Though I am faithful to my loves lived through,And place them among Memory's great stars,Where burns a face like Hesper: one like Mars:Of visages I get a moment's view,Sweet eyes that in the heaven of me, too,Ascend, tho' virgin to my life they passed.Lo, these within my destiny seem glassedAt times so bright, I wish that Hope were new.A gracious freckled lady, tall and grave,Went, in a shawl voluminous and white,Last sunset by; and going sow'd a glance.Earth is too poor to hold a second chance;I will not ask for more than Fortune gave:My heart she goes from—never from my sight!
O my lover! the night like a broad smooth waveBears us onward, and morn, a black rock, shines wet.How I shuddered—I knew not that I was a slave,Till I looked on thy face:- then I writhed in the net.Then I felt like a thing caught by fire, that her starGlowed dark on the bosom of Shemselnihar.
And he came, whose I am: O my lover! he came:And his slave, still so envied of women, was I:And I turned as a hissing leaf spits from the flame,Yes, I shrivelled to dust from him, haggard and dry.O forgive her:- she was but as dead lilies are:The life of her heart fled from Shemselnihar.
Yet with thee like a full throbbing rose how I bloom!Like a rose by the fountain whose showering we hear,As we lie, O my lover! in this rich gloom,Smelling faint the cool breath of the lemon-groves near.As we lie gazing out on that glowing great star -Ah! dark on the bosom of Shemselnihar.
Yet with thee am I not as an arm of the vine,Firm to bind thee, to cherish thee, feed thee sweet?Swear an oath on my lip to let none disentwineThe life that here fawns to give warmth to thy feet.I on thine, thus! no more shall that jewelled Head jarThe music thou breathest on Shemselnihar.
Far away, far away, where the wandering scentsOf all flowers are sweetest, white mountains among,There my kindred abide in their green and blue tents:Bear me to them, my lover! they lost me so young.Let us slip down the stream and leap steed till afarNone question thy claim upon Shemselnihar.
O that long note the bulbul gave out—meaning love!O my lover, hark to him and think it my voice!The blue night like a great bell-flower from aboveDrooping low and gold-eyed: O, but hear him rejoice!Can it be? 'twas a flash! that accurst scimiterIn thought even cuts thee from Shemselnihar.
Yes, I would that, less generous, he would oppress,He would chain me, upbraid me, burn deep brands for hate,Than with this mask of freedom and gorgeousnessBespangle my slavery, mock my strange fate.Would, would, would, O my lover, he knew—dared debarThy coming, and earn curse of Shemselnihar!
A roar thro' the tall twin elm-treesThe mustering storm betrayed:The South-wind seized the willowThat over the water swayed.
Then fell the steady delugeIn which I strove to doze,Hearing all night at my windowThe knock of the winter rose.
The rainy rose of winter!An outcast it must pine.And from thy bosom outcastAm I, dear lady mine.
When I would image her features,Comes up a shrouded head:I touch the outlines, shrinking;She seems of the wandering dead.
But when love asks for nothing,And lies on his bed of snow,The face slips under my eyelids,All in its living glow.
Like a dark cathedral city,Whose spires, and domes, and towersQuiver in violet lightnings,My soul basks on for hours.
Thy greatest knew thee, Mother Earth; unsouredHe knew thy sons. He probed from hell to hellOf human passions, but of love defloweredHis wisdom was not, for he knew thee well.Thence came the honeyed corner at his lips,The conquering smile wherein his spirit sailsCalm as the God who the white sea-wave whips,Yet full of speech and intershifting tales,Close mirrors of us: thence had he the laughWe feel is thine: broad as ten thousand beevesAt pasture! thence thy songs, that winnow chaffFrom grain, bid sick Philosophy's last leavesWhirl, if they have no response—they enforcedTo fatten Earth when from her soul divorced.
How smiles he at a generation rankedIn gloomy noddings over life! They pass.Not he to feed upon a breast unthanked,Or eye a beauteous face in a cracked glass.But he can spy that little twist of brainWhich moved some weighty leader of the blind,Unwitting 'twas the goad of personal pain,To view in curst eclipse our Mother's mind,And show us of some rigid harridanThe wretched bondmen till the end of time.O lived the Master now to paint us Man,That little twist of brain would ring a chimeOf whence it came and what it caused, to startThunders of laughter, clearing air and heart.
Fair Mother Earth lay on her back last night,To gaze her fill on Autumn's sunset skies,When at a waving of the fallen lightSprang realms of rosy fruitage o'er her eyes.A lustrous heavenly orchard hung the West,Wherein the blood of Eden bloomed again:Red were the myriad cherub-mouths that pressed,Among the clusters, rich with song, full fain,But dumb, because that overmastering spellOf rapture held them dumb: then, here and there,A golden harp lost strings; a crimson shellBurnt grey; and sheaves of lustre fell to air.The illimitable eagerness of hueBronzed, and the beamy winged bloom that flew'Mid those bunched fruits and thronging figures failed.A green-edged lake of saffron touched the blue,With isles of fireless purple lying through:And Fancy on that lake to seek lost treasures sailed.
Not long the silence followed:The voice that issues from thy breast,O glorious South-west,Along the gloom-horizon holloa'd;Warning the valleys with a mellow roarThrough flapping wings; then sharp the woodland boreA shudder and a noise of hands:A thousand horns from some far valeIn ambush sounding on the gale.Forth from the cloven sky came bandsOf revel-gathering spirits; trooping down,Some rode the tree-tops; some on torn cloud-stripsBurst screaming thro' the lighted town:And scudding seaward, some fell on big ships:Or mounting the sea-horses blewBright foam-flakes on the black reviewOf heaving hulls and burying beaks.
Still on the farthest line, with outpuffed cheeks,'Twixt dark and utter dark, the great wind drewFrom heaven that disenchanted harmonyTo join earth's laughter in the midnight blind:Booming a distant chorus to the shrieksPreluding him: then he,His mantle streaming thunderingly behind,Across the yellow realm of stiffened Day,Shot thro' the woodland alleys signals three;And with the pressure of a seaPlunged broad upon the vale that under lay.
Night on the rolling foliage fell:But I, who love old hymning night,And know the Dryad voices well,Discerned them as their leaves took flight,Like souls to wander after death:Great armies in imperial dyes,And mad to tread the air and rise,The savage freedom of the skiesTo taste before they rot. And here,Like frail white-bodied girls in fear,The birches swung from shrieks to sighs;The aspens, laughers at a breath,In showering spray-falls mixed their cries,Or raked a savage ocean-strandWith one incessant drowning screech.Here stood a solitary beech,That gave its gold with open hand,And all its branches, toning chill,Did seem to shut their teeth right fast,To shriek more mercilessly shrill,And match the fierceness of the blast.
But heard I a low swell that noisedOf far-off ocean, I was 'wareOf pines upon their wide roots poised,Whom never madness in the airCan draw to more than loftier stressOf mournfulness, not mournfulnessFor melancholy, but Joy's excess,That singing on the lap of sorrow faints:And Peace, as in the hearts of saintsWho chant unto the Lord their God;Deep Peace below upon the muffled sod,The stillness of the sea's unswaying floor,Could I be sole there not to seeThe life within the life awake;The spirit bursting from the tree,And rising from the troubled lake?Pour, let the wines of Heaven pour!The Golden Harp is struck once more,And all its music is for me!Pour, let the wines of Heaven pour!And, ho, for a night of Pagan glee!
There is a curtain o'er us.For once, good souls, we'll not pretendTo be aught better than her who bore us,And is our only visible friend.Hark to her laughter! who laughs like this,Can she be dead, or rooted in pain?She has been slain by the narrow brain,But for us who love her she lives again.Can she die? O, take her kiss!
The crimson-footed nymph is panting up the glade,With the wine-jar at her arm-pit, and the drunken ivy-braidRound her forehead, breasts, and thighs: starts a Satyr, and theyspeed:Hear the crushing of the leaves: hear the cracking of the bough!And the whistling of the bramble, the piping of the weed!
But the bull-voiced oak is battling now:The storm has seized him half-asleep,And round him the wild woodland throngsTo hear the fury of his songs,The uproar of an outraged deep.He wakes to find a wrestling giantTrunk to trunk and limb to limb,And on his rooted force reliantHe laughs and grasps the broadened giant,And twist and roll the Anakim;And multitudes, acclaiming to the cloud,Cry which is breaking, which is bowed.
Away, for the cymbals clash aloftIn the circles of pine, on the moss-floor soft.The nymphs of the woodland are gathering there.They huddle the leaves, and trample, and toss;They swing in the branches, they roll in the moss,They blow the seed on the air.Back to back they stand and blowThe winged seed on the cradling air,A fountain of leaves over bosom and back.
The pipe of the Faun comes on their trackAnd the weltering alleys overflowWith musical shrieks and wind-wedded hair.The riotous companies melt to a pair.Bless them, mother of kindness!
A star has nodded throughThe depths of the flying blue.Time only to plant the lightOf a memory in the blindness.But time to show me the sightOf my life thro' the curtain of night;Shining a moment, and mixedWith the onward-hurrying stream,Whose pressure is darkness to me;Behind the curtain, fixed,Beams with endless beamThat star on the changing sea.
Great Mother Nature! teach me, like thee,To kiss the season and shun regrets.And am I more than the mother who bore,Mock me not with thy harmony!Teach me to blot regrets,Great Mother! me inspireWith faith that forward setsBut feeds the living fire,Faith that never fretsFor vagueness in the form.In life, O keep me warm!For, what is human grief?And what do men desire?Teach me to feel myself the tree,And not the withered leaf.Fixed am I and await the dark to-beAnd O, green bounteous Earth!Bacchante Mother! stern to thoseWho live not in thy heart of mirth;Death shall I shrink from, loving thee?Into the breast that gives the rose,Shall I with shuddering fall?
Earth, the mother of all,Moves on her stedfast way,Gathering, flinging, sowing.Mortals, we live in her day,She in her children is growing.
She can lead us, only she,Unto God's footstool, whither she reaches:Loved, enjoyed, her gifts must be,Reverenced the truths she teaches,Ere a man may hope that heEver can attain the gleeOf things without a destiny!
She knows not loss:She feels but her need,Who the winged seedWith the leaf doth toss.
And may not men to this attain?That the joy of motion, the rapture of being,Shall throw strong light when our season is fleeing,Nor quicken aged blood in vain,At the gates of the vault, on the verge of the plain?Life thoroughly lived is a fact in the brain,While eyes are left for seeing.Behold, in yon stripped Autumn, shivering grey,Earth knows no desolation.She smells regenerationIn the moist breath of decay.
Prophetic of the coming joy and strife,Like the wild western war-chief sinkingCalm to the end he eyes unblinking,Her voice is jubilant in ebbing life.
He for his happy hunting-fieldsForgets the droning chant, and yieldsHis numbered breaths to exultationIn the proud anticipation:Shouting the glories of his nation,Shouting the grandeur of his race,Shouting his own great deeds of daring:And when at last death grasps his face,And stiffened on the ground in peaceHe lies with all his painted terrors glaring;Hushed are the tribe to hear a threading cry:Not from the dead man;Not from the standers-by:The spirit of the red manIs welcomed by his fathers up on high.
There she goes up the street with her book in her hand,And her Good morning, Martin! Ay, lass, how d'ye do?Very well, thank you, Martin!—I can't understand!I might just as well never have cobbled a shoe!I can't understand it. She talks like a song;Her voice takes your ear like the ring of a glass;She seems to give gladness while limping along,Yet sinner ne'er suffer'd like that little lass.
First, a fool of a boy ran her down with a cart.Then, her fool of a father—a blacksmith by trade -Why the deuce does he tell us it half broke his heart?His heart!—where's the leg of the poor little maid!Well, that's not enough; they must push her downstairs,To make her go crooked: but why count the list?If it's right to suppose that our human affairsAre all order'd by heaven—there, bang goes my fist!
For if angels can look on such sights—never mind!When you're next to blaspheming, it's best to be mum.The parson declares that her woes weren't designed;But, then, with the parson it's all kingdom-come.Lose a leg, save a soul—a convenient text;I call it Tea doctrine, not savouring of God.When poor little Molly wants 'chastening,' why, nextThe Archangel Michael might taste of the rod.
But, to see the poor darling go limping for milesTo read books to sick people!—and just of an ageWhen girls learn the meaning of ribands and smiles!Makes me feel like a squirrel that turns in a cage.The more I push thinking the more I revolve:I never get farther:- and as to her face,It starts up when near on my puzzle I solve,And says, 'This crush'd body seems such a sad case.'
Not that she's for complaining: she reads to earn pence;And from those who can't pay, simple thanks are enough.Does she leave lamentation for chaps without sense?Howsoever, she's made up of wonderful stuff.Ay, the soul in her body must be a stout cord;She sings little hymns at the close of the day,Though she has but three fingers to lift to the Lord,And only one leg to kneel down with to pray.
What I ask is, Why persecute such a poor dear,If there's Law above all? Answer that if you can!Irreligious I'm not; but I look on this sphereAs a place where a man should just think like a man.It isn't fair dealing! But, contrariwise,Do bullets in battle the wicked select?Why, then it's all chance-work! And yet, in her eyes,She holds a fixed something by which I am checked.
Yonder riband of sunshine aslope on the wall,If you eye it a minute 'll have the same look:So kind! and so merciful! God of us all!It's the very same lesson we get from the Book.Then, is Life but a trial? Is that what is meant?Some must toil, and some perish, for others below:The injustice to each spreads a common content;Ay! I've lost it again, for it can't be quite so.
She's the victim of fools: that seems nearer the mark.On earth there are engines and numerous fools.Why the Lord can permit them, we're still in the dark;He does, and in some sort of way they're His tools.It's a roundabout way, with respect let me add,If Molly goes crippled that we may be taught:But, perhaps, it's the only way, though it's so bad;In that case we'll bow down our heads,—as we ought.
But the worst of ME is, that when I bow my head,I perceive a thought wriggling away in the dust,And I follow its tracks, quite forgetful, insteadOf humble acceptance: for, question I must!Here's a creature made carefully—carefully made!Put together with craft, and then stamped on, and why?The answer seems nowhere: it's discord that's played.The sky's a blue dish!—an implacable sky!
Stop a moment. I seize an idea from the pit.They tell us that discord, though discord, alone,Can be harmony when the notes properly fit:Am I judging all things from a single false tone?Is the Universe one immense Organ, that rollsFrom devils to angels? I'm blind with the sight.It pours such a splendour on heaps of poor souls!I might try at kneeling with Molly to-night.
Poems by George Meredith - Volume 2
[This etext was prepared from the 1912 Times Book Club "Surrey" edition by David Price]
Let Fate or Insufficiency provideMean ends for men who what they are would be:Penned in their narrow day no change they seeSave one which strikes the blow to brutes and pride.Our faith is ours and comes not on a tide:And whether Earth's great offspring, by decree,Must rot if they abjure rapacity,Not argument but effort shall decide.They number many heads in that hard flock:Trim swordsmen they push forth: yet try thy steel.Thou, fighting for poor humankind, wilt feelThe strength of Roland in thy wrist to hewA chasm sheer into the barrier rock,And bring the army of the faithful through.
Now farewell to you! you areOne of my dearest, whom I trust:Now follow you the Western star,And cast the old world off as dust.
From many friends adieu! adieu!The quick heart of the word therein.Much that we hope for hangs with you:We lose you, but we lose to win.
The beggar-king, November, frets:His tatters rich with Indian dyesGoes hugging: we our season's debtsPay calmly, of the Spring forewise.
We send our worthiest; can no less,If we would now be read aright, -To that great people who may blessOr curse mankind: they have the might.
The proudest seasons find their graves,And we, who would not be wooed, must court.We have let the blunderers and the wavesDivide us, and the devil had sport.
The blunderers and the waves no moreShall sever kindred sending forthTheir worthiest from shore to shoreFor welcome, bent to prove their worth.
Go you and such as you afloat,Our lost kinsfellowship to revive.The battle of the antidoteIs tough, though silent: may you thrive!
I, when in this North wind I seeThe straining red woods blown awry,Feel shuddering like the winter tree,All vein and artery on cold sky.
The leaf that clothed me is torn away;My friend is as a flying seed.Ay, true; to bring replenished dayLight ebbs, but I am bare, and bleed.
What husky habitations seemThese comfortable sayings! they fell,In some rich year become a dream:-So cries my heart, the infidel! . . .
Oh! for the strenuous mind in quest,Arabian visions could not vieWith those broad wonders of the West,And would I bid you stay? Not I!
The strange experimental landWhere men continually dare takeNiagara leaps;—unshattered stand'Twixt fall and fall;—for conscience' sake,
Drive onward like a flood's increase; -Fresh rapids and abysms engage; -(We live—we die) scorn fireside peace,And, as a garment, put on rage,
Rather than bear God's reprimand,By rearing on a full fat soilConcrete of sin and sloth;—this land,You will observe it coil in coil.
The land has been discover'd long,The people we have yet to know;Themselves they know not, save that strongFor good and evil still they grow.
Nor know they us. Yea, well enoughIn that inveterate machineThrough which we speak the printed stuffDaily, with voice most hugeous, mien
Tremendous:- as a lion's showThe grand menagerie paintings hide:Hear the drum beat, the trombones blow!The poor old Lion lies inside! . . .
It is not England that they hear,But mighty Mammon's pipers, trainedTo trumpet out his moods, and stirHis sluggish soul: HER voice is chained:
Almost her spirit seems moribund!O teach them, 'tis not she displaysThe panic of a purse rotund,Eternal dread of evil days, -
That haunting spectre of successWhich shows a heart sunk low in the girths:Not England answers nobleness, -'Live for thyself: thou art not earth's.'
Not she, when struggling manhood triesFor freedom, air, a hopefuller fate,Points out the planet, Compromise,And shakes a mild reproving pate:
Says never: 'I am well at ease,My sneers upon the weak I shed:The strong have my cajoleries:And those beneath my feet I tread.'
Nay, but 'tis said for her, great Lord!The misery's there! The shameless oneAdjures mankind to sheathe the sword,Herself not yielding what it won:-
Her sermon at cock-crow doth preach,On sweet Prosperity—or greed.'Lo! as the beasts feed, each for each,God's blessings let us take, and feed!'
Ungrateful creatures crave a part -She tells them firmly she is full;Lost sheared sheep hurt her tender heartWith bleating, stops her ears with wool:-
Seized sometimes by prodigious qualms(Nightmares of bankruptcy and death), -Showers down in lumps a load of alms,Then pants as one who has lost a breath;
Believes high heaven, whence favours flow,Too kind to ask a sacrificeFor what it specially doth bestow; -Gives SHE, 'tis generous, cheese to mice.
She saw the young Dominion stripFor battle with a grievous wrong,And curled a noble Norman lip,And looked with half an eye sidelong;
And in stout Saxon wrote her sneers,Denounced the waste of blood and coin,Implored the combatants, with tears,Never to think they could rejoin.
Oh! was it England that, alas!Turned sharp the victor to cajole?Behold her features in the glass:A monstrous semblance mocks her soul!
A false majority, by stealth,Have got her fast, and sway the rod:A headless tyrant built of wealth,The hypocrite, the belly-God.
To him the daily hymns they raise:His tastes are sought: his will is done:He sniffs the putrid steam of praise,Place for true England here is none!
But can a distant race discernThe difference 'twixt her and him?My friend, that will you bid them learn.He shames and binds her, head and limb.
Old wood has blossoms of this sort.Though sound at core, she is old wood.If freemen hate her, one retortShe has; but one!—'You are my blood.'
A poet, half a prophet, roseIn recent days, and called for power.I love him; but his mountain prose -His Alp and valley and wild flower -
Proclaimed our weakness, not its source.What medicine for disease had he?Whom summoned for a show of force?Our titular aristocracy!
Why, these are great at City feasts;From City riches mainly rise:'Tis well to hear them, when the beastsThat die for us they eulogize!
But these, of all the liveried crewObeisant in Mammon's walk,Most deferent ply the facial screw,The spinal bend, submissive talk.
Small fear that they will run to books(At least the better form of seed)!I, too, have hoped from their good looks,And fables of their Northman breed; -
Have hoped that they the land would headIn acts magnanimous; but, lo,When fainting heroes beg for breadThey frown: where they are driven they go.
Good health, my friend! and may your lotBe cheerful o'er the Western rounds.This butter-woman's market-trotOf verse is passing market-bounds.
Adieu! the sun sets; he is gone.On banks of fog faint lines extend:Adieu! bring back a braver dawnTo England, and to me my friend.
November 15th, 1867.
I see a fair young couple in a wood,And as they go, one bends to take a flower,That so may be embalmed their happy hour,And in another day, a kindred mood,Haply together, or in solitude,Recovered what the teeth of Time devour,The joy, the bloom, and the illusive power,Wherewith by their young blood they are enduedTo move all enviable, framed in May,And of an aspect sisterly with Truth:Yet seek they with Time's laughing things to wed:Who will be prompted on some pallid dayTo lift the hueless flower and show that dead,Even such, and by this token, is their youth.
On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose.Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiendAbove the rolling ball in cloud part screened,Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose.Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.And now upon his western wing he leaned,Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careened,Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows.Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scarsWith memory of the old revolt from Awe,He reached a middle height, and at the stars,Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,The army of unalterable law.
Bright Sirius! that when Orion palesTo dotlings under moonlight still art keenWith cheerful fervour of a warrior's mienWho holds in his great heart the battle-scales:Unquenched of flame though swift the flood assails,Reducing many lustrous to the lean:Be thou my star, and thou in me be seenTo show what source divine is, and prevails.Long watches through, at one with godly night,I mark thee planting joy in constant fire;And thy quick beams, whose jets of life inspireLife to the spirit, passion for the light,Dark Earth since first she lost her lord from sightHas viewed and felt them sweep her as a lyre.
The senses loving Earth or well or illRavel yet more the riddle of our lot.The mind is in their trammels, and lights notBy trimming fear-bred tales; nor does the willTo find in nature things which less may chillAn ardour that desires, unknowing what.Till we conceive her living we go distraught,At best but circle-windsails of a mill.Seeing she lives, and of her joy of lifeCreatively has given us blood and breathFor endless war and never wound unhealed,The gloomy Wherefore of our battle-fieldSolves in the Spirit, wrought of her through strifeTo read her own and trust her down to death.
Not solitarily in fields we findEarth's secret open, though one page is there;Her plainest, such as children spell, and shareWith bird and beast; raised letters for the blind.Not where the troubled passions toss the mind,In turbid cities, can the key be bare.It hangs for those who hither thither fare,Close interthreading nature with our kind.They, hearing History speak, of what men were,And have become, are wise. The gain is greatIn vision and solidity; it lives.Yet at a thought of life apart from her,Solidity and vision lose their state,For Earth, that gives the milk, the spirit gives.
Assured of worthiness we do not dreadCompetitors; we rather give them hailAnd greeting in the lists where we may fail:Must, if we bear an aim beyond the head!My betters are my masters: purely fedBy their sustainment I likewise shall scaleSome rocky steps between the mount and vale;Meanwhile the mark I have and I will wed.So that I draw the breath of finer air,Station is nought, nor footways laurel-strewn,Nor rivals tightly belted for the race.Good speed to them! My place is here or there;My pride is that among them I have place:And thus I keep this instrument in tune.
Two flower-enfolding crystal vases sheI love fills daily, mindful but of one:And close behind pale morn she, like the sunPriming our world with light, pours, sweet to see,Clear water in the cup, and into meThe image of herself: and that being done,Choice of what blooms round her fair garden runIn climbers or in creepers or the treeShe ranges with unerring fingers fine,To harmony so vivid that through sightI hear, I have her heavenliness to foldBeyond the senses, where such love as mine,Such grace as hers, should the strange Fates withholdTheir starry more from her and me, unite.
Earth was not Earth before her sons appeared,Nor Beauty Beauty ere young Love was born:And thou when I lay hidden wast as mornAt city-windows, touching eyelids bleared;To none by her fresh wingedness endeared;Unwelcome unto revellers outworn.I the last echoes of Diana's hornIn woodland heard, and saw thee come, and cheered.No longer wast thou then mere light, fair soul!And more than simple duty moved thy feet.New colours rose in thee, from fear, from shame,From hope, effused: though not less pure a scrollMay men read on the heart I taught to beat:That change in thee, if not thyself, I claim.
Rich labour is the struggle to be wise,While we make sure the struggle cannot cease.Else better were it in some bower of peaceSlothful to swing, contending with the flies.You point at Wisdom fixed on lofty skies,As mid barbarian hordes a sculptured Greece:She falls. To live and shine, she grows her fleece,Is shorn, and rubs with follies and with lies.So following her, your hewing may attainThe right to speak unto the mute, and shunThat sly temptation of the illumined brain,Deliveries oracular, self-spun.Who sweats not with the flock will seek in vainTo shed the words which are ripe fruit of sun.
Rub thou thy battered lamp: nor claim nor begHonours from aught about thee. Light the young.Thy frame is as a dusty mantle hung,O grey one! pendant on a loosened peg.Thou art for this our life an ancient egg,Or a tough bird: thou hast a rudderless tongue,Turning dead trifles, like the cock of dung,Which runs, Time's contrast to thy halting leg.Nature, it is most sure, not thee admires.But hast thou in thy season set her firesTo burn from Self to Spirit through the lash,Honoured the sons of Earth shall hold thee high:Yea, to spread light when thy proud letter IDrops prone and void as any thoughtless dash.
In Progress you have little faith, say you:Men will maintain dear interests, wreak base hates,By force, and gentle women choose their matesMost amorously from the gilded fighting crew:The human heart Bellona's mad hallooWill ever fire to dicing with the Fates.'Now at this time,' says History, 'those two StatesStood ready their past wrestling to renew.They sharpened arms and showed them, like the brutesWhose haunches quiver. But a yellow blightFell on their waxing harvests. They deferredThe bloody settlement of their disputesTill God should bless them better.' They did right.And naming Progress, both shall have the word.
Judge mildly the tasked world; and disinclineTo brand it, for it bears a heavy pack.You have perchance observed the inebriate's trackAt night when he has quitted the inn-sign:He plays diversions on the homeward line,Still that way bent albeit his legs are slack:A hedge may take him, but he turns not back,Nor turns this burdened world, of curving spine.'Spiral,' the memorable Lady termsOur mind's ascent: our world's advance presentsThat figure on a flat; the way of worms.Cherish the promise of its good intents,And warn it, not one instinct to effaceEre Reason ripens for the vacant place.
As Puritans they prominently wax,And none more kindly gives and takes hard knocks.Strong psalmic chanting, like to nasal cocks,They join to thunderings of their hearty thwacks.But naughtiness, with hoggery, not lacksWhen Peace another door in them unlocks,Where conscience shows the eyeing of an oxGrown dully apprehensive of an Axe.Graceless they are when gone to frivolousness,Fearing the God they flout, the God they glut.They need their pious exercises lessThan schooling in the Pleasures: fair beliefThat these are devilish only to their thief,Charged with an Axe nigh on the occiput.
That Garden of sedate PhilosophyOnce flourished, fenced from passion and mishap,A shining spot upon a shaggy map;Where mind and body, in fair junction free,Luted their joyful concord; like the treeFrom root to flowering twigs a flowing sap.Clear Wisdom found in tended Nature's lapOf gentlemen the happy nursery.That Garden would on light supremest verge,Were the long drawing of an equal breathHealthful for Wisdom's head, her heart, her aims.Our world which for its Babels wants a scourge,And for its wilds a husbandman, acclaimsThe crucifix that came of Nazareth.
An inspiration caught from dubious huesFilled him, and mystic wrynesses he chased;For they lead farther than the single-faced,Wave subtler promise when desire pursues.The moon of cloud discoloured was his Muse,His pipe the reed of the old moaning waste.Love was to him with anguish fast enlaced,And Beauty where she walked blood-shot the dews.Men railed at such a singer; women thrilledResponsively: he sang not Nature's ownDivinest, but his lyric had a tone,As 'twere a forest-echo of her voice:What barrenly they yearn for seemed distilledFrom what they dread, who do through tears rejoice.
Her son, albeit the Muse's liveryAnd measured courtly paces rouse his taunts,Naked and hairy in his savage haunts,To Nature only will he bend the knee;Spouting the founts of her distilleryLike rough rock-sources; and his woes and wantsBeing Nature's, civil limitation dauntsHis utterance never; the nymphs blush, not he.Him, when he blows of Earth, and Man, and Fate,The Muse will hearken to with graver earThan many of her train can waken: himWould fain have taught what fruitful things and dearMust sink beneath the tidewaves, of their weight,If in no vessel built for sea they swim.
Unhappy poets of a sunken prime!You to reviewers are as ball to bat.They shadow you with Homer, knock you flatWith Shakespeare: bludgeons brainingly sublimeOn you the excommunicates of Rhyme,Because you sing not in the living Fat.The wiry whizz of an intrusive gnatIs verse that shuns their self-producing time.Sound them their clocks, with loud alarum trump,Or watches ticking temporal at their fobs,You win their pleased attention. But, bright GodO' the lyre, what bully-drawlers they applaud!Rather for us a tavern-catch, and bumpChorus where Lumpkin with his Giles hobnobs.
What say you, critic, now you have becomeAn author and maternal?—in this trap(To quote you) of poor hollow folk who rapOn instruments as like as drum to drum.You snarled tut-tut for welcome to tum-tum,So like the nose fly-teased in its noon's nap.You scratched an insect-slaughtering thunder-clapWith that between the fingers and the thumb.It seemeth mad to quit the Olympian couch,Which bade our public gobble or reject.O spectacle of Peter, shrewdly pecked,Piper, by his own pepper from his pouch!What of the sneer, the jeer, the voice austere,You dealt?—the voice austere, the jeer, the sneer.
Oracle of the market! thence you drewThe taste which stamped you guide of the inept. -A North-sea pilot, Hildebrand yclept,A sturdy and a briny, once men knew.He loved small beer, and for that copious brew,To roll ingurgitation till he slept,Rations exchanged with flavour for the adept:And merrily plied him captain, mate and crew.At last this dancer to the Polar starSank, washed out within, and overboard was pitched,To drink the sea and pilot him to land.O captain-critic! printed, neatly stitched,Know while the pillory-eggs fly fast, they areNot eggs, but the drowned soul of Hildebrand.
Of me and of my theme think what thou wilt:The song of gladness one straight bolt can check.But I have never stood at Fortune's beck:Were she and her light crew to run atiltAt my poor holding little would be spilt;Small were the praise for singing o'er that wreck.Who courts her dooms to strife his bended neck;He grasps a blade, not always by the hilt.Nathless she strikes at random, can be fellWith other than those votaries she dealsThe black or brilliant from her thunder-rift.I say but that this love of Earth revealsA soul beside our own to quicken, quell,Irradiate, and through ruinous floods uplift.
'Tis true the wisdom that my mind exactsThrough contemplation from a heart unbentBy many tempests may be stained and rent:The summer flies it mightily attracts.Yet they seem choicer than your sons of facts,Which scarce give breathing of the sty's contentFor their diurnal carnal nourishment:Which treat with Nature in official pacts.The deader body Nature could proclaim.Much life have neither. Let the heavens of wrathRattle, then both scud scattering to froth.But during calms the flies of idle aimLess put the spirit out, less baffle thirstFor light than swinish grunters, blest or curst.
Avert, High Wisdom, never vainly wooed,This threat of War, that shows a land brain-sick.When nations gain the pitch where rhetoricSeems reason they are ripe for cannon's food.Dark looms the issue though the cause be good,But with the doubt 'tis our old devil's trick.O now the down-slope of the lunaticIllumine lest we redden of that brood.For not since man in his first view of theeAscended to the heavens giving signWithin him of deep sky and sounded sea,Did he unforfeiting thy laws transgress;In peril of his blood his ears inclineTo drums whose loudness is their emptiness.
I, wakeful for the skylark voice in men,Or straining for the angel of the light,Rebuked am I by hungry ear and sight,When I behold one lamp that through our fenGoes hourly where most noisome; hear againA tongue that loathsomeness will not affrightFrom speaking to the soul of us forthrightWhat things our craven senses keep from ken.This is the doing of the Christ; the wayHe went on earth; the service above guileTo prop a tyrant creed: it sings, it shines;Cries to the Mammonites: Allay, allaySuch misery as by these present signsBrings vengeance down; nor them who rouse revile.
An English heart, my commandant,A soldier's eye you have, awakeTo right and left; with looks askantOn bulwarks not of adamant,Where white our Channel waters break.
Where Grisnez winks at DungenessAcross the ruffled strip of salt,You look, and like the prospect less.On men and guns would you lay stress,To bid the Island's foemen halt.
While loud the Year is raising cryAt birth to know if it must bearIn history the bloody dye,An English heart, a soldier's eye,For the old country first will care.
And how stands she, artillerist,Among the vapours waxing dense,With cannon charged? 'Tis hist! and hist!And now she screws a gouty fist,And now she counts to clutch her pence.
With shudders chill as aconite,The couchant chewer of the cudWill start at times in pussy frightBefore the dogs, when reads her spriteThe streaks predicting streams of blood.
She thinks they may mean something; thinksThey may mean nothing: haply both.Where darkness all her daylight drinks,She fain would find a leader lynx,Not too much taxing mental sloth.
Cleft like the fated house in twain,One half is, Arm! and one, Retrench!Gambetta's word on dull MacMahon:'The cow that sees a passing train':So spies she Russian, German, French.
She? no, her weakness: she unbracedAmong those athletes fronting storms!The muscles less of steel than paste,Why, they of nature feel distasteFor flash, much more for push, of arms.
The poet sings, and well know we,That 'iron draws men after it.'But towering wealth may seem the treeWhich bears the fruit INDEMNITY,And draw as fast as battle's fit,
If feeble be the hand on guard,Alas, alas! And nations areStill the mad forces, though the scarred.Should they once deem our emblem PardWagger of tail for all save war; -
Mechanically screwed to flailHis flanks by Presses conjuring fear; -A money-bag with head and tail; -Too late may valour then avail!As you beheld, my cannonier,
When with the staff of Benedek,On the plateau of Koniggratz,You saw below that wedgeing speck;Foresaw proud Austria rammed to wreck,Where Chlum drove deep in smoky jets.
February 1887.
Strike not thy dog with a stick!I did it yesterday:Not to undo though I gainedThe Paradise: heavy it rainedOn Kobold's flanks, and he lay.
Little Bruno, our long-ear pup,From his hunt had come back to my heel.I heard a sharp worrying sound,And Bruno foamed on the ground,With Koby as making a meal.
I did what I could not undoWere the gates of the Paradise shutBehind me: I deemed it was just.I left Koby crouched in the dust,Some yards from the woodman's hut.
He bewhimpered his welting, and IScarce thought it enough for him: so,By degrees, through the upper box-grove,Within me an old story hove,Of a man and a dog: you shall know.
The dog was of novel breed,The Shannon retriever, untried:His master, an old Irish lord,In an oaken armchair snoredAt midnight, whisky beside.
Perched up a desolate tower,Where the black storm-wind was a whipTo set it nigh spinning, these twoWere alone, like the last of a crew,Outworn in a wave-beaten ship.
The dog lifted muzzle, and sniffed;He quitted his couch on the rug,Nose to floor, nose aloft; whined, barked;And, finding the signals unmarked,Caught a hand in a death-grapple tug.
He pulled till his master jumpedFor fury of wrath, and laid onWith the length of a tough knotted staff,Fit to drive the life flying like chaff,And leave a sheer carcase anon.
That done, he sat, panted, and cursedThe vile cross of this brute: nevermoreWould he house it to rear such a cur!The dog dragged his legs, pained to stir,Eyed his master, dropped, barked at the door.
Then his master raised head too, and sniffed:It struck him the dog had a senseThat honoured both dam and sire.You have guessed how the tower was afire.The Shannon retriever dates thence.
I mused: saw the pup ease his heartOf his instinct for chasing, and sinkOverwrought by excitement so new:A scene that for Koby to viewWas the seizure of nerves in a link.
And part sympathetic, and partImitatively, raged my poor brute;And I, not thinking of ill,Doing eviller: nerves are stillOur savage too quick at the root.
They spring us: I proved it, albeitI played executioner thenFor discipline, justice, the like.Yon stick I had handy to strikeShould have warned of the tyrant in men.
You read in your History books,How the Prince in his youth had a mindFor governing gently his land.Ah, the use of that weapon at hand,When the temper is other than kind!
At home all was well; Koby's ribsNot so sore as my thoughts: if, beguiled,He forgives me, his criminal airThrows a shade of Llewellyn's despairFor the hound slain for saving his child.
Enter these enchanted woods,You who dare.Nothing harms beneath the leavesMore than waves a swimmer cleaves.Toss your heart up with the lark,Foot at peace with mouse and worm,Fair you fare.Only at a dread of darkQuaver, and they quit their form:Thousand eyeballs under hoodsHave you by the hair.Enter these enchanted woods,You who dare.
Here the snake across your pathStretches in his golden bath:Mossy-footed squirrels leapSoft as winnowing plumes of Sleep:Yaffles on a chuckle skimLow to laugh from branches dim:Up the pine, where sits the star,Rattles deep the moth-winged jar.Each has business of his own;But should you distrust a tone,Then beware.Shudder all the haunted roods,All the eyeballs under hoodsShroud you in their glare.Enter these enchanted woods,You who dare.
Open hither, open hence,Scarce a bramble weaves a fence,Where the strawberry runs red,With white star-flower overhead;Cumbered by dry twig and cone,Shredded husks of seedlings flown,Mine of mole and spotted flint:Of dire wizardry no hint,Save mayhap the print that showsHasty outward-tripping toes,Heels to terror on the mould.These, the woods of Westermain,Are as others to behold,Rich of wreathing sun and rain;Foliage lustreful aroundShadowed leagues of slumbering sound.Wavy tree-tops, yellow whins,Shelter eager minikins,Myriads, free to peck and pipe:Would you better? would you worse?You with them may gather ripePleasures flowing not from purse.Quick and far as Colour fliesTaking the delighted eyes,You of any well that springsMay unfold the heaven of things;Have it homely and within,And thereof its likeness win,Will you so in soul's desire:This do sages grant t' the lyre.This is being bird and more,More than glad musician this;Granaries you will have a storePast the world of woe and bliss;Sharing still its bliss and woe;Harnessed to its hungers, no.On the throne Success usurps,You shall seat the joy you feelWhere a race of water chirps,Twisting hues of flourished steel:Or where light is caught in hoopUp a clearing's leafy rise,Where the crossing deerherds troopClassic splendours, knightly dyes.Or, where old-eyed oxen chewSpeculation with the cud,Read their pool of vision through,Back to hours when mind was mud;Nigh the knot, which did untwineTimelessly to drowsy suns;Seeing Earth a slimy spine,Heaven a space for winging tons.Farther, deeper, may you read,Have you sight for things afield,Where peeps she, the Nurse of seed,Cloaked, but in the peep revealed;Showing a kind face and sweet:Look you with the soul you see't.Glory narrowing to grace,Grace to glory magnified,Following that will you embraceClose in arms or aery wide.Banished is the white Foam-bornNot from here, nor under banPhoebus lyrist, Phoebe's horn,Pipings of the reedy Pan.Loved of Earth of old they were,Loving did interpret her;And the sterner worship barsNone whom Song has made her stars.You have seen the huntress moonRadiantly facing dawn,Dusky meads between them strewnGlimmering like downy awn:Argent Westward glows the hunt,East the blush about to climb;One another fair they front,Transient, yet outshine the time;Even as dewlight off the roseIn the mind a jewel sows.Thus opposing grandeurs liveHere if Beauty be their dower:Doth she of her spirit give,Fleetingness will spare her flower.This is in the tune we play,Which no spring of strength would quell;In subduing does not slay;Guides the channel, guards the well:Tempered holds the young blood-heat,Yet through measured grave accord,Hears the heart of wildness beatLike a centaur's hoof on sward.Drink the sense the notes infuse,You a larger self will find:Sweetest fellowship ensuesWith the creatures of your kind.Ay, and Love, if Love it beFlaming over I and ME,Love meet they who do not shoveCravings in the van of Love.Courtly dames are here to woo,Knowing love if it be true.Reverence the blossom-shootFervently, they are the fruit.Mark them stepping, hear them talk,Goddess, is no myth inane,You will say of those who walkIn the woods of Westermain.Waters that from throat and thighDart the sun his arrows back;Leaves that on a woodland sighChat of secret things no lack;Shadowy branch-leaves, waters clear,Bare or veiled they move sincere;Not by slavish terrors trippedBeing anew in nature dipped,Growths of what they step on, these;With the roots the grace of trees.Casket-breasts they give, nor hide,For a tyrant's flattered pride,Mind, which nourished not by light,Lurks the shuffling trickster sprite:Whereof are strange tales to tell;Some in blood writ, tombed in bell.Here the ancient battle ends,Joining two astonished friends,Who the kiss can give and takeWith more warmth than in that worldWhere the tiger claws the snake,Snake her tiger clasps infurled,And the issue of their fightPeople lands in snarling plight.Here her splendid beast she leadsSilken-leashed and decked with weedsWild as he, but breathing faintSweetness of unfelt constraint.Love, the great volcano, flingsFires of lower Earth to sky;Love, the sole permitted, singsSovereignly of ME and I.Bowers he has of sacred shade,Spaces of superb parade,Voiceful . . . But bring you a noteWrangling, howsoe'er remote,Discords out of discord spinRound and round derisive din:Sudden will a pallor pantChill at screeches miscreant;Owls or spectres, thick they flee;Nightmare upon horror broods;Hooded laughter, monkish glee,Gaps the vital air.Enter these enchanted woodsYou who dare.