear and starry with her calm. And when the world with harvest ripe In all its golden fulness lay ; And God, it seemed, saw fit to wipe, Even on earth, all tears away ; The good true heart that bravely won, Must smile up in our face and fall ; And all our happy days are done, And this the end. And is this all 1 106 MY LYRICAL LIFE. The bloom of bliss, the secret glow, That clothed without, and inly curled, All gone. "We are left shivering now, Naked to the wide open world ! A shrivelled, withered world it is, So sad and miserably cold ; Where be its vaunted braveries 1 'Tis gray, and miserably old, Our joy was all a drunken dream ; This is the truth at waking ! we Are swept out rootless by the stream And current of calamity — Out on some lone and shoreless sea Of solitude so vast and deep, As 'twere the wrong Eternity, Where God is not, or gone to sleep. It seems as though our darling dead, Startled at Death's so sudden call, With falling hands and dear bowed head Had, like a flower-filled lap, let fall A hoard of treasures we have found Too late ! so slow doth wisdom come ! We for the first time look around Remembering this is not our Home. My friend, I see you with your cup Of tears and trembling — see you sit ; And long to help you drink it up, With useless longings infinite ! — Sit rocking the old mournful thought, That on the heart' s-blood will be nursed, Unless the blessed tears be brought ; Unless the cloudy sorrows burst. A LETTER IN BLACK. 107 The little ones are gone to rest, And for a while they will not miss The Mother-wings above the nest ; But through their slumber slides her kiss, And, dreaming she has come, they start, And toss wild arms for her caress, With moanings that must thrill a heart In heaven with divine distress. And Sorrow on your threshold stands, The Dark Ladye in glooming pall : I see her take you by the hands ; I feel her shadow over all. Hers is no warm and tender clasp ; With silence solemn as the Night's, And veiled face, and spirit-grasp, She leads her Chosen up the heights : The cloudy crags are cold and gray, You cannot scale them without scars : So many Martyrs by the way, Who never reached her tower of stars ; But there her beauty shall be seen, Her glittering face so proudly pure ; And all her majesty of mien ; And all her guerdon shall be sure. Well. 'Tis not written, God will give To His Beloved only rest ! The hard life of the cross they live, They strive, and suffer, and are blest. The feet must bleed to reach their throne, The brow must burn before it bear One of the crowns that may be won, By workers for immortal wear. 108 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Dear friend, life beats though buried 'neath A vast black vault of night ! and see There trembles through this dark of death, Starlight of immortality ! And yet shall dawn the eternal day To kiss the eyes of them that sleep ; And He shall wipe all tears away From tired eyes of them that weep. 'Tis something for the poor bereaven, In such a weary world of care, To think that we have friends in heaven ; Who helped us here, may aid us there. These yearnings for them set our Arc Of being widening more and more, In circling sweep through outer dark To day more perfect than before. So much was left unsaid. The soul Must live in other worlds to be ; On earth we cannot grasp the whole, For that Love has eternity. Love deep as death, and rich as rest ; Love that was love with all Love's might j Level to needs the lowliest ! Cannot be less Love at full-height. Though earthly forms be far apart, Spirit to spirit nestles nigher ; The music chords the same at heart, Though one voice range an octave higher. Eyes watch us that we cannot see ; Lips warn us which we may not kiss ; They wait for us, and starrily, Lean toward us from heaven's lattices. WIDOW MARGARET. 109 "We cannot see them face to face, But love is nearness ; and they love Us yet, nor change, with change of place, In more than Iranian worlds above, Where love, once leal, hath never ceased, And dear eyes never lose their shine, And there shall be a marriage feast, That turns Earth's water to Heaven's Wine. WIDOW MARGARET. Poor Margaret's window is alight ; The Widow sits alone ; Though long into the silent night, And far, the world is gone. She lives in shadow till her blood Grows bitter and blackened all ; Upon her head a mourning hood ; Upon her heart a pall. The stars come nightly out of heaven, Old Darkness to beguile ; For her there is no healing given To their sweet spirit-smile. That honey-dew of sleep the .-kies In blessed balm let fall, Drops not on her poor tired eyes, Though it be sent for all. At some dead flower, with fragrance faint, Her life opes like a book ; The old sweet music makes its plaint, And, from the grave's dim nook, 110 MY LYRICAL LIFE. The buried bud of hopes laid low, Flowers in the night full-blown ; And little things of Long- Ago Come back to her full-grown. Her heart is wandering in a whirl, And she must seek the tomb Where lies her long-lost little girl. 0, well with them for whom Love's Morning-Star comes round so fair As Evening Star of Faith, Already up and shining, ere The dark of coming death. But Margaret cannot reach a hand, Beyond the dark of death ; Her spirit swoons in that high land Where breathes no human breath ; She cannot look upon the grave As one eternal shore ; From which a soul may take the wave, For heaven, to sail or soar. Across that Deep no sail unfurled, For her ; no wings put forth ; She tries to reach the other world By groping down through earth. 'Twas there the Child went underground : They parted in that place ; And ever since, the Mother found The door shut in her face. Though many effacing springs have wrapped With green the dark grave- bed ; WIDOW MARGARET. Ill 'Twas there, the breaking heart - strings snapped As she let clown her dead ; And there she gropes with wild heart yet, For years, and years, and years ; Poor Margaret ! there will she let Her sorrow loose in tears. All the young mother in her old. voice Its waking moan will make ! A young aurora light her eyes With radiance gone to wreck : And then at dawn she will return, To her old self again ; Eyes dim and dry ; heart gray and dern ; And querulous in her pain. — " We never loved each other much, I and my poor good-man ; But on the Child we lavished such A love as overran All boundaries, loving her the more Because our love was pent ; Striving as two seas try to pour Their strength through one small rent. " For children come to still link hands, When lives have ebbed apart ; And hide the rift, ivhen either stands At distance heart from heart. So on our little one we'd look ; Press hands with fonder grasp ; As though we closed some holy book, Softly, with golden clasp. 112 MY LYRICAL LIFE. " And as the dark earth offers up Her little Winterling, The Crocus, pleading with its cup 0/ hoarded gold , to bring Down all the gray heaven s quickening shower Of Spring to warm the sod ; So did we lift the winsome Jloicer That sprang from our dark clod. " Our little Golden-heart, her name ! And all things sweet and calm, And pure and fragrant, round her came With gifts of bloom and balm. And there she grew, my flower of all, Pure gold and pearly white ; Jtist as at Slimmer s smiling call The lily stands alight. " To knee or nipple, was the goal Of her wee stately walk; The voice of my own silent soul Her darling baby-talk; Then darklingly she divined andfaiU I; And looking on our dead, Thefatlier wailed awhile and ailed, Turned to the wall and said — " ' ' Tis dark and still, our house of life, The fire is burning low ; Our pn-etty one is gone, old Wife, 'Tis time for me to go : Our Golden-heart has gone to sleep; She's happed in for the night ; And so to bed Til quietly cr> And sleep till morning light.' ' WIDOW MARGARET. 113 Once more the Widow Margaret rose And through the night passed on. Long shadows weird of tree and house Made ghosts in moonlight wan ! She passed into the churchyard, where The many glad life-waves That leapt of old, have stood still there, In green and grassy graves. " would my body were at rest Beneath this cool grave-sward : would my soul were with the Blest, That slumber in the Lord ! They sleep so sweetly underground ; For Death hath shut the door, And all the world of sorroiv and sound Can trouble them no more" A spirit-feel is in the place, That makes the poor heart gasp ; Her soul stands Avhite up in her face For one warm human clasp ! To-night she sees the Grave astir ; And as in prayer she kneels, The mystery opens unto her : She for the first time feels The spirit-world may be as near Us moving silent round, As are the dead that sleep a mere Short fathom underground ; And there be eyes that see the sight Of lorn ones wandering, vexed Through some long, sad, and shadowy night Betwixt this world and next. 114 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Doorways of fear, are eye and ear, Through which the wonders go ; And through the night with glow-worm light, The Church is all aglow ! There comes a waft of Sabbath hymn ; She enters ; all the air With faces fills divine and dim, The Blessed Dead are there. One came and bade poor Margaret sit, Seemed to her as it smiled, A great white Bird of God alit In a forest mavble-aisled. " Look to the Altar ! " there a spell Fixed her ; she saw upstart, A Woman, like a soul in hell, 'Twas her own Golden-heart. " It icould have been thus, Mother dear, And so God took her, from All trials and temptations here, To His eternal home ; And you shall see her in a place Where death can never part." She looked up, and in that pure face Found her own Golden-heart. The lofty music rose again From all those happy souls, Till all the windows thrilled, as when The organ-thunder rolls ; And all her life was like a light Weak weed the stream doth sway, Until it reaches the full-height, Breaks, and is borne away. PICTURES IN THE FIRE. 115 Her life stood still a-listening to The music ! then a hand Took hers, and she was floated through A mystic border-land. 'Twas Golden-heart ! from that eclipse She drew her into bliss : Two spirits closed at dying lips, In one immortal kiss. Next day an early worshipper Was kneeling in the Aisle ; A statue of life that did not stir, But knelt on with a smile Upon the face that smiled with light, As though, when left behind, It smiled on with some glorious sight Long after the eyes were blind. PICTURES IN THE FIRE. Old Winter blows, and whistles hard, To keep his fingers warm, while I Shut out the cold night, frosty-starred, Bleak earth and bitter sky ; And to the Fireplace nestle nigher, To pore on pictures in the Fire. It has a soft, blithe, murmuring glow, As if it crooned a cradle-song ; Yet whispers of some awful woe Are on each flaming tongue That may have licked up human life, Quick, ruddy as a murderer's knife ! I 2 116 MY LYRICAL LIFE. I see the Dead Men underground, Just as they found them rank on rank ; Old Mothers — Young Wives — red-eyed round The Corpses brought to bank ; I see the mournful phantoms flit About the mouth of Hartley Pit ; And that poor WidoAV above the rest All eminent in Suffering's crown, Who wearing sorrow's loftiest crest Is bowed the lowliest down ; Poor Widow with her Coffins seven, Look down on Her, dear God in Heaven ! I hear that crash with sinking heart — Eternity has broken through ! I see him play his Hero part, A leader tried and true, Who faithful stood to his last breath, And fell betwixt them and their death. I hear him bid them trim their lamps — . For Light hath not gone out in Heaven ! And through the dark, above the damps, He beacons them to haven : Long in his eyes had lived the light That should make starry such a Kight. I see the strong man's agony, That seeks to rend his ghastly shroud ; The touch of solemn radiancy That kindles through the cloud ; The trust that earned a nobler doom Than such a death in such a tomb ; PICTURES IN THE FIRE. 117 The valour that invisibly Lifted the bosom like a targe ; The hidden forces that must be, Ready for Life's last charge ! And all the bravery brave in vain, And all the majesty of pain : Visions of the old Home that flash With all the mind's last mortal power ; The tears that burn their way, to wash A soul white in an hour, When thoughts of God go deeper than The Devil at his utmost can. I hear the poor faint heart's low cry That sickens at the sight of Doom; The prayer of those that feel it nigh, And groping through the gloom ! They cower together hand-in-hand At the dark door of the dark land. Ghostly and far away life seems To one returning from a swound ; And sharp the sorrow comes in dreams When we are helpless bound ; But deathliest swoons, or ghastliest nights, Have no such sounds, or spirit-sights. The waiting human world is near, Yet farther off than Heaven for them Who bow the doomed head, to bear Death's cruel diadem, With farewell words of solemn cheer And love for those who cannot hear : 118 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Old heads with hair like spray above . A tossed and troubled sea of life ; Young hearts, just kissed to the quick by Love, That leave a one-day wife. pathos of a hopeless fate ! O pain of those left desolate ! 'Tis brave to die in Battle's flash, For the dear country we adore — Struck breathless 'mid the glorious crash, When banners wave before The fading eyes, and at the ears We are caught by following Victory's cheers I And sailor-blood that on the waves Can feel the Mother's heaving breast — True sailor-blood no wailing craves Over its place of rest, When souls first taste eternity In those last kisses of the Sea : And Death oft comes with kind release To win a smile from those that lie Where they may feel the blessed breeze, And look up at the sky, And drink in, with their latest sigh, A little air for strength to die : But 'tis a fearful thing to be Instantly buried alive ; fast-bound In cold arms of Eternity That clasp the breathing round, And hold them though their Comrades call And dis with efforts useless all. PICTURES IN THE FIRE. 119 A tear for those who, in that night, Went down so unavailingly ; A cheer for those who fought our fight, And missed the victory ! Peace to the good true hearts that gave A moral glory to that grave ! We know not how amid the gloom Some jewel of the just outshone ; With precious sparkle lit the tomb And led the hopeless on To hope, and showed the only way To find God's hand and reach His day. We know not how in that quick hour Some poor uncultured human clod May have put forth its one sweet flower, Acceptable to God : Or how the touch of Death revealed Some buried beauty life concealed : We know now how the Dove of peace Came brooding on the fluttering breast, To make the fond life-yearnings cease, And fold them up for rest ; And into shining shape the soul Burst, like the flame from out the coal : We only know the watch-fires burned Long in their eyes for human aid, And failed, and then to God they turned, And altogether prayed, And that the deepest Mine may be, For prayer, God's whispering Gallery ! 120 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Dear God, be very pitiful To these poor toiling slaves of men ; Be gracious if their hearts be dull With darkness of their den : Tis hard for flowers of Heaven to grow Down where the earth-flowers cannot blow ! Their lives are as the Candle-snuff, Black in the midst of its own light ! Let hard hands plead for spirits rough — They work so much in night. Be merciful, they breathe their breath So close to danger, pain, and death. The love-mist in a Father's eye Must rise, and soften much that's rude In his poor children — magnify The least faint gleam of good ! 0, find some place for human worth In Heaven, when it has failed on Earth. SONGS. 122 MY LYRICAL LIFE. OLD FRIENDS. We just shake hands at meeting With many that come nigh ; We nod the head in greeting To many that go by, — But welcome through the gateway Our few old friends and true ; Then hearts leap up, and straightway There's open house for you, Old Friends, There's open house for you ! The surface will be sparkling, Let but a sunburst shine ; Yet in the depth lies darkling, The true life of the wine ! The froth is for the many, The wine is for the few ; Unseen, untouched of any, We keep the best for you, Old Friends, The very best for you ! The Many cannot know us ; They only pace the strand, Where at our worst we show us — The waters thick with sand ! SYLVIA MAY. 123 But out beyond the leaping Dim surge 'tis clear and blue ; And there, Old Friends, we are keeping A waiting calm for you, Old Friends, A resting-place for you. SYLVIA MAY. " Heart of mine, so longing for rest, Better to build thy love-lined Nest On a storm-swung bough than a Woman's breast.^ But this heart of mine still sayeth me, " Nay; " Shows me the picture of Sylvia May ; Wilful hearts must have their way ! " Heart of mine, far wiser 'tivould be To build thy Nest on a wave of the sea, Tossed and troubled perpetually." But this heart of mine still sayeth me, " Nay ;" And whispers the name of Sylvia May : Foolish hearts will have their way ! " Never was love I think like mine ; Never was woman so nearly divine ; Never coidd lives more perfectly twine." And this heart of mine it murmureth, " Yea ; " Wilful hearts must have their way — When will you marry me, Sylvia May ? 124 MY LYRICAL LIFE. IX A DEE AM. She came but for a little while, Yet with a wondrous gleam ; She left within my soul her smile, The Darling of my Dream ! face too clear for sorrow or tear, Too real for masks that seem ; 1 seek, but shall not find her Here, The Darling of my Dream ! I wonder do you wait for me Beside the glad Life-stream, Or under the Leaf-of -Healing tree — You Darling of my Dream ! sometimes lift your veil by night, And let one beauty-beam Fill all my life for days with light, You Darling of my Dream ! THAT MERRY, MEEEY MAY. Ah ! 'tis like a tale of olden Time, long, long ago ; When the world was in its golden Prime, and love was lord below ! Every vein of Earth was dancing With the Spring's new wine ! 'Twas the pleasant time of flowers, When I met you, love of mine ! A lover's fancy. 12; Ah ! some spirit sure was straying Out of heaven that day, When I met you, Sweet ! a-Maying In that merry, merry May. Little heart ! it shyly opened Its red leaves' love-lore, Like a rose that must be ripened To the dainty, dainty core. But its beauties daily brighten, And it blooms so dear, — Though a many Winters whiten, I go Maying all the year. And my proud heart will be praying Blessings on the day, When I met you, Sweet, a-Maying, In that merry, merry May. A LOVER'S FANCY. Sweet Heaven ! I do love a Maiden, At her feet I bow love-laden ; When she's near me, heaven is round me, Her dear presence doth so bound me ! I could wring my heart of gladness, Might it free her lot of sadness ! Give the world, and all that's in it, Just to press her hand a minute ! Yet she weeteth not I love her ; Never dare I tell the sweet Tale, but to the stars above her, And the flowers that kiss her feet. 126 MY LYRICAL LIFE. ! to live and linger near her, And in tearful moments cheer her ! 1 could be a Bird to lighten Her sad heart — her sweet eyes brighten Or in fragrance, like a blossom, Give my life up on her bosom ! For my love's withouten measure, All its pangs are sweetest pleasure : Yet she weeteth not I love her ; Never dare I tell the sweet Tale, but to the stars above her, And the flowers that kiss her feet. NO JEWELLED BEAUTY IS MY LOVE. No jewelled Beauty is my Love, Yet in her earnest face There's such a world of tenderness, She needs no other grace. Her smiles, her voice, around my life In light and music twine ; And dear, very dear to me Is this sweet Love of mine. joy ! to know there's one fond heart Beats ever true to me ! It sets mine leaping like a lyre, In sweetest melody : My soul up-springs, a Deity ! To hear her voice divine ; And dear, very dear to me, Is this sweet Love of mine. THE TWO HOSES. 127 If ever I have sighed for wealth, 'Twas all for her, I trow ; And if I win Fame's victor-wreath, I'll twine it on her brow. There may be forms more beautiful, And souls of sunnier shine, But none, O none, so dear to me, As this sweet Love of mine. THE TWO ROSES. Softly stepped she over the lawn, In vesture light and free ; A floating Angel might have drawn Her hair from heaven in a glory-dawn, And her voice rang silverly. Then up she rose on her tiny tip-toes, Her white hand catches, her fingers close : " You are tall and proud, my dainty Hose ; But I have you now," said She. O so lightly over the lawn, Step for step went he ! Thinking how, from his hiding-place, The war of Roses in her face, Dear Love would laugh to see ! Two arms suddenly round her he throws, Two mouths, turning oneward, close ; " You are tall and proud, my dainty Rose! But I have you now," said He. 128 MY LYRICAL LIFE. SWEET- AND-TWENTY. Like a Lady from a far land, Came my true Love brave to see ! As to heaven its rainbow garland, Is her beauty rich to me. Or as some dim Mere may mirror One fair star that shines above, So my life — ay growing clearer — Holds this tremulous star of love. Look you, how she cometh trilling Out her gay heart's bird-like bliss ! Merry as a May-morn, thrilling, With the dew and sunshine's kiss. Ruddy gossips of her beauty Are her twin cheeks : and her mouth In its ripe warmth smileth, fruity As a garden of the south. Ha ! my precious Sweet-and-Twenty, Husband up your virgin pride ! Just a month and this dear, dainty Thing shall be my wedded Bride. THE WEDDING-RING. 129 THE WEDDING-RING. This old world is scarce worth seeing, Till Love wave his purple wing, And we gauge the bliss of being, Through a golden wedding-ring ; Heigho, the wedding-ring. Would you draw far Eden nearer, And to earth the Angels bring ; You must seek the magic mirror Of a golden wedding-ring ; Heigho, the wedding-ring. As the earth with sea is bounded, And the winter-world with spring. So a Maiden's life is rounded With a golden wedding-ring; Heigho, the wedding-ring. I have known full many a Maiden, Like a white rose withering, Into fresh ripe beauty redden Through a golden wedding-ring ; Heigho, the wedding-ring. As the crescent Moon rings golden, Her full glory perfecting, Womanly beauty is unfolden In a golden wedding-ring ; Heigho, the wedding-ring. Fainting spirits oft grow fearless, Sighing hearts will soar and sing, Tearful eyes will laugh out tearless, Through a golden wedding-ring ; Heigho, the wedding-ring. K 130 MY LYRICAL LIFE. LOVE'S WESTWARD HO! Pleasant it is, wee Wife of mine, As by my side thou art, To sit and see thy clear eyes shine With bonfires of the heart ! And young Love smiles so sweet and sly, From warm and balmy deeps, As under-leaf the fruit may try To hide, yet archly peeps : Gliding along in our fairy boat, With prospering skies above, Over the sea of time we float To another New World of Love. One of God's Darlings is our Guide : Ah, how it makes us lean, Hearts beating lovingly side by side That nothing may come between. As yon brave ring of Stars doth fold Our world, so is it given To this wee ring of wedding gold To clasp us round with heaven ; Gliding along in our fairy boat, With prospering skies above, Over the sea of time Ave float To another New World of Love. MY LOVE. 131 MY LOVE. My Love is true and tender, Her eyes are rich with rest ; Her hair of dappled splendour, The colour I love best ; So sweet, so gay, so odorous-warm, She nestles here, heart-high, A bounteous aspect, beauteous form, But, just a wee bit sly. My Love is no light Dreamer, A-floating with the foam ; But a brave life-sea swimmer, With footing found in Home. My winsome Wife, she's bright without, And beautiful within ; But — I would not say quite without The least wee touch of sin. My Love is not an Angel In one or two small things : But just a wifely woman With other wants than wings. You have some little leaven Of earth, you darling dear ; If you were fit for Heaven, You might not nestle here. K 2 132 MY LYRICAL LIFE. LULLABY. Softly sink in slumbers golden, Warm as nestled Birdlings lie, Safe in Mother's arms enfolden, While I sing thy lullaby. Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, Sweet one, sleep to my Lullaby. Though the night doth darken, darken, Light will Mother's slumbers lie ; Still my heart will barken, harken, Lest her wee thing wake and cry. Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, Sweet one, sleep to my Lullaby. At thy golden gate of slumber, Stands my spirit tiptoe-high, Filled with yearnings without number, In thine inner heaven to fly. Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, Sweet one, sleep to my Lullaby. In that world of mystic breathing, Spirit Sentinels, stand by ! Winnow, winnow, o'er my wee thing, Wings of Love that hover nigh. Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, Sweet one, sleep to my Lullaby. Sleep ! and drink the clew delicious Till the morrow dawn is high ! Sleep with Mother near her precious, Wake ! with Mother waiting nigh. Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, Sweet one, sleep to my Lullaby. AUTUMN SONG. 133 AUTUMN SONG. The summer days are ended ; The after-glow is gone ; The nights grow long and eerie : The winds awake to moan ; The pleasant leaves are fading; The friendly swallows flee ; Yet welcome is the Winter That brings my Love to me. No voice of bird now ripples The air ; no wood-walk rings ! But in my happy bosom The soul of Music sings ; It sings of clearest heaven, And summers yet to be ; Then welcome to the Winter That brings my Love to me. A world of gathered sunshine Is this warm heart of mine, Where life hath heaped the fruitage, And love hath hid the wine. And though there's not a flower In field, nor leaf on tree ; Yet welcome is the Winter That brings my Love to me. lo4 MY LYRICAL LIFE. SYRINX. Methought to bear her branches crowned "With fruit, my virgin vine : Another fills her arms ; around Another life they twine ! So I lost the day, And all the night I wake, — Birddike singing sad sorrow away, Until my heart shall break. While others gleaned Life's field for gold, With Flowers I made a crown ; Till, looking up alone, behold, The deepening night came down 1 So I lost the day, And all the night I wake, — Birddike singing sad sorrow away, Until my heart shall break. Poor me ! I clasped a reed, and missed My sweetest Syrinx fled ! Poor me ! my tenderest music's kissed From lips of dear love dead. I have lost the clay, And all the night I wake, — Birddike singing sad sorrow away, Until my heart shall break. O LAY THY HAND IN MINE, DEAR! 135 O LAY THY HAND IN MINE, DEAR! lay thy hand in mine, dear ! We're growing old, we're growing old ; But Time hath brought no sign, dear, That heai'ts grow cold, that hearts grow cold. 'Tis long, long since our new love Made life divine, made life divine ; But age enricbeth true love, Like noble wine, like noble wine. And lay thy cheek to mine, dear, And take thy rest, and take thy rest ; Mine arms around thee twine, dear, And make tby nest, and make thy nest. A many cares are pressing On this dear head, on this dear head ; But Sorrow's hands in blessing Are surely laid, are surely laid. lean thy life on mine, dear ! 'Twill shelter thee, 'twill shelter thee. Thou wert a winsome vine, dear, On my young tree, on my young tree : And so, till boughs are leafless, And Song-birds flown, and Song-birds flown, We'll twine, then lay us, griefless, Together clown, together clown. 136 MY LYRICAL LIFE. LONG, LONG AGO. Old friend of mine, you were dear to my heart, Long, long ago, long ago. Little did we think of a time we should part, Long, long ago, long ago. Hand clasped in hand through the world we would go. Down our old untrodden path the wild weeds grow ! Great was the love 'twixt us ; bitter Avas the smart : Old friend of mine long aeo. Patient watch I kept for you many, many a day, Long, long ago, long ago ; Waited and wept for you far, far away, Long, long ago, long ago. Merry came each May-tide, new leaves would start : Never came my old friend back to my heart. Lonely I went on my Aveary, Aveary Avay, Old friend of mine long ago. Oft as I muse at the shadowy nightfall Over the dear Long Ago : Borne on tears arises the dark, dark pall, Fallen on my heart long ago. Love is not dead, though Ave wander apart ; How I could clasp you, old friend, to my heart ! Barriers lie betAveen us, but God knoweth all, Old friend of mine long ago. a soldier's wife. 137 A SOLDIER'S WIFE. "Around us the day closes dense as a wood, The Stars down the darkness with eerie eyes brood, While out through the nightfall my restless thoughts flee To him who is fighting far over the sea. "Across the mirk Moorland the birds of night cry ; A wind stirs my flesh as of ghosts gliding by ; Oh, clasp thy hands, pretty one, kneel down with me, And in- ay for thy Father far over the sea. " So brave is my darling, so gallant and gay, Hell flash through the fight in the wild, bloody day ; Hell crest the top wave upon valour's red sea ; God shield him ! God send him back safely to me !" He's lying, poor Wife ! with the valiant and tried, Who to-night shed their life on a reddened hill- side : And still she sings tenderly, " Over the sea, Blow, breezes, and bring back my darling to me." Her soul it sat smiling, all meek as a dove, In her pure perfect face that was lighted with love ; Her child to the full heart endearing she drew, And bowed like a Flower 'neath its blessing of dew. 138 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Some luminous Presence glides over the place, A white mist of glory ! a white spirit-face ! And a starry Shape comes slow and sweet from the gloom ; God help thee, poor Widow ! thy husband is home ! She knows not the Spirit that hovereth nigh, Nor whence fell the slumber that healed her heart's cry ; But she weeps in her vision, and prayerfully Still murmurs, "God send him back safely to nie/" ROBIN'S SONG. Sing, Bobin Bedbreast, Though you fill our hearts with pain Sing, bonny Bobin, Though our tears fall like the rain For a Lamb far from the fold, In the wet and wintry mould ! For a Bird out in the cold, Bird alane ! Bird alane ! Sing, Bobin Bedbreast ! You are welcome to our door ; Sing, darliDg Bobin, Merry Larks no longer soar : Autumn comes with feel of rain, Mournful odours, wail of pain ! There's a Bird will come again Nevermore ! Nevermore ! THE ONLY ONE. 139 Sing, Robin Redbreast ! For we love your song so brave, Though you mind us of a Robin Where the willows weep and wave: To her little grave it clings, Shakes the rain from its Avet wings, And for all the sadness sings By Her grave, by Her grave. THE ONLY ONE. With tired feet, o'er thorny ground, My spirit made its quest ; On wearied wing it wandered round, But could not find a nest ; Till at the feet of Love I found At last my Only Rest ! I went the downward way of Doom, With those that walk in Night : I stumbled on from tomb to tomb Of Joys that lured my sight ; Until Love touched me through the gloom And smiled, — my Only Light ! 0, sweet the touch of hearts, and sweet The tie of Child and Wife, And blessed is the Home where meet True Souls that shut out strife ; And as I nestle at Love's feet, I know my Only Life. 140 MY LYRICAL LIFE. A MAIDEN'S SONG. I love ! and Love hath given me Sweet thoughts to God akin, And oped a living Paradise My heart of hearts within : from this Eden of my life God keep the Serpent Sin ! 1 love ! and into Angeldand With starry glimpses peer ! I drink in beauty like heaven-wine, When One is t-miling near ! And there's a Rainbow round my soul For every rising tear. Dear God in heaven ! keep without stain My bosom's brooding Dove : clothe it meet for angel-arms, And give it place above ! For there is nothing from the world I yearn to take, but Love. LOVE. O Love ! Love ! Love ! Its glory breaks our gloom, And there's a new Heaven overhead, With all the earth in bloom. 'Tis sweet as Sunshine's golden kiss, That crowns the world anew : Sweet as in Ptoses' hearts of bliss, Soft summer-dark drops dew. NOW AND THEN. 141 O Love ! Love ! Love ! May make the true heart ache ; Pulse out its lavish life, and leave It mournfully to break ! But O how winsomely it starts The thoughts that bee-like cling, To drain the honey from young hearts, And leave a bleeding sting ! Love ! Love ! Love ! Its very pain endears ! And every wail and weeping brings Some blessing on our tears ! Love makes our darkest days, sweet dove ! All goldenly go clown, And still we'll clothe ourselves with love, And crown us with Love's crown. NOW AND THEN. Love will make the leal heart ache That never ached before ; And meek or merry eyes 'twill make With solemn tears run o'er. In tears we parted tenderly, My Love and I lang syne ; And evermore she vowed to be Mine own, aye mine, all mine ! Sing O the tree is blossoming, But worms are at the root ; And many a darling flower of Spring Will never come to fruit. 142 MY LYRICAL LIFE. We meet now in the streets of life ; All gone, the old sweet charms ; At my Bide leans a loving Wife; She — passes Babe-in-arms. EMIGRANT SONG. Behind us lies a land, all dim . With M;_ r ]i> of sorrows old ; B fore as, on the ocean's vim, A land that looks of gold. We go, a fuller life to win. With freedom for th' opprest — But won't forget the old land, in That new world of the West. We cannot weep who cross the deep, I ofairly driven forth ; We might not sow, we could not reap Our share of native earth. We go, a fuller life to win, With freedom for th' opprest — But won't forget the old land, in That new world of the West. As Emigrants from land to land — From rise to set of sun, We build the bridge till ocean's spanned, And all the world is one. We go, a fuller life to win, With freedom for th' opprest — But won't forget the old land, in That new world of the West. THE SAILOR'S ORPHAN CHILD. 143 THE SAILOR'S ORPHAN CHILD. How happy seems the Sailor's lot, On Summer seas to roam, With pleasant dreams of that wee Cot Where wife and weans make " home." But he must also face the war Of winds and waters wild, To fall, perchance, from home afar, And leave an orphan child. The Sailor in the tempest strives With might and main for you ; When raging billows race for lives, The Sailor brings us through. Then succour those he leaves behind. As sea-drift safely Isled ; The Sailor's orphan is a kind Of every parent's child. ON DECK TOGETHER. Out of the water the winged fish flew, Flashes of light from abysses of blue, In the goldenest tropical weather ; A pale still face seemed calling to me ; Words of cheer were spoken, and we Were friends on deck together. Under a still and starry night My lady arose to her stateliest height — Hair without tie or tether — 144 MY LYRICAL LIFE. And there between the sky and the sea, She walked and talked right merry with ine, As we trod the deck together. We meet no more the deck to tread ; But, when the Oceans have yielded their dead, I cannot help wondering whether There will be another world where we May voyage on some celestial sea, And tread the deck together. A PEARL DIVER. Soi'L of Jacoba, come forth from your shell, My pearl of the Deep where you darklingly dwell, The Diver hath found you, the secret is shown, Never again will you nestle unknown ; Nevermore feel in your loneness alone ! Soul of Jacoba, arise and shine From the sea-green depths of her eyes divine ; Soul of Jacoba, come forth and play In the pale >till face with a roseate ray, And a smile that shall turn all the dark into day ! My Pearl I that I saw by her own soft light ; My Pearl that bejewelled the gloom of her night, The secretly precious, the hiddenly rare ; A prize to be won for the worthiest wear ; My Pearl shall be set with the first of the fair 1 PARTING. 145 PARTING. Too fair, I may not call thee mine : Too dear, I may not see Those eyes with bridal beacons shine ; Yet, Darling, keep for me — Empty and hushed, and safe apart, One little corner of thy heart ! Thou wilt be happy, dear ! and bless Thee ; happy mayst thou be. I would not make thy pleasure less ; Yet, Darling, keep for me, My life to light, my lot to leaven, One little corner of thy Heaven ! Good-bye, dear heart ! I go to dwell A weary way from thee ; Our first kiss is our last farewell ; Yet, Darling, keep for me — Who wander outside in the night, One little corner of thy light 1 "FOR EVER." " Farewell, Sweet I may you find a nest Of home in haven clearer : And safelier rest upon the breast Of truer love and nearer ! May favours fall, and blessings flow For you, and cares come never I But kiss me, dear, before you go, And then shake hands for ever." L L46 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Her very heart within doth molt. And gat Iters while she lingers A weeping warmth, as though it felt A wee Babe's feeling fingers : The minutes pass, they do not part, And \ aii i was all endeavour; A touch had closed them heart to heart, And hands were clasped for ever. SHAKSPEARE. Ol'R Prince of Peace in glory hath gone, "With no spear shaken, no sword drawn, Without one battle-flag unfurled, To make his conquest of the world. For him no martyr-fires have blazed. No limhs been raeked, no scaffolds raised ! For him no blood was ever shed To dye the Conqueror's raiment red. And for all time he wears the crown Of lasting, limitless, renown : He reigns, whatever Monarchs fall; His throne is at the heart of all. (< ALL READY AND ALL ONE." What is the News to-day, Boys? Have they fired the Signal gun ] We answer but one way, Boys : We are ready for the fray, Boys. All ready and all one ! ENGLAND. 147 They shall not say we boasted Of deeds that would be done ; Or sat at home and toasted : We are marshalled, drilled and posted, All ready and all one ! We are not as driven cattle That would the conflict shun. They have to test our mettle As Volunteers of Battle, All ready and all one ! The life-streams of the Mother Through all her youngsters run, And brother stands by brother, To die with one another, All ready and all one ! Sydney, 1885. ENGLAND. There she sits in her Island-home, Peerless among her Peers ! And Liberty oft to her arms doth come, To ease its poor heart of tears. Old England still throbs with the muffled fire Of a Past she can never forget : And again shall she herald the World up higher ; For there's life in the Old Land yet. They would mock at her now, who of old looked forth In their fear, as they heard her afar ; But loud will your wail be, Kings of the Earth! When the Old Land goes down to the war. L 2 148 MY LYRICAL LIFE. The Avalanche trembles, half-launched, and half- - riven, Her voice will in motion set : ring out the tidings, wide-reaching as Heaven ! There's life in the Old Land yet. The old nursing Mother 's not hoary yet, There is sap in her ancient tree : She lifteth a bosom of glory yet, Through her mists, to the Sun and the Sea — ir ;is the Que* n of Love, fresh from the foam Or a star in a dark cloud set ; Ye may blazon her shame, — ye may leap at h'r name, — But there's life in the Old Land yet. Let the storm burst, you will find the Old Land Ready-ripe for a rough, red fray ! She will fight as she fought when she took her stand For the Right in the olden day. Rouse the old royal soul, Europe's best hope Is her sword-edge for Victory set ! She shall dash Freedom's foes down Death's bloody slope ; For there's life in the Old Land yet. THE OLD LAND. leal high hearts of England, The evil days draw near, When ye, with steel in heart and hand, Must strike for all that's dear ! THE OLD LAND. 149 And better tread the bloodiest deck, And fieriest field of fame, Than break the heart and bow the neck, And sit in the shadow of shame. Let Despot, Death, or Devil come, United here Ave stand : We'll safely guard our Island-Home, Or die for the dear old Land. O, "Warriors of Old England, You'll hurry to the call ; And her good ships shall sail the storm, With their merry Mariners all. In words she wasteth not her breath, But be the trumpet blown, And in the Battle's dance of death, She'll dance the bravest down. Let Despot, Death, or Devil come, United here we stand : We'll safely guard our Island-Home, Or die for the dear old Land. Success to our dear England, When dark clays come again ; And may she rise up glorious As the rainbow after rain. A thousand memories warm us still, And, ere the old spirit dies, The purple of each wold and hill From English blood shall rise. Let Despot, Death, or Devil come, United here Ave stand : We'll safely guard our Island-Home, Or die for the dear old Land. 150 MY LYRICAL LIFE. God strike with our dear England ! Long may the old land be The guiding glory of the world ; Home of the fair and free ! Old Ocean on his silver shield Shall lift our little Isle Unvanquished still by flood or field, While the heavens in blessing smile. Let Despot, Death, or Devil come, United here we stand : We'll safely guard our I.sland-Home, Or die for the dear old Land. SEA-SONG. Come, show your Colours now, my Lads, That all the world may know The Boys are equal to their Dads, Whatever blast may blow. All hands aboard ! our country calls On her Seafaring folk ! In giving up our wooden Walls, More need for Hearts of Oak. Remember how that old Fire-Drake Would singe the Spaniard's beard ; And think how Raleigh, Nelson, Blake, Into their harbours steered. Think how o' nights we cut them out ! 'Twas many a time and oft — Silence ! — a rush — a tug — a shout — And the old flag flew aloft. OUR NATIVE LAND. 151 Be it one to seven, — be it Hell or Heaven,— We fought our decks red-wet 1 Be it hell or heaven, — be it one to seven. We fear no Foenian yet. At every port-hole there shall flame The same fierce battle-face : All worthy of the old sea-fame — All of the old Sea-Race. OUR NATIVE LAND. This is our Mother Country ! The dearest land ; The rarest land. Bound which the sea keeps sentry, Or Ships are manned ; Or ships are manned. Nothing but Heaven above her ! And here's my hand ; And here's my hand. We are brothers all who love her, Our Native Land ; Dear Native Land. Afar and near they hail her, With greetings warm ; With greetings warm. The famous old brave Sailer, That rode the storm ; Ay, many a storm. 152 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Who would not die to save her, Shall bear the brand ; The Coward's brand. In love we .never waver For Native Land ; Dear Native Land. No matter where our place is, We may go forth ; We may go forth. And turn dead frozen faces Home from the North ; Home from the North. Or sink 'neath orient Heaven, In burning sand ; Waste, desert sand. Our lives shall still be given For Native Land ; Dear Native Land Oft-times the Foe beheld us, All torn apart ; All torn apart. Although a blow would weld us All one at heart ; All one at heart. Now trust we in each other, A little band ; A happy band. As Children of one Mother 1 Our Native Land ; Dear Native Land. A NATIONAL ANTHEM. 153 Some new heroic story The world shall learn ; The vjorld shall learn. If we who keep her glory Are true and stern ; All true and stern. Come wild and warring weather, We ready stand ; All ready stand. To fight or fall together For Native Land ; Dear Native Land. A NATIONAL ANTHEM. God bless our native Land, Glorious, and grave, and grand, God bless our Land ! God bless her noble face, God bless her peerless race, Great heart, and daring hand, God bless our Land ! God love our native Land, Make her for ever grand, God love our Land ! Robe her with righteousness, Crown her with gifts of grace, Throne her at Thy right hand, God love our Land ! 154 MY LYRICAL LIFE. If secret foes should band To strike our dear old Land, God aid our Land ! Be Thou her strength and stay, God, in the battle day ; Strew them ashore like sand, God aid our Land ! Few are we, Sword in hand; All sword in soul we stand, Around our Land ! And when her blood shall flow, Green make her glory grow, Lead her in triumph grand, Our leal old Land ! Here pray we hand in hand, Tears in our eyelids stand, God save our Land ! Thy Watch-tower on the Sea, Venger of Eight is she, Long let old Fear-not stand, God save our Land ! HAVELOCK'S MARCH. Behold a phantom-form appears, majestic in its gloom ! Mournfully it looks across a Chasm deep as doom : A quivering heartache seems to move its withered, wordless lips ; Familiar eyes are kindling through their wan light of eclipse : It is the Ancient Mother rising, Sphinx-like, 'mid her sands, To plead with those who will not hear. She wrings her wrinkled hands ; Yearns over both. As Brothers long ago she brought them forth, Her dusky darlings and her great white Heroes of the North ! The Children have no memories of the Morning-Land, and yet I he Mother's heart remembers, though all the world forget. 156 We look with horror, when the blood grows cold, On that which stung us hotly enough of old ; Blame me not wantonly : I do but draw Faintly the thing we felt ; the sight we saw ! havelock's march. 157 THE REVOLT. "Come hither, my brave Soldier boy, and sit you by my side, To hear the tale, a fearful tale, a glorious tale of pride ; How Havelock with his handful, all so faithful and so few, Held on in that far Indian land, to bear our England through Her bloodiest pass of peril, and her reddest sea of wrath ; And strode like Paladins of old on their aveng- ing path. Though clothes were drenched, and flesh was parched, or bones were chilled with cold, The gallant hearts never gave up ; they never loosed their hold ; But fought right on, and triumphed, till our eyes rained as we read How proudly every place was filled, with living and with dead. "The stillness of a brooding storm lay on that Eastern land ; The dark death-circle narrowed round our little English band : The false Sepoy stooped lower for his spring, and in his eye A bloody light was burning on them, as he glided by : 158 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Old Horrors rose, and leered at them, from out the tide of time, — The peering peaks of War's old world, whose brows were stained with crime ! The conscious Silence was but dumb, a cursed. Plot to hide ; The darkness only a mask of Death, ready to slip aside. Under the leafy palms they lay, and through their gay green crown Our English saw no Storm roll up : no Fate swift-flaming down. •'At last it came. The Rebel drum was heard at dead of night : They dashed in dust the only torch that showed the face of Right ! Once more the Devil clutches at his lost throne of the earth, And sends a people, smit with plague of mad- ness, howling forth. As in a Demon's dream they swarm from hor- rible hidiDg-nooks ; Red Murder stabs the air, and lights their way with maddening looks ! Snuffing the smell of human blood, the cruel Moloch stands ; Hearing the cry of ' Kill ! Kill! Kill! ' and claps his gory hands. At dead of night, while England slept, the fear- ful vision came, She looked, and with a dawn of hell the East was all aflame. havelock's march. 150 "Stern tidings flashed to Havelock, of legions in revolt : ' The Traitors turn upon us, and the eaters of our salt, Subtle as death, and false as hell, and cruel as the grave, Have sworn to rend us by the root ; be quick, if ye would save ; The wild beasts bloody and obscene, mad-drunk with gore and lust, Have wreaked a horrible vengeance on our England rolled in dust.' And such a withering wind doth blow, such fearful sounds it brings, The soul with shudders tries to shake off thoughts like creeping things. A vast invisible Terror twines its fingers in the hair, With one hand feeling for the throat ; a hand that will not spare. "They slew the grizzled "Warrior, who to them had been so true ; The ruddy stripling with frank eyes of bonny northern blue ; They slew the Maiden as she slept ; the Mother great with child ; The Babe, that smiled up in their face, they stabbed it as it smiled ! The piteous, pleading, hoary hair they draggled in red mire ; And mocked the dying as they dashed out, frantic from the fire, 160 MY LYRICAL LIFE. To fall upon their Tulwars, hacked to Death ; the bayonet Held up some child ; the demons danced around it writhing yet : Warm flesh, that kindled so with life, was torn, and slowly hewn, To daintiest morsels for the feast where Death began too soon. " Our English girls, whose sweet red blood went dancing on its way, A merry marriage-maker quick for its near wed- ding-day,— All life awaiting for the breath of Love's sweet south to blow, And budding bridal roses ripe with secret balms to flow, — They stripped them naked as they were born j naked along the street, In their own blood they made them dip their delicate white feet : With some last rag of shelter the poor helpless darling tries To hide her from the cruel hell of those devour- ing eyes ; Then, plucking at the skirts of Death, she prayer- fully doth cling, To hide her from the eyes that still gloat round her in a ring. havelock's march. 161 THE AVENGERS. " ' Now, Soldiers of our England, let your love arise in power ; For never yet was greater need than in this awful hour : Together stand like old true hearts that never fear nor flinch ; With feet that have been shod for death, never to yield an inch. Our Empire is a Shi]) on fire, before a howling wind, With such a smoke of torment, as might make high heaven blind ! Wild Ruin waves his flag of flame, and ye must spring on deck, And quench the fire in blood, and save our treasures from the wreck? Many a time has England thought she sent her bravest forth ; But never went more gallant men of more heroic worth. " Hungry and lean, through rain and mire, our War-wolves ravening go On their long march, that shall not mete the red grave of the foe : Like winter trees stripped to their naked strength of heart and arm, That glory in their grimness as they tussle with the storm ! M 162 MV LYRICAL LIFE. Only a handful few and stern, and few and stern their words ; S range meaning in their eyes that meet and strike out sparks like swords ! And there goes Havelock, leading the Forlorn Hope of our land : The quick heart spurring at their side ; the 1 tanner of their band : Kindled, but calm, along their ranks his steady eye doth run, As Marksman seeks the death-line down the level of his gun. " Beneath the whitening snows of age his spirit- ardours glow, As glow the fragrant fires of spring in flow beneath the snow. Look in his grave and martial face, with Lo\ dear pity touched ; A saviour soul doth sanctify the sword his hand hath clutched ; A Hi tie while his silent thoughts have gone within to pray, And send a farewell of the heart to the dear ones far away. He prays to God to light him through the peril- ous darkness, when He grapples with the beasts of blood, and quells them in their den. And now his look is lifted in the light of some far goal ; His lips the living trumpet of a gray-haired Seer's soul. havelock's march. 163 " On th' house-tops of Allahabad black, scowling brows were bent, In hate, and deep, still curses, on our heroes as they went To fight their hundred-days-long fight ; all true as their good steel, The Highlanders of Havelock, the Fusileers of Neil ! A falling firmament of rain the heavens were pouring down ; They heeded not the drowning heavens, nor yet the foeman's frown : Forward they strained with hearts afire, and gal- lantly they toiled Till darkness fell upon them : then the Moon uprose and smiled. A little thing ! and yet it seemed at such a time to come Just like a proud and mournful smile from the very heart of Home. That night they halted in a Snipe-swamp ; hun- gry, cold, and drenched ; With hearts that kept the blitheness of brave men that never blenched. Through flooding Nullah, slushy sand, onward they strode again, Ere Dawn, a winged glory, lit upon the bur- nished rain, And mists up-gathered sullenly along the rear of flight, Slowly as beaten Belooches might lounge from out the fight. M 2 104 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Then heaven grew like inverted hell ; a blazing vault of fire ! The Sun pursuing pitiless, to bring the brain- strokes nigher ; With sworded splendours fierce in front, and darting down all day, Intently as the eyes of Death a-feeding on his prey. " All the day long, and every day, with patience conquering pain, Our good and gallant fellows with one purpose forward strain ; For there is that within each heart nothing but death can stop ; They hurry on, and hurry on, and hurry till they drop ; Trying to save the remnant ; reach the leaguered place in time To grasp, with red-wet slaughtering hands, the workers of this crime. They think of all the dead that float adown the Ganges' waters : Those noble Englishmen of ours ; their gentle wives and daughters ! Of Fire and Madness broken loose, and doing deeds most pitiful ; And then of vengeance dealt out by the choked and blackened city-full. " They think of those poor things that climb each little eminence ; As, from the deluge of the dark, when day is going hence, havelock's march. 165 The sheep Avill huddle up the hill, and gather there forlorn ; So gather they in this dread night, to wait the far-off morn. Or, crouching in the Jungle, they look up in Nature's face, To find she has no heart, for all her Eeptilinear grace ! Each leaf a sword, or prickly spear, or lifted jagged knife ! No shields of shelter like our leaves ; but threat- ening human life, With ominous hints of blood ; and there the roots go writhing round, Like curses coiled upon the spring, that rest not underground. " They find sure tokens all the day ! and starting from their dream At night, they hear the Pariah dogs that howl by Ganges' stream, Knowing the waters bear their freight of corpses stiff and stark, Scenting the footfalls on the air, as Death glides down the dark ; Only the Lotus with ripe lips, and arms caressing clings. The silence swarms Avith ghostly thoughts ; each sound with ghastly things. There stands the plough i' the furrow ; there the villagers have flown ! There Fire ran dancing over roofs that under- foot Avent doAvn ! 166 MY LYRICAL LIFE. There Renaud hung his dangling dead, with but short time for shrift, He caught them on their way to hell, and gave them a last lift. " They saw the first sight of their foe as the fourth dawn grew red ; Twenty miles to breakfast marched ; and had to fight instead. The morning smiled on arms up-piled, and weary wayworn men, But soon the Assembly sounded, and they sprang to arms again ; The heaviest heart up-leaping light, as flames that tread on air. The Rebel line bore down as they had caught us unaware ; But Maude dashed forward with his Guns, across the sandy mire, And little did they relish our bright rain of rifle fire: Q uckly the onward way was ploughed, with heaps on either hand ; They broke the foe, then broke their fast, that dauntless little band. " Again they felt our withering fire, by Pandoo Nuddee stream ; Again they feared the crashing charge, and fled the vengeful gleam : Small loss was his in battle when the Conqueror looked round ; But many fell from weariness, and died without a wound. havelock's march. 1G7 Soft, whispering flowery secrets, came a low wind of the west That eve, like breath made balmy with the sweet love in the breast ; Breathing its freshness through the groves of Mango and of Palm ; But the sweetest thing that wind could bring was slumber's holy balm, To bless them for the morrow, and give strength for them to cope With those ten thousand men that stood betwixt them and their hope. " It must have been a glorious sight to see them as they went, With veteran valour steady ; sure of proud accomplishment. "When Havelock bade his line advance, the Highlanders swept on ; Each one at heart a thousand ; a thousand men as one ; Linked in their beautiful proud line across the broken lands, Straight on ! they never paused to lift the weapon in their hands ; Silent, compact and resolute, charged as a thundercloud That burst, and wrapped the dead and living in one smoky shroud ; One volley of Defiance ! one wild cheer ! and through the smoke They flashed ! and all the battle into flying fragments broke. 168 MY LYRICAL LIFE. " When night came clown they lay there, gashed all over, side by side, The gray old warrior and the youth, his Mother's darling pride ! Rolled with the rebel in the dust, and grim in bloody death ; And over all the mist arose, dank as the grave- yard's breath. But light of heart we took the hill, and very proud that night Was Havelock of his noble men, and Cawnpore was iu sight. The men had neither food nor tent, but the red road was won : And very proud were they to hear their General's ' Well done ' ; Not knowing how their shout of triumph rang a fatal knell ; Nor what that wretch had wrought who has no match this side of Hell. CAWNPORE. " Cawnpore was ghastly silent, as into it they stepped ; There stood the blackened Kuin that the brave old Soldier kept ! Where strained each ear for the English cheer, and stretched the wan wide eyes, Through all that awful night to see the signal- rocket rise ; havelock's march. 169 No tramp, no cheer of Brothers near ; no distant Cannon's boom ; Nothing but death goes to and fro betwixt the glare and gloom. The living remnant try to hold their bit of blood- stained ground ; Dark gaps continual in their midst ; the dead all lying round ; And saddest corpses still are those that die, and do not die : With just a little glimmering light of life to show them by. " Each drop of water cost a wound to fetch it from the well ; The father heard his crying child and went, but surely fell. They had drunk all their tears, and now dry agony drank their blood ; The sand was killing in their souls : the wind a fiery flood ; Oh, for one waft of heather-breath from off a Scottish wold ! One shower that makes our English leaves smile greener for its gold ! Then life drops inward from the eyes ; turns upward with last prayer, To look for its deliverance ; the only way lies there : And then triumphant Treachery made leap each trusting heart, Like some poor Bird called from the nest, up- poising for the dart. 170 MY LYRICAL LIFE. 111 Come, let us jyray,' their Chaplain said. No other boon was craved : No pleading word for mercy sued ; no face the white flag waved : But all grasped hands and prayed, till peace their souls serenely filled; Then like our noble Martyrs, there they stood up, and were killed. Only One saved ! He led our soldiers to the House of Blood ; An eager, panting, cursing crew ! but stricken dumb they stood In silence that was breathl 3 of vengeance infinite ; A-many wept like women who were fiercest in the fight : There grew a look in human eyes as though a wild beast came Up in them at that scent of blood and glared devouring flame. " All the Babes and Women butchered ! all the dear ones dead ; The story of their martyrdom in lines of awful red ! The blood-black floor, the clotted gore, fair tresses, deep sword-dints ; Last message-scrawl upon the wall, and tiny finger-prints : Gathered in one were all strange sights of horror and despair, That make the vision blood-shot, freeze the life, or lift the hair. havelock's march. 171 Faces to faces flashed hell-fire ! Oh, but they felt 'twould take The very cup of God's own wrath, that gasping thirst to slake : For many a clay ' Gawnpore ' was hissed, and, at its word of guilt, The slaying sword went merciless, right ruddy to the hilt. " There came a time we caught them, with a vast o'erwhelming wave, And of their grand Secunder Bagh we made a trophied grave. Once more the Highlanders pressed on with stern avenging tread, And Peel was there with his big guns, and Campbell at their head : A spring of daring madness ! and they leapt upon their prey With hungry hearts on fury fed, for many and many a day. For hours and hours they slew, and slew, the devils in their den : ' Ye wreaked your will on Women weak, now try it toith strong men.' The blood that cried to heaven long in vapours from our slain, Fell hot and fast upon their heads in showers of ruddy rain. " That day they saw their delicate white marbles glow and swim ; There rose a cry like hell from out a slaughter great and grim : 172 MY LYRICAL LIFE. And as they clasped their hands and sued for mercy where they fell, One last sure thrust was given for that red and writhing Well. And there was joy in every heart, and light in every eye, To see the Traitor hordes that fled, make one last stand to die ! While from the big wide wounds, like snakes, the runlets crawled along And stole away ; the reptiles who had done the cruel wrong ! A terrible reprisal for each precious drop they spilled. Seventeen hundred cowardly killers there were bravely killed. THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW. " England's unseen, dead Sorrow doth a visible Angel rise ; The sword of Justice in her hand ; Revenge looks through her eyes : Stern with the purpose in her soul right onward hastens she, Like one that bears the doom of worlds, with vengeful majesty ; Sombre, superb, and terrible, before them still she goes ! And though they lessen day by day, they deal such echoing blows, havelock's march. 173 That still dilating with success, still grows that little band, Till in the place of hundreds, ten thousand seem to stand. With arms that weary not at work, they bear our victor flag, To plant it high on hills of dead, a torn and bloody rag. " Proud Lucknow lies before them, — all its page- antry unrolled ; Against the smiling sapphire gleaon her tops of lighted gold. Each royal wall is fretted all with frostwork and with fire, A glory of colour jewel-rich, that makes a splendour-pyre, As wave on wave the wonder breaks, the pointed flames burn higher, On dome of Mosque and Minaret, on pinnacle and spire ; Fairy Creations, seen mid-air, that in their plea- saunce wait, Like winged creatures sitting just outside their heaven-gate. The City in its beauty lies, with flowers about her feet ; Green fields, and goodly gardens, make so foul a thing seem sweet. "The Bugle rings out for the march, and, with its fiercest thrill, Goes to the heart of Havelock's men, and works its lordly will, 174 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Making their spirits thrill as leaves are thrilled in some wild wind ; Hunger and heartache, weariness and wounds, all left behind. Their sufferings all forgotten now, as in the ranks they . form ; And every soul in stature rose to wrestle with the storm. All silent ! what was hid at heart could not be said in words : With faces set for Lucknow, ground to sharp- ness, keen ;i- swords. A tightening twitch all over ! a grim glistening in the eye, ' Forwwrd /' and on their way they strode to dare, and do, and die. "Hope whispers at the ear of some, that they shall meet again, And clasp their long-lost darlings, after all the toil and pain ; A-many know that they will sleep to-night among the slain ; And many a cheek will bloom no more for all the tearful rain : And some have only vengeance ; but to-day 'tis bitter sweet ; And there goes Havelock ! his the aim too lofty for defeat ; With steady tramp the column treads, true as the firm heart's- beat : Strung for its headlong murderous march through that long fatal street. havelock's march. 175 All ready to win a soldier's grave, or do the daring deed ! But not a man that fears to die for England in her need. " The masked artillery raked the road, and ploughed them front and flank ; Some gallant fellow every step was stricken from the rank ; But, as he staggered, in his place another sternly stepped ; And, firing fast as they could load, their onward way they kept. ISTow, give them the good bayonet ! with Eng- land's sternest foes, Strong arm, cold steel has done it, in the wildest, bloodiest close : And now their Bayonets flash in forks of Lightning up the ridge, And with a cheer they take the guns, another, clear the bridge. One good home-thrust ! and surely, as the dead in doom are sure, They send them where that British cheer can trouble them no more. " The fire is biting bitterly ; onward the battle rolls ; Grim Death is glaring at them, from ten thou- sand hiding-holes ; Death stretches up from earth to heaven, spread- ing his darkness round ; Death piles the heaps of helplessness face down- ward to the ground ; 17C MY LYRICAL LIFE. Death fianies from sudden Ambuscades, where all was still and dark ; Death swiftly speeds on whizzing wings the bullets to their mark ; Death from the doors and windows, all around and overhead, Darts, with his cloven fiery tongues, incessant, quick, and red : Death everywhere, Death in all sounds, and, through its smoke of breath, Victory beckons at the end of long dark lanes of death. " Another charge, another cheer, another Battery won ! And in a whirlwind of fierce fire the fight went roaring on Into the very heart of hell : with Comrades fall- ing fast, Through all that tempest terrible, the glorious remnant passed. No time to help a dear old friend : but where the wounded fell, They knew it was all over, and they looked a last farewell. And dying eyes, slow-setting in a cold and stony stare, Turned upward, saw a map of murder scribbled on the air With crossing flames ; and others read their fiery fearful fate, In dark, swart faces waiting for them, whitening with their hate. havelock's march. 177 "But, proudly men will march to death, when Havelock leads them on : Through all the storm he sat his horse as he were cut in stone ! But now his look grows dark ; his eye gleams with uneasy Hash : ' On, for the Residency, we must make a last brave dash.' And on dashed Highlander and Sikh through a sea of fire and steel, On, with the lion of their strength, our first in glory, Kiel ! It seemed the face of heaven grew black, so close it held its breath, Through all the glorious agony of that long march of death. The round shot tears, the bullets rain; clear God, outspread Thy shield ! Put forth Thy red right arm, for them, Thy sword of sharpness wield ! " One wave breaks forward on the shore, and one falls helpless back : Again they club their wasted strength, and fight like 'Hell-fire Jack.' 1 And ever as fainter grows the fire of that intrepid band, Again they grasp the bayonet as 'twere Salva- tion's hand. They leap the broad, deep trenches, rush through archways streaming fire ; Every step some brave heart bursts, heaving deliverance nigher : 1 Sobriquet of Captain Olpherts. 178 MY LYRICAL LIFE. ' I'm hit,' cries ODe, ' you'll take me on your back, old Comrade, I Should like to see their dear white/aces once before I die ; My body may save you from the shot' His Comrade bore him on : But, ere they reached the Bailie Guard, the hurrying soul was gone. " And now the Gateway arched in sight ; the last grim tussle came. One moment makes immortal ! dead or living, endless fame ! They heard the voice of fiery Kiel, that for the last time thrilled ; ' Push on, my men, 'tis getting dark ' : he sat where he was killed. Another frantic surge of life, and plunging o'er the bar, Right into harbour hurling goes their whirling wave of Avar, And breaks in mighty thunders of reverberating cheers, Then dances on in frolic foam of kisses, blessings, tears. Stabbed by mistake, one native cries with the last breath he draws, ' Welcome, My Friends, never you mind, it's all for the good cause.' " How they had leaned and listened, as the battle sounded nigher ; How they had stx*ained their eyes to see them coming crowned with tire ! havelock's march. 179 Till in the flashing street below they heard them pant for breath, And then the friendly faces smiled clear from the cloud of death ; And iron grasp met tender clasp ; wan weeping women fold Their dear Deliverers, down whose long brown beards the big tears rolled. Another such a meeting will not be on this side heaven ! The little wine they have hoarded, to the last drop shall be given To those who, in their mortal need, fought on through fearful odds, Bled for them, reached them, saved them, less like men than glorious gods. DEATH OF HAVELOCK. " The Warrior may be ripe for rest, and laurelled with great deeds, But till their work be done, no rest for those whom God yet needs : Whether in rivers of ruin their onward way they tear, Or healing waters trembling with the beauty that they bear ; Blasting or blessing they must on : on, on, for ever on ! Divine unrest is in their breast, until their work is done. N 2 180 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Nor is it all a pleasant path the sacred band must tread, "With life a summer holiday, and death a downy bed ! They wear away with noble use, they drink the tearful cup ; And they must bear the Cross who are bidden with the Christ to sup. " Each day his face grew thinner, and sweeter, saintlier grew The smiling soul that every day was burning keenlier through. And higher, each day higher, did the life-flame heavenward climb, Like sad sweet sunshine up the wall, that for the sunset time Seems watching till the signal that shall call it hence is given ; Even so his spirit kept the watch, till beckoned home to heaven. His work was done, his eyes with peace were soft and satisfied ; War-worn and wasted, in the arms of Victory he died. ' Havelock's dead,' and darkness fell on every up- turned face ; The shadow of an Angel passing from its earthly place. " In the red pass of peril, with a fame shall never dim, Died Havelock, the Good Soldier : who would not die like him ] havelock's march. 181 In grandest strength he fell, full-length ; and now our hero climbs To those who stood up in their day and spoke with after times : There on the battlements of Heaven, they watch us, looking back To see the blessing flow for those who follow in their track. He smileth from his heaven now ; the Martyr with his palm ; The weary warrior's tired life is crowned with starry calm. On many sailing through the storm another star shall shine, And they shall look up through the night and conquer at the sign. " They laid it low, the old gray head, not only gray with years ; It had been bowed in Sorrow's lap and silvered with her tears ; Our England may not crown it, with her heart too full for speech ; The hand that draws into the dark, hath borne it beyond reach. The eyes of far-away heaven-blue, with such keen lustre lit, As they could pierce the dark of death, and, star-like, fathom it, They may not swim with sweetness as the happy Children run To welcome home the Reaper, when the weary day is done ! 182 MY LYRICAL LIFE. How would the tremulous radiance round the old man's mouth have smiled ; Our goo 1 gray-headed hero, with the heart of a little child. " Honour to Henry Havelock ! though not of kingly blood, He wore the double royalty of being great and good. He rose and reached the topmost height ; our Hero lowly born : So from the lowly grass hath grown the proud embattled Corn ! He rose up in our cruel need, and towering on he trod ; Baring his brow to battle bold, as humbly to his God. He did his work, nor thought of nations ringing with his name, He walked with God, and talked with God, nor cared if following Fame Should find him toiling in the field, or sleeping underground ; Nor did he mind what resting-place, with heaven embracing round. " When swarming hell had broken bounds, he showed us how to stand "With rootage like the Palm amidst the maddest whirl of sand ; Undaunted while the swarthy storm around him swirled and swirled, A winding-sheet of all white life ! a wild Sahara world ! havelock's march. 183 The drowning waves closed over him, lost to all human view, And, like an arrow straight from God, he cleft their Twelve Hosts through. No swerving as he walked along the rearing earthquake-ridge ; He made a way for Victory, his body was her bridge. Grand in the mouths of men his fame along the Centuries runs ; "Women shall read of his great deed and bear heroic son& " He leant a trusting hand on heaven, a gentle heart on home ; In secret he grew ready, ere the Judgment hour was come. War blew away the ashes gray, and kindled at the core Live sparkles of the Ironside fire that glowed on Marston Moor. Some Angel -Mute had led him blindfold through his thorny ways, Till, on a sudden, lo, he stood, full in the glory's blaze. Aloud, for all the world to hear, God called His servant's name, And led him forth, where all might see, upon the heights of fame. His arch of life, suspended as it sprang, in heaven appears, Our bow of promise o'er the storm, seen through rejoicing tears. 184 MY LYRICAL LIFE. " Joy to old England ! she has stuff for storm-sail and for stay, While she can breed such heroes, in her quiet, homely way : Such martial souls that go with grim, war-figured brows pulled down, As men that are resolved to bear Death's heavy, iron crown. So long as she has sons like these, no foe shall make her bow, While Ocean washes her white feet ; Heaven kisses her fair brow. If India's fate had rested on each single saviour soul, They would have kept their grasp of it till we regained the whole. The Lightnings of that bursting Cloud, which were to blast our might, But served to show its. majesty clear in the sterner light. "Our England towers up beautiful with her dilat- ing form, To greater stature in the strife, and glory in the storm ; Her wrath's great wine-press trodden on so many vintage fields, ^Yith crush and strain, and press of pain, a ripened spirit yields, To warm us in our winter, when the times are coward and cold, And work divinely in young veins : wake boy- hood in the old. havelock's march. 185 Behold her flame from field to field on Victory's chariot wheels, Till to its den, bleeding to death, Rebellion back- wards reels. Her Martyrs are avenged ! ye may search that Indian land, And scarcely find a single sonl of all the traitor band. " We've many a nameless Hero lying in his un- known grave, Their life's gold fragment glinting but a sun- fleck on the wave. But rest, you unknown, noble dead ! our Living are one hand Of England's power ; but, with her Dead she grasps into the land. The flower of our Race shall make that Indian desert bud, Its shifting sands drench firm, and fertilize with English blood. In many a country they sleep crowned, our con- quering, faithful Dead : They pave our path where shines her sun of empire overhead ; They circle in a glorious ring, with which the world is wed, And where their blood has turned to bloom, our England's Rose is red. " Your brother Willie, Boy, was one of Havelock's little band ; My Son ! my beautiful brave Son, lies in that Indian Land. 186 MY LYRICAL LIFE. They buried him by the wayside where he bowed him down to die, While Homeward in its Eastern pomp the Triumph passed him by. And even yet mine eyes are wet, but 'tis with that proud tear A lofty feeling in its front doth like a jewel wear. I see him ! on his forehead shines the conqueror's radiant crest, And God's own Cross of Victory is on his martial breast. I should have liked to have felt him near, when these old eyes grow dim, But gave him to our England in her greater need of him." ONLY A DREAM. As proper mode of quenching legal lust. A Roue takes unto Himself a Wife : 'Tis Cheaper when the bones begin to'rust, And there's no other Woman you can trust ; But, mind you, in return, Law says you must Provide her with the physical means of life : And then the blindest beast may wallow and roll ■ The twain are One flesh, never mind the Soul ■ You may not cruelly beat her, but are free To violate the life in sanctuary ; In virgin soil renew old seeds of Crime To blast eternity as well as time : She must show black and blue, or no divorce Is granted by the Law of Physical Force 188 ONLY A DREAM. Soft as a snow of light in a silent world The veil of sleep dropped tremulously down And gently covered up the face of life. The nurse-like Spirit laid my body to rest, And went to meet her Bridegroom in the night, Who comes like music o'er the star-shored sea, And clasps her at the portal with a kiss. "When lo, a hand reached through the dark, and drew Me gliding wraith-like on, and looking up The unfeatured gloom grew into Charmian's face ; The stately Charmian with her lofty mien Like a Greek Goddess Statue that had raised The Veil of being in some diviner dawn, When yearning Love did woo her into Woman, — The warm heart glowing her white Silence through — Who rose up in her crown the Queen of Smiles With all the old majesty unweeting of The old worship, conscious hearts must newly pay — Our English Vesture cannot mask her mould ! ONLY A DREAM. 189 I read her look, and we two wandered forth In the cool glory of the glimmei-iDg night : The Earth lay faint with love at the feet of Heaven ; Her breath of incense went up through the leaves In a low sough of bliss. Above us burned The golden legends on Night's prophet-brow; The Moon rose o'er the city, a glory of gold ; All round us Life rehearsed Death's mystery. And Charmian wore her June-like loveliness As in a stole of sorrow ; by day she moved In some serene Elysium ; queenly sweet, And gracious ; breathing beauty ; a heaven of dreams In her large lotus eyes, darkly divine : Love-kindling Ardours curved her parted lips. But now her blooming Life's luxuriant flower Seemed withered into ashen spirit-fruit, And like a Spirit's flashed her white, lit face ! Portentous things which hid themselves by day, Sweet-shado wed ' neath her sunning beaut y-bloom, Came peering through the dim and sorrowy night. Her lips, red-ripe to crush their fire-strong wine, Pouting persuasive in perpetual kiss, Were thin with anguish, bitter-pale with pain. And from the windows whence young Beauty laughed, As Age went by, a life of suffering looked, And perished visions flashed their phantom-light. White waves of sea-like soul had climbed, and dashed 190 MY LYRICAL LIFE. The red light from its heaven of her cheek : Her bounteous breast that breathed magni- ficence, And billowed with proud blood, sighed meekly now : The flowers her Spartan spirit crowned her with For the life-battle, dropped about her dead. Diaphanous in the moonlight grew her life With all its written agony visible ; Down the dark deep of her great grief I stared, And saw the "Wreck with all its dead around. And my heart melted in its mournfulness ; She moaned, as hers were breaking in its pain ; And then her voice vibrated piteous as A Spirit wailing in a world of tears, But stifled half its pathos not to hurt. " Earth sleeps, and wears the moonlight 's mystic grace, The breath of blessings round her ; and all heaven Is passing through Iter dream ; it trembles near ; She feels the kiss of comfort on her face ; But she will wake at morn in tears to find The glory gone — all was a dream o' the night. And thus my young Life slumbered, dreamed, and woke ! " It ran in shadow like the woodland brook, Feeling its way, with yearnings for the light, Until it flashes silver in the sun, And takes a crown of radiance on its head. Even so I found Him whom my soul had sought, And fled into his breast with a cry of triumph, Who lit up all things beautiful for me. And through my happy tears there looked in mine ONLY A DREAM. 191 A spirit sweet as morning violets, A face alight with love ineffable, The starry heart-hid wonder trembling through : And o'er me leaned, — as Spring-heaven over earth, Dropping its love down in a rain of flowers, — To feed me with all flowers of delight, And crown me as his Queen of all delight. Light hung a garland-grace about his brow ; His voice, like footprints in the yielding snow, Sank deepest with its softest fall of words. He gave the casket of his happiness Rich with Love's jewel for my hands to keep. Around his stalwart strength my life entwined, In golden oneness, and in proud repose ; And like a God he clasped me with his strength ! And like a God he held me in his heaven ; And all the air was golden with my God. " Alas, that Woman's life divorced from Man's, And seeking to be one again in love, So often flies back through the grim wide wound I Alas, that Time should crown with fruit of pain, That seed from heaven whose fair flower is love ! They lore me from my Love I they thrust him forth, Spurned his rich love, and scorned his poverty ; Rent all the twining tendrils of my life To shrink back bleeding in their desolate home. My life was shattered like the charmed cup That, breaking, brings the Hall in ruins round ; And every fragment mirrored the great wrong ! " And while my mind yet wandered dark and dumb, They sold me to a Worldling wrinkled, rich 102 MY LYRICAL LIFE. And rotten, who bought Love's dear name for gold. They dressed me in Brideflowers who should have worn The white and wimpled weeds of widowhood, And led me forth, a jewelled mockery I 'Twos like a wedding with the sheeted dead, In silent hurry, "" ,/ white ghas/liness. A r o bosoms beat Loves cymbals music-matched ; Xo blisses blushed, no bridal-kisses burned. The ring was on my hand, few saw the chain By which the owm r drew me to his home, And many envied me my happiness. That night as ice sat alone J felt his eyes Burningly brand me to the core, his Slave. « ir. dwelt amid a wildering world of wealth, Which flam* I <> glistering glory, bloomed n warmth Without, within was cold as a freless hearth. The Image of Nuptial Love to which they led A maiden sacrifice i' the Sanctuary, That should have raised me, smiled my tears away, And into quickness all my coldness kissed, And fed with precious oil the lump of love That in my heart, as in a tomb, burned on, Was a gaunt Skeleton whose grave-like grasp Clutched me for ever to a loveless breast. " He was a cruel Tyrant, just too mean To murder, although pitiless as the grave ; A human ink-fish spreading clouds around Wlien eyes of tender ruth would come too near. He had a thin-lipped lust of power v:hich looked On torture in no rage of fiery blood, ONLY A DREAM. 193 But with infernal light of gloating eyes. And yet I strove to love him. my God ! While reaching from the heights of blessedness, How had I stretched my arms too eagerly, Andfall'n into a chasm that caught me and closed Its dark inevitable arms, and crushed Me, bruised and blind ! I struck, and struck, and beat With bleeding strength, in vain. A hundred hands Fought in the gloom with mine as water weak. At every step there stirred some loathly snake. I felt as one that's bound, and buried alive ; The black, dank death-mould stamped down over- head ; I cried, and cried, and cried, but no help came. " I heard the sounds above me far away ; The feet of hurrying Life, and loitering Love ; Rich bursts of music, hum of low, sweet talk ; The dance of Pleasure dancing in her heaven, And rustling rain of a thousand dear delights. I knew the pictured world ivas lighted up, And bloomed, like bridal chambers, soft and warm : How sang the merry, merry birds of bliss ; How Beauty s flower-guests stood crowned and drank The health of Heaven with its dew for wine. But not a crumb of all the glad life-feast, Nor drop of all the wanton wealth for me, And if I stretched weak arms to clasp my world, A wormy mouth to my wild warmth was pressed; And if I turned to lift a prayer to God, Above me burned two eyes like bottomless pits o 194- MY LYRICAL LIFE. In which a brood of devils lurk and leer. And down my night there stooped no smiling heaven, With golden chances of a starry throne, And beckoning looks that hid us come be crowned. " Around me rose the jihantoms of the dark, The Grave's Somnambules troubled in their dream, Who walk and wander in the sleep of Death, And cannot rest, they were so wronged in life. The croivnless Martyrs of the marriage-ring ! Meek sufferers ivho walked in living hell, And died a life of spiritual Suttee. They came to claim their kin in misery, And show me, lifting up the mourning-pall, Their symbols of unutterable woe ; Scarred loves that bore the rack and told no tale ; Tear-drowned hearts and stifled agonies ; The bleeding lips struck dumb by brutal hands ; Slow murders of the curtained bridal-bed ; The silent tortures and the shrouded deaths. "I wandered with them in the pitiless night Who seek the jeicel fallen from Life's crown; Oft stumbling, bled tipon the cruel thorns, But rose, and staggered on. I strained mine eyes Upon the dark, and raised mine empty cup ; Surely with one gold drop of honey-dew, Somewhere the heavens ran o'er t' enrich my life? " Then came to me a thing most sweet and strange, As though an angel kissed me in the night, Or Magic Rose flushed open in the gloom. ONLY A DREAM. 193 A loosening charm wrought in my brain; the weight That ached to be dashed out in utter death, Was thawing like a wintry clod in flowers. In love's dead ashes burst a spark. I cried, ' sweet light-bring er, in a bloom of dawn Rise, let me see what treasure I have found ! My rich, warm jewel, crimson with sweet life, Come shine where now I cross but empty palms, And clasp the new love-raiment radiant round. My little Bird shall hurry out the night, Till all my world is touched ivith rosy gold : My little Bird of God shall sit and sing The dear day long, the dearer for the dark ! ' If you rise beautifid from Sorrow's sea, As Venice, Sorrow's Child, is Beauty's Queen, Perchance thy little smiles, my Babe, may bring Some human softness in his face, and I Shall press the hand that hurts, for thy dear sake. And I shall walk with thee, my Child, with thee, Beneath new heavens, on an enchanted earth. When I enfold thee in my arms, sweet Babe, My heart will scarcely breathe lest it should wake The sleeping wings of its new-nestling bliss. When thou art born, my Child, all will be well ; For surely love but vanished in the dark To come back in the morning ivith my Babe ; And all the sweetness liveth on when all The bitterness is past ; and eyes that yearned Wet through the gloom are glorified at last. Soft baby-fingers feeling round my heart Shall melt its frost ; and baby-lips shall turn My tears to milk, and suck my sorrows dry. O 2 196 MY LYRICAL LIFE. All hell may wrestle in one human heart ; All heaven will nestle in my drop of dew.' " It came, my dazzling dawn's re-orient hope, My tiny babe, with its sweet mournful eyes ! And the pale innocent but fanned his hate To frenzy ; for, in many a desolate day, And midnight, lying with my heart awake, I had turned tearfully to look upon A precious picture worn by Memory, And in its beauteous image grew my Babe: It had his likeness, was his Spirit-child. Its luminous look had gathered all the light That lost beloved Presence left with me. My Tyrant poured his poison in the glass My babe-joy-bearer lifted to my lips, And dashed the new love-vintage in the dust. I ran the gauntlet of his hell for years, And fell down on the threshold mad. My Child ! They took my Babe from me, my pleading Babe ; And when the pretty one pined for me, and strained His dim eyes for me till my darling died, They called the Mother in to see her child That lay there in the little shroud with all Its beauty folded up for God in heaven: Bead / dead ! its dear eyes closed by stranger hands. " Much misery hath not made my spirit meek : Mine agony rends the bridal-veil : I cry, Come see what ghastly wounds bleed hidden here ! Behold where all the Tortures of the Past ONLY A DREAM. 197 Are stored by Law, and sanctified, for use. I drag my burthen to a Nation's throne, And pray deliverance from this despot's power. Pity me, all good people, as ye sit Within the happy circle of sweet marriage, Loving and loved, glorying and glorified ; Whose love makes life so dear, that when ye die And sit on heavenlier heights, your eyes will search To find the garden where Love s fruitage grew ; The nest from whence your pretty nurslings flew ; Our old World smiling through its cloudy fold, And love it for the marriage-love of old." She ceased, and from afar methougbt there came Across the night an echo sad and low, Love answering love, heart crying unto heart. " In the merry spring-tide when green buds start ; Wings break from the husk of care ; The dead beauty blossoms again in my heart As I dream of the Springs that were : The buried Past lifteth a radiant brow ; A phantom-bark toucheth life's shore ; And itfloateth one far from the sorroufid Now, Into Love's happy Nevermore. 4 " She rises before me, that Darling of mine, Whom I lost in the world so wide ; come to me, come to me, let thine arms twine About me, my life ! my Bride ! Ah me ! I am breaking my heart to see But her Image enshrined at its core ; Yet Memory's sighs bring a balm to me, Out of Love's happy Nevermore. 198 MY LYRICAL LIFE. "Lovely she was as the lily is white, When the pride of the morning it wears : Pure she was as the perfect light That haloeth happy tears. Hearts straightway rose from the shadow and cloud, Where the light of her presence kissed; Yet over the might of the proudest she rode, Like Music, as she list. " Love, rosy-clear, in her cheek's faint dyes, Its first sweet bloom just took ; Love came trembling up in her eyes, As the stars in a happy brook : Lear eyes ! they were dreams of heaven, with a dance Of light in their deep rich gloom ; Whence the smiling heart looked like the golden glance From the ]yansy's purple bloom. " How I poured all my life in a beaker of bliss For Iter ! how I held the cup, As the leaves, though the troubling winds will kiss, Their tremulous dews hold up ! And my mind it walked in a raiment white, Where starry thoughts reared a dome ; And the feast was spread, and the chamber alight For the Guest that never came home. " Darling of mine ! does she ever think Of the old-time thoughts and things ? Darling of mine ! does she come to drink At these wormwood spirit-sjyrings ? ONLY A DREAM. 199 For I sometimes dream as I bend above, That the touch of her lip clings there, And the fading balm of her breath of love Is eloquent in the air. " If we met unaware, just to ease her heart 's pain, Would she fall on my bosom and sob ? Or would old memories glide through her brain With never an added throb ? Is her pillow e'er wet in the dead night-hours ? When the heat of the day is o'er, Does she turn, like me, for a handful of flowers, Into Love's happy Nevermore ? " there is no heart that loves on earth But may live to be loved again : Some other heart hath the same dear birth, And aches with the same sweet pain. And Love may yet come with a golden ray Shall lighten my life's despair : But Love hath no second shaft can slay The first love nestling there. " In the merry spring-tide when green buds start ; Wings break from the husk of care ; The dead beauty blossoms again in my heart, As I dream of the Springs that were : The buried Past liftefh a radiant brow, A phantom-bark toucheth life's shore : And I am borne far from the sorrowful Now, Into Love's happy Nevermore. 200 MY LYRICAL LIFE. All this was but the imagery of dream ; For when the Morn in restless radiance rose, Her breath of beauty palpitating light, With clouds of colour smiling from the ground ; A sparkling ecstasy in the blue air ; And I with marvelling eyes had broke the seal Of slumber, read the letter of my Dream, Lo, Charmian in her summer-sumptuous beauty! And oft the dimple gleamed upon her cheek, To vanish like a dew-drop in a rose ; And oft her laugh with reckless richness rung, And shook a shower of music-pearls around. I peered into the luminous dark of her eyes, As one might come by light of day to look Adown the glade where he had seen the dance Of weird Elves in the night, but finds no trace. Queen of the Sister-Graces ! who could know Hers was the face that writhed in my dream 1 But still, as in my Dream, I see her stand, Too living for a picture in romance, Telling the wild stern story of her wrongs, Holding the great Curse up to heaven for ever, To call God's lightning down, although it kill Her with her wedded Curse. And in my Dream The kings and queens of prospering love go by, And little heed this Martyr by the way ; This poor weak woman trembling 'neath her load ; This life fast fettered to a festering corse ; This love that bleeds to death at many wounds : This passing Tragedy of Soul within Our five acts of the Sense, that breaks its way Through human hearts i' the Theatre of a world. Keir, 1856. AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. 202 AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. A blithe old Carle is Christmas ; You cannot find his fellow ; Match me the hale red rose in his cheek, Or the heart so mild and mellow ; The glitter of glory in his eyes, While the Wassail-cup he quaffs, Or the humour that twinkles out of his wrinkles As helplessly he laughs. Of all High-Tides 'tis Christmas Most richly crowns the year ; Right through the land there ripples and runs Its flood of merry good cheer. Troops of friends come sailing down, Making a pleasant din ; Fling open doors ! set wide your hearts 1 'Tis Christmas coming in. A glorious time is Christmas, We gather all at home, And like the Christmas fairies, With their pranks, our darlings come ; And gentle Sylvan Spirits hid In holly-boughs they bring, To grow into good Angels, And bless our fairy-ring! AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. 203 A jolly time is Christmas, For Plenty's horn is poured ; Then flows the honey of the Sun, Our fruits all summer hoard ! Merry men tall march up the hall : They bear the meats and drinks ; And Wine, with all his hundred eyes, Your hearty welcome winks. And the Fire of Christmas, That like some Norse God old, Mounts his log up-chimney, and roars Defiance to the cold ! He challenges all out-of-doors : He wags his beard of flame ; It warms your very heart to see Him glory in the game. A happy time is Christmas ; Young hearts will slip the tether ; Lips moist and merry, all under the berry, Close thrillingly together. A gracious time ! the poorest Poor Will make some little show, And ailing infants, seeing the fun, Will do their best to crow 1 II. But there are nooks in Poverty's dim world, Where the high tide of bounty never runs. No drop of all its wealth for some who sit And hear the river of riches brimming by. 204 MY LYRICAL LIFE. They see the Christmas shows of wealth and warmth, At window, whilst shut out at every door ! The Plenty only flouts their poverty ; The music mocks them with its merriment ; They look into each passing face and find No likeness of their own deep misery. In one of these dark nooks, at Christmas time, An Orphan family, with little fire, And only light enough to see the gloom, Together sat ; two Sisters and one Brother ; The youngest six years old ; the eldest twelve ; An old Grandfather lying ill a-bed. They knew that Christmas came, but not for them. Thus had they often sat o' winter nights, Shivering within, as darkness shuddered without, And creeping close together for heart-warmth ; Poor unfledged nurslings with the Mother gone ! Feeling a Presence brooding over them, In whose chill shadow they were pall'd and hooded ; So mournfully it kept the Mother's place ! Till flesh would creep as though about to leave The spirit naked — bare to the cold breath That whispers of the grave — all lidless eye To that appalling sight the helpless Dead Lie looking on, in their amazement, dumb, And petrified to marble ! So they sat ; The Shadow in the house and on the heart ; The old Clock ticking through the lonely room, With sounds that make the silence solemner, And weird hands pointing to far other times ; Talking of merry Christmas coming in ; Of visionary futures, and old days, AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. 205 With thoughts so far beyond their years ! The life In their young eyes gleamed preternaturally, Betwixt the fire-shine, and the dim night-shadows, As their old inmates of the heart stole forth To people the old ways they walked once more. And so, like those lorn pretty Babes i' the "Wood, That Robins buried when the talk was done, They told each other stories ; sang their Hymns ; By way of bribing the gaunt Solitude, Not to look down upon them quite so grim ! Poor darlings, with no Father, and no Mother. in. Ay me, dear Sister, gentle Brother, How soft the thought of a Mother lies At heart ; how sweet in sound 'twill rise ; And these poor Children had no Mother ! No Mother-arms in secret nook To fold the sufferer to her breast, With love that never breaks its rest, And Heartsease in her very look. No Mother-wings to brood above The winter nest and keep them warm ; And shield them from the pitiless storm, With the large shelter of her love. No Mother's tender touch that brings A music from the harp of life, Like hovering heaven above the strife And precious trembling of the strings. 20G MY LYRICAL LIFE. No Mother with her lap of love Each night for heads that bow in prayer ; Dear hands that stroke the smiling hair, And heart that pleads their cause above. No Mother whose quick, wistful eye Will see the shadow of Danger near, And face, with love that casts out fear, The blow that darkly hurtles by. No Mother's smile ineffable, To stir the Angel in the bud, Till, into perfect womanhood, The Flower blushes at the full. No Mother ! when the Darling One Bends with a grief that breaks the flower, To loose the sorrow in a shower, And lift the sweet face to the sun. No Mother's kiss of comfort near The River that Death overshades ; Or voice that, when the dim face fades, Sounds on with words of solemn cheer. Ay me, dear Sister, gentle Brother, How soft the thought of a Mother lies At heart ; how sweet in sound 'twill rise ; And these poor Children had no Mother. IV. Yet, God is kind ; His ways are Fatherly. Affliction's hand, it seem'd, had, at a touch, Awoke the Mother in the young Child-heart Of little Martha, who had now become AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. 207 A wee old woman at twelve years of age, With many Motherly ways. Yea, God is kind. The tiny Snowdrop braves the wintry blast; He tenderly protects its confidence That lifts the venturous head, safe in His hand : And Martha, in her loneliness of earth, And such a dearth of human fellowship, And such companionship with solitude, Had found a way of looking up to Heaven : And oft I think that God in heaven smiled ; Holding His hand about her little life, As one that shields a candle from the wind. She had the faith to feel Him nearest, when The world is farthest off ; and, in this faith, Her spirit went on wings, or, hand-in-hand With Love that digs below the deepest grave, And Hope that builds above the highest stars. In the old days before their sorrow came, And vast Eternity oped twice to them, And each time, following the lightning-flash, They groped in darkness for a Parent gone, She was the merriest of merry souls ; The gay heart laughing in her loving eyes ; The peeping rose-bud crimsoning her cheek ; Thei"e was as quick a spirit in her feet, As now had passed into her toiling fingers, That match the Mother's heart with Father's hands In their unwearied working for the rest. In those old days the Father made a song About his little maid, and sang it to her. 208 MY LYRICAL LIFE. V. " It is a merry Maiden, With spirits light as air; While others go heart-laden, And make the most of care, She trips along ivith laughter : Old Care may hobble after. 11 A sunbeam straight from heaven, She dances in my room ; The gladdest thing e'er given To cheer a heart or home : My stream of life may darkle, She makes the brighter sparkle. " Her smile it is the Morning That turns the 7nist to pearls ; All thought of sadness scorning, She shakes her sunny curls ; And, with her merry glancing, She sets all hearts a-dancing." VI. But now the Maid was changed, for she had been "With Sorrow in its chilly sanctuary ; Her look was paler, for it had been touched With that white stillness of the winding-sheet, That smile forlornly sweet upon the face When left forever widowed of the soul. Henceforth her life went softly all its days As if she felt the Grave-turf underfoot. AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. 209 Her beauty was more spiritual ; not aged Or worn ; less colour, but more light. It was a brier-rose beauty, tremulous With tenderest dew-drop purity of soul. I've often seen how well their favour wears Whose sufferings are for others, not for Self ; How long they keep a fair unfurrowed face, Whose tears are luminous with healing love, — The pearly cars that bring good spirits down To water and enrich their special flowers, — And do not come from cares that kill the heart ; These sere no bloom ; they leave no snaky trail. So Martha kept her face, and might have been The younger sister of that lily Maid, The lovable Elaine of Astolat. MI. We write the tale of Heroes in the blood They shed when dying where they nohly stood ; And the red letters gloriously bloom To light the warrior to a loftier doom. But there are battles where no cheers arise, And no flags wave before the fading eyes ; Heroes of whom the wide world never hears ; Their story only writ in Woman's tears. Yet that invisible ink shall surely shine Brightest in Heaven, and verily divine. And when God closes our world's blotted book, To cast it in the fire with awful look, It was so badly written, leaf on leaf Thus lived might touch the Father's heart with grief. 210 MY LYRICAL LIFE. And this Child-Mother's life may yield one story That shall be told among the first in glory. Her busy love and thoughtful care are such, The others do not miss the Mother much. From dawn to dark her presence lights the place With many a gleam of reliquary grace. Their few poor things in seemly order stand, Bright as with last touch of the Parent's hand. The clothes are mended, and the house is kept Clean as of old ; bravely hath Martha stepped In Mother's footprints ; her wee feet have tried Their best to track the Parent's larger stride. With household work her little hands are hard, Her arms are chilled, her knees with kneeling scarred : Dusty her hair that might have richly rolled With warm Venetian glow of Titian's gold. Great-hearted little woman ; she toils still, Though the Grandfather, lying old and ill, To her twin troubles adds a heavier third, She works on without one complaining word. VIII. And once a year she has her Holiday ; One day of airy life in fairyland, When young leaves open large their palms to catch The gold and silver of the sun and shower ; Shy Beauty pusheth back her glittering hood, To peep with her flower face ; the Silver Birk Shakes out her hair full-length against the bine ; AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. 211 The Fir puts forth hex' timid finger-tips, Like shrinking damsel trying a cold stream In which she comes to bathe. In merry green woods She rambles where the blue wild hyacinths Smile with their soft dream-haze in tender shade : The lightsome dance of gladsome green above ; The whispering sweetness of the wood below ; Birds singing, as for love of her, all round : Or, by the Brook that turns some stray sunbeam To a crooked scimitar of wavy gold, Then to itself laughs at the elvish work ! With her large eyes, and eager leaping looks, She pores o'er Nature's living picture-page, And gets some colour in her own pale life. Then home, with kindled cheek, when Eve's one Star Stands, waiting on the threshold of the night, In lively expectation of all heaven. IX. Home when the happy day is done, Home comes my little Maid ; Her pleasure — golden in the sun — Now dewy in the shade. Thoughts of the day will hover and bless Her sleep with sacred balminess. Through shutting eve the stars will peep, But still there comes no night ; 'Tis but the Day hath fallen asleep And smiles in dreams of light. p 2 212 MY LYRICAL LIFE. And Martha feels the heart of Love Beat on in silent stars above. x. To-night they sit with sadder, lonelier thought Than ever ; closer conies the Wolf of Want, And darklier falls the shadow of Orphanhood. For now the old man keeps his bed, and sct.-nis Death-stricken, with his face of ghastly gray ; His life all crowded in cold glittering eyes Watching the least light movement that is made. The Boy, a blithe and sunny godsend, gay As singing fountain springing in their midst, With loving spiral Leaping to the light, Is low at heart to-night, and sad and still. While Dora, in whose purple-lighted eyes There seems the shadow of a rain-cloud near, With but a faint shine of the cheery soul ; She longs to fly away and be at rest, And give her wishes wings in measured words That win strange pathos from her sweet young voice. " Come to the Belter Land, that Angels know ; Then walk in glory, shining as they go! The King in all His beauty takes the least To sit betide Him at the eternal feast." Thus sings the voice that calls me night and day. " This is a weary world, Come, come, come away I Ah, 'tis a dreary world, Come, come away." AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. 213 " From old heart-ache, and weariness, and pain — Sorrows that sigh, and hopes that soar in vain — Come to the Loved and Lost who are now the Blest ; They dwell in regions of Eternal rest." Thus sings the voice that calls me night and day. " This is a xoeary world, Come, come, come away ! Ah, 'tis a dreary world, Come, come away." 11 Here all things change ; the warmest hearts grow cold ; The young head droops and dims its glorious gold; Where Love hisp>illow hath made on Beauty's breast, The creatures of the Grave will make their nest." Thus sings the voice that calls me night and day. " This is a weary world, Come, come, come away 1 Ah, 'tis a dreary world, Come, come away." " The dear eyes where each morning rose our light, Soon darken with their last eternal night ; The heart that beat for us, the hallowed brow That bowed to bless, are cold and silent now." Thus sings the voice that calls me night and day. " This is a weary world, Come, come, come away ! Ah, 'tis a dreary world, Come, come away." " Nor fear the Grave, that door of Heaven on Earth ; All changed and beautifxd ye shall come forth, As from the cold dark cloud the winter shoivers Go underground to dress, and come forth Flowers." 214 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Thus sings the voice that calls me night and day. " This is a weary world, Come, come, come away I Ah, 'tis a dreary world, Come, come away." " Come to the Better Land, that angels know ; They walk in glory, shining as they go ! The King in all His beauty takes the least To sit beside Him at the eternal feast." Thus sings the voice that calls me night and day. " This is a weary world, Come, come, come away ! Ah, 'tis a dreary world, Come, come away." XI. "Nay, Sister," says the cheery Martha, "though Our lot be sad, your strain's too sorrowful ! We cannot spare you yet. Nor must we stoop To make our burthen heavier ; hear me, love. " A little Flower so lowly grew, So lonely was it left, That Heaven looked an eye of blue Down in its rocky cleft. " What could the little Flower do In such a darksome place, But try to reach that eye of blue. And climb to kiss Heaven's face ? AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. 215 " And there's no life so lone and low But strength may still be given 1'rvm narrowest lot on earth to grow The straighter up to Heaven." Again she sang, and set them singing too. " Here we are poorest of God's Poor, Toiling for bread from day to day, But laid up in Heacen a treasure is sure, While Money is round and rolls away. And though there's room for all the rest, I think God loves the Little Ones best. " Little hearts make merry, and sing Hovj His love to Children warms ! Little voices ripple and ring — ■ How He takes them in His arms ! And though there 's room for all the rest, L think God loves the Little Ones best." XII. Then, silent Fabyan lifted up his look, Bright as a Daisy when the dews have dried ; A sudden thought struck all tlie sun in his face. " Martha and Dora, L know what L'll do I L'll write a Letter to the good Lord Jesus, Who helps us if we put our trust in Him" The sisters smiled upon him through their tears. This was the Letter little Fabyan wrote. 216 MY LYRICAL LIFE. " Dear, beautiful Lord Jesus, Christmas is drawing near ; Its many shining sights ice see, Its merry sounds we hear : With p-esents for good Children, I know Thou art going now, From house to house tvith Christmas trees, Aid lights on every bough. " I pray thee, good Lord Jesus, To bring one tree to us, All aglow with ft "its of gold, J nd It aves all luminous. We her- no Mother, and, where ice live, No Christum.-; gifts are given ; We have no Friends on earth, but Thou Art our, good Friend in Heaven. "My Sisi 'tie Jesus, They hide the worst from me; But I ham ears that sometimes hear, And eyes that often see. Poor Martha's cloak is worn threadbare, I '<>or Doras boots are old ; And neither of them strong like me, To stand the wintry cold. '• But most of all, Lord Jesus, Grandfather is so ill ; 'Tis very sad to hear him moan, And startling xchen he's still. Ah ! xcell I knoio, Lord Jesus, If Thou xcoxdd'st only come, He'd look, and rise, and leave Ids bed, As Lazarus left his tomb. AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. 217 ; Forget us not, Lord Jesus, J and my sisters dear ; We love Thee! when Thou wert a Child Had ice been only near, And seen Thee lying, bonny babe, In manger or in stall, Thou slioirfd'st have had a home with us ; We would have given Thee all." XIII. The Letter signed and sealed, their prayers are said, And Martha lights the younger Bairns to bed. ^Yith all a Mother's heart she bends above Their rest, her eyes filled with a Mother's love. For soon their voices cease ; life fades away Into its quiet nest, till morrow-day : As the lakedilies shut their leaves of light When down the gloom descends the hush of night, In fear of what is passing, bow the head Beneath the water, they shrink down in bed. But soon the Angel Sleep doth smile all fear Away with wooing whispers at the ear ; And they will ope at morn eyes bathed in bliss ; Their faces fresh from their good Angel's kiss. But Martha sleeps not yet ; now they are gone, Brave little woman, she must still work on, And watch, to-night, for Grandfather is worse, She thinks, with no one near, save her for nurse. XIV. 'Tis very sad to hear a man so old, Talk of his mother who, beneath the mould, 218 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Has lain an age, and see his childish tears, That have to pierce the crust of eighty years. He turns and turns, incapable of rest, Tossed on the billow that heaves in brain and breast ; A life that beats with all too weak a wave To land him on the other side the Grave ! The old man mutters in his bi'oken dream. " Last night I wander d in a world of 'moan ; I saw a white Soid going all alone, Over the white snoivs of eternity ; I followed far , and followed fast to see The face, and lo, it was my own." And now he muses by some weird sea-side. " The tide is a-malcing its bonny Death-bed ; Hie white sea-maidens rise ready to wed ; Nearer and. nearer, unveiling their charms, They toss for their lovers, long, shadowy arms ! Dancing with other-world music and motion ; Brides of dead Sailors ; the Beauties of Ocean. " Wave after wave my worn, old Bark has tossed ; One moment saved, another it seemed lost For ever, still it righted from each blow ; But the great wave is coming on me now ! I see it towering high above the rest ; A world of eyes in its white glittering crest ; See how it climbs, calm in Us might, and curls Ready to clasp me in the wildering whirls, And when it bursts, in darkness, for last breath, I shall befiglding, graj+pled fast with Death" AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. 219 He sees an image of Martha now, with dim Wet eyes ; it moves in brightness far from him. " / am like the hoary Mountain, Gray with years, and very old ; And your life, a sprightly fountain, Springs, and leaves me lone and cold ; Dancing, glancing on its way, Down the valleys warm and gay. " There you go, Dear, singing, sparkling, I can see your dawn begin ; While the night, around me darkling, With its death-dews, shuts me in — Hear you singing on your tvay To the full and 'perfect day." The suffering passes into weariness ; The weariness fades into kind content : Faintly the tired heart flutters into stillness, And he has done with Age, and Want, and Illness. Gently he passed ; the little Maiden wept ; Sank down, o'erwearied, by the dead, and dept, With such a heavenly lustre on her face, You might have fancied Angels in the place : Companions through the day of our delight, That watch as winged Sentries all the night. xv. Next day a group of serious silent men Found a Dead Letter with strange life in it ; It was addressed to Jesus Christ in Heaven. It called up their old hearts into their eyes, 220 MY LYRICAL LIFE. For lofty meeting in a touch of tears. At length it reached the Lady Marian, And the Boy's letter had not missed its mark. XVI. This is my Lady Marian : She walks our world, a Shining one ! A Woman with an Angel-face, Sweet gravity, and tender grace ; And where she treads this earth of ours, Heaven blossoms into smiling flowers. This is the Lady Marian. One of the spirits that walk in white ! Many dumb hearts that sit in night, Her presence know, just as the Birds Know Morning, murmuring cheerful words. Where Life is darkest, she doth move With influence as of visible Love. This is the Lady Marian. Her coming all your being fills With a balm-breath from heaven's hills : And in her face the light is mild As though the heart within her smiled, And in her bosom sat to sing The spirit of immortal Spring. This is the Lady Marian. ■ We shall not mend the world ; we try, And lo, our work is vain ! " they cry. With her pathetic look, she hears ; You see the wounded soul bleed tears ; AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS. 221 Against the dark she sets her face, And calmly keeps her onward pace. This is the Lady Marian. One of God's treasurers for the Poor ! She keepeth open heart and door. That heart a holy well of wealth, Brimming life- waters, rich with health : That door an opening you look through, To find God our side of Heaven's blue. This is the Lady Marian. XVII. From out the darkness that took shape in Her, The Lady Marian came on Christmas day, Quick with maternal tenderness of soul, Her starry smile so radiant through their night, Her hands brimful of help, as was her heart With yearnings to arise and go when first She read the letter little Fabyan sent In his confiding simpleness of faith, — One of those representatives of God Who help to make the Poor believe in Him Because He hath some living like on Earth. And Martha knows that their worst days are done; In Dora's rich sad eyes a merry light Soon dances ! Lady Marian will prove A Mother, sent of God, to all the three. A trembling prayer had shook the Tree of Life, And, golden, out of heaven the fruitage falls Into their midst they think direct from God. 222 MY LYRICAL LIFE. THE BRIDEGROOM OF BEAUTY. " Who v:ears the Singing-Robe is richly dight," Said Mabel — " He is greater than a King," — Mabel, the saintly-sweet and fairily fine As Maiden rising from Enchanted Mere ; A queenly weature with her quiet grace, And dazzling white hand veined cerulean : Her eyes of violet-gray were coloured rich With shade of tender thought, and mirrored large Within them starry futures swam and shone : Ah ! what a smile to fill a life with light, And make the waking heart to sing in sleep ! — " / would I were a Poet," Mabel said, " Up like a Lark i' the morning of the times, To carol o'er the human harvesters ; Drop fancies, dainty-sweet, to cheer their toil, And hurry out a ripe luxuriance Of life in song, as though my heart would break ; To sing them sweet and precious memories, And golden promises, and throbbing hopes; Hymn the great Future with its mystery, That startles us from out the dark of time "With secrets numerous as a night of stars : THE BRIDEGROOM OF BEAUTY. 223 " Those days hung round with loftier heavens, where move The larger souls with their God-liker pace : Or send wronged Paces to the battle-field With eyes that weep and burn — stir as with fire The grand wild beast of Valour, till it leapt The red Arena fiery for the fight : Then bind with flowers, or plume the Patriot's brow. Anon I would sing songs so sweetly pure, That they might pillow a budding Maiden's cheek, Like spirit-hands, and catch her tender tears ; Or nestle next her heart lapt up in love : — Songs that in far lands, under alien skies, Should spring from English hearts like flowers of home ; Strive to bring down a light from heaven to read The records writ on Poverty's prison walls ; The signs of greatness limned in martyr blood, And make worn faces glow with warmth of love Into the lineaments of heavenly beauty. " Who wears a singing-robe is richly dight : The Poet, he is greater than a King. He plucks the veil from hidden loveliness : His gusts of music stir the shadowing boughs, To let in sunshine on the darkened soul. Upon the hills of light he plants his feet To lure the people up with harp and voice ; At humblest human hearths drops clew divine To feed the violet virtues nestling there. His hands adorn the poorest house of life With rare abiding shapes of loveliness. All things obey his soul's creative eye ; For him earth ripens fruit-like in the light j 224 MY LYRICAL LIFE. " Green April comes to him with smiling tears, Like some sweet Maiden who transfigured stands In dewy light of first love's rosy dawn, And yields all secret preciousness, his Bride. He reaps the Autumn without scythe or sickle ; And in the sweet low singing of the corn, Hears coming Plenty hush the pining Poor. " The shows of things are but a robe o' the day, His life down-deepens to the living heart, And Sorrow shows him her wise mysteries. He knows this Life is but a longer year, And it will blossom bright in other springs. The soul of all things is invisible, And nearest to that soul the Poet sings ; A sweet, shy Bird in darkling privacy. He beckons not the Pleasures as they pass, And lets the money-grubbing world go by. He hath a towering life, but cannot climb Out of the reach of sad calamity : A many carking cares pluck at his skirts ; Wild, wandering words are hissing at his ear ; He runs the gauntlet of his woes to reach The inner sanctuary of better life. But though the seas of sorrow flood his heart, l^ome silent spring of flowers blossoms there. His spirit-wounds a precious balsam bleed. The loveliest ministrants that visit him, Ptise veiled when his heart-fountains spring in tears. And when this misty life hath rolled away The turmoil hushed ; all foolish voices still ; The bonds that crushed his great heart shattered down, THE BRIDEGROOM OF BEAUTY. 225 And all his nature shines sublimely bare ; Death whitens many a stain of strife and toil, And careful hands shall pluck away each weed Around the spring that wells melodious life." Many are called, Aurelia replied, But few are crowned. I knew a Poet once ; One of the world's most marvellous Might-have- beens ; A strange wild harper upon human heart-strings. Life's morning-splendour round him prophesied That he should win his garland in the game. But he was lost for lack of that sweet thing, A Wife, to live his love's dear dream of beauty, And wandered darkling in his dazzling dream. Life's waters — troubled till that Angel comes — Never grew calm above the jewel he sought, Till in Death's harbour all their surges slept. He was betrothed to Beauty ere his birth — That silent Spirit of the universe, Which seeks interpreters of her dumb shows, 'Mong human lovers whom she may not wed. This Spirit arose from many things, as soars The soul of Harmony from many sounds. Out of the by-way of his lonely life, She beckoned him for her Evangelist, And straightway he arose and followed her, And in the shadow of her loveliness, Or in her wake of glory, walked our world. 226 MY LYRICAL LIFE. That shining Shape, in her sweet mystery, seemed Some beauteous miracle of eternal love. Through smiles, and tears, he saw his visioned Bride, "With gorgeous grace, and twinkling limbs of light, Aye dancing on in her delightsomeness. His love-dream glided silent through his life, Like rosy-handed Day 'twixt Earth and Night, And came betwixt his mind and all its glooms ; Her sandals wet and fragrant with Heaven's dew. She set the barren thorns in jewelled glow, And sowed the furrows of his life with flow* i He followed with wild looks and heart a-fire, And that rich mist of feeling in the eyes, AVhose alchemy half-creates the thing we see. She rose at dawn in sparkling clouds of dew, And kept the Morning's ruddy-golden gates ; Stood high in sunrise on the mountain-top ; Or in her bower of the ambient air Sat, shedding her rich beauty on the sea, Which of her likeness took some trembly tints ; Voyaged like Venus in her car of cloud Aliout the sapphire heaven's lake of love, Or danced on sunset streams to harp of gold : Then twilight mists would robe more dainty-rare Her dim, delicious, dreamy loveliness. The buds that startle at the voice of May And open merry eyes, had been with her ; Their subtle smile said what they could reveal. She nestled glancing at him from the flower He plucked, and only caught her passing breath ; Even as he grasped her vesture she was gone. Among the boughs that burgeon into bloom ; THE BRIDEGROOM OF BEAUTY. 227 The coloured clouds that kindle and richly rise From out the bosom of Earth's emerald sea ; Hedge-roses set in dewy radiance green ; The lush Laburnums, all a rain of gold ; She seemed to hive fled and left her robe afloat. An Ariel now, she murmured in the Pines ; He heard, but had no magic word or wand. A wavy Naiad, she rippled the cool brooks That round her dallied, babbling in their dreams. The fragrant feeling of the languorous air Was as the soft endeai-ment of her arms, That wound him in a tremulous caress. Not by appointment do we meet Delight And Joy ; they heed not our expectancy ; But round some corner in the streets of life, They, on a sudden, clasp us with a smile. So on him rose his visitant divine, From many a magic mirror of the mind ; With elfin evanescence came and went. When, thronged with life, the Year in beauty burst, Lifted her lids, and blossomed from the trees, She glanced from all the gateways of the spring. In burnished bark swam down the summer-tide That floods the valleys, breaks o'er all the hills, In sparkling spray of flowers, and leafy life. She roofed the Autumn forests with the wealth Of melted rainbows, caught from summer heaven. And winter trees stretched fingers weird to win The perfect. pearl of her white purity. Where'er she went Earth looked up and was glad. Q 2 228 MY LYRICAL LIFE. Through Music's maze she glode at hide-and-seek ; Played with th ■ Storm, then in her Iris-shape Laughed from the purple skirts of Heaven, as laughs Some radiant Child from Mother's hiding robe. Adown dim forest-windings he would peer ; Surprise his Beautiful at her woodland bath, And in a solemn hush of heart stand still Like fixed flame ! for lo, how softly glowed Her dainty limbs in depths of dissolved pearl ! Then swift as runs a wind- wave over grass, He saw her garments gleam in leafy light. Were those love-whisperings among the leaves, Or elvish laughters twitting through the trees ] Sometimes the boughs let in her haunting face ; But the old Forest kept the secret still, And hushed it round with grave unconscious look. In vernal nights so tender, calm, and cool, When eerie Darkness lnys its shadoAvy hands On Earth, and reads her sins with searching eyes, Like a Confessor o'er a kneeling Nun ; He stood in God's wide whispering-gallery, And breathed Ins worship : down from visible heaven Her influence fell, and thrilled in music through The silences of space, and soothed his soul, Till life was folded up brimful of beauty, As the flower clasps its pearl and droops to dream. At times, from out the curtains of the dark, Her face Avould meet him through the glowing gloom. Sometimes she passed ; her rippling raiment touched THE BRIDEGROOM OF BEAUTY. 229 His sense, and sphered him with diviner air, Like honeysuckles brushed at dewy dusk. The fragrance of her breath made old earth young. From mystery to mystery, like a Bride, The dainty-waisted darling led him on, And dropped love-tokens in his pilgrim path. The red Hose peering from its cool green leaves Like warm Love lifting half its hiding veil, Symbolled her soft red mouth held up to him. A virgin whiteness in a dream of bloom, Gave to her tender cheeks their taking tint. Her eyes were orbs of thought that on him burned Fervent as Hesper in the brow of night. He walked as in a clime of golden eves. The vineyard of his life reeled lusty-ripe ; He ached to press the wine upon her lips, But aye she melted from his love's embrace, To float him far away in faery lands. The wooing wind would murmur of her fairness, And round him breathe in many whispers sweet ; Bring dews of healing as from Hermon hill ; Creep to his burning heart with drink of life, And cool him with her kisses. Oft he hushed, As one who pauses on a midnight heath, To catch the footfall felt by Fancy's ear. When he awoke in Dreamland, 'twas to find He had been floated through some starry dark Far from earth's shore, on an enchanted sea : And he lay pillowed 'twixt her white warm breasts, In glowing arms of glorifying love : A light of love-dreams on her features shone, And she had laid her daylight mask aside ; 230 MY LYRICAL LIFE. A 11 the sweet soul of things bare to him, as lies The mirrored moon in silver sleeping seas. A shimmering splendour from the By-gone broke, As the Ship leaves a luminous wake behind; And, looking back, his Childhood's world she ringed With rich auroral hues of summer dawns. AY hen weird, dark shapes of sorrow hunted nigh With their slow solemn eyes, and silent aim, She dropped the gold cloud of her tresses round him. When o'er him hung the night of adverse fate, She was a light along his perilous path, And through the darkness of his soul there broke A heaven of worlds all tenderness and peace. At times he walked with glad and dauntless step, As inner wings to heroic music moved ; And men who read his lighted look might deem His life a summer story told in flowers. But often he would falter weeping-weak, With clasped hands, and very lowly heart. Then she rose radiant in a finer light, Seen through the altar-smoke and mist of tears. So his life grew to beauty silently, And shaped his soul into an orb of song. He sang of Her his beautiful Unknown ! And to his music she would coyly come ; He ceased — to look on her — and she was gone. He sang of Her his beautiful Unknown, Heart-wild, as some glad bird that tells of spring, He would have made the world her worshipper, And all Earth's voices ring a rich refrain. THE BRIDEGROOM OF BEAUTY. 231 One day our passionate pilgrim sat him down By the wayside of life, and thus he prayed — " thou Beloved ! thou Beautiful ! On our perfection throned for pedestal : Spirit as the lightning wild and bright, Come from thy palace of the purple light ! Come down to mortal arms a living form, With heavenly height of brow, and bosom warm. Glow human from the mist, thou Shape of Grace ; Thou tender wonder, fold me face to face. Art thou not mine, thou delicate Delight ? Hast thou not visited me noon and night ? Freighted with my dead Hopes I follow thee, Like some Norse Sea-king flaming out to sea. Say, are the pleasant bowers far away, Decked by thy dear hands for our Marriage-day, Where we the gardens of delight shall roam In endless love ? Now wilt thou lead me home, To find our bliss in heaven's honied heart ; Live secret soul to soul, never to part ? ' ' awful Glory, felt, but nowhere found, I have but seen thy Shadow on life's ground. I know thee now, Immortal ! shoAV the way To thine Elysium, I would die to-day. Break into wings this chrysalis of my life, That I may soar to thee my spirit-wife. Thy dark bower-door, the Grave, gives me no fear ; "When I emerge beyond, thou wilt be near." O'er all his face a light of glory smiled, His soul had rent the veil 'twist life and life. Slowly the shining vapours orb a Star, By fine degrees before his fixed eyes. 232 MY LYRICAL LIFE. The Spirit lie had sought through all the world, — Had sought without but only found within, — Turned full upon him face to face at last. She laid her hand upon his throbbing harp ; She pressed her lips upon his passionate life ; And both stood still. In death he had found his Bride. POEMS FOE CHRISTIE. A WINTER'S TALE FOR THE LITTLE ONES. A jierry sound of clapping hands, A call to see the sight ; And lo ! the first soft snow-flakes fall, So exquisitely virginal : 'Tis my wee Nell at window stands, And the world is all in white. Her eyes, where dawns my bluest Day, Dance with the dancing snow ! I see delicious shivers thrill Her through and through. She feels the chill Of Earth so white, and skies so gray Enrich our fireside glow. " Xo Winters noio, my little Maid, Like those that used to come, Making our Christmas sparkle, bright As crystallized plum-cake at night, And Frost his Puck-like trickeries played, With fancies frolicsome. " He fixed your breath in flowers, the Trees To Chandeliers would turn : He pinched your toes, he nipped your nose, He made your cheek a torinkled Rose : Perhaps at night you heard him sneeze, And the Jug loas cracked at morn I a winter's tale for the little ones. 235 " The Snow-Storms were magnificent ! And in the clear, still weather Against the bitter wintry blue And Sunset's orange-tawny hue You saw the smoke straight upward went, For weeks and iveeks together. " At night the Waits mixed with our dream Their music sweet and low : We children knew not as we heard, Each, listening, nestled like a Bird, Whether from Heaven the music came, Or only over the snow ! il No winters now-a-days like those." And then my darling tries To coax me for a " tale that's true : A story that is new— quite new." And up the arch of wonder goes, Above the frank, blue eyes ! " Once on a time " — "Do tell me when, And where ? " says my wee Nell — " When Cliristmas came on Thursday — now, Some five-and-thirty years ago ! Superbly we were snowed-up then, Who lived in Ingle Dell. " His icy Drawbridge Winter dropped ; The running sjwings he froze ; The Roads were lost ; the hedges crossed ; All field-ivork ceased through the ' Long Frost.' Bid there was one thing never stopped — That was Grandmother s nose I 236 MY LYRICAL LIFE. " The snow might/all by day, by night, The iceather wax more rough, And up to our bedroom windoivs heap TJit drift, and smother men like sheep, And wrap the world in a shroud of white- Old Gran must have her snuff 1 " So Uncle Willie, then a lad Not more than nine years old, Upon the Christmas morn must go And fetch her snuff, and face the Snow, Which surely had gone dancing mad, And wrestle with the cold. " Wrapped in his crimson Comforter, His basket on his arm, lie started. Mother folloioed him With her proud eyes so dewy-dim ; While kisses from the heart of her Within his heart were warm. '• How gentle is the gracious Snow, When first you xcatch her dance ; Her feathery flutter, tcinding whorls ; Her finish perfect as -the pearVs ; She looks you in the face as though 'Twere unveiled Innocence. •' But now, 'tis wild upon the waste, And winged upon the wind : You see, just jxissing out of sight, The Ghost of things in a swirl of white I— The Storm unwinkingly he faced, Though it snowed enough to blind. a winter's tale for the little ones. 237 " Fire-pointed, stinging, strikes and burns To the bone, each icy dart. He stumbles— falls — is up again, And onward for the Town a-strain; Backward our Willie never turns, And never loses heart. " He looks a weird and wintry Elf With, face in ruddy glow ; And all his curls are straightened out, Hanging in Icicles about A sparkling statue of himself , Shaped out of frozen snow. " He still fought on, for though the Storm Might bend him, he was tough ; And when the Blast would take his breath, With kisses like the kiss of death, One thought still kept his courage warm — It was Grandmother's Snuff ! "At length with many a danger passed, Unboding worse to come, He has got the Snuff. Far more than food, Or wine, 'twill warm her poor old blood. He lias it safe at last, at last ! And sets his face for Home. " He has the Snuff ; but it were well If Granny had it too ! For early closes such a day, And wild and dreary is the way ; If dark before he reach the Bell, What can poor Willie do ? 238 MY LYRICAL LIFE. <■ Within the Town the blast is hushed ; The snow-flakes from you melt : But out upon the pathless moor, The storm grows madder titan before ; And at him all its furies rushed, Till he faint and fainter felt. " His thoughts are whirling with the Snow : His eyes get dizzy and dim ! And on the path, 'twixt him and night, Novj dancing left, now dancing rigid, It seems a white Witch-Woman doth go, With white hand beckoning him ! " To the last stile he clung — maybe A furlong from our door ; Then missed his footing on the plank, And deep into the snow-drift sank. 0, my beloved Willie, we Shall never see you more ! "Ah, they looked long and wistfully Who waiting sat at home: At every sound they leaned to hark ; They strained their eyes through the depeening dark, And wondered where could Willie be, And when would Willie come ? " Through all that night of wild affright They searched the road to Town ; They called him high, they ccdled him low, They mocked each other through the snow, And cdl the night, by lanthorn light, They wandered up and down. A winter's tale for the little ones. 230 " They sought him where the waters plash Darkly by Deadman s Gave ! They sovght him at the Rag-Pit, near The Mill, and by the awesome Weir ; At the Cross-Roads tohere ' Harry s Ash' Grows from the Suicide's Grave. " In Ingle Dell they locked no door, Put out no light. At such A time you cling to a little thing Thai's done for neighbourly comforting ! Old Gran thought she ivould snuff no more, And she took thrice as much. " All night the Snow with fingers soft Kept pointing to the ground. Only too well they knew 'twas there ; Put had no hint to guide them where ! And he so near. They passed him oft, Close by his white grave-nwund. " And did he die ? " cries little Nell. " No, he was nestled warm. The Snow's white arm that round him curled Had caught him into another world : What other world he coxdd not tell, Put, out of all the storm. " And all toas changed too suddenly For him to know the place. He swooned awhile, and when he ivoke A lightning from his darkness broke ; Alone with the Eternal he Seemed standing face to face! 240 MY LYRICAL LIFE. " Then in his grave alive, he knew II stood, or sat upright/ With burning ! >r