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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10910-0.txt b/10910-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3c4fe6 --- /dev/null +++ b/10910-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1468 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10910 *** + +ROBERT + +LOUIS + +STEVENSON + + +AN ELEGY + + +AND OTHER POEMS MAINLY PERSONAL + +BY +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + + +MDCCCXCV + + +TO +MY DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER +THESE POEMS ARE LOVINGLY +DEDICATED + + + +CONTENTS + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: AN ELEGY +AN ODE TO SPRING +TREE-WORSHIP +A BALLAD OF LONDON +PARIS DAY BY DAY: A FAMILIAR EPISTLE +ALFRED TENNYSON +PROFESSOR MINTO +ON MR. GLADSTONE'S RETIREMENT +OMAR KHAYYAM +THE SECOND CRUCIFIXION +AN IMPRESSION +NATURAL RELIGION +FAITH REBORN +HESPERIDES +JENNY DEAD +MY BOOKS +MAMMON +ART +TO A POET +A NEW YEAR LETTER +SNATCH +MY MAIDEN VOTE +THE ANIMALCULE ON MAN +COME, MY CELIA +TIME'S MONOTONE + + + COR CORDIUM + +O GOLDEN DAY! O SILVER NIGHT! +LOVE'S EXCHANGE +TO A SIMPLE HOUSEWIFE +LOVE'S WISDOM +HOME +LOVE'S LANDMARKS +IF, AFTER ALL...! +SPIRIT OF SADNESS +AN INSCRIPTION +SONG + + + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +AN ELEGY + +High on his Patmos of the Southern Seas +Our northern dreamer sleeps, +Strange stars above him, and above his grave +Strange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave, +While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile, +The great Pacific, with its faery deeps, +Smiles all day long its silken secret smile. + +Son of a race nomadic, finding still +Its home in regions furthest from its home, +Ranging untired the borders of the world, +And resting but to roam; +Loved of his land, and making all his boast +The birthright of the blood from which he came, +Heir to those lights that guard the Scottish coast, +And caring only for a filial fame; +Proud, if a poet, he was Scotsman most, +And bore a Scottish name. + +Death, that long sought our poet, finds at last, +Death, that pursued him over land and sea: +Not his the flight of fear, the heart aghast +With stony dread of immortality, +He fled 'not cowardly'; +Fled, as some captain, in whose shaping hand +Lie the momentous fortunes of his land, +Sheds not vainglorious blood upon the field, +Death! why at last he finds his treasure isle, +And he the pirate of its hidden hoard; +Life! 'twas the ship he sailed to seek it in, +And Death is but the pilot come aboard, +Methinks I see him smile a boy's glad smile +On maddened winds and waters, reefs unknown, +As thunders in the sail the dread typhoon, +And in the surf the shuddering timbers groan; +Horror ahead, and Death beside the wheel: +Then--spreading stillness of the broad lagoon, +And lap of waters round the resting keel. + +Strange Isle of Voices! must we ask in vain, +In vain beseech and win no answering word, +Save mocking echoes of our lonely pain +From lonely hill and bird? +Island beneath whose unrelenting coast, +As though it never in the sun had been, +The whole world's treasure lieth sunk and lost, +Unsunned, unseen. +For, either sunk beyond the diver's skill, +There, fathoms deep, our gold is all arust, +Or in that island it is hoarded still. +Yea, some have said, within thy dreadful wall +There is a folk that know not death at all, +The loved we lost, the lost we love, are there. +Will no kind voice make answer to our cry, +Give to our aching hearts some little trust, +Show how 'tis good to live, but best to die? +Some voice that knows +Whither the dead man goes: +We hear his music from the other side, +Maybe a little tapping on the door, +A something called, a something sighed-- +No more. +O for some voice to valiantly declare +The best news true! +Then, Happy Island of the Happy Dead, +How gladly would we spread +Impatient sail for you! + +O vanished loveliness of flowers and faces, +Treasure of hair, and great immortal eyes, +Are there for these no safe and secret places? +And is it true that beauty never dies? +Soldiers and saints, haughty and lovely names, +Women who set the whole wide world in flames, +Poets who sang their passion to the skies, +And lovers wild and wise: +Fought they and prayed for some poor flitting gleam, +Was all they loved and worshipped but a dream? +Is Love a lie and fame indeed a breath, +And is there no sure thing in life--but death? +Or may it be, within that guarded shore, +He meets Her now whom I shall meet no more +Till kind Death fold me 'neath his shadowy wing: +She whom within my heart I softly tell +That he is dead whom once we loved so well, +He, the immortal master whom I sing. + +Immortal! yea, dare we the word again, +If aught remaineth of our mortal day, +That which is written--shall it not remain? +That which is sung, is it not built for aye? +Faces must fade, for all their golden looks, +Unless some poet them eternalise, +Make live those golden looks in golden books; +Death, soon or late, will quench the brightest eyes-- +'Tis only what is written never dies. +Yea, memories that guard like sacred gold +Some sainted face, they also must grow old, +Pass and forget, and think--or darest thou not!-- +On all the beauty that is quite forgot. + +Strange craft of words, strange magic of the pen, +Whereby the dead still talk with living men; +Whereby a sentence, in its trivial scope, +May centre all we love and all we hope; +And in a couplet, like a rosebud furled, +Lie all the wistful wonder of the world. + +Old are the stars, and yet they still endure, +Old are the flowers, yet never fail the spring: +Why is the song that is so old so new, +Known and yet strange each sweet small shape and hue? +How may a poet thus for ever sing, +Thus build his climbing music sweet and sure, +As builds in stars and flowers the Eternal mind? +Ah, Poet, that is yours to seek and find! +Yea, yours that magisterial skill whereby +God put all Heaven in a woman's eye, +Nature's own mighty and mysterious art +That knows to pack the whole within the part: +The shell that hums the music of the sea, +The little word big with Eternity, +The cosmic rhythm in microcosmic things-- +One song the lark and one the planet sings, +One kind heart beating warm in bird and tree-- +To hear it beat, who knew so well as he? + +Virgil of prose! far distant is the day +When at the mention of your heartfelt name +Shall shake the head, and men, oblivious, say: +'We know him not, this master, nor his fame.' +Not for so swift forgetfulness you wrought, +Day upon day, with rapt fastidious pen, +Turning, like precious stones, with anxious thought, +This word and that again and yet again, +Seeking to match its meaning with the world; +Nor to the morning stars gave ears attent, +That you, indeed, might ever dare to be +With other praise than immortality +Unworthily content. + +Not while a boy still whistles on the earth, +Not while a single human heart beats true, +Not while Love lasts, and Honour, and the Brave, +Has earth a grave, +O well-beloved, for you! + + + + +AN ODE TO SPRING + +(TO GRANT AND NELLIE ALLEN) + +Is it the Spring? + Or are the birds all wrong +That play on flute and viol, + A thousand strong, +In minstrel galleries + Of the long deep wood, +Epiphanies + Of bloom and bud. + +Grave minstrels those, + Of deep responsive chant; +But see how yonder goes, + Dew-drunk, with giddy slant, +Yon Shelley-lark, + And hark! +Him on the giddy brink + Of pearly heaven +His fairy anvil clink. + +Or watch, in fancy, + How the brimming note +Falls, like a string of pearls, + From out his heavenly throat; +Or like a fountain + In Hesperides, +Raining its silver rain, + In gleam and chime, +On backs of ivory girls-- + Twice happy rhyme! + +Ah, none of these + May make it plain, +No image we may seek + Shall match the magic of his gurgling beak. + +And many a silly thing + That hops and cheeps, +And perks his tiny tail, + And sideway peeps, +And flitters little wing, + Seems in his consequential way +To tell of Spring. + +The river warbles soft and runs + With fuller curve and sleeker line, +Though on the winter-blackened hedge + Twigs of unbudding iron shine, +And trampled still the river sedge. + +And O the Sun! + I have no friend so generous as this Sun +That comes to meet me with his big warm hands. + And O the Sky! +There is no maid, how true, + Is half so chaste +As the pure kiss of greening willow wands + Against the intense pale blue +Of this sweet boundless overarching waste. + +And see!--dear Heaven, but it is the Spring!-- + See yonder, yonder, by the river there, +Long glittering pearly fingers flash + Upon the warm bright air: +Why, 'tis the heavenly palm, + The Christian tree, +Whose budding is a psalm + Of natural piety: +Soft silver notches up the smooth green stem-- + Ah, Spring must follow them, +It is the Spring! + +O Spirit of Spring, + Whose strange instinctive art +Makes the bird sing, + And brings the bud again; +O in my heart + Take up thy heavenly reign, +And from its deeps + Draw out the hidden flower, +And where it sleeps, + Throughout the winter long, +O sweet mysterious power + Awake the slothful song! + +_February_ 7, 1893. + + + + +TREE-WORSHIP + +(TO JOHN LANE) + +Vast and mysterious brother, ere was yet of me + So much as men may poise upon a needle's end, +Still shook with laughter all this monstrous might of thee, + And still with haughty crest it called the morning friend. + +Thy latticed column jetted up the bright blue air, + Tall as a mast it was, and stronger than a tower; +Three hundred winters had beheld thee mighty there, + Before my little life had lived one little hour. + +With rocky foot stern-set like iron in the land, + With leafy rustling crest the morning sows with pearls, +Huge as a minster, half in heaven men saw thee stand, + Thy rugged girth the waists of fifty Eastern girls. + +Knotted and warted, slabbed and armoured like the hide + Of tropic elephant; unstormable and steep +As some grim fortress with a princess-pearl inside, + Where savage guardian faces beard the bastioned keep: + +So hard a rind, old tree, shielding so soft a heart-- + A woman's heart of tender little nestling leaves; +Nor rind so hard but that a touch so soft can part, + And Spring's first baby-bud an easy passage cleaves. + +I picture thee within with dainty satin sides, + Where all the long day through the sleeping dryad dreams, +But when the moon bends low and taps thee thrice she glides, + Knowing the fairy knock, to bask within her beams. + +And all the long night through, for him with eyes and ears, + She sways within thine arms and sings a fairy tune, +Till, startled with the dawn, she softly disappears, + And sleeps and dreams again until the rising moon. + +But with the peep of day great bands of heavenly birds + Fill all thy branchy chambers with a thousand flutes, +And with the torrid noon stroll up the weary herds, + To seek thy friendly shade and doze about thy roots-- + +Till with the setting sun they turn them once more home; + And, ere the moon dawns, for a brief enchanted space, +Weary with million miles, the sore-spent star-beams come, + And moths and bats hold witches' sabbath in the place. + +And then I picture thee some bloodstained Holyrood, + Dread haunted palace of the bat and owl, whence steal, +Shrouded all day, lost murdered spirits of the wood, + And fright young happy nests with homeless hoot and squeal. + +Then, maybe, dangling from thy gloomy gallows boughs, + A human corpse swings, mournful, rattling bones and chains-- +His eighteenth century flesh hath fattened nineteenth century cows-- + Ghastly Aeolian harp fingered of winds and rains. + +Poor Rizpah comes to reap each newly-fallen bone + That once thrilled soft, a little limb, within her womb; +And mark yon alchemist, with zodiac-spangled zone, + Wrenching the mandrake root that fattens in the gloom. + +So rounds thy day, from maiden morn to haunted night, + From larks and sunlit dreams to owl and gibbering ghost; +A catacomb of dark, a maze of living light, + To the wide sea of air a green and welcome coast. + +I seek a god, old tree: accept my worship, thou! + All other gods have failed me always in my need; +I hang my votive song beneath thy temple bough, + Unto thy strength I cry--Old monster, be my creed! + +Give me to clasp this earth with feeding roots like thine, + To mount yon heaven with such star-aspiring head, +Fill full with sap and buds this shrunken life of mine, + And from my boughs oh! might such stalwart sons be shed. + +With loving cheek pressed close against thy horny breast, + I hear the roar of sap mounting within thy veins; +Tingling with buds, thy great hands open towards the west, + To catch the sweetheart winds that bring the sister rains. + +O winds that blow from out the fruitful mouth of God, + O rains that softly fall from His all-loving eyes, +You that bring buds to trees and daisies to the sod-- + O God's best Angel of the Spring, in me arise. + + + + +A BALLAD OF LONDON + +(TO H. W. MASSINSHAM) + +Ah, London! London! our delight, +Great flower that opens but at night, +Great City of the Midnight Sun, +Whose day begins when day is done. + +Lamp after lamp against the sky +Opens a sudden beaming eye, +Leaping alight on either hand, +The iron lilies of the Strand. + +Like dragonflies, the hansoms hover, +With jewelled eyes, to catch the lover; +The streets are full of lights and loves, +Soft gowns, and flutter of soiled doves. + +The human moths about the light +Dash and cling close in dazed delight, +And burn and laugh, the world and wife, +For this is London, this is life! + +Upon thy petals butterflies, +But at thy root, some say, there lies +A world of weeping trodden things, +Poor worms that have not eyes or wings. + +From out corruption of their woe +Springs this bright flower that charms us so, +Men die and rot deep out of sight +To keep this jungle-flower bright. + +Paris and London, World-Flowers twain +Wherewith the World-Tree blooms again, +Since Time hath gathered Babylon, +And withered Rome still withers on. + +Sidon and Tyre were such as ye, +How bright they shone upon the Tree! +But Time hath gathered, both are gone, +And no man sails to Babylon. + +Ah, London! London! our delight, +For thee, too, the eternal night, +And Circe Paris hath no charm +To stay Time's unrelenting arm. + +Time and his moths shall eat up all. +Your chiming towers proud and tall +He shall most utterly abase, +And set a desert in their place. + + + + +PARIS DAY BY DAY: A FAMILIAR EPISTLE + +(TO MRS. HENRY HARLAND[1]) + +Paris, half Angel, half Grisette, +I would that I were with thee yet, +Where the long boulevard at even +Stretches its starry lamps to heaven, +And whispers from a thousand trees +Vague hints of the Hesperides. + +Once more, once more, my heart, to sit +With Aline's smile and Harry's wit, +To sit and sip the cloudy green, +With dreamy hints of speech between; + +Or, may be, flashing all intent +At call of some stern argument, +When the New Woman fain would be, +Like the Old Male, her husband, free. +The prose-man takes his mighty lyre +And talks like music set on fire! + +The while the merry crowd slips by +Glittering and glancing to the eye, +All happy lovers on their way +To make a golden end of day-- +Ah! Café truly called _La Paix_! + +Or at the _pension_ I would be +With Transatlantic maidens three, +The same, I vow, who once of old +Guarded with song the trees of gold. + +O Lady, lady, _Vis-à-Vis_, +When shall I cease to think of thee, +On whose fair head the Golden Fleece +Too soon, too soon, returns to Greece-- +Oh, why to Athens e'er depart? +Come back, come back, and bring my heart! + +And she whose gentle silver grace, +So wise of speech and kind of face, +Whose every wise and witty word +Fell shy, half blushing to be heard. + +Last, but ah! surely not least dear, +That blithe and buxom buccaneer, +Th' avenging goddess of her sex, +Born the base soul of man to vex, +And wring from him those tears and sighs +Tortured from woman's heart and eyes. +Ah! fury, fascinating, fair-- +When shall I cease to think of _her_! + +Paris, half Angel, half Grisette, +I would that I were with thee yet, +But London waits me, like a wife,-- +London, the love of my whole life. + +Tell her not, Paris, mercy me! +How I have flirted, dear, with thee. + +[1] By kind permission of the Editor of _The Yellow Book_. + + + + +ALFRED TENNYSON + +(WESTMINSTER, OCTOBER 12, 1892) + +Great man of song, whose glorious laurelled head + Within the lap of death sleeps well at last, +Down the dark road, seeking the deathless dead, + Thy faithful, fearless, shining soul hath passed. + +Fame blows his silver trumpet o'er thy sleep, + And Love stands broken by thy lonely lyre; +So pure the fire God gave this clay to keep, + The clay must still seem holy for the fire. + +Poor dupes of sense, we deem the close-shut eye, + So faithful servant of his golden tongue, +Still holds the hoarded lights of earth and sky, + We deem the mouth still full of sleeping song. + +We mourn as though the great good song he gave + Passed with the singer's own informing breath: +Ah, golden book, for thee there is no grave, + Thine is a rhyme that shall not taste of death. + +Great wife of his great heart--'tis yours to mourn, + Son well-beloved, 'tis yours, who loved him so: +But we!--hath death one perfect page out-torn + From the great song whereby alone we know + +The splendid spirit imperiously shy,-- + Husband to you and father--we afar +Hail poet of God, and name as one should cry: + 'Yonder a king, and yonder lo! a star!' + +So great his song we deem a little while + That Song itself with his great voice hath fled, +So grand the toga-sweep of his great style, + So vast the theme on which his song was fed. + +One sings a flower, and one a face, and one + Screens from the world a corner choice and small, +Each toy its little laureate hath, but none + Sings of the whole: yea, only he sang all. + +Poor little bards, so shameless in your care + To snatch the mighty laurel from his head, +Have you no fear, dwarfs in the giant's chair, + How men shall laugh, remembering the dead? + +Great is advertisement! 'tis almost fate, + But, little mushroom-men, of puff-ball fame, +Ah, do you dream to be mistaken great + And to be really great are just the same? + +Ah, fools! he was a laureate ere one leaf + Of the great crown had whispered on his brows; +Fame shrilled his song, Love carolled it, and Grief + Blessed it with tears within her lonely house. + +Fame loved him well, because he loved not Fame, + But Peace and Love, all other things before, +A man was he ere yet he was a name, + His song was much because his love was more. + + + + +PROFESSOR MINTO + +Nature, that makes Professors all day long, +And, filling idle souls with idle song, +Turns out small Poets every other minute, +Made earth for men--but seldom puts men in it. + +Ah, Minto, thou of that minority +Wert man of men--we had deep need of thee! +Had Heaven a deeper? Did the heavenly Chair +Of Earthly Love wait empty for thee there? + +_March_ 1, 1893. + + + + +ON MR. GLADSTONE'S RETIREMENT + +The world grows Lilliput, the great men go; + If greatness be, it wears no outer sign; + No more the signet of the mighty line +Stamps the great brow for all the world to know. +Shrunken the mould of manhood is, and lo! + Fragments and fractions of the old divine, + Men pert of brain, planned on a mean design, +Dapper and undistinguished--such we grow. + +No more the leonine heroic head, + The ruling arm, great heart, and kingly eye; +No more th' alchemic tongue that turned poor themes + Of statecraft into golden-glowing dreams; + No more a man for man to deify: +Laurel no more--the heroic age is dead. + + + + +OMAR KHAYYÁM + +(TO THE OMAR KHAYYÁM CLUB) + +Great Omar, here to-night we drain a bowl +Unto thy long-since transmigrated soul, + Ours all unworthy in thy place to sit, +Ours still to read in life's enchanted scroll. + +For us like thee a little hour to stay, +For us like thee a little hour of play, + A little hour for wine and love and song, +And we too turn the glass and take our way. + +So many years your tomb the roses strew, +Yet not one penny wiser we than you, +The doubts that wearied you are with us still, +And, Heaven be thanked! your wine is with us too. + +For, have the years a better message brought +To match the simple wisdom that you taught: + Love, wine and verse, and just a little bread-- +For these to live and count the rest as nought? + +Therefore, Great Omar, here our homage deep +We drain to thee, though all too fast asleep + In Death's intoxication art thou sunk +To know the solemn revels that we keep. + +Oh, had we, best-loved Poet, but the power +From our own lives to pluck one golden hour, +And give it unto thee in thy great need, +How would we welcome thee to this bright bower! + +O life that is so warm, 'twas Omar's too; +O wine that is so red, he drank of you: + Yet life and wine must all be put away, +And we go sleep with Omar--yea, 'tis true. + +And when in some great city yet to be +The sacred wine is spilt for you and me, + To those great fames that we have yet to build, +We'll know as little of it all as he. + + + + +THE SECOND CRUCIFIXION + +Loud mockers in the roaring street + Say Christ is crucified again: +Twice pierced His gospel-bringing feet, + Twice broken His great heart in vain. + +I hear, and to myself I smile, +For Christ talks with me all the while. + +No angel now to roll the stone + From off His unawaking sleep, +In vain shall Mary watch alone, + In vain the soldiers vigil keep. + +Yet while they deem my Lord is dead +My eyes are on His shining head. + +Ah! never more shall Mary hear + That voice exceeding sweet and low +Within the garden calling clear: + Her Lord is gone, and she must go. + +Yet all the while my Lord I meet +In every London lane and street. + +Poor Lazarus shall wait in vain, + And Bartimaeus still go blind; +The healing hem shall ne'er again + Be touched by suffering humankind. + +Yet all the while I see them rest, +The poor and outcast, in His breast. + +No more unto the stubborn heart + With gentle knocking shall He plead, +No more the mystic pity start, + For Christ twice dead is dead indeed. + +So in the street I hear men say, +Yet Christ is with me all the day. + + + + +AN IMPRESSION + +The floating call of the cuckoo, +Soft little globes of bosom-shaped sound, +Came and went at the window; +And, out in the great green world, +Those maidens each morn the flowers +Opened their white little bodices wide to the sun: +And the man sighed--sighed--in his sleep, +And the woman smiled. + +Then a lark staggered singing by +Up his shining ladder of dew, +And the airs of dawn walked softly about the room, +Filling the morning sky with the scent of the woman's hair, +And giving, in sweet exchange, its hawthorn and daisy breath: +And the man awoke with a sob-- +But the woman dreamed. + + + + +NATURAL RELIGION + +Up through the mystic deeps of sunny air +I cried to God--'O Father, art Thou there?' +Sudden the answer, like a flute, I heard: +It was an angel, though it seemed a bird. + + + + +FAITH REBORN + +'The old gods pass,' the cry goes round; +'Lo! how their temples strew the ground'; +Nor mark we where, on new-fledged wings, +Faith, like the phoenix, soars and sings. + + + + +HESPERIDES + +Men say--beyond the western seas + The happy isles no longer glow, +No sailor sights Hesperides, + All that was long ago. + +No longer in a glittering morn + Their misty meadows flicker nigh, +No singing with the spray is borne, + All that is long gone by. + +To-day upon the golden beach + No gold-haired guardian maidens stand, +No apples ripen out of reach, + And none are mad to land. + +The merchant-men, 'tis they say so, + That trade across the western seas, +In hurried transit to and fro, + About Hesperides. + +But, Reader, not as these thou art, + So, loose thy shallop from its hold, +And, trusting to the ancient chart, + Thou 'It make them as of old. + + + + +JENNY DEAD + +Like a flower in the frost + Sweet Jenny lies, +With her frail hands calmly crossed, + And close-shut eyes. + +Bring a candle, for the room + Is dark and cold, +Antechamber of the tomb-- + O grief untold! + +Like a snowdrift is her bed, + Dinted the snow, +Faint frozen lines from foot to head,-- + She lies below. + +Turn from off her shrouded face + The frigid sheet.... +Death hath doubled all her grace-- + O Jenny, sweet! + + + + +MY BOOKS + +What are my books?--My friends, my loves, + My church, my tavern, and my only wealth; +My garden: yea, my flowers, my bees, my doves; + My only doctors--and my only health. + + + + +MAMMON + +(FOR MR, G. F. WATTS'S PICTURE) + +Mammon is this, of murder and of gold, +To-day, to-morrow, and ever from of old, +Th' Almighty God, and King of every land. +Man 'neath his foot, and woman 'neath his hand, +Kneel prostrate: he, 'tis meant to symbolise, +Steals our strong men and our sweet women buys. + +O! rather grind me down into the dust +Than choose me for the vessel of thy lust. + + + + +ART + +Art is a gipsy, + Fickle as fair, +Good to kiss and flirt with, + But marry--if you dare! + + + + +TO A POET + +(TO EDMUND GOSSE) + +Still towards the steep Parnassian way +The moon-led pilgrims wend, +Ah, who of all that start to-day +Shall ever reach the end? + +Year after year a dream-fed band +That scorn the vales below, +And scorn the fatness of the land +To win those heights of snow,-- + +Leave barns and kine and flocks behind, +And count their fortune fair, +If they a dozen leaves may bind +Of laurel in their hair. + +Like us, dear Poet, once you trod +That sweet moon-smitten way, +With mouth of silver sought the god +All night and all the day; + +Sought singing, till in rosy fire +The white Apollo came, +And touched your brow, and wreathed your lyre, +And named you by his name; + +And led you, loving, by the hand +To those grave laurelled bowers, +Where keep your high immortal band +Your high immortal hours. + +Strait was the way, thorn-set and long-- +Ah, tell us, shining there, +Is fame as wonderful as song? +And laurels in your hair! + + + + +A NEW YEAR LETTER + +_To Two Friends married in the New Year_ + +(TO. MR. AND MRS. WELCH) + +Another year to its last day, +Like a lost sovereign, runaway, +Tips down the gloomy grid of time: +In vain to holloa, 'Stop it! hey!'-- +A cab-horse that has taken fright, +Be you a policeman, stop you may; +But not a sovereign mad with glee +That scampers to the grid, perdie, +And not a year that's taken flight; +To both 'tis just a grim good night. + +But no! the imagery, say you, +Is wondrous witty--but not true; +For the old year that last night went +Has not been so much lost as spent: +You gave it in exchange to Death +For just twelve months of happy breath. + +It was a ticket to admit +Two happy people close to sit-- +A 'Season' ticket, one might say, +At Time's eternal passion play. + +O magic overture of Spring, +O Summer like an Eastern King, +O Autumn, splendid widowed Queen, +O Winter, alabaster tomb +Where lie the regal twain serene, +Gone to their yearly doom. + +But all you bought with that spent year,-- +Ah, friends! it was as nothing, was it? +Nothing at all to hold compare +With what you buy with this New Year. +A home! ah me, you could not buy +Another half so precious toy, +With all the other years to come +As that grown-up doll's house--a home. + +O wine upon its threshold stone, +And horse-shoes on the lintel of it, +And happy hearts to keep it warm, +And God Himself to love it! +Dear little nest built snug on bough +Within the World-Tree's mighty arms, +I would I knew a spell that charms +Eternal safety from the storm; + +To give you always stars above, +And always roses on the bough-- +But then the Tree's own root is Love, +Love, love, all love, I vow. + +_New Year_ 1893. + + + + +SNATCH + +From tavern to tavern + Youth passes along, +With an armful of girl + And a heart full of song. + +From flower to flower + The butterfly sips, +O passionate limbs + And importunate lips! + +From candle to candle + The moth loves to fly, +O sweet, sweet to burn! + And still sweeter to die! + + + + +MY MAIDEN VOTE + +(TO JOHN FRASER) + +There, in my mind's-eye, pure it lay, +My lodger's vote! 'Twas mine to-day. +It seemed a sort of maidenhood, +My little power for public good,-- +Oh keep it uncorrupted, pray! +And, when it must be given away, +See it be given with a sense +Of most uncanvassed innocence. +Alas!--but few there be that know't-- +How grave a thing it is to vote! +For most men's votes are given, I hear, +Either for rhetoric or--beer. + +A young man's vote--O fair estate! +Of the great tree electorate +A living leaf, of this great sea +A motive wave of empire I, +On this stupendous wheel--a fly. +O maiden vote, how pure must be +The party that is worthy thee! +And thereupon my mind began +That perfect government to plan, +The high millennium of man. + +Then in my dream I saw arise +An England, ah! so fair and wise, +An England generously great, +No selfish island, but a state +Upon the world's bright forehead worn, +A mighty star of mighty morn. + +And statesmen in that dream became +No tricksters of the petty aim, +Mere speculators in the rise +Of programmes and of party cries, +Expert in all those turns and tricks +That make this senate-house of ours, +Westminster, with its lordly towers, +The stock-exchange of politics. +But that ideal Parliament +Did all it said, said all it meant, +And every Minister of State +Was guileless--as a candidate. + +Statesmen no more the tinker's way +Mended and patched from day to day, +Content with piecing part with part, +But took the mighty problem whole, +Beginning with the human heart: +For noble rulers make in vain +Unselfish laws for selfish men, +And give the whole wide world its vote, +But who is going to give it soul? + +And then I dreamed had come to reign +True peace within our land again; +Not peace that rots the soul with ease, +Or those ignoble 'rivalries +Of peace' more murderous than war, +But just the simple peasant peace +The weary world is waiting for. +With simple food and simple wear +Go lots of love and little care, +And joy is saved from over-sweet +By struggle not too hard to bear. + +So dreamed I on from dream to dream, +Till, slow returning to my theme, +Upon my vote I looked again-- +To whom was I to give it then? +That uncorrupted maidenhood, +My little power for public good. +What party was there that I knew +That I might dare intrust it to, +A perfect party fair and square-- +My House of Commons in the air? + +Though called by many different names, +Each one professed the noblest aims; +Should all be right, 'twas logical +That I should give my vote to all! + +And then, of parties old and new +Which one, if only one, were true? + +The divination passed my skill,-- +My maiden vote is maiden still. + + + + +THE ANIMALCULE ON MAN + +An animalcule in my blood + Rose up against me as I dreamed, +He was so tiny as he stood, + You had not heard him, though he screamed. + +He cried 'There is no Man!' + And thumped the table with his fist, +Then died--his day was scarce a span,-- + That microscopic atheist. + +Yet all the while his little soul + Within what he denied did live,-- +Poor part, how could he know the whole? + And yet he was so positive! + +And all the while he thus blasphemed + My (solar) system went its round, +My heart beat on, my head still dreamed,-- + But my poor atheist was drowned. + + + + +COME, MY CELIA + +Come, my Celia, let us prove, +While we may, how wise is love-- +Love grown old and grey with years, +Love whose blood is thinned with tears. + +Philosophic lover I, +Broke my heart, its love run dry, +And I warble passion's words +But to hear them sing like birds. + +When the lightning struck my side, +Love shrieked and for ever died, +Leaving nought of him behind +But these playthings of the mind. + +Now the real play is over +I can only _act_ a lover, +Now the mimic play begins +With its puppet joys and sins. + +When the heart no longer feels, +And the blood with caution steals, +Then, ah! then--my heart, forgive!-- +Then we dare begin to live. + +Dipped in Stygian waves of pain, +We can never feel again; +Time may hurl his deadliest darts, +Love may practise all his arts; + +Like some Balder, lo! we stand +Safe 'mid hurtling spear and brand, +Only Death--ah! sweet Death, throw!-- +Holds the fatal mistletoe. + +Let the young unconquered soul +Love the unit as the whole, +Let the young uncheated eye +Love the face fore-doomed to die: + +But, my Celia, not for us +Pleasures half so hazardous; +Let us set our hearts on play, +'Tis, alas! the only way-- + +Make of life the jest it is, +Laugh and fool and (maybe!) kiss, +Never for a moment, dear, +Love so well to risk a fear. + +Is not this, my Celia, say, +The only wise--and weary--way? + + + + +TIME'S MONOTONE + + Autumn and Winter, + Summer and Spring-- +Hath Time no other song to sing? +Weary we grow of the changeless tune-- + June--December, + December--June! + +Time, like a bird, hath but one song, + One way to build, like a bird hath he; +Thus hath he built so long, so long, + Thus hath he sung--Ah me! + +Time, like a spider, knows, be sure, + One only wile, though he seems so wise: +Death is his web, and Love his lure, + And you and I his flies. + + + 'Love!' he sings + In the morning clear, + 'Love! Love! Love!' + And you never hear + How, under his breath, + He whispers, 'Death! + Death! Death!' + +Yet Time--'tis the strangest thing of all-- + Knoweth not the sense of the words he saith; +Eternity taught him his parrot-call + Of 'Love and Death.' + +Year after year doth the old man climb + The mountainous knees of Eternity, +But Eternity telleth nothing to Time-- + It may not be. + + + + +COR CORDIUM + + +O GOLDEN DAY! O SILVER NIGHT! + +O golden day! O silver night! + That brought my own true love at last, +Ah, wilt thou drop from out our sight, + And drown within the past? + +One wave, no more, in life's wide sea, + One little nameless crest of foam, +The day that gave her all to me + And brought us to our home. + +Nay, rather as the morning grows + In flush, and gleam, and kingly ray, +While up the heaven the sun-god goes, + So shall ascend our day. + +And when at last the long night nears, + And love grows angel in the gloam, +Nay, sweetheart, what of fears and tears?-- + The stars shall see us home. + + + + +LOVE'S EXCHANGE + +Simple am I, I care no whit + For pelf or place, +It is enough for me to sit + And watch Dulcinea's face; +To mark the lights and shadows flit + Across the silver moon of it. + +I have no other merchandise, + No stocks or shares, +No other gold but just what lies + In those deep eyes of hers; +And, sure, if all the world were wise, +It too would bank within her eyes. + +I buy up all her smiles all day + With all my love, +And sell them back, cost-price, or, say, + A kiss or two above; +It is a speculation fine, +The profit must be always mine. + +The world has many things, 'tis true, + To fill its time, +Far more important things to do + Than making love and rhyme; +Yet, if it asked me to advise, +I'd say--buy up Dulcinea's eyes! + + + + +TO A SIMPLE HOUSEWIFE + +Who dough shall knead as for God's sake + Shall fill it with celestial leaven, +And every loaf that she shall bake + Be eaten of the Blest in heaven. + + + + +LOVE'S WISDOM + +Sometimes my idle heart would roam + Far from its quiet happy nest, +To seek some other newer home, + Some unaccustomed Best: +But ere it spreads its foolish wings, +'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings. + +Sometimes my idle heart would sail + From out its quiet sheltered bay, +To tempt a less pacific gale, + And oceans far away: +But ere it shakes its foolish wings, +'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings. + +Sometimes my idle heart would fly, + Mothlike, to reach some shining sin, +It seems so sweet to burn and die + That wondrous light within: +But ere it burns its foolish wings, +'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings. + + + + +HOME ... + +'We're going home!' I heard two lovers say, + They kissed their friends and bade them bright good-byes; + I hid the deadly hunger in my eyes, +And, lest I might have killed them, turned away. +Ah, love! we too once gambolled home as they, + Home from the town with such fair merchandise,-- + Wine and great grapes--the happy lover buys: +A little cosy feast to crown the day. + +Yes! we had once a heaven we called a home + Its empty rooms still haunt me like thine eyes, +When the last sunset softly faded there; +Each day I tread each empty haunted room, + And now and then a little baby cries, + Or laughs a lovely laughter worse to bear. + + + + +LOVE'S LANDMARKS + +The woods we used to walk, my love, + Are woods no more, +But' villas' now with sounding names-- + All name and door. + +The pond, where, early on in March, + The yellow cup +Of water-lilies made us glad, + Is now filled up. + +But ah! what if they fill or fell + Each pond, each tree, +What matters it to-day, my love, + To me--to thee? + +The jerry-builder may consume, + A greedy moth, +God's mantle of the living green, + I feel no wrath; + +Eat up the beauty of the world, + And gorge his fill +On mead and winding country lane, + And grassy hill. + +I only laugh, for now of these + I have no care, +Now that to me the fair is foul, + And foul as fair. + + + + +IF, AFTER ALL ...! + +This life I squander, hating the long days +That will not bring me either Rest or Thee, +This health I hack and ravage as with knives, +These nerves I fain would shatter, and this heart +I fain would break--this heart that, traitor-like, +Beats on with foolish and elastic beat: +If, after all, this life I waste and kill +Should still be thine, may still be lived for thee! +And this the dreadful trial of my love, +This silence and this blank that makes me mad, +That I be man to-day of all the days +My one poor hope of meeting thee again-- +If Death be Love, and God's great purpose kind! + +Oh, love, if some day on the heavenly stair +A wild ecstatic moment we should stand, +And I, all hungry for your eyes and hair, +Should meet instead your great accusing gaze, +And hear, instead of welcome into heaven: +'Ah! hadst thou but been true! but manfully +Borne the high pangs that all high souls must bear, +Nor fled to low nepenthes for your pain! +Hadst said--"Is she not here? more reason then +To live as though still guarded by her eyes, +Cleaner my thought, and purer be my deed; +True will I be, though God Himself be false!"' + +Oh, hadst thou thus been man, to-day had we +Walked on together undivided now-- +But now a thousand flaming years must pass, +And all the trial be gone o'er again. + + + + +SPIRIT OF SADNESS + +She loved the Autumn, I the Spring, +Sad all the songs she loved to sing; +And in her face was strangely set +Some great inherited regret. + +Some look in all things made her sigh, +Yea! sad to her the morning sky: +'So sad! so sad its beauty seems'-- +I hear her say it still in dreams. + +But when the day grew grey and old, +And rising stars shone strange and cold, +Then only in her face I saw +A mystic glee, a joyous awe. + +Spirit of Sadness, in the spheres +Is there an end of mortal tears? +Or is there still in those great eyes +That look of lonely hills and skies? + + + + +AN INSCRIPTION + +Precious the box that Mary brake +Of spikenard for her Master's sake, +But ah! it held nought half so dear +As the sweet dust that whitens here. +The greater wonder who shall say: +To make so white a soul of clay, +From clay to win a face so fair, +Those strange great eyes, that sunlit hair +A-ripple o'er her witty brain,-- +Or turn all back to dust again. + +Who knows--but, in some happy hour, +The God whose strange alchemic power +Wrought her of dust, again may turn +To woman this immortal urn. + + + + +SONG + +She's somewhere in the sunlight strong, + Her tears are in the falling rain, +She calls me in the wind's soft song, + And with the flowers she comes again. + +Yon bird is but her messenger, + The moon is but her silver car; +Yea! sun and moon are sent by her, + And every wistful waiting star. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And +Other Poems, by Richard Le Gallienne + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10910 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec2a6ad --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10910 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10910) diff --git a/old/10910-8.txt b/old/10910-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad553fa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10910-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1891 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other +Poems, by Richard Le Gallienne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems + +Author: Richard Le Gallienne + +Release Date: February 2, 2004 [EBook #10910] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON AND ELEGY *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Carol David and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + +ROBERT + +LOUIS + +STEVENSON + + +AN ELEGY + + +AND OTHER POEMS MAINLY PERSONAL + +BY +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + + +MDCCCXCV + + +TO +MY DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER +THESE POEMS ARE LOVINGLY +DEDICATED + + + +CONTENTS + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: AN ELEGY +AN ODE TO SPRING +TREE-WORSHIP +A BALLAD OF LONDON +PARIS DAY BY DAY: A FAMILIAR EPISTLE +ALFRED TENNYSON +PROFESSOR MINTO +ON MR. GLADSTONE'S RETIREMENT +OMAR KHAYYAM +THE SECOND CRUCIFIXION +AN IMPRESSION +NATURAL RELIGION +FAITH REBORN +HESPERIDES +JENNY DEAD +MY BOOKS +MAMMON +ART +TO A POET +A NEW YEAR LETTER +SNATCH +MY MAIDEN VOTE +THE ANIMALCULE ON MAN +COME, MY CELIA +TIME'S MONOTONE + + + COR CORDIUM + +O GOLDEN DAY! O SILVER NIGHT! +LOVE'S EXCHANGE +TO A SIMPLE HOUSEWIFE +LOVE'S WISDOM +HOME +LOVE'S LANDMARKS +IF, AFTER ALL...! +SPIRIT OF SADNESS +AN INSCRIPTION +SONG + + + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +AN ELEGY + +High on his Patmos of the Southern Seas +Our northern dreamer sleeps, +Strange stars above him, and above his grave +Strange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave, +While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile, +The great Pacific, with its faery deeps, +Smiles all day long its silken secret smile. + +Son of a race nomadic, finding still +Its home in regions furthest from its home, +Ranging untired the borders of the world, +And resting but to roam; +Loved of his land, and making all his boast +The birthright of the blood from which he came, +Heir to those lights that guard the Scottish coast, +And caring only for a filial fame; +Proud, if a poet, he was Scotsman most, +And bore a Scottish name. + +Death, that long sought our poet, finds at last, +Death, that pursued him over land and sea: +Not his the flight of fear, the heart aghast +With stony dread of immortality, +He fled 'not cowardly'; +Fled, as some captain, in whose shaping hand +Lie the momentous fortunes of his land, +Sheds not vainglorious blood upon the field, +Death! why at last he finds his treasure isle, +And he the pirate of its hidden hoard; +Life! 'twas the ship he sailed to seek it in, +And Death is but the pilot come aboard, +Methinks I see him smile a boy's glad smile +On maddened winds and waters, reefs unknown, +As thunders in the sail the dread typhoon, +And in the surf the shuddering timbers groan; +Horror ahead, and Death beside the wheel: +Then--spreading stillness of the broad lagoon, +And lap of waters round the resting keel. + +Strange Isle of Voices! must we ask in vain, +In vain beseech and win no answering word, +Save mocking echoes of our lonely pain +From lonely hill and bird? +Island beneath whose unrelenting coast, +As though it never in the sun had been, +The whole world's treasure lieth sunk and lost, +Unsunned, unseen. +For, either sunk beyond the diver's skill, +There, fathoms deep, our gold is all arust, +Or in that island it is hoarded still. +Yea, some have said, within thy dreadful wall +There is a folk that know not death at all, +The loved we lost, the lost we love, are there. +Will no kind voice make answer to our cry, +Give to our aching hearts some little trust, +Show how 'tis good to live, but best to die? +Some voice that knows +Whither the dead man goes: +We hear his music from the other side, +Maybe a little tapping on the door, +A something called, a something sighed-- +No more. +O for some voice to valiantly declare +The best news true! +Then, Happy Island of the Happy Dead, +How gladly would we spread +Impatient sail for you! + +O vanished loveliness of flowers and faces, +Treasure of hair, and great immortal eyes, +Are there for these no safe and secret places? +And is it true that beauty never dies? +Soldiers and saints, haughty and lovely names, +Women who set the whole wide world in flames, +Poets who sang their passion to the skies, +And lovers wild and wise: +Fought they and prayed for some poor flitting gleam, +Was all they loved and worshipped but a dream? +Is Love a lie and fame indeed a breath, +And is there no sure thing in life--but death? +Or may it be, within that guarded shore, +He meets Her now whom I shall meet no more +Till kind Death fold me 'neath his shadowy wing: +She whom within my heart I softly tell +That he is dead whom once we loved so well, +He, the immortal master whom I sing. + +Immortal! yea, dare we the word again, +If aught remaineth of our mortal day, +That which is written--shall it not remain? +That which is sung, is it not built for aye? +Faces must fade, for all their golden looks, +Unless some poet them eternalise, +Make live those golden looks in golden books; +Death, soon or late, will quench the brightest eyes-- +'Tis only what is written never dies. +Yea, memories that guard like sacred gold +Some sainted face, they also must grow old, +Pass and forget, and think--or darest thou not!-- +On all the beauty that is quite forgot. + +Strange craft of words, strange magic of the pen, +Whereby the dead still talk with living men; +Whereby a sentence, in its trivial scope, +May centre all we love and all we hope; +And in a couplet, like a rosebud furled, +Lie all the wistful wonder of the world. + +Old are the stars, and yet they still endure, +Old are the flowers, yet never fail the spring: +Why is the song that is so old so new, +Known and yet strange each sweet small shape and hue? +How may a poet thus for ever sing, +Thus build his climbing music sweet and sure, +As builds in stars and flowers the Eternal mind? +Ah, Poet, that is yours to seek and find! +Yea, yours that magisterial skill whereby +God put all Heaven in a woman's eye, +Nature's own mighty and mysterious art +That knows to pack the whole within the part: +The shell that hums the music of the sea, +The little word big with Eternity, +The cosmic rhythm in microcosmic things-- +One song the lark and one the planet sings, +One kind heart beating warm in bird and tree-- +To hear it beat, who knew so well as he? + +Virgil of prose! far distant is the day +When at the mention of your heartfelt name +Shall shake the head, and men, oblivious, say: +'We know him not, this master, nor his fame.' +Not for so swift forgetfulness you wrought, +Day upon day, with rapt fastidious pen, +Turning, like precious stones, with anxious thought, +This word and that again and yet again, +Seeking to match its meaning with the world; +Nor to the morning stars gave ears attent, +That you, indeed, might ever dare to be +With other praise than immortality +Unworthily content. + +Not while a boy still whistles on the earth, +Not while a single human heart beats true, +Not while Love lasts, and Honour, and the Brave, +Has earth a grave, +O well-beloved, for you! + + + + +AN ODE TO SPRING + +(TO GRANT AND NELLIE ALLEN) + +Is it the Spring? + Or are the birds all wrong +That play on flute and viol, + A thousand strong, +In minstrel galleries + Of the long deep wood, +Epiphanies + Of bloom and bud. + +Grave minstrels those, + Of deep responsive chant; +But see how yonder goes, + Dew-drunk, with giddy slant, +Yon Shelley-lark, + And hark! +Him on the giddy brink + Of pearly heaven +His fairy anvil clink. + +Or watch, in fancy, + How the brimming note +Falls, like a string of pearls, + From out his heavenly throat; +Or like a fountain + In Hesperides, +Raining its silver rain, + In gleam and chime, +On backs of ivory girls-- + Twice happy rhyme! + +Ah, none of these + May make it plain, +No image we may seek + Shall match the magic of his gurgling beak. + +And many a silly thing + That hops and cheeps, +And perks his tiny tail, + And sideway peeps, +And flitters little wing, + Seems in his consequential way +To tell of Spring. + +The river warbles soft and runs + With fuller curve and sleeker line, +Though on the winter-blackened hedge + Twigs of unbudding iron shine, +And trampled still the river sedge. + +And O the Sun! + I have no friend so generous as this Sun +That comes to meet me with his big warm hands. + And O the Sky! +There is no maid, how true, + Is half so chaste +As the pure kiss of greening willow wands + Against the intense pale blue +Of this sweet boundless overarching waste. + +And see!--dear Heaven, but it is the Spring!-- + See yonder, yonder, by the river there, +Long glittering pearly fingers flash + Upon the warm bright air: +Why, 'tis the heavenly palm, + The Christian tree, +Whose budding is a psalm + Of natural piety: +Soft silver notches up the smooth green stem-- + Ah, Spring must follow them, +It is the Spring! + +O Spirit of Spring, + Whose strange instinctive art +Makes the bird sing, + And brings the bud again; +O in my heart + Take up thy heavenly reign, +And from its deeps + Draw out the hidden flower, +And where it sleeps, + Throughout the winter long, +O sweet mysterious power + Awake the slothful song! + +_February_ 7, 1893. + + + + +TREE-WORSHIP + +(TO JOHN LANE) + +Vast and mysterious brother, ere was yet of me + So much as men may poise upon a needle's end, +Still shook with laughter all this monstrous might of thee, + And still with haughty crest it called the morning friend. + +Thy latticed column jetted up the bright blue air, + Tall as a mast it was, and stronger than a tower; +Three hundred winters had beheld thee mighty there, + Before my little life had lived one little hour. + +With rocky foot stern-set like iron in the land, + With leafy rustling crest the morning sows with pearls, +Huge as a minster, half in heaven men saw thee stand, + Thy rugged girth the waists of fifty Eastern girls. + +Knotted and warted, slabbed and armoured like the hide + Of tropic elephant; unstormable and steep +As some grim fortress with a princess-pearl inside, + Where savage guardian faces beard the bastioned keep: + +So hard a rind, old tree, shielding so soft a heart-- + A woman's heart of tender little nestling leaves; +Nor rind so hard but that a touch so soft can part, + And Spring's first baby-bud an easy passage cleaves. + +I picture thee within with dainty satin sides, + Where all the long day through the sleeping dryad dreams, +But when the moon bends low and taps thee thrice she glides, + Knowing the fairy knock, to bask within her beams. + +And all the long night through, for him with eyes and ears, + She sways within thine arms and sings a fairy tune, +Till, startled with the dawn, she softly disappears, + And sleeps and dreams again until the rising moon. + +But with the peep of day great bands of heavenly birds + Fill all thy branchy chambers with a thousand flutes, +And with the torrid noon stroll up the weary herds, + To seek thy friendly shade and doze about thy roots-- + +Till with the setting sun they turn them once more home; + And, ere the moon dawns, for a brief enchanted space, +Weary with million miles, the sore-spent star-beams come, + And moths and bats hold witches' sabbath in the place. + +And then I picture thee some bloodstained Holyrood, + Dread haunted palace of the bat and owl, whence steal, +Shrouded all day, lost murdered spirits of the wood, + And fright young happy nests with homeless hoot and squeal. + +Then, maybe, dangling from thy gloomy gallows boughs, + A human corpse swings, mournful, rattling bones and chains-- +His eighteenth century flesh hath fattened nineteenth century cows-- + Ghastly Aeolian harp fingered of winds and rains. + +Poor Rizpah comes to reap each newly-fallen bone + That once thrilled soft, a little limb, within her womb; +And mark yon alchemist, with zodiac-spangled zone, + Wrenching the mandrake root that fattens in the gloom. + +So rounds thy day, from maiden morn to haunted night, + From larks and sunlit dreams to owl and gibbering ghost; +A catacomb of dark, a maze of living light, + To the wide sea of air a green and welcome coast. + +I seek a god, old tree: accept my worship, thou! + All other gods have failed me always in my need; +I hang my votive song beneath thy temple bough, + Unto thy strength I cry--Old monster, be my creed! + +Give me to clasp this earth with feeding roots like thine, + To mount yon heaven with such star-aspiring head, +Fill full with sap and buds this shrunken life of mine, + And from my boughs oh! might such stalwart sons be shed. + +With loving cheek pressed close against thy horny breast, + I hear the roar of sap mounting within thy veins; +Tingling with buds, thy great hands open towards the west, + To catch the sweetheart winds that bring the sister rains. + +O winds that blow from out the fruitful mouth of God, + O rains that softly fall from His all-loving eyes, +You that bring buds to trees and daisies to the sod-- + O God's best Angel of the Spring, in me arise. + + + + +A BALLAD OF LONDON + +(TO H. W. MASSINSHAM) + +Ah, London! London! our delight, +Great flower that opens but at night, +Great City of the Midnight Sun, +Whose day begins when day is done. + +Lamp after lamp against the sky +Opens a sudden beaming eye, +Leaping alight on either hand, +The iron lilies of the Strand. + +Like dragonflies, the hansoms hover, +With jewelled eyes, to catch the lover; +The streets are full of lights and loves, +Soft gowns, and flutter of soiled doves. + +The human moths about the light +Dash and cling close in dazed delight, +And burn and laugh, the world and wife, +For this is London, this is life! + +Upon thy petals butterflies, +But at thy root, some say, there lies +A world of weeping trodden things, +Poor worms that have not eyes or wings. + +From out corruption of their woe +Springs this bright flower that charms us so, +Men die and rot deep out of sight +To keep this jungle-flower bright. + +Paris and London, World-Flowers twain +Wherewith the World-Tree blooms again, +Since Time hath gathered Babylon, +And withered Rome still withers on. + +Sidon and Tyre were such as ye, +How bright they shone upon the Tree! +But Time hath gathered, both are gone, +And no man sails to Babylon. + +Ah, London! London! our delight, +For thee, too, the eternal night, +And Circe Paris hath no charm +To stay Time's unrelenting arm. + +Time and his moths shall eat up all. +Your chiming towers proud and tall +He shall most utterly abase, +And set a desert in their place. + + + + +PARIS DAY BY DAY: A FAMILIAR EPISTLE + +(TO MRS. HENRY HARLAND[1]) + +Paris, half Angel, half Grisette, +I would that I were with thee yet, +Where the long boulevard at even +Stretches its starry lamps to heaven, +And whispers from a thousand trees +Vague hints of the Hesperides. + +Once more, once more, my heart, to sit +With Aline's smile and Harry's wit, +To sit and sip the cloudy green, +With dreamy hints of speech between; + +Or, may be, flashing all intent +At call of some stern argument, +When the New Woman fain would be, +Like the Old Male, her husband, free. +The prose-man takes his mighty lyre +And talks like music set on fire! + +The while the merry crowd slips by +Glittering and glancing to the eye, +All happy lovers on their way +To make a golden end of day-- +Ah! Caf truly called _La Paix_! + +Or at the _pension_ I would be +With Transatlantic maidens three, +The same, I vow, who once of old +Guarded with song the trees of gold. + +O Lady, lady, _Vis--Vis_, +When shall I cease to think of thee, +On whose fair head the Golden Fleece +Too soon, too soon, returns to Greece-- +Oh, why to Athens e'er depart? +Come back, come back, and bring my heart! + +And she whose gentle silver grace, +So wise of speech and kind of face, +Whose every wise and witty word +Fell shy, half blushing to be heard. + +Last, but ah! surely not least dear, +That blithe and buxom buccaneer, +Th' avenging goddess of her sex, +Born the base soul of man to vex, +And wring from him those tears and sighs +Tortured from woman's heart and eyes. +Ah! fury, fascinating, fair-- +When shall I cease to think of _her_! + +Paris, half Angel, half Grisette, +I would that I were with thee yet, +But London waits me, like a wife,-- +London, the love of my whole life. + +Tell her not, Paris, mercy me! +How I have flirted, dear, with thee. + +[1] By kind permission of the Editor of _The Yellow Book_. + + + + +ALFRED TENNYSON + +(WESTMINSTER, OCTOBER 12, 1892) + +Great man of song, whose glorious laurelled head + Within the lap of death sleeps well at last, +Down the dark road, seeking the deathless dead, + Thy faithful, fearless, shining soul hath passed. + +Fame blows his silver trumpet o'er thy sleep, + And Love stands broken by thy lonely lyre; +So pure the fire God gave this clay to keep, + The clay must still seem holy for the fire. + +Poor dupes of sense, we deem the close-shut eye, + So faithful servant of his golden tongue, +Still holds the hoarded lights of earth and sky, + We deem the mouth still full of sleeping song. + +We mourn as though the great good song he gave + Passed with the singer's own informing breath: +Ah, golden book, for thee there is no grave, + Thine is a rhyme that shall not taste of death. + +Great wife of his great heart--'tis yours to mourn, + Son well-beloved, 'tis yours, who loved him so: +But we!--hath death one perfect page out-torn + From the great song whereby alone we know + +The splendid spirit imperiously shy,-- + Husband to you and father--we afar +Hail poet of God, and name as one should cry: + 'Yonder a king, and yonder lo! a star!' + +So great his song we deem a little while + That Song itself with his great voice hath fled, +So grand the toga-sweep of his great style, + So vast the theme on which his song was fed. + +One sings a flower, and one a face, and one + Screens from the world a corner choice and small, +Each toy its little laureate hath, but none + Sings of the whole: yea, only he sang all. + +Poor little bards, so shameless in your care + To snatch the mighty laurel from his head, +Have you no fear, dwarfs in the giant's chair, + How men shall laugh, remembering the dead? + +Great is advertisement! 'tis almost fate, + But, little mushroom-men, of puff-ball fame, +Ah, do you dream to be mistaken great + And to be really great are just the same? + +Ah, fools! he was a laureate ere one leaf + Of the great crown had whispered on his brows; +Fame shrilled his song, Love carolled it, and Grief + Blessed it with tears within her lonely house. + +Fame loved him well, because he loved not Fame, + But Peace and Love, all other things before, +A man was he ere yet he was a name, + His song was much because his love was more. + + + + +PROFESSOR MINTO + +Nature, that makes Professors all day long, +And, filling idle souls with idle song, +Turns out small Poets every other minute, +Made earth for men--but seldom puts men in it. + +Ah, Minto, thou of that minority +Wert man of men--we had deep need of thee! +Had Heaven a deeper? Did the heavenly Chair +Of Earthly Love wait empty for thee there? + +_March_ 1, 1893. + + + + +ON MR. GLADSTONE'S RETIREMENT + +The world grows Lilliput, the great men go; + If greatness be, it wears no outer sign; + No more the signet of the mighty line +Stamps the great brow for all the world to know. +Shrunken the mould of manhood is, and lo! + Fragments and fractions of the old divine, + Men pert of brain, planned on a mean design, +Dapper and undistinguished--such we grow. + +No more the leonine heroic head, + The ruling arm, great heart, and kingly eye; +No more th' alchemic tongue that turned poor themes + Of statecraft into golden-glowing dreams; + No more a man for man to deify: +Laurel no more--the heroic age is dead. + + + + +OMAR KHAYYM + +(TO THE OMAR KHAYYM CLUB) + +Great Omar, here to-night we drain a bowl +Unto thy long-since transmigrated soul, + Ours all unworthy in thy place to sit, +Ours still to read in life's enchanted scroll. + +For us like thee a little hour to stay, +For us like thee a little hour of play, + A little hour for wine and love and song, +And we too turn the glass and take our way. + +So many years your tomb the roses strew, +Yet not one penny wiser we than you, +The doubts that wearied you are with us still, +And, Heaven be thanked! your wine is with us too. + +For, have the years a better message brought +To match the simple wisdom that you taught: + Love, wine and verse, and just a little bread-- +For these to live and count the rest as nought? + +Therefore, Great Omar, here our homage deep +We drain to thee, though all too fast asleep + In Death's intoxication art thou sunk +To know the solemn revels that we keep. + +Oh, had we, best-loved Poet, but the power +From our own lives to pluck one golden hour, +And give it unto thee in thy great need, +How would we welcome thee to this bright bower! + +O life that is so warm, 'twas Omar's too; +O wine that is so red, he drank of you: + Yet life and wine must all be put away, +And we go sleep with Omar--yea, 'tis true. + +And when in some great city yet to be +The sacred wine is spilt for you and me, + To those great fames that we have yet to build, +We'll know as little of it all as he. + + + + +THE SECOND CRUCIFIXION + +Loud mockers in the roaring street + Say Christ is crucified again: +Twice pierced His gospel-bringing feet, + Twice broken His great heart in vain. + +I hear, and to myself I smile, +For Christ talks with me all the while. + +No angel now to roll the stone + From off His unawaking sleep, +In vain shall Mary watch alone, + In vain the soldiers vigil keep. + +Yet while they deem my Lord is dead +My eyes are on His shining head. + +Ah! never more shall Mary hear + That voice exceeding sweet and low +Within the garden calling clear: + Her Lord is gone, and she must go. + +Yet all the while my Lord I meet +In every London lane and street. + +Poor Lazarus shall wait in vain, + And Bartimaeus still go blind; +The healing hem shall ne'er again + Be touched by suffering humankind. + +Yet all the while I see them rest, +The poor and outcast, in His breast. + +No more unto the stubborn heart + With gentle knocking shall He plead, +No more the mystic pity start, + For Christ twice dead is dead indeed. + +So in the street I hear men say, +Yet Christ is with me all the day. + + + + +AN IMPRESSION + +The floating call of the cuckoo, +Soft little globes of bosom-shaped sound, +Came and went at the window; +And, out in the great green world, +Those maidens each morn the flowers +Opened their white little bodices wide to the sun: +And the man sighed--sighed--in his sleep, +And the woman smiled. + +Then a lark staggered singing by +Up his shining ladder of dew, +And the airs of dawn walked softly about the room, +Filling the morning sky with the scent of the woman's hair, +And giving, in sweet exchange, its hawthorn and daisy breath: +And the man awoke with a sob-- +But the woman dreamed. + + + + +NATURAL RELIGION + +Up through the mystic deeps of sunny air +I cried to God--'O Father, art Thou there?' +Sudden the answer, like a flute, I heard: +It was an angel, though it seemed a bird. + + + + +FAITH REBORN + +'The old gods pass,' the cry goes round; +'Lo! how their temples strew the ground'; +Nor mark we where, on new-fledged wings, +Faith, like the phoenix, soars and sings. + + + + +HESPERIDES + +Men say--beyond the western seas + The happy isles no longer glow, +No sailor sights Hesperides, + All that was long ago. + +No longer in a glittering morn + Their misty meadows flicker nigh, +No singing with the spray is borne, + All that is long gone by. + +To-day upon the golden beach + No gold-haired guardian maidens stand, +No apples ripen out of reach, + And none are mad to land. + +The merchant-men, 'tis they say so, + That trade across the western seas, +In hurried transit to and fro, + About Hesperides. + +But, Reader, not as these thou art, + So, loose thy shallop from its hold, +And, trusting to the ancient chart, + Thou 'It make them as of old. + + + + +JENNY DEAD + +Like a flower in the frost + Sweet Jenny lies, +With her frail hands calmly crossed, + And close-shut eyes. + +Bring a candle, for the room + Is dark and cold, +Antechamber of the tomb-- + O grief untold! + +Like a snowdrift is her bed, + Dinted the snow, +Faint frozen lines from foot to head,-- + She lies below. + +Turn from off her shrouded face + The frigid sheet.... +Death hath doubled all her grace-- + O Jenny, sweet! + + + + +MY BOOKS + +What are my books?--My friends, my loves, + My church, my tavern, and my only wealth; +My garden: yea, my flowers, my bees, my doves; + My only doctors--and my only health. + + + + +MAMMON + +(FOR MR, G. F. WATTS'S PICTURE) + +Mammon is this, of murder and of gold, +To-day, to-morrow, and ever from of old, +Th' Almighty God, and King of every land. +Man 'neath his foot, and woman 'neath his hand, +Kneel prostrate: he, 'tis meant to symbolise, +Steals our strong men and our sweet women buys. + +O! rather grind me down into the dust +Than choose me for the vessel of thy lust. + + + + +ART + +Art is a gipsy, + Fickle as fair, +Good to kiss and flirt with, + But marry--if you dare! + + + + +TO A POET + +(TO EDMUND GOSSE) + +Still towards the steep Parnassian way +The moon-led pilgrims wend, +Ah, who of all that start to-day +Shall ever reach the end? + +Year after year a dream-fed band +That scorn the vales below, +And scorn the fatness of the land +To win those heights of snow,-- + +Leave barns and kine and flocks behind, +And count their fortune fair, +If they a dozen leaves may bind +Of laurel in their hair. + +Like us, dear Poet, once you trod +That sweet moon-smitten way, +With mouth of silver sought the god +All night and all the day; + +Sought singing, till in rosy fire +The white Apollo came, +And touched your brow, and wreathed your lyre, +And named you by his name; + +And led you, loving, by the hand +To those grave laurelled bowers, +Where keep your high immortal band +Your high immortal hours. + +Strait was the way, thorn-set and long-- +Ah, tell us, shining there, +Is fame as wonderful as song? +And laurels in your hair! + + + + +A NEW YEAR LETTER + +_To Two Friends married in the New Year_ + +(TO. MR. AND MRS. WELCH) + +Another year to its last day, +Like a lost sovereign, runaway, +Tips down the gloomy grid of time: +In vain to holloa, 'Stop it! hey!'-- +A cab-horse that has taken fright, +Be you a policeman, stop you may; +But not a sovereign mad with glee +That scampers to the grid, perdie, +And not a year that's taken flight; +To both 'tis just a grim good night. + +But no! the imagery, say you, +Is wondrous witty--but not true; +For the old year that last night went +Has not been so much lost as spent: +You gave it in exchange to Death +For just twelve months of happy breath. + +It was a ticket to admit +Two happy people close to sit-- +A 'Season' ticket, one might say, +At Time's eternal passion play. + +O magic overture of Spring, +O Summer like an Eastern King, +O Autumn, splendid widowed Queen, +O Winter, alabaster tomb +Where lie the regal twain serene, +Gone to their yearly doom. + +But all you bought with that spent year,-- +Ah, friends! it was as nothing, was it? +Nothing at all to hold compare +With what you buy with this New Year. +A home! ah me, you could not buy +Another half so precious toy, +With all the other years to come +As that grown-up doll's house--a home. + +O wine upon its threshold stone, +And horse-shoes on the lintel of it, +And happy hearts to keep it warm, +And God Himself to love it! +Dear little nest built snug on bough +Within the World-Tree's mighty arms, +I would I knew a spell that charms +Eternal safety from the storm; + +To give you always stars above, +And always roses on the bough-- +But then the Tree's own root is Love, +Love, love, all love, I vow. + +_New Year_ 1893. + + + + +SNATCH + +From tavern to tavern + Youth passes along, +With an armful of girl + And a heart full of song. + +From flower to flower + The butterfly sips, +O passionate limbs + And importunate lips! + +From candle to candle + The moth loves to fly, +O sweet, sweet to burn! + And still sweeter to die! + + + + +MY MAIDEN VOTE + +(TO JOHN FRASER) + +There, in my mind's-eye, pure it lay, +My lodger's vote! 'Twas mine to-day. +It seemed a sort of maidenhood, +My little power for public good,-- +Oh keep it uncorrupted, pray! +And, when it must be given away, +See it be given with a sense +Of most uncanvassed innocence. +Alas!--but few there be that know't-- +How grave a thing it is to vote! +For most men's votes are given, I hear, +Either for rhetoric or--beer. + +A young man's vote--O fair estate! +Of the great tree electorate +A living leaf, of this great sea +A motive wave of empire I, +On this stupendous wheel--a fly. +O maiden vote, how pure must be +The party that is worthy thee! +And thereupon my mind began +That perfect government to plan, +The high millennium of man. + +Then in my dream I saw arise +An England, ah! so fair and wise, +An England generously great, +No selfish island, but a state +Upon the world's bright forehead worn, +A mighty star of mighty morn. + +And statesmen in that dream became +No tricksters of the petty aim, +Mere speculators in the rise +Of programmes and of party cries, +Expert in all those turns and tricks +That make this senate-house of ours, +Westminster, with its lordly towers, +The stock-exchange of politics. +But that ideal Parliament +Did all it said, said all it meant, +And every Minister of State +Was guileless--as a candidate. + +Statesmen no more the tinker's way +Mended and patched from day to day, +Content with piecing part with part, +But took the mighty problem whole, +Beginning with the human heart: +For noble rulers make in vain +Unselfish laws for selfish men, +And give the whole wide world its vote, +But who is going to give it soul? + +And then I dreamed had come to reign +True peace within our land again; +Not peace that rots the soul with ease, +Or those ignoble 'rivalries +Of peace' more murderous than war, +But just the simple peasant peace +The weary world is waiting for. +With simple food and simple wear +Go lots of love and little care, +And joy is saved from over-sweet +By struggle not too hard to bear. + +So dreamed I on from dream to dream, +Till, slow returning to my theme, +Upon my vote I looked again-- +To whom was I to give it then? +That uncorrupted maidenhood, +My little power for public good. +What party was there that I knew +That I might dare intrust it to, +A perfect party fair and square-- +My House of Commons in the air? + +Though called by many different names, +Each one professed the noblest aims; +Should all be right, 'twas logical +That I should give my vote to all! + +And then, of parties old and new +Which one, if only one, were true? + +The divination passed my skill,-- +My maiden vote is maiden still. + + + + +THE ANIMALCULE ON MAN + +An animalcule in my blood + Rose up against me as I dreamed, +He was so tiny as he stood, + You had not heard him, though he screamed. + +He cried 'There is no Man!' + And thumped the table with his fist, +Then died--his day was scarce a span,-- + That microscopic atheist. + +Yet all the while his little soul + Within what he denied did live,-- +Poor part, how could he know the whole? + And yet he was so positive! + +And all the while he thus blasphemed + My (solar) system went its round, +My heart beat on, my head still dreamed,-- + But my poor atheist was drowned. + + + + +COME, MY CELIA + +Come, my Celia, let us prove, +While we may, how wise is love-- +Love grown old and grey with years, +Love whose blood is thinned with tears. + +Philosophic lover I, +Broke my heart, its love run dry, +And I warble passion's words +But to hear them sing like birds. + +When the lightning struck my side, +Love shrieked and for ever died, +Leaving nought of him behind +But these playthings of the mind. + +Now the real play is over +I can only _act_ a lover, +Now the mimic play begins +With its puppet joys and sins. + +When the heart no longer feels, +And the blood with caution steals, +Then, ah! then--my heart, forgive!-- +Then we dare begin to live. + +Dipped in Stygian waves of pain, +We can never feel again; +Time may hurl his deadliest darts, +Love may practise all his arts; + +Like some Balder, lo! we stand +Safe 'mid hurtling spear and brand, +Only Death--ah! sweet Death, throw!-- +Holds the fatal mistletoe. + +Let the young unconquered soul +Love the unit as the whole, +Let the young uncheated eye +Love the face fore-doomed to die: + +But, my Celia, not for us +Pleasures half so hazardous; +Let us set our hearts on play, +'Tis, alas! the only way-- + +Make of life the jest it is, +Laugh and fool and (maybe!) kiss, +Never for a moment, dear, +Love so well to risk a fear. + +Is not this, my Celia, say, +The only wise--and weary--way? + + + + +TIME'S MONOTONE + + Autumn and Winter, + Summer and Spring-- +Hath Time no other song to sing? +Weary we grow of the changeless tune-- + June--December, + December--June! + +Time, like a bird, hath but one song, + One way to build, like a bird hath he; +Thus hath he built so long, so long, + Thus hath he sung--Ah me! + +Time, like a spider, knows, be sure, + One only wile, though he seems so wise: +Death is his web, and Love his lure, + And you and I his flies. + + + 'Love!' he sings + In the morning clear, + 'Love! Love! Love!' + And you never hear + How, under his breath, + He whispers, 'Death! + Death! Death!' + +Yet Time--'tis the strangest thing of all-- + Knoweth not the sense of the words he saith; +Eternity taught him his parrot-call + Of 'Love and Death.' + +Year after year doth the old man climb + The mountainous knees of Eternity, +But Eternity telleth nothing to Time-- + It may not be. + + + + +COR CORDIUM + + +O GOLDEN DAY! O SILVER NIGHT! + +O golden day! O silver night! + That brought my own true love at last, +Ah, wilt thou drop from out our sight, + And drown within the past? + +One wave, no more, in life's wide sea, + One little nameless crest of foam, +The day that gave her all to me + And brought us to our home. + +Nay, rather as the morning grows + In flush, and gleam, and kingly ray, +While up the heaven the sun-god goes, + So shall ascend our day. + +And when at last the long night nears, + And love grows angel in the gloam, +Nay, sweetheart, what of fears and tears?-- + The stars shall see us home. + + + + +LOVE'S EXCHANGE + +Simple am I, I care no whit + For pelf or place, +It is enough for me to sit + And watch Dulcinea's face; +To mark the lights and shadows flit + Across the silver moon of it. + +I have no other merchandise, + No stocks or shares, +No other gold but just what lies + In those deep eyes of hers; +And, sure, if all the world were wise, +It too would bank within her eyes. + +I buy up all her smiles all day + With all my love, +And sell them back, cost-price, or, say, + A kiss or two above; +It is a speculation fine, +The profit must be always mine. + +The world has many things, 'tis true, + To fill its time, +Far more important things to do + Than making love and rhyme; +Yet, if it asked me to advise, +I'd say--buy up Dulcinea's eyes! + + + + +TO A SIMPLE HOUSEWIFE + +Who dough shall knead as for God's sake + Shall fill it with celestial leaven, +And every loaf that she shall bake + Be eaten of the Blest in heaven. + + + + +LOVE'S WISDOM + +Sometimes my idle heart would roam + Far from its quiet happy nest, +To seek some other newer home, + Some unaccustomed Best: +But ere it spreads its foolish wings, +'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings. + +Sometimes my idle heart would sail + From out its quiet sheltered bay, +To tempt a less pacific gale, + And oceans far away: +But ere it shakes its foolish wings, +'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings. + +Sometimes my idle heart would fly, + Mothlike, to reach some shining sin, +It seems so sweet to burn and die + That wondrous light within: +But ere it burns its foolish wings, +'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings. + + + + +HOME ... + +'We're going home!' I heard two lovers say, + They kissed their friends and bade them bright good-byes; + I hid the deadly hunger in my eyes, +And, lest I might have killed them, turned away. +Ah, love! we too once gambolled home as they, + Home from the town with such fair merchandise,-- + Wine and great grapes--the happy lover buys: +A little cosy feast to crown the day. + +Yes! we had once a heaven we called a home + Its empty rooms still haunt me like thine eyes, +When the last sunset softly faded there; +Each day I tread each empty haunted room, + And now and then a little baby cries, + Or laughs a lovely laughter worse to bear. + + + + +LOVE'S LANDMARKS + +The woods we used to walk, my love, + Are woods no more, +But' villas' now with sounding names-- + All name and door. + +The pond, where, early on in March, + The yellow cup +Of water-lilies made us glad, + Is now filled up. + +But ah! what if they fill or fell + Each pond, each tree, +What matters it to-day, my love, + To me--to thee? + +The jerry-builder may consume, + A greedy moth, +God's mantle of the living green, + I feel no wrath; + +Eat up the beauty of the world, + And gorge his fill +On mead and winding country lane, + And grassy hill. + +I only laugh, for now of these + I have no care, +Now that to me the fair is foul, + And foul as fair. + + + + +IF, AFTER ALL ...! + +This life I squander, hating the long days +That will not bring me either Rest or Thee, +This health I hack and ravage as with knives, +These nerves I fain would shatter, and this heart +I fain would break--this heart that, traitor-like, +Beats on with foolish and elastic beat: +If, after all, this life I waste and kill +Should still be thine, may still be lived for thee! +And this the dreadful trial of my love, +This silence and this blank that makes me mad, +That I be man to-day of all the days +My one poor hope of meeting thee again-- +If Death be Love, and God's great purpose kind! + +Oh, love, if some day on the heavenly stair +A wild ecstatic moment we should stand, +And I, all hungry for your eyes and hair, +Should meet instead your great accusing gaze, +And hear, instead of welcome into heaven: +'Ah! hadst thou but been true! but manfully +Borne the high pangs that all high souls must bear, +Nor fled to low nepenthes for your pain! +Hadst said--"Is she not here? more reason then +To live as though still guarded by her eyes, +Cleaner my thought, and purer be my deed; +True will I be, though God Himself be false!"' + +Oh, hadst thou thus been man, to-day had we +Walked on together undivided now-- +But now a thousand flaming years must pass, +And all the trial be gone o'er again. + + + + +SPIRIT OF SADNESS + +She loved the Autumn, I the Spring, +Sad all the songs she loved to sing; +And in her face was strangely set +Some great inherited regret. + +Some look in all things made her sigh, +Yea! sad to her the morning sky: +'So sad! so sad its beauty seems'-- +I hear her say it still in dreams. + +But when the day grew grey and old, +And rising stars shone strange and cold, +Then only in her face I saw +A mystic glee, a joyous awe. + +Spirit of Sadness, in the spheres +Is there an end of mortal tears? +Or is there still in those great eyes +That look of lonely hills and skies? + + + + +AN INSCRIPTION + +Precious the box that Mary brake +Of spikenard for her Master's sake, +But ah! it held nought half so dear +As the sweet dust that whitens here. +The greater wonder who shall say: +To make so white a soul of clay, +From clay to win a face so fair, +Those strange great eyes, that sunlit hair +A-ripple o'er her witty brain,-- +Or turn all back to dust again. + +Who knows--but, in some happy hour, +The God whose strange alchemic power +Wrought her of dust, again may turn +To woman this immortal urn. + + + + +SONG + +She's somewhere in the sunlight strong, + Her tears are in the falling rain, +She calls me in the wind's soft song, + And with the flowers she comes again. + +Yon bird is but her messenger, + The moon is but her silver car; +Yea! sun and moon are sent by her, + And every wistful waiting star. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And +Other Poems, by Richard Le Gallienne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON AND ELEGY *** + +***** This file should be named 10910-8.txt or 10910-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/1/10910/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Carol David and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10910-8.zip b/old/10910-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..889b969 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10910-8.zip diff --git a/old/10910.txt b/old/10910.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8496d04 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10910.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1891 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other +Poems, by Richard Le Gallienne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems + +Author: Richard Le Gallienne + +Release Date: February 2, 2004 [EBook #10910] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON AND ELEGY *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Carol David and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + +ROBERT + +LOUIS + +STEVENSON + + +AN ELEGY + + +AND OTHER POEMS MAINLY PERSONAL + +BY +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + + +MDCCCXCV + + +TO +MY DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER +THESE POEMS ARE LOVINGLY +DEDICATED + + + +CONTENTS + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: AN ELEGY +AN ODE TO SPRING +TREE-WORSHIP +A BALLAD OF LONDON +PARIS DAY BY DAY: A FAMILIAR EPISTLE +ALFRED TENNYSON +PROFESSOR MINTO +ON MR. GLADSTONE'S RETIREMENT +OMAR KHAYYAM +THE SECOND CRUCIFIXION +AN IMPRESSION +NATURAL RELIGION +FAITH REBORN +HESPERIDES +JENNY DEAD +MY BOOKS +MAMMON +ART +TO A POET +A NEW YEAR LETTER +SNATCH +MY MAIDEN VOTE +THE ANIMALCULE ON MAN +COME, MY CELIA +TIME'S MONOTONE + + + COR CORDIUM + +O GOLDEN DAY! O SILVER NIGHT! +LOVE'S EXCHANGE +TO A SIMPLE HOUSEWIFE +LOVE'S WISDOM +HOME +LOVE'S LANDMARKS +IF, AFTER ALL...! +SPIRIT OF SADNESS +AN INSCRIPTION +SONG + + + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +AN ELEGY + +High on his Patmos of the Southern Seas +Our northern dreamer sleeps, +Strange stars above him, and above his grave +Strange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave, +While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile, +The great Pacific, with its faery deeps, +Smiles all day long its silken secret smile. + +Son of a race nomadic, finding still +Its home in regions furthest from its home, +Ranging untired the borders of the world, +And resting but to roam; +Loved of his land, and making all his boast +The birthright of the blood from which he came, +Heir to those lights that guard the Scottish coast, +And caring only for a filial fame; +Proud, if a poet, he was Scotsman most, +And bore a Scottish name. + +Death, that long sought our poet, finds at last, +Death, that pursued him over land and sea: +Not his the flight of fear, the heart aghast +With stony dread of immortality, +He fled 'not cowardly'; +Fled, as some captain, in whose shaping hand +Lie the momentous fortunes of his land, +Sheds not vainglorious blood upon the field, +Death! why at last he finds his treasure isle, +And he the pirate of its hidden hoard; +Life! 'twas the ship he sailed to seek it in, +And Death is but the pilot come aboard, +Methinks I see him smile a boy's glad smile +On maddened winds and waters, reefs unknown, +As thunders in the sail the dread typhoon, +And in the surf the shuddering timbers groan; +Horror ahead, and Death beside the wheel: +Then--spreading stillness of the broad lagoon, +And lap of waters round the resting keel. + +Strange Isle of Voices! must we ask in vain, +In vain beseech and win no answering word, +Save mocking echoes of our lonely pain +From lonely hill and bird? +Island beneath whose unrelenting coast, +As though it never in the sun had been, +The whole world's treasure lieth sunk and lost, +Unsunned, unseen. +For, either sunk beyond the diver's skill, +There, fathoms deep, our gold is all arust, +Or in that island it is hoarded still. +Yea, some have said, within thy dreadful wall +There is a folk that know not death at all, +The loved we lost, the lost we love, are there. +Will no kind voice make answer to our cry, +Give to our aching hearts some little trust, +Show how 'tis good to live, but best to die? +Some voice that knows +Whither the dead man goes: +We hear his music from the other side, +Maybe a little tapping on the door, +A something called, a something sighed-- +No more. +O for some voice to valiantly declare +The best news true! +Then, Happy Island of the Happy Dead, +How gladly would we spread +Impatient sail for you! + +O vanished loveliness of flowers and faces, +Treasure of hair, and great immortal eyes, +Are there for these no safe and secret places? +And is it true that beauty never dies? +Soldiers and saints, haughty and lovely names, +Women who set the whole wide world in flames, +Poets who sang their passion to the skies, +And lovers wild and wise: +Fought they and prayed for some poor flitting gleam, +Was all they loved and worshipped but a dream? +Is Love a lie and fame indeed a breath, +And is there no sure thing in life--but death? +Or may it be, within that guarded shore, +He meets Her now whom I shall meet no more +Till kind Death fold me 'neath his shadowy wing: +She whom within my heart I softly tell +That he is dead whom once we loved so well, +He, the immortal master whom I sing. + +Immortal! yea, dare we the word again, +If aught remaineth of our mortal day, +That which is written--shall it not remain? +That which is sung, is it not built for aye? +Faces must fade, for all their golden looks, +Unless some poet them eternalise, +Make live those golden looks in golden books; +Death, soon or late, will quench the brightest eyes-- +'Tis only what is written never dies. +Yea, memories that guard like sacred gold +Some sainted face, they also must grow old, +Pass and forget, and think--or darest thou not!-- +On all the beauty that is quite forgot. + +Strange craft of words, strange magic of the pen, +Whereby the dead still talk with living men; +Whereby a sentence, in its trivial scope, +May centre all we love and all we hope; +And in a couplet, like a rosebud furled, +Lie all the wistful wonder of the world. + +Old are the stars, and yet they still endure, +Old are the flowers, yet never fail the spring: +Why is the song that is so old so new, +Known and yet strange each sweet small shape and hue? +How may a poet thus for ever sing, +Thus build his climbing music sweet and sure, +As builds in stars and flowers the Eternal mind? +Ah, Poet, that is yours to seek and find! +Yea, yours that magisterial skill whereby +God put all Heaven in a woman's eye, +Nature's own mighty and mysterious art +That knows to pack the whole within the part: +The shell that hums the music of the sea, +The little word big with Eternity, +The cosmic rhythm in microcosmic things-- +One song the lark and one the planet sings, +One kind heart beating warm in bird and tree-- +To hear it beat, who knew so well as he? + +Virgil of prose! far distant is the day +When at the mention of your heartfelt name +Shall shake the head, and men, oblivious, say: +'We know him not, this master, nor his fame.' +Not for so swift forgetfulness you wrought, +Day upon day, with rapt fastidious pen, +Turning, like precious stones, with anxious thought, +This word and that again and yet again, +Seeking to match its meaning with the world; +Nor to the morning stars gave ears attent, +That you, indeed, might ever dare to be +With other praise than immortality +Unworthily content. + +Not while a boy still whistles on the earth, +Not while a single human heart beats true, +Not while Love lasts, and Honour, and the Brave, +Has earth a grave, +O well-beloved, for you! + + + + +AN ODE TO SPRING + +(TO GRANT AND NELLIE ALLEN) + +Is it the Spring? + Or are the birds all wrong +That play on flute and viol, + A thousand strong, +In minstrel galleries + Of the long deep wood, +Epiphanies + Of bloom and bud. + +Grave minstrels those, + Of deep responsive chant; +But see how yonder goes, + Dew-drunk, with giddy slant, +Yon Shelley-lark, + And hark! +Him on the giddy brink + Of pearly heaven +His fairy anvil clink. + +Or watch, in fancy, + How the brimming note +Falls, like a string of pearls, + From out his heavenly throat; +Or like a fountain + In Hesperides, +Raining its silver rain, + In gleam and chime, +On backs of ivory girls-- + Twice happy rhyme! + +Ah, none of these + May make it plain, +No image we may seek + Shall match the magic of his gurgling beak. + +And many a silly thing + That hops and cheeps, +And perks his tiny tail, + And sideway peeps, +And flitters little wing, + Seems in his consequential way +To tell of Spring. + +The river warbles soft and runs + With fuller curve and sleeker line, +Though on the winter-blackened hedge + Twigs of unbudding iron shine, +And trampled still the river sedge. + +And O the Sun! + I have no friend so generous as this Sun +That comes to meet me with his big warm hands. + And O the Sky! +There is no maid, how true, + Is half so chaste +As the pure kiss of greening willow wands + Against the intense pale blue +Of this sweet boundless overarching waste. + +And see!--dear Heaven, but it is the Spring!-- + See yonder, yonder, by the river there, +Long glittering pearly fingers flash + Upon the warm bright air: +Why, 'tis the heavenly palm, + The Christian tree, +Whose budding is a psalm + Of natural piety: +Soft silver notches up the smooth green stem-- + Ah, Spring must follow them, +It is the Spring! + +O Spirit of Spring, + Whose strange instinctive art +Makes the bird sing, + And brings the bud again; +O in my heart + Take up thy heavenly reign, +And from its deeps + Draw out the hidden flower, +And where it sleeps, + Throughout the winter long, +O sweet mysterious power + Awake the slothful song! + +_February_ 7, 1893. + + + + +TREE-WORSHIP + +(TO JOHN LANE) + +Vast and mysterious brother, ere was yet of me + So much as men may poise upon a needle's end, +Still shook with laughter all this monstrous might of thee, + And still with haughty crest it called the morning friend. + +Thy latticed column jetted up the bright blue air, + Tall as a mast it was, and stronger than a tower; +Three hundred winters had beheld thee mighty there, + Before my little life had lived one little hour. + +With rocky foot stern-set like iron in the land, + With leafy rustling crest the morning sows with pearls, +Huge as a minster, half in heaven men saw thee stand, + Thy rugged girth the waists of fifty Eastern girls. + +Knotted and warted, slabbed and armoured like the hide + Of tropic elephant; unstormable and steep +As some grim fortress with a princess-pearl inside, + Where savage guardian faces beard the bastioned keep: + +So hard a rind, old tree, shielding so soft a heart-- + A woman's heart of tender little nestling leaves; +Nor rind so hard but that a touch so soft can part, + And Spring's first baby-bud an easy passage cleaves. + +I picture thee within with dainty satin sides, + Where all the long day through the sleeping dryad dreams, +But when the moon bends low and taps thee thrice she glides, + Knowing the fairy knock, to bask within her beams. + +And all the long night through, for him with eyes and ears, + She sways within thine arms and sings a fairy tune, +Till, startled with the dawn, she softly disappears, + And sleeps and dreams again until the rising moon. + +But with the peep of day great bands of heavenly birds + Fill all thy branchy chambers with a thousand flutes, +And with the torrid noon stroll up the weary herds, + To seek thy friendly shade and doze about thy roots-- + +Till with the setting sun they turn them once more home; + And, ere the moon dawns, for a brief enchanted space, +Weary with million miles, the sore-spent star-beams come, + And moths and bats hold witches' sabbath in the place. + +And then I picture thee some bloodstained Holyrood, + Dread haunted palace of the bat and owl, whence steal, +Shrouded all day, lost murdered spirits of the wood, + And fright young happy nests with homeless hoot and squeal. + +Then, maybe, dangling from thy gloomy gallows boughs, + A human corpse swings, mournful, rattling bones and chains-- +His eighteenth century flesh hath fattened nineteenth century cows-- + Ghastly Aeolian harp fingered of winds and rains. + +Poor Rizpah comes to reap each newly-fallen bone + That once thrilled soft, a little limb, within her womb; +And mark yon alchemist, with zodiac-spangled zone, + Wrenching the mandrake root that fattens in the gloom. + +So rounds thy day, from maiden morn to haunted night, + From larks and sunlit dreams to owl and gibbering ghost; +A catacomb of dark, a maze of living light, + To the wide sea of air a green and welcome coast. + +I seek a god, old tree: accept my worship, thou! + All other gods have failed me always in my need; +I hang my votive song beneath thy temple bough, + Unto thy strength I cry--Old monster, be my creed! + +Give me to clasp this earth with feeding roots like thine, + To mount yon heaven with such star-aspiring head, +Fill full with sap and buds this shrunken life of mine, + And from my boughs oh! might such stalwart sons be shed. + +With loving cheek pressed close against thy horny breast, + I hear the roar of sap mounting within thy veins; +Tingling with buds, thy great hands open towards the west, + To catch the sweetheart winds that bring the sister rains. + +O winds that blow from out the fruitful mouth of God, + O rains that softly fall from His all-loving eyes, +You that bring buds to trees and daisies to the sod-- + O God's best Angel of the Spring, in me arise. + + + + +A BALLAD OF LONDON + +(TO H. W. MASSINSHAM) + +Ah, London! London! our delight, +Great flower that opens but at night, +Great City of the Midnight Sun, +Whose day begins when day is done. + +Lamp after lamp against the sky +Opens a sudden beaming eye, +Leaping alight on either hand, +The iron lilies of the Strand. + +Like dragonflies, the hansoms hover, +With jewelled eyes, to catch the lover; +The streets are full of lights and loves, +Soft gowns, and flutter of soiled doves. + +The human moths about the light +Dash and cling close in dazed delight, +And burn and laugh, the world and wife, +For this is London, this is life! + +Upon thy petals butterflies, +But at thy root, some say, there lies +A world of weeping trodden things, +Poor worms that have not eyes or wings. + +From out corruption of their woe +Springs this bright flower that charms us so, +Men die and rot deep out of sight +To keep this jungle-flower bright. + +Paris and London, World-Flowers twain +Wherewith the World-Tree blooms again, +Since Time hath gathered Babylon, +And withered Rome still withers on. + +Sidon and Tyre were such as ye, +How bright they shone upon the Tree! +But Time hath gathered, both are gone, +And no man sails to Babylon. + +Ah, London! London! our delight, +For thee, too, the eternal night, +And Circe Paris hath no charm +To stay Time's unrelenting arm. + +Time and his moths shall eat up all. +Your chiming towers proud and tall +He shall most utterly abase, +And set a desert in their place. + + + + +PARIS DAY BY DAY: A FAMILIAR EPISTLE + +(TO MRS. HENRY HARLAND[1]) + +Paris, half Angel, half Grisette, +I would that I were with thee yet, +Where the long boulevard at even +Stretches its starry lamps to heaven, +And whispers from a thousand trees +Vague hints of the Hesperides. + +Once more, once more, my heart, to sit +With Aline's smile and Harry's wit, +To sit and sip the cloudy green, +With dreamy hints of speech between; + +Or, may be, flashing all intent +At call of some stern argument, +When the New Woman fain would be, +Like the Old Male, her husband, free. +The prose-man takes his mighty lyre +And talks like music set on fire! + +The while the merry crowd slips by +Glittering and glancing to the eye, +All happy lovers on their way +To make a golden end of day-- +Ah! Cafe truly called _La Paix_! + +Or at the _pension_ I would be +With Transatlantic maidens three, +The same, I vow, who once of old +Guarded with song the trees of gold. + +O Lady, lady, _Vis-a-Vis_, +When shall I cease to think of thee, +On whose fair head the Golden Fleece +Too soon, too soon, returns to Greece-- +Oh, why to Athens e'er depart? +Come back, come back, and bring my heart! + +And she whose gentle silver grace, +So wise of speech and kind of face, +Whose every wise and witty word +Fell shy, half blushing to be heard. + +Last, but ah! surely not least dear, +That blithe and buxom buccaneer, +Th' avenging goddess of her sex, +Born the base soul of man to vex, +And wring from him those tears and sighs +Tortured from woman's heart and eyes. +Ah! fury, fascinating, fair-- +When shall I cease to think of _her_! + +Paris, half Angel, half Grisette, +I would that I were with thee yet, +But London waits me, like a wife,-- +London, the love of my whole life. + +Tell her not, Paris, mercy me! +How I have flirted, dear, with thee. + +[1] By kind permission of the Editor of _The Yellow Book_. + + + + +ALFRED TENNYSON + +(WESTMINSTER, OCTOBER 12, 1892) + +Great man of song, whose glorious laurelled head + Within the lap of death sleeps well at last, +Down the dark road, seeking the deathless dead, + Thy faithful, fearless, shining soul hath passed. + +Fame blows his silver trumpet o'er thy sleep, + And Love stands broken by thy lonely lyre; +So pure the fire God gave this clay to keep, + The clay must still seem holy for the fire. + +Poor dupes of sense, we deem the close-shut eye, + So faithful servant of his golden tongue, +Still holds the hoarded lights of earth and sky, + We deem the mouth still full of sleeping song. + +We mourn as though the great good song he gave + Passed with the singer's own informing breath: +Ah, golden book, for thee there is no grave, + Thine is a rhyme that shall not taste of death. + +Great wife of his great heart--'tis yours to mourn, + Son well-beloved, 'tis yours, who loved him so: +But we!--hath death one perfect page out-torn + From the great song whereby alone we know + +The splendid spirit imperiously shy,-- + Husband to you and father--we afar +Hail poet of God, and name as one should cry: + 'Yonder a king, and yonder lo! a star!' + +So great his song we deem a little while + That Song itself with his great voice hath fled, +So grand the toga-sweep of his great style, + So vast the theme on which his song was fed. + +One sings a flower, and one a face, and one + Screens from the world a corner choice and small, +Each toy its little laureate hath, but none + Sings of the whole: yea, only he sang all. + +Poor little bards, so shameless in your care + To snatch the mighty laurel from his head, +Have you no fear, dwarfs in the giant's chair, + How men shall laugh, remembering the dead? + +Great is advertisement! 'tis almost fate, + But, little mushroom-men, of puff-ball fame, +Ah, do you dream to be mistaken great + And to be really great are just the same? + +Ah, fools! he was a laureate ere one leaf + Of the great crown had whispered on his brows; +Fame shrilled his song, Love carolled it, and Grief + Blessed it with tears within her lonely house. + +Fame loved him well, because he loved not Fame, + But Peace and Love, all other things before, +A man was he ere yet he was a name, + His song was much because his love was more. + + + + +PROFESSOR MINTO + +Nature, that makes Professors all day long, +And, filling idle souls with idle song, +Turns out small Poets every other minute, +Made earth for men--but seldom puts men in it. + +Ah, Minto, thou of that minority +Wert man of men--we had deep need of thee! +Had Heaven a deeper? Did the heavenly Chair +Of Earthly Love wait empty for thee there? + +_March_ 1, 1893. + + + + +ON MR. GLADSTONE'S RETIREMENT + +The world grows Lilliput, the great men go; + If greatness be, it wears no outer sign; + No more the signet of the mighty line +Stamps the great brow for all the world to know. +Shrunken the mould of manhood is, and lo! + Fragments and fractions of the old divine, + Men pert of brain, planned on a mean design, +Dapper and undistinguished--such we grow. + +No more the leonine heroic head, + The ruling arm, great heart, and kingly eye; +No more th' alchemic tongue that turned poor themes + Of statecraft into golden-glowing dreams; + No more a man for man to deify: +Laurel no more--the heroic age is dead. + + + + +OMAR KHAYYAM + +(TO THE OMAR KHAYYAM CLUB) + +Great Omar, here to-night we drain a bowl +Unto thy long-since transmigrated soul, + Ours all unworthy in thy place to sit, +Ours still to read in life's enchanted scroll. + +For us like thee a little hour to stay, +For us like thee a little hour of play, + A little hour for wine and love and song, +And we too turn the glass and take our way. + +So many years your tomb the roses strew, +Yet not one penny wiser we than you, +The doubts that wearied you are with us still, +And, Heaven be thanked! your wine is with us too. + +For, have the years a better message brought +To match the simple wisdom that you taught: + Love, wine and verse, and just a little bread-- +For these to live and count the rest as nought? + +Therefore, Great Omar, here our homage deep +We drain to thee, though all too fast asleep + In Death's intoxication art thou sunk +To know the solemn revels that we keep. + +Oh, had we, best-loved Poet, but the power +From our own lives to pluck one golden hour, +And give it unto thee in thy great need, +How would we welcome thee to this bright bower! + +O life that is so warm, 'twas Omar's too; +O wine that is so red, he drank of you: + Yet life and wine must all be put away, +And we go sleep with Omar--yea, 'tis true. + +And when in some great city yet to be +The sacred wine is spilt for you and me, + To those great fames that we have yet to build, +We'll know as little of it all as he. + + + + +THE SECOND CRUCIFIXION + +Loud mockers in the roaring street + Say Christ is crucified again: +Twice pierced His gospel-bringing feet, + Twice broken His great heart in vain. + +I hear, and to myself I smile, +For Christ talks with me all the while. + +No angel now to roll the stone + From off His unawaking sleep, +In vain shall Mary watch alone, + In vain the soldiers vigil keep. + +Yet while they deem my Lord is dead +My eyes are on His shining head. + +Ah! never more shall Mary hear + That voice exceeding sweet and low +Within the garden calling clear: + Her Lord is gone, and she must go. + +Yet all the while my Lord I meet +In every London lane and street. + +Poor Lazarus shall wait in vain, + And Bartimaeus still go blind; +The healing hem shall ne'er again + Be touched by suffering humankind. + +Yet all the while I see them rest, +The poor and outcast, in His breast. + +No more unto the stubborn heart + With gentle knocking shall He plead, +No more the mystic pity start, + For Christ twice dead is dead indeed. + +So in the street I hear men say, +Yet Christ is with me all the day. + + + + +AN IMPRESSION + +The floating call of the cuckoo, +Soft little globes of bosom-shaped sound, +Came and went at the window; +And, out in the great green world, +Those maidens each morn the flowers +Opened their white little bodices wide to the sun: +And the man sighed--sighed--in his sleep, +And the woman smiled. + +Then a lark staggered singing by +Up his shining ladder of dew, +And the airs of dawn walked softly about the room, +Filling the morning sky with the scent of the woman's hair, +And giving, in sweet exchange, its hawthorn and daisy breath: +And the man awoke with a sob-- +But the woman dreamed. + + + + +NATURAL RELIGION + +Up through the mystic deeps of sunny air +I cried to God--'O Father, art Thou there?' +Sudden the answer, like a flute, I heard: +It was an angel, though it seemed a bird. + + + + +FAITH REBORN + +'The old gods pass,' the cry goes round; +'Lo! how their temples strew the ground'; +Nor mark we where, on new-fledged wings, +Faith, like the phoenix, soars and sings. + + + + +HESPERIDES + +Men say--beyond the western seas + The happy isles no longer glow, +No sailor sights Hesperides, + All that was long ago. + +No longer in a glittering morn + Their misty meadows flicker nigh, +No singing with the spray is borne, + All that is long gone by. + +To-day upon the golden beach + No gold-haired guardian maidens stand, +No apples ripen out of reach, + And none are mad to land. + +The merchant-men, 'tis they say so, + That trade across the western seas, +In hurried transit to and fro, + About Hesperides. + +But, Reader, not as these thou art, + So, loose thy shallop from its hold, +And, trusting to the ancient chart, + Thou 'It make them as of old. + + + + +JENNY DEAD + +Like a flower in the frost + Sweet Jenny lies, +With her frail hands calmly crossed, + And close-shut eyes. + +Bring a candle, for the room + Is dark and cold, +Antechamber of the tomb-- + O grief untold! + +Like a snowdrift is her bed, + Dinted the snow, +Faint frozen lines from foot to head,-- + She lies below. + +Turn from off her shrouded face + The frigid sheet.... +Death hath doubled all her grace-- + O Jenny, sweet! + + + + +MY BOOKS + +What are my books?--My friends, my loves, + My church, my tavern, and my only wealth; +My garden: yea, my flowers, my bees, my doves; + My only doctors--and my only health. + + + + +MAMMON + +(FOR MR, G. F. WATTS'S PICTURE) + +Mammon is this, of murder and of gold, +To-day, to-morrow, and ever from of old, +Th' Almighty God, and King of every land. +Man 'neath his foot, and woman 'neath his hand, +Kneel prostrate: he, 'tis meant to symbolise, +Steals our strong men and our sweet women buys. + +O! rather grind me down into the dust +Than choose me for the vessel of thy lust. + + + + +ART + +Art is a gipsy, + Fickle as fair, +Good to kiss and flirt with, + But marry--if you dare! + + + + +TO A POET + +(TO EDMUND GOSSE) + +Still towards the steep Parnassian way +The moon-led pilgrims wend, +Ah, who of all that start to-day +Shall ever reach the end? + +Year after year a dream-fed band +That scorn the vales below, +And scorn the fatness of the land +To win those heights of snow,-- + +Leave barns and kine and flocks behind, +And count their fortune fair, +If they a dozen leaves may bind +Of laurel in their hair. + +Like us, dear Poet, once you trod +That sweet moon-smitten way, +With mouth of silver sought the god +All night and all the day; + +Sought singing, till in rosy fire +The white Apollo came, +And touched your brow, and wreathed your lyre, +And named you by his name; + +And led you, loving, by the hand +To those grave laurelled bowers, +Where keep your high immortal band +Your high immortal hours. + +Strait was the way, thorn-set and long-- +Ah, tell us, shining there, +Is fame as wonderful as song? +And laurels in your hair! + + + + +A NEW YEAR LETTER + +_To Two Friends married in the New Year_ + +(TO. MR. AND MRS. WELCH) + +Another year to its last day, +Like a lost sovereign, runaway, +Tips down the gloomy grid of time: +In vain to holloa, 'Stop it! hey!'-- +A cab-horse that has taken fright, +Be you a policeman, stop you may; +But not a sovereign mad with glee +That scampers to the grid, perdie, +And not a year that's taken flight; +To both 'tis just a grim good night. + +But no! the imagery, say you, +Is wondrous witty--but not true; +For the old year that last night went +Has not been so much lost as spent: +You gave it in exchange to Death +For just twelve months of happy breath. + +It was a ticket to admit +Two happy people close to sit-- +A 'Season' ticket, one might say, +At Time's eternal passion play. + +O magic overture of Spring, +O Summer like an Eastern King, +O Autumn, splendid widowed Queen, +O Winter, alabaster tomb +Where lie the regal twain serene, +Gone to their yearly doom. + +But all you bought with that spent year,-- +Ah, friends! it was as nothing, was it? +Nothing at all to hold compare +With what you buy with this New Year. +A home! ah me, you could not buy +Another half so precious toy, +With all the other years to come +As that grown-up doll's house--a home. + +O wine upon its threshold stone, +And horse-shoes on the lintel of it, +And happy hearts to keep it warm, +And God Himself to love it! +Dear little nest built snug on bough +Within the World-Tree's mighty arms, +I would I knew a spell that charms +Eternal safety from the storm; + +To give you always stars above, +And always roses on the bough-- +But then the Tree's own root is Love, +Love, love, all love, I vow. + +_New Year_ 1893. + + + + +SNATCH + +From tavern to tavern + Youth passes along, +With an armful of girl + And a heart full of song. + +From flower to flower + The butterfly sips, +O passionate limbs + And importunate lips! + +From candle to candle + The moth loves to fly, +O sweet, sweet to burn! + And still sweeter to die! + + + + +MY MAIDEN VOTE + +(TO JOHN FRASER) + +There, in my mind's-eye, pure it lay, +My lodger's vote! 'Twas mine to-day. +It seemed a sort of maidenhood, +My little power for public good,-- +Oh keep it uncorrupted, pray! +And, when it must be given away, +See it be given with a sense +Of most uncanvassed innocence. +Alas!--but few there be that know't-- +How grave a thing it is to vote! +For most men's votes are given, I hear, +Either for rhetoric or--beer. + +A young man's vote--O fair estate! +Of the great tree electorate +A living leaf, of this great sea +A motive wave of empire I, +On this stupendous wheel--a fly. +O maiden vote, how pure must be +The party that is worthy thee! +And thereupon my mind began +That perfect government to plan, +The high millennium of man. + +Then in my dream I saw arise +An England, ah! so fair and wise, +An England generously great, +No selfish island, but a state +Upon the world's bright forehead worn, +A mighty star of mighty morn. + +And statesmen in that dream became +No tricksters of the petty aim, +Mere speculators in the rise +Of programmes and of party cries, +Expert in all those turns and tricks +That make this senate-house of ours, +Westminster, with its lordly towers, +The stock-exchange of politics. +But that ideal Parliament +Did all it said, said all it meant, +And every Minister of State +Was guileless--as a candidate. + +Statesmen no more the tinker's way +Mended and patched from day to day, +Content with piecing part with part, +But took the mighty problem whole, +Beginning with the human heart: +For noble rulers make in vain +Unselfish laws for selfish men, +And give the whole wide world its vote, +But who is going to give it soul? + +And then I dreamed had come to reign +True peace within our land again; +Not peace that rots the soul with ease, +Or those ignoble 'rivalries +Of peace' more murderous than war, +But just the simple peasant peace +The weary world is waiting for. +With simple food and simple wear +Go lots of love and little care, +And joy is saved from over-sweet +By struggle not too hard to bear. + +So dreamed I on from dream to dream, +Till, slow returning to my theme, +Upon my vote I looked again-- +To whom was I to give it then? +That uncorrupted maidenhood, +My little power for public good. +What party was there that I knew +That I might dare intrust it to, +A perfect party fair and square-- +My House of Commons in the air? + +Though called by many different names, +Each one professed the noblest aims; +Should all be right, 'twas logical +That I should give my vote to all! + +And then, of parties old and new +Which one, if only one, were true? + +The divination passed my skill,-- +My maiden vote is maiden still. + + + + +THE ANIMALCULE ON MAN + +An animalcule in my blood + Rose up against me as I dreamed, +He was so tiny as he stood, + You had not heard him, though he screamed. + +He cried 'There is no Man!' + And thumped the table with his fist, +Then died--his day was scarce a span,-- + That microscopic atheist. + +Yet all the while his little soul + Within what he denied did live,-- +Poor part, how could he know the whole? + And yet he was so positive! + +And all the while he thus blasphemed + My (solar) system went its round, +My heart beat on, my head still dreamed,-- + But my poor atheist was drowned. + + + + +COME, MY CELIA + +Come, my Celia, let us prove, +While we may, how wise is love-- +Love grown old and grey with years, +Love whose blood is thinned with tears. + +Philosophic lover I, +Broke my heart, its love run dry, +And I warble passion's words +But to hear them sing like birds. + +When the lightning struck my side, +Love shrieked and for ever died, +Leaving nought of him behind +But these playthings of the mind. + +Now the real play is over +I can only _act_ a lover, +Now the mimic play begins +With its puppet joys and sins. + +When the heart no longer feels, +And the blood with caution steals, +Then, ah! then--my heart, forgive!-- +Then we dare begin to live. + +Dipped in Stygian waves of pain, +We can never feel again; +Time may hurl his deadliest darts, +Love may practise all his arts; + +Like some Balder, lo! we stand +Safe 'mid hurtling spear and brand, +Only Death--ah! sweet Death, throw!-- +Holds the fatal mistletoe. + +Let the young unconquered soul +Love the unit as the whole, +Let the young uncheated eye +Love the face fore-doomed to die: + +But, my Celia, not for us +Pleasures half so hazardous; +Let us set our hearts on play, +'Tis, alas! the only way-- + +Make of life the jest it is, +Laugh and fool and (maybe!) kiss, +Never for a moment, dear, +Love so well to risk a fear. + +Is not this, my Celia, say, +The only wise--and weary--way? + + + + +TIME'S MONOTONE + + Autumn and Winter, + Summer and Spring-- +Hath Time no other song to sing? +Weary we grow of the changeless tune-- + June--December, + December--June! + +Time, like a bird, hath but one song, + One way to build, like a bird hath he; +Thus hath he built so long, so long, + Thus hath he sung--Ah me! + +Time, like a spider, knows, be sure, + One only wile, though he seems so wise: +Death is his web, and Love his lure, + And you and I his flies. + + + 'Love!' he sings + In the morning clear, + 'Love! Love! Love!' + And you never hear + How, under his breath, + He whispers, 'Death! + Death! Death!' + +Yet Time--'tis the strangest thing of all-- + Knoweth not the sense of the words he saith; +Eternity taught him his parrot-call + Of 'Love and Death.' + +Year after year doth the old man climb + The mountainous knees of Eternity, +But Eternity telleth nothing to Time-- + It may not be. + + + + +COR CORDIUM + + +O GOLDEN DAY! O SILVER NIGHT! + +O golden day! O silver night! + That brought my own true love at last, +Ah, wilt thou drop from out our sight, + And drown within the past? + +One wave, no more, in life's wide sea, + One little nameless crest of foam, +The day that gave her all to me + And brought us to our home. + +Nay, rather as the morning grows + In flush, and gleam, and kingly ray, +While up the heaven the sun-god goes, + So shall ascend our day. + +And when at last the long night nears, + And love grows angel in the gloam, +Nay, sweetheart, what of fears and tears?-- + The stars shall see us home. + + + + +LOVE'S EXCHANGE + +Simple am I, I care no whit + For pelf or place, +It is enough for me to sit + And watch Dulcinea's face; +To mark the lights and shadows flit + Across the silver moon of it. + +I have no other merchandise, + No stocks or shares, +No other gold but just what lies + In those deep eyes of hers; +And, sure, if all the world were wise, +It too would bank within her eyes. + +I buy up all her smiles all day + With all my love, +And sell them back, cost-price, or, say, + A kiss or two above; +It is a speculation fine, +The profit must be always mine. + +The world has many things, 'tis true, + To fill its time, +Far more important things to do + Than making love and rhyme; +Yet, if it asked me to advise, +I'd say--buy up Dulcinea's eyes! + + + + +TO A SIMPLE HOUSEWIFE + +Who dough shall knead as for God's sake + Shall fill it with celestial leaven, +And every loaf that she shall bake + Be eaten of the Blest in heaven. + + + + +LOVE'S WISDOM + +Sometimes my idle heart would roam + Far from its quiet happy nest, +To seek some other newer home, + Some unaccustomed Best: +But ere it spreads its foolish wings, +'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings. + +Sometimes my idle heart would sail + From out its quiet sheltered bay, +To tempt a less pacific gale, + And oceans far away: +But ere it shakes its foolish wings, +'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings. + +Sometimes my idle heart would fly, + Mothlike, to reach some shining sin, +It seems so sweet to burn and die + That wondrous light within: +But ere it burns its foolish wings, +'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings. + + + + +HOME ... + +'We're going home!' I heard two lovers say, + They kissed their friends and bade them bright good-byes; + I hid the deadly hunger in my eyes, +And, lest I might have killed them, turned away. +Ah, love! we too once gambolled home as they, + Home from the town with such fair merchandise,-- + Wine and great grapes--the happy lover buys: +A little cosy feast to crown the day. + +Yes! we had once a heaven we called a home + Its empty rooms still haunt me like thine eyes, +When the last sunset softly faded there; +Each day I tread each empty haunted room, + And now and then a little baby cries, + Or laughs a lovely laughter worse to bear. + + + + +LOVE'S LANDMARKS + +The woods we used to walk, my love, + Are woods no more, +But' villas' now with sounding names-- + All name and door. + +The pond, where, early on in March, + The yellow cup +Of water-lilies made us glad, + Is now filled up. + +But ah! what if they fill or fell + Each pond, each tree, +What matters it to-day, my love, + To me--to thee? + +The jerry-builder may consume, + A greedy moth, +God's mantle of the living green, + I feel no wrath; + +Eat up the beauty of the world, + And gorge his fill +On mead and winding country lane, + And grassy hill. + +I only laugh, for now of these + I have no care, +Now that to me the fair is foul, + And foul as fair. + + + + +IF, AFTER ALL ...! + +This life I squander, hating the long days +That will not bring me either Rest or Thee, +This health I hack and ravage as with knives, +These nerves I fain would shatter, and this heart +I fain would break--this heart that, traitor-like, +Beats on with foolish and elastic beat: +If, after all, this life I waste and kill +Should still be thine, may still be lived for thee! +And this the dreadful trial of my love, +This silence and this blank that makes me mad, +That I be man to-day of all the days +My one poor hope of meeting thee again-- +If Death be Love, and God's great purpose kind! + +Oh, love, if some day on the heavenly stair +A wild ecstatic moment we should stand, +And I, all hungry for your eyes and hair, +Should meet instead your great accusing gaze, +And hear, instead of welcome into heaven: +'Ah! hadst thou but been true! but manfully +Borne the high pangs that all high souls must bear, +Nor fled to low nepenthes for your pain! +Hadst said--"Is she not here? more reason then +To live as though still guarded by her eyes, +Cleaner my thought, and purer be my deed; +True will I be, though God Himself be false!"' + +Oh, hadst thou thus been man, to-day had we +Walked on together undivided now-- +But now a thousand flaming years must pass, +And all the trial be gone o'er again. + + + + +SPIRIT OF SADNESS + +She loved the Autumn, I the Spring, +Sad all the songs she loved to sing; +And in her face was strangely set +Some great inherited regret. + +Some look in all things made her sigh, +Yea! sad to her the morning sky: +'So sad! so sad its beauty seems'-- +I hear her say it still in dreams. + +But when the day grew grey and old, +And rising stars shone strange and cold, +Then only in her face I saw +A mystic glee, a joyous awe. + +Spirit of Sadness, in the spheres +Is there an end of mortal tears? +Or is there still in those great eyes +That look of lonely hills and skies? + + + + +AN INSCRIPTION + +Precious the box that Mary brake +Of spikenard for her Master's sake, +But ah! it held nought half so dear +As the sweet dust that whitens here. +The greater wonder who shall say: +To make so white a soul of clay, +From clay to win a face so fair, +Those strange great eyes, that sunlit hair +A-ripple o'er her witty brain,-- +Or turn all back to dust again. + +Who knows--but, in some happy hour, +The God whose strange alchemic power +Wrought her of dust, again may turn +To woman this immortal urn. + + + + +SONG + +She's somewhere in the sunlight strong, + Her tears are in the falling rain, +She calls me in the wind's soft song, + And with the flowers she comes again. + +Yon bird is but her messenger, + The moon is but her silver car; +Yea! sun and moon are sent by her, + And every wistful waiting star. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And +Other Poems, by Richard Le Gallienne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON AND ELEGY *** + +***** This file should be named 10910.txt or 10910.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/1/10910/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Carol David and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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