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diff --git a/30481-h/30481-h.htm b/30481-h/30481-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..391d7f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/30481-h/30481-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1521 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <title> + Ioläus, by James A. Mackereth, a Project Gutenberg eBook + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + <!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table { width: 100%; } + th { text-align: left; padding-top: 1em; } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + div#etext { max-width: 35em; margin: 0px auto; } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .bbox {border: solid 2px #999; padding: .5em; } + + .center {text-align: center;} + .bold {font-weight: bold;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + div.transcribernote { background-color: #dde; color: #000; padding: .5em 1em 1em; margin: 1em 5%; } + div.transcribernote h2 { margin-top: .75em; } + + --> + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30481 ***</div> + +<div id="etext"> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a></span></div> + +<h1>IOLÄUS</h1> + + + +<div class="bbox"> +<h2><a name="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR" id="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR"></a><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></h2> + +<p class="center">A SON OF CAIN: POEMS. Cr. 8vo. 3/6 net.</p> + +<p class="center">IN THE WAKE OF THE PHŒNIX: POEMS. F'cap. 8vo. 3/6 net.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></span></p> +</div> + + + +<h2>IOLÄUS:</h2> + +<h3>THE MAN THAT WAS A GHOST</h3> + +<p class="bold center">BY</p> + +<h2>JAMES A. MACKERETH</h2> + +<p class="center">LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.<br /> +39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON<br /> +NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA</p> + +<p class="center">1913<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a></span></p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center">TO THE MEMORY OF<br /> +MY FRIEND<br /> +ARTHUR RANSOM +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="HAIL_AND_FAREWELL" id="HAIL_AND_FAREWELL"></a>HAIL AND FAREWELL</h2> + +<p class="center">To A.R.</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We range the ringing slopes of life; but you<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Scale the last summit, high in lonelier air,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose dizzy pinnacle each soul must dare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For valedictions born and ventures new.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From dust to spirit climb, O brave and true!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Strong in the wisdom that is more than prayer;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">High o'er the mists of pain and of despair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mount to the vision, and the far adieu.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Merged in the vastness, with a calm surmise<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Mount, lonely climber, brightened from afar;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose soul is secret as the evening-star;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose steps are toward the ultimate surprise:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No dubious morrow dims those daring eyes—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Divinely lit whence truth's horizons are.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><i>The sonnets in this volume have previously appeared in the columns of +"The Academy," "The Eye-Witness," and "The Yorkshire Observer." My +thanks are due to the Editors of these publications for their kind +permission to republish.</i></p> + +<p>J.A.M.</p> + +<p><i>Stocka House,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cottingley,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Bingley.</span></i><br /></p> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a></span></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<table summary="Table of contents"> +<tr><th scope="col">Title Poem:</th> <th scope="col">Page</th></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IOLAUS">Ioläus</a></td> <td>13</td></tr> +<tr><th scope="col">Sonnets:</th></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_RETURN">The Return</a></td> <td>67</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_SOUL_AND_THE_SEA">The Soul and the Sea</a></td> <td>69</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#NATIONS_ESTRANGED">Nations Estranged</a></td> <td>71</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_PASSING-BELL">The Passing-Bell</a></td> <td>73</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CONDEMNED">Condemned</a></td> <td>75</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TO_AMERICA">To America. I.</a></td> <td>77</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TO_AMERICA_II"><span style="margin-left: 3em;">" II.</span></a></td> <td>79</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TO_ITALY">To Italy. I.</a></td> <td>81</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TO_ITALY_II"><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">" II.</span></a></td> <td>83</td></tr> +</table> +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a></span></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IOLAUS" id="IOLAUS"></a>IOLÄUS:</h2> + +<h3>THE MAN THAT WAS A GHOST</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Gold light across the golden coomb;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sun went west with horns of fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Athwart the sweet, sea-breathing room<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The swallows swooped; the village spire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glowed red against a gleam of broom;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">While earth its scented secrets told,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There, silent, sunset-aureoled,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sat Ioläus, mild and old.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In distance large the moving ships<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sailed on into the evening skies.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a></span><span class="i0">He gazed, and saw not. In eclipse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He tensely sat, like one who grips<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some semblance that his dream descries,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With such a look of far surprise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That half-uncanny seemed the man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So warped with age, so weirdly wan:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He had such ghostly eyes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then half to self, and half to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Aloof in passion and lone despair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He spoke like one whose secrets flee<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From silence unaware:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now plaintively from a grief gone blind,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Heavy with cumbering care,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, thrilling thought like a white sea-wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His words, the echoes of his mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Haunted the air:<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">... 'Tis gone like the roses of long ago:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet a dawn's impassioned thrill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Makes blush the blossom's virgin snow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Far on in a faery hill.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Two faces there in the glamour glow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In a place that is strangely still.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On the rim of the world is a ruined tower<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sky-poised above wide sea-foam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where a beautiful spirit waits hour by hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far-eyed 'gainst a dawn like a phantom flower,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till a ghostly lover comes home....<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To leeward spread the freshening deep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Purple beneath a rosy gleam.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From a high, mist-engirdled steep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thin anthems to the orient beam<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a></span><span class="i0">Came faint as languid waves of sleep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That lap the lonely strands of dream.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We sank our anchor solemnly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into that lustrous, splendid sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For we, that chased the summer's smile<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Across the world a wondering while,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hailed at the heart the Happy Isle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The haunted shores of Faëry!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Beyond a gently-heaving brine<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We broke with oars a trembling bay.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The swerving water, like rare wine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Slid iridescent from our way.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A lovely hand was laid on mine<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pensively as to say:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Life is divine!"<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The drifting, witching wonder grew.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From out the burgeoning bounds of space<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It seemed some morn unearthly drew<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To that grave glamourous place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, fearful of some far adieu,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I talked with one who never knew<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The peril of her face.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The joy that lives is mightier far<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than foretaste of all grief unborn.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The earth to youth is a silver star<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That glitters on the edge of morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A star! a star! a dancing star.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The fair, the mystic, happy morn!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dawn glimmered on the gladdening sea;<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a></span><span class="i0">Each zephyr blew an elfin horn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To echoes in felicity.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All sounds to silver rhythm ran:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Came flutings as from piping Pan<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In purpled hills of Arcady!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Seaward we heard the breakers roar;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the belated nightingales<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sang all their moonlight raptures o'er,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Enchanted still in echoing vales.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We lingered by the brightening shore;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We leapt upon the roseate strand:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The joy that in our hearts we bore<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We loved, nor longed to understand.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soft siren voices evermore<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Chanted to chimes in Faeryland.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O, life was like a bird that sings<br /></span> +<span class="i2">At morning on a vernal bough!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The springtide at the heart of things<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sang as the spring knows how.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fair was she, and both were young;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We knew not what made time so good;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nature with glamour-tutored tongue<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Spread glory in the blood.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We climbed the dim and dreaming streets:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We reached a plateau crowned with pine:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The leaning roses breathed their sweets<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Mid many a subtle-scented vine.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We wreathed our brows with ivy-twine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In mouldering majesty sublime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Misty with eld, the mute of time,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a></span><span class="i0">A castle, dawn-enchanted, there<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above th' abyss sheer, shimmering fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hung like a perilous dream in air.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poised on a dizzy turret high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enfolded with the gorgeous sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We listened, she and I,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In wonder, 'mazed. Without a word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A soul had spoken, soul had heard.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All suddenly came, charged with tears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sweetness of the human years.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We saw deep forests far away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kindle to meet the kiss of day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mists with morn's delight uprise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like love thoughts in a maiden's eyes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We shared the dream that never dies.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our hearts were hushed with vague desire;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We breathed in kingdoms wildly new,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enthralled by Memnon's mystic lyre<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In regions whence the Phœnix flew;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dumb splendour round us blown, and higher<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On heaven's deep dome—the peacock's hue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bright flakes of crimsoning fire!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dew-fresh was all the wavering air.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We heard the reef's far rollers croon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">About the ocean's margent, where<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Loitered the waning moon ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So fond the hour; the scene so fair;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And fate came home so soon ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some sorrow wept,—I knew not where.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some sudden presence made the air<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Chill as the breathless moon.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Silent, upon a lonelier steep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I gazed across a deeper deep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the pale mists pass from the isles of sleep.—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lost voices called in other years:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Old sweetness like a breaking grief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rose in the heart and stung to tears:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In that clear moment brief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life's dearest, dead so long before,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Returned to bless and die once more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The faintly crooning sabbath bells<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At evening in the golden fells<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I heard; the tinkle of the rills<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In haunts where childish fancy fed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw the orchard daffodils<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a></span><span class="i2">About the calm homestead;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah, saddest thought that ever fills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An errant heart that memory thrills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heath-smell of his homeland hills<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To one whose loves are dead ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What yearnings burn the human breast;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What wild desires like prisoned birds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Impel the heart from east to west;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What urgings baffling words<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beat up from nature unexpressed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till soul distinct stands manifest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On guard for heaven, or, wanton, hurled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Toward judgment through the world.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Long following beauty's floating flame<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beneath the sky from sea to sea<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a></span><span class="i0">No isle of rest, no haven could claim<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The lonely, homeless heart in me.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sick loneliness no more should be<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Companion to my soul, for She<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To fill the questing vision came,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Came down the breadths of blossoming foam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To give to loveliness a name,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To happiness a home!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet thought toward passion moved with dread,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like one who, hurrying to be wed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Steps, darkling, on the dead.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Far down we saw mute wavelets leap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Feebly as though remembering sleep;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wheeling sea-birds proudly sway<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In glory o'er the opal bay;—<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a></span><span class="i0">But at the heart the world grew grey;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some joy had perished from the day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some love was grieving far away.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No voice stirred through the haunted hill<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Touched with the morn's inviolate gleam.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All fearfully wild heart and will<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drank rapture in the face of ill!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our spirits thrilled to answer thrill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And trembled in their dream.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Truth comes, and tears, and glamour goes.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There's speech within the blood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More eloquent than language knows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And woes make signal unto woes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While pity breathes and passion blows:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We looked:——we understood.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a></span><span class="i0">On summer's heart fell winter's snows ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The death that dissipates the rose<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Was busy in the bud ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The spectre beckoned: none could save ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sundering grave ... The sundering grave! ...<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Our lonely love in time could be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But whisper of a broken wave<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lost in a boundless sea ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She spoke, so fair, so pale, so brave,——<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Across infinity!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah meekness mute with tragedy!...<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My body stirred as in a grave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And looked forth wonderingly ...<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a></span><span class="i0">The everlasting sea serene<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Neath everlasting sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shone, and across the morning sheen<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The deathless winds went by.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a face was there that I never had seen;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a shadow stood where a glory had been;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The beauty hung at my heart like pain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And love was lovely, but life was bane,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all should die,—but the wonder remain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the earth, and the sea, and the sky ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The hills have winds, the fields have flowers;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not all alone is the wintry tree;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The stars that gleam in cloudy bowers<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Have stars for company;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The waste hath peace of the drifting hours;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And night brings joy to the hoary sea:<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But the heart of man is a lonely thing;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And lone the soul of the secret vows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With its wasted love and its wounded wing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a withered world that hath no spring,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No burgeoning boughs:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soul of man is the loneliest thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In life's eternal wandering<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That God allows ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O, isle of dreams, and orient shore!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ah miracle in sea and sky!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah youth that fleeting love made soar<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To heaven! The glory upon high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To dusk hath waned, yet comes once more<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A wonder and a cry!...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The ship's bell tolled off that fair land;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sails bulged buoyantly:<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a></span><span class="i0">The sun rose mute, and large, and bland;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The favouring wind swung free.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We stood from that enchanted strand<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into the morning sea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We rode down swinging winds away,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Far o'er the moving waters wan,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seen low at pale meridan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The land was grey.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The dusk came down; and like a ghost<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rose the sad moon; the waves 'gan moan:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There on the deep no kindly coast,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The dark alone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And in two faces stared, and stared<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The being without blood or breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The stilly spectre, horror-haired,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a></span><span class="i2">That haunteth all he murdereth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At noon, at midnight stared, and stared<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When sunrise flashed, when sunset flared,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The grizzly phantom horror-haired:—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Stalking frail beauty to her grave<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I saw him moving evermore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A stealthy wanderer on the wave,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A shrouded shadow on the shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The worm his bondsman, and the brave<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His victims evermore ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Power that drives all mortal things,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upbuoys all being's wanderings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moved in the void his urgent wings ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On down the weltering world we sped;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Across the lonely, drifting noon;<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a></span><span class="i0">Along the wreathëd tides we fled<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beneath the memoried moon.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sad love pursued where sorrow led;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And beauty, waiting to be dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Kissed under the dead moon.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Love, speechless, yearned in hopeless eyes;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And hearts that hungered craved in vain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dumb pity heard sad pity's sighs;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And grief soothed grief again.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fond smile to smile sent faint replies,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And faded back to pain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Entangled in the toils of fate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Two stood at Eden's open gate—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Banned, in a world found desolate ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And love made league with hate ...<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a></span><span class="i0">All time's long woe since man's wet eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peered toward a promised paradise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pressed home,—the weight of smothered cries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dead dreams, and hopeless pain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of souls in silence slain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We saw the loathsome waste of death;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sad soul at war with sense;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And suffering doomed to lingering breath;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And slandered innocence;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And beauty ravished at the bloom;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Saw strength flung prostrate; fall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The brave, life-worsted from the womb;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">White truth made criminal:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Impotent, passionate, counting all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We kissed——across a tomb ...<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The lustrous clouds trailed proudly by:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And through a rift of dazzling sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I cursed God with a dreary cry ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The silence of the starry night;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The silver of the moonlit sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And loud in secret, stern, and trite,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The pulse of destiny.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah sadness scourged with doomed delight!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ah wondrous misery!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Pale topsails in the offing shone,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And faded into foam:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And down the noontide, one by one,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The pale, proud ships would roam;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each sailor to his love went on;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Each wanderer to his home.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And, ceasing not, death's nearing knell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tolled in a heart that dreamed no more.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our lips shook, sad as lips in hell;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But, fearful of the rending shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To fill all time with sad farewell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We would have sailed for evermore!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For pleasantly a song she'd croon,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And feign the world a kindly place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tender was the haunting tune<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To match her haunting grace;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tenderly the witching moon<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Toyed with her feeling face ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our love was like the scent of flowers<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To her who watches by the bed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of one that dies in the dark hours,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a></span><span class="i2">The one her youth had wed:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At dawn she scares her tears away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And through the cloud-enamelled day<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Jests bravely for their bread.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She shared with all the brighter part;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The witching sallies lightly flew;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her thoughts seemed, spilt by subtle art,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Half tear-drops and half dew.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They loved her for her gracious heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the glad winds blew.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The sunbeam of her fleeting life<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gladdened the unsuspecting days;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the dusky imps of strife<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Paled in her wisdom's lambent rays.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a></span><span class="i0">Her laugh to <i>one</i> was as a knife:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But she had pleasure's praise.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And I who loved that conquering smile,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And felt the tears in secret shed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who watched her life with kindly guile<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Veiling its darlings dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Held in a choking hush the while<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A heart that feigned—and bled ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Onward with blind rebellious breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I ranged, with love, with bale opprest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Piteous, passionate, all unblest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dispossessëd,—God-possest ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">More lonely grew the leaden wave<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That broke against the leaning sky;<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a></span><span class="i0">The melancholy winds 'gan rave<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Among the whimpering shrouds on high:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Most lonely up the leaden wave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Two climbed toward yet a lonelier grave—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where only one should lie.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We neared a grey and grievous land<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That thundered by a wintry sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I touched the sorrow of her hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But nothing sad said she:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She turned from love at death's command<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To death eternally.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We passed the numbly moaning bar;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We heard the harbour bell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its dull fog-muffled clang from far<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Came like a lorn death-knell.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a></span><span class="i0">The quay-lights pushed a livid flare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through shrouding mist; and all things there<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Moved like grim shades in hell.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The hammer's clamp on resonant steel;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The siren's shriek; the scream and whirr<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reverberant from forge and wheel;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The fury and the clangorous stir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And plunge of traffic; Vulcan's heel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crashing on iron,—and the reel<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of sense at loss of <i>her</i>.—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">None guessed when, playfully, she said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With smile that brightened toward her dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"To-day across the world I ride<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To meet a bridegroom, I the bride."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They thought her mischief lied.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Around us was the deafening roar,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A void, a wild and drear eclipse.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sadder sweetness than before<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shook her pale, smiling lips;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She waved adieu through vapours hoar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And vanished in the shadows frore<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Among the heedless ships ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In that dread lapse of all farewell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The spirit, listening, plain could tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That devils laughed in drifting hell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With guile upon their lips ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The world seemed all a hollow ghost<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That would dissolve away;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And life itself a random boast<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of elements at play;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And time a swift elusive gleam,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a></span><span class="i0">And man the mockery of a dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A foam-bell to a moment's beam<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flung from the spray.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I had worshipped her with sacred sighs,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Loved with the love that wondereth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My life had found her maiden-wise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And sweeter than the rose's breath;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lit by a soul in paradise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lights within her holy eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The lady loved of death ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Bereft, forlorn, by passion driven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And blanched with loss, by suffering riven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With impious heart I fled from Heaven ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thought like a frost gripped all the brain:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With frozen tears opprest,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a></span><span class="i0">The conscious blood with sullen pain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lunged at the callous breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where hope and love, a pallid twain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sat with a ghoul for guest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Over the watery wastes I fled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where'er dim desolation led<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beneath sad sun and moon!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For faith was dead, and joy was dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And love was where the phantoms tread,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bitterness was passion's bread:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Grant, jester Death," I, laughing, said,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Thy haggard fool a boon!" ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And unforgiving, unforgiven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A derelict, by tempest driven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I drave beneath the breadth of heaven ...<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Grim sorrow fell on all things fair;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To dust was turned the lover's breath.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah longing, like a pariah bare,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And passion, led by lewd despair<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To kiss the smelling jowl of death!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As in a sunless cavern cold,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like one who flies a crime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fearful, and old as God is old,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The spirit shrank from time;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a stifled scream was the angry gold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the weird sunset, and the noonday bold<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Was the stare on the face of a crime.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I saw as brain-blurred drunkards see;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I felt, yet could not feel;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I seemed in moving time to be<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a></span><span class="i0">In nerveless immobility<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As dust upon a wheel.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Some world material moved around,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Mazed breadths of spume and brine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strange voices spake as from a bound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far off, I answered with a sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor knew the answer mine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sometimes like a weary hound<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I heard the darkness whine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In throbbing night 'twixt sleep and sleep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My tortured spirit heard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A wail that wandered down the deep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sorrow on the windy deep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wail like a wounded bird;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I wept as a haunted man doth weep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who dare not speak a word.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sometimes I sensed heaven's bellied gloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Storm like dumb and pregnant doom<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Scowl on the waters wild;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or tempest 'neath a plunging sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down crashing waves with haunting cry<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Scream like a tortured child;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A blind thing staggering in the night<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Strained, groaning, 'gainst a pervious power<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That flashed and eddied, wild and white,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That wheeled and wailed from hour to hour;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, somewhere, strangely burned to sight<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dawn like a doom a-flower ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On ever onward, darkly driven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A soul, unsheltered, and unshriven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With lodestar gone, with raiment riven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drove in the gale of the wrath of Heaven ...<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The monsoon blew; the changing stars<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rode by in deeper skies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At times between the raking spars<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I felt the blank moon rise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or heard the chanties of the tars<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With a sad, sick surprise.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And once a heaven, the sapphire's hue,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flashed o'er the freshening wave;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They hurt the heart as laughers do<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When love stands by a grave.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And now a level ocean grey<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would lie along a level day,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Unwhipt of wing or wind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or sunset make a carmine stain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That sucked like sadness at the brain,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a></span><span class="i2">And sank into the mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And touched me with some wandering pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some sentience of mankind again.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">... And where was <i>she</i>?... Could sorrow fail<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In aching time ... Ah voice in vain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That called for ever ... fading sail<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On seas forlorn; sad wind and rain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whispering ... all-wandering pain ...<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And in the heart the wail—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Never again on earth—never again.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So dimly to a beauteous ghost<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My being bowed a subject knee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lived, with love's sad sunset lost,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Alone 'mid all the sea.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a></span><span class="i0">A leper to a lonely coast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fled from all I cherished most;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wildly, with a bleeding boast,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I clasped my agony ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sad nature strained the leash in vain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And flying, fled not; ever the chain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the Fear that followed; ever again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Relentless pity; guardian pain ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like torturing dreams the days went by,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With all save self denied;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Godward went man's desolate cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That Christ Himself had cried:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alone each soul upon its tree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cried to its kin,—but over me<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a></span><span class="i0">The darkness that crushed Calvary<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When God was crucified.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The present lost, I found, aghast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A dying heart, a deathless past;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, ever nigh, and mocking me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A madness, or a mystery ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hour by hour, in peril, passed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A soul toward judgment through the vast ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Life, a vague tumult in the blood,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beat on 'gainst flesh and bone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in its echoing solitude<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The heart tapped like a stone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till like some child at dark I stood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That stands fear-frozen in a wood,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Alone—yet not <i>alone</i>.—<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For mine was ghostly company:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Chilled, in the eerie air<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I felt <i>myself</i> bend over me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And point as with despair;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, horror-thrilled, I turned to see<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My body selfless there,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And separate,—a house of clay<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That mourned its tenant gone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its vacant eyes would fain delay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its piteous hands implored to stay<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The soul that in it shone.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where one had been, in mute dismay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Two, merged in mystery, went away—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I and that other One ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With vision blurred, and bearings lost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Streamed on amid a phantom host<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The man that was a ghost ...<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Apart from human years I stood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A naked, probing mind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aloof I heard the beating blood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The far-brought voices of the blood,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flow round me like a wind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In an abysmal solitude<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I staggered like one blind.—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In wastes uncharted, far from bliss,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I heard a writhing chaos hiss;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thought, that moved in time no more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wept on some wild, pre-natal shore.—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Appalled, the boundless vision burst<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through yawning gulfs of gloom;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To human hunger, human thirst<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Infinite hell did loom;<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a></span><span class="i0">Infinite bale to vision burst<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In tracts of nebulous bloom;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And life through peril, lorn, accurst,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Passed on from doom to doom.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The depths were full of throes unknown,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Weird wastes of vomited fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wild mists of thunderous flame were blown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Athwart eclipse; I heard the groan<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of travailing worlds stupendous thrown<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through chaos to expire:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My spirit, cowed with vastness dire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gazed, poised in space,—alone,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alone as a haunted life that lies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the death-brink when a dread past cries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the live dark burns with eternal eyes.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Rang, terror-wrung from shrivelled pride:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Oh loneliest of the dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou with the deeply riven side,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And with the branded head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo, I, in blasphemy that died,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Do envy all the dead,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And, fleeing self-hood, fain would die—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But this can never be!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This mortal nevermore can lie<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To immortality.—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh! hearken to my ghostly cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lone ghost of Calvary!"—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I was my own infinity;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cry, the echo I ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh brother, with the bone-sealed breast;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Brother in hope, in shame,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a></span><span class="i0">In joy, in sorrow, east and west<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We know, but man, earth's awful guest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is vastness with a name,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is spirit, hungry in the quest<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of spirit whence he came ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On through the void I shuddering fled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Immortal, seeking to be dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With God behind me, God ahead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pursued, encompassed, lost,—and led ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">God's outcasts only have their ease:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I was not as these.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From deep to deep my soul was blown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like sin toward judgment, ever alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the Eye unseen, and the Hand unknown.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sad nature strained the leash in vain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, flying, fled not; ever the chain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the Fear that followed; ever again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Relentless pity, guardian pain ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Slow time a sad nepenthe brought,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Numb poignance with no sigh,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When body, dim with sorrow, sought<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Day with a dead man's eye.—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As from far off I darkly saw:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I lay as doomed men lie:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A lamb beneath a lion's paw,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Mute-meek, that lamb was I;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My soul I felt the monster gnaw,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I heard my body die.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And, dumbly, 'thwart a dreader deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I drifted, as on awful sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where sorrows burn, and never weep ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Delirium reigned. Fell darkness dire,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Vague terror, shapeless dole.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forever climbing ghâts of fire<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I struggled to a goal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, lone upon the suttee pyre,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw my life's long-lost desire—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The widow of my soul!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Far and far through smoke-red light<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I saw her beckoning stand;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Anon, like a burning bird in fright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She fled with a shriek through the lurid night,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And I wailed like a lost soul banned;<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a></span><span class="i0">And an echo flew like an anguished sprite<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And wailed in a hollow land.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then utter loss: and there was nought.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My sentience wholly sped:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No sound, no feeling, sight, or thought:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet I knew with a vacuous dread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I lay a thing by God unsought,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dead, dead,—for ever dead ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Slow ages seemed to have their will:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, moving toward the prime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Th' Eternal Immanency still<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Breathed in the senseless lime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till a dead thing felt the procreant thrill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And shuddered back to time.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It might have been ten thousand years<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That over me had run;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It might have been ten thousand years<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I had not sensed the sun.—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh God, how much of sin that sears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How many, many bitter years<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till soul from dust be won?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh Lord of Light, make sweet their tears<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who never see the sun!— ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Mean as the dust, through the volant vast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flung like chaff, as ashes cast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the nether storms, I sank, pride past,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the waiting wings of the First and Last ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Slowly, slowly came the grey<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where all was dark before.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a></span><span class="i0">Some monster left its mangled prey<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Because the night was o'er:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, sick beside an Indian shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I knew that it was day—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And strangely cared. Some cloudy pain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seemed from my being rolled.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Afar upon a misty plain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The grey was turning gold.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I slept, and dreamt of rustling rain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On leaves in summers old.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And faintly in my dream the corn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shook under English skies;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To wreathe with silvery song the morn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I saw the laverock rise;<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a></span><span class="i0">And I saw the Dead by a snow-white thorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Touched with the blush of a mounting morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Singing in paradise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a seraph blew on a golden horn;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And I saw with a mild surmise<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">White shapes pass panoplied from war<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In fields to sense unknown;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And over them a targe-like star<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Blazed in its heaven alone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a chant of joy was blown afar;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a soul-name rang 'neath that blinding star,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which deep in a world crepuscular<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My spirit knew for its own.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then I turned, for the star-gleam dazzled my eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And woke with a glad surprise!—<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Woke with the earth-breath on my face.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sunbeams filtered through<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A tamarind in a stilly place;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I saw the brazen blue:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And suddenly Christ's healing grace<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fell round like holy dew.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And kindly faces passed and smiled;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And gentle voices spoke;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, wondering like a waking child,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The night within me broke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from a heart grown reconciled<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Went heavenward like thin smoke.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On all the bounds of ranging sight<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The lifting gloom was riven.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The terrors of abysmal night<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a></span><span class="i0">Fled like hushed horrors fly from light<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By dawn's winged horsemen driven.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the drifting hills of morn shone bright<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The gonfalons of heaven.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Warm winds from palm-hung pleasances<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Came through the lattice bars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With scents and murmurous harmonies;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like splintered scimitars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The moonbeams through the banyan trees<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gleamed under Indian stars.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And far away, and far away<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My heart went out forlorn;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Mid benizons from far away<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I felt my soul reborn;<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a></span><span class="i0">And man from every palm-fringed bay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mountain town where sunsets stay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From sounding cities smoking grey<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Called, called me down the morn ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O magic of the morning sky!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O wonder of the moonlit sea!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O life—the vision and the cry<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into eternity!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eternity beneath, on high,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Veiled within cloud and clod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That life in folly would vainly fly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the nethermost deep, through the uttermost high,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life that is God-doomed never to die<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the agony of God.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Too long to self my life had given<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What was for soul alone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To rob the sanctuaries had striven<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To build a lone love's throne.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In vain we prop each little heaven<br /></span> +<span class="i2">While men's souls turn to stone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The good in ill let no man scorn;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The ill in good let all men find.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our knowledge is the lesser morn;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Large night with stars behind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shews most. Of spirit still is born<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All life, all wonder; it shall bind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All hearts in wisdom. Unforlorn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He lives in deserts, though he mourn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who loveth all the Kind ...<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With storm gone by, from jeopardy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With loss for gain, and blindness past,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Home to divine reality<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The tides have borne me,—home at last.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time like a silver flower doth blow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And blossom o'er a subtler sod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And through the meads of light I go<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beneath the golden boughs of God ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My soul hath won to the city of love<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With the burnished walls of the dreams' desires;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my life is glad as a glittering dove<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That coos in the sun upon golden spires;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I welcome the winds of the world, and move<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the music of unseen choirs.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Great powers are for us; mighty wings<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Toward man's proud peril speed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life nourished at eternal springs,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beats up through star and creed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till soul, ascendant, fetter-freed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A soaring seraph sings!...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On the rim of the world is a rosy tower<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sky-poised above wide sea-foam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where a beautiful spirit waits hour by hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far-eyed 'gainst a dawn like a phantom flower,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till a ghostly lover comes home ...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah! love is as lust till it count love lost;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soul is as sin till it weep sin's cost;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O, happy is he, though he suffer most,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who wins to the Holy Ghost!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So spake old Ioläus. There<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That drifting, chant-like monody,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its eerie passion, weird despair,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Had wrought on me like wizardry;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Withál he moved through strange eclipse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With God's faint finger at his lips,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with such tense and far surprise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That half uncanny seemed the man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With cloudy hair, in human guise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So warped with age, so weirdly wan,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose dry flesh into spirit ran,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And saw with ghostly eyes.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_RETURN" id="THE_RETURN"></a>THE RETURN</h2> + +<p class="center">(To E.W.)</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Home, O most pale adventurer, are you bound<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From that strange kingdom where no love may trace<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The life it loves to its abiding place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or hail it from afar with cheerful sound.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From deeps whose marges mortal ne'er hath found<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You steal, and we are awed before your face—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For you are weird with wonder, with the grace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of death's most delicate lilies are you crowned.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">After the ranging sunset of Farewell—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When life's loved country fades, and hope is lorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is it not fair from that dim, tideless bourn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To drift back home to man's own star and dwell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fondly with time, in tune with bud and bell,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With midnight's shimmer of stars and the sheen of morn?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_SOUL_AND_THE_SEA" id="THE_SOUL_AND_THE_SEA"></a>THE SOUL AND THE SEA</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I hear the shouting of th' exultant sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Its reel and crash along the shuddering strand;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through muffling mist the wide reverberant land<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In thunderous labour laughs exultantly;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wrestling wind's tumultuous revelry<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whips into whirling clouds the blanched sea-sand;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The primal powers in grim convulsion grand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strive, straining agonists, frenzied to be free.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And in the lapses of the roaring gale<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I hear the cries of lives that rage and weep,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That sow for ever, and that never reap;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brave hearts that travail with all hopes that fail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Break with the breakers; with a wandering wail<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flies sorrow with white lips along the deep.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="NATIONS_ESTRANGED" id="NATIONS_ESTRANGED"></a>NATIONS ESTRANGED</h2> + +<h3>THE VOICE OF THE MILLIONS</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Bound to one triumph, of one travail born,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Doomed to one death, in one brief life we moil;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The pangs that maim us and the powers that spoil<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are common sorrows heired from worlds outworn.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alike in weakness, time too long hath torn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Our mother, Patience, and our father, Toil.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Brothers in hatred of the fates that foil,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Say not in vain we murmur and we mourn!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O, by the love that lights our mothers' eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By hearth and home, by common hopes and fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By all sad sweetness of the human years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Partings, and meetings, by our infants' cries—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One are we, through the heart's divine allies,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In long allegiance to eternal tears!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_PASSING-BELL" id="THE_PASSING-BELL"></a>THE PASSING-BELL</h2> + +<h3>AN IMPRESSION</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A roaring furnace, and a passing-bell;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Grim vitreous gloom, and one low, raking gleam<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From a spent sun that spills its passive beam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Athwart a smouldering city. Comes the smell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sweat and labour. The sad, sullen knell<br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Boom</i>s in the brain. As in a baleful dream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A panting siren, veiled with hissing steam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shrieks like a <i>loom</i>ing horror deep in hell.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A flaccid flood of faces, blanched with <i>doom</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And raucous cries from out a blinking dark<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Crowd on the callous dusk. With haunting <i>bark</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death hunts his hapless victims. Heaven's sick <i>bloom</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2">Swoons in the frost. Through droning twilight—hark!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The slow, thick, ominous burden of the <i>tomb</i>.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONDEMNED" id="CONDEMNED"></a>CONDEMNED</h2> + +<h3><i>FIAT JUSTITIA: FIAT LUX</i></h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our deeds avail not; and our dreams are thrust<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into the dark and wither from the sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We live in duress, and to sweetness die;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lo! our guerdon is the world's distrust.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet have we dreamt of judgment that is just,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And seen a splendour trailing from on high;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From mean abortion mounts our piteous cry:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Out of the dust, O Christ! out of the dust!"<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We are as leaves within the winter gale,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And are through tribulation darkly driven;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And all the promise that the prime hath given<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is as faint smoke before the winds that wail.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wan from the drowning pools of bitter bale<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Our futile faces front the hush of heaven!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TO_AMERICA" id="TO_AMERICA"></a>TO AMERICA</h2> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou of the starry wing, that canst not soar,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Confuséd power, still seeking, still unblest;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For ever clutching to a braggart breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hope portentous and the worldling's lore.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Furiously futile, with a raucous roar<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thy dizzy moments mock th' eternal quest;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To feverish ends, by factions fierce distrest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Toiling, a sanguine Titan evermore,—<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">America!—Ah, burthen of the mind!—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cradled in truth, and 'mid distractions born<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To pure emprise on that despotic morn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When freedom yearned along the westering wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tyranny, that hound among the blind,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Bayed toward the deep where faith went forth—forlorn.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a></span></p> + + +<h3><a name="TO_AMERICA_II" id="TO_AMERICA_II"></a>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou who didst dare th' unknown, precarious sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And down the unbounded winds adventurous roam,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Searching the world's horizons for a home,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A haven for the heart of liberty:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Boaster of freedom, found no longer free,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What vaporous phantom from time's ocean-foam<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Blurs the translucence of th' eternal dome<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where sang the burning stars that beckoned thee?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thy heart hath caught the siren's doom-sweet cries,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And sips oblivion at fond Circe's nod.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Oh! for a seer whose soul is lightning-shod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To stand imperial 'gainst th' impervious skies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As Lincoln stood, with brave heaven-gazing eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To appeal from guile's impermanence to God!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TO_ITALY" id="TO_ITALY"></a>TO ITALY</h2> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Italia, seated by the sapphire sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Crooning of summers rich from long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dreamer mid dreams, thy peerless face aglow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With rare romance and passionate poesy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath time's delirium taken even thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Mother of Petrarch, Raphael, Angelo?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And dost thou purblind speed to weltering woe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dead to the wonder that was <i>Italy</i>?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Farewell thy peace, farewell thy pride, farewell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The roseate rapture of the radiant years.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thy breast shall nourish sorrows, and thy fears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall haunt the olives and the sunset bell;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah, thou shalt sigh for Francis and his cell,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And beat with Dante to the bourn of tears.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a></span></p> + + +<h3><a name="TO_ITALY_II" id="TO_ITALY_II"></a>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Italia, dowered with Asia's amorous eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With India's glow through snows Circassian,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Muses' love since Dorian lightning ran<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kindling the west to perilous surprise,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crowned with thy dawn-star, lo! portentous-wise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Steps the stern pupil of the Mantuan<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And lowers toward moon-mute deserts African<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, stained with rapine's rose, thy honour lies.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dim grows the vision of th' enchanted shore.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Queen of the lovely and the lonely vow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Farewell. False time hath charmed thee, and thy brow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is toward eclipse and storms that rend and roar.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fond valedictions fade afar, but thou<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Canst be our dream's Italia nevermore.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="A_SON_OF_CAIN" id="A_SON_OF_CAIN"></a>A SON OF CAIN</h2> + +<p class="center bold">By</p> + +<h3>JAMES A. MACKERETH</h3> + +<p><i>Crown 8vo, 3/6 net.</i></p> + +<h3>SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.</h3> + +<p><i>Westminster Review.</i>—We write under the conviction that Mr. Mackereth +is destined to compel the admiration not only of a few critics but also +of the general public.</p> + +<p><i>Times Literary Supplement.</i>—He has a note of his own; one can always +enjoy the rich exuberance of his fancy and of his diction.</p> + +<p><i>Daily Telegraph.</i>—A true singer whom no reader with a taste for +contemporary poetry should overlook.</p> + +<p><i>Yorkshire Daily Observer.</i>—... We cannot afford to neglect such +poetry—it is vital... Alive with the spirit of the new century.</p> + +<p><i>Aberdeen Free Press.</i>—The "Ode on the Passing of Autumn"... a really +splendid poem... Mr. Mackereth is undoubtedly a poet of considerable +power and originality.</p> + +<p><i>The Literary World.</i>—There is a strength about his work which is very +rare in English verse.... Mr. Mackereth's name deserves to stand very +high among the poets of to-day.</p> + +<p><i>The Star.</i>—"A Son of Cain"... is a good goad for the withered +imagination.... Why does Mr. Mackereth's poem "The Lion" flash the light +on our sickly glazed eyeballs? Its symbolism makes the soul wince and +tremble and ache.... The virtue in the poem sounds a spiritual tocsin.</p> + +<p><i>Irish Times.</i>—... A note of his own, a passionate, vibrant note, but +true and strong.</p> + +<p><i>Glasgow Evening Times.</i>—... A volume of singular insight and power.</p> + +<p><i>Dundee Advertiser.</i>—... The title poem has the same haunting effect +upon the reader as "The Ancient Mariner." <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a></span>The "Ode on the Passing of +Autumn" is a fine achievement.... We congratulate Mr. Mackereth on his +undoubted powers of sustainment.</p> + +<p><i>The Daily Chronicle.</i>—His work is virile. His verse goes with a ring +and a tang.</p> + +<p><i>The Scotsman.</i>—The title poem is a grim and powerful ballad.... The +book will be read with interest and admiration by all who value the +classic traditions of English poetry.</p> + +<p><i>The Yorkshire Post.</i>—... He has the right to a place among those who +are creating the distinctive poetry of our time. In the two pieces, the +splendid "Ode on the Passing of Autumn," and "The Gods that Pass and Die +Not," Mr. Mackereth attains a height where splendid promise enlarges +into great performance.</p> + +<p><i>The Bookman.</i>—... It proves him to be the possessor of a quick eye for +beauty, of imagination and sensitiveness. It repeatedly echoes great +work, yet still remains undeniably his own.</p> + +<p><i>The Nation.</i>—What he has to say is vigorous and virile. He is not for +dealing in the vagueness of dissatisfaction, but endeavours to make his +writing an affirmation of joy.</p> + +<p><i>The Glasgow Herald.</i>—To pass to his poems is to pass into mountain air +where sane thought dwells.... His heart is in poetry, and his own +pleasure in it merely as a word movement is manifest in every line of +such poems as "Mad Moll" and "Pan Alive."</p> + +<p><i>The New York Times.</i>—A virile and hopeful singer ... resonant as a +trumpet-call to those who build the palace of life.</p> + +<p><i>The Dial</i> (Chicago).—Clearly the work of a poet.... The volume will +well reward him who ventures into its pages.</p> + +<p><i>Literary Digest.</i>—... The longer poems have a deep Atlantic roll.... +In all his thought one can feel the lift of a tide.</p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Longmans, Green, and Co.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a></span></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IN_THE_WAKE_OF_THE_PHOENIX" id="IN_THE_WAKE_OF_THE_PHOENIX"></a>IN THE WAKE OF THE PHOENIX</h2> + +<h3>POEMS</h3> + +<p class="bold center">By</p> + +<h3>JAMES A. MACKERETH</h3> + +<p><i>F'cap 8vo. 3/6 net.</i></p> + +<p><i>Glasgow Herald.</i>—"Always poetry—poetry vital with energy and clothed +with beauty and at times with splendour."</p> + +<p><i>Literary World.</i>—"Deserves attention from those who can enjoy one of +the finest pleasures of the mind—namely, that process by which the +spirit of an age becomes articulate.... Full of power, of ecstasy, of a +fury of joy."</p> + +<p><i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i>—"A signature which has come to be watched with the +greatest attention, and welcome wherever it appears."</p> + +<p><i>The Athenæum.</i>—"We quail before his thunderous broadsides of +language... as we read him he suggests stupendous phenomena."</p> + +<p><i>The Times.</i>—"Vigour of thought and imagination and remarkable wealth +of poetic diction."</p> + +<p><i>The Scotsman.</i>—"Will be read with especial interest and sympathy by +readers who like modern poetry that keeps alive the traditions of a +spiritualised nature-worship."</p> + +<p><i>The Academy.</i>—"We have nothing but admiration for the work."</p> + +<p><i>Westminster Review.</i>—"A poet of exceptionally fine calibre."</p> + +<p><i>Aberdeen Free Press.</i>—"Possesses great poetic merit.... The +magnificent 'Hymn to the Midnight.'"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a></span></p> + +<p><i>The Morning Post.</i>—"Power, originality, insight.... His work is above +all things virile... real passion and true imagination."</p> + +<p><i>The Yorkshire Post.</i>—"His imaginative insight into life's realities is +powerfully displayed in such pieces as 'Dreams,' and 'The Splendid +Mistake.' In 'The Seer in the Doomed City' he has achieved a vision +starkly impressive in its symbolism, haunting in its imaginative +conception, and noble in its moral."</p> + +<p><i>T.P.'s Weekly.</i>—"... breathing virility and strong kindness in every +line."</p> + +<p><i>The Yorkshire Observer.</i>—"Places the writer among the true poets of +his time."</p> + +<p><i>The Irish Times.</i>—"Here is verse which really sings, ideas which are +fresh and strong, language which is in the highest sense poetical."</p> + +<p><i>The Baltimore News.</i>—"Two unforgettable poems, 'A Hymn to Midnight,' +and 'At Moonrise.'"</p> + +<p><i>Boston Transcript.</i>—"Sincerity and vivid imagination.... Verse of +uncommon distinction."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Longmans, Green, and Co.</span></p> + +<p>39, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a></span></p> + + + + +<p>PRINTED BY<br /> +GEORGE MIDDLETON<br /> +THE ST. OSWALD PRESS<br /> +AMBLESIDE</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="transcribernote"> +<h2>Transcriber's notes</h2> + +<ul> +<li>This book was part of Distributed Proofreaders' 2009 Halloween bash.</li> +<li>Pages 15, 16, and 18: left in variant spellings "faery" and "faëry," + because there was too little textual evidence to decide to normalize + either way.</li> +<li>Page 86: Corrected "endevours" to "endeavours."</li> +<li>Page 87: Normalized "Literary World" to "Literary World." (i.e. included + a full-stop).</li> +<li>In the TXT version, the œ-ligature has been transcribed as [OE] + (capital) or [oe] (small letters)</li> +<li>Page numbers have been retained in the HTML version as (invisible) + A elements—use View Source or the equivalent function of your web + browser to view them.</li> +</ul> +</div> + +</div> <!-- #etext --> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30481 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |