Red Letter Library 
 
 POEMS BY 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
 
 First printed September, igo2 
 Reprinted November, igoz; igo4
 
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 Stacff" 
 Annexe 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Moiilton Barrett, eldest 
 child of a large number, was bom in March, 
 1806, at Coxhoe Hall, Durham. Her child- 
 hood was passed in the beautiful western 
 county of Herefordshire ; she had a country 
 youth. In later years her health was so 
 broken that she was every winter threatened 
 with death. The drowning of her best- 
 beloved brother off Torquay as she lay ill 
 in her sea-side chamber was a shock and a 
 grief that almost killed her. After years 
 spent in her fathers house at Wimpole 
 Street, mtich in the seclusion of an in- 
 valid's room, Elisabeth married Robert 
 Browning, with a secrecy made necessary 
 by her father's anger at any project of 
 marriage for his daughter. The story of 
 the devoted love and most happy marriage 
 of these two poets is known to the world. 
 They lived in Florence, and Mrs. Browning 
 became rashly and sentimentally "-patriotic " 
 
 OvT)
 
 on heh.alf of Italy . There she died, and there 
 she lies buried. 
 
 By all consent she is one of the poets of 
 whom all the educated must know some- 
 thing. The covipa7iy of such poets is large 
 but not innumerable, and to be amongst 
 them was without doubt the ambition of her 
 lieart. For in that band there is no separa- 
 tion of sexes, and a writer is admitted an 
 English classic, without that abatement of 
 critical judgment ^^ good for a woman ''\ or 
 that lateral sub-division ''a high place 
 amongst women poets ". To be deprived of 
 both the honour and the severity to which her 
 work made claim — and to be so deprived not 
 by reason of anything amongst its own 
 qualities — was an injustice Mrs. Browning 
 felt or feared sorely. 
 
 In order to secure themselves against the 
 same thing, the two great Georges^ George 
 Sand and George Eliot, assumed these famous 
 names, and Charlotte Bronte attempted in 
 a half-hearted way the mystification of 
 "■ Currer BelV\ Mrs. Browning took the 
 more logical ground, that a woman ought to 
 be free to reveal, and indeed to insist upon, 
 her own sex, and yet ought to have equal
 
 judgment upon her literary pouers. She 
 wrote distinctively as a wovian, ivhether her 
 subject were art, love, maternity, or the 
 unity of Italy, knowing that she was bring- 
 ing a complementary power to the repre- 
 sentation of human things. 
 
 Her poetry has genius. It is abundant 
 and exuberant, precipitate and immoderate ; 
 but these are faults of style, and not de- 
 ficiencies of faculties. When she is gentle 
 she is classic, and all but perfect. In the 
 present collection, while some example of all 
 her pozvers has a place, th-e best work is most 
 richly represented. The blank verse, which 
 has almost every fault of form, however rich 
 and even loaded the matter, is omitted. 
 Yoking readers should sttidy the lovely 
 sonnets froin the Portuguese, and " The Sea- 
 Mew ", and for impassioned feeling that 
 needed, neither spur nor restraint, ' ' Cowper's 
 Grave ". 
 
 ALICE MEYNELL.
 
 Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 The Sleep i 
 
 A Sea-side Walk ... - 4 
 
 The Sea-Mew 6 
 
 My Doves 9 
 
 Consolation - - - - - 13 
 
 Cowper's Grave - 14 
 
 The Pet-Name 19 
 
 The Soul's Expression - - - 23 
 
 Irreparableness 24 
 
 Tears 25 
 
 Grief 26 
 
 Comfort 27 
 
 Perplexed Music - - - - 28 
 
 Futurity 29 
 
 The Two Sayings - - - -30 
 
 The Look 31
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 The Meaning of the Look - - - 32 
 A Thought for a Lonely Death-Bed - 33 
 Pain in Pleasure ----- 34 
 Cheerfulness taught by Reason - - 35 
 
 Exagfg-eration 36 
 
 The Romaunt of the Page - - - 37 
 The Lay of the Brown Rosary - - 53 
 Lady Geraldine's Courtship ' - - 82 
 Rhyme of the Duchess May - - n? 
 The Cry of the Children - - - 146 
 Crowned and Buried - - - - 156 
 To Flush, My Dog - - - - 167 
 The Cry of the Human - - - 173 
 Bertha in the Lane - - - - 179 
 
 Loved Once 191 
 
 Catarina to Camoens - - - - 195 
 
 A Portrait 202 
 
 The Romance of the Swan's Nest - 205 
 
 The Dead Pan 210 
 
 Hector in the Garden - - - - 224 
 
 Flush or Faunus 230 
 
 The Prospect - - - - - 231 
 A Child's Thought of God - - - 232 
 
 X
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 A R«ed 233 
 
 A Child's Grave at Florence - - 234 
 
 Inclusions - - , . - . 242 
 
 Sonnets from the Portug-uese - - 243
 
 The Sleep 
 
 '■ He giveth His 
 beloved sleep." — 
 Psalm cxxvii. 2. 
 
 Of all the thoug-hts of God that are 
 Borne inward unto souls afar, 
 Along the Psalmist's music deep, 
 Now tell me if that any is. 
 For gift or grace, surpassing this — 
 "He giveth His beloved, sleep"? 
 
 What would we give to our beloved? 
 The hero's heart, to be unmoved, 
 The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep. 
 The patriot's voice, to teach and rouse, 
 The monarch's crown, to light the brows ?- 
 He giveth His beloved, sleep. 
 
 What do we give to our beloved? 
 
 A little faith all undisproved, 
 
 A little dust to overweep. 
 
 And bitter memories to make 
 
 The whole earth blasted for our sake. 
 
 He giveth His beloved, sleep.
 
 THE SLEEP 
 
 IV 
 
 "Sleep soft, beloved!" we sometimes say. 
 
 But have no tune to charm away 
 
 Sad dreams that through the ej'elids creep. 
 
 But never doleful dream again 
 
 Shall break the happy slumber when 
 
 He giveth His beloved, sleep. 
 
 O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
 O men, with wailing in your voices! 
 O delved gold, the wallers heap! 
 O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! 
 God strikes a silence through you all, 
 And giveth His beloved, sleep. 
 
 VI 
 
 His dews drop mutely on the hill; 
 His cloud above it saileth still, 
 Though on its slope men sow and reap. 
 More softly than the dew is shed, 
 Or cloud is floated overhead. 
 He giveth His beloved, sleep. 
 
 Ay, men may wonder while they scan 
 A living, thinking, feeling man 
 Confirmed in such a rest to keep ;
 
 THE SLEEP 
 
 But angels say, and throug-h the word 
 I think their happy smile is heard — 
 "He giveth His beloved, sleep". 
 
 For me, my heart that erst did go 
 Most like a tired child at a show, 
 That sees through tears the mummers leap, 
 Would now its wearied vision close, 
 Would childlike on His love repose, 
 Who giveth His beloved, sleep. 
 
 IX 
 
 And, friends, dear friends — when it shall be 
 That this low breath is gone from me, 
 And round my bier ye come to weep, 
 Let One, most loving of you all. 
 Say, "Not a tear must o'er her fall;'' 
 "He giveth His beloved, sleep".
 
 A Sea-side j^ j^ 
 
 Walk 
 
 I 
 
 We walked beside the sea 
 After a day which perished silently 
 Of its own glory— like the princess weird 
 Who, combating the Genius, scorched and 
 
 seared, 
 Uttered with burning breath, "Ho! vic- 
 tory!" 
 And sank adown an heap of ashes pale. 
 So runs the Arab tale 
 
 II 
 
 The sky above us showed 
 A universal and unmoving cloud, 
 On which the cliffs permitted us to see 
 Only the outline of their majesty. 
 As master-minds when gazed at by the 
 
 crowd ! 
 And, shining with a gloom, the water grey 
 
 Swang in its moon-taught way. 
 
 Nor moon, nor stars were out. 
 They did not dare to tread so soon about, 
 Though trembling, in tiie footsteps of the
 
 A SEA-SIDE WALK 
 
 The light was neither night's nor day's, 
 
 but one 
 Which, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt. 
 And silence's impassioned breathings round 
 Seemed wandering into sound. 
 
 O solemn-beating heart 
 Of nature ! I have kno\\ ledge that thou 
 
 art 
 Bound unto man's by cords he cannot 
 
 sever — 
 And, what time they are slackened by him 
 
 ever, 
 So to attest his own supernal part, 
 Still runneth thy vibration fast and strong 
 The slackened cord along. 
 
 For though we never spoke 
 Of the grey water and the shaded rock. 
 Dark wave and stone unconsciously were 
 
 fused 
 Into the plaintive speaking that we used 
 Of absent friends and memories unforsook; 
 And, had we seen each other's face, we had 
 Seen haply, each was sad.
 
 The Sea- Mew 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 INSCRIBED TO 
 
 M. E. H. 
 
 How joyously the young sea-mew 
 Lay dreaming on the waters blue, 
 Whereon our little bark had thrown 
 A little shade, the only one, — 
 But shadows ever man pursue. 
 
 Familiar with the waves and free 
 As if their own white foam were he. 
 His heart upon the heart of ocean 
 Lay learning all its mystic motion, 
 And throbbing to the throbbing sea. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And such a brightness in his eye, 
 As if the ocean and the sky 
 Within him had lit up and nurst 
 A soul God gave him not at first, 
 To comprehend their majesty. 
 ^ B 65 ) 6
 
 THE SEA-MEW 
 
 We were not cruel, yet did sunder 
 His white wing from the blue waves under, 
 And bound it, while his fearless eyes 
 Shone up to ours in calm surprise, 
 As deeming us some ocean wonder ! 
 
 We bore our ocean bird unto 
 A grassy place, where he might view 
 The flowers that curtsey to the bees, 
 The waving of the tall green trees, 
 The falling of the silver dew. 
 
 VI 
 
 But flowers of earth were pale to him 
 Who had seen the rainbow fishes swim; 
 And when earth's dew around him lay 
 He thought of ocean's winged spray, 
 And his eve waxed sad and dim. 
 
 The green trees round him only made 
 A prison with their darksome shade; 
 And drooped his wing, and mourned he 
 For his own boundless glittering sea — 
 Albeit he knew not they could fade. 
 
 (B65) 7 B
 
 THE SEA-MEW 
 
 VIII 
 
 Then One her gladsome face did bring, 
 Her gentle voice's murmuring, 
 In ocean's stead his heart to move 
 And teach him what was human love — 
 He thought it a strange, mournful thing. 
 
 IX 
 
 He lay down in his grief to die, 
 (First looking to the sea-like sky 
 That hath no waves!) because, alas! 
 Our human touch did on him. pass. 
 And with our touch, our agony.
 
 My Doves 
 
 " O Weisheit ! Du 
 
 red"st wie eine 
 Taube ! "— Goethe. 
 
 My little doves have left a nest 
 
 Upon an Indian tree, 
 Whose leaves fantastic take their rest 
 
 Or motion from the sea; 
 For, ever there, the sea-winds go 
 With sunlit paces to and fro. 
 
 The tropic flowers looked up to it, 
 The tropic stars looked down, 
 
 And there my little doves did sit. 
 With feathers softly brown, 
 
 And glittering- eyes that showed their right 
 
 To general Nature's deep delight. 
 
 And God them taught, at every- close 
 Of murmuring waves beyond, 
 
 And green leaves round, to interpose 
 Their choral voices fond. 
 
 Interpreting that love must be 
 
 The meaning of the earth and sea. 
 9
 
 MV DOVES 
 
 Fit ministers ! Of living loves, 
 Theirs hath the calmest fashion, 
 
 Their living voice the likest moves 
 To lifeless intonation, 
 
 The lovely monotone of springs 
 
 And winds, and such insensate things. 
 
 My little doves were ta'en away 
 From that glad nest of theirs, 
 
 Across an ocean rolling grey. 
 And tempest-clouded airs. 
 
 My little doves, — who lately knew 
 
 The sky and wave by warmth and blue! 
 
 And now, within the city prison, 
 In mist and chillness pent, 
 
 With sudden upward look they listen 
 For sounds of past content — 
 
 For lapse of water, swell of breeze, 
 
 Or nut-fruit falling from the trees. 
 
 The stir without the glow of passion, 
 
 The triumph of the mart. 
 The gold and silver as they clash on 
 
 Man's cold metallic heart — 
 The roar of wheels, the cry for bread. 
 These onl}' sounds are heard instead.
 
 MV DOVES 
 
 Yet slill, as on my human hand 
 Their fearless heads they lean, 
 
 And almost seem to understand 
 What human musings mean, 
 
 (Their eyes, with such a plaintive shine, 
 
 Are fastened upwardly to mine!) 
 
 Soft falls their chant as on the nest 
 
 Beneath the sunny zone; 
 For love that stirred it in their breast 
 
 Has not aweary grown, 
 And 'neath the city's shade can keep 
 The well of music clear and deep. 
 
 And love that keeps the music, fills 
 
 With pastoral memories; 
 All echoings from out the hills. 
 
 All droppings from the skies, 
 All flowings from the wave and wind, 
 Remembered in their chant, I find. 
 
 So teach ye me the wisest part, 
 My little doves ! to move 
 
 Along the city-ways with heart 
 Assured by holy love, 
 
 And vocal with such songs as own 
 
 A fountain to the world unknown.
 
 MV DOVES 
 
 'Twas hard to sing by Babel's stream- 
 More hard, in Babel's street! 
 
 But if the soulless creatures deem 
 Their music not unmeet 
 
 For sunless walls — let us begin, 
 
 Who wear immortal wings within ! 
 
 To me, fair memories belong 
 Of scenes that used to bless, 
 
 For no regret, but present song, 
 And lasting thankfulness. 
 
 And very soon to break away. 
 
 Like types, in purer things than they. 
 
 I will have hopes that cannot fade. 
 For flowers the valley yields! 
 
 I will have humble thoughts instead 
 Of silent, dewy fields ! 
 
 My spirit and my God shall be 
 
 My sea-ward hill, my boundless sea.
 
 Consolation 
 
 All are not taken; there are left behind 
 Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring, 
 And make the daylight still a happy thing, 
 And tender voices, to make soft the wind. 
 But if it were not so — if I could find 
 No love in all the world for comforting. 
 Nor any path but hollowly did ring. 
 Where "dust to dust" the love from life 
 
 disjoined. 
 And if, before those sepulchres unmoving, 
 I stood alone, (as some forsaken lamb 
 Goes bleating up the moors in wear}' 
 
 dearth) 
 Crying "Where are ye, O my loved and 
 
 loving?" . , . 
 I know a Voice would sound, " Daughter, 
 
 I AM. 
 
 Can I suffice for Heaven, and not for 
 earth?" 
 
 i3
 
 Cowper's 
 Grave 
 
 It is a place where poets crowned may feel 
 
 the heart's decaying. 
 It is a place where happy saints may weep 
 
 amid their praying. 
 Yet let the grief and humbleness, as low 
 
 as silence, languish : 
 Earth surely now may give her calm to 
 
 whom she gave her anguish. 
 
 O poets, from a maniac's tongue was 
 
 poured the deathless singing ! 
 O Christians, at your cross of hope, a 
 
 hopeless hand was clinging! 
 O men, this man in brotherhood your 
 
 weary paths beguiling. 
 Groaned inly while he taught you peace, 
 
 and died while ye were smiling! 
 M
 
 COWPERS GRAVE 
 
 in 
 
 And now, what time ye all may read 
 through dimming tears his stor}', 
 
 How discord on the music fell, and dark- 
 ness on the glor}-, 
 
 And how when, one by one, sweet sounds 
 and wandering lights departed. 
 
 He wore no less a loving face because so 
 broken-hearted. 
 
 He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's 
 
 high vocation. 
 And bow the meekest Christian down in 
 
 meeker adoration. 
 Nor ever shall he be, in praise, by wise or 
 
 good forsaken, 
 Named softly as the household name of 
 
 one whom God hath taken. 
 
 With quiet sadness and no gloom I learn 
 
 to think upon him, — 
 With meekness that is gratefulness to God 
 
 whose heaven hath won him, 
 Who suffered once the madness-cloud to 
 
 His own love to blind him, 
 But gently led the blind along where 
 
 breath and bird could find him.
 
 COWPERS GRAVE 
 
 VI 
 
 And wrought within his shattered brain 
 such quick poetic senses 
 
 As hills have language for, and stars, har- 
 monious influences. 
 
 The pulse of dew upon the grass, kept his 
 within its number. 
 
 And silent shadows from the trees refreshed 
 him like a slumber. 
 
 Wild timid hares were drawn from woods 
 
 to share his home-caresses, 
 Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan 
 
 tendernesses. 
 The very world, by God's constraint, from 
 
 falsehood's ways removing, 
 Its women and its men became, beside 
 
 him, true and loving. 
 
 VIII 
 
 And though, in blindness, he remained un- 
 conscious of that guiding. 
 
 And things provided came without the 
 sweet sense of providing. 
 
 He testified this solemn truth, while 
 phrenzy desolated, 
 
 — Nor man nor nature satisfy whom only 
 God created. 
 
 i6
 
 COIVPERS GRAVE 
 
 IX 
 
 Like a sick child that knoweth not his 
 
 mother while she blesses 
 And drops upon his burning- brow the 
 
 coolness of her kisses, — 
 That turns his fevered eyes around — "My 
 
 mother! where 's my mother?" — 
 As if such tender words and deeds could 
 
 come from anv other! — 
 
 The fever gone, with leaps of heart he 
 
 sees her bending o'er him, 
 Her face all pale from watchful love, the 
 
 unweary love she bore him ! — 
 Thus, woke the poet from the dream his 
 
 life's long fever gave him. 
 Beneath those deep pathetic Eyes, which 
 
 closed in death to save him. 
 
 Thus? oh, not thus\ no type of earth can 
 
 image that awaking, 
 Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of 
 
 seraphs, round him breaking. 
 Or felt the new immortal throb of soul 
 
 from body parted, 
 But felt those eyes alone, and knew, — 
 
 "J/y Saviour! not deserted!" 
 17
 
 COWPERS GRAVE 
 
 Deserted ! Who hath dreamt that when 
 
 the cross in darkness rested, 
 Upon the Victim's hidden face, no love was 
 
 manifested? 
 What frantic hands outstretched have e'er 
 
 the atoning- drops averted? 
 What tears have washed them from the 
 
 soul, that one should be deserted? 
 
 Deserted! God could separate from His 
 
 own essence rather; 
 And Adam's sins have swept between the 
 
 righteous Son and Father. 
 Yea, once, Immanuel's orphaned cry His 
 
 universe hath shaken — 
 It went up single, echoless, " My God, I 
 
 am forsaken ! " 
 
 XIV 
 
 It went up from the Holy's lips amid His 
 
 lost creation, 
 That, of the lost, no son should use those 
 
 words of desolation ! 
 That earth's worst phrenzies, marring hope, 
 
 should mar not hope's fruition, 
 And I, on Cowper's grave, should see his 
 
 rapture in a vision. 
 i8
 
 The Pet-Name 
 
 " the name 
 
 Which from their Hps 
 
 seemed a caress." 
 —Miss Mitford's 
 Dramatic Scenes. 
 
 I have a name, a little name, 
 
 Uncadenced for the ear, 
 Unhonoured by ancestral claim, 
 Unsanctified by prayer and psalm 
 The solemn font an ear. 
 
 It never did, to pages wove 
 
 For gay romance, belong. 
 It never dedicate did move 
 As " Sacharissa ", unto love — 
 
 "Orinda", unto song. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Though I write books it will be read 
 
 Upon the leaves of none, 
 And afterward, when I am dead. 
 Will ne'er be graved for sight or tread 
 
 Across my funeral-stone. 
 19
 
 THE PET'NAME 
 
 This name, whoever chance to call, 
 
 Perhaps your smile may win. 
 Nay, do not smile ! mine eyelids fall 
 Over mine eyes, and feel withal 
 The sudden tears within. 
 
 Is there a leaf that greenly grows 
 Where summer meadows bloom. 
 But gathereth the winter snows. 
 And changeth to the hue of those 
 If lasting till they come? 
 
 VI 
 
 Is there a word, or jest, or game, 
 
 But time incrusteth round 
 With sad associate thoughts the same' 
 And so to me my very name 
 
 Assumes a mournful sound. 
 
 VII 
 
 My brother gave that name to me 
 When we were children twain, — 
 When names acquired baptismally 
 Were hard to utter, as to see 
 That life had any pain.
 
 THE PET-NAME 
 
 vin 
 
 No shade was on us then, save one 
 
 Of chestnuts from the hill — 
 And through the word our laugh did run 
 As part thereof. The mirth being done, 
 
 He calls me bv it still. 
 
 IX 
 
 Nay, do not smile ! I hear in it 
 
 What none of you can hear, — 
 The talk upon the willow seat, 
 The bird and wind that did repeat 
 Around, our human cheer. 
 
 I hear the birthday's noisy bliss, 
 
 My sisters' woodland glee, — 
 My father's praise, I did not miss, 
 When stooping down he cared to kiss 
 The poet at his knee, — 
 
 XI 
 
 And voices, which, to name me, aye 
 
 Their tenderest tones were keeping- 
 To some I never more c-an say 
 An answer, till God wipes away 
 In heaven these drops of weeping.
 
 THE PET-NAME 
 
 XII 
 
 My name to me a sadness wears, 
 
 No murmurs cross my mind. 
 Now God be thanked for these thick tears. 
 Which show, of those departed years. 
 
 Sweet memories left behind. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Now^ God be thanked for years enwrought 
 
 With love which softens yet. 
 Now God be thanked for every thought 
 Which is so tender it has caught 
 
 Earth's guerdon of regret. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Earth saddens, never shall remove, 
 
 Affections purely given; 
 And e'en that mortal grief shall prove 
 The immortality of love, 
 
 And heighten it with Heaven.
 
 The Soul's 
 Expression 
 
 With stammering lips and insufficient 
 
 sound 
 I strive and struggle to deliver right 
 That music of my nature, day and night 
 With dream and thought and feeling inter- 
 wound, 
 And inly answering all the senses round 
 With octaves of a mystic depth and height 
 W^hich step out grandly to the infinite 
 From the dark edges of the sensual 
 
 ground ! 
 This song of soul I struggle to outbear 
 Through portals of the sense, sublime and 
 
 whole, 
 And utter all myself into the air. 
 But if I did it, — as the thunder-roll 
 Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would 
 
 perish there, 
 Before that dread apocalypse of soul. 
 
 33
 
 Irreparableness 
 
 I have been In the meadows all the day 
 And gathered there the nosegay that you 
 
 see, 
 Singing within myself as a bird or bee 
 When such do field-work on a morn of 
 
 May. 
 But now I look upon my flowers, decay 
 Has met them in my hands more fatally 
 Because more warmly clasped, — and sobs 
 
 are free 
 To come instead of songs. What do you 
 
 say, 
 Sweet counsellors, dear friends? that I 
 
 should go 
 Back straightway to the fields, and gather 
 
 more? 
 Another, sooth, may do it, — but not I ! 
 My heart is very tired, my strength Is low, 
 My hands are full of blossoms plucked 
 
 before, 
 Held dead within them till myself shall die.
 
 Tears 
 
 Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer 
 
 not 
 More grief than ye can weep for. That 
 
 is well — 
 That is light grieving! lighter, none befell. 
 Since Adam forfeited the primal lot. 
 Tears! what are tears? The babe weeps 
 
 in its cot, 
 The mother singing,— at her marriage-bell 
 The bride weeps, — and before the oracle 
 Of high-faned hills, the poet has forgot 
 Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God 
 
 for grace, 
 Ye who weep only! If, as some have 
 
 done. 
 Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place 
 And touch but tombs, — look up! those 
 
 tears will run 
 Soon in long rivers down the lifted face. 
 And leave the vision clear for stars and sun. 
 
 25
 
 Grief 
 
 I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless ; 
 That only men incredulous of despair, 
 Half-taught in anguish, through the mid- 
 night air 
 Beat upward to God's throne in loud access 
 Of shrieking and reproach. Full desert- 
 
 ness 
 In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare 
 Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare 
 Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted 
 
 man, express 
 Grief for thy Dead In silence like to death: — 
 Most like a monumental statue set 
 In everlasting watch and moveless woe, 
 Till itself crumble to the dust beneath. 
 Touch it: the marble eyelids are not wet. 
 If it could weep, it could arise and go. 
 
 26
 
 Comfort 
 
 Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and 
 
 sweet 
 From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low, 
 Lest I should fear and fall, and miss 
 
 Thee so 
 Who art not missed by any that entreat. 
 Speak to me as to Mary at Thy feet ! 
 And if no precious gums my hands bestow, 
 Let my tears drop like amber, while I go 
 In reach of Thy divinest voice complete 
 In humanest affection — thus, In sooth 
 To lose the sense of losing. As a child, 
 Whose song-bird seeks the wood for ever- 
 more. 
 Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth, 
 Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, 
 He sleeps the faster that he wept before.
 
 Perplexed 
 Music 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 INSCRIBED TO 
 
 E. J. 
 
 Experience, like a pale musician, holds 
 A dulcimer of patience in his hand, 
 Whence harmonies we cannot understand, 
 Of God's will in His worlds, the strain 
 
 unfolds 
 In sad, perplexed minor. Deathly colds 
 Fall on us while we hear and countermand 
 Our sanguine heart back from the fancy- 
 land 
 With nightingales in visionary wolds. 
 We murmur, — " Where is any certain tune 
 Or measured music, in such notes as 
 
 these?" — 
 But angels, leaning from the golden seat, 
 Are not so minded ; their fine ear hath won 
 The issue of completed cadences, 
 And, smiling down the stars, they whisper 
 — Sweet.
 
 Futurity 
 
 And, O beloved voices, upon which 
 Ours passionately call, because erelong 
 Ye brake off in the middle of that song 
 We sang together softly, to enrich 
 The poor world with the sense of love, 
 
 and witch 
 The heart out of things evil, — I am strong, 
 Knowing ye are .not lost for aye among 
 The hills, with last year's thrush. God 
 
 keeps a niche 
 In Heaven, to hold our idols : and albeit 
 He brake them to our faces, and denied 
 That our close kisses should impair their 
 
 white, — 
 I know we shall behold them raised, com- 
 plete. 
 The dust swept from their beauty, — 
 
 glorified 
 New Memnons singing in the great God- 
 light. 
 
 29
 
 The Two 
 Sayings 
 
 Two sayings of the Holy Scriptures beat 
 Like pulses in the Church's brow and 
 
 breast ! 
 And by them, we find rest in our unrest, 
 And heart-deep in salt tears, do yet entreat 
 God's fellowship, as if on heavenly seat. 
 The first is Jesus wept, — whereon is prest 
 Full many a sobbing face that drops its 
 
 best 
 And sweetest waters on the record sweet: 
 And one is, where the Christ, denied and 
 
 scorned. 
 Looked upon Peter. Oh, to render plain. 
 By help of having loved a little and 
 
 mourned, 
 That look of sovran love and sovran pain 
 Which He, who could not sin yet suffered, 
 
 turned 
 On him who could reject but not sustain !
 
 The Look 
 
 The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no 
 
 word, 
 No gesture of reproach ! the Heavens serene 
 Though heavy with armed justice, did not 
 
 lean 
 Their thunders that way ! the forsaken 
 
 Lord 
 Loolied only, on the traitor. None record 
 What that look was, none guess ; for those 
 
 who have seen 
 Wronged lovers loving through a death- 
 pang keen. 
 Or pale-cheeked martyrs smiling to a sword, 
 Have missed Jehovah at the judgment-call. 
 And Peter, from the height of blasphemy — 
 "I never knew this man" — did quail and 
 
 fall 
 As knowing straight that God, — and 
 
 turned free 
 And went out speechless from the face of 
 
 all, 
 And filled the silence, weeping bitterly. 
 
 31
 
 The Meaning 
 of the Look 
 
 I think that look of Christ might seem 
 
 to say — 
 "Thou Peter! art thou then a common 
 
 stone 
 Which I at last must break my heart upon, 
 For all God's charge to His high angels 
 
 may 
 Guard my foot better? Did I yesterday 
 Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they 
 
 should run 
 Quick to deny me 'neath the morning sun? 
 And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray? 
 The cock crows coldly. — Go, and manifest 
 A late contrition, but no bootless fear! 
 For when thy final need is dreariest, 
 Thou shalt not be denied, as I am here — 
 My voice, to God and angels, shall attest, 
 Because I know this vian. let him he clear. " 
 
 32
 
 A Thought 
 for a Lonely 
 Death-Bed 
 
 INSCRIBED TO MY 
 FRIEND E. C 
 
 If God compel thee to this destiny, 
 
 To die alone, — with none beside thy bed 
 
 To ruffle round with sobs thy last word 
 
 said, 
 And mark with tears the pulses ebb from 
 
 thee, — 
 Pray then alone — "O Christ, come ten- 
 derly ! 
 By Thy forsaken Sonship in the red 
 Drear wine-press, — by the wilderness out- 
 spread, — 
 And the lone garden where Thine agony 
 Fell bloody from Thy brow, — by all of 
 
 those 
 Permitted desolations, comfort mine ! 
 No earthly friend being near me, interpose 
 No deathly angel 'twixt my face and 
 
 Thine, 
 But stoop Thyself to gather my life's rose, 
 And smile away my mortal to Divine!" 
 
 33
 
 Pain in 
 Pleasure 
 
 A Thought lay Hke a flower upon mine 
 heart, 
 
 And drew around it other thoughts Hke 
 bees 
 
 For muhitude and thirst of sweetnesses, — 
 
 Whereat rejoicing, I desired the art 
 
 Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf and 
 mart 
 
 Could lure those insect swarms from orange- 
 trees. 
 
 That I might hive with me such thoughts, 
 and please 
 
 My soul so, always. Foolish counterpart 
 
 Of a weak man's vain wishes ! While I 
 spoke, 
 
 The thought I called a flower grew nettle- 
 rough. 
 
 The thoughts, called bees, stung me to 
 festering. 
 
 Oh, entertain (cried Reason, as she woke,) 
 
 Your best and gladdest thoughts but long 
 enough. 
 
 And they will all prove sad enough to sting. 
 
 34
 
 Cheerfulness 
 taught by J^ 
 
 Reason 
 
 I think we are too ready with complaint 
 In this fair world of God's. Had we no 
 
 hope 
 Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope 
 Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow 
 
 faint 
 To muse upon eternity's constraint 
 Round our aspirant souls ; but since the 
 
 scope 
 Must widen early, is it well to droop. 
 For a few days consumed in loss and taint? 
 O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted, — 
 And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road, 
 Singing beside the hedge. What if the 
 
 bread 
 Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod 
 To meet the flints? — At least it may be said, 
 " Because the way is shorty I thank thee, 
 
 God!" 
 
 35
 
 Exaggeration 
 
 We overstate the ills of life, and take 
 Imagination (given us to bring down 
 The choirs of singing angels overshone 
 By God's clear glory) down our earth to 
 
 rake 
 The dismal snows Instead, — flake following 
 
 flake, 
 To cover all the corn. We walk upon 
 The shadow of hills across a level thrown, 
 And pant like climbers. Near the alder 
 
 brake 
 We sigh so loud, the nightingale within 
 Refuses to sing loud, as else she would. 
 O brothers ! let us leave the shame and sin 
 Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood, 
 The holy name of Grief ! — holy herein, 
 That, by the grief of One, came all our 
 
 good.
 
 The Romaunt 
 of the Page 
 
 A knight of gallant deeds 
 
 And a young page at his side, 
 
 From the holy war in Palestine 
 Did slow and thoughtful ride, 
 
 As each were a palmer and told for beads 
 The dews of the eventide. 
 
 "O young page," said the knight, 
 
 "A noble page art thou! 
 Thou fearest not to steep in blood 
 
 The curls upon thy brow ; 
 And once in the tent, and twice in the fight, 
 
 Didst ward me a mortal blow." 
 
 "O brave knight," said the page, 
 
 "Or ere we hither came. 
 We talked in tent, we talked in field, 
 
 Of the bloody battle-game ; 
 But here, below this greenwood bough, 
 
 I cannot speak the same, 
 37
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 "Our troop is far behind, 
 
 The woodland calm is new ; 
 Our steeds, with slow grass-muffled hoofs, 
 
 Tread deep the shadows through ; 
 And in my mind, some blessing kind 
 
 Is dropping with the dew. 
 
 ' ' The woodland calm is pure — 
 
 I cannot choose but have 
 A thought from these, o' the beechen-trees 
 
 Which in our England wave. 
 And of the little finches fine 
 Which sang there, while in Palestine 
 
 The warrior-hilt we drave. 
 
 " Methinks, a moment gone, 
 
 I heard my mother pray ! 
 I heard, sir knight, the prayer for me 
 
 Wlierein she passed away; 
 And I know the Heavens are leaning down 
 
 To hear what I shall say." 
 
 VII 
 
 The page spake calm and high. 
 
 As of no mean degree. 
 Perhaps he felt in nature's broad 
 38
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 Full heart, his own was free. 
 And the knight looked up to his lifted eye, 
 Then answered smilingly: — 
 
 VIII 
 
 "Sir page, I pray your grace! 
 
 Certes, I meant not so 
 To cross your pastoral mood, sir page, 
 
 With the crook of the battle-bow ; 
 But a knight may speak of a iadys face, 
 I ween, in any mood or place. 
 
 If the grasses die or grow. 
 
 IX 
 
 "And this I meant to say, — 
 My lady's face shall shine 
 
 As ladies' faces use, to greet 
 My page from Palestine ; 
 
 Or, speak she fair or prank she gay, 
 She is no lady of mine. 
 
 "And this I meant to fear, — 
 Her bower may suit thee ill I 
 
 For, sooth, in that same field and tent, 
 Thy talk was somewhat still ; 
 
 And fitter thy hand for my knightly spear, 
 Than thy tongue for my lady's will." 
 39 D
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 XI 
 
 Slowly and thankfully 
 
 The young page bowed his head : 
 His large eyes seemed to muse a smile, 
 
 Until he blushed instead, 
 x^nd no lady in her bower pardie, 
 
 Could blush more sudden red. 
 " Sir Knight, — thy lady's bovver to me 
 
 Is suited well," he said. 
 
 Beati, beati, mortui! 
 From the convent on the sea, 
 One mile off, or scarce as nigh, 
 Swells the dirge as clear and high 
 As if that, over brake and lea. 
 Bodily the wind did carry 
 The great altar of Saint Mary, 
 And the fifty tapers burning o'er it, 
 And the Lady Abbess dead before it, 
 And the chanting nuns whom yesterweek 
 Her voice did charge and bless, — 
 Chanting steady, chanting meek, 
 Chanting with a solemn breath 
 Because that they are thinking less 
 Upon the dead than upon death! 
 Beati, heati, mortui! 
 Now the vision in the sound 
 Wheeleth on the wind around. 
 40
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 Now it sweepeth back, away — 
 The uplands will not let it stay 
 To dark the western sun. 
 Mortui! — away at last, — 
 Or ere the page's blush is past ! 
 And the knight heard all, and the page 
 heard none. 
 
 XIII 
 
 A boon, thou noble knight, 
 
 It ever I served thee ! 
 Though thou art a knight and I am a page, 
 
 Now grant a boon to me ; 
 And tell me sooth, if dark or bright, 
 If little loved or loved ariglit 
 
 Be the face of thv ladve." 
 
 Gloomily looked the knight ;— 
 " As a son thou hast ser\-ed me, 
 
 And would to none I had granted boon 
 Except to only thee ! 
 
 F^or haply then I should love aright, 
 
 For then I should know if dark or bright 
 Were the face of my ladye. 
 41
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 XV 
 
 "Yet ill it suits my knightly tongue 
 To grudge that granted boon! 
 
 That heavy price from heart and life 
 I paid in silence down. 
 
 The hand that claimed it, cleared in fine 
 
 My father's fame: I swear by mine. 
 That price was nobly won. 
 
 "Earl Walter was a brave old earl,- 
 
 He was my father's friend ; 
 And while I rode the lists at court 
 
 And little guessed the end, 
 My noble father in his shroud, 
 Against a slanderer lying loud, 
 
 He rose up to defend. 
 
 XVII 
 
 "Oh, calm, below the marble grey 
 
 My father's dust was strown ! 
 Oh, meek, above the marble grey 
 
 His image prayed alone ! 
 The slanderer lied — the wretch was brave, 
 For, looking up the minster-nave, 
 He saw my father's knightly glaive 
 Was changed from steel to stone. 
 42
 
 THE ROMAUKT OF THE PAGE 
 
 XVIII 
 
 " Earl Walter's glaive was steel, 
 
 With a brave old hand to wear it, 
 And dashed the lie back in the mouth 
 Which lied against the godly truth 
 
 And against the knightly merit ! 
 The slanderer, 'neath the avenger's heel, 
 Struck up the dagger in appeal 
 From stealthy lie to brutal force — 
 And out upon the traitor's corse 
 Was yielded the true spirit. 
 
 XIX 
 
 " I would mine hand had fought that fight 
 
 And justified my father! 
 I would mine heart had caught that wound 
 
 And slept beside him rather ! 
 I think it were a better thing 
 Than murdered friend and marriage-ring 
 
 Forced on my life together. 
 
 XX 
 
 ' ' Wail shook Earl W^alter's house ; 
 
 His true wife shed no tear; 
 She lay upon her bed as mute 
 
 As the earl did on his bier: 
 Till — ' Ride, ride fast,' she said at last, 
 
 'And bring the avenged's son anear! 
 Ride fast, ride free, as a dart can flee, 
 For white of blee with waiting for me 
 
 Is the corse in the next chamb^re.' 
 43
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 XXI 
 
 " I came — I knelt beside her bed — 
 Her calm was worse than strife ; 
 ' My husband, for thy father dear, 
 Gave freely when thou wert not here 
 
 His own and eke my life. 
 A boon ! Of that sweet child we make 
 An orphan for thy father's sake, 
 Make thou, for ours, a wife.' 
 
 XXII 
 
 " I said, ' My steed neighs in the court, 
 
 My bark rocks on the brine. 
 And the warrior's vow I am under now 
 
 To free the pilgrim's shrine; 
 But fetch the ring and fetch the priest 
 
 And call that daughter of thine, 
 And rule she wide from my castle on Nyde 
 
 While I am in Palestine.' 
 
 XXIII 
 
 "In the dark chambere, if the bride was fair. 
 
 Ye wis, I could not see, 
 But the steed thrice neighed, and the priest 
 fast prayed. 
 
 And wedded fast were we. 
 Her mother smiled upon her bed 
 As at its side we knelt to wed. 
 
 And the bride rose from her knee 
 And kissed the smile of her mother dead, 
 
 Or ever she kissed me. 
 44
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 XXIV 
 
 " My page, my page, what grieves thee so, 
 That the tears run down thy face?" — 
 
 "Alas, alas! mine own sister 
 Was in thy lady's case : 
 
 But she laid down the silks she wore 
 
 And followed him she wed before, 
 
 Disguised as his true servitor, 
 To the very battle-place." 
 
 And wept the page, but laughed the knight, — 
 A careless laugh laughed he : 
 
 "Well done it were for thy sister, 
 But not for my ladye ! 
 
 My love, so please you, shall requite 
 
 No woman, whether dark or bright, 
 Unwomaned if she be." 
 
 XXVI 
 
 The page stopped weeping and smiled 
 cold — 
 
 ' ' Your wisdom may declare 
 That womanhood is proved the best 
 By golden brooch and glossy vest 
 
 The mincing ladies wear ; 
 Yet is it proved, and was of old, 
 Anear as well, I dare to hold, 
 
 By truth, or by despair." 
 45
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 He smiled no more, he wept no more, 
 
 But passionate he spake, — 
 "Oh, womanly she prayed in tent, 
 
 When none beside did wake! 
 Oh, womanly she paled in fight. 
 
 For one beloved's sake ! — 
 And her little hand defiled with blood. 
 Her tender tears of womanhood 
 
 Most woman-pure did make!" 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 — "Well done it were for thy sister, 
 
 Thou tellest well her tale ! 
 But for my lady, she shall pray 
 
 r the kirk of Nydesdale. 
 Not dread for me but love for me 
 
 Shall make my lady pale ; 
 No casque shall hide her woman's tear- 
 It shall have room to trickle clear 
 
 Behind her woman's veil." 
 
 — " But what if she mistook thy mind 
 And followed thee to strife. 
 
 Then kneeling, did entreat thy love, 
 As Paynims ask for life?" 
 
 — *' I would forgive, and evermore 
 
 Would love her as my servutor, 
 But little as my wife. 
 46
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 XXX 
 
 " Look up — there is a small bright cloud 
 
 Alone amid the skies ! 
 So high, so pure, and so apart, 
 
 A woman's honour lies." 
 The page looked up— the cloud was sheen — 
 A sadder cloud did rush, I ween, 
 
 Betwixt it and his eyes : 
 
 XXXI 
 
 Then dimly dropped his eyes away 
 
 From welkin unto hill — 
 Ha! who rides there? — the page is 'ware, 
 
 Though the cry- at his heart is still I 
 And the page seeth all and the knight 
 
 seeth none, 
 Though banner and spear do fleck the sun, 
 
 And the Saracens ride at will. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 He speaketh calm, he speaketh low, — 
 " Ride fast, my master, ride. 
 
 Or ere within the broadening dark 
 The narrow shadows hide." 
 
 "Yea, fast, my page, I will do so, 
 And keep thou at my side." 
 47
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 " Now nay, now nay, ride on thy way 
 
 Thy faithful page precede. 
 For I must loose on saddle-bow 
 My battle-casque that galls, I trow, 
 
 The shoulder of my steed ; 
 And I must pra)^, as I did vow, 
 
 For one in bitter need. 
 
 "Ere night I shall be near to thee, — 
 Now ride, my master, ride ! 
 
 Ere night, as parted spirits cleave 
 
 To mortals too beloved to leave, 
 I shall be at thy side." 
 
 The knight smiled free at the fantasy, 
 And adown the dell did ride. 
 
 Had the knight looked up to the page's 
 face, 
 No smile the word had won : 
 Had the knight looked up to the page's 
 face, 
 I ween he had never gone : 
 Had the knight looked back to the page's 
 geste, 
 I ween he had turned anon !
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 For dread was the woe in the face so young, 
 And wild was the silent geste that flung 
 Casque, sword to earth — as the boy down- 
 sprung, 
 And stood — alone, alone. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 He clenched his hands as if to hold 
 
 His soul's great agony — 
 "Have I renounced my womanhood, 
 
 For wifehood unto thee. 
 And is this the last, last look of thine 
 
 That ever I shall see? 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 "Yet God thee save, and mayst thou have 
 
 A lady to thy mind. 
 More woman-proud and half as true 
 
 As one thou leav'st behind ! 
 And God me take with Him to dwell — 
 For Him I cannot love too well, 
 
 i\s I have loved my kind." 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 She looketh up, in earth's despair, 
 The hopeful Heavens to seek. 
 
 That little cloud still floateth there, 
 Whereof her Loved did speak. 
 
 How bright the little cloud appears ! 
 
 Her eyelids fall upon the tears. 
 And the tears down either cheek. 
 49
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 The tramp of hoof, the flash of steel — 
 The Paynims round her coming ! 
 
 The sound and sight have made her cahn,- 
 False page, but truthful woman ! 
 
 She stands amid them all unmoved. 
 
 A heart once broken by the loved 
 Is strong to meet the foeman. 
 
 XL 
 
 *'Ho, Christian page! art keeping sheep, 
 From pouring wine-cups resting?" — 
 
 "I keep my master's noble name, 
 For warring, not for feasting; 
 
 And if that here Sir Hubert were, 
 
 My master brave, my master dear. 
 Ye would not stay to question." 
 
 XLI 
 
 "Where is thy master, scornful page. 
 That we may slay or bind him?" — 
 
 " Now search the lea and search the wood, 
 And see if ye can find him ! 
 
 Nathless, as hath been often tried, 
 
 Your Paynim heroes faster ride 
 Before him than behind him." 
 50
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 xLn 
 
 "Give smoother answers, lying page, 
 
 Or perish in the lying." — 
 "I trow that if the warrior brand 
 Beside my foot, were in my hand, 
 
 'Twere better at replying!" 
 They cursed her deep, they smote her loW; 
 They cleft her golden ringlets through; 
 
 The Loving is the Dying. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 She felt the scimitar gleam dovN-n, 
 
 And met it from beneath 
 With smile more bright in victory 
 
 Than any sword from sheath, — 
 Which flashed across her lip serene. 
 Most like the spirit-light between 
 
 The darks of life and death. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 Inge inisco^ inge m isco ! 
 From the convent on the sea, 
 Now it sweepeth solemnly ! 
 As over wood and over lea 
 Bodily the wind did carry 
 The great altar of St. Mary, 
 51
 
 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 And the fifty tapers paling o'er it, 
 And tlie Lady Abbess stark before it, 
 And the weary nuns with hearts that faintly 
 Beat along their voices saintly — 
 
 Ingemisco, ingemisco! 
 Dirge for abbess laid in shroud, 
 Sweepeth o'er the shroudless dead, 
 Page or lady, as we said, 
 With the dews upon her head. 
 All as sad if not as loud. 
 
 Ingetnisco, ingemisco! 
 Is ever a lament begun 
 By any mourner under sun. 
 Which, ere it endeth, suits but 07ie? 
 
 52
 
 The Lay of 
 the Brown 
 Rosary 
 
 First Part 
 
 " Onora, Onora," — her mother is calHng, 
 She sits at the lattice and hears the dew 
 
 falling 
 Drop after drop from the sycamores laden 
 With dew as with blossom, and calls home 
 
 the maiden, 
 
 "Night Cometh, Onora.'' 
 
 She looks down the garden-walk caverned 
 
 with trees, 
 To the limes at the end where the green 
 
 arbour is — 
 "Some sweet thought or other may keep 
 
 where it found her, 
 While forgot or unseen in the dream light 
 
 around her 
 
 Night Cometh — Onora!'' 
 53
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 She looks up the forest whose alleys shoot 
 
 on 
 Like the mute minster- aisles when the 
 
 anthem is done, 
 And the choristers sitting with faces aslant 
 Feel the silence to consecrate more than 
 
 the chant — 
 
 " Onora, Onora!" 
 
 And forward she looketh across the brown 
 
 heath — 
 "Onora, art coming? "—what is it she seeth? 
 Nought, nought, but the grey border-stone 
 
 that is wist 
 To dilate and assume a wild shape in the 
 
 mist — 
 
 " My daughter!" — Then over 
 
 The casement she leaneth, and as she doth 
 
 so 
 She is 'ware of her little son playing below: 
 " Now where is Onora?" — He hung down 
 
 his head 
 And spake not, then answering blushed 
 scarlet-red, — 
 
 "At the tr\'st with her lover." 
 54
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 But his mother was wroth. In a sternness 
 quoth she, 
 
 "As thou play'st at the ball, art thou play- 
 ing with me? 
 
 When we know that her lover to battle is 
 gone, 
 
 And the saints know above that she loveth 
 but one 
 
 And will ne'er wed another?" 
 
 Then the boy wept aloud. 'Twas a fair 
 
 sight yet sad 
 To see the tears run down the sweet 
 
 blooms he had : 
 He stamped with his foot, said — "The 
 
 saints know I lied 
 Because truth that is wicked is fittest to 
 
 hide! 
 
 Must I utter it, mother?" 
 
 In his vehement childhood he hurried within, 
 And knelt at her feet as in prayer against 
 
 sin ; 
 But a child at a praver never sobbeth as 
 
 he— 
 "Oh! she sits with the nun of the brown 
 rosar\% 
 
 At nights in the ruin! 
 
 hS E
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 "The old convent ruin the ivy rots off, 
 Where the owl hoots by day, and the toad 
 
 is sun-proot; 
 Where no singing-birds build, and the trees 
 
 gaunt and grey 
 As in stormy sea-coasts appear blasted one 
 
 way — 
 
 But is this the wind's doing? 
 
 "A nun in the east wall was buried alive, 
 Who mocked at the priest when he called 
 
 her to shrive, — 
 And shrieked such a curse, as the stone 
 
 took her breath, 
 The old abbess fell backward and swooned 
 
 unto death 
 
 With an Ave half-spoken. 
 
 " I tried once to pass it, myself and my 
 
 hound, 
 Till, as fearing the lash, down he shivered 
 
 to ground, 
 A brave hound, my mother! a brave hound, 
 
 ye wot! 
 And the wolf thought the same with his 
 
 fangs at her throat 
 
 In the pass of the Brocken. 
 56
 
 LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 "At dawn and at eve, mother, who sitteth 
 
 there, 
 With the brown rosary never used for a 
 
 prayer? 
 Stoop low, mother, low! If we went there 
 
 to see. 
 What an ug-ly great hole in that east wall 
 
 must be 
 
 At dawn and at even ! 
 
 "Who meet there, my mother, at dawn 
 
 and at even? 
 Who meet by that wall, never looking to 
 
 heaven ? 
 O sweetest my sister, what doeth with thee^ 
 The ghost of a nun with a brown rosary 
 And a face turned from heaven? 
 
 " Saint Agnes o'erwatcheth my dreams, 
 
 and erewhile 
 I have felt through mine eyelids the 
 
 warmth of her smile; 
 But last night, as a sadness like pity came 
 
 o'er her. 
 She whispered — ' Say two prayers at dawn 
 
 for Onora ! 
 
 The Tempted is sinning'." 
 57
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 " Onora, Onora!" they heard her not 
 
 coming, 
 Not a step on the grass, not a voice through 
 
 the gloaming; 
 But her mother looked up, and she stood 
 
 on the floor 
 Fair and still as the moonlight that came 
 
 there before, 
 
 And a smile just beginning. 
 
 It touches her lips — but it dares not arise 
 To the height of the mystical sphere of 
 
 her eyes; 
 And the large musing eyes, neither joyous 
 
 nor sorry. 
 Sing on like the angels in separate glory, 
 Between clouds of amber. 
 
 For the hair droops in clouds amber- 
 coloured, till stirred 
 
 Into gold by the gesture that comes with 
 a word ; 
 
 While — O soft! — her speaking is so inter- 
 wound 
 
 Of the dim and the sweet, 'tis a twilight 
 of sound 
 
 And floats through the chamber. 
 58
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 "Since thou shrivest my brother, fair 
 
 mother," said she, 
 " I count on thy priesthood for marrying 
 
 of me. 
 And I know by the hills that the battle is 
 
 done — 
 That my lover rides on, will be here with 
 
 the sun, 
 
 'Neath the eyes that behold thee." 
 
 Her mother sat silent — too tender, I wis, 
 Of the smile her dead father smiled dying 
 
 to kiss. 
 But the boy started up pale with tears, 
 
 passion-wrought, — 
 *'0 wicked fair sister, the hills utter 
 
 nought ! 
 
 If he Cometh, who told thee?" 
 
 "I know by the hills," she resumed calm 
 
 and clear, 
 " By the beauty upon them, that he is 
 
 anear. 
 Did they ever look so since he bade me 
 
 adieu? 
 Oh, love in the waking, sweet brother, is 
 
 true 
 
 As Saint Agnes in sleeping." 
 59
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 Half-ashamed and half-softened the boy 
 
 did not speak, 
 And the blush met the lashes which fell 
 
 on his cheek : 
 She bowed down to kiss him — Dear saints, 
 
 did he see 
 Or feel on her bosom the brown rosary, 
 That he shrank away weeping? 
 
 Second Part 
 
 A bed. — Onora sleeping. Angels, hut 
 7iot near. 
 
 First Angel. Must we stand so far, and 
 she 
 So very fair? 
 
 Second Angel. As bodies be. 
 
 First Angel. And she so mild? 
 
 Second Angel. As spirits when 
 
 They meeken, not to God, but men. 
 
 First Angel. And she so young-, — that I 
 who bring 
 Good dreams for saintly children, 
 
 might 
 Mistake that small soft face to- 
 night, 
 
 60
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 And fetch her such a blessed thing, 
 That at her waking she would weep 
 For childhood lost anew in sleep. 
 How hath she sinned? 
 
 Second Angel. In bartering love; 
 
 God's love — for man's. 
 
 First Angel. We may reprove 
 
 The world for this, not only her. 
 Let me approach to breathe away 
 This dust o' the heart with holy air. 
 
 Second Angel. Stand off! She sleeps, 
 
 and did not pray. 
 First Angel. Did none pray for her? 
 
 Second Angel. Ay, a child, — 
 
 Who never, praying, wept before : 
 While, in a mother undefiled 
 Prayer goeth on in sleep, as true 
 And pauseless as the pulses do. 
 
 First Angel. Then I approach. 
 
 Second Angel. It is not willed. 
 
 First Angel. One word: is she re- 
 deemed ? 
 Secand Angel. No more! 
 
 The place Is filled. [Angels vanish. 
 
 Evil Spirit in a Xiui's garb by the bed. 
 Forbear that dream — forbear that dream ! 
 too near to Heaven it leaned. 
 6i
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 Onora in sleep. Nay, leave me this — 
 but only this ! 't is but a dream, sweet 
 fiend ! 
 
 Evil Spirit. It is a thought. 
 
 Onora in sleep. A sleeping 
 
 thought — most innocent of good. 
 It doth the Devil no harm, sweet fiend ! it 
 
 cannot, if it would. 
 I say in it no holy hymn, I do no holy 
 
 work, 
 I scarcely hear the sabbath -bell that 
 
 chimeth fi-om the kirk. 
 
 Evil Spirit. Forbear that dream — for- 
 bear that dream i 
 
 Onora in sleep. Nay, let me dream 
 
 at least. 
 That far-off bell, it may be took for viol at 
 
 a feast. 
 I only walk among the fields, beneath the 
 
 autumn-sun. 
 With my dead father, hand in hand, as I 
 
 have often done. 
 
 Evil Spirit. Forbear that dream — for- 
 bear that dream ! 
 
 Onora in sleep. Nay, sweet fiend, 
 
 let me go. 
 I never more can walk with him, oh, never 
 more but so. 
 
 62
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 For they have tied my father's feet beneath 
 
 the kirkyard stone, 
 Oh, deep and straight! oh, very straight! 
 
 they move at nights alone : 
 And then he calleth through my dreams, 
 
 he calleth tenderly, 
 "Come forth my daughter, my beloved, 
 
 and walk the fields with me!" 
 
 Evil Spirit. Forbear that dream, or else 
 disprove its pureness by a sign. 
 
 Onora in sleep. Speak on, thou shalt be 
 
 satisfied! my word shall answer thine. 
 I heard a bird which used to sing when 
 
 I a child was praying, 
 I see the poppies in the corn I used to 
 
 sport away in. — 
 What shall I do — tread down the dew, and 
 
 pull the blossoms blowing? 
 Or clap my wicked hands to fright the 
 
 finches from the rowan? 
 
 Evil Spirit. Thou shalt do something 
 harder still. Stand up where thou 
 dost stand 
 
 Among the fields of Dreamland with thy 
 father hand in hand, 
 
 And clear and slow, repeat the vow — de- 
 clare its cause and kind, 
 
 Which, not to break, in sleep or wake, thou 
 bearest on thy mind. 
 63
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 Onora in sleep. I bear a vow of sinful 
 
 kind, a vow for mournful cause : 
 I vowed it deep, I vowed it strong — the 
 
 spirits laughed applause : 
 The spirits trailed along the pines low 
 
 laughter like a breeze, 
 While, high atween their swinging tops, 
 
 the stars appeared to freeze. 
 
 Evil Spirit. More calm and free, — speak 
 out to me, why such a vow was made. 
 
 Onora in sleep. Because that God de- 
 creed my death, and I shrank back 
 
 afraid. 
 Have patience, O dead father mine! I did 
 
 not fear to die ; — 
 I wish I were a young dead child, and had 
 
 thy company ! 
 I wish I lay beside thy feet, a buried 
 
 three-year child, 
 And wearing only a kiss of thine upon 
 
 my lips that smiled! 
 The linden-tree that covers thee might so 
 
 have shadowed twain, 
 For death itself I did not fear — 'tis love 
 
 that makes the pain : 
 Love feareth death. I was no child — I was 
 
 betrothed that day ; 
 I wore a troth-kiss on my lips I could not 
 
 give away. 
 
 64
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 How could I bear to lie content and still 
 
 beneath a stone, 
 And feel mine own betrothed go by — alas ! 
 
 no more mine own, — 
 Go leading by in wedding pomp some 
 
 lovely lady brave, 
 With cheeks that blushed as red as rose, 
 
 while mine were white in grave? 
 How could I bear to sit in Heaven, on 
 
 e'er so high a throne, 
 And hear him say to her — to herX that 
 
 else he loveth none? 
 Though e'er so high I sate above, though 
 
 e'er so low he spake, 
 As clear as thunder I should hear the new 
 
 oath he might take. 
 That hers, forsooth, were heavenly eyes — 
 
 ah, me ! while very dim 
 Some heavenly eyes (indeed of Heaven !) 
 
 would darken down to him. 
 
 Evil Spirit. Who told thee thou wast 
 called to death? 
 
 Onora in sleep. I sate all night be- 
 side thee — 
 The grey owl on the ruined wall shut both 
 
 his eyes to hide thee, 
 And ever he flapped his heavy wing all 
 brokenly and weak, 
 65
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 And the long grass waved against the 
 
 sky, around his gasping beak. 
 I sate beside thee all the night, while the 
 
 moonlight lay forlorn, 
 Strewn round us like a dead world's shroud, 
 
 in ghastly fragments torn. 
 And through the night, and through the 
 
 hush, and over the flapping wing, 
 We heard beside the Heavenly Gate the 
 
 angels murmuring: — 
 We heard them say, " Put day to day, and 
 
 count the days to seven, 
 "And God will draw Onora up the golden 
 
 stairs of heaven ; 
 "And yet the Evil ones have leave that 
 
 purpose to defer, 
 " For if she has no need of Him, He has 
 
 no need of her." — 
 
 Evil Spirit. Speak out to me, speak 
 bold and free. 
 
 Onora in sleep. And then I heard thee 
 say, — 
 " I count upon my rosary brown the hours 
 
 thou hast to stay ! 
 "Yet God permits us Evil ones to put by 
 
 that decree, 
 " Since if thou hast no need of Him, He 
 has no need of thee — 
 66
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 "And if thou wilt forego the sight of 
 
 angels, verily 
 *'Thy true love gazing on thy face shall 
 
 guess what angels be ; 
 "Nor bride shall pass, save thee" . . . 
 
 Alas ! — my father's hand 's acold, 
 The meadows seem — 
 
 Evil Spirit. Forbear the dream, 
 
 or let the vow be told ! 
 
 Onora in sleep, I vowed upon thy rosary 
 
 brown, this string of antique beads. 
 By charnel lichens overgrown, and dank 
 
 among the weeds. 
 This rosary brown, which is thine own, — 
 
 lost soul of buried nun. 
 Who, lost by vow, wouldst render now all 
 
 souls alike undone, — 
 I vowed upon thy rosar^^ brown, — and, till 
 
 such vow should break, 
 A pledge always of living days, 'twas 
 
 hung around my neck — 
 I vowed to thee on rosary (dead father, 
 
 look not so !), 
 / would not thank God in my weal, nor 
 
 seek God in my woe. 
 
 Evil spirit And canst thou prove— 
 
 Onora in sleep. O love, my love ! 
 
 1 felt him. near again ! 
 67
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 I saw his steed on mountain-head, I heard 
 
 it on the plain ! 
 Was this no weal for me to feel? — Is 
 
 greater weal than this? 
 Yet when he came, I wept his name — and 
 
 the angels heard but his. 
 Evil Spirit. Well done, well done ! 
 Onora in sleep. Ah me ! the sun . . . 
 
 the dreamlight 'gins to pine, — 
 Ah me ! how dread can look the Dead ! — 
 
 Aroint thee, father mine ! 
 
 She starteth from slumber, she sitteth up- 
 right, 
 
 And her breath comes in sobs while she 
 stares through the night. 
 
 There is nought. The great willow, her 
 lattice before. 
 
 Large-drawn in the moon, lieth calm on 
 the floor. 
 
 But her hands tremble fast as their pulses, 
 and, free 
 
 From the death -clasp, close over — the 
 brown rosary. 
 
 Third Part 
 
 'T is a morn for a bridal; the merry bride-bell 
 Rings clear through the green-wood that 
 skirts the chapelle, 
 68
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 And the priest at the ahar awaiteth the 
 
 bride, 
 And the sacristans slyly are jesting aside 
 At the work shall be doing-. 
 
 While down through the wood rides that 
 
 fair company, 
 The youths with the courtship, the maids 
 
 with the glee, 
 Till the chapel-cross opens to sight, and 
 
 at once 
 All the maids sigh demurely and think for 
 
 the nonce, 
 
 "And so endeth a wooing!" 
 
 And the bride and the bridegroom are 
 
 leading the way, 
 With his hand on her rein, and a word 
 
 yet to say : 
 Her dropt eyelids suggest the soft answers 
 
 beneath, 
 And the little quick smiles come and go 
 
 with her breath, 
 
 When she sigheth or speaketh. 
 
 And the tender bride -mother breaks off 
 
 unaware 
 From an Ave, to think that her daughter 
 
 is fair, 
 
 69
 
 LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 Till in nearing the chapel and glancing 
 
 before 
 She seeth her little son stand at the door. 
 Is it play that he seeketh? 
 
 Is it play? when his eyes wander innocent- 
 wild 
 
 And sublimed with a sadness unfitting a 
 child? 
 
 He trembles not, weeps not — the passion 
 is done, 
 
 And calmly he kneels in their midst, with 
 the sun 
 
 On his head like a glory. 
 
 "O fair-featured maids, ye are many!" he 
 
 cried, — 
 " But, in fairness and vileness, who match- 
 
 eth the bride? 
 O brave-hearted youths, ye are many! but 
 
 whom. 
 For the courage and woe, can ye match 
 
 with the groom, 
 
 As ye see them before ye?" 
 
 Out spake the bride's mother, "The vile- 
 ness is thine, 
 
 If thou shame thine own sister, a bride 
 at the shrine !" 
 
 70
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 Out spake the bride's lover, " The vileness 
 
 be mine, 
 If he shame mine own wife at the hearth 
 
 or the shrine, 
 
 And the charge be unproved. 
 
 "Bring the charge, prove the charge, 
 
 brother ! speak it aloud. 
 Let thy father and hers, hear it deep in 
 
 his shroud!" — 
 — " O father, thou seest — for dead eyes can 
 
 see — 
 How she wears on her bosom a brown 
 
 rosary, 
 
 O my father beloved!" 
 
 Then outlaughed the bridegroom, and 
 
 outlaughed withal 
 Both maidens and youths, by the old 
 
 chapel-wall. 
 "So she weareth no love-gift, kind 
 
 brother," quoth he, 
 "She may wear an she listeth, a brown 
 
 rosary. 
 
 Like a pure-hearted lady." 
 71 F
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 Then swept through the chapel the long 
 
 bridal train. 
 Though he spake to the bride she replied 
 
 not again : 
 On, as one in a dream, pale and stately 
 
 she went 
 Where the altar-lights burn o'er the great 
 
 sacrament. 
 
 Faint with daylight, but steady. 
 
 But her brother had passed in between 
 
 them and her. 
 And calmly knelt down on the high-altar 
 
 stair — 
 Of an infantine aspect so stern to the view 
 That the priest could not smile on the 
 
 child's eyes of blue 
 
 As he would for another. 
 
 He knelt like a child marble-sculptured 
 
 and white, 
 That seems kneeling to pray on the tomb 
 
 of a knight, 
 With a look taken up to each iris of stone 
 From the greatness and death where he 
 kneeleth, but none 
 
 From the face of a mother. 
 72
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 " In your chapel, O priest, ye have wedded 
 
 and shriven 
 Fair wives for the hearth, and fair sinners 
 
 for Heaven ! 
 But this fairest my sister, ye think now 
 
 to wed, 
 Bid her kneel where she standeth, and 
 
 shrive her instead. 
 
 O shrive her and wed not ! " 
 
 In tears, the bride's mother, — "Sir priest, 
 
 unto thee 
 Would he lie, as he lied to this fair company." 
 In wrath, the bride's lover, — "The lie shall 
 
 be clear! 
 Speak it out, boy ! the saints In their niches 
 
 shall hear. 
 
 Be the charge proved or said not." 
 
 Then serene in his childhood he lifted his 
 
 face. 
 And his voice sounded holy and fit for the 
 
 place. 
 " Look down from your niches, ye still 
 
 saints, and see 
 How she wears on her bosom a brown 
 
 rosary I 
 
 Is it used for the praying?" 
 73
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 The youths looked aside — to laugh there 
 were a sin — 
 
 And the maidens' lips trembled from smiles 
 shut within. 
 
 Quoth the priest, "Thou art wild, pretty- 
 boy ! Blessed she 
 
 Who prefers at her bridal a brown rosary 
 To a worldly arraying!" 
 
 The bridegroom spake low and led on- 
 ward the bride, 
 
 And before the high altar they stood side 
 by side : 
 
 The rite-book is opened, the rite is begun, 
 
 They have knelt down together to rise up 
 as one. 
 
 Who laughed by the altar? 
 
 The maidens looked forward, the youths 
 
 looked around. 
 The bridegroom's eye flashed from his 
 
 prayer at the sound ; 
 And each saw the bride, as if no bride she 
 
 were, 
 Gaizing cold at the priest without gesture 
 
 of prayer. 
 
 As he read from the psalter. 
 74
 
 LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 The priest never knew that she did so, 
 
 but still 
 He felt a power on him too strong for 
 
 his will, 
 And whenever the Great Name was there 
 
 to be read, 
 His voice sank to silence — that could not 
 
 be said. 
 
 Or the air could not hold it. 
 
 *' I have sinned," quoth he, " I have 
 
 sinned, I wot" — 
 And the tears ran adown his old cheeks 
 
 at the thought. 
 They dropped fast on the book, but he 
 
 read on the same, 
 And aye was the silence where should be 
 
 the Name, — 
 
 As the choristers told it. 
 
 The rite-book is closed, and the rite being 
 
 done 
 They who knelt down together, arise up 
 
 as one. 
 Fair riseth the bride — Oh, a fair bride is 
 
 she, — 
 But, for all (think the maidens) that brown 
 
 rosary, 
 
 No saint at her praying ! 
 75
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 What aileth the bridegroom? He glares 
 
 blank and wide — 
 Then suddenly turning he kisseth the 
 
 bride — 
 His lips stung her with cold ; she glanced 
 
 upwardly mute : 
 " Mine own wife," he said, and fell stark 
 
 at her foot 
 
 In the word he was sa3-ing. 
 
 They have lifted him up, — but his head 
 sinks aw^ay, 
 
 And his face showeth bleak in the sun- 
 shine and grey. 
 
 Leave him now where he lieth — for oh, 
 never more 
 
 Will he kneel at an altar or stand on a 
 floor! 
 
 Let his bride gaze upon him. 
 
 Long and still was her gaze, while they 
 
 chafed him there 
 And breathed in the mouth whose last 
 
 life had kissed her, 
 But when they stood up — only they! with 
 
 a start 
 The shriek from her soul struck her pale 
 
 lips apart — 
 
 She has lived, and forgone him ! 
 76
 
 LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 And low on his body she droppeth adown — 
 
 " Didst call me thine own wife, beloved — 
 thine own? 
 
 Then take thine own with thee ! thy cold- 
 ness is warm 
 
 To the world's cold without thee ! Come, 
 keep me from harm 
 
 In a calm of thy teaching." 
 
 She looked in his face earnest-long, as in 
 
 sooth 
 There were hope of an answer, — and then 
 
 kissed his mouth, 
 And with head on his bosom, wept, wept 
 
 bitterly,— 
 "Now, O God, take pity — take pity on 
 
 me! — 
 
 God, hear my beseeching!" 
 
 She was 'ware of a shadow that crossed 
 where she lay. 
 
 She was 'ware of a presence that withered 
 the day — 
 
 Wild she sprang to her feet, — "I surren- 
 der to thee 
 
 The broken vow's pledge, — the accursed 
 rosary, — 
 
 I am ready for dying!" 
 77
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN, ROSARY 
 
 She dashed it In scorn to the marble-paved 
 ground 
 
 Where it fell mute as snow, and a weird 
 music-sound 
 
 Crept up, like a chill, up the aisles long 
 and dim, — 
 
 As the fiends tried to mock at the choris- 
 ters' hymn 
 
 And moaned in the trying. 
 
 Fourth Part 
 
 Onora looketh listlessly adown the garden 
 
 walk: 
 " I am weary, O my mother, of thy tender 
 
 talk. 
 I am weary of the trees a-waving to and 
 
 fro. 
 Of the steadfast skies above, the running 
 
 brooks below. 
 All things are the same but I, — only I 
 
 am dreary, 
 And, mother, of my dreariness behold me 
 
 very weary. 
 
 *' Mother, brother, pull the flowers I 
 
 planted in the spring 
 And smiled to think I should smile more 
 
 upon their gathering. 
 78
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 The bees will find out other flowers — oh, 
 
 pull them, dearest mine. 
 And carry them and carry me before Saint 
 
 Agnes' shrine." 
 — Whereat they pulled the summer flowers 
 
 she planted in the spring. 
 And her and them all mournfully to Agnes' 
 
 shrine did bring. 
 
 She looked up to the pictured saint and 
 
 gently shook her head — 
 " The picture is too calm for me — too calm 
 
 for w^," she said : 
 "The little flowers we brought with us, 
 
 before it we may lay. 
 For those are used to look at heaven, — 
 
 but / must turn away, 
 Because no sinner under sun can dare or 
 
 bear to gaze 
 On God's or angel's holiness, except in 
 
 Jesu's face." 
 
 She spoke with passion after pause — 
 
 "And were it wisely done, 
 If we who cannot gaze above, should walk 
 
 the earth alone? 
 If we whose virtue is so weak, should 
 
 have a will so strong, 
 And stand blind on the rocks, to choose 
 
 the right path from the wrong? 
 79
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 To choose perhaps a love -lit hearth, in- 
 stead of love and Heaven, — 
 
 A single rose, for a rose-tree, which beareth 
 seven times seven? 
 
 A rose that droppeth from the hand, that 
 fadeth in the breast, — 
 
 Until, in grieving- for the worst, we learn 
 what is the best!" 
 
 Then breaking into tears, — " Dear God," 
 
 she cried, "and must we see 
 All blissful things depart from us, or ere 
 
 we go to Thee? 
 We cannot guess Thee in the wood, or 
 
 hear Thee in the wind ? 
 Our cedars must fall round us, ere we see 
 
 the light behind? 
 Ay sooth, we feel too strong in weal, to 
 
 need Thee on that road. 
 But woe being come, the soul is dumb 
 
 that crieth not on 'God'." 
 
 Her mother could not speak for tears; she 
 
 ever mused thus, 
 '* The bees will find out other flowers, — but 
 
 what is left for wj-?" 
 But her 5'oung brother stayed his sobs 
 
 and knelt beside her knee, 
 — "Thou sweetest sister in the world, hast 
 
 never a word for me?" 
 80
 
 LAV OF THE BROWN ROSARY 
 
 She passed her hand across his face, she 
 
 pressed it on his cheek, 
 So tenderly, so tenderly — she needed not 
 
 to speak. 
 
 The wreath which lay on shrine that day, 
 
 at vespers bloomed no more. 
 The woman fair who placed it there, had 
 
 died an hour before. 
 Both perished mute, for lack of root, earth's 
 
 nourishment to reach. 
 O reader, breathe (the ballad saith) some 
 
 sweetness out of each ! 
 
 8i
 
 Lady Geraldine's 
 
 Courtship J^ J^ 
 
 A Romance of the Age 
 
 A poet writes to his Frie^id. Place — A 
 Room in Wycombe Hall. Time — Late 
 in the evening: 
 
 Dear my friend and fellow -student, I 
 
 would lean my spirit o'er you. 
 Down the purple of this chamber, tears 
 
 should scarcely run at will. 
 I am humbled who was humble. Friend, — 
 
 I bow my head before you. 
 You should lead me to my peasants, — but 
 
 their faces are too still. 
 
 There 's a lady — an earl's daughter, — she 
 
 is proud and she is noble. 
 And she treads the crimson carpet, and she 
 
 breathes the perfumed air, 
 And a kingly blood sends glances up her 
 
 princely eye to trouble, 
 And the shadow of a monarch's crown is 
 
 softened in her hair. 
 82
 
 LAD Y GERALDINE'S CO UR TSHIP 
 
 She has halls among the woodlands, she 
 
 has castles by the breakers, 
 She has farms and she has manors, she 
 
 can threaten and command, 
 And the palpitating engines snort in steam 
 
 across her acres, 
 As they mark upon the blasted heaven the 
 
 measure of the land. 
 
 There are none of England's daughters 
 
 who can show a prouder presence. 
 Upon princely suitors' praying, she has 
 
 looked in her disdain. 
 She was sprung of English nobles, I was 
 
 born of English peasants; 
 What was / that I should love her — save 
 
 for competence to pain? 
 
 I was only a poor poet, made for singing 
 
 at her casement, 
 As the finches or the thrushes, while she 
 
 thought of other things. 
 Oh, she walked so high above me, she 
 
 appeared to my abasement. 
 In her lovely silken murmur, like an angel 
 
 clad in wings ! 
 
 83
 
 LADYGERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 Many vassals bow before her as her car- 
 riage sweeps their doorways ; 
 
 She has blest their little children, — as a 
 priest or queen were she. 
 
 Far too tender, or too cruel far, her smile 
 upon the poor was, 
 
 For I thought it was the same smile which 
 she used to smile on me. 
 
 She has voters in the commons, she has 
 
 lovers in the palace ; 
 And of all the fair court-ladies, few have 
 
 jewels half as fine. 
 Oft the prince has named her beauty 
 
 'twixt the red wine and the chalice. 
 Oh, and what was / to love her? my 
 
 beloved, my Geraldine! 
 
 Yet I could not choose out love her. I was 
 
 born to poet-uses. 
 To love all things set above me, all of 
 
 good and all of fair. 
 Nymphs of mountain, not of valley, we 
 
 are wont to call the Muses ; 
 And in nympholeptic climbing, poets pass 
 
 from mount to star. 
 84
 
 LADYGERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 And because I was a poet, and because 
 
 the public praised me, 
 With a critical deduction for the modern 
 
 writer's fault, 
 I could sit at rich men's tables, — though 
 
 the courtesies that raised me, 
 Still suggested clear between us the pale 
 
 spectrum of the salt. 
 
 And they praised me in her presence ; — 
 
 ' ' Will your book appear this summer? " 
 Then returning to each other — "Yes, our 
 
 plans are for the moors." 
 Then with whisper dropped behind me — 
 
 "There he is! the latest comer! 
 Oh, she only likes his verses! what is 
 
 over, she endures. 
 
 ** Quite low-born ! self-educated! somewhat 
 
 gifted though by nature, — 
 And we make a point of asking him, — o*"" 
 
 being xQvy kind. 
 You may speak, he does not hear you i 
 
 and besides, he writes no satire, — 
 All these serpents kept by charmers, leave 
 
 the natural sting behind." 
 85
 
 LAD V GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 I grew scornfuller, grew colder, as I stood 
 
 up there among them, 
 Till as frost intense will burn you, the cold 
 
 scorning scorched my brow, — 
 When a sudden silver speaking, gravely 
 
 cadenced, over-rung them. 
 And a sudden silken stirring touched my 
 
 inner nature through. 
 
 I looked upward and beheld her. With a 
 
 calm and regnant spirit. 
 Slowly round she swept her eyelids, and 
 
 said clear before them all — 
 "Have you such superfluous honour, sir, 
 
 that able to confer it 
 You will come down. Mister Bertram, as 
 
 my guest to Wycombe Hall?" 
 
 Here she paused, — she had been paler at 
 the first word of her speaking, 
 
 But because a silence followed it, blushed 
 somewhat, as for shame. 
 
 Then, as scorning her own feeling, re- 
 sumed calmly—" I am seeking 
 
 More distinction than these gentlemen 
 think worthy of my claim. 
 86
 
 LADV GERA LD INK'S CO UR TSHIP 
 
 " Ne'ertheless, you see, I seek it — not be- 
 cause I am a woman," 
 
 (Here her smile sprang like a fountain, 
 and, so, overflowed her mouth) 
 
 " But because my woods in Sussex have 
 some purple shades at gloaming 
 
 Which are worthy of a king in state, or 
 poet in his youth. 
 
 " I invite you. Mister Bertram, to no scene 
 
 for worldly speeches — 
 Sir, I scarce should dare — but only where 
 
 God asked the thrushes first — 
 And xi you will sing beside them, in the 
 
 covert of my beeches, 
 I will thank you for the woodlands, ... for 
 
 the human world, at worst." 
 
 Then she smiled around right childly, then 
 she gazed around right queenly, 
 
 And I bowed — I could not answer; alter- 
 nated light and gloom — 
 
 While as one who quells the lions, with a 
 steady eye serenely, 
 
 She, with level fronting eyelids, passed out 
 stately from the room. 
 
 87 G
 
 LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 Oh, the blessed woods of Sussex, I can 
 
 hear them still around me. 
 With their leafy tide of greenery still 
 
 rippling up the wind. 
 Oh, the cursed woods of Sussex ! where 
 
 the hunter's arrow found me, 
 When a fair face and a tender voice had 
 
 made me mxad and blind ! 
 
 In that ancient hall of Wycombe, thronged 
 
 the numerous guests invited. 
 And the lovely London ladies trod the 
 
 floors with gliding feet; 
 And their voices low with fashion, not 
 
 with feeling, softly freighted 
 All the air about the windows, with elastic 
 
 laughters sweet. 
 
 For at eve, the open windows flung their 
 
 light out on the terrace, 
 Which the floating orbs of curtains did 
 
 with gradual shadow sweep. 
 While the swans upon the river, fed at 
 
 morning by the heiress. 
 Trembled downward through their snowy 
 
 wings at music in their sleep.
 
 LADYGERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 And there evermore was music, both of 
 
 Instrument and singing, 
 Till the finches of the shrubberies grew 
 
 restless in the dark ; 
 But the cedars stood up motionless, each 
 
 in a moonlight ringing, 
 And the deer, half in the glimmer, strewed 
 
 the hollows of the park. 
 
 And though sometimes she would bind me 
 
 with her silver-corded speeches 
 To commix my words and laughter with 
 
 the converse and the jest, 
 Oft I sate apart, and gazing on the river 
 
 through the beeches. 
 Heard, as pure the swans swam down it, 
 
 her pure voice o'erfloat the rest. 
 
 In the miorning, horn of huntsman, hoof 
 
 of steed, and laugh of rider, 
 Spread out cheery from the courtyard till 
 
 we lost them in the hills. 
 While herself and other ladies, and her 
 
 suitors left beside her, 
 Went a-wandering up the gardens through 
 
 the laurels and abeles.
 
 LADYGERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 Thus, her foot upon the new-mown grass, 
 
 bareheaded, with the flowing 
 Of the virginal white vesture gathered 
 
 closely to her throat, — 
 And the golden ringlets in her neck just 
 
 quickened by her going, 
 And appearing to breathe sun for air, and 
 
 doubting if to float, — 
 
 With a bunch of dewy maple, which her 
 
 right hand held above her. 
 And which trembled a green shadow in 
 
 betwixt her and the skies. 
 As she turned her face in going, thus, she 
 
 drew me on to love her. 
 And to worship the divineness of the smile 
 
 hid in her eyes. 
 
 For her eyes alone smile constantly: her 
 
 lips have serious sweetness, 
 And her front is calm — the dimple rarely 
 
 ripples on the cheek; 
 But her deep blue eyes smile constantly, 
 
 as if they in discreetness 
 Kept the secret of a happy dream she did 
 
 not care to speak. 
 90
 
 LADYGERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 Thus she drew me the first morning, out 
 across into the garden, 
 
 And I walked among her noble friends 
 and could not keep behind. 
 
 Spake she unto all and unto me — "Be- 
 hold, I am the warden 
 
 Of the song-birds in these lindens, which 
 are cages to their mind. 
 
 " But within this swarded circle, into which 
 
 the lime-walk brings us. 
 Whence the beeches, rounded greenly, 
 
 stand away in reverent fear, 
 I will let no music enter, saving what the 
 
 fountain sings us. 
 Which the lilies round the basin may seem 
 
 pure enough to hear. 
 
 "The live air that waves the lilies waves 
 
 the slender jet of water 
 Like a holy thought sent feebly up from 
 
 soul of fasting saint. 
 Whereby lies a marble Silence, sleeping! 
 
 (Lough the sculptor wrought her) 
 So asleep she is forgetting to say Hush ! 
 
 — a fancy quaint. 
 91
 
 LADYGERALDINKS COURTSHIP 
 
 "Mark how heavy white her eyelids! not 
 
 a dream between them lingers. 
 And the left hand's index droppeth from 
 
 the lips upon the cheek; 
 While the right hand,— with the symbol 
 
 rose held slack within the fingers, — 
 Has fallen backward in the basin — yet this 
 
 Silence will not speak! 
 
 "That the essential meaning growing may 
 
 exceed the special symbol, 
 Is the thought as I conceive it : it applies 
 
 more high and low. 
 Our true noblemen will often through 
 
 right nobleness grow humble. 
 And assert an inward honour by denying 
 
 outward show." 
 
 "Nay, your Silence," said I, "truly, holds 
 
 her symbol rose but slackly, 
 Yet she holds it — or would scarcely be a 
 
 Silence to our ken. 
 And your nobles wear their ermine on the 
 
 outside, or walk blackly 
 In the presence of the social law as mere 
 
 ignoble men. 
 
 92
 
 LAD V GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 "Let the poets dream such dreaming-! 
 
 madam, in these British islands, 
 'T is the substance that wanes ever, 't is 
 
 the symbol that exceeds. 
 Soon we shall have nought but symbol ! 
 
 and, for statues like this Silence, 
 Shall accept the rose's image — in another 
 
 case, the weeds." 
 
 "Not so quickly," she retorted, — "I con- 
 fess, where'er you go, you 
 
 Find for things, names — shows for actions, 
 and pure gold for honour clear. 
 
 But when all is run to symbol in the 
 Social, I will throw you 
 
 The world's book which now reads drily, 
 and sit down with Silence here." 
 
 Half in playfulness she spoke, I thought, 
 
 and half in indignation ; 
 Friends who listened, laughed her words 
 
 off, while her lovers deemed her fair. 
 A fair woman, flushed with feeling, in her 
 
 noble-lighted station 
 Near the statue's white reposing — and 
 
 both bathed in sunny air! — 
 93
 
 LADYGERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 With the trees round, not so distant but 
 
 you heard their vernal murmur, 
 And beheld in light and shadow the 
 
 leaves in and outward move. 
 And the little fountain leaping toward the 
 
 sun-heart to be warmer, 
 Then recoiling in a tremble from the too 
 
 much light above. 
 
 'Tis a picture for remembrance. And 
 
 thus, morning after morning. 
 Did I follow as she drew me by the spirit 
 
 to her feet. 
 Why her greyhound followed also ! dogs 
 
 — we both were dogs for scorning — 
 To be sent back when she pleased it and 
 
 her path lay through the wheat. 
 
 And thus, morning after morning, spite 
 
 of vows and spite of sorrow. 
 Did I follow at her drawing, while the 
 
 week-days passed along. 
 Just to feed the swans this noontide, or to 
 
 see the fawns to-morrow. 
 Or to teach the hill-side echo some sweet 
 
 Tuscan in a song. 
 94
 
 LADYGERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 Ay, for sometimes on the hill-side, while 
 
 we sate down in the gowans, 
 With the forest green behind us, and its 
 
 shadow cast before, 
 And the river running under, and across 
 
 it from the rowans 
 A brown partridge whirring near us, till 
 
 we felt the air it bore, — 
 
 There, obedient to her praying; did I read 
 
 aloud the poems 
 Made to Tuscan flutes, or instruments 
 
 more various of our own ; 
 Read the pastoral parts of Spenser — or the 
 
 subtle interflowings 
 Found in Petrarch's sonnets — here 's the 
 
 book — the leaf is folded down ! — 
 
 Or at times a modern volume, — Words- 
 worth's solemn-thoughted idyl, 
 
 Hewitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's en- 
 chanted reverie, — 
 
 Or from Browning some " Pomegranate", 
 which, if cut deep down the middle, 
 
 Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a 
 veined humanity. 
 95
 
 LAD V GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 Or at times I read there, hoarsely, some 
 
 new poem of my making. 
 Poets ever fail in reading- their own verses 
 
 to their worth, — 
 For the echo in you breaks upon the words 
 
 which you are speaking. 
 And the chariot-wheels jar in the gate 
 
 through which you drive them forth. 
 
 After, when we were grown tired of books, 
 
 the silence round us flinging 
 A slow arm of sweet compression, felt 
 
 with beatings at the breast. 
 She would break out, on a sudden, in a 
 
 gush of woodland singing, 
 Like a child's emotion in a god — a naiad 
 
 tired of rest. 
 
 Oh, to see or hear her singing ! scarce I 
 
 know which is divinest — 
 For her looks sing too— she modulates her 
 
 gestures on the tune ; 
 And her mouth stirs with the song, like 
 
 song; and when the notes are finest, 
 Tis the eyes that shoot out vocal light 
 
 and seem to swell them on. 
 96
 
 LADV GERALDINKS COURTSHIP 
 
 Then we talked — oh, how we talked! her 
 voice, so cadenced in the talking. 
 
 Made another singing — of the soul I a 
 music without bars. 
 
 While the leafy sounds of woodlands, hum- 
 ming round where we were walking, 
 
 Brought interposition worthy -sweet, — as 
 skies about the stars. 
 
 And she spake such good thoughts natural, 
 as if she always thought them ; 
 
 She had sympathies so rapid, open, free 
 as bird on branch, 
 
 Just as ready to fly east as west, which- 
 ever way besought them, 
 
 In the birchen-wood a chirrup, or a cock- 
 crow in the grange. 
 
 In her utmost lightness there is truth — 
 
 and often she speaks lightly. 
 Has a grace in being gay, which even 
 
 mournful souls approve, 
 For the root of some grave earnest thought 
 
 is understruck so rightly 
 As to justify the foliage and the waving 
 
 flowers above. 
 
 97
 
 LAD V GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 And she talked on — 7ve talked, rather! 
 
 upon all things, substance, shadow, 
 Of the sheep that browsed the grasses, of 
 
 the reapers in the corn. 
 Of the little children from the schools, 
 
 seen winding through the meadow — 
 Of the poor rich world beyond them, still 
 
 kept poorer by its scorn. 
 
 So, of men, and so, of letters — books are 
 
 men of higher stature, 
 And the only men that speak aloud for 
 
 future times to hear; 
 So, of mankind in the abstract, which 
 
 grows slowly into nature, 
 Yet will lift the cry of "progress", as it 
 
 trod from sphere to sphere. 
 
 i\nd her custom was to praise me when 
 
 I said, — "The Age culls simples. 
 With a broad clown's back turned broadly 
 
 to the glory of the stars. 
 We are gods by our own reck'ning, and 
 
 may well shut up the temples. 
 And wield on, amid the incense- steam, 
 
 the thunder of our cars. 
 98
 
 LADV GERALDINE'S CO URTSHIP 
 
 "For we throw out acclamations of self- 
 thanking, self-admiring, 
 
 With, at every mile run faster, — ' O the 
 wondrous wondrous age,' 
 
 Little thinking if we work our souls as 
 nobly as our iron, 
 
 Or if angels will commend us at the goal 
 of pilgrimage. 
 
 "Why, what is this patient entrance into 
 
 nature's deep resources, 
 But the child's most gradual learning to 
 
 walk upright without bane? 
 When we drive out, from the cloud of 
 
 steam, majestical white horses, 
 Are we greater than the first men who 
 
 led black ones by the mane? 
 
 "If we trod the deeps of ocean, if we 
 
 struck the stars in rising. 
 If we wrapped the globe intensely with 
 
 one hot electric breath, 
 'Twere but power within our tether, no 
 
 new spirit-power comprising, 
 And in life we were not greater men, 
 
 nor bolder men in death." 
 99
 
 LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 She was patient with my talking-; and I 
 loved her, loved her certes, 
 
 As I loved all heavenly objects, with up- 
 lifted eyes and hands ! 
 
 hs I loved pure inspirations, loved the 
 graces, loved the virtues, 
 
 In a Love content with writing his own 
 name on desert sands. 
 
 Or at least I thought so, purely! — thought 
 
 no idiot Hope was raising 
 Any crown to crown Love's silence — silent 
 
 Love that sate alone. 
 Out, alas! the stag is like me — he, that 
 
 tries to go on grazing 
 With the great deep gun -wound in his 
 
 neck, then reels with sudden moan. 
 
 It was thus I reeled. I told you that her 
 
 hand had many suitors ; 
 But she smiles them down imperially, as 
 
 Venus did the waves, 
 And with such a gracious coldness, that 
 
 they cannot press their futures 
 On the present of her courtesy, which 
 
 yieldingly enslaves.
 
 LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 And this morning, as I sat alone within 
 
 the inner chamber, 
 With the great saloon beyond it, lost in 
 
 pleasant thought serene. 
 For I had been reading Camoens — that 
 
 poem you remember, 
 Which his lady's eyes are praised in, as 
 
 the sweetest ever seen. 
 
 And the book lay open, and my thought 
 flew from it, taking from it 
 
 A vibration and impulsion to an end be- 
 yond its own. 
 
 As the branch of a green osier, when a 
 child would overcome it, 
 
 Springs up freely from his clasping and 
 goes swinging in the sun. 
 
 xA.s I mused I heard a murmur, — it grew 
 
 deep as it grew longer — 
 Speakers using earnest language— ' ' Lady 
 
 Geraldine, you wouldV 
 And I heard a voice that pleaded ever 
 
 on, in accents stronger 
 As a sense of reason gave it power to 
 
 make its rhetoric good. 
 
 lOl
 
 LAD V GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 Well I knew that voice — it was an earl's, 
 
 of soul that matched his station, 
 Soul completed into lordship — might and 
 
 right read on his brow; 
 Very finely courteous — far too proud to 
 
 doubt his domination 
 Of the common people, he atones for 
 
 grandeur by a bow. 
 
 High straight forehead, nose of eagle, cold 
 
 blue eyes, of less expression 
 Than resistance, coldly casting off the 
 
 looks of other men, 
 As steel, arrows, — unelastic lips, which 
 
 seem to taste possession, 
 And be cautious lest the common air 
 
 should injure or distrain. 
 
 For the rest, accomplished, upright, — ay, 
 and standing by his order 
 
 With a bearing not ungraceful ; fond of 
 art and letters too ; 
 
 Just a good man made a proud man, — 
 as the sandy rocks that border 
 
 A wild coast, by circumstances, in a reg- 
 nant ebb and flow.
 
 LAD Y GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 Thus, I knew that voice— I heard it, and 
 
 I could not help the harkening. 
 In the room I stood up blindly, and my 
 
 burning heart within 
 Seemed to seethe and fuse my senses, till 
 
 they ran on all sides darkening, 
 And scorched, weighed, like melted metal 
 
 round my feet that stood therein. 
 
 And that voice, I heard it pleading, for 
 
 love's sake, for wealth, position. 
 For the sake of liberal uses, and great 
 
 actions to be done — 
 And she interrupted gently, "Nay, my 
 
 lord, the old tradition 
 Of your Normans, by some worthier hand 
 
 than mine is, should be won." 
 
 " Ah, that white hand !" he said quickly, — 
 and in his he either drew it 
 
 Or attempted — for with gravity and in- 
 stance she replied, 
 
 " Nay, indeed, my lord, this talk is vain, 
 and we had best eschew it, 
 
 And pass on, like friends, to other points 
 less easy to decide." 
 
 103 H
 
 LAD Y GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 What he said again, I know not. It is 
 
 likely that his trouble 
 Worked his pride up to the surface, for 
 
 she answered in slow scorn, 
 "And your lordship judges rightly. Whom 
 
 I marry% shall be noble, 
 Ay, and wealthy. I shall never blush to 
 
 think how he was born." 
 
 There, I maddened! her words stung me. 
 
 Life swept through me into fever. 
 And my soul sprang up astonished, sprang, 
 
 full-statured in an hour. 
 Know you what it is when anguish, with 
 
 apocalyptic never. 
 To a Pythian height dilates you, — and 
 
 despair sublimes to power? 
 
 From my brain, the soul-wings budded, — 
 
 waved a flame about my body, 
 Whence conventions coiled to ashes. I 
 
 felt self-drawn out, as man. 
 From amalgamate false natures, and I 
 
 saw the skies grow ruddy 
 With the deepening feet of angels, and I 
 
 knew what spirits can. 
 104
 
 LAD Y GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 I was mad — Inspired — say either ! (anguish 
 
 worketh Inspiration) 
 Was a man, or beast — perhaps so, for the 
 
 tiger roars, when speared ; 
 xA.nd I walked on, step by step, along the 
 
 level of my passion — 
 Oh my soul ! and passed the doorway to 
 
 her face, and never feared. 
 
 He had left her, peradventure, when my 
 
 footstep proved my coming — 
 But for her—sh^ half arose, then sate — 
 
 grew scarlet and grew pale. 
 Oh, she trembled ! — 't Is so always with a 
 
 worldly man or woman 
 In the presence of true spirits — what else 
 
 can they do but quail? 
 
 Oh, she fluttered like a tame bird, in 
 
 among its forest-brothers 
 Far too strong for It; then drooping, 
 
 bowed her face upon her hands — 
 And I spake out wildly, fiercely, brutal 
 
 truths of her and others. 
 /, she planted In the desert, swathed her, 
 
 windlike, with my sands. 
 105
 
 LADYGERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 I plucked up her social fictions, bloody- 
 rooted though leaf-verdant, — 
 
 Trod them down with words of shaming, — 
 all the purple and the gold, 
 
 All the "landed stakes" and lordships, all, 
 that spirits pure and ardent 
 
 Are cast out of love and honour because 
 chancing not to hold. 
 
 "For myself I do not argue," said I, 
 
 "though I love you, madam, 
 But for better souls that nearer to the 
 
 height of yours have trod. 
 And this age shows, to my thinking, still 
 
 more Infidels to Adam, 
 Than directly, by profession, simple infidels 
 
 to God. 
 
 "Yet, O God," I said, "O grave," I said, 
 
 ' ' O mother's heart and bosom. 
 With whom first and last are equal, saint 
 
 and corpse and little child ! 
 We are fools to your deductions, in these 
 
 figments of heart-closing. 
 W^e are traitors to your causes, in these 
 
 sympathies defiled. 
 io6
 
 LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 " Learn more reverence, madam, not for 
 
 rank or wealth — that needs no learning, 
 That comes quickly, quick as sin does, 
 
 ay, and culminates to sin ; 
 But for Adam's seed, man ! Trust me, 't is 
 
 a clay above your scorning. 
 With God's image stamped upon it, and 
 
 God's kindling breath within. 
 
 "What right have you, madam, gazing 
 
 in your palace mirror daily, 
 Getting so by heart your beauty which all 
 
 others must adore, 
 While you draw the golden ringlets down 
 
 your fingers, to vow gaily 
 You will wed no man that 's only good to 
 
 God, and nothing more? 
 
 "Why, what right have you, made fair by 
 
 that same God — the sweetest woman 
 Of all women He has fashioned — with 
 
 your lovely spirit-face, 
 Which would seem too near to vanish if 
 
 its smile were not so human. 
 And your voice of holy sweetness, turning 
 
 common words to grace, 
 107
 
 LA D Y GERA LDINE' S CO UR TSHIP 
 
 "What right can you have, God's other 
 works to scorn, despise, revile them 
 
 In the gross, as mere men, broadly^ — not 
 as noble men, forsooth, — 
 
 As mere Pariahs of the outer world, for- 
 bidden to assoil them 
 
 In the hope of living, dying, near that 
 sweetness of your mouth? 
 
 "Have you any answer, madam? If my 
 
 spirit were less earthly. 
 If its instrument were gifted with a better 
 
 silver string, 
 I would kneel down where I stand, and 
 
 say — Behold me ! I am worthy 
 Of thy loving, for I love thee! I am 
 
 worthy as a king. 
 
 "As it is — your ermined pride, I swear, 
 shall feel this stain upon her. 
 
 That /, poor, weak, tost with passion, 
 scorned by me and you again. 
 
 Love you, madam — dare to love you — to 
 my grief and your dishonour, 
 
 To my endless desolation, and your im- 
 potent disdain !" 
 
 io8
 
 LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 More mad words like these— mere madness! 
 
 friend, I need not write them fuller, 
 For I hear my hot soul dropping on the 
 
 lines in showers of tears. 
 Oh, a woman ! friend, a woman ! why, a 
 
 beast had scarce been duller 
 Than roar bestial loud complaints against 
 
 the shining of the spheres. 
 
 But at last there came a pause. I stood 
 
 all vibrating with thunder 
 Which my soul had used. The silence 
 
 drew her face up like a call. 
 Could you guess what word she uttered? 
 
 She looked up, as If In wonder. 
 With tears beaded on her lashes, and 
 
 said "Bertram!" it was all. 
 
 If she had cursed me, and she might have — 
 or if even, with queenly bearing 
 
 Which at need is used by women, she 
 had risen up and said, 
 
 *'Sir, you are my guest, and therefore I 
 have given you a full hearing, 
 
 Now, beseech you, choose a name exact- 
 ing somewhat less, instead," 
 109
 
 LADYGERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 I had borne it ! — but that " Bertram" — why 
 
 it lies there on the paper 
 A mere word, without her accent, — and 
 
 you cannot judge the weight 
 Of the calm which crushed my passion. 
 
 I seemed drowning in a vapour, — 
 And her gentleness destroyed me whom 
 
 her scorn made desolate. 
 
 So, struck backward and exhausted by 
 
 that inward flow of passion 
 Which had rushed on, sparing nothing, 
 
 into forms of abstract truth, 
 By a logic agonising through unseemly 
 
 demonstration. 
 And by youth's own anguish turning 
 
 grimly grey the hairs of youth, — 
 
 By the sense accursed and instant, that if 
 
 even I spake wisely 
 I spake basely — using truth, if what I 
 
 spake, indeed was true. 
 To avenge wrong on a woman — her, who 
 
 sate there weighing nicely 
 A poor manhood's worth, found guilty of 
 
 such deeds as I could do ! —
 
 LAD V GERALDINE'S CO URTSHIP 
 
 By such wrong and woe exhausted — what 
 
 I suiYered and occasioned, — 
 As a wild horse through a city runs with 
 
 lightning in his eyes, 
 And then dashing at a church's cold and 
 
 passive wall, impassioned, 
 Strikes the death into his burning brain, 
 
 and blindly drops and dies — 
 
 So I fell, struck down before her ! do you 
 
 blame me, friend, for weakness? 
 'T was my strength of passion slew me ! — 
 
 fell before her like a stone. 
 Fast the dreadful world rolled from me, on 
 
 its roaring wheels of blackness — 
 When the light came, I was lying in this 
 
 chamber, and alone. 
 
 Oh, of course, she charged her lacqueys 
 
 to bear out the sickly burden, 
 And to cast it from her scornful sight — 
 
 but not beyond the gate ; 
 She is too kind to be cruel, and too 
 
 haughty not to pardon 
 Such a man as I — 't were something to 
 
 be level to her hate.
 
 LAD Y GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 But for me — you now are conscious why, 
 
 my friend, I write this letter, 
 How my life is read all backward, and 
 
 the charm of life undone. 
 I shall leave her house at dawn; I would 
 
 to-night, if I were better — 
 And I charg-e my soul to hold my body 
 
 strengthened for the sun. 
 
 When the sun has dyed the oriel, I depart, 
 
 with no last g-azes. 
 No weak moanings, (one word only, left 
 
 in writing for her hands,) 
 Out of reach of all derision, and some 
 
 unavailing praises. 
 To make front against this anguish in 
 
 the far and foreign lands. 
 
 Blame me not. I would not squander life 
 
 in grief— I am abstemious. 
 I but nurse my spirit's falcon, that its 
 
 wing may soar again. 
 There 's no roOxTi for tears of weakness in 
 
 the blind eyes of a Phemius ! 
 Into work the poet kneads them, — and he 
 
 does not die //// then.
 
 LADY GERALDINE'S CO URTSHIP 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 Bertram finished the last pages, while 
 
 along the silence ever 
 Still in hot and heavy splashes, fell the 
 
 tears on every leaf. 
 Having ended he leans backward in his 
 
 chair, with lips that quiver 
 From the deep unspoken, ay, and deep 
 
 unwritten thoughts of grief. 
 
 Soh! how still the lady standeth! 'tis a 
 
 dream — a dream of mercies ! 
 'Twixt the purple lattice-curtains, how she 
 
 standeth still and pale ! 
 'Tis a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to 
 
 soften his self-curses — 
 Sent to sweep a patient quiet o'er the 
 
 tossing of his wail. 
 
 ** Eyes," he said, " now throbbing through 
 
 me! are ye eyes that did undo me? 
 Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in 
 
 Parian statue-stone ! 
 Underneath that calm white forehead, are 
 
 ye ever burning torrid 
 O'er the desolate sand-desert of my heart 
 
 and life undone?" 
 113
 
 LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the 
 
 air, the purple curtain 
 Swelleth in and swelleth out around her 
 
 motionless pale brows. 
 While the gliding of the river sends a 
 
 rippling noise for ever 
 Through the open casement whitened by 
 
 the moonlight's slant repose. 
 
 Said he — "Vision of a lady! stand there 
 
 silent, stand there steady! 
 Now I see it plainly, plainly; now I cannot 
 
 hope or doubt — 
 There, the brows of mild repression — 
 
 there, the lips of silent passion, 
 Curved like an archer's bow to send the 
 
 bitter arrows out." 
 
 Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence 
 
 she kept smiling, 
 And approached him slowly, slowly, in a 
 
 gliding measured pace ; 
 With her two white hands extended, as 
 
 if praying one offended. 
 And a look of supplication, gazing earnest 
 
 in his face. 
 
 114
 
 LA D Y GERA LDIXE'S CO UR TSHIP 
 
 Said he — "Wake me by no gesture, — 
 
 sound of breath, or stir of vesture ! 
 Let the blessed apparition melt not yet to 
 
 its divine ! 
 No approaching — hush, no breathing ! or 
 
 my heart must swoon to death in 
 The too utter life thou bringest — O thou 
 
 dream of Geraldine ! " 
 
 Ever, evermore the while in a slovv^ silence 
 
 she kept smiling — 
 But the tears ran over lightly from her 
 
 eyes, and tenderly. 
 "Dost thou, Bertram, truly love me? Is 
 
 no woman far above me 
 Found more worthy of thy poet-heart than 
 
 such a one as /?" 
 
 Said he — " I would dream so ever, like 
 
 the flowing of that river. 
 Flowing ever in a shadow greenly onward 
 
 to the sea! 
 So, thou vision of all sweetness — princely 
 
 to a full completeness, — 
 Would my heart and life flow onward — 
 
 deathward — through this dream of 
 
 thee!" 
 
 IIS
 
 LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
 
 Ever, evermore the while In a slow silence 
 
 she kept smiling, 
 While the silver tears ran faster' down the 
 
 blushing of her cheeks; 
 Then with both her hands enfolding both 
 
 of his, she softly told him, 
 ' ' Bertram, if I say I love thee, ... 't is 
 
 the vision only speaks." 
 
 Softened, quickened to adore her, on his 
 
 knee he fell before her — 
 And she whispered low in triumph, "It 
 
 shall be as I have sworn ! 
 Very rich he is in virtues, — very noble — 
 
 noble, certes ; 
 And I shall not blush in knowing that 
 
 men call him lowly born." 
 
 ii6
 
 Rhyme of the 
 Duchess May 
 
 To the belfry, one by one, went the ringers 
 from the sun, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 And the oldest ringer said, *' Ours is music 
 for the dead. 
 
 When the rebecks are all done." 
 
 Six abeles i' the churchyard grow on the 
 north side in a row, 
 Toll slowly. 
 And the shadows of their tops rock across 
 the little slopes 
 
 Of the grassy graves below. 
 
 On the south side and the west, a small 
 river runs in haste, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 And between the river flowing and the 
 
 fair green trees a-growing 
 
 Do the dead lie at their rest. 
 
 117
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA V 
 
 IV 
 
 On the east I sate that day, up against 
 a willow grey. 
 
 To// s/ozi'/y. 
 Through the rain of willow-branches, I 
 could see the low hill-ranges. 
 And the river on its way. 
 
 There I sate beneath the tree, and the 
 bell tolled solemnly. 
 
 To// slowly. 
 While the trees' and river's voices flowed 
 between the solemn noises, — 
 
 Yet death seemed more loud to me. 
 
 VI 
 
 There, I read this ancient rhyme, while the 
 bell did all the time 
 Toll slowly. 
 x\nd the solemn knell fell in with the tale 
 of life and sin. 
 
 Like a rhythmic fate sublime. 
 
 ii8
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 The Rhyme 
 
 Broad the forests stood (I read) on the 
 hills of Linteged— 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 And three hundred years had stood mute 
 adown each hoary wood, 
 
 Like a full heart having prayed. 
 
 And the little birds sang east, and the 
 little birds sang west, 
 Toll slowly. 
 And but little thought was theirs of the 
 silent antique years, 
 
 In the building of their nest. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Down the sun dropt large and red, on the 
 towers of Linteged, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 Lance and spear upon the height, bristling 
 strange in fiery^ light, 
 
 While the castle stood in shade. 
 119 J
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 IV 
 
 There the castle stood up black, with the 
 red sun at its back, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 Like a sullen smouldering pj^re, with a top 
 that flickers fire 
 
 When the wind is on its track. 
 
 And five hundred archers tall did besiege 
 the castle wall, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 And the castle, seethed in blood, fourteen 
 days and nights had stood, 
 And to-night was near its fall, 
 
 VI 
 
 Yet thereunto, blind to doom, three months 
 since, a bride did come, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 One who proudly trod the floors, and softly 
 whispered in the doors, 
 
 " May good angels bless our home." 
 
 VII 
 
 Oh, a bride of queenly eyes, with a front 
 of constancies ! 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 Oh, a bride of cordial mouth, — where the 
 untired smile of youth 
 
 Did light outward its own sighs. 
 1 20
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 VIII 
 
 'Twas a Duke's fair orphan-girl, and her 
 uncle's ward, the Earl ; 
 Toll slowly. 
 Who betrothed her twelve years old, for 
 the sake of dowry' gold, 
 
 To his son Lord Leigh, the churl. 
 
 IX 
 
 But what time she had made good all her 
 years of womanhood. 
 Toll slowly. 
 Unto both those lords of Leigh, spake she 
 out right sovranly, 
 
 "My will runneth as my blood. 
 
 X 
 
 " And while this same blood makes red this 
 same right hand's veins," she said, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 " 'T is my will as lady free, not to wed a 
 lord of Leigh, 
 
 But Sir Guy of Linteged." 
 
 XI 
 
 The old Earl he smiled smooth, then he 
 sighed for wilful youth, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 " Good my niece, that hand withal looketh 
 somewhat soft and small 
 
 For so large a will, in sooth." 
 
 121
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 XII 
 
 She, too, smiled by that same sign, — but 
 her smile was cold and fine, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 ''Little hand clasps muckle gold, or it 
 were not worth the hold 
 
 Of thy son, good uncle mine!" 
 
 XIII 
 
 Then the young lord jerked his breath, and 
 sware thickly in his teeth, 
 Toll slowly. 
 " He would wed his own betrothed, an she 
 loved him an she loathed, 
 
 Let the life come or the death." 
 
 XIV 
 
 Up she rose with scornful eyes, as her 
 father's child might rise, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Thy hound's blood, my lord of Leigh, 
 stains thy knightly heel," quoth she, 
 "And he moans not where he lies. 
 
 XV 
 
 " But a woman's will dies hard, in the hall 
 
 or on the sward ! " — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 " By that grave, my lords, which made me 
 
 orphaned girl and dowered lady, 
 
 I deny you wife and ward." 
 
 122
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 XVI 
 
 Unto each she bowed her head, and swept 
 past with lofty tread. 
 Toll slowly. 
 Ere the midnight-bell had ceased, in the 
 chapel had the priest 
 
 Blessed her, bride of Linteged. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Fast and fain the bridal train along the 
 night-storm rode amain. 
 Toll slowly. 
 Hard the steeds of lord and serf struck 
 their hoofs out on the turf. 
 In the pauses of the rain. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Fast and fain the kinsmen's train along 
 the storm pursued amain — 
 Toll slowly. 
 Steed on steed-track, dashing off — thicken- 
 ing, doubling, hoof on hoof. 
 In the pauses of the rain. 
 
 XIX 
 
 And the bridegroom led the flight on his 
 red-roan steed of might, 
 Toll slowly. 
 And the bride lay on his arm, still, as if 
 she feared no harm, 
 
 Smiling out into the night. 
 123
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA V 
 
 XX 
 
 "Dost thou fear?" he said at last.— "Nay," 
 she answered him in haste, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Not such death as we could find — only 
 life with one behind — 
 
 Ride on fast as fear — ride fast!" 
 
 XXI 
 
 Up the mountain wheeled the steed — girth 
 
 to ground, and fetlocks spread, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 Headlong bounds, and rocking flanks, — 
 
 down he staggered, down the banks, 
 
 To the towers of Linteged. 
 
 High and low the serfs looked out, red the 
 flambeaus tossed about, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 In the courtyard rose the cry — "Live the 
 Duchess and Sir Guy!" 
 
 But she never heard them shout. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 On the steed she dropt her cheek, kissed 
 
 his mane and kissed his neck, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 " I had happier died by thee, than lived on 
 
 a Lady Leigh," 
 
 Were the first words she did speak. 
 124
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 XXIV 
 
 But a three months' joyaunce lay 'twixt 
 that moment and to-day, 
 Toll slowly. 
 When five hundred archers tall stand beside 
 the castle wall, 
 
 To recapture Duchess May. 
 
 XXV 
 
 And the castle standeth black, with the red 
 sun at its back, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 And a fortnight's siege is done — and, ex- 
 cept the duchess, none 
 
 Can misdoubt the coming wrack. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Then the captain, young Lord Leigh, with 
 
 his eyes so grey of blee, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 And thin lips that scarcely sheath the cold 
 
 white gnashing of his teeth, 
 
 Gnashed in smiling, absently, 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Cried aloud, " So goes the day, bridegroom 
 fair of Duchess May!" — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Look thy last upon that sun! if thou 
 seest to-morrow's one, 
 
 'T will be through a foot of clay. 
 125
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 " Ha, fair bride! dost hear no sound, save 
 that moaning of the hound?" — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Thou and I have parted troth, — yet I 
 keep my vengeance-oath, 
 
 And the other may come round. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 "Ha! thy will is brave to dare, and thy 
 new love past compare " — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Yet thine old love's faulchion brave is 
 as strong a thing to have. 
 As the will of lady fair. 
 
 XXX 
 
 " Peck on blindly, netted dove!— If a wife's 
 name ihee behove," 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 ' • Thou shalt wear the same to-morrow, 
 ere the grave has hid the sorrow 
 Of thy last ill-mated love. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 " O'er his fixed and silent mouth, thou and 
 I will call back troth." 
 Toll slowly. 
 " He shall altar be and priest, — and he 
 will not cry at least 
 
 * I forbid you, I am loth ! ' 
 126
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 XXXII 
 
 " I will wring thy fingers pale in the 
 gauntlet of my mail." 
 Toll slowly. 
 "'Little hand and muckle gold' close 
 shall lie within my hold, 
 
 As the sword did, to prevail." 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little 
 birds sang west, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 Oh, and laughed the Duchess May, and 
 her soul did put away 
 
 All his boasting, tor a jest. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 In her chamber did she sit, laughing low 
 to think of it, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Tower is strong and will is free — thou 
 canst boast, my lord of Leigh, 
 But thou boastest little wit." 
 
 XXXV 
 
 In her tire-glass gazed she, and she blushed 
 right womanly. 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 She blushed half from her disdain — half, 
 her beauty was so plain, 
 
 — "Oath for oath, my lord of Leigh!" 
 
 127
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA V 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 Straight she called her maidens in — '* Since 
 ye gave me blame, herein," 
 To// s/o-w/y. 
 "That a bridal such as mine should lack 
 gauds to make it fine, 
 
 Come and shrive me from that sin. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 "It is three months gone to-day, since I 
 gave mine hand away." 
 To// s/ow/y. 
 " Bring the gold and bring the gem, we 
 will keep bride-state in them, 
 While we keep the foe at bay. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 "On your arms I loose mine hair! — comb 
 it smooth and crown it fair." 
 To// s/ow/y. 
 " I would look in purple pall from this 
 lattice down the wall, 
 
 And throw scorn to one that's there!" 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little 
 birds sang west. 
 
 To// s/ow/y. 
 On the tower the castle's lord leant in 
 silence on his sword. 
 
 With an anguish in his breast. 
 128
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 XL 
 
 With a spirit -laden weight, did he lean 
 down passionate. 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 They have almost sapped the wall,— they 
 will enter therewithal, 
 
 With no knocking at the gate. 
 
 XLI 
 
 Then the sword he leant upon, shivered, 
 snapped upon the stone, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Sword," he thought, with inward laugh, 
 ' ' ill thou servest for a staff 
 When thy nobler use is done ! 
 
 XLII 
 
 " Sword, thy nobler use is done! — tower is 
 lost, and shame begun ! " — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "If we met them in the breach, hilt to 
 hilt or speech to speech. 
 
 We should die there, each for one. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 "If we met them at the wall, we should 
 singly, vainl}- fall," — 
 Toll slowly. 
 " But if/ die here alone, — then I die, who 
 am but one. 
 
 And die nobly for them all. 
 129
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA V 
 
 XLIV 
 
 "Five true friends lie for my sake in the 
 moat and in the brake," — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Thirteen warriors lie at rest, with a black 
 wound in the breast, 
 
 And not one of these will wake. 
 
 XLV 
 
 "So no more of this shall be ! — heart-blood 
 weighs too heavily," — 
 Toll slowly. 
 " And I could not sleep in grave, with the 
 faithful and the brave 
 
 Heaped around and over me. 
 
 XL VI 
 
 "Since young Clare a mother hath, and 
 
 young Ralph a plighted faith," — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 " Since my pale young sister's cheeks blush 
 
 like rose when Ronald speaks, 
 
 Albeit never a word she saith — 
 
 XLVII 
 
 " These shall never die for me — life-blood 
 falls too heavily:" 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 "And if/ die here apart, — o'er my dead 
 and silent heart 
 They shall pass out safe and free. 
 130
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 " When the foe hath heard It said — ' Death 
 holds Guy of Linteged,'" 
 Toll slowly. 
 "That new corse new peace shall bring, 
 and a blessed, blessed thing 
 Shall the stone be at its head. 
 
 XLIX 
 
 "Then my friends shall pass out free, and 
 shall bear my memory," — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Then my foes shall sleek their pride, 
 soothing fair my widowed bride 
 Whose sole sin was love of me. 
 
 L 
 
 "With their words all smooth and sweet, 
 They will front her and entreat," 
 Toll slowly. 
 "And their purple pall will spread under- 
 neath her fainting head 
 
 While her tears drop over it. 
 
 LI 
 
 "She will weep her woman's tears, she 
 will pray her woman's prayers," — 
 Toll slowly. 
 " But her heart is young in pain, and her 
 hopes will spring again 
 
 By the suntime of her years. 
 131
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 LII 
 
 *'Ah, sweet May! ah, sweetest grief! — 
 once 1 vowed thee my belief," 
 Toll sloiuly. 
 " That thy name expressed thy sweetness, — 
 May of poets, in completeness ! 
 Now my May-day seemeth brief." 
 
 LIII 
 
 All these silent thoughts did swim o'er his 
 eyes grown strange and dim, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 Till his true men in the place, wished they 
 stood there face to face 
 
 With the foe instead of him. 
 
 LIV 
 
 "One last oath, my friends that wear 
 
 faithful hearts to do and dare!" — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 "Tower must fall, and bride be lost! — 
 
 swear me service worth the cost!" 
 
 — Bold they stood around to swear. 
 
 "Each man clasp my hand and swear, by 
 the deed we failed in there," 
 Toll slowly. 
 " Not for vengeance, not for right, will ye 
 strike one blow to-night!" 
 
 — Pale they stood around to swear. 
 132
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 LVI 
 
 "One last boon, young Ralph and Clare! 
 faithful hearts to do and dare!" — 
 Toll slowly. 
 " Bring that steed up from his stall, which 
 she kissed before you all ! 
 
 Guide him up the turret-stair. 
 
 LVII 
 
 "Ye shall harness him aright, and lead 
 upward to this height." 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Once in love and twice in war, hath he 
 borne me strong and far. 
 
 He shall bear me far to-night." 
 
 LVI 1 1 
 
 Then his men looked to and fro, when 
 
 they heard him speaking so. 
 
 Toll slowly . 
 
 — " 'Las! the noble heart," they thought, — 
 
 " he in sooth is grief-distraught. 
 
 Would, we stood here with the foe ! " 
 
 LIX 
 
 But a fire flashed from his eye, 'twixt 
 
 their thought and their reply, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 "Have ye so much time to waste? We 
 
 who ride here, must ride fast, 
 
 As we wish our foes to fly." 
 
 133
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA V 
 
 LX 
 
 They have fetched the steed with care, in 
 the harness he did wear, 
 Toll sloTi'ly. 
 Past the court, and through the doors, 
 across the rushes of the floors, 
 But they goad him up the stair. 
 
 LXI 
 
 Then from out her bower chambere, did 
 the Duchess May repair. 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Tell me now what is your need," said 
 the lady, " of this steed, 
 
 That ye goad him up the stair?" 
 
 LXII 
 
 Calm she stood; unbodkined through, fell 
 her dark hair to her shoe, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 And the smile upon her face, ere she left 
 the tiring-glass, 
 
 Had not time enough to go. 
 
 "Get thee back, sweet Duchess May! 
 hope is gone like yesterday," — 
 Toll slowly. 
 " One half-hour completes the breach; and 
 thy lord grows wild of speech ! 
 
 Get thee in, sweet lady, and pray. 
 134
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA V 
 
 LXIV 
 
 " In the east tower, high'st of all, loud 
 he cries for steed from stall." 
 To/l slowly. 
 '* He would ride as far, quoth he, as for 
 love and victory, 
 
 Though he rides the castle-wall. 
 
 LXV 
 
 "And we fetch the steed from stall, up 
 where never a hoof did fall." — 
 Toll slowly. 
 Wifely prayer meets deathly need! may 
 the sweet Heavens hear thee plead 
 If he rides the castle-wall." 
 
 LX\1 
 
 Low she dropt her head, and lower, till 
 her hair coiled on the floor,— 
 Toll slowly. 
 And tear after tear you heard fall distinct 
 as any word 
 
 Which you might be listening for. 
 
 LXVII 
 
 "Get thee in, thou soft ladye!— here, is 
 never a place for thee!" — 
 Toll slowly. 
 " Braid thine hair and clasp thy gown, 
 that thy beauty in its moan 
 
 May find grace with Leigh of Leigh." 
 ^35 K
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 She stood up in bitter case, with a pale 
 yet steady face, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 Like a statue thunderstruck, which, though 
 quivering, seems to look 
 
 Right against the thunder-place. 
 
 LXIX 
 
 And her foot trod in, with pride, her own 
 tears i' the stone beside. — 
 Toll sloivly. 
 "Go to, faithful friends, go to! — judge no 
 more what ladies do, — 
 
 No, nor how their lords may ride!" 
 
 LXX 
 
 Then the good steed's rein she took, and 
 his neck did kiss and stroke: 
 Toll slowly. 
 Soft he neighed to answer her, and then 
 followed up the stair, 
 
 For the love of her sweet look. 
 
 LXXI 
 
 Oh, and steeply, steeply wound up the 
 narrow stair around ! 
 Toll slowly. 
 Oh, and closely, closely speeding, step by 
 step beside her treading, 
 
 Did he follow, meek as hound. 
 136
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 LXXII 
 
 On the east tower, hig-h'st of all, — there, 
 where never a hoof did fall, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 Out they swept, a vision steady, — noble 
 steed and lovely lady, 
 
 Calm as if in bower or stall. 
 
 LXXIII 
 
 Down she knelt at her lord's knee, and 
 she looked up silently, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 And he kissed her twice and thrice, for 
 that look within her eyes 
 
 Which he could not bear to see. 
 
 Quoth he, " Get thee from this strife, — and 
 
 the sweet saints bless thy life!" — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 "In this hour, I stand in need of my 
 
 noble red-roan steed, 
 
 But no more of my noble wife." 
 
 LXXV 
 
 Quoth she, "Meekly have I done all thy 
 biddings under sun;" 
 Toll slowly. 
 " But by all my womanhood, which is 
 proved so, true and good, 
 I will never do this one. 
 137
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 " Now by womanhood's degree, and by 
 wifehood's verity," 
 
 Toll slo2vly. 
 " In this hour if thou hast need of thy 
 noble red-roan steed. 
 
 Thou hast also need of 77ie. 
 
 LXXVII 
 
 "By this golden ring ye see on this lifted 
 hand pardie," 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 "If, this hour, on castle-wall, can be room 
 for steed from stall, 
 
 Shall be also room for vie. 
 
 LXXVIII 
 
 "So the sweet saints with me be," (did 
 she utter solemnly) 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 " If a man, this eventide, on this castle- 
 wall will ride, 
 
 He shall ride the same with w<?." 
 
 LXXIX 
 
 Oh, he sprang up in the selle, and he 
 laughed out bitter- well, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Wouldst thou ride among the leaves, as 
 we used on other eves. 
 
 To hear chime a vesper-bell?" 
 138
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA V 
 
 LXXX 
 
 She clang closer to his knee — "Ay, beneath 
 the cypress-tree ! " — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 " Mock me not, for othervv'here than along- 
 the greenwood fair, 
 
 Have I ridden fast with thee. 
 
 LXXXI 
 
 "Fast I rode with new-made vows, from 
 
 my angry kinsman's house." 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 "What, and would you men should reck 
 
 that I dared more for love's sake 
 
 As a bride than as a spouse? 
 
 LXXXII 
 
 "What, and would you it should fall, as 
 
 a proverb, before all," 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 "That a bride may keep your side while 
 
 through castle-gate you ride. 
 
 Yet eschew the castle-wall?" 
 
 LXXXIII 
 
 Ho ! the breach yawns into ruin, and roars 
 up against her suing. 
 Toll slowly. 
 With the inarticulate din and the dreadful 
 falling in — 
 
 Shrieks of doing and undoing! 
 139
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA V 
 
 LXXXIV 
 
 Twice he wrung her hands in twain, but 
 the small hands closed again. 
 Toll slowly. 
 Back he reined the steed — back, back! 
 but she trailed along his track 
 With a frantic clasp and strain. 
 
 LXXXV 
 
 Evermore the foemen pour through the 
 
 crash of window and door, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 And the shouts of Leigh and Leigh, and 
 
 the shrieks of "kill!" and "flee!" 
 
 Strike up clear amid the roar. 
 
 LXXXVI 
 
 Thrice he wrung her hands in twain, — but 
 they closed and clung again, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 While she clung, as one, withstood, clasps 
 a Christ upon the rood, 
 
 In a spasm of deathly pain. 
 
 LXXXVI I 
 
 She clung wild and she clung mute, with 
 her shuddering lips half-shut. 
 Toll slowly. 
 Her head fallen as half In swound, — hair 
 and knee swept on the ground, 
 
 She clung wild to stirrup and foot. 
 140
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 LXXXVIII 
 
 Back he reined his steed back-thrown on 
 the sHpper}- coping-stone. 
 Toll slowly. 
 Back the iron hoofs did grind on the battle- 
 ment behind 
 
 Whence a hundred feet went down. 
 
 LXXXIX 
 
 And his heel did press and goad on the 
 quivering flank bestrode, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Friends, and brothers, save my wife! — 
 Pardon, sweet, in change for life, — 
 But I ride alone to God." 
 
 xc 
 
 Straight as if the Holy name had up- 
 breathed her like a flame, 
 Toll slowly. 
 She upsprang, she rose upright, — in his 
 selle she sate in sight. 
 
 By her love she overcame. 
 
 xci 
 
 And her head was on his breast, where 
 she smiled as one at rest, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 "Ring," she cried, "O vesper-bell, in the 
 beechwood's old chapelle ! 
 
 But the passing-bell rings best," 
 141
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 They have caught out at the rein, which 
 
 Sir Guy threw loose — in vain, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 
 For the horse in stark despair, with his 
 
 front hoofs poised in air, 
 
 On the last verge rears amain. 
 
 Now he hangs, he rocks between, and his 
 nostrils curdle in ! — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 Now he shivers head and hoof — and the 
 flakes of foam fall ofi^. 
 And his face grows fierce and thin ! 
 
 xciv 
 
 And a look of human woe from his staring 
 eyes did go. 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 And a sharp cry uttered he, in a foretold 
 agony 
 
 Of the headlong death below, — 
 
 xcv 
 
 And, " Ring, ring, thou passing-bell," still 
 she cried, " i' the old chapelle ! " — 
 Toll slowly. 
 142
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA Y 
 
 Then back-toppling, crashing back — a 
 dead weight flung out to wrack, 
 Horse and riders overfell. 
 
 Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little 
 birds sang west, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 And I read this ancient Rhyme, in the 
 churchyard, while the chime 
 Slowly tolled for one at rest. 
 
 The abeles moved in the sun, and the river 
 smooth did run. 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 And the ancient Rhyme rang strange, with 
 its passion and its change, 
 
 Here, where all done lay undone 
 
 And beneath a willow tree I a little grave 
 did see, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 Where was graved, — Here undefiled, 
 LiETH Maud, a three-year child, 
 Eighteen hundred, forty-three. 
 143
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA V 
 
 IV 
 
 Then, O spirits, did I say, ye who rode 
 so fast that day, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 Did star-wheels and angel wings, with 
 their holy winnowings. 
 
 Keep beside you all the way? 
 
 V 
 
 Though in passion ye would dash, with a 
 blind and heavy crash, 
 Toll slowly. 
 Up against the thick -bossed shield of 
 God's judgment In the field, — 
 
 Though your heart and brain were 
 rash, — 
 
 VI 
 
 Now, your will is all unwilled — now, your 
 pulses are all stilled ! 
 Toll slowly. 
 Now, ye lie as meek and mild (whereso 
 laid) as Maud the child. 
 
 Whose small grave was lately filled. 
 
 VII 
 
 Beating heart and burning brow, ye are 
 very patient now, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 And the children might be bold to pluck 
 the kingcups from your mould 
 Ere a month had let them grow. 
 144
 
 RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MA V 
 
 VIII 
 
 And you let the goldfinch sing in the alder 
 near in spring, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 Let her build her nest and sit all the three 
 weeks out on it, 
 
 Murmuring not at anything, 
 
 IX 
 
 In your patience ye are strong ; cold and 
 heat ye take not wrong. 
 Toll slowly. 
 When the trumpet of the angel blows 
 eternity's evangel, 
 
 Time will seem to you not long. 
 
 X 
 
 Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little 
 birds sang west, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 And I said in underbreath, — All our life is 
 mixed with death, 
 
 And who knoweth which is best? 
 
 XI 
 
 Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little 
 birds sang west, 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 And I smiled to think God's greatness 
 flowed around our incompleteness, — 
 Round our restlessness, His rest. 
 145
 
 The Cry of the 
 Children 
 
 "$eu, (pev, tI trpoc- 
 TeKia. " — Medea 
 
 I 
 
 Do ye hear the children weeping, O my 
 brothers, 
 
 Ere the sorrow comes with years? 
 They are leaning their young heads against 
 their mothers, 
 
 And that cannot stop their tears. 
 The young lambs are bleating in the 
 meadows. 
 The young birds are chirping in the 
 nest. 
 The young fawns are playing with the 
 shadows. 
 The young flowers are blowing toward 
 the west — 
 But the young, young children, O my 
 brothers, 
 
 They are weeping bitterly ! 
 They are weeping in the playtime of the 
 others, 
 
 In the country of the free. 
 146
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 II 
 
 Do you question the young children in the 
 sorrow, 
 
 Why their tears are falling so? 
 The old man may weep for his to-morrow 
 
 Which is lost in Long Ago. 
 The old tree is leafless in the forest, 
 
 The old year is ending in the frost, 
 The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, 
 
 The old hope is hardest to be lost. 
 But the young, young children, O my 
 brothers, 
 
 Do you ask them why they stand 
 Weeping sore before the bosoms of their 
 mothers, 
 
 In our happy Fatherland? 
 
 Ill 
 
 They look up with their pale and sunken 
 faces, 
 
 And their looks are sad to see. 
 For the man's hoary anguish draws and 
 presses 
 
 Down the cheeks of infancy. 
 "Your old earth," they say, "is very 
 dreary; 
 Our young feet," they say, "are very 
 weak ! 
 Few paces have we taken, yet are weary-— 
 Our grave-rest is very far to seek. 
 147
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 Ask the aged wh}^ they weep, and not the 
 children ; 
 
 For the outside earth is cold; 
 And we young ones stand without, in our 
 bewildering. 
 
 And the graves are for the old. 
 
 "True," say the children, "it may happen 
 
 That we die before our time. 
 Little Alice died last year — her grave is 
 shapen 
 
 Like a snowball, in the rime. 
 We looked into the pit prepared to take 
 her. 
 Was no room for any work in the close 
 clay! 
 From the sleep wherein she lieth none will 
 wake her, 
 Crying, ' Get up, little Alice ! it is day '. 
 If you listen by that grave, in sun and 
 shower, 
 With your ear down, little Alice never 
 cries. 
 Could we see her face, be sure we should 
 not know her, 
 For the smile has time for growing in 
 her eyes. 
 
 148
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 And inern' go her moments, lulled and 
 stilled in 
 
 The shroud by the kirk-chime ! 
 It is good when it happens," say the 
 children, 
 
 "That we die before our time." 
 
 Alas, alas, the children ! they are seeking 
 
 Death in life, as best to have. 
 They are binding up their hearts away 
 from breaking. 
 
 With a cerement from the grave. 
 Go out, children, from the mine and from 
 the city. 
 Sing out, children, as the little thrushes 
 do. 
 Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cow- 
 slips pretty. 
 Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let 
 them through ! 
 But they answer, "Are your cowslips of 
 the meadows 
 
 Like our weeds anear the mine? 
 Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal- 
 shadows. 
 
 From your pleasures fair and fine ! 
 149
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 "For oh," say the children, "we are 
 weary, 
 
 And we cannot run or leap. 
 If we cared for any meadows, it were 
 merely 
 
 To drop down in them and sleep. 
 Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping. 
 
 We fall upon our faces, trying to go; 
 And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping. 
 The reddest flower would look as pale 
 as snow. 
 For, all day, we drag our burden tiring 
 
 Through the coal - dark, under- 
 ground; — 
 Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron 
 In the factories, round and round. 
 
 VII 
 
 " For, all day, the wheels are droning, 
 turning,— 
 
 Their wind comes in our faces, — 
 Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses 
 burning. 
 
 And the walls turn in their places. 
 Turns the sky in the high window blank 
 and reeling. 
 Turns the long light that drops adown 
 the wall, 
 
 150
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 Turn the black flies that crawl along the 
 ceiling, 
 All are turning, all the day, and we with 
 all. 
 And all day, the iron wheels are droning. 
 
 And sometimes we could pray, 
 'O ye w^heels,' (breaking out in a mad 
 moaning) 
 
 'Stop! be silent for to-day!'" 
 
 Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other 
 breathing 
 
 For a moment, mouth to mouth ! 
 Let them touch each other's hands, in a 
 fresh wreathing 
 
 Of their tender human youth ! 
 Let them feel that this cold metallic motion 
 Is not all the life God fashions or re- 
 veals. 
 Let them prove their living souls against 
 the notion 
 That they live in you, or under you, O 
 wheels ! — 
 Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward. 
 Grinding life down from its mark; 
 And the children's souls, which God is 
 calling sunward, 
 
 Spin on blindly in the dark. 
 ^51 L
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 IX 
 
 Now tell the poor young children,' O my 
 brothers, 
 
 To look up to Him and pray ; 
 So the blessed One who blesseth all the others, 
 
 Will bless them another day. 
 They answer, "Who is God that He should 
 hear us, 
 While the rushing of the iron wheels is 
 stirred ? 
 When we sob aloud, the human creatures 
 near us 
 Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a 
 word. 
 And we hear not (for the wheels in their 
 resounding) 
 
 Strangers speaking at the door. 
 Is it likely God, with angels singing round 
 Him, 
 
 Hears our weeping any more? 
 
 X 
 
 "Two words, indeed, of praying we re- 
 member, 
 
 And at midnight's hour of harm, 
 ^ Our Father ', looking upward in the 
 chamber, 
 
 We say softly for a charm. ^ 
 
 1 A fact rendered pathetically historical bj- Mr. Home's 
 report of his Commission. The name of the poet of " Orion " 
 and "Cosmo de' Medici" has, however, a change of associa-
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 We know no other words, except ' Our 
 Father ', 
 And we think that, in some pause of 
 angels' song, 
 God may pluck them with the silence sweet 
 to gather, 
 And hold both within His right hand 
 which is strong. 
 'Our Father!' If He heard us. He would 
 surely 
 
 (For they call Him good and mild) 
 Answer, smiling down the steep world vcr}' 
 purely, 
 
 ' Come and rest with me, my child '. 
 
 XI 
 
 "But, no!" say the children, weeping 
 faster, 
 
 "He is speechless as a stone. 
 And they tell us, of His image is the master 
 
 Who commands us to work on. 
 Go to!" say the children, — "up in Heaven, 
 Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all 
 we find. 
 Do not mock us ; grief has made us un- 
 believing — 
 We look up for God, but tears have 
 made us blind." 
 
 tions, and comes in time to remind me that we have some 
 noble poetic heat of literature still. — however open to the 
 reproach of being somewhat gelid in our humanity. — 1844. 
 
 IS3
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 Do you hear the children weeping and dis- 
 proving, 
 
 O my brothers, what ye preach? 
 For God's possible is taught by His world's 
 loving, 
 
 And the children doubt of each. 
 
 XII 
 
 And well may the children weep before 
 you ! 
 
 They are weary ere they run. 
 They have never seen the sunshine, nor 
 the glory, 
 
 Which is brighter than the sun. 
 They know the grief of man, without his 
 wisdom. 
 They sink in man's despair, without its 
 calm ; 
 Are slaves, without the liberty in Christ- 
 dom, 
 Are martyrs, by the pang without the 
 palm, — 
 Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly 
 The harv'est of its memories cannot 
 reap, — 
 Are orphans of the earthly love and 
 heavenly. 
 
 Let them weep ! let them weep ! 
 154
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 XIII 
 
 They look up, with their pale and sunken 
 faces, 
 
 And their look is dread to see, 
 For they mind you of their angels in high 
 places, 
 
 With eyes turned on Deity I — 
 "How long," they say, "how long, O 
 cruel nation, 
 Will you stand, to move the world, on 
 a child's heart, — 
 Stifle down with a mailed heel its pal- 
 pitation, 
 And tread onward to your throne amid 
 the mart? 
 Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper. 
 And your purple shows your path ! 
 But the child's sob in the silence curses 
 deeper 
 
 Than the strong man in his wrath." 
 
 ■^ss
 
 Crowned 
 
 and 
 
 Buried 
 
 Napoleon! — years ago, and that great word 
 Compact of human breath in hate and 
 
 dread 
 And exultation, skied us overhead — 
 An atmosphere whose lightning was the 
 
 sword 
 Scathing the cedars of the world, — drawn 
 
 down 
 In burnings by the metal of a crown. 
 
 Napoleon ! nations, while they cursed that 
 
 name, 
 Shook at their own curse; and while 
 
 others bore 
 Its sound, as of a trumpet, on before. 
 Brass-fronted legions justified its fame; 
 And dying men, on trampled battle-sods, 
 Near their last silence, uttered it for 
 
 God's. 
 
 156
 
 CROWNED AND BURIED 
 
 III 
 
 Napoleon ! sages, with high foreheads 
 drooped, 
 
 Did use it for a problem : children small 
 
 Leapt up to greet it, as at manhood's 
 call: 
 
 Priests blessed it from their altars over- 
 stooped 
 
 By meek-eyed Christs, — and widows with 
 a moan 
 
 Spake it, when questioned why they sate 
 alone. 
 
 IV 
 
 That name consumed the silence of the 
 
 snows 
 In Alpine keeping, holy and cloud-hid. 
 The mimic eagles dared what Nature's 
 
 did, 
 And over-rushed her mountainous repose 
 In search of eyries ; and the Egyptian 
 
 river 
 Mingled the same word with its grand 
 
 " For ever". 
 
 V 
 That name was shouted near the pyra- 
 midal 
 Nilotic tombs, whose mummied habitants, 
 Packed to humanity's significance, 
 157
 
 CROWNED AND BURIED 
 
 Motioned it back with stillness ! shouts as 
 
 idle 
 As hireling artists' work of myrrh and 
 
 spice 
 Which swathed last glories round the 
 
 Ptolemies. 
 
 VI 
 
 The world's face changed to hear it. 
 Kingly men 
 
 Came down in chidden babes' bewilder- 
 ment 
 
 From autocratic places, each content 
 
 With sprinkled ashes for anointing. — 
 Then 
 
 The people laughed, or wondered for the 
 nonce, 
 
 To see one throne a composite of thrones. 
 
 VII 
 
 Napoleon ! even the torrid vastitude 
 Of India felt in throbbings of the air 
 That name which scattered by disastrous 
 
 blare 
 All Europe's bound-lines, — drawn afresh 
 
 in blood. 
 Napoleon — from the Russias, west to 
 
 Spain ! 
 And Austria trembled — till ye heard her 
 
 chain, 
 
 iS8
 
 CROWNED AND BURIED 
 
 VIII 
 
 And Germany was 'ware ; and Italy- 
 Oblivious of old fames — her laurel-locked, 
 High-ghosted Caesars passing uninvoked — 
 Did crumble her own ruins with her knee, 
 To serve a newer. — Ay! but Frenchmen 
 
 cast 
 A future from them nobler than her past. 
 
 IX 
 
 For, verily, though France augustly rose 
 With that raised naxME, and did assume 
 
 by such 
 The purple of the world, none gave so 
 
 much 
 As she, in purchase — to speak plain, in 
 
 loss — 
 Whose hands, toward freedom stretched, 
 
 dropped paralyzed 
 To wield a sword or fit an undersized 
 
 King's crown to a great man's head. 
 
 And though along 
 Her Paris' streets, did float on frequent 
 
 streams 
 Of triumph, pictured or emmarbled dreams 
 Dreamt right by genius in a world gone 
 
 wrong, — 
 
 159
 
 CROWNED AND BURIED 
 
 No dream, of all so won, was fair to see 
 As the lost vision of her liberty. 
 
 XI 
 
 Napoleon ! 't was a high name lifted high ! 
 It met at last God's thunder sent to clear 
 Our compassing and covering atmosphere 
 And open a clear sight beyond the sky 
 Of supreme empire ; this of earth's was 
 
 done — 
 And kings crept out again to feel the 
 
 sun. 
 
 XII 
 
 The kings crept out — the peoples sate at 
 
 home. 
 And finding the long-invocated peace 
 (A pall embroidered with worn images 
 Of rights divine) too scant to cover doom 
 Such as they suffered, — cursed the corn 
 
 that grew 
 Rankly, to bitter bread, on Waterloo. 
 
 XIII 
 
 A deep gloom centred in the deep repose. 
 The nations stood up mute to count their 
 
 dead. 
 And he who owned the Name which 
 
 vibrated 
 Through silence,— trusting to his noblest 
 
 foes 
 
 i6o
 
 CROWNED AND BURIED 
 
 When earth was all too grey for chivalry, 
 Died of their mercies 'mid the desert sea. 
 
 XIV 
 
 O wild St. Helen ! very still she kept him, 
 With a green willow for all pyramid, — 
 Which stirred a little if the low wind did, 
 A little more, if pilgrims overwept him, 
 Disparting the little boughs to see the 
 
 clay 
 Which seemed to cover his for judgment- 
 day. 
 
 XV 
 
 Nay, not so long! — France kept her old 
 
 affection 
 As deeply as the sepulchre the corse, 
 Until, dilated by such love's remorse 
 To a new angel of the resurrection. 
 She cried, "Behold, thou England! I 
 
 would have 
 The dead whereof thou wottest, from that 
 
 grave. " 
 
 XVI 
 
 And England answered in the courtesy 
 Which, ancient foes turned lovers, may 
 
 befit, — 
 * ' Take back thy dead ! and whep thou 
 
 buriest it, 
 Throw in all former strifes 'twixt thee 
 
 and me." 
 
 i6i
 
 CROWNED AND BURIED 
 
 Amen, mine England! 'tis a courteous 
 
 claim — 
 But ask a little room too . . . for thy 
 
 shame ! 
 
 XVII 
 
 Because it was not well, it was not well, 
 Nor tuneful with thy lofty-chanted part 
 Among the Oceanides, — that Heart 
 To bind and bare and vex with vulture 
 
 fell. 
 I would, my noble England ! men might 
 
 seek 
 All crimson stains upon thy breast — not 
 
 cheek ! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 I would that hostile fleets had scarred 
 
 Torbay, 
 Instead of the lone ship which waited 
 
 moored 
 Until thy princely purpose was assured, 
 Then left a shadow, not to pass away — 
 Not for to-night's moon, nor to-morrow's 
 
 sun ! 
 Green watching hills, ye witnessed what 
 
 was done ! ^ 
 
 1 Written at Torquay. 
 162
 
 CROWNED AND BURIED 
 
 XIX 
 
 But since it was done, — in sepulchral 
 
 dust 
 We fain would pay back something of 
 
 our debt 
 To France, if not to honour, and forget 
 How through much fear we falsified the 
 
 trust 
 Of a fallen foe and exile. — We return 
 Orestes to Electra ... in his urn. 
 
 XX 
 
 A little urn — a little dust inside. 
 
 Which once outbalanced the large earth, 
 
 albeit 
 To-day a four-years child might carry it 
 Sleek -browed and smiling, "Let the 
 
 burden 'bide!" 
 Orestes to Electra! — O f^iir town 
 Of Paris, how the wild tears will run 
 
 down 
 
 XXI 
 
 And run back in the chariot- marks of 
 
 time, 
 When all the people shall come forth to 
 
 meet 
 The passive victor, death-still in the street 
 He rode through 'mid the shouting and 
 
 bell-chime 
 
 163
 
 CROWNED AND BURIED 
 
 And martial music, under eagles which 
 Dyed their rapacious beaks at Austerlitz. 
 
 Napoleon! he hath come again — borne 
 
 home 
 Upon the popular ebbing heart, — a sea 
 Which gathers its own wrecks perpetually, 
 Majestically moaning. Give him room ! — 
 Room for the dead in Paris ! welcome 
 
 solemn 
 And grave - deep, 'neath the cannon - 
 
 moulded column!^ 
 
 XXIII 
 
 There, weapon spent and warrior spent 
 
 may rest 
 From roar of fields, — provided Jupiter 
 Dare trust Saturnus to lie down so near 
 His bolts ! — and this he may. For, dis- 
 possessed 
 Of any godship lies the godlike arm — 
 The goat, Jove sucked, as likely to do 
 harm. 
 
 1 It was the first intention to bury him under the column. 
 164
 
 CROWNED AND BURIED 
 
 XXIV 
 
 And yet . . . Napoleon ! — the recovered 
 
 name 
 Shakes the old casements of the world ! 
 
 and we 
 Look out upon the passing pageantry, 
 Attesting that the Dead makes good his 
 
 claim 
 To a French grave, — another kingdom 
 
 won, 
 The last, of few spans — by Napoleon. 
 
 XXV 
 
 Blood fell like dew beneath his sunrise — 
 
 sooth ; 
 But glittered dew-like in the covenanted 
 Meridian light. He was a despot — 
 
 granted ! 
 But the ai'Tos of his autocratic mouth 
 Said yea i' the people's French ; he 
 
 magnified 
 The image of the freedom he denied. 
 
 And if they asked for rights, he made 
 
 reply 
 "Ye have my glor}*!" — and so, drawing 
 
 round them 
 
 165
 
 CROWNED AND BURIED 
 
 His ample purple, g-Iorified and bound 
 
 them 
 In an embrace that seemed identity. 
 He ruled them like a tyrant — true! but 
 
 none 
 Were ruled like slaves : each felt Napoleon. 
 
 I do not praise this man : the man was 
 
 flawed 
 For Adam — much more, Christ ! — his knee 
 
 unbent, 
 His hand unclean, his aspiration pent 
 Within a sword-sweep— pshaw ! — but since 
 
 he had 
 The genius to be loved, why let him have 
 The justice to be honoured in his grave. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 I think this nation's tears thus poured 
 
 together, 
 Better than shouts. I think this funeral 
 Grander than crownings, though a Pope 
 
 bless all. 
 I think this grave stronger than thrones. 
 
 But whether 
 The crowned Napoleon or the buried clay 
 Be worthier, I discern not. Angels may. 
 
 i66
 
 To Flush, 
 My Dog 
 
 Loving friend, the gift of one 
 Who her own true faith has run, 
 
 Through thy lower nature,^ 
 Be my benediction said 
 With my hand upon thy head, 
 
 Gentle fellow-creature ! 
 
 II 
 Like a lady's ringlets brown, 
 Flow thy silken ears ad own 
 
 Either side demurely 
 Of thy silver-suited breast, 
 Shining out from all the rest 
 
 Of thy body purely. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Darkly brown thy body is, 
 Till the sunshine striking this 
 Alchemise its dulness, 
 
 1 This dog was the gift of my dear and admired friend. 
 Miss Mitford, and belongs to the beautiful race she has 
 rendered celebrated among English and American readers. 
 The Flushes have their laurels as well as the Caesars, — the 
 chief difference at least the very head and front of it) con- 
 sisting, perhaps, in the bald head of the latter under the 
 crown. — 1844. 
 
 167 M
 
 TO FLUSH, MY DOG 
 
 When the sleek curls manifold 
 Flash all over into gold, 
 With a burnished fulness. 
 
 IV 
 
 Underneath my stroking hand. 
 Startled eyes of hazel bland 
 
 Kindling, growing larger, 
 Up thou leapest with a spring, 
 Full of prank and curveting, 
 
 Leaping like a charger. 
 
 Leap ! thy broad tail waves a light, 
 Leap ! thy slender feet are bright, 
 
 Canopied in fringes. 
 Leap — those tasselled ears of thine 
 Flicker strangely, fair and fine, 
 
 Down their golden inches. 
 
 VI 
 
 Yet, my pretty, sportive friend, 
 Little is 't to such an end 
 
 That I praise thy rareness ! 
 Other dogs may be thy peers 
 Haply in these drooping ears, 
 
 And this glossy fairness. 
 i68
 
 TO FLUSH. MY DOG 
 
 But of thee it shall be said, 
 This dog watched beside a bed 
 
 Day and night unwean-, — 
 Watched within a curtained room, 
 Where no sunbeam brake the gloom 
 
 Round the sick and drear}'. 
 
 Roses, gathered for a vase, 
 In that chamber died apace, 
 
 Beam and breeze resigning. 
 This dog only, waited on, 
 Knowing that when light is gone 
 
 Love remains for shining. 
 
 IX 
 
 Other dogs in thymy dew 
 
 Tracked the hares and followed through 
 
 Sunny moor or meadow. 
 This dog only, crept and crept 
 Next a languid cheek that slept, 
 
 Sharing in the shadow. 
 
 Other dogs of loyal cheer 
 Bounded at the whistle clear, 
 Up the woodside hieing. 
 169
 
 TO FLUSH, MY DOG 
 
 This dog only, watched in reach 
 Of a faintly uttered speech. 
 Or a louder sighing. 
 
 And if one or two quick tears 
 Dropped upon his glossy ears, 
 
 Or a sigh came double, — 
 Up he sprang in eager haste, 
 Fawning, fondling, breathing fast, 
 
 In a tender trouble. 
 
 And this dog was satisfied 
 
 If a pale thin hand would glide 
 
 Down his dewlaps sloping, — 
 Which he pushed his nose within, 
 xAfter, — platforming his chin 
 
 On the palm left open. 
 
 XIII 
 
 This dog, if a friendly voice 
 Call him now to blyther choice 
 
 Than such chamber-keeping, 
 " Come out!" praying from the door,- 
 Presseth backward as before. 
 
 Up against me leaping. 
 170
 
 TO FLUSH, MY DOG 
 
 Therefore to this dog will I, 
 Tenderly not scornfully, 
 
 Render praise and favour : 
 With my hand upon his head, 
 Is my benediction said 
 
 Therefore, and for ever. 
 
 XV 
 
 And because he loves me so, 
 Better than his kind will do 
 
 Often, man or woman, 
 Give I back more love again 
 Than dogs often take of men. 
 
 Leaning from my Human. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Blessings on thee, dog of mine, 
 Pretty collars make thee fine, 
 
 Sugared milk make fat thee ! 
 Pleasures wag on in thy tail. 
 Hands of gentle motion fail 
 
 Nevermore, to pat thee! 
 
 Downy pillow take thy head, 
 Silken coverlid bestead. 
 
 Sunshine help thy sleeping!
 
 TO FLUSH, MY DOG 
 
 No fly's buzzing- wake thee up, 
 No man break thy purple cup, 
 Set for drinking deep in. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Whiskered cats arointed flee, 
 Sturdy stoppers keep from thee 
 
 Cologne distillations ; 
 Nuts lie in thy path for stones, 
 And thy feast-day macaroons 
 
 Turn to daily rations ! 
 
 XIX 
 
 Mock I thee, in wishing weal? — 
 Tears are in my eyes to feel 
 
 Thou art made so straightly. 
 Blessing needs must straighten too, 
 Little canst thou joy or do, 
 
 Thou who lovest greatly. 
 
 Yet be blessed to the height 
 Of all good and all delight 
 
 Pervious to thy nature; 
 Only loved beyond that line, 
 With a love that answers thine. 
 
 Loving fellow-creature ! 
 
 VJ9
 
 The Cry ot 
 the Human 
 
 "There is no God", the foolish saith, 
 
 But none, "There is no sorrow". 
 And nature oft, the cry of faith 
 
 In bitter need will borrow: 
 Eyes, which the preacher could not school, 
 
 By wayside graves are raised, 
 And lips say, "God be pitiful", 
 
 Who ne'er said, "God be praised". 
 
 Be pitiful, O God 
 
 The tempest stretches from the steep 
 
 The shadow of its coming. 
 The beasts grow tame, and near us creep, 
 
 As help were in the human ; 
 Yet, while the cloud-wheels roll and grind, 
 
 We spirits tremble under! — 
 The hills have echoes, but we find 
 
 No answer for the thunder. 
 
 Be pitiful, O God! 
 173
 
 THE CRY OF THE HUMAN 
 
 The battle hurtles on the plains, 
 
 Earth feels new scythes upon her. 
 We reap our brothers for the wains, 
 
 And call the harvest . . honour ; 
 Draw face to face, front line to line. 
 
 One image all inherit, — 
 Then kill, curse on, by that same sign, 
 
 Clay, clay, — and spirit, spirit. 
 
 Be pitiful, O God! 
 
 The plague runs festering through the 
 town. 
 
 And never a bell is tolling. 
 And corpses, jostled 'neath the moon, 
 
 Nod to the dead-cart's rolling. 
 The young child calleth for the cup, 
 
 The strong man brings it weeping; 
 The mother from her babe looks up, 
 
 And shrieks away its sleeping. 
 
 Be pitiful, O God! 
 
 V 
 
 The plague ot gold strikes far and near, 
 And deep and strong it enters. 
 
 This purple chimar which we wear, 
 Makes madder than the centaur's: 
 174
 
 THE CRY OF THE HUMAN 
 
 Our thoughts grow blank, our words 
 grow strange, 
 We cheer the pale gold-diggers — 
 Each soul is worth so much on 'Change, 
 And marked, like sheep, with figures. 
 Be pitiful, O God! 
 
 The curse of gold upon the land 
 
 The lack of bread enforces. 
 The rail-cars snort from strand to strand, 
 
 Like more of Death's White Horses! 
 The rich preach " rights " and future days, 
 
 And hear no angel scoffing, — 
 The poor die mute — with starving gaze 
 
 On corn-ships in the offing. 
 
 Be pitiful, O God! 
 
 We meet together at the feast, 
 
 To private mirth betake us; 
 We stare down in the winecup, lest 
 
 Some vacant chair should shake us. 
 We name delight, and pledge it round — 
 
 "It shall be ours to-morrow!" 
 God's seraphs, do your voices sound 
 
 As sad in naming sorrow? 
 
 Be pitiful, O God! 
 ^75
 
 THE CRY OF THE HUMAN 
 
 VIII 
 
 We sit together, with the skies, 
 
 The steadfast skies, above us. 
 We look into each other's eyes, 
 
 "And how long will you love us?" — 
 The eyes grow dim with prophecy. 
 
 The voices, low and breathless, — 
 "Till death us part!" — O words, to be 
 
 Our best, for love the deathless! 
 
 Be pitiful, O God! 
 
 We tremble by the harmless bed 
 
 Of one loved and departed. 
 Our tears drop on the lips that said 
 
 Last night, "Be stronger-hearted!" 
 O God, — to clasp those fingers close. 
 
 And yet to feel so lonely ! — 
 To see a light upon such brows, 
 
 W^hich is the daylight only! 
 
 Be pitiful, O God! 
 
 The happy children come to us, 
 
 And look up in our faces. 
 They ask us — "Was it thus, and thus, 
 
 When we were in their places?" — 
 176
 
 THE CRY OF THE HUMAN 
 
 We cannot speak ; — we see anew 
 
 The hills we used to live in, 
 And feel our mother's smile press through 
 
 The kisses she is giving. 
 
 Be pitiful, O God 
 
 We pray together at the kirk, 
 
 For mercy, mercy, solely. 
 Hands weary with the evil work, 
 
 We lift them to the Holy. 
 The corpse is calm below our knee. 
 
 Its spirit, bright before Thee — 
 Between them, worse than either, we — 
 
 W^ithout the rest of glory! 
 
 Be pitiful, O God 
 
 XII 
 
 We leave the communing of men, 
 
 The murmur of the passions, 
 And live alone, to live again 
 
 With endless generations. 
 Are we so brave? — The sea and sky 
 
 In silence lift their mirrors. 
 And, glassed therein, our spirits high 
 
 Recoil from their own terrors. 
 
 Be pitiful, O God! 
 177
 
 THE CRY OF THE HUMAN 
 
 XIII 
 
 We sit on hills our childhood wist, 
 
 Woods, hamlets, streams, beholding: 
 The sun strikes through the farthest mist, 
 
 The city's spire to golden. 
 The city's golden spire it was, 
 
 When hope and health were strongest, 
 But now it is the churchyard grass 
 
 We look upon the longest. 
 
 Be pitiful, O God! 
 
 XIV 
 
 And soon all vision waxeth dull — 
 
 Men whisper, "He is dying": 
 We cry no more "Be pitiful!" 
 
 We have no strength for crying. 
 No strength, no need. Then, soul of 
 mine. 
 
 Look up and triumph rather — 
 Lo, in the depth of God's Divine, 
 
 The Son adjures the Father, 
 
 Be pitiful, O God.' 
 
 178
 
 Bertha in 
 the Lane 
 
 Put the broidery-frame away, 
 For my sewing is all done. 
 
 The last thread is used to-day, 
 And I need not join it on. 
 
 Though the clock stands at the noon 
 
 I am weary. I have sewn, 
 
 Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown. 
 
 Sister, help me to the bed, 
 
 And stand near me, Dearest=sweet. 
 Do not shrink nor be afraid, 
 
 Blushing with a sudden heat ! 
 No one standeth in the street? — 
 By God's love I go to meet, 
 Love I thee with love complete. 
 
 Lean thy face down ! drop it in 
 These two hands, that I may hold 
 
 'Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin, 
 Stroking back the curls of gold. 
 
 1/9
 
 BERTHA IN THE LANE 
 
 'T is a fair, fair face, in sooth — 
 Larger eyes and redder mouth 
 Than mine were in my first youth. 
 
 Thou art younger by seven years — 
 Ah ! — so bashful at my gaze, 
 
 That the lashes, hung with tears, 
 Grow too heavy to upraise? 
 
 I would wound thee by no touch 
 
 Which thy shyness feels as such. 
 
 Dost thou mind me. Dear, so much? 
 
 Have I not been nigh a mother 
 To thy sweetness — tell me. Dear? 
 
 Have we not loved one another 
 Tenderly, from year to year. 
 
 Since our dying mother mild 
 
 Said with accents undefiled, 
 
 "Child, be mother to this child"! 
 
 VI 
 
 Mother, mother, up in heaven, 
 
 Stand up on the jasper sea, 
 And be witness I have given 
 
 All the gifts required of me, — 
 Hope that blessed me, bliss that crowned, 
 Love, that left me with a wound. 
 Life itself, that turneth round! 
 1 80
 
 BERTHA IN THE LANE 
 
 Mother, mother, thou art kind, 
 
 Thou art standing in the room, 
 In a molten glory shrined. 
 
 That rays off into the gloom ! 
 But thy smile is bright and bleak 
 Like cold waves — I cannot speak, 
 I sob in it, and grow weak. 
 
 Ghostly mother, keep aloof 
 
 One hour longer from my soul — 
 
 For I still am thinking of 
 
 Earth's warm-beating joy and dole : 
 
 On my finger is a ring 
 
 Which I still see glittering, 
 
 When the night hides everything. 
 
 IX 
 
 Little sister, thou art pale! 
 
 Ah, I have a wandering brain — 
 But I lose that fever-bale, 
 
 And my thoughts grow calm again 
 Lean down closer— closer still! 
 I have words thine ear to fill, — 
 And would kiss thee at my will. 
 i8i
 
 BERTHA IN THE LANE 
 
 Dear, I heard thee in the spring, 
 Thee and Robert — through the trees, 
 
 When we all went gathering 
 
 Boughs of May-bloom for the bees. 
 
 Do not start so! think instead 
 
 How the sunshine overhead 
 
 Seemed to trickle through the shade. 
 
 XI 
 
 What a day it was, that day! 
 
 Hills and vales did openly 
 Seem to heave and throb away 
 
 At the sight of the great sky. 
 And the Silence, as it stood 
 In the Glory's golden flood. 
 Audibly did bud — and bud. 
 
 XII 
 
 Through the winding hedgerows green, 
 How we wandered, I and you, — 
 
 With the bowery tops shut in. 
 
 And the gates that showed the view ! 
 
 How we talked there! thrushes soft 
 
 Sang our praises out — or oft 
 
 Bleatings took them, from the croft 
 182
 
 BERTHA IN THE LANE 
 
 XIII 
 
 Till the pleasure grown too strong 
 
 Left me muter evermore, 
 And, the winding road being long, 
 
 I walked out of sight, before. 
 And so, wrapt in musings fond, 
 Issued (past the wayside pond) 
 On the meadow-lands beyond. 
 
 XIV 
 
 I sate down beneath the beech 
 
 Which leans over to the lane, 
 And the far sound of your speech 
 
 Did not promise any pain ; 
 And I blessed you full and free. 
 With a smile stooped tenderly 
 O'er the May-flowers on my knee. 
 
 XV 
 
 But the sound grew into word 
 
 As the speakers drew more near — 
 Sweet, forgive me that I heard 
 
 What you wished me not to hean 
 Do not weep so — do not shake — 
 Oh, — I heard thee, Bertha, make 
 Good true answers for my sake. 
 
 183 N
 
 BERTHA IN THE LANE 
 
 XVI 
 
 Yes, and he too ! let him stand 
 
 In thy thoughts, untouched by blame. 
 
 Could he help it, if my hand 
 
 He had claimed with hasty claim? 
 
 That was wrong perhaps — but then 
 
 Such things be — and will, again. 
 
 Women cannot judge for men. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Had he seen thee, when he swore 
 
 He would love but me alone? 
 Thou wert absent — sent before 
 
 To our kin in Sidmouth town. 
 When he saw thee who art best 
 Past compare, and loveliest. 
 He but judged thee as the rest. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Could we blame him with grave words. 
 Thou and I, Dear, if we might? 
 
 Thy brown eyes have looks like birds, 
 Flying straightway to the light : 
 
 Mine are older. — Hush! — look out — 
 
 Up the street! Is none without? 
 
 How the poplar swings about. 
 184
 
 BERTHA IN THE LANE 
 
 XIX 
 
 And that hour — beneath the beech, 
 
 When I listened in a dream, 
 And he said in his deep speech, 
 
 That he owed me all esteem, — 
 Each word swam in on my brain 
 With a dim, dilating pain. 
 Till it burst with that last strain. 
 
 I fell flooded with a Dark, 
 
 In the silence of a swoon. 
 When I rose, still cold and stark, 
 
 There was night, — I saw the moon. 
 And the stars, each in its place, 
 And the May-blooms on the grass, 
 Seemed to wonder what I was. 
 
 And I walked as if apart 
 
 From myself, when I could stand- 
 And I pitied my own heart. 
 
 As if I held it in my hand, 
 Somewhat coldly, — with a sense 
 Of fulfilled benevolence, 
 And a ** Poor thing" negligence. 
 185
 
 BERTHA IN THE LANE 
 
 XXII 
 
 And I answered coldly too, 
 
 When you met me at the door; 
 And I only heard the dew 
 
 Dripping- from me to the floor. 
 And the flowers I bade you see, 
 Were too withered for the bee, — 
 As my life, henceforth, for me. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Do not weep so — Dear — heart-warm! 
 
 All was best as it befell. 
 If I say he did me harm, 
 
 I speak wild, — I am not well. 
 All his words were kind and good — 
 He esteemed rue! Only, blood 
 Runs so faint in womanhood ! 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Then I alwaj^s was too grave, — 
 Liked the saddest ballad sung, — 
 
 With that look, besides, we have 
 In our faces, who die young. 
 
 I had died. Dear, all the same ; 
 
 Life's long, joyous, jostling game 
 
 Is too loud for my meek shame. 
 i86
 
 BERTHA IN THE LANE 
 
 We are so unlike each other, 
 Thou and I, that none could guess 
 
 We were children of one mother, 
 But for mutual tenderness. 
 
 Thou art rose-lined from the cold, 
 
 And meant, verily, to hold 
 
 Life's pure pleasures manifold. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 I am pale as crocus grows 
 
 Close beside a rose-tree's root ; 
 
 Whosoe'er would reach the rose, 
 Treads the crocus underfoot. 
 
 /, like May-bloom on thorn-tree — 
 
 Thou, like merry summer-bee ! 
 
 Fit, that I be plucked for thee. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Yet who plucks me? — no one mourns, 
 
 I have lived my season out, 
 And now die of my own thorns 
 
 Which I could not live without. 
 Sweet, be merr\M How the light 
 Comes and goes ! If it be night, 
 Keep the candles in my sight. 
 187
 
 BERTHA IN THE LANE 
 
 Are there footsteps at the door? 
 
 Look out quickly. Yea, or nay? 
 Some one might be waiting for 
 
 Some last word that I might say. 
 Nay? So best! — so angels would 
 Stand off clear from deathly road, 
 Not to cross the sight of God. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Colder grow my hands and feet. 
 
 When I wear the shroud I made, 
 Let the folds lie straight and neat, 
 
 And the rosemary be spread, 
 That if any friend should come, 
 (To see thee, Sweet !) all the room 
 May be lifted out of gloom. 
 
 XXX 
 
 And, dear Bertha, let me keep 
 On my hand this little ring, 
 Which at nights, when others sleep, 
 
 I can still see glittering. 
 Let me wear it out of sight. 
 In the grave, — where it will light 
 All the dark up, day and night. 
 'i88
 
 BERTHA IN THE LANE 
 
 On that grave, drop not a tear ! 
 
 Else, though fathom-deep the place, 
 Through the woollen shroud I wear 
 
 I shall feel it on my face. 
 Rather smile there, blessed one. 
 Thinking of me in the sun, 
 Or forget me — smiling on ! 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Art thou near me? nearer? so! 
 
 Kiss me close upon the eyes, 
 That the earthly light may go 
 
 Sweetly, as it used to rise, 
 When I watched the morning-grey 
 Strike, betwixt the hills, the way 
 He was sure to come that day. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 So, — no more vain words be said ! — 
 
 The hosannas nearer roll. 
 Mother, smile now on thy Dead, 
 I am death-strong in my soul. 
 Mystic Dove alit on cross. 
 Guide the poor bird of the snows 
 Through the snow-wind above loss I 
 189
 
 BERTHA IN THE LANE 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Jesus, Victim, comprehending- 
 Love's divine self-abnegation, 
 
 Cleanse my love in its self-spending, 
 And absorb the poor libation ! 
 
 Wind my thread of life up higher, 
 
 Up, through angels' hands of fire! — 
 
 I aspire while I expire. 
 
 190
 
 Loved Once 
 
 I classed, appraising once, 
 Earth's lamentable sounds, — the welladay, 
 
 The jarring yea and nay, 
 The fall of kisses on unanswering clay. 
 The sobbed farewell, the welcome mourn- 
 fuller, — 
 
 But all did leaven the air 
 With a less bitter leaven of sure despair. 
 
 Than these words—" I loved once"o 
 
 And who saith^ "I loved once"? 
 Not angels, — whose clear eyes, love, love, 
 foresee, 
 
 Love, through eternity. 
 And by To Love do apprehend To Be. 
 Not God, called Love, His noble crown- 
 name casting 
 
 A light too broad for blasting — 
 The great God changing not from ever- 
 lasting, 
 
 Saith never, " I loved once". 
 191
 
 LOVED ONCE 
 
 Oh, never Is " Loved once" 
 Thy word, Thou Victim -Christ, misprized 
 friend ! 
 
 Thy cross and curse may rend, 
 But having- loved Thou lovest to the end. 
 This is man's saying — man's. Too weak 
 to move 
 
 One sphered star above, 
 Man desecrates the eternal God-word Love 
 
 By his No More, and Once. 
 
 IV 
 
 How say ye, "We loved once", 
 Blasphemers? Is your earth not cold 
 enow, 
 
 Mourners, without that snow? 
 Ah, friends ! and would ye wrong each 
 
 other so? 
 And could ye say of some whose love is 
 known. 
 
 Whose prayers have met your own. 
 Whose tears have fallen for you, whose 
 smiles have shone 
 
 So long, — "We loved them once"? 
 192
 
 LOVED ONCE 
 
 Could ye, "We loved her once", 
 Say calm of me, sweet friends, when out 
 of sight? 
 
 When hearts of better right 
 Stand in between me and your happy 
 
 light? 
 Or when, as flowers kept too long in the 
 shade. 
 
 Ye find my colours fade, 
 And all that is not love in me, decayed? 
 Such words — Ye loved me once ! 
 
 Could ye, "We loved her once". 
 Say cold of me when further put away 
 
 In earth's sepulchral clay, — 
 When mute the lips which deprecate to- 
 day? 
 Not so ! not then — least then. When life 
 is shriven. 
 
 And death's full joy is given, — 
 Of those who sit and love you up in 
 heaven, 
 
 Say not, "We loved them once". 
 193
 
 LOVED ONCE 
 
 VII 
 
 Say never, ye loved once. 
 God is too near above, the grave, beneath, 
 
 And all our moments breathe 
 Too quick in mysteries of life and death, 
 For such a word. The eternities avenge 
 
 Affections light of range. 
 There comes no change to justify that 
 change, 
 
 Whatever comes — Loved once ! 
 
 VIII 
 
 And yet that same word once 
 Is humanly acceptive. Kings have said 
 
 Shaking a discrowned head, 
 "We ruled once", — dotards, "We once 
 
 taught and led". 
 Cripples once danced i' the vines — and 
 bards approved, 
 
 Were once by scornings, moved : 
 But love strikes one hour -love ! those 
 never loved. 
 
 Who dream that they loved once. 
 
 194
 
 Catarina to 
 Camoens; 
 
 DYING IN HIS ABSEN'CK 
 ABROAD, AND REFERRING 
 TO THE POEM IN WHICH 
 HE RECORDED THE SWEET- 
 NESS OF HER EYES 
 
 On the door you will not enter, 
 I have gazed too long— adieu ! 
 Hope withdraws her peradventure — 
 Death is near me, — and not you. 
 Come, O lover, 
 Close and cover 
 These poor eyes, you called, I ween, 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen". 
 
 When I heard you sing that burden 
 
 In my vernal days and bowers. 
 Other praises disregarding, 
 
 I but hearkened that of yours — 
 Only saying 
 In heart-playing, 
 " Blessed eyes mine eyes have been, 
 If the sweetest, his have seen ! " 
 195
 
 CATARINA TO CAMOENS 
 
 III 
 
 But all changes. At this vesper, 
 
 Cold the sun shines down the door. 
 If you stood there, would you whisper 
 "Love, I love you", as before, — 
 Death pervading- 
 Now, and shading 
 Eyes you sang of, that yestreen, 
 As the sweetest ever seen? 
 
 IV 
 
 Yes, I think, were you beside them. 
 
 Near the bed I die upon, — 
 Though their beauty you denied them. 
 As you stood there, looking down, 
 You would truly 
 Call them duly, 
 For the love's sake found therein, — 
 ' ' Sweetest eyes, were ever seen ". 
 
 And \i you looked down upon them, 
 
 And if they looked up to yott, 
 All the light which has foregone them 
 Would be gathered back anew. 
 They would truly 
 Be as duly 
 Love-transformed to beauty's sheen, — 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen". 
 196
 
 CATARINA TO CAMOENS 
 
 But, ah me! you only see me, 
 
 In your thoughts of loving man, 
 Smiling soft perhaps and dreamy 
 Through the wavings of my fan, — 
 And unweeting 
 Go repeating, 
 In your reverie serene, 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen". 
 
 While my spirit leans and reaches 
 
 From my body still and pale. 
 Fain to hear what tender speech is 
 In your love to help my bale — 
 O my poet, 
 Come and show it! 
 Come, of latest love, to glean 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen". 
 
 O my poet, O my prophet. 
 
 When you praised their sweetness so. 
 Did you think, in singing of it, 
 That it might be near to go? 
 Had you fancies 
 From their glances. 
 That the grave would quickly screen 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen"? 
 197
 
 CATARINA TO CAMOENS 
 
 IX 
 
 No reply ! the fountain's warble 
 In the courtyard sounds alone. 
 As the water to the marble 
 
 So my heart falls with a moan 
 From love-sighing 
 To this dying. 
 Death forerunneth Love to win 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen". 
 
 Will you come? When I'm departed 
 
 Where all sweetnesses are hid; 
 Where thy voice, my tender-hearted, 
 Will not lift up either lid. 
 Cry, O lover, 
 Love is over! 
 Cry beneath the cypress green — 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen". 
 
 XI 
 
 When the angelus is ringing, 
 
 Near the convent will you walk, 
 And recall the choral singing 
 
 Which brought angels down our talk? 
 Spirit-shriven 
 I viewed Heaven, 
 Till you smiled — "Is earth unclean. 
 Sweetest eyes, were ever seen?" 
 198
 
 CATARINA TO CAMOENS 
 
 XII 
 
 When beneath the palace-lattice, 
 
 You ride slow as you have done, 
 And you see a face there — that is 
 Not the old familiar one, — 
 Will you oftly 
 Murmur softly, 
 "Here, ye watched me morn and e'en, 
 Sweetest eyes, were ever seen ! " 
 
 XIII 
 
 When the palace-ladies, sitting- 
 Round your gittern, shall have said, 
 " Poet, sing those verses written 
 For the lady who is dead ", 
 Will you tremble. 
 Yet dissemble, — 
 Or sing hoarse, with tears between, 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen"? 
 
 XIV 
 
 " Sweetest eyes!" how sweet in flowings. 
 
 The repeated cadence is ! 
 Though you sang a hundred poems. 
 Still the best one would be this. 
 I can hear it 
 'Twixt my spirit 
 And the earth-noise inter\-ene — 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen'" 
 199 O
 
 CATARINA TO CAMOENS 
 
 XV 
 
 But the priest waits for the praying, 
 
 And the choir are on their knees, 
 And the soul must pass away in 
 
 Strains more solemn high than these. 
 Miserere 
 For the weary ! 
 Oh, no longer for Catrine, 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen!" 
 
 XVI 
 
 Keep my riband, take and keep it, 
 (I have loosed it from my hair) ^ 
 Feeling, while you overweep it, 
 Not alone in your despair. 
 Since with saintly 
 Watch unfaintly 
 Out of heaven shall o'er you lean 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen". 
 
 But — but no7v — yet unremoved 
 
 Up to heaven, they glisten fast. 
 You may cast away. Beloved, 
 In your future all my past. 
 Such old phrases 
 May be praises 
 For some fairer bosom-queen — 
 "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen!" 
 
 1 She left him the riband from her hair. 
 2CX5
 
 CATARINA TO CAMOENS 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Eyes of mine, what are ye doing? 
 
 Faithless, faithless, — praised amiss 
 If a tear be of your showing, 
 Dropt for any hope of his ! 
 Death has boldness 
 Besides coldness, 
 If unworthy tears demean 
 ' ' Sweetest eyes, were ever seen ". 
 
 XIX 
 
 I will look out to his future; 
 I wull bless it till it shine. 
 Should he ever be a suitor 
 Unto sweeter eyes than mine, 
 Sunshine gild them. 
 Angels shield them, 
 Whatsoever eyes terrene 
 Be the sweetest his have seen !
 
 A Portrait 
 
 " One name is 
 Elizabeth. " — Ben 
 Jonson 
 
 I will paint her as I see her. 
 Ten times have the lilies blown. 
 Since she looked upon the sun. 
 
 And her face is lily-clear, 
 
 Lily-shaped, and dropped in duty 
 To the law of its own beauty. 
 
 Oval cheeks encoloured faintly, 
 Which a trail of golden hair 
 Keeps from fading off to air: 
 
 And a forehead fair and saintly, 
 Which two blue eyes undershine, 
 Like meek prayers before a shrine. 
 
 Face and figure of a child, — 
 
 Though too calm, you think, and tender, 
 For the childhood you would lend her. 
 
 Yet child-simple, undefiled, 
 
 Frank, obedient, — waiting still 
 On the turnings of your will. 
 
 Moving light, as all young things, 
 As young birds, or early wheat, 
 When the wind blows over it.
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 Only, free from flutterings 
 
 Of loud mirth that scorneth measure — 
 Taking love for her chief pleasure. 
 
 Choosing pleasures, for the rest, 
 Which come softly — ^just as she, 
 When she nestles at your knee. 
 
 Quiet talk she liketh best. 
 
 In a bower of gentle looks, — 
 Watering flowers, or reading books. 
 
 And her voice, it murmurs lowly, 
 As a silver stream may run. 
 Which yet feels, you feel, the sun. 
 
 And her smile, it seems half holy, 
 As if drawn from thoughts more far 
 Than our common jestings are. 
 
 And if any poet knew her, 
 
 He would sing of her with falls 
 Used in lovely madrigals. 
 
 And if any painter drew her, 
 He would paint her unaware 
 With a halo round the hair. 
 
 And if reader read the poem, 
 
 He would whisper — "You have done a 
 Consecrated little Una". 
 203
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 And a dreamer (did you show him 
 That same picture) would exclaim, 
 *' 'Tis my angel, with a name!" 
 
 And a stranger, when he sees her 
 In the street even — smileth stilly. 
 Just as you would at a lily. 
 
 And all voices that address her, 
 Soften, sleeken every word, 
 As if speaking to a bird. 
 
 And all fancies yearn to cover 
 
 The hard earth whereon she passes, 
 With the thymy-scented grasses. 
 
 And all hearts do pray, " God love her!' 
 Ay, and always, in good sooth, 
 We may all be sure He doth. 
 
 304
 
 The Romance of 
 the Swan's Nest 
 
 " So the dreams depart, 
 So the fading phantoms flee, J^ ^^^ 
 
 And the sharp reality 
 Now must act its part." 
 — Westwood's Beads from 
 a Rosary 
 
 I 
 
 Little Ellie sits alone 
 
 'Mid the beeches of a meadow, 
 By a stream-side on the grass, 
 And the trees are showering down 
 Doubles of their leaves in shadow. 
 On her shining hair and face. 
 
 She has thrown her bonnet by, 
 And her feet she has been dipping 
 In the shallow water's flow. 
 Now she holds them nakedly 
 
 In her hands, all sleek and dripping, 
 While she rocketh to and fro. 
 
 Little Ellie sits alone, 
 
 And the smile she softly uses, 
 Fills the silence like a speech,
 
 THE ROMANCE OF 
 
 While she thinks what shall be done, 
 
 And the sweetest pleasure chooses 
 
 For her future within reach. 
 
 IV 
 
 Little Ellie in her smile 
 
 Chooses ..." I will have a lover, 
 Riding- on a steed of steeds ! 
 He shall love me without guile, 
 And to him I will discover 
 
 The swan's nest among the reeds. 
 
 "And the steed shall be red-roan, 
 And the lover shall be noble. 
 
 With an eye that takes the breath. 
 And the lute he plays upon, 
 Shall strike ladies into trouble. 
 
 As his sword strikes men to death. 
 
 "And the steed it shall be shod 
 All in silver, housed in azure. 
 
 And the mane shall swim the wind ; 
 And the hoofs along the sod 
 
 Shall flash onward and keep measure. 
 Till the shepherds look behind. 
 206
 
 THE SWAN'S NEST 
 
 VII 
 
 " But my lover will not prize 
 All the glor}' that he rides in, 
 When he gazes in my face. 
 He will say, ' O Love, thine eyes 
 Build the shrine my soul abides in, 
 And I kneel here for thy grace'. 
 
 VIII 
 
 "Then, ay, then — he shall kneel low, 
 With the red-roan steed anear him 
 Which shall seem to understand — 
 Till I answer, ' Rise and go ! 
 
 For the world must love and fear him 
 Whom I gift with heart and hand '. 
 
 IX 
 
 "Then he will arise so pale, 
 
 I shall feel my own lips tremble 
 With a yes I must not say, 
 Nathless maiden-brave, ' Farewell ', 
 I will utter, and dissemble — 
 ' Light to-morrow with to-day '. 
 
 X 
 
 Then he '11 ride among the hills 
 To the wide world past the river, 
 There to put away all wrong ; 
 To make straight distorted wills, 
 And to empty the broad quiver 
 Wlilch the wicked bear along. 
 207
 
 THE ROMANCE OF 
 
 XI 
 
 'Three times shall a young foot-page 
 Swim the stream and climb the moun- 
 tain 
 And kneel down beside my feet — 
 Lo, my master sends this gage, 
 Lady, for thy pity's counting ! 
 
 What wilt thou exchange for it?' 
 
 "And the first time, I will send 
 A white rosebud for a guerdon, — 
 And the second time, a glove; 
 But the third time — I may bend 
 
 From my pride, and answer—' Pardon, 
 If he comes to take my love '. 
 
 "Then the young foot-page will run- 
 Then my lover will ride faster, 
 Till he kneeleth at my knee : 
 ' I am a duke's eldest son ! 
 Thousand serfs do call me master, 
 But, O Love, I love but theeV 
 
 He will kiss me on the mouth 
 Then, and lead me as a lover 
 
 Through the crowds that praise his 
 deeds : 
 
 208
 
 THE SWAN'S NEST 
 
 And, when soul-tied by one troth, 
 Unto him I will discover 
 That swan's nest among the reeds." 
 
 XV 
 
 Little EUie, with her smile 
 Not yet ended, rose up gaily, 
 Tied the bonnet, donned the shoe, 
 And went homeward, round a mile, 
 Just to see, as she did daily, 
 
 What miore eggs were with the two. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Pushing through the elm-tree copse, 
 Winding up the stream, light-hearted, 
 Where the osier pathway leads — 
 Past the boughs she stoops — and stops. 
 Lo, the wild swan had deserted — 
 And a rat had gnawed the reeds. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Ellie went hom.e sad and slow. 
 If she found the lover ever, 
 
 With his red-roan steed of steeds, 
 Sooth I know not! but I know 
 She could never show him — never, 
 That swan's nest among the reeds! 
 
 209
 
 The Dead Pan -^ -^ 
 
 Excited by Schiller's " Gotter Griechenlands ", and 
 partly founded on a well-known tradition mentioned 
 in a treatise of Plutarch (" De Oraculorum Defectu"), 
 according to which, at the hour of the Savioui-'s 
 agony, a cry of " Great Pan is dead !" swept across 
 the waves in the hearing of certain mariners — and 
 the oracles ceased. 
 
 It is in all veneration to the memory of the death- 
 less Schiller that I oppose a doctrine still more dis- 
 honouring to poetry than to Christianity. 
 
 As Mr. Kenyon's graceful and harmonious para- 
 phrase of the German poem was the first occasion of 
 the turning of my thoughts in this direction, I take 
 advantage of the pretence to indulge my feelings 
 (which overflow on other grounds) by inscribing my 
 lyric to that dear friend and relative, with the 
 earnestness of appreciating esteem as well as of 
 affectionate gratitude. — 1844. 
 
 Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas, 
 Can you listen in your silence? 
 Can your m3^stic voices tell us 
 Where ye hide? In floating islands. 
 With a wind that evermore 
 Keeps you out of sight of shore? 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 210
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 In what revels are ye sunken, 
 
 In old Ethiopia? 
 
 Have the Pygmies made you drunken, 
 
 Bathing in mandragora 
 
 Your divine pale lips, that shiver 
 
 Like the lotus in the river? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Do ye sit there still in slumber. 
 In gigantic Alpine rows? 
 The black poppies out of number 
 Nodding, dripping from your brows 
 To the red lees of your wine. 
 And so kept alive and fine? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 IV 
 
 Or lie crushed your stagnant corses 
 Where the silver spheres roll on. 
 Stung to life by centric forces 
 Thrown like rays out from the sun? — 
 While the smoke of your old altars 
 Is the shroud that round you welters? 
 Great Pan is dead.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 "Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas", 
 Said the old Hellenic tongue! 
 Said the hero-oalhs, as well as 
 Poets' songs the sweetest sung! 
 Have ye grown deaf in a day? 
 Can ye speak not yea or nay — 
 
 Since Pan is dead? 
 
 Do ye leave your rivers flowing 
 
 All alone, O Naiades, 
 
 While your drenched locks dry slow in 
 
 This cold feeble sun and breeze? — 
 
 Not a word the Naiads say, 
 
 Though the rivers run for aye. 
 
 For Pan is dead. 
 
 vn 
 
 From the gloaming of the oak-wood, 
 O ye Dryads, could ye flee? 
 At the rushing thunderstroke, would 
 No sob tremble through the tree? — 
 Not a word the Dr3^ads say, 
 Though the forests wave for aye. 
 For Pan is dead.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 VIII 
 
 Have ye left the mountain places, 
 Oreads wild, for other tryst? 
 Shall we see no sudden faces 
 Strike a glory through the mist? 
 Not a sound the silence thrills 
 Of the everlasting hills. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 IX 
 
 O twelve gods of Plato's vision. 
 Crowned to starr}- wanderings, — 
 With your chariots in procession, 
 And your silver clash of wings ! 
 Very pale ye seem to rise. 
 Ghosts of Grecian deities, — 
 
 Now Pan is dead 
 
 Jove, that right hand is unloaded, 
 Whence the thunder did prevail. 
 While in idiocy of godhead 
 Thou art staring the stars pale ! 
 And thine eagle, blind and old. 
 Roughs his feathers in the cold. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 213
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 Where, O Juno, is the glory 
 Of thy regal look and tread? 
 Will they lay, for evermore, thee, 
 On thy dim, straight, golden bed? 
 Will thy queendom all lie hid 
 Meekly under either lid? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 XII 
 
 Ha, Apollo ! floats his golden 
 Hair all mist-like where he stands, 
 While the Muses hang enfolding 
 Knee and foot with faint wild hands 
 'Neath the clanging of thy bow, 
 Niobe looked lost as thou ! 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Shall the casque with its brown iron, 
 Pallas' broad blue eyes eclipse. 
 And no hero take inspiring 
 From the god-Greek of her lips? 
 'Neath her olive dost thou sit. 
 Mars the mighty, cursing it? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 214
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 XIV 
 
 Bacchus, Bacchus ! on the panther 
 
 He swoons, — bound with his own vines. 
 
 And his Maenads slowly saunter, 
 
 Head aside, among the pines. 
 
 While they murmur dreamingly, 
 
 " Evohe — ah — evohe — ! " 
 
 Ah, Pan is dead ! 
 
 XV 
 
 Neptune lies beside the trident, 
 Dull and senseless as a stone; 
 And old Pluto deaf and silent 
 Is cast out into the sun. 
 Ceres smileth stern thereat, 
 "We all now are desolate — 
 
 Now Pan is dead.' 
 
 XVI 
 
 Aphrodite! dead and driven 
 As thy native foam, thou art; 
 With the cestus long done heaving 
 On the white calm of thine heart! 
 Ai Adonis! at that shriek, 
 Not a tear runs down her cheek — 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 815 ^
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 And the Loves, we used to know from 
 
 One another, huddled lie, 
 
 Frore as taken in a snow-storm, 
 
 Close beside her tenderly, — 
 
 As if each had weakly tried 
 
 Once to kiss her as he died. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 What, and Hermes? Time enthralleth 
 All thy cunning, Hermes, thus, — 
 And the ivy blindly crawleth 
 Round thy brave caduceus? 
 Hast thou no new message for us, 
 Full of thunder and Jove-glories? 
 Nay, Pan is dead. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Crowned Cybele's great turret 
 Rocks and crumbles on her head. 
 Roar the lions of her chariot 
 Toward the wilderness, unfed. 
 Scornful children are not mute, — 
 " Mother, mother, walk afoot, 
 
 Since Pan is dead. 
 216
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 In the fiery-hearted centre 
 Of the solemn universe, 
 Ancient Vesta, — who could enter 
 To consume thee with this curse? 
 Drop thy grey chin on thy knee, 
 O thou palsied Mystery! 
 
 For Pan is dead. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Gods, we vainly do adjure you, — 
 Ye return nor voice nor sign ! 
 Not a votar}^ could secure you 
 Even a grave for your Divine! 
 Not a grave, to show thereby, 
 Here these grey old gods do He. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 XXII 
 
 Even that Greece who took your wages. 
 Calls the obolus outworn. 
 And the hoarse, deep-throated ages 
 Laugh your godships unto scorn. 
 And the poets do disclaim you, 
 Or grow colder if they name you — 
 And Pan is dead. 
 217
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Gods bereaved, gods belated, 
 With your purples rent asunder! 
 Gods discrowned and desecrated, 
 Disinherited of thunder ! 
 Now, the goats may climb and crop 
 The soft grass on Ida's top — 
 
 Now, Pan is dead. 
 
 Calm, of old, the bark went onward, 
 When a cry more loud than wind. 
 Rose up, deepened, and swept sunward. 
 From the piled Dark behind ; 
 And the sun shrank and grew pale, 
 Breathed against by the great wail — 
 " Pan, Pan is dead". 
 
 And the rowers from the benches 
 
 Fell, — each shuddering on his face — 
 
 While departing Influences 
 
 Struck a cold back through the place; 
 
 And the shadow of the ship 
 
 Reeled along the passive deep— 
 
 " Pan, Pan is dead". 
 218
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 XXVI 
 
 And that dismal cry rose slowly 
 And sank slowly through the air, 
 Full of spirit's melancholy 
 And eternity's despair! 
 And they heard the words it said— 
 Pan is dead — Great Pan is dead- 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 'Twas the hour when One in Sion 
 Hung for love's sake on a cross ; 
 When His brow was chill with dying, 
 And His soul was faint with loss ; 
 When His priestly blood dropped down- 
 ward. 
 And His kingly eyes looked throne- 
 ward — 
 
 Then, Pan was dead. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 By the love He stood alone in, 
 
 His sole Godhead rose complete, 
 
 And the false gods fell down moaning, 
 
 Each from off his golden seat ; 
 
 All the false gods with a cry 
 
 Rendered up their deity — 
 
 Pan, Pan was dead. 
 219
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Wailing wide across the islands, 
 They rent, vest-like, their Divine ! 
 And a darkness and a silence 
 Quenched the light of every shrine ; 
 /\nd Dodona's oak swang lonely 
 Henceforth, to the tempest only, 
 
 Pan, Pan was dead. 
 
 XXX 
 
 Pythia staggered, — feeling o'er her, 
 Her lost god's forsaking look. 
 Straight her eyeballs filmed with horror. 
 And her crispy fillets shook. 
 And her lips gasped through their foam, 
 For a word that did not come. 
 
 Pan, Pan was dead. 
 
 O ye vain false gods of Hellas, 
 Ye are silent evermore ! 
 And I dash down this old chalice, 
 Whence libations ran of yore. 
 See, the wine crawls in the dust 
 Wormlike — as your glories must, 
 
 Since Pan is dead.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Get to dust, as common mortals, 
 Bv a common doom and track! 
 Let no Schiller from the portals 
 Of that Hades, call you back, 
 Or instruct us to weep all 
 At your antique funeral. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 By your beauty, which confesses 
 Some chief Beauty conquering you, — 
 By our grand heroic guesses. 
 Through your falsehood, at the True,— 
 We will weep Twt . . . ! earth shall roll 
 Heir to each god's aureole — 
 
 And Pan is dead. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Earth outgrows the mythic fancies 
 Sung beside her in her youth ; 
 And those debonair romances 
 Sound but dull beside the truth. 
 Phoebus' chariot-course is run. 
 Look up, poets, to the sun ! 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 Christ hath sent us down the angels ; 
 And the whole earth and the skies 
 Are illumed by altar-candles 
 Lit for blessed mysteries ; 
 And a Priest's hand through creation 
 Waveth calm and consecration — 
 And Pan is dead. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 Truth is fair: should we forego it? 
 Can we sigh right for a wrong? 
 God Himself is the best Poet, 
 And the Real is His song. 
 Sing His truth out fair and full, 
 And secure His beautiful. 
 
 Let Pan be dead. 
 
 Truth is large. Our aspiration 
 Scarce embraces half we be. 
 Shame, to stand in His creation 
 And doubt truth's sufficiency ! — 
 To think God's song unexcelling 
 The poor tales of our own telling — 
 When Pan is dead.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 What is true and just and honest, 
 What is lovely, what is pure — 
 All of praise that hath admonisht, 
 All of virtue, shall endure, — 
 These are themes for poets' uses. 
 Stirring nobler than the Muses, 
 
 Ere Pan was dead. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 O brave poets, keep back nothing, 
 Nor mix falsehood with the whole. 
 Look up Godward ; speak the truth 
 W^orthy song from earnest soul ! 
 Hold, in high poetic duty. 
 Truest Truth the fairest Beauty. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 223
 
 Hector in 
 the Garden 
 
 Nine years old ! The first of any 
 Seem the happiest years that come. 
 Yet when / was nine, I said 
 No such word ! — I thought instead 
 
 That the Greeks had used as many 
 In besieging Ilium. 
 
 Nine green years had scarcely brought me 
 
 To my childhood's haunted spring. 
 
 I had life, like flowers and bees 
 
 In betwixt the country trees, 
 And the sun the pleasure taught me 
 
 Which he teacheth every thing. 
 
 If the rain fell, there was sorrow, 
 Little head leant on the pane, 
 Little finger drawing down it 
 The long trailing drops upon It, 
 224
 
 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 
 
 And the *' Rain, rain, come to-morrow 
 Said for charm against the rain. 
 
 IV 
 
 Such a charm was right Canidian 
 Though you meet it with a jeer ! 
 If I said it long enough. 
 Then the rain hummed dimly ofif, 
 
 And the thrush with his pure Lydian 
 Was left only to the ear ; 
 
 And the sun and I together 
 
 Went a-rushing out of doors ! 
 
 We, our tender spirits, drew 
 
 Over hill and dale in view, 
 Glimmering hither, glimmering thither, 
 
 In the footsteps of the showers. 
 
 Underneath the chesnuts dripping. 
 Through the grasses wet and fair, 
 Straight I sought my garden-ground, 
 With the laurel on the mound. 
 
 And the pear-tree oversweeping 
 A side-shadow of green air. 
 225
 
 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 
 
 In the garden lay supinely 
 
 A huge giant wrought of spade! 
 Arms and legs were stretched at length 
 In a passive giant strength, — 
 
 The fine meadow turf, cut finely. 
 Round them laid and interlaid. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Call him Hector, son of Priam ! 
 
 Such his title and degree. 
 
 With my rake I smoothed his brow. 
 
 Both his cheeks I weeded through, 
 But a rhymer such as I am. 
 
 Scarce can sing his dignity. 
 
 Eyes of gentianellas azure, 
 
 Staring, winking at the skies. 
 
 Nose of gillyflowers and box. 
 
 Scented grasses put for locks. 
 Which a little breeze, at pleasure, 
 
 Set a-waving round his eyes. 
 
 X 
 
 Brazen helm of daffodillies, 
 
 With a glitter toward the light. 
 Purple violets for the mouth, 
 Breathing perfumes west and south 
 226
 
 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 
 
 And a sword of flashing- lilies, 
 Holden ready for the fight. 
 
 XI 
 
 And a breastplate made of daisies, 
 
 Closely fitting, leaf on leaf. 
 
 Periwinkles interlaced 
 
 Drawn for belt about the waist ; 
 While the brown bees, humming praises, 
 
 Shot their arrows round the chief. 
 
 XII 
 
 And who knows, (I sometimes wondered,) 
 
 If the disembodied soul 
 
 Of old Hector, once of Troy, 
 
 Might not take a dreary joy 
 Here to enter— if it thundered, 
 
 Rolling up the thunder-roll? 
 
 Rolling this way from Troy-ruin, 
 In this body rude and rife 
 Just to enter, and take rest 
 'Neath the daisies of the breast - 
 
 They, with tender roots, renewing 
 His heroic heart to life? 
 227
 
 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 
 
 XIV 
 
 Who could know? I sometimes started 
 
 At a motion or a sound ! 
 
 Did his mouth speak — naming Troy, 
 
 With an ototototol? 
 Did the pulse of the Strong-hearted 
 
 Make the daisies tremble round? 
 
 XV 
 
 It was hard to answer, often : 
 But the birds sang in the tree — 
 But the little birds sang bold 
 In the pear-tree green and old, 
 
 And my terror seemed to soften 
 Through the courage of their glee. 
 
 Oh, the birds, the tree, the ruddy 
 
 And white blossoms, sleek with rain ! 
 
 Oh, my garden, rich with pansies ! 
 
 Oh, my childhood's bright romances ! 
 All revive, like Hector's body, 
 
 And I see them stir ag-ain i 
 
 And despite life's changes — chances, 
 And despite the deathbell's toll. 
 They press on me in full seeming ! 
 Help, some angel ! stay this dreaming I 
 228
 
 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 
 
 As the birds sang in the branches, 
 
 Sing God's patience through my soul ! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 That no dreamer, no neglecter 
 Of the present's work unsped, 
 I may wake up and be doing, 
 Life's heroic ends pursuing, 
 
 Though my past is dead as Hector, 
 And though Hector is twice dead. 
 
 229
 
 Flush or 
 Faunus 
 
 You see this dog. It was but yesterday 
 I mused forgetful of his presence here 
 Till thought on thought drew downward 
 
 tear on tear, 
 When from the pillow, where wet-cheeked 
 
 I lay, 
 A head as hairy as Faunus, thrust its way 
 Right sudden against my face, — two 
 
 golden-clear 
 Great eyes astonished mine, — a drooping 
 
 ear 
 Did flap me on either cheek to dry the 
 
 spray ! 
 I started first, as some Arcadian, 
 Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove; 
 But, as the bearded vision closelier ran 
 My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose 
 
 above 
 Surprise and sadness, — thanking the true 
 
 Pan, 
 Who, by low creatures, leads to heights 
 
 of love. 
 
 230
 
 The Prospect -^ ^ 
 
 Methinks we do as fretful children do, 
 Leaning their faces on the window-pane 
 To sigh the glass dim with their own 
 
 breath's stain. 
 And shut the sky and landscape from 
 
 their view. 
 And thus, alas ! since God the maker drew 
 A mystic separation 'twixt those twain. 
 The life beyond us, and our souls in pain, 
 We miss the prospect which we are called 
 
 unto 
 By grief we are fools to use. Be still and 
 
 strong, 
 O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing 
 
 breath, 
 And keep thy soul's large window pure 
 
 from wrong, — 
 That so, as life's appointment issueth, 
 Thy vision may be clear to watch along 
 The sunset consummation-lights of death. 
 
 231
 
 A Child's 
 
 Thought -^ J^ 
 
 of God 
 
 They say that God lives very high. 
 
 But if you look above the pines 
 You cannot see our God; and why? 
 
 And if you dig down in the mines 
 You never see Him in the gold ; 
 Though, from Him, all that's glory shines. 
 
 God is so good. He wears a fold 
 
 Of heaven and earth across His face — 
 Like secrets kept, for love, untold. 
 
 But still I feel that His embrace 
 
 Slides down by thrills, through ail things 
 made. 
 Through sight and sound of every place. 
 
 As if my tender mother laid 
 
 On my shut lids, her kisses' pressure, 
 Half-waking me at night, and said 
 
 "Who kissed you through the dark, 
 dear guesser?" 
 
 232
 
 A Reed 
 
 I am no trumpet, but a reed : 
 
 No flattering breath shall from me lead 
 
 A silver sound, a hollow sound. 
 I will not ring, for priest or king, 
 One blast that in re-echoing 
 
 Would leave a bondsman faster bound. 
 
 I am no trumpet, but a reed, — 
 A broken reed, the wind indeed 
 
 Left flat upon a dismal shore ; 
 Yet if a little maid, or child. 
 Should sigh within it, earnest-mild. 
 
 This reed will answer evermore. 
 
 I am no trumpet, but a reed. 
 Go, tell the fishers, as they spread 
 
 Their nets along the river's edge, 
 I will not tear their nets at all, 
 Nor pierce their hands, if they should fall; 
 
 Then let them leave me in the sedge. 
 233
 
 A Child's Grave 
 at Florence 
 
 A. A. E. C. 
 BORN, JULY, 1848 
 DIED, NOVEMBER, 1849 
 
 Of English blood, of Tuscan birth, . . 
 
 What country should we give her? 
 Instead of any on the earth, 
 
 The civic Heavens receive her. 
 
 And here, among the English tombs, 
 In Tuscan ground we lay her, 
 
 While the blue Tuscan sky endomes 
 Our English words of pra3'er. 
 
 Ill 
 
 A little child ! — how long she lived. 
 By months, not years, is reckoned : 
 
 Born in one July, she survived 
 Alone to see a second. 
 234
 
 A CHILD'S GRAVE 
 
 Bright-featured, as the July sun 
 Her little face still played in, 
 
 And splendours, with her birth begun, 
 Had had no time for fading. 
 
 So, Lily, from those July hours. 
 No wonder we should call her; 
 
 She looked such kinship to the flowers, 
 Was but a little taller. 
 
 VI 
 
 A Tuscan Lily, — only white. 
 
 As Dante, in abhorrence 
 Of red corruption, wished aright 
 
 The lilies of his Florence. 
 
 We could not wish her whiter, — her 
 Who perfumed with pure blossom 
 
 The house ! — a lovely thing to wear 
 Upon a mother's bosom! 
 
 VIII 
 
 This July creature thought perhaps 
 Our speech not worth assuming; 
 
 She sate upon her parents' laps. 
 And mimicked the gnat's humming 
 235
 
 A CHILD'S GRAVE 
 
 IX 
 
 Said "Father", "Mother"— then, left off. 
 
 For tongues celestial, fitter. 
 Her hair had grown just long enough 
 
 To catch heaven's jasper-glitter. 
 
 X 
 
 Babes ! Love could always hear and see 
 Behind the cloud that hid them. 
 
 " Let little children come to Me, 
 And do not thou forbid them." 
 
 XI 
 
 So, unforbidding, have we met, 
 And gently here have laid her, 
 
 Though winter is no time to get 
 The flowers that should o'erspread her. 
 
 XII 
 
 We should bring pansies quick with 
 spring. 
 
 Rose, violet, daffodilly, 
 And also, above everything. 
 
 White lilies for our Lily. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Nay, more than flowers, this grave 
 exacts, — 
 Glad, grateful attestations 
 236
 
 A CHILD'S GRAVE 
 
 Of her sweet eyes and pretty acts, 
 With calm renunciations. 
 
 Her very mother with Hght feet 
 Should leave the place too earthy, 
 
 Saying, "The angels have thee, Sweet, 
 Because we are not worthy ". 
 
 XV 
 
 But winter kills the orange-buds, 
 The gardens in the frost are, 
 
 And all the heart dissolves in floods, 
 Remembering we have lost her! 
 
 Poor earth, poor heart, — too weak, too 
 weak, 
 
 To miss the July shining ! 
 Poor heart ! — what bitter words we speak, 
 
 When God speaks of resigning ! 
 
 Sustain this heart in us that faints, 
 Thou God, the self-existent ! 
 
 W^e catch up wild at parting saints. 
 And feel Thy Heaven too distant. 
 237
 
 A CHILD'S GRAVE 
 
 XVIII 
 
 The wind that swept them out of sin, 
 Has ruffled all our vesture. 
 
 On the shut door that let them in, 
 We beat with frantic gesture, — 
 
 To us, us also — open straight ! 
 
 The outer life is chilly — 
 Are we too, like the earth, to wait 
 
 Till next year for our Lily? 
 
 — Oh, my own baby on my knees, 
 My leaping, dimpled treasure. 
 
 At every word I write like these, 
 Clasped close, with stronger pressure 
 
 Too v/ell my own heart understands, — 
 At every word beats fuller — 
 
 My little feet, my little hands, 
 x*\nd hair of Lily's colour ! 
 
 XXII 
 
 — But God gives patience. Love learns 
 strength. 
 And Faith remembers promise,
 
 A CHILD'S GRAVE 
 
 And Hope itself can smile at length 
 On other hopes gone from us. 
 
 Love, strong as Death, shall conquer 
 Death, 
 
 Through struggle, made more glorious. 
 This mother stills her sobbing breath, 
 
 Renouncing, yet victorious. 
 
 Arms, empty of her child, she lifts, 
 
 With spirit unbereaven, — 
 "God will not all take back His gifts; 
 
 My Lily 's mine in heaven ! 
 
 XXV 
 
 ''Still mine! maternal rights serene 
 
 Not given to another ! 
 The crystal bars shine faint between 
 
 The souls of child and mother. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 "Meanwhile," the mother cries," content! 
 
 Our love was well divided. 
 Its sweetness following where she went. 
 
 Its anguish stayed where I did. 
 239
 
 A CHILD'S GRAVE 
 
 XXVII 
 
 "Well done of God, to halve the lot, 
 And give her all the sweetness ; 
 
 To us, the empty room and cot, — 
 To her, the Heaven's completeness. 
 
 "To us, this grave — to her, the rows 
 The mystic palm-trees spring in. 
 
 To us, the silence in the house, — 
 To her, the choral singing. 
 
 "For her, to gladden in God's view 
 For us, to hope and bear on ! — 
 
 Grow, Lily, in th}- garden new, 
 Beside the Rose of Sharon. 
 
 "Grow fast in heaven, sweet Lily clipped. 
 In love more calm than this is, — 
 
 And may the angels dewy-lipped 
 Remind thee of our kisses ! 
 
 XXXI 
 
 " While none shall tell thee of our tears, 
 These human tears now falling, 
 
 Till, after a few patient years. 
 One home shall take us all in. 
 240
 
 A CHILD'S GRAVE 
 
 "Child, father, mother — who, left out? 
 
 Not mother, and not father ! — 
 And when, our dying couch about, 
 
 The natural mists shall gather, 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 "Some smiling angel close shall stand 
 
 In old Correggio's fashion, 
 And bear a Lily in his hand. 
 
 For death's anxuxciatiox."
 
 Inclusions 
 
 Oh, wilt thou have my hand, Dear, to lie 
 
 along in thine? 
 As a little stone in a running stream, it 
 
 seems to lie and pine. 
 Now drop the poor pale hand, Dear, . . . 
 
 unfit to plight with thine. 
 
 Oh, wilt thou have my cheek, Dear, drawn 
 
 closer to thine own? 
 My cheek is white, my cheek is worn, by 
 
 many a tear run down. 
 Now leave a little space, Dear, . . . lest 
 
 it should wet thine own. 
 
 Oh, must thou have my soul. Dear, com- 
 mingled with thy soul? — 
 
 Red grows the cheek, and warm the hand, 
 . . . the part is in the whole ! 
 
 Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, when 
 soul is joined to soul. 
 242
 
 Sonnets 
 from the 
 Portuguese 
 
 I thought once how Theocritus had sung 
 Of the sweet years, the dear and wished- 
 
 for years, 
 Who each one in a gracious hand appears 
 To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: 
 And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, 
 I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, 
 The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years. 
 Those of my own life, who by turns had 
 
 flung 
 A shadow across me. Straightway I was 
 
 'ware, 
 So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move 
 Behind me, and drew me backward by the 
 
 hair, 
 And a voice said in mastery while I strove, ... 
 " Guess now who holds thee?" — " Death", 
 
 I said. But, there, 
 The silver answer rang ..." Not Death, 
 
 but Love". 
 
 243
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 II 
 But only three in all God's universe 
 Have heard this word thou hast said,— - 
 
 Himself, beside 
 Thee speaking, and me listening ! and 
 
 replied 
 One of us . . . that was God, . . . and 
 
 laid the curse 
 So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce 
 My sight from seeing thee, — that if I had 
 
 died. 
 The deathweights, placed there, would have 
 
 signified 
 Less absolute exclusion. " Nay" is worse 
 From God than from all others, O my 
 
 friend ! 
 Men could not part us with their worldly jars, 
 Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests 
 
 bend; 
 Our hands would touch for all the moun- 
 tain-bars, — 
 And, heaven being rolled between us at 
 
 the end, 
 We should but vow the faster for the stars. 
 
 Ill 
 Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! 
 Unlike our uses and our destinies. 
 Our ministering two angels look surprise 
 On one another, as they strike athwart 
 
 244
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink 
 
 thee, art 
 A guest for queens to social pageantries, 
 Witii gages from a hundred brighter eyes 
 Than tears even can make mine, to ply 
 
 thy part 
 Of diief musician. What hast thou to do 
 With looking from the lattice -lights at 
 
 me, 
 A poor, tired, wandering singer, . . . singing 
 
 through 
 The dark, and leaning up a cypress-tree? 
 The chrism is on thine head,^on mine, 
 
 the dew, — 
 And Death must dig the level where these 
 
 agree. 
 
 Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor. 
 Most gracious singer of high poems ! 
 
 where 
 The dancers will break footing, from the 
 
 care 
 Of watching up thy pregnant lips for 
 
 more. 
 And dost thou lift this house's latch too 
 
 poor 
 For hand of thine? and canst thou think 
 
 and bear 
 
 245
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 To let thy music drop here unaware 
 In folds of g^olden fulness at my door? 
 Look up and see the casement broken in, 
 The bats and owlets builders in the roof! 
 My cricket chirps against thy mandolin. 
 Hush, call no echo up In further proof 
 Of desolation ! there 's a voice within 
 That weeps ... as thou must sing . . . 
 alone, aloof. 
 
 I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, 
 As once Electra her sepulchral urn, 
 And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn 
 The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see 
 What a great heap of grief lay hid in me, 
 And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn 
 Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot 
 
 In scorn 
 Could tread them out to darkness utterl}-, 
 It might be well perhaps. But If Instead 
 Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow 
 The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on 
 
 thine head, 
 O my Beloved, will not shield thee so, 
 That none of all the fires shall scorch and 
 
 shred 
 The hair beneath. Stand farther off then ! 
 
 go- 
 
 246
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 VI 
 
 Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 
 Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore 
 Alone upon the threshold of my door 
 Of individual life, I shall command 
 The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand 
 Serenely in the sunshine as before, 
 Without the sense of that which I for- 
 bore, . . . 
 Thy touch upon the palm. The widest 
 
 land 
 Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart 
 
 in mine 
 With pulses that beat double. What I do 
 And what I dream include thee, as the 
 
 wine 
 Must taste of its own grapes. And when 
 
 I sue 
 God for myself, He hears that name of 
 
 thine. 
 And sees within my eyes, the tears of two. 
 
 VII 
 
 The face of all the world is changed, I 
 
 think. 
 Since first I heard the footsteps of thy 
 
 soul 
 Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they 
 
 stole 
 Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink 
 247 R
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 Of obvious death, where I, who thought 
 
 to sink, 
 Was caught up into love, and taught the 
 
 whole 
 Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of 
 
 dole 
 God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink, 
 And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee 
 
 anear. 
 The names of country, heaven, are changed 
 
 away 
 For where thou art or shalt be, there or 
 
 here ; 
 And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved 
 
 yesterday, 
 (The singing angels know) are only dear. 
 Because thy name moves right in w^hat 
 
 they say. 
 
 VIII 
 
 What can I give thee back, O liberal 
 And princely giver, who hast brought the 
 
 gold 
 And purple of thine heart, unstained, un- 
 told, 
 And laid them on the outside of the w^all 
 For such as I to take or leave withal, 
 In unexpected largesse? am I cold. 
 Ungrateful, that for these most manifold 
 High gifts, I render nothing back at all? 
 248
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 Not so; not cold, — but very- poor instead. 
 Ask God who knows. For frequent tears 
 
 have run 
 The colours from my life, and left so dead 
 And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done 
 To give the same as pillow to thy head. 
 Go farther! let it serve to trample on. 
 
 IX 
 
 Can it be right to give what I can give? 
 To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears 
 As salt as mine, and hear the sighing 
 
 years 
 Re-sighing on my lips renunciative 
 Through those infrequent smiles which fail 
 
 to live 
 For all thy adjurations? O my fears, 
 That this can scarce be right I We are 
 
 not peers, 
 So to be lovers ; and I own, and grieve, 
 That givers of such gifts as mine are, 
 
 must 
 Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, 
 
 alas ! 
 I will not soil thy purple with my dust. 
 Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice- 
 glass, 
 Nor give thee any love . . . which were un- 
 just. 
 Beloved, I only love thee ! let it pass. 
 249
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed 
 And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright. 
 Let temple burn, or flax. An equal light 
 Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or 
 
 weed. 
 And love is fire; and when I say at need 
 / love thee . . . mark ! . . . / love thee! . . . 
 
 in thy sight 
 I stand transfigured, glorified aright, 
 With conscience of the new rays that pro- 
 ceed 
 Out of my face toward thine. There's 
 
 nothing low 
 In love, when love the lowest : meanest 
 
 creatures 
 Who love God, God accepts while loving 
 
 so. 
 And what I feel, across the inferior features 
 Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show 
 How that great work of Love enhances 
 
 Nature's. 
 
 And therefore if to love can be desert, 
 I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale 
 As these you see, and trembling knees 
 
 that fail 
 To bear the burden of a heavy heart,— 
 250
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 This weary minstrel-life that once was girt 
 To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail 
 To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale 
 A melancholy music, — why advert 
 To these things? O Beloved, it is plain 
 I am not of thy worth nor for thy place ! 
 And yet, because I love thee, I obtain 
 From that same love this vindicating 
 
 grace, 
 To live on still in love, and yet in vain, . . . 
 To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy 
 
 face. 
 
 XII 
 
 Indeed this ver}' love which is my boast. 
 And which, when rising up from breast 
 
 to brow, 
 Doth crown me with a ruby large enow 
 To draw men's eyes and prove the inner 
 
 cost, . . . 
 This love even, all my worth, to the utter- 
 most, 
 I should not love withal, unless that thou 
 Hadst set me an example, shown me how, 
 When first thine earnest eyes with mine 
 
 were crossed, 
 And love called love. And thus, I cannot 
 
 speak 
 Of love even, as a good thing of my own. 
 251
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint 
 
 and weak, 
 And placed it by thee on a golden throne, — 
 And that I love (O soul, we must be 
 
 meek !) 
 Is by thee only, whom I love alone. 
 
 And wilt thou have me fashion into speech 
 The love I bear thee, finding words enough. 
 And hold the torch out, while the winds 
 
 are rough. 
 Between our faces, to cast light on each? — 
 I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach 
 My hand to hold my spirit so far off 
 From myself. . . me . . . that I should bring 
 
 thee proof 
 In words, of love hid in me out of reach. 
 Nay, let the silence of my womanhood 
 Commend my woman-love to. thy belief, — 
 Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, 
 And rend the garment of my life, in brief. 
 By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude, 
 Lest one toucli of this heart convey its 
 
 grief. 
 
 If thou must love me, let it be for nought 
 
 Except for love's sake only. Do not say 
 
 252
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 " I love her for her smile . . , her look . . . 
 her way 
 
 Of speakin^e;- gently, . . . fora trick of thought 
 
 That falls in well with mine, and certes 
 brought 
 
 A sense of pleasant ease on such a day " — 
 
 For these things in themselves, Beloved, 
 may 
 
 Be changed, or change for thee, — and 
 lovfe, so wrought, 
 
 May be unwrought so. Neither love me 
 for 
 
 Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks 
 dry,— 
 
 A creature might forget to weep, who 
 bore 
 
 Thy comfort long, and lose thy love 
 thereby ! 
 
 But love me for love's sake, that ever- 
 more 
 
 Thou may St love on, through love's eter- 
 nity. 
 
 XV 
 
 Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear 
 Too calm and sad a face in front of thine; 
 For we tw^o look two ways, and cannot 
 
 shine 
 With the same sunlight on our brow and 
 
 hair. 
 
 253
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 On me thou lookest, with no doubting 
 
 care, 
 As on a bee shut in a crystalline, — 
 Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's 
 
 divine, 
 And to spread wing and fly in the outer 
 
 air 
 Were most impossible failure, if I strove 
 To fail so. But I look on thee ... on 
 
 thee ... 
 Beholding-, besides love, the end of love, 
 Hearing oblivion beyond memory ! 
 As one who sits and gazes from above, 
 Over the rivers to the bitter sea. 
 
 XVI 
 
 And yet, because thou overcomest so, 
 
 Because thou art more noble and like a 
 king. 
 
 Thou canst prevail against my fears and 
 fling 
 
 Thy purple round me, till my heart shall 
 grow 
 
 Too close against thine heart, henceforth 
 to know 
 
 How it shook when alone. Why, con- 
 quering 
 
 May prove as lordly and complete a thing 
 
 In lifting upward, as in crushing low! 
 254
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 And as a vanquished soldier yields his 
 
 sword 
 To one who Hfts him from the bloody 
 
 earth, — 
 Even so, Beloved, I at last record, 
 Here ends my strife. If tliou invite me forth, 
 I rise above abasement at the word. 
 Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth. 
 
 XVII 
 
 My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes 
 God set between His After and Before, 
 And strike up and strike off the general 
 
 roar 
 Of the rushing worlds, a melody that floats 
 In a serene air purely. Antidotes 
 Of medicated music, answering for 
 Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour 
 From thence mto their ears. God's will 
 
 devotes 
 Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on 
 
 thine. 
 How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most 
 
 use? 
 A hope, to sing by gladly? ... or a fine 
 Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse? 
 A shade, in which to sing ... of palm or 
 
 pine? 
 A grave, on which to rest from singing? 
 
 . . . Choose.
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 XVIII 
 
 I never g-ave a lock of hair away 
 To a man, Dearest, except this to thee, 
 Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully 
 I ring out to the full brown length and 
 
 say 
 "Take it". My day of youth went yester- 
 day ; 
 My hair no longer bounds to my foot's 
 
 glee, 
 Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree, 
 As girls do, any more. It only may 
 Now shade on two pale cheeks, the mark 
 
 of tears, 
 Taught drooping from the head that hangs 
 
 aside 
 Through sorrow's trick. I thought the 
 
 funeral-shears .i_. 
 
 Would take this first, but Love is justi- 
 fied,— 
 Take it thou, . . . finding pure, from all those 
 
 years. 
 The kiss my mother left here when she 
 died. 
 
 XIX 
 
 The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise: 
 1 barter curl for curl upon that mart, 
 256
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 And from my poet's forehead to my heart, 
 Receive this lock which outweighs ar- 
 gosies, — 
 As purply black, as erst, to Pindar's eyes, 
 The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart 
 The nine white Muse-brows. For this 
 
 counterpart, . . . 
 Thy bay-crow^n's shade, Beloved, I sur- 
 mise. 
 Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black! 
 Thus, with a fillet of smooth -kissing 
 
 breath, 
 I tie the shadows safe from gliding back. 
 And lay the gift where nothing hindereth. 
 Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack 
 No natural heat till mine grows cold in 
 death. 
 
 XX 
 
 Beloved, my Beloved, when I think 
 That thou wast in the world a year ago, 
 What time I sate alone here in the snow 
 And saw no footprint, heard the silence 
 
 sink 
 No moment at thy voice, . . . but, link by link, 
 Went counting all my chains, as if that so 
 They never could fall off at any blow 
 Struck by thy possible hand . . . why, thus 
 
 I drink 
 
 257
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 Of life's great cup of wonder ! Wonderful, 
 Never to feel thee thrill the day or night 
 With personal act or speech, — nor ever 
 
 cull 
 Some prescience of thee with the blossoms 
 
 white 
 Thou sawest growing ! Atheists are as 
 
 dull, 
 Who cannot guess God's presence out of 
 
 sight. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Say over again, and yet once over again, 
 That thou dost love me. Though the 
 
 word repeated 
 Should seem "a cuckoo-song", as thou 
 
 dost treat it. 
 Remember never to the hill or plain. 
 Valley and wood, without her cuckoo- 
 strain, 
 Comes the fresh Spring in all her green 
 
 completed. 
 BelovM, I, amid the darkness greeted 
 By a doubtful spirit- voice, in that doubt's 
 
 pain 
 Cry. . ." Speak once more. . . thou lovest!" 
 
 Who can fear 
 Too many stars, though each in heaven 
 
 shall roll — 
 
 258
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 Too many flowers, though each shall 
 
 crown the year? 
 Say thou dost love me, love me, love me 
 
 —toll 
 The silver iterance ! — only minding, Dear, 
 To love me also in silence, with thv soul. 
 
 XXII 
 
 When our two souls stand up erect and 
 
 strong. 
 Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and 
 
 nigher. 
 Until the lengthening wings break into 
 
 fire 
 At either curved point, — what bitter wrong 
 Can the earth do to us, that we should 
 
 not long 
 Be here contented? Think. In mounting 
 
 higher. 
 The angels would press on us, and aspire 
 To drop some golden orb of perfect song 
 Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay 
 Rather on earth, Beloved, — where the 
 
 unfit 
 Contrarious moods of men recoil away 
 And isolate pure spirits, and permit 
 A place to stand and love in for a day. 
 With darkness and the death-hour round- 
 ing it. 
 
 259
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead, 
 Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine? 
 And would the sun for thee more coldly 
 
 shine, 
 Because of grave-damps falling round my 
 
 head? 
 I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read 
 Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine — 
 But . . , so much to thee? Can I pour 
 
 thy wine 
 While my hands tremble? Then my soul, 
 
 Instead 
 Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower 
 
 range. 
 Then, love me, Love ! look on me — breathe 
 
 on me ! 
 As brighter ladies do not count it strange, 
 For love, to give up acres and degree, 
 I yield the grave for thy sake, and ex- 
 change 
 My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth 
 
 with thee ! 
 
 Let the world's sharpness like a clasping 
 
 knife 
 Shut in upon itself and do no harm 
 260
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 In this close hand of Love, now soft and 
 
 warm, 
 And let us hear no sound of human strife 
 After the click of the shutting. Life to 
 
 life— 
 I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm, 
 And feel as safe as guarded by a charm 
 Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife 
 Are weak to injure. Very whitely still 
 The lilies of our lives may reassure 
 Their blossoms from their roots, accessible 
 Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer; 
 Growing straight, out of man's reach, on 
 
 the hill. 
 God only, who made us rich, can make 
 
 us poor. 
 
 x-\ hea\-y heart, Beloved, have I borne 
 From year to year until I saw thy face. 
 And sorrow after sorrow took the place 
 Of all those natural joys as lightly worn 
 As the stringed pearls . . . each lifted in its 
 
 turn 
 By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes 
 
 apace 
 Were changed to long despairs, till God's 
 
 owm grace 
 Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn 
 261
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me 
 
 bring 
 And let it drop adown thy calmly great 
 Deep being ! Fast it sinketh, as a thing 
 Which its own nature doth precipitate, 
 While thine doth close above it, mediating 
 Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished 
 
 fate. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 I lived with visions for my company. 
 Instead of men and women, years ago, 
 And found them gentle mates, nor thought 
 
 to know 
 A sweeter music than they played to me. 
 But soon their trailing purple was not free 
 Of this world's dust, — their lutes did silent 
 
 grow. 
 And I myself grew faint and blind below 
 Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst 
 
 come ... to be. 
 Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining 
 
 fronts, 
 Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet 
 
 the same. 
 As river-water hallowed into fonts) 
 Met in thee, and from out thee overcame 
 My soul with satisfaction of all wants — 
 Because God's gifts put man's best dreams 
 
 to shame. 
 
 262
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 XXVII 
 
 My own Beloved, who hast lifted me 
 From this drear flat of earth where I was 
 
 thrown, 
 And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown 
 A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully 
 Shines out again, as all the angels see, 
 Before thy saving kiss ! My own, my own, 
 Who camest to me when the world was 
 
 gone, 
 x\nd I who looked for only God, found thee ! 
 I find thee ; I am safe, and strong, and 
 
 glad. 
 As one who stands in dewless asphodel, 
 Looks backward on the tedious time he 
 
 had 
 In the upper life, — so I, with bosom-swell, 
 Make witness, here, between the good and 
 
 bad. 
 That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves 
 
 as well. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 My letters ! all dead paper, . . . mute and 
 white ! — 
 
 And yet they seem alive and quivering 
 
 Against my tremulous hands which loose 
 the string 
 
 And let them drop down on my knee to- 
 night. 
 (B65) 263 S
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 This said, ... he wished to have me in his 
 
 sight 
 Once, as a friend : this fixed a day in 
 
 spring 
 To come and touch my hand ... a simple 
 
 thing, 
 Yet I wept for it! — this, . . . the paper's 
 
 light . . . 
 Said, Dear, I love thee ; and I sank and 
 
 quailed 
 As if God's future thundered on my past. 
 This said, / am thine — and so its ink has 
 
 paled 
 With lying at my heart that beat too fast. 
 And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill 
 
 availed, 
 If, what this said, I dared repeat at 
 
 last! 
 
 I think of thee!— my thoughts do twine 
 
 and bud 
 About thee, as wild vines, about a tree, 
 Put out broad leaves, and soon there's 
 
 nought to see 
 Except the straggling green which hides 
 
 the wood. 
 Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood 
 I will not have my thoughts instead of 
 
 thee 
 
 264
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 Who art dearer, better! rather instantly 
 Renew thy presence. As a strong tree 
 
 should, 
 Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all 
 
 bare, 
 And let these bands of greenery which in- 
 
 sphere thee. 
 Drop heavily down, . . . burst, shattered, 
 
 ever^'where ! 
 Because, in this deep joy to see and hear 
 
 thee 
 And breathe within thy shadow a new air, 
 I do not think of thee — I am too near thee. 
 
 XXX 
 
 I see thine image through my tears to- 
 night, 
 And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How 
 Refer the cause? — Beloved, is it thou 
 Or I ? who makes me sad? The acolyte 
 Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite, 
 May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow, 
 On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and 
 
 vow 
 Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out 
 
 of sight, 
 As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's 
 
 Amen. 
 Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all 
 26;
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when 
 Too vehement light dilated my ideal, 
 For my soul's eyes? Will that light come 
 
 again, 
 As now these tears come . . . falling hot 
 
 and real? 
 
 Thou comest ! all is said without a word. 
 I sit beneath thy looks, as children do 
 In the noon-sun, with souls that trerrible 
 
 through 
 Their happy eyelids from an unaverred 
 Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred 
 In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue 
 The sin most, but the occasion . . . that we 
 
 two 
 Should for a moment stand unministered 
 By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near 
 
 and close. 
 Thou dovelike help ! and, when my fears 
 
 would rise, 
 With thy broad heart serenely interpose. 
 Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies 
 These thoughts which tremble when bereft 
 
 of those. 
 Like callow birds left desert to the skies. 
 266
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 XXXII 
 
 The first time that the sun rose on thine 
 
 oath 
 To love me, I looked forward to the moon 
 To slacken all those bonds which seemed 
 
 too soon 
 And quickly tied to make a lasting- troth. 
 Quick -loving hearts, I thought, may 
 
 quickly loathe ; 
 And, looking on myself, I seemed not one 
 For such man's love! — more like an out- 
 
 of-tune 
 Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth 
 To spoil his song with, and which, snatched 
 
 in haste, 
 Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note. 
 I did not wrong myself so, but I placed 
 A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may 
 
 • float 
 'Neath master -hands, from instruments 
 
 defaced, — 
 And great souls, at one stroke, may do 
 
 and doat. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Yes, call me by my pet-name ! let me hear 
 The name I used to run at, when a child,
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 From Innocent play, and leave the cow- 
 slips piled, 
 
 To glance up In some face that proved me 
 dear 
 
 With the look of Its eyes. I miss the 
 clear 
 
 Fond voices, which, being drawn and re- 
 conciled 
 
 Into the music of Hea.ven's undefiled, 
 
 Call me no longer. Silence on the bier. 
 
 While I call God . . . call God !— So let thy 
 mouth 
 
 Be heir to those who are now exanimate. 
 
 Gather the north flowers to complete the 
 south, 
 
 And catch the early love up In the late. 
 
 Yes, call me by that name, — and I, In 
 truth, 
 
 With the same heart, will answer, and not 
 wait. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 with the same heart, I said, I '11 answer 
 
 thee 
 As those, when thou shalt call me by my 
 
 name — 
 Lo, the vain promise ! Is the same, the 
 
 same, 
 Perplexed and ruffled by life's strategy? 
 268
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 When called before, I told how hastily 
 I dropped my flowers or brake off from a 
 
 game, 
 To run and answer with the smile that 
 
 came 
 At play last moment, and went on with 
 
 me 
 Through my obedience. When 1 answer 
 
 now, 
 I drop a grave thought, — break from soli- 
 tude ; — 
 Yet still my heart goes to thee . . . ponder 
 
 how . . . 
 Not as to a single good, but all my good ! 
 Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow 
 That no child's foot could run fast as this 
 
 blood. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange 
 And be all to me? Shall I never miss 
 Home-talk and blessing and the common 
 
 kiss 
 That comes to each in turn, nor count it 
 
 strange. 
 When I look up, to drop on a new range 
 Of walls and floors . . . another home than 
 
 this? 
 
 269
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is 
 Filled by dead eyes too tender to know 
 
 change ? 
 That's hardest. If to conquer love, has 
 
 tried. 
 To conquer grief, tries more ... as all things 
 
 prove ; 
 For g-rief indeed is love and grief beside. 
 Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to 
 
 love. 
 Yet love me — wilt thou? Open thine 
 
 heart wide, 
 And fold within, the wet wings of thy 
 
 dove. 
 
 When we met first and loved, I did not 
 
 build 
 Upon the event with marble. Could it 
 
 mean 
 To last, a love set pendulous between 
 Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather 
 
 thrilled, 
 Distrusting every light that seemed to gild 
 The onward path, and feared to overlean 
 A finger even. And, though I have grown 
 
 serene 
 And strong since then, I think that God 
 
 has willed 
 
 270
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 A still renewable fear . . . O love, O 
 troth . . . 
 
 Lest these enclasped hands should never 
 hold, 
 
 This mutual kiss drop down between us 
 both 
 
 As an unowned thing, once the lips being 
 cold. 
 
 And Love, be false ! if he, to keep one oath, 
 
 Must lose one joy, bv his life's star fore- 
 told. 
 
 Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should 
 make 
 
 Of all that strong divineness which I 
 know 
 
 For thine and thee, an image only so 
 
 Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and 
 break. 
 
 It is that distant years which did not 
 take 
 
 Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow, 
 
 Have forced my swimming brain to under- 
 go 
 
 Their doubt and dread, and blindly to for- 
 sake 
 
 Thy purity of likeness, and distort 
 
 Thy worthiest love to a worthless counter- 
 feit. 
 
 271
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 As If a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port, 
 His guardian sea-god to commemorate, 
 Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a- 
 
 snort, 
 And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate. 
 
 First time he kissed me, he but only 
 
 kissed 
 The fingers of this hand wherewith I 
 
 write ; 
 And, ever since, it grew more clean and 
 
 white, . . . 
 Slow to world-greetings . . . quick with its 
 
 "Oh, list". 
 When the angels speak. A ring of 
 
 amethyst 
 I could not wear here, plainer to my 
 
 sight. 
 Than that first kiss. The second passed 
 
 in height 
 The first, and sought the forehead, and 
 
 half missed, 
 Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed ! 
 That was the chrism of love, which love's 
 
 own crown, 
 With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. 
 The third upon my lips was folded down 
 272
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 In perfect, purple state; since when, in- 
 deed, 
 
 I have been proud and said, "My love, 
 my own". 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 Because thou hast the power and own'st 
 the grace 
 
 To look throug-h and behind this mask 
 of me, 
 
 (Against which years have beat thus 
 blanchingly 
 
 With their rains,) and behold my soul's 
 true face. 
 
 The dim and weary witness of life's 
 race ! — 
 
 Because thou hast the faith and love to 
 see, 
 
 Through that same soul's distracting leth- 
 argy, 
 
 The patient angel waiting for a place 
 
 In the new Heavens! — because nor sin nor 
 woe. 
 
 Nor God's infliction, nor death's neigh- 
 bourhood, 
 
 Nor all which others viewing, turn to 
 go, ... 
 
 Nor all which makes me tired of all, self- 
 viewed, . . . 
 
 273
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 Nothing repels thee, . . , Dearest, teach 
 
 me so 
 To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, 
 
 good. 
 
 Oh, yes ! they love through all this world 
 
 of ours ! 
 I will not gainsay love, called love for- 
 sooth. 
 I have heard love talked in my early youth. 
 And since, not so long back but that the 
 
 flowers 
 Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans 
 
 and Giaours 
 Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no 
 
 ruth 
 For any weeping, Polypheme's white tooth 
 Slips on the nut, if, after frequent showers. 
 The shell is over -smooth, — and not so 
 
 much 
 Will turn the thing called love, aside to 
 
 hate, 
 Or else to oblivion. But thou art not 
 
 such 
 A lover, my Beloved ! thou canst wait 
 Through sorrow and sickness, to bring 
 
 souls to touch. 
 And think it soon when others cry "Too 
 
 late ". 
 
 274
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 XLI 
 
 I thank all who have loved me in their 
 
 hearts, 
 With thanks and love from mine. Deep 
 
 thanks to all 
 Who paused a little near the prison-wall, 
 To hear my music in its louder parts, 
 Ere they went onward, each one to the 
 
 mart's 
 Or temple's occupation, beyond call. 
 But thou, who, in my voice's sink and fall, 
 When the sob took it, thy divinest Art's 
 Own instrument didst drop down at thy 
 
 foot. 
 To harken what I said between my 
 
 tears, . . . 
 Instruct me how to thank thee! — Oh, to 
 
 shoot 
 My soul's full meaning into future years. 
 That they should lend it utterance, and 
 
 salute 
 Love that endures, from Life that dis- 
 appears ! 
 
 '■'■ My future will not copy fair my pasV — 
 I wrote that once ; and thinking at my 
 side 
 
 275
 
 SONNETS FROM 
 
 My ministering life-angel justified 
 
 The word by his appealing look upcast 
 
 To the white throne of God, I turned at 
 
 last, 
 And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied 
 To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried 
 By natural ills, received the comfort fast. 
 While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim's 
 
 staff 
 Gave out green leaves with morning dews 
 
 impearled. 
 I seek no copy now of life's first half: 
 Leave here the pages with long musing 
 
 curled, 
 And write me new my future's epigraph, 
 New angel mine, unhoped for in the 
 
 world ! 
 
 XLIII 
 
 How do I love thee? Let me count the 
 
 ways. 
 I love thee to the depth and breadth and 
 
 height 
 My soul can reach, when feeling out of 
 
 sight 
 For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 
 I love thee to the level of everyday's 
 Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 
 I love thee freely, as men strive for Right ; 
 276
 
 THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 I love thee purely, as they turn from 
 
 Praise. 
 I love thee with the passion put to use 
 In my old griefs, and with my childhood's 
 
 faith. 
 I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
 With my lost saints, — I love thee with the 
 
 breath, 
 Smiles, tears, of all my life ! — and, if God 
 
 choose, 
 I shall but love thee better after death. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 Beloved, thou hast brought me many 
 flowers 
 
 Plucked in the garden, all the summer 
 through 
 
 And winter, and it seemed as if they grew 
 
 In this close room, nor missed the sun 
 and showers. 
 
 So, in the like name of that love of ours, 
 
 Take back these thoughts which here un- 
 folded too. 
 
 And which on warm and cold days I with- 
 drew 
 
 From my heart's ground. Indeed, those 
 beds and bowers 
 
 Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue. 
 
 And wait thy weeding ; yet here 's eglan- 
 tine, 
 
 277
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Here 's ivy ! — take them, as I used to do 
 Thy flowers, and keep them where they 
 
 shall not pine. 
 Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours 
 
 true, 
 And tell thy soul, their roots are left in 
 
 mine. 
 
 278
 
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