The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSongs UnsungThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Songs UnsungAuthor: Lewis MorrisRelease date: February 20, 2018 [eBook #56608]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS UNSUNG ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Songs UnsungAuthor: Lewis MorrisRelease date: February 20, 2018 [eBook #56608]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines
Title: Songs Unsung
Author: Lewis Morris
Author: Lewis Morris
Release date: February 20, 2018 [eBook #56608]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS UNSUNG ***
BY
LEWIS MORRIS
OF PENBRYN
M.A.; HONORARY FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORDKNIGHT OF THE REDEEMER OF GREECE, ETC., ETC.
"FIDE ET AMORE"
LONDONKEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE1883
(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.)
PREFACE.
After a silence of more than three years, due to other engrossing occupations, the writer once more appeals to his readers with a volume in which the leading features of his former works will probably be found combined. The story of "Odatis" is derived from Athenæus. That of "Clytæmnestra in Paris" follows accurately, in all matters of fact, the evidence given in the well-known Fenayrou trial of August, 1882. The "Three Breton Poems" are from the "Barzaz Breiz." One of them, "The Foster Brother," has, as the author has learnt since his version was written, already appeared in a volume of Translations from the same source, published some years ago.
PENBRYN, CARMARTHEN,October, 1883.
CONTENTS.
Pictures—I.The Lesson of TimeVendredi Saint"No more, no more"The New CreedA Great GulfOne DaySeasonsThe Pathos of ArtIn the StrandCoelum non AnimumNiobePictures—II.A Night in NaplesLifeCradled in MusicOdatisIn Wild Wales—I.—At the EisteddfodII.—At the Meeting FieldSuffragesLook out, O LoveSaint ChristopherPictures—III.ConfessionLove UnchangedClytæmnestra in ParisAt the EndThree Breton Poems—I.—The Orphan Girl of LannionII.—The Foster BrotherIII.—Azenor
Above the abysmal undivided deepA train of glory streaming from afar;And in the van, to wake the worlds from sleep,One on whose forehead shines the Morning-Star.
——————
Long-rolling surges of a falling sea,Smiting the sheer cliffs of an unknown shore;And by a fanged rock, swaying helplesslyA mast with broken cordage—nothing more.
——————
Three peaks, one loftier, all in virgin white,Poised high in cloudland when the day is done,And on the mid-most, far above the night,The rose-red of the long-departed sun.
——————
A wild girl reeling, helpless, like to fall,Down a hushed street at dawn in midsummer;And one who had clean forgot their past and all,From a lit palace casement looks at her.
——————
A young man, only clothed with youth's best bloom,In mien and form an angel, not in eye;Hard by, a fell worm creeping from a tomb,And one, wide-eyed, who cries, "The Enemy!"
——————
A lake of molten fires which swell and surgeAnd fall in thunders on the burning verge;And one a queen rapt, with illumined face,Who doth defy the Goddess of the place.
——————
Eros beneath a red-cupped tree, asleep,And floating round him, like to cherubim,Fair rosy laughter-dimpled loves, who peepUpon the languid loosened limbs of him.
——————
A darkling gateway, thronged with entering ghosts,And a grave janitor, who seems to say:"Woe, woe to youth, to life, which idly boasts;I am the End, and mine the appointed Way."
——————
A young Faun making music on a reed,Deep in a leafy dell in Arcady:Three girl-nymphs fair, in musing thought take heedOf the strange youth's mysterious melody.
——————
A flare of lamplight in a shameful placeFull of wild revel and unchecked offence,And in the midst, one fresh scarce-sullied face,Within her eyes, a dreadful innocence.
——————
A quire of seraphs, chanting row on row,With lute and viol and high trumpet notes;And, above all, their soft young eyes aglow—Child angels, making laud from full clear throats.
——————
Some, on a cliff at dawn, in agony;Below, a scaly horror on the sea,Lashing the leaden surge. Fast-bound, a maidWaits on the verge, alone, but unafraid.
——————
A poisonous, dead, sad sea-marsh, fringed with pines,Thin-set with mouldering churches, old as Time;Beyond, on high, just touched with wintry rime,The long chain of the autumnal Apennines.
——————
A god-like Presence, beautiful as dawn,Watching, upon an untrodden summit white,The Earth's last day grow full, and fade in night;Then, with a sigh, the Presence is withdrawn.
——————
A sheer rock-islet, frowning on the seaWhere no ship sails, nor ever life may be:Thousands of leagues around, from pole to pole,The unbounded lonely ocean-currents roll.
——————
Young maids who wander on a flower-lit lawn,In springtide of their lives as of the year;Meanwhile, unnoticed, swift, a thing of fear,Across the sun, a deadly shadow drawn.
——————
Slow, hopeless, overborne, without a word,Two issuing, as if from Paradise;Behind them, stern, and with unpitying eyes,Their former selves, wielding a two-edged sword.
——————
A weary woman tricked with gold and gem,Wearing some strange barbaric diadem,Scorn on her lips, and, like a hidden fire,Within her eyes cruel unslaked desire.
Two agèd figures, poor, and blurred with tears;Their child, a bold proud woman, sweeping by;A hard cold face, which pities not nor fears,And all contempt and evil in her eye.
Around a harpsichord, a blue-eyed throngOf long-dead children, rapt in sounds devout,In some old grange, while on that silent songThe sabbath twilight fades, and stars come out.
The end of things created; Dreadful night,Advancing swift on sky, and earth, and sea;But at the zenith a departing light,A soaring countless blessed company.
Lead thou me, Spirit of the World, and IWill follow where thou leadest, willingly;Not with the careless sceptic's idle mood,Nor blindly seeking some unreal good;
For I have come, long since to that full dayWhose morning mists have fled and curled away—That breathless afternoon-tide when the SunHalts, as it were, before his journey done.
Calm as a river broadening through the plain,Which never plunges down the rocks again,But, clearly mirrored in its tranquil deep,Holds tower and spire and forest as in sleep.
How old and worn the metaphor appears,Old as the tale of passing hopes and fears!New as the springtide air, which day by dayBreathes on young lives, and speeds them on their way.
The Roman knew it, and the Hellene too;Assyrian and Egyptian proved it true;Who found for youth's young glory and its glowSerener life, and calmer tides run slow.
And them oblivion takes, and those before,Whose very name and race we know no more,To whom, oh Spirit of the World and Man,Thou didst reveal Thyself when Time began,—
They felt, as I, what none may understand;They touched through darkness on a hidden hand;They marked their hopes, their faiths, their longings fade,And found a solitude themselves had made;
They came, as I, to hope which conquers doubt,Though sun and moon and every star go out;They ceased, while at their side a still voice said,"Fear not, have courage; blessed are the dead."
They were my brothers—of one blood with me,As with the unborn myriads who shall be:I am content to rise and fall as they;I watch the rising of the Perfect Day.
Lead thou me, Spirit, willing and contentTo be, as thou wouldst have me, wholly spent.I am thine own, I neither strive nor cry:Stretch forth thy hand, I follow, silently.
This is Paris, the beautiful city,Heaven's gate to the rich, to the poor without pity.The clear sun shines on the fair town's graces,And on the cold green of the shrunken river,And the chill East blows, as 'twould blow for ever,On the holiday groups with their shining faces.
For this is the one solemn day of the season,When all the swift march of her gay unreasonPauses a while, and a thin mask of sadnessIs spread o'er the features of riot and madness,And the churches are crowded with devotees holy,Rich and poor, saint and sinner, the great and the lowly.
******
Here is a roofless palace, where gapeCasements in rows without form or shape:A sordid ruin, whose swift decaySpeaks of that terrible morning in MayWhen the whole fair city was blood and fire,And the black smoke of ruin rose higher and higher,
And through the still streets, 'neath the broad Spring sun,Everywhere murder and rapine were done;Women lurking, with torch in hand,Evil eyed, sullen, who soon should standBefore the sharp bayonets, dripping with blood,And be pierced through and through, or shot dead where they stood.
******
This is the brand-new Hôtel de Ville,Where six hundred wretches met death in the fire;Ringed round with a pitiless hedge of steel,Not one might escape that swift vengeance. To-dayThe ruin, the carnage, are clean swept away;And the sumptuous façades, and the high roofs aspire,
And, upon the broad square, the white palace faceLooks down with a placid and meaningless grace,Ignoring the bloodshed, the struggle, the sorrow,The doom that has been, and that may be to-morrow,The hidden hatred, the mad endeavour,The strife that has been and shall be for ever.
******
Here rise the twin-towers of Notre Dame,Through siege, and revolt, and ruin the same.See the people in crowds pressing onward, slowly,Along the dark aisles to the altar holy—The altar, to-day, wrapt in mourning and gloom,Since He whom they worship lies dead in the tomb.
There, by a tiny acolyte tended,A round-cheeked child in his cassock white,Lies the tortured figure to which are bendedThe knees of the passers who gaze on the sight,And the people fall prostrate, and kiss and mournThe fair dead limbs which the nails have torn.
And the passionate music comes from the quire,Full of soft chords of a yearning pityThe mournful voices accordant aspireTo the far-off gates of the Heavenly City;And the soft clear alto, soaring high and higher,Mounts now a surging fountain, now a heavenward fire.
Ay, eighteen centuries after the day,A world-worn populace kneel and pray,As they pass by and gaze on the limbs unbroken.What symbol is this? of what yearnings the token?What spell this that leads men a part to beOf this old Judæan death-agony?
And I asked, Was it nought but a Nature Divine,That for lower Natures consented to die?Could a greater than human sacrifice,Still make the tears spring to the world-worn eye?One thought only it was that replied, and no other:This man was our brother.
******
As I pass from the church, in the cold East wind,All its solemn teachings are left behind:Here, once again, by the chill blue river,The blighted buds on the branches shiver;Here, again, are the holiday groups, with delightGaping in wonder at some new sight
'Tis an open doorway, squalid and low,And crowds which ceaselessly come and go.Careless enough ere they see the sightWhich leaves the gay faces pallid and white:Something is there which can change their mood,And check the holiday flow of the blood.
For the face which they see is the face of Death.Strange, such a thing as the ceasing of breathShould work such miraculous change as here:Turn the thing that we love, to a thing of fear;Transform the sordid, the low, the mean,To a phantasm, pointing to Depths unseen.
There they lie, the dead, unclaimed and unknown,Each on his narrow and sloping stone.The chill water drips from each to the ground;No other movement is there, nor sound.With the look which they wore when they came to die,They gaze from blind eyes on the pitiless sky.
No woman to-day, thank Heaven, is here;But men, old for the most part, and broken quite,Who, finding this sad world a place of fear,Have leapt forth hopelessly into the night,Bankrupt of faith, without love, unfriended,Too tired of the comedy ere 'twas ended.
But here is one younger, whose ashy faceBears some faint shadow of former grace.What brought him here? was it love's sharp fever?Was she worse than dead that he bore to leave her?Or was his young life, ere its summer came,Burnt by Passion's whirlwinds as by a flame.
Was it Drink or Desire, or the die's sure shame,Which led this poor wanderer to deep disgrace?Was it hopeless misfortune, unmixed with blame,That laid him here dead, in this dreadful place?Ah Heaven, of these nineteen long centuries,Is the sole fruit this thing with the sightless eyes!
Yesterday, passion and struggle and strife,Hatreds, it may be, and anger-choked breath;Yesterday, fear and the burden of life;To-day, the cold ease and the calmness of death:And that which strove and sinned and yielded there,To-day in what hidden place of God's mysterious air?
Whatever he has been, here now he lies,Facing the stare of unpitying eyes.I turn from the dank and dishonoured face,To the fair dead Christ by his altar place,And the same thought replies to my soul, and no other—This, too, was our brother.
"No more, no more," the autumnal shadows cry;"No more, no more," our failing hearts reply:Oh! that our lives were come to that calm shoreWhere change is done, and fading is no more.
But should some mightier hand completion send,And smooth life's stream unrippled to its end,Our sated souls, filled with an aching pain,Would yearn for waning days and years again.
Thrice blessèd be the salutary changeWhich day by day brings thoughts and feelings strange!Our gain is loss, we keep but what we give,And only daily dying may we live.
Yesterday, to a girl I said—"I take no pity for the unworthy dead,The wicked, the unjust, the vile who die;'Twere better thus that they should rot and lie.The sweet, the lovable, the justMake holy dust;Elsewhere than on the earthShall come their second birth.Until they go each to his destined place,Whether it be to bliss or to disgrace,'Tis well that both shall rest, and for a while be dead.""There is nowhere else," she said."There is nowhere else." And this was a girl's voice,Who, some short tale of summers gone to-day,Would carelessly rejoice,As life's blithe springtide passed upon its wayAnd all youth's infinite hope and bloomShone round her; nor might any shadow of gloomFall on her as she passed from flower to flower;Love sought her, with full dowerOf happy wedlock and young lives to rear;Nor shed her eyes a tear,Save for some passing pity, fancy bred.All good things were around her—riches, love,All that the heart and mind can move,The precious things of art, the undefiledAnd innocent affection of a child.Oh girl, who amid sunny ways dost tread,What curse is this that blights that comely head?For right or wrong there is no further place than here,No sanctities of hope, no chastening fear?"There is nowhere else," she said.
"There is nowhere else," and in the wintry groundWhen we have laid the darlings of our love—The little lad with eyes of blue,The little maid with curls of gold,Or the beloved aged faceOn which each passing year stamps a diviner grace—That is the end of all, the narrow bound.Why look our eyes aboveTo an unreal home which mortal never knew—Fold the hands on the breast, the clay-cold fingers fold?No waking comes there to the uncaring dead!"There is nowhere else," she said.
Strange; is it old or new, this deep distress?Or do the generations, as they pressOnward for ever, onward still,Finding no truth to fillTheir starving yearning souls, from year to yearFeign some new form of fearTo fright them, some new terrorCouched on the path of error,Some cold and desolate word which, like a blow,Forbids the current of their faith to flow,Makes slow their pulse's eager beat,And, chilling all their wonted heat,Leaves them to darkling thoughts and dreads a prey,Uncheered by dawning shaft or setting ray?
Ah, old it is, indeed, and nowise new.This is the poison-growth that grewIn the old thinkers' fancy-haunted ground.They, blinded by some keen too-vivid gleamOf the Unseen, to which all things did seemTo shape themselves and tend,Solved, by some Giant Force, the Mystery of Things,And, soaring all too high on Fancy's wings,Saw in dead matter both their Source and End.They felt the self-same shock and painAs I who hear these prattlings cold to-day.Not otherwise of old the fool to his heart did say."There is no other place of joy or grief,Nor wrong in doubt, nor merit in belief:There is no God, nor Lord of quick and dead;There is nowhere else," they said.
And, indeed, if any to whom life's path were roughShould say as you, he had cause maybe at sight.For lo, the way is steep and hard enough,And wrong is tangled and confused with right;And from all the world there goes a solemn soundOf lamentations, rising from the ground,Confused as that which shocks the wondering earOf one who, gliding on the still lagune,Finds the oar's liquid plash and tuneBroken by wild cries of frenzy and of fear,And knows the Isle of Madness drawing near;And the scheme of things, if scheme there be indeed,Is a book deeper than our eyes may read,Full of wild paradox, and vain endeavour,And hopes and faiths which find completion never.For such a one, in seasons of dismayAnd deep depression and despair,Clouds come ofttimes to veil the face of day,And there is no ray left of all the beams of gold,The glow, the radiance bright, the unclouded faith of old.
But you, poor child forlorn,Ah! better were it you were never born;Better that you had thrown your life awayOn some coarse lump of clay;Better defeat, disgrace, childlessness, allThat can a solitary life befall,Than to have all things and yet beSelf-bound to dark despondency,And self-tormented, beyond reach of doubt,By some cold word that puts all yearnings out.
"There is nowhere else," she said:This is the outcome of their crude BeliefWho are, beyond all rescue and relief,Being self-slain and numbered with the dead."There is no God but Force,Which, working always on its destined course,Speeds on its way and knows no thought of change.Within the germ the molecule fares free,Holding the potency of what shall be;Within the little germ lurks the heaven-reaching tree:No break is there in all the cosmic show.What place is there, in all the Scheme Immense,For a remote unworking ExcellenceWhich may not be perceived by any sense,Which makes no humble blade of grass to grow,Which adds no single link to things and thoughts we know?"
"For everything that is, indeed,Bears with it its own seed;It cannot change or cease and be no more:For ever all things are even as they were beforeOr if, by long degrees and slow,More complex doth the organism grow,It makes no break in the eternal plan;There is no gulf that yawns between the herb and man."
Poor child, what is it they have taught,Who through deep glooms and desert wastes of thoughtHave brought to such as you their dreary creed?Have they no care, indeed,For all the glorious gains of man's long past,For all our higher hope of what shall be at last?"All things are moulded in one mould;They spring, they are, they fade by one compulsion cold—Some dark necessity we cannot know,Which bids them wax and grow,—That is sufficient cause for all things, quick and dead!""There is no Cause else," she said.
Oh, poor indeed, and in evil case,Who shouldst be far from sound of doubtAs a maiden in some restful placeWhose busy life, year in year out,Is made of gentle worship, homely daysMarked by their growing sum of prayer and praise,The church spire pointing to the longed-for sky,The heaven that opens to the cloistered eye.For us, for us, who mid the weary strifeAnd jangling discords of our lifeAre day by day opprest,'Twere little wonder were our souls distrest,God, and the life to be, and all our early trustBeing far from us expelled and thrust;But for you, child, who cannot know at allTo what hidden laws we stand or fall,To what bad heights the wrong within may grow,To what dark deeps the stream of hopeless lives may flow!
For let the doubter babble as he can,There is no wit in manWhich can make Force rise higher stillUp to the heights of Will,—No phase of Force which finite minds can knowCan self-determined grow,And of itself elect what shall its essence be:The same to all eternity,Unchanged, unshaped, it goes upon its blinded way;Nor can all forces nor all lawsBring ceasing to the scheme, nor any pause,Nor shape it to the mould in which to be—Form from the wingèd seed the myriad-branching tree,—Nor guide the force once sped, so that it turnTo Water-floods that quench or Fires that burn,Or now to the electric current change,Or draw all things by some attraction strange.Or in the brain of man, working unseen, sublime,Transcend the narrow bounds of Space and Time.
Whence comes the innate Power which knows to guideThe force deflected so from side to side,That not a barren line from whence to whereIt goes upon its way through the unfettered air?What sways the prisoned atom on its fruitful course?Ah, it was more than ForceWhich gave the Universe of things its form and face!Force moving on its path through Time and SpaceWould nought enclose, but leave all barren stillA higher Power, it was, the worlds could form and fill;And by some pre-existent harmonyWere all things made as Fate would have them be—Fate, the ineffable Word of an Eternal Will.
All things that are or seem,Whether we wake who see or do but dream,Are of that Primal Will phantasms, if no more;He who sees these sees God, and seeing doth adore.Joy, suffering, evil, good,Whatever our daily food,Whate'er the mystery and paradox of things,Low creeping thoughts and high imaginings.The laughters of the world, the age-long groan,Bring to his mind one name, one thought alone;All beauty, right, deformity, or wrong,Sing to his ear one high unchanging song;And everything that is, to his rapt fancy bringsThe hidden beat through space of the Eternal Wings.
Where did the Idea dwell,At first, which was of all the germ and seed?Which worked from Discord order, from blind ForceSped all the Cosmos on its upward course?Which held within the atom and the cellThe whole vast hidden Universe, sheltered well,Till the hour came to unfold it, and the need?
What did the ever-upward growth conceive,Which from the obedient monad formed the herb, the tree,The animal, the man, the high growths that shall be?Ever from simpler to more complex grown,The long processions from a source unknownUnfold themselves across the scene of life.Oh blessed struggle and strife,Fare onward to the end, since from a SourceThou art, which doth transcend and doth determine Force!Fare onward to the end; not from Force, dead and blind,Thou comest, but from the depths of the Creative Mind.
Fare on to the end, but how should ending be,If Will be in the Universe, and plan?Some higher thing shall be, that which to-day is Man.Undying is each cosmic force:Undying, but transformed, it runs its endless course;It cannot wane, or sink, or be no more.Not even the dust and lime which clothe us roundLose their own substance in the charnel-ground,Or carried far upon the weltering wind;Only with other growths combined,In some new whole they are for ever—They are, and perish never.The great suns shed themselves in heat and lightUpon the unfilled interstellar air,Till all their scattered elements uniteAnd are replenished as before they were.Nothing is lost, nor can be: change alone,Unceasing, never done,Shapes all the forms of things, and keeps them stillObedient to the Unknown Perfect Will.And shall the life that is the highest that we know,Shall this, alone, no more increase, expand and grow?
Nay, somewhere else there is, although we know not where,Nor what new shape God gives our lives to wear.We are content, whatever it shall be;Content, through all eternity,To be whatever the Spirit of the World deem best;—Content to be at rest;Content to work and fare through endless days;Content to spend ourselves in endless praise:Nay, if it be the Will Divine,Content to be, and through long lives to pine,Far from the light which vivifies, the fireWhich breathes upon our being and doth inspireAll soaring thoughts and hopes which light our pathway here;Content, though with some natural thrill of fear,To be purged through by age-long pain,Till we resume our upward march again;Content, if need, to take some lower form,Some humbler herb or wormTo be awhile, if e'er the eternal planGo back from higher to lower, from man to less than man.Not so, indeed, we hold, but rather this—That all Time gone, that all that was or is,The scarpèd cliff, the illimitable Past,This truth alone of all truths else hold fast:—From lower to higher, from simple to complete,This is the pathway of the Eternal Feet;From earth to lichen, herb to flowering tree,From cell to creeping worm, from man to what shall be.This is the solemn lesson of all time,This is the teaching of the voice sublime:Eternal are the worlds, and all that them do fill;Eternal is the march of the Creative Will;Eternal is the life of man, and sun, and star;Ay, even though they fade a while, they are;And though they pause from shining, speed for ever still.
If any tender sireWho sits girt round by loving facesAnd happy childhood's thousand graces,Through sudden crash or fire
Should 'scape from this poor life to some mysterious air,And, dwelling solitary there,Should feel his unfilled yearning father's heartPierced through by some intolerable smart;And, sickening for the dear lost lives again,Should through his overmastering painBreak through the awful bounds the Eternal sets betweenThat which lives Here, and There, the Seen and the Unseen;And having gained once moreThe confines of the Earth, the scarce-left placeWhich greets him with unchanged familiar face—The well-remembered door,The rose he watered blooming yet,Nought to remember or forget,No change in all the world except in him,Nor there save in some sense, already dimBefore the unchanged past, so that he seemA mortal spirit still, and what was since, a dream;
And in the well-known roomShould find the blithe remembered facesGrown sad and blurred by recent tracesOf a new sorrow and gloom,And when his soul to comfort them is fainFinds his voice mute, his form unknown, unseen,And thinks with irrepressible painOf all the happy days which late have been,And feels his new life's inmost chambers stirredIf only of his own, he might be seen or heard;
Then if, at length,The father's yearning and overburdened soulBurst into shape and voice which scorn controlOf its despairing strength,—Ah Heaven! ah pity for the present dreadWhich strikes the old affection, dull and dead!Ah, better were it far than this thing to remain,Voiceless, unseen, unloved, for ever and in pain!
So when a finer mind,Knowing its old self swept by some weird changeAnd the old thought deceased, or else grown strange,Turns to those left behind,With passionate stress and mighty yearning stirred,—It strives to stand revealed in shape and wordIn vain; or by strong travail visible grown,Finds but a world estranged, and lives and dies alone!
One day, one day, our lives shall seemThin as a brief forgotten dream:One day, our souls by life opprest,Shall ask no other boon than rest.
And shall no hope nor longing come,No memory of our former home,No yearning for the loved, the dearDead lives that are no longer here?
If this be age, and age no moreRecall the hopes, the fears of yore,The dear dead mother's accents mild,The lisping of the little child,
Come, Death, and slay us ere the bloodRun slow, and turn our lives from goodFor only in such memories weConsent to linger and to be.
The cold winds rave on the icy river,The leafless branches complain and shiver,The snow clouds sweep on, to a dreary tune,—Can these be the earth and the heavens of June?—
When the blossoming trees gleam in virginal white,And heaven's gate opens wide in the lucid night,And there comes no sound on the perfumed airBut the passionate brown bird, carolling fair,
And the lush grass in upland and lowland stands deep,And the loud landrail lulls the children to sleep,And the white still road and the thick-leaved woodAre haunted by fanciful solitude;
And by garden and lane men and maidens walk,Busied with trivial, loverlike talk;And the white and the red rose, newly blown,Open each, with a perfume and grace of its own.
The cold wind sweeps o'er the desolate hill,The stream is bound fast and the wolds are chill;And by the dead flats, where the cold blasts moan,A bent body wearily plods alone.
Oft seeing the old painters' art,We find the tear unbidden start,And feel our full hearts closer growTo the far days of long ago.
Not burning faith, or godlike pain,Can thus our careless thought enchain;The heavenward gaze of souls sublime,At once transcends, and conquers time.
Nor pictured form of seer or saint,Which hands inspired delight to paint;Art's highest aims of hand or tongue,Age not, but are for ever young.
But some imperfect trivial scene,Of homely life which once has been,Of youth, so soon to pass away,Of happy childhood's briefer day;
Or humble daily tasks portrayed—The thrifty mistress with her maid;The flowers, upon the casement set,Which in our Aprils blossom yet;
The long processions, never done;The time-worn palace, scarce begun;The gondolier, who plies his oarFor stately sirs or dames of yore;
The girl with fair hair morning-stirred,Who swings the casement for her bird;The hunt; the feast; the simple mirthWhich marks the marriage or the birth;
The burly forms, from side to sideSwift rolling on the frozen tide;The long-haired knights; the ladies primThe chanted madrigal or hymn;
The opera, with its stately throng;The twilight church aisles stretching longThe spires upon the wooded wold;The dead pathetic life of old;—
These all the musing mind can fill—So dead, so past, so living still:Oh dear dead lives, oh hands long gone,Whose life, whose Art still lingers on!
In the midst of the busy and roaring Strand,Dividing life's current on either hand,A time-worn city church, sombre and grey,Waits, while the multitude passes away.
Beside it, a strait plot of churchyard groundIs fenced by a time-worn railing around;And within, like a pavement, the ground is spreadWith the smooth worn stones of the nameless dead.
But here and there, in the spaces between,When the slow Spring bursts, and the fields grow green,Every year that comes, 'mid the graves of the deadSome large-leaved flower-stem lifts up its head.
In the Spring, though as yet the sharp East be here,This green stem burgeons forth year by year:Through twenty swift summers and more, have I seenThis tender shoot rise from its sheath of green.
New busy crowds pass on with hurrying feet,The young lives grow old and the old pass away;But unchanged, 'mid the graves, at the fated day,The green sheath bursts upwards and grows complete.
From the grave it bursts forth, 'mid the graves it shall die,It shall die as we die, as it lives we shall live;And this poor flower has stronger assurance to give,Than volumes of learning, which blunder or lie.
For out of the dust and decay of the tomb,It springs, the sun calling, to beauty and bloom;And amid the sad city, 'mid death and 'mid strife,It preaches its mystical promise of life.
Oh fair to be, oh sweet to beIn fancy's shallop faring free,With silken sail and fairy mastTo float till all the world be past.
Oh happy fortune, on and onTo wander far till care be gone,Round beetling capes, to unknown seas,Seeking the fair Hesperides!
But is there any land or seaWhere toil and trouble cease to be—Some dim, unfound, diviner shore,Where men may sin and mourn no more?
Ah, not the feeling, but the skyWe change, however far we fly;How swift soe'er our bark may speed,Faster the blessed isles recede.
Nay, let us seek at home to findFit harvest for the brooding mind,And find, since thus the world grows fair,Duty and pleasure everywhere.
Oh well-worn road, oh homely way,Where pace our footsteps, day by day,The homestead and the church which boundThe tranquil seasons' circling round!
Ye hold experiences which reachDepths which no change of skies can teach,The saintly thought, the secret strifeWhich guide, which do perturb our life.
ON SIPYLUS.
Ah me, ah me! on this high mountain peak,Which far above the seething Lydian plainsTakes the first dawn-shaft, and the sunset keepsWhen all the fields grow dark—I, Niobe,A mother's heart, hid in a form of stone,Stand all day in the vengeful sun-god's eye,Stand all night in the cold gaze of the moon,Who both long ages since conspiring, slewMy children,—I a childless mother nowWho was most blest, a living woman still,Bereft of all, and yet who cannot die.
Ah day, ill-fated day, which wrecked my life!I was the happy mother of strong sons,Brave, beautiful, all in their bloom of age:From him my first-born, now a bearded man,Through the fair promise of imperfect youth,To the slim stripling who had scarcely leftThe women's chambers, on whose lip scant shadeOf budding manhood showed, I loved them all;All with their father's eyes, and that strange charmOf rhythmic grace, and musical utteranceAs when, in far-off Thebes, the enchanted wallRose perfect, to the music of his lyre.
Ah me, the fatal day! For at high noonI sate within my Theban palace fair—Deep summer-time it was—and marked the crowdFrom the thronged city street, to the smooth plain,Stream joyously: the brave youths, full of life,Stripped for the mimic fray, the leap, the race,The wrestling; and the princes, my strong sons,The fair limbs I had borne beneath my zoneGrown to full stature, such as maidens love,—The sinewy arms, the broad chests, and strong loinsOf manhood; the imperfect flower-like forms,Eager with youth's first fires; my youngest born,My darling, doffing his ephebic robeWhich late he donned with pride, a child in heart,In budding limbs a youth;—I see them goTheir fair young bodies glistening in the sun,Which kissed the shining olive. As they went,The joyous concourse winding towards the plain,My happy eyes o'erflowed, and as I turnedAnd saw my daughters round me, fair grown livesAnd virgin, sitting spinning the white flax,Each with her distaff, beautiful and fitTo wed with any stately king of menAnd reign a queen in Hellas, my glad heartBroke forth in pride, and as I looked I thought,"Oh happy, happy mother of such sons!Oh happy, happy mother of such girls!For whom full soon the joyous nuptial ritesShall bring the expectant bridegroom and the bride,And soon once more the little childish handsWhich shall renew my early wedded years,When the king loved me first. Thrice blest indeed.There is no queen in Hellas such as I,Dowered with such fair-grown offspring; not a queenNor mother o'er all earth's plain, around which flowsThe wide salt stream of the surrounding sea,As blest as I am. Nay, in Olympus' selfWhat offspring were they to all-ruling ZeusThat Leto bore? Phoebus and Artemis,A goodly pair indeed, but two alone.
Poor mother, that to such a lord as ZeusBare only those, no fairer than my own.Nay, I am happier than a goddess' self;I would not give this goodly train of mineFor that scant birth. I ask no boon of Zeus,Nor of the Olympian Gods; for I am gladNo fruitful mother in a peasant's hut,Scorning the childless great, thinks scorn of me,Being such as I. Nay, let Queen Leto's selfKnow, that a mortal queen has chanced to bearAs fair as she, and more."
Even as I spoke,While the unholy pride flashed through my soul,There pierced through the closed lattice one keen shaftOf blinding sun, which on the opposite wallTraced some mysterious sign, and on my mindSuch vague remorse and consciousness of ill,That straightway all my pride was sunk and lostIn a great dread, nor could I longer bearTo look upon the fairness of my girls,Who, seeing the vague trouble in my eyes,Grew pale, and shuddered for no cause, and gazedChilled 'midst the blaze of sunlight.
Then I soughtTo laugh my fears away, as one who feelsSome great transgression weigh on him, some loadWhich will not be removed, but bears him down,Though none else knows it, pressing on his heart.
But when the half unuttered thought grew dimAnd my fear with it, suddenly a cryRose from the city street, and then the soundOf measured hurrying feet, and looking forthTo where the youth had passed so late, in joy,Came two who carried tenderly, with tears,A boy's slight form. I had no need to look,For all the mother rising in me knewThat 'twas my youngest born they bore; I knewWhat fate befell him—'twas the vengeful sun,And I alone was guilty, I, his mother,Who being filled with impious pride, had broughtDeath to my innocent child. I hurried downThe marble stair and met them as they came,And laid him down, and kissed his lips and calledHis name, yet knew that he was dead; and allHis brothers stood regarding us with tears,And would have soothed me with their loving words,Me guilty, who were guiltless, oh, my sons!Till as I looked up from the corpse,—a cryOf agony,—and then another fellStruggling for life upon the earth, and thenAnother, and another, till the lastOf all my stalwart boys, my life, my pride,Lay dead upon the field, and the fierce sunFrenzied my brain, and all distraught with woeI to the palace tottered, while they boreSlowly the comely corpses of my sons.
That day I dare not think of where they lay,White shrouded, in the darkened palace rooms,Like sculptured statues on a marble hearse.How calm they looked and happy, my dear sons!There was no look of pain within their eyes,The dear dead eyes which I their mother closed;Me miserable! I saw the priests approach,And ministers of death; I saw my girlsFlung weeping on the brothers whom they loved.I saw it all as in a dream. I know notHow often the dead night woke into day,How often the hot day-time turned to night.I did not shudder even to see the SunWhich slew my sons; but in the still, dead night,When in that chill and lifeless place of death,The cold, clear, cruel moonlight seemed to playUpon the rangéd corpses, and to mockMy mother's heart, and throw on each a hueOf swift corruption ere its time, I knewSome secret terror lest the jealous godsMight find some further dreadful vengeance still,Taking what yet was left.
At set of sunThe sad procession to the place of gravesWent with the rites of royal sepulchre,The high priest at its head, the nobles roundThe fair white shrouded corpses, last of allI went, the guilty one, my fair sweet girlsClinging to me in tears; but I, I shed notA single tear—grief dried the fount of tears,I had shed all mine.
Only overmastering fearHeld me of what might come.When they were laid,Oh, wretched me, my dear, my well-loved sons!Within the royal sepulchre, the sunHad set, and in his stead the rising moon,Behind some lofty mountain-peak concealed,Filled all with ghastly twilight. As we knelt,The people all withdrawn a little space,I and my daughters in that place of death,I lifted up my suppliant voice, and theyWith sweet girl voices pure, and soaring hymn,To the great Powers above.But when at lastI heard my hollow voice pleading aloneAnd all the others silent, then I looked,And on the tomb the cold malignant moon,Bursting with pale chill beams of light, revealedMy fair girls kneeling mute and motionless,Their dead eyes turned to the unpitying orb,Their white lips which should offer prayer no more.
Such vengeance wreaked Phoebus and ArtemisUpon a too proud mother. But on meWho only sinned no other punishmentThey took, only the innocent lives I loved—If any punishment, indeed, were moreThan this to one who had welcomed death. I thinkMy children happier far in death than IWho live to muse on these things. When my girlsWere buried, I, my lonely palace gateLeaving without a tear, sped hither in hasteTo this high rock of Sipylus where erstMy father held his court; and here, long years,Summer and winter, stay I, day and nightGazing towards the far-off plain of Thebes,Wherein I was so happy of old time,Wherein I sinned and suffered. Turned to stoneThey thought me, and 'tis true the mother's heartWhich knows such grief as I knew, turns to stone,And all her life; and pitying Zeus, indeed,Seeing my repentance, listened to my prayerAnd left me seeming stone, but still the heartOf the mother grows not hard, and year by yearWhen comes the summer with its cloudless skies,And the high sun lights hill and plain by day,And the moon, shining, silvers them by night,My old grief, rising dew-like to my eyes,Quickens my life with not unhappy tears,And through my penitent and yearning heartI feel once more the pulse of love and grief:Love triumphing at last o'er Fate and Death,Grief all divine and vindicating Love.
A lurid sunset, red as blood,Firing a sombre, haunted wood;And from the shadows, dark and fell,One hurrying with the face of Hell.
——————
Two at a banquet board alone,In dalliance, the feast being done.And one behind the arras stands,Grasping an axe with quivering hands.
——————
A high cliff-meadow lush with Spring;Gay butterflies upon the wing;Beneath, beyond, unbounded, free,The foam-flecked, blue, pervading sea.
——————
A clustering hill-town, climbing whiteFrom the grey olives up the height,And on the inland summits highThin waters spilt as from the sky.
——————
A rain-swept moor at shut of day,And by the dead unhappy wayA lonely child untended lies:Against the West a wretch who flies.
——————
Cold dawn, which flouts the abandoned hallAnd one worn face, which loathes it all;In his ringed hand a vial, whileThe grey lips wear a ghastly smile.
——————
Corinthian pillars fine, which standIn moonlight on a desert sand;Others o'erthrown, in whose dark shadeSome fire-eyed brute its lair has made.
——————
Mountainous clouds embattled highAround a dark blue lake of sky;And from its clear depths, shining far,The calm eye of the evening star.
——————
A moonlight chequered avenue;Above, a starlit glimpse of blue:Amid the shadows spread between,The grey ghost of a woman seen.
This is the one night in all the yearWhen the faithful of Naples who love their priestMay find their faith and their wealth increased;For just as the stroke of midnight is here,
Those who with faithful undoubting mindTheir "Aves" mutter, their rosaries tell,They without doubt shall a recompence find;Yea, their faith indeed shall profit them well.
Therefore, to-night, in the hot thronged streetBy San Gennaro's, the people devout,With banner, and relic, and thurible meet,With some sacred image to marshal them out.
For a few days hence, the great lotteryOf the sinful city declared will be,And it may be that Aves and Paters saidWill bring some aid from the realms of the dead.
And so to the terrible place of the tombThey go forth, a pitiful crowd, through the gloom,To where all the dead of the city decay,Waiting the trump of the judgment day.
For every day of the circling yearBrings its own sum of corruption here;Every day has its great pit, fedWith the dreadful heap of the shroudless dead
And behind a grated rust-eaten door,Marked each with their fated month and day,The young and the old, who in life were poor,Fester together and rot away.
Silence is there, the silence of death,And in silence those poor pilgrims wearily pace,And the wretched throng, pitiful, holding its breath,Comes with shuffling steps to the dreadful place.
Till before these dark portals, the silent crowdBreaks at length into passionate suffrages loud,Waiting the flickering vapour thin,Bred of the dreadful corruption within.
And here is a mother who kneels, not in woe,By the vault where her child was flung months ago;And there is a strong man who peers with dry eyesAt the mouth of the gulph where his dead wife lies.
Till at last, to reward them, a faint blue fire,Like the ghost of a soul, flickers here or thereAt the gate of a vault, on the noisome air,And the wretched throng has its low desire;
And with many a praise of the favouring saint,And curses if any refuses to heed,Full of low hopes and of sordid greed,To the town they file backward, weary and faint.
And a few days hence, the great lotteryOf the sinful city declared will be,And a number thus shewn to those sordid eyes,May, the saints being willing, attain the prize.
Wherefore to Saint and Madonna be said,All praise and laud, and the faithful dead.
*****
It was long, long ago, in far-off Judæa,That they slew Him of old, whom these slay to-day;They slew Him of old, in far-off Judæa,—It is long, long ago; it was far, far away!
Like to a star, or to a fire,Which ever brighter grown, or higher,Doth shine forth fixed, or doth aspire;
Or to a glance, or to a sigh;Or to a low wind whispering by,Which scarce has risen ere it die;
Or to a bird, whose rapid flightEludes the dazed observer's sight,Or a stray shaft of glancing light,
That breaks upon the gathered gloomWhich veils some monumental tomb;Or some sweet Spring flowers' fleeting bloom;—
Mixed part of reason, part belief,Of pain and pleasure, joy and grief,As changeful as the Spring, and brief;—
A wave, a shadow, a breath, a strife,With change on change for ever rife:—This is the thing we know as life.
A bright young mother, day by day,I meet upon the crowded way,Who turns her dark eyes, deep and mild,Upon her little sleeping child
For on the organ laid asleep,In childish slumbers light, yet deep,Calmly the little infant lies;The long fair lashes veil its eyes.
There, o'er its childish slumbers sweet,The winged hours pass with rapid feet;Far off the music seems to cheerThe child's accustomed drowsy ear.
Hymn tune and song tune, grave and gay,Float round him all the joyous day;And, half remembered, faintly seemTo mingle with his happy dream.
Poor child, o'er whose head all day longOur dull hours slip by, winged with song;Who sleeps for half the tuneful day,And wakes 'neath loving looks to play;
Whose innocent eyes unconscious seeNothing but mirth in misery.The mother smiles, the sister standsSmiling, the tambour in her hands.
And with the time of hard-earned rest,'Tis his to press that kindly breast;Nor dream of all the toil, the pain,The weary round begun again,—
The fruitless work, the blow, the curse,The hunger, the contempt, or worse;The laws despite, the vague alarms,Which pass not those protecting arms.
Only, as yet, 'tis his to knowThe bright young faces all aglow,As down the child-encumbered streetThe music stirs the lightsome feet
Only to crow and smile, as yetSoon shall come clouds, and cold, and wet;And where the green leaves whisper now,The mad East flinging sleet and snow.
And if to childhood he shall come—Childhood that knows not hearth or home,—Coarse words maybe, and looks of guile,Shall chase away that constant smile.
Were it not better, child, than this,The burden of full life to miss;And now, while yet the time is May,Amid the music pass away,
And leave these tuneless strains of wrongFor the immortal ceaseless song;And change this vagrant life of earthFor the unchanged celestial birth;
And see, within those opened skies,A vision of thy mother's eyes;And hear those old strains, faint and dim,Grown fine, within the eternal hymn?
Nay, whatsoe'er our thought may deem,Not that is better which may seem;'Twere better that thou camest to be,If Fate so willed, in misery.
What shall be, shall be—that is all;To one great Will we stand and fall."The Scheme hath need"—we ask not why,And in this faith we live and die.