THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 LAND AND SEA PIECES
 
 LAND AND SEA 
 PIECES: POEMS 
 
 By ARTHUR E. J. LEGGE 
 
 JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD 
 LONDON & NEW YORK. MDCCCCIV
 
 Printed by 
 
 Richard Folkard & Son, 
 
 Peronshire Street, London, W,C.
 
 U3l 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 rACB 
 
 La Jeune Fille I 
 
 Olivia's Garden 6 
 
 Horton 14 
 
 The Death Mask of Leopardi 21 
 
 A Biscayan Vision 29 
 
 Raleigh's Last Voyage 37 
 
 Cleopatra in Rome 57 
 
 Eurydice 66 
 
 '* They that go down to the sea in ships " . . . 74 
 
 Prometheus 82 
 
 Stella's Cottage 88 
 
 Eversley 94 
 
 Mermaids lOI 
 
 Elle et Lui 107 
 
 Michael Angelo II7 
 
 The Garden of Tears 129 
 
 A Suburban Junction 139 
 
 860277
 
 LAND AND SEA PIECES
 
 LA JEUNE FILLE 
 
 I WATCHED you lead your dogs across the lawn, — 
 A wave of sympathetic tails and noses, — 
 
 You moved — in hackneyed language — like a fawn, 
 And — true to the convention — gathered roses, 
 
 Romped with your canine court, began to sing. 
 Threw down your hat, and disarranged your 
 tresses, — 
 
 In fa6l were just the well-known winsome thing 
 A jaded world pokes laughter at — and blesses. 
 
 And I, your old tormentor, will proceed 
 
 To persecute you sore with mock compassion
 
 2 LA JEUNE FILLE 
 
 Because artistic pedants change their creed, 
 And you are altogether out of fashion. 
 
 You used to be the poet's foremost theme, 
 The leading part in plays, the note of novels, 
 
 Now you are nothing but a schoolboy's dream 
 Or idol at whose feet some dotard grovels. 
 
 Our modern taste cries out for stronger food. 
 
 And you, my dear, are merely bread-and-butter, — 
 
 Art interrogative explores the nude. 
 
 Draws back the curtain, and unbars the shutter, 
 
 Examines, probes, dissedls, — and, right or wrong. 
 We show you things they did not show your 
 mother. 
 
 Nor suffer bright delusions very long, — 
 Oh, I am just as bad as any other,
 
 LA JEUNE FILLE 3 
 
 And scorn to whisper underneath my breath 
 Aught that I take for truth, however cheerless, 
 
 Believing pain or pleasure, life or death 
 
 Can teach one dodlrine only — to be fearless. 
 
 Moreover there is nothing strange or new 
 When age meridian waxes sentimental 
 
 Before a fair young innocent, like you, — 
 Such aberrations are but incidental. 
 
 And yet you are so delicately sweet. 
 
 With your wide sea-blue eyes, remotely serious 
 Through all their laughter, with your lips that meet 
 
 In lines firm, pleading, joyful, sad, mysterious. 
 
 With your quaint eyebrows and your thick, soft 
 
 hair. 
 
 Your slender, graceful form, and all the wonder 
 
 B — 2
 
 4 LA JEUNE FILLE 
 
 Of that pale half-transparent rose-bloom where 
 Your cream-white skin shows the blood moving 
 under, 
 
 That suddenly the laughing mask is torn 
 
 With fierce power from me, while, abashed and 
 lowly, 
 I seem to hear reproachful voices borne 
 
 On faint winds breathing through a temple 
 holy, 
 
 And all the haunting secret of your face. 
 The spiritual burden, ghostly splendour, 
 
 Drive out my wanton thoughts, and in their place 
 Passionless love grows, mystic, humble, tender. 
 
 Till I would almost change my whole life's plan, 
 Renounce my conscience, let my creed be shaken,
 
 LA JEUNE FILLE 5 
 
 No longer search the absorbing riddle man, 
 
 Nor toil for honest truth — howe'er mistaken — 
 
 If only what I write the privilege won 
 
 Of shaping your pure dreams, of building stronger 
 
 That fairy palace reared against the sun 
 
 The world yet holds for you, — for me no longer. 
 
 Ah yes, though loaded years of joy and pain 
 Winnow my hopes, my softer fibres harden, 
 
 Call me to mountain-rocks above the plain, 
 Or wilderness beyond the sheltered garden. 
 
 Spite of the surging undertones below 
 
 The homelier triumph of life's orchestration, 
 
 To be your laureate I could almost go. 
 Apostate, to poetical damnation.
 
 OLIVIA'S GARDEN 
 
 Olivia's Garden ! — Shakespeare weave 
 Thy brief enchantment longer ; hold 
 
 Unbarred the gates of make-believe 
 For grown-up children, wearied, old. 
 
 The chime of rhythmic language ends, 
 The radiant lovers link and pass, 
 
 One moment, ere the baize descends, 
 Leaves the clown piping on the grass. 
 
 Then all is over. Yet the stream 
 
 Of light and laughter round me brings 
 
 No rude deliverance from the dream 
 That fans my soul with fairy wings,
 
 OLIVIAS GARDEN 
 As through the josth'ng throng I press 
 
 Towards the play-house door, and glide 
 Into the crowded loneliness 
 
 Of London's homeward-rolling tide. 
 
 Still, in the garden of my thought, 
 
 Exemplars of eternal youth 
 Are breathing words of passion fraught 
 
 With ancient, elemental truth. 
 
 I hear triumphant love declare 
 Faith whose perfeftion purifies 
 
 The allurement of a woman's hair. 
 The mocking mystery in her eyes. 
 
 I view that unforgotten land 
 
 Of early fancies where Love rules, 
 
 And commonplace is contraband, — 
 A perfect paradise of fools, —
 
 8 Olivia's garden 
 
 And sharply cruel comes a thrust 
 Of eager longing, — half regret, — 
 
 To know that under all the dust 
 The lantern may be burning yet, 
 
 That sympathetic sexual choice 
 May bear the value poets claim, — 
 
 All life being else an idle voice, — 
 A painted film, — a shade,— a name, — 
 
 While true love round enfolded souls 
 Weaves lightly such a silken mesh 
 
 That guardian happiness controls 
 Each changeful passion of the flesh. 
 
 All are but dreams, so let me take 
 
 This best and fairest dream for true, — 
 
 Life paying, for one soul's pure sake, 
 To Love perpetual revenue,
 
 OLIVIA S GARDEN 9 
 
 And faithful hearts, unused to tire 
 
 Of that one tax, nor levying toll 
 On provinces of chance desire. 
 
 Who keep the ethereal compact whole. 
 
 An out-blown lamp the vision dies, 
 
 Slain by the power that brought it birth, — 
 
 The pleading gaze of women's eyes, — 
 The rippling music of their mirth. 
 
 I watch no garden, hear no tones 
 
 Of love melodious, but awake 
 To tread the grimy paving-stones 
 
 Whereon the shattered billows break 
 
 From that discoloured, quivering sea 
 Of women, whose white womanhood 
 
 Has sold its fragrance for the fee 
 Of lustful pleasure, ruthless blood.
 
 ■^J 
 
 lO OLIVIA S GARDEN 
 
 Wan is the softness of their smile, 
 Their voices lack the true caress, 
 
 They claim no homage, but beguile. 
 With grim, commercial earnestness, 
 
 Experienced man and fledgling boy 
 To sensual feasts of low delight, — 
 
 Strange vestals of unlovely joy, 
 High priestesses of appetite. 
 
 With faint pain biting at my heart, 
 I break from your lascivious throng, 
 
 My scape-goat sisters, kept apart 
 To chant the fleshly syren-song. 
 
 To give the grossness of our world 
 A play-ground, — till it changes form, 
 
 And you to outer darkness hurled. 
 
 Appease the prayerful, prurient storm.
 
 Olivia's garden ii 
 
 Olivia's Garden ! — Must we hold 
 
 Such gardens purchased with the price 
 
 Of goods in yonder market sold, — 
 A Minotaurian sacrifice, — 
 
 Or may we shun the tragic mind, 
 
 And lightly count the accustomed shame, 
 
 Reckoning that all womankind 
 Have found realities the same, 
 
 That, deck or daub it how we will, 
 With woven flowers or plastered mud, 
 
 The central faft is constant still. 
 
 Mere harvest-growth of flesh and blood ? 
 
 Look how the golden globes of light 
 
 Make jewelled clusters through the dark 
 
 Vague space where gas-lamps gleam so bright 
 Across the hushed, deserted Park !
 
 12 Olivia's garden 
 
 Surely, for those with eyes to see, 
 
 The arrowy rays that bend and dance 
 
 Are infinite in their mystery, 
 And eloquent with all romance. 
 
 For light is light from lamp or sun. 
 Fresh beauty blooms from worse decay, 
 
 To the great river, one by one, 
 
 The trickling gutters find their way. 
 
 Yet where the house-piled barrier ends 
 At the white archway, yon festoon 
 
 Vulgarly luminant oiFends 
 
 Before the unearthly April moon, 
 
 That lies with cold, pure face serene 
 Enthroned above the naked boughs, — 
 
 Pale emblem of what might have been, 
 Bride unrevealed our hearts espouse.
 
 OLIVIAS GARDEN 1 3 
 
 And in the silent darkness there, 
 
 Where silvery veils of moonlight fall, 
 My spirit looks to find, somev/here, 
 
 Olivia's garden, after all.
 
 HORTON 
 
 Milton lived here ! — The word suosests 
 
 A fund of observations trite, 
 Such as the mild scholastic breasts 
 Where platitudes are welcome guests 
 Would fain invite. 
 
 And we, unqualified to claim 
 
 Superior mental rank bestowed. 
 May talk, with no pedantic shame 
 Of what might happen if he came 
 Along this road.
 
 HORTON 1 5 
 
 And joined us in our walk without 
 
 Our knowing who he was, and cast 
 The h'Q-htnin"; of his brain about 
 Our topics, as he did, no doubt. 
 In days long past, 
 
 When someone, on his homeward way 
 
 To Staines or Datchet, overtook 
 The rambling scholar, by the grey 
 Mysterious twilight charmed to lay 
 Aside his book. 
 
 And lured him into chance discourse 
 Of daily trifles, — this and that, — 
 Of rabbits under yonder gorse. 
 Of yearling heifer, half-bred horse, 
 And such-like chat,
 
 1 6 HORTON 
 
 And left him, just as we should do, 
 
 With all his greatness undiscerned, 
 And thought him rather good to view, 
 But dull and solemn, — never knew 
 The light that burned 
 
 Behind the beautiful, austere 
 
 Young face, the puritanic garb. 
 The language classical and clear, 
 That sometimes wounded with severe 
 Sarcastic barb. 
 
 For Milton was but ill-advised 
 
 To climb Parnassus ere the brood 
 Oracular had criticised, — 
 Unparagraphed, unadvertised, 
 Uninterviewed,
 
 HORTON I 7 
 
 No printed wisdom bade him wear 
 
 The crown, and yet he hardly sought 
 For approbation anywhere 
 Beyond himself, and did not care 
 What people thought, 
 
 But wandered here through field and grove 
 
 Forgetful of the world at times, 
 Searched his great dreams, and only strove 
 To please his conscience when he wove 
 Immortal rhymes. 
 
 These fields are haunted : over all 
 
 Broods the vague sense of things unseen, 
 Of harmonies whose rise and fall 
 He heard, whose whispers yet recall 
 That which has been.
 
 I 8 HORTON 
 
 The landscape bears but common fame, — 
 
 Flat English meads, whose homelike views 
 In Milton's time were much the same. 
 Yet out of them the voices came 
 That stirred his Muse. 
 
 When sunset reared a crown of fire 
 
 On Windsor's line of woodland there, 
 His thoughts were as a chanting choir, 
 He played, with language for his lyre, 
 A wondrous air. 
 
 When marsh-born vapours rose around 
 
 He gave them shapes we shall not see ; 
 He gathered from this pasture-ground 
 Orchestral notes whereon to found 
 A symphony.
 
 HORTON 
 His murmured music robbed the lark, 
 
 And stole the blackbird's evening thrill, 
 And echoed, to the distant Park, 
 Each nightingale when oaks were dark 
 On Cooper's Hill. 
 
 For him the river wafted down 
 
 The tones of a majestic creed 
 From Eton, with her scholar's gown, 
 By yellow sedge and bulrush brown 
 To Runnymede. 
 
 Old guardian Castle, throned on high 
 
 Above your timbered slopes afar! 
 
 You stand against the western sky 
 
 A symbol, binding days gone by 
 
 With days which are. 
 
 C— "2 
 
 19
 
 20 HORTON 
 
 Plantagenet and Tudor strode 
 
 Along your terraces ; the flower 
 Of martial courtliness abode 
 Behind your battlements, and rode 
 With pomp and power 
 
 Through Horton's ancient hamlet, sure 
 
 Of recognition, homage, praise. 
 While one was dwelling there obscure 
 Whose laurels through the years endure 
 Beyond their bays. 
 
 Yes, though your feudal aspeft brings 
 
 The ghost of earthly greatness near, — 
 Courtiers, and trumpeters, and Kings, 
 ^nd parasites, and other things, — 
 Milton lived here.
 
 THE DEATH-MASK OF LEOPARDI 
 
 Within this outworn shell 
 A fragment torn from the universal Soul 
 Was dungeoned for a while, — a sword too keen 
 
 For carnal sheath*s control, 
 Shaped, branded, tempered in the fires of Hell, — 
 And we, whose faith proclaims that all is well, 
 
 Ask why the thing has been. 
 
 God ! But it wrings the heart 
 To ponder such a life; — a brain on fire 
 With that which makes great poets, — with wide 
 thought 
 
 And infinite desire 
 And shy wild passion roaming far apart
 
 2 2 THE DEATH-MASK OF LEOPARDI 
 
 In unfamiliar solitudes of Art, — 
 Tortured and over-wrought 
 
 By this corporeal cloak 
 That, like the tainted robe of Nessus, wrung 
 With agonies the wearer, made his song 
 
 The saddest ever sung. 
 Where earthly life becomes a cruel joke. 
 The load of an intolerable yoke, 
 
 The hopeless reign of Wrong. 
 
 Poor martyred child of grief ! 
 They say there was a sweetness in your smile 
 That showed how love broke through your bitterness. 
 
 And though degraded, vile 
 Men looked too often, yet your unbelief 
 Gleaned from their stubble souls a tiny sheaf 
 
 Of those you had to bless.
 
 THE DEATH-MASK OF LEOPARDI 23 
 
 Mis-shapen, frail, diseased, 
 You crawled along life's highway, wondering 
 How men could nanae existence a good gift, 
 
 When all it seemed to bring 
 Was pleasure's counterfeit that never pleased, 
 And fugitive delight that none quite seized, 
 
 And sympathies adrift. 
 
 Yet was not your despair 
 All barren ashes or unfertile sand, 
 But proved a very fruitful garden soil, 
 
 That yielded to your hand 
 A wealth of bloom so wonderful that ne'er 
 With tears and blood was watered anywhere 
 
 A nobler field of toil. 
 
 This put the balance straight. 
 A soul, beyond our nature sensitive,
 
 24 THE DEATH-MASK OF LEOPARDI 
 
 With more than human suffering hammered out 
 
 White hot the words that live. 
 Surely you paid the price, however great, 
 With secret understanding of your fate 
 Though anguish cried in doubt. 
 
 That heart, which knew no joy. 
 Won power o'er countless hearts it soared above. 
 That weary mouth no woman ever kissed, 
 
 Though hungering for love, 
 Poured out the language lovers yet employ 
 To shape their thoughts in music ; girl and boy 
 
 Learn from you notes you missed. 
 
 Passion is born of pain 
 And pain of passion, — so things intertwine. 
 You, to tormenting fires of genius doomed, 
 
 Thereby grew half-divine,
 
 THE DEATH-MASK OF LEOPARDI 25 
 
 For all which clogged the beating of your brain, 
 Futilities of pleasure, sensual, vain, 
 
 Were in that glow consumed. 
 
 And yet who knows? — who knows? 
 I wonder is there anything so good 
 As this world's rarely granted fruits, — by you 
 
 Scarce touched or understood. 
 Could all your gifts outclass the gain of those 
 Whose car triumphant down the broad way goes, 
 
 Bathed in delight like dew ? 
 
 Could all your dreams afford 
 Aught to compare with passion's coldest kiss. 
 Or one brief hour upon a woman's breast ? 
 
 And is there any bliss, 
 High on some snowy mental mountain stored,
 
 26 THE DEATH-MASK OF LEOPARDI 
 
 Like that wild kingdom's joy where Youth is lord 
 And Laughter makes her nest ? 
 
 Ah, let me conquer doubt ! 
 To suffer and to sorrow more than most 
 Has been the poet's privilege through all time, 
 
 To leave the vulgar host 
 Who follow Comus in unlovely rout, 
 And search through that dim shadow-land without 
 
 For something more sublime. 
 
 Think what their lives have been. 
 Under your luminous Italian sky ! 
 A hunted, outlawed, lonely, homesick race, 
 
 Whose fortune went awry. 
 Though they might stand above their grief serene, 
 What does the phrenzied gaze of Tasso mean, 
 
 The look in Dante's face ?
 
 THE DEATH-MASK OF LEOPARDI 2^ 
 
 Just as the nightingale 
 Was said to rest her bosom on a thorn, 
 And from the ecstatic anguish of the wound 
 
 Her haunting notes were born, 
 So by the hearts that pointed woes impale, 
 Whose triumph and whose tortures do not fail, 
 
 The noblest lyres are tuned. 
 
 For joy is near akin 
 To grief, and rapture close to agony. 
 There is no certain line 'twixt life and death, 
 
 But imperceptibly 
 Waves ebb and flow. — Sorrow and pain and sin 
 Has each the flower of beauty shut within, 
 
 That opens at a breath. 
 
 And though we may not read 
 The secret now, yet would my heart proclaim
 
 28 THE DEATH-MASK OF LEOPARDI 
 
 Envy of you, — not pity's insolence. 
 
 Out of the gloom you came, 
 High priest of pain's majestic unknown creed, 
 With weird rites woke, yet soothed, the human need, 
 
 And proudly bore you hence.
 
 A BISCAYAN VISION 
 
 Who has words to paint the splendour where the 
 
 moonlight weds the sea, 
 Winds a cobweb cloth of silver round her limbs, 
 
 yet leaves then> free, 
 Robes her all in bridal whiteness, clasps and folds 
 
 her lovingly ? 
 
 Burnished field of liquid silcqce where qur vessel 
 
 toils and ploughs, 
 Panting like a goaded bullock, thrusting with her 
 
 stubborn bows 
 Headway through the virgin waste th^t bears and 
 
 spurns a thousand prows,
 
 30 A BISCAYAN VISION 
 
 Surge of cloven water murmurs constant as a 
 
 rushing stream, 
 Mino-led with the dull mechanic throbbino; from 
 
 the heart of steam, 
 Rocks our souls to wakeful slumber, charms them 
 
 in a living dream. 
 
 Sudden falls a misty curtain, softly glides across the 
 
 moon, 
 Blots the gleam of wrinkled waters, drapes in many 
 
 a grey festoon 
 Waves whose rounded swell refledted stars that 
 
 fade like eyes aswoon. 
 
 Darkened light or lighted darkness ! — phantom 
 world beyond a shroud !
 
 A BISCAYAN VISION 3 1 
 
 Surely there are ghosts within these magic draperies 
 
 of cloud I 
 Something wakes the yearning voice wherewith my 
 
 spirit cries aloud. 
 
 See — the answer ! — Slowly, proudly, through the 
 
 veil of shining haze, 
 Spars and masts of bygone fashion, sails unfurled in 
 
 older days 
 Shape a stately progress bearing down the moon's 
 
 unearthly rays. 
 
 Dreamily distind and vivid, ere they vanish, all 
 
 around 
 Ships, — more ships, — 3. mighty squadron moving 
 
 with no movement's sound, 
 Spedlral shapes of all the fleets that e*er across the 
 
 Bay were bound.
 
 32 A BISCAYAN VISION 
 
 Just a moment gleams the gilding on some quaint 
 uplifted poop, 
 
 Pennants flash and heavy folds of battle-flags for- 
 gotten droop, 
 
 Here beside a frigate's mast-head, there above some 
 gliding sloop. 
 
 Weirdly beautiful the glimpse of this old floating 
 
 warrior-host, 
 Symbol of such buried pride, so lost a pomp, so 
 
 cold a boast, — 
 Ah, the silent guns whose thunder echoed on the 
 
 distant coast | 
 
 Vaguely though the crowded mass of yonder fleet 
 be seen and felt,
 
 A BISCAYAN VISION 33 
 
 Should the vision try to single one ship from that 
 
 circling belt, 
 Blurred and curtained 'mid the ghostly multitude 
 
 her lines will melt. 
 
 Like the myriad stars above us carpeting the 
 
 Milky Way, 
 Countless ships in white confusion flicker through 
 
 the haunted Bay, 
 Older than the Roman galleys, young as barks of 
 
 yesterday. 
 
 How the longing grows to hail them, hear some 
 
 Captain's grim reply ! 
 Surely there are moving figures ! Surely comes a 
 
 floating cry ! 
 Oh, my pale and voiceless brothers, tell me of your 
 
 lives gone by !
 
 34 A BISCAYAN VISION 
 
 Ye who sailed and fought with Caesar, ye who 
 
 swept the main with Drake, 
 Dane and Saxon, Frank and Spaniard, — all who 
 
 kept the world awake, 
 Battled with the tameless ocean, loved it for the 
 
 danger's sake, 
 
 Lived for just the worth of living, failed and 
 
 conquered, laughed and died, 
 Matched the raging wind in anger, faced the sun 
 
 with kindred pride. 
 Wrestled with the lonely Spirit dwelling on the 
 
 waters wide. 
 
 Answer! — Answer! — Give me greeting! mc 
 whose soul is all athirst,
 
 A BISCAYAN VISION 35 
 
 Panting for your larger freedom, pining for the 
 
 strength to burst 
 Clumsy bands that hold me from you, links my 
 
 straining heart has cursed. 
 
 Silence answers, — and the wash of broken water 
 
 there below, 
 Rippling back to leave our course a path of foam 
 
 like driven snow, 
 Baffled flakes, that tried to hold us, flung behind 
 
 with master throw. 
 
 Like a folded veil the sea-fog rolls itself towards 
 the stars. 
 
 Sweeps away the sails in smoke, unbinds the 
 rigging, breaks the spars, 
 
 Clears the sea of all but moonbeams fit for mer- 
 maids' window-bars. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 A EISCAYAN VISION 
 
 Void the pale transparent vastness, holding nought 
 
 but eerie light, 
 Mirrored on our deck like glow-worms where it 
 
 turns the dewdrops white, 
 Making ours the only phantom-ship upon the sea 
 
 to-night.
 
 RALEIGH'S LAST VOYAGE 
 
 The slow-swung cabin-lantern marks the tread 
 
 Monotonous of Time's advancing foot, 
 
 Just as a pendulum tires with dull beat 
 
 Some sick man's eye. Hour piles her weight on hour, 
 
 And lame day shuffles into night. Beyond 
 
 The port-hole heaves and foams that weary sea. 
 
 Condemned to everlasting, vain unrest. 
 
 Muffled and vague, perpetual noises drift 
 
 Into the rocking cabin, — hasty tread 
 
 Of footsteps on the deck, the flap of sails, 
 
 The creak of cordage hauled, the rudder's groan. 
 
 One only thing seems quiet, — a bent grey head
 
 38 Raleigh's last voyage 
 
 Whereon the lantern-rays fall dim, when night 
 Blots ocean's pallid gleam. 
 
 Anger all spent, 
 Hope killed, ambition broken, all the flowers 
 Of life turned brown and trampled, — guarding only 
 Some shreds of pride, the old undaunted heart, 
 Raleigh goes home, — home to the snarling throng 
 Of enemies, the craven, treacherous King, 
 Foul hatred's legal masquerade, — and Death. 
 
 O'er the white wake of foam the sea-gulls dip, 
 
 A shade less grey than the sad, darkening sea, 
 
 A shade less grey than thought, pale, haunting 
 
 thought. 
 Faint clouds take form, and drift, and disappear. 
 Lost in the hazy sky. The dusk comes down,
 
 RALEIGH S LAST VOYAGE 39 
 
 Blurs the clear line of shrouds, enfolds the mast, 
 Darkens the shaded sails. A warning gleam 
 Of signal-light goes out to touch the top 
 Of, here and there, a rolling wave, that else 
 Were covered up, like all this restless vv^orld, 
 In soft, suffusing gloom. 
 
 It is not sweet, 
 This blank, despairing sense of overthrow. 
 It is not sweet to find each vista barred. 
 Backward or forward, by the hooded shape 
 Of grief. Behind, — the long corroding years 
 Wherein captivity rusted good limbs. 
 Then brief deliverance, reckless final throw 
 Of dice on Fortune's table — and all gone. 
 Forward, — victorious foes, dejected friends. 
 The wounded lion crawling back to his lair,
 
 40 RALEIGH S LAST VOYAGE 
 
 Fingers that point derision, low, hard yelp 
 
 Of courtly jackals, the triumphant mask 
 
 Of the long-toothed, vulpine Spaniard, — oh, kind 
 
 God! 
 Courage, — more courage yet to face it all ! 
 With what fierce, envious longing will the heart 
 Review that fatal tropic forest-land 
 Where Raleigh's first-born buried lies, and where 
 Lie buried Raleigh's hopes, — the old, wild hopes, 
 Lit by white burning of a poet's brain. 
 Warm with the glow of an Adventurer's dream. 
 What more could bruise the woman-heart at home, 
 Dear, brave companion of once glorious days ? 
 She lent to Fortune all her treasure ; — how 
 Does Fortune recompense the debt ? Indeed 
 It had been better if the father's bones 
 Lay by the son's, so that his death-sealed ears
 
 RALEIGH S LAST VOYAGE 4 1 
 
 Heard not the sobbing of these mournful waves, 
 That lap against the vessel's side, and moan 
 " Defeat," " Defeat." 
 
 Night comes, and fresher wind, 
 That sets the frigate reeling as she tacks. 
 Picking her homeward path so daintily- 
 Through unkempt, ragged waters. Sleep at last 
 Makes harbour for that tempest-weary brain. 
 Yet even to her calm port turbulent winds 
 Blow threatening voices on the wings of dreams. 
 And sleep, half-madness and half anodyne. 
 Paints shapes to be forgotten on the clouds 
 That race through fancy's sky. Contorted thoughts 
 And nightmare memories of late, past days 
 Hover in wheeling circles round ; — suspense 
 Of that long vigil on Guiana's coast,
 
 42 RALEIGH S LAST VOYAGE 
 
 Sick body helping not sick mind to bear 
 
 The blank of tarrying news, — then, deeper gulf 
 
 Than no news, the returning worn-out band, 
 
 Whose cloud of dark depression struck down hope, 
 
 Like the black sail of Theseus, when it slew 
 
 The old Athenian king ; — and then the hell 
 
 Of fierce recriminations, blame, revolt, — 
 
 More blood, more death, more misery, — and, at 
 
 last, 
 The sullen setting forth of listless men 
 In sea-worn, faded ships, the slow, dull walk 
 Of days that beat them up the Atlantic coast, 
 The surly faces, wrathful muttering tongues, 
 Suddenly tuned to voices mutinous 
 In thundered menace, through the fogs that shroud 
 The iceberg-haunted Island of the North, 
 And he, the proud commander, unobeyed,
 
 RALEIGH S LAST VOVAGE 43 
 
 Driven to plead, surrender, abdicate 
 Impregnable authority. — What dreams ! 
 
 So wears the night to day and day to night, 
 Processionally mournful as the wash 
 Of these attendant waves, or trivial sounds 
 And sights of daily ship-life, that recur 
 With changeless iteration ; — wonted cry 
 Of sailors heaving at a rope, sharp clang 
 Of ship-bell, strange, impersonal report 
 On time's progression chanted by the watch, 
 Flutter of bunting, to the obedient fleet 
 Casting her leader's orders, droop or spread 
 Of canvas, grunt of pulley, thump of block, — 
 Repeated all, — and in the unquiet brain 
 The wheel of repetition turning thought. 
 
 Ah, to be old ! to feel no more the juice
 
 44 Raleigh's last voyage 
 
 Of youthful resolution surge and mount 
 
 Warm through the time-gnawed trunk, — to feel 
 
 no more 
 The stir of hope with each awakening 
 From dreamless nights, — to know the last edge 
 
 turned, 
 The last fall taken in Life's tournament. 
 There is no earthly sadness quite like this, 
 Even for bravest hearts. The golden cup 
 Where wine once foamed now serves for opiate 
 
 drugs,— 
 Endurance, resignation, faith, — whose power 
 May force the threatening thunderstorm of grief 
 To grumble in the distance, but must fail 
 To light the extinguished sun of yesterday. 
 Such sadness governs not, for courage rules 
 Till death, so Raleigh hopes, and weariness
 
 RALEIGH S LAST VOYAGE 45 
 
 Numbs the pierced heart ; but still desire loolcs 
 
 forth, 
 Like frantic Ariadne on the shore 
 Of Naxos, claiming from life's pitiless sea 
 The joys it bore away. Acceptance hard, 
 Never again to lead majestical 
 The floating pomp of England's battle-line ; 
 Never again to ravish unknown seas, 
 Or search mysterious and relu6lant shores 
 P or coyly guarded secrets, fabled wealth ; 
 Never again in rival courtliness 
 Or learned emulation to outshine 
 Wit's paladins or fashion's hierarchs ; 
 Never again to feel the burning blood 
 Leap at Love's shy unveiling ; — all is dust. 
 All roads approach the grave. Yet will not he, 
 Lordliest of Adventurers, bewail
 
 46 Raleigh's last voyage 
 
 This last adventure coming ; he, whose goal 
 Was ever things unseen, whose playground lay 
 Ever in lands unknown, will proudly pass 
 Those dark and intricate straits to where That lies 
 Whose shadow shapes the words, — Unseen, Un- 
 known. 
 Yes, at the thought, old fire exuberant 
 Throbs through the bosom, lights the faded look ; — 
 Still are their waters whence no sail has come, 
 The last and greatest Ocean unexplored. 
 
 Day after day the ship goes wandering 
 
 Across the Atlantic plain, all loneliness. 
 
 Save where a porpoise leaps or spouts a whale, 
 
 Seeming eternal wilderness of brine. 
 
 Eternal sameness and eternal change. 
 
 At times she bounds and quivers amid the whirl
 
 RALEIGH S LAST VOYAGE 47 
 
 Of Maenad waters, in their phrenzied dance 
 Tossing wild locks of foam, and noisily- 
 Flying before mad Bacchanalian winds. 
 Then, like the heart of her great Admiral, 
 She reels beneath the fateful buffetings, 
 And all her timbers groan. There is no peace. 
 No rest, — the long, laborious, struggling crawl 
 Up the great, green wave's side, the wrenching 
 
 pitch 
 When bows come bursting into spray-veiled air. 
 And every oak-heart trembles, ere she dip 
 Plumb to the further slope beyond the boil 
 Of the billow's frothy crest, — and then the slide 
 Down, down into the yawn of that great gulf; 
 Again the plunge and shock and jarring strain. 
 Then hoisted bows, — like sinewy shoulders heaved 
 Swift by a leaping horse, — then all once more.
 
 48 Raleigh's last voyage 
 
 Wave after wave surmounted. And meanwhile 
 Unearthly voices yell among the shrouds, 
 And rent waves toss Medusa's hissing hair, 
 And all the infernal choir comes up from Hell 
 To shriek their cruel anthem tauntingly 
 In Raleigh's ears, while he, with haggard frown, 
 Looks out at Ocean's wild Walpurgis-night, 
 And hears the uproarious voices, wondering. 
 
 And then, at times, come sunlit, gentle days, 
 
 When wrathful green and passionate foam-white 
 
 No longer stain the water, but, a sheet 
 
 Of silken undulation, softly blue. 
 
 The great kind Ocean heaves with long-drawn 
 
 breath. 
 Rocking herself to slumber. Then the ship. 
 Like a slow, stately swan, rides lazily
 
 Raleigh's last voyage 49 
 
 O'er each round bank of moving ocean-swell, 
 
 Clear and translucent vaults of deep cobalt, 
 
 Lustrous like beds of turquoise, and thick pearls 
 
 Of snow^y babblings underneath the keel. 
 
 Then to the grief-worn heart a calmer mood 
 
 Comes, like narcotic numbness preluding 
 
 Some opium-eater's dream. And past life hangs 
 
 A fair-framed picture upon Memory's wall. 
 
 With all the cruder colours fadino- out. 
 
 Yes, they were worth their pleasure those dead days, 
 
 And worth their price, though Fortune now demand 
 
 Truly a Shylock-payment. That which was 
 
 No failure can make null ; — the reckless joys, 
 
 Insatiable ambitions, burning hopes, 
 
 The power, the pride, the triumph ! — They may go. 
 
 Fickle as wanton women, but sometime 
 
 Have they been Raleigh's indisputably
 
 50 RALEIGH S LAST VOYAGE 
 
 To embrace, to enjoy ; — cold, they can ne'er unlive 
 Their nuptial night, nor take their kisses back. 
 Joy, once possessed, remains, a frozen flower 
 In cleavino; amber of Remembrance shrined. 
 
 '& 
 
 Thus leisurely pass on the sauntering hours, 
 Till one uproarious storm-day brings in sight 
 Land, through a revelry of rain and foam, 
 And, shoreward forced, unwilling, timorous ships 
 Chased by the barking wind, like frightened deer, 
 Double and plunge along the threatening wall 
 Of cliffs that rampart Ireland. So they speed. 
 Much buffeted, beside the bare green hills, 
 Where, here and there, some lonely cabin dots 
 The rain-soaked surface. Suddenly upheaves 
 White broken edge of ocean, rearing high 
 Ladders of foam against the guardian rocks
 
 RALEIGH S LAST VOYAGE 5 1 
 
 That push them tumbling, with slow, gentle scorn. 
 Peril so looming picturesquely close. 
 The draggled fleet beats onward to Kinsale, 
 And there finds harbour. Royal Nemesis, 
 Here is thy destined judgment ! Raleigh comes, 
 Raleigh, — once dreaded, powerful, arrogant 
 Master on Irish shores, — now crushed, condemned, 
 Half-captive, — hiding in an Irish port 
 The remnants of dominion lost and last, 
 His battered funeral fleet. 
 
 Oh, weeping land. 
 Whose lips are salt with tears, whose bosom lies 
 Nakedly helpless under Fortune's wind, 
 Who clasp sad children in your blood-stained 
 
 arms, — 
 Ever was pain your hard inheritance 
 
 E 2
 
 52 RALEIGH S LAST VOYAGE 
 
 And sorrow your companion. Ireland ! — turn 
 
 Your tear-lined face to pardon, pityingly, 
 
 Your harsh, great-hearted tyrant. You have been 
 
 Man's helpless vi6lim, — lust, oppression, wrong 
 
 Have ravaged your worn heart, long used to bear 
 
 Anguish, alike for fierce unnatural sons 
 
 And coldly cruel strangers. Misery 
 
 Alone can teach compassion. Let the smile 
 
 Holy with all forgiveness, light once more 
 
 Your wild and sombre beauty ! Let your breast. 
 
 Your tender, false, rebellious, trustful breast, 
 
 Hold him in kindly shelter ! Hate not now 
 
 This broken, white-haired warrior, whose hot youth 
 
 Swept o'er your soil with slaughter. If his road 
 
 In life with blood was sprinkled, equally 
 
 His own blood marks the trail. Forget, — forget 
 
 A brave man's ruthless days, and let him dream
 
 RALEIGIl's LAST VOYAGE 53 
 
 Of peaceful hours and that dear friendship nursed 
 
 On Mulla's banks, when poet walked with poet, 
 
 And Spencer's tunc was matched on Raleigh's /' 
 
 tongue. 
 Poor " Shepherd of the Ocean ! " fugitive 
 From blighted pasture-lands, he gathers home 
 Few sheep and sickly, with his broken crook. 
 
 Now flutter forth again wave-beaten ships 
 To tramp their final stage. It is late Spring, 
 And days grow long, and pirate east winds sheathe 
 Their cruel knives, and, growling many a curse, 
 Slink back to barren steppes and ice-bound wastes. 
 Yes, it is Spring in England, — ripe, green Spring 
 In Raleigh's own West Country, whose rich hills, 
 Leashed in their wild rock-girdle by the sea. 
 Each hour brings nearer now. His heart goes back
 
 54 RALEIGH S LAST VOYAGE 
 
 On billows of remembrance, capturing 
 The loved, familiar landmarks. Ah, those days 
 When every flovi^er breathed promise, when the dew 
 Glowed with reflefted hope, and cool dark streams 
 Mirrored brave Fancy's pictures, when warm blood 
 Beat like a drum for coming battles ! Here 
 Are hearts unchanging and unchangeable. 
 No Devon man has wavered ; all are true 
 To him whose fame garlands the Devon stock. 
 No kingly, Scotch buffoon, but Raleigh reigns 
 In cloven valleys amid sapling oaks. 
 Where the wood-pigeon's soft contralto cry 
 Answers hoarse baritone of calling rooks ; 
 Where shaggy, rust-red cattle climb the steep 
 Green slope that ends in sky, or ruminate 
 Knee-buried in luxuriant meadow-grass 
 Beside the winding river ; where tall herons
 
 RALEIGH S LAST VOYAGE 55 
 
 Wait, statuesque, for ruby-spotted trout. 
 And on the heather-purpled moorland wastes 
 Where antlered kings hold court ; and on the cliffs 
 Where shag and sea-gull house; through all the 
 
 land, 
 The sweet, damp pasturage and apple-land, 
 Whose strong, amphibious sons alike could chase 
 A Spanish galleon or a hill-side fox. 
 Is Raleigh named and honoured. Were but theirs 
 The ruling voice of England, with what hope 
 Might he come sailing into Plymouth Sound ! 
 
 Alas, hope's light has paled like clouded stars. 
 When Raleigh's bark, with omen-laden name, 
 Rides at her final anchor. He must tread 
 The pathway of the Shadow, take the last 
 Farewell of earthly seas. Fierce, desperate.
 
 56 Raleigh's last voyage 
 
 His brain will scheme for life one battle more 
 
 With any weapon, plan, or stratagem ; 
 
 That failing, he will breathe a nobler spirit, 
 
 And go to death as martyrs die. Poor world 
 
 Of baffled phantoms ! Have our deaths and births 
 
 Much meaning after all ? Well, here at least 
 
 Passes a man moulded in Life's red fire. 
 
 Fate weaves a chequered groundwork for such 
 
 souls ; 
 Dark, transient Evil ; — bright, eternal Good.
 
 CLEOPATRA IN ROME 
 
 Cleopatra ! Cleopatra ! 
 Through silken hangings the low wind stirs 
 Like a passionate sigh from those lips of hers 
 That have kissed hot fools to their death ; she lies 
 Watchful, with her glittering eyes 
 Turned to the marble court ; the gloom — 
 Rich with colour, breathing perfume, 
 Thundrous in heavy, whispering hush 
 Of soundless fans, and the swaying flush 
 Of clouded curtains, that catch the gleam 
 Of a vagrant, weary-winged sunbeam, — 
 Veils her half-robed limbs and her throat, 
 Browned on the golden sands remote 
 By the desert daylight, and that thick hair.
 
 58 CLEOPATRA IN ROME 
 
 Vaguely tossed in the darkness there, 
 That droops with many a straying tress 
 To brush the pale voluptuousness 
 Of her bare, smooth bosom. The day is spent. 
 And the sun draws near to his purple tent 
 Behind the darkening, clear-cut hill 
 On the rim of a landscape lying still 
 In passionate, fevered slumber ; soon 
 Will night's lamp-laden slave, the moon, 
 Guide to the lithe queen, panther-curled, 
 A lover whose footstep shakes the world. 
 And she waits, with throb of her eager brain 
 Hot for the clash with a master's mind. 
 While the blood-beat aches in each rebel vein 
 That kingly reason in dreams to bind, 
 And hold him passion-blind. 
 Caesar ! Caesar !
 
 CLEOPATRA IN ROME 59 
 
 Cleopatra ! Cleopatra ! 
 Out of the twilight comes alone 
 The uncrowned ruler who makes her throne 
 Seem but a sparkle of make-believe 
 In the web that a school-girl's fancies weave, 
 A toy forgotten. How would she tell 
 The various motive-threads of the spell 
 He has woven to hold her ? Watch him there, 
 Clinging to some of the dandy's air, 
 With his elderly neatness, careful drape 
 Of robe, trim sandals, lean spare shape, 
 Thin locks over baldness laid, grave style 
 Of courtly bearing, and wrinkled smile, — 
 But ah ! with the brow of a lord of men, 
 Throat of a monarch, firm lips that pen 
 Kingly command in their close-shut breath. 
 And eyes that are looking through life and death f
 
 6o CLEOPATRA IN ROME 
 
 Yes, it is love that he wakes, although 
 One faint chill discord rings in the glow 
 Of blood's delirium. Could but the trace 
 Of faded beauty in that worn face 
 Bloom to its former wealth ! Could lines 
 Of assaulting age's countermines 
 Melt, like gossamer threads from the grass 
 When fiery hours of summer pass ! 
 Can she^ whose sensuous fancy swims 
 In waves of passion, — she, with the limbs 
 And the parted mouth and the eyes of fire 
 And ever-burning bosom's desire, — 
 Can she bask in the evening sun, nor long 
 For the ardent noon-day's thunder-song ? 
 Yet the shade of doubt dies dreamily 
 Before his tender, questioning gaze. 
 What of time's ravage ! — This is he
 
 CLEOPATRA IN ROME 6 1 
 
 Who chains her soul with his master-ways. 
 And laughs at load of days, 
 Caesar ! Caesar ! 
 
 Cleopatra ! Cleopatra ! 
 Harboured safe in those long, soft arms, 
 Her cooling touch, like an opiate charms 
 Slow, dull pain from his forehead, — the weight 
 Of labour, strife, and dreams, that of late 
 Have made sleep come, as no foe e'er came, 
 Foreboding terror, threatening shame. 
 He yields her a despot's right to rule 
 The mind that none could bewitch, befool. 
 No helpless prisoner, swayed and bent 
 In tyrant passion's abandonment. 
 But, master still, he suffers her kiss 
 Of haughty, fierce, imperiousness,
 
 62 CLEOPATRA IN ROME 
 
 With a smile, all tender but half-sad, — 
 
 Loving with laughter, wearily glad. 
 
 Not for his life-worn heart the glow 
 
 Of passion's sunlight on virgin snow. 
 
 He has read in the book that all men read, — 
 
 Though none could interpret, — and the creed 
 
 He has learned there hopes not much divine 
 
 From the dispensation feminine. 
 
 Love is the dice of the Gods. He takes 
 
 His chance, but will not forget the stakes. 
 
 Reading her thoughts, he drops one sigh 
 
 To the manly beauty of days gone by 
 
 When women would love him for his limbs 
 
 And the eyes whose ardour time now dims, — 
 
 Though the thought dies out in a gentle laugh, 
 
 Sculpturing boyhood's epitaph. 
 
 To wince from wounds like that were a jest;
 
 CLEOPATRA IN ROME 6^ 
 
 But, biting deeper into his breast, 
 Is a faint strange sense of aching void, 
 Of pearls imperfed, of gold alloyed. 
 The uncompanioncd heart that has wooed, 
 Yet found no mate in its solitude, 
 Almost grudges the price of the throne 
 Where genius sets her children — alone. 
 Yet he lets the vessel of reason drift 
 
 On the sea of fire poured from her eyes, 
 Lazily taking the Gods' good gift, — 
 
 While she, though burning, has wit to prize 
 This lover, calm and wise. 
 Caesar ! Caesar ! 
 
 Cleopatra ! Cleopatra ! 
 Hours have passed, — it is afternoon 
 When, from a long deep sleep like a swoon.
 
 64 CLEOPATRA IN ROME 
 
 The flushed Oueen wakes to the warm delight 
 
 Of fresh life dawning after the night; 
 
 And her languid thoughts play lazily 
 
 With the last remembered time, while she 
 
 Smiling lies with her brown arms bare, 
 
 And thinics who kissed her dishevelled hair. 
 
 Some strange influence surely crept 
 
 Over her senses before she slept, 
 
 When this faded, wasted lover could hold 
 
 Her tangled in meshes manifold, 
 
 Such as no beautiful youth has twined 
 
 Across her strong, voluptuous mind. 
 
 And she builds up drowsy, pleasant dreams, 
 
 And paints a gallery of bright schemes. 
 
 For power and conquest makes her plan 
 
 Over and through this master-man. 
 
 When sudden floats to her ears a cry.
 
 CLEOPATRA IN ROME 65 
 
 And a far, sad tumult drifting by, 
 And the wail of slaves, and halting tread 
 Of timid footsteps, as though men fled j 
 And angry, startled, she springs alert, 
 Vaguely afraid of treacherous hurt, 
 When into her sunlit chamber creeps 
 A favoured, intimate girl, who weeps 
 Prostrate before her, and, frightened, tells 
 A tale that deafens like jangled bells. 
 And rage and sorrow darken her eyes 
 
 In a mist where hands are groping, red 
 With the blood of a royal one who lies, 
 
 Kingly enough, with his shrouded head; — 
 Caesar ! — betrayed and dead ! 
 Caesar ! Caesar !
 
 EURYDICE 
 
 The breakers were like grey despondent things 
 That tossed wild hair, and, raging hopelessly, 
 Leaped on the grim, disdainful rocks, and fell 
 Shattered and weary back, with whisperings 
 Of some strange message that they might not tell. 
 Some sorrow-burdened secret of the sea, 
 With long care sheltered under their white wings 
 In guardianship for me. 
 
 Ah, but I took their meaning. Faint and blue 
 Along the liquid world's horizon spread, — 
 Almost as though 'twere floating poised in air. 
 So like were sky and water, — I could view
 
 EURYDICE 6j 
 
 The coast of that sweet, sun-bathed country, where 
 You loved to wander ; — and I bowed my head. 
 For, scarce beyond mine eyes' sad range I knew 
 That you were lying dead. 
 
 Cut was the tangled skein of your short life; 
 
 Darkened were your deep eyes ; your warm heart 
 
 cold ; 
 Your fair young face to marble turned ; — oh, grief 
 Can shape not thus, as with a carver's knife, 
 Your dear, dead image ! Death had bound his sheaf 
 And stored his harvest; — so the tale was told, 
 Only I prayed that you were bruised with strife 
 No longer as of old. 
 
 So I sat dumb before the surge and boil 
 
 Of water, casting foam-flakes at my feet. 
 
 And felt the sunlit sadness of the day, 
 
 F — 2
 
 68 EURYDICE 
 
 Remembering your brief and tragic toil 
 Along life's road, and how you used to say 
 You had found bitter all that should be sweet. 
 For one great want was ever there to spoil 
 The pidlure incomplete. 
 
 You had so much that other women ask, — 
 Love, homage, power, amusement, interest. 
 And foolish hearts to trample on at will, 
 And vital wine from Fortune's jewelled flask, — 
 But for Love's true surrender were you still 
 A seeker, vainly tortured by your quest. 
 And your proud laughter only served to mask 
 The void within your breast. 
 
 Men loved you, — men whose love was no light gift. 
 You played with it, and, like a broken toy. 
 Cast it away, and turned to search once more
 
 EURYDICE 69 
 
 For final pcrfe6l passion that should lift 
 You to those heights where all that passed before 
 Would melt into the radiant song of joy 
 From your long-looked-for Orpheus, with no rift 
 The lute-tone to destroy. 
 
 Orpheus ! Aii yes that ancient legend seemed 
 Somehow with your most modern story blent, 
 Like throb of mournful harp-strings breaking 
 
 through 
 Fuller orchestral sound. I sat and dreamed 
 That the forlorn, forsaken soul was you 
 Whom Hades held in loveless banishment. 
 Seeking by every pallid light that gleamed 
 The way your lost one went. 
 
 Poor lonely, pale Eurydice ! — you cried 
 For him to hear and hasten, but your call
 
 JO EURYDICE 
 
 Sadly unanswered rang through that dark place, 
 Save when faint echoes tauntingly replied, 
 Or, lonely too, some white ghost turned a face 
 Of hopeless, voiceless pleading, — but the wall 
 Of black mist curtained off that world outside 
 Where no such cry could fall. 
 
 And now you reach sot?ie portal, and who knows 
 What you have found beyond it ? Have you passed 
 Into a fairer, sunnier land than yon 
 Sweet France you loved so ? Have you found 
 
 repose 
 Of soul, and is the weary feeling gone 
 That numbed your life ? And has your Orpheus 
 
 cast 
 The web of magic music that he throws 
 And swept you in at last ?
 
 EURYDICE 71 
 
 Ah me ! 'Tis idle work to speculate 
 And question that dumb Oracle who stands 
 Before the door where ends all human breath. 
 It may be that no earthly love or hate 
 Haunt the dim cloisters of thy temple, Death ! 
 That, whirled away on passion's drifting sands 
 Are those vague joys for which we supplicate 
 With stretched, appealing hands. 
 
 It may be we shall find ourselves awake, 
 And rub our eyelids sleepily, and laugh 
 To think that we were fretful and perturbed 
 About the childish trifles that we take 
 So hardly now ; that we could once be curbed 
 By passion's fears, and find its hope a staflT; 
 And o'er our old dead sorrows we shall make 
 A mocking epitaph.
 
 72 EURYDICE 
 
 All things are possible, — and none we know. 
 I turned from that impenetrable veil 
 Which hides, but cannot hush, the wings of Hope, 
 And, through the murmur of the waves below, 
 I thought once more to hear your sad voice grope. 
 Bearing its plaintive burden, and the pale 
 Refle6led flakes of sunlight seemed to show 
 Your eyes with their wild tale. 
 
 Oh, comrade unforgotten ! Have you found 
 That which you looked for? — all the hopes you told 
 To me, the friend you trusted in far years. 
 Your sometime pilot, privileged to sound 
 The surface-laughing ocean of your tears ? 
 I have some sacred memories to hold 
 In ward for you, a little volume bound 
 • With clasps of purest gold.
 
 EURYDICE 73 
 
 I could not help you then, nor now I may, 
 Who were so very helpless, yet so brave, 
 In those unhappy, joyful, reckless times. 
 I have no garland I can give to-day 
 Except my poor unheard, unheeded rhymes, 
 Precious because you cared for them, and, save 
 For that, a very vv^ithered gift to lay 
 In silence on your grave. 
 
 Yet I believe you know^ the thoughts that grew 
 
 When slowly home, before the setting sun, 
 
 I walked along the cliff, until the sky 
 
 Grew dark, and stars came out ; and wet with dew, 
 
 My pathway seemed of tears. But yours were dry, 
 
 Your earthly trouble hushed, your conflict done. 
 
 Across the bay, a last salute to you. 
 
 Thundered the evening gun.
 
 "THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE 
 SEA IN SHIPS" 
 
 Slowly going from the crowded quay, 
 
 With all its noise and glare, 
 The long ship turns her head to the sea, 
 And the harbour-sounds die dreamily 
 
 In warm, illumined air. 
 
 Tall, anchored vessels are vague and fade, 
 
 And pale, reflected light, 
 In bars o'er the dark smooth water laid 
 From pile and pier, — with the moon to aid, — 
 
 Passes into the night.
 
 THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 75 
 
 Blurred land goes back, and a mounded swell 
 
 Shatters the mirrored stars, 
 And tumbles the lighted buoys, that tell 
 The roadway, ringing a float-borne bell, 
 
 That weirdly clangs — and jars. 
 
 But silence comes, till never a sound 
 
 In the ghostly hush is heard, 
 Save eager pistons that thump and pound. 
 And the wash of water rippling round. 
 
 And cry of some dim bird. 
 
 And the vast and starry temple grows. 
 
 With gleaming, swaying floor, 
 And the startled soul looks out, and knows 
 That here Time's brief adventurer goes 
 
 Through the mysterious door
 
 76 THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 
 Of that great innermost shrine, whereto 
 
 Each priestly pathway leads, 
 Where Man learned all that he ever knew 
 Of things beyond, and the myths that grew 
 
 Slowly into his creeds. 
 
 Stars and sea and the night are a veil, 
 
 Through which we seem to grope 
 For steps that lead to the altar-rail 
 Guarding the fires, that will not fail, 
 Of sacramental Hope. 
 
 With feet earth-planted, our faith dies down 
 
 To scarcely heeded qualms, 
 A whisper caught from the strident town, 
 A faint truth seen through the bigot's frown, 
 
 Or heard in his dull psalms.
 
 THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 'J'] 
 
 But here, where the moon's inspiring light 
 
 Silvers the windowed waves, 
 With a plank 'twixt us and the Infinite, 
 Over the field of an endless fight 
 
 That fills uncounted graves, 
 
 The hard, material logic seems 
 
 Poorer than cabin-lamp, 
 In face of the radiance of moonbeams, 
 And, tented safe in their clear white dreams. 
 
 Our souls must fain encamp 
 
 On ground of super-sensual thought, 
 
 With mystic sword and spear, 
 For earthly knowledge will count for nought, 
 And spe6tral foes the old prophets fought 
 
 Perilously draw near.
 
 yS THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 
 
 Even as the Hebrew poet sung 
 
 Is ocean's solitude, 
 Now haunted, as when the world was young 
 By spirits, using an unknown tongue, 
 
 Who tune us to their mood. 
 
 On galley-benches, under the whips. 
 
 Cowering Roman slaves 
 Looked up for the new Apocalypse ; 
 And Norsemen, steering their dragon-ships. 
 
 Asked it of Baltic waves. 
 
 The Spaniard, bathing in blood and fire 
 
 The name of Holy Church, 
 Letting his hope to a priest for hire, 
 Yet felt the glow of a strange desire. 
 
 And knew the seaman's search.
 
 THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 79 
 And men who starred with their names the roll 
 
 Of sea-girt England's fame, 
 Rough, salted fellows, who left the soul 
 To chance till the Reaper claimed his toll, 
 
 Sought what they ne'er could name. 
 
 Ever the unanswered question asked, 
 
 Ever the weary cry 
 Of hearts whose courage is over-tasked 
 By the haunting Presence, veiled and masked, 
 
 Felt in the darkness nigh. 
 
 Our quest is the same as theirs, who^strove 
 
 To talk with more than men 
 In Jewish temple or Pagan grove, — 
 Osiris, Odin, Jehovah, Jove, — 
 
 We seek Him now as then.
 
 8o THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 
 But, doubtful of deities who scourge 
 
 With thunderbolt and rod, 
 We pifture One who shall calm the surge 
 Of our spirits' ocean, and emerge 
 
 A gentle, smiling God. 
 
 Out to the sea and the night we reach 
 
 Appealing arms, and pray 
 For a Friend to hear our human speech, 
 A heart to answer, a Voice to teach, 
 
 A Hand to point the way. 
 
 And the sweet sea-murmurs make reply, 
 
 So tenderly confused, — 
 Like a nurse to children, — and the sky 
 Is even as some kind creature's eye, 
 
 Compassionate, amused.
 
 THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 8 I 
 
 Gently chiding, they awake the sense, 
 
 Of something more than joy 
 And more than sorrow, — a confidence 
 That marks the course of our passage hence 
 
 Surer than chart or buoy. 
 
 We feel it a nobler task to sail 
 
 Over an unknown sea. 
 With hope and courage that will not fail. 
 Than to pray for Heaven to rend the veil 
 
 Shrouding the mystery. 
 
 Enough for us to have felt life's glow 
 
 Fanned by the moving Breath 
 Abroad on the waters, ere we go 
 To learn the secret that lies below 
 
 The land-locked waves of Death.
 
 PROMETHEUS 
 
 We seem to watch the vague white dawn unfold 
 In rolling wreaths of mist along the crags, 
 And soon 
 
 The pale belated moon, 
 Who still behind her starry henchmen lags, 
 Is pelted forth with javelin shafts of gold 
 
 By the fierce sun, 
 Sweeping above the saw-backed mountain-chain 
 To drop his fiery lances, one by one, 
 
 On to the waking plain. 
 
 And slowly we discern Thy worn, proud face, 
 In all its undefeated agony.
 
 PROMETHEUS S^ 
 
 Thy mood, 
 No torture has subdued, 
 Of scornful freedom, — though Thou art not free, — 
 The fire that lights Thy haggard eyes, the grace 
 
 Of Thy bound limbs, 
 Cramped with long pain, — ah, let the pidlure stand ! 
 Nothing in all our later knowledge dims 
 This dream from an old land. 
 
 Thou art the deathless type of them who dare 
 To beard an unjust tyrant and defy 
 The hate 
 
 That holds their earthly fate 
 In its foul grip, — of them who ne'er comply 
 With craven counsel, pleading false yet fair, 
 
 But stand alone 
 
 When others cringe and fawn and compromise, 
 
 G — 2
 
 §4 PROMETHEUS 
 
 Facing the Wrong whose right they will not own 
 With uncomplaining eyes. 
 
 Their tombs are marble mile-stones on the road 
 Nations have trod to freedom. Their names rino; 
 Through tales 
 
 Cherished in lonely dales 
 And mountain horpes, — through songs the people 
 
 sing 
 Behind the plough, or with the harvest-load. 
 
 Like stars they gleam 
 Out of the human gloom and storm-clad past, 
 And in the march of many a youthful dream 
 
 They sound a trumpet-blast. 
 
 We know them all of old. But who can claim 
 Pescent in line of true succession now 
 From Thee
 
 PROMETHEUS 85 
 
 Who taught men to be free, 
 Who let no brand of serfdom mark thy brow, 
 Who bade thy fellows loose them from the shame 
 
 Of ignorance. 
 Thwarting the Oppressor who would keep them 
 
 bound, 
 And by Thy torture purchased their advance, — 
 A martyr lightning-crowned ? 
 
 For Despots quake upon their thrones, and Kings 
 Aft in the People's playhouse and must earn 
 Applause 
 
 From those who make the laws. 
 And Priests no longer now have power to burn 
 Disputants deaf to their admonishings ; 
 
 And even they, 
 Whose gold enslaves our vulgar world and rules,
 
 86 PROMETHEUS 
 
 More than a monarch's sceptre, cannot sway 
 Any but their poor tools. 
 
 Ah no, — the new Prometheus will oppose 
 A stronger, subtler tyranny, — the voice 
 Of mobs 
 
 Wherein blind passion throbs, 
 The crude, coarse blunders of the public choice, 
 The veering wind rhetorical that blows 
 
 In daily print, 
 Folly and cant and clamour, dullness fed 
 On waste of weak emotion without stint, 
 
 Hard heart and too soft head. 
 
 He will not stand against the tyrant One, 
 While dumb but grateful multitudes upraise 
 His thought 
 With sense of their lives bought.
 
 PROMETHEUS Sy 
 
 With silent love that speaks in wordless ways. 
 Austere and stern the duty to be done, 
 
 In loneliness, 
 Misjudged, reviled, deserted, ridiculed. 
 With many tongues to curse and few to bless, 
 
 And none by reason ruled. 
 
 Chained to a colder couch than Thy bleak rock 
 On frozen Caucasus, no Herakles 
 Shall rend 
 
 His galling bonds and end 
 The punishment of him who will not please 
 The loud-voiced shepherds of the foolish flock. 
 
 But he will wait 
 Conscious of that whereto his thoughts aspire, 
 And to his Tyrant's dupes disseminate 
 
 Thy nobly stolen Fire.
 
 STELLA'S COTTAGE 
 
 They say she lived here. True or not. 
 
 *Tis certain that, like faint perfume. 
 Remembrance hangs about the spot 
 
 Of her old graceful buried bloom. 
 These fields and woods and yonder stream 
 Were setting for her girlish dream. 
 
 Somewhere on this green land she grew 
 Into that sweet, mysterious thing. 
 
 Ripe maidenhood, and slowly knew 
 
 The wondrous knowledge years will bring 
 
 Even to modest maids who eat 
 
 Bread of dependence, — none too sweet.
 
 Stella's cottage 89 
 
 For here one crossed her sheltered path, 
 
 Whose fortune shared her servitude : 
 Lord of a heritage of wrath, 
 
 Of power untamed, of genius crude, — 
 A writhing Titan, shaped in pain, 
 Seared by his own white-burning brain. 
 
 She alone saw the tortured pride, 
 
 The smouldering rage, the shielded scorn, 
 
 The yearnings daily crucified, 
 
 The chains by fierce ambition worn. 
 
 Her gentle soul could comprehend 
 
 His fate, who had no other friend, 
 
 Only a patron, — not unkind. 
 
 Weighted with that dull cleverness 
 
 Which clothes the true official mind 
 And stamps the common-place success,
 
 90 STELLAS COTTAGE 
 
 Who deemed the uncourtly Swift, no doubt, 
 A talented and learned lout. 
 
 And all the Moor Park guests, — the men 
 With stars adorned, with ribands girt, — 
 
 The type, as now, rewarded then 
 
 For kinship, wealth, — and some desert, — 
 
 Would hope Sir William's goodness prized 
 
 By the rough youth he patronized. 
 
 And that same graceless youth, the while, 
 Measured and weighed them in his thought, 
 
 And pondered, with a savage smile. 
 On value borne by things of nought, 
 
 On lucky dips in Fortune's bowl, 
 
 And how the part exceeds the whole. 
 
 And, raging with the bitter sense 
 Of life's injustice, he would seek
 
 Stella's cottage 91 
 
 In irony his recompense, 
 
 His fury screened behind some freak 
 Of scornful wit, — a lonely jest 
 Gibbering through his hollow breast. 
 
 But the satiric phrenzy lost 
 
 Its power to poison and corrode 
 His fiery spirit, when he crossed 
 
 Her threshold and laid down his load 
 Of sleepless mutiny, that tore 
 His heart and left an unhealed sore. 
 
 Her tender presence seemed to cast 
 
 A calm on that discoloured sea 
 Of wan emotion, where the blast 
 
 Of anger thundered sullenly. 
 Her voice, like David's harp, could roll 
 The storm-clouds from his darkened soul.
 
 92 Stella's cottage 
 
 Her eyes, untutored, saw the worth 
 
 Of this great crooked, gifted mind, 
 Which dazed the pompous lords of earth 
 
 With flashing wit, that left them blind,- 
 In its unlovely strength alone, 
 A hunchback crowned on reason's throne. 
 
 And thus the famous tale began 
 
 Of her love's tragic sacrifice 
 To one half god, yet less than man. 
 
 With brain of fire and blood of ice. 
 Cruel that her white feet should miss 
 The common road of happiness ! 
 
 Yet all things have their price. She gave 
 Her love for some few years, and earned 
 
 A name, thereby, beyond the grave, 
 A shrine where candles yet are burned
 
 STELLAS COTTAGE 93 
 
 By worshippers who know the task 
 Of them that give — but never ask. 
 
 And this meek maiden stands among 
 
 The immortal lovers ; — she whose smile 
 
 Lost Troy, and she whom Virgil sung, 
 And the dread Serpent of old Nile 
 
 Were all her sisters. Gentle heart. 
 
 In what strange company thou art !
 
 EVERSLEY 
 
 All the prophets are dead 
 Who moved like ghosts in the hazy dawn of our 
 
 youth, 
 Where questioning souls toiled after them, com- 
 forted 
 
 By the hope of a cloudless truth. 
 In this yew-tree-guarded plot by the pathway lies 
 One of our early captains. Now, to the eyes 
 Weary with life-long watching and dim with old 
 
 tears. 
 He may lose some span of the stature of those years, 
 He, and our other giants, — the warrior sage. 
 Whose fierce heart, warped in the flame of its 
 honest rage.
 
 EVERSLEY 95 
 
 Yet taught us a creed of courage, weighing the 
 
 worth 
 Of heroes that bear the sword of God upon 
 
 earth, — 
 And he, who, drunk with beauty and light as with 
 
 wine, 
 
 Stirred us with rich, wild speech of his phrenzy 
 
 divine, 
 Art's lightning-veined Dionysius ; — too well I know 
 New wisdom pointed her scorn at them long ago, 
 Showing the flaws in the work and the faults of 
 
 the men. 
 
 There may be no voices to hail them, no knee to 
 
 bow 
 At shrines made sacred for us by their worship 
 
 then, — 
 
 But who are your prophets now ?
 
 96 EVERSLEY 
 
 All the prophets are dead. 
 Lingering sunbeams aslant on the white stone cross 
 Paint us an epitaph, — 'more than the words we 
 read, — 
 
 Telling our greater loss. 
 Not for the leader alone, whom we never knew, 
 We sigh, but for buried dreams, the visions that grew 
 To cover the world like a veil and hide grey things 
 That we wanted to walk apart from, — bargainings 
 In love and honour, the low ambition, the lust 
 For wealth and its tawdry pleasures, the fouling dust 
 Where idol-worshippers crowd on their temple- 
 stair, — 
 Alas ! now these things are plain to us everywhere, 
 And the dreams are few, — yet are they living, and 
 
 come 
 Just when we fancy that all the voices are dumb,
 
 EVERSLEY 97 
 
 Save those of the market-place, and we cry aloud 
 For one with wide clear eyes to walk forth from 
 
 the crowd 
 And speak as these dead men spoke, till the world 
 
 shall turn 
 From the shams and the cant and the comfort her 
 
 children sought. 
 To desires that only in hero-hearts may burn 
 For things which cannot be bought. 
 
 Prophet I come soon ! come soon ! 
 We scarcely seek you, we who are crossing the hill. 
 Whose way goes down to the pale mist under the 
 moon 
 
 In the valley where all is still. 
 
 But those who are coming behind us, — ah, they 
 
 need 
 
 H
 
 98 EVERSLEY 
 
 One who will move as a pillar of fire, and lead 
 Their souls through the waste of a world where 
 
 died old faith, 
 Where men are toiling darkly to follow its wraith 
 Or setting up dismal things that perish for gods, 
 Save here and there, where some lordlier spirit 
 
 plods. 
 Away from the beaten road, through the wilderness, 
 To look for a newer Eden ; the vulgar stress 
 Of life may seem to have deadened all higher hopes. 
 But under the gold and the garbage Man's heart 
 
 gropes 
 Now, as in every time, for deliverance 
 From the sensual cage, and broken-winged he pants 
 
 For the power to soar. If only the world could 
 
 hear — 
 This coarse, material world, — an authentic voice
 
 EVERSLEY 99 
 
 Bidding it watch, for a new Messiah was near, 
 The world would heed and rejoice. 
 
 Old dogmas are outworn 
 
 That he taught in this little church ; and all creeds 
 die; 
 
 And teachers pass ; and the lesson-pages are torn. 
 And the dusty books laid by ; 
 
 But, at least, this man has helped us to hear the 
 note 
 
 Of the wordless song whose wandering murmurs 
 float 
 
 From fields that the sunlight splashes with golden- 
 brown 
 
 As it plays on the shocks of corn, from woods that 
 
 crown 
 
 The sloping ridges, from meadow and lane and heath, 
 
 H — 2
 
 lOO EVERSLEY 
 
 And crowded pines, with a blush of heather beneath, 
 And the stream where the fat trout lie; — oh, here 
 is rest 
 
 From the world, with its fevered brain and panting 
 
 breast. 
 And Youth comes back with its visions, and that 
 
 sweet dawn 
 Of Hope, that lighted the dew upon dream-land's 
 
 lawn. 
 And set all the colours aflame in the garden-beds 
 Where the flowers of love and glory lifted their 
 
 heads, 
 And we see the land we had lost, and forget the din 
 Of a jarring age, and learn the wisdom anew. 
 That tells how only the losers in life shall win 
 And only the dreams be true.
 
 MERMAIDS 
 
 cc 
 
 All the lights are burning bright." — The cry of 
 
 the watchman floats 
 Hoarsely aft, through the tangle, vague and 
 blurred, 
 Of cord and spar and crane and winch and shapeless, 
 sheeted boats, 
 
 Half-guessed, half-heard. 
 
 Star-illumined darkness lies in a thick transparent 
 veil 
 On lumbered deck and slowly heaving bows i 
 Vision of dim chaotic sea and foam-streak, faint and 
 pale. 
 
 The light allows.
 
 I02 MERMAIDS 
 
 As though some buried lantern gleamed up through 
 the vault of brine, 
 Suddenly all is ghostly flame below, 
 Where fish-stirred, phosphorescent flakes of water 
 seethe and shine. 
 Coldly aglow. 
 
 Like an uncurtained window spreads the strangely 
 lighted sea 
 Over the pallid fire and speftral things 
 That whirl through molten stars and poise in a 
 liquid mystery 
 
 Their weightless wings. 
 
 Through the luminous surface comes a glimpse of 
 trailing hair 
 And wistful, haunted mouths and eager eyes, —
 
 MERMAIDS 103 
 
 Surely each ripple flashes on familiar faces there 
 Before it dies ! 
 
 Sweet un forgotten forms that drift out from the 
 
 perished years ! 
 Pages written once in a secret book ! 
 Palimpsests from the burning pen that passion 
 dipped in tears, 
 
 Where none may look ! 
 
 Ah ! but you tell the life-long tale of ever- 
 smouldering fire, 
 And far, sweet dreams, and darkness where we 
 grope, 
 And ache of uncompanioned hearts, and slumberless 
 desire 
 
 And wounded hope.
 
 I04 MERMAIDS 
 
 Sometimes there are souls that come to this alien 
 world by chance, 
 Following up a twisted, baffling trail. 
 Chasing a jack-o'-lantern light, that lives to shine 
 and dance 
 
 When all lights fail. 
 
 *t)' 
 
 They seek the phantom shape that flies before and 
 is not here. 
 
 The loved, desired, and dreamed-of one they 
 know, — 
 Unseen, unheard, untouched, — yet felt so often 
 moving near 
 
 Like cloud-borne snow. 
 
 And, while their brief earth passage lasts, from time 
 to time they halt. 
 Feeling hope flash hot through their weariness,
 
 MERMAIDS 105 
 
 Thinking, *' Here is a kindred soul, with neither 
 flaw nor fault, 
 
 I must not miss 1 " 
 
 Dear eyes that answered smile for smile, you carry 
 no faint cloud 
 Of dim reproach ! dear mouths, that love has 
 sealed 
 With sacred kisses, not one sigh comes from you, 
 firm and proud ! 
 
 Old wounds are healed. 
 
 We soared and failed, and fell once more headlong 
 back to the earth, 
 And paid another toll-bar tax of pain, 
 But those wild joys, that died so young after their 
 lurid birth, 
 
 Were much to gain.
 
 I06 MERMAIDS 
 
 We have lived and laughed, and known at least the 
 flavour of Love's wine, 
 E'en from a flagon torn away too soon, 
 And, though the sun of dreams and dewy day no 
 longer shine, 
 
 Night brings the moon. 
 
 Love looks yet from the smiling eyes under the 
 water there. 
 Love, where pain and passion are both asleep ; — ■ 
 But the gleam fades, and glides the ship to darknesss, 
 everywhere 
 
 So dumb ! So deep !
 
 ELLE ET LUI 
 
 I WONDER if you know the well-known tale, 
 Like most true tales, half sad and half absurd, 
 Of how the stormy pools of love were stirred 
 By two great children of the Muses, plumed 
 With crests of genius, that might nought avail 
 In this one enterprise, nor save them, doomed 
 To stab of love turned traitor, and the wrench 
 Of faith uptorn ; two noble figures blurred, 
 Disguised, theatrical, — and very French. 
 
 Are you and I like that ? You never had 
 Much vision for the ludicrous, and now, 
 Angrily scornful, you may wonder how 
 I dare suppose that you, — or even I, —
 
 I08 ELLE ET LUI 
 
 Could furnish food for laughter in those mad 
 Past days. Forgive me ! One must laugh or cry 
 When things go ill, — so let me drive a jest 
 Across our withered harvest, like a plough 
 Hiding dead stubble in Earth's Autumn breast. 
 
 You know De Musset's poems ? — tender, sweet, 
 But overloaded with the sensuous pain 
 Of sorrow half enjoyed; he lives in vain 
 And rather likes it; — though a truer tone 
 Rings, I should fancy, through the stately beat 
 Of those fine lines wherein he walks alone 
 With memories of her who held, apart 
 From all his other loves, imperial reign, 
 And broke, perhaps, his somewhat brittle heart. 
 
 And she had her own statement of the case 
 Whose rights and wrongs are buried now. The thing
 
 ELLE ET LUI I09 
 
 Only has power to set me wondering 
 
 If delicate, artistic natures feel 
 
 Deeply as those nearer to commonplace, 
 
 And may not from their own emotion steal 
 
 A sense of drama they are looking at, 
 
 And find a certain morbid pleasure spring 
 
 From parts they play. Are you and I like that ? 
 
 How hard it is, in these self-conscious days. 
 To thrust aside that ever-threatening fear. 
 Even in our laughter are we insincere ? 
 You never cared for laughter much. Perhaps 
 George Sand was also tuned to serious ways 
 And knew not self-approval's grim relapse. 
 But did De Musset see his own shape pass 
 And not suspedt a histrionic sneer, 
 A presentation of the Tragic Ass ?
 
 no ELLE ET LUI 
 
 I know not, care not. In this Autumn time 
 
 Each fading leaf, each golden-mantled tree 
 
 Such anguish of remembrance bring to me 
 
 There is no room for self-analysis 
 
 And mocking doubt. I see the great moon climb 
 
 Up the dark sky ; I see the sunset kiss 
 
 Pine-woods like that you showed me ; I behold 
 
 The mist turn purple ; but I do not see 
 
 Her who in Autumn walked with me of old. 
 
 This is no afting now ; — I wish it were. 
 I think my powers of make-believe are numb, 
 And I can only wonder, dazed and dumb, 
 What has befallen. It is passing strange 
 That we should still be living and aware 
 Of thought and breath. Have we not known a 
 change ?
 
 ELLE ET LUI III 
 
 Are wc not parted now ? And was it you 
 Whose soul across my dream-land used to come 
 With white feet bathed in love's transparent dew? 
 
 I know this obvious world as, in a swoon, 
 One hears faint voices. But remembrance yields 
 A far more vivid world of brown, wet fields 
 And park and garden, and an old walled home 
 Vague in the dusk beneath the rising moon, — 
 Or wakes the roar of friendly waves that foam 
 Under the tall clifF-rampart of the downs. 
 Where the long slope of lonely silence shields 
 Our spirits from the taint of hateful towns. 
 
 But now am I an exile and may look 
 No longer on the fair, proud face that pressed 
 Like a sweet living flower upon my breast, 
 Nor hear, with you, the husky rustling sea.
 
 112 ELLE ET LUI 
 
 Nor watch our evening star. In that closed book 
 
 I read no more. Something is gone from me. 
 
 I am a shattered idol, and my day 
 
 Is over. For the splendour that you dressed 
 
 My deprecating soul in, I must pay. 
 
 I claimed no halo ; I desired no crown ; 
 Nor asked to stand upon the pedestal 
 You reared for me, — though I foretold my fall. 
 But, judged, condemned, I enter no defence 
 Nor plead for any softening of your frown. 
 I cannot even play with the pretence 
 Of kneeling penitent. Degraded, rough, 
 Animal, — what you will, — I gave you all 
 I had to give ; — and it was not enough. 
 
 I talk of giving j think not I forget, — 
 
 Dear, lavish heart, — the splendid gift you gave,
 
 ELLE ET LUI I I 3 
 
 Tender and reckless, womanly but brave ; 
 
 And I am glad you gave, and cannot feel, 
 
 Even now^, for that sweet season a regret. 
 
 I may have crushed Love's flower with clumsy heel. 
 
 But you had cheapened Love before that time, 
 
 And though my truth and fervour could not save 
 
 Love by my passion stained, you shared the crime. 
 
 But I have wandered widely from my text, — 
 Dc Musset and George Sand ! — I hardly thought 
 The theme would prove so personal. I ought, 
 With calm, impartial spirit, to explore 
 The problem, and forget pale ghosts that vexed 
 My soul with their reproaches. Nevermore 
 Can these cold ashes glow with that which fed 
 The fire within them. Sunny dreams we sought 
 Fade into joyless gloom. Our love is dead.
 
 114 ELLE ET LUI 
 
 Our love is dead. God ! — do you understand 
 
 What the word means ? The happy, trustful ways. 
 
 The sweet companionship, the sacred days, 
 
 The dedicated thoughts, the emotion shared, 
 
 The high hopes guarded, the great labours planned. 
 
 And, ah ! — the shy, veiled tenderness that dared 
 
 To search Love's holiest temple ; — all are gone. 
 
 Our souls are floating hulks the current frays. 
 
 The brine corrodes, the harsh winds beat upon. 
 
 Our love is dead. — But, no ! — Love cannot die. 
 Passion is dead, — desire, and hope, and trust. 
 We both have wrongs to pardon, and the rust 
 Has gnawed our broken chain beyond repair. 
 But some small freehold of Eternity 
 We bought for Love, and proved his title there 
 With pure and faithful service. We have been
 
 ELLE ET LUI II5 
 
 Blinded, befooled, — but not by lies or lust. 
 
 Our robes are draggled, but our hearts are clean. 
 
 Of small account our few remaining years ! 
 Of small account ourselves, our crippled lives. 
 Our weary hearts. There is a force that strives 
 Constant, persistent, through the march of Man, 
 Feeds on his blood, grows wider with his tears, — 
 A changeless current since the world began, 
 A swelling flood time may not turn nor stop. 
 And what last dew of our dead love survives 
 Adds to that sacred stream one precious drop. 
 
 We mav have erred, — but error fades like foam 
 
 On banks beyond each rippling eddy's rim. 
 
 We may have stumbled, — but the light was dim. 
 
 We may have failed, — but Failure has her crown. 
 
 Truly we worshipped under Love's great dome 
 
 I — 2
 
 Il6 ELLE ET LUI 
 
 And at His altar laid our rich gifts down. 
 It may be that our souls shall come to dwell 
 United, healed, and sandlified, with Him, 
 The last high Eros. — So, then, fare you well.
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO 
 
 We have little enough of his work, you see. 
 These two he never finished are all, 
 Save the canvas there, on the other wall. 
 
 Of his paintings; while for statuary- 
 Some copies in plaster I recall 
 
 In our meagre national store of casts ; 
 
 We might give them a visit, too, one day. 
 
 If the present turn of your fancy lasts. 
 And you care to steal some hours away 
 
 From the round of pleasure that claims your time 
 For something more sublime. 
 
 Pardon my banter ! Your laughing eyes 
 Cloud with a faint, reproachful shade
 
 Il8 MICHAEL ANGELO 
 
 At the mocking accusation made. 
 And the most minute of possible sighs 
 
 Creeps through your curved, red lips, afraid 
 Of its own existence. — " Love of Art 
 
 Is a thing that, I please will understand, 
 Has played in your life a leading part." 
 
 But, though I be reprobate, outcast, banned. 
 You do not belong to the stock, you know, 
 Of Michael Angelo. 
 
 Dear, mirthful woman, daintily fair ! 
 
 Watteau were likelier, I should guess, 
 
 As the guardian-priest of your loveliness. 
 The very curl and droop of your hair, 
 
 Your clothes and your jewels and scent express 
 Something, as clear as the Master's paint, 
 
 Of a graceful, idle, delicate world,
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO IIQ 
 
 Far from the dreams of Seer and Saint, 
 
 Where all the flaring banners are furled, 
 Where the uglier colours of life have paled, 
 And human hearts are veiled. 
 
 Suspeft no critical tone ! I dwell 
 
 So much in that self-same world, and take 
 My part in its pleasure, and rarely break 
 
 From its bounds ; for I like it passing well, — 
 Though I go there mostly for your dear sake. 
 Are we not lovers — after our kind. 
 
 Playing the game as our fellows do, 
 Sometimes passionate, — never blind, — 
 
 Unforgetful, — and fairly true ? 
 I give my heart — as much as I dare, 
 
 And you, — in your strange way, — care.
 
 I20 MICHAEL ANGELO 
 
 You, on the whole, are content enough 
 
 With your atmosphere, though you may have 
 
 laughed 
 Sometimes at the sparkling wine you quaffed, 
 Finding it heady, chemical stuff. 
 
 And longed, perhaps, for a purer draught. 
 I shrug my shoulders, and acquiesce 
 
 In things that are, I believe the bond 
 For us is a common weariness, 
 
 A light despair of the things beyond. 
 
 We meet with laughter the ancient curse, 
 
 Knowing it might be worse. 
 
 But he was a very serious man. 
 
 This grim old painter of mighty themes, 
 Who dwelt apart with eternal dreams. 
 
 Working out life on a lonely plan,
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO 121 
 
 And finding it greater than it seems. 
 He would hardly choose in our world a place 
 
 For planting his nature's rugged roots, — 
 He owned no flavour of drawing-room grace, 
 
 And used to sleep, they say, in his boots. 
 And washed too little, no doubt, and lost 
 Much that is worth its cost. 
 
 But he gained one treasure, — all else above, — 
 
 The absorbing purpose, the deathless aim. 
 
 The high aspiration ever the same. 
 Stronger than pleasure, ambition, love. 
 
 Lighting his path with a magic flame. 
 What did he gather that we have missed ? 
 
 Loneliness ? Poverty ? Labour ?— Dear, 
 Even the fortunate lips you kissed 
 
 Must own to the claim of that life austere.
 
 122 MICHAEL ANGELO 
 
 I would follow, — with you, if the Gods allow, — 
 If not, — follow anyhow. 
 
 For we have nothing, — dereli6ls tossed 
 
 On the sea where our captain hopes were 
 drowned, 
 
 Where the winds like taunting voices sound. 
 You are a mourner for one you lost, 
 
 And I for one I have never found. 
 We ove, as comrades, with truth and faith. 
 
 But if love be all^ — life's total and end, — • 
 Each of us chases a dubious wraith. 
 
 Half a lover and half a friend. 
 The part is no gain if you miss the whole, 
 Supposing you have a soul. 
 
 Ah me ! When that plaintive voice of yours 
 Yields me the song I have loved for years.
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO I 23 
 
 I can hear the ceaseless dropping of tears 
 In the rich voluptuous stream it pours, 
 
 And the mask of your laughter disappears. 
 And I know that your soul imprisoned weeps 
 
 For the world that glimmers beyond the bars, 
 Till the earthlier side of your nature sleeps, 
 
 And your thoughts go winging towards the stars, 
 Looking for Art ? — Love ? — Some great thing 
 Dominant while you sing. 
 
 For Art and Love arc but words, that mean 
 Something over-profound to contain 
 In symbols shaped by the human brain, 
 
 « 
 
 When once you inhabit that air serene 
 
 Where life goes suddenly straight and plain. 
 
 This painter here, who had strength to choose 
 The harder pathway, nor turned aside
 
 124 MICHAEL ANGELO 
 
 For things we never could bear to lose, 
 Knew, in his patient, humble pride. 
 That he gained them all, in a deeper sense, 
 Multiplied, — more intense. 
 
 But he was abnormal, you objeft, — 
 
 Had genius, — moved by different laws. 
 
 It may be. The Universal Cause 
 Has a very varied wealth of effe6l, 
 
 And life, like glass, whatever its flaws. 
 Shows the effulgence of light behind. 
 
 Save when we wilfully cloak the gleam. 
 There is a best of every kind. 
 
 And each day carries a hidden dream. 
 How I hunger to make the dream come true, 
 And share its Heaven with you.
 
 MICPIAEL ANGELO I 25 
 
 Sweetest woman I ever have known ! 
 
 I could hate the tyrant passion that clings 
 
 To my soul in all its wanderings, 
 Whose fleshly, fiery meshes are thrown 
 
 Round my bedraggled, trailing wings. 
 Sometimes I wonder if Love be worth 
 
 Anguish and effort and thought we give 
 To the chase, that we make of our life on Earth, 
 
 After so cunning a fugitive. 
 Were it not better, the stern delight 
 Of this Artist-Anchorite ? 
 
 More and more, in this daily show, 
 
 This pageant of vanity where we walk, 
 With its greed and its glitter and foolish talk. 
 
 My spirit will chafe and my fancies go 
 
 From the scavenger-sparrows up to the hawk.
 
 126 MICHAEL ANGELO 
 
 And 1 feel that an hour is drawing on 
 
 When the Voice no more can be disobeyed, 
 When I shall awake, with the glory gone 
 
 From this game in half-delusion played 
 By beings that know in their inmost hearts 
 How it irks to aft such parts. 
 
 And I shall have done with the make-believe, 
 And bend my footsteps, — alone at first, — 
 To the wilderness and the dust and the thirst. 
 
 And the path where the brambles interweave. 
 And look for reality, — best or worst. 
 
 I shall couch, with a pillow of stony thought, 
 On the frost-nipped desert of self-control. 
 
 And shall buy the knowledge not to be bought 
 With payment less than a bartered soul.
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO 127 
 
 Of my present treasure nought will I keep 
 Save laughter, — lest I weep. 
 
 But, from time to time, with a growing hope, 
 
 A clearer vision, a speech untied, 
 
 A passion lifted and purified, 
 I shall turn, on some moonlit night, and grope 
 
 Through the pale obscurity to your side; 
 Not in this crowded town, but there 
 
 In your memory-haunted garden bowers, 
 When dew lies white on the grass, and the air 
 
 Is richly sweet with the drowsy flowers. 
 While you are dreaming of loves long past 
 And delight that did not last. 
 
 And, when you kiss me for old time's sake, 
 I will whisper all that I have to tell 
 Of the strange new country wherein I dwell.
 
 128 MICHAEL ANGELO 
 
 Where hearts may almost forget to ache, 
 
 Where a great love, stronger than Heaven or Hell, 
 Might hold us, blotting our past desire. 
 
 As a feeble thing, from our thoughts, and lead 
 Our spirits on, to soar, to aspire, 
 
 To taste of life that is life indeed. 
 And, leaving the dead ghosts, frozen, dumb, 
 I wonder — will you come ?
 
 THE GARDEN OF TEARS* 
 
 Sweet were you, Fountain, though the name 
 
 men gave 
 
 Your waters long ago had carried nought 
 
 Of heart-ache and heart-rapture ; your clear wave 
 
 Gleams through so fair a garden, and has caught 
 
 Such tones ; and like a deep and crystal thought 
 
 Lies the wide pool you feed. But fancy grows 
 
 To fervour o'er your ancient title, fraught 
 
 With passion, — " Fountain of the loves " of those 
 
 Whose harmonies were played here to their cruel 
 
 close. 
 
 • Inez de Castro was the mistress, and eventually the wife, 
 of the Infante Pedro, heir to the throne of Portugal. The 
 courtiers of his father, Alfonso IV., were jealous of her influence, 
 and murdered her by the Fonte dos Aniores in the Quinta das 
 Lagrimas at Coimbra. 
 
 K
 
 130 THE GARDEN OF TEARS 
 
 Drowsy delight it is to sit and dream, 
 This- fair September morning-, in the shade 
 Of branches drooping o'er your dappled stream, 
 And watch the distant grove of olives- fade 
 In golden blur the noon-day sun has made. 
 And feel the whole world hushed, and hear the 
 
 chime 
 From roof to roof of old Coimbra played 
 In belfries, that repeat their chanted rhyme 
 Like answering choristers, as wanes the slumbrous 
 
 time. 
 
 And, reading stately lines Camoens Wrote 
 Engraved on yonder stone, mine idle brain 
 Draws from dead centuries the tale remote 
 That here was staged ; and tries to pidlure plain 
 Inez, dnrk-eved,— perhaps a little vain.
 
 THE GARDEN OF TEARS I31 
 
 Capricious, passionate, — but ah ! so kind, 
 Aglow with all the sunny blood of Spain, 
 Weaving her tender bands of love to bind 
 The fiery Southern Prince whose rough gold she 
 refined. 
 
 And here, beneath the plane-trees, they would 
 
 meet, 
 Sheltered from all the hard world's fretful jar, 
 For stolen- sweetness, ever the most sweet. 
 For mortal dreams that yet immortal are. 
 Time, with its pangs and burdens, could not mar 
 Their perfedl trust and fellowship, but crowned 
 Their fruitful union with the radiant star 
 Of parenthood, whose rich light wrapped them 
 
 round 
 
 With that most pure of joys humanity has found. 
 
 K — 2
 
 132 THE GARDEN OF TEARS 
 
 So, in this vale of tillage, years went on, 
 A thread of peace across those warlike days, 
 Vintages gathered, harvests come and gone, 
 Jlipe loads of fruit, and shock-head crops of 
 
 maize. 
 And still Coimbra's hourly chime of praise 
 Pealed to yon hills where green oak-forests stand^ 
 Marking the eternal Now, — that never $tays, — 
 For all such loyers in this sunburnt land 
 Where blue Mondego twines dark o'er the yellow 
 
 sand. 
 
 Then all was ended suddenly by men 
 Scarce human, who accomplished their vile deed 
 Here by the Fountain, running crimson then. 
 On her whose life thwarted somehow their greed. 
 And with that murder was the passage freed
 
 THE GARDEN OF TEARS I 33 
 
 For wrath and strife and vengeance, fiercely- 
 spread 
 By Pedro, making a whole nation bleed 
 In expiation of the dear blood shed. 
 Till for a while his rage lay sleeping, though not 
 dead. 
 
 Men called him " Cruel " afterwards, because 
 Her slayers he with lingering torment slew. 
 By God ! I scarcely wonder if he was ! 
 Poor, gentle Inez ? It was well for you 
 To die in days full-blooded, when they knew 
 Passionate love and hate. Vengeance may be 
 Of Heaven alone the privilege and due. 
 Yet no cold modern magnanimity 
 Could move me like the fire of lovcrs such 
 as he.
 
 134 "^^^ GARDEN OF TEARS 
 
 Ours is another age, and deeds of blood 
 Seem but a vulgar folly to the wit 
 Of those that hear the wash of that calm flood, 
 Civilization, — even when they sit, 
 As I, in places half-rejefting it 
 With their unbroken rampart of romance. 
 And yet our tepid passions barely fit 
 Into this scene where such hot sunbeams glance 
 
 On wavelets with a flash of battle when they dance, 
 
 Though formed for meditation and repose, — 
 This Convent here in bygone days a nest 
 Of holy womanhood, who gave the rose 
 And kept the thorn, — thinking that God knew 
 
 best, — 
 And those grey courts and cloisters on the breast 
 Of yonder hill, where generations pass
 
 THE GARDEN OF TEARS 1 35 
 
 The lamp of learning on, a sacred quest, — 
 The cool, dark garden-paths, the sunlit grass, — 
 Must human discord break their harmonies, alas ! 
 
 Well, life is life ! He, though no suffering saint, 
 At least could love. There was a later scene 
 The kindliest fancy could not fear to paint, 
 When he, now Monarch, gave so strange a queen 
 To Lusitania as had never been ; — 
 The weird Court held at night, in torchlit gloom, 
 WJiere he sat throned, and, at his side, serene 
 In the mysterious beauty of her doom. 
 Dead Inez, robed and crowjied, a consort from the 
 tomh. 
 
 And dazed, bewildered courtiers had to come 
 And bow before the sceptred corpse, and pay
 
 136 THE GARDEN OF TEARS 
 
 Homage to her enthroned there, dreadful, dumb, 
 A statue modelled of no sculptor's clay, 
 A Something, present, yet so far away, 
 Gazing upon them with her dull, dead eyes, 
 That mocked this earthly pomp and proud- 
 array. 
 Scornful in their oblivion, strangely wise. 
 
 Seeing beyond all fear and sorrow and surprise. 
 
 Well-guarded passions played amid that throng 
 Of high grandees and women nobly born, — ■ 
 Resentment for some unrequited wrong. 
 Regret for bitter deeds and hearts forlorn, 
 Envy and lust, ambition, anger, scorn, 
 With love and hope, were wafted round the 
 
 throne 
 Of That, wherein all passions were outworn,,
 
 THE GARDEN OF TEARS 1 37 
 
 All joys forgotten, all desires unknown, — 
 Eternally apart, — infinitely alone. 
 
 The gruesome mockery of pomp at last 
 Was over, and one seems to know the sense 
 Of vague relief that lightened souls aghast 
 With half-admiring horror, too intense 
 For long endurance, when they bore her thence 
 Through multitudes of mourners and the flare 
 Of countless torches, whose magnificence 
 Filled the vast night and sent a haunting glare 
 Across the land, to tell of love and great despair.. 
 
 And nobly so they carried her to sleep 
 At Alcoba^a, among buried kings. 
 Now she adorns a legend. But how deep 
 Are planted roots of old romantic things !
 
 138 THE GARDEN OF TEARS 
 
 In this calm garden the remembrance wrings 
 My bosom with compassion, and I know 
 These lovers and can hear their whisperings 
 Through the light murmur of the Fountain's 
 flow, — 
 Till sweetly, softly fades this dream of long ago.
 
 A SUBURBAN JUNCTION 
 
 Under the new-lit lamps the sloppy platform gleams 
 
 While murky smoke and dripping vapour blend 
 To make a twilight foul as fever-blackened dreams, 
 Veiling the huddled row of sheds the station seems, 
 The aggressive, hideous foot-bridge at the end. 
 
 The coloured signals blink, tiie streaks of metal 
 shine. 
 Far down the dingy track beneath the rain. 
 Scene have I never viewed less noble, less divine. 
 As, past the staring throng, I scan the distant line 
 To seek the late and long-expedled train.
 
 140 A SUBURBAN JUNCTION 
 
 In sudden, fierce revolt rises my angered blood 
 Against the vulgar ugliness of things, 
 Against the cancerous town, the smells, the din, the 
 
 mud, 
 The cravv^ling, teeming life, the plants that never 
 bud. 
 The birds that cannot spread their crippled 
 wings ; 
 
 Against the myriad folk like this dull group 
 around. 
 With bulging, wet umbrellas, dreary clothes; 
 Against their narrow lives, their obje6t never found, 
 Their virtues and their vice by cramped convention 
 bound, 
 Their songs, their tears, their laughter, and 
 their oaths.
 
 A SUBURBAN JUNCTION T4I 
 
 But dies the thought in shame, and comes a rushing 
 sense 
 Of humble, inconsolable appeal. 
 Of hot desire to learn the wherefore and the 
 
 whence, 
 To shape this broken pulp of nonsense into sense, 
 The heart beneath the noise to hear and feel. 
 
 This brickwork, bare and blank, these ill-propor- 
 tioned walls, 
 These roofs with all the slopes and angles 
 wrong. 
 Hold an imprisoned voice that, wordless, pleading, 
 
 calls, 
 Sustain mute echoes where some ghostly footstep 
 falls, 
 And cage unsung the sweetnesG of a song.
 
 142 A SUBURBAN JUNCTION 
 
 Who could not point you now each differenrt 
 Muse's home. 
 Where all poetic thought must come to birth? 
 With measurement and rule, in many a learned 
 
 tome, 
 Has Culture everywhere, from Kensington to 
 Rome, 
 Serenely taught the world her beauty's worth. 
 
 Poetic pilgrims turn their feet towards the lands 
 Which Art, by long succession, makes her 
 own. 
 Where all may find the clay half-moulded to their 
 
 hands, 
 And hear a language talked the dullest understands, 
 And know what those dead mighty ones have 
 known.
 
 A SUBURBAN JUNCTION 1 43 
 
 Ah, but I love you well, dear countries of Romance, 
 
 With all your garnered mystery of Time, — 
 Vineyard and olive-grove, folk-song and sunburnt 
 
 dance, 
 Sea-plunder and crusade, sceptre and harp and lance, 
 The carillon of centuries a-chime ! 
 
 Well might I care to tread the path by poets trod. 
 And wanton with old memories and dreams, — 
 Dryad, and laughing Faun, and happy pagan God,^ 
 The wondrous world whose life obeyed the 
 Olympian nod, 
 And Tempe, and the pure Thessalian streams. 
 
 Sweet would it be to tell the testaments again 
 
 That men from other, greater lips have read, 
 To sing for them once more tlie haunting old 
 refrain,
 
 144 A SUBURBAN JUNCTION 
 
 To pi£lure scenes beloved and witcheries made 
 plain, 
 And visions more than half interpreted. 
 
 But, as a symbol there, the grimy girders rest. 
 
 Like lattice-work, against the blank abyss, 
 Time's virgin Epigram, Destiny's cryptic jest. 
 Past prophets have revealed the wonder of the rest. 
 But who can tear the secret out of this? 
 
 Oh, Soul of Beauty, chained and captive under all ! 
 
 Where is the fairy Prince to set you free 
 From these grim fetters forged of rail and roof and 
 
 wall ? 
 Gas-works and chimney-stacks, mud-stain and 
 smoky pall 
 Hide you from eyes that have not learned to 
 see.
 
 A SUBURBAN JUNCTION 1 45 
 
 But faithful hearts may find your Temple every- 
 where. 
 So let me make this halting-place a shrine, 
 Pour out libations meet on this strange altar-stair, 
 And through this chancel harsh breathe from my 
 soul a prayer 
 For insight, changing squalid to divine. 
 
 Could I but sing the words branded, — an unknown 
 tongue, — 
 Oh yonder soiled and tattered page, ere long 
 The weary world would dream of old things ever 
 
 young, 
 And hearts, that have not stirred when other notes 
 were sung, 
 Would waken, and be thankful for the song.
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 MUTINEERS: a Novel. 
 
 The Speaker. — " An interesting story related with admirable 
 lucidity and remarkable grasp of character. Mr. Legge 
 writes with polish and grace ; he has a happy sense of 
 humour, and a certain distinction of style that quite 
 removes ' Mutineers ' from the ranks of tlie common- 
 place. Alike in conception and execution this novel 
 has many excellent qualities, and must be regarded as 
 one of undeniable promise." 
 
 Literature. — " The story is a good one : the characters real 
 and life-like, and several are of exceptional merit." 
 
 The World. — "A more than usually interesting jjiece of 
 fiction." 
 
 The Illustrated London N'ews. — " Where Mr. Legge specially 
 excels is in description out of dobrs. There he is a 
 master. A high ideal of workmanship is maintained 
 throughout. There is not a slipshod page in the book, 
 and there are many that must give delight to every 
 reader sensitive to style." 
 
 The Literary World. — " A novel sure to win applause." 
 
 The Outlook. — " A well written and 'full ' piece of work." 
 
 Punch. — " Pleasant and bright." 
 
 The Star. — " It is a real pleasure to meet with such good 
 work as this, and to have the opportunity of praising it." 
 
 The Bookman. — " The intelligence, the conscientiousness, 
 the knowledge of life and human nature displayed are 
 exceptional." 
 
 JOHN LANE, Publisher, London &- New York.
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 Both Great and Small. 
 
 The Times. — " The style of the book . . . is terse and 
 witty." 
 
 Spectator. — " Full of quiet and clever observation, and 
 written with a good deal of descriptive talent." 
 
 Saturday Revieiu. — " We read on and on with increasing 
 pleasure." 
 
 The Bookman. — " It is a real pleasure to read a story 
 written with the care and affection which the author 
 betrays on almost every page. . . . Throughout 
 the book one finds vigour, truth, and lucidity, together 
 with some descriptive touches of nature which are 
 admirable. 
 
 The Outlook. — " Mr. Arthur Legge is to be congratulated 
 on ' Both Great and Small.' Story, God bless you ! 
 he has one to tell, sir, and he tells it with no little art 
 and in excellent English, graceful and mascuhne." 
 
 British Weekly. — "Mr. Legge's powers are far above the 
 average. . . . His correct, forcible, and pure 
 English is in itself a pleasure to read, but he has other 
 gifts than that of language. Not one of his characters 
 but brings his and her own conviction of reality." 
 
 Vanity Fair. — " There is some very excellent drawing of 
 secondary characters in Mr. Legge's clever and enter- 
 taining novel." 
 
 The Literary World. — " It is our pleasant duty to offer 
 Mr. A. E. J. Legge our cordial thanks for ' Both Great 
 and Small,' the novel with which he has followed up 
 the success achieved by him when he published 
 'Mutineers.'" 
 
 JOHN LANE, Publisher, London &- New York.
 
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