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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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