afottteU Untttcraitg ffiihrarg FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY was taken. To renew this book coijy the call No. and give to the librarian. HOME USE RULES All books subject to recall All borrowers must regis- ter in the library to borrow books for home use. All books must be re- turned at end of college year for inspection and repairs. Limited books must be returned within the four week limit and not renewed. Students must return all books before leaving town. OfRcers should arrange for the return of books wanted during their absence from town. Volumes of periodicals and of pamphlets are held in the library as much as possible. For special pur- poses they are given out for a limited time. .i Borrowers should not use their library privileges for the benefit of other persons. Books of special value and gift books, when the giver wishes it, are not allowed to circulate. : Readers are asked to re- port all cases of books marked or mutilated. Do not deface books by marks and writing. PR 4063.B25A7""""""^ '■"'"'» *" ?.liJ,?.r,!S.S!P.i,??.ences and other poems 3 1924 013 210 822 Void Bd6A7 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS MR. BARLOW'S POEMS. -*•- "Mr. Barlow has already won a distinguished position among our rising poets. Not a few of the Sonnets in 'A Life's Love' are exquisite in the purity of their beauty, and the grandeur of their tenderness. . . . The writer of ' Song-Spray ' is a true poet, and has already written not a few Lyrics and Sonnets which we believe the world will not willingly let die. In the section entitled ' IjDve-Bloom ' there are Sonnets which will compare not unfavourably with the exquisite ' Sonnets from the Portuguese ' of Mrs. Barrett Browning." — £cho. "Mr. Barlow writes not merely fluently, but with a command of both language and thought. . . . Some time ago, when noticing his 'Poems and Sonnets,' we made some remarks on the general style ahd tendency of Mr. Barlow's poetry. ' We thought, and we still think; that it reproduces, in a very remarkable way, many of the thoughts and perplexities which are agitating the minds of the younger generation. To accuse Mr. Barlow of plagiarism is the height of folly. " — Westminster Review. " Mr. George Barlow has, perhaps, more than any other modem writer, devoted himself to the making of Sonnets. Some of those in 'A Life's Love' contain some of the most charming and delightfvil OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. poetry we have read for a long time. Mr. Barlow is Petrarcan in manner." — Cvuil Service Review. "Mr. Barlow's descriptive poems show that he is a careful observer of nature, and that he is able to stand alone on ground of his own choosing. " — Civil Service Gazette. "When time has a little dimmed the over-bright flame of Mr. Barlow's fancy, and chastened the fervour of his style, we may expect from his pen poems which will leave more than a mere passing mark upon the poetic literature of the age. " — Newcastle Daily Chronicle. "If 'poets are all who love, who think great truths and tell them, and the truth of truths be love,' then Mr. Barlow is a poet of no mean order. " — British Quarterly Review. "Mr. Barlow possesses rare poetic gifts. He writes with fiery earnestness ; his verse is nearly always melodious and flowing ; and he has a singular felicity of language." — Scotsman. "Mr. Barlow is a poet whose works will always command an appreciative audience. He possesses in a rare degree the two essentials of poetry — idea and expression. He thinks well and he writes musically. We wish there were more poets like Mr. Barlow — men who write from inspiration, not mere jinglers of rhyme. ... In some of Mr. Barlow's Sonnets there is a tenderness of feeling, a wealth of expression and imagination, a music, a grace, a pathos, with an inexpressible longing and yearning that proclaim the writer no ordinary man." — Perthshire Advertiser. "Mr. Barlow always writes with feeling ; his more recent produc. tions, like the new poems contained in the new Edition of ' A Life's Love,' and 'Song-Spray,' which preceded this volume last Spring, show a strong as well as a sympathetic touch." — Leeds Mercury. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. " Like certain of the great early Italian poets, Mr. Barlow some- times uses love as a metaphor where philosophy and politics are meant. Like them too, he is sincere and beautiful where personal love is his undivided theme ; and if it is a daring thing to leash his name with theirs (and it is), it is also a fair assumption that out of the many hundreds of Sonnets this author has written, there are some that do not forbid the association and comparison." — Liverpool Daily Courier. "Mr. Barlow's claims to the enviable position of a distinguished poet are by no means few. His ' Song-Bloom ' and ' Song-Spray ' were universally well received, and now in ' A Life's Love ' he gives us fresh samples of exceptional poetical talent and musical versifica- tion. When the poetry of the 19th Century cbmes to be considered by future generations dispassionately, the class of poetry of which this volume is a fair example will be deemed, perhaps, of even greater value than it is now, as reflecting a singular mood of thought, which unques- tionably deserves closer study than has hitherto been bestowed upon it." — Morning Post. ' Cornell University Library 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/cu31924013210822 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. GEORGE BARLOW'S POETICAL WORKS. SONG-BLOOM. SONG-SPRA Y. A LIFE'S LOVE (New Edition j and NEW POEMS. AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES AND OTHER POEMS. BY GEORGE ^ARLOW, AUTHOR OF "song-bloom," " SONG-SPRAV," AND "A LIFE'S LOVE" LONDON : REMINGTON AND CO., 134 NEW BOND STREET. 1883. [All Rights Reservedi] A,'^=\35o\ CONTENTS. PAGE Dedication ....... xv An Actor's Reminiscences POEMS. PART I. SONNETS AND POEMS. Sonnets of Manhood : I. "No Lily is Whiter" . . • 79- II. The Flower Asleep .... 80 III. Beauty Unlocked for .... 81 IV. The Old Valley ... .82. V. Eternal ... . . 83 VI. Love's Despair ..... 84. VII. The Sleeping Beauty .... 85. VIII. Thee 8& IX. When? 87 X. Lonely ...... 8» XI. The Greek Poet in England ... 89- XII. Venus ...... go- XIIL " Thou Could'st NOT Watch with Me " . 91 CONTENTS. XIV. "I Love Thee" . XV. One Night with Thee XVI. Venus Incarnate XVII. The Child . XVIII. A Portrait XIX: The Southern Passion XX. "Song is not Dead" XXI. The World's Marriage Morn XXII. "When Passion Fails Us" . XXIII. "Is There a Hand?" XXIV. Balcombe Forest XXV. "Something was Wanting" XXVI. Beyond! .... XXVII. England XXVIII. Waterloo XXIX. Christ and England XXX. Christ and Woman XXXI. A Question . XXXII. " Lo ! One Calls " XXXIII. Red Dawn . XXXIV. Fairy Land XXXV. Balaclava . XXXVL Strong," Like the Sea . XXXVII. Napoleon at St. Helena . XXXVIII. The Retreat from Moscow . XXXIX. Not Christ, but Christ's God CONTENTS. 3d PAGE XL. Pantheistic Dreams .... ii8 XLI. To THE " Unknowable " God . . ,119 XLII. " Grecian AND English " ... 120 XLIII. One Chance ...... 121 XLIV. ISEULT ...... 122 XLV. A Little While ..... 123 XLVI. "Wilt thou Come?" .... 124 XLvn. "Is it Worth While?" . . , .125 XLVIIL "Though Half my Heart be Greek" . ,126 XLIX. The English Race ..... 127 "l. My Love ...... 128 Lilies: Thirty Sonnets: L The Great Wave . . . . .131 II. My Sword ..... 132 III. "I AM Tristram" . . . • • 133 IV. Blossoms above a Tomb ... 134 V. Eternal Murmurings . . . .135 VL My Beloved ..... 136 VII. Behind ...... 137 VIII. " It is not Anger " .... 138 IX. Beneath Loftier Stars . , . .139 X. Soul-Pain. ..... 140 XI. " I Need Thee " . . . . .141 XII. "Yet I Endure" .... 142 XIIL "Let us Never Comfort Each Other into Sleep" ...... 143 xii C0NTEN7S. FACE XIV. The Awaking . . . , • 144 XV. "Shall I Know Thee?" . . . .145 XVI. My Gift 146 XVII. " Be Gentle "..... 147 XVIII. A Picture 148 XIX. "When You Thought I was 'Far Away,' I WAS Dreaming, etc." .... 149 XX. "Some Day I will Tell You" . . 150 XXI. Art Needs Thee . . . , ■ isi XXII. The Veil of Bliss ... 152 XXIII. Finally Alone . . . . • iS3 XXIV. Thy Many Weary Years . . . 154 XXV. Thy Love-Service . . . , • iSS XXVI. The Psyche-Service .... is6 XXVII. The Wave-Tossed Vessel . . -157 XXVIII. Now 158 XXIX. "I AM NOT Worthy" .... 159 XXX. The Whole ..... 160 Two Sonnets : I. Mercy, — and Justice . . . . .161 II. Which is the Greater? .... 162 To A Child ........ 163 Thou art not Dead? .... . 204 Twelve Sonnets : (1881) : I. Thy Sweetness ...... 213 II. " Because Thou hast not Feared " . . 214 CONTENTS. riii PAGE III. The Valley-Roses ..... 213 IV. Lonely Seasons ..... 216 V. Glad Seasons ...... 217 VI. "Not in these Songs of Thee". . . 218 VII. Perfect Union ...... 219 VIII. "If Thou west Faithless." . . . 220 IX. Weariness . . . , . .221 X. Thy Whiteness ..... 222 XI. First. Battle; Then, Woman . . . 223 XII. After Battle ..... 224 Two Sonnets : I. Christ and' Love's Rose-Crown . . . 225 II. "Because I do not Fear" .... 226 The Singers of the Nineteenth Century . . . 227 The Optimist and the Pessimist: A Dialogue . . 252 PART II. LOVE-LYRICS. For Ever and Evermore ...... 275 A Gift of Spring ...... 281 Autumn Messages ....... 285 The River and the Sea ..... 288 Songs of Night to Morning : I. At the Theatre ...... 294 II. And Yet ....... 296 III. "Yes. Perhaps a Dream it is" . . . 300 IV. "Think what it is to Me" . . . 301 V. "And shall I then Complain?" . . . 304 xiv CONTENTS. I PAGE A Prayer ...•••■■ 3°7 " The Right TO Die " . . . , ■ Z°9 Sunrise and Sunset : I. Sunrise ... . . • S'^ II. Sunset . . • -314 . ■ • • 317 32+ A Vindication One Prayer . Envoi : Two Sonnets. Death .... 33° DEDICATION. TO MY FRIEND DR. N. D. GADDY, OF LOVETT, INDIANA. Friend in the younger England far away, — The great free land beneath whose boundless skies Singers as large of spirit shall arise When its dawn broadens to a golden day ; — Friend who once der the wide seafurroWs grey Didst travel, — eager with recipient eyes Once to behold the land whose heart supplies Hearts endless, endless wild new shores to sway : — Friend, whom once seeing I shall not forget, Take, if thou wilt, these songs of English seas, — Full of the flower-breath of the English breeze And with salt English clustering spray-drops wet ; — Take them . in memory that we once have met, — Once, here, at home, — beneath thy ancestral trees. AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. You want to follow in my steps ? You choose The Stage for a profession ? — Well and good. But weigh the matter fully. 'Tis no slight And facile matter when a man decides What path with all his ardour to pursue Till death ; — and when the path is set with thorns — With here and there amid the thorns a flower Splendid (I know it) — then the choice becomes Of weightier and more solemn import still. — I AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. So weigh the matter carefully. Meanwhile It may be of use and cannot be of harm 'If I narrate to you before you start Some of my own maturer thoughts and dreams — , Giving you not so much the outward acts As the results of these ; experiences Wrought into thoughts, and thoughts made slowly ripe By further thought, — till now at last, the Stage Stands clear before me as it is, and as. Please God, it one day will be. Listen then. Now, first of all, if once you choose the Stage For your profession, see that night and day You " magnify your office " — with St. Paul. — Let no man slight your calling unrebuked : Aye, and no woman either ; there are those — Oh, I have met them, — met them many a time ! — There are fair English ladies even now Who looking back towards eras long since dead AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Scoff at the Stage, and ask what worthy thing " Came out of Nazareth," — or Drury Lane ! They will quote Mrs. Browning ; who declared — Somewhere in her letters — that it needs no high Imagination to enjoy the Stage : Nay, that its strong enjoyment seems to imply A low imagination, unrefined And coarse and unideal and commonplace. These arguers you must meet, and meet them full. Be frank at first ; confess that there is truth (Much — yes, too much) in what they do affirm. The Stage has been degraded : doubt it not : Degraded by the public just as much As it has lowered the public : — own it quite. But then go on to say, with emphasis : — " Of all professions that a man can choose And can pursue before the face of God In holy humble earnest, — looking up Straight from his furrow of labour unto Him, — AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Of all these callings there has never been One that can be pursued more holily, Or more in deadliest earnest, than the Stage. Why, what is worship ? " — so you next will urge — " In what does worship lie ? Most surely in Pure depth of feeling, earnestness of soul, Exalted passion of spirity ardent life. These on the Stage you have, — more strongly there Than elsewhere ; and such feeling leads to God. Why, you yourselves '' — pursue your argument — " You yourselves would confess that deep delight, Strong passion, ever lift the soul on high. Gifting the 'wingless with superb new wings And adding to the wingful fieiry force Of rustling plumage : — you would say no doubt That God is found not only in a Church But in the deep green fragrant woods as well And in the gold-starred meadows, and beside The foaming white unfathomable sea. AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. A man can worship — so you would admit — While riding, hunting, — or while steering hard A Yorkshire coble over crests of waves; Or even while fighting. — Good. I claim the same Fair liberal judgment for the Stage, and say That when man's spirit, is most exalted, man Is nearest to his Maker." — You can quote In full pursuance of your argument That noble sonnet Matthew Arnold gave To Rachel ; in his vision seeing her Sick and dejected on an August day In Paris — the white walls ablaze with heat — Making her carriage stop before the door ' Of the French Theatre, — and gazing hard, Her swift eyes full of tears, at that strange fane Wherein the passion of her life was spent. Now she was dying ; Paris, stricken by heat. Was quite deserted : but the woman came — The mighty actress came (my reverence AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. For a true actor or actress is so large I never speak in thought the name of one Without in thought uncovering my brow) — The actress came and with her dying eyes, Alone with her own spirit and with God, Yearned o'er the place where most of all her soul Had been endowed with superhuman might, Exalted and exultant most of all, — The place that was to her a temple indeed, — Temple, and altar of the living God. Of all strange incidents half-sad, half-sweet, I know no sadder, sweeter, than this pause Of dying Rachel at her Theatre, — There summing up in one swift dream, perhaps, Before she left this world to give account To God of all her acting, her whole life ; — Hearing again the mighty applause ring forth And feeling once again the elastic boards Bend at her footfall : seeing again the crowds, AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. The Theatre " lined with human intellect " (As Mrs. Siddons said of that first night When she flamed forth and triumphed), — seeing again In one strange awful great unfathomed glimpse The tiers of seats, the faces, — ere she turned To act her last part with no hand to applaud Save only God's : — This story you should quote To show the people how divinely great Acting may be when a great spirit acts. And that word " acting " leads me to the next Thought that I would most earnestly impress And stamp into your soul, — yes, " acting " indeed ! " Acting ! " — ^just so. O foolish people, ye Say " acting," and ye think that " acting '' means Just that and nothing more ; a dressing up As children do to play at soldiers ; or A shy at Amateur Theatricals ! " O fools and slow of heart " do ye not know That acting is just living : nothing more AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. And nothing less,— no actor ever yet Was great, but he was great, potentially, In life as well as acting : yes, Stage tears Come from the heart, if they be there at all In any spirit-moving potency. The heart must weep, before the eyes can weep ; The soul must suffer, ere the breast can pant And tremble : what we see upon the Stage Must first be learned by thought and suffering ; — I speak of course of acting worth the name. Acting not worth the name — there's plenty such !- Has made men think that acting is unreal — Acting as such, — as this poor weak stuff is. But this is not the case : there is no life So full of life intensified and great And real and deep and vivid and sublime As that the actor lives, if he, be true To his own calling, and the voice within. AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Consider, too, the comfort of the thing Besides the glory of it, — how divine After a snow-clad wind-tossed London day (Or just a foggy dreary London day) To have the Stage for refuge, and the warmth And light ; and, wonderful and most of all. The quick electric rush of sympathy That passes through a crowd in unison. I never acted yet but I have felt The better for it, — though I may have been 111 and depressed and saddened through the day. The acting woke me up, the electric thrill Rushed through me, and I have surpassed myself Sometimes when feeling up to the very hour Of acting so forlorn and sad and weak That never a word — I thought — could pass my lips. And then the changes ! Here on earth we live One single life, — and that too often dull D AN AC TOR 'S REMINISCENCES. And sable-winged and dreary : on the Stage We live through countless fiery lives, and blend Our sober proper personality With endless modes of being, — passing through Each passionate human phase of mind in turn. And that is rapture, — rapture absolute To those who finding one life all too short Would blend their fiery souls with other souls And know the passions of the universe As God discerns them all, ideally ; Passing from Faust to Mephistopheles, And Romeo to Macbeth, — and knowing in each The very inmost sacred spirit of each. And speaking as each separate being prompts. And this is " acting " : not to mouth a part. But with keen grip of mind to apprehend The innermost essence of each character And then to be that woman or that man, — Becoming him or her so veritably AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. That all the sense of petty self is lost, Absorbed, transfused, and swallowed up in each Creature whom you would faithfully portray. This is " creation " — word so much misused.— For when some sorry actor takes a part, Rampages through it, fills it out with " gag," Imprints his soul upon it (such a soul !) Winks at the gallery, and reveals himself (And such a self to exhibit !) to the gods. We call it a " creation " : blasphemy ! The true " creation " is to recreate Some soul long dead : to bring it back to earth And make it walk the earth, alive indeed. Yes : not to manifest one's live small soul But to create again some dead great soul And bring the audience face to face with him. And this being real " creation " is the cause Why actors and true poets are akin : Aye, far more closely akin than any yet 2 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Has fancied : here remains a work to do For the far future — to bestow the gift Of acting on all poets, and the true Poetic inspiration on the Stage. Ah ! then will come the Stage's golden day ; When actors act as highest poets write, And poets do not only write at home Locked in the silent study, but, besides. Speak forth with resonant voice their great ideas And gather stimulus to further toil From the rapt faces of their fellow men. Poets reach only half their height as yet, And actors not a quarter of their height, Because they think and speak and write and act As separate, not as mingled, entities. Does any man for instance dream or think That even the greatest actors we have seen Could play Hernani as the author could ? That is to say if he from early youth AN A CTOR 'S REMINISCENCES. 1 3 Had but been trained — as poets will be trained — To use not only his heart and brain and soul, But also voice and eye and hand and limb. Till author also is actor, we shall fail In all its rounded fulness to be 'ware Of what a giant work of art might be. Shakespeare as Romeo ! — think of that, my friends ! Sheridan as Joseph Surface, — or as Charles 1 " She stoops to Conquer," with the author cast For some one of the leading characters ! The very thought is dazzling, — but it's true. Barring infirmity, or want of strength. The author must be ever most of all The man to indicate the subtle charm, The nuaiues, and the dainty various traits, Of his creations : take that as assured. No acting yet has equalled, nor come near, The acting of the future : heights undreamed Yet tarry in front, and will be scaled at last. 14 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. The one thing wanting yet is earnestness, — Religious earnestness,^ — upon the Stage. In France they have it ; have it more than we. To see a Frenchman act the simplest part Often puts us to shame ; our slovenly style Of getting through the thing in the least time, Then off to supper.^or to catch the train ! 'Tis the old story ; nothing can be done Without religion, or at any rate The spirit of religion — earnestness. If we were thrilled and held and quite inspired By a due sense of Art, should we start up Before the Play is over — seek for wraps And shawls and opera cloaks and comforters While Irving 's drawing out his weird last groan Or Sarah Bernhardt 's dying on the stage ? Never : we should sit still, — as we in Church Sit still a moment at the sermon's end, — Out of pure reverence ; or if not for that AN AC TOR 'S REMINISCENCES. 1 5 Just out of common formal courtesy To the performer struggling to attain For our sakes and his own a passionate goal. ' Better it is to miss the train, or miss The festive supper, than to dull our brains And scar our hearts by hurling out of each Emotion ere 'tis finished : passion needs, Like music, gradually to die away, Not to be choked out in a search for wraps ! But when we're more in earnest, all these things Will be amended. Then the Stage will seem Worthy of e'en the first ability, And men who now seek honour at the Bar Or in the Church, will seek it on the Stage. Then women who now dread to " act " for fear Of coarse companionship and vulgar tongues Will seek the Stage by instinct : for thereon And there alone can passion, otherwise Pent up and tight-imprisoned, burst its chains. 1 6 AN AC TOR 'S REMINISCENCES. There only can one quite forget oneself And pass into the measureless great joy Of so forgetting self : — I saw one day, Watching some Amateur Theatricals, A' lady whom it was delight to watch ; Full of that special nerve-force which implies An actress-nature : full of fun and wit And silvery ready laughter ; able, too To hold and magnetise the hearer's heart. Well, there are thousands such : it cannot be But that in England there are numberless Bright girls who would, on an Ideal Stage, If trained and cultured, more than quite surpass The Terrys and the Bernhardts of the world, — Bringing their lady-like and tender power To bear upon the crude unpolished Stage And adding grace and beauty by their touch. It cannot but be so : but now they shrink. Shrink (and no wonder !) from the ordeal set AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 17 Before them, — knowing that, even the ordeal passed, Night after night they'll have to act their part Unchanged, however weary they may be ; Night after night, for months and months and months. This kills all genius : this blind selfishness Upon our parts. The public ought to see That delicate genius be not choked like this. O public, if you had seen — as I have seen — Real fresh glad acting full of grace and charm And life and infinite variety, — If you could realise how sweet a thing Is the real pure life-acting of a girl Who acts because she really loves to act And not because she's paid by the night to act, — You'd see that there's a diiference as great 'Tween real fresh vivid acting and the stale Poor tawdry tinselly stuff we christen so As the eternal difference between The rouged pearl-powdered kiss of harlotry S AN A CTOR'S REMINISCENCES. And the moss-rose-like kiss of pure young love. But acting of this sort you'll never see Upon your modern Stage, — or see it but By faintest briefest glimpses, — and the cause Is plain : if you take up your genius-girls And set them on the stage and treat them like Mere bloodless heartless puppets, soulless dolls, And make them act for several hundred nights Not like live women but like dead machines. Why the result is certain : either you Subtract the genius by this constant strain Or else, the genius being left, the girl Herself succumbs, and 'ill have no more of it. There's not a nervous system that will stand Acting eight times in six successive days (As the great Paris actress just has done) Without deterioration, falling off. Ruin of tissue, lessening of its force And tender sweet suggestive subtlety. AN ACTOR 'S REMINISCENCES. 19 Even the greatest actress — all her art Taken for granted — would be distanced quite By the fresh acting of an untired mind, If we had eyes to see what acting is. For acting is enjoyment ; and no laugh Not merry itself can make another laugh, And all the ripples of delight must flow Outward and onward from the actor's soul Firstly, before they can impinge upon The spirits of his hearers : and you mar, Yea, mar for ever and most hopelessly. The actor's rich enjoyment of his part (And, worse than all, the actress's of hers) If you set him or her the dreary task Of acting Romeo or Juliet Straight off for say a couple of hundred nights. Actors and actresses should take more change : Should learn from Nature and from movement more : Think more ; talk less ; and win more pleasure in life. ) AN AC TOR 'S REMINISCENCES. The slaves they are of the gasHghts, as it is To-day ; the slaves of the ring, or sharp short " ping " That lifts the curtain, — and once more they " act ". I said just now that " worst of all it is " To mar the actress's delight and bring Fatigue upon her, — and the reason's plain. In acting, as in love, the first force flows Straight from the woman, — and she paves the way For all that's noble, histrionically. This is the reason why, when poets act. They'll act so well : — because they, most of all, Incomparably chief and most of all. Are sensitive to woman's influence. Set your true poet to act, and let him fall In love with the actress — the result you'll get Will be superb : she'll draw him on and on And quite encompass and surround him with Her strange magnetic influence, till he breathes AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. As she breathes, pulses with her very pulse, Becomes a very living part of her, And acts as if he spoke before God's stars Watching, instead of flaring flames of gas. And felt not the chill draught from corridors But the cool sea-wind lifting his hot hair. " Why, this is love ! " you'll say : and so it is. But acting, living, loving, all are one : — The man who loveth best, will act the best, And he who liveth highest too will reach The highest mountain-plateaus of his art. It needs imagination to become A very part and portion of each scene, — And that is why the poets who possess Strong clear imagination most of all Ought most of all to act : they have the power By their creative force to turn the Stage Into the very thing it represents. Is it a lonely common ? Then to them ! AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. It is a lonely common ; and they see The dandelions springing 'mid coarse grass And seem almost to inhale the scent of furze Or mark the purple heather blossoming. Is it a mountain-region ? Then on them Swiftly arise the white eternal snows And they can see the peaks in the blue air And hear the ringing horns of mountaineers. Is it a garden ? Then the roses gleam Fragrant and red and glad before their gaze And through the sunlit noon or moonlit night They see the green trees beftd before the breeze And hear the insects murmur in the leaves, — Watching the daisies growing on the lawn. — Or is the scene a scaffold ? Most of all Then their imagination hath avail, And they can see the crowd of sansculottes Seething just like an angry dark-waved sea Around the foot of the scaffold, and can hear AN AC TOR 'S REMINISCENCES. 23 The fierce mad Babel of revengeful tongues All clamouring for their swift and violent death. This is imagination : and this shows How far out Mrs. Browning was when she (Quoted above) declared that never high Imagination revelled in the Stage. The truth is just the very opposite : — It needs imagination to enjoy The Stage, — and though she had the poet's gift (In noble excess, God knows !) yet this one gift, This one theatric special fancy-side, She had not, knew not, — else she had never dubbed The drama-loving fancy poor or " low ". It needs imagination to create Out of the lifeless bony skeleton Presented on the Stage the fleshy frame. The blood, the nerves, the sinews, and to give To each its proper place, and all their life. And, in this making of the unreal real. 24 AN A CTOR 'S REMINISCENCES. You use the audience for galvanic band Or chain, — for an electrical machine, — Gathering from them their swift magnetic force That you may use it as creative power. The music helps too : whence I think the plan The French pursue of leaving music out Between the Acts an obvious mistake, Though done with a right motive, — motive, viz., That all shall be in earnest and the whole Quite independent of accessories. But music helps ; the notes vibrate along The nerves and brain and add creative vis (But then it should be music suitable, Not, as too often in our theatres, Lightest dance-music in the intervals Of some grim soul-absorbing tragedy And vice vers&). As I said, you get From the spectators half your nervous force. AN A CTOR 'S REMINISCENCES. 25 And that is why, if their attention swerves, Yours swerves as well : you form a corporate whole — You all are members of one wide-branched tree, And if one twig shakes, the great branches shake : Such is your indivisibility. And that is why in a French theatre You feel much more at home, — because you are Eti rapport with each other and the whole Audience ; — they follow with attention fixed (They view late-comers with intense disgust For one thing) — and their solid complex force Supports and cheers and lifts and stimulates. You raise your finger, and you sway the whole ; Indeed they form your body for the time (This is the triumph and the crown of Art) And you can rule and move the whole of them As if they were your arms and legs and feet And you the guiding brain and heart of all. This is the glory of acting ; thus to sway 26 AN ACTOR 'S REMINISCENCES. A thousand hearts as if they were but one. — Just as a poet reads his lines aloud To some fair girl and holds her quite spell-bound So that she folds her hands at last and sways From side to side with rhythmic movement timed In strict accordance to the waves of verse : And he can see — being a lover perhaps — How all her sweet face flushes at some line, And he laughs inwardly and feels his power. Just so the audience is but one rapt girl Hanging upon the actor's voice and lips If he but hath the power to hold them fast, And he can almost make the women at least (For these are ever the most sensitive And sweetly open to emotion's waves) Sway listening pliant forms from side to side And sob a low accompaniment to him. This is the triumph of Art ; and no such height Can any other of the professions reach. AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 27 Not pleading, no, nor preaching ; not in these (Though they be glorious and their scope be large), Encumbered as they are with purpose set, And definite responsibility. Can such a goal of mighty human force Be reached and such a triumph be achieved As on the Stage ; — where, losing all of self, You pass by loss of self to higher, life, And share with God, and with the stars and sun, Impassioned boundless immortality. Moreover all the spirits who came before Unite to lift and buoy the actor up : — This most of all on great historic boards. At Drury Lane, at Covent Garden, at The Theatre Frangais, what strange memories throng The actor's soul and render him sublime ! Macready, Siddons, Rachel, Mathews, Kean, Garrick, Desclde, Robson, Peg Woffington, — These and a hundred others storm the heart 28 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Of a great actor pacing the same boards And fill his eyes with tears, his soul with fire, And mightily inspire and comfort him. So that his thoughts are not his own at all But theirs : there comes a rush of fiery wings, " A sound as of a mighty wind and tongues Cloven : " the spirit of the past descends Upon the worthy actors of to-day. And they now act not only unto us But unto these, — that grim stern critic-band Gazing upon them from the Green-Room door, Saying — " Outstrip, surpass us if you can ". — To these (as at the tomb of Charlemagne Don Carlos prays) the earnest actor prays, — Lifting up heart and soul and eager hands To these the dead great spirits, and their God. Just as — I well remember — when I first Entered Queen Mary's Palace, Holyrood (E'en now I almost tremble at the name), AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 29 There came around me such a rush of wings And all the eyes of such a ghostly crew That I fell back, and wept for very awe. And then along the air Queen Mary came — I felt her and I knew that it was she — Her quick robes swept around her as she came ■ And touched me, passing, — and for half the day — Aye, for a week or more— I walked the town And watched the grim grey tall crags in a dream. Just so the garments of the mighty dead Rustle by modern actors ; and they bring Strange intuitions, and a sense of awe, And in the end divine ascendency. And this is why I have so often felt That acting is the one most restful thing In all the world : you have the gathered force Of living beings to help you, and the dead As well. When summer sets her flowers upon Green bank and hedgerow, and the airs are sweet. 30 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. And lovers wander 'neatlji the moon o' nights, And the warm woodbine scents the window-pane, And star-beams kiss the slowly-rocking sea, — Then people say, "In summer what a task It surely must be thus to act and act And act ! " And yet — I know not — but it seems To me that grander than all ocean-space Lit by a summer moon, and sweeter even Than summer forests filled with smell of ferns, — Lordlier than mountains whose high peaks of blue Stare sunward, — more august than all these things And more divine and sweeter (and I speak Who know), — it is to hold a thousand hearts Like one heart in the hollow of your hand. For, after all, to us poor human souls Humanity is all and everything : And, after yachting over boisterous seas. Or mountain-climbing, — or just one small cruise AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 31 At Whitby or at Brighton, — how divine Gleams the first fairy petticoat on shore ! Yes : I was speaking to a poet once And envying his high calling ('twas before I learned the true wide bearings of the Stage). " Ah ! not for you," I said, " the drudgery Of nightly acting : not for you the toil ; The base companionship ; the smell of gas ; The dust ; the tumult ; and the slavery To some coarse master of a manager. Your Stage is all wide Nature, and the sea Is your orchestra, and the countless stars Are your footlights ; and what you need of praise You win from all the true hearts of the world — From living souls, and from posterity : Not from an,audience flattered for one night. Not yours the painted trees ; the painted girls ; The painted horrid canvas waves of seas ; 2 AN AC TOR 'S REMINISCENCES. The painted staring flowers ; the rattle of tin For thunder, and the flashing in the pan Of gunpowder for lightning ; — most of all Not yours the simulated pale stage-love When fingers curve around a waist but fear To touch, and lips may never dare to close For fear of rubbing off the paint ! — or else For fear that she the actress will resent (I have known cases) a too amorous kiss And in the GreenpRoom afterwards exclaim ' That was no stage kiss, most presuming man ! ' And bring an action 'gainst the luckless fool. " Yours least of all is this. Yours most of all The whole wide world of rosy womanhood (Rosy this time without a touch of paint !) To love and to rejoice in : land on land Wherein to seek the lady of your dreams, While we are chained to the incessant boards. Yours is 'the living blue sea : yours the clouds AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Whence the live resonant red levin leaps And the live thunder : yours the pathless crags (Innocent, like your women, of all paint ; Perhaps more so) : yours the vivid sunset sky And the gold sunrise (when did actor see Sunrise or sunset ?) : yours the blossoms couched In the green midmost of entangled woods Where scanty sunrays pierce the flexile boughs (What actor ever sees a real green wood Or gets beyond the Green-Room ?) : yours the air Of summer days, intolerably sweet With odours of a million blossoms mixed. " Your Manager is Nature, and your own Untrammelled spirit that guides and leads you on And the pure universal voice of things." " Yes," said the poet ; " but another side There is to this : if I were not a bard I'd choose to be an actor most of all, 3 34 AN AC TOR 'S REMINISCENCES. And choose it with deliberate preference. There are but two professions in the world, Acting and writing : and these two indeed Are in their highest noblest issues one. You act : I write : — but were we but combined Nought could withstand our mingled potency ! The perfect marriage of the two ideas Is yet to come, — we shall not see it yet ; But when its consummation-hour is reached There will be a new force within the world. The offspring of this marriage of two arts Will be a Drama and a Poetry Such as the world has neither seen nor dreamed. " I have lived long" — so he went on to say — " Lived long, done much, seen much, — and suffered much ; I have seen Paris and I have seen Rome ; Revelled in the blue skies of Italy ; Walked knee-deep for long sultry happy hours In the bright heather of Scotland and of Wales ; AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 35 Gathered lush hart's-tongue in Devonian lanes ; Watched the grey granite boulders cropping up Amid the shining leagues of golden gorse In Cornwall, near Tintagel and the sea ; Yes, and I've known the fair delight of love And the strong joy of passion, — many times, — I've seen the women whom you style so fresh And pure and paintless (there I have my doubts !) — Seen them in England, Berlin, Italy; Admired a thousand, and made love to some ; But still for all that I would give the half Of my life, full and vivid though it has been. For just one month of fullest freest fling And unchained measureless passion on the Stage. " For, look you, take in parts and analyse The real true essence of a poet's life : Lift it and separate it in your hand As one divides the petals of a flower : Consider what it really means and is : 36 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Think of the long sad hours of loneliness, Of voiceless suffering, which the Stage would cure (Or, if it would not, nothing will but death) — What is the wandering over dreary hills Or up the sandy ferny Sussex lanes Or over wolds where the far heather gleams, — What is it to be one with butterflies And placid anglers and dull silvery brooks And rush and sedges, and the twinkling wren, And stags in Richmond Park with liquid eyes And boats that climb the ridgy crests of seas And all those sunsets that you speak about (Sunrise I do not mention : poets know As little of sunrise as an actor perhaps !) — What is it to be one with all these things, Dull, dreary, mute, inanimate, most of them, Compared to being one — for but one night — With the blood-pulses of one's fellow-men And of one's fellow-women, — lifting these AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 37 By the majestic force -within one's soul, And thus, by seizing and absorbing theirs, Expanding so one's personality That at the last it does in truth become The mingling of our manhood with a God ? " Yea, most of all the greatest poet-souls Have ever yearned for action. Never yet Was there a greater poet-soul than she AVho wrought her work in prose and not in song, Wonderful Charlotte Bronte : and she felt Within herself the spirit of acting, fierce And clamorous and aggressive oftentimes — Read of the ' acting ' in Villette* and see. " This, like so many poets, she retained Unused, scarce conscious of it to herself * The passage relating to the School Theatricals in Villette makes it abundantly clear to me that there was a fund of fiety dramatic genius in Charlotte Bronte, which never found its full outlet or development in this life : which indeed she instinctively repressed and held back : and which could only have found its goal of full and perfect freedom upon an Ideal Stage. 38 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. ' Save when at seasons underneath the stars Or watching miles of purple heather wave At Haworth, or the great sea-meadows wave, She felt within herself a power unknown That could be used, but might not upon earth : — The power of drawing all men unto her, As in that Brussels drawing-room some she drew, Not by mere written words, — but, greater far And sweeter, by the actual glance of eye And actual swift inflections of her voice And actual rhythm of her neck and hand." " Well," said I — thinking so to comfort him— For he had grown impassioned, and his eyes All full of fire and half afloat with tears Showed that his fervent yearning rankled deep ; " Well," said I, " perhaps, like Charlotte Bronte, you Will do your acting in another world And on a better Stage " — but he flamed out : " Nonsense ! a hopeless sapless sort of hope ! AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 39 The very vaguest dream of all things vague ! What, join the angels with their golden wings And golden lyres, and act a play with them ! Cast Moses for Hernani, and St. Paul For Macbeth, and St. Peter and St. James For Romeo and Orlando, and some grim Stiff strait-laced angel-woman for Rosalind ! Ezekiel for a bandit ; Gabriel For the persistent ' villain of the piece,' And the slim seraphs for your ballet-girls ! ' No, that won't do. No, I would rather be (Thank you) in gas-lit dingy Drury Lane Carrying a banner, or high-horsed upon Some glittering tinsel pantomimic car At Covent Garden, than thus mixed with these Unhistrionic seraphs up on high ! " That always is the way " — so he went on — " The longed-for things we cannot compass here. In the next world we shall be sure to have 40 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. We say, — and win some comfort from the thought. No : give me no vague next world ; give me this To act and love and write in ; give me thorns If that's the only way to win a rose, And rough fierce breezes if they be the breath Of the blue wholesome everlasting sea ! " Designing then to turn his mind away From the sad thoughts that held him for a time, I said, " What think you of the present age, Its art, its sculpture, and its poetry ?" " Its sculpture ? " he repeated scornfully : " It has no sculpture. Having lost the eye For form, what noble sculpture can it have ? Look at your public buildings ; worst of all Your public statues, — those damned sooty things That shame the summer in your dusty squares, Standing erect, each with its inky scroll Of parchment tightly held in outstretched hand ; Each with its wrinkled stony trousers ; each AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 41 With stony black frock-coat, and stony boots, And stony waistcoat (full), and stony gaze ! Good God ! the sense of form is wholly lost, Wholly, I say ; or how could men endure To see true form blasphemed on every side ? " A woman's body is the divinest thing God ever made : but boots and narrow stays And heavy cumbrous clothes have changed it quite. No woman walks : — they crawl and limp along, Fashion's devoted and most helpless slaves. Can any woman dance upon your Stage ? I trow, not any. Oh, if Greeks were here. How would they hide their horror-stricken eyes At such unheard-of travesties of form ! Just in some two or three — 'tis hardly more — Studios the true tradition lingers yet ; But that is not the chief point ; for no race Has ever yet produced true poets of form Save when the forms around wrought through the eye 42 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Upon the heart, and stamped themselves therein. " Now, looking round them, what do sculptors see ? Indeed, it seems a mockery to ask. All that they see must dim their sense of form, Or else create a wrong sense (this it does Too often) : never was there city yet With such divine potentialities Within it both of matter, and of flesh And soul, as London, — which at the same time So heedlessly threw all these gifts away. Clothed in its own perennial hideousness. " Black, black, and grey ; and black again, and grey, And grey and black — such are the colours mixed Upon our London palette : — Notice how The mere coarse green or red or dirty blue Head-shawl or apron of an organ-girl Lights up the street, and take your hint from that Of how the city might be lighted up By seemly dress, artistically worn. AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 43 "As to the aesthetes, and the 'cultured' dames, — The china-worshippers,— the idle girls Who, when they might be mending socks at home. Try hands at mending modern Art instead — Form ' mutual admiration ' cliques, and think That true great poets' fame can be enhanced By gossipping small-talk societies — " "Well, as to these ?"— "Well, as to all of these. May God deliver us from all of these, — The God of simplest plainest common sense ! " 'Twas but the other day they had a show Somewhere in the West End ; a wondrous show. What had they, think you ? Garibaldi's shirt Much torn and tattered, — and a broken tooth Of his (' decayed : a molar : stopped with gold ' : — So said the label fixed with infinite care By some fair female aesthete's loving hands) — And then another tooth — (and this one ' stopped With best " amalgam" '; so the label said) — 44 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. And then a rag : this had beeh round his foot When he was wounded, and his sacred blood (Too sacred for this fatuous sort of thing !) Was sprent upon it : — this immortal rag (It looked just like a pocket-handkerchief With which some schoolboy's nose had been concerned) Was closed in carefully by silken doors, And only one might see it at a time ! " Well," said the poet, " all this sort of thing Is rankest folly ; and, at the same time. We have for critics such a virtuous crew That when the mighty German brings the old tale Of Tristram and of Iseult, — old as the hills ! — And with his priceless music girds it round, We are straightway told, ' His opera is wrong : All Wagner's work is sensual : Tristram, — fie ! Fell madly in love with his own uncle's wife !' "With critics so supremely virtuous. And women the reverse of virtuous AN A C TOR 'S REMINISCENCES. 45 (Too many), we are likely soon to see Strange things ; and perhaps may even live to see, Some of us, the beginning of the end Of England's ocean-wide supremacy. " For nations, like ourselves, must have their day ; Be born and wax and reach their destined height, Then pass their zenith, their fair golden noon, Grow old, decay, and perish. Will the sight (Not seen before) of the best cricket team We know, completely beaten by the young Australian gang of nameless vigorous men, Be ever repeated on a wider field ? " And will they ever beat us not alone In cricket, but in greater weightier things ? In Science, Culture, Sculpture, Music, Art, The Drama, Painting ? Will those nobler ends Which you yourself opine the Stage will reach Be reached not in our London, but in some Chicago or some Sydney of the West ? 46 AN AC TOR 'S REMINISCENCES. I think it may be so. I think that match When at the Oval our best English team Was beaten, — aye, and very shamefully, — I deem that match historic : for it shows That there are men as keen of eye and hand, , As tough of sinew and as bold of heart, As steady and persevering, and as strong In all the points that make a winning game. As any of our vaunted English, race, Our Graces and our Hornbys, after all ! This great match * was historic then, I say. For what these men with might of muscle and hand Did, their descendants may most surely do With the superber might of btain and heart ! Why not ? The green Australian glades may see Their Miltons and their nascent Shakespeares yet : Their dawning Cleopatras who may win * On June 2Z, 1882, and the two successive days, the Australian Eleven defeated a magnificent team of the Gentlemen of England in one innings and one run : an unparalleled event in the annals of English cricket. AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 47 One day the passionate hqmage of a world : Their Newtons and their Bacons who may push The realm of Science o'er a wider sphere : Yes, and their actors who may quite surpass The highest we have seen or hope to see. " For just consider what a worn-out thing Is English civilisation after all ! What men, what women, meet us here in town Or in the country ; men all cut and dried, And women on a certain model shaped (The dressmaker's ; as bad a model as they Can get by trying !) — all divisible Into some obvious classes two or three. With nought original outside these bounds. " There are the men of science — TyndalJ's set — A lively pleasant joyous sort of set — Men whose chief glory it would be to kill The living universe (if but they could !) And then dissect it. Men who'd take the stars, 48 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. The eyes of heaven, from heaven to analyse, And, having cast their petty sounding lines Across the blue infinity up there. Would come and tell us that there is no God Because, forsooth, God took no heed of them ! " And then there are the clergy : — some engaged In a strange warfare about copes and albs And chasubles and many mystic things That the lay heart quite fails to understand : And some crying out, — ' The world is on its way To swift perdition ; every soul is damned By nature. If you would escape the fires, Believe . . . believe . . . believe.' . . . Believe in what ? In Mr. Tomkins, or in Mr. Smith, Or Mr. Noddy : yes, it comes to that. And then there is the Broad Church lusty school, The school of Canon Kingsley (greater man Than they) ; the tribe of stalwart priests with big Biceps and sunburnt cheeks and freckled hands ; AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 49 The men who'd save the world by making it ' Believe ' in cricket and athletic sports ; The men who rush away in intervals Of their hard toil (yes : they work very hard) To climb the Alps, or take a scamper through The far-stretched lonely desert of Sinai. Or else they take a tourist ticket : run And snatch a glimpse of Rome : then home they come, Prepare some ' sermons for the people,' — give Their shallow impressions to a shallow crowd, A congregation at their beck and call. " And then the women ; we must not forget The women in thus summing up the age ! — The women : oh, the women ! You will find That, like the men, they are divided too. For some preach faith, and some are atheists, And some are antivivisectionists ; And some are ardent vivisectionists (I used to wonder at this : but I have lived 4 so AN A CTOR 'S REMINISCENCES. Two years in London now, and so of course By this I never wonder at anything) : And some are good and ugly : some are bad And handsome, — some are good and handsome too : And some assist in getting up, to help The poor, Art-Exhibitions at the East End, And label all the pictures daintily, As this — ' A breezy day at sea. A good Picture to look at on an August day In Whitechapel ' (a carper might remark The show was held at Easter). Then again They send Art-needlework, which all must know Is very grateful for poor starving folk To gaze on, — fills their bellies through their brain, — And gives them useful patterns for the socks And shirts and waistcoats of their men at home. "Oh, if our ladies, — if they only knew The worth of their own womanhood ! If they Would use their splendid birthright ; mix their souls AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. With the sea-wind that lifts their golden hair, And blend their being with our stars and waves ! If they would see that nobler work is theirs Than just to copy Paris fashions, — strive Each day to pinch within a smaller shoe A still more shapeless hoof ! If they would rise To the full stature of their destiny ! But now they follow along the easy path Of hollow false Conventionality, And, if one steps aside, it is to seek Some alien strange aesthetic edifice, Or pseudo-scientific edifice. Or ritualistic gaudy temple perhaps : Never to seek for Nature ; never that. " And then there are the country Rectors : men Who spend their days in planning harvest-homes, And smoking pipes, and taking country walks. Most worthy men : yet what can these men know Of all the strife and stress of modern thought 52 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. That roars its way along the streets of towns And lifts our spirits upon its tidal waves ? They marry and bestow in marriage : these. God and the angels when they find in towns No Churches left, but all these given away To modern scientific lecturers And Comtists, and to Health Societies, Will surely have to beat a swift retreat To Surrey or to Yorkshire ; finding there Still a surviving island-Church or two Stemming the flood of infidelity ! " And then the Spiritualists : a wondrous flock Of gaping, credulous, but earnest men. Who see strange visions, and bring Shakespeare back And Milton, to declaim and rant and spout And utter frothy nonsense by the yard Or write it (if so, damnably misspelt !) In dusty airless rooms in Bloomsbury. Wonderful creatures, these ! You pay your fee AN AC TOR 'S REMINISCENCES. 53 And take your choice. ' Will you have Moses up, Or Peter, or perhaps Aaron ? — Moses ? Good.' And in a twinkling, with a long grey beard (' Of course it's Moses. Look at the grey beard ! ' So some believing dear old lady says), Moses appears, and he lays down the law Not on ten tablets, but with fingers ten That rap upon the table in the dark. Or, if you'd rather see a female ghost — Many would rather see a' female ghost, — There is less danger : for the strong male ghosts Can sometimes rap your knuckles very hard ! — If you would rather see a lady ghost. You've blit to say : there are so many ghosts Waiting ; kept waiting just outside these rooms Always. They stand in rows like Hansom cabs Outside the doors, until the medium calls And, at their proper moment, they appear. Proper, or half improper : for they come ^4 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Sometimes just covered with a scanty shawl Or bit of lace — the mere ghost of a dress — As if they'd fled, and fled precipitately, From sitting as nude models up in heaven, Or elsewhere, to angelic sculptors. — Well, You pay your money, and you name your ghost : Queen Mary, Cleopatra, — any one : The odds are that that very ghost will come And, — if you're nice and show your interest, — That very ghost will answer queries all And, ere she melteth, kiss you on the cheek. Now if that is not cheap for such a show — The real great Scottish Mary, — only think ! — The very Cleopatra tawny-skinned (The ghost was tawny-skinned ; or dirty-skinned) - The very Cleopatra who o'erthrew The whole world for the pleasure of her kiss. Natures change fast in heaven. Some lose pride, And some lose sense ; and some forget the parts AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Of speech, and mix their grammar woefully ! — But all their natures change, — else how should she, The proud sweet Queen of Egypt, hurry down At the coarse bidding of this medium To kiss a casual clerk in Bloomsbury ! — Well, as I said, I think that such a show Is cheap, dirt-cheap (no dwelling on the word !) — It is so pleasant just to pay your bob And thus to be allowed to summon up The Queen of Sheba, or an ' Indian girl ' — There are such lots of ghostly ' Indian girls ' ! — While ' Gather at the River ' 's slowly sung. Sung out of tune (it must be out of tune ; Or else the ghosts would recognise it not). " And then they tell you such delightful things About yourself ; things that convince you quite (Unless you're the most sceptical of men, A Donkin or a Lankester indeed !) — Things that convince you fully once for all 56 AN ACTOR 'S REMINISCENCES. That you are dealing not with flesh and blood But with real disembodied entities ! " They'll tell you, just for instance, that one day Ten summers since you pulled a grey hair out At half-past eight in the morning. While you look Aghast, and struggle to fling memory back And irealise this most important deed, The circle grows impatient : and at last The former faithful dear old lady says, ' Depend upon it, Sir, the spirit is right : They always are '. At which you quite subside. " Enough of spirits. The aesthetic band Of pseudo-poets claims attention next : The men whose souls are so intensely wrought That they can watch a lily all the day Open, and watch it -folded all the night, And never tire nor hunger, — no, nor thirst, — Feeding their souls on sweetness and on dreams. These are great men : and they inspire the age AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 57 Greatly. They teach it that of nothing worth Are virtue, heroism, love of man, Courage and self-denial, purity, Compared to just the curving of a neck, Or arch of eyebrow, or the tender tints Upon the crispfed petals of a rose. They live not on the vulgar bread and cheese. Beefsteak and chops, of ordinary men : They live on blossoms, and they feed their souls On sunsets, and they follow along the shore The dimpled marks of Aphrodite's feet With long hair streaming in the laughing wind ! " And they have women-worshippers who throng Their churches— the aesthetic lecture rooms — And who to carry out their precepts, dress In clothes of many colours : peacock green And terra-cotta red, and many shades Of subtle sweet intense alluring brown. These are grand women : giant intellects : S8 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Great followers of the great apostles : fit Seductive sage-green social missionaries To spread the aesthetic gospel through the world. If they were beautiful or really knew Deep things of Art, they would not preach so well. Not for the first time the best preachers are The shallowest and most ignorant of all." " Well, you should go upon the Stage," I said (I thought by this time he had stormed enough), " And work your spleen off. Perhaps before you die You'll hold the listening people spell-bound yet, And add the laurels of dramatic fame To your undying green poetic bays." The mere thought flushed him. What strange sensitive Half-morbid curious minds these poets have ! " Nor," I went on, " do I entirely hold Your view (I hold it partly) ; for I think That, though the aesthetic movement has its fill Of folly and of arrant childishness. AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 59 It has its wholesome healthy side as well. The ladies who assist at Whitechapel For instance, do this just because they feel The insufiSciency of common life. They do it to escape themselves ; as you Would seek forgetfulness upon the Stage. They do it just because — to quote from you — ' To feel the sea-wind mingling with their hair And to blend beings with the stars and sea ' Is sweet (I doubt it not), but rather vague For English active energetic girls To find support in : and in the same way They've taken up this strange aesthetic craze That you're so hard on, just to give themselves Something outside themselves to dwell upon ; Just to give outness to their inward thought. Even a flimsy dubious form of Art Is better perhaps than quite no Art at all, And they may climb by these aesthetic steps 6o AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. To higher places whence may burst upon Their startled vision Nature's very self. " And then again there never was a time (Though we've no noble sculpture, I admit) When landscape-painting reached a grander height Or landscape-vision marked so many things. Go to the Royal Academy : then go on To the French Salon : you will note two things. First you will note, — and sorrow as you note, — How far diviner, and more subtle far. Is the French average eye for human forrfi. This finer eye undoubtedly they have, In spite of all their nude extravagances (Wrought through a love of form and deep desire To win the glory of new modes of form And ever newer modes, which we in our Form-disregarding folly never quite Appreciate or fully understand). But, secondly, you cannot fail to note AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 6 1 How though the glory of form is hidden as yet From us — yes, even of pure Grecian form, A thing apart from French fantastic form — Still, all the glory of Nature and the sea Is ours : the splendour of the sunsets' fire, The golden long shores, and the rustling reeds And steel-blue mountain-tarns and heathery slopes And ferny deep dim fairy-haunted woods : These, perfectly, our painters reproduce. " And then what women there are ! in spite of ' form ' Decried and mocked at and misunderstood. ' Our civilisation is a worn-out thing ' You say : but can it be a worn-out thing When 'spite of boots and stays and Fashion's laws Such women every moment may be met, Their feet deformed and shapeless certainly. But otherwise unspeakably divine. I saw one in Bond Street the other day, A woman to go mad about, — if I 62 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. AVere a susceptible quick bard, like you ! — She leant back in her carriage (I admit I did not see the shapeless pointed feet Which tapped the carriage-rug below no doubt) — She leant back ; and I marked the shapely head So full of breeding, — small, and nobly set Upon the firm white pillar of a neck ; An olive-clear complexion : clear brown eyes : Lips curved, and somewhat haughtily : the hair Just of that very loveliest of all shades (To me) — the deep brown verging into black. But not quite black ; ' black-brown ' you poets call. If I remember right, the lovely tint : — And, with consummate and delightful taste. The bonnet poised upon her dainty head (A steely glittering spangled kind of thing) Had in its centre a broad velvet band Of black, jet-black, — the harmonious complement Of colour to the brown-black of the hair. AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 63 A very lovely woman she was indeed : A woman of the brunette darker type. And then I met another ; a fair girl More of the pink-cheeked average English type, Less lovely and less striking, much, to me. But perhaps she would have been to many eyes More pleasing ; she was in a carriage too And she was in Bond Street : she had light-brown hair And bright grey eyes and girlish happy smile. " Well, there are Just as many as you like To look for of these fair-cheeked handsome girls In London and in England ; and there are (No, not so many) but a goodly crowd Of the dark-eyed black-brown-haired sweet brunettes Besides : — and so I say that England still Has hope (in spite of the lost cricket-match !), Since still her women are so very fair. And full of grace as ever in the old days. Yes : when the Irish steamer darts across 64 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. The weltering Channel, think you that it brings Not often and often Irish girls across (Still with the immemorial Irish eyes Of keen clear grey, and ' black-blue Irish hair ') As fair as Iseult when with Tristram she Crossed that same Channel, and the blue waves laughed To see their lips cling so inseparably After the love-draught from the golden cup ? " So much for bodily grace. But when you come To mental quality, there I own you have A case : and that reminds me I have here A letter shown me some few days ago — Written by a lady in London to amuse Her sister in the country : — she describes (Particularly well, as you will see) Her visit to some London Theatres. ■ I'll read the letter. This is how it begins : — " ' My very dear old Charlotte, I received Your letter gladly, and I hasten now AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 6; To send the promised answer long-deferred. I hope so that you're well, and that the " Chicks " Are well : kiss Tottie will you, dear, for me, And please tell Willie that I've got a box Of wonderful tin soldiers, — quite alive They look, each man of them ! — which he shall have (If only he's good !) as soon as I return. And, Charlotte, did I leave that Spanish fan (With the green-petticoated girl ; you know The one I mean ?) upon the mantel-piece ? I somehow fancy that I left it there, — At least I have not got it : kindly look. And then I want some flowers to wear at night ; I think that if you would explain this, dear, To Steel the gardener, he might manage perhaps To cut some every morning the first thing And send them (nicely packed in cotton-wool : Be sure you don't forget the cotton-wool !) To London for me by the early train. S 66 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. I'm sorry to be such a bother, dear, — I'm really sorry ; but you see that girl. That horrid Hunter girl, wore flowers last night, Real flowers (they made her fat cheeks look so pale !)- And so I'd better get some, had I not ? Oh, by the bye, that just puts me in mind — They say that Mr. Verger's teeth are false ! You'd never think, so, would you ? Mrs. Crewe Was talking quite by chance the other night To thin Miss Brown (she is a skeleton !) And she, Miss Brown — so curious it is ! — Knows several people who know the Fergussons, And at the Fergussons' the other day A Mr. O'Tolmach (such a pretty name ! Whenever anybody's name begins With O', t think of claymores and of kilts ! Send me that kilting, do. I want it so. I've asked you for it in every letter yet !) — Where was I ? — Mr. O'Tolmach knows a man AN AC TOR 'S REMINISCENCES. 67 Who goes to Mr. Verger's dentist : so You see it must be true he has no teeth. " ' But now you'll want to know about the play. Yes, we have been to the Theatre several times, And thoroughly enjoyed it. Do you know How very low the dresses are this year, — Low-necked I mean ? Of course one has to be Quite in the fashion : but one catches cold. " ' We went to the Lyceum, Tuesday night The scenery was most magnificent ; So were the dresses : and oh, Charlotte dear, There was a lady sitting in the stalls So fat she filled them both — " the fatted calf Installed " rude Charlie (you know Charlie Bruce) Kept calling her : he made me laugh quite loud And all the people looked : he is great fun. He dressed up like a gipsy the other day And came round begging with a real guitar And made us give him pennies : 'twas at that 68 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Delightful Fanqf Fair at Bedford Park, When, you remember (did I tell you, dear ? Oh this is my first letter : so it is) That Mr. Barnes the great tall clumsy man Dressed as a bearded woman : it wasn't nice. " ' And now I think I've written you a long And interesting letter, have I not ? Please send the letter on to Cousin Anne, Will you ? She wanted so to know about The acting. Oh, by the bye, there's one thing more. The French Plays — / thought Sarah Bernhardt poor And disappointing : women mostly do : They're better judges of acting than the men. And now I'll say Good-bye. Best love to you. And to Papa, — and kiss the kitten for me, Will you ? (I do wish we could dress it up Like Charlie Bruce, and give it a guitar. And have it photographed, and send him one, — AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 69 One of the photographs, — d'you think we could ? It would be such real rich delightful fun !) " ' Well now, Good-bye again. I'm going out First in the Park and then to make a call. Think of me at the Theatre to-night Your very very loving sister, Jane " ' P.S. Be sure you find the Spanish fan And have the roses wrapped in cotton-wooL And, if you find the fan, you might send too That other fan, — I think t'would be of use, — The one I've had so long — the ivory one ; I think I left it somewhere in my room.' " " Well, do you know," the poet smiling said, " / have a letter in my pocket too,^ In fact I have a couple, — and the first Is from a lady devotee of Art (I'm the recipient of some hundreds such). I will not read it all : don't be afraid This is a passage from the middle of it 70 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. She's at the sea-side ; and she writes like this : — ' The red sea-weed is most adorable, And there are moUusks with resplendent shells Dyed in the fiery sunsets : do you know, I think that you could write great sonnets here, Far greater than the foggy dreary town Will ever inspire you with. I saw to-day A fisher-maiden coming back from shrimps ' (From catching shrimps, she means. Her style is terse) ' With such a face and brow ! She might have sat To Raphael for Madonna. On her back She bore the pink pellucid crispy shrimps Encradled. How they twisted, these, and leapt And fought just like a herd of struggling snakes. Small wriggling boa-constrictors of the sea ' — Enough. You see the style. And, after this, It gets more confidential : 'twould be wrong If I made public all her wondrous heights Of aspiration and ideal dreams. AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 71 Only I would remark —a mere remark En passant ; nothing of much consequence ; That shrimps are brown, not ' pink,' — until they're boiled, " And then I have a letter, — wonderful And dim and great and learned and obscure (To all save only the writer, but to her Translucid doubtless ; let us trust it is !) It is from a female Spencerian (You know the species ?) — listen ; thus it runs. " ' I've read your letter ; but I can't agree. Why, there is not the slightest evidence In all creation of a conscious God ! Not God created man : nay, man made God In his own image surely : from the first Adding to Godhead every attribute That he himself deemed noble and of worth. You ask me " am I satisfied ? " oh yes. I am content : yes more than that, I am Triumphant at the thought that we shall pass 72 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. Like summer flowers and leave no trace behind. Will you read Herbert Spencer ? , Never man Yet thought as he thought, or expressed himself As this vast genius has expressed himself, Bringing the Cosmos into concrete form. The man 's a god : he is not merely man. For, taking up the rough chaotic world Dispersed as it were in floating nebuls, He has condensed and focussed and arranged The wandering atoms in a perfect whole, And given the world a priceless final gift. His new Synthetic grand Philosophy. When man has slowly learnt to do without That old immoral figment of a God (The certain cause of every kind of crime) — When he at last has learnt to stand alone Without the aid of priests and churches, then The earth will garb her for her wedding-day And all the rocks and hills and streams will sing. AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. 73 It is this tiresome fiction of a God — To which men cling incomprehensibly — Which, acting like a brake upon the wheels Of progress, makes us move so slowly along The glittering far-stretched iron rails of Time. Once fairly cast it off, and we shall rise Into a larger and more liberal air, And be our own gods ; praying not to God But to the silent god within ourselves, And worshipping the holy eternal Soul Revealed continuously within the race ' — So on, and so on." " Well," I said, " this makes One reason why you yearn for acting, plain. It would be, certainly, a vast relief After high abstract arguing such as this To turn one's sleeves up, turn one's trousers up, And turn one's nose up, and perform a part In some rich modern realistic play. 74 AN ACTOR'S REMINISCENCES. If only the part of some poor stable-man Who by the light of a lantern overhears The villain plotting, and frustrates him quite." And then he left me : and that brings me back To my own proper subject, viz., the Stage. Directly or indirectly, now, I think I've mooted most of my own theories. Now I must go and dress. I have to-night To play Othello : 'tis my benefit June, 1882. POEMS. PART I. SONNETS AND POEMS. SONNETS OF MANHOOD. 79 SONNETS OF MANHOOD. SONNET I. "NO LILY IS WHITER." No lily is whiter now for Christ or Keats. — No blue-bell lifts within green woods a head Tenderer, for seons of the heroic dead : — Within the sea no pulse of Shelley beats. Ten thousand years ago the rose was red ; To-day's rose merely the same tale repeats ; Where hearts have travailed and torn souls have bled. The white wild pangless rose the June-morn greets ! Not for one word that Christ or Milton spake Is any blossom fairer. Their soft bloom By ripples of the Galilean lake Was nurtured, and they laughed round Milton's tomb ; But if no human voice earth's primal air Had thrilled, no rosebud would have shone less fair. Nm. 2, i88i. So THE FLOWER ASLEEP. SONNET II. TBE FLOWER ASLEEP. I Stood within the old wood, — and all the past Swept through my spirit on wild storm-tossed wings :— The past with all its pain and all its stings And small sour fruit and endless yearning vast. Upon white tides of woe my thought was cast, 'Mid shoals round which the hoarse sea-whisper rings ; I was immersed in floods of former things, And my brow ached at strokes of passion's blast. And then I looked, and lo ! a flower asleep, — The plant whose plumes I gathered long ago To mix them in a girl's locks soft and deep. Through seasons of fierce sun and months of snow, While I full many a maddening watch did keep, It had done nought but bloom, and fade and blow. BEAUTY UNLOCKED FOR. 8i SONNET III. BEAUTY UNLOOKED FOR. Not sweeter was the breast of Venus white, Or bloom of Helen, soft in Grecian air, Or outpoured glory of the coal-black hair That maddened Antony with fierce delight. Than beauty bursting forth to sudden sight Within our streets, and making fog-banks fair. Not all our London dreariest mists impair The glory of mist-piercing glances bright. One may meet Daphne or a Grecian maid By Thames, within some oak or beechen glade : One may find Psyche 'mid the wild streets' roar. Or, seeking not so pure and sweet a form. Clasp suddenly the breast of Venus warm Where silver ripples chime' on English shore. 6 8z THE OLD VALLEY. SONNET IV. THE OLD VALLEY. Ah ! still the old waves upon the gold sand breaking And still the old windy cliff-side and the sky Unchanged from the old lost days when you and I Clasped in sweet dreams too sweet and soft for waking Wandered, — and watched the salt free sea-wind shaking The tufted heads of clover and of grass. Now what is left us, as towards death we pass ? Sorrow, and flowerless days, and lone heart-aching 1 Ah ! stiU the old valley, — and the fern-leaves yonder And all the clustered grace of meadow-sweet ! Doth never lightning traverse with red feet These green fair glades ? Are the black wings of thunder Forbidden with hoarse rush the fronds to sunder, That all is changeless still though we shall ne'er, Unchanged, be there ! ETERNAL. 83 SONNET V. ETERNAL. When over an hundred years have passed and fled Shalt thou be Uving yet within my song, And just as vivid thy soft brown-haired head As ever, earth's fair queens of love among ? And shall I be remembered, sweetheart true, Still most of all as poet-lover of thee,^ When other far-off skies than ours are blue, And grey eyes, — not thine eyes, — watch new grey sea ? What is an hundred years ? — -But one brief day To love that changes not, that ne'er can sleep : Eternal as the sun's unending ray, And as the unfathomable ocean deep, And full of God's own strength that folds all things In ceaseless mantle of almighty wings. 84 LOVE'S DESPAIR. SONNET VI. LOVE'S DESPAIR. Oh infinite delight when never more The white seas shine before us on the, sand, — When at the touching of Death's calm sweet hand Colour forsakes the hills, and light the shore ! Yes : then shall all life's weird wild pain be o'er. Nought shall arouse us from our perfect sleep : Not woman's touch, — nor woman's glances deep, — Nor ripples of the stream, nor ocean's roar. Whom woman cannot rouse is more than dead. Death's infinite peace shall fall upon each soon : Then in the timeless land where star nor moon Glitters, — nor rose of white nor rose of red, — And where no woman's figure thrills the air, We shall find rest from love, — and love's despair. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 85 SONNET VII. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. Ah ! Beauty, let me wake thee with a kiss ! What ? thou art matronly and married long ? Then all the sweeter shall be passion's song And soft romance's tender-bosomed bliss ! Thou art growing old, thou sayest ? Nay, what of this ! Passion repressed for centuries waxes strong : — Lo ! rose-winged red-lipped love-thoughts round thee throng, And August love is sweet as spring's, I wis ? Ah ! Beauty, let me wake thee from thy sleep And touch the lips and kiss the lashes deep — (What matter if he hears us ! — help is near. See ! underneath thy window on the lake Night's silver ripples round a boat's prow shake :) Lock thou thine hand in mine, — and have no fear ! 86 THEE. SONNET VIII. THEE. When I grow grey and men shall say to me, " What was the worth of living, truly told ? — Lo ! thou hast lived thy life out ; thou art old ; Thou hast gathered fruit from many a green-leafed tree, And kissed love's lips by many a summer sea. And twined soft hands in locks of shining gold : — But all thy days are dead days now, behold ! Life passes onward, — ^what is life to thee ? " Then will I answer, — as thy gracious eyes, Love, gleam upon me from dim far-off skies, — " Life had its endless deathless charm, — and still That charm weaves rapture round me at my will. Life has its glory : — for I have seen Thee ; And roses, — and June sunsets, — and the sea." WHEN. 87 SONNET IX. WHEN. When shall they crown a poet ? — they have twined Around the lordly brows of poets dead White lilies, dark-green bay-leaves, roses red, — And golden crowns and silver have designed For singers clustered in the years behind. But ah ! the living lonely thorn-pierced head ! Rain-drops and dew-drops in the roses' stead Crown the tired forehead, — and the weary wind. When shall they crown a poet ? — When his ears Are deaf for ever to the sound of praise. Then will the world's heart open to his lays And his sweet singing move men's souls to tears. Art-pilgrims who would with coarse gibes have spurned Live Shelley, maunder round his Heart inurned. 88 LONELY. SONNET X. LONELY. Alone ! — ^And yet the poet hath the sun, — And for his lonely gaze the stars are fair, And the sweet June-wind dallieth with his hair, And strange wild sea-shores hath his footing won. But ah ! the sadness, ^to be known of none Save of the coldJipped gruesome bride, Despair ! The weight of genius-thought alone to bear ; Alone, — alone ; till life and death be done. The poet hath, the roses and the sky. But not the sympathy his spirit seeks. Is it a soul-delivering thing to lie Amid sea-poppies by grey winding creeks Or on the hills whereo'er the white mists fly, — Waiting the gold-winged word no woman speaks ? THE GREEK POE T IN ENGLAND. 89 SONNET XI. THE GREEK POET IN ENGLAND. In England's air the poet-heart was born, And his young fancies 'mid the city's roar Ripened, — and shook bright plumelets evermore. Yet light upon him of the world's first morn Was shed, and woods that heard Diana's horn And Grecian waves that flashed at Jason's oar Knew him. He steeped his soul in old-world lore, And met the modern gods with speechless scorn. England gave little love. She gave him flowers, — Such as her Northern meadows can supply : And just one moment's rest in first love's bowers ; And glory of hill and sea and lake and sky : And lonely agonised heart-broken hours ; And bitter words, — and grass wherein to die. go VENUS. SONNET XII. VENUS. But in warm arms as fragrant as of old Venus received him, — and she lulled to sleep The weary soul, and made soft darkness deep Over and round him with her hair of gold. She kissed the dead pale lips that, loud and bold, Had sung of her where England's wild waves leap ; The mouth that by green down and chalky steep, Fatigueless ever, her renown had told. And this was his reward, — the eternal kiss Of Venus, and her arms wherein to rest. And the soft fragrance of her perfect breast. This was his heaven of old-world endless bliss. What did it matter if a world forsook. When in white deathless clasp his soul she took ! THOU COULDIST NOT WATCH WITH ME. 91 SONNET XIII. " THOU COULD' ST NOT WATCH WITH ME ! " Thou could'st not watch with me ! — The flowers are thine Soft in the valleys, — where the blue stream speeds By banks of osier and the bending reeds, And where the sunlit golden ripples shine. The foaming white salt sea-waves' crested line, And the blue-gentianed austere mountain-meads, And snow-fields whence thy traitor foot recedes, And the far dim laborious peaks, — are mine. O thou whose hazel eyes so pure and deep Should towards far splendid heights have led the way, Hadst thou no holy watch with me to keep ? The dark is lessening, and the pale morn's grey Glimmers. O girl-heart, art thou still asleep ? And girl-lips, have ye no sweet word to say ? 92 I LOVE THEE. SONNET XIV. "I LOVE THEE." I twine the silent mists within my hair And mark the morning from the mountain-peak, While round me the sonorous thunders speak And strange light quivers through the thin pure aur. For thee, sweetheart, this valley-rose is fair, — Fair as thine own soft slothful recreant cheek ; Thee the gay valley-sunshine loves to seek : Thou wouldst not the steep flowerless high paths dare ! And yet I love thee ! though thou art so far Away from me, I love thee, sweetheart mine ! Far down the valley thy soft soul doth shine, Like a small radiant guiding helpful star Seen through these tangled black grim growths of pine To show where love and simple pleasures are. ONE NIGHT WITH THEE. 93 SONNET XV. ONE NIGHT WITH THEE. Oh for one night with thee ! Shall not the hours Bring round revenge at last, and angry Fate Be slain by white hands nigh Love's golden gate ? Shall we not plunge amid the nighf s dim bowers ? Wilt thou not crown me with unheard-of flowers ? — Lo ! the night waxes onward : it grows late : Rise thou ; then falter not, nor turn nor wait : — The freedom of the trackless dark is ours. Oh for one night with thee ! — one awful night Amid the stillness of eternity. Wherein to fold thy soul and body white In deathless close imprisoning clasp to me, While all the stars above us mix their bright Souls with the silent soul of all the sea. 94 VENUS INCARNA TE. SONNET XVI. VENUS INCARNATE. Upon the old cliff thou stood'st with wondrous eyes Wherethrough the timeless soul of Venus shone ; And I, — I knew myself thy bard alone Till very death turns faint of heart and dies. Thy soul was mingled with the pale-blue skies, And through thine hair a mystic breeze was blown, And in thy tongue spake Venus' silver tone, — Robed wast thou, mortal, in immortal wise. So thou dost hold my soul for evermore, O Venus-lady, in thy tender hands- Which held innumerable souls of yore And swayed the unsearchable and ancient lands, — Now clasping my soul where grey breakers roar And charge along the vapour-shrouded sands. THE CHILD. 95 SONNET XVII. THE CHILD. And now the child is gone. — Her simple woes Will torture thine almighty brain no more. Thou art free, — thou art free ! Thy shackled life is o'er : Her death wide open life's gold gateway throws. Thou hast thy longed-for infinite repose ! Now thou mayest ponder on the lonely shore Uninterrupted, and thy soul outpour : No more the stream of questions by thee flows. Silence is thine. And is the silence rest ? — ■ I asked the (juestion : and I was aware Of a lone man who beat upon his breast, And sighed, and groaned to the unanswering air, " All fame and genius would I give to hold Once more in mine the child's hand as of old ! " 96 A PORTRAIT. SONNET XVIII. A PORTRAIT. Full of child-thoughts, and glad at simple things, — Not versed in deep things ; — well content to be In green woods or green meadows, or to see The painted butterfly spread sportive wings : Happy in all the joy the blue sky brings, And full of an unfathomed purity : Not clever, great, or learned, — full of glee Silver and soft, that round the hearer clings : — Such is the child : a very simple flower, — Not tall nor grand nor passion-flushed nor red ; Full ne'ertheless of her own quiet power, And blossoming queenlike on her own calm bower, And flinging from her fair soft golden head Light that transfigures many a mortal hour. THE SOUTHERN PASSION. 97 SONNET XIX. THE SOUTHERN PASSION. I held a woman fairer than the sun, And marvelled as she kissed "me. Was I set Beside the seas the eyes of Shelley met ? Had I the Italian dark-haired rapture won ?-^ I seemed no longer where our dim streams run And where the leaves with ceaseless storms are wet : — The woman's long loose hair was black as jet ; Its scent stayed with me when the kiss was done. The glory of Southern passion filled my mind, And pale seemed even Venus' locks of gold And poor and worthless by those black locks twined Over the brow some god had bent to mould : And her warm starlike eyes seemed sweeter things Than any colder gaze our Northland brings. 7 SONG IS NOT DEAD. SONNET XX. "SONG IS NOT DEAD." Shelley is dead, and Keats is dead, — and who Will take to-day the 'poet's harp and sing ? Whose voice shall make the mountain-summits ring Or sound at night beneath the moon-lit blue ? — Great souls are dead. Must English song die too, Die out and perish,— while our sea-waves bring Still their same ceaseless chant, and ceaseless spring Robes the sweet English flower-filled vales anew ? Ah ! while one English rose blooms red at morn Still shall fresh English deathless song be born, Pure and untrammelled as the English skies : And while one English woman still is fair, Music shall sound upon the English air : — Song is not dead, till the last woman dies. THE WORLD'S MARRIAGE MORN. 99 SONNET XXI. THE WORLD'S MARRIAGE MORN. The world is young. — Her eyes are girlish still, And girlish calm on heir white brows is set : — Her marriage midday rapture tarrieth yet Beyond that farthest faintl5'-outlined hill. Not for our keen desire or urgent will The world will wear her jewelled coronet ; Splendour superber than our eyes have met The future's hidden fiery heart shall thrill. We shall not see it. 'Mid the morning mist And 'mid the dewy morning grass we stand : The world's soft girlish mouth our mouths have kissed, And we have held her white unwedded hand : — But ah ! the rich mature lips tarry long For other seasons, and another song. 10 WHEN PASSION FAILS US. SONNET XXII. " WHEN PASSION FAILS US." When passion fails us, and when Woman fails,^ When we are weary of the roses' scent And not one song can bring our souls content, Yea, when the very flush on Love's cheek pales, — What help is left us then, — what hope avails ? What pleasure tarrieth when Love's robes are rent Asunder, and his golden hours are spent, And the wind whistles round his house and wails ? When even Woman's lips are no more red, And the sun ceases, and the silver moon Is tarnished, and the pleasant stars are dead. And sorrow murmurs through the bowers of June, Is there a Power to lift the weary head And turn life's darkness into golden noon ? IS THERE A HAND? SONNET XXIII. "IS THERE A HAND?" Is there a hand more tender than the hand Of Woman ? Are there bountiful deep eyes Whence the eternal pity never flies ? Is there a God within some deathless land ? And can he bend and hear and understand From heights of awful unapproached clear skies ? Is there a heart of love that never dies, — Sweet beyond wish, beyond our yearning grand ? — O God of human hearts, — ^if God there be, — Blend thou thy great immortal soul with ours. We seek thee, as a river seeks the sea, Weary of all the old inland sun-smit bowers. — Absorb us, cleanse us, save us, — ^give us rest. Gather our stream-hearts to thine ocean-breast. a BALCOMBE FOUEST. SONNET XXIV. BALCOMBE FOREST. O strange sequestCTed sunny silent land Where fairies exiled from man's haunts, might dwell ! Land of the great fern and the heather-bell And larch and pine and beech-bole gnarled and grand And trout-streams brown and lanes of rufous sand And many a deep-green shrouded mystic dell And silver-gleaming lake and mossy fell, — Shall I again within thy borders stand ? — Thou hast an inland splendour all thine own. And yet thy tenderest delight to me Was, — not thy soft and deep streams' silver tone, Nor yet the glory of heather-purpled lea, — But that one summit whence far hills were shown, Behind whose green walls lay the grey wild sea. SOMETSIMG WAS WANTING. 103 SONNET XXV. "SOMETHING WAS WANTING." Though the sun slept upon the yellow sand, And though the ferns waved idly in the breeze, And though the green resplendent sun-kissed trees Lifted tall gracious heads on either hand, — And though the purple heather filled the land, And the pine-odour wafted o'er the leas Seemed softer than the salt strong scent of seas, — I felt a pain I could not understand. Something was wanting. — Then I climbed a hill And the blue Brighton downs beneath their haze Stretched far before me. With one wild soul-thrill And one long eager tearful burning gaze I yearned towards these, and felt my heart grow still : Then turned again to the green woodland ways. I°4 BEYOND I SONNET XXVI. PEYONDl Beyond, — beyond the stifling inland nooks Well loved of flowers and birds and butterflies, And dim caerulean depths of summer skies. And pebbly plashing meadow-sweet-lined brooks. Out to the far-off sea my spirit looks ; And seeks with fiery passionate surmise The shore where the eternal sea-waves' eyes Watch their sea-birds, — as these trees watch their rooks. Beyond these valleys, — beautiful indeed, — Beyond these haunts of heron, hawk, and jay, — Beyond flower-sprinkled scented dappled mead, — Thou art ; and thy dark hair is wet with spray, O my sea-bird : and aU my soul would speed, Repressless, towards our waves and thee to-day ! ENGLAND. 105 SONNET XXVIl. ENGLAND. England of Shakespeare, Shelley, Milton, Keats, Burns, Byron, Wordsworth, — hath thine head grown grey. And are the former glories passed away ? Is the heart tired that 'neath thine armour beats ? As year by year with speedy wing retreats. Doth thy strength dwindle slowly and decay ? While yet the world basks in the golden day Is it mist of night that round about thee fleets ? — Rise thou, O England ! Let thy great limbs sleep No longer. Burn upon us with those eyes That blenched not at Trafalgar's blood-red skies, — Nor Waterloo, — nor Alma's thundering steep : — Let not this crowd of mockers round thee leap, While passionless thy giant sword-arm lies. iq6 WATERLOO. SONNET XXVIII. WATERLOO. A Stormy evening on a far-stretched plain Of meadow-land and corn-land, — and a host Of stubborn red-coats holding every post Against the interminable cannon-rain. Oh, to live through that deathless day again ! The day when the Old Guard he valued most. Napoleon, — found their world-wide fierce-lipped boast, Valid a thousand times, this one time vain. The blue long lines in motion, and the red Long line as steady as a wall of stone ! — The Old Guard, whose bearskins through all Europe sped. Swept in response to their pale Leader's tone Against the red calm ranks ; — then with a groan Wavered, — and turned, — and the whole world's conquerors fled! CHRIST AND ENGLAND. 107 SONNET XXIX. CHRIST AND ENGLAND. Nay ! but our own dear land thou shall not hold, Lord Christ. Thou hast thy whitCrwalled Eastern town, And thine own endless worshipful renown, And heaven's own sunlit heights, and towers of gold. — Not thine the English wild furze-yellowed wold ; Not thine the breeze that sweeps green hill and down ; Not thine the roses that our gardens crown ; Not thine our sea-winds ululant and bold. Rest where thou art, lest thou shouldst have a fall. — The storm is in our spirits, and the sea ; The skies' grim armies hearken at our call. And the grey mountain-vapours round us flee. And murmurous ocean girds us like a wall. We are content. We have no need of thee. io8 CHRIST AND WOMAN. SONNET XXX. CHRIST AND WOMAN. Nor shalt thou hold our women. Their grey eyes, Filled with the grey shine of the sea that stems Our shore and all the golden sand-line hems, Smile at thy visions of blue deathless skies. — Rest thou content at home if thou be wise, And bathe white feet in Jordan, not in Thames ; And seek the heavenly rubied diadems, But not the crowns our womanhood supplies. No great pure English woman-heart is thine. — Thou hast thy maidens, — and they are most fair. With Eastern brown eyes and the Eastern hair. Born in the sultry land of fig and vine : Thou art the rightful lord and ruler there : Thou rulest not the land of oak and pine. A QUESTION. 109 SONNET XXXI. A QUESTION. And can he spread wide songful burning wings And through the heavenly void thy spirit bear ? And can he twine soft love-flowers in thine hair, Fresh with the pearly dew each new morn brings ? Can he do any or all of thes^ glad things ? — And art thou unto him surpassing fair, — And is thy touch as sweet as summer air Circling the patient head of him who sings ? And can he bring thee in his arms the bliss Of leaves and winds and seasons fuU of glee And endless tender roses, — hath he this Song-force of soul wherewith to encounter me ? And can he give thee through his lips the kiss And living breath of all the inviolate sea ? o LO! ONE CALLS. SONNET XXXIl. "LO! ONE CALLS." Oh, though the wife be close by day, by night, And though the husband gaze within her eyes, And though his hand upon her bosom lies, And though her body wonderful and white Be spread before him for a common sight, And though her passive lips towards his lips rise, — Love round about the sleepers mocking flies And flashes laughter from his glances bright ! Not all these things shall hold her. — Lo ! one calls. And wrapped in silent cloak anigh the door She stands, — and the soft moon-rays round her pour ; Now, close beside, her lover's footstep falls. And towards the lakeside bower they wend their way ; " Passion's sweet God be with them both ! " I say. RED DAWN. Ill SONNET XXXIII. RED DAWN. " Hark ! is he sleeping ? — Let the soft lips meet. Who knows ? the bright June morning may flame red, Yea scarlet round about this white dim bed Where all seems now so moon-caressed and sweet. Ah ! sweetheart, how thy tender heart doth beat ! Let me kiss every trembling pulse instead, And kiss thy limbs, — kiss upward to thine head ; Thrice-rapturous are the night hours, — yet how fleet ! " Is that the morning at the window-pane ? Let the wild burning red lips cling once more ! Ha ! the swift sudden sword-flash at the door : Kiss me ; I wait ; do thou the garden gain " — She would not leave him. That dark evil stain Is where their hearts' blood fountained on the floor. tz FAIRYLAND. SONNET XXXIV. FAIRY LAND. I fell asleep, and dreamed of Fairy Land, — Of cruel monsters with red savage eyes, And yellow snowdrops, and strange twilight skies : A blue-haired fairy took me by the hand And led me towards a Palace where a band Of fays, with locks like the pink fronds that rise Within the sea-waves, danced in gleesome wise : — Then came the Fairy Queen with golden wand. She moved to meet me. When my eyes met hers, I felt along my veins a sudden thrill, As when the passionate young blood leaps and stirs :- I woke : I lay upon a low sand-hill 'Mid gold sea^poppies and the gaunt grey furze — But that Queen's hazel glances haunt me stiU. BALACLAVA. 113 SONNET XXXV. BALACLAVA. Along the valley the wild riders speed. — This is the complement of Waterloo : That showed what English infantry could do : To-day the horsemen win fame's deathless meed. Horsemen and infantry are one indeed ; The horsemen are the English fiery soul Loosened at length from years of still control, — The others are the calm that did precede. When English horse and English foot combine, Who shall withstand that red tremendous line Holding both passions of the English race, — The calm still passion of its pent-up strength. And fury as of the Light Brigade at length Free for that fiery blood-splashed charge and chase ! 8 "4 STRONG, LIKE THE SEA. SONNET XXXVI. STRONG, LIKE THE SEA. If God be dead, and Man be left alone, And no immortal golden towers be fair. And nothing sweeter than earth's summer air Can ever by our yearning hearts be known ; — If every altar now be overthrown. And the last mistiest hill-tops searched and bare Of Deity, — if Man's most urgent prayer Is just a seed-tuft tossed about and blown : — If this be so, yet let the lonely deep Of awful blue interminable sky Thrill to Man's kingly unbefriended cry : Let Man the secret of his own heart keep Sacred as ever ; — let his lone soul be Strong like the lone winds and the lonelier sea. NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. 115 , SONNET XXXVII. NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. No more the plains of Europe blushing red Beneath his foot ; — nor Paris full of flame Of triumph, — ;ringing with the Conqueror's name, — And the Caesarian laurel round his head. No more for him his countless armies led The countless armies of the world to tame, And necks of kings to bend to lowliest shame ; No more wide moonlit acres of his dead. No more the black plumes of his Cuirassiers, — The Old Guard's white facings, and the breathless glee Of mingled battle, and the glittering tiers , Of bayonets, and sword-sheen. Alone for thee. World-conqueror, shine this island's rocky spears, And that grey weaponless unconquered sea. 116 TH^ RETREA T FROM MOSCOW. SONNET XXXVIII. THE RETREA T FROM MOSCO W. At last against the conquerors of the world Nature took arms and fought. The circling storm Was deadlier than the milk fierce and warm, And snow-shafts than fire-bolts against them hurled. Some sank beneath the drift and some slept curled In hollows, till the white cloud hid each form ; Some staggered wildly onward arm in arm, With the tricoloured standards dank and furled. Napoleon gazed around,— and where were they, The helmets and great epaulettes of red, Whose sheen and flame through many a bloody day Had been his rapture ? At his feet one dead Drummer lay stark. Then nought above, below. Save black heaven, — and the interminable snow. NO T CHRIS T, BUT CHRIST'S GOD. 1 1 7 SONNET XXXIX. NOT CHRIST, BUT CHRIST'S GOD. Though Christ we need not, yet the God who shone Upon the Jewish hero's soul we need. Though we despise the grey-beard Church's creed, Christ_we despise not, — nor his image wan Upon the canvas of vast centuries gone : The tender heart that for the race did bleed We reverence, and to its great thoughts give heed, — Yet the huge surge of Progress thundereth on ! The God of Christ we yearn for more than we Desire the Hebrew. 'Mid our lanes of rose, — Where the soft clinging honeysuckle grows And scents the shoreside, — by our own wild sea, — We would with God the eternal Father be ; — Not in one heart alone God's Spirit glows. Ii8 PANTHEISTIC DREAMS. SONNET XL. PANTHEISTIC DREAMS. What is the worth of Pantheistic dreams ? — Oh, what avails it at the hour of death To mix our souls with countless roses' breath. Or with the shining June-sky's sunset-gleams. Or with the glory of blue-rippling streams ? What joy is there in groping underneath The soil, to spring in roots of purple heath, — What human rapture in the moon's white beams ? One hour of human life, though it be wild And mad and sinful, is a nobler spell Than long eternities in green deep dell, Mixed with the spirits of the snow-drops mild : Diviner is it passionate hand to hold Than to blend limp souls with the Ulies' gold ! TO THE " UNKNOWABLE" GOD. 119 SONNET XLI. TO THE " UNKNOWABLE" GOD. O God within the awful voiceless void, — God of the terrible and viewless night, God also of the burning midday light, — God,, by whose hand the countless stars are buoyed, And all the golden sunrise-clouds deployed, And all the ridges of the sea made bright, And the far snow-fields limitlessly white,^ God whom the green woods worship, overjoyed : — We cannot reach thee : yet can prayer make head Against the glittering tide of stars and suns And reach thy gracious central throne at once ? Can our lone cry surmount the hill-tops red With fiery sunset ? Can we find thee. Lord, — Or are our groans towards earless heights outpoured ! 20 GRECIAN AND ENGLISH. SONNET XLII. " GRECIAN AND ENGLISH." Am I a Pagan ? Am I set at nought Because I worship here in English air The Goddess whom Keats' fancy found so fair, — The Paphian Venus whom his genius' brought Hither, and whom with homage deep he sought ? The Enghsh breeze is sweeter for her hair Outspread upon it ; and our roses rare Tints of the Goddess' amorous cheeks have caught. Her light of beauty is upon our hills : She haunts our Isis, and her sweet eyes shine On sun-kissed ripples of our Northern rills. And her white limbs repose 'neath birch and pine, And our grey waves with marvellous foot she thrills, Grecian and English, — and as both divine. ONE CHANCE.. I2I SONNET XLTII. ONE CHANCE. One life ; one chance ; one woman to adore ; One rose to worship : — once and never again Love to our bosom with sweet tears to strain ; Once to kiss soft lips on some moonlit shore : Once all our soul in music to outpour, And once to enter Passion's golden fane, And once to launch upon the foamy main Of wild Romance where poets sank of yore : — Just once, and then the end ; — one chance we have, One life for singing, — then our lips are sealed. And over us the green grass of the field And the green fern-fronds and white roses wave : One life for music, — then the silent grave, And lands where never morning bugle pealed. 122 ISEULT. SONNET XLIV. ISEULT. Of all sweet forms within the enchanted air Of ancient legend, and of all sweet eyes, Thy form and glances ever the sweetest rise. To me thou art e'en than Guinevere more fair. And more bewitching thy deep blue-black hair Than gold wherein the heart of Lancelot lies : Thy gaze, full of the light of Irish skies, Hath never failed one poet-heart to snare. — From Tristram's knightly harp until to-day All singers own thee. When the great seas broke Beside Tintagel, thy strong spirit spoke And thy shape mingled with the sea-mists grey That floated round me. Centuries pass away : Thou art fair as when beside thee Tristram woke. A LITTLE WHILE. IZ3 SONNET XLV. A LITTLE WHILE. A little while, a little while, — and then. Ye roses and ye lilies all, farewell ! Farewell, each valley and soft fern-deep dell : I shall not meet your tender gaze again. I pass for ever from the sight of men To lands wherein the souls of poets dwell : Things wait me sweeter than my harp may tell To coarse unspiritual earth-denizen. Farewell, ye English mountains, and the red Roses that round the fair land fragrance shed ! Beyond the land of roses now I go. Farewell, ye seas that on the old shores break ! Keats' eyes may dawn upon me when I wake, And Shelley's risen soul my soul may know. 124 ^'!L T THOU COME ? SONNET XLVL " WILT THOU COME?" Wilt thou come, love with the old grey-green eyes ? Wilt thou pass with me to the land of death, And fill the vales with thy dear rose-soft breath, And fill the eternal heavens with sweet surprise As all thy beauty doth upon them rise ? — Not since the death of Beatrice, so fair A woman, poet-crowned, upon that air Dawned, — adding splendour to the deathless skies. Wilt thou come with me, bursting every chain. And join within the land where death no more Sets evil footstep on the sunny shore The spirit whom through endless speechless pain Dante made his ? Wilt thou be mine again, And let thy lips smile tenderly, as of yore ? /S IT WORTH WHILE? SONNET XLVII. "IS IT WOR TH WHILE ? ' ' Is it worth while to have breathed the earthly air ?— Yes : even if the final end be near, And if pain's storms have clouded many a year, Yet there were early summers soft and fair. Passion hath twined for me full many a rare Chaplet, — and Harrow boyish skies were clear, And Oxford marigolds in marshy mere Shone radiant, — and the Cornish maiden-hair. And the great Northern waves did welcome me, — And, Alice, thou their Venus then wast born. Born from the eddies of the frothing sea. White-bodied as in the young world's sweet morn. It is worth while to have lived for thee,— for thee, — Though years on weary years have wailed forlorn. 126 THOUGH HALF MY HEART BE GREEK. SONNET XL VIII. " THOUGH HALF MY HEART BE GREEK." Though half my heart be Greek, and Venus fill My soul with rapture of her face and wings, Yet this grey misty land my spirit sings Not less,— yea, every English green-browed hill And white-plumed golden-watered dancing rill : — Each daffodilly yellowing our springs Round me a robe of blossom-witchery flings ; Each English rose of my soul hath her will. Our blossoms crown me, and our rain-dark skies Are dear, — and London, wherein I was born. Is more than Athens fervent with the morn : — Our turrets strike the clouds in statelier wise Than those that towards the cloudless blue air rise, Based on the blue seas of the Golden Horn. THE ENGLISH RACE. 127 SONNET XLIX. THE ENGLISH RACE. The English spirits round me are mine own. — The Vikings' yearning is within my blood ; The grey dim splendid endless ocean-flood \Vhose seething spray against my lips is thrown, Upward and shoreward by the salt winds blown, Is that whereon their white-sailed fierce ships stood : — And every tide hath laved our walls of wood. And every shore hath heard our cannons' tone. Though Greece be dear, yet am I of the race That held the blood-stained plain of Waterloo, Hour after hour, each soldier in his place. Till sunset slipped their tight-strained leash, — and who (One small ship's * obstinate and dauntless crew) Looked the whole Spanish navy in the face. * The Revenge. 128 MY LOVE. SONNET L. MY LOVE. But most of all my love is English-eyed And English-souled and English-hearted, — she Is one in spirit with our grey-eyed sea And unto its eternity allied, Song's ever-present ever-gracious Bride : — So will I till the end, O sweetheart, be English along with Ocean and with Thee, — Thine and the sea's in passion deep and wide. Gaze through me. Thou : — and thou, all-loving sea. Who hast borne our ships to victory East and West,- Who foldedst Shelley in thy blue soft breast, And who wilt from these white cliffs never flee. Give thou to her thy sweetness, — and to me Thy soul of music ; — and to both thy rest. Dec. 10, 1881. LILIES. THIRTY SONNETS. 131 LILIES. I. THE GREAT WAVE. For thy sake, sweet, I keep the great clear wave Silent and moveless, — still, within my heart. I help thee, love, to play thy daily part In patience, and through love the world to save. Our bright star glistens, bright beyond the grave, And here we have the silver voice of Art To cheer and gladden ; and, to soothe each smart, Love, — stalwart, pure, indomitable, brave. I keep the great wave still': although 'tis there Ready, if even on earth a greater need Arise, — some wrong e'en Love were weak to bear. Till then I hold, for so hath Love decreed. The wave that might devour with fiercest spray, Still as the blue sea on a summer day. 132 MY SWORD. 11. MY SWORD. God says that I may send thee, sweet, my sword. - Its use is nearly over, — let the hilt Be held once in thy white hand if thou wilt ; — That touch will be its owner's high reward. Black-stained it is with blood of foemen spilt, Dinted and jagged, and snapped anigh the point. And all the tassel is of rusted gilt ; The scabbard gapes with wear at every joint. I shall not need it more. The highest gift That I can give, it is ; the tenderest too. No more in battle shall it glitter swift. And, after, streak its sheath with crimson dew. The sword is dead and victor, — as am I : Take thou the weary steel, and put it by. / AM TRISTRAM. 133 III. "I AM TRISTRAM." I am Tristram watching how the young souls tilt. — I lean with thee, my dark-haired tourney-bride, Against this pillar, — press thee to my side, And sheathe my strong sword bloodied to the hilt. The stains of blood are dry thereon. Unspilt Shall be the red flood in this battle-tide : — No more my plume goes, swaying in its pride. Athwart the milk : hushed my battle-lilt. Sweet, watch with me the combatants, — nor ask Thy knightly Tristram to unsheathe his sword. To unhorse these youths were all too easy task : , Their maidens' kisses are not my reward. Lo ! I am Tristram. Iseult, share with me The swordless bloodless calm of victory. 134 BLOSSOMS ABOVE A TOMB. IV. BLOSSOMS ABOVE A TOMB. For Beatrice a red rose, and a white For thee, — and for my wife a violet fair. , Let petals of such flowers caress the air Above my grave, when summer suns shine bright. - Red for the day, — the snowy for the night, — The purple for the eve or early morn : By tender hands let such three plants be borne Towards the green hillock where in still delight The poet sleeps, life's mantle off him torn. Waiting the resurrection and its might. — Earth had for him not much besides its scorn : Love found his soul, then left that soul forlorn : But death hath rapture ! Where in grievous plight He sowed, behold the interminable corn ! ETERNAL MURMURINGS. 135 ETERNAL MURMURINGS. I hear the murmurs of the eternal sea That washes round the trembling shores of time ; I mark faint whispers from another clime : Death's form at seasons overshadows me. But through it all I part not, sweet, from thee ; — Rather our passion waxes more sublime As earthly sounds become like some spent rhyme; Our sacred love-flower blooms eternally. Oh, if thou diest the first, be ever near To lead me upward with love's whisper clear, — To draw me forth with passion's accent fond. When the last loving kiss on earth is given Just as I die, be thine the first in heaven : Before death others kiss ; kiss thou beyond ! 136 MY BELOVED. VI. MY BELOVED. Pain's fiery lesson was to teach us this : To teach the perfect truth to either soul,-;- That now, beside us as the swift months roll, Nought may disturb, no frailty mar, our bliss. Beneath the stars again our spirits kiss : Again the smarting puzzled hearts are whole : Again with gladdened lips Love's crystal bowl We touch ; — and know how great a thing Love is. Heart of my heart, soul of my soul indeed, Wast thou in sorrow, and did I not bleed ? Mind of my mind, were issues vast at stake, Bewildering thee, — and did not my mind ache ? Spirit that crownest mine beyond all loss. Out of one tree God hewed for each a cross. BEHIND. 137 VII. BEHIND. Behind it all — the anger and the flame That leapt upon thee — there is, could'st thou see, The loving inner changeless soul of me, Unshaken, — clear for ever in its aim. I love thee, — and so I hate eternally Each^smallness foreign to thy nature true : Just as I welcome every blossom new Of thought or heart ; each growth of being's tree. Behind it all, — O thou whom I adore Enough to " crucify " — as thou didst say, — There is the love that changes never more ; The soul of yearning thou canst never slay : — Strength that would help thee ; prayer that intercedes ; Sweet love that tarries patient : love that bleeds. 138 IT IS NOT ANGER. VIII. "IT IS NOT ANGER." It is not anger ; could'st thou see it so. — It is not anger, — but the intense desire That burns for ever in me like white fire At last thy soul — a spotless soul — to know. The inward awful inarticulate glow Of passion that, in measure, through my lyre Sounds, — that would lift thee high and ever higher Towards summits robed in majesty of snow. This, this it is that sometimes sternly speaks When thou art weak, and lingerest by the way. God's mountains' are before us, and the spray Of ocean ; tarry not by river-creeks : — It is not anger, could'st thou this thing prove, — But burning vast intolerable love. BENEATH LOFTIER STARS. 139 IX. BENEATH LOFTIER STARS. Yes ! now indeed we meet 'neath loftier stars. The high airs soothe us, and the silence deep Seems part of that eternal watch we keep : Now, nought our reunited passion mars. Like marvellous and fragrant summer sleep A sense of life steals over us, and brings New wondrous visions cradled on its wings : We stand, victorious, on a nobler steep ! Before us spreads the wonderful wide view. With ocean in the distance, dim and blue, — And love, with white and soft plumes, everywhere : We breathe, with ecstasy beyond all speech. In this diviner mutual height we reach. The unknown immortal soul-caressing air. I40 SOUL-PAIN. X. SOUL-PAIN. To-day my heart is broken, — and I feel No rest in love, no recompence in song : The slow sick weary moments crawl along ; Not one can answer my forlorn appeal. And thou art far away whose spirit strong Brings hope and light and comfort: — now these steal Away from me, a shivering ghost-like throng, And no sweet God would answer, — did I kneel. O heart, heart, heart, — that triest to understand, — Keep thou for ever from the genius-land. And mingle not with agony like mine ! " A bay-wreathed poet " means a brow that drips With blood for ever. Kiss not thou my lips. Lest the eternal poet's-doom be thine. I NEED THEE. i+i XI. "I NEED THEE." Again I say it ! Do we need the air, The wind, the stars, the many-voicfed sea. And may I not avow my need of thee Who art to me the chiefest of things fair ? — If some sad brooch is robbed of jewel rare That shone i' the centre, must it not complain ? Not strive its gleaming emerald to regain ? — When I am robbed, must I that robbery bear ? — diamond, emerald, star, sea, blossom, sun. Things sweet and things familiar all in one, 1 need thee, — and I choose to say my need. As to the sea might speak some floating weed : Or as a wanderer might desire a star, And sink, — if clouds the vision sweet should mar. 142 YET I ENDURE. xn. " YET I ENDUJRE." Yet independent, fearless, I endure. — I stand beneath God's night with lonely head And watch the stars like one already dead, Or one whom only death's white touch can cure. My footstep through the dark supremely sure Sounds. Lo ! above the hills my dawn is red. And soon my fair last love-word will be said. And no more will soft lips of earth allure. Because I face the terror of the night Alone, — and let God's dark sing through my hair Unflinching, smiling as his arrows smite ; Because in silence sorrow I can bear ; Therefore it is that with divine delight I kiss thee coming all that woe to share. LET US NEVER COMFORT EACH OTHER. 143 , XIII. "LET US NEVER COMFORT EACH OTHER INTO SLEEP." Yet let us comfort. Comfort is a part Of that strong help which either spirit needs : It lifts, it soothes, it purifies each heart ! God's touch is gentle, when the pierced soul bleeds. When anger fails, a softer speech succeeds Full often ; the great victories are won By patience, and the everlasting deeds By everlasting tenderness are done. And out of love the angels' robes are spun, And sweetest pity in God's loom is woven, And he is crowned with mercy like a sun : — By bitter lightning trees in twain are cloven, But not the human heart : it bends alone To Love's voice ; yieldeth to no other tone. 144 THE AWAKING. XIV. THE A WAKING. And if one falls asleep, through labour long, Why, what shall the divine awaking be ? Surely no angry word ; but some soft song Sung 'neath the casement, — as from summer tree The nightingales chant, loud and strenuously : Or as the thrushes, some wild day in spring, Hurl from dank copse to copse their stormy glee And make the wet surrounding meadows ring. If thou dost need awakening, I will bring My harp, and 'neath thy window sweep the chords, Or flutter o'er thy brow my vocal wing And gently lift thy tresses : — let the swords Of violent speech be snapped ; and if / miss The morn and sleep on, — wake me by a kiss ! SHALL I KNO W THEE ? 145 XV. • ' SHALL I KNO W THEE ? " Shall I know thee when thou art changed and glad ? Or wilt thou, if thou diest, wander far From me thy poet towards some alien star, That I, in heaven, may even there be sad? — Oh, shall I see the swift wheels of thy car Of glory traversing some distant sky ? If that be so, 'tis then that I shall die, Finding how weak death's other arrows are ! Or wilt thou be so changed that I shall gaze And know thee not, and seek in vain to mark Some far-off semblance of earth's tender ways ? 'Twill hardly be so, though Fate's paths are dark. But, if I know thee not, say, " Love, rejoice ! " And I shall know the tremble in thy voice. 10 H6 my gift. XVI. MY GIFT. I give thee sorrow, and I give thee pain : 'Tis all the troubled singer has to give ! This, this is all thy guerdon while I live, — And, now and then, the pleasure of a strain. Not more can I bestow while I remain On earth an outcast and a wayfarer, With all the night's harsh dewdrops in my hair ; — This scant reward and piteous thou shalt gain ! But after death there comes my time of pleasure When I may crown thee in more ample measure, — Fill up thy coronet with golden bars : — First friendship through the agony of earth ; Then heaven and close-bound hearts that sing for mirth ! First sorrow ; then a crown of many stars ! BE GENTLE. 147 XVII. ''BE GENTLE." Be gentle with me : for thou knowest not yet The utter need there is in me of love. Oh ! though the poets' brows, bay-crowned above, Shine famously, — look close, their eyes are wet. The sorrow of all the earth God's hand has set Upon them for a wreath, — and in strange fashion To understand in soul earth's every passion : For this it is that earth is in their debt. What the slow heartless lover cannot feel. The poet feels for him ; and tear-drops steal Adown his cheeks when others cannot sorrow. What wonder then if sometimes in his heart There is a yearning he cannot impart, And sweet would seem a night without a morrow ! 148. A PICTURE. XVIII. A PICTURE. I saw a picture of a soldier low Upon some grisly battle-field. Tall firs Above him smote the sky with rigid spurs ; Death reigned : and silent blood was on the snow. A woman's form stood by him, and she held A wreath, and loth to give it, loth to go, She Seemed, — and it might be the pure tears welled From her heart's depths. The picture did not show. O sweet one, be thou unto me as she ! When I am lying dead upon life's snow. Black trees above, and spots of blood belovv, Come thou with the sweet song-wreath tenderly. If but thy loving face o'er me be bent At that still moment, — I shall be content. WHEN YOU THOUGHT I WAS FAR AWAY. 149 XIX. " WHEN YOU THOUGHT I WAS 'FAR AWAY,' I WAS DREAMING, ETC." But is it any crime to love you so That I would have you sitting ever near, Ready to help my patient labour, dear, And all depression's fiends to overthrow ? Is it a wrong that I would have you here To aid the lagging moments as they go And speed the silent hours with glances clear ? Is love condemned, when love doth overflow? A little distance seems quite " far away," Because my heart would have you close indeed. After clear sunshine e'en the moon looks grey And wretched, — and so urgent is my need That, since I cannot cry " For ever stay ! " The smallest absence makes my spirit bleed. ISO SOME DAY r WILL TELL YOU. XX. "SOME DAY T WILL TELL YOU.". Yes ; tell me all. For every thought of thine Is unto me a flower I long to hold, And thy past life is as a cup of gold Brimming for me with sparkling joyous wine. Yes ; tell me what thy sorrows were of old ! Press deep thy thorn-crown ! Make its red points mine ! Wear thou my bays and buds of eglantine, And round my brows thine austere garland fold. For then it shall be well with us. I wear This wreath whose lingering blood-drops soil thine hair, Whose raven-black, unsoiled, I love to see : Thou takest flowers that thou dost need the more Because their gracious bloom came not before : Take thou my roses ; give thy thorns to me. ART NEEDS THEE. \%\ XXL ART NEEDS THEE. Art needs thee, gentle lady. Where dost thou Yet tarry ? Art is weeping through the night, And though above his head the stars are bright. He needs thy hand to wreathe them round his brow. The sonnets wave white wings and to thee call : Imagination's hand is on the plough : Fancies arise like wreaths of mist and fall : Blossoms of thought before the soft breeze bow. But where dost thou abide, O soul of Art ? What songs are soothing now thy world-worn heart ? Pale Art is dying, lady, for thy kiss : Oh, wilt not thou arise and save by this ? Sad Art is perishirig for lack of thee ; Oh, heal sad Art,-^and doing so, save me ! 1 52 THE VEIL OF BLISS. XXII. THE VEIL OF BLISS. The veil of bliss that each casts over each Makes each alone, although within a crowd ; Love spreads above us both his golden cloud, And lo ! at once w^e are out of human reach, Listening to the eternal spirits' speech, With God's dear tender eyes above us bowed : — Others we 'help ; yet are we^ sweet, allowed To wander sometimes on a lonely beach. The veil descends, — and lo ! we are alone. Utterly lonely, utterly at peace. The sounds of common voices round us cease. For round us both God's veiling arms are thrown. Then, when the veil is lifted, we return To help the sad, and strengthen those that yearn. FINALL Y ALONE. 153 XXIII. FINALLY ALONE. Yet must there come a final triumph-time When all the lower service is achieved ; When all love passes into joy sublime, — Joy higher than our highest hopes conceived. Then shall we be alone. The utmost air Of heaven shall crown us, and our hearts shall sing With strange joy, — subtle, spirit-thrilling, fair : Above us both shall brood God's lonely wing. Then shall I, seeking blossoms, find but thee ; Hear in thy voice the murmur of the sea : Find all sweet gifts and tender of the air Within thine heart, — for purest heaven is there : — And, yearning towards God's summer in deep skies, Verily find it ! — deeper in thine eyes. 154 THY MANY WEASY YEARS. XXIV. THY MANY WEARY YEARS. Thy many weary years were not too long As preparation for the coming dower Of love, — God's own unsearchable white flower Which now thou hast ; thou hast it in this song. The weary waiting years of tedious wrong Wrought in thee thine intenser passion-power, And now I loving sing beside thy bower, — Myself through ecfual suffering purged and strong. And so we meet. Thou art ready now to bear The burning love-god's passionate embrace : — Love, long from thee withheld, is doubly fair ; Sweeter is love, and sweeter is thy face To love for thy lone hill-top's icy air And all thy patient running of life's race. THY LOVE-SERVICE. IS5 XXV. THY LOVE-SER VICE. Thou art like some sweet queen who gives her heart To zealous Psyche-service for a time, Till she shall gather wings and growth sublime And upwards towards the ancestral high heaven start ! Mine endlessly, unceasingly, thou art, For I have kissed thee in some ancient clime And circled thee with immemorial rhyme ; In truth our spirits never were apart. But now to this love-service thou art doomed. Though mine thou art in the inmost depth of things. Yet perhaps through this thy resurrection- wings, Glittering with dew, God's hand hath disentombed ! Whiter and whiter hath my blossom bloomed : — Thou hast served servants. Thou shalt gladden kings ! IS6 THE PSYCHE-SERVICE. XXVI. THE PSYCHE-SERVICE. This tender Psyche-service of thee, sweet, Brings thee the nearer. Whiter is thy heart. Purer thy being in its every part : Towards me thou comest now with bird-swift feet. Thou hast endured the labour and the heat ; Rest now beneath the shadow of my Art ! No longer, rose, thy straggling tendrils dart On all sides, searching for some soft retreat ! My Art is unto thee thy God-sent bower. And thou within it art the gracious rose, Its one presiding ever-present flower. Lo ! Art above thee her green mantle throws : Wait, — tarry patient for one mortal hour ; Then, ever safe within my arms repose ! THE WAVE-TOSSED VESSEL. 157 XXVII. THE WAVE-TOSSED VESSEL. Sweet art thou, lady, rising from the deep Like Venus, — white star of the open sea, Heart of the spaces where the blue waves leap And toss tumultuous heads ecstatically ! Rising as if from some enchanted sleep Like a pure sudden daybreak, love, on me. With hair in those sea-breezes floating free And eyes through which the sea-birds' glances peep ! — " Harbour of refuge " am I ? O fair ship. Fair woman-vessel with love-moulded lip, Lo ! through the ocean ploughing thy pure way, Thy black hair pearly with the reckless spray, Sweet with the breezes, splendid from the sea. As to thine harbour hurriest thou to me ! 158 ATOPV. XXVIII. NOW. Because thou hast been " in the open,'' now Shalt thou find all thine " harbour " safe and sweet. Enter therein, O love, with fearless feet : Lay up therein thy vessel's foam-swept prow ! Peace and reward the approving gods allow ; Soft shall thy rest be after burning heat Of summer, — glad the flowers in thy retreat ! See ! this fair rose I bind about thy brow ! O lady, — " vessel " of mine now coming " home," Bringing me richest treasures from the East, Thy thin stem cutting the receding foam, — Love waits, and spreads us a thrice-glorious feast ! Thou art bright with sunsets over loneliest sea, And with those sighing sunsets crownest me. 1 AM NOT WORTHY. 159 XXIX. "I AM NOT WOR THY. " I am not worthy of thy worship, love ! — There are within me hosts of passions yet Whose angry serried spear-ranks must be met : Fierce warriors whose keen swords against me move ! Oh, we have talked in many a blossomy grove Of happiness,— but am I worthy thee ? O love, love, love of mine, — if thou could'st see My whole grim life, would'st thou that life approve ? Oh, thou art white, and thou would'st shrink away ! The whitest thing about me is the red : Thy wings are golden, — mine are gaunt and grey ; Sins black and endless beat about my head With flapping plumes and urgent lips that say, " Dark would thy soul be, had that soul not bled." l6o THE WHOLE XXX. THE WHOLE. Would'st thou be with me, if thou knewest the whole ? I cannot tell : my sins are black indeed, — And yet for every sin I've had to bleed, Till pale and bloodless is the exhausted soul. Would still thy woman's pity intercede, And still thy white hand linger in my own ? Or should I find myself adrift, alone, — Like one shell in the Atlantic, or one weed ? One thing there is, — if sins of mine are large, Large is the ocean of my suffering too, And terribly wave-beaten all its marge : This, seeing my whole life, thou would'st have to view,- And thou would'st mark besides a broken targe. Which once a girl's slight arrow struck right through. TWO SONNETS. i6l TWO SONNETS. I. MERCY,— AND JUSTICE. " Mercy, Good Lord," the sea-beach preachers pray : " Mercy for sinful man ; for he deserves His doom, and thy great justice never swerves, — Mercy for man in thy grim judgment-day ! " So they exclaim, — beside the sea-waves grey O'er which that unconverted sea-gull curves. And some with craven hearts and cowardly nerves Bend to the lurid God their words portray. But I — I stand secluded and apart. And mix my spirit with the sea's great heart, And' with the voice, as it were, of all the sea I cry : " Not mercy, — justice, we require ; Be thou true-souled, O God, — and be no liar ; Lo ! that much sorrowing Man demands from thee." Sept. 6, 1882. l62 TWO SONNETS. II. WHICH IS THE GREATER 'i Which is the greater thing ? To dwell on high As God does, far apart .from all the cares Of mankind, kissed by heavenly golden airs And all the countless flower-scents of the sky, — Or Christ-like and Prometheus-like to die ? — Which is the nobler ? Man who suffers long ? Or God who guards himself with fence of song From sight of sorrow and from sound of sigh ? — Which is the grander ? God with silken hair Smooth, fragrant, combed, anointed, — or the grim Blood-stained and sweat-stained form that faces him ?- Man wounded, marred, yet terrible and fair : With hand on red sword jagged along the rim And armour God's weak shoulders could not bear. Sept. 6, 1882. i63 TO A CHILD. I. O bright-eyed child whose laughter Rings down the lanes of May, Thou hast the whole hereafter Spread out for toil and play : ■ The hours and flowers and bowers of the long summer day. II. All life is yet before thee : The dawn is in the sky : The earliest gold hangs o'er thee And the first breezes fly ; Not yet regret with jet strange threatening locks is nigh. l64 TO A CHILD. III. What blossoms wilt thou gather ? For all are here to choose : Pale lilies, blue^bells, heather, — All kinds and varied hues, — For thee we see the lea its banks with bloom suffuse ! IV. Wilt thou be prince or poet ? All paths are open now. Fate, though thou dost not know it, Will crown thy white broad brow With bays for lays, or sprays of love from myrtle bough : V. Just as thou wilt : the morning Gives thee the choice of each. TO A CHILD. I6S Swift yet sufficient warning Thou hast : — thine arms may reach Delight of white and bright soft blossoms beyond speech. VI. About thee still the beauty Of fresh-robed April clings. All May's and June's glad booty May added be to spring's, O child enisled in wild strange dreams of many things. VII. The greatest of all glories Thou hast within thine hand. Thou knowest not where Love's store is, Nor yet dost understand How beams and gleams through dreams passion's enchanted land. i66 , TO A CHILD. VIII. As thou advancest slowly Along the brightening way, Fair love, white-winged and holy, Will meet thee, on a day. And thou shalt bow and vow thine utmost heart away ! IX. The very flowers adore thee : They know so well indeed What flowery paths before thee To fragrant paths succeed, By hill and rill and mill and yellow-spotted mead. X. When manhood comes, and passion Comes with it, all will be TO A CHILD. 167 Spread out in splendid fashion, Untouched, in front of thee : Bright blue of hue and new will gleam the boundless sea. XI. As if God just now, solely For thee, had made the world, Its grandeur will be wholly In front of thee unfurled. For thee each tree will be with Eden's dews impearled. XII. The road thou art beginning This radiant dawn of May Hath treasures worth the winning, Though Death with quiv,er grey Hath power o'er flower and bower, when closes the long day. i68 TO A CHILD. XIII. Yet, ere the long day closes, What rapture may be won ! What fragrance of soft roses Gathered as yet by none ! What light of bright and white imperishable sun ! XIV. Ere the moon rises slowly Above the purple hill What pure delights and holy May all thy strong heart fill, If thou from now wilt vow to Love thine utmost will ! XV. Ere the night's gold stars greet thee And the deep-blue dim night, TO A CHILD. 169 What joys may throng and meet thee With hands and bosoms white, — Thee found and bound and crowned of infinite delight ! XVI. What deeds of priceless daring Thy young heart may achieve ! Forth on the long road faring From crimson morn till eve, High fame, no tame poor name, behind thee thou mayest leave ! XVII. By far-off lakes and rivers, — Through burning wastes of sand Where the hot mirage quivers, — In many a wild weird land, — At head of red outspread fierce warriors thou mayest stand ! 17° TO A CHILD. XVIII. The furthest East may know thee And watch thy gleaming sword : The gladdened West may owe thee High thanks and proud reward : As leader thee the sea may honour, and as lord. XIX. Or else the god Apollo May crown thine head with bays. Him thou mayest alway follow Through sweet and rosehung ways, And fill and thrill and still the world with sovereign lays. XX. While others in their fashion Are seeking lesser things. TO A CHILD. 17 i With great imperious passion And strong unhindered wings The sun alone and throne of earth's high bay-crowned kings XXI. Thou shalt seek. This it may be Lies, child, in front of thee. Eternal may thy day be ; Thy voice as is the sea, Or tone and moan of blown green-grey wind-smitten tree. XXII. The winds that round our meadows And iron cliff-sides beat ; The evening's lengthening shadows ; The hush of noon-tide heat ; The song of throng of strong bright gold-haired ears of wheat ; 172 TO A CHILD. XXIII. The glory of the morning ; The mystic calm of night ; The tides the loud shore scorning ; The tender snow-drop white ; The speech of beech, and each glad summer's blossoms bright; XXIV. The beauty of all women ; The beauty of soft skies ; The blue-backed swallow skimming The pond ; the dragon-flies ; The green dim sheen half-seen that on the far hill lies ; XXV. The pulse of blood that quickens _ At the dense driving spray TO A CHILD. 173 Of battle when it thickens And the blue sword-blades play And flash and crash and dash the hot shells every way ; XXVI. The pulse of love that trembles At a young girl's soft tone ; Passion that ne'er dissembles But claims her for its own ; The height and might and light of Love's imperial throne ; XXVII. The glory of life advancing With strength that knows no bound, From height to far height glancing, From green to rocky mound. Till where the air is fair and free God's rest is found ;- 174 TO A CHILD. XXVIII. All this thou mayest succeed to, And fairer things than these, If thou wilt but give heed to Fate's whispers in the trees And be as free as the far fetterless grey seas. XXIX. Thou hast thy country's glory Behind thee and before : Past ages grand and hoary ; A new untraversed shore ; Thou mayest the waste untraced inherit and explore. XXX. Shall it be bright with flowers And fervent with the sun TO A CHILD. I7S And full of love-sweet bowers Whereo'er green creepers run ? Shall it be lit by fit high starry proud deeds done ? XXXI. The whole on thee dependeth : The future in thine hand Lies : ere the long road endeth Thine heart will understand Each place, and trace all ways and windings of the land. XXXII. And at the far end waiteth For thee, child, — yes, for thee, — When strenuous toil abateth. The Bride thou canst not see : Her breast gives rest from quest and joy and agony. 176 TO A CHILD. XXXIII. Her hands are soft and tender ; Her eyes are calm and deep ; If thou wilt quite surrender, She'll soothe thee into sleep : No voice of joys, nor noise of men who wail and weep XXXIV. Shall pierce thy perfect slumber : — As now thine eyelids close While visions without number Flit o'er thee, living rose. Most pure, secure, and sure shall be thy then repose. XXXV. See that thy life be fairer Than most poor frail lives be : TO A CHILD. 177 So shall that kiss be rarer That in the end for thee Waits,— when all men pass then, — and Death stays; only she. XXXVI. Yes ! thou shalt feel the pleasure, When over thee there close Death's arms, of one whose treasure Of joy with darkness grows : — For she can be a sea of infinite repose. XXXVII. Just as a woman tender When, robed with night and flowers. She may unfold her splendour That tarried through long hours With sheen unseen ; the queen of love loves starlit bowers. 12 1 88 TO A CHILD. LXIII. As Death, whose pale lips linger Upon the lips of kings, — Upon the mouth of singer, — And to the slave she clings, And laps and wraps perhaps round murderers fiery wings. LXIV. Nought comes amiss. The coward Upon the brave man's heels Steps j that embrace untoward Is ready, and he feels The fold of cold loose gold long hair that round him steals ! LXV. Napoleon came, and, dying, Into her arms he leapt : TO A CHILD. 189 With Wellington the lying Strange woman laughed and slept : Yet girl's gold curls she twirls, a virginal adept. LXVI. Her lips are still as tender And full of gracious bloom And girlish velvet splendour As when at the first tomb Their thirst, unversed, the first kiss changed into perfume. LXVII. Thus is she wife and maiden And harlot, all in one : Her lips with kisses laden Are pure as is the sun ; The pride of bride soft-eyed, embraced as yet of none. igo TO A CHILD. LXVIli. Is hers : and yet she held them, Poet alike and priest ; She drew them and impelled them, The greatest as the least ; She led the dead towards red lips whereon they might feast. LXIX. The swarthy kings who followed Her form in the ancient days When burning sand-wreaths swallowed The old Egyptian ways, — These were once fair for her, and brought their love and lays. LXX. She kissed the lips of Jesus And found them warm and bright ; TO A CHILD. 191 She spilt the gold of Croesus Upon their wedding-night ; And Nero's sneer was dear, and Judas brought delight. LXXI. And Danton pale and bloody And ravening Robespierre Kissed her with wild lips ruddy With blood and white with fear ; She felt them melt, then dealt another stroke and sheer. LXXII. With Byron she coquetted. Then kissed his fiery brow ; For love of Keats she fretted, — And Shelley holds her now ; Dim hosts of ghosts she boasts, who follow her beck and bow. 192 TO A CHILD. LXXIII. Dim legions without number, — Yea, all the mighty dead, — Have sunk in honeyed slumber With giant limbs outspread Upon her wan and swan-white fathomless fair bed. LXXIV. Lucretius found her ready. And Virgil found her fair, And Horace loved the eddy Of fragrant amorous air That floated to and fro around her wind- waved hair. LXXV. But still, thou pale last -comer, She waits, a wife for thee, — TO A CHILD. 193 Sweet in her sixteenth summer — So it might surely be : Slim, slight, soft, white, flower-bright, — demure and maidenly. LXXVI. She Stands with eyes that study The clover at her feet And tall sea-thistles ruddy And yellow trefoil sweet ; She brooks thy looks : in nooks flower-fragrant ye shall meet. LXXVII. She is as fresh as clover ; She is as sweet as may ; If thou wilt be her lover She'll meet thee in the way. Bend down and crown thy brown young locks with myrtle spray ! 13 194 TO A CHILD. LXXVIII. She'll give thee all thou needest Of love and passion's joy : She'll touch thee as thou pleadest With touch that cannot cloy : Sweet is the bliss of kiss of English lover-boy LXXIX. To Death : — and soft the treading Of her young girlish feet Among our wild flowers speeding, Our poppies and gold wheat — (And yet she met white set dead lips 'mid Eastern heat !) LXXX. She'll pick the blossoms lurking By English hedgerows green TO A CHILD. 195 And softly upward jerking The grass-blades lithe and clean Will weave at eve each leaf her golden locks atween. LXXXI. Our golden woods autumnal Can hear her quiet song : Their bright leaves are her hymnal, By soft winds blown along — (Yet queen of sheen of green deep tropic growth and strong LXXXII. She hath been : — and of valleys Where giant rivers run And whence the red spear sallies Of a tyrannic sun ; But still blue rill can fill her heart with joys unwon !) — igS TO A CHILD. LXXXIII. Whoe'er thou art, her glances Will not despise thee, — though She revelled 'mid red lances And red swords long ago. And stood 'mid flood of blood, and heard wild bugles blow. LXXXIV. The old knights who met in battle She caught as each one fell With deadly iron rattle Of harness, prone, pell-mell ; She waited, straight, elate, beside the doors of hell ! — LXXXV. She stood beside the fiery Bright flame-lit brazen doors TO A CHILD. 197 And clasped the sinewy wiry Dark knights who sought her shores, — While round each mound the sound of hell-flames leaps and LXXXVI. Is she afraid ? — Nay, fearless Her heart hath ever been. And wonderful and peerless And (in a fashion) clean : — She dips her lips, and sips the tidal guillotine ! LXXXVII. Yet when a hero passes Through her calm fatal gates. Brow-bound with flowering grasses. Most sweet, a maid, she waits ; No lies her eyes devise : all treacherous thought abates. igS TO A CHILD. LXXXVIII. Not wicked, neither moral In human sense, is she \ — Red flame or quiet laurel, — White foam or placid sea, — The crew that slew the Jew who ruleth history,- LXXXIX. Jesus himself, — or Peter Or labour-fronting Paul, — With lips and bosom sweeter Than flowers, she loves them all : And towards her hoards and swards most soft the ages call. , XC. She hath not spot nor blemish : Her body still is white : TO A CHILD. 199 Slav loves, or Frank or Flemish, Or English-eyed and bright, The flower hath power to bower their forms the live-long night. XCI. Then, like the plant that seeketh Fresh victims day by day, With wide arms she bespeaketh New luscious amorous prey, — And seeks with cheeks where reeks the last blood, river and bay. XCII. Whole nations she hath swallowed : — Wide sands and hills and plains ; With hot foot she hath followed Their track till nought remains ; War wakes, and makes blood-lakes rush jostling through her veins ! 200 TO A CHILD. XCIII. She kisses the commander Who gives her amplest food : For ten days Alexander Was husband to her mood : Rome's Priest increased her feast, and her white breast im- brued. XCIV. Is she then wanton wholly ? In this the mystery lies. Wait till thou hast her solely, Alone 'neath starlit skies, — Till clear thine ear doth hear her passionate pure sighs ; — XCV. Wait till thou hast the woman Invincibly alone. TO A CHILD. Far from aught else that's human, — Then listen to her tone, — A silver rill to thrill thine every nerve and bone ! XCVI. Wait till thou hearest her laughter, O dubious mindless man Who doubtest whether, after. Thou wilt her body span And deck and fleck her neck with many a kiss, and fan XCVII. Her lips with ardent breathing : — Wait till she cometh close, — Till thou dost feel her wreathing Around thee like a rose, — Her warm white form doth storm thy passionless repose ! 202 TO A CHILD. XCVIII. Thou hast no tower to shield thee ; Thou hast no force to fight ; No strength : nay, thou must yield thee Aftd sink into the white Soft sea, to be to thee one limitless delight. XCIX. Sweeter than all life's labour, — Sweeter than sheen of steel And flash of brandished sabre And tramp of hoofs that wheel, — The bliss of this Death's kiss, and ultimate appeal ! C. Sweeter than first love's virgin Soft-coloured tender ways TO A CHILD. 203 It is all dreams to merge in Death's dim moon-coloured rays, — The intense immense soft dense sweet mist that round her strays. — Sept., 1882. 204 THOU ART NOT DEAD 7 I. God who leadest human creatures Safe through many a path and winding way ; Thou who guidest all the ages, And the golden countless orbs dost sway ; Thou whose word the leaping thunders And the foam-sprent warrior-waves obey : II. Thou whom not alone the roses Worship with their tender-glowing bloom But, besides, the waving grasses THO U ART NOT DEAD ? 205 Gleaming round about the granite tomb And the dark-winged dim cloud-clusters Gathered like grey giants in the gloom : III. Thou whom all the ancient nations Sought, and brought their gifts to thine abode ; Thou through whom the heart of Jesus With the eternal perfect pity glowed ; Thou through whom the race of prophets Shed their martyr-blood along the road : IV. Thou through whom our country's glory Reached its splendid perfect flower indeed ; Thou who gavest to the people Love for sign and Freedom for a creed ; Thou who sentest chosen warriors For their country's sake to toil and bleed : 206 THO U AJRT NOT DEAD ? V. Still thou livest, — livest surely ? — God, thou art not dead, as some men say ? Men who preach the saws of Science, And they win the people to their way ; Prating of the central flame-whirl, And the myriad atoms at their play. VI. Nay, thou livest : livest surely. — Far beyond the fiery whirl of things Thou the God of Love art thronfed, And the far skies tremble at thy wings : Thou the living Lord of nature, And the eternal regnant King of kings. VII. Our dawn-kindled poets found thee. When the morning light was in the sky Thou didst speak to Keats and Shelley, — THO U ART NOT DEAD ? 207 In the morning roseflush thou wast nigh ; Now the century waxeth older : Have thine ears grown weary of our cry ? VIII. We the singers of the closing Fading aging century's dying days Seek thee, — bring thee all our passion ; Chanting of the sunset's golden rays ; — Now no glory of the morning Mixes radiant halo with our bays. IX. Now the wings of time are weary And the shouts of dawn have died away. But thou art the same for ever, Though the century's wild hair groweth grey ; God ! thy locks are ever golden ; Countless centuries are to thee one day. 2o8 THO U ART NOT DEAD ? X. Thou art living and art with us, Surely ? — as thou wast with all of these. Still thy giant heart rejoices In the jubilation of thy seas, — In the singing of the woodland, Singing to the singing of the breeze. XI. God ! thou hast not left us swaying In the blind mad weary whirl of fate ? Thou art still the world's redeemer ? We now living are not born too late ? Love and hope are surely left us. And an entrance through the starry gate !- XII. True, — the dusk is round us closing : Soon another century will be nigh : Woe to all its bards and lovers THOU ART NOT DEAD ? 209 If there be no pity in the sky ! If they sink to dust and ashes ; Sing and love and struggle and wail, — and die. XIII. If the God who brought the ages Just so far upon their fiery way Fails and faints and leaves us helpless, What can any singer's spirit say ? Nought of heart is left for singing : Not one altar stands at which to pray. XIV. Why should flowers be born and blossom And the sweet love dawn in woman's eyes, If the end is desolation ? Why should summer glisten in new skies ? — God ! live thou and reign for ever, Or the whole world shrivels, shrinks, and dies. ■Sept., 1882. 14 TWELVE SONNETS. (1881.) 2J3 TWELVE SONNETS. I. THY SWEETNESS. A sweetness not of flowers or suns or seas Broods o'er thee. Thou art mingled with the air Of summer : yet than summer sky more fair Thou art, and tenderer than June-soft breeze. Thy sweetness, love, is in the almond-trees And in the lilacs, — and the breath of spring Doth round about thee like a garment cling ; Yet art thou sweeter, sweetest soul, than these. Thy sweetness meets me in the morning-tide, And as the breath of flowers it fills the noon And all the forest vistas far and wide And trackless spaces haunted of the moon. By day thou art my joy, and, when the night Folds wings around us, mine untold delight. 214 BECAUSE THOU HAST NOT FEARED. II. "BECAUSE THOU HAST NOT FEARED." Because thou hast not feared the darts of men Flung forth against me in their feeble hate, But hast believed in me in spite of fate, — Yea, in thine heart, sweet, often and again Hast borne their poison-pointed arrows when Their anger-maddened ranks around the gate Of song surged foaming, fierce-tongued and elate,- Beholding in me love beyond their ken : — Because thou hast not shivered when the slas Brake hard against me, and the pettish spray Of hostile words leaped round from day to day. And evil arrows quivered in the breeze, — Therefore shalt thou for ever with me stand When love, not hate, crowns me in mine own land. THE VALLEY ROSES. 215 III. THE VALLEY ROSES. And have we left the roses far behind ? Are never any flowers and soft green leaves Waiting to gladden us, — no golden sheaves Bright underneath the sun-warmed August wind ? What shall we in the fierce strange journey find Of rapture, as our struggling step achieves Height after height, while every height deceives, — Each seeming that fair mount for which we pined ! Oh, far and fair the deep green valleys glow ; The valleys that we left so long ago. Climbing we knew not whither with joined hands ! But one white flower I carry with me thence, — Thine heart : more sweet than rosebud, more intense Than all the wild scents of the hot low lands. 2i6 LONEL Y SEASONS. IV. LONEL Y SEASONS. But there are lonely times when all the seas Seem stricken into mournful dreary grey, And no sunlight streams o'er the darkened day, And not one sign of music charms the breeze Or breaks the silence of the leaden trees, Nor are the clouds made glad by one moon-ray : — We are not yet completely one ; delay Wearies, — and lonely long weeks blight and freeze. Then life seems purposeless. My lyre rings hollow : I cease to track the footprints of Apollo, And every sunset's wings, once draped in gold. Hang damp and heavy o'er the lifeless woods. And windless are the waste drear solitudes Wherethrough once Love's embroidered sandal strolled. GLAD SEASONS. 217 GLAD SEASONS. But lo ! thou comest like the sweet moonlight That turns the flashing waters into gold : Thou comest, — and the world is no more old, But young and glad, and robed in wedding white. The swift waves laugh with ever-tuneful might ; Amid the trees the enamoured breeze is bold ; And all this just because thine hand I hold And watch with quiet eyes thine eyes most bright. The whole world changes, love, when thou art here ! The thunderous dark oppressive huge clouds break : Fallen are the broken wings of vanquished fear : Blue now for grey ripples the sun-kissed lake : Deep shines the sky unflecked with mist and clear : The very birds sing louder for thy sake ! 2i8 NOT IN THESE SONGS OF THEE. VL "NOT IN THESE SONGS OF THEE." Not in these songs of thee do I caress My lyre, and utter amorous melodies, — Singing love-songs beneath blue facile skies Unstricken of storm, unversed in passion's stress. Nay, rather would I thunder through my lyre And mix my song with the tumultuous storm, If so I might the sons of men inspire And with my soul their listening souls inform ! For thou art great : no queen of amorous ditty, But sweet, divine, a woman full of pity That crowneth woman, and of woman's might :- Queen of the proud untouched impassioned soul : Therefore for thee shall songs in thunders roll And peals reverberant the far ether smite ! PERFECT UNION. 219 VII. PERFECT UNION. For nothing can true lovers' souls divide : Not distance, pain, nor solitude, nor strife, Nor all the fretting cares of daily life, Nor thundering seas, nor sunstruck deserts wide. Breathe but a wish for me : I'm at thy side ! If I desire thee, lo ! thou art " quite close " In spirit, shielding me from myriad foes ; My guardian, and mine holy spirit-bride. So is it ever. We are never far One from the other : never say " Good-bye ". One blue arch reaches us of kindred sky ; We both behold at night the self-same star ; — Both struggle upward bravely towards the high Clear sphere where the eternal spirits are. 20 IF THOU WERT FAITHLESS. VIII. "IF THOU WERT FAITHLESS" If thou wert faithless, God himself would fall From the blue topmost pinnacle of heaven, And not one star would light the towers of even But awful gloom would overshadow all. Whom have I but thee on whom I may call ? If thou wert faithless, every song would go : Choked back for ever would be fancy's glow : Apollo's winged feet would halt and crawl. See how thy faithfulness is God to me. The very sign and token of the Lord Is thy sweet spotless ceaseless purity : My white stone and my message and reward : — If thou wert faithless, better had the sea Above my boyish head wild breakers poured ! WEARINESS. IX. WEARINESS. Through seas of pain and surging storms of grief, O sweetheart, we pursue our weary way, Waiting till on life's hill-tops the new day Shines, gilding every blossom, every leaf. O comforter of mine, of helpers chief. More patient at love's mournful long delay Than I, — less angered at the cloud-wreaths grey,- Speak words of hope : the sails of dawn unreef ! Lo ! I am weary ; weary unto death. Long is the struggle, and the night is long : Not yet upon the hills the morning's song Broods, nor the sweetness of the morning's breath. Still am I battling 'mid the tides of night : O sweet star-lady, grant me thy starlight ! THY WHITENESS. X. THY WHITENESS. It is thy whiteness, love, which whiteneth me. I am the red stained warrior, — thou the flower FiUing with whiteness love's dear spotless bower : Thou art my crown of splendid purity. The lessons of high God I learn from thee, And thou dost gain from me swift thought and power : So the twin spirits deepen hour by hour, And love's soul-plant becomes a strong great tree. Oh, be thou white ! My whiteness all is thine, As, lady dear, thy new-born strength is mine. And, if I make thee large of heart and strong, Pour thou thy whiteness through my yearning heart, — That pure may be the utterance of my Art, And white as thine own love my urgent song. FIRST, BATTLE; THEN, WOMAN. 223 XI. FIRST, BATTLE; THEN, WOMAN. And yet chief strength gives chiefest tenderness. — After the^battle comes the calm of sleep Upon a woman's breast, and eyes that weep, And the superb and sorrowless caress. Oh, did not Christ, after the bitter stress Of unknown agony in the garden deep. Fruits of unknown unearthly triumph reap, — When, death being over, love leant down to bless ? First, battle ; after, woman. First the swords That mingle in the sweltering close mUk, And then the embrace yet closer that rewards Of one who watched from far the fierce fast fray. First, pitiless strife. Then woman who accords Gifts that blot out the blood-freaked dust-streaked day. 224 AFTER BATTLE. XII. AFTER BA TTLE. And, after battle, tenderer is the breeze, More bountiful the beauty of the night, — New stars within the abysmal blue shine bright, And balmier odours fill the forest-trees, And yet more silvery moonlight floods the seas, And woman's breast is more exceeding white : More heavenly is the touch of finger light. And more divine the most strange sense of ease. Oh, wind the wreath of battle round thy brow, Thou lover-warrior ! Then shalt thou learn how The kiss of woman may be God's own calm Descending with a softness past all speech Thy. blood-stained hopeless lifeless lips to reach ; Sweeter than crown of gold, or wand of palm. TWO SONNETS. 225 TWO SONNETS. I. CHRIST AND LOVE'S ROSE-CROWN. Yea, Christ has many crowns ; he has not this. — The sweet unsearchable divinely pure Scent of the rose of passion that can cure All ills, and turn all woes to perfect bliss. He has the Father's, — not the bridal kiss Of God. Love kissed him on his forehead high : But my lips met Love's lips and did not die : Marvellous is the thought ; deep peace it is. Deep peace, surpassing rapture, perfect joy : — O wondrous lips of Love that like a Rose Swept o'er my mouth, my whole deep being glows Yet with that memory no death can destroy ! Once was I, while alive on earth I trod. Kissed by the red rose of the mouth of God. ■ 1877. IS 226 TWO SONNETS. II. "BECAUSE I DO NOT PEAK." Because I do not fear thee, thou art tender. — Just as a woman, suddenly, bestows In amplest, purest, and most sweet surrender On the strong lover all her beauty's rose. But, ever, from the weak of heart she goes, — Just as her white arms round her lover cling, If only with the lordlier voice he sing, Not heeding overmuch the glance she throws :— So, as thou fliest from me and glancest back, great Lord God, not swiftly on the track I follow, — knowing that were but to lose ! 1 give thee time. Then thou shalt turn and fling Thy white aims, suddenly, around, — and cling, — While blushes all thy vanquished face suffuse. 1877, 227 THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. When the twentieth century fadeth As the present century nears its doom, Will the singers it remembers, Glancing back along the years of bloom, Be diviner than the singers Chanting through our century's sun and gloom ? II. What strange wars and tribulations Will the, far-off voices have to sing ! Creeds and thrones of newer peoples : 228 THE SINGERS OF THE NINE TEENTH CENTUR Y. Flowers of many another laughing spring : Love with eyes the same as ever, Love the eternal century-mocking king ! in. Yet though granjd the future singers, Stately though their march of music, be. Our strange century hath been gladdened ; Woodland green and lake and silver sea, Purple moor and breezy upland. Golden gorse-bright heather-haunted lea, — IV. These have heard our century's singers. What glad faces shone beneath the light Of the passionate early morning ! When the fields of Europe rang with fight All the faces of our singers Brightened into measureless delight ! — THE SINGERS OF THE NINE TEENTH CENTUR Y. 229 V. When Napoleon from the Island Passed, and let the whole world sink to sleep, Three great singers sang his passing, Half in triumph, half with eyes that weep ; Bjnron, Shelley, Victor Hugo, Rose and sang with passion true and deep. VI. Far off, very far, it seemeth : Close beside those early singers stood Blood-smeared wild-eyed Revolution, And her spirit mingled with their mood ; Now long bright decades of blossoms Hide that vision gaunt and gore-imbrued. VII. Wordsworth stands between. His mountains Hide the red and blood-streaked dawn of day. He with ever-tender passion 230 THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUR Y. Towards the cloud-swept valleys points the way : To his spirit Revolution Had but one pale far-off word to say. VIII. Oh those valleys and the mountains, And the lakes and sunsets calm and clear ! Will they be to future singers As profoundly, passionately, dear ? Will the rocks be mute for ever. Frowning from their silent towers and sheer ? — IX. Who will sing the Grecian blossoms As this century's Grecian spirit sang, Keats, — and all our lanes and hedges To the sound of Pagan harping rang : — Forth from dark-hued English waters Many a sweet-lipped white-limbed Naiad sprang ! THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUR Y. 231 X. Grey-haired venerable Landor Full of classic passion lived and died : Strong-browed drama-moulding Browning Won our woman-poet for his bride : She too was this century's singer, — Lyric soul to Sappho's soul allied. XI. If the century had been barren, Seen no may-tree blossom in its dells ; Never one wild climbing rose-bush ; Never any spire of fox-glove bells ; Never luscious-scented gorse-brake That the air to sweet response compels ; — XII. If no blossom had been with us. She the flower of flowers had filled the air With an unexampled fragrance ; 232 THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Sovereign and sufficient, had been there ; Yes, the century would have marvelled At the song-flowers one sweet heart could bear. XIII. Now the century's days are darkening : Round about her still the singers stand : One with sad eyes light-forsaken Nobly sings amid the younger band ; Now no more the English meadows Lay their golden blossoms in his hand. XIV. Yet when bright and full of beauty Forth the laughing century like a bride Stepped, was any sweeter singer Found among the many at her side ? He among the later chosen Stands, and every door-way opens wide. THE SINGERS OP THE NINE TEENTH CENTUR Y. 233 XV. All the doorways of the valleys Open of their free-will unto him : Why should any be reluctant ? For a season brief his eyes are dim : But the souls of all the blossoms And of clouds and waters he can hymn. XVI. Marston, blind yet full of vision, Seeing more than soulless myriads see, Lo ! I singing in the twilight Of the darkening years along with thee Bring thee greeting of the woodland And the solemn greeting of the sea. XVII. In the dawning of the era Swift-eyed, seeing, the laurelled singers rose : But the God-endowed blind singer, 234 THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Pale and patient, waited for its close : Now we hold his hand, and guide him ; Yet the soul-path he the blind man shows. XVIII. He the path that leaves the valley Winding upward towards the heaven of song Points out : leads us, far less clearly Seeing, the rocky ringing heights along : He can shame the mountain eagle With his soul-gaze keen and full and strong. XIX. This would make the century brighter Were no other singer left to see : Were no voices heard, nor figures Seen upon the mountains, — only he : This would soothe the moaning twilight Into dawn-like rapturous melody. THE SINGERS OF THE NINE TEENTH CENTUR K 235 XX. Was there ever heard a sweeter Song than his to lull a century's close ? Was there ever known a purer Love than his for violet and for rose ? Were there ever greater stronger Arms wherein love's bosom might repose ? XXI. Was there ever spirit nearer To the inmost sacred soul of things ? Did blind Homer's soul see deeper ? Did blind Milton's' kingly voice that rings Through the sonnet chant more sweetly, — Blind, yet Ustening to Love's rushing wings ! XXII. Had the tender heart of poet Ever tenderer sweeter things to say To the tender heart of woman 236 THE SINGERS OF THE NINE TEENTH CENTUR Y. Than this blind bard singing in our day ? Blind alone to what is evil, — Wide-eyed as the sun to bright love's ray. XXIII. Through the sonnet-metre chanting He hath found full many a word unsaid By the elder poets waiting For his coming. Round about his bed Gleam the robes of many visions, White-winged, dark-winged, soft or sweet or dread. XXIV. Keats and Shelley and the early Singers, I born later in the day Missed the holy sound and sight of ; But I meet a friend beneath the grey Evening light : a brother singer. Blind, but swift of vision even as they. THE SINGERS OF THE NINE TEENTH CENTUR K 237 XXV. Never yet the rolling waters Held more might of colour than they .hold In the song of the blind poet : There the sunset breathes and burns with gold : There the beauty of all blossoms Mixes, — leaf on soft leaf, fold on fold. XXVI. There the sovereign grace of woman Gleams, and fills the highways of his strain With the sunlight of her beauty, — Crowned, a very queen of song, again : Death has trodden amid his roses, — Yet what soft scents passing words remain ! ' , XXVII. Though his song is full of sadness And a sense of dear love dead and white, Yet the music of his measure 238 THESINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Thrills the hearer's rapt soul with delight ; Though the darkness is around him, Countless stars about his brow are bright ! XXVIII. Though the darkness closes round him, Light he gives to others, — and the bloom Of an infinite soul-healing Breathes on others from his passion's tomb ; And he comes, and brings the morning Glancing golden-sandalled through the gloom. XXIX. All our hearts are full of pity ; And the spirits of mountains and of flowers And of waves and rocking woodlands And of sunsets mix their love with ours ; All the hearts of roses know him, Thrilling as his footstep nears their bowers. THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 239 XXX. Much our souls would do to help him ; Little may our strongest yearning reach ; Though the pity never fails us, Fails the song, and weak imperfect speech ; Wild our words are like the wailing Of the wind through smooth leaves of the beech. XXXI. Yet our singing, brother, take it. And the heart that finds the singing weak. Pale beside the deep emotion That like the dumb waters cannot speak, — Only surge, and surge for ever, — Flash, and for a moment tinge the cheek. XXXII. Lonely, many waited for thee ; Blind, that thou mightest give them eyes to see : Jealous flowers and hills and rivers 240 THE SINGERS OF THE NINE TEENTH CENTUR Y. Left forlorn by Shelley looked to thee : All the unsung heart of Nature ; Many an uncrowned lake, and tearful lea. XXXIII. • For the whole of Nature never, Bridelike, conquered by a single bard, Kissed his lips and stood before him. Loosed her purple deep hair golden-starred ; Still for each the blue receding Heaven-depths show some mocking gateways barred. XXXIV. Thus, though Spenser filled the Sonnet With soft fire and wreathed fair flowers around, And though Milton shook its pillars Till live thunder leapt along the ground, Something still is left for later Singers : still new harps and newer sound. THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUR Y. 241 XXXV. Tender buds of beauty gleaming Half-unseen beside the grassy way Waited, — till the blind sweet singer, Marston, came and touched the buds, and they Sprang to sudden fragrant glory. Gold for dim pale yellow, red for grey. XXXVI. If the whole of Nature truly 1 Were one bride for one great king of song. Would not kingly Victor Hugo With the lips that never fostered wrorig. Only equal wide-eyed justice, Lure her coy reluctant feet along ? XXXVII. Would not she the spirit of Nature Who was girlish, young, when Shelley came, Meet, mature, the century's singer, 16 242 THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUR Y. Hugo, — touch his lips with lips of flame ? Surely, white as if for bridal, Bride-pure, her our greatest heart may claim. XXXVIII. If for any single singer She, sweet Nature, like a woman stood Conquered, virginal and tearful. Merging now in passion every mood, For this singer, high-browed, lonely. Forth she came, by godlike lips subdued. XXXIX. Other singers win the kisses Of the flowers her handmaids sweet and white : Violet-lips and rose-caresses ; Clasp of pliant i\7-tendrils bright j But for him her voice of ocean Sounds, and calls him towards her through the night. THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 243 XE. He the giant message hearing Leaves all friends and passes forth alone, Knowing that the woman calls him, Nature, to be sharer of her throne : Through blue gulfs her whisper thrilleth, Over limitless white waters blown. XLI. He through crimson dawn returning, Kissed and held of Nature through the night, Dazzles us with kingly glances Till we shrink from their excessive light ; Still the awful kiss of Nature Leaves his lips imperishably bright. XLIL Yet the age hath room for others. Midway 'tween the younger and elder band Tennyson, most English -hearted, 244 THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Brow-bound with the English leaf, doth stand : And the lanes and English meadows Move and bloom and brighten at his hand. XLIII. His the message not of ocean : Not the kiss that floats across the sea : Not the lips whose breath is breezes : Not the sweet-winged spirit of night, — not she : — His the calm heart of the valleys, Filled with many a flower and golden tree. XLIV. His all English women's beauty In the lanes with English violets starred : — But the century hath another Whom the thunder crowned and sought for bard ; Whom the lightning kissed, and loved him ; For whose soul the sea-wind wrestled hard. THE SINGERS OF THE NINE TEENTH CENTUR Y. 245 XLV. Byron ! still the lonely Jura Seeks thee, widowed, weary, — and her sighs Rolling through the rolling thunder Find no kindred heart nor song-replies ; . And the sea hath lost its comrade, — On its billowy lips the laughter dies. XLVI. Yet the sea of Revolution Through a younger fiery singer thrills ; And his heart hath caught the rapture Somewhat of the green far foam-flecked hills, And his soul hath laughed for gladness With the laughing clear-eyed mountain-rills. XLVII. Soinewhat of the Master's mantle And of speech of his hath fallen on thee, Swinburne : somewhat of the eternal 246 THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUR Y. Might and wrath and rapture of the sea Through thy sea-like song hath spoken ; Somewhat of the soul of all things free. XLVIII. And the heart of many a goddess Left forlorn and weary since the day When the Pagan shrines' redeemer, Keats, alas ! too early, passed away. Dares to glance up, and rejoices Hearing the old note within thy lay. XLIX. Bowed and full of desolation Was full many a goddess' bright-haired head When along the viewless valleys Rang the news that bright-haired Keats was dead : Eyes long dry and tearless wept him, And for years no rose won all its red. THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, itn L. But before the century fully Passed, a new and fervent singer rose, And the gods shook off their mourning ; Lo ! again the trembling water glows Round about the form of Venus, Wakeful after over-long repose. LL Once again an English singer Twines about his brow the old Grecian bays. And the bright hills laugh for gladness. And his feet are swift i' the rose-hung ways Where the feet of Keats before him Dashed the dewdrops from the springing sprays. LII. Ah ! we cannot name each singer. Can we name the flowers that shine along English glades and wind-kissed ipeadows ? 248 THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUR Y. ■ Can we enshrine each star within our song ? League by league o'er blue sky-billows Falls the splendour of the starry throng. LIII. Yet a note of sadness mingles With our song that praises these who sing. All must pass. One century forward Just as blue shall gleam the swallow's wing O'er the deep green water flashing ; Just as sweet shall be the ungrey-haired Spring ! LIV, Pink the early almond-blossom Still amid the branches brown Shall shine : And the bees shall hum for ever Through the ivy and round about the vine ; And the blue-green feathery .leafage Still shall crown the red shaft of the pine. THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 249 LV. Then shall hearts alive and glowing Seek towards dead strong hearts who sing to-day. But the rose shall laugh and scatter Dewy pink-red leaves beside the way : One live flower shall have the magic All dead things and bloodless to outweigh. Lvi; Nature ! Yes our poets win her, Some for mistress, some for deathless bride, ' So it seems. Yet young and girlish She shall smile some future bard beside ; Just as if no soul before him Ever sang her beauty, — and, singing, died. LVII. Just as if no flower had ever Loved the sun, and withered at its might : In a hundred years shall Nature 2SO THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUR Y, Bring the spring with sudden gleam of white Snowdrop-handmaids o'er the valleys, — And the moon is new-born every night. LVIII. Every night the night's star thrilleth At the marriage-message of the sea : What grows old and grey in Nature ? Nought that Nature fasTiions ; only we : — Not more snowy was the primal Than last April's dazzling chestnut tree. LIX. So, when singers are arising. Eager, young, as singers past arose, Virginal and full of sweetness Will the world's eyes meet them, and the rose. Round about each new-born poet Arms most white his virgin era throws. THE SINGERS OF THE NINE TEENTH CENTUK K 25 1 LX. Yet when each new bard hath kissed her, If he looks within her eyes and deep, Shall he mark a shade of sadness, — 'Mid the throbs that through her bosom leap Note one single pulse that trembles For the distant sake of us who sleep ? Sept., 1882. 2S2 THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST: A DIALOGUE. Optimist. How glorious is the summer sun to-day ! All dark-winged dreams of sorrows flee away. Hardly a mountain mead could be more fair Than this white-building-edged Trafalgar Square, So gleams it in the wonderful sunlight Pessimist. Will you suspend your judgment ? Wait till night Before you think a mountain mead no loss Spend half-an-hour, at night, at Charing Cross. THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. 253 Optimist. The city soon will meet with clear-cut lowers The sun. In Covent Garden piles of flowers Make all the faint air fragrant. Pessimist. Very pure Are the exhalations from that open sewer. Optimist. With laughing silvery ripples lo ! the Thames Leaps downward, curling round yon bridge that stems The swift-foot current. From its upward reaches Where yellow iris the green bank impleaches What messages of love and life it brings ! Pessimist. How that dead body by the pier-steps swings ! 254 THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. Optimist. Were ever women lovelier than these Whom in the grand old city's streets one sees ! What goddess-like fair women walk the swards Of the old sunny cricket-ground at Lord's ! Pessimist. Yes. There I saw an assignation made Just by the entrance, in the old wall's shade. One of our golden youth on starched white cuff Was writing down a girl's address. — Enough, Optimist. Fool ! gaze into an English woman's eyes ! You see no evil there. You see the skies. Pessimist, Yes, she's not spoken. 'Tis the tongue that lies. THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. 255 Optimist. Hark how that girl i' the cornfield laughs and sings ! Her hair is browner than a lark's brown wings. With bright blue petticoat pressed tight and borne Backward by the stalks, she passes through the corn. These are the women whence the English race Sprang in its strength. Her sunburnt honest face Is full of country mirth, not brazen or bold. Pessimist. Wait till the rich man comes here with his gold. Gold corn-ears are no test of woman's truth : Wait till some London Boaz sends for Ruth. Optimist. Wretch, — dost thou not believe in virtue then ? Pessimist. When I have found it, I will trust it : when. 256 THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. Optimist. If human hearts are frail, God's skies are pure ; And the sea-waves' white valiant souls endure. Pessimist. As for sea-foam, — the sands the white waves mottle. And Tyndall made some blue sky in a bottle. Optimist. The stars are grand and fair past human hope. Pessimist. They are gas and iron : through the spectroscope. Optimist. O silver moon that through the calm heaven sailest. All dreams of man will vanish, when thou failest ! Never was first love born but unto thee THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. 257 It looked, and thou the first love of the sea Didst win, and thou didst kiss the West Wind's hair. Through yonder cottage-window, white and fair, Thou peepest, and thou seest a young girl praying, Her gold locks on the pillow sprent and straying, And thou dost mingle with her prayers and dreams. Pessimist. Thou seest the cobwebs on the cottage-beams, moon, — and cobwebs in the young girl's brain, And hearest upon the cottage-roof the rain, And seest it trickle through the gaping thatch, And hearest the rough-hand East Wind try the latch, And seest the ragged stockings of the girl Upon a chair, — and round each (golden !) curl A bit of torn " Bow Bells " twined. In repose Her breathing, chiefly, travels through her nose. While all the time, O moon, thou art thyself A mere blas'e volcano, shelf on shelf, 17 258 THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. So Science tells us, — full of pits and rifts That one may measure when thy cloud-veil lifts Just to let mankind see how poor a thing Lovers and girls and bards (and idiots) sing. Optimist. At any rate the great God reigns on high. Pessimist. Not since great Science said that God must die And pass from heaven, since he had lived too long. God fainted, when he heard Comte's cradle-song. Now if you look in heaven you'll surely find The Chair where God's limbs used to rest reclined : You will not find God any longer there, — Only the cushion pressed down in the arm-chair, And, in his palace, spiders on the roof, And of his poem, one uncorrected proof : And a few masks wherewith he used to frighten THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. 259 The world, — and chalk his spectral face to whiten ; And sheets of tin to make theatric thunder ; And the sham sword that Clifford snapped in sunder ; And purple threadbare robes by man mistaken For royal genuine vesture round him shaken. These you will find : but God has quite absconded. Not even a beadle wails in heaven, gold-wanded. Optimist. Folly ! for when we die, heaven opens wide. The golden towers and gates are then descried. E'en now our dead friends at our " circles " meet : Their arms close round us, and their touch is sweet. Pessimist. Have angels dirty necks and dirty nails ? On entering heaven do you tumble over pails ? The touch you take for that of some dead friend 26o TUB OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST, Is just the medium's dirty finger-end. Your spotless angel is the medium's wife Dressed up, and no one else, I'll stake my life. Oftimist, O wondrous Death who movest o'er the land And all sad hearts win healing at thine hand, Thou art the very breath of God. Pessimist. The breath Of plague and pestilence art thou, O Death. Optimist. How the great hearts of veteran soldiers leap When ere the struggle with the foe they sleep. Knowing that on the morrow they shall be-^ THE OPTIMIST AtfD THE PESSIMIST, 261 Pessimist, Just so much carrion, most assuredly. Optimist. Do you know Boulogne ? By the Porte GayoUe I used in former youthful days to stroll In summer often, — and a fountain there, Carven with Cupids, leaps up to the air, And one could fancy Venus' very self Peeped o'er the round edge of the marble shelf. Pessimist, I know it. To that fountain peasants bring Pigs iiewly slaiii, and wash them in the spring ; And their rough porcine bristly hair they singe Hard by the fount, and the white Cupids fringe With skins suspended. I have often been There in old 'lays, and watched the lively scene. 262 THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. Optimist. How shout these people, 'mid the groves of pine That edge this picturesque Alsatian line Of railway passing ! Light of heart and gay, They start off for a summer holiday, Shouting and singing. Pessimist. And at night they lie A bloodied maimed heap 'neath the unpitying sky. From town to town the dismal news is sent : " Fifty lives lost in railway accident ". — Optimist. Beyond all sorrows, heaven and endless bloom Of heavenly joys. Pessimist. Beyorid all joys, the tomb. THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. 263 Optimist. Lo ! how these lovers kiss. Their glad lips meet ! Of all joys young love is the joy most sweet. To-night the world hath vanished from their gaze : They wander forth beneath the moon's white rays ; Then they return to win their myrtle wreath. Pessimist. For the first time she finds he has false teeth. Or he finds the gold hair he used to beg Just one dear tress of — hanging on a peg. The moon has set now, and the bed is fluffy : Fleas climb white limbs ; and the inn-room is stuffy. The stars have vanished, and Apollo's sandal. What gives love light? Just one damp tallow-candle.^ Optimist. Swift-footed maiden tripping o'er the lawn Like Atalanta, or a swift-foot fawn ! 264 THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. Pessimist. Take off the maiden's shoes. Lay beauty bare, And wonder at the corns and bunions there. Optimist. A London Idyll. — In St. James's Park Beneath a spreading elm-tree after dark A Grenadier, red-coated, in the shade Sits, with strong arm around a nursery-maid. The summer soft wind sighs along the trees, And the dark water trembles to the breeze : Love is the same in palace or in park, In heart of prince or guardsman. Pessimist. After dark. — Yet wait till they have left the elm-tree trunk. You'll see your guardsman stagger home, mad drunk. THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. 265 Optimist O great days that the race about to be, Our sons and sons' sons, shall most surely see. When Revolution's red flag is unfurled And thunder smites the turrets of the world ! Pessimist. The " children of the pavement," dressed in rags, Will crowd the Boulevards, waving filthy flags. If any meets them, ragless, washed and clean. With shouts they escort him — to the guillotine. Optimist. O blue-eyed girl, God made no fairer thing Than thou art, — angel, though without a wing, And sweeter therefore, since we have thee safe. Though thou for heaven dost, doubtless, pant and chafe. 266 THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. Pessimist. What dream, I wonder, now before thee flits. While thou dost pull that butterfly to bits ! Optimist. God's heart is childlike. Who hath seen a child Hath seen the Father, large of heart and mild And pure and sweet and loving. Children's love Is just a heaven-gift, sent straight from above. Who hath gazed deep within a child's frank eyes Hath gazed in God's, and sounded the blue skies. Pessimist. God is like children ? — Does God love to spin A poor cockchafer on a twisted pin ? And when God sees a frog, is he then smit With mad desire to stone and flatten it, — And when he sees a bird's nest, with bent legs To swarm the tree and ravish all the eggs ? THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. 267 And, when God sees a silvery pebbly brook, Does he straightway coax wild worms on a hook ? And, seeing a fly, does God drag off its wings ? (While the fat nursemaid munches toast and sings.) — Children do these things. God deliver me From children, and from God, — if such he be ! Optimist. In Paris, in the old Imperial days, What splendour ! What bright uniforms ablaze ! Chasseurs and Voltigeurs : Imperial Guard : Flashing cuirasses : officers gold-starred : Red nodding plumes : great bearskins : tall gendarmes : Swofd-bayonets : swinging sabres : flashing arms. Pessimist. And still upon the Eastern plains of France The sunlight glistens, — here upon a lance. There on a skull or Grenadier's white bone. Of all that army, this is left alone ! 268 THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. Optimist. O giant souls of history ! Jesus ! Paul ! In our hearts' temples ye are deathless all. Great souls who helped the weary race along. Pessimist. Then found the red worms, after all, too strong. Optimist. The old man leans upon his loving wife. Young, sweet, she gave him a new lease of life. With tender pressure of lips more sweet than honey- Pessimist. And tender hands, she angled for his moneys Old man,— more amorous waxing every minute,—^ Ope not that cupboard. — There's a lover in it ! ■J HE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. 269 Optimist. The heavenliest gift of earth is friendship surely. To be beloved for one's own sake, and purely. The earth is nobler, all its bowers more green. For the divine great friendships it has seen. Pessimist. Still, if you meet your friend in some strange place And see less welcome flushing in his face Than usual, do not make too close inquiry (Especially if he, your friend, be fiery). Such unforeseen things happen in human life : Follow him home, — and perhaps you'll find your wife. Optimist. I choose to look at the bright side of things. The darkest thunder-eloud hath glorious wings Of regal purple. 270 THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. Pessimist, And the lightning-swirl Has just struck dead a newly-married girl. Optimist. The lightning-flash is as God's very stroke. Pessimist. Nay, as the devil's, — thinks that blasted oak. Optimist. God, love and woman, — these keep all things pure. Hope on for ever. Victory is sure. Pessimist. Doubt on for ever. Woman's no assistance ! And as for God, — he lives at such a distance ! THE OPTIMIST AND THE PESSIMIST. 271 Optiinist. And yet, in spite of all, my faith grows stronger, The more I live and see. I cannot reach God ? God can take the longer Star-road and search out me. If woman's sometimes frail, she's oftener faithful. Although the dark air rings With many a threat and trembles at the wrathful Red lightning's jagged wings, I have the unchanged high faith that at the portal No man's foot yet hath trod Wait, — deathless, grand-eyed, loving and immortal, — Woman and God. Sept., 1882. PART II. LOVE-LYRICS. i8 275 FOR EVER AND EVERMORE, The woods are no less rich for all the flowers within them, But richer, richer far : The pine-leaves stoop above the daisies and would win them ; They kiss each white small star. II. The world is no less rich for all the songs within it. But far more heavenly-sweet. No nightingale can hush the happy homely linnet ; God hears its soft " tweet, tweet ". 276 FOR EVER AND EVERMORE. III. The skies are no less blue because the gold stars fill them ; Nor are the hills less bright When wings on wings of breeze on breeze caress and thrill them With lavish love and light IV. The shores are no less glad when breaker after breaker With soft warm hurrying tread Charges along the sand, and fills gold acre on acre With rose-white foam dispread. v.. And so the heart of man is nobler for caresses Of many flower-like girls. Some have the scent o' the pines within dark leafy tresses, And.some have sun-bright, curls. FOR EVER AND EVERMORE. 277 VI. Is flower on flower divine ? And is not maiden on maiden A richer boon to seek ? When the pent soul with love boundless as God's is laden, Shall the pent soul not speak ? VII. The more the spirit loves, the richer is the spirit, — So self-love crawls not in. When we win one sweet love, that moment our souls merit Another love to win ! VIII. Star elboweth star throughout the blue fields without number Wherethrough their cohorts wheel : And eyes on eyes pervade our hearts and thrill our slumber, And lips on lips appeal ! 278 FOR EVER AND EVERMORE. IX. Roses on roses redden leagues on leagues sweet-smelling ; Foam-bells on foam-bells shine : And in God's world are women sweet beyond all telling ; Lips countless and divine. X. More than the stars are they in number, and far sweeter Than fields the May-winds tread :, Beyond the praise of bard's most passionate honeyed metre And all words Love has said. Xli Another rises still : another and yet another : We never pass quite through The army of white arms. Their laughing myriads smother The wide sky's very blue. FOR EVER AND EVERMORE. 279 XII. Like hosts on hosts of angels wait they at the portal Of life : we never know What glance sent straight from heaven, impassioned and im- mortal, A new day's light will show. XIII. Beyond all dreams are they in beauty and in number : The tired heart sinks to sleep, — But through the golden aisles and marble courts of slumber Flash glances new and deep. XIV. Each new love opens out new corridors of heaven And God's great heart displays Further, — as new cloud-tints shine every summer even Round the sun's setting rays. z8o FOR EVER AND EVERMORE. XV. If thou dost gather a rose, there will be still carnations By next day's garden-beds ! Thou hast won a love ? Yet new loves bring thee sweet oblations. New stars exalt bright heads. XVI. New, new, and ever new. Oh God, I faint for pleasure, And worship and adore. Love beyond love, and lips on lips, and treasure on treasure, For ever and evermore ! 28l A GIFT OF SPRING. I. For all thy youth given up to me so worn and weary, For thy soft days of Spring given up to Winter dreary, What shall I, love, return ? What do the black pines give to the roses in the thicket ? What doth the searcher say as swift he stoops to pick it To the first budding fern ? II. Thou art so young and sweet, — and all is still before thee : The whole long summer day's unbroken blue beams o'er thee; But as for me, for me, 282 A GIFT OF SPRING. My summer days are far behind yon range of mountains ; Ages on ages since I drank the dawn's fresh fountains, But now I drink the sorrowful salt sea. III.' Thou might'st have had so much, — and I can give so little ! Just a stray song or two to spread soft wings and settle Within thy braided hair : Young was I never, and now I am the dark grave's suitor ; Least fitted of all bards to be sweet Beauty's tutor ; And thou, — thou art so fair. IV, And dost thou care for me, — and wilt thou swiftly follow My steps from dreary mount to drearier murky hollow Just out of love for me ? Why thou might'st, with that face, have all the world in bondage ! A GIFT OF SPRING. 283 Wilt thou, the daughter of Spring, bind thy bright brow with frondage Autumnal, such as I can give to thee ! V. The laughter of the Spring is in thine eyes, and round thee ! The crocus-spirit I found, O true love, when I found thee, — And all the dafifodils Flash forth for thee along the meadows, and the thrushes Sing out for thee among the newly blossomed bushes And newly robed green hills. VI. And I will never take thy flower-help without saying How in mine elder years I went one morn a-Maying (To gather thorns, I thought !) And found thee, — sweeter than the bloom of all the May-trees And whiter than flower-clouds upon the gayest of gay trees ; Found thee, so far beyond the gifts I sought. 284 A GIFT OF SPRING. VII. If I can give thee little, yet what I have I bring thee. Thou hast given me honey of love, — and I, I can but sing thee; Yet sing I must and may. Thou hast made the face of Spring in late and dark September Smile : thou hast made a flame leap up from a grey ember : Thou hast gilded a dark day. VIII. The azure of thy youth, — this thou hast taken and brought me; With thine own bloom within thy sweet hands thou hast sought me ;' My youth again returns : Again I stand knee-high in clover and wild grasses And drink deep in my lungs the sea-wind as it passes, While round my head the golden midday burns. 285 A UTUMN MESS A GES. I. The flowers that as they fade fling parting kisses tender From valley and hill and lea Towards Autumn, know that Spring will mark fresh blos- soms' splendour ; But when Spring comes, love, I shall not have thee. II.. . The blue waves now along September gold shores surging Will change to an angry sea ; But when the next Spring's ocean smiles, divine and virgin, It will not smile on thee. 286 A UTUMN MESS A GES. III. Thou art gone ! thou art gone ! thou art gone ! — And I, I may not follow ! When with swift wings and glee Returns to England's shores the now-departing swallow, God will not let my heart return to thee. IV. Of all the autumn words methinks this is the saddest : To know that love must flee ; That one more love of mine, most sweet though it be the maddest, Hath no more part in me. The blossoms die. But then the new Spring brings their beauty Again for our eyes to see : But when love falls stricken down by Time, his helpless booty. What blooms again ? Oh, love, no flower of thee ! AUTUMN MESSAGES. 287 VI. The swift years pass. But then new years bring tidings sweeter, Delights undreamed, — and we Sing to the Spring's soft lips and hasten fast to meet her ; But ah ! — not to meet thee. VII. To-day I feel as if my years of labour and singing Were just one fruitless tree. No song is worth its pang, no gift is worth the bringing ; For all my songs will never bring back thee. VIII. Not all the songs of Spring, nor Spring's own song, the fairest Of all the songs that be, Shall ever ring the same, — since thou no longer carest That I should care for thee ! 288 THE RIVER- AND THE SEA. I. Yes; sweet it was. Most sweet to watch your Spanish glances Rove o'er the Stage, and through the gauzy mazy dances : And yet how little part Can I have ever in thee ! Thou art the Morning's daughter ! Thy laugh is as the sound of silver running water ! How little art thou akin to my worn heart ! II. I love thee. Yes. But as the night might love the morrow ; Or as the spirit of joy might be beloved of sorrow, So art thou loved of me ! THE RIVER AND T/IE SEA. 289 Or as an inland stream that glances 'neath the bushes, All fenced about with flowers and grass and scented rushes, Might win the homage of the weary sea. III. We have met and we shall part. Deep through my soul I know it. — And half I would retard, and half would not forego it. The moment sure to come When thou wilt pass away, and leave the sun's rays duller And the blue sea less blue,: — the sunset dimmed of colour, — And every flower (for me) less full of bloom. IV. We have met and we shall part. And thou wilt sorrow a little : But ah ! how the thin stalk of love is frail and brittle In a young girl's white hands ! A poet's doom it is that even his lightest giving Hath something in it of soul that ends not with his living But follows him beyond the sunlit lands. 19 -290 THE RIVER AND THE SEA. V. I go towards that strange night that knows not dawn nor waking : But as for thee thine eyes are on the morning breaking O'er vale and wood and hill. Mine eyes are on the dark ; my feet are beckoned seaward : Thine eyes and merry feet float summerward and gleeward, And of God's future thou wilt drink thy fill. VI. And yet from all my heart I thank God that I met thee ! My very soul must change before I can forget thee, Or thy deep Spanish eyes. Oh, never doth the sea forget the rills which slaking Its infinite wide thirst allay its endless aching And bring it news of far-off flowers and skies. VII. If I can help thee, well. I would not pain nor hurt thee : Win thy soft river-love, to wound thee and desert thee. Nay, never let it be THE RIVER AND THE SEA. 291 That one soft silver stream, one white-foot mountain's daughter, Trusted with simple trust the limitless grey water. Yet found no answering stern faith in the sea ! VIII. I am the sea, — to thee. Thou art the bright-foot river Darting amid the reeds with tender pulse and shiver Of guardian aspen-stems. Thou hast had one glimpse, — just one, — of life beyond thy dreaming : Of the far treeless waste inimitably gleaming. Crowned with the cold stars' scentless diadems. IX. Thou hast given me life quite new. I, in the world no stranger, Long versed in love and song, and passion's charm and danger, To thee am unknown quite,: 292 THE RIVER AND THE SEA. Therein for me doth lurk the subtle joy- and wonder ; I part the clouds that hem the poets' hills in sunder, And simply bask in thine eyes* sunny light. X. I might have been re-born the other night when sitting Close by thy side I watched the fairy figures flitting Across the magic stage. I was no more myself, but twenty summers younger. And all that night the stars seemed lightened of their hunger, And my heart lightened of the hunger of age. Ah ! when I seek alone the dim sea's sombre margin On my last night of all, and all life's deeds loom large in The strange unearthly light That then gleams over and round about me, may I, meeting The sea's full glance of strong inquiring love and greeting. Feel that I left thee, as I found thee, white.- THE RIVER AND THE SEA. 293 XII. I perhaps have made an hour or two for thee pass quicker, And made thy lamp of life more brightly flame and flicker Just for a little space : I have not given thee pain. And thou hast given a poet Joy for a month or two, and pain that will outgrow it, And the eternal memory of thy face. 294 SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING. AT THE THEATRE. Thine eyes are set upon the dancing-girls before thee : I only gaze at thee. Then far beyond and o'er thee My soul-gaze travels far. I see the moment when thou wilt be crowned with roses And violets of young love, just when my journey closes Where flowerless sea-waves watch each flowerless star. This is the charm and yet the pang, — the gulf betwixt us. The sorceress, I trow, whose cunning cold hand mixed us The magic draught we drink SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING. 295 Mixed in it honey and gall. For thee the flowing honey, So sweet and clear and fresh and bright and golden-sunny ; For me the dark gall when the thick dregs sink. Thou gazest at the Stage. My fixed looks travel theeward. Just as a swimmer who makes strong gallant headway seaward Plunges within the breast Of some white warm soft wave, my whole soul in thy beauty Revels and plunges deep, — and clasps the peerless booty, And in its loveliness finds perfect rest. Thou art glad at the lights and music. I am gladder At thee than at all lights and music, and a madder And wilder tide doth dart Throughout my veins and nerves, through watching thee, than floweth Throughout the brain to which the strong red fierce wine goeth ; Thou dost intoxicate both head and heart. 296 SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING. II. AND YET. And yet it seems to me- that something of paternal Desire within my soul is guardian to thy vernal Sweet soft days full of leaf : — And that, if thou didst pass beyond my sight, and, sinning, Didst mar the fairy life that thou art now beginning, A sword would pierce me of eternal grief. There is a love that hath within it nought but passion. But there are souls who love in nobler sunnier fashion, With far more starlike will. There is a love that bends, with something of a mother Within its yearning deep, and somewhat of a brother, Above the heart wild love might wound or kill. SOA'GS OF NIGHT TO MORNING. 297 Oh, if my doom is this, — that I must see thee turning From the true road, and know that even God's own yearning Could hardly stay thy feet ; — If I am doomed to watch the girlish soft eyes harden, Just as a man who sees a rosebud in his garden Rusted and withered by the wind and sleet ; — If I am doomed to watch the fairy brown bright glances That I have loved, God knows ! — fling conscious cunning lances Against the shields of men ; — If as thou growest in years thou hast to lose that tender And nameless charm that now with more than mortal splendour Doth clothe thy spirit often and again ; — If I must see all this and feel the cold sword sinking Within my heart, yet bear in silence, without shrinking, The utmost keen deep pang ; 298 SOIfGS OF NIGHT. TO MORNING. Yet may I know that I, according to my measure, Lifted and never sank thy white soul's priceless treasure, And loved thee purely, as I purely sang. May never a bud of thine through me be wind-tossed roughly ! Thou art not made of harsh coarse clay, nor fashioned toughly As some thy sisters are : Thou wast not made to hear rude merriment and laughter; Surely thou hast before thee some divine hereafter ; Grow starlike, having soft eyes like a star. No man can grow a woman as he groweth roses. Nay, God himself at times from the long task reposes, And weary he turns, and sighs. Thine own path thou must take. — And I thy swift-winged swallow May be forbidden for years thy summer laugh to follow And the dear summer sunshine in thine eyes. SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING. 299 God's hand is over both. — Because I love thee dearly A pitiless sword may pierce my soul, — I see it clearly, — I know my risk full well. Yet were there a thousand swords in front, or blazing trenches. Mine would not be the eye or hand or heart that blenches, — If I could save thee just one shadow of hell. 30O SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING. III. " YES, PERHAPS A DREAM IT IS." Yes, perhaps a dream it is, — but far too sweet for breaking. Give me another month to dream on without waking, Or even another day ! What are the sweetest things but dreams? What is the summer But just a gorgeous dream to every blossom-comer That laughs encircled in the clasp of May ! The real nights are the nights when, golden, beyond number. Star-thoughts and starlike eyes pervade and haunt our slum- ber : The real days are the days When over and round about us sunny Love is gleaming : — False days and nights are those that have no heart for dream- ing,— When no thoughts thrill our stormy souls to lays. SO/VGS OF NIGHT TQ MORNING. 301 IV. " TmiNir WHAT IT IS' TO ME." Think what it is to me with life's black tempest blowing Still through my hair, and still the weary rain-drops flowing Adown my face and hands, To meet thee full of suijimer, — and full of morning sweetness ! Think how it rounds my life to passionate completeness, And brings me visions of green laughing lands ! And thou aft linked to me, — for thou dost love the rivers, And the deep woods wherein the chequered sunlight quivers Through maze of leaf on leaf : And thy feet have not feared the pathways of the mountains. And thou hast caught the laugh of far-off silvery fountains ; Thou hast kissed pleasure; — as I have kissed grief 302 SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING. Think what it is to me, after long years of bondage, Again with thee to see the light wind kiss the frondage And the free sunlight dance ! Think what it is to be in the green woods embowered, And for a season short of risen life empowered To watch thy sweet face smile, thy dark eyes glance. My song, — I know it well, — hath death's wild wail within it : It is not all a chant of lark or thrush or linnet — (And thou dost linnets keep !) It is not fit for thee : it is not bright or cheery ; But full of moorland sound, and sound of storm, and eerie, And haunted by the moaning of the deep. Yet have I loved thee so that if I sang hereafter Never again, meseems one ripple of thy laughter Through this my song would ring : SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING. 303 So I have poured my soul along the singing measure That something in it of thee the singer's deathless treasure May to the mortal notes, death-conquering, cling. Just as a man imprisoned for years in dungeon gloomy Plunges his every sense in rapture at the roomy First large sight of the sea, So I for years in chains and far from joy and daylight Hail, — as he hails the sea's divine expanse of grey light, — The chainless sight and touch and sound of thee. 304 SOJVGS OF mGHT TO MORNTN'G. "AND SHALL I THEN COMPLAIN?" And shall I then complain if thou, .the sea-wind meeting, Dost sigh for flowers and woods and the soft warm wind fleetii^ Along the forest-glades ? I sitting close by thee am like the midnight olden Watching the young sun, fulLof gorgeous mirth and golden, Gild one by one the green groves' colonnades ! Behind me stretch long leagues of weary desert marches : Before thee open out gay miles of forest-arches : Life is to thee quite new. I lived before the flood, and saw the ancient cities, And sang amid the white weird walls old strange love-ditties. And watched with young wide eyes the old cloudless blue. SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING. 305 While thou, dost yearn for life, and softly sighest after The thyme on river-banks, I yearn for the great laughter' That through the lips of death Sallies. While thou dost pluck wherever bright green hill is The stems of harebells blue and sisterly white lilies, I pant to meet the far sea's flowerless breath. And yet thou art mine ! thou art mine ! Because my whole soul sorrows To think how little part in thy bright golden morrows Of sunny life have I : Because I have loved thee not with selfish soulless yearning. But with the sea's deep love, and with the sinless burning Passion of stars and hills, and of the sky : Because I have loved thee thus, — where'er thy pathway leadeth, As through the vales of flowers thy happy young foot speedeth, I follow ; I follow amain : 20 305 S02VGS OF NIGHT TO^MORNING. "X, And when the darkness comes and other lovesare failing, And, watching death's grim sea,, thou hast no bark to sail in, Call thou for me. Thou shalt not call in vain. Then looking in my face it may be thou shalt, growing At last to larger life, behold the strong love glowing Within me, and shalt rise, And meet the sea's wide glance, triumphal, strong, and tearless, And _ray glance, and love's glance, soul- virginal and fearless. With equal kindred deep impassioned eyes. 307 A PRAYER. May the strong arms of God be ever round about thee ! Yea,mayest thou feel the sense of summer sun throughout thee Pass, even on the gas-lit boards ! I can do nothing more. Lo ! I can only love thee. But the great love of God around thee and above thee Can flow, and guard thee more than shields or swords. "To-night and every night" — so doth my deep strong yearning Float upward towards God's throne—" do thou. Lord God, with burning Impassioned fence of angels' wings 3o8 A PRAYER. Guard her and hold her safe : or guard her with my passiorr, Changed to a fiery sword of unexampled fashion ! Change to an iron shield this heart that sings ! "Make thou my soul so pure that prayer may findand reach her And with strong fervent mouth and might divine beseech her, If f 'er her footsteps turn aside. Oh, let me be the voice of rivers and of mountains : Give thou my song the ring of old flower-bordered fountains : Let somewhat of me in her heart abide. "I have the love, but not the power to guard and shield her. Thou hast the power, O God. To thee then, God, I yield her: — To thee : but not to mortal man. Yet, this I ask, — this much : if thou must ever save her By gift of death. Lord God, — take this, the heart I gave her ; Die not thou for her, — 'never, — for I can." 309 " THE RIGHT TO DIE." To have the right to die ! — Yes : it will come, — the pleasure Of drawing one long breath, sweet, deep, beyond all measure, Then at the head of the awful ranks Leaping along the road towards certain death, and charging Triumphant right along great red death's river-margin And by death's blood-besprinkled splendid banks. Yes : weary are the delays. I know it. Pale with yearning All day the steady ranks held in their wild souls burning With fiery might at Waterloo : 310 THE RIGHT TO DIE. At last the sunset came. With one fierce leap gigantic The long red line advanced and broke like foam the frantic Defeated eddying lines of surging blue ! And so it is with us. One day along our serried Calm lines where faces grim with life-long deep hopes buried Gleam pale and stern and set and still, Will ring from the lips of God the joyful awful order — " The time has come. Advance." Death is the great rewarder To many a heart no gift of life could fill. Ah ! God, through the June day of battle keep us steady. Though round about us foes innumerable eddy And wheel and charge and break and fly : Keep our stern souls yet waiting for the order ringing Along the ranks, the eternal gift of freedom bringing. And thy one deathless gift,-^the right to die. SUNRISE AND SUNSET. SUNRISE. Ages and ages since my boyhood woke from slumber And all the hills grew bright And flowers no man can name, nor mortal heart can number, Gleamed in the gorgeous morning light. The sunrise shone around. And thou the spirit of morning, O sweet first love, wast there : And thou and I alone watched the green hills adorning Their fresh robes and their sun-kissed hair. 312 SUNRISE AND SUNSET. The first sweet light of dawn fell o'er the ocean hollows And gilded the waves' way : And o'er the water danced and glanced the white sea-swallows, And our hearts were as winged as they. All things were then in front. Life's golden gateway glittered In the dawn's golden rays. Ah ! one could never have dreamed that woodland paths were littered Ever with damp autumnal strays ! I thought that I would sing thy beauty and thy glory, O far first love of mine ! I knew not what snowfields, waste, trackless, sunless, hoary, Lay on the wild horizon-line ! And now that I have sung, and thirteen years have fluttered Their weary wings away. Is there one soft look gained through all that I have uttered, — Hast thou one word of love to say ? SUNSISE AND SUNSET. 313 Have thirteen years of song no voices and no pinions To reach and cry to thee ? Hast thou no yearning still for our old royal dominions Of deep-blue sky and bluer sea ? Is love of nothing worth now that the love is longer And of more passionate might ? Now that the mounting sun of riper age flames stronger, Are the old sun-kissed hills less bright ? If I have crowned thy brow with leaves time may not wither For all his wayward will, Wilt thou not, once at least, for old love's sake turn hither, Thy singer's heart once more to thrill? Wilt thou not look this way, that once again the splendour Of morning over me May flash ? — as ever it flashed when thou, first love, wast tender By the old ever-tender sea. 314 SUNRISE AND SUNSET. II. SUNSET. Ah ! — Here I stand and dream, and sunset's red dominions Burn, high before my sight. Who am I that my thought should stretch young eager pinions Towards the far golden morning-light ? Between me and the past lie fields on fields of sofrow : Yet, brown-eyed maiden, thee I have to-day — and perhaps to-morrow, — and to-morrow, — And then the dark night, and the sea. SUJVSISE AND SUNSET. 315 Once more before my death, old dreams and thoughts romantic Have leaped up high again : And passion's wind with laugh half silver-sweet half frantic,. Has swept around the shores of pain. I weary and old and far beyond the sound of chiming Of fair youth's silver bells Have plunged anew for thee amid the waves of rhyming And sought for thee the haunted fells. ■Yes : I have found a love, — and yet a fair white sister In her, too, I have found. I felt my soul awake when my glad lips had kissed her. With more than common passion crowned. For ever it is the soul that gives all joy to passion : — The slightest gift is sweet If given in soulful holy virginal white fashion ; The red lips need not even meet. 3l6 SUNRISE AND SUNSET.. Beyond all love, the love that loves just for the pleasure Of giving love away : And this, — the love of God, — can never lose its treasure Nor see joy's rose wings turn to grey. Beyond all love the love that, full of deepest yearning. Can still that yearning deep, And wait, — though far within the great soul-fires are burning And through the soul wild longings leap. This is the love that wins. And though to mortal seeming It win not here at all ; Though half its triumph seem to careless eyes mere dreaming, Mere staring at a granite wall ; Yet still I say that this, the love of soul, prevaileth, And no love else at last : Is all afire with joy when every faint love paleth, — Wins, when all lesser loves are past. 317 A VINDICATION. I claim the eternal right to love, — without conditions. To crown thee with my love, and crown thee with love's visions,. Though all men stand i' the way. Oh, is not Love enough ? If in a golden carriage, Sweet, thou wast drawn along, towards a golden marriage. Could Love have more triumphant words to say ? IL * I love thee with my soul. Heaven knows I love thee truly> Each time I see thy face, the tide of love flows newly Round laughing happier shores. 3i8 A VINDICATION. Each time I see thine eyes, my soul bursts into gladness And every swift pulse throbs with passion's mirth and madness, And all the poethood within me adores. III. What do I give ? Why, love. And, if a prince besought thee And to his gilded house of regal pleasure brought thee. Could he do more than 1 ? Is there in this wild world one great exceeding treasure That hath, like passionate love, nor bound nor mate nor measure, Spreading wide wings co-equal with the sky ? IV. Ah ! marriage hath its gifts. It hath its pleasures waiting : Rich jewels and priceless robes, — and Ufe behind a grating : — Rubies,— and prison-bars : — A VINDICATION. 319 Bright emeralds, diamonds, pearls, — yet never love's free laughter : — Rank, wealth, and friends, — and deep heart-sickness follow- ing after : — Gay frescoed walls and ceilings,— not the stars. V. Have others prayed to be so pure that prayer might aid thee ? Have others at thy gate lest hostile spears invade thee Watched, night on night indeed ? Who yearns as I have yearned ? Who follows as I follow? — Has love no awful rights when all rights else ring hollow ? — Is love not just the crown of Christ's own creed ? — VI. Who has seen thy soul but I ? Who of the men who watch thee, flower of mine, and from thy dainty stem would snatch thee, Wear, — tire, — then cast away — 320 A VINDICATION. Which of them all has loved, or will love, as I love thee ? Would bend for sacred hours, O fairy flower, above thee, — Yet leave thee smiling on thy parent spray ? VII. Nay, the soul knows the soul. Of all things sad and deadly To yield a woman back into life's loveless medley When once the souls have met Is just the deadliest and saddest and most grievous : The very stars cry out " For God's sake do not leave us ! " When once Love's soul-kiss on their lips is set. VIII. The deep soul sees the soul. A man knows when a woman, Beyond all laws and rules and tests and quibbles human, Belongs, through the great might A VINDICATION. 321 Of his own fiery love all laws, save Love's, transcending. To him. He knows light love : and love which hath no ending. Love boundless gives infinity of right. IX. Why should I give thee up ? Why should I, the possessor Of thy sweet spirit and heart, yield up to any lesser And weaker lover than I These spotless priceless gifts, — in that I have no power To give thee more than love's imperishable flower And for thy sake to yearn and battle, — and die ? X. " No greater love is there than this," — that love be willing To spend its very life, its sacred life-blood spilling Just for another's sake. 21 322 A VINDICATION. No greater love halh woman than that a man be ready To stand before her door till death, a sentry steady ; Lest any foe therein an entrance make. XI. I stand before thy door. Never shall foeman enter Till fifty spears have made my guardian heart their centre Or targeted my brain. As long as thou dost need thy sentry, thou wilt find me : Were there an army in front, thou wouldst be safe behind me : Safe, — till they slew me : — and then God would remain. XII, God then would take my shield, and on thy threshold standing Would carry on the strife. My own death notwithstanding. Thou wouldst be safe : for he A VINDICATION. 323 With all the holy and loyal great manhood of a brother Unto the very death would wrestle with every other Till he restored thee, smiling, unto me. 324 ONE PR A YER. I. And now must I lose thee, O dark-eyed love, O darling ? Will the bright eyes of Spring greet thrush and lark and starling, But shall I not greet thee ? I will not sing again. What is the worth of singing When thus thy farewell voice around my path is ringing ? Let the great silence deepen around me. II. I will not sing again. For years and years I, early, When all the morning clouds were washed in gold and pearly, Have sung to the morning light, — ONE PRAYER. 325 And through the midday heat I still have sung, and followed Apollo's steps till dusk the purple landscape swallowed : And then the stars have heard me, through the night. III. Summer has heard my song, and Winter too has listened. And the soft eyes of Spring have wept at times and glistened At some sad passionate strain : And flowers I've twined in the hair of Autumn round her 'flowing, And with red leaves of song have carpeted her going ; But now, — love, love,-^I shall not sing again ! IV. Pang follows upon pang, and spear on spear hath smote me. Never one day hath dawned but Fate must still devote me To some new sorrow and grief : And now if I lose thee — ah God ! if I must follow 326 ONE PR A YER. The old wild griefward track once more, — why let Apollo Henceforward flaunt his uncontested leaf ! In the far early Spring of life my lady left me, And of youth's passionate hopes and ardent dreams bereft me ; But life was then so young ! My work was yet to do. My lady must be lifted Towards a high throne of fame, and with my laurel gifted. Love had been cruel : still love must be sung. VI. But now that years on years to songs on songs have hearkened : Now that the solemn path has narrowed in and darkened : Now that the flowers are gone : Now that my sunset through the forest black trees flashes And lights the grim fir-trunks already with red splashes, — How can the old light song-stream ripple on ? ONE PRAYER. 327 VII. O God ! God ! spare me this. I who not oft beseech thee Come now with this one prayer. Oh, let its passion reach thee ! Not often do I ask. But now that, this once more, I have the silence broken. And from my very soul of souls have once more spoken, Is thy response, God, all too hard a task ? VIII. By all the pangs of years : by bright days turned to weeping : By the sad eyes of old far-off pale lost dreams sleeping : By all my love and pain : God, spare me this one pang. I, once tooproud to implore thee. Do from my soul entreat that this cloud fall not o'er me ! For, if it fall, I cannot sing again. IX. The young have all their life in front. The days may darken ; But still to May's glad birds their sorrowing hearts may hearken ; 328 ONE PRA YER. Yea, still the May-flower blows For these. Bright loves in front wave hands and beckon onward. Through lanes festooned with green their pathway stretches sunward. They faint not at the death of the first rose. X. But, when long years have done their dreary work and vanished, — When hopes that filled the soul have long been dead and banished, — When age hath set its mark Upon the spirit, and when all things have changed their fashion, — Then to love once again with manhood's stormy passion And lose, — this is to see the sun grow dark. XI. God ! spare me this. I have borne thy darts without a murmur : I mortal have endured immortal torture, firmer ONE PRA YER. 329 Than stern rock set at sea : Yet, — here I tremble. I own I dread the keen sword hanging, God, at thy side. I dread to hear thy scabbard clanging. God with the sword, deal graciously with me. XII. $pare me this final pang. — I am no croaking raven Flying around thy towers with prayers perpetual, — craven And coward of heart and weak. So hear me when I come, —and let thy great heart soften In that I clamour not and ask not audience often. This once I look thee in the eyes and speak. 33° ENVOI. TIVO SONNETS. DEA Tff. I. Death ! — Shalt not thou reveal all things unseen, And teach me why the roses faded quite, And why a dawn tha't brake in golden light Over blue Isis and far meadows green Became so thunder-dark at noon, I ween ! — Death !— Thou shaft teach me why my lady bright Fled with fleet steps till she was lost to sight,— And sweet things were as if they had not been. ENVOI. 331 Death ! Surely thou hast life within thine hands. Thou canst reveal the secret : thou canst pour (It may be) the old light along the shore : — Thou canst disclose the numberless star-lands When daylight fadeth. Lo ! beside thee stands My lost love, found, — and found for evermore. II. Yes : this is the great crown of life, — to know That death is nearer : — twelve years nearer me Than when the sunlight filled that Northern sea With glory infinite, and passion's glow Fell over the blue waters. Even so. Death, calm-browed God and. Lord, I wait for thee : With those I love, Lord, I would also be ; For one by one my loved ones, smiling, go. And I shall follow. I am nearer those Who have died and left me, — nearer every day. 332 -ENl^OI. Soon I shall join the unspeakable repose Of mighty souls and true who have passed away. Straight from death's sea to-night the sea-wind blows : What touched my forehead ? — Ah, the spray, the spray !