Mylove was warm; for that I crossedThe mountains and the sea,Nor counted that endeavour lostThat gave my love to me.
If that indeed were love at all,As still, my love, I trow,By what dear name am I to callThe bond that holds me now
Toher, for I must still regard herAs feminine in her degree,Who has been my unkind bombarderYear after year, in grief and glee,Year after year, with oaken tree;And yet betweenwhiles my laudatorIn terms astonishing to me—To the Right Reverend The SpectatorI here, a humble dedicator,Bring the last apples from my tree.
In tones of love, in tones of warning,She hailed me through my brief career;And kiss and buffet, night and morning,Told me my grandmamma was near;Whether she praised me high and clearThrough her unrivalled circulation,Or, sanctimonious insincere,She damned me with a misquotation—A chequered but a sweet relation,Say, was it not, my granny dear?
Believe me, granny, altogetherYours, though perhaps to your surprise.Oft have you spruced my wounded feather,Oft brought a light into my eyes—For notice still the writer cries.In any civil age or nation,The book that is not talked of dies.So that shall be my termination:Whether in praise or execration,Still, if you love me, criticise!
Farewell, and when forthI through the Golden Gates to Golden IslesSteer without smiling, through the sea of smiles,Isle upon isle, in the seas of the south,Isle upon island, sea upon sea,Why should I sail, why should the breeze?I have been young, and I have counted friends.A hopeless sail I spread, too late, too late.Why should I from isle to isleSail, a hopeless sailor?
Thebroad sun,The bright day:White sailsOn the blue bay:The far-farersDraw away.
Light the firesAnd close the door.To the old homes,To the loved shore,The far-farersReturn no more.
Come, my little children, here are songs for you;Some are short and some are long, and all, all are new.You must learn to sing them very small and clear,Very true to time and tune and pleasing to the ear.
Mark the note that rises, mark the notes that fall,Mark the time when broken, and the swing of it all.So when night is come, and you have gone to bed,All the songs you love to sing shall echo in your head.
Homefrom the daisied meadows, where you linger yet—Home, golden-headed playmate, ere the sun is set;For the dews are falling fastAnd the night has come at last.Home with you, home and lay your little head at rest,Safe, safe, my little darling, on your mother’s breast.Lullaby, darling; your mother is watching you; she’ll be your guardian and shield.Lullaby, slumber, my darling, till morning be bright upon mountain and field.Long, long the shadows fall.All white and smooth at home your little bed is laid.All round your head be angels.
Earlyin the morning I hear on your pianoYou (at least, I guess it’s you) proceed to learn to play.Mostly little minds should take and tackle their pianoWhile the birds are singing in the morning of the day.
FairIsle at Sea—thy lovely nameSoft in my ear like music came.That sea I loved, and once or twiceI touched at isles of Paradise.
Loudand low in the chimneyThe squalls suspire;Then like an answer dwindlesAnd glows the fire,And the chamber reddens and darkensIn time like taken breath.Near by the sounding chimneyThe youth apartHearkens with changing colourAnd leaping heart,And hears in the coil of the tempestThe voice of love and death.Love on high in the flute-likeAnd tender notesSounds as from April meadowsAnd hillside cotes;But the deep wood wind in the chimneyUtters the slogan of death.
Iloveto be warm by the red fireside,I love to be wet with rain:I love to be welcome at lamplit doors,And leave the doors again.
Atlast she comes, O never moreIn this dear patience of my painTo leave me lonely as before,Or leave my soul alone again.
Mineeyes were swift to know thee, and my heartAs swift to love. I did become at onceThine wholly, thine unalterably, thineIn honourable service, pure intent,Steadfast excess of love and laughing care:And as she was, so am, and so shall be.I knew thee helpful, knew thee true, knew theeAnd Pity bedfellows: I heard thy talkWith answerable throbbings. On the stream,Deep, swift, and clear, the lilies floated; fishThrough the shadows ran. There, thou and IRead Kindness in our eyes and closed the match.
Fixedis the doom; and to the last of yearsTeacher and taught, friend, lover, parent, child,Each walks, though near, yet separate; each beholdsHis dear ones shine beyond him like the stars.We also, love, forever dwell apart;With cries approach, with cries behold the gulph,The Unvaulted; as two great eagles that do wheel in airAbove a mountain, and with screams confer,Far heard athwart the cedars.Yet the yearsShall bring us ever nearer; day by dayEndearing, week by week, till death at lastDissolve that long divorce. By faith we love,Not knowledge; and by faith, though far removed,Dwell as in perfect nearness, heart to heart.We but excuseThose things we merely are; and to our soulsA brave deception cherish.So from unhappy war a man returnsUnfearing, or the seaman from the deep;So from cool night and woodlands to a feastMay someone enter, and still breathe of dews,And in her eyes still wear the dusky night.
Menare Heaven’s piers; they evermoreUnwearying bear the skyey floor;Man’s theatre they bear with ease,Unfrowning cariatides!I, for my wife, the sun uphold,Or, dozing, strike the seasons cold.She, on her side, in fairy-wiseDeals in diviner mysteries,By spells to make the fuel burnAnd keep the parlour warm, to turnWater to wine, and stones to bread,By her unconquered hero-head.A naked Adam, naked Eve,Alone the primal bower we weave;Sequestered in the seas of life,A Crusoe couple, man and wife,With all our good, with all our will,Our unfrequented isle we fill;And victor in day’s petty wars,Each for the other lights the stars.Come then, my Eve, and to and froLet us about our garden go;And, grateful-hearted, hand in handRevisit all our tillage land,And marvel at our strange estate,For hooded ruin at the gateSits watchful, and the angels fearTo see us tread so boldly here.Meanwhile, my Eve, with flower and grassOur perishable days we pass;Far more the thorn observe—and seeHow our enormous sins go free—Nor less admire, beside the rose,How far a little virtue goes.
Theangler rose, he took his rod,He kneeled and made his prayers to God.The living God sat overhead:The angler tripped, the eels were fed
Whenloud by landside streamlets gush,And clear in the greenwood quires the thrush,With sun on the meadowsAnd songs in the shadowsComes again to meThe gift of the tongues of the lea,The gift of the tongues of meadows.
Straightway my olden heart returnsAnd dances with the dancing burns;It sings with the sparrows;To the rain and the (grimy) barrowsSings my heart aloud—To the silver-bellied cloud,To the silver rainy arrows.
It bears the song of the skylark down,And it hears the singing of the town;And youth on the highwaysAnd lovers in bywaysFollows and sees:And hearkens the song of the leasAnd sings the songs of the highways.
So when the earth is alive with gods,And the lusty ploughman breaks the sod,And the grass sings in the meadows,And the flowers smile in the shadows,Sits my heart at ease,Hearing the song of the leas,Singing the songs of the meadows.
Towhat shall I compare her,That is as fair as she?For she is fairer—fairerThan the sea.What shall be likened to her,The sainted of my youth?For she is truer—truerThan the truth.
As the stars are from the sleeper,Her heart is hid from me;For she is deeper—deeperThan the sea.Yet in my dreams I view herFlush rosy with new ruth—Dreams! Ah, may these prove truerThan the truth.
Whenthe sun comes after rainAnd the bird is in the blue,The girls go down the laneTwo by two.
When the sun comes after shadowAnd the singing of the showers,The girls go up the meadow,Fair as flowers.
When the eve comes dusky redAnd the moon succeeds the sun,The girls go home to bedOne by one.
And when life draws to its evenAnd the day of man is past,They shall all go home to heaven,Home at last.
Late, O miller,The birds are silent,The darkness falls.In the house the lights are lighted.See, in the valley they twinkle,The lights of home.Late, O lovers,The night is at hand;Silence and darknessClothe the land.
Tofriends at home, the lone, the admired, the lostThe gracious old, the lovely young, to MayThe fair, December the beloved,These from my blue horizon and green isles,These from this pinnacle of distances I,The unforgetful, dedicate.
I,whomApollo sometime visited,Or feigned to visit, now, my day being done,Do slumber wholly; nor shall know at allThe weariness of changes; nor perceiveImmeasurable sands of centuriesDrink of the blanching ink, or the loud soundOf generations beat the music down.
Tempesttossed and sore afflicted, sin defiled and care oppressed,Come to me, all ye that labour; come, and I will give ye rest.Fear no more, O doubting hearted; weep no more, O weeping eye!Lo, the voice of your redeemer; lo, the songful morning near.
Here one hour you toil and combat, sin and suffer, bleed and die;In my father’s quiet mansion soon to lay your burden by.Bear a moment, heavy laden, weary hand and weeping eye.Lo, the feet of your deliverer; lo, the hour of freedom here.
Cometo me, all ye that labour; I will give your spirits rest;Here apart in starry quiet I will give you rest.Come to me, ye heavy laden, sin defiled and care opprest,In your father’s quiet mansions, soon to prove a welcome guest.But an hour you bear your trial, sin and suffer, bleed and die;But an hour you toil and combat here in day’s inspiring eye.See the feet of your deliverer; lo, the hour of freedom nigh.
Inow, O friend, whom noiselessly the snowsSettle around, and whose small chamber growsDusk as the sloping window takes its load:
* * * * *
The kindly hill, as to complete our hap,Has ta’en us in the shelter of her lap;Well sheltered in our slender grove of treesAnd ring of walls, we sit between her knees;A disused quarry, paved with rose plots, hungWith clematis, the barren womb whence sprungThe crow-stepped house itself, that now far seenStands, like a bather, to the neck in green.A disused quarry, furnished with a seatSacred to pipes and meditation meetFor such a sunny and retired nook.There in the clear, warm mornings many a bookHas vied with the fair prospect of the hillsThat, vale on vale, rough brae on brae, upfillsHalfway to the zenith all the vacant skyTo keep my loose attention. . . .Horace has sat with me whole mornings through:And Montaigne gossiped, fairly false and true;And chattering Pepys, and a few besideThat suit the easy vein, the quiet tide,The calm and certain stay of garden-life,Far sunk from all the thunderous roar of strife.There is about the small secluded placeA garnish of old times; a certain graceOf pensive memories lays about the braes:The old chestnuts gossip tales of bygone days.Here, where some wandering preacher, blest Lazil,Perhaps, or Peden, on the middle hillHad made his secret church, in rain or snow,He cheers the chosen residue from woe.All night the doors stood open, come who might,The hounded kebbock mat the mud all night.Nor are there wanting later tales; of howPrince Charlie’s Highlanders . . .
* * * * *
I have had talents, too. In life’s first hourGod crowned with benefits my childish head.Flower after flower, I plucked them; flower by flowerCast them behind me, ruined, withered, dead.Full many a shining godhead disappeared.From the bright rank that once adorned her browThe old child’s Olympus
* * * * *
Gone are the fair old dreams, and one by one,As, one by one, the means to reach them went,As, one by one, the stars in riot and disgrace,I squandered what . . .
There shut the door, alas! on many a hopeToo many;My face is set to the autumnal slope,Where the loud winds shall . . .
There shut the door, alas! on many a hope,And yet some hopes remain that shall decideMy rest of years and down the autumnal slope.
* * * * *
Gone are the quiet twilight dreams that ILoved, as all men have loved them; gone!I have great dreams, and still they stir my soul on high—Dreams of the knight’s stout heart and tempered will.Not in Elysian lands they take their way;Not as of yore across the gay champaign,Towards some dream city, towered . . .and my . . .The path winds forth before me, sweet and plain,Not now; but though beneath a stone-grey skyNovember’s russet woodlands toss and wail,Still the white road goes thro’ them, still may I,Strong in new purpose, God, may still prevail.
* * * * *
I and my like, improvident sailors!
* * * * *
At whose light fall awaking, all my heartGrew populous with gracious, favoured thought,And all night long thereafter, hour by hour,The pageant of dead love before my eyesWent proudly, and old hopes with downcast headFollowed like Kings, subdued in Rome’s imperial hour,Followed the car; and I . . .
Sincethou hast given me this good hope, O God,That while my footsteps tread the flowery sodAnd the great woods embower me, and white dawnAnd purple even sweetly lead me onFrom day to day, and night to night, O God,My life shall no wise miss the light of love;But ever climbing, climb aboveMan’s one poor star, man’s supine lands,Into the azure steadfastness of death,My life shall no wise lack the light of love,My hands not lack the loving touch of hands;But day by day, while yet I draw my breath,And day by day, unto my last of years,I shall be one that has a perfect friend.Her heart shall taste my laughter and my tears,And her kind eyes shall lead me to the end.
Godgave to me a child in part,Yet wholly gave the father’s heart:Child of my soul, O whither now,Unborn, unmothered, goest thou?
You came, you went, and no man wist;Hapless, my child, no breast you kist;On no dear knees, a privileged babbler, clomb,Nor knew the kindly feel of home.
My voice may reach you, O my dear—A father’s voice perhaps the child may hear;And, pitying, you may turn your viewOn that poor father whom you never knew.
Alas! alone he sits, who then,Immortal among mortal men,Sat hand in hand with love, and all day throughWith your dear mother wondered over you.
Overthe land is April,Over my heart a rose;Over the high, brown mountainThe sound of singing goes.Say, love, do you hear me,Hear my sonnets ring?Over the high, brown mountain,Love, do you hear me sing?
By highway, love, and bywayThe snows succeed the rose.Over the high, brown mountainThe wind of winter blows.Say, love, do you hear me,Hear my sonnets ring?Over the high, brown mountainI sound the song of spring,I throw the flowers of spring.Do you hear the song of spring?Hear you the songs of spring?
Lightas the linnet on my way I start,For all my pack I bear a chartered heart.Forth on the world without a guide or chart,Content to know, through all man’s varying fates,The eternal woman by the wayside waits.
Come, here is adieu to the cityAnd hurrah for the country again.The broad road lies before meWatered with last night’s rain.The timbered country woos meWith many a high and bough;And again in the shining fallowsThe ploughman follows the plough.
The whole year’s sweat and study,And the whole year’s sowing time,Comes now to the perfect harvest,And ripens now into rhyme.For we that sow in the Autumn,We reap our grain in the Spring,And we that go sowing and weepingReturn to reap and sing.
Itblows a snowing gale in the winter of the year;The boats are on the sea and the crews are on the pier.The needle of the vane, it is veering to and fro,A flash of sun is on the veering of the vane.Autumn leaves and rain,The passion of the gale.
There’sjust a twinkle in your eyeThat seems to say Imight, if IWere only bold enough to tryAn arm about your waist.I hear, too, as you come and go,That pretty nervous laugh, you know;And then your cap is always soCoquettishly displaced.
Your cap! the word’s profanely said.That little top-knot, white and red,That quaintly crowns your graceful head,No bigger than a flower,Is set with such a witching art,Is so provocatively smart,I’d like to wear it on my heart,An order for an hour!
O graceful housemaid, tall and fair,I love your shy imperial air,And always loiter on the stairWhen you are going by.A strict reserve the fates demand;But, when to let you pass I stand,Sometimes by chance I touch your handAnd sometimes catch your eye.
Toall that love the far and blue:Whether, from dawn to eve, on footThe fleeing corners ye pursue,Nor weary of the vain pursuit;Or whether down the singing stream,Paddle in hand, jocund ye shoot,To splash beside the splashing breamOr anchor by the willow root:
Or, bolder, from the narrow shorePut forth, that cedar ark to steer,Among the seabirds and the roarOf the great sea, profound and clear;Or, lastly if in heart ye roam,Not caring to do else, and hear,Safe sitting by the fire at home,Footfalls in Utah or Pamere:
Though long the way, though hard to bearThe sun and rain, the dust and dew;Though still attainment and despairInter the old, despoil the new;There shall at length, be sure, O friends,Howe’er ye steer, whate’er ye do—At length, and at the end of ends,The golden city come in view.
(AFragment)
Thoustrainest through the mountain fern,A most exiguously thinBurn.For all thy foam, for all thy din,Thee shall the pallid lake inurn,With well-a-day for Mr. Swin-Burne!Take then this quarto in thy finAnd, O thou stoker huge and stern,The whole affair, outside and in,Burn!But save the true poetic kin,The works of Mr. Robert Burn’And William Wordsworth upon Tin-Tern!
Whenmy young lady has grown great and staid,And in long raiment wondrously arrayed,She may take pleasure with a smile to knowHow she delighted men-folk long ago.For her long after, then, this tale I tellOf the two fans and fairy Rosabelle.Hot was the day; her weary sire and ISat in our chairs companionably nigh,Each with a headache sat her sire and I.
Instant the hostess waked: she viewed the scene,Divined the giants’ languor by their mien,And with hospitable careTackled at once an Atlantean chair.Her pigmy stature scarce attained the seat—She dragged it where she would, and with her feetSurmounted; thence, a Phaeton launched, she crownedThe vast plateau of the piano, foundAnd culled a pair of fans; wherewith equipped,Our mountaineer back to the level slipped;And being landed, with considerate eyes,Betwixt her elders dealt her double prize;The small to me, the greater to her sire.As painters now advance and now retireBefore the growing canvas, and anonOnce more approach and put the climax on:So she awhile withdrew, her piece she viewed—For half a moment half supposed it good—Spied her mistake, nor sooner spied than ranTo remedy; and with the greater fan,In gracious better thought, equipped the guest.
From ill to well, from better on to best,Arts move; the homely, like the plastic kind;And high ideals fired that infant mind.Once more she backed, once more a space apartConsidered and reviewed her work of art:Doubtful at first, and gravely yet awhile;Till all her features blossomed in a smile.And the child, waking at the call of bliss,To each she ran, and took and gave a kiss.
Nowbare to the beholder’s eyeYour late denuded bindings lie,Subsiding slowly where they fell,A disinvested citadel;The obdurate corset, Cupid’s foe,The Dutchman’s breeches frilled below.Those that the lover notes to note,And white and crackling petticoat.
From these, that on the ground repose,Their lady lately re-arose;And laying by the lady’s name,A living woman re-became.Of her, that from the public eyeThey do enclose and fortify,Now, lying scattered as they fell,An indiscreeter tale they tell:Of that more soft and secret herWhose daylong fortresses they were,By fading warmth, by lingering print,These now discarded scabbards hint.
A twofold change the ladies know:First, in the morn the bugles blow,And they, with floral hues and scents,Man their beribboned battlements.But let the stars appear, and theyShed inhumanities away;And from the changeling fashion see,Through comic and through sweet degree,In nature’s toilet unsurpassed,Forth leaps the laughing girl at last.
Clinkum-clankin the rain they ride,Down by the braes and the grey sea-side;Clinkum-clank by stane and cairn,Weary fa’ their horse-shoe-airn!
Loud on the causey, saft on the sand,Round they rade by the tail of the land;Round and up by the Bour-Tree Den,Weary fa’ the red-coat men!
Aft hae I gane where they hae radeAnd straigled in the gowden brooms—Aft hae I gane, a saikless maid,And O! sae bonny as the bour-tree blooms!
Wi’ swords and guns they wanton there,Wi’ red, red coats and braw, braw plumes.But I gaed wi’ my gowden hair,And O! sae bonny as the bour-tree blooms!
I ran, a little hempie lass,In the sand and the bent grass,Or took and kilted my small coatsTo play in the beached fisher-boats.
I waded deep and I ran fast,I was as lean as a lugger’s mast,I was as brown as a fisher’s creel,And I liked my life unco weel.
They blew a trumpet at the cross,Some forty men, both foot and horse.A’body cam to hear and see,And wha, among the rest, but me.My lips were saut wi’ the saut air,My face was brown, my feet were bareThe wind had ravelled my tautit hair,And I thought shame to be standing there.
Ae man there in the thick of the throngSat in his saddle, straight and strong.I looked at him and he at me,And he was a master-man to see.. . . And who is this yin? and who is yonThat has the bonny lendings on?That sits and looks sae braw and crouse?. . . Mister Frank o’ the Big House!
I gaed my lane beside the sea;The wind it blew in bush and tree,The wind blew in bush and bent:Muckle I saw, and muckle kent!
Between the beach and the sea-hillI sat my lane and grat my fill—I was sae clarty and hard and dark,And like the kye in the cow park!
There fell a battle far in the north;The evil news gaed back and forth,And back and forth by brae and bentHider and hunter cam and went:The hunter clattered horse-shoe-airnBy causey-crest and hill-top cairn;The hider, in by shag and shench,Crept on his wame and little lench.
The eastland wind blew shrill and snell,The stars arose, the gloaming fell,The firelight shone in window and doorWhen Mr. Frank cam here to shore.He hirpled up by the links and the lane,And chappit laigh in the back-door-stane.My faither gaed, and up wi’ his han’!. . . Is this Mr. Frank, or a beggarman?
I have mistrysted sair, he said,But let me into fire and bed;Let me in, for auld lang syne,And give me a dram of the brandy wine.
They hid him in the Bour-Tree Den,And I thought it strange to gang my lane;I thought it strange, I thought it sweet,To gang there on my naked feet.In the mirk night, when the boats were at sea,I passed the burn abune the knee;In the mirk night, when the folks were asleep,I had a tryst in the den to keep.
Late and air’, when the folks were asleep,I had a tryst, a tryst to keep,I had a lad that lippened to me,And bour-tree blossom is fair to see!
O’ the bour-tree leaves I busked his bed,The mune was siller, the dawn was red:Was nae man there but him and me—And bour-tree blossom is fair to see!
Unco weather hae we been through:The mune glowered, and the wind blew,And the rain it rained on him and me,And bour-tree blossom is fair to see!
Dwelling his lane but house or hauld,Aft he was wet and aft was cauld;I warmed him wi’ my briest and knee—And bour-tree blossom is fair to see!
There was nae voice of beast ae man,But the tree soughed and the burn ran,And we heard the ae voice of the sea:Bour-tree blossom is fair to see!
Norjudge me light, tho’ light at times I seem,And lightly in the stress of fortune bearThe innumerable flaws of changeful care—Nor judge me light for this, nor rashly deem(Office forbid to mortals, kept supremeAnd separate the prerogative of God!)That seaman idle who is borne abroadTo the far haven by the favouring stream.Not he alone that to contrarious seasOpposes, all night long, the unwearied oar,Not he alone, by high success endeared,Shall reach the Port; but, winged, with some light breezeShall they, with upright keels, pass in beforeWhom easy Taste, the golden pilot, steered.
So shall this book wax like unto a well,Fairy with mirrored flowers about the brim,Or like some tarn that wailing curlews skim,Glassing the sallow uplands or brown fell;And so, as men go down into a dell(Weary with noon) to find relief and shade,When on the uneasy sick-bed we are laid,We shall go down into thy book, and tellThe leaves, once blank, to build again for usOld summer dead and ruined, and the timeOf later autumn with the corn in stook.So shalt thou stint the meagre winter thusOf his projected triumph, and the rimeShall melt before the sunshine in thy book.
I have a hoard of treasure in my breast;The grange of memory steams against the door,Full of my bygone lifetime’s garnered store—Old pleasures crowned with sorrow for a zest,Old sorrow grown a joy, old penance blest,Chastened remembrance of the sins of yoreThat, like a new evangel, more and moreSupports our halting will toward the best.Ah! what to us the barren after yearsMay bring of joy or sorrow, who can tell?O, knowing not, who cares? It may be wellThat we shall find old pleasures and old fears,And our remembered childhood seen thro’ tears,The best of Heaven and the worst of Hell.
As starts the absent dreamer when a train,Suddenly disengulphed below his feet,Roars forth into the sunlight, to its seatMy soul was shaken with immediate painIntolerable as the scanty breathOf that one word blew utterly awayThe fragile mist of fair deceit that layO’er the bleak years that severed me from death.Yes, at the sight I quailed; but, not unwiseOr not, O God, without some nervous threadOf that best valour, Patience, bowed my head,And with firm bosom and most steadfast eyes,Strong in all high resolve, prepared to treadThe unlovely path that leads me toward the skies.
Not undelightful, friend, our rustic easeTo grateful hearts; for by especial hap,Deep nested in the hill’s enormous lap,With its own ring of walls and grove of trees,Sits, in deep shelter, our small cottage—norFar-off is seen, rose carpeted and hungWith clematis, the quarry whence she sprung,O mater pulchra filia pulchrior,Whither in early spring, unharnessed folk,We join the pairing swallows, glad to stayWhere, loosened in the hills, remote, unseen,From its tall trees, it breathes a slender smokeTo heaven, and in the noon of sultry dayStands, coolly buried, to the neck in green.
As in the hostel by the bridge I sate,Nailed with indifference fondly deemed complete,And (O strange chance, more sorrowful than sweet)The counterfeit of her that was my fate,Dressed in like vesture, graceful and sedate,Went quietly up the vacant village street,The still small sound of her most dainty feetShook, like a trumpet blast, my soul’s estate.Instant revolt ran riot through my brain,And all night long, thereafter, hour by hour,The pageant of dead love before my eyesWent proudly; and old hopes, broke loose againFrom the restraint of wisely temperate power,With ineffectual ardour sought to rise.
The strong man’s hand, the snow-cool head of age,The certain-footed sympathies of youth—These, and that lofty passion after truth,Hunger unsatisfied in priest or sageOr the great men of former years, he needsThat not unworthily would dare to sing(Hard task!) black care’s inevitable ringSettling with years upon the heart that feedsIncessantly on glory. Year by yearThe narrowing toil grows closer round his feet;With disenchanting touch rude-handed timeThe unlovely web discloses, and strange fearLeads him at last to eld’s inclement seat,The bitter north of life—a frozen clime.
As Daniel, bird-alone, in that far land,Kneeling in fervent prayer, with heart-sick eyesTurned thro’ the casement toward the westering skies;Or as untamed Elijah, that red brandAmong the starry prophets; or that bandAnd company of Faithful sanctitiesWho in all times, when persecutions rise,Cherish forgotten creeds with fostering hand:Such do ye seem to me, light-hearted crew,O turned to friendly arts with all your will,That keep a little chapel sacred still,One rood of Holy-land in this bleak earthSequestered still (our homage surely due!)To the twin Gods of mirthful wine and mirth.
About my fields, in the broad sunAnd blaze of noon, there goeth one,Barefoot and robed in blue, to scanWith the hard eye of the husbandmanMy harvests and my cattle. Her,When even puts the birds astirAnd day has set in the great woods,We seek, among her garden roods,With bells and cries in vain: the whileLamps, plate, and the decanter smileOn the forgotten board. But she,Deaf, blind, and prone on face and knee,Forgets time, family, and feast,And digs like a demented beast.
Tall as a guardsman, pale as the east at dawn,Who strides in strange apparel on the lawn?Rails for his breakfast? routs his vassals out(Like boys escaped from school) with song and shout?Kind and unkind, his Maker’s final freak,Part we deride the child, part dread the antique!See where his gang, like frogs, among the dewCrouch at their duty, an unquiet crew;Adjust their staring kilts; and their swift eyesTurn still to him who sits to supervise.He in the midst, perched on a fallen tree,Eyes them at labour; and, guitar on knee,Now ministers alarm, now scatters joy,Now twangs a halting chord, now tweaks a boy.Thorough in all, my resolute vizierPlays both the despot and the volunteer,Exacts with fines obedience to my laws,And for his music, too, exacts applause.
The Adorner of the uncomely—thoseAmidst whose tall battalions goesHer pretty person out and inAll day with an endearing din,Of censure and encouragement;And when all else is tried in vainSee her sit down and weep again.She weeps to conquer;She varies on her grenadiersFrom satire up to girlish tears!
Or rather to behold her whenShe plies for me the unresting pen,And when the loud assault of squallsResounds upon the roof and walls,And the low thunder growls and IRaise my dictating voice on high.
What glory for a boy of tenWho now must three gigantic menAnd two enormous, dapple greyNew Zealand pack-horses arrayAnd lead, and wisely resoluteOur day-long business executeIn the far shore-side town. His soulGlows in his bosom like a coal;His innocent eyes glitter again,And his hand trembles on the rein.Once he reviews his whole command,And chivalrously planting handOn hip—a borrowed attitude—Rides off downhill into the wood.
I meanwhile in the populous house apartSit snugly chambered, and my silent artUninterrupted, unremitting plyBefore the dawn, by morning lamplight, byThe glow of smelting noon, and when the sunDips past my westering hill and day is done;So, bending still over my trade of words,I hear the morning and the evening birds,The morning and the evening stars behold;So there apart I sit as once of oldNapier in wizard Merchiston; and myBrown innocent aides in home and husbandryWonder askance. What ails the boss? they ask.Him, richest of the rich, an endless taskBefore the earliest birds or servants stirCalls and detains him daylong prisoner?He whose innumerable dollars hewedThis cleft in the boar and devil-haunted wood,And bade therein, from sun to seas and skies,His many-windowed, painted palace riseRed-roofed, blue-walled, a rainbow on the hill,A wonder in the forest glade: he still,
Unthinkable Aladdin, dawn and dark,Scribbles and scribbles, like a German clerk.We see the fact, but tell, O tell us why?My reverend washman and wise butler cry.Meanwhile at times the manifoldImperishable perfumes of the pastAnd coloured pictures rise on me thick and fast:And I remember the white rime, the loudLamplitten city, shops, and the changing crowd;And I remember home and the old time,The winding river, the white moving rhyme,The autumn robin by the river-sideThat pipes in the grey eve.
The old lady (so they say), but IAdmire your young vitality.Still brisk of foot, still busy and keenIn and about and up and down.
I hear you pass with bustling feetThe long verandahs round, and beatYour bell, and “Lotu! Lotu!” cry;Thus calling our queer company,In morning or in evening dim,To prayers and the oft mangled hymn.
All day you watch across the skyThe silent, shining cloudlands ply,That, huge as countries, swift as birds,Beshade the isles by halves and thirds,Till each with battlemented crestStands anchored in the ensanguined west,An Alp enchanted. All the dayYou hear the exuberant wind at play,In vast, unbroken voice uplift,In roaring tree, round whistling clift.
Callit to mind, O my love.Dear were your eyes as the day,Bright as the day and the sky;Like the stream of gold and the sky above,Dear were your eyes in the grey.We have lived, my love, O, we have lived, my love!Now along the silent river, azureThrough the sky’s inverted image,Softly swam the boat that bore our love,Swiftly ran the shallow of our loveThrough the heaven’s inverted image,In the reedy mazes round the river.See along the silent river,
See of old the lover’s shallop steer.Berried brake and reedy island,Heaven below and only heaven above.Through the sky’s inverted imageSwiftly swam the boat that bore our love.Berried brake and reedy island,Mirrored flower and shallop gliding by.All the earth and all the sky were ours,Silent sat the wafted lovers,Bound with grain and watched by all the sky,Hand to hand and eye to . . . eye.
Days of April, airs of Eden,Call to mind how bright the vanished angel hours,Golden hours of evening,When our boat drew homeward filled with flowers.O darling, call them to mind; love the past, my love.Days of April, airs of Eden.How the glory died through golden hours,And the shining moon arising;How the boat drew homeward filled with flowers.Age and winter close us slowly in.
Level river, cloudless heaven,Islanded reed mazes, silver weirs;How the silent boat with silverThreads the inverted forest as she goes,Broke the trembling green of mirrored trees.O, remember, and rememberHow the berries hung in garlands.
Still in the river see the shallop floats.Hark! Chimes the falling oar.Still in the mindHark to the song of the past!Dream, and they pass in their dreams.
Those that loved of yore, O those that loved of yore!Hark through the stillness, O darling, hark!Through it all the ear of the mind
Knows the boat of love. Hark!Chimes the falling oar.
O half in vain they grew old.
Now the halcyon days are over,Age and winter close us slowly round,And these sounds at fall of evenDim the sight and muffle all the sound.And at the married fireside, sleep of soul and sleep of fancy,Joan and Darby.Silence of the world without a sound;And beside the winter faggot
Joan and Darby sit and dose and dream and wake—Dream they hear the flowing, singing river,See the berries in the island brake;Dream they hear the weir,See the gliding shallop mar the stream.Hark! in your dreams do you hear?
Snow has filled the drifted forest;Ice has bound the . . . stream.Frost has bound our flowing river;Snow has whitened all our island brake.
Berried brake and reedy island,Heaven below and only heaven above azureThrough the sky’s inverted imageSafely swam the boat that bore our love.Dear were your eyes as the day,Bright ran the stream, bright hung the sky above.Days of April, airs of Eden.How the glory died through golden hours,And the shining moon arising,How the boat drew homeward filled with flowers.Bright were your eyes in the night:We have lived, my love;O, we have loved, my love.Now the . . . days are over,Age and winter close us slowly round.
Vainly time departs, and vainlyAge and winter come and close us round.
Hark the river’s long continuous sound.
Hear the river ripples in the reeds.
Lo, in dreams they see their shallopRun the lilies down and drown the weedsMid the sound of crackling faggots.So in dreams the new createdHappy past returns, to-day recedes,And they hear once more,
From the old years,Yesterday returns, to-day recedes,And they hear with aged hearing warbles
Love’s own river ripple in the weeds.And again the lover’s shallop;Lo, the shallop sheds the streaming weeds;And afar in foreign countriesIn the ears of aged lovers.
And again in winter evensStarred with lilies . . . with stirring weeds.In these ears of aged loversLove’s own river ripples in the reeds.
Herelies Erotion, whom at six years oldFate pilfered. Stranger (when I too am cold,Who shall succeed me in my rural field),To this small spirit annual honours yield!Bright be thy hearth, hale be thy babes, I craveAnd this, in thy green farm, the only grave.
NowAntoninus, in a smiling age,Counts of his life the fifteenth finished stage.The rounded days and the safe years he sees,Nor fears death’s water mounting round his knees.To him remembering not one day is sad,Not one but that its memory makes him glad.So good men lengthen life; and to recallThe past is to have twice enjoyed it all.
(Unfinished Draft.)
Nowin the skyAnd on the hearth ofNow in a drawer the direful cane,That sceptre of the . . . reign,And the long hawser, that on the backOf Marsyas fell with many a whack,Twice hardened out of Scythian hides,Now sleep till the October ides.
In summer if the boys be well.
ONepos, twice my neigh(b)our (since at homeWe’re door by door, by Flora’s temple dome;And in the country, still conjoined by fate,Behold our villas standing gate by gate),Thou hast a daughter, dearer far than life—Thy image and the image of thy wife.Thy image and thy wife’s, and be it so!
But why for her, [ neglect the flowing / O Nepos, leave the ] can
And lose the prime of thy Falernian?Hoard casks of money, if to hoard be thine;But let thy daughter drink a younger wine!Let her go rich and wise, in silk and fur;
Lay down a [ bin that shall / vintage to ] grow old with her;
But thou, meantime, the while the batch is sound,With pleased companions pass the bowl around;Nor let the childless only taste delights,For Fathers also may enjoy their nights.
You, Charidemus, who my cradle swung,And watched me all the days that I was young;You, at whose step the laziest slaves awake,And both the bailiff and the butler quake;The barber’s suds now blacken with my beard,And my rough kisses make the maids afeared;But with reproach your awful eyebrows twitch,And for the cane, I see, your fingers itch.If something daintily attired I go,Straight you exclaim: “Your father did not so.”And fuming, count the bottles on the boardAs though my cellar were your private hoard.Enough, at last: I have done all I can,And your own mistress hails me for a man.
Youfear, Ligurra—above all, you long—That I should smite you with a stinging song.This dreadful honour you both fear and hope—Both all in vain: you fall below my scope.The Lybian lion tears the roaring bull,He does not harm the midge along the pool.
Lo! if so close this stands in your regard,From some blind tap fish forth a drunken barn,Who shall with charcoal, on the privy wall,Immortalise your name for once and all.
Beyondthe gates thou gav’st a field to till;I have a larger on my window-sill.A farm, d’ye say? Is this a farm to you,Where for all woods I spay one tuft of rue,And that so rusty, and so small a thing,One shrill cicada hides it with a wing;Where one cucumber covers all the plain;And where one serpent rings himself in vainTo enter wholly; and a single snailEats all and exit fasting to the pool?Here shall my gardener be the dusty mole.My only ploughman the . . . mole.Here shall I wait in vain till figs be set,And till the spring disclose the violet.Through all my wilds a tameless mouse careers,And in that narrow boundary appears,Huge as the stalking lion of Algiers,Huge as the fabled boar of Calydon.And all my hay is at one swoop impresstBy one low-flying swallow for her nest,Strip god Priapus of each attributeHere finds he scarce a pedestal to foot.The gathered harvest scarcely brims a spoon;And all my vintage drips in a cocoon.Generous are you, but I more generous still:Take back your farm and stand me half a gill!
Ochiefdirector of the growing race,Of Rome the glory and of Rome the grace,Me, O Quintilian, may you not forgiveBefore from labour I make haste to live?Some burn to gather wealth, lay hands on rule,Or with white statues fill the atrium full.The talking hearth, the rafters sweet with smoke,Live fountains and rough grass, my line invoke:A sturdy slave, not too learned wife,Nights filled with slumber, and a quiet life.
MyMartial owns a garden, famed to please,Beyond the glades of the Hesperides;Along Janiculum lies the chosen blockWhere the cool grottos trench the hanging rock.The moderate summit, something plain and bare,Tastes overhead of a serener air;And while the clouds besiege the vales below,Keeps the clear heaven and doth with sunshine glow.To the June stars that circle in the skiesThe dainty roofs of that tall villa rise.Hence do the seven imperial hills appear;And you may view the whole of Rome from here;Beyond, the Alban and the Tuscan hills;And the cool groves and the cool falling rills,Rubre Fidenæ, and with virgin bloodAnointed once Perenna’s orchard wood.Thence the Flaminian, the Salarian way,Stretch far broad below the dome of day;And lo! the traveller toiling towards his home;And all unheard, the chariot speeds to Rome!For here no whisper of the wheels; and tho’The Mulvian Bridge, above the Tiber’s flow,Hangs all in sight, and down the sacred streamThe sliding barges vanish like a dream,The seaman’s shrilling pipe not enters here,Nor the rude cries of porters on the pier.And if so rare the house, how rarer farThe welcome and the weal that therein are!So free the access, the doors so widely thrown,You half imagine all to be your own.
Go(d) knows, my Martial, if we two could beTo enjoy our days set wholly free;To the true life together bend our mind,And take a furlough from the falser kind.No rich saloon, nor palace of the great,Nor suit at law should trouble our estate;On no vainglorious statues should we look,But of a walk, a talk, a little book,Baths, wells and meads, and the veranda shade,Let all our travels and our toils be made.Now neither lives unto himself, alas!And the good suns we see, that flash and passAnd perish; and the bell that knells them cries:“Another gone: O when will ye arise?”
Wouldstthou be free? I think it not, indeed;But if thou wouldst, attend this simple rede:[When quite contented / Thou shall be free when] thou canst dine at homeAnd drink a small wine of the march of Rome;When thou canst see unmoved thy neighbour’s plate,And wear my threadbare toga in the gate;When thou hast learned to love a small abode,And not to choose a mistressà la mode:When thus contained and bridled thou shalt be,Then, Maximus, then first shalt thou be free.
Callme not rebel, though [ here at every word / in what I sing ]If I no longer hail thee [ King and Lord / Lord and King ]I have redeemed myself with all I had,And now possess my fortunes poor but glad.With all I had I have redeemed myself,And escaped at once from slavery and pelf.The unruly wishes must a ruler take,Our high desires do our low fortunes make:Those only who desire palatial thingsDo bear the fetters and the frowns of Kings;Set free thy slave; thou settest free thyself.
Lookround: You see a little supper room;But from my window, lo! great Cæsar’s tomb!And the great dead themselves, with jovial breathBid you be merry and remember death.
Thisgirl was sweeter than the song of swans,And daintier than the lamb upon the lawnsOr Curine oyster. She, the flower of girls,Outshone the light of Erythræan pearls;The teeth of India that with polish glow,The untouched lilies or the morning snow.Her tresses did gold-dust outshineAnd fair hair of women of the Rhine.Compared to her the peacock seemed not fair,The squirrel lively, or the phoenix rare;Her on whose pyre the smoke still hovering waits;Her whom the greedy and unequal fatesOn the sixth dawning of her natal day,My child-love and my playmate—snatcht away.