Unto that love must we through fire attain,Which those two held as breath of common air;The hands of whom were given in bond elsewhere;Whom Honour was untroubled to restrain.
Midway the road of our life's term they met,And one another knew without surprise;Nor cared that beauty stood in mutual eyes;Nor at their tardy meeting nursed regret.
To them it was revealed how they had foundThe kindred nature and the needed mind;The mate by long conspiracy designed;The flower to plant in sanctuary ground.
Avowed in vigilant solicitudeFor either, what most lived within each breastThey let be seen: yet every human testDemanding righteousness approved them good.
She leaned on a strong arm, and little fearedAbandonment to help if heaved or sankHer heart at intervals while Love looked blank,Life rosier were she but less revered.
An arm that never shook did not obscureHer woman's intuition of the bliss -Their tempter's moment o'er the black abyss,Across the narrow plank—he could abjure.
Then came a day that clipped for him the thread,And their first touch of lips, as he lay cold,Was all of earthly in their love untold,Beyond all earthly known to them who wed.
So has there come the gust at South-west flungBy sudden volt on eves of freezing mist,When sister snowflake sister snowdrop kissed,And one passed out, and one the bell-head hung.
Sunset worn to its last vermilion he;She that star overhead in slow descent:That white star with the front of angel she;He undone in his rays of glory spent
Halo, fair as the bow-shot at his rise,He casts round her, and knows his hour of restIncomplete, were the light for which he dies,Less like joy of the dove that wings to nest.
Lustrous momently, near on earth she sinks;Life's full throb over breathless and abased:Yet stand they, though impalpable the links,One, more one than the bridally embraced.
They have no song, the sedges dry,And still they sing.It is within my breast they sing,As I pass by.Within my breast they touch a string,They wake a sigh.There is but sound of sedges dry;In me they sing.
If that thou hast the gift of strength, then knowThy part is to uplift the trodden low;Else in a giant's grasp until the endA hopeless wrestler shall thy soul contend.
[Written for the Charing Cross Album]
Seen, too clear and historic within us, our sins of omissionFrown when the Autumn days strike us all ruthlessly bare.They of our mortal diseases find never healing physician;Errors they of the soul, past the one hope to repair.
Sunshine might we have been unto seed under soil, or have scatteredSeed to ascendant suns brighter than any that shone.Even the limp-legged beggar a sick desperado has flatteredBack to a half-sloughed life cheered by the mere human tone.
Between the fountain and the rillI passed, and saw the mighty willTo leap at sky; the careless run,As earth would lead her little son.
Beneath them throbs an urgent well,That here is play, and there is war.I know not which had most to tellOf whence we spring and what we are.
Beneath the vans of doom did men pass in.Heroic who came out; for round them hungA wavering phantom's red volcano tongue,With league-long lizard tail and fishy fin:
Old Earth's original Dragon; there retiredTo his last fastness; overthrown by few.Him a laborious thrust of roadway slew.Then man to play devorant straight was fired.
More intimate became the forest fearWhile pillared darkness hatched malicious lifeAt either elbow, wolf or gnome or knifeAnd wary slid the glance from ear to ear.
In chillness, like a clouded lantern-ray,The forest's heart of fog on mossed morass,On purple pool and silky cotton-grass,Revealed where lured the swallower byway.
Dead outlook, flattened back with hard reboundOff walls of distance, left each mounted height.It seemed a giant hag-fiend, churning spiteOf humble human being, held the ground.
Through friendless wastes, through treacherous woodland, slowThe feet sustained by track of feet pursuedPained steps, and found the common brotherhoodBy sign of Heaven indifferent, Nature foe.
Anon a mason's work amazed the sight,And long-frocked men, called Brothers, there abode.They pointed up, bowed head, and dug and sowed;Whereof was shelter, loaf, and warm firelight.
What words they taught were nails to scratch the head.Benignant works explained the chanting brood.Their monastery lit black solitude,As one might think a star that heavenward led.
Uprose a fairer nest for weary feet,Like some gold flower nightly inward curled,Where gentle maidens fled a roaring world,Or played with it, and had their white retreat.
Into big books of metal clasps they pored.They governed, even as men; they welcomed lays.The treasures women are whose aim is praise,Was shown in them: the Garden half restored.
A deluge billow scoured the land off seas,With widened jaws, and slaughter was its foam.For food, for clothing, ambush, refuge, home,The lesser savage offered bogs and trees.
Whence reverence round grey-haired story grew:And inmost spots of ancient horror shoneAs temples under beams of trials bygone;For in them sang brave times with God in view.
Till now trim homesteads bordered spaces green,Like night's first little stars through clearing showers.Was rumoured how a castle's falcon towersThe wilderness commanded with fierce mien.
Therein a serious Baron stuck his lance;For minstrel songs a beauteous Dame would pout.Gay knights and sombre, felon or devout,Pricked onward, bound for their unsung romance.
It might be that two errant lords acrossThe block of each came edged, and at sharp cryThey charged forthwith, the better man to try.One rode his way, one couched on quiet moss.
Perchance a lady sweet, whose lord lay slain,The robbers into gruesome durance drew.Swift should her hero come, like lightning's blue!She prayed for him, as crackling drought for rain.
As we, that ere the worst her hero haps,Of Angels guided, nigh that loathly den:A toady cave beside an ague fen,Where long forlorn the lone dog whines and yaps.
By daylight now the forest fear could readItself, and at new wonders chuckling went.Straight for the roebuck's neck the bowman spentA dart that laughed at distance and at speed.
Right loud the bugle's hallali elateRang forth of merry dingles round the tors;And deftest hand was he from foreign wars,But soon he hailed the home-bred yeoman mate.
Before the blackbird pecked the turf they woke;At dawn the deer's wet nostrils blew their last.To forest, haunt of runs and prime repast,With paying blows, the yokel strained his yoke.
The city urchin mooned on forest air,On grassy sweeps and flying arrows, thickAs swallows o'er smooth streams, and sighed him sickFor thinking that his dearer home was there.
Familiar, still unseized, the forest sprangAn old-world echo, like no mortal thing.The hunter's horn might wind a jocund ring,But held in ear it had a chilly clang.
Some shadow lurked aloof of ancient time;Some warning haunted any sound prolonged,As though the leagues of woodland held them wrongedTo hear an axe and see a township climb.
The forest's erewhile emperor at eveHad voice when lowered heavens drummed for gales.At midnight a small people danced the dales,So thin that they might dwindle through a sieve
Ringed mushrooms told of them, and in their throats,Old wives that gathered herbs and knew too much.The pensioned forester beside his crutch,Struck showers from embers at those bodeful notes.
Came then the one, all ear, all eye, all heart;Devourer, and insensibly devoured;In whom the city over forest flowered,The forest wreathed the city's drama-mart.
There found he in new form that Dragon old,From tangled solitudes expelled; and taughtHow blindly each its antidote besought;For either's breath the needs of either told.
Now deep in woods, with song no sermon's drone,He showed what charm the human concourse works:Amid the press of men, what virtue lurksWhere bubble sacred wells of wildness lone.
Our conquest these: if haply we retainThe reverence that ne'er will overrunDue boundaries of realms from Nature won,Nor let the poet's awe in rapture wane.
THE INVECTIVE OF ACHILLES—Iliad, i. 149
"Heigh me! brazen of front, thou glutton for plunder, how can one,Servant here to thy mandates, heed thee among our Achaians,Either the mission hie on or stoutly do fight with the foemen?I, not hither I fared on account of the spear-armed Trojans,Pledged to the combat; they unto me have in nowise a harm done;Never have they, of a truth, come lifting my horses or oxen;Never in deep-soiled Phthia, the nurser of heroes, my harvestsRavaged, they; for between us is numbered full many a darksomeMountain, ay, therewith too the stretch of the windy sea-waters.O hugely shameless! thee did we follow to hearten thee, justicePluck from the Dardans for him, Menelaos, thee too, thou dog-eyed!Whereof little thy thought is, nought whatever thou reckest.Worse, it is thou whose threat 'tis to ravish my prize from me,portionWon with much labour, the which my gift from the sons of Achaia.Never, in sooth, have I known my prize equal thine when AchaiansGave some flourishing populous Trojan town up to pillage.Nay, sure, mine were the hands did most in the storm of the combat,Yet when came peradventure share of the booty amongst us,Bigger to thee went the prize, while I some small blessed thing boreOff to the ships, my share of reward for my toil in the bloodshed!So now go I to Phthia, for better by much it beseems meHomeward go with my beaked ships now, and I hold not in prospect,I being outraged, thou mayst gather here plunder and wealth-store."
THE INVECTIVE OF ACHILLES—Iliad, i. 225
"Bibber besotted, with scowl of a cur, having heart of a deer, thou!Never to join to thy warriors armed for the press of the conflict,Never for ambush forth with the princeliest sons of AchaiaDared thy soul, for to thee that thing would have looked as a death-stroke.Sooth, more easy it seems, down the lengthened array of Achaians,Snatch at the prize of the one whose voice has been lifted againstthee.Ravening king of the folk, for that thou hast thy rule over abjects;Else, son of Atreus, now were this outrage on me thy last one.Nay, but I tell thee, and I do swear a big oath on it likewise:Yea, by the sceptre here, and it surely bears branches and leaf-budsNever again, since first it was lopped from its trunk on themountains,No more sprouting; for round it all clean has the sharp metalclipped offLeaves and the bark; ay, verify now do the sons of Achaia,Guardian hands of the counsels of Zeus, pronouncing the judgement,Hold it aloft; so now unto thee shall the oath have its portent;Loud will the cry for Achilles burst from the sons of AchaiaThroughout the army, and thou chafe powerless, though in an anguish,How to give succour when vast crops down under man-slaying HectorTumble expiring; and thou deep in thee shalt tear at thy heart-strings,Rage-wrung, thou, that in nought thou didst honour the flower ofAchaians."
MARSHALLING OF THE ACHAIANS—Iliad, ii 455
Like as a terrible fire feeds fast on a forest enormous,Up on a mountain height, and the blaze of it radiates round far,So on the bright blest arms of the host in their march did thesplendourGleam wide round through the circle of air right up to the sky-vault.They, now, as when swarm thick in the air multitudinous wingedflocks,Be it of geese or of cranes or the long-necked troops of the wild-swans,Off that Asian mead, by the flow of the waters of Kaistros;Hither and yon fly they, and rejoicing in pride of their pinions,Clamour, shaped to their ranks, and the mead all about themresoundeth;So those numerous tribes from their ships and their shelteringspoured forthOn that plain of Scamander, and horrible rumbled beneath themEarth to the quick-paced feet of the men and the tramp of the horse-hooves.Stopped they then on the fair-flower'd field of Scamander, theirthousandsMany as leaves and the blossoms born of the flowerful season.Even as countless hot-pressed flies in their multitudes traverse,Clouds of them, under some herdsman's wonning, where then are themilk-pailsAlso, full of their milk, in the bountiful season of spring-time;Even so thickly the long-haired sons of Achaia the plain held,Prompt for the dash at the Trojan host, with the passion to crushthem.Those, likewise, as the goatherds, eyeing their vast flocks ofgoats, knowEasily one from the other when all get mixed o'er the pasture,So did the chieftains rank them here there in their places foronslaught,Hard on the push of the fray; and among them King Agamemnon,He, for his eyes and his head, as when Zeus glows glad in histhunder,He with the girdle of Ares, he with the breast of Poseidon.
AGAMEMNON IN THE FIGHT—Iliad, xi, 148
These, then, he left, and away where ranks were now clashing thethickest,Onward rushed, and with him rushed all of the bright-greavedAchaians.Foot then footmen slew, that were flying from direful compulsion,Horse at the horsemen (up from off under them mounted the dust-cloud,Up off the plain, raised up cloud-thick by the thundering horse-hooves)Hewed with the sword's sharp edge; and so meanwhile Lord AgamemnonFollowed, chasing and slaughtering aye, on-urgeing the Argives.
Now, as when fire voracious catches the unclipped wood-land,This way bears it and that the great whirl of the wind, and thescrubwoodStretches uptorn, flung forward alength by the fire's fury rageing,So beneath Atreides Agamemnon heads of the scatteredTrojans fell; and in numbers amany the horses, neck-stiffened,Rattled their vacant cars down the roadway gaps of the war-field,Missing the blameless charioteers, but, for these, they wereoutstretchedFlat upon earth, far dearer to vultures than to their home-mates.
PARIS AND DIOMEDES—Iliad, xi, 378
So he, with a clear shout of laughter,Forth of his ambush leapt, and he vaunted him, uttering thiswise:"Hit thou art! not in vain flew the shaft; how by rights it hadpierced theeInto the undermost gut, therewith to have rived thee of life-breath!Following that had the Trojans plucked a new breath from theirdirest,They all frighted of thee, as the goats bleat in flight from alion."Then unto him untroubled made answer stout Diomedes:"Bow-puller, jiber, thy bow for thy glorying, spyer at virgins!If that thou dared'st face me here out in the open with weapons,Nothing then would avail thee thy bow and thy thick shot of arrows.Now thou plumest thee vainly because of a graze of my footsole;Reck I as were that stroke from a woman or some pettish infant.Aye flies blunted the dart of the man that's emasculate,noughtworth!Otherwise hits, forth flying from me, and but strikes it theslightest,My keen shaft, and it numbers a man of the dead fallen straightway.Torn, troth, then are the cheeks of the wife of that man fallenslaughtered,Orphans his babes, full surely he reddens the earth with his blood-drops,Rotting, round him the birds, more numerous they than the women."
HYPNOS ON IDA—Iliad, xiv, 283
They then to fountain-abundant Ida, mother of wild beasts,Came, and they first left ocean to fare over mainland at Lektos,Where underneath of their feet waved loftiest growths of thewoodland.There hung Hypnos fast, ere the vision of Zeus was observant,Mounted upon a tall pine-tree, tallest of pines that on IdaLustily spring off soil for the shoot up aloft into aether.There did he sit well-cloaked by the wide-branched pine forconcealment,That loud bird, in his form like, that perched high up in themountains,Chalkis is named by the Gods, but of mortals known as Kymindis.
CLASH IN ARMS OF THE ACHAIANS AND TROJANS—Iliad, xvii, 426
Not the sea-wave so bellows abroad when it bursts upon shingle,Whipped from the sea's deeps up by the terrible blast of theNorthwind;Nay, nor is ever the roar of the fierce fire's rush so arousing,Down along mountain-glades, when it surges to kindle a woodland;Nay, nor so tonant thunders the stress of the gale in the oak-trees'Foliage-tresses high, when it rages to raveing its utmost;As rose then stupendous the Trojan's cry and Achaians',Dread upshouting as one when together they clashed in the conflict.
THE HORSES OF ACHILLES—Iliad, xvii, 426
So now the horses of Aiakides, off wide of the war-ground,Wept, since first they were ware of their charioteer overthrownthere,Cast down low in the whirl of the dust under man-slaying Hector.Sooth, meanwhile, then did Automedon, brave son of Diores,Oft, on the one hand, urge them with flicks of the swift whip, andoft, too,Coax entreatingly, hurriedly; whiles did he angrily threaten.Vainly, for these would not to the ships, to the Hellespontspacious,Backward turn, nor be whipped to the battle among the Achaians.Nay, as a pillar remains immovable, fixed on the tombstone,Haply, of some dead man or it may be a woman there-under;Even like hard stood they there attached to the glorious war-car,Earthward bowed with their heads; and of them so lamenting incessantRan the hot teardrops downward on to the earth from their eyelids,Mourning their charioteer; all their lustrous manes dusty-clotted,Right side and left of the yoke-ring tossed, to the breadth of theyoke-bow.Now when the issue of Kronos beheld that sorrow, his head shookPitying them for their grief, these words then he spake in hisbosom;"Why, ye hapless, gave we to Peleus you, to a mortalMaster; ye that are ageless both, ye both of you deathless!Was it that ye among men most wretched should come to have heart-grief?'Tis most true, than the race of these men is there wretchedernowhereAught over earth's range found that is gifted with breath and hasmovement."
THE MARES OF THE CAMARGUE—From the 'Mireio' of Mistral
A hundred mares, all white! their manesLike mace-reed of the marshy plainsThick-tufted, wavy, free o' the shears:And when the fiery squadron rearsBursting at speed, each mane appearsEven as the white scarf of a fayFloating upon their necks along the heavens away.
O race of humankind, take shame!For never yet a hand could tame,Nor bitter spur that rips the flanks subdueThe mares of the Camargue. I have known,By treason snared, some captives shown;Expatriate from their native Rhone,Led off, their saline pastures far from view:
And on a day, with prompt rebound,They have flung their riders to the ground,And at a single gallop, scouring free,Wide-nostril'd to the wind, twice tenOf long marsh-leagues devour'd, and then,Back to the Vacares again,After ten years of slavery just to breathe salt sea
For of this savage race unbent,The ocean is the element.Of old escaped from Neptune's car, full sure,Still with the white foam fleck'd are they,And when the sea puffs black from grey,And ships part cables, loudly neighThe stallions of Camargue, all joyful in the roar;
And keen as a whip they lash and crackTheir tails that drag the dust, and backScratch up the earth, and feel, entering their flesh, where he,The God, drives deep his trident teeth,Who in one horror, above, beneath,Bids storm and watery deluge seethe,And shatters to their depths the abysses of the sea.
Cant. iv.
Yonder's the man with his life in his hand,Legs on the march for whatever the land,Or to the slaughter, or to the maiming,Getting the dole of a dog for pay.Laurels he clasps in the words 'duty done,'England his heart under every sun:-Exquisite humour! that gives him a namingBase to the ear as an ass's bray.
Men of our race, we send you oneRound whom Victoria's holy nameIs halo from the sunken sunOf her grand Summer's day aflame.The heart of your loved Motherland,To them she loves as her own blood,This Flower of Ocean bears in hand,Assured of gift as good.
Forth for our Southern shores the fleetWhich crowns a nation's wisdom steams,That there may Briton Briton greet,And stamp as fact Imperial dreams.Across the globe, from sea to sea,The long smoke-pennon trails above,Writes over sky how wise will beThe Power that trusts to love.
A love that springs from heart and brainIn union gives for ripest fruitThe concord Kings and States in vainHave sought, who played the lofty brute,And fondly deeming they possessed,On force relied, and found it break:That truth once scored on Britain's breastNow keeps her mind awake.
Australian, Canadian,To tone old veins with streams of youth,Our trust be on the best in manHenceforth, and we shall prove that truth.Prove to a world of brows down-bentThat in the Britain thus endowed,Imperial means beneficent,And strength to service vowed.
Spirit of Russia, now has comeThe day when thou canst not be dumb.Around thee foams the torrent tide,Above thee its fell fountain, Pride.The senseless rock awaits thy wordTo crumble; shall it be unheard?Already, like a tempest-sun,That shoots the flare and shuts to dun,Thy land 'twixt flame and darkness heaves,Showing the blade wherewith Fate cleaves,If mortals in high courage failAt the one breath before the gale.Those rulers in all forms of lust,Who trod thy children down to dustOn the red Sunday, know right wellWhat word for them thy voice would spell,What quick perdition for them weave,Did they in such a voice believe.Not thine to raise the avenger's shriek,Nor turn to them a Tolstoi cheek;Nor menace him, the waverer still,Man of much heart and little will,The criminal of his high seat,Whose plea of Guiltless judges it.For him thy voice shall bring to handSalvation, and to thy torn land,Seen on the breakers. Now has comeThe day when thou canst not be dumb,Spirit of Russia:- those who bindThy limbs and iron-cap thy mind,Take thee for quaking flesh, misdoubtThat thou art of the rabble routWhich cries and flees, with whimpering lip,From reckless gun and brutal whip;But he who has at heart the deedsOf thy heroic offspring readsIn them a soul; not given to shrinkFrom peril on the abyss's brink;With never dread of murderous power;With view beyond the crimson hour;Neither an instinct-driven might,Nor visionary erudite;A soul; that art thou. It remainsFor thee to stay thy children's veins,The countertides of hate arrest,Give to thy sons a breathing breast,And Him resembling, in His sight,Say to thy land, Let there be Light.
The hundred years have passed, and heWhose name appeased a nation's fears,As with a hand laid over sea;To thunder through the foeman's earsDefeat before his blast of fire;Lives in the immortalityThat poets dream and noblest souls desire.
Never did nation's need evokeHero like him for aid, the whileA Continent was cannon-smokeOr peace in slavery: this one IsleReflecting Nature: this one manHer sea-hound and her mortal stroke,With war-worn body aye in battle's van.
And do we love him well, as wellAs he his country, we may greet,With hand on steel, our passing bellNigh on the swing, for prelude sweetTo the music heard when his last breathHung on its ebb beside the knell,And VICTORY in his ear sang gracious Death.
Ah, day of glory! day of tears!Day of a people bowed as one!Behold across those hundred yearsThe lion flash of gun at gun:Our bitter pride; our love bereaved;What pall of cloud o'ercame our sunThat day, to bear his wreath, the end achieved.
Joy that no more with murder's frownThe ancient rivals bark apart.Now Nelson to brave France is shownA hero after her own heart:And he now scanning that quick race,To whom through life his glove was thrown,Would know a sister spirit to embrace.
We who have seen Italia in the throes,Half risen but to be hurled to ground, and nowLike a ripe field of wheat where once drove ploughAll bounteous as she is fair, we think of thoseWho blew the breath of life into her frame:Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi: Three:Her Brain, her Soul, her Sword; and set her freeFrom ruinous discords, with one lustrous aim.
That aim, albeit they were of minds diverse,Conjoined them, not to strive without surcease;For them could be no babblement of peaceWhile lay their country under Slavery's curse.
The set of torn Italia's glorious dayWas ever sunrise in each filial breast.Of eagle beaks by righteousness unblestThey felt her pulsing body made the prey.
Wherefore they struck, and had to count their dead.With bitter smile of resolution nervedTo try new issues, holding faith unswerved,Promise they gathered from the rich blood shed.
In them Italia, visible to us thenAs living, rose; for proof that huge brute ForceHas never being from celestial source,And is the lord of cravens, not of men.
Now breaking up the crust of temporal strife,Who reads their acts enshrined in History, seesThat Tyrants were the Revolutionaries,The Rebels men heart-vowed to hallowed life.
Pure as the Archangel's cleaving Darkness thro',The Sword he sees, the keen unwearied Sword,A single blade against a circling horde,And aye for Freedom and the trampled few.
The cry of Liberty from dungeon cell,From exile, was his God's command to smite,As for a swim in sea he joined the fight,With radiant face, full sure that he did well.
Behold a warrior dealing mortal strokes,Whose nature was a child's: amid his foesA wary trickster: at the battle's close,No gentler friend this leopard dashed with fox.
Down the long roll of History will runThe story of these deeds, and speed his raceBeneath defeat more hotly to embraceThe noble cause and trust to another sun.
And lo, that sun is in Italia's skiesThis day, by grace of his good sword in part.It beckons her to keep a warrior heartFor guard of beauty, all too sweet a prize.
Earth gave him: blessed be the Earth that gave.Earth's Master crowned his honest work on earth:Proudly Italia names his place of birth:The bosom of Humanity his grave.
High climbs June's wild rose,Her bush all blooms in a swarm;And swift from the bud she blows,In a day when the wooer is warm;Frank to receive and give,Her bosom is open to bee and sun:Pride she has none,Nor shame she knows;Happy to live.
Unlike those of the garden nigh,Her queenly sisters enthroned by art;Loosening petals one by oneTo the fiery Passion's dartSuperbly shy.For them in some glory of hair,Or nest of the heaving mounds to lie,Or path of the bride bestrew.Ever are they the theme for song.But nought of that is her share.Hardly from wayfarers tramping along,A glance they care not to renew.
And she at a word of the claims of kinShrinks to the level of roads and meads:She is only a plain princess of the weeds,As an outcast witless of sin:Much disregarded, save by the fewWho love her, that has not a spot of deceit,No promise of sweet beyond sweet,Often descending to sour.On any fair breast she would die in an hour.Praises she scarce could bear,Were any wild poet to praise.Her aim is to rise into light and air.One of the darlings of Earth, no more,And little it seems in the dusty ways,Unless to the grasses nodding beneath;The bird clapping wings to soar,The clouds of an evetide's wreath.
Under what spell are we debasedBy fears for our inviolate Isle,Whose record is of dangers facedAnd flung to heel with even smile?Is it a vaster force, a subtler guile?
They say Exercitus designsTo match the famed SalsipotentWhere on her sceptre she reclines;Awake: but were a slumber sentBy guilty gods, more fell his foul intent.
The subtler web, the vaster foe,Well may we meet when drilled for deeds:But in these days of wealth at flow,A word of breezy warning breedsThe pained responses seen in lakeside reeds.
We fain would stand contemplative,All innocent as meadow grass;In human goodness fain believe,Believe a cloud is formed to pass;Its shadows chase with draughts of hippocras.
Others have gone; the way they wentSweet sunny now, and safe our nest.Humanity, enlightenment,Against the warning hum protest:Let the world hear that we know what is best.
So do the beatific speak;Yet have they ears, and eyes as well;And if not with a paler cheek,They feel the shivers in them dwell,That something of a dubious future tell.
For huge possessions render slackThe power we need to hold them fast;Save when a quickened heart shall makeOur people one, to meet what blastMay blow from temporal heavens overcast.
Our people one! Nor they with strengthDependent on a single arm:Alert, and braced the whole land's length,Rejoicing in their manhood's charmFor friend or foe; to succour, not to harm.
Has ever weakness won esteem?Or counts it as a prized ally?They who have read in History deemIt ranks among the slavish fry,Whose claim to live justiciary Fates deny.
It can not be declared we areA nation till from end to endThe land can show such front to warAs bids a crouching foe expendHis ire in air, and preferably be friend.
We dreading him, we do him wrong;For fears discolour, fears invite.Like him, our task is to be strong;Unlike him, claiming not by mightTo snatch an envied treasure as a right.
So may a stouter brotherhoodAt home be signalled over seaFor righteous, and be understood,Nay, welcomed, when 'tis shown that weAll duties have embraced in being free.
This Britain slumbering, she is rich;Lies placid as a cradled child;At times with an uneasy twitch,That tells of dreams unduly wild.Shall she be with a foreign drug defiled?
The grandeur of her deeds recall;Look on her face so kindly fair:This Britain! and were she to fall,Mankind would breathe a harsher air,The nations miss a light of leading rare.
A rainless darkness drew o'er the lakeAs we lay in our boat with oars unshipped.It seemed neither cloud nor water awake,And forth of the low black curtain slippedThunderless lightning. Scoff no moreAt angels imagined in downward flightFor the daughters of earth as fabled of yore:Here was beauty might well inviteDark heavens to gleam with the fire of a sunResurgent; here the exchanged embraceWorthy of heaven and earth made one.
And witness it, ye of the privileged space,Said the flash; and the mountains, as from an abyssFor quivering seconds leaped up to attestThat given, received, renewed was the kiss;The lips to lips and the breast to breast;All in a glory of ecstasy, swiftAs an eagle at prey, and pure as the prayerOf an infant bidden joined hands upliftTo be guarded through darkness by spirits of air,Ere setting the sails of sleep till day.Slowly the low cloud swung, and farIt panted along its mirrored way;Above loose threads one sanctioning star,The wonder of what had been witnessed, sealed,And with me still as in crystal glassedAre the depths alight, the heavens revealed,Where on to the Alps the muteness passed.
What splendour of imperial station man,The Tree of Life, may reach when, rooted fast,His branching stem points way to upper airAnd skyward still aspires, we see in himWho sang for us the Archangelical host,Made Morning, by old Darkness urged to the abyss;A voice that down three centuries onward rolls;Onward will roll while lives our English tongue,In the devout of music unsurpassedSince Piety won Heaven's ear on Israel's harp.
The face of Earth, the soul of Earth, her charm,Her dread austerity; the quavering fateOf mortals with blind hope by passion swayed,His mind embraced, the while on trodden soil,Defender of the Commonwealth, he joinedOur temporal fray, whereof is vital fruit,And, choosing armoury of the Scholar, stoodBeside his peers to raise the voice for Freedom:Nor has fair Liberty a champion armedTo meet on heights or plains the SophisterThroughout the ages, equal to this man,Whose spirit breathed high Heaven, and drew thenceThe ethereal sword to smite.
Were England sunkBeneath the shifting tides, her heart, her brain,The smile she wears, the faith she holds, her best,Would live full-toned in the grand deliveryOf his cathedral speech: an utteranceAlmost divine, and such as Hellespont,Crashing its breakers under Ida's frown,Inspired: yet worthier he, whose instrumentWas by comparison the coarse reed-pipe;Whereof have come the marvellous harmonies,Which, with his lofty theme, of infinite range,Abash, entrance, exalt.
We need him now,This latest Age in repetition cries:For Belial, the adroit, is in our midst;Mammon, more swoln to squeeze the slavish sweatFrom hopeless toil: and overshadowingly(Aggrandized, monstrous in his grinning maskOf hypocritical Peace,) inveterate MolochRemains the great example.
Homage to himHis debtor band, innumerable as wavesRunning all golden from an eastern sun,Joyfully render, in deep reverenceSubscribe, and as they speak their Milton's name,Rays of his glory on their foreheads bear.
Fire in her ashes Ireland feelsAnd in her veins a glow of heat.To her the lost old time, appealsFor resurrection, good to greet:Not as a shape with spectral eyes,But humanly maternal, youngIn all that quickens pride, and wiseTo speak the best her bards have sung.
You read her as a land distraught,Where bitterest rebel passions seethe.Look with a core of heart in thought,For so is known the truth beneath.She came to you a loathing bride,And it has been no happy bed.Believe in her as friend, alliedBy bonds as close as those who wed.
Her speech is held for hatred's cry;Her silence tells of treason hid:Were it her aim to burst the tie,She sees what iron laws forbid.Excess of heart obscures from viewA head as keen as yours to count.Trust her, that she may prove her trueIn links whereof is love the fount.
May she not call herself her own?That is her cry, and thence her spitsOf fury, thence her graceless toneAt justice given in bits and bits.The limbs once raw with gnawing chainsWill fret at silken when God's beamsOf Freedom beckon o'er the plainsFrom mounts that show it more than dreams.
She, generous, craves your generous dole;That will not rouse the crack of doom.It ends the blundering past controlSimply to give her elbow-room.Her offspring feels they are a race,To be a nation is their claim;Yet stronger bound in your embraceThan when the tie was but a name.
A nation she, and formed to charm,With heart for heart and hands all round.No longer England's broken arm,Would England know where strength is found.And strength to-day is England's need;To-morrow it may be for bothSalvation: heed the portents, heedThe warnings; free the mind from sloth.
Too long the pair have danced in mud,With no advance from sun to sun.Ah, what a bounding course of bloodHas England with an Ireland one!Behold yon shadow cross the downs,And off away to yeasty seas.Lightly will fly old rancour's frownsWhen solid with high heart stand these.
The years had worn their seasons' belt,From bud to rosy prime,Since Nellie by the larch-pole kneltAnd helped the hop to climb.
Most diligent of teachers then,But now with all to learn,She breathed beyond a thought of men,Though formed to make men burn.
She dwelt where 'twixt low-beaten thornsTwo mill-blades, like a snail,Enormous, with inquiring horns,Looked down on half the vale.
You know the grey of dew on grassEre with the young sun fired,And you know well the thirst one hasFor the coming and desired.
Quick in our ring she leapt, and gaveHer hand to left, to right.No claim on her had any, saveTo feed the joy of sight.
For man and maid a laughing wordShe tossed, in notes as clearAs when the February birdSings out that Spring is near.
Of what befell behind that scone,Let none who knows reveal.In ballad days she might have beenA heroine rousing steel.
On us did she bestow the hour,And fixed it firm in thought;Her spirit like a meadow flowerThat gives, and asks for nought.
She seemed to make the sunlight stayAnd show her in its pride.O she was fair as a beech in MayWith the sun on the yonder side.
There was more life than breath can give,In the looks in her fair form;For little can we say we liveUntil the heart is warm.
Open horizons round,O mounting mind, to scenes unsung,Wherein shall walk a lusty Time:Our Earth is young;Of measure without bound;Infinite are the heights to climb,The depths to sound.
A wilding little stubble flowerThe sickle scorned which cut for wheat,Such was our hope in that dark hourWhen nought save uses held the street,And daily pleasures, daily needs,With barren vision, looked ahead.And still the same result of seedsGave likeness 'twixt the live and dead.
From labours through the night, outworn,Above the hills the front of mornWe see, whose eyes to heights are raised,And the world's wise may deem us crazed.While yet her lord lies under seas,She takes us as the wind the trees'Delighted leafage; all in songWe mount to her, to her belong.
This love of nature, that allures to takeIrregularity for harmonyOf larger scope than our hard measures make,Cherish it as thy school for when on theeThe ills of life descend.
That march of the funereal Past behold;How Glory sat on Bondage for its throne;How men, like dazzled insects, through the mouldStill worked their way, and bled to keep their own.
We know them, as they strove and wrought and yearned;Their hopes, their fears; what page of Life they wist:At whiles their vision upon us was turned,Baffled by shapes limmed loosely on thick mist.
Beneath the fortress bulk of Power they bentBlunt heads, adoring or in shackled hate,All save the rebel hymned him; and it meantA world submitting to incarnate Fate.
From this he drew fresh appetite for sway,And of it fell: whereat was chorus raised,How surely shall a mad ambition payDues to Humanity, erewhile amazed.
'Twas dreamed by some the deluge would ensue,So trembling was the tension long constrained;A spirit of faith was in the chosen few,That steps to the millennium had been gained.
But mainly the rich business of the hour,Their sight, made blind by urgency of blood,Embraced; and facts, the passing sweet or sour,To them were solid things that nought withstood.
Their facts are going headlong on the tides,Like commas on a line of History's page;Nor that which once they took for Truth abides,Save in the form of youth enlarged from age.
Meantime give ear to woodland notes around,Look on our Earth full-breasted to our sun:So was it when their poets heard the sound,Beheld the scene: in them our days are one.
What figures will be shown the century hence?What lands intact? We do but know that PowerFrom piety divorced, though seen immense,Shall sink on envy of the humblest flower.
Our cry for cradled Peace, while men are stillThe three-parts brute which smothers the divine,Heaven answers: Guard it with forethoughtful will,Or buy it; all your gains from War resign.
A land, not indefensibly alarmed,May see, unwarned by hint of friendly gods,Between a hermit crab at all points armed,And one without a shell, decisive odds.
Once I was part of the music I heardOn the boughs or sweet between earth and sky,For joy of the beating of wings on highMy heart shot into the breast of the bird.
I hear it now and I see it fly,And a life in wrinkles again is stirred,My heart shoots into the breast of the bird,As it will for sheer love till the last long sigh.
When I remember, friend, whom lost I call,Because a man beloved is taken hence,The tender humour and the fire of senseIn your good eyes; how full of heart for all,And chiefly for the weaker by the wall,You bore that lamp of sane benevolence;Then see I round you Death his shadows denseDivide, and at your feet his emblems fall.For surely are you one with the white host,Spirits, whose memory is our vital air,Through the great love of Earth they had: lo, these,Like beams that throw the path on tossing seas,Can bid us feel we keep them in the ghost,Partakers of a strife they joyed to share.
Who call her Mother and who calls her WifeLook on her grave and see not Death but Life.
To them that knew her, there is vital flameIn these the simple letters of her name.To them that knew her not, be it but said,So strong a spirit is not of the dead.
ON THE TOMBSTONE OFJAMES CHRISTOPHER WILSON(d. APRIL 11, 1884)IN HEADLEY CHURCHYARD, SURREY
Thou our beloved and light of Earth hast crossedThe sea of darkness to the yonder shore.There dost thou shine a light transferred, not lost,Through love to kindle in our souls the more.
Of men he would have raised to light he fell:In soul he conquered with those nerveless hands.His country's pride and her abasement knellThe Man of England circled by the sands.
A fountain of our sweetest, quick to springIn fellowship abounding, here subsides:And never passage of a cloud on wingTo gladden blue forgets him; near he hides.
With Alfred and St. Louis he doth winGrander than crowned head's mortuary dome:His gentle heroic manhood enters inThe ever-flowering common heart for home.
Our Islet out of Helgoland, dismissedFrom his quaint tenement, quits hates and loves.There lived with us a wagging humouristIn that hound's arch dwarf-legged on boxing-gloves.
Now dumb is he who waked the world to speak,And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier.Our words are sobs, our cry of praise a tear:We are the smitten mortal, we the weak.We see a spirit on Earth's loftiest peakShine, and wing hence the way he makes more clear:See a great Tree of Life that never sereDropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak.Such ending is not Death: such living showsWhat wide illumination brightness shedsFrom one big heart, to conquer man's old foes:The coward, and the tyrant, and the forceOf all those weedy monsters raising headsWhen Song is murk from springs of turbid source.
December 13, 1889.
When comes the lighted day for men to readLife's meaning, with the work before their handsTill this good gift of breath from debt is freed,Earth will not hear her children's wailful bandsDeplore the chieftain fall'n in sob and dirge;Nor they look where is darkness, but on high.The sun that dropped down our horizon's vergeIllumes his labours through the travelled sky,Now seen in sum, most glorious; and 'tis knownBy what our warrior wrought we hold him fast.A splendid image built of man has flown;His deeds inspired of God outstep a Past.Ours the great privilege to have had oneAmong us who celestial tasks has done.
Her sacred body bear: the tenementOf that strong soul now ranked with God's ElectHer heart upon her people's heart she spent;Hence is she Royalty's lodestar to direct.
The peace is hers, of whom all lands have praisedMajestic virtues ere her day unseen.Aloft the name of Womanhood she raised,And gave new readings to the Title, Queen.
Long with us, now she leaves us; she has restBeneath our sacred sod:A woman vowed to Good, whom all attest,The daylight gift of God.
The varied colours are a fitful heap:They pass in constant service though they sleep;The self gone out of them, therewith the pain:Read that, who still to spell our earth remain.