Thirty-twoyears since, up against the sun,Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight,Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height,And four lives paid for what the seven had won.
They were the first by whom the deed was done,And when I look at thee, my mind takes flightTo that day’s tragic feat of manly might,As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.
Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soonThou watch’dst each night the planets lift and lower;Thou gleam’dst to Joshua’s pausing sun and moon,And brav’dst the tokening sky when Cæsar’s powerApproached its bloody end: yea, saw’st that NoonWhen darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour.
I
Whenof tender mind and bodyI was moved by minstrelsy,And that strain “The Bridge of Lodi”Brought a strange delight to me.
II
In the battle-breathing jingleOf its forward-footing tuneI could see the armies mingle,And the columns cleft and hewn
III
On that far-famed spot by LodiWhere Napoleon clove his wayTo his fame, when like a god heBent the nations to his sway.
IV
Hence the tune came capering to meWhile I traced the Rhone and Po;Nor could Milan’s Marvel woo meFrom the spot englamoured so.
V
And to-day, sunlit and smiling,Here I stand upon the scene,With its saffron walls, dun tiling,And its meads of maiden green,
VI
Even as when the trackway thunderedWith the charge of grenadiers,And the blood of forty hundredSplashed its parapets and piers . . .
VII
Any ancient crone I’d toadyLike a lass in young-eyed prime,Could she tell some tale of LodiAt that moving mighty time.
VIII
So, I ask the wives of LodiFor traditions of that day;But alas! not anybodySeems to know of such a fray.
IX
And they heed but transitoryMarketings in cheese and meat,Till I judge that Lodi’s storyIs extinct in Lodi’s street.
X
Yet while here and there they thrid themIn their zest to sell and buy,Let me sit me down amid themAnd behold those thousands die . . .
XI
—Not a creature cares in LodiHow Napoleon swept each arch,Or where up and downward trod he,Or for his memorial March!
XII
So that wherefore should I be here,Watching Adda lip the lea,When the whole romance to see hereIs the dream I bring with me?
XIII
And why sing “The Bridge of Lodi”As I sit thereon and swing,When none shows by smile or nod heGuesses why or what I sing? . . .
XIV
Since all Lodi, low and head ones,Seem to pass that story by,It may be the Lodi-bred onesRate it truly, and not I.
XV
Once engrossing Bridge of Lodi,Is thy claim to glory gone?Must I pipe a palinody,Or be silent thereupon?
XVI
And if here, from strand to steeple,Be no stone to fame the fight,Must I say the Lodi peopleAre but viewing crime aright?
XVII
Nay; I’ll sing “The Bridge of Lodi”—That long-loved, romantic thing,Though none show by smile or nod heGuesses why and what I sing!
I
Myardours for emprize nigh lostSince Life has bared its bones to me,I shrink to seek a modern coastWhose riper times have yet to be;Where the new regions claim them freeFrom that long drip of human tearsWhich peoples old in tragedyHave left upon the centuried years.
II
For, wonning in these ancient lands,Enchased and lettered as a tomb,And scored with prints of perished hands,And chronicled with dates of doom,Though my own Being bear no bloomI trace the lives such scenes enshrine,Give past exemplars present room,And their experience count as mine.
Whenmid-autumn’s moan shook the night-time,And sedges were horny,And summer’s green wonderwork falteredOn leaze and in lane,
I fared Yell’ham-Firs way, where dimlyCame wheeling around meThose phantoms obscure and insistentThat shadows unchain.
Till airs from the needle-thicks brought meA low lamentation,As ’twere of a tree-god disheartened,Perplexed, or in pain.
And, heeding, it awed me to gatherThat Nature herself thereWas breathing in aërie accents,With dirgeful refrain,
Weary plaint that Mankind, in these late days,Had grieved her by holdingHer ancient high fame of perfectionIn doubt and disdain . . .
—“I had not proposed me a Creature(She soughed) so excellingAll else of my kingdom in compassAnd brightness of brain
“As to read my defects with a god-glance,Uncover each vestigeOf old inadvertence, annunciateEach flaw and each stain!
“My purpose went not to developSuch insight in Earthland;Such potent appraisements affront me,And sadden my reign!
“Why loosened I olden control hereTo mechanize skywards,Undeeming great scope could outshape inA globe of such grain?
“Man’s mountings of mind-sight I checked not,Till range of his visionHas topped my intent, and found blemishThroughout my domain.
“He holds as inept his own soul-shell—My deftest achievement—Contemns me for fitful inventionsIll-timed and inane:
“No more sees my sun as a Sanct-shape,My moon as the Night-queen,My stars as august and sublime onesThat influences rain:
“Reckons gross and ignoble my teaching,Immoral my story,My love-lights a lure, that my speciesMay gather and gain.
“‘Give me,’ he has said, ‘but the matterAnd means the gods lot her,My brain could evolve a creationMore seemly, more sane.’
—“If ever a naughtiness seized meTo woo adulationFrom creatures more keen than those crude onesThat first formed my train—
“If inly a moment I murmured,‘The simple praise sweetly,But sweetlier the sage’—and did rashlyMan’s vision unrein,
“I rue it! . . . His guileless forerunners,Whose brains I could blandish,To measure the deeps of my mysteriesApplied them in vain.
“From them my waste aimings and futileI subtly could cover;‘Every best thing,’ said they, ‘to best purposeHer powers preordain.’—
“No more such! . . . My species are dwindling,My forests grow barren,My popinjays fail from their tappings,My larks from their strain.
“My leopardine beauties are rarer,My tusky ones vanish,My children have aped mine own slaughtersTo quicken my wane.
“Let me grow, then, but mildews and mandrakes,And slimy distortions,Let nevermore things good and lovelyTo me appertain;
“For Reason is rank in my temples,And Vision unruly,And chivalrous laud of my cunningIs heard not again!”
Isaidto Love,“It is not now as in old daysWhen men adored thee and thy waysAll else above;Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the OneWho spread a heaven beneath the sun,”I said to Love.
I said to him,“We now know more of thee than then;We were but weak in judgment when,With hearts abrim,We clamoured thee that thou would’st pleaseInflict on us thine agonies,”I said to him.
I said to Love,“Thou art not young, thou art not fair,No faery darts, no cherub air,Nor swan, nor doveAre thine; but features pitiless,And iron daggers of distress,”I said to Love.
“Depart then, Love! . . .—Man’s race shall end, dost threaten thou?The age to come the man of nowKnow nothing of?—We fear not such a threat from thee;We are too old in apathy!Mankind shall cease.—So let it be,”I said to Love.
Theday is turning ghost,And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively,To join the anonymous hostOf those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe,To one of like degree.
I part the fire-gnawed logs,Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the endsUpon the shining dogs;Further and further from the nooks the twilight’s stride extends,And beamless black impends.
Nothing of tiniest worthHave I wrought, pondered, planned; no one thing asking blame or praise,Since the pale corpse-like birthOf this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays—Dullest of dull-hued Days!
Wanly upon the panesThe rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts; and yetHere, while Day’s presence wanes,And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set,He wakens my regret.
Regret—though nothing dearThat I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime,Or bloomed elsewhere than here,To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime,Or mark him out in Time . . .
—Yet, maybe, in some soul,In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose,Or some intent upstoleOf that enkindling ardency from whose maturer glowsThe world’s amendment flows;
But which, benumbed at birthBy momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope to beEmbodied on the earth;And undervoicings of this loss to man’s futurityMay wake regret in me.
Thyshadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,Now steals along upon the Moon’s meek shineIn even monochrome and curving lineOf imperturbable serenity.
How shall I link such sun-cast symmetryWith the torn troubled form I know as thine,That profile, placid as a brow divine,With continents of moil and misery?
And can immense Mortality but throwSo small a shade, and Heaven’s high human schemeBe hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?
Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?
Scene.—A sad-coloured landscape,Waddon Vale
I
“OTime, whence comes the Mother’s moody look amid her labours,As of one who all unwittingly has wounded where she loves?Why weaves she not her world-webs to according lutes and tabors,With nevermore this too remorseful air upon her face,As of angel fallen from grace?”
II
—“Her look is but her story: construe not its symbols keenly:In her wonderworks yea surely has she wounded where she loves.The sense of ills misdealt for blisses blanks the mien most queenly,Self-smitings kill self-joys; and everywhere beneath the sunSuch deeds her hands have done.”
III
—“And how explains thy Ancient Mind her crimes upon her creatures,These fallings from her fair beginnings, woundings where she loves,Into her would-be perfect motions, modes, effects, and featuresAdmitting cramps, black humours, wan decay, and baleful blights,Distress into delights?”
IV
—“Ah! know’st thou not her secret yet, her vainly veiled deficience,Whence it comes that all unwittingly she wounds the lives she loves?That sightless are those orbs of hers?—which bar to her omniscienceBrings those fearful unfulfilments, that red ravage through her zonesWhereat all creation groans.
V
“She whispers it in each pathetic strenuous slow endeavour,When in mothering she unwittingly sets wounds on what she loves;Yet her primal doom pursues her, faultful, fatal is she ever;Though so deft and nigh to vision is her facile finger-touchThat the seers marvel much.
VI
“Deal, then, her groping skill no scorn, no note of malediction;Not long on thee will press the hand that hurts the lives it loves;And while she dares dead-reckoning on, in darkness of affliction,Assist her where thy creaturely dependence can or may,For thou art of her clay.”
Olifewith the sad seared face,I weary of seeing thee,And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace,And thy too-forced pleasantry!
I know what thou would’st tellOf Death, Time, Destiny—I have known it long, and know, too, wellWhat it all means for me.
But canst thou not arrayThyself in rare disguise,And feign like truth, for one mad day,That Earth is Paradise?
I’ll tune me to the mood,And mumm with thee till eve;And maybe what as interludeI feign, I shall believe!
I
Theredwells a mighty pair—Slow, statuesque, intense—Amid the vague Immense:None can their chronicle declare,Nor why they be, nor whence.
II
Mother of all things made,Matchless in artistry,Unlit with sight is she.—And though her ever well-obeyedVacant of feeling he.
III
The Matron mildly asks—A throb in every word—“Our clay-made creatures, lord,How fare they in their mortal tasksUpon Earth’s bounded bord?
IV
“The fate of those I bear,Dear lord, pray turn and view,And notify me true;Shapings that eyelessly I dareMaybe I would undo.
V
“Sometimes from lairs of lifeMethinks I catch a groan,Or multitudinous moan,As though I had schemed a world of strife,Working by touch alone.”
VI
“World-weaver!” he replies,“I scan all thy domain;But since nor joy nor painDoth my clear substance recognize,I read thy realms in vain.
VII
“World-weaver! whatisGrief?And what are Right, and Wrong,And Feeling, that belongTo creatures all who owe thee fief?What worse is Weak than Strong?” . . .
VIII
—Unlightened, curious, meek,She broods in sad surmise . . .—Some say they have heard her sighsOn Alpine height or Polar peakWhen the night tempests rise.
Shallwe conceal the Case, or tell it—We who believe the evidence?Here and there the watch-towers knell itWith a sullen significance,Heard of the few who hearken intently and carry an eagerly upstrained sense.
Hearts that are happiest hold not by it;Better we let, then, the old view reign;Since there is peace in it, why decry it?Since there is comfort, why disdain?Note not the pigment the while that the painting determines humanity’s joy and pain!
I
“Poorwanderer,” said the leaden sky,“I fain would lighten thee,But there be laws in force on highWhich say it must not be.”
II
—“I would not freeze thee, shorn one,” criedThe North, “knew I but howTo warm my breath, to slack my stride;But I am ruled as thou.”
III
—“To-morrow I attack thee, wight,”Said Sickness. “Yet I swearI bear thy little ark no spite,But am bid enter there.”
IV
—“Come hither, Son,” I heard Death say;“I did not will a graveShould end thy pilgrimage to-day,But I, too, am a slave!”
V
We smiled upon each other then,And life to me wore lessThat fell contour it wore ere whenThey owned their passiveness.
Whenwilt thou wake, O Mother, wake and see—As one who, held in trance, has laboured longBy vacant rote and prepossession strong—The coils that thou hast wrought unwittingly;
Wherein have place, unrealized by thee,Fair growths, foul cankers, right enmeshed with wrong,Strange orchestras of victim-shriek and song,And curious blends of ache and ecstasy?—
Should that morn come, and show thy opened eyesAll that Life’s palpitating tissues feel,How wilt thou bear thyself in thy surprise?—
Wilt thou destroy, in one wild shock of shame,Thy whole high heaving firmamental frame,Or patiently adjust, amend, and heal?
BrotherBulleys, let us singFrom the dawn till evening!—For we know not that we go notWhen the day’s pale pinions foldUnto those who sang of old.
When I flew to Blackmoor Vale,Whence the green-gowned faeries hail,Roosting near them I could hear themSpeak of queenly Nature’s ways,Means, and moods,—well known to fays.
All we creatures, nigh and far(Said they there), the Mother’s are:Yet she never shows endeavourTo protect from warrings wildBird or beast she calls her child.
Busy in her handsome houseKnown as Space, she falls a-drowse;Yet, in seeming, works on dreaming,While beneath her groping handsFiends make havoc in her bands.
How her hussif’ry succeedsShe unknows or she unheeds,All things making for Death’s taking!—So the green-gowned faeries sayLiving over Blackmoor way.
Come then, brethren, let us sing,From the dawn till evening!—For we know not that we go notWhen the day’s pale pinions foldUnto those who sang of old.
Itoweredfar, and lo! I stood withinThe presence of the Lord Most High,Sent thither by the sons of earth, to winSome answer to their cry.
—“The Earth, say’st thou? The Human race?By Me created? Sad its lot?Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:Such world I fashioned not.”—
—“O Lord, forgive me when I sayThou spak’st the word, and mad’st it all.”—“The Earth of men—let me bethink me . . . Yea!I dimly do recall
“Some tiny sphere I built long back(Mid millions of such shapes of mine)So named . . . It perished, surely—not a wrackRemaining, or a sign?
“It lost my interest from the first,My aims therefor succeeding ill;Haply it died of doing as it durst?”—“Lord, it existeth still.”—
“Dark, then, its life! For not a cryOf aught it bears do I now hear;Of its own act the threads were snapt wherebyIts plaints had reached mine ear.
“It used to ask for gifts of good,Till came its severance self-entailed,When sudden silence on that side ensued,And has till now prevailed.
“All other orbs have kept in touch;Their voicings reach me speedily:Thy people took upon them overmuchIn sundering them from me!
“And it is strange—though sad enough—Earth’s race should think that one whose callFrames, daily, shining spheres of flawless stuffMust heed their tainted ball! . . .
“But say’st thou ’tis by pangs distraught,And strife, and silent suffering?—Deep grieved am I that injury should be wroughtEven on so poor a thing!
“Thou should’st have learnt thatNot to MendFor Me could mean butNot to Know:Hence, Messengers! and straightway put an endTo what men undergo.” . . .
Homing at dawn, I thought to seeOne of the Messengers standing by.—Oh, childish thought! . . . Yet oft it comes to meWhen trouble hovers nigh.
Muchwonder I—here long low-laid—That this dead wall should beBetwixt the Maker and the made,Between Thyself and me!
For, say one puts a child to nurse,He eyes it now and thenTo know if better ’tis, or worse,And if it mourn, and when.
But Thou, Lord, giv’st us men our clayIn helpless bondage thusTo Time and Chance, and seem’st straightwayTo think no more of us!
That some disaster cleft Thy schemeAnd tore us wide apart,So that no cry can cross, I deem;For Thou art mild of heart,
And would’st not shape and shut us inWhere voice can not he heard:’Tis plain Thou meant’st that we should winThy succour by a word.
Might but Thy sense flash down the skiesLike man’s from clime to clime,Thou would’st not let me agonizeThrough my remaining time;
But, seeing how much Thy creatures bear—Lame, starved, or maimed, or blind—Thou’dst heal the ills with quickest careOf me and all my kind.
Then, since Thou mak’st not these things be,But these things dost not know,I’ll praise Thee as were shown to meThe mercies Thou would’st show!
I
“OLord, why grievest Thou?—Since Life has ceased to beUpon this globe, now coldAs lunar land and sea,And humankind, and fowl, and furAre gone eternally,All is the same to Thee as ereThey knew mortality.”
II
“O Time,” replied the Lord,“Thou read’st me ill, I ween;Were allthe same, I should not grieveAt that late earthly scene,Now blestly past—though planned by meWith interest close and keen!—Nay, nay: things now arenotthe sameAs they have earlier been.
III
“Written indeliblyOn my eternal mindAre all the wrongs enduredBy Earth’s poor patient kind,Which my too oft unconscious handLet enter undesigned.No god can cancel deeds foredone,Or thy old coils unwind!
IV
“As when, in Noë’s days,I whelmed the plains with sea,So at this last, when fleshAnd herb but fossils be,And, all extinct, their piteous dustRevolves obliviously,That I made Earth, and life, and man,It still repenteth me!”
I
Itraverseda dominionWhose spokesmen spake out strongTheir purpose and opinionThrough pulpit, press, and song.I scarce had means to note thereA large-eyed few, and dumb,Who thought not as those thought thereThat stirred the heat and hum.
II
When, grown a Shade, beholdingThat land in lifetime trode,To learn if its unfoldingFulfilled its clamoured code,I saw, in web unbroken,Its history outwroughtNot as the loud had spoken,But as the mute had thought.
I
Breathenot, hid Heart: cease silently,And though thy birth-hour beckons thee,Sleep the long sleep:The Doomsters heapTravails and teens around us here,And Time-wraiths turn our songsingings to fear.
II
Hark, how the peoples surge and sigh,And laughters fail, and greetings die:Hopes dwindle; yea,Faiths waste away,Affections and enthusiasms numb;Thou canst not mend these things if thou dost come.
III
Had I the ear of wombèd soulsEre their terrestrial chart unrolls,And thou wert freeTo cease, or be,Then would I tell thee all I know,And put it to thee: Wilt thou take Life so?
IV
Vain vow! No hint of mine may henceTo theeward fly: to thy locked senseExplain none canLife’s pending plan:Thou wilt thy ignorant entry makeThough skies spout fire and blood and nations quake.
V
Fain would I, dear, find some shut plotOf earth’s wide wold for thee, where notOne tear, one qualm,Should break the calm.But I am weak as thou and bare;No man can change the common lot to rare.
VI
Must come and bide. And such are we—Unreasoning, sanguine, visionary—That I can hopeHealth, love, friends, scopeIn full for thee; can dream thou’lt findJoys seldom yet attained by humankind!
Sunnedin the South, and here to-day;—If all organic thingsBe sentient, Flowers, as some men say,What are your ponderings?
How can you stay, nor vanish quiteFrom this bleak spot of thorn,And birch, and fir, and frozen whiteExpanse of the forlorn?
Frail luckless exiles hither brought!Your dust will not regainOld sunny haunts of Classic thoughtWhen you shall waste and wane;
But mix with alien earth, be litWith frigid Boreal flame,And not a sign remain in itTo tell men whence you came.
Whencecomes Solace?—Not from seeingWhat is doing, suffering, being,Not from noting Life’s conditions,Nor from heeding Time’s monitions;But in cleaving to the Dream,And in gazing at the gleamWhereby gray things golden seem.
II
Thus do I this heyday, holdingShadows but as lights unfolding,As no specious show this momentWith its irisèd embowment;But as nothing other thanPart of a benignant plan;Proof that earth was made for man.
February1899.
I
DearLizbie Browne,Where are you now?In sun, in rain?—Or is your browPast joy, past pain,Dear Lizbie Browne?
II
Sweet Lizbie BrowneHow you could smile,How you could sing!—How archly wileIn glance-giving,Sweet Lizbie Browne!
III
And, Lizbie Browne,Who else had hairBay-red as yours,Or flesh so fairBred out of doors,Sweet Lizbie Browne?
IV
When, Lizbie Browne,You had just begunTo be endearedBy stealth to one,You disappearedMy Lizbie Browne!
V
Ay, Lizbie Browne,So swift your life,And mine so slow,You were a wifeEre I could showLove, Lizbie Browne.
VI
Still, Lizbie Browne,You won, they said,The best of menWhen you were wed . . .Where went you then,O Lizbie Browne?
VII
Dear Lizbie Browne,I should have thought,“Girls ripen fast,”And coaxed and caughtYou ere you passed,Dear Lizbie Browne!
VIII
But, Lizbie Browne,I let you slip;Shaped not a sign;Touched never your lipWith lip of mine,Lost Lizbie Browne!
IX
So, Lizbie Browne,When on a dayMen speak of meAs not, you’ll say,“And who was he?”—Yes, Lizbie Browne!
OsweetTo-morrow!—After to-dayThere will awayThis sense of sorrow.Then let us borrowHope, for a gleamingSoon will be streaming,Dimmed by no gray—No gray!
While the winds wing usSighs from The Gone,Nearer to dawnMinute-beats bring us;When there will sing usLarks of a gloryWaiting our storyFurther anon—Anon!
Doff the black token,Don the red shoon,Right and retuneViol-strings broken;Null the words spokenIn speeches of rueing,The night cloud is hueing,To-morrow shines soon—Shines soon!
I wayed by star and planet shineTowards the dear one’s homeAt Kingsbere, there to make her mineWhen the next sun upclomb.
I edged the ancient hill and woodBeside the Ikling Way,Nigh where the Pagan temple stoodIn the world’s earlier day.
And as I quick and quicker walkedOn gravel and on green,I sang to sky, and tree, or talkedOf her I called my queen.
—“O faultless is her dainty form,And luminous her mind;She is the God-created normOf perfect womankind!”
A shape whereon one star-blink gleamedGlode softly by my side,A woman’s; and her motion seemedThe motion of my bride.
And yet methought she’d drawn erstwhileAdown the ancient leaze,Where once were pile and peristyleFor men’s idolatries.
—“O maiden lithe and lone, what mayThy name and lineage be,Who so resemblest by this rayMy darling?—Art thou she?”
The Shape: “Thy bride remains withinHer father’s grange and grove.”—“Thou speakest rightly,” I broke in,“Thou art not she I love.”
—“Nay: though thy bride remains insideHer father’s walls,” said she,“The one most dear is with thee here,For thou dost love but me.”
Then I: “But she, my only choice,Is now at Kingsbere Grove?”Again her soft mysterious voice:“I am thy only Love.”
Thus still she vouched, and still I said,“O sprite, that cannot be!” . . .It was as if my bosom bled,So much she troubled me.
The sprite resumed: “Thou hast transferredTo her dull form awhileMy beauty, fame, and deed, and word,My gestures and my smile.
“O fatuous man, this truth infer,Brides are not what they seem;Thou lovest what thou dreamest her;I am thy very dream!”
—“O then,” I answered miserably,Speaking as scarce I knew,“My loved one, I must wed with theeIf what thou say’st be true!”
She, proudly, thinning in the gloom:“Though, since troth-plight began,I’ve ever stood as bride to groom,I wed no mortal man!”
Thereat she vanished by the CrossThat, entering Kingsbere town,The two long lanes form, near the fosseBelow the faneless Down.
—When I arrived and met my bride,Her look was pinched and thin,As if her soul had shrunk and died,And left a waste within.
Conthe dead page as ’twere live love: press on!Cold wisdom’s words will ease thy track for thee;Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wanTo biting blasts that are intent on me.
But if thy object Fame’s far summits be,Whose inclines many a skeleton o’erliesThat missed both dream and substance, stop and seeHow absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes!
It surely is far sweeter and more wiseTo water love, than toil to leave anonA name whose glory-gleam will but adviseInvidious minds to quench it with their own,
And over which the kindliest will but stayA moment, musing, “He, too, had his day!”
Westbourne Park Villas,1867.
Isay, “She was as good as fair,”When standing by her mound;“Such passing sweetness,” I declare,“No longer treads the ground.”I say, “What living Love can catchHer bloom and bonhomie,And what in newer maidens matchHer olden warmth to me!”
—There stands within yon vestry-nookWhere bonded lovers sign,Her name upon a faded bookWith one that is not mine.To him she breathed the tender vowShe once had breathed to me,But yet I say, “O love, even nowWould I had died for thee!”
Youdid not come,And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.—Yet less for loss of your dear presence thereThan that I thus found lacking in your makeThat high compassion which can overbearReluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sakeGrieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,You did not come.
You love not me,And love alone can lend you loyalty;—I know and knew it. But, unto the storeOf human deeds divine in all but name,Was it not worth a little hour or moreTo add yet this: Once, you, a woman, cameTo soothe a time-torn man; even though it beYou love not me?
Betweenus now and here—Two thrown togetherWho are not wont to wearLife’s flushest feather—Who see the scenes slide past,The daytimes dimming fast,Let there be truth at last,Even if despair.
So thoroughly and longHave you now known me,So real in faith and strongHave I now shown me,That nothing needs disguiseFurther in any wise,Or asks or justifiesA guarded tongue.
Face unto face, then, say,Eyes mine own meeting,Is your heart far away,Or with mine beating?When false things are brought low,And swift things have grown slow,Feigning like froth shall go,Faith be for aye.
Howgreat my grief, my joys how few,Since first it was my fate to know thee!—Have the slow years not brought to viewHow great my grief, my joys how few,Nor memory shaped old times anew,Nor loving-kindness helped to show theeHow great my grief, my joys how few,Since first it was my fate to know thee?
Ineednot goThrough sleet and snowTo where I knowShe waits for me;She will wait me thereTill I find it fair,And have time to spareFrom company.
When I’ve overgotThe world somewhat,When things cost notSuch stress and strain,Is soon enoughBy cypress soughTo tell my LoveI am come again.
And if some day,When none cries nay,I still delayTo seek her side,(Though ample measureOf fitting leisureAwait my pleasure)She will riot chide.
What—not upbraid meThat I delayed me,Nor ask what stayed meSo long? Ah, no!—New cares may claim me,New loves inflame me,She will not blame me,But suffer it so.
I
Forlong the cruel wish I knewThat your free heart should ache for meWhile mine should bear no ache for you;For, long—the cruel wish!—I knewHow men can feel, and craved to viewMy triumph—fated not to beFor long! . . . The cruel wish I knewThat your free heart should ache for me!
II
At last one pays the penalty—The woman—women always do.My farce, I found, was tragedyAt last!—One pays the penaltyWith interest when one, fancy-free,Learns love, learns shame . . . Of sinners twoAt lastonepays the penalty—The woman—women always do!
Inyears defaced and lost,Two sat here, transport-tossed,Lit by a living loveThe wilted world knew nothing of:Scared momentlyBy gaingivings,Then hoping thingsThat could not be.
Of love and us no traceAbides upon the place;The sun and shadows wheel,Season and season sereward steal;Foul days and fairHere, too, prevail,And gust and galeAs everywhere.
But lonely shepherd soulsWho bask amid these knollsMay catch a faery soundOn sleepy noontides from the ground:“O not againTill Earth outwearsShall love like theirsSuffuse this glen!”
Isit worth while, dear, now,To call for bells, and sally forth arrayedFor marriage-rites—discussed, decried, delayedSo many years?
Is it worth while, dear, now,To stir desire for old fond purposings,By feints that Time still serves for dallyings,Though quittance nears?
Is it worth while, dear, whenThe day being so far spent, so low the sun,The undone thing will soon be as the done,And smiles as tears?
Is it worth while, dear, whenOur cheeks are worn, our early brown is gray;When, meet or part we, none says yea or nay,Or heeds, or cares?
Is it worth while, dear, sinceWe still can climb old Yell’ham’s wooded moundsTogether, as each season steals its roundsAnd disappears?
Is it worth while, dear, sinceAs mates in Mellstock churchyard we can lie,Till the last crash of all things low and highShall end the spheres?
ByMellstock Lodge and AvenueTowards her door I went,And sunset on her window-panesReflected our intent.
The creeper on the gable nighWas fired to more than redAnd when I came to halt thereby“Bright as my joy!” I said.
Of late days it had been her aimTo meet me in the hall;Now at my footsteps no one came;And no one to my call.
Again I knocked; and tardilyAn inner step was heard,And I was shown her presence thenWith scarce an answering word.
She met me, and but barely tookMy proffered warm embrace;Preoccupation weighed her look,And hardened her sweet face.
“To-morrow—could you—would you call?Make brief your present stay?My child is ill—my one, my all!—And can’t be left to-day.”
And then she turns, and gives commandsAs I were out of sound,Or were no more to her and hersThan any neighbour round . . .
—As maid I wooed her; but one cameAnd coaxed her heart away,And when in time he wedded herI deemed her gone for aye.
He won, I lost her; and my lossI bore I know not how;But I do think I suffered thenLess wretchedness than now.
For Time, in taking him, had opedAn unexpected doorOf bliss for me, which grew to seemFar surer than before . . .
Her word is steadfast, and I knowThat plighted firm are we:But she has caught new love-calls sinceShe smiled as maid on me!
Ifhours be years the twain are blest,For now they solace swift desireBy bonds of every bond the best,If hours be years. The twain are blestDo eastern stars slope never west,Nor pallid ashes follow fire:If hours be years the twain are blest,For now they solace swift desire.
Adreamof mine flew over the meadTo the halls where my old Love reigns;And it drew me on to follow its lead:And I stood at her window-panes;
And I saw but a thing of flesh and boneSpeeding on to its cleft in the clay;And my dream was scared, and expired on a moan,And I whitely hastened away.
I
Isawa dead man’s finer partShining within each faithful heartOf those bereft. Then said I: “This must beHis immortality.”
II
I looked there as the seasons wore,And still his soul continuously upboreIts life in theirs. But less its shine excelledThan when I first beheld.
III
His fellow-yearsmen passed, and thenIn later hearts I looked for him again;And found him—shrunk, alas! into a thinAnd spectral mannikin.
IV
Lastly I ask—now old and chill—If aught of him remain unperished still;And find, in me alone, a feeble spark,Dying amid the dark.
February1899.
I
Ihearda small sad sound,And stood awhile amid the tombs around:“Wherefore, old friends,” said I, “are ye distrest,Now, screened from life’s unrest?”
II
—“O not at being here;But that our future second death is drear;When, with the living, memory of us numbs,And blank oblivion comes!
III
“Those who our grandsires beLie here embraced by deeper death than we;Nor shape nor thought of theirs canst thou descryWith keenest backward eye.
IV
“They bide as quite forgot;They are as men who have existed not;Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;It is the second death.
V
“We here, as yet, each dayAre blest with dear recall; as yet, alwayIn some soul hold a loved continuanceOf shape and voice and glance.
VI
“But what has been will be—First memory, then oblivion’s turbid sea;Like men foregone, shall we merge into thoseWhose story no one knows.
VII
“For which of us could hopeTo show in life that world-awakening scopeGranted the few whose memory none lets die,But all men magnify?
VIII
“We were but Fortune’s sport;Things true, things lovely, things of good reportWe neither shunned nor sought . . . We see our bourne,And seeing it we mourn.”
I
Nevera careworn wife but shows,If a joy suffuse her,Something beautiful to thosePatient to peruse her,Some one charm the world unknowsPrecious to a muser,Haply what, ere years were foes,Moved her mate to choose her.
II
But, be it a hint of roseThat an instant hues her,Or some early light or poseWherewith thought renews her—Seen by him at full, ere woesPractised to abuse her—Sparely comes it, swiftly goes,Time again subdues her.
I
Asnewer comers crowd the fore,We drop behind.—We who have laboured long and soreTimes out of mind,And keen are yet, must not regretTo drop behind.
II
Yet there are of us some who grieveTo go behind;Staunch, strenuous souls who scarce believeTheir fires declined,And know none cares, remembers, sparesWho go behind.
III
’Tis not that we have unforetoldThe drop behind;We feel the new must oust the oldIn every kind;But yet we think, must we, mustwe,Too, drop behind?
I
Ashadedlamp and a waving blind,And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:On this scene enter—winged, horned, and spined—A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;While ’mid my page there idly standsA sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .
II
Thus meet we five, in this still place,At this point of time, at this point in space.—My guests parade my new-penned ink,Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.“God’s humblest, they!” I muse. Yet why?They know Earth-secrets that know not I.
Max Gate, 1899.