Poems. Volume 1

XXXVII

 
Along the garden terrace, under which
A purple valley (lighted at its edge
By smoky torch-flame on the long cloud-ledge
Whereunder dropped the chariot) glimmers rich,
A quiet company we pace, and wait
The dinner-bell in prae-digestive calm.
So sweet up violet banks the Southern balm
Breathes round, we care not if the bell be late:
Though here and there grey seniors question Time
In irritable coughings.  With slow foot
The low rosed moon, the face of Music mute,
Begins among her silent bars to climb.
As in and out, in silvery dusk, we thread,
I hear the laugh of Madam, and discern
My Lady’s heel before me at each turn.
Our tragedy, is it alive or dead?
 

XXXVIII

 
Give to imagination some pure light
In human form to fix it, or you shame
The devils with that hideous human game:—
Imagination urging appetite!
Thus fallen have earth’s greatest Gogmagogs,
Who dazzle us, whom we can not revere:
Imagination is the charioteer
That, in default of better, drives the hogs.
So, therefore, my dear Lady, let me love!
My soul is arrowy to the light in you.
You know me that I never can renew
The bond that woman broke: what would you have?
’Tis Love, or Vileness! not a choice between,
Save petrifaction!  What does Pity here?
She killed a thing, and now it’s dead, ’tis dear.
Oh, when you counsel me, think what you mean!
 

XXXIX

 
She yields: my Lady in her noblest mood
Has yielded: she, my golden-crownëd rose!
The bride of every sense! more sweet than those
Who breathe the violet breath of maidenhood.
O visage of still music in the sky!
Soft moon!  I feel thy song, my fairest friend!
True harmony within can apprehend
Dumb harmony without.  And hark! ’tis nigh!
Belief has struck the note of sound: a gleam
Of living silver shows me where she shook
Her long white fingers down the shadowy brook,
That sings her song, half waking, half in dream.
What two come here to mar this heavenly tune?
A man is one: the woman bears my name,
And honour.  Their hands touch!  Am I still tame?
God, what a dancing spectre seems the moon!
 

XL

 
I bade my Lady think what she might mean.
Know I my meaning, I?  Can I love one,
And yet be jealous of another?  None
Commits such folly.  Terrible Love, I ween,
Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave
The lightless seas of selfishness amain:
Seas that in a man’s heart have no rain
To fall and still them.  Peace can I achieve,
By turning to this fountain-source of woe,
This woman, who’s to Love as fire to wood?
She breathed the violet breath of maidenhood
Against my kisses once! but I say, No!
The thing is mocked at!  Helplessly afloat,
I know not what I do, whereto I strive.
The dread that my old love may be alive
Has seized my nursling new love by the throat.
 

XLI

 
How many a thing which we cast to the ground,
When others pick it up becomes a gem!
We grasp at all the wealth it is to them;
And by reflected light its worth is found.
Yet for us still ’tis nothing! and that zeal
Of false appreciation quickly fades.
This truth is little known to human shades,
How rare from their own instinct ’tis to feel!
They waste the soul with spurious desire,
That is not the ripe flame upon the bough.
We two have taken up a lifeless vow
To rob a living passion: dust for fire!
Madam is grave, and eyes the clock that tells
Approaching midnight.  We have struck despair
Into two hearts.  O, look we like a pair
Who for fresh nuptials joyfully yield all else?
 

XLII

 
I am to follow her.  There is much grace
In woman when thus bent on martyrdom.
They think that dignity of soul may come,
Perchance, with dignity of body.  Base!
But I was taken by that air of cold
And statuesque sedateness, when she said
‘I’m going’; lit a taper, bowed her head,
And went, as with the stride of Pallas bold.
Fleshly indifference horrible!  The hands
Of Time now signal: O, she’s safe from me!
Within those secret walls what do I see?
Where first she set the taper down she stands:
Not Pallas: Hebe shamed!  Thoughts black as death
Like a stirred pool in sunshine break.  Her wrists
I catch: she faltering, as she half resists,
‘You love . . .? love . . .? love . . .?’ all on an indrawn breath.
 

XLIII

 
Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like
Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave!
Here is a fitting spot to dig Love’s grave;
Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike,
And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand:
In hearing of the ocean, and in sight
Of those ribbed wind-streaks running into white.
If I the death of Love had deeply planned,
I never could have made it half so sure,
As by the unblest kisses which upbraid
The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade!
’Tis morning: but no morning can restore
What we have forfeited.  I see no sin:
The wrong is mixed.  In tragic life, God wot,
No villain need be!  Passions spin the plot:
We are betrayed by what is false within.
 

XLIV

 
They say, that Pity in Love’s service dwells,
A porter at the rosy temple’s gate.
I missed him going: but it is my fate
To come upon him now beside his wells;
Whereby I know that I Love’s temple leave,
And that the purple doors have closed behind.
Poor soul! if, in those early days unkind,
Thy power to sting had been but power to grieve,
We now might with an equal spirit meet,
And not be matched like innocence and vice.
She for the Temple’s worship has paid price,
And takes the coin of Pity as a cheat.
She sees through simulation to the bone:
What’s best in her impels her to the worst:
Never, she cries, shall Pity soothe Love’s thirst,
Or foul hypocrisy for truth atone!
 

XLV

 
It is the season of the sweet wild rose,
My Lady’s emblem in the heart of me!
So golden-crownëd shines she gloriously,
And with that softest dream of blood she glows;
Mild as an evening heaven round Hesper bright!
I pluck the flower, and smell it, and revive
The time when in her eyes I stood alive.
I seem to look upon it out of Night.
Here’s Madam, stepping hastily.  Her whims
Bid her demand the flower, which I let drop.
As I proceed, I feel her sharply stop,
And crush it under heel with trembling limbs.
She joins me in a cat-like way, and talks
Of company, and even condescends
To utter laughing scandal of old friends.
These are the summer days, and these our walks.
 

XLVI

 
At last we parley: we so strangely dumb
In such a close communion!  It befell
About the sounding of the Matin-bell,
And lo! her place was vacant, and the hum
Of loneliness was round me.  Then I rose,
And my disordered brain did guide my foot
To that old wood where our first love-salute
Was interchanged: the source of many throes!
There did I see her, not alone.  I moved
Toward her, and made proffer of my arm.
She took it simply, with no rude alarm;
And that disturbing shadow passed reproved.
I felt the pained speech coming, and declared
My firm belief in her, ere she could speak.
A ghastly morning came into her cheek,
While with a widening soul on me she stared.
 

XLVII

 
We saw the swallows gathering in the sky,
And in the osier-isle we heard them noise.
We had not to look back on summer joys,
Or forward to a summer of bright dye:
But in the largeness of the evening earth
Our spirits grew as we went side by side.
The hour became her husband and my bride.
Love, that had robbed us so, thus blessed our dearth!
The pilgrims of the year waxed very loud
In multitudinous chatterings, as the flood
Full brown came from the West, and like pale blood
Expanded to the upper crimson cloud.
Love, that had robbed us of immortal things,
This little moment mercifully gave,
Where I have seen across the twilight wave
The swan sail with her young beneath her wings.
 

XLVIII

 
Their sense is with their senses all mixed in,
Destroyed by subtleties these women are!
More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar
Utterly this fair garden we might win.
Behold!  I looked for peace, and thought it near.
Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each.
We drank the pure daylight of honest speech.
Alas! that was the fatal draught, I fear.
For when of my lost Lady came the word,
This woman, O this agony of flesh!
Jealous devotion bade her break the mesh,
That I might seek that other like a bird.
I do adore the nobleness! despise
The act!  She has gone forth, I know not where.
Will the hard world my sentience of her share
I feel the truth; so let the world surmise.
 

XLIX

 
He found her by the ocean’s moaning verge,
Nor any wicked change in her discerned;
And she believed his old love had returned,
Which was her exultation, and her scourge.
She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed
The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry.
She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh,
And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed.
She dared not say, ‘This is my breast: look in.’
But there’s a strength to help the desperate weak.
That night he learned how silence best can speak
The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin.
About the middle of the night her call
Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed.
‘Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!’ she said.
Lethe had passed those lips, and he knew all.
 

L

 
Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:
The union of this ever-diverse pair!
These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.
Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,
They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:
But they fed not on the advancing hours:
Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.
Then each applied to each that fatal knife,
Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life!—
In tragic hints here see what evermore
Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean’s force,
Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,
To throw that faint thin fine upon the shore!
 

THE PATRIOT ENGINEER

 
   ‘Sirs! may I shake your hands?
      My countrymen, I see!
   I’ve lived in foreign lands
      Till England’s Heaven to me.
A hearty shake will do me good,
And freshen up my sluggish blood.’
 
 
Into his hard right hand we struck,
Gave the shake, and wish’d him luck.
 
 
   ‘—From Austria I come,
      An English wife to win,
   And find an English home,
      And live and die therein.
Great Lord! how many a year I’ve pined
To drink old ale and speak my mind!’
 
 
Loud rang our laughter, and the shout
Hills round the Meuse-boat echoed about.
 
 
   ‘—Ay, no offence: laugh on,
      Young gentlemen: I’ll join.
   Had you to exile gone,
      Where free speech is base coin,
You’d sigh to see the jolly nose
Where Freedom’s native liquor flows!’
 
 
He this time the laughter led,
Dabbling his oily bullet head.
 
 
   ‘—Give me, to suit my moods,
      An ale-house on a heath,
   I’ll hand the crags and woods
      To B’elzebub beneath.
A fig for scenery! what scene
Can beat a Jackass on a green?’
 
 
Gravely he seem’d, with gaze intense,
Putting the question to common sense.
 
 
   ‘—Why, there’s the ale-house bench:
      The furze-flower shining round:
   And there’s my waiting-wench,
      As lissome as a hound.
With “hail Britannia!” ere I drink,
I’ll kiss her with an artful wink.’
 
 
Fair flash’d the foreign landscape while
We breath’d again our native Isle.
 
 
   ‘—The geese may swim hard-by;
      They gabble, and you talk:
   You’re sure there’s not a spy
      To mark your name with chalk.
My heart’s an oak, and it won’t grow
In flower-pots, foreigners must know.’
 
 
Pensive he stood: then shook his head
Sadly; held out his fist, and said:
 
 
   ‘—You’ve heard that Hungary’s floor’d?
      They’ve got her on the ground.
   A traitor broke her sword:
      Two despots held her bound.
I’ve seen her gasping her last hope:
I’ve seen her sons strung up b’ the rope.
 
 
   ‘Nine gallant gentlemen
      In Arad they strung up!
   I work’d in peace till then:—
      That poison’d all my cup.
A smell of corpses haunted me:
My nostril sniff’d like life for sea.
 
 
   ‘Take money for my hire
      From butchers?—not the man!
   I’ve got some natural fire,
      And don’t flash in the pan;—
A few ideas I reveal’d:—
’Twas well old England stood my shield!
 
 
   ‘Said I, “The Lord of Hosts
      Have mercy on your land!
   I see those dangling ghosts,—
      And you may keep command,
And hang, and shoot, and have your day:
They hold your bill, and you must pay.
 
 
   ‘“You’ve sent them where they’re strong,
      You carrion Double-Head!
   I hear them sound a gong
      In Heaven above!”—I said.
“My God, what feathers won’t you moult
For this!” says I: and then I bolt.
 
 
   ‘The Bird’s a beastly Bird,
      And what is more, a fool.
   I shake hands with the herd
      That flock beneath his rule.
They’re kindly; and their land is fine.
I thought it rarer once than mine.
 
 
   ‘And rare would be its lot,
      But that he baulks its powers:
   It’s just an earthen pot
      For hearts of oak like ours.
Think!  Think!—four days from those frontiers,
And I’m a-head full fifty years.
 
 
   ‘It tingles to your scalps,
      To think of it, my boys!
   Confusion on their Alps,
      And all their baby toys!
The mountains Britain boasts are men:
And scale you them, my brethren!’
 
 
Cluck, went his tongue; his fingers, snap.
Britons were proved all heights to cap.
 
 
   And we who worshipp’d crags,
      Where purple splendours burn’d,
   Our idol saw in rags,
      And right about were turn’d.
Horizons rich with trembling spires
On violet twilights lost their fires.
 
 
   And heights where morning wakes
      With one cheek over snow;—
   And iron-wallèd lakes
      Where sits the white moon low;—
For us on youthful travel bent,
The robing picturesque was rent.
 
 
   Wherever Beauty show’d
      The wonders of her face,
   This man his Jackass rode,
      High despot of the place.
Fair dreams of our enchanted life
Fled fast from his shrill island fife.
 
 
   And yet we liked him well;
      We laugh’d with honest hearts:—
   He shock’d some inner spell,
      And rous’d discordant parts.
We echoed what we half abjured:
And hating, smilingly endured.
 
 
   Moreover, could we be
      To our dear land disloyal?
   And were not also we
      Of History’s blood-Royal?
We glow’d to think how donkeys graze
In England, thrilling at their brays.
 
 
   For there a man may view
      An aspect more sublime
   Than Alps against the blue:—
      The morning eyes of Time!
The very Ass participates
The glory Freedom radiates!
 

CASSANDRA

I

 
Captive on a foreign shore,
Far from Ilion’s hoary wave,
Agamemnon’s bridal slave
Speaks Futurity no more:
Death is busy with her grave.
 

II

 
Thick as water, bursts remote
Round her ears the alien din,
While her little sullen chin
Fills the hollows of her throat:
Silent lie her slaughter’d kin.
 

III

 
Once to many a pealing shriek,
Lo, from Ilion’s topmost tower,
Ilion’s fierce prophetic flower
Cried the coming of the Greek!
Black in Hades sits the hour.
 

IV

 
Eyeing phantoms of the Past,
Folded like a prophet’s scroll,
In the deep’s long shoreward roll
Here she sees the anchor cast:
Backward moves her sunless soul.
 

V

 
Chieftains, brethren of her joy,
Shades, the white light in their eyes
Slanting to her lips, arise,
Crowding quick the plains of Troy:
Now they tell her not she lies.
 

VI

 
O the bliss upon the plains,
Where the joining heroes clashed
Shield and spear, and, unabashed,
Challenged with hot chariot-reins
Gods!—they glimmer ocean-washed.
 

VII

 
Alien voices round the ships,
Thick as water, shouting Home.
Argives, pale as midnight foam,
Wax before her awful lips:
White as stars that front the gloom.
 

VIII

 
Like a torch-flame that by day
Up the daylight twists, and, pale,
Catches air in leaps that fail,
Crushed by the inveterate ray,
Through her shines the Ten-Years’ Tale.
 

IX

 
Once to many a pealing shriek,
Lo, from Ilion’s topmost tower,
Ilion’s fierce prophetic flower
Cried the coming of the Greek!
Black in Hades sits the hour.
 

X

 
Still upon her sunless soul
Gleams the narrow hidden space
Forward, where her fiery race
Falters on its ashen goal:
Still the Future strikes her face.
 

XI

 
See toward the conqueror’s car
Step the purple Queen whose hate
Wraps red-armed her royal mate
With his Asian tempest-star:
Now Cassandra views her Fate.
 

XII

 
King of men! the blinded host
Shout:—she lifts her brooding chin:
Glad along the joyous din
Smiles the grand majestic ghost:
Clytemnestra leads him in.
 

XIII

 
Lo, their smoky limbs aloof,
Shadowing heaven and the seas,
Fates and Furies, tangling Threes,
Tear and mix above the roof:
Fates and fierce Eumenides.
 

XIV

 
Is the prophetess with rods
Beaten, that she writhes in air?
With the Gods who never spare,
Wrestling with the unsparing Gods,
Lone, her body struggles there.
 

XV

 
Like the snaky torch-flame white,
Levelled as aloft it twists,
She, her soaring arms, and wrists
Drooping, struggles with the light,
Helios, bright above all mists!
 

XVI

 
In his orb she sees the tower,
Dusk against its flaming rims,
Where of old her wretched limbs
Twisted with the stolen power:
Ilium all the lustre dims!
 

XVII

 
O the bliss upon the plains,
Where the joining heroes clashed
Shield and spear, and, unabashed,
Challenged with hot chariot-reins
Gods!—they glimmer ocean-washed.
 

XVIII

 
Thrice the Sun-god’s name she calls;
Shrieks the deed that shames the sky;
Like a fountain leaping high,
Falling as a fountain falls:
Lo, the blazing wheels go by!
 

XIX

 
Captive on a foreign shore,
Far from Ilion’s hoary wave,
Agamemnon’s bridal slave
Speaks Futurity no more:
Death is busy with her grave.
 

THE YOUNG USURPER

 
   On my darling’s bosom
Has dropped a living rosy bud,
   Fair as brilliant Hesper
   Against the brimming flood.
            She handles him,
            She dandles him,
   She fondles him and eyes him:
And if upon a tear he wakes,
   With many a kiss she dries him:
She covets every move he makes,
   And never enough can prize him.
            Ah, the young Usurper!
            I yield my golden throne:
            Such angel bands attend his hands
            To claim it for his own.
 

MARGARET’S BRIDAL EVE

I

 
The old grey mother she thrummed on her knee:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
And which of the handsome young men shall it be?
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
My daughter, come hither, come hither to me:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Come, point me your finger on him that you see:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
O mother, my mother, it never can be:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
For I shall bring shame on the man marries me:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
Now let your tongue be deep as the sea:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
And the man’ll jump for you, right briskly will he:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
Tall Margaret wept bitterly:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
And as her parent bade did she:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
O the handsome young man dropped down on his knee:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Pale Margaret gave him her hand, woe’s me!
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 

II

 
O mother, my mother, this thing I must say:
   There is a rose in the garden;
Ere he lies on the breast where that other lay:
   And the bird sings over the roses.
 
 
Now, folly, my daughter, for men are men:
   There is a rose in the garden;
You marry them blindfold, I tell you again:
   And the bird sings over the roses.
 
 
O mother, but when he kisses me!
   There is a rose in the garden;
My child, ’tis which shall sweetest be!
   And the bird sings over the roses.
 
 
O mother, but when I awake in the morn!
   There is a rose in the garden;
My child, you are his, and the ring is worn:
   And the bird sings over the roses.
 
 
Tall Margaret sighed and loosened a tress:
   There is a rose in the garden;
Poor comfort she had of her comeliness
   And the bird sings over the roses.
 
 
My mother will sink if this thing be said:
   There is a rose in the garden;
That my first betrothed came thrice to my bed;
   And the bird sings over the roses.
 
 
He died on my shoulder the third cold night:
   There is a rose in the garden;
I dragged his body all through the moonlight:
   And the bird sings over the roses.
 
 
But when I came by my father’s door:
   There is a rose in the garden;
I fell in a lump on the stiff dead floor:
   And the bird sings over the roses.
 
 
O neither to heaven, nor yet to hell:
   There is a rose in the garden;
Could I follow the lover I loved so well!
   And the bird sings over the roses.
 

III

 
The bridesmaids slept in their chambers apart:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Tall Margaret walked with her thumping heart:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
The frill of her nightgown below the left breast:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Had fall’n like a cloud of the moonlighted West:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
But where the West-cloud breaks to a star:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Pale Margaret’s breast showed a winding scar:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
O few are the brides with such a sign!
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Though I went mad the fault was mine:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
I must speak to him under this roof to-night:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
I shall burn to death if I speak in the light:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
O my breast!  I must strike you a bloodier wound:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Than when I scored you red and swooned:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
I will stab my honour under his eye:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Though I bleed to the death, I shall let out the lie:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
O happy my bridesmaids! white sleep is with you!
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Had he chosen among you he might sleep too!
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
 
 
O happy my bridesmaids! your breasts are clean:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
You carry no mark of what has been!
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.