'"aV'J i,'r' 
 
A. I9l 76^ 
 
 lUtloi 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013539840 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 MARCUS S. C. RICKARDS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "" 
 ' creation's hope,' ' THE EXILES,' ETC, 
 
 41^ 
 
 J. BAKER AND SON 
 
 CLIFTON 
 
 LONDON: 25, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
P\A%\-\[s,' 
 
Contents 
 
 Prelude - - . _ _ 
 
 ix 
 
 The Dark Surprise - _ _ _ 
 
 I 
 
 The Bright Surprise - - 
 
 3 
 
 Come and Gone _ _ _ 
 
 5 
 
 Spirit-Guardians _ _ _ 
 
 7 
 
 Apostrophe to Time _ _ _ _ 
 
 9 
 
 The Light of Other Days 
 
 12 
 
 To a Pied Flycatcher - - - 
 
 13 
 
 An Altered View _ _ . _ 
 
 15 
 
 On Ilfracombe Beach - - - 
 
 18 
 
 'That we might Know the Things that are 
 
 
 freely given to us of God ' 
 
 19 
 
 The Frozen Stream 
 
 20 
 
 Sanderlings _____ 
 
 23 
 
 Personal Magnetism - - _ 
 
 24 
 
 To A Golden Eagle 
 
 25 
 
 Esoteric Feeling 
 
 28 
 
 The Backward Step - - - 
 
 30 
 
 In Excelsis _ - 
 
 31 
 
 Age to Youth - - 
 
 33 
 
 Nature's Permanence - 
 
 35 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ' Years that bring the Philosophic Mind ' - 36 
 
 A Soul upon Life's Ocean - 39 
 
 Seasonable Growth - 40 
 
 Disenthralled - - 41 
 
 'His Steps' - - - - - 43 
 
 Love is Best - - - 45 
 
 To A Stranded Gull - - - - 46 
 
 The Soul's Microcosm - - 47 
 
 To A Flock of Long-tailed Titmice - 49 
 
 After Long Years - - - - Si 
 
 QuoT Homines, Tot Sententij?: 53 
 
 Times of Illumination - - - 54 
 
 Ode to March - - - - - 56 
 
 ' The Life was the Light of Men ' - 64 
 
 The Hedger and Ditcher - - 65 
 
 To A Mountain Linnet 69 
 
 The Ladybird - - 71 
 
 Brimstone Butterflies - - - 73 
 
 Dandelions - - - - - 74 
 
 The Blackbird's Song - - 75 
 
 To A Painted-lady Butterfly - - 77 
 
 Vernal Expectation - - - - 79 
 
 A Sure Recompense - - - 80 
 
 Blue Butterflies - - - - 81 
 
 Prisoners of Hope - - 83 
 
 Ode to Sunrise - - - _ 85 
 
 The Women that we do not Know - - 88 
 
 The Women that we Know - - - 90 
 
 To A Red-admiral Butterfly - - - 93 
 
 vi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Cambridge Symposium - - - 95 
 
 Nettles - - - - - 96 
 
 The Mountain-ash - - 99 
 
 To A Turtle-dove - - - - loi 
 
 The Deadly Nightshade - - 104 
 
 The Bitter-sweet - - - - 106 
 
 A Muffled Peal - - 108 
 
 Beside a Spider's Web - - - no 
 
 A Nosegay of Wild Flowers - in 
 
 va 
 
PRELUDE 
 
 TF things below inspire me, oft 
 
 The dull and worldly-minded scorn it ; 
 And as to everything aloft 
 They mock the art that would adorn it — 
 The one, they argue, is too mean 
 For proper handling by a poet ; 
 The other is so dimly seen 
 That he is false who claims to know it. 
 
 And yet the microscope can bring 
 The hidden charms of earth to mortals, 
 The telescope can track the wing 
 Of any lark at Heaven's portals — 
 The one will make our curtained globe 
 Unveil her grace to humble learners ; 
 The other many a star will robe 
 With loveliness for rapt discerners. 
 
 The microscope I use, and try 
 
 To make our world with beauty glisten. 
 
 The telescope I lift on high, 
 
 That hearts may to my music listen. 
 
PRELUDE 
 
 But much I cannot do — my harp 
 Will not awaken love In haters ; 
 And if it play for some who carp, 
 The strings are mute to empty praters. 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 THE DARK SURPRISE, 
 
 C PIRIT of Youth, from golden skies 
 That gladden newly-opened eyes ! 
 Whose charm was in the atmosphere 
 I breathed when home delights were dear, 
 And sunshine gilt with one long smile 
 
 Green earth and ocean blue, 
 Why didst thou a pure heart beguile, 
 To whom duplicity was vile, 
 With joy that could but last awhile 
 
 And hope that proved untrue? 
 
 Had I but known how soon, alas ! 
 The light would fade, the glory pass, 
 A thrifty child, a miser boy, 
 Would not have squandered all the joy 
 Begot by those enchanted hours ; 
 
 Nor would a bankrupt range, 
 Whose sun is clouded now by showers, 
 Round tuneless and dismantled bowers, 
 And fields bereft of fairy flowers 
 
 To marvel at the change 1 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Thou didst not tell me that the glow 
 Of passionate desire would go — 
 That every flower from Evil's root 
 Must fade to leave a bitter fruit — 
 That as into a rainy night 
 
 The hues of sundown die, 
 So sin is melting when most bright ; 
 And I have reaped the due of Right, 
 Nor wept the tears of Wrong, in spite 
 
 Of thy gay sophistry. 
 
 Nor didst thou warn me till too late 
 That I must arm to meet the Fate 
 Which levels low and lofty things, 
 And bids young Love unfurl his wings, 
 And varies failure with success 
 
 To disappoint the more. 
 Unguided could I ever guess 
 The avenues to happiness ? 
 I might have wandered to distress 
 
 Thro' many an open door. 
 
 Hadst thou not led me to believe 
 That the smooth world would not deceive, 
 I had been ready when with song 
 And smile it plotted for my wrong. 
 
THE DARK SURPRISE 
 
 I never dreamt of ambushed harm — 
 That men would masquerade 
 
 In white apparel to disarm 
 
 Fair inexperienced youth, and charm 
 
 So wisely that, without alarm 
 They ply an evil trade. 
 
 Spirit of Youth, I question now. 
 For all thy speciousness, if thou, 
 In seeming glory from above, 
 Wert mine for hatred or for love — 
 If by some truer Genius led, 
 
 I have not won Life's aim ; 
 To warn each young and simple heart 
 Of splendours that so soon depart, 
 Lest aught of thine illusive art 
 
 Should veil defeat or shame ! 
 
 THE BRIGHT SURPRISE. 
 
 A NGEL of Age, with look accurst, 
 
 When mortal eyes behold thee first 
 Beyond the vistas of delight. 
 The shadow of a coming night ! 
 
 3 1—2 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 In that perspective which entranced 
 
 My wistful heart for long, 
 How dark I deemed thee while I danced 
 Adown life's flowery glade, and glanced 
 At thee afar ! yet I advanced 
 
 To find 1 did thee wrong. 
 
 Thy form, at first so bowed and bent, 
 Uprose the nearer that I went : 
 Thy countenance had lost the frown, 
 And over it was a fair crown, 
 Enwreathed with happy flowers of May 
 
 Won from the fields of Youth : 
 And while I walked the shadowed way 
 Thy figure lightened as the day — 
 Transfigured by a glory ray 
 
 Behind thee from bright Truth. 
 
 In Being's golden dawn we seek 
 A fiery force, and thou art weak : 
 Activity in joy we ask, 
 Thy toil is tame, and hard thy task : 
 We scorn mere comfort, mock at rest. 
 
 Nor covet to be wise. 
 When Life's warm sunshine nears the West 
 Low burns the flame within the breast. 
 The last may even look the best 
 
 To disenchanted eyes. 
 4 
 
COME AND GONE 
 
 Angel of Age, my early view 
 Was false, my outlook now is true. 
 What joy and hope are left have passed 
 Thro' Time and Chance to live and last. 
 The love well tested now, will shine", 
 
 Tho' Youth fulfilled no vow. 
 Sweet to my palate was that wine. 
 And lost the flavour soon, but thine, 
 The good, the changeless, the divine, 
 
 Is kept for me till now ! 
 
 COME AND GONE. 
 
 T XT'HEN to my spirit's garden 
 ^^ There flitted a fair child, 
 The icy gales that harden, 
 Were zephyrs warm and mild. 
 His face outvied the blooms beneath. 
 His voice the birds above. 
 He wove for me a rosy wreath, 
 And murmured ' I am Love.' 
 
 His eyes as he caressed me 
 Shot sunbeams thro' the showers : 
 In a rare robe he dressed me 
 Of bright and fragrant flowers. 
 S 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 "With honied lips he kissed away 
 All trace of winter past, 
 And whispered me he longed to stay. 
 And bade me hold him fast. 
 
 And O the summer-glory I 
 None ever knew more joys : 
 What heart could hear a story 
 More thrilling than that boy's ? 
 But now I wake, as one at morn 
 Long-dreaming, truth perceives. 
 My brow is red from many a thorn. 
 My robe is withered leaves ! 
 
 Grey Autumn is within me. 
 Hushed music and dead bloom. 
 And nothing now could win me 
 From care, and tearful gloom. 
 The echo of an altered tone. 
 The rustle of a wing. 
 Remind me of the mocker flown 
 Who brought me golden Spring. 
 
SPIRIT-GUARDIANS. 
 
 "^^ O lofty music or high mirth 
 
 Can keep you from our side. 
 When leaving God's fair Mount, in birth, 
 
 We front life's lonely tide. 
 Ye gather on the golden Beach 
 To launch the barque prepared for each ! 
 
 All linger on the Ocean-marge 
 
 Divinely to equip, 
 Tho' haply one has special charge 
 
 Of each departing ship ; 
 Nor will it vanish from your view. 
 However we lose sight of you. 
 
 Clear was your beauty when we sailed, 
 
 Yet fainter grew the shine, 
 And dim the Shore, till vision failed 
 
 Of all but one bright line ; 
 Which melted in a mystery 
 Of grey horizon and sad sea. 
 
 Yet there are hours, tho' far away 
 
 The mariner have gone. 
 When, be the outlook blue or grey. 
 
 Lost Glory hath reshone — 
 The happy Mount unveiled from haze, 
 The sunny Strand, the Forms that gaze. 
 7 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Oh, the enchantment of the sight ! 
 
 Well worth the bitter cost 
 Of grief for vanishing delight. 
 
 And tears when all is lost. 
 'Tis darker than when first we felt 
 The Beach dissolve, the Watchers melt. 
 
 But times there are (when are they not ?) 
 
 For some of you to rise, 
 And hover o'er a troubled lot. 
 
 Attentive to our cries ; 
 As white-winged seagulls from the shore 
 Round boats upon the billows soar. 
 
 Not often at the call to turn 
 
 Back to the blessed Clime, 
 Can voyagers the Beach discern 
 
 Thro' the dark mists of Time, 
 Or hear the harmonies that thrill 
 The People of the Ancient Hill : 
 
 So then perchance ye silver thro' 
 
 The slanting of the rain, 
 And change your place that to their view 
 
 Your nearness may be plain ; 
 As shadowed seabirds move, and flash 
 Their brightness while the breakers dash. 
 8 
 
APOSTROPHE TO TIME 
 
 Ye comfort mid the mortal shock 
 When all need succour most, 
 
 Death hurling us on many a rock 
 Before we win the Coast. 
 
 No lifeboat were more fitly manned 
 
 When ye for rescue throng the Strand. 
 
 Outdrawn from every broken hull 
 
 Ye cradle us to rest; 
 Ye know the melodies that lull 
 
 Saved mariners the best, 
 When welcomed by the Lord of Life 
 They reach repose from mortal strife. 
 
 APOSTROPHE TO TIME. 
 
 ' I ""HOU under whom the hearts are nursed 
 
 That from Eternity were cursed, 
 Who bringest oft by care and skill 
 From sorrow calm, and good from ill ! 
 Thou kind physician apt to cure 
 Full half the pangs that men endure, 
 Benumbing all thou canst not heal 
 By deadening the power to feel, 
 Why have they shaped thee with a scythe, 
 As tho' thro' thee poor mortals writhe ? 
 9 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 And wherefore do they represent 
 Thee aged, hoary, and downbent ? 
 Why picture more relentless eyes 
 Than stars in the unpitying skies ? 
 Why do they give thee straggling hairs 
 Like faded hopes or grey despairs ? 
 Why crown thee with a garland sere 
 That preaches of the dying year, 
 And clothe thee in a tattered robe 
 More ancient than our aged globe ? 
 
 Thy influence is half untold 
 
 By painters who portray thee old : 
 
 A single side of it they give 
 
 Tho' in thine atmosphere we live : 
 
 One half alone of what we curse 
 
 Or bless, grow better in or worse. 
 
 Would any name a hemisphere 
 
 The world, or call six months the year ? 
 
 As fit a eulogy were sung 
 
 If thou wert represented young. 
 
 Would that the chisel, brush, or pen 
 Of genius pictured thee for men 
 More beautiful than aught on Earth 
 That they might understand thy worth ! 
 With smile of love and eyes of truth 
 I^ike their's who look on us in youth : 
 
APOSTROPHE TO TIME 
 
 A boy who chooses that in life 
 Which makes for healing, not for strife ; 
 A girl to wrong and evil blind, 
 The mercy-sister soft and kind. 
 
 Yet half of thee, and that the best 
 By glowing youth were unexpressed — 
 The Past with all its precious store, 
 Nay what we value even more — 
 Would golden locks portray aright 
 The glory of our being's height ? 
 Would eyes aflame with early fire 
 Depict the spirit's pure desire ? 
 Too beckoning a look would shew 
 That we might seek our weal below. 
 
 To point poor mortals whence they came 
 Were worthier the artist's aim — 
 That all may note thy certain flight. 
 Nor any barter faith for sight ; 
 That tantalized by thee their eye 
 Should strain for far Eternity ; 
 That calm beneath the stony gaze 
 Which petrifies delight they raise 
 An empty heart to joys sublime 
 Beyond thy touch decaying Time ! 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 'T~^HE radiance of the morning 
 
 When life was young and free, 
 The glow from earth's adorning, 
 The gold on shore and sea, 
 The flashing ripple of the rill, 
 The rainbow thro' the wet. 
 The ray reflected on the hill 
 When sun and ocean met. 
 
 The coy inviting glances 
 Shot from an eager face 
 While yet the spirit dances 
 To half-uncurtained grace. 
 The guardian look of patient love 
 In fond unsleeping eyes, 
 Unlike the sun and stars above 
 That set as well as rise 
 
 The fire of indignation 
 
 O'er cruel wrong and ruth, 
 
 The quick illumination 
 
 Of new or startling Truth, 
 
 The magic from each sight and sound 
 
 That circle Innocence, 
 
 The shining spell that hung around 
 
 A novel world of sense. 
 
TO A PIED FLYCATCHER 
 
 What if the light have vanished, 
 
 The after-glow remains ! 
 
 Time hath not wholly banished, 
 
 What memory retains. 
 
 One thought of those enchanted days 
 
 Revives the all I felt, 
 
 And makes the melancholy haze, 
 
 That clings around me melt. 
 
 TO A PIED FLYCATCHER. 
 
 ' I ""HO' tuneless, thou shalt win from me 
 
 A welcome of glad melody; 
 Thy chequered grace hath chained an eye 
 That loves not uniformity ! 
 
 The guests of every spring give way 
 To strangers of a passing day, 
 For intermittent joys are more 
 Bewitching than the common store. 
 
 Thy casual attractions chime 
 With what we value most in Time, 
 The seemingly chance visitings 
 Of sudden and supernal things. 
 
 My fancy figures them allied 
 To thee arrayed in plumage pied — 
 No one of them is wholly black, 
 Nor will the white due darkness lack. 
 13 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 And just when yielding most delight 
 They wing their witchery from sight, 
 To leave a memory, as thou. 
 Too quickly vanishing, dost now. 
 
 We long to follow them, and feign 
 Fair visions till they come again ; 
 As now I covet wings to trace 
 Thy mate and thee in happy chace. 
 
 And if a vision must suffice 
 I picture thee in paradise, 
 A glen of beauty with the gleam 
 Of heaven upon an Eden stream. 
 
 Green-mantled to the marge, where stroll 
 An Adam with his Eve, heart-whole 
 Until beneath the bough they rest 
 Where thou art hawking near thy nest. 
 
 And glancing graces that inspire 
 Th&^air of dreamers with desire 
 To weave a home and sit and seize 
 The winged joys in summer ease, 
 
 Ere Autumn, season most abhorred 
 Of triflers, stand with flaming sword 
 Turned every way, and bar the gates 
 Of bliss on bird-and-human mates. 
 14 
 
AN ALTERED VIEW 
 
 And tho' the vision quickly fade, 
 And every glen be wintry shade, 
 One hope will rainbow my review 
 Next summer all may live anew ! 
 
 AN ALTERED VIEW. 
 
 PORTUNE and Fate farewell! 
 Luck, Accident, and Chance, 
 Who mete to man a heaven or hell 
 By your capricious glance. 
 Ye of the double face adieu ! 
 My world hath no more need of you. 
 
 ^oo long have I believed 
 
 Men victims of your choice — ■ 
 
 That they, because ye frown, are grieved, 
 
 And when ye smile, rejoice — 
 
 Believed a good or evil star 
 
 Their destiny can make or mar. 
 
 Farewell ! ye are discrowned 
 By an impartial Might, 
 Wiio fashioned, and rules all around 
 In Majesty of Right. 
 Tho' dark the Throne, the Sceptre dim. 
 My creed is ' I believe in Him ' : 
 IS 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Nor as the primal Cause 
 Of all that is, alone, 
 The Autocrat, whose ample Laws 
 Are ancient as His Throne, 
 But as the Father Who hath smilec 
 Or frowned on every human child- 
 Frowned only when he left 
 Law's immemorial way ; 
 Smiled on him, tho' of all bereft. 
 If only he obey. 
 His favour and reproof are not 
 Apparent thro' our earthly lot. 
 
 Things baffling our control 
 By His mysterious Will, 
 All impotent to touch the soul, 
 Yet fraught with good or ill. 
 Are ranged along the mortal road 
 That leads to our Divine abode. 
 
 Some seem to bear a spell 
 That waves them off from harm. 
 Ere they approach a sentinel 
 Hath given the alarm ; 
 A monitor hath motioned them 
 To good, by some kind stratagem, 
 i6 
 
AN ALTERED VIEW 
 
 While others never feel 
 Impelled, or driven back : 
 Monition of a waiting weal, 
 Or nearing woe, they lack : 
 They stumble upon what of late 
 I ignorantly called their fate. 
 
 Nay, none attend, to bless. 
 And naught is nigh, to curse. 
 'Tis but our deep subconsciousness. 
 For better, or for worse, 
 In being active and alive, 
 Or sluggish and unsensitive. 
 
 To the Eternal Land 
 
 Borne on the mortal tide, 
 
 This barque on rocks will often strand, 
 
 Past which that one will glide — 
 
 Sharp rocks which wear no warning light, 
 
 For all are hidden out of sight. 
 
 An inner lantern kept 
 The one from nearing woe : 
 The pilot of the other slept, 
 And let the lamp burn low : 
 This therefore hath a voyage fair, 
 While that falls foul of many a snare. 
 17 2 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 What matter ? if a Shore 
 
 Of beauty wait for each, 
 
 Which haply they will prize the more 
 
 Who it thro' trouble reach. 
 
 The Sovereign of that Heavenly Soil 
 
 May well atone for Ocean-toil, 
 
 ON ILFRACOMBE BEACH. 
 /^^ ALES of the even that round me are blowing 
 ^^ Softly ye blew on the morn of my life ! 
 Tides that now ebb, ye have always been flowing 
 In the dear dreams that have gilded its strife I 
 Waves of the Channel now foaming and fretting. 
 Ever I fancy you blue as of old ! 
 Sun in the misty horizon now setting 
 Never hath memory clouded thy gold I 
 
 Breezes, on you happy accents were squandered, 
 Keep but their tones, and ye rightly have changed ! 
 Tides, by your current belov6d ones wandered. 
 Sweep not away the wild sand that they ranged ! 
 Waves, doth your moaning, now tender, now tragic. 
 Hint that ye heard both our rapture and woe ? 
 Sun, hath the gloom of thy setting no magic 
 Over a heart that once leapt to thy glow ? 
 
 Winds, murmur on, if when quiet ye sing me 
 Aught of the music that moved me of yore I 
 Tides ebb away, if in flowing ye bring me 
 Brightness to gleam on my heart's lonely shore ! 
 
 i8 
 
THINGS THAT ARE FREELY GIVEN 
 
 Billows, roll on as ye will, if ye weave me 
 Rainbows to gladden the gathering gloom ! 
 Sun, mid yon vapour go down, if thou leave me 
 Glory to gild my dark way to the tomb ! 
 
 •THAT WE MIGHT KNOW THE THINGS 
 THAT ARE FREELY GIVEN TO US 
 OF GOD.' 
 
 "fXT'E heed them not, the lovely things that lie 
 
 About our way. 
 Their beauty beckons to the passers by 
 
 To look and stay : 
 Yet free to all as water from a rill, 
 The many, if they mark them, feel no thrill, 
 And lacking, some the power, and some the will, 
 
 Brook no delay. 
 
 We hear them not, the harmonies that woo 
 
 Our weary ears ; 
 Tho' all would waken hope, and not a few 
 
 Dry up our tears. 
 Free as the air that wings them are the strain 
 From happy birds, the murmur of the main. 
 The music wasted, or spent half in vain 
 
 On those it cheers. 
 
 We mark it not, the tenderness that teems 
 
 On every side, 
 The loving look and tone, the smile that beams 
 
 On wrath or pride. 
 
 19 2 — 2 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Free as the laugh and fragrance of the field 
 Are the pure simple pleasures home can yield, 
 The gentle glory meant to be revealed 
 Nor half descried. 
 
 We probe them not, the Heavenly mysteries. 
 
 Of higher worth, 
 Because encircling man from holier Skies, 
 
 ' Than those of Earth — 
 Delights untold by wind, or wave, or bird, 
 Things eye hath never seen, ear never heard, 
 Nor heart conceived that love or hope hath stirred, 
 Or care, or mirth. 
 
 Like him who raked the refuse from the soil 
 
 Vain trash we glean. 
 The Crown for which an Angel bids us toil 
 
 Sparkles unseen. 
 Spirit of God, grant each an open eye 
 And ear for Earth, a mind for the pure Sky, 
 A heart to hunger for what by-and-by 
 
 No veil shall screen ! 
 
 THE FROZEN STREAM. 
 
 TTARD was my heart for long. 
 
 Bereft of living power ; 
 It neither moved in song, 
 Nor vivified a flower. 
 
 20 
 
THE FROZEN STREAM 
 
 Once it had tinkled thro' 
 Life's field of summer glow, 
 
 Where things of beaqty blew 
 The fresher for its flow. 
 
 Transparent was it then, 
 And mirrored the pure sky, 
 
 The forms of passing men, 
 The all that wandered by : 
 
 But sunshine changed to cold. 
 And left a fading bloom ; 
 
 The summer tale was told, 
 And one began of gloom. 
 
 A long dark story this, 
 
 For life became a field 
 Deflowered, and reft of bliss, 
 
 The living water sealed : 
 
 With silvery cadence checked, 
 Self-centred and icebound, 
 
 It could no more reflect 
 
 High heaven, or aught around. 
 
 It lay as if God's frown 
 Had chilled it to despair ; 
 
 No human face bent down 
 To view an image there. 
 
 21 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Men trod on it to break 
 The proud unyielding ice ; 
 
 No breach could any make 
 For virtue or for vice. 
 
 And women glided oft 
 
 Over the surface hard. 
 But never knew it soft 
 
 In passion or regard. 
 
 Naught round it or above 
 
 Could break the wintry dream. 
 
 Until the Sun of Love 
 Shot out a golden beam. 
 
 New rapture then it felt 
 Before the genial heat ; 
 
 The ice began to melt 
 
 Beneath two naughty feet : 
 
 A boy (who had been warned 
 From off the surface thin), 
 
 With bow and arrows, scorned 
 The danger, and fell in. 
 
 Once more a living rill, 
 It ran, and leapt for joy, 
 
 And none hath found it chill 
 Since folding that brave boy. 
 
 22 
 
SANDERLINGS 
 
 It sparkles on between 
 A flush of flowerets gay, 
 
 A meadow that grew green 
 At the first golden ray. 
 
 It gladdens everything 
 In its triumphant strife, 
 
 Nor can it cease to sing 
 
 That Love turns Death to Life. 
 
 SANDERLINGS. 
 
 ' I ""HE tide is flowing, and a flock 
 Of silvery pipers hurry past, 
 Which furled their wings on many a rock 
 That failed them at the last. 
 The billows tossing up have drowned 
 A reef the ocean-waifs had crowned, 
 And left them curving over all 
 In ghostly grey, with plaintive call. 
 
 And I, a watcher, note that we 
 Like them are baffled in our aim. 
 Wave-wearied from the mortal sea 
 We win unrest and shame. 
 A footing from the foamy strife 
 We long for, but the tide of life 
 Is rising round us, and at best 
 Will cover soon our every rest. 
 23 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 We settle on a happy peak 
 Or pitch upon a point of bliss, 
 And think, * Lo, here is what we seek ! 
 No wave can mount to this.' 
 Oh, when will weary spirits learn 
 That each will disappear in turn ? 
 O'er all without the waters close ; 
 Within, within is true repose ! 
 
 PERSONAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 "LJOW is it that mid many a face 
 
 Some charm with a compelling grace, 
 Mid many a spirit some can thrill 
 The sense, and play upon the will ? 
 
 Perhaps a something in their heart 
 Hath found in ours a counterpart, 
 Or maybe an aroma stole 
 Quick recognition from the soul. 
 
 As when from perfumed flowers all fair 
 A gardener picks one here, one therCj 
 They please him more, he knows not why 
 Than sweeter blooms he passes by. 
 
 How is it that reviewing all 
 Our comrades at Life's festival, 
 A halo of enchantment rests 
 Round certain only of the guests ? 
 24 
 
PERSONAL MAGNETISM 
 
 Ah ! Nature steeped them in a power 
 Whose virtue lingers to this hour. 
 The spell that used to draw our gaze 
 Now wraps them in a golden haze ; 
 
 As barques upon the waterway 
 That pass us look, mid dying day, 
 They all on the horizon fade, 
 A few sungilt, the rest in shade. 
 
 Why is it that from many a saint 
 Now shining pure of mortal taint 
 Some more than others influence 
 The soul to conquer Time and Sense ? 
 
 The fire that made their spirits glow 
 With brighter holiness below 
 Now radiates a larger love, 
 That beckons men to look above ; 
 
 As when the burning stars are shy 
 To twinkle in the lilac sky, 
 A few steal out, as tho' their worth 
 Can but attract the eye from Earth. 
 
 TO A GOLDEN EAGLE. 
 
 T MARVEL not that one who can. 
 Above sad Earth should soar. 
 And scorn the dark abode of man, 
 The dreary plain and shore : 
 
 2S 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 I only wonder thou canst mock 
 Thy craving brood upon the rock, 
 Who eye the farmyard, field and flock — 
 By circling up the more. 
 
 So radiant is the golden sun, 
 
 So winning the warm light. 
 That calls of duty left undone 
 
 Check not the dizzy flight. 
 Or is it that yon spiral course 
 Will wing thee to a flaming source 
 Of energy, that fuller force 
 
 May crown thy race when run ? 
 
 I know but this, that many a soul 
 
 Hath circled up to find 
 The power, from viewing Nature^s whole, 
 
 To serve all left behind. 
 Her larger vision hath unveiled 
 Supply when else their store had failed. 
 Their senses thrill because she sailed 
 
 To altitude of mind. 
 
 And wings have wafted spirits oft 
 
 To the pure Orb of Love ; 
 Long have they flown like thee aloft, 
 
 Earth's emptiness above. 
 Then coming down with heightened dower. 
 Dear homely hearts have blessed the hour 
 26 
 
TO A GOLDEN EAGLE 
 
 When drawn by that compelling power 
 They thro' bright Heaven did rove. 
 
 We to the Sun of Righteousness 
 
 Ere now have turned an eye, 
 And felt our need and nothingness 
 
 Before His Majesty. 
 Yet, having won whate'er we asked 
 While we beneath the Glory basked. 
 The stronger have we felt, and tasked 
 Resolve and energy. 
 
 The face of holy men hath shone 
 From intercourse Divine : 
 
 And hath a spirit ever gone 
 
 From Light who did not shine? 
 
 But fallen ones that lose the view 
 
 Of heaven, and forfeit their bright hue. 
 
 To love and pity bid adieu 
 In slow but sure decline. 
 
 And such an one, I fear, art thou ! 
 
 Thy sunny raptures told, 
 Yon cruel beak and talons now 
 
 Are poised above a fold, 
 To fasten on a spotless lamb, 
 And bear it from a bleating dam ! 
 Avaunt ! thy glory is a sham 
 
 Thy glitter is not gold ! 
 27 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Yet even if thou lost the gleam 
 That won for thee thy name, 
 
 Parental due would half redeem 
 Thy character from blame. 
 
 Tho' rightly I pronounce thee curst, 
 
 Not wrongly did I praise thee first ; 
 
 Thy record is the best and worst 
 For good and evil fame. 
 
 ESOTERIC FEELING. 
 
 ' I ""HEY smile and sigh, the sages, seers 
 
 And men of Art and Song — 
 Their low light laughter shames the tears 
 
 Of the despondent throng : 
 Their sadness mid the jubilee 
 Of vulgar hearts is strange to see. 
 Ah ! whence and wherefore is that part 
 So counter to the common heart ? 
 
 Tis thus — the storms in rainbows end. 
 
 The showers veil sunny gleams : 
 Too brief alike for them to spend 
 
 High passion on such themes. 
 The millions never would believe 
 The things exist that make them grieve. 
 They smile when basking in a light 
 For ever veiled from vulgar sight. 
 28 
 
ESOTERIC FEELING 
 
 But then no arrogance or pride 
 
 Beget their grief and bliss : 
 They mourn for what dark curtains hide, 
 
 For joy that mortals miss. 
 They triumph when a flash Divine 
 Makes Earth with fuller meaning shine. 
 The glory gone, they sadly gaze 
 Half blinded, thro' the deepening haze. 
 
 A high conception masters them 
 
 Which swift they realize ; 
 Yet work that others call a gem 
 
 Will but beget their sighs. 
 The fair ideal was the bright 
 Apocalypse of morning light ; 
 To them the outcome is the grey 
 That tearfully hath ended Day. 
 
 Yet even so, they feel full well 
 
 That they have won the crown, 
 (Befitting workers who excel). 
 
 Of fortune or renown. 
 But lo ! their best is hurried by 
 Like the enchantment of the sky. 
 The world will never rise above 
 The mean of Beauty, Truth and Love ! 
 
 29 
 
THE BACKWARD STEP. 
 
 nr^HEY take it who would view 
 
 A vast cathedral well : 
 Too near, proportions seem untrue, 
 
 Nor instinct with the spell 
 Wherewith they charm the ravished eye 
 That views the distant symmetry. 
 
 They take it who succeed 
 
 In a pictorial Art : 
 The careful painter will recede, 
 
 The sculptor half depart. 
 The flaws they find, would not appear, 
 The canvas close, the marble near. 
 
 They take it oft who write 
 
 A poem or romance : 
 Outside of all that they indite, 
 
 They gauge it at a glance. 
 The harmony to criticise, 
 The form and diction to revise. 
 
 They, turning, take it too 
 
 Who parley with the Past, 
 And thus obtain a fairer view 
 
 Of all that Time hath massed — 
 The deeds which people of the day 
 When each was done could hardly weigh. 
 3° 
 
IN EXCELSIS 
 
 And some (nor all, in love) 
 
 Will take it when we go — 
 One, in true judgment, from above, 
 
 And many from below, 
 Will view our finished work, and He, 
 At least, in perfect scrutiny. 
 
 Thou artist of thy life 
 
 And sculptor of thy fate ! 
 To take it leave the care and strife, 
 
 Behold and contemplate ! 
 Some might be well effaced, while much 
 Requires the renovating touch. 
 
 IN EXCELSIS. 
 
 T STOOD upon the peak of Fame 
 
 Triumphant and elate, 
 For I had climbed, to win a name, 
 
 The thorny crags of Fate. 
 The men below who thought me mad 
 
 Now lifted envying 6yes. 
 I was too lonely to be glad, 
 
 But let them think me wise. 
 
 I laughed upon the peak of Love ; 
 
 Another wept below 
 Stained from the mire, with me above 
 
 Immaculate as snow. 
 31 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 I shouted for her to ascend 
 From Passion's flowery field ; 
 
 She bade me to her plane descend; 
 Was she or I to yield ? 
 
 I looked out from the peak of Truth 
 
 On glory everywhere. 
 Few strive to see in Age or Youth 
 
 That panorama fair : 
 And had a voice not whispered me, 
 
 * Thou wilt not climb anew,' 
 I had rejoined men on the lea 
 
 Content with their low view. 
 
 I held on to the peak of Right, 
 
 For when I reached the fence, 
 An angel said, arrayed in light, 
 
 • Cast thyself down from hence.' 
 Before he glistened I was bold, 
 
 And ventured near the edge, 
 But now, lest I let go my hold, 
 I shun the border-ledge, 
 
 I slept upon the peak of Good 
 
 To feel the touch of One 
 Who in transfigured raiment stood 
 
 Outshining the bright sun. 
 He vanished, yet my thought was this, 
 
 ' Good for me to be here !' 
 For Virtue hath a better bliss 
 
 Than dreams that disappear. 
 32 
 
AGE TO YOUTH. 
 
 "VrOU say that the irrevocable Past 
 
 Should never sadden, but inspire, the heart. 
 Ah ! you are young, and I am ageing fast — 
 Full fast enough to feel delight depart. 
 The glory that to you bids fair to last 
 Hath gone, to leave behind it many a smart ; 
 Like golden gorse, now faded and forlorn. 
 Recalling beauty by each naked thorn. 
 
 The Past — it is too full of broken dreams. 
 Of airy castles utterly dispelled, 
 Of storm-clouds (overshadowing sunny gleams) 
 Refusing to retain the drops they held. 
 Can one in autumn by dismantled streams 
 Forget the summer-bloom he there beheld ? 
 Nor is it only that the flowers have fled ; 
 The fragrance, fair in life, is foul when dead. 
 
 You are a stranger to the solitude 
 That round a disillusioned spirit falls, 
 To whom so often in a pensive mood 
 Sad memory young hope and zeal recalls. 
 How can you guess the rapture then renewed, 
 Who have not known how early love enthrals. 
 Nor watched the glow of sunrise fade in grey 
 That settles down into a tearful day ? 
 
 33 3 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 You have not felt the Sun of life's eclipse, 
 Nor bent in anguish o'er a marbled face 
 With vain desire to kiss the living lips, 
 Or win new pardon from a fresh embrace. 
 Nor have you known how memory equips 
 The dead with unimaginable grace. 
 You, with grief's alphabet as yet unspelt. 
 So dark a retrospect have never felt. 
 
 You are not old enough to feel their shame 
 Who drink the sweet that leaves a bitter taste. 
 Their self-contempt who win ease, wealth, or fame, 
 Yet half the potency for Virtue waste ; 
 Who fettered Duty, and kept Conscience tame, 
 And toyed with Sin, and Pleasure hotly chased. 
 Nay, let not the bright Present be too glad, 
 Lest a dull brooding Past be wholly sad ! 
 
 Yet you are right ; with all, it should inspire. 
 With all the tears, the woe, the self-disdain. 
 New aims, new efforts may like living fire 
 Burn out the dross from every bygone pain, 
 To leave the finest gold of pure desire ; 
 And let the ore of sterling good remain : 
 Yea, from the ashes of the Past may spring 
 A Phoenix of new hope in everything ! 
 
 34 
 
NATURE'S PERMANENCE. 
 
 ' I ""HEY fade from memory, the strife 
 
 And glory of a chequered life. 
 The charm of ocean, sky, and shore 
 Remain, a never-failing store. 
 
 Mortality hath fashioned wings 
 For childhood's fondly-cherished things ; 
 No breeze of Time hath blown away. 
 The perfume of its new-mown hay. 
 
 Old school-mates tell me they recall 
 The triumphs of their bat and ball ; 
 Yet iz^ like me remember well 
 The lilies in the lane and dell. 
 
 Tho' I forget full half the joy 
 
 That glorified me when a boy, 
 
 What field hath lost its summer glow ? 
 
 What mount and moor their winter snow ? 
 
 I cannot now renew one glance 
 Of Beauty at my earliest dance, 
 But 1 can recollect the look 
 Of many a winding meadow-brook. 
 
 Tho' nobler language be among 
 Forgotten joys — the songs I sung. 
 The music of the street and mart, 
 And even words that won my heart — 
 35 3—2 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 The wild enchantment of a thrush 
 That raved above a hawthorn bush, 
 The rivalry of a clear rill 
 Which sang below, are with me still. 
 
 ' YEARS THAT BRING THE PHILO- 
 SOPHIC MIND.' 
 
 *" I ""HE years of Ignorance, when lovely Earth 
 
 Looked like a picture-hall, or pleasure-ground, 
 Which we the heirs of never-failing mirth 
 Might roam thro' dreamily, or dance around, 
 Till seeking triumph, vanity we found. 
 Thro' gradual weariness we grew more wise, 
 Felt Joy take flight, and soar, beyond the bound 
 Of mortal capture, to the lofty Skies, 
 And spread our spirit-wings to follow the far prize. 
 
 The years of Innocence, when Earth was pure. 
 And men were good, and all the world was true. 
 Ere Vice stole up with subtle overture, 
 And Guilt and Woe a little nearer drew, 
 Till fast unfolding to our fearful view 
 The path of Death, the precipice to Hell, 
 We learnt to safeguard every avenue, 
 Each flowery promenade to sentinel. 
 And thus, and only thus, to foil the fatal spell. 
 
 36 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC MIND 
 
 The years of Hope — when many a rainbow smiled 
 
 Thro' tears of failure ; and o'er life's dark sea 
 
 A look of dawning fortune oft beguiled 
 
 The disappointed heart from apathy, 
 
 To flush and fade in the grey mystery. 
 
 Poor drifting mariners, the sails we spy 
 
 On the horizon tantalize, till we 
 
 Can calmly watch the distant barques go by, 
 
 And better bear the truth than trust the mocking lie. 
 
 The years of Love — when like a radiant sun, 
 
 Or gentle moon, one face was wont to beam 
 
 Upon our day, our night, and only one. 
 
 Wildly we talked upon a single theme : 
 
 Strangely we walked, and went as those who dream, 
 
 Till, suddenly perhaps, the waking came 
 
 To prove that things are other than they seem, 
 
 That Love is real, passion but a name, 
 
 This an immortal fire, that a faint flickering flanieT 
 
 The years of Disillusionment-^when Truth 
 Put ofl?" the beckoning glow and genial grace 
 Wherewith she courted warm and eager Youth, 
 To wear the whiteness of a Goi^on face. 
 Why should we languish on for her embrace 
 Whose look is stony, and whose lips are sealed ? 
 We let a lighter love her worth displace. 
 And left the secrets in her heart concealed 
 To wait the certain Day when all shall be revealed. 
 
 37 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 The years of Grief — of care that seemed at first 
 A giant burden upon pigmy power — 
 Of pain, appearing at the cruel worst 
 Intolerable, even for an hour. 
 But lo ! (as when wild clouds of darkness lower 
 To lose their blackest anger in soft rain) 
 Our load looked lighter thro' a tearful shower. 
 And we can bear it now, and not complain, 
 Nay, lift our head aloft, whatever woe remain. 
 
 The years of Doubt, wherein the saddened soul, 
 
 Like a marsh-meadow, for a season lay 
 
 Mantled in vapour that refused to roll 
 
 Its pestilential influence away, 
 
 Tho' many a sunbeam from above would stray — 
 
 The years when God seemed nowhere, man unkind, 
 
 And yet, tho' earth was gloom, and heaven was grey. 
 
 We in a tender retrospect now find 
 
 Fair flowers that grew amid the mists of that dark 
 
 mind. 
 The years of rising to a nobler life — 
 Whose Easter brought a resurrection glad 
 From selfhood crucified in mortal strife — 
 Wherein the soul, in Whitsun whiteness clad. 
 Vowed, in the Triune Might, that she would add 
 New treasure to her store, and countervail 
 The Past, in retrospect so drear and sad, 
 And live to Him whose Advent some will hail 
 Triumphantly, and some with empty tears bewail. 
 
 38 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC MIND 
 
 The years that wing their way into the Past 
 In happy haste — the years that sadly creep, 
 Whereof we say, ' How long are they to last, 
 And at their ending can I cease to weep ?' — 
 The years wherein good resolutions sleep. 
 And Virtue adds but little to her store — 
 The years wherein an evil crop we reap 
 From seeds of evil, that we now deplore, 
 Which bear the bitter fruit, tho' planted long before. 
 
 These be the years, so vain and yet so rich 
 In manifold experience, that bring 
 The mind that Folly cannot now bewitch, 
 For it has weighed the worth of everything — 
 The mind that will to Wisdom closely cling, 
 That bravely bears the all it cannot mend, 
 That bids life shed its sorrow, death its sting. 
 Aware that Heaven thro' both of them will send 
 The means to bring about a high! Eternal End. 
 
 A SOUL UPON LIFE'S OCEAN. 
 
 ^ I ""HE sun lit up the lovely sea 
 
 That bore her pinnace frail. 
 Which for a while danced merrily 
 
 Before a favoring gale. 
 She knew not what had brought her there, 
 And only felt that all was fair. 
 39 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Ere long the sun withdrew his fire. 
 
 The wind and current turned ; 
 And but for her supreme desire 
 
 The vessel had returned. 
 She wanted to explore the main 
 And could not brook a voyage vain. 
 
 But ah ! tho' will and worth be strong, 
 
 More mighty is the Power 
 That wrought, thro' that tempestuous wrong 
 
 For many a fearful hour, 
 And brought the barque, divinely checked, 
 Back to the Shore of starting, wrecked. 
 
 And she who willed to weather all, 
 How, where, and what of her ? 
 
 She has but yielded to His thrall 
 Who holds each mariner : 
 
 Nor vain the strife if He equip 
 
 Her thro' it for a finer ship. 
 
 SEASONABLE GROWTH. 
 
 T DID not love, and like a tree 
 
 In winter, I was dark and bare. 
 Beholders took no thought for me, 
 When I for others felt no care. 
 40 
 
SEASONABLE GROWTH 
 
 I vowed to love, and with the will 
 Burst forth and wore a vernal grace : 
 Fair flowers encircled me until 
 Mature adornment took their place. 
 
 I loved, and (like the leaves that sprout. 
 To triumph when the blossoms fade,) 
 Bright summer foliage came out, 
 From rain to shield, and sun to shade. 
 
 And thro' mortality's decay, 
 Autumnal ripeness from the root. 
 Outliving what had passed away. 
 Bare Love's imperishable fruit. 
 
 DISENTHRALLED. 
 
 TN truth I have been dreaming ! 
 
 It was but empty seeming 
 That golden glory streaming 
 
 Upon my earthly gloom. 
 The fairy sunbeams slanted 
 On trees no mortal planted, 
 Around a dell enchanted 
 In bright imagined bloom. 
 41 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Farewell ye bowers Eiysian, 
 Thou vain and vanished vision ! 
 And spare me your derision 
 
 Ye who all love disdain ! 
 For one sat there beside me 
 Who feigned to heal and guide me. 
 And almost deified me, 
 
 Yet drowsed me into pain. 
 
 Naught needed to be spoken : 
 We smiled a mutual token 
 Of troth to be unbroken 
 
 By fortune or foul fate. 
 She wove her web around me, 
 But when her toils had bound me. 
 The dream dissolving found me 
 
 Alone and desolate. 
 
 Now as I sit unbinding 
 
 My heart, each spell unwinding. 
 
 The glory-beams, so blinding 
 
 To sense, my world forsake : 
 The common sky is o'er me, 
 Ungilded earth before me, 
 And when new lips adore me, 
 
 They woo a heart awake. 
 
 42 
 
'HIS STEPS.' 
 
 ' I ""HE footprints on a sandy shore 
 Are covered by the tidal flow : 
 Tracks vanish on a street or floor 
 
 Where mortals come and go : 
 Wild wintry gales have soon effaced 
 The marks that kindly feet have traced 
 On valley, moor, and mountain-side 
 For wanderers without a guide. 
 
 But steps were graven on a Strand 
 That mock the alternating tides : 
 Millennial storms have swept the sand, 
 
 Yet every one abides. 
 And marks once made by human Feet 
 Still linger on a Room, a Street, 
 A Vale, a Moor, a lonely Mount — 
 Still linger in the World's account. 
 
 Or to their vision at the least 
 Who follow one sublime Career 
 His earthly course hath never ceased, 
 
 And cannot, disappear. 
 As a far sunlit vista gleams, 
 Or the moon's ocean-pathway beams, 
 So ghines the whole, while glories dart 
 From every footprint, viewed apart. 
 43 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 The Form upon the waves, that smiled 
 On storm-tossed men of Galilee, 
 Left traces that have oft beguiled 
 
 Sad sailors on Life's Sea. 
 His steps along the Street of Time 
 Hold feet from falling, hands from crime : 
 Each print upon the World's foul Floor 
 Hath heartened some, and steadied more. 
 
 Those in the Vale of Suffering 
 Have footed it by each bright track, 
 And found a haunting virtue bring 
 The strength poor mortals lack. 
 Men on the Moor of Doubt have gone 
 The Path of Faith where these have shone, 
 Or keeping their bright spell in view 
 Have shunned false guiding-posts for true. 
 
 Alas ! for wanderers who still 
 
 Turn blindly from their leading-light. 
 
 Thus only climb we Heaven's steep Hill 
 
 With charming Earth in sight. 
 Outside of them the feet will stray 
 While struggling up that thorny way : 
 But all who in their track have trod 
 Shall win the Mountain-peak of God. 
 
 44 
 
LOVE IS BEST. 
 
 A GARDEN lay expecting 
 
 The glory Spring would give. 
 Young germs of life, collecting 
 Their forces, strove to live ; 
 A sunny ray shone out awhile 
 And quickened bee and bird ; 
 The flowers began to peep and smile, 
 And every creature stirred. 
 
 A brain was agonizing 
 For fancies to be shaped, 
 Forms, Venus-like arising 
 From foamy thought undraped. 
 It felt the glow of Genius shine. 
 And all were fitly dressed 
 In music of the most divine, 
 And language of the best. 
 
 A barren heart lay dreaming, 
 Unconscious that it kept 
 Fair flowers and songs, which, teeming 
 With urgent life, had slept. 
 All waken to the shaft of gold 
 Shot out from Love's bright sun : 
 The music rings, the flowers unfold, 
 True being hath begun. 
 4S 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Sweet Sun of Nature, banish 
 Dark death from everything ! 
 Bright Genius, if thou vanish 
 We vainly shape and sing ! 
 But better lack the light below, 
 The glimmer from above. 
 Than forfeit the diviner glow 
 Within the heart, of Love ! 
 
 TO A STRANDED GULL. 
 
 '' I ""HO' curving waves are tipped with white, 
 
 And snowy sails steal into sight, 
 Thy spotlessness attracts me more 
 Than anything on sea or shore. 
 
 Art thou an Angel-straggler who 
 Hath wandered from the stainless crew 
 That pilot men along life's sea. 
 And land them in Eternity 1 
 
 Or art thou but a seabird flown 
 From billowy ocean, left alone 
 Upon a reef, who cannot fly 
 And who, without my aid, will die ? 
 
 Methinks the two in thee combine ; 
 My helper thou, if I be thine. 
 Inspire me with new hope and zeal. 
 And I will battle for thy weal. 
 46 
 
THE SOUL'S MICROCOSM 
 
 Ah ! Angel-like thou dost suggest 
 Mid our rude life the only rest. 
 White Innocence the winds can mock 
 And scorn the billows, from a rock ! 
 
 Thy debtor for the happy thought, 
 And new resolve that it hath brought, 
 I face the breakers thro' the storm, 
 And struggle to thy helpless form. 
 
 THE SOUL'S MICROCOSM. 
 
 "\X7'E mortals have a world within. 
 
 An earth of beauty or of gloom, 
 A Shore we one day hope to win, 
 
 Where amaranthines bloom. 
 A sky o'erarching all below 
 That rules the tidal ebb and flow, 
 A circling wind to regulate 
 The tone and temper of our state. 
 
 The balmy breeze is from the west. 
 
 Rare music marries flowery grace. 
 
 And wing6d thoughts by Fancy dressed. 
 
 Triumphant feeling chace. 
 The sleepy ocean winks and seems 
 In rippling joy to murmur dreams. 
 We hardly see, nor care to gaze 
 On, the dim Shore now veiled in haze. 
 
 47 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 But soon the air is southerly, 
 
 The warblings hush, the blossoms fold, 
 
 And clouds are massing in the sky 
 
 To veil the sunset-gold : 
 The light has left the deep, which raves 
 Or frets in melancholy waves ; 
 Yet ere the stormy sighs and tears 
 The far Coast to our vision nears. 
 
 The hurricane now past, the wind 
 Veers to the east, and lo ! an earth 
 Sorry and sad, a heaven unkind, 
 
 And waves bemoaning mirth — 
 The outlook bitter, bleak, accurst. 
 Of those who feel misfortune worst, 
 Nor dare to hope that there exists 
 A better Land beyond the mists. 
 
 Ere long the wind is north, and earth, 
 Wrapt in a winding-sheet of snow, 
 Appears about, in better birth. 
 To rise from sin and woe : 
 The hidden Shore unveiled and white. 
 Now sparkles with celestial light. 
 From every quarter blow, kind Breath, 
 If that bright view be ours in death ! 
 
TO A FLOCK OF LONG-TAILED 
 TITMICE, 
 
 TXZAKE, Memory ! Revive the sight 
 
 Of that bare hedgerow wintry white, 
 Whence rose a vision of delight 
 
 One dark December morning ! 
 Bring back the frequent flutterings, 
 With scarce a movement of the wings 
 Which hinted that bright airy things 
 
 My near approach were scorning ! 
 
 Methinks I now can view them all, 
 And hearken to the cheery call 
 That comes from many a feather-ball 
 
 With tail and wings extended. 
 Away, away, nor fear the cold 
 In happy line, freebooters bold ! 
 Full half a score of you all told 
 
 Have in yon copse descended. 
 
 Ah ! ye who front to-day's keen frost, 
 And yestermorn were tempest-tossed. 
 Are chiding us who count the cost 
 
 Ere braving wintry weather. 
 The luxury of youth is oft 
 The reason of a manhood soft. 
 Yet ye courageously aloft, 
 
 Last spring lay warm together ; 
 
 49 4 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Your cradle, one that might have tasked 
 
 A fairy in bird-mantle masked 
 
 To weave, and which, had I been asked, 
 
 I should have called perfection — 
 Befitting those in whom I trace, 
 The taper form and roseate grace, 
 That witness to a royal race 
 
 Of Nature's own election. 
 
 For if the thicket should be stirred. 
 Ye would flit on, a lonely herd, 
 Tho' many a bright or kindred bird 
 
 Rose with you helter-skelter — 
 Proud as an aristocracy 
 That scorns a gay plutocracy. 
 Nor shares with the democracy 
 
 Society and shelter. 
 
 What ! can it be that, up again, 
 The crowd no longer ye disdain ? 
 As if to shew none truly reign 
 
 That hold aloof from others. 
 I never marked you mingle yet ! 
 Tho' Memory thou slumber, let 
 This sight remain, lest I forget 
 
 That all who live are brothers ! 
 
 50 
 
AFTER LONG YEARS. 
 
 "PORGOTTEN thee ? Nay, once I said 
 
 That should not, could not, be. 
 For thou, alive or even dead, 
 Wert all the world to me. 
 
 And I was of an equal worth 
 
 To thee at that sweet time : 
 Our spirits both in grief and mirth 
 
 Vowed evermore to chime. 
 
 The Sun of Love had photographed 
 
 Each on the other's heart ; 
 But Destiny and human craft 
 
 Determined we should part. 
 
 Ah I if we had but oftener met 
 
 And grown more intertwined 
 Would years have taught us to forget 
 
 What parting left behind ? 
 
 Brief friendship and eventual love, 
 
 A summer of delight ; 
 Below, a paradise — above, 
 
 A heaven divinely bright — 
 
 Within, a tearful sunny bliss 
 
 To rainbow in the eyes — 
 And on the lip a frequent kiss 
 
 To seal Love's sophistries. 
 
 SI 4—2 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 All these, and the fond final vow 
 
 Had never been forgot ; 
 Nor could we have endured as now 
 
 A life's unmingled lot. 
 
 The vernal ivy born to cling 
 No meddler should remove ; 
 
 But thou wert taken in thy spring, 
 And told thou must not love. 
 
 What wonder if in single growth 
 
 We learnt to separate, 
 And if, the lesson finished, both 
 
 Took each another mate ? 
 
 And many an alien smile and tear 
 
 So taxes memory, 
 That each now questions half in fear, 
 
 ' Hast thou forgotten me ?' 
 
 Forgotten ? Ah ! why need we ask ? 
 
 The face I used to greet. 
 With lover's lips, can never mask 
 
 A memory so sweet. 
 
 Forgotten ? Nay, thy quivering form 
 Too well remembers mine : 
 
 The ivy troubled by this storm 
 Should have been left to twine ! 
 
 S2 
 
AFTER LONG YEARS 
 
 And if in levity or pride 
 
 I swore that I forget, 
 A look would tell thee I had lied, 
 
 The moment that we met. 
 
 Yes, tho' we be for ever twain, 
 
 We are at one in this, 
 That both now wander back again 
 
 To that dear dream of bliss. 
 
 QUOT HOMINES, TOT SENTENTI^. 
 
 ' I ""ELL me your brightest hour ! 
 
 'That, when I scored the most,' a school- 
 boy cried. 
 ' That, of my dream in yon enchanted bower,' 
 
 A gentle girl replied. 
 
 ' The hour when I was wooed 
 By him who won me,' said a happy wife. 
 * That,' cried her spouse, * when first I understood 
 
 That love was very life.' 
 
 ' That,' said a mother fond, 
 ' When to my heart I held our first-born -son.' 
 ' That,' said the father, ' when he soared beyond 
 
 Our hope, and honour won.' 
 53 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 ' The hour when fortune came,' 
 A shopman answered who was poor for long. 
 ' That,' said an author, ' when 1 rose to fame. 
 
 For all the rude world's wrong.' 
 
 ' The hour,' an artist said, 
 ' When Beauty her delight to me unveiled.' 
 ' That,' cried a seer, * wherein the darkness fled, 
 
 When vision long had failed.' 
 
 ' That,' a deep thinker urged, 
 ' When like a sunbeam Truth around me shone.* 
 ' That,' cried a sinner, ' when my spirit purged 
 
 Knew that her guilt was gone.' 
 
 ' That,' said a peacemaker, 
 ' When two that quarrelled, thro' my effort kissed.' 
 ' That when my zeal made many a sleeper stir,' 
 
 Cried a philanthropist. 
 
 I noted them, and thought. 
 Good are the hours that bring Earth's joy or rest : 
 Still better those when Light and Hope are brought: 
 
 But hours of Love are best. 
 
 TIMES OF ILLUMINATION. 
 
 ' I ""HE traveller while walking on 
 
 Can rarely view the road aright. 
 The weary leagues that he has gone, 
 And has to go, are out of sight. 
 S4 
 
TIMES OF ILLUMINATION 
 
 His eyes are bent upon the way, 
 The present perils are enough, 
 He will not tarry to survey 
 A past, or future, smooth, or rough. 
 
 Yet ever and anon the guile 
 Of sunshine and a beckoning peep, 
 Lure him to let his gaze awhile 
 The gilded panorama sweep. 
 
 Calm distance tones the bygone down, 
 And veils the front in hazy gold ; 
 The cares that fret, the risks that frown, 
 In that fair outlook are untold. 
 
 Thus, often, while we toil along 
 The dry hard thoroughfare of life, 
 We read the coming trial wrong, 
 Nor truly weigh the conquered strife. 
 
 So urgently we press amid 
 The dust and danger of the course, 
 Our progress and mistakes are hid, 
 Nor feel we triumph or remorse. 
 
 But there are moments when the soul, 
 Elate, we know not how or why, 
 Above the world, surveys the whole 
 With calm unerring scrutiny. 
 S5 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 While Janus-like with twofold face 
 She looks before her and behind. 
 The Past now ready to retrace. 
 No longer to the Future blind. 
 
 The light of an unearthly Sun 
 
 Is shed on Memory's abode, 
 
 Illuminating one by one 
 
 The landmarks on the travelled road. 
 
 While rays from that Eternal Source 
 Hope's onward-reaching realm begild. 
 To star the grey untravelled course 
 With glowing promises fulfilled. 
 
 Too quickly falls the vapour-veil. 
 Yet for the outlook Heaven be blessed ! 
 Without it we might faint, and fail. 
 Nor ever win the welcome Rest. 
 
 ODE TO MARCH. 
 
 l\/rUTE on a gate I lean, 
 
 Viewing the purple scene. 
 Tinged by a flush of green. 
 
 Waiting awhile, 
 Ere the young buds expand. 
 Till a magician's wand 
 Bids a fair flowery land 
 Twinkle and smile — 
 56 
 
ODE TO MARCH 
 
 Waiting while bees conspire 
 With the gay river-choir, 
 Where into tongues of fire 
 
 Withies will blaze — 
 Breath from above descend ! 
 Waken my music, lend 
 Glow, and we all shall blend, 
 
 March, in thy praise ! 
 
 If at thine outset Earth 
 Look like a babe at birth, 
 Rather in tears than mirth. 
 
 Naked and chill. 
 Ere thy last sunbeam fade 
 She, in green garb arrayed, 
 Smiles like a fitful maid 
 
 At her sweet will. 
 
 Many mid winter grey 
 Sigh for the fields of May, 
 Village green, garden gay. 
 
 Alcove and arch : 
 I thro' the sunless haze 
 Of the December days 
 Hunger, to their amaze. 
 
 More for thee, March ! 
 57 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 What ! the wild month of gale 
 Vexing the snowdrop frail, 
 Bleak rain and slanting hail, 
 
 Fitful or dense. 
 Rarely the robins trill, 
 Often the merle is still ; 
 Little or naught can thrill 
 
 Spirit or sense. 
 
 They who complain like this 
 Fretfully mock or miss 
 Half the initial bliss 
 
 Of the new Spring. 
 Even a tardy year 
 Often belies the sneer : 
 Then there is much to cheer. 
 
 Plenty to sing! 
 
 Dearly I love the life 
 Gendered tho' death be rife, 
 Cradled in chilly strife, 
 
 Joyful and brave ! 
 Nature bears no poltroon 
 In the mad merry moon : 
 Nothing will ever swoon 
 
 Into the grave. 
 S8 
 
ODE TO MARCH 
 
 March, if I figured thee, 
 One with a pail would be 
 Fittest who wilfully 
 
 Drenched the wide world ; 
 Sweeping anon the slop, 
 Drying up every drop 
 With a gigantic mop 
 
 Angrily twirled ! 
 
 What if the brooklet fills. 
 When dreamy daffodils 
 Gaze on the rippling rills 
 
 Tired of the dance ! 
 Celandines here and there 
 Circling a frantic hare, 
 While o'er the furrows bare 
 
 Green plover glance : 
 
 When the sun golden-bright 
 Makes the hill opposite 
 Gleam with reflected light ; 
 
 During a lull 
 Of the wild hurricane. 
 Gilding field, wood, and lane 
 Till the returning rain 
 
 Bids them be dull. 
 59 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 If the pink almond-bloom, 
 Fresh from a winter tomb, 
 Beam like a saint in gloom, 
 
 Blizzards may whelm. 
 Nature, be all thy starch 
 Spent in a freezing March, 
 With but the rosy larch, 
 
 The flowering elm ! 
 
 Early mid those that don 
 Mirth before tears are gone 
 Laughs the mezereon. 
 
 Purple or white ; 
 Smiles the blue violet 
 Where by the rivulet, 
 Blackthorns will soon beget 
 
 Stars of delight. 
 
 Still in the wintry thrall, 
 Waked by no trumpet-call 
 Butterflies slumber all, 
 
 Save that a few, 
 Maybe a sentinel 
 Brimstone or tortoise-shell, 
 Burst from a riven cell 
 
 Into the Blue. 
 60 
 
ODE TO MARCH 
 
 Moon of enchantment when 
 Every wild denizen 
 Of the deep forest glen 
 
 Joys or despairs ! 
 Lunatics madly sport, 
 Gaily woo, shyly court, 
 Till happy fortune sort 
 
 All into pairs. 
 
 While the brave missel-bird 
 Throned on the elm is heard. 
 First of the tones that stirred 
 
 Meadow and grove, 
 Woodpeckers cheerily 
 Glance on the hollow, tree, 
 Tapping, or eerily 
 
 Laughing their love : 
 
 When the red riders rush 
 Mad for the fox's brush 
 While the unheeding thrush 
 
 Pipes from the hedge : 
 When the keen otter-hounds 
 Find on their river-rounds 
 Quarry the pack surrounds 
 
 Mid the dry sedge : 
 6i 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 While the hid moorhens' scream, 
 Kingfishers dart and gleam, 
 And all along the stream 
 
 Rats ply about — 
 Where the trim ousel flits. 
 When the first angler sits. 
 Who by his craft outwits 
 
 Vigilant trout. 
 
 Now the shy badger strays 
 Down the moon-silvered ways : 
 Now from the under-maze 
 
 Hedgehogs advance : 
 Now the white weasels change 
 Wintry attire, and range 
 Often in pairs with strange 
 
 Gesture and glance. 
 
 If but the sun allow, 
 
 Plums will be flowering now, 
 
 Apricots star the bough. 
 
 Peach blossoms flush ; 
 Apple-trees far and wide 
 Look as tho' maiden pride 
 Drew from a would-be bride 
 
 Many a blush. 
 62 
 
ODE TO MARCH 
 
 Now are plantations seen 
 Crested with white between 
 Delicate shades of green, 
 
 Gloomy and bright ; 
 As in life's garden blow 
 Truth and Love, pure as snow, 
 Evergreen hope in woe, 
 
 Yearly delight. 
 
 March, to thy merit just, 
 Even tho' wind and dust 
 Irritate and disgust, 
 
 Thanks for them both ! 
 Bid them our joy disturb, 
 If they but come to curb 
 Premature flower and herb 
 
 Into due growth. 
 
 Thanks, tho' the while we groan, 
 For the new health and tone 
 By the cold breezes blown 
 
 Into our frame ! 
 Doctors of world-wide skill, 
 Bitter their draughts and chill, 
 Curing, unless they kill. 
 
 Hail to their fame ! 
 63 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Thanks to thee most for this- 
 That a bequest of bliss 
 Follows thy parting kiss, 
 
 Murmur and tear : 
 April is bright thro' thee, 
 May with her dancing glee, 
 June, the high jubilee 
 
 Of a glad year ! 
 
 ' THE LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN.' 
 
 "DEHOLD the Aureole that beams^ 
 "^ From Him whose purity and grace 
 The painter in his lofty dreams 
 Of perfect beauty loves to trace ! 
 How all appears serenely bright 
 Within the radius of the Light ! 
 
 Behold His Figure in ' the Book ' ! 
 The Record of the Old is lit 
 By His supernal glow : and look 
 How all the New is bathed in It ! 
 While they who let the Light Divine 
 Begild them, see their faces shine ! 
 64 
 
'THE LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN' 
 
 Behold Him in the World below 
 Mid mortal sorrow, sin, and strife ! 
 Dark. Evil blushed beneath His glow, 
 Pale Death drew colour from His Life, 
 And Virtue shed her raiment old, 
 Reflecting in the new, His gold. 
 
 Behold Him in the World above, 
 Not radiating beams that fall 
 On mortals near in healing love. 
 But the one Fount of Light to all ! 
 The shining ones that throng the Earth 
 Bathed in His Beauty prove Its worth. 
 
 Behold Him, not as men perceive 
 The Orient when most divine, 
 The fire of Noon, the glow of Eve, 
 The lightning flash, the rainbow shine ; 
 But as, tho' mortal eye be dim. 
 The soul can vision Heaven and Him ! 
 
 THE HEDGER AND DITCHER 
 
 QTAND still, thou man of industry 
 *^ Upon the daily trudge 
 To clip and prune unceasingly. 
 And let me be thy Judge ! 
 
 65 5 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 To carry on such hideous work 
 Befits a Vandal, Goth, or Turk, 
 Dost thou in very malice lurk, 
 Or art thou but a drudge ? 
 
 The charge I bring is briefly this, 
 
 That near, and far and wide, 
 Thou art the wrecker of my bliss, 
 
 The spoiler of my pride — 
 Yea, and of theirs who take their ease 
 And ply their toil mid herbage trees 
 And brambles — butterflies and bees 
 
 And birds, and much beside. 
 
 Oh! the delight in early Spring 
 
 Around the starry thorn. 
 Whereon the thrush and blackbird sing 
 
 And sport at dewy morn. 
 Ah ! the despondency at eve 
 Before the ruin thou dost leave, 
 Buds, blossoms, nests that none could weave, 
 
 And warblers mute and lorn. 
 
 Behold them everywhere ! and worse 
 
 Is Beauty faring now. 
 For none have ever earned her curse 
 
 More wantonly than thou : 
 66 
 
THE HEDGER AND DITCHER 
 
 She haunted a half-hidden bank 
 Of primroses and herbage rank, 
 Above a brook where linnets drank. 
 Concealed by many a bough, 
 
 I cried to thee, ' Good hedger, spare 
 The growth around yon slope ! 
 
 Gilt celandines will soon be there, 
 White violets, I hope. 
 
 The April rain, the sun of May, 
 
 Will stud it with geraniums gay ; 
 
 And speedwells mid the green array 
 Their azure eyes will ope.' 
 
 Thou mightest have been deaf, and I, 
 
 For my part, wholly dumb ! 
 Sheer ruin was the prompt reply 
 
 Ere 1 again could come. 
 The wilding fell beneath the shears, 
 The bank grew horrid as my fears- 
 Take thee a Jury of thy peers, 
 A Counsel too, thy chum ! 
 
 Thy mate I reckon in defence 
 
 Would argue with me thus : 
 
 'Neatness, nay, simple common-sense 
 Condemn the foolish fuss. 
 
 67 5—2 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 How could he humour such a whim ? 
 The ditch and hedgerow must be trim 
 To please the Public : as for him 
 Does he look villainous ? 
 
 ' He has a family and wife, 
 
 Is kind, and honest too ;' 
 He does his duty well in life. 
 
 So give him now his due ! 
 This in thy favour, I refer 
 With the indictment (lest I err 
 In playing the sole arbiter) 
 
 To twelve good men and true. 
 
 Alas ! one only holds with me 
 That thy desert is shame : 
 
 The others to a man agree 
 
 That thou art free from blame. 
 
 What care the common crowd for things 
 
 The artist paints, the poet sings, 
 
 Whereto a nature-lover clings 
 Nor lets a ruffian maim ? 
 
 The one affirmed a symmetry 
 
 In Nature's perfect plan. 
 The very outline, wild and free, 
 
 Here craved respect from man. 
 68 
 
THE HEDGER AND DITCHER 
 
 He often watched the Sunday throng 
 Of toil-worn ramblers linger long 
 By that sweet bank where bloom and song 
 Charmed clerk or artizan. 
 
 The others laughed at ruined spots, 
 
 Rills murmuring for flowers, 
 Lone lovers, shy forget-me-nots. 
 
 And peaceful Sabbath-hours. 
 ' He prunes the overgrowth,' they say, 
 ' Heaven give him peace and better pay, 
 And watchers who more fairly weigh 
 The outcome of his powers !' 
 
 So Beauty must be wronged because 
 
 Thou dost thy duty well ! 
 Yet if thou, keeping human laws, 
 
 Against her right rebel, 
 By the calm Holy- day of seven, 
 We two will countervail eleven ! 
 The men of Duty vote thee heaven, 
 
 The men of Beauty, hell ! 
 
 TO A MOUNTAIN LINNET 
 
 lX7"ELCOME to England, wild waif on the 
 ^ heather, 
 
 Truant, no doubt, from a home in the North ! 
 Gan it be passion, or pasture, or weather. 
 That has succeeded in tempting thee forth ? 
 
 69 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Scotland, I know, to her children is fairer 
 Far than the southerner's beckoning clime. 
 Heartier, also, our greeting, the rarer 
 Be the few guests, and the shorter their time. 
 
 Love that lures many a Scotchman much farther 
 Maybe will marry thee here to a mate : 
 Failure of food may have bidden thee rather 
 Feast with the stranger than hunger in state. 
 Or if misfortune have caused thee to wander, 
 Like thy keen countrymen meaning to stay 
 Mid our fat furrows, thy heart will grow fonder 
 Haply of England, the further thou stray. 
 
 Thou art in Britain, poor shy one remember ! 
 Kinsmen are round thee whose forehead and breast 
 Flaming to-day will be dull ere September ; 
 Who then will know thee apart from the rest .•' 
 Thou hast thy beauty ; up shew it ! and vaunt thee 
 Bravely of red that can rival their own ! 
 Sweet tho' their melody be, could they taunt thee 
 Fairly with failure of compass or tone .? 
 
 Few in the summer thy call can distinguish : 
 What if in winter it single thee out, 
 Scots have an accent they would not extinguish, 
 Plain to our ears when they whisper or shout ! 
 
 70 
 
THE LADYBIRD 
 
 True to thy birthright in warble and whistle, 
 Pipe with the southerners, join in their mirth ! 
 Gold is our gofse, and our heather and thistle 
 Purple as those in the land of thy birth. 
 
 THE LADYBIRD. 
 
 A TRIVIAL subject for a song ! 
 
 Perhaps — yet tho' it be, 
 If I were silent I should wrong 
 My muse, as well as thee. 
 Methought when I beheld thee first, 
 Mere beauty, is a gift accurst. 
 And that equipment is the worst 
 Which everyone can see. 
 
 And yet my fears for thee were vain 
 
 All owing to thy grace. 
 For creeping up the window-pane 
 
 At thine accustomed pace, 
 Thou wert so like a household pest, 
 They ran to put it to the test — 
 "When thou didst suddenly arrest 
 
 Thy course, before their face. 
 
 The children reached thee first, and cried 
 
 ' 'Tis but a lady cow !' 
 The parents, quickly at their side. 
 
 Exclaimed, ' Oh, spare it now!' 
 71 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 The parlour-maid, with brush in hand. 
 Not only heeded the command, 
 But earned the idler's reprimand, 
 With wonder on her brow. 
 
 Thy vivid colouring became 
 
 A panoply of might. 
 For all agreed 'twould be a shame 
 
 To harm a thing so bright. 
 When — was it a forewarning fete, 
 A nearing foe, a hidden mate ? 
 Some magic moved thee from that state, 
 
 To spread thy wings in flight. 
 
 The cuttle-fish can foil her foes 
 By flooding them with ink. 
 
 Not this thine art, nor that of those 
 Who from tormentors slink. 
 
 A way more excellent is thine. 
 
 The way of innocence divine. 
 
 That counteracts a wrong deagn. 
 
 And makes men pause and think — 
 
 The woman's way who needs no word. 
 Nor aught but looks, to charm. 
 
 They fitly call thee ladybird. 
 
 Whom none that view can harm. 
 72 
 
BRIMSTONE BUTTERFLIES 
 
 Nay ! not too trivial is my theme, 
 Nor vain the music and the dream, 
 If, when we think of thee, one gleam 
 Of grace a foe disarm ! 
 
 BRIMSTONE BUTTERFLIES. 
 
 T^ELIGHT attend you, lovely pair, 
 Who down the meadow gaily share 
 The sunshine of to-day ! 
 Tho' scarce a celandine be out, 
 And leaves and herbage hardly sprout, 
 With you a-wing I will not doubt 
 That March can mimic May. 
 
 Imagination soars above 
 
 The naked trees, the silent grove. 
 
 The rivulet now sealed, 
 To find in your soft hues* the pledge 
 Of tender green on every, hedge, 
 And primrose-beauty round the edge 
 
 Of many a cowslipped field. 
 
 The very spirit of the Spring 
 Appears embodied as ye wing 
 Your way along the lane. 
 
 * The colour of the male butterfly is yellow, and that of 
 the female green. 
 
 73 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Ye figure early love in Youth, 
 With all its dizzy joy and ruth. 
 In watching you I feel, the' Truth 
 Forbid it, young again. 
 
 I wander with a happy mate 
 Thro' fields of glory, and await 
 
 The bloom of peeping flowers. 
 Fair flitters ! if mid sunny gold 
 Youth's story can be thus retold, 
 Life hath no time for growing old, 
 
 No room for withered bowers. 
 
 DANDELIONS. 
 
 T^EGLECTED blooms, tho' bright and gay 
 
 As any of the flowers of May ! 
 A field of you I saw one day 
 
 Inspired the fancy quaint, 
 That I beheld a golden throng 
 Which to a fairer realm belong. 
 Whose beauty nothing here will wrong 
 
 Whose gilding naught can taint. 
 
 And when I mused upon our life 
 Of toil, and suffering, and strife, 
 Where care is common, sorrow rife, 
 And none have spotless robes, 
 
 74 
 
THE BLACKBIRD'S SONG 
 
 I coveted your happy gold, 
 Till, later on, that story told, 
 I chanced in passing to behold 
 A field of feathery globes^ 
 
 Each soon was blown away, and hurled 
 To nothingness, and while it twirled, 
 It seemed the picture of a world 
 
 Begot from golden ease : 
 And as I looked, my envy went. 
 For with a lot I was content 
 TJiat promised me when life is spent 
 
 More permanence than these. 
 
 THE BLACKBIRD'S SONG. 
 
 TT issued from a gloom of green. 
 
 And tho' there echoed many a lay 
 From trees and bushes in between 
 
 'Twas tenderer than they. 
 Those came from happy hearts above 
 The mansions of delight and love : 
 This melody appeared to come 
 From one beside an empty home. 
 
 There was a pathos in the song 
 Like what one hears when in the street 
 A lonely woman voices wrong 
 In accents sad and sweet ; 
 7S 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Or If a lover in despair 
 Should linger o'er a plaintive air ; 
 Or when a poet's tuneful breath 
 Discourses of decay and death. 
 
 I listened long, for I could trace 
 
 A parable in all around, 
 
 The sombre and yet verdant place 
 
 Of ruin, the sad sound. 
 The gloomy setting of the strain 
 Was Memory now green again, 
 ' That anthem with the tragic tone, 
 The voices of the Past in one. 
 
 For all the music I had heard 
 From dear ones in the days of youth 
 Came back to me while that lone bird 
 
 Trolled out its tale of ruth — 
 The strains that thrilled the child and boy. 
 The tones of hope, and love, and joy, 
 The accents too, of pain and woe 
 All hushed and silenced long ago. 
 
 And if I did not sleep, I dreamed 
 That every darling face was there, 
 Who smiled as in my youth, and seemed 
 Divinely pure and fair. 
 76 
 
TO A PAINTED-LADY BUTTERFLY 
 
 I woke in tears — I must have slept, 
 'Tis ages since I really wept — 
 An April vapour veiled the gloom, 
 And all was silent as the tomb. 
 
 TO A PAINTED-LADY BUTTERFLY. 
 
 '"T^HOU art unfitly named, I think ! 
 -*■ A gentlewoman does not paint, 
 Or flaunt her beauty, and would shrink 
 From aught unworthy of a saint. 
 And if she met respectful eyes, 
 While dreaming mid the flowers of May, 
 She would be too polite to rise. 
 And petulantly run away. 
 
 No dame or demoiselle should draw 
 Admirers on to leave them lone. 
 Altho' in what I thought I saw, 
 I may have been deceived, I own. 
 The painted lady Jezebel 
 Was crushed because she would not flee, 
 But who could draw a parallel 
 Between that wanton one and thee ? 
 
 Hers was a meretricious art 
 Which daubed a face that could not blush 
 No earthly pencil could impart 
 Thy hues, but only Nature's brush. 
 77 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 The jeering profligate above 
 Bade Jehu hold himself unblest : 
 A single glance at thee wakes love 
 And purity, within my breast. 
 
 The fiend who threw thee from on high 
 Would dim a rainbow many-hued, 
 Hurl Venus from a violet sky, 
 And wing an angel — if he could. 
 His feet who trod thee into earth 
 (Except he were a thoughtless boy) 
 "Would do to death all sportive mirth 
 And stamp out innocence from joy. 
 
 But now, the reason of thy haste .-* 
 Is it that I in thee may view 
 The painted-lady Beauty, chased 
 By man, ere bidding him adieu ! 
 Divinely tinted like thyself, 
 That thine elusive art may teach 
 How she, thou tantalizing elf. 
 Is ever just beyond our reach ? 
 
 Or, can it be that I may know 
 The painted-lady Pleasure too 
 And learn how she can come and go, 
 Whom mortals everywhere pursue, 
 78 
 
TO A PAINTED-LADY BUTTERFLY 
 
 She flashes down our path to pitch, 
 One moment, and flit on, the next ! 
 So bright she looks, the lovely witch. 
 We follow, flaming, faint, and vexed. 
 
 Or haply thou wouldst win the gaze 
 Of giddy human butterflies, 
 Who glance thro' Fashion's flowery maze, 
 Pursued by eager hearts and eyes — 
 That lords and ladies ere too late 
 May learn that all is vanity, 
 That every honied flower will sate, 
 And charmers followed closely, fly. 
 
 Yet after all the certain cause 
 
 Of thy rapidity is this — 
 
 That keeping thy Creator's laws 
 
 Thou rangest in a round of bliss ; 
 
 And nothing darkens the delight 
 
 Encircling thine ethereal clan. 
 
 But that which clouded Nature's light. 
 
 The shadow of advancing Man. 
 
 VERNAL EXPECTATION. 
 
 /CHAINED to a wintry earth I sing 
 ^^ Because I feel that everything 
 Which buds beneath the breath of spring 
 Will bloom and fructify, 
 79 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 The purple grove, the tinted hedge, 
 The far faint flushing are a pledge 
 That Beauty trembles on an edge 
 She soon will overfly. 
 
 Bound by a cramping creed my heart 
 When thorny questions make it smart, 
 Will in a flash of feeling start, 
 
 With joy no tongue could tell. 
 The gloomy points of that belief 
 Have promised glory out of grief, 
 As shoots unfolding into leaf 
 
 With urgent beauty swell. 
 
 Confined by carnal fetters, oft 
 My spirit laughs, and look aloft, 
 As every bursting bud grows soft 
 
 Kre it begin to bloom. 
 The cares that cripple and annoy, 
 The broken hope, the fading joy, 
 Foretell that Death will but destroy 
 
 For fuller Life, and room. 
 
 A SURE RECOMPENSE 
 
 'T^HE tearful glance, the tender smile, 
 
 -*- On disappointment, care, or pain 
 Altho' unvalued for a while, 
 Are never lost, are not in vain. 
 80 
 
BLUE BUTTERFLIES 
 
 The golden ray, the gentle showers, 
 Look useless to the field for long ; 
 
 You find their worth in gradual flowers, 
 And intermittent bursts of song. 
 
 So hope and joy will bloom above 
 The grief, while accents of delight 
 
 From grateful lips reward the love 
 
 That shed the tears, and flashed the light. 
 
 BLUE BUTTERFLIES. 
 
 nr^HIS morning every field is green, 
 And yellow buttercups between. 
 
 Vie with the grass in hue ; 
 Yet naught more vivid and intense. 
 More quickening to soul and sense. 
 Appears in the circumference 
 
 Of beauty, than yon blue — 
 
 The colour of the lively things 
 That flit about on busy wings 
 
 Amid the green and gold ; 
 Their tint suggests a heavenly birth. 
 As if the flowery fields of earth 
 Were skimmed by spirits, whose pure mirth 
 
 A dreamer can behold. 
 
 8i 6 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 I never contemplate their joys 
 But Fancy her deft loom employs 
 
 To weave an image bright. 
 If morsels of the sky could beam, 
 Or snatches from the ocean gleam, 
 On shining pinions, they might seem 
 
 Thus mantled in delight. 
 
 If wings on burrage-flowers could grow. 
 Or speedwells, they might wander so, 
 
 Or periwinkle blooms ; 
 And withering forget-me-nots 
 On river-banks or garden-plots 
 Recall to me the freckled spots 
 
 That paint yon upturned plumes 
 
 And watching now these butterflies, 
 I picture to myself blue eyes 
 
 As keen and quick as they ; 
 That range the pastures, where is sought 
 Life's honey, overlooking naught. 
 The fields of Pleasure, Art, and Thought, 
 
 Thro' youth's unshadowed May, 
 
 And while in happy chace they pass, 
 Or twinkle thro' the wavy grass. 
 One fancy more is born. 
 82 
 
PRISONERS OF HOPE 
 
 Bright flashings are they from above, 
 With earth's fresh greenery inwove, 
 Lest we her gold unduly love, 
 And heavenly virtue scorn. 
 
 PRISONERS OF HOPE. 
 
 T TNHAPPY bluebottle, whom all 
 
 ^ Abhor and try to kill, 
 
 I watch thee buzz around the wall, 
 
 And settle on the sill. 
 One moment down and up again. 
 To taste the viands, tho' in vain, 
 Then back to every window pane, 
 
 But hardly ever still ! 
 
 A fellow-feeling makes me sad, 
 
 For I am pent like thee. 
 The spirit in me well-nigh mad 
 
 Thro' loss of liberty. 
 Confined within the mortal room, 
 Unsated hunger Is my doom, 
 And restless hurry mid the gloom 
 
 I vainly seek to flee. 
 
 And if man, woman, girl and boy 
 Are leagued against thy life. 
 
 Some my true being would destroy 
 Both in repose and strife. 
 
 83 6 — 2 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 From time to time with folded wings 
 My spirit to her chamber clings, 
 Then frets amid the hostile things 
 That everywhere are rife. 
 
 We know not either of us how 
 
 We came to be shut in ; 
 But there, alas ! we part, for thou 
 
 Thy liberty wouldst win ; 
 While I (dark paradox) both hate 
 The bondage of my mortal state, 
 And with a chill reluctance wait 
 
 For freedom to begin. 
 
 Thou, peering thro' the pane, dost trace 
 
 The dim delight without ; 
 But I too oft, to my disgrace. 
 
 Its very being doubt. 
 I open all to thee, poor fly ! 
 Away ! and when I come to die 
 Perhaps I shall not wonder why 
 
 Thou singest going out ! 
 
 84 
 
ODE TO SUNRISE. 
 
 "P\ AWN of splendour ! 
 
 -"^ Tell the tender 
 Tale that early love doth gender, 
 
 Onward stealing, 
 
 And revealing, 
 Tokens of a wooer's feeling — 
 
 Eager blushes, 
 
 Like his flushes 
 Who a gloomy bygone crushes : 
 
 Fitful gleaming, 
 
 Like one beaming 
 On a quiet face now dreaming 
 
 Earth, thy lover 
 
 I discover. 
 Thro' thy blandishments above her, 
 
 Slyly peeping 
 
 At her, sleeping 
 Lorn and chill, and wet with weeping. 
 
 Night pursued her 
 
 Darkly wooed her, 
 Did his utmost to delude her 
 
 That the shimmer 
 
 Of his dimmer 
 Lights was equal to thy glimmer. 
 8S 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Long she waited 
 
 Separated : 
 Look ! her brow is agitated 
 
 By the glancing 
 
 And entrancing 
 Pledges of a love advancing, 
 
 That from olden 
 Days shed golden 
 Gleams thereon when first beholden 
 Soft caresses 
 On the tresses 
 Round the countenance it blesses. 
 
 Love that chases 
 Tears from faces, 
 And apparels them in graces ; 
 Love that dowers 
 Her's with flowers 
 Newly opened in the bowers. 
 
 See her waken, 
 
 The forsaken 
 One, by thee now overtaken ; 
 
 She rejoices, 
 
 And the voices 
 Prove divinely who her choice is. 
 86 
 
ODE TO SUNRISE 
 
 Notes of gladness 
 
 Nigh to madness 
 Bursting thro' nocturnal sadness, 
 
 Slumber ending, 
 
 Now are blending 
 To salute the sun ascending. 
 
 Tuneful sallies 
 
 From the valleys, 
 Fields, and lanes and dewy alleys ; 
 
 All the pining 
 
 Glades combining 
 In a laugh, and brightly shining. 
 
 Every dingle 
 
 Like a single 
 Dimple doth with others mingle. 
 
 Thy beguiling 
 
 And her smiling 
 Blend like lovers' reconciling. 
 
 Oh ! the glory 
 
 Of the story 
 Daily told, tho' Time be hoary ; 
 
 Earth's adorning 
 
 (Darkness scorning) 
 Of her face to meet the Morning. 
 87 
 
THE WOMEN THAT WE DO NOT 
 KNOW. 
 
 "CpROM the low level of our earth 
 
 Upon their heaven we gaze ; 
 They watch our mingled woe and mirth, 
 
 We mark their glancing ways ; 
 They circle me where'er I rove, 
 And contemplate me from above 
 In cold disfavour, quiet love, 
 
 Keen blame, or hearty praise. 
 
 They twinkle on me from afar 
 While thro' my round I range, 
 
 Each half a planet, half a star 
 Whose orbit cannot change ; 
 
 Capricious, wilful too, no doubt, 
 
 Altho' I never find it out ; 
 
 Agnostics often are devout ; 
 We worship what is strange. 
 
 I might not so adore perchance, 
 
 If I discovered all. 
 The Truth is veiled for men to glance, 
 
 And hope, and prostrate fall. 
 Who doubts if woman be divine 
 Will hardly worship at her shrine. 
 Seek not to know her, let her shine, 
 
 Gaze, twinkle, and enthral ! 
 88 
 
THE WOMEN THAT WE DO NOT KNOW 
 
 And yet if we their silence broke, 
 
 A silver like the stars 
 Might stream upon us when they spoke, 
 
 Without one tone that jars. 
 They look so lovely, pure, and meek, 
 And beam on me, yet do not speak ; 
 And am I fanciful and weak. 
 
 If that my comfort mars ? 
 
 The planets ever have foretold 
 
 Man's destiny or state. 
 Nor need our fortune be untold 
 
 If we devoutly wait. 
 Ye heavenly ones I do not know, 
 A vision rises of your glow 
 And music, while in ebb and flow 
 
 Ye spend your love or hate ! 
 
 Shall I invoke it, that from now 
 
 Ye may not be unknown, 
 And to the full the Fates allow 
 
 My future may be shown ? 
 Bold curiosity says ' Yea,' 
 But dull Discretion answers ' Nay,' 
 For one who knows them whispers * Stay,' 
 
 And just ' let well alone !' 
 
 89 
 
THE WOMEN THAT WE KNOW. 
 
 npHEY look alike, for any star 
 Viewed as it ever is from far 
 
 Resembles all the rest ; 
 And we who take, and they who give, 
 The callous, and the sensitive, 
 Oft at the moral distance live 
 
 That parts the worst and best. 
 
 They look alike, a saintly shine 
 Bespeaks the woman as divine 
 
 That to herself is true. 
 All are apparelled in a robe 
 Bright as the mantle of each globe. 
 Which man repelled could never probe 
 
 Or open out to view. 
 
 They look alike, that is at first. 
 To many in their ways unversed, 
 
 In some degree to all. 
 The womanly in most remains 
 To deepen thro' life's care and pains, 
 And, spite of blemishes and stains. 
 
 To hold proud man in thrall. 
 
 But this we cannot question — each 
 Unveils herself in act and speech 
 To all who sympathize : 
 90 
 
THE WOMEN THAT WE KNOW 
 
 Reveals her special world, and shows 
 How private thought and feeling glows 
 Beneath the feminine repose, 
 The contemplative guise. 
 
 So stars of beauty often seem 
 To shine with a magnetic gleam 
 
 That draws the lifted eye, 
 Exciting fancy, too, may be, 
 And making gazers think they see 
 Strange tokens of variety 
 
 From others in the sky. 
 
 Who questions that to any near 
 The aureole would disappear 
 
 That, distant, makes it bright .'' 
 Who doubts that every world doth hold 
 Peculiar purple, green, and gold 
 Of land and sea, and would unfold 
 
 Dark deserts to close sight ? 
 
 I fancy that our evil earth 
 Is glory-robed as in pure birth 
 
 To all in distant stars ; 
 Nor would it move me much to find 
 That wrong whereto I now am blind, 
 In ruffling many a woman's mind, 
 
 Both calm and beauty mars. 
 91 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 And yet if virtue conquer sin 
 There is a harmony within 
 
 Caught by attentive ears, 
 To fire the cold and thrill the tame, 
 And make mean spirits glow with shame ; 
 I call it by no other name 
 
 Than ' music of the spheres.' 
 
 Pure planets from the realm above 
 Look down in constancy of love 
 
 And woo man's upward gaze ; 
 So worlds of sympathy appeal 
 To him thro' eyes that downward steal, 
 And could bright heaven to him reveal 
 
 If he his own would raise. 
 
 How oft mild starry beams have made 
 Benighted ones who blindly strayed 
 
 Return, and homeward go. 
 Be it your aim when truants range 
 Down byways perilous and strange 
 To lure them to a happy change, 
 
 Ye women that I know ! 
 
 92 
 
TO A RED-ADMIRAL BUTTERFLY. 
 
 T Take it that thy garb alone 
 
 Has won for thee that lofty title, 
 And yet it seems to me, I own, 
 That to the honour more is vital. 
 The one who bears it ought to sail 
 Thro' storm and stress which he will weather, 
 Nor, like a landsman, haunt the vale, 
 The orchard-plot, the purple heather. 
 
 He should be skilful in command, 
 
 Expert in sailing, brave in battle : 
 
 Thou startest at a waving hand, 
 
 A girl's light tread, a school-boy's prattle. 
 
 With zeal and haste the British flag 
 
 He should have borne the wide world over. 
 
 But thy red white and blue oft lag 
 
 In honeyed ease o'er fields of clover. 
 
 Thou hast thine ocean, but its waves 
 Are grass that ripples to the zephyr ; 
 No stormy plain where cannon raves. 
 But fields that feed horse, ox and heifer. 
 Thy stations are the nectared flowers, 
 And fruits that front thee in thy rambles ; 
 Thy ports, whereto the merest showers 
 Will drive thee, hedges, herbs and brambles. 
 93 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 But let me liken thee to one 
 Whose naval services are ended ; 
 With whom 'tis autumn, having run 
 His race of toil and glory blended. 
 The park-frequenter now, who tries 
 To vapour in the world of fashion ; 
 A hero mid the butterflies, 
 Who even feigns the glow of passion. 
 
 All rightly rise to rank at last, 
 
 Who well have served in life's employment ; 
 
 Thou to the front art quickly passed, 
 
 In thy career of gay enjoyment. 
 
 Thro' fair October lightly rove 
 
 The sea of joy, and fly thy pennant ! 
 
 But at this time of year, why love ? 
 
 Leave all that to the young lieutenant ! 
 
 Or stay now for a type of those 
 In sunny calm ere winter end them ! 
 The wings which Death will shortly close, 
 Behold how life's last joys extend them ! 
 The wings which won for them command, 
 In seas of Action, Truth, and Beauty, 
 Let all admire, and understand 
 They paid the British debt of Duty ! 
 
 94 
 
A CAMBRIDGE SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 TMAGINATION mocked me much to-night. 
 
 I was a heathen first I humbly own, 
 Who wandered up to the abode of light, 
 Olympus — and beheld the heavenly throne. 
 No gods were there, but goddesses alone. 
 And Nymphs encircling me, a favoured guest. 
 To my untutored gaze was Juno shewn, 
 Minerva, Venus, Cynthia, and the rest, 
 While with ambrosial food and nectar we were 
 
 blessed. 
 
 And then I was a Christian, for the host 
 
 Were far too pure for me to linger long 
 
 Outside the confines of the Creed I boast. 
 
 I held them to be seraphs in full song. 
 
 Enlightened, knowing, never in the wrong, 
 
 Whose soul-feast I was privileged to share : 
 
 For every one of that enchanting throng 
 
 Had angel-eyes, and brow divinely fair, 
 
 And hidden wings no doubt, if not unfolded there. 
 
 And lastly, tho' the Grecian in me stayed, 
 The Christian also, I devoudy hope, 
 I felt that I was a mere man, afraid 
 
 95 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 That with such charm and wit I could not cope, 
 
 Yet one who never dreams and cannot mope 
 
 When he the banner of his sex unfurls ; 
 
 For Fancy lowering her telescope, 
 
 I saw, from human dimples, curves, and curls, 
 
 I was in Girton Hall, and dining with the ' Girls.' 
 
 NETTLES.* 
 
 A H ! meanest of the flowers that blow. 
 To lure the child with look of snow, 
 Yet waken in him from below 
 
 Thoughts not ' too deep for tears ': 
 Your blossoms many a bank enrich, 
 And gladden every dismal ditch, 
 And to the eye they so bewitch 
 No fount of pain appears. 
 
 Deceitful pair so near allied, 
 And ever-growing side by side, 
 The charm of whiteness cannot hide 
 Your deep malignity. 
 
 * Beside the tall stinging nettle, whose flowers are like 
 green tassels, a harmless species with an attractive white 
 blossom flourishes in profusion. When children try to pick 
 the latter, they are often stung by the former. 
 
 96 
 
NETTLES 
 
 The shorter of you bears the flower, 
 The taller has the stinging power, 
 Tho' o'er the harmless one he tower 
 Aloft in dignity ! 
 
 Naught suffers thro' the masquerade ; 
 The whitethroat nestles in your shade. 
 No sheep or cattle are afraid, 
 
 Of harm, but saunter by. 
 What golden butterfly or bee 
 Is duped by flower or greenery ? 
 Men only are befooled, and we 
 
 Would know the reason why. 
 
 Oh ! can it be for us to win 
 
 The knowledge, in gay youth, that sin, 
 
 However charming, is a twin 
 
 With unattractive smart ? 
 Life's playing-field abounds with both, 
 They front us in a steady growth ; 
 Poor children we, and fain or loath, 
 
 From neither can we part. 
 
 How magical is the decoy 
 From toil and care, of full-blown Joy ! 
 And no bright girl or glowing boy 
 Forecasts a gloomy end : 
 
 97 7 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Yet there remains a naked sting 
 When the white Woom has taken wing ; 
 For here below in everything 
 Delight and sorrow blend. 
 
 Unwittingly we handle Love, 
 
 As youngsters round a meadow rove, 
 
 And touching you without a glove 
 
 Shrink back with many a wound. 
 But stinging, he may yet unfold 
 A glory ere the tale be told. 
 Calm as your clusters manifold 
 
 That mask the barbs around. 
 
 Enchanting is the flower of Truth 
 Whereon we gaze in curious youth, 
 But grasp it then to certain ruth 
 
 For all the seeming grace : 
 Young Eve would know the good and bad, 
 An Adam is the growing lad. 
 They pluck a nettle, and the glad 
 
 Becomes the tearful face. 
 
 The look of innocence at first. 
 Makes you in my regard the worst 
 Of all the thorny crop, accursed 
 For Evil's righteous doom. 
 98 
 
THE MOUNTAIN-ASH 
 
 Vile couple ! one a poisoner shields, 
 The other, thar the venom yields, 
 Funereal cypress of the fields, 
 
 Waves many a tasselled plume. 
 
 Death is your due, and if I spare 
 The one of you with flowers so fair 
 From the swift ruin both should share, 
 
 It is at Beauty's suit — 
 Or take it ' a femme covert ' stands, 
 Whom, tho' Society now brands, 
 Yet acting by her lord's commands, 
 
 No Judge will execute. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN-ASH. 
 
 TT rises from a lonely slope, 
 
 "^ Where labourer and shepherd-boy 
 
 Behold its beauty, green as Hope, 
 
 And pointing up like Joy — 
 With flowering white, as if pure Love 
 Had fertilized it from above ; 
 And fiery front, as tho' of one 
 Divinely crowned ere life be done. 
 
 One morn I saw it, and it passed 
 Into the storied realm, to rise 
 When outer joys are overcast. 
 Before the mental eyes. 
 
 99 7—2 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 On rainy days, or in the hour 
 When darkness had unwonted power. 
 That mountain-tree has looked so bright 
 That I have borrowed its delight. 
 
 To Recollection it abides 
 As then, in autumn-loveliness, 
 Altho' with Nature's varying tides 
 The others change their dress. 
 This growth hath the enduring look 
 Of all in Memory's living book. 
 The freshness of perpetual Youth, 
 And Beauty permanent as Truth. 
 
 It moves, for it was blown about 
 That mom, and so it ever sways. 
 As might a patriarch devout. 
 
 Inspired the while he prays : 
 And rustling round it are the wings 
 Of merle and mavis, and bright things 
 Which Fancy shapes as angels fair 
 That hover o'er a saint in prayer. 
 
 The vision of that perfect tree 
 Before me ever and anon 
 Supplies the sense of Symmetry 
 With much to feed upon. 
 
TO A TURTLE-DOVE 
 
 Its glory is a frequent feast 
 For craving Beauty, nor the least 
 Of what I owe it is the food 
 It oiFers oft to growing Good. 
 
 For with the sight of it that morn 
 Came comfort that hath failed me not : 
 A trust in Providence was born 
 
 To gild my earthly lot. 
 The Power, whose sunlight, wind, and dew 
 Has nourished it, sustains me too. 
 It stops far short of the blue sky, 
 But Heaven may meet me by and bye. 
 
 TO A TURTLE-DOVE. 
 
 /"^AY new-comer 
 
 ^"^ Many a summer 
 Finds thee in my thicket nesting ! 
 
 Wilt thou tarry 
 
 Now, and marry 
 Mid the leaves where thou art resting ? 
 
 Wherefore single? 
 
 Will there mingle 
 None with thee, poor solitary? 
 
 Or out yonder 
 
 Doth there wander, 
 Lone like thee, another fairy ? 
 
 lOI 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 One whom wooing, 
 And pursuing 
 
 Overmuch, thou couldst not capture- 
 One who chid thee 
 Sore, and bid thee 
 
 Cease from that unwelcome rapture. 
 
 For if passion 
 
 Sue in fashion 
 Overbold, it will awaken 
 
 Coy reflection, 
 
 And objection 
 As from one by shame o'ertaken. 
 
 Let me guide thee ! 
 
 She will chide thee 
 From afar, but stop thy fretting I 
 
 When she flutters 
 
 Round, and utters 
 Notes of joy, the feud forgetting, 
 
 Unrelenting, 
 
 Nor assenting 
 For awhile, do thou remember ! 
 
 Till a chasing 
 
 All efiacing 
 Fire anew Love's fading ember ; 
 
 102 
 
TO A TURTLE-DOVE 
 
 Fragrant flowers 
 
 From the bowers 
 Open eyed, the game surveying : 
 
 Birds, in hedges 
 
 Fields and sedges, 
 Tanefiil, while ye pass a-maying. 
 
 Then together. 
 
 Be the weather 
 Fair or foul, let me perceive you. 
 
 After flitting, 
 
 Calmly sitting 
 On a bough of bliss, and leave you 
 
 With the story 
 
 Of your glory 
 Pictured in my heart for ever. 
 
 Two, now fighting. 
 
 Then uniting 
 In a bond that naught can sever. 
 
 Many lovers 
 
 One discovers 
 Fond at first, then separating. 
 
 May her scorning, 
 
 And thy mourning 
 Issue in a life-long mating ! 
 103 
 
THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE.* 
 
 '"p'HOU deadly? then methinks dark Death 
 
 Is with his attributes at strife ! 
 Thy fashioner with living breath 
 
 Inspired thee from His Life. 
 This stem is of no mortal hue, 
 The leaves are of a living green. 
 The pendant purple in my view 
 Is that of an imperial queen. 
 
 And thou a nightshade ! Is there aught 
 Nocturnal in thy form and look ? 
 
 Nor art thou likely to be sought 
 In haunts that Day forsook. 
 
 A bella donna we might hope 
 
 Would laugh and nod beneath the sun. 
 
 If thou in melancholy mope 
 
 I hardly hold thee to be one. 
 
 So thought I rashly when thy flowers 
 Were queening it amid the waste, 
 But found in early autumn hours 
 The folly of my haste. 
 
 * This herb {Atrofa helladonnd) grows abundantly in waste 
 places. The purple bell-shaped flowers are succeeded by 
 poisonous black berries of a pleasant flavour. Their extract 
 applied to the eye dilates the pupil, and is often used in 
 surgical operations. 
 
 104 
 
THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 
 
 Black berries had displaced the bloom 
 Whereon a rambling boy had fed. 
 Their sweetness charmed him to a doom 
 Which well-nigh left him with the dead. 
 
 Thou, lady fair, art of the kind 
 That flourishes in evil soil, 
 To ruin simple ones entwined 
 
 In many a silken toil ! 
 Deceitful desolating maid. 
 Thyself as noonday sapphire, bright 
 With beauty tempting to thy shade 
 The young to quench their glow in night ! 
 
 Thy purple is the tyrant's dress 
 Who soon in a black garb appears : 
 The laughter of thy loveliness 
 Will end in others' tears. 
 They fitly name thee from the Fate 
 Presiding over Death, for all, 
 Atropa vile, capitulate 
 To him, who slumber in thy thrall ! 
 
 One virtue doth from thee arise 
 That ministers to human sight : 
 Ah ! Evil claimed to open eyes 
 And give diviner sight. 
 105 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 But be it so, let many see 
 The better thro' thy hidden charm, 
 I none the less will reckon thee 
 A gay enchantress shedding harm. 
 
 THE BITTER-SWEET.* 
 
 rJERB of an imperial beauty. 
 
 Both a blessing and a curse, 
 Poets should have owned the duty 
 
 Of recording thee in verse ! 
 Flowering on the beaten highway 
 
 For the passing world to mark : 
 Gleaming in the shadowed byway 
 
 Where fond lovers join at dark. 
 
 Sweet one ! thine are all the graces 
 
 A fastidious eye demands : 
 Form and tint reveal the traces 
 
 Of divinely-skilful Hands, 
 Bright as any of the pledges 
 
 Left by a creative Mind, 
 With the greenery of hedges 
 
 Well thy vivid hues are twined. 
 
 • This plant (^Solarium dulcimara, the latter word meaning 
 bitter-sweet), abounds in hedgerows ; it belongs, to the same 
 family as the deadly nightshade. Although not nearly so 
 harmful, its pretty violet and yellow flowers and bright-red 
 berries make it more conspicuous and attractive. 
 
 io6 
 
THE BITTER-SWEET 
 
 Ere we welcome the arrival 
 
 Of the eglantine and rose, 
 Stars of purple, few can rival. 
 
 Golden opulence disclose ; 
 Fading, to bequeath gay berries, 
 
 Blushing in their mimicry 
 Of the glowing plums and cherries 
 
 In the orchard-close hard by. 
 
 Bitter one, for all thy sweetness ! 
 
 Weil the title tells it first. 
 Tempted by thy charm and neatness. 
 
 Many victims both have cursed. 
 Yet the innocents that wander 
 
 Thro' the field might gather much 
 Else, that, now thy name they ponder, 
 
 They are disinclined to touch. 
 
 Some who knew the blossoms' glory. 
 
 Seeing now the berries' charm, 
 Still forget the- ancient story 
 
 Of the fruit that gendered harm. 
 Cautioned yet they pluck the treasure. 
 
 And the tale is told again. 
 Of a Paradise of pleasure 
 
 Changed into an earth of pain. 
 107 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Dulcimara ! we, half strangers 
 
 Both to evil and to good, 
 Life's inquiring meadow-rangers. 
 
 Keen for beauty, knowledge, food. 
 We accept the omen, scorning 
 
 Not the hint of a gay flower 
 Named to give the curious, warning 
 
 Lest their sweet be turned to sour. 
 
 A MUFFLED PEA.L. 
 
 /^'ER the waves that brightly glisten 
 ^^ Round a vessel far from land, 
 On whose lonely deck I listen, 
 Music wanders from the strand : 
 
 For a tribute to the saintly 
 Dead that there is being tolled. 
 Floats now clearly and now faintly 
 Down the twinkling sea of gold. 
 
 Bells alternately are pealing 
 Dreamy joy, and tender pain, 
 And the muffled chime so stealing 
 Wakens Memory again. 
 
 Life appears a sunlit ocean. 
 Every year, a rippling wave. 
 Yon sad bells in tuneful motion 
 Sound like voices from the grave — 
 io8 
 
A MUFFLED PEAL 
 
 From the grave of Youth and Beauty 
 In the melancholy Past ; 
 From the tomb of Truth and Duty 
 Too enfeebled then to last. 
 
 Now the gladness of resolving 
 Right, is wafted to my mind : 
 Now the sadness of dissolving 
 Vows too lightly made to bind. 
 
 Buried bygones ! can your voices 
 Come to mock me with despair, 
 When my thrilling heart rejoices 
 O'er that music in the air ? 
 
 Be it unto me a token 
 That the Past, however sad 
 In a retrospect unbroken. 
 May beget a Future glad. 
 
 Naught to come can ever banish 
 That sweet cadence from my heart ; 
 Nor shall one new impulse vanish 
 That your voices now impart ! 
 
 109 
 
BESIDE A SPIDER'S WEB. 
 
 OTRANGE likeness of the little lord 
 Of that attractive net for flies, 
 
 Who has so oft his larder stored 
 Beneath my watching eyes — 
 
 Or of a lady with the wiles 
 
 Of Jael, who, on murder bent, 
 
 Lures Sisera tias' with winning smiles, 
 
 To fix him firmly to the tent ! 
 
 ' The spider's self,' methought, ' no doubt !' 
 (Yon husk appeared so very like) 
 ' What hunter looks more keenly out, 
 
 What flycatcher or shrike?' 
 Nay ! hidden, one has shed a slough 
 Outworn, uncomfortable, old. 
 The self, if I looked long enough, 
 I should in new attire behold. 
 
 And even so, our spirits cast 
 The envelope of mental growth, 
 Well fitted to them in the past 
 But tending now to sloth. 
 Tho' living once, it petrifies. 
 And cripples intellectual power ; 
 Whereat the sleeping soul will rise 
 And throw it off, some flaming hour, 
 no 
 
BESIDE A SPIDER'S WEB 
 
 Or not so sudden is the change; 
 We cannot trace the ebb or flow, 
 Yet many a writing now seems strange 
 
 We penned a year ago. 
 'Twas shapen from a bygone self. 
 The garniture that then we wore 
 Is folded on Time's dusty shelf, 
 To clothe the spirit nevermore. 
 
 And then, a withered form one day 
 Will seem our very self to those 
 Who look upon it, still and grey, 
 
 And let the coffin close. 
 But no ! the real man, the true 
 Is hidden, nobler garb to don — 
 Dead only as this shell I view 
 Of one that is still living on. 
 
 A NOSEGAY OF WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 jT'EEP all the garden has to give 
 
 If thou but leave me these, 
 The blossoms that in freedom live 
 
 With happy herbs and trees ! 
 Far better were they left to bloom, 
 Than taken to adorn a room. 
 
SOLILOQUIES IN SONG 
 
 Yet still I love their scent and hues, 
 And Fancy wakens to their grace, 
 While Memory pictures many a face, 
 And bygones bid me muse. 
 
 Enchanting flowers ! your lovely look 
 
 Has wrought a threefold spell : 
 Ye are the spoil from many a book 
 
 Whose beauty charmed me well. 
 A ramble thro' the fields of thought, 
 Imprinted there, this wealth has brought- 
 
 A posy of imaginings 
 Each with its own aroma sweet, 
 A wild and fresh array to cheat 
 
 The mind from gloomy things. 
 
 Ye are the feelings that of yore 
 
 Were blooming in a heart 
 Where spontaneity was more 
 Approved than toil or art. 
 Untutored impulse, zeal untrained. 
 And intuition, hardly reined 
 By conscious will, within me played. 
 That wild experience now past 
 Bequeathed a perflime that may last, 
 A glow that will not fade. 
 
A NOSEGAY OF WILD FLOWERS 
 
 Ye are the shining forms of Youth 
 
 Uncultured, breezy, wild. 
 Each alien from the world's untruth 
 
 A heavenly-nurtured child, 
 Till One who wanders thro' Life's field 
 To pluck the fairest it can yield. 
 Assorted them in Rooms of Light : 
 Well knowing they would look more fair, 
 Bound up in link Celestial there, 
 
 Than in a garden bright. 
 
 The spell is gone — your simple selves 
 
 Once dancing in the sun, 
 And silver moon like fairy elves, 
 
 Now rest, your revel done. 
 To charm an eye that is content 
 With beauties so divinely blent, 
 A heart that looks, thro' you. Above, 
 And feels that fragrance, form, and hue 
 Of red, white, yellow, green, and blue, 
 
 Reflect Eternal Love. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 5226.R9S6 
 
 Soliloquies in song. 
 
 3 1924 013 539 840