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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf 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..cba027a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #66689 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66689) diff --git a/old/66689-0.txt b/old/66689-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0e78dd9..0000000 --- a/old/66689-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,15562 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough, by Arthur -Hugh Clough - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough - -Author: Arthur Hugh Clough - -Release Date: November 7, 2021 [eBook #66689] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Emmanuel Ackerman and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF ARTHUR HUGH -CLOUGH *** - - - - - - -POEMS OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration: _Engraved by C. H. Jeens._] - - - - - POEMS - OF - ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH - - SOMETIME FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE - OXFORD - - London - MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED - NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - 1898 - - First published elsewhere. First printed for MACMILLAN & CO. - 1891. Reprinted 1895, 1898. - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - EARLY POEMS. - - An Evening Walk in Spring 3 - - An Incident 5 - - The Thread of Truth 6 - - Revival 7 - - The Shady Lane 8 - - The Higher Courage 9 - - Written on a Bridge 10 - - A River Pool 10 - - In a Lecture-Room 11 - - ‘Blank Misgivings of a Creature moving about in Worlds not - realised’ 12 - - A Song of Autumn 18 - - τὸ καλόν 19 - - Χρυσέα κλῄς ἐπὶ γλώσσᾳ 20 - - The Silver Wedding 20 - - The Music of the World and of the Soul 23 - - Love, not Duty 25 - - Love and Reason 26 - - Ὁ Θεὸς μετὰ σοῦ! 29 - - Wirkung in der Ferne 30 - - ἐπὶ Λάτμῳ 31 - - A Protest 34 - - Sic Itur 35 - - Parting 36 - - Qua Cursum Ventus 38 - - ‘Wen Gott betrügt, ist wohl betrogen’ 39 - - POEMS ON RELIGIOUS AND BIBLICAL SUBJECTS. - - Fragments of the Mystery of the Fall 43 - - The Song of Lamech 69 - - Genesis XXIV. 72 - - Jacob 74 - - Jacob’s Wives 77 - - The New Sinai 81 - - Qui laborat, orat 85 - - ὕμνος ἄυμνος 86 - - The Hidden Love 87 - - Shadow and Light 89 - - ‘With Whom is no Variableness, neither Shadow of Turning’ 90 - - In Stratis Viarum 90 - - ‘Perchè pensa? Pensando s’invecchia’ 91 - - ‘O thou of little Faith’ 91 - - ‘Through a Glass darkly’ 92 - - Ah! yet consider it again! 93 - - Noli æmulari 93 - - ‘What went ye out for to see?’ 94 - - Epi-strauss-ium 95 - - The Shadow (_a Fragment_) 96 - - Easter Day (Naples, 1849) 100 - - Easter Day, II. 104 - - DIPSYCHUS 107 - - Prologue 108 - - Part I. 109 - - Part II. 127 - - Epilogue 167 - - DIPSYCHUS CONTINUED (_a Fragment_) 171 - - POEMS ON LIFE AND DUTY. - - Duty 181 - - Life is Struggle 182 - - In the Great Metropolis 183 - - The Latest Decalogue 184 - - The Questioning Spirit 185 - - Bethesda (a Sequel) 186 - - Hope evermore and believe! 188 - - Blessed are they that have not seen! 189 - - Cold Comfort 190 - - Sehnsucht 191 - - High and Low 193 - - All is well 194 - - πάντα ῥεῖ· οὐδὲν μένει 195 - - The Stream of Life 196 - - In a London Square 197 - - THE BOTHIE OF TOBER-NA-VUOLICH: _a Long-Vacation Pastoral_ 199 - - IDYLLIC SKETCHES. - - Ite Domum Saturæ, venit Hesperus 259 - - A London Idyll 260 - - Natura naturans 262 - - AMOURS DE VOYAGE 267 - - SEVEN SONNETS ON THE THOUGHT OF DEATH 317 - - MARI MAGNO; OR, TALES ON BOARD 323 - - The Lawyer’s First Tale: Primitiæ, or Third Cousins 329 - - The Clergyman’s First Tale: Love is Fellow-service 352 - - My Tale: A la banquette; or, a Modern Pilgrimage 361 - - The Mate’s Story 371 - - The Clergyman’s Second Tale 374 - - The Lawyer’s Second Tale: Christian 384 - - SONGS IN ABSENCE 399 - - ESSAYS IN CLASSICAL METRES. - - Translations of Iliad 417 - - Elegiacs 422 - - Alcaics 423 - - Actæon 423 - - MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. - - Come, Poet, come! 427 - - The Dream Land 428 - - In the Depths 430 - - Darkness (_a Fragment_) 430 - - Two Moods 431 - - Youth and Age 432 - - Solvitur acris Hiems 434 - - Thesis and Antithesis 434 - - ἀνεμώλια 436 - - Columbus 437 - - Even the Winds and the Sea obey 438 - - Repose in Egypt 439 - - To a Sleeping Child 440 - - Translations from Goethe 441 - - Uranus 442 - - Selene 443 - - At Rome 446 - - Last Words. Napoleon and Wellington 448 - - Peschiera 450 - - Alteram Partem 452 - - Say not the struggle nought availeth 452 - - - - -EARLY POEMS. - - -_AN EVENING WALK IN SPRING._ - - It was but some few nights ago - I wandered down this quiet lane; - I pray that I may never know - The feelings then I felt, again. - The leaves were shining all about, - You might almost have seen them springing; - I heard the cuckoo’s simple shout, - And all the little birds were singing. - It was not dull, the air was clear, - All lovely sights and sounds to deal, - My eyes could see, my ears could hear, - Only my heart, it would not feel; - And yet that it should not be so, - My mind kept telling me within; - Though nought was wrong that I did know, - I thought I must have done some sin. - For I am sure as I can be, - That they who have been wont to look - On all in Nature’s face they see, - Even as in the Holy Book; - They who with pure and humble eyes - Have gazed and read her lessons high, - And taught their spirits to be wise - In love and human sympathy,— - That they can soon and surely tell - When aught has gone amiss within, - When the mind is not sound and well, - Nor the soul free from taint of sin. - For as God’s Spirit from above, - So Beauty is to them below, - And when they slight that holy love, - Their hearts that presence may not know. - So I turned home the way I came, - With downcast looks and heavy heart, - A guilty thing and full of shame, - With a dull grief that had no smart. - It chanced when I was nearly there - That all at once I raised my eyes— - Was it a dream, or vision rare, - That then they saw before them rise? - I see it now, before me here, - As often, often I have done, - As bright as it could then appear, - All shining in the setting sun. - Elms, with their mantling foliage spread, - And tall dark poplars rising out, - And blossomed orchards, white and red, - Cast, like a long low fence, about; - And in the midst the grey church-tower, - With one slight turret at its side, - Bringing to mind with silent power - Those thousand homes the elm-trees hide. - And then there came the thought of one - Who on his bed of sickness lay, - Whilst I beneath the setting sun - Was dreaming this sweet hour away. - I thought of hearts for him that beat, - Of aching eyes their watch that kept; - The sister’s and the mother’s seat— - And oh! I thought I should have wept. - And oh! my spirit melted then, - The weight fell off me that I bore, - And now I felt in truth again - The lovely things that stood before. - O blessed, blessed scene, to thee, - For that thy sweet and softening power, - I could have fallen upon my knee, - Thy stately elms, thy grey church-tower. - So then I took my homeward way, - My heart in sweet and holy frame, - With spirit, I may dare to say, - More good and soft than when I came. - - 1836 - - -_AN INCIDENT._ - - ’Twas on a sunny summer day - I trod a mighty city’s street, - And when I started on my way - My heart was full of fancies sweet; - But soon, as nothing could be seen, - But countenances sharp and keen, - Nought heard or seen around but told - Of something bought or something sold, - And none that seemed to think or care - That any save himself was there,— - - Full soon my heart began to sink - With a strange shame and inward pain, - For I was sad within to think - Of this absorbing love of gain, - And various thoughts my bosom tost; - When suddenly my path there crossed, - Locked hand in hand with one another, - A little maiden and her brother— - A little maiden, and she wore - Around her waist a pinafore. - - And hand in hand along the street - This pretty pair did softly go, - And as they went, their little feet - Moved in short even steps and slow: - It was a sight to see and bless, - That little sister’s tenderness; - One hand a tidy basket bore - Of flowers and fruit—a chosen store, - Such as kind friends oft send to others— - And one was fastened in her brother’s. - - It was a voice of meaning sweet, - And spake amid that scene of strife - Of home and homely duties meet, - And charities of daily life; - And often, should my spirit fail, - And under cold strange glances quail, - ’Mid busy shops and busier throng, - That speed upon their ways along - The thick and crowded thoroughfare, - I’ll call to mind that little pair. - - 1836 - - -_THE THREAD OF TRUTH._ - - Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there - In small bright specks upon the visible side - Of our strange being’s party-coloured web. - How rich the converse! ’Tis a vein of ore - Emerging now and then on Earth’s rude breast, - But flowing full below. Like islands set - At distant intervals on Ocean’s face, - We see it on our course; but in the depths - The mystic colonnade unbroken keeps - Its faithful way, invisible but sure. - Oh, if it be so, wherefore do we men - Pass by so many marks, so little heeding? - - 1839 - - -_REVIVAL._ - - So I went wrong, - Grievously wrong, but folly crushed itself, - And vanity o’ertoppling fell, and time - And healthy discipline and some neglect, - Labour and solitary hours revived - Somewhat, at least, of that original frame. - Oh, well do I remember then the days - When on some grassy slope (what time the sun - Was sinking, and the solemn eve came down - With its blue vapour upon field and wood - And elm-embosomed spire) once more again - I fed on sweet emotion, and my heart - With love o’erflowed, or hushed itself in fear - Unearthly, yea celestial. Once again - My heart was hot within me, and, me seemed, - I too had in my body breath to wind - The magic horn of song; I too possessed - Up-welling in my being’s depths a fount - Of the true poet-nectar whence to fill - The golden urns of verse. - - 1839 - - -_THE SHADY LANE._ - - Whence comest thou, shady lane? and why and how? - Thou, where with idle heart, ten years ago, - I wandered, and with childhood’s paces slow - So long unthought of, and remembered now! - Again in vision clear thy pathwayed side - I tread, and view thy orchard plots again - With yellow fruitage hung,—and glimmering grain - Standing or shocked through the thick hedge espied. - This hot still noon of August brings the sight; - This quelling silence as of eve or night, - Wherein Earth (feeling as a mother may - After her travail’s latest bitterest throes) - Looks up, so seemeth it, one half repose, - One half in effort, straining, suffering still. - - 1839 - - -_THE HIGHER COURAGE._[1] - - Come back again, my olden heart!— - Ah, fickle spirit and untrue, - I bade the only guide depart - Whose faithfulness I surely knew: - I said, my heart is all too soft; - He who would climb and soar aloft - Must needs keep ever at his side - The tonic of a wholesome pride. - - Come back again, my olden heart!— - Alas, I called not then for thee; - I called for Courage, and apart - From Pride if Courage could not be, - Then welcome, Pride! and I shall find - In thee a power to lift the mind - This low and grovelling joy above— - ’Tis but the proud can truly love. - - Come back again, my olden heart!— - With incrustations of the years - Uncased as yet,—as then thou wert, - Full-filled with shame and coward fears: - Wherewith amidst a jostling throng - Of deeds, that each and all were wrong, - The doubting soul, from day to day, - Uneasy paralytic lay. - - Come back again, my olden heart! - I said, Perceptions contradict, - Convictions come, anon depart, - And but themselves as false convict. - Assumptions, hasty, crude and vain, - Full oft to use will Science deign; - The corks the novice plies to-day - The swimmer soon shall cast away. - - Come back again, my olden heart! - I said, Behold, I perish quite, - Unless to give me strength to start, - I make myself my rule of right: - It must be, if I act at all, - To save my shame I have at call - The plea of all men understood,— - Because I willed it, it is good. - - Come back again, my olden heart! - I know not if in very deed - This means alone could aid impart - To serve my sickly spirit’s need; - But clear alike of wild self-will, - And fear that faltered, paltered still, - Remorseful thoughts of after days - A way espy betwixt the ways. - - Come back again, old heart! Ah me! - Methinks in those thy coward fears - There might, perchance, a courage be, - That fails in these the manlier years; - Courage to let the courage sink, - Itself a coward base to think, - Rather than not for heavenly light - Wait on to show the truly right. - - 1840 - - -_WRITTEN ON A BRIDGE._ - - When soft September brings again - To yonder gorse its golden glow, - And Snowdon sends its autumn rain - To bid thy current livelier flow; - Amid that ashen foliage light - When scarlet beads are glistering bright, - While alder boughs unchanged are seen - In summer livery of green; - When clouds before the cooler breeze - Are flying, white and large; with these - Returning, so may I return, - And find thee changeless, Pont-y-wern. - - 1840 - - -_A RIVER POOL._ - - Sweet streamlet bason! at thy side - Weary and faint within me cried - My longing heart,—In such pure deep - How sweet it were to sit and sleep; - To feel each passage from without - Close up,—above me and about, - Those circling waters crystal clear, - That calm impervious atmosphere! - There on thy pearly pavement pure, - To lean, and feel myself secure, - Or through the dim-lit inter-space, - Afar at whiles upgazing trace - The dimpling bubbles dance around - Upon thy smooth exterior face; - Or idly list the dreamy sound - Of ripples lightly flung, above - That home, of peace, if not of love. - - 1840 - - -_IN A LECTURE-ROOM._ - - Away, haunt thou not me, - Thou vain Philosophy! - Little hast thou bestead, - Save to perplex the head, - And leave the spirit dead. - Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go, - While from the secret treasure-depths below, - Fed by the skiey shower, - And clouds that sink and rest on hill-tops high, - Wisdom at once, and Power, - Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly? - Why labour at the dull mechanic oar, - When the fresh breeze is blowing, - And the strong current flowing, - Right onward to the Eternal Shore? - - 1840 - - -‘_Blank Misgivings of a Creature moving about in Worlds not realised._’ - - -I - - Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent, - One-third departed of the mortal span, - Carrying on the child into the man, - Nothing into reality. Sails rent, - And rudder broken,—reason impotent,— - Affections all unfixed; so forth I fare - On the mid seas unheedingly, so dare - To do and to be done by, well content. - So was it from the first, so is it yet; - Yea, the first kiss that by these lips was set - On any human lips, methinks was sin— - Sin, cowardice, and falsehood; for the will - Into a deed e’en then advanced, wherein - God, unidentified, was thought-of still. - - -II - - Though to the vilest things beneath the moon - For poor Ease’ sake I give away my heart, - And for the moment’s sympathy let part - My sight and sense of truth, Thy precious boon, - My painful earnings, lost, all lost, as soon, - Almost, as gained; and though aside I start, - Belie Thee daily, hourly,—still Thou art, - Art surely as in heaven the sun at noon; - How much so e’er I sin, whate’er I do - Of evil, still the sky above is blue, - The stars look down in beauty as before: - It is enough to walk as best we may, - To walk, and, sighing, dream of that blest day - When ill we cannot quell shall be no more. - - -III - - Well, well,—Heaven bless you all from day to day! - Forgiveness too, or e’er we part, from each, - As I do give it, so must I beseech: - I owe all much, much more than I can pay; - Therefore it is I go; how could I stay - Where every look commits me to fresh debt, - And to pay little I must borrow yet? - Enough of this already, now away! - With silent woods and hills untenanted - Let me go commune; under thy sweet gloom, - O kind maternal Darkness, hide my head: - The day may come I yet may re-assume - My place, and, these tired limbs recruited, seek - The task for which I now am all too weak. - - -IV - - Yes, I have lied, and so must walk my way, - Bearing the liar’s curse upon my head; - Letting my weak and sickly heart be fed - On food which does the present craving stay, - But may be clean-denied me e’en to-day, - And tho’ ’twere certain, yet were ought but bread; - Letting—for so they say, it seems, I said, - And I am all too weak to disobey! - Therefore for me sweet Nature’s scenes reveal not - Their charm; sweet Music greets me and I feel not - Sweet eyes pass off me uninspired; yea, more, - The golden tide of opportunity - Flows wafting-in friendships and better,—I - Unseeing, listless, pace along the shore. - - -V - - How often sit I, poring o’er - My strange distorted youth, - Seeking in vain, in all my store, - One feeling based on truth; - Amid the maze of petty life - A clue whereby to move, - A spot whereon in toil and strife - To dare to rest and love. - So constant as my heart would be, - So fickle as it must, - ’Twere well for others as for me - ’Twere dry as summer dust. - Excitements come, and act and speech - Flow freely forth;—but no, - Nor they, nor ought beside can reach - The buried world below. - - 1841 - - -VI - - ——Like a child - In some strange garden left awhile alone, - I pace about the pathways of the world, - Plucking light hopes and joys from every stem - With qualms of vague misgiving in my heart - That payment at the last will be required, - Payment I cannot make, or guilt incurred, - And shame to be endured. - - 1841 - - -VII - - ——Roused by importunate knocks - I rose, I turned the key, and let them in, - First one, anon another, and at length - In troops they came; for how could I, who once - Had let in one, nor looked him in the face, - Show scruples e’er again? So in they came, - A noisy band of revellers,—vain hopes, - Wild fancies, fitful joys; and there they sit - In my heart’s holy place, and through the night - Carouse, to leave it when the cold grey dawn - Gleams from the East, to tell me that the time - For watching and for thought bestowed is gone. - - 1841 - - -VIII - - O kind protecting Darkness! as a child - Flies back to bury in its mother’s lap - His shame and his confusion, so to thee, - O Mother Night, come I! within the folds - Of thy dark robe hide thou me close; for I - So long, so heedless, with external things - Have played the liar, that whate’er I see, - E’en these white glimmering curtains, yon bright stars, - Which to the rest rain comfort down, for me - Smiling those smiles, which I may not return, - Or frowning frowns of fierce triumphant malice, - As angry claimants or expectants sure - Of that I promised and may not perform, - Look me in the face! O hide me, Mother Night! - - 1841 - - -IX - - Once more the wonted road I tread, - Once more dark heavens above me spread, - Upon the windy down I stand, - My station whence the circling land - Lies mapped and pictured wide below;— - Such as it was, such e’en again, - Long dreary bank, and breadth of plain - By hedge or tree unbroken;—lo! - A few grey woods can only show - How vain their aid, and in the sense - Of one unaltering impotence, - Relieving not, meseems enhance - The sovereign dulness of the expanse. - Yet marks where human hand hath been, - Bare house, unsheltered village, space - Of ploughed and fenceless tilth between - (Such aspect as methinks may be - In some half-settled colony), - From Nature vindicate the scene; - A wide, and yet disheartening view, - A melancholy world. - - ’Tis true, - Most true; and yet, like those strange smiles - By fervent hope or tender thought - From distant happy regions brought, - Which upon some sick bed are seen - To glorify a pale worn face - With sudden beauty,—so at whiles - Lights have descended, hues have been, - To clothe with half-celestial grace - The bareness of the desert place. - - Since so it is, so be it still! - Could only thou, my heart, be taught - To treasure, and in act fulfil - The lesson which the sight has brought: - In thine own dull and dreary state - To work and patiently to wait: - Little thou think’st in thy despair - How soon the o’ershaded sun may shine, - And e’en the dulling clouds combine - To bless with lights and hues divine - That region desolate and bare, - Those sad and sinful thoughts of thine! - - Still doth the coward heart complain; - The hour may come, and come in vain; - The branch that withered lies and dead - No suns can force to lift its head. - True!—yet how little thou canst tell - How much in thee is ill or well; - Nor for thy neighbour nor for thee, - Be sure, was life designed to be - A draught of dull complacency. - One Power too is it, who doth give - The food without us, and within - The strength that makes it nutritive; - He bids the dry bones rise and live, - And e’en in hearts depraved to sin - Some sudden, gracious influence, - May give the long-lost good again, - And wake within the dormant sense - And love of good;—for mortal men, - So but thou strive, thou soon shalt see - Defeat itself is victory. - - So be it: yet, O Good and Great, - In whom in this bedarkened state - I fain am struggling to believe, - Let me not ever cease to grieve, - Nor lose the consciousness of ill - Within me;—and refusing still - To recognise in things around - What cannot truly there be found, - Let me not feel, nor be it true, - That, while each daily task I do, - I still am giving day by day - My precious things within away - (Those thou didst give to keep as thine) - And casting, do whate’er I may, - My heavenly pearls to earthly swine. - - 1841 - - -_A SONG OF AUTUMN._ - - My wind is turned to bitter north, - That was so soft a south before; - My sky, that shone so sunny bright, - With foggy gloom is clouded o’er: - My gay green leaves are yellow-black, - Upon the dank autumnal floor; - For love, departed once, comes back - No more again, no more. - - A roofless ruin lies my home, - For winds to blow and rains to pour; - One frosty night befell, and lo! - I find my summer days are o’er: - The heart bereaved, of why and how - Unknowing, knows that yet before - It had what e’en to Memory now - Returns no more, no more. - - -_τὸ καλόν._ - - I have seen higher, holier things than these, - And therefore must to these refuse my heart, - Yet am I panting for a little ease; - I’ll take, and so depart. - - Ah, hold! the heart is prone to fall away, - Her high and cherished visions to forget, - And if thou takest, how wilt thou repay - So vast, so dread a debt? - - How will the heart, which now thou trustest, then - Corrupt, yet in corruption mindful yet, - Turn with sharp stings upon itself! Again, - Bethink thee of the debt! - - —Hast thou seen higher, holier things than these, - And therefore must to these thy heart refuse? - With the true best, alack, how ill agrees - That best that thou would’st choose! - - The Summum Pulchrum rests in heaven above; - Do thou, as best thou may’st, thy duty do: - Amid the things allowed thee live and love; - Some day thou shalt it view. - - 1841 - - -_Χρυσέα κλῄς ἐπὶ γλώσσᾳ._ - - If, when in cheerless wanderings, dull and cold, - A sense of human kindliness hath found us, - We seem to have around us - An atmosphere all gold, - ’Midst darkest shades a halo rich of shine, - An element, that while the bleak wind bloweth, - On the rich heart bestoweth - Imbreathèd draughts of wine; - Heaven guide, the cup be not, as chance may be, - To some vain mate given up as soon as tasted! - No, nor on thee be wasted, - Thou trifler, Poesy! - Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere - Youth fly, with life’s real tempest would be coping; - The fruit of dreamy hoping - Is, waking, blank despair. - - 1841 - - -_THE SILVER WEDDING._[2] - - The Silver Wedding! on some pensive ear - From towers remote as sound the silvery bells, - To-day from one far unforgotten year - A silvery faint memorial music swells. - - And silver-pale the dim memorial light - Of musing age on youthful joys is shed, - The golden joys of fancy’s dawning bright, - The golden bliss of, Woo’d, and won, and wed. - - Ah, golden then, but silver now! In sooth, - The years that pale the cheek, that dim the eyes, - And silver o’er the golden hairs of youth, - Less prized can make its only priceless prize. - - Not so; the voice this silver name that gave - To this, the ripe and unenfeebled date, - For steps together tottering to the grave, - Hath bid the perfect golden title wait. - - Rather, if silver this, if that be gold, - From good to better changed on age’s track, - Must it as baser metal be enrolled, - That day of days, a quarter-century back. - - Yet ah, its hopes, its joys were golden too, - But golden of the fairy gold of dreams: - To feel is but to dream; until we do, - There’s nought that is, and all we see but seems. - - What was or seemed it needed cares and tears, - And deeds together done, and trials past, - And all the subtlest alchemy of years, - To change to genuine substance here at last. - - Your fairy gold is silver sure to-day; - Your ore by crosses many, many a loss, - As in refiners’ fires, hath purged away - What erst it had of earthy human dross. - - Come years as many yet, and as they go, - In human life’s great crucible shall they - Transmute, so potent are the spells they know, - Into pure gold the silver of to-day. - - Strange metallurge is human life! ’Tis true; - And Use and Wont in many a gorgeous case - Full specious fair for casual outward view - Electrotype the sordid and the base. - - Nor lack who praise, avowed, the spurious ware, - Who bid young hearts the one true love forego, - Conceit to feed, or fancy light as air, - Or greed of pelf and precedence and show. - - True, false, as one to casual eyes appear, - To read men truly men may hardly learn; - Yet doubt it not that wariest glance would here - Faith, Hope and Love, the true Tower-stamp discern. - - Come years again! as many yet! and purge - Less precious earthier elements away, - And gently changed at life’s extremest verge, - Bring bright in gold your perfect fiftieth day! - - That sight may children see and parents show! - If not—yet earthly chains of metal true, - By love and duty wrought and fixed below, - Elsewhere will shine, transformed, celestial-new; - - Will shine of gold, whose essence, heavenly bright, - No doubt-damps tarnish, worldly passions fray; - Gold into gold there mirrored, light in light, - Shall gleam in glories of a deathless day. - - 1845 - - -_THE MUSIC OF THE WORLD AND OF THE SOUL._ - - -I - - Why should I say I see the things I see not? - Why be and be not? - Show love for that I love not, and fear for what I fear not? - And dance about to music that I hear not? - Who standeth still i’ the street - Shall be hustled and justled about; - And he that stops i’ the dance shall be spurned by the dancers’ feet,— - Shall be shoved and be twisted by all he shall meet, - And shall raise up an outcry and rout; - And the partner, too,— - What’s the partner to do? - While all the while ’tis but, perchance, an humming in mine ear, - That yet anon shall hear, - And I anon, the music in my soul, - In a moment read the whole; - The music in my heart, - Joyously take my part, - And hand in hand, and heart with heart, with these retreat, advance; - And borne on wings of wavy sound, - Whirl with these around, around, - Who here are living in the living dance! - Why forfeit that fair chance? - Till that arrive, till thou awake, - Of these, my soul, thy music make, - And keep amid the throng, - And turn as they shall turn, and bound as they are bounding,— - Alas! alas! alas! and what if all along - The music is not sounding? - - -II - - Are there not, then, two musics unto men?— - One loud and bold and coarse, - And overpowering still perforce - All tone and tune beside; - Yet in despite its pride - Only of fumes of foolish fancy bred, - And sounding solely in the sounding head: - The other, soft and low, - Stealing whence we not know, - Painfully heard, and easily forgot, - With pauses oft and many a silence strange - (And silent oft it seems, when silent it is not), - Revivals too of unexpected change: - Haply thou think’st ’twill never be begun, - Or that ’t has come, and been, and passed away: - Yet turn to other none,— - Turn not, oh, turn not thou! - But listen, listen, listen,—if haply be heard it may; - Listen, listen, listen,—is it not sounding now? - - -III - - Yea, and as thought of some departed friend - By death or distance parted will descend, - Severing, in crowded rooms ablaze with light, - As by a magic screen, the seër from the sight - (Palsying the nerves that intervene - The eye and central sense between); - So may the ear, - Hearing not hear, - Though drums do roll, and pipes and cymbals ring; - So the bare conscience of the better thing - Unfelt, unseen, unimaged, all unknown, - May fix the entrancèd soul ’mid multitudes alone. - - -_LOVE, NOT DUTY._ - - Thought may well be ever ranging, - And opinion ever changing, - Task-work be, though ill begun, - Dealt with by experience better; - By the law and by the letter - Duty done is duty done: - Do it, Time is on the wing! - - Hearts, ’tis quite another thing, - Must or once for all be given, - Or must not at all be given; - Hearts, ’tis quite another thing! - - To bestow the soul away - Is an idle duty-play!— - Why, to trust a life-long bliss - To caprices of a day, - Scarce were more depraved than this! - - Men and maidens, see you mind it; - Show of love, where’er you find it, - Look if duty lurk behind it! - Duty-fancies, urging on - Whither love had never gone! - - Loving—if the answering breast - Seem not to be thus possessed, - Still in hoping have a care; - If it do, beware, beware! - But if in yourself you find it, - Above all things—mind it, mind it! - - 1841 - - -_LOVE AND REASON._ - - When panting sighs the bosom fill, - And hands by chance united thrill - At once with one delicious pain - The pulses and the nerves of twain; - When eyes that erst could meet with ease, - Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun - Extatic conscious unison,— - The sure beginnings, say, be these - Prelusive to the strain of love - Which angels sing in heaven above? - - Or is it but the vulgar tune, - Which all that breathe beneath the moon - So accurately learn—so soon? - With variations duly blent; - Yet that same song to all intent, - Set for the finer instrument; - It is; and it would sound the same - In beasts, were not the bestial frame, - Less subtly organised, to blame; - And but that soul and spirit add - To pleasures, even base and bad, - A zest the soulless never had. - - It may be—well indeed I deem; - But what if sympathy, it seem, - And admiration and esteem, - Commingling therewithal, do make - The passion prized for Reason’s sake? - Yet, when my heart would fain rejoice, - A small expostulating voice - Falls in; Of this thou wilt not take - Thy one irrevocable choice? - In accent tremulous and thin - I hear high Prudence deep within, - Pleading the bitter, bitter sting, - Should slow-maturing seasons bring, - Too late, the veritable thing. - For if (the Poet’s tale of bliss) - A love, wherewith commeasured this - Is weak and beggarly, and none, - Exist a treasure to be won, - And if the vision, though it stay, - Be yet for an appointed day,— - This choice, if made, this deed, if done, - The memory of this present past, - With vague foreboding might o’ercast - The heart, or madden it at last. - - Let Reason first her office ply; - Esteem, and admiration high, - And mental, moral sympathy, - Exist they first, nor be they brought - By self-deceiving afterthought,— - What if an halo interfuse - With these again its opal hues, - That all o’erspreading and o’erlying, - Transmuting, mingling, glorifying, - About the beauteous various whole. - With beaming smile do dance and quiver; - Yet, is that halo of the soul?— - Or is it, as may sure be said, - Phosphoric exhalation bred - Of vapour, steaming from the bed - Of Fancy’s brook, or Passion’s river? - So when, as will be by-and-by, - The stream is waterless and dry, - This halo and its hues will die; - And though the soul contented rest - With those substantial blessings blest, - Will not a longing, half confest, - Betray that this is not the love, - The gift for which all gifts above - Him praise we, Who is Love, the Giver? - - I cannot say—the things are good: - Bread is it, if not angels’ food; - But Love? Alas! I cannot say; - A glory on the vision lay; - A light of more than mortal day - About it played, upon it rested; - It did not, faltering and weak, - Beg Reason on its side to speak: - Itself was Reason, or, if not, - Such substitute as is, I wot, - Of seraph-kind the loftier lot;— - Itself was of itself attested;— - To processes that, hard and dry, - Elaborate truth from fallacy, - With modes intuitive succeeding, - Including those and superseding; - Reason sublimed and Love most high - It was, a life that cannot die, - A dream of glory most exceeding. - - 1844 - - -_Ὁ Θεὸς μετὰ σοῦ!_[3] - - Farewell, my Highland lassie! when the year returns around, - Be it Greece, or be it Norway, where my vagrant feet are found, - I shall call to mind the place, I shall call to mind the day, - The day that’s gone for ever, and the glen that’s far away; - I shall mind me, be it Rhine or Rhone, Italian land or France, - Of the laughings and the whispers, of the pipings and the dance; - I shall see thy soft brown eyes dilate to wakening woman thought, - And whiter still the white cheek grow to which the blush was brought; - And oh, with mine commixing I thy breath of life shall feel, - And clasp thy shyly passive hands in joyous Highland reel; - I shall hear, and see, and feel, and in sequence sadly true, - Shall repeat the bitter-sweet of the lingering last adieu; - I shall seem as now to leave thee, with the kiss upon the brow, - And the fervent benediction of—Ὁ Θεὸς μετὰ σοῦ! - - Ah me, my Highland lassie! though in winter drear and long - Deep arose the heavy snows, and the stormy winds were strong, - Though the rain, in summer’s brightest, it were raining every day, - With worldly comforts few and far, how glad were I to stay! - I fall to sleep with dreams of life in some black bothie spent, - Coarse poortith’s ware thou changing there to gold of pure content, - With barefoot lads and lassies round, and thee the cheery wife, - In the braes of old Lochaber a laborious homely life; - But I wake—to leave thee, smiling, with the kiss upon the brow, - And the peaceful benediction of—Ὁ Θεὸς μετὰ σοῦ! - - -_WIRKUNG IN DER FERNE._ - - When the dews are earliest falling, - When the evening glen is grey, - Ere thou lookest, ere thou speakest, - My beloved, - I depart, and I return to thee,— - Return, return, return. - - Dost thou watch me while I traverse - Haunts of men, beneath the sun— - Dost thou list while I bespeak them - With a voice whose cheer is thine? - O my brothers! men, my brothers, - You are mine, and I am yours; - I am yours to cheer and succour, - I am yours for hope and aid: - Lo, my hand to raise and stay you, - Lo, my arm to guard and keep, - My voice to rouse and warn you, - And my heart to warm and calm; - My heart to lend the life it owes - To her that is not here, - In the power of her that dwelleth - Where you know not—no, nor guess not— - Whom you see not; unto whom,— - Ere the evening star hath sunken, - Ere the glow-worm lights its lamp, - Ere the wearied workman slumbers,— - I return, return, return. - - -_ἐπὶ Λάτμῳ._ - - On the mountain, in the woodland, - In the shaded secret dell, - I have seen thee, I have met thee! - In the soft ambrosial hours of night, - In darkness silent sweet - I beheld thee, I was with thee, - I was thine, and thou wert mine! - - When I gazed in palace-chambers, - When I trod the rustic dance, - Earthly maids were fair to look on, - Earthly maidens’ hearts were kind: - Fair to look on, fair to love: - But the life, the life to me, - ’Twas the death, the death to them, - In the spying, prying, prating - Of a curious cruel world. - At a touch, a breath they fade, - They languish, droop, and die; - Yea, the juices change to sourness, - And the tints to clammy brown; - And the softness unto foulness, - And the odour unto stench. - Let alone and leave to bloom; - Pass aside, nor make to die, - —In the woodland, on the mountain, - Thou art mine, and I am thine. - - So I passed.—Amid the uplands, - In the forests, on whose skirts - Pace unstartled, feed unfearing - Do the roe-deer and the red, - While I hungered, while I thirsted, - While the night was deepest dark, - Who was I, that thou shouldst meet me? - Who was I, thou didst not pass? - Who was I, that I should say to thee - Thou art mine, and I am thine? - - To the air from whence thou camest - Thou returnest, thou art gone; - Self-created, discreated, - Re-created, ever fresh, - Ever young!—— - As a lake its mirrored mountains - At a moment, unregretting, - Unresisting, unreclaiming, - Without preface, without question, - On the silent shifting levels - Lets depart, - Shows, effaces and replaces! - For what is, anon is not; - What has been, again ’s to be; - Ever new and ever young - Thou art mine, and I am thine. - - Art thou she that walks the skies, - That rides the starry night? - I know not—— - For my meanness dares not claim the truth - Thy loveliness declares. - But the face thou show’st the world is not - The face thou show’st to me; - And the look that I have looked in - Is of none but me beheld. - I know not; but I know - I am thine, and thou art mine. - - And I watch: the orb behind - As it fleeteth, faint and fair - In the depth of azure night, - In the violet blank, I trace - By an outline faint and fair - Her whom none but I beheld. - By her orb she moveth slow, - Graceful-slow, serenely firm, - Maiden-Goddess! while her robe - The adoring planets kiss. - And I too cower and ask, - Wert thou mine, and was I thine? - - Hath a cloud o’ercast the sky? - Is it cloud upon the mountain-sides - Or haze of dewy river-banks - Below?— - Or around me, - To enfold me, to conceal, - Doth a mystic magic veil, - A celestial separation, - As of curtains hymeneal, - Undiscerned yet all excluding, - Interpose? - For the pine-tree boles are dimmer, - And the stars bedimmed above; - In perspective brief, uncertain, - Are the forest-alleys closed, - And to whispers indistinctest - The resounding torrents lulled. - Can it be, and can it be? - Upon Earth and here below, - In the woodland at my side - Thou art with me, thou art here. - - ’Twas the vapour of the perfume - Of the presence that should be, - That enwrapt me? - That enwraps us, - O my Goddess, O my Queen! - And I turn - At thy feet to fall before thee; - And thou wilt not: - At thy feet to kneel and reach and kiss thy finger-tips; - And thou wilt not: - And I feel thine arms that stay me, - And I feel—— - O mine own, mine own, mine own, - I am thine, and thou art mine! - - -_A PROTEST._ - - Light words they were, and lightly, falsely said: - She heard them, and she started,—and she rose, - As in the act to speak; the sudden thought - And unconsidered impulse led her on. - In act to speak she rose, but with the sense - Of all the eyes of that mixed company - Now suddenly turned upon her, some with age - Hardened and dulled, some cold and critical; - Some in whom vapours of their own conceit, - As moist malarious mists the heavenly stars, - Still blotted out their good, the best at best - By frivolous laugh and prate conventional - All too untuned for all she thought to say— - With such a thought the mantling blood to her cheek - Flushed-up, and o’er-flushed itself, blank night her soul - Made dark, and in her all her purpose swooned. - She stood as if for sinking. Yet anon - With recollections clear, august, sublime, - Of God’s great truth, and right immutable, - Which, as obedient vassals, to her mind - Came summoned of her will, in self-negation - Quelling her troublous earthy consciousness, - She queened it o’er her weakness. At the spell - Back rolled the ruddy tide, and leaves her cheek - Paler than erst, and yet not ebbs so far - But that one pulse of one indignant thought - Might hurry it hither in flood. So as she stood - She spoke. God in her spoke and made her heard. - - 1845 - - -_SIC ITUR._ - - As, at a railway junction, men - Who came together, taking then - One the train up, one down, again - - Meet never! Ah, much more as they - Who take one street’s two sides, and say - Hard parting words, but walk one way: - - Though moving other mates between, - While carts and coaches intervene, - Each to the other goes unseen; - - Yet seldom, surely, shall there lack - Knowledge they walk not back to back, - But with an unity of track, - - Where common dangers each attend, - And common hopes their guidance lend - To light them to the self-same end. - - Whether he then shall cross to thee, - Or thou go thither, or it be - Some midway point, ye yet shall see - - Each other, yet again shall meet - Ah, joy! when with the closing street, - Forgivingly at last ye greet! - - 1845 - - -_PARTING._ - - O tell me, friends, while yet we part, - And heart can yet be heard of heart, - O tell me then, for what is it - Our early plan of life we quit; - From all our old intentions range, - And why does all so wholly change? - O tell me, friends, while yet we part! - - O tell me, friends, while yet we part,— - The rays that from the centre start - Within the orb of one warm sun, - Unless I err, have once begun,— - Why is it thus they still diverge? - And whither tends the course they urge? - O tell me, friends, while yet we part! - - O tell me, friends, while yet ye hear,— - May it not be, some coming year, - These ancient paths that here divide - Shall yet again run side by side, - And you from there, and I from here, - All on a sudden reappear? - O tell me, friends, while yet ye hear! - - O tell me, friends, ye hardly hear,— - And if indeed ye did, I fear - Ye would not say, ye would not speak,— - Are you so strong, am I so weak, - And yet, how much so e’er I yearn, - Can I not follow, nor you turn? - O tell me, friends, ye hardly hear! - - O tell me, friends, ere words are o’er! - There’s something in me sad and sore - Repines, and underneath my eyes - I feel a somewhat that would rise,— - O tell me, O my friends, and you, - Do you feel nothing like it too? - O tell me, friends, ere words are o’er! - - O tell me, friends that are no more, - Do you, too, think ere it is o’er - Old times shall yet come round as erst, - And we be friends, as we were first? - Or do you judge that all is vain, - Except that rule that none complain? - O tell me, friends that are no more! - - -_QUA CURSUM VENTUS._ - - As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay - With canvas drooping, side by side, - Two towers of sail at dawn of day - Are scarce long leagues apart descried; - - When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, - And all the darkling hours they plied, - Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas - By each was cleaving, side by side: - - E’en so—but why the tale reveal - Of those, whom year by year unchanged, - Brief absence joined anew to feel, - Astounded, soul from soul estranged? - - At dead of night their sails were filled, - And onward each rejoicing steered— - Ah, neither blame, for neither willed, - Or wist, what first with dawn appeared! - - To veer, how vain! On, onward strain, - Brave barks! In light, in darkness too, - Through winds and tides one compass guides— - To that, and your own selves, be true. - - But O blithe breeze; and O great seas, - Though ne’er, that earliest parting past, - On your wide plain they join again, - Together lead them home at last. - - One port, methought, alike they sought, - One purpose hold where’er they fare,— - O bounding breeze, O rushing seas! - At last, at last, unite them there! - - -‘_WEN GOTT BETRÜGT, IST WOHL BETROGEN._’ - - Is it true, ye gods, who treat us - As the gambling fool is treated; - O ye, who ever cheat us, - And let us feel we’re cheated! - Is it true that poetical power, - The gift of heaven, the dower - Of Apollo and the Nine, - The inborn sense, ‘the vision and the faculty divine,’ - All we glorify and bless - In our rapturous exaltation, - All invention, and creation, - Exuberance of fancy, and sublime imagination, - All a poet’s fame is built on, - The fame of Shakespeare, Milton, - Of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, - Is in reason’s grave precision, - Nothing more, nothing less, - Than a peculiar conformation, - Constitution, and condition - Of the brain and of the belly? - Is it true, ye gods who cheat us? - And that’s the way ye treat us? - - Oh say it, all who think it, - Look straight, and never blink it! - If it is so, let it be so, - And we will all agree so; - But the plot has counterplot, - It may be, and yet be not. - - - - -POEMS ON RELIGIOUS AND BIBLICAL SUBJECTS. - - -_FRAGMENTS OF THE MYSTERY OF THE FALL._[4] - - -SCENE I. - -_Adam and Eve._ - - _Adam._ Since that last evening we have fallen indeed! - Yes, we have fallen, my Eve! O yes!— - One, two, and three, and four;—the Appetite, - The Enjoyment, the aftervoid, the thinking of it— - Specially the latter two, most specially the last. - There, in synopsis, see, you have it all: - Come, let us go and work! - Is it not enough? - What, is there three, four, five? - - _Eve._ Oh, guilt, guilt, guilt! - - _Adam._ Be comforted; muddle not your soul with doubt. - ’Tis done, it was to be done; if, indeed, - Other way than this there was, I cannot say: - This was one way, and a way was needs to be found. - That which we were we could no more remain - Than in the moist provocative vernal mould - A seed its suckers close and rest a seed; - We were to grow. Necessity on us lay - This way or that to move; necessity, too, - Not to be over careful this or that, - So only move we should. - Come, my wife, - We were to grow, and grow I think we may, - And yet bear goodly fruit. - - _Eve._ Oh, guilt! oh, guilt! - - _Adam._ You weary me with your ‘Oh, guilt! oh, guilt!’ - Peace to the senseless iteration. What! - Because I plucked an apple from a twig - Be damned to death eterne! parted from Good, - Enchained to Ill! No, by the God of gods; - No, by the living will within my breast, - It cannot be, and shall not; and if this, - This guilt of your distracted fantasy, - Be our experiment’s sum, thank God for guilt, - Which makes me free! - But thou, poor wife! poor mother, shall I say? - Big with the first maternity of man, - Draw’st from thy teeming womb thick fancies fond, - That with confusion mix thy delicate brain; - Fondest of which and cloudiest call the dream - (Yea, my beloved, hear me, it is a dream) - Of the serpent, and the apple, and the curse: - Fondest of dreams and cloudiest of clouds. - Well I remember, in our marriage bower, - How in the dewiest balminess of rest, - Inarmèd as we lay, sudden at once - Up from my side you started, screaming ‘Guilt!’ - And ‘Lost! lost! lost!’ I on my elbow rose, - And rubbed unwilling eyes, and cried, ‘Eve! Eve! - My love! my wife!’ and knit anew the embrace, - And drew thee to me close, and calmed thy fear, - And wooed thee back to sleep. In vain; for soon - I felt thee gone, and opening widest eyes, - Beheld thee kneeling on the turf, hands now - Clenched and uplifted high, now vainly outspread - To hide a burning face and streaming eyes - And pale small lips that muttered faintly, ‘Death.’ - And thou wouldst fain depart; thou saidst the place - Was for the like of us too good: we left - The pleasant woodland shades, and passed abroad - Into this naked champaign—glorious soil - For digging and for delving, but indeed, - Until I killed a beast or two, and spread - Skins upon sticks to make our palace here, - A residence sadly exposed to wind and rain. - But I in all submit to you; and then - I turned out too, and trudged a furlong’s space, - Till you fell tired and fain would wait for morn. - So as our nightly journey we began, - Because the autumnal fruitage that had fallen - From trees whereunder we had slept, lay thick, - And we had eaten overnight, and seen, - And saw again by starlight when you woke me, - A sly and harmless snake glide by our couch; - And because, some few hours before, a lamb - Fell from a rock and broke its neck, and I - Had answered, to your wonder, that ’twas dead, - Forsooth the molten lava of your fright - Forth from your brain, its crater, hurrying down, - Took the chance mould; the vapour blowing by - Caught and reflected back some random shapes. - A vague and queasy dream was obstinate - In waking thoughts to find itself renewed, - And lo! the mighty Mythus of the Fall! - Nay, smile with me, sweet mother! - - _Eve._ Guilt! oh, guilt! - - _Adam._ Peace, woman, peace; I go. - - _Eve._ Nay, Adam, nay; - Hear me,—I am not dreaming, am not crazed. - Did not yourself confess that we are changed? - Do not you too? - - _Adam._ Do not I too? Well, well, - Listen! I too when homeward, weary of toil, - Through the dark night I have wandered in rain and wind, - Bewildered, haply scared, I too have lost heart, - And deemed all space with angry power replete, - Angry, almighty—and panic-stricken have cried, - ‘What have I done?’ ‘What wilt thou do to me?’ - Or with the coward’s ‘No, I did not, I will not,’ - Belied my own soul’s self. I too have heard, - And listened, too, to a voice that in my ear - Hissed the temptation to curse God, or worse, - And yet more frequent, curse myself and die; - Until, in fine, I have begun to half believe - _Your_ dream _my_ dream too, and the dream of both - No dream but dread reality; have shared - Your fright: e’en so share thou, sweet life, my hope; - I too, again, when weeds with growth perverse - Have choked my corn and marred a season’s toil, - Have deemed I heard in heaven abroad a cry, - ‘Cursed is the ground for thy sake; thou art cursed.’ - But oftener far, and stronger also far, - In consonance with all things out and in, - I hear a voice more searching bid me, ‘On! - On! on! it is the folly of the child - To choose his path and straightway think it wrong, - And turn right back and lie on the ground to weep. - Forward! go, conquer! work and live!’ Withal - A word comes, half command, half prophecy, - ‘Forgetting things behind thee, onward press - Unto the mark of your high calling.’ Yea, - And voices, too, in woods and flowery fields - Speak confidence from budding banks and boughs, - And tell me, ‘Live and grow,’ and say, ‘Look still - Upward, spread outward, trust, be patient, live;’ - Therefore, if weakness bid me curse and die, - I answer, No! I will not curse myself, - Nor aught beside; I shall not die, but live. - - _Eve._ Ah me! alas! alas! - More dismally in my face stares the doubt, - More heavily on my heart weighs the world. - Methinks - The questionings of ages yet to be, - The thinkings and cross-thinkings, self-contempts, - Self-horror; all despondencies, despairs, - Of multitudinous souls on souls to come, - In me imprisoned fight, complain and cry. - Alas! - Mystery, mystery, mystery evermore. - - -SCENE II. - -_Adam, alone._ - - _Adam._ Misery, oh my misery! O God, God! - How could I ever, ever, could I do it? - Whither am I come? where am I? O me, miserable! - My God, my God, that I were back with Thee! - O fool! O fool! O irretrievable act! - Irretrievable what, I should like to know? - What act, I wonder? What is it I mean? - O heaven! the spirit holds me; I must yield; - Up in the air he lifts me, casts me down; - I writhe in vain, with limbs convulsed, in the void. - Well, well! go idle words, babble your will; - I think the fit will leave me ere I die. - - Fool, fool! where am I? O my God! Fool, fool! - Why did we do ’t? Eve, Eve! where are you? quick! - His tread is in the garden! hither it comes! - Hide us, O bushes! and ye thick trees, hide! - He comes, on, on. Alack, and all these leaves, - These petty, quivering and illusive blinds, - Avail us nought: the light comes in and in; - Displays us to ourselves; displays—ah, shame— - Unto the inquisitive day our nakedness. - He comes; He calls. The large eye of His truth, - His full, severe, all-comprehending view, - Fixes itself upon our guiltiness. - O God, O God! what are we? what shall we be? - What is all this about, I wonder now? - Yet I am better, too. I think it will pass - ’Tis going now, unless it comes again. - A terrible possession while it lasts. - Terrible, surely; and yet indeed ’tis true. - E’en in my utmost impotence I find - A fount of strange persistence in my soul; - Also, and that perchance is stronger still, - A wakeful, changeless touchstone in my brain, - Receiving, noting, testing all the while - These passing, curious, new phenomena— - Painful, and yet not painful unto it. - Though tortured in the crucible I lie, - Myself my own experiment, yet still - I, or a something that is I indeed, - A living, central, and more inmost I, - Within the scales of mere exterior me’s, - I,—seem eternal, O thou God, as Thou; - Have knowledge of the evil and the good, - Superior in a higher good to both. - Well, well, well! it has gone from me, though still - Its images remain upon me whole; - And undisplaced upon my mind I view - The reflex of the total seizure past. - Really now, had I only time and space, - And were not troubled with this wife of mine, - And the necessity of meat and drink— - I really do believe, - With time and space and proper quietude, - I could resolve the problem in my brain. - But, no; I scarce can stay one moment more - To watch the curious seething process out. - If I could only dare to let Eve see - These operations, it is like enough - Between us two we two could make it out. - But she would be so frightened—think it proof - Of all her own imaginings. ’Twill not do; - So as it is - I must e’en put a cheery face on it, - Suppress the whole, rub off the unfinished thoughts, - For fear she read them. O, ’tis pity indeed, - But confidence is the one and main thing now: - Who loses confidence, he loses all. - A demi-grain of cowardice in me - Avowed, were poison to the whole mankind; - When men are plentier, ’twill be time to try; - At present, no. - No; - Shake it all up and go. - That is the word, and that must be obeyed. - I must be off. But yet again some day - Again will I resume it; if not I, - I in some child of late posterity. - Yes, yes, I feel it; it is here the seed, - Here in my head; but, O thou Power unseen, - In whom we live and move and have our being, - Let it not perish; grant, unlost, unhurt, - In long transmission, this rich atom some day, - In some posterity of distant years— - How many thou intendest to have I know not— - In some matured and procreant human brain, - May germinate, burst, and rise into a tree. - No; I shall not tell Eve. - - -SCENE III. - -(‘_Now the birth of Cain was in this wise._’) - -_Adam and Eve._ - - _Eve._ Oh, Adam, I am comforted indeed; - Where is he? O my little one! - My heart is in the garden as of old, - And Paradise come back. - - _Adam._ My love, - Blessed be this good day to thee indeed; - Blessed the balm of joy unto thy soul. - A sad unskilful nurse was I to thee; - But nature teaches mothers, I perceive. - - _Eve._ But you, my husband, you meantime, I feel, - Join not your perfect spirit in my joy. - No; your spirit mixes not, I feel, with mine. - - _Adam._ Alas! sweet love, for many a weary day, - You and not I have borne this heavy weight: - How can I, should I, might I feel your bliss, - Now heaviness is changed to glory? Long, - In long and unparticipated pangs, - Your heart hath known its own great bitterness: - How should, in this its jubilant release, - A stranger intermeddle with its joy? - - _Eve._ My husband, there is more in it than this; - Nay, you are surely, positively sad. - - _Adam._ What if I was (and yet I think I am not), - ’Twere but the silly and contrarious mood - Of one whose sympathies refuse to mix - In aught not felt immediate from himself. - But of a truth, - Your joy is greater—mine seems therefore none. - - _Eve._ Nay, neither this I think nor that is true. - Evermore still you love to cheat me, Adam: - You hide from me your thoughts like evil beasts - Most foolishly; for I, thus left to guess, - Catch at all hints, and where perchance one is, - People the forest with a hundred ills, - Each worse perhaps a hundred times than it. - No; you have got some fearful thoughts—no, no; - Look not in that way on my baby, Adam— - You do it hurt; you shall not! - - _Adam._ Hear me, Eve, - If hear you will—and speak I think I must— - Hear me. - What is it I would say? I think— - And yet I must—so hear me, mother blest, - That sittest with thy nursling at thy heart, - Hope not too greatly, neither fear for him, - Feeling on thy breast his small compressing lips, - And glorying in the gift they draw from thee; - Hope not too greatly in thyself and him. - And hear me, O young mother—I must speak. - This child is born of us, and therefore like us; - Is born of us, and therefore is as we; - Is born of us, and therefore is not pure; - Earthy as well as godlike; bound to strive— - Not doubtfully I augur from the past— - Through the same straits of anguish and of doubt, - ’Mid the same storms of terror and alarm, - To the calm ocean which he yet shall reach, - He or himself or in his sons hereafter, - Of consummated consciousness of self. - The selfsame stuff which wrought in us to grief - Runs in his veins; and what to work in him? - What shape of unsuspected deep disguise, - Transcending our experience, our best cares - Baffling, evading all preventive thought, - Will the old mischief choose, I wonder, here? - O born to human trouble! also born— - Else wherefore born—to some diviner lot, - Live, and may chance treat thee no worse than us - There, I have done: the dangerous stuff is out; - My mind is freed. And now, my gentle Eve, - Forgive thy foolish spouse, and let me set - A father’s kiss upon these budding lips, - A husband’s on the mother’s—the full flower. - There, there; and so, my own and only wife, - Believe me, my worst thought is now to learn - How best and most to serve this child and thee. - This child is born of us, and therefore like us— - Most true, mine own; and if a man like me - Externally, internally I trust - Most like to thee, the better of the twain. - Is born of us, and therefore is not pure— - Did I say that? I know not what I said; - It was a foolish humour; but, indeed, - Whatever you may think, I have not learnt - The trick of deep suppression, e’en the skill - To sort my thoughts and sift my words enough. - Not pure, indeed!—And if it is not pure, - What is? Ah, well! but most I look to the days - When these small arms, with pliant thews filled out. - Shall at my side break up the fruitful glebe, - And aid the cheery labours of the year— - Aid, or, in feebler wearier years, replace, - And leave me longer hours for home and love. - - -SCENE IV. - -_Adam and Eve._ - - _Eve._ O Adam, it was I was godless then; - But you were mournful, heavy, but composed. - At times would somewhat fiercely bite your lip - And pass your hand about your brow; but still - Held out, denied not God, acknowledged still - Those glories that were gone. No, I never - Felt all your worth to me before; I feel - You did not fall as I did. - - _Adam._ Nay, my child, - About our falls I don’t profess to know. - I know I ne’er was innocent as thou; - I only know, as you will have it so, - Were your descent more lengthy than was mine, - It is not that your place is lower now, - But that first ’twas higher up than mine; - It is, that I being bestial, you divine, - We now alike are human beings both. - About our fall I won’t profess to know, - But know I do, - That I was never innocent as thou. - Moping again, my love; yes, I dare swear, - All the day long while I have been at work, - With some religious folly in your head. - - _Eve._ No, Adam, I am cheerful quite to-day; - I vary much, indeed, from hour to hour, - But since my baby’s birth I am happier far; - And I have done some work as well as you. - - _Adam._ What is it tho’? for I will take my oath - You’ve got some fancy stirring in your brain. - - _Eve._ Nay, but it vexes me for evermore - To find in you no credence to my thought. - - _Adam._ What is it then you wish me to subscribe to? - That we were in a garden put by God, - Allowed to eat of all the trees but one. - Somehow—I don’t know how—a serpent tempted us, - And eat we did, and so were doomed to die; - Whereas before we were meant to live for ever. - Meantime, turned out—— - - _Eve._ You do not think then, Adam, - We have been disobedient unto God? - - _Adam._ My child, how should I know, and what do you mean? - Your question’s not so simple as it looks; - For if you mean that God said this or that— - As that ‘You shall not touch those apples there,’ - And that we did—why, all that I can say - Is, that I can’t conceive the thing to be. - But if it were so, I should then believe - We had done right—at any rate, no harm. - - _Eve._ O Adam, I can scarcely think I hear; - For if God said to us—God being God— - ‘You shall not,’ is not His commandment His? - And are not we the creatures He hath made? - - _Adam._ My child, God does not speak to human minds - In that unmeaning arbitrary way. - God were not God if so, and good not good. - Search in your heart, and if you tell me there - You find a genuine voice—no fancy, mind you— - Declaring to you this or that is evil, - Why, this or that I daresay evil is. - Believe me, I will listen to the word; - For not by observation of without - Cometh the kingdom of the voice of God: - It is within us—let us seek it there. - - _Eve._ Yet I have voices, surely, in my heart. - Often you say I heed them over much. - - _Adam._ God’s voice is of the heart: I do not say - All voices, therefore, of the heart are God’s; - And to discern the voice amidst the voices - Is that hard task, my love, that we are born to. - - _Eve._ Ah me, in me I am sure the one, one voice - Goes somehow to the sense of what I say— - The sense of disobedience to God. - O Adam, some way, some time, we have done wrong, - And when I think of this, I still must think - Of Paradise, and of the stately tree - Which in the middle of the garden grew, - The golden fruit that hung upon its boughs, - Of which but once we ate, and I must feel - That whereas once in His continual sight - We lived, in daily communing with Him, - We now are banished, and behold not Him. - Our only present communing, alas! - Is penitential mourning, and the gaze - Of the abased and prostrate prayerful soul; - But you, yourself, my Adam, you at least - Acknowledge some time somehow we did wrong. - - _Adam._ My child, I never even granted that. - - _Eve._ Oh, but you let strange words at times fall from you. - They are to me like thunderbolts from heaven; - I listen terrified and sick at heart, - Then haste and pick them up and treasure them. - What was it that you said when Cain was born? - ‘He’s born of us and therefore is not pure.’ - O, you corrected well, my husband, then - My foolish, fond exuberance of delight. - - _Adam._ My child, believe me, truly I was the fool; - But a first baby is a strange surprise. - I shall not say so when another comes; - And I beseech you treasure up no words. - You know me: I am loose of tongue and light. - I beg you, Eve, remember nought of this; - Put not at least, I pray you—nay, command— - Put not, when days come on, your own strange whim - And misconstruction of my idle words - Into the tender brains of our poor young ones. - - -SCENE V. - -_Adam with Cain and Abel._ - - _Adam._ Cain, beware! - Strike not your brother! I have said, beware! - A heavy curse is on this thing, my son. - With doubt and fear, - Terror and toil and pain already here, - Let us not have injustice too, my son. - So Cain, beware! - And Abel, too, see you provoke him not. - - -SCENE VI. - -_Abel alone._ - - _Abel._ At times I could believe - My father is no better than his son: - If not as overbearing, proud and hard, - Yet prayerless, worldly, almost more than Cain. - Enlighten and convert him ere the end, - My God! spurn not my mother’s prayers and mine. - Since I was born, was I not left to Thee, - In an unspiritual and godless house, - Unfathered and unbrothered—Thine and hers? - They think not of the fall: e’en less they think - Of the redemption, which God said should be; - Which, for we apprehend it by our faith, - Already is—is come for her and me. - Yea, though I sin, my sin is not to death; - In my repentance I have joy, such joy - That almost I could sin to seek for it— - Yea, if I did not hate it and abhor, - And know that Thou abhorr’st and hatest it, - And will’st, for an example to the rest, - That Thine elect should keep themselves from it. - Alas! - My mother calls the fall a mystery; - Redemption is so too. But oh, my God, - Thou wilt bring all things in the end to good. - Yea, though the whole earth lie in wickedness, I - Am with Thee, with Thee, with Thee evermore - Ah, yet I am not satisfied with this! - Am I not feeding spiritual pride, - Rejoicing over sinners, inelect - And unadmitted to the fellowship - Which I, unworthy, most unworthy, share? - What can I do—how can I help it then? - O God, remove it from my heart; pluck out, - Whatever pain, whatever wrench to me, - These sinful roots and remnants which, whate’er - I do, how high so e’er I soar from earth, - Still, undestroyed, still germinate within. - Take them away in Thy good time, O God. - Meantime, for that atonement’s precious sake - Which in Thy counsels predetermined works - Already to the saving of the saints, - O Father, view with mercy, and forgive; - Nor let my vexed perception of my sin, - Nor any multitude of evil thoughts, - Crowding like demons in my spirit’s house, - Nor life, nor death, things here or things below, - Cast out the sweet assurance of my soul - That I am Thine, and Thou art mine, my God. - - -SCENE VII. - -_Cain alone._ - - _Cain._ Am I or am I not this which they think me? - My mother loves me not; my brother Abel, - Searing my heart, commends my soul to God; - My father does not shun me—there’s my comfort: - Almost I think they look askance on him. - Ah, but for him, - I know not what might happen; for at times - Ungovernable angers take the waves - Of my deep soul and sweep them—who knows whither? - And a strange impulse, struggling to the truth, - Urges me onward to put forth my strength, - No matter how. A wild anxiety - Possesses me moreover to essay - This world of action round me so unknown; - And to be able to do this or that - Seems cause enough without a cause for doing it, - My father, he is cheerful and content, - And leads me frankly forward. Yet, indeed, - His leading—or, more truly, to be led - At all, by any one, and not myself— - Is mere dissatisfaction: evermore - Something I must do individual, - To vindicate my nature, to give proof - I also am, as Adam is, a man. - - -SCENE VIII. - -_Adam and Eve._ - - _Adam._ These sacrificings, O my best beloved, - These rites and forms which you have taught our boys, - Which I nor practise nor can understand, - Will turn, I trust, to good; but I much fear. - Besides the superstitious search of signs - In merest accidents of earth and air, - They cause, I think, a sort of jealousy— - Ill-blood. Hark, now! - - _Eve._ O God, whose cry is that? - Abel, where is my Abel? - - _Adam._ Cain! what, Cain! - - -SCENE IX. - -_Cain alone with the body of Abel._ - - _Cain._ What! fallen? so quickly down—so easily felled, - And so completely? Why, he does not move. - Will not he stir—will he not breathe again? - Still as a log—still as his own dead lamb. - Dead is it then? O wonderful! O strange! - Dead! dead! And we can slay each other then? - If we are wronged, why we can right ourselves; - If we are plagued and pestered with a fool - That will not let us be, nor leave us room - To do our will and shape our path in peace, - We can be rid of him. There—he is gone; - Victory! victory! victory! My heaven, - Methinks, from infinite distances borne back, - It comes to me re-borne—in multitude - Echoed, re-echoed, and re-echoed again, - Victory! victory!—distant, yet distinct— - Uncountable times repeated. O ye gods! - Where am I come, and whither am I borne? - I stand upon the pinnacle of earth, - And hear the wild seas laughing at my feet; - Yet I could wish that he had struggled more— - That passiveness was disappointing. Ha! - He should have writhed and wrestled in my arms, - And all but overcome, and set his knee - Hard on my chest, till I—all faint, yet still - Holding my fingers at his throat—at last, - Inch after inch, had forced him to relax: - But he went down at once, without a word, - Almost without a look. - Ah!—hush! My God! - Who was it spoke? What is this questioner? - Who was it asked me where my brother is? - Ha, ha! Was I his keeper? I know not. - Each for himself; he might have struck again. - Why did he not? I wished him to. Was I - To strike for both at once? No! Yet, ah! - Where is thy brother? Peace, thou silly voice; - Am I my brother’s keeper? I know not, - I know not aught about it; let it be. - Henceforth I shall walk freely upon earth, - And know my will, and do it by my might. - My God!—it will not be at peace—my God! - It flames; it bursts to fury in my soul. - What is it that will come of this? Ah me! - What is it I have done?—Almighty God! - I see it; I behold it as it is, - As it will be in all the times to come: - Slaughter on slaughter, blood for blood, and death, - For ever, ever, ever, evermore! - And all for what? - O Abel, brother mine, - Where’er thou art, more happy far than me! - - -SCENE X. - -_Adam alone._ - - _Adam._ Abel is dead, and Cain—ah, what is Cain? - Is he not even more than Abel dead? - Well, we must hope in Seth. This merest man, - This unambitious commonplace of life, - Will after all perhaps mend all; and though - Record shall tell men to the after-time - No wondrous tales of him, in him at last, - And in his seed increased and multiplied, - Earth shall be blest and peopled and subdued, - And what was meant to be be brought to pass. - Oh but, my Abel and my Cain, e’en so - You shall not be forgotten nor unknown. - - -SCENE XI. - -_Cain and Eve._ - - _Cain._ I am come. Curse me; - Curse Cain, my mother, ere he goes. He waits. - - _Eve._ Who? What is this? - Oh Abel! O my gentle, holy child, - My perfect son! - Monster! and did I bear thee too? - - _Cain._ He was so good, his brother hated him, - And slew him for’t. Go on, my mother, on. - - _Eve._ ... - For there are rites and holy means of grace - Of God ordained for man’s eternal [weal]. - With these, my son, address thyself to Him, - And seek atonement from a gracious God, - With whom is balm for every wounded heart. - - _Cain._ I ask not for atonement, mother mine; - I ask but one thing—never to forget. - I ask but—not to add to one great crime - Another self-delusion scarcely less. - I _could_ ask more, but more I know is sin. - If sacrifices and the fat of lambs, - And whole burnt-offerings upon piles of turf, - Will bring me this, I’d fill the heaven with smoke, - And deface earth with million fiery scars. - I _could_ ask back (and think it but my right, - And passionately claim it as my right) - That precious life which one misguided blow, - Which one scarce conscious momentary act, - One impulse blindly followed to its close, - Ended for ever; but that I know this vain. - If they shall only keep my sin in mind, - I shall not, be assured, neglect them either. - - _Eve._ You ask not for atonement! O my son— - Cain, you are proud and hard of heart e’en now. - Beware! - Prostrate your soul in penitential prayer, - Humble your heart beneath the mighty hand - Of God, whose gracious guidance oft shall lead - Through sin and crime the changed and melted heart - To sweet repentance and the sense of Him. - You ask not for atonement! O my son! - What, to be banished from the sight of God; - To dwell with wicked spirits, be a prey - To them and prey yourself on human souls; - What, to be lost in wickedness and wrath, - Deeper and deeper down; - What, Cain, do you choose this? - - _Cain._ Alas! my mother, - I know not; there are mysteries in your heart - Which I profess not knowledge of: it may be - That this is so; if so, may God reveal it. - Have faith you too in my heart’s secrets; yea, - All I can say, alas, is that to me, - As I now comprehend it, this were sin. - Atonement—no: not that, but punishment. - But what avails to talk? talk as we will, - As yet we shall not know each other’s hearts; - Let me not talk, but act. Farewell, for ever. - - -SCENE XII. - -_Adam and Cain._ - - _Cain._ This is the history then, my father, is it? - This is the perfect whole? - - _Adam._ My son, it is. - And whether a dream, or if it were a dream, - A transcript of an inward spiritual fact - (As you suggest, and I allow, might be), - Not the less true because it was a dream. - I know not—O my Cain, I cannot tell, - But in my soul I think it was a dream, - And but a dream; a thing, whence’er it came, - To be forgotten and considered not. - - _Cain._ Father, you should have told me this before; - It is no use now. Oh God, my brother! oh God! - - * * * * * - - _Adam._ For what is life, and what is pain or death? - You have killed Abel: Abel killed the lamb— - An act in him prepense, in you unthought of. - One step you stirred, and lo! you stood entrapped. - - _Cain._ My father, this is true, I know; but yet, - There is some truth beside: I cannot say, - But I have heard within my soul a voice - Asking, ‘Where is thy brother?’ and I said— - That is, the evil heart within me said— - ‘Am I my brother’s keeper? go ask him. - Who was it that provoked me? should he rail, - And I not smite? his death be on his head.’ - But the voice answered in my soul again, - So that the other ceased and was no more. - - -SCENE XIII. - -_Adam and Cain._ - - _Cain._ My father, Abel’s dead. - - _Adam._ My son, ’tis done, it was to be done; some good end - Thereby to come, or else it had not been. - Go, for it must be. Cain, I know your heart, - You cannot be with us. Go, then, depart; - But be not over scrupulous, my son. - - _Cain._ Curse me, my father, ere I go. Your curse - Will go with me for good; your curse - Will make me not forget, - Alas! I am not of that pious kind, - Who, when the blot has fallen upon their life, - Can look to heaven and think it white again— - Look up to heaven and find a something there - To make what is not be, altho’ it is. - My mother—ah, how you have spoke of this! - The dead—to him ’twas innocence and joy, - And purity and safety from the world: - To me the thing seems sin—the worst of sin. - If it be so, why are we here?—the world, - Why is it as I find it? The dull stone - Cast from my hand, why comes it not again? - The broken flow’ret, why does it not live? - If it be so, - Why are we here, and why is Abel dead? - Shall this be true - Of stocks and stones and mere inanimate clay, - And not in some sort also hold for us? - - _Adam._ My son, Time healeth all, - Time and great Nature; heed her speech, and learn. - - _Cain._ My father, you are learned in this sort: - You read the earth, as does my mother heaven. - Both books are dark to me—only I feel - That this one thing - And this one word in me must be declared; - That to forget is not to be restored; - To lose with time the sense of what we did - Cancels not that we did; what’s done remains— - I am my brother’s murderer. Woe to me! - Abel is dead. No prayers to empty heaven, - No vegetative kindness of the earth, - Will bring back warmth into his clay again, - The gentleness of love into his face. - Therefore, for me farewell; - Farewell for me the soft, - The balmy influences of night and sleep, - The satisfaction of achievement done, - The restorative pulsing of the blood - That changes all and changes e’en the soul— - And natural functions, moving as they should, - The sweet good-nights, the sweet delusive dreams - That lull us out of old things into new. - But welcome Fact, and Fact’s best brother, Work; - Welcome the conflict of the stubborn soil, - To toil the livelong day, and at the end, - Instead of rest, recarve into my brow - The dire memorial mark of what still is. - Welcome this worship, which I feel is mine; - Welcome this duty— - —the solidarity of life - And unity of individual soul. - That which I did, I did, I who am here: - There is no safety but in this; and when - I shall deny the thing that I have done, - I am a dream. - - _Adam._ My son, - What shall I say? - That which your soul, in marriage with the world, - Imbreeds in you, accept;—how can I say - Refuse the revelations of the soul? - Yet be not over scrupulous, my son, - And be not over proud to put aside - The due consolements of the circling years. - What comes, receive; be not too wise for God. - The past is something, but the present more; - Will not it too be past?—nor fail withal - To recognise the future in our hopes; - Unite them in your manhood each and all, - Nor mutilate the perfectness of life. - You can remember, you can also hope; - And, doubtless, with the long instructive years, - Comfort will come to you, my son, to me, - Even to your mother, comfort; but to us - Knowledge, at least—the certainty of things - Which, as I think, is consolation’s sum. - For truly now, to-day, to-morrow, yes, - Days many more to come, alike to you, - Whose earliest revelation of the world - Is, horrible indeed, this fatal fact— - And unto me, who, knowing not much before, - Look gropingly and idly into this, - And recognise no figure I have seen— - Alike, my son, to me, and to yourself, - Much is now dark which one day will be light; - With strong assurance fortify your soul - Of this: and that you meet me here again, - Promise me, Cain. Farewell, to meet again. - - -SCENE XIV. - -_Adam’s Vision._ - - _Adam._ O Cain, the words of Adam shall be said; - Come near and hear your father’s words, my son. - I have been in the spirit, as they call it, - Dreaming, which is, as others say, the same. - I sat, and you, Cain, with me, and Eve - (We sat as in a picture people sit, - Great figures, silent, with their place content); - And Abel came and took your hand, my son, - And wept and kissed you, saying, ‘Forgive me, Cain - Ah me! my brother, sad has been thy life - For my sake, all thro’ me; how foolishly, - Because we knew not both of us were right;’ - And you embraced and wept, and we too wept. - - Then I beheld through eyes with tears suffused, - And deemed at first ’twas blindness thence ensuing; - Abel was gone, and you were gone, my son— - Gone, and yet not gone; yea, I seemed to see - The decomposing of those coloured lines - Which we called you, their fusion into one, - And therewithal their vanishing and end. - And Eve said to me, ‘Adam, in the day - When in the inexistent void I heard God’s voice, - An awful whisper, bidding me to be, - How slow was I to come, how loth to obey; - As slow, as sad, as lingeringly loth, - I fade, I vanish, sink, and cease to be, - By the same sovereign strong compulsion borne: - Ah, if I vanish, take me into thee!’ - She spoke, nor, speaking, ceased I listening; but - I was alone, yet not alone, with her - And she with me, and you with us, my sons, - As at the first;—and yet not wholly—yea, - And that which I had witnessed thus in you, - This fusion, and mutation, and return, - Seemed in my substance working too. I slept, - I did not dream, my sleep was sweet to me. - Yes, in despite of all disquietudes, - For Eve, for you, for Abel, which indeed - Impelled in me that gaiety of soul— - Without your fears I had listened to my own— - In spite of doubt, despondency, and death, - Though lacking knowledge alway, lacking faith - Sometimes, and hope; with no sure trust in ought - Except a kind of impetus within, - Whose sole credentials were that trust itself; - Yet, in despite of much, in lack of more, - Life has been beautiful to me, my son, - And I, if I am called, will come again. - As he hath lived he dies.—My comforter, - Whom I believed not, only trusted in, - What had I been without thee? how survived? - Would I were with thee wheresoe’er thou art! - Would I might follow thee still! - But sleep is sweet, and I would sleep, my son. - Oh Cain! behold your father’s words are said! - - -_THE SONG OF LAMECH._ - - Hearken to me, ye mothers of my tent: - Ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech: - Adah, let Jubal hither lead his goats: - And Tubal Cain, O Zillah, hush the forge; - Naamah her wheel shall ply beside, and thou, - My Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string. - Yea, Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string. - Hear ye my voice, beloved of my tent, - Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech. - - For Eve made answer, Cain, my son, my own, - O, if I cursed thee, O my child, I sinned, - And He that heard me, heard, and said me nay: - My first, my only one, thou shalt not go;— - And Adam answered also, Cain, my son, - He that is gone forgiveth, we forgive: - Rob not thy mother of two sons at once; - My child, abide with us and comfort us. - - Hear ye my voice; Adah and Zillah, near; - Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech. - For Cain replied not. But, an hour more, sat - Where the night through he sat; his knit brows seen, - Scarce seen, amid the foldings of his limbs. - But when the sun was bright upon the field, - To Adam still, and Eve still waiting by, - And weeping, lift he up his voice and spake - Cain said, The sun is risen upon the earth; - The day demands my going, and I go.— - As you from Paradise, so I from you: - As you to exile, into exile I: - My father and my mother, I depart. - As betwixt you and Paradise of old, - So betwixt me, my parents, now, and you, - Cherubim I discern, and in their hand - A flaming sword that turneth every way, - To keep the way of my one tree of life, - The way my spirit yearns to, of my love. - Yet not, O Adam and O Eve, fear not. - For He that asked me, Where is Abel? He - Who called me cursed from the earth, and said - A fugitive and vagabond thou art, - He also said, when fear had slain my soul, - There shall not touch thee man nor beast. Fear not. - Lo, I have spoke with God, and He hath said. - Fear not;—and let me go as He hath said. - Cain also said (O Jubal, touch thy string),— - Moreover, in the darkness of my mind, - When the night’s night of misery was most black, - A little star came twinkling up within, - And in myself I had a guide that led, - And in myself had knowledge of a soul. - Fear not, O Adam and O Eve: I go. - - Children of Lamech, listen to my speech. - - For when the years were multiplied, and Cain - Eastward of Eden, in this land of Nod, - Had sons, and sons of sons, and sons of them, - Enoch and Irad and Mehujael - (My father, and my children’s grandsire he), - It came to pass, that Cain, who dwelt alone, - Met Adam, at the nightfall, in the field: - Who fell upon his neck, and wept, and said, - My son, has not God spoken to thee, Cain? - And Cain replied, when weeping loosed his voice, - My dreams are double, O my father, good - And evil. Terror to my soul by night, - And agony by day, when Abel stands - A dead, black shade, and speaks not, neither looks, - Nor makes me any answer when I cry— - Curse me, but let me know thou art alive. - But comfort also, like a whisper, comes, - In visions of a deeper sleep, when he, - Abel, as him we knew, yours once and mine, - Comes with a free forgiveness in his face, - Seeming to speak, solicitous for words, - And wearing ere he go the old, first look - Of unsuspecting, unforeboding love. - Three nights are gone I saw him thus, my Sire. - - Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech. - - For Adam said, Three nights ago to me - Came Abel, in my sleep, as thou hast said, - And spake, and bade,—Arise my father, go - Where in the land of exile dwells thy son; - Say to my brother, Abel bids thee come, - Abel would have thee; and lay thou thy hand, - My father, on his head, that he may come; - Am I not weary, father, for this hour? - Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear; - Children of Lamech, listen to my speech: - And, son of Zillah, sound thy solemn string. - - For Adam laid upon the head of Cain - His hand, and Cain bowed down, and slept, and died. - And a deep sleep on Adam also fell, - And, in his slumber’s deepest, he beheld, - Standing before the gate of Paradise, - With Abel, hand in hand, our father Cain. - Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear; - Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech. - - Though to his wounding he did slay a man, - Yea, and a young man to his hurt he slew, - Fear not, ye wives, nor sons of Lamech fear: - If unto Cain was safety given and rest, - Shall Lamech surely and his people die? - - -_GENESIS XXIV._ - - Who is this man - that walketh in the field, - O Eleazar, - steward to my lord? - - And Eleazar - answered her and said, - Daughter of Bethuel, - it is other none - But my lord Isaac, - son unto my lord, - Who, as his wont is, - walketh in the field, - In the hour of evening, - meditating there. - - Therefore Rebekah - hasted where she sat, - And from her camel - ’lighting to the earth, - Sought for a veil - and put it on her face, - - But Isaac also, - walking in the field, - Saw from afar - a company that came, - Camels, and a seat - as where a woman sat; - Wherefore he came - and met them on the way. - - Whom, when Rebekah - saw, she came before, - Saying, Behold - the handmaid of my lord, - Who, for my lord’s sake, - travel from my land. - - But he said, O - thou blessed of our God, - Come, for the tent - is eager for thy face. - Shall not thy husband - be unto thee more than - Hundreds of kinsmen - living in thy land? - - And Eleazar answered, - Thus and thus, - Even according - as thy father bade, - Did we; and thus and - thus it came to pass: - Lo! is not this - Rebekah, Bethuel’s child? - - And, as he ended, - Isaac spoke and said, - Surely my heart - went with you on the way, - When with the beasts - ye came unto the place. - - Truly, O child - of Nahor, I was there, - When to thy mother - and thy mother’s son - Thou madest answer, - saying, I will go. - And Isaac brought her - to his mother’s tent. - - -_JACOB._ - - My sons, and ye the children of my sons, - Jacob your father goes upon his way, - His pilgrimage is being accomplished. - Come near and hear him ere his words are o’er. - Not as my father’s or his father’s days, - As Isaac’s days or Abraham’s, have been mine; - Not as the days of those that in the field - Walked at the eventide to meditate, - And haply, to the tent returning, found - Angels at nightfall waiting at their door. - They communed, Israel wrestled with the Lord. - No, not as Abraham’s or as Isaac’s days, - My sons, have been Jacob your father’s days, - Evil and few, attaining not to theirs - In number, and in worth inferior much. - As a man with his friend, walked they with God, - In His abiding presence they abode, - And all their acts were open to His face. - But I have had to force mine eyes away, - To lose, almost to shun, the thoughts I loved, - To bend down to the work, to bare the breast, - And struggle, feet and hands, with enemies; - To buffet and to battle with hard men, - With men of selfishness and violence; - To watch by day, and calculate by night, - To plot and think of plots, and through a land - Ambushed with guile, and with strong foes beset, - To win with art safe wisdom’s peaceful way. - Alas! I know, and from the onset knew, - The first-born faith, the singleness of soul, - The antique pure simplicity with which - God and good angels communed undispleased, - Is not; it shall not any more be said, - That of a blameless and a holy kind, - The chosen race, the seed of promise, comes. - The royal, high prerogatives, the dower - Of innocence and perfectness of life, - Pass not unto my children from their sire, - As unto me they came of mine; they fit - Neither to Jacob nor to Jacob’s race. - Think ye, my sons, in this extreme old age - And in this failing breath, that I forget - How on the day when from my father’s door, - In bitterness and ruefulness of heart, - I from my parents set my face, and felt - I never more again should look on theirs, - How on that day I seemed unto myself - Another Adam from his home cast out, - And driven abroad unto a barren land, - Cursed for his sake, and mocking still with thorns - And briers that labour and that sweat of brow - He still must spend to live? Sick of my days, - I wished not life, but cried out, Let me die; - But at Luz God came to me; in my heart - He put a better mind, and showed me how, - While we discern it not, and least believe, - On stairs invisible betwixt His heaven - And our unholy, sinful, toilsome earth - Celestial messengers of loftiest good - Upward and downward pass continually. - Many, since I upon the field of Luz - Set up the stone I slept on, unto God, - Many have been the troubles of my life; - Sins in the field and sorrows in the tent, - In mine own household anguish and despair, - And gall and wormwood mingled with my love. - The time would fail me should I seek to tell - Of a child wronged and cruelly revenged - (Accursed was that anger, it was fierce, - That wrath, for it was cruel); or of strife - And jealousy and cowardice, with lies - Mocking a father’s misery; deeds of blood, - Pollutions, sicknesses, and sudden deaths. - These many things against me many times, - The ploughers have ploughed deep upon my back, - And made deep furrows; blessed be His name - Who hath delivered Jacob out of all, - And left within his spirit hope of good. - - Come near to me, my sons: your father goes, - The hour of his departure draweth nigh. - Ah me! this eager rivalry of life, - This cruel conflict for pre-eminence, - This keen supplanting of the dearest kin, - Quick seizure and fast unrelaxing hold - Of vantage-place; the stony hard resolve, - The chase, the competition, and the craft - Which seems to be the poison of our life, - And yet is the condition of our life! - To have done things on which the eye with shame - Looks back, the closed hand clutching still the prize!— - Alas! what of all these things shall I say? - Take me away unto Thy sleep, O God! - I thank Thee it is over, yet I think - It was a work appointed me of Thee. - How is it? I have striven all my days - To do my duty to my house and hearth, - And to the purpose of my father’s race, - Yet is my heart therewith not satisfied. - - -_JACOB’S WIVES._ - - These are the words of Jacob’s wives, the words - Which Leah spake and Rachel to his ears, - When, in the shade at eventide, he sat - By the tent door, a palm-tree overhead, - A spring beside him, and the sheep around. - - And Rachel spake and said, The nightfall comes— - Night, which all day I wait for, and for thee. - - And Leah also spake, The day is done; - My lord with toil is weary and would rest. - - And Rachel said, Come, O my Jacob, come; - And we will think we sit beside the well, - As in that day, the long long years agone, - When first I met thee with my father’s flock. - - And Leah said, Come, Israel, unto me; - And thou shalt reap an harvest of fair sons, - E’en as before I bare thee goodly babes; - For when was Leah fruitless to my lord? - - And Rachel said, Ah come! as then thou cam’st, - Come once again to set thy seal of love; - As then, down bending, when the sheep had drunk, - Then settedst it, my shepherd—O sweet seal!— - Upon the unwitting, half-foretasting lips, - Which, shy and trembling, thirsted yet for thine - As cattle thirsted never for the spring. - - And Leah answered, Are not these their names— - As Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah—four? - Like four young saplings by the water’s brim, - Where straining rivers through the great plain wind— - Four saplings soon to rise to goodly trees— - Four trees whose growth shall cast an huger shade - Than ever yet on river-side was seen. - - And Rachel said, And shall it be again - As, when dissevered far, unheard, alone, - Consumed in bitter anger all night long, - I moaned and wept, while, silent and discreet, - One reaped the fruit of love that Rachel’s was - Upon the breast of him that knew her not? - - And Leah said, And was it then a wrong - That, in submission to a father’s word, - Trembling yet hopeful, to that bond I crept, - Which God hath greatly prospered, and my lord, - Content, in after-wisdom not disowned, - Joyful, in after-thankfulness approved? - - And Rachel said, But we will not complain, - Though all life long, an alien, unsought third, - She trouble our companionship of love. - - And Leah answered, No, complain we not, - Though years on years she loiter in the tent, - A fretful, vain, unprofitable wife. - - And Rachel answered, Ah! she little knows - What in old days to Jacob Rachel was. - - And Leah said, And wilt thou dare to say, - Because my lord was gracious to thee then, - No deeper thought his riper cares hath claimed, - No stronger purpose passed into his life? - That, youth and maid once fondly, softly touched, - Time’s years must still the casual dream repeat, - And all the river far, from source to sea, - One flitting moment’s chance reflection bear? - Also she added, Who is she to judge - Of thoughts maternal, and a father’s heart? - - And Rachel said, But what to supersede - The rights which choice bestowed hath Leah done? - What which my handmaid or which hers hath not? - Is Simeon more than Naphtali? is Dan - Less than his brother Levi in the house? - That part that Billah and that Zilpah have, - That, and no more, hath Leah in her lord; - And let her with the same be satisfied. - - Leah asked then, And shall these things compare - (Fond wishes, and the pastime, and the play) - With serious aims and forward-working hopes— - Aims as far-reaching as to earth’s last age, - And hopes far-travelling as from east to west? - - Rachel replied, That love which in his youth, - Through trial proved, consoles his perfect age; - Shall this with project and with plan compare? - Is not for-ever shorter than all time, - And love more straitened than from east to west? - - Leah spake further, Hath my lord not told - How, in the visions of the night, his God, - The God of Abraham and of Isaac, spake - And said, Increase, and multiply, and fill - With sons to serve Me this thy land and mine; - And I will surely do thee good, and make - Thy seed as is the sand beside the sea, - Which is not numbered for its multitude? - Shall Rachel bear this progeny to God? - - But Rachel wept and answered, And if God - Hath closed the womb of Rachel until now, - Shall He not at His pleasure open it? - Hath Leah read the counsels of the Lord? - Was it not told her, in the ancient days, - How Sarah, mother of great Israel’s sire, - Lived to long years, insulted of her slave, - Or e’er to light the Child of Promise came, - Whom Rachel too to Jacob yet may bear? - - Moreover, Rachel said, Shall Leah mock, - Who stole the prime embraces of my love, - My first long-destined, long-withheld caress? - But not, she said, methought, but not for this, - In the old days, did Jacob seek his bride;— - Where art thou now, O thou that sought’st me then? - Where is thy loving tenderness of old? - And where that fervency of faith to which - Seven weary years were even as a few days? - - And Rachel wept and ended, Ah, my life! - Though Leah bare thee sons on sons, methought - The child of love, late-born, were worth them all. - - And Leah groaned and answered, It is well: - She that hath kept from me my husband’s heart - Will set their father’s soul against my sons. - Yet, also, not, she said, I thought, for this, - Not for the feverish nor the doating love, - Doth Israel, father of a nation, seek; - Nor to light dalliance, as of boy and girl, - Incline the thoughts of matron and of man, - Or lapse the wisdom of maturer mind. - - And Leah ended, Father of my sons, - Come, thou shalt dream of Rachel if thou wilt, - So Leah fold thee in a wife’s embrace. - - These are the words of Jacob’s wives, who sat - In the tent door, and listened to their speech, - The spring beside him, and above the palm, - While all the sheep were gathered for the night. - - -_THE NEW SINAI._ - - Lo, here is God, and there is God! - Believe it not, O Man; - In such vain sort to this and that - The ancient heathen ran: - Though old Religion shake her head, - And say in bitter grief, - The day behold, at first foretold, - Of atheist unbelief: - Take better part, with manly heart, - Thine adult spirit can; - Receive it not, believe it not, - Believe it not, O Man! - - As men at dead of night awaked - With cries, ‘The king is here,’ - Rush forth and greet whome’er they meet, - Whoe’er shall first appear; - And still repeat, to all the street, - ‘’Tis he,—the king is here;’ - The long procession moveth on, - Each nobler form they see, - With changeful suit they still salute - And cry, ‘’Tis he, ’tis he!’ - - So, even so, when men were young, - And earth and heaven were new, - And His immediate presence He - From human hearts withdrew, - The soul perplexed and daily vexed - With sensuous False and True, - Amazed, bereaved, no less believed, - And fain would see Him too: - ‘He is!’ the prophet-tongues proclaimed; - In joy and hasty fear, - ‘He is!’ aloud replied the crowd, - ‘Is here, and here, and here.’ - - ‘He is! They are!’ in distance seen - On yon Olympus high, - In those Avernian woods abide, - And walk this azure sky: - ‘They are! They are!’—to every show - Its eyes the baby turned, - And blazes sacrificial, tall, - On thousand altars burned: - ‘They are! They are!’—On Sinai’s top - Far seen the lightnings shone, - The thunder broke, a trumpet spoke, - And God said, ‘I am One.’ - - God spake it out, ‘I, God, am One;’ - The unheeding ages ran, - And baby-thoughts again, again, - Have dogged the growing man: - And as of old from Sinai’s top - God said that God is One, - By Science strict so speaks He now - To tell us, There is None! - Earth goes by chemic forces; Heaven’s - A Mécanique Céleste! - And heart and mind of human kind - A watch-work as the rest! - - Is this a Voice, as was the Voice, - Whose speaking told abroad, - When thunder pealed, and mountain reeled, - The ancient truth of God? - Ah, not the Voice; ’tis but the cloud, - The outer darkness dense, - Where image none, nor e’er was seen - Similitude of sense. - ’Tis but the cloudy darkness dense - That wrapt the Mount around; - While in amaze the people stays, - To hear the Coming Sound. - - Is there no prophet-soul the while - To dare, sublimely meek, - Within the shroud of blackest cloud - The Deity to seek? - ’Midst atheistic systems dark, - And darker hearts’ despair, - That soul has heard perchance His word, - And on the dusky air - His skirts, as passed He by, to see - Hath strained on their behalf, - Who on the plain, with dance amain, - Adore the Golden Calf. - - ’Tis but the cloudy darkness dense; - Though blank the tale it tells, - No God, no Truth! yet He, in sooth, - Is there—within it dwells; - Within the sceptic darkness deep - He dwells that none may see, - Till idol forms and idol thoughts - Have passed and ceased to be: - No God, no Truth! ah though, in sooth - So stand the doctrine’s half: - On Egypt’s track return not back, - Nor own the Golden Calf. - - Take better part, with manlier heart, - Thine adult spirit can; - No God, no Truth, receive it ne’er— - Believe it ne’er—O Man! - But turn not then to seek again - What first the ill began; - No God, it saith; ah, wait in faith - God’s self-completing plan; - Receive it not, but leave it not, - And wait it out, O Man! - - ‘The Man that went the cloud within - Is gone and vanished quite; - He cometh not,’ the people cries, - ‘Nor bringeth God to sight: - Lo these thy gods, that safety give, - Adore and keep the feast!’ - Deluding and deluded cries - The Prophet’s brother-Priest: - And Israel all bows down to fall - Before the gilded beast. - - Devout, indeed! that priestly creed, - O Man, reject as sin; - The clouded hill attend thou still, - And him that went within. - He yet shall bring some worthy thing - For waiting souls to see: - Some sacred word that he hath heard - Their light and life shall be; - Some lofty part, than which the heart - Adopt no nobler can, - Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe - And thou shalt do, O Man! - - 1845 - - -_QUI LABORAT, ORAT._ - - O only Source of all our light and life, - Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel, - But whom the hours of mortal moral strife - Alone aright reveal! - - Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought, - Thy presence owns ineffable, divine; - Chastised each rebel self-encentered thought, - My will adoreth Thine. - - With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind - Speechless remain, or speechless e’en depart; - Nor seek to see—for what of earthly kind - Can see Thee as Thou art?— - - If well-assured ’tis but profanely bold - In thought’s abstractest forms to seem to see, - It dare not dare the dread communion hold - In ways unworthy Thee, - - O not unowned, thou shalt unnamed forgive, - In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare; - And if in work its life it seem to live, - Shalt make that work be prayer. - - Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies, - Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part, - And scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes - In recognition start. - - But, as thou willest, give or e’en forbear - The beatific supersensual sight, - So, with Thy blessing blest, that humbler prayer - Approach Thee morn and night. - - -_ὕμνος ἄυμνος._ - - O Thou whose image in the shrine - Of human spirits dwells divine; - Which from that precinct once conveyed, - To be to outer day displayed, - Doth vanish, part, and leave behind - Mere blank and void of empty mind, - Which wilful fancy seeks in vain - With casual shapes to fill again! - - O Thou that in our bosom’s shrine - Dost dwell, unknown because divine! - I thought to speak, I thought to say, - ‘The light is here,’ ‘behold the way,’ - ‘The voice was thus,’ and ‘thus the word,’ - And ‘thus I saw,’ and ‘that I heard,’— - But from the lips that half essayed - The imperfect utterance fell unmade. - - O Thou, in that mysterious shrine - Enthroned, as I must say, divine! - I will not frame one thought of what - Thou mayest either be or not. - I will not prate of ‘thus’ and ‘so,’ - And be profane with ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ - Enough that in our soul and heart - Thou, whatsoe’er Thou may’st be, art. - - Unseen, secure in that high shrine - Acknowledged present and divine, - I will not ask some upper air, - Some future day to place Thee there; - Nor say, nor yet deny, such men - And women saw Thee thus and then: - Thy name was such, and there or here - To him or her Thou didst appear. - - Do only Thou in that dim shrine, - Unknown or known, remain, divine; - There, or if not, at least in eyes - That scan the fact that round them lies, - The hand to sway, the judgment guide, - In sight and sense Thyself divide: - Be Thou but there,—in soul and heart, - I will not ask to feel Thou art. - - -_THE HIDDEN LOVE._ - - O let me love my love unto myself alone, - And know my knowledge to the world unknown; - No witness to my vision call, - Beholding, unbeheld of all; - And worship Thee, with Thee withdrawn apart, - Whoe’er, Whate’er Thou art, - Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart. - - What is it then to me - If others are inquisitive to see? - Why should I quit my place to go and ask - If other men are working at their task? - Leave my own buried roots to go - And see that brother plants shall grow; - And turn away from Thee, O Thou most Holy Light, - To look if other orbs their orbits keep aright, - Around their proper sun, - Deserting Thee, and being undone. - - O let me love my love unto myself alone, - And know my knowledge to the world unknown; - And worship Thee, O hid One, O much sought, - As but man can or ought, - Within the abstracted’st shrine of my least breathed on thought. - - Better it were, thou sayest, to consent; - Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent; - Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure, - The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure; - In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll, - And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul. - - Nay, better far to mark off thus much air, - And call it Heaven: place bliss and glory there; - Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky, - And say, what is not, will be by-and-bye. - - -_SHADOW AND LIGHT._ - - Cease, empty Faith, the Spectrum saith, - I was, and lo, have been; - I, God, am nought: a shade of thought, - Which, but by darkness seen, - Upon the unknown yourselves have thrown, - Placed it and light between. - - At morning’s birth on darkened earth, - And as the evening sinks, - Awfully vast abroad is cast - The lengthened form that shrinks - And shuns the sight in midday light, - And underneath you slinks. - - From barren strands of wintry lands - Across the seas of time, - Borne onward fast ye touch at last - An equatorial clime; - - In equatorial noon sublime - At zenith stands the sun, - And lo, around, far, near, are found - Yourselves, and Shadow none. - - A moment! yea! but when the day - At length was perfect day! - A moment! so! and light we know - With dark exchanges aye, - - Nor morn nor eve shall shadow leave - Your sunny paths secure, - And in your sight that orb of light - Shall humbler orbs obscure. - - And yet withal, ’tis shadow all - Whate’er your fancies dream, - And I (misdeemed) that was, that seemed, - Am not, whate’er I seem. - - -_‘WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING.’_ - - It fortifies my soul to know - That, though I perish, Truth is so: - That, howsoe’er I stray and range, - Whate’er I do, Thou dost not change. - I steadier step when I recall - That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall. - - -_IN STRATIS VIARUM._ - - Blessed are those who have not seen, - And who have yet believed - The witness, here that has not been, - From heaven they have received. - - Blessed are those who have not known - The things that stand before them, - And for a vision of their own - Can piously ignore them. - - So let me think whate’er befall, - That in the city duly - Some men there are who love at all, - Some women who love truly; - - And that upon two millions odd - Transgressors in sad plenty, - Mercy will of a gracious God - Be shown—because of twenty. - - -‘_PERCHÈ PENSA? PENSANDO S’INVECCHIA._’ - - To spend uncounted years of pain, - Again, again, and yet again, - In working out in heart and brain - The problem of our being here; - To gather facts from far and near, - Upon the mind to hold them clear, - And, knowing more may yet appear, - Unto one’s latest breath to fear, - The premature result to draw— - Is this the object, end and law, - And purpose of our being here? - - -‘_O THOU OF LITTLE FAITH._’ - - It may be true - That while we walk the troublous tossing sea, - That when we see the o’ertopping waves advance, - And when we feel our feet beneath us sink, - There are who walk beside us; and the cry - That rises so spontaneous to the lips, - The ‘Help us or we perish,’ is not nought, - An evanescent spectrum of disease. - It may be that indeed and not in fancy, - A hand that is not ours upstays our steps, - A voice that is not ours commands the waves; - Commands the waves, and whispers in our ear, - O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt? - At any rate, - That there are beings above us, I believe, - And when we lift up holy hands of prayer, - I will not say they will not give us aid. - - -‘_THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY._’ - - What we, when face to face we see - The Father of our souls, shall be, - John tells us, doth not yet appear; - Ah! did he tell what we are here! - - A mind for thoughts to pass into, - A heart for loves to travel through, - Five senses to detect things near, - Is this the whole that we are here? - - Rules baffle instincts—instincts rules, - Wise men are bad—and good are fools, - Facts evil—wishes vain appear, - We cannot go, why are we here? - - O may we for assurance’ sake, - Some arbitrary judgment take, - And wilfully pronounce it clear, - For this or that ’tis we are here? - - Or is it right, and will it do, - To pace the sad confusion through, - And say:—It doth not yet appear, - What we shall be, what we are here? - - Ah yet, when all is thought and said, - The heart still overrules the head; - Still what we hope we must believe, - And what is given us receive; - - Must still believe, for still we hope - That in a world of larger scope, - What here is faithfully begun - Will be completed, not undone. - - My child, we still must think, when we - That ampler life together see, - Some true result will yet appear - Of what we are, together, here. - - -_AH! YET CONSIDER IT AGAIN!_ - - ‘Old things need not be therefore true,’ - O brother men, nor yet the new; - Ah! still awhile the old thought retain, - And yet consider it again! - - The souls of now two thousand years - Have laid up here their toils and fears, - And all the earnings of their pain,— - Ah, yet consider it again! - - We! what do we see? each a space - Of some few yards before his face; - Does that the whole wide plan explain? - Ah, yet consider it again! - - Alas! the great world goes its way, - And takes its truth from each new day; - They do not quit, nor can retain, - Far less consider it again. - - 1851 - - -_NOLI ÆMULARI._ - - In controversial foul impureness - The peace that is thy light to thee - Quench not: in faith and inner sureness - Possess thy soul and let it be. - - No violence—perverse, persistent— - What cannot be can bring to be; - No zeal what is make more existent, - And strife but blinds the eyes that see. - - What though in blood their souls embruing, - The great, the good, and wise they curse, - Still sinning, what they know not doing; - Stand still, forbear, nor make it worse. - - By curses, by denunciation, - The coming fate they cannot stay; - Nor thou, by fiery indignation, - Though just, accelerate the day. - - -‘_WHAT WENT YE OUT FOR TO SEE?_’ - - Across the sea, along the shore, - In numbers more and ever more, - From lonely hut and busy town, - The valley through, the mountain down, - What was it ye went out to see, - Ye silly folk of Galilee? - The reed that in the wind doth shake? - The weed that washes in the lake? - The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?— - A young man preaching in a boat. - - What was it ye went out to hear - By sea and land, from far and near? - A teacher? Rather seek the feet - Of those who sit in Moses’ seat. - Go humbly seek, and bow to them, - Far off in great Jerusalem. - From them that in her courts ye saw, - Her perfect doctors of the law, - What is it came ye here to note?— - A young man preaching in a boat. - - A prophet! Boys and women weak! - Declare, or cease to rave; - Whence is it he hath learned to speak? - Say, who his doctrine gave? - A prophet? Prophet wherefore he - Of all in Israel tribes?— - _He teacheth with authority,_ - _And not as do the Scribes._ - - 1851 - - -_EPI-STRAUSS-IUM._ - - Matthew and Mark and Luke and holy John - Evanished all and gone! - Yea, he that erst his dusky curtains quitting, - Thro’ Eastern pictured panes his level beams transmitting, - With gorgeous portraits blent, - On them his glories intercepted spent: - Southwestering now, thro’ windows plainly glassed, - On the inside face his radiance keen hath cast, - And in the lustre lost, invisible and gone, - Are, say you, Matthew, Mark and Luke and holy John? - Lost, is it, lost, to be recovered never? - However, - The place of worship the meantime with light - Is, if less richly, more sincerely bright, - And in blue skies the Orb is manifest to sight. - - -_THE SHADOW._[5] - - I dreamed a dream: I dreamt that I espied, - Upon a stone that was not rolled aside, - A Shadow sit upon a grave—a Shade, - As thin, as unsubstantial, as of old - Came, the Greek poet told, - To lick the life-blood in the trench Ulysses made— - As pale, as thin, and said: - ‘I am the Resurrection of the Dead. - The night is past, the morning is at hand, - And I must in my proper semblance stand, - Appear brief space and vanish,—listen, this is true, - I am that Jesus whom they slew.’ - - And shadows dim, I dreamed, the dead apostles came, - And bent their heads for sorrow and for shame— - Sorrow for their great loss, and shame - For what they did in that vain name. - - And in long ranges far behind there seemed - Pale vapoury angel forms; or was it cloud? that kept - Strange watch; the women also stood beside and wept. - And Peter spoke the word: - ‘O my own Lord, - What is it we must do? - Is it then all untrue? - Did we not see, and hear, and handle Thee, - Yea, for whole hours - Upon the Mount in Galilee, - On the lake shore, and here at Bethany, - When Thou ascendedst to Thy God and ours?’ - And paler still became the distant cloud, - And at the word the women wept aloud. - - And the Shade answered, ‘What ye say I know not; - But it is true - I am that Jesus whom they slew, - Whom ye have preached, but in what way I know not. - - * * * * * - - And the great World, it chanced, came by that way, - And stopped, and looked, and spoke to the police, - And said the thing, for order’s sake and peace, - Most certainly must be suppressed, the nuisance cease - His wife and daughter must have where to pray, - And whom to pray to, at the least one day - In seven, and something sensible to say. - - Whether the fact so many years ago - Had, or not, happened, how was he to know? - Yet he had always heard that it was so. - As for himself, perhaps it was all one; - And yet he found it not unpleasant, too, - On Sunday morning in the roomy pew, - To see the thing with such decorum done. - As for himself, perhaps it was all one; - Yet on one’s death-bed all men always said - It was a comfortable thing to think upon - The atonement and the resurrection of the dead. - So the great World as having said his say, - Unto his country-house pursued his way. - And on the grave the Shadow sat all day. - - * * * * * - - And the poor Pope was sure it must be so, - Else wherefore did the people kiss his toe? - The subtle Jesuit cardinal shook his head, - And mildly looked and said, - It mattered not a jot - Whether the thing, indeed, were so or not; - Religion must be kept up, and the Church preserved, - And for the people this best served, - And then he turned, and added most demurely, - ‘Whatever may befal, - We Catholics need no evidence at all, - The holy father is infallible, surely!’ - - And English canons heard, - And quietly demurred. - Religion rests on evidence, of course, - And on inquiry we must put no force. - Difficulties still, upon whatever ground, - Are likely, almost certain, to be found. - The Theist scheme, the Pantheist, one and all, - Must with, or e’en before, the Christian fall. - And till the thing were plainer to our eyes, - To disturb faith was surely most unwise. - As for the Shade, who trusted such narration? - Except, of course, in ancient revelation. - - And dignitaries of the Church came by. - It had been worth to some of them, they said, - Some hundred thousand pounds a year a head. - If it fetched so much in the market, truly, - ’Twas not a thing to be given up unduly. - It had been proved by Butler in one way, - By Paley better in a later day; - It had been proved in twenty ways at once, - By many a doctor plain to many a dunce; - There was no question but it must be so. - And the Shade answered, that He did not know; - He had no reading, and might be deceived, - But still He was the Christ, as He believed. - - And women, mild and pure, - Forth from still homes and village schools did pass, - And asked, if this indeed were thus, alas, - What should they teach their children and the poor? - The Shade replied, He could not know, - But it was truth, the fact was so. - - * * * * * - - * * * * * - - Who had kept all commandments from his youth - Yet still found one thing lacking—even Truth: - And the Shade only answered, ‘Go, make haste, - Enjoy thy great possessions as thou may’st.’ - - -_EASTER DAY._ - -NAPLES, 1849. - - Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past, - With fiercer heat than flamed above my head - My heart was hot within me; till at last - My brain was lightened when my tongue had said— - Christ is not risen! - - Christ is not risen, no— - He lies and moulders low; - Christ is not risen! - - What though the stone were rolled away, and though - The grave found empty there?— - If not there, then elsewhere; - If not where Joseph laid Him first, why then - Where other men - Translaid Him after, in some humbler clay. - Long ere to-day - Corruption that sad perfect work hath done, - Which here she scarcely, lightly had begun: - The foul engendered worm - Feeds on the flesh of the life-giving form - Of our most Holy and Anointed One. - He is not risen, no— - He lies and moulders low; - Christ is not risen! - - What if the women, ere the dawn was grey, - Saw one or more great angels, as they say - (Angels, or Him himself)? Yet neither there, nor then, - Nor afterwards, nor elsewhere, nor at all, - Hath He appeared to Peter or the Ten; - Nor, save in thunderous terror, to blind Saul; - Save in an after Gospel and late Creed, - He is not risen, indeed,— - Christ is not risen! - - Or, what if e’en, as runs a tale, the Ten - Saw, heard, and touched, again and yet again? - What if at Emmaüs’ inn, and by Capernaum’s Lake, - Came One, the bread that brake— - Came One that spake as never mortal spake, - And with them ate, and drank, and stood, and walked about? - Ah? ‘some’ did well to ‘doubt!’ - Ah! the true Christ, while these things came to pass, - Nor heard, nor spake, nor walked, nor lived, alas! - He was not risen, no— - He lay and mouldered low, - Christ was not risen! - - As circulates in some great city crowd - A rumour changeful, vague, importunate, and loud, - From no determined centre, or of fact - Or authorship exact, - Which no man can deny - Nor verify; - So spread the wondrous fame; - He all the same - Lay senseless, mouldering, low: - He was not risen, no— - Christ was not risen! - - Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; - As of the unjust, also of the just— - Yea, of that Just One, too! - This is the one sad Gospel that is true— - Christ is not risen! - - Is He not risen, and shall we not rise? - Oh, we unwise! - What did we dream, what wake we to discover? - Ye hills, fall on us, and ye mountains, cover! - In darkness and great gloom - Come ere we thought it is _our_ day of doom; - From the cursed world, which is one tomb, - Christ is not risen! - - Eat, drink, and play, and think that this is bliss: - There is no heaven but this; - There is no hell, - Save earth, which serves the purpose doubly well, - Seeing it visits still - With equalest apportionment of ill - Both good and bad alike, and brings to one same dust - The unjust and the just - With Christ, who is not risen. - - Eat, drink, and die, for we are souls bereaved: - Of all the creatures under heaven’s wide cope - We are most hopeless, who had once most hope, - And most beliefless, that had most believed. - Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; - As of the unjust, also of the just— - Yea, of that Just One too! - It is the one sad Gospel that is true— - Christ is not risen! - - Weep not beside the tomb, - Ye women, unto whom - He was great solace while ye tended Him; - Ye who with napkin o’er the head - And folds of linen round each wounded limb - Laid out the Sacred Dead; - And thou that bar’st Him in thy wondering womb; - Yea, Daughters of Jerusalem, depart, - Bind up as best ye may your own sad bleeding heart; - Go to your homes, your living children tend, - Your earthly spouses love; - Set your affections _not_ on things above, - Which moth and rust corrupt, which quickliest come to end: - Or pray, if pray ye must, and pray, if pray ye can, - For death; since dead is He whom ye deemed more than man, - Who is not risen: no— - But lies and moulders low— - Who is not risen! - - Ye men of Galilee! - Why stand ye looking up to heaven, where Him ye ne’er may see, - Neither ascending hence, nor returning hither again? - Ye ignorant and idle fishermen! - Hence to your huts, and boats, and inland native shore, - And catch not men, but fish; - Whate’er things ye might wish, - Him neither here nor there ye e’er shall meet with more. - Ye poor deluded youths, go home, - Mend the old nets ye left to roam, - Tie the split oar, patch the torn sail: - It was indeed an ‘idle tale’— - He was not risen! - - And, oh, good men of ages yet to be, - Who shall believe _because_ ye did not see— - Oh, be ye warned, be wise! - No more with pleading eyes, - And sobs of strong desire, - Unto the empty vacant void aspire, - Seeking another and impossible birth - That is not of your own, and only mother earth. - But if there is no other life for you, - Sit down and be content, since this must even do: - He is not risen! - - One look, and then depart, - Ye humble and ye holy men of heart; - And ye! ye ministers and stewards of a Word - Which ye would preach, because another heard— - Ye worshippers of that ye do not know, - Take these things hence and go:— - He is not risen! - - Here, on our Easter Day - We rise, we come, and lo! we find Him not, - Gardener nor other, on the sacred spot: - Where they have laid Him there is none to say; - No sound, nor in, nor out—no word - Of where to seek the dead or meet the living Lord. - There is no glistering of an angel’s wings, - There is no voice of heavenly clear behest: - Let us go hence, and think upon these things - In silence, which is best. - Is He not risen? No— - But lies and moulders low? - Christ is not risen? - - -_EASTER DAY._ - -II - - So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone, - I with my secret self held communing of mine own. - So in the southern city spake the tongue - Of one that somewhat overwildly sung, - But in a later hour I sat and heard - Another voice that spake—another graver word. - Weep not, it bade, whatever hath been said, - Though He be dead, He is not dead. - In the true creed - He is yet risen indeed; - Christ is yet risen. - - Weep not beside His tomb, - Ye women unto whom - He was great comfort and yet greater grief; - Nor ye, ye faithful few that wont with Him to roam, - Seek sadly what for Him ye left, go hopeless to your home; - Nor ye despair, ye sharers yet to be of their belief; - Though He be dead, He is not dead, - Nor gone, though fled, - Not lost, though vanished; - Though He return not, though - He lies and moulders low; - In the true creed - He is yet risen indeed; - Christ is yet risen. - - Sit if ye will, sit down upon the ground, - Yet not to weep and wail, but calmly look around. - Whate’er befell, - Earth is not hell; - Now, too, as when it first began, - Life is yet life, and man is man. - For all that breathe beneath the heaven’s high cope, - Joy with grief mixes, with despondence hope. - Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief: - Or at least, faith unbelief. - Though dead, not dead; - Not gone, though fled; - Not lost, though vanished. - In the great gospel and true creed, - He is yet risen indeed; - Christ is yet risen. - - - - -DIPSYCHUS. - - -PROLOGUE TO DIPSYCHUS. - -‘I hope it is in good plain verse,’ said my uncle,—‘none of your -hurry-scurry anapæsts, as you call them, in lines which sober people read -for plain heroics. Nothing is more disagreeable than to say a line over -two, or, it may be, three or four times, and at last not be sure that -there are not three or four ways of reading, each as good and as much -intended as another. _Simplex duntaxat et unum._ But you young people -think Horace and your uncles old fools.’ - -‘Certainly, my dear sir,’ said I; ‘that is, I mean, Horace and my -uncle are perfectly right. Still, there is an instructed ear and an -uninstructed. A rude taste for identical recurrences would exact -sing-song from “Paradise Lost,” and grumble because “Il Penseroso” -doesn’t run like a nursery rhyme.’ ‘Well, well,’ said my uncle, ‘_sunt -certi denique fines_, no doubt. So commence, my young Piso, while -Aristarchus is tolerably wakeful, and do not waste by your logic the fund -you will want for your poetry.’ - - -_DIPSYCHUS._[6] - - -PART I. - - -SCENE I.—_The Piazza at Venice, 9 p.m. Dipsychus and the Spirit._ - - _Di._ The scene is different, and the place, the air - Tastes of the nearer north; the people - Not perfect southern lightness; wherefore, then, - Should those old verses come into my mind - I made last year at Naples? Oh, poor fool! - Still resting on thyself—a thing ill-worked— - A moment’s thought committed on the moment - To unripe words and rugged verse:— - ‘Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past, - With fiercer heat than flamed above my head - My heart was hot within me; till at last - My brain was lightened when my tongue had said— - Christ is not risen!’ - - _Sp._ Christ is not risen? Oh, indeed, - I didn’t know that was your creed. - - _Di._ So it went on, too lengthy to repeat— - ‘Christ is not risen.’ - - _Sp._ Dear, how odd! - He’ll tell us next there is no God. - I thought ’twas in the Bible plain, - On the third day He rose again. - - _Di._ Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; - As of the unjust, also of the just— - Yea, of that Just One, too! - Is He not risen, and shall we not rise? - Oh, we unwise!’ - - _Sp._ H’m! and the tone, then, after all, - Something of the ironical? - Sarcastic, say; or were it fitter - To style it the religious bitter? - - _Di._ Interpret it I cannot. I but wrote it— - At Naples, truly, as the preface tells, - Last year, in the Toledo; it came on me, - And did me good at once. At Naples then, - At Venice now. Ah! and I think at Venice - Christ is not risen either. - - _Sp._ Nay, - Such things don’t fall out every day: - Having once happened, as we know, - In Palestine so long ago, - How should it now at Venice here - Where people, true enough, appear - To appreciate more and understand - Their ices, and their Austrian band - And dark-eyed girls. - - _Di._ The whole great square they fill, - From the red flaunting streamers on the staffs, - And that barbaric portal of St. Mark’s, - To where, unnoticed, at the darker end, - I sit upon my step—one great gay crowd. - The Campanile to the silent stars - Goes up, above—its apex lost in air— - While these do what? - - _Sp._ Enjoy the minute, - And the substantial blessings in it: - Ices, _par exemple_; evening air, - Company, and this handsome square; - And all the sweets in perfect plenty - Of the old _dolce far niente_. - Music! Up, up; it isn’t fit - With beggars here on steps to sit. - Up, to the caffé! take a chair, - And join the wiser idlers there. - And see that fellow singing yonder; - Singing, ye gods, and dancing too— - Tooraloo, tooraloo, tooraloo, loo— - Fiddledi diddledi, diddle di di; - _Figaro sù, Figaro giù—_ - _Figaro quà, Figaro là_! - How he likes doing it—Ha, ha! - - _Di._ While these do what? Ah, heaven! too true, at Venice - Christ is not risen either. - - -SCENE II.—_The Public Garden._ - - _Di._ Assuredly, a lively scene! - And, ah, how pleasant something green! - With circling heavens one perfect rose - Each smoother patch of water glows, - Hence to where, o’er the full tide’s face, - We see the Palace and the Place, - And the white dome; beauteous, but hot. - Where in the meantime is the spot— - My favourite—where by masses blue, - And white cloud-folds, I follow true - The great Alps, rounding grandly o’er, - Huge arc, to the Dalmatian shore? - - _Sp._ This rather stupid place, to-day, - It’s true, is most extremely gay; - And rightly—the Assunzione - Was always a _gran’ funzione_. - - _Di._ What is this persecuting voice that haunts me? - What? whence? of whom? How am I to detect? - Myself or not myself? My own bad thoughts, - Or some external agency at work, - To lead me who knows whither? - - _Sp._ Eh? - We’re certainly in luck to-day: - What crowds of boats before us plying— - Gay parties, singing, shouting, crying— - Saluting others past them flying! - What numbers at the causeway lying! - What lots of pretty girls, too, hieing - Hither and thither—coming, going, - And with what satisfaction showing - Their dark exuberance of hair, - Black eyes, rich tints, and sundry graces - Of classic pure Italian faces! - - _Di._ Ah me, me! - Clear stars above, thou roseate westward sky, - Take up my being into yours; assume - My sense to know you only; steep my brain - In your essential purity, or, great Alps, - That wrapping round your heads in solemn clouds - Seem sternly to sweep past our vanities, - Lead me with you—take me away, preserve me! - - O moon and stars, forgive! and thou, clear heaven, - Look pureness back into me. Oh, great God! - Why, why, in wisdom and in grace’s name, - And in the name of saints and saintly thoughts, - Of mothers, and of sisters, and chaste wives, - And angel woman-faces we have seen, - And angel woman-spirits we have guessed, - And innocent sweet children, and pure love, - Why did I ever one brief moment’s space - But parley with this filthy Belial? - ...Was it the fear - Of being behind the world, which is the wicked? - - -SCENE III.—_At the Hotel._ - - _Sp._ Come, then, - And with my aid go into good society. - Life little loves, ’tis true, this peevish piety; - E’en they with whom it thinks to be securest— - Your most religious, delicatest, purest— - Discern, and show as pious people can - Their feeling that you are not quite a man. - Still the thing has its place; and with sagacity, - Much might be done by one of your capacity. - A virtuous attachment formed judiciously - Would come, one sees, uncommonly propitiously: - Turn you but your affections the right way, - And what mayn’t happen none of us can say; - For in despite of devils and of mothers, - Your good young men make catches, too, like others. - - _Di._ To herd with people that one owns no care for; - Friend it with strangers that one sees but once; - To drain the heart with endless complaisance; - To warp the unfinished diction on the lip, - And twist one’s mouth to counterfeit; enforce - Reluctant looks to falsehood; base-alloy - The ingenuous golden frankness of the past; - To calculate and plot; be rough and smooth, - Forward and silent, deferential, cool, - Not by one’s humour, which is the safe truth, - But on consideration. - - _Sp._ That is, act - On a dispassionate judgment of the fact; - Look all the data fairly in the face, - And rule your judgment simply by the case. - - _Di._ On vile consideration. At the best, - With pallid hotbed courtesies to forestall - The green and vernal spontaneity, - And waste the priceless moments of the man - In regulating manner. Whether these things - Be right, I do not know: I only know ’tis - To lose one’s youth too early. Oh, not yet— - Not yet I make the sacrifice. - - _Sp._ _Du tout!_ - To give up nature’s just what would not do. - By all means keep your sweet ingenuous graces, - And use them at the proper times and places. - For work, for play, for business, talk and love, - I own as wisdom truly from above, - That scripture of the serpent and the dove; - Nor’s aught so perfect for the world’s affairs - As the old parable of wheat and tares; - What we all love is good touched up with evil— - Religion’s self must have a spice of devil. - - _Di._ Let it be enough, - That in our needful mixture with the world, - On each new morning with the rising sun, - Our rising heart, fresh from the seas of sleep, - Scarce o’er the level lifts his purer orb - Ere lost and sullied with polluting smoke— - A noon-day coppery disk. Lo, scarce come forth, - Some vagrant miscreant meets, and with a look - Transmutes me his, and for a whole sick day - Lepers me. - - _Sp._ Just the one thing, I assure you, - From which good company can’t but secure you. - About the individual’s not so clear, - But who can doubt the general atmosphere? - - _Di._ Ay truly, who at first? but in a while—— - - _Sp._ O dear, this o’er-discernment makes me smile. - You don’t pretend to tell me you can see - Without one touch of melting sympathy - Those lovely, stately flowers that fill with bloom - The brilliant season’s gay parterre-like room, - Moving serene yet swiftly through the dances; - Those graceful forms and perfect countenances, - Whose every fold and line in all their dresses - Something refined and exquisite expresses. - To see them smile and hear them talk so sweetly, - In me destroys all lower thoughts completely; - I really seem, without exaggeration, - To experience the true regeneration. - One’s own dress, too—one’s manner, what one’s doing - And saying, all assist to one’s renewing. - I love to see, in these their fitting places, - The bows, the forms, and all you call grimaces. - I heartily could wish we’d kept some more of them, - However much we talk about the bore of them. - Fact is, your awkward parvenus are shy at it, - Afraid to look like waiters if they try at it. - ’Tis sad to what democracy is leading— - Give me your Eighteenth Century for high breeding. - Though I can put up gladly with the present, - And quite can think our modern parties pleasant. - One shouldn’t analyse the thing too nearly: - The main effect is admirable clearly. - ‘Good manners,’ said our great-aunts, ‘next to piety:’ - And so my friend, hurrah for good society! - - -SCENE IV.—_On the Piazza._ - - _Sp._ Insulted! by the living Lord! - He laid his hand upon his sword. - ‘_Fort_,’ did he say? a German brute, - With neither heart nor brains to shoot. - - _Di._ What does he mean? he’s wrong, I had done nothing. - ’Twas a mistake—more his, I am sure, than mine. - He is quite wrong—I feel it. Come, let us go. - - _Sp._ Go up to him!—you must, that’s flat. - Be threatened by a beast like that! - - _Di._ He’s violent: what can I do against him? - I neither wish to be killed nor to kill: - What’s more, I never yet have touched a sword, - Nor fired, but twice, a pistol in my life. - - _Sp._ Oh, never mind, ’twon’t come to fighting— - Only some verbal small requiting; - Or give your card—we’ll do’t by writing. - He’ll not stick to it. Soldiers too - Are cowards, just like me or you. - What! not a single word to throw at - This snarling dog of a d——d Croat? - - _Di._ My heavens! why should I care? he does not hurt me. - If he is wrong, it is the worst for him. - I certainly did nothing: I shall go. - - _Sp._ Did nothing! I should think not; no, - Nor ever will, I dare be sworn! - But, O my friend, well-bred, well-born— - You to behave so in these quarrels - Makes me half doubtful of your morals! - ...It were all one, - You had been some shopkeeper’s son, - Whose childhood ne’er was shown aught better - Than bills of creditor and debtor. - - _Di._ By heaven, it falls from off me like the rain - From the oil-coat. I seem in spirit to see - How he and I at some great day shall meet - Before some awful judgment-seat of truth; - And I could deem that I behold him there - Come praying for the pardon I give now, - Did I not think these matters too, too small - For any record on the leaves of time. - O thou great Watcher of this noisy world, - What are they in Thy sight? or what in his - Who finds some end of action in his life? - What e’en in his whose sole permitted course - Is to pursue his peaceful byway walk, - And live his brief life purely in Thy sight, - And righteously towards his brother-men? - - _Sp._ And whether, so you’re just and fair, - Other folks are so, you don’t care; - You who profess more love than others - For your poor sinful human brothers. - - _Di._ For grosser evils their gross remedies - The laws afford us; let us be content; - For finer wounds the law would, if it could, - Find medicine too; it cannot, let us bear; - For sufferance is the badge of all men’s tribes. - - _Sp._ Because we can’t do all we would, - Does it follow, to do nothing’s good? - No way to help the law’s rough sense - By equities of self-defence? - Well, for yourself it may be nice - To serve vulgarity and vice: - Must sisters, too, and wives and mothers, - Fare like their patient sons and brothers? - - _Di._ He that loves sister, mother, more than me—— - - _Sp._ But the injustice—the gross wrong! - To whom on earth does it belong - If not to you, to whom ’twas done, - Who saw it plain as any sun, - To make the base and foul offender - Confess, and satisfaction render? - At least before the termination of it - Prove your own lofty reprobation of it. - Though gentleness, I know, was born in you, - Surely you have a little scorn in you? - - _Di._ Heaven! to pollute one’s fingers to pick up - The fallen coin of honour from the dirt— - Pure silver though it be, let it rather lie! - To take up any offence, where’t may be said - That temper, vanity—I know not what— - Had led me on! - To have so much as e’en half felt of one - That ever one was angered for oneself! - Beyond suspicion Cæsar’s wife should be, - Beyond suspicion this bright honour shall. - Did he say scorn? I have some scorn, thank God. - - _Sp._ Certainly. Only if it’s so, - Let us leave Italy, and go - Post haste, to attend—you’re ripe and rank for’t— - The great peace-meeting up at Frankfort. - Joy to the Croat! Take our lives, - Sweet friends, and please respect our wives; - Joy to the Croat! Some fine day, - He’ll see the error of his way, - No doubt, and will repent and pray. - At any rate he’ll open his eyes, - If not before, at the Last Assize. - Not, if I rightly understood you, - That even then you’d punish, would you? - Nay, let the hapless soul go free— - Mere murder, crime, or robbery, - In whate’er station, age, or sex, - Your sacred spirit scarce can vex: - _De minimis non curat lex_. - To the Peace Congress! ring the bell! - Horses to Frankfort and to ——! - - _Di._ I am not quite in union with myself - On this strange matter. I must needs confess - Instinct turns instinct out, and thought - Wheels round on thought. To bleed for others’ wrongs - In vindication of a cause, to draw - The sword of the Lord and Gideon—oh, that seems - The flower and top of life! But fight because - Some poor misconstruing trifler haps to say - I lie, when I do not lie, - Why should I? Call you this a cause? I can’t. - Oh, he is wrong, no doubt; he misbehaves— - But is it worth so much as speaking loud? - And things so merely personal to myself - Of all earth’s things do least affect myself. - - _Sp._ Sweet eloquence! at next May Meeting - How it would tell in the repeating! - I recognise, and kiss the rod— - The methodistic ‘voice of God;’ - I catch contrite that angel whine, - That snuffle human, yet divine. - - _Di._ It may be I am somewhat of a poltroon; - I never fought at school; whether it be - Some native poorness in my spirit’s blood, - Or that the holy doctrine of our faith - In too exclusive fervency possessed - My heart with feelings, with ideas my brain. - - _Sp._ Yes; you would argue that it goes - Against the Bible, I suppose; - But our revered religion—yes, - Our common faith—seems, I confess, - On these points to propose to address - The people more than you or me— - At best the vulgar bourgeoisie. - The sacred writers don’t keep count, - But still the Sermon on the Mount - Must have been spoken, by what’s stated, - To hearers by the thousands rated. - I cuff some fellow; mild and meek - He should turn round the other cheek. - For him it may be right and good; - We are not all of gentle blood - Really, or as such understood. - - _Di._ There are two kindreds upon earth, I know— - The oppressors and the oppressed. But as for me, - If I must choose to inflict wrong, or accept, - May my last end, and life too, be with these. - Yes; whatsoe’er the reason, want of blood, - Lymphatic humours, or my childhood’s faith, - So is the thing, and be it well or ill, - I have no choice. I am a man of peace, - And the old Adam of the gentleman - Dares seldom in my bosom stir against - The mild plebeian Christian seated there. - - _Sp._ Forgive me, if I name my doubt, - Whether you know ‘_fort_’ means ‘_get out_.’ - - -SCENE V.—_The Lido._ - - _Sp._ What now? the Lido shall it be? - That none may say we didn’t see - The ground which Byron used to ride on, - And do I don’t know what beside on. - Ho, barca! here! and this light gale - Will let us run it with a sail. - - _Di._ I dreamt a dream: till morning light - A bell rang in my head all night, - Tinkling and tinkling first, and then - Tolling and tinkling, tolling again, - So brisk and gay, and then so slow! - O joy and terror! mirth and woe! - Ting, ting, there is no God; ting, ting,— - Dong, there is no God; dong, - There is no God; dong, dong. - - Ting, ting, there is no God; ting, ting. - Come, dance and play, and merrily sing, - Staid Englishman, who toil and slave - From your first childhood to your grave, - And seldom spend and always save— - And do your duty all your life - By your young family and wife; - Come, be’t not said you ne’er had known - What earth can furnish you alone. - The Italian, Frenchman, German even, - Have given up all thoughts of heaven: - And you still linger—oh, you fool!— - Because of what you learnt at school. - You should have gone at least to college, - And got a little ampler knowledge. - Ah well, and yet—dong, dong, dong: - Do as you like, as now you do; - If work’s a cheat, so’s pleasure too. - And nothing’s new and nothing’s true; - Dong, there is no God; dong. - - O, in our nook unknown, unseen, - We’ll hold our fancy like a screen - Us and the dreadful fact between; - And it shall yet be long—ay, long— - The quiet notes of our low song - Shall keep us from that sad dong, dong.— - Hark, hark, hark! O voice of fear, - It reaches us here, even here! - Dong, there is no God; dong. - - Ring ding, ring ding, tara, tara, - To battle, to battle—haste, haste— - To battle, to battle—aha, aha! - On, on, to the conqueror’s feast, - From east to west, and south and north, - Ye men of valour and of worth, - Ye mighty men of arms come forth, - And work your will, for that is just; - And in your impulse put your trust, - Beneath your feet the fools are dust. - Alas, alas! O grief and wrong, - The good are weak, the wicked strong; - And O my God, how long, how long! - Dong, there is no God; dong. - - Ring, ting; to bow before the strong, - There is a rapture too in this; - Work for thy master, work, thou slave— - He is not merciful, but brave. - Be’t joy to serve, who free and proud - Scorns thee and all the ignoble crowd; - Take that, ’tis all thou art allowed, - Except the snaky hope that they - May sometime serve who rule to-day. - When, by hell-demons, shan’t they pay? - O wickedness, O shame and grief, - And heavy load, and no relief! - O God, O God! and which is worst, - To be the curser or the curst, - The victim or the murderer? Dong. - Dong, there is no God; dong. - Ring ding, ring ding, tara, tara, - Away, and hush that preaching—fagh! - Ye vulgar dreamers about peace, - Who offer noblest hearts, to heal - The tenderest hurts honour can feel, - Paid magistrates and the police! - O peddling merchant-justice, go, - Exacter rules than yours we know; - Resentment’s rule, and that high law - Of whoso best the sword can draw. - Ah well, and yet—dong, dong, dong. - Go on, my friends, as now you do; - Lawyers are villains, soldiers too; - And nothing’s new and nothing’s true. - Dong, there is no God; dong. - - I had a dream, from eve to light - A bell went sounding all the night. - Gay mirth, black woe, thin joys, huge pain: - I tried to stop it, but in vain. - It ran right on, and never broke; - Only when day began to stream - Through the white curtains to my bed, - And like an angel at my head - Light stood and touched me—I awoke, - And looked, and said, ‘It is a dream.’ - - _Sp._ Ah! not so bad. You’ve read, I see, - Your Béranger, and thought of me. - But really you owe some apology - For harping thus upon theology. - I’m not a judge, I own; in short, - Religion may not be my forte. - The Church of England I belong to, - And think Dissenters not far wrong too; - They’re vulgar dogs; but for his _creed_ - I hold that no man will be d——d. - But come and listen in your turn, - And you shall hear and mark and learn. - - ‘There is no God,’ the wicked saith, - ‘And truly it’s a blessing, - For what He might have done with us - It’s better only guessing.’ - - ‘There is no God,’ a youngster thinks, - ‘Or really, if there may be, - He surely didn’t mean a man - Always to be a baby.’ - - ‘There is no God, or if there is,’ - The tradesman thinks, ‘’twere funny - If He should take it ill in me - To make a little money.’ - - ‘Whether there be,’ the rich man says, - ‘It matters very little, - For I and mine, thank somebody, - Are not in want of victual.’ - - Some others, also, to themselves, - Who scarce so much as doubt it, - Think there is none, when they are well, - And do not think about it. - - But country folks who live beneath - The shadow of the steeple; - The parson and the parson’s wife, - And mostly married people; - - Youths green and happy in first love, - So thankful for illusion; - And men caught out in what the world - Calls guilt, in first confusion; - - And almost every one when age, - Disease, or sorrows strike him, - Inclines to think there is a God, - Or something very like Him. - - But _eccoci_! with our _barchetta_, - Here at the Sant’ Elisabetta. - - _Di._ Vineyards and maize, that’s pleasant for sore eyes. - - _Sp._ And on the island’s other side, - The place where Murray’s faithful Guide - Informs us Byron used to ride. - - _Di._ The trellised vines! enchanting! Sandhills, ho! - The sea, at last the sea—the real broad sea— - Beautiful! and a glorious breeze upon it. - - _Sp._ Look back; one catches at this station - Lagoon and sea in combination. - - _Di._ On her still lake the city sits, - Where bark and boat around her flits, - Nor dreams, her soft siesta taking, - Of Adriatic billows breaking. - I do; I see and hear them. Come! to the sea! - Oh, a grand surge! we’ll bathe; quick, quick!—undress! - Quick, quick!—in, in! - We’ll take the crested billows by their backs - And shake them. Quick! in, in! - - And I will taste again the old joy - I gloried in so when a boy; - Aha! come, come—great waters, roll! - Accept me, take me, body and soul! - That’s done me good. It grieves me though, - I never came here long ago. - - _Sp._ Pleasant, perhaps; however, no offence, - Animal spirits are not common sense; - They’re good enough as an assistance, - But in themselves a poor existence. - But you, with this one bathe, no doubt, - Have solved all questions out and out. - - -PART II. - - -SCENE I.—_The interior Arcade of the Doge’s Palace._ - - _Sp._ Thunder and rain! O dear, O dear! - But see, a noble shelter here, - This grand arcade where our Venetian - Has formed of Gothic and of Grecian - A combination strange, but striking, - And singularly to my liking! - Let moderns reap where ancients sowed, - I at least make it my abode. - And now let’s hear your famous Ode: - ‘Through the great sinful’—how did it go on? - For principles of Art and so on - I care perhaps about three curses, - But hold myself a judge of verses. - - _Di._ ‘My brain was lightened when my tongue - had said, “Christ is not risen.”’ - - * * * * * - - _Sp._ Well, now it’s anything but clear - What is the tone that’s taken here: - What is your logic? what’s your theology? - Is it, or is it not, neology? - That’s a great fault; you’re this and that, - And here and there, and nothing flat; - Yet writing’s golden word what is it, - But the three syllables ‘explicit’? - Say, if you cannot help it, less, - But what you do put, put express. - I fear that rule won’t meet your feeling: - You think half showing, half concealing, - Is God’s own method of revealing. - - _Di._ To please my own poor mind! to find repose; - To physic the sick soul; to furnish vent - To diseased humours in the moral frame! - - _Sp._ A sort of seton, I suppose, - A moral bleeding at the nose: - H’m;—and the tone too after all, - Something of the ironical? - Sarcastic, say; or were it fitter - To style it the religious bitter? - - _Di._ Interpret it I cannot, I but wrote it. - - _Sp._ Perhaps; but none that read can doubt it, - There is a strong Strauss-smell about it. - Heavens! at your years your time to fritter - Upon a critical hair-splitter! - Take larger views (and quit your Germans) - From the Analogy and sermons; - I fancied—you must doubtless know— - Butler had proved an age ago, - That in religious as profane things - ’Twas useless trying to explain things; - Men’s business-wits, the only sane things, - These and compliance are the main things. - God, Revelation, and the rest of it, - Bad at the best, we make the best of it. - Like a good subject and wise man, - Believe whatever things you can. - Take your religion as ’twas found you, - And say no more of it, confound you! - And now I think the rain has ended; - And the less said, the soonest mended. - - -SCENE II.—_In a Gondola._ - - _Sp._ _Per ora._ To the Grand Canal. - Afterwards e’en as fancy shall. - - _Di._ Afloat; we move. Delicious! Ah, - What else is like the gondola? - This level floor of liquid glass - Begins beneath us swift to pass. - It goes as though it went alone - By some impulsion of its own. - (How light it moves, how softly! Ah, - Were all things like the gondola!) - - How light it moves, how softly! Ah, - Could life, as does our gondola, - Unvexed with quarrels, aims, and cares, - And moral duties and affairs, - Unswaying, noiseless, swift and strong, - For ever thus—thus glide along! - (How light we move, how softly! Ah, - Were life but as the gondola!) - - With no more motion than should bear - A freshness to the languid air; - With no more effort than exprest - The need and naturalness of rest, - Which we beneath a grateful shade - Should take on peaceful pillows laid! - (How light we move, how softly! Ah, - Were life but as the gondola!) - - In one unbroken passage borne - To closing night from opening morn, - Uplift at whiles slow eyes to mark - Some palace front, some passing bark; - Through windows catch the varying shore, - And hear the soft turns of the oar! - (How light we move, how softly! Ah, - Were life but as the gondola!) - - So live, nor need to call to mind - Our slaving brother here behind! - - _Sp._ Pooh! Nature meant him for no better - Than our most humble menial debtor: - Who thanks us for his day’s employment - As we our purse for our enjoyment. - - _Di._ To make one’s fellow-man an instrument—— - - _Sp._ Is just the thing that makes him most content. - - _Di._ Our gaieties, our luxuries, - Our pleasures and our glee, - Mere insolence and wantonness, - Alas! they feel to me. - - How shall I laugh and sing and dance? - My very heart recoils, - While here to give my mirth a chance - A hungry brother toils. - - The joy that does not spring from joy - Which I in others see, - How can I venture to employ, - Or find it joy for me? - - _Sp._ Oh come, come, come! By Him that sent us here. - Who’s to enjoy at all, pray let us hear? - You won’t; he can’t! Oh, no more fuss! - What’s it to him, or he to us? - Sing, sing away, be glad and gay, - And don’t forget that we shall pay. - - _Di._ Yes, it is beautiful ever, let foolish men rail at it never. - Yes, it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly. - Wise are ye others that choose it, and happy ye all that can use it. - Life it is beautiful wholly, and could we eliminate only - This interfering, enslaving, o’ermastering demon of craving, - This wicked tempter inside us to ruin still eager to guide us, - Life were beatitude, action a possible pure satisfaction. - - _Sp._ (Hexameters, by all that’s odious, - Beshod with rhyme to run melodious!) - - _Di._ All as I go on my way I behold them consorting and coupling; - Faithful it seemeth, and fond; very fond, very possibly faithful; - All as I go on my way with a pleasure sincere and unmingled - Life it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly, - But for perfection attaining is one method only, abstaining; - Let us abstain, for we should so, if only we thought that we could so. - - _Sp._ Bravo, bravissimo! this time though - You rather were run short for rhyme though; - Not that on that account your verse - Could be much better or much worse. - - This world is very odd we see, - We do not comprehend it; - But in one fact we all agree, - God won’t, and we can’t mend it. - - Being common sense, it can’t be sin - To take it as I find it; - The pleasure to take pleasure in; - The pain, try not to mind it. - - _Di._ O let me love my love unto myself alone, - And know my knowledge to the world unknown; - No witness to the vision call, - Beholding, unbeheld of all; - And worship thee, with thee withdrawn, apart, - Whoe’er, whate’er thou art, - Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart - - Better it were, thou sayest, to consent, - Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent; - Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure, - The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure; - In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll, - And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul. - - Nay, better far to mark off thus much air, - And call it heaven; place bliss and glory there; - Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky, - And say, what is not, will be by-and-by; - What here exists not must exist elsewhere. - But play no tricks upon thy soul, O man; - Let fact be fact, and life the thing it can. - - _Sp._ To these remarks so sage and clerkly, - Worthy of Malebranche or Berkeley, - I trust it won’t be deemed a sin - If I too answer ‘with a grin.’ - - These juicy meats, this flashing wine, - May be an unreal mere appearance; - Only—for my inside, in fine, - They have a singular coherence. - - Oh yes, my pensive youth, abstain; - And any empty sick sensation. - Remember, anything like pain - Is only your imagination. - - Trust me, I’ve read your German sage - To far more purpose e’er than you did; - You find it in his wisest page, - Whom God deludes is well deluded. - - _Di._ Where are the great, whom thou would’st wish to praise thee? - Where are the pure, whom thou would’st choose to love thee? - Where are the brave, to stand supreme above thee, - Whose high commands would cheer, whose chidings raise thee? - Seek, seeker, in thyself; submit to find - In the stones, bread, and life in the blank mind. - - (Written in London, standing in the Park, - One evening in July, just before dark.) - - _Sp._ As I sat at the café, I said to myself, - They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, - They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking, - But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking, - How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - How pleasant it is to have money. - - I sit at my table _en grand seigneur_, - And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor; - Not only the pleasure, one’s self, of good living, - But also the pleasure of now and then giving. - So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - So pleasant it is to have money. - - It was but last winter I came up to town, - But already I’m getting a little renown; - I make new acquaintance where’er I appear; - I am not too shy, and have nothing to fear. - So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - So pleasant it is to have money. - - I drive through the streets, and I care not a d——n; - The people they stare, and they ask who I am; - And if I should chance to run over a cad, - I can pay for the damage if ever so bad. - So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - So pleasant it is to have money. - - We stroll to our box and look down on the pit, - And if it weren’t low should be tempted to spit; - We loll and we talk until people look up, - And when it’s half over we go out to sup. - So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - So pleasant it is to have money. - - The best of the tables and the best of the fare— - And as for the others, the devil may care; - It isn’t our fault if they dare not afford - To sup like a prince and be drunk as a lord. - So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - So pleasant it is to have money. - - We sit at our tables and tipple champagne; - Ere one bottle goes, comes another again; - The waiters they skip and they scuttle about, - And the landlord attends us so civilly out. - So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - So pleasant it is to have money. - - It was but last winter I came up to town, - But already I’m getting a little renown; - I get to good houses without much ado, - Am beginning to see the nobility too. - So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - So pleasant it is to have money. - - O dear! what a pity they ever should lose it! - For they are the gentry that know how to use it; - So grand and so graceful, such manners, such dinners, - But yet, after all, it is we are the winners. - So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - So pleasant it is to have money. - - Thus I sat at my table _en grand seigneur_, - And when I had done threw a crust to the poor; - Not only the pleasure, one’s self, of good eating, - But also the pleasure of now and then treating. - So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - So pleasant it is to have money. - - They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, - And how one ought never to think of one’s self, - And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking— - My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking - How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - How pleasant it is to have money. - - (Written in Venice, but for all parts true, - ’Twas not a crust I gave him, but a sou.) - - A gondola here, and a gondola there, - ’Tis the pleasantest fashion of taking the air. - To right and to left; stop, turn, and go yonder, - And let us repeat, o’er the tide as we wander, - How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - How pleasant it is to have money. - - Come, leave your Gothic, worn-out story, - San Giorgio and the Redentore; - I from no building, gay or solemn, - Can spare the shapely Grecian column. - ’Tis not, these centuries four, for nought - Our European world of thought - Hath made familiar to its home - The classic mind of Greece and Rome; - In all new work that would look forth - To more than antiquarian worth, - Palladio’s pediments and bases, - Or something such, will find their places; - Maturer optics don’t delight - In childish dim religious light, - In evanescent vague effects - That shirk, not face, one’s intellects; - They love not fancies just betrayed, - And artful tricks of light and shade, - But pure form nakedly displayed, - And all things absolutely made. - The Doge’s palace though, from hence, - In spite of doctrinaire pretence, - The tide now level with the quay, - Is certainly a thing to see. - We’ll turn to the Rialto soon; - One’s told to see it by the moon. - - A gondola here, and a gondola there, - ’Tis the pleasantest fashion of taking the air. - To right and to left; stop, turn, and go yonder, - And let us reflect, o’er the flood as we wander, - How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! - How pleasant it is to have money. - - _Di._ How light we go, how soft we skim, - And all in moonlight seem to swim! - The south side rises o’er our bark, - A wall impenetrably dark; - The north is seen profusely bright; - The water, is it shade or light? - Say, gentle moon, which conquers now - The flood, those massy hulls, or thou? - (How light we go, how softly! Ah, - Where life but as the gondola!) - - How light we go, how soft we skim, - And all in moonlight seem to swim! - In moonlight is it now, or shade? - In planes of sure division made, - By angles sharp of palace walls - The clear light and the shadow falls; - O sight of glory, sight of wonder! - Seen, a pictorial portent, under, - O great Rialto, the vast round - Of thy thrice-solid arch profound! - (How light we go, how softly! Ah, - Life should be as the gondola!) - - How light we go, how softly—— - - _Sp._ Nay; - Fore heaven, enough of that to-day: - I’m deadly weary of your tune, - And half-ennuyé with the moon; - The shadows lie, the glories fall, - And are but moonshine after all. - It goes against my conscience really - To let myself feel so ideally. - Come, for the Piazzetta steer; - ’Tis nine o’clock or very near. - These airy blisses, skiey joys - Of vague romantic girls and boys, - Which melt the heart and the brain soften, - When not affected, as too often - They are, remind me, I protest, - Of nothing better at the best - Than Timon’s feast to his ancient lovers, - Warm water under silver covers; - ‘Lap, dogs!’ I think I hear him say; - And lap who will, so I’m away. - - _Di._ How light we go, how soft we skim, - And all in moonlight seem to swim! - Against bright clouds projected dark, - The white dome now, reclined I mark, - And, by o’er-brilliant lamps displayed, - The Doge’s columns and arcade; - Over still waters mildly come - The distant waters and the hum. - (How light we go, how softly! Ah, - Life should be as the gondola!) - - How light we go, how soft we skim, - And all in open moonlight swim! - Ah, gondolier, slow, slow, more slow! - We go; but wherefore thus should go? - Ah, let not muscle all too strong - Beguile, betray thee to our wrong! - On to the landing, onward. Nay, - Sweet dream, a little longer stay! - On to the landing; here. And, ah! - Life is not as the gondola. - - _Sp._ _Tre ore._ So. The Parthenone - Is it? you haunt for your limone. - Let me induce you to join me, - In gramolate persiche. - - -SCENE III.—_The Academy at Venice._ - - _Di._ A modern daub it was, perchance, - I know not: but the connoisseur - From Titian’s hues, I dare be sure, - Had never turned one kindly glance, - - Where Byron, somewhat drest-up, draws - His sword, impatient long, and speaks - Unto a tribe of motley Greeks - His fealty to their good cause. - - Not far, assumed to mystic bliss, - Behold the ecstatic Virgin rise! - Ah, wherefore vainly, to fond eyes - That melted into tears for this? - - Yet if we must live, as would seem, - These peremptory heats to claim, - Ah, not for profit, not for fame, - And not for pleasure’s giddy dream, - - And not for piping empty reeds, - And not for colouring idle dust; - If live we positively must, - God’s name be blest for noble deeds. - - Verses! well, they are made, so let them go; - No more if I can help. This is one way - The procreant heat and fervour of our youth - Escapes, in puff, in smoke, and shapeless words - Of mere ejaculation, nothing worth, - Unless to make maturer years content - To slave in base compliance to the world. - - I have scarce spoken yet to this strange follower - Whom I picked up—ye great gods, tell me where! - And when! for I remember such long years, - And yet he seems new come. I commune with myself; - He speaks, I hear him, and resume to myself; - Whate’er I think, he adds his comments to; - Which yet not interrupts me. Scarce I know - If ever once directly I addressed him: - Let me essay it now; for I have strength. - Yet what he wants, and what he fain would have, - Oh, I know all too surely; not in vain, - Although unnoticed, has he dogged my ear. - Come, we’ll be definite, explicit, plain; - I can resist, I know; and ’twill be well - For colloquy to have used this manlier mood, - Which is to last, ye chances say how long - How shall I call him? Mephistophiles? - - _Sp._ I come, I come. - - _Di._ So quick, so eager; ha! - Like an eaves-dropping menial on my thought, - With something of an exultation too, methinks, - Out-peeping in that springy, jaunty gait. - I doubt about it. Shall I do it? Oh! oh! - Shame on me! come! Shall I, my follower, - Should I conceive (not that at all I do, - ’Tis curiosity that prompts my speech)— - But should I form, a thing to be supposed, - A wish to bargain for your merchandise, - Say what were your demands? what were your terms! - What should I do? what should I cease to do? - What incense on what altars must I burn? - And what abandon? what unlearn, or learn? - Religion goes, I take it. - - _Sp._ Oh, - You’ll go to church of course, you know; - Or at the least will take a pew - To send your wife and servants to. - Trust me, I make a point of that; - No infidelity, that’s flat. - - _Di._ Religion is not in a pew, say some; - Cucullus, _you_ hold, _facit_ monachum. - - _Sp._ Why, as to feelings of devotion - I interdict all vague emotion; - But if you will, for once and all - Compound with ancient Juvenal - Orandum est, one perfect prayer - For savoir-vivre and savoir-faire. - Theology—don’t recommend you, - Unless, turned lawyer, Heaven should send you - In your profession’s way a case - Of Baptism and prevenient grace; - But that’s not likely. I’m inclined, - All circumstances borne in mind, - To think (to keep you in due borders) - You’d better enter holy orders. - - _Di._ On that, my friend, you’d better not insist. - - _Sp._ Well, well, ’tis but a good thing missed. - The item’s optional, no doubt; - But how to get you bread without? - You’ll marry; I shall find the lady. - Make your proposal, and be steady. - - _Di._ Marry, ill spirit! and at your sole choice? - - _Sp._ _De rigueur!_ can’t give you a voice. - What matter? Oh, trust one who knows you, - You’ll make an admirable sposo. - - _Di._ Enough. But action—look to that well, mind me; - See that some not unworthy work you find me; - If man I be, then give the man expression. - - _Sp._ Of course you’ll enter a profession; - If not the Church, why then the Law. - By Jove, we’ll teach you how to draw! - Besides, the best of the concern is - I’m hand and glove with the attorneys. - With them and me to help, don’t doubt - But in due season you’ll come out; - Leave Kelly, Cockburn, in the lurch. - But yet, do think about the Church. - - _Di._ ’Tis well, ill spirit, I admire your wit; - As for your wisdom, I shall think of it. - And now farewell. - - -SCENE IV.—_In St. Mark’s. Dipsychus alone._ - - The Law! ’twere honester, if ’twere genteel, - To say the dung-cart. What! shall I go about, - And like the walking shoeblack roam the flags - To see whose boots are dirtiest? Oh, the luck - To stoop and clean a pair! - Religion, if indeed it be in vain - To expect to find in this more modern time - That which the old world styled, in old-world phrase - Walking with God. It seems His newer will - We should not think of Him at all, but trudge it, - And of the world He has assigned us make - What best we can. - Then love: I scarce can think - That these be-maddening discords of the mind - To pure melodious sequence could be changed, - And all the vext conundrums of our life - Solved to all time by this old pastoral - Of a new Adam and a second Eve - Set in a garden which no serpent seeks. - And yet I hold heart can beat true to heart: - And to hew down the tree which bears this fruit, - To do a thing which cuts me off from hope, - To falsify the movement of Love’s mind, - To seat some alien trifler on the throne - A queen may come to claim—that were ill done. - What! to the close hand of the clutching Jew - Hand up that rich reversion! and for what? - This would be hard, did I indeed believe - ’Twould ever fall. That love, the large repose - Restorative, not to mere outside needs - Skin-deep, but throughly to the total man, - Exists, I will believe, but so, so rare, - So doubtful, so exceptional, hard to guess; - When guessed, so often counterfeit; in brief, - A thing not possibly to be conceived - An item in the reckonings of the wise. - - Action, that staggers me. For I had hoped, - ’Midst weakness, indolence, frivolity, - Irresolution, still had hoped: and this - Seems sacrificing hope. Better to wait: - The wise men wait; it is the foolish haste, - And ere the scenes are in the slides would play, - And while the instruments are tuning, dance. - I see Napoleon on the heights intent - To arrest that one brief unit of loose time - Which hands high Victory’s thread; his marshals fret, - His soldiers clamour low: the very guns - Seem going off of themselves; the cannon strain - Like hell-dogs in the leash. But he, he waits; - And lesser chances and inferior hopes - Meantime go pouring past. Men gnash their teeth; - The very faithful have begun to doubt; - But they molest not the calm eye that seeks - ’Midst all this huddling silver little worth - The one thin piece that comes, pure gold; he waits. - O me, when the great deed e’en now has broke - Like a man’s hand the horizon’s level line, - So soon to fill the zenith with rich clouds; - Oh, in this narrow interspace, this marge, - This list and selvage of a glorious time, - To despair of the great and sell unto the mean! - O thou of little faith, what hast thou done? - Yet if the occasion coming should find us - Undexterous, incapable? In light things - Prove thou the arms thou long’st to glorify, - Nor fear to work up from the lowest ranks - Whence come great Nature’s Captains. And high deeds - Haunt not the fringy edges of the fight, - But the pell-mell of men. Oh, what and if - E’en now by lingering here I let them slip, - Like an unpractised spyer through a glass, - Still pointing to the blank, too high! And yet, - In dead details to smother vital ends - Which would give life to them; in the deft trick - Of prentice-handling to forget great art, - To base mechanical adroitness yield - The Inspiration and the Hope a slave! - Oh, and to blast that Innocence which, though - Here it may seem a dull unopening bud, - May yet bloom freely in celestial clime! - - Were it not better done, then, to keep off - And see, not share, the strife; stand out the waltz - Which fools whirl dizzy in? Is it possible? - Contamination taints the idler first; - And without base compliance, e’en that same - Which buys bold hearts free course, Earth lends not these - Their pent and miserable standing-room. - Life loves no lookers-on at his great game, - And with boy’s malice still delights to turn - The tide of sport upon the sitters-by, - And set observers scampering with their notes. - Oh, it is great to do and know not what, - Nor let it e’er be known. The dashing stream - Stays not to pick his steps among the rocks, - Or let his water-breaks be chronicled. - And though the hunter looks before he leap, - ’Tis instinct rather than a shaped-out thought - That lifts him his bold way. Then, instinct, hail! - And farewell hesitation. If I stay, - I am not innocent; nor if I go— - E’en should I fall—beyond redemption lost. - - Ah, if I had a course like a full stream, - If life were as the field of chase! No, no; - The life of instinct has, it seems, gone by, - And will not be forced back. And to live now - I must sluice out myself into canals, - And lose all force in ducts. The modern Hotspur - Shrills not his trumpet of ‘To Horse, To Horse!’ - But consults columns in a Railway Guide; - A demigod of figures; an Achilles - Of computation; - A verier Mercury, express come down - To do the world with swift arithmetic. - Well, one could bear with that, were the end ours, - One’s choice and the correlative of the soul; - To drudge were then sweet service. But indeed - The earth moves slowly, if it move at all, - And by the general, not the single force - Of the linked members of the vast machine. - In all these crowded rooms of industry, - No individual soul has loftier leave - Than fiddling with a piston or a valve. - Well, one could bear that also: one would drudge - And do one’s petty part, and be content - In base manipulation, solaced still - By thinking of the leagued fraternity, - And of co-operation, and the effect - Of the great engine. If indeed it work, - And is not a mere treadmill! which it may be. - Who can confirm it is not? We ask action. - And dream of arms and conflict; and string up - All self-devotion’s muscles; and are set - To fold up papers. To what end? we know not. - Other folks do so; it is always done; - And it perhaps is right. And we are paid for it, - For nothing else we can be. He that eats - Must serve; and serve as other servants do: - And don the lacquey’s livery of the house. - Oh, could I shoot my thought up to the sky, - A column of pure shape, for all to observe! - But I must slave, a meagre coral-worm, - To build beneath the tide with excrement - What one day will be island, or be reef, - And will feed men, or wreck them. Well, well, well. - Adieu, ye twisted thinkings. I submit: it must be. - - Action is what one must get, it is clear, - And one could dream it better than one finds, - In its kind personal, in its motive not; - Not selfish as it now is, nor as now - Maiming the individual. If we had that, - It would cure all indeed. Oh, how would then - These pitiful rebellions of the flesh, - These caterwaulings of the effeminate heart, - These hurts of self-imagined dignity, - Pass like the seaweed from about the bows - Of a great vessel speeding straight to sea! - Yes, if we could have that; but I suppose - We shall not have it, and therefore I submit! - - _Sp._ (_from within_). Submit, submit! - ’Tis common sense, and human wit - Can claim no higher name than it. - Submit, submit! - - Devotion, and ideas, and love, - And beauty claim their place above; - But saint and sage and poet’s dreams - Divide the light in coloured streams, - Which this alone gives all combined, - The _siccum lumen_ of the mind - Called common sense: and no high wit - Gives better counsel than does it. - Submit, submit! - - To see things simply as they are - Here at our elbows, transcends far - Trying to spy out at midday - Some ‘bright particular star,’ which may, - Or not, be visible at night, - But clearly is not in daylight; - No inspiration vague outweighs - The plain good common sense that says, - Submit, submit! - ’Tis common sense, and human wit - Can ask no higher name than it. - Submit, submit! - - -SCENE V.—_The Piazza at Night._ - - _Di._ There have been times, not many, but enough - To quiet all repinings of the heart; - There have been times, in which my tranquil soul, - No longer nebulous, sparse, errant, seemed - Upon its axis solidly to move, - Centred and fast: no mere elastic blank - For random rays to traverse unretained, - But rounding luminous its fair ellipse - Around its central sun. Ay, yet again, - As in more faint sensations I detect, - With it too, round an Inner, Mightier orb, - Maybe with that too—this I dare not say— - Around, yet more, more central, more supreme, - Whate’er how numerous soe’er they be, - I am and feel myself, where’er I wind, - What vagrant chance soe’er I seem to obey - Communicably theirs. - - O happy hours! - O compensation ample for long days - Of what impatient tongues call wretchedness! - O beautiful, beneath the magic moon, - To walk the watery way of palaces! - O beautiful, o’ervaulted with gemmed blue, - This spacious court, with colour and with gold, - With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points, - And crosses multiplex, and tips and balls - (Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix, - Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused); - Fantastically perfect this low pile - Of Oriental glory; these long ranges - Of classic chiselling, this gay flickering crowd. - And the calm Campanile. Beautiful! - O beautiful! and that seemed more profound, - This morning by the pillar when I sat - Under the great arcade, at the review, - And took, and held, and ordered on my brain - The faces, and the voices, and the whole mass - O’ the motley facts of existence flowing by! - O perfect, if ’twere all! But it is not; - Hints haunt me ever of a more beyond: - I am rebuked by a sense of the incomplete, - Of a completion over soon assumed, - Of adding up too soon. What we call sin, - I could believe a painful opening out - Of paths for ampler virtue. The bare field, - Scant with lean ears of harvest, long had mocked - The vext laborious farmer; came at length - The deep plough in the lazy undersoil - Down-driving; with a cry earth’s fibres crack, - And a few months, and lo! the golden leas, - And autumn’s crowded shocks and loaded wains. - Let us look back on life; was any change, - Any now blest expansion, but at first - A pang, remorse-like, shot to the inmost seats - Of moral being? To do anything, - Distinct on any one thing to decide, - To leave the habitual and the old, and quit - The easy-chair of use and wont, seems crime - To the weak soul, forgetful how at first - Sitting down seemed so too. And, oh! this woman’s heart, - Fain to be forced, incredulous of choice, - And waiting a necessity for God. - Yet I could think, indeed, the perfect call - Should force the perfect answer. If the voice - Ought to receive its echo from the soul, - Wherefore this silence? If it _should_ rouse my being, - Why this reluctance? Have I not thought o’ermuch - Of other men, and of the ways of the world? - But what they are, or have been, matters not. - To thine own self be true, the wise man says. - Are then my fears myself? O double self! - And I untrue to both? Oh, there are hours, - When love, and faith, and dear domestic ties, - And converse with old friends, and pleasant walks, - Familiar faces, and familiar books, - Study, and art, upliftings unto prayer, - And admiration of the noblest things, - Seem all ignoble only; all is mean, - And nought as I would have it. Then at others, - My mind is in her rest; my heart at home - In all around; my soul secure in place, - And the vext needle perfect to her poles. - Aimless and hopeless in my life I seem - To thread the winding byways of the town, - Bewildered, baffled, hurried hence and thence, - All at cross-purpose even with myself, - Unknowing whence or whither. Thence at once, - At a step, I crown the Campanile’s top, - And view all mapped below; islands, lagoon, - A hundred steeples and a million roofs, - The fruitful champaign, and the cloud-capt Alps, - And the broad Adriatic. Be it enough; - If I lose this, how terrible! No, no, - I am contented, and will not complain. - To the old paths, my soul! Oh, be it so! - I bear the workday burden of dull life - About these footsore flags of a weary world, - Heaven knows how long it has not been; at once, - Lo! I am in the spirit on the Lord’s day - With John in Patmos. Is it not enough, - One day in seven? and if this should go, - If this pure solace should desert my mind, - What were all else? I dare not risk this loss. - To the old paths, my soul! - - _Sp._ O yes. - To moon about religion; to inhume - Your ripened age in solitary walks, - For self-discussion; to debate in letters - Vext points with earnest friends; past other men - To cherish natural instincts, yet to fear them - And less than any use them; oh, no doubt, - In a corner sit and mope, and be consoled - With thinking one is clever, while the room - Rings through with animation and the dance. - Then talk of old examples; to pervert - Ancient real facts to modern unreal dreams - And build up baseless fabrics of romance - And heroism upon historic sand; - To burn, forsooth, for action, yet despise - Its merest accidence and alphabet; - Cry out for service, and at once rebel - At the application of its plainest rules: - This you call life, my friend, reality; - Doing your duty unto God and man— - I know not what. Stay at Venice, if you will; - Sit musing in its churches hour on hour - Cross-kneed upon a bench; climb up at whiles - The neighbouring tower, and kill the lingering day - With old comparisons; when night succeeds, - Evading, yet a little seeking, what - You would and would not, turn your doubtful eyes - On moon and stars to help morality; - Once in a fortnight say, by lucky chance - Of happier-tempered coffee, gain (great Heaven!) - A pious rapture: is it not enough? - - _Di._ ’Tis well: thou cursed spirit, go thy way! - I am in higher hands than yours. ’Tis well; - Who taught you menaces? Who told you, pray, - Because I asked you questions, and made show - Of hearing what you answered, therefore—— - - _Sp._ Oh, - As if I didn’t know! - - _Di._ Come, come, my friend, - I may have wavered, but I have thought better. - We’ll say no more of it. - - _Sp._ Oh, I dare say: - But as you like; ’tis your own loss; once more, - Beware! - - _Di._ (_alone._) Must it be then? So quick upon my thought - To follow the fulfilment and the deed? - I counted not on this; I counted ever - To hold and turn it over in my hands - Much longer, much: I took it up indeed, - For speculation rather; to gain thought, - New data. Oh, and now to be goaded on - By menaces, entangled among tricks; - That I won’t suffer. Yet it is the law; - ’Tis this makes action always. But for this - We ne’er should act at all; and act we must. - Why quarrel with the fashion of a fact - Which, one way, must be, one time, why not now? - - _Sp._ Submit, submit! - For tell me then, in earth’s great laws - Have you found any saving clause, - Exemption special granted you - From doing what the rest must do? - Of common sense who made you quit, - And told you, you’d no need of it, - Nor to submit? - - To move on angels’ wings were sweet; - But who would therefore scorn his feet? - It cannot walk up to the sky; - It therefore will lie down and die. - Rich meats it don’t obtain at call; - It therefore will not eat at all. - Poor babe, and yet a babe of wit! - But common sense, not much of it, - Or ’twould submit. - Submit, submit! - - As your good father did before you, - And as the mother who first bore you, - O yes! a child of heavenly birth! - But yet it _was_ born too on earth. - Keep your new birth for that far day - When in the grave your bones you lay, - All with your kindred and connection, - In hopes of happy resurrection. - But how meantime to live is fit, - Ask common sense; and what says it? - Submit, submit! - - -SCENE VI.—_On a Bridge._ - - _Di._ ’Tis gone, the fierce inordinate desire, - The burning thirst for action—utterly; - Gone, like a ship that passes in the night - On the high seas: gone, yet will come again: - Gone, yet expresses something that exists. - Is it a thing ordained, then? is it a clue - For my life’s conduct? is it a law for me - That opportunity shall breed distrust, - Not passing until that pass? Chance and resolve, - Like two loose comets wandering wide in space, - Crossing each other’s orbits time on time, - Meet never. Void indifference and doubt - Let through the present boon, which ne’er turns back - To await the after sure-arriving wish. - How shall I then explain it to myself, - That in blank thought my purpose lives? - The uncharged cannon mocking still the spark - _When_ come, which _ere_ come it had loudly claimed. - Am I to let it be so still? For truly - The need exists, I know; the wish but sleeps - (Sleeps, and anon will wake and cry for food); - And to put by these unreturning gifts, - Because the feeling is not with me now, - Seems folly more than merest babyhood’s. - But must I then do violence to myself, - And push on nature, force desire (that’s ill), - Because of knowledge? which is great, but works - By rules of large exception; to tell which - Nought is more fallible than mere caprice. - - What need for action yet? I am happy now, - I feel no lack—what cause is there for haste? - Am I not happy? is not that enough? - Depart! - - _Sp._ O yes! you thought you had escaped, no doubt, - This worldly fiend that follows you about, - This compound of convention and impiety, - This mongrel of uncleanness and propriety. - What else were bad enough? but, let me say, - I too have my _grandes manières_ in my way; - Could speak high sentiment as well as you, - And out-blank-verse you without much ado; - Have my religion also in my kind, - For dreaming unfit, because not designed. - What! you know not that I too can be serious, - Can speak big words, and use the tone imperious; - Can speak, not honiedly, of love and beauty, - But sternly of a something much like duty. - Oh, do you look surprised? were never told, - Perhaps, that all that glitters is not gold. - The Devil oft the Holy Scripture uses, - But God can act the Devil when He chooses. - Farewell! But, _verbum sapienti satis_— - I do not make this revelation gratis. - Farewell: beware! - - _Di._ Ill spirits can quote holy books I knew; - What will they _not_ say? what not dare to do? - - _Sp._ Beware, beware! - - _Di._ What, loitering still? Still, O foul spirit, there? - Go hence, I tell thee, go! I _will_ beware. - (_Alone._) It must be then. I feel it in my soul; - The iron enters, sundering flesh and bone, - And sharper than the two-edged sword of God. - I come into deep waters—help, O help! - The floods run over me. - - Therefore, farewell! a long and last farewell, - Ye pious sweet simplicities of life, - Good books, good friends, and holy moods, and all - That lent rough life sweet Sunday seeming rests, - Making earth heaven-like. Welcome, wicked world, - The hardening heart, the calculating brain - Narrowing its doors to thought, the lying lips, - The calm-dissembling eyes; the greedy flesh, - The world, the Devil—welcome, welcome, welcome! - - _Sp._ (_from within._) This stern necessity of things - On every side our being rings; - Our sallying eager actions fall - Vainly against that iron wall. - Where once her finger points the way, - The wise thinks only to obey; - Take life as she has ordered it, - And come what may of it, submit, - Submit, submit! - - Who take implicitly her will, - For these her vassal chances still - Bring store of joys, successes, pleasures; - But whoso ponders, weighs, and measures, - She calls her torturers up to goad - With spur and scourges on the road; - He does at last with pain whate’er - He spurned at first. Of such, beware, - Beware, beware! - - _Di._ O God, O God! The great floods of the soul - Flow over me! I come into deep waters - Where no ground is! - - _Sp._ Don’t be the least afraid; - There’s not the slightest reason for alarm; - I only meant by a perhaps rough shake - To rouse you from a dreamy, unhealthy sleep. - Up, then—up, and be going: the large world, - The thronged life waits us. - Come, my pretty boy, - You have been making mows to the blank sky - Quite long enough for good. We’ll put you up - Into the higher form. ’Tis time you learn - The Second Reverence, for things around. - Up, then, and go amongst them; don’t be timid; - Look at them quietly a bit: by-and-by - Respect will come, and healthy appetite. - So let us go. - How now! not yet awake? - Oh, you will sleep yet, will you! Oh, you shirk, - You try and slink away! You cannot, eh? - Nay now, what folly’s this? Why will you fool yourself? - Why will you walk about thus with your eyes shut? - Treating for facts the self-made hues that flash - On tight-pressed pupils, which you know are not facts. - To use the undistorted light of the sun - Is not a crime; to look straight out upon - The big plain things that stare one in the face - Does not contaminate; to see pollutes not - What one must feel if one won’t see, what _is_, - And will be too, howe’er we blink, and must - One way or other make itself observed. - Free walking’s better than being led about; and - What will the blind man do, I wonder, if - Some one should cut the string of his dog? Just think! - What could you do, if I should go away? - Oh, you have paths of your own before you, have you? - What shall it take to? literature, no doubt? - Novels, reviews? or poems! if you please! - The strong fresh gale of life will feel, no doubt, - The influx of your mouthful of soft air. - Well, make the most of that small stock of knowledge - You’ve condescended to receive from me; - That’s your best chance. Oh, you despise that! Oh. - Prate then of passions you have known in dreams, - Of huge experience gathered by the eye; - Be large of aspiration, pure in hope, - Sweet in fond longings, but in all things vague; - Breathe out your dreamy scepticism, relieved - By snatches of old songs. People will like that, doubtless. - Or will you write about philosophy? - For a waste far-off _maybe_ overlooking - The fruitful _is_ close by, live in metaphysic, - With transcendental logic fill your stomach, - Schematise joy, effigiate meat and drink; - Or, let me see, a mighty work, a volume, - The Complemental of the inferior Kant, - The Critic of Pure Practice, based upon - The Antinomies of the Moral Sense: for, look you, - We cannot act without assuming _x_, - And at the same time _y_, its contradictory; - Ergo, to act. People will buy that, doubtless. - Or you’ll perhaps teach youth (I do not question - Some downward turn you may find, some evasion - Of the broad highway’s glaring white ascent); - Teach youth, in a small way, that is, always, - So as to have much time left you for yourself; - This you can’t sacrifice, your leisure’s precious. - Heartily you will not take to anything; - Whatever happen, don’t I see you still, - Living no life at all? Even as now - An o’ergrown baby, sucking at the dugs - Of instinct, dry long since. Come, come, you are old enough - For spoon-meat surely. - Will you go on thus - Until death end you? if indeed it does. - For what it does, none knows. Yet as for you, - You’ll hardly have the courage to die outright; - You’ll somehow halve even it. Methinks I see you, - Through everlasting limbos of void time, - Twirling and twiddling ineffectively, - And indeterminately swaying for ever. - Come, come, spoon-meat at any rate. - Well, well, - I will not persecute you more, my friend. - Only do think, as I observed before, - What can you do, if I should go away? - - _Di._ Is the hour here, then? Is the minute come— - The irreprievable instant of stern time? - O for a few, few grains in the running glass, - Or for some power to hold them! O for a few - Of all that went so wastefully before! - It must be then, e’en now. - - _Sp._ (_from within._) It must, it must. - ’Tis common sense! and human wit - Can claim no higher name than it. - Submit, submit! - - Necessity! and who shall dare - Bring to _her_ feet excuse or prayer? - Beware, beware! - We must, we must. - Howe’er we turn, and pause and tremble— - Howe’er we shrink, deceive, dissemble— - Whate’er our doubting, grief, disgust, - The hand is on us, and we must, - We must, we must. - ’Tis common sense! and human wit - Can find no better name than - Submit, submit! - - -SCENE VII.—_At Torcello._ _Dipsychus alone._ - - _Di._ I had a vision; was it in my sleep? - And if it were, what then? But sleep or wake, - I saw a great light open o’er my head; - And sleep or wake, uplifted to that light, - Out of that light proceeding heard a voice - Uttering high words, which, whether sleep or wake, - In me were fixed, and in me must abide. - When the enemy is near thee, - Call on us! - In our hands we will upbear thee, - He shall neither scathe nor scare thee, - He shall fly thee, and shall fear thee. - Call on us! - Call when all good friends have left thee, - Of all good sights and sounds bereft thee; - Call when hope and heart are sinking, - And the brain is sick with thinking, - Help, O help! - Call, and following close behind thee - There shall haste, and there shall find thee, - Help, sure help. - - When the panic comes upon thee, - When necessity seems on thee, - Hope and choice have all foregone thee, - Fate and force are closing o’er thee, - And but one way stands before thee— - Call on us! - Oh, and if thou dost not call, - Be but faithful, that is all. - Go right on, and close behind thee - There shall follow still and find thee, - Help, sure help. - - -SCENE VIII.—_In the Piazza._ - - _Di._ Not for thy service, thou imperious fiend, - Not to do thy work, or the like of thine; - Not to please thee, O base and fallen spirit! - But One Most High, Most True, whom without thee - It seems I cannot. - O the misery - That one must truck and pactise with the world - To gain the ’vantage-ground to assail it from, - To set upon the Giant one must first, - O perfidy! have eat the Giant’s bread. - If I submit, it is but to gain time - And arms and stature: ’tis but to lie safe - Until the hour strike to arise and slay: - ’Tis the old story of the adder’s brood - Feeding and nestling till the fangs be grown. - Were it not nobler done, then, to act fair, - To accept the service with the wages, do - Frankly the devil’s work for the devil’s pay? - Oh, but another my allegiance holds - Inalienably his. How much soe’er - I might submit, it must be to rebel. - Submit then sullenly, that’s no dishonour. - Yet I could deem it better too to starve - And die untraitored. O, who sent me, though? - Sent me, and to do something—O hard master!— - To do a treachery. But indeed ’tis done; - I have already taken of the pay - And curst the payer; take I must, curse too. - Alas! the little strength that I possess - Derives, I think, of him. So still it is, - The timid child that clung unto her skirts, - A boy, will slight his mother, and, grown a man, - His father too. There’s Scripture too for that! - Do we owe fathers nothing—mothers nought? - Is filial duty folly? Yet He says, - ‘He that loves father, mother more than me;’ - Yea, and ‘the man his parents shall desert,’ - The Ordinance says, ‘and cleave unto his wife.’ - O man, behold thy wife, the hard naked world; - Adam, accept thy Eve. - So still it is, - The tree exhausts the soil; creepers kill it, - Their insects them: the lever finds its fulcrum - On what it then o’erthrows; the homely spade - In labour’s hand unscrupulously seeks - Its first momentum on the very clod - Which next will be upturned. It seems a law. - And am not I, though I but ill recall - My happier age, a kidnapped child of Heaven, - Whom these uncircumcised Philistines - Have by foul play shorn, blinded, maimed, and kept - For what more glorious than to make them sport? - Wait, then, wait, O my soul! grow, grow, ye locks, - Then perish they, and if need is, I too. - - _Sp._ (_aside._) A truly admirable proceeding! - Could there be finer special pleading - When scruples would be interceding? - There’s no occasion I should stay; - He is working out, his own queer way, - The sum I set him; and this day - Will bring it, neither less nor bigger, - Exact to my predestined figure. - - -SCENE IX.—_In the Public Garden._ - - _Di._ Twenty-one past—twenty-five coming on; - One-third of life departed, nothing done. - Out of the mammon of unrighteousness - That we make friends, the Scripture is express. - My Spirit, come, we will agree; - Content, you’ll take a moiety. - - _Sp._ A moiety, ye gods, he, he! - - _Di._ Three-quarters then? O griping beast; - Leave me a decimal at least. - - _Sp._ Oh, one of ten! to infect the nine - And make the devil a one be mine! - Oh, one! to jib all day, God wot, - When all the rest would go full trot! - One very little one, eh? to doubt with, - Just to pause, think, and look about with? - In course! you counted on no less— - You thought it likely I’d say yes! - - _Di._ Be it then thus—since that it must, it seems. - Welcome, O world, henceforth; and farewell dreams! - Yet know, Mephisto, know, nor you nor I - Can in this matter either sell or buy; - For the fee simple of this trifling lot - To you or me, trust me, pertaineth not. - I can but render what is of my will, - And behind it somewhat remaineth still. - Oh, your sole chance was in the childish mind - Whose darkness dreamed that vows like this could bind; - Thinking all lost, it made all lost, and brought - In fact the ruin which had been but thought. - Thank Heaven (or you) that’s past these many years, - And we have knowledge wiser than our fears. - So your poor bargain take, my man, - And make the best of it you can. - - _Sp._ With reservations! oh, how treasonable! - When I had let you off so reasonable. - However, I don’t fear; be it so! - Brutus is honourable, I know; - So mindful of the dues of others, - So thoughtful for his poor dear brothers, - So scrupulous, considerate, kind— - He wouldn’t leave the devil behind - If he assured him he had claims - For his good company to hell-flames! - No matter, no matter, the bargain’s made; - And I for my part will not be afraid. - With reservations! oh! ho, ho! - But time, my friend, has yet to show - Which of us two will closest fit - The proverb of the Biter Bit. - - _Di._ Tell me thy name, now it is over. - - _Sp._ Oh! - Why, Mephistophiles, you know— - At least you’ve lately called me so; - Belial it was some days ago. - But take your pick; I’ve got a score— - Never a royal baby more. - For a brass plate upon a door - What think you of _Cosmocrator_? - - _Di._ Τοὺς κοσμοκράτορας τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου. - And that you are indeed, I do not doubt you. - - _Sp._ Ephesians, ain’t it? near the end - You dropt a word to spare your friend. - What follows, too, in application - Would be absurd exaggeration. - - _Di._ The Power of this World! hateful unto God. - - _Sp._ Cosmarchon’s shorter, but sounds odd: - One wouldn’t like, even if a true devil, - To be taken for a vulgar Jew devil. - - _Di._ Yet in all these things we—’tis Scripture too— - Are more than conquerors, even over you. - - _Sp._ Come, come, don’t maunder any longer, - Time tests the weaker and the stronger; - And we, without procrastination, - Must set, you know, to our vocation. - O goodness; won’t you find it pleasant - To own the positive and present; - To see yourself like people round, - And feel your feet upon the ground! (_Exeunt._) - -END OF DIPSYCHUS. - - -EPILOGUE TO DIPSYCHUS. - -‘I don’t very well understand what it’s all about,’ said my uncle. ‘I -won’t say I didn’t drop into a doze while the young man was drivelling -through his latter soliloquies. But there was a great deal that was -unmeaning, vague, and involved; and what was most plain, was least decent -and least moral.’ - -‘Dear sir,’ said I, ‘says the proverb—“Needs must when the devil drives;” -and if the devil is to speak——’ - -‘Well,’ said my uncle, ‘why should he? Nobody asked him. Not that he -didn’t say much which, if only it hadn’t been for the way he said it, and -that it was he who said it, would have been sensible enough.’ - -‘But, sir,’ said I, ‘perhaps he wasn’t a devil after all. That’s the -beauty of the poem; nobody can say. You see, dear sir, the thing which it -is attempted to represent is the conflict between the tender conscience -and the world. Now, the over-tender conscience will, of course, -exaggerate the wickedness of the world; and the Spirit in my poem may be -merely the hypothesis or subjective imagination formed——’ - -‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, my dear boy,’ interrupted my uncle, ‘don’t -go into the theory of it. If you’re wrong in it, it makes bad worse; -if you’re right, you may be a critic, but you can’t be a poet. And -then you know very well I don’t understand all those new words. But as -for that, I quite agree that consciences are much too tender in your -generation—schoolboys’ consciences, too! As my old friend the Canon says -of the Westminster students, “They’re all so pious.” It’s all Arnold’s -doing; he spoilt the public schools.’ - -‘My dear uncle,’ said I, ‘how can so venerable a sexagenarian utter so -juvenile a paradox? How often have I not heard you lament the idleness -and listlessness, the boorishness and vulgar tyranny, the brutish manners -alike, and minds——’ - -‘Ah!’ said my uncle, ‘I may have fallen in occasionally with the talk -of the day; but at seventy one begins to see clearer into the bottom -of one’s mind. In middle life one says so many things in the way of -business. Not that I mean that the old schools were perfect, any more -than we old boys that were there. But whatever else they were or did, -they certainly were in harmony with the world, and they certainly did not -disqualify the country’s youth for after-life and the country’s service.’ - -‘But, my dear sir, this bringing the schools of the country into harmony -with public opinion is exactly——’ - -‘Don’t interrupt me with public opinion, my dear nephew; you’ll quote me -a leading article next. “Young men must be young men,” as the worthy head -of your college said to me touching a case of rustication. “My dear sir,” -said I, “I only wish to heaven they would be; but as for my own nephews, -they seem to me a sort of hobbadi-hoy cherub, too big to be innocent, and -too simple for anything else. They’re full of the notion of the world -being so wicked and of their taking a higher line, as they call it. I -only fear they’ll never take any line at all.” What is the true purpose -of education? Simply to make plain to the young understanding the laws -of the life they will have to enter. For example—that lying won’t do, -thieving still less; that idleness will get punished; that if they are -cowards, the whole world will be against them; that if they will have -their own way, they must fight for it. As for the conscience, mamma, I -take it—such as mammas are now-a-days, at any rate—has probably set that -agoing fast enough already. What a blessing to see her good little child -come back a brave young devil-may-care!’ - -‘Exactly, my dear sir. As if at twelve or fourteen a roundabout boy, with -his three meals a day inside him, is likely to be over-troubled with -scruples.’ - -‘Put him through a strong course of confirmation and sacraments, backed -up with sermons and private admonitions, and what is much the same as -auricular confession, and really, my dear nephew, I can’t answer for it -but he mayn’t turn out as great a goose as you—pardon me—_were_ about the -age of eighteen or nineteen.’ - -‘But to have passed _through_ that, my dear sir! surely that can be no -harm.’ - -‘I don’t know. Your constitutions don’t seem to recover it, quite. We did -without these foolish measles well enough in my time.’ - -‘Westminster had its Cowper, my dear sir; and other schools had theirs -also, mute and inglorious, but surely not few.’ - -‘Ah, ah! the beginning of troubles——’ - -‘You see, my dear sir, you must not refer it to Arnold, at all at all. -Anything that Arnold did in this direction——’ - -‘Why, my dear boy, how often have I not heard from you, how he used to -attack offences, not as offences—the right view—against discipline, but -as sin, heinous guilt, I don’t know what beside! Why didn’t he flog them -and hold his tongue? Flog them he did, but why preach?’ - -‘If he did err in this way, sir, which I hardly think, I ascribe it to -the spirit of the time. The real cause of the evil you complain of, which -to a certain extent I admit, was, I take it, the religious movement of -the last century, beginning with Wesleyanism, and culminating at last in -Puseyism. This over-excitation of the religious sense, resulting in this -irrational, almost animal irritability of consciences, was, in many ways, -as foreign to Arnold as it is proper to——’ - -‘Well, well, my dear nephew, if you like to make a theory of it, pray -write it out for yourself nicely in full; but your poor old uncle does -not like theories, and is moreover sadly sleepy.’ - -‘Good night, dear uncle, good night. Only let me say you six more -verses.’ - - - - -_DIPSYCHUS CONTINUED._ - -A FRAGMENT. - -[_An interval of thirty years._] - - -SCENE I.—_In London. Dipsychus in his Study._ - - _Dipsychus._ O God! O God! and must I still go on - Doing this work—I know not, hell’s or thine; - And these rewards receiving—sure not thine; - The adulation of a foolish crowd, - Half foolish and half greedy; upright judge— - Lawyer acute—the Mansfield and the Hale - In one united to bless modern Courts. - O God! O God! According to the law, - With solemn face to solemn sentence fit, - Doing the justice that is but half just; - Punishing wrong that is not truly wrong! - Administering, alas, God! not Thy law. - - (_Knock at the door._) - - What? Is the hour already for the Court? - Come in. Now, Lord Chief Justice, to thy work. - - (_Enter a Servant._) - - _Serv._ My lord, a woman begging to be seen. - - _Di._ A woman begging to be seen? What’s this? - ’Tis not the duty of your post, my friend, - To give admittance on the busy days - Of a hard labourer in this great world - To all poor creatures begging to be seen. - Something unusual in it? Bid her wait - In the room below, I’ll see her as I pass. - Is the horse there? - - _Serv._ He’s coming round, my lord. - - _Di._ Say I will see her as I pass. (_Exit Servant._) - I have but one way left; but that one way, - On which once entered, there is no return; - And as there’s no return, no looking back, - Amidst the smoky tumult of this field - Whereon, enlisted once, in arms we stand, - Nor know, nor e’en remotely can divine - The sense, or purport, or the probable end, - One only guide to our blind work we keep, - To obey orders, and to fight it out. - Some hapless sad petitioner, no doubt, - With the true plaintiveness of real distress, - Twisting her misery to a marketable lie, - To waste my close-shorn interval of rest. - _She_ came upon me in my weaker thoughts, - Those weaker thoughts that still indeed recur, - But come, my servants, at a word to go. - - (_Enter Woman._) - - What is it? what have you to say to me? - Who are you? - - _Wom._ Once you knew me well enough. - - _Di._ Oh, you! I had been told that you were dead. - - _Wom._ So your creatures said; - But I shall live, I think, till you die too. - - _Di._ What do you want? Money, subsistence, bread? - - _Wom._ I wanted bread, money, all things, ’tis true, - But wanted, above all things, to see you. - - _Di._ This cannot be. What has been done is o’er. - You have no claim or right against me more; - I have dealt justly with you to the uttermost. - - _Wom._ I did not come to say you were unjust— - I came to see you only. - - _Di._ Hear me now. - Remember, it was not the marriage vow, - Nor promise e’er of chaste fidelity, - That joined us thirty years ago in a tie - Which I, I think, scarce sought. It was not I - That took your innocence; you spoiled me of mine. - And yet, as though the vow had been divine, - Was I not faithful? Were you so to me? - Had you been white in spotless purity, - Could I have clung to you more faithfully? - I left you, after wrongs I blush with shame - E’en now through all my fifty years to name. - I left you; yet I stinted still my ease,— - Curtailed my pleasures—toil still extra toil,— - To repay you for what you never gave. - Is it not true? - - _Wom._ Go on, say all and more. - Upon this body, as the basis, lies - The ladder that has raised you to the skies. - - _Di._ Is that so much? am I indeed so high? - Am I not rather - The slave and servant of the wretched world, - Liveried and finely dressed—yet all the same - A menial and lacquey seeking place - For hire, and for his hire’s sake doing work? - - _Wom._ I do not know; you have wife and child I know - Domestic comfort and a noble name, - And people speak in my ears too your praise. - O man, O man! do you not know in your heart - It was for this you came to me— - It was for this I took you to my breast? - O man, man, man! - You come to us with your dalliance in the street, - You pay us with your miserable gold, - You do not know how in the—— - - _Di._ (_looks at his watch_). You must go now. Justice - calls me elsewhere; - Justice—might keep you here. - You may return again; stay, let me see— - Six weeks to-morrow you shall see me again; - Now you must go. Do you need money? here, - It is your due: take it, that you may live; - And see me, six weeks from to-morrow, elsewhere. - - _Wom._ I will not go; - You must stay here and hear me, or I shall die! - It were ill for you that I should. - - _Di._ What! shall the nation wait? - Woman, if I have wronged you, it was for good— - Good has come of it. Lo, I have done some work. - Over the blasted and the blackened spot - Of our unhappy and unhallowed deed - I have raised a mausoleum of such acts - As in this world do honour unto me, - But in the next to thee. - - _Wom._ Hear me, I cannot go! - - _Di._ It cannot be; the court, the nation waits. - Is not the work, too, yours? - - _Wom._ I go, to die this night! - - _Di._ I cannot help it. Duty lies here. Depart! - - _Wom._ Listen; before I die, one word! In old times - You called me Pleasure—my name now is Guilt. - - -SCENE II.—_In Westminster Hall._ - - _1st Barrister._ They say the Lord Chief Justice is unwell; - Did you observe how, after that decision - Which all the world admired so, suddenly - He became pale and looked in the air and staggered, - As if some phantom floated on his eyes? - He is a strange man. - - _Bar. 2._ He is unwell, there is no doubt of that, - But why or how is quite another question. - It is odd to find so stern and strong a man - Give way before he’s sixty. Many a mind, - Apparently less vigorous than his, - Has kept its full judicial faculty, - And sat the woolsack past threescore and ten. - - _Bar. 3._ No business to be done to-day. Have you heard - The Chief Justice is lying dangerously ill? - Apoplexy, paralysis, Heaven knows what—some seizure. - - _Bar. 1._ Heavens! that will be a loss indeed! - - _Bar. 2._ A loss - Which will be some one’s gain, however. - - _Bar. 1._ Not the nation’s, - If this sage Chancellor give it to —— - But is he really sure to die, do you think? - - _Bar. 3._ A very sudden and very alarming attack. - And now you know to the full as much as I, - Or, as I fancy, any lawyer here. - - _Bar. 2._ Do you know anything of his early life? - - _Bar. 1._ My father knew him at college: a reading man, - The quietest of the quiet, shy and timid. - And college honours past, - No one believed he ever would do anything. - - _Bar. 2._ He was a moral sort of prig, I’ve heard, - Till he was twenty-five; and even then - He never entered into life as most men. - That is the reason why he fails so soon. - It takes high feeding and a well-taught conscience - To breed your mighty hero of the law. - So much the worse for him; so much the better - For all expectants now. - - _Bar. 3._ For ——, for one. - - _Bar. 2._ Well, there’ll be several changes, as I think. - Not that I think the shock of new promotion - Will vibrate quite perceptibly down here. - There was a story that I once was told, - Some woman that they used to tease him with. - - _Bar. 1._ He grew too stern for teasing before long; - A man with greater power of what I think - They call, in some new sense of the word, Repulsion, - I think I never saw in all my life. - - _Bar. 2._ A most forbidding man in private life, - I’ve always heard. What’s this new news? - - _Bar. 4._ The Lord Chief Justice has resigned. - - _Bar. 1, 2, 3._ Is it true? - Really? Quite certain? - - _Bar. 4._ Publicly announced. - You’re quite behind. Most probably ere this - The _Times_ has got it in a new edition. - - -SCENE III.—_Dipsychus in his own house, alone._ - - _Di._ She will come yet, I think, although she said - She would go hence and die; I cannot tell. - Should I have made the nation’s business wait, - That I might listen to an old sad tale - Uselessly iterated? Ah—ah me! - I am grown weak indeed; those old black thoughts - No more as servants at my bidding go, - But as stern tyrants look me in the face, - And mock my reason’s inefficient hand - That sways to wave them hence. - - _Serv._ You rung, my lord? - - _Di._ Come here, my friend. The woman, - A beggar-woman, whom six weeks ago, - As you remember, you admitted to me, - You may admit again if she returns. [_Exit Servant._ - - Will she return? or did she die? I searched - Newspaper columns through to find a trace - Of some poor corpse discovered in the Thames, - Weltering in filth or stranded on the shoals. - - ‘You called me Pleasure once, I now am Guilt.’ - Is that her voice?— - ‘Once Pleasure and now Guilt—and after this - Guilt evermore.’ I hear her voice again. - ‘Once Guilt, but now’—I know not what it says;— - Some word in some strange language, that my ears - Have never heard, yet seem to long to know. - ‘Once Pleasure and now Guilt, and after this’— - What does she say?—... - - - - -POEMS ON LIFE AND DUTY. - - -_DUTY._ - - Duty—that’s to say, complying - With whate’er’s expected here; - On your unknown cousin’s dying, - Straight be ready with the tear; - Upon etiquette relying, - Unto usage nought denying, - Lend your waist to be embraced, - Blush not even, never fear; - Claims of kith and kin connection, - Claims of manners honour still, - Ready money of affection - Pay, whoever drew the bill. - With the form conforming duly, - Senseless what it meaneth truly, - Go to church—the world require you, - To balls—the world require you too, - And marry—papa and mamma desire you, - And your sisters and schoolfellows do. - Duty—’tis to take on trust - What things are good, and right, and just; - And whether indeed they be or be not, - Try not, test not, feel not, see not: - ’Tis walk and dance, sit down and rise - By leading, opening ne’er your eyes; - Stunt sturdy limbs that Nature gave, - And be drawn in a Bath chair along to the grave. - ’Tis the stern and prompt suppressing - As an obvious deadly sin, - All the questing and the guessing - Of the soul’s own soul within: - ’Tis the coward acquiescence - In a destiny’s behest, - To a shade by terror made, - Sacrificing, aye, the essence - Of all that’s truest, noblest, best: - ’Tis the blind non-recognition - Or of goodness, truth, or beauty, - Save by precept and submission; - Moral blank, and moral void, - Life at very birth destroyed. - Atrophy, exinanition! - Duty! - Yea, by duty’s prime condition - Pure nonentity of duty! - - -_LIFE IS STRUGGLE._ - - To wear out heart, and nerves, and brain, - And give oneself a world of pain; - Be eager, angry, fierce, and hot, - Imperious, supple—God knows what, - For what’s all one to have or not; - O false, unwise, absurd, and vain! - For ’tis not joy, it is not gain, - It is not in itself a bliss, - Only it is precisely this - That keeps us all alive. - - To say we truly feel the pain, - And quite are sinking with the strain;— - Entirely, simply, undeceived, - Believe, and say we ne’er believed - The object, e’en were it achieved, - A thing we e’er had cared to keep; - With heart and soul to hold it cheap, - And then to go and try it again; - O false, unwise, absurd, and vain! - O, ’tis not joy, and ’tis not bliss, - Only it is precisely this - That keeps us still alive. - - -_IN THE GREAT METROPOLIS._ - - Each for himself is still the rule; - We learn it when we go to school— - The devil take the hindmost, O! - - And when the schoolboys grow to men, - In life they learn it o’er again— - The devil take the hindmost, O! - - For in the church, and at the bar, - On ’Change, at court, where’er they are, - The devil takes the hindmost, O! - - Husband for husband, wife for wife, - Are careful that in married life - The devil takes the hindmost, O! - - From youth to age, whate’er the game, - The unvarying practice is the same— - The devil takes the hindmost, O! - - And after death, we do not know, - But scarce can doubt, where’er we go, - The devil takes the hindmost, O! - - Ti rol de rol, ti rol de ro, - The devil take the hindmost, O! - - -_THE LATEST DECALOGUE._ - - Thou shalt have one God only; who - Would be at the expense of two? - No graven images may be - Worshipped, except the currency: - Swear not at all; for, for thy curse - Thine enemy is none the worse: - At church on Sunday to attend - Will serve to keep the world thy friend: - Honour thy parents; that is, all - From whom advancement may befall; - Thou shalt not kill; but need’st not strive - Officiously to keep alive: - Do not adultery commit; - Advantage rarely comes of it: - Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat, - When it’s so lucrative to cheat: - Bear not false witness; let the lie - Have time on its own wings to fly: - Thou shalt not covet, but tradition - Approves all forms of competition. - - -_THE QUESTIONING SPIRIT._ - - The human spirits saw I on a day, - Sitting and looking each a different way; - And hardly tasking, subtly questioning, - Another spirit went around the ring - To each and each: and as he ceased his say, - Each after each, I heard them singly sing, - Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low, - We know not—what avails to know? - We know not—wherefore need we know? - This answer gave they still unto his suing, - We know not, let us do as we are doing. - Dost thou not know that these things only seem?— - I know not, let me dream my dream. - Are dust and ashes fit to make a treasure?— - I know not, let me take my pleasure. - What shall avail the knowledge thou hast sought?— - I know not, let me think my thought. - What is the end of strife?— - I know not, let me live my life. - How many days or e’er thou mean’st to move?— - I know not, let me love my love. - Were not things old once new?— - I know not, let me do as others do. - And when the rest were over past, - I know not, I will do my duty, said the last. - - Thy duty do? rejoined the voice, - Ah, do it, do it, and rejoice; - But shalt thou then, when all is done, - Enjoy a love, embrace a beauty - Like these, that may be seen and won - In life, whose course will then be run; - Or wilt thou be where there is none? - I know not, I will do my duty. - - And taking up the word around, above, below, - Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low, - We know not, sang they all, nor ever need we know; - We know not, sang they, what avails to know? - Whereat the questioning spirit, some short space, - Though unabashed, stood quiet in his place. - But as the echoing chorus died away - And to their dreams the rest returned apace, - By the one spirit I saw him kneeling low, - And in a silvery whisper heard him say: - Truly, thou know’st not, and thou need’st not know; - Hope only, hope thou, and believe alway; - I also know not, and I need not know, - Only with questionings pass I to and fro, - Perplexing these that sleep, and in their folly - Imbreeding doubt and sceptic melancholy; - Till that, their dreams deserting, they with me - Come all to this true ignorance and thee. - - 1847 - - -_BETHESDA._ - -A SEQUEL. - - I saw again the spirits on a day, - Where on the earth in mournful case they lay; - Five porches were there, and a pool, and round, - Huddling in blankets, strewn upon the ground, - Tied-up and bandaged, weary, sore and spent, - The maimed and halt, diseased and impotent. - For a great angel came, ’twas said, and stirred - The pool at certain seasons, and the word - Was, with this people of the sick, that they - Who in the waters here their limbs should lay - Before the motion on the surface ceased - Should of their torment straightway be released. - So with shrunk bodies and with heads down-dropt, - Stretched on the steps, and at the pillars propt, - Watching by day and listening through the night, - They filled the place, a miserable sight. - - And I beheld that on the stony floor - He too, that spoke of duty once before, - No otherwise than others here to-day, - Foredone and sick and sadly muttering lay. - ‘I know not, I will do—what is it I would say? - What was that word which once sufficed alone for all, - Which now I seek in vain, and never can recall?’ - And then, as weary of in vain renewing - His question, thus his mournful thought pursuing, - ‘I know not, I must do as other men are doing.’ - - But what the waters of that pool might be, - Of Lethe were they, or Philosophy; - And whether he, long waiting, did attain - Deliverance from the burden of his pain - There with the rest; or whether, yet before, - Some more diviner stranger passed the door - With his small company into that sad place, - And breathing hope into the sick man’s face, - Bade him take up his bed, and rise and go, - What the end were, and whether it were so, - Further than this I saw not, neither know. - - 1849 - - -_HOPE EVERMORE AND BELIEVE!_ - - Hope evermore and believe, O man, for e’en as thy thought - So are the things that thou see’st; e’en as thy hope and belief. - Cowardly art thou and timid? they rise to provoke thee against them; - Hast thou courage? enough, see them exulting to yield. - Yea, the rough rock, the dull earth, the wild sea’s furying waters - (Violent say’st thou and hard, mighty thou think’st to destroy), - All with ineffable longing are waiting their Invader, - All, with one varying voice, call to him, Come and subdue; - Still for their Conqueror call, and, but for the joy of being conquered - (Rapture they will not forego), dare to resist and rebel; - Still, when resisting and raging, in soft undervoice say unto him, - Fear not, retire not, O man; hope evermore and believe. - - Go from the east to the west, as the sun and the stars direct thee, - Go with the girdle of man, go and encompass the earth. - Not for the gain of the gold; for the getting, the hoarding, the having, - But for the joy of the deed; but for the Duty to do. - Go with the spiritual life, the higher volition and action, - With the great girdle of God, go and encompass the earth. - - Go; say not in thy heart, And what then were it accomplished, - Were the wild impulse allayed, what were the use or the good! - Go, when the instinct is stilled, and when the deed is accomplished, - What thou hast done and shalt do, shall be declared to thee then. - Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy spirit - Say to thyself: It is good: yet is there better than it. - This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little; - Nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it. - - -_BLESSED ARE THEY THAT HAVE NOT SEEN!_ - - O happy they whose hearts receive - The implanted word with faith; believe - Because their fathers did before, - Because they learnt, and ask no more. - High triumphs of convictions wrought, - And won by individual thought; - The joy, delusive oft, but keen, - Of having with our own eyes seen, - What if they have not felt nor known - An amplitude instead they own, - By no self-binding ordinance prest - To toil in labour they detest: - By no deceiving reasoning tied - Or this or that way to decide. - - O happy they! above their head - The glory of the unseen is spread; - Their happy heart is free to range - Thro’ largest tracts of pleasant change; - Their intellects encradled lie - In boundless possibility. - For impulses of varying kinds - The Ancient Home a lodging finds: - Each appetite our nature breeds, - It meets with viands for its needs. - - Oh happy they! nor need they fear - The wordy strife that rages near: - All reason wastes by day, and more, - Will instinct in a night restore. - O happy, so their state but give - A clue by which a man can live; - O blest, unless ’tis proved by fact - A dream impossible to act. - - -_COLD COMFORT._ - - Say, will it, when our hairs are grey, - And wintry suns half light the day, - Which cheering hope and strengthening trust - Have left, departed, turned to dust,— - Say, will it soothe lone years to extract - From fitful shows with sense exact - Their sad residuum, small, of fact? - Will trembling nerves their solace find - In plain conclusions of the mind? - Or errant fancies fond, that still - To fretful motions prompt the will, - Repose upon effect and cause, - And action of unvarying laws, - And human life’s familiar doom, - And on the all-concluding tomb? - - Or were it to our kind and race, - And our instructive selves, disgrace - To wander then once more in you, - Green fields, beneath the pleasant blue; - To dream as we were used to dream, - And let things be whate’er they seem? - - O feeble shapes of beggars grey - That, tottering on the public way, - Die out in doting, dim decay, - Is it to you when all is past - Our would-be wisdom turns at last? - - -_SEHNSUCHT._ - - Whence are ye, vague desires, - Which carry men along, - However proud and strong; - Which, having ruled to-day, - To-morrow pass away? - Whence are ye, vague desires? - Whence are ye? - - Which women, yielding to, - Find still so good and true; - So true, so good to-day, - To-morrow gone away, - Whence are ye, vague desires? - Whence are ye? - - From seats of bliss above, - Where angels sing of love; - From subtle airs around, - Or from the vulgar ground, - Whence are ye, vague desires? - Whence are ye? - - A message from the blest, - Or bodily unrest; - A call to heavenly good, - A fever in the blood: - What are ye, vague desires? - What are ye? - - Which men who know you best - Are proof against the least, - And rushing on to-day, - To-morrow cast away. - What are ye, vague desires? - What are ye? - - Which women, ever new, - Still warned, surrender to; - Adored with you to-day, - Then cast with you away, - What are ye, vague desires? - What are ye? - - Which unto boyhood’s heart - The force of man impart, - And pass, and leave it cold, - And prematurely old, - What are ye, vague desires? - What are ye? - - Which, tremblingly confest, - Pour in the young girl’s breast - Joy, joy—the like is none, - And leave her then undone— - What are ye, vague desires? - What are ye? - - Ah yet! though man be marred, - Ignoble made, and hard; - Though broken women lie - In anguish down to die; - Ah yet! ye vague desires, - Ah yet! - - By Him who gave you birth, - And blended you with earth, - Was some good end designed - For man and womankind; - Ah yet! ye vague desires, - Ah yet! - - The petals of to-day, - To-morrow fallen away, - Shall something leave instead, - To live when they are dead; - When you, ye vague desires, - Have vanished; - - A something to survive, - Of you though it derive - Apparent earthly birth, - But of far other worth - Than you, ye vague desires, - Than you. - - -_HIGH AND LOW._ - - The grasses green of sweet content - That spring, no matter high or low, - Where’er a living thing can grow, - On chilly hills and rocky rent, - And by the lowly streamlet’s side— - Oh! why did e’er I turn from these?— - The lordly, tall, umbrageous trees, - That stand in high aspiring pride, - With massive bulk on high sustain - A world of boughs with leaf and fruits, - And drive their wide-extending roots - Deep down into the subject plain. - Oh, what with these had I to do?— - That germs of things above their kind - May live, pent up and close confined - In humbler forms, it may be true; - Yet great is that which gives our lot; - High laws and powers our will transcend - And not for this, till time do end, - Shall any be what he is not. - Each in its place, as each was sent, - Just nature ranges side by side; - Alike the oak tree’s lofty pride - And grasses green of sweet content. - - -_ALL IS WELL._ - - Whate’er you dream with doubt possest, - Keep, keep it snug within your breast, - And lay you down and take your rest; - Forget in sleep the doubt and pain, - And when you wake, to work again. - The wind it blows, the vessel goes, - And where and whither, no one knows. - - ’Twill all be well: no need of care; - Though how it will, and when, and where, - We cannot see, and can’t declare. - In spite of dreams, in spite of thought, - ’Tis not in vain, and not for nought, - The wind it blows, the ship it goes, - Though where and whither, no one knows. - - -_πάντα ῥεῖ· οὐδὲν μένει._ - - Upon the water, in the boat, - I sit and sketch as down I float: - The stream is wide, the view is fair, - I sketch it looking backward there. - - The stream is strong, and as I sit - And view the picture that we quit, - It flows and flows, and bears the boat, - And I sit sketching as we float. - - Each pointed height, each wavy line, - To new and other forms combine; - Proportions vary, colours fade, - And all the landscape is remade. - - Depicted neither far nor near, - And larger there and smaller here, - And varying down from old to new, - E’en I can hardly think it true. - - Yet still I look, and still I sit, - Adjusting, shaping, altering it; - And still the current bears the boat - And me, still sketching as I float. - - Still as I sit, with something new - The foreground intercepts my view; - Even the distant mountain range - From the first moment suffers change. - - -_THE STREAM OF LIFE._ - - O stream descending to the sea, - Thy mossy banks between, - The flow’rets blow, the grasses grow, - The leafy trees are green. - - In garden plots the children play, - The fields the labourers till, - And houses stand on either hand, - And thou descendest still. - - O life descending into death, - Our waking eyes behold, - Parent and friend thy lapse attend, - Companions young and old. - - Strong purposes our mind possess, - Our hearts affections fill, - We toil and earn, we seek and learn, - And thou descendest still. - - O end to which our currents tend, - Inevitable sea, - To which we flow, what do we know, - What shall we guess of thee? - - A roar we hear upon thy shore, - As we our course fulfil; - Scarce we divine a sun will shine - And be above us still. - - -_IN A LONDON SQUARE._ - - Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane, - East wind and frost are safely gone; - With zephyr mild and balmy rain - The summer comes serenely on; - Earth, air, and sun and skies combine - To promise all that’s kind and fair:— - But thou, O human heart of mine, - Be still, contain thyself, and bear. - - December days were brief and chill, - The winds of March were wild and drear, - And, nearing and receding still, - Spring never would, we thought, be here. - The leaves that burst, the suns that shine, - Had, not the less, their certain date:— - And thou, O human heart of mine, - Be still, refrain thyself, and wait. - - - - -THE BOTHIE OF TOBER-NA-VUOLICH: A LONG-VACATION PASTORAL. - - _Nunc formosissimus annus_ - _Ite meæ felix quondam pecus, ite camenæ._ - - -_THE BOTHIE OF TOBER-NA-VUOLICH._ - - -I - - _Socii cratera coronant._ - - It was the afternoon; and the sports were now at the ending. - Long had the stone been put, tree cast, and thrown the hammer; - Up the perpendicular hill, Sir Hector so called it, - Eight stout gillies had run, with speed and agility wondrous; - Run too the course on the level had been; the leaping was over: - Last in the show of dress, a novelty recently added, - Noble ladies their prizes adjudged for costume that was perfect, - Turning the clansmen about, as they stood with upraised elbows; - Bowing their eye-glassed brows, and fingering kilt and sporran. - It was four of the clock, and the sports were come to the ending, - Therefore the Oxford party went off to adorn for the dinner. - Be it recorded in song who was first, who last, in dressing. - Hope was first, black-tied, white-waistcoated, simple, His Honour; - For the postman made out he was heir to the earldom of Ilay - (Being the younger son of the younger brother, the Colonel), - Treated him therefore with special respect; doffed bonnet, and ever - Called him His Honour: His Honour he therefore was at the cottage; - Always His Honour at least, sometimes the Viscount of Ilay. - Hope was first, His Honour, and next to His Honour the Tutor. - Still more plain the Tutor, the grave man, nicknamed Adam, - White-tied, clerical, silent, with antique square-cut waistcoat - Formal, unchanged, of black cloth, but with sense and feeling beneath it; - Skilful in Ethics and Logic, in Pindar and Poets unrivalled; - _Shady_ in Latin, said Lindsay, but _topping_ in Plays and Aldrich. - Somewhat more splendid in dress, in a waistcoat work of a lady, - Lindsay succeeded; the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving Lindsay, - Lindsay the ready of speech, the Piper, the Dialectician, - This was his title from Adam because of the words he invented, - Who in three weeks had created a dialect new for the party; - This was his title from Adam, but mostly they called him the Piper. - Lindsay succeeded, the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving Lindsay. - Hewson and Hobbes were down at the _matutine_ bathing; of course too - Arthur, the bather of bathers, _par excellence_, Audley by surname, - Arthur they called him for love and for euphony; they had been bathing, - Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite - Into a granite basin the amber torrent descended, - Only a step from the cottage, the road and larches between them. - Hewson and Hobbes followed quick upon Adam; on them followed Arthur. - Airlie descended the last, effulgent as god of Olympus; - Blue, perceptibly blue, was the coat that had white silk facings, - Waistcoat blue, coral-buttoned, the white tie finely adjusted, - Coral moreover the studs on a shirt as of crochet of women: - When the fourwheel for ten minutes already had stood at the gateway, - He, like a god, came leaving his ample Olympian chamber. - And in the fourwheel they drove to the place of the clansmen’s meeting. - So in the fourwheel they came; and Donald the innkeeper showed them - Up to the barn where the dinner should be. Four tables were in it; - Two at the top and the bottom, a little upraised from the level, - These for Chairman and Croupier, and gentry fit to be with them, - Two lengthways in the midst for keeper and gillie and peasant. - Here were clansmen many in kilt and bonnet assembled, - Keepers a dozen at least; the Marquis’s targeted gillies; - Pipers five or six, among them the young one, the drunkard; - Many with silver brooches, and some with those brilliant crystals - Found amid granite-dust on the frosty scalp of the Cairn-Gorm; - But with snuff-boxes all, and all of them using the boxes. - Here too were Catholic Priest, and Established Minister standing - Catholic Priest; for many still clung to the Ancient Worship, - And Sir Hector’s father himself had built them a chapel; - So stood Priest and Minister, near to each other, but silent, - One to say grace before, the other after the dinner. - Hither anon too came the shrewd, ever-ciphering Factor, - Hither anon the Attaché, the Guardsman mute and stately, - Hither from lodge and bothie in all the adjoining shootings - Members of Parliament many, forgetful of votes and bluebooks, - Here, amid heathery hills, upon beast and bird of the forest - Venting the murderous spleen of the endless Railway Committee. - Hither the Marquis of Ayr, and Dalgarnish Earl and Croupier, - And at their side, amid murmurs of welcome, long looked-for, himself too - Eager, the grey, but boy-hearted Sir Hector, the Chief and the Chairman. - Then was the dinner served, and the Minister prayed for a blessing, - And to the viands before them with knife and with fork they beset them: - Venison, the red and the roe, with mutton; and grouse succeeding; - Such was the feast, with whisky of course, and at top and bottom - Small decanters of sherry, not overchoice, for the gentry. - So to the viands before them with laughter and chat they beset them. - And, when on flesh and on fowl had appetite duly been sated, - Up rose the Catholic Priest and returned God thanks for the dinner. - Then on all tables were set black bottles of well-mixed toddy, - And, with the bottles and glasses before them, they sat, digesting, - Talking, enjoying, but chiefly awaiting the toasts and speeches. - - Spare me, O great Recollection! for words to the task were unequal, - Spare me, O mistress of Song! nor bid me remember minutely - All that was said and done o’er the well-mixed tempting toddy; - How were healths proposed and drunk ‘with all the honours,’ - Glasses and bonnets waving, and three-times-three thrice over, - Queen, and Prince, and Army, and Landlords all, and Keepers; - Bid me not, grammar defying, repeat from grammar-defiers - Long constructions strange and plusquam-Thucydidean; - Tell how, as sudden torrent in time of speat[7] in the mountain - Hurries six ways at once, and takes at last to the roughest, - Or as the practised rider at Astley’s or Franconi’s - Skilfully, boldly bestrides many steeds at once in the gallop, - Crossing from this to that, with one leg here, one yonder, - So, less skilful, but equally bold, and wild as the torrent, - All through sentences six at a time, unsuspecting of syntax, - Hurried the lively good-will and garrulous tale of Sir Hector. - Left to oblivion be it, the memory, faithful as ever, - How the Marquis of Ayr, with wonderful gesticulation, - Floundering on through game and mess-room recollections, - Gossip of neighbouring forest, praise of targeted gillies, - Anticipation of royal visit, skits at pedestrians, - Swore he would never abandon his country, nor give up deer-stalking; - How, too, more brief, and plainer, in spite of the Gaelic accent, - Highland peasants gave courteous answer to flattering nobles. - Two orations alone the memorial song will render; - For at the banquet’s close spake thus the lively Sir Hector, - Somewhat husky with praises exuberant, often repeated, - Pleasant to him and to them, of the gallant Highland soldiers - Whom he erst led in the fight;—something husky, but ready, though weary, - Up to them rose and spoke the grey but gladsome chieftain:— - Fill up your glasses, my friends, once more,—With all the honours! - There was a toast I forgot, which our gallant Highland homes have - Always welcomed the stranger, delighted, I may say, to see such - Fine young men at my table—My friends! are you ready? the Strangers. - Gentlemen, here are your healths,—and I wish you—With all the honours! - So he said, and the cheers ensued, and all the honours, - All our Collegians were bowed to, the Attaché detecting His Honour, - Guardsman moving to Arthur, and Marquis sidling to Airlie, - And the small Piper below getting up and nodding to Lindsay. - But, while the healths were being drunk, was much tribulation and - trouble, - Nodding and beckoning across, observed of Attaché and Guardsman: - Adam wouldn’t speak,—indeed it was certain he couldn’t; - Hewson could, and would if they wished; Philip Hewson a poet, - Hewson a radical hot, hating lords and scorning ladies, - Silent mostly, but often reviling in fire and fury - Feudal tenures, mercantile lords, competition and bishops, - Liveries, armorial bearings, amongst other matters the Game-laws: - He could speak, and was asked to by Adam; but Lindsay aloud cried, - (Whisky was hot in his brain,) Confound it, no, not Hewson, - Ain’t he cock-sure to bring in his eternal political humbug? - However, so it must be, and after due pause of silence, - Waving his hand to Lindsay, and smiling oddly to Adam, - Up to them rose and spoke the poet and radical Hewson:— - I am, I think, perhaps the most perfect stranger present. - I have not, as have some of my friends, in my veins some tincture, - Some few ounces of Scottish blood; no, nothing like it. - I am therefore perhaps the fittest to answer and thank you. - So I thank you, sir, for myself and for my companions, - Heartily thank you all for this unexpected greeting, - All the more welcome, as showing you do not account us intruders, - Are not unwilling to see the north and the south forgather. - And, surely, seldom have Scotch and English more thoroughly mingled; - Scarcely with warmer hearts, and clearer feeling of manhood, - Even in tourney, and foray, and fray, and regular battle. - Where the life and the strength came out in the tug and tussle, - Scarcely, where man met man, and soul encountered with soul, as - Close as do the bodies and twining limbs of the wrestlers, - When for a final bout are a day’s two champions mated,— - In the grand old times of bows, and bills, and claymores, - At the old Flodden-field—or Bannockburn—or Culloden. - —(And he paused a moment, for breath, and because of some cheering,) - We are the better friends, I fancy, for that old fighting, - Better friends, inasmuch as we know each other the better, - We can now shake hands without pretending or shuffling. - On this passage followed a great tornado of cheering, - Tables were rapped, feet stamped, a glass or two got broken: - He, ere the cheers died wholly away, and while still there was stamping, - Added, in altered voice, with a smile, his doubtful conclusion. - I have, however, less claim than others perhaps to this honour, - For, let me say, I am neither game-keeper, nor game-preserver. - So he said, and sat down, but his satire had not been taken. - Only the _men_, who were all on their legs as concerned in the thanking, - Were a trifle confused, but mostly sat down without laughing; - Lindsay alone, close-facing the chair, shook his fist at the speaker. - Only a Liberal member, away at the end of the table, - Started, remembering sadly the cry of a coming election, - Only the Attaché glanced at the Guardsman, who twirled his moustachio, - Only the Marquis faced round, but, not quite clear of the meaning, - Joined with the joyous Sir Hector, who lustily beat on the table. - And soon after the chairman arose, and the feast was over: - Now should the barn be cleared and forthwith adorned for the dancing, - And, to make way for this purpose, the Tutor and pupils retiring - Were by the chieftain addressed and invited to come to the castle. - But ere the door-way they quitted, a thin man clad as the Saxon, - Trouser and cap and jacket of homespun blue, hand-woven, - Singled out, and said with determined accent, to Hewson, - Touching his arm: Young man, if ye pass through the Braes o’ Lochaber, - See by the loch-side ye come to the Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich. - - -II - - _Et certamen erat, Corydon cum Thyrside, magnum._ - - Morn, in yellow and white, came broadening out from the mountains, - Long ere music and reel were hushed in the barn of the dancers. - Duly in _matutine_ bathed, before eight some two of the party, - Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite - Into a granite basin the amber torrent descended. - There two plunges each took Philip and Arthur together, - Duly in _matutine_ bathed, and read, and waited for breakfast: - Breakfast commencing at nine, lingered lazily on to noon-day. - Tea and coffee were there; a jug of water for Hewson; - Tea and coffee; and four cold grouse upon the sideboard; - Gaily they talked, as they sat, some late and lazy at breakfast, - Some professing a book, some smoking outside at the window. - By an aurora soft-pouring a still sheeny tide to the zenith, - Hewson and Arthur, with Adam, had walked and got home by eleven; - Hope and the others had stayed till the round sun lighted them bedward. - They of the lovely aurora, but these of the lovelier women - Spoke—of noble ladies and rustic girls, their partners. - Turned to them Hewson, the Chartist, the poet, the eloquent speaker. - Sick of the very names of your Lady Augustas and Floras - Am I, as ever I was of the dreary botanical titles - Of the exotic plants, their antitypes in the hot-house: - Roses, violets, lilies for me! the out-of-door beauties; - Meadow and woodland sweets, forget-me-nots and hearts-ease! - Pausing awhile, he proceeded anon, for none made answer. - Oh, if our high-born girls knew only the grace, the attraction. - Labour, and labour alone, can add to the beauty of women, - Truly the milliner’s trade would quickly, I think, be at discount, - All the waste and loss in silk and satin be saved us, - Saved for purposes truly and widely productive—— - That’s right, - Take off your coat to it, Philip, cried Lindsay, outside in the garden, - Take off your coat to it, Philip. - Well, then, said Hewson, resuming; - Laugh if you please at my novel economy; listen to this, though; - As for myself, and apart from economy wholly, believe me, - Never I properly felt the relation between men and women, - Though to the dancing-master I went perforce, for a quarter, - Where, in dismal quadrille, were good-looking girls in abundance, - Though, too, school-girl cousins were mine—a bevy of beauties— - Never (of course you will laugh, but of course all the same I shall - say it), - Never, believe me, I knew of the feelings between men and women, - Till in some village fields in holidays now getting stupid, - One day sauntering ‘long and listless,’ as Tennyson has it, - Long and listless strolling, ungainly in hobbadiboyhood, - Chanced it my eye fell aside on a capless, bonnetless maiden, - Bending with three-pronged fork in a garden uprooting potatoes. - Was it the air? who can say? or herself, or the charm of the labour? - But a new thing was in me; and longing delicious possessed me, - Longing to take her and lift her, and put her away from her slaving. - Was it embracing or aiding was most in my mind? hard question! - But a new thing was in me; I, too, was a youth among maidens: - Was it the air I who can say! but in part ’twas the charm of the labour. - Still, though a new thing was in me, the poets revealed themselves to me, - And in my dreams by Miranda, her Ferdinand, often I wandered, - Though all the fuss about girls, the giggling and toying and coying, - Were not so strange as before, so incomprehensible purely; - Still, as before (and as now), balls, dances, and evening parties, - Shooting with bows, going shopping together, and hearing them singing, - Dangling beside them, and turning the leaves on the dreary piano, - Offering unneeded arms, performing dull farces of escort, - Seemed like a sort of unnatural up-in-the-air balloon-work - (Or what to me is as hateful, a riding about in a carriage), - Utter removal from work, mother earth, and the objects of living. - Hungry and fainting for food, you ask me to join you in snapping— - What but a pink-paper comfit, with motto romantic inside it? - Wishing to stock me a garden, I’m sent to a table of nosegays; - Better a crust of black bread than a mountain of paper confections, - Better a daisy in earth than a dahlia cut and gathered, - Better a cowslip with root than a prize carnation without it. - That I allow, said Adam. - But he, with the bit in his teeth, scarce - Breathed a brief moment, and hurried exultingly on with his rider, - Far over hillock, and runnel, and bramble, away in the champaign, - Snorting defiance and force, the white foam flecking his flanks, the - Rein hanging loose to his neck, and head projecting before him. - - Oh, if they knew and considered, unhappy ones! oh, could they see, - could - But for a moment discern, how the blood of true gallantry kindles, - How the old knightly religion, the chivalry semi-quixotic - Stirs in the veins of a man at seeing some delicate woman - Serving him, toiling—for him, and the world; some tenderest girl, now - Over-weighted, expectant, of him, is it? who shall, if only - Duly her burden be lightened, not wholly removed from her, mind you - Lightened if but by the love, the devotion man only can offer, - Grand on her pedestal rise as urn-bearing statue of Hellas;— - Oh, could they feel at such moments how man’s heart, as into Eden - Carried anew, seems to see, like the gardener of earth uncorrupted, - Eve from the hand of her Maker advancing, an help meet for him, - Eve from his own flesh taken, a spirit restored to his spirit, - Spirit but not spirit only, himself whatever himself is, - Unto the mystery’s end sole helpmate meet to be with him;— - Oh, if they saw it and knew it; we soon should see them abandon - Boudoir, toilette, carriage, drawing-room, and ball-room, - Satin for worsted exchange, gros-de-naples for plain linsey-woolsey, - Sandals of silk for clogs, for health lackadaisical fancies! - So, feel women, not dolls; so feel the sap of existence - Circulate up through their roots from the far-away centre of all things. - Circulate up from the depths to the bud on the twig that is topmost! - Yes, we should see them delighted, delighted ourselves in the seeing, - Bending with blue cotton gown skirted up over striped linsey-woolsey, - Milking the kine in the field, like Rachel, watering cattle, - Rachel, when at the well the predestined beheld and kissed her, - Or, with pail upon head, like Dora beloved of Alexis, - Comely, with well-poised pail over neck arching soft to the shoulders, - Comely in gracefullest act, one arm uplifted to stay it, - Home from the river or pump moving stately and calm to the laundry; - Ay, doing household work, as many sweet girls I have looked at, - Needful household work, which some one, after all, must do, - Needful, graceful therefore, as washing, cooking, and scouring, - Or, if you please, with the fork in the garden uprooting potatoes.— - Or,—high-kilted perhaps, cried Lindsay, at last successful, - Lindsay this long time swelling with scorn and pent-up fury, - Or high-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them, - Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above them, - Matching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the - wash-tub! - Laughter ensued at this; and seeing the Tutor embarrassed, - It was from them, I suppose, said Arthur, smiling sedately, - Lindsay learnt the tune we all have learnt from Lindsay, - _For oh, he was a roguey, the Piper o’ Dundee_. - Laughter ensued again; and the Tutor, recovering slowly, - Said, Are not these perhaps as doubtful as other attractions? - There is a truth in your view, but I think extremely distorted; - Still there is a truth, I own, I understand you entirely. - While the Tutor was gathering his purposes, Arthur continued, - Is not all this the same that one hears at common-room breakfasts, - Or perhaps Trinity wines, about Gothic buildings and Beauty? - And with a start from the sofa came Hobbes; with a cry from the sofa, - Where he was laid, the great Hobbes, contemplative, corpulent, witty, - Author forgotten and silent of currentest phrases and fancies, - Mute and exuberant by turns, a fountain at intervals playing, - Mute and abstracted, or strong and abundant as rain in the tropics; - Studious; careless of dress; inobservant; by smooth persuasions - Lately decoyed into kilt on example of Hope and the Piper, - Hope an Antinoüs mere, Hyperion of calves the Piper. - Beautiful! cried he up-leaping, analogy perfect to madness! - O inexhaustible source of thought, shall I call it, or fancy! - Wonderful spring, at whose touch doors fly, what a vista disclosing! - Exquisite germ; Ah no, crude fingers shall not soil thee; - Rest, lovely pearl, in my brain, and slowly mature in the oyster. - While at the exquisite pearl they were laughing and corpulent oyster, - Ah, could they only be taught, he resumed, by a Pugin of women, - How even churning and washing, the dairy, the scullery duties, - Wait but a touch to redeem and convert them to charms and attractions, - Scrubbing requires for true grace but frank and artistical handling, - And the removal of slops to be ornamentally treated. - Philip who speaks like a book, (retiring and pausing he added,) - Philip, here, who speaks—like a folio say’st thou, Piper? - Philip shall write us a book, a Treatise upon _The Laws of_ - _Architectural Beauty in Application to Women_; - Illustrations, of course, and a Parker’s Glossary pendent. - Where shall in specimen seen be the sculliony stumpy-columnar - (Which to a reverent taste is perhaps the most moving of any), - Rising to grace of true woman in English the Early and Later, - Charming us still in fulfilling the Richer and Loftier stages, - Lost, ere we end, in the Lady-Debased and the Lady-Flamboyant: - Whence why in satire and spite too merciless onward pursue her - Hither to hideous close, Modern-Florid, modern-fine-lady? - No, I will leave it to you, my Philip, my Pugin of women. - Leave it to Arthur, said Adam, to think of, and not to play with. - You are young, you know, he said, resuming, to Philip, - You are young, he proceeded, with something of fervour to Hewson. - You are a boy; when you grow to a man you’ll find things alter. - You will then seek only the good, will scorn the attractive, - Scorn all mere cosmetics, as now of rank and fashion, - Delicate hands, and wealth, so then of poverty also, - Poverty truly attractive, more truly, I bear you witness. - Good, wherever it’s found, you will choose, be it humble or stately, - Happy if only you find, and finding do not lose it. - Yes, we must seek what is good, it always and it only; - Not indeed absolute good, good for us, as is said in the Ethics, - That which is good for ourselves, our proper selves, our best selves. - Ah, you have much to learn, we can’t know all things at twenty. - Partly you rest on truth, old truth, the duty of Duty, - Partly on error, you long for equality. - Ay, cried the Piper, - That’s what it is, that confounded _égalité_, French manufacture, - He is the same as the Chartist who spoke at a meeting in Ireland, - _What, and is not one man, fellow-men, as good as another?_ - _Faith_, replied Pat, _and a deal better too_! - So rattled the Piper: - But undisturbed in his tenor, the Tutor. - Partly in error - Seeking equality, _is not one woman as good as another_? - I with the Irishman answer, _Yes, better too_; the poorer - Better full oft than richer, than loftier better the lower, - Irrespective of wealth and of poverty, pain and enjoyment, - Women all have their duties, the one as well as the other; - Are all duties alike? Do all alike fulfil them? - However noble the dream of equality, mark you, Philip, - Nowhere equality reigns in all the world of creation, - Star is not equal to star, nor blossom the same as blossom; - Herb is not equal to herb, any more than planet to planet. - There is a glory of daisies, a glory again of carnations; - Were the carnation wise, in gay parterre by greenhouse, - Should it decline to accept the nurture the gardener gives it, - Should it refuse to expand to sun and genial summer, - Simply because the field-daisy that grows in the grass-plat beside it, - Cannot, for some cause or other, develop and be a carnation? - Would not the daisy itself petition its scrupulous neighbour? - Up, grow, bloom, and forget me; be beautiful even to proudness, - E’en for the sake of myself and other poor daisies like me. - Education and manners, accomplishments and refinements, - Waltz, peradventure, and polka, the knowledge of music and drawing - All these things are Nature’s, to Nature dear and precious, - We have all something to do, man, woman alike, I own it; - We all have something to do, and in my judgment should do it - In our station; not thinking about it, but not disregarding; - Holding it, not for enjoyment, but simply because we are in it. - Ah! replied Philip, Alas! the noted phrase of the Prayer-book, - _Doing our duty in that state of life to which God has called us_, - Seems to me always to mean, when the little rich boys say it, - Standing in velvet frock by mamma’s brocaded flounces, - Eyeing her gold-fastened book and the watch and chain at her bosom, - Seems to me always to mean, Eat, drink, and never mind others. - Nay, replied Adam, smiling, so far your economy leads me, - Velvet and gold and brocade are nowise to my fancy. - Nay, he added, believe me, I like luxurious living - Even as little as you, and grieve in my soul not seldom, - More for the rich indeed than the poor, who are not so guilty. - So the discussion closed; and, said Arthur, Now it is my turn, - How will my argument please you? To-morrow we start on our travel. - And took up Hope the chorus, - To-morrow we start on our travel. - Lo, the weather is golden, the weather-glass, say they, rising; - Four weeks here have we read; four weeks will we read hereafter; - Three weeks hence will return and think of classes and classics. - Fare ye well, meantime, forgotten, unnamed, undreamt of, - History, Science, and Poets! lo, deep in dustiest cupboard, - Thookydid, Oloros’ son, Halimoosian, here lieth buried! - Slumber in Liddell-and-Scott, O musical chaff of old Athens, - Dishes, and fishes, bird, beast, and sesquipedalian blackguard! - Sleep, weary ghosts, be at peace and abide in your lexicon-limbo! - Sleep, as in lava for ages your Herculanean kindred, - Sleep, for aught that I care, ‘the sleep that knows no waking,’ - Æschylus, Sophocles, Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, and Plato. - Three weeks hence be it time to exhume our dreary classics. - And in the chorus joined Lindsay, the Piper, the Dialectician, - Three weeks hence we return to the _shop_ and the _wash-hand-stand basin_ - (These are the Piper’s names for the bathing-place and the cottage). - Three weeks hence unbury _Thicksides_ and _hairy_ Aldrich. - But the Tutor inquired, the grave man, nick-named Adam, - Who are they that go, and when do they promise returning? - And a silence ensued, and the Tutor himself continued, - Airlie remains, I presume, he continued, and Hobbes and Hewson. - Answer was made him by Philip, the poet, the eloquent speaker: - Airlie remains, I presume, was the answer, and Hobbes, peradventure; - Tarry let Airlie May-fairly, and Hobbes, brief-kilted hero, - Tarry let Hobbes in kilt, and Airlie ‘abide in his breeches;’ - Tarry let these, and read, four Pindars apiece an’ it like them! - Weary of reading am I, and weary of walks prescribed us; - Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more weary, - Eager to range over heather unfettered of gillie and marquis, - I will away with the rest, and bury my dismal classics. - And to the Tutor rejoining, Be mindful; you go up at Easter, - This was the answer returned by Philip, the Pugin of women. - Good are the Ethics I wis; good absolute, not for me, though; - Good, too, Logic, of course; in itself, but not in fine weather. - Three weeks hence, with the rain, to Prudence, Temperance, Justice, - Virtues Moral and Mental, with Latin prose included; - Three weeks hence we return to cares of classes and classics. - I will away with the rest, and bury my dismal classics. - But the Tutor inquired, the grave man, nick-named Adam, - Where do you mean to go, and whom do you mean to visit? - And he was answered by Hope, the Viscount, His Honour, of Ilay. - Kitcat, a Trinity _coach_, has a party at Drumnadrochet, - Up on the side of Loch Ness, in the beautiful valley of Urquhart; - Mainwaring says they will lodge us, and feed us, and give us a lift too - Only they talk ere long to remove to Glenmorison. Then at - Castleton, high in Braemar, strange home, with his earliest party, - Harrison, fresh from the schools, has James and Jones and Lauder. - Thirdly, a Cambridge man I know, Smith, a senior wrangler, - With a mathematical score hangs-out at Inverary. - Finally, too, from the kilt and the sofa said Hobbes in conclusion, - Finally, Philip must hunt for that home of the probable poacher, - Hid in the braes of Lochaber, the Bothie of _What-did-he-call-it_. - Hopeless of you and of us, of gillies and marquises hopeless, - Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more weary, - There shall he, smit by the charm of a lovely potato-uprooter, - Study the question of sex in the Bothie of _What-did-he-call-it_. - - -III - - _Namque canebat uti——_ - - So in the golden morning they parted and went to the westward. - And in the cottage with Airlie and Hobbes remained the Tutor; - Reading nine hours a day with the Tutor, Hobbes and Airlie; - One between bathing and breakfast, and six before it was dinner - (Breakfast at eight, at four, after bathing again, the dinner), - Finally, two after walking and tea, from nine to eleven. - Airlie and Adam at evening their quiet stroll together - Took on the terrace-road, with the western hills before them; - Hobbes, only rarely a third, now and then in the cottage remaining, - E’en after dinner, eupeptic, would rush yet again to his reading; - Other times, stung by the œstrum of some swift-working conception, - Ranged, tearing on in his fury, an Io-cow through the mountains, - Heedless of scenery, heedless of bogs, and of perspiration, - On the high peaks, unwitting, the hares and ptarmigan starting. - And the three weeks past, the three weeks, three days over, - Nither letter had come, nor casual tidings any, - And the pupils grumbled, the Tutor became uneasy, - And in the golden weather they wondered, and watched to the westward. - There is a stream (I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourist - Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books), - Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great mountains, - Falling two miles through rowan and stunted alder, enveloped - Then for four more in a forest of pine, where broad and ample - Spreads, to convey it, the glen with heathery slopes on both sides: - Broad and fair the stream, with occasional falls and narrows; - But, where the glen of its course approaches the vale of the river, - Met and blocked by a huge interposing mass of granite, - Scarce by a channel deep-cut, raging up, and raging onward, - Forces its flood through a passage so narrow a lady would step it. - There, across the great rocky wharves, a wooden bridge goes, - Carrying a path to the forest; below, three hundred yards, say, - Lower in level some twenty-five feet, through flats of shingle, - Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open valley. - But in the interval here the boiling pent-up water - Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a basin, - Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and fury - Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror; - Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under; - Beautiful, most of all, where beads of foam uprising - Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness, - Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendent birch boughs, - Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and pathway, - Still more enclosed from below by wood and rocky projection. - You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of water, - Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the goddess of bathing. - Here, the pride of the plunger, you stride the fall and clear it; - Here, the delight of the bather, you roll in beaded sparklings, - Here into pure green depth drop down from lofty ledges. - Hither, a month agone, they had come, and discovered it; hither - (Long a design, but long unaccountably left unaccomplished), - Leaving the well-known bridge and pathway above to the forest, - Turning below from the track of the carts over stone and shingle, - Piercing a wood, and skirting a narrow and natural causeway - Under the rocky wall that hedges the bed of the streamlet, - Rounded a craggy point, and saw on a sudden before them - Slabs of rock, and a tiny beach, and perfection of water, - Picture-like beauty, seclusion sublime, and the goddess of bathing. - There they bathed, of course, and Arthur, the Glory of headers, - Leapt from the ledges with Hope, he twenty feet, he thirty; - There, overbold, great Hobbes from a ten-foot height descended, - Prone, as a quadruped, prone with hands and feet protending; - There in the sparkling champagne, ecstatic, they shrieked and shouted. - ‘Hobbes’s gutter’ the Piper entitles the spot, profanely, - Hope ‘the Glory’ would have, after Arthur, the Glory of headers: - But, for before they departed, in shy and fugitive reflex, - Here in the eddies and there did the splendour of Jupiter glimmer; - Adam adjudged it the name of Hesperus, star of the evening. - Hither, to Hesperus, now, the star of evening above them, - Come in their lonelier walk the pupils twain and Tutor; - Turned from the track of the carts, and passing the stone and shingle, - Piercing the wood, and skirting the stream by the natural causeway, - Rounded the craggy point, and now at their ease looked up; and - Lo, on the rocky ledge, regardant, the Glory of headers, - Lo, on the beach, expecting the plunge, not cigarless, the Piper,— - And they looked, and wondered, incredulous, looking yet once more. - Yes, it was he, on the ledge, bare-limbed, an Apollo, down-gazing, - Eyeing one moment the beauty, the life, ere he flung himself in it, - Eyeing through eddying green waters the green-tinting floor underneath - them, - Eyeing the bead on the surface, the bead, like a cloud rising to it, - Drinking-in, deep in his soul, the beautiful hue and the clearness, - Arthur, the shapely, the brave, the unboasting, the Glory of headers; - Yes, and with fragrant weed, by his knapsack, spectator and critic, - Seated on slab by the margin, the Piper, the Cloud-compeller. - Yes, they were come; were restored to the party, its grace and its - gladness, - Yes, were here, as of old; the light-giving orb of the household, - Arthur, the shapely, the tranquil, the strength-and-contentment - diffusing, - In the pure presence of whom none could quarrel long, nor be pettish, - And, the gay fountain of mirth, their dearly beloved of Pipers; - Yes, they were come, were here: but Hewson and Hope—where they then? - Are they behind, travel-sore, or ahead, going straight, by the pathway? - And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, the Cloud-compeller. - Hope with the uncle abideth for shooting. Ah me, were I with him! - Ah, good boy that I am, to have stuck to my word and my reading! - Good, good boy to be here, far away, who might be at Balloch! - Only one day to have stayed who might have been welcome for seven, - Seven whole days in castle and forest—gay in the mazy - Moving, imbibing the rosy, and pointing a gun at the horny! - And the Tutor impatient, expectant, interrupted. - Hope with the uncle, and Hewson—with him? or where have you left him? - And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, the Cloud-compeller. - Hope with the uncle, and Hewson—Why, Hewson we left in Rannoch, - By the lochside and the pines, in a farmer’s house,—reflecting— - Helping to shear,[8] and dry clothes, and bring in peat from the - peat-stack. - And the Tutor’s countenance fell; perplexed, dumb-foundered - Stood he,—slow and with pain disengaging jest from earnest. - He is not far from home, said Arthur from the water, - He will be with us to-morrow, at latest, or the next day. - And he was even more reassured by the Piper’s rejoinder. - Can he have come by the mail, and have got to the cottage before us? - So to the cottage they went, and Philip was not at the cottage; - But by the mail was a letter from Hope, who himself was to follow. - Two whole days and nights succeeding brought not Philip, - Two whole days and nights exhausted not question and story. - For it was told, the Piper narrating, corrected of Arthur, - Often by word corrected, more often by smile and motion, - How they had been to Iona, to Staffa, to Skye, to Culloden, - Seen Loch Awe, Loch Tay, Loch Fyne, Loch Ness, Loch Arkaig, - Been up Ben-nevis, Ben-more, Ben-cruachan, Ben-muick-dhui; - How they had walked, and eaten, and drunken, and slept in kitchens - Slept upon floors of kitchens, and tasted the real Glenlivat, - Walked up perpendicular hills, and also down them, - Hither and thither had been, and this and that had witnessed, - Left not a thing to be done, and had not a copper remaining. - For it was told withal, he telling, and he correcting, - How in the race they had run, and beaten the gillies of Rannoch, - How in forbidden glens, in Mar and midmost Athol, - Philip insisting hotly, and Arthur and Hope compliant, - They had defied the keepers; the Piper alone protesting, - Liking the fun, it was plain, in his heart, but tender of game-law; - Yea, too, in Meäly glen, the heart of Lochiel’s fair forest, - Where Scotch firs are darkest and amplest, and intermingle - Grandly with rowan and ash—in Mar you have no ashes, - There the pine is alone, or relieved by the birch and the alder— - How in Meäly glen, while stags were starting before, they - Made the watcher believe they were guests from Achnacarry. - And there was told moreover, he telling, the other correcting, - Often by word, more often by mute significant motion, - Much of the Cambridge _coach_ and his pupils at Inverary, - Huge barbarian pupils, Expanded in Infinite Series, - Firing-off signal guns (great scandal) from window to window - (For they were lodging perforce in distant and numerous houses), - Signals, when, one retiring, another should go to the Tutor:— - Much too of Kitcat, of course, and the party at Drumnadrochet, - Mainwaring, Foley, and Fraser, their idleness horrid and dog-cart; - Drumnadrochet was _seedy_, Glenmorison _adequate_, but at - Castleton, high in Braemar, were the _clippingest_ places for bathing; - One by the bridge in the village, indecent, the _Town Hall_ christened. - Where had Lauder howbeit been bathing, and Harrison also, - Harrison even, the Tutor; another like Hesperus here, and - Up the water of Eye, half-a-dozen at least, all _stunners_. - And it was told, the Piper narrating and Arthur correcting, - Colouring he, dilating, magniloquent, glorying in picture, - He to a matter-of-fact still softening, paring, abating, - He to the great might-have-been upsoaring, sublime and ideal, - He to the merest it-was restricting, diminishing, dwarfing, - River to streamlet reducing, and fall to slope subduing: - So was it told, the Piper narrating, corrected of Arthur, - How under Linn of Dee, where over rocks, between rocks, - Freed from prison the river comes, pouring, rolling, rushing, - Then at a sudden descent goes sliding, gliding, unbroken, - Falling, sliding, gliding, in narrow space collected, - Save for a ripple at last, a sheeted descent unbroken,— - How to the element offering their bodies, downshooting the fall, they - Mingled themselves with the flood and the force of imperious water. - And it was told too, Arthur narrating, the Piper correcting, - How, as one comes to the level, the weight of the downward impulse - Carries the head under water, delightful, unspeakable; how the - Piper, here ducked and blinded, got stray, and borne-off by the current - Wounded his lily-white thighs, below, at the craggy corner. - And it was told, the Piper resuming, corrected of Arthur, - More by word than motion, change ominous, noted of Adam, - How at the floating-bridge of Laggan, one morning at sunrise, - Came, in default of the ferryman, out of her bed a brave lassie; - And as Philip and she together were turning the handles, - Winding the chain by which the boat works over the water - Hands intermingled with hands, and at last, as they stepped from the - boatie, - Turning about, they saw lips also mingle with lips; but - That was flatly denied and loudly exclaimed at by Arthur: - How at the General’s hut, the Inn by the Foyers Fall, where - Over the loch looks at you the summit of Méalfourvónie, - How here too he was hunted at morning, and found in the kitchen - Watching the porridge being made, pronouncing them smoked for certain, - Watching the porridge being made, and asking the lassie that made them - What was the Gaelic for _girl_, and what was the Gaelic for _pretty_; - How in confusion he shouldered his knapsack, yet blushingly stammered, - Waving a hand to the lassie, that blushingly bent o’er the porridge, - Something outlandish—_Slan_-something, _Slan leat_, he believed, _Caleg - Looach_— - That was the Gaelic, it seemed, for ‘I bid you good-bye, bonnie lassie; - Arthur admitted it true, not of Philip, but of the Piper. - And it was told by the Piper, while Arthur looked out at the window, - How in thunder and in rain—it is wetter far to the westward— - Thunder and rain and wind, losing heart and road, they were welcomed, - Welcomed, and three days detained at a farm by the lochside of Rannoch; - How in the three days’ detention was Philip observed to be smitten, - Smitten by golden-haired Katie, the youngest and comeliest daughter; - Was he not seen, even Arthur observed it, from breakfast to bedtime, - Following her motions with eyes ever brightening, softening ever? - Did he not fume, fret, and fidget to find her stand waiting at table? - Was he not one mere St. Vitus’ dance, when he saw her at nightfall - Go through the rain to fetch peat, through beating rain to the - peat-stack? - How too a dance, as it happened, was given by Grant of Glenurchie, - And with the farmer they went as the farmer’s guests to attend it; - Philip stayed dancing till daylight,—and evermore with Katie; - How the whole next afternoon he was with her away in the shearing,[9] - And the next morning ensuing was found in the ingle beside her - Kneeling, picking the peats from her apron,—blowing together, - Both, between laughing, with lips distended, to kindle the embers; - Lips were so near to lips, one living cheek to another,— - Though, it was true, he was shy, very shy,—yet it wasn’t in nature, - Wasn’t in nature, the Piper averred, there shouldn’t be kissing; - So when at noon they had packed up the things, and proposed to be - starting, - Philip professed he was lame, would leave in the morning and follow; - Follow he did not; do burns, when you go up a glen, follow after? - Follow, he had not, nor left; do needles leave the loadstone? - Nay, they had turned after starting, and looked through the trees at - the corner, - Lo, on the rocks by the lake there he was, the lassie beside him, - Lo, there he was, stooping by her, and helping with stones from the water - Safe in the wind to keep down the clothes she would spread for the - drying. - There they had left him, and there, if Katie was there, was Philip, - There drying clothes, making fires, making love, getting on too by - this time, - Though he was shy, so exceedingly shy. - You may say so, said Arthur, - For the first time they had known with a peevish intonation,— - Did not the Piper himself flirt more in a single evening, - Namely, with Janet the elder, than Philip in all our sojourn? - Philip had stayed, it was true; the Piper was loth to depart too, - Harder his parting from Janet than e’en from the keeper at Balloch; - And it was certain that Philip was lame. - Yes, in his excuses, - Answered the Piper, indeed!— - But tell me, said Hobbes interposing, - Did you not say she was seen every day in her beauty and bedgown - Doing plain household work, as washing, cooking, scouring? - How could he help but love her? nor lacked there perhaps the attraction - That, in a blue cotton print tucked up over striped linsey-woolsey, - Barefoot, barelegged, he beheld her, with arms bare up to the elbows, - Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uprooting potatoes? - Is not Katie as Rachel, and is not Philip a Jacob? - Truly Jacob, supplanting a hairy Highland Esau? - Shall he not, love-entertained, feed sheep for the Laban of Rannoch? - Patriarch happier he, the long servitude ended of wooing, - If when he wake in the morning he find not a Leah beside him! - But the Tutor inquired, who had bit his lip to bleeding, - How far off is the place? who will guide me thither to-morrow? - - But by the mail, ere the morrow, came Hope, and brought new tidings; - Round by Rannoch had come, and Philip was not at Rannoch; - He had left at noon, an hour ago. - With the lassie? - With her? the Piper exclaimed. Undoubtedly! By great Jingo’ - And upon that he arose, slapping both his thighs like a hero, - Partly for emphasis only, to mark his conviction, but also - Part in delight at the fun, and the joy of eventful living. - Hope couldn’t tell him, of course, but thought it improbable wholly; - Janet, the Piper’s friend, he had seen, and she didn’t say so, - Though she asked a good deal about Philip, and where he was gone to; - One odd thing, by the bye, he continued, befell me while with her; - Standing beside her, I saw a girl pass; I thought I had seen her, - Somewhat remarkable-looking, elsewhere; and asked what her name was; - Elspie Mackaye, was the answer, the daughter of David! she’s stopping - Just above here, with her uncle. And David Mackaye, where lives he? - It’s away west, she said; they call it Tober-na vuolich. - - -IV - - _Ut vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error._ - - So in the golden weather they waited. But Philip returned not. - Sunday six days thence a letter arrived in his writing.— - But, O Muse, that encompassest Earth like the ambient ether, - Swifter than steamer or railway or magical missive electric, - Belting like Ariel the sphere with the star-like trail of thy travel, - Thou with thy Poet, to mortals mere post-office second-hand knowledge - Leaving, wilt seek in the moorland of Rannoch the wandering hero. - There is it, there, or in lofty Lochaber, where, silent upheaving, - Heaving from ocean to sky, and under snow-winds of September, - Visibly whitening at morn to darken by noon in the shining, - Rise on their mighty foundations the brethren huge of Ben-nevis? - There, or westward away, where roads are unknown to Loch Nevish, - And the great peaks look abroad over Skye to the westernmost islands? - There is it? there? or there? we shall find our wandering hero? - Here, in Badenoch, here, in Lochaber anon, in Lochiel, in - Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan, - Here I see him and here: I see him; anon I lose him! - Even as cloud passing subtly unseen from mountain to mountain, - Leaving the crest of Ben-more to be palpable next on Ben-vohrlich, - Or like to hawk of the hill which ranges and soars in its hunting, - Seen and unseen by turns, now here, now in ether eludent. - Wherefore, as cloud of Ben-more or hawk over-ranging the mountains, - Wherefore in Badenoch drear, in lofty Lochaber, Lochiel, and - Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan, - Wandereth he who should either with Adam be studying logic, - Or by the lochside of Rannoch on Katie his rhetoric using; - He who, his three weeks past, past now long ago, to the cottage - Punctual promised return to cares of classes and classics. - He who, smit to the heart by that youngest comeliest daughter, - Bent, unregardful of spies, at her feet, spreading clothes from her - wash-tub? - Can it be with him through Badenoch, Morrer, and Ardnamurchan; - Can it be with him he beareth the golden-haired lassie of Rannoch? - This fierce, furious walking—o’er mountain-top and moorland, - Sleeping in shieling and bothie, with drover on hill-side sleeping, - Folded in plaid, where sheep are strewn thicker than rocks by Loch Awen, - This fierce, furious travel unwearying—cannot in truth be - Merely the wedding tour succeeding the week of wooing! - No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not; I see him, - Lo, and he sitteth alone, and these are his words in the mountain. - Spirits escaped from the body can enter and be with the living; - Entering unseen, and retiring unquestioned, they bring,—do they feel - too?— - Joy, pure joy, as they mingle and mix inner essence with essence; - Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! - Joy, pure joy, bringing with them, and, when they retire, leaving after - No cruel shame, no prostration, despondency; memories rather, - Sweet happy hopes bequeathing. Ah! wherefore not thus with the living? - Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! - Is it impossible, say you, these passionate fervent impulsions, - These projections of spirit to spirit, these inward embraces, - Should in strange ways, in her dreams, should visit her, strengthen - her, shield her? - Is it possible, rather, that these great floods of feeling - Setting-in daily from me towards her should, impotent wholly, - Bring neither sound nor motion to that sweet shore they heave to? - Efflux here, and there no stir nor pulse of influx! - Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! - Surely, surely, when sleepless I lie in the mountain lamenting, - Surely, surely, she hears in her dreams a voice, ‘I am with thee,’ - Saying, ‘although not with thee; behold, for we mated our spirits - Then, when we stood in the chamber, and knew not the words we were - saying;’ - Yea, if she felt me within her, when not with one finger I touched her - Surely she knows it, and feels it while sorrowing here in the moorland. - Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! - Spirits with spirits commingle and separate; lightly as winds do, - Spice-laden South with the ocean-born zephyr! they mingle and sunder; - No sad remorses for them, no visions of horror and vileness. - Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! - Surely the force that here sweeps me along in its violent impulse, - Surely my strength shall be in her, my help and protection about her, - Surely in inner-sweet gladness and vigour of joy shall sustain her, - Till, the brief winter o’er-past, her own true sap in the springtide - Rise, and the tree I have bared be verdurous e’en as aforetime! - Surely it may be, it should be, it must be. Yet ever and ever, - Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! - No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not: behold, for - Here he is sitting alone, and these are his words in the mountain. - And, at the farm on the lochside of Rannoch, in parlour and kitchen, - Hark! there is music—the flowing of music, of milk, and of whisky; - Lo, I see piping and dancing! and whom in the midst of the battle - Cantering loudly along there, or, look you, with arms uplifted, - Whistling, and snapping his fingers, and seizing his gay-smiling Janet, - Whom?—whom else but the Piper? the wary precognisant Piper, - Who, for the love of gay Janet, and mindful of old invitation, - Putting it quite as a duty and urging grave claims to attention, - True to his night had crossed over: there goeth he, brimful of music, - Like a cork tossed by the eddies that foam under furious lasher, - Like to skiff, lifted, uplifted, in lock, by the swift-swelling sluices, - So with the music possessing him, swaying him, goeth he, look you, - Swinging and flinging, and stamping and tramping, and grasping and - clasping - Whom but gay Janet?—Him rivalling, Hobbes, briefest-kilted of heroes, - Enters, O stoutest, O rashest of creatures, mere fool of a Saxon, - Skill-less of philabeg, skill-less of reel too,—the whirl and the twirl - o’t: - Him see I frisking, and whisking, and ever at swifter gyration - Under brief curtain revealing broad acres—not of broad cloth. - Him see I there and the Piper—the Piper what vision beholds not? - Him and His Honour with Arthur, with Janet our Piper, and is it, - Is it, O marvel of marvels! he too in the maze of the mazy, - Skipping, and tripping, though stately, though languid, with head on one - shoulder, - Airlie, with sight of the waistcoat the golden-haired Katie consoling? - Katie, who simple and comely, and smiling and blushing as ever, - What though she wear on that neck a blue kerchief remembered as Philip’s, - Seems in her maidenly freedom to need small consolement of waistcoats!— - Wherefore in Badenoch then, far-away, in Lochaber, Lochiel, in - Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, or Ardnamurchan, - Wanders o’er mountain and moorland, in shieling or bothie is sleeping, - He, who,—and why should he not then? capricious? or is it rejected? - Might to the piping of Rannoch be pressing the thrilling fair fingers, - Might, as he clasped her, transmit to her bosom the throb of his - own—yea,— - Might in the joy of the reel be wooing and winning his Katie? - What is it Adam reads far off by himself in the cottage? - Reads yet again with emotion, again is preparing to answer? - What is it Adam is reading? What was it Philip had written? - There was it writ, how Philip possessed undoubtedly had been, - Deeply, entirely possessed by the charm of the maiden of Rannoch; - Deeply as never before! how sweet and bewitching he felt her - Seen still before him at work, in the garden, the byre, the kitchen; - How it was beautiful to him to stoop at her side in the shearing, - Binding uncouthly the ears that fell from her dexterous sickle, - Building uncouthly the stooks,[10] which she laid by her sickle to - straighten, - How at the dance he had broken through shyness; for four days after - Lived on her eyes, unspeaking what lacked not articulate speaking; - Felt too that she too was feeling what he did.—Howbeit they parted! - How by a kiss from her lips he had seemed made nobler and stronger, - Yea, for the first time in life a man complete and perfect, - So forth! much that before has been heard of.—Howbeit they parted! - What had ended it all, he said, was singular, very.— - I was walking along some two miles off from the cottage - Full of my dreamings—a girl went by in a party with others; - She had a cloak on, was stepping on quickly, for rain was beginning; - But as she passed, from her hood I saw her eyes look at me. - So quick a glance, so regardless I, that although I had felt it, - You couldn’t properly say our eyes met. She cast it, and left it: - It was three minutes perhaps ere I knew what it was. I had seen her - Somewhere before I am sure, but that wasn’t it; not its import; - No, it had seemed to regard me with simple superior insight, - Quietly saying to itself—Yes, there he is still in his fancy, - Letting drop from him at random as things not worth his considering - All the benefits gathered and put in his hands by fortune, - Loosing a hold which others, contented and unambitious, - Trying down here to keep up, know the value of better than he does, - What is this? was it perhaps?—Yes, there he is still in his fancy, - Doesn’t yet see we have here just the things he is used to elsewhere; - People here too are people and not as fairy-land creatures; - He is in a trance, and possessed; I wonder how long to continue; - It is a shame and a pity—and no good likely to follow.— - Something like this, but indeed I cannot attempt to define it. - Only, three hours thence I was off and away in the moorland, - Hiding myself from myself if I could; the arrow within me. - Katie was not in the house, thank God: I saw her in passing, - Saw her, unseen myself, with the pang of a cruel desertion; - What she thinks about it, God knows! poor child; may she only - Think me a fool and a madman, and no more worth her remembering! - Meantime all through the mountains I hurry and know not whither, - Tramp along here, and think, and know not what I should think. - Tell me then, why, as I sleep amid hill-tops high in the moorland, - Still in my dreams I am pacing the streets of the dissolute city, - Where dressy girls slithering by upon pavements give sign for accosting, - Paint on their beautiless cheeks, and hunger and shame in their bosoms; - Hunger by drink, and by that which they shudder yet burn for, appeasing,— - Hiding their shame—ah God!—in the glare of the public gas-lights? - Why, while I feel my ears catching through slumber the run of the - streamlet, - Still am I pacing the pavement, and seeing the sign for accosting, - Still am I passing those figures, not daring to look in their faces? - Why, when the chill, ere the light, of the daybreak uneasily wakes me, - Find I a cry in my heart crying up to the heaven of heavens, - No, Great Unjust Judge! she is purity; I am the lost one. - You will not think that I soberly look for such things for sweet Katie; - No, but the vision is on me; I now first see how it happens, - Feel how tender and soft is the heart of a girl; how passive - Fain would it be, how helpless; and helplessness leads to destruction. - Maiden reserve torn from off it, grows never again to reclothe it, - Modesty broken through once to immodesty flies for protection. - Oh, who saws through the trunk, though he leave the tree up in the - forest, - When the next wind casts it down,—is _his_ not the hand that smote it? - This is the answer, the second, which, pondering long with emotion, - There by himself in the cottage the Tutor addressed to Philip. - I have perhaps been severe, dear Philip, and hasty; forgive me; - For I was fain to reply ere I wholly had read through your letter; - And it was written in scraps with crossings and counter-crossings - Hard to connect with each other correctly, and hard to decipher; - Paper was scarce, I suppose: forgive me; I write to console you. - Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought in the market; - Knowledge needful for all, yet cannot be had for the asking. - There are exceptional beings, one finds them distant and rarely, - Who, endowed with the vision alike and the interpretation, - See, by the neighbours’ eyes and their own still motions enlightened, - In the beginning the end, in the acorn the oak of the forest, - In the child of to-day its children to long generations, - In a thought or a wish a life, a drama, an epos. - There are inheritors, is it? by mystical generation - Heiring the wisdom and ripeness of spirits gone by; without labour - Owning what others by doing and suffering earn; what old men - After long years of mistake and erasure are proud to have come to, - Sick with mistake and erasure possess when possession is idle. - Yes, there is power upon earth, seen feebly in women and children, - Which can, laying one hand on the cover, read off, unfaltering, - Leaf after leaf unlifted, the words of the closed book under, - Words which we are poring at, hammering at, stumbling at, spelling. - Rare is this; wisdom mostly is bought for a price in the market;— - Rare is this; and happy, who buys so much for so little, - As I conceive have you, and as I will hope has Katie. - Knowledge is needful for man,—needful no less for woman, - Even in Highland glens, were they vacant of shooter and tourist. - Not that, of course, I mean to prefer your blindfold hurry - Unto a soul that abides most loving yet most withholding; - Least unfeeling though calm, self-contained yet most unselfish; - Renders help and accepts it, a man among men that are brothers, - Views, not plucks the beauty, adores, and demands no embracing, - So in its peaceful passage whatever is lovely and gracious - Still without seizing or spoiling, itself in itself reproducing. - No, I do not set Philip herein on the level of Arthur; - No, I do not compare still tarn with furious torrent, - Yet will the tarn overflow, assuaged in the lake be the torrent. - Women are weak, as you say, and love of all things to be passive, - Passive, patient, receptive, yea, even of wrong and misdoing, - Even to force and misdoing with joy and victorious feeling - Patient, passive, receptive; for that is the strength of their being, - Like to the earth taking all things, and all to good converting. - Oh ’tis a snare indeed!—Moreover, remember it, Philip, - To the prestige of the richer the lowly are prone to be yielding, - Think that in dealing with them they are raised to a different region, - Where old laws and morals are modified, lost, exist not; - Ignorant they as they are, they have but to conform and be yielding. - But I have spoken of this already, and need not repeat it. - You will not now run after what merely attracts and entices, - Every-day things highly-coloured, and common-place carved and gilded. - You will henceforth seek only the good: and seek it, Philip, - Where it is—not more abundant, perhaps, but—more easily met with; - Where you are surer to find it, less likely to run into error, - In your station, not thinking about it, but not disregarding. - So was the letter completed: a postscript afterward added, - Telling the tale that was told by the dancers returning from Rannoch. - So was the letter completed: but query, whither to send it? - Not for the will of the wisp, the cloud, and the hawk of the moorland, - Ranging afar thro’ Lochaber, Lochiel, and Knoydart, and Moydart, - Have even latest extensions adjusted a postal arrangement. - Query resolved very shortly, when Hope, from his chamber descending, - Came with a note in his hand from the Lady, his aunt, at the Castle; - Came and revealed the contents of a missive that brought strange tidings; - Came and announced to the friends, in a voice that was husky with wonder, - Philip was staying at Balloch, was there in the room with the Countess, - Philip to Balloch had come and was dancing with Lady Maria. - Philip at Balloch, he said, after all that stately refusal, - He there at last—O strange! O marvel, marvel of marvels! - Airlie, the Waistcoat, with Katie, we left him this morning at Rannoch; - Airlie with Katie, he said, and Philip with Lady Maria. - And amid laughter Adam paced up and down, repeating - Over and over, unconscious, the phrase which Hope had lent him, - Dancing at Balloch, you say, in the Castle, with Lady Maria. - - -V - - ——_Putavi_ - _Stultus ego huic nostræ similem._ - - So in the cottage with Adam the pupils five together - Duly remained, and read, and looked no more for Philip, - Philip at Balloch shooting and dancing with Lady Maria. - Breakfast at eight, and now, for brief September daylight, - Luncheon at two, and dinner at seven, or even later, - Five full hours between for the loch and the glen and the mountain,— - So in the joy of their life and glory of shooting-jackets, - So they read and roamed, the pupils five with Adam. - What if autumnal shower came frequent and chill from the westward, - What if on browner sward with yellow leaves besprinkled, - Gemming the crispy blade, the delicate gossamer gemming, - Frequent and thick lay at morning the chilly beads of hoar-frost, - Duly in _matutine_ still, and daily, whatever the weather, - Bathed in the rain and the frost and the mist with the Glory of headers - Hope. Thither also at times, of cold and of possible gutters - Careless, unmindful, unconscious, would Hobbes, or ere they departed, - Come, in heavy pea-coat his trouserless trunk enfolding, - Come, under coat over-brief those lusty legs displaying, - All from the shirt to the slipper the natural man revealing. - Duly there they bathed and daily, the twain or the trio, - Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite - Into a granite basin the amber torrent descended; - Beautiful, very, to gaze in ere plunging; beautiful also, - Perfect as picture, as vision entrancing that comes to the sightless, - Through the great granite jambs the stream, the glen, and the mountain, - Beautiful, seen by snatches in intervals of dressing, - Morn after morn, unsought for, recurring; themselves too seeming - Not as spectators, accepted into it, immingled, as truly - Part of it as are the kine in the field lying there by the birches. - So they bathed, they read, they roamed in glen and forest; - Far amid blackest pines to the waterfall they shadow, - Far up the long, long glen to the loch, and the loch beyond it, - Deep, under huge red cliffs, a secret; and oft by the starlight, - Or the aurora, perchance, racing home for the eight o’clock mutton. - So they bathed, and read, and roamed in heathery Highland; - There in the joy of their life and glory of shooting-jackets - Bathed and read and roamed, and looked no more for Philip. - - List to a letter that came from Philip at Balloch to Adam. - I am here, O my friend!—idle, but learning wisdom. - Doing penance, you think; content, if so, in my penance. - Often I find myself saying, while watching in dance or on horseback - One that is here, in her freedom and grace, and imperial sweetness, - Often I find myself saying, old faith and doctrine abjuring, - Into the crucible casting philosophies, facts, convictions,— - Were it not well that the stem should be naked of leaf and of tendril, - Poverty-stricken, the barest, the dismallest stick of the garden; - Flowerless, leafless, unlovely, for ninety-and-nine long summers, - So in the hundredth, at last, were bloom for one day at the summit, - So but that fleeting flower were lovely as Lady Maria. - Often I find myself saying, and know not myself as I say it, - What of the poor and the weary? their labour and pain is needed. - Perish the poor and the weary! what can they better than perish, - Perish in labour for her, who is worth the destruction of empires? - What! for a mite, for a mote, an impalpable odour of honour, - Armies shall bleed; cities burn; and the soldier red from the storming - Carry hot rancour and lust into chambers of mothers and daughters: - What! would ourselves for the cause of an hour encounter the battle, - Slay and be slain; lie rotting in hospital, hulk, and prison: - Die as a dog dies; die mistaken perhaps, and dishonoured. - Yea,—and shall hodmen in beer-shops complain of a glory denied them, - Which could not ever be theirs more than now it is theirs as spectators? - Which could not be, in all earth, if it were not for labour of hodmen? - And I find myself saying, and what I am saying, discern not, - Dig in thy deep dark prison, O miner! and finding be thankful; - Though unpolished by thee, unto thee unseen in perfection, - While thou art eating black bread in the poisonous air of thy cavern, - Far away glitters the gem on the peerless neck of a Princess. - Dig, and starve, and be thankful; it is so, and thou hast been aiding. - Often I find myself saying, in irony is it, or earnest? - Yea, what is more, be rich, O ye rich! be sublime in great houses, - Purple and delicate linen endure; be of Burgundy patient; - Suffer that service be done you, permit of the page and the valet, - Vex not your souls with annoyance of charity schools or of districts, - Cast not to swine of the stye the pearls that should gleam in your - foreheads. - Live, be lovely, forget them, be beautiful even to proudness, - Even for their poor sakes whose happiness is to behold you; - Live, be uncaring, be joyous, be sumptuous; only be lovely,— - Sumptuous not for display, and joyous, not for enjoyment; - Not for enjoyment truly; for Beauty and God’s great glory! - Yes, and I say, and it seems inspiration—of Good or of Evil! - Is it not He that hath done it, and who shall dare gainsay it? - Is it not even of Him, who hath made us?—Yea, _for the lions,_ - _Roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from God_! - Is it not even of Him, who one kind over another - All the works of His hand hath disposed in a wonderful order? - Who hath made man, as the beasts, to live the one on the other, - Who hath made man as Himself to know the law—and accept it! - You will wonder at this, no doubt! I also wonder! - But we must live and learn; we can’t know all things at twenty. - List to a letter of Hobbes to Philip his friend at Balloch. - All Cathedrals are Christian, all Christians are Cathedrals, - Such is the Catholic doctrine; ’tis ours with a slight variation; - Every woman is, or ought to be, a Cathedral, - Built on the ancient plan, a Cathedral pure and perfect, - Built by that only law, that Use be suggester of Beauty, - Nothing concealed that is done, but all things done to adornment, - Meanest utilities seized as occasions to grace and embellish.— - So had I duly commenced in the spirit and style of my Philip, - So had I formally opened the Treatise upon _the Laws of_ - _Architectural Beauty in Application to Women_, - So had I writ.—But my fancies are palsied by tidings they tell me. - Tidings—ah me, can it be then? that I, the blasphemer accounted, - Here am with reverent heed at the wondrous Analogy working, - Pondering thy words and thy gestures, whilst thou, a prophet apostate, - (How are the mighty fallen!) whilst thou, a shepherd travestie, - (How are the mighty fallen!) with gun,—with pipe no longer, - Teachest the woods to re-echo thy game-killing recantations, - Teachest thy verse to exalt Amaryllis, a Countess’s daughter? - What, thou forgettest, bewildered, my Master, that rightly considered - Beauty must ever be useful, what truly is useful is graceful? - She that is handy is handsome, good dairy-maids must be good-looking, - If but the butter be nice, the tournure of the elbow is shapely, - If the cream-cheeses be white, far whiter the hands that made them, - If—but alas, is it true? while the pupil alone in the cottage - Slowly elaborates here thy System of Feminine Graces, - Thou in the palace, its author, art dining, small-talking and dancing, - Dancing and pressing the fingers kid-gloved of a Lady Maria. - These are the final words, that came to the Tutor from Balloch. - I am conquered, it seems! you will meet me, I hope, in Oxford, - Altered in manners and mind. I yield to the laws and arrangements, - Yield to the ancient existent decrees: who am I to resist them? - Yes, you will find me altered in mind, I think, as in manners, - Anxious too to atone for six weeks’ loss of your Logic. - - So in the cottage with Adam, the pupils five together, - Read, and bathed, and roamed, and thought not now of Philip, - All in the joy of their life, and glory of shooting-jackets. - - -VI - - _Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin._ - - Bright October was come, the misty-bright October, - Bright October was come to burn and glen and cottage; - But the cottage was empty, the _matutine_ deserted. - Who are these that walk by the shore of the salt sea water? - Here in the dusky eve, on the road by the salt sea water? - Who are these? and where? it is no sweet seclusion; - Blank hill-sides slope down to a salt sea loch at their bases, - Scored by runnels, that fringe ere they end with rowan and alder: - Cottages here and there outstanding bare on the mountain, - Peat-roofed, windowless, white; the road underneath by the water. - There on the blank hill-side, looking down through the loch to the - ocean, - There with a runnel beside, and pine-trees twain before it, - There with the road underneath, and in sight of coaches and steamers, - Dwelling of David Mackaye, and his daughters Elspie and Bella, - Sends up a column of smoke the Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich. - And of the older twain, the elder was telling the younger, - How on his pittance of soil he lived, and raised potatoes, - Barley, and oats, in the bothie where lived his father before him; - Yet was smith by trade, and had travelled making horse-shoes - Far; in the army had seen some service with brave Sir Hector, - Wounded soon, and discharged, disabled as smith and soldier; - He had been many things since that,—drover, schoolmaster, - Whitesmith,—but when his brother died childless came up hither; - And although he could get fine work that would pay in the city, - Still was fain to abide where his father abode before him. - And the lassies are bonnie,—I’m father and mother to them,— - Bonnie and young; they’re healthier here, I judge, and safer, - I myself find time for their reading, writing, and learning. - So on the road they walk by the shore of the salt sea water, - Silent a youth and maid, and elders twain conversing. - This was the letter that came when Adam was leaving the cottage. - If you can manage to see me before going off to Dartmoor, - Come by Tuesday’s coach through Glencoe (you have not seen it), - Stop at the ferry below, and ask your way (you will wonder, - There however I am) to the Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich. - And on another scrap, of next day’s date, was written:— - It was by accident purely I lit on the place; I was returning, - Quietly, travelling homeward by one of these wretched coaches; - One of the horses cast a shoe; and a farmer passing - Said, Old David’s your man; a clever fellow at shoeing - Once; just here by the firs; they call it Tober-na-vuolich. - So I saw and spoke with David Mackaye, our acquaintance. - When we came to the journey’s end some five miles farther, - In my unoccupied evening I walked back again to the bothie. - But on a final crossing, still later in date, was added: - Come as soon as you can; be sure and do not refuse me. - Who would have guessed I should find my haven and end of my travel, - Here, by accident too, in the bothie we laughed about so? - Who would have guessed that here would be she whose glance at Rannoch - Turned me in that mysterious way; yes, angels conspiring, - Slowly drew me, conducted me, home, to herself; the needle - Which in the shaken compass flew hither and thither, at last, long - Quivering, poises to north. I think so. But I am cautious: - More, at least, than I was in the old silly days when I left you. - Not at the bothie now; at the changehouse in the clachan;[11] - Why I delay my letter is more than I can tell you. - - There was another scrap, without or date or comment, - Dotted over with various observations, as follows: - Only think, I had danced with her twice, and did not remember. - I was as one that sleeps on the railway; one, who dreaming - Hears thro’ his dream the name of his home shouted out; hears and hears - not,— - Faint, and louder again, and less loud, dying in distance; - Dimly conscious, with something of inward debate and choice,—and - Sense of claim and reality present, anon relapses - Nevertheless, and continues the dream and fancy, while forward - Swiftly, remorseless, the car presses on, he knows not whither. - Handsome who handsome is, who handsome does is more so; - Pretty is all very pretty, it’s prettier far to be useful. - No, fair Lady Maria, I say not that; but I _will_ say, - Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service rendered, - Interchange of service the law and condition of beauty: - Any way beautiful only to be the thing one is meant for. - I, I am sure, for the sphere of mere ornament am not intended: - No, nor she, I think, thy sister at Tober-na-vuolich. - This was the letter of Philip, and this had brought the Tutor: - This is why Tutor and pupil are walking with David and Elspie.— - When for the night they part, and these, once more together, - Went by the lochside along to the changehouse near in the clachan, - Thus to his pupil anon commenced the grave man, Adam. - Yes, she is beautiful, Philip, beautiful even as morning: - Yes, it is that which I said, the Good and not the Attractive! - Happy is he that finds, and finding does not leave it! - Ten more days did Adam with Philip abide at the changehouse, - Ten more nights they met, they walked with father and daughter. - Ten more nights, and night by night more distant away were - Philip and she; every night less heedful, by habit, the father. - Happy ten days, most happy: and, otherwise than intended, - Fortunate visit of Adam, companion and friend to David. - Happy ten days, be ye fruitful of happiness! Pass o’er them slowly, - Slowly; like cruse of the prophet be multiplied, even to ages! - Pass slowly o’er them, ye days of October; ye soft misty mornings, - Long dusky eves; pass slowly; and thou, great Term-time of Oxford - Awful with lectures and books, and Little-goes, and Great-goes, - Till but the sweet bud be perfect, recede and retire for the lovers, - Yea, for the sweet love of lovers, postpone thyself even to doomsday! - Pass o’er them slowly, ye hours! Be with them, ye Loves and Graces! - Indirect and evasive no longer, a cowardly bather, - Clinging to bough and to rock, and sidling along by the edges, - In your faith, ye Muses and Graces, who love the plain present, - Scorning historic abridgment and artifice anti-poetic, - In your faith, ye Muses and Loves, ye Loves and Graces, - I will confront the great peril, and speak with the mouth of the lovers, - As they spoke by the alders, at evening, the runnel below them, - Elspie, a diligent knitter, and Philip her fingers watching. - - -VII - - _Vesper adest, juvenes, consurgite. Vesper Olympo_ - _Expectata diu vix tandem lumina tollit._ - - For she confessed, as they sat in the dusk, and he saw not her blushes, - Elspie confessed at the sports long ago with her father she saw him, - When at the door the old man had told him the name of the bothie; - Then after that at the dance; yet again at a dance in Rannoch— - And she was silent, confused. Confused much rather Philip - Buried his face in his hands, his face that with blood was bursting. - Silent, confused, yet by pity she conquered her fear, and continued. - Katie is good and not silly; be comforted, Sir, about her; - Katie is good and not silly; tender, but not, like many, - Carrying off, and at once, for fear of being seen, in the bosom - Locking-up as in a cupboard the pleasure that any man gives them, - Keeping it out of sight as a prize they need be ashamed of; - That is the way, I think, Sir, in England more than in Scotland; - No, she lives and takes pleasure in all, as in beautiful weather, - Sorry to lose it, but just as we would be to lose fine weather. - And she is strong to return to herself and feel undeserted, - Oh, she is strong, and not silly: she thinks no further about you; - She has had kerchiefs before from gentle, I know, as from simple. - Yes, she is good and not silly; yet were you wrong, Mr. Philip, - Wrong, for yourself perhaps more than for her. - But Philip replied not, - Raised not his eyes from the hands on his knees. - And Elspie continued. - That was what gave me much pain, when I met you that dance at Rannoch, - Dancing myself too with you, while Katie danced with Donald; - That was what gave me such pain; I thought it all a mistaking, - All a mere chance, you know, and accident,—not proper choosing,— - There were at least five or six—not there, no, that I don’t say, - But in the country about—you might just as well have been courting - That was what gave me much pain, and (you won’t remember that, though), - Three days after, I met you, beside my uncle’s, walking, - And I was wondering much, and hoped you wouldn’t notice, - So as I passed I couldn’t help looking. You didn’t know me. - But I was glad, when I heard next day you were gone to the teacher. - And uplifting his face at last, with eyes dilated, - Large as great stars in mist, and dim, with dabbled lashes, - Philip, with new tears starting, - You think I do not remember, - Said,—suppose that I did not observe! Ah me, shall I tell you? - Elspie, it was your look that sent me away from Rannoch. - It was your glance, that, descending, an instant revelation, - Showed me where I was, and whitherward going; recalled me, - Sent me, not to my books, but to wrestlings of thought in the mountains. - Yes, I have carried your glance within me undimmed, unaltered, - As a lost boat the compass some passing ship has lent her, - Many a weary mile on road, and hill, and moorland: - And you suppose that I do not remember, I had not observed it! - O, did the sailor bewildered observe when they told him his bearings? - O, did he cast overboard, when they parted, the compass they gave him? - And he continued more firmly, although with stronger emotion: - Elspie, why should I speak it? you cannot believe it, and should not: - Why should I say that I love, which I all but said to another? - Yet should I dare, should I say, O Elspie, you only I love; you, - First and sole in my life that has been and surely that shall be; - Could—O, could you believe it, O Elspie, believe it and spurn not? - Is it—possible,—possible, Elspie? - Well,—she answered, - And she was silent some time, and blushed all over, and answered - Quietly, after her fashion, still knitting, Maybe, I think of it, - Though I don’t know that I did: and she paused again; but it may be, - Yes,—I don’t know, Mr. Philip,—but only it feels to me strangely, - Like to the high new bridge, they used to build at, below there, - Over the burn and glen on the road. You won’t understand me. - But I keep saying in my mind—this long time slowly with trouble - I have been building myself, up, up, and toilfully raising, - Just like as if the bridge were to do it itself without masons, - Painfully getting myself upraised one stone on another, - All one side I mean; and now I see on the other - Just such another fabric uprising, better and stronger, - Close to me, coming to join me: and then I sometimes fancy,— - Sometimes I find myself dreaming at nights about arches and bridges,— - Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand coming down, and - Dropping the great key-stone in the middle: there in my dreaming, - There I felt the great-key stone coming in, and through it - Feel the other part—all the other stones of the archway, - Joined into mine with a strange happy sense of completeness. But, - dear me, - This is confusion and nonsense. I mix all the things I can think of. - And you won’t understand, Mr. Philip. - But while she was speaking, - So it happened, a moment she paused from her work, and pondering, - Laid her hand on her lap: Philip took it: she did not resist: - So he retained her fingers, the knitting being stopped. But emotion - Came all over her more and yet more from his hand, from her heart, and - Most from the sweet idea and image her brain was renewing. - So he retained her hand, and, his tears down-dropping on it, - Trembling a long time, kissed it at last. And she ended. - And as she ended, uprose he: saying, What have I heard? Oh, - What have I done, that such words should be said to me? Oh, I see it, - See the great key-stone coming down from the heaven of heavens; - And he fell at her feet, and buried his face in her apron. - But as under the moon and stars they went to the cottage, - Elspie sighed and said, Be patient, dear Mr. Philip, - Do not do anything hasty. It is all so soon, so sudden. - Do not say anything yet to any one. - Elspie, he answered, - Does not my friend go on Friday? I then shall see nothing of you. - Do not I go myself on Monday? - But oh, he said, Elspie! - Do as I bid you, my child: do not go on calling me Mr.; - Might I not just as well be calling you Miss Elspie? - Call me, this heavenly night for once, for the first time, Philip. - Philip, she said, and laughed, and said she could not say it; - Philip, she said; he turned, and kissed the sweet lips as they said it. - - But on the morrow Elspie kept out of the way of Philip: - And at the evening seat, when he took her hand by the alders, - Drew it back, saying, almost peevishly, - No, Mr. Philip, - I was quite right, last night; it is too soon, too sudden. - What I told you before was foolish perhaps, was hasty. - When I think it over, I am shocked and terrified at it. - Not that at all I unsay it; that is, I know I said it, - And when I said it, felt it. But oh, we must wait, Mr. Philip! - We mustn’t pull ourselves at the great key-stone of the centre: - Some one else up above must hold it, fit it, and fix it; - If we try ourselves, we shall only damage the archway, - Damage all our own work that we wrought, our painful upbuilding. - When, you remember, you took my hand last evening, talking, - I was all over a tremble: and as you pressed the fingers - After, and afterwards kissed them, I could not speak. And then, too, - As we went home, you kissed me for saying your name. It was dreadful. - I have been kissed before, she added, blushing slightly, - I have been kissed more than once by Donald my cousin, and others; - It is the way of the lads, and I make up my mind not to mind it; - But, Mr. Philip, last night, and from you, it was different, quite, Sir. - When I think of all that, I am shocked and terrified at it. - Yes, it is dreadful to me. - She paused, but quickly continued, - Smiling almost fiercely, continued, looking upward. - You are too strong, you see, Mr. Philip! just like the sea there, - Which _will_ come, through the straits and all between the mountains - Forcing its great strong tide into every nook and inlet, - Getting far in, up the quiet stream of sweet inland water, - Sucking it up, and stopping it, turning it, driving it backward, - Quite preventing its own quiet running: and then, soon after, - Back it goes off, leaving weeds on the shore, and wrack and uncleanness: - And the poor burn in the glen tries again its peaceful running, - But it is brackish and tainted, and all its banks in disorder. - That was what I dreamt all last night. I was the burnie, - Trying to get along through the tyrannous brine, and could not; - I was confined and squeezed in the coils of the great salt tide, that - Would mix-in itself with me, and change me; I felt myself changing; - And I struggled, and screamed, I believe, in my dream. It was dreadful. - You are too strong, Mr. Philip! I am but a poor slender burnie, - Used to the glens and the rocks, the rowan and birch of the woodies, - Quite unused to the great salt sea; quite afraid and unwilling. - Ere she had spoken two words, had Philip released her fingers; - As she went on, he recoiled, fell back, and shook and shivered; - There he stood, looking pale and ghastly; when she had ended, - Answering in hollow voice, - It is true; oh, quite true, Elspie; - Oh, you are always right; oh, what, what have I been doing? - I will depart to-morrow. But oh, forget me not wholly, - Wholly, Elspie, nor hate me; no, do not hate me, my Elspie. - But a revulsion passed through the brain and bosom of Elspie; - And she got up from her seat on the rock, putting by her knitting; - Went to him, where he stood, and answered: - No, Mr. Philip, - No, you are good, Mr. Philip, and gentle; and I am the foolish: - No, Mr. Philip, forgive me. - She stepped right to him, and boldly - Took up his hand, and placed it in hers: he dared no movement; - Took up the cold hanging hand, up-forcing the heavy elbow. - I am afraid, she said, but I will; and kissed the fingers. - And he fell on his knees and kissed her own past counting. - - But a revulsion wrought in the brain and bosom of Elspie; - And the passion she just had compared to the vehement ocean, - Urging in high spring-tide its masterful way through the mountains - Forcing and flooding the silvery stream, as it runs from the inland; - That great power withdrawn, receding here and passive, - Felt she in myriad springs, her sources far in the mountains, - Stirring, collecting, rising, upheaving, forth-outflowing, - Taking and joining, right welcome, that delicate rill in the valley, - Filling it, making it strong, and still descending, seeking, - With a blind forefeeling descending ever, and seeking, - With a delicious forefeeling, the great still sea before it; - There deep into it, far, to carry, and lose in its bosom, - Waters that still from their sources exhaustless are fain to be added - As he was kissing her fingers, and knelt on the ground before her, - Yielding backward she sank to her seat, and of what she was doing - Ignorant, bewildered, in sweet multitudinous vague emotion, - Stooping, knowing not what, put her lips to the hair on his forehead: - And Philip, raising himself, gently, for the first time round her - Passing his arms, close, close, enfolded her, close to his bosom. - As they went home by the moon, Forgive me, Philip, she whispered; - I have so many things to think of, all of a sudden; - I who had never once thought a thing,—in my ignorant Highlands. - - -VIII. - - _Jam veniet virgo, jam dicetur Hymenæus._ - - But a revulsion again came over the spirit of Elspie, - When she thought of his wealth, his birth and education: - Wealth indeed but small, though to her a difference truly; - Father nor mother had Philip, a thousand pounds his portion, - Somewhat impaired in a world where nothing is had for nothing; - Fortune indeed but small, and prospects plain and simple. - But the many things that he knew, and the ease of a practised - Intellect’s motion, and all those indefinable graces - (Were they not hers, too, Philip?) to speech, and manner, and movement, - Lent by the knowledge of self, and wisely instructed feeling,— - When she thought of these, and these contemplated daily, - Daily appreciating more, and more exactly appraising,— - With these thoughts, and the terror withal of a thing she could not - Estimate, and of a step (such a step!) in the dark to be taken, - Terror nameless and ill-understood of deserting her station,— - Daily heavier, heavier upon her pressed the sorrow, - Daily distincter, distincter within her arose the conviction, - He was too high, too perfect, and she so unfit, so unworthy, - (Ah me! Philip, that ever a word such as that should be written!) - It would do neither for him nor for her; she also was something, - Not much indeed, it was true, yet not to be lightly extinguished - Should _he_—_he_, she said, have a wife beneath him? herself be - An inferior there where only equality can be? - It would do neither for him nor for her. - Alas for Philip! - Many were tears and great was perplexity. Nor had availed then - All his prayer and all his device. But much was spoken - Now, between Adam and Elspie: companions were they hourly: - Much by Elspie to Adam, inquiring, anxiously seeking, - From his experience seeking impartial accurate statement - What it was to do this or do that, go hither or thither, - How in the after-life would seem what now seeming certain - Might so soon be reversed; in her quest and obscure exploring - Still from that quiet orb soliciting light to her footsteps; - Much by Elspie to Adam, inquiringly, eagerly seeking: - Much by Adam to Elspie, informing, reassuring, - Much that was sweet to Elspie, by Adam heedfully speaking, - Quietly, indirectly, in general terms, of Philip, - Gravely, but indirectly, not as incognisant wholly, - But as suspending until she should seek it, direct intimation; - Much that was sweet in her heart of what he was and would be, - Much that was strength to her mind, confirming beliefs and insights - Pure and unfaltering, but young and mute and timid for action: - Much of relations of rich and poor, and of true education. - It was on Saturday eve, in the gorgeous bright October, - Then when brackens are changed, and heather blooms are faded, - And amid russet of heather and fern green trees are bonnie; - Alders are green, and oaks; the rowan scarlet and yellow; - One great glory of broad gold pieces appears the aspen, - And the jewels of gold that were hung in the hair of the birch-tree, - Pendulous, here and there, her coronet, necklace, and ear-rings, - Cover her now, o’er and o’er; she is weary and scatters them from her. - There, upon Saturday eve, in the gorgeous bright October, - Under the alders knitting, gave Elspie her troth to Philip, - For as they talked, anon she said, - It is well, Mr. Philip. - Yes, it is well: I have spoken, and learnt a deal with the teacher. - At the last I told him all, I could not help it; - And it came easier with him than could have been with my father; - And he calmly approved, as one that had fully considered. - Yes, it is well, I have hoped, though quite too great and sudden; - I am so fearful, I think it ought not to be for years yet. - I am afraid; but believe in you; and I trust to the teacher; - You have done all things gravely and temperate, not as in passion; - And the teacher is prudent, and surely can tell what is likely. - What my father will say, I know not; we will obey him: - But for myself, I could dare to believe all well, and venture. - O Mr. Philip, may it never hereafter seem to be different! - And she hid her face— - Oh, where, but in Philip’s bosom! - - After some silence, some tears too perchance, Philip laughed, and said - to her, - So, my own Elspie, at last you are clear that I’m bad enough for you - Ah! but your father won’t make one half the question about it - You have—he’ll think me, I know, nor better nor worse than Donald, - Neither better nor worse for my gentlemanship and bookwork, - Worse, I fear, as he knows me an idle and vagabond fellow, - Though he allows, but he’ll think it was all for your sake, Elspie, - Though he allows I did some good at the end of the shearing. - But I had thought in Scotland you didn’t care for this folly. - How I wish, he said, you had lived all your days in the Highlands! - This is what comes of the year you spent in our foolish England. - You do not all of you feel these fancies. - No, she answered. - And in her spirit the freedom and ancient joy was reviving. - No, she said, and uplifted herself, and looked for her knitting, - No, nor do _I_, dear Philip, I don’t myself feel always - As I have felt, more sorrow for me, these four days lately, - Like the Peruvian Indians I read about last winter, - Out in America there, in somebody’s life of Pizarro; - Who were as good perhaps as the Spaniards; only weaker; - And that the one big tree might spread its root and branches, - All the lesser about it must even be felled and perish. - No, I feel much more as if I, as well as you, were, - Somewhere, a leaf on the one great tree, that, up from old time - Growing, contains in itself the whole of the virtue and life of - Bygone days, drawing now to itself all kindreds and nations - And must have for itself the whole world for its root and branches. - No, I belong to the tree, I shall not decay in the shadow; - Yes, and I feel the life-juices of all the world and the ages, - Coming to me as to you, more slowly no doubt and poorer: - You are more near, but then you will help to convey them to me. - No, don’t smile, Philip, now, so scornfully! While you look so - Scornful and strong, I feel as if I were standing and trembling, - Fancying the burn in the dark a wide and rushing river; - And I feel coming unto me from you, or it may be from elsewhere, - Strong contemptuous resolve; I forget, and I bound as across it. - But after all, you know, it may be a dangerous river. - Oh, if it were so, Elspie, he said, I can carry you over. - Nay, she replied, you would tire of having me for a burden. - O sweet burden, he said, and are you not light as a feather? - But it is deep, very likely, she said, over head and ears too. - O let us try, he answered, the waters themselves will support us, - Yea, very ripples and waves will form to a boat underneath us; - There is a boat, he said, and a name is written upon it, - Love, he said, and kissed her.— - But I will read your books, though, - Said she: you’ll leave me some, Philip? - Not I, replied he, a volume. - This is the way with you all, I perceive, high and low together. - Women must read, as if they didn’t know all beforehand: - Weary of plying the pump, we turn to the running water, - And the running spring will needs have a pump built upon it. - Weary and sick of our books, we come to repose in your eyelight, - As to the woodland and water, the freshness and beauty of Nature. - Lo, you will talk, forsooth, of things we are sick to the death of. - What, she said, and if I have let you become my sweetheart, - I am to read no books! but you may go your ways then, - And I will read, she said, with my father at home as I used to. - If you must have it, he said, I myself will read them to you. - Well, she said, but no, I will read to myself, when I choose it; - What, you suppose we never read anything here in our Highlands, - Bella and I with the father, in all our winter evenings! - But we must go, Mr. Philip— - I shall not go at all, said - He, if you call me Mr. Thank heaven! that’s over for ever. - No, but it’s not, she said, it is not over, nor will be. - Was it not then, she asked, the name I called you first by? - No, Mr. Philip, no—you have kissed me enough for two nights; - No—come, Philip, come, or I’11 go myself without you. - You never call me Philip, he answered, until I kiss you. - As they went home by the moon that waning now rose later, - Stepping through mossy stones by the runnel under the alders, - Loitering unconsciously, Philip, she said, I will not be a lady; - We will do work together—you do not wish me a lady. - It is a weakness perhaps and a foolishness; still it is so; - I have been used all my life to help myself and others; - I could not bear to sit and be waited on by footmen, - No, not even by women— - And God forbid, he answered, - God forbid you should ever be aught but yourself, my Elspie! - As for service, I love it not, I; your weakness is mine too, - I am sure Adam told you as much as that about me. - I am sure, she said, he called you wild and flighty. - That was true, he said, till my wings were clipped. But, my Elspie, - You will at least just go and see my uncle and cousins, - Sister, and brother, and brother’s wife. You should go, if you liked it, - Just as you are; just what you are, at any rate, my Elspie. - Yes, we will go, and give the old solemn gentility stage-play - One little look, to leave it with all the more satisfaction. - That may be, my Philip, she said; you are good to think of it. - But we are letting our fancies run on indeed; after all, it - May all come, you know, Mr. Philip, to nothing whatever, - There is so much that needs to be done, so much that may happen. - All that needs to be done, said he, shall be done, and quickly. - And on the morrow he took good heart, and spoke with David. - Not unwarned the father, nor had been unperceiving: - Fearful much, but in all from the first reassured by the Tutor. - And he remembered how he had fancied the lad from the first; and - Then, too, the old man’s eye was much more for inner than outer, - And the natural tune of his heart without misgiving - Went to the noble words of that grand song of the Lowlands, - _Rank is the guinea stamp, but the man’s a man for a’ that_. - Still he was doubtful, would hear nothing of it now, but insisted - Philip should go to his books; if he chose, he might write; if after - Chose to return, might come; he truly believed him honest. - But a year must elapse, and many things might happen. - Yet at the end he burst into tears, called Elspie, and blessed them: - Elspie, my bairn, he said, I thought not when at the doorway - Standing with you, and telling the young man where he would find us, - I did not think he would one day be asking me here to surrender - What is to me more than wealth in my Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich. - - -IX - - _Arva, beata Petamus arva!_ - - So on the morrow’s morrow, with Term-time dread returning, - Philip returned to his books, and read, and remained at Oxford, - All the Christmas and Easter remained and read at Oxford. - Great was wonder in College when postman showed to butler - Letters addressed to David Mackaye, at Tober-na-vuolich, - Letter on letter, at least one a week, one every Sunday: - Great at that Highland post was wonder too and conjecture, - When the postman showed letters to wife, and wife to the lassies, - And the lassies declared they couldn’t be really to David; - Yes, they could see inside a paper with E. upon it. - Great was surmise in College at breakfast, wine, and supper, - Keen the conjecture and joke; but Adam kept the secret, - Adam the secret kept, and Philip read like fury. - This is a letter written by Philip at Christmas to Adam. - There may be beings, perhaps, whose vocation it is to be idle, - Idle, sumptuous even, luxurious, if it must be: - Only let each man seek to be that for which nature meant him. - If you were meant to plough, Lord Marquis, out with you, and do it; - If you were meant to be idle, O beggar, behold, I will feed you. - If you were born for a groom, and you seem, by your dress, to believe so, - Do it like a man, Sir George, for pay, in a livery stable; - Yes, you may so release that slip of a boy at the corner, - Fingering books at the window, misdoubting the eighth commandment. - Ah, fair Lady Maria, God meant you to live and be lovely; - Be so then, and I bless you. But ye, ye spurious ware, who - Might be plain women, and can be by no possibility better! - —Ye unhappy statuettes, and miserable trinkets, - Poor alabaster chimney-piece ornaments under glass cases, - Come, in God’s name, come down! the very French clock by you - Puts you to shame with ticking; the fire-irons deride you. - You, young girl, who have had such advantages, learnt so quickly, - Can you not teach? O yes, and she likes Sunday-school extremely, - Only it’s soon in the morning. Away! if to teach be your calling, - It is no play, but a business: off! go teach and be paid for it. - Lady Sophia’s so good to the sick, so firm and so gentle. - Is there a nobler sphere than of hospital nurse and matron? - Hast thou for cooking a turn, little Lady Clarissa? in with them, - In with your fingers! their beauty it spoils, but your own it enhances - For it is beautiful only to do the thing we are meant for. - This was the answer that came from the Tutor, the grave man, Adam - When the armies are set in array, and the battle beginning, - Is it well that the soldier whose post is far to the leftward - Say, I will go to the right, it is there I shall do best service? - There is a great Field-Marshal, my friend, who arrays our battalions; - Let us to Providence trust, and abide and work in our stations. - This was the final retort from the eager, impetuous Philip. - I am sorry to say your Providence puzzles me sadly; - Children of Circumstance are we to be? you answer, On no wise! - Where does Circumstance end, and Providence, where begins it? - What are we to resist, and what are we to be friends with? - If there is battle, ’tis battle by night, I stand in the darkness, - Here in the mêlée of men, Ionian and Dorian on both sides, - Signal and password known; which is friend and which is foeman? - Is it a friend? I doubt, though he speak with the voice of a brother. - Still you are right, I suppose; you always are, and will be; - Though I mistrust the Field-Marshal, I bow to the duty of order. - Yet is my feeling rather to ask, where is the battle? - Yes, I could find in my heart to cry, notwithstanding my Elspie, - O that the armies indeed were arrayed! O joy of the onset! - Sound, thou Trumpet of God, come forth, Great Cause, to array us, - King and leader appear, thy soldiers sorrowing seek thee. - Would that the armies indeed were arrayed, O where is the battle! - Neither battle I see, nor arraying, nor King in Israel, - Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation, - Backed by a solemn appeal, ‘For God’s sake, do not stir, there!’ - Yet you are right, I suppose; if you don’t attack my conclusion, - Let us get on as we can, and do the thing we are fit for; - Every one for himself, and the common success for us all, and - Thankful, if not for our own, why then for the triumph of others, - Get along, each as we can, and do the thing we are meant for. - That isn’t likely to be by sitting still, eating and drinking. - These are fragments again without date addressed to Adam. - As at return of tide the total weight of ocean, - Drawn by moon and sun from Labrador and Greenland, - Sets-in amain, in the open space betwixt Mull and Scarba, - Heaving, swelling, spreading the might of the mighty Atlantic; - There into cranny and slit of the rocky, cavernous bottom - Settles down, and with dimples huge the smooth sea-surface - Eddies, coils, and whirls; by dangerous Corryvreckan: - So in my soul of souls, through its cells and secret recesses, - Comes back, swelling and spreading, the old democratic fervour. - But as the light of day enters some populous city, - Shaming away, ere it come, by the chilly day-streak signal, - High and low, the misusers of night, shaming out the gas-lamps— - All the great empty streets are flooded with broadening clearness, - Which, withal, by inscrutable simultaneous access - Permeates far and pierces to the very cellars lying in - Narrow high back-lane, and court, and alley of alleys:— - He that goes forth to his walks, while speeding to the suburb, - Sees sights only peaceful and pure: as labourers settling - Slowly to work, in their limbs the lingering sweetness of slumber; - Humble market-carts, coming in, bringing in, not only - Flower, fruit, farm-store, but sounds and sights of the country - Dwelling yet on the sense of the dreamy drivers; soon after - Half-awake servant-maids unfastening drowsy shutters - Up at the windows, or down, letting-in the air by the doorway; - School-boys, school-girls soon, with slate, portfolio, satchel, - Hampered as they haste, those running, these others maidenly tripping, - Early clerk anon turning out to stroll, or it may be - Meet his sweetheart—waiting behind the garden gate there; - Merchant on his grass-plat haply bare-headed; and now by this time - Little child bringing breakfast to ‘father’ that sits on the timber - There by the scaffolding; see, she waits for the can beside him; - Meantime above purer air untarnished of new-lit fires: - So that the whole great wicked artificial civilised fabric— - All its unfinished houses, lots for sale, and railway out-works— - Seems reaccepted, resumed to Primal Nature and Beauty:— - —Such—in me, and to me, and on me the love of Elspie! - Philip returned to his books, but returned to his Highlands after; - Got a first, ’tis said; a winsome bride, ’tis certain. - There while courtship was ending, nor yet the wedding appointed, - Under her father he studied the handling of hoe and of hatchet: - Thither that summer succeeding came Adam and Arthur to see him - Down by the lochs from the distant Glenmorison; Adam the tutor, - Arthur, and Hope; and the Piper anon who was there for a visit; - He had been into the schools; plucked almost; all but a _gone-coon_; - So he declared; never once had brushed up his _hairy_ Aldrich; - Into the great might-have-been upsoaring sublime and ideal - Gave to historical questions a free poetical treatment; - Leaving vocabular ghosts undisturbed in their lexicon-limbo, - Took Aristophanes up at a shot; and the whole three last weeks - Went, in his life and the sunshine rejoicing, to Nuneham and Godstowe: - What were the claims of Degree to those of life and the sunshine? - There did the four find Philip, the poet, the speaker, the Chartist, - Delving at Highland soil, and railing at Highland landlords, - Railing, but more, as it seemed, for the fun of the Piper’s fury. - There saw they David and Elspie Mackaye, and the Piper was almost - Almost deeply in love with Bella the sister of Elspie; - But the good Adam was heedful: they did not go too often. - There in the bright October, the gorgeous bright October, - When the brackens are changed, and heather blooms are faded, - And amid russet of heather and fern green trees are bonnie, - Alders are green, and oaks, the rowan scarlet and yellow, - Heavy the aspen, and heavy with jewels of gold the birch-tree, - There, when shearing had ended, and barley-stooks were garnered, - David gave Philip to wife his daughter, his darling Elspie; - Elspie the quiet, the brave, was wedded to Philip the poet. - So won Philip his bride. They are married and gone—But oh, Thou - Mighty one, Muse of great Epos, and Idyll the playful and tender, - Be it recounted in song, ere we part, and thou fly to thy Pindus, - (Pindus is it, O Muse, or Ætna, or even Ben-nevis?) - Be it recounted in song, O Muse of the Epos and Idyll, - Who gave what at the wedding, the gifts and fair gratulations. - Adam, the grave careful Adam, a medicine chest and tool-box, - Hope a saddle, and Arthur a plough, and the Piper a rifle, - Airlie a necklace for Elspie, and Hobbes a Family Bible, - Airlie a necklace, and Hobbes a Bible and iron bedstead. - What was the letter, O Muse, sent withal by the corpulent hero? - This is the letter of Hobbes the kilted and corpulent hero. - So the last speech and confession is made, O my eloquent speaker! - So _the good time_ is _coming_, or come is it? O my Chartist! - So the cathedral is finished at last, O my Pugin of women; - Finished, and now, is it true? to be taken out whole to New Zealand! - Well, go forth to thy field, to thy barley, with Ruth, O Boaz, - Ruth, who for thee hath deserted her people, her gods, her mountains. - Go, as in Ephrath of old, in the gate of Bethlehem said they, - Go, be the wife in thy house both Rachel and Leah unto thee; - Be thy wedding of silver, albeit of iron thy bedstead! - Yea, to the full golden fifty renewed be! and fair memoranda - Happily fill the fly-leaves duly left in the Family Bible. - Live, and when Hobbes is forgotten, may’st thou, an unroasted Grand-sire, - See thy children’s children, and Democracy upon New Zealand! - This was the letter of Hobbes, and this the postscript after. - Wit in the letter will prate, but wisdom speaks in a postscript; - Listen to wisdom—_Which things_—you perhaps didn’t know, my dear fellow, - I have reflected; _Which things are an allegory_, Philip. - For this Rachel-and-Leah is marriage; which, I have seen it, - Lo, and have known it, is always, and must be, bigamy only, - Even in noblest kind a duality, compound, and complex, - One part heavenly-ideal, the other vulgar and earthy: - For this Rachel-and-Leah is marriage, and Laban, their father, - Circumstance, chance, the world, our uncle and hard task-master. - Rachel we found as we fled from the daughters of Heth by the desert - Rachel we met at the well; we came, we saw, we kissed her; - Rachel we serve-for, long years,—that seem as a few days only, - E’en for the love we have to her,—and win her at last of Laban. - Is it not Rachel we take in our joy from the hand of her father? - Is it not Rachel we lead in the mystical veil from the altar? - Rachel we dream-of at night: in the morning, behold, it is Leah. - ‘Nay, it is custom,’ saith Laban, the Leah indeed is the elder. - Happy and wise who consents to redouble his service to Laban, - So, fulfilling her week, he may add to the elder the younger, - Not repudiates Leah, but wins the Rachel unto her! - Neither hate thou thy Leah, my Jacob, she also is worthy; - So, many days shall thy Rachel have joy, and survive her sister; - Yea, and her children—_Which things are an allegory_, Philip, - Aye, and by Origen’s head with a vengeance truly, a long one! - This was a note from the Tutor, the grave man, nick-named Adam. - I shall see you of course, my Philip, before your departure - Joy be with you, my boy, with you and your beautiful Elspie. - Happy is he that found, and finding was not heedless; - Happy is he that found, and happy the friend that was with him. - So won Philip his bride:— - They are married and gone to New Zealand. - Five hundred pounds in pocket, with books, and two or three pictures, - Tool-box, plough, and the rest, they rounded the sphere to New Zealand. - There he hewed, and dug; subdued the earth and his spirit; - There he built him a home; there Elspie bare him his children, - David and Bella; perhaps ere this too an Elspie or Adam; - There hath he farmstead and land, and fields of corn and flax fields; - And the Antipodes too have a Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich. - - - - -IDYLLIC SKETCHES. - - -_ITE DOMUM SATURÆ, VENIT HESPERUS._ - - The skies have sunk, and hid the upper snow - (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie), - The rainy clouds are filing fast below, - And wet will be the path, and wet shall we. - Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. - - Ah dear, and where is he, a year agone, - Who stepped beside and cheered us on and on? - My sweetheart wanders far away from me, - In foreign land or on a foreign sea. - Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. - - The lightning zigzags shoot across the sky - (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie), - And through the vale the rains go sweeping by; - Ah me, and when in shelter shall we be? - Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. - - Cold, dreary cold, the stormy winds feel they - O’er foreign lands and foreign seas that stray - (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie). - And doth he e’er, I wonder, bring to mind - The pleasant huts and herds he left behind? - And doth he sometimes in his slumbering see - The feeding kine, and doth he think of me, - My sweetheart wandering wheresoe’er it be? - Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. - - The thunder bellows far from snow to snow - (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie), - And loud and louder roars the flood below. - Heigho! but soon in shelter shall we be: - Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. - - Or shall he find before his term be sped, - Some comelier maid that he shall wish to wed? - (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.) - For weary is work, and weary day by day - To have your comfort miles on miles away. - Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. - - Or may it be that I shall find my mate, - And he returning see himself too late? - For work we must, and what we see, we see, - And God he knows, and what must be, must be, - When sweethearts wander far away from me. - Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. - - The sky behind is brightening up anew - (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie), - The rain is ending, and our journey too: - Heigho! aha! for here at home are we:— - In, Rose, and in, Provence and La Palie. - - -_A LONDON IDYLL._ - - On grass, on gravel, in the sun, - Or now beneath the shade, - They went, in pleasant Kensington, - A prentice and a maid. - - That Sunday morning’s April glow, - How should it not impart - A stir about the veins that flow - To feed the youthful heart. - - Ah! years may come, and years may bring - The truth that is not bliss, - But will they bring another thing - That can compare with this? - - I read it in that arm she lays - So soft on his; her mien, - Her step, her very gown betrays - (What in her eyes were seen) - That not in vain the young buds round, - The cawing birds above, - The air, the incense of the ground, - Are whispering, breathing love. - - Ah! years may come, &c. - - To inclination, young and blind, - So perfect, as they lent, - By purest innocence confined - Unconscious free consent. - Persuasive power of vernal change, - On this, thine earliest day, - Canst thou have found in all thy range - One fitter type than they? - - Ah! years may come, &c. - - Th’ high-titled cares of adult strife, - Which we our duties call, - Trades, arts, and politics of life, - Say, have they after all, - One other object, end or use - Than that, for girl and boy, - The punctual earth may still produce - This golden flower of joy? - - Ah! years may come, &c. - - O odours of new-budding rose, - O lily’s chaste perfume, - O fragrance that didst first unclose - The young Creation’s bloom! - Ye hang around me, while in sun - Anon and now in shade, - I watched in pleasant Kensington - The prentice and the maid. - - Ah! years may come, and years may bring - The truth that is not bliss, - But will they bring another thing - That will compare with this? - - -_NATURA NATURANS._[12] - - Beside me,—in the car,—she sat, - She spake not, no, nor looked to me: - From her to me, from me to her, - What passed so subtly, stealthily? - As rose to rose that by it blows - Its interchanged aroma flings; - Or wake to sound of one sweet note - The virtues of disparted strings. - - Beside me, nought but this!—but this, - That influent as within me dwelt - Her life, mine too within her breast, - Her brain, her every limb she felt: - We sat; while o’er and in us, more - And more, a power unknown prevailed, - Inhaling, and inhaled,—and still - ’Twas one, inhaling or inhaled. - - Beside me, nought but this;—and passed; - I passed; and know not to this day - If gold or jet her girlish hair, - If black, or brown, or lucid-grey - Her eye’s young glance: the fickle chance - That joined us, yet may join again; - But I no face again could greet - As hers, whose life was in me then. - - As unsuspecting mere a maid - As, fresh in maidhood’s bloomiest bloom, - In casual second-class did e’er - By casual youth her seat assume; - Or vestal, say, of saintliest clay, - For once by balmiest airs betrayed - Unto emotions too, too sweet - To be unlingeringly gainsaid: - - Unowning then, confusing soon - With dreamier dreams that o’er the glass - Of shyly ripening woman-sense - Reflected, scarce reflected, pass, - A wife may-be, a mother she - In Hymen’s shrine recalls not now, - She first in hour, ah, not profane, - With me to Hymen learnt to bow. - - Ah no!—Yet owned we, fused in one, - The Power which e’en in stones and earths - By blind elections felt, in forms - Organic breeds to myriad births; - By lichen small on granite wall - Approved, its faintest feeblest stir - Slow spreading, strengthening long, at last - Vibrated full in me and her - - In me and her—sensation strange! - The lily grew to pendent head, - To vernal airs the mossy bank - Its sheeny primrose spangles spread, - In roof o’er roof of shade sun-proof - Did cedar strong itself outclimb, - And altitude of aloe proud - Aspire in floreal crown sublime; - - Flashed flickering forth fantastic flies, - Big bees their burly bodies swung, - Rooks roused with civic din the elms, - And lark its wild reveillez rung; - In Libyan dell the light gazelle, - The leopard lithe in Indian glade, - And dolphin, brightening tropic seas, - In us were living, leapt and played: - - Their shells did slow crustacea build, - Their gilded skins did snakes renew. - While mightier spines for loftier kind - Their types in amplest limbs outgrew; - Yea, close comprest in human breast, - What moss, and tree, and livelier thing, - What Earth, Sun, Star of force possest, - Lay budding, burgeoning forth for Spring - - Such sweet preluding sense of old - Led on in Eden’s sinless place - The hour when bodies human first - Combined the primal prime embrace, - Such genial heat the blissful seat - In man and woman owned unblamed, - When, naked both, its garden paths - They walked unconscious, unashamed: - - Ere, clouded yet in mistiest dawn, - Above the horizon dusk and dun, - One mountain crest with light had tipped - That Orb that is the Spirit’s Sun; - Ere dreamed young flowers in vernal showers - Of fruit to rise the flower above, - Or ever yet to young Desire - Was told the mystic name of Love. - - - - -AMOURS DE VOYAGE. - - - _Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio,_ - _And taste with a distempered appetite!_ - - SHAKSPEARE. - - _Il doutait de tout, même de l’amour._ - - FRENCH NOVEL. - - _Solvitur ambulando._ - - SOLUTIO SOPHISMATUM. - - _Flevit amores_ - _Non elaboratum ad pedem._ - - HORACE. - - -_AMOURS DE VOYAGE._ - - -CANTO I. - - _Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summits,_ - _Unto the sun and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth,_ - _Come, let us go,—to a land wherein gods of the old time wandered,_ - _Where every breath even now changes to ether divine._ - _Come, let us go; though withal a voice whisper, ‘The world that we - live in,_ - _Whithersoever we turn, still is the same narrow crib;_ - _’Tis but to prove limitation, and measure a cord, that we travel;_ - _Let who would ’scape and be free go to his chamber and think;_ - _’Tis but to change idle fancies for memories wilfully falser;_ - _’Tis but to go and have been.’—Come, little bark! let us go._ - - -I. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Dear Eustatio, I write that you may write me an answer. - Or at the least to put us again _en rapport_ with each other. - Rome disappoints me much,—St. Peter’s, perhaps, in especial; - Only the Arch of Titus and view from the Lateran please me: - This, however, perhaps is the weather, which truly is horrid. - Greece must be better, surely; and yet I am feeling so spiteful, - That I could travel to Athens, to Delphi, and Troy, and Mount Sinai, - Though but to see with my eyes that these are vanity also. - Rome disappoints me much; I hardly as yet understand, but - _Rubbishy_ seems the word that most exactly would suit it. - All the foolish destructions, and all the sillier savings, - All the incongruous things of past incompatible ages, - Seem to be treasured up here to make fools of present and future. - Would to Heaven the old Goths had made a cleaner sweep of it! - Would to Heaven some new ones would come and destroy these churches! - However, one can live in Rome as also in London. - It is a blessing, no doubt, to be rid, at least for a time, of - All one’s friends and relations,—yourself (forgive me!) included,— - All the _assujettissement_ of having been what one has been, - What one thinks one is, or thinks that others suppose one; - Yet, in despite of all, we turn like fools to the English. - Vernon has been my fate; who is here the same that you knew him— - Making the tour, it seems, with friends of the name of Trevellyn. - - -II. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Rome disappoints me still; but I shrink and adapt myself to it. - Somehow a tyrannous sense of a superincumbent oppression - Still, wherever I go, accompanies ever, and makes me - Feel like a tree (shall I say?) buried under a ruin of brickwork - Rome, believe me, my friend, is like its own Monte Testaceo, - Merely a marvellous mass of broken and castaway wine-pots. - Ye gods! what do I want with this rubbish of ages departed, - Things that Nature abhors, the experiments that she has failed in? - What do I find in the Forum? An archway and two or three pillars. - Well, but St. Peter’s? Alas, Bernini has filled it with sculpture! - No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum. - Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement, - This the old Romans had; but tell me, is this an idea? - Yet of solidity much, but of splendour little is extant: - ‘Brickwork I found thee, and marble I left thee!’ their Emperor vaunted; - ‘Marble I thought thee, and brickwork I find thee!’ the Tourist may - answer. - - -III. GEORGINA TREVELLYN TO LOUISA ——. - - At last, dearest Louisa, I take up my pen to address you. - Here we are, you see, with the seven-and-seventy boxes, - Courier, Papa and Mamma, the children, and Mary and Susan: - Here we all are at Rome, and delighted of course with St. Peter’s, - And very pleasantly lodged in the famous Piazza di Spagna. - Rome is a wonderful place, but Mary shall tell you about it; - Not very gay, however; the English are mostly at Naples; - There are the A.’s, we hear, and most of the W. party. - George, however, is come; did I tell you about his mustachios? - Dear, I must really stop, for the carriage, they tell me, is waiting; - Mary will finish; and Susan is writing, they say, to Sophia. - Adieu, dearest Louise,—evermore your faithful Georgina. - Who can a Mr. Claude be whom George has taken to be with? - Very stupid, I think, but George says so _very_ clever. - - -IV. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - No, the Christian faith, as at any rate I understood it. - With its humiliations and exaltations combining, - Exaltations sublime, and yet diviner abasements, - Aspirations from something most shameful here upon earth and - In our poor selves to something most perfect above in the heavens,— - No, the Christian faith, as I, at least, understood it, - Is not here, O Rome, in any of these thy churches; - Is not here, but in Freiburg, or Rheims, or Westminster Abbey, - What in thy Dome I find, in all thy recenter efforts, - Is a something, I think, more _rational_ far, more earthly, - Actual, less ideal, devout not in scorn and refusal, - But in a positive, calm, Stoic-Epicurean acceptance. - This I begin to detect in St. Peter’s and some of the churches, - Mostly in all that I see of the sixteenth-century masters; - Overlaid of course with infinite gauds and gewgaws, - Innocent, playful follies, the toys and trinkets of childhood, - Forced on maturer years, as the serious one thing needful, - By the barbarian will of the rigid and ignorant Spaniard. - Curious work, meantime, re-entering society: how we - Walk a livelong day, great Heaven, and watch our shadows! - What our shadows seem, forsooth, we will ourselves be. - Do I look like that I you think me that: then I am that. - - -V. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Luther, they say, was unwise; like a half-taught German, he could not - See that old follies were passing most tranquilly out of remembrance; - Leo the Tenth was employing all efforts to clear out abuses; - Jupiter, Juno, and Venus, Fine Arts, and Fine Letters, the Poets, - Scholars, and Sculptors, and Painters, were quietly clearing away the - Martyrs, and Virgins, and Saints, or at any rate Thomas Aquinas: - He must forsooth make a fuss and distend his huge Wittenberg lungs, and - Bring back Theology once yet again in a flood upon Europe: - Lo you, for forty days from the windows of heaven it fell; the - Waters prevail on the earth yet more for a hundred and fifty; - Are they abating at last? the doves that are sent to explore are - Wearily fain to return, at the best with a leaflet of promise,— - Fain to return, as they went, to the wandering wave-tost vessel,— - Fain to re-enter the roof which covers the clean and the unclean,— - Luther, they say, was unwise; he didn’t see how things were going; - Luther was foolish,—but, O great God! what call you Ignatius? - O my tolerant soul, be still! but you talk of barbarians, - Alaric, Attila, Genseric;—why, they came, they killed, they - Ravaged, and went on their way; but these vile, tyrannous Spaniards, - These are here still,—how long, O ye heavens, in the country of Dante? - These, that fanaticized Europe, which now can forget them, release not - This, their choicest of prey, this Italy; here you see them,— - Here, with emasculate pupils and gimcrack churches of Gesu, - Pseudo-learning and lies, confessional-boxes and postures,— - Here, with metallic beliefs and regimental devotions,— - Here, overcrusting with slime, perverting, defacing, debasing, - Michael Angelo’s Dome, that had hung the Pantheon in heaven, - Raphael’s Joys and Graces, and thy clear stars, Galileo! - - -VI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Which of three Misses Trevellyn it is that Vernon shall marry - Is not a thing to be known; for our friend is one of those natures - Which have their perfect delight in the general tender-domestic; - So that he trifles with Mary’s shawl, ties Susan’s bonnet, - Dances with all, but at home is most, they say, with Georgina, - Who is, however, _too_ silly in my apprehension for Vernon. - I, as before when I wrote, continue to see them a little; - Not that I like them much or care a _bajocco_ for Vernon, - But I am slow at Italian, have not many English acquaintance, - And I am asked, in short, and am not good at excuses. - Middle-class people these, bankers very likely, not wholly - Pure of the taint of the shop; will at table d’hôte and restaurant - Have their shilling’s worth, their penny’s pennyworth even: - Neither man’s aristocracy this, nor God’s, God knoweth! - Yet they are fairly descended, they give you to know, well connected; - Doubtless somewhere in some neighbourhood have, and are careful to keep, - some - Threadbare-genteel relations, who in their tum are enchanted - Grandly among county people to introduce at assemblies - To the unpennied cadets our cousins with excellent fortunes. - Neither man’s aristocracy this, nor God’s, God knoweth! - - -VII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Ah, what a shame, indeed, to abuse these most worthy people! - Ah, what a sin to have sneered at their innocent rustic pretensions! - Is it not laudable really, this reverent worship of station? - Is it not fitting that wealth should tender this homage to culture? - Is it not touching to witness these efforts, if little availing, - Painfully made, to perform the old ritual service of manners? - Shall not devotion atone for the absence of knowledge? and fervour - Palliate, cover, the fault of a superstitious observance? - Dear, dear, what do I say? but, alas! just now, like Iago, - I can be nothing at all, if it is not critical wholly; - So in fantastic height, in coxcomb exultation, - Here in the garden I walk, can freely concede to the Maker - That the works of His hand are all very good: His creatures, - Beast of the field and fowl, He brings them before me; I name them; - That which I name them, they are,—the bird, the beast, and the cattle. - But for Adam,—alas, poor critical coxcomb Adam! - But for Adam there is not found an help-meet for him. - - -VIII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - No, great Dome of Agrippa, thou art not Christian! canst not, - Strip and replaster and daub and do what they will with thee, be so! - Here underneath the great porch of colossal Corinthian columns, - Here as I walk, do I dream of the Christian belfries above them; - Or, on a bench as I sit and abide for long hours, till thy whole vast - Round grows dim as in dreams to my eyes, I repeople thy niches, - Not with the Martyrs, and Saints, and Confessors, and Virgins, and - children, - But with the mightier forms of an older, austerer worship; - And I recite to myself, how - Eager for battle here - Stood Vulcan, here matronal Juno, - And with the bow to his shoulder faithful - He who with pure dew laveth of Castaly - His flowing locks, who holdeth of Lycia - The oak forest and the wood that bore him, - Delos’ and Patara’s own Apollo.[13] - - -IX. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Yet it is pleasant, I own it, to be in their company; pleasant, - Whatever else it may be, to abide in the feminine presence. - Pleasant, but wrong, will you say? But this happy, serene coexistence - Is to some poor soft souls, I fear, a necessity simple, - Meat and drink and life, and music, filling with sweetness, - Thrilling with melody sweet, with harmonies strange overwhelming, - All the long-silent strings of an awkward, meaningless fabric. - Yet as for that, I could live, I believe, with children; to have those - Pure and delicate forms encompassing, moving about you, - This were enough, I could think; and truly with glad resignation - Could from the dream of Romance, from the fever of flushed adolescence, - Look to escape and subside into peaceful avuncular functions. - Nephews and nieces! alas, for as yet I have none! and, moreover, - Mothers are jealous, I fear me, too often, too rightfully; fathers - Think they have title exclusive to spoiling their own little darlings; - And by the law of the land, in despite of Malthusian doctrine, - No sort of proper provision is made for that most patriotic, - Most meritorious subject, the childless and bachelor uncle. - - -X. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Ye, too, marvellous Twain, that erect on the Monte Cavallo - Stand by your rearing steeds in the grace of your motionless movement, - Stand with your upstretched arms and tranquil regardant faces, - Stand as instinct with life in the might of immutable manhood,— - O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas. - Are ye Christian too? to convert and redeem and renew you, - Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has set up on the apex - Of the Egyptian stone that o’ertops you, the Christian symbol? - And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble, - Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers, - Juno and Ceres, Minerva, Apollo, the Muses and Bacchus, - Ye unto whom far and near come posting the Christian pilgrims, - Ye that are ranged in the halls of the mystic Christian Pontiff, - Are ye also baptized? are ye of the kingdom of Heaven? - Utter, O some one, the word that shall reconcile Ancient and Modern! - Am I to turn me from this unto thee, great Chapel of Sixtus? - - -XI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - These are the facts. The uncle, the elder brother, the squire (a - Little embarrassed, I fancy), resides in the family place in - Cornwall, of course; ‘Papa is in business,’ Mary informs me; - He’s a good sensible man, whatever his trade is. The mother - Is—shall I call it fine?—herself she would tell you refined, and - Greatly, I fear me, looks down on my bookish and maladroit manners; - Somewhat affecteth the blue; would talk to me often of poets; - Quotes, which I hate, Childe Harold; but also appreciates Wordsworth; - Sometimes adventures on Schiller; and then to religion diverges; - Questions me much about Oxford; and yet, in her loftiest flights still - Grates the fastidious ear with the slightly mercantile accent. - - Is it contemptible, Eustace—I’m perfectly ready to think so,— - Is it,—the horrible pleasure of pleasing inferior people? - I am ashamed my own self; and yet true it is, if disgraceful, - That for the first time in life I am living and moving with freedom. - I, who never could talk to the people I meet with my uncle,— - I, who have always failed,—I, trust me, can suit the Trevellyns; - I, believe me,—great conquest, am liked by the country bankers. - And I am glad to be liked, and like in return very kindly. - So it proceeds; _Laissez faire, laissez aller_,—such is the watchword. - Well, I know there are thousands as pretty and hundreds as pleasant. - Girls by the dozen as good, and girls in abundance with polish - Higher and manners more perfect than Susan or Mary Trevellyn. - Well, I know, after all, it is only juxtaposition,— - Juxtaposition, in short; and what is juxtaposition? - - -XII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - But I am in for it now,—_laissez faire_, of a truth, _laissez aller_. - Yes, I am going,—I feel it, I feel and cannot recall it,— - Fusing with this thing and that, entering into all sorts of relations, - Tying I know not what ties, which, whatever they are, I know one thing, - Will, and must, woe is me, be one day painfully broken,— - Broken with painful remorses, with shrinkings of soul, and relentings, - Foolish delays, more foolish evasions, most foolish renewals. - But I have made the step, have quitted the ship of Ulysses; - Quitted the sea and the shore, passed into the magical island; - Yet on my lips is the _moly_, medicinal, offered of Hermes. - I have come into the precinct, the labyrinth closes around me, - Path into path rounding slyly; I pace slowly on, and the fancy, - Struggling awhile to sustain the long sequences weary, bewildered. - Fain must collapse in despair; I yield, I am lost, and know nothing; - Yet in my bosom unbroken remaineth the clue; I shall use it. - Lo, with the rope on my loins I descend through the fissure; I sink, yet - Inly secure in the strength of invisible arms up above me; - Still, wheresoever I swing, wherever to shore, or to shelf, or - Floor of cavern untrodden, shell sprinkled, enchanting, I know I - Yet shall one time feel the strong cord tighten about me,— - Feel it, relentless, upbear me from spots I would rest in; and though the - Rope sway wildly, I faint, crags wound me, from crag unto crag re- - Bounding, or, wide in the void, I die ten deaths, ere the end I - Yet shall plant firm foot on the broad lofty spaces I quit, shall - Feel underneath me again the great massy strengths of abstraction, - Look yet abroad from the height o’er the sea whose salt wave I have - tasted. - - -XIII. GEORGINA TREVELLYN TO LOUISA ——. - - Dearest Louisa,—Inquire, if you please, about Mr. Claude ——. - He has been once at R., and remembers meeting the H.’s. - Harriet L., perhaps, may be able to tell you about him. - It is an awkward youth, but still with very good manners; - Not without prospects, we hear; and, George says, highly connected. - Georgy declares it absurd, but Mamma is alarmed, and insists he has - Taken up strange opinions, and may be turning a Papist. - Certainly once he spoke of a daily service he went to. - ‘Where?’ we asked, and he laughed and answered, ‘At the Pantheon - This was a temple, you know, and now is a Catholic church; and - Though it is said that Mazzini has sold it for Protestant service, - Yet I suppose this change can hardly as yet be effected. - Adieu again,—evermore, my dearest, your loving Georgina. - - -P.S. BY MARY TREVELLYN. - - I am to tell you, you say, what I think of our last new acquaintance. - Well, then, I think that George has a very fair right to be jealous. - I do not like him much, though I do not dislike being with him. - He is what people call, I suppose, a superior man, and - Certainly seems so to me; but I think he is terribly selfish. - - * * * * * - - _Alba, thou findest me still, and, Alba, thou findest me ever,_ - _Now from the Capitol steps, now over Titus’s Arch,_ - _Here from the large grassy spaces that spread from the Lateran portal,_ - _Towering o’er aqueduct lines lost in perspective between,_ - _Or from a Vatican window, or bridge, or the high Coliseum,_ - _Clear by the garlanded line cut of the Flavian ring._ - _Beautiful can I not call thee, and yet thou hast power to o’ermaster,_ - _Power of mere beauty; in dreams, Alba, thou hauntest me still._ - _Is it religion? I ask me; or is it a vain superstition?_ - _Slavery abject and gross? service, too feeble, of truth?_ - _Is it an idol I bow to, or is it a god that I worship?_ - _Do I sink back on the old, or do I soar from the mean?_ - _So through the city I wander and question, unsatisfied ever,_ - _Reverent so I accept, doubtful because I revere._ - - -CANTO II. - - _Is it illusion? or does there a spirit from perfecter ages,_ - _Here, even yet, amid loss, change, and corruption abide?_ - _Does there a spirit we know not, though seek, though we find, - comprehend not,_ - _Here to entice and confuse, tempt and evade us, abide?_ - _Lives in the exquisite grace of the column disjointed and single,_ - _Haunts the rude masses of brick garlanded gaily with vine,_ - _E’en in the turret fantastic surviving that springs from the ruin,_ - _E’en in the people itself? is it illusion or not?_ - _Is it illusion or not that attracteth the pilgrim transalpine,_ - _Brings him a dullard and dunce hither to pry and to stare?_ - _Is it illusion or not that allures the barbarian stranger,_ - _Brings him with gold to the shrine, brings him in arms to the gate?_ - - -I. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - What do the people say, and what does the government do?—you - Ask, and I know not at all. Yet fortune will favour your hopes; and - I, who avoided it all, am fated, it seems, to describe it. - I, who nor meddle nor make in politics,—I who sincerely - Put not my trust in leagues nor any suffrage by ballot, - Never predicted Parisian millenniums, never beheld a - New Jerusalem coming down dressed like a bride out of heaven - Right on the Place de la Concorde,—I, nevertheless, let me say it, - Could in my soul of souls, this day, with the Gaul at the gates shed - One true tear for thee, thou poor little Roman Republic; - What, with the German restored, with Sicily safe to the Bourbon, - Not leave one poor corner for native Italian exertion? - France, it is foully done! and you, poor foolish England,— - You, who a twelvemonth ago said nations must choose for themselves, you - Could not, of course, interfere,—you, now, when a nation has chosen—— - Pardon this folly! The _Times_ will, of course, have announced the - occasion, - Told you the news of to-day; and although it was slightly in error - When it proclaimed as a fact the Apollo was sold to a Yankee, - You may believe when it tells you the French are at Civita Vecchia. - - -II. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - _Dulce_ it is, and _decorum_, no doubt, for the country to fall,—to - Offer one’s blood an oblation to Freedom, and die for the Cause; yet - Still, individual culture is also something, and no man - Finds quite distinct the assurance that he of all others is called on, - Or would be justified even, in taking away from the world that - Precious creature, himself. Nature sent him here to abide here; - Else why send him at all? Nature wants him still, it is likely; - On the whole, we are meant to look after ourselves; it is certain - Each has to eat for himself, digest for himself, and in general - Care for his own dear life, and see to his own preservation; - Nature’s intentions, in most things uncertain, in this are decisive; - Which, on the whole, I conjecture the Romans will follow, and I shall. - So we cling to our rocks like limpets; Ocean may bluster, - Over and under and round us; we open our shells to imbibe our - Nourishment, close them again, and are safe, fulfilling the purpose - Nature intended,—a wise one, of course, and a noble, we doubt not. - Sweet it may be and decorous, perhaps, for the country to die; but, - On the whole, we conclude the Romans won’t do it, and I sha’n’t. - - -III. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Will they fight? They say so. And will the French? I can hardly, - Hardly think so; and yet—He is come, they say, to Palo, - He is passed from Monterone, at Santa Severa - He hath laid up his guns. But the Virgin, the Daughter of Roma, - She hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn,—The Daughter of Tiber, - She hath shaken her head and built barricades against thee! - Will they fight! I believe it. Alas! ’tis ephemeral folly, - Vain and ephemeral folly, of course, compared with pictures, - Statues, and antique gems!—Indeed: and yet indeed too, - Yet, methought, in broad day did I dream,—tell it not in St. James’s, - Whisper it not in thy courts, O Christ Church!—yet did I, waking, - Dream of a cadence that sings, _Si tombent nos jeunes héros, la_ - _Terre en produit de nouveaux contre vous tous prêts à se battre_; - Dreamt of great indignations and angers transcendental, - Dreamt of a sword at my side and a battle-horse underneath me. - - -IV. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Now supposing the French or the Neapolitan soldier - Should by some evil chance come exploring the Maison Serny - (Where the family English are all to assemble for safety), - Am I prepared to lay down my life for the British female? - Really, who knows? One has bowed and talked, till, little by little, - All the natural heat has escaped of the chivalrous spirit. - Oh, one conformed, of course; but one doesn’t die for good manners, - Stab or shoot, or be shot, by way of graceful attention. - No, if it should be at all, it should be on the barricades there; - Should I incarnadine ever this inky pacifical finger, - Sooner far should it be for this vapour of Italy’s freedom, - Sooner far by the side of the d——d and dirty plebeians. - Ah, for a child in the street I could strike; for the full-blown lady—— - Somehow, Eustace, alas! I have not felt the vocation. - Yet these people of course will expect, as of course, my protection, - Vernon in radiant arms stand forth for the lovely Georgina, - And to appear, I suppose, were but common civility. Yes, and - Truly I do not desire they should either be killed or offended. - Oh, and of course, you will say, ‘When the time comes, you will be - ready.’ - Ah, but before it comes, am I to presume it will be so? - What I cannot feel now, am I to suppose that I shall feel? - Am I not free to attend for the ripe and indubious instinct? - Am I forbidden to wait for the clear and lawful perception? - Is it the calling of man to surrender his knowledge and insight, - For the mere venture of what may, perhaps, be the virtuous action? - Must we, walking our earth, discern a little, and hoping - Some plain visible task shall yet for our hands be assigned us,— - Must we abandon the future for fear of omitting the present, - Quit our own fireside hopes at the alien call of a neighbour, - To the mere possible shadow of Deity offer the victim? - And is all this, my friend, but a weak and ignoble refining, - Wholly unworthy the head or the heart of Your Own Correspondent? - - -V. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Yes, we are fighting at last, it appears. This morning as usual, - _Murray_, as usual, in hand, I enter the Caffè Nuovo; - Seating myself with a sense as it were of a change in the weather, - Not understanding, however, but thinking mostly of Murray, - And, for to-day is their day, of the Campidoglio Marbles; - _Caffè-latte_! I call to the waiter,—and _Non c’ è latte_, - This is the answer he makes me, and this is the sign of a battle. - So I sit: and truly they seem to think any one else more - Worthy than me of attention. I wait for my milkless _nero_, - Free to observe undistracted all sorts and sizes of persons, - Blending civilian and soldier in strangest costume, coming in, and - Gulping in hottest haste, still standing, their coffee,—withdrawing - Eagerly, jangling a sword on the steps, or jogging a musket - Slung to the shoulder behind. They are fewer, moreover, than usual, - Much and silenter far; and so I begin to imagine - Something is really afloat. Ere I leave, the Caffè is empty, - Empty too the streets, in all its length the Corso - Empty, and empty I see to my right and left the Condotti. - Twelve o’clock, on the Pincian Hill, with lots of English, - Germans, Americans, French,—the Frenchmen, too, are protected,— - So we stand in the sun, but afraid of a probable shower; - So we stand and stare, and see, to the left of St. Peter’s, - Smoke, from the cannon, white,—but that is at intervals only,— - Black, from a burning house, we suppose, by the Cavalleggieri; - And we believe we discern some lines of men descending - Down through the vineyard-slopes, and catch a bayonet gleaming. - Every ten minutes, however,—in this there is no misconception,— - Comes a great white puff from behind Michel Angelo’s dome, and - After a space the report of a real big gun,—not the Frenchman’s!— - That must be doing some work. And so we watch and conjecture. - Shortly, an Englishman comes, who says he has been to St. Peter’s, - Seen the Piazza and troops, but that is all he can tell us; - So we watch and sit, and, indeed, it begins to be tiresome.— - All this smoke is outside; when it has come to the inside, - It will be time, perhaps, to descend and retreat to our houses. - Half-past one, or two. The report of small arms frequent, - Sharp and savage indeed; that cannot all be for nothing: - So we watch and wonder; but guessing is tiresome, very. - Weary of wondering, watching, and guessing, and gossiping idly, - Down I go, and pass through the quiet streets with the knots of - National Guards patrolling, and flags hanging out at the windows, - English, American, Danish,—and, after offering to help an - Irish family moving _en masse_ to the Maison Serny, - After endeavouring idly to minister balm to the trembling - Quinquagenarian fears of two lone British spinsters, - Go to make sure of my dinner before the enemy enter. - But by this there are signs of stragglers returning; and voices - Talk, though you don’t believe it, of guns and prisoners taken; - And on the walls you read the first bulletin of the morning.— - This is all that I saw, and all I know of the battle. - - -VI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Victory! Victory!—Yes! ah, yes, thou republican Zion, - Truly the kings of the earth are gathered and gone by together; - Doubtless they marvelled to witness such things, were astonished, and - so forth. - Victory! Victory! Victory!—Ah, but it is, believe me, - Easier, easier far, to intone the chant of the martyr - Than to indite any pæan of any victory. Death may - Sometimes be noble; but life, at the best, will appear an illusion. - While the great pain is upon us, it is great; when it is over, - Why, it is over. The smoke of the sacrifice rises to heaven, - Of a sweet savour, no doubt, to Somebody; but on the altar, - Lo, there is nothing remaining but ashes and dirt and ill odour. - So it stands, you perceive; the labial muscles that swelled with - Vehement evolution of yesterday Marseillaises, - Articulations sublime of defiance and scorning, to-day col- - Lapse and languidly mumble, while men and women and papers - Scream and re-scream to each other the chorus of Victory. Well, but - I am thankful they fought, and glad that the Frenchmen were beaten. - - -VII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - So, I have seen a man killed! An experience that, among others! - Yes, I suppose I have; although I can hardly be certain, - And in a court of justice could never declare I had seen it. - But a man was killed, I am told, in a place where I saw - Something; a man was killed, I am told, and I saw something. - I was returning home from St. Peter’s; Murray, as usual, - Under my arm, I remember; had crossed the St. Angelo bridge; and - Moving towards the Condotti, had got to the first barricade, when - Gradually, thinking still of St. Peter’s, I became conscious - Of a sensation of movement opposing me,—tendency this way - (Such as one fancies may be in a stream when the wave of the tide is - Coming and not yet come,—a sort of noise and retention); - So I turned, and, before I turned, caught sight of stragglers - Heading a crowd, it is plain, that is coming behind that corner. - Looking up, I see windows filled with heads; the Piazza, - Into which you remember the Ponte St. Angelo enters, - Since I passed, has thickened with curious groups; and now the - Crowd is coming, has turned, has crossed that last barricade, is - Here at my side. In the middle they drag at something. What is it? - Ha! bare swords in the air, held up? There seem to be voices - Pleading and hands putting back; official, perhaps; but the swords are - Many, and bare in the air. In the air? they descend; they are smiting, - Hewing, chopping—At what? In the air once more upstretched? And— - Is it blood that’s on them? Yes, certainly blood! Of whom, then? - Over whom is the cry of this furor of exultation? - While they are skipping and screaming, and dancing their caps on the - points of - Swords and bayonets, I to the outskirts back, and ask a - Mercantile-seeming bystander, ‘What is it?’ and he, looking always - That way, makes me answer, ‘A Priest, who was trying to fly to - The Neapolitan army,’—and thus explains the proceeding. - You didn’t see the dead man? No;—I began to be doubtful; - I was in black myself, and didn’t know what mightn’t happen,— - But a National Guard close by me, outside of the hubbub, - Broke his sword with slashing a broad hat covered with dust,—and - Passing away from the place with Murray under my arm, and - Stooping, I saw through the legs of the people the legs of a body. - You are the first, do you know, to whom I have mentioned the matter. - Whom should I tell it to else?—these girls?—the Heavens forbid it!— - Quidnuncs at Monaldini’s?—Idlers upon the Pincian? - If I rightly remember, it happened on that afternoon when - Word of the nearer approach of a new Neapolitan army - First was spread. I began to bethink me of Paris Septembers, - Thought I could fancy the look of that old ’Ninety-two. On that evening - Three or four, or, it may be, five, of these people were slaughtered. - Some declared they had, one of them, fired on a sentinel; others - Say they were only escaping; a Priest, it is currently stated, - Stabbed a National Guard on the very Piazza Colonna: - History, Rumour of Rumours, I leave to thee to determine! - But I am thankful to say the government seems to have strength to - Put it down; it has vanished, at least; the place is most peaceful. - Through the Trastevere walking last night, at nine of the clock, I - Found no sort of disorder; I crossed by the Island-bridges, - So by the narrow streets to the Ponte Rotto, and onwards - Thence by the Temple of Vesta, away to the great Coliseum, - Which at the full of the moon is an object worthy a visit. - - -VIII. GEORGINA TREVELLYN TO LOUISA ——. - - Only think, dearest Louisa, what fearful scenes we have witnessed!— - * * * * * - George has just seen Garibaldi, dressed up in a long white cloak, on - Horseback, riding by, with his mounted negro behind him: - This is a man, you know, who came from America with him, - Out of the woods, I suppose, and uses a _lasso_ in fighting, - Which is, I don’t quite know, but a sort of noose, I imagine; - This he throws on the heads of the enemy’s men in a battle, - Pulls them into his reach, and then most cruelly kills them: - Mary does not believe, but we heard it from an Italian. - Mary allows she was wrong about Mr. Claude _being selfish_; - He was _most_ useful and kind on the terrible thirtieth of April. - Do not write here any more; we are starting directly for Florence: - We should be off to-morrow, if only Papa could get horses; - All have been seized everywhere for the use of this dreadful Mazzini. - - P.S. - Mary has seen thus far.—I am really so angry, Louisa,— - Quite out of patience, my dearest! What can the man be intending? - I am quite tired; and Mary, who might bring him to in a moment, - Lets him go on as he likes, and neither will help nor dismiss him. - - -IX. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - It is most curious to see what a power a few calm words (in - Merely a brief proclamation) appear to possess on the people. - Order is perfect, and peace; the city is utterly tranquil; - And one cannot conceive that this easy and _nonchalant_ crowd, that - Flows like a quiet stream through street and market-place, entering - Shady recesses and bays of church, _osteria_, and _caffè_, - Could in a moment be changed to a flood as of molten lava, - Boil into deadly wrath and wild homicidal delusion. - Ah, ’tis an excellent race,—and even in old degradation, - Under a rule that enforces to flattery, lying, and cheating, - E’en under Pope and Priest, a nice and natural people. - Oh, could they but be allowed this chance of redemption!—but clearly - That is not likely to be. Meantime, notwithstanding all journals, - Honour for once to the tongue and the pen of the eloquent writer! - Honour to speech! and all honour to thee, thou noble Mazzini! - - -X. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - I am in love, meantime, you think; no doubt you would think so. - I am in love, you say; with those letters, of course, you would say so. - I am in love, you declare. I think not so; yet I grant you - It is a pleasure indeed to converse with this girl. Oh, rare gift, - Rare felicity, this! she can talk in a rational way, can - Speak upon subjects that really are matters of mind and of thinking, - Yet in perfection retain her simplicity; never, one moment, - Never, however you urge it, however you tempt her, consents to - Step from ideas and fancies and loving sensations to those vain - Conscious understandings that vex the minds of mankind. - No, though she talk, it is music; her fingers desert not the keys; ’tis - Song, though you hear in the song the articulate vocables sounded, - Syllabled singly and sweetly the words of melodious meaning. - I am in love, you say: I do not think so, exactly. - - -XI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - There are two different kinds, I believe, of human attraction: - One which simply disturbs, unsettles, and makes you uneasy, - And another that poises, retains, and fixes and holds you. - I have no doubt, for myself, in giving my voice for the latter. - I do not wish to be moved, but growing where I was growing, - There more truly to grow, to live where as yet I had languished. - I do not like being moved: for the will is excited; and action - Is a most dangerous thing; I tremble for something factitious, - Some malpractice of heart and illegitimate process; - We are so prone to these things, with our terrible notions of duty. - - -XII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Ah, let me look, let me watch, let me wait, unhurried, unprompted! - Bid me not venture on aught that could alter or end what is present! - Say not, Time flies, and Occasion, that never returns, is departing! - Drive me not out, ye ill angels with fiery swords, from my Eden, - Waiting, and watching, and looking! Let love be its own inspiration! - Shall not a voice, if a voice there must be, from the airs that environ, - Yea, from the conscious heavens, without our knowledge or effort, - Break into audible words? And love be its own inspiration? - - -XIII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Wherefore and how I am certain, I hardly can tell; but it _is_ so. - She doesn’t like me, Eustace; I think she never will like me. - Is it my fault, as it is my misfortune, my ways are not her ways? - Is it my fault, that my habits and modes are dissimilar wholly? - ’Tis not her fault; ’tis her nature, her virtue, to misapprehend them: - ’Tis not her fault; ’tis her beautiful nature, not ever to know me. - Hopeless it seems,—yet I cannot, though hopeless, determine to leave it: - She goes—therefore I go; she moves,—I move, not to lose her. - - -XIV. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Oh, ’tisn’t manly, of course, ’tisn’t manly, this method of wooing; - ’Tisn’t the way very likely to win. For the woman, they tell you, - Ever prefers the audacious, the wilful, the vehement hero; - She has no heart for the timid, the sensitive soul; and for knowledge,— - Knowledge, O ye Gods!—when did they appreciate knowledge? - Wherefore should they, either? I am sure I do not desire it. - Ah, and I feel too, Eustace, she cares not a tittle about me! - (Care about me, indeed! and do I really expect it?) - But my manner offends; my ways are wholly repugnant; - Every word that I utter estranges, hurts, and repels her; - Every moment of bliss that I gain, in her exquisite presence, - Slowly, surely, withdraws her, removes her, and severs her from me. - Not that I care very much!—any way I escape from the boy’s own - Folly, to which I am prone, of loving where it is easy. - Not that I mind very much! Why should I? I am not in love, and - Am prepared, I think, if not by previous habit, - Yet in the spirit beforehand for this and all that is like it; - It is an easier matter for us contemplative creatures, - Us upon whom the pressure of action is laid so lightly; - We, discontented indeed with things in particular, idle, - Sickly, complaining, by faith, in the vision of things in general, - Manage to hold on our way without, like others around us, - Seizing the nearest arm to comfort, help, and support us. - Yet, after all, my Eustace, I know but little about it. - All I can say for myself, for present alike and for past, is, - Mary Trevellyn, Eustace, is certainly worth your acquaintance. - You couldn’t come, I suppose, as far as Florence to see her? - - -XV. GEORGINA TREVELLYN TO LOUISA ——. - - ...To-morrow we’re starting for Florence, - Truly rejoiced, you may guess, to escape from republican terrors; - Mr. C. and Papa to escort us; we by _vettura_ - Through Siena, and Georgy to follow and join us by Leghorn. - Then—Ah, what shall I say, my dearest? I tremble in thinking! - You will imagine my feelings,—the blending of hope and of sorrow. - How can I bear to abandon Papa and Mamma and my Sisters? - Dearest Louise, indeed it is very alarming; but, trust me - Ever, whatever may change, to remain your loving Georgina. - - -P.S. BY MARY TREVELLYN. - - ...‘Do I like Mr. Claude any better?’ - I am to tell you,—and, ‘Pray, is it Susan or I that attract him?’ - This he never has told, but Georgina could certainly ask him. - All I can say for myself is, alas! that he rather repels me. - There! I think him agreeable, but also a little repulsive. - So be content, dear Louisa; for one satisfactory marriage - Surely will do in one year for the family you would establish; - Neither Susan nor I shall afford you the joy of a second. - - -P.S. BY GEORGINA TREVELLYN. - - Mr. Claude, you must know, is behaving a little bit better; - He and Papa are great friends; but he really is too _shilly-shally_,— - So unlike George! Yet I hope that the matter is going on fairly. - I shall, however, get George, before he goes, to say something. - Dearest Louise, how delightful to bring young people together! - - * * * * * - - _Is it to Florence we follow, or are we to tarry yet longer,_ - _E’en amid clamour of arms, here in the city of old,_ - _Seeking from clamour of arms in the Past and the Arts to be hidden,_ - _Vainly ’mid Arts and the Past seeking one life to forget?_ - _Ah, fair shadow, scarce seen, go forth! for anon he shall follow,—_ - _He that beheld thee, anon, whither thou leadest must go!_ - _Go, and the wise, loving Muse, she also will follow and find thee!_ - _She, should she linger in Rome, were not dissevered from thee!_ - - -CANTO III. - - _Yet to the wondrous St. Peter’s, and yet to the solemn Rotonda,_ - _Mingling with heroes and gods, yet to the Vatican Walls,_ - _Yet may we go, and recline, while a whole mighty world seems above us,_ - _Gathered and fixed to all time into one roofing supreme;_ - _Yet may we, thinking on these things, exclude what is meaner around us;_ - _Yet, at the worst of the worst, books and a chamber remain;_ - _Yet may we think, and forget, and possess our souls in resistance.—_ - _Ah, but away from the stir, shouting, and gossip of war,_ - _Where, upon Apennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle,_ - _Where, amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind,_ - _Where, under mulberry-branches, the diligent rivulet sparkles,_ - _Or amid cotton and maize peasants their water-works ply,_ - _Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated,_ - _Garden on garden upreared, balconies step to the sky,—_ - _Ah, that I were far away from the crowd and the streets of the city,_ - _Under the vine-trellis laid, O my beloved, with thee!_ - - -I. MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER,—_on the way to Florence_. - - Why doesn’t Mr. Claude come with us? you ask.—We don’t know, - You should know better than we. He talked of the Vatican marbles; - But I can’t wholly believe that this was the actual reason,— - He was so ready before, when we asked him to come and escort us. - Certainly he is odd, my dear Miss Roper. To change so - Suddenly, just for a whim, was not quite fair to the party,— - Not quite right. I declare, I really almost am offended: - I, his great friend, as you say, have doubtless a title to be so. - Not that I greatly regret it, for dear Georgina distinctly - Wishes for nothing so much as to show her adroitness. But, oh, my - Pen will not write any more;—let us say nothing further about it. - - * * * * * - - Yes, my dear Miss Roper, I certainly called him repulsive; - So I think him, but cannot be sure I have used the expression - Quite as your pupil should; yet he does most truly repel me. - Was it to you I made use of the word? or who was it told you? - Yes, repulsive; observe, it is but when he talks of ideas - That he is quite unaffected, and free, and expansive, and easy; - I could pronounce him simply a cold intellectual being.— - When does he make advances?—He thinks that women should woo him; - Yet, if a girl should do so, would be but alarmed and disgusted. - She that should love him must look for small love in return,—like the ivy - On the stone wall, must expect but a rigid and niggard support, and - E’en to get that must go searching all round with her humble embraces. - - -II. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—_from Rome_. - - Tell me, my friend, do you think that the grain would sprout in the - furrow, - Did it not truly accept as its _summum_ and _ultimum bonum_ - That mere common and may-be indifferent soil it is set in? - Would it have force to develop and open its young cotyledons, - Could it compare, and reflect, and examine one thing with another? - Would it endure to accomplish the round of its natural functions - Were it endowed with a sense of the general scheme of existence? - While from Marseilles in the steamer we voyage to Civita Vecchia, - Vexed in the squally seas as we lay by Capraja and Elba, - Standing, uplifted, alone on the heaving poop of the vessel, - Looking around on the waste of the rushing incurious billows, - ‘This is Nature,’ I said: ‘we are born as it were from her waters; - Over her billows that buffet and beat us, her offspring uncared-for, - Casting one single regard of a painful victorious knowledge, - Into her billows that buffet and beat us we sink and are swallowed.’ - This was the sense in my soul, as I swayed with the poop of the steamer; - And as unthinking I sat in the hall of the famed Ariadne, - Lo, it looked at me there from the face of a Triton in marble. - It is the simpler thought, and I can believe it the truer. - Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages. - - -III. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Farewell, Politics, utterly! What can I do? I cannot - Fight, you know; and to talk I am wholly ashamed. And although I - Gnash my teeth when I look in your French or your English papers, - What is the good of that? Will swearing, I wonder, mend matters? - Cursing and scolding repel the assailants? No, it is idle; - No, whatever befalls, I will hide, will ignore or forget it. - Let the tail shift for itself; I will bury my head. And what’s the - Roman Republic to me, or I to the Roman Republic? - Why not fight?—In the first place, I haven’t so much as a musket; - In the next, if I had, I shouldn’t know how I should use it; - In the third, just at present I’m studying ancient marbles; - In the fourth, I consider I owe my life to my country; - In the fifth—I forget, but four good reasons are ample. - Meantime, pray let ’em fight, and be killed. I delight in devotion. - So that I ’list not, hurrah for the glorious army of martyrs! - _Sanguis martyrum semen Ecclesiæ_; though it would seem this - Church is indeed of the purely Invisible, Kingdom-come kind: - Militant here on earth! Triumphant, of course, then, elsewhere! - Ah, good Heaven, but I would I were out far away from the pother! - - -IV. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Not, as we read in the words of the olden-time inspiration, - Are there two several trees in the place we are set to abide in; - But on the apex most high of the Tree of Life in the Garden, - Budding, unfolding, and falling, decaying and flowering ever, - Flowering is set and decaying the transient blossom of Knowledge,— - Flowering alone, and decaying, the needless unfruitful blossom. - Or as the cypress-spires by the fair-flowing stream Hellespontine, - Which from the mythical tomb of the godlike Protesilaüs - Rose sympathetic in grief to his love-lorn Laodamia, - Evermore growing, and when in their growth to the prospect attaining, - Over the low sea-banks, of the fatal Ilian city, - Withering still at the sight which still they upgrow to encounter. - Ah, but ye that extrude from the ocean your helpless faces, - Ye over stormy seas leading long and dreary processions, - Ye, too, brood of the wind, whose coming is whence we discern not, - Making your nest on the wave, and your bed on the crested billow, - Skimming rough waters, and crowding wet sands that the tide shall - return to, - Cormorants, ducks, and gulls, fill ye my imagination! - Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages. - - -V. MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER,—_from Florence_. - - Dearest Miss Roper,—Alas! we are all at Florence quite safe, and - You, we hear, are shut up! indeed, it is sadly distressing! - We were most lucky, they say, to get off when we did from the troubles. - Now you are really besieged; they tell us it soon will be over; - Only I hope and trust without any fight in the city. - Do you see Mr. Claude?—I thought he might do something for you. - I am quite sure on occasion he really would wish to be useful. - What is he doing? I wonder;—still studying Vatican marbles? - Letters, I hope, pass through. We trust your brother is better. - - -VI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Juxtaposition, in fine; and what is juxtaposition? - Look you, we travel along in the railway-carriage or steamer, - And, _pour passer le temps_, till the tedious journey be ended, - Lay aside paper or book, to talk with the girl that is next one; - And, _pour passer le temps_, with the terminus all but in prospect, - Talk of eternal ties and marriages made in heaven. - Ah, did we really accept with a perfect heart the illusion! - Ah, did we really believe that the Present indeed is the Only! - Or through all transmutation, all shock and convulsion of passion, - Feel we could carry undimmed, unextinguished, the light of our knowledge! - But for his funeral train which the bridegroom sees in the distance, - Would he so joyfully, think you, fall in with the marriage procession? - But for that final discharge, would he dare to enlist in that service? - But for that certain release, ever sign to that perilous contract? - But for that exit secure, ever bend to that treacherous doorway?— - Ah, but the bride, meantime,—do you think she sees it as he does? - But for the steady fore-sense of a freer and larger existence, - Think you that man could consent to be circumscribed here into action? - But for assurance within of a limitless ocean divine, o’er - Whose great tranquil depths unconscious the wind-tost surface - Breaks into ripples of trouble that come and change and endure not,— - But that in this, of a truth, we have our being, and know it, - Think you we men could submit to live and move as we do here? - Ah, but the women,—God bless them! they don’t think at all about it. - Yet we must eat and drink, as you say. And as limited beings - Scarcely can hope to attain upon earth to an Actual Abstract, - Leaving to God contemplation, to His hands knowledge confiding, - Sure that in us if it perish, in Him it abideth and dies not, - Let us in His sight accomplish our petty particular doings,— - Yes, and contented sit down to the victual that He has provided. - Allah is great, no doubt, and Juxtaposition his prophet. - Ah, but the women, alas! they don’t look at it in that way. - Juxtaposition is great;—but, my friend, I fear me, the maiden - Hardly would thank or acknowledge the lover that sought to obtain her, - Not as the thing he would wish, but the thing he must even put up with,— - Hardly would tender her hand to the wooer that candidly told her - That she is but for a space, an _ad-interim_ solace and pleasure,— - That in the end she shall yield to a perfect and absolute something, - Which I then for myself shall behold, and not another,— - Which amid fondest endearments, meantime I forget not, forsake not. - Ah, ye feminine souls, so loving, and so exacting, - Since we cannot escape, must we even submit to deceive you? - Since, so cruel is truth, sincerity shocks and revolts you, - Will you have us your slaves to lie to you, flatter and—leave you? - - -VII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Juxtaposition is great,—but, you tell me, affinity greater. - Ah, my friend, there are many affinities, greater and lesser, - Stronger and weaker; and each, by the favour of juxtaposition, - Potent, efficient, in force,—for a time; but none, let me tell you, - Save by the law of the land and the ruinous force of the will, ah, - None, I fear me, at last quite sure to be final and perfect. - Lo, as I pace in the street, from the peasant-girl to the princess, - _Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto_,— - _Vir sum, nihil fæminei_,—and e’en to the uttermost circle, - All that is Nature’s is I, and I all things that are Nature’s. - Yes, as I walk, I behold, in a luminous, large intuition, - That I can be and become anything that I meet with or look at: - I am the ox in the dray, the ass with the garden-stuff panniers; - I am the dog in the doorway, the kitten that plays in the window, - On sunny slab of the ruin the furtive and fugitive lizard, - Swallow above me that twitters, and fly that is buzzing about me; - Yea, and detect, as I go, by a faint but a faithful assurance, - E’en from the stones of the street, as from rocks or trees of the forest - Something of kindred, a common, though latent vitality, greets me; - And to escape from our strivings, mistakings, misgrowths, and - perversions, - Fain could demand to return to that perfect and primitive silence, - Fain be enfolded and fixed, as of old, in their rigid embraces. - - -VIII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - And as I walk on my way, I behold them consorting and coupling; - Faithful it seemeth, and fond, very fond, very probably faithful, - All as I go on my way, with a pleasure sincere and unmingled. - Life is beautiful, Eustace, entrancing, enchanting to look at; - As are the streets of a city we pace while the carriage is changing, - As a chamber filled-in with harmonious, exquisite pictures, - Even so beautiful Earth; and could we eliminate only - This vile hungering impulse, this demon within us of craving, - Life were beatitude, living a perfect divine satisfaction. - - -IX. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - _Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters_: - So let me offer a single and celibatarian phrase, a - Tribute to those whom perhaps you do not believe I can honour. - But, from the tumult escaping, ’tis pleasant, of drumming and shouting, - Hither, oblivious awhile, to withdraw, of the fact or the falsehood, - And amid placid regards and mildly courteous greetings - Yield to the calm and composure and gentle abstraction that reign o’er - _Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters_: - Terrible word, Obligation! You should not, Eustace, you should not, - No, you should not have used it. But, oh, great Heavens, I repel it! - Oh, I cancel, reject, disavow, and repudiate wholly - Every debt in this kind, disclaim every claim, and dishonour, - Yea, my own heart’s own writing, my soul’s own signature! Ah, no! - I will be free in this; you shall not, none shall, bind me. - No, my friend, if you wish to be told, it was this above all things, - This that charmed me, ah, yes, even this, that she held me to nothing. - No, I could talk as I pleased; come close; fasten ties, as I fancied; - Bind and engage myself deep;—and lo, on the following morning - It was all e’en as before, like losings in games played for nothing. - Yes, when I came, with mean fears in my soul, with a semi-performance - At the first step breaking down in its pitiful rôle of evasion, - When to shuffle I came, to compromise, not meet, engagements, - Lo, with her calm eyes there she met me and knew nothing of it,— - Stood unexpecting, unconscious. _She_ spoke not of obligations, - Knew not of debt—ah, no, I believe you, for excellent reasons. - - -X. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - _Hang_ this thinking, at last! what good is it? oh, and what evil! - Oh, what mischief and pain! like a clock in a sick man’s chamber, - Ticking and ticking, and still through each covert of slumber pursuing. - What shall I do to thee, O thou Preserver of men? Have compassion; - Be favourable, and hear! Take from me this regal knowledge; - Let me, contented and mute, with the beasts of the fields, my brothers, - Tranquilly, happily lie,—and eat grass, like Nebuchadnezzar! - - -XI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Tibur is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio - Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyrical cadence; - Tibur and Anio’s tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever, - With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain, - Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:— - So not seeing I sang; so seeing and listening say I, - Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl, - Here with Albunea’s home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me;[14] - Tivoli beautiful is, and musical, O Teverone, - Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters, - Tivoli’s waters and rocks; and fair unto Monte Gennaro - (Haunt, even yet, I must think, as I wander and gaze, of the shadows, - Faded and pale, yet immortal, of Faunus, the Nymphs, and the Graces), - Fair in itself, and yet fairer with human completing creations, - Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace:— - So not seeing I sang; so now—Nor seeing, nor hearing, - Neither by waterfall lulled, nor folded in sylvan embraces, - Neither by cell of the Sibyl, nor stepping the Monte Gennaro, - Seated on Anio’s bank, nor sipping Bandusian waters, - But on Montorio’s height, looking down on the tile-clad streets, the - Cupolas, crosses, and domes, the bushes and kitchen-gardens, - Which, by the grace of the Tibur, proclaim themselves Rome of the - Romans,— - But on Montorio’s height, looking forth to the vapoury mountains, - Cheating the prisoner Hope with illusions of vision and fancy,— - But on Montorio’s height, with these weary soldiers by me, - Waiting till Oudinot enter, to reinstate Pope and Tourist. - - -XII. MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER. - - Dear Miss Roper,—It seems, George Vernon, before we left Rome, said - Something to Mr. Claude about what they call his attentions. - Susan, two nights ago, for the first time, heard this from Georgina. - It is _so_ disagreeable and _so_ annoying to think of! - If it could only be known, though we may never meet him again, that - It was all George’s doing, and we were entirely unconscious, - It would extremely relieve—Your ever affectionate Mary. - - P.S. (1) - Here is your letter arrived this moment, just as I wanted. - So you have seen him,—indeed, and guessed,—how dreadfully clever! - What did he really say? and what was your answer exactly? - Charming!—but wait for a moment, I haven’t read through the letter. - - P.S. (2) - Ah, my dearest Miss Roper, do just as you fancy about it. - If you think it sincerer to tell him I know of it, do so. - Though I should most extremely dislike it, I know I could manage. - It is the simplest thing, but surely wholly uncalled for - Do as you please; you know I trust implicitly to you. - Say whatever is right and needful for ending the matter. - Only don’t tell Mr. Claude, what I will tell you as a secret, - That I should like very well to show him myself I forget it. - - P.S. (3) - I am to say that the wedding is finally settled for Tuesday. - Ah, my dear Miss Roper, you surely, surely can manage - Not to let it appear that I know of that odious matter. - It would be pleasanter far for myself to treat it exactly - As if it had not occurred: and I do not think he would like it. - I must remember to add, that as soon as the wedding is over - We shall be off, I believe, in a hurry, and travel to Milan; - There to meet friends of Papa’s, I am told, at the Croce di Malta; - Then I cannot say whither, but not at present to England. - - -XIII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Yes, on Montorio’s height for a last farewell of the city,— - So it appears; though then I was quite uncertain about it. - So, however, it was. And now to explain the proceeding. - I was to go, as I told you, I think, with the people to Florence. - Only the day before, the foolish family Vernon - Made some uneasy remarks, as we walked to our lodging together, - As to intentions forsooth, and so forth. I was astounded, - Horrified quite; and obtaining just then, as it happened, an offer - (No common favour) of seeing the great Ludovisi collection, - Why, I made this a pretence, and wrote that they must excuse me. - How could I go? Great Heavens! to conduct a permitted flirtation - Under those vulgar eyes, the observed of such observers! - Well, but I now, by a series of fine diplomatic inquiries, - Find from a sort of relation, a good and sensible woman, - Who is remaining at Rome with a brother too ill for removal, - That it was wholly unsanctioned, unknown,—not, I think, by Georgina: - She, however, ere this,—and that is the best of the story,— - She and the Vernon, thank Heaven, are wedded and gone—honey mooning. - So—on Montorio’s height for a last farewell of the city. - Tibur I have not seen, nor the lakes that of old I had dreamt of; - Tibur I shall not see, nor Anio’s waters, nor deep en- - Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace; - Tibur I shall not see;—but something better I shall see. - Twice I have tried before, and failed in getting the horses; - Twice I have tried and failed: this time it shall not be a failure. - - * * * * * - - _Therefore farewell, ye hills, and ye, ye envineyarded ruins!_ - _Therefore farewell, ye walls, palaces, pillars, and domes!_ - _Therefore farewell, far seen, ye peaks of the mythic Albano,_ - _Seen from Montorio’s height, Tibur and Æsula’s hills!_ - _Ah, could we once, ere we go, could we stand, while, to ocean - descending,_ - _Sinks o’er the yellow dark plain slowly the yellow broad sun,_ - _Stand, from the forest emerging at sunset, at once in the champaign,_ - _Open, but studded with trees, chestnuts umbrageous and old,_ - _E’en in those fair open fields that incurve to thy beautiful hollow,_ - _Nemi, imbedded in wood, Nemi, inurned in the hill!—_ - _Therefore farewell, ye plains, and ye hills, and the City Eternal!_ - _Therefore farewell! We depart, but to behold you again!_ - - -CANTO IV. - - _Eastward, or Northward, or West? I wander and ask as I wander;_ - _Weary, yet eager and sure, Where shall I come to my love?_ - _Whitherward hasten to seek her? Ye daughters of Italy, tell me,_ - _Graceful and tender and dark, is she consorting with you?_ - _Thou that out-climbest the torrent, that tendest thy goats to the - summit,_ - _Call to me, child of the Alp, has she been seen on the heights?_ - _Italy, farewell I bid thee! for whither she leads me, I follow._ - _Farewell the vineyard! for I, where I but guess her, must go;_ - _Weariness welcome, and labour, wherever it be, if at last it_ - _Bring me in mountain or plain into the sight of my love._ - - -I. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—_from Florence_. - - Gone from Florence; indeed! and that is truly provoking;— - Gone to Milan, it seems; then I go also to Milan. - Five days now departed; but they can travel but slowly;— - I quicker far; and I know, as it happens, the house they will go to.— - Why, what else should I do? Stay here and look at the pictures, - Statues, and churches? Alack, I am sick of the statues and pictures!— - No, to Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, Lodi, and Milan, - Off go we to-night,—and the Venus go to the Devil! - - -II. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—_from Bellaggio_. - - Gone to Como, they said; and I have posted to Como. - There was a letter left; but the _cameriere_ had lost it. - Could it have been for me? They came, however, to Como, - And from Como went by the boat,—perhaps to the Splügen,— - Or to the Stelvio, say, and the Tyrol; also it might be - By Porlezza across to Lugano, and so to the Simplon - Possibly, or the St. Gothard,—or possibly, too, to Baveno, - Orta, Turin, and elsewhere. Indeed, I am greatly bewildered. - - -III. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—_from Bellaggio_. - - I have been up the Splügen, and on the Stelvio also: - Neither of these can I find they have followed; in no one inn, and - This would be odd, have they written their names. I have been to - Porlezza; - There they have not been seen, and therefore not at Lugano. - What shall I do? Go on through the Tyrol, Switzerland, Deutschland, - Seeking, an inverse Saul, a kingdom to find only asses? - There is a tide, at least, in the _love_ affairs of mortals, - Which, when taken at flood, leads on to the happiest fortune,— - Leads to the marriage-morn and the orange-flowers and the altar, - And the long lawful line of crowned joys to crowned joys succeeding.— - Ah, it has ebbed with me! Ye gods, and when it was flowing, - Pitiful fool that I was, to stand fiddle-faddling in that way! - - -IV. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—_from Bellaggio_. - - I have returned and found their names in the book at Como. - Certain it is I was right, and yet I am also in error. - Added in feminine hand, I read, _By the boat to Bellaggio_.— - So to Bellaggio again, with the words of her writing to aid me. - Yet at Bellaggio I find no trace, no sort of remembrance. - So I am here, and wait, and know every hour will remove them. - - -V. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—_from Bellaggio_. - - I have but one chance left,—and that is going to Florence. - But it is cruel to turn. The mountains seem to demand me,— - Peak and valley from far to beckon and motion me onward. - Somewhere amid their folds she passes whom fain I would follow; - Somewhere among those heights she haply calls me to seek her. - Ah, could I hear her call! could I catch the glimpse of her raiment! - Turn, however, I must, though it seem I turn to desert her; - For the sense of the thing is simply to hurry to Florence, - Where the certainty yet may be learnt, I suppose, from the Ropers! - - -VI. MARY TREVELLYN, _from Lucerne_, TO MISS ROPER, _at Florence_. - - Dear Miss Roper,—By this you are safely away, we are hoping, - Many a league from Rome; ere long we trust we shall see you. - How have you travelled? I wonder;—was Mr. Claude your companion? - As for ourselves, we went from Como straight to Lugano; - So by the Mount St. Gothard; we meant to go by Porlezza, - Taking the steamer, and stopping, as you had advised, at Bellaggio, - Two or three days or more; but this was suddenly altered, - After we left the hotel, on the very way to the steamer. - So we have seen, I fear, not one of the lakes in perfection. - Well, he is not come, and now, I suppose, he will not come. - What will you think, meantime? and yet I must really confess it;— - What will you say? I wrote him a note. We left in a hurry, - Went from Milan to Como, three days before we expected. - But I thought, if he came all the way to Milan, he really - Ought not to be disappointed: and so I wrote three lines to - Say I had heard he was coming, desirous of joining our party;— - If so, then I said, we had started for Como, and meant to - Cross the St. Gothard, and stay, we believed, at Lucerne, for the summer. - Was it wrong? and why, if it was, has it faded to bring him? - Did he not think it worth while to come to Milan? He knew (you - Told him) the house we should go to. Or may it, perhaps, have miscarried? - Any way, now, I repent, and am heartily vexed that I wrote it. - - _There is a home on the shore of the Alpine sea, that upswelling_ - _High up the mountain-sides spreads in the hollow between;_ - _Wilderness, mountain, and snow from the land of the olive conceal it;_ - _Under Pilatus’s hill low by its river it lies:_ - _Italy, utter the word, and the olive and vine will allure not,—_ - _Wilderness, forest, and snow will not the passage impede;_ - _Italy, unto thy cities receding, the clue to recover,_ - _Hither, recovered the clue, shall not the traveller haste?_ - - -CANTO V. - - _There is a city, upbuilt on the quays of the turbulent Arno,_ - _Under Fiesole’s heights,—thither are we to return?_ - _There is a city that fringes the curve of the inflowing waters,_ - _Under the perilous hill fringes the beautiful bay,—_ - _Parthenope, do they call thee?—the Siren, Neapolis, seated_ - _Under Vesevus’s hill,—are we receding to thee?—_ - _Sicily, Greece, will invite, and the Orient;—or are we to turn to_ - _England, which may after all be for its children the best?_ - - -I. MARY TREVELLYN, _at Lucerne_, TO MISS ROPER, _at Florence_. - - So you are really free, and living in quiet at Florence; - That is delightful news; you travelled slowly and safely; - Mr. Claude got you out; took rooms at Florence before you; - Wrote from Milan to say so; had left directly for Milan, - Hoping to find us soon;—_if he could, he would, you are certain_.— - Dear Miss Roper, your letter has made me exceedingly happy. - You are quite sure, you say, he asked you about our intentions; - You had not heard as yet of Lucerne, but told him of Como.— - Well, perhaps he will come; however, I will not expect it. - Though you say you are sure,—_if he can, he will, you are certain_. - O my dear, many thanks from your ever affectionate Mary. - - -II. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Florence. - - _Action will furnish belief_,—but will that belief be the true one? - This is the point, you know. However, it doesn’t much matter - What one wants, I suppose, is to predetermine the action, - So as to make it entail, not a chance belief, but the true one. - _Out of the question_, you say; _if a thing isn’t wrong we may do it_. - Ah! but this _wrong_, you see—but I do not know that it matters. - Eustace, the Ropers are gone, and no one can tell me about them. - - Pisa. - - Pisa, they say they think, and so I follow to Pisa, - Hither and thither inquiring. I weary of making inquiries. - I am ashamed, I declare, of asking people about it.— - Who are your friends? You said you had friends who would certainly know - them. - - Florence. - - But it is idle, moping, and thinking, and trying to fix her - Image more and more in, to write the whole perfect inscription - Over and over again upon every page of remembrance. - I have settled to stay at Florence to wait for your answer. - Who are your friends? Write quickly and tell me. I wait for your answer. - - -III. MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER,—_at Lucca Baths_. - - You are at Lucca baths, you tell me, to stay for the summer; - Florence was quite too hot; you can’t move further at present. - Will you not come, do you think, before the summer is over? - Mr. C. got you out with very considerable trouble; - And he was useful and kind, and seemed so happy to serve you. - Didn’t stay with you long, but talked very openly to you; - Made you almost his confessor, without appearing to know it,— - What about?—and you say you didn’t need his confessions. - O my dear Miss Roper, I dare not trust what you tell me! - Will he come, do you think? I am really so sorry for him. - They didn’t give him my letter at Milan, I feel pretty certain. - You had told him Bellaggio. We didn’t go to Bellaggio; - So he would miss our track, and perhaps never come to Lugano, - Where we were written in full, _To Lucerne across the St. Gothard_. - But he could write to you;—you would tell him where you were going. - - -IV. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Let me, then, bear to forget her. I will not cling to her falsely: - Nothing factitious or forced shall impair the old happy relation. - I will let myself go, forget, not try to remember; - I will walk on my way, accept the chances that meet me, - Freely encounter the world, imbibe these alien airs, and - Never ask if new feelings and thoughts are of her or of others. - Is she not changing herself?—the old image would only delude me. - I will be bold, too, and change,—if it must be. Yet if in all things, - Yet if I do but aspire evermore to the Absolute only, - I shall be doing, I think, somehow, what she will be doing;— - I shall be thine, O my child, some way, though I know not in what way, - Let me submit to forget her; I must; I already forget her. - - -V. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Utterly vain is, alas! this attempt at the Absolute,—wholly! - I, who believed not in her, because I would fain believe nothing, - Have to believe as I may, with a wilful, unmeaning acceptance. - I, who refused to enfasten the roots of my floating existence - In the rich earth, cling now to the hard, naked rock that is left me,— - Ah! she was worthy, Eustace,—and that, indeed, is my comfort,— - Worthy a nobler heart than a fool such as I could have given her. - - * * * * * - - Yes, it relieves me to write, though I do not send, and the chance that - Takes may destroy my fragments. But as men pray, without asking - Whether One really exist to hear or do anything for them,— - Simply impelled by the need of the moment to turn to a Being - In a conception of whom there is freedom from all limitation,— - So in your image I turn to an _ens rationis_ of friendship, - Even so write in your name I know not to whom nor in what wise. - - * * * * * - - There was a time, methought it was but lately departed, - When, if a thing was denied me, I felt I was bound to attempt it. - Choice alone should take, and choice alone should surrender. - There was a time, indeed, when I had not retired thus early, - Languidly thus, from pursuit of a purpose I once had adopted, - But it is over, all that! I have slunk from the perilous field in - Whose wild struggle of forces the prizes of life are contested. - It is over, all that! I am a coward, and know it. - Courage in me could be only factitious, unnatural, useless. - - * * * * * - - Comfort has come to me here in the dreary streets of the city, - Comfort—how do you think?—with a barrel-organ to bring it. - Moping along the streets, and cursing my day as I wandered, - All of a sudden my ear met the sound of an English psalm-tune, - Comfort me it did, till indeed I was very near crying. - Ah, there is some great truth, partial, very likely, but needful, - Lodged, I am strangely sure, in the tones of the English psalm-tune: - Comfort it was at least; and I must take without question - Comfort, however it come, in the dreary streets of the city. - - * * * * * - - What with trusting myself, and seeking support from within me, - Almost I could believe I had gained a religious assurance, - Formed in my own poor soul a great moral basis to rest on. - Ah, but indeed I see, I feel it factitious entirely; - I refuse, reject, and put it utterly from me; - I will look straight out, see things, not try to evade them; - Fact shall be fact for me, and the Truth the Truth as ever, - Flexible, changeable, vague, and multiform, and doubtful.— - Off, and depart to the void, thou subtle, fanatical tempter! - - * * * * * - - I shall behold thee again (is it so?) at a new visitation, - O ill genius thou! I shall at my life’s dissolution - (When the pulses are weak, and the feeble light of the reason - Flickers, an unfed flame retiring slow from the socket), - Low on a sick-bed laid, hear one, as it were, at the doorway, - And, looking up, see thee standing by, looking emptily at me; - I shall entreat thee then, though now I dare to refuse thee,— - Pale and pitiful now, but terrible then to the dying.— - Well, I will see thee again, and while I can, will repel thee. - - -VI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Rome is fallen, I hear, the gallant Medici taken, - Noble Manara slain, and Garibaldi has lost _il Moro_;— - Rome is fallen; and fallen, or falling, heroical Venice. - I, meanwhile, for the loss of a single small chit of a girl, sit - Moping and mourning here,—for her, and myself much smaller. - Whither depart the souls of the brave that die in the battle, - Die in the lost, lost fight, for the cause that perishes with them? - Are they upborne from the field on the slumberous pinions of angels - Unto a far-off home, where the weary rest from their labour, - And the deep wounds are healed, and the bitter and burning moisture - Wiped from the generous eyes? or do they linger, unhappy, - Pining, and haunting the grave of their by-gone hope and endeavour? - All declamation, alas! though I talk, I care not for Rome nor - Italy; feebly and faintly, and but with the lips, can lament the - Wreck of the Lombard youth, and the victory of the oppressor. - Whither depart the brave?—God knows; I certainly do not. - - -VII. MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER. - - He has not come as yet; and now I must not expect it. - You have written, you say, to friends at Florence, to see him, - If he perhaps should return;—but that is surely unlikely. - Has he not written to you?—he did not know your direction. - Oh, how strange never once to have told him where you were going! - Yet if he only wrote to Florence, that would have reached you. - If what you say he said was true, why has he not done so? - Is he gone back to Rome, do you think, to his Vatican marbles?— - O my dear Miss Roper, forgive me! do not be angry!— - You have written to Florence;—your friends would certainly find him - Might you not write to him?—but yet it is so little likely! - I shall expect nothing more.—Ever yours, your affectionate Mary. - - -VIII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - I cannot stay at Florence, not even to wait for a letter. - Galleries only oppress me. Remembrance of hope I had cherished - (Almost more than as hope, when I passed through Florence the first time) - Lies like a sword in my soul. I am more a coward than ever, - Chicken-hearted, past thought. The caffès and waiters distress me. - All is unkind, and, alas! I am ready for any one’s kindness. - Oh, I knew it of old, and knew it, I thought, to perfection, - If there is any one thing in the world to preclude all kindness, - It is the need of it,—it is this sad, self-defeating dependence. - Why is this, Eustace? Myself, were I stronger, I think I could tell you. - But it is odd when it comes. So plumb I the deeps of depression, - Daily in deeper, and find no support, no will, no purpose. - All my old strengths are gone. And yet I shall have to do something. - Ah, the key of our life, that passes all wards, opens all locks, - Is not _I will_, but _I must_. I must,—I must,—and I do it. - - * * * * * - - After all, do I know that I really cared so about her? - Do whatever I will, I cannot call up her image; - For when I close my eyes, I see, very likely, St. Peter’s, - Or the Pantheon façade, or Michel Angelo’s figures, - Or, at a wish, when I please, the Alban hills and the Forum,— - But that face, those eyes,—ah, no, never anything like them; - Only, try as I will, a sort of featureless outline, - And a pale blank orb, which no recollection will add to. - After all, perhaps there was something factitious about it; - I have had pain, it is true: I have wept, and so have the actors. - - * * * * * - - At the last moment I have your letter, for which I was waiting; - I have taken my place, and see no good in inquiries. - Do nothing more, good Eustace, I pray you. It only will vex me. - Take no measures. Indeed, should we meet, I could not be certain; - All might be changed, you know. Or perhaps there was nothing to be - changed. - It is a curious history, this; and yet I foresaw it; - I could have told it before. The Fates, it is clear, are against us; - For it is certain enough I met with the people you mention; - They were at Florence the day I returned there, and spoke to me even; - Stayed a week, saw me often; departed, and whither I know not. - Great is Fate, and is best. I believe in Providence partly. - What is ordained is right, and all that happens is ordered. - Ah, no, that isn’t it. But yet I retain my conclusion. - I will go where I am led, and will not dictate to the chances. - Do nothing more, I beg. If you love me, forbear interfering. - - -IX. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. - - Shall we come out of it all, some day, as one does from a tunnel? - Will it be all at once, without our doing or asking, - We shall behold clear day, the trees and meadows about us, - And the faces of friends, and the eyes we loved looking at us? - Who knows? Who can say? It will not do to suppose it. - - -X. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—_from Rome_. - - Rome will not suit me, Eustace; the priests and soldiers possess it; - Priests and soldiers:—and, ah! which is the worst, the priest or the - soldier? - Politics, farewell, however! For what could I do? with inquiring, - Talking, collating the journals, go fever my brain about things o’er - Which I can have no control. No, happen whatever may happen, - Time, I suppose, will subsist; the earth will revolve on its axis; - People will travel; the stranger will wander as now in the city; - Rome will be here, and the Pope the _custode_ of Vatican marbles. - I have no heart, however, for any marble or fresco; - I have essayed it in vain; ’tis in vain as yet to essay it: - But I may haply resume some day my studies in this kind; - Not as the Scripture says, is, I think, the fact. Ere our death-day, - Faith, I think, does pass, and Love; but Knowledge abideth. - Let us seek Knowledge;—the rest may come and go as it happens. - Knowledge is hard to seek, and harder yet to adhere to. - Knowledge is painful often; and yet when we know we are happy. - Seek it, and leave mere Faith and Love to come with the chances. - As for Hope,—to-morrow I hope to be starting for Naples. - Rome will not do, I see, for many very good reasons. - Eastward, then, I suppose, with the coming of winter, to Egypt. - - -XI. MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER. - - You have heard nothing; of course I know you can have heard nothing. - Ah, well, more than once I have broken my purpose, and sometimes, - Only too often, have looked for the little lake steamer to bring him. - But it is only fancy,—I do not really expect it. - Oh, and you see I know so exactly how he would take it: - Finding the chances prevail against meeting again, he would banish - Forthwith every thought of the poor little possible hope, which - I myself could not help, perhaps, thinking only too much of; - He would resign himself, and go. I see it exactly. - So I also submit, although in a different manner. - Can you not really come? We go very shortly to England. - - * * * * * - - _So go forth to the world, to the good report and the evil!_ - _Go, little book! thy tale, is it not evil and good?_ - _Go, and if strangers revile, pass quietly by without answer._ - _Go, and if curious friends ask of thy rearing and age,_ - _Say, ‘I am flitting about many years from brain unto brain of_ - _Feeble and restless youths born to inglorious days:_ - _But,’ so finish the word, ‘I was writ in a Roman chamber,_ - _When from Janiculan heights thundered the cannon of France.’_ - - - - -SEVEN SONNETS ON THE THOUGHT OF DEATH. - - -_SEVEN SONNETS ON THE THOUGHT OF DEATH._[15] - - -I - - That children in their loveliness should die - Before the dawning beauty, which we know - Cannot remain, has yet begun to go; - That when a certain period has passed by, - People of genius and of faculty, - Leaving behind them some result to show, - Having performed some function, should forego - The task which younger hands can better ply, - Appears entirely natural. But that one - Whose perfectness did not at all consist - In things towards forming which time can have done - Anything,—whose sole office was to exist, - Should suddenly dissolve and cease to be - Is the extreme of all perplexity. - - -II - - That there are better things within the womb - Of Nature than to our unworthy view - She grants for a possession, may be true: - The cycle of the birthplace and the tomb - Fulfils at least the order and the doom - Of earth, that has not ordinance to do - More than to withdraw and to renew, - To show one moment and the next resume: - The law that we return from whence we came, - May for the flowers, beasts, and most men remain; - If for ourselves, we ask not nor complain: - But for a being that demands the name - We highest deem—a Person and a Soul— - It troubles us that this should be the whole. - - -III - - To see the rich autumnal tint depart, - And view the fading of the roseate glow - That veils some Alpine altitude of snow, - To hear of some great masterpiece of art - Lost or destroyed, may to the adult heart, - Impatient of the transitory show - Of lovelinesses that but come and go, - A positive strange thankfulness impart. - When human pure perfections disappear, - Not at the first, but at some later day, - The buoyancy of such reaction may - With strong assurance conquer blank dismay. - - -IV - - But whether in the uncoloured light of truth, - This inward strong assurance be, indeed, - More than the self-willed arbitrary creed, - Manhood’s inheritor to the dream of youth; - Whether to shut out fact because forsooth - To live were insupportable unfreed, - Be not or be the service of untruth: - Whether this vital confidence be more - Than his, who upon death’s immediate brink, - Knowing, perforce determines to ignore; - Or than the bird’s, that when the hunter’s near, - Burying her eyesight, can forget her fear; - Who about this shall tell us what to think? - - -V - - If it is thou whose casual hand withdraws - What it at first as casually did make, - Say what amount of ages it will take - With tardy rare concurrences of laws, - And subtle multiplicities of cause, - The thing they once had made us to remake; - May hopes dead slumbering dare to reawake, - E’en after utmost interval of pause, - What revolutions must have passed, before - The great celestial cycles shall restore - The starry sign whose present hour is gone; - What worse than dubious chances interpose, - With cloud and sunny gleam to recompose - The skiey picture we had gazed upon. - - -VI - - But if as not by that the soul desired - Swayed in the judgment, wisest men have thought, - And furnishing the evidence it sought, - Man’s heart hath ever fervently required, - And story, for that reason deemed inspired, - To every clime, in every age, hath taught; - If in this human complex there be aught - Not lost in death, as not in birth acquired, - O then, though cold the lips that did convey - Rich freights of meaning, dead each living sphere - Where thought abode, and fancy loved to play, - Thou yet, we think, somewhere somehow still art, - And satisfied with that the patient heart - The where and how doth not desire to hear. - - -VII - - Shall I decide it by a random shot? - Our happy hopes, so happy and so good, - Are not mere idle motions of the blood; - And when they seem most baseless, most are not. - A seed there must have been upon the spot - Where the flowers grow, without it ne’er they could; - The confidence of growth least understood - Of some deep intuition was begot. - What if despair and hope alike be true? - The heart, ’tis manifest, is free to do - Whichever Nature and itself suggest, - And always ’tis a fact that we are here, - And with being here, doth palsy-giving fear - (Whoe’er can ask or hope) accord the best? - - - - -MARI MAGNO OR TALES ON BOARD. - - -_MARI MAGNO or TALES ON BOARD._[16] - - A youth was I. An elder friend with me, - ’Twas in September o’er the autumnal sea - We went; the wide Atlantic ocean o’er - Two amongst many the strong steamer bore. - Delight it was to feel that wondrous force - That held us steady to our proposed course, - The burning resolute victorious will - ’Gainst winds and waves that strive unwavering still. - Delight it was with each returning day - To learn the ship had won upon her way - Her sum of miles,—delight were mornings grey - And gorgeous eves,—nor was it less delight, - On each more temperate and favouring night, - Friend with familiar or with new-found friend, - To pace the deck, and o’er the bulwarks bend, - And the night watches in long converse spend; - While still new subjects and new thoughts arise - Amidst the silence of the seas and skies. - Amongst the mingled multitude a few, - Some three or four, towards us early drew; - We proved each other with a day or two; - Night after night some three or four we walked - And talked, and talked, and infinitely talked. - Of the New England ancient blood was one; - His youthful spurs in letters he had won, - Unspoilt by that, to Europe late had come,— - Hope long deferred,—and went unspoilt by Europe home. - What racy tales of Yankeeland he had! - Up-country girl, up-country farmer lad; - The regnant clergy of the time of old - In wig and gown;—tales not to be retold - By me. I could but spoil were I to tell: - Himself must do it who can do it well. - An English clergyman came spick and span - In black and white—a large well-favoured man, - Fifty years old, as near as one could guess. - He looked the dignitary more or less. - A rural dean, I said, he was, at least, - Canon perhaps; at many a good man’s feast - A guest had been, amongst the choicest there. - Manly his voice and manly was his air: - At the first sight you felt he had not known - The things pertaining to his cloth alone. - Chairman of Quarter Sessions had he been? - Serious and calm, ’twas plain he much had seen, - Had miscellaneous large experience had - Of human acts, good, half and half, and bad. - Serious and calm, yet lurked, I know not why, - At times, a softness in his voice and eye. - Some shade of ill a prosperous life had crossed; - Married no doubt: a wife or child had lost? - He never told us why he passed the sea. - My guardian friend was now, at thirty-three, - A rising lawyer—ever, at the best, - Slow rises worth in lawyer’s gown compressed; - Succeeding now, yet just, and only just, - His new success he never seemed to trust. - By nature he to gentlest thoughts inclined, - To most severe had disciplined his mind; - He held it duty to be half unkind. - Bitter, they said, who but the exterior knew; - In friendship never was a friend so true: - The unwelcome fact he did not shrink to tell, - The good, if fact, he recognised as well. - Stout to maintain, if not the first to see; - In conversation who so great as he? - Leading but seldom, always sure to guide, - To false or silly, if ’twas borne aside, - His quick correction silent he expressed, - And stopped you short, and forced you to your best. - Often, I think, he suffered from some pain - Of mind, that on the body worked again; - One felt it in his sort of half-disdain, - Impatient not, but acrid in his speech; - The world with him her lesson failed to teach - To take things easily and let them go. - He, for what special fitness I scarce know, - For which good quality, or if for all, - With less of reservation and recall - And speedier favour than I e’er had seen, - Took, as we called him, to the rural dean. - As grew the gourd, as grew the stalk of bean, - So swift it seemed, betwixt these differing two - A stately trunk of confidence up-grew. - Of marriage long one night they held discourse; - Regarding it in different ways, of course. - Marriage is discipline, the wise had said, - A needful human discipline to wed; - Novels of course depict it final bliss,— - Say, had it ever really once been this? - Our Yankee friend (whom, ere the night was done, - We called New England or the Pilgrim Son), - A little tired, made bold to interfere; - ‘Appeal,’ he said, ‘to me; my sentence hear. - You’ll reason on till night and reason fail; - My judgment is you each shall tell a tale; - And as on marriage you can not agree, - Of love and marriage let the stories be.’ - Sentence delivered, as the younger man, - My lawyer friend was called on and began. - ‘_Infandum jubes!_ ’tis of long ago, - If tell I must, I tell the tale I know: - Yet the first person using for the freak, - Don’t rashly judge that of myself I speak.’ - So to his tale; if of himself or not - I never learnt, we thought so on the spot. - Lightly he told it as a thing of old, - And lightly I repeat it as he told. - - -_THE LAWYER’S FIRST TALE._ - -_Primitiæ, or Third Cousins._ - - -I - - ‘Dearest of boys, please come to-day, - Papa and mama have bid me say, - They hope you’ll dine with us at three; - They will be out till then, you see, - But you will start at once, you know, - And come as fast as you can go. - Next week they hope you’ll come and stay - Some time before you go away. - Dear boy, how pleasant it will be! - Ever your dearest Emily!’ - Twelve years of age was I, and she - Fourteen, when thus she wrote to me, - A schoolboy, with an uncle spending - My holidays, then nearly ending. - My uncle lived the mountain o’er, - A rector, and a bachelor; - The vicarage was by the sea, - That was the home of Emily: - The windows to the front looked down - Across a single-streeted town, - Far as to where Worms-head was seen, - Dim with ten watery miles between; - The Carnedd mountains on the right - With stony masses filled the sight; - To left the open sea; the bay - In a blue plain before you lay. - A garden, full of fruit, extends, - Stone-walled, above the house, and ends - With a locked door, that by a porch - Admits to churchyard and to church; - Farm-buildings nearer on one side, - And glebe, and then the country wide. - I and my cousin Emily - Were cousins in the third degree; - My mother near of kin was reckoned - To hers, who was my mother’s second: - My cousinship I held from her. - Such an amount of girls there were, - At first one really was perplexed: - ’Twas Patty first, and Lydia next, - And Emily the third, and then, - Philippa, Phœbe, Mary Gwen. - Six were they, you perceive, in all; - And portraits fading on the wall, - Grandmothers, heroines of old, - And aunts of aunts, with scrolls that told - Their names and dates, were there to show - Why these had all been christened so. - The crowd of blooming daughters fair - Scarce let you see the mother there, - And by her husband, large and tall, - She looked a little shrunk and small; - Although my mother used to tell - That once she was a county belle: - Busied she seemed, and half-distress’d - For him and them to do the best. - The vicar was of bulk and thewes, - Six feet he stood within his shoes, - And every inch of all a man; - Ecclesiast on the ancient plan, - Unforced by any party rule - His native character to school; - In ancient learning not unread, - But had few doctrines in his head; - Dissenters truly he abhorr’d, - They never had his gracious word. - He ne’er was bitter or unkind, - But positively spoke his mind. - Their piety he could not bear, - A sneaking snivelling set they were: - Their tricks and meanness fired his blood; - Up for his Church he stoutly stood. - No worldly aim had he in life - To set him with himself at strife; - A spade a spade he freely named, - And of his joke was not ashamed, - Made it and laughed at it, be sure, - With young and old, and rich and poor. - His sermons frequently he took - Out of some standard reverend book; - They seemed a little strange, indeed, - But were not likely to mislead. - Others he gave that were his own, - The difference could be quickly known. - Though sorry not to have a boy, - His daughters were his perfect joy; - He plagued them, oft drew tears from each, - Was bold and hasty in his speech; - All through the house you heard him call, - He had his vocatives for all: - Patty Patina, Pat became, - Lydia took Languish with her name, - Philippa was the Gentle Queen, - And Phœbe, Madam Proserpine; - The pseudonyms for Mary Gwen - Varied with every week again; - But Emily, of all the set, - Emilia called, was most the pet. - Soon as her messenger had come, - I started from my uncle’s home, - On an old pony scrambling down - Over the mountain to the town. - My cousins met me at the door, - And some behind, and some before, - Kissed me all round and kissed again, - The happy custom there and then, - From Patty down to Mary Gwen. - Three hours we had, and spent in play - About the garden and the hay; - We sat upon the half-built stack; - And when ’twas time for hurrying back, - Slyly away the others hied, - And took the ladder from the side; - Emily there, alone with me, - Was left in close captivity; - But down the stack at last I slid, - And found the ladder they had hid. - I left at six; again I went - Soon after and a fortnight spent: - Drawing, by Patty I was taught, - But could not be to music brought; - I showed them how to play at chess, - I argued with the governess; - I called them stupid; why, to me - ’Twas evident as A B C; - Were not the reasons such and such? - Helston, my schoolfellow, but much - My senior, in a yacht came o’er, - His uncle with him, from the shore - Under Worms-head: to take a sail - He pressed them, but could not prevail; - Mama was timid, durst not go, - Papa was rather gruff with no. - Helston no sooner was afloat, - We made a party in a boat, - And rowed to Sea-Mew Island out, - And landed there and roved about: - And I and Emily out of reach, - Strayed from the rest along the beach. - Turning to look into a cave - She stood, when suddenly a wave - Ran up; I caught her by the frock, - And pulled her out, and o’er a rock, - So doing, stumbled, rolled, and fell. - She knelt down, I remember well, - Bid me where I was hurt to tell, - And kissed me three times as I lay; - But I jumped up and limped away. - The next was my departing day. - Patty arranged it all with me - To send next year to Emily - A valentine. I wrote and sent; - For the fourteenth it duly went. - On the fourteenth what should there be - But one from Emily to me; - The postmark left it plain to see. - Mine, though they praised it at the time, - Was but a formal piece of rhyme. - She sent me one that she had bought; - ’Twas stupid of her, as I thought: - Why not have written one? She wrote, - However, soon, this little note. - ‘Dearest of boys, of course ’twas you; - You printed, but your hand I knew, - And verses too, how did you learn? - I can’t send any in return. - Papa declares they are not bad— - That’s praise from him—and I’m so glad - Because you know no one can be - I’d rather have to write to me. - ‘Our governess is going away, - We’re so distressed she cannot stay: - Mama had made it quite a rule - We none of us should go to school. - But what to do they do not know, - Papa protests it must be so. - Lydia and I may have to go; - Patty will try to teach the rest, - Mama agrees it will be best. - Dear boy, good-bye, I am, you see, - Ever your dearest Emily. - We want to know, so write and tell, - If you’d a valentine as well.’ - - -II - - Five tardy years were fully spent - Ere next my cousins’ way I went; - With Christmas then I came to see - My uncle in his rectory: - But they the town had left; no more - Were in the vicarage of yore. - When time his sixtieth year had brought, - An easier cure the vicar sought: - A country parsonage was made - Sufficient, amply, with the aid - Of mortar here and there, and bricks, - For him and wife and children six. - Though neighbours now, there scarce was light - To see them and return ere night. - Emily wrote: how glad they were - To hear of my arrival there; - Mama had bid her say that all - The house was crowded for the ball - Till Tuesday, but if I would come, - She thought that they could find me room; - The week with them I then should spend, - But really must the ball attend; - ‘Dear cousin, you have been away - For such an age, pray don’t delay, - But come and do not lose a day.’ - A schoolboy still, but now, indeed, - About to college to proceed, - Dancing was, let it be confess’d, - To me no pleasure at the best: - Of girls and of their lovely looks - I thought not, busy with my books. - Still, though a little ill-content, - Upon the Monday morn I went: - My cousins, each and all, I found - Wondrously grown! They kissed me round, - And so affectionate and good - They were, it could not be withstood. - Emily, I was so surprised, - At first I hardly recognised; - Her face so formed and rounded now, - Such knowledge in her eyes and brow; - For all I read and thought I knew, - She could divine me through and through. - Where had she been, and what had done, - I asked, such victory to have won? - She had not studied, had not read, - Seemed to have little in her head, - Yet of herself the right and true, - As of her own experience knew. - Straight from her eyes her judgments flew, - Like absolute decrees they ran, - From mine, on such a different plan. - A simple county country ball - It was to be, not grand at all; - And cousins four with me would dance, - And keep me well in countenance. - And there were people there to be - Who knew of old my family, - Friends of my friends—I heard and knew, - And tried; but no, it would not do. - Somehow it seemed a sort of thing - To which my strength I could not bring; - The music scarcely touched my ears, - The figures fluttered me with fears. - I talked, but had not aught to say, - Danced, my instructions to obey; - E’en when with beautiful good-will - Emilia through the long quadrille - Conducted me, alas the day, - Ten times I wished myself away. - But she, invested with a dower - Of conscious, scarce-exerted power, - Emilia, so, I know not why, - They called her now, not Emily, - Amid the living, heaving throng, - Sedately, somewhat, moved along, - Serenely, somewhat, in the dance - Mingled, divining at a glance, - And reading every countenance; - Not stately she, nor grand nor tall, - Yet looked as if controlling all - The fluctuations of the ball; - Her subjects ready at her call, - All others, she a queen, her throne - Preparing, and her title known, - Though not yet taken as her own. - O wonderful! I still can see, - And twice she came and danced with me. - She asked me of my school, and what - Those prizes were that I had got, - And what we learnt, and ‘oh,’ she said, - ‘How much to carry in one’s head,’ - And I must be upon my guard, - And really must not work too hard: - Who were my friends? and did I go - Ever to balls? I told her no: - She said, ‘I really like them so; - But then I am a girl; and dear, - You like your friends at school, I fear - Better than anybody here.’ - How long had she left school, I asked. - Two years, she told me, and I tasked - My faltering speech to learn about - Her life, but could not bring it out: - This while the dancers round us flew. - Helston, whom formerly I knew, - My schoolfellow, was at the ball, - A man full-statured, fair and tall, - Helston of Helston now they said, - Heir to his uncle, who was dead; - In the army, too: he danced with three - Of the four sisters. Emily - Refused him once, to dance with me. - How long it seemed! and yet at one - We left, before ’twas nearly done: - How thankful I! the journey through - I talked to them with spirits new; - And the brief sleep of closing night - Brought a sensation of delight, - Which, when I woke, was exquisite. - The music moving in my brain - I felt; in the gay crowd again - Half felt, half saw the girlish bands, - On their white skirts their white-gloved hands, - Advance, retreat, and yet advance, - And mingle in the mingling dance. - The impulse had arrived at last, - When the opportunity was past. - Breakfast my soft sensations first - With livelier passages dispersed. - Reposing in his country home, - Which half luxurious had become, - Gay was their father, loudly flung - His guests and blushing girls among, - His jokes; and she, their mother, too, - Less anxious seemed, with less to do, - Her daughters aiding. As the day - Advanced, the others went away, - But I must absolutely stay, - The girls cried out; I stayed and let - Myself be once more half their pet, - Although a little on the fret. - How ill our boyhood understands - Incipient manhood’s strong demands! - Boys have such troubles of their own, - As none, they fancy, e’er have known, - Such as to speak of, or to tell, - They hold, were unendurable: - Religious, social, of all kinds, - That tear and agitate their minds. - A thousand thoughts within me stirred, - Of which I could not speak a word; - Strange efforts after something new, - Which I was wretched not to do; - Passions, ambitions lay and lurked, - Wants, counter-wants, obscurely worked - Without their names, and unexplained. - And where had Emily obtained - Assurance, and had ascertained? - How strange, how far behind was I, - And how it came, I asked, and why? - How was it, and how could it be, - And what was all that worked in me? - They used to scold me when I read, - And bade me talk to them instead; - When I absconded to my room, - To fetch me out they used to come; - Oft by myself I went to walk, - But, by degrees, was got to talk. - The year had cheerfully begun, - With more than winter’s wonted sun, - Mountains, in the green garden ways, - Gleamed through the laurel and the bays. - I well remember letting out - One day, as there I looked about, - While they of girls discoursing sat, - This one how sweet, how lovely that, - That I could greater pleasure take - In looking on Llynidwil lake - Than on the fairest female face: - They could not understand: a place! - Incomprehensible it seemed; - Philippa looked as if she dreamed, - Patty and Lydia loud exclaimed, - And I already was ashamed, - When Emily asked, half apart, - If to the lake I’d given my heart; - And did the lake, she wished to learn, - My tender sentiment return. - For music, too, I would not care, - Which was an infinite despair: - When Lydia took her seat to play, - I read a book, or walked away. - I was not quite composed, I own, - Except when with the girls alone; - Looked to their father still with fear - Of how to him I must appear; - And was entirely put to shame, - When once some rough he-cousins came. - Yet Emily from all distress - Could reinstate me, more or less; - How pleasant by her side to walk, - How beautiful to let her talk, - How charming; yet, by slow degrees, - I got impatient, ill at ease; - Half glad, half wretched, when at last - The visit ended, and ’twas past. - - -III - - Next year I went and spent a week, - And certainly had learnt to speak; - My chains I forcibly had broke, - And now too much indeed I spoke. - A mother sick and seldom seen - A grief for many months had been, - Their father too was feebler, years - Were heavy, and there had been fears - Some months ago; and he was vexed - With party heats and all perplexed - With an upheaving modern change - To him and his old wisdom strange. - The daughters all were there, not one - Had yet to other duties run, - Their father, people used to say, - Frightened the wooers all away;— - As vines around an ancient stem, - They clung and clustered upon him, - Him loved and tended; above all, - Emilia, ever at his call. - But I was—intellectual; - I talked in high superior tone - Of things the girls had never known, - Far wiser to have let alone; - Things which the father knew in short - By country clerical report; - I talked of much I thought I knew, - Used all my college wit anew, - A little on my fancy drew; - Religion, politics, O me! - No subject great enough could be. - In vain, more weak in spirit grown, - At times he tried to put me down. - I own it was the want, in part, - Of any discipline of heart. - It was, now hard at work again, - The busy argufying brain - Of the prize schoolboy; but, indeed, - Much more, if right the thing I read, - It was the instinctive wish to try - And, above all things, not be shy. - Alas! it did not do at all; - Ill went the visit, ill the ball; - Each hour I felt myself grow worse, - With every effort more perverse. - I tried to change; too hard, indeed, - I tried, and never could succeed. - Out of sheer spite an extra day - I stayed; but when I went away, - Alas, the farewells were not warm, - The kissing was the merest form; - Emilia was _distraite_ and sad, - And everything was bad as bad. - - O had some happy chance fall’n out, - To turn the thing just round about, - In time at least to give anew - The old affectionate adieu! - A little thing, a word, a jest, - A laugh, had set us all at rest; - But nothing came. I went away, - And could have really cried that day, - So vexed, for I had meant so well, - Yet everything so ill befell, - And why and how I could not tell. - - Our wounds in youth soon close and heal, - Or seem to close; young people feel, - And suffer greatly, I believe, - But then they can’t profess to grieve: - Their pleasures occupy them more, - And they have so much time before. - At twenty life appeared to me - A sort of vague infinity; - And though of changes still I heard, - Real changes had not yet occurred: - And all things were, or would be, well, - And nothing irremediable. - The youth for his degree that reads - Beyond it nothing knows or needs; - Nor till ’tis over wakes to see - The busy world’s reality. - - One visit brief I made again - In autumn next but one, and then - All better found. With Mary Gwen - I talked, a schoolgirl just about - To leave this winter and come out. - Patty and Lydia were away, - And a strange sort of distance lay - Betwixt me and Emilia. - She sought me less, and I was shy. - And yet this time I think that I - More subtly felt, more saw, more knew - The beauty into which she grew; - More understood the meanings now - Of the still eyes and rounded brow, - And could, perhaps, have told you how - The intellect that crowns our race - To more than beauty in her face - Was changed. But I confuse from hence - The later and the earlier sense. - - -IV - - Have you the Giesbach seen? a fall - In Switzerland you say, that’s all; - That, and an inn, from which proceeds - A path that to the Faulhorn leads, - From whence you see the world of snows. - Few see how perfect in repose, - White green, the lake lies deeply set, - Where, slowly purifying yet, - The icy river-floods retain - A something of the glacier stain. - Steep cliffs arise the waters o’er, - The Giesbach leads you to a shore, - And to one still sequestered bay - I found elsewhere a scrambling way. - Above, the loftier heights ascend, - And level platforms here extend - The mountains and the cliffs between, - With firs and grassy spaces green, - And little dips and knolls to show - In part or whole the lake below; - And all exactly at the height - To make the pictures exquisite. - Most exquisite they seemed to me, - When, a year after my degree, - Passing upon my journey home - From Greece, and Sicily, and Rome, - I stayed at that minute hotel - Six days, or eight, I cannot tell. - Twelve months had led me fairly through - The old world surviving in the new. - From Rome with joy I passed to Greece, - To Athens and the Peloponnese; - Saluted with supreme delight - The Parthenon-surmounted height; - In huts at Delphi made abode, - And in Arcadian valleys rode; - Counted the towns that lie like slain - Upon the wide Bœotian plain; - With wonder in the spacious gloom - Stood of the Mycenæan tomb; - From the Acrocorinth watched the day - Light the eastern and the western bay. - Constantinople then had seen, - Where, by her cypresses, the queen - Of the East sees flow through portals wide - The steady streaming Scythian tide; - And after, from Scamander’s mouth, - Went up to Troy, and to the South, - To Lycia, Caria, pressed, atwhiles - Outvoyaging to Egean isles. - To see the things, which, sick with doubt - And comment, one had learnt about, - Was like clear morning after night, - Or raising of the blind to sight. - Aware it might be first and last, - I did it eagerly and fast, - And took unsparingly my fill. - The impetus of travel still - Urged me, but laden, half oppress’d, - Here lighting on a place of rest, - I yielded, asked not if ’twere best. - Pleasant it was, reposing here, - To sum the experience of the year, - And let the accumulated gain - Assort itself upon the brain. - Travel’s a miniature life, - Travel is evermore a strife, - Where he must run who would obtain. - ’Tis a perpetual loss and gain; - For sloth and error dear we pay, - By luck and effort win our way, - And both have need of every day. - Each day has got its sight to see, - Each day must put to profit be; - Pleasant, when seen are all the sights, - To let them think themselves to rights. - I on the Giesbach turf reclined, - Half watched this process in my mind, - Watch the stream purifying slow, - In me and in the lake below; - And then began to think of home, - And possibilities to come. - - Brienz, on our Brienzer See - From Interlaken every day - A steamer seeks, and at our pier - Lets out a crowd to see things here; - Up a steep path they pant and strive; - When to the level they arrive, - Dispersing, hither, thither, run, - For all must rapidly be done, - And seek, with questioning and din, - Some the cascade, and some the inn, - The waterfall, for if you look, - You find it printed in the book - That man or woman, so inclined, - May pass the very fall behind; - So many feet there intervene - The rock and flying jet between; - The inn, ’tis also in the plan - (For tourist is a hungry man), - And a small _salle_ repeats by rote, - A daily task of _table d’hôte_, - Where broth and meat, and country wine - Assure the strangers that they dine; - Do it they must while they have power, - For in three-quarters of an hour - Back comes the steamer from Brienz, - And with one clear departure hence - The quietude is more intense. - It was my custom at the top - To stand and see them clambering up, - Then take advantage of the start, - And pass into the woods apart. - It happened, and I know not why, - I once returned too speedily; - And, seeing women still and men, - Was swerving to the woods again, - But for a moment stopped to seize - A glance at some one near the trees; - A figure full, but full of grace, - Its movement beautified the place. - It turns, advances, comes my way; - What do I see, what do I say? - Yet, to a statelier beauty grown, - It is, it can be, she alone! - O mountains round! O heaven above! - It is—Emilia, whom I love; - ‘Emilia, whom I love,’ the word - Rose to my lips, as yet unheard, - When she, whose colour flushed to red, - In a soft voice, ‘My husband,’ said; - And Helston came up with his hand, - And both of them took mine; but stand - And talk they could not, they must go; - The steamer rang her bell below; - How curious that I did not know! - They were to go and stay at Thun, - Could I come there and see them soon? - And shortly were returning home, - And when would I to Helston come? - Thus down we went, I put them in; - Off went the steamer with a din, - And on the pier I stood and eyed - The bridegroom, seated by the bride, - Emilia closing to his side. - - -V - - She wrote from Helston; begged I’d come - And see her in her husband’s home. - I went, and bound by double vow, - Not only wife, but mother now, - I found her, lovely as of old, - O, rather, lovelier manifold. - Her wifely sweet reserve unbroke, - Still frankly, tenderly, she spoke; - Asked me about myself, would hear - What I proposed to do this year; - At college why was I detained, - Was it the fellowship I’d gained? - I told her that I was not tied - Henceforward further to reside, - Yet very likely might stay on, - And lapse into a college don; - My fellowship itself would give - A competence on which to live, - And if I waited, who could tell, - I might be tutor too, as well. - Oh, but, she said, I must not stay, - College and school were only play; - I might be sick, perhaps, of praise, - But must not therefore waste my days! - Fellows grow indolent, and then - They may not do as other men, - And for your happiness in life, - Sometime you’ll wish to have a wife. - - Languidly by her chair I sat, - But my eyes rather flashed at that. - I said, ‘Emilia, people change, - But yet, I own, I find it strange - To hear this common talk from you: - You speak, and some believe it true, - Just as if any wife would do; - Whoe’er one takes, ’tis much the same, - And love—and so forth, but a name.’ - She coloured. ‘What can I have said - Or what could put it in your head? - Indeed, I had not in my mind - The faintest notion of the kind.’ - I told her that I did not know— - Her tone appeared to mean it so. - ‘Emilia, when I’ve heard,’ I said, - ‘How people match themselves and wed, - I’ve sometimes wished that both were dead,’ - - She turned a little pale. I woke - Some thought; what thought I but soft she spoke; - ‘I’m sure that what you meant was good, - But, really, you misunderstood. - From point to point so quick you fly, - And are so vehement,—and I, - As you remember, long ago, - Am stupid, certainly am slow. - And yet some things I seem to know; - I know it will be just a crime, - If you should waste your powers and time. - There is so much, I think, that you, - And no one equally, can do.’ - ‘It does not matter much,’ said I, - ‘The things I thought of are gone by; - I’m quite content to wait to die.’ - - A sort of beauteous anger spread - Over her face. ‘O me!’ she said, - ‘That you should sit and trifle so, - And you so utterly don’t know - How greatly you have yet to grow, - How wide your objects have to expand, - How much is yet an unknown land! - You’re twenty-three, I’m twenty-five, - And I am so much more alive.’ - My eyes I shaded with my hand, - And almost lost my self-command. - I muttered something: ‘Yes, I see; - Two years have severed you from me. - O, Emily, was it ever told,’ - I asked, ‘that souls are young and old?’ - But she, continuing, ‘All the day - Were I to speak, I could but say - The one same thing the one same way. - Sometimes, indeed, I think, you know,’ - And her tone suddenly was low, - ‘That in a day we yet shall see, - You of my sisters and of me, - And of the things that used to be, - Will think, as you look back again, - With something not unlike disdain; - So you your rightful place obtain, - That will to me be joy, not pain.’ - Her voice still lower, lower fell, - I heard, just heard, each syllable. - ‘But,’ in the tone she used before, - ‘Don’t stay at college any more! - For others it perhaps may do, - I’m sure it will be bad for you.’ - - She softened me. The following day - We parted. As I went away - Her infant on her bosom lay, - And, as a mother might her boy, - I think she would with loving joy - Have kissed me; but I turned to go, - ’Twas better not to have it so. - Next year achieved me some amends, - And once we met, and met as friends. - Friends, yet apart; I had not much - Valued her judgment, though to touch - Her words had power; yet, strangely still, - It had been cogent on my will. - As she had counselled, I had done, - And a new effort was begun. - Forth to the war of life I went, - Courageous, and not ill content. - - ‘Yours is the fault I opened thus again - A youthful, ancient, sentimental vein,’ - He said, ‘and like Munchausen’s horn o’erflow - With liquefying tunes of long ago. - My wiser friend, who knows for what we live, - And what shall seek, will his correction give.’ - - We all made thanks. ‘My tale were quickly told,’ - The other said, ‘but the turned heavens behold; - The night two watches of the night is old, - The sinking stars their suasions urge for sleep. - My story for to-morrow night will keep.’ - - The evening after, when the day was stilled, - His promise thus the clergyman fulfilled. - - -_THE CLERGYMAN’S FIRST TALE._ - -_Love is fellow-service._ - - A youth and maid upon a summer night - Upon the lawn, while yet the skies were light, - Edmund and Emma, let their names be these, - Among the shrubs within the circling trees, - Joined in a game with boys and girls at play: - For games perhaps too old a little they; - In April she her eighteenth year begun, - And twenty he, and near to twenty-one. - A game it was of running and of noise; - He as a boy, with other girls and boys - (Her sisters and her brothers), took the fun; - And when her turn, she marked not, came to run, - ‘Emma,’ he called,—then knew that he was wrong, - Knew that her name to him did not belong. - Her look and manner proved his feeling true,— - A child no more, her womanhood she knew; - Half was the colour mounted on her face, - Her tardy movement had an adult grace. - Vexed with himself, and shamed, he felt the more - A kind of joy he ne’er had felt before. - Something there was that from this date began; - ’Twas beautiful with her to be a man. - - Two years elapsed, and he who went and came, - Changing in much, in this appeared the same; - The feeling, if it did not greatly grow, - Endured and was not wholly hid below. - He now, o’ertasked at school, a serious boy, - A sort of after-boyhood to enjoy - Appeared—in vigour and in spirit high - And manly grown, but kept the boy’s soft eye: - And full of blood, and strong and lithe of limb, - To him ’twas pleasure now to ride, to swim; - The peaks, the glens, the torrents tempted him. - Restless he seemed,—long distances would walk, - And lively was, and vehement in talk. - A wandering life his life had lately been, - Books he had read, the world had little seen. - One former frailty haunted him, a touch - Of something introspective overmuch. - With all his eager motions still there went - A self-correcting and ascetic bent, - That from the obvious good still led astray, - And set him travelling on the longest way; - Seen in these scattered notes their date that claim - When first his feeling conscious sought a name. - ‘Beside the wishing gate which so they name, - ’Mid northern hills to me this fancy came, - A wish I formed, my wish I thus expressed: - _Would I could wish my wishes all to rest,_ - _And know to wish the wish that were the best!_ - O for some winnowing wind, to the empty air - This chaff of easy sympathies to bear - Far off, and leave me of myself aware! - While thus this over health deludes me still, - So willing that I know not what I will; - O for some friend, or more than friend, austere, - To make me know myself, and make me fear! - O for some touch, too noble to be kind, - To awake to life the mind within the mind!’ - ‘O charms, seductions and divine delights! - All through the radiant yellow summer nights - Dreams, hardly dreams, that yield or e’er they’re done, - To the bright fact, my day, my risen sun! - O promise and fulfilment, both in one! - O bliss, already bliss, which nought has shared, - Whose glory no fruition has impaired, - And, emblem of my state, thou coming day, - With all thy hours unspent to pass away! - Why do I wait? What more propose to know? - Where the sweet mandate bids me, let me go; - My conscience in my impulse let me find, - Justification in the moving mind, - Law in the strong desire; or yet behind, - Say, is there aught the spell that has not heard, - A something that refuses to be stirred?’ - ‘In other regions has my being heard - Of a strange language the diviner word? - Has some forgotten life the exemplar shown? - Elsewhere such high communion have I known, - As dooms me here, in this, to live alone? - Then love, that shouldest blind me, let me, love, - Nothing behold beyond thee or above; - Ye impulses, that should be strong and wild, - Beguile me, if I am to be beguiled!’ - ‘Or are there modes of love, and different kinds, - Proportioned to the sizes of our minds? - There are who say thus, I held there was one, - One love, one deity, one central sun; - As he resistless brings the expanding day, - So love should come on his victorious way. - If light at all, can light indeed be there, - Yet only permeate half the ambient air? - Can the high noon be regnant in the sky, - Yet half the land in light, and half in darkness lie? - Can love, if love, be occupant in part, - Hold, as it were, some chambers in the heart; - Tenant at will of so much of the soul, - Not lord and mighty master of the whole? - There are who say, and say that it is well; - Opinion all, of knowledge none can tell.’ - ‘Montaigne, I know in a realm high above - Places the seat of friendship over love; - ’Tis not in love that we should think to find - The lofty fellowship of mind with mind; - Love’s not a joy where soul and soul unite, - Rather a wondrous animal delight; - And as in spring, for one consummate hour - The world of vegetation turns to flower, - The birds with liveliest plumage trim their wing, - And all the woodland listens as they sing; - When spring is o’er and summer days are sped, - The songs are silent, and the blossoms dead: - E’en so of man and woman is the bliss. - O, but I will not tamely yield to this! - I think it only shows us in the end, - Montaigne was happy in a noble friend, - Had not the fortune of a noble wife; - He lived, I think, a poor ignoble life, - And wrote of petty pleasures, petty pain; - I do not greatly think about Montaigne.’ - ‘How charming to be with her! yet indeed, - After a while I find a blank succeed; - After a while she little has to say, - I’m silent too, although I wish to stay; - What would it be all day, day after day? - Ah! but I ask, I do not doubt, too much; - I think of love as if it should be such - As to fulfil and occupy in whole - The nought-else-seeking, nought-essaying soul. - Therefore it is my mind with doubts I urge; - Hence are these fears and shiverings on the verge; - By books, not nature, thus have we been schooled, - By poetry and novels been befooled; - Wiser tradition says, the affections’ claim - Will be supplied, the rest will be the same. - I think too much of love, ’tis true: I know - It is not all, was ne’er intended so; - Yet such a change, so entire, I feel, ’twould be, - So potent, so omnipotent with me; - My former self I never should recall,— - Indeed I think it must be all in all.’ - ‘I thought that Love was winged; without a sound, - His purple pinions bore him o’er the ground, - Wafted without an effort here or there, - He came—and we too trod as if in air:— - But panting, toiling, clambering up the hill, - Am I to assist him? I, put forth my will - To upbear his lagging footsteps, lame and slow, - And help him on and tell him where to go, - And ease him of his quiver and his bow?’ - ‘Erotion! I saw it in a book; - Why did I notice it, why did I look? - Yea, is it so, ye powers that see above? - I do not love, I want, I try to love! - This is not love, but lack of love instead! - Merciless thought! I would I had been dead, - Or e’er the phrase had come into my head.’ - She also wrote: and here may find a place, - Of her and of her thoughts some slender trace. - ‘He is not vain; if proud, he quells his pride, - And somehow really likes to be defied; - Rejoices if you humble him: indeed - Gives way at once, and leaves you to succeed.’ - ‘Easy it were with such a mind to play, - And foolish not to do so, some would say; - One almost smiles to look and see the way: - But come what will, I will not play a part, - Indeed I dare not condescend to art.’ - ‘Easy ’twere not, perhaps, with him to live; - He looks for more than any one can give: - So dulled at times and disappointed; still - Expecting what depends not of my will: - My inspiration comes not at my call, - Seek me as I am, if seek you do at all.’ - ‘Like him I do, and think of him I must; - But more—I dare not and I cannot trust. - This more he brings—say, is it more or less - Than that no fruitage ever came to bless,— - The old wild flower of love-in-idleness?’ - ‘Me when he leaves and others when he sees, - What is my fate who am not there to please? - Me he has left; already may have seen - One, who for me forgotten here has been; - And he, the while is balancing between. - If the heart spoke, the heart I knew were bound; - What if it utter an uncertain sound?’ - ‘So quick to vary, so rejoiced to change, - From this to that his feelings surely range; - His fancies wander, and his thoughts as well; - And if the heart be constant, who can tell? - Far off to fly, to abandon me, and go, - He seems returning then before I know: - With every accident he seems to move, - Is now below me and is now above, - Now far aside,—O, does he really love?’ - ‘Absence were hard; yet let the trial be; - His nature’s aim and purpose he would free, - And in the world his course of action see. - O should he lose, not learn; pervert his scope; - O should I lose! and yet to win I hope. - I win not now; his way if now I went, - Brief joy I gave, for years of discontent.’ - ‘Gone, is it true? but oft he went before, - And came again before a month was o’er. - Gone—though I could not venture upon art, - It was perhaps a foolish pride in part; - He had such ready fancies in his head, - And really was so easy to be led; - One might have failed; and yet I feel ’twas pride, - And can’t but half repent I never tried. - Gone, is it true? but he again will come, - Wandering he loves, and loves returning home.’ - Gone, it was true; nor came so soon again; - Came, after travelling, pleasure half, half pain, - Came, but a half of Europe first o’erran; - Arrived, his father found a ruined man. - Rich they had been, and rich was Emma too. - Heiress of wealth she knew not, Edmund knew. - Farewell to her!—In a new home obscure, - Food for his helpless parents to secure, - From early morning to advancing dark, - He toiled and laboured as a merchant’s clerk. - Three years his heavy load he bore, nor quailed, - Then all his health, though scarce his spirit, failed; - Friends interposed, insisted it must be, - Enforced their help, and sent him to the sea. - Wandering about with little here to do, - His old thoughts mingling dimly with his new, - Wandering one morn, he met upon the shore, - Her, whom he quitted five long years before. - Alas! why quitted? Say that charms are nought, - Nor grace, nor beauty worth one serious thought; - Was there no mystic virtue in the sense - That joined your boyish girlish innocence? - Is constancy a thing to throw away, - And loving faithfulness a chance of every day? - Alas! why quitted? is she changed? but now - The weight of intellect is in her brow; - Changed, or but truer seen, one sees in her - Something to wake the soul, the interior sense to stir. - Alone they met, from alien eyes away, - The high shore hid them in a tiny bay. - Alone was he, was she; in sweet surprise - They met, before they knew it, in their eyes. - In his a wondering admiration glowed, - In hers, a world of tenderness o’erflowed; - In a brief moment all was known and seen, - That of slow years the wearying work had been: - Morn’s early odorous breath perchance in sooth, - Awoke the old natural feeling of their youth: - The sea, perchance, and solitude had charms, - They met—I know not—in each other’s arms. - Why linger now—why waste the sands of life? - A few sweet weeks, and they were man and wife. - To his old frailty do not be severe, - His latest theory with patience hear: - ‘I sought not, truly would to seek disdain, - A kind, soft pillow for a wearying pain, - Fatigues and cares to lighten, to relieve; - But love is fellow-service, I believe.’ - ‘No, truly no, it was not to obtain, - Though that alone were happiness, were gain, - A tender breast to fall upon and weep, - A heart, the secrets of my heart to keep; - To share my hopes, and in my griefs to grieve; - Yet love is fellow-service, I believe.’ - ‘Yet in the eye of life’s all-seeing sun - We shall behold a something we have done, - Shall of the work together we have wrought, - Beyond our aspiration and our thought, - Some not unworthy issue yet receive; - For love is fellow-service I believe.’ - - * * * * * - - The tale, we said, instructive was, but short; - Could he not give another of the sort? - He feared his second might his first repeat, - ‘And Aristotle teaches, change is sweet; - But come, our younger friend in this dim night - Under his bushel must not hide his light.’ - I said I’d had but little time to live, - Experience none or confidence could give. - ‘But I can tell to-morrow, if you please, - My last year’s journey towards the Pyrenees.’ - To-morrow came, and evening, when it closed, - The penalty of speech on me imposed. - - -_MY TALE._ - -_A la Banquette, or a Modern Pilgrimage._ - - I stayed at La Quenille, ten miles or more - From the old-Roman sources of Mont Dore; - Travellers to Tulle this way are forced to go, - —An old high-road from Lyons to Bordeaux,— - From Tulle to Brives the swift Corrèze descends, - At Brives you’ve railway, and your trouble ends; - A little _bourg_ La Quenille; from the height - The mountains of Auvergne are all in sight; - Green pastoral heights that once in lava flowed, - Of primal fire the product and abode; - And all the plateaux and the lines that trace - Where in deep dells the waters find their place; - Far to the south above the lofty plain, - The Plomb du Cantal lifts his towering train. - A little after one, with little fail, - Down drove the diligence that bears the mail; - The _courier_ therefore called, in whose _banquette_ - A place I got, and thankful was to get; - The new postillion climbed his seat, _allez_, - Off broke the four cart-horses on their way. - Westward we roll, o’er heathy backs of hills, - Crossing the future rivers in the rills; - Bare table-lands are these, and sparsely sown, - Turning their waters south to the Dordogne. - Close-packed we were, and little at our ease, - The _conducteur_ impatient with the squeeze; - Not tall he seemed, but bulky round about, - His cap and jacket made him look more stout; - In _grande tenue_ he rode of _conducteur_; - Black eyes he had, black his moustaches were, - Shaven his chin, his hair and whiskers cropt; - A ready man; at Ussel when we stopt, - For me and for himself, bread, meat, and wine, - He got, the _courier_ did not wait to dine; - To appease our hunger, and allay our drouth, - We ate and took the bottle at the mouth; - One draught I had, the rest entire had he, - For wine his body had capacity. - A peasant in his country blouse was there, - He told me of the _conseil_ and the _maire_. - Their _maire_, he said, could neither write nor read, - And yet could keep the registers, indeed; - The _conseil_ had resigned—I know not what.— - Good actions here are easily forgot: - He in the _quarante-huit_ had something done, - Were things but fair, some notice should have won. - Another youth there was, a soldier he, - A soldier ceasing with to-day to be; - Three years had served, for three had bought release: - From war returning to the arts of peace, - To Tulle he went, as his department’s town, - To-morrow morn to pay his money down. - In Italy, his second year begun, - This youth had served, when Italy was won. - He told of Montebello, and the fight, - That ended fiercely with the close of night. - There was he wounded, fell, and thought to die, - Two Austrian cones had passed into his thigh; - One traversed it, the other, left behind, - In hospital the doctor had to find: - At eight of night he fell, and sadly lay - Till three of morning of the following day, - When peasants came and put him on a wain, - And drove him to Voghera in his pain; - To Alessandria thence the railway bore, - In Alessandria then two months and more - He lay in hospital; to lop the limb - The Italian doctor who attended him - Was much disposed, but high above the knee; - For life an utter cripple he would be. - Then came the typhoid fever, and the lack - Of food. And sick and hungering, on his back, - With French, Italians, Austrians as he lay, - Arrived the tidings of Magenta’s day, - And Milan entered in the burning June, - And Solferino’s issue following soon. - Alas, the glorious wars! and shortly he - To Genoa for the advantage of the sea, - And to Savona, suffering still, was sent - And joined his now returning regiment. - Good were the Austrian soldiers, but the feel - They did not well encounter of cold steel, - Nor in the bayonet fence of man with man - Maintained their ground, but yielded, turned and ran - _Les armes blanches_ and the rifled gun - Had fought the battles, and the victories won. - The glorious wars! but he, the doubtful chance - Of soldiers’ glory quitting and advance,— - His wounded limb less injured than he feared,— - Was dealing now in timber, it appeared; - Oak-timber finding for some mines of lead, - Worked by an English company, he said. - This youth perhaps was twenty-three years old; - Simply and well his history he told. - They wished to hear about myself as well; - I told them, but it was not much to tell; - At the Mont Dore, of which the guide-book talks, - I’d taken, not the waters, but the walks. - Friends I had met, who on their southward way - Had gone before, I followed them to-day. - They wondered greatly at this wondrous thing,— - _Les Anglais_ are for ever on the wing,— - The _conducteur_ said everybody knew - We were descended of the Wandering Jew. - And on with the declining sun we rolled, - And woods and vales and fuller streams behold. - About the hour when peasant people sup, - We dropped the peasant, took a _curé_ up, - In hat and bands and _soutane_ all to fit. - He next the _conducteur_ was put to sit; - I in the corner gained the senior place. - Brown was his hair, but closely shaved his face; - To lift his eyelids did he think it sin? - I saw a pair of soft brown eyes within. - Older he was, but looked like twenty-two, - Fresh from the cases, to the country new. - I, the _conducteur_ watching from my side, - A roguish twinkle in his eye espied; - He begged to hear about the pretty pair - Whom he supposed he had been marrying there; - The deed, he hoped, was comfortably done,— - _Monsieur l’Evêque_ he called him in his fun. - Then lifted soon his voice for all to hear; - A barytone he had both strong and clear: - In fragments first of music made essay, - And tried his pipes and modest felt his way. - _Le verre en main la mort nous trouvera_, - It was, or _Ah, vous dirai-je, maman_! - And then, _A toi, ma belle, à toi toujours_; - Till of his organ’s quality secure, - Trifling no more, but boldly, like a man, - He filled his chest and gallantly began. - - ‘Though I have seemed, against my wiser will, - Your victim, O ye tender foibles, still, - Once now for all, though half my heart be yours, - Adieu, sweet faults, adieu, ye gay amours! - Sad if it be, yet true it is to say, - I’ve fifty years, and ’tis too late a day, - My limbs are shrinking and my hair turns grey; - Adieu, gay loves, it is too late a day! - ‘Once in your school (what good, alas! is once?) - I took my lessons, and was not the dunce. - Oh, what a pretty girl was then Juliette! - Don’t you suppose that I remember yet, - Though thirty years divide me from the day, - When she and I first looked each other’s way? - But now! midwinter to be matched with May! - Adieu, gay loves, it is too late a day! - ‘You lovely Marguerite! I shut my eyes, - And do my very utmost to be wise; - Yet see you still; and hear, though closed my ears, - And think I’m young in spite of all my years; - Shall I forget you if I go away? - To leave is painful, but absurd to stay; - I’ve fifty dreadful reasons to obey. - Adieu, gay loves, it is too late a day!’ - - This priest beside the lusty _conducteur_ - Under his beaver sat and looked demure; - Faintly he smiled the company to please, - And folded held his hands above his knees. - Then, apropos of nothing, had we heard, - He asked, about a thing that had occurred - At the Mont Dore a little time ago, - A wondrous cure? and when we answered, No, - About a little girl he told a tale, - Who, when her medicines were of no avail, - Was by the doctor ordered to Mont Dore, - But nothing gained and only suffered more. - This little child had in her simple way - Unto the Blessed Virgin learnt to pray, - And, as it happened, to an image there - By the roadside one day she made her prayer, - And of our Lady, who can hear on high, - Begged for her parents’ sake she might not die. - Our Lady of Grace, whose attribute is love, - Beheld this child and listened from above. - Her parents noticed from that very day - The malady began to pass away, - And but a fortnight after, as they tell, - They took her home rejoicing, sound and well. - Things come, he said, to show us every hour - We are surrounded by superior power. - Little we notice, but if once we see, - The seed of faith will grow into a tree. - The _conducteur_, he wisely shook his head: - Strange things do happen in our time, he said; - If the _bon Dieu_ but please, no doubt indeed, - When things are desperate, yet they will succeed. - Ask the postillion here, and he can tell - Who cured his horse, and what of it befell. - Then the postillion, in his smock of blue, - His pipe into his mouth’s far corner drew, - And told about a farrier and a horse; - But his _Auvergnat_ grew from bad to worse; - His rank Arvernian _patois_ was so strong, - With what he said I could not go along; - And what befell and how it came to pass, - And if it were a horse or if an ass, - The sequence of his phrase I could not keep, - And in the middle fairly sank to sleep. - When I awoke, I heard a stream below - And on each bank saw houses in a row, - Corrèze the stream, the houses Tulle, they said; - Alighted here and thankful went to bed. - - ‘But how,’ said one, ‘about the Pyrenees? - In Hamlet give us Hamlet, if you please; - Your friend declares you said you met with there - A peasant beauty, beauteous past compare, - Who fed her cows the mountain peaks between, - And asked if at Velletri you had been. - And was Velletri larger than was Rome? - Her soldier-brother went away from home, - Two years ago,—to Rome it was he went, - And to Velletri was this summer sent; - He twenty-three, and she was sweet seventeen, - And fed her cows the mountain peaks between. - Lightly along a rocky path she led, - And from a grange she brought you milk and bread. - In summer here she lived, and with the snow - Went in October to the fields below; - And where you lived, she asked, and oh, they say, - That with the English we shall fight some day; - Loveliest of peasant girls that e’er was seen, - Feeding her cows the mountain peaks between.’ - ‘’Tis true,’ I said, ‘though to betray was mean. - My Pyrenean verses will you hear, - Though not about that peasant girl, I fear.’ - ‘Begin,’ they said, ‘the sweet bucolic song, - Though it to other maids and other cows belong.’ - - _Currente calamo._ - - Quick, painter, quick, the moment seize - Amid the snowy Pyrenees; - More evanescent than the snow, - The pictures come, are seen, and go: - Quick, quick, _currente calamo_. - I do not ask the tints that fill - The gate of day ’twixt hill and hill; - I ask not for the hues that fleet - Above the distant peaks; my feet - Are on a poplar-bordered road, - Where with a saddle and a load - A donkey, old and ashen-grey, - Reluctant works his dusty way. - Before him, still with might and main - Pulling his rope, the rustic rein, - A girl: before both him and me, - Frequent she turns and lets me see, - Unconscious, lets me scan and trace - The sunny darkness of her face - And outlines full of southern grace. - Following I notice, yet and yet, - Her olive skin, dark eyes deep set, - And black, and blacker e’en than jet, - The escaping hair that scantly showed, - Since o’er it in the country mode, - For winter warmth and summer shade, - The lap of scarlet cloth is laid. - And then, back-falling from the head, - A crimson kerchief overspread - Her jacket blue; thence passing down, - A skirt of darkest yellow-brown, - Coarse stuff, allowing to the view - The smooth limb to the woollen shoe. - But who—here’s some one following too,— - A priest, and reading at his book! - Read on, O priest, and do not look; - Consider,—she is but a child,— - Yet might your fancy be beguiled. - Read on, O priest, and pass and go! - But see, succeeding in a row, - Two, three, and four, a motley train, - Musicians wandering back to Spain; - With fiddle and with tambourine, - A man with women following seen. - What dresses, ribbon-ends, and flowers! - And,—sight to wonder at for hours,— - The man,—to Phillip has he sat?— - With butterfly-like velvet hat; - One dame his big bassoon conveys, - On one his gentle arm he lays; - They stop, and look, and something say, - And to ‘España’ ask the way. - But while I speak, and point them on, - Alas! my dearer friends are gone; - The dark-eyed maiden and the ass - Have had the time the bridge to pass. - Vainly, beyond it far descried, - Adieu, and peace with you abide, - Grey donkey, and your beauteous guide. - The pictures come, the pictures go, - Quick, quick, _currente calamo_. - - They praised the rhymes, but still would persevere - The eclogue of the mountain peaks to hear, - Eclogue that never was; and then awhile, - Of France, and Frenchmen, and our native isle, - They talked; pre-insular above the rest, - My friend his ardent politics expressed; - France was behind us all, he saw in France - Worse retrogression, and the least advance. - Her revolutions had but thrown her back. - Powerful just now, but wholly off the track; - They in religion were, as I had seen, - About where we in Chaucer’s time had been; - In Chaucer’s time, and yet their Wickliffe where? - Something they’d kept—the worst part—of Voltaire. - Strong for Old England, was New England too; - The clergyman was neutral in his view, - And I, for France with more than I could do, - Though sound, my thesis did not long maintain. - The contemplation of the nightly main, - The vaulted heavens above, and under these, - The black ship working through the dusky seas, - Deserting, to our narrow berths we crept; - Sound slumbered there, the watch while others kept. - The second officer, who kept the watch, - A young man, fair of feature, partly Scotch - And partly Irish in his voice and way, - Joined us the evening of the following day, - And of our stories when he heard us tell, - Offered to give a narrative as well. - - -_THE MATE’S STORY._ - - ‘I’ve often wondered how it is, at times - Good people do what are as bad as crimes. - A common person would have been ashamed - To do what once a family far-famed - For their religious ways was known to do. - Small harm befell, small thanks to them were due. - They from abroad, perhaps it cost them less, - Had brought a young French girl as governess, - A pretty, youthful thing as e’er you saw; - She taught the children how to play and draw, - Of course, the language of her native land; - English she scarcely learnt to understand. - After a time they wanted her no more; - She must go home,—but how to send her o’er,— - Far in the south of France she lived, and they - In Ireland there—was more than they could say. - A monthly steamer, as they chanced to know, - From Liverpool went over to Bordeaux, - And would, they thought, exactly meet the case. - They wrote and got a friend to take a place; - And from her salary paid her money down. - A trading steamer from the seaport town - Near which they lived, across the Channel plied, - And this, they said, a passage would provide. - With pigs, and with the Irish reaping horde, - This pretty tender girl was put on board; - And a rough time of it, no doubt, had she, - Tossing about upon the Irish Sea. - Arrived at last and set ashore, she found - The steamer gone for which she had been bound. - The pious people, in their careless way, - Had made some loose mistake about the day. - She stood; the passengers with whom she crossed - Went off, and she remained as one that’s lost. - Think of the hapless creature standing here - Alone, beside her boxes on the pier. - Whither to turn, and where to try and go, - She knew not; nay, the language did not know. - So young a girl, so pretty too, set down - Here, in the midst of a great seaport town, - What might have happened one may sadly guess, - Had not the captain, seeing her distress, - Made out the cause, and told her she could stay - On board the vessel till the following day. - Next day, he said—the steamer to Bordeaux - Was gone no doubt, next month the next would go; - For this her passage-money she had paid, - But some arrangement could, he thought, be made, - If only she could manage to afford - To wait a month and pay for bed and board. - She sadly shook her head—well, after all, - ’Twas a bad town, and mischief might befall. - Would she go back? Indeed ’twas but a shame, - To take her back to those from whom she came. - ‘There’s one thing, Miss,’ said he, ‘that you can do - It’s speaking somewhat sudden-like, it’s true, - But if you’ll marry me, I’ll marry you. - May be you won’t, but if you will you can.’ - This captain was a young and decent man, - And I suppose she saw no better way; - Marry they did, and married live this day. - Another friend, these previous nights away, - An officer of engineers, and round - By Halifax to far Bermuda bound, - Joined us this night; a rover he had been. - Many strange sights and many climes had seen, - And much of various life; his comment was, ’twas well - There was no further incident to tell. - He’d been afraid that ere the tale was o’er, - ’Twould prove the captain had a wife before. - The poor French girl was luckier than she knew; - Soldiers and sailors had so often two. - And it was something, too, for men who went - From port to port to be with two content. - In every place the marriage rite supplied - A decent spouse to whom you were not tied. - Of course the women would at times suspect, - But felt their reputations were not wrecked. - - One after night we took ourselves to task - For our neglect who had forborne to ask - The clergyman, who told his tale so well, - Another tale for our behalf to tell. - He to a second had himself confessed. - Now, when to hear it eagerly we pressed. - He put us off; but, ere the night was done, - Told us his second, and his sadder one. - - -_THE CLERGYMAN’S SECOND TALE._ - - Edward and Jane a married couple were, - And fonder she of him or he of her - Was hard to say; their wedlock had begun - When in one year they both were twenty-one; - And friends, who would not sanction, left them free - He gentle-born, nor his inferior she, - And neither rich; to the newly-wedded boy, - A great Insurance Office found employ. - Strong in their loves and hopes, with joy they took - This narrow lot and the world’s altered look; - Beyond their home they nothing sought nor craved, - And even from the narrow income saved; - Their busy days for no ennui had place, - Neither grew weary of the other’s face. - Nine happy years had crowned their married state - With children, one a little girl of eight; - With nine industrious years his income grew, - With his employers rose his favour too; - Nine years complete had passed when something ailed. - Friends and the doctors said his health had failed, - He must recruit, or worse would come to pass; - And though to rest was hard for him, alas! - Three months of leave he found he could obtain, - And go, they said, get well and work again. - Just at this juncture of their married life, - Her mother, sickening, begged to have his wife. - Her house among the hills in Surrey stood, - And to be there, said Jane, would do the children good - They let their house, and with the children she - Went to her mother, he beyond the sea; - Far to the south his orders were to go. - A watering-place, whose name we need not know, - For climate and for change of scene was best: - There he was bid, laborious task, to rest. - A dismal thing in foreign lands to roam - To one accustomed to an English home, - Dismal yet more, in health if feeble grown, - To live a boarder, helpless and alone - In foreign town, and worse yet worse is made, - If ’tis a town of pleasure and parade. - Dispiriting the public walks and seats, - The alien faces that an alien meets; - Drearily every day this old routine repeats. - Yet here this alien prospered, change of air - Or change of scene did more than tenderest care; - Three weeks were scarce completed, to his home, - He wrote to say, he thought he now could come, - His usual work was sure he could resume, - And something said about the place’s gloom, - And how he loathed idling his time away. - O, but they wrote, his wife and all, to say - He must not think of it, ’twas quite too quick; - Let was their house, her mother still was sick, - Three months were given, and three he ought to take; - For his, and hers, and for his children’s sake. - He wrote again, ’twas weariness to wait, - This doing nothing was a thing to hate; - He’d cast his nine laborious years away, - And was as fresh as on his wedding-day; - At last he yielded, feared he must obey. - And now, his health repaired, his spirits grown - Less feeble, less he cared to live alone. - ’Twas easier now to face the crowded shore, - And table d’hôte less tedious than before; - His ancient silence sometimes he would break, - And the mute Englishman was heard to speak. - His youthful colour soon, his youthful air - Came back; amongst the crowd of idlers there, - With whom good looks entitle to good name, - For his good looks he gained a sort of fame, - People would watch him as he went and came. - Explain the tragic mystery who can, - Something there is, we know not what, in man, - With all established happiness at strife, - And bent on revolution in his life. - Explain the plan of Providence who dare, - And tell us wherefore in this world there are - Beings who seem for this alone to live, - Temptation to another soul to give. - A beauteous woman at the table d’hôte, - To try this English heart, at least to note - This English countenance, conceived the whim. - She sat exactly opposite to him. - Ere long he noticed with a vague surprise - How every day on him she bent her eyes; - Soft and inquiring now they looked, and then - Wholly withdrawn, unnoticed came again; - His shrunk aside: and yet there came a day, - Alas! they did not wholly turn away. - So beautiful her beauty was, so strange, - And to his northern feeling such a change; - Her throat and neck Junonian in their grace; - The blood just mantled in her southern face: - Dark hair, dark eyes; and all the arts she had - With which some dreadful power adorns the bad,— - Bad women in their youth,—and young was she, - Twenty perhaps, at the utmost twenty-three,— - And timid seemed, and innocent of ill;— - Her feelings went and came without her will. - You will not wish minutely to know all - His efforts in the prospect of the fall. - He oscillated to and fro, he took - High courage oft, temptation from him shook, - Compelled himself to virtuous thoughts and just, - And as it were in ashes and in dust - Abhorred his thought. But living thus alone, - Of solitary tedium weary grown; - From sweet society so long debarred, - And fearing in his judgment to be hard - On her—that he was sometimes off his guard - What wonder? She relentless still pursued - Unmarked, and tracked him in his solitude. - And not in vain, alas! - The days went by and found him in the snare. - But soon a letter full of tenderest care - Came from his wife, the little daughter too - In a large hand—the exercise was new— - To her papa her love and kisses sent. - Into his very heart and soul it went. - Forth on the high and dusty road he sought - Some issue for the vortex of his thought. - Returned, packed up his things, and ere the day - Descended, was a hundred miles away. - There are, I know of course, who lightly treat - Such slips; we stumble, we regain our feet; - What can we do? they say, but hasten on - And disregard it as a thing that’s gone. - Many there are who in a case like this - Would calm re-seek their sweet domestic bliss; - Accept unshamed the wifely tender kiss, - And lift their little children on their knees, - And take their kisses too; with hearts at ease - Will read the household prayers,—to church will go, - And sacrament,—nor care if people know. - Such men—so minded—do exist, God knows, - And, God be thanked, this was not one of those. - Late in the night, at a provincial town - In France, a passing traveller was put down; - Haggard he looked, his hair was turning grey, - His hair, his clothes, were much in disarray: - In a bedchamber here one day he stayed, - Wrote letters, posted them, his reckoning paid - And went. ’Twas Edward rushing from his fall - Here to his wife he wrote and told her all. - Forgiveness—yes, perhaps she might forgive— - For her, and for the children, he must live - At any rate; but their old home to share - As yet was something that he could not bear. - She with her mother still her home should make, - A lodging near the office he should take; - And once a quarter he would bring his pay, - And he would see her on the quarter-day, - But her alone; e’en this would dreadful be, - The children ’twas not possible to see. - Back to the office at this early day - To see him come, old-looking thus and grey, - His comrades wondered, wondered too to see - How dire a passion for his work had he, - How in a garret too he lived alone; - So cold a husband, cold a father grown. - In a green lane beside her mother’s home, - Where in old days they had been used to roam, - His wife had met him on the appointed day, - Fell on his neck, said all that love could say, - And wept; he put the loving arms away. - At dusk they met, for so was his desire; - She felt his cheeks and forehead all on fire; - The kisses which she gave he could not brook; - Once in her face he gave a sidelong look, - Said, but for them he wished that he were dead, - And put the money in her hand and fled. - Sometimes in easy and familiar tone, - Of sins resembling more or less his own - He heard his comrades in the office speak, - And felt the colour tingling in his cheek; - Lightly they spoke as of a thing of nought; - He of their judgment ne’er so much as thought. - I know not, in his solitary pains, - Whether he seemed to feel as in his veins - The moral mischief circulating still, - Racked with the torture of the double will; - And like some frontier-land where armies wage - The mighty wars, engage and yet engage - All through the summer in the fierce campaign; - March, counter-march, gain, lose, and yet regain; - With battle reeks the desolated plain; - So felt his nature yielded to the strife - Of the contending good and ill of life. - But a whole year this penance he endured, - Nor even then would think that he was cured. - Once in a quarter, in the country lane, - He met his wife and paid his quarter’s gain; - To bring the children she besought in vain. - He has a life small happiness that gives, - Who friendless in a London lodging lives, - Dines in a dingy chop-house, and returns - To a lone room while all within him yearns - For sympathy, and his whole nature burns - With a fierce thirst for some one,—is there none?— - To expend his human tenderness upon. - So blank, and hard, and stony is the way - To walk, I wonder not men go astray. - Edward, whom still a sense that never slept - On the strict path undeviating kept, - One winter-evening found himself pursued - Amidst the dusky thronging multitude. - Quickly he walked, but strangely swift was she, - And pertinacious, and would make him see. - He saw at last, and recognising slow, - Discovered in this hapless thing of woe - The occasion of his shame twelve wretched months ago. - She gaily laughed, she cried, and sought his hand, - And spoke sweet phrases of her native land; - Exiled, she said, her lovely home had left, - Not to forsake a friend of all but her bereft; - Exiled, she cried, for liberty, for love, - She was; still limpid eyes she turned above. - So beauteous once, and now such misery in, - Pity had all but softened him to sin; - But while she talked, and wildly laughed, and cried, - And plucked the hand which sadly he denied, - A stranger came and swept her from his side. - He watched them in the gas-lit darkness go, - And a voice said within him, Even so, - So midst the gloomy mansions where they dwell - The lost souls walk the flaming streets of hell! - The lamps appeared to fling a baleful glare, - A brazen heat was heavy in the air; - And it was hell, and he some unblest wanderer there. - For a long hour he stayed the streets to roam, - Late gathering sense, he gained his garret home; - There found a telegraph that bade him come - Straight to the country, where his daughter, still - His darling child, lay dangerously ill. - The doctor would he bring? Away he went - And found the doctor; to the office sent - A letter, asking leave, and went again, - And with a wild confusion in his brain, - Joining the doctor caught the latest train. - The train swift whirled them from the city light - Into the shadows of the natural night. - ’Twas silent starry midnight on the down, - Silent and chill, when they, straight come from town, - Leaving the station, walked a mile to gain - The lonely house amid the hills where Jane, - Her mother, and her children should be found. - Waked by their entrance, but of sleep unsound, - The child not yet her altered father knew; - Yet talked of her papa in her delirium too. - Danger there was, yet hope there was; and he, - To attend the crisis, and the changes see, - And take the steps, at hand should surely be. - Said Jane the following day, ‘Edward, you know, - Over and over I have told you so, - As in a better world I seek to live, - As I desire forgiveness, I forgive. - Forgiveness does not feel the word to say,— - As I believe in One who takes away - Our sin and gives us righteousness instead,— - You to this sin, I do believe, are dead. - ’Twas I, you know, who let you leave your home - And bade you stay when you so wished to come; - My fault was that: I’ve told you so before, - And vainly told; but now ’tis something more. - Say, is it right, without a single friend, - Without advice, to leave me to attend - Children and mother both? Indeed I’ve thought - Through want of you the child her fever caught. - Chances of mischief come with every hour. - It is not in a single woman’s power - Alone, and ever haunted more or less - With anxious thoughts of you and your distress,— - ’Tis not indeed, I’m sure of it, in me,— - All things with perfect judgment to foresee. - This weight has grown too heavy to endure; - And you, I tell you now, and I am sure, - Neglect your duty both to God and man - Persisting thus in your unnatural plan. - This feeling you must conquer, for you can. - And after all, you know we are but dust, - What are we, in ourselves that we should trust?’ - He scarcely answered her; but he obtained - A longer leave, and quietly remained. - Slowly the child recovered, long was ill, - Long delicate, and he must watch her still; - To give up seeing her he could not bear, - To leave her less attended, did not dare. - The child recovered slowly, slowly too - Recovered he, and more familiar drew - Home’s happy breath; and apprehension o’er, - Their former life he yielded to restore, - And to his mournful garret went no more. - - * * * * * - - Midnight was dim and hazy overhead - When the tale ended and we turned to bed. - On the companion-way, descending slow, - The artillery captain, as we went below, - Said to the lawyer, life could not be meant - To be so altogether innocent. - What did the atonement show? he, for the rest, - Could not, he thought, have written and confessed. - Weakness it was, and adding crime to crime - To leave his family that length of time, - The lawyer said; the American was sure - Each nature knows instinctively its cure. - Midnight was in the cabin still and dead, - Our fellow-passengers were all in bed, - We followed them, and nothing further spoke. - Out of the sweetest of my sleep I woke - At two, and felt we stopped; amid a dream - Of England knew the letting-off of steam - And rose. ’Twas fog, and were we off Cape Race? - The captain would be certain of his place. - Wild in white vapour flew away the force, - And self-arrested was the eager course - That had not ceased before. But shortly now - Cape Race was made to starboard on the bow. - The paddles plied. I slept. The following night - In the mid seas we saw a quay and light, - And peered through mist into an unseen town, - And on scarce-seeming land set one companion down, - And went. With morning and a shining sun, - Under the bright New Brunswick coast we run, - And visible discern to every eye - Rocks, pines, and little ports, and passing by - The boats and coasting craft. When sunk the night - Early now sunk, the northern streamers bright - Floated and flashed, the cliffs and clouds behind, - With phosphorus the billows all were lined. - That evening, while the arctic streamers bright - Rolled from the clouds in waves of airy light, - The lawyer said, ‘I laid by for to-night - A story that I would not tell before; - For the last time, a confidential four, - We meet. Receive in your elected ears - A tale of human suffering and tears.’ - - -_THE LAWYER’S SECOND TALE._ - -_Christian._ - - A Highland inn among the western hills, - A single parlour, single bed that fills - With fisher or with tourist, as may be; - A waiting-maid, as fair as you can see, - With hazel eyes, and frequent blushing face, - And ample brow, and with a rustic grace - In all her easy quiet motions seen, - Large of her age, which haply is nineteen, - Christian her name, in full a pleasant name, - Christian and Christie scarcely seem the same;— - A college fellow, who has sent away - The pupils he has taught for many a day, - And comes for fishing and for solitude, - Perhaps a little pensive in his mood, - An aspiration and a thought have failed, - Where he had hoped, another has prevailed, - But to the joys of hill and stream alive, - And in his boyhood yet, at twenty-five. - A merry dance, that made young people meet, - And set them moving, both with hands and feet; - A dance in which he danced, and nearer knew - The soft brown eyes, and found them tender too. - A dance that lit in two young hearts the fire, - The low soft flame, of loving sweet desire, - And made him feel that he could feel again;— - The preface this, what follows to explain. - That night he kissed, he held her in his arms, - And felt the subtle virtue of her charms; - Nor less bewildered on the following day, - He kissed, he found excuse near her to stay,— - Was it not love? And yet the truth to speak, - Playing the fool for haply half a week, - He yet had fled, so strong within him dwelt - The horror of the sin, and such he felt - The miseries to the woman that ensue. - He wearied long his brain with reasonings fine, - But when at evening dusk he came to dine, - In linsey petticoat and jacket blue - She stood, so radiant and so modest too, - All into air his strong conclusions flew. - Now should he go. But dim and drizzling too, - For a night march, to-night will hardly do, - A march of sixteen weary miles of way. - No, by the chances which our lives obey, - No, by the heavens and this sweet face he’ll stay. - - A week he stayed, and still was loth to go, - But she grew anxious and would have it so. - Her time of service shortly would be o’er, - And she would leave; her mistress knew before. - Where would she go? To Glasgow, if she could; - Her father’s sister would be kind and good; - An only child she was, an orphan left, - Of all her kindred, save of this, bereft. - Said he, ‘Your guide to Glasgow let me be, - You little know, you have not tried the sea; - Say, at the ferry when are we to meet? - Thither, I guess, you travel on your feet.’ - She would be there on Tuesday next at three; - ‘O dear, how glad and thankful she would be; - But don’t,’ she said, ‘be troubled much for me.’ - Punctual they met, a second class he took, - More naturally to her wants to look, - And from her side was seldom far away. - So quiet, so indifferent yet, were they, - As fellow-servants travelling south they seemed, - And no one of a love-relation dreamed. - At Oban, where the stormy darkness fell, - He got two chambers in a cheap hotel. - At Oban of discomfort one is sure, - Little the difference whether rich or poor. - Around the Mull the passage now to make, - They go aboard, and separate tickets take, - First-class for him, and second-class for her. - No other first-class passengers there were, - And with the captain walking soon alone, - This Highland girl, he said, to him was known. - He had engaged to take her to her kin; - Could she be put the ladies’ cabin in? - The difference gladly he himself would pay, - The weather seemed but menacing to-day. - She ne’er had travelled from her home before, - He wished to be at hand to hear about her more. - Curious it seemed, but he had such a tone, - And kept at first so carefully alone, - And she so quiet was, and so discreet, - So heedful, ne’er to seek him or to meet, - The first small wonder quickly passed away. - And so from Oban’s little land-locked bay - Forth out to Jura—Jura pictured high - With lofty peaks against the western sky, - Jura, that far o’erlooks the Atlantic seas, - The loftiest of the Southern Hebrides. - Through the main sea to Jura;—when we reach - Jura, we turn to leftward to the breach, - And southward strain the narrow channel through, - And Colonsay we pass and Islay too; - Cantire is on the left, and all the day - A dull dead calm upon the waters lay. - Sitting below, after some length of while, - He sought her, and the tedium to beguile, - He ventured some experiments to make, - The measure of her intellect to take. - Upon the cabin table chanced to lie - A book of popular astronomy; - In this he tried her, and discoursed away - Of Winter, Summer, and of Night and Day. - Still to the task a reasoning power she brought, - And followed, slowly followed with the thought; - How beautiful it was to see the stir - Of natural wonder waking thus in her; - But loth was he to set on books to pore - An intellect so charming in the ore. - And she, perhaps, had comprehended soon - Even the nodes, so puzzling, of the moon; - But nearing now the Mull they met the gale - Right in their teeth: and should the fuel fail? - Thinking of her, he grew a little pale, - But bravely she the terrors, miseries, took: - And met him with a sweet courageous look: - Once, at the worst, unto his side she drew, - And said a little tremulously too, - ‘If we must die, please let me come to you.’ - I know not by what change of wind or tide, - Heading the Mull, they gained the eastern side, - But stiller now, and sunny e’en it grew; - Arran’s high peaks unmantled to the view; - While to the north, far seen from left to right, - The Highland range, extended snowy white. - Now in the Clyde, he asked, what would be thought, - In Glasgow, of the company she brought: - ‘You know,’ he said, ‘how I desire to stay; - We’ve played at strangers for so long a day, - But for a while I yet would go away.’ - She said, O no, indeed they must not part. - Her father’s sister had a kindly heart. - ‘I’ll tell her all, and O, when you she sees, - I think she’ll not be difficult to please.’ - Landed at Glasgow, quickly they espied - Macfarlane, grocer, by the river side: - To greet her niece the woman joyful ran, - But looked with wonder on the tall young man - Into the house the women went and talked, - He with the grocer in the doorway walked. - He told him he was looking for a set - Of lodgings: had he any he could let? - The man was called to council with his wife; - They took the thing as what will be in life, - Half in a kind, half in a worldly way; - They said, the lassie might play out her play. - The gentleman should have the second floor, - At thirty shillings, for a week or more. - Some days in this obscurity he stayed, - Happy with her, and some inquiry made - (For friends he found) and did his best to see, - What hope of getting pupils there would be. - This must he do, ’twas evident, ’twas clear, - Marry and seek a humble maintenance here. - Himself he had a hundred pounds a year. - To this plain business he would bend his life, - And find his joy in children and in wife, - A wife so good, so tender, and so true, - Mother to be of glorious children too. - Half to excuse his present lawless way, - He to the grocer happened once to say - Marriage would cost him more than others dear, - Cost him, indeed, three hundred pounds a-year. - ‘’Deed,’ said the man, ‘a heavy price, no doubt, - For a bit form that one can do without.’ - And asked some questions, pertinent and plain, - Exacter information to obtain; - He took a little trouble to explain. - The College Audit now, to last at least - Three weeks, ere ending with the College Feast, - He must attend, a tedious, dull affair, - But he, as junior Bursar, must be there. - Three weeks, however, quickly would be fled, - And then he’d come,—he didn’t say to wed. - With plans of which he nothing yet would say, - Preoccupied upon the parting day, - He seemed a little absent and distrait; - But she, as knowing nothing was amiss, - Gave him her fondest smile, her sweetest kiss. - A fortnight after, or a little more, - As at the Audit, weary of the bore, - He sat, and of his future prospects thought, - A letter in an unknown hand was brought. - ’Twas from Macfarlane, and to let him know - To South Australia they proposed to go. - ‘Rich friends we have, who have advised us thus, - Occasion offers suitable for us; - Christie we take; whate’er she find of new, - She’ll ne’er forget the joy she’s had with you; - ’Tis an expensive pilgrimage to make, - You’ll like to send a trifle for her sake.’ - Nothing he said of when the ship would sail. - That very night, by swift-returning mail, - Ten pounds he sent, for what he did not know; - And ‘In no case,’ he said, ‘let Christian go.’ - He in three days would come, and for his life - Would claim her and declare her as his wife. - Swift the night-mail conveyed his missive on; - He followed in three days, and found them gone. - All three had sailed: he looked as though he dreamed; - The money-order had been cashed, it seemed. - - The Clergyman, ‘This story is mere pain,’ - Exclaimed, ‘for if the women don’t sustain - The moral standard, all we do is vain.’ - ‘But what we want,’ the Yankee said, ‘to know, - Is if the girl went willingly or no. - Sufficient motive though one does not see, - ’Tis clear the grocer used some trickery.’ - - He judged himself, so strong the clinging in - This kind of people is to kith and kin; - For if they went and she remained behind, - No one she had, if him she failed to find. - Alas, this lawless loving was the cause, - She did not dare to think how dear she was. - Justly his guilty tardiness he curst, - He should have owned her when he left her first. - And something added how upon the sea, - She perilled, too, a life that was to be; - A child that, born in far Australia, there - Would have no father and no father’s care. - So to the South a lonely man returned, - For other scenes and busier life he burned,— - College he left and settled soon in town, - Wrote in the journals, gained a swift renown. - Soon into high society he came, - And still where’er he went outdid his fame. - All the more liked and more esteemed, the less - He seemed to make an object of success. - An active literary life he spent, - Towards lofty points of public practice bent, - Was never man so carefully who read, - Whose plans so well were fashioned in his head, - Nor one who truths so luminously said. - Some years in various labours thus he passed, - A spotless course maintaining to the last. - Twice upon Government Commissions served - With honour; place, which he declined, deserved. - He married then,—a marriage fit and good, - That kept him where his worth was understood; - A widow, wealthy, and of noble blood. - Mr. and Lady Mary are they styled, - One grief is theirs—to be without a child. - I did not tell you how he went before - To South Australia, vainly to explore. - The ship had come to Adelaide, no doubt; - Watching the papers he had made it out, - But of themselves, in country or in town, - Nothing discovered, travelling up and down. - Only an entry of uncertain sound, - In an imperfect register he found. - His son, he thought, but could not prove it true; - The surname of the girl it chanced he never knew. - But this uneasy feeling gathered strength - As years advanced, and it became at length - His secret torture and his secret joy - To think about his lost Australian boy. - Somewhere in wild colonial lands has grown - A child that is his true and very own. - This strong parental passion fills his mind, - To all the dubious chances makes him blind. - Still he will seek, and still he hopes to find. - Again will go. - Said I, ‘O let him stay, - And in a London drawing-room some day— - Rings on her fingers, brilliants in her hair, - The lady of the latest millionaire— - She’ll come, and with a gathering slow surprise - On Lady Mary’s husband turn her eyes: - The soft brown eyes that in a former day - From his discretion lured him all astray. - At home, six bouncing girls, who more or less - Are learning English of a governess, - Six boisterous boys, as like as pear to pear; - Only the eldest has a different air.’ - - ‘You jest,’ he said, ‘indeed it happened so.’ - From a great party just about to go, - He saw, he knew, and ere she saw him, said - Swift to his wife, as for the door he made, - ‘My Highland bride! to escape a scene I go, - Stay, find her out—great God!—and let me know.’ - The Lady Mary turned to scrutinise - The lovely brow, the beautiful brown eyes, - One moment, then performed her perfect part, - And did her spiriting with simplest art, - Was introduced, her former friends had known, - Say, might she call to-morrow afternoon - At three? O yes! At three she made her call, - And told her who she was and told her all. - Her lady manners all she laid aside; - Like women the two women kissed and cried. - Half overwhelmed sat Christian by her side, - While she, ‘You know he never knew the day - When you would sail, but he believed you’d stay - Because he wrote—you never knew, you say,— - Wrote that in three days’ time, they need not fear, - He’d come and then would marry you, my dear. - You never knew? And he had planned to live - At Glasgow, lessons had arranged to give. - Alas, then to Australia he went out, - All through the land to find you sought about, - And found a trace, which though it left a doubt. - Sufficed to make it still his grief, his joy, - To think he had a child, a living boy, - Whom you, my love——’ - ‘His child is six foot high, - I’ve kept him as the apple of my eye,’ - Cried she, ‘he’s riding, or you’d see him here. - O joy, that he at last should see his father dear! - As soon as he comes in I’ll tell him all, - And on his father he shall go and call.’ - ‘And you,’ she said, ‘my husband will you see? - ‘O no, it is not possible for me. - The boy I’ll send this very afternoon. - O dear, I know he cannot go too soon; - And something I must write, to write will do.’ - So they embraced and sadly bade adieu. - The boy came in, his father went and saw! - We will not wait this interview to draw; - Ere long returned, and to his mother ran: - His father was a wonderful fine man, - He said, and looked at her; the Lady, too, - Had done whatever it was kind to do. - He loved his mother more than he could say, - But if she wished, he’d with his father stay. - A little change she noticed in his face, - E’en now the father’s influence she could trace; - From her the slight, slight severance had begun, - But simply she rejoiced that it was done. - She smiled and kissed her boy, and ‘Long ago, - When I was young, I loved your father so. - Together now we had been living, too, - Only the ship went sooner than he knew. - In loving him you will be loving me: - Father and mother are as one you see.’ - Her letter caught him on the following day - As to the club he started on his way. - From her he guessed, the hand indeed was new; - Back to his room he went and read it through. - ‘I know not how to write and dare not see; - But it will take a load of grief from me— - O! what a load—that you at last should know - The way in which I was compelled to go. - Wretched, I know, and yet it seems ’twas more - Cruel and wretched than I knew before; - So many years to think how on your day - Joyful you’d come, and found me flown away. - What would you think of me, what would you say? - O love, this little let me call you so; - What other name to use I do not know - O let me think that by your side I sit, - And tell it you, and weep a little bit, - And you too weep with me, for hearing it. - Alone so long I’ve borne this dreadful weight; - Such grief, at times it almost turned to hate. - O let me think you sit and listening long, - Comfort me still, and say I wasn’t wrong, - And pity me, and far, far hence again - Dismiss, if haply any yet remain, - Hard thoughts of me that in your heart have lain. - O love! to hear your voice I dare not go; - But let me trust that you will judge me so. - ‘I think no sooner were you gone away, - My aunt began to tell me of some pay, - More than three hundred pounds a-year ’twould be, - Which you, she said, would lose by marrying me. - Was this a thing a man of sense would do? - Was I a fool, to look for it from you? - You were a handsome gentleman and kind, - And to do right were every way inclined, - But to this truth I must submit my mind, - You would not marry. “Speak, and tell me true, - Say, has he ever said one word to you - That meant as much?” O, love, I knew you would. - I’ve read it in your eyes so kind and good, - Although you did not speak I understood. - Though for myself, indeed, I sought it not, - It seemed so high, so undeserved a lot, - But for the child, when it should come, I knew— - O, I was certain—what you meant to do. - She said, “We quit the land, will it be right - Or kind to leave you for a single night, - Just on the chance that he will come down here, - And sacrifice three hundred pounds a-year, - And all his hopes and prospects fling away, - And has already had his will, as one may say? - Go you with us, and find beyond the seas, - Men by the score to choose from, if you please.” - I said my will and duty was to stay, - Would they not help me to some decent way - To wait, and surely near was now the day? - Quite they refused; had they to let you know - Written, I asked, to say we were to go? - They told me yes; they showed a letter, too, - Post-office order that had come from you. - Alas, I could not read or write, they knew. - I think they meant me, though they did not say, - To think you wanted me to go away; - O, love, I’m thankful nothing of the kind - Ever so much as came into my mind. - ‘To-morrow was the day that would not fail; - For Adelaide the vessel was to sail. - All night I hoped some dreadful wind would rise, - And lift the seas and rend the very skies. - All night I lay and listened hard for you. - Twice to the door I went, the bolt I drew, - And called to you; scarce what I did I knew. - ‘Morning grew light, the house was emptied clear; - The ship would go, the boat was lying near. - They had my money, how was I to stay? - Who could I go to, when they went away? - Out in the streets I could not lie, you know. - O dear, but it was terrible to go. - Yet, yet I looked; I do not know what passed, - I think they took and carried me at last. - Twelve hours I lay, and sobbed in my distress; - But in the night, let be this idleness, - I said, I’ll bear it for my baby’s sake, - Lest of my going mischief it should take, - Advice will seek, and every caution use; - My love I’ve lost—his child I must not lose. - ‘How oft I thought, when sailing on the seas, - Of our dear journey through the Hebrides, - When you the kindest were and best of men: - O, love, I did not love you right till then. - O, and myself how willingly I blamed, - So simple who had been, and was ashamed, - So mindful only of the present joy, - When you had anxious cares your busy mind to employ. - Ah, well, I said, but now at least he’s free, - He will not have to lower himself for me. - He will not lose three hundred pounds a-year, - In many ways my love has cost him dear. - ‘Upon the passage, great was my delight, - A lady taught me how to read and write. - She saw me much, and fond of me she grew, - Only I durst not talk to her of you. - ‘We had a quiet time upon the seas, - And reached our port of Adelaide with ease. - At Adelaide my lovely baby came. - Philip, he took his father’s Christian name, - And my poor maiden surname, to my shame. - O, but I little cared, I loved him so, - ’Twas such a joy to watch and see him grow. - At Adelaide we made no length of stay; - Our friends to Melbourne just had gone away. - We followed shortly where they led before, - To Melbourne went, and flourished more and more. - My aunt and uncle both are buried there; - I closed their eyes, and I was left their heir. - They meant me well, I loved them for their care. - ‘Ten years ago I married Robert; dear - And well he loved, and waited many a year. - Selfish it seemed to turn from one so true, - And I of course was desperate of you. - I’ve borne him children six; we’ve left behind - Three little ones, whom soon I hope to find. - To my dear boy he ever has been kind. - ‘Next week we sail, and I should be so glad, - Only to leave my boy will make me sad. - But yours he is by right—the grief I’ll bear, - And at his age, more easy he can spare, - Perhaps, a mother’s than a father’s care. - Indeed I think him like his father, too; - He will be happier, probably, with you. - ’Tis best, I know, nor will he quite forget, - Some day he’ll come perhaps and see his mother yet. - ‘O heaven! farewell—perhaps I’ve been to blame - To write as if it all were still the same. - Farewell, write not.—I will not seek to know - Whether you ever think of me or no.’ - O love, love, love, too late! the tears fell down. - He dried them up—and slowly walked to town. - - * * * * * - - To bed with busy thoughts; the following day - Bore us expectant into Boston Bay; - With dome and steeple on the yellow skies, - Upon the left we watched with curious eyes - The Puritan great Mother City rise. - Among the islets, winding in and round, - The great ship moved to her appointed ground. - We bade adieu, shook hands and went ashore: - I and my friend have seen our friends no more. - - - - -SONGS IN ABSENCE. - - -_SONGS IN ABSENCE._[17] - - Farewell, farewell! Her vans the vessel tries, - His iron might the potent engine plies; - Haste, wingèd words, and ere ’tis useless, tell, - Farewell, farewell, yet once again, farewell. - - The docks, the streets, the houses past us fly, - Without a strain the great ship marches by; - Ye fleeting banks take up the words we tell, - And say for us yet once again, farewell. - - The waters widen—on without a strain - The strong ship moves upon the open main; - She knows the seas, she hears the true waves swell, - She seems to say farewell, again farewell. - - The billows whiten and the deep seas heave; - Fly once again, sweet words, to her I leave, - With winds that blow return, and seas that swell, - Farewell, farewell, say once again, farewell. - - Fresh in my face and rippling to my feet - The winds and waves an answer soft repeat, - In sweet, sweet words far brought they seem to tell, - Farewell, farewell, yet once again, farewell. - - Night gathers fast; adieu, thou fading shore! - The land we look for next must lie before; - Hence, foolish tears! weak thoughts, no more rebel, - Farewell, farewell, a last, a last farewell. - - Yet not, indeed, ah not till more than sea - And more than space divide my love and me, - Till more than waves and winds between us swell, - Farewell, a last, indeed, a last farewell - - * * * * * - - Ye flags of Piccadilly, - Where I posted up and down, - And wished myself so often - Well away from you and town,— - - Are the people walking quietly - And steady on their feet, - Cabs and omnibuses plying - Just as usual in the street? - - Do the houses look as upright - As of old they used to be, - And does nothing seem affected - By the pitching of the sea? - - Through the Green Park iron railings - Do the quick pedestrians pass? - Are the little children playing - Round the plane-tree in the grass? - - This squally wild north-wester - With which our vessel fights, - Does it merely serve with you to - Carry up some paper kites? - - Ye flags of Piccadilly, - Which I hated so, I vow - I could wish with all my heart - You were underneath me now! - - * * * * * - - Come home, come home! and where is home for me, - Whose ship is driving o’er the trackless sea? - To the frail bark here plunging on its way, - To the wild waters, shall I turn and say - To the plunging bark, or to the salt sea foam, - You are my home? - - Fields once I walked in, faces once I knew, - Familiar things so old my heart believed them true, - These far, far back, behind me lie, before - The dark clouds mutter, and the deep seas roar, - And speak to them that ’neath and o’er them roam - No words of home. - - Beyond the clouds, beyond the waves that roar, - There may indeed, or may not be, a shore, - Where fields as green, and hands and hearts as true, - The old forgotten semblance may renew, - And offer exiles driven far o’er the salt sea foam - Another home. - - But toil and pain must wear out many a day, - And days bear weeks, and weeks bear months away, - Ere, if at all, the weary traveller hear, - With accents whispered in his wayworn ear, - A voice he dares to listen to, say, Come - To thy true home. - - Come home, come home! and where a home hath he - Whose ship is driving o’er the driving sea? - Through clouds that mutter, and o’er waves that roar, - Say, shall we find, or shall we not, a shore - That is, as is not ship or ocean foam, - Indeed our home? - - 1852 - - * * * * * - - Green fields of England! wheresoe’er - Across this watery waste we fare, - Your image at our hearts we bear, - Green fields of England, everywhere. - - Sweet eyes in England, I must flee - Past where the waves’ last confines be, - Ere your loved smile I cease to see, - Sweet eyes in England, dear to me. - - Dear home in England, safe and fast - If but in thee my lot lie cast, - The past shall seem a nothing past - To thee, dear home, if won at last; - Dear home in England, won at last. - - 1852 - - * * * * * - - Come back, come back, behold with straining mast - And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast; - With one new sun to see her voyage o’er, - With morning light to touch her native shore. - Come back, come back. - - Come back, come back, while westward labouring by, - With sailless yards, a bare black hulk we fly. - See how the gale we fight with sweeps her back, - To our lost home, on our forsaken track. - Come back, come back. - - Come back, come back, across the flying foam, - We hear faint far-off voices call us home, - Come back, ye seem to say; ye seek in vain; - We went, we sought, and homeward turned again. - Come back, come back. - - Come back, come back; and whither back or why? - To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try; - Walk the old fields; pace the familiar street; - Dream with the idlers, with the bards compete. - Come back, come back. - - Come back, come back; and whither and for what? - To finger idly some old Gordian knot, - Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, - And with much toil attain to half-believe. - Come back, come back. - - Come back, come back; yea back, indeed, do go - Sighs panting thick, and tears that want to flow; - Fond fluttering hopes upraise their useless wings, - And wishes idly struggle in the strings; - Come back, come back. - - Come back, come back, more eager than the breeze, - The flying fancies sweep across the seas, - And lighter far than ocean’s flying foam, - The heart’s fond message hurries to its home. - Come back, come back. - - Come back, come back! - Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back; - The long smoke wavers on the homeward track, - Back fly with winds things which the winds obey, - The strong ship follows its appointed way. - - 1852 - - * * * * * - - Some future day when what is now is not, - When all old faults and follies are forgot, - And thoughts of difference passed like dreams away, - We’ll meet again, upon some future day. - - When all that hindered, all that vexed our love, - As tall rank weeds will climb the blade above, - When all but it has yielded to decay, - We’ll meet again upon some future day. - - When we have proved, each on his course alone, - The wider world, and learnt what’s now unknown, - Have made life clear, and worked out each a way, - We’ll meet again,—we shall have much to say. - - With happier mood, and feelings born anew, - Our boyhood’s bygone fancies we’ll review, - Talk o’er old talks, play as we used to play, - And meet again, on many a future day. - - Some day, which oft our hearts shall yearn to see, - In some far year, though distant yet to be, - Shall we indeed,—ye winds and waters, say!— - Meet yet again, upon some future day? - - 1852 - - * * * * * - - Where lies the land to which the ship would go? - Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. - And where the land she travels from? Away, - Far, far behind, is all that they can say. - - On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face, - Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace; - Or, o’er the stern reclining, watch below - The foaming wake far widening as we go. - - On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave, - How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave! - The dripping sailor on the reeling mast - Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past. - - Where lies the land to which the ship would go? - Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. - And where the land she travels from? Away, - Far, far behind, is all that they can say. - - 1852 - - * * * * * - - The mighty ocean rolls and raves, - To part us with its angry waves; - But arch on arch from shore to shore, - In a vast fabric reaching o’er, - - With careful labours daily wrought - By steady hope and tender thought, - The wide and weltering waste above— - Our hearts have bridged it with their love. - - There fond anticipations fly - To rear the growing structure high - Dear memories upon either side - Combine to make it large and wide. - - There, happy fancies day by day, - New courses sedulously lay; - There soft solicitudes, sweet fears, - And doubts accumulate, and tears. - - While the pure purpose of the soul, - To form of many parts a whole, - To make them strong and hold them true, - From end to end, is carried through. - - Then when the waters war between, - Upon the masonry unseen, - Secure and swift, from shore to shore, - With silent footfall travelling o’er, - - Our sundered spirits come and go, - Hither and thither, to and fro, - Pass and repass, now linger near, - Now part, anew to reappear. - - With motions of a glad surprise, - We meet each other’s wondering eyes, - At work, at play, when people talk, - And when we sleep, and when we walk. - - Each dawning day my eyelids see - You come, methinks, across to me, - And I, at every hour anew, - Could dream I travelled o’er to you. - - 1853 - - * * * * * - - That out of sight is out of mind - Is true of most we leave behind; - It is not sure, nor can be true, - My own and only love, of you. - - They were my friends, ’twas sad to part; - Almost a tear began to start; - But yet as things run on they find - That out of sight is out of mind. - - For men, that will not idlers be, - Must lend their hearts to things they see; - And friends who leave them far behind, - When out of sight are out of mind. - - I blame it not; I think that when - The cold and silent meet again, - Kind hearts will yet as erst be kind, - ’Twas ‘out of sight,’ was ‘out of mind.’ - - I knew it when we parted, well, - I knew it, but was loth to tell; - I felt before, what now I find, - That ‘out of sight’ is ‘out of mind.’ - - That friends, however friends they were, - Still deal with things as things occur, - And that, excepting for the blind, - What’s out of sight is out of mind. - - But love, the poets say, _is_ blind; - So out of sight and out of mind - Need not, nor will, I think, be true, - My own and only love, of you. - - 1853 - - * * * * * - - Were you with me, or I with you, - There’s nought, methinks, I might not do; - Could venture here, and venture there, - And never fear, nor ever care. - - To things before, and things behind, - Could turn my thoughts, and turn my mind, - On this and that, day after day, - Could dare to throw myself away. - - Secure, when all was o’er, to find - My proper thought, my perfect mind, - And unimpaired receive anew - My own and better self in you. - - 1853 - - * * * * * - - Am I with you, or you with me? - Or in some blessed place above, - Where neither lands divide nor sea, - Are we united in our love? - - Oft while in longing here I lie, - That wasting ever still endures; - My soul out from me seems to fly, - And half-way, somewhere, meet with yours. - - Somewhere—but where I cannot guess— - Beyond, may be, the bound of space, - The liberated spirits press - And meet, bless heaven, and embrace. - - It seems not either here nor there, - Somewhere between us up above, - A region of a clearer air, - The dwelling of a purer love. - - 1852 - - * * * * * - - Were I with you, or you with me, - My love, how happy should we be; - Day after day it is sad cheer - To have you there, while I am here. - - My darling’s face I cannot see, - My darling’s voice is mute for me, - My fingers vainly seek the hair - Of her that is not here, but there. - - In a strange land, to her unknown, - I sit and think of her alone; - And in that happy chamber where - We sat, she sits, nor has me there. - - Yet still the happy thought recurs - That she is mine, as I am hers, - That she is there, as I am here, - And loves me, whether far or near. - - The mere assurance that she lives - And loves me, full contentment gives; - I need not doubt, despond, or fear, - For, she is there, and I am here. - - 1852 - - * * * * * - - Were you with me, or I with you, - There’s nought methinks I could not do; - And nothing that, for your dear sake, - I might not dare to undertake. - - With thousands standing by as fit, - More keen, perhaps more needing it, - To be the first some job to spy, - And jump and call out, Here am I! - - O for one’s miserable self - To ask a pittance of the pelf, - To claim, however small, a share, - Which other men might think so fair: - - It was not worth it! a first time - A thought upon it seemed a crime; - To stoop and pick the dirty pence, - A taint upon one’s innocence. - - My own! with nothing sordid, base. - Or mean, we would our love disgrace; - Yet something I methinks could do, - Were you with me, or I with you: - - Some misconstruction would sustain; - Count some humiliation gain; - Make unabashed a righteous claim, - And profess merit without shame: - - Apply for service; day by day - Seek honest work for honest pay, - Without a fear by any toil - The over-cleanly hand to soil: - - Secure in safety to return, - And every pettiness unlearn; - And unimpaired still find anew - My own and better self in you. - - * * * * * - - O ship, ship, ship, - That travellest over the sea, - What are the tidings, I pray thee, - Thou bearest hither to me? - - Are they tidings of comfort and joy, - That shall make me seem to see - The sweet lips softly moving - And whispering love to me? - - Or are they of trouble and grief, - Estrangement, sorrow, and doubt, - To turn into torture my hopes, - And drive me from Paradise out? - - O ship, ship, ship, - That comest over the sea, - Whatever it be thou bringest, - Come quickly with it to me. - - 1853 - - - - -ESSAYS IN CLASSICAL METRES. - - -_TRANSLATIONS OF ILIAD._ - - -(I. 1-32.) - - Goddess, the anger sing of the Pelean Achilles, - Fatal beginning of griefs unnumbered to the Achæans; - Many valiant souls untimely it hurried to Hades, - And the heroes left themselves of dogs to be eaten - And of ravenous birds—till Zeus’s plan was accomplished— - From the day when first contention arose to dissever - Atrides the King and the godlike hero Achilles. - What divinity thus incited them to contention?— - Zeus and Leto’s son; who, in anger with Agamemnon, - Sent a deadly disease on the host, destroying the people, - On account of the wrong the King to his worshipper offered, - Chryses, who had come to the hollow ships of Achaia, - To recover his daughter, with gifts of costly redemption, - Carrying in his hands the wreaths of the archer Apollo - Set on a golden staff—beseeching all the Achæans, - And the Atridæ in chief, the two in command of the nations: - ‘Ye, Atreus’ sons, and other well-greaved Achaïan heroes, - May the gods, who live in Olympian houses, accord you - Capture of Priam’s town and safe to return to Achaia, - But liberate to me my child and take the redemption— - Fearing Zeus’s son, the far-death-dealing Apollo.’ - Then the Achæans all with acclamation assented, - Honour to show to the priest, and take the costly redemption; - Only to Atrides Agamemnon it was unpleasing, - Sternly who dismissed him with contumelious answer: - ‘Old man, let me not, by the hollow ships of Achaia - Lingering find you now, or henceforth ever appearing, - Lest to defend you fail the staff and wreaths of Apollo. - Her do I not release until old age come upon her, - In my house in the land of Argos, far from her country, - Stepping at the loom and in the chamber attending. - Go, and trouble me not, that your return be the safer.’ - - -(I. 121-218.) - - And replying, said godlike, swift-footed Achilles: - ‘Atrides, our chief, as in rank, so in love of possessions, - Say, in what way shall the noble Achæans find you a present? - Little we yet have gained the general stock to replenish, - Distributed were all the spoils we took from the cities, - And to recall our gifts and reapportion befits not— - Yield you the maiden to-day to the god, and we, the Achæans, - Three or four times over will compensate it, if ever - Zeus the capture accord of the well-walled Ilian city.’ - And with words of reply the King Agamemnon addressed him: - ‘Think not, great as you are, O god-resembling Achilles, - Thus to dissimulate and evade me with a profession; - Is it that you desire to enjoy your prize, and to let me - Sit empty-handed here, and mine you bid me surrender— - Doubtless, if the noble Achæans find me another - Suitable to my wants and answerable in value; - But, if they do not give, myself will make my election— - Yours, or that, if I please, of Ajax or of Ulysses, - I for my own will take, and leave the loser lamenting. - At a suitable time this, after, will we determine; - Now proceed we to haul a swift ship into the water, - Choose the rowers to take her, and send the cattle aboard her - For sacrifice, and bring the beautiful daughter of Chryses - Also on board, and appoint some prudent chief to convey her— - Ajax shall it be, or Idomeneus, or Ulysses? - Or will Pelides, incomparable of heroes, - Go, and with holy rite appease the wrath of Apollo?’ - And with a frown swift-footed Achilles eyed him, and answered: - ‘O me! clothed-upon with impudence, greedy-hearted, - How shall any Achæan again be willing to serve you, - Make any expedition, or fight in battle to help you? - Certainly not upon any account of the Troïan horsemen - Came I hither to fight; they never gave me occasion, - Never carried away any cattle of mine, any horses, - Nor in Phthia ever, the rich land, feeder of people, - Devastated the fruit; since numerous, to divide them, - Mountains shadowy lie, and a sea’s tumultuous water: - To’ attend thee we came, on thy effrontery waiting, - Reparation to take of the Trojans for Menelaus, - And thy unblushing self. All which you little remember, - And can threaten to-day of my reward to deprive me, - Dearly with labour earned, and given me by the Achæans. - Do I ever receive any gift your gifts to compare with, - When the Achæans sack any wealthy town of the Trojans? - Truly the larger part of the busy, hurrying warfare - My hands have to discharge; but, in the day of division, - Yours is the ample share, and I, content with a little, - Thankfully turn to my ships, well wearied out with the fighting. - Now to Phthia I go—far wiser for me to do so, - Home with my hollow ships to travel, than for another - Accumulate riches to be requited with insult.’ - And replying, said the king of men, Agamemnon: - ‘Go, if to go be your wish; I keep you not—do not ask you - For my honour to stay; I have others here to support it, - Who—and Zeus above all, the Counsellor—will uphold me - You are the hatefullest to me of the Zeus-fed princes, - Lover for evermore of brawl and battle and discord. - Strong if you are, your strength was by some deity given. - Home with your hollow ships, and with your people returning - Order the Myrmidonans: expect not me to regard you, - Or to observe your wrath. I advertise you beforehand— - As Chryseïda Phœbus Apollo hath bid me surrender, - I in a ship of my own will with my people remit her - Home, and the beautiful-cheeked Briseïda then to replace her - Out of your tent, your prize, will carry; an argument to you - How much greater I am than yourself, and a warning to others - Not to oppose my will and talk with me as an equal.’ - So said he, and pain seized Pelides, and in the bosom - Under his hairy breast two purposes he divided, - Either, from by his thigh the glittering blade unsheathing, - To put aside the rest and straightway kill Agamemnon, - Or to repress his wrath and check himself in his anger. - With the purposes yet conflicting thus in his bosom, - From the sheath the huge sword was issuing out, when Athena - Came from heaven: the goddess, the white-armed Hera, desired it, - Solicitous for the good of the one alike and the other. - Standing behind, by the yellow hair she drew back Achilles, - Visible only to him, of the rest to no one apparent; - And with wonder seized he turned, and knew in a moment - Pallas Athenæa, with dreadful eyes looking at him; - And he opened his lips with wingèd words and addressed her: - ‘Wherefore art thou come, O child of the ægis-bearer; - Was it the fury to see of Atrides Agamemnon? - Lo, I declare it now, and you will see it accomplished, - His injurious acts will bring his death-blow upon him.’ - And replying, said the blue-eyed goddess, Athena: - ‘To repress I came, if practicable, your anger, - Out of heaven,—the goddess, the white-armed Hera, desired me, - Solicitous for the good of the one alike and the other. - Abstain from violence, put back the sword in the scabbard, - Let opprobrious words, if necessary, requite him; - For I declare it now, and you will see it accomplished, - Three times as many gifts will soon, as costly, be sent you - In reparation of this; be ruled by us to be patient.’ - And replying, spoke and said swift-footed Achilles: - ‘Unto admonition of you two given, O goddess, - Even the greatly incensed should yield; ’tis well to obey you; - Who to the voice of the gods is obedient, they will assist him.’ - - -_ELEGIACS._ - - -I - - From thy far sources, ’mid mountains airily climbing, - Pass to the rich lowland, thou busy sunny river; - Murmuring once, dimpling, pellucid, limpid, abundant, - Deepening now, widening, swelling, a lordly river. - Through woodlands steering, with branches waving above thee, - Through the meadows sinuous, wandering irriguous; - Towns, hamlets leaving, towns by thee, bridges across thee, - Pass to palace garden, pass to cities populous. - Murmuring once, dimpling, ’mid woodlands wandering idly, - Now with mighty vessels loaded, a mighty river. - Pass to the great waters, though tides may seem to resist thee, - Tides to resist seeming, quickly will lend thee passage, - Pass to the dark waters that roaring wait to receive thee; - Pass them thou wilt not, thou busy sunny river. - - Freshwater, 1861. - - -II - - Trunks the forest yielded with gums ambrosial oozing, - Boughs with apples laden beautiful, Hesperian, - Golden, odoriferous, perfume exhaling about them, - Orbs in a dark umbrage luminous and radiant; - To the palate grateful, more luscious were not in Eden, - Or in that fabled garden of Alcinoüs; - Out of a dark umbrage sounds also musical issued, - Birds their sweet transports uttering in melody: - Thrushes clear piping, wood-pigeons cooing, arousing - Loudly the nightingale, loudly the sylvan echoes; - Waters transpicuous flowed under, flowed to the list’ning - Ear with a soft murmur, softly soporiferous; - Nor, with ebon locks too, there wanted, circling, attentive - Unto the sweet fluting, girls, of a swarthy shepherd; - Over a sunny level their flocks are lazily feeding, - They of Amor musing rest in a leafy cavern. - - 1861 - - -_ALCAICS._ - - So spake the voice: and as with a single life - Instinct, the whole mass, fierce, irretainable, - Down on that unsuspecting host swept; - Down, with the fury of winds, that all night - Upbrimming, sapping slowly the dyke, at dawn - Fall through the breach o’er holmstead and harvest; and - Heard roll a deluge: while the milkmaid - Trips i’ the dew, and remissly guiding - Morn’s first uneven furrow, the farmer’s boy - Dreams out his dream; so, over the multitude - Safe-tented, uncontrolled and uncon- - trollably sped the Avenger’s fury. - - -_ACTÆON._[18] - - Over a mountain slope with lentisk, and with abounding - Arbutus, and the red oak overtufted, ’mid a noontide - Now glowing fervidly, the Leto-born, the divine one, - Artemis, Arcadian wood-rover, alone, hunt-weary, - Unto a dell cent’ring many streamlets her foot unerring - Had guided. Platanus with fig-tree shaded a hollow, - Shaded a waterfall, where pellucid yet abundant - Streams from perpetual full-flowing sources a current: - Lower on either bank in sunshine flowered the oleanders: - Plenteous under a rock green herbage here to the margin - Grew with white poplars overcrowning. She thither arrived, - Unloosening joyfully the vest enfolded upon her, - Swift her divine shoulders discovering, swiftly revealing - Her maidenly bosom and all her beauty beneath it, - To the river water overflowing to receive her - Yielded her ambrosial nakedness. But with an instant - Conscious, with the instant the’ immortal terrific anger - Flew to the guilty doer: that moment, where amid amply - Concealing plane-leaves he the’ opportunity pursued, - Long vainly, possessed, unwise, Actæon, of hunters, - Hapless of Arcadian, and most misguided of hunters, - Knew the divine mandate, knew fate directed upon him. - He, to the boughs crouching, with dreadful joy the desired one - Had viewed descending, viewed as in a dream, disarraying, - And the unclad shoulders awestruck, awestruck let his eyes see - The maidenly bosom, but not—dim fear fell upon them— - Not more had witnessed. Not, therefore, less the forest through - Ranging, their master ceasing thenceforth to remember, - With the instant together came trooping, as to devour him - His dogs from the ambush.—Transformed suddenly before them, - He fled, an antlered stag wild with terror to the mountain, - She, the liquid stream in, her limbs carelessly reclining, - The flowing waters collected grateful about her. - - - - -MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. - - -_COME, POET, COME!_[19] - - Come, Poet, come! - A thousand labourers ply their task, - And what it tends to scarcely ask, - And trembling thinkers on the brink - Shiver, and know not how to think. - To tell the purport of their pain, - And what our silly joys contain; - In lasting lineaments pourtray - The substance of the shadowy day; - Our real and inner deeds rehearse, - And make our meaning clear in verse: - Come, Poet, come! for but in vain - We do the work or feel the pain, - And gather up the seeming gain, - Unless before the end thou come - To take, ere they are lost, their sum. - - Come, Poet, come! - To give an utterance to the dumb, - And make vain babblers silent, come; - A thousand dupes point here and there, - Bewildered by the show and glare; - And wise men half have learned to doubt - Whether we are not best without. - Come, Poet; both but wait to see - Their error proved to them in thee. - - Come, Poet, come! - In vain I seem to call. And yet - Think not the living times forget. - Ages of heroes fought and fell - That Homer in the end might tell; - O’er grovelling generations past - Upstood the Doric fane at last; - And countless hearts on countless years - Had wasted thoughts, and hopes, and fears, - Rude laughter and unmeaning tears; - Ere England Shakespeare saw, or Rome - The pure perfection of her dome. - Others, I doubt not, if not we, - The issue of our toils shall see; - Young children gather as their own - The harvest that the dead had sown, - The dead forgotten and unknown. - - -_THE DREAM LAND._ - - -I - - To think that men of former days - In naked truth deserved the praise - Which, fain to have in flesh and blood - An image of imagined good, - Poets have sung and men received, - And all too glad to be deceived, - Most plastic and most inexact, - Posterity has told for fact;— - To say what was, was not as we, - This also is a vanity. - - -II - - Ere Agamemnon, warriors were, - Ere Helen, beauties equalling her, - Brave ones and fair, whom no one knows, - And brave or fair as these or those. - The commonplace whom daily we - In our dull streets and houses see, - To think of other mould than these - Were Cato, Solon, Socrates, - Or Mahomet or Confutze, - This also is a vanity. - - -III - - Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemain, - And he before, who back on Spain - Repelled the fierce inundant Moor; - Godfrey, St. Louis, wise and pure, - Washington, Cromwell, John, and Paul, - Columbus, Luther, one and all, - Go mix them up, the false and true, - With Sindbad, Crusoe, or St. Preux, - And say as he was, so was he, - This also is a vanity. - - -IV - - Say not: Behold it here or there, - Or on the earth, or in the air. - That better thing than can be seen - Is neither now nor e’er has been; - It is not in this land or that, - But in a place we soon are at, - Where all can seek and some can find, - Where hope is liberal, fancy kind, - And what we wish for we can see, - Which also is a vanity. - - -_IN THE DEPTHS._ - - It is not sweet content, be sure, - That moves the nobler Muse to song, - Yet when could truth come whole and pure - From hearts that inly writhe with wrong? - - ’Tis not the calm and peaceful breast - That sees or reads the problem true; - They only know on whom ’t has prest - Too hard to hope to solve it too. - - Our ills are worse than at their ease - These blameless happy souls suspect, - They only study the disease, - Alas, who live not to detect. - - -_DARKNESS._ - - But that from slow dissolving pomps of dawn - No verity of slowly strengthening light - Early or late hath issued; that the day - Scarce-shown, relapses rather, self-withdrawn, - Back to the glooms of ante-natal night, - For this, O human beings, mourn we may. - - -_TWO MOODS._ - - Ah, blame him not because he’s gay! - That he should smile, and jest, and play - But shows how lightly he can bear, - How well forget that load which, where - Thought is, is with it, and howe’er - Dissembled, or indeed forgot, - Still is a load, and ceases not. - This aged earth that each new spring - Comes forth so young, so ravishing - In summer robes for all to see, - Of flower, and leaf, and bloomy tree, - For all her scarlet, gold, and green, - Fails not to keep within unseen - That inner purpose and that force - Which on the untiring orbit’s course - Around the sun, amidst the spheres - Still bears her thro’ the eternal years. - Ah, blame the flowers and fruits of May, - And then blame him because he’s gay. - - Ah, blame him not, for _not_ being gay, - Because an hundred times a day - He doth not currently repay - Sweet words with ready words as sweet, - And for each smile a smile repeat. - To mute submissiveness confined, - Blame not, if once or twice the mind - Its pent-up indignation wreak - In scowling brow and flushing cheek, - And smiles curled back as soon as born, - To dire significance of scorn. - Nor blame if once, and once again - He wring the hearts of milder men, - If slights, the worse if undesigned, - Should seem unbrotherly, unkind; - For though tree wave, and blossom blow - Above, earth hides a fire below; - Her seas the starry laws obey, - And she from her own ordered way - Swerves not, because it dims the day - Or changes verdure to decay. - Ah, blame the great world on its way, - And then blame him for not being gay. - - -_YOUTH AND AGE._ - - Dance on, dance on, we see, we see - Youth goes, alack, and with it glee, - A boy the old man ne’er can be; - Maternal thirty scarce can find - The sweet sixteen long left behind; - Old folks must toil, and scrape, and strain, - That boys and girls may once again - Be that for them they cannot be, - But which it gives them joy to see, - Youth goes and glee; but not in vain, - Young folks, if only you remain. - - Dance on, dance on, ’tis joy to see; - The dry red leaves on winter’s tree, - Can feel the new sap rising free. - On, on, young folks; so you survive, - The dead themselves are still alive; - The blood in dull parental veins - Long numbed, a tingling life regains. - Deep down in earth, the tough old root - Is conscious still of flower and fruit. - Spring goes and glee but were not vain: - In you, young folks, they come again. - - Dance on, dance on, we see, we feel; - Wind, wind your waltzes, wind and wheel, - Our senses too with music reel; - Nor let your pairs neglect to fill - The old ancestral scorned quadrille. - Let hand the hand uplifted seek, - And pleasure fly from cheek to cheek; - Love too; but gently, nor astray, - And yet, deluder, yet in play. - Dance on; youth goes: but all’s not vain, - Young folks, if only you remain. - - Dance on, dance on, ’tis joy to see; - We once were nimble e’en as ye, - And danced to give the oldest glee; - O wherefore add, as we, you too, - Once gone your prime cannot renew; - You too, like us, at last shall stand - To watch and not to join the band, - Content some day (a far-off day) - To your supplanters soft to say, - Youth goes, but goes not all in vain, - Young folks, so only you remain, - Dance on, dance on, ’tis joy to see. - - -_SOLVITUR ACRIS HIEMS._ - - Youth, that went, is come again, - Youth, for which we all were fain; - With soft pleasure and sweet pain - In each nerve and every vein, - Circling through the heart and brain, - Whence and wherefore come again? - Eva, tell me! - - Dead and buried when we thought him, - Who the magic spell hath taught him? - Who the strong elixir brought him? - Dead and buried as we thought, - Lo! unasked for and unsought - Comes he, shall it be for nought? - Eva, tell me! - - Youth that lifeless long had lain, - Youth that long we longed in vain for, - Used to grumble and complain for, - Thought at last to entertain - A decorous cool disdain for, - On a sudden see again - Comes, but will not long remain, - Comes, with whom too in his train, - Comes, and shall it be in vain? - Eva, tell me! - - -_THESIS AND ANTITHESIS._ - - If that we thus are guilty doth appear, - Ah, guilty tho’ we are, grave judges, hear! - Ah, yes; if ever you in your sweet youth - ’Midst pleasure’s borders missed the track of truth, - Made love on benches underneath green trees, - Stuffed tender rhymes with old new similes, - Whispered soft anythings, and in the blood - Felt all you said not most was understood— - Ah, if you have—as which of you has not?— - Nor what you were have utterly forgot, - Then be not stern to faults yourselves have known, - To others harsh, kind to yourselves alone. - - That we, young sir, beneath our youth’s green trees - Once did, not what should profit, but should please, - In foolish longing and in love-sick play - Forgot the truth and lost the flying day— - That we went wrong we say not is not true, - But, if we erred, were we not punished too? - If not—if no one checked our wandering feet,— - Shall we our parents’ negligence repeat?— - In future times that ancient loss renew, - If none saved _us_, forbear from saving you? - Nor let that justice in your faults be seen - Which in our own or was or should have been? - - Yet, yet, recall the mind that you had then, - And, so recalling, listen yet again; - If you escaped, ’tis plainly understood - Impunity may leave a culprit good; - If you were punished, did you then, as now, - The justice of that punishment allow? - Did what your age consents to now, appear - Expedient then and needfully severe? - In youth’s indulgence think there yet might be - A truth forgot by grey severity. - That strictness and that laxity between, - Be yours the wisdom to detect the mean. - ’Tis possible, young sir, that some excess - Mars youthful judgment and old men’s no less; - Yet we must take our counsel as we may - For (flying years this lesson still convey), - ’Tis worst unwisdom to be overwise, - And not to use, but still correct one’s eyes. - - -_ἀνεμώλια._ - - Go, foolish thoughts, and join the throng - Of myriads gone before; - To flutter and flap and flit along - The airy limbo shore. - - Go, words of sport and words of wit, - Sarcastic point and fine, - And words of wisdom wholly fit, - With folly’s to combine. - - Go, words of wisdom, words of sense, - Which, while the heart belied, - The tongue still uttered for pretence, - The inner blank to hide. - - Go, words of wit, so gay, so light, - That still were meant express - To soothe the smart of fancied slight - By fancies of success. - - Go, broodings vain o’er fancied wrong; - Go, love-dreams vainer still; - And scorn that’s not, but would be, strong; - And Pride without a Will. - - Go, foolish thoughts, and find your way - Where myriads went before, - To languish out your lingering day - Upon the limbo shore. - - November, 1850 - - -_COLUMBUS._ - - How in God’s name did Columbus get over - Is a pure wonder to me, I protest, - Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover, - Frobisher, Dampier, Drake, and the rest. - Bad enough all the same, - For them that after came, - But, in great Heaven’s name, - How _he_ should ever think - That on the other brink - Of this wild waste terra firma should be, - Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me. - - How a man ever should hope to get thither, - E’en if he knew that there was another side; - But to suppose he should come any whither, - Sailing straight on into chaos untried, - In spite of the motion - Across the whole ocean, - To stick to the notion - That in some nook or bend - Of a sea without end - He should find North and South America, - Was a pure madness, indeed I must say, to me. - - What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy, - Judged that the earth like an orange was round, - None of them ever said, Come along, follow me, - Sail to the West, and the East will be found. - Many a day before - Ever they’d come ashore, - From the ‘San Salvador,’ - Sadder and wiser men - They’d have turned back again; - And that _he_ did not, but did cross the sea, - Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me. - - -_EVEN THE WINDS AND THE SEA OBEY._ - - Said the Poet, I wouldn’t maintain, - As the mystical German has done, - That the land, inexistent till then, - To reward him then first saw the sun; - And yet I could deem it was so, - As o’er the new waters he sailed, - That his soul made the breezes to blow, - With his courage the breezes had failed; - His strong quiet purpose had still - The hurricane’s fury withheld; - The resolve of his conquering will - The lingering vessel impelled: - For the beings, the powers that range - In the air, on the earth, at our sides, - Can modify, temper and change - Stronger things than the winds and the tides, - By forces occult can the laws— - As we style them—of nature o’errule; - Can cause, so to say, every cause, - And our best mathematics befool; - Can defeat calculation and plan, - Baffle schemes ne’er so wisely designed, - But will bow to the genius of man, - And acknowledge a sovereign mind. - - -_REPOSE IN EGYPT._ - - O happy mother!—while the man wayworn - Sleeps by his ass and dreams of daily bread, - Wakeful and heedful for thy infant care— - O happy mother!—while thy husband sleeps, - Art privileged, O blessed one, to see - Celestial strangers sharing in thy task, - And visible angels waiting on thy child. - - Take, O young soul, O infant heaven-desired, - Take and fear not the cates, although of earth, - Which to thy hands celestial hands extend, - Take and fear not: such vulgar meats of life - Thy spirit lips no more must scorn to pass; - The seeming ill, contaminating joys, - Thy sense divine no more be loth to allow; - The pleasures as the pains of our strange life - Thou art engaged, self-compromised, to share. - Look up, upon thy mother’s face there sits - No sad suspicion of a lurking ill, - No shamed confession of a needful sin; - Mistrust her not, although of earth she too: - Look up! the bright-eyed cherubs overhead - Strew from mid air fresh flowers to crown the just - Look! thy own father’s servants these, and thine, - Who at his bidding and at thine are here. - In thine own word was it not said long since - Butter and honey shall he eat, and learn - The evil to refuse and choose the good? - Fear not, O babe divine, fear not, accept; - O happy mother, privileged to see, - While the man sleeps, the sacred mystery. - - -_TO A SLEEPING CHILD._ - - Lips, lips, open! - Up comes a little bird that lives inside— - Up comes a little bird, and peeps, and out he flies. - - All the day he sits inside, and sometimes he sings, - Up he comes, and out he goes at night to spread his wings. - - Little bird, little bird, whither will you go? - Round about the world, while nobody can know. - - Little bird, little bird, whither do you flee? - Far away around the world, while nobody can see. - - Little bird, little bird, how long will you roam? - All round the world and around again home; - - Round the round world, and back through the air, - When the morning comes, the little bird is there. - - Back comes the little bird and looks and in he flies, - Up wakes the little boy, and opens both his eyes. - - Sleep, sleep, little boy, little bird’s away, - Little bird will come again, by the peep of day; - - Sleep, little boy, the little bird must go - Round about the world, while nobody can know. - Sleep, sleep sound, little bird goes round, - Round and round he goes; sleep, sleep sound. - - -_TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE._ - - -I - - Over every hill - All is still; - In no leaf of any tree - Can you see - The motion of a breath. - Every bird has ceased its song, - Wait; and thou too, ere long, - Shall be quiet in death. - - -II - - Who ne’er his bread with tears hath ate, - Who never through the sad night hours - Weeping upon his bed hath sate, - He knows not you, you heavenly powers. - - Forth into life you bid us go, - And into guilt you let us fall, - Then leave us to endure the woe - It brings unfailingly to all. - - -III - - You complain of the woman for roving from one to another:— - Where is the constant man whom she is trying to find? - - -IV - - Slumber and Sleep, two brothers appointed to serve the immortals, - By Prometheus were brought hither to comfort mankind; - But what in heaven was light, to human creatures was heavy:— - Slumber became our Sleep, Sleep unto mortals was Death. - - -V - - Oh, the beautiful child! and oh, the most happy mother! - She in her infant blessed, and in its mother the babe— - What sweet longing within me this picture might not occasion, - Were I not, Joseph, like you, calmly condemned to stand by! - - -VI - - Diogenes by his tub, contenting himself with the sunshine, - And Calanus with joy mounting his funeral pyre:— - Great examples were these for the eager approving of Philip, - But for the Conqueror of Earth were, as the earth was, too small. - - -_URANUS._[20] - - When on the primal peaceful blank profound, - Which in its still unknowing silence holds - All knowledge, ever by withholding holds— - When on that void (like footfalls in far rooms), - In faint pulsations from the whitening East - Articulate voices first were felt to stir, - And the great child, in dreaming grown to man, - Losing his dream to piece it up began; - Then Plato in me said, - ‘’Tis but the figured ceiling overhead, - With cunning diagrams bestarred, that shine - In all the three dimensions, are endowed - With motion too by skill mechanical, - That thou in height, and depth, and breadth, and power, - Schooled unto pure Mathesis, might proceed - To higher entities, whereof in us - Copies are seen, existent they themselves - In the sole kingdom of the Mind and God. - Mind not the stars, mind thou thy Mind and God.’ - By that supremer Word - O’ermastered, deafly heard - Were hauntings dim of old astrologies; - Chaldean mumblings vast, with gossip light - From modern ologistic fancyings mixed, - Of suns and stars, by hypothetic men - Of other frame than ours inhabited, - Of lunar seas and lunar craters huge. - And was there atmosphere, or was there not? - And without oxygen could life subsist? - And was the world originally mist?— - Talk they as talk they list, - I, in that ampler voice, - Unheeding, did rejoice. - - -_SELENE._ - - My beloved, is it nothing - Though we meet not, neither can, - That I see thee, and thou me, - That we see, and see we see, - When I see I also feel thee; - Is it nothing, my beloved? - - Thy luminous clear beauty - Brightens on me in my night, - I withdraw into my darkness - To allure thee into light. - About me and upon me I feel them pass and stay, - About me, deep into me, every lucid tender ray. - And thou, thou also feelest - When thou stealest - Shamefaced and half afraid - To the chamber of thy shade, - Thou in thy turn, - Thou too feelest - Something follow, something yearn, - A full orb blaze and burn. - - My full orb upon thine, - As thine erst, gently smiling, - Softly wooing, sweetly wiling, - Gleamed on mine; - So mine on thine in turn - When thou feelest blaze and burn, - Is it nothing, my beloved? - - My beloved, is it nothing - When I see thee and thou me, - When we each other see, - Is it nothing, my beloved? - - Closer, closer come unto me. - Shall I see thee and no more? - I can see thee, is that all? - Let me also, - Let me feel thee, - Closer, closer, my beloved, - Come unto me, come to me, come! - O cruel, cruel lot, still thou rollest, stayest not, - Lookest onward, look’st before, - Yet I follow, evermore. - Oh, cold and cruel fate, thou rollest on thy way, - Scarcely lookest, wilt not stay, - From thine alien way. - - The inevitable motion - Bears me forth upon the line - Whose course I cannot see. - I must move as it conveys me - Evermore. It so must be. - - O cold one, and I round thee - Revolve, round only thee, - Straining ever to be nearer - While thou evadest still; - Repellest still, O cold one, - Nay, but closer, closer, closer, - My beloved, come, come, come! - - The inevitable motion - Carries both upon its line, - Also you as well as me. - What is best, and what is strongest, - We obey. It so must be. - - Cruel, cruel, didst thou only - Feel as I feel evermore, - A force, though in, not of me, - Drawing inward, in, in, in. - - Yea, thou shalt though, ere all endeth - Thou shalt feel me closer, closer, - My beloved, close, close to thee, - Come to thee, come, come, come! - - The inevitable motion - Bears us both upon its line - Together, you as me, - Together and asunder, - Evermore. It so must be. - - -_AT ROME._ - - O richly soiled and richly sunned, - Exuberant, fervid, and fecund! - Is this the fixed condition - On which may Northern pilgrim come, - To imbibe thine ether-air, and sum - Thy store of old tradition? - Must we be chill, if clean, and stand - Foot-deep in dirt on classic land? - - So is it: in all ages so, - And in all places man can know, - From homely roots unseen below - The stem in forest, field, and bower, - Derives the emanative power - That crowns it with the ethereal flower, - From mixtures fœtid, foul, and sour - Draws juices that those petals fill. - - Ah Nature, if indeed thy will - Thou own’st it, it shall not be ill! - And truly here, in this quick clime, - Where, scarcely bound by space or time, - The elements in half a day - Toss off with exquisitest play - What our cold seasons toil and grieve, - And never quite at last achieve; - Where processes, with pain, and fear, - Disgust, and horror wrought, appear - The quick mutations of a dance, - Wherein retiring but to advance, - Life, in brief interpause of death, - One moment sitting taking breath, - Forth comes again as glad as e’er, - In some new figure full as fair, - Where what has scarcely ceased to be, - Instinct with newer birth we see— - What dies, already, look you, lives; - In such a clime, who thinks, forgives; - Who sees, will understand; who knows, - In calm of knowledge find repose, - And thoughtful as of glory gone, - So too of more to come anon, - Of permanent existence sure, - Brief intermediate breaks endure. - O Nature, if indeed thy will, - Thou ownest it, it is not ill! - And e’en as oft on heathy hill, - On moorland black, and ferny fells, - Beside thy brooks and in thy dells, - Was welcomed erst the kindly stain - Of thy true earth, e’en so again - With resignation fair, and meet - The dirt and refuse of thy street, - My philosophic foot shall greet, - So leave but perfect to my eye - Thy columns, set against thy sky! - - -_LAST WORDS. NAPOLEON AND WELLINGTON._ - - -NAPOLEON. - - Is it this, then, O world-warrior, - That, exulting, through the folds - Of the dark and cloudy barrier - Thine enfranchised eye beholds? - Is, when blessed hands relieve thee - From the gross and mortal clay, - This the heaven that should receive thee? - ‘Tête d’armée.’ - - Now the final link is breaking, - Of the fierce, corroding chain, - And the ships, their watch forsaking, - Bid the seas no more detain, - Whither is it, freed and risen, - The pure spirit seeks away, - Quits for what the weary prison? - ‘Tête d’armée.’ - - Doubtless—angels, hovering o’er thee - In thine exile’s sad abode, - Marshalled even now before thee, - Move upon that chosen road! - Thither they, ere friends have laid thee - Where sad willows o’er thee play, - Shall already have conveyed thee! - ‘Tête d’armée.’ - - Shall great captains, foiled and broken, - Hear from thee on each great day, - At the crisis, a word spoken— - Word that battles still obey— - ‘Cuirassiers here, here those cannon; - Quick, those squadrons, up—away! - To the charge, on—as one man, on!’ - ‘Tête d’armée.’ - - (Yes, too true, alas! while sated - Of the wars so slow to cease, - Nations, once that scorned and hated, - Would to Wisdom turn, and Peace; - Thy dire impulse still obeying, - Fevered youths, as in the old day, - In their hearts still find thee saying, - ‘Tête d’armée.’) - - Oh, poor soul!—Or do I view thee, - From earth’s battle-fields withheld, - In a dream, assembling to thee - Troops that quell not, nor are quelled, - Breaking airy lines, defeating - Limbo-kings, and, as to-day, - Idly to all time repeating - ‘Tête d’armée’? - - -WELLINGTON. - - And what the words, that with his failing breath - Did England hear her aged soldier say? - I know not. Yielding tranquilly to death, - With no proud speech, no boast, he passed away. - - Not stirring words, nor gallant deeds alone, - Plain patient work fulfilled that length of life; - Duty, not glory—Service, not a throne, - Inspired his effort, set for him the strife. - - Therefore just Fortune, with one hasty blow, - Spurning her minion, Glory’s, Victory’s lord, - Gave all to him that was content to know, - In service done its own supreme reward. - - The words he said, if haply words there were, - When full of years and works he passed away, - Most naturally might, methinks, refer - To some poor humble business of to-day. - - ‘That humble simple duty of the day - Perform,’ he bids; ‘ask not if small or great: - Serve in thy post; be faithful, and obey; - Who serves her truly, sometimes saves the State.’ - - 1852 - - -_PESCHIERA._ - - What voice did on my spirit fall, - Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost? - ‘’Tis better to have fought and lost, - Than never to have fought at all.’ - - The tricolor—a trampled rag - Lies, dirt and dust; the lines I track - By sentry boxes yellow-black, - Lead up to no Italian flag. - - I see the Croat soldier stand - Upon the grass of your redoubts; - The eagle with his black wings flouts - The breath and beauty of your land. - - Yet not in vain, although in vain, - O men of Brescia, on the day - Of loss past hope, I heard you say - Your welcome to the noble pain. - - You say, ‘Since so it is,—good-bye - Sweet life, high hope; but whatsoe’er - May be, or must, no tongue shall dare - To tell, “The Lombard feared to die!”’ - - You said (there shall be answer fit), - ‘And if our children must obey, - They must; but thinking on this day - ’Twill less debase them to submit.’ - - You said (Oh not in vain you said), - ‘Haste, brothers, haste, while yet we may; - The hours ebb fast of this one day - When blood may yet be nobly shed.’ - - Ah! not for idle hatred, not - For honour, fame, nor self-applause, - But for the glory of the cause, - You did, what will not be forgot. - - And though the stranger stand, ’tis true, - By force and fortune’s right he stands; - By fortune, which is in God’s hands, - And strength, which yet shall spring in you. - - This voice did on my spirit fall, - Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost, - ‘’Tis better to have fought and lost, - Than never to have fought at all.’ - - 1849 - - -_ALTERAM PARTEM._ - - Or shall I say, Vain word, false thought, - Since Prudence hath her martyrs too, - And Wisdom dictates not to do, - Till doing shall be not for nought? - - Not ours to give or lose is life; - Will Nature, when her brave ones fall, - Remake her work? or songs recall - Death’s victim slain in useless strife? - - That rivers flow into the sea - Is loss and waste, the foolish say, - Nor know that back they find their way, - Unseen, to where they wont to be. - - Showers fall upon the hills, springs flow, - The river runneth still at hand, - Brave men are born into the land, - And whence the foolish do not know. - - No! no vain voice did on me fall, - Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost, - ‘_’Tis_ better to have fought and lost, - Than never to have fought at all.’ - - 1849 - - -_SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH._ - - Say not the struggle nought availeth, - The labour and the wounds are vain, - The enemy faints not, nor faileth, - And as things have been they remain. - - If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; - It may be, in yon smoke concealed, - Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers, - And, but for you, possess the field. - - For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, - Seem here no painful inch to gain, - Far back, through creeks and inlets making, - Comes silent, flooding in, the main, - - And not by eastern windows only, - When daylight comes, comes in the light, - In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, - But westward, look, the land is bright. - - 1849 - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] This and the following Early Poems are reprinted from the volume -called _Ambarvalia_. - -[2] This was written for the twenty-fifth wedding-day of Mr. and Mrs. -Walrond, of Calder Park. - -[3] Ho Thëos meta sou—God be with you! - -[4] The manuscript of this poem is very imperfect, and bears no title. - -[5] The manuscript of this poem is incomplete; but it has been thought -best to give all the separate fragments, since they evidently are -conceived on the same plan, and throw light on each other. - -[6] This poem, as well as the ‘Mari Magno,’ was not published during the -author’s lifetime, and should not be regarded as having received his -finishing touches. - -[7] Flood. - -[8] Reap. - -[9] Reaping. - -[10] Shocks. - -[11] Public-house in the hamlet. - -[12] This poem is reprinted from the volume called _Ambarvalia_. - -[13] - - Hic avidus stetit - Vulcanus, hic matrona Juno, et - Nunquam humeris positurus arcum; - Qui rore puro Castaliæ lavit - Crines solutos, qui Lyciæ tenet - Dumeta natalemque silvam, - Delius et Patareus Apollo. - -[14] - - ——domus Albuneæ resonantis, - Et præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda - Mobilibus pomaria rivis - -[15] These Sonnets have been brought together from very imperfect -manuscripts. It is not to be supposed that their author would have given -them to the public in their present state; but they are in parts so -characteristic of his thought and style, that they will not be without -interest to the readers of his poems. - -[16] These Tales were written only a few months before the writer’s -death, during his journeys in Greece, Italy, and the Pyrenees, and had -not been revised by him. - -[17] These songs were composed either during the writer’s voyage across -the Atlantic in 1852, or during his residence in America. - -[18] Passages of the second letter of Parepidemus (vol. i. pp. 400, 401) -illustrate the theory which Mr. Clough has carried into practice in these -hexameters as well as in the Translations from the Iliad. - -[19] A great proportion of the Poems described as Miscellaneous have, -like some included in previous divisions, been brought together from -rough copies and unfinished manuscripts. Fragmentary and imperfect as -they are, they yet are so characteristic of their writer, that they have -been placed here along with others more finished. - -[20] This thought is taken from a passage on astronomy in Plato’s -_Republic_, in which the following sentence occurs, vii. 529, D: ‘We -must use the fretwork of the sky as patterns, with a view to the study -which aims at these higher realities, just as if we chanced to meet with -diagrams cunningly drawn and devised by Dædalus or some other craftsman -or painter.’ - - - - -INDEX OF THE FIRST LINES. - - - PAGE - - A Highland inn among the western hills 384 - - A youth and maid upon a summer night 352 - - A youth was I. An elder friend with me 325 - - Across the sea, along the shore 94 - - Ah, blame him not because he’s gay! 431 - - Am I with you, or you with me? 410 - - And replying, said godlike, swift-footed Achilles 418 - - As, at a railway junction, men 35 - - As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay 38 - - Away, haunt thou not me 11 - - - Beside me,—in the car,—she sat 260 - - Blessed are those who have not seen 90 - - Bright October was come, the misty-bright October 236 - - But a revulsion again came over the spirit of Elspie 245 - - But if as not by that the soul desired 321 - - But that from slow dissolving pomps of dawn 430 - - But whether in the uncoloured light of truth 320 - - - Cease, empty Faith, the Spectrum saith 89 - - Come back again, my olden heart! 8 - - Come back, come back, behold with straining mast 404 - - Come home, come home! and where is home for me 403 - - Come, Poet, come! 427 - - - Dance on, dance on, we see, we see 432 - - Dear Eustatio, I write that you may write me an answer 269 - - Dearest of boys, please come to-day 329 - - Diogenes by his tub, contenting himself with the sunshine 442 - - Duty—that’s to say, complying 181 - - - Each for himself is still the rule 183 - - Eastward, or Northward, or West? I wander and ask as I wander 305 - - Edward and Jane a married couple were 374 - - - Farewell, farewell! Her vans the vessel tries 401 - - Farewell, my Highland lassie! when the year returns around 29 - - For she confessed, as they sat in the dusk, and he saw not her - blushes 239 - - From thy far sources, ’mid mountains airily climbing 422 - - - Go, foolish thoughts, and join the throng 436 - - Goddess, the anger sing of the Pelean Achilles 417 - - Green fields of England! wheresoe’er 404 - - - Hearken to me, ye mothers of my tent 69 - - Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent 12 - - Hope evermore and believe, O man, for e’en as thy thought 188 - - How in God’s name did Columbus get over 437 - - How often sit I, poring o’er 14 - - - I dreamed a dream: I dreamt that I espied 96 - - I have seen higher, holier things than these 19 - - I saw again the spirits on a day 186 - - I stayed at La Quenille, ten miles or more 361 - - If it is thou whose casual hand withdraws 321 - - If that we thus are guilty doth appear 434 - - If, when in cheerless wanderings, dull and cold 20 - - In controversial foul impureness 93 - - Is it illusion? or does there a spirit from perfecter ages 280 - - Is it this, then, O world-warrior 448 - - Is it true, ye gods, who treat us 39 - - It fortifies my soul to know 90 - - It is not sweet content, be sure 430 - - It may be true 91 - - It was but some few nights ago 3 - - It was the afternoon; and the sports were now at the ending 201 - - I’ve often wondered how it is, at times 371 - - - Light words they were, and lightly, falsely said 34 - - Like a child 14 - - Lips, lips, open! 440 - - Lo, here is God, and there is God! 81 - - Matthew and Mark and Luke and holy John 95 - - Morn, in yellow and white, came broadening out from the mountains 207 - - My beloved, is it nothing 443 - - My sons, and ye children of my sons 74 - - My wind is turned to bitter north 18 - - - O God! O God! and must I still go on 171 - - O happy mother!—while the man wayworn 439 - - O happy they whose hearts receive 189 - - O kind protecting Darkness! as a child 15 - - O let me love my love unto myself alone 87 - - O only Source of all our light and life 85 - - O richly soiled and richly sunned 446 - - O ship, ship, ship 413 - - O stream descending to the sea 196 - - O tell me, friends, while yet we part 36 - - O Thou whose image in the shrine 86 - - Oh, the beautiful child! and oh, the most happy mother! 442 - - ‘Old things need not be therefore true’ 93 - - On grass, on gravel, in the sun 260 - - On the mountain, in the woodland 31 - - Once more the wonted road I tread 16 - - Or shall I say, Vain word, false thought 452 - - Over a mountain slope with lentisk, and with abounding 423 - - Over every hill 441 - - Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summits 269 - - - Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane 197 - - - Roused by importunate knocks 15 - - - Said the Poet, I wouldn’t maintain 438 - - Say not the struggle nought availeth 452 - - Say, will it, when our hairs are grey 190 - - Shall I decide it by a random shot? 322 - - Since that last evening we have fallen indeed! 43 - - Slumber and Sleep, two brothers appointed to serve the immortals 441 - - So I went wrong 7 - - So in the cottage with Adam the pupils five together 232 - - So in the golden morning they parted and went to the westward 215 - - So in the golden weather they waited. But Philip returned not 224 - - So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone 104 - - So on the morrow’s morrow, with Term-time dread returning 250 - - So spake the voice: and as with a single life 423 - - Some future day when what is now is not 406 - - Sweet streamlet bason! at thy side 10 - - - That children in their loveliness should die 319 - - That out of sight is out of mind 409 - - That there are better things within the womb 319 - - The grasses green of sweet content 193 - - The human spirits saw I on a day 185 - - The mighty ocean rolls and raves 407 - - The scene is different, and the place, the air 109 - - The Silver Wedding! on some pensive ear 20 - - The skies have sunk, and hid the upper snow 259 - - There is a city, upbuilt on the quays of the turbulent Arno 309 - - These are the words of Jacob’s wives, the words 77 - - Thou shalt have one God only; who 184 - - Though to the vilest things beneath the moon 12 - - Thought may well be ever ranging 25 - - Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past 100 - - To see the rich autumnal tint depart 320 - - To spend uncounted years of pain 91 - - To think that men of former days 428 - - To wear out heart, and nerves, and brain 182 - - Trunks the forest yielded with gums ambrosial oozing 422 - - Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there 6 - - ’Twas on a sunny summer day 5 - - - Upon the water, in the boat 195 - - - Well, well,—Heaven bless you all from day to day! 13 - - Were I with you, or you with me 411 - - Were you with me, or I with you 410 - - Were you with me, or I with you 412 - - What voice did on my spirit fall 450 - - What we, when face to face we see 92 - - Whate’er you dream with doubt possest 194 - - When on the primal peaceful blank profound 442 - - When panting sighs the bosom fill 26 - - When soft September brings again 10 - - When the dews are earliest falling 30 - - Whence are ye, vague desires 191 - - Whence comest thou, shady lane? and why and how? 8 - - Where lies the land to which the ship would go? 407 - - Who is this man that walketh in the field 72 - - Who ne’er his bread with tears hath ate 441 - - Why should I say I see the things I see not? 23 - - - Ye flags of Piccadilly 402 - - Yes, I have lied, and so must walk my way 13 - - Yet to the wondrous St. Peter’s, and yet to the solemn Rotonda 293 - - You complain of the woman for roving from one to another 441 - - Youth, that went, is come again 434 - - -THE END. - - PRINTED BY - SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE - LONDON - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF ARTHUR HUGH -CLOUGH *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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-} - -.smaller { - font-size: 80%; -} - -.smcap { - font-variant: small-caps; - font-style: normal; -} - -.tb { - margin-top: 2em; -} - -.titlepage { - text-align: center; - margin-top: 3em; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.x-ebookmaker img { - max-width: 100%; - width: auto; - height: auto; -} - -.x-ebookmaker .poetry { - display: block; - margin-left: 1.5em; -} - - </style> - </head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough, by Arthur Hugh Clough</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Arthur Hugh Clough</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 7, 2021 [eBook #66689]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Emmanuel Ackerman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH ***</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_i"></a>[i]</span></p> - -<h1>POEMS<br /> -<span class="smaller">OF</span><br /> -ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH</h1> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/monogram.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="Monogram of the author (AHC)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a>[ii]</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> -<img src="images/macmillan.jpg" width="300" height="90" alt="Logo of Macmillan and Company" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iii"></a>[iii]</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="600" height="700" alt="Engraved portrait of the author" /> -<p class="caption"><i>Engraved by C. H. Jeens.</i></p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<p class="titlepage larger">POEMS<br /> -<span class="smaller"><span class="smaller">OF</span><br /> -ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH</span></p> - -<p class="center smaller">SOMETIME FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE<br /> -OXFORD</p> - -<p class="titlepage"><span class="gothic">London</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited</span><br /> -<span class="smaller">NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span><br /> -1898</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iv"></a>[iv]</span></p> - -<p class="titlepage">First published elsewhere. First printed for <span class="smcap">Macmillan & Co.</span><br /> -1891. Reprinted 1895, 1898.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v"></a>[v]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS.</h2> - -</div> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#EARLY_POEMS">EARLY POEMS.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">An Evening Walk in Spring</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">An Incident</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Thread of Truth</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_6">6</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Revival</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Shady Lane</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Higher Courage</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Written on a Bridge</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">A River Pool</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">In a Lecture-Room</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">‘Blank Misgivings of a Creature moving about in Worlds not realised’</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">A Song of Autumn</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">τὸ καλόν</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Χρυσέα κλῄς ἐπὶ γλώσσᾳ</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Silver Wedding</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Music of the World and of the Soul</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Love, not Duty</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Love and Reason</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Ὁ Θεὸς μετὰ σοῦ!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Wirkung in der Ferne</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">ἐπὶ Λάτμῳ</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">A Protest</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Sic Itur</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Parting</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Qua Cursum Ventus</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">‘Wen Gott betrügt, ist wohl betrogen’</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#POEMS_ON_RELIGIOUS_AND">POEMS ON RELIGIOUS AND BIBLICAL SUBJECTS.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Fragments of the Mystery of the Fall</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Song of Lamech</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Genesis XXIV.</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_72">72</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi"></a>[vi]</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Jacob</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Jacob’s Wives</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The New Sinai</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Qui laborat, orat</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">ὕμνος ἄυμνος</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Hidden Love</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Shadow and Light</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">‘With Whom is no Variableness, neither Shadow of Turning’</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">In Stratis Viarum</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">‘Perchè pensa? Pensando s’invecchia’</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">‘O thou of little Faith’</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">‘Through a Glass darkly’</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Ah! yet consider it again!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Noli æmulari</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">‘What went ye out for to see?’</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Epi-strauss-ium</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Shadow (<i>a Fragment</i>)</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Easter Day (Naples, 1849)</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Easter Day, II.</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#DIPSYCHUS">DIPSYCHUS</a></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Prologue</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Part I.</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Part II.</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Epilogue</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#DIPSYCHUS_CONTINUED">DIPSYCHUS CONTINUED</a> (<i>a Fragment</i>)</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#POEMS_ON_LIFE_AND_DUTY">POEMS ON LIFE AND DUTY.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Duty</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Life is Struggle</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">In the Great Metropolis</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Latest Decalogue</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Questioning Spirit</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Bethesda (a Sequel)</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Hope evermore and believe!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Blessed are they that have not seen!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Cold Comfort</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Sehnsucht</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">High and Low</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">All is well</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">πάντα ῥεῖ· οὐδὲν μένει</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Stream of Life</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">In a London Square</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_197">197</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii"></a>[vii]</span></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#THE_BOTHIE">THE BOTHIE OF TOBER-NA-VUOLICH:</a> <i>a Long-Vacation Pastoral</i></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#IDYLLIC_SKETCHES">IDYLLIC SKETCHES.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Ite Domum Saturæ, venit Hesperus</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">A London Idyll</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Natura naturans</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#AMOURS_DE_VOYAGE">AMOURS DE VOYAGE</a></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#SEVEN_SONNETS">SEVEN SONNETS ON THE THOUGHT OF DEATH</a></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_317">317</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#MARI_MAGNO">MARI MAGNO</a>; <span class="smcap">or</span>, TALES ON BOARD</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_323">323</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Lawyer’s First Tale: Primitiæ, or Third Cousins</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_329">329</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Clergyman’s First Tale: Love is Fellow-service</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_352">352</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">My Tale: A la banquette; or, a Modern Pilgrimage</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_361">361</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Mate’s Story</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_371">371</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Clergyman’s Second Tale</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_374">374</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Lawyer’s Second Tale: Christian</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_384">384</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#SONGS_IN_ABSENCE">SONGS IN ABSENCE</a></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_399">399</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#ESSAYS_IN_CLASSICAL_METRES">ESSAYS IN CLASSICAL METRES.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Translations of Iliad</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_417">417</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Elegiacs</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_422">422</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Alcaics</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_423">423</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Actæon</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_423">423</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td><a href="#MISCELLANEOUS_POEMS">MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Come, Poet, come!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_427">427</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">The Dream Land</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_428">428</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">In the Depths</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_430">430</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Darkness (<i>a Fragment</i>)</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_430">430</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Two Moods</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_431">431</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Youth and Age</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_432">432</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Solvitur acris Hiems</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_434">434</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Thesis and Antithesis</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_434">434</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">ἀνεμώλια</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_436">436</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Columbus</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_437">437</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Even the Winds and the Sea obey</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_438">438</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Repose in Egypt</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_439">439</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">To a Sleeping Child</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_440">440</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii"></a>[viii]</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Translations from Goethe</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_441">441</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Uranus</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_442">442</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Selene</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_443">443</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">At Rome</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_446">446</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Last Words. Napoleon and Wellington</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_448">448</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Peschiera</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_450">450</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Alteram Partem</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_452">452</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdh3">Say not the struggle nought availeth</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_452">452</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="EARLY_POEMS">EARLY POEMS.</h2> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p> - -<h3><i>AN EVENING WALK IN SPRING.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">It was but some few nights ago</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I wandered down this quiet lane;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I pray that I may never know</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The feelings then I felt, again.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The leaves were shining all about,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You might almost have seen them springing;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I heard the cuckoo’s simple shout,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And all the little birds were singing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was not dull, the air was clear,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">All lovely sights and sounds to deal,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My eyes could see, my ears could hear,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Only my heart, it would not feel;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet that it should not be so,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">My mind kept telling me within;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though nought was wrong that I did know,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I thought I must have done some sin.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For I am sure as I can be,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That they who have been wont to look</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On all in Nature’s face they see,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Even as in the Holy Book;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They who with pure and humble eyes</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Have gazed and read her lessons high,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And taught their spirits to be wise</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In love and human sympathy,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That they can soon and surely tell</div> - <div class="verse indent2">When aught has gone amiss within,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">When the mind is not sound and well,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Nor the soul free from taint of sin.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For as God’s Spirit from above,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So Beauty is to them below,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when they slight that holy love,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Their hearts that presence may not know.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So I turned home the way I came,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With downcast looks and heavy heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A guilty thing and full of shame,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With a dull grief that had no smart.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It chanced when I was nearly there</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That all at once I raised my eyes—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was it a dream, or vision rare,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That then they saw before them rise?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I see it now, before me here,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As often, often I have done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As bright as it could then appear,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">All shining in the setting sun.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Elms, with their mantling foliage spread,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And tall dark poplars rising out,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And blossomed orchards, white and red,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Cast, like a long low fence, about;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in the midst the grey church-tower,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With one slight turret at its side,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bringing to mind with silent power</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Those thousand homes the elm-trees hide.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And then there came the thought of one</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Who on his bed of sickness lay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whilst I beneath the setting sun</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Was dreaming this sweet hour away.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I thought of hearts for him that beat,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of aching eyes their watch that kept;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sister’s and the mother’s seat—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And oh! I thought I should have wept.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And oh! my spirit melted then,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The weight fell off me that I bore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And now I felt in truth again</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The lovely things that stood before.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O blessed, blessed scene, to thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For that thy sweet and softening power,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I could have fallen upon my knee,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Thy stately elms, thy grey church-tower.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So then I took my homeward way,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">My heart in sweet and holy frame,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With spirit, I may dare to say,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">More good and soft than when I came.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1836</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>AN INCIDENT.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas on a sunny summer day</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I trod a mighty city’s street,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when I started on my way</div> - <div class="verse indent2">My heart was full of fancies sweet;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But soon, as nothing could be seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But countenances sharp and keen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nought heard or seen around but told</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of something bought or something sold,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And none that seemed to think or care</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That any save himself was there,—</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Full soon my heart began to sink</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With a strange shame and inward pain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For I was sad within to think</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of this absorbing love of gain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And various thoughts my bosom tost;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When suddenly my path there crossed,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Locked hand in hand with one another,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A little maiden and her brother—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A little maiden, and she wore</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Around her waist a pinafore.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And hand in hand along the street</div> - <div class="verse indent2">This pretty pair did softly go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And as they went, their little feet</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Moved in short even steps and slow:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was a sight to see and bless,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That little sister’s tenderness;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One hand a tidy basket bore</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of flowers and fruit—a chosen store,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such as kind friends oft send to others—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And one was fastened in her brother’s.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">It was a voice of meaning sweet,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And spake amid that scene of strife</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of home and homely duties meet,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And charities of daily life;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And often, should my spirit fail,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And under cold strange glances quail,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Mid busy shops and busier throng,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That speed upon their ways along</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The thick and crowded thoroughfare,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’ll call to mind that little pair.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1836</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>THE THREAD OF TRUTH.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In small bright specks upon the visible side</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of our strange being’s party-coloured web.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How rich the converse! ’Tis a vein of ore</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Emerging now and then on Earth’s rude breast,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But flowing full below. Like islands set</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At distant intervals on Ocean’s face,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We see it on our course; but in the depths</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The mystic colonnade unbroken keeps</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Its faithful way, invisible but sure.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, if it be so, wherefore do we men</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pass by so many marks, so little heeding?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1839</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>REVIVAL.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent24">So I went wrong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Grievously wrong, but folly crushed itself,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And vanity o’ertoppling fell, and time</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And healthy discipline and some neglect,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Labour and solitary hours revived</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somewhat, at least, of that original frame.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, well do I remember then the days</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When on some grassy slope (what time the sun</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was sinking, and the solemn eve came down</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With its blue vapour upon field and wood</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And elm-embosomed spire) once more again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I fed on sweet emotion, and my heart</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With love o’erflowed, or hushed itself in fear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unearthly, yea celestial. Once again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My heart was hot within me, and, me seemed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I too had in my body breath to wind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The magic horn of song; I too possessed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up-welling in my being’s depths a fount</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the true poet-nectar whence to fill</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The golden urns of verse.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1839</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE SHADY LANE.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Whence comest thou, shady lane? and why and how?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou, where with idle heart, ten years ago,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I wandered, and with childhood’s paces slow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So long unthought of, and remembered now!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Again in vision clear thy pathwayed side</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I tread, and view thy orchard plots again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With yellow fruitage hung,—and glimmering grain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Standing or shocked through the thick hedge espied.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This hot still noon of August brings the sight;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This quelling silence as of eve or night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wherein Earth (feeling as a mother may</div> - <div class="verse indent0">After her travail’s latest bitterest throes)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Looks up, so seemeth it, one half repose,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One half in effort, straining, suffering still.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1839</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>THE HIGHER COURAGE.</i><a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back again, my olden heart!—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ah, fickle spirit and untrue,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I bade the only guide depart</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Whose faithfulness I surely knew:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I said, my heart is all too soft;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He who would climb and soar aloft</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must needs keep ever at his side</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The tonic of a wholesome pride.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back again, my olden heart!—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Alas, I called not then for thee;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I called for Courage, and apart</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From Pride if Courage could not be,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Then welcome, Pride! and I shall find</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In thee a power to lift the mind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This low and grovelling joy above—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis but the proud can truly love.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back again, my olden heart!—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With incrustations of the years</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Uncased as yet,—as then thou wert,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Full-filled with shame and coward fears:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wherewith amidst a jostling throng</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of deeds, that each and all were wrong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The doubting soul, from day to day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Uneasy paralytic lay.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back again, my olden heart!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I said, Perceptions contradict,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Convictions come, anon depart,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And but themselves as false convict.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Assumptions, hasty, crude and vain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Full oft to use will Science deign;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The corks the novice plies to-day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The swimmer soon shall cast away.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back again, my olden heart!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I said, Behold, I perish quite,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unless to give me strength to start,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I make myself my rule of right:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It must be, if I act at all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To save my shame I have at call</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The plea of all men understood,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because I willed it, it is good.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back again, my olden heart!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I know not if in very deed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This means alone could aid impart</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To serve my sickly spirit’s need;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">But clear alike of wild self-will,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And fear that faltered, paltered still,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Remorseful thoughts of after days</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A way espy betwixt the ways.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back again, old heart! Ah me!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Methinks in those thy coward fears</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There might, perchance, a courage be,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That fails in these the manlier years;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Courage to let the courage sink,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Itself a coward base to think,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rather than not for heavenly light</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wait on to show the truly right.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1840</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>WRITTEN ON A BRIDGE.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When soft September brings again</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To yonder gorse its golden glow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Snowdon sends its autumn rain</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To bid thy current livelier flow;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Amid that ashen foliage light</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When scarlet beads are glistering bright,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While alder boughs unchanged are seen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In summer livery of green;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When clouds before the cooler breeze</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are flying, white and large; with these</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Returning, so may I return,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And find thee changeless, Pont-y-wern.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1840</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>A RIVER POOL.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Sweet streamlet bason! at thy side</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weary and faint within me cried</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">My longing heart,—In such pure deep</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How sweet it were to sit and sleep;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To feel each passage from without</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Close up,—above me and about,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Those circling waters crystal clear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That calm impervious atmosphere!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There on thy pearly pavement pure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To lean, and feel myself secure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or through the dim-lit inter-space,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Afar at whiles upgazing trace</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The dimpling bubbles dance around</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon thy smooth exterior face;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or idly list the dreamy sound</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of ripples lightly flung, above</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That home, of peace, if not of love.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1840</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>IN A LECTURE-ROOM.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Away, haunt thou not me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou vain Philosophy!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Little hast thou bestead,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Save to perplex the head,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And leave the spirit dead.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While from the secret treasure-depths below,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fed by the skiey shower,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And clouds that sink and rest on hill-tops high,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wisdom at once, and Power,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why labour at the dull mechanic oar,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the fresh breeze is blowing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the strong current flowing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Right onward to the Eternal Shore?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1840</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span></p> - -<h3>‘<i>Blank Misgivings of a Creature moving about in Worlds not -realised.</i>’</h3> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One-third departed of the mortal span,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Carrying on the child into the man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nothing into reality. Sails rent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And rudder broken,—reason impotent,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Affections all unfixed; so forth I fare</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the mid seas unheedingly, so dare</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To do and to be done by, well content.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So was it from the first, so is it yet;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, the first kiss that by these lips was set</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On any human lips, methinks was sin—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sin, cowardice, and falsehood; for the will</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into a deed e’en then advanced, wherein</div> - <div class="verse indent0">God, unidentified, was thought-of still.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Though to the vilest things beneath the moon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For poor Ease’ sake I give away my heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And for the moment’s sympathy let part</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My sight and sense of truth, Thy precious boon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My painful earnings, lost, all lost, as soon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Almost, as gained; and though aside I start,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Belie Thee daily, hourly,—still Thou art,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Art surely as in heaven the sun at noon;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How much so e’er I sin, whate’er I do</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of evil, still the sky above is blue,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">The stars look down in beauty as before:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is enough to walk as best we may,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To walk, and, sighing, dream of that blest day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When ill we cannot quell shall be no more.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, well,—Heaven bless you all from day to day!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forgiveness too, or e’er we part, from each,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As I do give it, so must I beseech:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I owe all much, much more than I can pay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Therefore it is I go; how could I stay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where every look commits me to fresh debt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to pay little I must borrow yet?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Enough of this already, now away!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With silent woods and hills untenanted</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let me go commune; under thy sweet gloom,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O kind maternal Darkness, hide my head:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The day may come I yet may re-assume</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My place, and, these tired limbs recruited, seek</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The task for which I now am all too weak.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, I have lied, and so must walk my way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bearing the liar’s curse upon my head;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Letting my weak and sickly heart be fed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On food which does the present craving stay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But may be clean-denied me e’en to-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And tho’ ’twere certain, yet were ought but bread;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Letting—for so they say, it seems, I said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I am all too weak to disobey!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Therefore for me sweet Nature’s scenes reveal not</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their charm; sweet Music greets me and I feel not</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Sweet eyes pass off me uninspired; yea, more,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The golden tide of opportunity</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flows wafting-in friendships and better,—I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unseeing, listless, pace along the shore.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>V</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">How often sit I, poring o’er</div> - <div class="verse indent2">My strange distorted youth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seeking in vain, in all my store,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">One feeling based on truth;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Amid the maze of petty life</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A clue whereby to move,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A spot whereon in toil and strife</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To dare to rest and love.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So constant as my heart would be,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So fickle as it must,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twere well for others as for me</div> - <div class="verse indent2">’Twere dry as summer dust.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Excitements come, and act and speech</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Flow freely forth;—but no,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor they, nor ought beside can reach</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The buried world below.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1841</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>VI</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent16">——Like a child</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In some strange garden left awhile alone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I pace about the pathways of the world,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Plucking light hopes and joys from every stem</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With qualms of vague misgiving in my heart</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That payment at the last will be required,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Payment I cannot make, or guilt incurred,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And shame to be endured.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1841</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span></p> - -<h4>VII</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent14">——Roused by importunate knocks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I rose, I turned the key, and let them in,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">First one, anon another, and at length</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In troops they came; for how could I, who once</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had let in one, nor looked him in the face,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Show scruples e’er again? So in they came,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A noisy band of revellers,—vain hopes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wild fancies, fitful joys; and there they sit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In my heart’s holy place, and through the night</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Carouse, to leave it when the cold grey dawn</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gleams from the East, to tell me that the time</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For watching and for thought bestowed is gone.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1841</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>VIII</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O kind protecting Darkness! as a child</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flies back to bury in its mother’s lap</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His shame and his confusion, so to thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O Mother Night, come I! within the folds</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of thy dark robe hide thou me close; for I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So long, so heedless, with external things</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have played the liar, that whate’er I see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en these white glimmering curtains, yon bright stars,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which to the rest rain comfort down, for me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Smiling those smiles, which I may not return,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or frowning frowns of fierce triumphant malice,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As angry claimants or expectants sure</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of that I promised and may not perform,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look me in the face! O hide me, Mother Night!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1841</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span></p> - -<h4>IX</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Once more the wonted road I tread,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Once more dark heavens above me spread,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the windy down I stand,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My station whence the circling land</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lies mapped and pictured wide below;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such as it was, such e’en again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Long dreary bank, and breadth of plain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By hedge or tree unbroken;—lo!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A few grey woods can only show</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How vain their aid, and in the sense</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of one unaltering impotence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Relieving not, meseems enhance</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sovereign dulness of the expanse.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet marks where human hand hath been,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bare house, unsheltered village, space</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of ploughed and fenceless tilth between</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Such aspect as methinks may be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In some half-settled colony),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From Nature vindicate the scene;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A wide, and yet disheartening view,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A melancholy world.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent22">’Tis true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Most true; and yet, like those strange smiles</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By fervent hope or tender thought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From distant happy regions brought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which upon some sick bed are seen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To glorify a pale worn face</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With sudden beauty,—so at whiles</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lights have descended, hues have been,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To clothe with half-celestial grace</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The bareness of the desert place.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Since so it is, so be it still!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could only thou, my heart, be taught</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To treasure, and in act fulfil</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The lesson which the sight has brought:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In thine own dull and dreary state</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To work and patiently to wait:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Little thou think’st in thy despair</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How soon the o’ershaded sun may shine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And e’en the dulling clouds combine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To bless with lights and hues divine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That region desolate and bare,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Those sad and sinful thoughts of thine!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Still doth the coward heart complain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The hour may come, and come in vain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The branch that withered lies and dead</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No suns can force to lift its head.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">True!—yet how little thou canst tell</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How much in thee is ill or well;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor for thy neighbour nor for thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be sure, was life designed to be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A draught of dull complacency.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One Power too is it, who doth give</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The food without us, and within</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The strength that makes it nutritive;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He bids the dry bones rise and live,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And e’en in hearts depraved to sin</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some sudden, gracious influence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May give the long-lost good again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And wake within the dormant sense</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And love of good;—for mortal men,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So but thou strive, thou soon shalt see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Defeat itself is victory.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So be it: yet, O Good and Great,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In whom in this bedarkened state</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I fain am struggling to believe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let me not ever cease to grieve,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor lose the consciousness of ill</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Within me;—and refusing still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To recognise in things around</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What cannot truly there be found,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let me not feel, nor be it true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That, while each daily task I do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I still am giving day by day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My precious things within away</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Those thou didst give to keep as thine)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And casting, do whate’er I may,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My heavenly pearls to earthly swine.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1841</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>A SONG OF AUTUMN.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">My wind is turned to bitter north,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That was so soft a south before;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My sky, that shone so sunny bright,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With foggy gloom is clouded o’er:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My gay green leaves are yellow-black,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Upon the dank autumnal floor;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For love, departed once, comes back</div> - <div class="verse indent2">No more again, no more.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A roofless ruin lies my home,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For winds to blow and rains to pour;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One frosty night befell, and lo!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I find my summer days are o’er:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">The heart bereaved, of why and how</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Unknowing, knows that yet before</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It had what e’en to Memory now</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Returns no more, no more.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>τὸ καλόν.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I have seen higher, holier things than these,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And therefore must to these refuse my heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet am I panting for a little ease;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I’ll take, and so depart.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, hold! the heart is prone to fall away,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Her high and cherished visions to forget,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And if thou takest, how wilt thou repay</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So vast, so dread a debt?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">How will the heart, which now thou trustest, then</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Corrupt, yet in corruption mindful yet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Turn with sharp stings upon itself! Again,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Bethink thee of the debt!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">—Hast thou seen higher, holier things than these,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And therefore must to these thy heart refuse?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With the true best, alack, how ill agrees</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That best that thou would’st choose!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The Summum Pulchrum rests in heaven above;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Do thou, as best thou may’st, thy duty do:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Amid the things allowed thee live and love;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Some day thou shalt it view.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1841</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span></p> - -<h3><i>Χρυσέα κλῄς ἐπὶ γλώσσᾳ.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">If, when in cheerless wanderings, dull and cold,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A sense of human kindliness hath found us,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">We seem to have around us</div> - <div class="verse indent6">An atmosphere all gold,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Midst darkest shades a halo rich of shine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An element, that while the bleak wind bloweth,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">On the rich heart bestoweth</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Imbreathèd draughts of wine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heaven guide, the cup be not, as chance may be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To some vain mate given up as soon as tasted!</div> - <div class="verse indent6">No, nor on thee be wasted,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Thou trifler, Poesy!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Youth fly, with life’s real tempest would be coping;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">The fruit of dreamy hoping</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Is, waking, blank despair.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1841</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>THE SILVER WEDDING.</i><a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The Silver Wedding! on some pensive ear</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From towers remote as sound the silvery bells,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To-day from one far unforgotten year</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A silvery faint memorial music swells.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And silver-pale the dim memorial light</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of musing age on youthful joys is shed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The golden joys of fancy’s dawning bright,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The golden bliss of, Woo’d, and won, and wed.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, golden then, but silver now! In sooth,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The years that pale the cheek, that dim the eyes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And silver o’er the golden hairs of youth,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Less prized can make its only priceless prize.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Not so; the voice this silver name that gave</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To this, the ripe and unenfeebled date,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For steps together tottering to the grave,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Hath bid the perfect golden title wait.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Rather, if silver this, if that be gold,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From good to better changed on age’s track,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must it as baser metal be enrolled,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That day of days, a quarter-century back.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet ah, its hopes, its joys were golden too,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But golden of the fairy gold of dreams:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To feel is but to dream; until we do,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">There’s nought that is, and all we see but seems.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What was or seemed it needed cares and tears,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And deeds together done, and trials past,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all the subtlest alchemy of years,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To change to genuine substance here at last.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Your fairy gold is silver sure to-day;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Your ore by crosses many, many a loss,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As in refiners’ fires, hath purged away</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What erst it had of earthy human dross.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come years as many yet, and as they go,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In human life’s great crucible shall they</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Transmute, so potent are the spells they know,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Into pure gold the silver of to-day.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Strange metallurge is human life! ’Tis true;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And Use and Wont in many a gorgeous case</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Full specious fair for casual outward view</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Electrotype the sordid and the base.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor lack who praise, avowed, the spurious ware,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Who bid young hearts the one true love forego,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Conceit to feed, or fancy light as air,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Or greed of pelf and precedence and show.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">True, false, as one to casual eyes appear,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To read men truly men may hardly learn;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet doubt it not that wariest glance would here</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Faith, Hope and Love, the true Tower-stamp discern.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come years again! as many yet! and purge</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Less precious earthier elements away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And gently changed at life’s extremest verge,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Bring bright in gold your perfect fiftieth day!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">That sight may children see and parents show!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">If not—yet earthly chains of metal true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By love and duty wrought and fixed below,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Elsewhere will shine, transformed, celestial-new;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Will shine of gold, whose essence, heavenly bright,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">No doubt-damps tarnish, worldly passions fray;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gold into gold there mirrored, light in light,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Shall gleam in glories of a deathless day.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1845</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE MUSIC OF THE WORLD AND OF THE SOUL.</i></h3> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Why should I say I see the things I see not?</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Why be and be not?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Show love for that I love not, and fear for what I fear not?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And dance about to music that I hear not?</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Who standeth still i’ the street</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Shall be hustled and justled about;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he that stops i’ the dance shall be spurned by the dancers’ feet,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall be shoved and be twisted by all he shall meet,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">And shall raise up an outcry and rout;</div> - <div class="verse indent8">And the partner, too,—</div> - <div class="verse indent8">What’s the partner to do?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While all the while ’tis but, perchance, an humming in mine ear,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">That yet anon shall hear,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">And I anon, the music in my soul,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">In a moment read the whole;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">The music in my heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Joyously take my part,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And hand in hand, and heart with heart, with these retreat, advance;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">And borne on wings of wavy sound,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Whirl with these around, around,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Who here are living in the living dance!</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Why forfeit that fair chance?</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Till that arrive, till thou awake,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Of these, my soul, thy music make,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span> - <div class="verse indent6">And keep amid the throng,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And turn as they shall turn, and bound as they are bounding,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas! alas! alas! and what if all along</div> - <div class="verse indent6">The music is not sounding?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Are there not, then, two musics unto men?—</div> - <div class="verse indent4">One loud and bold and coarse,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And overpowering still perforce</div> - <div class="verse indent4">All tone and tune beside;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Yet in despite its pride</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only of fumes of foolish fancy bred,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And sounding solely in the sounding head:</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The other, soft and low,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Stealing whence we not know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Painfully heard, and easily forgot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With pauses oft and many a silence strange</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(And silent oft it seems, when silent it is not),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Revivals too of unexpected change:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Haply thou think’st ’twill never be begun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or that ’t has come, and been, and passed away:</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Yet turn to other none,—</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Turn not, oh, turn not thou!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But listen, listen, listen,—if haply be heard it may;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Listen, listen, listen,—is it not sounding now?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, and as thought of some departed friend</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By death or distance parted will descend,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Severing, in crowded rooms ablaze with light,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As by a magic screen, the seër from the sight</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Palsying the nerves that intervene</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The eye and central sense between);</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span> - <div class="verse indent4">So may the ear,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Hearing not hear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though drums do roll, and pipes and cymbals ring;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So the bare conscience of the better thing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unfelt, unseen, unimaged, all unknown,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May fix the entrancèd soul ’mid multitudes alone.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>LOVE, NOT DUTY.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Thought may well be ever ranging,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And opinion ever changing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Task-work be, though ill begun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dealt with by experience better;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By the law and by the letter</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Duty done is duty done:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do it, Time is on the wing!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Hearts, ’tis quite another thing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must or once for all be given,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or must not at all be given;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hearts, ’tis quite another thing!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To bestow the soul away</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is an idle duty-play!—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why, to trust a life-long bliss</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To caprices of a day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scarce were more depraved than this!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Men and maidens, see you mind it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Show of love, where’er you find it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look if duty lurk behind it!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Duty-fancies, urging on</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whither love had never gone!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Loving—if the answering breast</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seem not to be thus possessed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still in hoping have a care;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If it do, beware, beware!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But if in yourself you find it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Above all things—mind it, mind it!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1841</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>LOVE AND REASON.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When panting sighs the bosom fill,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And hands by chance united thrill</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At once with one delicious pain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The pulses and the nerves of twain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When eyes that erst could meet with ease,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Extatic conscious unison,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sure beginnings, say, be these</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Prelusive to the strain of love</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which angels sing in heaven above?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Or is it but the vulgar tune,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which all that breathe beneath the moon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So accurately learn—so soon?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With variations duly blent;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet that same song to all intent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Set for the finer instrument;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is; and it would sound the same</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In beasts, were not the bestial frame,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Less subtly organised, to blame;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And but that soul and spirit add</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To pleasures, even base and bad,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A zest the soulless never had.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">It may be—well indeed I deem;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But what if sympathy, it seem,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And admiration and esteem,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Commingling therewithal, do make</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The passion prized for Reason’s sake?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet, when my heart would fain rejoice,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A small expostulating voice</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Falls in; Of this thou wilt not take</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thy one irrevocable choice?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In accent tremulous and thin</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I hear high Prudence deep within,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pleading the bitter, bitter sting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should slow-maturing seasons bring,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Too late, the veritable thing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For if (the Poet’s tale of bliss)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A love, wherewith commeasured this</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is weak and beggarly, and none,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exist a treasure to be won,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And if the vision, though it stay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be yet for an appointed day,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This choice, if made, this deed, if done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The memory of this present past,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With vague foreboding might o’ercast</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The heart, or madden it at last.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Let Reason first her office ply;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Esteem, and admiration high,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And mental, moral sympathy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exist they first, nor be they brought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By self-deceiving afterthought,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What if an halo interfuse</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With these again its opal hues,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That all o’erspreading and o’erlying,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Transmuting, mingling, glorifying,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">About the beauteous various whole.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">With beaming smile do dance and quiver;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet, is that halo of the soul?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or is it, as may sure be said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Phosphoric exhalation bred</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of vapour, steaming from the bed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of Fancy’s brook, or Passion’s river?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So when, as will be by-and-by,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The stream is waterless and dry,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This halo and its hues will die;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And though the soul contented rest</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With those substantial blessings blest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will not a longing, half confest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Betray that this is not the love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The gift for which all gifts above</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Him praise we, Who is Love, the Giver?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">I cannot say—the things are good:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bread is it, if not angels’ food;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But Love? Alas! I cannot say;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A glory on the vision lay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A light of more than mortal day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">About it played, upon it rested;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It did not, faltering and weak,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beg Reason on its side to speak:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Itself was Reason, or, if not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such substitute as is, I wot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of seraph-kind the loftier lot;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Itself was of itself attested;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To processes that, hard and dry,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Elaborate truth from fallacy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With modes intuitive succeeding,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Including those and superseding;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Reason sublimed and Love most high</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was, a life that cannot die,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A dream of glory most exceeding.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1844</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span></p> - -<h3><i>Ὁ Θεὸς μετὰ σοῦ!</i><a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell, my Highland lassie! when the year returns around,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be it Greece, or be it Norway, where my vagrant feet are found,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall call to mind the place, I shall call to mind the day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The day that’s gone for ever, and the glen that’s far away;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall mind me, be it Rhine or Rhone, Italian land or France,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the laughings and the whispers, of the pipings and the dance;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall see thy soft brown eyes dilate to wakening woman thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And whiter still the white cheek grow to which the blush was brought;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And oh, with mine commixing I thy breath of life shall feel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And clasp thy shyly passive hands in joyous Highland reel;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall hear, and see, and feel, and in sequence sadly true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall repeat the bitter-sweet of the lingering last adieu;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall seem as now to leave thee, with the kiss upon the brow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the fervent benediction of—Ὁ Θεὸς μετὰ σοῦ!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah me, my Highland lassie! though in winter drear and long</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Deep arose the heavy snows, and the stormy winds were strong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though the rain, in summer’s brightest, it were raining every day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With worldly comforts few and far, how glad were I to stay!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I fall to sleep with dreams of life in some black bothie spent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Coarse poortith’s ware thou changing there to gold of pure content,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With barefoot lads and lassies round, and thee the cheery wife,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the braes of old Lochaber a laborious homely life;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I wake—to leave thee, smiling, with the kiss upon the brow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the peaceful benediction of—Ὁ Θεὸς μετὰ σοῦ!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>WIRKUNG IN DER FERNE.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When the dews are earliest falling,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the evening glen is grey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere thou lookest, ere thou speakest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My beloved,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I depart, and I return to thee,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Return, return, return.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dost thou watch me while I traverse</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Haunts of men, beneath the sun—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dost thou list while I bespeak them</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With a voice whose cheer is thine?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O my brothers! men, my brothers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You are mine, and I am yours;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am yours to cheer and succour,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am yours for hope and aid:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, my hand to raise and stay you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, my arm to guard and keep,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My voice to rouse and warn you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And my heart to warm and calm;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My heart to lend the life it owes</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">To her that is not here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the power of her that dwelleth</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where you know not—no, nor guess not—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom you see not; unto whom,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere the evening star hath sunken,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere the glow-worm lights its lamp,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere the wearied workman slumbers,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I return, return, return.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>ἐπὶ Λάτμῳ.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">On the mountain, in the woodland,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the shaded secret dell,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">I have seen thee, I have met thee!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the soft ambrosial hours of night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In darkness silent sweet</div> - <div class="verse indent4">I beheld thee, I was with thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">I was thine, and thou wert mine!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When I gazed in palace-chambers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When I trod the rustic dance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Earthly maids were fair to look on,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Earthly maidens’ hearts were kind:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fair to look on, fair to love:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the life, the life to me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas the death, the death to them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the spying, prying, prating</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of a curious cruel world.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At a touch, a breath they fade,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They languish, droop, and die;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, the juices change to sourness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the tints to clammy brown;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the softness unto foulness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the odour unto stench.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let alone and leave to bloom;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Pass aside, nor make to die,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">—In the woodland, on the mountain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou art mine, and I am thine.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So I passed.—Amid the uplands,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the forests, on whose skirts</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pace unstartled, feed unfearing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do the roe-deer and the red,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While I hungered, while I thirsted,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While the night was deepest dark,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who was I, that thou shouldst meet me?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who was I, thou didst not pass?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who was I, that I should say to thee</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou art mine, and I am thine?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To the air from whence thou camest</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou returnest, thou art gone;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Self-created, discreated,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Re-created, ever fresh,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ever young!——</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As a lake its mirrored mountains</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At a moment, unregretting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unresisting, unreclaiming,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Without preface, without question,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the silent shifting levels</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lets depart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shows, effaces and replaces!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For what is, anon is not;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What has been, again ’s to be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ever new and ever young</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou art mine, and I am thine.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Art thou she that walks the skies,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That rides the starry night?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not——</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For my meanness dares not claim the truth</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Thy loveliness declares.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the face thou show’st the world is not</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The face thou show’st to me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the look that I have looked in</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is of none but me beheld.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not; but I know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am thine, and thou art mine.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And I watch: the orb behind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As it fleeteth, faint and fair</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the depth of azure night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the violet blank, I trace</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By an outline faint and fair</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her whom none but I beheld.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By her orb she moveth slow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Graceful-slow, serenely firm,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Maiden-Goddess! while her robe</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The adoring planets kiss.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I too cower and ask,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wert thou mine, and was I thine?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Hath a cloud o’ercast the sky?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it cloud upon the mountain-sides</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or haze of dewy river-banks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Below?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or around me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To enfold me, to conceal,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doth a mystic magic veil,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A celestial separation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As of curtains hymeneal,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Undiscerned yet all excluding,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Interpose?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For the pine-tree boles are dimmer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the stars bedimmed above;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In perspective brief, uncertain,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Are the forest-alleys closed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to whispers indistinctest</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The resounding torrents lulled.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can it be, and can it be?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon Earth and here below,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the woodland at my side</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou art with me, thou art here.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas the vapour of the perfume</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the presence that should be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That enwrapt me?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That enwraps us,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O my Goddess, O my Queen!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I turn</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At thy feet to fall before thee;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And thou wilt not:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At thy feet to kneel and reach and kiss thy finger-tips;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And thou wilt not:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I feel thine arms that stay me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I feel——</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O mine own, mine own, mine own,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am thine, and thou art mine!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>A PROTEST.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Light words they were, and lightly, falsely said:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She heard them, and she started,—and she rose,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As in the act to speak; the sudden thought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And unconsidered impulse led her on.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In act to speak she rose, but with the sense</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of all the eyes of that mixed company</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now suddenly turned upon her, some with age</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hardened and dulled, some cold and critical;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Some in whom vapours of their own conceit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As moist malarious mists the heavenly stars,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still blotted out their good, the best at best</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By frivolous laugh and prate conventional</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All too untuned for all she thought to say—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With such a thought the mantling blood to her cheek</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flushed-up, and o’er-flushed itself, blank night her soul</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Made dark, and in her all her purpose swooned.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She stood as if for sinking. Yet anon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With recollections clear, august, sublime,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of God’s great truth, and right immutable,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which, as obedient vassals, to her mind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came summoned of her will, in self-negation</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quelling her troublous earthy consciousness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She queened it o’er her weakness. At the spell</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Back rolled the ruddy tide, and leaves her cheek</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Paler than erst, and yet not ebbs so far</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But that one pulse of one indignant thought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Might hurry it hither in flood. So as she stood</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She spoke. God in her spoke and made her heard.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1845</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>SIC ITUR.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">As, at a railway junction, men</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who came together, taking then</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One the train up, one down, again</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Meet never! Ah, much more as they</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who take one street’s two sides, and say</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hard parting words, but walk one way:</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Though moving other mates between,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While carts and coaches intervene,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Each to the other goes unseen;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet seldom, surely, shall there lack</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knowledge they walk not back to back,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But with an unity of track,</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Where common dangers each attend,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And common hopes their guidance lend</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To light them to the self-same end.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Whether he then shall cross to thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or thou go thither, or it be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some midway point, ye yet shall see</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Each other, yet again shall meet</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, joy! when with the closing street,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forgivingly at last ye greet!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1845</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>PARTING.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends, while yet we part,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And heart can yet be heard of heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me then, for what is it</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our early plan of life we quit;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From all our old intentions range,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And why does all so wholly change?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends, while yet we part!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends, while yet we part,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The rays that from the centre start</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Within the orb of one warm sun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unless I err, have once begun,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why is it thus they still diverge?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And whither tends the course they urge?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends, while yet we part!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends, while yet ye hear,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May it not be, some coming year,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These ancient paths that here divide</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall yet again run side by side,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And you from there, and I from here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All on a sudden reappear?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends, while yet ye hear!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends, ye hardly hear,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And if indeed ye did, I fear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye would not say, ye would not speak,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are you so strong, am I so weak,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet, how much so e’er I yearn,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can I not follow, nor you turn?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends, ye hardly hear!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends, ere words are o’er!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There’s something in me sad and sore</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Repines, and underneath my eyes</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I feel a somewhat that would rise,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, O my friends, and you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do you feel nothing like it too?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends, ere words are o’er!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends that are no more,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do you, too, think ere it is o’er</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Old times shall yet come round as erst,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And we be friends, as we were first?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or do you judge that all is vain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Except that rule that none complain?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O tell me, friends that are no more!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span></p> - -<h3><i>QUA CURSUM VENTUS.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With canvas drooping, side by side,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Two towers of sail at dawn of day</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Are scarce long leagues apart descried;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And all the darkling hours they plied,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas</div> - <div class="verse indent2">By each was cleaving, side by side:</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en so—but why the tale reveal</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of those, whom year by year unchanged,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Brief absence joined anew to feel,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Astounded, soul from soul estranged?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">At dead of night their sails were filled,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And onward each rejoicing steered—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through winds and tides one compass guides—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To that, and your own selves, be true.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But O blithe breeze; and O great seas,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Though ne’er, that earliest parting past,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On your wide plain they join again,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Together lead them home at last.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">One port, methought, alike they sought,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">One purpose hold where’er they fare,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">At last, at last, unite them there!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span></p> - -<h3>‘<i>WEN GOTT BETRÜGT, IST WOHL BETROGEN.</i>’</h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it true, ye gods, who treat us</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As the gambling fool is treated;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O ye, who ever cheat us,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And let us feel we’re cheated!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it true that poetical power,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The gift of heaven, the dower</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of Apollo and the Nine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The inborn sense, ‘the vision and the faculty divine,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All we glorify and bless</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In our rapturous exaltation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All invention, and creation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exuberance of fancy, and sublime imagination,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All a poet’s fame is built on,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The fame of Shakespeare, Milton,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is in reason’s grave precision,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nothing more, nothing less,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than a peculiar conformation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Constitution, and condition</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the brain and of the belly?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it true, ye gods who cheat us?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And that’s the way ye treat us?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh say it, all who think it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look straight, and never blink it!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If it is so, let it be so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And we will all agree so;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the plot has counterplot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It may be, and yet be not.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="POEMS_ON_RELIGIOUS_AND">POEMS ON RELIGIOUS AND -BIBLICAL SUBJECTS.</h2> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span></p> - -<h3><i>FRAGMENTS OF THE MYSTERY OF THE FALL.</i><a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></h3> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span></p> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span><br /> -<i>Adam and Eve.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> Since that last evening we have fallen indeed!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, we have fallen, my Eve! O yes!—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One, two, and three, and four;—the Appetite,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Enjoyment, the aftervoid, the thinking of it—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Specially the latter two, most specially the last.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There, in synopsis, see, you have it all:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, let us go and work!</div> - <div class="verse indent26">Is it not enough?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What, is there three, four, five?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> <span class="hemi14">Oh, guilt, guilt, guilt!</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> Be comforted; muddle not your soul with doubt.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis done, it was to be done; if, indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Other way than this there was, I cannot say:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This was one way, and a way was needs to be found.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That which we were we could no more remain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than in the moist provocative vernal mould</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A seed its suckers close and rest a seed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We were to grow. Necessity on us lay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This way or that to move; necessity, too,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Not to be over careful this or that,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So only move we should.</div> - <div class="verse indent24">Come, my wife,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We were to grow, and grow I think we may,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet bear goodly fruit.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> <span class="hemi11">Oh, guilt! oh, guilt!</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> You weary me with your ‘Oh, guilt! oh, guilt!’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Peace to the senseless iteration. What!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because I plucked an apple from a twig</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be damned to death eterne! parted from Good,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Enchained to Ill! No, by the God of gods;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, by the living will within my breast,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It cannot be, and shall not; and if this,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This guilt of your distracted fantasy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be our experiment’s sum, thank God for guilt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which makes me free!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But thou, poor wife! poor mother, shall I say?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Big with the first maternity of man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Draw’st from thy teeming womb thick fancies fond,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That with confusion mix thy delicate brain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fondest of which and cloudiest call the dream</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Yea, my beloved, hear me, it is a dream)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the serpent, and the apple, and the curse:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fondest of dreams and cloudiest of clouds.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Well I remember, in our marriage bower,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How in the dewiest balminess of rest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Inarmèd as we lay, sudden at once</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up from my side you started, screaming ‘Guilt!’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And ‘Lost! lost! lost!’ I on my elbow rose,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And rubbed unwilling eyes, and cried, ‘Eve! Eve!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My love! my wife!’ and knit anew the embrace,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And drew thee to me close, and calmed thy fear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And wooed thee back to sleep. In vain; for soon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I felt thee gone, and opening widest eyes,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Beheld thee kneeling on the turf, hands now</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Clenched and uplifted high, now vainly outspread</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To hide a burning face and streaming eyes</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And pale small lips that muttered faintly, ‘Death.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And thou wouldst fain depart; thou saidst the place</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was for the like of us too good: we left</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The pleasant woodland shades, and passed abroad</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into this naked champaign—glorious soil</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For digging and for delving, but indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Until I killed a beast or two, and spread</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Skins upon sticks to make our palace here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A residence sadly exposed to wind and rain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I in all submit to you; and then</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I turned out too, and trudged a furlong’s space,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Till you fell tired and fain would wait for morn.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So as our nightly journey we began,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because the autumnal fruitage that had fallen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From trees whereunder we had slept, lay thick,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And we had eaten overnight, and seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And saw again by starlight when you woke me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A sly and harmless snake glide by our couch;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And because, some few hours before, a lamb</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fell from a rock and broke its neck, and I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had answered, to your wonder, that ’twas dead,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forsooth the molten lava of your fright</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forth from your brain, its crater, hurrying down,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Took the chance mould; the vapour blowing by</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Caught and reflected back some random shapes.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A vague and queasy dream was obstinate</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In waking thoughts to find itself renewed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lo! the mighty Mythus of the Fall!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nay, smile with me, sweet mother!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> <span class="hemi14">Guilt! oh, guilt!</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> Peace, woman, peace; I go.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> <span class="hemi15">Nay, Adam, nay;</span></div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Hear me,—I am not dreaming, am not crazed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did not yourself confess that we are changed?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do not you too?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> <span class="hemi4">Do not I too? Well, well,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Listen! I too when homeward, weary of toil,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through the dark night I have wandered in rain and wind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bewildered, haply scared, I too have lost heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And deemed all space with angry power replete,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Angry, almighty—and panic-stricken have cried,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘What have I done?’ ‘What wilt thou do to me?’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or with the coward’s ‘No, I did not, I will not,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Belied my own soul’s self. I too have heard,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And listened, too, to a voice that in my ear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hissed the temptation to curse God, or worse,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet more frequent, curse myself and die;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Until, in fine, I have begun to half believe</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Your</i> dream <i>my</i> dream too, and the dream of both</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No dream but dread reality; have shared</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your fright: e’en so share thou, sweet life, my hope;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I too, again, when weeds with growth perverse</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have choked my corn and marred a season’s toil,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have deemed I heard in heaven abroad a cry,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Cursed is the ground for thy sake; thou art cursed.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But oftener far, and stronger also far,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In consonance with all things out and in,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I hear a voice more searching bid me, ‘On!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On! on! it is the folly of the child</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To choose his path and straightway think it wrong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And turn right back and lie on the ground to weep.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forward! go, conquer! work and live!’ Withal</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A word comes, half command, half prophecy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Forgetting things behind thee, onward press</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto the mark of your high calling.’ Yea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And voices, too, in woods and flowery fields</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Speak confidence from budding banks and boughs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And tell me, ‘Live and grow,’ and say, ‘Look still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upward, spread outward, trust, be patient, live;’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Therefore, if weakness bid me curse and die,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I answer, No! I will not curse myself,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor aught beside; I shall not die, but live.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> <span class="hemi8">Ah me! alas! alas!</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">More dismally in my face stares the doubt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">More heavily on my heart weighs the world.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Methinks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The questionings of ages yet to be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The thinkings and cross-thinkings, self-contempts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Self-horror; all despondencies, despairs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of multitudinous souls on souls to come,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In me imprisoned fight, complain and cry.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mystery, mystery, mystery evermore.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span><br /> -<i>Adam, alone.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> Misery, oh my misery! O God, God!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How could I ever, ever, could I do it?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whither am I come? where am I? O me, miserable!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My God, my God, that I were back with Thee!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O fool! O fool! O irretrievable act!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Irretrievable what, I should like to know?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What act, I wonder? What is it I mean?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">O heaven! the spirit holds me; I must yield;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up in the air he lifts me, casts me down;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I writhe in vain, with limbs convulsed, in the void.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Well, well! go idle words, babble your will;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I think the fit will leave me ere I die.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Fool, fool! where am I? O my God! Fool, fool!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Why did we do ’t? Eve, Eve! where are you? quick!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His tread is in the garden! hither it comes!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hide us, O bushes! and ye thick trees, hide!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He comes, on, on. Alack, and all these leaves,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These petty, quivering and illusive blinds,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Avail us nought: the light comes in and in;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Displays us to ourselves; displays—ah, shame—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto the inquisitive day our nakedness.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He comes; He calls. The large eye of His truth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His full, severe, all-comprehending view,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fixes itself upon our guiltiness.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O God, O God! what are we? what shall we be?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What is all this about, I wonder now?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet I am better, too. I think it will pass</div> - <div class="verse indent2">’Tis going now, unless it comes again.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A terrible possession while it lasts.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Terrible, surely; and yet indeed ’tis true.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en in my utmost impotence I find</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A fount of strange persistence in my soul;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Also, and that perchance is stronger still,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A wakeful, changeless touchstone in my brain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Receiving, noting, testing all the while</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These passing, curious, new phenomena—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Painful, and yet not painful unto it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though tortured in the crucible I lie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Myself my own experiment, yet still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, or a something that is I indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A living, central, and more inmost I,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Within the scales of mere exterior me’s,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I,—seem eternal, O thou God, as Thou;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have knowledge of the evil and the good,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Superior in a higher good to both.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Well, well, well! it has gone from me, though still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Its images remain upon me whole;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And undisplaced upon my mind I view</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">The reflex of the total seizure past.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Really now, had I only time and space,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And were not troubled with this wife of mine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the necessity of meat and drink—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I really do believe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With time and space and proper quietude,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I could resolve the problem in my brain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But, no; I scarce can stay one moment more</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To watch the curious seething process out.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If I could only dare to let Eve see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These operations, it is like enough</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Between us two we two could make it out.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But she would be so frightened—think it proof</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of all her own imaginings. ’Twill not do;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So as it is</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I must e’en put a cheery face on it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Suppress the whole, rub off the unfinished thoughts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For fear she read them. O, ’tis pity indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But confidence is the one and main thing now:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who loses confidence, he loses all.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A demi-grain of cowardice in me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Avowed, were poison to the whole mankind;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When men are plentier, ’twill be time to try;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At present, no.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shake it all up and go.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That is the word, and that must be obeyed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I must be off. But yet again some day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Again will I resume it; if not I,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I in some child of late posterity.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, yes, I feel it; it is here the seed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here in my head; but, O thou Power unseen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In whom we live and move and have our being,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let it not perish; grant, unlost, unhurt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In long transmission, this rich atom some day,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">In some posterity of distant years—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How many thou intendest to have I know not—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In some matured and procreant human brain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May germinate, burst, and rise into a tree.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No; I shall not tell Eve.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene III.</span><br /> -(‘<i>Now the birth of Cain was in this wise.</i>’)<br /> -<i>Adam and Eve.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> Oh, Adam, I am comforted indeed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where is he? O my little one!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My heart is in the garden as of old,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Paradise come back.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> <span class="hemi9">My love,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Blessed be this good day to thee indeed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Blessed the balm of joy unto thy soul.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A sad unskilful nurse was I to thee;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But nature teaches mothers, I perceive.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> But you, my husband, you meantime, I feel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Join not your perfect spirit in my joy.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No; your spirit mixes not, I feel, with mine.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> Alas! sweet love, for many a weary day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You and not I have borne this heavy weight:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How can I, should I, might I feel your bliss,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now heaviness is changed to glory? Long,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In long and unparticipated pangs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your heart hath known its own great bitterness:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How should, in this its jubilant release,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A stranger intermeddle with its joy?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> My husband, there is more in it than this;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nay, you are surely, positively sad.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> What if I was (and yet I think I am not),</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twere but the silly and contrarious mood</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of one whose sympathies refuse to mix</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In aught not felt immediate from himself.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But of a truth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your joy is greater—mine seems therefore none.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> Nay, neither this I think nor that is true.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Evermore still you love to cheat me, Adam:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You hide from me your thoughts like evil beasts</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Most foolishly; for I, thus left to guess,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Catch at all hints, and where perchance one is,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">People the forest with a hundred ills,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Each worse perhaps a hundred times than it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No; you have got some fearful thoughts—no, no;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look not in that way on my baby, Adam—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You do it hurt; you shall not!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> <span class="hemi12">Hear me, Eve,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">If hear you will—and speak I think I must—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hear me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is it I would say? I think—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet I must—so hear me, mother blest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That sittest with thy nursling at thy heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope not too greatly, neither fear for him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feeling on thy breast his small compressing lips,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And glorying in the gift they draw from thee;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope not too greatly in thyself and him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And hear me, O young mother—I must speak.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This child is born of us, and therefore like us;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is born of us, and therefore is as we;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is born of us, and therefore is not pure;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Earthy as well as godlike; bound to strive—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not doubtfully I augur from the past—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through the same straits of anguish and of doubt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Mid the same storms of terror and alarm,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the calm ocean which he yet shall reach,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He or himself or in his sons hereafter,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Of consummated consciousness of self.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The selfsame stuff which wrought in us to grief</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Runs in his veins; and what to work in him?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What shape of unsuspected deep disguise,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Transcending our experience, our best cares</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Baffling, evading all preventive thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will the old mischief choose, I wonder, here?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O born to human trouble! also born—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Else wherefore born—to some diviner lot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Live, and may chance treat thee no worse than us</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There, I have done: the dangerous stuff is out;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My mind is freed. And now, my gentle Eve,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forgive thy foolish spouse, and let me set</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A father’s kiss upon these budding lips,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A husband’s on the mother’s—the full flower.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There, there; and so, my own and only wife,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Believe me, my worst thought is now to learn</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How best and most to serve this child and thee.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">This child is born of us, and therefore like us—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Most true, mine own; and if a man like me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Externally, internally I trust</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Most like to thee, the better of the twain.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Is born of us, and therefore is not pure—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did I say that? I know not what I said;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was a foolish humour; but, indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whatever you may think, I have not learnt</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The trick of deep suppression, e’en the skill</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To sort my thoughts and sift my words enough.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not pure, indeed!—And if it is not pure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is? Ah, well! but most I look to the days</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When these small arms, with pliant thews filled out.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall at my side break up the fruitful glebe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And aid the cheery labours of the year—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Aid, or, in feebler wearier years, replace,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And leave me longer hours for home and love.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span></p> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene IV.</span><br /> -<i>Adam and Eve.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> O Adam, it was I was godless then;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But you were mournful, heavy, but composed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At times would somewhat fiercely bite your lip</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And pass your hand about your brow; but still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Held out, denied not God, acknowledged still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Those glories that were gone. No, I never</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Felt all your worth to me before; I feel</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You did not fall as I did.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> <span class="hemi10">Nay, my child,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">About our falls I don’t profess to know.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know I ne’er was innocent as thou;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I only know, as you will have it so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were your descent more lengthy than was mine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is not that your place is lower now,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But that first ’twas higher up than mine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is, that I being bestial, you divine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We now alike are human beings both.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">About our fall I won’t profess to know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But know I do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That I was never innocent as thou.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Moping again, my love; yes, I dare swear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the day long while I have been at work,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With some religious folly in your head.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> No, Adam, I am cheerful quite to-day;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I vary much, indeed, from hour to hour,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But since my baby’s birth I am happier far;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I have done some work as well as you.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> What is it tho’? for I will take my oath</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You’ve got some fancy stirring in your brain.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> Nay, but it vexes me for evermore</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To find in you no credence to my thought.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> What is it then you wish me to subscribe to?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That we were in a garden put by God,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Allowed to eat of all the trees but one.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somehow—I don’t know how—a serpent tempted us,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And eat we did, and so were doomed to die;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whereas before we were meant to live for ever.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meantime, turned out——</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> <span class="hemi8">You do not think then, Adam,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">We have been disobedient unto God?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> My child, how should I know, and what do you mean?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your question’s not so simple as it looks;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For if you mean that God said this or that—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As that ‘You shall not touch those apples there,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And that we did—why, all that I can say</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is, that I can’t conceive the thing to be.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But if it were so, I should then believe</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We had done right—at any rate, no harm.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> O Adam, I can scarcely think I hear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For if God said to us—God being God—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘You shall not,’ is not His commandment His?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And are not we the creatures He hath made?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> My child, God does not speak to human minds</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In that unmeaning arbitrary way.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">God were not God if so, and good not good.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Search in your heart, and if you tell me there</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You find a genuine voice—no fancy, mind you—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Declaring to you this or that is evil,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why, this or that I daresay evil is.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Believe me, I will listen to the word;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For not by observation of without</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cometh the kingdom of the voice of God:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is within us—let us seek it there.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> Yet I have voices, surely, in my heart.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Often you say I heed them over much.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> God’s voice is of the heart: I do not say</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All voices, therefore, of the heart are God’s;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to discern the voice amidst the voices</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is that hard task, my love, that we are born to.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> Ah me, in me I am sure the one, one voice</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Goes somehow to the sense of what I say—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sense of disobedience to God.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O Adam, some way, some time, we have done wrong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when I think of this, I still must think</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of Paradise, and of the stately tree</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which in the middle of the garden grew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The golden fruit that hung upon its boughs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of which but once we ate, and I must feel</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That whereas once in His continual sight</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We lived, in daily communing with Him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We now are banished, and behold not Him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our only present communing, alas!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is penitential mourning, and the gaze</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the abased and prostrate prayerful soul;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But you, yourself, my Adam, you at least</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Acknowledge some time somehow we did wrong.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> My child, I never even granted that.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> Oh, but you let strange words at times fall from you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They are to me like thunderbolts from heaven;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I listen terrified and sick at heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then haste and pick them up and treasure them.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What was it that you said when Cain was born?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘He’s born of us and therefore is not pure.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, you corrected well, my husband, then</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My foolish, fond exuberance of delight.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> My child, believe me, truly I was the fool;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But a first baby is a strange surprise.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall not say so when another comes;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I beseech you treasure up no words.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You know me: I am loose of tongue and light.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I beg you, Eve, remember nought of this;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Put not at least, I pray you—nay, command—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Put not, when days come on, your own strange whim</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And misconstruction of my idle words</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into the tender brains of our poor young ones.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene V.</span><br /> -<i>Adam with Cain and Abel.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> <span class="hemi10">Cain, beware!</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Strike not your brother! I have said, beware!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A heavy curse is on this thing, my son.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With doubt and fear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Terror and toil and pain already here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let us not have injustice too, my son.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So Cain, beware!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Abel, too, see you provoke him not.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene VI.</span><br /> -<i>Abel alone.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Abel.</i> <span class="hemi6">At times I could believe</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">My father is no better than his son:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If not as overbearing, proud and hard,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet prayerless, worldly, almost more than Cain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Enlighten and convert him ere the end,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My God! spurn not my mother’s prayers and mine.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Since I was born, was I not left to Thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In an unspiritual and godless house,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Unfathered and unbrothered—Thine and hers?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They think not of the fall: e’en less they think</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the redemption, which God said should be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which, for we apprehend it by our faith,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Already is—is come for her and me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, though I sin, my sin is not to death;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In my repentance I have joy, such joy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That almost I could sin to seek for it—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, if I did not hate it and abhor,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And know that Thou abhorr’st and hatest it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And will’st, for an example to the rest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That Thine elect should keep themselves from it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My mother calls the fall a mystery;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Redemption is so too. But oh, my God,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou wilt bring all things in the end to good.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, though the whole earth lie in wickedness, I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am with Thee, with Thee, with Thee evermore</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, yet I am not satisfied with this!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I not feeding spiritual pride,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rejoicing over sinners, inelect</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And unadmitted to the fellowship</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which I, unworthy, most unworthy, share?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What can I do—how can I help it then?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O God, remove it from my heart; pluck out,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whatever pain, whatever wrench to me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These sinful roots and remnants which, whate’er</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I do, how high so e’er I soar from earth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still, undestroyed, still germinate within.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take them away in Thy good time, O God.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meantime, for that atonement’s precious sake</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which in Thy counsels predetermined works</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Already to the saving of the saints,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O Father, view with mercy, and forgive;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor let my vexed perception of my sin,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor any multitude of evil thoughts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Crowding like demons in my spirit’s house,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor life, nor death, things here or things below,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cast out the sweet assurance of my soul</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That I am Thine, and Thou art mine, my God.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene VII.</span><br /> -<i>Cain alone.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> Am I or am I not this which they think me?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My mother loves me not; my brother Abel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Searing my heart, commends my soul to God;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My father does not shun me—there’s my comfort:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Almost I think they look askance on him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, but for him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not what might happen; for at times</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ungovernable angers take the waves</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of my deep soul and sweep them—who knows whither?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And a strange impulse, struggling to the truth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Urges me onward to put forth my strength,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No matter how. A wild anxiety</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Possesses me moreover to essay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This world of action round me so unknown;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to be able to do this or that</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seems cause enough without a cause for doing it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My father, he is cheerful and content,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And leads me frankly forward. Yet, indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His leading—or, more truly, to be led</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At all, by any one, and not myself—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is mere dissatisfaction: evermore</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something I must do individual,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To vindicate my nature, to give proof</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I also am, as Adam is, a man.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span></p> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene VIII.</span><br /> -<i>Adam and Eve.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> These sacrificings, O my best beloved,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These rites and forms which you have taught our boys,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which I nor practise nor can understand,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will turn, I trust, to good; but I much fear.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Besides the superstitious search of signs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In merest accidents of earth and air,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They cause, I think, a sort of jealousy—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ill-blood. Hark, now!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> O God, whose cry is that?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Abel, where is my Abel?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> Cain! what, Cain!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene IX.</span><br /> -<i>Cain alone with the body of Abel.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> What! fallen? so quickly down—so easily felled,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And so completely? Why, he does not move.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will not he stir—will he not breathe again?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still as a log—still as his own dead lamb.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dead is it then? O wonderful! O strange!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dead! dead! And we can slay each other then?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If we are wronged, why we can right ourselves;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If we are plagued and pestered with a fool</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That will not let us be, nor leave us room</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To do our will and shape our path in peace,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We can be rid of him. There—he is gone;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Victory! victory! victory! My heaven,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Methinks, from infinite distances borne back,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">It comes to me re-borne—in multitude</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Echoed, re-echoed, and re-echoed again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Victory! victory!—distant, yet distinct—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Uncountable times repeated. O ye gods!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where am I come, and whither am I borne?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I stand upon the pinnacle of earth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And hear the wild seas laughing at my feet;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet I could wish that he had struggled more—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That passiveness was disappointing. Ha!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He should have writhed and wrestled in my arms,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all but overcome, and set his knee</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hard on my chest, till I—all faint, yet still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Holding my fingers at his throat—at last,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Inch after inch, had forced him to relax:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But he went down at once, without a word,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Almost without a look.</div> - <div class="verse indent24">Ah!—hush! My God!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who was it spoke? What is this questioner?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who was it asked me where my brother is?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ha, ha! Was I his keeper? I know not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Each for himself; he might have struck again.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why did he not? I wished him to. Was I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To strike for both at once? No! Yet, ah!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where is thy brother? Peace, thou silly voice;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I my brother’s keeper? I know not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not aught about it; let it be.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Henceforth I shall walk freely upon earth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And know my will, and do it by my might.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My God!—it will not be at peace—my God!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It flames; it bursts to fury in my soul.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is it that will come of this? Ah me!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is it I have done?—Almighty God!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I see it; I behold it as it is,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As it will be in all the times to come:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slaughter on slaughter, blood for blood, and death,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">For ever, ever, ever, evermore!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all for what?</div> - <div class="verse indent18">O Abel, brother mine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where’er thou art, more happy far than me!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene X.</span><br /> -<i>Adam alone.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> Abel is dead, and Cain—ah, what is Cain?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is he not even more than Abel dead?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, we must hope in Seth. This merest man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This unambitious commonplace of life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will after all perhaps mend all; and though</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Record shall tell men to the after-time</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No wondrous tales of him, in him at last,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in his seed increased and multiplied,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Earth shall be blest and peopled and subdued,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And what was meant to be be brought to pass.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh but, my Abel and my Cain, e’en so</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You shall not be forgotten nor unknown.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene XI.</span><br /> -<i>Cain and Eve.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> I am come. Curse me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Curse Cain, my mother, ere he goes. He waits.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> Who? What is this?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh Abel! O my gentle, holy child,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My perfect son!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Monster! and did I bear thee too?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> He was so good, his brother hated him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And slew him for’t. Go on, my mother, on.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> ...</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For there are rites and holy means of grace</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of God ordained for man’s eternal [weal].</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With these, my son, address thyself to Him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And seek atonement from a gracious God,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With whom is balm for every wounded heart.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> I ask not for atonement, mother mine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I ask but one thing—never to forget.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I ask but—not to add to one great crime</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Another self-delusion scarcely less.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I <i>could</i> ask more, but more I know is sin.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If sacrifices and the fat of lambs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And whole burnt-offerings upon piles of turf,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will bring me this, I’d fill the heaven with smoke,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And deface earth with million fiery scars.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I <i>could</i> ask back (and think it but my right,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And passionately claim it as my right)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That precious life which one misguided blow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which one scarce conscious momentary act,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One impulse blindly followed to its close,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ended for ever; but that I know this vain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If they shall only keep my sin in mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall not, be assured, neglect them either.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eve.</i> You ask not for atonement! O my son—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cain, you are proud and hard of heart e’en now.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beware!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Prostrate your soul in penitential prayer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Humble your heart beneath the mighty hand</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of God, whose gracious guidance oft shall lead</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through sin and crime the changed and melted heart</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To sweet repentance and the sense of Him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You ask not for atonement! O my son!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What, to be banished from the sight of God;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To dwell with wicked spirits, be a prey</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To them and prey yourself on human souls;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">What, to be lost in wickedness and wrath,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Deeper and deeper down;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What, Cain, do you choose this?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> <span class="hemi13">Alas! my mother,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not; there are mysteries in your heart</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which I profess not knowledge of: it may be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That this is so; if so, may God reveal it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have faith you too in my heart’s secrets; yea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All I can say, alas, is that to me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As I now comprehend it, this were sin.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Atonement—no: not that, but punishment.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But what avails to talk? talk as we will,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As yet we shall not know each other’s hearts;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let me not talk, but act. Farewell, for ever.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene XII.</span><br /> -<i>Adam and Cain.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> This is the history then, my father, is it?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This is the perfect whole?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> <span class="hemi11">My son, it is.</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">And whether a dream, or if it were a dream,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A transcript of an inward spiritual fact</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(As you suggest, and I allow, might be),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not the less true because it was a dream.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not—O my Cain, I cannot tell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But in my soul I think it was a dream,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And but a dream; a thing, whence’er it came,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To be forgotten and considered not.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> Father, you should have told me this before;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is no use now. Oh God, my brother! oh God!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse stars"></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> For what is life, and what is pain or death?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You have killed Abel: Abel killed the lamb—</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">An act in him prepense, in you unthought of.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One step you stirred, and lo! you stood entrapped.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> My father, this is true, I know; but yet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is some truth beside: I cannot say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I have heard within my soul a voice</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Asking, ‘Where is thy brother?’ and I said—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That is, the evil heart within me said—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Am I my brother’s keeper? go ask him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who was it that provoked me? should he rail,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I not smite? his death be on his head.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the voice answered in my soul again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So that the other ceased and was no more.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene XIII.</span><br /> -<i>Adam and Cain.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> My father, Abel’s dead.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> My son, ’tis done, it was to be done; some good end</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thereby to come, or else it had not been.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, for it must be. Cain, I know your heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You cannot be with us. Go, then, depart;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But be not over scrupulous, my son.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> Curse me, my father, ere I go. Your curse</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will go with me for good; your curse</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will make me not forget,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas! I am not of that pious kind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who, when the blot has fallen upon their life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can look to heaven and think it white again—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look up to heaven and find a something there</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To make what is not be, altho’ it is.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My mother—ah, how you have spoke of this!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The dead—to him ’twas innocence and joy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And purity and safety from the world:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">To me the thing seems sin—the worst of sin.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If it be so, why are we here?—the world,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why is it as I find it? The dull stone</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cast from my hand, why comes it not again?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The broken flow’ret, why does it not live?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If it be so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why are we here, and why is Abel dead?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall this be true</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of stocks and stones and mere inanimate clay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And not in some sort also hold for us?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> My son, Time healeth all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Time and great Nature; heed her speech, and learn.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Cain.</i> My father, you are learned in this sort:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You read the earth, as does my mother heaven.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Both books are dark to me—only I feel</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That this one thing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And this one word in me must be declared;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That to forget is not to be restored;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To lose with time the sense of what we did</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cancels not that we did; what’s done remains—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am my brother’s murderer. Woe to me!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Abel is dead. No prayers to empty heaven,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No vegetative kindness of the earth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will bring back warmth into his clay again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The gentleness of love into his face.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Therefore, for me farewell;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell for me the soft,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The balmy influences of night and sleep,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The satisfaction of achievement done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The restorative pulsing of the blood</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That changes all and changes e’en the soul—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And natural functions, moving as they should,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sweet good-nights, the sweet delusive dreams</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That lull us out of old things into new.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But welcome Fact, and Fact’s best brother, Work;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Welcome the conflict of the stubborn soil,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To toil the livelong day, and at the end,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Instead of rest, recarve into my brow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The dire memorial mark of what still is.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Welcome this worship, which I feel is mine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Welcome this duty—</div> - <div class="verse indent18">—the solidarity of life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And unity of individual soul.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That which I did, I did, I who am here:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is no safety but in this; and when</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall deny the thing that I have done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am a dream.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> My son,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What shall I say?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That which your soul, in marriage with the world,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Imbreeds in you, accept;—how can I say</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Refuse the revelations of the soul?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet be not over scrupulous, my son,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And be not over proud to put aside</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The due consolements of the circling years.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What comes, receive; be not too wise for God.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The past is something, but the present more;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will not it too be past?—nor fail withal</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To recognise the future in our hopes;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unite them in your manhood each and all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor mutilate the perfectness of life.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You can remember, you can also hope;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, doubtless, with the long instructive years,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comfort will come to you, my son, to me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even to your mother, comfort; but to us</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knowledge, at least—the certainty of things</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which, as I think, is consolation’s sum.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For truly now, to-day, to-morrow, yes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Days many more to come, alike to you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose earliest revelation of the world</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Is, horrible indeed, this fatal fact—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And unto me, who, knowing not much before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look gropingly and idly into this,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And recognise no figure I have seen—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alike, my son, to me, and to yourself,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much is now dark which one day will be light;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With strong assurance fortify your soul</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of this: and that you meet me here again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Promise me, Cain. Farewell, to meet again.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene XIV.</span><br /> -<i>Adam’s Vision.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Adam.</i> O Cain, the words of Adam shall be said;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come near and hear your father’s words, my son.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have been in the spirit, as they call it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dreaming, which is, as others say, the same.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I sat, and you, Cain, with me, and Eve</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(We sat as in a picture people sit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Great figures, silent, with their place content);</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Abel came and took your hand, my son,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And wept and kissed you, saying, ‘Forgive me, Cain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah me! my brother, sad has been thy life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For my sake, all thro’ me; how foolishly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because we knew not both of us were right;’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And you embraced and wept, and we too wept.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Then I beheld through eyes with tears suffused,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And deemed at first ’twas blindness thence ensuing;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Abel was gone, and you were gone, my son—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gone, and yet not gone; yea, I seemed to see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The decomposing of those coloured lines</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which we called you, their fusion into one,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And therewithal their vanishing and end.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And Eve said to me, ‘Adam, in the day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When in the inexistent void I heard God’s voice,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An awful whisper, bidding me to be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How slow was I to come, how loth to obey;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As slow, as sad, as lingeringly loth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I fade, I vanish, sink, and cease to be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By the same sovereign strong compulsion borne:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, if I vanish, take me into thee!’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She spoke, nor, speaking, ceased I listening; but</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I was alone, yet not alone, with her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And she with me, and you with us, my sons,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As at the first;—and yet not wholly—yea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And that which I had witnessed thus in you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This fusion, and mutation, and return,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seemed in my substance working too. I slept,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I did not dream, my sleep was sweet to me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, in despite of all disquietudes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For Eve, for you, for Abel, which indeed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Impelled in me that gaiety of soul—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Without your fears I had listened to my own—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In spite of doubt, despondency, and death,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though lacking knowledge alway, lacking faith</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes, and hope; with no sure trust in ought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Except a kind of impetus within,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose sole credentials were that trust itself;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet, in despite of much, in lack of more,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Life has been beautiful to me, my son,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I, if I am called, will come again.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As he hath lived he dies.—My comforter,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom I believed not, only trusted in,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What had I been without thee? how survived?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would I were with thee wheresoe’er thou art!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would I might follow thee still!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But sleep is sweet, and I would sleep, my son.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh Cain! behold your father’s words are said!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE SONG OF LAMECH.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Hearken to me, ye mothers of my tent:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adah, let Jubal hither lead his goats:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Tubal Cain, O Zillah, hush the forge;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Naamah her wheel shall ply beside, and thou,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hear ye my voice, beloved of my tent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">For Eve made answer, Cain, my son, my own,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, if I cursed thee, O my child, I sinned,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And He that heard me, heard, and said me nay:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My first, my only one, thou shalt not go;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Adam answered also, Cain, my son,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He that is gone forgiveth, we forgive:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rob not thy mother of two sons at once;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My child, abide with us and comfort us.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Hear ye my voice; Adah and Zillah, near;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For Cain replied not. But, an hour more, sat</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where the night through he sat; his knit brows seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scarce seen, amid the foldings of his limbs.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But when the sun was bright upon the field,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To Adam still, and Eve still waiting by,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And weeping, lift he up his voice and spake</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Cain said, The sun is risen upon the earth;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The day demands my going, and I go.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As you from Paradise, so I from you:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As you to exile, into exile I:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My father and my mother, I depart.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As betwixt you and Paradise of old,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So betwixt me, my parents, now, and you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cherubim I discern, and in their hand</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A flaming sword that turneth every way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To keep the way of my one tree of life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The way my spirit yearns to, of my love.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet not, O Adam and O Eve, fear not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For He that asked me, Where is Abel? He</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who called me cursed from the earth, and said</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A fugitive and vagabond thou art,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He also said, when fear had slain my soul,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There shall not touch thee man nor beast. Fear not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, I have spoke with God, and He hath said.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fear not;—and let me go as He hath said.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cain also said (O Jubal, touch thy string),—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Moreover, in the darkness of my mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the night’s night of misery was most black,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A little star came twinkling up within,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in myself I had a guide that led,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in myself had knowledge of a soul.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fear not, O Adam and O Eve: I go.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Children of Lamech, listen to my speech.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">For when the years were multiplied, and Cain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eastward of Eden, in this land of Nod,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had sons, and sons of sons, and sons of them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Enoch and Irad and Mehujael</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(My father, and my children’s grandsire he),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It came to pass, that Cain, who dwelt alone,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Met Adam, at the nightfall, in the field:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who fell upon his neck, and wept, and said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My son, has not God spoken to thee, Cain?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Cain replied, when weeping loosed his voice,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My dreams are double, O my father, good</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And evil. Terror to my soul by night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And agony by day, when Abel stands</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A dead, black shade, and speaks not, neither looks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor makes me any answer when I cry—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Curse me, but let me know thou art alive.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But comfort also, like a whisper, comes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In visions of a deeper sleep, when he,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Abel, as him we knew, yours once and mine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comes with a free forgiveness in his face,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seeming to speak, solicitous for words,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And wearing ere he go the old, first look</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of unsuspecting, unforeboding love.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three nights are gone I saw him thus, my Sire.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">For Adam said, Three nights ago to me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came Abel, in my sleep, as thou hast said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And spake, and bade,—Arise my father, go</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where in the land of exile dwells thy son;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say to my brother, Abel bids thee come,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Abel would have thee; and lay thou thy hand,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My father, on his head, that he may come;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I not weary, father, for this hour?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Children of Lamech, listen to my speech:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, son of Zillah, sound thy solemn string.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">For Adam laid upon the head of Cain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His hand, and Cain bowed down, and slept, and died.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And a deep sleep on Adam also fell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, in his slumber’s deepest, he beheld,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Standing before the gate of Paradise,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With Abel, hand in hand, our father Cain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Though to his wounding he did slay a man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, and a young man to his hurt he slew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fear not, ye wives, nor sons of Lamech fear:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If unto Cain was safety given and rest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall Lamech surely and his people die?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>GENESIS XXIV.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Who is this man</div> - <div class="verse indent8">that walketh in the field,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O Eleazar,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">steward to my lord?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Eleazar</div> - <div class="verse indent8">answered her and said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Daughter of Bethuel,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">it is other none</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But my lord Isaac,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">son unto my lord,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who, as his wont is,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">walketh in the field,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the hour of evening,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">meditating there.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Therefore Rebekah</div> - <div class="verse indent8">hasted where she sat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And from her camel</div> - <div class="verse indent8">’lighting to the earth,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Sought for a veil</div> - <div class="verse indent8">and put it on her face,</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But Isaac also,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">walking in the field,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Saw from afar</div> - <div class="verse indent8">a company that came,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Camels, and a seat</div> - <div class="verse indent8">as where a woman sat;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wherefore he came</div> - <div class="verse indent8">and met them on the way.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom, when Rebekah</div> - <div class="verse indent8">saw, she came before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Saying, Behold</div> - <div class="verse indent8">the handmaid of my lord,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who, for my lord’s sake,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">travel from my land.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But he said, O</div> - <div class="verse indent8">thou blessed of our God,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, for the tent</div> - <div class="verse indent8">is eager for thy face.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall not thy husband</div> - <div class="verse indent8">be unto thee more than</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hundreds of kinsmen</div> - <div class="verse indent8">living in thy land?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Eleazar answered,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Thus and thus,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even according</div> - <div class="verse indent8">as thy father bade,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did we; and thus and</div> - <div class="verse indent8">thus it came to pass:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo! is not this</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Rebekah, Bethuel’s child?</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And, as he ended,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Isaac spoke and said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Surely my heart</div> - <div class="verse indent8">went with you on the way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When with the beasts</div> - <div class="verse indent8">ye came unto the place.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Truly, O child</div> - <div class="verse indent8">of Nahor, I was there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When to thy mother</div> - <div class="verse indent8">and thy mother’s son</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou madest answer,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">saying, I will go.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Isaac brought her</div> - <div class="verse indent8">to his mother’s tent.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>JACOB.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">My sons, and ye the children of my sons,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Jacob your father goes upon his way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His pilgrimage is being accomplished.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come near and hear him ere his words are o’er.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Not as my father’s or his father’s days,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As Isaac’s days or Abraham’s, have been mine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not as the days of those that in the field</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Walked at the eventide to meditate,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And haply, to the tent returning, found</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Angels at nightfall waiting at their door.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They communed, Israel wrestled with the Lord.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, not as Abraham’s or as Isaac’s days,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My sons, have been Jacob your father’s days,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Evil and few, attaining not to theirs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In number, and in worth inferior much.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As a man with his friend, walked they with God,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In His abiding presence they abode,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And all their acts were open to His face.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I have had to force mine eyes away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To lose, almost to shun, the thoughts I loved,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To bend down to the work, to bare the breast,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And struggle, feet and hands, with enemies;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To buffet and to battle with hard men,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With men of selfishness and violence;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To watch by day, and calculate by night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To plot and think of plots, and through a land</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ambushed with guile, and with strong foes beset,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To win with art safe wisdom’s peaceful way.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas! I know, and from the onset knew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The first-born faith, the singleness of soul,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The antique pure simplicity with which</div> - <div class="verse indent0">God and good angels communed undispleased,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is not; it shall not any more be said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That of a blameless and a holy kind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The chosen race, the seed of promise, comes.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The royal, high prerogatives, the dower</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of innocence and perfectness of life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pass not unto my children from their sire,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As unto me they came of mine; they fit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither to Jacob nor to Jacob’s race.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Think ye, my sons, in this extreme old age</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in this failing breath, that I forget</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How on the day when from my father’s door,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In bitterness and ruefulness of heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I from my parents set my face, and felt</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I never more again should look on theirs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How on that day I seemed unto myself</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Another Adam from his home cast out,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And driven abroad unto a barren land,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cursed for his sake, and mocking still with thorns</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And briers that labour and that sweat of brow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He still must spend to live? Sick of my days,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I wished not life, but cried out, Let me die;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But at Luz God came to me; in my heart</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He put a better mind, and showed me how,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While we discern it not, and least believe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On stairs invisible betwixt His heaven</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And our unholy, sinful, toilsome earth</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Celestial messengers of loftiest good</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upward and downward pass continually.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Many, since I upon the field of Luz</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Set up the stone I slept on, unto God,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Many have been the troubles of my life;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sins in the field and sorrows in the tent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In mine own household anguish and despair,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And gall and wormwood mingled with my love.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The time would fail me should I seek to tell</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of a child wronged and cruelly revenged</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Accursed was that anger, it was fierce,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That wrath, for it was cruel); or of strife</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And jealousy and cowardice, with lies</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mocking a father’s misery; deeds of blood,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pollutions, sicknesses, and sudden deaths.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These many things against me many times,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The ploughers have ploughed deep upon my back,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And made deep furrows; blessed be His name</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who hath delivered Jacob out of all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And left within his spirit hope of good.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come near to me, my sons: your father goes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The hour of his departure draweth nigh.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah me! this eager rivalry of life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This cruel conflict for pre-eminence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This keen supplanting of the dearest kin,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quick seizure and fast unrelaxing hold</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of vantage-place; the stony hard resolve,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The chase, the competition, and the craft</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Which seems to be the poison of our life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet is the condition of our life!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To have done things on which the eye with shame</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Looks back, the closed hand clutching still the prize!—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas! what of all these things shall I say?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take me away unto Thy sleep, O God!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I thank Thee it is over, yet I think</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was a work appointed me of Thee.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How is it? I have striven all my days</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To do my duty to my house and hearth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to the purpose of my father’s race,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet is my heart therewith not satisfied.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>JACOB’S WIVES.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">These are the words of Jacob’s wives, the words</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which Leah spake and Rachel to his ears,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When, in the shade at eventide, he sat</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By the tent door, a palm-tree overhead,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A spring beside him, and the sheep around.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Rachel spake and said, The nightfall comes—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Night, which all day I wait for, and for thee.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Leah also spake, The day is done;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My lord with toil is weary and would rest.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Rachel said, Come, O my Jacob, come;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And we will think we sit beside the well,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As in that day, the long long years agone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When first I met thee with my father’s flock.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Leah said, Come, Israel, unto me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And thou shalt reap an harvest of fair sons,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en as before I bare thee goodly babes;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For when was Leah fruitless to my lord?</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Rachel said, Ah come! as then thou cam’st,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come once again to set thy seal of love;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As then, down bending, when the sheep had drunk,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then settedst it, my shepherd—O sweet seal!—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the unwitting, half-foretasting lips,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which, shy and trembling, thirsted yet for thine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As cattle thirsted never for the spring.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Leah answered, Are not these their names—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah—four?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like four young saplings by the water’s brim,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where straining rivers through the great plain wind—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Four saplings soon to rise to goodly trees—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Four trees whose growth shall cast an huger shade</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than ever yet on river-side was seen.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Rachel said, And shall it be again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As, when dissevered far, unheard, alone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Consumed in bitter anger all night long,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I moaned and wept, while, silent and discreet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One reaped the fruit of love that Rachel’s was</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the breast of him that knew her not?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Leah said, And was it then a wrong</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That, in submission to a father’s word,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Trembling yet hopeful, to that bond I crept,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which God hath greatly prospered, and my lord,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Content, in after-wisdom not disowned,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joyful, in after-thankfulness approved?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Rachel said, But we will not complain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though all life long, an alien, unsought third,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She trouble our companionship of love.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Leah answered, No, complain we not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though years on years she loiter in the tent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A fretful, vain, unprofitable wife.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Rachel answered, Ah! she little knows</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What in old days to Jacob Rachel was.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Leah said, And wilt thou dare to say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because my lord was gracious to thee then,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No deeper thought his riper cares hath claimed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No stronger purpose passed into his life?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That, youth and maid once fondly, softly touched,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Time’s years must still the casual dream repeat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all the river far, from source to sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One flitting moment’s chance reflection bear?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Also she added, Who is she to judge</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of thoughts maternal, and a father’s heart?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Rachel said, But what to supersede</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The rights which choice bestowed hath Leah done?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What which my handmaid or which hers hath not?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is Simeon more than Naphtali? is Dan</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Less than his brother Levi in the house?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That part that Billah and that Zilpah have,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That, and no more, hath Leah in her lord;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And let her with the same be satisfied.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Leah asked then, And shall these things compare</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Fond wishes, and the pastime, and the play)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With serious aims and forward-working hopes—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Aims as far-reaching as to earth’s last age,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And hopes far-travelling as from east to west?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Rachel replied, That love which in his youth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through trial proved, consoles his perfect age;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall this with project and with plan compare?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is not for-ever shorter than all time,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And love more straitened than from east to west?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Leah spake further, Hath my lord not told</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How, in the visions of the night, his God,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">The God of Abraham and of Isaac, spake</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And said, Increase, and multiply, and fill</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With sons to serve Me this thy land and mine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I will surely do thee good, and make</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thy seed as is the sand beside the sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which is not numbered for its multitude?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall Rachel bear this progeny to God?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But Rachel wept and answered, And if God</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hath closed the womb of Rachel until now,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall He not at His pleasure open it?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hath Leah read the counsels of the Lord?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was it not told her, in the ancient days,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How Sarah, mother of great Israel’s sire,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lived to long years, insulted of her slave,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or e’er to light the Child of Promise came,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom Rachel too to Jacob yet may bear?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Moreover, Rachel said, Shall Leah mock,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who stole the prime embraces of my love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My first long-destined, long-withheld caress?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But not, she said, methought, but not for this,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the old days, did Jacob seek his bride;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where art thou now, O thou that sought’st me then?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where is thy loving tenderness of old?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And where that fervency of faith to which</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seven weary years were even as a few days?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Rachel wept and ended, Ah, my life!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though Leah bare thee sons on sons, methought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The child of love, late-born, were worth them all.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Leah groaned and answered, It is well:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She that hath kept from me my husband’s heart</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will set their father’s soul against my sons.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet, also, not, she said, I thought, for this,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Not for the feverish nor the doating love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doth Israel, father of a nation, seek;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor to light dalliance, as of boy and girl,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Incline the thoughts of matron and of man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or lapse the wisdom of maturer mind.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And Leah ended, Father of my sons,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, thou shalt dream of Rachel if thou wilt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So Leah fold thee in a wife’s embrace.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">These are the words of Jacob’s wives, who sat</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the tent door, and listened to their speech,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The spring beside him, and above the palm,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While all the sheep were gathered for the night.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>THE NEW SINAI.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, here is God, and there is God!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Believe it not, O Man;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In such vain sort to this and that</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The ancient heathen ran:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though old Religion shake her head,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And say in bitter grief,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The day behold, at first foretold,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of atheist unbelief:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take better part, with manly heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Thine adult spirit can;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Receive it not, believe it not,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Believe it not, O Man!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">As men at dead of night awaked</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With cries, ‘The king is here,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rush forth and greet whome’er they meet,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Whoe’er shall first appear;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And still repeat, to all the street,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘’Tis he,—the king is here;’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The long procession moveth on,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Each nobler form they see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With changeful suit they still salute</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And cry, ‘’Tis he, ’tis he!’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So, even so, when men were young,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And earth and heaven were new,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And His immediate presence He</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From human hearts withdrew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The soul perplexed and daily vexed</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With sensuous False and True,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Amazed, bereaved, no less believed,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And fain would see Him too:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘He is!’ the prophet-tongues proclaimed;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In joy and hasty fear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘He is!’ aloud replied the crowd,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Is here, and here, and here.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘He is! They are!’ in distance seen</div> - <div class="verse indent2">On yon Olympus high,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In those Avernian woods abide,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And walk this azure sky:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘They are! They are!’—to every show</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Its eyes the baby turned,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And blazes sacrificial, tall,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">On thousand altars burned:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘They are! They are!’—On Sinai’s top</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Far seen the lightnings shone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The thunder broke, a trumpet spoke,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And God said, ‘I am One.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">God spake it out, ‘I, God, am One;’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The unheeding ages ran,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And baby-thoughts again, again,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Have dogged the growing man:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And as of old from Sinai’s top</div> - <div class="verse indent2">God said that God is One,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By Science strict so speaks He now</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To tell us, There is None!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Earth goes by chemic forces; Heaven’s</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A Mécanique Céleste!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And heart and mind of human kind</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A watch-work as the rest!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Is this a Voice, as was the Voice,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Whose speaking told abroad,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When thunder pealed, and mountain reeled,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The ancient truth of God?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, not the Voice; ’tis but the cloud,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The outer darkness dense,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where image none, nor e’er was seen</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Similitude of sense.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis but the cloudy darkness dense</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That wrapt the Mount around;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While in amaze the people stays,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To hear the Coming Sound.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Is there no prophet-soul the while</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To dare, sublimely meek,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Within the shroud of blackest cloud</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The Deity to seek?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Midst atheistic systems dark,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And darker hearts’ despair,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That soul has heard perchance His word,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And on the dusky air</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His skirts, as passed He by, to see</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Hath strained on their behalf,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who on the plain, with dance amain,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Adore the Golden Calf.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis but the cloudy darkness dense;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Though blank the tale it tells,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No God, no Truth! yet He, in sooth,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Is there—within it dwells;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Within the sceptic darkness deep</div> - <div class="verse indent2">He dwells that none may see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Till idol forms and idol thoughts</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Have passed and ceased to be:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No God, no Truth! ah though, in sooth</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So stand the doctrine’s half:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On Egypt’s track return not back,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Nor own the Golden Calf.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Take better part, with manlier heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Thine adult spirit can;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No God, no Truth, receive it ne’er—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Believe it ne’er—O Man!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But turn not then to seek again</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What first the ill began;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No God, it saith; ah, wait in faith</div> - <div class="verse indent2">God’s self-completing plan;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Receive it not, but leave it not,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And wait it out, O Man!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘The Man that went the cloud within</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Is gone and vanished quite;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He cometh not,’ the people cries,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Nor bringeth God to sight:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo these thy gods, that safety give,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Adore and keep the feast!’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Deluding and deluded cries</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The Prophet’s brother-Priest:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Israel all bows down to fall</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Before the gilded beast.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Devout, indeed! that priestly creed,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">O Man, reject as sin;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The clouded hill attend thou still,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And him that went within.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He yet shall bring some worthy thing</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For waiting souls to see:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some sacred word that he hath heard</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Their light and life shall be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some lofty part, than which the heart</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Adopt no nobler can,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And thou shalt do, O Man!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1845</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>QUI LABORAT, ORAT.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O only Source of all our light and life,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But whom the hours of mortal moral strife</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Alone aright reveal!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Thy presence owns ineffable, divine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Chastised each rebel self-encentered thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">My will adoreth Thine.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Speechless remain, or speechless e’en depart;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor seek to see—for what of earthly kind</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Can see Thee as Thou art?—</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">If well-assured ’tis but profanely bold</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In thought’s abstractest forms to seem to see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It dare not dare the dread communion hold</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In ways unworthy Thee,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O not unowned, thou shalt unnamed forgive,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And if in work its life it seem to live,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Shalt make that work be prayer.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In recognition start.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But, as thou willest, give or e’en forbear</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The beatific supersensual sight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So, with Thy blessing blest, that humbler prayer</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Approach Thee morn and night.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>ὕμνος ἄυμνος.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O Thou whose image in the shrine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of human spirits dwells divine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which from that precinct once conveyed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To be to outer day displayed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doth vanish, part, and leave behind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mere blank and void of empty mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which wilful fancy seeks in vain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With casual shapes to fill again!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O Thou that in our bosom’s shrine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dost dwell, unknown because divine!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I thought to speak, I thought to say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘The light is here,’ ‘behold the way,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘The voice was thus,’ and ‘thus the word,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And ‘thus I saw,’ and ‘that I heard,’—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But from the lips that half essayed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The imperfect utterance fell unmade.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O Thou, in that mysterious shrine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Enthroned, as I must say, divine!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will not frame one thought of what</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou mayest either be or not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will not prate of ‘thus’ and ‘so,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And be profane with ‘yes’ and ‘no,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Enough that in our soul and heart</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou, whatsoe’er Thou may’st be, art.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Unseen, secure in that high shrine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Acknowledged present and divine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will not ask some upper air,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some future day to place Thee there;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor say, nor yet deny, such men</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And women saw Thee thus and then:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thy name was such, and there or here</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To him or her Thou didst appear.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Do only Thou in that dim shrine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unknown or known, remain, divine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There, or if not, at least in eyes</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That scan the fact that round them lies,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The hand to sway, the judgment guide,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In sight and sense Thyself divide:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be Thou but there,—in soul and heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will not ask to feel Thou art.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>THE HIDDEN LOVE.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O let me love my love unto myself alone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And know my knowledge to the world unknown;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No witness to my vision call,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beholding, unbeheld of all;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And worship Thee, with Thee withdrawn apart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whoe’er, Whate’er Thou art,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What is it then to me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If others are inquisitive to see?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why should I quit my place to go and ask</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If other men are working at their task?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leave my own buried roots to go</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And see that brother plants shall grow;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And turn away from Thee, O Thou most Holy Light,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To look if other orbs their orbits keep aright,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Around their proper sun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Deserting Thee, and being undone.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O let me love my love unto myself alone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And know my knowledge to the world unknown;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And worship Thee, O hid One, O much sought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As but man can or ought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Within the abstracted’st shrine of my least breathed on thought.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Better it were, thou sayest, to consent;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Nay, better far to mark off thus much air,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And call it Heaven: place bliss and glory there;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And say, what is not, will be by-and-bye.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span></p> - -<h3><i>SHADOW AND LIGHT.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Cease, empty Faith, the Spectrum saith,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I was, and lo, have been;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, God, am nought: a shade of thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Which, but by darkness seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the unknown yourselves have thrown,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Placed it and light between.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">At morning’s birth on darkened earth,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And as the evening sinks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Awfully vast abroad is cast</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The lengthened form that shrinks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And shuns the sight in midday light,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And underneath you slinks.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">From barren strands of wintry lands</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Across the seas of time,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Borne onward fast ye touch at last</div> - <div class="verse indent2">An equatorial clime;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">In equatorial noon sublime</div> - <div class="verse indent2">At zenith stands the sun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lo, around, far, near, are found</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Yourselves, and Shadow none.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A moment! yea! but when the day</div> - <div class="verse indent2">At length was perfect day!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A moment! so! and light we know</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With dark exchanges aye,</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor morn nor eve shall shadow leave</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Your sunny paths secure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in your sight that orb of light</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Shall humbler orbs obscure.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet withal, ’tis shadow all</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Whate’er your fancies dream,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I (misdeemed) that was, that seemed,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Am not, whate’er I seem.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>‘WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER -SHADOW OF TURNING.’</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">It fortifies my soul to know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That, though I perish, Truth is so:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That, howsoe’er I stray and range,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whate’er I do, Thou dost not change.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I steadier step when I recall</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>IN STRATIS VIARUM.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Blessed are those who have not seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And who have yet believed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The witness, here that has not been,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From heaven they have received.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Blessed are those who have not known</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The things that stand before them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And for a vision of their own</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Can piously ignore them.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So let me think whate’er befall,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That in the city duly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some men there are who love at all,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Some women who love truly;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And that upon two millions odd</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Transgressors in sad plenty,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mercy will of a gracious God</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Be shown—because of twenty.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span></p> - -<h3>‘<i>PERCHÈ PENSA? PENSANDO S’INVECCHIA.</i>’</h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To spend uncounted years of pain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Again, again, and yet again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In working out in heart and brain</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The problem of our being here;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To gather facts from far and near,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the mind to hold them clear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, knowing more may yet appear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto one’s latest breath to fear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The premature result to draw—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is this the object, end and law,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And purpose of our being here?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3>‘<i>O THOU OF LITTLE FAITH.</i>’</h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent16">It may be true</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That while we walk the troublous tossing sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That when we see the o’ertopping waves advance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when we feel our feet beneath us sink,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There are who walk beside us; and the cry</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That rises so spontaneous to the lips,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The ‘Help us or we perish,’ is not nought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An evanescent spectrum of disease.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It may be that indeed and not in fancy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A hand that is not ours upstays our steps,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A voice that is not ours commands the waves;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Commands the waves, and whispers in our ear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At any rate,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That there are beings above us, I believe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when we lift up holy hands of prayer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will not say they will not give us aid.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span></p> - -<h3>‘<i>THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY.</i>’</h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What we, when face to face we see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Father of our souls, shall be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">John tells us, doth not yet appear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah! did he tell what we are here!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A mind for thoughts to pass into,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A heart for loves to travel through,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Five senses to detect things near,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is this the whole that we are here?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Rules baffle instincts—instincts rules,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wise men are bad—and good are fools,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Facts evil—wishes vain appear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We cannot go, why are we here?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O may we for assurance’ sake,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some arbitrary judgment take,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And wilfully pronounce it clear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For this or that ’tis we are here?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Or is it right, and will it do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To pace the sad confusion through,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And say:—It doth not yet appear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What we shall be, what we are here?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah yet, when all is thought and said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The heart still overrules the head;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still what we hope we must believe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And what is given us receive;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Must still believe, for still we hope</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That in a world of larger scope,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What here is faithfully begun</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will be completed, not undone.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">My child, we still must think, when we</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That ampler life together see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some true result will yet appear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of what we are, together, here.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>AH! YET CONSIDER IT AGAIN!</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Old things need not be therefore true,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O brother men, nor yet the new;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah! still awhile the old thought retain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet consider it again!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The souls of now two thousand years</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have laid up here their toils and fears,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all the earnings of their pain,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, yet consider it again!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">We! what do we see? each a space</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of some few yards before his face;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Does that the whole wide plan explain?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, yet consider it again!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas! the great world goes its way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And takes its truth from each new day;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They do not quit, nor can retain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far less consider it again.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1851</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>NOLI ÆMULARI.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">In controversial foul impureness</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The peace that is thy light to thee</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quench not: in faith and inner sureness</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Possess thy soul and let it be.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">No violence—perverse, persistent—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What cannot be can bring to be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No zeal what is make more existent,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And strife but blinds the eyes that see.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What though in blood their souls embruing,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The great, the good, and wise they curse,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still sinning, what they know not doing;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand still, forbear, nor make it worse.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">By curses, by denunciation,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The coming fate they cannot stay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor thou, by fiery indignation,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Though just, accelerate the day.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3>‘<i>WHAT WENT YE OUT FOR TO SEE?</i>’</h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Across the sea, along the shore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In numbers more and ever more,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From lonely hut and busy town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The valley through, the mountain down,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What was it ye went out to see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye silly folk of Galilee?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The reed that in the wind doth shake?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The weed that washes in the lake?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A young man preaching in a boat.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What was it ye went out to hear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By sea and land, from far and near?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A teacher? Rather seek the feet</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of those who sit in Moses’ seat.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go humbly seek, and bow to them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far off in great Jerusalem.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">From them that in her courts ye saw,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her perfect doctors of the law,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is it came ye here to note?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A young man preaching in a boat.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A prophet! Boys and women weak!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Declare, or cease to rave;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whence is it he hath learned to speak?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Say, who his doctrine gave?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A prophet? Prophet wherefore he</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of all in Israel tribes?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>He teacheth with authority,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>And not as do the Scribes.</i></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1851</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>EPI-STRAUSS-IUM.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Matthew and Mark and Luke and holy John</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Evanished all and gone!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, he that erst his dusky curtains quitting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thro’ Eastern pictured panes his level beams transmitting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With gorgeous portraits blent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On them his glories intercepted spent:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Southwestering now, thro’ windows plainly glassed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the inside face his radiance keen hath cast,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in the lustre lost, invisible and gone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are, say you, Matthew, Mark and Luke and holy John?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lost, is it, lost, to be recovered never?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">However,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The place of worship the meantime with light</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is, if less richly, more sincerely bright,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in blue skies the Orb is manifest to sight.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE SHADOW.</i><a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I dreamed a dream: I dreamt that I espied,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon a stone that was not rolled aside,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A Shadow sit upon a grave—a Shade,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As thin, as unsubstantial, as of old</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came, the Greek poet told,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To lick the life-blood in the trench Ulysses made—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As pale, as thin, and said:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘I am the Resurrection of the Dead.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The night is past, the morning is at hand,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I must in my proper semblance stand,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Appear brief space and vanish,—listen, this is true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am that Jesus whom they slew.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And shadows dim, I dreamed, the dead apostles came,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And bent their heads for sorrow and for shame—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sorrow for their great loss, and shame</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For what they did in that vain name.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And in long ranges far behind there seemed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pale vapoury angel forms; or was it cloud? that kept</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Strange watch; the women also stood beside and wept.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And Peter spoke the word:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘O my own Lord,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is it we must do?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it then all untrue?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did we not see, and hear, and handle Thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, for whole hours</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the Mount in Galilee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the lake shore, and here at Bethany,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When Thou ascendedst to Thy God and ours?’</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">And paler still became the distant cloud,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And at the word the women wept aloud.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And the Shade answered, ‘What ye say I know not;</div> - <div class="verse indent8">But it is true</div> - <div class="verse indent8">I am that Jesus whom they slew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom ye have preached, but in what way I know not.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse stars"></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And the great World, it chanced, came by that way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And stopped, and looked, and spoke to the police,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And said the thing, for order’s sake and peace,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Most certainly must be suppressed, the nuisance cease</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His wife and daughter must have where to pray,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And whom to pray to, at the least one day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In seven, and something sensible to say.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Whether the fact so many years ago</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had, or not, happened, how was he to know?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet he had always heard that it was so.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As for himself, perhaps it was all one;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet he found it not unpleasant, too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On Sunday morning in the roomy pew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To see the thing with such decorum done.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As for himself, perhaps it was all one;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet on one’s death-bed all men always said</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was a comfortable thing to think upon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The atonement and the resurrection of the dead.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So the great World as having said his say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto his country-house pursued his way.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And on the grave the Shadow sat all day.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse stars"></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And the poor Pope was sure it must be so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Else wherefore did the people kiss his toe?</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">The subtle Jesuit cardinal shook his head,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And mildly looked and said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It mattered not a jot</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whether the thing, indeed, were so or not;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Religion must be kept up, and the Church preserved,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And for the people this best served,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And then he turned, and added most demurely,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Whatever may befal,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We Catholics need no evidence at all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The holy father is infallible, surely!’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And English canons heard,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And quietly demurred.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Religion rests on evidence, of course,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And on inquiry we must put no force.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Difficulties still, upon whatever ground,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are likely, almost certain, to be found.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Theist scheme, the Pantheist, one and all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must with, or e’en before, the Christian fall.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And till the thing were plainer to our eyes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To disturb faith was surely most unwise.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As for the Shade, who trusted such narration?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Except, of course, in ancient revelation.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And dignitaries of the Church came by.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It had been worth to some of them, they said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some hundred thousand pounds a year a head.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If it fetched so much in the market, truly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas not a thing to be given up unduly.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It had been proved by Butler in one way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By Paley better in a later day;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It had been proved in twenty ways at once,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By many a doctor plain to many a dunce;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There was no question but it must be so.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And the Shade answered, that He did not know;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">He had no reading, and might be deceived,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But still He was the Christ, as He believed.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And women, mild and pure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forth from still homes and village schools did pass,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And asked, if this indeed were thus, alas,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What should they teach their children and the poor?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The Shade replied, He could not know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But it was truth, the fact was so.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse stars"></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse stars"></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Who had kept all commandments from his youth</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet still found one thing lacking—even Truth:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the Shade only answered, ‘Go, make haste,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Enjoy thy great possessions as thou may’st.’</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span></p> - -<h3><i>EASTER DAY.</i><br /> -<span class="smaller">NAPLES, 1849.</span></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With fiercer heat than flamed above my head</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My heart was hot within me; till at last</div> - <div class="verse indent2">My brain was lightened when my tongue had said—</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Christ is not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent6">Christ is not risen, no—</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He lies and moulders low;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Christ is not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What though the stone were rolled away, and though</div> - <div class="verse indent6">The grave found empty there?—</div> - <div class="verse indent6">If not there, then elsewhere;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If not where Joseph laid Him first, why then</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Where other men</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Translaid Him after, in some humbler clay.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Long ere to-day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Corruption that sad perfect work hath done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which here she scarcely, lightly had begun:</div> - <div class="verse indent6">The foul engendered worm</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feeds on the flesh of the life-giving form</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of our most Holy and Anointed One.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">He is not risen, no—</div> - <div class="verse indent6">He lies and moulders low;</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Christ is not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What if the women, ere the dawn was grey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Saw one or more great angels, as they say</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Angels, or Him himself)? Yet neither there, nor then,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor afterwards, nor elsewhere, nor at all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hath He appeared to Peter or the Ten;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor, save in thunderous terror, to blind Saul;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Save in an after Gospel and late Creed,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He is not risen, indeed,—</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Christ is not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Or, what if e’en, as runs a tale, the Ten</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Saw, heard, and touched, again and yet again?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What if at Emmaüs’ inn, and by Capernaum’s Lake,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Came One, the bread that brake—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came One that spake as never mortal spake,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And with them ate, and drank, and stood, and walked about?</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Ah? ‘some’ did well to ‘doubt!’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah! the true Christ, while these things came to pass,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor heard, nor spake, nor walked, nor lived, alas!</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He was not risen, no—</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He lay and mouldered low,</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Christ was not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">As circulates in some great city crowd</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A rumour changeful, vague, importunate, and loud,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From no determined centre, or of fact</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Or authorship exact,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Which no man can deny</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Nor verify;</div> - <div class="verse indent8">So spread the wondrous fame;</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He all the same</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Lay senseless, mouldering, low:</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He was not risen, no—</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Christ was not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">As of the unjust, also of the just—</div> - <div class="verse indent12">Yea, of that Just One, too!</div> - <div class="verse indent4">This is the one sad Gospel that is true—</div> - <div class="verse indent12">Christ is not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Is He not risen, and shall we not rise?</div> - <div class="verse indent12">Oh, we unwise!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span> - <div class="verse indent4">What did we dream, what wake we to discover?</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Ye hills, fall on us, and ye mountains, cover!</div> - <div class="verse indent10">In darkness and great gloom</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Come ere we thought it is <i>our</i> day of doom;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">From the cursed world, which is one tomb,</div> - <div class="verse indent12">Christ is not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Eat, drink, and play, and think that this is bliss:</div> - <div class="verse indent4">There is no heaven but this;</div> - <div class="verse indent10">There is no hell,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Save earth, which serves the purpose doubly well,</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Seeing it visits still</div> - <div class="verse indent4">With equalest apportionment of ill</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Both good and bad alike, and brings to one same dust</div> - <div class="verse indent10">The unjust and the just</div> - <div class="verse indent10">With Christ, who is not risen.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Eat, drink, and die, for we are souls bereaved:</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Of all the creatures under heaven’s wide cope</div> - <div class="verse indent6">We are most hopeless, who had once most hope,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And most beliefless, that had most believed.</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;</div> - <div class="verse indent10">As of the unjust, also of the just—</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Yea, of that Just One too!</div> - <div class="verse indent10">It is the one sad Gospel that is true—</div> - <div class="verse indent12">Christ is not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent10">Weep not beside the tomb,</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Ye women, unto whom</div> - <div class="verse indent4">He was great solace while ye tended Him;</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Ye who with napkin o’er the head</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And folds of linen round each wounded limb</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Laid out the Sacred Dead;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And thou that bar’st Him in thy wondering womb;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, Daughters of Jerusalem, depart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bind up as best ye may your own sad bleeding heart;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Go to your homes, your living children tend,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Your earthly spouses love;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Set your affections <i>not</i> on things above,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which moth and rust corrupt, which quickliest come to end:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or pray, if pray ye must, and pray, if pray ye can,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For death; since dead is He whom ye deemed more than man,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Who is not risen: no—</div> - <div class="verse indent6">But lies and moulders low—</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Who is not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent6">Ye men of Galilee!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why stand ye looking up to heaven, where Him ye ne’er may see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither ascending hence, nor returning hither again?</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Ye ignorant and idle fishermen!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hence to your huts, and boats, and inland native shore,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">And catch not men, but fish;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Whate’er things ye might wish,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Him neither here nor there ye e’er shall meet with more.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Ye poor deluded youths, go home,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Mend the old nets ye left to roam,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Tie the split oar, patch the torn sail:</div> - <div class="verse indent6">It was indeed an ‘idle tale’—</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He was not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And, oh, good men of ages yet to be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who shall believe <i>because</i> ye did not see—</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Oh, be ye warned, be wise!</div> - <div class="verse indent6">No more with pleading eyes,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">And sobs of strong desire,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Unto the empty vacant void aspire,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Seeking another and impossible birth</div> - <div class="verse indent4">That is not of your own, and only mother earth.</div> - <div class="verse indent4">But if there is no other life for you,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Sit down and be content, since this must even do:</div> - <div class="verse indent12">He is not risen!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent6">One look, and then depart,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Ye humble and ye holy men of heart;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And ye! ye ministers and stewards of a Word</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which ye would preach, because another heard—</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Ye worshippers of that ye do not know,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Take these things hence and go:—</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He is not risen!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent6">Here, on our Easter Day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We rise, we come, and lo! we find Him not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gardener nor other, on the sacred spot:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where they have laid Him there is none to say;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No sound, nor in, nor out—no word</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of where to seek the dead or meet the living Lord.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is no glistering of an angel’s wings,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is no voice of heavenly clear behest:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let us go hence, and think upon these things</div> - <div class="verse indent8">In silence, which is best.</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Is He not risen? No—</div> - <div class="verse indent8">But lies and moulders low?</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Christ is not risen?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>EASTER DAY.</i><br /> -II</h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I with my secret self held communing of mine own.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So in the southern city spake the tongue</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of one that somewhat overwildly sung,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But in a later hour I sat and heard</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Another voice that spake—another graver word.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weep not, it bade, whatever hath been said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though He be dead, He is not dead.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span> - <div class="verse indent8">In the true creed</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He is yet risen indeed;</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Christ is yet risen.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Weep not beside His tomb,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye women unto whom</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He was great comfort and yet greater grief;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor ye, ye faithful few that wont with Him to roam,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seek sadly what for Him ye left, go hopeless to your home;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor ye despair, ye sharers yet to be of their belief;</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Though He be dead, He is not dead,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Nor gone, though fled,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Not lost, though vanished;</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Though He return not, though</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He lies and moulders low;</div> - <div class="verse indent8">In the true creed</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He is yet risen indeed;</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Christ is yet risen.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Sit if ye will, sit down upon the ground,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet not to weep and wail, but calmly look around.</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Whate’er befell,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Earth is not hell;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now, too, as when it first began,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Life is yet life, and man is man.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For all that breathe beneath the heaven’s high cope,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joy with grief mixes, with despondence hope.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or at least, faith unbelief.</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Though dead, not dead;</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Not gone, though fled;</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Not lost, though vanished.</div> - <div class="verse indent8">In the great gospel and true creed,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">He is yet risen indeed;</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Christ is yet risen.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="DIPSYCHUS">DIPSYCHUS.</h2> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span></p> - -<h3>PROLOGUE TO DIPSYCHUS.</h3> - -<p>‘I hope it is in good plain verse,’ said my uncle,—‘none of -your hurry-scurry anapæsts, as you call them, in lines -which sober people read for plain heroics. Nothing is more -disagreeable than to say a line over two, or, it may be, three -or four times, and at last not be sure that there are not -three or four ways of reading, each as good and as much -intended as another. <i>Simplex duntaxat et unum.</i> But you -young people think Horace and your uncles old fools.’</p> - -<p>‘Certainly, my dear sir,’ said I; ‘that is, I mean, -Horace and my uncle are perfectly right. Still, there is an -instructed ear and an uninstructed. A rude taste for -identical recurrences would exact sing-song from “Paradise -Lost,” and grumble because “Il Penseroso” doesn’t run like -a nursery rhyme.’ ‘Well, well,’ said my uncle, ‘<i>sunt certi -denique fines</i>, no doubt. So commence, my young Piso, -while Aristarchus is tolerably wakeful, and do not waste by -your logic the fund you will want for your poetry.’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span></p> - -<h3><i>DIPSYCHUS.</i><a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></h3> - -<h3><span class="smcap">Part I.</span></h3> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span>—<i>The Piazza at Venice, 9 p.m. Dipsychus and the Spirit.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> The scene is different, and the place, the air</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tastes of the nearer north; the people</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not perfect southern lightness; wherefore, then,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should those old verses come into my mind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I made last year at Naples? Oh, poor fool!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still resting on thyself—a thing ill-worked—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A moment’s thought committed on the moment</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To unripe words and rugged verse:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With fiercer heat than flamed above my head</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My heart was hot within me; till at last</div> - <div class="verse indent2">My brain was lightened when my tongue had said—</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Christ is not risen!’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Christ is not risen? Oh, indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I didn’t know that was your creed.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> So it went on, too lengthy to repeat—</div> - <div class="verse indent8">‘Christ is not risen.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi13">Dear, how odd!</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">He’ll tell us next there is no God.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I thought ’twas in the Bible plain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the third day He rose again.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As of the unjust, also of the just—</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Yea, of that Just One, too!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is He not risen, and shall we not rise?</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Oh, we unwise!’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> H’m! and the tone, then, after all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something of the ironical?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sarcastic, say; or were it fitter</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To style it the religious bitter?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Interpret it I cannot. I but wrote it—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At Naples, truly, as the preface tells,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Last year, in the Toledo; it came on me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And did me good at once. At Naples then,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At Venice now. Ah! and I think at Venice</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Christ is not risen either.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi11">Nay,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such things don’t fall out every day:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Having once happened, as we know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In Palestine so long ago,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How should it now at Venice here</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where people, true enough, appear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To appreciate more and understand</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their ices, and their Austrian band</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And dark-eyed girls.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> <span class="hemi8">The whole great square they fill,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">From the red flaunting streamers on the staffs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And that barbaric portal of St. Mark’s,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To where, unnoticed, at the darker end,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I sit upon my step—one great gay crowd.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Campanile to the silent stars</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Goes up, above—its apex lost in air—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While these do what?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi8">Enjoy the minute,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the substantial blessings in it:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ices, <i>par exemple</i>; evening air,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Company, and this handsome square;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all the sweets in perfect plenty</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the old <i>dolce far niente</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Music! Up, up; it isn’t fit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With beggars here on steps to sit.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up, to the caffé! take a chair,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And join the wiser idlers there.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And see that fellow singing yonder;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Singing, ye gods, and dancing too—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tooraloo, tooraloo, tooraloo, loo—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fiddledi diddledi, diddle di di;</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Figaro sù, Figaro giù—</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Figaro quà, Figaro là</i>!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How he likes doing it—Ha, ha!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> While these do what? Ah, heaven! too true, at Venice</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Christ is not risen either.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>The Public Garden.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Assuredly, a lively scene!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, ah, how pleasant something green!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With circling heavens one perfect rose</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Each smoother patch of water glows,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hence to where, o’er the full tide’s face,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We see the Palace and the Place,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And the white dome; beauteous, but hot.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where in the meantime is the spot—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My favourite—where by masses blue,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And white cloud-folds, I follow true</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The great Alps, rounding grandly o’er,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Huge arc, to the Dalmatian shore?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> This rather stupid place, to-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It’s true, is most extremely gay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And rightly—the Assunzione</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was always a <i>gran’ funzione</i>.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> What is this persecuting voice that haunts me?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What? whence? of whom? How am I to detect?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Myself or not myself? My own bad thoughts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or some external agency at work,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To lead me who knows whither?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi13">Eh?</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">We’re certainly in luck to-day:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What crowds of boats before us plying—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gay parties, singing, shouting, crying—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Saluting others past them flying!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What numbers at the causeway lying!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What lots of pretty girls, too, hieing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hither and thither—coming, going,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And with what satisfaction showing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their dark exuberance of hair,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Black eyes, rich tints, and sundry graces</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of classic pure Italian faces!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> <span class="hemi13">Ah me, me!</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Clear stars above, thou roseate westward sky,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take up my being into yours; assume</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My sense to know you only; steep my brain</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">In your essential purity, or, great Alps,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That wrapping round your heads in solemn clouds</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seem sternly to sweep past our vanities,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lead me with you—take me away, preserve me!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">O moon and stars, forgive! and thou, clear heaven,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look pureness back into me. Oh, great God!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why, why, in wisdom and in grace’s name,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in the name of saints and saintly thoughts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of mothers, and of sisters, and chaste wives,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And angel woman-faces we have seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And angel woman-spirits we have guessed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And innocent sweet children, and pure love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why did I ever one brief moment’s space</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But parley with this filthy Belial?</div> - <div class="verse indent16">...Was it the fear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of being behind the world, which is the wicked?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene III.</span>—<i>At the Hotel.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi22">Come, then,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">And with my aid go into good society.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Life little loves, ’tis true, this peevish piety;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en they with whom it thinks to be securest—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your most religious, delicatest, purest—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Discern, and show as pious people can</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their feeling that you are not quite a man.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still the thing has its place; and with sagacity,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much might be done by one of your capacity.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A virtuous attachment formed judiciously</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would come, one sees, uncommonly propitiously:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Turn you but your affections the right way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And what mayn’t happen none of us can say;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For in despite of devils and of mothers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your good young men make catches, too, like others.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> To herd with people that one owns no care for;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Friend it with strangers that one sees but once;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To drain the heart with endless complaisance;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To warp the unfinished diction on the lip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And twist one’s mouth to counterfeit; enforce</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Reluctant looks to falsehood; base-alloy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The ingenuous golden frankness of the past;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To calculate and plot; be rough and smooth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forward and silent, deferential, cool,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not by one’s humour, which is the safe truth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But on consideration.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi9">That is, act</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">On a dispassionate judgment of the fact;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look all the data fairly in the face,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And rule your judgment simply by the case.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> On vile consideration. At the best,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With pallid hotbed courtesies to forestall</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The green and vernal spontaneity,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And waste the priceless moments of the man</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In regulating manner. Whether these things</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be right, I do not know: I only know ’tis</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To lose one’s youth too early. Oh, not yet—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not yet I make the sacrifice.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi13"><i>Du tout!</i></span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">To give up nature’s just what would not do.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By all means keep your sweet ingenuous graces,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And use them at the proper times and places.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For work, for play, for business, talk and love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I own as wisdom truly from above,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That scripture of the serpent and the dove;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor’s aught so perfect for the world’s affairs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As the old parable of wheat and tares;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">What we all love is good touched up with evil—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Religion’s self must have a spice of devil.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> <span class="hemi9">Let it be enough,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">That in our needful mixture with the world,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On each new morning with the rising sun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our rising heart, fresh from the seas of sleep,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scarce o’er the level lifts his purer orb</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere lost and sullied with polluting smoke—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A noon-day coppery disk. Lo, scarce come forth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some vagrant miscreant meets, and with a look</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Transmutes me his, and for a whole sick day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lepers me.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi4">Just the one thing, I assure you,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">From which good company can’t but secure you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">About the individual’s not so clear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But who can doubt the general atmosphere?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Ay truly, who at first? but in a while——</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> O dear, this o’er-discernment makes me smile.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You don’t pretend to tell me you can see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Without one touch of melting sympathy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Those lovely, stately flowers that fill with bloom</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The brilliant season’s gay parterre-like room,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Moving serene yet swiftly through the dances;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Those graceful forms and perfect countenances,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose every fold and line in all their dresses</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something refined and exquisite expresses.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To see them smile and hear them talk so sweetly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In me destroys all lower thoughts completely;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I really seem, without exaggeration,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To experience the true regeneration.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One’s own dress, too—one’s manner, what one’s doing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And saying, all assist to one’s renewing.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I love to see, in these their fitting places,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The bows, the forms, and all you call grimaces.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I heartily could wish we’d kept some more of them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">However much we talk about the bore of them.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fact is, your awkward parvenus are shy at it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Afraid to look like waiters if they try at it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis sad to what democracy is leading—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Give me your Eighteenth Century for high breeding.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though I can put up gladly with the present,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And quite can think our modern parties pleasant.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One shouldn’t analyse the thing too nearly:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The main effect is admirable clearly.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Good manners,’ said our great-aunts, ‘next to piety:’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And so my friend, hurrah for good society!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene IV.</span>—<i>On the Piazza.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Insulted! by the living Lord!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He laid his hand upon his sword.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘<i>Fort</i>,’ did he say? a German brute,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With neither heart nor brains to shoot.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> What does he mean? he’s wrong, I had done nothing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas a mistake—more his, I am sure, than mine.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He is quite wrong—I feel it. Come, let us go.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Go up to him!—you must, that’s flat.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be threatened by a beast like that!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> He’s violent: what can I do against him?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I neither wish to be killed nor to kill:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What’s more, I never yet have touched a sword,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor fired, but twice, a pistol in my life.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Oh, never mind, ’twon’t come to fighting—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only some verbal small requiting;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or give your card—we’ll do’t by writing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He’ll not stick to it. Soldiers too</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are cowards, just like me or you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What! not a single word to throw at</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This snarling dog of a d——d Croat?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> My heavens! why should I care? he does not hurt me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If he is wrong, it is the worst for him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I certainly did nothing: I shall go.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Did nothing! I should think not; no,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor ever will, I dare be sworn!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But, O my friend, well-bred, well-born—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You to behave so in these quarrels</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Makes me half doubtful of your morals!</div> - <div class="verse indent18">...It were all one,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You had been some shopkeeper’s son,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose childhood ne’er was shown aught better</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than bills of creditor and debtor.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> By heaven, it falls from off me like the rain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From the oil-coat. I seem in spirit to see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How he and I at some great day shall meet</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Before some awful judgment-seat of truth;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I could deem that I behold him there</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come praying for the pardon I give now,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did I not think these matters too, too small</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For any record on the leaves of time.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O thou great Watcher of this noisy world,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What are they in Thy sight? or what in his</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who finds some end of action in his life?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What e’en in his whose sole permitted course</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Is to pursue his peaceful byway walk,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And live his brief life purely in Thy sight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And righteously towards his brother-men?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> And whether, so you’re just and fair,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Other folks are so, you don’t care;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You who profess more love than others</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For your poor sinful human brothers.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> For grosser evils their gross remedies</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The laws afford us; let us be content;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For finer wounds the law would, if it could,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Find medicine too; it cannot, let us bear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For sufferance is the badge of all men’s tribes.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Because we can’t do all we would,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Does it follow, to do nothing’s good?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No way to help the law’s rough sense</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By equities of self-defence?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, for yourself it may be nice</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To serve vulgarity and vice:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must sisters, too, and wives and mothers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fare like their patient sons and brothers?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> He that loves sister, mother, more than me——</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> But the injustice—the gross wrong!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To whom on earth does it belong</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If not to you, to whom ’twas done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who saw it plain as any sun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To make the base and foul offender</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Confess, and satisfaction render?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At least before the termination of it</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Prove your own lofty reprobation of it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though gentleness, I know, was born in you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Surely you have a little scorn in you?</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Heaven! to pollute one’s fingers to pick up</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The fallen coin of honour from the dirt—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pure silver though it be, let it rather lie!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To take up any offence, where’t may be said</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That temper, vanity—I know not what—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had led me on!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To have so much as e’en half felt of one</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That ever one was angered for oneself!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beyond suspicion Cæsar’s wife should be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beyond suspicion this bright honour shall.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did he say scorn? I have some scorn, thank God.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Certainly. Only if it’s so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let us leave Italy, and go</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Post haste, to attend—you’re ripe and rank for’t—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The great peace-meeting up at Frankfort.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joy to the Croat! Take our lives,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sweet friends, and please respect our wives;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joy to the Croat! Some fine day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He’ll see the error of his way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No doubt, and will repent and pray.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At any rate he’ll open his eyes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If not before, at the Last Assize.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not, if I rightly understood you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That even then you’d punish, would you?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nay, let the hapless soul go free—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mere murder, crime, or robbery,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In whate’er station, age, or sex,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your sacred spirit scarce can vex:</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>De minimis non curat lex</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the Peace Congress! ring the bell!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Horses to Frankfort and to ——!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> I am not quite in union with myself</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On this strange matter. I must needs confess</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Instinct turns instinct out, and thought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wheels round on thought. To bleed for others’ wrongs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In vindication of a cause, to draw</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sword of the Lord and Gideon—oh, that seems</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The flower and top of life! But fight because</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some poor misconstruing trifler haps to say</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I lie, when I do not lie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why should I? Call you this a cause? I can’t.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, he is wrong, no doubt; he misbehaves—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But is it worth so much as speaking loud?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And things so merely personal to myself</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of all earth’s things do least affect myself.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Sweet eloquence! at next May Meeting</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How it would tell in the repeating!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I recognise, and kiss the rod—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The methodistic ‘voice of God;’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I catch contrite that angel whine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That snuffle human, yet divine.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> It may be I am somewhat of a poltroon;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I never fought at school; whether it be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some native poorness in my spirit’s blood,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or that the holy doctrine of our faith</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In too exclusive fervency possessed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My heart with feelings, with ideas my brain.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Yes; you would argue that it goes</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Against the Bible, I suppose;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But our revered religion—yes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our common faith—seems, I confess,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On these points to propose to address</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The people more than you or me—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At best the vulgar bourgeoisie.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sacred writers don’t keep count,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But still the Sermon on the Mount</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Must have been spoken, by what’s stated,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To hearers by the thousands rated.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I cuff some fellow; mild and meek</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He should turn round the other cheek.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For him it may be right and good;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We are not all of gentle blood</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Really, or as such understood.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> There are two kindreds upon earth, I know—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The oppressors and the oppressed. But as for me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If I must choose to inflict wrong, or accept,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May my last end, and life too, be with these.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes; whatsoe’er the reason, want of blood,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lymphatic humours, or my childhood’s faith,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So is the thing, and be it well or ill,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have no choice. I am a man of peace,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the old Adam of the gentleman</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dares seldom in my bosom stir against</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The mild plebeian Christian seated there.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Forgive me, if I name my doubt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whether you know ‘<i>fort</i>’ means ‘<i>get out</i>.’</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene V.</span>—<i>The Lido.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> What now? the Lido shall it be?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That none may say we didn’t see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The ground which Byron used to ride on,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And do I don’t know what beside on.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ho, barca! here! and this light gale</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will let us run it with a sail.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> I dreamt a dream: till morning light</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A bell rang in my head all night,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Tinkling and tinkling first, and then</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tolling and tinkling, tolling again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So brisk and gay, and then so slow!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O joy and terror! mirth and woe!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ting, ting, there is no God; ting, ting,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dong, there is no God; dong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is no God; dong, dong.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ting, ting, there is no God; ting, ting.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, dance and play, and merrily sing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Staid Englishman, who toil and slave</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From your first childhood to your grave,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And seldom spend and always save—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And do your duty all your life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By your young family and wife;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, be’t not said you ne’er had known</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What earth can furnish you alone.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Italian, Frenchman, German even,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have given up all thoughts of heaven:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And you still linger—oh, you fool!—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because of what you learnt at school.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You should have gone at least to college,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And got a little ampler knowledge.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah well, and yet—dong, dong, dong:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do as you like, as now you do;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If work’s a cheat, so’s pleasure too.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And nothing’s new and nothing’s true;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dong, there is no God; dong.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O, in our nook unknown, unseen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We’ll hold our fancy like a screen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Us and the dreadful fact between;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And it shall yet be long—ay, long—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The quiet notes of our low song</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall keep us from that sad dong, dong.—</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Hark, hark, hark! O voice of fear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It reaches us here, even here!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dong, there is no God; dong.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ring ding, ring ding, tara, tara,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To battle, to battle—haste, haste—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To battle, to battle—aha, aha!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On, on, to the conqueror’s feast,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From east to west, and south and north,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye men of valour and of worth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye mighty men of arms come forth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And work your will, for that is just;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in your impulse put your trust,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beneath your feet the fools are dust.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas, alas! O grief and wrong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The good are weak, the wicked strong;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And O my God, how long, how long!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dong, there is no God; dong.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ring, ting; to bow before the strong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is a rapture too in this;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Work for thy master, work, thou slave—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He is not merciful, but brave.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be’t joy to serve, who free and proud</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scorns thee and all the ignoble crowd;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take that, ’tis all thou art allowed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Except the snaky hope that they</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May sometime serve who rule to-day.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When, by hell-demons, shan’t they pay?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O wickedness, O shame and grief,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And heavy load, and no relief!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O God, O God! and which is worst,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To be the curser or the curst,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The victim or the murderer? Dong.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dong, there is no God; dong.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Ring ding, ring ding, tara, tara,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Away, and hush that preaching—fagh!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye vulgar dreamers about peace,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who offer noblest hearts, to heal</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The tenderest hurts honour can feel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Paid magistrates and the police!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O peddling merchant-justice, go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exacter rules than yours we know;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Resentment’s rule, and that high law</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of whoso best the sword can draw.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah well, and yet—dong, dong, dong.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go on, my friends, as now you do;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lawyers are villains, soldiers too;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And nothing’s new and nothing’s true.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dong, there is no God; dong.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I had a dream, from eve to light</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A bell went sounding all the night.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gay mirth, black woe, thin joys, huge pain:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I tried to stop it, but in vain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It ran right on, and never broke;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only when day began to stream</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through the white curtains to my bed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And like an angel at my head</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Light stood and touched me—I awoke,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And looked, and said, ‘It is a dream.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Ah! not so bad. You’ve read, I see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your Béranger, and thought of me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But really you owe some apology</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For harping thus upon theology.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’m not a judge, I own; in short,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Religion may not be my forte.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Church of England I belong to,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And think Dissenters not far wrong too;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">They’re vulgar dogs; but for his <i>creed</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0">I hold that no man will be d——d.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But come and listen in your turn,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And you shall hear and mark and learn.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘There is no God,’ the wicked saith,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘And truly it’s a blessing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For what He might have done with us</div> - <div class="verse indent2">It’s better only guessing.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘There is no God,’ a youngster thinks,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Or really, if there may be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He surely didn’t mean a man</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Always to be a baby.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘There is no God, or if there is,’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The tradesman thinks, ‘’twere funny</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If He should take it ill in me</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To make a little money.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Whether there be,’ the rich man says,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘It matters very little,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For I and mine, thank somebody,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Are not in want of victual.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Some others, also, to themselves,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Who scarce so much as doubt it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Think there is none, when they are well,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And do not think about it.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But country folks who live beneath</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The shadow of the steeple;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The parson and the parson’s wife,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And mostly married people;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Youths green and happy in first love,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So thankful for illusion;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And men caught out in what the world</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Calls guilt, in first confusion;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And almost every one when age,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Disease, or sorrows strike him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Inclines to think there is a God,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Or something very like Him.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But <i>eccoci</i>! with our <i>barchetta</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here at the Sant’ Elisabetta.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Vineyards and maize, that’s pleasant for sore eyes.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> And on the island’s other side,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The place where Murray’s faithful Guide</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Informs us Byron used to ride.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> The trellised vines! enchanting! Sandhills, ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sea, at last the sea—the real broad sea—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful! and a glorious breeze upon it.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Look back; one catches at this station</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lagoon and sea in combination.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> On her still lake the city sits,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where bark and boat around her flits,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor dreams, her soft siesta taking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of Adriatic billows breaking.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I do; I see and hear them. Come! to the sea!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, a grand surge! we’ll bathe; quick, quick!—undress!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quick, quick!—in, in!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We’ll take the crested billows by their backs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And shake them. Quick! in, in!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">And I will taste again the old joy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I gloried in so when a boy;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Aha! come, come—great waters, roll!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Accept me, take me, body and soul!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That’s done me good. It grieves me though,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I never came here long ago.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Pleasant, perhaps; however, no offence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Animal spirits are not common sense;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They’re good enough as an assistance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But in themselves a poor existence.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But you, with this one bathe, no doubt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have solved all questions out and out.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><span class="smcap">Part II.</span></h3> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span>—<i>The interior Arcade of the Doge’s Palace.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Thunder and rain! O dear, O dear!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But see, a noble shelter here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This grand arcade where our Venetian</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Has formed of Gothic and of Grecian</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A combination strange, but striking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And singularly to my liking!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let moderns reap where ancients sowed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I at least make it my abode.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And now let’s hear your famous Ode:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Through the great sinful’—how did it go on?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For principles of Art and so on</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I care perhaps about three curses,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But hold myself a judge of verses.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> ‘My brain was lightened when my tongue</div> - <div class="verse indent0">had said, “Christ is not risen.”’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse stars"></div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Well, now it’s anything but clear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is the tone that’s taken here:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is your logic? what’s your theology?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it, or is it not, neology?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That’s a great fault; you’re this and that,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And here and there, and nothing flat;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet writing’s golden word what is it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the three syllables ‘explicit’?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, if you cannot help it, less,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But what you do put, put express.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I fear that rule won’t meet your feeling:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You think half showing, half concealing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is God’s own method of revealing.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> To please my own poor mind! to find repose;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To physic the sick soul; to furnish vent</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To diseased humours in the moral frame!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> A sort of seton, I suppose,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A moral bleeding at the nose:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">H’m;—and the tone too after all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something of the ironical?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sarcastic, say; or were it fitter</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To style it the religious bitter?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Interpret it I cannot, I but wrote it.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Perhaps; but none that read can doubt it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is a strong Strauss-smell about it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heavens! at your years your time to fritter</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon a critical hair-splitter!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take larger views (and quit your Germans)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From the Analogy and sermons;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I fancied—you must doubtless know—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Butler had proved an age ago,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">That in religious as profane things</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas useless trying to explain things;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Men’s business-wits, the only sane things,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These and compliance are the main things.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">God, Revelation, and the rest of it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bad at the best, we make the best of it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like a good subject and wise man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Believe whatever things you can.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take your religion as ’twas found you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And say no more of it, confound you!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And now I think the rain has ended;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the less said, the soonest mended.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>In a Gondola.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <i>Per ora.</i> To the Grand Canal.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Afterwards e’en as fancy shall.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Afloat; we move. Delicious! Ah,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What else is like the gondola?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This level floor of liquid glass</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Begins beneath us swift to pass.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It goes as though it went alone</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By some impulsion of its own.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(How light it moves, how softly! Ah,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were all things like the gondola!)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">How light it moves, how softly! Ah,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could life, as does our gondola,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unvexed with quarrels, aims, and cares,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And moral duties and affairs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unswaying, noiseless, swift and strong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For ever thus—thus glide along!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(How light we move, how softly! Ah,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were life but as the gondola!)</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">With no more motion than should bear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A freshness to the languid air;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With no more effort than exprest</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The need and naturalness of rest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which we beneath a grateful shade</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should take on peaceful pillows laid!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(How light we move, how softly! Ah,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were life but as the gondola!)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">In one unbroken passage borne</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To closing night from opening morn,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Uplift at whiles slow eyes to mark</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some palace front, some passing bark;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through windows catch the varying shore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And hear the soft turns of the oar!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(How light we move, how softly! Ah,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were life but as the gondola!)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So live, nor need to call to mind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our slaving brother here behind!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Pooh! Nature meant him for no better</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than our most humble menial debtor:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who thanks us for his day’s employment</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As we our purse for our enjoyment.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> To make one’s fellow-man an instrument——</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Is just the thing that makes him most content.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> <span class="hemi2">Our gaieties, our luxuries,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent10">Our pleasures and our glee,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Mere insolence and wantonness,</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Alas! they feel to me.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent8">How shall I laugh and sing and dance?</div> - <div class="verse indent10">My very heart recoils,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">While here to give my mirth a chance</div> - <div class="verse indent10">A hungry brother toils.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent8">The joy that does not spring from joy</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Which I in others see,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">How can I venture to employ,</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Or find it joy for me?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Oh come, come, come! By Him that sent us here.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who’s to enjoy at all, pray let us hear?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You won’t; he can’t! Oh, no more fuss!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What’s it to him, or he to us?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sing, sing away, be glad and gay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And don’t forget that we shall pay.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Yes, it is beautiful ever, let foolish men rail at it never.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wise are ye others that choose it, and happy ye all that can use it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Life it is beautiful wholly, and could we eliminate only</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This interfering, enslaving, o’ermastering demon of craving,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This wicked tempter inside us to ruin still eager to guide us,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Life were beatitude, action a possible pure satisfaction.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> (Hexameters, by all that’s odious,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beshod with rhyme to run melodious!)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> All as I go on my way I behold them consorting and coupling;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Faithful it seemeth, and fond; very fond, very possibly faithful;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All as I go on my way with a pleasure sincere and unmingled</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Life it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for perfection attaining is one method only, abstaining;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let us abstain, for we should so, if only we thought that we could so.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Bravo, bravissimo! this time though</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You rather were run short for rhyme though;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not that on that account your verse</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could be much better or much worse.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">This world is very odd we see,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">We do not comprehend it;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">But in one fact we all agree,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">God won’t, and we can’t mend it.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Being common sense, it can’t be sin</div> - <div class="verse indent6">To take it as I find it;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The pleasure to take pleasure in;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">The pain, try not to mind it.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> O let me love my love unto myself alone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And know my knowledge to the world unknown;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No witness to the vision call,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beholding, unbeheld of all;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And worship thee, with thee withdrawn, apart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whoe’er, whate’er thou art,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Better it were, thou sayest, to consent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Nay, better far to mark off thus much air,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And call it heaven; place bliss and glory there;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And say, what is not, will be by-and-by;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What here exists not must exist elsewhere.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But play no tricks upon thy soul, O man;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let fact be fact, and life the thing it can.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> To these remarks so sage and clerkly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Worthy of Malebranche or Berkeley,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I trust it won’t be deemed a sin</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If I too answer ‘with a grin.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">These juicy meats, this flashing wine,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">May be an unreal mere appearance;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Only—for my inside, in fine,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">They have a singular coherence.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Oh yes, my pensive youth, abstain;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">And any empty sick sensation.</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Remember, anything like pain</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Is only your imagination.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Trust me, I’ve read your German sage</div> - <div class="verse indent6">To far more purpose e’er than you did;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">You find it in his wisest page,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Whom God deludes is well deluded.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Where are the great, whom thou would’st wish to praise thee?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where are the pure, whom thou would’st choose to love thee?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where are the brave, to stand supreme above thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose high commands would cheer, whose chidings raise thee?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Seek, seeker, in thyself; submit to find</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In the stones, bread, and life in the blank mind.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">(Written in London, standing in the Park,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One evening in July, just before dark.)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> As I sat at the café, I said to myself,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">How pleasant it is to have money.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I sit at my table <i>en grand seigneur</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not only the pleasure, one’s self, of good living,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But also the pleasure of now and then giving.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">It was but last winter I came up to town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But already I’m getting a little renown;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I make new acquaintance where’er I appear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am not too shy, and have nothing to fear.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I drive through the streets, and I care not a d——n;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The people they stare, and they ask who I am;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And if I should chance to run over a cad,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I can pay for the damage if ever so bad.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">We stroll to our box and look down on the pit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And if it weren’t low should be tempted to spit;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We loll and we talk until people look up,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when it’s half over we go out to sup.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The best of the tables and the best of the fare—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And as for the others, the devil may care;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It isn’t our fault if they dare not afford</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To sup like a prince and be drunk as a lord.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">We sit at our tables and tipple champagne;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere one bottle goes, comes another again;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The waiters they skip and they scuttle about,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the landlord attends us so civilly out.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">It was but last winter I came up to town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But already I’m getting a little renown;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I get to good houses without much ado,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am beginning to see the nobility too.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O dear! what a pity they ever should lose it!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For they are the gentry that know how to use it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So grand and so graceful, such manners, such dinners,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But yet, after all, it is we are the winners.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Thus I sat at my table <i>en grand seigneur</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when I had done threw a crust to the poor;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not only the pleasure, one’s self, of good eating,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But also the pleasure of now and then treating.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So pleasant it is to have money.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And how one ought never to think of one’s self,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking</div> - <div class="verse indent2">How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">How pleasant it is to have money.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">(Written in Venice, but for all parts true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas not a crust I gave him, but a sou.)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A gondola here, and a gondola there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis the pleasantest fashion of taking the air.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To right and to left; stop, turn, and go yonder,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And let us repeat, o’er the tide as we wander,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">How pleasant it is to have money.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Come, leave your Gothic, worn-out story,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">San Giorgio and the Redentore;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">I from no building, gay or solemn,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Can spare the shapely Grecian column.</div> - <div class="verse indent4">’Tis not, these centuries four, for nought</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Our European world of thought</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Hath made familiar to its home</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The classic mind of Greece and Rome;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">In all new work that would look forth</div> - <div class="verse indent4">To more than antiquarian worth,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Palladio’s pediments and bases,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Or something such, will find their places;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Maturer optics don’t delight</div> - <div class="verse indent4">In childish dim religious light,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">In evanescent vague effects</div> - <div class="verse indent4">That shirk, not face, one’s intellects;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">They love not fancies just betrayed,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And artful tricks of light and shade,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span> - <div class="verse indent4">But pure form nakedly displayed,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And all things absolutely made.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">The Doge’s palace though, from hence,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">In spite of doctrinaire pretence,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The tide now level with the quay,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Is certainly a thing to see.</div> - <div class="verse indent4">We’ll turn to the Rialto soon;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">One’s told to see it by the moon.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A gondola here, and a gondola there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis the pleasantest fashion of taking the air.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To right and to left; stop, turn, and go yonder,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And let us reflect, o’er the flood as we wander,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">How pleasant it is to have money.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> How light we go, how soft we skim,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all in moonlight seem to swim!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The south side rises o’er our bark,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A wall impenetrably dark;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The north is seen profusely bright;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The water, is it shade or light?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, gentle moon, which conquers now</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The flood, those massy hulls, or thou?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(How light we go, how softly! Ah,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where life but as the gondola!)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">How light we go, how soft we skim,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all in moonlight seem to swim!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In moonlight is it now, or shade?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In planes of sure division made,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By angles sharp of palace walls</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The clear light and the shadow falls;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O sight of glory, sight of wonder!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seen, a pictorial portent, under,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">O great Rialto, the vast round</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of thy thrice-solid arch profound!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(How light we go, how softly! Ah,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Life should be as the gondola!)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">How light we go, how softly——</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi13">Nay;</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fore heaven, enough of that to-day:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’m deadly weary of your tune,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And half-ennuyé with the moon;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The shadows lie, the glories fall,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And are but moonshine after all.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It goes against my conscience really</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To let myself feel so ideally.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, for the Piazzetta steer;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis nine o’clock or very near.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These airy blisses, skiey joys</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of vague romantic girls and boys,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which melt the heart and the brain soften,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When not affected, as too often</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They are, remind me, I protest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of nothing better at the best</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than Timon’s feast to his ancient lovers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Warm water under silver covers;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Lap, dogs!’ I think I hear him say;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lap who will, so I’m away.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> How light we go, how soft we skim,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all in moonlight seem to swim!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Against bright clouds projected dark,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The white dome now, reclined I mark,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, by o’er-brilliant lamps displayed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Doge’s columns and arcade;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over still waters mildly come</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The distant waters and the hum.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">(How light we go, how softly! Ah,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Life should be as the gondola!)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">How light we go, how soft we skim,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all in open moonlight swim!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, gondolier, slow, slow, more slow!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We go; but wherefore thus should go?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, let not muscle all too strong</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beguile, betray thee to our wrong!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On to the landing, onward. Nay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sweet dream, a little longer stay!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On to the landing; here. And, ah!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Life is not as the gondola.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <i>Tre ore.</i> So. The Parthenone</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it? you haunt for your limone.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let me induce you to join me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In gramolate persiche.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene III.</span>—<i>The Academy at Venice.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> A modern daub it was, perchance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not: but the connoisseur</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From Titian’s hues, I dare be sure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had never turned one kindly glance,</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Where Byron, somewhat drest-up, draws</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His sword, impatient long, and speaks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto a tribe of motley Greeks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His fealty to their good cause.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Not far, assumed to mystic bliss,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Behold the ecstatic Virgin rise!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, wherefore vainly, to fond eyes</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That melted into tears for this?</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet if we must live, as would seem,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These peremptory heats to claim,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, not for profit, not for fame,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And not for pleasure’s giddy dream,</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And not for piping empty reeds,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And not for colouring idle dust;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If live we positively must,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">God’s name be blest for noble deeds.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Verses! well, they are made, so let them go;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No more if I can help. This is one way</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The procreant heat and fervour of our youth</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Escapes, in puff, in smoke, and shapeless words</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of mere ejaculation, nothing worth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unless to make maturer years content</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To slave in base compliance to the world.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I have scarce spoken yet to this strange follower</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom I picked up—ye great gods, tell me where!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when! for I remember such long years,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet he seems new come. I commune with myself;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He speaks, I hear him, and resume to myself;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whate’er I think, he adds his comments to;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which yet not interrupts me. Scarce I know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If ever once directly I addressed him:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let me essay it now; for I have strength.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet what he wants, and what he fain would have,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, I know all too surely; not in vain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Although unnoticed, has he dogged my ear.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, we’ll be definite, explicit, plain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I can resist, I know; and ’twill be well</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For colloquy to have used this manlier mood,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which is to last, ye chances say how long</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How shall I call him? Mephistophiles?</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> I come, I come.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> <span class="hemi9">So quick, so eager; ha!</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like an eaves-dropping menial on my thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With something of an exultation too, methinks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out-peeping in that springy, jaunty gait.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I doubt about it. Shall I do it? Oh! oh!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shame on me! come! Shall I, my follower,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should I conceive (not that at all I do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis curiosity that prompts my speech)—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But should I form, a thing to be supposed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A wish to bargain for your merchandise,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say what were your demands? what were your terms!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What should I do? what should I cease to do?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What incense on what altars must I burn?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And what abandon? what unlearn, or learn?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Religion goes, I take it.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi11">Oh,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">You’ll go to church of course, you know;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or at the least will take a pew</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To send your wife and servants to.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Trust me, I make a point of that;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No infidelity, that’s flat.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Religion is not in a pew, say some;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cucullus, <i>you</i> hold, <i>facit</i> monachum.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Why, as to feelings of devotion</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I interdict all vague emotion;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But if you will, for once and all</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Compound with ancient Juvenal</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Orandum est, one perfect prayer</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For savoir-vivre and savoir-faire.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Theology—don’t recommend you,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Unless, turned lawyer, Heaven should send you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In your profession’s way a case</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of Baptism and prevenient grace;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But that’s not likely. I’m inclined,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All circumstances borne in mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To think (to keep you in due borders)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You’d better enter holy orders.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> On that, my friend, you’d better not insist.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Well, well, ’tis but a good thing missed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The item’s optional, no doubt;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But how to get you bread without?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You’ll marry; I shall find the lady.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Make your proposal, and be steady.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Marry, ill spirit! and at your sole choice?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <i>De rigueur!</i> can’t give you a voice.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What matter? Oh, trust one who knows you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You’ll make an admirable sposo.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Enough. But action—look to that well, mind me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">See that some not unworthy work you find me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If man I be, then give the man expression.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Of course you’ll enter a profession;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If not the Church, why then the Law.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By Jove, we’ll teach you how to draw!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Besides, the best of the concern is</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’m hand and glove with the attorneys.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With them and me to help, don’t doubt</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But in due season you’ll come out;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leave Kelly, Cockburn, in the lurch.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But yet, do think about the Church.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> ’Tis well, ill spirit, I admire your wit;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As for your wisdom, I shall think of it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And now farewell.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene IV.</span>—<i>In St. Mark’s. Dipsychus alone.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The Law! ’twere honester, if ’twere genteel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To say the dung-cart. What! shall I go about,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And like the walking shoeblack roam the flags</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To see whose boots are dirtiest? Oh, the luck</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To stoop and clean a pair!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Religion, if indeed it be in vain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To expect to find in this more modern time</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That which the old world styled, in old-world phrase</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Walking with God. It seems His newer will</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We should not think of Him at all, but trudge it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And of the world He has assigned us make</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What best we can.</div> - <div class="verse indent18">Then love: I scarce can think</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That these be-maddening discords of the mind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To pure melodious sequence could be changed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all the vext conundrums of our life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Solved to all time by this old pastoral</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of a new Adam and a second Eve</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Set in a garden which no serpent seeks.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And yet I hold heart can beat true to heart:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to hew down the tree which bears this fruit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To do a thing which cuts me off from hope,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To falsify the movement of Love’s mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To seat some alien trifler on the throne</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A queen may come to claim—that were ill done.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What! to the close hand of the clutching Jew</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hand up that rich reversion! and for what?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This would be hard, did I indeed believe</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twould ever fall. That love, the large repose</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Restorative, not to mere outside needs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Skin-deep, but throughly to the total man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exists, I will believe, but so, so rare,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So doubtful, so exceptional, hard to guess;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When guessed, so often counterfeit; in brief,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A thing not possibly to be conceived</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An item in the reckonings of the wise.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Action, that staggers me. For I had hoped,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Midst weakness, indolence, frivolity,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Irresolution, still had hoped: and this</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seems sacrificing hope. Better to wait:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The wise men wait; it is the foolish haste,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And ere the scenes are in the slides would play,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And while the instruments are tuning, dance.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I see Napoleon on the heights intent</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To arrest that one brief unit of loose time</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which hands high Victory’s thread; his marshals fret,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His soldiers clamour low: the very guns</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seem going off of themselves; the cannon strain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like hell-dogs in the leash. But he, he waits;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lesser chances and inferior hopes</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meantime go pouring past. Men gnash their teeth;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The very faithful have begun to doubt;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But they molest not the calm eye that seeks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Midst all this huddling silver little worth</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The one thin piece that comes, pure gold; he waits.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O me, when the great deed e’en now has broke</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like a man’s hand the horizon’s level line,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So soon to fill the zenith with rich clouds;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, in this narrow interspace, this marge,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This list and selvage of a glorious time,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To despair of the great and sell unto the mean!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O thou of little faith, what hast thou done?</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet if the occasion coming should find us</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Undexterous, incapable? In light things</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Prove thou the arms thou long’st to glorify,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor fear to work up from the lowest ranks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whence come great Nature’s Captains. And high deeds</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Haunt not the fringy edges of the fight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the pell-mell of men. Oh, what and if</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en now by lingering here I let them slip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like an unpractised spyer through a glass,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still pointing to the blank, too high! And yet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In dead details to smother vital ends</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which would give life to them; in the deft trick</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of prentice-handling to forget great art,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To base mechanical adroitness yield</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Inspiration and the Hope a slave!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, and to blast that Innocence which, though</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here it may seem a dull unopening bud,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May yet bloom freely in celestial clime!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Were it not better done, then, to keep off</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And see, not share, the strife; stand out the waltz</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which fools whirl dizzy in? Is it possible?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Contamination taints the idler first;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And without base compliance, e’en that same</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which buys bold hearts free course, Earth lends not these</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their pent and miserable standing-room.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Life loves no lookers-on at his great game,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And with boy’s malice still delights to turn</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The tide of sport upon the sitters-by,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And set observers scampering with their notes.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, it is great to do and know not what,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor let it e’er be known. The dashing stream</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stays not to pick his steps among the rocks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or let his water-breaks be chronicled.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And though the hunter looks before he leap,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis instinct rather than a shaped-out thought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That lifts him his bold way. Then, instinct, hail!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And farewell hesitation. If I stay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am not innocent; nor if I go—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en should I fall—beyond redemption lost.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Ah, if I had a course like a full stream,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If life were as the field of chase! No, no;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The life of instinct has, it seems, gone by,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And will not be forced back. And to live now</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I must sluice out myself into canals,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lose all force in ducts. The modern Hotspur</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shrills not his trumpet of ‘To Horse, To Horse!’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But consults columns in a Railway Guide;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A demigod of figures; an Achilles</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of computation;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A verier Mercury, express come down</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To do the world with swift arithmetic.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, one could bear with that, were the end ours,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One’s choice and the correlative of the soul;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To drudge were then sweet service. But indeed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The earth moves slowly, if it move at all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And by the general, not the single force</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the linked members of the vast machine.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In all these crowded rooms of industry,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No individual soul has loftier leave</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than fiddling with a piston or a valve.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, one could bear that also: one would drudge</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And do one’s petty part, and be content</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In base manipulation, solaced still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By thinking of the leagued fraternity,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And of co-operation, and the effect</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the great engine. If indeed it work,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And is not a mere treadmill! which it may be.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who can confirm it is not? We ask action.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And dream of arms and conflict; and string up</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All self-devotion’s muscles; and are set</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To fold up papers. To what end? we know not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Other folks do so; it is always done;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And it perhaps is right. And we are paid for it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For nothing else we can be. He that eats</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must serve; and serve as other servants do:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And don the lacquey’s livery of the house.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, could I shoot my thought up to the sky,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A column of pure shape, for all to observe!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I must slave, a meagre coral-worm,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To build beneath the tide with excrement</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What one day will be island, or be reef,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And will feed men, or wreck them. Well, well, well.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adieu, ye twisted thinkings. I submit: it must be.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Action is what one must get, it is clear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And one could dream it better than one finds,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In its kind personal, in its motive not;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not selfish as it now is, nor as now</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Maiming the individual. If we had that,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It would cure all indeed. Oh, how would then</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These pitiful rebellions of the flesh,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These caterwaulings of the effeminate heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These hurts of self-imagined dignity,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pass like the seaweed from about the bows</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of a great vessel speeding straight to sea!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, if we could have that; but I suppose</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We shall not have it, and therefore I submit!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> (<i>from within</i>). Submit, submit!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis common sense, and human wit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can claim no higher name than it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Submit, submit!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Devotion, and ideas, and love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And beauty claim their place above;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But saint and sage and poet’s dreams</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Divide the light in coloured streams,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which this alone gives all combined,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The <i>siccum lumen</i> of the mind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Called common sense: and no high wit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gives better counsel than does it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Submit, submit!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To see things simply as they are</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here at our elbows, transcends far</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Trying to spy out at midday</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some ‘bright particular star,’ which may,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or not, be visible at night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But clearly is not in daylight;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No inspiration vague outweighs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The plain good common sense that says,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Submit, submit!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis common sense, and human wit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can ask no higher name than it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Submit, submit!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene V.</span>—<i>The Piazza at Night.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> There have been times, not many, but enough</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To quiet all repinings of the heart;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There have been times, in which my tranquil soul,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No longer nebulous, sparse, errant, seemed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon its axis solidly to move,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Centred and fast: no mere elastic blank</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For random rays to traverse unretained,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But rounding luminous its fair ellipse</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Around its central sun. Ay, yet again,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">As in more faint sensations I detect,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With it too, round an Inner, Mightier orb,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Maybe with that too—this I dare not say—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Around, yet more, more central, more supreme,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whate’er how numerous soe’er they be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am and feel myself, where’er I wind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What vagrant chance soe’er I seem to obey</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Communicably theirs.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent24">O happy hours!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O compensation ample for long days</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of what impatient tongues call wretchedness!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O beautiful, beneath the magic moon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To walk the watery way of palaces!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O beautiful, o’ervaulted with gemmed blue,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This spacious court, with colour and with gold,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And crosses multiplex, and tips and balls</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused);</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fantastically perfect this low pile</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of Oriental glory; these long ranges</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of classic chiselling, this gay flickering crowd.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the calm Campanile. Beautiful!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O beautiful! and that seemed more profound,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This morning by the pillar when I sat</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under the great arcade, at the review,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And took, and held, and ordered on my brain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The faces, and the voices, and the whole mass</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O’ the motley facts of existence flowing by!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O perfect, if ’twere all! But it is not;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hints haunt me ever of a more beyond:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am rebuked by a sense of the incomplete,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of a completion over soon assumed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of adding up too soon. What we call sin,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I could believe a painful opening out</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of paths for ampler virtue. The bare field,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scant with lean ears of harvest, long had mocked</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The vext laborious farmer; came at length</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The deep plough in the lazy undersoil</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Down-driving; with a cry earth’s fibres crack,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And a few months, and lo! the golden leas,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And autumn’s crowded shocks and loaded wains.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let us look back on life; was any change,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Any now blest expansion, but at first</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A pang, remorse-like, shot to the inmost seats</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of moral being? To do anything,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Distinct on any one thing to decide,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To leave the habitual and the old, and quit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The easy-chair of use and wont, seems crime</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the weak soul, forgetful how at first</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sitting down seemed so too. And, oh! this woman’s heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fain to be forced, incredulous of choice,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And waiting a necessity for God.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Yet I could think, indeed, the perfect call</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should force the perfect answer. If the voice</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ought to receive its echo from the soul,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wherefore this silence? If it <i>should</i> rouse my being,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why this reluctance? Have I not thought o’ermuch</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of other men, and of the ways of the world?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But what they are, or have been, matters not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To thine own self be true, the wise man says.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are then my fears myself? O double self!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I untrue to both? Oh, there are hours,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When love, and faith, and dear domestic ties,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And converse with old friends, and pleasant walks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Familiar faces, and familiar books,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Study, and art, upliftings unto prayer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And admiration of the noblest things,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Seem all ignoble only; all is mean,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And nought as I would have it. Then at others,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My mind is in her rest; my heart at home</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In all around; my soul secure in place,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the vext needle perfect to her poles.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Aimless and hopeless in my life I seem</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To thread the winding byways of the town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bewildered, baffled, hurried hence and thence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All at cross-purpose even with myself,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unknowing whence or whither. Thence at once,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At a step, I crown the Campanile’s top,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And view all mapped below; islands, lagoon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A hundred steeples and a million roofs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The fruitful champaign, and the cloud-capt Alps,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the broad Adriatic. Be it enough;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If I lose this, how terrible! No, no,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am contented, and will not complain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the old paths, my soul! Oh, be it so!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I bear the workday burden of dull life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">About these footsore flags of a weary world,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heaven knows how long it has not been; at once,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo! I am in the spirit on the Lord’s day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With John in Patmos. Is it not enough,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One day in seven? and if this should go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If this pure solace should desert my mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What were all else? I dare not risk this loss.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the old paths, my soul!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi11">O yes.</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">To moon about religion; to inhume</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your ripened age in solitary walks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For self-discussion; to debate in letters</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Vext points with earnest friends; past other men</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To cherish natural instincts, yet to fear them</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And less than any use them; oh, no doubt,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">In a corner sit and mope, and be consoled</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With thinking one is clever, while the room</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rings through with animation and the dance.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then talk of old examples; to pervert</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ancient real facts to modern unreal dreams</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And build up baseless fabrics of romance</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And heroism upon historic sand;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To burn, forsooth, for action, yet despise</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Its merest accidence and alphabet;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cry out for service, and at once rebel</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At the application of its plainest rules:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This you call life, my friend, reality;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doing your duty unto God and man—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not what. Stay at Venice, if you will;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sit musing in its churches hour on hour</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cross-kneed upon a bench; climb up at whiles</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The neighbouring tower, and kill the lingering day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With old comparisons; when night succeeds,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Evading, yet a little seeking, what</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You would and would not, turn your doubtful eyes</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On moon and stars to help morality;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Once in a fortnight say, by lucky chance</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of happier-tempered coffee, gain (great Heaven!)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A pious rapture: is it not enough?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> ’Tis well: thou cursed spirit, go thy way!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am in higher hands than yours. ’Tis well;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who taught you menaces? Who told you, pray,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because I asked you questions, and made show</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of hearing what you answered, therefore——</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi20">Oh,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">As if I didn’t know!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> <span class="hemi8">Come, come, my friend,</span></div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I may have wavered, but I have thought better.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We’ll say no more of it.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi10">Oh, I dare say:</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">But as you like; ’tis your own loss; once more,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beware!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> (<i>alone.</i>) Must it be then? So quick upon my thought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To follow the fulfilment and the deed?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I counted not on this; I counted ever</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To hold and turn it over in my hands</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much longer, much: I took it up indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For speculation rather; to gain thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">New data. Oh, and now to be goaded on</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By menaces, entangled among tricks;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That I won’t suffer. Yet it is the law;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis this makes action always. But for this</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We ne’er should act at all; and act we must.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why quarrel with the fashion of a fact</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which, one way, must be, one time, why not now?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Submit, submit!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For tell me then, in earth’s great laws</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have you found any saving clause,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exemption special granted you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From doing what the rest must do?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of common sense who made you quit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And told you, you’d no need of it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor to submit?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To move on angels’ wings were sweet;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But who would therefore scorn his feet?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It cannot walk up to the sky;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It therefore will lie down and die.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Rich meats it don’t obtain at call;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It therefore will not eat at all.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Poor babe, and yet a babe of wit!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But common sense, not much of it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or ’twould submit.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Submit, submit!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">As your good father did before you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And as the mother who first bore you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O yes! a child of heavenly birth!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But yet it <i>was</i> born too on earth.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Keep your new birth for that far day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When in the grave your bones you lay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All with your kindred and connection,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In hopes of happy resurrection.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But how meantime to live is fit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ask common sense; and what says it?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Submit, submit!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene VI.</span>—<i>On a Bridge.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> ’Tis gone, the fierce inordinate desire,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The burning thirst for action—utterly;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gone, like a ship that passes in the night</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the high seas: gone, yet will come again:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gone, yet expresses something that exists.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it a thing ordained, then? is it a clue</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For my life’s conduct? is it a law for me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That opportunity shall breed distrust,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not passing until that pass? Chance and resolve,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like two loose comets wandering wide in space,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Crossing each other’s orbits time on time,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meet never. Void indifference and doubt</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let through the present boon, which ne’er turns back</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To await the after sure-arriving wish.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">How shall I then explain it to myself,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That in blank thought my purpose lives?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The uncharged cannon mocking still the spark</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>When</i> come, which <i>ere</i> come it had loudly claimed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I to let it be so still? For truly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The need exists, I know; the wish but sleeps</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Sleeps, and anon will wake and cry for food);</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to put by these unreturning gifts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because the feeling is not with me now,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seems folly more than merest babyhood’s.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But must I then do violence to myself,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And push on nature, force desire (that’s ill),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because of knowledge? which is great, but works</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By rules of large exception; to tell which</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nought is more fallible than mere caprice.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">What need for action yet? I am happy now,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I feel no lack—what cause is there for haste?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I not happy? is not that enough?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Depart!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> O yes! you thought you had escaped, no doubt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This worldly fiend that follows you about,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This compound of convention and impiety,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This mongrel of uncleanness and propriety.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What else were bad enough? but, let me say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I too have my <i>grandes manières</i> in my way;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could speak high sentiment as well as you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And out-blank-verse you without much ado;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have my religion also in my kind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For dreaming unfit, because not designed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What! you know not that I too can be serious,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can speak big words, and use the tone imperious;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can speak, not honiedly, of love and beauty,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But sternly of a something much like duty.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, do you look surprised? were never told,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps, that all that glitters is not gold.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Devil oft the Holy Scripture uses,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But God can act the Devil when He chooses.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell! But, <i>verbum sapienti satis</i>—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I do not make this revelation gratis.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell: beware!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Ill spirits can quote holy books I knew;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What will they <i>not</i> say? what not dare to do?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Beware, beware!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> What, loitering still? Still, O foul spirit, there?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go hence, I tell thee, go! I <i>will</i> beware.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(<i>Alone.</i>) It must be then. I feel it in my soul;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The iron enters, sundering flesh and bone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And sharper than the two-edged sword of God.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I come into deep waters—help, O help!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The floods run over me.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Therefore, farewell! a long and last farewell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye pious sweet simplicities of life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Good books, good friends, and holy moods, and all</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That lent rough life sweet Sunday seeming rests,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Making earth heaven-like. Welcome, wicked world,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The hardening heart, the calculating brain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Narrowing its doors to thought, the lying lips,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The calm-dissembling eyes; the greedy flesh,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The world, the Devil—welcome, welcome, welcome!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> (<i>from within.</i>) This stern necessity of things</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On every side our being rings;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our sallying eager actions fall</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Vainly against that iron wall.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Where once her finger points the way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The wise thinks only to obey;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take life as she has ordered it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And come what may of it, submit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Submit, submit!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Who take implicitly her will,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For these her vassal chances still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bring store of joys, successes, pleasures;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But whoso ponders, weighs, and measures,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She calls her torturers up to goad</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With spur and scourges on the road;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He does at last with pain whate’er</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He spurned at first. Of such, beware,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beware, beware!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> O God, O God! The great floods of the soul</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flow over me! I come into deep waters</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where no ground is!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Don’t be the least afraid;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There’s not the slightest reason for alarm;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I only meant by a perhaps rough shake</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To rouse you from a dreamy, unhealthy sleep.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up, then—up, and be going: the large world,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The thronged life waits us.</div> - <div class="verse indent28">Come, my pretty boy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You have been making mows to the blank sky</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quite long enough for good. We’ll put you up</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into the higher form. ’Tis time you learn</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Second Reverence, for things around.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up, then, and go amongst them; don’t be timid;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look at them quietly a bit: by-and-by</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Respect will come, and healthy appetite.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So let us go.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span> - <div class="verse indent14">How now! not yet awake?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, you will sleep yet, will you! Oh, you shirk,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You try and slink away! You cannot, eh?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nay now, what folly’s this? Why will you fool yourself?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why will you walk about thus with your eyes shut?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Treating for facts the self-made hues that flash</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On tight-pressed pupils, which you know are not facts.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To use the undistorted light of the sun</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is not a crime; to look straight out upon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The big plain things that stare one in the face</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Does not contaminate; to see pollutes not</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What one must feel if one won’t see, what <i>is</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And will be too, howe’er we blink, and must</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One way or other make itself observed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Free walking’s better than being led about; and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What will the blind man do, I wonder, if</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some one should cut the string of his dog? Just think!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What could you do, if I should go away?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Oh, you have paths of your own before you, have you?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What shall it take to? literature, no doubt?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Novels, reviews? or poems! if you please!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The strong fresh gale of life will feel, no doubt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The influx of your mouthful of soft air.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, make the most of that small stock of knowledge</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You’ve condescended to receive from me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That’s your best chance. Oh, you despise that! Oh.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Prate then of passions you have known in dreams,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of huge experience gathered by the eye;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be large of aspiration, pure in hope,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sweet in fond longings, but in all things vague;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Breathe out your dreamy scepticism, relieved</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By snatches of old songs. People will like that, doubtless.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or will you write about philosophy?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For a waste far-off <i>maybe</i> overlooking</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The fruitful <i>is</i> close by, live in metaphysic,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">With transcendental logic fill your stomach,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Schematise joy, effigiate meat and drink;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or, let me see, a mighty work, a volume,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Complemental of the inferior Kant,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Critic of Pure Practice, based upon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Antinomies of the Moral Sense: for, look you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We cannot act without assuming <i>x</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And at the same time <i>y</i>, its contradictory;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ergo, to act. People will buy that, doubtless.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or you’ll perhaps teach youth (I do not question</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some downward turn you may find, some evasion</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the broad highway’s glaring white ascent);</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Teach youth, in a small way, that is, always,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So as to have much time left you for yourself;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This you can’t sacrifice, your leisure’s precious.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heartily you will not take to anything;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whatever happen, don’t I see you still,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Living no life at all? Even as now</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An o’ergrown baby, sucking at the dugs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of instinct, dry long since. Come, come, you are old enough</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For spoon-meat surely.</div> - <div class="verse indent22">Will you go on thus</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Until death end you? if indeed it does.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For what it does, none knows. Yet as for you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You’ll hardly have the courage to die outright;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You’ll somehow halve even it. Methinks I see you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through everlasting limbos of void time,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Twirling and twiddling ineffectively,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And indeterminately swaying for ever.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, come, spoon-meat at any rate.</div> - <div class="verse indent36">Well, well,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will not persecute you more, my friend.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only do think, as I observed before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What can you do, if I should go away?</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Is the hour here, then? Is the minute come—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The irreprievable instant of stern time?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O for a few, few grains in the running glass,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or for some power to hold them! O for a few</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of all that went so wastefully before!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It must be then, e’en now.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> (<i>from within.</i>) It must, it must.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis common sense! and human wit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can claim no higher name than it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Submit, submit!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Necessity! and who shall dare</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bring to <i>her</i> feet excuse or prayer?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beware, beware!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We must, we must.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Howe’er we turn, and pause and tremble—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Howe’er we shrink, deceive, dissemble—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whate’er our doubting, grief, disgust,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The hand is on us, and we must,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We must, we must.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis common sense! and human wit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can find no better name than</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Submit, submit!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene VII.</span>—<i>At Torcello.</i> <i>Dipsychus alone.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> I had a vision; was it in my sleep?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And if it were, what then? But sleep or wake,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I saw a great light open o’er my head;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And sleep or wake, uplifted to that light,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out of that light proceeding heard a voice</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Uttering high words, which, whether sleep or wake,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In me were fixed, and in me must abide.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span> - <div class="verse indent4">When the enemy is near thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent14">Call on us!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In our hands we will upbear thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He shall neither scathe nor scare thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He shall fly thee, and shall fear thee.</div> - <div class="verse indent14">Call on us!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Call when all good friends have left thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of all good sights and sounds bereft thee;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Call when hope and heart are sinking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the brain is sick with thinking,</div> - <div class="verse indent14">Help, O help!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Call, and following close behind thee</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There shall haste, and there shall find thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent14">Help, sure help.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When the panic comes upon thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When necessity seems on thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope and choice have all foregone thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fate and force are closing o’er thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And but one way stands before thee—</div> - <div class="verse indent14">Call on us!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, and if thou dost not call,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be but faithful, that is all.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go right on, and close behind thee</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There shall follow still and find thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent14">Help, sure help.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene VIII.</span>—<i>In the Piazza.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Not for thy service, thou imperious fiend,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not to do thy work, or the like of thine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not to please thee, O base and fallen spirit!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But One Most High, Most True, whom without thee</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It seems I cannot.</div> - <div class="verse indent18">O the misery</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That one must truck and pactise with the world</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">To gain the ’vantage-ground to assail it from,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To set upon the Giant one must first,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O perfidy! have eat the Giant’s bread.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If I submit, it is but to gain time</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And arms and stature: ’tis but to lie safe</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Until the hour strike to arise and slay:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis the old story of the adder’s brood</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feeding and nestling till the fangs be grown.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were it not nobler done, then, to act fair,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To accept the service with the wages, do</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Frankly the devil’s work for the devil’s pay?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, but another my allegiance holds</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Inalienably his. How much soe’er</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I might submit, it must be to rebel.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Submit then sullenly, that’s no dishonour.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet I could deem it better too to starve</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And die untraitored. O, who sent me, though?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sent me, and to do something—O hard master!—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To do a treachery. But indeed ’tis done;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have already taken of the pay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And curst the payer; take I must, curse too.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas! the little strength that I possess</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Derives, I think, of him. So still it is,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The timid child that clung unto her skirts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A boy, will slight his mother, and, grown a man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His father too. There’s Scripture too for that!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do we owe fathers nothing—mothers nought?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is filial duty folly? Yet He says,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘He that loves father, mother more than me;’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, and ‘the man his parents shall desert,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Ordinance says, ‘and cleave unto his wife.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O man, behold thy wife, the hard naked world;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adam, accept thy Eve.</div> - <div class="verse indent26">So still it is,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The tree exhausts the soil; creepers kill it,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Their insects them: the lever finds its fulcrum</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On what it then o’erthrows; the homely spade</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In labour’s hand unscrupulously seeks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Its first momentum on the very clod</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which next will be upturned. It seems a law.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And am not I, though I but ill recall</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My happier age, a kidnapped child of Heaven,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom these uncircumcised Philistines</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have by foul play shorn, blinded, maimed, and kept</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For what more glorious than to make them sport?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wait, then, wait, O my soul! grow, grow, ye locks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then perish they, and if need is, I too.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> (<i>aside.</i>) A truly admirable proceeding!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could there be finer special pleading</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When scruples would be interceding?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There’s no occasion I should stay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He is working out, his own queer way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sum I set him; and this day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will bring it, neither less nor bigger,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exact to my predestined figure.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene IX.</span>—<i>In the Public Garden.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Twenty-one past—twenty-five coming on;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One-third of life departed, nothing done.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out of the mammon of unrighteousness</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That we make friends, the Scripture is express.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My Spirit, come, we will agree;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Content, you’ll take a moiety.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> A moiety, ye gods, he, he!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Three-quarters then? O griping beast;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leave me a decimal at least.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Oh, one of ten! to infect the nine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And make the devil a one be mine!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, one! to jib all day, God wot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When all the rest would go full trot!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One very little one, eh? to doubt with,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Just to pause, think, and look about with?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In course! you counted on no less—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You thought it likely I’d say yes!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Be it then thus—since that it must, it seems.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Welcome, O world, henceforth; and farewell dreams!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet know, Mephisto, know, nor you nor I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can in this matter either sell or buy;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For the fee simple of this trifling lot</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To you or me, trust me, pertaineth not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I can but render what is of my will,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And behind it somewhat remaineth still.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, your sole chance was in the childish mind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose darkness dreamed that vows like this could bind;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thinking all lost, it made all lost, and brought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In fact the ruin which had been but thought.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thank Heaven (or you) that’s past these many years,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And we have knowledge wiser than our fears.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So your poor bargain take, my man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And make the best of it you can.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> With reservations! oh, how treasonable!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When I had let you off so reasonable.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">However, I don’t fear; be it so!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Brutus is honourable, I know;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So mindful of the dues of others,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So thoughtful for his poor dear brothers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So scrupulous, considerate, kind—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He wouldn’t leave the devil behind</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">If he assured him he had claims</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For his good company to hell-flames!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No matter, no matter, the bargain’s made;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I for my part will not be afraid.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With reservations! oh! ho, ho!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But time, my friend, has yet to show</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which of us two will closest fit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The proverb of the Biter Bit.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Tell me thy name, now it is over.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> <span class="hemi18">Oh!</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why, Mephistophiles, you know—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At least you’ve lately called me so;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Belial it was some days ago.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But take your pick; I’ve got a score—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Never a royal baby more.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For a brass plate upon a door</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What think you of <i>Cosmocrator</i>?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Τοὺς κοσμοκράτορας τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And that you are indeed, I do not doubt you.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Ephesians, ain’t it? near the end</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You dropt a word to spare your friend.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What follows, too, in application</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would be absurd exaggeration.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> The Power of this World! hateful unto God.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Cosmarchon’s shorter, but sounds odd:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One wouldn’t like, even if a true devil,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To be taken for a vulgar Jew devil.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Yet in all these things we—’tis Scripture too—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are more than conquerors, even over you.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sp.</i> Come, come, don’t maunder any longer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Time tests the weaker and the stronger;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And we, without procrastination,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must set, you know, to our vocation.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O goodness; won’t you find it pleasant</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To own the positive and present;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To see yourself like people round,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And feel your feet upon the ground! (<i>Exeunt.</i>)</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="center">END OF DIPSYCHUS.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span></p> - -<h3>EPILOGUE TO DIPSYCHUS.</h3> - -<p>‘I don’t very well understand what it’s all about,’ said -my uncle. ‘I won’t say I didn’t drop into a doze while the -young man was drivelling through his latter soliloquies. -But there was a great deal that was unmeaning, vague, and -involved; and what was most plain, was least decent and -least moral.’</p> - -<p>‘Dear sir,’ said I, ‘says the proverb—“Needs must when -the devil drives;” and if the devil is to speak——’</p> - -<p>‘Well,’ said my uncle, ‘why should he? Nobody asked -him. Not that he didn’t say much which, if only it hadn’t -been for the way he said it, and that it was he who said it, -would have been sensible enough.’</p> - -<p>‘But, sir,’ said I, ‘perhaps he wasn’t a devil after all. -That’s the beauty of the poem; nobody can say. You see, -dear sir, the thing which it is attempted to represent is the -conflict between the tender conscience and the world. Now, -the over-tender conscience will, of course, exaggerate the -wickedness of the world; and the Spirit in my poem may be -merely the hypothesis or subjective imagination formed——’</p> - -<p>‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, my dear boy,’ interrupted my -uncle, ‘don’t go into the theory of it. If you’re wrong in it, -it makes bad worse; if you’re right, you may be a critic, but -you can’t be a poet. And then you know very well I don’t -understand all those new words. But as for that, I quite -agree that consciences are much too tender in your generation—schoolboys’ -consciences, too! As my old friend the Canon -says of the Westminster students, “They’re all so pious.” -It’s all Arnold’s doing; he spoilt the public schools.’</p> - -<p>‘My dear uncle,’ said I, ‘how can so venerable a sexagenarian<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span> -utter so juvenile a paradox? How often have I not -heard you lament the idleness and listlessness, the boorishness -and vulgar tyranny, the brutish manners alike, and -minds——’</p> - -<p>‘Ah!’ said my uncle, ‘I may have fallen in occasionally -with the talk of the day; but at seventy one begins to see -clearer into the bottom of one’s mind. In middle life one -says so many things in the way of business. Not that I -mean that the old schools were perfect, any more than we -old boys that were there. But whatever else they were or -did, they certainly were in harmony with the world, and -they certainly did not disqualify the country’s youth for -after-life and the country’s service.’</p> - -<p>‘But, my dear sir, this bringing the schools of the -country into harmony with public opinion is exactly——’</p> - -<p>‘Don’t interrupt me with public opinion, my dear -nephew; you’ll quote me a leading article next. “Young -men must be young men,” as the worthy head of your college -said to me touching a case of rustication. “My dear sir,” -said I, “I only wish to heaven they would be; but as for -my own nephews, they seem to me a sort of hobbadi-hoy -cherub, too big to be innocent, and too simple for anything -else. They’re full of the notion of the world being so wicked -and of their taking a higher line, as they call it. I only -fear they’ll never take any line at all.” What is the true -purpose of education? Simply to make plain to the young -understanding the laws of the life they will have to enter. -For example—that lying won’t do, thieving still less; that -idleness will get punished; that if they are cowards, the -whole world will be against them; that if they will have -their own way, they must fight for it. As for the conscience, -mamma, I take it—such as mammas are now-a-days, at any -rate—has probably set that agoing fast enough already. -What a blessing to see her good little child come back a -brave young devil-may-care!’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span></p> - -<p>‘Exactly, my dear sir. As if at twelve or fourteen a -roundabout boy, with his three meals a day inside him, is -likely to be over-troubled with scruples.’</p> - -<p>‘Put him through a strong course of confirmation and -sacraments, backed up with sermons and private admonitions, -and what is much the same as auricular confession, and -really, my dear nephew, I can’t answer for it but he mayn’t -turn out as great a goose as you—pardon me—<i>were</i> about -the age of eighteen or nineteen.’</p> - -<p>‘But to have passed <i>through</i> that, my dear sir! surely -that can be no harm.’</p> - -<p>‘I don’t know. Your constitutions don’t seem to recover -it, quite. We did without these foolish measles well -enough in my time.’</p> - -<p>‘Westminster had its Cowper, my dear sir; and other -schools had theirs also, mute and inglorious, but surely not -few.’</p> - -<p>‘Ah, ah! the beginning of troubles——’</p> - -<p>‘You see, my dear sir, you must not refer it to -Arnold, at all at all. Anything that Arnold did in this -direction——’</p> - -<p>‘Why, my dear boy, how often have I not heard from -you, how he used to attack offences, not as offences—the -right view—against discipline, but as sin, heinous guilt, I -don’t know what beside! Why didn’t he flog them and hold -his tongue? Flog them he did, but why preach?’</p> - -<p>‘If he did err in this way, sir, which I hardly think, I -ascribe it to the spirit of the time. The real cause of the -evil you complain of, which to a certain extent I admit, was, -I take it, the religious movement of the last century, -beginning with Wesleyanism, and culminating at last in -Puseyism. This over-excitation of the religious sense, -resulting in this irrational, almost animal irritability of -consciences, was, in many ways, as foreign to Arnold as it is -proper to——’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span></p> - -<p>‘Well, well, my dear nephew, if you like to make a -theory of it, pray write it out for yourself nicely in full; -but your poor old uncle does not like theories, and is moreover -sadly sleepy.’</p> - -<p>‘Good night, dear uncle, good night. Only let me say -you six more verses.’</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="DIPSYCHUS_CONTINUED"><i>DIPSYCHUS CONTINUED.</i><br /> -A FRAGMENT.</h2> - -</div> - -<p class="center">[<i>An interval of thirty years.</i>]</p> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span>—<i>In London. Dipsychus in his Study.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Dipsychus.</i> O God! O God! and must I still go on</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doing this work—I know not, hell’s or thine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And these rewards receiving—sure not thine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The adulation of a foolish crowd,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Half foolish and half greedy; upright judge—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lawyer acute—the Mansfield and the Hale</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In one united to bless modern Courts.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O God! O God! According to the law,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With solemn face to solemn sentence fit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doing the justice that is but half just;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Punishing wrong that is not truly wrong!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Administering, alas, God! not Thy law.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse center">(<i>Knock at the door.</i>)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What? Is the hour already for the Court?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come in. Now, Lord Chief Justice, to thy work.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse center">(<i>Enter a Servant.</i>)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Serv.</i> My lord, a woman begging to be seen.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> A woman begging to be seen? What’s this?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis not the duty of your post, my friend,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To give admittance on the busy days</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of a hard labourer in this great world</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To all poor creatures begging to be seen.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something unusual in it? Bid her wait</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">In the room below, I’ll see her as I pass.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is the horse there?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Serv.</i> He’s coming round, my lord.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Say I will see her as I pass. (<i>Exit Servant.</i>)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have but one way left; but that one way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On which once entered, there is no return;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And as there’s no return, no looking back,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Amidst the smoky tumult of this field</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whereon, enlisted once, in arms we stand,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor know, nor e’en remotely can divine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sense, or purport, or the probable end,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One only guide to our blind work we keep,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To obey orders, and to fight it out.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Some hapless sad petitioner, no doubt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With the true plaintiveness of real distress,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Twisting her misery to a marketable lie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To waste my close-shorn interval of rest.</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>She</i> came upon me in my weaker thoughts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Those weaker thoughts that still indeed recur,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But come, my servants, at a word to go.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse center">(<i>Enter Woman.</i>)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What is it? what have you to say to me?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who are you?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wom.</i> Once you knew me well enough.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Oh, you! I had been told that you were dead.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wom.</i> So your creatures said;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I shall live, I think, till you die too.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> What do you want? Money, subsistence, bread?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wom.</i> I wanted bread, money, all things, ’tis true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But wanted, above all things, to see you.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> This cannot be. What has been done is o’er.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You have no claim or right against me more;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have dealt justly with you to the uttermost.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wom.</i> I did not come to say you were unjust—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I came to see you only.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> <span class="hemi9">Hear me now.</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Remember, it was not the marriage vow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor promise e’er of chaste fidelity,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That joined us thirty years ago in a tie</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which I, I think, scarce sought. It was not I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That took your innocence; you spoiled me of mine.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet, as though the vow had been divine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was I not faithful? Were you so to me?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had you been white in spotless purity,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could I have clung to you more faithfully?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I left you, after wrongs I blush with shame</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en now through all my fifty years to name.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I left you; yet I stinted still my ease,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Curtailed my pleasures—toil still extra toil,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To repay you for what you never gave.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it not true?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wom.</i> <span class="hemi4">Go on, say all and more.</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon this body, as the basis, lies</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The ladder that has raised you to the skies.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> Is that so much? am I indeed so high?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I not rather</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The slave and servant of the wretched world,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Liveried and finely dressed—yet all the same</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A menial and lacquey seeking place</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For hire, and for his hire’s sake doing work?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wom.</i> I do not know; you have wife and child I know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Domestic comfort and a noble name,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And people speak in my ears too your praise.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O man, O man! do you not know in your heart</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was for this you came to me—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was for this I took you to my breast?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O man, man, man!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You come to us with your dalliance in the street,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You pay us with your miserable gold,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You do not know how in the——</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> (<i>looks at his watch</i>). You must go now. Justice</div> - <div class="verse indent0">calls me elsewhere;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Justice—might keep you here.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You may return again; stay, let me see—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Six weeks to-morrow you shall see me again;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now you must go. Do you need money? here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is your due: take it, that you may live;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And see me, six weeks from to-morrow, elsewhere.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wom.</i> <span class="hemi8">I will not go;</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">You must stay here and hear me, or I shall die!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It were ill for you that I should.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> <span class="hemi6">What! shall the nation wait?</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Woman, if I have wronged you, it was for good—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Good has come of it. Lo, I have done some work.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over the blasted and the blackened spot</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of our unhappy and unhallowed deed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have raised a mausoleum of such acts</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As in this world do honour unto me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But in the next to thee.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wom.</i> <span class="hemi10">Hear me, I cannot go!</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> It cannot be; the court, the nation waits.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is not the work, too, yours?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wom.</i> <span class="hemi11">I go, to die this night!</span></div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> I cannot help it. Duty lies here. Depart!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wom.</i> Listen; before I die, one word! In old times</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You called me Pleasure—my name now is Guilt.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>In Westminster Hall.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>1st Barrister.</i> They say the Lord Chief Justice is unwell;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did you observe how, after that decision</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which all the world admired so, suddenly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He became pale and looked in the air and staggered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As if some phantom floated on his eyes?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He is a strange man.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 2.</i> He is unwell, there is no doubt of that,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But why or how is quite another question.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is odd to find so stern and strong a man</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Give way before he’s sixty. Many a mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Apparently less vigorous than his,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Has kept its full judicial faculty,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And sat the woolsack past threescore and ten.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 3.</i> No business to be done to-day. Have you heard</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Chief Justice is lying dangerously ill?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Apoplexy, paralysis, Heaven knows what—some seizure.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 1.</i> Heavens! that will be a loss indeed!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 2.</i> <span class="hemi19">A loss</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which will be some one’s gain, however.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 1.</i> <span class="hemi13">Not the nation’s,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">If this sage Chancellor give it to ——</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But is he really sure to die, do you think?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 3.</i> A very sudden and very alarming attack.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And now you know to the full as much as I,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or, as I fancy, any lawyer here.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 2.</i> Do you know anything of his early life?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 1.</i> My father knew him at college: a reading man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The quietest of the quiet, shy and timid.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And college honours past,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No one believed he ever would do anything.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 2.</i> He was a moral sort of prig, I’ve heard,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Till he was twenty-five; and even then</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He never entered into life as most men.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That is the reason why he fails so soon.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It takes high feeding and a well-taught conscience</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To breed your mighty hero of the law.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So much the worse for him; so much the better</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For all expectants now.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 3.</i> <span class="hemi8">For ——, for one.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 2.</i> Well, there’ll be several changes, as I think.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not that I think the shock of new promotion</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will vibrate quite perceptibly down here.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There was a story that I once was told,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some woman that they used to tease him with.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 1.</i> He grew too stern for teasing before long;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A man with greater power of what I think</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They call, in some new sense of the word, Repulsion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I think I never saw in all my life.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 2.</i> A most forbidding man in private life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’ve always heard. What’s this new news?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 4.</i> The Lord Chief Justice has resigned.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 1, 2, 3.</i> <span class="hemi12">Is it true?</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Really? Quite certain?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bar. 4.</i> <span class="hemi8">Publicly announced.</span></div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">You’re quite behind. Most probably ere this</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The <i>Times</i> has got it in a new edition.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Scene III.</span>—<i>Dipsychus in his own house, alone.</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> She will come yet, I think, although she said</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She would go hence and die; I cannot tell.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should I have made the nation’s business wait,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That I might listen to an old sad tale</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Uselessly iterated? Ah—ah me!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am grown weak indeed; those old black thoughts</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No more as servants at my bidding go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But as stern tyrants look me in the face,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And mock my reason’s inefficient hand</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That sways to wave them hence.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Serv.</i> You rung, my lord?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Di.</i> <span class="hemi4">Come here, my friend. The woman,</span></div> - <div class="verse indent0">A beggar-woman, whom six weeks ago,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As you remember, you admitted to me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You may admit again if she returns. [<i>Exit Servant.</i></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Will she return? or did she die? I searched</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Newspaper columns through to find a trace</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of some poor corpse discovered in the Thames,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weltering in filth or stranded on the shoals.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘You called me Pleasure once, I now am Guilt.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is that her voice?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Once Pleasure and now Guilt—and after this</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Guilt evermore.’ I hear her voice again.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Once Guilt, but now’—I know not what it says;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some word in some strange language, that my ears</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have never heard, yet seem to long to know.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Once Pleasure and now Guilt, and after this’—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What does she say?—...</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="POEMS_ON_LIFE_AND_DUTY">POEMS ON LIFE AND DUTY.</h2> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span></p> - -<h3><i>DUTY.</i></h3> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Duty—that’s to say, complying</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With whate’er’s expected here;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On your unknown cousin’s dying,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Straight be ready with the tear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon etiquette relying,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto usage nought denying,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lend your waist to be embraced,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Blush not even, never fear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Claims of kith and kin connection,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Claims of manners honour still,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ready money of affection</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Pay, whoever drew the bill.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With the form conforming duly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Senseless what it meaneth truly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go to church—the world require you,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To balls—the world require you too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And marry—papa and mamma desire you,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And your sisters and schoolfellows do.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Duty—’tis to take on trust</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What things are good, and right, and just;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And whether indeed they be or be not,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Try not, test not, feel not, see not:</div> - <div class="verse indent2">’Tis walk and dance, sit down and rise</div> - <div class="verse indent2">By leading, opening ne’er your eyes;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stunt sturdy limbs that Nature gave,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And be drawn in a Bath chair along to the grave.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis the stern and prompt suppressing</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As an obvious deadly sin,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the questing and the guessing</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of the soul’s own soul within:</div> - <div class="verse indent4">’Tis the coward acquiescence</div> - <div class="verse indent6">In a destiny’s behest,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">To a shade by terror made,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Sacrificing, aye, the essence</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Of all that’s truest, noblest, best:</div> - <div class="verse indent4">’Tis the blind non-recognition</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Or of goodness, truth, or beauty,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Save by precept and submission;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Moral blank, and moral void,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Life at very birth destroyed.</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Atrophy, exinanition!</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Duty!</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Yea, by duty’s prime condition</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Pure nonentity of duty!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>LIFE IS STRUGGLE.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To wear out heart, and nerves, and brain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And give oneself a world of pain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be eager, angry, fierce, and hot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Imperious, supple—God knows what,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For what’s all one to have or not;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O false, unwise, absurd, and vain!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For ’tis not joy, it is not gain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is not in itself a bliss,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only it is precisely this</div> - <div class="verse indent4">That keeps us all alive.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To say we truly feel the pain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And quite are sinking with the strain;—</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Entirely, simply, undeceived,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Believe, and say we ne’er believed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The object, e’en were it achieved,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A thing we e’er had cared to keep;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With heart and soul to hold it cheap,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And then to go and try it again;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O false, unwise, absurd, and vain!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, ’tis not joy, and ’tis not bliss,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only it is precisely this</div> - <div class="verse indent4">That keeps us still alive.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>IN THE GREAT METROPOLIS.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Each for himself is still the rule;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We learn it when we go to school—</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The devil take the hindmost, O!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And when the schoolboys grow to men,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In life they learn it o’er again—</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The devil take the hindmost, O!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">For in the church, and at the bar,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On ’Change, at court, where’er they are,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The devil takes the hindmost, O!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Husband for husband, wife for wife,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are careful that in married life</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The devil takes the hindmost, O!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">From youth to age, whate’er the game,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The unvarying practice is the same—</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The devil takes the hindmost, O!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And after death, we do not know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But scarce can doubt, where’er we go,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The devil takes the hindmost, O!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ti rol de rol, ti rol de ro,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The devil take the hindmost, O!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>THE LATEST DECALOGUE.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt have one God only; who</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would be at the expense of two?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No graven images may be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Worshipped, except the currency:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Swear not at all; for, for thy curse</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thine enemy is none the worse:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At church on Sunday to attend</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will serve to keep the world thy friend:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Honour thy parents; that is, all</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From whom advancement may befall;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt not kill; but need’st not strive</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Officiously to keep alive:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do not adultery commit;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Advantage rarely comes of it:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When it’s so lucrative to cheat:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bear not false witness; let the lie</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have time on its own wings to fly:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt not covet, but tradition</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Approves all forms of competition.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE QUESTIONING SPIRIT.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The human spirits saw I on a day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sitting and looking each a different way;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And hardly tasking, subtly questioning,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Another spirit went around the ring</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To each and each: and as he ceased his say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Each after each, I heard them singly sing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We know not—what avails to know?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We know not—wherefore need we know?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This answer gave they still unto his suing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We know not, let us do as we are doing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dost thou not know that these things only seem?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not, let me dream my dream.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are dust and ashes fit to make a treasure?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not, let me take my pleasure.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What shall avail the knowledge thou hast sought?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not, let me think my thought.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is the end of strife?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not, let me live my life.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How many days or e’er thou mean’st to move?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not, let me love my love.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were not things old once new?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not, let me do as others do.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when the rest were over past,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not, I will do my duty, said the last.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Thy duty do? rejoined the voice,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, do it, do it, and rejoice;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But shalt thou then, when all is done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Enjoy a love, embrace a beauty</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Like these, that may be seen and won</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In life, whose course will then be run;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or wilt thou be where there is none?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not, I will do my duty.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And taking up the word around, above, below,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We know not, sang they all, nor ever need we know;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We know not, sang they, what avails to know?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whereat the questioning spirit, some short space,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though unabashed, stood quiet in his place.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But as the echoing chorus died away</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to their dreams the rest returned apace,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By the one spirit I saw him kneeling low,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in a silvery whisper heard him say:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Truly, thou know’st not, and thou need’st not know;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope only, hope thou, and believe alway;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I also know not, and I need not know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only with questionings pass I to and fro,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Perplexing these that sleep, and in their folly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Imbreeding doubt and sceptic melancholy;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Till that, their dreams deserting, they with me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come all to this true ignorance and thee.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1847</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>BETHESDA.</i><br /> -A SEQUEL.</h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I saw again the spirits on a day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where on the earth in mournful case they lay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Five porches were there, and a pool, and round,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Huddling in blankets, strewn upon the ground,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tied-up and bandaged, weary, sore and spent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The maimed and halt, diseased and impotent.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">For a great angel came, ’twas said, and stirred</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The pool at certain seasons, and the word</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was, with this people of the sick, that they</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who in the waters here their limbs should lay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Before the motion on the surface ceased</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should of their torment straightway be released.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So with shrunk bodies and with heads down-dropt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stretched on the steps, and at the pillars propt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Watching by day and listening through the night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They filled the place, a miserable sight.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And I beheld that on the stony floor</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He too, that spoke of duty once before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No otherwise than others here to-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Foredone and sick and sadly muttering lay.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘I know not, I will do—what is it I would say?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What was that word which once sufficed alone for all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which now I seek in vain, and never can recall?’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And then, as weary of in vain renewing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His question, thus his mournful thought pursuing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘I know not, I must do as other men are doing.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But what the waters of that pool might be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of Lethe were they, or Philosophy;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And whether he, long waiting, did attain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Deliverance from the burden of his pain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There with the rest; or whether, yet before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some more diviner stranger passed the door</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With his small company into that sad place,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And breathing hope into the sick man’s face,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bade him take up his bed, and rise and go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What the end were, and whether it were so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Further than this I saw not, neither know.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1849</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span></p> - -<h3><i>HOPE EVERMORE AND BELIEVE!</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope evermore and believe, O man, for e’en as thy thought</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So are the things that thou see’st; e’en as thy hope and belief.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cowardly art thou and timid? they rise to provoke thee against them;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hast thou courage? enough, see them exulting to yield.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, the rough rock, the dull earth, the wild sea’s furying waters</div> - <div class="verse indent2">(Violent say’st thou and hard, mighty thou think’st to destroy),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All with ineffable longing are waiting their Invader,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">All, with one varying voice, call to him, Come and subdue;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still for their Conqueror call, and, but for the joy of being conquered</div> - <div class="verse indent2">(Rapture they will not forego), dare to resist and rebel;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still, when resisting and raging, in soft undervoice say unto him,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Fear not, retire not, O man; hope evermore and believe.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Go from the east to the west, as the sun and the stars direct thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Go with the girdle of man, go and encompass the earth.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not for the gain of the gold; for the getting, the hoarding, the having,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But for the joy of the deed; but for the Duty to do.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go with the spiritual life, the higher volition and action,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With the great girdle of God, go and encompass the earth.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Go; say not in thy heart, And what then were it accomplished,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Were the wild impulse allayed, what were the use or the good!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, when the instinct is stilled, and when the deed is accomplished,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What thou hast done and shalt do, shall be declared to thee then.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy spirit</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Say to thyself: It is good: yet is there better than it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>BLESSED ARE THEY THAT HAVE NOT SEEN!</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O happy they whose hearts receive</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The implanted word with faith; believe</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because their fathers did before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because they learnt, and ask no more.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">High triumphs of convictions wrought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And won by individual thought;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The joy, delusive oft, but keen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of having with our own eyes seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What if they have not felt nor known</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An amplitude instead they own,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By no self-binding ordinance prest</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To toil in labour they detest:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By no deceiving reasoning tied</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or this or that way to decide.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O happy they! above their head</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The glory of the unseen is spread;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their happy heart is free to range</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thro’ largest tracts of pleasant change;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their intellects encradled lie</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In boundless possibility.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For impulses of varying kinds</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Ancient Home a lodging finds:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Each appetite our nature breeds,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It meets with viands for its needs.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh happy they! nor need they fear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The wordy strife that rages near:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All reason wastes by day, and more,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will instinct in a night restore.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O happy, so their state but give</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A clue by which a man can live;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O blest, unless ’tis proved by fact</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A dream impossible to act.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>COLD COMFORT.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, will it, when our hairs are grey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And wintry suns half light the day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which cheering hope and strengthening trust</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have left, departed, turned to dust,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, will it soothe lone years to extract</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From fitful shows with sense exact</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their sad residuum, small, of fact?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will trembling nerves their solace find</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In plain conclusions of the mind?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or errant fancies fond, that still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To fretful motions prompt the will,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Repose upon effect and cause,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And action of unvarying laws,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And human life’s familiar doom,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And on the all-concluding tomb?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Or were it to our kind and race,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And our instructive selves, disgrace</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To wander then once more in you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Green fields, beneath the pleasant blue;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">To dream as we were used to dream,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And let things be whate’er they seem?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O feeble shapes of beggars grey</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That, tottering on the public way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Die out in doting, dim decay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it to you when all is past</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our would-be wisdom turns at last?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>SEHNSUCHT.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Whence are ye, vague desires,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Which carry men along,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">However proud and strong;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Which, having ruled to-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To-morrow pass away?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whence are ye, vague desires?</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Whence are ye?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Which women, yielding to,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Find still so good and true;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So true, so good to-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To-morrow gone away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whence are ye, vague desires?</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Whence are ye?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">From seats of bliss above,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Where angels sing of love;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From subtle airs around,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Or from the vulgar ground,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whence are ye, vague desires?</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Whence are ye?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">A message from the blest,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Or bodily unrest;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">A call to heavenly good,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A fever in the blood:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What are ye, vague desires?</div> - <div class="verse indent4">What are ye?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Which men who know you best</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Are proof against the least,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And rushing on to-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To-morrow cast away.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What are ye, vague desires?</div> - <div class="verse indent4">What are ye?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Which women, ever new,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Still warned, surrender to;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Adored with you to-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Then cast with you away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What are ye, vague desires?</div> - <div class="verse indent4">What are ye?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Which unto boyhood’s heart</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The force of man impart,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And pass, and leave it cold,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And prematurely old,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What are ye, vague desires?</div> - <div class="verse indent4">What are ye?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Which, tremblingly confest,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Pour in the young girl’s breast</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Joy, joy—the like is none,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And leave her then undone—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What are ye, vague desires?</div> - <div class="verse indent4">What are ye?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Ah yet! though man be marred,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ignoble made, and hard;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">Though broken women lie</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In anguish down to die;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah yet! ye vague desires,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Ah yet!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">By Him who gave you birth,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And blended you with earth,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Was some good end designed</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For man and womankind;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah yet! ye vague desires,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Ah yet!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">The petals of to-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To-morrow fallen away,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Shall something leave instead,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To live when they are dead;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When you, ye vague desires,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Have vanished;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">A something to survive,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of you though it derive</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Apparent earthly birth,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But of far other worth</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than you, ye vague desires,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Than you.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>HIGH AND LOW.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The grasses green of sweet content</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That spring, no matter high or low,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where’er a living thing can grow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On chilly hills and rocky rent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And by the lowly streamlet’s side—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh! why did e’er I turn from these?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The lordly, tall, umbrageous trees,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That stand in high aspiring pride,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">With massive bulk on high sustain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A world of boughs with leaf and fruits,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And drive their wide-extending roots</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Deep down into the subject plain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, what with these had I to do?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That germs of things above their kind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May live, pent up and close confined</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In humbler forms, it may be true;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet great is that which gives our lot;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">High laws and powers our will transcend</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And not for this, till time do end,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall any be what he is not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Each in its place, as each was sent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Just nature ranges side by side;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alike the oak tree’s lofty pride</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And grasses green of sweet content.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>ALL IS WELL.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Whate’er you dream with doubt possest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Keep, keep it snug within your breast,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lay you down and take your rest;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forget in sleep the doubt and pain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when you wake, to work again.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The wind it blows, the vessel goes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And where and whither, no one knows.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twill all be well: no need of care;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though how it will, and when, and where,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We cannot see, and can’t declare.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In spite of dreams, in spite of thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis not in vain, and not for nought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The wind it blows, the ship it goes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though where and whither, no one knows.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span></p> - -<h3><i>πάντα ῥεῖ· οὐδὲν μένει.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the water, in the boat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I sit and sketch as down I float:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The stream is wide, the view is fair,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I sketch it looking backward there.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The stream is strong, and as I sit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And view the picture that we quit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It flows and flows, and bears the boat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I sit sketching as we float.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Each pointed height, each wavy line,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To new and other forms combine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Proportions vary, colours fade,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all the landscape is remade.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Depicted neither far nor near,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And larger there and smaller here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And varying down from old to new,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en I can hardly think it true.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet still I look, and still I sit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adjusting, shaping, altering it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And still the current bears the boat</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And me, still sketching as I float.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Still as I sit, with something new</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The foreground intercepts my view;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even the distant mountain range</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From the first moment suffers change.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE STREAM OF LIFE.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O stream descending to the sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Thy mossy banks between,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The flow’rets blow, the grasses grow,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The leafy trees are green.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">In garden plots the children play,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The fields the labourers till,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And houses stand on either hand,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And thou descendest still.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O life descending into death,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Our waking eyes behold,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Parent and friend thy lapse attend,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Companions young and old.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Strong purposes our mind possess,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Our hearts affections fill,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We toil and earn, we seek and learn,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And thou descendest still.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O end to which our currents tend,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Inevitable sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To which we flow, what do we know,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What shall we guess of thee?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A roar we hear upon thy shore,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As we our course fulfil;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scarce we divine a sun will shine</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And be above us still.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span></p> - -<h3><i>IN A LONDON SQUARE.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">East wind and frost are safely gone;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With zephyr mild and balmy rain</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The summer comes serenely on;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Earth, air, and sun and skies combine</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To promise all that’s kind and fair:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But thou, O human heart of mine,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Be still, contain thyself, and bear.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">December days were brief and chill,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The winds of March were wild and drear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, nearing and receding still,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Spring never would, we thought, be here.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The leaves that burst, the suns that shine,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Had, not the less, their certain date:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And thou, O human heart of mine,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Be still, refrain thyself, and wait.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_BOTHIE"><span class="smaller">THE</span><br /> -BOTHIE OF TOBER-NA-VUOLICH:<br /> -<span class="smaller">A LONG-VACATION PASTORAL.</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent8"><i>Nunc formosissimus annus</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ite meæ felix quondam pecus, ite camenæ.</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE BOTHIE OF TOBER-NA-VUOLICH.</i></h3> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Socii cratera coronant.</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">It was the afternoon; and the sports were now at the ending.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Long had the stone been put, tree cast, and thrown the hammer;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up the perpendicular hill, Sir Hector so called it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eight stout gillies had run, with speed and agility wondrous;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Run too the course on the level had been; the leaping was over:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Last in the show of dress, a novelty recently added,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Noble ladies their prizes adjudged for costume that was perfect,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Turning the clansmen about, as they stood with upraised elbows;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bowing their eye-glassed brows, and fingering kilt and sporran.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was four of the clock, and the sports were come to the ending,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Therefore the Oxford party went off to adorn for the dinner.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Be it recorded in song who was first, who last, in dressing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope was first, black-tied, white-waistcoated, simple, His Honour;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For the postman made out he was heir to the earldom of Ilay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Being the younger son of the younger brother, the Colonel),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Treated him therefore with special respect; doffed bonnet, and ever</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Called him His Honour: His Honour he therefore was at the cottage;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Always His Honour at least, sometimes the Viscount of Ilay.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Hope was first, His Honour, and next to His Honour the Tutor.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still more plain the Tutor, the grave man, nicknamed Adam,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">White-tied, clerical, silent, with antique square-cut waistcoat</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Formal, unchanged, of black cloth, but with sense and feeling beneath it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Skilful in Ethics and Logic, in Pindar and Poets unrivalled;</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Shady</i> in Latin, said Lindsay, but <i>topping</i> in Plays and Aldrich.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">Somewhat more splendid in dress, in a waistcoat work of a lady,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lindsay succeeded; the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving Lindsay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lindsay the ready of speech, the Piper, the Dialectician,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This was his title from Adam because of the words he invented,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who in three weeks had created a dialect new for the party;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This was his title from Adam, but mostly they called him the Piper.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lindsay succeeded, the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving Lindsay.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Hewson and Hobbes were down at the <i>matutine</i> bathing; of course too</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Arthur, the bather of bathers, <i>par excellence</i>, Audley by surname,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Arthur they called him for love and for euphony; they had been bathing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into a granite basin the amber torrent descended,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only a step from the cottage, the road and larches between them.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hewson and Hobbes followed quick upon Adam; on them followed Arthur.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Airlie descended the last, effulgent as god of Olympus;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Blue, perceptibly blue, was the coat that had white silk facings,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Waistcoat blue, coral-buttoned, the white tie finely adjusted,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Coral moreover the studs on a shirt as of crochet of women:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the fourwheel for ten minutes already had stood at the gateway,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He, like a god, came leaving his ample Olympian chamber.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And in the fourwheel they drove to the place of the clansmen’s meeting.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So in the fourwheel they came; and Donald the innkeeper showed them</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up to the barn where the dinner should be. Four tables were in it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Two at the top and the bottom, a little upraised from the level,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These for Chairman and Croupier, and gentry fit to be with them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Two lengthways in the midst for keeper and gillie and peasant.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here were clansmen many in kilt and bonnet assembled,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Keepers a dozen at least; the Marquis’s targeted gillies;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pipers five or six, among them the young one, the drunkard;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Many with silver brooches, and some with those brilliant crystals</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Found amid granite-dust on the frosty scalp of the Cairn-Gorm;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But with snuff-boxes all, and all of them using the boxes.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here too were Catholic Priest, and Established Minister standing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Catholic Priest; for many still clung to the Ancient Worship,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Sir Hector’s father himself had built them a chapel;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So stood Priest and Minister, near to each other, but silent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One to say grace before, the other after the dinner.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hither anon too came the shrewd, ever-ciphering Factor,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hither anon the Attaché, the Guardsman mute and stately,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hither from lodge and bothie in all the adjoining shootings</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Members of Parliament many, forgetful of votes and bluebooks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here, amid heathery hills, upon beast and bird of the forest</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Venting the murderous spleen of the endless Railway Committee.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hither the Marquis of Ayr, and Dalgarnish Earl and Croupier,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And at their side, amid murmurs of welcome, long looked-for, himself too</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eager, the grey, but boy-hearted Sir Hector, the Chief and the Chairman.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Then was the dinner served, and the Minister prayed for a blessing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to the viands before them with knife and with fork they beset them:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Venison, the red and the roe, with mutton; and grouse succeeding;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such was the feast, with whisky of course, and at top and bottom</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Small decanters of sherry, not overchoice, for the gentry.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So to the viands before them with laughter and chat they beset them.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, when on flesh and on fowl had appetite duly been sated,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up rose the Catholic Priest and returned God thanks for the dinner.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then on all tables were set black bottles of well-mixed toddy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, with the bottles and glasses before them, they sat, digesting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Talking, enjoying, but chiefly awaiting the toasts and speeches.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Spare me, O great Recollection! for words to the task were unequal,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Spare me, O mistress of Song! nor bid me remember minutely</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">All that was said and done o’er the well-mixed tempting toddy;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How were healths proposed and drunk ‘with all the honours,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Glasses and bonnets waving, and three-times-three thrice over,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Queen, and Prince, and Army, and Landlords all, and Keepers;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bid me not, grammar defying, repeat from grammar-defiers</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Long constructions strange and plusquam-Thucydidean;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tell how, as sudden torrent in time of speat<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> in the mountain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hurries six ways at once, and takes at last to the roughest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or as the practised rider at Astley’s or Franconi’s</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Skilfully, boldly bestrides many steeds at once in the gallop,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Crossing from this to that, with one leg here, one yonder,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So, less skilful, but equally bold, and wild as the torrent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All through sentences six at a time, unsuspecting of syntax,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hurried the lively good-will and garrulous tale of Sir Hector.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Left to oblivion be it, the memory, faithful as ever,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How the Marquis of Ayr, with wonderful gesticulation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Floundering on through game and mess-room recollections,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gossip of neighbouring forest, praise of targeted gillies,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Anticipation of royal visit, skits at pedestrians,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Swore he would never abandon his country, nor give up deer-stalking;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How, too, more brief, and plainer, in spite of the Gaelic accent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Highland peasants gave courteous answer to flattering nobles.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Two orations alone the memorial song will render;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For at the banquet’s close spake thus the lively Sir Hector,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somewhat husky with praises exuberant, often repeated,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pleasant to him and to them, of the gallant Highland soldiers</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom he erst led in the fight;—something husky, but ready, though weary,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up to them rose and spoke the grey but gladsome chieftain:—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Fill up your glasses, my friends, once more,—With all the honours!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There was a toast I forgot, which our gallant Highland homes have</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Always welcomed the stranger, delighted, I may say, to see such</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Fine young men at my table—My friends! are you ready? the Strangers.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gentlemen, here are your healths,—and I wish you—With all the honours!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So he said, and the cheers ensued, and all the honours,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All our Collegians were bowed to, the Attaché detecting His Honour,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Guardsman moving to Arthur, and Marquis sidling to Airlie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the small Piper below getting up and nodding to Lindsay.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But, while the healths were being drunk, was much tribulation and trouble,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nodding and beckoning across, observed of Attaché and Guardsman:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adam wouldn’t speak,—indeed it was certain he couldn’t;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hewson could, and would if they wished; Philip Hewson a poet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hewson a radical hot, hating lords and scorning ladies,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Silent mostly, but often reviling in fire and fury</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feudal tenures, mercantile lords, competition and bishops,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Liveries, armorial bearings, amongst other matters the Game-laws:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He could speak, and was asked to by Adam; but Lindsay aloud cried,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Whisky was hot in his brain,) Confound it, no, not Hewson,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ain’t he cock-sure to bring in his eternal political humbug?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">However, so it must be, and after due pause of silence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Waving his hand to Lindsay, and smiling oddly to Adam,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up to them rose and spoke the poet and radical Hewson:—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I am, I think, perhaps the most perfect stranger present.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have not, as have some of my friends, in my veins some tincture,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some few ounces of Scottish blood; no, nothing like it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am therefore perhaps the fittest to answer and thank you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So I thank you, sir, for myself and for my companions,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heartily thank you all for this unexpected greeting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the more welcome, as showing you do not account us intruders,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are not unwilling to see the north and the south forgather.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, surely, seldom have Scotch and English more thoroughly mingled;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scarcely with warmer hearts, and clearer feeling of manhood,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even in tourney, and foray, and fray, and regular battle.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Where the life and the strength came out in the tug and tussle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scarcely, where man met man, and soul encountered with soul, as</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Close as do the bodies and twining limbs of the wrestlers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When for a final bout are a day’s two champions mated,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the grand old times of bows, and bills, and claymores,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At the old Flodden-field—or Bannockburn—or Culloden.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">—(And he paused a moment, for breath, and because of some cheering,)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We are the better friends, I fancy, for that old fighting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Better friends, inasmuch as we know each other the better,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We can now shake hands without pretending or shuffling.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On this passage followed a great tornado of cheering,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tables were rapped, feet stamped, a glass or two got broken:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He, ere the cheers died wholly away, and while still there was stamping,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Added, in altered voice, with a smile, his doubtful conclusion.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I have, however, less claim than others perhaps to this honour,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For, let me say, I am neither game-keeper, nor game-preserver.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So he said, and sat down, but his satire had not been taken.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only the <i>men</i>, who were all on their legs as concerned in the thanking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were a trifle confused, but mostly sat down without laughing;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lindsay alone, close-facing the chair, shook his fist at the speaker.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only a Liberal member, away at the end of the table,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Started, remembering sadly the cry of a coming election,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only the Attaché glanced at the Guardsman, who twirled his moustachio,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only the Marquis faced round, but, not quite clear of the meaning,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joined with the joyous Sir Hector, who lustily beat on the table.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And soon after the chairman arose, and the feast was over:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now should the barn be cleared and forthwith adorned for the dancing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, to make way for this purpose, the Tutor and pupils retiring</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were by the chieftain addressed and invited to come to the castle.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But ere the door-way they quitted, a thin man clad as the Saxon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Trouser and cap and jacket of homespun blue, hand-woven,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Singled out, and said with determined accent, to Hewson,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Touching his arm: Young man, if ye pass through the Braes o’ Lochaber,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">See by the loch-side ye come to the Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span></p> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Et certamen erat, Corydon cum Thyrside, magnum.</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Morn, in yellow and white, came broadening out from the mountains,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Long ere music and reel were hushed in the barn of the dancers.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Duly in <i>matutine</i> bathed, before eight some two of the party,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into a granite basin the amber torrent descended.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There two plunges each took Philip and Arthur together,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Duly in <i>matutine</i> bathed, and read, and waited for breakfast:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Breakfast commencing at nine, lingered lazily on to noon-day.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Tea and coffee were there; a jug of water for Hewson;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tea and coffee; and four cold grouse upon the sideboard;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gaily they talked, as they sat, some late and lazy at breakfast,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some professing a book, some smoking outside at the window.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By an aurora soft-pouring a still sheeny tide to the zenith,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hewson and Arthur, with Adam, had walked and got home by eleven;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope and the others had stayed till the round sun lighted them bedward.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They of the lovely aurora, but these of the lovelier women</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Spoke—of noble ladies and rustic girls, their partners.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Turned to them Hewson, the Chartist, the poet, the eloquent speaker.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sick of the very names of your Lady Augustas and Floras</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I, as ever I was of the dreary botanical titles</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the exotic plants, their antitypes in the hot-house:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Roses, violets, lilies for me! the out-of-door beauties;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meadow and woodland sweets, forget-me-nots and hearts-ease!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Pausing awhile, he proceeded anon, for none made answer.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, if our high-born girls knew only the grace, the attraction.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Labour, and labour alone, can add to the beauty of women,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Truly the milliner’s trade would quickly, I think, be at discount,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the waste and loss in silk and satin be saved us,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Saved for purposes truly and widely productive——</div> - <div class="verse indent48">That’s right,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Take off your coat to it, Philip, cried Lindsay, outside in the garden,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take off your coat to it, Philip.</div> - <div class="verse indent34">Well, then, said Hewson, resuming;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Laugh if you please at my novel economy; listen to this, though;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As for myself, and apart from economy wholly, believe me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Never I properly felt the relation between men and women,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though to the dancing-master I went perforce, for a quarter,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where, in dismal quadrille, were good-looking girls in abundance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though, too, school-girl cousins were mine—a bevy of beauties—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Never (of course you will laugh, but of course all the same I shall say it),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Never, believe me, I knew of the feelings between men and women,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Till in some village fields in holidays now getting stupid,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One day sauntering ‘long and listless,’ as Tennyson has it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Long and listless strolling, ungainly in hobbadiboyhood,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Chanced it my eye fell aside on a capless, bonnetless maiden,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bending with three-pronged fork in a garden uprooting potatoes.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was it the air? who can say? or herself, or the charm of the labour?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But a new thing was in me; and longing delicious possessed me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Longing to take her and lift her, and put her away from her slaving.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was it embracing or aiding was most in my mind? hard question!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But a new thing was in me; I, too, was a youth among maidens:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was it the air I who can say! but in part ’twas the charm of the labour.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still, though a new thing was in me, the poets revealed themselves to me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in my dreams by Miranda, her Ferdinand, often I wandered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though all the fuss about girls, the giggling and toying and coying,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were not so strange as before, so incomprehensible purely;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still, as before (and as now), balls, dances, and evening parties,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shooting with bows, going shopping together, and hearing them singing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dangling beside them, and turning the leaves on the dreary piano,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Offering unneeded arms, performing dull farces of escort,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seemed like a sort of unnatural up-in-the-air balloon-work</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Or what to me is as hateful, a riding about in a carriage),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Utter removal from work, mother earth, and the objects of living.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hungry and fainting for food, you ask me to join you in snapping—</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">What but a pink-paper comfit, with motto romantic inside it?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wishing to stock me a garden, I’m sent to a table of nosegays;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Better a crust of black bread than a mountain of paper confections,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Better a daisy in earth than a dahlia cut and gathered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Better a cowslip with root than a prize carnation without it.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That I allow, said Adam.</div> - <div class="verse indent28">But he, with the bit in his teeth, scarce</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Breathed a brief moment, and hurried exultingly on with his rider,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far over hillock, and runnel, and bramble, away in the champaign,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Snorting defiance and force, the white foam flecking his flanks, the</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rein hanging loose to his neck, and head projecting before him.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Oh, if they knew and considered, unhappy ones! oh, could they see, could</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for a moment discern, how the blood of true gallantry kindles,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How the old knightly religion, the chivalry semi-quixotic</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stirs in the veins of a man at seeing some delicate woman</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Serving him, toiling—for him, and the world; some tenderest girl, now</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over-weighted, expectant, of him, is it? who shall, if only</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Duly her burden be lightened, not wholly removed from her, mind you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lightened if but by the love, the devotion man only can offer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Grand on her pedestal rise as urn-bearing statue of Hellas;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, could they feel at such moments how man’s heart, as into Eden</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Carried anew, seems to see, like the gardener of earth uncorrupted,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eve from the hand of her Maker advancing, an help meet for him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eve from his own flesh taken, a spirit restored to his spirit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Spirit but not spirit only, himself whatever himself is,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto the mystery’s end sole helpmate meet to be with him;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, if they saw it and knew it; we soon should see them abandon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Boudoir, toilette, carriage, drawing-room, and ball-room,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Satin for worsted exchange, gros-de-naples for plain linsey-woolsey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sandals of silk for clogs, for health lackadaisical fancies!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So, feel women, not dolls; so feel the sap of existence</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Circulate up through their roots from the far-away centre of all things.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Circulate up from the depths to the bud on the twig that is topmost!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, we should see them delighted, delighted ourselves in the seeing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bending with blue cotton gown skirted up over striped linsey-woolsey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Milking the kine in the field, like Rachel, watering cattle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rachel, when at the well the predestined beheld and kissed her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or, with pail upon head, like Dora beloved of Alexis,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comely, with well-poised pail over neck arching soft to the shoulders,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comely in gracefullest act, one arm uplifted to stay it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home from the river or pump moving stately and calm to the laundry;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ay, doing household work, as many sweet girls I have looked at,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Needful household work, which some one, after all, must do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Needful, graceful therefore, as washing, cooking, and scouring,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or, if you please, with the fork in the garden uprooting potatoes.—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Or,—high-kilted perhaps, cried Lindsay, at last successful,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lindsay this long time swelling with scorn and pent-up fury,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or high-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Matching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the wash-tub!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Laughter ensued at this; and seeing the Tutor embarrassed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was from them, I suppose, said Arthur, smiling sedately,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lindsay learnt the tune we all have learnt from Lindsay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>For oh, he was a roguey, the Piper o’ Dundee</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Laughter ensued again; and the Tutor, recovering slowly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Said, Are not these perhaps as doubtful as other attractions?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is a truth in your view, but I think extremely distorted;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still there is a truth, I own, I understand you entirely.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">While the Tutor was gathering his purposes, Arthur continued,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is not all this the same that one hears at common-room breakfasts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or perhaps Trinity wines, about Gothic buildings and Beauty?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And with a start from the sofa came Hobbes; with a cry from the sofa,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where he was laid, the great Hobbes, contemplative, corpulent, witty,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Author forgotten and silent of currentest phrases and fancies,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mute and exuberant by turns, a fountain at intervals playing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mute and abstracted, or strong and abundant as rain in the tropics;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Studious; careless of dress; inobservant; by smooth persuasions</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lately decoyed into kilt on example of Hope and the Piper,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope an Antinoüs mere, Hyperion of calves the Piper.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Beautiful! cried he up-leaping, analogy perfect to madness!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O inexhaustible source of thought, shall I call it, or fancy!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wonderful spring, at whose touch doors fly, what a vista disclosing!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exquisite germ; Ah no, crude fingers shall not soil thee;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rest, lovely pearl, in my brain, and slowly mature in the oyster.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">While at the exquisite pearl they were laughing and corpulent oyster,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, could they only be taught, he resumed, by a Pugin of women,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How even churning and washing, the dairy, the scullery duties,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wait but a touch to redeem and convert them to charms and attractions,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scrubbing requires for true grace but frank and artistical handling,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the removal of slops to be ornamentally treated.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Philip who speaks like a book, (retiring and pausing he added,)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip, here, who speaks—like a folio say’st thou, Piper?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip shall write us a book, a Treatise upon <i>The Laws of</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Architectural Beauty in Application to Women</i>;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Illustrations, of course, and a Parker’s Glossary pendent.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where shall in specimen seen be the sculliony stumpy-columnar</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Which to a reverent taste is perhaps the most moving of any),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rising to grace of true woman in English the Early and Later,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Charming us still in fulfilling the Richer and Loftier stages,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lost, ere we end, in the Lady-Debased and the Lady-Flamboyant:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whence why in satire and spite too merciless onward pursue her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hither to hideous close, Modern-Florid, modern-fine-lady?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, I will leave it to you, my Philip, my Pugin of women.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Leave it to Arthur, said Adam, to think of, and not to play with.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You are young, you know, he said, resuming, to Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You are young, he proceeded, with something of fervour to Hewson.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">You are a boy; when you grow to a man you’ll find things alter.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You will then seek only the good, will scorn the attractive,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scorn all mere cosmetics, as now of rank and fashion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Delicate hands, and wealth, so then of poverty also,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Poverty truly attractive, more truly, I bear you witness.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Good, wherever it’s found, you will choose, be it humble or stately,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Happy if only you find, and finding do not lose it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, we must seek what is good, it always and it only;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not indeed absolute good, good for us, as is said in the Ethics,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That which is good for ourselves, our proper selves, our best selves.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, you have much to learn, we can’t know all things at twenty.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Partly you rest on truth, old truth, the duty of Duty,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Partly on error, you long for equality.</div> - <div class="verse indent40">Ay, cried the Piper,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That’s what it is, that confounded <i>égalité</i>, French manufacture,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He is the same as the Chartist who spoke at a meeting in Ireland,</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>What, and is not one man, fellow-men, as good as another?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Faith</i>, replied Pat, <i>and a deal better too</i>!</div> - <div class="verse indent46">So rattled the Piper:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But undisturbed in his tenor, the Tutor.</div> - <div class="verse indent46">Partly in error</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seeking equality, <i>is not one woman as good as another</i>?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I with the Irishman answer, <i>Yes, better too</i>; the poorer</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Better full oft than richer, than loftier better the lower,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Irrespective of wealth and of poverty, pain and enjoyment,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Women all have their duties, the one as well as the other;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are all duties alike? Do all alike fulfil them?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">However noble the dream of equality, mark you, Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nowhere equality reigns in all the world of creation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Star is not equal to star, nor blossom the same as blossom;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Herb is not equal to herb, any more than planet to planet.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is a glory of daisies, a glory again of carnations;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were the carnation wise, in gay parterre by greenhouse,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should it decline to accept the nurture the gardener gives it,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>[213]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Should it refuse to expand to sun and genial summer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Simply because the field-daisy that grows in the grass-plat beside it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cannot, for some cause or other, develop and be a carnation?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would not the daisy itself petition its scrupulous neighbour?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up, grow, bloom, and forget me; be beautiful even to proudness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en for the sake of myself and other poor daisies like me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Education and manners, accomplishments and refinements,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Waltz, peradventure, and polka, the knowledge of music and drawing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All these things are Nature’s, to Nature dear and precious,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We have all something to do, man, woman alike, I own it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We all have something to do, and in my judgment should do it</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In our station; not thinking about it, but not disregarding;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Holding it, not for enjoyment, but simply because we are in it.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ah! replied Philip, Alas! the noted phrase of the Prayer-book,</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Doing our duty in that state of life to which God has called us</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seems to me always to mean, when the little rich boys say it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Standing in velvet frock by mamma’s brocaded flounces,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eyeing her gold-fastened book and the watch and chain at her bosom,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seems to me always to mean, Eat, drink, and never mind others.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Nay, replied Adam, smiling, so far your economy leads me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Velvet and gold and brocade are nowise to my fancy.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nay, he added, believe me, I like luxurious living</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even as little as you, and grieve in my soul not seldom,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">More for the rich indeed than the poor, who are not so guilty.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So the discussion closed; and, said Arthur, Now it is my turn,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How will my argument please you? To-morrow we start on our travel.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And took up Hope the chorus,</div> - <div class="verse indent34">To-morrow we start on our travel.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, the weather is golden, the weather-glass, say they, rising;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Four weeks here have we read; four weeks will we read hereafter;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three weeks hence will return and think of classes and classics.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fare ye well, meantime, forgotten, unnamed, undreamt of,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">History, Science, and Poets! lo, deep in dustiest cupboard,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>[214]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Thookydid, Oloros’ son, Halimoosian, here lieth buried!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slumber in Liddell-and-Scott, O musical chaff of old Athens,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dishes, and fishes, bird, beast, and sesquipedalian blackguard!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sleep, weary ghosts, be at peace and abide in your lexicon-limbo!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sleep, as in lava for ages your Herculanean kindred,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sleep, for aught that I care, ‘the sleep that knows no waking,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Æschylus, Sophocles, Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, and Plato.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three weeks hence be it time to exhume our dreary classics.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And in the chorus joined Lindsay, the Piper, the Dialectician,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three weeks hence we return to the <i>shop</i> and the <i>wash-hand-stand basin</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0">(These are the Piper’s names for the bathing-place and the cottage).</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three weeks hence unbury <i>Thicksides</i> and <i>hairy</i> Aldrich.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the Tutor inquired, the grave man, nick-named Adam,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who are they that go, and when do they promise returning?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And a silence ensued, and the Tutor himself continued,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Airlie remains, I presume, he continued, and Hobbes and Hewson.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Answer was made him by Philip, the poet, the eloquent speaker:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Airlie remains, I presume, was the answer, and Hobbes, peradventure;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tarry let Airlie May-fairly, and Hobbes, brief-kilted hero,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tarry let Hobbes in kilt, and Airlie ‘abide in his breeches;’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tarry let these, and read, four Pindars apiece an’ it like them!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weary of reading am I, and weary of walks prescribed us;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more weary,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eager to range over heather unfettered of gillie and marquis,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will away with the rest, and bury my dismal classics.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And to the Tutor rejoining, Be mindful; you go up at Easter,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This was the answer returned by Philip, the Pugin of women.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Good are the Ethics I wis; good absolute, not for me, though;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Good, too, Logic, of course; in itself, but not in fine weather.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three weeks hence, with the rain, to Prudence, Temperance, Justice,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Virtues Moral and Mental, with Latin prose included;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three weeks hence we return to cares of classes and classics.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will away with the rest, and bury my dismal classics.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">But the Tutor inquired, the grave man, nick-named Adam,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where do you mean to go, and whom do you mean to visit?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And he was answered by Hope, the Viscount, His Honour, of Ilay.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Kitcat, a Trinity <i>coach</i>, has a party at Drumnadrochet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up on the side of Loch Ness, in the beautiful valley of Urquhart;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mainwaring says they will lodge us, and feed us, and give us a lift too</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only they talk ere long to remove to Glenmorison. Then at</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Castleton, high in Braemar, strange home, with his earliest party,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Harrison, fresh from the schools, has James and Jones and Lauder.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thirdly, a Cambridge man I know, Smith, a senior wrangler,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With a mathematical score hangs-out at Inverary.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Finally, too, from the kilt and the sofa said Hobbes in conclusion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Finally, Philip must hunt for that home of the probable poacher,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hid in the braes of Lochaber, the Bothie of <i>What-did-he-call-it</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hopeless of you and of us, of gillies and marquises hopeless,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more weary,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There shall he, smit by the charm of a lovely potato-uprooter,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Study the question of sex in the Bothie of <i>What-did-he-call-it</i>.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Namque canebat uti——</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So in the golden morning they parted and went to the westward.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in the cottage with Airlie and Hobbes remained the Tutor;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Reading nine hours a day with the Tutor, Hobbes and Airlie;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One between bathing and breakfast, and six before it was dinner</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Breakfast at eight, at four, after bathing again, the dinner),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Finally, two after walking and tea, from nine to eleven.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Airlie and Adam at evening their quiet stroll together</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Took on the terrace-road, with the western hills before them;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hobbes, only rarely a third, now and then in the cottage remaining,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en after dinner, eupeptic, would rush yet again to his reading;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Other times, stung by the œstrum of some swift-working conception,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ranged, tearing on in his fury, an Io-cow through the mountains,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heedless of scenery, heedless of bogs, and of perspiration,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the high peaks, unwitting, the hares and ptarmigan starting.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And the three weeks past, the three weeks, three days over,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nither letter had come, nor casual tidings any,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the pupils grumbled, the Tutor became uneasy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in the golden weather they wondered, and watched to the westward.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">There is a stream (I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourist</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great mountains,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Falling two miles through rowan and stunted alder, enveloped</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then for four more in a forest of pine, where broad and ample</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Spreads, to convey it, the glen with heathery slopes on both sides:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Broad and fair the stream, with occasional falls and narrows;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But, where the glen of its course approaches the vale of the river,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Met and blocked by a huge interposing mass of granite,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scarce by a channel deep-cut, raging up, and raging onward,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forces its flood through a passage so narrow a lady would step it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There, across the great rocky wharves, a wooden bridge goes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Carrying a path to the forest; below, three hundred yards, say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lower in level some twenty-five feet, through flats of shingle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open valley.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But in the interval here the boiling pent-up water</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a basin,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and fury</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful, most of all, where beads of foam uprising</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendent birch boughs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and pathway,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still more enclosed from below by wood and rocky projection.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of water,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the goddess of bathing.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Here, the pride of the plunger, you stride the fall and clear it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here, the delight of the bather, you roll in beaded sparklings,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here into pure green depth drop down from lofty ledges.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Hither, a month agone, they had come, and discovered it; hither</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Long a design, but long unaccountably left unaccomplished),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leaving the well-known bridge and pathway above to the forest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Turning below from the track of the carts over stone and shingle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Piercing a wood, and skirting a narrow and natural causeway</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under the rocky wall that hedges the bed of the streamlet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rounded a craggy point, and saw on a sudden before them</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slabs of rock, and a tiny beach, and perfection of water,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Picture-like beauty, seclusion sublime, and the goddess of bathing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There they bathed, of course, and Arthur, the Glory of headers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leapt from the ledges with Hope, he twenty feet, he thirty;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There, overbold, great Hobbes from a ten-foot height descended,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Prone, as a quadruped, prone with hands and feet protending;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There in the sparkling champagne, ecstatic, they shrieked and shouted.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Hobbes’s gutter’ the Piper entitles the spot, profanely,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope ‘the Glory’ would have, after Arthur, the Glory of headers:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But, for before they departed, in shy and fugitive reflex,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here in the eddies and there did the splendour of Jupiter glimmer;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adam adjudged it the name of Hesperus, star of the evening.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Hither, to Hesperus, now, the star of evening above them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come in their lonelier walk the pupils twain and Tutor;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Turned from the track of the carts, and passing the stone and shingle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Piercing the wood, and skirting the stream by the natural causeway,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rounded the craggy point, and now at their ease looked up; and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, on the rocky ledge, regardant, the Glory of headers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, on the beach, expecting the plunge, not cigarless, the Piper,—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And they looked, and wondered, incredulous, looking yet once more.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, it was he, on the ledge, bare-limbed, an Apollo, down-gazing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eyeing one moment the beauty, the life, ere he flung himself in it,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Eyeing through eddying green waters the green-tinting floor underneath them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eyeing the bead on the surface, the bead, like a cloud rising to it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Drinking-in, deep in his soul, the beautiful hue and the clearness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Arthur, the shapely, the brave, the unboasting, the Glory of headers;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, and with fragrant weed, by his knapsack, spectator and critic,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seated on slab by the margin, the Piper, the Cloud-compeller.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Yes, they were come; were restored to the party, its grace and its gladness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, were here, as of old; the light-giving orb of the household,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Arthur, the shapely, the tranquil, the strength-and-contentment diffusing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the pure presence of whom none could quarrel long, nor be pettish,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, the gay fountain of mirth, their dearly beloved of Pipers;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, they were come, were here: but Hewson and Hope—where they then?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are they behind, travel-sore, or ahead, going straight, by the pathway?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, the Cloud-compeller.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope with the uncle abideth for shooting. Ah me, were I with him!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, good boy that I am, to have stuck to my word and my reading!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Good, good boy to be here, far away, who might be at Balloch!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only one day to have stayed who might have been welcome for seven,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seven whole days in castle and forest—gay in the mazy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Moving, imbibing the rosy, and pointing a gun at the horny!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And the Tutor impatient, expectant, interrupted.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope with the uncle, and Hewson—with him? or where have you left him?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, the Cloud-compeller.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope with the uncle, and Hewson—Why, Hewson we left in Rannoch,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By the lochside and the pines, in a farmer’s house,—reflecting—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Helping to shear,<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> and dry clothes, and bring in peat from the peat-stack.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And the Tutor’s countenance fell; perplexed, dumb-foundered</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stood he,—slow and with pain disengaging jest from earnest.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">He is not far from home, said Arthur from the water,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He will be with us to-morrow, at latest, or the next day.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And he was even more reassured by the Piper’s rejoinder.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can he have come by the mail, and have got to the cottage before us?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So to the cottage they went, and Philip was not at the cottage;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But by the mail was a letter from Hope, who himself was to follow.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Two whole days and nights succeeding brought not Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Two whole days and nights exhausted not question and story.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For it was told, the Piper narrating, corrected of Arthur,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Often by word corrected, more often by smile and motion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How they had been to Iona, to Staffa, to Skye, to Culloden,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seen Loch Awe, Loch Tay, Loch Fyne, Loch Ness, Loch Arkaig,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Been up Ben-nevis, Ben-more, Ben-cruachan, Ben-muick-dhui;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How they had walked, and eaten, and drunken, and slept in kitchens</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slept upon floors of kitchens, and tasted the real Glenlivat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Walked up perpendicular hills, and also down them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hither and thither had been, and this and that had witnessed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Left not a thing to be done, and had not a copper remaining.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For it was told withal, he telling, and he correcting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How in the race they had run, and beaten the gillies of Rannoch,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How in forbidden glens, in Mar and midmost Athol,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip insisting hotly, and Arthur and Hope compliant,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They had defied the keepers; the Piper alone protesting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Liking the fun, it was plain, in his heart, but tender of game-law;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, too, in Meäly glen, the heart of Lochiel’s fair forest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where Scotch firs are darkest and amplest, and intermingle</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Grandly with rowan and ash—in Mar you have no ashes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There the pine is alone, or relieved by the birch and the alder—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How in Meäly glen, while stags were starting before, they</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Made the watcher believe they were guests from Achnacarry.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And there was told moreover, he telling, the other correcting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Often by word, more often by mute significant motion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much of the Cambridge <i>coach</i> and his pupils at Inverary,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Huge barbarian pupils, Expanded in Infinite Series,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>[220]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Firing-off signal guns (great scandal) from window to window</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(For they were lodging perforce in distant and numerous houses),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Signals, when, one retiring, another should go to the Tutor:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much too of Kitcat, of course, and the party at Drumnadrochet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mainwaring, Foley, and Fraser, their idleness horrid and dog-cart;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Drumnadrochet was <i>seedy</i>, Glenmorison <i>adequate</i>, but at</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Castleton, high in Braemar, were the <i>clippingest</i> places for bathing;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One by the bridge in the village, indecent, the <i>Town Hall</i> christened.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where had Lauder howbeit been bathing, and Harrison also,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Harrison even, the Tutor; another like Hesperus here, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up the water of Eye, half-a-dozen at least, all <i>stunners</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And it was told, the Piper narrating and Arthur correcting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Colouring he, dilating, magniloquent, glorying in picture,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He to a matter-of-fact still softening, paring, abating,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He to the great might-have-been upsoaring, sublime and ideal,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He to the merest it-was restricting, diminishing, dwarfing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">River to streamlet reducing, and fall to slope subduing:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So was it told, the Piper narrating, corrected of Arthur,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How under Linn of Dee, where over rocks, between rocks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Freed from prison the river comes, pouring, rolling, rushing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then at a sudden descent goes sliding, gliding, unbroken,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Falling, sliding, gliding, in narrow space collected,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Save for a ripple at last, a sheeted descent unbroken,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How to the element offering their bodies, downshooting the fall, they</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mingled themselves with the flood and the force of imperious water.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And it was told too, Arthur narrating, the Piper correcting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How, as one comes to the level, the weight of the downward impulse</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Carries the head under water, delightful, unspeakable; how the</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Piper, here ducked and blinded, got stray, and borne-off by the current</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wounded his lily-white thighs, below, at the craggy corner.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And it was told, the Piper resuming, corrected of Arthur,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">More by word than motion, change ominous, noted of Adam,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How at the floating-bridge of Laggan, one morning at sunrise,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came, in default of the ferryman, out of her bed a brave lassie;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And as Philip and she together were turning the handles,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Winding the chain by which the boat works over the water</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hands intermingled with hands, and at last, as they stepped from the boatie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Turning about, they saw lips also mingle with lips; but</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That was flatly denied and loudly exclaimed at by Arthur:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How at the General’s hut, the Inn by the Foyers Fall, where</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over the loch looks at you the summit of Méalfourvónie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How here too he was hunted at morning, and found in the kitchen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Watching the porridge being made, pronouncing them smoked for certain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Watching the porridge being made, and asking the lassie that made them</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What was the Gaelic for <i>girl</i>, and what was the Gaelic for <i>pretty</i>;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How in confusion he shouldered his knapsack, yet blushingly stammered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Waving a hand to the lassie, that blushingly bent o’er the porridge,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something outlandish—<i>Slan</i>-something, <i>Slan leat</i>, he believed, <i>Caleg Looach</i>—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That was the Gaelic, it seemed, for ‘I bid you good-bye, bonnie lassie;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Arthur admitted it true, not of Philip, but of the Piper.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And it was told by the Piper, while Arthur looked out at the window,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How in thunder and in rain—it is wetter far to the westward—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thunder and rain and wind, losing heart and road, they were welcomed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Welcomed, and three days detained at a farm by the lochside of Rannoch;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How in the three days’ detention was Philip observed to be smitten,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Smitten by golden-haired Katie, the youngest and comeliest daughter;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was he not seen, even Arthur observed it, from breakfast to bedtime,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Following her motions with eyes ever brightening, softening ever?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did he not fume, fret, and fidget to find her stand waiting at table?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was he not one mere St. Vitus’ dance, when he saw her at nightfall</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go through the rain to fetch peat, through beating rain to the peat-stack?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How too a dance, as it happened, was given by Grant of Glenurchie,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And with the farmer they went as the farmer’s guests to attend it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip stayed dancing till daylight,—and evermore with Katie;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How the whole next afternoon he was with her away in the shearing,<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the next morning ensuing was found in the ingle beside her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Kneeling, picking the peats from her apron,—blowing together,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Both, between laughing, with lips distended, to kindle the embers;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lips were so near to lips, one living cheek to another,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though, it was true, he was shy, very shy,—yet it wasn’t in nature,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wasn’t in nature, the Piper averred, there shouldn’t be kissing;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So when at noon they had packed up the things, and proposed to be starting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip professed he was lame, would leave in the morning and follow;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Follow he did not; do burns, when you go up a glen, follow after?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Follow, he had not, nor left; do needles leave the loadstone?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nay, they had turned after starting, and looked through the trees at the corner,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, on the rocks by the lake there he was, the lassie beside him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, there he was, stooping by her, and helping with stones from the water</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Safe in the wind to keep down the clothes she would spread for the drying.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There they had left him, and there, if Katie was there, was Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There drying clothes, making fires, making love, getting on too by this time,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though he was shy, so exceedingly shy.</div> - <div class="verse indent40">You may say so, said Arthur,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For the first time they had known with a peevish intonation,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did not the Piper himself flirt more in a single evening,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Namely, with Janet the elder, than Philip in all our sojourn?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip had stayed, it was true; the Piper was loth to depart too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Harder his parting from Janet than e’en from the keeper at Balloch;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And it was certain that Philip was lame.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>[223]</span> - <div class="verse indent42">Yes, in his excuses,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Answered the Piper, indeed!—</div> - <div class="verse indent30">But tell me, said Hobbes interposing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did you not say she was seen every day in her beauty and bedgown</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doing plain household work, as washing, cooking, scouring?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How could he help but love her? nor lacked there perhaps the attraction</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That, in a blue cotton print tucked up over striped linsey-woolsey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Barefoot, barelegged, he beheld her, with arms bare up to the elbows,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uprooting potatoes?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is not Katie as Rachel, and is not Philip a Jacob?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Truly Jacob, supplanting a hairy Highland Esau?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall he not, love-entertained, feed sheep for the Laban of Rannoch?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Patriarch happier he, the long servitude ended of wooing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If when he wake in the morning he find not a Leah beside him!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But the Tutor inquired, who had bit his lip to bleeding,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How far off is the place? who will guide me thither to-morrow?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">But by the mail, ere the morrow, came Hope, and brought new tidings;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Round by Rannoch had come, and Philip was not at Rannoch;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He had left at noon, an hour ago.</div> - <div class="verse indent34">With the lassie?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With her? the Piper exclaimed. Undoubtedly! By great Jingo’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And upon that he arose, slapping both his thighs like a hero,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Partly for emphasis only, to mark his conviction, but also</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Part in delight at the fun, and the joy of eventful living.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Hope couldn’t tell him, of course, but thought it improbable wholly;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Janet, the Piper’s friend, he had seen, and she didn’t say so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though she asked a good deal about Philip, and where he was gone to;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One odd thing, by the bye, he continued, befell me while with her;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Standing beside her, I saw a girl pass; I thought I had seen her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somewhat remarkable-looking, elsewhere; and asked what her name was;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Elspie Mackaye, was the answer, the daughter of David! she’s stopping</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Just above here, with her uncle. And David Mackaye, where lives he?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It’s away west, she said; they call it Tober-na vuolich.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>[224]</span></p> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ut vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error.</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So in the golden weather they waited. But Philip returned not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sunday six days thence a letter arrived in his writing.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But, O Muse, that encompassest Earth like the ambient ether,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Swifter than steamer or railway or magical missive electric,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Belting like Ariel the sphere with the star-like trail of thy travel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou with thy Poet, to mortals mere post-office second-hand knowledge</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leaving, wilt seek in the moorland of Rannoch the wandering hero.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">There is it, there, or in lofty Lochaber, where, silent upheaving,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heaving from ocean to sky, and under snow-winds of September,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Visibly whitening at morn to darken by noon in the shining,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rise on their mighty foundations the brethren huge of Ben-nevis?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There, or westward away, where roads are unknown to Loch Nevish,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the great peaks look abroad over Skye to the westernmost islands?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is it? there? or there? we shall find our wandering hero?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Here, in Badenoch, here, in Lochaber anon, in Lochiel, in</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here I see him and here: I see him; anon I lose him!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even as cloud passing subtly unseen from mountain to mountain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leaving the crest of Ben-more to be palpable next on Ben-vohrlich,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or like to hawk of the hill which ranges and soars in its hunting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seen and unseen by turns, now here, now in ether eludent.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Wherefore, as cloud of Ben-more or hawk over-ranging the mountains,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wherefore in Badenoch drear, in lofty Lochaber, Lochiel, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wandereth he who should either with Adam be studying logic,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or by the lochside of Rannoch on Katie his rhetoric using;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He who, his three weeks past, past now long ago, to the cottage</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Punctual promised return to cares of classes and classics.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>[225]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">He who, smit to the heart by that youngest comeliest daughter,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bent, unregardful of spies, at her feet, spreading clothes from her wash-tub?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can it be with him through Badenoch, Morrer, and Ardnamurchan;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can it be with him he beareth the golden-haired lassie of Rannoch?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This fierce, furious walking—o’er mountain-top and moorland,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sleeping in shieling and bothie, with drover on hill-side sleeping,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Folded in plaid, where sheep are strewn thicker than rocks by Loch Awen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This fierce, furious travel unwearying—cannot in truth be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Merely the wedding tour succeeding the week of wooing!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not; I see him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, and he sitteth alone, and these are his words in the mountain.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Spirits escaped from the body can enter and be with the living;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Entering unseen, and retiring unquestioned, they bring,—do they feel too?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joy, pure joy, as they mingle and mix inner essence with essence;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joy, pure joy, bringing with them, and, when they retire, leaving after</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No cruel shame, no prostration, despondency; memories rather,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sweet happy hopes bequeathing. Ah! wherefore not thus with the living?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Is it impossible, say you, these passionate fervent impulsions,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These projections of spirit to spirit, these inward embraces,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should in strange ways, in her dreams, should visit her, strengthen her, shield her?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it possible, rather, that these great floods of feeling</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Setting-in daily from me towards her should, impotent wholly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bring neither sound nor motion to that sweet shore they heave to?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Efflux here, and there no stir nor pulse of influx!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Surely, surely, when sleepless I lie in the mountain lamenting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Surely, surely, she hears in her dreams a voice, ‘I am with thee,’</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>[226]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Saying, ‘although not with thee; behold, for we mated our spirits</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then, when we stood in the chamber, and knew not the words we were saying;’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, if she felt me within her, when not with one finger I touched her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Surely she knows it, and feels it while sorrowing here in the moorland.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Spirits with spirits commingle and separate; lightly as winds do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Spice-laden South with the ocean-born zephyr! they mingle and sunder;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No sad remorses for them, no visions of horror and vileness.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Surely the force that here sweeps me along in its violent impulse,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Surely my strength shall be in her, my help and protection about her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Surely in inner-sweet gladness and vigour of joy shall sustain her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Till, the brief winter o’er-past, her own true sap in the springtide</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rise, and the tree I have bared be verdurous e’en as aforetime!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Surely it may be, it should be, it must be. Yet ever and ever,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not: behold, for</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here he is sitting alone, and these are his words in the mountain.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And, at the farm on the lochside of Rannoch, in parlour and kitchen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hark! there is music—the flowing of music, of milk, and of whisky;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, I see piping and dancing! and whom in the midst of the battle</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cantering loudly along there, or, look you, with arms uplifted,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whistling, and snapping his fingers, and seizing his gay-smiling Janet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom?—whom else but the Piper? the wary precognisant Piper,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who, for the love of gay Janet, and mindful of old invitation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Putting it quite as a duty and urging grave claims to attention,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">True to his night had crossed over: there goeth he, brimful of music,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like a cork tossed by the eddies that foam under furious lasher,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like to skiff, lifted, uplifted, in lock, by the swift-swelling sluices,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So with the music possessing him, swaying him, goeth he, look you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Swinging and flinging, and stamping and tramping, and grasping and clasping</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>[227]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom but gay Janet?—Him rivalling, Hobbes, briefest-kilted of heroes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Enters, O stoutest, O rashest of creatures, mere fool of a Saxon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Skill-less of philabeg, skill-less of reel too,—the whirl and the twirl o’t:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Him see I frisking, and whisking, and ever at swifter gyration</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under brief curtain revealing broad acres—not of broad cloth.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Him see I there and the Piper—the Piper what vision beholds not?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Him and His Honour with Arthur, with Janet our Piper, and is it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it, O marvel of marvels! he too in the maze of the mazy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Skipping, and tripping, though stately, though languid, with head on one shoulder,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Airlie, with sight of the waistcoat the golden-haired Katie consoling?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Katie, who simple and comely, and smiling and blushing as ever,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What though she wear on that neck a blue kerchief remembered as Philip’s,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seems in her maidenly freedom to need small consolement of waistcoats!—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Wherefore in Badenoch then, far-away, in Lochaber, Lochiel, in</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, or Ardnamurchan,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wanders o’er mountain and moorland, in shieling or bothie is sleeping,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He, who,—and why should he not then? capricious? or is it rejected?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Might to the piping of Rannoch be pressing the thrilling fair fingers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Might, as he clasped her, transmit to her bosom the throb of his own—yea,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Might in the joy of the reel be wooing and winning his Katie?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What is it Adam reads far off by himself in the cottage?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Reads yet again with emotion, again is preparing to answer?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is it Adam is reading? What was it Philip had written?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">There was it writ, how Philip possessed undoubtedly had been,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Deeply, entirely possessed by the charm of the maiden of Rannoch;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Deeply as never before! how sweet and bewitching he felt her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seen still before him at work, in the garden, the byre, the kitchen;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How it was beautiful to him to stoop at her side in the shearing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Binding uncouthly the ears that fell from her dexterous sickle,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Building uncouthly the stooks,<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> which she laid by her sickle to straighten,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How at the dance he had broken through shyness; for four days after</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lived on her eyes, unspeaking what lacked not articulate speaking;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Felt too that she too was feeling what he did.—Howbeit they parted!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How by a kiss from her lips he had seemed made nobler and stronger,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, for the first time in life a man complete and perfect,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So forth! much that before has been heard of.—Howbeit they parted!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What had ended it all, he said, was singular, very.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I was walking along some two miles off from the cottage</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Full of my dreamings—a girl went by in a party with others;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She had a cloak on, was stepping on quickly, for rain was beginning;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But as she passed, from her hood I saw her eyes look at me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So quick a glance, so regardless I, that although I had felt it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You couldn’t properly say our eyes met. She cast it, and left it:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was three minutes perhaps ere I knew what it was. I had seen her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somewhere before I am sure, but that wasn’t it; not its import;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, it had seemed to regard me with simple superior insight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quietly saying to itself—Yes, there he is still in his fancy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Letting drop from him at random as things not worth his considering</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the benefits gathered and put in his hands by fortune,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Loosing a hold which others, contented and unambitious,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Trying down here to keep up, know the value of better than he does,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is this? was it perhaps?—Yes, there he is still in his fancy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doesn’t yet see we have here just the things he is used to elsewhere;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">People here too are people and not as fairy-land creatures;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He is in a trance, and possessed; I wonder how long to continue;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is a shame and a pity—and no good likely to follow.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something like this, but indeed I cannot attempt to define it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only, three hours thence I was off and away in the moorland,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hiding myself from myself if I could; the arrow within me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Katie was not in the house, thank God: I saw her in passing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Saw her, unseen myself, with the pang of a cruel desertion;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What she thinks about it, God knows! poor child; may she only</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>[229]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Think me a fool and a madman, and no more worth her remembering!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meantime all through the mountains I hurry and know not whither,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tramp along here, and think, and know not what I should think.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Tell me then, why, as I sleep amid hill-tops high in the moorland,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still in my dreams I am pacing the streets of the dissolute city,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where dressy girls slithering by upon pavements give sign for accosting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Paint on their beautiless cheeks, and hunger and shame in their bosoms;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hunger by drink, and by that which they shudder yet burn for, appeasing,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hiding their shame—ah God!—in the glare of the public gas-lights?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why, while I feel my ears catching through slumber the run of the streamlet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still am I pacing the pavement, and seeing the sign for accosting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still am I passing those figures, not daring to look in their faces?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why, when the chill, ere the light, of the daybreak uneasily wakes me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Find I a cry in my heart crying up to the heaven of heavens,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, Great Unjust Judge! she is purity; I am the lost one.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You will not think that I soberly look for such things for sweet Katie;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, but the vision is on me; I now first see how it happens,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feel how tender and soft is the heart of a girl; how passive</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fain would it be, how helpless; and helplessness leads to destruction.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Maiden reserve torn from off it, grows never again to reclothe it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Modesty broken through once to immodesty flies for protection.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, who saws through the trunk, though he leave the tree up in the forest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the next wind casts it down,—is <i>his</i> not the hand that smote it?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">This is the answer, the second, which, pondering long with emotion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There by himself in the cottage the Tutor addressed to Philip.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I have perhaps been severe, dear Philip, and hasty; forgive me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For I was fain to reply ere I wholly had read through your letter;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And it was written in scraps with crossings and counter-crossings</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hard to connect with each other correctly, and hard to decipher;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Paper was scarce, I suppose: forgive me; I write to console you.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought in the market;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>[230]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Knowledge needful for all, yet cannot be had for the asking.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There are exceptional beings, one finds them distant and rarely,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who, endowed with the vision alike and the interpretation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">See, by the neighbours’ eyes and their own still motions enlightened,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the beginning the end, in the acorn the oak of the forest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the child of to-day its children to long generations,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In a thought or a wish a life, a drama, an epos.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There are inheritors, is it? by mystical generation</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heiring the wisdom and ripeness of spirits gone by; without labour</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Owning what others by doing and suffering earn; what old men</div> - <div class="verse indent0">After long years of mistake and erasure are proud to have come to,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sick with mistake and erasure possess when possession is idle.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, there is power upon earth, seen feebly in women and children,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which can, laying one hand on the cover, read off, unfaltering,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leaf after leaf unlifted, the words of the closed book under,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Words which we are poring at, hammering at, stumbling at, spelling.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rare is this; wisdom mostly is bought for a price in the market;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rare is this; and happy, who buys so much for so little,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As I conceive have you, and as I will hope has Katie.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knowledge is needful for man,—needful no less for woman,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even in Highland glens, were they vacant of shooter and tourist.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not that, of course, I mean to prefer your blindfold hurry</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto a soul that abides most loving yet most withholding;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Least unfeeling though calm, self-contained yet most unselfish;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Renders help and accepts it, a man among men that are brothers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Views, not plucks the beauty, adores, and demands no embracing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So in its peaceful passage whatever is lovely and gracious</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still without seizing or spoiling, itself in itself reproducing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, I do not set Philip herein on the level of Arthur;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, I do not compare still tarn with furious torrent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet will the tarn overflow, assuaged in the lake be the torrent.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Women are weak, as you say, and love of all things to be passive,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Passive, patient, receptive, yea, even of wrong and misdoing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even to force and misdoing with joy and victorious feeling</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Patient, passive, receptive; for that is the strength of their being,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like to the earth taking all things, and all to good converting.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh ’tis a snare indeed!—Moreover, remember it, Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the prestige of the richer the lowly are prone to be yielding,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Think that in dealing with them they are raised to a different region,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where old laws and morals are modified, lost, exist not;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ignorant they as they are, they have but to conform and be yielding.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But I have spoken of this already, and need not repeat it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You will not now run after what merely attracts and entices,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Every-day things highly-coloured, and common-place carved and gilded.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You will henceforth seek only the good: and seek it, Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where it is—not more abundant, perhaps, but—more easily met with;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where you are surer to find it, less likely to run into error,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In your station, not thinking about it, but not disregarding.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So was the letter completed: a postscript afterward added,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Telling the tale that was told by the dancers returning from Rannoch.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So was the letter completed: but query, whither to send it?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not for the will of the wisp, the cloud, and the hawk of the moorland,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ranging afar thro’ Lochaber, Lochiel, and Knoydart, and Moydart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have even latest extensions adjusted a postal arrangement.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Query resolved very shortly, when Hope, from his chamber descending,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came with a note in his hand from the Lady, his aunt, at the Castle;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came and revealed the contents of a missive that brought strange tidings;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came and announced to the friends, in a voice that was husky with wonder,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip was staying at Balloch, was there in the room with the Countess,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip to Balloch had come and was dancing with Lady Maria.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Philip at Balloch, he said, after all that stately refusal,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He there at last—O strange! O marvel, marvel of marvels!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Airlie, the Waistcoat, with Katie, we left him this morning at Rannoch;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Airlie with Katie, he said, and Philip with Lady Maria.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And amid laughter Adam paced up and down, repeating</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over and over, unconscious, the phrase which Hope had lent him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dancing at Balloch, you say, in the Castle, with Lady Maria.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span></p> - -<h4>V</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent24">——<i>Putavi</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Stultus ego huic nostræ similem.</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So in the cottage with Adam the pupils five together</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Duly remained, and read, and looked no more for Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip at Balloch shooting and dancing with Lady Maria.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Breakfast at eight, and now, for brief September daylight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Luncheon at two, and dinner at seven, or even later,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Five full hours between for the loch and the glen and the mountain,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So in the joy of their life and glory of shooting-jackets,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So they read and roamed, the pupils five with Adam.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What if autumnal shower came frequent and chill from the westward,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What if on browner sward with yellow leaves besprinkled,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gemming the crispy blade, the delicate gossamer gemming,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Frequent and thick lay at morning the chilly beads of hoar-frost,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Duly in <i>matutine</i> still, and daily, whatever the weather,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bathed in the rain and the frost and the mist with the Glory of headers</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope. Thither also at times, of cold and of possible gutters</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Careless, unmindful, unconscious, would Hobbes, or ere they departed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, in heavy pea-coat his trouserless trunk enfolding,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, under coat over-brief those lusty legs displaying,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All from the shirt to the slipper the natural man revealing.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Duly there they bathed and daily, the twain or the trio,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into a granite basin the amber torrent descended;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful, very, to gaze in ere plunging; beautiful also,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Perfect as picture, as vision entrancing that comes to the sightless,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through the great granite jambs the stream, the glen, and the mountain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful, seen by snatches in intervals of dressing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Morn after morn, unsought for, recurring; themselves too seeming</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not as spectators, accepted into it, immingled, as truly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Part of it as are the kine in the field lying there by the birches.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>[233]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">So they bathed, they read, they roamed in glen and forest;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far amid blackest pines to the waterfall they shadow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far up the long, long glen to the loch, and the loch beyond it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Deep, under huge red cliffs, a secret; and oft by the starlight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or the aurora, perchance, racing home for the eight o’clock mutton.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So they bathed, and read, and roamed in heathery Highland;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There in the joy of their life and glory of shooting-jackets</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bathed and read and roamed, and looked no more for Philip.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">List to a letter that came from Philip at Balloch to Adam.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I am here, O my friend!—idle, but learning wisdom.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doing penance, you think; content, if so, in my penance.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Often I find myself saying, while watching in dance or on horseback</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One that is here, in her freedom and grace, and imperial sweetness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Often I find myself saying, old faith and doctrine abjuring,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into the crucible casting philosophies, facts, convictions,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were it not well that the stem should be naked of leaf and of tendril,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Poverty-stricken, the barest, the dismallest stick of the garden;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flowerless, leafless, unlovely, for ninety-and-nine long summers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So in the hundredth, at last, were bloom for one day at the summit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So but that fleeting flower were lovely as Lady Maria.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Often I find myself saying, and know not myself as I say it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What of the poor and the weary? their labour and pain is needed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Perish the poor and the weary! what can they better than perish,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Perish in labour for her, who is worth the destruction of empires?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What! for a mite, for a mote, an impalpable odour of honour,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Armies shall bleed; cities burn; and the soldier red from the storming</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Carry hot rancour and lust into chambers of mothers and daughters:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What! would ourselves for the cause of an hour encounter the battle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slay and be slain; lie rotting in hospital, hulk, and prison:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Die as a dog dies; die mistaken perhaps, and dishonoured.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea,—and shall hodmen in beer-shops complain of a glory denied them,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>[234]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Which could not ever be theirs more than now it is theirs as spectators?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which could not be, in all earth, if it were not for labour of hodmen?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And I find myself saying, and what I am saying, discern not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dig in thy deep dark prison, O miner! and finding be thankful;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though unpolished by thee, unto thee unseen in perfection,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While thou art eating black bread in the poisonous air of thy cavern,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far away glitters the gem on the peerless neck of a Princess.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dig, and starve, and be thankful; it is so, and thou hast been aiding.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Often I find myself saying, in irony is it, or earnest?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, what is more, be rich, O ye rich! be sublime in great houses,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Purple and delicate linen endure; be of Burgundy patient;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Suffer that service be done you, permit of the page and the valet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Vex not your souls with annoyance of charity schools or of districts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cast not to swine of the stye the pearls that should gleam in your foreheads.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Live, be lovely, forget them, be beautiful even to proudness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even for their poor sakes whose happiness is to behold you;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Live, be uncaring, be joyous, be sumptuous; only be lovely,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sumptuous not for display, and joyous, not for enjoyment;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not for enjoyment truly; for Beauty and God’s great glory!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Yes, and I say, and it seems inspiration—of Good or of Evil!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it not He that hath done it, and who shall dare gainsay it?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it not even of Him, who hath made us?—Yea, <i>for the lions,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from God</i>!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it not even of Him, who one kind over another</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the works of His hand hath disposed in a wonderful order?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who hath made man, as the beasts, to live the one on the other,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who hath made man as Himself to know the law—and accept it!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You will wonder at this, no doubt! I also wonder!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But we must live and learn; we can’t know all things at twenty.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">List to a letter of Hobbes to Philip his friend at Balloch.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">All Cathedrals are Christian, all Christians are Cathedrals,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such is the Catholic doctrine; ’tis ours with a slight variation;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Every woman is, or ought to be, a Cathedral,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Built on the ancient plan, a Cathedral pure and perfect,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Built by that only law, that Use be suggester of Beauty,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nothing concealed that is done, but all things done to adornment,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meanest utilities seized as occasions to grace and embellish.—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So had I duly commenced in the spirit and style of my Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So had I formally opened the Treatise upon <i>the Laws of</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Architectural Beauty in Application to Women</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So had I writ.—But my fancies are palsied by tidings they tell me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tidings—ah me, can it be then? that I, the blasphemer accounted,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here am with reverent heed at the wondrous Analogy working,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pondering thy words and thy gestures, whilst thou, a prophet apostate,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(How are the mighty fallen!) whilst thou, a shepherd travestie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(How are the mighty fallen!) with gun,—with pipe no longer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Teachest the woods to re-echo thy game-killing recantations,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Teachest thy verse to exalt Amaryllis, a Countess’s daughter?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What, thou forgettest, bewildered, my Master, that rightly considered</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beauty must ever be useful, what truly is useful is graceful?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She that is handy is handsome, good dairy-maids must be good-looking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If but the butter be nice, the tournure of the elbow is shapely,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If the cream-cheeses be white, far whiter the hands that made them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If—but alas, is it true? while the pupil alone in the cottage</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slowly elaborates here thy System of Feminine Graces,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou in the palace, its author, art dining, small-talking and dancing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dancing and pressing the fingers kid-gloved of a Lady Maria.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">These are the final words, that came to the Tutor from Balloch.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am conquered, it seems! you will meet me, I hope, in Oxford,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Altered in manners and mind. I yield to the laws and arrangements,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yield to the ancient existent decrees: who am I to resist them?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, you will find me altered in mind, I think, as in manners,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Anxious too to atone for six weeks’ loss of your Logic.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">So in the cottage with Adam, the pupils five together,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Read, and bathed, and roamed, and thought not now of Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All in the joy of their life, and glory of shooting-jackets.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span></p> - -<h4>VI</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Bright October was come, the misty-bright October,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bright October was come to burn and glen and cottage;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the cottage was empty, the <i>matutine</i> deserted.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Who are these that walk by the shore of the salt sea water?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here in the dusky eve, on the road by the salt sea water?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Who are these? and where? it is no sweet seclusion;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Blank hill-sides slope down to a salt sea loch at their bases,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scored by runnels, that fringe ere they end with rowan and alder:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cottages here and there outstanding bare on the mountain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Peat-roofed, windowless, white; the road underneath by the water.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">There on the blank hill-side, looking down through the loch to the ocean,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There with a runnel beside, and pine-trees twain before it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There with the road underneath, and in sight of coaches and steamers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dwelling of David Mackaye, and his daughters Elspie and Bella,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sends up a column of smoke the Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And of the older twain, the elder was telling the younger,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How on his pittance of soil he lived, and raised potatoes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Barley, and oats, in the bothie where lived his father before him;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet was smith by trade, and had travelled making horse-shoes</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far; in the army had seen some service with brave Sir Hector,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wounded soon, and discharged, disabled as smith and soldier;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He had been many things since that,—drover, schoolmaster,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whitesmith,—but when his brother died childless came up hither;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And although he could get fine work that would pay in the city,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still was fain to abide where his father abode before him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the lassies are bonnie,—I’m father and mother to them,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bonnie and young; they’re healthier here, I judge, and safer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I myself find time for their reading, writing, and learning.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So on the road they walk by the shore of the salt sea water,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Silent a youth and maid, and elders twain conversing.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">This was the letter that came when Adam was leaving the cottage.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If you can manage to see me before going off to Dartmoor,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come by Tuesday’s coach through Glencoe (you have not seen it),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stop at the ferry below, and ask your way (you will wonder,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There however I am) to the Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And on another scrap, of next day’s date, was written:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was by accident purely I lit on the place; I was returning,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quietly, travelling homeward by one of these wretched coaches;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One of the horses cast a shoe; and a farmer passing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Said, Old David’s your man; a clever fellow at shoeing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Once; just here by the firs; they call it Tober-na-vuolich.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So I saw and spoke with David Mackaye, our acquaintance.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When we came to the journey’s end some five miles farther,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In my unoccupied evening I walked back again to the bothie.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But on a final crossing, still later in date, was added:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come as soon as you can; be sure and do not refuse me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who would have guessed I should find my haven and end of my travel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here, by accident too, in the bothie we laughed about so?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who would have guessed that here would be she whose glance at Rannoch</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Turned me in that mysterious way; yes, angels conspiring,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slowly drew me, conducted me, home, to herself; the needle</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which in the shaken compass flew hither and thither, at last, long</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quivering, poises to north. I think so. But I am cautious:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">More, at least, than I was in the old silly days when I left you.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Not at the bothie now; at the changehouse in the clachan;<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why I delay my letter is more than I can tell you.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">There was another scrap, without or date or comment,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dotted over with various observations, as follows:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only think, I had danced with her twice, and did not remember.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I was as one that sleeps on the railway; one, who dreaming</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Hears thro’ his dream the name of his home shouted out; hears and hears not,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Faint, and louder again, and less loud, dying in distance;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dimly conscious, with something of inward debate and choice,—and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sense of claim and reality present, anon relapses</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nevertheless, and continues the dream and fancy, while forward</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Swiftly, remorseless, the car presses on, he knows not whither.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Handsome who handsome is, who handsome does is more so;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pretty is all very pretty, it’s prettier far to be useful.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, fair Lady Maria, I say not that; but I <i>will</i> say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service rendered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Interchange of service the law and condition of beauty:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Any way beautiful only to be the thing one is meant for.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, I am sure, for the sphere of mere ornament am not intended:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, nor she, I think, thy sister at Tober-na-vuolich.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This was the letter of Philip, and this had brought the Tutor:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This is why Tutor and pupil are walking with David and Elspie.—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">When for the night they part, and these, once more together,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Went by the lochside along to the changehouse near in the clachan,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thus to his pupil anon commenced the grave man, Adam.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Yes, she is beautiful, Philip, beautiful even as morning:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, it is that which I said, the Good and not the Attractive!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Happy is he that finds, and finding does not leave it!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ten more days did Adam with Philip abide at the changehouse,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ten more nights they met, they walked with father and daughter.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ten more nights, and night by night more distant away were</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip and she; every night less heedful, by habit, the father.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Happy ten days, most happy: and, otherwise than intended,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fortunate visit of Adam, companion and friend to David.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Happy ten days, be ye fruitful of happiness! Pass o’er them slowly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slowly; like cruse of the prophet be multiplied, even to ages!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pass slowly o’er them, ye days of October; ye soft misty mornings,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Long dusky eves; pass slowly; and thou, great Term-time of Oxford</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Awful with lectures and books, and Little-goes, and Great-goes,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>[239]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Till but the sweet bud be perfect, recede and retire for the lovers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, for the sweet love of lovers, postpone thyself even to doomsday!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Pass o’er them slowly, ye hours! Be with them, ye Loves and Graces!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Indirect and evasive no longer, a cowardly bather,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Clinging to bough and to rock, and sidling along by the edges,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In your faith, ye Muses and Graces, who love the plain present,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scorning historic abridgment and artifice anti-poetic,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In your faith, ye Muses and Loves, ye Loves and Graces,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will confront the great peril, and speak with the mouth of the lovers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As they spoke by the alders, at evening, the runnel below them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Elspie, a diligent knitter, and Philip her fingers watching.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>VII</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Vesper adest, juvenes, consurgite. Vesper Olympo</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Expectata diu vix tandem lumina tollit.</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">For she confessed, as they sat in the dusk, and he saw not her blushes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Elspie confessed at the sports long ago with her father she saw him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When at the door the old man had told him the name of the bothie;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then after that at the dance; yet again at a dance in Rannoch—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And she was silent, confused. Confused much rather Philip</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Buried his face in his hands, his face that with blood was bursting.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Silent, confused, yet by pity she conquered her fear, and continued.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Katie is good and not silly; be comforted, Sir, about her;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Katie is good and not silly; tender, but not, like many,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Carrying off, and at once, for fear of being seen, in the bosom</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Locking-up as in a cupboard the pleasure that any man gives them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Keeping it out of sight as a prize they need be ashamed of;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That is the way, I think, Sir, in England more than in Scotland;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, she lives and takes pleasure in all, as in beautiful weather,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sorry to lose it, but just as we would be to lose fine weather.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And she is strong to return to herself and feel undeserted,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, she is strong, and not silly: she thinks no further about you;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">She has had kerchiefs before from gentle, I know, as from simple.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, she is good and not silly; yet were you wrong, Mr. Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wrong, for yourself perhaps more than for her.</div> - <div class="verse indent46">But Philip replied not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Raised not his eyes from the hands on his knees.</div> - <div class="verse indent48">And Elspie continued.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That was what gave me much pain, when I met you that dance at Rannoch,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dancing myself too with you, while Katie danced with Donald;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That was what gave me such pain; I thought it all a mistaking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All a mere chance, you know, and accident,—not proper choosing,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There were at least five or six—not there, no, that I don’t say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But in the country about—you might just as well have been courting</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That was what gave me much pain, and (you won’t remember that, though),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three days after, I met you, beside my uncle’s, walking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I was wondering much, and hoped you wouldn’t notice,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So as I passed I couldn’t help looking. You didn’t know me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I was glad, when I heard next day you were gone to the teacher.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And uplifting his face at last, with eyes dilated,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Large as great stars in mist, and dim, with dabbled lashes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip, with new tears starting,</div> - <div class="verse indent34">You think I do not remember,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Said,—suppose that I did not observe! Ah me, shall I tell you?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Elspie, it was your look that sent me away from Rannoch.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was your glance, that, descending, an instant revelation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Showed me where I was, and whitherward going; recalled me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sent me, not to my books, but to wrestlings of thought in the mountains.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, I have carried your glance within me undimmed, unaltered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As a lost boat the compass some passing ship has lent her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Many a weary mile on road, and hill, and moorland:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And you suppose that I do not remember, I had not observed it!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, did the sailor bewildered observe when they told him his bearings?</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">O, did he cast overboard, when they parted, the compass they gave him?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And he continued more firmly, although with stronger emotion:</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Elspie, why should I speak it? you cannot believe it, and should not:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why should I say that I love, which I all but said to another?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet should I dare, should I say, O Elspie, you only I love; you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">First and sole in my life that has been and surely that shall be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could—O, could you believe it, O Elspie, believe it and spurn not?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it—possible,—possible, Elspie?</div> - <div class="verse indent36">Well,—she answered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And she was silent some time, and blushed all over, and answered</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quietly, after her fashion, still knitting, Maybe, I think of it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though I don’t know that I did: and she paused again; but it may be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes,—I don’t know, Mr. Philip,—but only it feels to me strangely,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like to the high new bridge, they used to build at, below there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over the burn and glen on the road. You won’t understand me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I keep saying in my mind—this long time slowly with trouble</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have been building myself, up, up, and toilfully raising,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Just like as if the bridge were to do it itself without masons,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Painfully getting myself upraised one stone on another,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All one side I mean; and now I see on the other</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Just such another fabric uprising, better and stronger,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Close to me, coming to join me: and then I sometimes fancy,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes I find myself dreaming at nights about arches and bridges,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand coming down, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dropping the great key-stone in the middle: there in my dreaming,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There I felt the great-key stone coming in, and through it</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feel the other part—all the other stones of the archway,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joined into mine with a strange happy sense of completeness. But, dear me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This is confusion and nonsense. I mix all the things I can think of.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And you won’t understand, Mr. Philip.</div> - <div class="verse indent38">But while she was speaking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So it happened, a moment she paused from her work, and pondering,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Laid her hand on her lap: Philip took it: she did not resist:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So he retained her fingers, the knitting being stopped. But emotion</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came all over her more and yet more from his hand, from her heart, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Most from the sweet idea and image her brain was renewing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So he retained her hand, and, his tears down-dropping on it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Trembling a long time, kissed it at last. And she ended.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And as she ended, uprose he: saying, What have I heard? Oh,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What have I done, that such words should be said to me? Oh, I see it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">See the great key-stone coming down from the heaven of heavens;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he fell at her feet, and buried his face in her apron.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But as under the moon and stars they went to the cottage,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Elspie sighed and said, Be patient, dear Mr. Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do not do anything hasty. It is all so soon, so sudden.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do not say anything yet to any one.</div> - <div class="verse indent36">Elspie, he answered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Does not my friend go on Friday? I then shall see nothing of you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do not I go myself on Monday?</div> - <div class="verse indent30">But oh, he said, Elspie!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do as I bid you, my child: do not go on calling me Mr.;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Might I not just as well be calling you Miss Elspie?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Call me, this heavenly night for once, for the first time, Philip.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Philip, she said, and laughed, and said she could not say it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip, she said; he turned, and kissed the sweet lips as they said it.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">But on the morrow Elspie kept out of the way of Philip:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And at the evening seat, when he took her hand by the alders,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Drew it back, saying, almost peevishly,</div> - <div class="verse indent40">No, Mr. Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I was quite right, last night; it is too soon, too sudden.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What I told you before was foolish perhaps, was hasty.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When I think it over, I am shocked and terrified at it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not that at all I unsay it; that is, I know I said it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when I said it, felt it. But oh, we must wait, Mr. Philip!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">We mustn’t pull ourselves at the great key-stone of the centre:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some one else up above must hold it, fit it, and fix it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If we try ourselves, we shall only damage the archway,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Damage all our own work that we wrought, our painful upbuilding.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When, you remember, you took my hand last evening, talking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I was all over a tremble: and as you pressed the fingers</div> - <div class="verse indent0">After, and afterwards kissed them, I could not speak. And then, too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As we went home, you kissed me for saying your name. It was dreadful.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have been kissed before, she added, blushing slightly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have been kissed more than once by Donald my cousin, and others;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is the way of the lads, and I make up my mind not to mind it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But, Mr. Philip, last night, and from you, it was different, quite, Sir.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When I think of all that, I am shocked and terrified at it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, it is dreadful to me.</div> - <div class="verse indent28">She paused, but quickly continued,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Smiling almost fiercely, continued, looking upward.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You are too strong, you see, Mr. Philip! just like the sea there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which <i>will</i> come, through the straits and all between the mountains</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forcing its great strong tide into every nook and inlet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Getting far in, up the quiet stream of sweet inland water,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sucking it up, and stopping it, turning it, driving it backward,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quite preventing its own quiet running: and then, soon after,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Back it goes off, leaving weeds on the shore, and wrack and uncleanness:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the poor burn in the glen tries again its peaceful running,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But it is brackish and tainted, and all its banks in disorder.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That was what I dreamt all last night. I was the burnie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Trying to get along through the tyrannous brine, and could not;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I was confined and squeezed in the coils of the great salt tide, that</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would mix-in itself with me, and change me; I felt myself changing;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I struggled, and screamed, I believe, in my dream. It was dreadful.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You are too strong, Mr. Philip! I am but a poor slender burnie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Used to the glens and the rocks, the rowan and birch of the woodies,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Quite unused to the great salt sea; quite afraid and unwilling.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ere she had spoken two words, had Philip released her fingers;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As she went on, he recoiled, fell back, and shook and shivered;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There he stood, looking pale and ghastly; when she had ended,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Answering in hollow voice,</div> - <div class="verse indent28">It is true; oh, quite true, Elspie;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, you are always right; oh, what, what have I been doing?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will depart to-morrow. But oh, forget me not wholly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wholly, Elspie, nor hate me; no, do not hate me, my Elspie.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But a revulsion passed through the brain and bosom of Elspie;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And she got up from her seat on the rock, putting by her knitting;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Went to him, where he stood, and answered:</div> - <div class="verse indent44">No, Mr. Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, you are good, Mr. Philip, and gentle; and I am the foolish:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, Mr. Philip, forgive me.</div> - <div class="verse indent28">She stepped right to him, and boldly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Took up his hand, and placed it in hers: he dared no movement;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Took up the cold hanging hand, up-forcing the heavy elbow.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am afraid, she said, but I will; and kissed the fingers.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he fell on his knees and kissed her own past counting.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">But a revulsion wrought in the brain and bosom of Elspie;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the passion she just had compared to the vehement ocean,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Urging in high spring-tide its masterful way through the mountains</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forcing and flooding the silvery stream, as it runs from the inland;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That great power withdrawn, receding here and passive,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Felt she in myriad springs, her sources far in the mountains,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stirring, collecting, rising, upheaving, forth-outflowing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Taking and joining, right welcome, that delicate rill in the valley,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Filling it, making it strong, and still descending, seeking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With a blind forefeeling descending ever, and seeking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With a delicious forefeeling, the great still sea before it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There deep into it, far, to carry, and lose in its bosom,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Waters that still from their sources exhaustless are fain to be added</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>[245]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">As he was kissing her fingers, and knelt on the ground before her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yielding backward she sank to her seat, and of what she was doing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ignorant, bewildered, in sweet multitudinous vague emotion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stooping, knowing not what, put her lips to the hair on his forehead:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Philip, raising himself, gently, for the first time round her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Passing his arms, close, close, enfolded her, close to his bosom.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As they went home by the moon, Forgive me, Philip, she whispered;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have so many things to think of, all of a sudden;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I who had never once thought a thing,—in my ignorant Highlands.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>VIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Jam veniet virgo, jam dicetur Hymenæus.</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But a revulsion again came over the spirit of Elspie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When she thought of his wealth, his birth and education:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wealth indeed but small, though to her a difference truly;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Father nor mother had Philip, a thousand pounds his portion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somewhat impaired in a world where nothing is had for nothing;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fortune indeed but small, and prospects plain and simple.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But the many things that he knew, and the ease of a practised</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Intellect’s motion, and all those indefinable graces</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Were they not hers, too, Philip?) to speech, and manner, and movement,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lent by the knowledge of self, and wisely instructed feeling,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When she thought of these, and these contemplated daily,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Daily appreciating more, and more exactly appraising,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With these thoughts, and the terror withal of a thing she could not</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Estimate, and of a step (such a step!) in the dark to be taken,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Terror nameless and ill-understood of deserting her station,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Daily heavier, heavier upon her pressed the sorrow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Daily distincter, distincter within her arose the conviction,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He was too high, too perfect, and she so unfit, so unworthy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Ah me! Philip, that ever a word such as that should be written!)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It would do neither for him nor for her; she also was something,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>[246]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Not much indeed, it was true, yet not to be lightly extinguished</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should <i>he</i>—<i>he</i>, she said, have a wife beneath him? herself be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An inferior there where only equality can be?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It would do neither for him nor for her.</div> - <div class="verse indent42">Alas for Philip!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Many were tears and great was perplexity. Nor had availed then</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All his prayer and all his device. But much was spoken</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now, between Adam and Elspie: companions were they hourly:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much by Elspie to Adam, inquiring, anxiously seeking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From his experience seeking impartial accurate statement</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What it was to do this or do that, go hither or thither,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How in the after-life would seem what now seeming certain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Might so soon be reversed; in her quest and obscure exploring</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still from that quiet orb soliciting light to her footsteps;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much by Elspie to Adam, inquiringly, eagerly seeking:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much by Adam to Elspie, informing, reassuring,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much that was sweet to Elspie, by Adam heedfully speaking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quietly, indirectly, in general terms, of Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gravely, but indirectly, not as incognisant wholly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But as suspending until she should seek it, direct intimation;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much that was sweet in her heart of what he was and would be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much that was strength to her mind, confirming beliefs and insights</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pure and unfaltering, but young and mute and timid for action:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much of relations of rich and poor, and of true education.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">It was on Saturday eve, in the gorgeous bright October,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then when brackens are changed, and heather blooms are faded,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And amid russet of heather and fern green trees are bonnie;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alders are green, and oaks; the rowan scarlet and yellow;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One great glory of broad gold pieces appears the aspen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the jewels of gold that were hung in the hair of the birch-tree,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pendulous, here and there, her coronet, necklace, and ear-rings,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cover her now, o’er and o’er; she is weary and scatters them from her.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There, upon Saturday eve, in the gorgeous bright October,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under the alders knitting, gave Elspie her troth to Philip,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247"></a>[247]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">For as they talked, anon she said,</div> - <div class="verse indent36">It is well, Mr. Philip.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, it is well: I have spoken, and learnt a deal with the teacher.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At the last I told him all, I could not help it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And it came easier with him than could have been with my father;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he calmly approved, as one that had fully considered.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, it is well, I have hoped, though quite too great and sudden;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am so fearful, I think it ought not to be for years yet.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am afraid; but believe in you; and I trust to the teacher;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You have done all things gravely and temperate, not as in passion;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the teacher is prudent, and surely can tell what is likely.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What my father will say, I know not; we will obey him:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for myself, I could dare to believe all well, and venture.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O Mr. Philip, may it never hereafter seem to be different!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And she hid her face—</div> - <div class="verse indent24">Oh, where, but in Philip’s bosom!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">After some silence, some tears too perchance, Philip laughed, and said to her,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So, my own Elspie, at last you are clear that I’m bad enough for you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah! but your father won’t make one half the question about it</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You have—he’ll think me, I know, nor better nor worse than Donald,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither better nor worse for my gentlemanship and bookwork,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Worse, I fear, as he knows me an idle and vagabond fellow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though he allows, but he’ll think it was all for your sake, Elspie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though he allows I did some good at the end of the shearing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I had thought in Scotland you didn’t care for this folly.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How I wish, he said, you had lived all your days in the Highlands!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This is what comes of the year you spent in our foolish England.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You do not all of you feel these fancies.</div> - <div class="verse indent42">No, she answered.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in her spirit the freedom and ancient joy was reviving.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, she said, and uplifted herself, and looked for her knitting,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248"></a>[248]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">No, nor do <i>I</i>, dear Philip, I don’t myself feel always</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As I have felt, more sorrow for me, these four days lately,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like the Peruvian Indians I read about last winter,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out in America there, in somebody’s life of Pizarro;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who were as good perhaps as the Spaniards; only weaker;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And that the one big tree might spread its root and branches,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the lesser about it must even be felled and perish.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, I feel much more as if I, as well as you, were,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somewhere, a leaf on the one great tree, that, up from old time</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Growing, contains in itself the whole of the virtue and life of</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bygone days, drawing now to itself all kindreds and nations</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And must have for itself the whole world for its root and branches.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, I belong to the tree, I shall not decay in the shadow;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, and I feel the life-juices of all the world and the ages,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Coming to me as to you, more slowly no doubt and poorer:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You are more near, but then you will help to convey them to me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, don’t smile, Philip, now, so scornfully! While you look so</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scornful and strong, I feel as if I were standing and trembling,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fancying the burn in the dark a wide and rushing river;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I feel coming unto me from you, or it may be from elsewhere,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Strong contemptuous resolve; I forget, and I bound as across it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But after all, you know, it may be a dangerous river.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Oh, if it were so, Elspie, he said, I can carry you over.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nay, she replied, you would tire of having me for a burden.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">O sweet burden, he said, and are you not light as a feather?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But it is deep, very likely, she said, over head and ears too.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">O let us try, he answered, the waters themselves will support us,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, very ripples and waves will form to a boat underneath us;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is a boat, he said, and a name is written upon it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Love, he said, and kissed her.—</div> - <div class="verse indent34">But I will read your books, though,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Said she: you’ll leave me some, Philip?</div> - <div class="verse indent40">Not I, replied he, a volume.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This is the way with you all, I perceive, high and low together.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249"></a>[249]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Women must read, as if they didn’t know all beforehand:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weary of plying the pump, we turn to the running water,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the running spring will needs have a pump built upon it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weary and sick of our books, we come to repose in your eyelight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As to the woodland and water, the freshness and beauty of Nature.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, you will talk, forsooth, of things we are sick to the death of.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What, she said, and if I have let you become my sweetheart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am to read no books! but you may go your ways then,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I will read, she said, with my father at home as I used to.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">If you must have it, he said, I myself will read them to you.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Well, she said, but no, I will read to myself, when I choose it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What, you suppose we never read anything here in our Highlands,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bella and I with the father, in all our winter evenings!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But we must go, Mr. Philip—</div> - <div class="verse indent30">I shall not go at all, said</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He, if you call me Mr. Thank heaven! that’s over for ever.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">No, but it’s not, she said, it is not over, nor will be.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was it not then, she asked, the name I called you first by?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, Mr. Philip, no—you have kissed me enough for two nights;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No—come, Philip, come, or I’11 go myself without you.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You never call me Philip, he answered, until I kiss you.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As they went home by the moon that waning now rose later,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stepping through mossy stones by the runnel under the alders,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Loitering unconsciously, Philip, she said, I will not be a lady;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We will do work together—you do not wish me a lady.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is a weakness perhaps and a foolishness; still it is so;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have been used all my life to help myself and others;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I could not bear to sit and be waited on by footmen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, not even by women—</div> - <div class="verse indent24">And God forbid, he answered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">God forbid you should ever be aught but yourself, my Elspie!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As for service, I love it not, I; your weakness is mine too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am sure Adam told you as much as that about me.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250"></a>[250]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">I am sure, she said, he called you wild and flighty.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That was true, he said, till my wings were clipped. But, my Elspie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You will at least just go and see my uncle and cousins,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sister, and brother, and brother’s wife. You should go, if you liked it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Just as you are; just what you are, at any rate, my Elspie.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, we will go, and give the old solemn gentility stage-play</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One little look, to leave it with all the more satisfaction.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That may be, my Philip, she said; you are good to think of it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But we are letting our fancies run on indeed; after all, it</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May all come, you know, Mr. Philip, to nothing whatever,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is so much that needs to be done, so much that may happen.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">All that needs to be done, said he, shall be done, and quickly.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And on the morrow he took good heart, and spoke with David.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not unwarned the father, nor had been unperceiving:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fearful much, but in all from the first reassured by the Tutor.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he remembered how he had fancied the lad from the first; and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then, too, the old man’s eye was much more for inner than outer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the natural tune of his heart without misgiving</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Went to the noble words of that grand song of the Lowlands,</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Rank is the guinea stamp, but the man’s a man for a’ that</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Still he was doubtful, would hear nothing of it now, but insisted</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip should go to his books; if he chose, he might write; if after</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Chose to return, might come; he truly believed him honest.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But a year must elapse, and many things might happen.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet at the end he burst into tears, called Elspie, and blessed them:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Elspie, my bairn, he said, I thought not when at the doorway</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Standing with you, and telling the young man where he would find us,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I did not think he would one day be asking me here to surrender</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is to me more than wealth in my Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251"></a>[251]</span></p> - -<h4>IX</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Arva, beata Petamus arva!</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So on the morrow’s morrow, with Term-time dread returning,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip returned to his books, and read, and remained at Oxford,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the Christmas and Easter remained and read at Oxford.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Great was wonder in College when postman showed to butler</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Letters addressed to David Mackaye, at Tober-na-vuolich,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Letter on letter, at least one a week, one every Sunday:</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Great at that Highland post was wonder too and conjecture,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the postman showed letters to wife, and wife to the lassies,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the lassies declared they couldn’t be really to David;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, they could see inside a paper with E. upon it.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Great was surmise in College at breakfast, wine, and supper,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Keen the conjecture and joke; but Adam kept the secret,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adam the secret kept, and Philip read like fury.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">This is a letter written by Philip at Christmas to Adam.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There may be beings, perhaps, whose vocation it is to be idle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Idle, sumptuous even, luxurious, if it must be:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only let each man seek to be that for which nature meant him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If you were meant to plough, Lord Marquis, out with you, and do it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If you were meant to be idle, O beggar, behold, I will feed you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If you were born for a groom, and you seem, by your dress, to believe so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do it like a man, Sir George, for pay, in a livery stable;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, you may so release that slip of a boy at the corner,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fingering books at the window, misdoubting the eighth commandment.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, fair Lady Maria, God meant you to live and be lovely;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be so then, and I bless you. But ye, ye spurious ware, who</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Might be plain women, and can be by no possibility better!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">—Ye unhappy statuettes, and miserable trinkets,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Poor alabaster chimney-piece ornaments under glass cases,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, in God’s name, come down! the very French clock by you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Puts you to shame with ticking; the fire-irons deride you.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252"></a>[252]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">You, young girl, who have had such advantages, learnt so quickly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can you not teach? O yes, and she likes Sunday-school extremely,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only it’s soon in the morning. Away! if to teach be your calling,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is no play, but a business: off! go teach and be paid for it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lady Sophia’s so good to the sick, so firm and so gentle.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is there a nobler sphere than of hospital nurse and matron?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hast thou for cooking a turn, little Lady Clarissa? in with them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In with your fingers! their beauty it spoils, but your own it enhances</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For it is beautiful only to do the thing we are meant for.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">This was the answer that came from the Tutor, the grave man, Adam</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the armies are set in array, and the battle beginning,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it well that the soldier whose post is far to the leftward</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, I will go to the right, it is there I shall do best service?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is a great Field-Marshal, my friend, who arrays our battalions;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let us to Providence trust, and abide and work in our stations.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">This was the final retort from the eager, impetuous Philip.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am sorry to say your Providence puzzles me sadly;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Children of Circumstance are we to be? you answer, On no wise!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where does Circumstance end, and Providence, where begins it?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What are we to resist, and what are we to be friends with?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If there is battle, ’tis battle by night, I stand in the darkness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here in the mêlée of men, Ionian and Dorian on both sides,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Signal and password known; which is friend and which is foeman?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it a friend? I doubt, though he speak with the voice of a brother.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still you are right, I suppose; you always are, and will be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though I mistrust the Field-Marshal, I bow to the duty of order.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet is my feeling rather to ask, where is the battle?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, I could find in my heart to cry, notwithstanding my Elspie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O that the armies indeed were arrayed! O joy of the onset!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sound, thou Trumpet of God, come forth, Great Cause, to array us,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">King and leader appear, thy soldiers sorrowing seek thee.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would that the armies indeed were arrayed, O where is the battle!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither battle I see, nor arraying, nor King in Israel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Backed by a solemn appeal, ‘For God’s sake, do not stir, there!’</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253"></a>[253]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet you are right, I suppose; if you don’t attack my conclusion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let us get on as we can, and do the thing we are fit for;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Every one for himself, and the common success for us all, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thankful, if not for our own, why then for the triumph of others,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Get along, each as we can, and do the thing we are meant for.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That isn’t likely to be by sitting still, eating and drinking.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">These are fragments again without date addressed to Adam.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As at return of tide the total weight of ocean,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Drawn by moon and sun from Labrador and Greenland,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sets-in amain, in the open space betwixt Mull and Scarba,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heaving, swelling, spreading the might of the mighty Atlantic;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There into cranny and slit of the rocky, cavernous bottom</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Settles down, and with dimples huge the smooth sea-surface</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eddies, coils, and whirls; by dangerous Corryvreckan:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So in my soul of souls, through its cells and secret recesses,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comes back, swelling and spreading, the old democratic fervour.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But as the light of day enters some populous city,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shaming away, ere it come, by the chilly day-streak signal,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">High and low, the misusers of night, shaming out the gas-lamps—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the great empty streets are flooded with broadening clearness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which, withal, by inscrutable simultaneous access</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Permeates far and pierces to the very cellars lying in</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Narrow high back-lane, and court, and alley of alleys:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He that goes forth to his walks, while speeding to the suburb,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sees sights only peaceful and pure: as labourers settling</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slowly to work, in their limbs the lingering sweetness of slumber;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Humble market-carts, coming in, bringing in, not only</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flower, fruit, farm-store, but sounds and sights of the country</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dwelling yet on the sense of the dreamy drivers; soon after</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Half-awake servant-maids unfastening drowsy shutters</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up at the windows, or down, letting-in the air by the doorway;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">School-boys, school-girls soon, with slate, portfolio, satchel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hampered as they haste, those running, these others maidenly tripping,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Early clerk anon turning out to stroll, or it may be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meet his sweetheart—waiting behind the garden gate there;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254"></a>[254]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Merchant on his grass-plat haply bare-headed; and now by this time</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Little child bringing breakfast to ‘father’ that sits on the timber</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There by the scaffolding; see, she waits for the can beside him;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meantime above purer air untarnished of new-lit fires:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So that the whole great wicked artificial civilised fabric—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All its unfinished houses, lots for sale, and railway out-works—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seems reaccepted, resumed to Primal Nature and Beauty:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">—Such—in me, and to me, and on me the love of Elspie!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Philip returned to his books, but returned to his Highlands after;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Got a first, ’tis said; a winsome bride, ’tis certain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There while courtship was ending, nor yet the wedding appointed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under her father he studied the handling of hoe and of hatchet:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thither that summer succeeding came Adam and Arthur to see him</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Down by the lochs from the distant Glenmorison; Adam the tutor,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Arthur, and Hope; and the Piper anon who was there for a visit;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He had been into the schools; plucked almost; all but a <i>gone-coon</i>;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So he declared; never once had brushed up his <i>hairy</i> Aldrich;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into the great might-have-been upsoaring sublime and ideal</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gave to historical questions a free poetical treatment;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leaving vocabular ghosts undisturbed in their lexicon-limbo,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Took Aristophanes up at a shot; and the whole three last weeks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Went, in his life and the sunshine rejoicing, to Nuneham and Godstowe:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What were the claims of Degree to those of life and the sunshine?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There did the four find Philip, the poet, the speaker, the Chartist,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Delving at Highland soil, and railing at Highland landlords,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Railing, but more, as it seemed, for the fun of the Piper’s fury.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There saw they David and Elspie Mackaye, and the Piper was almost</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Almost deeply in love with Bella the sister of Elspie;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the good Adam was heedful: they did not go too often.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There in the bright October, the gorgeous bright October,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the brackens are changed, and heather blooms are faded,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And amid russet of heather and fern green trees are bonnie,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alders are green, and oaks, the rowan scarlet and yellow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heavy the aspen, and heavy with jewels of gold the birch-tree,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There, when shearing had ended, and barley-stooks were garnered,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255"></a>[255]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">David gave Philip to wife his daughter, his darling Elspie;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Elspie the quiet, the brave, was wedded to Philip the poet.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So won Philip his bride. They are married and gone—But oh, Thou</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mighty one, Muse of great Epos, and Idyll the playful and tender,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be it recounted in song, ere we part, and thou fly to thy Pindus,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Pindus is it, O Muse, or Ætna, or even Ben-nevis?)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be it recounted in song, O Muse of the Epos and Idyll,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who gave what at the wedding, the gifts and fair gratulations.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Adam, the grave careful Adam, a medicine chest and tool-box,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope a saddle, and Arthur a plough, and the Piper a rifle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Airlie a necklace for Elspie, and Hobbes a Family Bible,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Airlie a necklace, and Hobbes a Bible and iron bedstead.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What was the letter, O Muse, sent withal by the corpulent hero?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This is the letter of Hobbes the kilted and corpulent hero.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So the last speech and confession is made, O my eloquent speaker!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So <i>the good time</i> is <i>coming</i>, or come is it? O my Chartist!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So the cathedral is finished at last, O my Pugin of women;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Finished, and now, is it true? to be taken out whole to New Zealand!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, go forth to thy field, to thy barley, with Ruth, O Boaz,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ruth, who for thee hath deserted her people, her gods, her mountains.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, as in Ephrath of old, in the gate of Bethlehem said they,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, be the wife in thy house both Rachel and Leah unto thee;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be thy wedding of silver, albeit of iron thy bedstead!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, to the full golden fifty renewed be! and fair memoranda</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Happily fill the fly-leaves duly left in the Family Bible.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Live, and when Hobbes is forgotten, may’st thou, an unroasted Grand-sire,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">See thy children’s children, and Democracy upon New Zealand!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">This was the letter of Hobbes, and this the postscript after.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wit in the letter will prate, but wisdom speaks in a postscript;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Listen to wisdom—<i>Which things</i>—you perhaps didn’t know, my dear fellow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have reflected; <i>Which things are an allegory</i>, Philip.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For this Rachel-and-Leah is marriage; which, I have seen it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, and have known it, is always, and must be, bigamy only,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256"></a>[256]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Even in noblest kind a duality, compound, and complex,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One part heavenly-ideal, the other vulgar and earthy:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For this Rachel-and-Leah is marriage, and Laban, their father,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Circumstance, chance, the world, our uncle and hard task-master.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rachel we found as we fled from the daughters of Heth by the desert</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rachel we met at the well; we came, we saw, we kissed her;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rachel we serve-for, long years,—that seem as a few days only,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en for the love we have to her,—and win her at last of Laban.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it not Rachel we take in our joy from the hand of her father?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it not Rachel we lead in the mystical veil from the altar?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rachel we dream-of at night: in the morning, behold, it is Leah.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Nay, it is custom,’ saith Laban, the Leah indeed is the elder.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Happy and wise who consents to redouble his service to Laban,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So, fulfilling her week, he may add to the elder the younger,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not repudiates Leah, but wins the Rachel unto her!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither hate thou thy Leah, my Jacob, she also is worthy;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So, many days shall thy Rachel have joy, and survive her sister;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, and her children—<i>Which things are an allegory</i>, Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Aye, and by Origen’s head with a vengeance truly, a long one!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">This was a note from the Tutor, the grave man, nick-named Adam.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall see you of course, my Philip, before your departure</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joy be with you, my boy, with you and your beautiful Elspie.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Happy is he that found, and finding was not heedless;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Happy is he that found, and happy the friend that was with him.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So won Philip his bride:—</div> - <div class="verse indent28">They are married and gone to New Zealand.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Five hundred pounds in pocket, with books, and two or three pictures,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tool-box, plough, and the rest, they rounded the sphere to New Zealand.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There he hewed, and dug; subdued the earth and his spirit;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There he built him a home; there Elspie bare him his children,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">David and Bella; perhaps ere this too an Elspie or Adam;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There hath he farmstead and land, and fields of corn and flax fields;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the Antipodes too have a Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_257"></a>[257]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_258"></a>[258]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="IDYLLIC_SKETCHES">IDYLLIC SKETCHES.</h2> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_259"></a>[259]</span></p> - -<h3><i>ITE DOMUM SATURÆ, VENIT HESPERUS.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The skies have sunk, and hid the upper snow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The rainy clouds are filing fast below,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And wet will be the path, and wet shall we.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah dear, and where is he, a year agone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who stepped beside and cheered us on and on?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My sweetheart wanders far away from me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In foreign land or on a foreign sea.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The lightning zigzags shoot across the sky</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And through the vale the rains go sweeping by;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah me, and when in shelter shall we be?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Cold, dreary cold, the stormy winds feel they</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O’er foreign lands and foreign seas that stray</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie).</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And doth he e’er, I wonder, bring to mind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The pleasant huts and herds he left behind?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And doth he sometimes in his slumbering see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The feeding kine, and doth he think of me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My sweetheart wandering wheresoe’er it be?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_260"></a>[260]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The thunder bellows far from snow to snow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And loud and louder roars the flood below.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heigho! but soon in shelter shall we be:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Or shall he find before his term be sped,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some comelier maid that he shall wish to wed?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For weary is work, and weary day by day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To have your comfort miles on miles away.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Or may it be that I shall find my mate,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he returning see himself too late?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For work we must, and what we see, we see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And God he knows, and what must be, must be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When sweethearts wander far away from me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The sky behind is brightening up anew</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The rain is ending, and our journey too:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heigho! aha! for here at home are we:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In, Rose, and in, Provence and La Palie.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>A LONDON IDYLL.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">On grass, on gravel, in the sun,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Or now beneath the shade,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They went, in pleasant Kensington,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A prentice and a maid.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_261"></a>[261]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">That Sunday morning’s April glow,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">How should it not impart</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A stir about the veins that flow</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To feed the youthful heart.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Ah! years may come, and years may bring</div> - <div class="verse indent6">The truth that is not bliss,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">But will they bring another thing</div> - <div class="verse indent6">That can compare with this?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I read it in that arm she lays</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So soft on his; her mien,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her step, her very gown betrays</div> - <div class="verse indent2">(What in her eyes were seen)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That not in vain the young buds round,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The cawing birds above,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The air, the incense of the ground,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Are whispering, breathing love.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Ah! years may come, &c.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To inclination, young and blind,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So perfect, as they lent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By purest innocence confined</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Unconscious free consent.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Persuasive power of vernal change,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">On this, thine earliest day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Canst thou have found in all thy range</div> - <div class="verse indent2">One fitter type than they?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Ah! years may come, &c.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Th’ high-titled cares of adult strife,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Which we our duties call,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Trades, arts, and politics of life,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Say, have they after all,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a>[262]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">One other object, end or use</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Than that, for girl and boy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The punctual earth may still produce</div> - <div class="verse indent2">This golden flower of joy?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Ah! years may come, &c.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O odours of new-budding rose,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">O lily’s chaste perfume,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O fragrance that didst first unclose</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The young Creation’s bloom!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye hang around me, while in sun</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Anon and now in shade,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I watched in pleasant Kensington</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The prentice and the maid.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Ah! years may come, and years may bring</div> - <div class="verse indent6">The truth that is not bliss,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">But will they bring another thing</div> - <div class="verse indent6">That will compare with this?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>NATURA NATURANS.</i><a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Beside me,—in the car,—she sat,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">She spake not, no, nor looked to me:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From her to me, from me to her,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What passed so subtly, stealthily?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As rose to rose that by it blows</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Its interchanged aroma flings;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or wake to sound of one sweet note</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The virtues of disparted strings.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Beside me, nought but this!—but this,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That influent as within me dwelt</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her life, mine too within her breast,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Her brain, her every limb she felt:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_263"></a>[263]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">We sat; while o’er and in us, more</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And more, a power unknown prevailed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Inhaling, and inhaled,—and still</div> - <div class="verse indent2">’Twas one, inhaling or inhaled.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Beside me, nought but this;—and passed;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I passed; and know not to this day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If gold or jet her girlish hair,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">If black, or brown, or lucid-grey</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her eye’s young glance: the fickle chance</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That joined us, yet may join again;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I no face again could greet</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As hers, whose life was in me then.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">As unsuspecting mere a maid</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As, fresh in maidhood’s bloomiest bloom,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In casual second-class did e’er</div> - <div class="verse indent2">By casual youth her seat assume;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or vestal, say, of saintliest clay,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For once by balmiest airs betrayed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto emotions too, too sweet</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To be unlingeringly gainsaid:</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Unowning then, confusing soon</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With dreamier dreams that o’er the glass</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of shyly ripening woman-sense</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Reflected, scarce reflected, pass,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A wife may-be, a mother she</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In Hymen’s shrine recalls not now,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She first in hour, ah, not profane,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With me to Hymen learnt to bow.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah no!—Yet owned we, fused in one,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The Power which e’en in stones and earths</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_264"></a>[264]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">By blind elections felt, in forms</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Organic breeds to myriad births;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By lichen small on granite wall</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Approved, its faintest feeblest stir</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slow spreading, strengthening long, at last</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Vibrated full in me and her</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">In me and her—sensation strange!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The lily grew to pendent head,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To vernal airs the mossy bank</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Its sheeny primrose spangles spread,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In roof o’er roof of shade sun-proof</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Did cedar strong itself outclimb,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And altitude of aloe proud</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Aspire in floreal crown sublime;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Flashed flickering forth fantastic flies,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Big bees their burly bodies swung,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rooks roused with civic din the elms,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And lark its wild reveillez rung;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In Libyan dell the light gazelle,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The leopard lithe in Indian glade,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And dolphin, brightening tropic seas,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In us were living, leapt and played:</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Their shells did slow crustacea build,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Their gilded skins did snakes renew.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While mightier spines for loftier kind</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Their types in amplest limbs outgrew;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, close comprest in human breast,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What moss, and tree, and livelier thing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What Earth, Sun, Star of force possest,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Lay budding, burgeoning forth for Spring</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_265"></a>[265]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Such sweet preluding sense of old</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Led on in Eden’s sinless place</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The hour when bodies human first</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Combined the primal prime embrace,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such genial heat the blissful seat</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In man and woman owned unblamed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When, naked both, its garden paths</div> - <div class="verse indent2">They walked unconscious, unashamed:</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere, clouded yet in mistiest dawn,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Above the horizon dusk and dun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One mountain crest with light had tipped</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That Orb that is the Spirit’s Sun;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere dreamed young flowers in vernal showers</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of fruit to rise the flower above,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or ever yet to young Desire</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Was told the mystic name of Love.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266"></a>[266]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_267"></a>[267]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="AMOURS_DE_VOYAGE">AMOURS DE VOYAGE.</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>And taste with a distempered appetite!</i></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Shakspeare.</span></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Il doutait de tout, même de l’amour.</i></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">French Novel.</span></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Solvitur ambulando.</i></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Solutio Sophismatum.</span></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent10"><i>Flevit amores</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Non elaboratum ad pedem.</i></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Horace.</span></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_268"></a>[268]</span></p> - -<h3><i>AMOURS DE VOYAGE.</i></h3> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_269"></a>[269]</span></p> - -<h4>CANTO I.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summits,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Unto the sun and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Come, let us go,—to a land wherein gods of the old time wandered,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Where every breath even now changes to ether divine.</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Come, let us go; though withal a voice whisper, ‘The world that we live in,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Whithersoever we turn, still is the same narrow crib;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>’Tis but to prove limitation, and measure a cord, that we travel;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Let who would ’scape and be free go to his chamber and think;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>’Tis but to change idle fancies for memories wilfully falser;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>’Tis but to go and have been.’—Come, little bark! let us go.</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">i. Claude To Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear Eustatio, I write that you may write me an answer.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or at the least to put us again <i>en rapport</i> with each other.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rome disappoints me much,—St. Peter’s, perhaps, in especial;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only the Arch of Titus and view from the Lateran please me:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This, however, perhaps is the weather, which truly is horrid.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Greece must be better, surely; and yet I am feeling so spiteful,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That I could travel to Athens, to Delphi, and Troy, and Mount Sinai,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though but to see with my eyes that these are vanity also.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Rome disappoints me much; I hardly as yet understand, but</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Rubbishy</i> seems the word that most exactly would suit it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the foolish destructions, and all the sillier savings,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the incongruous things of past incompatible ages,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seem to be treasured up here to make fools of present and future.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_270"></a>[270]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Would to Heaven the old Goths had made a cleaner sweep of it!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would to Heaven some new ones would come and destroy these churches!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">However, one can live in Rome as also in London.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is a blessing, no doubt, to be rid, at least for a time, of</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All one’s friends and relations,—yourself (forgive me!) included,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the <i>assujettissement</i> of having been what one has been,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What one thinks one is, or thinks that others suppose one;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet, in despite of all, we turn like fools to the English.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Vernon has been my fate; who is here the same that you knew him—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Making the tour, it seems, with friends of the name of Trevellyn.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">ii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Rome disappoints me still; but I shrink and adapt myself to it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somehow a tyrannous sense of a superincumbent oppression</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still, wherever I go, accompanies ever, and makes me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feel like a tree (shall I say?) buried under a ruin of brickwork</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rome, believe me, my friend, is like its own Monte Testaceo,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Merely a marvellous mass of broken and castaway wine-pots.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye gods! what do I want with this rubbish of ages departed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Things that Nature abhors, the experiments that she has failed in?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What do I find in the Forum? An archway and two or three pillars.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, but St. Peter’s? Alas, Bernini has filled it with sculpture!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This the old Romans had; but tell me, is this an idea?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet of solidity much, but of splendour little is extant:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Brickwork I found thee, and marble I left thee!’ their Emperor vaunted;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Marble I thought thee, and brickwork I find thee!’ the Tourist may answer.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_271"></a>[271]</span></p> - -<h5><span class="smcap">iii. Georgina Trevellyn to Louisa ——.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">At last, dearest Louisa, I take up my pen to address you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here we are, you see, with the seven-and-seventy boxes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Courier, Papa and Mamma, the children, and Mary and Susan:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here we all are at Rome, and delighted of course with St. Peter’s,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And very pleasantly lodged in the famous Piazza di Spagna.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rome is a wonderful place, but Mary shall tell you about it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not very gay, however; the English are mostly at Naples;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There are the A.’s, we hear, and most of the W. party.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">George, however, is come; did I tell you about his mustachios?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear, I must really stop, for the carriage, they tell me, is waiting;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mary will finish; and Susan is writing, they say, to Sophia.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adieu, dearest Louise,—evermore your faithful Georgina.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who can a Mr. Claude be whom George has taken to be with?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Very stupid, I think, but George says so <i>very</i> clever.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">iv. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">No, the Christian faith, as at any rate I understood it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With its humiliations and exaltations combining,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exaltations sublime, and yet diviner abasements,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Aspirations from something most shameful here upon earth and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In our poor selves to something most perfect above in the heavens,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, the Christian faith, as I, at least, understood it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is not here, O Rome, in any of these thy churches;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is not here, but in Freiburg, or Rheims, or Westminster Abbey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What in thy Dome I find, in all thy recenter efforts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is a something, I think, more <i>rational</i> far, more earthly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Actual, less ideal, devout not in scorn and refusal,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But in a positive, calm, Stoic-Epicurean acceptance.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This I begin to detect in St. Peter’s and some of the churches,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mostly in all that I see of the sixteenth-century masters;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_272"></a>[272]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Overlaid of course with infinite gauds and gewgaws,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Innocent, playful follies, the toys and trinkets of childhood,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forced on maturer years, as the serious one thing needful,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By the barbarian will of the rigid and ignorant Spaniard.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Curious work, meantime, re-entering society: how we</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Walk a livelong day, great Heaven, and watch our shadows!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What our shadows seem, forsooth, we will ourselves be.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do I look like that I you think me that: then I am that.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">v. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Luther, they say, was unwise; like a half-taught German, he could not</div> - <div class="verse indent0">See that old follies were passing most tranquilly out of remembrance;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leo the Tenth was employing all efforts to clear out abuses;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Jupiter, Juno, and Venus, Fine Arts, and Fine Letters, the Poets,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scholars, and Sculptors, and Painters, were quietly clearing away the</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Martyrs, and Virgins, and Saints, or at any rate Thomas Aquinas:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He must forsooth make a fuss and distend his huge Wittenberg lungs, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bring back Theology once yet again in a flood upon Europe:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo you, for forty days from the windows of heaven it fell; the</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Waters prevail on the earth yet more for a hundred and fifty;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are they abating at last? the doves that are sent to explore are</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wearily fain to return, at the best with a leaflet of promise,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fain to return, as they went, to the wandering wave-tost vessel,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fain to re-enter the roof which covers the clean and the unclean,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Luther, they say, was unwise; he didn’t see how things were going;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Luther was foolish,—but, O great God! what call you Ignatius?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O my tolerant soul, be still! but you talk of barbarians,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alaric, Attila, Genseric;—why, they came, they killed, they</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ravaged, and went on their way; but these vile, tyrannous Spaniards,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These are here still,—how long, O ye heavens, in the country of Dante?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These, that fanaticized Europe, which now can forget them, release not</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_273"></a>[273]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">This, their choicest of prey, this Italy; here you see them,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here, with emasculate pupils and gimcrack churches of Gesu,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pseudo-learning and lies, confessional-boxes and postures,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here, with metallic beliefs and regimental devotions,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here, overcrusting with slime, perverting, defacing, debasing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Michael Angelo’s Dome, that had hung the Pantheon in heaven,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Raphael’s Joys and Graces, and thy clear stars, Galileo!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">vi. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Which of three Misses Trevellyn it is that Vernon shall marry</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is not a thing to be known; for our friend is one of those natures</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which have their perfect delight in the general tender-domestic;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So that he trifles with Mary’s shawl, ties Susan’s bonnet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dances with all, but at home is most, they say, with Georgina,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who is, however, <i>too</i> silly in my apprehension for Vernon.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, as before when I wrote, continue to see them a little;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not that I like them much or care a <i>bajocco</i> for Vernon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I am slow at Italian, have not many English acquaintance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I am asked, in short, and am not good at excuses.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Middle-class people these, bankers very likely, not wholly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pure of the taint of the shop; will at table d’hôte and restaurant</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have their shilling’s worth, their penny’s pennyworth even:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither man’s aristocracy this, nor God’s, God knoweth!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet they are fairly descended, they give you to know, well connected;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doubtless somewhere in some neighbourhood have, and are careful to keep, some</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Threadbare-genteel relations, who in their tum are enchanted</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Grandly among county people to introduce at assemblies</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the unpennied cadets our cousins with excellent fortunes.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither man’s aristocracy this, nor God’s, God knoweth!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_274"></a>[274]</span></p> - -<h5><span class="smcap">vii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, what a shame, indeed, to abuse these most worthy people!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, what a sin to have sneered at their innocent rustic pretensions!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it not laudable really, this reverent worship of station?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it not fitting that wealth should tender this homage to culture?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it not touching to witness these efforts, if little availing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Painfully made, to perform the old ritual service of manners?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall not devotion atone for the absence of knowledge? and fervour</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Palliate, cover, the fault of a superstitious observance?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear, dear, what do I say? but, alas! just now, like Iago,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I can be nothing at all, if it is not critical wholly;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So in fantastic height, in coxcomb exultation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here in the garden I walk, can freely concede to the Maker</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That the works of His hand are all very good: His creatures,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beast of the field and fowl, He brings them before me; I name them;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That which I name them, they are,—the bird, the beast, and the cattle.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for Adam,—alas, poor critical coxcomb Adam!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for Adam there is not found an help-meet for him.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">viii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">No, great Dome of Agrippa, thou art not Christian! canst not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Strip and replaster and daub and do what they will with thee, be so!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here underneath the great porch of colossal Corinthian columns,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here as I walk, do I dream of the Christian belfries above them;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or, on a bench as I sit and abide for long hours, till thy whole vast</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Round grows dim as in dreams to my eyes, I repeople thy niches,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not with the Martyrs, and Saints, and Confessors, and Virgins, and children,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But with the mightier forms of an older, austerer worship;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I recite to myself, how</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_275"></a>[275]</span> - <div class="verse indent28">Eager for battle here</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stood Vulcan, here matronal Juno,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And with the bow to his shoulder faithful</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He who with pure dew laveth of Castaly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His flowing locks, who holdeth of Lycia</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The oak forest and the wood that bore him,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Delos’ and Patara’s own Apollo.<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">ix. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet it is pleasant, I own it, to be in their company; pleasant,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whatever else it may be, to abide in the feminine presence.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pleasant, but wrong, will you say? But this happy, serene coexistence</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is to some poor soft souls, I fear, a necessity simple,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meat and drink and life, and music, filling with sweetness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thrilling with melody sweet, with harmonies strange overwhelming,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the long-silent strings of an awkward, meaningless fabric.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet as for that, I could live, I believe, with children; to have those</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pure and delicate forms encompassing, moving about you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This were enough, I could think; and truly with glad resignation</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could from the dream of Romance, from the fever of flushed adolescence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look to escape and subside into peaceful avuncular functions.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nephews and nieces! alas, for as yet I have none! and, moreover,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mothers are jealous, I fear me, too often, too rightfully; fathers</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Think they have title exclusive to spoiling their own little darlings;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And by the law of the land, in despite of Malthusian doctrine,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_276"></a>[276]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">No sort of proper provision is made for that most patriotic,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Most meritorious subject, the childless and bachelor uncle.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">x. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye, too, marvellous Twain, that erect on the Monte Cavallo</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stand by your rearing steeds in the grace of your motionless movement,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stand with your upstretched arms and tranquil regardant faces,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stand as instinct with life in the might of immutable manhood,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are ye Christian too? to convert and redeem and renew you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has set up on the apex</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the Egyptian stone that o’ertops you, the Christian symbol?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Juno and Ceres, Minerva, Apollo, the Muses and Bacchus,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye unto whom far and near come posting the Christian pilgrims,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye that are ranged in the halls of the mystic Christian Pontiff,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are ye also baptized? are ye of the kingdom of Heaven?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Utter, O some one, the word that shall reconcile Ancient and Modern!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I to turn me from this unto thee, great Chapel of Sixtus?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xi. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">These are the facts. The uncle, the elder brother, the squire (a</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Little embarrassed, I fancy), resides in the family place in</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cornwall, of course; ‘Papa is in business,’ Mary informs me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He’s a good sensible man, whatever his trade is. The mother</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is—shall I call it fine?—herself she would tell you refined, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Greatly, I fear me, looks down on my bookish and maladroit manners;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somewhat affecteth the blue; would talk to me often of poets;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quotes, which I hate, Childe Harold; but also appreciates Wordsworth;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes adventures on Schiller; and then to religion diverges;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_277"></a>[277]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Questions me much about Oxford; and yet, in her loftiest flights still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Grates the fastidious ear with the slightly mercantile accent.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Is it contemptible, Eustace—I’m perfectly ready to think so,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it,—the horrible pleasure of pleasing inferior people?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am ashamed my own self; and yet true it is, if disgraceful,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That for the first time in life I am living and moving with freedom.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, who never could talk to the people I meet with my uncle,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, who have always failed,—I, trust me, can suit the Trevellyns;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, believe me,—great conquest, am liked by the country bankers.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I am glad to be liked, and like in return very kindly.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So it proceeds; <i>Laissez faire, laissez aller</i>,—such is the watchword.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, I know there are thousands as pretty and hundreds as pleasant.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Girls by the dozen as good, and girls in abundance with polish</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Higher and manners more perfect than Susan or Mary Trevellyn.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, I know, after all, it is only juxtaposition,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Juxtaposition, in short; and what is juxtaposition?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But I am in for it now,—<i>laissez faire</i>, of a truth, <i>laissez aller</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, I am going,—I feel it, I feel and cannot recall it,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fusing with this thing and that, entering into all sorts of relations,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tying I know not what ties, which, whatever they are, I know one thing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will, and must, woe is me, be one day painfully broken,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Broken with painful remorses, with shrinkings of soul, and relentings,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Foolish delays, more foolish evasions, most foolish renewals.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I have made the step, have quitted the ship of Ulysses;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quitted the sea and the shore, passed into the magical island;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet on my lips is the <i>moly</i>, medicinal, offered of Hermes.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have come into the precinct, the labyrinth closes around me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Path into path rounding slyly; I pace slowly on, and the fancy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Struggling awhile to sustain the long sequences weary, bewildered.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_278"></a>[278]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Fain must collapse in despair; I yield, I am lost, and know nothing;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet in my bosom unbroken remaineth the clue; I shall use it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, with the rope on my loins I descend through the fissure; I sink, yet</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Inly secure in the strength of invisible arms up above me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still, wheresoever I swing, wherever to shore, or to shelf, or</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Floor of cavern untrodden, shell sprinkled, enchanting, I know I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet shall one time feel the strong cord tighten about me,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feel it, relentless, upbear me from spots I would rest in; and though the</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rope sway wildly, I faint, crags wound me, from crag unto crag re-</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bounding, or, wide in the void, I die ten deaths, ere the end I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet shall plant firm foot on the broad lofty spaces I quit, shall</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feel underneath me again the great massy strengths of abstraction,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look yet abroad from the height o’er the sea whose salt wave I have tasted.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xiii. Georgina Trevellyn to Louisa ——.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dearest Louisa,—Inquire, if you please, about Mr. Claude ——.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He has been once at R., and remembers meeting the H.’s.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Harriet L., perhaps, may be able to tell you about him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is an awkward youth, but still with very good manners;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not without prospects, we hear; and, George says, highly connected.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Georgy declares it absurd, but Mamma is alarmed, and insists he has</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Taken up strange opinions, and may be turning a Papist.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Certainly once he spoke of a daily service he went to.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Where?’ we asked, and he laughed and answered, ‘At the Pantheon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This was a temple, you know, and now is a Catholic church; and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though it is said that Mazzini has sold it for Protestant service,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet I suppose this change can hardly as yet be effected.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adieu again,—evermore, my dearest, your loving Georgina.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_279"></a>[279]</span></p> - -<h5><span class="smcap">P.S. by Mary Trevellyn.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I am to tell you, you say, what I think of our last new acquaintance.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, then, I think that George has a very fair right to be jealous.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I do not like him much, though I do not dislike being with him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He is what people call, I suppose, a superior man, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Certainly seems so to me; but I think he is terribly selfish.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Alba, thou findest me still, and, Alba, thou findest me ever,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Now from the Capitol steps, now over Titus’s Arch,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Here from the large grassy spaces that spread from the Lateran portal,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Towering o’er aqueduct lines lost in perspective between,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Or from a Vatican window, or bridge, or the high Coliseum,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Clear by the garlanded line cut of the Flavian ring.</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Beautiful can I not call thee, and yet thou hast power to o’ermaster,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Power of mere beauty; in dreams, Alba, thou hauntest me still.</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Is it religion? I ask me; or is it a vain superstition?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Slavery abject and gross? service, too feeble, of truth?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Is it an idol I bow to, or is it a god that I worship?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Do I sink back on the old, or do I soar from the mean?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>So through the city I wander and question, unsatisfied ever,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Reverent so I accept, doubtful because I revere.</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_280"></a>[280]</span></p> - -<h4>CANTO II.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Is it illusion? or does there a spirit from perfecter ages,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Here, even yet, amid loss, change, and corruption abide?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Does there a spirit we know not, though seek, though we find, comprehend not,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Here to entice and confuse, tempt and evade us, abide?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Lives in the exquisite grace of the column disjointed and single,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Haunts the rude masses of brick garlanded gaily with vine,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>E’en in the turret fantastic surviving that springs from the ruin,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>E’en in the people itself? is it illusion or not?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Is it illusion or not that attracteth the pilgrim transalpine,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Brings him a dullard and dunce hither to pry and to stare?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Is it illusion or not that allures the barbarian stranger,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Brings him with gold to the shrine, brings him in arms to the gate?</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">i. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What do the people say, and what does the government do?—you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ask, and I know not at all. Yet fortune will favour your hopes; and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, who avoided it all, am fated, it seems, to describe it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, who nor meddle nor make in politics,—I who sincerely</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Put not my trust in leagues nor any suffrage by ballot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Never predicted Parisian millenniums, never beheld a</div> - <div class="verse indent0">New Jerusalem coming down dressed like a bride out of heaven</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Right on the Place de la Concorde,—I, nevertheless, let me say it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could in my soul of souls, this day, with the Gaul at the gates shed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One true tear for thee, thou poor little Roman Republic;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What, with the German restored, with Sicily safe to the Bourbon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not leave one poor corner for native Italian exertion?</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_281"></a>[281]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">France, it is foully done! and you, poor foolish England,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You, who a twelvemonth ago said nations must choose for themselves, you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could not, of course, interfere,—you, now, when a nation has chosen——</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pardon this folly! The <i>Times</i> will, of course, have announced the occasion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Told you the news of to-day; and although it was slightly in error</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When it proclaimed as a fact the Apollo was sold to a Yankee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You may believe when it tells you the French are at Civita Vecchia.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">ii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Dulce</i> it is, and <i>decorum</i>, no doubt, for the country to fall,—to</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Offer one’s blood an oblation to Freedom, and die for the Cause; yet</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still, individual culture is also something, and no man</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Finds quite distinct the assurance that he of all others is called on,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or would be justified even, in taking away from the world that</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Precious creature, himself. Nature sent him here to abide here;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Else why send him at all? Nature wants him still, it is likely;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the whole, we are meant to look after ourselves; it is certain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Each has to eat for himself, digest for himself, and in general</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Care for his own dear life, and see to his own preservation;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nature’s intentions, in most things uncertain, in this are decisive;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which, on the whole, I conjecture the Romans will follow, and I shall.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So we cling to our rocks like limpets; Ocean may bluster,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over and under and round us; we open our shells to imbibe our</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nourishment, close them again, and are safe, fulfilling the purpose</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nature intended,—a wise one, of course, and a noble, we doubt not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sweet it may be and decorous, perhaps, for the country to die; but,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the whole, we conclude the Romans won’t do it, and I sha’n’t.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_282"></a>[282]</span></p> - -<h5><span class="smcap">iii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Will they fight? They say so. And will the French? I can hardly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hardly think so; and yet—He is come, they say, to Palo,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He is passed from Monterone, at Santa Severa</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He hath laid up his guns. But the Virgin, the Daughter of Roma,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn,—The Daughter of Tiber,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She hath shaken her head and built barricades against thee!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will they fight! I believe it. Alas! ’tis ephemeral folly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Vain and ephemeral folly, of course, compared with pictures,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Statues, and antique gems!—Indeed: and yet indeed too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet, methought, in broad day did I dream,—tell it not in St. James’s,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whisper it not in thy courts, O Christ Church!—yet did I, waking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dream of a cadence that sings, <i>Si tombent nos jeunes héros, la</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Terre en produit de nouveaux contre vous tous prêts à se battre</i>;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dreamt of great indignations and angers transcendental,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dreamt of a sword at my side and a battle-horse underneath me.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">iv. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Now supposing the French or the Neapolitan soldier</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should by some evil chance come exploring the Maison Serny</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Where the family English are all to assemble for safety),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I prepared to lay down my life for the British female?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Really, who knows? One has bowed and talked, till, little by little,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the natural heat has escaped of the chivalrous spirit.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, one conformed, of course; but one doesn’t die for good manners,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stab or shoot, or be shot, by way of graceful attention.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, if it should be at all, it should be on the barricades there;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should I incarnadine ever this inky pacifical finger,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sooner far should it be for this vapour of Italy’s freedom,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sooner far by the side of the d——d and dirty plebeians.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_283"></a>[283]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, for a child in the street I could strike; for the full-blown lady——</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somehow, Eustace, alas! I have not felt the vocation.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet these people of course will expect, as of course, my protection,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Vernon in radiant arms stand forth for the lovely Georgina,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to appear, I suppose, were but common civility. Yes, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Truly I do not desire they should either be killed or offended.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, and of course, you will say, ‘When the time comes, you will be ready.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, but before it comes, am I to presume it will be so?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What I cannot feel now, am I to suppose that I shall feel?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I not free to attend for the ripe and indubious instinct?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I forbidden to wait for the clear and lawful perception?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it the calling of man to surrender his knowledge and insight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For the mere venture of what may, perhaps, be the virtuous action?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must we, walking our earth, discern a little, and hoping</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some plain visible task shall yet for our hands be assigned us,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must we abandon the future for fear of omitting the present,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quit our own fireside hopes at the alien call of a neighbour,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the mere possible shadow of Deity offer the victim?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And is all this, my friend, but a weak and ignoble refining,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wholly unworthy the head or the heart of Your Own Correspondent?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">v. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, we are fighting at last, it appears. This morning as usual,</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Murray</i>, as usual, in hand, I enter the Caffè Nuovo;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seating myself with a sense as it were of a change in the weather,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not understanding, however, but thinking mostly of Murray,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, for to-day is their day, of the Campidoglio Marbles;</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Caffè-latte</i>! I call to the waiter,—and <i>Non c’ è latte</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This is the answer he makes me, and this is the sign of a battle.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So I sit: and truly they seem to think any one else more</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Worthy than me of attention. I wait for my milkless <i>nero</i>,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_284"></a>[284]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Free to observe undistracted all sorts and sizes of persons,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Blending civilian and soldier in strangest costume, coming in, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gulping in hottest haste, still standing, their coffee,—withdrawing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eagerly, jangling a sword on the steps, or jogging a musket</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slung to the shoulder behind. They are fewer, moreover, than usual,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much and silenter far; and so I begin to imagine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something is really afloat. Ere I leave, the Caffè is empty,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Empty too the streets, in all its length the Corso</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Empty, and empty I see to my right and left the Condotti.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Twelve o’clock, on the Pincian Hill, with lots of English,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Germans, Americans, French,—the Frenchmen, too, are protected,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So we stand in the sun, but afraid of a probable shower;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So we stand and stare, and see, to the left of St. Peter’s,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Smoke, from the cannon, white,—but that is at intervals only,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Black, from a burning house, we suppose, by the Cavalleggieri;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And we believe we discern some lines of men descending</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Down through the vineyard-slopes, and catch a bayonet gleaming.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Every ten minutes, however,—in this there is no misconception,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comes a great white puff from behind Michel Angelo’s dome, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">After a space the report of a real big gun,—not the Frenchman’s!—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That must be doing some work. And so we watch and conjecture.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Shortly, an Englishman comes, who says he has been to St. Peter’s,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seen the Piazza and troops, but that is all he can tell us;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So we watch and sit, and, indeed, it begins to be tiresome.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All this smoke is outside; when it has come to the inside,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It will be time, perhaps, to descend and retreat to our houses.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Half-past one, or two. The report of small arms frequent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sharp and savage indeed; that cannot all be for nothing:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So we watch and wonder; but guessing is tiresome, very.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weary of wondering, watching, and guessing, and gossiping idly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Down I go, and pass through the quiet streets with the knots of</div> - <div class="verse indent0">National Guards patrolling, and flags hanging out at the windows,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">English, American, Danish,—and, after offering to help an</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Irish family moving <i>en masse</i> to the Maison Serny,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_285"></a>[285]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">After endeavouring idly to minister balm to the trembling</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quinquagenarian fears of two lone British spinsters,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go to make sure of my dinner before the enemy enter.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But by this there are signs of stragglers returning; and voices</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Talk, though you don’t believe it, of guns and prisoners taken;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And on the walls you read the first bulletin of the morning.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This is all that I saw, and all I know of the battle.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">vi. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Victory! Victory!—Yes! ah, yes, thou republican Zion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Truly the kings of the earth are gathered and gone by together;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doubtless they marvelled to witness such things, were astonished, and so forth.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Victory! Victory! Victory!—Ah, but it is, believe me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Easier, easier far, to intone the chant of the martyr</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than to indite any pæan of any victory. Death may</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes be noble; but life, at the best, will appear an illusion.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While the great pain is upon us, it is great; when it is over,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why, it is over. The smoke of the sacrifice rises to heaven,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of a sweet savour, no doubt, to Somebody; but on the altar,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, there is nothing remaining but ashes and dirt and ill odour.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So it stands, you perceive; the labial muscles that swelled with</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Vehement evolution of yesterday Marseillaises,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Articulations sublime of defiance and scorning, to-day col-</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lapse and languidly mumble, while men and women and papers</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scream and re-scream to each other the chorus of Victory. Well, but</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am thankful they fought, and glad that the Frenchmen were beaten.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">vii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So, I have seen a man killed! An experience that, among others!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, I suppose I have; although I can hardly be certain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in a court of justice could never declare I had seen it.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_286"></a>[286]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">But a man was killed, I am told, in a place where I saw</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something; a man was killed, I am told, and I saw something.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I was returning home from St. Peter’s; Murray, as usual,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under my arm, I remember; had crossed the St. Angelo bridge; and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Moving towards the Condotti, had got to the first barricade, when</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gradually, thinking still of St. Peter’s, I became conscious</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of a sensation of movement opposing me,—tendency this way</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Such as one fancies may be in a stream when the wave of the tide is</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Coming and not yet come,—a sort of noise and retention);</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So I turned, and, before I turned, caught sight of stragglers</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heading a crowd, it is plain, that is coming behind that corner.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Looking up, I see windows filled with heads; the Piazza,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into which you remember the Ponte St. Angelo enters,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Since I passed, has thickened with curious groups; and now the</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Crowd is coming, has turned, has crossed that last barricade, is</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here at my side. In the middle they drag at something. What is it?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ha! bare swords in the air, held up? There seem to be voices</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pleading and hands putting back; official, perhaps; but the swords are</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Many, and bare in the air. In the air? they descend; they are smiting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hewing, chopping—At what? In the air once more upstretched? And—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it blood that’s on them? Yes, certainly blood! Of whom, then?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over whom is the cry of this furor of exultation?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">While they are skipping and screaming, and dancing their caps on the points of</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Swords and bayonets, I to the outskirts back, and ask a</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mercantile-seeming bystander, ‘What is it?’ and he, looking always</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That way, makes me answer, ‘A Priest, who was trying to fly to</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Neapolitan army,’—and thus explains the proceeding.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You didn’t see the dead man? No;—I began to be doubtful;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I was in black myself, and didn’t know what mightn’t happen,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But a National Guard close by me, outside of the hubbub,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Broke his sword with slashing a broad hat covered with dust,—and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Passing away from the place with Murray under my arm, and</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_287"></a>[287]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Stooping, I saw through the legs of the people the legs of a body.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You are the first, do you know, to whom I have mentioned the matter.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom should I tell it to else?—these girls?—the Heavens forbid it!—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quidnuncs at Monaldini’s?—Idlers upon the Pincian?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">If I rightly remember, it happened on that afternoon when</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Word of the nearer approach of a new Neapolitan army</div> - <div class="verse indent0">First was spread. I began to bethink me of Paris Septembers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thought I could fancy the look of that old ’Ninety-two. On that evening</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three or four, or, it may be, five, of these people were slaughtered.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some declared they had, one of them, fired on a sentinel; others</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say they were only escaping; a Priest, it is currently stated,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stabbed a National Guard on the very Piazza Colonna:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">History, Rumour of Rumours, I leave to thee to determine!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But I am thankful to say the government seems to have strength to</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Put it down; it has vanished, at least; the place is most peaceful.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through the Trastevere walking last night, at nine of the clock, I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Found no sort of disorder; I crossed by the Island-bridges,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So by the narrow streets to the Ponte Rotto, and onwards</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thence by the Temple of Vesta, away to the great Coliseum,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which at the full of the moon is an object worthy a visit.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">viii. Georgina Trevellyn to Louisa ——.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Only think, dearest Louisa, what fearful scenes we have witnessed!—</div> - <div class="verse stars"></div> - <div class="verse indent0">George has just seen Garibaldi, dressed up in a long white cloak, on</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Horseback, riding by, with his mounted negro behind him:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This is a man, you know, who came from America with him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out of the woods, I suppose, and uses a <i>lasso</i> in fighting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which is, I don’t quite know, but a sort of noose, I imagine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This he throws on the heads of the enemy’s men in a battle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pulls them into his reach, and then most cruelly kills them:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_288"></a>[288]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Mary does not believe, but we heard it from an Italian.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mary allows she was wrong about Mr. Claude <i>being selfish</i>;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He was <i>most</i> useful and kind on the terrible thirtieth of April.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do not write here any more; we are starting directly for Florence:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We should be off to-morrow, if only Papa could get horses;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All have been seized everywhere for the use of this dreadful Mazzini.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">P.S.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Mary has seen thus far.—I am really so angry, Louisa,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quite out of patience, my dearest! What can the man be intending?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am quite tired; and Mary, who might bring him to in a moment,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lets him go on as he likes, and neither will help nor dismiss him.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">ix. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">It is most curious to see what a power a few calm words (in</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Merely a brief proclamation) appear to possess on the people.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Order is perfect, and peace; the city is utterly tranquil;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And one cannot conceive that this easy and <i>nonchalant</i> crowd, that</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flows like a quiet stream through street and market-place, entering</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shady recesses and bays of church, <i>osteria</i>, and <i>caffè</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could in a moment be changed to a flood as of molten lava,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Boil into deadly wrath and wild homicidal delusion.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ah, ’tis an excellent race,—and even in old degradation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under a rule that enforces to flattery, lying, and cheating,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en under Pope and Priest, a nice and natural people.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, could they but be allowed this chance of redemption!—but clearly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That is not likely to be. Meantime, notwithstanding all journals,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Honour for once to the tongue and the pen of the eloquent writer!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Honour to speech! and all honour to thee, thou noble Mazzini!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">x. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I am in love, meantime, you think; no doubt you would think so.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am in love, you say; with those letters, of course, you would say so.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_289"></a>[289]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I am in love, you declare. I think not so; yet I grant you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is a pleasure indeed to converse with this girl. Oh, rare gift,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rare felicity, this! she can talk in a rational way, can</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Speak upon subjects that really are matters of mind and of thinking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet in perfection retain her simplicity; never, one moment,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Never, however you urge it, however you tempt her, consents to</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Step from ideas and fancies and loving sensations to those vain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Conscious understandings that vex the minds of mankind.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, though she talk, it is music; her fingers desert not the keys; ’tis</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Song, though you hear in the song the articulate vocables sounded,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Syllabled singly and sweetly the words of melodious meaning.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I am in love, you say: I do not think so, exactly.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xi. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">There are two different kinds, I believe, of human attraction:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One which simply disturbs, unsettles, and makes you uneasy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And another that poises, retains, and fixes and holds you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have no doubt, for myself, in giving my voice for the latter.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I do not wish to be moved, but growing where I was growing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There more truly to grow, to live where as yet I had languished.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I do not like being moved: for the will is excited; and action</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is a most dangerous thing; I tremble for something factitious,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some malpractice of heart and illegitimate process;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We are so prone to these things, with our terrible notions of duty.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, let me look, let me watch, let me wait, unhurried, unprompted!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bid me not venture on aught that could alter or end what is present!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say not, Time flies, and Occasion, that never returns, is departing!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Drive me not out, ye ill angels with fiery swords, from my Eden,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Waiting, and watching, and looking! Let love be its own inspiration!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall not a voice, if a voice there must be, from the airs that environ,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_290"></a>[290]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, from the conscious heavens, without our knowledge or effort,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Break into audible words? And love be its own inspiration?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xiii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Wherefore and how I am certain, I hardly can tell; but it <i>is</i> so.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She doesn’t like me, Eustace; I think she never will like me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it my fault, as it is my misfortune, my ways are not her ways?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it my fault, that my habits and modes are dissimilar wholly?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis not her fault; ’tis her nature, her virtue, to misapprehend them:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis not her fault; ’tis her beautiful nature, not ever to know me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hopeless it seems,—yet I cannot, though hopeless, determine to leave it:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She goes—therefore I go; she moves,—I move, not to lose her.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xiv. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, ’tisn’t manly, of course, ’tisn’t manly, this method of wooing;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tisn’t the way very likely to win. For the woman, they tell you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ever prefers the audacious, the wilful, the vehement hero;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She has no heart for the timid, the sensitive soul; and for knowledge,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knowledge, O ye Gods!—when did they appreciate knowledge?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wherefore should they, either? I am sure I do not desire it.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ah, and I feel too, Eustace, she cares not a tittle about me!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Care about me, indeed! and do I really expect it?)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But my manner offends; my ways are wholly repugnant;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Every word that I utter estranges, hurts, and repels her;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Every moment of bliss that I gain, in her exquisite presence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slowly, surely, withdraws her, removes her, and severs her from me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not that I care very much!—any way I escape from the boy’s own</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Folly, to which I am prone, of loving where it is easy.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not that I mind very much! Why should I? I am not in love, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am prepared, I think, if not by previous habit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet in the spirit beforehand for this and all that is like it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is an easier matter for us contemplative creatures,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_291"></a>[291]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Us upon whom the pressure of action is laid so lightly;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We, discontented indeed with things in particular, idle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sickly, complaining, by faith, in the vision of things in general,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Manage to hold on our way without, like others around us,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seizing the nearest arm to comfort, help, and support us.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet, after all, my Eustace, I know but little about it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All I can say for myself, for present alike and for past, is,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mary Trevellyn, Eustace, is certainly worth your acquaintance.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You couldn’t come, I suppose, as far as Florence to see her?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xv. Georgina Trevellyn to Louisa ——.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent16">...To-morrow we’re starting for Florence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Truly rejoiced, you may guess, to escape from republican terrors;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mr. C. and Papa to escort us; we by <i>vettura</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through Siena, and Georgy to follow and join us by Leghorn.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then—Ah, what shall I say, my dearest? I tremble in thinking!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You will imagine my feelings,—the blending of hope and of sorrow.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How can I bear to abandon Papa and Mamma and my Sisters?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dearest Louise, indeed it is very alarming; but, trust me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ever, whatever may change, to remain your loving Georgina.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">P.S. by Mary Trevellyn.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent16">...‘Do I like Mr. Claude any better?’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am to tell you,—and, ‘Pray, is it Susan or I that attract him?’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This he never has told, but Georgina could certainly ask him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All I can say for myself is, alas! that he rather repels me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There! I think him agreeable, but also a little repulsive.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So be content, dear Louisa; for one satisfactory marriage</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Surely will do in one year for the family you would establish;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither Susan nor I shall afford you the joy of a second.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_292"></a>[292]</span></p> - -<h5><span class="smcap">P.S. by Georgina Trevellyn.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Mr. Claude, you must know, is behaving a little bit better;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He and Papa are great friends; but he really is too <i>shilly-shally</i>,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So unlike George! Yet I hope that the matter is going on fairly.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall, however, get George, before he goes, to say something.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dearest Louise, how delightful to bring young people together!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Is it to Florence we follow, or are we to tarry yet longer,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>E’en amid clamour of arms, here in the city of old,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Seeking from clamour of arms in the Past and the Arts to be hidden,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vainly ’mid Arts and the Past seeking one life to forget?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ah, fair shadow, scarce seen, go forth! for anon he shall follow,—</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>He that beheld thee, anon, whither thou leadest must go!</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Go, and the wise, loving Muse, she also will follow and find thee!</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>She, should she linger in Rome, were not dissevered from thee!</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_293"></a>[293]</span></p> - -<h4>CANTO III.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Yet to the wondrous St. Peter’s, and yet to the solemn Rotonda,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mingling with heroes and gods, yet to the Vatican Walls,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Yet may we go, and recline, while a whole mighty world seems above us,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gathered and fixed to all time into one roofing supreme;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Yet may we, thinking on these things, exclude what is meaner around us;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Yet, at the worst of the worst, books and a chamber remain;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Yet may we think, and forget, and possess our souls in resistance.—</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ah, but away from the stir, shouting, and gossip of war,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Where, upon Apennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Where, amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Where, under mulberry-branches, the diligent rivulet sparkles,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Or amid cotton and maize peasants their water-works ply,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Garden on garden upreared, balconies step to the sky,—</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ah, that I were far away from the crowd and the streets of the city,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Under the vine-trellis laid, O my beloved, with thee!</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">i. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper</span>,—<i>on the way to Florence</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Why doesn’t Mr. Claude come with us? you ask.—We don’t know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You should know better than we. He talked of the Vatican marbles;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I can’t wholly believe that this was the actual reason,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He was so ready before, when we asked him to come and escort us.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Certainly he is odd, my dear Miss Roper. To change so</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Suddenly, just for a whim, was not quite fair to the party,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not quite right. I declare, I really almost am offended:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, his great friend, as you say, have doubtless a title to be so.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_294"></a>[294]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Not that I greatly regret it, for dear Georgina distinctly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wishes for nothing so much as to show her adroitness. But, oh, my</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pen will not write any more;—let us say nothing further about it.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse stars"></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, my dear Miss Roper, I certainly called him repulsive;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So I think him, but cannot be sure I have used the expression</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quite as your pupil should; yet he does most truly repel me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was it to you I made use of the word? or who was it told you?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, repulsive; observe, it is but when he talks of ideas</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That he is quite unaffected, and free, and expansive, and easy;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I could pronounce him simply a cold intellectual being.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When does he make advances?—He thinks that women should woo him;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet, if a girl should do so, would be but alarmed and disgusted.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She that should love him must look for small love in return,—like the ivy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the stone wall, must expect but a rigid and niggard support, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en to get that must go searching all round with her humble embraces.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">ii. Claude to Eustace</span>,—<i>from Rome</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Tell me, my friend, do you think that the grain would sprout in the furrow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did it not truly accept as its <i>summum</i> and <i>ultimum bonum</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0">That mere common and may-be indifferent soil it is set in?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would it have force to develop and open its young cotyledons,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could it compare, and reflect, and examine one thing with another?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would it endure to accomplish the round of its natural functions</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were it endowed with a sense of the general scheme of existence?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">While from Marseilles in the steamer we voyage to Civita Vecchia,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Vexed in the squally seas as we lay by Capraja and Elba,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Standing, uplifted, alone on the heaving poop of the vessel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Looking around on the waste of the rushing incurious billows,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘This is Nature,’ I said: ‘we are born as it were from her waters;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_295"></a>[295]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Over her billows that buffet and beat us, her offspring uncared-for,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Casting one single regard of a painful victorious knowledge,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into her billows that buffet and beat us we sink and are swallowed.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This was the sense in my soul, as I swayed with the poop of the steamer;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And as unthinking I sat in the hall of the famed Ariadne,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, it looked at me there from the face of a Triton in marble.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is the simpler thought, and I can believe it the truer.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">iii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell, Politics, utterly! What can I do? I cannot</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fight, you know; and to talk I am wholly ashamed. And although I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gnash my teeth when I look in your French or your English papers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is the good of that? Will swearing, I wonder, mend matters?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cursing and scolding repel the assailants? No, it is idle;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, whatever befalls, I will hide, will ignore or forget it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let the tail shift for itself; I will bury my head. And what’s the</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Roman Republic to me, or I to the Roman Republic?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Why not fight?—In the first place, I haven’t so much as a musket;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the next, if I had, I shouldn’t know how I should use it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the third, just at present I’m studying ancient marbles;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the fourth, I consider I owe my life to my country;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the fifth—I forget, but four good reasons are ample.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meantime, pray let ’em fight, and be killed. I delight in devotion.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So that I ’list not, hurrah for the glorious army of martyrs!</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sanguis martyrum semen Ecclesiæ</i>; though it would seem this</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Church is indeed of the purely Invisible, Kingdom-come kind:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Militant here on earth! Triumphant, of course, then, elsewhere!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, good Heaven, but I would I were out far away from the pother!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_296"></a>[296]</span></p> - -<h5><span class="smcap">iv. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Not, as we read in the words of the olden-time inspiration,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are there two several trees in the place we are set to abide in;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But on the apex most high of the Tree of Life in the Garden,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Budding, unfolding, and falling, decaying and flowering ever,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flowering is set and decaying the transient blossom of Knowledge,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flowering alone, and decaying, the needless unfruitful blossom.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Or as the cypress-spires by the fair-flowing stream Hellespontine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which from the mythical tomb of the godlike Protesilaüs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rose sympathetic in grief to his love-lorn Laodamia,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Evermore growing, and when in their growth to the prospect attaining,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over the low sea-banks, of the fatal Ilian city,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Withering still at the sight which still they upgrow to encounter.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ah, but ye that extrude from the ocean your helpless faces,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye over stormy seas leading long and dreary processions,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye, too, brood of the wind, whose coming is whence we discern not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Making your nest on the wave, and your bed on the crested billow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Skimming rough waters, and crowding wet sands that the tide shall return to,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cormorants, ducks, and gulls, fill ye my imagination!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">v. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper</span>,—<i>from Florence</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dearest Miss Roper,—Alas! we are all at Florence quite safe, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You, we hear, are shut up! indeed, it is sadly distressing!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We were most lucky, they say, to get off when we did from the troubles.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now you are really besieged; they tell us it soon will be over;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only I hope and trust without any fight in the city.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do you see Mr. Claude?—I thought he might do something for you.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_297"></a>[297]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I am quite sure on occasion he really would wish to be useful.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is he doing? I wonder;—still studying Vatican marbles?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Letters, I hope, pass through. We trust your brother is better.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">vi. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Juxtaposition, in fine; and what is juxtaposition?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look you, we travel along in the railway-carriage or steamer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, <i>pour passer le temps</i>, till the tedious journey be ended,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lay aside paper or book, to talk with the girl that is next one;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, <i>pour passer le temps</i>, with the terminus all but in prospect,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Talk of eternal ties and marriages made in heaven.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ah, did we really accept with a perfect heart the illusion!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, did we really believe that the Present indeed is the Only!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or through all transmutation, all shock and convulsion of passion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feel we could carry undimmed, unextinguished, the light of our knowledge!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But for his funeral train which the bridegroom sees in the distance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would he so joyfully, think you, fall in with the marriage procession?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for that final discharge, would he dare to enlist in that service?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for that certain release, ever sign to that perilous contract?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for that exit secure, ever bend to that treacherous doorway?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, but the bride, meantime,—do you think she sees it as he does?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But for the steady fore-sense of a freer and larger existence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Think you that man could consent to be circumscribed here into action?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for assurance within of a limitless ocean divine, o’er</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose great tranquil depths unconscious the wind-tost surface</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Breaks into ripples of trouble that come and change and endure not,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But that in this, of a truth, we have our being, and know it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Think you we men could submit to live and move as we do here?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, but the women,—God bless them! they don’t think at all about it.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Yet we must eat and drink, as you say. And as limited beings</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scarcely can hope to attain upon earth to an Actual Abstract,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_298"></a>[298]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Leaving to God contemplation, to His hands knowledge confiding,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sure that in us if it perish, in Him it abideth and dies not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let us in His sight accomplish our petty particular doings,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, and contented sit down to the victual that He has provided.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Allah is great, no doubt, and Juxtaposition his prophet.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, but the women, alas! they don’t look at it in that way.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Juxtaposition is great;—but, my friend, I fear me, the maiden</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hardly would thank or acknowledge the lover that sought to obtain her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not as the thing he would wish, but the thing he must even put up with,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hardly would tender her hand to the wooer that candidly told her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That she is but for a space, an <i>ad-interim</i> solace and pleasure,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That in the end she shall yield to a perfect and absolute something,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which I then for myself shall behold, and not another,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which amid fondest endearments, meantime I forget not, forsake not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, ye feminine souls, so loving, and so exacting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Since we cannot escape, must we even submit to deceive you?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Since, so cruel is truth, sincerity shocks and revolts you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will you have us your slaves to lie to you, flatter and—leave you?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">vii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Juxtaposition is great,—but, you tell me, affinity greater.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, my friend, there are many affinities, greater and lesser,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stronger and weaker; and each, by the favour of juxtaposition,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Potent, efficient, in force,—for a time; but none, let me tell you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Save by the law of the land and the ruinous force of the will, ah,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">None, I fear me, at last quite sure to be final and perfect.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, as I pace in the street, from the peasant-girl to the princess,</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto</i>,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Vir sum, nihil fæminei</i>,—and e’en to the uttermost circle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All that is Nature’s is I, and I all things that are Nature’s.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, as I walk, I behold, in a luminous, large intuition,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That I can be and become anything that I meet with or look at:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_299"></a>[299]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I am the ox in the dray, the ass with the garden-stuff panniers;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am the dog in the doorway, the kitten that plays in the window,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On sunny slab of the ruin the furtive and fugitive lizard,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Swallow above me that twitters, and fly that is buzzing about me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, and detect, as I go, by a faint but a faithful assurance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en from the stones of the street, as from rocks or trees of the forest</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something of kindred, a common, though latent vitality, greets me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to escape from our strivings, mistakings, misgrowths, and perversions,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fain could demand to return to that perfect and primitive silence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fain be enfolded and fixed, as of old, in their rigid embraces.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">viii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And as I walk on my way, I behold them consorting and coupling;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Faithful it seemeth, and fond, very fond, very probably faithful,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All as I go on my way, with a pleasure sincere and unmingled.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Life is beautiful, Eustace, entrancing, enchanting to look at;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As are the streets of a city we pace while the carriage is changing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As a chamber filled-in with harmonious, exquisite pictures,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even so beautiful Earth; and could we eliminate only</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This vile hungering impulse, this demon within us of craving,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Life were beatitude, living a perfect divine satisfaction.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">ix. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters</i>:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So let me offer a single and celibatarian phrase, a</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tribute to those whom perhaps you do not believe I can honour.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But, from the tumult escaping, ’tis pleasant, of drumming and shouting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hither, oblivious awhile, to withdraw, of the fact or the falsehood,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And amid placid regards and mildly courteous greetings</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yield to the calm and composure and gentle abstraction that reign o’er</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_300"></a>[300]</span> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters</i>:</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Terrible word, Obligation! You should not, Eustace, you should not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, you should not have used it. But, oh, great Heavens, I repel it!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, I cancel, reject, disavow, and repudiate wholly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Every debt in this kind, disclaim every claim, and dishonour,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, my own heart’s own writing, my soul’s own signature! Ah, no!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will be free in this; you shall not, none shall, bind me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, my friend, if you wish to be told, it was this above all things,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This that charmed me, ah, yes, even this, that she held me to nothing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, I could talk as I pleased; come close; fasten ties, as I fancied;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bind and engage myself deep;—and lo, on the following morning</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was all e’en as before, like losings in games played for nothing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, when I came, with mean fears in my soul, with a semi-performance</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At the first step breaking down in its pitiful rôle of evasion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When to shuffle I came, to compromise, not meet, engagements,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, with her calm eyes there she met me and knew nothing of it,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stood unexpecting, unconscious. <i>She</i> spoke not of obligations,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knew not of debt—ah, no, I believe you, for excellent reasons.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">x. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Hang</i> this thinking, at last! what good is it? oh, and what evil!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, what mischief and pain! like a clock in a sick man’s chamber,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ticking and ticking, and still through each covert of slumber pursuing.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What shall I do to thee, O thou Preserver of men? Have compassion;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be favourable, and hear! Take from me this regal knowledge;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let me, contented and mute, with the beasts of the fields, my brothers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tranquilly, happily lie,—and eat grass, like Nebuchadnezzar!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_301"></a>[301]</span></p> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xi. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Tibur is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyrical cadence;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tibur and Anio’s tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So not seeing I sang; so seeing and listening say I,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here with Albunea’s home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me;<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tivoli beautiful is, and musical, O Teverone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tivoli’s waters and rocks; and fair unto Monte Gennaro</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Haunt, even yet, I must think, as I wander and gaze, of the shadows,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Faded and pale, yet immortal, of Faunus, the Nymphs, and the Graces),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fair in itself, and yet fairer with human completing creations,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So not seeing I sang; so now—Nor seeing, nor hearing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither by waterfall lulled, nor folded in sylvan embraces,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither by cell of the Sibyl, nor stepping the Monte Gennaro,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seated on Anio’s bank, nor sipping Bandusian waters,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But on Montorio’s height, looking down on the tile-clad streets, the</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cupolas, crosses, and domes, the bushes and kitchen-gardens,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which, by the grace of the Tibur, proclaim themselves Rome of the Romans,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But on Montorio’s height, looking forth to the vapoury mountains,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cheating the prisoner Hope with illusions of vision and fancy,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But on Montorio’s height, with these weary soldiers by me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Waiting till Oudinot enter, to reinstate Pope and Tourist.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_302"></a>[302]</span></p> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xii. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear Miss Roper,—It seems, George Vernon, before we left Rome, said</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something to Mr. Claude about what they call his attentions.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Susan, two nights ago, for the first time, heard this from Georgina.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is <i>so</i> disagreeable and <i>so</i> annoying to think of!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If it could only be known, though we may never meet him again, that</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was all George’s doing, and we were entirely unconscious,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It would extremely relieve—Your ever affectionate Mary.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">P.S. (1)</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Here is your letter arrived this moment, just as I wanted.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So you have seen him,—indeed, and guessed,—how dreadfully clever!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What did he really say? and what was your answer exactly?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Charming!—but wait for a moment, I haven’t read through the letter.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">P.S. (2)</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ah, my dearest Miss Roper, do just as you fancy about it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If you think it sincerer to tell him I know of it, do so.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though I should most extremely dislike it, I know I could manage.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is the simplest thing, but surely wholly uncalled for</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do as you please; you know I trust implicitly to you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say whatever is right and needful for ending the matter.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only don’t tell Mr. Claude, what I will tell you as a secret,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That I should like very well to show him myself I forget it.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">P.S. (3)</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I am to say that the wedding is finally settled for Tuesday.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, my dear Miss Roper, you surely, surely can manage</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not to let it appear that I know of that odious matter.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It would be pleasanter far for myself to treat it exactly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As if it had not occurred: and I do not think he would like it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I must remember to add, that as soon as the wedding is over</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_303"></a>[303]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">We shall be off, I believe, in a hurry, and travel to Milan;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There to meet friends of Papa’s, I am told, at the Croce di Malta;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then I cannot say whither, but not at present to England.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xiii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, on Montorio’s height for a last farewell of the city,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So it appears; though then I was quite uncertain about it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So, however, it was. And now to explain the proceeding.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I was to go, as I told you, I think, with the people to Florence.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only the day before, the foolish family Vernon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Made some uneasy remarks, as we walked to our lodging together,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As to intentions forsooth, and so forth. I was astounded,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Horrified quite; and obtaining just then, as it happened, an offer</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(No common favour) of seeing the great Ludovisi collection,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why, I made this a pretence, and wrote that they must excuse me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How could I go? Great Heavens! to conduct a permitted flirtation</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under those vulgar eyes, the observed of such observers!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, but I now, by a series of fine diplomatic inquiries,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Find from a sort of relation, a good and sensible woman,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who is remaining at Rome with a brother too ill for removal,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That it was wholly unsanctioned, unknown,—not, I think, by Georgina:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She, however, ere this,—and that is the best of the story,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She and the Vernon, thank Heaven, are wedded and gone—honey mooning.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So—on Montorio’s height for a last farewell of the city.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tibur I have not seen, nor the lakes that of old I had dreamt of;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tibur I shall not see, nor Anio’s waters, nor deep en-</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tibur I shall not see;—but something better I shall see.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Twice I have tried before, and failed in getting the horses;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Twice I have tried and failed: this time it shall not be a failure.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_304"></a>[304]</span></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Therefore farewell, ye hills, and ye, ye envineyarded ruins!</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Therefore farewell, ye walls, palaces, pillars, and domes!</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Therefore farewell, far seen, ye peaks of the mythic Albano,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Seen from Montorio’s height, Tibur and Æsula’s hills!</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ah, could we once, ere we go, could we stand, while, to ocean descending,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Sinks o’er the yellow dark plain slowly the yellow broad sun,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Stand, from the forest emerging at sunset, at once in the champaign,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Open, but studded with trees, chestnuts umbrageous and old,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>E’en in those fair open fields that incurve to thy beautiful hollow,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Nemi, imbedded in wood, Nemi, inurned in the hill!—</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Therefore farewell, ye plains, and ye hills, and the City Eternal!</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Therefore farewell! We depart, but to behold you again!</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_305"></a>[305]</span></p> - -<h4>CANTO IV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Eastward, or Northward, or West? I wander and ask as I wander;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Weary, yet eager and sure, Where shall I come to my love?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Whitherward hasten to seek her? Ye daughters of Italy, tell me,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Graceful and tender and dark, is she consorting with you?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Thou that out-climbest the torrent, that tendest thy goats to the summit,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Call to me, child of the Alp, has she been seen on the heights?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Italy, farewell I bid thee! for whither she leads me, I follow.</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Farewell the vineyard! for I, where I but guess her, must go;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Weariness welcome, and labour, wherever it be, if at last it</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bring me in mountain or plain into the sight of my love.</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">i. Claude to Eustace</span>,—<i>from Florence</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Gone from Florence; indeed! and that is truly provoking;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gone to Milan, it seems; then I go also to Milan.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Five days now departed; but they can travel but slowly;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I quicker far; and I know, as it happens, the house they will go to.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why, what else should I do? Stay here and look at the pictures,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Statues, and churches? Alack, I am sick of the statues and pictures!—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, to Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, Lodi, and Milan,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Off go we to-night,—and the Venus go to the Devil!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">ii. Claude to Eustace</span>,—<i>from Bellaggio</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Gone to Como, they said; and I have posted to Como.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There was a letter left; but the <i>cameriere</i> had lost it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could it have been for me? They came, however, to Como,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And from Como went by the boat,—perhaps to the Splügen,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or to the Stelvio, say, and the Tyrol; also it might be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By Porlezza across to Lugano, and so to the Simplon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Possibly, or the St. Gothard,—or possibly, too, to Baveno,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Orta, Turin, and elsewhere. Indeed, I am greatly bewildered.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_306"></a>[306]</span></p> - -<h5><span class="smcap">iii. Claude to Eustace</span>,—<i>from Bellaggio</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I have been up the Splügen, and on the Stelvio also:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither of these can I find they have followed; in no one inn, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This would be odd, have they written their names. I have been to Porlezza;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There they have not been seen, and therefore not at Lugano.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What shall I do? Go on through the Tyrol, Switzerland, Deutschland,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seeking, an inverse Saul, a kingdom to find only asses?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">There is a tide, at least, in the <i>love</i> affairs of mortals,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which, when taken at flood, leads on to the happiest fortune,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leads to the marriage-morn and the orange-flowers and the altar,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the long lawful line of crowned joys to crowned joys succeeding.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, it has ebbed with me! Ye gods, and when it was flowing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pitiful fool that I was, to stand fiddle-faddling in that way!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">iv. Claude to Eustace</span>,—<i>from Bellaggio</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I have returned and found their names in the book at Como.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Certain it is I was right, and yet I am also in error.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Added in feminine hand, I read, <i>By the boat to Bellaggio</i>.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So to Bellaggio again, with the words of her writing to aid me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet at Bellaggio I find no trace, no sort of remembrance.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So I am here, and wait, and know every hour will remove them.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">v. Claude to Eustace</span>,—<i>from Bellaggio</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I have but one chance left,—and that is going to Florence.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But it is cruel to turn. The mountains seem to demand me,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Peak and valley from far to beckon and motion me onward.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somewhere amid their folds she passes whom fain I would follow;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somewhere among those heights she haply calls me to seek her.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, could I hear her call! could I catch the glimpse of her raiment!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Turn, however, I must, though it seem I turn to desert her;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For the sense of the thing is simply to hurry to Florence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where the certainty yet may be learnt, I suppose, from the Ropers!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_307"></a>[307]</span></p> - -<h5><span class="smcap">vi. Mary Trevellyn</span>, <i>from Lucerne</i>, <span class="smcap">to Miss Roper</span>, <i>at Florence</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear Miss Roper,—By this you are safely away, we are hoping,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Many a league from Rome; ere long we trust we shall see you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How have you travelled? I wonder;—was Mr. Claude your companion?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As for ourselves, we went from Como straight to Lugano;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So by the Mount St. Gothard; we meant to go by Porlezza,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Taking the steamer, and stopping, as you had advised, at Bellaggio,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Two or three days or more; but this was suddenly altered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">After we left the hotel, on the very way to the steamer.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So we have seen, I fear, not one of the lakes in perfection.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Well, he is not come, and now, I suppose, he will not come.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What will you think, meantime? and yet I must really confess it;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What will you say? I wrote him a note. We left in a hurry,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Went from Milan to Como, three days before we expected.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I thought, if he came all the way to Milan, he really</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ought not to be disappointed: and so I wrote three lines to</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say I had heard he was coming, desirous of joining our party;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If so, then I said, we had started for Como, and meant to</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cross the St. Gothard, and stay, we believed, at Lucerne, for the summer.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was it wrong? and why, if it was, has it faded to bring him?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did he not think it worth while to come to Milan? He knew (you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Told him) the house we should go to. Or may it, perhaps, have miscarried?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Any way, now, I repent, and am heartily vexed that I wrote it.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>There is a home on the shore of the Alpine sea, that upswelling</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>High up the mountain-sides spreads in the hollow between;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wilderness, mountain, and snow from the land of the olive conceal it;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Under Pilatus’s hill low by its river it lies:</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Italy, utter the word, and the olive and vine will allure not,—</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Wilderness, forest, and snow will not the passage impede;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Italy, unto thy cities receding, the clue to recover,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hither, recovered the clue, shall not the traveller haste?</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_308"></a>[308]</span></p> - -<h4>CANTO V.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>There is a city, upbuilt on the quays of the turbulent Arno,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Under Fiesole’s heights,—thither are we to return?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>There is a city that fringes the curve of the inflowing waters,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Under the perilous hill fringes the beautiful bay,—</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Parthenope, do they call thee?—the Siren, Neapolis, seated</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Under Vesevus’s hill,—are we receding to thee?—</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sicily, Greece, will invite, and the Orient;—or are we to turn to</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>England, which may after all be for its children the best?</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">i. Mary Trevellyn</span>, <i>at Lucerne</i>, <span class="smcap">to Miss Roper</span>, <i>at Florence</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So you are really free, and living in quiet at Florence;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That is delightful news; you travelled slowly and safely;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mr. Claude got you out; took rooms at Florence before you;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wrote from Milan to say so; had left directly for Milan,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hoping to find us soon;—<i>if he could, he would, you are certain</i>.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear Miss Roper, your letter has made me exceedingly happy.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You are quite sure, you say, he asked you about our intentions;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You had not heard as yet of Lucerne, but told him of Como.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, perhaps he will come; however, I will not expect it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though you say you are sure,—<i>if he can, he will, you are certain</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O my dear, many thanks from your ever affectionate Mary.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">ii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse right smaller">Florence.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Action will furnish belief</i>,—but will that belief be the true one?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This is the point, you know. However, it doesn’t much matter</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_309"></a>[309]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">What one wants, I suppose, is to predetermine the action,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So as to make it entail, not a chance belief, but the true one.</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Out of the question</i>, you say; <i>if a thing isn’t wrong we may do it</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah! but this <i>wrong</i>, you see—but I do not know that it matters.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Eustace, the Ropers are gone, and no one can tell me about them.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse right smaller">Pisa.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Pisa, they say they think, and so I follow to Pisa,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hither and thither inquiring. I weary of making inquiries.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I am ashamed, I declare, of asking people about it.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who are your friends? You said you had friends who would certainly know them.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse right smaller">Florence.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But it is idle, moping, and thinking, and trying to fix her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Image more and more in, to write the whole perfect inscription</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over and over again upon every page of remembrance.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I have settled to stay at Florence to wait for your answer.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who are your friends? Write quickly and tell me. I wait for your answer.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">iii. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper</span>,—<i>at Lucca Baths</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">You are at Lucca baths, you tell me, to stay for the summer;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Florence was quite too hot; you can’t move further at present.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will you not come, do you think, before the summer is over?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Mr. C. got you out with very considerable trouble;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he was useful and kind, and seemed so happy to serve you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Didn’t stay with you long, but talked very openly to you;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Made you almost his confessor, without appearing to know it,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What about?—and you say you didn’t need his confessions.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O my dear Miss Roper, I dare not trust what you tell me!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Will he come, do you think? I am really so sorry for him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They didn’t give him my letter at Milan, I feel pretty certain.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_310"></a>[310]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">You had told him Bellaggio. We didn’t go to Bellaggio;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So he would miss our track, and perhaps never come to Lugano,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where we were written in full, <i>To Lucerne across the St. Gothard</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But he could write to you;—you would tell him where you were going.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">iv. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Let me, then, bear to forget her. I will not cling to her falsely:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nothing factitious or forced shall impair the old happy relation.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will let myself go, forget, not try to remember;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will walk on my way, accept the chances that meet me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Freely encounter the world, imbibe these alien airs, and</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Never ask if new feelings and thoughts are of her or of others.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is she not changing herself?—the old image would only delude me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will be bold, too, and change,—if it must be. Yet if in all things,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet if I do but aspire evermore to the Absolute only,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall be doing, I think, somehow, what she will be doing;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall be thine, O my child, some way, though I know not in what way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let me submit to forget her; I must; I already forget her.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">v. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Utterly vain is, alas! this attempt at the Absolute,—wholly!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, who believed not in her, because I would fain believe nothing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have to believe as I may, with a wilful, unmeaning acceptance.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, who refused to enfasten the roots of my floating existence</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the rich earth, cling now to the hard, naked rock that is left me,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah! she was worthy, Eustace,—and that, indeed, is my comfort,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Worthy a nobler heart than a fool such as I could have given her.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_311"></a>[311]</span></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yes, it relieves me to write, though I do not send, and the chance that</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Takes may destroy my fragments. But as men pray, without asking</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whether One really exist to hear or do anything for them,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Simply impelled by the need of the moment to turn to a Being</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In a conception of whom there is freedom from all limitation,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So in your image I turn to an <i>ens rationis</i> of friendship,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even so write in your name I know not to whom nor in what wise.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">There was a time, methought it was but lately departed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When, if a thing was denied me, I felt I was bound to attempt it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Choice alone should take, and choice alone should surrender.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There was a time, indeed, when I had not retired thus early,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Languidly thus, from pursuit of a purpose I once had adopted,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But it is over, all that! I have slunk from the perilous field in</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose wild struggle of forces the prizes of life are contested.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is over, all that! I am a coward, and know it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Courage in me could be only factitious, unnatural, useless.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Comfort has come to me here in the dreary streets of the city,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comfort—how do you think?—with a barrel-organ to bring it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Moping along the streets, and cursing my day as I wandered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All of a sudden my ear met the sound of an English psalm-tune,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comfort me it did, till indeed I was very near crying.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, there is some great truth, partial, very likely, but needful,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lodged, I am strangely sure, in the tones of the English psalm-tune:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comfort it was at least; and I must take without question</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comfort, however it come, in the dreary streets of the city.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_312"></a>[312]</span></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What with trusting myself, and seeking support from within me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Almost I could believe I had gained a religious assurance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Formed in my own poor soul a great moral basis to rest on.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, but indeed I see, I feel it factitious entirely;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I refuse, reject, and put it utterly from me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will look straight out, see things, not try to evade them;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fact shall be fact for me, and the Truth the Truth as ever,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flexible, changeable, vague, and multiform, and doubtful.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Off, and depart to the void, thou subtle, fanatical tempter!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall behold thee again (is it so?) at a new visitation,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O ill genius thou! I shall at my life’s dissolution</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(When the pulses are weak, and the feeble light of the reason</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flickers, an unfed flame retiring slow from the socket),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Low on a sick-bed laid, hear one, as it were, at the doorway,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, looking up, see thee standing by, looking emptily at me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall entreat thee then, though now I dare to refuse thee,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pale and pitiful now, but terrible then to the dying.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Well, I will see thee again, and while I can, will repel thee.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">vi. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Rome is fallen, I hear, the gallant Medici taken,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Noble Manara slain, and Garibaldi has lost <i>il Moro</i>;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rome is fallen; and fallen, or falling, heroical Venice.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, meanwhile, for the loss of a single small chit of a girl, sit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Moping and mourning here,—for her, and myself much smaller.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Whither depart the souls of the brave that die in the battle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Die in the lost, lost fight, for the cause that perishes with them?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are they upborne from the field on the slumberous pinions of angels</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto a far-off home, where the weary rest from their labour,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the deep wounds are healed, and the bitter and burning moisture</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_313"></a>[313]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Wiped from the generous eyes? or do they linger, unhappy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pining, and haunting the grave of their by-gone hope and endeavour?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">All declamation, alas! though I talk, I care not for Rome nor</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Italy; feebly and faintly, and but with the lips, can lament the</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wreck of the Lombard youth, and the victory of the oppressor.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whither depart the brave?—God knows; I certainly do not.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">vii. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">He has not come as yet; and now I must not expect it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You have written, you say, to friends at Florence, to see him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If he perhaps should return;—but that is surely unlikely.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Has he not written to you?—he did not know your direction.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, how strange never once to have told him where you were going!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet if he only wrote to Florence, that would have reached you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If what you say he said was true, why has he not done so?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is he gone back to Rome, do you think, to his Vatican marbles?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O my dear Miss Roper, forgive me! do not be angry!—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You have written to Florence;—your friends would certainly find him</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Might you not write to him?—but yet it is so little likely!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I shall expect nothing more.—Ever yours, your affectionate Mary.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">viii. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I cannot stay at Florence, not even to wait for a letter.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Galleries only oppress me. Remembrance of hope I had cherished</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Almost more than as hope, when I passed through Florence the first time)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lies like a sword in my soul. I am more a coward than ever,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Chicken-hearted, past thought. The caffès and waiters distress me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All is unkind, and, alas! I am ready for any one’s kindness.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, I knew it of old, and knew it, I thought, to perfection,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If there is any one thing in the world to preclude all kindness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is the need of it,—it is this sad, self-defeating dependence.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_314"></a>[314]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Why is this, Eustace? Myself, were I stronger, I think I could tell you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But it is odd when it comes. So plumb I the deeps of depression,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Daily in deeper, and find no support, no will, no purpose.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All my old strengths are gone. And yet I shall have to do something.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, the key of our life, that passes all wards, opens all locks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is not <i>I will</i>, but <i>I must</i>. I must,—I must,—and I do it.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">After all, do I know that I really cared so about her?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do whatever I will, I cannot call up her image;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For when I close my eyes, I see, very likely, St. Peter’s,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or the Pantheon façade, or Michel Angelo’s figures,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or, at a wish, when I please, the Alban hills and the Forum,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But that face, those eyes,—ah, no, never anything like them;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only, try as I will, a sort of featureless outline,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And a pale blank orb, which no recollection will add to.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">After all, perhaps there was something factitious about it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have had pain, it is true: I have wept, and so have the actors.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">At the last moment I have your letter, for which I was waiting;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have taken my place, and see no good in inquiries.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do nothing more, good Eustace, I pray you. It only will vex me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take no measures. Indeed, should we meet, I could not be certain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All might be changed, you know. Or perhaps there was nothing to be changed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is a curious history, this; and yet I foresaw it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I could have told it before. The Fates, it is clear, are against us;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For it is certain enough I met with the people you mention;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They were at Florence the day I returned there, and spoke to me even;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_315"></a>[315]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Stayed a week, saw me often; departed, and whither I know not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Great is Fate, and is best. I believe in Providence partly.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is ordained is right, and all that happens is ordered.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, no, that isn’t it. But yet I retain my conclusion.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I will go where I am led, and will not dictate to the chances.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do nothing more, I beg. If you love me, forbear interfering.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">ix. Claude to Eustace.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall we come out of it all, some day, as one does from a tunnel?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will it be all at once, without our doing or asking,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We shall behold clear day, the trees and meadows about us,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the faces of friends, and the eyes we loved looking at us?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who knows? Who can say? It will not do to suppose it.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">x. Claude to Eustace</span>,—<i>from Rome</i>.</h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Rome will not suit me, Eustace; the priests and soldiers possess it;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Priests and soldiers:—and, ah! which is the worst, the priest or the soldier?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Politics, farewell, however! For what could I do? with inquiring,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Talking, collating the journals, go fever my brain about things o’er</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which I can have no control. No, happen whatever may happen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Time, I suppose, will subsist; the earth will revolve on its axis;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">People will travel; the stranger will wander as now in the city;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rome will be here, and the Pope the <i>custode</i> of Vatican marbles.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I have no heart, however, for any marble or fresco;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I have essayed it in vain; ’tis in vain as yet to essay it:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I may haply resume some day my studies in this kind;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not as the Scripture says, is, I think, the fact. Ere our death-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Faith, I think, does pass, and Love; but Knowledge abideth.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let us seek Knowledge;—the rest may come and go as it happens.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knowledge is hard to seek, and harder yet to adhere to.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knowledge is painful often; and yet when we know we are happy.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_316"></a>[316]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Seek it, and leave mere Faith and Love to come with the chances.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As for Hope,—to-morrow I hope to be starting for Naples.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rome will not do, I see, for many very good reasons.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Eastward, then, I suppose, with the coming of winter, to Egypt.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h5><span class="smcap">xi. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper.</span></h5> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">You have heard nothing; of course I know you can have heard nothing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, well, more than once I have broken my purpose, and sometimes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only too often, have looked for the little lake steamer to bring him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But it is only fancy,—I do not really expect it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, and you see I know so exactly how he would take it:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Finding the chances prevail against meeting again, he would banish</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forthwith every thought of the poor little possible hope, which</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I myself could not help, perhaps, thinking only too much of;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He would resign himself, and go. I see it exactly.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So I also submit, although in a different manner.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Can you not really come? We go very shortly to England.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>So go forth to the world, to the good report and the evil!</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Go, little book! thy tale, is it not evil and good?</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Go, and if strangers revile, pass quietly by without answer.</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Go, and if curious friends ask of thy rearing and age,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Say, ‘I am flitting about many years from brain unto brain of</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>Feeble and restless youths born to inglorious days:</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>But,’ so finish the word, ‘I was writ in a Roman chamber,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent2"><i>When from Janiculan heights thundered the cannon of France.’</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_317"></a>[317]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_318"></a>[318]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="SEVEN_SONNETS">SEVEN SONNETS<br /> -<span class="smaller">ON</span><br /> -THE THOUGHT OF DEATH.</h2> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_319"></a>[319]</span></p> - -<h3><i>SEVEN SONNETS<br /> -ON THE THOUGHT OF DEATH.</i><a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></h3> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">That children in their loveliness should die</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Before the dawning beauty, which we know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cannot remain, has yet begun to go;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That when a certain period has passed by,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">People of genius and of faculty,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leaving behind them some result to show,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Having performed some function, should forego</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The task which younger hands can better ply,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Appears entirely natural. But that one</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose perfectness did not at all consist</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In things towards forming which time can have done</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Anything,—whose sole office was to exist,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should suddenly dissolve and cease to be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is the extreme of all perplexity.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">That there are better things within the womb</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of Nature than to our unworthy view</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She grants for a possession, may be true:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The cycle of the birthplace and the tomb</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fulfils at least the order and the doom</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of earth, that has not ordinance to do</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_320"></a>[320]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">More than to withdraw and to renew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To show one moment and the next resume:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The law that we return from whence we came,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May for the flowers, beasts, and most men remain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If for ourselves, we ask not nor complain:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for a being that demands the name</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We highest deem—a Person and a Soul—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It troubles us that this should be the whole.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To see the rich autumnal tint depart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And view the fading of the roseate glow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That veils some Alpine altitude of snow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To hear of some great masterpiece of art</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lost or destroyed, may to the adult heart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Impatient of the transitory show</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of lovelinesses that but come and go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A positive strange thankfulness impart.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When human pure perfections disappear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not at the first, but at some later day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The buoyancy of such reaction may</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With strong assurance conquer blank dismay.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But whether in the uncoloured light of truth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This inward strong assurance be, indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">More than the self-willed arbitrary creed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Manhood’s inheritor to the dream of youth;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whether to shut out fact because forsooth</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To live were insupportable unfreed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be not or be the service of untruth:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_321"></a>[321]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Whether this vital confidence be more</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than his, who upon death’s immediate brink,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knowing, perforce determines to ignore;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or than the bird’s, that when the hunter’s near,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Burying her eyesight, can forget her fear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who about this shall tell us what to think?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>V</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">If it is thou whose casual hand withdraws</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What it at first as casually did make,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say what amount of ages it will take</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With tardy rare concurrences of laws,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And subtle multiplicities of cause,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The thing they once had made us to remake;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May hopes dead slumbering dare to reawake,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en after utmost interval of pause,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What revolutions must have passed, before</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The great celestial cycles shall restore</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The starry sign whose present hour is gone;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What worse than dubious chances interpose,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With cloud and sunny gleam to recompose</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The skiey picture we had gazed upon.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>VI</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But if as not by that the soul desired</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Swayed in the judgment, wisest men have thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And furnishing the evidence it sought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Man’s heart hath ever fervently required,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And story, for that reason deemed inspired,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To every clime, in every age, hath taught;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If in this human complex there be aught</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not lost in death, as not in birth acquired,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_322"></a>[322]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">O then, though cold the lips that did convey</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rich freights of meaning, dead each living sphere</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where thought abode, and fancy loved to play,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou yet, we think, somewhere somehow still art,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And satisfied with that the patient heart</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The where and how doth not desire to hear.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>VII</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall I decide it by a random shot?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our happy hopes, so happy and so good,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are not mere idle motions of the blood;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when they seem most baseless, most are not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A seed there must have been upon the spot</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where the flowers grow, without it ne’er they could;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The confidence of growth least understood</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of some deep intuition was begot.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What if despair and hope alike be true?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The heart, ’tis manifest, is free to do</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whichever Nature and itself suggest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And always ’tis a fact that we are here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And with being here, doth palsy-giving fear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Whoe’er can ask or hope) accord the best?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_323"></a>[323]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_324"></a>[324]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="MARI_MAGNO">MARI MAGNO<br /> -<span class="smaller">OR</span><br /> -TALES ON BOARD.</h2> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_325"></a>[325]</span></p> - -<h3><i>MARI MAGNO<br /> -or<br /> -TALES ON BOARD.</i><a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A youth was I. An elder friend with me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas in September o’er the autumnal sea</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We went; the wide Atlantic ocean o’er</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Two amongst many the strong steamer bore.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Delight it was to feel that wondrous force</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That held us steady to our proposed course,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The burning resolute victorious will</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Gainst winds and waves that strive unwavering still.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Delight it was with each returning day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To learn the ship had won upon her way</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her sum of miles,—delight were mornings grey</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And gorgeous eves,—nor was it less delight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On each more temperate and favouring night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Friend with familiar or with new-found friend,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To pace the deck, and o’er the bulwarks bend,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the night watches in long converse spend;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While still new subjects and new thoughts arise</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Amidst the silence of the seas and skies.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Amongst the mingled multitude a few,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some three or four, towards us early drew;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We proved each other with a day or two;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Night after night some three or four we walked</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And talked, and talked, and infinitely talked.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of the New England ancient blood was one;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_326"></a>[326]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">His youthful spurs in letters he had won,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unspoilt by that, to Europe late had come,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hope long deferred,—and went unspoilt by Europe home.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What racy tales of Yankeeland he had!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up-country girl, up-country farmer lad;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The regnant clergy of the time of old</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In wig and gown;—tales not to be retold</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By me. I could but spoil were I to tell:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Himself must do it who can do it well.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">An English clergyman came spick and span</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In black and white—a large well-favoured man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fifty years old, as near as one could guess.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He looked the dignitary more or less.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A rural dean, I said, he was, at least,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Canon perhaps; at many a good man’s feast</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A guest had been, amongst the choicest there.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Manly his voice and manly was his air:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At the first sight you felt he had not known</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The things pertaining to his cloth alone.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Chairman of Quarter Sessions had he been?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Serious and calm, ’twas plain he much had seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had miscellaneous large experience had</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of human acts, good, half and half, and bad.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Serious and calm, yet lurked, I know not why,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At times, a softness in his voice and eye.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some shade of ill a prosperous life had crossed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Married no doubt: a wife or child had lost?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He never told us why he passed the sea.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">My guardian friend was now, at thirty-three,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A rising lawyer—ever, at the best,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slow rises worth in lawyer’s gown compressed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Succeeding now, yet just, and only just,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His new success he never seemed to trust.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By nature he to gentlest thoughts inclined,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To most severe had disciplined his mind;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_327"></a>[327]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">He held it duty to be half unkind.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bitter, they said, who but the exterior knew;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In friendship never was a friend so true:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The unwelcome fact he did not shrink to tell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The good, if fact, he recognised as well.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stout to maintain, if not the first to see;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In conversation who so great as he?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leading but seldom, always sure to guide,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To false or silly, if ’twas borne aside,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His quick correction silent he expressed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And stopped you short, and forced you to your best.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Often, I think, he suffered from some pain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of mind, that on the body worked again;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One felt it in his sort of half-disdain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Impatient not, but acrid in his speech;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The world with him her lesson failed to teach</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To take things easily and let them go.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">He, for what special fitness I scarce know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For which good quality, or if for all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With less of reservation and recall</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And speedier favour than I e’er had seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Took, as we called him, to the rural dean.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As grew the gourd, as grew the stalk of bean,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So swift it seemed, betwixt these differing two</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A stately trunk of confidence up-grew.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of marriage long one night they held discourse;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Regarding it in different ways, of course.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Marriage is discipline, the wise had said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A needful human discipline to wed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Novels of course depict it final bliss,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, had it ever really once been this?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Our Yankee friend (whom, ere the night was done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We called New England or the Pilgrim Son),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A little tired, made bold to interfere;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Appeal,’ he said, ‘to me; my sentence hear.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_328"></a>[328]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">You’ll reason on till night and reason fail;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My judgment is you each shall tell a tale;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And as on marriage you can not agree,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of love and marriage let the stories be.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sentence delivered, as the younger man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My lawyer friend was called on and began.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘<i>Infandum jubes!</i> ’tis of long ago,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If tell I must, I tell the tale I know:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet the first person using for the freak,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Don’t rashly judge that of myself I speak.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So to his tale; if of himself or not</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I never learnt, we thought so on the spot.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lightly he told it as a thing of old,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lightly I repeat it as he told.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_329"></a>[329]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE LAWYER’S FIRST TALE.</i><br /> -<i>Primitiæ, or Third Cousins.</i></h3> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Dearest of boys, please come to-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Papa and mama have bid me say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They hope you’ll dine with us at three;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They will be out till then, you see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But you will start at once, you know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And come as fast as you can go.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Next week they hope you’ll come and stay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some time before you go away.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear boy, how pleasant it will be!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ever your dearest Emily!’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Twelve years of age was I, and she</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fourteen, when thus she wrote to me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A schoolboy, with an uncle spending</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My holidays, then nearly ending.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My uncle lived the mountain o’er,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A rector, and a bachelor;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The vicarage was by the sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That was the home of Emily:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The windows to the front looked down</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Across a single-streeted town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far as to where Worms-head was seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dim with ten watery miles between;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Carnedd mountains on the right</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With stony masses filled the sight;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To left the open sea; the bay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In a blue plain before you lay.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_330"></a>[330]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">A garden, full of fruit, extends,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stone-walled, above the house, and ends</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With a locked door, that by a porch</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Admits to churchyard and to church;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Farm-buildings nearer on one side,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And glebe, and then the country wide.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I and my cousin Emily</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were cousins in the third degree;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My mother near of kin was reckoned</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To hers, who was my mother’s second:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My cousinship I held from her.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such an amount of girls there were,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At first one really was perplexed:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas Patty first, and Lydia next,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Emily the third, and then,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philippa, Phœbe, Mary Gwen.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Six were they, you perceive, in all;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And portraits fading on the wall,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Grandmothers, heroines of old,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And aunts of aunts, with scrolls that told</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their names and dates, were there to show</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why these had all been christened so.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The crowd of blooming daughters fair</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scarce let you see the mother there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And by her husband, large and tall,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She looked a little shrunk and small;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Although my mother used to tell</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That once she was a county belle:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Busied she seemed, and half-distress’d</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For him and them to do the best.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The vicar was of bulk and thewes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Six feet he stood within his shoes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And every inch of all a man;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ecclesiast on the ancient plan,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unforced by any party rule</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_331"></a>[331]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">His native character to school;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In ancient learning not unread,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But had few doctrines in his head;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dissenters truly he abhorr’d,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They never had his gracious word.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He ne’er was bitter or unkind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But positively spoke his mind.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their piety he could not bear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A sneaking snivelling set they were:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their tricks and meanness fired his blood;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up for his Church he stoutly stood.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No worldly aim had he in life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To set him with himself at strife;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A spade a spade he freely named,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And of his joke was not ashamed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Made it and laughed at it, be sure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With young and old, and rich and poor.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His sermons frequently he took</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out of some standard reverend book;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They seemed a little strange, indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But were not likely to mislead.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Others he gave that were his own,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The difference could be quickly known.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Though sorry not to have a boy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His daughters were his perfect joy;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He plagued them, oft drew tears from each,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was bold and hasty in his speech;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All through the house you heard him call,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He had his vocatives for all:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Patty Patina, Pat became,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lydia took Languish with her name,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philippa was the Gentle Queen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Phœbe, Madam Proserpine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The pseudonyms for Mary Gwen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Varied with every week again;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_332"></a>[332]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">But Emily, of all the set,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Emilia called, was most the pet.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Soon as her messenger had come,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I started from my uncle’s home,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On an old pony scrambling down</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over the mountain to the town.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My cousins met me at the door,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And some behind, and some before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Kissed me all round and kissed again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The happy custom there and then,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From Patty down to Mary Gwen.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Three hours we had, and spent in play</div> - <div class="verse indent0">About the garden and the hay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We sat upon the half-built stack;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when ’twas time for hurrying back,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slyly away the others hied,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And took the ladder from the side;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Emily there, alone with me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was left in close captivity;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But down the stack at last I slid,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And found the ladder they had hid.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I left at six; again I went</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Soon after and a fortnight spent:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Drawing, by Patty I was taught,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But could not be to music brought;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I showed them how to play at chess,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I argued with the governess;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I called them stupid; why, to me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas evident as A B C;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were not the reasons such and such?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Helston, my schoolfellow, but much</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My senior, in a yacht came o’er,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His uncle with him, from the shore</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under Worms-head: to take a sail</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He pressed them, but could not prevail;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_333"></a>[333]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Mama was timid, durst not go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Papa was rather gruff with no.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Helston no sooner was afloat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We made a party in a boat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And rowed to Sea-Mew Island out,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And landed there and roved about:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I and Emily out of reach,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Strayed from the rest along the beach.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Turning to look into a cave</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She stood, when suddenly a wave</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ran up; I caught her by the frock,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And pulled her out, and o’er a rock,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So doing, stumbled, rolled, and fell.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She knelt down, I remember well,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bid me where I was hurt to tell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And kissed me three times as I lay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I jumped up and limped away.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The next was my departing day.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Patty arranged it all with me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To send next year to Emily</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A valentine. I wrote and sent;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For the fourteenth it duly went.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the fourteenth what should there be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But one from Emily to me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The postmark left it plain to see.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mine, though they praised it at the time,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was but a formal piece of rhyme.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She sent me one that she had bought;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas stupid of her, as I thought:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why not have written one? She wrote,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">However, soon, this little note.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Dearest of boys, of course ’twas you;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You printed, but your hand I knew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And verses too, how did you learn?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I can’t send any in return.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_334"></a>[334]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Papa declares they are not bad—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That’s praise from him—and I’m so glad</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because you know no one can be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’d rather have to write to me.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Our governess is going away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We’re so distressed she cannot stay:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mama had made it quite a rule</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We none of us should go to school.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But what to do they do not know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Papa protests it must be so.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lydia and I may have to go;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Patty will try to teach the rest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mama agrees it will be best.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear boy, good-bye, I am, you see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ever your dearest Emily.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We want to know, so write and tell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If you’d a valentine as well.’</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Five tardy years were fully spent</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere next my cousins’ way I went;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With Christmas then I came to see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My uncle in his rectory:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But they the town had left; no more</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were in the vicarage of yore.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When time his sixtieth year had brought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An easier cure the vicar sought:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A country parsonage was made</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sufficient, amply, with the aid</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of mortar here and there, and bricks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For him and wife and children six.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though neighbours now, there scarce was light</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To see them and return ere night.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_335"></a>[335]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">Emily wrote: how glad they were</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To hear of my arrival there;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mama had bid her say that all</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The house was crowded for the ball</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Till Tuesday, but if I would come,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She thought that they could find me room;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The week with them I then should spend,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But really must the ball attend;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Dear cousin, you have been away</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For such an age, pray don’t delay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But come and do not lose a day.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A schoolboy still, but now, indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">About to college to proceed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dancing was, let it be confess’d,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To me no pleasure at the best:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of girls and of their lovely looks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I thought not, busy with my books.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still, though a little ill-content,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the Monday morn I went:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My cousins, each and all, I found</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wondrously grown! They kissed me round,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And so affectionate and good</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They were, it could not be withstood.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Emily, I was so surprised,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At first I hardly recognised;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her face so formed and rounded now,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such knowledge in her eyes and brow;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For all I read and thought I knew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She could divine me through and through.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where had she been, and what had done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I asked, such victory to have won?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She had not studied, had not read,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seemed to have little in her head,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet of herself the right and true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As of her own experience knew.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_336"></a>[336]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Straight from her eyes her judgments flew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like absolute decrees they ran,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From mine, on such a different plan.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A simple county country ball</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was to be, not grand at all;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And cousins four with me would dance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And keep me well in countenance.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And there were people there to be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who knew of old my family,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Friends of my friends—I heard and knew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And tried; but no, it would not do.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somehow it seemed a sort of thing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To which my strength I could not bring;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The music scarcely touched my ears,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The figures fluttered me with fears.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I talked, but had not aught to say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Danced, my instructions to obey;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en when with beautiful good-will</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Emilia through the long quadrille</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Conducted me, alas the day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ten times I wished myself away.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But she, invested with a dower</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of conscious, scarce-exerted power,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Emilia, so, I know not why,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They called her now, not Emily,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Amid the living, heaving throng,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sedately, somewhat, moved along,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Serenely, somewhat, in the dance</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mingled, divining at a glance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And reading every countenance;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not stately she, nor grand nor tall,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet looked as if controlling all</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The fluctuations of the ball;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her subjects ready at her call,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All others, she a queen, her throne</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_337"></a>[337]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Preparing, and her title known,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though not yet taken as her own.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O wonderful! I still can see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And twice she came and danced with me.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">She asked me of my school, and what</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Those prizes were that I had got,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And what we learnt, and ‘oh,’ she said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘How much to carry in one’s head,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I must be upon my guard,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And really must not work too hard:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who were my friends? and did I go</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ever to balls? I told her no:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She said, ‘I really like them so;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But then I am a girl; and dear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You like your friends at school, I fear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Better than anybody here.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How long had she left school, I asked.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Two years, she told me, and I tasked</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My faltering speech to learn about</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her life, but could not bring it out:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This while the dancers round us flew.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Helston, whom formerly I knew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My schoolfellow, was at the ball,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A man full-statured, fair and tall,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Helston of Helston now they said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heir to his uncle, who was dead;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the army, too: he danced with three</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the four sisters. Emily</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Refused him once, to dance with me.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">How long it seemed! and yet at one</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We left, before ’twas nearly done:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How thankful I! the journey through</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I talked to them with spirits new;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the brief sleep of closing night</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Brought a sensation of delight,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_338"></a>[338]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Which, when I woke, was exquisite.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The music moving in my brain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I felt; in the gay crowd again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Half felt, half saw the girlish bands,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On their white skirts their white-gloved hands,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Advance, retreat, and yet advance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And mingle in the mingling dance.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The impulse had arrived at last,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the opportunity was past.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Breakfast my soft sensations first</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With livelier passages dispersed.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Reposing in his country home,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which half luxurious had become,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gay was their father, loudly flung</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His guests and blushing girls among,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His jokes; and she, their mother, too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Less anxious seemed, with less to do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her daughters aiding. As the day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Advanced, the others went away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I must absolutely stay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The girls cried out; I stayed and let</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Myself be once more half their pet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Although a little on the fret.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">How ill our boyhood understands</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Incipient manhood’s strong demands!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Boys have such troubles of their own,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As none, they fancy, e’er have known,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such as to speak of, or to tell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They hold, were unendurable:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Religious, social, of all kinds,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That tear and agitate their minds.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A thousand thoughts within me stirred,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of which I could not speak a word;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Strange efforts after something new,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which I was wretched not to do;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_339"></a>[339]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Passions, ambitions lay and lurked,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wants, counter-wants, obscurely worked</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Without their names, and unexplained.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And where had Emily obtained</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Assurance, and had ascertained?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How strange, how far behind was I,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And how it came, I asked, and why?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How was it, and how could it be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And what was all that worked in me?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">They used to scold me when I read,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And bade me talk to them instead;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When I absconded to my room,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To fetch me out they used to come;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oft by myself I went to walk,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But, by degrees, was got to talk.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The year had cheerfully begun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With more than winter’s wonted sun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mountains, in the green garden ways,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gleamed through the laurel and the bays.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I well remember letting out</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One day, as there I looked about,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While they of girls discoursing sat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This one how sweet, how lovely that,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That I could greater pleasure take</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In looking on Llynidwil lake</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than on the fairest female face:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They could not understand: a place!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Incomprehensible it seemed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philippa looked as if she dreamed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Patty and Lydia loud exclaimed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I already was ashamed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When Emily asked, half apart,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If to the lake I’d given my heart;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And did the lake, she wished to learn,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My tender sentiment return.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_340"></a>[340]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">For music, too, I would not care,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which was an infinite despair:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When Lydia took her seat to play,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I read a book, or walked away.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I was not quite composed, I own,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Except when with the girls alone;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Looked to their father still with fear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of how to him I must appear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And was entirely put to shame,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When once some rough he-cousins came.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet Emily from all distress</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could reinstate me, more or less;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How pleasant by her side to walk,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How beautiful to let her talk,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How charming; yet, by slow degrees,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I got impatient, ill at ease;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Half glad, half wretched, when at last</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The visit ended, and ’twas past.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Next year I went and spent a week,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And certainly had learnt to speak;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My chains I forcibly had broke,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And now too much indeed I spoke.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A mother sick and seldom seen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A grief for many months had been,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their father too was feebler, years</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were heavy, and there had been fears</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some months ago; and he was vexed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With party heats and all perplexed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With an upheaving modern change</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To him and his old wisdom strange.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The daughters all were there, not one</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had yet to other duties run,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_341"></a>[341]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Their father, people used to say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Frightened the wooers all away;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As vines around an ancient stem,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They clung and clustered upon him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Him loved and tended; above all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Emilia, ever at his call.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But I was—intellectual;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I talked in high superior tone</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of things the girls had never known,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far wiser to have let alone;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Things which the father knew in short</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By country clerical report;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I talked of much I thought I knew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Used all my college wit anew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A little on my fancy drew;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Religion, politics, O me!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No subject great enough could be.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In vain, more weak in spirit grown,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At times he tried to put me down.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I own it was the want, in part,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of any discipline of heart.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was, now hard at work again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The busy argufying brain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the prize schoolboy; but, indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Much more, if right the thing I read,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was the instinctive wish to try</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, above all things, not be shy.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas! it did not do at all;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ill went the visit, ill the ball;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Each hour I felt myself grow worse,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With every effort more perverse.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I tried to change; too hard, indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I tried, and never could succeed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out of sheer spite an extra day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I stayed; but when I went away,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_342"></a>[342]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas, the farewells were not warm,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The kissing was the merest form;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Emilia was <i>distraite</i> and sad,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And everything was bad as bad.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O had some happy chance fall’n out,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To turn the thing just round about,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In time at least to give anew</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The old affectionate adieu!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A little thing, a word, a jest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A laugh, had set us all at rest;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But nothing came. I went away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And could have really cried that day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So vexed, for I had meant so well,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet everything so ill befell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And why and how I could not tell.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Our wounds in youth soon close and heal,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or seem to close; young people feel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And suffer greatly, I believe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But then they can’t profess to grieve:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their pleasures occupy them more,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And they have so much time before.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At twenty life appeared to me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A sort of vague infinity;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And though of changes still I heard,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Real changes had not yet occurred:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all things were, or would be, well,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And nothing irremediable.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The youth for his degree that reads</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beyond it nothing knows or needs;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor till ’tis over wakes to see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The busy world’s reality.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">One visit brief I made again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In autumn next but one, and then</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_343"></a>[343]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">All better found. With Mary Gwen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I talked, a schoolgirl just about</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To leave this winter and come out.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Patty and Lydia were away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And a strange sort of distance lay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Betwixt me and Emilia.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She sought me less, and I was shy.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And yet this time I think that I</div> - <div class="verse indent0">More subtly felt, more saw, more knew</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The beauty into which she grew;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">More understood the meanings now</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the still eyes and rounded brow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And could, perhaps, have told you how</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The intellect that crowns our race</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To more than beauty in her face</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was changed. But I confuse from hence</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The later and the earlier sense.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Have you the Giesbach seen? a fall</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In Switzerland you say, that’s all;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That, and an inn, from which proceeds</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A path that to the Faulhorn leads,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From whence you see the world of snows.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Few see how perfect in repose,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">White green, the lake lies deeply set,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where, slowly purifying yet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The icy river-floods retain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A something of the glacier stain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Steep cliffs arise the waters o’er,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Giesbach leads you to a shore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to one still sequestered bay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I found elsewhere a scrambling way.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Above, the loftier heights ascend,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_344"></a>[344]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And level platforms here extend</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The mountains and the cliffs between,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With firs and grassy spaces green,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And little dips and knolls to show</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In part or whole the lake below;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all exactly at the height</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To make the pictures exquisite.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Most exquisite they seemed to me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When, a year after my degree,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Passing upon my journey home</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From Greece, and Sicily, and Rome,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I stayed at that minute hotel</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Six days, or eight, I cannot tell.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Twelve months had led me fairly through</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The old world surviving in the new.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From Rome with joy I passed to Greece,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To Athens and the Peloponnese;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Saluted with supreme delight</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Parthenon-surmounted height;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In huts at Delphi made abode,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in Arcadian valleys rode;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Counted the towns that lie like slain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the wide Bœotian plain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With wonder in the spacious gloom</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stood of the Mycenæan tomb;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From the Acrocorinth watched the day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Light the eastern and the western bay.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Constantinople then had seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where, by her cypresses, the queen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the East sees flow through portals wide</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The steady streaming Scythian tide;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And after, from Scamander’s mouth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Went up to Troy, and to the South,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To Lycia, Caria, pressed, atwhiles</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Outvoyaging to Egean isles.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_345"></a>[345]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">To see the things, which, sick with doubt</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And comment, one had learnt about,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was like clear morning after night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or raising of the blind to sight.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Aware it might be first and last,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I did it eagerly and fast,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And took unsparingly my fill.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The impetus of travel still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Urged me, but laden, half oppress’d,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here lighting on a place of rest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I yielded, asked not if ’twere best.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pleasant it was, reposing here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To sum the experience of the year,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And let the accumulated gain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Assort itself upon the brain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Travel’s a miniature life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Travel is evermore a strife,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where he must run who would obtain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis a perpetual loss and gain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For sloth and error dear we pay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By luck and effort win our way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And both have need of every day.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Each day has got its sight to see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Each day must put to profit be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pleasant, when seen are all the sights,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To let them think themselves to rights.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I on the Giesbach turf reclined,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Half watched this process in my mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Watch the stream purifying slow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In me and in the lake below;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And then began to think of home,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And possibilities to come.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Brienz, on our Brienzer See</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From Interlaken every day</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_346"></a>[346]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">A steamer seeks, and at our pier</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lets out a crowd to see things here;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up a steep path they pant and strive;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When to the level they arrive,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dispersing, hither, thither, run,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For all must rapidly be done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And seek, with questioning and din,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some the cascade, and some the inn,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The waterfall, for if you look,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You find it printed in the book</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That man or woman, so inclined,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May pass the very fall behind;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So many feet there intervene</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The rock and flying jet between;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The inn, ’tis also in the plan</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(For tourist is a hungry man),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And a small <i>salle</i> repeats by rote,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A daily task of <i>table d’hôte</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where broth and meat, and country wine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Assure the strangers that they dine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do it they must while they have power,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For in three-quarters of an hour</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Back comes the steamer from Brienz,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And with one clear departure hence</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The quietude is more intense.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">It was my custom at the top</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To stand and see them clambering up,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then take advantage of the start,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And pass into the woods apart.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">It happened, and I know not why,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I once returned too speedily;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, seeing women still and men,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was swerving to the woods again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for a moment stopped to seize</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A glance at some one near the trees;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_347"></a>[347]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">A figure full, but full of grace,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Its movement beautified the place.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It turns, advances, comes my way;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What do I see, what do I say?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet, to a statelier beauty grown,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is, it can be, she alone!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O mountains round! O heaven above!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is—Emilia, whom I love;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Emilia, whom I love,’ the word</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rose to my lips, as yet unheard,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When she, whose colour flushed to red,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In a soft voice, ‘My husband,’ said;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Helston came up with his hand,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And both of them took mine; but stand</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And talk they could not, they must go;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The steamer rang her bell below;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How curious that I did not know!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They were to go and stay at Thun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could I come there and see them soon?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And shortly were returning home,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when would I to Helston come?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thus down we went, I put them in;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Off went the steamer with a din,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And on the pier I stood and eyed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The bridegroom, seated by the bride,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Emilia closing to his side.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>V</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">She wrote from Helston; begged I’d come</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And see her in her husband’s home.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I went, and bound by double vow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not only wife, but mother now,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I found her, lovely as of old,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, rather, lovelier manifold.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_348"></a>[348]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Her wifely sweet reserve unbroke,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still frankly, tenderly, she spoke;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Asked me about myself, would hear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What I proposed to do this year;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At college why was I detained,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was it the fellowship I’d gained?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I told her that I was not tied</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Henceforward further to reside,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet very likely might stay on,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lapse into a college don;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My fellowship itself would give</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A competence on which to live,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And if I waited, who could tell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I might be tutor too, as well.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, but, she said, I must not stay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">College and school were only play;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I might be sick, perhaps, of praise,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But must not therefore waste my days!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fellows grow indolent, and then</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They may not do as other men,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And for your happiness in life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sometime you’ll wish to have a wife.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Languidly by her chair I sat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But my eyes rather flashed at that.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I said, ‘Emilia, people change,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But yet, I own, I find it strange</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To hear this common talk from you:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You speak, and some believe it true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Just as if any wife would do;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whoe’er one takes, ’tis much the same,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And love—and so forth, but a name.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She coloured. ‘What can I have said</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or what could put it in your head?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Indeed, I had not in my mind</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_349"></a>[349]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">The faintest notion of the kind.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I told her that I did not know—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her tone appeared to mean it so.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Emilia, when I’ve heard,’ I said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘How people match themselves and wed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’ve sometimes wished that both were dead,’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">She turned a little pale. I woke</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some thought; what thought I but soft she spoke;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘I’m sure that what you meant was good,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But, really, you misunderstood.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From point to point so quick you fly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And are so vehement,—and I,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As you remember, long ago,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am stupid, certainly am slow.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet some things I seem to know;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know it will be just a crime,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If you should waste your powers and time.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There is so much, I think, that you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And no one equally, can do.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘It does not matter much,’ said I,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘The things I thought of are gone by;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’m quite content to wait to die.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">A sort of beauteous anger spread</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over her face. ‘O me!’ she said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘That you should sit and trifle so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And you so utterly don’t know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How greatly you have yet to grow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How wide your objects have to expand,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How much is yet an unknown land!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You’re twenty-three, I’m twenty-five,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I am so much more alive.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">My eyes I shaded with my hand,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And almost lost my self-command.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_350"></a>[350]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">I muttered something: ‘Yes, I see;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Two years have severed you from me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, Emily, was it ever told,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I asked, ‘that souls are young and old?’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But she, continuing, ‘All the day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were I to speak, I could but say</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The one same thing the one same way.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes, indeed, I think, you know,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And her tone suddenly was low,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘That in a day we yet shall see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You of my sisters and of me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And of the things that used to be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will think, as you look back again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With something not unlike disdain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So you your rightful place obtain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That will to me be joy, not pain.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her voice still lower, lower fell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I heard, just heard, each syllable.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘But,’ in the tone she used before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Don’t stay at college any more!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For others it perhaps may do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’m sure it will be bad for you.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">She softened me. The following day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We parted. As I went away</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her infant on her bosom lay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, as a mother might her boy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I think she would with loving joy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have kissed me; but I turned to go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas better not to have it so.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Next year achieved me some amends,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And once we met, and met as friends.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Friends, yet apart; I had not much</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Valued her judgment, though to touch</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her words had power; yet, strangely still,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_351"></a>[351]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">It had been cogent on my will.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As she had counselled, I had done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And a new effort was begun.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forth to the war of life I went,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Courageous, and not ill content.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Yours is the fault I opened thus again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A youthful, ancient, sentimental vein,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He said, ‘and like Munchausen’s horn o’erflow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With liquefying tunes of long ago.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My wiser friend, who knows for what we live,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And what shall seek, will his correction give.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">We all made thanks. ‘My tale were quickly told,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The other said, ‘but the turned heavens behold;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The night two watches of the night is old,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sinking stars their suasions urge for sleep.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My story for to-morrow night will keep.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The evening after, when the day was stilled,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His promise thus the clergyman fulfilled.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_352"></a>[352]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE CLERGYMAN’S FIRST TALE.</i><br /> -<i>Love is fellow-service.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A youth and maid upon a summer night</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the lawn, while yet the skies were light,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Edmund and Emma, let their names be these,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Among the shrubs within the circling trees,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joined in a game with boys and girls at play:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For games perhaps too old a little they;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In April she her eighteenth year begun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And twenty he, and near to twenty-one.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A game it was of running and of noise;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He as a boy, with other girls and boys</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(Her sisters and her brothers), took the fun;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when her turn, she marked not, came to run,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Emma,’ he called,—then knew that he was wrong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knew that her name to him did not belong.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her look and manner proved his feeling true,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A child no more, her womanhood she knew;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Half was the colour mounted on her face,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her tardy movement had an adult grace.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Vexed with himself, and shamed, he felt the more</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A kind of joy he ne’er had felt before.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something there was that from this date began;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas beautiful with her to be a man.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Two years elapsed, and he who went and came,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Changing in much, in this appeared the same;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The feeling, if it did not greatly grow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Endured and was not wholly hid below.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_353"></a>[353]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">He now, o’ertasked at school, a serious boy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A sort of after-boyhood to enjoy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Appeared—in vigour and in spirit high</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And manly grown, but kept the boy’s soft eye:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And full of blood, and strong and lithe of limb,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To him ’twas pleasure now to ride, to swim;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The peaks, the glens, the torrents tempted him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Restless he seemed,—long distances would walk,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lively was, and vehement in talk.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A wandering life his life had lately been,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Books he had read, the world had little seen.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One former frailty haunted him, a touch</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of something introspective overmuch.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With all his eager motions still there went</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A self-correcting and ascetic bent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That from the obvious good still led astray,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And set him travelling on the longest way;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seen in these scattered notes their date that claim</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When first his feeling conscious sought a name.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Beside the wishing gate which so they name,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Mid northern hills to me this fancy came,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A wish I formed, my wish I thus expressed:</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Would I could wish my wishes all to rest,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>And know to wish the wish that were the best!</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0">O for some winnowing wind, to the empty air</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This chaff of easy sympathies to bear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far off, and leave me of myself aware!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While thus this over health deludes me still,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So willing that I know not what I will;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O for some friend, or more than friend, austere,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To make me know myself, and make me fear!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O for some touch, too noble to be kind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To awake to life the mind within the mind!’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘O charms, seductions and divine delights!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All through the radiant yellow summer nights</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_354"></a>[354]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Dreams, hardly dreams, that yield or e’er they’re done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the bright fact, my day, my risen sun!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O promise and fulfilment, both in one!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O bliss, already bliss, which nought has shared,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose glory no fruition has impaired,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, emblem of my state, thou coming day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With all thy hours unspent to pass away!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why do I wait? What more propose to know?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where the sweet mandate bids me, let me go;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My conscience in my impulse let me find,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Justification in the moving mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Law in the strong desire; or yet behind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, is there aught the spell that has not heard,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A something that refuses to be stirred?’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘In other regions has my being heard</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of a strange language the diviner word?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Has some forgotten life the exemplar shown?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Elsewhere such high communion have I known,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As dooms me here, in this, to live alone?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then love, that shouldest blind me, let me, love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nothing behold beyond thee or above;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye impulses, that should be strong and wild,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beguile me, if I am to be beguiled!’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Or are there modes of love, and different kinds,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Proportioned to the sizes of our minds?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There are who say thus, I held there was one,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One love, one deity, one central sun;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As he resistless brings the expanding day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So love should come on his victorious way.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If light at all, can light indeed be there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet only permeate half the ambient air?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can the high noon be regnant in the sky,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet half the land in light, and half in darkness lie?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can love, if love, be occupant in part,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hold, as it were, some chambers in the heart;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_355"></a>[355]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Tenant at will of so much of the soul,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not lord and mighty master of the whole?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There are who say, and say that it is well;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Opinion all, of knowledge none can tell.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Montaigne, I know in a realm high above</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Places the seat of friendship over love;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis not in love that we should think to find</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The lofty fellowship of mind with mind;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Love’s not a joy where soul and soul unite,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rather a wondrous animal delight;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And as in spring, for one consummate hour</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The world of vegetation turns to flower,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The birds with liveliest plumage trim their wing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all the woodland listens as they sing;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When spring is o’er and summer days are sped,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The songs are silent, and the blossoms dead:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en so of man and woman is the bliss.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, but I will not tamely yield to this!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I think it only shows us in the end,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Montaigne was happy in a noble friend,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had not the fortune of a noble wife;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He lived, I think, a poor ignoble life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And wrote of petty pleasures, petty pain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I do not greatly think about Montaigne.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘How charming to be with her! yet indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">After a while I find a blank succeed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">After a while she little has to say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’m silent too, although I wish to stay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What would it be all day, day after day?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah! but I ask, I do not doubt, too much;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I think of love as if it should be such</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As to fulfil and occupy in whole</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The nought-else-seeking, nought-essaying soul.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Therefore it is my mind with doubts I urge;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hence are these fears and shiverings on the verge;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_356"></a>[356]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">By books, not nature, thus have we been schooled,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By poetry and novels been befooled;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wiser tradition says, the affections’ claim</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will be supplied, the rest will be the same.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I think too much of love, ’tis true: I know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is not all, was ne’er intended so;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet such a change, so entire, I feel, ’twould be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So potent, so omnipotent with me;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My former self I never should recall,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Indeed I think it must be all in all.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘I thought that Love was winged; without a sound,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His purple pinions bore him o’er the ground,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wafted without an effort here or there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He came—and we too trod as if in air:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But panting, toiling, clambering up the hill,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I to assist him? I, put forth my will</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To upbear his lagging footsteps, lame and slow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And help him on and tell him where to go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And ease him of his quiver and his bow?’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Erotion! I saw it in a book;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Why did I notice it, why did I look?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, is it so, ye powers that see above?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I do not love, I want, I try to love!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This is not love, but lack of love instead!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Merciless thought! I would I had been dead,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or e’er the phrase had come into my head.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">She also wrote: and here may find a place,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of her and of her thoughts some slender trace.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘He is not vain; if proud, he quells his pride,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And somehow really likes to be defied;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rejoices if you humble him: indeed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gives way at once, and leaves you to succeed.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Easy it were with such a mind to play,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And foolish not to do so, some would say;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One almost smiles to look and see the way:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_357"></a>[357]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">But come what will, I will not play a part,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Indeed I dare not condescend to art.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Easy ’twere not, perhaps, with him to live;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He looks for more than any one can give:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So dulled at times and disappointed; still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Expecting what depends not of my will:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My inspiration comes not at my call,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seek me as I am, if seek you do at all.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Like him I do, and think of him I must;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But more—I dare not and I cannot trust.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This more he brings—say, is it more or less</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than that no fruitage ever came to bless,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The old wild flower of love-in-idleness?’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Me when he leaves and others when he sees,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is my fate who am not there to please?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Me he has left; already may have seen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One, who for me forgotten here has been;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he, the while is balancing between.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If the heart spoke, the heart I knew were bound;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What if it utter an uncertain sound?’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘So quick to vary, so rejoiced to change,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From this to that his feelings surely range;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His fancies wander, and his thoughts as well;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And if the heart be constant, who can tell?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far off to fly, to abandon me, and go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He seems returning then before I know:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With every accident he seems to move,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is now below me and is now above,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now far aside,—O, does he really love?’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Absence were hard; yet let the trial be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His nature’s aim and purpose he would free,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in the world his course of action see.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O should he lose, not learn; pervert his scope;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O should I lose! and yet to win I hope.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I win not now; his way if now I went,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Brief joy I gave, for years of discontent.’</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_358"></a>[358]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Gone, is it true? but oft he went before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And came again before a month was o’er.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gone—though I could not venture upon art,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was perhaps a foolish pride in part;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He had such ready fancies in his head,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And really was so easy to be led;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One might have failed; and yet I feel ’twas pride,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And can’t but half repent I never tried.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gone, is it true? but he again will come,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wandering he loves, and loves returning home.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Gone, it was true; nor came so soon again;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came, after travelling, pleasure half, half pain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came, but a half of Europe first o’erran;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Arrived, his father found a ruined man.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rich they had been, and rich was Emma too.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heiress of wealth she knew not, Edmund knew.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Farewell to her!—In a new home obscure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Food for his helpless parents to secure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From early morning to advancing dark,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He toiled and laboured as a merchant’s clerk.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three years his heavy load he bore, nor quailed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then all his health, though scarce his spirit, failed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Friends interposed, insisted it must be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Enforced their help, and sent him to the sea.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Wandering about with little here to do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His old thoughts mingling dimly with his new,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wandering one morn, he met upon the shore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her, whom he quitted five long years before.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Alas! why quitted? Say that charms are nought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor grace, nor beauty worth one serious thought;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was there no mystic virtue in the sense</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That joined your boyish girlish innocence?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is constancy a thing to throw away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And loving faithfulness a chance of every day?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas! why quitted? is she changed? but now</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The weight of intellect is in her brow;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_359"></a>[359]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Changed, or but truer seen, one sees in her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something to wake the soul, the interior sense to stir.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Alone they met, from alien eyes away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The high shore hid them in a tiny bay.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alone was he, was she; in sweet surprise</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They met, before they knew it, in their eyes.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In his a wondering admiration glowed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In hers, a world of tenderness o’erflowed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In a brief moment all was known and seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That of slow years the wearying work had been:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Morn’s early odorous breath perchance in sooth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Awoke the old natural feeling of their youth:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sea, perchance, and solitude had charms,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They met—I know not—in each other’s arms.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Why linger now—why waste the sands of life?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A few sweet weeks, and they were man and wife.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To his old frailty do not be severe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His latest theory with patience hear:</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘I sought not, truly would to seek disdain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A kind, soft pillow for a wearying pain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fatigues and cares to lighten, to relieve;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But love is fellow-service, I believe.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘No, truly no, it was not to obtain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though that alone were happiness, were gain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A tender breast to fall upon and weep,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A heart, the secrets of my heart to keep;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To share my hopes, and in my griefs to grieve;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet love is fellow-service, I believe.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Yet in the eye of life’s all-seeing sun</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We shall behold a something we have done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall of the work together we have wrought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beyond our aspiration and our thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some not unworthy issue yet receive;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For love is fellow-service I believe.’</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_360"></a>[360]</span></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">The tale, we said, instructive was, but short;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could he not give another of the sort?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He feared his second might his first repeat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘And Aristotle teaches, change is sweet;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But come, our younger friend in this dim night</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under his bushel must not hide his light.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I said I’d had but little time to live,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Experience none or confidence could give.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘But I can tell to-morrow, if you please,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My last year’s journey towards the Pyrenees.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To-morrow came, and evening, when it closed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The penalty of speech on me imposed.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_361"></a>[361]</span></p> - -<h3><i>MY TALE.</i><br /> -<i>A la Banquette, or a Modern Pilgrimage.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I stayed at La Quenille, ten miles or more</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From the old-Roman sources of Mont Dore;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Travellers to Tulle this way are forced to go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">—An old high-road from Lyons to Bordeaux,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From Tulle to Brives the swift Corrèze descends,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At Brives you’ve railway, and your trouble ends;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A little <i>bourg</i> La Quenille; from the height</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The mountains of Auvergne are all in sight;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Green pastoral heights that once in lava flowed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of primal fire the product and abode;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all the plateaux and the lines that trace</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where in deep dells the waters find their place;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far to the south above the lofty plain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Plomb du Cantal lifts his towering train.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A little after one, with little fail,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Down drove the diligence that bears the mail;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The <i>courier</i> therefore called, in whose <i>banquette</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0">A place I got, and thankful was to get;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The new postillion climbed his seat, <i>allez</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Off broke the four cart-horses on their way.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Westward we roll, o’er heathy backs of hills,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Crossing the future rivers in the rills;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bare table-lands are these, and sparsely sown,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Turning their waters south to the Dordogne.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_362"></a>[362]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">Close-packed we were, and little at our ease,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The <i>conducteur</i> impatient with the squeeze;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not tall he seemed, but bulky round about,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His cap and jacket made him look more stout;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In <i>grande tenue</i> he rode of <i>conducteur</i>;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Black eyes he had, black his moustaches were,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shaven his chin, his hair and whiskers cropt;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A ready man; at Ussel when we stopt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For me and for himself, bread, meat, and wine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He got, the <i>courier</i> did not wait to dine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To appease our hunger, and allay our drouth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We ate and took the bottle at the mouth;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One draught I had, the rest entire had he,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For wine his body had capacity.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A peasant in his country blouse was there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He told me of the <i>conseil</i> and the <i>maire</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their <i>maire</i>, he said, could neither write nor read,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet could keep the registers, indeed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The <i>conseil</i> had resigned—I know not what.—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Good actions here are easily forgot:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He in the <i>quarante-huit</i> had something done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were things but fair, some notice should have won.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Another youth there was, a soldier he,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A soldier ceasing with to-day to be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three years had served, for three had bought release:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From war returning to the arts of peace,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To Tulle he went, as his department’s town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To-morrow morn to pay his money down.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In Italy, his second year begun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This youth had served, when Italy was won.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He told of Montebello, and the fight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That ended fiercely with the close of night.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There was he wounded, fell, and thought to die,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Two Austrian cones had passed into his thigh;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One traversed it, the other, left behind,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_363"></a>[363]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">In hospital the doctor had to find:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At eight of night he fell, and sadly lay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Till three of morning of the following day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When peasants came and put him on a wain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And drove him to Voghera in his pain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To Alessandria thence the railway bore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In Alessandria then two months and more</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He lay in hospital; to lop the limb</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Italian doctor who attended him</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was much disposed, but high above the knee;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For life an utter cripple he would be.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then came the typhoid fever, and the lack</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of food. And sick and hungering, on his back,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With French, Italians, Austrians as he lay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Arrived the tidings of Magenta’s day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Milan entered in the burning June,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Solferino’s issue following soon.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas, the glorious wars! and shortly he</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To Genoa for the advantage of the sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to Savona, suffering still, was sent</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And joined his now returning regiment.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Good were the Austrian soldiers, but the feel</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They did not well encounter of cold steel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor in the bayonet fence of man with man</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Maintained their ground, but yielded, turned and ran</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Les armes blanches</i> and the rifled gun</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had fought the battles, and the victories won.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The glorious wars! but he, the doubtful chance</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of soldiers’ glory quitting and advance,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His wounded limb less injured than he feared,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was dealing now in timber, it appeared;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oak-timber finding for some mines of lead,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Worked by an English company, he said.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This youth perhaps was twenty-three years old;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Simply and well his history he told.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_364"></a>[364]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">They wished to hear about myself as well;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I told them, but it was not much to tell;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At the Mont Dore, of which the guide-book talks,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’d taken, not the waters, but the walks.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Friends I had met, who on their southward way</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had gone before, I followed them to-day.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">They wondered greatly at this wondrous thing,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Les Anglais</i> are for ever on the wing,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The <i>conducteur</i> said everybody knew</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We were descended of the Wandering Jew.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And on with the declining sun we rolled,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And woods and vales and fuller streams behold.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">About the hour when peasant people sup,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We dropped the peasant, took a <i>curé</i> up,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In hat and bands and <i>soutane</i> all to fit.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He next the <i>conducteur</i> was put to sit;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I in the corner gained the senior place.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Brown was his hair, but closely shaved his face;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To lift his eyelids did he think it sin?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I saw a pair of soft brown eyes within.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Older he was, but looked like twenty-two,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fresh from the cases, to the country new.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I, the <i>conducteur</i> watching from my side,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A roguish twinkle in his eye espied;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He begged to hear about the pretty pair</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom he supposed he had been marrying there;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The deed, he hoped, was comfortably done,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Monsieur l’Evêque</i> he called him in his fun.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then lifted soon his voice for all to hear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A barytone he had both strong and clear:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In fragments first of music made essay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And tried his pipes and modest felt his way.</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Le verre en main la mort nous trouvera</i>,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It was, or <i>Ah, vous dirai-je, maman</i>!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And then, <i>A toi, ma belle, à toi toujours</i>;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_365"></a>[365]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Till of his organ’s quality secure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Trifling no more, but boldly, like a man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He filled his chest and gallantly began.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Though I have seemed, against my wiser will,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your victim, O ye tender foibles, still,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Once now for all, though half my heart be yours,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adieu, sweet faults, adieu, ye gay amours!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sad if it be, yet true it is to say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’ve fifty years, and ’tis too late a day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My limbs are shrinking and my hair turns grey;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adieu, gay loves, it is too late a day!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Once in your school (what good, alas! is once?)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I took my lessons, and was not the dunce.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, what a pretty girl was then Juliette!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Don’t you suppose that I remember yet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though thirty years divide me from the day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When she and I first looked each other’s way?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But now! midwinter to be matched with May!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adieu, gay loves, it is too late a day!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘You lovely Marguerite! I shut my eyes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And do my very utmost to be wise;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet see you still; and hear, though closed my ears,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And think I’m young in spite of all my years;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall I forget you if I go away?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To leave is painful, but absurd to stay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’ve fifty dreadful reasons to obey.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Adieu, gay loves, it is too late a day!’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">This priest beside the lusty <i>conducteur</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under his beaver sat and looked demure;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Faintly he smiled the company to please,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And folded held his hands above his knees.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then, apropos of nothing, had we heard,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He asked, about a thing that had occurred</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_366"></a>[366]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">At the Mont Dore a little time ago,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A wondrous cure? and when we answered, No,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">About a little girl he told a tale,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who, when her medicines were of no avail,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was by the doctor ordered to Mont Dore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But nothing gained and only suffered more.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This little child had in her simple way</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto the Blessed Virgin learnt to pray,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, as it happened, to an image there</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By the roadside one day she made her prayer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And of our Lady, who can hear on high,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Begged for her parents’ sake she might not die.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our Lady of Grace, whose attribute is love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beheld this child and listened from above.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her parents noticed from that very day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The malady began to pass away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And but a fortnight after, as they tell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They took her home rejoicing, sound and well.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Things come, he said, to show us every hour</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We are surrounded by superior power.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Little we notice, but if once we see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The seed of faith will grow into a tree.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The <i>conducteur</i>, he wisely shook his head:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Strange things do happen in our time, he said;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If the <i>bon Dieu</i> but please, no doubt indeed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When things are desperate, yet they will succeed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ask the postillion here, and he can tell</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who cured his horse, and what of it befell.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Then the postillion, in his smock of blue,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His pipe into his mouth’s far corner drew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And told about a farrier and a horse;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But his <i>Auvergnat</i> grew from bad to worse;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His rank Arvernian <i>patois</i> was so strong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With what he said I could not go along;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And what befell and how it came to pass,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_367"></a>[367]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And if it were a horse or if an ass,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sequence of his phrase I could not keep,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in the middle fairly sank to sleep.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When I awoke, I heard a stream below</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And on each bank saw houses in a row,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Corrèze the stream, the houses Tulle, they said;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alighted here and thankful went to bed.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">‘But how,’ said one, ‘about the Pyrenees?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In Hamlet give us Hamlet, if you please;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your friend declares you said you met with there</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A peasant beauty, beauteous past compare,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who fed her cows the mountain peaks between,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And asked if at Velletri you had been.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And was Velletri larger than was Rome?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her soldier-brother went away from home,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Two years ago,—to Rome it was he went,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to Velletri was this summer sent;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He twenty-three, and she was sweet seventeen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And fed her cows the mountain peaks between.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lightly along a rocky path she led,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And from a grange she brought you milk and bread.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In summer here she lived, and with the snow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Went in October to the fields below;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And where you lived, she asked, and oh, they say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That with the English we shall fight some day;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Loveliest of peasant girls that e’er was seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feeding her cows the mountain peaks between.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘’Tis true,’ I said, ‘though to betray was mean.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My Pyrenean verses will you hear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though not about that peasant girl, I fear.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Begin,’ they said, ‘the sweet bucolic song,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though it to other maids and other cows belong.’</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_368"></a>[368]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse center"><i>Currente calamo.</i></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Quick, painter, quick, the moment seize</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Amid the snowy Pyrenees;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">More evanescent than the snow,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The pictures come, are seen, and go:</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Quick, quick, <i>currente calamo</i>.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">I do not ask the tints that fill</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The gate of day ’twixt hill and hill;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">I ask not for the hues that fleet</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Above the distant peaks; my feet</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Are on a poplar-bordered road,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Where with a saddle and a load</div> - <div class="verse indent4">A donkey, old and ashen-grey,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Reluctant works his dusty way.</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Before him, still with might and main</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Pulling his rope, the rustic rein,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">A girl: before both him and me,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Frequent she turns and lets me see,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Unconscious, lets me scan and trace</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The sunny darkness of her face</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And outlines full of southern grace.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Following I notice, yet and yet,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Her olive skin, dark eyes deep set,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And black, and blacker e’en than jet,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The escaping hair that scantly showed,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Since o’er it in the country mode,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">For winter warmth and summer shade,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The lap of scarlet cloth is laid.</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And then, back-falling from the head,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">A crimson kerchief overspread</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Her jacket blue; thence passing down,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">A skirt of darkest yellow-brown,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_369"></a>[369]</span> - <div class="verse indent4">Coarse stuff, allowing to the view</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The smooth limb to the woollen shoe.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">But who—here’s some one following too,—</div> - <div class="verse indent4">A priest, and reading at his book!</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Read on, O priest, and do not look;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Consider,—she is but a child,—</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Yet might your fancy be beguiled.</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Read on, O priest, and pass and go!</div> - <div class="verse indent4">But see, succeeding in a row,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Two, three, and four, a motley train,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Musicians wandering back to Spain;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">With fiddle and with tambourine,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">A man with women following seen.</div> - <div class="verse indent4">What dresses, ribbon-ends, and flowers!</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And,—sight to wonder at for hours,—</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The man,—to Phillip has he sat?—</div> - <div class="verse indent4">With butterfly-like velvet hat;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">One dame his big bassoon conveys,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">On one his gentle arm he lays;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">They stop, and look, and something say,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And to ‘España’ ask the way.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">But while I speak, and point them on,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Alas! my dearer friends are gone;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The dark-eyed maiden and the ass</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Have had the time the bridge to pass.</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Vainly, beyond it far descried,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Adieu, and peace with you abide,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Grey donkey, and your beauteous guide.</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The pictures come, the pictures go,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Quick, quick, <i>currente calamo</i>.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">They praised the rhymes, but still would persevere</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The eclogue of the mountain peaks to hear,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_370"></a>[370]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Eclogue that never was; and then awhile,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of France, and Frenchmen, and our native isle,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They talked; pre-insular above the rest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My friend his ardent politics expressed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">France was behind us all, he saw in France</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Worse retrogression, and the least advance.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her revolutions had but thrown her back.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Powerful just now, but wholly off the track;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They in religion were, as I had seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">About where we in Chaucer’s time had been;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In Chaucer’s time, and yet their Wickliffe where?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something they’d kept—the worst part—of Voltaire.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Strong for Old England, was New England too;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The clergyman was neutral in his view,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I, for France with more than I could do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though sound, my thesis did not long maintain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The contemplation of the nightly main,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The vaulted heavens above, and under these,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The black ship working through the dusky seas,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Deserting, to our narrow berths we crept;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sound slumbered there, the watch while others kept.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The second officer, who kept the watch,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A young man, fair of feature, partly Scotch</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And partly Irish in his voice and way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joined us the evening of the following day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And of our stories when he heard us tell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Offered to give a narrative as well.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_371"></a>[371]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE MATE’S STORY.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘I’ve often wondered how it is, at times</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Good people do what are as bad as crimes.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A common person would have been ashamed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To do what once a family far-famed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For their religious ways was known to do.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Small harm befell, small thanks to them were due.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They from abroad, perhaps it cost them less,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had brought a young French girl as governess,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A pretty, youthful thing as e’er you saw;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She taught the children how to play and draw,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of course, the language of her native land;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">English she scarcely learnt to understand.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">After a time they wanted her no more;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She must go home,—but how to send her o’er,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far in the south of France she lived, and they</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In Ireland there—was more than they could say.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A monthly steamer, as they chanced to know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From Liverpool went over to Bordeaux,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And would, they thought, exactly meet the case.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They wrote and got a friend to take a place;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And from her salary paid her money down.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A trading steamer from the seaport town</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Near which they lived, across the Channel plied,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And this, they said, a passage would provide.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With pigs, and with the Irish reaping horde,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This pretty tender girl was put on board;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_372"></a>[372]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And a rough time of it, no doubt, had she,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tossing about upon the Irish Sea.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Arrived at last and set ashore, she found</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The steamer gone for which she had been bound.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The pious people, in their careless way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had made some loose mistake about the day.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She stood; the passengers with whom she crossed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Went off, and she remained as one that’s lost.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Think of the hapless creature standing here</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alone, beside her boxes on the pier.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whither to turn, and where to try and go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She knew not; nay, the language did not know.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So young a girl, so pretty too, set down</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here, in the midst of a great seaport town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What might have happened one may sadly guess,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had not the captain, seeing her distress,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Made out the cause, and told her she could stay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On board the vessel till the following day.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Next day, he said—the steamer to Bordeaux</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was gone no doubt, next month the next would go;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For this her passage-money she had paid,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But some arrangement could, he thought, be made,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If only she could manage to afford</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To wait a month and pay for bed and board.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She sadly shook her head—well, after all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas a bad town, and mischief might befall.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would she go back? Indeed ’twas but a shame,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To take her back to those from whom she came.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘There’s one thing, Miss,’ said he, ‘that you can do</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It’s speaking somewhat sudden-like, it’s true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But if you’ll marry me, I’ll marry you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May be you won’t, but if you will you can.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This captain was a young and decent man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I suppose she saw no better way;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Marry they did, and married live this day.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_373"></a>[373]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">Another friend, these previous nights away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An officer of engineers, and round</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By Halifax to far Bermuda bound,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joined us this night; a rover he had been.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Many strange sights and many climes had seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And much of various life; his comment was, ’twas well</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There was no further incident to tell.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He’d been afraid that ere the tale was o’er,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twould prove the captain had a wife before.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The poor French girl was luckier than she knew;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Soldiers and sailors had so often two.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And it was something, too, for men who went</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From port to port to be with two content.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In every place the marriage rite supplied</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A decent spouse to whom you were not tied.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of course the women would at times suspect,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But felt their reputations were not wrecked.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">One after night we took ourselves to task</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For our neglect who had forborne to ask</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The clergyman, who told his tale so well,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Another tale for our behalf to tell.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He to a second had himself confessed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now, when to hear it eagerly we pressed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He put us off; but, ere the night was done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Told us his second, and his sadder one.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_374"></a>[374]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE CLERGYMAN’S SECOND TALE.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Edward and Jane a married couple were,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And fonder she of him or he of her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was hard to say; their wedlock had begun</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When in one year they both were twenty-one;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And friends, who would not sanction, left them free</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He gentle-born, nor his inferior she,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And neither rich; to the newly-wedded boy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A great Insurance Office found employ.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Strong in their loves and hopes, with joy they took</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This narrow lot and the world’s altered look;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beyond their home they nothing sought nor craved,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And even from the narrow income saved;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their busy days for no ennui had place,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neither grew weary of the other’s face.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nine happy years had crowned their married state</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With children, one a little girl of eight;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With nine industrious years his income grew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With his employers rose his favour too;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nine years complete had passed when something ailed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Friends and the doctors said his health had failed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He must recruit, or worse would come to pass;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And though to rest was hard for him, alas!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three months of leave he found he could obtain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And go, they said, get well and work again.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Just at this juncture of their married life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her mother, sickening, begged to have his wife.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her house among the hills in Surrey stood,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to be there, said Jane, would do the children good</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_375"></a>[375]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">They let their house, and with the children she</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Went to her mother, he beyond the sea;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far to the south his orders were to go.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A watering-place, whose name we need not know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For climate and for change of scene was best:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There he was bid, laborious task, to rest.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A dismal thing in foreign lands to roam</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To one accustomed to an English home,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dismal yet more, in health if feeble grown,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To live a boarder, helpless and alone</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In foreign town, and worse yet worse is made,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If ’tis a town of pleasure and parade.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dispiriting the public walks and seats,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The alien faces that an alien meets;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Drearily every day this old routine repeats.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Yet here this alien prospered, change of air</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or change of scene did more than tenderest care;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three weeks were scarce completed, to his home,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He wrote to say, he thought he now could come,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His usual work was sure he could resume,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And something said about the place’s gloom,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And how he loathed idling his time away.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, but they wrote, his wife and all, to say</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He must not think of it, ’twas quite too quick;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let was their house, her mother still was sick,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three months were given, and three he ought to take;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For his, and hers, and for his children’s sake.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">He wrote again, ’twas weariness to wait,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This doing nothing was a thing to hate;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He’d cast his nine laborious years away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And was as fresh as on his wedding-day;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At last he yielded, feared he must obey.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And now, his health repaired, his spirits grown</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Less feeble, less he cared to live alone.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_376"></a>[376]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas easier now to face the crowded shore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And table d’hôte less tedious than before;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His ancient silence sometimes he would break,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the mute Englishman was heard to speak.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His youthful colour soon, his youthful air</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came back; amongst the crowd of idlers there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With whom good looks entitle to good name,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For his good looks he gained a sort of fame,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">People would watch him as he went and came.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Explain the tragic mystery who can,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something there is, we know not what, in man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With all established happiness at strife,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And bent on revolution in his life.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Explain the plan of Providence who dare,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And tell us wherefore in this world there are</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beings who seem for this alone to live,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Temptation to another soul to give.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A beauteous woman at the table d’hôte,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To try this English heart, at least to note</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This English countenance, conceived the whim.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She sat exactly opposite to him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere long he noticed with a vague surprise</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How every day on him she bent her eyes;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Soft and inquiring now they looked, and then</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wholly withdrawn, unnoticed came again;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His shrunk aside: and yet there came a day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas! they did not wholly turn away.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So beautiful her beauty was, so strange,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to his northern feeling such a change;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her throat and neck Junonian in their grace;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The blood just mantled in her southern face:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dark hair, dark eyes; and all the arts she had</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With which some dreadful power adorns the bad,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bad women in their youth,—and young was she,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Twenty perhaps, at the utmost twenty-three,—</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_377"></a>[377]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And timid seemed, and innocent of ill;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her feelings went and came without her will.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You will not wish minutely to know all</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His efforts in the prospect of the fall.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He oscillated to and fro, he took</div> - <div class="verse indent0">High courage oft, temptation from him shook,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Compelled himself to virtuous thoughts and just,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And as it were in ashes and in dust</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Abhorred his thought. But living thus alone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of solitary tedium weary grown;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From sweet society so long debarred,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And fearing in his judgment to be hard</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On her—that he was sometimes off his guard</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What wonder? She relentless still pursued</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unmarked, and tracked him in his solitude.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And not in vain, alas!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The days went by and found him in the snare.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But soon a letter full of tenderest care</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came from his wife, the little daughter too</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In a large hand—the exercise was new—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To her papa her love and kisses sent.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into his very heart and soul it went.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forth on the high and dusty road he sought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some issue for the vortex of his thought.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Returned, packed up his things, and ere the day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Descended, was a hundred miles away.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">There are, I know of course, who lightly treat</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such slips; we stumble, we regain our feet;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What can we do? they say, but hasten on</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And disregard it as a thing that’s gone.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Many there are who in a case like this</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would calm re-seek their sweet domestic bliss;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Accept unshamed the wifely tender kiss,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lift their little children on their knees,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And take their kisses too; with hearts at ease</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_378"></a>[378]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Will read the household prayers,—to church will go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And sacrament,—nor care if people know.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such men—so minded—do exist, God knows,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, God be thanked, this was not one of those.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Late in the night, at a provincial town</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In France, a passing traveller was put down;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Haggard he looked, his hair was turning grey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His hair, his clothes, were much in disarray:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In a bedchamber here one day he stayed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wrote letters, posted them, his reckoning paid</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And went. ’Twas Edward rushing from his fall</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here to his wife he wrote and told her all.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forgiveness—yes, perhaps she might forgive—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For her, and for the children, he must live</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At any rate; but their old home to share</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As yet was something that he could not bear.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She with her mother still her home should make,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A lodging near the office he should take;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And once a quarter he would bring his pay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he would see her on the quarter-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But her alone; e’en this would dreadful be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The children ’twas not possible to see.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Back to the office at this early day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To see him come, old-looking thus and grey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His comrades wondered, wondered too to see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How dire a passion for his work had he,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How in a garret too he lived alone;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So cold a husband, cold a father grown.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In a green lane beside her mother’s home,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where in old days they had been used to roam,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His wife had met him on the appointed day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fell on his neck, said all that love could say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And wept; he put the loving arms away.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At dusk they met, for so was his desire;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She felt his cheeks and forehead all on fire;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_379"></a>[379]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">The kisses which she gave he could not brook;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Once in her face he gave a sidelong look,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Said, but for them he wished that he were dead,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And put the money in her hand and fled.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Sometimes in easy and familiar tone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of sins resembling more or less his own</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He heard his comrades in the office speak,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And felt the colour tingling in his cheek;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lightly they spoke as of a thing of nought;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He of their judgment ne’er so much as thought.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I know not, in his solitary pains,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whether he seemed to feel as in his veins</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The moral mischief circulating still,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Racked with the torture of the double will;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And like some frontier-land where armies wage</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The mighty wars, engage and yet engage</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All through the summer in the fierce campaign;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">March, counter-march, gain, lose, and yet regain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With battle reeks the desolated plain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So felt his nature yielded to the strife</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the contending good and ill of life.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But a whole year this penance he endured,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor even then would think that he was cured.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Once in a quarter, in the country lane,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He met his wife and paid his quarter’s gain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To bring the children she besought in vain.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">He has a life small happiness that gives,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who friendless in a London lodging lives,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dines in a dingy chop-house, and returns</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To a lone room while all within him yearns</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For sympathy, and his whole nature burns</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With a fierce thirst for some one,—is there none?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To expend his human tenderness upon.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So blank, and hard, and stony is the way</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To walk, I wonder not men go astray.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_380"></a>[380]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">Edward, whom still a sense that never slept</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the strict path undeviating kept,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One winter-evening found himself pursued</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Amidst the dusky thronging multitude.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quickly he walked, but strangely swift was she,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And pertinacious, and would make him see.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He saw at last, and recognising slow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Discovered in this hapless thing of woe</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The occasion of his shame twelve wretched months ago.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She gaily laughed, she cried, and sought his hand,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And spoke sweet phrases of her native land;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exiled, she said, her lovely home had left,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not to forsake a friend of all but her bereft;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exiled, she cried, for liberty, for love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She was; still limpid eyes she turned above.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So beauteous once, and now such misery in,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pity had all but softened him to sin;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But while she talked, and wildly laughed, and cried,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And plucked the hand which sadly he denied,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A stranger came and swept her from his side.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">He watched them in the gas-lit darkness go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And a voice said within him, Even so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So midst the gloomy mansions where they dwell</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The lost souls walk the flaming streets of hell!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The lamps appeared to fling a baleful glare,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A brazen heat was heavy in the air;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And it was hell, and he some unblest wanderer there.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For a long hour he stayed the streets to roam,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Late gathering sense, he gained his garret home;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There found a telegraph that bade him come</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Straight to the country, where his daughter, still</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His darling child, lay dangerously ill.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The doctor would he bring? Away he went</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And found the doctor; to the office sent</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A letter, asking leave, and went again,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_381"></a>[381]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And with a wild confusion in his brain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joining the doctor caught the latest train.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The train swift whirled them from the city light</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into the shadows of the natural night.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">’Twas silent starry midnight on the down,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Silent and chill, when they, straight come from town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leaving the station, walked a mile to gain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The lonely house amid the hills where Jane,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her mother, and her children should be found.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Waked by their entrance, but of sleep unsound,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The child not yet her altered father knew;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet talked of her papa in her delirium too.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Danger there was, yet hope there was; and he,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To attend the crisis, and the changes see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And take the steps, at hand should surely be.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Said Jane the following day, ‘Edward, you know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over and over I have told you so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As in a better world I seek to live,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As I desire forgiveness, I forgive.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forgiveness does not feel the word to say,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As I believe in One who takes away</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our sin and gives us righteousness instead,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You to this sin, I do believe, are dead.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas I, you know, who let you leave your home</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And bade you stay when you so wished to come;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My fault was that: I’ve told you so before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And vainly told; but now ’tis something more.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, is it right, without a single friend,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Without advice, to leave me to attend</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Children and mother both? Indeed I’ve thought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through want of you the child her fever caught.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Chances of mischief come with every hour.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is not in a single woman’s power</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alone, and ever haunted more or less</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With anxious thoughts of you and your distress,—</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_382"></a>[382]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis not indeed, I’m sure of it, in me,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All things with perfect judgment to foresee.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This weight has grown too heavy to endure;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And you, I tell you now, and I am sure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Neglect your duty both to God and man</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Persisting thus in your unnatural plan.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This feeling you must conquer, for you can.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And after all, you know we are but dust,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What are we, in ourselves that we should trust?’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">He scarcely answered her; but he obtained</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A longer leave, and quietly remained.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slowly the child recovered, long was ill,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Long delicate, and he must watch her still;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To give up seeing her he could not bear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To leave her less attended, did not dare.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The child recovered slowly, slowly too</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Recovered he, and more familiar drew</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home’s happy breath; and apprehension o’er,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their former life he yielded to restore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to his mournful garret went no more.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Midnight was dim and hazy overhead</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the tale ended and we turned to bed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the companion-way, descending slow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The artillery captain, as we went below,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Said to the lawyer, life could not be meant</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To be so altogether innocent.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What did the atonement show? he, for the rest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could not, he thought, have written and confessed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weakness it was, and adding crime to crime</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To leave his family that length of time,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The lawyer said; the American was sure</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Each nature knows instinctively its cure.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_383"></a>[383]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">Midnight was in the cabin still and dead,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our fellow-passengers were all in bed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We followed them, and nothing further spoke.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out of the sweetest of my sleep I woke</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At two, and felt we stopped; amid a dream</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of England knew the letting-off of steam</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And rose. ’Twas fog, and were we off Cape Race?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The captain would be certain of his place.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wild in white vapour flew away the force,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And self-arrested was the eager course</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That had not ceased before. But shortly now</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cape Race was made to starboard on the bow.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The paddles plied. I slept. The following night</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the mid seas we saw a quay and light,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And peered through mist into an unseen town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And on scarce-seeming land set one companion down,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And went. With morning and a shining sun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under the bright New Brunswick coast we run,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And visible discern to every eye</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rocks, pines, and little ports, and passing by</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The boats and coasting craft. When sunk the night</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Early now sunk, the northern streamers bright</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Floated and flashed, the cliffs and clouds behind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With phosphorus the billows all were lined.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That evening, while the arctic streamers bright</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rolled from the clouds in waves of airy light,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The lawyer said, ‘I laid by for to-night</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A story that I would not tell before;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For the last time, a confidential four,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We meet. Receive in your elected ears</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A tale of human suffering and tears.’</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_384"></a>[384]</span></p> - -<h3><i>THE LAWYER’S SECOND TALE.</i><br /> -<i>Christian.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A Highland inn among the western hills,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A single parlour, single bed that fills</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With fisher or with tourist, as may be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A waiting-maid, as fair as you can see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With hazel eyes, and frequent blushing face,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And ample brow, and with a rustic grace</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In all her easy quiet motions seen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Large of her age, which haply is nineteen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Christian her name, in full a pleasant name,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Christian and Christie scarcely seem the same;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A college fellow, who has sent away</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The pupils he has taught for many a day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And comes for fishing and for solitude,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps a little pensive in his mood,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An aspiration and a thought have failed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where he had hoped, another has prevailed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But to the joys of hill and stream alive,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in his boyhood yet, at twenty-five.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A merry dance, that made young people meet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And set them moving, both with hands and feet;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A dance in which he danced, and nearer knew</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The soft brown eyes, and found them tender too.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A dance that lit in two young hearts the fire,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The low soft flame, of loving sweet desire,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And made him feel that he could feel again;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The preface this, what follows to explain.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That night he kissed, he held her in his arms,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And felt the subtle virtue of her charms;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_385"></a>[385]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor less bewildered on the following day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He kissed, he found excuse near her to stay,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was it not love? And yet the truth to speak,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Playing the fool for haply half a week,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He yet had fled, so strong within him dwelt</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The horror of the sin, and such he felt</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The miseries to the woman that ensue.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He wearied long his brain with reasonings fine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But when at evening dusk he came to dine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In linsey petticoat and jacket blue</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She stood, so radiant and so modest too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All into air his strong conclusions flew.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now should he go. But dim and drizzling too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For a night march, to-night will hardly do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A march of sixteen weary miles of way.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, by the chances which our lives obey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No, by the heavens and this sweet face he’ll stay.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">A week he stayed, and still was loth to go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But she grew anxious and would have it so.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her time of service shortly would be o’er,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And she would leave; her mistress knew before.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where would she go? To Glasgow, if she could;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her father’s sister would be kind and good;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An only child she was, an orphan left,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of all her kindred, save of this, bereft.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Said he, ‘Your guide to Glasgow let me be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You little know, you have not tried the sea;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, at the ferry when are we to meet?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thither, I guess, you travel on your feet.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She would be there on Tuesday next at three;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘O dear, how glad and thankful she would be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But don’t,’ she said, ‘be troubled much for me.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Punctual they met, a second class he took,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">More naturally to her wants to look,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_386"></a>[386]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And from her side was seldom far away.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So quiet, so indifferent yet, were they,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As fellow-servants travelling south they seemed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And no one of a love-relation dreamed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At Oban, where the stormy darkness fell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He got two chambers in a cheap hotel.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At Oban of discomfort one is sure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Little the difference whether rich or poor.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Around the Mull the passage now to make,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They go aboard, and separate tickets take,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">First-class for him, and second-class for her.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No other first-class passengers there were,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And with the captain walking soon alone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This Highland girl, he said, to him was known.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He had engaged to take her to her kin;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could she be put the ladies’ cabin in?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The difference gladly he himself would pay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The weather seemed but menacing to-day.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She ne’er had travelled from her home before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He wished to be at hand to hear about her more.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Curious it seemed, but he had such a tone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And kept at first so carefully alone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And she so quiet was, and so discreet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So heedful, ne’er to seek him or to meet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The first small wonder quickly passed away.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And so from Oban’s little land-locked bay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forth out to Jura—Jura pictured high</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With lofty peaks against the western sky,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Jura, that far o’erlooks the Atlantic seas,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The loftiest of the Southern Hebrides.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through the main sea to Jura;—when we reach</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Jura, we turn to leftward to the breach,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And southward strain the narrow channel through,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Colonsay we pass and Islay too;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cantire is on the left, and all the day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A dull dead calm upon the waters lay.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_387"></a>[387]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">Sitting below, after some length of while,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He sought her, and the tedium to beguile,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He ventured some experiments to make,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The measure of her intellect to take.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the cabin table chanced to lie</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A book of popular astronomy;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In this he tried her, and discoursed away</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of Winter, Summer, and of Night and Day.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still to the task a reasoning power she brought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And followed, slowly followed with the thought;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How beautiful it was to see the stir</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of natural wonder waking thus in her;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But loth was he to set on books to pore</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An intellect so charming in the ore.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And she, perhaps, had comprehended soon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even the nodes, so puzzling, of the moon;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But nearing now the Mull they met the gale</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Right in their teeth: and should the fuel fail?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thinking of her, he grew a little pale,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But bravely she the terrors, miseries, took:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And met him with a sweet courageous look:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Once, at the worst, unto his side she drew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And said a little tremulously too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘If we must die, please let me come to you.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I know not by what change of wind or tide,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Heading the Mull, they gained the eastern side,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But stiller now, and sunny e’en it grew;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Arran’s high peaks unmantled to the view;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While to the north, far seen from left to right,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Highland range, extended snowy white.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Now in the Clyde, he asked, what would be thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In Glasgow, of the company she brought:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘You know,’ he said, ‘how I desire to stay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We’ve played at strangers for so long a day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for a while I yet would go away.’</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_388"></a>[388]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">She said, O no, indeed they must not part.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her father’s sister had a kindly heart.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘I’ll tell her all, and O, when you she sees,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I think she’ll not be difficult to please.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Landed at Glasgow, quickly they espied</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Macfarlane, grocer, by the river side:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To greet her niece the woman joyful ran,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But looked with wonder on the tall young man</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Into the house the women went and talked,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He with the grocer in the doorway walked.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He told him he was looking for a set</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of lodgings: had he any he could let?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The man was called to council with his wife;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They took the thing as what will be in life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Half in a kind, half in a worldly way;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They said, the lassie might play out her play.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The gentleman should have the second floor,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At thirty shillings, for a week or more.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Some days in this obscurity he stayed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Happy with her, and some inquiry made</div> - <div class="verse indent0">(For friends he found) and did his best to see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What hope of getting pupils there would be.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This must he do, ’twas evident, ’twas clear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Marry and seek a humble maintenance here.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Himself he had a hundred pounds a year.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To this plain business he would bend his life,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And find his joy in children and in wife,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A wife so good, so tender, and so true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mother to be of glorious children too.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Half to excuse his present lawless way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He to the grocer happened once to say</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Marriage would cost him more than others dear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cost him, indeed, three hundred pounds a-year.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘’Deed,’ said the man, ‘a heavy price, no doubt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For a bit form that one can do without.’</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_389"></a>[389]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And asked some questions, pertinent and plain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exacter information to obtain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He took a little trouble to explain.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The College Audit now, to last at least</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three weeks, ere ending with the College Feast,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He must attend, a tedious, dull affair,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But he, as junior Bursar, must be there.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three weeks, however, quickly would be fled,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And then he’d come,—he didn’t say to wed.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With plans of which he nothing yet would say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Preoccupied upon the parting day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He seemed a little absent and distrait;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But she, as knowing nothing was amiss,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gave him her fondest smile, her sweetest kiss.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A fortnight after, or a little more,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As at the Audit, weary of the bore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He sat, and of his future prospects thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A letter in an unknown hand was brought.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas from Macfarlane, and to let him know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To South Australia they proposed to go.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Rich friends we have, who have advised us thus,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Occasion offers suitable for us;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Christie we take; whate’er she find of new,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She’ll ne’er forget the joy she’s had with you;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis an expensive pilgrimage to make,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You’ll like to send a trifle for her sake.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nothing he said of when the ship would sail.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That very night, by swift-returning mail,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ten pounds he sent, for what he did not know;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And ‘In no case,’ he said, ‘let Christian go.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He in three days would come, and for his life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would claim her and declare her as his wife.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Swift the night-mail conveyed his missive on;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He followed in three days, and found them gone.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_390"></a>[390]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">All three had sailed: he looked as though he dreamed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The money-order had been cashed, it seemed.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">The Clergyman, ‘This story is mere pain,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exclaimed, ‘for if the women don’t sustain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The moral standard, all we do is vain.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘But what we want,’ the Yankee said, ‘to know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is if the girl went willingly or no.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sufficient motive though one does not see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis clear the grocer used some trickery.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">He judged himself, so strong the clinging in</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This kind of people is to kith and kin;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For if they went and she remained behind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No one she had, if him she failed to find.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas, this lawless loving was the cause,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She did not dare to think how dear she was.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Justly his guilty tardiness he curst,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He should have owned her when he left her first.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And something added how upon the sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She perilled, too, a life that was to be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A child that, born in far Australia, there</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would have no father and no father’s care.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So to the South a lonely man returned,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For other scenes and busier life he burned,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">College he left and settled soon in town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wrote in the journals, gained a swift renown.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Soon into high society he came,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And still where’er he went outdid his fame.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the more liked and more esteemed, the less</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He seemed to make an object of success.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">An active literary life he spent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Towards lofty points of public practice bent,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was never man so carefully who read,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose plans so well were fashioned in his head,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor one who truths so luminously said.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_391"></a>[391]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Some years in various labours thus he passed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A spotless course maintaining to the last.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Twice upon Government Commissions served</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With honour; place, which he declined, deserved.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He married then,—a marriage fit and good,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That kept him where his worth was understood;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A widow, wealthy, and of noble blood.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mr. and Lady Mary are they styled,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One grief is theirs—to be without a child.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I did not tell you how he went before</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To South Australia, vainly to explore.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The ship had come to Adelaide, no doubt;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Watching the papers he had made it out,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But of themselves, in country or in town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nothing discovered, travelling up and down.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only an entry of uncertain sound,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In an imperfect register he found.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His son, he thought, but could not prove it true;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The surname of the girl it chanced he never knew.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But this uneasy feeling gathered strength</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As years advanced, and it became at length</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His secret torture and his secret joy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To think about his lost Australian boy.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Somewhere in wild colonial lands has grown</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A child that is his true and very own.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This strong parental passion fills his mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To all the dubious chances makes him blind.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still he will seek, and still he hopes to find.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Again will go.</div> - <div class="verse indent14">Said I, ‘O let him stay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in a London drawing-room some day—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rings on her fingers, brilliants in her hair,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The lady of the latest millionaire—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She’ll come, and with a gathering slow surprise</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On Lady Mary’s husband turn her eyes:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_392"></a>[392]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">The soft brown eyes that in a former day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From his discretion lured him all astray.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At home, six bouncing girls, who more or less</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are learning English of a governess,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Six boisterous boys, as like as pear to pear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only the eldest has a different air.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘You jest,’ he said, ‘indeed it happened so.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From a great party just about to go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He saw, he knew, and ere she saw him, said</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Swift to his wife, as for the door he made,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘My Highland bride! to escape a scene I go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stay, find her out—great God!—and let me know.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The Lady Mary turned to scrutinise</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The lovely brow, the beautiful brown eyes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One moment, then performed her perfect part,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And did her spiriting with simplest art,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was introduced, her former friends had known,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, might she call to-morrow afternoon</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At three? O yes! At three she made her call,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And told her who she was and told her all.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her lady manners all she laid aside;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like women the two women kissed and cried.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Half overwhelmed sat Christian by her side,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While she, ‘You know he never knew the day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When you would sail, but he believed you’d stay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because he wrote—you never knew, you say,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wrote that in three days’ time, they need not fear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He’d come and then would marry you, my dear.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You never knew? And he had planned to live</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At Glasgow, lessons had arranged to give.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas, then to Australia he went out,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All through the land to find you sought about,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And found a trace, which though it left a doubt.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_393"></a>[393]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Sufficed to make it still his grief, his joy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To think he had a child, a living boy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whom you, my love——’</div> - <div class="verse indent24">‘His child is six foot high,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’ve kept him as the apple of my eye,’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cried she, ‘he’s riding, or you’d see him here.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O joy, that he at last should see his father dear!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As soon as he comes in I’ll tell him all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And on his father he shall go and call.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘And you,’ she said, ‘my husband will you see?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘O no, it is not possible for me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The boy I’ll send this very afternoon.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O dear, I know he cannot go too soon;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And something I must write, to write will do.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So they embraced and sadly bade adieu.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The boy came in, his father went and saw!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We will not wait this interview to draw;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere long returned, and to his mother ran:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His father was a wonderful fine man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He said, and looked at her; the Lady, too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had done whatever it was kind to do.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He loved his mother more than he could say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But if she wished, he’d with his father stay.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A little change she noticed in his face,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">E’en now the father’s influence she could trace;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From her the slight, slight severance had begun,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But simply she rejoiced that it was done.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She smiled and kissed her boy, and ‘Long ago,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When I was young, I loved your father so.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Together now we had been living, too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only the ship went sooner than he knew.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In loving him you will be loving me:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Father and mother are as one you see.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Her letter caught him on the following day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As to the club he started on his way.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_394"></a>[394]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">From her he guessed, the hand indeed was new;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Back to his room he went and read it through.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘I know not how to write and dare not see;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But it will take a load of grief from me—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O! what a load—that you at last should know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The way in which I was compelled to go.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wretched, I know, and yet it seems ’twas more</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cruel and wretched than I knew before;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So many years to think how on your day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Joyful you’d come, and found me flown away.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What would you think of me, what would you say?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O love, this little let me call you so;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What other name to use I do not know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O let me think that by your side I sit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And tell it you, and weep a little bit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And you too weep with me, for hearing it.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alone so long I’ve borne this dreadful weight;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Such grief, at times it almost turned to hate.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O let me think you sit and listening long,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comfort me still, and say I wasn’t wrong,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And pity me, and far, far hence again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dismiss, if haply any yet remain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hard thoughts of me that in your heart have lain.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O love! to hear your voice I dare not go;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But let me trust that you will judge me so.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘I think no sooner were you gone away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My aunt began to tell me of some pay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">More than three hundred pounds a-year ’twould be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which you, she said, would lose by marrying me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was this a thing a man of sense would do?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was I a fool, to look for it from you?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You were a handsome gentleman and kind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to do right were every way inclined,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But to this truth I must submit my mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You would not marry. “Speak, and tell me true,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_395"></a>[395]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, has he ever said one word to you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That meant as much?” O, love, I knew you would.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’ve read it in your eyes so kind and good,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Although you did not speak I understood.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though for myself, indeed, I sought it not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It seemed so high, so undeserved a lot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for the child, when it should come, I knew—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, I was certain—what you meant to do.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She said, “We quit the land, will it be right</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or kind to leave you for a single night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Just on the chance that he will come down here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And sacrifice three hundred pounds a-year,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all his hopes and prospects fling away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And has already had his will, as one may say?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go you with us, and find beyond the seas,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Men by the score to choose from, if you please.”</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I said my will and duty was to stay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would they not help me to some decent way</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To wait, and surely near was now the day?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quite they refused; had they to let you know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Written, I asked, to say we were to go?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They told me yes; they showed a letter, too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Post-office order that had come from you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alas, I could not read or write, they knew.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I think they meant me, though they did not say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To think you wanted me to go away;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, love, I’m thankful nothing of the kind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ever so much as came into my mind.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘To-morrow was the day that would not fail;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For Adelaide the vessel was to sail.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All night I hoped some dreadful wind would rise,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lift the seas and rend the very skies.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All night I lay and listened hard for you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Twice to the door I went, the bolt I drew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And called to you; scarce what I did I knew.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_396"></a>[396]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Morning grew light, the house was emptied clear;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The ship would go, the boat was lying near.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They had my money, how was I to stay?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who could I go to, when they went away?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out in the streets I could not lie, you know.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O dear, but it was terrible to go.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet, yet I looked; I do not know what passed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I think they took and carried me at last.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Twelve hours I lay, and sobbed in my distress;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But in the night, let be this idleness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I said, I’ll bear it for my baby’s sake,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lest of my going mischief it should take,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Advice will seek, and every caution use;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My love I’ve lost—his child I must not lose.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘How oft I thought, when sailing on the seas,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of our dear journey through the Hebrides,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When you the kindest were and best of men:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, love, I did not love you right till then.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O, and myself how willingly I blamed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So simple who had been, and was ashamed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So mindful only of the present joy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When you had anxious cares your busy mind to employ.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, well, I said, but now at least he’s free,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He will not have to lower himself for me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He will not lose three hundred pounds a-year,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In many ways my love has cost him dear.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Upon the passage, great was my delight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A lady taught me how to read and write.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She saw me much, and fond of me she grew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only I durst not talk to her of you.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘We had a quiet time upon the seas,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And reached our port of Adelaide with ease.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At Adelaide my lovely baby came.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Philip, he took his father’s Christian name,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And my poor maiden surname, to my shame.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_397"></a>[397]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">O, but I little cared, I loved him so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas such a joy to watch and see him grow.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At Adelaide we made no length of stay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our friends to Melbourne just had gone away.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We followed shortly where they led before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To Melbourne went, and flourished more and more.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My aunt and uncle both are buried there;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I closed their eyes, and I was left their heir.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They meant me well, I loved them for their care.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Ten years ago I married Robert; dear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And well he loved, and waited many a year.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Selfish it seemed to turn from one so true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I of course was desperate of you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’ve borne him children six; we’ve left behind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three little ones, whom soon I hope to find.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To my dear boy he ever has been kind.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Next week we sail, and I should be so glad,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Only to leave my boy will make me sad.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But yours he is by right—the grief I’ll bear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And at his age, more easy he can spare,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps, a mother’s than a father’s care.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Indeed I think him like his father, too;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He will be happier, probably, with you.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis best, I know, nor will he quite forget,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Some day he’ll come perhaps and see his mother yet.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘O heaven! farewell—perhaps I’ve been to blame</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To write as if it all were still the same.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell, write not.—I will not seek to know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whether you ever think of me or no.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">O love, love, love, too late! the tears fell down.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He dried them up—and slowly walked to town.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_398"></a>[398]</span></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">To bed with busy thoughts; the following day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bore us expectant into Boston Bay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With dome and steeple on the yellow skies,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the left we watched with curious eyes</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Puritan great Mother City rise.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Among the islets, winding in and round,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The great ship moved to her appointed ground.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We bade adieu, shook hands and went ashore:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I and my friend have seen our friends no more.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_399"></a>[399]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_400"></a>[400]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="SONGS_IN_ABSENCE">SONGS IN ABSENCE.</h2> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_401"></a>[401]</span></p> - -<h3><i>SONGS IN ABSENCE.</i><a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell, farewell! Her vans the vessel tries,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His iron might the potent engine plies;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Haste, wingèd words, and ere ’tis useless, tell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell, farewell, yet once again, farewell.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The docks, the streets, the houses past us fly,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Without a strain the great ship marches by;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye fleeting banks take up the words we tell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And say for us yet once again, farewell.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The waters widen—on without a strain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The strong ship moves upon the open main;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She knows the seas, she hears the true waves swell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She seems to say farewell, again farewell.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The billows whiten and the deep seas heave;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fly once again, sweet words, to her I leave,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With winds that blow return, and seas that swell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell, farewell, say once again, farewell.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Fresh in my face and rippling to my feet</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The winds and waves an answer soft repeat,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In sweet, sweet words far brought they seem to tell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell, farewell, yet once again, farewell.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_402"></a>[402]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Night gathers fast; adieu, thou fading shore!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The land we look for next must lie before;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hence, foolish tears! weak thoughts, no more rebel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell, farewell, a last, a last farewell.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet not, indeed, ah not till more than sea</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And more than space divide my love and me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Till more than waves and winds between us swell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Farewell, a last, indeed, a last farewell</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye flags of Piccadilly,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Where I posted up and down,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And wished myself so often</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Well away from you and town,—</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Are the people walking quietly</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And steady on their feet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cabs and omnibuses plying</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Just as usual in the street?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Do the houses look as upright</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As of old they used to be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And does nothing seem affected</div> - <div class="verse indent2">By the pitching of the sea?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Through the Green Park iron railings</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Do the quick pedestrians pass?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are the little children playing</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Round the plane-tree in the grass?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">This squally wild north-wester</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With which our vessel fights,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Does it merely serve with you to</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Carry up some paper kites?</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_403"></a>[403]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye flags of Piccadilly,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Which I hated so, I vow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I could wish with all my heart</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You were underneath me now!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come home, come home! and where is home for me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose ship is driving o’er the trackless sea?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the frail bark here plunging on its way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the wild waters, shall I turn and say</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the plunging bark, or to the salt sea foam,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">You are my home?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Fields once I walked in, faces once I knew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Familiar things so old my heart believed them true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These far, far back, behind me lie, before</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The dark clouds mutter, and the deep seas roar,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And speak to them that ’neath and o’er them roam</div> - <div class="verse indent6">No words of home.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Beyond the clouds, beyond the waves that roar,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There may indeed, or may not be, a shore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where fields as green, and hands and hearts as true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The old forgotten semblance may renew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And offer exiles driven far o’er the salt sea foam</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Another home.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But toil and pain must wear out many a day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And days bear weeks, and weeks bear months away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere, if at all, the weary traveller hear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With accents whispered in his wayworn ear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A voice he dares to listen to, say, Come</div> - <div class="verse indent6">To thy true home.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_404"></a>[404]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come home, come home! and where a home hath he</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose ship is driving o’er the driving sea?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through clouds that mutter, and o’er waves that roar,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, shall we find, or shall we not, a shore</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That is, as is not ship or ocean foam,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Indeed our home?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1852</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Green fields of England! wheresoe’er</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Across this watery waste we fare,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your image at our hearts we bear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Green fields of England, everywhere.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Sweet eyes in England, I must flee</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Past where the waves’ last confines be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere your loved smile I cease to see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sweet eyes in England, dear to me.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear home in England, safe and fast</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If but in thee my lot lie cast,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The past shall seem a nothing past</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To thee, dear home, if won at last;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear home in England, won at last.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1852</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back, come back, behold with straining mast</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With one new sun to see her voyage o’er,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With morning light to touch her native shore.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Come back, come back.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back, come back, while westward labouring by,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With sailless yards, a bare black hulk we fly.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_405"></a>[405]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">See how the gale we fight with sweeps her back,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To our lost home, on our forsaken track.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Come back, come back.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back, come back, across the flying foam,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We hear faint far-off voices call us home,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back, ye seem to say; ye seek in vain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We went, we sought, and homeward turned again.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Come back, come back.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back, come back; and whither back or why?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Walk the old fields; pace the familiar street;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dream with the idlers, with the bards compete.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Come back, come back.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back, come back; and whither and for what?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To finger idly some old Gordian knot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And with much toil attain to half-believe.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Come back, come back.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back, come back; yea back, indeed, do go</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sighs panting thick, and tears that want to flow;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fond fluttering hopes upraise their useless wings,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And wishes idly struggle in the strings;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Come back, come back.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back, come back, more eager than the breeze,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The flying fancies sweep across the seas,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And lighter far than ocean’s flying foam,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The heart’s fond message hurries to its home.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Come back, come back.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_406"></a>[406]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come back, come back!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The long smoke wavers on the homeward track,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Back fly with winds things which the winds obey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The strong ship follows its appointed way.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1852</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Some future day when what is now is not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When all old faults and follies are forgot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And thoughts of difference passed like dreams away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We’ll meet again, upon some future day.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When all that hindered, all that vexed our love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As tall rank weeds will climb the blade above,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When all but it has yielded to decay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We’ll meet again upon some future day.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When we have proved, each on his course alone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The wider world, and learnt what’s now unknown,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have made life clear, and worked out each a way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We’ll meet again,—we shall have much to say.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">With happier mood, and feelings born anew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our boyhood’s bygone fancies we’ll review,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Talk o’er old talks, play as we used to play,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And meet again, on many a future day.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Some day, which oft our hearts shall yearn to see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In some far year, though distant yet to be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall we indeed,—ye winds and waters, say!—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Meet yet again, upon some future day?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1852</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_407"></a>[407]</span></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Where lies the land to which the ship would go?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And where the land she travels from? Away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far, far behind, is all that they can say.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or, o’er the stern reclining, watch below</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The foaming wake far widening as we go.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The dripping sailor on the reeling mast</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Where lies the land to which the ship would go?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And where the land she travels from? Away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far, far behind, is all that they can say.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1852</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The mighty ocean rolls and raves,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To part us with its angry waves;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But arch on arch from shore to shore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In a vast fabric reaching o’er,</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">With careful labours daily wrought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By steady hope and tender thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The wide and weltering waste above—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our hearts have bridged it with their love.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_408"></a>[408]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">There fond anticipations fly</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To rear the growing structure high</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dear memories upon either side</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Combine to make it large and wide.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">There, happy fancies day by day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">New courses sedulously lay;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There soft solicitudes, sweet fears,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And doubts accumulate, and tears.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">While the pure purpose of the soul,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To form of many parts a whole,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To make them strong and hold them true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From end to end, is carried through.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Then when the waters war between,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the masonry unseen,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Secure and swift, from shore to shore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With silent footfall travelling o’er,</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Our sundered spirits come and go,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hither and thither, to and fro,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pass and repass, now linger near,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now part, anew to reappear.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">With motions of a glad surprise,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We meet each other’s wondering eyes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At work, at play, when people talk,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And when we sleep, and when we walk.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Each dawning day my eyelids see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You come, methinks, across to me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And I, at every hour anew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could dream I travelled o’er to you.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1853</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_409"></a>[409]</span></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">That out of sight is out of mind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is true of most we leave behind;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is not sure, nor can be true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My own and only love, of you.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">They were my friends, ’twas sad to part;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Almost a tear began to start;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But yet as things run on they find</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That out of sight is out of mind.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">For men, that will not idlers be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must lend their hearts to things they see;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And friends who leave them far behind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When out of sight are out of mind.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I blame it not; I think that when</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The cold and silent meet again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Kind hearts will yet as erst be kind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twas ‘out of sight,’ was ‘out of mind.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I knew it when we parted, well,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I knew it, but was loth to tell;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I felt before, what now I find,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That ‘out of sight’ is ‘out of mind.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">That friends, however friends they were,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still deal with things as things occur,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And that, excepting for the blind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What’s out of sight is out of mind.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But love, the poets say, <i>is</i> blind;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So out of sight and out of mind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Need not, nor will, I think, be true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My own and only love, of you.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1853</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_410"></a>[410]</span></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Were you with me, or I with you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There’s nought, methinks, I might not do;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could venture here, and venture there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And never fear, nor ever care.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To things before, and things behind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could turn my thoughts, and turn my mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On this and that, day after day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Could dare to throw myself away.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Secure, when all was o’er, to find</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My proper thought, my perfect mind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And unimpaired receive anew</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My own and better self in you.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1853</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Am I with you, or you with me?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Or in some blessed place above,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where neither lands divide nor sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Are we united in our love?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Oft while in longing here I lie,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That wasting ever still endures;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My soul out from me seems to fly,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And half-way, somewhere, meet with yours.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Somewhere—but where I cannot guess—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Beyond, may be, the bound of space,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The liberated spirits press</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And meet, bless heaven, and embrace.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_411"></a>[411]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">It seems not either here nor there,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Somewhere between us up above,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A region of a clearer air,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The dwelling of a purer love.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1852</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Were I with you, or you with me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My love, how happy should we be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Day after day it is sad cheer</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To have you there, while I am here.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">My darling’s face I cannot see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My darling’s voice is mute for me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My fingers vainly seek the hair</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of her that is not here, but there.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">In a strange land, to her unknown,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I sit and think of her alone;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in that happy chamber where</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We sat, she sits, nor has me there.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet still the happy thought recurs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That she is mine, as I am hers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That she is there, as I am here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And loves me, whether far or near.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The mere assurance that she lives</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And loves me, full contentment gives;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I need not doubt, despond, or fear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For, she is there, and I am here.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1852</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_412"></a>[412]</span></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Were you with me, or I with you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">There’s nought methinks I could not do;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And nothing that, for your dear sake,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I might not dare to undertake.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">With thousands standing by as fit,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">More keen, perhaps more needing it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To be the first some job to spy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And jump and call out, Here am I!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O for one’s miserable self</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To ask a pittance of the pelf,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To claim, however small, a share,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which other men might think so fair:</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">It was not worth it! a first time</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A thought upon it seemed a crime;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To stoop and pick the dirty pence,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A taint upon one’s innocence.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">My own! with nothing sordid, base.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or mean, we would our love disgrace;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet something I methinks could do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were you with me, or I with you:</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Some misconstruction would sustain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Count some humiliation gain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Make unabashed a righteous claim,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And profess merit without shame:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_413"></a>[413]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Apply for service; day by day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seek honest work for honest pay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Without a fear by any toil</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The over-cleanly hand to soil:</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Secure in safety to return,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And every pettiness unlearn;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And unimpaired still find anew</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My own and better self in you.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O ship, ship, ship,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That travellest over the sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What are the tidings, I pray thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Thou bearest hither to me?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Are they tidings of comfort and joy,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That shall make me seem to see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sweet lips softly moving</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And whispering love to me?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Or are they of trouble and grief,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Estrangement, sorrow, and doubt,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To turn into torture my hopes,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And drive me from Paradise out?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O ship, ship, ship,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That comest over the sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whatever it be thou bringest,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Come quickly with it to me.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1853</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_414"></a>[414]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_415"></a>[415]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="ESSAYS_IN_CLASSICAL_METRES">ESSAYS IN CLASSICAL METRES.</h2> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_416"></a>[416]</span></p> - -<h3><i>TRANSLATIONS OF ILIAD.</i></h3> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_417"></a>[417]</span></p> - -<h4>(I. 1-32.)</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Goddess, the anger sing of the Pelean Achilles,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fatal beginning of griefs unnumbered to the Achæans;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Many valiant souls untimely it hurried to Hades,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the heroes left themselves of dogs to be eaten</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And of ravenous birds—till Zeus’s plan was accomplished—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From the day when first contention arose to dissever</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Atrides the King and the godlike hero Achilles.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">What divinity thus incited them to contention?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Zeus and Leto’s son; who, in anger with Agamemnon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sent a deadly disease on the host, destroying the people,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On account of the wrong the King to his worshipper offered,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Chryses, who had come to the hollow ships of Achaia,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To recover his daughter, with gifts of costly redemption,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Carrying in his hands the wreaths of the archer Apollo</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Set on a golden staff—beseeching all the Achæans,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the Atridæ in chief, the two in command of the nations:</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Ye, Atreus’ sons, and other well-greaved Achaïan heroes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May the gods, who live in Olympian houses, accord you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Capture of Priam’s town and safe to return to Achaia,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But liberate to me my child and take the redemption—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fearing Zeus’s son, the far-death-dealing Apollo.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Then the Achæans all with acclamation assented,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Honour to show to the priest, and take the costly redemption;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_418"></a>[418]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Only to Atrides Agamemnon it was unpleasing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sternly who dismissed him with contumelious answer:</div> - <div class="verse indent2">‘Old man, let me not, by the hollow ships of Achaia</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lingering find you now, or henceforth ever appearing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lest to defend you fail the staff and wreaths of Apollo.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her do I not release until old age come upon her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In my house in the land of Argos, far from her country,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stepping at the loom and in the chamber attending.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, and trouble me not, that your return be the safer.’</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>(I. 121-218.)</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And replying, said godlike, swift-footed Achilles:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Atrides, our chief, as in rank, so in love of possessions,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Say, in what way shall the noble Achæans find you a present?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Little we yet have gained the general stock to replenish,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Distributed were all the spoils we took from the cities,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And to recall our gifts and reapportion befits not—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yield you the maiden to-day to the god, and we, the Achæans,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three or four times over will compensate it, if ever</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Zeus the capture accord of the well-walled Ilian city.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And with words of reply the King Agamemnon addressed him:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Think not, great as you are, O god-resembling Achilles,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thus to dissimulate and evade me with a profession;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it that you desire to enjoy your prize, and to let me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sit empty-handed here, and mine you bid me surrender—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Doubtless, if the noble Achæans find me another</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Suitable to my wants and answerable in value;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But, if they do not give, myself will make my election—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yours, or that, if I please, of Ajax or of Ulysses,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I for my own will take, and leave the loser lamenting.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">At a suitable time this, after, will we determine;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_419"></a>[419]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Now proceed we to haul a swift ship into the water,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Choose the rowers to take her, and send the cattle aboard her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For sacrifice, and bring the beautiful daughter of Chryses</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Also on board, and appoint some prudent chief to convey her—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ajax shall it be, or Idomeneus, or Ulysses?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or will Pelides, incomparable of heroes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, and with holy rite appease the wrath of Apollo?’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And with a frown swift-footed Achilles eyed him, and answered:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘O me! clothed-upon with impudence, greedy-hearted,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How shall any Achæan again be willing to serve you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Make any expedition, or fight in battle to help you?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Certainly not upon any account of the Troïan horsemen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came I hither to fight; they never gave me occasion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Never carried away any cattle of mine, any horses,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor in Phthia ever, the rich land, feeder of people,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Devastated the fruit; since numerous, to divide them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mountains shadowy lie, and a sea’s tumultuous water:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To’ attend thee we came, on thy effrontery waiting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Reparation to take of the Trojans for Menelaus,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And thy unblushing self. All which you little remember,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And can threaten to-day of my reward to deprive me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dearly with labour earned, and given me by the Achæans.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Do I ever receive any gift your gifts to compare with,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the Achæans sack any wealthy town of the Trojans?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Truly the larger part of the busy, hurrying warfare</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My hands have to discharge; but, in the day of division,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yours is the ample share, and I, content with a little,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thankfully turn to my ships, well wearied out with the fighting.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now to Phthia I go—far wiser for me to do so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home with my hollow ships to travel, than for another</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Accumulate riches to be requited with insult.’</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_420"></a>[420]</span> - <div class="verse indent2">And replying, said the king of men, Agamemnon:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Go, if to go be your wish; I keep you not—do not ask you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For my honour to stay; I have others here to support it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who—and Zeus above all, the Counsellor—will uphold me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You are the hatefullest to me of the Zeus-fed princes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lover for evermore of brawl and battle and discord.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Strong if you are, your strength was by some deity given.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home with your hollow ships, and with your people returning</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Order the Myrmidonans: expect not me to regard you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or to observe your wrath. I advertise you beforehand—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As Chryseïda Phœbus Apollo hath bid me surrender,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I in a ship of my own will with my people remit her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Home, and the beautiful-cheeked Briseïda then to replace her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out of your tent, your prize, will carry; an argument to you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How much greater I am than yourself, and a warning to others</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not to oppose my will and talk with me as an equal.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So said he, and pain seized Pelides, and in the bosom</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Under his hairy breast two purposes he divided,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Either, from by his thigh the glittering blade unsheathing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To put aside the rest and straightway kill Agamemnon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or to repress his wrath and check himself in his anger.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With the purposes yet conflicting thus in his bosom,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From the sheath the huge sword was issuing out, when Athena</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Came from heaven: the goddess, the white-armed Hera, desired it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Solicitous for the good of the one alike and the other.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Standing behind, by the yellow hair she drew back Achilles,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Visible only to him, of the rest to no one apparent;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And with wonder seized he turned, and knew in a moment</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pallas Athenæa, with dreadful eyes looking at him;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he opened his lips with wingèd words and addressed her:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Wherefore art thou come, O child of the ægis-bearer;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_421"></a>[421]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Was it the fury to see of Atrides Agamemnon?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo, I declare it now, and you will see it accomplished,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His injurious acts will bring his death-blow upon him.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And replying, said the blue-eyed goddess, Athena:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘To repress I came, if practicable, your anger,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out of heaven,—the goddess, the white-armed Hera, desired me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Solicitous for the good of the one alike and the other.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Abstain from violence, put back the sword in the scabbard,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let opprobrious words, if necessary, requite him;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For I declare it now, and you will see it accomplished,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Three times as many gifts will soon, as costly, be sent you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In reparation of this; be ruled by us to be patient.’</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And replying, spoke and said swift-footed Achilles:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Unto admonition of you two given, O goddess,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even the greatly incensed should yield; ’tis well to obey you;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who to the voice of the gods is obedient, they will assist him.’</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_422"></a>[422]</span></p> - -<h3><i>ELEGIACS.</i></h3> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">From thy far sources, ’mid mountains airily climbing,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Pass to the rich lowland, thou busy sunny river;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Murmuring once, dimpling, pellucid, limpid, abundant,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Deepening now, widening, swelling, a lordly river.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Through woodlands steering, with branches waving above thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Through the meadows sinuous, wandering irriguous;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Towns, hamlets leaving, towns by thee, bridges across thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Pass to palace garden, pass to cities populous.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Murmuring once, dimpling, ’mid woodlands wandering idly,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Now with mighty vessels loaded, a mighty river.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pass to the great waters, though tides may seem to resist thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Tides to resist seeming, quickly will lend thee passage,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Pass to the dark waters that roaring wait to receive thee;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Pass them thou wilt not, thou busy sunny river.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">Freshwater, 1861.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Trunks the forest yielded with gums ambrosial oozing,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Boughs with apples laden beautiful, Hesperian,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Golden, odoriferous, perfume exhaling about them,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Orbs in a dark umbrage luminous and radiant;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the palate grateful, more luscious were not in Eden,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Or in that fabled garden of Alcinoüs;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Out of a dark umbrage sounds also musical issued,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Birds their sweet transports uttering in melody:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thrushes clear piping, wood-pigeons cooing, arousing</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Loudly the nightingale, loudly the sylvan echoes;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_423"></a>[423]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Waters transpicuous flowed under, flowed to the list’ning</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ear with a soft murmur, softly soporiferous;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor, with ebon locks too, there wanted, circling, attentive</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Unto the sweet fluting, girls, of a swarthy shepherd;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Over a sunny level their flocks are lazily feeding,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">They of Amor musing rest in a leafy cavern.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1861</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>ALCAICS.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So spake the voice: and as with a single life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Instinct, the whole mass, fierce, irretainable,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Down on that unsuspecting host swept;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Down, with the fury of winds, that all night</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upbrimming, sapping slowly the dyke, at dawn</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fall through the breach o’er holmstead and harvest; and</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Heard roll a deluge: while the milkmaid</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Trips i’ the dew, and remissly guiding</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Morn’s first uneven furrow, the farmer’s boy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dreams out his dream; so, over the multitude</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Safe-tented, uncontrolled and uncon-</div> - <div class="verse indent6">trollably sped the Avenger’s fury.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>ACTÆON.</i><a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Over a mountain slope with lentisk, and with abounding</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Arbutus, and the red oak overtufted, ’mid a noontide</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now glowing fervidly, the Leto-born, the divine one,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Artemis, Arcadian wood-rover, alone, hunt-weary,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unto a dell cent’ring many streamlets her foot unerring</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_424"></a>[424]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Had guided. Platanus with fig-tree shaded a hollow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shaded a waterfall, where pellucid yet abundant</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Streams from perpetual full-flowing sources a current:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lower on either bank in sunshine flowered the oleanders:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Plenteous under a rock green herbage here to the margin</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Grew with white poplars overcrowning. She thither arrived,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unloosening joyfully the vest enfolded upon her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Swift her divine shoulders discovering, swiftly revealing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her maidenly bosom and all her beauty beneath it,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the river water overflowing to receive her</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yielded her ambrosial nakedness. But with an instant</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Conscious, with the instant the’ immortal terrific anger</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Flew to the guilty doer: that moment, where amid amply</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Concealing plane-leaves he the’ opportunity pursued,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Long vainly, possessed, unwise, Actæon, of hunters,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Hapless of Arcadian, and most misguided of hunters,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Knew the divine mandate, knew fate directed upon him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He, to the boughs crouching, with dreadful joy the desired one</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had viewed descending, viewed as in a dream, disarraying,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the unclad shoulders awestruck, awestruck let his eyes see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The maidenly bosom, but not—dim fear fell upon them—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not more had witnessed. Not, therefore, less the forest through</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ranging, their master ceasing thenceforth to remember,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With the instant together came trooping, as to devour him</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His dogs from the ambush.—Transformed suddenly before them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He fled, an antlered stag wild with terror to the mountain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She, the liquid stream in, her limbs carelessly reclining,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The flowing waters collected grateful about her.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_425"></a>[425]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_426"></a>[426]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="MISCELLANEOUS_POEMS">MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.</h2> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_427"></a>[427]</span></p> - -<h3><i>COME, POET, COME!</i><a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, Poet, come!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A thousand labourers ply their task,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And what it tends to scarcely ask,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And trembling thinkers on the brink</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shiver, and know not how to think.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To tell the purport of their pain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And what our silly joys contain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In lasting lineaments pourtray</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The substance of the shadowy day;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our real and inner deeds rehearse,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And make our meaning clear in verse:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, Poet, come! for but in vain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We do the work or feel the pain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And gather up the seeming gain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unless before the end thou come</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To take, ere they are lost, their sum.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, Poet, come!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To give an utterance to the dumb,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And make vain babblers silent, come;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A thousand dupes point here and there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bewildered by the show and glare;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_428"></a>[428]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">And wise men half have learned to doubt</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whether we are not best without.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, Poet; both but wait to see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their error proved to them in thee.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come, Poet, come!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In vain I seem to call. And yet</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Think not the living times forget.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ages of heroes fought and fell</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That Homer in the end might tell;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O’er grovelling generations past</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upstood the Doric fane at last;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And countless hearts on countless years</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Had wasted thoughts, and hopes, and fears,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rude laughter and unmeaning tears;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere England Shakespeare saw, or Rome</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The pure perfection of her dome.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Others, I doubt not, if not we,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The issue of our toils shall see;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Young children gather as their own</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The harvest that the dead had sown,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The dead forgotten and unknown.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>THE DREAM LAND.</i></h3> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To think that men of former days</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In naked truth deserved the praise</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which, fain to have in flesh and blood</div> - <div class="verse indent0">An image of imagined good,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Poets have sung and men received,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all too glad to be deceived,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_429"></a>[429]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Most plastic and most inexact,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Posterity has told for fact;—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To say what was, was not as we,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This also is a vanity.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere Agamemnon, warriors were,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ere Helen, beauties equalling her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Brave ones and fair, whom no one knows,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And brave or fair as these or those.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The commonplace whom daily we</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In our dull streets and houses see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To think of other mould than these</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were Cato, Solon, Socrates,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or Mahomet or Confutze,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This also is a vanity.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he before, who back on Spain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Repelled the fierce inundant Moor;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Godfrey, St. Louis, wise and pure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Washington, Cromwell, John, and Paul,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Columbus, Luther, one and all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Go mix them up, the false and true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With Sindbad, Crusoe, or St. Preux,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And say as he was, so was he,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This also is a vanity.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Say not: Behold it here or there,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or on the earth, or in the air.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That better thing than can be seen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is neither now nor e’er has been;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_430"></a>[430]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">It is not in this land or that,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But in a place we soon are at,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where all can seek and some can find,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where hope is liberal, fancy kind,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And what we wish for we can see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which also is a vanity.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>IN THE DEPTHS.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">It is not sweet content, be sure,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That moves the nobler Muse to song,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet when could truth come whole and pure</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From hearts that inly writhe with wrong?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis not the calm and peaceful breast</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That sees or reads the problem true;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They only know on whom ’t has prest</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Too hard to hope to solve it too.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Our ills are worse than at their ease</div> - <div class="verse indent2">These blameless happy souls suspect,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They only study the disease,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Alas, who live not to detect.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>DARKNESS.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But that from slow dissolving pomps of dawn</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No verity of slowly strengthening light</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Early or late hath issued; that the day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scarce-shown, relapses rather, self-withdrawn,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Back to the glooms of ante-natal night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For this, O human beings, mourn we may.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_431"></a>[431]</span></p> - -<h3><i>TWO MOODS.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, blame him not because he’s gay!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That he should smile, and jest, and play</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But shows how lightly he can bear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How well forget that load which, where</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thought is, is with it, and howe’er</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dissembled, or indeed forgot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still is a load, and ceases not.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This aged earth that each new spring</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comes forth so young, so ravishing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In summer robes for all to see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of flower, and leaf, and bloomy tree,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For all her scarlet, gold, and green,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fails not to keep within unseen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That inner purpose and that force</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which on the untiring orbit’s course</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Around the sun, amidst the spheres</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Still bears her thro’ the eternal years.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, blame the flowers and fruits of May,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And then blame him because he’s gay.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, blame him not, for <i>not</i> being gay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because an hundred times a day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He doth not currently repay</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sweet words with ready words as sweet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And for each smile a smile repeat.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To mute submissiveness confined,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Blame not, if once or twice the mind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Its pent-up indignation wreak</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In scowling brow and flushing cheek,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And smiles curled back as soon as born,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To dire significance of scorn.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_432"></a>[432]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor blame if once, and once again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He wring the hearts of milder men,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If slights, the worse if undesigned,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Should seem unbrotherly, unkind;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For though tree wave, and blossom blow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Above, earth hides a fire below;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Her seas the starry laws obey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And she from her own ordered way</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Swerves not, because it dims the day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or changes verdure to decay.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, blame the great world on its way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And then blame him for not being gay.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>YOUTH AND AGE.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dance on, dance on, we see, we see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Youth goes, alack, and with it glee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A boy the old man ne’er can be;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Maternal thirty scarce can find</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The sweet sixteen long left behind;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Old folks must toil, and scrape, and strain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That boys and girls may once again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be that for them they cannot be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But which it gives them joy to see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Youth goes and glee; but not in vain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Young folks, if only you remain.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dance on, dance on, ’tis joy to see;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The dry red leaves on winter’s tree,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can feel the new sap rising free.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On, on, young folks; so you survive,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The dead themselves are still alive;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The blood in dull parental veins</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Long numbed, a tingling life regains.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_433"></a>[433]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Deep down in earth, the tough old root</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is conscious still of flower and fruit.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Spring goes and glee but were not vain:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In you, young folks, they come again.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dance on, dance on, we see, we feel;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wind, wind your waltzes, wind and wheel,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our senses too with music reel;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor let your pairs neglect to fill</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The old ancestral scorned quadrille.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let hand the hand uplifted seek,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And pleasure fly from cheek to cheek;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Love too; but gently, nor astray,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet, deluder, yet in play.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dance on; youth goes: but all’s not vain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Young folks, if only you remain.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dance on, dance on, ’tis joy to see;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We once were nimble e’en as ye,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And danced to give the oldest glee;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O wherefore add, as we, you too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Once gone your prime cannot renew;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You too, like us, at last shall stand</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To watch and not to join the band,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Content some day (a far-off day)</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To your supplanters soft to say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Youth goes, but goes not all in vain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Young folks, so only you remain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dance on, dance on, ’tis joy to see.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_434"></a>[434]</span></p> - -<h3><i>SOLVITUR ACRIS HIEMS.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Youth, that went, is come again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Youth, for which we all were fain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With soft pleasure and sweet pain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In each nerve and every vein,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Circling through the heart and brain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whence and wherefore come again?</div> - <div class="verse indent18">Eva, tell me!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Dead and buried when we thought him,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who the magic spell hath taught him?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who the strong elixir brought him?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dead and buried as we thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lo! unasked for and unsought</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comes he, shall it be for nought?</div> - <div class="verse indent18">Eva, tell me!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Youth that lifeless long had lain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Youth that long we longed in vain for,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Used to grumble and complain for,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thought at last to entertain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A decorous cool disdain for,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On a sudden see again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comes, but will not long remain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comes, with whom too in his train,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Comes, and shall it be in vain?</div> - <div class="verse indent18">Eva, tell me!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>THESIS AND ANTITHESIS.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">If that we thus are guilty doth appear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, guilty tho’ we are, grave judges, hear!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, yes; if ever you in your sweet youth</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Midst pleasure’s borders missed the track of truth,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_435"></a>[435]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Made love on benches underneath green trees,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stuffed tender rhymes with old new similes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whispered soft anythings, and in the blood</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Felt all you said not most was understood—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, if you have—as which of you has not?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor what you were have utterly forgot,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then be not stern to faults yourselves have known,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To others harsh, kind to yourselves alone.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">That we, young sir, beneath our youth’s green trees</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Once did, not what should profit, but should please,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In foolish longing and in love-sick play</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forgot the truth and lost the flying day—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That we went wrong we say not is not true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But, if we erred, were we not punished too?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If not—if no one checked our wandering feet,—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall we our parents’ negligence repeat?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In future times that ancient loss renew,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If none saved <i>us</i>, forbear from saving you?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor let that justice in your faults be seen</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which in our own or was or should have been?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet, yet, recall the mind that you had then,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And, so recalling, listen yet again;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If you escaped, ’tis plainly understood</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Impunity may leave a culprit good;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If you were punished, did you then, as now,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The justice of that punishment allow?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did what your age consents to now, appear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Expedient then and needfully severe?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In youth’s indulgence think there yet might be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A truth forgot by grey severity.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That strictness and that laxity between,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be yours the wisdom to detect the mean.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_436"></a>[436]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis possible, young sir, that some excess</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mars youthful judgment and old men’s no less;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet we must take our counsel as we may</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For (flying years this lesson still convey),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Tis worst unwisdom to be overwise,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And not to use, but still correct one’s eyes.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>ἀνεμώλια.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, foolish thoughts, and join the throng</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of myriads gone before;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To flutter and flap and flit along</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The airy limbo shore.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, words of sport and words of wit,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Sarcastic point and fine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And words of wisdom wholly fit,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With folly’s to combine.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, words of wisdom, words of sense,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Which, while the heart belied,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The tongue still uttered for pretence,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The inner blank to hide.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, words of wit, so gay, so light,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That still were meant express</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To soothe the smart of fancied slight</div> - <div class="verse indent2">By fancies of success.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, broodings vain o’er fancied wrong;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Go, love-dreams vainer still;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And scorn that’s not, but would be, strong;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And Pride without a Will.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_437"></a>[437]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Go, foolish thoughts, and find your way</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Where myriads went before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To languish out your lingering day</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Upon the limbo shore.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">November, 1850</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>COLUMBUS.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">How in God’s name did Columbus get over</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Is a pure wonder to me, I protest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Frobisher, Dampier, Drake, and the rest.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Bad enough all the same,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">For them that after came,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">But, in great Heaven’s name,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">How <i>he</i> should ever think</div> - <div class="verse indent6">That on the other brink</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of this wild waste terra firma should be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">How a man ever should hope to get thither,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">E’en if he knew that there was another side;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But to suppose he should come any whither,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Sailing straight on into chaos untried,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">In spite of the motion</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Across the whole ocean,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">To stick to the notion</div> - <div class="verse indent6">That in some nook or bend</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Of a sea without end</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He should find North and South America,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was a pure madness, indeed I must say, to me.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_438"></a>[438]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Judged that the earth like an orange was round,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">None of them ever said, Come along, follow me,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Sail to the West, and the East will be found.</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Many a day before</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Ever they’d come ashore,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">From the ‘San Salvador,’</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Sadder and wiser men</div> - <div class="verse indent6">They’d have turned back again;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And that <i>he</i> did not, but did cross the sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>EVEN THE WINDS AND THE SEA OBEY.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Said the Poet, I wouldn’t maintain,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As the mystical German has done,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That the land, inexistent till then,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To reward him then first saw the sun;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet I could deem it was so,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As o’er the new waters he sailed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That his soul made the breezes to blow,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With his courage the breezes had failed;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His strong quiet purpose had still</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The hurricane’s fury withheld;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The resolve of his conquering will</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The lingering vessel impelled:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For the beings, the powers that range</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In the air, on the earth, at our sides,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can modify, temper and change</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stronger things than the winds and the tides,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By forces occult can the laws—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As we style them—of nature o’errule;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Can cause, so to say, every cause,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And our best mathematics befool;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_439"></a>[439]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Can defeat calculation and plan,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Baffle schemes ne’er so wisely designed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But will bow to the genius of man,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And acknowledge a sovereign mind.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>REPOSE IN EGYPT.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O happy mother!—while the man wayworn</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sleeps by his ass and dreams of daily bread,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wakeful and heedful for thy infant care—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O happy mother!—while thy husband sleeps,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Art privileged, O blessed one, to see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Celestial strangers sharing in thy task,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And visible angels waiting on thy child.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Take, O young soul, O infant heaven-desired,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take and fear not the cates, although of earth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which to thy hands celestial hands extend,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take and fear not: such vulgar meats of life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thy spirit lips no more must scorn to pass;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The seeming ill, contaminating joys,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thy sense divine no more be loth to allow;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The pleasures as the pains of our strange life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou art engaged, self-compromised, to share.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look up, upon thy mother’s face there sits</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No sad suspicion of a lurking ill,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No shamed confession of a needful sin;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mistrust her not, although of earth she too:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look up! the bright-eyed cherubs overhead</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Strew from mid air fresh flowers to crown the just</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Look! thy own father’s servants these, and thine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who at his bidding and at thine are here.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In thine own word was it not said long since</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_440"></a>[440]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Butter and honey shall he eat, and learn</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The evil to refuse and choose the good?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fear not, O babe divine, fear not, accept;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O happy mother, privileged to see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While the man sleeps, the sacred mystery.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>TO A SLEEPING CHILD.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Lips, lips, open!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up comes a little bird that lives inside—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up comes a little bird, and peeps, and out he flies.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">All the day he sits inside, and sometimes he sings,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up he comes, and out he goes at night to spread his wings.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Little bird, little bird, whither will you go?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Round about the world, while nobody can know.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Little bird, little bird, whither do you flee?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far away around the world, while nobody can see.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Little bird, little bird, how long will you roam?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All round the world and around again home;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Round the round world, and back through the air,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the morning comes, the little bird is there.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Back comes the little bird and looks and in he flies,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Up wakes the little boy, and opens both his eyes.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">Sleep, sleep, little boy, little bird’s away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Little bird will come again, by the peep of day;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Sleep, little boy, the little bird must go</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Round about the world, while nobody can know.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Sleep, sleep sound, little bird goes round,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Round and round he goes; sleep, sleep sound.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_441"></a>[441]</span></p> - -<h3><i>TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE.</i></h3> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Over every hill</div> - <div class="verse indent2">All is still;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In no leaf of any tree</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Can you see</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The motion of a breath.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Every bird has ceased its song,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Wait; and thou too, ere long,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Shall be quiet in death.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Who ne’er his bread with tears hath ate,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Who never through the sad night hours</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weeping upon his bed hath sate,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">He knows not you, you heavenly powers.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Forth into life you bid us go,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And into guilt you let us fall,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then leave us to endure the woe</div> - <div class="verse indent2">It brings unfailingly to all.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">You complain of the woman for roving from one to another:—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Where is the constant man whom she is trying to find?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Slumber and Sleep, two brothers appointed to serve the immortals,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">By Prometheus were brought hither to comfort mankind;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_442"></a>[442]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">But what in heaven was light, to human creatures was heavy:—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Slumber became our Sleep, Sleep unto mortals was Death.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>V</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, the beautiful child! and oh, the most happy mother!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">She in her infant blessed, and in its mother the babe—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What sweet longing within me this picture might not occasion,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Were I not, Joseph, like you, calmly condemned to stand by!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>VI</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Diogenes by his tub, contenting himself with the sunshine,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And Calanus with joy mounting his funeral pyre:—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Great examples were these for the eager approving of Philip,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But for the Conqueror of Earth were, as the earth was, too small.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>URANUS.</i><a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When on the primal peaceful blank profound,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which in its still unknowing silence holds</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All knowledge, ever by withholding holds—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When on that void (like footfalls in far rooms),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In faint pulsations from the whitening East</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Articulate voices first were felt to stir,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the great child, in dreaming grown to man,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_443"></a>[443]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Losing his dream to piece it up began;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then Plato in me said,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘’Tis but the figured ceiling overhead,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With cunning diagrams bestarred, that shine</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In all the three dimensions, are endowed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With motion too by skill mechanical,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That thou in height, and depth, and breadth, and power,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Schooled unto pure Mathesis, might proceed</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To higher entities, whereof in us</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Copies are seen, existent they themselves</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the sole kingdom of the Mind and God.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mind not the stars, mind thou thy Mind and God.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By that supremer Word</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O’ermastered, deafly heard</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Were hauntings dim of old astrologies;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Chaldean mumblings vast, with gossip light</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From modern ologistic fancyings mixed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of suns and stars, by hypothetic men</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of other frame than ours inhabited,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of lunar seas and lunar craters huge.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And was there atmosphere, or was there not?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And without oxygen could life subsist?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And was the world originally mist?—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Talk they as talk they list,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I, in that ampler voice,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unheeding, did rejoice.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>SELENE.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">My beloved, is it nothing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though we meet not, neither can,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That I see thee, and thou me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That we see, and see we see,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_444"></a>[444]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">When I see I also feel thee;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it nothing, my beloved?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Thy luminous clear beauty</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Brightens on me in my night,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I withdraw into my darkness</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To allure thee into light.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">About me and upon me I feel them pass and stay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">About me, deep into me, every lucid tender ray.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And thou, thou also feelest</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When thou stealest</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shamefaced and half afraid</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the chamber of thy shade,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou in thy turn,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou too feelest</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Something follow, something yearn,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A full orb blaze and burn.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">My full orb upon thine,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As thine erst, gently smiling,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Softly wooing, sweetly wiling,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gleamed on mine;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So mine on thine in turn</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When thou feelest blaze and burn,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it nothing, my beloved?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">My beloved, is it nothing</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When I see thee and thou me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When we each other see,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it nothing, my beloved?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Closer, closer come unto me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall I see thee and no more?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I can see thee, is that all?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let me also,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_445"></a>[445]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">Let me feel thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Closer, closer, my beloved,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come unto me, come to me, come!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O cruel, cruel lot, still thou rollest, stayest not,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lookest onward, look’st before,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet I follow, evermore.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, cold and cruel fate, thou rollest on thy way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Scarcely lookest, wilt not stay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From thine alien way.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The inevitable motion</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bears me forth upon the line</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whose course I cannot see.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I must move as it conveys me</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Evermore. It so must be.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O cold one, and I round thee</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Revolve, round only thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Straining ever to be nearer</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While thou evadest still;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Repellest still, O cold one,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nay, but closer, closer, closer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My beloved, come, come, come!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The inevitable motion</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Carries both upon its line,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Also you as well as me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What is best, and what is strongest,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We obey. It so must be.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Cruel, cruel, didst thou only</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Feel as I feel evermore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A force, though in, not of me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Drawing inward, in, in, in.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_446"></a>[446]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yea, thou shalt though, ere all endeth</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt feel me closer, closer,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My beloved, close, close to thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Come to thee, come, come, come!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The inevitable motion</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bears us both upon its line</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Together, you as me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Together and asunder,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Evermore. It so must be.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>AT ROME.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O richly soiled and richly sunned,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Exuberant, fervid, and fecund!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Is this the fixed condition</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On which may Northern pilgrim come,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To imbibe thine ether-air, and sum</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Thy store of old tradition?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must we be chill, if clean, and stand</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Foot-deep in dirt on classic land?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So is it: in all ages so,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in all places man can know,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From homely roots unseen below</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The stem in forest, field, and bower,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Derives the emanative power</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That crowns it with the ethereal flower,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From mixtures fœtid, foul, and sour</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Draws juices that those petals fill.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah Nature, if indeed thy will</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou own’st it, it shall not be ill!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And truly here, in this quick clime,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where, scarcely bound by space or time,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_447"></a>[447]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">The elements in half a day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Toss off with exquisitest play</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What our cold seasons toil and grieve,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And never quite at last achieve;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where processes, with pain, and fear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Disgust, and horror wrought, appear</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The quick mutations of a dance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wherein retiring but to advance,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Life, in brief interpause of death,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">One moment sitting taking breath,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forth comes again as glad as e’er,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In some new figure full as fair,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where what has scarcely ceased to be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Instinct with newer birth we see—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">What dies, already, look you, lives;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In such a clime, who thinks, forgives;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who sees, will understand; who knows,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In calm of knowledge find repose,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And thoughtful as of glory gone,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So too of more to come anon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of permanent existence sure,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Brief intermediate breaks endure.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">O Nature, if indeed thy will,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou ownest it, it is not ill!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And e’en as oft on heathy hill,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On moorland black, and ferny fells,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beside thy brooks and in thy dells,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was welcomed erst the kindly stain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of thy true earth, e’en so again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With resignation fair, and meet</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The dirt and refuse of thy street,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My philosophic foot shall greet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So leave but perfect to my eye</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thy columns, set against thy sky!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_448"></a>[448]</span></p> - -<h3><i>LAST WORDS. NAPOLEON AND WELLINGTON.</i></h3> - -<h4>NAPOLEON.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Is it this, then, O world-warrior,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That, exulting, through the folds</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the dark and cloudy barrier</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Thine enfranchised eye beholds?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is, when blessed hands relieve thee</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From the gross and mortal clay,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">This the heaven that should receive thee?</div> - <div class="verse indent18">‘Tête d’armée.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Now the final link is breaking,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of the fierce, corroding chain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And the ships, their watch forsaking,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Bid the seas no more detain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whither is it, freed and risen,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The pure spirit seeks away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Quits for what the weary prison?</div> - <div class="verse indent18">‘Tête d’armée.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Doubtless—angels, hovering o’er thee</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In thine exile’s sad abode,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Marshalled even now before thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Move upon that chosen road!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thither they, ere friends have laid thee</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Where sad willows o’er thee play,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall already have conveyed thee!</div> - <div class="verse indent18">‘Tête d’armée.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall great captains, foiled and broken,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Hear from thee on each great day,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_449"></a>[449]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">At the crisis, a word spoken—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Word that battles still obey—</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Cuirassiers here, here those cannon;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Quick, those squadrons, up—away!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To the charge, on—as one man, on!’</div> - <div class="verse indent18">‘Tête d’armée.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">(Yes, too true, alas! while sated</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of the wars so slow to cease,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nations, once that scorned and hated,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Would to Wisdom turn, and Peace;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thy dire impulse still obeying,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Fevered youths, as in the old day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In their hearts still find thee saying,</div> - <div class="verse indent18">‘Tête d’armée.’)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh, poor soul!—Or do I view thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From earth’s battle-fields withheld,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In a dream, assembling to thee</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Troops that quell not, nor are quelled,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Breaking airy lines, defeating</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Limbo-kings, and, as to-day,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Idly to all time repeating</div> - <div class="verse indent18">‘Tête d’armée’?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h4>WELLINGTON.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And what the words, that with his failing breath</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Did England hear her aged soldier say?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I know not. Yielding tranquilly to death,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With no proud speech, no boast, he passed away.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Not stirring words, nor gallant deeds alone,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Plain patient work fulfilled that length of life;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Duty, not glory—Service, not a throne,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Inspired his effort, set for him the strife.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_450"></a>[450]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Therefore just Fortune, with one hasty blow,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Spurning her minion, Glory’s, Victory’s lord,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Gave all to him that was content to know,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In service done its own supreme reward.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The words he said, if haply words there were,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">When full of years and works he passed away,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Most naturally might, methinks, refer</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To some poor humble business of to-day.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘That humble simple duty of the day</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Perform,’ he bids; ‘ask not if small or great:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Serve in thy post; be faithful, and obey;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Who serves her truly, sometimes saves the State.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1852</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>PESCHIERA.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">What voice did on my spirit fall,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘’Tis better to have fought and lost,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than never to have fought at all.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The tricolor—a trampled rag</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lies, dirt and dust; the lines I track</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By sentry boxes yellow-black,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lead up to no Italian flag.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I see the Croat soldier stand</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Upon the grass of your redoubts;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The eagle with his black wings flouts</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The breath and beauty of your land.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_451"></a>[451]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet not in vain, although in vain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">O men of Brescia, on the day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of loss past hope, I heard you say</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your welcome to the noble pain.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">You say, ‘Since so it is,—good-bye</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sweet life, high hope; but whatsoe’er</div> - <div class="verse indent0">May be, or must, no tongue shall dare</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To tell, “The Lombard feared to die!”’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">You said (there shall be answer fit),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘And if our children must obey,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They must; but thinking on this day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">’Twill less debase them to submit.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">You said (Oh not in vain you said),</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘Haste, brothers, haste, while yet we may;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The hours ebb fast of this one day</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When blood may yet be nobly shed.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah! not for idle hatred, not</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For honour, fame, nor self-applause,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But for the glory of the cause,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You did, what will not be forgot.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And though the stranger stand, ’tis true,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By force and fortune’s right he stands;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By fortune, which is in God’s hands,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And strength, which yet shall spring in you.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">This voice did on my spirit fall,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘’Tis better to have fought and lost,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than never to have fought at all.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1849</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_452"></a>[452]</span></p> - -<h3><i>ALTERAM PARTEM.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Or shall I say, Vain word, false thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Since Prudence hath her martyrs too,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Wisdom dictates not to do,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Till doing shall be not for nought?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Not ours to give or lose is life;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will Nature, when her brave ones fall,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Remake her work? or songs recall</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Death’s victim slain in useless strife?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">That rivers flow into the sea</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is loss and waste, the foolish say,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor know that back they find their way,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unseen, to where they wont to be.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Showers fall upon the hills, springs flow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The river runneth still at hand,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Brave men are born into the land,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And whence the foolish do not know.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">No! no vain voice did on me fall,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">‘<i>’Tis</i> better to have fought and lost,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Than never to have fought at all.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1849</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3><i>SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH.</i></h3> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Say not the struggle nought availeth,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The labour and the wounds are vain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The enemy faints not, nor faileth,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And as things have been they remain.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_453"></a>[453]</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">It may be, in yon smoke concealed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And, but for you, possess the field.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Seem here no painful inch to gain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Far back, through creeks and inlets making,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Comes silent, flooding in, the main,</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And not by eastern windows only,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">When daylight comes, comes in the light,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">But westward, look, the land is bright.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="date">1849</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_454"></a>[454]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">FOOTNOTES</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> This and the following Early Poems are reprinted from the volume -called <i>Ambarvalia</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> This was written for the twenty-fifth wedding-day of Mr. and Mrs. -Walrond, of Calder Park.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> Ho Thëos meta sou—God be with you!</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> The manuscript of this poem is very imperfect, and bears no title.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> The manuscript of this poem is incomplete; but it has been thought -best to give all the separate fragments, since they evidently are conceived -on the same plan, and throw light on each other.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> This poem, as well as the ‘Mari Magno,’ was not published during the -author’s lifetime, and should not be regarded as having received his finishing -touches.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> Flood.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> Reap.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> Reaping.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> Shocks.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> Public-house in the hamlet.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> This poem is reprinted from the volume called <i>Ambarvalia</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent18">Hic avidus stetit</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Vulcanus, hic matrona Juno, et</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Nunquam humeris positurus arcum;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Qui rore puro Castaliæ lavit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Crines solutos, qui Lyciæ tenet</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Dumeta natalemque silvam,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Delius et Patareus Apollo.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">——domus Albuneæ resonantis,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Et præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Mobilibus pomaria rivis</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> These Sonnets have been brought together from very imperfect manuscripts. -It is not to be supposed that their author would have given them to -the public in their present state; but they are in parts so characteristic of -his thought and style, that they will not be without interest to the readers -of his poems.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> These Tales were written only a few months before the writer’s death, -during his journeys in Greece, Italy, and the Pyrenees, and had not been -revised by him.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> These songs were composed either during the writer’s voyage across -the Atlantic in 1852, or during his residence in America.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> Passages of the second letter of Parepidemus (vol. i. pp. 400, 401) -illustrate the theory which Mr. Clough has carried into practice in these -hexameters as well as in the Translations from the Iliad.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> A great proportion of the Poems described as Miscellaneous have, -like some included in previous divisions, been brought together from rough -copies and unfinished manuscripts. Fragmentary and imperfect as they are, -they yet are so characteristic of their writer, that they have been placed -here along with others more finished.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> This thought is taken from a passage on astronomy in Plato’s <i>Republic</i>, -in which the following sentence occurs, vii. 529, D: ‘We must use the -fretwork of the sky as patterns, with a view to the study which aims at -these higher realities, just as if we chanced to meet with diagrams cunningly -drawn and devised by Dædalus or some other craftsman or painter.’</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_455"></a>[455]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX<br /> -<span class="smaller"><span class="smaller">OF</span><br /> -THE FIRST LINES.</span></h2> - -</div> - -<table summary="Index of the first lines of the poems"> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>A Highland inn among the western hills</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_384">384</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>A youth and maid upon a summer night</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_352">352</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>A youth was I. An elder friend with me</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_325">325</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Across the sea, along the shore</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Ah, blame him not because he’s gay!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_431">431</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Am I with you, or you with me?</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_410">410</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>And replying, said godlike, swift-footed Achilles</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_418">418</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>As, at a railway junction, men</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Away, haunt thou not me</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Beside me,—in the car,—she sat</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Blessed are those who have not seen</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Bright October was come, the misty-bright October</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_236">236</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>But a revulsion again came over the spirit of Elspie</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>But if as not by that the soul desired</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_321">321</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>But that from slow dissolving pomps of dawn</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_430">430</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>But whether in the uncoloured light of truth</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_320">320</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Cease, empty Faith, the Spectrum saith</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Come back again, my olden heart!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Come back, come back, behold with straining mast</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_404">404</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Come home, come home! and where is home for me</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_403">403</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Come, Poet, come!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_427">427</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Dance on, dance on, we see, we see</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_432">432</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Dear Eustatio, I write that you may write me an answer</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Dearest of boys, please come to-day</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_329">329</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_456"></a>[456]</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Diogenes by his tub, contenting himself with the sunshine</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_442">442</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Duty—that’s to say, complying</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Each for himself is still the rule</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Eastward, or Northward, or West? I wander and ask as I wander</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Edward and Jane a married couple were</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_374">374</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Farewell, farewell! Her vans the vessel tries</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_401">401</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Farewell, my Highland lassie! when the year returns around</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>For she confessed, as they sat in the dusk, and he saw not her blushes</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>From thy far sources, ’mid mountains airily climbing</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_422">422</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Go, foolish thoughts, and join the throng</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_436">436</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Goddess, the anger sing of the Pelean Achilles</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_417">417</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Green fields of England! wheresoe’er</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_404">404</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Hearken to me, ye mothers of my tent</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Hope evermore and believe, O man, for e’en as thy thought</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>How in God’s name did Columbus get over</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_437">437</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>How often sit I, poring o’er</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>I dreamed a dream: I dreamt that I espied</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>I have seen higher, holier things than these</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>I saw again the spirits on a day</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>I stayed at La Quenille, ten miles or more</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_361">361</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>If it is thou whose casual hand withdraws</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_321">321</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>If that we thus are guilty doth appear</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_434">434</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>If, when in cheerless wanderings, dull and cold</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>In controversial foul impureness</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Is it illusion? or does there a spirit from perfecter ages</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_280">280</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Is it this, then, O world-warrior</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_448">448</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Is it true, ye gods, who treat us</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>It fortifies my soul to know</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>It is not sweet content, be sure</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_430">430</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>It may be true</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>It was but some few nights ago</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>It was the afternoon; and the sports were now at the ending</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>I’ve often wondered how it is, at times</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_371">371</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Light words they were, and lightly, falsely said</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Like a child</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Lips, lips, open!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_440">440</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Lo, here is God, and there is God!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_81">81</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_457"></a>[457]</span></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Matthew and Mark and Luke and holy John</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Morn, in yellow and white, came broadening out from the mountains</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>My beloved, is it nothing</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_443">443</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>My sons, and ye children of my sons</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>My wind is turned to bitter north</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>O God! O God! and must I still go on</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>O happy mother!—while the man wayworn</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_439">439</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>O happy they whose hearts receive</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>O kind protecting Darkness! as a child</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>O let me love my love unto myself alone</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>O only Source of all our light and life</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>O richly soiled and richly sunned</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_446">446</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>O ship, ship, ship</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_413">413</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>O stream descending to the sea</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>O tell me, friends, while yet we part</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>O Thou whose image in the shrine</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Oh, the beautiful child! and oh, the most happy mother!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_442">442</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>‘Old things need not be therefore true’</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>On grass, on gravel, in the sun</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>On the mountain, in the woodland</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Once more the wonted road I tread</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Or shall I say, Vain word, false thought</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_452">452</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Over a mountain slope with lentisk, and with abounding</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_423">423</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Over every hill</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_441">441</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summits</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Roused by importunate knocks</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Said the Poet, I wouldn’t maintain</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_438">438</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Say not the struggle nought availeth</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_452">452</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Say, will it, when our hairs are grey</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Shall I decide it by a random shot?</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_322">322</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Since that last evening we have fallen indeed!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Slumber and Sleep, two brothers appointed to serve the immortals</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_441">441</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>So I went wrong</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>So in the cottage with Adam the pupils five together</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>So in the golden morning they parted and went to the westward</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>So in the golden weather they waited. But Philip returned not</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>So on the morrow’s morrow, with Term-time dread returning</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>So spake the voice: and as with a single life</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_423">423</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_458"></a>[458]</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Some future day when what is now is not</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_406">406</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Sweet streamlet bason! at thy side</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>That children in their loveliness should die</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>That out of sight is out of mind</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_409">409</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>That there are better things within the womb</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The grasses green of sweet content</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The human spirits saw I on a day</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The mighty ocean rolls and raves</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_407">407</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The scene is different, and the place, the air</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Silver Wedding! on some pensive ear</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The skies have sunk, and hid the upper snow</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>There is a city, upbuilt on the quays of the turbulent Arno</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_309">309</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>These are the words of Jacob’s wives, the words</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Thou shalt have one God only; who</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Though to the vilest things beneath the moon</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Thought may well be ever ranging</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>To see the rich autumnal tint depart</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_320">320</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>To spend uncounted years of pain</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>To think that men of former days</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_428">428</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>To wear out heart, and nerves, and brain</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Trunks the forest yielded with gums ambrosial oozing</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_422">422</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_6">6</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>’Twas on a sunny summer day</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Upon the water, in the boat</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Well, well,—Heaven bless you all from day to day!</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Were I with you, or you with me</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_411">411</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Were you with me, or I with you</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_410">410</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Were you with me, or I with you</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_412">412</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>What voice did on my spirit fall</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_450">450</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>What we, when face to face we see</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Whate’er you dream with doubt possest</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>When on the primal peaceful blank profound</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_442">442</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>When panting sighs the bosom fill</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>When soft September brings again</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>When the dews are earliest falling</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Whence are ye, vague desires</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Whence comest thou, shady lane? and why and how?</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Where lies the land to which the ship would go?</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_407">407</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Who is this man that walketh in the field</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_72">72</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_459"></a>[459]</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Who ne’er his bread with tears hath ate</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_441">441</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Why should I say I see the things I see not?</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td> - </tr> - <tr class="pad"> - <td>Ye flags of Piccadilly</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_402">402</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Yes, I have lied, and so must walk my way</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Yet to the wondrous St. Peter’s, and yet to the solemn Rotonda</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>You complain of the woman for roving from one to another</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_441">441</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Youth, that went, is come again</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_434">434</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class="titlepage">THE END.</p> - -<p class="titlepage">PRINTED BY<br /> -SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE<br /> -LONDON</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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