Andromeda, and Other Poems

THE RED KING

 
The King was drinking in Malwood Hall,
There came in a monk before them all:
He thrust by squire, he thrust by knight,
Stood over against the dais aright;
And, ‘The word of the Lord, thou cruel Red King,
The word of the Lord to thee I bring.
A grimly sweven I dreamt yestreen;
I saw thee lie under the hollins green,
And through thine heart an arrow keen;
And out of thy body a smoke did rise,
Which smirched the sunshine out of the skies:
So if thou God’s anointed be
I rede thee unto thy soul thou see.
For mitre and pall thou hast y-sold,
False knight to Christ, for gain and gold;
And for this thy forest were digged down all,
Steading and hamlet and churches tall;
And Christés poor were ousten forth,
To beg their bread from south to north.
So tarry at home, and fast and pray,
Lest fiends hunt thee in the judgment-day.’
 
 
   The monk he vanished where he stood;
King William sterte up wroth and wood;
Quod he, ‘Fools’ wits will jump together;
The Hampshire ale and the thunder weather
Have turned the brains for us both, I think;
And monks are curst when they fall to drink.
A lothly sweven I dreamt last night,
How there hoved anigh me a griesly knight,
Did smite me down to the pit of hell;
I shrieked and woke, so fast I fell.
There’s Tyrrel as sour as I, perdie,
So he of you all shall hunt with me;
A grimly brace for a hart to see.’
 
 
   The Red King down from Malwood came;
His heart with wine was all aflame,
His eyne were shotten, red as blood,
He rated and swore, wherever he rode.
They roused a hart, that grimly brace,
A hart of ten, a hart of grease,
Fled over against the kingés place.
The sun it blinded the kingés ee,
A fathom behind his hocks shot he:
   ‘Shoot thou,’ quod he, ‘in the fiendés name,
To lose such a quarry were seven years’ shame.’
And he hove up his hand to mark the game.
Tyrrel he shot full light, God wot;
For whether the saints they swerved the shot,
‘Or whether by treason, men knowen not,
But under the arm, in a secret part,
The iron fled through the kingés heart.
The turf it squelched where the Red King fell;
And the fiends they carried his soul to hell,
Quod ‘His master’s name it hath sped him well.’
 
 
Tyrrel he smiled full grim that day,
Quod ‘Shooting of kings is no bairns’ play;’
And he smote in the spurs, and fled fast away.
As he pricked along by Fritham plain,
The green tufts flew behind like rain;
The waters were out, and over the sward:
He swam his horse like a stalwart lord:
Men clepen that water Tyrrel’s ford.
By Rhinefield and by Osmondsleigh,
Through glade and furze brake fast drove he,
Until he heard the roaring sea;
Quod he, ‘Those gay waves they call me.’
By Mary’s grace a seely boat
On Christchurch bar did lie afloat;
He gave the shipmen mark and groat,
To ferry him over to Normandie,
And there he fell to sanctuarie;
God send his soul all bliss to see.
 
 
And fend our princes every one,
From foul mishap and trahison;
But kings that harrow Christian men
Shall England never bide again.
 

In the New Forest, 1847,

THE OUTLAW

 
Oh, I wadna be a yeoman, mither, to follow my father’s trade,
To bow my back in miry banks, at pleugh and hoe and spade.
Stinting wife, and bairns, and kye, to fat some courtier lord,—
Let them die o’ rent wha like, mither, and I’ll die by sword.
 
 
Nor I wadna be a clerk, mither, to bide aye ben,
Scrabbling ower the sheets o’ parchment with a weary weary pen;
Looking through the lang stane windows at a narrow strip o’ sky,
Like a laverock in a withy cage, until I pine away and die.
 
 
Nor I wadna be a merchant, mither, in his lang furred gown,
Trailing strings o’ footsore horses through the noisy dusty town;
Louting low to knights and ladies, fumbling o’er his wares,
Telling lies, and scraping siller, heaping cares on cares.
 
 
Nor I wadna be a soldier, mither, to dice wi’ ruffian bands,
Pining weary months in castles, looking over wasted lands.
Smoking byres, and shrieking women, and the grewsome sights o’ war—
There’s blood on my hand eneugh, mither; it’s ill to make it mair.
 
 
If I had married a wife, mither, I might ha’ been douce and still,
And sat at hame by the ingle side to crack and laugh my fill;
Sat at hame wi’ the woman I looed, and wi’ bairnies at my knee:
But death is bauld, and age is cauld, and luve’s no for me.
 
 
For when first I stirred in your side, mither, ye ken full well
How you lay all night up among the deer out on the open fell;
And so it was that I won the heart to wander far and near,
Caring neither for land nor lassie, but the bonnie dun deer.
 
 
Yet I am not a losel and idle, mither, nor a thief that steals;
I do but hunt God’s cattle, upon God’s ain hills;
For no man buys and sells the deer, and the bonnie fells are free
To a belted knight with hawk on hand, and a gangrel loon like me.
 
 
So I’m aff and away to the muirs, mither, to hunt the deer,
Ranging far frae frowning faces, and the douce folk here;
Crawling up through burn and bracken, louping down the screes,
Looking out frae craig and headland, drinking up the simmer breeze.
 
 
Oh, the wafts o’ heather honey, and the music o’ the brae,
As I watch the great harts feeding, nearer, nearer a’ the day.
Oh, to hark the eagle screaming, sweeping, ringing round the sky—
That’s a bonnier life than stumbling ower the muck to colt and kye.
 
 
And when I’m taen and hangit, mither, a brittling o’ my deer,
Ye’ll no leave your bairn to the corbie craws, to dangle in the air;
But ye’ll send up my twa douce brethren, and ye’ll steal me frae the tree,
And bury me up on the brown brown muirs, where I aye looed to be.
 
 
Ye’ll bury me ’twixt the brae and the burn, in a glen far away,
Where I may hear the heathcock craw, and the great harts bray;
And gin my ghaist can walk, mither, I’ll go glowering at the sky,
The livelong night on the black hill sides where the dun deer lie.
 

In the New Forest, 1847.

SING HEIGH-HO!

 
There sits a bird on every tree;
         Sing heigh-ho!
There sits a bird on every tree,
And courts his love as I do thee;
      Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
   Young maids must marry.
 
 
There grows a flower on every bough;
         Sing heigh-ho!
There grows a flower on every bough,
Its petals kiss—I’ll show you how:
      Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
   Young maids must marry.
 
 
From sea to stream the salmon roam;
         Sing heigh-ho!
From sea to stream the salmon roam;
Each finds a mate, and leads her home;
      Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
   Young maids must marry.
 
 
The sun’s a bridegroom, earth a bride;
         Sing heigh-ho!
They court from morn till eventide:
The earth shall pass, but love abide.
      Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
   Young maids must marry.
 

Eversley, 1847.

A MARCH

 
   Dreary East winds howling o’er us;
   Clay-lands knee-deep spread before us;
   Mire and ice and snow and sleet;
   Aching backs and frozen feet;
   Knees which reel as marches quicken,
   Ranks which thin as corpses thicken;
   While with carrion birds we eat,
   Calling puddle-water sweet,
As we pledge the health of our general, who fares as rough as we:
What can daunt us, what can turn us, led to death by such as he?
 

Eversley, 1848.

A LAMENT

 
The merry merry lark was up and singing,
   And the hare was out and feeding on the lea;
And the merry merry bells below were ringing,
   When my child’s laugh rang through me.
 
 
Now the hare is snared and dead beside the snow-yard,
   And the lark beside the dreary winter sea;
And the baby in his cradle in the churchyard
   Sleeps sound till the bell brings me.
 

Eversley, 1848.

THE NIGHT BIRD: A MYTH

 
A floating, a floating
Across the sleeping sea,
All night I heard a singing bird
Upon the topmost tree.
 
 
‘Oh came you off the isles of Greece,
Or off the banks of Seine;
Or off some tree in forests free,
Which fringe the western main?’
 
 
‘I came not off the old world
Nor yet from off the new—
But I am one of the birds of God
Which sing the whole night through.’
 
 
‘Oh sing, and wake the dawning—
Oh whistle for the wind;
The night is long, the current strong,
My boat it lags behind.’
 
 
‘The current sweeps the old world,
The current sweeps the new;
The wind will blow, the dawn will glow
Ere thou hast sailed them through.’
 

Eversley, 1848.

THE DEAD CHURCH

 
Wild wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?
   Dark dark night, wilt thou never wear away?
Cold cold church, in thy death sleep lying,
   The Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine Easter-day.
 
 
Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing;
   Rest, fair corpse, where thy Lord himself hath lain.
Weep, dear Lord, above thy bride low lying;
   Thy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health again.
 

Eversley, 1848.

A PARABLE FROM LIEBIG

 
The church bells were ringing, the devil sat singing
   On the stump of a rotting old tree;
‘Oh faith it grows cold, and the creeds they grow old,
   And the world is nigh ready for me.’
 
 
The bells went on ringing, a spirit came singing,
   And smiled as he crumbled the tree;
‘Yon wood does but perish new seedlings to cherish,
   And the world is too live yet for thee.’
 

Eversley, 1848.

THE STARLINGS

 
Early in spring time, on raw and windy mornings,
Beneath the freezing house-eaves I heard the starlings sing—
‘Ah dreary March month, is this then a time for building wearily?
   Sad, sad, to think that the year is but begun.’
 
 
Late in the autumn, on still and cloudless evenings,
Among the golden reed-beds I heard the starlings sing—
‘Ah that sweet March month, when we and our mates were courting merrily;
   Sad, sad, to think that the year is all but done.’
 

Eversley, 1848.

OLD AND NEW: A PARABLE

 
See how the autumn leaves float by decaying,
Down the wild swirls of the rain-swollen stream.
So fleet the works of men, back to their earth again;
Ancient and holy things fade like a dream.
 
 
Nay! see the spring-blossoms steal forth a-maying,
Clothing with tender hues orchard and glen;
So, though old forms pass by, ne’er shall their spirit die,
Look!  England’s bare boughs show green leaf again.
 

Eversley, 1848.

THE WATCHMAN

 
‘Watchman, what of the night?’
   ‘The stars are out in the sky;
And the merry round moon will be rising soon,
   For us to go sailing by.’
 
 
‘Watchman, what of the night?’
   ‘The tide flows in from the sea;
There’s water to float a little cockboat
   Will carry such fishers as we.’
 
 
‘Watchman, what of the night?’
   ‘The night is a fruitful time;
When to many a pair are born children fair,
   To be christened at morning chime.’
 

1849.

THE WORLD’S AGE

 
Who will say the world is dying?
   Who will say our prime is past?
Sparks from Heaven, within us lying,
   Flash, and will flash till the last.
Fools! who fancy Christ mistaken;
   Man a tool to buy and sell;
Earth a failure, God-forsaken,
   Anteroom of Hell.
 
 
Still the race of Hero-spirits
   Pass the lamp from hand to hand;
Age from age the Words inherits—
   ‘Wife, and Child, and Fatherland.’
Still the youthful hunter gathers
   Fiery joy from wold and wood;
He will dare as dared his fathers
   Give him cause as good.
 
 
While a slave bewails his fetters;
   While an orphan pleads in vain;
While an infant lisps his letters,
   Heir of all the age’s gain;
While a lip grows ripe for kissing;
   While a moan from man is wrung;
Know, by every want and blessing,
   That the world is young.
 

1849.

THE SANDS OF DEE

 
‘O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
      And call the cattle home,
      And call the cattle home
   Across the sands of Dee;’
The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
   And all alone went she.
 
 
The western tide crept up along the sand,
      And o’er and o’er the sand,
      And round and round the sand,
   As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land:
   And never home came she.
 
 
‘Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair—
      A tress of golden hair,
      A drownèd maiden’s hair
   Above the nets at sea?
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
   Among the stakes on Dee.’
 
 
They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
      The cruel crawling foam,
      The cruel hungry foam,
   To her grave beside the sea:
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
   Across the sands of Dee.
 

Eversley, 1849.

THE TIDE ROCK

 
How sleeps yon rock, whose half-day’s bath is done.
With broad blight side beneath the broad bright sun,
Like sea-nymph tired, on cushioned mosses sleeping.
Yet, nearer drawn, beneath her purple tresses
From drooping brows we find her slowly weeping.
   So many a wife for cruel man’s caresses
   Must inly pine and pine, yet outward bear
   A gallant front to this world’s gaudy glare.
 

Ilfracombe, 1849.

ELEGIACS

 
Wearily stretches the sand to the surge, and the surge to the cloudland;
Wearily onward I ride, watching the water alone.
Not as of old, like Homeric Achilles, κυδει yαιων,
Joyous knight-errant of God, thirsting for labour and strife;
No more on magical steed borne free through the regions of ether,
But, like the hack which I ride, selling my sinew for gold.
Fruit-bearing autumn is gone; let the sad quiet winter hang o’er me—
What were the spring to a soul laden with sorrow and shame?
Blossoms would fret me with beauty; my heart has no time to bepraise them;
Gray rock, bough, surge, cloud, waken no yearning within.
Sing not, thou sky-lark above! even angels pass hushed by the weeper.
Scream on, ye sea-fowl! my heart echoes your desolate cry.
Sweep the dry sand on, thou wild wind, to drift o’er the shell and the sea-weed;
Sea-weed and shell, like my dreams, swept down the pitiless tide.
Just is the wave which uptore us; ’tis Nature’s own law which condemns us;
Woe to the weak who, in pride, build on the faith of the sand!
Joy to the oak of the mountain: he trusts to the might of the rock-clefts;
Deeply he mines, and in peace feeds on the wealth of the stone.
 

Morte Sands, Devonshire,

February 1849.

DARTSIDE

 
I cannot tell what you say, green leaves,
   I cannot tell what you say:
But I know that there is a spirit in you,
   And a word in you this day.
 
 
I cannot tell what you say, rosy rocks,
   I cannot tell what you say:
But I know that there is a spirit in you,
   And a word in you this day.
 
 
I cannot tell what you say, brown streams,
   I cannot tell what you say:
But I know that in you too a spirit doth live,
   And a word doth speak this day.
 
 
‘Oh green is the colour of faith and truth,
And rose the colour of love and youth,
   And brown of the fruitful clay.
   Sweet Earth is faithful, and fruitful, and young,
   And her bridal day shall come ere long,
And you shall know what the rocks and the streams
      And the whispering woodlands say.’
 

Drew’s Teignton, Dartmoor,

July 31, 1849.

MY HUNTING SONG

 
      Forward!  Hark forward’s the cry!
One more fence and we’re out on the open,
So to us at once, if you want to live near us!
Hark to them, ride to them, beauties! as on they go,
Leaping and sweeping away in the vale below!
Cowards and bunglers, whose heart or whose eye is slow,
   Find themselves staring alone.
 
 
      So the great cause flashes by;
Nearer and clearer its purposes open,
While louder and prouder the world-echoes cheer us:
Gentlemen sportsmen, you ought to live up to us,
Lead us, and lift us, and hallo our game to us—
We cannot call the hounds off, and no shame to us—
   Don’t be left staring alone!
 

Eversley, 1849.

ALTON LOCKE’S SONG

 
Weep, weep, weep and weep,
   For pauper, dolt, and slave!
Hark! from wasted moor and fen,
Feverous alley, stifling den,
Swells the wail of Saxon men—
   Work! or the grave!
 
 
Down, down, down and down,
   With idler, knave, and tyrant!
Why for sluggards cark and moil?
He that will not live by toil
Has no right on English soil!
   God’s word’s our warrant!
 
 
Up, up, up and up!
   Face your game and play it!
The night is past, behold the sun!
The idols fall, the lie is done!
The Judge is set, the doom begun!
   Who shall stay it?
 

On Torridge, May 1849.

THE DAY OF THE LORD

 
The Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand:
   Its storms roll up the sky:
The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold;
   All dreamers toss and sigh;
The night is darkest before the morn;
When the pain is sorest the child is born,
      And the Day of the Lord at hand.
 
 
Gather you, gather you, angels of God—
   Freedom, and Mercy, and Truth;
Come! for the Earth is grown coward and old,
   Come down, and renew us her youth.
Wisdom, Self-Sacrifice, Daring, and Love,
Haste to the battle-field, stoop from above,
      To the Day of the Lord at hand.
 
 
Gather you, gather you, hounds of hell—
   Famine, and Plague, and War;
Idleness, Bigotry, Cant, and Misrule,
   Gather, and fall in the snare!
Hireling and Mammonite, Bigot and Knave,
Crawl to the battle-field, sneak to your grave,
      In the Day of the Lord at hand.
 
 
Who would sit down and sigh for a lost age of gold,
   While the Lord of all ages is here?
True hearts will leap up at the trumpet of God,
   And those who can suffer, can dare.
Each old age of gold was an iron age too,
And the meekest of saints may find stern work to do,
      In the Day of the Lord at hand.
 

On the Torridge, Devonshire,

September 10, 1849.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

 
It chanced upon the merry merry Christmas eve,
   I went sighing past the church across the moorland dreary—
‘Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave,
   And the bells but mock the wailing round, they sing so cheery.
How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again?
   Still in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary
The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain,
   Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be cheery.’
 
 
Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere,
   Beneath the stars, across the snow, like clear bells ringing,
And a voice within cried—‘Listen!—Christmas carols even here!
   Though thou be dumb, yet o’er their work the stars and snows are singing.
Blind!  I live, I love, I reign; and all the nations through
   With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing.
Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do,
   Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it angels singing.’
 

Eversley, 1849.

THE OUBIT ³

 
It was an hairy oubit, sae proud he crept alang,
A feckless hairy oubit, and merrily he sang—
‘My Minnie bad me bide at hame until I won my wings;
I show her soon my soul’s aboon the warks o’ creeping things.’
 
 
This feckless hairy oubit cam’ hirpling by the linn,
A swirl o’ wind cam’ doun the glen, and blew that oubit in:
Oh when he took the water, the saumon fry they rose,
And tigg’d him a’ to pieces sma’, by head and tail and toes.
 
 
Tak’ warning then, young poets a’, by this poor oubit’s shame;
Though Pegasus may nicher loud, keep Pegasus at hame.
Oh haud your hands frae inkhorns, though a’ the Muses woo;
For critics lie, like saumon fry, to mak’ their meals o’ you.
 

Eversley, 1851.

THE THREE FISHERS

 
Three fishers went sailing away to the West,
   Away to the West as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,
   And the children stood watching them out of the town;
   For men must work, and women must weep,
   And there’s little to earn, and many to keep,
      Though the harbour bar be moaning.
 
 
Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,
   And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;
They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower,
   And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown.
   But men must work, and women must weep,
   Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,
      And the harbour bar be moaning.
 
 
Three corpses lay out on the shining sands
   In the morning gleam as the tide went down,
And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
   For those who will never come home to the town;
   For men must work, and women must weep,
   And the sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep;
      And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.
 

Eversley, June 25, 1851.