.' MORTIMER COLLINS ■■■■':■■ I if I hip;; :■■■ >•'■;,, THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE POETICAL WORKS MORTIMER COLLINS SELECTIONS FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF MORTIMER COLLINS MADE BY F. PERCY COTTON LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON ST. Ihtblisljrrs in ©rtimaru to |t?ct iiflajcstg tf)t ©mm 1886 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh. SArj TO MY COUSIN FRANCES WIDOW OF MORTIMER COLLINS I DEDICATE THIS BOOK PREFACE. For the last ten years I have occupied much of my leisure time in putting music to Mortimer Collins' lyrics, and I have thus become familiar with the poet's works. I discovered that many of the best poems were scattered about in magazines and news- papers, and therefore likely to be lost; so I have made it a labour of love, from time to time, to collect all these. In putting together this volume my only difficulty has been to know what choice to make from such a wealth of material. I had intended at first to include only those pieces Vlll PREFACE. which had not hitherto been collected ; but, finding that Mortimer Collins' previous volumes of verse — namely, Idylls and Rhymes, 1855; Summer Songs, i860 ; The Inn of Strange Meet- ings, 1870, — were all out of print, I thought well to reproduce a few of the best poems from those volumes. Having access to the poet's papers, I have been fortunate in finding some pieces that have not yet been published, from which I have chosen a few. It has often been asked who wrote the Comedy of Dreams, and where the book could be found. The work lived only in Mortimer Collins' brain, intended, no doubt, to be produced at some time when the pressing necessities of life were less upon him ; but fragments of it were occasion- ally written down, merely to serve as mottoes PREFACE. IX for the chapters of his novels. I have arranged these fragments in the best way I could to show some thread of story running through. I am sure many persons will agree with me that, disjointed as they are, they were worth collecting. The Letter to Disraeli was published anony- mously, in pamphlet form, in 1869, but attracted no notice ; and the surplus copies were, I believe, sold as waste-paper. It is generally considered that a poet does his best work while he is young, but I think any one acquainted with Mortimer Collins' works must acknowledge that he improved with age. The greater part of the pieces in this volume were written after he was forty. He died when he had just completed his forty-ninth year, and, to judge from his later work, he was but just reaching his full mental power. X PREFACE. Those who know the lady to whom this volume is dedicated [the F. C. to whom several of the poems are addressed] will understand why Mortimer Collins' poetical faculties developed during the last decade of his life. F. PERCY COTTON. Pine Tree Hill, Camberley, Surrey, February 1886. CONTENTS. TAGE To my Wife ....... i To F. C, 20th February 1875 .... 2 A Conceit ........ 3 I and my Sweetheart ...... 4 Love • • 5 Violets at Home . 6 " My Lady sings " 7 Sonnet to F. C 8 Dawn 9 The King and the Beggar Maid . . . .10 A Birthday Letter to F. C, 14th July 1875 . . 12 The Ivory Gate . . . . . . 15 My Thrush 18 Ad Chloen, M.A. 20 Chloe, M.A 22 Xll CONTENTS PAGE A Poet's Philosophy .... 24 On Windermere ..... 37 Charles Lamb's Centenary . 38 Why in the World should the Question irisei 40 A Portrait 42 True Delight 43 Kant on the Month of February . 45 Winter in Brighton .... 47 The Swan and the Poet 49 The Swallow .... 50 May 52 Sonnet ..... 53 Midnight Speculations — I. My Wife 54 II. My Dog 55 Birds and Lovers .... 56 A Robin perched on a Sun-Dial 57 Strength with Age 53 Multum in Parvo . . 60 Genesis iii. 8 . . . . 61 Matthew xiv. 23 . . 62 Coming of Age . 64 Bridal Song .... • 67 CONTENTS. X1U PAGE The Dairy Maid 68 School-Girl Rebels 69 A Poet's Prayer . 70 Claudian 7i On the Eve of a Fight at Sea 72 My old Coat 74 Youth .... 77 Lucia .... 78 " Don't let him catch you " 79 A Greek Idyl 81 Merlin 83 Phyllis 85 The Troubadour's Song 86 The Positivists 87 Sky-making 89 Mated .... 9i The Wayside Well 93 Burnham Beeches 95 Maiden Ladies 98 Past and Present . 99 Two Sea Sonnets . 100 The lonely Island 102 XIV CONTENTS. PAGE Kate Temple's Song 104 Venus asleep 105 A little Lecture 106 Golden Days 108 A Village Song 109 Winds and Women . . . . . .110 Who is King 113 King Atom . . . . . . . .116 A Game of Chess 118 Boy and Girl ....... 120 Antiquity . . .. . . . .121 A Leaflet 123 April Fools . . . . . . . .124 Isis 125 Martial in London 126 To my Muse in November 127 A Trifle 130 A Girl — a Horse — a Tree . . . . .131 To Henry Campkin . . . . . -133 Under the Cliffs 134 October 136 Lilyleaf 138 CONTENTS. XV PACK On the Moors . . . . . . 139 The Minor Canon . 142 Devotion . 146 An April Letter . • 147 Spring • 149 Older . • 151 Love- Strife . 152 Home . • 154 The Village Green 155 Queen and Slave . 156 Blonde and Brunette 158 Crying Wolf 159 Life . 160 Causidicus ad Canem 161 Serenade 162 Sunset 163 Midnight is Mine 164 Couplets 166 ToF. C, 1st April 1876 . 167 A May Lyric 168 Fragments of the Comedy of Dreams . 169 A Letter to the Right t [on. 1 3. Disraeli , M.F 203 TO MY WIFE. 1 Fair, my own darling, are the flowers of Spring. . . . Rathe primrose, violet, and eglantine, Anemone and golden celandine : Not less delicious all the birds that sing Carols of joy upon the amorous wing, Barine, in these sweet hours of thine. Spring's youngest sister art thou, Lady mine, Child who hast love for every living thing Of earth and air. A moment now I linger — Linger, and think of thee, and give thee this Love-gift of rhymes made when my spirit was free. If thou wilt touch it with a white forefinger — Nay, if the volume thou wilt deign to kiss — Surely my song shall live, Earine. 1 Dedication of a previous volume of Poems. B TO F. C. 20TH February 1875. Fast falls the snow, O lady mine, Sprinkling the lawn with crystals fine, But by the gods we won't repine While we're together, We'll chat and rhyme and kiss and dine, Defying weather. So stir the fire and pour the wine, And let those sea-green eyes divine Pour their love-madness into mine : I don't care whether 'Tis snow or sun or rain or shine If we're together. A CONCEIT. O touch that rosebud ! it will bloom — My lady fair ! A passionate red in dim green gloom, A joy, a splendour, a perfume That breathes in air. You touched my heart ; it gave a thrill Just like a rose That opens at a lady's will ; Its bloom is always yours until You bid it close. I AND MY SWEETHEART. I and my sweetheart spelt together ; Our ages were together ten : How sad to waste the sweet spring weather In the old Dame's fusty den ! White lilac, fragrant, graceful, cool, Tapped at the window of the school : Alas, too well our doom we knew — There was a tremulous birch-tree too. I and my sweetheart dwell together : Many tens are our ages now : Vanished is youth's gay violet weather, Stays the old Dame's frowning brow. Dame Nature keeps the eternal school, And grows keen twigs to flog the fool ; But looks away, with pardoning eye, When we play truant, my love and I. LOVE. WHAT'S the use of living in Such a world as this is, Where they say that love's a sin, Deep in sin's abysses ? Toil and strive, and thereby thrive, Shun whate'er is sunny : If you're fool enough to wive, Mind you marry money. May the God who made the sun, Trees, birds, woman's beauty, Scourge the fools who have begun Thus to teach men duty. While my lady's heart's astir, 'Neath its milk-white cover, All the birds shall sing of her, All who see shall love her. 5 VIOLETS AT HOME. i. O happy buds of violet ! I give them to my sweet, and she Puts them where something sweeter yet Must always be. II. White violets find whiter rest : For fairest flowers how fair a fate ! For me remain, O fragrant breast ! Inviolate. "MY LADY SINGS." All through the day, O happy thrush ! I hear thy music's torrent gush ; Then comes the blackbird's mellower flute, And merrily when both are mute The robin sings : But when the blue turns golden-pale, Hist ! there's a strange impassioned tale Told by the Daulian nightingale With dusky wings. O magic music, linger still ! Echo, from the furze-clad hill, Tosses back with semblance fine The dreamy ecstacy divine, And ether rings : But lo, through windows open wide To catch the breath of eventide, Comes lovelier sound than aught beside — My lady sings. SONNET TO F. C. WOMEN there are who say the world is slow To recognise their scientific power ; Wherefore they fill with heat the flying hour, And let the beauty of their sweet life go Like water thro' a child's frail fingers. So Might the tree murmur not to be a tower, Might envy of the strong storm vex the shower That wakes sweet blossoms and makes brooklets flow. The lady whom I love has no such thought ; No stolid strength of mind shall make her weak, No folly sink her in the sad abyss Where these same scientific souls are caught. She knows a kiss befits a lovely cheek, Ay, and that rosy lips were made to kiss. DAWN. DAWN, with flusht foot upon the mountain-tops, Stands beckoning to the Sun-god's golden car, While on her high clear brow the morning star Grows fainter, as the silver-misty copse And rosy river-bend and village white Feel the strong shafts of light. The tide of dreams has reached its utter ebb ; The joy of Dawn is in my Lady's eyes, Where at her window with a half-surprise She sees the meadows meshed with fairy web, And hears the happy skylark far above, Singing, / live ! I love ! THE KING AND THE BEGGAR MAID. A new Reading. The young King stands by his palace-gate, O what a joy is the youth of a King ! Tired a little of splendour and state — Hark in the valley the sweet birds sing. Like a lion's mane his yellow hair, His eye as keen as a hawk's on the wing, The ladies gaze and tremble there — Ah, is it not sweet, the love of a King ? He sees the towers of his city below, O shining river ! O ships that swing ! Through wide white streets his people flow, Hark, the bells of the Minster ring ! The Beggar comes by with a nut-brown skin, Ah, deep in the heart lies misery's sting ! Her eye has a blue to the sky akin, Tirra-lirra, he hears her sing. THE KING AND THE BEGGAR MAID. n Forward he strides as the girl he sees, O how wild is the will of a King ! The ladies titter under the trees ; Still the bells of the Minster ring. What the young King whispers none has heard, Hey for the heath where the wild birds sing ! But the echo is caught of the Beggar's word : " I love my love, and he is not a King." A BIRTHDAY LETTER TO F. C. 14TH July 1875. Ah, where was I, that happy day My pretty came this way ? Surely the careless wandering boy Felt in his heart a thrill of joy, Saw in the sky a brighter gleam, Had, as he stroll'd, a mystic dream Of the fair child of wit and whim That very moment born for him. I don't know where, I don't know how, But I will swear that I Recorded a true marriage-vow In that July. She came into the world for me : I wonder if the summer sea A BIRTHDAY LETTER TO /•'. C. 13 Whisper'd of her an amorous talc — Or if the dulcet nightingale Utter 'd through the woods a word Of the cooing little bird, Just flown down from spheres divine, To be mine, yes, always mine. I care not how, I care not who, Brought tidings from the sky, But I will swear my bride I knew In that July. I knew her, yes, no matter how, Even as I know her now — A goddess with two loving eyes, A baby that was born too wise. A lady who, in happiest mood, Could teach the world of Ladyhood, Since now she came to earth's green coast, Among the months shall I Revere the most (and kiss her most Therein) July. i 4 A BIRTHDAY LETTER TO F. C. P.S. I often think, my only love, The world would be more true, If half the ladies in the world Were half as good as you. And don't you think, my only love, 'Twere merrier 'neath the sky, If half the men in half the world Could love as well as I ? THE IVORY GATE. Sunt gemince Somni portoe : quarum altera fertur Cornea ; qua veris facilis datur exitus unibris : Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto ; Sed falsa ad ccelum mittunt insomnia Manes. Virgil. I. When, loved by poet and painter The sunrise fills the sky, When night's gold urns grow fainter, And in depths of amber die — When the morn-breeze stirs the curtain, Bearing an odorous freight — Then visions strange, uncertain, Pour thick through the Ivory Gate. Then the oars of Ithaca dip so Silently into the sea, 16 THE IVORY GATE. That they wake not sad Calypso — And the Hero wanders free : He breasts the ocean-furrows, At war with the words of Fate — And the blue tide's low susurrus Comes up to the Ivory Gate. in. Or, clad in the hide of leopard, 'Mid Ida's freshest dews, Paris, the Teucrian shepherd, His sweet CEnone woos : On the thought of her coming bridal Unuttered joy doth wait — While the tune of the false one's idyl Rings soft through the Ivory Gate. IV. Or down from green Helvellyn The roar of streams I hear, And the lazy sail is swelling To the winds of Windermere : THE IVORY GATE. 17 That girl with the rustic bodice 'Mid the ferry's laughing freight Is as fair as any goddess Who sweeps through the Ivory Gate. Ah, the vision of dawn is leisure — But the truth of day is toil : And we pass from dreams of pleasure To the world's unstayed turmoil. Perchance, beyond the river Which guards the realms of Fate, Our spirits may dwell for ever 'Mong dreams of the Ivory Gate. MY THRUSH. I. ALL through the sultry hours of June, From morning blithe to golden noon, And till the star of evening climbs The gray-blue East, a world too soon, There sings a Thrush amid the limes. God's poet, hid in foliage green, Sings endless songs, himself unseen ; Right seldom come his silent times. Linger, ye summer hours serene ! Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes in. May I not dream God sends thee there, Thou mellow angel of the air, Even to rebuke my earthlier rhymes 18 MY THRUSH. 19 With music's soul, all praise and prayer ? Is that thy lesson in the limes ? IV. Closer to God art thou than I : His minstrel thou, whose brown wings fly Through silent tether's sunnier climes. Ah, never may thy music die ! Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes ' AD CHLOEN, M.A. (Fresh from her Cambridge Examination. Lady, very fair are you, And your eyes are very blue, And your hose ; And your brow is like the snow, And the various things you know Goodness knows. And the rose-flush on your cheek, And your algebra and Greek Perfect are ; And that loving lustrous eye Recognises in the sky Every star. AD CHLOEN, M.A. III. You have pouting piquant lips, You can doubtless an eclipse Calculate ; But for your caerulean hue, I had certainly from you Met my fate. IV. If by an arrangement dual I were Adams mixed with Whewell, Then some day I, as wooer, perhaps might come To so sweet an Artium Magistra. CHLOE, M.A. Ad Amantem Suum. i. Careless rhymer, it is true That my favourite colour's blue But am I To be made a victim, sir, If to puddings I prefer Cambridge tt ? II. If with giddier girls I play Croquet through the summer day On the turf, Then at night ('tis no great boon) Let me study how the moon Sways the surf. CHLOE, M.A. 23 III. Tennyson's idyllic verse Surely suits me none the worse If I seek Old Sicilian birds and bees — Music of sweet Sophocles — Golden Greek. IV. You have said my eyes are blue ; There may be a fairer hue, Perhaps — and yet It is surely not a sin If I keep my secrets in Violet. A POET'S PHILOSOPHY. A saffron crescent in an opal sky He watched — while she into her wine-dark hair Braided white violets — whiter than despair, And half as sweet as love. There fluttered by Wings of the merle, gay caroller, who sleeps Upon a beechen bough in the far forest deeps. This cottage on the mighty forest-verge Was placed : primeval woodland, where the deer But seldom might the huntsman's bugle hear. The great oaks thundered like the ocean-surge When came a tempest. Alpine hills afar Caught in the crimson east the lustrous evening star. 24 A POET'S PHILOSOPHY. 25 III. More of the Garden than the Portico Was his philosophy who dwelt therein. He was not fain 'mid the mad world "to win Power or renown from the sparse overflow Of Fortune's horn. To him three things were fair — True Love, unfettered Song, and the wooing Summer air. IV. That wooing air that wiles the red rose forth To fling its passionate fragrance everywhere — To lay its crimson heart all torn and bare On Summer's altar. Not the bitter north, Keen-cutting as an Arab scimitar, But that which feels the touch of Sirius, scorching star. V. That wild free song which will not wear a fetter, Such as was mastered well by loving Shelley (Pure poet, down-ridden in the world's hot melee), 26 A POET'S PHILOSOPHY. Or such as Shakespeare uttered, careless setter In Orient gold of perfect amethysts, Whom men must marvel at, while the great world exists. VI. That absolute love which many women feel, But men how few ! Not winds which icily Breathe freshness underneath a twilight sky, When swift Apollo's burning chariot-wheel Flies westward, bear to mortals such delight As that most perfect love, unselfish, infinite. VII. Without it, marble-templed cities reaching Long piers into the sea were but as dens For untamed beasts — as most unwholesome fens, Stagnant and damp. Without it, the beseeching Bosom of Nature, whereon poets lie, Were but a cromlech gaunt, on which men well might die. A POET'S PHILOSOPHY 27 With it, the air we breathe intoxicates Our spirits with unceasing glee : the sky Rains music from its blue immensity ; Rhyme, rhyme immortal on our utterance waits ; No end, no efflux of our joy can come — For we are demigods, and earth's Elysium. tylXvfJLVOS, (f)l\wiTVOc PAST AND PRESENT. The days of old were magic days, The knights so brave, the maids so fair ! Strange beauty in the forest ways, And o'er the sea a mystic haze : 'Twas magic everywhere. Why these our days are magic days, If only we have eyes to see : My darling has her witching ways, Her laugh brings out the sun's bright rays, And fills the birds with glee. 99 TWO SEA SONNETS. O thou blue Ocean ! to have been the first That ever tried thy wave with eager keel, Wondering what mystery thou wouldst reveal, And voyaging thy solitudes, athirst For awful sights or beautiful to burst Upon my longing eyes ! The first to feel Thy salt breath, soft as spring or sharp as steel, And search the secrets in thy depths immerst ! Ah ! who was first ? The mighty Argonaut, Or the great Father of the Patriarchs three, For whom God bridged thee with the sevenfold bow ? Would I had known thee in thy youth, and caught Sight of her birth who is most like to thee, The Lady of Love, thy daughter, long ago. TWO SEA SONNETS. II. I saw my Lady spring into the sea, And the sea loved her, and with wooing tide Touched her soft bosom and fair, fluttering side And all the secrets that are sweet to me. Next day old Ocean was awake with glee. Who wonders at his sudden strengthful pride, Having embraced my beauty and my bride And felt her on his wild wave floating free ? Ocean, thou art a very ancient god, And I have tried thee in thy happiest hour, And won from thee an ecstasy divine ; Yet, though a man is moulded from a clod, And though a lady's only just a flower, Thou canst not know the glory that is mine. THE LONELY ISLAND. THERE is no lonelier island anywhere, Even in silence of the southern seas, Nor any visited by sweeter air Than this, whereon do stand the three great trees ; Old giants, in whose boughs there dwells always The baffled buried murmur of a breeze. There two bright children, through long summer days, Make a fair world, build hourly halls of wonder From water and air, soft light and silver haze, Arch of the rainbow, sable belt of thunder, All that dear Mother Nature offers those Whom fate from home's delight has torn asunder. 1 02 THE LONELY ISLAND. 103 And if their solitary pleasure knows Some interruption, it is just the touch That, like a dream, makes perfect our repose. For no one should be happy overmuch, And no one should deem happiness the thing Above all others for the hand to clutch. KATE TEMPLE'S SONG. Only a touch, and nothing more : Ah ! but never so touched before ! Touch of lip, was it ? Touch of hand ? Either is easy to understand. Earth may be smitten with fire or frost — Never the touch of true love lost. ir. Only a word, was it ? Scarce a word ! Musical whisper, softly heard, Syllabled nothing — just a breath — 'Twill outlast life, and 'twill laugh at death. Love with so little can do so much — Only a word, sweet ! Only a touch ! 104 VENUS ASLEEP. On this green path, through this deep glade, Lovers may linger, unafraid Of the unloving world, whose way Is to betray. Through fluttering leaves the dim lights gleam Leading, misleading, like a dream : Each turn o' the path has marvels new — That's Love's way too. Lo, now a cavern, dark and cool, Green moss beside a shadowy pool, Such silence as the hush'd air keeps When Venus sleeps. O loitering lover, be thou wise — Kiss softly lips, kiss gently eyes, Lest the delicious spell thou break, And Venus wake. 105 A LITTLE LECTURE. Sit still, child, if you know the way, Cross your white arms upon your breast ; Let the dark glory of your hair From bands escape. 'Tis weary always to be gay ; And sweet is silence, sweet is rest : We drink the juices of despair From Life's crushed grape. Why should I lecture ? You are young, And tameless as a dragon-fly, And beautiful to look upon, And sweet to touch. 106 A LITTLE LECTURE. 107 Nothing you know of nerves unstrung, Nor can believe that you will die, And go where other girls have gone. I ask too much. in. Pshaw ! Flutter like a pretty bird, Outrun the wind, outlaugh the brooks, Flout the frail ferns with flying feet, Outblush the rose ; Let your young petulant voice be heard Joyous through all the forest-nooks. But have you got a soul, my sweet ? Who knows ? Who knows ? GOLDEN DAYS. O GOLDEN days that I have known Amid the roses, happy child ! With fragrance through the foliage blown, And dreams that came to me alone, And merry music always new From gay birds singing, as they flew, Wayward notes and wild ! O golden days 'tis mine to know When Love's sweet lesson I shall learn ! No fragrance of the rarest flowers, No visions of the laziest hours, No music of a myriad birds, No melody of poet's words, Tells all for which I yearn. 108 A VILLAGE SONG. i. Just in her teens, With eyelids drooped demure, And gravity that could not long endure, The child sat knitting by the well, Her careless bosom rose and fell : It was the prettiest of country scenes. II. Her laugh broke out A kitten among girls, A merry creature glad to toss her curls But forced to knit, nor ever stir, By a most pious grandmother. What is that pious grandmother about ? 109 WINDS AND WOMEN. "... mulier cupido quod dicit amanti In vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua." Catullus. The South wind blew, and its breath was a song, As we loiter'd the shore along Under the light of the sun-kiss'd moon, Setting soon. Whisper'd the ripples, murmur'd the leaves, Melody soft of the autumn eves ; But the song of the South came sweeter far, Like a voice from Venus, evening star. And I said, " O women and winds, they change, And through every point of the compass range ! Who cares for the daughter of Aquilo, Fast yet slow ? WINDS AND WOMEN. in With the eagle's scream and the eagle's beak, That's the woman of science, a creature unique." My lady laugh'd, and her rosy mouth Seem'd to echo the song of the South. " Daughter of Eurus is still worse churl, With her stinging sneer at a prettier girl, With scandalous stories eager to blight Love's delight. Never she'll tread Cythera's glade, But go to the devil a sour old maid." Like the drip of a fountain crystal clear Was my lady's laugh at the words severe. " But the musical daughter of Auster sings Melody sweeter than aught with wings ; And thy nymph as a wooer comes to us, Zephyrus ! The girl of the South is a fairy flower, With a fragrance strange at the midnight hour ; The girl of the West is a deep red rose, On whose happy breast there is sweet repose." 2 WINDS AND WOMEN. The moon was dipping. My lady laugh'd : "Little you know of a woman's craft. I, to a bore or a canting priest, Blow due East ; I've a Northern chill for the fools who annoy, And a Southern song for lovers of joy ; And now I shift to the West, and woo Somebody — somebody : you know who." WHO IS KING? Strepsiades. See what a fine thing education is ! My Pheidippides, there is no Zeus. Piikidippides. Well, who is there then ? Strepsiades. Whirl is King, having turned out Zeus. Aristophanes, Clouds. Is there anything new beneath The sun ? Upon land or sea Or in air where meteors swing. . . . In city or desolate heath Can there verily be One new thing ? Why the absolute Attic wit Heard by Ilissus the fools Hideously maundering . . . 1 113 ii 4 WHO IS KING ? Zeus they declined to permit Place in their learned schools : Whirl was King ! So the Professors by Thames Having disestablished God Hold it an excellent thing : For lo ! there is none who condemns The dull sons of the sod : Fog is King. And poetry flies afar From the city where Shakespeare made Air with his music ring : Idiots and harlots are Chiefs of the mimic trade : Dirt is King. And they who stand in the place Of the hero-statesmen who once Could glory to England bring, Dread the enemy's face, Of a type half-coward half-dunce : Fear is Kinsr. WHO IS KING ? 115 Not always shall it be so, Though dominant fools and knaves To their evil eminence cling : In their heart of hearts men know, However the sciolist raves — God is King. KING ATOM. " Atom is King again " — King indestructible ; ] Tyndall recrowns him, a fate ineluctable : Hear his oration of vehemence vast Made to the Monarch enthroned at Belfast. " Hymn the great Autocrat now in no puny verse ! Did he not build the material universe ? Atom to atom by tendency flies, Making all forms 'twixt the seas and the skies. " Atom is God, as is clear to the curious ; Every other divinity spurious. Atom wrote Hamlet, 'tis easy to see : Who wrote the Bible is nothing to me." 1 ^Eneis, viii. 334. ti6 KING ATOM. 117 Really, O Tyndall, 'tis hardly facetious, Crambe recocta of hapless Lucretius. Surely to God you could never be blind If you had only an atom of mind. Farseeing physicist, does it occur to you (Question I put without meaning a slur to you) That, knowing much that you brilliantly teach, Others can see what your eye cannot reach ? 'Tis so in physics, why not in ontology ? If you would think, we should get an apology, Sounding the universe, travelling so far, Can you be sure 'tis the uttermost star ? For an inspired and ideal delightedness Are we to have scientific shortsightedness ? Strengthen your telescope, Tyndall the blind ! You see King Atom, but God is behind. A GAME OF CHESS. I. Terrace and lawn are white with frost, Whose fretwork flowers upon the panes- A mocking dream of summer, lost 'Mid winter's icy chains. II. White-hot, indoors, the great logs gleam, Veiled by a flickering flame of blue : I see my love as in a dream — Her eyes are azure, too. She puts her hair behind her ears (Each little ear so like a shell), Touches her ivory Queen, and fears She is not playing well. 118 A GAME OF CHESS. 119 IV. For me, I think of nothing less : I think how those pure pearls become her — And which is sweetest, winter chess Or garden strolls in summer. v. O linger, frost, upon the pane ! O faint blue flame, still softly rise ! O, dear one, thus with me remain, That I may watch thine eyes ! ROY AND GIRL. Two fishers went where the river is bright, And one was a girl and one was a boy ; And one caught just a day's delight, And the other caught grief for murk midnight ; O 'tis a world of sorrow and joy ! Two travellers soared in an air-balloon, And one was a boy and one was girl, And one fell down from the car too soon, And the other was scorched in the sun's hot noon ! O 'tis a world of wonder and whirl ! ANTIQUITY. The eagle said, " I am old ;" Said the tomtit, " I'm older than you " A ball of green and gold, That had counted summers two. And the jackdaw said, from his perch, A pulpit of gray old stone, " 'Twas I first founded the Church : Leave questions of age alone." And the raven came with a croak, A mixture of humour and woe, And claimed the Druid's oak And the magical mistletoe. But the eagle, far withdrawn, Remembered old royal words, When on Eden's sun-touched lawn God said, " Let us make the birds." ANTIQUITY. And away into ether rare, And close to the sun's fierce gold, Rose the king of the kings of the air, Crying, " Ay, I am young ! I am old." A LEAFLET. O wonderful wild world of ours ! O spring's soft breath ! O coming kisses ; coming flowers — And coming death ! The flower's a fruit, the kiss a boy, The maid a wife — And sorrow is the root of joy, And death is life. 123 APRIL FOOLS. Comes April, her white fingers wet with flowers, And we might well enjoy her sunny showers, If the malignant Fate which o'er us rules Did not bring April Fools. Fools who will whisper, you and I together Ought not to wander in the sweet spring weather, For I'm a boy and you're a girl, and so 'Tis very wrong, you know. To hunt for violets in meadows fair Till April rains her diamonds on your hair, Is really such a silly girlish fashion, It puts them in a passion. Youth's joy must have its grim concomitants, Its sulky sisters and its maiden aunts. Well, let them scowl at us, and keep their rules — We won't be April Fools. 124 ISIS. O ISIS ! gentle Isis ! flowing on Through meadows green with odorous delight, Through woods that rustle with the breezy flight Of wondrous dwellers in the deep unknown ; Soft is thy music, and in unison With the star-whispers of the eloquent night ; Glad are thy waters in the golden light Dropt from the long locks of Hyperion. O Isis ! noble Isis ! in thee quivers Eternal Oxford's wondrous Gothic glory, Poetic towers and pinnacles of pride : And, loftier in thy power than classic rivers, Changing thy name by some green promontory, Thou lavest London with an ampler tide. 125 MARTIAL IN LONDON. Exquisite wines and comestibles, From Slater, and Fortnum and Mason Billiards, dearie, and chess-tables ; Water in vast marble basin ; Luminous books (not voluminous) To read under beech-trees cacuminous ; One friend who is fond of a distich, And doesn't get too syllogistic ; A valet, who knows the complete art Of service ; — a maiden, his sweetheart ; Give me these, in some rural pavilion, And I'll envy no Rothschild his million. 126 TO MY MUSE IN NOVEMBER. Fuit / The lingering year's last leaf has fled Down a fog-laden wind with doleful flutter, It lately crown'd my plane-tree's towering head ; It lies — with an old shoe — in yonder gutter. Sharer of sunny hours and summer sweets, Dear Muse, thy fire dies down to its last ember ; What inspiration haunts the sodden streets Of dull November ? Fuit ! Great Phoebus fails ; his fieriest lance Falls blunt before Fog's buckler. Valorous Cupid Arms against Dulness, but his arrows glance. The sad, the slow, the solemn, and the stupid Have now their hour. Death-pale is passion's rose ; Wit is as faint of flight as humdrum duty, And Beauty with a smut upon her nose Is scarcely Beauty. 127 128 TO MY MUSE IN NOVEMBER. Dear Muse, we are foredone. These clinging clouds And carboniferous vapours damp and dull us. I'm sure such sooty suffocating shrouds Had choked the songs of Ovid or Tibullus. Asphyxia warbles no Horatian stanza, Dulcetly gay or daintily satiric ; As well might Sycorax or Sancho Panza Ape Ariel's lyric. O, for the lands where burning Sappho breathed, And Sangster's silk umbrellas were no part Of the bard's outfit.; where rose-incense wreathed — Not clouds of fog — the shrines of love and art ! The dithyrambic fervour must die out In limbo-lands, far north of Wit's equator, Where the Muse dares not go about without Her respirator. O month of mist, miasma, murky skies, Fogs, fires, and civic feeds, our dismal city Is thy chief thrall ! Could Socrates be wise, Anacreon gaily amorous, Lucian witty, TO MY MUSE IN NOVE VTBER. 129 Beneath thy spell ? The demon Dulness rules In torpor god-defying, dunce-delighting, And 'gainst the joint array of fogs and fools What use in fighting ? And yet the memory of Muriel's face Amidst the roses in that far-off garden, Even to glum November lends such grace As might have gleam'd from leafy June in Arden. You have no fog ld-bas, love ; silvery mist Is all that ever hides your hills and hollows ; But I believe those eyes of amethyst Would beat Apollo's, And pierce this Stygian gloom. I'm very sure Dulness would die before your arrowy laughter. The " blacks " would spare that beauty pale and pure — " You solemn scribe, whatever are you after ? " Herself! A rosebud at her breast ! My Muse Incarnate, bright in every mould and member ! Vale! I've no more time for dull abuse Of dull November. K A TRIFLE. They loved and laughed, they kissed and chaffed, They threw the happy hours away : That's the way the world goes round — That's the story of Yesterday. They talk of fate and calculate, And keep accounts, and measure, and weigh : That's the way the world goes round — That's the story of To-day. They'll see on high in yonder sky The God whose power destroyeth sorrow : That's the way the world goes round — That's the story of To-morrow. 130 A GIRL— A HORSE— A TREE. A Girl, a Horse, a Tree — No more — and yet to me A picture unforgotten evermore ; Burnt suddenly into this brain of mine As sunlight stamps on vaporous iodine The far wild restless sea, the silent shore. II. By the blue winding Trent That elm magnificent Spread heavy branches through the summer air ; Fast fluttering shadows of its foliage fell Upon a fairy form I knew too well, Haughtily sitting her brown Arab mare. 131 132 A GIRL — A HORSE — A TREE. III. I spoke- — I know not why. Was it the summer sky, The Trent's delicious reach of azure light, The mellow cadences of amorous birds, Opening the fount of foolish loving words ? Who knows ? She passed for ever from my sight. IV. Ah, her brown startled eyes — Her haughty lip's surprise — Her tremulous little hand — her fluttered breast ! That picture strangely bitter, strangely sweet, By the great river in the summer heat, Must dwell upon my brain, till death brings rest. A Letter of Thanks for an oak-bound copy of Martial, accompanied with some lines in Verse. Campkin ! dear friend, your Martial is divine, And strong the music of your sounding line : Marcus Valerius Martialis might Thank you himself for judging him aright, E'en tho' within his fields of epigram You wander not. Yet very sure I am, If you had pass'd the heavy Latin gates, Too often open'd for mere addlepates, You would have been at home, and felt the fire Of the great masters of the Roman lyre. You might have been more learned, I surmise, But not more friendly, Campkin, not more wise, Nor could you say to friend a pleasant thing In silver verse of more sonorous ring. Thanks for your Martial : 'tis of books a flower, And I shall waste on it full many an hour. Oak fitly binds such book, I hold it true ; For English heart of oak I come to you. i33 UNDER THE CLIFFS. White-throated Maiden, gay be thy carol Under the cliffs by the sea ; Plays the soft wind with thy dainty apparel — Ah, but thou think'st not of me. Stately and slow The great ships go, White gulls in the blue float free ; And my own dear May Sees the skies turn gray Under the cliffs by the sea. II. Ah, there is one who follows thee lonely Under the cliffs by the sea : Joy to this heart if thy watchet eyes only Turn for a moment on me. i34 UNDER THE CLIFFS. 135 Strange is thy gaze O'er the ocean's haze, With those white hands claspt on thy knee: Sweet breast, flutter high For a true-love nigh Under the cliffs by the sea ! ill. When shall I dare love's story to utter Under the cliffs by the sea ? When shall I feel thy little heart flutter, Press'd, O my darling, to me ? Lo, the foam grows dark, And the white-winged barque Seems a speck in the mist to be : Ere the sun's rim dips Let me kiss those lips Under the cliffs by the sea ! OCTOBER. O THE misty bright October ! Misty-bright on the brown hillside — Setters hunt the stubble over, Scream the crake and the golden plover Through the moorland waste and wide. O the golden-crowned October ! Golden, gorgeous in decay : Through the woods the leaves for ever Drift, and in the sluggish river Yellow and brown they drift away. O the chill and pale October ! Colder winds are whirling now — All the champaign wide they deaden, Will not suffer the leaves to redden, Hanging lone on the wintry bough. 136 OCTOBER. 137 O the merry and glad October ! Heap the hearth with lots of fuel : Blaze away both log and splinter ; Hail to the coming of healthful winter — Hail to the festive joys of Yule ! LILYLEAF. A perfect little beauty, warm and white, With eyes the colour of cool chrysolite Beneath soft eyelids tremulous. In brief, I call her Lilyleaf. There hovers over her the strange intense Perfume of pleasure that transcends the sense, Commingling pain and rapture, glory and grief : Such is my Lilyleaf. Her commonest word is melody complete, Her gayest kiss is passion, honey-sweet, But loving, loving, loving is the chief Beauty of Lilyleaf. 138 ON THE MOORS. We've removed the political blister ; And Wyndham, whose wife and whose sister Are charming, has taken a moor : He writes, " You must rough it, old fellow ; This box with old age has grown mellow, But I hope you won't think it a bore." A bore ! In the first place, there's Wyndham — There are no jolly sins but he's sinn'd 'em ; He's always in love or in debt. Than his wife there's no beauty that's blonder ; But perchance of gay Jessy I'm fonder — A mischievous merry brunette. That shooting-box, worse for the weather Of years, nested snug amid heather, With a beck tripping noisily by, — 139 140 ON THE MOORS. I have known it three capital seasons, And have given three excellent reasons Why thither from London I fly. But if Wyndham, his lady, and Jessy, Wild-witty and daintily-dressy, Suffice not your critical nous, This reason, O friend and O brother, I give you, a fourth, yea another — That moor has abundance of grouse. O, joyous the luncheon at noon is, When languor conducive to spoon is ! The ladies on ponies come up, And bring us cold birds and flirtation — Combined, a delightful sensation, With really miraculous cup. Then at night the half-dinner, half-supper ; And Jessy sings songs (out of Tupper, It may be, or possibly mine), And cavendish lends its aroma ; And laziness, lotos, and coma Make the heart of the Highlands divine. ON THE MOORS. , 1 1 Dear Editor, he is the true sage Who of happy occasions makes usage, Selecting Time's loveliest gems : Perhaps I'm as snug in the Highlands As you where the willow-crown'd islands Break full-flowing current of Thames. THE MINOR CANON. Me, living in an old cathedral close, A minor canon, quietude befits, And theologic philosophic thought. Tranquil my days and solitary : only When Gerald comes, my joyous artist-brother, To shock me with his fancies. Fresh he comes From sketching in the core of Wales or Devon, From strife to find out how to paint the sea By plunging sheer into the unresting tide, From all the Quixote-like Bohemian life Which painters know. He from my folios wakes Me, dreaming over ancient subtleties Which never have been solved and never will. And " Pshaw, my boy," he says, as at dessert Over our claret (for he rails at port As wine ecclesiastic) and some peaches Wasp-bitten, and a yellow-rinded melon, 142 THE MINOR CANON. 143 Produce of my quaint garden-quadrangle, We sit conversing, " Pshaw," quoth Gerald, " you — Why what a most ridiculous life you lead ! Look at the daughters of your friend the Dean Tripping across the close. Three days a week You see them, yet you never fall in love. If I were here a fortnight, I should be In love with both. How picturesque they look 'Neath the great oak trees at the Deanery Working, or playing chess, or reading Maud, Or anything you like ! In Amy's eyes The unsuspected love comes twinkling up Like bubbles in a goblet of Champagne." To whom I answer slowly, " Pretty, yes. But why should I rub off the sweet girl-bloom ? No, let me dwell with my theology." " And what do you know of theology ? Here, in the great Apocalypse, which ends The holy gladness of the Testament, As some loud-voiced strong-lightninged thunder- storm Ends a calm summer, I perceive that days Will come when heaven and earth shall pass away 144 THE MINOR CANON. And other heavens o'erarch a fairer earth, And ocean shall not wash the shores of earth, Why ' no more sea,' my brother ? " " Why indeed, Except that ocean typifies the rite Of baptism, which with sin shall pass away— Except that ocean typifies unrest, And we shall rest for ever ?" " Reasons strange," Gerald incredulous replies. " Must men Never again in that new world look forth Upon the wild blue sea, to suit your types ? How many a weary traveller, soiled with dust, After long miles beneath a pitiless sun On white monotonous roads, catches a glimpse Of the remote blue ocean all alive With yachts and trawlers — a great warship perhaps Spreading white canvas to the wooing south — And thinks, Ah surely on the sea is rest ! Toil on the mainland, rest upon the tnain I Nay, brother mine, explain in other fashion. Earth without ocean were like some fair face THE MINOR CANON. 145 In whose too-lustrous eyes no crystal tear Had ever glistened." Then he gulps his claret And leaves me hastily. Perchance I dream, Some twenty minutes after, looking out Where moonlight chequers the cathedral close With shivering shadows of the mighty trees, That he and Amy, he and little Amy, Sweet brown-eyed daughter of my friend the Dean, Stroll up and down beneath the immortal towers, And talk in music, as a brooklet talks To its beloved woodlands all night long. DEVOTION. At church she looked on me a minute, Then turned to read the holy book. Methinks : well now, the devil's in it . . If she hated me, she wouldn't look. She looks but little at the parson : She looks still less upon the clerk ; But when she looks at me 'tis arson — Her eyes send forth so fierce a spark. I waited for her after matins, Where the old ivy's grown a tree. Perhaps I slightly crushed her satins. The ivy trembled : so did she. 146 AN APRIL LETTER. Have the snow-storms taken flight ? Are there heaps of violets white ? Do the children's fingers go Into that soft fragrant snow ? 'Tis the sweetest time o' the year : Soon the swallows will be here : Swims the swift across the foam ; Sings the thrush at evenglome. So, as all the world is gay, Let's be April fools to-day. Long ere you were robed in silk I was sent for pigeon's milk : Gravely now this planet rolls ; Bills I keep in pigeon-holes. Still I love the twilight hush, And the self-repeating thrush, H7 i 4 8 AN APRIL LETTER. And a lady's fancies fair, Suited to the sweet spring air. So, till care the spirit cools. Let us both be April fools. 1 forget : you play at whist, So your wisdom would be missed. Whist's to me an awful joke — You should see how I revoke. Knaves and aces I detest — Kings are duller than the rest ; Only card that joy imparts Is my lady Queen of Hearts. Throw the ace of trumps away ! Let's be April fools to-day. SPRING. O FRESH flower-litany of spring ! Each year it comes with sweet surprise No deeper blue the violet knew, No sunnier was the crocus-gold, No greener tinge had snowdrop fringe, Than when in times grown old They greeted childish eyes. O bright bird-litany of Spring ! The robin sang the winter thro', But now the lark is up i' the dark, Brown mavis carols o'er lawn and glen, With golden bill the black merles trill, Flutters the atom wren, The birds are wild to woo. 149 ISO SPRING. Fresh flowers that spring ! Bright birds that sing ! Alien and yet akin are we. By rill and stream of care men dream, And nought can cure their fever-fret : But no trouble have I 'twixt turf and sky When laughs my darling pet With birds and flowers and me. OLDER. Older, but not half so wise : Now we have a sense of shame ; Once we played — boy and maid — Void of thought, a happy game. Older, but not half so wise : Now we have a sense of gold. Long ago gold might go . . . Coin might wait till souls grew old. in. Older, but not half so wise : Now we have a sense of sin. Children -fair may not dare Love and laugh and woo and win. 151 LOVE-STRIFE. I WONDER whether I love her ; I wonder whether I hate. Now she will coo like a milk-white dove, All love ; Now she stands like a queen apart, Crowned with beauty : but, has she a heart ? O could I only discover Whether I love or hate, Then should I know my fate. II. I wonder if for a minute She thinks of me when away ; If she deems me a trivial toy, Mere boy : 152 LOVE-STRIFE. 153 Yes, I can fancy, yes, I can see Rosy red lips that laugh at me. O love's strife ! I'll begin it : Throwing all fear away, I'll know my fate this day. HOME. We will not live in Italy or Greece, My bride, my beautiful. Though skies are blue, And the air odorous, and our spirits renew Great visions there which have been made to cease By the Destroyer, yet the gay caprice Of Fancy alone those visions could indue With happiness. O, all the long years through, England for us ! A little realm of peace By the most joyous of its haunted meres And rivers of romance. Together there We will grow old in pious humbleness : And if our chalice must be filled with tears, Be Love our cupbearer ; and no despair Or agony shall our twin hearts possess. i54 THE VILLAGE GREEN. The fiddler plays in the summer eve, While the lads dance, and the lasses too : Who would care to mope or grieve When the lark sings in the summer blue ? The music flies to the sapphire skies, To the lads' heels, to the lasses' breast. Dance, dance, while the sunset dies Purple and amber, deep in the West. i55 QUEEN AND SLAVE. I. O happy life, whose love is found ! happy love, whose life is free ! happy strings whose soft notes sound Athwart the sea 1 II. The sea has mistress in the moon, The moon has lover in the sea, — They meet too late, they part too soon — And so do we. in. 1 am adored, yet must obey ; 1 am a queen and yet a slave. It seems to me the self-same way With moon and wave. 156 QUEEN AND SLA VE. i 57 IV. O be it so ! O let it be ! O may I always rule and serve, And live the life whose love is free, And never swerve ! BLONDE AND BRUNETTE. There's a beautiful blonde for whom I have been mad in my time full oft : O, her kiss hath a gay perfume ! O, her voice is divinely soft ! Sweet it is her waist to clasp, Strongly she mankind can grasp ; While life lasts I shall ever be fond Of that same peerless piquant blonde. There is also a rare brunette, Years ago beloved by me ; Purple suns that in autumn set Have not more magical hue than she. O, to woo her is joy and power ! She, of brunettes the choicest flower, Hath a deliciously dainty breath : Faith, I shall love her until my death. For the laughing blonde is Champagne, you see . And the rare brunette is Burgundy. 158 CRYING WOLF. A shepherd boy on the hillside high, Lazy, mischievous, fond of fun, Glad to get home ere day was done, Cried Wolf! Cried Wolf! Till the Wolf came, and 'twas vain to cry. A gay young fellow with giddy head, Always caught by a pretty face, Flirted with all the female race. . . . Sang / love ! Sang / love / Till he sang to a widow, who made him wed. 159 LIFE, THEY say the world is very sad From the sun's hot noon to the round full moon : While there's in it a lass and a lad Sorrow's a thing will perish soon. I say the world is a world of joy, With the sweet birds' tune in the summer swoon. Make not of life a broken toy — Beauty's a thing will perish soon. 1 60 CAUSIDICUS AD CANEM. My old Dog stands by the Temple Stairs, Watching the water's turbid flow, And he thinks, as the Autumn sunlight glares, This is a river he ought to know. He gives a strange suspicious sniff As he sees the dark stream eddy along, And dreams of a lazy loitering skiff, Of a Lover's laugh, of a Lady's song. First drops of a deluge, heavy and warm, Under Marlow Bridge had driven us three, And we rocked in our boat in the thunderstorm : If either grew tired, dear Dog, 'twas he. Ah, the days are here for the straining oars — The life and the love our toil to crown ! You shall splash, old boy, from the soft green shores Of a river unsoiled by London town. M 161 SERENADE. Good-night ! The world is still : No echo from the hill : Without a sound the stars pass through the silent sky. The sweet leaves are not stirred By chirp of wakeful bird, Or by late lover's word : Amid a drowsy world alone awake am I. Ah, lady, sleeping sound, While the great world goes round ! To be a vision of yours I would be glad to die. Good-night ! Good-bye ! 162 SUNSET. Helen and I looked out upon the west. O unimaginable sunset ! O Soft sky in mystic waves of colours drest, With great Apollo's final kiss aglow ! O lights that lessen, linger, glisten, grow ! Almighty Artist, never do I see Thy little lightest touch of fire or snow. Of bird that sings, of blossom upon tree, Without that inner silent saying : / love Thee. 163 MIDNIGHT IS MINE. MeaovvKriois iro8' (bpais, XTpecperaL 6V "ApKros yjdrj Kara x € ?P a Tr i v Bowrou. ANACREON. Let the hot noon with all its pomp and splendour Revel in sunlight rich as golden wine, Making the lover strong, the lady tender, Filling the wide green glades with dreams divine, Bringing a calm to which we all surrender Like halcyon brooding on the hyaline : Yet Midnight's mine. Midnight ! the stars' most marvellous procession ; Strong planets that above the horizon shine ; The gliding moon, that in sweet silent session, Looks on a world that worships at her shrine — For lunacy is surely earth's possession, Blood being shed for naught by Seine and Rhine : Yes, Midnight's mine. 164 MIDNIGHT IS MINE. 165 Is it for work ? There comes no fool to bore us : Midnight intoxicates the human swine. Ay, they are uttering now the snore sonorous — Such folk drink heavily whene'er they dine. I, pen in hand, with all the gods for chorus, Write then my clearest thought, my noblest line. Midnight is mine. Is it for joy ? The lamps are burning gaily, The pretty dancers pass with footstep fine, Now is the time some lady sweet to waylay, And flirt o'er foaming fluid festucine : Such pastime nightly drowns the dose we daily Get of the canter's rot, the patriot's whine. Midnight is mine. Is it for love ? Ah, happy hours, too holy For deftest chronicle in daintiest line ! Apart, alone, entranced by passion wholly, We taste the sweetness that will make no sign. Dear Lady of Dreams, thy silver chariot slowly Will cross the aerial arch toward sunrise-shine. Midnight is mine. COUPLETS. Imperfect utterance is our saddest taint, And, when our hearts grow full, our lips grow faint. What we call life is twilight : when 'tis done, A door is opened, and we see the sun. Joy is time's pander, Pleasure is time's thief, But time's two conquerors are Toil and Grief. 166 TO F. C. ist April 1876. Now if to be an April Fool Is to delight in the song of the thrush, To long for the swallow in air's blue hollow, And the nightingale's riotous music-gush, And to paint a vision of cities Elysian Out away in the sunset-flush — • Then I grasp my flagon and swear thereby, We are April Fools, my Love and I. And if to be an April Fool Is to feel contempt for iron and gold, For the shallow fame at which most men aim- And to turn from worldlings cruel and cold To God in His splendour, loving and tender, And to bask in His presence manifold — Then by all the stars in His infinite sky, We are April Fools, my Love and I. 167 A MAY LYRIC. i. The robin's nest in our dark yew Is safe to-night. I see Brown hen asleep on her snug nest, And saucy cock with crimson breast, Above upon the tree. Ah ! happy birds, whose love is true, Enjoy the murmurous May ! Be mine, like yours, the real delight Of sleeping by my love all night, Of singing half the day ! 168 FRAGMENTS OF THE COMEDY OF DREAMS. Astrologos. Strong races run to goodness or to wickedness. The nation that gave Christ gave too Iscariot ; Isaiah's kinsman cries "Old Clo !" beneath me here ; I wonder what your fate will be, Prince Raphael, Whose father strongest was of men, and wickedest, Whose father's father was a King of Chivalry ? Raphael. Nay, wonder not, old friend : the problem's soluble ; I have the perfect power of loving loveliness. Raphael. I am adventurous, who would fain be indolent. Astrologos. Venus and Mars conjunct at your nativity 169 i 7 o FRAGMENTS OF THE Gave love of luxury, with power of princelincss ; With you, my lord, 'tis always fight or festival. Astrologos. If London be the world's most noble city, then Who dwells therein should be no common citizen, The world's most noble title, greater far than all Dukes, but not duces, Earls not free from churlish- ness, Should be the sounding civic name of Londoner. Raphael. Lofty ideal ! But the race of cockneys are As commonplace a set as you'll see anywhere ; A race that loves the billiard-room and music-hall, And tripe and onions, and hot spirits afterward. Astrologos. Wait, Count, until you meet a perfect Londoner, A man who knows that City's penetralia, Master of fashion, politics, and gaiety, Swimmer on summit wave of choice society. A Londoner, my lord, is not faex Londini j He lives in Clubland, gossips at the Travellers', COMEDY OF DREAMS. 171 Checkmates a Bishop at the Athenaeum ; and Loiters away to play whist at the Arlington. Dining alone, his dinner is a work of art ; And, dining out, his wit turns meal to festival. Always himself, cool, easy, careless, nonchalant, Whether he helps a fair Princess to strawberries (Bright eyes may languish under royal eyelashes) Or heads a merry crew to Richmond, wondering Which they like best, the Heidseck or the nightin- gales. Alonette. Papa, I should so like to know a Londoner. Astrologos. There is a tide in the affairs of man, my Prince, Which, taken at the flood, may lead Raphael. To Jericho ! Why do you murder the immortal Englishman ? Hear this : there is a moment when a woman's heart Beats to the tune of love, but beats inaudibly To the poor fools not meant to win and marry her. 172 FRAGMENTS OF THE Alas, the life that once we lived has fled away ; Lost, lost, beyond the hope of a recovery. Love's blushing flowers have faded very long ago ; And if there was a creature strangely beautiful, Who caught your heart within her hand and crushed it there Till the blood left it — who could fool and flatter you In the sweet summer, under leaf-tent tremulous, With ripe rose-mouth that your sun-kiss made rosier, And then who did . . . what's nameless . . . call her Perdita. O the gay school life ! The impartial Common- wealth ! Homage to finest classic, finest cricketer : Homage to master of the sculls or algebra. Who would not gladly be a reckless boy again ? School is a kingdom where no sneak we tolerate : School is a country where to lie is kickable : A rare oasis in that desert, memory. COMEDY OF DREAMS. 173 Astrologos. Strange sights men see who do strange deeds unscrupulous. Raphael. I have done stranger wilder deeds than any man, Yet, save that rascals fawned on me that hated me, And ladies loved me much that should have hated me, I have seen no sight strange enough to talk about. Astrologos. Wait. Astrologos. He has come back again, you see. I knew he would. One of these nights the drowsy-eyed astronomer, Watching the stars in an enormous speculum, Will start to see the missing Pleiad back again. Astrologos. I have known men who died, and came to life again ; I have known men who died, and came to death again. I have known men who neither lived nor died at all, 174 FRAGMENTS OF THE But were pure phantoms, shadows on the atmos- phere. Raphael. Poor ghosts, who shivered through the world. Alouette. Papa, Prince Raphael tells me 1 am beautiful. Astrologos. Stand up, you little chit, and let me look at you. Well, yes, your figure's lithe, curves not too prominent, Your eyes sea-water colour, when a breeze is out, Your shoulders are not villainously angular, Your waist is not too narrow. Walk ! Ah, excellent : A " walk is perfect test of ladyhood. But . . p rinces surely should not call you bea„ _-. Alouette. They say, papa, princes sometimes are scandalous . . . Do wickedness, say wickedness. COMEDY OF DREAMS. 175 Astrologos. Believe it not ; Those are the dreams of your untutored babyhood. Princes are like the stars, which move in rhythmical Curves of the infinite cone, above all questionings. Alouette. And yet you ask your questions of the Pleiades, The Hyades, Arcturus, Rigel, Sirius. What is the use ? Astrologos. Be off to bed, Miss Prateapace. Astrologos. The petty parallelograms of life Spoil it : the terrible right angle tyrannises. We shrink from curves. Look at our doors and windows, And small straight ugly garden-plots. I wonder The curves of trees and girls are not abolished. Alotiette. Papa, I dreamt they had abolished slates . . . Those dreadful things I have to do my sums upon : Those must be parallelograms. 176 FRAGMENTS OF THE Astrologos. Space is a cone whose height and breadth are limitless. The summit God, the base in deep eternities. Therefore the planet's orbit is elliptical ; Therefore the comet flies in a parabola. Alonette {aside). Papa grows conical. I call it comical. Astrologos. Cut just one link of the great chain centripetal, And there's an end of the enormous universe. Alouette. Tell me which link, papa. I'll get my scissors out. Astrologos. I have seen men and women, hats and petticoats ; I have seen boys that lived upon pure intellect ; I have seen girls that lived on simple impudence ; Dogs are, I think, superior to humanity. Alouette. They don't talk nonsense and conceive it sense, papa. COMEDY OF DREAMS. 177 Alouette. To come of age! Do all men come of age, papa, At the same moment ? Astrologos. Darling, not a bit of it. I've known a man who never came of age at all, Though he was ninety at his death. I've known a man Who came of age a baby in his bassinette, And was a man before he spoke a syllable. Alouette. Papa, I want to know — what is theology ? It seems to me the hardest of the sciences. Astrologos. That much depends upon the way you learn it, child. I learnt it painfully, from heavy folios : I let you learn it, being a girl, a feeble thing, From life of bird and flower, from glowing skies and seas, And God's voice whispering in the morn-wind's melody. Alouette. To be a feeble girl is some advantage, then. 178 FRAGMENTS OF THE Raphael. How sudden moments spoil the work of centuries ! Do trifles rule the world ? Astrologos. In faith, they do, my lord. A butterfly may overset a dynasty. A pretty girl may make a realm Republican. Alouette. A pretty girl's no trifle, you must own, papa. Astrologos. Pick up your thread. Alouette. I did not know it fell, papa. Astrologos. How like a prosy talker, who, oblivious, Lets fall his story's thread, and plodding ignorant, Pursues his wordy way until entanglement Breaks off his luckless speech. Alouette. I'm sure such accident Ne'er happens to a woman's conversation though. The Cardinal. No living man shall dare to censure me Save the Holy Father, and he censures not. COMEDY OF DREAMS. i 79 What I have done, is done. Raphael. Some things are never Done twice, by the very saintliest of saints : Your deed is such. Alouette. Papa, the cardinal -legate's sermon puzzled me. Which are the sheep and which the goats, I want to know ? I think a goat upon a mountain pinnacle Is happier than a sheep in heavy meadow land. Astrologos. Heaven's Zodiac hath both Capri- corn and Aries. The spiritual Zodiac is not narrower. Alouette. Surely the Emperor is too old for love, papa, And yet he weds the girlish Countess Isola. Astrologos. Hush ! whisper not that Emperors can e'er grow old ! At any rate, Love cannot. In the granite rocks 180 FRAGMENTS OF THE Fire dwells, and often here are hidden water springs, And the most delicate flowers and mosses cover them. Alouette. " The course of true love never did run smooth," they say. I want to know, papa, is false love fortunate ? Astrologos. Of all things on this earth the most unfortunate — Annihilating souls. False love is hatred, child, 'ETTiyetos, \J/v)(ikii, 8atfioviw8r]S : In this the great Apostle of false wisdom spake — And love is wisdom, or it is not love at all. Alouette. We all of us are kissed beneath the mistletoe : Kissed by our cousins too, and other wicked ones. Astrologos. All well enough, before you come to womanhood. But 'tis a very altered matter afterward. Contact of lips is prelude of a mystery. COMEDY OF DREAMS. 181 Alonette. But who is he, papa ? Is he a Vision, too? Astrologos. He is the Central Vision, dwelling far away Where suns are stifled in the Dark intangible, Where constellations perish like a soap-bubble. Aloicette. What an unpleasant creature ! Astrologos. He's the negative Father of all things positive. Aloitette. I have been looking at a book of heraldry : Papa, please tell me, what's a baton sinister ? Astrologos. A sign that's made respectable by Royalty. Aloitette. I've often wished I had Aladdin's lamp, papa. Helen of Troy should be my waiting damosel ; For guardian of my portal should stand Hercules, Short-haired, with muscles that would split great trees apart ; 182 FRAGMENTS OF THE Apollo should make music when I cared for it, So sweet the world would pause to hear the melody ; If I would swim, a Nereid-nymph should carry me ; If ride, around wise Cheiron's neck my arms should cling While he flew easily through woods of Thessaly ; And if I cared to fly above the mountain-peaks Jove's eagle should be summoned as my servitor. Raphael. 'Tis curious that events swing back and forward so, With this day merriment and next day misery', As if it were the swinging of a pendulum. Astrologos. It is the swing of Fate's eternal pendulum. See, Charles the Martyr leads to Charles the Profligate : But for the Wesleyans there had been no Puseyites. Alouette. And but for wisest sires no silly daughters, sir. COMEDY OF DREAMS. 183 First ball, first ride to hounds, first radiant opera, First plunge into the world with all its wickedness And happiness and agony and poetry ; First love, first kiss ! O, maddening dreams of maidenhood ! Astrologos. You want to know your maddest friend — ask Sirius ; Your wickedest— a Pleiad ran away with him. Your strongest — take a calm half-hour with Jupiter. Alonette. The one who loves you best ? Astrologos. Ask Venus, little one. Aloziette. Father, you never surely knew a murderer ! Astrologos. My child, most of our dearest friends are murderers : They murder time and life and wit and oddity, They murder God in Sabbaths hideous wearisome They murder poetry by making prose of it, They murder love in fashionable marriages, 184 FRAGMENTS OF THE They murder beauty through the odious milliners, They murder truth in the atrocious newspapers. Raphael. An oily plausible fellow came, Astro- logos, Up the back stairs by stealth to see me yester- day : Aldiborontiphoscophornio brought him here — The many-syllabled lordling. Astrologos. And his business, Prince ? Raphael. To vilify you. To hint that he had heard that you Had done or said or thought things vile and trea- sonable, That your proceedings were by no means ortho- dox, That there were rumours all through Megalopolis Of your most foul disloyalty and heresy. Astrologos. Impalpable dust of slander fills the atmosphere, And blinds the eyes and warps the husky throats of men : COMEDY OF DREAMS. 185 But, when truth's sunshaft smites the air, at once you see The small foul atoms of the dirt we tread upon. Genius is often eaten through with bitterness, By what may seem a very trifling accident. See the red tower that rises strong and steadfast there, Holding a dial that tells its tale unceasingly ! Look at the festal halls, the airy terraces, The great oaks that have grasped the soil for cen- turies, The cedars calm as if they grew on Lebanon, The lawns as green as laurels in a thunder-shower, The bright symmetric flower-plots ! Lordly mastiff stalks Over the turf; white pigeons fill the summer air. A scene more happy than the chief of palaces. No prince dwells there; only an English gentleman. 1 86 FRAGMENTS OF THE An earl of old descent, unbroken pedigree, A strong and cool and pure and haughty lineage ; The men all fearless and the women maidenly. He, climax of a stalwart race, would willingly Fight fiercely or love madly. So, love came to him. Wide as the Queen's highway is every corridor ; In eveiy room there's space to build some cottages ; You might have races in the picture-gallery. Let us revivify municipalities : The good old towns, where men were not ashamed of trade, Nor let trade deaden life or love or strength in them, But fought and conquered in the war of liberty, And built cathedrals that remain to dwarf our work, And used keen sword, sweet lyre, the justest balances — Towns such as these the Monarch should resus- citate. COMEDY OF DREAMS. 187 A castle dies, when its lord's chivalry perishes ; A mansion dies, when there's a prosperous rogue in it ; A cottage dies, when by sheer scamps inhabited. Oh, spire of God ! Oh, poem of an architect ! Oh, wondrous winding aisles of saintly mystery ! Prayer blends with praise in this untroubled solitude. Raphael. When you are young, a decade makes a difference. Astrologos. When you are old, a decade makes no difference. Eighty and ninety I consider synonyms : I have begun to count my age by centuries. Raphael. Homer wrote nonsense, making gods and goddesses Encounter mortals both in bed and battlefield. These are child's fables. 1 88 FRAGMENTS OF THE Astrologos. Noble Prince, talk warily : How many senses have you ? Raphael Five. Astrologos. I have seven senses. One gives me power to see things never visible To you. This moment I beheld bright Iris pass Over that arch of rainbow that is glittering From hill to hill. I have seen brawny Herakles Foiling an army. Trust me, your five senses, sir, Are not the high completion of humanity. Astrologos. You look at life, Prince, through rose-tinted spectacles. Raphael. And you through drab ones. Astrologos. Not at all, your Excellence — I have three sets, with a miraculous difference. These show the Past, with all its wondrous mys- teries ; Rimmed are they with the horn of the rhinoceros : These show the Future — rim of gold encircles them : But these, with setting of a very sombre sort, COMEDY OF DREAMS. 189 Mere dusky ebony, my Prince, mere ebony, Show the strong Present, wheresoever turned they are. Raphael. Go. May I see my true love ? Astrologos. Take the spectacles. Raphael. O ! Astrologos. No good was ever done by any criminal. No villainy succeeds. Cassars, Iscariots, Bonapartes, always bring dark doom upon their heads. The law is constant. Raphael. I have known some rascals live Golden delicious lives unkicked. Astrologos. Ah, wait a while. More worlds there are than one, my lord. They know it now. Raphael. He met himself, you say ? Astrologos. He met himself, my lord, Creeping to bed along the half-lit corridor, 190 FRAGMENTS 01- THE He met his boy-self, daring, dauntless, devilish, Poising a rapier with a man's heart's blood on it. He died that night. Raphael. But who the devil was my fellow- traveller ? Astrologos. Speak not too lightly of the devil, good my lord, The lowest whisper reaches that great potentate. Raphael. Being his slave, you fear him, wretched star-gazer. He is a dream. Astrologos. Nay, good my lord, act warily : The mad churl's pistol may upset a dynasty. Raphael. Well, let the dynasty go. Come, cast my horoscope, And you will find that I was born when Jupiter Just dimmed fair Venus' lovely light at eventide — Only just dimmed it. COMEDY OF DREAMS. 191 The first Lord of the Admiralty. Prince, we want millions for a myriad ironclads. The Chaficellor of the Exchequer. Prince, over- taxing much disgusts the Liberals. Raphael. What shall I say to all these fiends, Astrologos ? Astrologos. Say, do your business. Build your ships to swim and fight ; Take tax with fairness of the toiling populace ; Resign your offices, if quite incapable. Raphael. They won't resign. Astrologos. Because they are incapable. Prince Raphael. Ha ! the new Legate. Has he power and pertinence ? Does he seem worthy Hermes of the Vatican ? Has he the wisdom which befits a cardinal ? Astrologos. He seems most prudent. I must cast his horoscope. Born with the sun in Cancer or in Scorpio, If I mistake not. 192 FRAGMENTS OF THE Raphael {reading a letter). The Count means well, Astrologos. Astrologos. Often we find well-meaning men most mischievous. He means well who means nothing — that's the worst of it — Who aims to do the right, but cannot see the right, Whose will is warped by the first gust of circum- stance. Raphael. Friend, have I, save yourself, my tried Astrologos ? Give me the glory of an honest enemy Rather than these false friends, false courtiers, servitors. The fairest friend you have may be untrustworthy ; The fairest face you see may be a naughty one ; The fairest life you live may be a broken life. COMEDY OF DREAMS. 193 Raphael. How should men bear their troubles, O Astrologos ? Astrologos. Why meet them bravely, Prince ; heroic dauntlessness Transforms a trouble to a bubble, instantly. Our life is full of mystery, of irony ; You meet a woman or a man unknown to you, And all is changed for you through all eternity. Change is the law of all things save the soul of man, Which, being divine, is utterly unchangeable. Be7iedict. She is a daughter of midnight . beautified In mystery, and in her darkest moods A creature most bewitching. Raphael. Is she so ? o i 9 4 FRAGMENTS OF THE Then you are welcome to her witcheries. I'd rather marry a broomstick, Benedict. My darling is the daughter of the day, With eyes like heaven, lips like red roses, speech Like song of thrush, breath like the summer south, Touch like the delicate cool grass, and mind Bright as God's sunshine. Benedict. A breath, a beauty, a delight, a fan- tasy, A creature that's half hornet and half butterfly . . . You have seen such. Raphael. Ay, and they are not innocent. This gay young thing is innocent and beautiful ; She is all butterfly — a flower with wings to her — A bit of sunrise with a soul. Alix. She is a very wicked girl, I am sure of it. I will not speak to her again or think of her. Raphael. Pshaw, sister ; why the child is just as innocent As you were when . . . COMEDY OF DREAMS. 195 Alix. When what ? Raphael. When God created you ; Or when my fellow-student, Roderic, looked at you. Alix. Can men change ? Women alone I thought were changeable. You tell us that we vary every hour, Ay, every minute. Raphael. So you do, my sweet : And 'tis your rarest charm. Thus fair flowers change With every warm kiss of the summer sun. Man changes only once, and then for ever. Alix. See, see, the great procession moves and winds Like some strange many-coloured serpent, winding Along the astonished road. But who is that, Dark-clothed, gray-haired, erect upon his steed, W T ith eyes that seem to see another world, Passing this pageant by ? 196 FRAGMENTS OF THE Raphael. The Earl, my own He hath no care for pageants. Alix. A house of statesmen, soldiers, scholars, poets, Since they first bred. Raphael. Ay, and of lovers, darling ; The man will never help the state, nor lead Armies to victory, nor teach the world With scholar's mastery or poet's fire, Unless he has loved. Alix. And won ? Raphael. Or lost, mayhap. Would you have music ? Listen to a waterfall. The scale is infinite, and God is organist. Life's highway has a million curious travellers ; The pure bride elbowed by the wretched courtesan ; The poet by a statesman or a pickpocket ; The gentle man by fellows self-styled gentlemen. COMEDY OF DREAMS. 197 London is hard to villagers and voyagers, Being an aggregate of myriad villages, Being a human ocean where the voyager Is sore perplexed by longitude and latitude. I lived, I loved, I lingered in the country, till The great green woods became an awful agony, The long still roads unutterable weariness ; And then I said, " A little fool my sweetheart is ; She loves not me ; she only loves herself — I guess I'll go and see if London beats the villages." " God was first gardener and Cain first citizen :" So says an English poet, a forgotten one. Void is the man of what befits a gentleman, Void of the English easy humorous courtesy, Void of the pure contempt for dull rascality, Void utterly of Christ's unmeasured kindliness, Void of high feeling, and a trifle viperous. 198 FRAGMENTS OF THE Astrologos. He is where never any birds shall fly to him, Nor any melody of summer meet his ear, Nor any message enter, any issue thence To tell a word of him. Raphael. All fiends are pitiless ; The imperial Fiend is of all fiends most merciless. Astrologos. Ambition has, my lord, unknown developments, And when a man has squeezed the sponge of life enough To satisfy the multitude, he yearns once more For something utterly beyond the multitude, Something immeasurable, mad, impossible. Raphael. With such a man, I have the strongest sympathy : My sorrow is, to me there's nought impossible. Alotiette [aside). Make love to me, fair Prince, and see what comes of it. COMEDY OF DREAMS. 199 Raphael. You are full of foolish fancies, Alouette : You never could have seen that man before. Alouette, Oh, have I not ? Oh, he was my one terror When I was quite a baby, in my dreams. I had forgotten those dread dreams, I had, Till this grim gaunt old monster came to-day, Just as polite as ever, just as horrid. Astrologos. Nothing is half so glorious as a thunderstorm. Alotiette. O yes, papa, a thunderstorm is ex- quisite, If you have only some one's arm around your waist. Alouette. Some one to love, papa. Yes, that's the wish I have. Some one with whom to listen to the nightingales When they are singing old delicious love stories ; Some one to watch me as I slumber quietly, And perhaps disturb my dreams with just a kiss or two. 200 FRAGMENTS OF THE Astrologos, Girls are such fools. Some one to plague and worry you, Some one to take advantage of your weaknesses, Some one to make a silly little slave of you. Astrologos. You say that you're in love, you little reprobate ? Alouette. In love ! Of course. What do men bring up daughters for, Except to love ? The cat must have its mice, you know, And when a kitten watches at the wainscoting The unfledged bird, whose wings are rudimentary (A favourite word of yours, papa !) desires to fly. Astrologos. And often topples from the nest and breaks its neck. Alouette. You really mean it, Prince ? Raphael. Of course I mean it, love. Soon shall you hear the bridal prothalamion That hints sweet marvels of the happy marriage-bed, COMEDY OF DREAMS. aoi And you will blush amid the maids, a ruddy rose. Hearing the soft lute whisper wondrous witchery. Astrologos. Why should she blush, my Prince ? The light of Hesper, Sad passionate Sappho's star, brings nought more life-giving Than love. Alouette. Ay me ! as if I had not life enough. I want no star of eve to cheer me, Raphael : I only want a lover, gay and chivalrous, Who will shed starsheen on the dullest eventide. Raphael. You have him, beauty. What care we for Hesperus ? Raphael. Well, Alouette, where shall we pass our honeymoon ? Shall we see cities ? Shall we chase the marvellous Beauty of mountains ? Shall we hide in forest depths ? Where shall we go to get most lovely loneliness ? Alouette. We'll go to sea. COMEDY OF DREAMS. Alouette. I like the sea, Prince. Raphael. Yes, the flying yacht, you know. With topmast royals, making timber perilous, And a gay wind to race with ! Alouette. Ah, but plunge in it ! Down in the depths cool your hot eyes with emerald Wave made for mermaids ! Fathom the abysses where Strange creatures dwell — a world unknown, un- knowable — Perhaps a race more great than men can ever be ! O little love, whose lightest line is beautiful . . . The brightest dewdrop on the rose that's ruddiest ! A LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI, M.P. 1869. Born Tories to astound and Whigs to enrage, Yours the chief name of the Victorian age, Disraeli ! You have learnt this realm to sway, Prophetic of yourself in Vivian Grey. In no respect I envy your career — A genius servile to a brilliant peer ; Destined defender of a falling Church, Which her sworn sons are leaving in the lurch ; Destined to fight for all that you despise, Leading to sure disaster troops unwise. What cruel fate, young genius to appal, Has made you very great and very small ? Great, in keen scheme and stratagem oblique ; Small, in subservience to a torpid clique ? You have been Minister ; with inward scorn Have tossed his strawberry leaves to Abercorn ; 203 204 A LETTER TO THE Have borne as colleagues statecraft's weakest sons, Walpoles and Hardys, Northcotes, Pakingtons ; Have made peers, bishops, judges, quite a swarm — And thunderstruck the Commons with reform. Now on the left hand bench you sit apart, While autocratic as a Bonaparte, Gladstone to victory leads the Liberal race, And talks of justice while he thinks of place. You never claimed on moral ground respect, But simply rested on your intellect, And safe the basis, for, while earth endures, Few men will have such intellect as yours ; But Gladstone with the world severely quarrels, Unless we all admit his rigorous morals ; The man is truly good and truly pious (Though never was a bowl without a bias), And when he does the most destructive deeds, Upon the highest principle proceeds ; Ay, while defeat the wicked Tory hardens, Prays for his enemy in Carlton Gardens. RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI, M.P. 205 Bullied by Gladstone and perplexed by you, What will the blatant bleating Commons do ? Upon Reform such time and talk were spent, Men hoped to see a People's Parliament. What is the truth ? The old old story still — Wide-incomed Smith beats narrow-minded Mill. Brewers and bankers, men of odious omen, Auriferous fellows of immense abdomen, Flashy directors, with their diamond rings — Such are the mass of our six hundred kings. What care they for the people ? What care they In mind and body though the poor decay, Perish for lack of bread and lack of light, Life a dull toil and death eternal night ? Once Bright the souls of ministers dismayed — Now Bright blots foolscap at the Board of Trade ; To the official tone his voice inclines, A burly giant of the Philistines. Who now, within St. Stephen's guarded door, Forgets his party, speaking for the poor ? Who represents the working classes here ? Ayrton, whose loftiest effort is a sneer, Or stingy Fawcett, who would fain be free To take his place without an entrance-fee ? 206 A LETTER TO THE No ; there is none to help the poor. They wait As in old times outside the well-barred gate. This was their Parliament, so people said : With what strange swiftness has the fancy fled ! Highly respectable are all who sit In that abode of wisdom and of wit ; Men of warm wealth, whose daughters go to Court, Who dine profusely, and are fond of port. What if the House had held a Beales or two ? Beales would have dined and drunk his sloe-juice too. While " rascal counters " give of seats a choice, How shall the blind sad people find a voice ? " Nay, look at Gladstone," cries a Liberal friend, " His the clear intellect, the glorious end, His the unsullied and unselfish mind — One of the angels left by chance behind." Glad would I welcome the seraphic guest, This Aristides, better than the best. But while he fights the battle of the creeds, Wholly forgotten are the nation's needs ; RIGHT HON. D. DISRAELI, M.P. 207 The ignorance, and penury, and crime, The unutterable trouble of the time, The woe of millions — what are these to him ? He wins his place and gratifies a whim, The Irish parsons of their money tricks, And gives the gold to Irish lunatics. What odds ! In Ireland, if we credit fame, Parson and lunatic are much the same. He who shall come to show this realm the way To perfect freedom, is not here to-day. You, sir, by sufferance who served the Queen — You are not he, whate'er you might have been. Yet when, quite tired of wit, I turn away From ebrious fantasies of Vivian Grey, And rest awhile on SybiPs shadowy page, I think sometimes you understand this age ; Still it were vain your projects to expand, Since you this age can never understand. The statesman comes not : will the poet come ? Since Byron died, the Muses have been dumb. 208 A LETTER TO THE Wordsworth was great, you tell me. Yes, of course ; But Byron was an elemental force — Not an Apollo, such as Stratford sees, But a fierce dauntless fighting Hercules ; English in brain and fibre, power and pique — (Browning's Italian, and the Laureate Greek). English that epic in the octave rhyme, On whose wide canvas he has sketched the time : English the wild eccentric course he ran — He was a poet ... ay, and more, a man. Is Tennyson no poet ? Yes, indeed, " Miss Alfred's " are delicious books to read : In summer tide, when all the woods are still, Pleasant to wander at one's own sweet will, Dream of the amorous gossiping that broke The eternal silence of a garrulous oak, Dream of the Princess who was buried deep In an unfathomed century of sleep, Dream of the savage adjectives that fall From the loud lunatic of Locksley Hall. Sweet singer of the madrigal melodious Why did he make King Arthur's story odious ? RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI, M.P. 209 Why, with a flattery at which men wince, Compare the hero to a blameless Prince ? Why send the old figures to a modern school, Turn Vivian harlot, Merlin sensual fool ? Lovely and lucid are the Laureate's pearls : A perfect poet, sir, for little girls. Soft flows his rhymeless verse, constructed well, And sweetly matched each soothing syllable. But where's the passion a great poet knows When the hot blood in every artery flows ? Not his the satire even fools can feel, When each strong line is a keen blade of steel ; Not his the lyric love that has unlaced The cestus, warm from Aphrodite's waist ; But if you like a smooth Virgilian style, A very proper moral, free from bile, Ethics of Dr. Watts', Colenso's creed, Those nice green volumes give you all you need. GREATER and less is Browning : greater far He will be, dwelling in some future star. P 210 A LETTER TO THE This world's his nursery : well we know his tune- A baby-giant, crying for the moon. If he were only English ! if he could But think in English it would do him good. Now, in Italian subtlety immersed, His last and longest poem is his worst ; He tells a tale whose actors would delight Charles Reade or Wilkie Collins, men of might, A tale the Adelphi would receive with joy — And makes it longer than the tale of Troy. Arnold is English. On the Berkshire marge Of Thames, I see him watch the tardy barge, While the swift swallow in endless cycle flies, While the scythed hay in swathes of summer lies. Ah ! and he muses, wandering thus alone, On one pure spirit, now in realms unknown. Has that true poet, quick-departing guest, In other regions found perpetual rest ? I can forgive who saw the Reveller stray To where Odysseus in Aiaie lay — Who watched the Gipsy Scholar's mazy path Over wild wold and solitary strath — RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI, M.P. I can forgive him, that mysterious haze Shrouds every vision of his later days, That life is lost in melancholy mist . . . But why the deuce did he turn essayist ? Swinburne, a singer perfect as the birds, Poet spontaneous, demigod of words, Too fond, no doubt, of blood and filth and foam, With the hetaira far too much at home, Yet rises to the height of the highest bard, Pourtraying Mary with her Chastelard. Learned historians, prodigies of toil, Ne'er touched his picture of the Harlot Royal. They could not know her chamber's faint perfume, Or how lamps flickered in that amorous room, Or how she kissed, or how white throat and breast Throbbed through the midnight's exquisite unrest, Or how her serpent nature, sensuous, cruel, Made of what men call love a deadly duel — Wherein the opponent always fell we know, Dauphin or Darnley, Bothwell, Rizzio. Heartless and shameless, perfect form and face, The poison-blossom of the Stuart's wild race, A LETTER TO THE Knowledge of her was Swinburne's fame and fate Behold, I crown him Mary's Laureate. NOTHING I know, and nothing will I say, Of Morris — Chaucer of the modern day : Thus much I learn from various reviews — He's husband now of Chaucer's widowed Muse. Of Locker what ? Apollo in the fashion — Humour and pathos mild, no touch of passion. From Suckling, Lovelace, Prior, Luttrel, Praed, Locker inherits his inspiring Maid : Not nude and passionate, not fast and flighty, Like Swinburne's rosy-bosomed Aphrodite : Not icy cold as Parian sculpture is, Like Tennyson's blue-stockinged Artemis : Not erudite and sapient, grimly frowning, Like the Athena that's adored by Browning : But just the Period's Girl, a pretty creature, Of dainty style though inexpressive feature, Who carefully reserves her choice opinions For length of petticoats and bulk of chignons, In whom no tragic impulse ever rankles, Who always says her prayers and shows her ankles. RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI, M.P. 213 Three needs are ours amid this century's whirl . . . The ideal Politician, Poet, Girl. What of the statesman ? His keen eye should see The visionary future of the free ; That wondrous epoch in the days to come In whose broad light debaters shall be dumb, When Kings shall rest on something more than morals, And even Bishops shall refrain from quarrels, When wealth and titles shall be little prized, And manhood — God's own likeness — recognised. Believing in that time — O glorious creed, Even though the nations never should be freed ! Our statesman's task must be to force the door Which shuts from happiness the mean and poor. Churches and railways, trade's unchecked ad- vance, Projects of Prussia, interests of France, The Yankee Commonwealth's insane ambitions ! Such things engage our living politicians. Mere trash and chaff, green ferret and red tape, Foolscap to crown the pert official ape ! 214 A LETTER TO THE You, strong triumvirate, Gladstone, Bright, and Lowe, Are millions of our people brutes or no ? Can you arrange the future of the masses . . . Control the dangerous, desperate, devilish classes ? Of course we know old England's staying power : But there may come too terrible an hour, Too fierce a flame for orators and prigs, For prelates, landed gentry, moderate Whigs, Hotter than Greys and Russells can endure, Or the Gladstonian patent nostrums cure : In fact a revolution in the air, A popular earthquake . . . and no Cromwell there. As to the Poet : Critics may upbraid — I think a Poet's should not be a trade : I don't care much to see Apollo's oxen Herded through Dover Street by muddling Moxon. My notion of a poet is, you know, Valerius of Verona, long ago . . . Passionate poet and consummate metrist, Who hymned the sparrow on his Lesbia's sweet wrist, RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI, M.P. 215 Who loved and uttered love with lyric cry (Not for the drachmae of the Sosii), Whose swift phaselus dared the distant seas, Who caught the mad song of the Mamades, Whose vigorous verse smote Caesar like a sword. Such was Catullus. Now the world is bored With gentlemen who manufacture rhyme, And by a tramway their Parnassus climb. Men whose blood stagnates in their puffy veins, Who pick their words, and take elaborate pains. While your true poet like the eagle flies Through blue abysses of untravelled skies, Scathes the gross tyrant and his slaves with scorn, And hails the crimson of earth's coming morn. The Lady of the Future, who can paint ? She will not be a sinner or a saint, Will not o'erflow with Ritualistic bile, Or imitate too closely Phryne's style. Who cares for either of them, first or last, The girl who fasts, the girl who is rather fast ? O to bring back the great Homeric time, The simple manners and the deeds sublime : 2l6 A LETTER TO DISRAELI. When the wise Wanderer, often foiled by Fate, Through the long furrow drave the ploughshare straight, When Nausicaa, lovely as a dream, Washed royal raiment in the shining stream ! Such men, such maidens, are the sort we seek : Can English blood produce them like the Greek ? THE END. Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh. 3 1158 01263 5495 '^SmiS^^^ury A 001003^