LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 

POEMS, LYRICS, AND SONNETS, 
 
POEMS, LYRICS, AND 
 SONNETS. 
 
 L. S. BEVINGTON, 
 
 sfc^ berger. . 
 
 AUTHOR OF "KEY-NOTES," ETC. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 
 1882. 
 
I. 
 
 " IT is not style or rhymes or a new image more or less that 
 imports, but sanity. . . . When life is true to the poles of nature, 
 the streams of truth will roll through us in song. ... In good 
 society, nay, among the angels in heaven, is not everything spoken 
 in fine parable, and not so servilely as it befell to the sense ? . . . 
 
 The solid men complain that the idealist leaves out the 
 fundamental facts ; the poet complains that the solid men leave out 
 the sky. To every plant there are two powers ; one shoots down as 
 rootlet, and one upward as tree. You must have eyes of science to 
 see in the seed its nodes ; you must have the vivacity of the poet to 
 perceive in the thought its futurities." EMERSON. 
 
 n. 
 
 " BUT now I let the aching splendour go, 
 I dare not call the crowned angels peers, 
 Henceforth ! I am content to dwell below, 
 'Mid common joys, with humble smiles and tears, 
 Delighted in the sun and breeze to grow, 
 A child of human hopes and human fears. " 
 
 WATHEN MARK WILKS CALL. 
 
 in. 
 
 "LEBEN ist jedoch des Lebens hochstes Ziel 
 Und immer ist die arme Kunst gezwungen 
 Zu bettlen von des Lebens Ueberfluss." 
 
 192508 
 
TO c. A. v. 
 
 Not that the theme is worthy, nor the lay 
 
 Such as your heart would have, one time in three ; 
 Yet, battling, I would chaunt of victory 
 
 All life's night through : though dubious dream of day 
 
 Scarcely suffices me to shed one ray 
 
 O'er the fierce field where you must fighting be ; 
 Yet you have brought a little sword to me 
 
 Of strange new metal that 2 would essay. 
 
 And thanks are due. So thank I you in songs, 
 And having sung, may turn me hence, to strive 
 What time strength stays with me alert, alive, 
 To right some trifle of the nighfs dumb wrongs ; 
 And if through minstrelsy one plea may thrive, 
 
 Jo you memorial gratitude belongs. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 POEMS AND LYRICS. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 1C 
 
 
 2^ 
 
 PENT 
 
 32 
 
 WRESTLING .... 
 
 . - . 33 
 
 BEES IN CLOVER . . 
 
 . . . 34 
 
 WHITHER? .... 
 
 .... 37 
 
 YOUR TREASURE 
 
 38 
 
 THE PESSIMIST 
 
 ... . 43 
 
 STEEL OR GOLD (A QUESTION) . ... * . 5j 
 
 GOLD AND STEEL (THE ANSWER) . . . . . 55 
 
 TILL THE MIST PASSES . . . . . . . 56 
 
 THE POET'S TEAR ........ 59 
 
 CLOUD-CLIMBING . ...... . . 6l 
 
 O YE JOYS ! . . . . ..... 63 
 
 " EGOISME A DEUX " . ... . . . . . 67 
 
 VALUATION ......... 68 
 
 THEN AND NOW ......... 69 
 
 THREE ....... ... 71 
 
1 2 Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 UNPERFECTED ... 76 
 
 PERFECTED 77 
 
 NOT YE WHO GOAD .... ... 78 
 
 STANZAS 80 
 
 A DISMISSAL 8l 
 
 HOPE DEFERRED ........ 83 
 
 HOPE PREFERRED . 84 
 
 THE SCEPTIC 85 
 
 THE UNPARDONABLE SIN . . . . . . 9? 
 
 HATED . . . 100 
 
 " LET THERE BE LIGHT " IO2 
 
 THE LIFE-POWER . . 1 03 
 
 HOW DO I KNOW? . .105 
 
 STANZA 107 
 
 MY LITTLE TASK . . IOS 
 
 "MERLE WOOD" no 
 
 THE POET, AND HIS INTERPRETERS 112 
 
 LOVE AND LANGUAGE . . . . . . . 1 17 
 
 AT SABBATH DAWN Il8 
 
 TELL ME 1 20 
 
 WHY? . 121 
 
 MEASUREMENTS . . 123 
 
 RELIGION (AN ESSAY IN COUPLETS) 124 
 
 THROUGH (A VISION OF VICTORY) 127 
 
Contents. 1 3 
 
 H. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 WITHOUT REGRET ........ 139 
 
 LOVE'S HEIGHT ........ 140 
 
 LOVE'S DEPTH ......... 141 
 
 HER WORST AND BEST ....... 142 
 
 POOR LISA . . . . . ..... 143 
 
 AM I TO LOSE YOU ? ....... 144 
 
 LOVE'S ETHIC ......... 145 
 
 YE POETS ......... 146 
 
 TO A CRITIC .... ..... 147 
 
 ONE MORE BRUISED HEART ! ...... 148 
 
 POET TO POET ......... 149 
 
 AT MY WORD . . ...... . 150 
 
 DREAM-LOVE . . . . . . . . 151 
 
 ONE NEW YEAR'S EVE ....... 152 
 
 I. MAN VERSUS ASCETIC ...... -153 
 
 in. ,, ,, ....... I SS 
 
 iv. ...... 156 
 
 v. ....... 157 
 
 vi. ,, ...... 158 
 
 FOR FREEDOM'S SAKE ....... 159 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 POEMS AND LYRICS. 
 
 SUBH-I-KAZIB.* 
 
 i. 
 
 SEE where the man wakes late from his dreaming, 
 Late in the night from the sleep that has been ; 
 See where regret weeps sick for the seeming, 
 
 See where the soul shrinks chill from the seen : 
 
 The full warm visions that promised to ease him, 
 
 That held for some dream-sake his heart in a 
 
 chain, 
 
 These have rolled from his waking, to chasten and 
 please him 
 
 Never again. 
 
 * Subh-i-Kazib (Arabic) : a poetical name for a transient light 
 which appears in the east about an hour before the dawn. 
 
1 6 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 ii. 
 
 The man wakes late from the dream of his youth - 
 
 time, 
 
 Wakes him to know that he knows he is man ; 
 Wakes in the dark of a fathomless truth-time, 
 
 Clutched by the cold of a cosmical plan ; 
 Sure it is only the glamour that's going, 
 
 Sure that the dark has been there from the 
 
 first ; 
 
 Nothing has changed save his dream into knowing, 
 
 Sure of the worst. 
 
 in. 
 
 Ever the cold of the night all about him 
 Mocks at his passionate prayer to prevail ; 
 
 Ever the silence of world-work without him 
 Leaves him permission to conquer or fail : 
 
 Fail for the sake of the fervour of loving, 
 Conquer for name of the love of the right ; 
 
 Never a god-glance to mark the approving, 
 
 Only the night. 
 
Subh-i-Kazib. 1 7 
 
 IV. 
 
 Oh, for the warmth of the sun in a vision ! 
 
 Oh, for the vision of suns out of view ! 
 Oh, for the pledge that the infinite prison 
 Where bound are the suns, there may spirits 
 
 break through ! 
 High in the north of the sky, ever steady, 
 
 A pole-star stands in the whirl of the dark, 
 A sun hung far at waste and unready, 
 
 Less than a spark. 
 
 v. 
 
 Low in the east of the sky is a glimmer, 
 Dawn or false dawn in a piteous show ; 
 
 Dimmer the stars are, dimmer and dimmer, 
 Why has the dawn not a homelier glow ? 
 
 Oh, the late night is all pallid and eerie ! 
 Oh, the old dreams were familiar and kind i 
 
 Woe to the man that he wakes him aweary, 
 
 Blinder than blind. 
 

 1 8 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Breathes there a sigh from the transient pallor ? 
 Yearns there a whisper from heaven's new 
 
 sheen ? 
 Comes there a hope to inspire him to valour 
 
 Echoed from edge of the sleep that has been ? 
 How on the grey fields find him fruition ? 
 
 How in the stark frost rouse him to move ? 
 How in the thin white light of perdition 
 
 Find him a love ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 Fears he a falsity hinting of morning, 
 Echoed of genii 'twixt mutter and grin ; 
 
 Shivers his spirit, and takes for a warning 
 Light that is sunless, and hope that is sin. 
 
 Shall there be wailing, or shall there be drinking ? 
 Shall there be mercy, or shall there be hate ? 
 
 Shall there be eagerness freed from the thinking ? 
 
 What is the fate ? 
 
Subh-i-Kazib. 1 9 
 
 VIII. 
 
 See, as he watches, that dawn before dawning 
 Streams to wild apex against the high dark ; 
 
 Faint, whence the starless abysses are yawning, 
 Cries the far herald " Arouse ye, and hark ! " 
 
 Strained is his soul to the voice of the message, 
 New to his ear is the tone of the cry ; 
 
 Strained is his sight to interpret the presage 
 
 There in the sky. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Glimmer there is, but a glimmer that goeth, 
 The faint false morning that owns not a sun ; 
 
 Yet he can see by it ; ay, and it showeth 
 Far are the sands of the night-time run ; 
 
 Darkness will swallow the shine for an hour 
 A black last hour ere the true day be 
 
 Lo ! the man searches to pluck him a flower 
 
 While he can see. 
 
2O Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 x. 
 
 Total the pressure no impulse that knoweth, 
 Forth from loose elements onward to life, 
 
 Stress to be one, that asunder yet throweth, 
 Stress to prevail in an infinite strife ; 
 
 Blind is the wind that brings thistledown hither, 
 Numb is the sod where the thistledown roots, 
 
 Deaf are the rainfloods that water or wither 
 
 Where the plant shoots. 
 
 XI. 
 
 What does the man find, prize of his waking, 
 Said by the silence, shown by the dark ? 
 
 What is the meaning beyond his mistaking ? 
 What is the mute aim worthy his mark ? 
 
 Infinite ages through infinite travail 
 
 Have brought him afire and aware and aghast, 
 
 And awfully bid him a dream to unravel 
 
 Here at the last. 
 
Subh-i-Kazib. 2 1 
 
 XII. 
 
 Driven a centre of life into loving, 
 Driven through fury of love into sin, 
 
 Driven of sin into direst reproving, 
 Driven by bitterness sorrow to win ; 
 
 Atoms must be, if the atoms shall mingle ;. 
 Prosper the unit or prosper the clan ? 
 
 What is the man's life ? cosmical ? single ? 
 
 Who is the man ? 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Claim of a universe simple of tissue 
 Ever to break into multiple mind ; 
 
 Clash of all units to mix and bear issue, 
 Jangle of fetters that sunder and bind ; 
 
 Strong is the stress of the life and the moving, 
 One is the blindness and one is the might, 
 
 Complex the suffering, scattered the proving, 
 
 Diverse the right. 
 
22 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 If there be victory, who shall declare it ? 
 
 Victor or vanquished ? and what of the claim ? 
 Is there a boon, will he treasure or spare it ? 
 
 Shall he fight hardiest for love or for fame ? 
 What though the plaint of his heart unavailing 
 
 Deaden to silence of passionate will, 
 Shall he not firmlier fight for prevailing ? 
 
 Conqueror still ? 
 
 xv. 
 
 Ha ! there is light, though it warms but a little ; 
 
 Ha ! there is morning, though naked and cold ; 
 Waking be welcome, for visions are brittle ; 
 
 Patience, ye prophets ! ye heroes, be bold ! 
 Lo ! the distress, the despair, the aloneness, 
 
 Fire of blind forces and cold of the soul, 
 Till the torn world grope back to its oneness, 
 
 Warm with the whole. 
 
' 
 
 THE VALLEY OF REMORSE. 
 
 THERE goes a wandering soul in desert places ; 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 About its way lie dumb, with livid faces, 
 Slain virtues and slain hopes in locked embraces ; 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
 And drear black crags tower from unholy ground 
 Sheer upward in thick air, 
 Where breathes no prayer ; 
 No wind is there, 
 No sound ; 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
 And there is no way out, and round and round, 
 With haggard eye and dragged and staggering 
 
 paces, 
 Through years that soul a ghastly circuit traces. 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
 The sun, all shorn of rays, with lurid fire 
 Blasts where it strikes : Doom's own red eye of 
 ire : 
 
24 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 And all night long is seen unhallowed shimmer, 
 Half life, half mire, 
 
 Of things made manifest that should be hid ; 
 Yet Will is numb that should their play forbid ; 
 4nd so they crowd and crawl in gloom and 
 
 glimmer, 
 
 Loathed and unchid ; 
 
 And lo ! that soul among them, moving dimmer. 
 (Good Lord, deliver \) 
 
 At the soul's back behold a burden yonder, 
 
 A monstrous thing of slime ; 
 
 Two paces forth, no more, that Doomed may 
 
 wander 
 
 For all its time ; 
 
 Two wretched paces from the accursed weight 
 Bound on by linked fate 
 In glittering cynic chain two steps behind it ; 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 Such steely bond between 
 Forbids it breath, save only to remind it 
 The Past has been, 
 The Past of sin. 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
The Valley of Remorse. 25 
 
 Ay ! just where life is holiest at the source 
 Of the soft, ruffled wings, is chained the curse. 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver!) 
 
 Those pinions, once all light and wide of feather 
 That soared right loftily, see, clamped together ; 
 And quivering life is galled at the spot, 
 Sore hurt and hot : 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
 Yet, chafes that soul rebellious at the tether ? 
 Or, in vain swiftness seeks to flee the load ? 
 Then heavier fall the blood-drops on the road : 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
 The loathed burden of unburied death 
 
 Flies fast as flies that Doomed, or drags as slow ; 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 Two paces forward ever it may go ; 
 No more ; the burden grimly followeth. 
 There is no freedom here, 
 Nor any cheer ! 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 Not lightened yet to skeleton, nor dried, 
 The load yields horror, horror yet beside ; 
 
26 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Fell fumes, half poison and half sustenance, 
 That hinder life, and hinder deathly trance. 
 Is there a chance ? 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver!) 
 
 Three virgin forms came passing by but lately, 
 Treading the desert boldly and sedately, 
 Calling it ' beauteous earth ' ; 
 Who met this Doomed, and gazed upon it 
 straightly; 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver!) 
 
 These saw no burden, so they praised the chain ; 
 Its treacherous glitter seemed some bauble worn 
 About the winged shoulders to adorn. 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
 They noted on the path no shocking stain, 
 
 So, as the soul made moan, 
 
 Knowing no whit of conflict nor of pain, 
 
 Deemed it most vain ; 
 
 And answered in gay tone 
 
 " Now Heaven deliver thee, 
 
The Valley of Remorse. 2 7 
 
 Spirit alone ! 
 
 Why grievest thou when every bird is singing, 
 And glad white cloudlets high in ether winging 
 Brighten e'en sunshine ? Hear the steeples ringing 
 With marriage mirth ! 
 Behold life blest with love and holiday 
 While thou art stricken, bent, and wan to see ; 
 Good Lord, deliver thee ! " 
 
 All mutely points that soul beyond the chain 
 
 Two paces backward ; points in vain, in vain ; 
 
 Who sees not, cannot aid. 
 
 Oh, kind, unkindly virgin sympathy ! 
 
 Oh, blind, hell-deepening heavenly mockery ! 
 
 What though each maid 
 
 Had pitied had she seen ; not one could see, 
 
 Not one of three. 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
 They passed, and music with them. Then there 
 
 came 
 
 Three little children, joying e'en the same, 
 Yet sweetlier still. They called the desert " May." 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
28 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 " Come play with us at play ; 
 
 Blue skies and meadows green are friends to-day ; 
 
 Spread thy good wings, that we may mount 
 
 thereon 
 
 And seek of all the clouds the whitest one 
 To tiptoe on its top toward the sun ; 
 And prove whose sight is strongest ! 
 And who can gaze the longest ! 
 Our little eyes are clear, 
 Young, but so clear ! 
 
 In each of thine there trembles half a tear ! 
 Ah! fun!- 
 
 We see where thou canst see not ; in the eye 
 Of the great golden sun that crowns the sky ! " 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
 A mother and a father wandered by: 
 
 Hand locked in hand. " This way the children 
 
 went," 
 
 Quoth he, " on some enchanting mischief bent ; 
 Behold, their little footprints thickly lie." 
 " Bless them!" quoth she: then closer to his 
 
 side 
 
 Drew shudderingly : " An influence is here, 
 Here in the air ; the sunlight seemeth drear ; 
 
The Valley of Remorse. 29 
 
 Oh, lead me hence ! " And he : 
 
 (t 'Tis so ; I see a form unmeet to see 
 
 Advancing painfully. 
 
 Oh, fear! 
 
 Lest the sweet babies lingered near the spot, 
 
 For something foul doth surely somewhere rot ; 
 
 It boots not to know what. 
 
 Hence ! spirit dear." 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
 Maiden and babe and mother have passed by 
 
 Scatheless, yet left the doom-glare red and high 
 
 Above that blackened valley of all dole, 
 
 Nor freed the laden soul. 
 
 Crawl, ye foul formless ills ! about your prey ; 
 
 Sink, O thrice lost ! forsaken on the way ; 
 
 Perish from day ! 
 
 Since thrice hath passed in vain the innocent, 
 
 And hope is long, long spent, 
 
 And will is rent. 
 
 (Good Lord ! Great God! deliver! deliver!) 
 
30 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Lo ! Love comes wandering on the desert way. 
 Oh, watch ! oh, pray ! 
 Love with the rose-wreath red ? 
 Ay, love rose-bound ! 
 Ay, love thorn-crowned ! 
 
 Crowned bound with cruel rose-thorns round 
 his head ! 
 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
 Love ! love is here ! that knoweth of all pain, 
 And of the linked chain, 
 And of the stain, 
 
 And of the whirling madness, dumb and dread ; 
 Love ! love is here that knoweth nought in vain ! 
 Dead hope, dead will, oh ! cry 
 Aloud ! Love passeth by ; 
 Love, that can love dead life to live again ! 
 (Good Lord, deliver !) 
 
 New radiance hallows all the sickened air; 
 
 For love is here. 
 
 And right and left spring lilies at his nod, 
 
 Blessing the blighted sod ; 
 
 For love is here. 
 
The Valley of Remorse. 3 1 
 
 And round the gaunt crags echo of deep prayer 
 Is sighing everywhere, 
 Is sighing everywhere ! 
 For love is here. 
 
 (Deliver! Lord, deliver!) 
 
 Kneels that worn soul, for all the place is holy ; 
 Breaks that sore heart, in utterance lost and lowly; 
 " For Love's dear sake, great Powers, deliver me ! 
 O LOVE, deliver me ! " 
 
 A little bird sweet twitters in a tree ; 
 
 A little breeze comes coolly from the sea ; 
 
 And broad the dawn-light widens o'er the lea. 
 
PENT. 
 
 TAKE me to some waste of being, 
 Virgin spaces, dark and far, 
 
 Seas no vessel ever burdened, 
 Skies that never held a star ; 
 
 There, my inmost soul all weeping, 
 
 I may loose for Being's keeping 
 
 Strange, abysmal thoughts that are. 
 
 Let me stand, alone, unguarded, 
 
 On some crag where fierce floods beat ; 
 
 Let hoarse tempest crash and echo, 
 Storm-fire lick about my feet ; 
 
 In the hollow air of thunder 
 
 I may shout my soul asunder, 
 One pent syllable repeat. 
 
 Let me sink where waves are deepest, 
 
 Die from memory and air ; 
 Let effacing billows deafen 
 
 Question, when I lived, or where ; 
 Only first be mine to murmur 
 Thrice, and ever fiercely firmer, 
 
 For I must one life-pent prayer. 
 
WRESTLING. 
 
 OUR oneness is the wrestlers', fierce and close, 
 
 Thrusting and thrust ; 
 One life in dual effort for one prize, 
 
 We fight, and must; 
 For soul with soul does battle evermore 
 
 Till love be trust. 
 
 Our distance is love's severance ; sense divides, 
 
 Each is but each ; 
 Never the very hidden spirit of thee 
 
 My life doth reach ; 
 Twain ! since we love athwart the gulf that needs 
 
 Kisses and speech. 
 
 Ah ! wrestle closelier ! we draw nearer so 
 
 Than any bliss 
 
 Can bring twain souls who would be whole 
 and one, 
 
 Too near to kiss : 
 To be one thought, one voice before we die, 
 
 Wrestle for this. 
 
BEES IN CLOVER. 
 
 A SONG. 
 
 UP the dewy slopes of morning 
 
 Follow me ; 
 Every smoky spy-glass scorning, 
 
 Look and see, look and see 
 How the simple sun is rising, 
 Not approving nor despising 
 
 You and me. 
 
 Hear not those who bid you wait 
 Till they find the sun's birth-date, 
 Preaching children, savage sages, 
 To their mouldy, blood-stuck pages 
 And the quarrelling of ages, 
 Leave them all ; and come and see 
 Just the little honied clover, 
 
Bees in Clover. 35 
 
 As the winging music-bees 
 Come in busy twos and threes 
 
 Humming over ! 
 All without a theory 
 Quite successfully, you see ; 
 Little priests that wed the flowers, 
 Little preachers in their way, 
 Through the sunny working day 
 With their quite unconscious powers 
 How they say their simple say. 
 
 What ? a church-bell in the valley ? 
 What ? a wife-shriek in the alley ? 
 Tune the bell a little better, 
 Help the woman bear her fetter, 
 
 All in time ! all in time ! 
 If you will but take your fill 
 Of the dawn-light on the hill, 
 And behold the dew-gems glisten, 
 If you turn your soul to listen 
 
 To the bees among the thyme, 
 There may chance a notion to you 
 To encourage and renew you, 
 For the doing and the speaking, 
 
 Ere the jarring of the chime, 
 
36 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 And the mad despair of shrieking 
 Call you downward to the mending 
 Of a folly, and the ending 
 Of a crime. 
 
 On the dewy hill at morning 
 
 Do you ask ? do you ask ? 
 How to tune the bells that jangle ? 
 How to still the hearts that wrangle ? 
 
 For a task ? 
 
 When the bell shall suit the ears 
 Of the strong man's hopes and fears, 
 As the bee-wing suits the clover 
 And the clover suits the bee, 
 Then the din shall all be over, 
 And the woman shall be free, 
 And the bell ring melody, 
 
 Do you see ? do you see ? 
 There are bees upon the hill, 
 And the sun is climbing still, 
 
 To his noon ; 
 
 Shall it not be pretty soon 
 That the wife she shall be well, 
 And the jarring of the bell 
 
 Falls in tune ? 
 
WHITHER ? 
 
 THROUGH the fathomless peace of the starlight, 
 Through the feverish travail of mind, 
 
 Through the love of the live heart within me, 
 I search, and this ever I find : 
 
 Totality, busy creating, 
 
 Through being, the law that I see ; 
 A universe steadily working 
 
 The work that shall render it free. 
 
 When the patience of law universal 
 
 Shall issue in mastery of law, 
 When the freedom that grows of the " must be " 
 
 Shall reign in its infinite awe. 
 
 When virtue is lost in its issue, 
 
 When sweetly hath blossomed the rod, 
 
 The fruit of Totality's travail 
 
 The ultimate rest shall be " GOD." 
 
YOUR TREASURE. 
 
 LONG years you say you had a quest, 
 You sought a blossom fine and sweet 
 And perfect, that your soul might greet 
 
 To win and cherish as your best. 
 
 And once, and more than once, you seemed 
 To near it in your wandering, 
 Yet only grasped a common thing 
 
 That mocked you where you yearned and 
 dreamed. 
 
 And as you told me of your grief, 
 And how you yielded up your hope, 
 There laughed through tears on heaven's slope 
 
 A little winged angel-thief ; 
 
 Who, as your aspiration went 
 
 Dead, as you thought in your spent cry, 
 Caught it and held it up on high, 
 
 And to my soul a whisper sent : 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 our Treasure. 39 
 
 " He shall not miss it strong and meek ; 
 Though scarcely on the soil of earth 
 Spring his fine treasure into birth, 
 
 Yet may you find it if you seek. 
 
 And having won it, bear it home 
 To where his heart still craveth it, 
 Where, though in desolation's pit, 
 
 His will and spirit yet o'ercome." 
 
 Then softened in me all my strife, 
 
 Then seemed my chains to set me free, 
 Then, dear, there dawned in peace to me 
 
 The first clear morning of my life. 
 
 What once you sought, behold I found, 
 The rare, strange blossom, passing sweet ; 
 For when I bowed me at your feet 
 
 I saw it where they met the ground. 
 
 And as you moved your soul away 
 
 I reached my hand and grasped the flower, 
 And from that saddest, holiest hour 
 
 Here in my bosom doth it stay. 
 
4O Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 And here I hold it till you turn, 
 
 And by its perfume know its face ; 
 Till having gazed a little space 
 
 Its finding you may care to learn. 
 
 Of how, because you longed for it, 
 And it was worthy to be born, 
 It sprang on that same tearful morn 
 
 Close in the shadow of your feet. 
 
 And how, because my head was low 
 For my most deep repentance' sake, 
 I, all unworthy, saw it wake, 
 
 I, even I, beheld it grow. 
 
 And how, as since, the days have run, 
 Repentant days that teach like years, 
 In floods of ruthful, tender tears 
 
 I've watered it, the dearly- won ! 
 
 And how some hearts that caught its scent- 
 Hearts very weak and very pressed 
 Took courage, and with hope possessed, 
 
 Smiled the more sweetly as they went. 
 
Your Treasure. 41 
 
 Ay, how one came in soiled despair 
 And saw the radiance of your flower, 
 And felt the pureness of its power, 
 
 And woke to aspiration fair. 
 
 'Tis strange that I, whose heart, earth-bound, 
 Believed not in it, for my fate 
 Should find and prize it even late, 
 
 While you who sought it, never found. 
 
 'Tis sweet that loving made the way 
 To penitence, so weeping laid 
 My whole soul meekly in the shade 
 
 Where your dear doubted treasure lay. 
 
 Your eyes were sunward as you sought ; 
 What recks the eagle where his wings 
 Screen from the sun-fire weaker things ? 
 
 'Twas so your searching came to nought. 
 
 You could not see it, reason clear ; 
 'Tis I must nurture hour by hour 
 That pure, sweet, half-unearthly flower 
 
 That sprang in your own shadow, dear. 
 
42 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 And if and when you turn and see, 
 It may be you'll forget the past, 
 And smile, and own your crown at last, 
 
 Your holy, high love victory. 
 
THE PESSIMIST. 
 
 I WANDERED yesternight 'twixt sleep and sleep 
 On the wild outmost coast of consciousness, 
 Where beat for ever waves of paradox, 
 Fringing abysmal seas of formless fact 
 That baffle order and omnipotence ; 
 There man finds never thought; and God, no 
 utterance. 
 
 In vision I beheld the perfect man 
 Stand, with all victory behind his back, 
 Facing the Vague that shapes the shores of sense, 
 The firm Unfelt, that rims the realm of mind. 
 Unemphasised rhythms of all worlds, 
 And unimpassioned ceaselessness of years 
 Mocked him, and penetrated, where he stood 
 Knowing all knowledge, comprehending life, 
 Brought to the final equilibriate bound 
 That is quiescence. There he pardoned God. 
 
44 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 He pardoned, for he pitied. He had passed 
 
 Perilously through passion into pain, 
 
 Passionately through pain to numb despair ; 
 
 In diverse fulness of his spirit's strength, 
 
 Had trode the devious ways of human lot 
 
 From first to latest, proving one by one 
 
 Those four weird worlds each prophet traverses 
 
 Four phases of the deep, mad mystery 
 
 Men lightly nickname "Life," four mystic 
 
 spheres 
 Where-through wills work a purpose not their own. 
 
 Eden, whose innocence nor sinks nor soars, 
 Nor knows it doth not either, nor can know 
 Because of innocence ; where words afloat, 
 Intruding from without, lose in calm air 
 All import, keeping syllables to aid 
 Pale souls to speak pale trifles ; where the sun 
 Shines with a tempered heat, a safe, white light 
 That nothing blasts, and nothing finely fires. 
 Here in the unfelt peace of flower-life 
 Move the Untried on level, middling ways ; 
 Harmless and unimpeded : unaware 
 Of Eden's Eden-hood. He had been there. 
 
The Pessimist. 45 
 
 Then conflict-plain of that mid wilderness 
 Outside the Eden-gate, where sense and soul 
 Strive in perplexed writhings of wrought life, 
 Half base, half glorious; bringing conscience 
 
 forth 
 As victor, or as scourge. He had been there. 
 
 Blood drives : light beckons. So Gehenna next 
 Gapes at the urgent feet : fell precipice 
 Of lawless pit that mocketh liberty, 
 Where ill flares luridly and inwardly, 
 Triumphing and despairing ; loose, yet gagged, 
 Lest it spit forth tempestuous taunt to vex 
 Or wreck the universal hope of souls, 
 In direst deluge of gall-bitter flame. 
 There conscience, with some tone of ghastly gibe, 
 Most impotently riots amid the thoughts 
 In the soul's worst estate ; and reason sways, 
 Lit and afire with lust. He had been there. 
 
 And last, the heaven of high deliverance ; 
 The love-light that none living entereth. 
 Yet haggard with the wanton strife of earth, 
 And scorched and scarred with the pent woe of 
 hell 
 
46 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Lost poet souls creep to the verges of, 
 And peering through its gates, so long to win 
 That thought lies down in prayer with folded wings, 
 Or entering dies, the drowned death-joy of love! 
 Loosed timelessly from life's own limit-load ; 
 For the eternal moment one with God. 
 
 So had he travelled all the ways of men, 
 And reached that fringed coast of formlessness. 
 The keys were his of prophecy and art, 
 Flung to him from high heaven to clank in hell, 
 And unlock all the silences of earth. 
 But of the sad, sweet, fain philosophies 
 E'en this was known unto the utmost man, 
 True knowledge and its goal are set as foes ; 
 The prize life's agony is borne to win, 
 Itself the deep, great stillness of spent life, 
 The soul-cry spent in crying that ends the strife. 
 
 Thus having journeyed, lo ! he stood at length 
 Crying on truth with all his parting strength ; 
 And eloquent in dumbness at his feet 
 The waves of paradox kept equal beat : 
 
 " The price of sight is to be blind through light ; 
 
The Pessimist. 47 
 
 The price of wisdom, value of its veil ; 
 
 The price of goodness, innocency's pyre ; 
 
 The price of rest, the weariness that slays." 
 So thundered on his thought's supremest rim 
 Twin-facts, twin-toned ; each mocking each, and 
 
 him. 
 
 Then as the universal darkened down, 
 And the Unformed swept nearer him, to drown 
 In all unmeaning ending fate's long frown, 
 Then, when his hope's last final flicker waned, 
 There burst the truth upon him : God is chained ! 
 
 The unfathomable weariness of God 
 Bound by his boundlessness to be and be, 
 Alone and unexpressed, immortally, 
 The cause that can effect not, endlessly, 
 Fired this last prophet. High he flung his arms 
 Standing on thought's last verge, and sent his cry 
 Winged with a soul-sore yearning into space, 
 Gazing as though his gaze met the mute face 
 Of God's despair most straightly, eye to eye, 
 As lovers when they love entirely. 
 
 And with the outer darkness o'er his head, 
 And with the dust of death about his feet, 
 
48 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 And with the wreck of hope behind his back, 
 And with the blank Unthought before his face, 
 He cried to God a dreadful, final cry, 
 That was not praise, nor prayer, but sympathy. 
 
 " Great Sufferer ! God ! Helpless Omnipotence ! 
 
 That broke thy being into discord dire, 
 
 To feel thyself alive in chaos-fire 
 And action, interacting and intense ; 
 Not thine the curse that life began to be, 
 To look upon thy misery and thee. 
 
 We, who are born of thine immense distress, 
 Being less, and being many, suffer less, 
 And so may pardon that terrific sigh 
 That broke from dull deep of thy unity 
 To wake the clash of forces and our life, 
 And all the quivering detail of world-strife. 
 
 And lo ! the riddle of the universe, 
 All this most horrible august mischance 
 Of woe-worn being at its grim death-dance, 
 
The Pessimist. 49 
 
 Unveiled, forgiven. God ! it had been worse 
 That thy most awful bosom had not rent 
 Itself in sob that built the firmament, 
 And woke the hurrying worlds to ease thy woe, 
 And life to speak thee to thee, blind and slow. 
 
 What place for joying while thou art alone ? 
 Till thou hast known thyself a little known 
 Let nothing curse thee ! Though a myriad fail 
 Their loss is thine, and may thy life avail ; 
 The pain-born universe is thine own pain 
 That, till through love it help thee, toils in vain. 
 
 Be thy grief partly easier, that we weep ; 
 Thy wearying partly easier that we sleep ; 
 Be thy void love the richer that we find 
 Life not ourselves to love, and kinships kind : 
 If in our being thine may find relief, 
 Take thou our love for all our life and grief. 
 
 Ineffable ! Eternal ! Unexpressed ! 
 Be answer waked where the void deep was mute 
 Of thine abysmal life. O Absolute ! 
 Take all thou canst of us, so thou may'st rest ; 
 
 D 
 
50 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Help us to help unbind and set thee free, 
 For Godhead's awful grief take thou man's sym 
 pathy." 
 
 The angels looked upon that utmost man 
 And struck a new wild chord on heavenly harps, 
 And sang a riven, startled measure forth 
 To dubious tune of most unheavenly fear. 
 Psalm, sickened through with satire unaware, 
 Rang in the doom-struck halls of deity : 
 " King ! thou hast brought forth as the fruit of all 
 A devil-life to mock thee ! Thou art God !" 
 
 The wrecked ones in torture of pent pride 
 Sneered up from hell : fire : " Ha ! consummate 
 
 birth 
 
 Of all time's travail ! Trifler with sweet ill 
 That timely spewed it forth for bitter good ! 
 Hell reads thine inmost heart! Thou finished saint! 
 So holy grown that thou would'st ransom God, 
 And die his saviour ! So thou did'st aspire 
 Till there grew from thee rainbow-plumes to soar 
 To that last wistfulness at heaven's gate, 
 And found it barred against thee ? Grievous saint ! 
 
The Pessimist. 51 
 
 What hast thou won ? What profit, lordly soul ? 
 To tell thy deity he reigns absolved 
 For damning thee ? Why, so absolved are we ; 
 Sure God, man-pardoned, pardons devils that 
 
 know 
 So well his pardoner ? Whole man ! mere 
 
 man ! 
 Crown of the universe ! Most perfect man !" 
 
 The sons of earth beheld him stand and cry 
 And crave, and pity God, and sympathise, 
 And speak as one who grasped the utmost end 
 Of earth's unended conflict ; and they said 
 With shuddering : " Lo ! the fruit of genius ; 
 He speaketh with assurance. He is mad !" 
 
 Yet Eden-souls smiled on, nor recked of aught 
 But that the sun rose, and at evening set. 
 " See, birds build nests in spring-time ; while the 
 
 moon 
 
 And stars light up the garden of the nights, 
 And rainfall helps the lilies open out, 
 The thornless, pallid lilies all about. 
 
 Speak ye of din outside the Eden-gate ? 
 We know of it : the wind is loud at times. 
 God reigns for all ; that outer wilderness 
 Dim, hearsay waste it howls in vain for us : 
 
52 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 See the white petals curl them thus and thus. 
 God reigns ; blow what wind may through empti- 
 ness." 
 
 In vain ! O travail of the universe ! 
 In vain ! O truth whose depth is in a curse ! 
 There needs no better where there weeps no worse. 
 For all that he had suffered and had been, 
 Here, where the Unbegun reposed serene, 
 Here, where no blended light of ill and good 
 Inflamed or fired the fenced sisterhood, 
 Not pitied, curst, nor praised, but blankly seen, 
 The Perfected a bootless, voiceless cypher stood. 
 
STEEL OR GOLD? 
 
 THE QUESTION. 
 
 WILL you have me gold or steel, 
 Love, whose crucible is here ? 
 Will you have me brave, or feel 
 
 Fate's anguish, dear ? 
 
 Am I virtuous who knows ? 
 
 If I glitter in the fire 
 Harder, whiter, as it glows 
 
 At your desire ? 
 
 Or yet worthier if I quail 
 
 As the dark dross melts again, 
 If I sometimes nearly fail 
 
 For very pain ? 
 
54 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 While the steel is growing white 
 
 It grows harder, whiteness near : 
 While the gold is growing bright 
 It softens, dear. 
 
 Say then, will you have forth cast, 
 
 When the tale of fire is told, 
 From your crucible at last 
 
 Fine steel, or gold ? 
 
GOLD AND STEEL. 
 
 THE ANSWER. 
 
 I HAVE asked, and you have answered :- 
 Be the cunning work fulfilled, 
 
 Be the soul that's tried by fire 
 Tender-hearted, warrior-willed. 
 
 Steel for strength and gold for beauty, 
 So shall be the heart you hold ; 
 
 As a sword of keenest metal 
 Yet may have its hilt of gold. 
 
 Fan your furnace, hotter, hotter, 
 Till you win the weapon true ; 
 
 Golden to your touch, my dearest, 
 Steel, to meet your foes for you. 
 
TILL THE MIST PASSES. 
 
 TILL the mist passes, and ye can descry 
 
 Why hearts for ages loved the love-shed blood 
 Of a pure Christ, and praised a humble God, 
 
 Hush, ye song-gifted ! lest ye sing a lie. 
 
 Till the din ceases, and again ye hear 
 Echo in your own soul, each one of you, 
 Of all that won men to be sad and true, 
 
 Wait ; that your note through waiting may grow 
 clear. 
 
 Swift blisses of a wanton, will-less hour, 
 
 Soft hair, youth's happy lips, love's laughter 
 
 low, 
 
 Pall if ye praise nought else ; perennial glow 
 Streams from no age that hymns but half its 
 power. 
 
Till the Mist Passes. 57 
 
 Men of the morrow ! ye of kindliest scan ! 
 
 Chaunt still most sweetly what most strength 
 may save, 
 
 Find song for what is difficult and brave, 
 For what begins not lowlier than at man. 
 
 But ever in its great simplicity 
 
 Supposes all the powers of his blood, 
 
 His strange self-ordering sense of brotherhood, 
 
 And all the subtle joys of sympathy. 
 
 Fine flavours of discriminated good 
 
 Learnt from the tasting of the knowledge- 
 tree, 
 
 Things that it takes the whole of man to be, 
 And poets' travail to make understood. 
 
 From out the strife of mad, conflicting needs 
 So shall your music strike a harmony, 
 And hold aloft a meaning steadfastly 
 
 Above the ruin-crash of falling creeds. 
 
58 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Be true to man, our poets ! Ay, be true 
 
 To both the moods of this twain-natured 
 
 thing ; 
 His breath of self sing if ye will, but sing 
 
 Also the utmost man that lives in you. 
 
THE POET'S TEAR. 
 
 A TEAR welled up from a poet heart 
 
 And fell on a rose ; 
 Lay there, bitter, and made it smart, 
 
 The red, red rose ! 
 
 Oh, the grief that wept it was full and pent, 
 And the sobbing pain-blood came and went 
 
 As song arose ! 
 
 When the tear shall dry then shall song be spent ; 
 O tear, lie still in thy bloomy tent, 
 And cherish thy pain in petal and scent, 
 
 Red, tear-filled rose. 
 
 The tear-drop hides in the rose's breast 
 
 For fear of a ray, 
 For fear it should rise in the sun-lit air 
 And perish of glory and gladness there ; 
 
 worst ! O best ! 
 
60 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 So it quivers to music from day to day, 
 Hidden in scent and crimson away, 
 For fear of a ray in a rosy nest ; 
 
 O curst ! O blest ! 
 Shall the rose smile up in the eager sky 
 
 That the sun may give ? 
 Or, shall grief be hidden, and passion shy, 
 
 That a song may live ? 
 
 When the petals yield, then the tear shall dry ; 
 If the heart be healed, so its song shall die ; 
 As the poet grieves, so his music grows ; 
 
 O tear ! O rose ! 
 
 Shall song be sweet ? or shall love be dear ? 
 O tear-filled rose ! and poet's tear ! 
 
 Who knows ? Who knows ? 
 
CLOUD-CLIMBING. 
 
 BE not discouraged, loved and struggling soul ! 
 
 The light is hazy, and the way is cold ; 
 
 Yet warmth shall come with climbing ; and 
 
 behold, 
 There shall be light transcendent at the goal. 
 
 Be not discouraged ! though a hundred times 
 Your foot has slipt upon the upward way ; 
 The clouds of life are rounded toward the day, 
 
 And he is nearest heaven who longest climbs. 
 
 Be not discouraged ! I am grown one prayer 
 That courage never fail you ; lest the mist 
 And gust of circumstance should, wreathing, 
 twist 
 
 Your slackened foothold from the aspiring stair. 
 
62 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 You shall not fail ! Where billowed cloud is spread, 
 Your strenuous aspiration has my will 
 To second its intent, until until 
 
 I see you vanish from me overhead. 
 
 I would have followed for your very sake, 
 
 But all my strength was spent to help you, dear ; 
 And when your victory is safe and clear, 
 
 I almost think my heart of hearts will break. 
 
YE JOYS ! 
 
 O YE joys that none have chanced on ! 
 
 O ye goals that none have sought ! 
 O ye gulfs of vacant ether 
 
 Where no starshine has been wrought !- 
 Do ye hold the chance among you 
 
 Of a perfect, perfect thought ? 
 
 Of a thought that is a meaning 
 For the worlds and all their ways, 
 
 For the dawning and the dying 
 Of the dumb and actual days, 
 
 For the listless depth of doing 
 That yet ceases not, nor stays ? 
 
 Will a harvest e'er be gathered 
 
 Out of forces all broadcast ? 
 Does there lie in any future 
 
 The redemption of a past ? 
 Can the kernel of existence 
 
 Show its worthiness at last ? 
 
64 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 O Unsought ! Unseen ! Undreamt of ! 
 
 Hold your secret as ye may, 
 Men are here upon the earth-ball 
 
 With a will to find their way, 
 And there comes to will fulfilment, 
 
 Though the total word be " Nay." 
 
 There shall be a meek defiance 
 In the teeth of n^stery hurled ; 
 
 There shall be a human purpose 
 Fitly to the morrow curled ; 
 
 Though the heat and cold of ages 
 Wipe the man-print off the world ; 
 
 Ere he vanish he will please him 
 With the earth he walks upon ; 
 
 Ere he perish he will ease him 
 Of the dread of living done ; 
 
 Ere the final fate engulf him, 
 All his victory shall be won. 
 
O Ye Joys. 65 
 
 O ye joys that none have chanced on ! 
 
 ye goals that none have sought ! 
 Is there not a hope among you 
 
 Of an all-consoling thought ? 
 Shall not man create a saneness 
 
 Who was bred for blankest nought ? 
 
 See, the trees succeed a little 
 If success be juicy fruit, 
 
 And not always has the lily 
 E'en a canker at the root ; 
 
 The sport of fate is kind anon, 
 And then the chances shoot. 
 
 And how, when chances grown aware 
 Have woven them to will, 
 
 To find the garden corner 
 
 Where the wind is seldom chill, 
 
 To long for fruit, to love the flower, 
 To know, and then to till. 
 
66 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Ay, how ? When helplessness is death, 
 
 And love is all of bliss, 
 Shall not the will-work of the world 
 
 Wrench round some fates remiss ? 
 And where the iron whole yields not, 
 
 Yield first, to win a kiss ? 
 
" EGOISME A DEUX." 
 
 WHEN the great universe hung nebulous 
 Betwixt the unprevented and the need, 
 Was it foreseen that you and I should be ? 
 Was it decreed ? 
 
 While time leaned onward through eternities, 
 
 Unrippled by a breath and un distraught, 
 Lay there at leisure Will that we should breathe ? 
 Waited a Thought ? 
 
 When the warm swirl of chaos-elements 
 
 Fashioned the chance that woke to sentient 
 
 strife, 
 
 Did there a Longing seek, and hasten on 
 Our mutual life ? 
 
 That flux of many accidents but now 
 
 That brought you near and linked your hand in 
 
 mine, 
 
 That fused our souls in love's most final faith, 
 Was it divine ? 
 
VALUATION. 
 
 WHO shall tell the song its value : 
 
 Critic ear, or heart of friend ? 
 Who shall weigh your love's completeness ? 
 
 Who shall test the gold you spend ? 
 
 Not to critic take your poem, 
 Not to mintsman take your gold, 
 
 Not to idol take your worship, 
 If its worth you would be told. 
 
 Sing your music to the singer 
 
 Would you be entirely heard ; 
 So your little tune be worthy, 
 
 He will know it ; take his word. 
 
 Show your coin to any miser 
 
 If its metal you would prove ; 
 Ask the heart of any lover, 
 
 He will tell you if you love. 
 
THEN AND NOW. 
 
 ONCE the question was to know 
 Why you came, and why would go, 
 Once it seemed to import so 
 
 That I should approve you ; 
 Ay, in lost days dead and dear, 
 When so often you were here, 
 I could hope and I could fear ; 
 
 Now I only love you. 
 
 Since your hand hath closed the door, 
 In my soul for evermore 
 All is stiller than before ; 
 
 And the end who knoweth ? 
 You have gone ; to spend your breath, 
 Haply, on the fields of death, 
 Where the war-fire thundereth 
 
 And the palm-tree groweth. 
 
70 Then and Now. 
 
 Waves and fates have rolled between, 
 Things are not that once have been, 
 Changed the actors, changed the scene 
 
 Where the singer stayeth ; 
 If her love hath wrought her woe, 
 E'en to you, who only know 
 That it ever hath been so, 
 
 Only song betrayeth. 
 
THREE. 
 WHAT of our time ? 
 
 (Oracle.) 
 
 A fog and a blur, 
 
 A hum and a whirr, 
 And large mellow lights that are slowly dawning ; 
 
 Lo ! elements mixed, 
 
 Lo ! centres unfixed, 
 A hope, and a fear ; a chance, and a warning. 
 
 What of our time ? 
 
 (Pessimist.) 
 
 The reign of the worse, 
 The breath of a curse, 
 Ash-fruit of man's pride and the knowledge he stole 
 
72 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 False witness and fell, 
 Swift sliding to hell, 
 The shudder of heaven and the glare of the goal, 
 
 What of our time ? 
 
 (Optimist.) 
 
 The reign of the best 
 
 By sympathy's test ; 
 The travail of ages repaid in an age ; 
 
 The finding of law 
 
 Where no prophet foresaw ; 
 Glad glance of man's eye on his destiny's page. 
 
 What is our time ? 
 
 (Oracle.) 
 
 A question of " When ?" 
 
 An echoed "Amen," 
 Vague answering around and below and above ; 
 
 The hour of the sure, 
 
 Yet the hour of the pure, 
 And a blank new seal on the title of love. 
 
Three. 73 
 
 What is our time ? 
 
 (Pessimist.) 
 
 The death-hour of art ; 
 
 The rending apart 
 
 Of the truth of man's thought from the hope of 
 his life. 
 
 The cloud of death-dust 
 
 From a pageant of lust, 
 The triumph of force, and the mocking of strife. 
 
 What is our time ? 
 
 (Optimist.) 
 
 The birth-hour of man, 
 
 The dawn of his plan 
 Whose purpose is life, yet whose cradle a grave ; 
 
 The time of bold truth, 
 
 And of counsel for youth, 
 And a sword given into the hand of the brave. 
 
74 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 What of our time ? 
 
 (Oracle.} 
 
 Lo ! the present re-cast 
 
 In the fire of the past, 
 And the future is his who will venture the flame ; 
 
 Thou child of the hour, 
 
 Thy will is its power, 
 Go claim it, and guide it, and give it thy name. 
 
 What is our time ? 
 
 (Pessimist.) 
 
 The great sneer of God 
 
 At his animate clod, 
 The oneness of angel, and poet, and beast ; 
 
 The quenching of prayer 
 
 In the lull of despair, 
 The moan of the woman, the whine of the priest, 
 
Three. 75 
 
 What is our time ? 
 
 (Optimist.) 
 
 A greeting of bands, 
 
 A meeting of hands, 
 And barriers broken that hindered the deed ; 
 
 The idol thrown low 
 
 That the Loving may grow 
 
 Where the shadow lay dark and the victims yet 
 bleed. 
 
 What of the time ? 
 
 (Oracle.') 
 
 Not yet have ye read, 
 Not yet have ye said, 
 It is less than your word, it is more than your 
 
 thought ; 
 
 Not good and not ill, 
 But eternal and still ; 
 
 What it was; what it shall be; unfound, and 
 unsought. 
 
UNPERFECTED. 
 
 FEAR hath torment. Love, away ! 
 I'm afraid of you to-day. 
 
 Love, your voice I dare not hear, 
 'Tis so infinitely dear. 
 
 Love, I do not dare to see 
 In your eyes your need of me. 
 
 Take to-day your banishment, 
 Lest I utterly repent. 
 
 My weak heart I scarcely know, 
 Only, love, I tremble so. 
 
 Kiss me once, and leave me, dear ; 
 Better loneliness than fear. 
 
 Fear hath torment. Love, away ! 
 I'm afraid of you to-day. 
 
PERFECTED. 
 
 FEAR hath torment ! Hie thee, Fear 
 I am safe, for love is here. 
 
 Give me courage; I am weak, 
 Darling, till I hear you speak. 
 
 Do I love you worthily ? 
 Look into my eyes and see. 
 
 Do I love you very well ? 
 Ask my heart, and it shall tell. 
 
 As the tempest rageth by, 
 Cling we closer, you and I. 
 
 In your arms and on your breast, 
 Though the worlds pass, I am blest. 
 
 Fear hath torment ! Hie thee, Fear ! 
 Love's security is here. 
 
NOT YE WHO GOAD. 
 
 NOT ye who goad, but ye who lead, 
 My laggard will shall move ; 
 
 I know no right but equity, 
 No road to it but love. 
 
 Love fits the precept to the need, 
 
 Exacts of each its best, 
 Expects no lilies of the rose, 
 
 Howe'er her heart be pressed. 
 
 The human whole is many-lived, 
 
 Each life so set alone, 
 That who would win the world to tune 
 
 Must love them one by one. 
 
 There is a clear truth knowledge-won, 
 
 'Tis fitness makes for life ; 
 And equity is fitness felt, 
 
 Life- warrant of our strife. 
 
Not Ye who Goad. 79 
 
 But ere you light on equity, 
 
 O ye of book and rule ! 
 Your hearts must learn the ABC 
 
 In sympathy's own school. 
 
STANZAS. 
 
 WE are, because we can be : 
 We live among the flowers, 
 
 Grow e'en as they of sunshine, 
 And all-prevailing powers. 
 
 No strength of the For Ever 
 Could make me sing to-day, 
 
 Nor hinder this my singing 
 This very day of May. 
 
A DISMISSAL. 
 
 AWAY with light ! 
 There needs nor sun nor star 
 Where I and my love are ; 
 
 Away with light ! 
 Go, stars, where lives are old ! 
 Go, sun, where hearts are cold ! 
 
 We need no light. 
 
 Away with sound ! 
 My heart thy heart shall reach, 
 Shall utter and beseech 
 What never word may teach ; 
 
 Away with sound ! 
 Go, speech, where hearts are numb, 
 Go, song, where souls are dumb, 
 For us let silence come ; 
 
 Away with sound ! 
 
82 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Away with time ! 
 Hours are for those who stay 
 Far from their love away ; 
 
 Away with time ! 
 Together thus alway, 
 We know nor night nor day ; 
 
 Away with time ! 
 Snatch from his hoary brow 
 Our own eternal Now : 
 
 Away with time ! 
 
 Away with space ! 
 The universe is here, 
 All glorious and near 
 Where life is warm and dear ; 
 
 Away with space ! 
 Through all immensity 
 One blessed thing for me 
 Alone has room to be ; 
 
 My darling's face. 
 
HOPE DEFERRED. 
 
 I'VE closed my book of hope, love, 
 And folded down the page ; 
 
 I'll read no more therein, love, 
 Until some quiet age 
 
 When paler dreams than these, love, 
 My chastened heart engage. 
 
 I'm going far away, love, 
 
 Where no vain wish may thrive ; 
 Where hope may lie quite still, love, 
 
 Deep buried, yet alive ! 
 And there I'll live alone, love, 
 
 Till serer years arrive. 
 
 If then I should return, love, 
 From yon forgotten strand, 
 
 And your dear form all bent, love, 
 You greet me, hand to hand ; 
 
 If then our eyes should meet, love, 
 I think you'll understand. 
 
HOPE PREFERRED. 
 
 Q. SAY, what is kindlier than snow, 
 Warming the unborn flowers ; 
 
 Or robin's little minor song 
 In autumn's serest hours ; 
 
 Say, where a gentler, tenderer thing 
 In this harsh world of ours ? 
 
 A .To make the best of chill To-day 
 
 Earth snow of heaven doth borrow ; 
 
 The robin sings of Yesterday, 
 (Sing yesterday, sigh sorrow !) ; 
 
 But give me hope's own excellence 
 Glad in her flawless Morrow. 
 
 The gentle vanishing of snow 
 Ere yet the clod be broken ; 
 
 The songless swallow's level flight, 
 Sweet summer's herald token ; 
 
 The quiet greeting of true eyes 
 Ere love's first word be spoken. 
 
THE SCEPTIC. 
 
 SWEET were the faiths our wishes bred ; cruel 
 
 is faithless fate ; 
 All things show good or evil as we love them or 
 
 we hate ; 
 If what we love is what is not, our lives are 
 
 desolate. 
 
 My faith had been in knowledge, and my watch- 
 word had been truth, 
 
 My sword had been my courage, and my shield 
 had been my youth ; 
 
 But all had failed me now, hell yawned, and I was 
 dumb for ruth. 
 
86 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Dead in their will-less shining, see the great stars 
 
 there above 
 Hang where they can, and where the sum of 
 
 chances lets them, move ; 
 And being leads to living, and all living leads to 
 
 love. 
 
 And round and round and round the sky the 
 
 small world wandereth, 
 Best loving has mere issue in some re-beginning 
 
 breath 
 That lives in turn, and loves in turn, and ebbs 
 
 away to death. 
 
 'Twas poetry to sing it once, with half a cynic 
 
 thought, 
 By way of momentary change from liege faith 
 
 firmly wrought 
 Round a live God who made all life, and made no 
 
 life for nought. 
 
The Sceptic. 87 
 
 'Twas half a pleasure, then, to toy with half- 
 imagined doubt, 
 
 And caustic just the tinge of pain that floated in 
 and out 
 
 Among the vast, vague mysteries we felt and 
 talked about. 
 
 Now, loving hangs on breath of life, and life on 
 
 aggregates 
 Of motion, gathered into point and place in 
 
 complex rates ; 
 On what there is, on what has been, on deep 
 
 compounded fates. 
 
 All through the tale of man the primal parable 
 
 holds true, 
 The story of the fatal fruit at least is ever 
 
 new; 
 Each deadly ill that came to us, came by the 
 
 things we knew. 
 
88 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Choose we the blind obedient path of dull 
 
 security 
 That smiles Amen to shibboleths it has no wit to 
 
 see, 
 Then, peace of moral fruitlessness, and will's 
 
 nonentity. 
 
 Or rather, feel for certainty, and learn of good 
 
 through ill, 
 And purchase joy by risking woe, change safety 
 
 for a will, 
 There dawns a truth, there sets a faith, there 
 
 mocks mute heaven still. 
 
 Oh, what is it ? What causes, and what issues 
 
 from this thing, 
 Our piteous, grieving upwardness, this hungry 
 
 suffering, 
 This worshipping of truth that pays our homage 
 
 with a sting ? 
 
The Sceptic. 89 
 
 Thou, Man, in saddest wisest men, say, hast thou 
 found thy goal ? 
 
 Thou knowest of thyself at last, thy tender body- 
 soul, 
 
 Thine origin, thy deathwardness, thy fine-drawn 
 fruitless whdie. 
 
 Thy loneliness, thy lovingness, thy ceaseless, 
 deepening care, 
 
 Thy slow, hot tears, thy worn-out faiths, thy 
 choked, unuttered prayer, 
 
 Thy sickened hope, thy fettered will, and utter- 
 most despair. 
 
 'Tis knowing that has brought thee this ; thine 
 
 honest search for light, 
 Faith yielded to thine earnestness, fate ne'er 
 
 opposed thy right, 
 So gods and ghosts just flickered out, and left thee 
 
 Fact and Night. 
 
90 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Tis said' No ill is absolute.' Yet, surely, pain 
 
 is pain ; 
 However sweet succeeding joy, no loss is ever 
 
 gain; 
 Whate'er it lead to, weariness just is and must be 
 
 vain. 
 
 See ! everywhere and everyhow ill waits on 
 
 wisdom's tact ! 
 See ! all our choice just lies between good fiction 
 
 and bad fact ; 
 Dares there a prophet hinder that I lie in thought 
 
 and act ? 
 
 If ignorance be bliss of faith, 'tis madness to be 
 
 wise ; 
 If seeing end in blinding me, 'tis well to close my 
 
 eyes; 
 If life be dear, and truth be death, 'tis well to 
 
 foster lies. 
 
The Sceptic. 91 
 
 If life be dear ! There hovers mute the grimmest 
 question here ; 
 
 Ay, truly we are all undone if life be no more 
 dear; 
 
 Here hangs our very final hope, our most tre- 
 mendous fear. 
 
 For hourly more and more of fact is called upon 
 
 by life, 
 And hourly yield the elements with less and less 
 
 of strife 
 Such fit conditions as shall make the world with 
 
 sentience rife. 
 
 And life will know and find its way in thought and 
 
 word and will, 
 And life will grind and grovel on, will strain and 
 
 struggle still, 
 Till knowledge of its powers' end its purpose shall 
 
 fulfil. 
 
92 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 More life, more knowledge every day, with less 
 and less of mirth, 
 
 New feet to tread old ways of pain on old tear- 
 sodden earth, 
 
 Is life so dear? Since now we know, what know 
 we of its worth ? 
 
 Build up the faith in fantasy thou knowest thou 
 
 dost need, 
 And pile beside it grief by grief the truths that 
 
 make thee bleed, 
 So find the force and feebleness of that desired 
 
 creed. 
 
 Liberty ; loving ; certainty ; eternal room 
 
 to be, 
 To live and love and work some work, effectual 
 
 and free, 
 E'en in some great Companionship that loves 
 
 thy life and thee. 
 
The Sceptic. 93 
 
 This thy desire : beside it, just the rolling of the 
 
 spheres, 
 The infinite unanswer to thy soul-deep hopes and 
 
 fears, 
 The sinking of thy race and thee through merest 
 
 lapse of years. 
 
 Truly if this be knowledge, then thrice blessed, 
 
 ignorance ! 
 Truly, if learning this for truth be meed of life's 
 
 advance 
 The soul of man has lived too long, and overpast 
 
 its chance. 
 
 Three prophets came to me at night when I was 
 
 in my sleep, 
 They offered me, each prophet one, a purpose-clue 
 
 to keep ; 
 For I was plagued to choose a faith amid despair 
 
 so deep. 
 
94 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 My knowledge had but mocked me when I tasted 
 
 its ripe fruit, 
 And youth had chilled, and courage sickened to 
 
 the vital root, 
 And truth had played me very false, and faith was 
 
 numb and mute. 
 
 The first of those three prophets stood exceeding 
 
 sure and strong, 
 I could have half believed his smile but that his 
 
 voice was young, 
 He offered Life as faith of life, and so I knew him 
 
 wrong. 
 
 The second of the prophets claimed omnipotence 
 
 for Love ; 
 He bade me help the flowers grow, and human 
 
 hearts to move, 
 He called on all the universe his faith's firm 
 
 ground to prove. 
 
The Sceptic. 95 
 
 Aha ! I knew the end of love ; nay, worse, its 
 origin ; 
 
 The shiftless, sorry accident that things had stum- 
 bled in ; 
 
 Strong noose of fate that holds all souls to life, 
 despair, and sin. 
 
 And then the pale third prophet spoke his quiet 
 
 shibboleth, 
 He showed me how despairing ceased with ceasing 
 
 of the breath ; 
 I, living, could not know him false ; and so I 
 
 chose me Death. 
 
 To be, is to be fettered ; and all good is liberty, 
 I only shall be unenslaved when I shall cease 
 
 to be, 
 I chose my deathward way ; the clue that leadeth 
 
 to the free. 
 
96 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 To make death swift and beautiful, to fill the 
 
 world with death 
 That is pure death, mere griefless ceasing of the 
 
 toil of breath : 
 The stilling of all strife in peace while old earth 
 
 wandereth ; 
 
 To do this loyally is worth : yet still the task is 
 
 stern, 
 My very soul must live to do it ; merit it, and 
 
 earn, 
 Till all the death-pain be burnt out a soul has skill 
 
 to burn. 
 
 Ah ! seeking gentle death for all, I strangely found 
 
 instead 
 I had awakened life that loved to live, and grief 
 
 had fled ; 
 Of all I touched, lo ! nothing but the pain of life 
 
 was dead. 
 
The Sceptic. 97 
 
 I turned me to my prophets : were there three ? or 
 
 is there one ? 
 A single spirit seemed to stand Life, Love, or 
 
 Death ? alone. 
 " Whom have I served of three ?" I asked, in all 
 
 perplexed tone. 
 
 " Serve which thou wilt thou servest right, so only 
 
 thou be true ; 
 And call thy goal Life, Love, or Death, thou hast 
 
 the self-same clue 
 To guide thee where new hope is won, whate'er 
 
 thy heart may do." 
 
 And so I woke, and spread my helpless hands to 
 
 heaven, and cried, 
 " Be this my dreaming true, and I will yield all 
 
 joy beside, 
 If only, O Eternal, our despair may soon have 
 
 died." 
 
 G 
 
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 
 
 I SPEAK to women woman I ; 
 
 I speak to one more heart beside ; 
 
 Whatever sin may e'er betide, 
 But one sin damneth utterly. 
 
 If you are pledged to love a soul 
 By every pledge of love and law, 
 But all too late you find a flaw 
 
 That bids your heart annul the whole ;- 
 
 If hold to him you never can, 
 Low as you are and all untrue, 
 E'en this may be forgiven you ; 
 
 You sin against a son of man. 
 
 But if, or pledged or free of troth 
 (It matters not to savoured salt), 
 If passion, pride, or any fault 
 
 Plead on the side of bliss for both ; 
 
The Unpardonable Sin. 99 
 
 If when your will is evil most 
 
 He strive to hold you to the right, 
 If then you turn from him in spite, 
 
 You sin against a holy ghost. 
 
 Be very far this sin from me, 
 
 Dear saint, whom I have loved so well ; 
 
 'Twould be the very hell of hell 
 To fail you for your sanctity. 
 
HATED. 
 
 You ask me where love fails me ? what I hate ? 
 
 I cannot blame, for all, I hold, is fate ; 
 
 Yet there are hateful, unblameworthy things 
 
 That sap life's nobler mercies at their springs; 
 
 All deathward, pious-voiced uncleannesses ; 
 
 All cold, conceited, mouthing meannesses. 
 
 Time-serving pietists who lie for fame 
 
 Sooner than hear no echo of their name ; 
 
 Souls readier to limit all we hallow 
 
 By their own shallow thoughts, than deem these 
 
 shallow. 
 
 Perfidious power that no compunction knows ; 
 'Cute cleverness that makes convenient shows ; 
 The devil-hearted insolence of sin 
 That to its end through broken faith doth win ; 
 False woman who will fawn upon the neck 
 Of wife whose hearth she warms her by to wreck ; 
 Some sneaking lover who for alien lust 
 Will mock his home and soil his social trust ; 
 
Hated. 101 
 
 The sour, uncandid treasurer of offence, 
 
 Who sneers down generous gift with common 
 
 sense ; 
 
 All cold, conceited, mouthing meannesses, 
 All deathward, decent-garbed uncleannesses ; 
 These and the like keep very far from me, 
 For all are lies, and all unsympathy. 
 Love cannot move them though it suffocate, 
 I do not blame I absolutely hate ; 
 Such things of folly, perfidy, and fiction 
 Must be ; but they shall have my malediction. 
 
" LET THERE BE LIGHT." 
 
 HALF prayed, and half commanded- 
 
 Let there be light ! 
 Light, where waits one undaunted, 
 
 Blind with fight ; 
 Light, where the lion-hearted 
 
 Lies in night. 
 
 Light from due pain's red furnace, 
 Light of love's sight, 
 
 Blend rays O fierce ! O tender ! 
 Lead him aright ; 
 
 Shine for the just defender, 
 The loyal knight. 
 
 Where hope is yet the youngest, 
 
 Let there be light ; 
 Where grief has lain the longest, 
 
 Let there be light ; 
 Where will is still the strongest, 
 
 Let there be light. 
 
THE LIFE-POWER. 
 
 'Tis the marvel of existence, 
 
 This great patience feeding things, 
 
 Till at last in myriad ages 
 Wakes there one who sees and sings. 
 
 Through the rifts of tottering temples 
 
 Shines illimitable day ; 
 Men begin to lisp its meaning, 
 
 Self must melt in love away. 
 
 Never was the green of spring-time 
 
 Half so beautiful to me 
 As when I beheld it growing 
 
 Out of deep necessity. 
 
 A necessity that sightless 
 
 More than sees the world it makes, 
 Ay, and more than knows the gladness 
 
 Sinless life in living takes. 
 
IO4 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Name it how you can and care to, 
 Words are vain and language rent, 
 'Tis too grandly simple for you ! 
 Infinitely innocent. 
 
HOW DO I KNOW? 
 
 How do I know you good ? my dear, my dear, 
 
 How do I know ? 
 Because, at thought of you the bonds fall off 
 
 That plagued me so ; 
 Because for love of you my very life 
 
 Has changed its flow. 
 
 How do I know you good ? Because, dear love, 
 
 In needing you, 
 My inmost soul most urgently desires 
 
 Great goodness too ; 
 Pure skies alone can win a turbid sea 
 
 To perfect blue. 
 
 One little lovely victory for your sake 
 
 O'er my mad blood, 
 One little hour when higher than myself 
 
 I knew I stood, 
 One stillness, dear, has taught the blessed truth, 
 
 My love is good. 
 
io6 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 'Tis so I know you good my dear, my dear ; 
 
 My heart is new ; 
 For your sweet sake 'tis less than virtue now 
 
 To be quite true ; 
 Ay ! easy to be patient, pure, and brave, 
 
 Quite good for you. 
 
STANZA. 
 
 THE sweetest song that a poet sings, 
 
 Though to your dull ear it be speech with wings, 
 
 He, singing, hears with a pent distress, 
 
 'Tis a cypher that stands for his speechlessness. 
 
MY LITTLE TASK. 
 
 I THROW a guess out here or there, 
 I breathe a hope into the air, 
 I feel a dumbness like a prayer. 
 
 What, with this fenced human mind, 
 What can I do to help my kind ? 
 I such a stammerer, they so blind ! 
 
 Nothing; save through the single gate 
 Of utterance throw my little weight 
 To swell the praise of what is great. 
 
 Nothing ; save in my every song 
 Heap cold discredit on the wrong, 
 And cheer the march of right along. 
 
 And when I hear the lark's pure mirth, 
 
 Or see sweet flowers gladden earth, 
 
 Sing forth the mood that feels their worth. 
 
109 
 
 Or when a bitter woe in me 
 Is healed by tender sympathy, 
 To let the healing songful be. 
 
 So add what force a singer may, 
 To ring opinion's echoing sway 
 A few chords mellower day by day. 
 
 Through chiming all that's pure and true, 
 Through hymning steadfast love anew, 
 This is the most that I may do. 
 
 
"MERLE WOOD." 
 
 DEAR, winding glens of Merle Wood ! deep in 
 
 flowers, 
 
 That speak the mood of peaceful, patient hours, 
 When human tenderness for nature's way 
 Coaxed her to richer sweetness day by day, 
 When gentle craft of philosophic mind 
 Luring forth beauty that it longed to find, 
 Here led leaf-tracery where rock was bare, 
 And helped a flower to light the shadow there ; 
 Won from the woodland willingness new love, 
 And taught the grace of growing where to move. 
 
 Dear glades of Merle Wood ! rich with clustered 
 
 songs 
 
 Of little birds made welcome ! healing trance 
 Visits my restlessness among you ; wrongs 
 Vanish as spectres in the tolerance 
 Of nature's placid patience. Let me rest 
 Awhile 'mid proofs of lawful labour blest : 
 
"Merle Wood!' in 
 
 These cool green haunts shutout life's weary dust, 
 And chide despondency : for lo ! a trust, 
 Hidden yet perfect, where the calm thought bends 
 A bough to meet a future not yet seen, 
 Or buries seed where wilderness has been. 
 And honoured law in spring fruition lends 
 To bless the strong, sweet will whose means are 
 nature's ends. 
 
THE POET, AND HIS INTERPRETERS. 
 
 FULL of songs he woke one morning, 
 Every song a weighty wonder 
 
 Holding universal being 
 
 Newly dressed in words of thunder. 
 
 " Men shall hear me ; men shall listen 
 Through my song-speech sweetly seeing, 
 
 All the growing glory glisten 
 
 Spread abroad in boundless being. 
 
 Spread yet centred, knit yet flowing, 
 
 Constancy in revolution : 
 Still yet deathless ; gliding, growing, 
 
 And its new name Evolution. 
 
 'Tis because the truth is tortured, 
 
 Tinged by times and moods and manners, 
 
 Men reject the life of living, 
 Write large lies upon their banners ; 
 
The Poet, and His Interpreters. 1 1 3 
 
 And with hearts all mad with yearning 
 For a good they know not missing, 
 
 The inspiring essence spurning, 
 Toil and die without possessing. 
 
 I will bring them truth ungarbled, 
 
 Strike aside distorting lenses, 
 Methods, morals, metaphysics, 
 
 Things and thoughts, and souls and senses. 
 
 I will show a mighty oneness, 
 
 Every life-law underlying, 
 Make as nought the tyrant idols, 
 
 Give men hope for living, dying. 
 
 What can cure their mad emotion, 
 
 Yet not kill it in the curing ? 
 How the voice of pain be silenced, 
 
 While the voice of joy enduring? 
 
 What can wrench the sting from living 
 
 With a knowledge of a dying ? 
 What avail the heat of question 
 
 If there never come replying ? 
 
H4 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 What ? until the roots of sadness, 
 Pressed too hard of life, grow rotten ; 
 
 Till in grander grown emotion 
 Self die down and be forgotten. 
 
 I will make men's hearts grow eager 
 In the cause of law's own essence, 
 
 They shall fall in love with nature 
 With a passioned acquiescence. 
 
 Till there shall be but one sorrow 
 That can set the soul a-sighing ; 
 
 Ignorance of law, or error 
 In its incomplete applying." 
 
 So the Poet set him thinking ! 
 
 He would let no present blind him 
 To the tending of the future : 
 
 And he left a book behind him. 
 
 And the crowd went blindly onward, 
 Loving, hating, asking, solving ; 
 
 And the little planet bore them 
 
 Through the days and nights revolving. 
 
The Poet, and His Interpreters. 1 1 5 
 
 While the poem of the Poet 
 
 Waited praise that none would render ; 
 Raised the bitter smile of cynic, 
 
 Set pain throbbing through the tender. 
 
 Till a little girl of twenty, 
 
 Full of reverence for sages, 
 Found the book and called her lover, 
 
 And they cut the yellow pages. 
 
 And they found a gem within it 
 
 In the musical May weather, 
 With their young hands intertwining 
 
 And their young cheeks pressed together. 
 
 For with loving hearts made gentle 
 
 They divined a holy meaning : 
 Not in vain the Poet's sowing 
 
 Since these joyed so in the gleaning. 
 
 Where the page was blank and yellow, 
 Of love's own untaught providing, 
 
 There they read a text and moral 
 
 That should serve their love for guiding. 
 
1 1 6 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 And the Poet won his laurels 
 
 Though so long his fame had tarried, 
 
 For they told their babies of him 
 
 In the years when they were married. 
 
LOVE AND LANGUAGE. 
 
 LOVE that is alone with love 
 Makes solitudes of throngs ; 
 
 Then why not songs of silences, 
 Sweet silences of songs ? 
 
 Parts need words : the perfect whole 
 
 Is silent as the dead ; 
 When I offered you my soul 
 
 Heard you what I said ? 
 
AT SABBATH DAWN. 
 
 Six times the sun has hotly lit 
 A smoke-wreathed scene of care, 
 
 To-day the dust of toil is laid, 
 And children are at prayer. 
 
 Six times has tempest swept my soul, 
 
 And now I gladly spend 
 A time of quietness with you, 
 
 My patient, faithful friend. 
 
 There have been noons of warmer blaze, 
 
 And midnights meteor-lit, 
 But never this most placid heaven, 
 
 With heart-peace under it. 
 
 There have been throbs of stronger bliss, 
 
 Yet is your presence best ; 
 Safe in your firm and quiet hand 
 
 My hasty pulses rest. 
 
At Sabbath Dawn. 119 
 
 Too fiercely tides of life have flowed, 
 
 And ebbed, alas ! too fast, 
 Breathless and spent, I cast me down 
 
 On tideless shores at last. 
 
 I do not ask if this be love, 
 
 I know it to be rest ; 
 The sabbath of my life has dawned, 
 
 And I am very blest. 
 
TELL ME. 
 
 Q. TELL me, Mother Nature, tell, 
 What of heaven and what of hell ? 
 Who doth ill and who doth well ? 
 
 Tell me, Mother Nature. 
 
 A . Well is done where firmlier life 
 Cometh forth from any strife ; 
 Where life-happiness is rife : 
 
 Love to live, my creature. 
 
 Q. What of love ? With what intent 
 Is my life with loving blent, 
 Sacrifice and sacrament ? 
 
 Tell me, Mother Nature. 
 
 A . Loveless life is null and vain ; 
 Love alone is worthy gain, 
 Love alone is worthy pain ; 
 
 Live to love, my creature. 
 
WHY ? 
 
 A SWEET white flower peeped 
 
 Up from a glade, 
 Laughingly tossed its bell 
 
 To the breeze that played, 
 Shrinkingly drooped and fell ;- 
 
 Why did it fade ? 
 
 The river rolled ; a beam 
 
 Just glanced aside, 
 Making a thousand gems 
 
 As it touched the tide ; 
 Hid in a darkling cloud ; 
 
 Why did it hide ? 
 
 A mother watched her child 
 
 At play hard by, 
 Dreamt his fair future through 
 
 So lovingly, 
 At nightfall saw him die : 
 
 Oh ! why ? Oh ! why ? 
 
122 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Tell me why sunshine pales 
 
 And disappears ? 
 Why are there faded flowers 
 
 And mothers' tears ? 
 Why are there babies' graves ? 
 
 And wasted years ? 
 
 One who hath spelt his way 
 
 To some great thought, 
 Through many a cloudy day 
 
 And fight hard fought, 
 One who has learnt the law, 
 
 For ever one, 
 That tunes the children's mirth 
 
 And lights the sun, 
 One with a purpose pure 
 
 As summer sky, 
 Whose human will with fate 
 
 Makes harmony, 
 One who hath skill to scan 
 The sole vast-hearted plan 
 That blends all men in man, 
 
 May whisper why. 
 
MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 OUR world is very little in the sky, 
 Far off she must be just a mote to see ; 
 And on the tiny ball creep tinier we, 
 
 To live a very little while, and die. 
 
 My love is very great within my heart ; 
 
 It sees in two dear eyes, infinity, 
 
 It finds in one sweet hour, eternity, 
 It has one measure : nearness, or apart. 
 
 Ah, well ! both things are true as truth can be ! 
 
 The world is little and my love is great ; 
 
 Yet who would rise triumphant over fate 
 Earth's breadth, love's narrowness, must learn to 
 see. 
 
RELIGION. 
 
 AN ESSAY IN COUPLETS. 
 
 WHAT blesses yet is difficult, 
 
 This goodness : worship, the result. 
 
 What man doth worship man doth love, 
 And what he loveth he would prove. 
 
 And if proof fail he'll place it high, 
 And claim a god's authority. 
 
 What man can pray for, man can share, 
 His boon foreshadowed in his prayer. 
 
 Were man of all his needs bereft 
 There would not be a bible left. 
 
 Were needy man to lose his creed 
 To-morrow one would spring at need. 
 
 Because men are by life enticed 
 
 They love their murdered Jesus Christ. 
 
 Because their god is still their good, 
 Kind Christ was God in flesh and blood, 
 
Religion. 1 2 
 
 Because they feel the hurt of sin 
 His mother was a maiden clean. 
 
 Because men long for purity 
 He, born of her security. 
 
 Because so many women fail 
 Therefore his Magdalen was frail. 
 
 Because lone women need to love, 
 One Christ was set all change above. 
 
 Some heart whose will could weakness be 
 Invented his Gethsemane ; 
 
 Some soul in passion's sore distress 
 Temptation in the wilderness. 
 
 Since notions are not deep as needs, 
 Religion deeper is than creeds. 
 
 If e'er the Christ be quite forgot, 
 'Twill be that love is needed not ! 
 
 Or else that love has found a way 
 To every heart of every day. 
 
126 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 The very truth is set at nought 
 If there be nothing lovely taught ; 
 
 And any solemn lie will do, 
 So it be sweet and solemn too. 
 
 In all of which 'tis clear to scan, 
 Religion bindeth social man. 
 
 What blesses, yet is difficult, 
 
 This goodness : worship the result. 
 
THROUGH. 
 
 A VISION OF VICTORY. 
 I. 
 
 Lo ! one whose back was sunward, caught the eye 
 Of one who faced some horror in the sky. 
 
 With panic sickened and with deathly dread, 
 " What seest thou ? in God's name !" he stam- 
 mered. 
 
 Then from the drawn lips of that seeing one, 
 Hoarsely and low, " Look at the awful sun." 
 
 So, scarcely daring, half he turned, and saw ; 
 And knew all Being changed into a Flaw. 
 
 Some say these two had sinned ; maybe 'tis true ; 
 Yet others say 'twas only that they knew. 
 
 Some say, " Black souls can e'en destroy the 
 
 sun ;" 
 Yet others, " Light too deeply may be won." 
 
i 28 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Who will, can hear; who can, will understand ; 
 This truth may save his hope, and arm his hand. 
 
 Two things are evil in the universe 
 Perfidy, and unpity. These I curse. 
 
 All else, not sin, but rebel incident 
 Good faith and pity live to circumvent. 
 
 n. 
 
 Upon the middle plain of human life, 
 And at the middle hour of human noon, 
 The sun went black in the high midmost heaven, 
 And let the red up from the pit of hell 
 As beacon for the wandering of men. 
 And some there were who staid apart and died, 
 Rather than walk by luridness of glare ; 
 These all were innocent. And some made mock, 
 And took to them young laughter and old lusts 
 And plunged into the glare ; because that dark 
 Frightened them on the earth, and the new chill 
 Of God's extinguished noontide nipped their 
 
 hearts. 
 
 And some of these were very glad of hell ; 
 And some were sadder than all words can tell- 
 Yet Good and Evil sat, unmoved of all, 
 
Through. 129 
 
 Each reigning o'er its band of following souls 
 
 Not by one soul diminished. But for hope, 
 
 It dived in hell-deeps; and, men said, there died. 
 
 in. 
 
 Go to, fair spirits ! checked and startled still 
 At oft-heard names of ne'er-imagined ill ; 
 Go to, strong youth ! white-hearted, eager-eyed ; 
 Good faith, sweet pity, spare you for a tide. 
 Deafen your ears, enthusiastic lads ! 
 Turn hence with veiled faces, trusting maids ! 
 Go, sift you by your soul-needs, and return, 
 As destiny shall drive you, here to learn. 
 Yet gather hither, souls whose brave despair 
 Refrains no less from perfidy than prayer, 
 Oh, haggard spirits of thought's storm-worn crew ! 
 Would I might haven all your barks for you. 
 Pause in your waitings, poets of the night, 
 Pause in your revels, seekers of delight, 
 Ye in imagination, ye in act, 
 Who face the fury, drink the dregs of fact, 
 While I whose breath is passing, strive to tell 
 Of day-streaks shining through the floor of hell. 
 Heaven is o'erclouded. Yet the nether pit 
 Is wholly sounded : some have proof of it; 
 
130 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 Lo, one went down to see, whose witness is 
 For all its depth, hell is not bottomless. 
 Chinks at the fiend's own feet let through a light 
 For eyes to see that weeping has made bright ; 
 The night of sin has reached its blackest noon, 
 And there are dawn-rays that shall widen soon, 
 First for the poet- and the prophet-band, 
 Who pass through fire to find them ; then for all 
 Who, hearkening, have the skill to understand, 
 And bravery to answer to the call. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A soul had speech with Satan on his throne, 
 A soul that knew of pride and lust and rage, 
 And all the book of error page by page, 
 And all the sorrow that to man is known. 
 It had upon its forehead as it went 
 One star that lit its uttermost descent, 
 Kindled at that dead sun once long before, 
 Yet, source-forgotten, alight for evermore. 
 The star, some mere sincerity, at best ; 
 " Conscience " men call it ; and upon its breast 
 There blew a frail, sweet flower that did not die, 
 When depth by depth the soul plunged recklessly ; 
 Some little blossom of mere tenderness ; 
 
Through. \ 3 1 
 
 Men call it " Pity," and its fragrance bless. 
 
 Satan looked covetously on these twain, 
 
 Twin passports through the region of his reign ; 
 
 He sat enthroned on that horrid floor 
 
 That let thin day-streaks through as through a door, 
 
 He might not pass the level of his throne, 
 
 To find the new hope that is love's alone ; 
 
 Yet thrice in stupid wisdom, lo ! he sought 
 
 To filch the powers that set all sin at nought. 
 
 (Satan.) 
 
 " Yield me the star upon your forehead fair, 
 Yield me the flower you in your bosom bear, 
 So shall you soar again to earth and air." 
 
 (Soul.) 
 
 " Nor gods nor men withhold the twain from thee ; 
 But thine own recklessness of cruelty, 
 And thine own impotence of perfidy." 
 
 (Satan.) 
 
 " Give them, and prove thy proverb by the test ; 
 Give them, those trivial charms of brow and breast, 
 So shalt thou lightly mount to noonlight blest." 
 
132 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 (Soul.) 
 
 " Nay ! though to lose them gave me back the sun, 
 So were the light of heaven too dearly won ; 
 Nor heaven nor hell shall see my heart undone." 
 
 (Satan.) 
 
 " Hist ! Hug your fetters ? fancies of an hour ? 
 Your star of conscience and your pity's flower 
 Yielded, shall free your choice, and fit your power." 
 
 (Soul.) 
 
 Nay; as a free soul came I into hell, 
 Not as a bond soul will I go from hence ; 
 These which have passed me scathless as I fell 
 Will pass me further with their sweet defence ; 
 Will pass me onward into depths of blue, 
 Where blooms again fair life for conscience true, 
 And heart that knoweth mercy. Down through hell 
 Behold me driven as prophet ; thence to tell 
 That, deeper than its depths, all, all is well. 
 
 v. 
 
 But, turning from the king of all despair, 
 The searching soul beheld a cynic there ; 
 A poor, dejected, clever, mocking thing, 
 
Through. 133 
 
 Half genius, and half sinner, and all woe, 
 Who set the very hell-walls shivering, 
 He scoffed and hated and desponded so. 
 The thick earth-sighs had filled his dulling ear, 
 Remorse had gathered in an unshed tear, 
 And such fierce drop had dried upon his eyes 
 That glittered with hard scorn toward the skies, 
 Till all his love grew recklessness of hate, 
 And all his thought, stark, bald, and desolate. 
 And as the soul of search went by, he sang 
 Till gruesome echoes rang : 
 
 " I laugh to hear you grieving 
 At the clearness of your ken, 
 At the loss of your believing, 
 
 O on -earth ye million men ! 
 On the altar of your knowledge, 
 
 On the altar of your truth, 
 Ye have laid your god, and slain him 
 In your strength of faithful youth. 
 What ! ye loved him, and could lose him ? 
 
 Break your hearts to make him die ? 
 What ! ye held it ill to use him 
 As the crown of virtue's lie ? 
 Nay, if this his use were evil, 
 
 Brothers ! brothers ! what were good ? 
 
134 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 There shall stand grim truth among you 
 
 Where your lovely lying stood. 
 .Ha ! my brothers, ha ! my brothers, 
 
 Will ye learn, who once forebore ? 
 Then your souls shall grin and shrivel, 
 
 As mine own for evermore ; 
 Truth is not the deepest whisper, 
 
 There is fact more deep than truth, 
 A strong thing, and a cold thing, 
 
 Making silent mock at youth ; 
 A clear, keen fact, confusing 
 
 All your good and ill forsooth. 
 Ah ! I view the coils about you 
 
 Of a deep, denied despair, 
 Ah ! I see the crowds without you 
 
 Turn and win them peace in prayer ; 
 And I'll show you what you're feeling 
 
 Though your word be never there : 
 There's an order for the dying, 
 
 There's a precept in the pall, 
 Yet there's bliss on bliss for living 
 
 Though the snake be in it all : 
 So saith silence when your hunger 
 
 Stares your conscience in the face ; 
 So saith silence when your passion 
 
Through. 135 
 
 Elbows thought to give it place. 
 Do ye wonder, shy and wistful, 
 
 Lest e'en virtue's plea must die ? 
 Do ye find no prize for seeking 
 
 If on earth no sanctuary ? 
 Ha ! I cannot help you, brothers ! 
 
 Life lies open to the core, 
 And bawls its cynic secret 
 
 Brazen-tongued at my heart's door ; 
 And True from Good I swear to you 
 
 Is severed evermore." 
 
 VI. 
 
 His head was up, his accent bitter clear, 
 There wandered by the soul of hope to hear 
 As he sent forth his cry, and broke anon 
 Its horrent deathliness of monotone 
 With cadence yet more hateful. None can tell 
 How drearier than all woes that ere befell 
 It is to laugh the shocking laugh of hell ! 
 Whereat the soul of search looked straight at him, 
 So straight the brow-star grew a moment dim 
 At meeting, ray for ray, the chilly glare 
 Of soul-putrescence, immanent despair. 
 
136 Poems and Lyrics. 
 
 One moment ; then resplendent shone the star, 
 And lit the hell-hole softly, near and far ; 
 While from the fadeless flower such perfume went, 
 The foul pit seemed frank, fresh, and innocent. 
 
 " O cynic ! all whose lie is half a truth ! 
 O cynic ! all whose lying is for ruth ! 
 For truth, and ruth, must I draw near to thee ; 
 For truth, and ruth, do thou give heed to me. 
 Lie not, by all thy sorrow 1 Lo, the same 
 Thy quest and mine, which, each pursuing, we 
 
 came 
 
 Here where no ill lies lower, and no shame. 
 Yet hast thou lost account of what thou art, 
 And needest one to show to thee thine heart ; 
 A bud is pining on thy bosom now, 
 A weak star flickers palely on thy brow ; 
 Thy hard tear is a tear because of ruth, 
 Hard and unshed it is because of truth ; 
 See in mine eyes thy star reflected clear ! 
 See how yon bud bespeaks thy loosened tear 
 To nourish forth its fragrant petals ! Here, 
 cynic, is my witness ! Not alone 
 Art thou in hell in knowledge. / have known." 
 
Through. 137 
 
 VII. 
 
 Hell's very echoes dared not mock that tone, 
 But threw it back right gently " known have 
 
 known " : 
 
 A soul writhed in the saving, while there fell 
 Wavering and failing through the deep of hell, 
 "Known," "not alone;' and "known." When 
 
 echo slept 
 
 Hell was no more ; for oh ! the cynic wept. 
 The poisonous floor sank viewlessly away ; 
 Being's round concave, filled all full of day, 
 Mysterious, and ineffable, and fair, 
 Sphered as a centre that delivered pair. 
 These watched the dawn-light widen for a space, 
 Each with glad love-tears shining on the face, 
 Then hand in hand passed forth to make essay 
 In the frank, virgin paths of life's new way, 
 Where purged souls renew a wiser youth 
 In the great daytime of love's stainless truth. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 "WITHOUT REGRET." 
 
 OH, when have after-days or evenings brought 
 Forgiveness home to penitence downcast ? 
 Oh, when has trust been perfect, honour 
 fast, 
 
 But fault or fate have made it all of nought ? 
 
 What joy of ours is tinged not with a thought 
 Of future emptiness, or wasted past ? 
 What sorrow ever seems to be the last ? 
 
 What treasure found compares with treasure 
 sought ? 
 
 In pale fruition we shall ne'er forget 
 
 The splendid dream our eagerness did make ; 
 A shadow lies on all things ; let us take 
 
 Our share, and battle on a little yet. 
 
 Friend, keep my hand ! let friendship never 
 break ; 
 
 Let one thing be at least " without regret." 
 
LOVE'S HEIGHT. 
 
 LOVE'S name is easy saying ; yet who knows 
 Love's uttermost, who loves not in his love 
 The highest he has known, and yet above 
 
 That highest vision finds his idol grows ? 
 
 Safe pinnacle of rapturous repose ! 
 And final agony of gladness ! this 
 To spend thy conscience glowing in thy kiss, 
 
 Thy soul's high best at one with passion's throes. 
 
 No inward half-relentings, nought of rift 
 
 'Twixt clay and spirit that should discord make ; 
 But awful, lavish homage, free to take 
 
 Only to give the richlier, gift on gift ; 
 
 No better self made captive for love's sake, 
 
 But love upraised to love, that love doth lift. 
 
LOVE'S DEPTH. 
 
 LOVE'S height is easy scaling ; skies allure ; 
 
 Who feels the day-warmth needs must find it 
 fair ; 
 
 Strong eagles ride the lofty sunlit air, 
 Risking no rivals while their wings endure. 
 Yet is thy noblest still thy least secure, 
 
 And failing thee shall then thy love despair ? 
 
 Shall not thy heart more holily prepare 
 Some depth unfathomable, perfect-pure ? 
 
 Say that to thee there come love's dreadful call 
 The downward swiftness of thy Best to see ; 
 Say that he sin or sicken, what of thee ? 
 
 Are thine arms deeper yet to stay his fall ? 
 Scarcely love's utmost may in heaven be ; 
 
 To hell it reacheth so 'tis love at all. 
 
HER WORST AND BEST. 
 
 O STRANGE event of fortune that befell ! 
 
 She wandering, and you wandering, each 
 
 alone, 
 
 Met all amiss, and were asunder thrown ; 
 Two who were friends, and should have loved so 
 
 well! 
 
 You knew the worst that in her heart might dwell; 
 Her best the better flourishes unknown, 
 Would rather win your welfare than be 
 
 shown, 
 Would give such gifts as least of giving tell. 
 
 So be it ; go your ways : you were the first 
 To wake stern aspiration in her breast 
 For conquest, who had chiefly cried for rest, 
 
 And one pure draught of joy to slake her thirst ; 
 For this she owes her best-imagined best 
 
 To you, who found and spurned in her, her worst. 
 
POOR LISA. 
 
 POOR Lisa ! Oft her folly has been sung, 
 Of how she saw, and needs must love, a king, 
 And make him know that wistful, tender thing 
 
 Her little loyal heart by minstrel tongue ; 
 
 And how she felt herself more proudly blest 
 
 Than many a bride, long wooed and triumphing, 
 Who on her finger wears the plighted ring, 
 
 And lays her safe head on a husband's breast ; 
 
 Because her dear king hearkened to the bard, 
 And royally came once to Lisa's cot 
 And kissed her brow : of how she deemed her 
 lot 
 
 Rich a.t that hour beyond all dreamt reward ! 
 There the tale ends : it suits the singer not 
 
 To tell of Lisa's weeping afterward. 
 
AM I TO LOSE YOU ? 
 
 " AM I to lose you now ?" The words were light ; 
 
 You spoke them, hardly seeking a reply, 
 
 That day I bid you quietly " Good-bye," 
 And sought to hide my soul away from sight. 
 The question echoed, dear, through many a 
 night, 
 
 My question, not your own most wistfully; 
 
 " Am I to lose him ?" asked my heart of me; 
 " Am I to lose him now, and lose him quite ?" 
 
 And only you can tell me. Do you care 
 
 That sometimes we in quietness should stand 
 As fellow-solitudes, hand firm in hand, 
 
 And thought with thought and hope with hope 
 compare ? 
 
 What is your answer ? Mine must ever be, 
 " I greatly need your friendship : leave it me." 
 
LOVE'S ETHIC. 
 
 MY love, despise not love in your high thought ; 
 
 For see what weakness finds the power to do 
 
 Here in my failing heart for love of you, 
 And how my bruised, feeble hand hath brought 
 Here to your feet the treasure that you sought, 
 
 Warm from the furnace of a passion true ; 
 
 'Twas perfect love made all my spirit new, 
 And helped me to accept the task you taught. 
 
 Oh, doubt not ! all the wisdom of the soul 
 Grows wiser in love's light, and stronger still 
 The sweet, fierce strength of high and holy will, 
 
 To be and bear and brave the very whole : 
 Ay, love doth aid the dauntless to fulfil ; 
 
 And holds his compass steady to the pole. 
 
YE POETS. 
 
 YE poets of our transient poverty ! 
 
 Weak strengths that pour sick passions into 
 song ! 
 
 Who finding right struck dumb, enthrone a 
 
 wrong, 
 
 And crown mean lust with love's own royalty ! 
 Though I could find it in mine heart to be, 
 
 In some defiant moods at self's high tide, 
 
 A voice in your wild choir of craven pride, 
 Yet rather let me cease from minstrelsy 
 To grope for ever dumbly, onward still 
 Up the old rugged way, the blood-stained hill 
 That seen afar in youth seemed plainest road 
 Leading from self the slave, to man the god. 
 Yea, rather let me lay my music by 
 Than for mere music's sake hymn slavery. 
 
TO A CRITIC. 
 
 No theme for song you say the strength of 
 
 man ? 
 
 Only his tyrant passion? Man, the slave, 
 Fit theme for hymning ? Never man, the brave, 
 Whose eye roves widely, clear as eagle-scan, 
 With vowed decision to fight out the plan 
 Of mercy stedfastly, and sorrow save, 
 Who taketh will for sword, and hope for stave, 
 And frowns down passion as a master can ? 
 
 Nay, give not whimpering lovers all the lays ! 
 Too long their tears have sodden soft your art, 
 Till songs and sighs scarce know themselves 
 
 apart, 
 And the sweet Easiest wins the proudest praise. 
 
 Let music welcome some undaunted heart 
 That wrestles songless through the nights and 
 days. 
 
ONE MORE BRUISED HEART ! 
 
 ONE more bruised heart laid bare ! one victim 
 more ! 
 
 One more wail heard ! Oh, is there never end 
 
 Of all these passionate agonies, that rend 
 Young hopes to tatters through enslavements 
 
 sore ? 
 So long, pale child, your patient spirit bore 
 
 Its wrong in secret, ere you sought a friend ; 
 
 And yet, what love of mine can ever mend 
 Again for you the veil your tyrant tore ? 
 
 Oh, there are woes too bitter to be shown ! 
 
 Oh, there are tears too burning to be seen ! 
 
 Yet purest sympathy, select and clean, 
 May feel the agony its very own. 
 Sweet slave-child, whom your voiceless griefs 
 
 oppress, 
 I cannot cure ; I may in part express. 
 
POET TO POET. 
 
 WHY on a day, half unawares and swift, 
 Rent I the silence-veil 'twixt soul and soul ? 
 And flung down recklessly the very whole 
 Of all I was and am, for you to sift 
 The will-work of me out from passion-drift, 
 And know my best and worst, and so enrol 
 Me where I merit place 'tween start and goal ; 
 In risk of trust, that justly you would lift 
 My meaning from my madness, shapely still, 
 Not utterly dishevelled nor quite weak ; 
 Just one soul's voice the more, elect to speak, 
 Since having known the vale it chose the hill ? 
 Why did I pour unbidden in your ear 
 The foolish tale ? Art's pride, in sooth, was 
 here. 
 
AT MY WORD. 
 
 I EVER said that I could pay high toll 
 
 For some dear sake held worthy, utterly ; 
 
 It was the very hidden pride of me 
 To rate as gift the greed of my poor soul. 
 For lo ! one day I seemed to near my goal, 
 
 And " Here," I said, " my gift may given be, 
 
 For here is utmost sweet nobility, 
 And I must love it : it shall have my whole." 
 
 But, dear, such gift still savoured of my bliss, 
 And you would have my love for freedom lie 
 In sternest patience till its stress should die ; 
 
 For love's last proof, forbear, forget the kiss, 
 And smile, forgetting. Ay, I do not sigh ! 
 
 Since this you will, my heart must grant you this ! 
 
DREAM-LOVE. 
 
 I ALWAYS seem to love you in my dreams 
 
 Of force, and right, and nature, full and free ; 
 Sleep after sleep, the very self of me 
 
 Lost in the nearness of your spirit seems. 
 
 Yet, as the grey of real daylight streams 
 Across the bright deep of my passion's sea, 
 There crawls a chill, a cloud up lingeringly 
 
 To sap the glow from night's divinest gleams. > 
 
 Which take for truth ? Why are you ever twain ? 
 
 Awake, my intellect's serenest friend ; 
 
 Asleep, my being's sovereign, meaning, end. 
 .My heart's desire, delight, possession, pain ? 
 
 Ah ! might I, dreaming, drive my love away ; 
 
 Or better, wake to find I love by day. 
 
ONE NEW YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 HEART ! art thou dead within me ? Why this calm 
 To see thy joy die with the dying year ? 
 When more is fact than ever thou didst fear 
 
 Of all thou would'st not have of hurt and harm ; 
 
 When less than thou hadst pictured is of balm 
 In uttermost surrender ; when more dear 
 Seems that thou hast surrendered, now and here, 
 
 Than ever aught before ? Why no alarm 
 
 To face the blank black morning of to-morrow 
 
 With not one partisan for thine own sorrow ? 
 
 Why canst thou smile, O silly heart ! to see 
 
 The cold strewn ruin of the life of thee ? 
 
 Haply yet more than love's dear joy lies dead, 
 
 Thy very self of self that suffered ? 
 
MAN VERSUS ASCETIC. 
 (Six SONNETS.) 
 
 I. 
 
 SOUL, who would'st prove and know thyself for 
 
 strong, 
 
 Soul, who hast not a tyrant sin beside, 
 Masked at thine elbow struts the flatterer 
 
 Pride, 
 
 Whose whisper has befooled thine heart for long. 
 Lash thee at thine own shrine with shameful 
 
 thong ? 
 
 Soft-handed Nemesis between shall glide, 
 To balk the smart thou seekest to abide, 
 Daring at self's behest that holiest wrong. 
 
 Lo ! thy good sword that seldom smites in vain 
 One day shall fail thy pride lest thou be lost ; 
 
 Slip in thine hold, and slay thine idol, Pain, 
 Win for thee treasure who would pay but cost ; 
 
 Sweet punishment be pride's reward at length, 
 
 And thy best weakness save thee ; not thy strength. 
 
154 Sonnets. 
 
 ii. 
 
 I mark thy clenched jaw, and murmured vow : 
 " Never so help me Heaven ! will I be blest ; 
 Never so aid my will ! take any rest, 
 
 Nor common joy of lazier souls allow 
 
 My meritless endeavour. Rather, how 
 
 Most surely guard from recompense my quest 
 After the purely-high, mysterious Best ; 
 
 And win it gladliest blood-sweat on my brow." 
 
 " O valiant to presumption !" Nature cries, 
 " This thraldom of self-will, I charge thee, break ; 
 My children need thy bliss ; and wilt thou take 
 At their discomfiture thy single prize ? 
 
 Turn thee and dare be happy for their sake, 
 And smile up gratefully with childlike eyes." 
 
Man versus Ascetic. i ^ 
 
 in. 
 
 " Peace with the vulgar counsel !" dost thou 
 say ? 
 
 Trumpet no mandates from the throne of sense ! 
 
 Garb not as duty pleasant indolence ! 
 Ever the loneliest is the manliest way. 
 Ever the flowers implore my hand to stay 
 
 And pluck their sweetness ; ever some pretence 
 
 Slides to my soul, and mocks its impotence 
 Of ardour, with some taunt of faltering clay. 
 
 To fail, and only be as others be ? 
 
 All else I bear, all sorrow court but this ! 
 Mine own soul's victory I may not miss ; 
 
 And who but I can choose my pains for me ?"- 
 Saith homely love, betwixt a sob and kiss, 
 
 " 'Tis I will find thy sacrifice for thee." 
 
156 Sonnets. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Nay " yet again thou pleadest " life is short ; 
 
 Lovers are many, heroes few and rare ; 
 
 Long years ago my one heart had its share 
 Of easy pleasure, and its evil wrought. 
 Leave me to my design, my single thought 
 
 Just to grow perfect, inwardly aware 
 
 Of victory than fairest bliss more fair ; 
 Shall my poor soul have freed herself for 
 nought ?" 
 
 " Thus much for thine own gladness. What for 
 ours?" 
 
 Plead the unborn thy sons should live to aid ; 
 
 Pleads each most needy, noble thing unmade 
 That should reap heritage of thy won powers. 
 The Future pleads " By all thy spirit can, 
 Be no mere saint for me, but loyal man." 
 
Man versus Ascetic. 157 
 
 v. 
 
 Truly there is no nobler on the earth ! 
 Although such unemblazoned, simple lot 
 Thy heart despiseth and believeth not, 
 
 Misdoubting man's good faith and woman's worth, 
 
 Here is thy sacrifice : no more to roam, 
 
 Nor to seek out the soul's most barren spot 
 To shrine thy will in ; but, thyself forgot, 
 
 Spend all to found and fence one faithful home. 
 
 And see thy stark Ideal die in pain, 
 
 And bear the throes it causeth thee to see ; 
 And quench the fires of lawlessness in thee 
 
 For childhood's sake, endure a tender chain ; 
 Ay, on thy neck, in token thou art free, 
 
 Bear yoke of kinship e'en with lowlier men. 
 
158 Sonnets. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Ha ! shall the living Needy miss my hand, 
 Whom for my penitence I sought to bless, 
 Till there depended on me numberless 
 
 Souls that unaided scarce have strength to stand ? 
 
 Not only for my penance had I planned 
 To succour these ; I pitied their distress : 
 Shall I betray them to their helplessness 
 
 For that new task ? Is this thy sad demand ?" 
 
 Oh, strength of tenderness ! 'tis here I pause : 
 I dare not answer ; for to thee alone 
 The weight and shaping of that claim is known ; 
 
 Lo, even Nature has her minor laws ! 
 
 Yet fling thy will once down before her throne, 
 
 Brave frankly her last verdict in the cause. 
 
FOR FREEDOM'S SAKE. 
 
 FOR freedom's sake, farewell. I would not fret 
 you 
 
 With a dim sense of bonds about your heart ; 
 
 Be freed of all my loving ; let us part ; 
 Let nothing chain your conscience, nor beset you. 
 A little while, may be, I must regret you ; 
 
 A little while a little tender while 
 
 Perchance the tears will well up when I smile 
 In whispering your name, ere I forget you. 
 
 But we have chosen freedom ; so I make 
 
 Here, as we part for weeks, for years, for life, 
 My promise : I will whet my will's keen knife 
 
 And one by one all memory's fetters break. 
 
 Ah ! go. Forget, forgive love's lingering strife ! 
 
 One kiss ? our last. Goodbye, " for freedom's 
 sake." 
 
 THE END. 
 

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