Setin this stormy Northern sea,Queen of these restless fields of tide,England! what shall men say of thee,Before whose feet the worlds divide?
The earth, a brittle globe of glass,Lies in the hollow of thy hand,And through its heart of crystal pass,Like shadows through a twilight land,
The spears of crimson-suited war,The long white-crested waves of fight,And all the deadly fires which areThe torches of the lords of Night.
The yellow leopards, strained and lean,The treacherous Russian knows so well,With gaping blackened jaws are seenLeap through the hail of screaming shell.
The strong sea-lion of England’s warsHath left his sapphire cave of sea,To battle with the storm that marsThe stars of England’s chivalry.
The brazen-throated clarion blowsAcross the Pathan’s reedy fen,And the high steeps of Indian snowsShake to the tread of armèd men.
And many an Afghan chief, who liesBeneath his cool pomegranate-trees,Clutches his sword in fierce surmiseWhen on the mountain-side he sees
The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comesTo tell how he hath heard afarThe measured roll of English drumsBeat at the gates of Kandahar.
For southern wind and east wind meetWhere, girt and crowned by sword and fire,England with bare and bloody feetClimbs the steep road of wide empire.
O lonely Himalayan height,Grey pillar of the Indian sky,Where saw’st thou last in clanging flightOur wingèd dogs of Victory?
The almond-groves of Samarcand,Bokhara, where red lilies blow,And Oxus, by whose yellow sandThe grave white-turbaned merchants go:
And on from thence to Ispahan,The gilded garden of the sun,Whence the long dusty caravanBrings cedar wood and vermilion;
And that dread city of CaboolSet at the mountain’s scarpèd feet,Whose marble tanks are ever fullWith water for the noonday heat:
Where through the narrow straight BazaarA little maid CircassianIs led, a present from the CzarUnto some old and bearded Khan,—
Here have our wild war-eagles flown,And flapped wide wings in fiery fight;But the sad dove, that sits aloneIn England—she hath no delight.
In vain the laughing girl will leanTo greet her love with love-lit eyes:Down in some treacherous black ravine,Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies.
And many a moon and sun will seeThe lingering wistful children waitTo climb upon their father’s knee;And in each house made desolate
Pale women who have lost their lordWill kiss the relics of the slain—Some tarnished epaulette—some sword—Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain.
For not in quiet English fieldsAre these, our brothers, lain to rest,Where we might deck their broken shieldsWith all the flowers the dead love best.
For some are by the Delhi walls,And many in the Afghan land,And many where the Ganges fallsThrough seven mouths of shifting sand.
And some in Russian waters lie,And others in the seas which areThe portals to the East, or byThe wind-swept heights of Trafalgar.
O wandering graves! O restless sleep!O silence of the sunless day!O still ravine! O stormy deep!Give up your prey! Give up your prey!
And thou whose wounds are never healed,Whose weary race is never won,O Cromwell’s England! must thou yieldFor every inch of ground a son?
Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head,Change thy glad song to song of pain;Wind and wild wave have got thy dead,And will not yield them back again.
Wave and wild wind and foreign shorePossess the flower of English land—Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more,Hands that shall never clasp thy hand.
What profit now that we have boundThe whole round world with nets of gold,If hidden in our heart is foundThe care that groweth never old?
What profit that our galleys ride,Pine-forest-like, on every main?Ruin and wreck are at our side,Grim warders of the House of Pain.
Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet?Where is our English chivalry?Wild grasses are their burial-sheet,And sobbing waves their threnody.
O loved ones lying far away,What word of love can dead lips send!O wasted dust! O senseless clay!Is this the end! is this the end!
Peace, peace! we wrong the noble deadTo vex their solemn slumber so;Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head,Up the steep road must England go,
Yet when this fiery web is spun,Her watchmen shall descry from farThe young Republic like a sunRise from these crimson seas of war.
Icanwrite no stately proemAs a prelude to my lay;From a poet to a poemI would dare to say.
For if of these fallen petalsOne to you seem fair,Love will waft it till it settlesOn your hair.
And when wind and winter hardenAll the loveless land,It will whisper of the garden,You will understand.
[After gaining the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek at Trinity College,Dublin,in 1874,Oscar Wilde proceeded to Oxford,where he obtained a demyship at Magdalen College.He is the only real poet on the books of that institution.]
Thelittle white clouds are racing over the sky,And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larchSways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.
A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth,Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.
And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fireGirdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.
And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of loveTill it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheenOf the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.
See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.
Osingerof Persephone!In the dim meadows desolateDost thou remember Sicily?
Still through the ivy flits the beeWhere Amaryllis lies in state;O Singer of Persephone!
Simætha calls on HecateAnd hears the wild dogs at the gate;Dost thou remember Sicily?
Still by the light and laughing seaPoor Polypheme bemoans his fate;O Singer of Persephone!
And still in boyish rivalryYoung Daphnis challenges his mate;Dost thou remember Sicily?
Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,For thee the jocund shepherds wait;O Singer of Persephone!Dost thou remember Sicily?
Thesea was sapphire coloured, and the skyBurned like a heated opal through the air;We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fairFor the blue lands that to the eastward lie.From the steep prow I marked with quickening eyeZakynthos, every olive grove and creek,Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.The flapping of the sail against the mast,The ripple of the water on the side,The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern,The only sounds:—when ’gan the West to burn,And a red sun upon the seas to ride,I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!
Katakolo.
(Written at the Lyceum Theatre)
Imarvelnot Bassanio was so boldTo peril all he had upon the lead,Or that proud Aragon bent low his headOr that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold:For in that gorgeous dress of beaten goldWhich is more golden than the golden sunNo woman Veronesé looked uponWas half so fair as thou whom I behold.Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shieldThe sober-suited lawyer’s gown you donned,And would not let the laws of Venice yieldAntonio’s heart to that accursèd Jew—O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due:I think I will not quarrel with the Bond.
Thesilent room, the heavy creeping shade,The dead that travel fast, the opening door,The murdered brother rising through the floor,The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid,And then the lonely duel in the glade,The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore,Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o’er,—These things are well enough,—but thou wert madeFor more august creation! frenzied LearShould at thy bidding wander on the heathWith the shrill fool to mock him, RomeoFor thee should lure his love, and desperate fearPluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its sheath—Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to blow!
Howvain and dull this common world must seemTo such a One as thou, who should’st have talkedAt Florence with Mirandola, or walkedThrough the cool olives of the Academe:Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green streamFor Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have playedWith the white girls in that Phæacian gladeWhere grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.
Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clayHeld thy wan dust, and thou hast come againBack to this common world so dull and vain,For thou wert weary of the sunless day,The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.
ON HEARING THE DIES IRÆ SUNG IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL
Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring,Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove,Teach me more clearly of Thy life and loveThan terrors of red flame and thundering.The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring:A bird at evening flying to its nestTells me of One who had no place of rest:I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing.Come rather on some autumn afternoon,When red and brown are burnished on the leaves,And the fields echo to the gleaner’s song,Come when the splendid fulness of the moonLooks down upon the rows of golden sheaves,And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.
Wasthis His coming! I had hoped to seeA scene of wondrous glory, as was toldOf some great God who in a rain of goldBroke open bars and fell on Danae:Or a dread vision as when SemeleSickening for love and unappeased desirePrayed to see God’s clear body, and the fireCaught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,And now with wondering eyes and heart I standBefore this supreme mystery of Love:Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face,An angel with a lily in his hand,And over both the white wings of a Dove.
Florence.
Albeitnurtured in democracy,And liking best that state republicanWhere every man is Kinglike and no manIs crowned above his fellows, yet I see,Spite of this modern fret for Liberty,Better the rule of One, whom all obey,Than to let clamorous demagogues betrayOur freedom with the kiss of anarchy.Wherefore I love them not whose hands profanePlant the red flag upon the piled-up streetFor no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reignArts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade,Save Treason and the dagger of her trade,Or Murder with his silent bloody feet.
(To L. L.)
Couldwe dig up this long-buried treasure,Were it worth the pleasure,We never could learn love’s song,We are parted too long.
Could the passionate past that is fledCall back its dead,Could we live it all over again,Were it worth the pain!
I remember we used to meetBy an ivied seat,And you warbled each pretty wordWith the air of a bird;
And your voice had a quaver in it,Just like a linnet,And shook, as the blackbird’s throatWith its last big note;
And your eyes, they were green and greyLike an April day,But lit into amethystWhen I stooped and kissed;
And your mouth, it would never smileFor a long, long while,Then it rippled all over with laughterFive minutes after.
You were always afraid of a shower,Just like a flower:I remember you started and ranWhen the rain began.
I remember I never could catch you,For no one could match you,You had wonderful, luminous, fleet,Little wings to your feet.
I remember your hair—did I tie it?For it always ran riot—Like a tangled sunbeam of gold:These things are old.
I remember so well the room,And the lilac bloomThat beat at the dripping paneIn the warm June rain;
And the colour of your gown,It was amber-brown,And two yellow satin bowsFrom your shoulders rose.
And the handkerchief of French laceWhich you held to your face—Had a small tear left a stain?Or was it the rain?
On your hand as it waved adieuThere were veins of blue;In your voice as it said good-byeWas a petulant cry,
‘You have only wasted your life.’(Ah, that was the knife!)When I rushed through the garden gateIt was all too late.
Could we live it over again,Were it worth the pain,Could the passionate past that is fledCall back its dead!
Well, if my heart must break,Dear love, for your sake,It will break in music, I know,Poets’ hearts break so.
But strange that I was not toldThat the brain can holdIn a tiny ivory cellGod’s heaven and hell.
[In this poem the author laments the growth of materialism in the nineteenth century.He hails Keats and Shelley and some of the poets and artists who were his contemporaries,although his seniors,as the torch-bearers of the intellectual life.Among these are Swinburne,William Morris,Rossetti,and Brune-Jones.]
Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had leftOne silver voice to sing his threnody,[128]But ah! too soon of it we were bereftWhen on that riven night and stormy seaPanthea claimed her singer as her own,And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk alone,
Save for that fiery heart, that morning star[129]Of re-arisen England, whose clear eyeSaw from our tottering throne and waste of warThe grand Greek limbs of young DemocracyRise mightily like Hesperus and bringThe great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,
And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,And seen white Atalanta fleet of footIn passionless and fierce virginityHunting the tuskèd boar, his honied luteHath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.
And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,And sung the Galilæan’s requiem,That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wineHe hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in himHave found their last, most ardent worshipper,And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.
Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,It is not quenched the torch of poesy,The star that shook above the Eastern hillHolds unassailed its argent armouryFrom all the gathering gloom and fretful fight—O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,
Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed,With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiledThe weary soul of man in troublous need,And from the far and flowerless fields of iceHas brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.
We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride,Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,And what enchantment held the king in thrallWhen lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powersThat war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,
Long listless summer hours when the noonBeing enamoured of a damask roseForgets to journey westward, till the moonThe pale usurper of its tribute growsFrom a thin sickle to a silver shieldAnd chides its loitering car—how oft, in some cool grassy field
Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells comeAlmost before the blackbird finds a mateAnd overstay the swallow, and the humOf many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,
And through their unreal woes and mimic painWept for myself, and so was purified,And in their simple mirth grew glad again;For as I sailed upon that pictured tideThe strength and splendour of the storm was mineWithout the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine;
The little laugh of water falling downIs not so musical, the clammy goldClose hoarded in the tiny waxen townHas less of sweetness in it, and the oldHalf-withered reeds that waved in ArcadyTouched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.
Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile!Although the cheating merchants of the martWith iron roads profane our lovely isle,And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art,Ay! though the crowded factories begetThe blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!
For One at least there is,—He bears his nameFrom Dante and the seraph Gabriel,—[136]Whose double laurels burn with deathless flameTo light thine altar; He[137]too loves thee well,Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare,And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,
Loves thee so well, that all the World for himA gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear,And Sorrow take a purple diadem,Or else be no more Sorrow, and DespairGild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, beEven in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery
Which Painters hold, and such the heritageThis gentle solemn Spirit doth possess,Being a better mirror of his ageIn all his pity, love, and weariness,Than those who can but copy common things,And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.
But they are few, and all romance has flown,And men can prophesy about the sun,And lecture on his arrows—how, alone,Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled,And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.
Wecaught the tread of dancing feet,We loitered down the moonlit street,And stopped beneath the harlot’s house.
Inside, above the din and fray,We heard the loud musicians playThe ‘Treues Liebes Herz’ of Strauss.
Like strange mechanical grotesques,Making fantastic arabesques,The shadows raced across the blind.
We watched the ghostly dancers spinTo sound of horn and violin,Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.
Like wire-pulled automatons,Slim silhouetted skeletonsWent sidling through the slow quadrille,
Then took each other by the hand,And danced a stately saraband;Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.
Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressedA phantom lover to her breast,Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.
Sometimes a horrible marionetteCame out, and smoked its cigaretteUpon the steps like a live thing.
Then, turning to my love, I said,‘The dead are dancing with the dead,The dust is whirling with the dust.’
But she—she heard the violin,And left my side, and entered in:Love passed into the house of lust.
Then suddenly the tune went false,The dancers wearied of the waltz,The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.
And down the long and silent street,The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,Crept like a frightened girl.
ThisEnglish Thames is holier far than Rome,Those harebells like a sudden flush of seaBreaking across the woodland, with the foamOf meadow-sweet and white anemoneTo fleck their blue waves,—God is likelier thereThan hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!
Those violet-gleaming butterflies that takeYon creamy lily for their pavilionAre monsignores, and where the rushes shakeA lazy pike lies basking in the sun,His eyes half shut,—he is some mitred oldBishop inpartibus! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.
The wind the restless prisoner of the treesDoes well for Palæstrina, one would sayThe mighty master’s hands were on the keysOf the Maria organ, which they playWhen early on some sapphire Easter mornIn a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne
From his dark House out to the BalconyAbove the bronze gates and the crowded square,Whose very fountains seem for ecstasyTo toss their silver lances in the air,And stretching out weak hands to East and WestIn vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest.
Is not yon lingering orange after-glowThat stays to vex the moon more fair than allRome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year agoI knelt before some crimson CardinalWho bare the Host across the Esquiline,And now—those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine.
The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulousWith the last shower, sweeter perfume bringThrough this cool evening than the odorousFlame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing,When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine,And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn and vine.
Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the MassWere out of tune now, for a small brown birdSings overhead, and through the long cool grassI see that throbbing throat which once I heardOn starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady,Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.
Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eavesAt daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe,And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leavesHer little lonely bed, and carols blitheTo see the heavy-lowing cattle waitStretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate.
And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas,And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling beesThat round and round the linden blossoms play;And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall,And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall,
And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the springWhile the last violet loiters by the well,And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis singThe song of Linus through a sunny dellOf warm Arcadia where the corn is goldAnd the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold.
* * * * *
It was a dream, the glade is tenantless,No soft Ionian laughter moves the air,The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness,And from the copse left desolate and bareFled is young Bacchus with his revelry,Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody
So sad, that one might think a human heartBrake in each separate note, a qualityWhich music sometimes has, being the ArtWhich is most nigh to tears and memory;Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here,
Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade,No woven web of bloody heraldries,But mossy dells for roving comrades made,Warm valleys where the tired student liesWith half-shut book, and many a winding walkWhere rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk.
The harmless rabbit gambols with its youngAcross the trampled towing-path, where lateA troop of laughing boys in jostling throngCheered with their noisy cries the racing eight;The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads,Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds
Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines outWhere the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flockBack to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shoutComes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock,And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill,And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill.
The heron passes homeward to the mere,The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees,Gold world by world the silent stars appear,And like a blossom blown before the breezeA white moon drifts across the shimmering sky,Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody.
She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed,She knows Endymion is not far away;’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul is as the reedWhich has no message of its own to play,So pipes another’s bidding, it is I,Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery.
Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trillAbout the sombre woodland seems to clingDying in music, else the air is still,So still that one might hear the bat’s small wingWander and wheel above the pines, or tellEach tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell’s brimming cell.
And far away across the lengthening wold,Across the willowy flats and thickets brown,Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with tremulous goldMarks the long High Street of the little town,And warns me to return; I must not wait,Hark! ’t is the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate.
Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the faultwas, had I not been made of common clayI had climbed the higher heights unclimbedyet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.
From the wildness of my wasted passion I hadstruck a better, clearer song,Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battledwith some Hydra-headed wrong.
Had my lips been smitten into music by thekisses that but made them bleed,You had walked with Bice and the angels onthat verdant and enamelled mead.
I had trod the road which Dante treading sawthe suns of seven circles shine,Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening,as they opened to the Florentine.
And the mighty nations would have crownedme, who am crownless now and without name,And some orient dawn had found me kneelingon the threshold of the House of Fame.
I had sat within that marble circle where theoldest bard is as the young,And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and thelyre’s strings are ever strung.
Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from outthe poppy-seeded wine,With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead,clasped the hand of noble love in mine.
And at springtide, when the apple-blossomsbrush the burnished bosom of the dove,Two young lovers lying in an orchard wouldhave read the story of our love;
Would have read the legend of my passion,known the bitter secret of my heart,Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted aswe two are fated now to part.
For the crimson flower of our life is eaten bythe cankerworm of truth,And no hand can gather up the fallen witheredpetals of the rose of youth.
Yet I am not sorry that I loved you—ah!what else had I a boy to do,—For the hungry teeth of time devour, and thesilent-footed years pursue.
Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, andwhen once the storm of youth is past,Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Deaththe silent pilot comes at last.
And within the grave there is no pleasure,for the blindworm battens on the root,And Desire shudders into ashes, and the treeof Passion bears no fruit.
Ah! what else had I to do but love you?God’s own mother was less dear to me,And less dear the Cytheræan rising like anargent lily from the sea.
I have made my choice, have lived mypoems, and, though youth is gone in wasted days,I have found the lover’s crown of myrtle betterthan the poet’s crown of bays.
[128]Shelley.
[129]Swinburne.
[136]Rossetti.
[137]Burne-Jones.