THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS THE BRIDGE -BUILDERS And other Poems By HARROLD JOHNSON Author of " The Road-Makers " LONDON: DAVID NUTT 57-59 LONG ACRE 1908 THE present volume is the second of a series (of which The Road-Makers, published in 1903, is the first) which the author hopes to complete in two succeeding volumes, The Wayfarers and The Voyagers, now in course of preparation. The title in each case is intended to apply not only to the particular poem bearing the same, but to convey the main motif which has largely determined the nature of the volume as a whole. [Many of these verses have appeared in the Daily News, and the thanks of the author are due to Mr. A. G. Gardiner, its editor, for offering him the publicity the daily press affords, and to the pro- prietors of that journal for permission to re-pub- lish.] CONTENTS PAGE FORE-WORDS 9 I THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS . . . 15 PONTIFEX MAXIMUS . . . . .18 BRIDGING NIAGARA ..... 19 II ECCE HOMO ! A FRAGMENT FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST 23 III PRELUDES. THE STORM-WIND . . . . -35 SHADOWS . . . , . 36 NOCTURNES, I. II. .. . . . . 38 DRIFTWOOD . . . ' . . . 40 PHYSICAL ENERGY. EQUESTRIAN STATUE BY THE LATE G. F. WATTS, O.M. . -41 THE BROAD RIVER ..... 42 AFTER READING THE LATEST BOOK ON RADIO-ACTIVITY ; -43 THE BIRTH OF MAN . . . . 45 LOVE TRIUMPHANT . . . . ; ., 46 THE WATCHMAN . , > . . . 47 5 941917 3 CONTENTS PAGE IV FOR ENGLAND. ENGLAND, I LOVE THEE ! . . 5 1 OLD ENGLAND 53 THE HOMES OF ENGLAND . . . -55 I KNOW A LAND 57 MERRIE ENGLAND . . . .58 ENGLAND 59 CROSSING WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. Dedicated to the High Court of Parliament . . 61 CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE .... 68 THE TEMPLE GARDENS .... 69 WATERLOO BRIDGE ..... 70 STRAND-ON-THE-GREEN .... 72 ON SEEING CROMWELL'S STATUE OUTSIDE WESTMINSTER ..... 74 FRONTING WESTMINSTER .... 75 THE LAST PARADE. The Passing of the late Duke of Cambridge .... 77 THE OLD MOTHER 80 V THE SEASONS. THE SPRING! .... -85 THE POTTER 86 THE BLOSSOMING YEAR .... 87 WHEN THE CHESTNUTS BLOOM . . .88 WILD ROSE ...... 89 Sic TRANSIT 90 STILL WATERS 91 AUTUMN ....... 9 2 JACK FROST 93 CONTENTS 7 PAGE MIST-BOUND ...... 94 TREES ....... 95 FOG 96 VI POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL. TWILIGHT ON THE CURRAGH ... 99 THE WIND IN THE TREES . . . .100 THE IMMORTAL PART . . . .102 THE LORD OF EVERYTHING . . .103 THE ROSE ETERNAL . 104 WILD ROSE . . . : . .105 THE EVERLASTING HILLS . v . .. . 106 A REFORMER . . , . . . 107 To WILLIAM WATSON . . , . 108 ETERNITY . . . ... 109 DREAMS . . . .''. .no IRONSIDES . . . . . .in AT THE FORGE . . . . .112 HOME . ... . . -"3 I HAD A LOVER . . . .114 PARTING . . . . ...115 AFTER SCHOOL . . . . . .116 ON SALE ! . . ; , , . . 117 THE VOICE OF ONE . . . .118 THE PLOUGHERS . . . . .119 To MR. GEORGE CADBURY . . . .120 IN MEMORIAM .... . . 121 THINGS BEFORE WORDS . . . .122 Go /IDotber. FORE-WORDS " For nineteen centuries Christendom has been busy in bridging the way to the Kingdom of God on the other side of the River of Death, but at the end of these nineteen centuries there is only here and there a soul who really believes in the possibility of a Kingdom of God on earth, now and here, and applies himself to the making of the necessary bridges that are to sustain its traffic. The higher commerce of the spiritual as well as of the industrial world is not a down-stream nor yet an up-stream, but an across-the-stream commerce. The distinction be- tween barbarism and civilization is a thing of bridges. The barbarian goes where he likes, and does what he pleases. His action is a thing of currents and winds. He floats with the tide, whereas the civilized man crosses the streams, defies the tides, and sails against the winds. Down-stream morality is barbarism or leads to it. Up-stream morality is asceticism. Cross- stream morality is civilization. The first leads either to brutality or imbecility, the second to sto- lidity or isolation, the third to social service and to brotherhood. This highest traffic, spiritual as material, is dependent upon bridges, and he who is most successful in creating these structures, is the Pontifex Maximus, the Master Bridge-Builder." JENKIN LLOYD JONES. io FORE-WORDS " A NOISELESS patient spider I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood iso- lated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you, O my soul, where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul." WALT WHITMAN. FORE-WORDS H I The hours I spent apart with my own soul Were the great hours for me ; I have not written out one single scroll Of that high ministrj?. But, haply, here and there, a bridge I build For the wayfaring mind ; And though I have not wrought it as I willed, Nor as I once designed : Yet, in a world of men, I too a man, Linked with the flow of things, Drave deep the piles and dauntless stretched my span Athwart life's buffetings. The bridge will hold I proved it strain on strain Above the Pit of Hell : Bridge ye beyond my span of heart and brain, And prove before ye tell. 12 FORE-WORDS II Some on the current drift along, Nor heed the whelming sea ; Some with the current battle strong That flows relentlessly. Some build a bridge from land to land For traffic to and fro : The piles on granite strata stand The flood-scoured bed below. THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS WE bridge the gorge and the cataract, And tunnel the mountain through ; We steer our course by the stars above Over the trackless blue ; We harness the lightnings for our steeds, But leash not the hounds of the storms ; We are little lower than all the gods, And little higher than worms. We store up the heat that reneweth its force Where electrons whirl to and fro, But we know not whence in the dark we came, Nor where in the dark we go ; And the words of the furthest reach of our souls Are as gossamer threads in the sun Which the wind that bloweth whence no man knows Scattereth, every one. We lift the waters over the earth, And under their broad beds fly ; We send forth rays of a subtler sense Than the seeing of the eye ; 16 THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS And charms we have that can deaden pain, And we weigh and measure the star : Fearfully, wondrously, are we made, Nor less than the great gods are. But a tremor moves in the heart of the earth, And the swift globe tosses her crest, Mate of a myriad whirling orbs, Ordered and never at rest ; And the cities we build in our pride of power Are shattered, and are no more Than the sand the hurricane dashes up Over a waste of shore. Wrapped in the Silence and Dark we lay Ere the nebula was stirred, Ere the ether throbbed in the atom's heart At the fiat of the Word ; Ere the rocks were molten with fervent heat For the crystal's glory of form : Into the Silence and Dark we go, Out of the stress and the storm. Sons of gods and of radiobes. Born of the fire and the dew, Bound by ancestral bonds of sense, Urged to the life that is new ; THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 17 Kinsmen of mammal and reptile and worm, With filaments out of the clay, Heirs of unsatisfied desires, We live our little day. We build a shadowy Bridge of Time Over Eternity, We pen a fugitive word or two On the page of Immensity ; But we live and love with a deathless love, And we die for the Good and the True, And we laugh at Time with its fleeting worth As only gods can do. B.B. 18 THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS THE bridges that bore the feet Of the men of long ago, With the post-boy and the chaise And the old wain they must go ; For mightier girders need The engine and steam-plough, And gorge and torrent span The great bridge-builders now. The bridges that bore the freight Of the souls of long ago, With the idols and false gods And the dead faiths they must go But who shall bridge across The vast of the cosmic span, And drive the piles below The scour of the soul of man ? THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 19 BRIDGING NIAGARA To ford across strong currents, To bridge torrents and ravines, To bear the world-freight Safe to the other side ! Aloft a kite, With tense and slender string ; Then, loosed and dropped Beyond the swirling foam ; To the string a rope, To the rope a cable, To the cable a chain, To the chain a delicate basketry of strands of steel Last, enduring through ages, Riveted, girded, sure, For trains trans-continental, Above the torrent, Athwart a belt of sky, A bridge, with lines of beauty, To bear the freight of men. Buffeted by the winds, A kite, with slender string ! Yet linked with a thread so fine The traffic of the world ! ECCE HOMO ! A FRAGMENT FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST ECCE HOMO ! A FRAGMENT FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST FORE-WORD LET it be clearly understood that there is no warranty whatsoever in the New Testament for any suggestion of love, as between a man and a maid, of Jesus for Mary. We read : " Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." Jesus symbolizes that highest spiritual love which is independent of sex and kinship, and I would do nothing to lessen in the mind of any the sacredness of this symbol. I hold, too, that we owe it to the holy claims of truth and of the historic sense not to imagine without the data that history supplies. If, for once, I have transgressed, I have done so not without reason (perhaps in order to offset somewhat, in this con- nexion, the piles of accumulated human error from the past that have well-nigh overwhelmed us), but rather in order to call attention to that frank humanity of Jesus to establish which we have in the New Testa- ment data enough. Further, I would convey that love, as between a man and a maid (whether experienced by him or 23 24 ECCE HOMO! not), would not dishonour, but honour, even Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, had he not at some time or other experienced such love, there would have been some- thing lacking in his humanity. Also, it will readily be seen from the poem that there is no thought on the part of Jesus of yielding to such influence. His divine work needed his whole consecration. It is interesting to note that no temptation of this particular kind, intervening between Jesus and his life-work, is embodied in the allegory of the Temptation. The Buddha leaves his beloved wife, Yathodaya, asleep with her first-born whom he has not seen. " To see him," he said, " I must remove the hand of the mother, and she may awake ; and if she awake, how shall I depart ? " How human ! How pathetic ! Jesus, on the other hand, leaves his mother without a pang, so far as the Gospel records witness. A sword pierces through her very soul, and in his sufferings would no suffering for her who suffered for him have part ; would not such suffering borne by him be bitterer even than the cruel Cross ? But the Gospels are silent. The further question remains. Did not the Evange- lists, in making such large claims for their master, omit many details which might seem to them to dero- gate from that claim ? In any case it is well to remember that the biography of Jesus that has come down to us is not a -complete biography. Have I transgressed in adding two human touches which are not alien from the spirit of the whole ? ECCE HOMO! 25 ECCE HOMO ! A FRAGMENT FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST. SCENE. Bethany. In the House of Simon. TIME. A few days before the Crucifixion. JESUS (alone). Sad, tender thoughts of home and Galilee And childhood's innocent delights steal o'er me, When like the lilies of the field I grew, Or like the birds, a child in Heaven's Kingdom ; Or ever the gates of Eden were unlocked And I knew good and ill, and Cherubim With flame of sword guarded the Tree of Life ; Or ever the ground was cursed. I, happy then, Knew not the fret of thought. All loved me. Softly Sweet influences of earth and sea and sky Caressed me. Life was joy. This is long since. My Father needed me : He will uphold me. And yet, how oft I wished I rather were A carpenter in simple Nazareth, And wooed and won some Galilean maid, And knew the lisp of children and the fondling Upon the knees ! But this is past ! How strangely These thoughts, which I have long since thrust from me, 26 ECCE HOMO! Come to me still with Mary at my feet, Her eyes alight with love. Alas, poor Mary ! She hearkens me as though my words dropped music Within a shrine, and she the worshipper. Here all is peace and redolent of home After the jangle and the jar of Scribes And sordid barter in the Temple Courts. Yea, how I lashed them ! Pardon me, my Father, I thought they wounded Thee ! Here all is peace. He brings me to the haven where I would be. (Enter MARY.) Come hither, child, my Mary. Thou art welcome. Thy face has quietude. I am very weary. MARY. Is all well, master ? JESUS. Nay, not all, my child. There ! Rest thy head ! Thy hair is very fair. Nay, for they vexed me much and words outran me. I called them hypocrites and vipers. MARY. Master ! JESUS. Yea, and I lashed the changers from the Temple When my tongue failed me. MARY. Master ! JESUS. And I fear me Palms will be stones ere long. MARY. My master, master ! JESUS. Not so, my child. Be brave and yet more brave. I go unto my Father and thy Father, ECCE HOMO! 27 Unto my God and thy God. Be not troubled. Even now, whispers of some far country float To me, whispers I may not tell I scarce May hear them. Another sense awakens, trembling With expectation. Weep not, for thou too Shalt hear the whispers. List ! A little while ! We have had happy hours, my Mary. Store Thy memory with joy. I go away. MARY. Nay, master, stay ! I need thee. What is life Without thee ? Where is hope, and the new dawns Of love and peace and joy ? The frail bark shatters Against the rocks without the helmsman. JESUS. Hast thou Not God, my child ? I go that I may send The Comforter unto thee. He abides For ever. If I stay, He will not come. When He is near, all partings lose their sting ; The mother weeps not " Son, thou'rt in God's hands ! " There are bright shores where hapless lovers meet, Where hope knows blighting canker never-more, And breaking hearts grow whole in love's soft balm ; Death has a halo-light about his head, And vanished presences are with us still, But lovelier. I will pray unto our Father, And He shall send another Comforter. MARY. But the hand, master, for I stumble oft ! Something to touch, master, something to hear ! Thou call'st me, child. I am a little child, 28 ECCE HOMO! And need the touch of hand and sheltering arms ; I am a nestling, strong alone in fears, And dare not leave the nest. JESUS. Nestle closer, child. Soon thou shalt fly and He will guide thee. Trust Him like the bird. MARY. I would I might die with thee ! JESUS. Cease, cease ! That is His care alone. He knows. Good Martha needs thee. Raise the common lot To honour. Clothe the lowliest things with grace. Home may be holy ground where unawares Angels may minister. Behold the Presence Of God is everywhere. Know thou art robed In love as the moon bathes the earth in light. Ah, life is very beautiful, my Mary ! Therefore be glad to live. When I am gone, God is not less, nor blooms the purple lily Less fair. Remain the wonder of the sundown, The flight of birds, and link of loving arms, The innocent look of babes and mother-love, The holy trembling passion of a kiss All exquisite touches on the robe of God. I have loved the sun and trees and flowers and children Playing, the hills, the sea in calm and storm ; Greatly I have enjoyed the zest of struggle And boon of peace, ever with love shot through them : The milk and honey flowing in the land, And juice of the vine in many a jocund cup, Have oft made glad my heart. < ECCE HOMO! 29 MARY. I am glad that thou Art glad. Even thou art sad at times. Thy burden Is not at all times light, nor thy yoke easy. JESUS. True, I have suffered. For the goal of life Is neither joy nor woe ; but life, more life. I have fathomed the deeps of grief, and touched The extremest verge of pain : and ofttimes all Was dark. I might not understand it then, And many an agonizing cry Why ? Why ? Pierced to the very Heart of God. We are But thoughts of God unrealized as yet, Gleams only of what shall be. We will wait For the full splendour certain as the dawn. Whate'er befalls is finger-post to God : This way points sorrow, and that way points joy, And both point Godward ; byways and highways, All in God's country. Some rough roads, some smooth. Abram waxed strong on Canaan's rugged heights; Lot rotted in the plain well-watered like The Garden of the Lord. The skilful workman Fits to the grain his tool. But hear me now ! Behold the lilies, child, and dwell with beauty. Say " Let there be light ! " and there shall be light. Surely all things He makes are very good ! Be pure, and thou shalt see God. Think no evil. Safeguard thy mind, thy Being's sanctuary ; Let no unclean thing touch it. For the world Is beautiful alone with thy mind's beauty. But, look, the Mount is lit with burning gold ! 30 ECCE HOMO! Stern work awaits the morrow. Leave me now. Sleep tranquilly, and may good angels guard Around thee. Bring a smile at morn. Thy morn's Glad sunshine cheers and tunes me for the day. Farewell. God bless thee child ! MARY. God bless thee, master I (Exit MARY.) JESUS (alone). I thought not thus to die : life is so fair. My tendrils cling to earth while I mount upward. I still would wreathe and circle those I love, And ward from harm Mary, and mother mine, And Peter's heart of passion, James and John, And all my wandering flock unshepherded : As if some influence, scarcely perceived But ever present, wafted gentle peace. Ah, mother of the sad heart and sad thoughts ! Tis mothers suffer most. They fold us in Their arms, our very helplessness a claim To love ; and when we walk alone they feel The first faint tremor of a pang ; and when We think alone and act alone ah, then The tearing of the roots of life ! And when The yearnings came to me she could not share, She wept ; she held me strange, beside myself. I sorrowed and I suffered, could not tell My lone thoughts to her. She had lost a child, And I was motherless. Now she did chide me, And now caressed me ; wooed me like a lover To thoughts of home and gentle comradeship. ECCE HOMO! 31 Alas, the wistful look of those sad eyes, So eloquent of hungering need ! And now ! I ever did my Father's will, and ever That will accomplished gave me joy ; but she No other mission had than loving me. She said : When he is grown a man, my boy Will comfort me, nor let my grey hairs go With sorrow to the grave. And now bereft ! Dost Thou do well, Father, dost Thou do well ? I think a sword will pierce through her own soul ! If possible let this cup pass from me : Nevertheless Thy will not mine be done ! ( JESUS drays.) PRELUDES THE STORM-WIND A STORM-WIND shook the land and sea : Miserere Domine / Night came with stars, and all was still Over the sea and on the hill. The light-leaved aspen softly stirred, The poplar's tremulous branches heard A far-faint whisper of the breeze : , They hear more than the other trees. Now life tumultuously pours Her largesse over seas and shores ; Death comes, and all is very still Over the sea and on the hill. Perchance to finer sense abide Some murmurings of time and tide, And from that bourn where all men go The Word is whispered very low 1 36 PRELUDES SHADOWS OVER the meadow shadows creep, Shadows dapple the woodland lorn ; Sportive rolling shadows sweep Over the corn. Shadows lie in the still moonlight, Delicate witchery of trees ; Fugitive shadows in soft daylight Flit as they please. Up the hill and over the dale Cloudland shadows billow and flow ; Wistful shadows at twilight pale Sombre and go. After quiver of set of sun When the last gleam has shot through the skies, When tints of maroon on high clouds grow dun Ere the moon rise : Melt the shadows into the gloom, Into the drowsy land of rest, Or on the mountains hover and loom Into the west, PRELUDES 37 Echoes of voices, shadows of dreams, Whither ye call fain would I go ! Is there a land of sunlit streams Where no shadows flow ? Where white-robed Beauty is Maid of Light Undappled of shadow, and no rains fall ; Where cloudland and dreamland are banished quite, And Love is all ? 38 PRELUDES NOCTURNES I A SADNESS that I cannot speak, Half-sweet, and cherished apart ! I think it is the long twilight Has sunk into my heart : The vagueness and the merge of things. The peace ineffably alone, The wistfulness that still must use A language of its own. The elms that top the mowing-grass And the dark clouds are one ; But I am reft of comradeship At setting of the sun. I think a deeper Being blends Me and the cloud and tree ; And lacking the calm sense of this Is all my misery. PRELUDES 39 II IN the Land of Setting Sun, When the toil of day is done, And a sense of mystery Steals across the earth and sky ; Ere the thrush's even-song Quite is ended, and the long Shadows creeping o'er the plain Blot the daylight out again ; In the twilight lure of things Come the brooding and the wings, Comes the intuition clear Of another world than here; Of another hour than this, And a deeper blessedness : In the Land where sets no sun And the dark and light are one. 40 PRELUDES DRIFTWOOD EYE to eye we met, and flashed Heart to heart and soul to soul ; We shall never meet again From the North to Southern Pole. We are driftwood on the ocean, And the currents swirl and cross : Had I never looked upon thee I had never known thy loss. I was drawn to thee, Beloved, From the dawning of the world, But the flood of circumstance All our lives asunder hurled. Drifting on a trackless ocean All alone in joy and pain In the Undiscovered Country Shall we ever meet again ? PRELUDES 41 PHYSICAL ENERGY EQUESTRIAN STATUE BY THE LATE G. F. WATTS, O.M. " RIDER, to what Land bound ? What wide expanse scanning with eager gaze ? " I ride to the Undiscovered Country, Its bourn unknown, Unbounded by the limit of the years : The unpeopled tracts I people ; Rolling veldt shall wave with corn, And man diverse be one. " Power is mine, And power untamed I tame And wrest it to my will. " While the day dures I ride : And when night falls upon me, Others, beyond my westering, Shall mount and follow. r " And the day cometh, When Love shall conquer Death, And Hope, beyond Hope, endure." 42 PRELUDES THE BROAD RIVER WHERE does the Broad River flow ? Into the vast lone sea, Out of the heart of the land From the hills so free ; Winding and wandering, Pure and pearly with slime. Where do the foul waters go ? Into the ocean betime : Into the vast lone sea, Into the clouds in the sky, Into the rains that fall Over the lands that are dry, Into the rivers that run Out of the hills so free Pure and foul are one In the womb of Immensity. PRELUDES 43 AFTER READING THE LATEST BOOK ON RADIO-ACTIVITY " How much we ourselves are matter and how much ether is, in these days, a very moot question." R. K. DUN- CAN. " And he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cheru- bims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." GENESIS iii. 24. WE poets dreamed it long ago, What the foot of Science slow Now treads on surely. Atoms are Not fixed apart and singular, But indissolubly are blent With all things in the firmament ; And the subtlest ichor flows Through the star that no man knows Binding all the things that be In unbroken unity ; For the lonely elements Have their kin and filaments, And the task of man is done Only when he finds the One. There is force in a grain of sand That may drive on sea and land ; 44 PRELUDES There is nothing but doth live, And the stone is sensitive ; But elusive as a shade Is the Life of all things made, Radium and radiobe Everywhere around the globe, And beyond the furthest rim The flaming sword of the Cherubim. PRELUDES 45 THE BIRTH OF MAN IN nebulae of aeons old, In flaming globes through darkness rolled, Ere light and warmth had stirred the clay, Wrapped in the central Heart he lay. The Past is a prophetic page To herald forth his pilgrimage, And still on hieroglyphic scroll His symbolled destinies unroll. Urged on by Love and knit with Law, The Future in the Past he saw, Chaotic nebulae and flame He guided, knowing whence he came : Till Light and Warmth had decked the earth For nobler manhood, fairer birth; Till the vast universal plan Was linked unto the Love of Man. 46 PRELUDES LOVE TRIUMPHANT NOT in the blood-red heart of earth, Nor fixed in the unflinching skies, Is Fate that sways us from our birth : We are the Destinies. We make or mar, create or slay, And over all the gods we are ; And howsoever we may stray The heart beats with the star. For in the unfathomed womb of all Love and relentless Law are one ; And earth is but a mocking ball Whirled round a fleeting sun. Not here nor there pervades our peace, The sport of the illusive hours ; Fate and o'er-weening Will shall cease : Immortal Love is ours. PRELUDES 47 THE WATCHMAN " WHAT of the night ? What of the night ? Watchman on the lone watch-tower ? What faint quiverings of light Shoot, and hint the dawning-hour ? " Spake the Watchman then and there : " Shadows, shadows everywhere ! " Brake the dawn, and all the sky Stretched blue-deep from rim to rim ; But, wherever man passed by, Shadows, shadows beckoned him : In the night and in the day Shadows never flee away. Sojourners in Shadowland Are we, as our fathers were ; From the furthest strand to strand Shadows, shadows everywhere ! Pilgrim, wheresoe'er thou be, Love is shining over thee. FOR ENGLAND B.B. i ENGLAND, I LOVE THEE ! ENGLAND, I love thee ! Who shall stand beside thee ? Mother-land and home-land With lure of sounding sea ! Over wide waters Roam we wanderer-hearted, But the roads, the white roads, Call us home to thee. England, I love thee ! Hedge-rows for the singing-birds ! Mountains hoar whose topmost cairn Foot of Druid knew ! Land of elm and oak and pine And the silvern birch, my Lady, And the aspen quivering, And the darksome yew ! Do my wild June roses Blossom frailly otherwhere ? Or the cowslips droop their bells Just so slender ? Or the kine 1 Set to music by Richard H. Walthew, and published by Messrs. Stainer & Bell, Regent Street, W. 51 52 FOR ENGLAND Dower peace to grassy meadows ? Or the homesteads of the loved-ones Bower hearts so stilly As this land of mine ? England, I love thee ! Who shall stand beside thee ? Mother-land and home-land With lure of sounding sea ! Over wide waters All thy sons shall bless thee, Green land and brown land And land of liberty. FOR ENGLAND 53 OLD ENGLAND OLD England of the quiet ways, Soft-spreading land of brown and green, Old elms that shaded calmer days, Old homes where love has been ; Old bowered lanes and pathways lone By dappled oats and rolling grain My England, beautiful my own, Be quiet once again ! The fret of cities and the rack Of grasping mart and fevered din ! Ye fools who know not what ye lack, Nor joy in what ye win ! A motor whirling in the dust, A cycle whizzing mile on mile ! Ye fools, who know not what ye lust, Be still a little while ! Ah, might the peace of early days Again on England's walks descend, When firm she trod the steadfast ways With sober thought to friend ! 54 FOR ENGLAND Not the illimitable veldt, Not tariffs shall her power maintain : Her thatched-roofed cottages have felt The calm she must recall again. FOR ENGLAND 55 THE HOMES OF ENGLAND ARE anywhere such homes as here in England, So embowered and still with shadowing trees ? Such rolling lawns green as the emerald, Such paths through such fair gardens leading ? Such Charmed nooks of quietness ? Or by the wayside Such cottage-homes to heal the wanderer ? In such as these sons of the land are born, And love her more than life, her honour precious As to a lover his dear lady. I Was born in England and was bred of her, Within her homes and in her gardens fair, Among her people of the hill and dale And wood and stream and the adventurous sea Well-born for have I not an English heart ? And if I love her more than other lands, Far more, it is because I am with her Familiar, and know her wiles and ways And many pleasantnesses ; and her story, Which old-time bards have sung, to me is sweet As were my mother's words. And I have roamed In other lands which others love as dearly, And loved my own the more by wandering 56 FOR ENGLAND And by the pangs of exile : else not knowing How meadows restful are with brooding kine, How wildly fair hedge-rows, with briar and thorn And many-herbed and mad with singing-birds, How olden honour from forefathers calls And now I know the very heart of her, I love her so, I will not wander more. FOR ENGLAND 57 I KNOW A LAND I KNOW a land of the lark and the pine, Four league or more from London Town, Where the kine brood on the soft uplands That stretch to the rolling down. Where the gorse burns gold, and a tender blue Smiles, and the clouds droop, sober grey ; Where the peewit dips with a wailing cry, And the lark soars glad as day. And oh for a sight of the green of Spring Away and away from London Town ! With a warm mist over the soft uplands That stretch to the rolling down ! 58 FOR ENGLAND MERRIE ENGLAND Now May-buds break with blossom, And all the wood-birds sing, And oh to be in England It is a blessed thing. The boles of all the elm trees Are green as they can be, And oh in Merrie England It is a sight to see : To see the cherry blossom With snow along the bough, And oh to scent the wall-flowers In cottage gardens now ! I know where droop the cowslips, Where lilac spires are bold, But oh to see laburnum One flaming shower of gold ! It's oh for Merrie England, And it's oh for the blue and a day, For the coyest English maiden To give her heart away. FOR ENGLAND 59 ENGLAND LET the German love his Fatherland And the Frenchman love his own, And I will love my own dear land, And make her glories known : This land above all other lands, Linked with her Sisters three But east of Severn, south of Tweed, Oh, that's the land for me ! For Nelson's Signal flashes Broad over all her sky, And for her hoary honour Young Englishmen shall die : For the salt of the sea is in them, And the tang of English earth, And they count not the price they owe To the land that gave them birth. Let the German love his Fatherland, And the Frenchman love his own, And I will love my own dear land, And make her glories known : FOR ENGLAND This land above all other lands, Linked with her Sisters three But east of Severn, south of Tweed, Oh, that's the land for me ! FOR ENGLAND 61 CROSSING WESTMINSTER BRIDGE DEDICATED TO THE HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT. I SONS and daughters, Ye of old England, Ye of the homeland, Wending ye homeward, Linger, oh linger ! Over the parapet Wistfully gazing ! By silent waters Silverly gliding, Beats the heart of our land, Sleeps the tomb of our fathers. II The sickle-moon rises, The lone star of even Throbs in the sky ; Lamplight silverly 62 FOR ENGLAND Gleams on the waters ; The barges slowly, With red light and golden, Steal through the archways, Sombre and shadowy ; High from the Clock Tower Lustre-light streameth : The House is sitting While Big Ben booms the hour. Ill Weary from labour The toiler returneth Over the archways, Fast by the heart of our land, Fast by the tomb of our fathers Clerk of the city, Mender of roadways With tin can and basket, Agent and traveller, Shopman and merchantman, Teacher and clergyman, Lawyer and railwayman, Soldier and sailorman Dockers and dandies, FOR ENGLAND 63 Jostle they all : Furtive and slow Creeps with saddest smile, Brother, our sister of shame. IV Who shall drop over the bridge to-night, Weary, how weary ! Fast by the heart of our land, Fast by the tomb of our fathers ? The coster plies His trade by the kerbstone, The newsboy shouts The latest edition ; Over the lower bridge A long train thunders, A line of flame, Belching fire from the engines The barges creep Under the archways, 64 FOR ENGLAND With red light and golden, Or shadowy rest On the mystic river : Cabs rattle along, Wagons lumber, Harness-chains jingle ; With shuffle of feet, And whir of motors, And ring of bicycle bells, And shout of drivers The light shines from the Clock Tower, The House is sitting. VI Over the bridge And along the Embankment The lights guide our feet ; Of old were ordained The quiet moon and the stars ; Barge-lights signal Along the water-way ; Big Ben beams With his golden face the hour But why from the Clock Tower Shines the beacon-light dazzling ? FOR ENGLAND 65 VII Not as the moon and stars Ordained of old ; Not as lamps To guide our feet ; * Not to chronicle time, Or signal on waterways ; But unto men The Herald That Justice shall reign, And Love be triumphant. VIII The Abbey sleeps Sleeps with her dead ; With monarchs who scrolled out Old Eng- land's story, And poets the imperishable, And statesmen who shaped her destinies, And navigators who dared her seas, And travellers who opened up her deserts, And warriors who fought and bled, And lawyers who framed her laws, And merchants who sped her argosies, B.B. E 66 FOR ENGLAND And the ministers of pain, The benefactors of men, The revealers of nature, The begetters of tragedy and mirth, And the solemn priests. Still at eventide Through wistful aisles Stealeth the melody Of days olden. IX Peacefully glides the river, By hamlets sleeping, By gentle meadows, By barns and homesteads, By thatch-roofed cottages, By steeples and towers, By city suburbs, By factory chimneys, By slums and wharves ; From pure heights glideth Till, city-polluted, Lost in the vast pure sea. FOR ENGLAND 67 X The light shines from the Clock Tower, The Abbey sleeps, The river glides along in the silent night, Stray feet patter Along the causeways What dusky forms are those on the benches along the Embankment ? When shall Justice reign And Love be triumphant ? 68 FOR ENGLAND CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE OVER the river the dank mists lie, Where Egypt's Needle points to the sky, Looming like the phantom Shade Of kings and dynasties decayed. Ah, once in the City of the Sun The sky was blue for every one, Fifteen hundred years before The White Christ trod on the Jordan shore. Thothmes' and Ramses' sounding deeds In hieroglyph the scholar reads ; The grey gull curves with motionless wing And there is an end to everything : An end to love and an end to power, To Cleopatra's softest hour Majestic arches the river span, But there is an end to the pride of man. Syene granite shall crumble away, And whirl with the dust of yesterday But in the soul of man may be A calm not of time but eternity. FOR ENGLAND 69 THE TEMPLE GARDENS BY trysting haunt of cairn or dell The soul a wonted calm may keep : But there's a hush no tongue can tell In London, where the Templars sleep. Where Johnson talked, and Goldsmith strayed, And through the stones the platanes grow, Where Norman Round and cloistered shade Whisper of long and long ago : Of Lion-Heart and Saladin, Of Acre and of Ascalon From Whitefriars to the Strand the din And whirl of traffic hurry on. Within these ancient-timbered walls A stillness and a peace abide, And lawns are green as by the Halls Where Cam and Isis softly glide. Peace, peace awhile ! To perilous Quests The clamouring Present bids us On ! And where the turmoil never rests Stand Acre and grim Ascalon. 70 FOR ENGLAND WATERLOO BRIDGE Now lifts the light mist of the morn, The rumbling traffic rolls, The bridge across the waterway Is thronged with travelling souls. Solemn the massive Dome of Wren Looms o'er the wharves and ways, Calm with the strength of Englishmen Of the heroic days. And yonder, where the river bends Grey in the misty blur, Sombre and pinnacled arise The Towers of Westminster. A girl dropped from the Bridge last night, An old man tattered lies Stretched on the stone ; unheeding pass The inhuman destinies : The restless thralls of Mammon pass With eyes that may not scan The rounded glory of the Dome, The martyrdom of man. FOR ENGLAND 71 The traffic rumbles loud and long, All gladsome breaks the day : The mists that shroud the soul of man When will they lift away ? FOR ENGLAND STRAND-ON-THE-GREEN OLD barges that have done their day Line all along the river-way, Old houses with their memories, Old willow-stumps and tall elm-trees ; Wistaria and jessamine And ivy on the old walls twine, And old salts wearied end their days A-looking on the water-ways. On summer eves you yet may see The crane fly home laboriously ; The oast-house where the malt was dried For many a turning of the tide, Warm-tiled and turreted, wind-free ; Old England as she used to be The wicket-gate, the open door, The homely threshold whitened o'er, The trellised porch, the jutting bay, The bench to while the hours away : The cobbler at his window set Is looking o'er the rushes yet. Stra.nd-on-the-Green thou art no more, For back of thee there is the roar FOR ENGLAND 73 Of London, and thy green is gone, A thousand houses stand upon : Yet whoso treads thy pavement may Cast London half a league away, And cottage-homes and gardens fair Come stumbling over unaware, Where old wives' tales at eve are told That with the telling grow not old, And lovers of old days may yet Time's vandal footsteps half forget. 74 FOR ENGLAND ON SEEING CROMWELL'S STATUE OUTSIDE WESTMINSTER THIS man with sword and Bible shook the world, And bade the Rump and all its crew " Begone ! " And straight they went, and not a dog barked : for The nation loathed their sitting. Days so like To ours ! But the man fails us. And the Book Shakes not the soul with thunder as of yore, Nor rives like lightning from the lips of men. And that high Source, whence every Bible drew Truth's waters and shall draw them few thirst for And many deem the sullied waters fresh, Having forgotten. But the hour shall come, And, with the hour, the man and the remembrance. AUGUST, 1905 FOR ENGLAND 75 FRONTING WESTMINSTER 'GAINST the moored barges lightly lap The waters from some passing swell Of steamer with white wake ; Over the benches gently droop The platane leaves with shade. The Abbey bell tolls softly : While over the bridge and through the archways The moving panorama flows Shadowy, and the barge Lowers its tall red sail. Oh glad is light on the waters ! How it shimmers ! How it sparkles ! And oh how blue the sky, And soft the summer clouds ! And labour Under the sun how joyous ! But as I tread The stone-way by the river, By the Houses of Westminster, With the twin towers of the Abbey peering white above them ; 76 FOR ENGLAND Or lean over the parapet On the dappled waters watching the silvery- grey light ; Shattered hulks of men loom by, And women bedraggled And on the benches sleeping Awful forms I see. 77 THE LAST PARADE (THE PASSING OF THE LATE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE.) I THE charger is riderless, Saddled and prancing : The rider is low. II Minute-guns boom And thunder and shudder, While draped on a limber, A coffin passes Slow through the city To martial music ; Muffled the drums And craped all over; And on the coffin A plumed hat and baton And draped flag of Britain. 78 FOR ENGLAND III In St. Faith's Chapel, Bare and olden, Through the night stillness Grenadiers guarded Their old Commander. IV To the High Altar In the hushed Abbey they bore him, Mid tombs of the mighty ; Gleamed on crimson cushion In mellowed sunlight A coronet golden. There were gathered King and warriors, Ambassadors, Ministers, With jewelled Orders, Richly apparelled ; Veteran Chiefs FOR ENGLAND 79 To bear the pall ; Then, from trombone and trumpet, The wail of Purcell, The burst of the organ, The solemn words for the dead, The minute-bell slow tolling ; And from organ and trumpets and drums And the voice of the great congregation The soldiers' hymn Resounding strong and triumphant. VI Slow through the city A coffin passes With martial pomp And tread of columns And the Dead March thrilling strains Flash in the sunlight Cuirass and helmet; Gay plumes wave And pennons on lances craped ; And, behind the coffin, A riderless charger Follows his master Sped on his last parade. 8o FOR ENGLAND THE OLD MOTHER THE COLONIES SPEAK WE are turning our faces to the old Mother-Land, To the Home-Land that lures with the call of the sea ; From the northernmost snows to the southernmost strand, From backwood and kopje and bush and prairie ; We have felled for our clearings the forests, the sky Smiles over our tillage and wild trodden ways : All Hail, Ancient Mother ! Let us look eye to eye I We are doers of deeds at the dawning of days. We are turning our faces to the old Mother-Land, We have wandered and wandered long leagues on the sea ; We loved her and left her, and at our command The desolate places were homes for the free : For her spirit went with us, her old liberties, Her laws and her language, her deep sense of home, And we tell to our children the old memories, And they love the Old Mother wherever they roam. FOR ENGLAND 81 We are turning our faces to the old Mother-Land, We are children once more, and we lie on her knee ! Old Mother ! She loved us, but thus was she planned, She nourished within us the lure of the sea : " Ye are men, ye are grown, and the ocean-paths call, The ways that are trackless, the lands that are bare ! " So we fared, for we loved her, beyond her sea-wall, And we left the Old Mother, her burden to share. We are turning our faces to the old Mother-Land, She is waiting and watching far over the sea ; As clear are her eyes as of old when she scanned On the rim the far dawn of her high destiny : " My sons and my daughters, my hearths and my halls, My gates and my doors, they are wide to the day ; My counsels are yours, would ye heed to their calls, I will list to your tales of the Perilous Way." B.B. THE SEASONS THE SPRING! A TREMOR in the air, a hush, Expectancy of bud and wing, A brooding, and a secret stir Of life in everything. Now willows tinge a tender green While other trees are bare, The sunny side of hedge and tree Is budding everywhere. The buds are resinous, the twigs Are stiff with sap against the sky, The rooks upon the tall elms know The winter-time is by. The time of singing birds is come, Of mating and of bourgeoning, And oh for the lover and his lass The Spring ! The Spring ! The Spring ! 86 THE SEASONS THE POTTER I WATCHED a potter at his wheel Shaping dull clay to form and worth : I saw as in a parable The glory of the earth. Now all the wonder of the year Breaks at the delicate touch of Spring Who with her fingers sensitive Forms lovely everything. Spring passes with the daffodil, And Summer with the wild wild rose, And mellow Autumn's fruitage yields Her vintage to the snows : While, hidden in the desolate earth, Fell Winter's cerements conceal Spring at the central Heart, who turn? Blossomings on her wheel. THE SEASONS 87 THE BLOSSOMING YEAR BLUE-BELLS azure the wood, And the gorse is gold ; The may is drowsy-white, And the chestnut plumes are bold ; O merry merry May And light-heart June ! But the blue of the woodland fades, And proud plumes trail so soon. All the glory of life Is a summer day ; The thrush's evensong In the twilight dies away : The song the poet sings In the blossoming year Is ended, ah so soon ! And the world is too busy to hear. THE SEASONS WHEN THE CHESTNUTS BLOOM COME, when the chestnuts bloom, Or earlier when the cherry snows ! But come in the heart of June With the wild wild rose ! Come in the green of Spring Ere the wanton cuckoo's note is heard, In the hour of the daffodil And the nesting bird ! But come when the chestnuts bloom And drowsing honey-bees hum in the air ! Till the throb of the heart of June Come away, my fair ! Come with the wild wild rose Till the corn burns gold to the sunlit day From the Spring to the crown of the year, My fair one, come away ! THE SEASONS 89 WILD ROSE LET the wild rose live its life, For, ah, it fades so soon ! And on the lap of this green earth It is not always June. It is not always blue o' the sky Nor always blue o' the sea : Let the wild rose live its life Wherever it may be ! Let the petals crimson-flushed Fall another day ! Let it feel the throb of June In its wild sweet way ! Every lad and every lass Underneath the blue, From the heart of this good earth Joy is calling you. 90 THE SEASONS SIC TRANSIT LIKE the wild rose on the hedge-row Like the rainbow i' the rain, Is all that the heart desireth Of life that is woven with pain. June is away with the roses, The shower is over and gone, The bow on the black cloud breaketh Leaving the cloud alone. Like a warm mist over the river On summer eves that die, Like the elms that brood in the shadows That over the waters lie, Is all that the heart desireth Of life shot through with pain Like the wild rose on the hedge-row, Like the rainbow i' the rain. THE SEASONS 91 STILL WATERS IN Summer, when the sun is low, By the still water-ways I go ; And, oh, the drip of oars is sweet After the traffic of the street ! I glide by banks that wind and wind, With meadow-grass and bushes lined ; In all the world there seems to be Nothing but water, sky, and me, And far-off shadowy trees that brood, Drowsy in twilight solitude. How wonderful the water is ! The blue how deep with mysteries ! On me the calm of all descends ; By willow-ways the water bends ; A bat flits to and fro ; and I Float in the dusk the rushes by. THE SEASONS AUTUMN Now Autumn with the yellow leaf And nipping time is here, The stubble barren of the sheaf Dies in the waning year. It reddens down the hawthorn way, And scarlet is the briar, But, ah, the roses and the may I' the Land o' Heart's Desire ! While, with the burden of the years Old faiths flush out and die, And with unutterable fears Hope's chilly furrows lie. The stalwart sowers forth they go With measured stride and swing, But, ah, what racking winds shall blow Ere bourgeoneth the Spring ! THE SEASONS 93 JACK FROST A BITE of frost in the morning air, The slant sun dazzling everywhere, The grass-blades bearded white with rime Oh keen of heart is the young winter-time ! A lad's hoop rings on the road to school, His cheeks ablaze like the logs of Yule ; The beech-nuts shiver and patter down, And the leaves, the leaves are yellow and brown. And nipped is the ripening blackberry When lusty Jack Frost goes to battle with glee With the old Lord Sun in the white-blue sky, And blustering-bold is his battle-cry. There's a time for Summer, a time for Spring, A time for Autumn a-mellowing, A time for Youth, and a time for Age, And a time for turning the very last page. But glad is the frosty light of day, And you'd best blow your nails, lad, while you may For Summer or Winter, east or west, The moment that passes not is best. 94 THE SEASONS MIST-BOUND BROWN leaves of Summer gone, Ye rustle as I tread, And white mists veil the hills Like shrouds above the dead. No song of bird on bough, No break of boundless blue, Only the mist-bound earth, Brown leaves, for me and you ! Only the stain of time For the soul that will not know Limit or bond or change Whereunto all things go : Till on this veiled earth Love all her radiance pour, And bourn and fate and death Vanish for evermore. THE SEASONS TREES THE trees are beautiful in spring with the fresh green of the year, And pleasant is the chestnut shade when the summer noon is here, But when autumn glories robe the woods and the creeper on the wall, Oh, then I think the human folk they love trees most of all. But there are those who walk alone in winter solitudes, Who love the bark-stripped, mottled plane when not a leaf obtrudes, Who love the starkest soul of things and the truth as it is most bare, And gnarled oaks, naked against the wind, storm- wrested everywhere. 96 THE SEASONS FOG THE trees in the mist are weird and bare A nip of winter is in the air; The birds have never a song to sing, And sad is the heart of everything. The hedges are wet as they can be, And shiver with rain-drops icily ; The sun might never be in the sky When over the land the grey mists lie. But if the sun were never at all I should not see the grey mists fall, I should not see the ploughman stride, Looming over the dark hedge side. And on the pathway, sombre and slow, Shadows of men they come and go Out of the shrouded land afar, Pilgriming where no grey mists are : Where the sun and the morning star and moon With the merriest earth are ever in tune; Where for birds and for corn it is always spring, And glad is the heart of everything. POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL B.B. TWILIGHT ON THE CURRAGH ROSY-TINTED day On the curragh dies : One lone curlew moans Through the skies. Rushy pools are still : All of shadow made, Seaward curragh lands Stretch and fade. Mist and cloud and sky, Bush and darksome mere, In the twilight grey Disappear. One lone curlew moans Over land and sea : Soon he too shall rest, Night, with thee. Rosy-tinted day On the curragh dies : Over sea and hill Shadow lies. 99 ioo POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL THE WIND IN THE TREES THE wind is in the trees to-day, The branching elms are all at play ; The oak, the ash, and the bold beech-tree, They stretch their arms to the wind with glee. For they love the music of the storm, When the surging fugues roll uniform, As the waves love the rhythmic monotone Of the wind on the sea-shore all alone. The silvern birch and the poplar slim, The dark-crowned pine with his far-flung limb, The chestnut, the aspen, the willow, the plane, Oh, they are glad in the wind again ! The rooks and the starlings, all together, Flurry and whirl in the windy weather ; While over the tree-tops in the sky The fleet clouds scatter and swirl and fly. Where do they come from and where do they go, And where, oh, where, does the wild wind blow ? Out of the softest breeze that played In the aspen are the whirlwinds made : POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL 101 Out of the faintest skein of cloud Are the black murk and the thunders loud But what care the trees as they swing and they sway, For oh, they are glad in the wind to-day ! 102 POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL THE IMMORTAL PART HER eyes like the blue speedwell smile, Soft to the blue of day, Yet, though earth's loveliness beguile, Their look is far away. For sunlit isles without a shade, And love without a tear, Is she, my little wistful maid, My blue-eyed flower so dear. And could I love as I would do, She should not ever die, For not a cloud should cross the blue Of still deeps in her eye. Ah, more to me than life and death, And precious things that fade, The immortal part that beckoneth Me and my blue-eyed maid 1 POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL 103 THE LORD OF EVERYTHING MY little wife, she does not know Why things are ever so and so : But she is wise and she is good And she is gentle womanhood. For she by intuition reads A deeper lore than all the creeds, And all the blue of all the skies Is not so tender as her eyes. Her every motion is of grace, And home to me is holy place, Yet could I often weep to see How wistfully she looks on me. She little recks of books or art, For she of Nature is a part : And she and all about her sing Love is the Lord of everything. 104 POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL THE ROSE ETERNAL LITTLE wife, I would that thou Hadst no care upon thy brow, Just a laughing winsome maid Ah, why will the wild rose fade ? Yet remembering, loving yet, With thy dark-lashed eyes dew-wet, For the new love and the old Thou art brave and thou art bold. Little wife, thy love shall stay Round about me every day, And my love to thee shall bring All the blossomings of Spring. Little sweetheart, fortune-barred, Frail, so frail, for lot so hard ! In the heart there fall no snows, Blooms eternally my rose. POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL 105 WILD ROSE I LOVED a wayside blossom, I loved it oh so dear, As wild it bloomed and careless Under the heavens clear ; All in a sweet-breathed country Under the blue of the sky: I took it home to cherish, I took it home to die. It paled and drooped and withered, And no more looked at me : It left its life behind it Upon a briar tree. The sun had flushed and kissed it, And all my skies were grey : I would I had not seen it Upon a summer day. 106 POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL THE EVERLASTING HILLS I AM a child of the hills and the sky, But dwell in the peopled plains : My native longings are mountain-high, Far from the hedges and lanes. The hedges and lanes are pleasant and fair Where the nestling homesteads brood : Homelier to me is the mountain air And the soul in its solitude. POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL 107 A REFORMER A LOVER of the old-world mellowed things And ruddy flush of years, But fated to the new-world venturings And travailings and fears : Who liefer, in that olden world withdrawn, Had felt the sunset glow, Than known, ere yet the twilight of the dawn, This new world's heart of woe. io8 POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL TO WILLIAM WATSON HIGH on the mountains by the heather bloom, Or boulders naked to the unflinching sky, Or stilly tarn's unruffled secrecy, The soul for its vast solitudes has room ; The knell of incommunicable doom Is heard there only mighty empires die, While, on the plains, the heedless passer-by Hears not, nor bodes the impenetrable gloom. O singer of the mountain and the height Descend, and plunge thy plummet in the deep Of hearts where loves unutterable sleep And unextinguished hates ! Then thou shalt tell The bodings, and our ears shall harken well. Oh, save us from the overwhelming night ! POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL 109 ETERNITY WE dream of Eldorados far And life that is to be : Poor fools, from morn till even-star We let the Moment flee. We sigh for Eden long ago And Heaven that is not yet : Poor fools, from morn till even-glow The Present we forget. no POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL DREAMS THE things I would have done ! The things I dreamed to do ! But now the course is run, And none of the dreams are true. None of the dreams, not one ! And yet they called so clear : The things that I had done Made me too sad to hear. POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL in IRONSIDES THERE were Ironsides in the olden days When the Old Book was young, And its Horeb thunders shook the soul In the homely Saxon tongue ; They gave their treasure and their blood For the truth that maketh free : But that was in the olden days Or ever we came to be. There were Ironsides in the olden days, But the Old Book is old, For bat-eyed priests have blotted out The spell of its morning-gold : And the Horeb thunders are heard no more Of the truth that maketh free, As once in the old heroic days Or ever we came to be. ii2 POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL AT THE FORGE THE lightning comes before the light In Thor's sledge-hammer way, And Chaos must be forged to Right Ere dawns the brighter day. Thus Beauty's softest whisperings Are beaten out of Wrong : At every blow the anvil rings With passion of the strong. POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL 113 HOME A COTTAGE under my own woodside, And kine upon the meadow grass, Were heaven enough for a lad like me, And heaven enough for my light-heart lass. But the moan of the wild world came my way, The pitiless cry of the oppressed : And I left the kine on the green upland, And under the woodside my haven of rest. B.B. H4 POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL I HAD A LOVER I HAD a lover : he is dead ! I had a lover long ago ! The thrush at even sings, and I Sing in the after-glow. Last song of day ! The tall elms brood Vaguely above the mowing grass, And with the sombring shadows soon Our twilight song will pass. Green were the heart-leaves of the lime, And golden with the sun-lit glow. I had a lover : he is dead ! I had a lover long ago. POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL 115 PARTING O PITY, pity, love not so ! Farewell ! Farewell ! Though our hearts break, I yet must go Farewell ! Stand cold and passionless, and steel Thy heart with fate ! And let us seem to cease to feel ! Too late ! Ah, cling not, cling not ! Must I tear Those arms apart ! Ah, sob not, sob not to despair ! My heart ! Forget me ! Would I could forget ! Thy memory Will haunt me. Nor shall dull regret Spare thee. n6 POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL AFTER SCHOOL WHEN all the lessons are ended And the books are put away, I shall be going home, lads, For a long holiday. I am weary -worn of striving ; I have read life's darkest page ; And the sum of all man's wisdom Is this, from age to age : 'Mid the searching out and sorrowing, And the toiling and the strife, When all the lessons are ended, Love is the wage of life. When the twilight shadows lengthen, Toward even still and cool, Sweet Mother, come and welcome Your little lad from school. POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL 117 ON SALE! IN open market-place I stood And showed my wares for men to buy, Soul-stuffs for utter hardihood They heedless passed me by. Some trafficked with the brood of lies, And some had human souls to sell : The people gazed with lustful eyes Upon the wares of hell. Haply some wistful lad forlorn, Unspotted of the sullied mart, Would buy my songs untimely born, And I was glad at heart. n8 POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL THE VOICE OF ONE I MADE me a Song of Words, And it rang out brave and true ; In lilt and fibre and fashioning The soul of a man shone through. But none gave heed on the mart, None heard on the silent plain, And mine was the boding voice of one Who cried in the desert again. I made me a Song of Deeds, And no man bruited it wide, But safe in the desolate cold earth The hopes of the harvest hide. And the notes of the song I sang Were heard on the mart and plain; For they were at one with the Song of Life That throbs in heart and brain. POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL 119 THE PLOUGHERS THEY ploughed deep furrows in my soul And scars of ancient wrong : Yet purposeful to make me whole The kindly Powers were strong. And in the waning of the year They harrowed me with pain : I nurtured seedlings to the ear And I was whole again. 120 POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL TO MR. GEORGE CADBURY WHILE others with their gold crushed Love and Beauty, Square-jawed, with ruthless will, You, pitying men, held it to be your duty To raise them still. Fair cottage-homes, a garden- land of flowers, And a clean Press, the Guardian of the Age, More than our thanks and the rich crown of hours These are your wage. POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL 121 IN MEMORIAM IF any would remember me at all When my short day is done, Two things I loved may, haply, still recall Me and the sun. The far-flung pine that overlooks the plain, Dark-crowned, and challenging The winds, the clouds, the thunders, and the rain Where no birds sing. The silvern birch, the Lady, dainty-fair, Of hedge-row and of glade, Dapple and glint astraying in her hair For dalliance made. If any, haply, would not quite forget That I was wont to be : The gaunt pine holds my spirit, the birch yet The human heart of me. 122 POEMS CHIEFLY LYRICAL THINGS BEFORE WORDS THE great words never were writ, The great songs never were sung : They that were greatest did their deed Without the pen or tongue. The word from a heart of flame Blazed and flickered and died; The moving song the minstrel sang Passed with the time and tide. But the words that never were writ, And the songs that never were sung, In the silent hearts of heroes wrought Without the pen or tongue. Instead of the word a deed, Instead of the song a man : The things that are greatest were fashioned thus Since the world began. Life is a Bridge : pass over it, but build not houses upon it." Old Saying. BY THE SAME PUBLISHER. THE ROAD-MAKERS AND OTHER POEMS B 7 HARROLD JOHNSON In cloth ; 136 pp. ; 2s. 6d. net. DAVID NUTT, 57-59, Long Acre, London, W.C. The Road-Makers is divided into six sections. The first section is headed " Poems of Labour, Home and Country," and opens with the title poem. Among the series are four poems suggested by the paintings of J. F. Millet : The Angelus, The Sower, The Gleaners, and A Woman Sewing by Lamplight. The second section. "The House of Life," was suggested by the symbolical paintings of the late G. F. Watts, O.M., and was considered by him the most adequate literary expression of those paintings. The third section consists of sonnets suggested by the frescoes of Puvis de Chavannes in the Boston Public Library, United States of America. These are entitled Enlighten- ment, Epic Poetry (Homer), Dramatic Poetry (Mschy- lus, Prometheus) Pastoral Poetry (Vergil), Philosophy (Plato], stronomy (Chaldceans), History, Physics and Chemistry. The fourth section, "Fair Women," is comprised of lyrics suggested by nine of Shake- speare's women, Goethe's Margaret, and Francesca da Rimini. The fifth section is a series of six sonnets. The sixth section consists mainly of lyrics, some fifty in all, the earlier ones devoted to Nature. MR. G. F. WATTS, O.M., writes of " The House of Life," a series of poems included in the collection, suggested by his symbolical paintings : " I have had many literary and poetical translations of my pictures sent to me from time to time, but I may say that none have seemed to me so much in keeping with the work as your ' House of Life.' I greatly like the ring of the old Celtic poetry." SOME PRESS NOTICES : " In an age of overcrowding, literary as well as social, it is refreshing to turn to a book of verse where you may feel the ' breath of the wind coming up with the sun from the sea,' and catch the whiff of good, green, English turf. . . . The poem that gives its name to the collection strikes the note of freshness and gaiety that rings in nearly all the lyrics. ... A volume of so much promise has stimulated our curiosity for the next." DAILY NEWS, November 25, 1903. " The future has inspired his most successful poem, The Church of Man to Come, which, is fine in Emerson's style, though not so near to prose. ... A sonnet on Homer is another of his strong poems ; and Creation and the Road- Makers have something sublime in them that touches the mind as none of the nimbler writers can ever do. . . . We think that Mr. Johnson is capable of achievements in verse which Emerson was too busy or too careless to attempt." DAILY CHRONICLE, August i, 1903. " Strength and simplicity of diction unite. . . . The work bespeaks a mind tenderly and sympathetically appreciative of the beautiful in nature and art, and the book should not fail to please any lover of poetry who takes it up". SCOTS- MAN, June ii, 1903. " Mr. Harrold Johnson has affinities with the great poets of democracy, with Walt Whitman and Edward Carpenter." NEW AGE, June 16, 1903. "One of the many preludes to the strong poetry that is on the way and is sure to come." UNITY (Chicago), December 31. 1903. "His Millet series, The Sower, The Angelas, The Gleaners, will stand comparison with Markham's Man with the Hoe. When Edwin Markham clasped hands with Harrold Johnson on this side of the Atlantic he welcomed a kindred spirit." IMPRESSIONS (San Francisco). UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. l\' Form L9-37m-3,'57(C5424s4)444 PR 6019 J629b UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL UBRARY FACILITY A 000 864 465