LOVE AMONG THE RUINS
I
Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles,
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro’ the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop —
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country’s very capital, its prince,
Ages since,
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
II
Now, – the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires
O’er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed
Twelve abreast.
III
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o’erspreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone —
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
IV
Now, – the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek’s head of blossom winks
Through the chinks —
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
V
And I know – while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding, all our many tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away —
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
Till I come.
VI
But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, – and then,
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
VII
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force —
Gold, of course.
Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth’s returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.
The supreme value of love is a constantly recurring thought in the poems of our author. We shall meet it in its higher ranges in selections to come. Here we are still in the sphere of the mere earthly affection, with only the suggestion, in contrast with the transitoriness of earthly glory, of its indestructibility.
No explanation seems needed, excepting perhaps to call attention to this, that the “little turret” in stanza 4 is not a bartizan, but a staircase turret, or it could not “mark the basement, whence a tower in ancient time sprang sublime.”
Observe, in each stanza, the striking contrast between the former and the latter half, so balanced that the poem might be divided into fourteen single or six double stanzas.
There is not much of the descriptive in the poems of our author; he is the poet, not of Nature, but of Human Nature; but when he does touch landscape, as here, it is with the hand of a master.
MY STAR
All that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue;
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
The following sentence, from Walter Besant, in “All Sorts and Conditions of Men,” well expresses the key-thought of this little gem of a poem: “So great is the beauty of human nature, even in its second rate or third rate productions, that love generally follows when one of the two, by confession or unconscious self-betrayal, stands revealed to the other.”
Compare also the closing stanzas of “One Word More,” especially stanza 18.
RUDEL TO THE LADY OF TRIPOLI
I
I know a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives
First, when he visits, last, too, when he leaves
The world; and, vainly favoured, it repays
The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze
By no change of its large calm front of snow.
And, underneath the Mount, a Flower I know,
He cannot have perceived, that changes ever
At his approach; and, in the lost endeavour
To live his life, has parted, one by one,
With all a flower’s true graces, for the grace
Of being but a foolish mimic sun,
With ray-like florets round a disk-like face.
Men nobly call by many a name the Mount
As over many a land of theirs its large
Calm front of snow like a triumphal targe
Is reared, and still with old names, fresh names vie,
Each to its proper praise and own account:
Men call the Flower, the Sunflower, sportively.
II
Oh, Angel of the East, one, one gold look
Across the waters to this twilight nook,
– The far sad waters, Angel, to this nook!
III
Dear Pilgrim, art thou for the East indeed?
Go! – saying ever as thou dost proceed,
That I, French Rudel, choose for my device
A sunflower outspread like a sacrifice
Before its idol. See! These inexpert
And hurried fingers could not fail to hurt
The woven picture; ’tis a woman’s skill
Indeed; but nothing baffled me, so, ill
Or well, the work is finished. Say, men feed
On songs I sing, and therefore bask the bees
On my flower’s breast as on a platform broad:
But, as the flower’s concern is not for these
But solely for the sun, so men applaud
In vain this Rudel, he not looking here
But to the East – the East! Go, say this, Pilgrim dear!
This poem was first published in “Bells and Pomegranates” under the head of “Queen Worship.” How exquisite the plea of the unnoticed Flower, with no pretence to vie with the Mountain in its claim upon the Sun’s attention, except this, that the great unchanging Mountain is “vainly favoured,” while the Flower yields itself up in ceaseless and self-forgetting devotion to an imitation, however feeble and foolish, of the great Sun Life.
The second stanza is very rich. There is no mention in it of Sun or Mountain or Flower; but as the Flower looks up to the Sun from its nook at the Mountain’s base, so Rudel yearns for “one gold look” from his Sun, the “Angel of the East.”
The meaning of the third stanza will be apparent when it is remembered that “French Rudel” was a troubadour of the 12th century – the days of the Crusades, and of the romance of chivalry. In those days the best way to communicate with the East would be through some pilgrim passing thither: and nothing would be more natural than such a reference to the “device” which he had patiently, and in spite of difficulty, worked so as to wear it as her “favour:” and once more, it is eminently natural to represent the troubadour, not as sending a written message, but as finding a sympathetic pilgrim to burden his memory with it – charging him to keep it fresh by repetition till it had been duly delivered.
NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE
Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path – how soft to pace!
This May – what magic weather!
Where is the loved one’s face?
In a dream that loved one’s face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine
Uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
Thus firm and fast
Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Through the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we —
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,
– I and she!
This poem, published in “Jocoseria” in 1883, has no connection with “Rudel,” published in “Bells and Pomegranates” in 1842; but it will naturally follow it as “another of the same,” only with a happier ending; for though we learn from history that poor Rudel did one day reach Tripoli, it was only to die there, – let us hope still looking “to the East – the East!”
We get a glimpse here of the shifting moods of a lover’s soul. First, there are the thoughts connected with the present experience – time and place all that could be desired, but the loved one, absent, (lines 1-5); next, thoughts arising from a dark dream or foreboding of the future when he and his loved one shall meet, but under circumstances cruelly unpropitious, the house narrow, the weather stormy, unsympathetic strangers by with furtive ears and hostile eyes, and even malice in their hearts (6-11); and last, the man within him rises to shake off the horrid serpent-like dream, and look forward with a healthy hope that time and place and all will be well; or, if the house must be narrow, (compare the Latin, “res angusta domi”) it will be a Home, storms and strangers without, peace and rest within!
WANTING IS – WHAT?
Wanting is – what?
Summer redundant,
Blueness abundant,
– Where is the spot?
Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same,
– Framework which waits for a picture to frame:
What of the leafage, what of the flower?
Roses embowering with nought they embower!
Come then, complete incompletion, O comer,
Pant through the blueness, perfect the Summer!
Breathe but one breath
Rose-beauty above,
And all that was death
Grows life, grows love,
Grows love!
This is still the love of earth; but dealt with so grandly, that it is no wonder that some have understood it of the higher love, and to the question of the first line would give the answer, “God.” Nor can it be said that the thought is alien – rather is it close akin; for is not the earthly love, when pure and true, an image of the heavenly? It would be well, indeed, if love songs were oftener written in such a way as to suggest thoughts of the love of Heaven. The Bible is especially fearless in its use of the one to illustrate the other. With the higher thought in view, we are reminded of the closing lines of “The Rhyme of the Duchess May,” by Mrs. Browning —
“And I smiled to think God’s greatness flowed around our incompleteness —
Round our restlessness, His rest.”
Compare “By the Fireside,” especially stanza 39.
EVELYN HOPE
I
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;
Little has yet been changed, I think:
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays through the hinge’s chink.
II
Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God’s hand beckoned unawares, —
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
III
Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew —
And, just because I was thrice as old,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide.
Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, nought beside?
IV
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love’s sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:
Much is to learn, much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
V
But the time will come, at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium’s red —
And what you would do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one’s stead.
VI
I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul’s full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me:
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!
VII
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!
My heart seemed full as it could hold;
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile
And the red young mouth, and the hair’s young gold.
So hush, – I will give you this leaf to keep:
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
There, that is our secret: go to sleep!
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
This poem, so exquisite in finish, well-nigh perfect in form, is one of the few works of our author, almost universally known and admired. It is doubtful, however, if all its admirers look beneath the form and finish, or understand much more of it than they do of other poems, the crabbed style of which repels admiration as strongly as this attracts it. The tender pathos of the “geranium leaf” in the first and last stanzas, touches a chord in every heart; but the thought of the piece is something far deeper and stronger, namely this, that true love is immortal, and that, therefore, however much it may fail of its object here, or even (if possible) in lives that follow this, it cannot fail for ever, it must find its object and be satisfied. It is a poem, not of the pathos of death, but of the promise of Life!
PROSPICE
Fear death? – to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle’s to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so – one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forebore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute’s at end,
And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!
GOOD, TO FORGIVE
I
Good, to forgive;
Best, to forget!
Living, we fret;
Dying, we live.
Fretless and free,
Soul, clap thy pinion!
Earth have dominion,
Body, o’er thee!
II
Wander at will,
Day after day, —
Wander away,
Wandering still —
Soul that canst soar!
Body may slumber:
Body shall cumber
Soul-flight no more
III
Waft of soul’s wing!
What lies above?
Sunshine and Love,
Sky-blue and Spring!
Body hides – where?
Ferns of all feather,
Mosses and heather,
Yours be the care!
This is the proem to “La Saisiaz,” one of the most remarkable of the poet’s works, in which the doctrine of immortality is argued with a profundity of thought that has perhaps never been surpassed, even in language freed from the fetters of verse. It also appears as No. III. of “Pisgah Sights” in the second English series of selections. Both of these connections suggest the key-note.
Observe the progress in the thought. In the first stanza the soul is “fretless and free”; in the second it moves onward and upward; in the third it has reached the region of “Sunshine and Love, Sky-blue and Spring!” Similarly as to the body – in the first stanza there is the apparent victory of the grave, “dust to dust”; in the next comes the thought that, after all, the body may only be slumbering; in the last, there is the beautiful suggestion that it is only hiding where it is tenderly cared for, till
“ – with the morn those angel faces smile
Which we have loved long since, and lost awhile.”
TOUCH HIM NE’ER SO LIGHTLY
“Touch him ne’er so lightly, into song he broke:
Soil so quick-receptive, – not one feather-seed,
Not one flower-dust fell but straight its fall awoke
Vitalizing Virtue: song would song succeed
Sudden as spontaneous – prove a poet-soul!”
Indeed?
Rock’s the song-soil rather, surface hard and bare:
Sun and dew their mildness, storm and frost their rage
Vainly both expend, – few flowers awaken there:
Quiet in its cleft broods – what the after age
Knows and names a pine, a nation’s heritage.
These lines appeared first as the Epilogue to the second series of Dramatic Idyls, published in 1880. In October of the same year, the poet wrote, in the Album of a young American lady, a sequel to them, which appeared (in fac-simile) in the Century Magazine of November, 1882. They are given here, with the kind consent of the publishers of that magazine: —
Thus I wrote in London, musing on my betters,
Poets dead and gone: and lo, the critics cried
“Out on such a boast!” – as if I dreamed that fetters
Binding Dante, bind up – me! as if true pride
Were not also humble!
So I smiled and sighed
As I ope’d your book in Venice this bright morning,
Sweet new friend of mine! and felt tho’ clay or sand —
Whatsoe’er my soil be, – break – for praise or scorning —
Out in grateful fancies – weeds, but weeds expand
Almost into flowers, held by such a kindly hand!
POPULARITY
I
Stand still, true poet that you are!
I know you; let me try and draw you.
Some night you’ll fail us: when afar
You rise, remember one man saw you,
Knew you, and named a star!
II
My star, God’s glow-worm! Why extend
That loving hand of His which leads you,
Yet locks you safe from end to end
Of this dark world, unless He needs you,
Just saves your light to spend?
III
His clenched hand shall unclose at last,
I know, and let out all the beauty:
My poet holds the future fast,
Accepts the coming ages’ duty,
Their present for this past.
IV
That day, the earth’s feast-master’s brow
Shall clear, to God the chalice raising;
“Others give best at first, but Thou
“Forever set’st our table praising,
“Keep’st the good wine till now!”
V
Meantime, I’ll draw you as you stand,
With few or none to watch and wonder:
I’ll say – a fisher, on the sand
By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder,
A netful, brought to land.
VI
Who has not heard how Tyrian shells
Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes
Whereof one drop worked miracles,
And coloured like Astarte’s eyes
Raw silk the merchant sells?
VII
And each bystander of them all
Could criticize, and quote tradition
How depths of blue sublimed some pall
– To get which, pricked a king’s ambition;
Worth sceptre, crown and ball.
VIII
Yet there’s the dye, in that rough mesh,
The sea has only just o’er-whispered!
Live whelks, each lip’s beard dripping fresh,
As if they still the water’s lisp heard
Through foam the rock-weeds thresh.
IX
Enough to furnish Solomon
Such hangings for his cedar-house,
That, when gold-robed he took the throne
In that abyss of blue, the Spouse
Might swear his presence shone.
X
Most like the centre-spike of gold
Which burns deep in the blue-bell’s womb
What time, with ardours manifold,
The bee goes singing to her groom,
Drunken and overbold.
XI
Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof!
Till cunning come to pound and squeeze
And clarify, – refine to proof
The liquor filtered by degrees,
While the world stands aloof.
XII
And there’s the extract, flasked and fine,
And priced and saleable at last!
And Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes and Nokes combine
To paint the future from the past,
Put blue into their line.
XIII
Hobbs hints blue, – straight he turtle eats:
Nobbs prints blue, – claret crowns his cup:
Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats, —
Both gorge. Who fished the murex up?
What porridge had John Keats?
The true poet is he who discovers and discloses, for man’s recognition and enjoyment, the hidden beauties which abound everywhere in the great kingdom of God. These beauties may be unrecognised at first, so that the poet is not known as a poet, except to such as the speaker here is supposed to be (“I know you”). He recognises in him a star. How is it, then, that his light is hidden? The hand of God, who looks down on him from far above (“God’s glow-worm”) as I look up to him from far below (“my star”), has closed around him to keep him and his light safe till the time shall come for discovery (Stanza 3) and for recognition (4). The drawing, or simile follows, of a Tyrian fisherman (5), who brings from the great sea the common-looking little whelk, from which, by a secret process, is obtained that wonderful dye which out-dazzles art, and almost equals Nature’s most exquisite tints (6-10). While the process is going on, the world stands aloof (11); but as soon as the extract is “priced and saleable,” the commonest people (12) can recognise it and make it pay (13); while the man who fished it up remains poor and unknown to fame.
The application is made with characteristic brevity, oddity, and antithetic power: Nokes, Stokes, & Co., gorging turtle; John Keats wanting porridge!
In connection with “Popularity” should be studied “The Two Poets of Croisic,” far too long to be inserted here. An interesting comparison, also, may be made with a little poem of Tennyson’s called “The Flower,” beginning —
“Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed,
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.”
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