Poems. Volume 1

LONDON BY LAMPLIGHT

 
There stands a singer in the street,
He has an audience motley and meet;
Above him lowers the London night,
And around the lamps are flaring bright.
 
 
His minstrelsy may be unchaste—
’Tis much unto that motley taste,
And loud the laughter he provokes
From those sad slaves of obscene jokes.
 
 
But woe is many a passer by
Who as he goes turns half an eye,
To see the human form divine
Thus Circe-wise changed into swine!
 
 
Make up the sum of either sex
That all our human hopes perplex,
With those unhappy shapes that know
The silent streets and pale cock-crow.
 
 
And can I trace in such dull eyes
Of fireside peace or country skies?
And could those haggard cheeks presume
To memories of a May-tide bloom?
 
 
Those violated forms have been
The pride of many a flowering green;
And still the virgin bosom heaves
With daisy meads and dewy leaves.
 
 
But stygian darkness reigns within
The river of death from the founts of sin;
And one prophetic water rolls
Its gas-lit surface for their souls.
 
 
I will not hide the tragic sight—
Those drown’d black locks, those dead lips white,
Will rise from out the slimy flood,
And cry before God’s throne for blood!
 
 
Those stiffened limbs, that swollen face,—
Pollution’s last and best embrace,
Will call, as such a picture can,
For retribution upon man.
 
 
Hark! how their feeble laughter rings,
While still the ballad-monger sings,
And flatters their unhappy breasts
With poisonous words and pungent jests.
 
 
O how would every daisy blush
To see them ’mid that earthy crush!
O dumb would be the evening thrush,
And hoary look the hawthorn bush!
 
 
The meadows of their infancy
Would shrink from them, and every tree,
And every little laughing spot,
Would hush itself and know them not.
 
 
Precursor to what black despairs
Was that child’s face which once was theirs!
And O to what a world of guile
Was herald that young angel smile!
 
 
That face which to a father’s eye
Was balm for all anxiety;
That smile which to a mother’s heart
Went swifter than the swallow’s dart!
 
 
O happy homes! that still they know
At intervals, with what a woe
Would ye look on them, dim and strange,
Suffering worse than winter change!
 
 
And yet could I transplant them there,
To breathe again the innocent air
Of youth, and once more reconcile
Their outcast looks with nature’s smile;
 
 
Could I but give them one clear day
Of this delicious loving May,
Release their souls from anguish dark,
And stand them underneath the lark;—
 
 
I think that Nature would have power
To graft again her blighted flower
Upon the broken stem, renew
Some portion of its early hue;—
 
 
The heavy flood of tears unlock,
More precious than the Scriptured rock;
At least instil a happier mood,
And bring them back to womanhood.
 
 
Alas! how many lost ones claim
This refuge from despair and shame!
How many, longing for the light,
Sink deeper in the abyss this night!
 
 
O, crying sin!  O, blushing thought!
Not only unto those that wrought
The misery and deadly blight;
But those that outcast them this night!
 
 
O, agony of grief! for who
Less dainty than his race, will do
Such battle for their human right,
As shall awake this startled night?
 
 
Proclaim this evil human page
Will ever blot the Golden Age
That poets dream and saints invite,
If it be unredeemed this night?
 
 
This night of deep solemnity,
And verdurous serenity,
While over every fleecy field
The dews descend and odours yield.
 
 
This night of gleaming floods and falls,
Of forest glooms and sylvan calls,
Of starlight on the pebbly rills,
And twilight on the circling hills.
 
 
This night! when from the paths of men
Grey error steams as from a fen;
As o’er this flaring City wreathes
The black cloud-vapour that it breathes!
 
 
This night from which a morn will spring
Blooming on its orient wing;
A morn to roll with many more
Its ghostly foam on the twilight shore.
 
 
Morn! when the fate of all mankind
Hangs poised in doubt, and man is blind.
His duties of the day will seem
The fact of life, and mine the dream:
 
 
The destinies that bards have sung,
Regeneration to the young,
Reverberation of the truth,
And virtuous culture unto youth!
 
 
Youth! in whose season let abound
All flowers and fruits that strew the ground,
Voluptuous joy where love consents,
And health and pleasure pitch their tents:
 
 
All rapture and all pure delight;
A garden all unknown to blight;
But never the unnatural sight
That throngs the shameless song this night!
 

SONG

 
Under boughs of breathing May,
In the mild spring-time I lay,
Lonely, for I had no love;
      And the sweet birds all sang for pity,
   Cuckoo, lark, and dove.
 
 
Tell me, cuckoo, then I cried,
Dare I woo and wed a bride?
I, like thee, have no home-nest;
      And the twin notes thus tuned their ditty,—
   ‘Love can answer best.’
 
 
Nor, warm dove with tender coo,
Have I thy soft voice to woo,
Even were a damsel by;
      And the deep woodland crooned its ditty,—
   ‘Love her first and try.’
 
 
Nor have I, wild lark, thy wing,
That from bluest heaven can bring
Bliss, whatever fate befall;
      And the sky-lyrist trilled this ditty,—
   ‘Love will give thee all.’
 
 
So it chanced while June was young,
Wooing well with fervent song,
I had won a damsel coy;
      And the sweet birds that sang for pity,
   Jubileed for joy.
 

PASTORALS

I

 
How sweet on sunny afternoons,
For those who journey light and well,
To loiter up a hilly rise
Which hides the prospect far beyond,
And fancy all the landscape lying
         Beautiful and still;
 
 
Beneath a sky of summer blue,
Whose rounded cloudlets, folded soft,
Gaze on the scene which we await
And picture from their peacefulness;
So calmly to the earth inclining
         Float those loving shapes!
 
 
Like airy brides, each singling out
A spot to love and bless with love,
Their creamy bosoms glowing warm,
Till distance weds them to the hills,
And with its latest gleam the river
         Sinks in their embrace.
 
 
And silverly the river runs,
And many a graceful wind he makes,
By fields where feed the happy flocks,
And hedge-rows hushing pleasant lanes,
The charms of English home reflected
         In his shining eye:
 
 
Ancestral oak, broad-foliaged elm,
Rich meadows sunned and starred with flowers,
The cottage breathing tender smoke
Against the brooding golden air,
With glimpses of a stately mansion
         On a woodland sward;
 
 
And circling round, as with a ring,
The distance spreading amber haze,
Enclosing hills and pastures sweet;
A depth of soft and mellow light
Which fills the heart with sudden yearning
         Aimless and serene!
 
 
No disenchantment follows here,
For nature’s inspiration moves
The dream which she herself fulfils;
And he whose heart, like valley warmth,
Steams up with joy at scenes like this
         Shall never be forlorn.
 
 
And O for any human soul
The rapture of a wide survey—
A valley sweeping to the West,
With all its wealth of loveliness,
Is more than recompense for days
         That taught us to endure.
 

II

 
   Yon upland slope which hides the sun
   Ascending from his eastern deeps,
   And now against the hues of dawn
   One level line of tillage rears;
   The furrowed brow of toil and time;
To many it is but a sweep of land!
 
 
   To others ’tis an Autumn trust,
   But unto me a mystery;—
   An influence strange and swift as dreams;
   A whispering of old romance;
   A temple naked to the clouds;
Or one of nature’s bosoms fresh revealed,
 
 
   Heaving with adoration! there
   The work of husbandry is done,
   And daily bread is daily earned;
   Nor seems there ought to indicate
   The springs which move in me such thoughts,
But from my soul a spirit calls them up.
 
 
   All day into the open sky,
   All night to the eternal stars,
   For ever both at morn and eve
   Men mellow distances draw near,
   And shadows lengthen in the dusk,
Athwart the heavens it rolls its glimmering line!
 
 
   When twilight from the dream-hued West
   Sighs hush! and all the land is still;
   When, from the lush empurpling East,
   The twilight of the crowing cock
   Peers on the drowsy village roofs,
Athwart the heavens that glimmering line is seen.
 
 
   And now beneath the rising sun,
   Whose shining chariot overpeers
   The irradiate ridge, while fetlock deep
   In the rich soil his coursers plunge—
   How grand in robes of light it looks!
How glorious with rare suggestive grace!
 
 
   The ploughman mounting up the height
   Becomes a glowing shape, as though
   ’Twere young Triptolemus, plough in hand,
   While Ceres in her amber scarf
   With gentle love directs him how
To wed the willing earth and hope for fruits!
 
 
   The furrows running up are fraught
   With meanings; there the goddess walks,
   While Proserpine is young, and there—
   ’Mid the late autumn sheaves, her voice
   Sobbing and choked with dumb despair—
The nights will hear her wailing for her child!
 
 
   Whatever dim tradition tells,
   Whatever history may reveal,
   Or fancy, from her starry brows,
   Of light or dreamful lustre shed,
   Could not at this sweet time increase
The quiet consecration of the spot.
 
 
   Blest with the sweat of labour, blest
   With the young sun’s first vigorous beams,
   Village hope and harvest prayer,—
   The heart that throbs beneath it holds
   A bliss so perfect in itself
Men’s thoughts must borrow rather than bestow.
 

III

 
Now standing on this hedgeside path,
Up which the evening winds are blowing
Wildly from the lingering lines
         Of sunset o’er the hills;
Unaided by one motive thought,
My spirit with a strange impulsion
Rises, like a fledgling,
Whose wings are not mature, but still
Supported by its strong desire
Beats up its native air and leaves
         The tender mother’s nest.
 
 
Great music under heaven is made,
And in the track of rushing darkness
Comes the solemn shape of night,
         And broods above the earth.
A thing of Nature am I now,
Abroad, without a sense or feeling
Born not of her bosom;
Content with all her truths and fates;
Ev’n as yon strip of grass that bows
Above the new-born violet bloom,
         And sings with wood and field.
 

IV

 
   Lo, as a tree, whose wintry twigs
   Drink in the sun with fibrous joy,
   And down into its dampest roots
   Thrills quickened with the draught of life,
I wake unto the dawn, and leave my griefs to drowse.
 
 
   I rise and drink the fresh sweet air:
   Each draught a future bud of Spring;
   Each glance of blue a birth of green;
   I will not mimic yonder oak
That dallies with dead leaves ev’n while the primrose peeps.
 
 
   But full of these warm-whispering beams,
   Like Memnon in his mother’s eye,—
   Aurora! when the statue stone
   Moaned soft to her pathetic touch,—
My soul shall own its parent in the founts of day!
 
 
   And ever in the recurring light,
   True to the primal joy of dawn,
   Forget its barren griefs; and aye
   Like aspens in the faintest breeze
Turn all its silver sides and tremble into song.
 

V

 
Now from the meadow floods the wild duck clamours,
Now the wood pigeon wings a rapid flight,
Now the homeward rookery follows up its vanguard,
And the valley mists are curling up the hills.
 
 
Three short songs gives the clear-voiced throstle,
Sweetening the twilight ere he fills the nest;
While the little bird upon the leafless branches
Tweets to its mate a tiny loving note.
 
 
Deeper the stillness hangs on every motion;
Calmer the silence follows every call;
Now all is quiet save the roosting pheasant,
The bell-wether’s tinkle and the watch-dog’s bark.
 
 
Softly shine the lights from the silent kindling homestead,
Stars of the hearth to the shepherd in the fold;
Springs of desire to the traveller on the roadway;
Ever breathing incense to the ever-blessing sky!
 

VI

 
   How barren would this valley be,
   Without the golden orb that gazes
   On it, broadening to hues
   Of rose, and spreading wings of amber;
Blessing it before it falls asleep.
 
 
   How barren would this valley be,
   Without the human lives now beating
   In it, or the throbbing hearts
   Far distant, who their flower of childhood
Cherish here, and water it with tears!
 
 
   How barren should I be, were I
   Without above that loving splendour,
   Shedding light and warmth! without
   Some kindred natures of my kind
To joy in me, or yearn towards me now!
 

VII

 
Summer glows warm on the meadows, and speedwell, and gold-cups, and daisies
Darken ’mid deepening masses of sorrel, and shadowy grasses
Show the ripe hue to the farmer, and summon the scythe and the hay-makers
Down from the village; and now, even now, the air smells of the mowing,
And the sharp song of the scythe whistles daily; from dawn, till the gloaming
Wears its cool star, sweet and welcome to all flaming faces afield now;
Heavily weighs the hot season, and drowses the darkening foliage,
Drooping with languor; the white cloud floats, but sails not, for windless
Heaven’s blue tents it; no lark singing up in its fleecy white valleys;
Up in its fairy white valleys, once feathered with minstrels, melodious
With the invisible joy that wakes dawn o’er the green fields of England.
Summer glows warm on the meadows; then come, let us roam thro’ them gaily,
Heedless of heat, and the hot-kissing sun, and the fear of dark freckles.
Never one kiss will he give on a neck, or a lily-white forehead,
Chin, hand, or bosom uncovered, all panting, to take the chance coolness,
But full sure the fiery pressure leaves seal of espousal.
Heed him not; come, tho’ he kiss till the soft little upper-lip loses
Half its pure whiteness; just speck’d where the curve of the rosy mouth reddens.
 
 
Come, let him kiss, let him kiss, and his kisses shall make thee the sweeter.
Thou art no nun, veiled and vowed; doomed to nourish a withering pallor!
City exotics beside thee would show like bleached linen at mid-day,
Hung upon hedges of eglantine!  Thou in the freedom of nature,
Full of her beauty and wisdom, gentleness, joyance, and kindness!
Come, and like bees will we gather the rich golden honey of noontide;
Deep in the sweet summer meadows, border’d by hillside and river,
Lined with long trenches half-hidden, where smell of white meadow-sweet, sweetest,
Blissfully hovers—O sweetest! but pluck it not! even in the tenderest
Grasp it will lose breath and wither; like many, not made for a posy.
 
 
See, the sun slopes down the meadows, where all the flowers are falling!
Falling unhymned; for the nightingale scarce ever charms the long twilight:
Mute with the cares of the nest; only known by a ‘chuck, chuck,’ and dovelike
Call of content, but the finch and the linnet and blackcap pipe loudly.
Round on the western hill-side warbles the rich-billed ouzel;
And the shrill throstle is filling the tangled thickening copses;
Singing o’er hyacinths hid, and most honey’d of flowers, white field-rose.
Joy thus to revel all day in the grass of our own beloved country;
Revel all day, till the lark mounts at eve with his sweet ‘tirra-lirra’:
Trilling delightfully.  See, on the river the slow-rippled surface
Shining; the slow ripple broadens in circles; the bright surface smoothens;
Now it is flat as the leaves of the yet unseen water-lily.
There dart the lives of a day, ever-varying tactics fantastic.
There, by the wet-mirrored osiers, the emerald wing of the kingfisher
Flashes, the fish in his beak! there the dab-chick dived, and the motion
Lazily undulates all thro’ the tall standing army of rushes.
 
 
Joy thus to revel all day, till the twilight turns us homeward!
Till all the lingering deep-blooming splendour of sunset is over,
And the one star shines mildly in mellowing hues, like a spirit
Sent to assure us that light never dieth, tho’ day is now buried.
Saying: to-morrow, to-morrow, few hours intervening, that interval
Tuned by the woodlark in heaven, to-morrow my semblance, far eastward,
Heralds the day ’tis my mission eternal to seal and to prophecy.
Come then, and homeward; passing down the close path of the meadows.
Home like the bees stored with sweetness; each with a lark in the bosom,
Trilling for ever, and oh! will yon lark ever cease to sing up there?
 

TO A SKYLARK

 
O skylark! I see thee and call thee joy!
Thy wings bear thee up to the breast of the dawn;
I see thee no more, but thy song is still
The tongue of the heavens to me!
 
 
Thus are the days when I was a boy;
Sweet while I lived in them, dear now they’re gone:
I feel them no longer, but still, O still
They tell of the heavens to me.
 

SONG
SPRING

 
When buds of palm do burst and spread
   Their downy feathers in the lane,
And orchard blossoms, white and red,
   Breathe Spring delight for Autumn gain;
   And the skylark shakes his wings in the rain;
 
 
O then is the season to look for a bride!
   Choose her warily, woo her unseen;
For the choicest maids are those that hide
   Like dewy violets under the green.
 

SONG
AUTUMN

 
When nuts behind the hazel-leaf
   Are brown as the squirrel that hunts them free,
And the fields are rich with the sun-burnt sheaf,
   ’Mid the blue cornflower and the yellowing tree;
   And the farmer glows and beams in his glee;
 
 
O then is the season to wed thee a bride!
   Ere the garners are filled and the ale-cups foam;
For a smiling hostess is the pride
   And flower of every Harvest Home.
 

SORROWS AND JOYS

 
Bury thy sorrows, and they shall rise
As souls to the immortal skies,
And there look down like mothers’ eyes.
 
 
But let thy joys be fresh as flowers,
That suck the honey of the showers,
And bloom alike on huts and towers.
 
 
So shall thy days be sweet and bright;
Solemn and sweet thy starry night,
Conscious of love each change of light.
 
 
The stars will watch the flowers asleep,
The flowers will feel the soft stars weep,
And both will mix sensations deep.
 
 
With these below, with those above,
Sits evermore the brooding dove,
Uniting both in bonds of love.
 
 
For both by nature are akin;
Sorrow, the ashen fruit of sin,
And joy, the juice of life within.
 
 
Children of earth are these; and those
The spirits of divine repose—
Death radiant o’er all human woes.
 
 
O, think what then had been thy doom,
If homeless and without a tomb
They had been left to haunt the gloom!
 
 
O, think again what now they are—
Motherly love, tho’ dim and far,
Imaged in every lustrous star.
 
 
For they, in their salvation, know
No vestige of their former woe,
While thro’ them all the heavens do flow.
 
 
Thus art thou wedded to the skies,
And watched by ever-loving eyes,
And warned by yearning sympathies.
 

SONG

 
The flower unfolds its dawning cup,
And the young sun drinks the star-dews up,
At eve it droops with the bliss of day,
And dreams in the midnight far away.
 
 
So am I in thy sole, sweet glance
Pressed with a weight of utterance;
Lovingly all my leaves unfold,
And gleam to the beams of thirsty gold.
 
 
At eve I droop, for then the swell
Of feeling falters forth farewell;—
At midnight I am dreaming deep,
Of what has been, in blissful sleep.
 
 
When—ah! when will love’s own fight
Wed me alike thro’ day and night,
When will the stars with their linking charms
Wake us in each other’s arms?
 

SONG

 
   Thou to me art such a spring
   As the Arab seeks at eve,
   Thirsty from the shining sands;
   There to bathe his face and hands,
   While the sun is taking leave,
And dewy sleep is a delicious thing.
 
 
   Thou to me art such a dream
   As he dreams upon the grass,
   While the bubbling coolness near
   Makes sweet music in his ear;
   And the stars that slowly pass
In solitary grandeur o’er him gleam.
 
 
   Thou to me art such a dawn
   As the dawn whose ruddy kiss
   Wakes him to his darling steed;
   And again the desert speed,
   And again the desert bliss,
Lightens thro’ his veins, and he is gone!
 

ANTIGONE

 
The buried voice bespake Antigone.
 
 
‘O sister! couldst thou know, as thou wilt know,
The bliss above, the reverence below,
Enkindled by thy sacrifice for me;
Thou wouldst at once with holy ecstasy
Give thy warm limbs into the yearning earth.
Sleep, Sister! for Elysium’s dawning birth,—
And faith will fill thee with what is to be!
Sleep, for the Gods are watching over thee!
Thy dream will steer thee to perform their will,
As silently their influence they instil.
O Sister! in the sweetness of thy prime,
Thy hand has plucked the bitter flower of death;
But this will dower thee with Elysian breath,
That fade into a never-fading clime.
Dear to the Gods are those that do like thee
A solemn duty! for the tyranny
Of kings is feeble to the soul that dares
Defy them to fulfil its sacred cares:
And weak against a mighty will are men.
O, Torch between two brothers! in whose gleam
Our slaughtered House doth shine as one again,
Tho’ severed by the sword; now may thy dream
Kindle desire in thee for us, and thou,
Forgetting not thy lover and his vow,
Leaving no human memory forgot,
Shalt cross, not unattended, the dark stream
Which runs by thee in sleep and ripples not.
The large stars glitter thro’ the anxious night,
And the deep sky broods low to look at thee:
The air is hush’d and dark o’er land and sea,
And all is waiting for the morrow light:
So do thy kindred spirits wait for thee.
O Sister! soft as on the downward rill,
Will those first daybeams from the distant hill
Fall on the smoothness of thy placid brow,
Like this calm sweetness breathing thro’ me now:
And when the fated sounds shall wake thine eyes,
Wilt thou, confiding in the supreme will,
In all thy maiden steadfastness arise,
Firm to obey and earnest to fulfil;
Remembering the night thou didst not sleep,
And this same brooding sky beheld thee creep,
Defiant of unnatural decree,
To where I lay upon the outcast land;
Before the iron gates upon the plain;
A wretched, graveless ghost, whose wailing chill
Came to thy darkened door imploring thee;
Yearning for burial like my brother slain;—
And all was dared for love and piety!
This thought will nerve again thy virgin hand
To serve its purpose and its destiny.’
 
 
She woke, they led her forth, and all was still.
 
 
Swathed round in mist and crown’d with cloud,
O Mountain! hid from peak to base—
Caught up into the heavens and clasped
In white ethereal arms that make
Thy mystery of size sublime!
What eye or thought can measure now
Thy grand dilating loftiness!
What giant crest dispute with thee
Supremacy of air and sky!
What fabled height with thee compare!
Not those vine-terraced hills that seethe
The lava in their fiery cusps;
Nor that high-climbing robe of snow,
Whose summits touch the morning star,
And breathe the thinnest air of life;
Nor crocus-couching Ida, warm
With Juno’s latest nuptial lure;
Nor Tenedos whose dreamy eye
Still looks upon beleaguered Troy;
Nor yet Olympus crown’d with gods
Can boast a majesty like thine,
O Mountain! hid from peak to base,
And image of the awful power
With which the secret of all things,
That stoops from heaven to garment earth,
Can speak to any human soul,
When once the earthly limits lose
Their pointed heights and sharpened lines,
And measureless immensity
Is palpable to sense and sight.