CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 The Estate of 
 
 Willard Austen 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 PR4202.S64ser.2 1882 
 Selections from the poetical works of Ro 
 
 3 1924 013 442 813 
 
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/cu31924013442813 
 
SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING'S 
 
 POETICAL WORKS 
 
SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 SECOND SERIES 
 
 S^irbr @J(itiaa 
 
 LONDON 
 
 sklTH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE,' 
 
 1882 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A WALL I 
 
 APPARITIONS 3 
 
 NATURAL MAGIC . . • 4 
 
 MAGICAL NATURE 5 
 
 GARDEN FANCIES, 1 6 
 
 GARDEN FANCIES, II 8 
 
 IN THREE DAYS 12 
 
 THE LOST MISTRESS I4 
 
 ONE WAY OF LOVE 16 
 
 RUDEL TO THE LADV OF TRIPOLI 1 7 
 
 NUMPHOLEPTOS I9 
 
 APPEARANCES 25 
 
 THE WORST OF IT 26 
 
 TOO LATE 31 
 
 BIFURCATION 37 
 
 •^K LIKENESS 39 
 
 MAY AND DEATH 4,2 
 
 A FORGIVENESS 44 
 
n Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 cenciaja 59 
 
 porphyria's lover 70 
 
 filippo baldinucci on the privilege of burial . 73 
 
 soliloquy of the spanish cloister . . • ■ 93 
 
 THE heretic's TRAGEDY 97 
 
 HOLY-CROSS DAY 102 
 
 AMPHIBIAN 108 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER 112 
 
 JAMES LEE'S wife 117 
 
 RESPECTABILITY 135 
 
 Dis ALITER VISUM 137 
 
 /CONFESSIONS I4S 
 
 THE HOUSEHOLDER 147 
 
 TRAY 149 
 
 CAVALIER TUNES, I I5I 
 
 CAVALIER TUNES, II 152 
 
 CAVALIER TUNES, III. I53 
 
 ' BEFORE 155 
 
 AFTER 158 
 
 HERV£ RIEL 159 
 
 IN A BALCONY 166 
 
 OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE I98 
 
 tBISHOP BLOUGRAM's APOLOGY 211 
 
 |MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM" 24S 
 
 THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 297 
 
 A DEATH IN THE DESERT 3OI 
 
 FEARS AND SCRUPLES . . . ' . . . . 324 
 
 ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES 327 
 
 PHEIDIPPIDES . I. 332 
 
Contents. vii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE PATRIOT 34° 
 
 POPULARITY , . . . . 34* 
 
 PISGAH-SIGHTS. 1 345 
 
 PISGAH-SIGHTS. 2 347 
 
 PISGAH-SIGHTS. 3 35° 
 
 AT THE "mermaid" . . . . ' . • • • 35* 
 
 v^'house 359 
 
 SHOP 362 
 
 A TALE . • 367 
 
SELECTIONS FROM ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 A WALL. 
 
 I. 
 
 O THE old wall here ! How I could pass 
 
 Life in a long Midsummer day, 
 My feet confined to a plot of grass, 
 
 My eyes from a wall not once away ! 
 
 II. 
 And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe 
 
 Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green : 
 Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loth, 
 
 In lappets of tangle they laugh between. 
 
 III. 
 
 Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe ? 
 
 Why tremble the sprays ? What life o'erbrims 
 The body, — ^the house, no eye can probe, — ■ 
 
 Divined as, beneath a robe, the limbs ? 
 
A Wall. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And there again ! But my heart may guess 
 Who tripped behind ; and she sang perhaps : 
 
 So, the ol'd wall throbbed, and its life's excess 
 Died out and away in the leafy wraps. 
 
 Wall upon wall are between us : life 
 And song should away from heart to heart ! 
 
 I — prison-bird, with a ruddy strife 
 At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start — 
 
 VI. 
 
 Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing 
 
 That 's spirit : though cloistered fast, soar free ; 
 
 Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring 
 Of the rueful neighbours, and — forth to thee ! 
 
APPARITIONS. 
 
 I. 
 Such a starved bank of moss 
 
 Till, that May-morn, 
 Blue ran the flash across : 
 
 Violets were born ! 
 
 II. 
 Sky — what a scowl of cloud 
 
 Till, near and far, 
 Ray on ray split the shroud : 
 
 Splendidy a star ! 
 
 III. 
 World — how it walled about 
 
 Life with disgrace 
 Till God's own smile came out ; 
 
 That was thy face ! 
 
 B 2 
 
NATURAL MAGIC. 
 
 I. 
 All I can say is — I saw it ! 
 The room was as bare as your hand. 
 I locked in the swarth little lady, — I swear^ 
 From the head to the foot of her — well, quite as bare ! 
 " No Nautch shall cheat me," said I, " taking my stand 
 " At this bolt which I draw ! " And this bolt — I with- 
 draw it. 
 And there laughs the lady, not bare, but embowered 
 With — who knows what verdure, o'erfruited, o'erflowered ? 
 Impossible ! Only — I saw it ! 
 
 All I can sing is — I feel it ! 
 
 This life was as blank as that room ; 
 
 I let you pass in here. Precaution, indeed ? 
 
 Walls, ceiling and floor, — not a chance for a weed ! 
 
 Wide opens the entrance : where 's cold now, where 's 
 
 gloom ? 
 No May to sow seed here, no June to reveal it. 
 Behold you enshrined in these blooms of your bringing, 
 These fruits of your bearing — nay, birds of your winging ! 
 A fairy-tale ! Only — I feel it ! 
 
MAGICAL NATURE. 
 
 Flower — I never fancied, jewel — I profess you ! 
 
 Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower. 
 Save but glow inside and — jewel, I should guess you, 
 
 Dim to sight and rough to touch : the glory is the dower. 
 
 II. 
 
 You, forsooth, a flower ? Nay, my love, a jewel — 
 Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime ! 
 
 Time may fray the flower-face : kind be time or cruel. 
 Jewel, from each facet, flash your laugh at time ! 
 
GARDEN FANCIES. 
 
 I. THE FLOWER'S NAME. 
 
 I. 
 Here 's the garden she walked across, 
 
 Arm in my arm, such a short while since : 
 Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss 
 
 Hinders the hinges and makes them wince ! 
 She must have reached this shrub ere she turned, 
 
 As back with that murmur the wicket swung ; 
 For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned, 
 
 To feed and forget it the leaves among. 
 
 II. 
 
 Down this side of the gravel-walk 
 
 She went while her robe's edge brushed the box : 
 And here she paused in her gracious talk 
 
 To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox. 
 Roses, ranged in valiant row, 
 
 I will never think that she passed you by ! 
 She loves you noble roses, I know ; 
 
 But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie ! 
 
Garden Fancies. 
 
 HI. 
 
 This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, 
 
 Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim ; 
 Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip. 
 
 Its soft meandering Spanish name. 
 What a name ! Was it love or praise ? 
 
 Speech half-asleep or song half-awake ? 
 I must learn Spanish, one of these days. 
 
 Only for that slow sweet name's sake. 
 
 Roses, — if I live and do well, 
 
 I may bring her, one of these days, 
 To fix you fast with as fine a spell, 
 
 Fit you each with his Spanish phrase. 
 But do not detain me now ; for she lingers 
 
 There, like sunshine over the ground. 
 And ever I see her soft white fingers 
 
 Searching after the bud she found. 
 
 Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not, 
 
 Stay as you are and be loved for ever ! 
 Bud, if I kiss you 't is that you blow not, 
 
 Mind, the shut pink mouth opens never ! 
 For while it pouts, her fingers wrestle. 
 
 Twinkling the audacious leaves between. 
 Till round they turn and down they nestle ; 
 
 Is not the dear mark still to be seen ? 
 
Garden Fancies. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Where I find her not, beauties vanish ; 
 
 Whither I follow her, beauties flee ; 
 Is there no method to tell her in Spanish 
 
 June's twice June since she breathed it with me ? 
 Come, bud, show me the least of her traces. 
 
 Treasure my lady's lightest footfall ! 
 — Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces — 
 
 Roses, you are not so fair after all ! 
 
 II. SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS. 
 I. 
 Plague take all your pedants, say I ! 
 
 He who wrote what I hold in my hand. 
 Centuries back was so good as to die. 
 
 Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land ; 
 This, that was a book in its time, 
 
 Printed on paper and bound in leather. 
 Last month in the white of a matin-prime 
 
 Just when the birds sang all together. 
 
 Into the garden I brought it to read, 
 
 And under the arbute and laurustine 
 Read it, so help me grace in my need, 
 
 From title-page to closing line. 
 Chapter on chapter did I count. 
 
 As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge j 
 Added up the mortal amount, 
 
 And then proceeded to my revenge. 
 
Garden Fancies. 
 
 III. 
 Yonder 's a plum-tree with a crevice 
 
 An owl would build in, were he but sage ; 
 For a lap of moss, like a fine pont-levis 
 
 In a castle of the middle age. 
 Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber ; 
 
 When he 'd be private, there might he spend 
 Hours alone in his lady's chamber : 
 
 Into this crevice I dropped our friend. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Splash, went he, as under he ducked, 
 
 — At the bottom, I knew, rain-drippings stagnate ; 
 Next, a handful of blossoms I plucked 
 
 To bury him with, my bookshelf s magnate ; 
 Then I went in-doors, brought out a loaf. 
 
 Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis ; 
 Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf 
 • Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais. 
 
 V. 
 
 Now, this morning, betwixt the moss 
 And gum that locked our friend in limbo, 
 
 A spider had spun his web across, 
 "And sat in the midst with arms akimbo : 
 
 So, I took pity, for learning's sake, 
 
 , And, de profundis, accentibus Icetis, 
 
 Cantate t quoth I, as I got a rake ; 
 And up I fished his delectable treatise. 
 
Garden Fancies. 
 
 Here you have it, dry in the sun, 
 
 With all the binding all of a blister, 
 And great blue spots where the ink has run, 
 
 And reddish streaks that wink and glister 
 O'er the page so beautifully yellow : 
 
 Oh, well have the droppings played their tricks ! 
 Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow ? 
 
 Here 's one stuck in his chapter six ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 How did he like it when the live creatures 
 
 Tickled and toused and browsed him all over, 
 And worm, slug, eft, with serious features. 
 
 Came in, each one, for his right of trover ? 
 — When the water-beetle with great blind deaf face 
 
 Made of her eggs the stately deposit. 
 And the newt borrowed just so much of the preface 
 
 As tiled in the top of his black wife's closet ? 
 
 VIII. 
 
 All that life and fun and romping, 
 
 AH that frisking and twisting and coupling, 
 While slowly our poor friend's leaves were swamping 
 
 And clasps were cracking and covers suppling ! 
 As if you had carried sour John Knox 
 
 To the play-house at Paris, Vienna or Munich, 
 Fastened him into a front-row box. 
 
 And danced off the ballet with trousers and tunic. 
 
Garden Fancies. 1 1 
 
 IX. 
 
 Come, old martyr ! What, torment enough is it ? 
 
 Back to my room shall you take your sweet self. 
 Good-bye, mother-beetle ; husband-eft, sufficit ! 
 
 See the snug niche I have made on my shelf ! 
 A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall cover you, 
 
 Here 's C. to be grave with, or D. to be gay. 
 And with E. on each side, and F. right over you, 
 
 Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day ! 
 
IN THREE DAYS. 
 
 So, I shall see her in three days , 
 And just one night, but nights are short. 
 Then two long hours, and that is morn. 
 See how I come, unchanged, unworn ! 
 Feel, where my life broke off from thine, 
 How fresh the splinters keep and fine, — 
 Only a touch and we combine ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Too long, this time of year, the days ! 
 But nights, at least the nights are short. 
 As night shows where her one moon is, 
 A hand's-breadth of pure light and bliss. 
 So life's night gives my lady birth 
 And my eyes hold her ! What is worth 
 The rest of heaven, the rest of earth ? 
 
 III. 
 O loaded curls, release your store 
 Of warmth and scent, as once before 
 The tingling hair did, lights and darks 
 Outbreaking into fairy sparks, 
 
In Three Days. 13 
 
 When under curl and curl I pried 
 After the warmth and scent inside, 
 Thro' lights and darks how manifold — 
 The dark inspired, the light controlled, 
 As early Art embrowns the gold ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 What great fear, should one say, " Three days, 
 
 " That change the world, might change as well 
 
 " Your fortune ; and if joy delays, 
 
 " Be happy that no worse befell ! " 
 
 What small fear, if another says, 
 
 " Three days and one short night beside 
 
 " May throw no shadow on your ways ; 
 
 " But years must teem with change untried, 
 
 " With chance not easily defied, 
 
 "With an end somewhere undescried.'' 
 
 No fear ! — or, if a fear be born 
 
 This minute, fear dies out in scorn. 
 
 Fear ? I shall see her in three days 
 
 And one night, now the nights are short. 
 
 Then just two hours, and that is morn ! 
 
14 
 
 THE LOST MISTRESS. 
 
 I. 
 
 All 's over, then : does truth sound bitter 
 
 As one at first believes ? 
 Hark, 't is the sparrows' good-night twitter 
 
 About your cottage eaves ! 
 
 IL 
 
 And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, 
 
 I noticed that, to-day ; 
 One day more bursts them open fully : 
 
 You know the red turns grey. 
 
 in. 
 To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest ? 
 
 May I take your hand in mine ? 
 Mere friends are we, — ^well, friends the merest 
 
 Keep much that I resign. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Each glance of the eye so bright and black. 
 Though I keep with heart's endeavour, — 
 
 Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, 
 Though it stay in my soul for ever, — 
 
The Lost Mistress. 15 
 
 V. 
 
 Yet I will but say what mere friends say, 
 
 Or only a thought stronger ; 
 I will hold your hand but as long as all may, 
 
 Or so very little longer ! 
 
i6 
 
 ONE WAY OF LOVE. 
 
 All June I bound the rose in sheaves. 
 Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves 
 And strew them where Pauline may pass. 
 She will not turn aside ? Alas ! 
 Let them lie. Suppose they die ? 
 The chance was they might take her eye. 
 
 IL 
 
 How many a month I strove to suit 
 These stubborn fingers to the lute ! 
 To-day I venture all I know. 
 She will not hear my music ? So ! 
 Break the string ; fold music's wing : 
 Suppose Pauline had bade me sing ! 
 
 IIL 
 
 My whole life long I learned to love. 
 
 This hour my utmost art I prove 
 
 And speak my passion — heaven or hell ? 
 
 She will not give me heaven ? T is well ! 
 
 Lose who may — I still can say, 
 
 Those who win heaven, blest are they ! 
 
?7 
 
 RUDEL TO THE LADY OF TRIPOLI. 
 
 I KNOW a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives 
 
 First, when he visits, last, too, when he leaves 
 
 The world ; and, vainly favoured, it repays 
 
 The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze 
 
 By no change of its large calm front of snow. 
 
 And, underneath the Mount, a Flower I know,, 
 
 He cannot have perceived, that changes ever 
 
 At his appro'ach ; and, in the lost endeavour 
 
 To live his life, has parted, one by one. 
 
 With all a flower's true graces, for the grace 
 
 Of being but a foolish mimic sun, 
 
 With ray-like florets round a disk-like face. 
 
 Men nobly call by many a name the Mount 
 
 As over many a land of theirs its large 
 
 Calm front of snow like a triumphal targe 
 
 Is reared, and still with old names, fresh names vie. 
 
 Each to its proper praise and own account : 
 
 Men call the Flower, the Sunflower, sportively. 
 
 II. 
 Ohj Apgel of the East, one, one gold look 
 Across the waters to this twilight nook, 
 — The far sad waters. Angel, to this nook ! 
 II. C 
 
1 8 Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli. 
 
 III. 
 Dear Pilgrim, art thou for the East indeed ? 
 Go ! — saying ever as thou dost proceed, 
 That I, French Rudel, choose for my device 
 A sunflower outspread like a sacrifice 
 Before its idol. See ! These inexpert 
 And hurried fingers could not fail to hurt 
 The woven picture ; 't is a woman's skill 
 Indeed ; but nothing baffled me, so, ill 
 Or well, the work is finished. Say, men feed 
 On songs I sing, and therefore bask the bees 
 On my flower's breast as on a platform broad : 
 But, as the flower's concern is not for these 
 But solely for the sun, so men applaud 
 In vain this Rudel, he not looking here 
 But to the East — the East ! Go, say this, Pilgrim dear ! 
 
19 
 
 NUMPHOLEPTOS. 
 
 Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile ! 
 
 Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile, * 
 
 Softening, sweetening, till sweet and soft 
 
 Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft 
 
 I could believe your moonbeam-smile has past 
 
 The pallid limit and, transformed at last, 
 
 Lies, sunlight and salvation — warms the soul 
 
 It sweetens, softens ! Would you pass that goal. 
 
 Gain love's birth at the limit's happier verge. 
 
 And, where an iridescence lurks, but urge 
 
 The hesitating pallor on to prime 
 
 Of dawn ! — true blood-streaked, sun-warmth, action-time, 
 
 By heart-pulse ripened to a ruddy glow 
 
 Of gold above my clay — I scarce should know 
 
 From gold's self, thus suffused ! For gold means love. 
 
 What means the sad slow silver smile above 
 
 My clay but pity, pardon ? — at the best, 
 
 But acquiescence that I take my rest. 
 
 Contented to be clay, while in your heaven 
 
 The sun reserves love for the Spirit-Seven 
 
 Companioning God's throne they lamp before, 
 
 — Leaves earth a mute waste only wandered o'er 
 
Numpholeftos. 
 
 By that pale soft sweet disempassioned moon 
 Which smiles me slow forgiveness ! Such, the boon 
 I beg ? Nay, dear, submit to this — just this 
 Supreme endeavour ! As my lips now kiss 
 Your feet, my arms convulse your shrouding robe, 
 My eyes, acquainted with the dust, dare probe 
 Your eyes above for — what, if bom, would blind 
 Mine with' redundant bliss, as flash may find 
 The inert nerve, sting awake the palsied limb. 
 Bid with life's ecstacy sense overbrim 
 And suck back death in the resurging joy — 
 So grant me — love, whole, sole, without alloy ! 
 
 Vainly ! The promise withers ! I employ 
 
 Lips, arms, eyes, pray the prayer which finds the word 
 
 Make the appeal which must be felt, not heard, 
 
 And none the more is changed your calm regard : 
 
 Rather, its sweet and soft grow harsh and hard — 
 
 Forbearance, then repulsion, then disdain. 
 
 Avert the rest ! I rise, see ! — make, again 
 
 Once more, the old departure for some track 
 
 Untried yet through a world which brings me back 
 
 Ever thus fruitlessly to find your feet, 
 
 To fix your eyes, to pray the soft and sweet 
 
 Which smile there — take from his new pilgrimage 
 
 Your outcast, once your inmate, and assuage 
 
 With love — not placid pardon now — his thirst 
 
 For a mere drop from out the ocean erst 
 
 He drank at ! Well, the quest shall be renewed. 
 
 Fear nothing ! Though I linger, unembued 
 
 With any drop, my lips thus close. I go ! 
 
 So did I leave you, I have found you so, 
 
Numpholeptos. 
 
 And doubtlessly, if fated to return, 
 So shall my pleading persevere and earn 
 Pardon — not love — in that same smile, I learn, 
 And lose the meaning of, to learn once more. 
 Vainly ! 
 
 What fairy track do I explore ? 
 What magic hall return to, like the gem 
 Centuply-angled o'er a diadem ? 
 You dwell there, hearted ; from your midmost home 
 Rays forth — through that fantastic world I roam 
 Ever — from centre to circumference. 
 Shaft upon coloured shaft : this crimsons thence. 
 That purples out its precinct through the waste. 
 Surely I had your sanction when I faced. 
 Fared forth upon that untried yellow ray 
 Whence I retrack my steps ? They end to-day 
 Where they began, before your feet, beneath 
 Your eyes, your smile : the blade is shut in sheath, 
 Fire quenched in flint ; irradiation, late 
 Triumphant through the distance,' finds its fate, 
 Merged in your blank pure soul, alike the source 
 And tomb of that prismatic glow : divorce 
 Absolute, all-conclusive ! Forth I fared. 
 Treading the lambent flamelet: little cared 
 If now its flickering took the topaz tint. 
 If now my dull-caked path gave sulphury hint 
 Of subterranean rage — no stay nor stint 
 To yellow, since you sanctioned that I bathe. 
 Burnish, me, soul and body, swim and swathe 
 In yellow licence. Here I reek suffused 
 With crocus, saffron, orange, as I used 
 
2 Numpholeptos. 
 
 With scarlet, purple, every dye o' the bow 
 
 Born of the storm-cloud. As before, you show 
 
 Scarce recognition, no approval, some 
 
 Mistrust, more wonder at a man become 
 
 Monstrous in garb, nay^flesh disguised as well. 
 
 Through his adventure. Whatsoe'er befell, 
 
 I followed, whereso'er it wound, that vein 
 
 You authorised should leave your whiteness, stain 
 
 Earth's sombre stretch beyond your midmost place 
 
 Of vantage, — trode that tinct whereof the trace 
 
 On garb and flesh repel you ! Yes, I plead 
 
 Your own permission— your command, indeed, 
 
 That who would worthily retain the love 
 
 Must share the knowledge shrined those eyes above. 
 
 Go boldly on adventure, break through bounds 
 
 O' the quintessential whiteness that surrounds 
 
 Your feet, obtain experience of each tinge 
 
 That bickers forth to broaden out, impinge 
 
 Plainer his foot its pathway all distinct 
 
 from every other. Ah, the wonder, linked 
 
 With fear, as exploration manifests 
 
 What agency it was first tipped the crests 
 
 Of unnamed wildflower, soon protruding grew 
 
 Portentous mid the sands, as when his hue 
 
 Betrays him and the burrowing snake gleams through ;. 
 
 Till, last . . but why parade more shame and pain ? 
 
 Are not the proofs upon me ? Here again 
 
 I pass into your presence, I receive 
 
 Vour smile of pity, pardon, and I leave . . . 
 
 No, not this last of times I leave you, mute, 
 
 Submitted to my penance, so my foot 
 
Numpholeptos. 23 
 
 May yet again adventure, tread, from source 
 
 To issue, one more ray of rays which course 
 
 Each other, at your bidding, from the sphere 
 
 Silver and sweet, their birthplace, down that drear 
 
 Dark of the world, — you promise shall return 
 
 Your pilgrim jewelled as with drops o' the urn 
 
 The rainbow paints from, and no smatch at all 
 
 Of ghastliness at edge of some cloud-pall 
 
 Heaven cowers before, as earth awaits the fall 
 
 O' the bolt and flash of doom. Who trusts your word 
 
 Tries the adventure: and returns — absurd 
 
 As frightful — in that sulphur-steeped disguise 
 
 Mocking the priestly cloth-of-gold, sole prize 
 
 The arch-heretic was wont to bear away 
 
 Until he reached the burning. No, I say : 
 
 No fresh adventure ! No more seeking love 
 
 At end of toil, and finding, calm above 
 
 My passion, the old statuesque regard, 
 
 The sad petrific smile ! 
 
 O you — less hard 
 And hateful than mistaken and obtuse 
 Unreason of a she-intelligence ! 
 You very woman with the pert pretence 
 To match the male achievement ! Like enough ! 
 Ay, you were easy victors, did the rough 
 Straightway efface itself to smooth, the gruff 
 Grind down and grow a whisper, — did man's truth 
 Subdue, for sake of chivalry and ruth, 
 Its rapier-edge to suit the bulrush-spear 
 Womanly falsehood fights with ! O that ear 
 
24 Numpholeptos. 
 
 All fact pricks rudely, that thrice-superfine 
 Feminity of sense, with right divine 
 To waive all process, take result stain-free 
 From out the very muck wherein . . . 
 
 Ah me ! 
 The true slave's querulous outbreak ! All the rest 
 Be resignation ! Forth at your behest 
 I fare. Who knows but this — the crimson-quest — 
 May deepen to a sunrise, not decay 
 To that cold sad sweet smile ?— which I obey. 
 
23 
 
 APPEARANCES. 
 
 And so you found that poor room dull, 
 Dark, hardly to your taste, my Dear ? 
 
 Its features seemed unbeautiful : 
 
 But this I know — 't was there, riot here. 
 
 You plighted troth to me, the word 
 
 Which — ask that poor room how it heard ! 
 
 And this rich room obtains your praise 
 Unqualified, — so bright, so fair, 
 
 So all wbereat perfection stays ? 
 Ay, but remember — here, not there. 
 
 The other word was spoken ! Ask 
 
 This rich room how you dropped the mask ! 
 
26 
 
 THE WORST OF IT. 
 
 I. 
 
 Would it were I had been false, not you ! 
 
 I that am nothing, not you that are all : 
 I, never the worse for a touch or two 
 
 On my speckled hide; not you, the pride 
 Of the day, my swan, that a first fleck's fall 
 
 On her wonder of white must unswan, undo ! 
 
 II. 
 
 I had dipped in life's struggle and, out again. 
 Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see. 
 
 When I found my swan and the cure was plain ; 
 The dull turned bright as I caught your white 
 
 On my bosom : you saved me — saved in vain 
 If you ruined yourself, and all through me ! 
 
 III. 
 Yes, all through the speckled beast I am. 
 
 Who taught you to stoop ; you gave me yourself, 
 And bound your soul by the vows which damn : 
 
 Since on better thought you break, as you ought, 
 Vows — words, no angel set down, some elf 
 
 Mistook, — for an oath, an epigram ! 
 
The Worst of It 27 
 
 IV. 
 
 Yes, might I judge you, here were my heart, 
 And a hundred its Hke, to treat as you pleased ! 
 
 I choose to be yours, for my proper part, 
 Yours, leave me or take, or mar or make ; 
 
 If I acquiesce, why should you be teased 
 With the conscience-prick and the memory-smart ? 
 
 But what will God say ? Oh, my Sweet, 
 Think, and be sorry you did this thing' ! 
 
 Though earth were unworthy to feel your feet, 
 There 's a heaven above may deserve your love : 
 
 Should you forfeit heaven for a snapt gold ring 
 And a promise broke, were it just or meet ? 
 
 VI. 
 
 And I to have tempted you ! I, who tried 
 ' Your soul, no doubt, till it sank ! Unwise, 
 
 I loved and was lowly, loved and aspired, 
 I/)ved, grieving or glad, till I made you mad. 
 
 And you meant tO' have hated and despised — 
 Whereas, you deceived me nor inquired ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 She, ruined ? How ? No heaven for her ? 
 
 Crowns to give, and none for the brow 
 That looked like marble and smelt like myrrh ? 
 
 Shall the robe be worn, and the palm-branch borne, 
 And she go graceless, she graced now 
 
 Beyond all saints, as themselves aver ? 
 
2§ The Worst of It. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Hardly ! That must be understood ! 
 
 The earth is your place of penance, then ; 
 And what will it prove ? I desire your good, 
 
 But, plot as I may, I can find no way 
 How a blow should fall, such as falls on men, 
 
 Nor prove too much for your womanhood. 
 
 IX 
 
 It will come, I suspect, at the end of life, 
 When you walk alone, and review the past ; 
 
 And I, who so long shall have done with strife. 
 And journeyed my stage and earned my wage 
 
 And retired as was right, — I am called at last 
 When the devil stabs you, to lend the knife. 
 
 X, 
 
 He stabs for the minute of trivial wrong. 
 Nor the other hours are able to save, 
 
 The happy, that lasted my whole life long : 
 For a promise broke, not for first words spoke, 
 
 The true, the only, that turn my grave 
 To a blaze of joy and a crash of song. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Witness beforehand ! Off I trip 
 
 On a safe path gay through the flowers you flung 
 My very name made great by your lip. 
 
 And my heart a-glow with the good I know 
 Of a perfect year when we both were young, 
 
 And I tasted the angels' fellowship. 
 
The Worst of It. 29 
 
 XII 
 
 And witness, moreover . . . Ah, but wait ! 
 
 I spy the loop whence an arrow shoots ! 
 It may be for yourself, when you meditate, 
 
 That you grieve — for slain ruth, murdered truth : 
 " Though falsehood escape in the end, what boots ? 
 
 " How truth would have triumphed ! " — you sigh too 
 late. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Ay, who would have triumphed like you, I say ! 
 
 Well, it is lost now ; well, you must bear. 
 Abide and grow fit for a better day. 
 
 You should hardly grudge, could I be your judge ! 
 But hush ! For you, can be no despair : 
 
 There 's amends : 't is a secret : hope and pray ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 For I was true at least — oh, true enough ! 
 
 And, Dear, truth is not as good as it seems ! 
 Commend me to conscience ! Idle stuff ! 
 
 Much help is in mine, as I mope and pine, 
 And skulk through day, and scowl in my dreams 
 
 At my swan's obtaining the crow's rebuff! 
 
 XV. 
 
 Men tell me of truth now — " False! " I cry : 
 
 Of beauty — " A mask, friend ! Look beneath ! " 
 
 We take our own method, the devil and I, 
 With pleasant and fair and wise and rare : 
 
 And the best we wish to what lives, is — death ; 
 Which even in wishing, perhaps we lie ! 
 
30 The Worst of It. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Far better commit a fault and have done — 
 As you, Dear ! — for ever; and choose the pure, 
 
 And look where the healing waters run. 
 And strive and strain to be good again, 
 
 And a place in the other world ensure, 
 All glass and gold, with God for its sun. 
 
 Misery ! What shall I say or do ? 
 
 I cannot advise, or, at least, persuade. 
 Most like, you are glad you deceived me — ^rue 
 
 No whit of the wrong : you endured too long. 
 Have done no evil and want no aid. 
 
 Will live the old life out and chance the new. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 And your sentence is written all the same. 
 And I can do nothing, — pray, perhaps : 
 
 But somehow the world pursues its game, — 
 If I pray, if I curse,— for better or worse : 
 
 And my faith is torn to a thousand scraps, 
 And my heart feels ice while my words breathe flame. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Dear, I look from my hiding-place. 
 
 Are you still so fair ? Have you still the eyes ? 
 Be happy ! Add but the other grace. 
 
 Be good ! Why want what the angels vaunt ? 
 "^ knew you once : but in Paradise, 
 
 If we meet, I will pass nor turn my face. 
 
31 
 
 TOO LATE. 
 
 I. 
 
 Here was I with my arm and heart 
 
 And brain, all yours for a word, a want 
 Put into a look — just a look, your part, — 
 
 While mine, to repay it . . . vainest vaunt, 
 Were the woman, that 's dead, alive to hear, 
 
 Had her lover, that 's lost, love's proof to show ! 
 But I cannot show it ; you cannot speak 
 
 From the churchyard neither, miles removed. 
 Though I feel by a pulse within my cheek. 
 
 Which stabs and stops, that the woman I loved 
 Needs help in her grave and finds none near, 
 
 Wants warmth from the heart which sends it — so! 
 
 II. 
 Did I speak once angrily, all the drear days 
 
 You lived, you woman I loved so well, 
 Who married the other ? Blame or praise, 
 
 Where was the use then ? Time would tell. 
 And the end declare what man for you, 
 
 What woman for me was the choice of God. 
 But, Edith dead ! no doubting more ! 
 
 I used to sit and look at my life 
 
32 Too Late. 
 
 As it rippled and ran till, right before, 
 A great stone stopped it : oh, the strife 
 
 Of waves at the stone some devil threw 
 In my life's midcurrent, thwarting God ! 
 
 But either I thought, " They may churn and chide 
 
 " Awhile, — my waves which came for their joy 
 " And found this horrible stone full-tide : 
 
 " Yet I see just a thread escape, deploy 
 " Through the evening-country, silent and safe, 
 
 " And it suffers no more till it finds the sea." 
 Or else I would think, " Perhaps some night 
 
 " When new things happen, a meteor-ball 
 " May slip through the sky in a line of light, 
 
 " And earth breathe hard, and landmarks fall, 
 " And my waves no longer champ nor chafe, 
 
 " Since a stone will have rolled from its place : let 
 be!" 
 
 IV. 
 
 But, dead ! All 's done with : wait who may, 
 
 Watch and wear and wonder who will. 
 Oh, my whole life that ends to-day ! 
 
 Oh, my soul's sentence, sounding still, 
 " The woman is dead, that was none of his ; 
 
 " And the man, that was none of hers, may go ! " 
 There 's only the past left : worry that ! 
 
 Wreak, like a bull, on the empty coat. 
 Rage, its late wearer is laughing at ! 
 
 Tear the collar to rags, having missed his throat ; 
 Strike stupidly on — "This, this and this, 
 
 " Where I would that a bosom received the blow!" 
 
Too Late. 33 
 
 V. 
 
 I ought to have done more : orice my speech, 
 
 And once your answer, and there, the end, 
 And Edith was henceforth out of reach ! 
 
 Why, men do more to deserve a friend. 
 Be rid of a foe, get rich, grow wise. 
 
 Nor, folding their arms, stare fate in the face. 
 Why, better even have burst like a thief 
 
 And borne you away to a rock for us two. 
 In a moment's horror, bright, bloody and brief. 
 
 Then changed to myself again — " I slew 
 " Myself in that moment j a rufiSan lies 
 
 ' Somewhere: your slave, see, born in his place! " 
 
 VI. 
 
 What did the other do ? You be judge ! 
 
 Look at us, Edith ! Here are we both ! 
 Give- him his six whole years : I grudge 
 
 None of the life with you, nay, I loathe 
 Myself that I grudged his start in advance 
 
 Of me who could overtake and pass. 
 But, as if he loved you ! No, not he, 
 
 Nor anyone else in the world, 't is plain : 
 Who ever heard that another, free 
 
 As I, young, prosperous, sound and sane. 
 Poured life out, proffered it — " Half a glance 
 
 " Of those eyes of yours and I drop the glass ! " 
 
 VII. 
 
 Handsome, were you? 'T is more than they held, 
 More than they said; I was Vare and watched : 
 
 I was the 'scapegrace, this rat belled 
 The cat, this fool got his whiskers scratched : 
 
 I. D 
 
34 Too Late. 
 
 The others ? No head that was turned, no heart 
 
 Broken, my lady, assure yourself ! 
 Each soon made his mind up ; so and so 
 
 Married a dancer, such and such 
 Stole his friend's wife, stagnated slow. 
 
 Or maundered, unable to do as much, 
 And muttered of peace where he had no part : 
 
 While, hid in the closet, laid on the shelf, — 
 
 VJII. 
 
 On the whole, you were let alone, I think ! 
 
 So, you looked to the other, who acquiesced ; 
 My rival, the proud man, — prize your pink 
 
 Of poets ! A poet he was ! I Ve guessed : 
 He rhymed you his rubbish nobody read. 
 
 Loved you and doyed you — did not I laugh ! 
 There was a prize ! But we both were tried. 
 
 Oh, heart of mine, marked broad with her mark, 
 Tekel, found wanting, set aside. 
 
 Scorned ! See, I bleed these tears in the dark 
 Till comfort come and the last be bled : 
 
 He ? He is tagging your epitaph. 
 
 If it would only come over again ! 
 
 — Time to be patient with me, and probe 
 This heart till you punctured the proper vein. 
 
 Just to learn what blood is : twitch the robe 
 From that blank lay-figure your fancy draped. 
 
 Prick the leathern heart till the — verses spirt ! 
 And late it was easy ; late, you walked 
 
 Where a friend might meet you ; Edith's name 
 
Too Late. 35 
 
 Arose to one's lip if one laughed or talked ; 
 
 If I heard good new's, you heard the same ; 
 When I woke, I knew that your breath escaped ; 
 
 I could bide my tiifle, keep alive, alert. 
 
 X. 
 
 And alive I shall keep and long, you will see ! 
 
 I knew a man, was kicked Uke a dog 
 From gutter to cesspool ; what cared he 
 
 So long as he picked from the filth his prog ? 
 He saw youth, beauty and genius die. 
 
 And joUily lived to his hundredth year. 
 But I will live otherwise : none of such life ! ■■ 
 
 At once I begin as I mean to end. 
 Go on with the world, get gold in its strife. 
 
 Give your spouse the slip and betray your friend ! 
 There are two who decline, a woman and I, 
 
 And enjoy our death in the darkness here. 
 
 I liked that way you had with your curls 
 
 Wound to a ball in a net behind : 
 Your cheek was chaste as a quaker-girl's. 
 
 And your mouth — there was never, to my mind. 
 Such a funny mouth, for it would not shut ; 
 
 And the dented chin too — what a chin ! 
 There were certain ways when you spoke, some words 
 
 That you know you never could pronounce : 
 You were thin, however ; like a bird's 
 
 Your hand seemed — some would say, the pounce 
 Of a scaly-footed hawk — all but ! 
 
 The world was right when it called you thin. 
 
36 Too Late. 
 
 XII. 
 
 But I tiarn my back on the world : I take 
 
 Your hand, and kneel, and lay to my lips. 
 Bid me live, Edith ! Let me slake 
 
 Thirst at your presence ! Fear no slips ! 
 'T is your slave shall pay, while his soul endures. 
 
 Full due, love's whole debt, summum jics. 
 My queen shall have high observance, planned 
 
 Courtship made perfect, no least line 
 Crossed without warrant There you stand, 
 
 Warm too, and white too : would this wine 
 Had washed all over that body of yours. 
 
 Ere I drank it, and you down with it, thus ! 
 
37 
 
 BIFURCATION, 
 
 We were two lovers ; let me lie by her, 
 
 My tomb beside her tomb. On hers inscribe — 
 
 " I loved him ; but my reason bade prefer 
 
 " Duty to love, reject the tempter's bribe 
 
 " Of rose and lily when each path diverged, 
 
 " And either I must pace to life's far end 
 
 " As love should lead me, or, as duty uiged, 
 
 " Plod the worn causeway arm in arm with friend. 
 
 " So, truth turned falsehood : ' How I loathe a flower, 
 
 " ' How prize the pavement ! ' still caressed his ear — 
 
 " The deafish friend's — through life's day, hour by hour, 
 
 " As he laughed (coughing) ' Ay, it would appear ! ' 
 
 " But deep within my heart of hearts there hid 
 
 " Ever the confidence, amends for all, 
 
 *' That heaven repairs what wrong earth's journey did, 
 
 " When love from life-long exile comes at call 
 
 " Duty and love, one broadway, were the best — 
 
 " Who doubts ? But one or other was to choose. 
 
 " I chose the darkling half, and wait the rest 
 
 " In that new world where light and darkness fuse." 
 
 Inscribe on mine — " I loved her : love's track lay 
 " O'er sand and pebble, as all travellers know. 
 " Duty led through a smiling country, gay 
 ^' With greensward where the rose and lily blow. 
 
38 Bifurcation. 
 
 " ' Our roads are diverse : farewell, love ! ' said she : 
 
 " ' 'T is duty I abide by : homely sward 
 
 " ' And not the rock-rough picturesque for me ! 
 
 " ' Above, where both roads join, I wait reward. 
 
 " ' Be you as constant to the path whereon 
 
 " ' I leave you planted ! ' But man needs must move, 
 
 " Keep moving — whither, when the star is gone 
 
 " Whereby he steps secure nor strays from love ? 
 
 " No stone but I was tripped by, stumbling-block 
 
 " But brought me to confusion. Where I fell, 
 
 " There I lay flat, if moss disguised the rock : 
 
 " Thence, if flint pierced, I rose and cried ' All 's well ! 
 
 " ' Duty be mine to tread in that high sphere 
 
 " ' Where love from duty ne'er disparts, I trust, 
 
 " ' And two halves make that whole, whereof — since 
 
 here 
 " ' One must suffice a man — why, this one must ! ' " 
 
 Inscribe each tomb thus : then, some sage acquaint 
 The simple — which holds sinner, which holds saint ! 
 
39 
 
 A LIKENESS. 
 
 Some people hang portraits up 
 
 In a room where they dine or sup : 
 
 And the wife clinks tea-things under, 
 
 And her cousin, he stirs his cup. 
 
 Asks, " Who was the lady, I wonder ? " 
 
 " 'T is a daub John bought at a sale," 
 
 Quoth the wife, — looks black as thunder. 
 
 " What a shade beneath her nose ! 
 
 " Snuff-taking, I suppose, — " 
 
 Adds the cousin, while John's corns ail. 
 
 Or else, there 's no wife in the case. 
 
 But the portrait 's queen of the place. 
 
 Alone mid the other spoils 
 
 Of youth, — masks, gloves and foils, 
 
 And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine, 
 
 And the long whip, the tandem-lasher. 
 
 And the cast from a fist (" not, alas ! mine, 
 
 " But my master's, the Tipton Slasher ") 
 
 And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace. 
 
 And a satin shoe used for a cigar-case. 
 
 And the chamois-horns (" shot in the Chablais ") 
 
40 A Likeness. 
 
 And prints — Rarey drumming on Cruiser, 
 
 And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser, 
 
 And the little edition of Rabelais : 
 
 Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets 
 
 May saunter up close to examine it. 
 
 And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it, 
 
 " But the eyes are half out of their sockets ; 
 
 " That hair 's not so bad, where the gloss is, 
 
 " But they 've made the girl's nose a proboscis • 
 
 " Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy ! 
 
 " What, is not she Jane ? Then, who is she? " 
 
 All that I own is a print. 
 
 An etching, a mezzotint ; 
 
 'T is a study, a fancy, a fiction, 
 
 Yet a fact (take my conviction) 
 
 Because it has more than a hint 
 
 Of a certain face, I never 
 
 Saw elsewhere touch or trace of 
 
 In women I 've seen the face of : 
 
 Just an etching, and, so far, clever. 
 
 I keep my prints an imbroglio, 
 Fifty in one portfolio. 
 When somebody ttries my claret, 
 We turn round chairs to the fire, 
 Chirp over days in a garret. 
 Chuckle o'er Increase of salary. 
 Taste the good fruits of our leisure, 
 Talk about pencil and lyre. 
 And the National Portrait Gallery : 
 Then I exhibit my treasure. 
 
A Likeness. 41 
 
 After we 've turned over twenty, 
 
 And the debt of wonder my crony owes 
 
 Is paid to my Marc Antonios, 
 
 He stops me — " Festina lentt ! 
 
 " What 's that sweet thing there, the etching?" 
 
 How my waistcoat-strings want stretching, 
 
 How my cheeks grow red as tomatos, 
 
 How my heart leaps ! But hearts, after leaps, ache. 
 
 " By the by, you must take, for a keepsake, 
 
 " That other, you praised, of Volpato's." 
 
 The fool ! would he try a flight further and say — 
 
 He never saw, never before to-day, 
 
 What was able to take his breath away, 
 
 A face to lose youth for, to occupy age 
 
 With the dream of, meet death with, — why, I 'II not 
 
 engage 
 But that, half in a rapture and half in a rage, 
 I should toss him the thing's self — " 'T is only a 
 
 duplicate, 
 " A thing of no value ! Take it, I supplicate ! " 
 
42 
 
 MAY AND DEATH. 
 
 I WISH that when you died last May, 
 Charles, there had died along with you 
 
 Three parts of spring's delightful things ; 
 Ay, and, for me, the foiurth part too. 
 
 A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps ! 
 
 There must be many a pair of friends 
 Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm 
 
 Moon-births and the long evening-ends. 
 
 III. 
 
 So, for their sake, be May still May ! 
 
 Let their new time, as mine of old. 
 Do all it did for me : I bid 
 
 Sweet sights and sounds throng manifold. 
 
 Only, one little sight, one plant. 
 
 Woods have in May, that starts up green 
 Save a sole streak which, so to speak. 
 
 Is spring's blood, spilt its leaves between,- 
 
May and Death. 43 
 
 V. 
 
 That, they might spare ; a certain wood 
 Might miss the plant ; their loss were small : 
 
 But I, — whene'er the leaf grows there, 
 Its drop comes from my heart, that 's all. 
 
44 
 
 A FORGIVENESS. 
 
 I AM indeed the personage you know. 
 As for my wife, — what happened long ago — 
 You have a right to question me, as I 
 Am bound to answer. 
 
 ("Son, a fit reply !" 
 The monk half spoke, half ground through his clenched 
 
 teeth. 
 At the confession-grate I knelt beneath.) 
 
 Thus then all happened. Father ! Power and place 
 
 I had as still I have. I ran life's race. 
 
 With the whole world to see, as only strains 
 
 His strength some athlete whose proSigious gains 
 
 Of good appal him : happy to excess, — 
 
 Work freely done should balance happiness 
 
 Fully enjoyed ; and, since beneath my roof 
 
 Housed she who made home heaven, in heaven's behoof 
 
 I went forth every day, and all day long 
 
 Worked for the world. Look, how the labourer's song 
 
 Cheers him ! Thus sang my soul, at each sharp throe 
 
 Of labouring flesh and blood — " She loves me so ! " 
 
A Forgiveness. 45 
 
 One day, perhaps such song so knit the nerve 
 That work grew play and vanished. " I deserve 
 " Haply my heaven an hour before the time ! " 
 I laughed, as silverly the clockhouse-chime 
 Surprised me passing through the postern-gate 
 — Not the main entry where the menials wait 
 And wonder why the world's affairs allow 
 The master sudden leisure. That was how 
 I took the private garden-way for once. 
 
 Forth from the alcove, I saw start, ensconce 
 Himself behind the porphyry vase, a man. 
 
 My fancies in the natural order ran : 
 
 " A spy, — ^perhaps a foe in ambuscade, — 
 
 " A thief, — more like, a sweetheart of soriie maid 
 
 " Who pitched on the alcove for tryst perhaps." 
 
 " Stand there ! " I bid. 
 
 Whereat my man but wraps 
 His face the closelier with uplifted arm 
 Whereon the cloak lies, strikes in blind alarm 
 This and that pedestal as, — stretch and stoop, — 
 Now in, now out of sight, he thrids the group 
 Of statues, marble god and goddess ranged 
 Each side the pathway, till the' gate 's exchanged 
 For safety : one step thence, the street, you know ! 
 
 Thus far I followed with my gaze. Then, slow, 
 Near on admiringly, I breathed again, 
 And-^back to that last fancy of the train — 
 " A danger risked for hope of just a word 
 " With — which of all my nest may be the bird 
 
46 A Forgiveness. 
 
 " This poacher covets for her plumage, pray ? 
 " Carmen ? Juana ? Carmen seems too gay 
 " For such adventure, while Juana 's grave 
 " — Would scorn the folly. I applaud the knave ! 
 " He had the eye, could single from my brood 
 " His proper fledgeling ! " 
 
 As I turned, there stood 
 In face of me, my wife stone-still stone-white. 
 Whether one bound had brought her, — at first sight 
 Of what she judged the encounter, sure to be 
 Next moment, of the venturous man and me, — 
 Brought her to clutch and keep me from my prey : 
 Whether impelled because her death no day 
 Could come so absolutely opportune 
 As now at joy's height, like a year in June 
 Stayed at the fall of its first ripened rose ; 
 Or whether hungry for my hate — who knows ? — 
 Eager to end an irksome lie, and taste 
 Our tingling true relation, hate embraced 
 By hate one naked moment : — anyhow 
 There stone-still stone-white stood my wife, but now 
 The woman who made heaven within my house. 
 Ay, she who faced me was my very spouse 
 As well as love — you are to recollect ! 
 
 " Stay ! " she said. " Keep at least one soul unspecked 
 " With crime, that 's spotless hitherto — your own ! 
 " Kill me who court the blessing, who alone 
 " Was, am and shall be guilty, first to last ! 
 " The man lay helpless in the toils I cast 
 
A Forgiveness. 47 
 
 " About him, helpless as the statue there 
 
 " Against that strangling bell-flower's bondage : tear 
 
 " Away and tread to dust the parasite, 
 
 " But do the passive marble no despite ! 
 
 " I love him as I hate you. Kill me ! Strike 
 
 " At one blow both infinitudes alike 
 
 " Out of existence — hate and love ! Whence love ? 
 
 " That 's safe inside my heart, nor will remove 
 
 " For any "searching of your steel, I think. 
 
 " Whence hate ? The secret lay on lip, at brink 
 
 " Of speech, in one fierce tremble to escape, 
 
 " At every form wherein your love took shape, 
 
 " At each new provocation of your kiss. 
 
 " Kill me ! " 
 
 We went in. 
 
 Next day after this, 
 I felt as if the speech might come. I spoke — 
 Easily, after all. 
 
 " The lifted cloak 
 " Was screen suflScient : I concern myself 
 " Hardly with laying hands on who for pelf — 
 " Whate'er the ignoble kind — may prowl and brave 
 " Cuffing and kicking proper to a knave 
 " Detected by my household's vigilance. 
 " Enough of such ! As for my love-romance — 
 " I, like our good Hidalgo, rub my eyes 
 " And wake and wonder how the film could rise 
 " Whiqh changed for me a barber's basin straight 
 " Into — Mambrino's helm ? I hesitate 
 " Nowise to say — God's sacramental cup ! 
 " Why should I blame the brass which, burnished up, 
 
48 A Forgiveness. 
 
 " Will blaze, to all but me, as good as gold ? 
 
 " To me — a warning I was overbold 
 
 " In judging metals. The Hidalgo waked 
 
 " Only to die, if I remember, — staked 
 
 " His life upon the basin's worth, and lost : 
 
 " While I confess torpidity at most 
 
 " In here and there a limb ; but, lame and halt, 
 
 " Still should I work on, still repair my fault 
 
 " Ere I took rest in death, — no fear at all ! 
 
 " Now, work — no word before the curtain fall ! " 
 
 The " curtain " ? That of death on life, I meant : 
 My " word " permissible in death's event. 
 Would be— truth, soul to soul ; for, otherwise, 
 Day by day, three years long, there had to rise 
 And, night by night, to fall upon our stage — 
 OurS, doomed to public play by heritage — 
 Another curtain, when the world, perforce 
 Our critical assembly, in due course 
 Came and went, witnessing, gave praise or blame 
 To art-mimetic. It had spoiled the game 
 If, suffered to set foot behind our scene. 
 The world had witnessed how stage-king and queen. 
 Gallant and lady, but a minute since 
 Enarming each the other, would evince 
 No sign of recognition as they took 
 His way and her way to whatever nook 
 Waited them in the darkness either side 
 Of that bright stage where lately groom and bride 
 Had fired the audience to a frenzy-fit 
 Of sympathetic rapture — every whit 
 
A Forgiveness. 49 
 
 EarnetJ as the curtain fell on her and me, 
 
 — Actors. Three whole years, nothing was to see 
 
 But calm and concord : where a speech was due 
 
 There came the speech ; when smiles were wanted too 
 
 Smiles were as ready. In a place like mine, 
 
 Where foreign and domestic cares comibine. 
 
 There 's audience every day and all day long ; 
 
 But finally the last of the whole throng 
 
 Who linger lets one see his back. For her — 
 
 Why, liberty and liking : I aver. 
 
 Liking and liberty ! For me — I breathed, 
 
 Let my face rest from every wrinkle wreathed 
 
 Smile-like about the mouth, unlearned my task 
 
 Of personation till next day bade mask. 
 
 And quietly betook me from that world 
 
 To the real world, not pageant : there unfurled 
 
 In work, its wings, my soul, the fretted power. 
 
 Three years I worked, each minute of each hour 
 
 Not claimed by acting : — work I may dispense 
 
 With talk about, since work in evidence, 
 
 Perhaps in history ; who knows or cares ? 
 
 After three years, this way, all unawares, 
 
 Our acting ended. She and I, at close 
 
 Of a loud night-feast, led, between two rows 
 
 Of bending male and female loyalty, 
 
 Our lord the king down staircase, while, held high 
 
 At arm's length did the twisted tapers' flare 
 
 Herald his passage from our palace where 
 
 Such visiting4eft glory evermore. 
 
 Again the ascent in public, till at door 
 
 II. E 
 
50 ' A Forgiveness. 
 
 As we two stood by the saloon — now blank 
 And disencumbered of its guests — ^there sank 
 A whisper in my ear, so low and yet 
 So unmistakable ! 
 
 " I half forget 
 " The chamber you repair to, and I want 
 " Occasion for one short word — if you grant 
 " That grace — within a certain room you called 
 " Our ' Study,' for you wrote there while I scrawled 
 " Some paper full of faces for my sport 
 " That room I can remember. Just one short 
 " Word with you there, for the remembrance' sake ! " 
 
 "Follow me thither ! " I replied. 
 
 We break 
 The gloom a little, as with guiding lamp 
 I lead the way, leave warmth and cheer, by damp 
 Blind disused serpentining ways afar 
 From where the habitable chambers are, — 
 Ascend, descend stairs tunneled through the stone, — 
 Always in silence, — till I reach the lone 
 Chamber sepulchred for my very own 
 Out of the palace-quarry. When a boy. 
 Here was my fortress, stronghold from annoy. 
 Proof-positive of ownership ; in youth 
 I garnered up my gleanings here — uncouth 
 But precious relics of vain hopes, vain fears ; 
 Finally, this became in after years 
 My closet of entrenchment to withstand 
 Invasion of the foe on every hand — 
 
A Forgiveness. 51 
 
 The multifarious herd in bower and hall, 
 
 State-room, — rooms whatsoe'er the style, which call 
 
 On masters to be mindful that, before 
 
 Men, they must look like men and something more. 
 
 Here,— when our lord the king's bestowment ceased 
 
 To deck me on the day that, golden-fleeced, 
 
 I touched ambition's height,— 't was here, released 
 
 From glory (always symboled by a chain !) 
 
 No sooner was I privileged to gain 
 
 My secret domicile than glad I flung 
 
 That last toy on the table — gazed where hung 
 
 On hook my father's gift, the arquebuss — 
 
 And asked myself " Shall I envisage thus 
 
 " The new prize and the old prize, when I reach 
 
 " Another year's experience ? — own that each 
 
 " Equaled advantage — sportsman's — statesman's tool ? 
 
 " That brought me down an eagle, this — a fool ! " 
 
 Into which room on entry, I set down 
 The lamp, and turning saw whose rustled gown 
 Had told me my wife followed, pace for pace. 
 Each of us looked the other in the face. 
 She spoke. " Since I could die now ..." 
 
 (To explain 
 Why that first struck me, know — not once again 
 Since the adventure at the porphyry's edge 
 Three years before, which sundered like a wedge 
 Her soul from mine, — though daily, smile to smile. 
 We stood before the public, — all the while 
 Not once had I distinguished, in that face 
 I paid observance to, the faintest trace 
 
52 A Forgiveness. 
 
 Of feature more than requisite for eyes 
 
 To do their duty by and recognize : 
 
 So did I force mine to obey my will 
 
 And pry no further. There exists such skill, — 
 
 Those know who need it. What physician shrinks 
 
 From needful contact with a corpse ? He drinks 
 
 No plague so long as thirst for knowledge, — not 
 
 An idler impulse, — prompts inquiry. What, 
 
 And will you disbelieve in power to bid 
 
 Our spirit back to bounds, as though we chid 
 
 A child from scrutiny that 's just and right 
 
 In manhood ? Sense, not soul, accomplished sight, 
 
 Reported daily she it was — not how 
 
 Nor why a change had come to cheek and brow.) 
 
 " Since I could die now of the truth concealed, 
 
 " Yet dare not, must not die,^so seems revealed 
 
 " The Virgin's mind to me, — for death means peace, 
 
 " Wherein no lawful part have I, whose lease 
 
 " Of life and punishment the truth avowed 
 
 " May haply lengthen, — let me push the shroud 
 
 " Away, that steals to mufHe ere is just 
 
 " My penance-fire in snow ! I dare — I must 
 
 " Live, by avowal of the truth — this truth — 
 
 " I loved you ! Thanks for the fresh serpent's tooth 
 
 " That, by a prompt new pang more exquisite 
 
 " Than all preceding torture, proves me right ! 
 
 " I loved you yet I lost you ! May I go 
 
 " Burn to the ashes, now my shame you know ? " 
 
 I think there never was such — how express ? — 
 Horror coquetting with voluptuousness, 
 
A Forgiveness. 53 
 
 As in those arms of Eastern workmanship — 
 Yataghan, kandjar, things that rend and rip, 
 Gash rough, slash smooth, help hate so many ways, 
 Yet ever keep a beauty that betrays 
 Love still at work with the artificer 
 Throughout his quaint devising. Why prefer. 
 Except for love's sake, that a blade should writhe 
 And bicker like a flame ? — now play the scythe 
 As if some broad neck tempted, — now contract 
 And needle off into a fineness lacked 
 For just that puncture which the heart demands ? 
 Then, such adornment ! Wherefore need our hands 
 Enclose not ivory alone, nor gold 
 Roughened for use, but jewels? Nay, behold ! 
 Fancy my favorite — which I seem to grasp 
 While I describe the luxury. No asp 
 Is diapered more delicate round throat 
 Than this below the handle ! These denote 
 — These mazy lines meandering, to end 
 Only in flesh they open — what intend 
 They else but water-purlings — pale contrast 
 With the life-crimson where they blend at last ? 
 And mark the handle's dim pellucid green. 
 Carved, the hard jadestone, as you pinch a bean. 
 Into a sort of parrot-bird ! He pecks 
 A grape-bunch ; his two eyes are ruby-specks 
 Pure from the mine : seen this way, — glassy blank. 
 But turn them, — lo the inmost fiare, that shrank 
 From sparkling, sends a red dart right to aim ! 
 Why did I choose such toys ? Perhaps the game 
 Of peaceful men is warlike, just as men 
 War-wearied get amusement from that pen 
 
54 A Forgiveness. 
 
 And paper we grow sick of— statesfolk tired 
 Of merely (when such measures are required) 
 Dealing out doom to people by three words, 
 A signature and seal : we play with swords 
 Suggestive of quick process. That is how 
 I came to like the toys described you now, 
 Store of which glittered on the walls and strewed 
 The table, even, while my wife pursued 
 Her purpose to its ending. " Now you know 
 " This shame, my three years' torture, let me go, — 
 " Burn to the very ashes ! You — I lost, 
 " Yet you— I loved ! " 
 
 The thing I pity most 
 In men is — action prompted by surprise 
 Of anger : men ? nay, bulls— whose onset lies 
 At instance of the firework and the goad ! 
 Once the foe prostrate, — trampling once bestowed,— 
 Prompt follows placability, regret. 
 Atonement. Trust me, blood-warmth never yet 
 Betokened strong will ! As no leap of pulse 
 Pricked me, that first time, so did none convulse 
 My veins at this occasion for resolva 
 Had that devolved which did not then devolve 
 Upon me, I had done — what now to do 
 Was quietly apparent. 
 
 " Tell me who 
 " The man was, crouching by the porphyry vase ! " 
 
 " No, never ! AllTvas folly in his case, 
 
 " All guilt in mine. I tempted, he complied." 
 
A Forgiveness. 55 
 
 " Aiid yet you loved me ? " 
 
 " Loved you. Double-dyed 
 
 "In folly and in Mlf, I thought you gave 
 
 " Your heart and soul away from me to slave 
 
 " At statecraft. Since my right in you seemed lost, 
 
 " I stung myself to teach you, to your cost, 
 
 " What you rejected could be prized beyond 
 
 " Life, heaven, by the first fool I threw a fond 
 
 " Look on, a fatal word to." 
 
 " And you still 
 " Love me? Do I conjecture well or ill ? " 
 
 " Conjecture — ^well or ill ! I had three years 
 " To spend in learning you." 
 
 "We both are peers 
 " In knowledge, therefore : since three years are spent 
 " Ere thus much of yourself / learn — who went 
 " Back to the house, that day, and brought my mind 
 " To bear upon your action : uncombined 
 " Motive from motive, till the dross, deprived 
 " Of every purer particle, survived 
 " At last in native simple hideousness, 
 " Utter contemptibility, nor less 
 " Nor more. Contemptibility — exempt 
 " How could I, from its proper due — contempt ? 
 " I have too much despised you to divert 
 " My life firom its set course by help or hurt 
 " Of your all-despicable life — perturb 
 " The calm I work in, by — men's mouths to curb, 
 
56 A Forgiveness. 
 
 " Which at such news were clamorous enough— 
 
 " Men's eyes to shut before my broidered stuff 
 
 " With the huge hole there, my emblazoned wall 
 
 " Blank where a scutcheon hung, — by, worse than all, 
 
 " Each day's procession, my paraded life 
 
 " Robbed and impoverished through the wanting wife 
 
 " — Now that my life (which means — my work) was grown 
 
 " Riches indeed ! Once, just this worth alone 
 
 " Seemed work to have, that profit gained thereby 
 
 " Of good and praise would — how rewardingly ! — 
 
 " Fall at your feet, — a crown I hoped to cast 
 
 " Before your love, my love should crown at last 
 
 " No love remaining to cast crown before, 
 
 " My love stopped work now : but contempt the more 
 
 " Impelled me task as ever head and hand, 
 
 " Because the very fiends weave ropes of sand 
 
 " Rather than taste pure hell in idleness. 
 
 " Therefore I kept my memory down by stress 
 
 " Of daily work I had no mind to stay 
 
 " For the world's wonder at the wife away. 
 
 " Oh, it was easy all of it, believe, 
 
 " For I despised you ! But your words retrieve 
 
 " Importantly the past. No hate assumed 
 
 " The mask of love at any time ! There gloomed 
 
 " A moment when love took hate's semblance, urged 
 
 " By causes you declare ; but love's self purged 
 
 " Away a fancied wrong I did both loves 
 
 " — Yours and my own : by no hate's help, it proves, 
 
 " Purgation was attempted. Then, you rise 
 
 " High by how many a grade ! I did despise — 
 
 '.' I do but hate you. Let hate's punishment 
 
 " Replace contemjit's ! First step to which ascent — 
 
A Forgiveness. 57 
 
 " Write down your own words I re-utter you ! 
 
 " ' I loved my husband and I hated — who 
 
 " ' He was, I took up as my first chance, mere 
 
 " ' Mud-ball to fling and make love foul with ! ' Here 
 
 " Lies paper ! " 
 
 " Would my blood for ink suffice ! " 
 
 " It may : this minion from a land of spice, 
 " Silk, feather — every bird of jewelled breast — 
 " This poignard's beauty, ne'er so lightly prest 
 " Above your heart there." . . 
 
 "Thus?" 
 
 " It flows, I see. 
 " Dip there the point and write ! " 
 
 " Dictate to me ! 
 " Nay, I remember." 
 
 And she wrote the words. 
 I read them. Then — " Since love, in you, affords 
 " License for hate, in me, to quench (I say) 
 " Contempt — why, hate itself has passed away 
 " In vengeance — foreign to contempt. Depart 
 " Peacefully to that death which Eastern art 
 " Imbued this weapon with, if tales be true ! 
 " Love will succeed to hate. I pardon you — 
 " Dead in our chamber ! " 
 
 True as truth the tale. 
 She died ere morning ; then, I saw how pale 
 
jS A Forgiveness. 
 
 Her cheek was ere it wore day's paint-disguise, 
 And what a hollow darkened 'neath her eyes, 
 Now that I used my own. She sleeps, as erst 
 Beloved, in this your church : ay, yours ! 
 
 Immersed 
 In thought so deeply. Father ? Sad, perhaps ? 
 For whose sake, hers or mine or his who wraps 
 — Still plain I seem to see ! — about his head 
 The idle cloak, — about his heart (instead 
 Of cuirass) some fond hope he may elude 
 My vengeance in the cloister's solitude ? 
 Hardly, I think ! As little helped his brow 
 The cloak then, Father — as your grate helps now ! 
 
59 
 
 CENCIAJA. 
 Ogni cencio vuol entrare in bucato. Italian Proverb. 
 
 May I print, Shelley, how it came to pass 
 
 That when your Beatrice seemed — by lapse 
 
 Of many a long month since her sentence fell — 
 
 Assured of pardon for the parricide, — 
 
 By intercession of staunch friends, or, say, 
 
 By certain pricks of conscience in the Pope 
 
 Conniver at Francesco Cenci's guilt, — 
 
 Suddenly all things changed and Clement grew 
 
 " Stern," as you state, ".nor to be moved nor bent, 
 
 " But said these three words coldly '■She must die ; ' 
 
 " Subjoining ' Pardon ? Paolo Santa Croce 
 
 " ' Murdered his mother also yestereve, 
 
 " ' And he is 'fled : she shall not flee, at least I ' " 
 
 — So, to the letter, sentence was fulfilled ? 
 
 Shejley, may I condense verbosity 
 
 That lies before me, into some few words 
 
 Of English, and illustrate your superb 
 
 Achievement by a rescued anecdote, 
 
 No great things, only new and true beside ? 
 
 As if some mere familiar of a house 
 
6o Cenciaja. 
 
 Should venture to accost the group at gaze 
 Before its Titian, famed the wide world through, 
 And supplement such pictured masterpiece 
 By whisper " Searching in the archives here, 
 " I found the reason of the Lady's fate, 
 " And how by accident it came to pass 
 " She wears the halo and displays the palm : 
 " Who, haply, else had never suffered — no, 
 " Nor graced our gallery, by consequence." 
 Who loved the work would like the little news : 
 Who lauds your poem lends an ear to me 
 Relating how the penalty was paid 
 By one Marchese dell' Oriolo, called 
 Onofrio Santa Croce otherwise. 
 For his complicity in matricide 
 With Paolo his own brother, — ^he whose crime 
 - And flight induced " those three \Yords — She must die." 
 Thus I unroll you then the manuscript 
 
 " God's justice " — (of the multiplicity 
 Of such communications extant still, 
 Recording, each, injustice done by God 
 In person of his Vicar-upon-earth, 
 Scarce one but leads off to the self-same tune) — 
 " God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, 
 " Rests never on the track until it reach 
 " Delinquency. In proof I cite the case 
 "Of Paolo Santa Croce." 
 
 Many times 
 The youngster, — having been importunate 
 That Marchesine Costanza, who remained 
 
Cenciaja. 6i 
 
 His widowed mother, should supplant the heir 
 
 Her elder son, and substitute himself 
 
 In sole possession of her faculty, — 
 
 And meeting just as often with rebuff, — 
 
 Blinded by so exorbitant a lust 
 
 Of gold, the youngster straightway tasked his wits, 
 
 Casting about to kill the lady — thus. 
 
 He first, to cover his iniquity. 
 Writes to Onofrio Santa Croce, then 
 Authoritative lord, acquainting him 
 Their mother was contamination — wrought 
 Like hell-fire in the beauty of their House 
 By dissoluteness and abandonment 
 Of soul and body to impure delight 
 Moreover, since she suffered from disease, 
 Those symptoms which her death made manifest 
 Hydroptic, he affirmed were fruits of sin 
 About to bring confusion and disgrace 
 Upon the ancient hneage and high fame 
 O' the family, when published. Duty-bound, 
 He asked his brother — what a son should do ? 
 
 Which when Marchese dell' Oriolo heard 
 By letter, being absent at his land 
 Oriolo, he made answer, this, no more : 
 " It must behove a son, — things haply so, — i 
 " To act as honour prompts a cavalier 
 " And son, perform his duty to all three, 
 " Mother and brothers " — here advice broke off. 
 
 By which advice informed and fortified 
 As he professed himself— as bound by birth 
 
62 Cenciaja. 
 
 To hear God's voice in primogeniture — 
 
 Paolo, who kept his mother company 
 
 In her domain Subiaco, straightway dared 
 
 His whole enormity of enterprise 
 
 And, falling on her, stabbed the lady dead ; 
 
 Whose death demonstrated her innocence , 
 
 And happened, — by the way, — smce Jesus Christ 
 
 Died to save man, just sixteen hundred years. 
 
 Costanza was of aspect beautiful 
 
 Exceedingly, and seemed, although in age 
 
 Sixty about, to far surpass her peers 
 
 The coetaneous dames, in youth and grace. 
 
 Done the misdeed, its author takes to flight, 
 Foiling thereby the justice of the world : 
 Not God's however, — God, be sure, knows well 
 The way to clutch a culprit. Witness here ! 
 The present sinner, when he least expects, 
 Snug-cornered somewhere i' the Basilicate, 
 Stumbles upon his death by violence. 
 A man of blood assaults the man of blood 
 And slays him somehow. This was afterward : 
 Enough, he promptly met with his deserts. 
 And, ending thus, permits we end with him, 
 And push forthwith to this important point — 
 His matricide fell out, of all the days. 
 Precisely when the law -procedure closed 
 Respecting Count Francesco Cen ci's death 
 Chargeable on his daughter, sons and wife. 
 " Thus patricide was matched with matricide," 
 A poet not inelegantly rhymed : 
 Nay, fratricide — those Princes Massimi ! — 
 
Cenciaja. 63 
 
 Which so disturbed the spirit of the Pope 
 That all the likelihood Rome entertained 
 Of Beatrice's pardon vanished straight, 
 And she endured the piteous death. 
 
 Now see 
 The sequel — what effect commandment had 
 For strict inquiry into this last case, 
 When Cardinal Aldobrandini (great 
 His efficacy — nephew to the Pope !) 
 Was bidden crush — ay, though his very hand 
 Got soiled i' the act — crime spawning everywhere ! 
 Because, when all endeavour had been used 
 To catch the aforesaid Paolo, all in vain — 
 " Make perquisition " quoth our Eminence, 
 " Throughout his now deserted domicile ! 
 " Ransack the palace, roof and floor, to find 
 " If haply any scrap of writing, hid 
 " In nook or corner, may convict — ^who knows ? — 
 " Brother Onofrio of intelligence 
 " With brother Paolo, as in brotherhood 
 " Is but too likely : crime spawns everywhere ! " 
 
 And, every cranny searched accordingly, 
 There comes to light — O lynx-eyed Cardinal ! — 
 Onofrio's unconsidered writing-scrap, 
 The letter in reply to Paolo's prayer, 
 The word of counsel that — things proving so, 
 Paolo»should act the proper knightly part. 
 And do as was incumbent on a son, 
 A brother— and a man of birth, be sure ! 
 
64 Cenciaja. 
 
 Whereat immediately the officers 
 Proceeded to arrest Onofrio — found 
 At foot-ball, child's play, unaware of harm, 
 Safe with his friends, the Orsini, at their seat 
 Monte Giordano ; as he left the house 
 He came upon the watch in wait for him 
 Set by the Barigel, — was caught and caged. 
 
 News of which capture being, that same hour, 
 Conveyed to Rome, forthwith our Eminence 
 Commands Taverna, Governor and Judge, 
 To have the process in especial care. 
 Be, first to last, not only president 
 In person, but inquisitor as well, 
 Nor trust the bye- work to a substitute : 
 Bids him not, squeamish, keep the bench, but scrub 
 The floor of Justice, so to speak, — go try 
 His best in prison with the criminal ; 
 Promising, as reward for bye-work done 
 Fairly on all-fours, that, success obtained 
 And crime avowed, or such connivency 
 With crime as should procure a decent death — 
 Himself will humbly beg — ^which means, procure — 
 The Hat and Purple from his relative 
 The Pope, and so repay a diligence 
 Which, meritorious in the Cenci-case, 
 Mounts plainly here to Purple and the Hat ! 
 
 Whereupon did my lord the Governor 
 So masterfully exercise the task 
 Enjoined him, that he, day by day, and week 
 By week, and month by montli, from first to last 
 Deserved the prize : now, punctual at his place, 
 
Cendaja. 65 
 
 Played Judge, and now, assiduous at his post, 
 Inquisitor — pressed cushion and scoured plank, 
 Early and late. Noon's fervor and night's chill, 
 Nought moved whom morn would, purpling, make 
 
 amends ! 
 So that observers laughed as, many a day, 
 He left home, in July when day is flame, 
 Posted to Tordinona-prison, plunged 
 Into the vault where daylong night is ice, 
 There passed his eight hours on a stretch, content. 
 Examining Onofrio : all the stress 
 Of all examination steadily 
 Converging into one pin-point, — ^he pushed 
 Tentative now of head and now of heart 
 As when the nuthatch taps and tries the nut 
 This side and that side till the kernel sounds, — 
 So did he press the sole and single point 
 — What was the very meaning of the phrase 
 " Do what beseems an honored cavalier ? " 
 
 Which one persistent question-torture, — plied 
 Day by day, week by week, and month by month, 
 Morn, noon and night, — fatigued away a mind 
 Grown imbecile by darkness, solitude, 
 And one vivacious memory gnawing there 
 As when a corpse is coffined with a snake : 
 — Fatigued Onofrio into what might seem 
 Admission that perchance his judgment groped 
 So blindly, feeling for an issue — aught 
 With semblance of an issue from the toils 
 Cast of a sudden round feet late so free,—; 
 He possibly might have envisaged, scarce 
 
 II, F 
 
66 Cenciaja. 
 
 Recoiled from — even were the issue death 
 — Even her death whose life was death and worse ! 
 Always provided that the charge of crime, 
 Each jot and tittle of the charge were true. 
 In such a sense, belike, he might advise 
 His brother to expurgate crime with . . well. 
 With blood, if blood must follow on " the course 
 " Taken as might beseem a cavalier." 
 
 Whereupon process ended, and report 
 Was made without a minute of delay 
 To Clement, who, because of those two crimes 
 O' the Massimi and Cenci flagrant late, 
 Must needs impatiently desire result. 
 
 Result obtained, he bade the Governor 
 Summon the Congregation and despatch. 
 Summons made, sentence passed accordingly 
 — Death by beheading. When his death-decree 
 Was intimated to Onofrio, all 
 Man could do— that did he to save himself. 
 'T was much, the having gained for his defence 
 The Advocate o' the Poor, with natural help 
 Of many noble friendly persons fain 
 To disengage a man of family. 
 So young too, from his grim entanglement 
 But Cardinal Aldobrandini ruled 
 There must be no diversion of the law. 
 Justice is justice, and the magistrate 
 Bears not the sword in vain. Who sins must die. 
 
 So, the Marchese had his head cut off 
 In Place Saint Angelo beside the Bridge, 
 
Cenciaja. 67 
 
 With Rome to see, a concourse infinite ; 
 
 Where, magnanimity demonstrating 
 
 Adequate to his birth and breed, — poor boy ! — 
 
 He made the people the accustomed speech, 
 
 Exhorted them to true faith, honest works, 
 
 And special good behaviour as regards 
 
 A parent of no matter what the sex. 
 
 Bidding each son take warning from himself. 
 
 Truly, it was considered in the boy 
 
 Stark staring lunacy, no less, to snap 
 
 So plain a bait, be hooked and hauled a-shore 
 
 By such an angler as the Cardinal 1 
 
 Why make confession of his privity 
 
 To Paolo's enterprise ? Mere sealing lips — 
 
 Or, better, saying " When I counselled him 
 
 " ' To do as might beseem a cavalier,^ 
 
 " What could I mean but ^ Hide our parent's shame 
 
 " ' As Christian ought, by aid of Holy Church I 
 
 " ' Bury it in a convent — ay, beneath 
 
 " ' Eriough dotation to prevent its ghost 
 
 " ' From troubling earth ! ' " Mere saying thus. — 't is 
 
 plain. 
 Not only were his life the recompense. 
 But he had manifestly proved himself 
 True Christian, and in lieu of punishment 
 Been praised of all men ! — So the populace: 
 
 Anyhow, when the Pope made promise good 
 (That of Aldobrandini, near and dear) 
 And gave Taverna, who had toiled so much. 
 A Cardinal's equipment, some such wor(? 
 As this from mouth to ear went saucily : 
 
 F 2 
 
68 Cenciaja. 
 
 " Taverna's cap is dyed in what he drew 
 
 " From Santa Croce's veins ! " So joked the world. 
 
 I add : Onofrio left one child behind, 
 A daughter named Valeria, dowered with grace 
 Abundantly of soul and body, doomed 
 To life the shorter for her father's fate. 
 By death of her, the Marquisate returned 
 To that Orsini House from whence it came ; 
 Oriolo having passed as donative 
 To Santa Croce from their ancestors. 
 
 And no word more ? By all means ! Would you know 
 The authoritative answer, when folks urged 
 " What made Aldobrandini, hound-like staunch, 
 " Hunt out of life a harmless simpleton ? " 
 The answer was — " Hatred implacable, 
 " By reason they were rivals in their love." 
 The Cardinal's desire was to a dame 
 Whose favour was Onofrio's. Pricked with pride, 
 The simpleton must ostentatiously 
 Display a ring, the Cardinal's love-gift, 
 Given to Onofrio as the lady's gage ; 
 Which ring on finger, as he put forth hand 
 To draw a tapestry, the Cardinal 
 Saw and knew, gift and owner, old and young ; 
 Whereon a fury entered him — the fire 
 He quenched with what could quench fire only — blood. 
 Nay, more : " there want not who aflSrm to boot, 
 " The unwise boy, a certain festal eve, 
 " Feigned ignorance of who the wight might be 
 " That pressed too closely on him with a crowd. 
 
Cenciaja. 69 
 
 " He struck the Cardinal a blow : and then, 
 
 " To put a face upon the incident, 
 
 " Dared next day, smug as ever, go pay court 
 
 " I' the Cardinal's antechamber. Mark and mend, 
 
 " Ye youth, by this example how may greed 
 
 " Vainglorious operate in worldly souls ! " 
 
 So ends the chronicler, beginning with 
 " God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, 
 " Rests never till it reach delinquency." 
 Ay, or how otherwise had come to pass 
 That Victor rules, this present year, in Rome ? 
 
70 
 
 PORPHYRIA'S LOVER. 
 
 The rain set early in to-night, 
 The sullen wind was soon awake, 
 
 It tore the elm-tops down for spite, 
 And did its worst to vex the lake, 
 
 I listened with heart fit to break. 
 
 II. 
 
 When glided in Porphyria ; straight 
 She shut the cold out and the storm, 
 
 And kneeled and made the cheerless grate 
 Blaze up, and all the cottage warm ; 
 
 Which done, she rose, and from her form 
 
 III. 
 
 Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, 
 And laid her soiled gloves by, untied 
 
 Her hat and let the damp hair fall. 
 And, last, she sat down by my side 
 
 And called me. When no voice replied, 
 
Porphyrids leaver. 7 1 
 
 She put my arm about her waist, 
 
 And made her smooth white shoulder bare, 
 And all her yellow hair displaced, 
 
 And, stooping, made my cheek lie there, 
 And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair, — '■ 
 
 V. 
 
 Murmuring how she loved me — she 
 Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour, 
 
 To set its struggling passion free 
 From pride, and vainer ties dissever. 
 
 And give herself to me for ever. 
 
 VI. 
 
 But passion sometimes would prevail. 
 Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain 
 
 A sudden thought of one so pale 
 For love of her, and all in vain : 
 
 So, she was come through wind and rain. 
 
 vii. 
 Be sure I looked up at her eyes 
 
 Happy and proud ; at last I knew 
 Porphyria worshipped me ; surprise 
 
 Made my heart swell, and still it grew 
 While I debated what to do. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 That moment she was mine, mine, fair. 
 Perfectly pure and good : I found 
 
 A thing to do, and all her hair 
 In one long yellow string I wound 
 
 Three times her little throat around, 
 
72 Porphyria! s Lover. 
 
 And strangled her. No pain felt she ; 
 
 I am quite sure she felt no pain. 
 As a shut bud that holds a bee, 
 
 I warily oped her lids : again 
 Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. 
 
 X. 
 
 And I untightened next the tress 
 About her neck ; her cheek once more 
 
 Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss : 
 I propped her head up as before. 
 
 Only, this time my shoulder bore 
 
 XI. 
 
 Her head, which droops upon it still : 
 The smiling rosy little head, 
 
 So glad it has its utmost will. 
 
 That all it scorned at once is fled, 
 
 And I, its love, am gained instead ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Porph5T:ia's love : she guessed not how 
 Her darling one wish would be heard. 
 
 And thus we sit together now. 
 
 And all nighf long we have not stirred, 
 
 And yet God has not said a word ! 
 
73 
 
 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI ON THE PRIVILEGE 
 OF BURIAL. 
 
 A Reminiscence of A.T>, 1676. 
 
 I. 
 
 No, boy, we must not (so began 
 
 My Uncle — he 's with God long since — 
 A-petting me, the good old man !) 
 
 We must not (and he seemed to wince, 
 And lose that laugh whereto had grown 
 
 His chuckle at my piece of news, 
 How cleverly I aimed my stone) 
 
 I fear we must not pelt the Jews ! 
 
 II. 
 
 When I was young indeed, — ah, faith 
 
 Was young and strong in Florence too ! 
 We Christians never dreamed of scathe 
 
 Because we cursed or kicked the crew. 
 But now — well, well ! The olive-crops 
 
 Weighed double then, and Arno's pranks 
 Would always spare religious shops. 
 
 Whenever he o'erfiowed his banks ! 
 
J 4 Filippo Baldinucd on the Frivilege of Burial. 
 
 I '11 tell you (and his eye regained 
 
 Its twinkle) tell you something choice ! 
 Something may help you keep unstained 
 
 Your honest zeal to stop the voice 
 Of unbelief with stone-throw — spite 
 
 Of laws, which modern fools enact, 
 TTiat we must suffer Jews in sight 
 
 Go wholly unmolested ! Fact ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 There was, then, in my youth, and yet 
 
 Is, by San Frediano, just 
 Below the Blessed Olivet, 
 
 A wayside ground wherein they thrust 
 Their dead, — these Jews, — the more our shame ! 
 
 Except that, so they will but die, 
 We may perchance incur no blame 
 
 In giving hogs a hoist to stye. 
 
 There, anyhow, Jews stow away 
 
 Their dead ; and, — such their insolence, — 
 Slink at odd times to sing and pray 
 
 As Christians do — all make-pretence ! — 
 Which wickedness they perpetrate 
 
 Because they think no Christians see 
 They reckoned here, at any rate, 
 
 Without their host : ha, ha, he, he ! 
 
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial. 75 
 
 VI. 
 
 For, what should join their plot of ground 
 
 But a good Farmer's Christian field ? 
 The Jews had hedged their corner round 
 
 With bramble-bush to keep concealed 
 Their doings : for the public road 
 
 Ran betwixt this their ground and that 
 The Farmer's, where he ploughed and sowed 
 
 Grew corn for barn and grapes for vat. 
 
 VJI. 
 
 So, properly to guard his store " 
 
 And gall the unbelievers too. 
 He builds a shrine and, what is more, 
 
 Procures a painter whom I knew, 
 One Buti (he 's with God) to paint 
 
 A holy picture there — no less 
 Than Virgin Mary free from taint 
 
 Borne to the sky by angels : yes ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 WTiich shrine he fixed, — who says him nay ? — 
 
 A-facing with its picture-side 
 Not, as you 'd think, the public way. 
 
 But just where sought these hounds to hide 
 Their carrion from that very truth 
 
 Of Mary's triumph : not a hound 
 Could act his mummeries uncouth 
 
 But Mary shamed the pack all round ! 
 
"jQ Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial. 
 
 IX, 
 
 Now, if it was amusing, judge ! 
 
 — To see the company arrive. 
 Each Jew intent to end his trudge 
 
 And take his pleasure (though alive) 
 With all his Jewish kith and kin 
 
 Below ground, have his venom out, 
 Sharpen his wits for next day's sin, 
 
 Curse Christians, and so home, no doubt ! 
 
 Whereas, each phyz upturned beholds 
 
 Mary, I warrant, soaring brave ! 
 And in a trice, beneath the folds 
 
 Of filthy garb which gowns each knave, 
 Down drops it — there to hide grimace. 
 
 Contortion of the mouth and nose 
 At finding Mary in the place 
 
 They 'd keep for Pilate, I suppose 1 
 
 XI. 
 
 At last, they will not brook — not they !^ 
 
 Longer such outrage on their tribe : 
 So, in some hole and corner, lay 
 
 Their heads together — how to bribe 
 The meritorious Farmer's self 
 
 To straight undo his work, restore 
 Their chance to meet, and muse on pelf — 
 
 Pretending sorrow, as before ! 
 
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial. 77 
 
 XII. 
 
 Forthwith, a posse, if you please, 
 
 Of Rabbi This and Rabbi That 
 Almost go down upon their knees 
 
 To get him lay the picture flat. 
 The spokesman, eighty years of age, 
 
 Grey as a badger, with a goat's 
 — Not only beard but bleat, 'gins wage 
 
 War with our Mary, Thus he dotes ; — 
 
 XIII. 
 
 " Friends, grant a grace ! How Hebrews toil 
 
 " Through life in Florence — ^why relate 
 " To those who lay the burden, spoil 
 
 " Our paths of peace ? We bear our fate. 
 " But when with life the long toil ends, 
 
 "Why must you — the expression craves 
 " Pardon, but truth compels me, friends ! — 
 
 " Why must you plague us in our graves ? 
 
 XIV, 
 
 " Thoughtlessly plague, I would believe ! 
 
 " For how can you — the lords of ease 
 " By nurture, birthright — e'en conceive 
 
 " Our luxury to lie with trees 
 " And turf, — the cricket and the bird 
 
 " Left for our last companionship : 
 ' No harsh deed, no unkindly word, 
 
 ." No frowning brow nor scornful lip ! 
 
78 Filippo Baldinticci on the Privilege of Burial. 
 
 XV. 
 
 " Death's luxury, we now rehearse 
 
 " While, living, through your streets we fare 
 " And take your hatred : nothing worse 
 
 " Have we, once dead and safe, to bear ! 
 " So we refresh our souls, fulfil 
 
 " Our works, our daily tasks ; and thus 
 " Gather you grain — earth's harvest — still 
 
 " The wheat for you, the straw for us. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " ' What flouting in a face, what harm, 
 
 " ' In just -a lady borne from bier 
 " ' By boys' heads, wings for leg and arm ? ' 
 
 " You question. Friends, the harm is here- 
 " That just when our last sigh is heaved, 
 
 " And we would fain thank God and you 
 " For labour done and peace achieved, 
 
 " Back comes the Past in full review ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " At sight of just that simple flag, 
 
 " Starts the foe-feeling serpent-like 
 " From slumber. Leave it lulled, nor drag — 
 
 " Though fangless — ^forth, what needs must strike 
 " When stricken sore, though stroke be vain 
 
 " Against the mailed oppressor ! Give 
 " Play to our fancy that we gain 
 
 " Life's rights when once we cease to live ! 
 
Filippo Baldinucd on the Privilege of Burial. 79 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 " Thus much to courtesy, to kind, 
 
 " To conscience ! Now to Florence folk ! 
 " There 's Qore beneath this apple-rind, 
 
 " Beneath this white-of-egg there 's yolk ! 
 " Beneath this prayer to courtesy, 
 
 " Kind, conscience — there 's a sum to pouch ! 
 " How many ducats down will buy 
 
 " Our shame's removal, sirs ? Avouch ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 " Removal, not destruction, sirs ! 
 
 " Just turn your picture ! Let it front 
 " The public path ! Or memory errs, 
 
 " Or that same public path is wont 
 " To witness many a chance befall 
 
 " Of lust, theft, bloodshed— sins enough, 
 " Wherein our Hebrew part is small. 
 
 " Convert yourselves ! " — he cut up rough. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Look you, how soon a service paid 
 
 Religion yields the servant fruit ! 
 A prompt reply our Farmer made 
 
 So following : " Sirs, to grant your suit 
 " Involves much danger ! How ? Transpose 
 
 " Our Lady? Stop the chastisement, 
 " All for your good, herself bestows ? 
 
 " What wonder if I grudge consent ? 
 
So Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial- 
 
 XXI, 
 
 " — Yet grant it : since, what cash I take 
 
 " Is so much saved from wicked use. 
 " We know you ! And, for Mary's sake, 
 
 " A hundred ducats shall induce 
 " Concession to your prayer. One day 
 
 " Suffices : Master Buti's brush 
 " Turns Mary round the other way, 
 
 " And deluges your side with slush, 
 
 XXII. 
 
 " Down with the ducats therefore ! " Dump, 
 
 Dump, dump it falls, each counted piece, 
 Hard gold. Then out of door they stump, 
 
 These dogs, each brisk as with new lease 
 Of life, I warrant, —glad he '11 die 
 
 Henceforward just as he may choose. 
 Be buried and in clover lie ! 
 
 Well said Esaias — " stiff-necked Jews ! " 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Off posts without a minute's loss 
 
 Our Farmer, once the cash in poke. 
 And summons Buti — ere its gloss 
 
 Have time to fade from off the joke — 
 To chop and change his work, undo 
 
 The done side, make the side, now blank, 
 Recipient of our Lady — ^who. 
 
 Displaced thus, had these dogs to thank ! 
 
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial. 8i 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Now, you 're no boy I need instruct 
 
 In technicalities of Art ! 
 My nephew's childhood sure has sucked 
 
 Along with mother's-milk some part 
 Of painter's-practice — ^learned, at least, 
 
 How expeditiously is plied 
 A work in fresco — never ceased 
 
 When once begun-r— a day, each side. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 So, Buti — he 's with God — begins : 
 
 First covers up the shrine all round 
 With hoarding ; then, as like as twins. 
 
 Paints, t' other side the burial-ground. 
 New Mary, every point the same ; 
 
 Next, sluices over, as agreed. 
 The old ; and last — but, spoil the game 
 
 By telling you ? Not I, indeed ! 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Well, ere the week was half at end. 
 
 Out came the object of this zeal. 
 This fine alacrity to spend 
 
 Hard money for mere dead men's weal ! 
 How think you ? That old spokesman Jew 
 
 Was High Priest, and he had a wife 
 As old, and she was dying too. 
 
 And wished to end in peace her life ! 
 
 II. G 
 
8 2 Filippo Baldinucci on thl Privilege of Burial- 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 And he must humour dying whims, 
 
 And soothe her with the idle hope 
 They 'd say their prayers and sing their hymns 
 
 As if her husband were the Pope ! 
 And she did die — believing just 
 
 This privilege was purchased ! Dead 
 In comfort through her foolish trust ! 
 
 "Stiff-necked ones," well Esaias said ! 
 
 xxvm. 
 
 So, Sabbath morning, out of gate 
 
 Arid on to way, what sees our arch 
 Good Farmer ? Why, they hoist their freight- 
 
 The corpse — on shoulder, and so, march ! 
 " Now for it, Buti ! " In the nick 
 
 Of time 't is puUy-hauly, hence 
 With hoarding ! O'er the wayside quick 
 
 There 's Mary plain in evidence ! 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 And here 's the convoy halting : right ! 
 
 O they are bent on howling psalms 
 And growling prayers, when opposite ! 
 
 And yet they glance, for all their qualms. 
 Approve that promptitude of his. 
 
 The Farmer's — duly at his post 
 To take due thanks from every phyz, 
 
 Sour smirk— nay, surly smile almost ! 
 
Filippo Baldinucci on the Frivilege of Burial. 83 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Then earthward drops each brow again ; 
 
 The solemn task' 's resumed ; they reach 
 Their holy field— the unholy train : 
 
 Enter its precinct, all and each, 
 Wrapt somehow in their godless rites ; 
 
 Till, rites at end, up-waking, lo 
 They lift their faces ! What delights 
 
 The mourners as they turn to go ? 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Ha, ha, he, he ! On just the side 
 
 They drew their purse-strings to make quit 
 Of Mary, — Christ the Crucified 
 
 Fronted them now — these biters bit ! 
 Never was such a hiss and snort, 
 
 Such screwing nose and shooting lip 
 Their purchase — honey in report — 
 
 Proved gall and verjuice at first sip ! 
 
 I 
 
 XXXJI, 
 
 Out they break, on they bustle, where, 
 A-top of wall, the Farmer waits 
 
 With Buti : never fun so rare ! 
 The Farmer has the best : he rates 
 
 The rascal, as the old High Priest 
 'Takes on himself to sermonize — 
 
 Nay, sneer " We Jews supposed, at leas^ 
 " Theft was a crime in Christian eyes ! " 
 
 G 2 
 
84 Filippo Baldinuai on the Privilege of Burial. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 " Theft ? " cries the Farmer, " Eat your words ! 
 " Show me what constitutes a breach 
 
 " Of faith in aught was said or heard ! 
 " I promised you in plainest speech 
 I 'd take the thing you count disgrace 
 " And put it here — and here 't is put ! 
 
 " Did you suppose I 'd leave the place 
 " Blank therefore, just your rage to glut ? 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 " I guess you dared not stipulate 
 
 " For such a damned impertinence ! 
 " So, quick, my greybeard, out of gate 
 
 '* And in at Ghetto ! Haste you hence ! 
 ". As long as I have house and land, 
 
 ." To spite you irreligious chaps 
 " Here shall the Crucifixion stand — 
 
 "Unless you down with cash, perhaps ! " 
 
 XXXV, 
 
 So snickered he and Buti both. 
 
 The Jews said nothing, interchanged 
 A glance or two, renewed their oath 
 
 To keep ears stopped and hearts estranged 
 From grace, for all our Church can do. 
 
 Then off they scuttle : sullen jog 
 Homewards, against our Church to brew 
 ■ Fresh mischief in their synagogue. 
 
Filipfo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial. %-<, 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 But next day — see what happened, boy ! 
 
 See why I bid you have a care 
 How you pelt Jews ! The knaves employ 
 
 Such methods of revenge, forbear 
 No outrage on our faith, when free 
 
 To wreak their malice ! Here they took 
 So base a method — plague o' me 
 
 If I record it in my Book ! 
 
 xxxvii. 
 
 For, next day, while the Farmer sat 
 
 Laughing with Buti, in his shop, 
 At their successful joke, — rat-tat, — 
 
 Door opens, and they 're like to drop 
 Down to the floor as in there stalks 
 
 A six-feet-high herculean-built 
 Young he-Jew with a beard that baulks 
 
 Description. " Help ere blood be spilt ! 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 — Screamed Buti : for he recognized 
 
 Whom but the son, no less no more, 
 Of that High Priest his work surprised 
 
 So pleasantly the day before ! 
 Son of the mother, then, whereof 
 
 The bier he lent a shoulder to. 
 And made the moans about, dared scoff 
 
 At sober Christian grief — the Jew ! 
 
86 Filippo Baldinucd on the Privilege of Burial. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 " Sirs, I salute you ! Never rise \ 
 
 " No apprehension ! " (Buti, white 
 And trembling like a tub of size, 
 
 Had tried to smuggle out of sight 
 The picture's self — the thing in oils. 
 
 You know, from which a fresco 's dashed 
 Which courage speeds while caution spoils) 
 
 " Stay and be praised, sir, unabashed ! " 
 
 XL. 
 
 " Praised, — ay, and paid too : for I come 
 
 " To buy that very work of yours. 
 " My poor abode, which boasts — ^well, some 
 
 " Few specimens of Art, secures 
 " Haply, a masterpiece indeed 
 
 " If I should find my humble means 
 " Suffice the outlay. So, proceed ! 
 
 " Propose — ere prudence intervenes ! " 
 
 On Buti, cowering like a child, 
 
 These words descended from aloft. 
 In tone so ominously mild. 
 
 With smile terrifically soft 
 To that degree — could Buti dare 
 
 (Poor fellow) use his brains, think twice ? 
 He asked, thus taken unaware. 
 
 No more than just the proper price ! 
 
Filippo Baldintud on the, Privilege of Burial. 87 
 
 XLII. 
 
 " Done ! " cries the monster. " I disburse 
 
 " Forthwith your moderate demand. 
 " Count on my custom-^if no worse 
 
 " Your future work be, understand, 
 " Than this I carry off ! No aid ! 
 
 " My arm, sir, lacks nor bone nor thews : 
 " The burden 's easy, and we 're made, 
 
 " Easy or hard, to bear — we Jews ! " 
 
 XLHI. 
 
 Crossing himself at such escape, 
 
 Buti by turns the money eyes 
 And, timidly, the stalwart shape 
 
 Now moving doorwards ; but, more wise, 
 The Farmer, — who, though dumb, this while 
 
 Had watched advantage, — straight conceived 
 A reason for that tone and smile 
 
 So mild and soft ! The. Jew— believed ! 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Mary in triumph borne to deck 
 
 A Hebrew household ! Pictured where 
 
 No one was used to bend the neck 
 In praise or bow the knee in prayer ! 
 
 Borne to that domicile by whom ? 
 
 , The son of the High Priest ! Through what ? 
 
 An insult done his mother's tomb 1 
 
 Saul changed to Paul— the case came.pat ! 
 
88 Filippo Baldiniuci on the Privilege of Burial. 
 
 XLV< 
 
 " Stay, dog- Jew . . gentle sir, that is ! 
 
 " Resolve me ! Can it be, she crowned — 
 " Mary, by miracle — Oh bliss ! — 
 
 " My present to your burial-ground ? 
 " Certain, a ray of light has burst 
 
 " Your veil of darkness ! Had you else, 
 " Only for Mary's sake, unpursed 
 
 " So much hard money ? Tell— oh, tell 's ! " 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Round — ^like a serpent that we took 
 For worm and trod on — turns his bulk 
 
 About the Jew. First dreadful look 
 Sends Buti in a trice to skulk 
 
 Out of sight somewhere, safe — alack ! 
 
 • But our good Farmer faith made bold : 
 
 And firm (with Florence at his back) 
 He stood, while gruff die gutturals rolled — 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 " Ay, sir, a miracle was worked, 
 
 " By quite another power, I trow, 
 " Than ever yet in canvas lurked 
 
 " Or you would scarcely face me now ! 
 " A certain impulse did suggest 
 
 " A certain grasp with this right-hand, 
 " Which probably had put to rest 
 
 " Our quarrel, — thus your throat once spanned ! 
 
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial. 89 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 " But I remembered me, subdued 
 
 " That impulse, and you face me still i 
 " And soon a philosophic mood 
 
 " Succeeding (hear it, if you will !) 
 " Has altogether changed my views 
 
 " Concerning Art. Blind prejudice ! 
 " Well may you Christians tax us Jews 
 
 " With scrupulosity too nice ! 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 " For, don't I see, — let 's issue join !■— 
 
 " Whenever I 'm allowed pollute 
 " (I — and my little bag of coin) 
 
 " Some Christian palace of repute, — 
 " Don't I see stuck up everywhere 
 
 " Abundant proof that cultured taste 
 " Has Beauty for its only care, 
 
 " And upon Truth no thought to waste ? 
 
 ■ • Jew, since it must be, take in pledge 
 " ' Of payment ' — so a Cardinal 
 
 ' Has sighed to me as if a wedge 
 " Entered his heart — ' this best of all 
 ' My treasures ! ' Leda, Ganymede 
 " Or Antiope : swan, eagle, ape, 
 
 ' (Or what 's the beast of what 's the breed) 
 " And Jupiter in every shape ! 
 
go Filippo Baldinucd on the Privilege of Burial. 
 
 ■ Whereat if I presume to ask 
 •' ' But, Eminence, though Titian's whisk 
 ' Of brush have well performed its task, 
 " ' How comes it these false godships frisk 
 ' In presence of — what yonder frame 
 "' Pretends to image ? Surely, odd 
 ' It «eems, you let confront The Name 
 " ' Each beast the heathen called his god ! ' 
 
 LII. 
 
 " Benignant smiles me pity straight 
 
 " The Cardinal ' 'T is Truth, we prize ! 
 " ' Art 's the sole question in debate ! 
 
 " ' These subjects are so many lies. 
 " ' We treat them with a proper scorn -- 
 
 " ' When we turn lies — called gods forsooth- 
 " ' To lies' fit use, now Christ is bom. 
 
 " ' Drawing and colouring are Truth. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 " ' Think you I honor lies so much 
 
 " ' As scruple to parade the charms 
 " ' Of Leda — Titian, every touch — 
 
 " ' Because the thing within her arms 
 " ' Means Jupiter who had the praise 
 
 " ' And prayer of a benighted world ? 
 " ' Benighted I too, if, in days 
 
 " ' Of light, I kept the canvas furled ! ' 
 
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial. 91 
 
 LIV, 
 
 " So ending, with some easy giba 
 
 " What power has logic ! I, at once, 
 " Acknowledged error in our tribe 
 
 " So squeamish that, when friends ensconce 
 " A pretty picture in its niche 
 
 " To do us honor, deck our graves, 
 " We fret and fume and have an itch 
 
 " To strangle folk — ungrateful knaves ! 
 
 LV. 
 
 No, sir ! Be sure that— what 's its style, 
 
 " Your picture ? — shall possess ungrudged 
 ' A place among my rank and file 
 
 " Of Ledas and what not — be judged 
 ' Just as a picture ! — and (because 
 
 " I fear me much I scarce have bought 
 ' A Titian) Master Buti's flaws 
 
 " Found there, will have the laugh flaws ought ! " 
 
 LVI. 
 
 So, with a scowl, it darkens door — 
 
 This bulk — no longer ! Buti makes 
 Prompt glad re-entry ; there 's a score 
 
 Of oaths, as the good Farmer wakes 
 From what must needs have been a trance, 
 
 Or he had struck (he swears) to ground 
 The bold bad mouth that dared advance 
 
 Such doctrine the reverse of sound ! 
 
92 Filippo Baldinucd on the Privilege of Burial. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Was magic here ? Most like ! For, since, 
 
 Somehow our city's faith grows still 
 More and more lukewarm, and our Prince 
 
 Or loses heart or wants the will 
 To check increase of cold. 'T is " Live 
 
 " And let live ! Languidly repress 
 " The Dissident ! In short, — contrive 
 
 " Christians must bear with Jews : no less I 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 The end seems, any Israelite 
 
 Wants any picture, — ^pishes, poohs, 
 Purchases, hangs it full in sight 
 
 In any chamber he may choose ! 
 In Christ's crown, one more thorn we rue ! 
 
 In Mary's bosom, one more sword ! 
 No, boy, you must not pelt a Jew ! 
 
 O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord ? 
 
93 
 
 SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER. 
 
 Gr-r-r— there go, my heart's abhorrence ! 
 
 Water your damned flower-pots, do ! 
 If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, 
 
 God's blood, would not mine kill you ! 
 What ? your myrtle-bush wants trimming ? 
 
 Oh, that rose has prior claims — 
 Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? 
 
 Hell dry you up With its flames ! 
 
 At the meal we sit together : 
 
 Salve tibi! I must hear 
 Wise talk of the kind of weather, •, 
 
 Sort of season, time of year : 
 Not a plenteous cork-crop : scarcely 
 
 Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt : 
 What 's the Latin name for ^'parsley 1 " 
 
 What 's the Greek name for Swine's Snout ? 
 
94 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. 
 
 III. 
 
 Whew ! We 11 have our platter burnished. 
 
 Laid with care on our own shelf ! 
 With a fire-new spoon we 're furnished. 
 
 And a goblet for ouisel^ 
 Rinsed like something sacrificial 
 
 Ere 't is fit to touch our chaps- 
 Marked with L. for our initial ! 
 
 (He-he ! There his lily snaps !) 
 
 IV. 
 
 Saint, forsooth ! While brown Dolnes 
 
 Squats outside the Convent bank 
 With Sanchicha, telling stories, 
 
 Steeping tresses in the tank. 
 Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, 
 
 — Can't I see his dead eye glow. 
 Bright as 't were a Barbary corsair's ? 
 
 (That is, if he 'd let it show !) 
 
 When he finishes refection. 
 
 Knife and fork he never lays 
 Cross-wise, to my recollection. 
 
 As do I, m Jesu's praise. 
 I the Trinity illustrate, 
 
 Drinking watered orange-pulp — 
 In three sips the Arian frustrate ; 
 
 While he drains his at one gulp, 
 
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. 95 
 
 VI. 
 
 Oh, those melons ? If he 's able 
 
 We 're to have a feast ! so nice ! 
 One goes to the Abbot's table, 
 
 All of us get each a slice. 
 How go on your flowers ? None double ? 
 
 Not one fruit-sort can you spy ? 
 Strange ! — And I, too, at such trouble 
 
 Keep them close-nipped on the sly ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 There 's a great text in Galatians, 
 
 Once you trip on it, entails 
 Twenty-nine distinct damnations, 
 
 One sure, if another fails : ' 
 If I trip him just a-dying, 
 
 Sure of heaven as sure can be. 
 Spin him round and send him flying 
 
 Off to hell, a Manichee ? 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Or, my scrofulous French novel 
 
 On grey paper with blunt type ! 
 Simply glance at it, you grovel 
 
 Hand and foot in Belial's gripe : 
 If I double down its pages 
 
 At the woeful sixteenth print, 
 When he gathers his greengages, 
 
 Ope a sieve and slip it in 't ? 
 
96 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Or, there 's Satan ! — one might venture 
 
 Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave 
 Such a flaw in the indenture 
 
 As he 'd miss till, past retrieve, 
 Blasted lay that rose-acacia 
 
 We 're so proud of ! Hy, Zy, Hine . , 
 'St, there 's Vespers ! Plena gratict 
 
 Ave, Virgo ! Gr-r-r — ^you swine ! 
 
97 
 
 THE HERETIC'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 A MIDDLE-AGE INTERLUDE. 
 
 ROSA MUNDI; SEU, FULCITE ME FLORIBUS. A CONCEIT OF 
 MASTER GYSBRECHT, CANON-REGULAR OF SAINT JODOCUS- 
 BY-THE-BAR, YPRES CITY. CANTUQUE, VirgiUus. ANp 
 HATH OFTEN BEEN SUNG AT HOCK-TIDE AND FESTIVALS. 
 
 GAVisus ERAM, Jessides. 
 
 (It would seem to be a glimpse from the burning of Jacques du 
 Bourg-Molay, at Paris, A.D. 1314; as distorted by the refraction 
 from Flemish- brain to brain, during the course of a couple of 
 centuries.) 
 
 PREADMONISHETH THE ABBOT DEODAET, 
 
 The Lord, we look to once for all, 
 
 Is the Lord we should look at, all at once : 
 He knows not to vary, saith St. Paul, 
 
 Nor the shadow of turning, for the nonce. 
 See him no other than as he is ! 
 
 Give both the infinitudes their due — 
 Infinite mercy, but, I wis, 
 
 4-s infinite a justice too. 
 
 As infinite a justice too. 
 
 H 
 
 \Organ: plagal-cadence^ 
 
gS The Heretics Tragedy. 
 
 ONE SINGETH. 
 
 John, Master of the Temple of God, 
 
 Falling to sin the Unknown Sin, 
 What he bought of Emperor Aldabrod, 
 
 , He sold it to Sultan Saladin : 
 Till, caught by Pope Clement, a-buzzing there, 
 
 Hornet-prince of the mad wasps' hive. 
 And dipt of his wings in Paris square, 
 They bring him now to be burned alive. 
 
 \And wanteth there grace of lute or clavicitliern, 
 ye shall say to confirm him who singeth — 
 We bring John now to be burned alive. 
 
 In the midst is a goodly gallows built ; 
 
 'Twixt fork and fork, a stake is stuck ; 
 But first they set divers tumbrils a-tilt, 
 
 Make a trench all round with the city muck ; 
 Inside they pile log upon log, good store ; 
 
 Faggots not few, blocks great and small, 
 Reach a man's mid-thigh, no less, no more, — 
 
 For they mean he should roast in the sight of all. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 We mean he should roast in the sight of all. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Good sappy bavins that kindle forthwith ; 
 
 Billets that blaze substantial and slow ; 
 Pine-stump split deftly, dry as pith ; 
 
 Larch-heart that chars to a chalk-white glow : 
 
The Heretics Tragedy, 99 
 
 Then up they hoist me John in a chafe, 
 
 Sling him fast like a hog to scorch, 
 Spit in his face, then leap back safe. 
 
 Sing " Laudes " and bid clap-to the torch. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Laus Deo — who bids clap-to the torch. 
 
 John of the Temple, whose fame so bragged, 
 
 Is burning alive in Paris square ! 
 How can he curse, if his mouth is gagged ? 
 
 Or wriggle his neck, with a collar there ? 
 Or heave his chest, while a band goes round ? 
 
 Or threat with his fist, since his arms are spliced ? 
 Or kick with his feet, now his legs are bound ? 
 
 — Thinks John, I will call upon Jesus Christ. 
 
 \Here one crosseth himself. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Jesus Christ — John had bought and sold, 
 
 Jesus Christ — John had eaten and drunk ; 
 To him, the Flesh meant silver and gold. 
 
 {SalvA reverentiA.) 
 Now it was, " Saviour, bountiful lamb, 
 
 " I have roasted thee Turks, though men roast me ! 
 " See thy servant, the plight wherein I am ! 
 
 " Art thou a saviour ? Save thou me ! " 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 T is John the mocker cries, " Save thou me ! " 
 
 H 2 
 
The Heretics Tragedy, 
 
 VII. 
 
 Who maketh God's menace an idle word ? 
 
 — Saith, it no more means what it proclaims, 
 Than a damsel's threat to her wanton bird ? — 
 
 For she too prattles of ugly names. 
 — Saith, he knoweth but one thing, — what he knows ? 
 
 That God is good and the rest is breath ; 
 Why else is the same styled Sharon's rose ? 
 
 Once a rose, ever a rose, he saith. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 O, John shall yet find a rose, he saith .' 
 
 Alack, there be. roses and roses, John ! 
 
 Some, honied of taste like your leman's tongue 
 Some, bitter ; for why? (roast gaily on !) 
 
 Their tree struck root in devil's dung. 
 When Paul once reasoned of righteousness 
 
 And of temperance and of judgment to come, 
 Good Felix trembled, he could no less : 
 
 John, snickering, crook'd his wicked thumb. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 What Cometh to John of the wicked thumb ? 
 
 IX, 
 
 Ha ha, John plucketh now at his rose 
 To rid himself of a sorrow at heart ! 
 
 Lo, — petal on petal, fierce rays unclose ; 
 Anther on anther, sharp spikes outstart ; 
 
The Heretids Tragedy. 
 
 And with blood for dew, the bosom boils ; 
 
 And a gust of sulphur is all its smell ; 
 And lo, he is horribly in the toils 
 
 Of a coal-black giant flower of hell ! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 What maketh heaven, That maketh hell. 
 
 X. 
 
 So, as John called now, through the fire amain, 
 
 On the Name, he had cursed with, all his life- 
 To the Person, he bought and sold again — 
 
 For the Face, with his daily buffets rife — 
 Feature by feature It took its place : 
 
 And his voice, like a mad dog's choking bark. 
 At the steady whole of the Judge's face — 
 
 Died. Forth John's soul flared into the dark. 
 
 SUBJOINETH THE ABBOT DEODAET. 
 
 God help all poor souls lost in the dark ! 
 
HOLY-CROSS DAY. 
 
 ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN 
 ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON iN ROME. 
 
 [" Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now must my 
 lord preach his first sermon to the Jews : as it was of old cared for 
 in the merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at 
 least from her conspicuous table here in Rome, should be, though but 
 once yearly, cast to the famishing dogs, under-trariipled and bespitten- 
 upon beneath the feet of the guests. And a moving sight in truth, 
 this, of so many of the besotted blind restif and ready-to-perish 
 Hebrews ! now maternally brought — nay, (for He saith, ' Compel 
 them to come in ') haled, as it were, by the head and hair, and 
 against their obstinate hearts, to partake of the heavenly grace. 
 What awakening, what striving with tears, what working of a yeasty 
 conscience ! Nor was my lord wanting to himself on so apt an occa- 
 sion ; witness the abundance of conversions which did incontinently 
 reward him : though not to my lord be altogether the glory. " — 
 Diary by the Bishofs Secretary, 1600.] 
 
 What the Jews really said, on thus being driven to church, was 
 rather to this effect : — 
 
 I. 
 
 Fee, faw, fum ! bubble and squeak ! 
 Blessedest Thursday 's the fat of the week. 
 Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough, 
 Stinking and savoury, smug and gruff, 
 Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime 
 Gives us the summons — 't is sermon-time ! 
 
Holy -Cross Day. 103 
 
 II. 
 Boh, here 's Barnabas ! Job, that 's you ? 
 Up stumps Solomon — bustling too ? 
 Shame, man ! greedy beyond your years 
 To handsel the bishop's shaving- shears ? 
 Fair play 's a jewel ! Leave friends in the lurch ? 
 Stand on a line ere you start for the church ! 
 
 Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie, 
 Rats in a hamper, swine in a stye, 
 Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve, 
 Worms in a carcase, fleas in a sleeve. 
 Hist ! square shoulders, settle your thumbs 
 And buzz for the bishop — here he comes. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Bow, wow, wow — a bone for the dog ! 
 
 I liken his Grace to an acorned hog. 
 
 What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a lass, 
 
 To help and handle my lord's hour-glass ! 
 
 Didst ever behold so lithe a chine ? 
 
 His cheek hath laps like a freshTsinged. swine. 
 
 Aaron 's asleep — shove hip to haunch. 
 
 Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch ! 
 
 Look at the purse with the tassel and knob. 
 
 And the gown with the angel and thingumbob ! 
 
 What's he at, quotha? reading his text ! 
 
 Now you 've his curtsey — and what comes next ? 
 
1 04 Holy -Cross Day. 
 
 VI. 
 
 See to our converts — ^you doomed black dozen — 
 
 No stealing away — nor cog nor cozen ! 
 
 You five, that were thieves, deserve it fairly ; 
 
 You seven, that were beggars, will live less sparely ; 
 
 You took your turn and dipped in the hat, 
 
 Got fortune— and fortune gets you ; mind that ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 Give your first groan — compunction 's at work ; 
 And soft ! from a Jew you mount to a Turk. 
 Lo, Micah, — the selfsame beard on chin 
 He was four times already converted in ! 
 Here 's a knife, clip quick — it 's a sign of grace — 
 Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Whom now is the bishop a-leering at ? 
 
 I know a point where his text falls pat 
 
 I 'U tell him to-morrow, a word just now 
 
 Went to my heart and made me vow 
 
 To meddle no more with the worst of trades : 
 
 Let somebody else pay his serenades ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 Groan all together now, whee — hee — hee ! 
 
 It 's a-work, it 's a-work, ah, woe is me ! 
 
 It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed. 
 
 Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist ; 
 
 Jew brutes, with sweat and blood well spent 
 
 To usher in worthily Christian Lent 
 
Holy-Cross Day. 105 
 
 X. 
 
 It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds, 
 
 Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds : 
 
 It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed 
 
 Which gutted my purse, would throttle my creed : 
 
 And it overflows, when, to even the odd, 
 
 Men I helped to their sins, help me to their God. 
 
 XI. 
 
 But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock, 
 And the rest sit silent and count the clock, 
 Since forced to muse the appointed time 
 On these precious facts and truths sublime,' — 
 Let us fitly employ it, under our breath. 
 In saying Ben Ezra's Song of Death. 
 
 XII. 
 
 For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died, 
 
 Called sons and sons' sons to his side. 
 
 And spoke, " This world has been harsh and strange ; 
 
 " Something is wrong : there needeth a change. 
 
 " But what, or where ? at the last or first ? 
 
 " In one point only we sinned, at worst. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 " The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet, 
 " And again in his border see Israel set. 
 " When Judah beholds Jerusalem, 
 " The stranger-seed shall be joined to them : 
 " To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles cleave, 
 " So the Prophet saith and his sons believe. 
 
I o6 Holy- Cross- Day. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 " Ay, the children of the chosen race 
 " Shall carry and bring them to their place : 
 " In the land of the Lord shall lead the same, 
 " Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame, 
 " When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o'er 
 " The oppressor triumph for evermore ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 " God spoke, and gave us the word to keep : 
 " Bade never fold the hands nor sleep 
 " 'Mid a faithless world, — at watch and ward, 
 " Till Christ at the end reUeve our guard. 
 " By his servant Moses the watch was set : 
 " Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " Thou ! if thou wast he, who at mid- watch came, 
 
 " By the starlight, naming a dubious name ! 
 
 " And if, too heavy with sleep — too rash 
 
 " With fear — O thou, if that martyr-gash 
 
 " Fell on thee coming to take thine own, 
 
 " And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne — 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus. 
 " But, the Judgment over, join sides with us ! 
 " Thine too is the cause ! and not more thine 
 " Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine, 
 " Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed, 
 " Who maintain thee in word, and defy thee in deed ! 
 
Holy -Cross Day. 107 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 " We withstood Christ then ? Be mindful how 
 
 " At least we withstand Barabbas now ! 
 
 " Was our outrage sore ? But the worst we spared, 
 
 " To have called these — Christians, had we dared ! 
 
 " Let defiance to them pay mistrust of thee, 
 
 " And Rome make amends for Calvary ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 " By the torture, prolonged from age to age, 
 
 " By the infamy, Israel's heritage, 
 
 " By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace, 
 
 " By the badge of shame, by the felon's place, 
 
 " By the branding-tool, the bloody whip, 
 
 " And the summons to Christian fellowship, — 
 
 XX 
 
 " We boast our proof that at least the Jew 
 
 " Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crew. 
 
 " Thy face took never so deep a shade 
 
 " But we fought them in it, God our aid ! 
 
 " A trophy to bear, as we march, thy band 
 
 " South, East, and on to the Pleasant Land ! " 
 
 \The late Pope abolished this bad business of the 
 Sermon. — R. B.] 
 
io8 
 
 AMPHIBIAN, 
 
 I. 
 
 The fancy I had to-day, 
 Fancy which turned a fear ! 
 
 I swam far out in the bay, 
 
 Since waves laughed warm and clear. 
 
 II. 
 
 I lay and looked at the sun, 
 The noon-sun looked at me : 
 
 Between us two, no one 
 
 Live creature, that I could see. 
 
 III. 
 Yes ! There came floating by 
 
 Me, who lay floating too, 
 Such a strange butterfly ! 
 
 Creature as dear as new : 
 
 Because the membraned wings 
 So wonderful, so wide. 
 
 So sun-suffused, were things 
 Like soul and nought beside. 
 
Amphibian. 109 
 
 V. 
 
 A handbreadth over head ! 
 
 All of the sea my own, 
 It owned the sky instead ; 
 
 Both of us were alone. 
 
 VI. 
 
 I never shall join its flight, 
 For, nought buoys flesh in air. 
 
 If it touch the sea — good night ! 
 Death sure and swift waits there. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Can the insect feel the better 
 For watching the uncouth play 
 
 Of limbs that slip the fetter, 
 Pretend as they were not clay? 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Undoubtedly I rejoice 
 
 That the air comports so well 
 With a creature which had the choice 
 
 Of the land once. Who can tell ? 
 
 IX. 
 
 What if a certain soul 
 
 Which early slipped its sheath. 
 And has for its home the whole 
 
 Of heaven, thus look beneath. 
 
Amphibian. 
 
 Thus watch one who, in the world. 
 Both lives and likes life's way, 
 
 Nor wishes the wings unfurled 
 That sleep in the worm, they say ? 
 
 But sometimes when the weather 
 Is blue, and warm waves tempt 
 
 To free oneself of tether, 
 And try a life exempt 
 
 XII. 
 
 From worldly noise and dust, 
 In the sphere which overbrims 
 
 With passion and thought, — ^why, just 
 Unable to fly, one swims ! 
 
 By passion and thought upborne. 
 One smiles to oneself — " They fare 
 
 " Scarce better, they need not scorn 
 " Our sea, who live in the air ! " 
 
 Emancipate through passion 
 And thought, with sea for sky, 
 
 We substitute, in a fashion. 
 For heaven — poetry : 
 
Amphibian. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Which sea, to all intent, 
 
 Gives flesh such noon-disport 
 
 As a finer element 
 Affords the spirit-sort. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Whatever they are, we seem : 
 Imagine the thing they know ; 
 
 All deeds they do, we dream ; 
 Can heaven be else but so ? 
 
 And meantime, yonder streak 
 Meets the horizon's verge ; 
 
 That is the land, to seek 
 
 If we tire or dread the surge ; 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Land the solid and safe — 
 To welcome again (confess !) 
 
 When, high and dry, we chafe 
 The body, and don the dress. 
 
 Does she look, pity, wonder 
 At one who mimics flight. 
 
 Swims — heaven above, sea under, 
 Yet always earth in sight ? 
 
112 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. 
 
 I. 
 
 No protesting, dearest ! 
 Hardly kisses even ! 
 Don't we both know how it ends? 
 How the greenest leaf turns serest ? 
 Bluest outbreak — blankest heaven ? 
 Lovers — friends ? 
 
 II. 
 
 You would build a mansion, 
 I would weave a bower 
 — Want the heart for enterprise. 
 Walls admit of no expansion : 
 Trellis-work may haply flower 
 Twice the size. 
 
 III. 
 What makes glad Life's Winter ? 
 New buds, old blooms after. 
 Sad the sighing " How suspect 
 " Beams would ere mid-Autumn splinter, 
 " Rooftree scarce support a rafter, 
 " Walls lie wrecked ? " 
 
St. Martin! s Summer. 113 
 
 IV. 
 
 You are young, my princess ! 
 I am hardly older : 
 Yet — I steal a glance behind ! 
 Dare I tell you what convinces 
 Timid me that you, if bolder, 
 Bold — are blind ? 
 
 Where we plan our dwelling 
 Glooms a graveyard surely ! 
 
 Headstone, footstone moss may drape, — 
 Name, date, violets hide from spelling, — 
 But, though corpses rot obscurely. 
 Ghosts escape. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Ghosts ! O breathing Beauty, 
 Give my frank word pardon ! 
 What if I— somehow, somewhere — 
 Pledged my soul to endless duty 
 Many a time and oft ? Be hard on 
 Love — laid there ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 Nay, blame grief that 's fickle. 
 Time that proves a traitor. 
 
 Chance, change, all that purpose warps, — 
 Death who spares to thrust the sickle. 
 
 Which laid Love low, through flowers which later 
 Shroud the corpse ! 
 
1 14 St. Martin's Summer. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And you, my winsome lady, 
 Whisper me with like frankness ! 
 Lies nothing buried long ago ? 
 Are yon — which shimmer mid what 's shady 
 Where moss and violet run to rankness — 
 Tombs or no ? 
 
 IX. 
 
 Who taxes you with murder ? 
 My hands are clean — or nearly ! 
 Love being mortal needs must pass. 
 Repentance ? Nothing were absurder. 
 Enough : we felt Love's loss severely ; 
 Though now — alas ! 
 
 X. 
 
 Love's corpse lies quiet therefore, 
 Only Love's ghost plays truant, 
 
 And warns us have in wholesome awe 
 Durable mansionry ; that 's wherefore 
 I weave but trellis-work, pursuant 
 — Life, to law. 
 
 The solid, not the fragile. 
 
 Tempts rain and hail and thunder. 
 If bower stand firm at Autumn's close. 
 Beyond my hope, — why, boughs were agile ; 
 If bower fall flat, we scarce need wonder 
 Wreathing — rose ! 
 
St. Martinis Summer. 115 
 
 XII. 
 
 So, truce to the protesting, 
 
 So, muffled be the kisses ! ' . 
 
 For, would we but avow the truth, 
 Sober is genuine joy. No jesting 1 
 Ask else Penelope, Ulysses — 
 Old in youth ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 For why should ghosts feel angered ? 
 Let all their interference 
 Be faint march-music in the air ! 
 " Up ! Join the rear of us the vanguard ! 
 " Up, lovers, dead to all appearance, 
 " Laggard pair ! " 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The while you clasp me closer. 
 The while I press you deeper, 
 As safe we chuckle, — under breath. 
 Yet all the slyer, the jocoser, — 
 
 " So, life can boast its day, like leap-year, 
 " Stolen from death ! " 
 
 XV. 
 
 Ah me — the sudden terror ! 
 
 Hence quick — avaunt, avoid me, 
 You cheat, the ghostly flesh-disguised ! 
 Nay, all the ghosts in one ! Strange error ! 
 
 So, 'twas Death's self that clipped and coyed me, 
 Loved — and lied ! 
 
ii6 St. Martin's Summer. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Ay, dead loves are the potent ! 
 Like any cloud they used you, 
 
 Mere semblance you, but substance they ! 
 Build we no mansion, weave we no tent ! 
 Mere flesh — their spirit interfused you ! 
 Hence, I say ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 All theirs, none yours the glamour ! 
 Theirs each low word that won me. 
 
 Soft look that found me Love's, and left 
 What else but you — the tears and clamour 
 That 's all your very own ! Undone me — 
 Ghost-bereft ! 
 
117 
 
 JAMES LEE'S WIFE. 
 I. 
 
 JAMES lee's wife SPEAKS AT THE WINDOW. 
 I. 
 
 Ah, Love, but a day, 
 
 And the world has changed ! 
 
 The sun 's away, 
 And the bird estranged ; 
 
 The wind has dropped. 
 And the sky 's deranged : 
 
 Summer has stopped, 
 
 II. 
 
 Look in my eyes ! 
 
 Wilt thou change too ? 
 Should I fear surprise ? 
 
 Shall I find aught new 
 In the old and dear. 
 
 In the good and true. 
 With the changing year ? 
 
ii8 James Lee^s Wife. 
 
 III. 
 Thou art a man, 
 
 But I am thy love. 
 For the lake, its swan ; 
 
 For the dell, its dove ; 
 And for thee — (oh, haste !) 
 
 Me, to bend above, 
 Me, to hold embraced. 
 
 II. 
 
 BY THE FIRESIDE. 
 I. 
 
 Is all our fire of shipwreck wood. 
 
 Oak and pine ? 
 Oh, for the ills half-understood, 
 
 The dim dead woe 
 
 Long ago 
 Befallen this bitter coast of France ! 
 Well, poor sailors took their chance ; 
 
 I take mine. 
 
 II. 
 A ruddy shaft our fire must shoot 
 
 O'er the sea ; 
 Do sailors eye the casement — mute 
 
 Drenched and stark, 
 
 From their bark — 
 
James Lee^s Wife, 119 
 
 And envy, gnash their teeth for hate 
 0' the warm safe house and happy freight 
 — Thee and me ? 
 
 III. 
 God help you, sailors, at your need 1 
 
 Spare the curse ! 
 For some ships, safe in port indeed, 
 
 Rot and rust. 
 
 Run to dust. 
 All through worms i' the wood, which crept, 
 Gnawed our hearts out while we slept : 
 
 That is worse. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Who lived here before us two ? 
 
 Old-world pairs. 
 Did a woman ever — would I knew ! — 
 
 Watch the man 
 
 With whom began 
 Love's voyage full-sail, — (now, gnash your teeth !) 
 When planks start, open hell beneath 
 
 Unawares ? 
 
120 Javies Leis Wife. 
 
 III. 
 
 IN THE DOORWAY. 
 I. 
 
 The swallow has set her six young on the rail, 
 
 And looks sea-ward : 
 The water 's in stripes like a snake, olive-pale 
 
 To the leeward, — 
 On the weather-side, black, spotted white with the wind. 
 " Good fortune departs, and disaster 's behind," — 
 Hark, the wind with its wants and its infinite wail ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Our fig-tree, that leaned for the saltness, has furled 
 
 Her five fingers. 
 Each leaf like a hand opened wide to the world 
 
 Where there lingers 
 No glint of the gold. Summer sent for her sake : 
 How the vines writhe in rows, each impaled on its stake ! 
 My heart shrivels up and my spirit shrinks curled. 
 
 III. 
 Yet here are we two ; we have love, house enough, 
 
 With the field there. 
 This house of four rooms, that field red and rough. 
 
 Though it yield there. 
 For the rabbit that robs, scarce a blade or a bent ; 
 If a magpie alight now, it seems an event ; 
 And they both will be gone at November's rebuflf. 
 
James Lee's Wife. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But why must cold spread ? but wherefore bring change 
 
 To the spirit, 
 God meant should mate his with an infinite range, 
 
 And inherit 
 His power to put life in the darkness and cold ? 
 Oh, live and love worthily, bear and be bold ! 
 Whom Summer made friends of, let Winter estrange ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 ALONG THE BEACH. 
 I. 
 
 I WILL be quiet and talk with you, 
 And reason why you are wrong. 
 
 You wanted my love — is that much true ? 
 
 And so I did love, so I do : 
 What has come of it all along ? 
 
 I took you — how could I otherwise ? 
 
 For a world to me, and more ; 
 For all, love greatens and glorifies 
 Till God 's a-glow, to the lovmg eyes, 
 
 In what was mere earth before. 
 
James Lee's Wife. 
 
 III. 
 
 Yes, earth — yes, mere ignoble earth ! 
 
 Now do I mis-state, mistake ? 
 Do I wrong your weakness and call it worth ? 
 Expect all harvest, dread no dearth, 
 
 Seal my sense up for your sake ? 
 
 Oh, Love, Love, no. Love ! not so, indeed 
 
 You were just weak earth, I knew : 
 With much in you waste, with many a weed. 
 And plenty of passions run to seed, 
 But a little good grain too. 
 
 v. 
 
 And such as you were, I took you for mine : 
 
 Did not you find me yours. 
 To watch the olive and wait the vine. 
 And wonder when rivers of oil and wine 
 
 Would flow, as the Book assures ? 
 
 VI. 
 
 Well, and if none of these good things came, 
 
 What did the failure prove ? 
 The man was my whole world, all the same, 
 With his flowers to praise or his weeds to blame, 
 
 And, either or both, to love. 
 
James Lee's Wife. ;23 
 
 VII. 
 
 Yet this turns now to a fault — there ! there ! 
 
 That I do love, watch too long, 
 And wait too well, and weary and wear ; 
 And 't is all an old story, and my despair 
 
 Fit subject for some new song : 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " How the light, light love, he has wings to fly 
 
 " At suspicion of a bond : 
 " My wisdom has bidden your pleasure good-bye, 
 " Which will turn up next in a laughing eye, 
 
 " And why should you look beyond ? " 
 
 V. 
 
 ON THE CLIFF. 
 I. 
 
 I LEANED on the turf, 
 
 I looked at a rock 
 
 Left dry by the surf ; 
 
 For the turf, to call it grass were to mock : 
 
 Dead to the roots, so deep was done 
 
 The work of the summer sun. 
 
 n. 
 
 And thejTock lay flat 
 *As an anvil's face : 
 No iron like that ! 
 Baked dry ; of a weed, of a shell, no trace ; 
 
124 Ja7nes Lee's Wife. 
 
 Sunshine outside, but ice at the core, 
 Death's altar by the lone shore. 
 
 On the turf, sprang gay 
 
 With his films of blue. 
 
 No cricket, I '11 say, 
 
 But a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too, 
 
 The gift of a quixote-mage to his knight, 
 
 Real fairy, with wings all right. 
 
 IV. 
 
 On the rock, they scorch 
 
 Like a drop of fire 
 
 From a brandished torch, 
 
 Fall two red fans of a butterfly : 
 
 No turf, no rock, — in their ugly stead, 
 
 See, wonderful blue and red ! 
 
 V. 
 
 Is it not so 
 
 With the minds of men ? 
 
 The level and low. 
 
 The burnt and bare, in themselves ; but then 
 
 With such a blue and red grace, not theirs. 
 
 Love settling unawares ! 
 
Ja7nes Lee's Wife. 125 
 
 VL 
 
 READING A BOOK, UNDER THE CLIFF. 
 
 " Still ailing, Wind ? Wilt be appeased or no ? 
 
 " Which needs the other's office, thou or I ? 
 " Dost want to be disburthened of a woe, 
 
 " And can, in truth, my voice untie 
 " Its links, and let it go ? 
 
 IL 
 
 " Art thou a dumb, wronged thing that would be righted,' 
 " Entrusting thus thy cause to me ? Forbear ! 
 
 " No tongue can mend such pleadings ; faith, requited 
 " With falsehood, — love, at last aware 
 
 " Of scorn, — hopes, early blighted, — 
 
 IIL 
 
 " We have them ; but I know not any tone 
 " So fit as thine to faker forth a sorrow : 
 
 " Dost think men would go mad without a moan, 
 " If they knew any way to borrow 
 
 " A pathos like thy own ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Which sigh wouldst mock, of all the sighs ? The one 
 " So long escaping from lips starved and blue, 
 
 " That lasts while on her pallet-bed the nun 
 " Stretches her length ; her foot comes through 
 
 " The straw she shivers on , 
 
126 James Lee^s Wife. 
 
 " You had not thought she was so tall : and spent, 
 " Her shrunk lids open, her lean fingers shut 
 
 " Close, close, their sharp and livid nails indent 
 " The clammy palm ; then all is mute : 
 
 " That way, the spirit went 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Or wouldst thou rather that I understand 
 " Thy will to help me ? — like the dog I found 
 
 " Once, pacing sad this solitary strand, 
 " Who would not take my food, poor hound, 
 
 " But whined and licked my hand." 
 
 All this, and more, comes from some young man's pride 
 Of power to see, — in failure and mistake. 
 
 Relinquishment, disgrace, on every side, — 
 Merely examples for his sake, 
 
 Helps to his path untried : 
 
 vin. 
 Instances he must — simply recognize ? 
 
 Oh, more than so ! — must, with a learner's zeal. 
 Make doubly prominent, twice emphasize, 
 
 By added touches that reveal 
 The god in babe's disguise. 
 
James Lee's Wife, 127 
 
 IX. 
 
 Oh, he knows what defeat means, and the rest ! 
 
 Himself the undefeated that shall be : 
 Failure, disgrace, he flings them you to test, — 
 
 His triumph, in eternity 
 Too plainly manifest ! 
 
 X. 
 
 Whence, judge if he learn forthwith what the wind 
 Means in its moaning — by the happy prompt 
 
 Instinctive way of youth, I mean ; for kind 
 Calm years, exacting their accompt 
 
 Of pain, mature the mind ; 
 
 XI. 
 
 And some midsummer morning, at the lull 
 Just about daybreak, as he looks across 
 
 A sparkling foreign country, wonderful 
 To the sea's edge for gloom and gloss, 
 
 Next minute must annul, — ■ 
 
 XII. 
 
 Then, when the wind begins among the vines. 
 So low, so low, what shall it say but this ? 
 
 " Here is the cliange beginning, here the lines 
 " Circumscribe beauty, set to bliss 
 
 " The limit time assigns." 
 
128 James Le^s Wife. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Nothing can be as it has been before ; 
 
 Better, so call it, only not the same. 
 To draw one beauty into our hearts' core. 
 
 And keep it changeless ! such our claim ; 
 So answered, — Never more ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Simple ? Why this is the old woe o' the world ; 
 
 Tune, to whose rise and fall we live and die. 
 Rise with it, then ! Rejoice that man is hurled 
 
 From change to change unceasingly, 
 His soul's wings never furled ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 That 's a new question ; still replies the fact, 
 Nothing endures : the wind moans, saying so ; 
 
 We moan in acquiescence : there 's life's pact. 
 Perhaps probation — do /know? 
 
 God does : endure his act ! 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Only, for man, how bitter not to grave 
 
 On his soul's hands' palms one fair good wise thing 
 Just as he grasped it ! For himself, death's wave ; 
 
 While time first washes — ah, the sting ! — 
 O'er all he 'd sink to save. 
 
James Leis Wife. 129 
 
 VII. 
 
 AMONG THE ROCKS. 
 I. 
 
 Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, 
 This autumn morning ! How he sets his bones 
 
 To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet 
 
 For the ripple to run over in its mirth ; 
 
 Listening the while, where on the heap of stones 
 
 The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. 
 
 That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true ; 
 
 Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows. 
 If you loved only what were worth your love, 
 Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you : 
 
 Make the low nature better by your throes ! 
 Give earth yourself, go up for gain above ! 
 
 VIIL 
 
 BESIDE THE DRAWING-BOARD. 
 I. 
 
 " As like as a Hand to another Hand ! ' 
 
 Whoever said that foolish thing. 
 Could not have studied to understand 
 The counsels of God in fashioning, 
 
 II. K 
 
130 Jamfs Le^s Wife. 
 
 Out of the infinite love of his heart, 
 This Hand, whose beauty I praise, apart 
 From the world of wonder left to praise, 
 If I tried to learn the other ways 
 Of love, in its skill, or love, in its power. 
 " As like as a Hand to another Hand : " 
 Who said that, never took his stand, 
 Found and followed, like me, an hour, 
 The beauty in this, — how free, how fine 
 To fear, almost, — of the limit-line ! 
 As I looked at this, and learned and drew, 
 
 Drew and learned, and looked again, 
 While fast the happy minutes flew, 
 Its beauty mounted into my brain. 
 And a fancy seized me ; I was fain 
 To efface my work, begin anew. 
 Kiss what before I only drew ; 
 Ay, laying the red chalk 'twixt my lips. 
 With soul to help if the mere lips failed, 
 I kissed all right where the drawing ailed, 
 Kissed fast the grace, that somehow slips 
 Still from one's soulless finger-tips. 
 
 'T is a clay cast, the perfect thing. 
 
 From Hand live once, dead long ago : 
 Princess-like it wears the ring 
 
 To fancy's eye, by which we know 
 That here at length a master found 
 
 His match, a proud lone soul its mate, 
 As soaring genius sank to ground 
 
 And pencil could not emulate 
 
James Lee^s Wife. 131 
 
 The beauty in this, — how free, how fine 
 To fear almost ! — of the limit-line. 
 Long ago the god, like me 
 The worm, learned, each in our degree : 
 Looked and loved, learned and drew, 
 
 Drew and learned and loved again. 
 While fast the happy minutes flew, 
 
 Till beauty mounted into his brain 
 And on the finger which outvied 
 
 His art he placed the ring that 's there. 
 Still by fancy's eye descried, 
 
 In token of a marriage rare : 
 For him on earth, his art's despair. 
 For him in heaven, his soul's fit bride. 
 
 III. 
 Little girl with the poor coarse hand 
 
 I turned from to a cold clay cast — 
 I have my lesson, understand 
 
 The worth of flesh and blood at last ! 
 Nothing but beauty in a Hand ? 
 
 Because he could not change the hue. 
 
 Mend the lines and make them true 
 To this which met his soul's demand, — 
 
 Would Da Vinci turn from you ? 
 I hear him laugh my woes to scorn — ■ 
 " The fool forsooth is all forlorh 
 " Because the beauty, she thinks best, 
 " Lived long ago or was never born, — 
 " Because no beauty bears the test 
 " In this rough peasant Hand ! Confessed 
 " ' Art is null and study void ! ' 
 K 2 
 
132 James Lee's Wife. 
 
 " So sayest thou? So said not I, 
 
 " Who threw the faulty pencil by, 
 
 " And years instead of hours employed, 
 
 " Learning the veritable use 
 
 " Of flesh and bone and nerve beneath 
 
 " Lines and hue of the outer sheath, 
 
 '' If haply I might reproduce 
 
 " One motive of the mechanism, 
 
 " Flesh and bone and nerve that make 
 
 " The poorest coarsest human hand 
 
 " An object worthy to be scanned 
 
 " A whole life long for their sole sake. 
 
 " Shall earth and the cramped moment-space 
 
 " Yield the heavenly crowning grace ? 
 
 " Now the parts and then the whole ! 
 
 " Who art thou, with stinted soul 
 
 " And stunted body, thus to cry 
 
 " ' I love, — shall that be life's strait dole ? 
 
 " ' I must live beloved or die ! ' 
 
 " This peasant hand that spins the wool 
 
 " And bakes the bread, why lives it on, 
 
 " Poor and coarse with beauty gone, — 
 
 " What use survives the beauty ? Fool ! ' 
 
 Go, little girl with the poor coarse hand ! 
 I have my lesson, shall understand. 
 
James Lee's Wife. 133 
 
 IX. 
 
 ON DECK. 
 I. 
 
 There is nothing to remember in me, 
 
 Nothing I ever said with a grace, 
 Nothing I did that you care to see, 
 
 Nothing I was that deserves a place 
 In your mind, now I leave you, set you free. 
 
 II. 
 Conceded ! In turn, concede to me, 
 
 Such things have been as a mutual flame. 
 Your soul 's locked fast ; but, love for a key, 
 
 You might let it loose, till I grew the same 
 In your eyes, as in mine you stand : strange plea ! 
 
 III. 
 For then, then, what would it matter to me 
 
 That I was the harsh, ill-favoured one ? 
 We both should be like as pea and pea ; 
 
 It was ever so since the world begun : 
 So, let me proceed with my reverie 
 
 IV. 
 
 How strange it were if you had all me. 
 As I have all you in my heart and brain, 
 
 You, whose least word brought gloom or glee. 
 Who never lifted the hand in vain 
 
 Will hold mine yet, from over the sea ! 
 
134 James Leis Wife. 
 
 V. 
 
 Strange, if a face, when you thought of me. 
 Rose like your own face present now, 
 
 With eyes as dear in their due degree, 
 
 Much such a mouth, and as bright a brow, 
 
 Till you saw yourself, while you cried " T is She ! " 
 
 VI. 
 
 Well, you may, you must, set down to me 
 Love that was life, life that was love ; 
 
 A tenure of breath at your lips' decree, 
 
 A passion to stand as your thoughts approve, 
 
 A rapture to fall where your foot might be. 
 
 VII. 
 
 But did one touch of such love for me 
 
 Come in a word or a look of yours, 
 Whose words and looks will, circling, flee 
 
 Round me and round while life endures, — 
 Could I fancy '' As I feel, thus feels He ; " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Why, fade you might to a thing like me. 
 And your hair grow these coarse hanks of hair, 
 
 Your skin, this bark of a gnarled tree, — 
 
 You might turn myself ! — should I know or care, 
 
 When I should be dead of joy, James Lee? 
 
I3S 
 
 RESPECTABILITY. 
 
 Dear, had the world in its caprice 
 
 Deigned to proclaim " I know you both, 
 " Have recognized your plighted troth, 
 
 " Am sponsor for you : live in peace ! " — 
 
 How many precious months and years 
 Of youth had passed, that speed so fast. 
 Before we found it out at last, 
 
 The world, and what it fears ? 
 
 II. 
 
 How much of priceless life were spent 
 With men that every virtue decks. 
 And women models of their sex. 
 
 Society's true ornament, — 
 
 Ere we dared wander, nights like this, 
 
 , Thro' wind and rain, and watch the Seine, 
 And feel the Boulevart break again 
 
 To warmth and light and bliss ? 
 
136 Respectability. 
 
 III. 
 I know ! the world proscribes not love ; 
 
 Allows my finger to caress 
 
 Your lips' contour and downiness, 
 Provided it supply a glove. 
 The world's good word ! — the Institute ! 
 
 Guizot receives Montalembert ! 
 
 Eh ? Down the court three lampions flare : 
 Put forward your best foot ! 
 
137 
 
 DIS ALITER VISUM; OR, LE BYRON 
 DE NOS JOURS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Stop, let me have the truth of that ! 
 Is that all true ? I say, the day 
 Ten years ago when both of us 
 
 Met on a morning, friends — as thus 
 We meet this evening, friends or what ? — 
 
 II. 
 
 Did you — because I took your arm 
 And sillily smiled, " A mass of brass 
 
 " That sea looks, blazing underneath ! " 
 While up the cliff-road edged with heath, 
 
 We took the turns nor came to harm — 
 
 HI. 
 
 Did you consider " Now makes twice 
 
 " That I have seen her, walked and talked 
 
 " With this poor pretty thoughtful thing, 
 " Whose worth I weigh : she tries to sing ; 
 
 " Draws, hopes in time the eye grows nice ; 
 
138 DU aliter visum ; or, le Byron de nos Jours. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Reads verse and thinks she understands ; 
 
 " Loves all, at any rate, that 's great, 
 " Good, beautiful ; but much as we 
 
 " Down at the bath-house love the sea, 
 "Who breathe its salt and bruise its sands : 
 
 " While . . do but follow the fishing-gull 
 " That flaps and floats "from wave to cave ! 
 
 " There 's the sea-lover, fair my friend ! 
 " What then ? Be patient, mark and mend ! 
 
 " Had you the making of your skull ? " 
 
 VI. 
 
 And did you, when we faced the church 
 With spire and sad slate roof, aloof 
 
 From human fellowship so far, 
 Where a few graveyard crosses are, 
 
 And garlands for the swallows' perch,— 
 
 VII. 
 
 Did you determine, as we stepped 
 O'er the lone stone fence, " Let me get 
 
 " Her for myself, and what 's the earth 
 " With all its art, verse, music, worth' — 
 
 " Compared with love, found, gained, and kejit? 
 
Dis aliter visum ; or, le Byron de nos Jours. 139 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " Schumann 's our music-maker now ; 
 
 " Has his march-movement youth and mouth ? 
 " Ingres 's the modern man that paints-; 
 
 " Which will lean on me, of his saints ? 
 " Heine for songs ; for kisses, how ? " 
 
 IX. 
 
 And did you, when we entered, reached 
 
 The votive frigate, soft aloft 
 Riding on air this hundred years. 
 
 Safe-smiling at old hopes and fears. — 
 Did you draw profit while she preached ? 
 
 Resolving, " Fools we wise men grow ! 
 
 " Yes, I could easily blurt out curt 
 " Some question that might find reply 
 
 " As prompt in her stopped lips, dropped eye 
 " And rush of red to cheek and brow : 
 
 XI. 
 
 " Thus were a match made, sure and fast, 
 " 'Mid the blue weed-flowers round the mound 
 
 " Where, issuing, we shall stand and stay 
 " For one more look at baths and bay, 
 
 " Sands, sea-gulls, and the old church last — 
 
140 Dts atiler visum ; or, le Byron de nos Jours. 
 
 XII. 
 
 " A match 'twixt me, bent, wigged and lamed, 
 " Famous, however, for verse and worse, 
 
 " Sure of the Fortieth spare Arm-chair 
 " When gout and glory seat me there, 
 
 " So, one whose love-freaks pass unblamed, — 
 
 XIII. 
 
 " And this young beauty, round and sound 
 " As a mountain-apple, youth and truth 
 
 " With loves and doves, at all events 
 " With money in the Three per Cents ; 
 
 " Whose choice of me would seem profound 
 
 XIV. 
 
 " She might take me as I take her. 
 
 " Perfect the hour would pass, alas ! 
 " Climb high, love high, what matter ? Still, 
 
 " Feet, feelings, must descend the hill : 
 " An hour's perfection can't recur. 
 
 XV. 
 
 " Then follows Paris and full time 
 
 " For both to reason : ' Thus with us 
 " She '11 sigh, ' Thus girls give body and soul 
 " ' At first word, think they gain the goal, 
 " ' When 't is the starting-place they climb ! 
 
Dis aliter visum; or, h Byron de nos Jours. 141 
 
 XVI, 
 
 " ' My friend makes verse and gets renown ; 
 
 " ' Have they all fifty years, his peers ? 
 " ' He knows the world, firm, quiet and gay ; 
 
 " ' Boys will become as much one day : 
 " ' They 're fools ; he cheats, with beard less brown. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " ' For boys say, Love me or I die ! 
 
 " ' He did not say, The truth is, youth 
 " ' I want, who am old and know too much ; 
 
 " ' I'd catch youth : lend me sight and touch ! 
 " ' Drop heart's blood where life's wheels grate dry 1 ' 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 " While I should make rejoinder "—(then 
 It was, no doubt, you ceased that least 
 
 Light pressure of my arm in yours) 
 " ' I can conceive of cheaper cures 
 
 " ' For a yawning-fit o'er books and men. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 " ' What ? All I am, was, and might be, 
 " ' All, books taught, art brought, life's whole strife, 
 
 " ' Painful results since precious, just 
 " ' Were fitly exchanged, in wise disgust, 
 
 " ' For two cheeks freshened by youth and sea ? 
 
1 42 Dts aliter visum ; or, le Byron de nos Jours. 
 
 XX. 
 
 " ' All for a nosegay ! — what came first ; 
 
 " ' With fields in flower, untried each side ; 
 " ' I rally, need my books and men, 
 
 " ' And find a nosegay : ' drop it, then, 
 " No match yet made for best or worst ! " 
 
 That ended me. You judged the porch 
 We left by, Norman ; took our look 
 
 At sea and sky ; wondered so few 
 Find out the place for air and view ; 
 
 Remarked the sun began to scorch ; 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Descended, soon regained the baths, 
 And then, good-bye ! Years ten since then : 
 
 Ten years ! We meet : you teU me, now, 
 By a window-seat for that cliif-brow, 
 
 On carpet-stripes for those sand-paths. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Now I may speak : you fool, for all 
 
 Your lore ! Who made things plain in vain ? 
 What was the sea for ? What, the grey 
 
 Sad church, that solitary day. 
 Crosses and graves and swallows' call ? 
 
Dis aliter visum ; or, h Byron de nos Jours. 143 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Was there nought better than to enjoy ? 
 
 No feat which, done, would make time break, 
 And let us pent-up creatures through 
 
 Into eternity, our due ? 
 No forcing earth teach heaven's employ ? 
 
 XXV. 
 
 No wise beginning, here and now, 
 What cannot grow complete (earth's feat) 
 
 And heaven must finish, there and then ? 
 No tasting earth's true food for men, 
 
 Its sweet in sad, its sad in sweet ? 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 No grasping at love, gaining a share 
 
 O' the sole spark from God's life at strife 
 
 With death, so, sure of range above 
 The limits here ? For us and love. 
 
 Failure ; but, when God fails, despair. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 This you call wisdom ? Thus you add 
 Good unto good again, in vain ? 
 
 You.loved, with body worn and weak ; 
 I loved, with faculties to seek : 
 
 Were both loves worthless since ill-clad ? 
 
f44 ■^^■f alite*' visum; or, le Byron de nosjours^ 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Let the mere star-fish in his vault 
 Crawl in a wash of weed, indeed, 
 
 Rose-jacynth to the finger-tips : 
 
 He, whole in body and soul, outstrips 
 
 Man, found with either in default. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 But what 's whole, can increase no more, 
 Is dwarfed and dies, since here 's its sphere. 
 
 The devil laughed at you in his sleeve ! 
 You knew not ? That I well believe ; 
 
 Or you had saved two souls : nay, four. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 For Stephanie sprained last night her wrist, 
 Ankle or something. " Pooh," cry you ? 
 
 At any rate she danced, all say, 
 Vilely , her vogue has had its day. 
 
 Here comes my husband from his whist. 
 
145 
 
 CONFESSIONS. 
 
 I. 
 What is he buzzing in my ears ? 
 
 " Now that I come to die, 
 " Do I view the world as a vale of tears ? " 
 
 Ah, reverend sir, not I ! 
 
 II. 
 What I viewed there once, what I view again 
 
 Where the physic bottles stand 
 On the table's edge, — is a suburb lane, 
 
 With a wall to my bedside hand. 
 
 III. 
 That lane sloped, much as the bottles do. 
 
 From a house you could descry 
 O'er the garden-wall : is the curtain blue 
 
 Or green to a healthy eye ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 To mine, it serves for the old June weather 
 
 Blue above lane and wall ; 
 And that farthest bottle labelled " Ether '' 
 
 Is the house o'er-topping all. 
 
 II. L 
 
146 Confessions. 
 
 V. 
 
 At a terrace, somewhat near the stopper, 
 There watched for me, one June, 
 
 A girl : I know, sir, it 's improper. 
 My poor mind 's out of tune. 
 
 Only, there was a way . . . you crept 
 
 Close by the side, to dodge 
 Eyes in the house, two eyes except : 
 
 They styled their house " The Lodge." 
 
 What right had a lounger up their lane ? 
 
 But, by creeping very close, 
 With the good wall's help, — their eyes might strain 
 ' And stretch themselves to Oes, 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Yet never catch her and me together. 
 
 As she left the attic, there. 
 By the rim of the bottle labelled " Ether,' 
 
 And stole from stair to stair, 
 
 IX. 
 
 And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas, 
 
 We loved, sir — used to meet : 
 How sad and bad and mad it was — 
 
 But then, how it was sweet ! 
 
147 
 
 THE HOUSEHOLDER. 
 
 Savage I was sitting in my house, late, lone : 
 
 Dreary, weary with the long day's work : 
 Head of me, heart of me, stupid as a stone : 
 
 Tongue-tied now, now blaspheming like a Turk ; 
 When, in a moment, just a knock, call, cry. 
 
 Half a pang and all a rapture, there again were we ! — 
 " What, and is it really you again ? " quoth I : 
 
 " I again, what else did you expect ? " quoth She. 
 
 " Never mind, hie away from this old house — 
 
 " Every crumbling brick embrowned with sin and 
 shame ! 
 " Quick, in its corners ere certain shapes arouse ! 
 
 " Let them — every devil of the night — ^lay claim, 
 " Make and mend, or rap and rend, for me ! Goodbye ! 
 
 " God be,their guard from disturbance at their glee, 
 " Till, crash, comes down the carcass in a heap ! " quoth I : 
 
 " Nay, but there 's a decency required ! " quoth She. 
 
148 The Householder. 
 
 in. 
 " Ah, but if you knew how time has dragged, days, 
 nights ! 
 " All the neighbour-talk with man and maid — such men ! 
 " All the fuss and trouble of street-sounds, window-sights : 
 " All the worry of flapping door and echoing roof; and 
 then, 
 " All the fancies . . . Who were they had leave, dared try 
 
 " Darker arts that almost struck despair in me ? 
 " If you knew but how I dwelt down here ! " quoth I : 
 " And was I so better off up there ? " quoth She. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Help and get it over ! Re-united to his wife 
 
 " (How draw up the paper lets the parish-people know ?) 
 " Lies M. or N., departed from this life, 
 
 " Day the this or that, tnonth and year the so and so, 
 " What i' the way of final flourish ? Prose, verse ? Try ! 
 
 " Affliction sore, long time he bore, or, what is it to be ? 
 " Till God did please to grant him ease. Do end ! " quoth I : 
 
 " I end with — Love is all and Death is nought ! " quoth 
 She. 
 
J49 
 
 TRAY. 
 
 Sing me a hero i Quench my thirst 
 Of soul, ye bards ! 
 
 Quoth Bard the first : 
 " Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don 
 " His helm and eke his habergeon . . ." 
 Sir Olaf and his bard ! 
 
 " That sin-scathed brow " (quoth Bard the second) 
 " That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned 
 " My hero to some steep, beneath 
 " Which precipice smiled tempting Death ..." 
 You too without your host have reckoned ! 
 
 " A beggar-child " (let 's hear this third !) 
 
 " Sat on a quay's edge : like a bird 
 
 " Sang to herself at careless play, 
 
 " And fell into the stream. ' Dismay ! 
 
 " ' Help, you the standers-by ! ' None stirred. 
 
 " Bystanders reason, think of wives 
 
 " And children ere they risk their lives. 
 
 " Ov^ the balustrade has bounced 
 
 " A mere instinctive dog, and pounced 
 
 " Plumb on the prize. ' How well he dives ! 
 
15° Tray. 
 
 " ' Up he comes with the child, see, tight 
 " ' In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite 
 " ' A depth of ten feet — twelve, I bet ! 
 " ' Good dog ! What, off again ? There 's yet 
 " ' Another child to save ? All right ! 
 
 " ' How strange we saw no other fall ! 
 
 " ' It 's instinct in the animal. 
 
 " ' Good dog ! But he 's a long while under : 
 
 " ' If he got drowned I should not wonder — 
 
 " ' Strong current, that against the wall ! 
 
 " ' Here he comes, holds in mouth this time 
 
 " ' — ^What may the thing be? Well, that 's prime 
 
 " ' Now, did you ever ? Reason reigns 
 
 " ' In man alone, since all Tray's pains 
 
 " ' Have fished — the child's doll from the slime ! ' 
 
 " And so, amid the laughter gay, 
 
 " Trotted my hero off,— old Tray,— 
 
 " Till somebody, prerogatived 
 
 " With reason, reasoned : ' Why he dived, 
 
 " ' His brain would show us, I should say. 
 
 " ' John, go and catch — or, if needs be, 
 
 " ' Purchase that animal for me ! 
 
 " ' By vivisection, at expense 
 
 " ' Of half-an-hour and eighteen pence, 
 
 " ' How brain secretes dog's soul, we '11 see ! ' " 
 
151 
 
 CAVALIER TUNES. 
 I. 
 
 MARCHING ALONG. 
 
 (Centish Sir Byng stood for his King, 
 .Oiidding the crop-headed Parliament swing : 
 '\nd, pressing a troop unable to stoop 
 And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, 
 Marched them along, fifty score strong. 
 Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 
 
 II. 
 
 God for King Charles ! Pym and such carles 
 
 To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous paries ! 
 
 Cavaliers, up ! Lips from the cup, 
 
 Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup 
 
 Till you 're— 
 
 (Chorus) Marching along, fifty-score strong. 
 
 Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 
 
1 5 2 Cavalier Tunes. 
 
 III. 
 
 Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell. 
 Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well ! 
 England, good cheer ! Rupert is near ! 
 Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here 
 
 {Chorus) Marching along, fifty-score strong. 
 
 Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then, God for King Charles ! Pym and his snarls 
 To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles ! 
 Hold by the right, you double your might ; 
 So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight, 
 
 {Choi-us) March we along, fifty -score strong. 
 
 Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song ! 
 
 II. 
 GIVE A ROUSK 
 
 I. 
 
 King Charles, and who 'II do him right now ? 
 King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now ? 
 Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, 
 King Charles ! 
 
 Who gave me the goods that went since ? 
 Who raised me the house that sank once ? 
 
Cavalier Tunes. 153 
 
 Who helped me to gold I spent since ? 
 Who found me in wine you drank once ? 
 
 (Chorus) King Charles, and who 'II do him right now ? 
 King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now ? 
 Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, 
 King Charles ! 
 
 III. 
 To whom used my boy George quaff else, 
 By the old fool's side that begot him ? 
 For whom did he cheer and laugh else, 
 While Noll's damned troopers shot him ? 
 
 {Chorus) King Charles, and who 'II do him right now ! 
 King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight noin ? 
 Give a rouse: here 's, in hell's despite now. 
 King Charles ! 
 
 III. 
 
 BOOT AND SADDLK 
 
 I. 
 
 Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! 
 Rescue my castle before the hot day 
 Brightens to blue from its silvery grey, 
 
 (Chorus) Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! 
 
 Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you 'd say ; 
 Many 's the friend there, will listen and pray 
 " God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay — 
 
 (Chorus) "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" 
 
154 Cavalier Tunes. 
 
 III. 
 
 Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay. 
 
 Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array : 
 
 Who laughs, " Good fellows ere this, by my fay, 
 
 (Chorus) "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away?" 
 
 Who ? My wife Gertrude ; that, honest and gay, 
 Laughs when you talk of surrendering, " Nay ! 
 " I Ve better counsellors ; what counsel they? 
 
 (Chorus) " Boot, saddle, to horse, and away !" 
 
155 
 
 BEFORE. 
 
 I. 
 .Let them fight it out, fi-iend ! things have gone too far. 
 God must judge the couple : leave them as they are 
 —Whichever one 's the guiltless, to his glory, 
 \nd whichever one the guilt 's with, to my story 1 
 
 tVhy, you would not bid men, sunk in such a slough. 
 Strike no arm out further, stick and stink as now. 
 Leaving right and wrong to settle the embroilment, 
 Heaven with snaky hell, in torture and entoilment ? 
 
 III. 
 Who 's the culprit of them ? How must he conceive 
 God — the queen he caps to, laughing in his sleeve, 
 " 'T is but decent to profess oneself beneath her : 
 " Still, one must not be too much in earnest, either ! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 Better sin the whole sin, sure that God observes ; 
 Then go live his life out ! Life will try his nerves. 
 When the sky, which noticed all, makes no disclosure. 
 And the earth keeps up her terrible composure. 
 
156 Before, 
 
 Let him pace at pleasure, past the walls of rose, 
 Pluck their fruits when grape-trees graze him as he goes ! 
 For he 'gins to guess the purpose of the garden. 
 With the sly mute thing, beside there, for a warden. 
 
 What 's the leopard-dog-thing, constant at his side, 
 A leer and He in every eye of its obsequious hide ? 
 When will come an end to all the mock obeisance. 
 And the price appear that pays for the misfeasance ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 So much for the culprit. Who 's the martyred man ? 
 Let him bear one stroke more, for be sure he can ! 
 He that strove thus evil's lump with good to leaven. 
 Let him give his blood at last and get his heaven ! 
 
 vm. 
 All or nothing, stake it ! Trusts he God or no ? 
 Thus far and no farther ? farther ? be it so ! 
 Now, enough of your chicane of prudent pauses. 
 Sage provisos, sub-intents and saving-clauses ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 Ah, "forgive" you bid him? While God's champion 
 
 lives. 
 Wrong shall be resisted : dead, why, he forgives. 
 But you must not end my friend ere you begin him ; 
 Evil stands not crowned on earth, while breath is in him. 
 
Before. 157 
 
 X. 
 
 Once more — Will the wronger, at this last of all, 
 Dare to say, " I did wrong," rising in his fall ? 
 No ? — Let go, then ! Both the fighters to their places ! 
 While I count three, step you back as many paces ! 
 
IS8 
 
 AFTER. 
 
 Take the cloak from his face, and at first 
 Let the corpse do its worst ! 
 
 How he lies in his rights of a man 
 
 Death has done all death can. 
 And, absorbed in the new life he leads, 
 
 He recks not, he heeds 
 Nor his wrong nor my vengeance ; both strike 
 
 On his senses alike. 
 And are lost in the solemn and strange 
 
 Surprise of the change. 
 
 Ha, what avails death to erase 
 
 His oifence, my disgrace ? 
 1 would we were boys as of old 
 
 In the field, by the fold : 
 His outrage, God's patience, man's scorn 
 
 Were so easily borne ! 
 
 I stand here now, he lies in his place : 
 Cover the face ! 
 
159 
 
 HERVE KIEL. 
 
 I. 
 
 On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety- 
 two, 
 Did the English fight the French, — woe to France ! 
 And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue, 
 Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks 
 pursue, 
 Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Ranee, 
 With the English fleet in view. 
 
 'T was the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full 
 ch^se ; 
 First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, 
 Damfreville ; 
 Close on him fled, great and small, 
 Twenty-two good ships in all ; 
 And they signalled to the place 
 " Help the winners of a race ! 
 
 " Get us guidance, give us harbour, take us quick — 
 
 or, quicker still, 
 " Here 's the English can and will ! " 
 
i6o Hervi Riel. 
 
 III. 
 Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on 
 board ; 
 " Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to 
 pass ? " laughed they : 
 " Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage 
 
 scarred and scored, 
 " Shall the ' Formidable ' here with her twelve and eighty 
 guns 
 " Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow 
 way, 
 " Trust to enter where 't is ticklish for a craft of twenty 
 tons, 
 " And with flow at full beside ? 
 " Now, 't is slackest ebb of tide. 
 " Reach the mooring ? Rather say, 
 " While rock stands or water runs, 
 " Not a ship will leave the bay ! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then was called a council straight. 
 
 Brief and bitter the debate : 
 
 " Here 's the English at our heels ; would you have them 
 
 take in tow 
 " All that 's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and 
 
 bow, 
 " For a prize to Plymouth Sound ? 
 " Better run the ships aground ! " 
 (Ended Damfreville his speech). 
 " Not a minute more to wait ! 
 
Herv^ Riel. i6i 
 
 " Let the Captains all and each 
 " Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the 
 beach ! 
 " France must undergo her fate. 
 
 " Give the word ! " But no such word 
 Was ever spoke or heard ; 
 
 For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all 
 these 
 — A Captain ? A Lieutenant ? A Mate^^first, second, 
 third ? 
 No such man of mark, and meet 
 With his betters to compete ! 
 
 But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for 
 the fleet, 
 A poor coasting-pilot he, Hervd Riel the Croisickese. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And, " What mockery or malice have we here ? " cries 
 Hervd Riel : 
 " Are you mad, you Malouins ? Are you cowards, 
 fools, or rogues ? 
 " Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the 
 
 soundings, tell 
 " On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell 
 " 'Twixt the offing here and Grfeve where the river 
 disembogues ? 
 " Are you bought by English gold ? Is it love th 
 lying 's for ? 
 " Morn and eve, night and day, 
 " Have I piloted your bay, 
 
 II. M 
 
1 63 Herv'e Kiel. 
 
 " Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 
 " Burn the fleet and ruin France ? That were worse 
 than fifty Hogues ! 
 " Sirs, they know I speak the truth ! Sirs, believe 
 me there 's a way ! 
 " Only let me lead the line, 
 
 " Have the biggest ship to steer, 
 " Get this ^Formidable ' clear, 
 " Make the others follow mine, 
 
 " And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know 
 well, 
 " Right to Solidor past Grfeve, 
 
 " And there lay them safe and sound ; 
 " And if one ship misbehave, 
 
 " — Keel so much as grate the ground, 
 " Why, I 've nothing but my life, — here 's my head ! " 
 cries Hervd Riel. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Not a minute more to wait. 
 
 " Steer us in, then, small and great ! 
 
 " Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron ! " 
 
 cried its chief 
 Captains, give the sailor place ! 
 
 He is Admiral, in brief 
 Still the north-wind, by God's grace ! 
 See the noble fellow's face 
 As the big ship, with a bound, 
 Clears the entry like a hound, 
 Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea 's 
 
 profound ! 
 
Herv'e Riel. 163 
 
 See, safe thro' shoal and rock, 
 
 How they follow in a flock. 
 Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the 
 ground, 
 
 Not a spar that comes to grief ! 
 The peril, see, is past, 
 All are harboured to the last. 
 
 And just as Hervd Riel hollas " Anchor ! " — sure as fate, 
 Up the English come, too late ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 So, the storm subsides to calm : 
 
 They see the green trees wave 
 
 On the heights o'erlooking Grfeve. 
 Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. 
 " Just our rapture to enhance, 
 
 " Let the English rake the bay, 
 " Gnash their teeth and glare askance 
 
 " As they cannonade away ! 
 " 'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Ranee ! " 
 .How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's counte- 
 nance ! 
 Out burst all with one accord, 
 
 " This is Paradise for Hell ! 
 " Let France, let France's King 
 " Thank the man that did the thing ! " 
 What a shout, and all one word, 
 
 " Herv6 Riel ! " 
 As he stepped in front once more, 
 
 Not a symptom of surprise 
 
 In the frank blue Breton eyes, 
 Just the same man as before. 
 
164 Hervi Riel. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Then said Damfreville, " My friend, 
 " I must speak out at the end, 
 
 " Though I find the speaking hard. 
 " Praise is deeper than the lips : 
 " You have saved the King his ships, 
 
 " You must name your own reward. 
 " 'Faith, our sun was near eclipse ! 
 " Demand whate'er you will, 
 " France remains your debtor still. 
 " Ask to heart's content and have ! or my name 's not 
 Damfreville." 
 
 X. 
 
 Then a beam of fun outbroke 
 On the bearded mouth that spoke, 
 As the honest heart laughed throu 
 Those frank eyes of Breton blue : 
 " Since I needs must say my say, 
 
 " Since on board the duty's done, 
 
 " And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is i 
 but a run ? — 
 " Since 't is ask and have, I may — 
 
 " Since the others go ashore — 
 " Come ! A good whole holiday ! 
 
 " Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle 
 Aurore ! " 
 That he asked and that he got, — nothing more. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Name and deed alike are lost 
 Not a pillar nor a post 
 
Hervk Riel. ' 165 
 
 In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell ; 
 Not a head in white and black 
 On a single fishing-smack, 
 In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack 
 
 All that France saved from the fight whence England 
 bore the bell. 
 Go to Paris : rank on rank 
 
 Search the heroes flung pell-mell 
 On the Louvre, face and flank ! 
 
 You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervd 
 Riel. 
 So, for better and for worse, 
 Hervd Riel, accept my verse ! 
 In my verse, Hervd Riel, do thou once more 
 Save the squadron, honour France, love thy wife the 
 Belle Aurore ! 
 
1 66 
 
 IN A BALCONY. 
 
 Constance aTid Norbert. 
 
 Nor. Now ! 
 
 Con. Not now ! 
 
 Nor. Give me them again, those hands — 
 
 Put them upon my forehead, how it throbs ! 
 Press them before my eyes, the fire comes through ! 
 You cruellest, you dearest in the world, 
 Let me ! The Queen must grant whate'er I ask — 
 How can I gain you and not ask the Queen ? 
 There she stays waiting for me, here stand you ; 
 Some time or other this was to be asked ; 
 Now is the one time — ^what I ask, I gain : 
 Let me ask now. Love ! 
 
 Con. Do, and ruin us ! 
 
 Nor. Let it be now. Love ! All my soul breaks forth. 
 How I do love you ! Give my love its way ! 
 A man can have but one life and one death. 
 One heaven, one hell. Let me fulfil my fate — 
 Grant me my heaven now ! Let me know you mine. 
 Prove you mine, write my name upon your brow, 
 Hold you and have you, and then die away. 
 If God please, with completion in my soul ! 
 
In a Balcony. 167 
 
 Con. I am not yours then ? How content this man ! 
 I am not his — who change into himself, 
 Have passed into his heart and beat its beats, 
 Who give my hands to him, my eyes, my hair. 
 Give all that was of me away to him — 
 So well, that now, my spirit turned his own. 
 Takes part with him against the woman here, 
 Bids him not stumble at so mere a straw 
 As caring that the world be cognisant 
 How he loves her and how she worships him. 
 You have this woman, not as yet that world. 
 Go on, I bid, nor stop to care for me 
 By saving what I cease to care about. 
 The courtly name and pride of circumstance — 
 The name you '11 pick up and be cumbered with 
 Just for the poor parade's sake, nothing more ; 
 Just that the world may slip from under you — 
 Just that the world may cry " So much for him — 
 " The man predestined to the heap of crowns : 
 " There goes his chance of winning one, at least ! " 
 
 Nor. The world ! 
 
 Con. You love it ! Love me quite as well, 
 
 And see if I shall pray for this in vain ! 
 Why must you ponder what it knows or thinks ? 
 
 Nor. You pray for — ^whatj in vain ? 
 
 Con. Oh my heart's heart 
 
 How I do love you, Norbert ! That is right : 
 But listen, or I take my hands away ! 
 You say, " let it be now : " you would go now 
 And tell the Queen, perhaps six steps from us, 
 You love me — so you do, thank God ! 
 
 Nor. Thank God ! 
 
1 68 In a Balcony. 
 
 Con. Yes, Norbert, — but you fain would tell your love, 
 And, what succeeds the telling, ask of her 
 My hand. Now take this rose and look at it. 
 Listening to me. You are the minister, 
 The Queen's first favourite, nor without a cause. 
 To-night completes your wonderful year's-work 
 (This palace-feast is held to celebrate) 
 Made memorable by her life's success. 
 The junction of two crowns, on her sole head, 
 Her house had only dreamed of anciently : 
 That this mere dream is grown a stable truth, 
 To-night's feast makes authentic. Whose the praise ? 
 Whose genius, patience, energy, achieved 
 What turned the many heads and broke the hearts? 
 You are the fate, your minute's in the heaven. 
 Next comes the Queen's turn. " Name your own 
 
 reward ! " 
 With leave to clench the past, chain the to-come. 
 Put out an arm and touch and take the sun 
 And fix it ever full-faced on your earth, 
 Possess yourself supremely of her life, — 
 You choose the single thing she will not grant ; 
 Nay, very declaration of which choice 
 Will turn the scale and neutralise your work : 
 At best she will forgive you, if she can. 
 You think I '11 let you choose— her cousin's hand ? 
 
 Nor. Wait. First, do you retain your old behef 
 The Queen is generous, — nay, is just ? 
 
 Con. There, there ! 
 
 So men make women love them, while they know 
 No more of women's hearts than . . . look you here, 
 You that are just and generous beside, 
 
In a Balcony. 169 
 
 Make it your own case ! For example now, 
 
 I '11 say — I let you kiss me, hold my hands — 
 
 Why? do you know why? I '11 instruct you, then — 
 
 The kiss, because you have a name at court. 
 
 This hand and this, that you may shut in each 
 
 A jewel, if you please to pick up such. 
 
 That 's horrible ? Apply it to the Queen — 
 
 Suppose I am the Queen to whom you speak. 
 
 " I was a nameless man ; you needed me : 
 
 " Why did I proffer you my aid ? there stood 
 
 " A certain pretty cousin at your side. 
 
 " Why did I make such common cause with you ? 
 
 " Access to her had not been easy else. 
 
 " You give my labours here abundant praise ? 
 
 " 'Faith, labour, which she overlooked, grew play. 
 
 " How shall your gratitude discharge itself? 
 
 " Give me her hand ! " 
 
 Nor. And still I urge the same. 
 
 Is the Queen just ? just — generous or no ! 
 
 Con. Yes, just. You love a rose ; no harm in that : 
 But was it for the rose's sake or mine 
 You put it in your bosom ? mine, you said — 
 Then, mine you still must say or else be false. 
 You told the Queen you served her for herself; 
 If so, to serve her was to serve yourself. 
 She thinks, for all your unbelieving face ! 
 I know her. In the hall, six steps from us, 
 One sees the twenty pictures ; there 's a life 
 Better than life, and yet no life at all. 
 Conceive her born in such a magic dome. 
 Pictures all round her ! why, she sees the world. 
 Can recognize its given things and facts, 
 
1 70 In a Balcony. 
 
 The fight of giants or the feast of gods, 
 
 Sages in senate, beauties at the bath, 
 
 Chases and battles, the whole earth's display, 
 
 Landscape and sea-piece, down to flowers and fruit — 
 
 And who shall question that she knows them all. 
 
 In better semblance thaii the things outside ? 
 
 Yet bring into the silent gallery 
 
 Some live thing to contrast in breath and blood, 
 
 Some lion, with the painted lion there — 
 
 You think she '11 understand composedly ? 
 
 — Say, " that 's his fellow in the hunting-piece 
 
 " Yonder, I 've turned to praise a hundred times ? " 
 
 Not so. Her knowledge of our actual earth, 
 
 Its hopes and fears, concerns and sympathies, 
 
 Must be too far, too mediate, too unreal 
 
 The real exists for us outside, not her : 
 
 How should it, with that life in these four walls, 
 
 That father and that mother, first to last 
 
 No father and no mother — friends, a heap, 
 
 Lovers, no lack — a husband in due time. 
 
 And every one of them alike a lie ! 
 
 Things painted by a Rubens out of nought 
 
 Into what kindness, friendship, love should be ; 
 
 All better, all more grandiose than life, 
 
 Only no life ; mere cloth and surface-paint. 
 
 You feel, while you admire. How should she feel ? 
 
 Yet now that she has stood thus fifty years 
 
 The sole spectator in that gallery, 
 
 You think to bring this warm real struggling love 
 
 In to her of a sudden, and suppose 
 
 She '11 keep her state untroubled ? Here 's the truth : 
 
 She '11 apprehend truth's value at a glance, 
 
In a Balcony, 171 
 
 Prefer it to the pictured loyalty ? 
 
 You only have to say " So men are made, 
 
 " For this they act ; the thing has many names, 
 
 " But this the right one : and now. Queen, be just ! " 
 
 Your life slips back ; you lose her at the word : 
 
 You do not even for amends gain me. 
 
 He will not understand ! oh, Norbert, Norbert, 
 
 Do you not understand ? 
 
 Nor. The Queen 's the Queen, 
 
 I am myself — no picture, but alive 
 In every nerve and every muscle, here 
 At the palace-window o'er the people's street, 
 As she in the gallery where the pictures glow : 
 The good of life is precious to us both. 
 She cannot love ; what do I want with rule ? 
 When first I saw your face a year ago 
 I knew my life's good, my soul heard one voice — 
 " The woman yonder, there 's no use of life 
 " But just to obtain her ! heap earth's woes in one 
 " And beatr them — make a pile of all earth's joys 
 " And spurn them, as they help or help not this ; 
 " Only, obtain her ! " — how was it to be ? 
 I found you were the cousin of the Queen ; 
 I must then serve the Queen to get to you. 
 No other way. Suppose there had been one. 
 And I, by saying prayers to some white star 
 With promise of my body and my soul. 
 Might gain you, — should I pray the star or no ? 
 Instead, there was the Queen to serve ! I served. 
 Helped, did what other servants failed to do. 
 Neither she sought nor I declared my end. 
 Her good is hers, my recompense b^ mine, 
 
172 In a Balcony. 
 
 I therefore name you as that recompense. 
 
 She dreamed that such a thing could never be? 
 
 Let her wake now. She thinks there was more cause 
 
 In love of power, high fame, pure loyalty ? 
 
 Perhaps she fancies men wear out their lives 
 
 Chasing such shades. Then, I 've a fancy too ; 
 
 I worked because I want you with my soul : 
 
 I therefore ask your hand. Let it be now ! 
 
 Con. Had I not loved you from the very first, 
 Were I not yours, could we not steal out thus 
 So wickedly, so wildly, and so well. 
 You might become impatient. What 's conceived 
 Of us without here, by the folks within ? 
 Where are you now ? immersed in cares of state — 
 Where am I now ? — intent on festal robes — 
 We two, embracing under death's spread hand ! 
 What was this thought for, what that scruple of yours 
 Which broke the council up ? — to bring about 
 One minute's meeting in the corridor ! 
 And then the sudden sleights, strange secrecies, 
 Complots inscrutable, deep telegraphs, 
 Long-planned chance-meetings, hazards of a look, 
 " Does she know ? does she not know ? saved or lost ? " 
 A year of this compression's ecstasy 
 All goes for nothing ! you would give this up 
 For the old way, the open way, the world's, 
 His way who beats, and his who sells his wife ! 
 What tempts you ? — their notorious happiness, 
 That you are ashamed of ours ? The best you '11 gain 
 Will be — the Queen grants all that you require, 
 Concedes the cousin, rids herself of you 
 And me at once, and gives us ample leave 
 
In a Balcony. 173 
 
 To live like our five hundred happy friends. 
 The world will show us with officious hand 
 Our chamber- entry and stand sentinel, 
 Where we so oft have stolen across its traps ! 
 Get the world's warrant, ring the falcons' feet, 
 And make it duty to be bold and swift, 
 Which long £^go was nature. Have it so ! 
 We never hawked by rights till flung from fist ? 
 Oh, the man's thought ! no woman 's such a fool. 
 
 Nor. Yes, the man's thought and my thought, which 
 is more — 
 One made to love you, let the world take note ! 
 Have I done worthy work ? be love's the praise, 
 Though hampered by restrictions, barred against 
 By set forms, blinded by forced secrecies ! 
 Set free my love, and see what love can do 
 Shown in my life — what work will spring from that ! 
 The world is used to have its business done 
 On other grounds, find great effects produced 
 For power's sake, fame's sake, motives in men's mouth. 
 So, good : but let my low ground shame their high ! 
 Truth is the strong thing. Let man's life be true ! 
 And love 's the truth of mine. Tin^e prove the rest ! 
 I choose to wear you stamped all over me, 
 Your name upon my forehead and my breast. 
 You, from the sword's blade to the ribbon's edge. 
 That men may see, all over, you in me — 
 That pale loves may die out of their pretence 
 In face of mine, shames thrown on love fall off. 
 Permit this, Constance ! Love has been so long 
 Subdued in me, eating me through and through, 
 That now 't is all of me and must have way. 
 
174 In a Balcony. 
 
 Think of my work, that chaos of intrigues, 
 Those hopes and fears, surprises and delays, 
 That long endeavour, earnest, patient, slow, 
 Trembling at last to its assured result — 
 Then think of this revulsion ! I resume 
 Life after death, (it is no less than life, 
 After such long unlovely labouring days) 
 And liberate to beauty life's great need 
 O' the beautiful, which, while it prompted work, 
 Suppressed itself erewhile. This eve 's the time, 
 This eve intense with yon first trembling star 
 We seem to pant and reach ; scarce aught between 
 The earth that rises and the heaven that bends ; 
 All nature self-abandoned, every tree 
 Flung as it will, pursuing its own thoughts 
 And fixed so, every flower and every weed, 
 No pride, no shame, no victory, no defeat ; 
 All under God, each measured by itself 
 These statues round us stand abrupt, distinct. 
 The strong in strength, the weak in weakness fixed, 
 The Muse for ever wedded to her lyre, 
 The Nymph to her fawn, the Silence to her rose : 
 See God's approval on his universe ! 
 Let us do so — aspire to live as these 
 In harmony with truth, ourselves being true ! 
 Take the first way, and let the second come ! 
 My first is to possess myself of you ; 
 The music sets the march-step — forward, then ! 
 And there 's the Queen, I go to claim you of. 
 The world to witness, wonder and applaud. 
 Our flower of life breaks open. No delay ! 
 Con. And so shall we be ruined, both of us. 
 
In a Balcony. 175 
 
 Norbert, I know her to the skin and bone : 
 
 You do not know her, were not born to it, 
 
 To feel what she can see or cannot see. 
 
 Love, she is generous, — ay, despite your smile, 
 
 Generous as you are : for, in that thin frame 
 
 Pain-twisted, punctured through and through with cares, 
 
 There lived a lavish soul until it starved 
 
 Debarred all healthy food. Look to the soul — 
 
 Pity that, stoop to that, ere you begin 
 
 (The true man's-way) on justice and your rights, 
 
 Exactions and acquittance of the past ! 
 
 Begin so — see what justice she will deal ! 
 
 We women hate a debt as men a gift. 
 
 Suppose her some poor keeper of a school 
 
 Whose business is to sit thro' summer months 
 
 And dole out children leave to go and play, 
 
 Herself superior to such lightness — she 
 
 In the arm-chair's state and psedagogic pomp, 
 
 To the life, the laughter, sun and youth outside : 
 
 We wonder such a face looks black on us ? 
 
 I do not bid you wake her tenderness, 
 
 (That were vain truly — none is left to wake) 
 
 But, let her think her justice is engaged 
 
 To take the shape of tenderne!ss, and mark 
 
 If she '11 not coldly pay its warmest debt ! 
 
 Does she love me, I ask you ? not a whit : 
 
 Yet, thinking that her justice was engaged 
 
 To help a kinswoman, she took me up^ 
 
 Did more on that bare ground than other loves 
 
 Would do on greater argument. For me, 
 
 I have no equivalent of such cold kind 
 
 To pay her with, but love alone to give 
 
176 In a Balcony. 
 
 If I give anything. I give her love : 
 
 I feel I ought to help her, and I will. 
 
 So, for her sake, as yours, I tell you twice 
 
 That women hate a debt as men a gift. 
 
 If I were you, I could obtain this grace — 
 
 Could lay the whole I did to love's account, 
 
 Nor yet be very false as courtiers go — 
 
 Declaring my success was recompense ; 
 
 It would be so, in fact : what were it else ? 
 
 And then, once loose her generosity, — 
 
 Oh, how I see it ! then, were I but you 
 
 To turn it, let it seem to move itself, 
 
 And make it offer what I really take, 
 
 Accepting just, in the poor cousin's hand. 
 
 Her value as the next thing to the Queen's — 
 
 Since none love Queens directly, none dare that. 
 
 And a thing's shadow or a name's mere echo 
 
 Suffices those who miss the name and thing ! 
 
 You pick up just a ribbon she has worn. 
 
 To keep in proof how near her breath you came. 
 
 Say, I 'm so near I seem a piece of her — 
 
 Ask for me that way — (oh, you understand) 
 
 You 'd find the same gift yielded with a grace. 
 
 Which, if you make the least show to extort . . 
 
 — You '11 see ! and when you have ruined both of us. 
 
 Dissertate on the Queen's ingratitude ! 
 
 Nor. Then, if I turn it that way, you consent ? 
 'T is not my way ; I have more hope in truth : 
 Still, if you won't have truth — why, this indeed, 
 Were scarcely false, as I 'd express the sense. 
 Will you remain here ? 
 
 Con. O best heart of mine. 
 
In. a Balcony. 177 
 
 How I have loved you ! then, you take my way ? 
 Are mine as you have been her minister, 
 Work out my thought, give it effect for me, 
 Paint plain my poor conceit and make it serve ? 
 I owe that withered woman ever)rthing — 
 -Life, fortune, you, remember ! Take my part- 
 Help me to pay her ! Stand upon your rights ? 
 You, with my rose, my hands, my heart on you ? 
 Your rights are mine — you have no rights but mine. 
 
 Nor. Remain here. How you know me ! 
 
 Con. Ah, but still 
 
 \He breaks from her: she remains. Dance- 
 music from within. 
 
 Enter the Queen. 
 
 Queen. Constance ? She is here as he said. Speak 
 quick ! 
 Is it so ? Is it true or false ? One word ? 
 
 Con. True. 
 
 Queen. MercifuUest Mother, thanks to thee ! 
 
 Con. Madam? 
 
 Queen. I love you, Constance, from my soul. 
 
 Now say once more, with any words you will, 
 "T is true, all true, as true as that I speak. 
 
 Con. Why should you doubt it ? 
 
 Queen. Ah, why doubt ? why doubt ? 
 
 Dear, make me see it ! Do you see it so ? 
 None see themselves ; another sees them best. 
 You say " why doubt it ? " — you see him and me. 
 It is because the Mother has such grace 
 That if we had but faith — wherein we fail — 
 
 II. N 
 
178 In a Balcony, 
 
 Whate'er we yearn for would be granted us ; 
 Howbeit we let our whims prescribe despair, 
 Our very fancies thwart and cramp our will, 
 And so, accepting life, abjure ourselves. 
 Constance, I had abjured the hope of love 
 And being loved, as truly as yon palm 
 The hope of seeing Egypt from that plot. 
 
 Con. Heaven 1 
 
 Queen. But it was so, Constance, it was so ! 
 
 Men say — or do men say it ? fancies say — 
 " Stop here, your life is set, you are grown old. 
 " Too late — no love for you, too late for love — 
 " Leave love to girls. Be queen : let Constance love ! " 
 One takes the hint^-half meets it like a child. 
 Ashamed at any feelings that oppose. 
 " Oh love, true, never think of love again ! 
 " I am a queen : I rule, not love, indeed." 
 So it goes on ; so a face grows like this, 
 Hair like this hair, poor arms as lean as these, 
 Till, — nay, it does not end so, I thank God ! 
 
 Con. I cannot understand — 
 
 Queen. The happier you ! 
 
 Constance, I know not how it is with men : 
 For women (I am a woman now like you) 
 There is no good of life but love — but love ! 
 What else looks good, is some shade flung from love ; 
 Love gilds it, gives it worth. Be warned by me, 
 Never you cheat yourself one instant ! Love, 
 Give love, ask only love, and leave the rest ! 
 O Constance, how I love you ! 
 
 Con. I love you. 
 
 Queen. I do believe that all is come through you. 
 
In a Balcony, 179 
 
 I took you to my heart to keep it warm 
 
 When the last chance of love seemed dead in me ; 
 
 I thought your fresh youth warmed my withered heart. 
 
 Oh, I am very old now, am I not ? 
 
 Not so ! it is true and it shall be true ! 
 
 Con. Tell it me : let me judge if true or false. 
 
 Queen. Ah, but I fear you ! you will look at me 
 And say, " she 's old, she 's grown unlovely quite 
 " Who ne'er was beauteous : men want beauty still." 
 Well, so I feared — the curse ! so I felt sure ! 
 
 Con. Be calm. And now you feel not sure, you say ? 
 
 Queen. Constance, he came, — the coming was not 
 strange — 
 Do not I stand and see men come and go ? 
 I turned a half-look from my pedestal 
 Where I grow marble — " one young man the more ! 
 " He will love some one ; that is nought to me : 
 " What would he with my marble stateliness ? " 
 Yet this seemed somewhat worse than heretofore ; 
 The man more gracious, youthful, like a god. 
 And I stUl older, with less flesh to change — 
 We two those dear extremes that long to touch. 
 It seemed still harder when he first began 
 Absorbed to labour at the state-affairs 
 The old way for the old end — interest. 
 Oh, to live with a thousand beating hearts 
 Around you, -swift eyes, serviceable hands. 
 Professing they've no care but for your cause. 
 Thought but to help you, love but for yourself. 
 And you the marble statue all the time 
 They praise and point at as preferred to life. 
 Yet leave for the first breathing woman's cheek. 
 
i8o In a Balcony: 
 
 First dancer's, gipsy's or street baladine's ! 
 
 Why, how I have ground my teeth to hear men's speech 
 
 Stifled for fear it should alarm my ear, 
 
 Their gait subdued lest step should startle me, 
 
 Their eyes declined, such queendom to respect, 
 
 Their hands alert, such treasure to preserve, 
 
 While not a man of them broke rank and spoke, 
 
 Or wrote me a vulgar letter all of love. 
 
 Or caught my hand and pressed it like a hand ! 
 
 There have been moments, if the sentinel 
 
 Lowering his halbert to salute the queen, 
 
 Had flung it brutally and clasped my knees, 
 
 I would have stooped and kissed him with my souL 
 
 Con. Who could have comprehended? 
 
 Queen. Ay, who — who? 
 
 Why, no one, Constance, but this one who did. 
 Nor they, not you, not I. Even now perhaps 
 It comes too late — would you but tell the truth. 
 
 Con. I wait to tell it 
 
 Queen. Well, you see, he came, 
 
 Outfaced the others, did a work this year 
 Exceeds in value all was ever done. 
 You know — it is not I who say it — all 
 Say it. And so (a second pang and worse) 
 I grew aware not only of what he did, 
 But why so wondrously. Oh, never work 
 Like his was done for work's ignoble sake — 
 It must have finer aims tolure it on ! 
 I felt, I saw, he loved — loved somebody. 
 And Constance, my dear Constance, do you know, 
 I did believe this while 't was you he loved. 
 
 Con. Me, madam ? 
 
In a Balcony. i8r 
 
 Queen. It did seem to me, your face 
 
 Met him where'er he looked : and whom but you 
 Was such a man to love ? It seemed to me, 
 You saw he loved you, and approved the love, 
 And so you both were in intelligence. 
 You could not loiter in the garden, step 
 Into this balcony, but I straight was stung 
 And forced to understand. It seemed so true, 
 So right, so beautiful, so like you both, 
 That all this work should have been done by. him 
 Not for the vulgar hope of recompense, 
 But that at last— suppose, some night like this — 
 Borne on to claim his due reward of me. 
 He might say, "Give her hand and pay me so.'' 
 And I (O Constance, you shall love me now !) 
 I thought, surmounting all the bitterness, 
 — " And he shall have it. I will make her blest,, 
 " My flower of youth, jmy woman's self that was, 
 " My happiest woman's self that might have been ! 
 " These two shall have their joy and leave me here." 
 Yes — ^yes ! 
 
 Con. Thanks ! 
 
 Queen. And the word was on my lips 
 
 When he burst in upon me. I looked to hear 
 A mere calm statement of his just desire 
 For payment of his labour. When — O heaven, 
 How can I tell you ? cloud was on my eyes 
 And thunder in my ears at that first word 
 Which told 't was love of me, of me, did all — 
 He loved me — from the first step to the last, 
 Loved me ! 
 
1^2 In a Balcony. 
 
 Con. You did not hear . . . you thought he spoke 
 Of love ? what if you should mistake ? 
 
 Queen. No, no— 
 
 No mistake ! Ha, there shall be no mistake ! 
 He had not dared to hint the love he felt — 
 You were my reflex — (how I understood !) 
 He said you were the ribbon I had worn. 
 He kissed my hand, he looked into my eyes, 
 And love, love was the end of every phrase. 
 Love is begun ; this much is come to pass : 
 The rest is easy. Constance, I am yours ! 
 I will learn, I will place my life on you, 
 But teach me how to keep what I have won ! 
 Am I so old ? This hair was early grey ; 
 But joy ere now has brought hair brown again, 
 And joy will bring the cheek's red back, I feeL 
 I could sing once too ; that was in my youth. 
 Still, when men paint me, they declare me . . . yes, 
 Beautiful — for the last French painter did ! 
 I know they flatter somewhat ; you are frank — 
 I trust you. How I loved you from the first ! 
 Some queens would hardly seek a cousin out 
 And set her by their side to take the eye : 
 I must have felt that good would come from you. 
 I am not generous — like him — like you ! 
 But he is not your lover after all : 
 It was not you he looked at. Saw you him ? 
 You have not been mistaking words or looks ? 
 He said you were the reflex of myself 
 And yet he is not such a paragon 
 To you, to younger women who may choose 
 Among a thousand Norberts. Speak the truth ! 
 
In a Balcony. 183 
 
 You know you never named his name to me — 
 You know, I cannot give him up — ah God, 
 Not up now, even to you ! 
 
 Con. Then calm yourself. 
 
 Queen. See, I am old — look here, you happy girl ! 
 I will not play the fool, deceive myself ; 
 'T is all gone : put your cheek beside my cheek — 
 Ah, what a contrast does the moon behold ! 
 But then I set my life upon one chance. 
 The last chance and the best — am / not left, 
 My soul, myself? All women love great men 
 If young or old ; it is in all the tales : 
 Young beauties love old poets who can love — ■ 
 Why should not he, the poenis in my soul, 
 The love, the passionate faith, the sacrifice, 
 The constancy ? I throw them at his feet. 
 Who cares to see the fountain's very shape. 
 And whether it be a Triton's or a Nymph's 
 That pours the foam, makes rainbows all around ? 
 You could not praise indeed the empty conch ; 
 But I '11 pour floods of love and hide myself. 
 How I will love him ! Cannot men love love ? 
 Who was a queen and loved a poet once 
 Humpbacked, a dwarf? ah, women can do that ! 
 Well, but men too ; at least, they tell you so. 
 They love so many women in their youth, 
 And even in age they all love whom they please ; 
 And yet the best of them confide to friends 
 That 't is not beauty makes the lasting love — 
 They spend a day with such and tire the next : 
 They like soul,— well then, they' like phantasy, 
 Novelty even. Let us confess the truth. 
 
1 84 In a Balcony. 
 
 Horrible though it be, that prejudice, 
 Prescription . . . curses ! they will love a queen 
 They will, they do : and will not, does not — he ? 
 
 Con. How can he ? You are wedded : 't is a name 
 We know, but still a bond. Your rank remains. 
 His rank remains. How can he, nobly souled 
 As you believe and I incline to think. 
 Aspire to be yoUr favourite, shame and all ? 
 
 Queen. Hear her ! There, there now — could she love 
 like me ? 
 What did I say of smooth-cheeked youth and grace ? 
 See all it does o^; could do ! so, youth loves ! 
 Oh, tell him, Constance, you could never do 
 What I will — you, it was not bom in ! I 
 Will drive these difficulties far and fast 
 As yonder mists curdling before the moon. 
 I '11 use my light too, gloriously retrieve 
 My youth from its enforced calamity. 
 Dissolve that hatef^il marriage, and be his. 
 His own in the eyek alike of God and man. 
 
 Con. You will do — dare do . . . pause on what you 
 
 say 
 
 Queen. Hear her ! I thank you, sweet, for that surprise. 
 You have the fair face : for the soul, see mine ! 
 I have the strong soul : let me teach you, here. 
 I think I have borne enough and long enough, 
 And patiently enough, the world remarks. 
 To have my own way now, unblamed by all. 
 It does so happen (I rejoice for it) 
 This most unhoped-for issue cuts the knot. 
 There 's not a better way of settling claims 
 Than this : God sends the accident express : 
 
In a Balcony. 185 
 
 And were it for my subjects' good, no more, 
 T were best thus ordered. I am thankful now, 
 Mute, passive, acquiescent. I receive. 
 And bless God simply, or should almost fear 
 To walk so smoothly to my ends at last. 
 Why, how I baffle obstacles, spurn fate ! 
 How strong I am ! Could Norbert see me now ! 
 
 Con. Let me consider ! It is all too strange. 
 
 Queen. You, Constance, learn of me ; do you, like 
 me ! 
 You are young, beautiful : my own, best girl, 
 You will have many lovers, and love one — 
 Light hair, not hair like Norbert's, to suit yours. 
 And taller than he is, for yourself are talk 
 Love him, like me ! Give all away to him ; 
 Think never of yourself ; throw by your pride, 
 Hope, fear, — your own good as you saw it once. 
 And love him simply for his very self. 
 Remember, I (and what am I to you ?) 
 Would give up all for one, leave throne, lose life. 
 Do all but just unlove him ! He loves me. 
 
 Con. He shall. 
 
 Queen. You, step inside my inmost heart ! 
 
 Give me your own heart : let us have one heart ! 
 I '11 come to you for counsel ; " this he says, 
 " This he does ; what should this amount to, pray ? 
 " Beseech you, change it into current coin ! 
 " Is that worth kisses ? Shall I please him there ? " 
 And then we '11 speak in turn of you — what else ? 
 Your love, according to your beauty's worth. 
 For you shall have some noble love, all gold : 
 Whom choose you ? we will get him at your choice. 
 
1 86 In a Balcony. 
 
 — Constance, I leave you. Just a minute since, 
 
 I felt as I must die or be alone 
 
 Breathing my soul into an ear like yours : 
 
 Now, I would face tlie world with my new life, 
 
 With my new crown. I '11 walk around the rooms, 
 
 And then come back and tell yoii how it feels. 
 
 How soon a smile of God can change the world ! 
 
 How we are made for happiness — how work 
 
 Grows play, adversity a winning fight ! 
 
 True I have lost so many years : what then ? 
 
 Many remain : God has been very good. 
 
 You, stay here ! 'T is as different from dreams, 
 
 From the mind's cold calm estimate of bliss, 
 
 As these stone statues from the flesh and blood. 
 
 The comfort thou hast caused mankind, God's moon ! 
 
 \She goes out, leaving Constance. Dance-music 
 from within. 
 
 NoRBERT enters. 
 
 Nor. Well ? we have but one minute and one word ! 
 
 Con. I am yours, Norbert ! 
 
 Nor. Yes, mine. 
 
 Con. Not till now ! 
 
 You were mine. Now I give myself to you. 
 
 Nor. Constance ? 
 
 Con. Your own ! I know the thriftier way 
 
 Of giving — haply, 't is the wiser way. 
 Meaning to give a treasure, I might dole 
 Coin after coin out (each, as that were all, 
 With a new largess still at each despair) 
 And force you keep in sight the deed, preserve 
 
In a Balcony. 187 
 
 Exhaustless to the end my part and yours, 
 
 My giving and your taking ; both our joys 
 
 Dying together. Is it the wiser way ? 
 
 I choose the simpler ; I give all at once. 
 
 Know what you have to trust to, trade upon ! 
 
 Use it, abuse it, — anything but think 
 
 Hereafter, " Had I known she loved me so, 
 
 " And what my means, I might have thriven with it." 
 
 This is your means. I give you all myself. 
 Nor. I take you and thank God. 
 Con. Look on through years ! 
 
 We cannot kiss, a second day like this ; 
 
 Else were this earth, no earth. 
 
 Nor. With this day's heat 
 
 We shall go on through years of C0I4. 
 
 Con. So, best ! 
 
 — I try to see those years — I think I see. 
 You walk quick and new warmth comes ; you look back 
 And lay all to the first glciw — not sit down 
 For ever brooding on a day like this 
 While seeing the embers whiten and love die. 
 Yes, love lives best in its effect ; and mine, 
 Full in its own life, yearns to live in yours. 
 
 Nor. Just so. I take and know you all at once. 
 Your soul is disengaged so easily, 
 Your face is there, I know you ; give me time, 
 Let me be proud and think you shall know me. 
 My soul is slower : in a life I roll 
 The minute out whereto you condense yours— 
 The whole slow circle round you I must move, 
 To be just you. I look to a long life 
 To decompose this minute, prove its worth. 
 
1 88 In a Balcony. 
 
 'T is the sparks' long succession one by one 
 
 Shall show you, in the end, what fire was crammed 
 
 In that mere stone you struck : how could you know, 
 
 If it lay ever unproved in your sight, 
 
 As now my heart lies ? your own warmth would hide 
 
 Its coldness, were it cold. 
 
 Con. But how prove, how ? 
 
 Nor. Prove in my life, you ask ? 
 
 Con. Quick, Norbert — how? 
 
 Nor. That 's easy told. I count life just a stuff 
 To try the soul's strength on, educe the man. 
 Who keeps one end in view makes all things serva 
 As with the body — he who hurls a lance 
 Or heaps up stone on stone, shows strength alike, 
 So I will seize and use all means to prove 
 And show this soul of mine, you crown as yours. 
 And justify us both. 
 
 Con. Could you write books, 
 
 Paint pictures ! One sits down in poverty 
 And writes or paints, with pity for the rich. 
 
 Nor. And loves one's painting and one's writing, then, 
 And not one's mistress ! All is best, believe, 
 And we best as no other than we are. 
 We live, and they experiment on life — 
 Those poets, painters, all who stand aloof 
 To overlook the farther. Let us be 
 The thing they look at ! I might take your face 
 And write of it and paint it — to what end ? 
 For whom ? what pale dictatress in the air 
 Feeds, smiling sadly, her fine ghost-like form 
 With earth's real blood and breath, the beauteous life 
 She makes despised for ever ? You are mine, 
 
In a Balcony^ 189 
 
 Made for me, not for others in the world, 
 Nor yet for that which I should call my art, 
 The cold calm power to see how fair you look. 
 I come to you ; I leave you not, to write 
 Or paint. You are, I am : let Rubens there 
 Paint us ! 
 
 Con. So, best ! 
 
 Nor. I understand your soul. 
 
 You live, and rightly sympathize with life. 
 With action, power, success. This way is straight ; 
 And time were short beside, to let me change 
 The craft my childhood learnt : my craft shall serve. 
 Men set me here to subjugate, enclose, 
 Manure their barren lives, and force the fruit 
 First for themselves, and afterward for me 
 In the due tithe ; the task of some one man, 
 TJirough ways of work appointed by themselves. 
 I am not bid create — they see no star 
 Transfiguring my brow to warrant that — 
 But bind in one and carry out their wills. 
 So I began : to-night sees how I end. 
 What if it see, too, my first outbreak here 
 Amid the warmth, surprise and sympathy, 
 And instincts of the heart that teach the head ? 
 What if the people have discerned at length 
 The dawn of the next nature, the new man 
 Whose will they venture in the place of theirs, 
 And who, they trust, shall find them out new ways 
 To heights as new which yet he only sees ? 
 I felt it when you kissed me. See this Queen, 
 This people — in our phrase, this mass of men — 
 See how the mass lies passive to my hand 
 
190 Jn a Balcony. 
 
 And how my hand is plastic, and you by 
 To make the muscles iron ! Oh, an end 
 Shall crown this issue as this crowns the first ! 
 My will be on this people ! then, the strain. 
 The grappling of the potter with his clay, 
 The long uncertain struggle, — the success 
 And consummation of the spirit-work. 
 Some vase shaped to the curl of the god's lip, 
 While rounded fair for lower men to see 
 The Graces in a dance all recognize 
 With turbulent applause and laughs of heart ! 
 So triumph ever shall renew itself; 
 Ever shall end in efforts higher yet. 
 Ever begin ... 
 
 Con. I ever helping ? 
 
 Nor. Thus ! 
 
 \As he embraces fier, the Qijeen enters. 
 
 Con. Hist, madam ! So I have performed my part 
 You see your gratitude's true decency, 
 Norbert ? A little slow in seeing it ! 
 Begin, to end the sooner ! What 's a kiss ? 
 
 Nor. Constance? 
 
 Con. Why, must I teach it you again ? 
 
 You want a witness to your dulness, sir ? 
 What was I saying these ten minutes long ? 
 Then I repeat — ^when some young handsome man 
 Like you has acted out a part like yours, 
 Is pleased to fall in love with one beyond. 
 So very far beyond him, as he says — 
 So hopelessly in love that but to speak 
 Would prove him mad, — he thinks judiciously, 
 And makes some insignificant good soul. 
 
In a Balcony. 191 
 
 Like me, his friend, adviser, confidant, 
 And very stalking-horse to cover him 
 In following after what he dares not face — 
 When his end 's gained — (sir, do. you understand ?) 
 When she, he dares not face, has loved him first, 
 — May I not say so, madam ? — tops his hope, 
 And overpasses so his wildest dream. 
 With glad consent of all, and most of her 
 The confidant who brought the same about — 
 Why, in the moment when such joy explodes, 
 I do hold that the merest gentleman 
 Will not start rudely from the stalking-horse, 
 Dismiss it with a " There, enough of you ! " 
 Forget it, show his back unmannerly ; 
 But like a liberal heart will rather turn 
 And say, " A tingling time of hope was ours ; 
 " Betwixt the fears and falterings,/we two lived 
 " A chanceful time in waiting for the prize : 
 " The confidant, the Constance, served not ill. 
 " And though I shall forget her in due time, 
 " Her use being answered now, as reason bids, 
 " Nay as herself bids from her heart of hearts, — 
 " Still, she has rights, the first thanks go to her, 
 " The first good praise goes to the prosperous tool, 
 " And the first — which is the last — rewarding kiss. " 
 
 Nor. Constance, it is a dream — ah, see, you smile ! 
 
 Con. So, ' now his part being properly performed, 
 Madam, I turn to you and finish mine 
 As duly ; I do justice in my turn. 
 Yes, ciadam, he has loved you — long and well ; 
 He could not hope to tell you so — 't was I 
 Who served to prove your soul accessible. 
 
192 In a Balcony. 
 
 I led his thoughts on, drew them to their place 
 When else they had wandered out into despair, 
 And kept love constant toward its natural aim. 
 Enough, my part is played ; you stoop half-way 
 And meet us royally and spare our fears : 
 'T is like yourself. He thanks you, so do I. 
 Take him — with my full heart ! my work is praised 
 By what comes of it. Be you happy, both ! 
 Yourself — the only one on earth who can — 
 Do all for him, much more than a mere heart 
 Which though warm is not useful in its warmth 
 As the silk vesture of a queen ! fold that 
 Around him gently, tenderly. For him — 
 For him, — he knows his own part ! 
 
 Nor. Have you done ? 
 
 I take the jest at last. Should I speak now ? 
 Was yours the wager, Constance, fooUsh child, 
 Or did you but accept it ? Well — ^at least 
 You lose by it. 
 
 Con. Nay, madam, 't is your turn ! 
 
 Restrain him still from speech a little more. 
 And make him happier and more confident ! 
 Pity him, madam, he is timid yet ! 
 Mark, Norbert ! Do not shrink now ! Here I yield 
 My whole right in you to the Queen, observe ! 
 With her go put in practice the great schemes 
 You teem with, follow the career else closed — 
 Be all you cannot be except by her ! 
 Behold her ! — Madam, say for pity's sake 
 An)^hing — frankly say you love him ! Else 
 He '11 not believe it : there 's more earnest in 
 His fear than you conceive : I know the man !. 
 
In a Balcony. igj 
 
 Nor. I know the woman somewhat, and confess 
 I thought she had jested better : she begins 
 To overcharge her part. I gravely wait 
 Your pleasure, madam : where is my reward ? 
 
 Queen. Norbert, this wild girl (whom I recognize 
 Scarce more than you do, in her fancy-fit. 
 Eccentric speech and variable mirth, 
 Not very wise perhaps and somewhat bold, 
 Yet suitable, the whole night's work being strange) 
 — May still be right : I may do well to speak 
 And make authentic what appears a dream 
 To even myself For, what she says, is truth. 
 Yes, Norbert — what you spoke just now of love. 
 Devotion, stirred no novel sense in me. 
 But justified a warmth felt long before. 
 Yes, from the first — I loved you, I shall say : 
 Strange ! but I do grow stronger, now 't is said. 
 Your courage helps mine : you did well to speak 
 To-night, the night that crowns your twelvemonths' toil : 
 But still I had not waited to discern 
 Your heart so long, believe me ! From the first 
 The source of so much zeal was almost plain, 
 In absence even of your own words just now 
 Which opened out the truth. 'T is very strange. 
 But takes a happy ending— in your love 
 Which mine meets : be it so ! as you choose me. 
 So I choose you. 
 
 Nor. And worthily you choose. 
 
 I will not be unworthy your esteem. 
 No, madam. I do love you ; I will meet 
 Your nature, now I know it. This was well. 
 I see, — you dare and you are justified : 
 
 II. o 
 
194 I'"' "' Balcony. 
 
 But none had ventured such experiment, 
 Less versed than you in nobleness of heart, 
 Less confident of finding such in me. 
 I joy that thus you test me ere you grant 
 The dearest richest beauteousest and best 
 Of women to my arms : 't is like yourself. 
 So — back again into my part's set words — 
 Devotion to the uttermost is yours, 
 But no, you cannot, madam, even you. 
 Create in me the love our Constance does. 
 Or — something truer to the tragic phrase — 
 Not yon magnolia-bell superb with scent 
 Invites a certain insect — that 's myself — 
 But the small eye-flower nearer to the ground. 
 I take this lady. 
 
 Con. Stay — not hers, the trap — 
 
 Stay, Norbert — that mistake were worst of all ! 
 He is too cunning, madam ! It was I, 
 I, Norbert, who . . . 
 
 Nor. You, was it, Constance ? Then, 
 
 But for the grace of this divinest hour 
 Which gives me you, I might not pardon here ! 
 I am the Queen's ; she only knows my brain : 
 She may experiment therefore on my heart 
 And I instruct her too by the result. 
 But you. Sweet, you who know me, who so long 
 Have told my heart-beats over, held my life 
 In those white hands of yours, — it is not well ! 
 
 Con. Tush ! I have said it, did I not say it all ? 
 The life, for her — the heart-beats, for her sake ! 
 
 Nor. Enough ! my cheek grows red, I think. Your 
 test? 
 
In a Balcony. 195 
 
 There 's not the meanest woman in the world, 
 
 Not she I least could love in all the world, 
 
 Whom, did she love me, did love prove itself, 
 
 I dare insult as you insult me now. 
 
 Cqnstance, I could say, if it must be said, 
 
 " Take back the soul you offer, I keep mine ! " 
 
 But — " Take the soul still quivering on your hand, 
 
 " The soul so offered, which I cannot use, 
 
 " And, please you, give it to some playful friend, 
 
 " For — what 's the trifle he requites me with?" 
 
 — I, tempt a woman, to amuse a man, 
 
 That two may mock her heart if it succumb ? 
 
 No : fearing God and standing 'neath His heaven, 
 
 I would not dare insult a woman so. 
 
 Were she the meanest woman in the world. 
 
 And he, I cared to please, ten emperor's ! 
 
 Con. Norbert ! 
 
 Nor. I love once as I live but once. 
 
 What case is this to think or talk about ? 
 I love you. Would it mend the case at all 
 Should such a step as this kill love in me ? 
 Your part were done : account to God for it ! 
 But mine — could murdered love get up again. 
 And kneel to whom you please to designate. 
 And make you mirth ? It is too horrible. 
 You did not know this, Constance ? now you know 
 That body and soul have each one life, but one ; 
 And here 's my love, here, living, at your feet. 
 
 Con. See the Queen ! Norbert — this one more last 
 word — 
 If thus you have taken jest for earnest — ^thus 
 Loved me in earnest . . . 
 
 o 2 
 
196 In a Balcony. 
 
 Nor. Ah, no jest holds here ! 
 
 Where is the laughter in which jest breaks up, 
 And what this horror that grOws palpable ? 
 Madam — ^why grasp you thus the balcony ? 
 Have I done ill ? Have I not spoken truth ? 
 How could I other ? Was it not your test, 
 To try me, what my love for Constance meant ? 
 Madam, your royal soul itself approves, 
 The first, that I should choose thus ! so one takes 
 A beggar, — asks him, what would buy his child ? 
 And then approves the expected laugh of scorn 
 Returned as something noble from the rags. 
 Speak, Constance, I 'm the beggar ! Ha, what 's this ? 
 You two glare each at each like panthers now. 
 Constance, the world fades : only you stand there ! 
 You did not, in to-night's wild whirl of things. 
 Sell me —your soul of souls, for any price ? 
 No — no — 't is easy to believe in you ! 
 Was it your love's mad trial to o'ertop 
 Mine by this vain self-sacrifice ? well, still — 
 Though I should curse, I love you. I am love 
 And cannot change : love's self is at your feet ! 
 
 \The Queen goes out. 
 
 , Con. Feel my heart ; let it die against your own ! 
 
 Nor. Against my own. Explain not ; let this be ! 
 This is life's height 
 
 Con. Yours, yours, yours ! 
 
 Nor. You and I— 
 
 Why care by what meanders we are here 
 I' the centre of the labyrinth ? Men have died 
 Trying to find this place, which we have found. 
 
 Con. Found, found ! 
 
In a Bakony. 197 
 
 Nor. Sweet, never fear what she can do ! 
 
 We are past harm now. 
 
 Con. On the breast of God. 
 
 I thought of men — ^as if you were a man. 
 Tempting him with a crown ! 
 
 Nor. This must end here : 
 
 It is too perfect 
 
 Con. There 's the music stopped. 
 
 What measured heavy tread ? It is one blaze 
 About me and within me. 
 
 Nor. Oh, some death 
 
 Will run its sudden finger round this spark 
 And sever us from the rest ! " 
 
 Con. And so do well. 
 
 Now the doors open. 
 
 Nor. 'T is the guard comes. 
 
 Con, Kiss ! 
 
1 93 
 
 OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE. 
 
 The morn when first it thunders in March, 
 
 The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say. 
 As I leaned and looked over the aided arch 
 
 Of the villa-gate this warm March day, , 
 No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled 
 
 In the valley beneath where, white and wide 
 And washed by the morning water-gold, 
 
 Florence lay out on the mountain-side. 
 
 II. 
 
 River and bridge and street and square 
 
 Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, 
 Through the live translucent bath of air. 
 
 As the sights in a magic crystal ball. 
 And of all I saw and of all I praised. 
 
 The most to praise and the best to see 
 Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised : 
 
 But why did it more than startle me ? 
 
Old Pictures in Florence. 199 
 
 HI. 
 
 Giotto, how, with that soul of yours, 
 
 Could you play me false who loved you so ? 
 Some slights if a certain heart endures 
 
 Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know ! 
 I' faith, I perceive not why I should care 
 
 To break a silence that suits them best. 
 But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear 
 
 When I find a Giotto join the rest. 
 
 IV. 
 
 On the arch where olives overhead 
 
 Print the blue sky with twig and leaf, 
 (That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed) 
 
 'Twixt the aloes, I used to learn in chief, 
 And mark through the winter afternoons, 
 
 By a gift God grants me now and then, 
 In the mild decline of those suns like moons, 
 
 Who walked in Florence, besides her men. 
 
 They might chirp and chaffer, come and go 
 
 For pleasure or profit, her men alive — 
 My business was hardly with them, I trow. 
 
 But with empty cells of the human hive ; 
 — With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch, 
 
 The church's apsis, aisle or nave. 
 Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch, 
 
 Its face set full for the sun to shave. 
 
2O0 Old Pictures in Florence. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Wherever a fresco peels and drops, 
 
 Wherever an outline weakens and wanes 
 Till the latest life in the painting stops, 
 
 Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains ; 
 One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick, 
 
 Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster, 
 — A lion who dies of an ass's kick. 
 
 The wronged great soul of an ancient Master. 
 
 VII. 
 
 For oh, this world and the wrong it does ! 
 
 They are safe in heaven with their backs to it, 
 The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz 
 
 Round the works of, you of the little wit ! 
 Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope, 
 
 Now that they see God face to face, 
 And have all attained to be poets, I hope ? 
 
 'T is their holiday now, in any case. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Much they reck of your praise and you ! 
 
 But the wronged great souls — can they be quit 
 Of a world where their work is all to do. 
 
 Where you style them, you of the little wit, 
 Old Master This and Early the Other, 
 
 Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows : 
 A younger succeeds to an elder brother, 
 
 Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos. 
 
Old Pictures in Florence. 
 
 IX 
 
 And here where your praise might yield returns, 
 
 And a handsome word or two give help, 
 Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns 
 
 And the puppy pack of poodles yelp. 
 What, not a word for Stefano there, 
 
 Of brow once prominent and starry, 
 Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair 
 
 For his peerless painting? (see Vasari.) 
 
 X. 
 
 There stands the Master. Study, my friends. 
 
 What a man's work comes to ! So he plans it. 
 Performs it, perfects it, makes amends 
 
 For the toiling and moiling, and then, sic transit ! 
 Happier the thrifty blind-folk labour. 
 
 With upturned eye while the hand is busy. 
 Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbour ! 
 
 'T is looking downward makes one dizzy. 
 
 " If you knew their work you would deal your dole." 
 
 May I take upon me to instruct you ? 
 When Greek Art ran and reached the goal, 
 
 Thus much had the world to boast infructu — 
 The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken. 
 
 Which the actual generations garble. 
 Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken) 
 
 And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble. 
 
202 Old Pictures in Florence. 
 
 XII. 
 
 So, you saw yourself as you wished you were, 
 
 As you might have been, as you cannot be ; 
 Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there : 
 
 And grew content in your poor degree 
 With your little power, by those statues' godhead, 
 
 And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway, 
 And your little grace, by their grace embodied, 
 
 And your little date, by their forms that stay. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am ? 
 
 Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. 
 You would prove a model ? The Son of Priam 
 
 Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. 
 You 're wroth — can you slay your snake like Apollo ? 
 
 You 're grieved — still Niobe 's the grander ! 
 You live — there 's the Racers' frieze to follow : 
 
 You die — there 's the dying Alexander. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 So, testing your weakness by their strength. 
 
 Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty, 
 Measured by Art in your breadth and length, 
 
 You learned — to submit is a mortal's duty. 
 — ^When I say " you " 't is the common soul, 
 
 The collective, I mean : the race of Man 
 That receives life in parts to live in a whole. 
 
 And grow here according to God's clear plan. 
 
Old Pictures in Florence. 
 
 XV. 
 
 203 
 
 Growth came when, looking your last on them all, 
 
 You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day 
 And cried with a start — What if we so small 
 
 Be greater and grander the while than they ? 
 Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature ? 
 
 In both, of such lower types are we 
 Precisely because of our wider nature ; 
 
 For time, theirs— ours, for eternity. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 To-day's brief passion limits their range ; 
 
 It seethes with the morrow for us and more. 
 They are perfect — how else ? they shall never change : 
 
 We are faulty — why not ? we have time in store. 
 The Artificer's hand is not arrested 
 
 With us ; we are rough-hewn, no-wise polished. 
 They stand for our copy, and, once invested 
 
 With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 'T is a life-long toil till our lump be leaven — 
 
 The better ! What 's come to perfection perishes. 
 Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven : 
 
 Works done least rapidly. Art most cherishes. 
 Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto ! 
 
 Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish, 
 Done at a stroke, was just (was it not ?) " O ! " 
 
 Thy great Campanile is still to finish. 
 
204 Old Pictures in Florence^ 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter, 
 
 But what and where depend on life's minute ? 
 Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter 
 
 Our first step out of the gulf or in it ? 
 Shall Man, such step within his endeavour, 
 
 Man's face, have no more play and action 
 Than joy which is crystallized for ever, 
 
 Or grief, an eternal petrifaction ? 
 
 XIX. 
 
 On which I conclude, that the early painters, 
 
 To cries of " Greek Art and what more wish you ? "- 
 Replied, " To become now self-acquainters, 
 
 " And paint man, man, whatever the issue ! 
 " Make new hopes shine through th'e flesh they firay, 
 
 " New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters : 
 " To bring the invisible full into play, 
 
 " Let the visible go to the dogs — what matters ? " 
 
 XX. 
 
 Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory 
 
 For daring so much, before they well did it 
 The first of the new, in our race's story. 
 
 Beats the last of the old ; 't is no idle quiddit 
 The worthies began a revolution. 
 
 Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge, 
 Why, honour them now ! (ends my allocution) 
 
 Nor confer your degree when the folks leave college 
 
■ Old Pictures in Florence. 205 
 
 XXI. 
 
 There 's a fancy some lean to and others hate — 
 
 That, when this life is ended, begins 
 New work for the soul in another state, 
 
 Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins : 
 Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries, 
 
 Repeat in large what they practised in small, 
 Through life after life in unlimited series ; 
 
 Only the scale 's to be changed, that 's all. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen 
 
 By the means of Evil that Good is best, 
 And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's 
 serene, — 
 
 When our faith in the same has stood the test — 
 Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod. 
 
 The uses of labour are surely done ; 
 There remaineth a rest for the people of God : 
 
 And I have had troubles enough, for one. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 But at any rate I have loved the season 
 
 Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy ; 
 My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan, 
 
 My painter — who but Cimabue ? 
 Nor even was man of them all indeed, 
 
 From these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo, 
 Could say that he missed my critic-meed. 
 
 So, now to my special grievance — heigh ho ! 
 
2o6 Old Pictures in Florence. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Their ghosts still stand, as I said before, 
 
 Watching each fresco flaked and rasped. 
 Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o'er : 
 
 — No getting again what the Church has grasped ! 
 The works on the wall must take their chance ; 
 
 " Works never conceded to England's thick clime ! " 
 (I hope they prefer their inheritance 
 
 Of a bucketful of Italian quick-lime.) 
 
 XXV. 
 
 When they go at length, with such a shaking 
 
 Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly 
 Each master his way through the black streets taking. 
 
 Where many a lost work breathes though badly — 
 Why don't they bethink them of who has merited ? 
 
 Why not reveal, while their pictures dree 
 Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted ? 
 
 Why is it they never remember me ? 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Not that I expect the great Bigordi, , 
 
 Nor Sandro to hear me, chivabic, bellicose ; 
 Nor the wronged Lippino ; and not a word I 
 
 Say of a scrap of Frk Angelico's : 
 But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi, 
 
 To grant me a taste of your intonaco. 
 Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye ? 
 
 Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco ? 
 
Old Futures in Florence. 207 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Could not the ghost with the close red cap, 
 
 My Pollajolo, the twice a craftsman, 
 Save me a sample, give me the hap 
 
 Of a muscular Christ that shows the draughtsman ? 
 No Virgin by him the somewhat petty, 
 
 Of finical touch and tempera crumbly— 
 Could not Alesso Baldovinetti 
 
 Contribute so much, I ask him humbly ? 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Margheritone of Arezzo, 
 
 With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling barret 
 (Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so. 
 
 You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot ?) 
 Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion, 
 
 Where in the foreground kneels the donor ? 
 If such remain, as is my conviction. 
 
 The hoarding it does you but little honour. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 They pass ; for them the panels may thrill, 
 
 The tempera grow alive and tinglish ; 
 Their pictures are left to the mercies still 
 
 Of dealers and stealers, Jews and the English 
 Who, seeing mere money's worth in their prize. 
 
 Will sell it to somebody calm as Zeno 
 At naked High Art, and in ecstacies 
 
 Before some clay-cold vile Carlino ! 
 
2o8 Old Pictures in Florence. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 No matter for these ! But Giotto, you, 
 
 Have you allowed, as the town-tongues babble it- 
 Oh, never ! it shall not be counted true — 
 
 That a certain precious little tablet 
 Which Buonarroti eyed like a lover, 
 
 Was buried so long in oblivion's womb 
 And, left for another than I to discover. 
 
 Turns up at last ! and to whom ? — to whom ? 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 I, that have haunted the dim San Spirito, 
 
 (Or was it rather the Ognissanti ?) 
 Patient on altar-step planting a weary toe ! 
 
 Nay, I shall have it yet ! Detur amanti! 
 My Koh-i-noor — or (if that 's a platitude) 
 
 Jewel of Giamschid, the Persian Soft's eye ; 
 So, in anticipative gratitude. 
 
 What if I take up my hope and prophesy ? 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 When the hour grows ripe, and a certain dotard 
 
 Is pitched, no parcel that needs invoicing, 
 To the worse side of the Mont St Gothard, 
 
 We shall begin by way of rejoicing ; 
 None of that shooting the sky (blank cartridge). 
 
 Nor a civic guard, all plumes and lacquer, 
 Hunting Radetzky's soul like a partridge 
 
 Over Morello with squib and cracker. 
 
Old Pictures in Florence. 209 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 This time we '11 shoot better game and bag 'em hot : 
 
 No mere display at the stone of Dante, 
 But a kind of sober Witanagemot 
 
 (Ex : " Casa Guidi," quod videas ante) 
 Shall ponder, once Freedom restored to Florence, 
 
 How Art itiay return that departed with her. 
 Go, hated house, go each trace of the Loraine's, 
 
 And bring us the days of Orgagna hither ! 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 How we shall prologuize, how we shall perorate. 
 
 Utter fit things upon art and history, 
 Feel truth at blood-heat and falsehood at zero rate, 
 
 Make of the want of the age no mystery ; 
 Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras. 
 
 Show — monarchy ever its uncouth cub licks 
 Out of the bear's shape into Chimsera's, 
 
 While Pure Art's birth is still the republic's ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Then one shall propose in a speech (curt Tuscan, 
 
 Expurgate and sober, with scarcely an " issimo") 
 To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan, 
 
 And turn the bell-tower's alt to altissinio : 
 And, fine as the beak of a young beccaccia, 
 
 The Campanile, the Dupmo's fit ally, 
 Shall soar up in gold fiill fifty braccia. 
 
 Completing Florence, as Florence, Italy. 
 11. P 
 
Old Pictures in Florence. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Shall I be alive that morning the scaffold 
 
 Is broken away, and the long-pent fire, 
 Like the golden hope of the world, unbaffled 
 
 Springs from its sleep, and up goes the spire 
 While, " God and the People " plain for its motto, 
 
 Thence the new tricolour flaps at the sky ? 
 At least to foresee that glory of Giotto 
 
 And Florence together, the first am I ! 
 
 Note. — ^The space left here tempts to a word on the line about Apollo the 
 snake-slayer, which my friend Professor Colvin condemns, believing that the 
 God of the Belvedere grasps no bow, but the ^gis, as described in the isth 
 Iliad. Surely the text represents that portentous object (dovpic, ^einii', api^t- 
 Sao'eiaf, apiirpEirf* — ixapfULpe-qv) as " shaken violently " or " held immovably " by 
 both hands, not a single one and that the left hand : 
 
 aWa <n! y' ev ^e^peo'tri A.aj3* aiytBa Bvtravoeo-aa.v 
 
 and so on, ttjc ap* o y' tv xe.Lpitr(Ti.v^xfov — xeptriv ex ^Tpefta, k. t. A. Moreover, 
 while he shook it he "shouted enormously," o"€i<r', eirl 5' aurbs av<re {laXa fieya, 
 which the statue does not. Presently when Teukros, on the other side, plies the 
 bow, it is TO^ov exfov ef x^'-P'- "TaXCvTovov. Besides, by the act of discharging an 
 arrow, the right arm and hand are thrown back as we see : a quite gratuitous and 
 theatrical display in the case supposed. The conjecture of Flaxman that the 
 statue was suggested by the bronze Apollo Alexikakos of Kalamis, mentioned by 
 Pausanias, remains probable, — though the "hardness" which Cicero considers 
 to distinguish the artist's workmanship from that of Muron is not by any means 
 apparent, in our marble copy, if it be one. — Feb. t6, 1880. 
 
211 
 
 BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 
 
 No more wine ? then we '11 push back chairs and talk. 
 A iinal glass for me, though : cool, i' faith ! 
 We ought to have our Abbey back, you see. 
 It 's different, preaching in basilicas, 
 And doing duty in some masterpiece 
 Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart ! 
 I doubt if they 're half baked, those chalk rosettes, 
 Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings ever)rwhere ; 
 It 's just like breathing in a lime-kiln : eh ? 
 These hot long ceremonies of our Church 
 Cost us a little — oh, they pay the price. 
 You take me — amply pay it ! Now, we '11 talk 
 
 So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs. 
 No deprecation, — nay, I beg you, sir ! 
 Beside 't is our engagement : don't you know, 
 I promised, if you 'd watch a dinner out, 
 We 'd see truth dawn together ? — ^truth that peeps 
 Over the glass's edge when dinner 's done, 
 And body gets its sop and holds its noise 
 And leaves soul free a little. Now 's the time : 
 T is break of day ! You do despise me then. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 Bishop Blougram^s Apology. 
 
 And if I say, " despise me," — never fear ! 
 
 I know you do not in a certain sense — 
 
 Not in my arm-chair, for example : here. 
 
 I will imagine you respect my place 
 
 (Status, entourage, worldly circumstance) 
 
 Quite to its value — ^very much indeed : 
 
 — Are up to the protesting eyes of you 
 
 In pride at being seated here for once — 
 
 You '11 turn it to such capital account \ 
 
 When somebody, through years and years to come, 
 
 Hints of the bishop, — names me — that 's enough : 
 
 " Blougram ? I knew him " — (into it you slide) 
 
 " Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day, 
 
 " All alone, we two ; he 's a clever man : 
 
 " And after dinner, — why, the wine you know, — 
 
 " Oh, there was wine, and good ! — ^what with the wine . . 
 
 " 'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk ! 
 
 " He 's no bad fellow, Blougram ; he had seen 
 
 " Something of mine he relished, some review : 
 
 " He 's quite above their humbug in his heart, 
 
 " Half-said as much, indeed — the thing 's his trade. 
 
 " I warrant, Blougram 's sceptical at times : 
 
 " How otherwise ? I like him, I confess ! " 
 
 Che che, my dear sir, as we say at Rome, 
 
 Don't you protest now ! It 's fair give and take ; 
 
 You have had your turn and spoken your home-truths ; 
 
 The hand 's mine now, and here you follow suit 
 
 Thus much conceded, still the first fact stays — 
 You do despise me ; your ideal of life 
 Is not the bishop's : you would not be I. 
 You would like better to be Goethe, now, 
 
Bishop Blougram^s Apology. 213 
 
 Or Buonaparte, or, bless me, lower still, 
 
 Count D'Orsay, — so you did what you preferred, 
 
 Spoke as you thought, and, as you cannot help, 
 
 Believed or disbelieved, no matter what, 
 
 So long as on that point, whate'er it was, 
 
 You loosed your mind, were whole and sole yourself. 
 
 — That, my ideal never can include, 
 
 Upon that element of truth and worth 
 
 Never be based ! for say they make me Pope 
 
 (They can't — suppose it for our argument) 
 
 Why, there I 'm at my tether's end, I Ve reached 
 
 My height, and not a height which pleases you ■ 
 
 An unbelieving Pope won't do, you say. 
 
 It 's like those eerie stories nurses tell, 
 
 Of how some actor played Death on a stage. 
 
 With pasteboard crown, sham orb and tinselled dart, 
 
 And called himself the monarch of the world ; 
 
 Then, going in the tire -room afterward, 
 
 Because the play was done, to shift himself. 
 
 Got touched upon the sleeve familiarly, 
 
 The moment he had shut the closet door. 
 
 By Death himself Thus God might touch a Pope 
 
 At unawares, ask what his baubles mean, 
 
 And whose part he presumed to play just now ? 
 
 Best be yourself, imperial, plain and true ! 
 
 ^o, drawing comfortable breath again. 
 You weigh and find, whatever more or less 
 I boast of my ideal realized. 
 Is nothing in the balance when opposed 
 To your ideal, your grand simple life. 
 Of which you will not realize one jot. 
 
214 Bishop Blougram's Apology. 
 
 I am much, you are nothing ; you would be all, 
 I would be merely much : you beat me there. 
 
 No, friend, you do not beat me : harken why ! 
 The common problem, yours, mine, every one's, 
 Is — not to fancy what were fair in life 
 Provided it could be, — ^but, finding first 
 What may be, then find how to make it fair 
 Up to our means : a very different thing ! 
 No abstract intellectual plan of life 
 Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws, 
 But one, a man, who is man and nothing more, 
 May lead within a world which (by your leave) 
 Is Rome or London, not Fool's-paradise. 
 Embellish Rome, idealize away, 
 Make paradise of London if you can, 
 You 're welcome, nay, you 're wise. 
 
 A simUe ! 
 We mortals cross the ocean of this world 
 Each in his average cabin of a life ; 
 The best 's not big, the worst yields elbow-room. 
 Now for our six months' voyage — ^how prepare ? 
 You come on shipboard with a landsman's list 
 Of things he calls convenient : so they are ! 
 An India screen is pretty furniture, 
 A piano-forte is a fine resource, 
 All Balzac'^ novels occupy one shelf, 
 The new edition fifty volumes long ; 
 An4 little Greek books, with the funny t5rpe 
 They get up well at Leipsic, fill the next : 
 Go on ! slabbed marble, what a bath it makes ! 
 
Bishop BlougranCs Apology. 215 
 
 And Panna's pride, the Jerome, let us add ! 
 
 'T were pleasant could Correggio's fleeting glow 
 
 Hang full in face of one where'er one roams, 
 
 Since he more than the others brings with him 
 
 Italy's self,^he marvellous Modenese ! — • 
 
 Yet was not on your list before, perhaps. 
 
 — Alas, friend, here 's the agent ... is 't the name ? 
 
 The captain, or whoever 's master here — 
 
 You see him screw his face up ; what 's his cry 
 
 Ere you set foot on shipboard ? " Six feet square ! " 
 
 If you won't understand what six feet mean. 
 
 Compute and purchase stores accordingly — 
 
 And if, in pique because he overhauls 
 
 Your Jerome, piano and bath, you come on board 
 
 Bare — why, you cut a figure at the first 
 
 While sympathetic landsmen see you off ; 
 
 Not afterward, when long ere half seas over, 
 
 You peep up from your utterly naked boards 
 
 Into some snug and well-appointed berth. 
 
 Like mine for instance (try the cooler jug — 
 
 Put back the other, but don't jog the ice !) 
 
 And mortified you mutter " Well and good ; 
 
 " He sits enjoying his sea-furniture ; 
 
 " 'T is stout and proper, and there 's store of it : 
 
 " Though I 've the better notion, all agree, 
 
 " Of fitting rooms up. Hang the carpenter, 
 
 " Neat ship-shape fixings and contrivances — 
 
 " I would have brought my Jerome, frame and all ! " 
 
 And meantime you bring nothing : never mind — 
 
 You 've proved your artist-nature : what you don't 
 
 You might bring, so despise me, as I say. 
 
2i6 Bishop Blougravis Apology. 
 
 Now come, let 's backwkrd to the starting-place. 
 See my way : we .'re two college friends, suppose. 
 Prepare together for our voyage, then ; 
 Each note and check the other in his work, — 
 Here 's mine, a bishop's outfit ; criticize ! 
 What 's wrong ? why won't you be a bishop too ? 
 
 Why first, you don't believe, you don't and can't, 
 (Not statedly, that is, and fixedly 
 And absolutely and exclusively) 
 In any revelation called divine. 
 No dogmas nail your faith ; and what remains 
 But say so, like the honest man you are ? 
 First, therefore, overhaul theology ! 
 Nay, I too, not a fool, you please to think, 
 Must find believing every whit as hard : 
 And if I do not frankly say as much, 
 The ugly consequence is clear enough. 
 
 Now wait, my friend : well, I do not believe — 
 If you '11 accept no faith that is not fixed, 
 Absolute and exclusive, as you say. 
 Yx)u 're wrong — I mean to prove it in due time. 
 Meanwhile, I know where difliiculties lie 
 I could not, cannot solve, nor ever shall. 
 So give up hope accordingly to solve — 
 (To you, and over the wine). Our dogmas then 
 With both of us, though in unlike degree. 
 Missing full credence — overboard with them ! 
 I mean to meet you on your own premise : 
 Good, there go mine in company with yours ! 
 
Bishop Blougram^s Apology. 217 
 
 And now what are we ? unbelievers both, 
 Calm and complete, determinately fixed 
 To-day, to-morrow and for ever, pray ? 
 You '11 guarantee me that ? Not so, I think ! 
 In no wise 1 all we Ve gained is, that belief. 
 As unbelief before, shakes us by fits. 
 Confounds us like its predecessor. Where 's 
 The gain ? how can we guard our unbelief. 
 Make it bear fruit to us ? — the problem here. 
 Just when we are safest, there 's a sunset-touch, 
 A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, 
 A chorus-ending from Euripides, — 
 And that 's enough for fifty hopes and fears 
 As old and new at once as nature's self. 
 To rap and knock and enter in our soul. 
 Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring. 
 Round the ancient idol, on his base again, — 
 The grand Perhaps ! We look on helplessly. 
 There the old misgivings, crooked questions are — 
 This good God, — what he could do, if he would, 
 Would, if he could — then must have done long since : 
 If so, when, where and how ? some way must be, — 
 Once feel about, and soon or late you hit 
 Some sense, in which it might be, after all. 
 Why not " The Way, the Truth, the Life ? " 
 
 — That way 
 Over the mountain, which who stands upon 
 Is apt to doubt-if it be indeed a road ; 
 While if he views it from the waste itself, 
 Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow, 
 Not vague, mistakeable ! what 's a break or two 
 
1 8 Bislwp Blougram's Apology. 
 
 Seen from the unbroken desert either side ? 
 
 And then (to bring in fresh philosophy) 
 
 What if the breaks themselves should prove at last 
 
 The most consummate of contrivances 
 
 To train a jnan's eye, teach him what is faith ? 
 
 And so we stumble at truth's very test ! 
 
 All we have gained then by our unbelief 
 
 Is a life of doubt diversified by faith, 
 
 For one of faith diversified by doubt : 
 
 We called the chess-board white, — ^we call it black. 
 
 " Well," you rejoin, "the end 's no worse, at least ; 
 " We Ve reason for both colours on the board : 
 " Why not confess then, where I drop the faith 
 " And you the doubt, that I 'm as right as you ? " 
 
 Because, friend, in the next place, this being so. 
 And both things even, — faith and unbelief 
 Left to a man's choice, — ^we '11 proceed a step. 
 Returning to our image, which I like. 
 
 A man's choice, yes — but a cabin passenger's — 
 The man made for the special life o' the world — 
 Do you forget him ? I remember though ! 
 Consult our ship's conditions and you find 
 One and but one choice suitable to all ; 
 The choice, that you unluckily prefer, 
 Turning things topsy-turvy — they or it 
 Going to the ground. Belief or unbelief 
 Bears upon life, determines its whole course. 
 Begins at its beginning. See the world 
 Such as it is, — you made it not, nor I ; 
 
x 
 
 Bishop Blougram's Apology. 219"' 
 
 I mean to take it as it is, — and you, 
 
 Not so you '11 take it, — though you get nought else. 
 
 I know the special kind of life I like, 
 
 What suits the most my idiosyncrasy. 
 
 Brings out the best of me and bears me fruit 
 
 In power, peace, pleasantness ami length of days. 
 
 I find that positive feeEef does this 
 
 Jot me, and unbelief, no whit of this. 
 
 — For you, it does, however ? — that, we '11 try \ 
 
 'T is clear, I cannot lead my life, at least, 
 
 Induce the world to let me peaceably, 
 
 Without declaring at the outset, " Friends, 
 
 " I absolutely and peremptorily 
 
 " Believe ! " — I say, faith is my waking life : 
 
 One sleeps, indeed, and dreams at intervals, 
 
 We know, but waking 's the main point with us 
 
 And my provision 's for life's waking part. 
 
 Accordingly, I use heart, head and hand 
 
 All day, I build, scheme, study, and make friends ; 
 
 And when night overtakes me, down I lie. 
 
 Sleep, dream a little, and get done with it, 
 
 The sooner the better, to begin afresh. 
 
 What 's midnight doubt before the dayspring's faith ? 
 
 You, the philosopher, that disbelieve, 
 
 That recognize the night, give dreams their weight — 
 
 To be consistent you should keep your bed, 
 
 Abstain from healthy acts that prove you man. 
 
 For fear you drowse perhaps at unawares ! 
 
 And certainly at night you '11 sleep and dream. 
 
 Live through the day and bustle as you please. 
 
 And so you live to sleep as I to wake. 
 
 To unbelieve as I to still believe ? 
 
220 Bishop JBlougram's Apology. 
 
 Well, and the common sense o' the world calls you 
 
 Bed-ridden,— and its good things come to me. 
 
 Its estimation, which is half the fight. 
 
 That 's the first-cabin comfort I secure : 
 
 The next . . . but you perceive with half an eye f 
 
 Come» come, it 's best believing, if we may ; 
 
 You can't but own that ! 
 
 Next, concede again, 
 If once we choose belief, on all accounts 
 We can't be too decisive in our faith, 
 Conclusive and exclusive in its terms, 
 To suit the world which gives us the good things. 
 In every man's career are certain points 
 Whereon he dares not be indifferent ; 
 The world detects him clearly, if he dare, 
 As baffled at the game, and losing life. 
 He may care little or he may care much 
 For riches, honour, pleasure, work, repose, 
 Since various theories of life and life's 
 Success are extant which might easily 
 Comport with either estimate of these ; 
 And whoso chooses wealth or poverty. 
 Labour or quiet, is not judged a fool 
 Because his fellow would choose otherwise : 
 We let him choose upon his own account 
 So long as he 's consistent with his choice. 
 But certain points, left wholly to himself, 
 When once a man has arbitrated on. 
 We say he must succeed there or go hang. 
 Thus, he should wed the woman he loves most 
 Or needs most, whatsoe'er the love or need^ 
 
Bishop Blougram's Apology. 321 
 
 For he can't wed twice. Then, he must avouch, 
 
 Or follow, at the least, sufficiently, 
 
 The form of faith his conscience holds the best, 
 
 Whate'er the process of conviction was : 
 
 For nothing can compensate his mistake 
 
 On such a point, the man himself being judge ; 
 
 He cannot wed twice, nor twice lose his soul. 
 
 Well now, there 's ope great form of Christian faith 
 I happened to be born in — which to teach 
 Was given me as I grew up, on all hands, 
 As best and readiest means of living by ; 
 The same on ejcamination being proved 
 The most pronounced moreover, fixed, precise 
 And absolute form of faith in the whole world — 
 Accordingly, most potent of all forms 
 For working on the world. Observe, my friend ! 
 Such as you know me, I am free to say. 
 In these hard latter days which hamper one, 
 Myself — by no immoderate exercise 
 Of intellect and learning, but the tact 
 To let external forces work for me, 
 — Bid the street's stones be bread and they are bread ; 
 Bid Peter's creed, or rather, Hildebrand's, 
 Exalt me o'er my fellows in the world 
 And make my life an ease and joy and pride ; 
 It does so, — which for me 's a great point gained, 
 Who have a soul and body that exact 
 A comfortable care in many ways. 
 There 's power in me and will to dominate 
 Which I must exercise, they hurt me else : 
 In many ways I need mankind's respect^ 
 
222 Bishop Blougram's Apology. 
 
 Obedience, and the love that 's born of fear : 
 While at the same time, there 's a taste I have, 
 A toy of soul, a titillating thing, 
 Refuses to digest these dainties crude. 
 The naked life is gross till clothed upon : 
 I must take what men offer, with a grace 
 As though I would not, could I help it, take ! 
 An uniform I wear though over-rich — 
 Something imposed on me, no choice of mine ; 
 No fancy-dress worn for pure fancy's sake 
 And despicable therefore ! now folks kneel 
 And kiss my hand — of course the Church's hand. 
 Thus I am made, thus life is best for me, 
 And thus that it should be I have procured ; 
 And thus it could not be another way, 
 I venture to imagine. 
 
 You '11 reply, 
 So far my choice, no doubt, is a success ; 
 But were I made of better elements, 
 With nobler instincts, pufer tastes, like you, 
 I hardly would account the thing success 
 Though it did all for me I say. 
 
 But, friend. 
 We speak of what is ; not of what might be, 
 And how 't were better if 't were otherwise. 
 I am the man you see here plain enough : 
 Grant I 'm a beast, why, beasts must lead beasts' lives ! 
 Suppose I own at once to tail and claws ; 
 The tailless man exceeds me : but being tailed 
 I '11 lash out lion fashion, and leave apes 
 
Bishop Blougram's Apology. 223 
 
 To dock their stump and dress their haunches up. 
 
 My business is not to remake myself, 
 
 But make the absolute best of what God made. 
 
 Or — our first simile — though you prove me doomed 
 
 To a viler berth still, to the steerage-hole. 
 
 The sheep-pen or the pig-stye, I should strive 
 
 To make what use of each were possible ; 
 
 And as this cabin gets upholstery, 
 
 That hutch should rustle with sufficient straw. 
 
 But, friend, I don't acknowledge quite so fast 
 I fail of all your manhood's lofty tastes 
 Enumerated so complacently, 
 On the mere ground that you forsooth can find 
 In this particular life I choose to lead 
 No fit provision for them. Can you not ? 
 Say you, my fault is I address myself 
 To grosser estimators than should judge ? 
 And that 's no way of holding up the soul, 
 Which, nobler, needs men's praise perhaps, yet knows 
 One wise-man's verdict outweighs all the fools' — 
 Would like the two, but, forced to choose, takes that. 
 I pine among my million imbeciles 
 (You think) aware some dozen men of sense 
 Eye me and know me, whether I believe 
 In the last winking Virgin, as I vow, 
 And am a fool, or disbelieve in her 
 And am a knave, — approve in neither case, 
 Withhold their voices though I look their way : 
 Like Verdi when, at his worst opera's end 
 (The thing they gave at Florence — what 's its name ?) 
 While the mad houseful's plaudits near out-bang 
 
224 Bishop Blougranis Apology. 
 
 His orchestra of salt-box, tongs and bones, 
 
 He looks through all the roaring and the wreaths 
 
 Where sits Rossini patient in his stall 
 
 Nay, friend, I meet you with an answer here — 
 That even your prime men who appraise their kind 
 Are men still, catch a wheel within a wheel. 
 See more in a truth than the truth's simple self, 
 Confuse themselves. You see lads walk the street 
 Sixty the minute ; what 's to note in that ? 
 You see one lad o'erstride a chimney-stack ; 
 Him you must watch — he 's sure to fall, yet stands ! 
 Our interest 's on the dangerous edge of things. 
 The honest thief, the tender murderer, ' 
 The superstitious atheist, demirep 
 That loves and saves her soul in new French books — 
 We watch while these in equilibrium keep 
 The giddy line midway : one step aside, 
 They 're classed and done with. I, then, keep the line 
 Before your sages, — just the men to shrink 
 From the gross weights, coarse scales and labels broad 
 You offer their refinement. Fool or knave ? 
 Why needs a bishop be a fool or knave 
 When there 's a thousand diamond weights between ? 
 So, I enlist them. Your picked twelve, you '11 find, 
 Profess themselves indignant, scandalized 
 At thus being held unable to explain 
 How a superior man who disbelieves 
 May not believe as well : that 's Schelling's way ! 
 It 's through my coming in the tail of time. 
 Nicking the minute with a happy tact. 
 
Bishop Blougram's Apology. 225 
 
 Had I been born three hundred years ago 
 
 They 'd say, " What 's strange ? Blougram of course 
 
 believes ; " 
 And, seventy years since, " disbelieves of course." 
 But now, " He may believe ; and yet, and yet 
 " How can he ? " All eyes turn with interest. 
 Whereas, step off the line on either side — 
 You, for example, clever to a fault, 
 The rough and ready man who write apace, 
 Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less — 
 You disbelieve ! Who wonders and who cares ? 
 Lord So-and-so — ^his coat bedropped with wax. 
 All Peter's chains about his waist, his back 
 Brave with the needlework of Noodledom — 
 Believes ! Again, who wonders and who cares ? 
 But I, the man of sense and learning too. 
 The able to think yet act, the this, the that, 
 I, to believe at this late time of day ! 
 Enough ; you see, I need not fear contempt. 
 
 — Except it 's yours ! Admire me as these may, 
 You don't. But whom at least do you admire ? 
 Present your own perfection, your ideal. 
 Your pattern man for a minute — oh, make haste ! 
 Is it Napoleon you would have us grow ? 
 Concede the means ; allow his head and hand, 
 (A large concession, clever as you are) 
 Good ! In our common primal element 
 Of unbelief (we can't believe, you know — 
 We 're still at that admission, recollect !) 
 Where do you find — apart from, towering o'er 
 The secondary temporary aims 
 Which satisfy the gross taste you despise — 
 II. Q 
 
226 Bishop Blougram's Apology. 
 
 Where do you find his star ? — his crazy trust 
 
 God knows through what or in what ? it 's alive 
 
 And shines and leads him, and that 's all we want. 
 
 Have we aught in our sober night shall point 
 
 Such ends as his were, and direct the means 
 
 Of working out our purpose straight as his, 
 
 Nor bring a moment's trouble on success 
 
 With after-care to justify the same ? 
 
 — Be a Napoleon and yet disbelieve — 
 
 Why, the man 's mad, friend, take his light away ! 
 
 What 's the vague good o' the world, for which you 
 
 dare 
 With comfort to yourself blow millions up ? 
 We neither of us see it ! we do see 
 The blown-up millions — spatter of their brains 
 And writhing of their bowels and so forth, 
 In that bewildering entanglement 
 Of horrible eventuaUties 
 Past calculation to the end of time ! 
 Can I mistake for some clear word of God 
 (Which were my ample warrant for it all) 
 His puff of hazy instinct, idle talk, 
 " The State, that 's I," quack-nonsense about crowns, 
 And (when one beats the man to his last hold) 
 A vague idea of setting things to rights. 
 Policing people efficaciously. 
 More to their profit, most of all to his own ; 
 The whole to end that dismallest of ends 
 By an Austrian marriage, cant to us the Church, 
 And resurrection of the old regime ? 
 Would I, who hope to live a dozen years, 
 Fight Austerlitz for reasons such and such ? 
 
Bishop Blougram's Apology. 227 
 
 No : for, concede me but the merest chance 
 
 Doubt may be wrong — there 's judgment, life to come ! 
 
 With just that chance, I dare not. Doubt proves right ? 
 
 This present Hfe is all ? — you offer me 
 
 Its dozen noisy years, without a chance 
 
 That wedding an arch-duchess, wearing lace, 
 
 And getting called by divers new-coined names, 
 
 Will drive off ugly thoughts and let me dine. 
 
 Sleep, read and chat in quiet as I like ! 
 
 Therefore I will not. 
 
 Take another case. 
 Fit up the cabin yet another way. 
 What say you to the poets ? shall we write 
 Hamlet, Othello — make the world our own, 
 Without a risk to run of either sort ? 
 I can't ! — to put the strongest reason first. 
 " But try," you urge, " the trying shall suffice ; 
 " The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life : 
 " Try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate ! " 
 Spare my self-knowledge — there 's no fooling me ! 
 If I prefer remaining my poor self, 
 I say so not in self-dispraise but praise. 
 If I 'm a Shakespeare, let the well alone ; 
 Why should I try to be what now I am ? 
 If I 'm no Shakespeare, as too probable, — 
 His power and consciousness and self-delight 
 And all we want in common, shall I find — 
 Trying for ever ? while on points of taste 
 Wherewith, to speak it humbly, he and I 
 Are dowered alike — I '11 ask you, I or he, 
 Which in our two lives realizes most ? 
 
 Q3 
 
228 Bishop Blougram's Apology. 
 
 Much, he imagined : somewhat, I possess. 
 
 He had the imagination ; stick to that ! 
 
 Let him say, " In the face of my soul's works 
 
 " Your world is worthless and I touch it not 
 
 " Lest I should wrong them "—I '11 withdraw my plea. 
 
 But does he say so ? look upon his life ! 
 
 Himself, who only can, gives judgment there. 
 
 He leaves his towers and gorgeous palaces 
 
 To build the trimmest house in Stratford town ; 
 
 Saves money, spends it, owns the worth of things, 
 
 Giulio Romano's pictures, Dowland's lute ; 
 
 Enjoys a show, respects the puppets, too, 
 
 And none more, had he seen its entry once. 
 
 Than "Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal" 
 
 Why then should I who play that personage, 
 
 The very Pandulph Shakespeare's fancy made, 
 
 Be told that had the poet chanced to start 
 
 From where I stand now (some degree like mine 
 
 Being just the goal he ran his race to reach) 
 
 He would have run the whole race back, forsooth, 
 
 And left being Pandulph, to begin write plays ? 
 
 Ah, the earth's best can be but the earth's best ! 
 
 Did Shakespeare live, he could but sit at home 
 
 And get himself in dreams the Vatican, 
 
 Greek busts, Venetian paintings, Roman walls. 
 
 And English books, none equal to his own. 
 
 Which I read, bound in gold, (he never did). 
 
 — Terni's fall, Naples' bay and Gothard's top — 
 
 Eh, friend ? I could not fancy one of these ; 
 
 But, as I pour this claret, there they are : 
 
 I 've gained them — crossed St. Gothard last July 
 
 With ten mules to the carriage and a bed 
 
Bishop Blougram's Apology. ' 229 
 
 Slung inside ; is my hap the worse for that ? 
 
 We want the same things, Shakespeare and rnyself, 
 
 And what I want, I have : he, gifted more, 
 
 Could fancy he too had it when he liked, 
 
 But not so thoroughly that, if fate allowed. 
 
 He would not have it also in my sense. 
 
 We play one game ; I send the ball aloft 
 
 No less adroitly that of fifty strokes 
 
 Scarce five go o'er the wall so wide and high 
 
 Which sends them back to me : I wish and get 
 
 He struck balls higher and with better skill. 
 
 But at a poor fence level with his head. 
 
 And hit — his Stratford house, a coat of arms, 
 
 Successful dealings in his grain and wool : 
 
 While I receive heaven's incense in my nose 
 
 And style myself the cousin of Queen Bess. 
 
 Ask him, if this life 's all, who wins the game ? 
 
 Believe — and our whole argument breaks up. 
 Enthusiasm 's the best thing, I repeat ; 
 Only, we can't command it ; fire and hfe 
 Are all, dead matter 's nothing, we agree : 
 And be it a mad dream or God's veiy breath, 
 The fact 's the same, — beliefs fire, once in us, 
 Makes of all else mere stuff to show itself : 
 We penetrate our life with such a glow 
 As fire lends wood and iron — this turns steel, 
 That burns to ash — all 's one, fire proves its power 
 For good or ill, since men call flare success. 
 But pafht a fire, it will not therefore burn. 
 Light one in me, I '11 find it food enough ! 
 Why, to be Luther — that 's a life to lead, 
 
230 Bishop Blougram's Apology. 
 
 Incomparably better than my own. 
 
 He comes, reclaims God's earth for God, he says. 
 
 Sets up God's rule again by simple means, 
 
 Re-opens a shut book, and all is done. 
 
 He flared out in the flaring of mankind ; 
 
 Such Luther's luck yyas : how shall such be mine ? 
 
 If he succeeded, nothing 's left to do : 
 
 And if he did not altogether — well, 
 
 Strauss is the next advance. All Strauss should be 
 
 I might be also. But to what result ? 
 
 He looks upon no future : Luther did. 
 
 What can I gain on the denying side ? 
 
 Ice makes no conflagration. State the facts, 
 
 Read the text right, emancipate the world — 
 
 The emancipated world enjoys itself 
 
 With scarce a thank-you : Blougram told it first 
 
 It could not owe a farthing, — not to him 
 
 More than Saint Paul ! 't would press its pay, you think ? 
 
 Then add there 's still that plaguy hundredth chance 
 
 Strauss may be wrong. And so a risk is run — 
 
 For what gain ? not for Luther's, who secured 
 
 A real heaven in his heart throughout his life. 
 
 Supposing death a little altered things, 
 
 " Ay, but since really you lack faith," you cry, 
 " You run the same risk really on all sides, 
 " In cool indifference as bold unbelief. 
 " As well be Strauss as swing 'twixt Paul and him. 
 " It 's not worth having, such imperfect faith, 
 " No more available to do faith's work 
 " Than unbelief like mine. Whole faith, or none ! " 
 
Bishop Blougram^s Apology. 231 
 
 Softly, my friend ! I must dispute that point. 
 Once own the use of faith, I '11 find you faith. 
 We 're back on Christian ground. You call for faith : 
 I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists. 
 The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say, 
 If faith o'ercomes doubt. How I know it does ? 
 By life and man's free will, God gave for that ! 
 To mould life as we choose it, shows our choice : 
 That 's our one act, the previous work 's His own. 
 You criticize the soil ? it reared this tree — 
 This broad life and whatever fruit it bears ! 
 What matter though I doubt at every pore, 
 Head-doubts, heart-doubts, doubts at my fingers' ends. 
 Doubts in the trivial work of every day, 
 Doubts at the very bases of my soul 
 In the grand moments when she probes herself — 
 If finally I have a life to show. 
 The thing I did, brought out in evidence 
 Against the thing done to me underground 
 By hell and all its brood, for aught I know ? 
 I say, whence sprang this ? shows it faith or doubt ? 
 All 's doubt in me ; where 's break of faith in this ? 
 It is the idea, the feeling and the love, 
 God means mankind should strive for and show forth 
 Whatever be the process to that end, — 
 And not historic knowledge, logic sound, 
 And metaphysical acumen, sure ! 
 " What think ye of Christ," friend? when all 's done 
 
 and said. 
 Like you this Christianity or not ? 
 It may be false, but will you wish it true ? 
 Has it your vote to be so if it can ? 
 
232 Bishop BlougranCs Apolo^. 
 
 Trust you an instinct silenced long ago 
 
 That will break silence and enjoin you love 
 
 What mortified philosophy is hoarse, 
 
 And all in vain, with bidding you despise ? 
 
 If you desire faith — then you 've faith enough : 
 
 What else seeks God — nay, what else seek ourselves ? 
 
 You form a notion of me, we 11 suppose, 
 
 On hearsay ; it ,'s a favourable one : 
 
 " But still," (you add) " there was no such good man, 
 
 " Because of contradiction in the facts. 
 
 " One proves, for instance, he was bom in Rome, 
 
 " This Blougram ; yet throughout the tales of him 
 
 " I see he figures as an Englishman." 
 
 Well, the two things are reconcileable. 
 
 But would I rather you discovered that, 
 
 Subjoining — " Still, what matter though they be ? 
 
 " Blougram concerns me nought, bom here or there." 
 
 Pure faith indeed — you know not what you ask ! 
 Naked belief in God the Omnipotent, 
 Omniscient, Omnipresent, sears too much 
 The sense of conscious creatures to be home. 
 It were the seeing Him, no flesh shall dare. 
 Some think, Creation 's meant to show Him forth : 
 I say it 's meant to hide Him all it can. 
 And that 's what all the blessed evil 's for. 
 Its use in Time is to environ us. 
 Our breath, our drop of dew, with shield enough 
 Against that sight till we can bear its stress. 
 Under a vertical sun, the exposed brain 
 And lidless eye and disemprisoned heart 
 Less certainly would wither up at once 
 
Bishop Blougr attics Apology. 233 
 
 Than mind, confronted with the truth of Him. 
 But time and earth case-harden us to hve ; 
 The feeblest sense is trusted most ; the child 
 Feels God a moment, ichors o'er the place, 
 Plays on and grows to be a man like us. 
 With me, faith means perpetual unbelief 
 Kept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's foot 
 Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe. 
 Or, if that 's too ambitious, — here 's my box — 
 I need the excitation of a pinch 
 Threatening the torpor of the inside-nose 
 Nigh on the imminent sneeze that never comes. 
 " Leave it in peace ! " advise the simple folk : 
 Make it aware of peace by itching-fits, 
 Say I — let doubt occasion still more faith ! 
 
 You '11 say, once all believed, man, woman, child, 
 In that dear middle-age these noodles praise. 
 How you 'd exult if I could put you back 
 Six hundred years, blot out cosmogony, 
 Geology, ethnology, what not, 
 (Greek endings, each the little passing-bell 
 That signifies some faith 's about to die) 
 And set you square with Genesis again ! 
 When such a traveller told you his last news, 
 He saw the ark a-top of Ararat 
 But did not climb there since 't was getting dusk 
 And robber-bands infest the mountain's foot ! 
 How should you feel, I ask, in such an age. 
 How act ? As other people felt and did ; 
 With soul more blank than this decanter's knob, 
 
234 Bishop Blougram^s Apology. 
 
 Believe — and yet lie, kill, rob, fornicate 
 Full in beliefs face, like the beast you 'd be ! 
 
 No, when the fight begins within himself, 
 A man 's worth something. God stoops o'er his head, 
 Satan looks up between his feet — both tug — 
 He 's left, himself, i' the middle : the soul wakes 
 And grows. Prolong that battle through his life ! 
 Never leave growing till the life to come ! 
 Here we 've got callous to the Virgin's winks 
 That used to puzzle people wholesomely : 
 Men have outgrown the shame of being fools. 
 What are the laws of nature, not to bend 
 If the Church bid them ? — brother Newman asks. 
 Up with the Immaculate Conception, then — 
 On to the rack with faith ! — is my advice. 
 Will not that hurry us upon our knees, 
 Knocking our breasts, " It can't be — yet it shall ! 
 " Who am I, the worm, to argue with my Pope ? 
 " Low things confound the high things ! " and so fortL 
 That 's better than acquitting God with grace. 
 As some folks do. He 's tried — no case is proved, 
 Philosophy is lenient — He may go ! 
 
 You '11 say, the old system 's not so obsolete 
 But men believe still : ay, but who and where ? 
 King Bomba's lazzaroni foster yet 
 The sacred flame, so Antonelli writes ; 
 But even of these, what ragamuffin-saint 
 Believes God watches him continually. 
 As he believes in fire that it will burn. 
 Or rain that it will drench him ? Break fire's law. 
 
Bishop Blougranis Apology. 235 
 
 Sin against rain, although the penalty 
 
 Be just a singe or soaking ? " No," he smiles ; 
 
 " Those laws are laws that can enforce themselves." 
 
 The sum of all is — yes, my doubt is great, 
 My faith 's still greater, then my faith 's enough. 
 I have read much, thought much, experienced much, 
 Yet would die rather than avow my fear 
 The Naples' liquefaction may be false, 
 When set to happen by the palace-clock 
 According to the clouds or dinner-time. 
 I hear you recommend, I might at least 
 Eliniinate, decrassify my faith 
 Since I adopt it ; keeping what I must 
 And leaving what I can — such points as this. 
 I won't — that is, I can't throw one away. 
 Supposing there 's no truth in what I hold 
 About the need of trial to man's faith. 
 Still, when you bid me purify the same, 
 To such a process I discern no end. 
 Clearing off one excrescence to see two, 
 There 's ever a next in size, now grown as big, 
 That meets the knife : I cut and cut again ! 
 First cut the Liquefaction, what comes last 
 But Fichte's clever cut at God himself? 
 Experimentalize on sacred things ! 
 I trust nor hand nor eye nor heart nor brain 
 To stop betimes : they all get drunk alike. 
 The first step, I am master not to take. 
 
 You 'd find the cutting-process to your taste 
 As much as leaving growths of lies unpruned, 
 
236 Bishop BlougranCs Apology. 
 
 Nor see more danger in it, — you retort. 
 
 Your taste 's worth mine ; but my taste proves more wise 
 
 When we consider that the steadfast hold 
 
 On the extreme end of the chain of faith 
 
 Gives all the advantage, makes the difference 
 
 With the rough purblind mass we seek to rule : 
 
 We are their lords, or they are free of us, 
 
 Just as we tighten or relax our hold. 
 
 So, other matters equal, we '11 revert 
 
 To the first problem — which, if solved my way 
 
 And thrown into the balance, turns the scale — 
 
 How we may lead a comfortable life. 
 
 How suit our luggage to the cabin's size. 
 
 Of course you are remarking all this time 
 How narrowly and grossly I view life, 
 Respect the creature-comforts, care to rule 
 The masses, and regard complacently 
 " The cabin,'' in our old phrase. Well, I do. 
 I act for, talk for, live for this world now, 
 As this world prizes action, life and talk : 
 No prejudice to what next world may prove, 
 Whose new laws and requirements, my best pledge 
 To observe then, is that I observe these now, 
 Shall do hereafter what I do meanwhile. 
 Let us concede (gratuitously though) 
 Next life relieves the soul of body, yields 
 Pure spiritual enjoyment : well, my friend, 
 Why lose this life i' the meantime, since its use 
 May be to make the next life more intense ? 
 
 Do you know, I have often had a dream 
 (Work it up in your next month's article) 
 
Bishop Blougram's Apology. 237 
 
 Of man's poor spirit in its progress, still 
 
 Losing true life for ever and a day 
 
 Through ever trying to be and ever being — 
 
 In the evolution of successive spheres — 
 
 Before its actual sphere and place of life, ~ 
 
 Halfway into the next, which having reached, 
 
 It shoots with corresponding foolery 
 
 Halfway into the next still, on and off ! 
 
 As when a traveller, bound from North to South, 
 
 Scouts fur in Russia ; what 's its use in France ? 
 
 In France spurns flannel ; where 's its need in Spain ? 
 
 In Spain drops cloth, too cumbrous for Algiers ! 
 
 Linen goes next, and last the skin itself, 
 
 A superfluity at Timbuctoo. 
 
 When, through his journey, was the fool at ease ? 
 
 I 'm at ease now, friend ; worldly in this world, 
 
 I take and like its way of life ; I think 
 
 My brothers, who administer the means. 
 
 Live better for my comfort — that 's good too ; 
 
 And God, if He pronounce upon such life. 
 
 Approves my service, which is better still. 
 
 If He keep silence, — why, for you or me 
 
 Or that brute-beast puUed-up in to-day's "Times," 
 
 What odds is 't, save to ourselves, what life we lead ? 
 
 You meet me at this issue: you declare, — 
 All special-pleading done with, truth is truth, 
 And justifies itself by undreamed ways. 
 You don't fear but it 's better, if we doubt, 
 Tcfsay so, act up to our truth perceived 
 However feebly. Do then,— act away ! 
 'T is there I 'm on the watch for you. How one acts 
 
238 Bishop Blougranis Apology, 
 
 Is, both of us agree, our chief concern : 
 
 And how you '11 act is what I fain would see 
 
 If, like the candid person you appear, 
 
 You dare to make the most of your life's scheme 
 
 As I of mine, live up to its full law 
 
 Since there 's no higher law that counterchecks. 
 
 Put natural religion to the test 
 
 You 've just demolished the revealed with — quick, 
 
 Down to the root of all that checks your will, 
 
 All prohibition to lie, kill and thieve 
 
 Or even to be an atheistic priest ! 
 
 Suppose a pricking to incontinence — . 
 
 Philosophers deduce you chastity 
 
 Or shame, from just the fact that at the first 
 
 Whoso embraced a women in the field, 
 
 Threw club down and forewent his brains beside, 
 
 So, stood a ready victim in the reach 
 
 Of any brother-savage, club in hand ; 
 
 Hence saw the use of going out of sight 
 
 In wood or cave to prosecute his loves : 
 
 I read this in a French book t' other day. 
 
 Does law so analysed coerce you much ? 
 
 Oh, men spin clouds of fuzz where matters end, 
 
 But you who reach where the first thread begins, 
 
 You '11 soon cut that ! — which means you can, but won't 
 
 Through certain instincts, blind, unreasoned-out. 
 
 You dare not set aside, you can't tell why, 
 
 But there they are, and so you let them rule. 
 
 Then, friend, you seem as much a slave as I, 
 
 A liar, conscious coward and hypocrite. 
 
 Without the good the slave expects to get, 
 
 In case he has a master after all ! 
 
Bishop Blougram's Apology. 239 
 
 You own your instincts ? why, what else do I, 
 Who want, am made for, and must have a God 
 Ere I can be aught, do aught ? — no mere name 
 Want, but the true thing with what proves its truth, 
 To wit, a relation from that thing to me, 
 Touching from head to foot — which touch I feel, 
 And with it take the rest, this life of ours ! 
 I live niy life here ; yours you dare not live. 
 
 — Not as I state it, who (you please subjoin) 
 Disfigure such a life and call it names. 
 While, to your mind, remains another way 
 For simple men : knowledge and power have rights. 
 But ignorance and weakness have rights too. 
 There needs no crucial effort to find truth 
 If here or there or anywhere about : 
 We ought to turn each side, try hard and see, 
 And if we can't, be glad we 've earned at least 
 The right, by one laborious proof the more. 
 To graze in peace earth's pleasant pasturage. 
 Men are not angels, neither are they brutes : 
 Something we may see, all we cannot see. 
 What need of lying ? I say, I see all, 
 And swear to each detail the most minute 
 In what I think a Pan's face — you, mere cloud : 
 I swear I hear him speak and see him wink, 
 For fear, if once I drop the emphasis, 
 Mantind may doubt there 's any cloud at all. 
 You take the simple life — ready to see, 
 Willihg to see (for no cloud 's worth a face) — 
 And leaving quiet what no strength can move, 
 And which, who bids you move ? who has the right ? 
 
240 Bishop Blougranis Apology. 
 
 I bid you ; but you are God's sheep, not mine : 
 " Pastor est tut Dominus." You find 
 In this the pleasant pasture of our life 
 Much you may eat without the least offence, 
 Much you don't eat because your maw objects, 
 Much you would eat but that your fellow-flock 
 Open great eyes at you and even butt, 
 And thereupon you like your mates so well 
 You cannot please yourself, offending them ; 
 Though when they seem exorbitantly sheep. 
 You weigh your pleasure with their butts and bleats 
 And strike the balance. Sometimes certain fears 
 Restrain you, real checks since you find them so ; 
 Sometimes you please yourself and nothing checks : 
 And thus you graze through life with not one lie, 
 And like it best. 
 
 But do you, in truth's name ? 
 If so, you beat — which means you are not I — 
 Who needs must make earth mine and feed my fill 
 Not simply unbutted at, unbickered with, 
 But motioned to the velvet of the sward 
 By those obsequious wethers' very selves. 
 I^ook at me, sir ; my age is double yours : 
 At yours, I knew beforehand, so enjoyed. 
 What now I should be — as, permit the word, 
 I pretty well imagine your whole range 
 And stretch of tether twenty years to come. ♦ 
 We have both minds and bodies much alike : 
 In truth's name, don't you want my bishopric. 
 My daily bread, my influence and my state ? 
 You 're young, I 'm old, you must be old one day ; 
 
Bishop Blougram's Apology. 241 
 
 Will you find then, as I do hour by hour, 
 Women their lovers kneel to, who cut curls 
 From your fat lap-dog's ear to grace a brooch — 
 Dukes, who petition just to kiss your ring — 
 With much beside you know or may conceive ? 
 Suppose we die to-night : well, here am I, 
 Such were my gains, life bore this fruit to me, 
 While writing all the same my articles 
 On music, poetry, the fictile vase 
 Found at Albano, chess, Anacreon's Greek. 
 But you — the highest honour in your life. 
 The thing you '11 crown yourself with, all your days, 
 Is — dining here and drinking this last glass 
 I pour you out in sign of amity 
 Before we part for ever. Of your power 
 And social influence, worldly worth in short, 
 Judge what 's my estimation by the fact — 
 I do not condescend to enjoin, beseech. 
 Hint secrecy on one of all these words ! 
 . You 're shrewd and know that should you publish one 
 The world would brand the lie — my enemies first. 
 Who 'd sneer — " the bishop 's an arch-hypocrite 
 " And knave perhaps, but not so frank a fool. " 
 Whereas I should not dare for both my ears 
 Breathe one such syllable, smile one such smile, 
 Before the chaplain who reflects' myself — 
 My shade 's so much more potent than your flesh. 
 What 's your reward, self-abnegating friend ? 
 Stood you confessed of those exceptional 
 And privileged great natures that dwarf mine — 
 A zealot with a mad ideal in reach, 
 A poet just about to print his ode, 
 
 II. R 
 
242 Bishop Blougram's Apology. 
 
 A statesman with a scheme to stop this war, 
 
 An artist whose religion is his art — 
 
 I should have nothing to object : such men 
 
 Carry the fire, all things grow warm to them. 
 
 Their drugget 's worth my purple, they beat me. 
 
 But you, — you 're just as little those as I — 
 
 You, Gigadibs, who, thirty years of age. 
 
 Write statedly for Blackwood's Magazine, 
 
 Believe you see two points in Hamlet's soul 
 
 Unseized by the Germans yet — which view you '11 
 
 print — ■ 
 Meantime the best you have to show being still 
 That lively lightsome article we took 
 Almost for the true Dickens, — what 's its name ? 
 " The Slum and Cellar, or Whitechapel life 
 " Limned after dark ! " it made me laugh, I know, 
 And pleased a month, and brought you in ten pounds. 
 — — ^Success I recognize and compUment, 
 
 And therefore give you, if you choose, three words 
 (The card and pencil-scratch is quite enough) 
 Which whether here, in Dublin or New York, 
 Will get you, prompt as at my eyebrow's wink, 
 Such terms as never you aspired to get 
 In all our own reviews and some not ours. 
 Go write your lively sketches ! be the first 
 " Blougram, or The Eccentric Confidence " — 
 Or better simply say, "The Outward-bound." 
 Why, men as soon would throw it in my teeth 
 As copy and quote the infamy chalked broad 
 About me on the church-door opposite. 
 You will not wait for that experience though, 
 I fancy, howsoever you decide, 
 
Bishop BlougranCs Apology, 245 
 
 To discontinue — not detesting, not 
 Defaming, but at least — despising me I 
 
 Over his wine so smiled and talked his hour 
 Sylvester Blougram, styled in partibus 
 Episcopus, nee nan — (the deuce knows what 
 It 's changed, to by our novel hierarchy) 
 With Gigadibs the literary man, 
 Who played with spoons, explored his plate's design. 
 And ranged the olive-stones about its edge. 
 While the great bishop rolled him out a mind 
 Long rumpled, till creased consciousness lay smooth. 
 
 For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke. 
 > The other portion, as he shaped it thus 
 For argumentatory purposes, 
 He felt his foe was foolish to dispute. 
 Some arbitrary accidental thoughts 
 That crossed his mind, amusing because new, 
 He chose to represent as fixtures there. 
 Invariable convictions (such they seemed 
 Beside his interlocutor's loose cards 
 Flung daily down, and not the same way twice) 
 While certain hell-deep instincts, man's weak tongue 
 Is never bold to utter in their truth 
 Because styled hell-deep ('t is an old mistake 
 To place hell at the bottom of the earth) 
 He ignored these, — not having in readiness 
 Their nomenclature and philosophy : 
 He said true things, but called them by wrong names. 
 " On the whole," he thought, " I justify myself 
 
244 Bishop Blougram's Apology. 
 
 " On every point where cavillers like this 
 
 " Oppugn my life : he tries one kind of fence, 
 
 " I close, he 's worsted, that 's enough for him. 
 
 " He 's on the ground : if ground should break away 
 
 " I take my stand on, there 's a firmer yet 
 
 " Beneath it, both of us may sink and reach. 
 
 " His ground was over mine and broke the first : 
 
 " So, let him sit with me this many a year ! " 
 
 He did not sit five minutes. Just a week 
 Sufficed his sudden healthy vehemence. 
 Something had struck him in the " Outward-bound " 
 Another way than Blougram's purpose was : 
 And having bought, not cabin-furniture 
 But settler's-implements (enough for three) 
 And started for Australia — ^there, I hope, 
 By this time he has tested his first plough, 
 And studied his last chapter of St. John. 
 
245 
 
 MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM." 
 
 Now, don't, sir ! Don't expose me ! Just this once ! 
 
 This was the first and only time, I '11 swear, — 
 
 Look at me, — see, I tneel, — the only time, 
 
 I swear, I ever cheated, — yes, by the soul 
 
 Of Her who hears — (your sainted mother, sir !) 
 
 All, except this last accident, was truth — 
 
 This little kind of slip ! — and even this. 
 
 It was your own wine, sir, the good champagne, 
 
 (I took it for Catawba, you 're so kind) 
 
 Which put the folly in my head ! 
 
 "Get up?" 
 You still inflict on me that terrible face ? 
 You show no mercy? — Not for Her dear sake. 
 The sainted spirit's, whose soft breath even now 
 Blows on my cheek — (don't you feel something, sir ?) 
 You '11 tell ? 
 
 Go tell, then ! Who the devil cares 
 What such a rowdy chooses to . . . 
 
 .«. Aie — aie — aie ! 
 
 Please, sir ! your thumbs are through my windpipe, sir ! 
 Ch— ch ! 
 
246 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium.^' 
 
 Well, sir, I hope you 've done it now ! 
 Oh Lord ! I little thought, sir, yesterday. 
 When your departed mother spoke those words 
 Of peace through me, and moved you, sir, so much, 
 You gave me — (very kind it was of you) 
 These shirt-studs — (better take them back agam, 
 Please, sir)- -yes, little did I think so soon 
 A trifle of trick, all through a glass too much 
 Of his own champagne, would change my best of friends 
 Into an angry gentleman ! 
 
 Though, 't was wrong. 
 I don't contest the point ; your anger 's just : 
 AVhatever put such folly in my head, 
 I know 't was wicked of me. There 's a thick 
 Dusk undeveloped spirit (I 've observed) 
 Owes me a grudge — a. negro's, I should say. 
 Or else an Irish emigrant's ; yourself 
 Explained the case so well last Sunday, sir. 
 When we had summoned Franklin to clear up 
 A point about those shares i' the telegraph : 
 Ay, and he swore . . or might it be Tom Paine ? . . 
 Thumping the table close by where I crouched. 
 He 'd do me soon a mischief : that 's come true ! 
 Why, now your face clears ! I was sure it would ! 
 Then, this one time . . don't take your hand away, 
 Through yours I surely kiss your mother's hand . . 
 You '11 promise to forgive me?— or, at least, 
 Tell nobody of this ? Consider, sir ! 
 What harm can mercy do ? Would but the shade 
 Of the venerable dead-one just vouchsafe 
 A rap or tip ! What bit of paper 's here ? 
 
Mr. Sludge, " The Medium:' 247 
 
 Suppose we take a pencil, let her write, 
 Make the least sign, she urges on her child 
 Forgiveness ? There now ! Eh ? Oh ! 'T was your 
 
 foot, 
 And not a natural creak, sir ? 
 
 Answer, then ! 
 Once, twice, thrice . . . see, I 'm waiting to say "thrice !" 
 All to no use ? No sort of hope for me ? 
 It's all to post to Greeley's newspaper ? 
 
 What ? If I told you all about the tricks ? 
 
 Upon my soul ! — the whole truth, and nought else, 
 
 And how there 's been some falsehood — for your part. 
 
 Will you engage to pay my passage out, 
 
 And hold your tongue until I 'm safe on board ? 
 
 England 's the place, not Boston — no offence ! 
 
 I see what makes you hesitate : don't fear ! 
 
 I mean to change my trade and cheat no more, 
 
 Yes, this time really it 's upon my soul ! 
 
 Be my salvation ! — under Heaven, of course. 
 
 I '11 tell some queer things. Sixty Vs must do. 
 
 A trifle, though, to start with ! We '11 refer 
 
 The question to this table ? 
 
 How you 're changed ! 
 Then split the difference ; thirty moye, we '11 say. 
 Ay, but you leave my presents ! Else I '11 swear 
 'T was all through those : you wanted yours again, 
 So, picked a quarrel with me, to get them back ! 
 Tread pn a worm, it turns, sir ! If I turn. 
 Your fault ! 'T is you 11 have forced me ! Who 's 
 obliged 
 
248 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium.' 
 
 To give up life yet try no self-defence ? 
 At all events, I '11 run the risk. Eh ? 
 
 Done ! 
 
 May I sit, sir ? This dear old table, now ! 
 
 Please, sir, a parting egg-nogg and cigar ! 
 
 I 've been so happy with you ! Nice stuffed chairs, 
 
 And sympathetic sideboards ; what an end 
 
 To all the instructive evenings ! (It 's alight) 
 
 Well, nothing lasts, as Bacon came and said. 
 
 Here goes, — but keep your temper, or I '11 scream ! 
 
 Fol-lol-the-rido-liddle-iddle-ol ! 
 
 You see, sir, it 's your own fault more than mine ; 
 
 It 's all your fault, you curious gentlefolk ! 
 
 You 're prigs, — excuse me, — ^like to look so spry, 
 
 So clever, while you cling by half a claw 
 
 To the perch whereon you puff yourselves at roost, 
 
 Such pie.ce of self-conceit as serves for perch 
 
 Because you chose it, so it must be safe. 
 
 Oh, otherwise you 're sharp enough ! You spy 
 
 Who slips, who slides, who holds by help of wing, 
 
 Wanting real foothold, — who can't keep upright 
 
 On the other perch, your neighbour chose, not you : 
 
 There 's no Outwitting you respecting him ! 
 
 For instance, men love money — that, you know — 
 
 And what men do to gain it : well, suppose 
 
 A poor lad, say a help's son in your house. 
 
 Listening at keyholes, hears the company 
 
 Talk grand of dollars, V-notes, and so forth, 
 
 How hard they are to get, how good to hold. 
 
 How much they buy, — if, suddenly, in pops he — 
 
Mr. Sludge, '■'■ The Medium." 249 
 
 " / Ve got a V-note ! " — what do you say to him ? 
 
 What 's your first word which follows your last kick ? 
 
 " Where did you steal it, rascal ? " That 's because 
 
 He finds you, fain would fool you, off your perch, 
 
 Not on the special piece of nonsense, sir, 
 
 Elected your parade-ground : let him try 
 
 Lies to the end of the list, — " He picked it up, 
 
 " His cousin died and left it him by will, 
 
 " The President flung it to him, riding by, 
 
 " An actress trucked it for a curl of his hair, 
 
 " He dreamed of luck and found his shoe enriched, 
 
 " He dug up clay, and out of clay made gold " — 
 
 How would you treat such possibilities ? 
 
 Would not you, prompt, investigate the case 
 
 With cow-hide ? " Lies, lies, lies," you 'd shout : and 
 
 why? 
 Which of the stories might not prove mere truth ? 
 This last, perhaps, that clay was turned to coin ! 
 Let 's see, now, give him me to speak for him ! 
 How many of your rare philosophers, 
 In plaguy books I 've had to dip into, 
 Believed gold could be made thus, saw it made 
 And made it ? Oh, with such philosophers 
 You 're on your best behaviour 1 While the lad^- 
 With him, in a trice, you settle likelihoods, 
 Nor doubt a, moment how he got his prize : 
 In his case, you hear, judge and execute. 
 All in a breath : so would most men of sense. 
 
 But let^the same lad hear you talk as grand 
 At the same keyhole, you and company. 
 Of signs and wonders, the invisible world ; 
 
2S0 Mr. Sludge, "The Medium." 
 
 How wisdom scouts our vulgar unbelief 
 
 More than our vulgar'est credulity ; 
 
 How good men have desired to see a ghost, 
 
 What Johnson used to say, what Wesley did. 
 
 Mother Goose thought, and fiddle-diddle-dee : — 
 
 If he then break in with, " Sir, /saw a ghost ! " 
 
 Ah, the ways change ! , He finds you perched and prim ; 
 
 It 's a conceit of yours that ghosts may be : 
 
 There 's no talk now of cow-hide. " Tell it out ! 
 
 " Don't fear us ! Take your time and recollect ! 
 
 " Sit down first ; try a glass of wine, my boy ! 
 
 " And, David, (is not that your Christian name ?) 
 
 " Of all things, should this happen twice — it may — 
 
 " Be sure, while fresh in mind, you let us know ! " 
 
 Does the boy blunder, blurt out this, blab that, 
 
 Break down in the other, as beginners will ? 
 
 All 's candour, all 's considerateness — "No haste ! 
 
 " Pause and collect yourself ! We understand ! 
 
 " That 's.the bad memory, or the natural shock, 
 
 " Or the unexplained phenomena ! " 
 
 Egad, 
 The boy takes heart of grace ; finds, never fear, 
 The readiest way to ope your own heart wide, 
 Show — what I call your peacock-perch, pet post 
 To strut, and spread the tail, and squawk upon ! 
 " Just as you thought, much as you might expect ! 
 " There be more things in heaven and earth, Horatio," . . 
 And so on. Shall not David take the hint, 
 Grow bolder, stroke you down at quickened rate ? 
 If he ruffle a feather, it 's " Gently, patiently ! 
 " Manifestations' are so weak at first ! 
 
Mr. Sludge, '■'■ The Medium." 251 
 
 " Doubting, moreover, kills them, cuts all short, 
 " Cures with a vengeance ! " 
 
 There, sir, that 's your style ! 
 You and your boy— such pains bestowed on him, 
 Or any headpiece of the average worth, 
 To teach, say, Greek, would perfect him apace. 
 Make him a Person (" Porson ?" thank you, sir !) 
 Much more, proficient in the art of lies. 
 You never leave the lesson ! Fire alight, 
 Catch you permitting it to die ! You 've friends ; 
 There 's no withholding knowledge, — least from those 
 Apt to look elsewhere for their souls' supply : 
 Why should not you parade your lawful prize ? 
 Who finds a picture, digs a medal up. 
 Hits on a first edition, — he henceforth 
 Gives it his name, grows notable : how much more 
 Who ferrets out a " medium ? " " David 's yours, 
 " You highly-favoured man ? Then, pity souls 
 " Less privileged ! Allow us share your luck ! " 
 So, David holds the circle, rules the roast, 
 Narrates the vision, peeps in the glass ball, 
 Sets-to the spirit-writing, hears the raps, 
 As the case may be. 
 
 Now mark ! To be precise — 
 Though I say, " lies " all these, at this first stage, 
 'T is just for science' sake : I call such grubs 
 By the name of what they '11 turn to, dragonflies. 
 Strictly, it 's what good people style untruth ; 
 But yet, so far, not quite the full-grown thing : 
 It 's fancying, fable-making, nonsense-work — 
 
2S2 Mr. Sludge, '' The Medium." 
 
 What never meant to be so very bad — 
 
 The knack of story-telling, brightening up 
 
 Each dull old bit of fact that drops its shine. 
 
 One does see somewhat when one shuts one's eyes, 
 
 If only spots and streaks ; tables do tip 
 
 In the oddest way of themselves : and pens, good Lord, 
 
 Who knows if you drive them or they drive you ? 
 
 'T is but a foot in the water and out again ; 
 
 Not that duck-under which decides your dive. 
 
 Note this, for it 's important : listen why. 
 
 I '11 prove, you push on David till he dives 
 
 And ends the shivering. Here 's your circle, now : 
 
 Two-thirds of them, with heads like you their host. 
 
 Turn up their eyes, and cry, as you expect, 
 
 " Lord, who 'd have thought it ! " But there 's always one 
 
 Looks wise, compassionately smiles, submits 
 
 " Of your veracity no kind of doubt, 
 
 " But — do you feel so certain of that boy's ? 
 
 " Really, I wonder ! I confess myself 
 
 " More chary of my faith ! " That 's galling, sir ! 
 
 What, he the investigator, he the sage. 
 
 When all 's done ? Then, you just have shut your eyes. 
 
 Opened your mouth, and gulped down David whole, 
 
 You ! Terrible were such catastrophe ! 
 
 So, evidence is redoubled, doubled again, 
 
 And doubled besides ; once more, " He heard, we heard, 
 
 " You and they heard, your mother and your wite, 
 
 " Your children and the stranger in your gates : 
 
 " Did they or did they not ? " So much for him. 
 
 The black sheep, guest without the wedding-garb, 
 
 And doubting Thomas ! Now 's your turn to crow : 
 
Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 253 
 
 " He 's kind to think you such a fool : Sltidge cheats ? 
 "Leave you alone to take precautions ! " 
 
 Straight 
 The rest join chorus. Thomas stands abashed, 
 Sips silent some such beverage as this, 
 Considers if it be harder, shutting eyes 
 And gulping David in good fellowship, 
 Than going elsewhere, getting, in exchange. 
 With no egg-nogg to lubricate the food. 
 Some just as tough a morsel. Over the way. 
 Holds Captain Sparks his court : is it better there ? 
 Have not you hunting-stories, scalping-scenes. 
 And Mexican War exploits to swallow plump 
 If you 'd be free o' the stove-side, rocking-chair, 
 And trio of affable daughters ? 
 
 Doubt suqcumbs ! 
 Victory ! All your circle 's yours again ! 
 Out of the clubbing of submissive wits, 
 David's performance rounds, each chink gets patched, 
 Every protrusion of a point 's filed fine. 
 All 's fit to set a-rolling round the world, 
 And then return to David finally. 
 Lies seven-feet thick about his first half-inch. 
 Here 's a choice birth o' the supernatural. 
 Poor David 's pledged to ! You 've employed no tool 
 That laws exclaim at, save the devil's own. 
 Yet screwed him into henceforth gulling you 
 To the top o' your bent, — all out of one half-lie ! 
 
 You hold, if there 's one half or a hundredth part 
 Of a lie, that 's his fault,— his be the penalty \ 
 I dare say ! You 'd prove firmer in his place ? 
 
254 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium," 
 
 You 'd find the courage, — ^that first flurry over, 
 
 That mildT)it of romancing-work at end, — 
 
 To interpose with " It gets serious, this ; 
 
 " Must stop here. Sir, I saw no ghost at all. 
 
 " Inform your friends I made , . well, fools of them, 
 
 " And found you ready made. I 've lived in clover 
 
 " These three weeks : take it out in kicks of me ! " 
 
 I doubt it Ask your conscience ! Let me know, 
 
 Twelve months hence, with how few embellishments 
 
 You 've told almighty Boston of this passage 
 
 Of arms between us, your first taste o' the foU 
 
 From Sludge who could not fence, sir ! Sludge, your boy ! 
 
 I lied, sir, — there ! I got up from my gorge 
 
 On offal in the gutter, and preferred 
 
 Your canvass-backs : I took their carver's size, 
 
 Measured his modicum of intelligence. 
 
 Tickled him on the cockles of his heart 
 
 With a raven feather, and next week found myself 
 
 Sweet and clean, dining daintily, dizened smart, 
 
 Set on a stool buttressed by ladies' knees, 
 
 Every soft smiler calling me her pet. 
 
 Encouraging my story to uncoil 
 
 And creep out from its hole, inch after inch, 
 
 " How last nightj I no sooner snug in bed, 
 
 " Tucked up, just as they left me, — than came raps ! 
 
 " While a light whisked " . . " Shaped somewhat like a 
 
 star?" 
 " Well, like some sort of stars, ma'am," — " So we thought ! 
 " And any voice ? Not yet ? Try hard, next time, 
 " If you can't hear a voice ; we think you may : 
 " At least, the Pennsylvanian 'mediums ' did." 
 Oh, next time comes the voice ! "Just as we hoped ! " 
 
Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 255 
 
 Are not the hopers proud now, pleased, profuse 
 O' the natural acknowledgment ? 
 
 Of course ! 
 Soj off we push, illy-oh-yo, trim the boat, 
 On we sweep with a cataract ahead, 
 We 're midway to the Horse-shoe : stop, who can, 
 The dance of bubbles gay about our prow ! 
 Experiences become worth waiting for. 
 Spirits now speak up, tell their inmost mind, 
 And compliment the " medium " properly. 
 Concern themselves about his Sunday coat, 
 See rings on his hand with pleasure. Ask yourself 
 How you 'd receive a course of treats like these ! 
 Why, take the quietest hack and stall him up. 
 Cram him with corn a month, then out -with him 
 Among his mates on a bright April morn. 
 With the turf to tread ; see if you find or no 
 A caper in him, if he bucks or bolts ! 
 Much more a youth whose fancies sprout as rank 
 As toadstool-clump from melon-bed. 'T is soon, 
 " Sirrah, you spirit, come, go, fetch and carry, 
 " Read, write, rap, rub-a-dub, and hang yourself ! " 
 I 'm spared all further trouble ; all 's arranged ; 
 Your circle does my business ; I may rave 
 Like an epileptic dervish in the books. 
 Foam, fling myself flat, rend my clothes to shreds ; 
 No matter : lovers, friends and countrymen 
 Will lay down spiritual laws, read wrong things right 
 By the^ule o' reverse. If Francis Verulam 
 Styles himself Bacon, spells the name beside 
 With a y and a k, says he drew breath in York, 
 
2s6 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 
 
 Gave up the ghost in Wales when Cromwell reigned, 
 
 (As, sir, we somewhat fear he was apt to say, 
 
 Before I found the useful book that knows) 
 
 Why, what harm 's done ? The circle smiles apace, 
 
 " It was not Bacon, after all, do you see ! 
 
 " We understand ; the trick 's but natural : 
 
 " Such spirits' individuality 
 
 " Is hard to put in evidence : they incline 
 
 " To gibe and jeer, these undeveloped sorts. 
 
 " You see, their world 's much like a jail broke loose, 
 
 " While this of ours remains shut, bolted, barred, 
 
 " With a single window to it Sludge, our friend, 
 
 " Serves as this window, whether thin or thick, 
 
 " Or stained or stainless ; he 's the medium-pane 
 
 " Through which, to see us and be seen, they peep : 
 
 " They crowd each other, hustle for a chance, 
 
 " Tread on their neighbour's kibes, play tricks enough 1 
 
 " Does Bacon, tired of waiting, swerve aside ? 
 
 " Up in his place jumps Barnum — ' I 'm your man, 
 
 " ' I '11 answer you for Bacon ! ' Try once more ! " 
 
 Or else it 's — " What 's a 'medium ? ' He 's a means, 
 
 " Good, bad, indifferent, still the only means 
 
 " Spirits can speak by ; he may misconceive, 
 
 " Stutter and stammer, — he 's their Sludge and drudge, 
 
 " Take him or leave him ; they must hold their peace, 
 
 " Or else, put up with having knowledge strained 
 
 " To half-expression through his ignorance. 
 
 " Suppose, the spirit Beethoven wants to shed 
 
 " New music he 's brimful of ; why, he turns 
 
 " The handle of this organ, grinds with Sludge, 
 
 " And what he poured in at the mouth o' the mill 
 
Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 257 
 
 " As a Thirty-third Sonata, (fancy now !) 
 
 " Comes from the hopper as brand-new Sludge, nought 
 
 else, 
 " The Shakers' Hymn in G, with a natural F, 
 " Or the ' Stars and Stripes ' set to consecutive fourths." 
 
 Sir, where 's the scrape you did not help me through, 
 
 You that are wise ? And for the fools, the folk 
 
 Who came to see, — the guests, (observe that word !) 
 
 Pray do you find guests criticize your wine, 
 
 Ybur furniture, your grammar, or your nose ? 
 
 Then, why your " medium ? " What 's the difference ? 
 
 Prove your madeira red-ink and gamboge, — 
 
 Your Sludge, a cheat — then somebody 's a goose 
 
 For vaunting both as genuine. " Guests ! " Don't fear ! 
 
 They '11 make a wry face, not too much of that, 
 
 And leave you in your glory. 
 
 "No, sometimes 
 " They doubt and say as much ! " Ay, doubt they do ! 
 And what 's the consequence? "Of course they 
 
 doubt "— 
 (You triumph) " that explains the hitch at once ! 
 " Doubt posed our 'medium,' puddled his pure mind ; 
 " He gave them back their rubbish : pitch chaff in, 
 " Could flour come out o' the honest mill ? " So, prompt 
 Applaud the faithful : cases flock in point, 
 " How, when a mocker willed a ' medium ' once 
 " Should name a spirit James whose name was George, 
 " ' James '^ cried the 'medium,' — 't was the test of truth!" 
 In short, a hit proves much, a miss proves more. 
 Does this convince ? The better : does it fail ? 
 II. s 
 
258 Mr. Sludge, '' The Medium:' 
 
 Time for the double-shotted broadside, then — 
 
 The grand means, last resource. Look black and big ! 
 
 " You style us idiots, therefore — ^why stop short ? 
 
 " Accomplices in rascality : this we hear 
 
 " In our own house, from our invited guest 
 
 " Found brave enough to outrage a poor boy 
 
 " Exposed by our good faith ! Have you been heard ? 
 
 " Now, then, hear us ; one man 's not quite worth twelve. 
 
 " You see a cheat ? Here 's some twelve see an ass : 
 
 " Excuse me if I calculate : good day ! " 
 
 Out slinks the sceptic, all the laughs explode, 
 
 Sludge waves his hat in triumph ! 
 
 Or— he don't. 
 There 's something in real truth (explain who can !) 
 One casts a wistful eye at, like the horse 
 Who mopes beneath stuffed hay-racks and won't munch 
 Because he spies a corn-bag : hang that truth. 
 It spoils all dainties proffered in its place ! . 
 I 've felt at times when, cockered, cossetted 
 And coddled by the aforesaid company, 
 Bidden enjoy their bullying, — never fear, 
 But o'er their shoulders spit at the flying man, — 
 I 've felt a child ; only, a fractious child 
 That, dandled soft by nurse, aunt, grandmother. 
 Who keep him from the kennel, sun and wind, 
 Good fun and wholesome mud, — enjoined be sweet. 
 And comely and superior, — eyes askance 
 The ragged sons o' the gutter at their game. 
 Fain would be down with them i' the thick o' the filth, 
 Making dirt-pies, laughing free, speaking plain, 
 And calling granny the grey old cat she is. 
 
Mr. Sludge, ^^ The Medium.^^ 259 
 
 I 've felt a spite, I say, at you, at them, 
 Huggings and humbug-r^gnashed my teeth to mark 
 A decent dog pass ! It 's too bad, I say, 
 Ruining a soul so ! 
 
 But what 's "so,'' what 's fixed. 
 Where may one stop? Nowhere ! The cheating 's 
 
 nursed 
 Out of the lying, softly and surely spun 
 To just your length, sir ! I 'd stop soon enough : 
 But you 're for progress. " All old, nothing new ? 
 " Only the usual talking through the mouth, 
 " Or writing by the hand ? I own, I thought 
 " This would develop, grow demonstrable, 
 " Make doubt absurd, give figures we might see, 
 " Flowers we might touch. There 's no one doubts you. 
 
 Sludge ! 
 " You dream the dreams, you see the spiritual sights, 
 " The speeches come in your head, beyond dispute. 
 " Still, for the sceptics' sake, to stop all mouths, 
 " We want some outward manifestation ! — well, 
 " The Pennsylvanians gained such ; why not Sludge ? 
 " He may improve with time ! " 
 
 Ay, that he may ! 
 He sees his lot : there 's no avoiding fate. 
 'T is a trifle at first. " Eh, David ? Did you hear ? 
 " You jogged the table, your foot caused the squeak, 
 " This time you 're . . . joking, are you not, my boy ? " 
 " N-n-no- ! " — and I 'm done for, bought and sold hence- 
 forth. 
 The old good easy jog-trot way, the ... eh ? 
 s z 
 
26o Mr. Sludge, "The Medium." 
 
 The . . . not so very false, as falsehood goes, 
 
 The spinning out and drawing fine, you know, — 
 
 Really mere novel-writing of a sort. 
 
 Acting, or improvising, make-believe, 
 
 Surely not downright cheatery, — any how, 
 
 'T is done with and my lot cast ; Cheat 's my name : 
 
 The fatal dash of brandy in your tea 
 
 Has settled how you '11 have the souchong smack : 
 
 The caddy gives way to the dram-bottle. 
 
 Then, it 's so cruel easy ! Oh, those tricks 
 
 That can't be tricks, those feats by sleight of hand. 
 
 Clearly no common conjuror's ! — no, indeed ! 
 
 A conjuror ? Choose me any craft i' the world 
 
 A man puts hand to ; and with six months' pains, 
 
 I '11 play you twenty tricks miraculous 
 
 To people untaught the trade. Have you seen glass 
 
 blown. 
 Pipes pierced ? Why, just this biscuit that I chip, 
 Did you ever watch a baker toss one flat 
 To the oven ? Try and do it ! Take my word. 
 Practise but half as much, while limbs are lithe, 
 To turn, shove, tilt a table, crack your joints. 
 Manage your feet, dispose your hands aright. 
 Work wires that twitch the curtains, play the glove 
 At end o' your slipper, — then put out the lights 
 And . . . there, there, all you want you '11 get, I hope ! 
 I found it slip, easy as an old shoe. 
 
 Now, lights on table again ! I 've done my part. 
 You take my place while I give thanks and rest. 
 " Well, Judge HumgrufBn, what 's your verdict, sir ? 
 
Mr. Sludge, '' The Medium." 261 
 
 " You, hardest head in the United States, — 
 
 " Did you detect a cheat here ? Wait ! Let 's see ! 
 
 " Just an experiment first, for candour's sake ! 
 
 " I '11 try and cheat you, Judge ! The table tilts : 
 
 " Is it I that move it ? Write ! I '11 press your hand : 
 
 " Cry when I push, or guide your pencil, Judge ! " 
 
 Sludge still triumphant ! " That a rap, indeed ? 
 
 " That, the real writing ? Very like a whale ! 
 
 " Then, if, sir, you — a most distinguished man, 
 
 " And, were the Judge not here, I 'd say, . . no matter ! 
 
 " Well, sir, if you fail, you can't take us in, — 
 
 " There 's little fear that Sludge will ! " 
 
 Won't he, ma'am ? 
 But what if our distinguished host, like Sludge, 
 Bade God bear witness that he played no trick. 
 While you believed that what produced the raps 
 Was just a certain child who died, you know, 
 And whose last breath you thought your lips had felt ? 
 Eh ? That '« a capital point, ma'am : Sludge begins 
 At your entreaty with your dearest dead, 
 The little voice set lisping once again, 
 The tiny hand made feel for yours once more, 
 The poor lost image brought back, plain as dreams. 
 Which image, if a word had chanced recall, 
 The customary cloud would cross your eyes. 
 Your heart return the old tick, pay its pang ! 
 A right mood for investigation, this ! 
 One 's at one's ease with Saul and Jonathan, 
 Pompey and Csesar : but one's own lost child . . . 
 I wonder, when you heard the first clod drop 
 From the spadeful at the grave did you feel free 
 
262 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 
 
 To investigate who twitched your funeral scarf 
 Or brushed your flounces ? Then, it came of course 
 You should be stunned and stupid ; then, (how else ?) 
 Your breath stopped with your blood, your brain struck 
 
 work. 
 But now, such causes fail of such effects. 
 All 's changejd, — the little voice begins afresh, 
 Yet you, calm, consequent, can test and try 
 And touch the truth. " Tests ? Didn't the creature tell 
 " Its nurse's name, and say it lived six years, 
 " And rode a rocking-horse ? Enough of tests ! 
 " Sludge never could learn that ! " 
 
 He could not, eh ? 
 You compliment him. " Could not ?" Speak for yourself! 
 I 'd like to know the man I ever saw 
 Once, — never mind where, how, why, when, — once saw, 
 Of whom I do not keep some matter treasured 
 He 'd swear I " could not " know, sagacious soul ! 
 What ? Do you live in this world's blow of blacks, 
 Palaver, gossipry, a single hour 
 Nor find one smut has settled on your nose, 
 Of a smut's worth, no more, no less ? — one fact 
 Out of the drift of facts, whereby you learn 
 What someone was, somewhere, somewhen, somewhy ? 
 You don't tell folk — " See what has stuck to me ! 
 " Judge Humgruffin, our most distinguished man, 
 " Your uncle was a tailor, and your wife 
 " Thought to have married Miggs, missed him, hit you 1 "— - 
 Do you, sir, though you see him twice a -week? 
 " No," you reply, "what use retailing it? 
 " Why should I ? " But, you see, one day you should. 
 
Mr. Sludge, "■ The Medium:' 263 
 
 Because one day there 's much use, — when this fact 
 Brings you the Judge upon both gouty knees 
 Before the supernatural ; proves that Sludge 
 Knows, as you say, a thing he " could not " know : 
 Will not Sludge thenceforth keep an outstretched face 
 The way, the wind drives ? 
 
 " Could not ! " Look you now, 
 I '11 tell you a story ! There 's a whiskered chap, 
 A foreigner, that teaches music here 
 And gets his bread, — ^knowing no better way. 
 He says, the fellow who informed of him 
 And made him fly his country and fall West, 
 Was a hunchback cobbler, sat, stitched soles and sang, 
 In some outlandish place, the city Rome, 
 In a cellar by their Broadway, all day long ; 
 Never asked questions, stopped to listen or look. 
 Nor lifted nose from lapstone ; let the world 
 Roll round his three-legged stool, and news run in 
 The ears he hardly seemed to keep pricked up. 
 Well, that man went on Sundays, touched his pay. 
 And took his praise from government, you see ; 
 For something like two dollars every week. 
 He 'd engage tell you some one little thing 
 Of some one man, which led to many more, 
 (Because one truth leads right to the world's end) 
 And make you that man's master — when he dined 
 And on what dish, where walked to keep his health 
 And to what street. His trade was, throwing thus 
 His sense out, like an anteater's long tongue, 
 Soft, innocent, warm, moist, impassible, 
 And when 't was crusted o'er with creatures — slick. 
 
264 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 
 
 Their juice enriched his palate. " Could not Sludge ! " 
 
 I '11 go yet a step further, and maintain, 
 
 Once the imposture plunged its proper depth 
 
 I' the rotten of your natures, all of you, — 
 
 (If one 's not mad nor drunk, and hardly then) 
 
 It 's impossible to cheat — that 's, be found out ! 
 
 Go tell your brotherhood this first slip of mine, 
 
 All to-day's tale, how you detected Sludge, 
 
 Behaved unpleasantly, till he was fain confess, 
 
 And so has come to grief ! You '11 find, I think, 
 
 Why Sludge still snaps his fingers in your face. 
 
 There now, you 've told them ! What 's their prompt 
 
 reply ? 
 " Sir, did that youth confess he had cheated me, 
 " I 'd disbelieve him. He may cheat at times ; 
 " That 's in the ' medium '-nature, thus they 're made, 
 " Vain and vindictive, cowards, prone to scratch. 
 " And so all cats are ; still a cat 's the beast 
 " You coax the strange electric sparks from out, 
 " By rubbing back its fur ; not so a dog, 
 " Nor lion, nor lamb : 't is the cat's nature, sir ! 
 " Why not the dog's ? Ask God, who made them beasts ! 
 " D' ye think the sound, the nicely-balanced man 
 " Like me" — (aside) — "like you yourself," — (aloud) 
 " — He 's stuff to make a ' medium ? ' Bless your soul, 
 " 'T is these hysteric, hybrid half-and-halfs, 
 " Equivocal, worthless vermin yield the fire ! 
 " We must take such as we find them, 'ware their tricks, 
 
 " Wanting their service. Sir, Sludge took in you 
 
 " How, I can't say, not being there to watch : 
 " He was tried, was tempted by your easiness, — 
 " He did not take in me ! " 
 
Mr, Sludge, " TTie Medium." 265 
 
 Thank you for Sludge ! 
 I 'm to be grateful to such patrons, eh, 
 When what you hear 's my best word ? 'T is a challenge : 
 " Snap at all strangers, half-tamed prairie-dog, 
 " So you cower duly at your keeper's nod ! 
 " Cat, show what claws were made for, muffling them 
 " Only to me ! Cheat others if you can, 
 " Me, if you dare ! " And, my wise sir, I dared — 
 Did cheat you first, made you cheat others next, 
 And had the help, o' your vaunted manliness 
 To bully the incredulous. You used me ? 
 Have not I used you, taken full revenge, 
 Persuaded folk they knew not their own name. 
 And straight they 'd own the error ! Who was the fool 
 When, to an awe-struck wide-eyed open-mouthed 
 Circle of sages. Sludge would introduce 
 Milton composing baby-rhymes, and Locke 
 Reasoning in gibberish, Homer writing Greek 
 In noughts and crosses, Asaph setting psalms 
 To crotchet and quaver ? I Ve made a spirit squeak 
 In sham voice for a minute, then outbroke 
 Bold in my own, defying the imbeciles — 
 Have copied some ghost's pothooks, half a page. 
 Then ended with my own scrawl undisguised. 
 " All right ! The ghost was merely using Sludge^ 
 " Suiting itself from his imperfect stock ! '' 
 Don't talk of gratitude to me ! For what ? 
 For being treated as a showman's ape, 
 Incouraged to be wicked and make sport. 
 Fret or sulk, grin or whimper, any mood 
 So long as the ape be in it and no man — 
 Because a nut pays every mood alike. 
 
266 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 
 
 Curse your superior, superintending sort, 
 
 Who, since you hate smoke, send up boys that climb 
 
 To cure your chimney, bid a " medium " lie 
 
 To sweep you truth down ! Curse your women too, 
 
 Your insolent wives and daughters, that fire up 
 
 Or faint away if a male hand squeeze theirs. 
 
 Yet, to encourage Sludge, may play with Sludge 
 
 As only a " medium," only the kind of thing 
 
 They must humour, fondle . . oh, to misconceive 
 
 Were too preposterous ! But I Ve paid them out ! 
 
 They Ve had their wish — called for the naked truth. 
 
 And in she tripped, sat down and bade them stare : 
 
 They had to blush a little and forgive ! 
 
 " The fact is, children talk so ; in next world 
 
 " All our conventions are reversed, — ^perhaps 
 
 " Made light of : something like old prints, my dear ! 
 
 " The Judge has one, he brought from Italy, 
 
 " A metropolis in the background, — o'er a bridge, 
 
 " A team of trotting roadsters, — cheerful groups 
 
 " Of wayside travellers, peasants at their work, 
 
 " And, full in front, quite unconcerned, why not ? 
 
 " Three nymphs conversing with a cavalier, 
 
 " And never a rag among them : ' fine,' folk cry — 
 
 " And heavenly manners seem not much unlike ! 
 
 " Let Sludge go on ; we '11 fancy it 's in print ! " 
 
 If such as came for wool, sir, went home shorn, 
 
 Where is the wrong I did them ? 'T was their choice ; 
 
 They tried the adventure, ran the risk, tossed up 
 
 And lost, as some one 's sure to do in games ; 
 
 They fancied I was made to lose, — smoked glass 
 
 Useful to spy the sun through, spare their eyes : 
 
 And had I proved a red-hot iron plate 
 
Mr. Sludge, '' The Medium:' 267 
 
 They thought to pierce, and, for their pains, grew blind. 
 
 Whose were the fault but theirs ? While, as things go, 
 
 Their loss amounts to gain, the more 's the shame ! 
 
 They Ve had their peep into the spirit-World, 
 
 And all this world may know it ! They 've fed fat 
 
 Their self-conceit which else had starved : what chance 
 
 Save this, of cackling o'er a golden egg 
 
 And compassing distinction from the flock, 
 
 Friends of a feather ? Well, they paid for it, 
 
 And not prodigiously ; the price o' the play, 
 
 Not counting certain pleasant interludes. 
 
 Was scarce a vulgar play's worth. When you buy 
 
 The actor's talent, do you dare propose 
 
 For his soul beside ? Whereas, my soul you buy ! 
 
 Sludge acts Macbeth, obliged to be Macbeth, 
 
 Or you '11 not hear his first word ! Just go through 
 
 That slight formality, swear himself 's the Thane, 
 
 And thenceforth he may strut and fret his hour. 
 
 Spout, sprawl, or spin his target, no one cares ! 
 
 Why hadn't I leave to play tricks, Sludge as Sludge? 
 
 Enough of it all ! I 've wiped out scores with you — 
 
 Vented your fustian, let myself be streaked 
 
 Like tom-fool with your ochre and carmine. 
 
 Worn patchwork your respectable fingers sewed 
 
 To metamorphose somebody, — yes, I 've earned 
 
 My wages, swallowed down my bread of shame. 
 
 And shake the crumbs off — where but in your face ? 
 
 As for religion — why, I served it, sir ! 
 I'll stick to that ! With ra^ phenomena 
 I laid the atheist sprawling on his back. 
 Propped up Saint Paul, or, at least, Swedenborg 1 
 
268 Mr. Sludge, '' The Medium.'" 
 
 In fact, it 's just the proper way to baulk 
 These troublesome fellows— liars, one and all. 
 Are not these sceptics ? Well, to baffle them. 
 No use in being squealmish : lie yourself ! 
 Erect your buttress just as wide o' the line. 
 Your side, as they Ve built up the wall on theirs ; 
 Where both meet, midway in a point, is truth. 
 High overhead : so, take your room, pile bricks. 
 Lie ! Oh, there 's titillation in all shame ! 
 What snow may lose in white, it gains in rose ! 
 Miss Stokes turns — Rahab,— nor a bad exchange ! 
 Glory be on her, for the good she wrought. 
 Breeding belief anew 'neath ribs of dea'-.h. 
 Brow-beating now the unabashed before. 
 Ridding us of their whole life's gathered straws 
 By a live coal from the altar ! Why, of old, 
 Great men spent years and years in writing books 
 To prove we 've souls, and hardly proved it then : 
 Miss Stokes with her live coal, for you and me ! 
 Surely, to this good issue, all was fair — 
 Not only fondling Sludge, but, even suppose 
 He let escape some spice of knavery, — well, 
 In wisely being blind to it ! Don't you praise 
 Nelson for setting spy-glass to blind eye 
 And saying . . what was it — that he could not see 
 The signal he was bothered with ? Ay, indeed ! 
 
 I '11 go beyond : there 's a real love of a he. 
 Liars find ready-made for lies they make, 
 As hand for glove, or tongue for sugar-plum. 
 At best, 't is never pure and full belief ; 
 Those furthest in the quagmire, — don't suppose 
 
Mr. Sludge, ^^ The Medium." 269 
 
 They strayed there with no warning, got no chance 
 
 Of a filth-speck in their face, *hich they clenched 
 
 teeth. 
 Bent brow against ! Be sure they had their doubts. 
 And fears, and fairest challenges to try 
 The floor o the seeming solid sand ! But no ! 
 Their faith was pledged, acquaintance too apprised. 
 All but the last step ventured, kerchiefs waved. 
 And Sludge called " pet : " 't was easier marching on 
 To the promised land ; join those who, Thursday next, 
 Meant to meet Shakespeare ; better follow Sludge — 
 Prudent, oh sure ! — on the alert, how else ? 
 But making for the mid-bog, all the same ! 
 To hear your outcries, one would think I caught 
 Miss Stokes by the scuff o' the neck, and pitched her flat, 
 Foolish-face-foremost ! Hear these simplelons, 
 That 's all I beg, before my work 's begun, 
 Before I Ve touched them with my finger-tip ! 
 Thus they await me (do but listen, now ! 
 It 's reasoning, this is, — I can't imitate 
 The baby voice, though) " In so many tales 
 " Must be some truth, truth though a pin-point big, 
 " Yet, some : a single man 's deceived, perhaps — 
 " Hardly, a thousand : to suppose one cheat 
 " Can gull all these, were more miraculous far 
 " Than aught we should confess a miracle " — 
 And so on. Then the Judge sums up — (it 's rare) 
 Bids you respect the authorities that leap 
 To the judgment-seat at once, — why, don't you note 
 The limpid nature, the unblemished life, 
 The spotless honour, indisputable sense 
 Of the first upstart with bis story ? What — 
 
270 Mr. Sludge, ^"^ The Medium." 
 
 Outrage a boy on whom you ne'er till now 
 Set eyes, because he finds raps trouble him ? 
 
 Fools, these are : ay, and how of their opposites 
 
 Who never did, at bottom of their hearts, 
 
 Believe for a moment ? — Men emasculate. 
 
 Blank of belief, who played, as eunuchs use, 
 
 With superstition safely, — cold of blood, 
 
 Who saw what made for them i' the mystery. 
 
 Took their occasion, and supported Sludge 
 
 — As proselytes ? No, thank you, far too shrewd ! 
 
 — But promisers of fair play, encouragers 
 
 O' the claimant ; who in candour needs must hoist 
 
 Sludge up on Mars' Hill, get speech out of Sludge 
 
 To carry off, criticize, and cant about ! 
 
 Didn't Athens treat Saint Paul so ? — ^at any rate, 
 
 It 's " a new thing,'' philosophy fumbles at 
 
 Then there 's the other picker out of pearl 
 
 From dung heaps, — ay, your literary man, 
 
 Who draws on his kid gloves to deal with Sludge 
 
 Daintily and discreetly, — shakes a dust 
 
 O' the doctrine, flavours thence, he well knows how, 
 
 The narrative or the novel, — ^half-believes. 
 
 All for the book's sake, and the public's stare, 
 
 And the cash that 's God's sole solid in this world ! 
 
 Look at him ! Try to be too bold, too gross 
 
 For the master ! Not you ! He 's the man for muck 
 
 Shovel it forth, full-splash, he '11 smooth your brown 
 
 Into artistic richness, never fear ! 
 
 Find him the crude stuff ; when you recognize 
 
 Your lie again, you '11 doff your hat to it, 
 
 Dressed out for company 1 " For company," 
 
Mr. Sludge, '■'■ The Medium.'" 271 
 
 I say, since there 's the relish of success : 
 
 Let all pay due respect, call the lie truth, 
 
 Save the soft silent smirking gentleman 
 
 Who ushered in the stranger : you must sigh 
 
 " How melancholy, he, the only one 
 
 " Fails to perceive the bearing of the truth 
 
 " Himself gave birth to ! " — There 's the triumph's smack ! 
 
 That man would choose to see the whole world roll 
 
 I' the slime o' the slough, so he might touch the tip 
 
 Of his brush with what I call the best of browns — 
 
 Tint ghost-tales, spirit-stories, past the power 
 
 Of the outworn umber and bistre ! 
 
 Yet I think 
 There 's a more hateful form of foolery — 
 The social sage's, Solomon of saloons 
 And philosophic diner-out, the fribble 
 Who wants a doctrine for a chopping-block 
 To try the edge of his faculty upon, 
 Prove how much common sense he '11 hack and hew 
 I' the critical minute 'twixt the soup and fish ! 
 These were my patrons : these, and the like of them 
 Who, rising in my soul now, sicken it, — 
 These I have injured ! Gratitude to these ? 
 The gratitude, forsooth, of a prostitute 
 To the greenhorn and the bully — friends of hers, 
 From the wag that wants the queer jokes for his club, 
 To the snuff-box-decorator, honest man, 
 Who just was at his wits' end where to find 
 So genial a Pasiphae ! All and each 
 Pay, compliment, protect from the police, 
 And how she hates them for their pains, like me ! 
 
272 Mr. Sludge, "The Medium:' 
 
 So much for my remorse at thanklessness 
 Toward a deserving public ! 
 
 But, for God? 
 Ay, that 's a question ! Well, sir, since you press — 
 (How you do teaze the whole thing out of me ! 
 I don't mean you, you know, when I say, " them : " 
 Hate you, indeed ! But that Miss Stokes, that Judge ! 
 Enough, enough — with sugar : thank you, sir !) 
 Now for it, then ! Will you believe me, though ? 
 You Ve heard what I confess ; I don't unsay 
 A single word : I cheated when I could, 
 Rapped with my toe-joints, set sham hands at work. 
 Wrote down names weak in sympathetic ink. 
 Rubbed odic lights with ends of phosphor- match, 
 And all the rest ; believe that : believe this. 
 By the same token, though it seem to set 
 The crooked straight again, unsay the said. 
 Stick up what I 've thrown down ; I can't help that. 
 It 's truth ! I somehow vomit truth to-day. 
 This trade of mine — I don't know, can't be sure 
 But there was something in it, tricks and all ! 
 Really, I want to light up my own mind. 
 They were tricks, — true, but what I mean to add 
 Is also true. First, — don't it strike you, sir ? 
 Go back to the beginning, — the first fact 
 We 're taught is, there 's a world beside this world. 
 With spirits, not mankind, for tenantry ; 
 That much within that world once sojourned here, 
 That all upon this world will visit there, 
 And therefore that we, bodily here below. 
 Must have exactly such an interest 
 
Mr. Shidge, " The Medium." 273 
 
 In learning what may be the ways o' the world 
 Above us, as the disembodied folk 
 Have (by all analogic likelihood) 
 In watching how things go in the old world 
 With us, their sons, successors, and what not. 
 Oh, yes, with added powers probably. 
 Fit for the novel state, — old loves grown pure. 
 Old interests understood aright, — they watch ! 
 Eyes to see, ears to hear, and hands to help. 
 Proportionate to advancement : they 're ahead, 
 That 's all— do what we do, but noblier done — 
 Use plate, whereas we eat our meals oif delf, 
 (To use a figure.) 
 
 Concede that, and I ask 
 Next what may be the mode of intercourse 
 Between us men here, and those once-men there ? 
 First comes the Bible's speech ; then, history 
 With the supernatural element, — you know — 
 All that we sucked in with our mothers' milk. 
 Grew up with, got inside of us at last. 
 Till it 's found bone of bone and flesh of flesh. 
 See now, we start with the miraculous, 
 And know it used to be, at all events : 
 What 's the first step we take, and can't but take, 
 Ijtf arguing from the known to the obscure ? 
 Why this : "What was before, may be to-day. 
 " Since Samuel's ghost appeared to Saul, — of course 
 " My brother's spirit may appear to me." 
 Go tell your teacher that ! What 's his reply ? 
 What brings a shade of doubt for the first time 
 O'er his brow late so luminous with faith ? 
 n. T 
 
274 ^r. Sludge, " The Medium:' 
 
 " Such things have been," says he, " and there 's no 
 
 doubt 
 " Such things may be : but I advise mistrust 
 " Of eyes, ears, stomach, — more than all, of brain, 
 " Unless it be of your great-grandmother, 
 " Whenever they propose a ghost to you ! " 
 The end is, there 's a composition struck ; 
 'T is settled, we 've some way of intercourse 
 Just as in Saul's time ; only, different : 
 How, when and where, precisely, — find it out ! 
 I want to know, then, what 's so natural 
 As that a person born into this world 
 And seized on by such teaching, should begin 
 With firm expectancy and a frank look-out 
 For his own allotment, his especial share 
 I' the secret, — his particular ghost, in fine ? 
 I mean, a person born to look that way. 
 Since natures differ : take the painter-sort, 
 One man lives fifty years in ignorance 
 Whether grass be green or red,^ — " No kind of eye 
 " For colour," say you ; while another picks 
 And puts away even pebbles, when a child. 
 Because of bluish spots and pinky veins — 
 " Give him forthwith a paint-box ! " Just the same 
 Was I born ..." medium," you won't let me say, — 
 Well, seer of the supernatural 
 Everywhen, everyhow and everywhere, — 
 Will that do ? 
 
 I and all such boys of course 
 Started with the same stock of Bible-truth ; 
 Only, — what in the rest you style their sense, 
 
Mr. Sludge, " The Medium. " 275 
 
 Instinct, blind reasoning but imperative, 
 
 This, betimes, taught them the old world had one law 
 
 And ours another : "New world, new laws," cried they : 
 
 " None but old laws, seen everywhere at work," 
 
 Cried I, and by their help explained my life 
 
 The Jews' way, still a working way to me. 
 
 Ghosts made the noises, fairies waved the lights. 
 
 Or Santaclaus slid down on New Year's Eve 
 
 And stuffed with cakes the stocking at my bed, 
 
 Changed the worn shoes, rubbed clean the fingered slate 
 
 O' the sum that came to grief the day before. 
 
 This could not last long : soon enough I found 
 
 Who had worked wonders thus, and to what end : 
 
 But did I find all easy, like my mates ? 
 
 Henceforth no supernatural any more ? 
 
 Not a whit : what projects the billiard-balls ? 
 
 " A cue," you answer : "Yes, a cue," said I ; 
 
 " But what hand, off the cushion, moved the cue ? 
 
 " What unseen agency, outside the world, 
 
 " Prompted its puppets to do this and that, 
 
 " Put cakes and shoes and slates into their mind, 
 
 " These mothers and aunts, nay even schoolmasters ? " 
 
 Thus high I sprang, and there have settled since. 
 
 Just so I reason, in sober earnest still. 
 
 About the greater godsends, what you call 
 
 The serious gains and losses of my life. 
 
 What do I know or care about your world 
 
 Which either is or seems to be ? This snap 
 
 O' my fingers, sir ! My care is for myself ; 
 
 Myself am whole and sole jreality 
 
 Inside a raree-show and a market-mob 
 
 T 2 
 
276 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 
 
 Gathered about it : that 's the use of things. 
 
 T is easy saying they serve vast purposes, 
 
 Advantage their grand selves : be it true or false, 
 
 Each thing may have two uses. What 's a star ? 
 
 A world, or a world's sun : doesn't it serve 
 
 As taper also, time-piece, weather-glass. 
 
 And almanac ? Are stars not set for signs 
 
 When we should shear our sheep, sow com, prune trees ? 
 
 The Bible says so. 
 
 Well, I add one use 
 To all the acknowledged uses, and declare 
 If I spy Charles's Wain at twelve to-night, 
 It warns me, " Go, nor lose another day, 
 " And have your hair cut, Sludge ! " You laugh : and why? 
 Were such a sign too hard for God to give ? 
 No : but Sludge seems too little for such grace : 
 Thank you, sir ! So you think, so does not Sludge ! 
 When you and good men gape at Providence, 
 Go into history and bid us mark 
 Not merely powder-plots prevented, crowns 
 Kept on kings' heads by miracle enough, 
 But private mercies — oh, you 've told me, sir, 
 Of such interpositions ! How yourself 
 Once, missing on a memorable day 
 Your handkerchief— just setting out, you know, — 
 You must return to fetch it, lost the train, 
 And saved your precious self from what befell 
 The thirty-three whom Providence forgot 
 You tell, and ask me what I think of this ? 
 Well, sir, I think then, since you needs must know. 
 What matter had you and Boston city to boot 
 
Mr. Sludge, " The Medium.^' 277 
 
 Sailed skyward, like burnt onion-peelings ? Much 
 
 To you, no doubt : for me — undoubtedly 
 
 The cutting of my hair concerns me more, 
 
 Because, however sad the truth may seem, 
 
 Sludge is of all-importance to himself. 
 
 You set apart that day in every year 
 
 For special thanksgiving, were a heathen else : 
 
 Well, I who cannot boast the like escape. 
 
 Suppose I said " I don't thank Providence 
 
 " For my part, owing it no gratitude ? " 
 
 " Nay, but you owe as much " — you 'd tutor me, 
 
 " You, every man alive, for blessings gained 
 
 " In every hour o' the day, could you but know ! 
 
 " I saw niy crowning mercy : all have such, 
 
 " Could they but see ! " Well, sir, why don't they see ? 
 
 " Because they won't look, — or perhaps, they can't." 
 
 Then, sir, suppose I can, and will, and do 
 
 Look, microscopically as is right, 
 
 Into each hour with its infinitude 
 
 Of influences at work to profit Sludge ? 
 
 For that 's the case : I 've sharpened up my sight 
 
 To spy a providence in the fire's going out. 
 
 The kettle's boiling, the dime's sticking fast 
 
 Despite the hole i' the pocket Call such facts 
 
 Fancies, too petty a work for Providence, 
 
 And those same thanks which you exact from me, 
 
 Prove too prodigious payment : thanks for what. 
 
 If nothing guards and guides us little men ? 
 
 No, no, sir ! You must put away your pride. 
 
 Resolve to let Sludge into partnership ! 
 
 I live by signs and omens : look at the roof 
 
 Where the pigeons settle — " If the farther bird. 
 
278 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium.:' 
 
 " The white, takes wing first, I '11 confess when thrashed ; 
 
 " Not, if the blue does "—so I said to myself 
 
 Last week, lest you should take me by surprise : 
 
 Off flapped the white,— and I 'm confessing, sir ! 
 
 Perhaps 't is Providence's whim and way 
 
 With only me, i' the world : how can you tell ? 
 
 " Because unlikely ! " Was it likelier, now, 
 
 That this our one out of all worlds beside. 
 
 The what-d'you-call-'em millions, should be just 
 
 Precisely chosen to make Adam for. 
 
 And the rest o' the tale ? Yet the tale 's true, you know : 
 
 Such undeserving clod was graced so once ; 
 
 Why not graced likewise undeserving Sludge ? 
 
 Are we merit-mongers, flaunt we filthy, rags ? 
 
 All you can bring against my privilege 
 
 Is, that another way was taken with you, — 
 
 Which I don't question. It 's pure grace, my luck. 
 
 I 'm broken to the way of nods and winks. 
 
 And need no formal summoning. You 've a help ; 
 
 Holloa his name or whistle, clap your hands. 
 
 Stamp with your foot or pull the bell : all 's one. 
 
 He understands you want him, here he comes. 
 
 Just so, I come at the knocking : you, sir, wait 
 
 The tongue o' the bell, nor stir before you catch 
 
 Reason's clear tingle, nature's clapper brisk, 
 
 Or that traditional peal was wont to cheer 
 
 Your mother's face turned heavenward : short of these 
 
 There 's no authentic intimation, eh ? 
 
 Well, when you hear, you '11 answer them, start up 
 
 And stride into the presence, top of toe. 
 
 And there find Sludge beforehand. Sludge that sprung 
 
 At noise o' the knuckle on the partition-wall ! 
 
Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 279 
 
 I think myself the more religious man. 
 
 Religion 's all or nothing ; it 's no mere smile 
 
 0' contentment, sigh of aspiration, sir^ 
 
 No quality o' the finelier-tempered clay 
 
 Like its whiteness or its lightness ; rather, stuff 
 
 O' the very stuff, life of life, and self of self. 
 
 I tell you, men won't notice ; when they do, 
 
 They '11 understand. I notice nothing else, 
 
 I 'm eyes, ears, mouth of me, one gaze and gape. 
 
 Nothing eludes me, everything 's a hint, 
 
 Handle and help. It 's all absurd, and yet 
 
 There 's something in it all, I know : how much ? 
 
 No answer ! What does that prove ? Man 's still man, 
 
 Still meant for a poor blundering piece of work 
 
 When all 's done ; but, if somewhat 's done, like this, 
 
 Or not done, is the case the same ? Suppose 
 
 I blunder in my guess at the true sense 
 
 O' the knuckle-summons, nine times out of ten, — 
 
 What if the tenth guess happen to be right ? 
 
 If the tenth shovel-load of powdered quartz 
 
 Yield me the nugget ? I gather, crush, sift all, 
 
 Pass o'er the failure, pounce on the success. 
 
 To give you a notion, now — (let who wins, laugh !) 
 
 When first I see a man, what do I first ? 
 
 Why, count the letters which make up his name, 
 
 And as their number chances, even or odd. 
 
 Arrive at my conclusion, trim my course : 
 
 Hiram H. Horsefall is your honoured name, 
 
 And have n't I found a patron, sir, in you ? 
 
 " Shair I cheat this stranger ? " I take apple-pips. 
 
 Stick one in either canthus of my eye, 
 
 And if the left drops first — (your left, sir, stuck) 
 
28o Mr Sludge, " ITie Medium." 
 
 I 'm warned, I let the trick alone this time. 
 
 You, sir, who smile, superior to such trash, 
 
 You judge of character by other rules ; 
 
 Don't your rules sometimes fail you ? Pray, what rule 
 
 Have you judged Sludge by hitherto ? 
 
 Oh, be sure, 
 You, everybody blunders, just as I, 
 In simpler things than these by far ! For see : 
 I knew two farmers, — one, a wiseacre 
 Who studied seasons, rummaged almanacs, 
 Quoted the dew-point, registered the frost, 
 And then declared, for outcome of his pains, 
 Next summer must be dampish : 't was a. drought 
 His neighbour prophesied such drought would fall, 
 Saved hay and corn, made cent, per cent, thereby, 
 And proved a sage indeed : how came his lore ? 
 Because one brindled heifer, late in March, 
 Stiffened her tail of evenings, and somehow 
 He got into his head that drought was meant ! 
 I don't expect all men can do as much : 
 Such kissing goes by favour. You must take 
 A certain turn of mind for this, — a twist 
 I' the flesh, as well. Be lazily alive, 
 Open-mouthed, like my friend the anteater, 
 Letting all nature's loosely-guarded motes 
 Settle and, slick, be swallowed ! Think yourself 
 The one i' the world, the one for whom the world 
 Was made, expect it tickling at your mouth ! 
 Then will the swarm of buzy buzzing flies. 
 Clouds of coincidence, break egg-shell, thrive, 
 Breed, multiply, and bring you food enough. 
 
Mr. Sludge, '■' The Medium:' 281 
 
 I can't pretend to mind your smiling, sir ! 
 
 Oh, what you mean is this ! Such intimate way, 
 
 Close converse, frank exchange of ofHces, 
 
 Strict sjnmpathy of the immeasurably great 
 
 With the infinitely small, betokened here 
 
 By a course of signs and omens, raps and sparks, — 
 
 How does it suit the dread traditional text 
 
 O' the " Great and Terrible Name ? " Shall the Heaven 
 
 of Heavens 
 Stoop to such child's play ? 
 
 Please sir, go with me 
 A moment, and I '11 try to answer you. 
 The ■" Magnum et terribile " (is that right ?) 
 Well, folk began with this in the early day ; 
 And all the acts they recognized in proof 
 Were thunders, lightnings, earthquakes, whirlwinds, dealt 
 Indisputably on men whose death they caused. 
 There, and there only, folk saw Providence 
 At work, — and seeing it, 't was right enough 
 All heads should tremble, hands wring hands amain, 
 And knees knock hard together at the breath 
 O' the Name's first letter ; why, the Jews, I 'm told, 
 Won't write it down, no, to this very hour, 
 Nor speak aloud : you know best if 't be so. 
 Each ague-fit of fear at end, they crept 
 (Because somehow people once born must live) 
 Out of the sound, sight, swing and sway 0' the Name, 
 Into a corner, the dark rest of the world. 
 And safe space where as yet no fear had reached ; 
 'T was there they looked about them, breathed again, 
 And felt indeed at home, as we might say. 
 
282 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium?' 
 
 The current o' common things, the daily life, 
 
 This had their due contempt ; no Name pursued 
 
 Man from the mountain-top where fires abide, 
 
 To his particular mouse-hole at its foot 
 
 Where he ate, drank, digested, lived in short : 
 
 Such was man's vulgar business, far too small 
 
 To be worth thunder : "small," folk kept on, "small," 
 
 With much complacency in those great days ! 
 
 A mote of sand, you know, a blade of grass — 
 
 What was so despicable as mere grass. 
 
 Except perhaps the life o' the worm or fly 
 
 Which fed there ? These were " small " and men were 
 
 great. 
 Well, sir, the old way 's altered somewhat since, 
 And the world wears another aspect now : 
 Somebody turns our spyglass round, or else 
 Puts a new lens in it : grass, worm, fly grow big : 
 We find great things are made of little things, 
 And little things go lessening till at last 
 Comes God behind them. Talk of mountains now? 
 We talk of mould that heaps the mountain, mites 
 That throng the mould, and God that makes the mites. 
 The Name comes close behind a stomach-cyst, 
 The simplest of creations, just a sac 
 That 's mouth, heart, legs and belly at once, yet lives 
 And feels, and could do neither, we conclude. 
 If simplified still further one degree : 
 The small becomes the dreadful and immense ! 
 Lightning, forsooth ? No word more upon that ? 
 A tin-foil bottle, a strip of greasy silk, 
 With a bit of wire and knob of brass, and there 's 
 
Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 283 
 
 Your dollar's-worth of lightning ! But the cyst — 
 The life of the least of the little things ? 
 
 No, no ! 
 Preachers and teachers try another tack, 
 Come near the truth this time : they put aside 
 Thunder and lightning : " That 's mistake," they cry, 
 " Thunderbolts fall for neither fright nor sport, 
 " But do appreciable gtJod, like tides, 
 " Changes o' the wind, and other natural facts — 
 " ' Good ' meaning good to man, his body or soul. 
 " Mediate, immediate, all things minister 
 " To man, — that 's settled : be our future text 
 " ' We are His children ! ' " So, they now harangue 
 About the intention, the contrivance, all 
 That keeps up an incessant play of love, — 
 See the Bridgewater book. 
 
 Amen to it ! 
 Well, sir, I put this question : I 'm a child ? 
 I lose no time, but take you M your word ; 
 How shall I act a child's part properly ? 
 Your sainted mother, sir, — used you to live 
 With such a thought as this a-worrying you ? 
 " She has it in her power to throttle me, 
 " Or stab or poison : she may turn me out, 
 " Or lock me in, — nor stop at this to-day, 
 " But cut me off to-morrow from the estate 
 " I look for " — (long may you enjoy it, sir !) 
 " In brief, she may unchild the child I am." 
 
84 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium.:' 
 
 You never had such crotchets ? Nor have I ! 
 
 Who, frank confessing childship from the first, 
 
 Cannot both fear and take my ease at once. 
 
 So, don't fear, — know what might be, well enough, 
 
 But know too, child-like, that it will not be. 
 
 At least in my case, mine, the son and heir 
 
 O' the kingdom, as yourself proclaim my style. 
 
 But do you fancy I stop short at this ? 
 
 Wonder if suit and service, son and heir 
 
 Needs must expect, I dare pretend to find ? 
 
 If, looking for signs proper to such an one, 
 
 I straight perceive them irresistible ? 
 
 Concede that homage is a son's plain right. 
 
 And, never mind the nods and raps and winks, 
 
 'T is the pure obvious supernatural 
 
 Steps forward, does its duty : why, of course ! 
 
 I have presentiments ; my dreams come true : 
 
 I fancy a friend stands whistling all in white 
 
 Blithe as a boblink, and he 's dead I learn. 
 
 I take dislike to a dog my favourite long, 
 
 And sell him ; he goes mad next week and snaps. 
 
 I guess that stranger will turn up to-day 
 
 I have not seen these three years ; there 's his knock. 
 
 I wager " sixty peaches on that tree ! " — 
 
 That I pick up a dollar in my walk, 
 
 That your wife's brothei's cousin's name was George — 
 
 And win on all points. Oh, you wince at this ? 
 
 You 'd fain distinguish between gift and gift, 
 
 Washington's oracle and Sludge's itch 
 
 O' the elbow when at whist he ought to trump ? 
 
 With Sludge it 's too absurd ? Fine, draw the line 
 
 Somewhere, but, sir, your somewhere is not mine ! 
 
Mr. Sludge, "The Medium." 285 
 
 Bless us, I 'm turning poet ! It 's time to end. 
 How you have drawn me out, sir ! All I ask 
 Is — am I heir or not heir ? If I 'm he, 
 Then, sir, remember, that same personage 
 (To judge by what we read i' the newspaper) 
 Requires, beside one nobleman in gold 
 To carry up and down his coronet. 
 Another servant, probably a duke, 
 To hold egg-nogg in readiness : why want 
 Attendance, sir, when helps in his father's house 
 Abound, I 'd like to know ? 
 
 Enough of talk ! 
 My fault is that I tell too plain a truth. 
 Why, which of those who say they disbelieve. 
 Your clever people, but has dreamed his dream, 
 Caught his coincidence, stumbled on his fact 
 He can't explain, (he '11 tell you smilingly) 
 Which he 's too much of a philosopher 
 To count as supernatural, indeed. 
 So calls a puzzle and problem, proud of it : 
 Bidding you still be on your guard, you know. 
 Because one fact don't make a system stand, 
 Nor prove this an occasional escape 
 Of spirit beneath the matter : that 's the way ! 
 Just so wild Indians picked up, piece by piece, 
 The fact in California, the fine gold 
 That underlay the gravel — hoarded these, 
 But never made a system stand, nor dug ! 
 So wise men hold out in each hollowed palm 
 A handful of experience, sparkling fact 
 They can't explain ; and since their rest of life 
 
286 Mr. Sludge, '' The Medium." 
 
 Is all explainable, what proof in this ? 
 
 Whereas I take the fact, the grain of gold, 
 
 And fling away the dirty rest of life. 
 
 And add this grain to the grain each fool has found 
 
 O' the million other such philosophers, — 
 
 Till I see gold, all gold and only gold. 
 
 Truth questionless though unexplainable, 
 
 And the miraculous proved the commonplace ! 
 
 The other fools believed in mud, no doubt — 
 
 Failed to know gold they saw : was that so strange ? 
 
 Are all men born to play Bach's fiddle-fugues, 
 
 " Time " with the foil in carte, jump their own height, 
 
 Cut the mutton with the broadsword, skate a five, 
 
 Make the red hazard with the cue, clip nails 
 
 While swimming, in five minutes row a mile. 
 
 Pull themselves three feet, up with the left arm. 
 
 Do sums of fifty figures in their head. 
 
 And so on, by the scores of instances ? 
 
 The Sludge with luck, who sees the spiritual facts. 
 
 His fellows strive and fail to see, may rank 
 
 With these, and share the advantage. 
 
 Ay, but share 
 The drawback ! Think it over by yourself ; 
 I have not heart, sir, and the fire 's gone grey. 
 Defect somewhere compensates for success. 
 Everyone knows that Oh, we 're equals, sir ! 
 The big-legged fellow has a little arm 
 And a less brain, though big legs win the race : 
 Do you suppose I 'scape the common lot ? 
 Say, I was born with flesh so sensitive, 
 Soul so alert, that, practice helping both, 
 
Mr. Sludge, '' The Medium." 287 
 
 I guess what 's going on outside the veil, 
 
 Just as a prisoned crane feels pairing-time 
 
 In the islands where his kind are, so must fall 
 
 To capering by himself some shiny night, 
 
 As if your back -yard were a plot of spice — 
 
 Thus am I 'ware o' the spirit-world : while you, 
 
 Blind as a beetle that way, —for amends, 
 
 Why, you can double fist and floor me, sir ! 
 
 Ride that hot hardmouthed horrid horse of yours, 
 
 Laugh while it lightens, play with the great dog. 
 
 Speak your mind though it vex some friend to hear. 
 
 Never brag, never bluster, never blush, — 
 
 In short, you Ve pluck, when I 'm a coward — there ! 
 
 I know it, I can't help it, — folly or no, 
 
 I 'm paralyzed, my hand 's no more a hand. 
 
 Nor my head, a head, in danger : you can smile 
 
 And change the pipe in your cheek. Your gift 's not mine. 
 
 Would you swap for mine ? No ! but you 'd add my gift 
 
 To yours : I dare say ! I too sigh at times. 
 
 Wish I were stouter, could tell truth nor flinch. 
 
 Kept cool when threatened, did not mind so much 
 
 Being dressed gaily, making strangers stare. 
 
 Eating nice things ; when I 'd amuse myself, 
 
 I shut my eyes and fancy in my brain, 
 
 I 'm — now the President, now, Jenny Lind, 
 
 Now, Emerson, now, the Benicia Boy — 
 
 With all the civilized world a-Wondering 
 
 And worshipping. I know it 's folly and worse j 
 
 I feel such tricks sap, honeycomb the soul : 
 
 But I cap't cure myself, — despond, despair, 
 
 And then, hey, presto, there 's a turn o' the wheel, 
 
 Under comes uppermost, fate makes full amends ; 
 
288 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 
 
 Sludge knows and sees and hears a hundred things 
 You all are blind to, — I Ve my taste of truth, 
 Likewise my touch of falsehood, — vice no doubt, 
 But you 've your vices also : I 'm content 
 
 What, sir ? You won't shake hands ? " Because I cheat ! " 
 
 " You 've found me out in cheating ! " That 's enough 
 
 To make an apostle swear ! Why, when I cheat. 
 
 Mean to cheat, do cheat, and am caught in the act. 
 
 Are you, or rather, am 1 sure <?' the fact ? 
 
 (There 's verse again, but I 'm inspired somehow.) . 
 
 Well then I 'm not sure ! I may be, perhaps, 
 
 Free as a babe from cheating : how it began. 
 
 My gift, — no matter ; what 't is got to be 
 
 In the end now, that 's the question ; answer that ! 
 
 Had I seen, perhaps, what hand was holding mine, 
 
 Leading me whither, I had died of fright, 
 
 So, I was made believe I led myself. 
 
 If I should lay a six-inch plank from roof 
 
 To roof, you would not cross the street, one step. 
 
 Even at your mother's summons : but, being shrewd. 
 
 If I paste paper on each side the plank 
 
 And swear 'tis solid pavement, why, you '11 cross 
 
 Humming a tune the while, in ignorance 
 
 Beacon Street stretches a hundred feet below : 
 
 I walked thus, took the paper-cheat for stone. 
 
 Some impulse made me set a thing o' the move 
 
 Which, started once, ran really by itself ; 
 
 Beer flows thus, suck the siphon ; toss the kite, 
 
 It takes the wind and floats of its own force. 
 
 Don't let truth's lump rot stagnant for the lack 
 
 Of a timely helpful lie to leaven it J 
 
Mr. Sludge, " The Medium:' 289 
 
 Put a chalk-egg beneath the clucking hen, 
 She '11 lay a real one, laudably deceived, 
 Daily for weeks to come. I Ve told my lie, 
 And seen truth follow, marvels none of mine ; 
 All was not cheating, sir, I 'm positive ! 
 I don't know if I move your hand sometimes 
 When the spontaneous writing spreads so far, 
 If my knee lifts the table all that height, 
 Why the inkstand don't fall off the desk a -tilt 
 Why the accordion plays a prettier waltz 
 Than I can pick out on the piano-forte, 
 Why I speak so much more than I intend 
 Describe so many things I never saw. 
 I tell you, sir, in one sense, I believe 
 Nothing at all, — that everybody can. 
 Will, and does cheat : but in another sense 
 I 'm ready to believe my very self — 
 That every cheat 's inspired, and every lie 
 Quick with a germ of truth. 
 
 You ask perhaps 
 Why I should condescend to trick at all 
 If I know a way without it ? This is why ! 
 There 's a strange secret sweet self-sacrifice 
 In any desecration of one's soul 
 To a worthy end, — is n't it Herodotus 
 (I wish I could read Latin !) who describes 
 The single gift o' the land's virginity. 
 Demanded in those old Egyptian rites, 
 (I 've but a hazy notion — help me, sir !) 
 For one purpose in the world, one day in a life, 
 One hour in a day — thereafter, purity, 
 
 II. u 
 
290 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 
 
 And a veil thrown o'er the past for evermore ! 
 Well now, they understood a many things 
 Down by Nile city, or wherever it was ! 
 I Ve always vowed, after the minute's lie, 
 And the end's gain, — truth should be mine hence- 
 forth. 
 This goes to the root o' the matter, sir,— this plain 
 Plump fact : accept it and unlock with it 
 The wards of many a puzzle ! 
 
 Or, finally, 
 Why should I set so fine a gloss on things ? 
 What need I care ? I cheat in self-defence, 
 And there 's my answer to a world of cheats ! 
 Cheat ? To be sure, sir ! What 's the world worth else ? 
 Who takes it as he finds, and thanks his stars ? 
 Don't it want trimming, turning, furbishing up 
 And polishing over ? Your so-styled great men. 
 Do they accept one truth as truth is found, 
 Or try their skill at tinkering ? What 's your world ? 
 Here are you born, who are, I '11 say at once. 
 
 Of the luckiest whether as to head and heart. 
 
 Body and soul, or all that helps the same. 
 
 Well, now, look back : what faculty of yours 
 
 Came to its full, had ample justice done 
 
 By growing when rain fell, biding its time. 
 
 Solidifying growth when earth was dead, 
 
 Spiriilg up, broadening wide, in seasons due ? 
 
 Never ! You shot up and frost nipped you off. 
 
 Settled to sleep when sunshine bade you sprout ; 
 
 One faculty thwarted its fellow : at the end. 
 
 All you boast is, " I had proved a topping tree 
 
Mr. Sludge, '■'■ The Medium." 291 
 
 " In other climes " — yet this was the right clime 
 
 Had you foreknown the seasons. Young, you Ve force 
 
 Wasted like well-streams : old, — oh, then indeed. 
 
 Behold a labyrinth of hydraulic pipes 
 
 Through which you 'd play off wondrous waterwork ; 
 
 Only, no water left to feed their play. 
 
 Young, — you 've a hope, an aim, a love ; it 's tossed 
 
 And crossed and lost : you struggle on, some spark 
 
 Shut ip your heart against the puffs around, 
 
 Through cold and pain ; these in due time subside. 
 
 Now then for age's triumph, the hoarded light 
 
 You mean to loose on the altered face of things, — 
 
 Up with it on the tripod ! It 's extinct. 
 
 Spend your life's remnant asking — which was best. 
 
 Light smothered up that never peeped forth once, 
 
 Or the cold cresset with full leave to shine ? 
 
 Well, accept this too, — seek the fruit of it 
 
 Not in enjoyment, proved a dream on earth, 
 
 But knowledge, useful for a second chance, 
 
 Another life, — you 've lost this world, you 've gained 
 
 Its knowledge for the next. — ^What knowledge, sir, 
 
 Except that you know nothing ? Nay, you doubt 
 
 Whether 't were better have been made man or brute. 
 
 If aught is true, if good and evil clash. 
 
 No foul, no fair, no inside, no outside, 
 
 There 's your world ! 
 
 Give it me ! I slap it brisk 
 With harlequin's pasteboard sceptre : what 's it now ? 
 Changed like a rock-fiat, rough with rusty weed, 
 At first wash-over o' the returning wave ! 
 All the dry dead impracticable stuff 
 u 2 
 
292 Mr. Sludge, '■^ The Medium." 
 
 Starts into life and light again ; this world 
 
 Pervaded by the influx from the next 
 
 I cheat, and what 's the happy consequence ? 
 
 You find full justice straightway dealt you out, 
 
 Each want supplied, each ignorance set at ease, 
 
 Each folly fooled. No life-long labour now 
 
 As the price of worse than nothing ! No mere film 
 
 Holding you chained in iron, as it seems, 
 
 Against the outstretch of your very arms 
 
 And legs i' the sunshine moralists forbid ! 
 
 What would you have ? Just speak and, there, you see ! 
 
 You 're supplemented, made a whole at last : 
 
 Bacon advises, Shakespeare writes you songs, 
 
 And Mary Queen of Scots embraces you. 
 
 Thus it goes on, not quite like life perhaps. 
 
 But so near, that the very difference piques, 
 
 Shows that e'en better than this best will be — 
 
 This passing entertainment in a hut 
 
 Whose bare walls take yoxu: taste — since, one stage more, 
 
 And you arrive at the palace : all half real, 
 
 And you, to suit it, less than real beside, 
 
 In a dream, lethargic kind of death in life. 
 
 That helps the interchange of natures, flesh 
 
 Transfused by souls, and such souls ! Oh, 'tis choice ! 
 
 And if at whiles the bubble, blown too thin, 
 
 Seem nigh on bursting, — if you nearly see 
 
 The real world through the false, — what do you see ? 
 
 Is the old so ruined ? You find you 're in a flock 
 
 O' the youthful, earnest, passionate — genius, beauty, 
 
 Rank and wealth also, if you care for these, 
 
 And all depose their natural rights, hail you, 
 
 (That 's me, sir) as their mate and yoke-fellow. 
 
Mr. Sludge, "The Medium." 293 
 
 Participate in Sludgehood — nay, grow mine, 
 
 I veritably possess them — banish doubtj 
 
 And reticence and modesty alike ! 
 
 Why, here 's the Golden Age, old Paradise 
 
 Or new Eutopia ! Here is life indeed. 
 
 And the world well won now, yours for the first time ! 
 
 And all this might be, may be, and with good help 
 
 Of a little lying shall be : so. Sludge Hes ! 
 
 Why, he 's at worst your poet who sings how Greeks 
 
 That never were, in Troy which never was, 
 
 Did this or the other impossible great thing ! 
 
 He 's Lowell — it 's a world, you smile and say, 
 
 Of his own invention — wondrous Longfellow, 
 
 Surprising Hawthorne ! Sludge does more than they. 
 
 And acts the books they write : the more his praise ! 
 
 But why do I mount to poets ? Take plain prose — 
 Dealers in common sense, set these at work, 
 What can they do without their helpful lies ? 
 Each states the law and fact and face o' the thing 
 Just as he 'd have them, finds what he thinks fit. 
 Is blind to what missuits him, just records 
 What makes his case out, quite ignores the rest' 
 It 's a History of the World, the Lizard Age, 
 The Early Indians, the Old Country War, 
 Jerome Napoleon, whatsoever you please, 
 All as the author wants it. Such a scribe 
 You paiy and praise for putting life in stones, 
 Fire into fog, making the past your world. 
 There 's plenty of " How did you contrive to grasp 
 " The thread which led you through this labyrinth ? 
 
294 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 
 
 " How build such solid fabric out of air ? 
 
 " How on so slight foundation found this tale, 
 
 " Biography, narrative ? " or, in other words, 
 
 " How many lies did it require to make 
 
 " The portly truth you here present us with ? " 
 
 " Oh," quoth the penman, purring at your praise, 
 
 " 'T is fancy all ; no particle of fact : 
 
 " I was poor and threadbare when I wrote that book 
 
 " ' Bliss in the Golden City.' I, at Thebes ? 
 
 " We writers paint out of our heads, you see ! " 
 
 " — Ah, the more wonderful the gift in you, 
 
 " The more creativeness and godlike craft ! " 
 
 But I, do I present you with my piece. 
 
 It 's " What, Sludge ? When my sainted mother spoke 
 
 " The verses Lady Jane Grey last composed 
 
 " About the rosy bower in the seventh heaven 
 
 " Where she and Queen Elizabeth keep house, — 
 
 " You made the raps ? 'T was your invention that ? 
 
 " Cur, slave and devil ! " — eight fingers and two thumbs 
 
 Stuck in my throat ? 
 
 Well, if the marks seem gone, 
 'T is because stiffish cock-tail, taken in time. 
 Is better for a bruise than arnica. 
 There, sir ! I bear no maUce : 't is n't in me. 
 I know I acted wrongly : still, I 've tried 
 What I could say in my excuse, — to show 
 The devil 's not all devil ... I don't pretend, 
 An angel, much less such a gentleman 
 As you, sir ! And I 've lost you, lost myself. 
 Lost all, 1-1-1- .... 
 
Mr. Sludge, '■'■ The Medium:' 295. 
 
 No — are you in earnest, sir ? 
 O, yours, sir, is an angel's part ! I know 
 What prejudice prompts, and what 's the common course 
 Men take to soothe their ruffled self-conceit : 
 Only you rise superior to it all ! • 
 No, sir, it don't hurt much ; it 's speaking long 
 That makes me choke a little : the marks will go ! 
 What ? Twenty V-notes more, and outfit too, 
 And not a word to Greeley ? One — one kiss 
 O' the hand that saves me ! You '11 not let me speak 
 I well know, and I 've lost the right, too true ! 
 But I must say, sir, if She hears (she does) 
 Your sainted . . . Well, sir, — be it so ! That 's, I think, 
 My bed-room candle. Good-night ! Bl-1-less you, sir ! 
 
 R-r-r, you brute-beast and blackguard ! Cowardly 
 
 scamp ! 
 I only wish I dared burn down the house 
 And spoil your sniggering ! Oh, what, you "re the man ? 
 You 're satisfied at last ? You 've found out Sludge ? 
 We '11 see that presently : my turn, sir, next ! 
 I too can tell my story : brute, — do you hear ? — 
 You throttled your sainted mother, that old hag, 
 In just such a fit of passion : no, it was . . , 
 To get this house of hers, and many a note 
 Like these ... I '11 pocket them, however . , . five, 
 Ten, fifteen ... ay, you gave her throat the twist. 
 Or else. you poisoned her ! Confound the cuss ! 
 Where was my head ? I ought to have prophesied 
 He '11 die in a year and join her : that 's the way. 
 
296 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium." 
 
 I don't know where my head is : what had I done ? 
 
 How did it all go ? I said he poisoned her, 
 
 And hoped he 'd have grace given him to repent, 
 
 Whereon he picked this quarrel, bullied me 
 
 And called me cheat : I thrashed him, — who could help? 
 
 He howled for mercy, prayed me on his knees 
 
 To cut and run and save him from disgrace : 
 
 I do so, and once off, he slanders me. 
 
 An end of him ! Begin elsewhere anew ! 
 
 Boston 's a hole, the herring-pond is wide, 
 
 V-notes are something, liberty still more. 
 
 Beside, is he the only fool in the world ? 
 
297 
 
 THE BOY AND THE ANGEI- 
 
 Morning, evening, noon and night, 
 " Praise God ! " sang Theocrite. 
 
 Then to his poor trade he turned. 
 Whereby the daily meal was earned. 
 
 Hard he laboured, long and well j 
 O'er his work the boy's curls fell. 
 
 But ever, at each period, 
 
 He stopped and sang, " Praise God ! " 
 
 Then back again his curls he threw, 
 And cheerful turned to work anew. 
 
 Said Blaise, the listening monk, " Well done ; 
 " I doubt not thou art heard, my son : 
 
 " As well as if thy voice to-day 
 
 " Were praising God, the Pope's great way. 
 
 " This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome 
 " Praises God from Peter's dome." 
 
298 The Boy and the Angel. 
 
 Said Theocrite, " Would God that I 
 
 " Might praise Him, that great way, and die ! " 
 
 Night passed, day shone. 
 And Theocrite was gone. 
 
 With God a day endures alway, 
 A thousand years are but a day, 
 
 God said in heaven, " Nor day nor night 
 " Now brings the voice of my delight" 
 
 Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, 
 Spread his wings and sank to earth ; 
 
 Entered, in flesh, the empty cell. 
 
 Lived there, and played the craftsman well ; 
 
 And morning, evening, noon and night. 
 Praised God in place of Theocrite. 
 
 And from a boy, to youth he grew : 
 The man put oiF the stripling's hue : 
 
 The man matured and fell away 
 Into the season of decay : 
 
 And ever o'er the trade he bent, 
 And ever lived on earth content. 
 
 (He did God's will ; to him, all one 
 If on the earth or in the sun.) 
 
The Boy and the Angel. 299 
 
 God said, " A praise is in mine ear ; 
 " There is no doubt in it, no fear : 
 
 " So sing old worlds, and so 
 
 " New worlds that from my footstool go. 
 
 " Clearer loves sound other ways : 
 " I miss my little human praise.'' 
 
 Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell 
 The flesh disguise, remained the cell. 
 
 'T was Easter Day : he flew to Rome, 
 And paused above Saint Peter's dome. 
 
 In the tiring-room close by 
 The great outer gallery. 
 
 With his holy vestment? dight, 
 Stood the new Pope, Theocrite : 
 
 And all his past career 
 Came back upon him clear. 
 
 Since when, a boy, he plied his trade, 
 Till on his life the sickness weighed ; 
 
 And in his cell, when death drew near, 
 An angel in a dream brought cheer : 
 
 And rising from the sickness drear 
 He grew a priest, and now stood here. 
 
300 The Boy and the Angel. 
 
 To the East with praise he turned, 
 And on his sight the angel burned. 
 
 " I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell, 
 " And set thee here ; I did not well 
 
 " Vainly I left my angel-sphere, 
 
 " Vain was thy dream of many a year. 
 
 " Thy voice's praise seenied weak ; it dropped — 
 " Creation's chorus stopped ! 
 
 " Go back and praise again 
 
 " The early way, while I remain. 
 
 " With that weak voice of our disdain, 
 " Take up creation's pausing strain. 
 
 " Back to the cell and poor employ : 
 " Resume the craftsman and the boy ! " 
 
 Theocrite grew old at home ; 
 
 A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome. 
 
 One vanished as the other died : 
 They sought God side by side. 
 
301 
 
 A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 
 
 [Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene : 
 It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth, 
 Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek, 
 And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu : 
 Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest, 
 Stained and conserved with juice of terebinth, 
 Covered with cloth of hair, and lettered Xt, 
 From Xanthus, my wife's uncle, now at peace : 
 Mu and Epsilon stand for my own name, 
 I may not write it, but I make a cross 
 To show I wait His coming, with the rest, 
 And leave off here : beginneth Pamphylax.] 
 
 I said, " If one should wet his lips with wine, 
 
 " And slip the broadest plantain-leaf we find, 
 
 " Or else the lappet of a linen robe, 
 
 " Into the water-vessel, lay it right, 
 
 " And cool his forehead just above the eyes, 
 
 " The while a brother, kneeling either side, 
 
 " Should chafe each hand and try to make it warm,- 
 
 " He is not so far gone but he might speak." 
 
302 A Death in the Desert. 
 
 This did not happen in the outer cave, 
 Nor in the secret chamber of the rock, 
 Where, sixty days since the decree was out, 
 We had him, bedded on a camel-skin. 
 And waited for his dying all the while ; 
 But in the midmost grotto : since noon's light 
 Reached there a little, and we would not lose 
 The last of what might happen on his face. 
 
 I at the head, and Xanthus at the feet, 
 With Valens and the Boy, had lifted him. 
 And brought him from the chamber in the depths. 
 And laid him in the light where we might see : 
 For certain smiles began about his mouth, 
 And his lids moved, presageful of the end. 
 
 Beyond, and half way up the mouth o' the cave. 
 The Bactrian convert, having his desire, 
 Kept watch, and made pretence to graze a goat 
 That gave us milk, on rags of various herb, 
 Plantain and quitch, the rocks' shade keeps alive : 
 So that if any thief or soldier passed, 
 (Because the persecution was aware) 
 Yielding the goat up promptly with his life. 
 Such man might pass on, joyful at a prize, 
 Nor care to pry into the cool o' the cave. 
 Outside was all noon and the burning blue. 
 
 " Here is wine," answered Xanthus, — dropped a drop ; 
 I stooped and placed the lap of cloth aright, 
 Then chafed his right hand, and the Boy his left : 
 But Valens had bethought him, and produced 
 
A Death in the Desert. 303 
 
 And broke a ball of nard, and made perfume. 
 Only, he did — not so much wake, as — turn 
 And smile a little, as a sleeper does 
 If any dear one call him, touch his face — 
 And smiles and loves, but will not be disturbed. 
 
 Then Xanthus said a prayer, but still he slept : 
 It is the Xanthus that escaped to Rome, 
 Was burned, and could not write the chronicle. 
 
 Then the Boy sprang up from his knees, and ran. 
 Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought. 
 And fetched the seventh plate of graven lead 
 Out of the secret chamber, found a place, 
 Pressing with finger on the deeper dints. 
 And spoke, as 'twere his mouth proclaiming first 
 " I am the Resurrection and the Life." 
 
 Whereat he opened his eyes wide at once, 
 And sat up of himself, and looked at us ; 
 And thenceforth nobody pronounced a word : 
 Only, outside, the Bactrian cried his cry 
 Like the lone desert-bird that wears the ruif. 
 As signal we were safe, from time to time. 
 
 First he said, " If a friend declared to me, 
 " This my son Valens, this my other son, 
 " Were James and Peter, — nay, declared as well 
 " This lad was very John, — I could believe ! 
 " — Qould, for a moment, doubtlessly believe : 
 " So is myself withdrawn into my depths,, 
 " The soul retreated from the perished brain 
 
304 A Death in the Desert. 
 
 " Whence it was wont to feel and use the world 
 " Through these dull members, done with long ago. 
 " Yet I myself remain ; I feel myself : 
 " And ther6 is nothing lost. Let be, awhile ! " 
 
 [This is the doctrine he was wont to teach, 
 
 How divers persons witness in each man. 
 
 Three souls which make up one soul : first, to wit, 
 
 A soul of each and all the bodily parts, 
 
 Seated therein, which works, and is what Does, 
 
 And has the use of earth, and ends the man 
 
 Downward : but, tending upward for advice, 
 
 Grows into, and again is grown into 
 
 By the next soul, which, seated in the brain, 
 
 Useth the first with its collected usCj 
 
 And feeleth, thinketh, willeth, — is what Knows : 
 
 Which, duly tending upward in its turn, 
 
 Grows into, and again is grown into 
 
 By the last soul, that uses both the first. 
 
 Subsisting whether they assist or no, 
 
 And, constituting itian's self, is what Is — 
 
 And leans upon the former, makes it play, 
 
 As that played off the first : and, tending up. 
 
 Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends the man 
 
 Upward in that dread point of intercourse, 
 
 Nor needs a place, for it returns to Him. 
 
 What Does, what Knows, what Is ; three souls, one man. 
 
 I give the glossa of Theotypas.] 
 
 And-then, " A stick, once fire from end to end ; 
 " Now, ashes save the tip that holds a spark ! 
 " Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, spreads itself 
 
A Death in the Desert. 305 
 
 " A little where the fire was : thus I urge 
 
 " The soul that served me, till it task once more 
 
 " What ashes of my brain have kept their shape, 
 
 " And these make feffort on the last o' the flesh, 
 
 " Trying to taste again the truth of things — " 
 
 (He smiled) — " their very superficial truth ; 
 
 " As that ye are my sons, that it is long 
 
 " Since James and Peter had release by death, 
 
 " And I am only he; your brother John, 
 
 " Who saw and heard, and could remember all. 
 
 " Remember all ! It is not much to say. 
 
 " What if the truth broke on me from above 
 
 " As once and oft-times ? Such might hap again : 
 
 " Doubtlessly He might stand in presence here, 
 
 " With head wool-white, eyes, flame, and feet like brass, 
 
 " The sword and the seven stars, as I have seen — 
 
 " I who now shudder only and surmise 
 
 " ' How did your brother bear that sight and live ? ' 
 
 " If I live yet, it is for good, more love 
 
 " Through me to men : be nought but ashes here 
 
 " That keep awhile my semblance, who was John, — 
 
 " Still, when they scatter, there is left on earth 
 
 " No one alive who knew (consider this !) 
 
 " — Saw with his eyes and handled with his hands 
 
 " That which was from the first, the Word of Life. 
 
 " How will it be when none more saith ' I saw ? ' 
 
 " Such ever was love's way : to rise, it stoops. 
 " Since I,' whom Christ's mouth taught, v,'as bidden teach, 
 " I went, for many years, about the world, 
 " Saying ' It was so ; so I heard and saw,' 
 II. ^ 
 
3o6 A Death in the Desert. 
 
 " Speaking as the case asked : and men believed. 
 
 " Afterward came the message to myself 
 
 " In Patmos isle ; I was not bidden teach, 
 
 " But simply listen, take a book and write, 
 
 " Nor set down other than the given word, 
 
 " With nothing left to my arbitrament 
 
 " To choose or change : I wrote, and men believed. 
 
 " Then, for my time grew brief, no message more, 
 
 " No call to write again, I found a way, 
 
 " And, reasoning from my knowledge, merely taught 
 
 " Men should, for love's sake, in love's strength, believe ; 
 
 " Or I would pen a letter to a friend 
 
 " And urge the same as friend, nor less nor more : 
 
 " Friends said I reasoned rightly, and believed. 
 
 " But at the last, why, I seemed left alive 
 
 " Like a sea-jelly weak on Patmos strand, 
 
 " To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I fared 
 
 " When there was mid-sea, and the mighty things ; 
 
 " Left to repeat, ' I saw, I heard, I knew,' 
 
 " And go all over the old ground again, 
 
 " With Antichrist already in the world, 
 
 " And many Antichrists, who answered prompt 
 
 " ' Am I not Jasper as thyself art John ? 
 
 " ' Nay, young, whereas through age thou mayest forget : 
 
 " ' Wherefore, explain, or how shall we believe ? ' 
 
 " I never thought to call down fire on such, 
 
 " Or, as in wonderful and early days, 
 
 " Pick up the scorpion^ tread the serpent dumb ; 
 
 " But patient stated much of the Lord's life 
 
 " Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work : 
 
 " Since much that at the first, in deed and word, 
 
 " Lay simply and sufficiently exposed, 
 
. A Death in the Desert. 307 
 
 " Had grown (or else my soul was grown to match, 
 
 " Fed through such years, familiar with such light, 
 
 " Guarded and guided still to see and speak) 
 
 " Of new significance and fresh result ; 
 
 " What first were guessed as points, I now knew stars, 
 
 " And named them in the Gospel I have writ. 
 
 " For men said, ' It is getting long ago : ' 
 
 " ' Where is the promise of His coming ? ' — asked 
 
 " These young ones in their strength, as loth to wait, 
 
 " Of me who, when their sires were born, was old. 
 
 " I, for I loved them, answered, joyfully, 
 
 " Since I was there, and helpful in my age ; 
 
 " And, in the main, I think such men believed. 
 
 " Finally, thus endeavouring, I fell sick, 
 
 " Ye brought me here, and I supposed the end, 
 
 " And went to sleep with one thought that, at least, 
 
 " Though the whole earth should lie in wickedness, 
 
 " We had the truth, might leave the rest to God. 
 
 " Yet now I wake in such decrepitude 
 
 " As I had slidden down and fallen afar, 
 
 " Past even the presence of my former self, 
 
 " Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap, 
 
 " Till I am found away from my own world, 
 
 " Feeling for foot-hold through a blank profound, 
 
 " Along with unborn people in strange lands, 
 
 " Who say— I hear said or conceive they say — 
 
 " ' Was John at aU, and did he say he saw ? 
 
 " ' Assure us, ere we ask what he might see ! ' 
 
 " And how shall I assure them ? Can they share 
 
 « They, who have flesh, a veil of youth and strength 
 
 "About each spirit, that needs must bide its time, 
 
3o8 A Death in the Desert. 
 
 " Living and learning still as years assist 
 
 " Which wear the thickness thin, and let man see — 
 
 " With me who hardly am withheld at all, 
 
 " But shudderingly, scarce a shred between, 
 
 " Lie bare to the universal prick of light ? 
 
 " Is it for nothing we grow old and weak, 
 
 " We whom God loves ? When pain ends, gain ends too. 
 
 " To me, that story — ay, that Life and Death 
 
 " Of which I wrote ' it was ' — to me, it is ; 
 
 " — Is, here and now : I apprehend nought else 
 
 " Is not God now i' the world His power first made? 
 
 " Is not His love at issue still with sin, 
 
 " Visibly when a wrong is done on earth? 
 
 " Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else around ? 
 
 " Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprise 
 
 " To the right hand of the throne — ^what is it beside, 
 
 " When such truth, breaking bounds, o'erfloods my soul, 
 
 " And, as I saw the sin and death, even so 
 
 " See I the need yet transiency of both, 
 
 " The good and glory consummated thence ? 
 
 " I saw the Power ; I see the Love, once weak, 
 
 " Resume the Power : and in this word ' I see,' 
 
 " Lo, there is recognized the Spirit of both 
 
 " That moving o'er the spirit of man, unblinds 
 
 " His eye and bids him look. These are, I see ; 
 
 " But ye, the children. His beloved ones too, 
 
 " Ye need, — as I should use an optic glass 
 
 " I wondered at erewhile, somewhere i' the world, 
 
 " It had been given a crafty smith to make ; 
 
 " A tube, he turned on objects brought too close, 
 
 " Lying confusedly insubordinate 
 
 " For the unassisted eye to master once : 
 
A Death m the Desert. 309 
 
 " Look through his tube, at distance now they lay, 
 
 " Become succinct, distinct, so small, so clear ! 
 
 " Just thus, ye needs must apprehend what truth 
 
 " I see, reduced to plain historic fact, 
 
 " Diminished into clearness, proved a point 
 
 " And far away : ye would withdraw your sense 
 
 " From out eternity, strain it upon time, 
 
 " Then stand before that fact, that Life and Death, 
 
 " Stay there at gaze, till it dispart,. dispread, 
 
 " As though a star should open out, all sides, 
 
 " Grow the world on you, as it is my world. 
 
 " For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, 
 
 " And hope and fear, — believe the aged friend, — 
 
 " Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love, 
 
 " How love might be, hath been indeed, and is ; 
 
 " And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost 
 
 " Such prize despite the envy of the world, 
 
 " And, having gained truth, keep truth : that is all. 
 
 " But see the double way wherein we are led, 
 
 " How the soul learns diversely from the flesh ! 
 
 " With flesh, that hath so little time to stay, 
 
 " And yields mere basement for the soul's emprise, 
 
 " Expect prompt teaching. Helpful was the light, 
 
 " And warmth was cherishing and food was choice 
 
 " To every man's flesh, thousand years ago, 
 
 " As now to yours and mine ; the body sprang 
 
 " At once to the height, and stayed : but the soul, — no ! 
 
 " Since sages who, this noontide, meditate 
 
 " In Rome or Athens, may descry some point 
 
 " Of the eternal power, hid yestereve : 
 
 " And, as thereby the power's whole mass extends, 
 
310 A Death in the Desert. 
 
 " So much extends the aether floating o'er 
 
 " The love that tops the might, the Christ in God 
 
 " Then, as new lessons shall be learned in these 
 
 " Till earth's work stop and useless time run out, 
 
 " So duly, daily, needs provision be 
 
 " For keeping the soul's prowess possible, 
 
 " Building new barriers as the old decay, 
 
 " Saving us from evasion of life's proof, 
 
 " Putting the question ever, ' Does God love, 
 
 " ' And will ye hold that truth against the world ? ' 
 
 " Ye know there needs no second proof with good 
 
 " Gained for our flesh from any earthly source : 
 
 " We might go freezing, ages, — give us fire, 
 
 " Thereafter we judge fire at its full worth, 
 
 " And guard it safe through every chance, ye know ! 
 
 " That fable of Prometheus and his theft, 
 
 " How mortals gained Jove's fiery flower, grows old 
 
 " (I have been used to hear the pagans own) 
 
 " And out of mind ; but fire, howe'er its birth, 
 
 " Here is it, precious to the sophist now 
 
 " Who laughs the myth of ^schylus to scorn, 
 
 " As precious to those satyrs of his play, 
 
 " Who touched it in gay wonder at the thing. 
 
 " While were it so with the soul, — this gift of truth 
 
 " Once grasped, were this our soul's gain safe, and sure 
 
 " To prosper as the body's gain is wont, — 
 
 " Why, man's probation would conclude, his earth 
 
 " Crumble ; for he both reasons and decides, 
 
 " Weighs first, then chooses : will he give up fire 
 
 " For gold or purple once he knows its worth ? 
 
 " Could he give Christ up were His worth as plain ? 
 
 " Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift, 
 
A Death in the Desert. 311 
 
 " Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact, 
 
 " And straightway in his life acknowledge it, 
 
 " As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire. 
 
 " Sigh ye, ' It had been easier once than now ? ' 
 
 " To give you answer I am left alive ; 
 
 " Look at me who was present from the first ! 
 
 " Ye know what things I saw ; then came a test, 
 
 " My first, befitting me who so had seen ; 
 
 " ' Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, Him 
 
 " ' Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life ? 
 
 " ' What should wring this from thee ! ' — ye laugh and ask. 
 
 " What wrung it ? Even a torchlight and a noise, 
 
 " The sudden Roman faces, violent hands, 
 
 " And fear of what the Jews might do ! Just that, 
 
 " And it is written, ' I forsook and fled : ' 
 
 " There was my trial, and it ended thus. 
 
 " Ay, but my soul had gained its truth, could grow : 
 
 " Another year or two, — what little child, 
 
 " What tender woman that had seen no least 
 
 " Of all my sights, but barely heard them told, 
 
 " Who did not clasp the cross with a light laugh, 
 
 " Or wrap the burning robe round, thanking God ? 
 
 " Well, was truth safe for ever, then ? Not so. 
 
 " Already had begun the silent work 
 
 " Whereby truth, deadened of its absolute blaze, 
 
 " Might need love's eye to pierce the o'erstretched doubt 
 
 " Teachers were busy, whispering ' All is true 
 
 " ' As the aged ones report ; but youth can reach 
 
 " ' Where age gropes dimly, weak with stir and strain, 
 
 " ' And.the full doctrine slumbers till to-day.' 
 
 " Thus, what the Roman's lowered spear was found, 
 
 " A bar to me who touched and handled truth. 
 
312 A Death in the Desert. 
 
 " Now proved the glozing of some new shrewd tongue, 
 
 " This Ebion, this Cerinthus or their mates, 
 
 " Till imminent was the outcry ' Save our Christ ! ' 
 
 " Whereon I stated much of the Lord's life 
 
 " Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work. 
 
 " Such work done, as it will be, what comes next ? 
 
 " What do I hear say, or conceive men say, 
 
 " 'Was John at all, and did he say he saw? 
 
 " ' Assure us, ere we ask what he might see ! ' 
 
 " Is this indeed a burthen for late days, 
 
 " And may I help to bear it with you all, 
 
 " Using my weakness which becomes your strength? 
 
 " For if a babe were born inside this grot, 
 
 " Grew to a boy here, heard us praise the sun, 
 
 " Yet had but yon sole glimmer in light's place, — 
 
 " One loving him and wishful he should learn, 
 
 " Would much rejoice himself was blinded first 
 
 " Month by month here, so made to understand 
 
 " How eyes, born darkling, apprehend amiss : 
 
 " I think I could explain to such a child 
 
 " There was more glow outside than gleams he caught, 
 
 " Ay, nor need urge ' I saw it, so believe ! ' 
 
 " It is a heavy burthen you shall bear 
 
 " In latter days, new lands, or old grown strange, 
 
 " Left without me, which must be very soon. 
 
 " What is the doubt, my brothers ? Quick with it ! 
 
 " I see you stand conversing, each new face, 
 
 " Either in fields, of yellow summer eves, 
 
 " On islets yet unnamed amid the sea ; 
 
 " Or pace for shelter 'neath a portico 
 
 " Out of the crowd in some enormous town 
 
A Death in the Desert. 313 
 
 " Where now the larks sing in a solitude ; 
 
 " Or muse upon blank heaps of stone and sand 
 
 " Idly conjectured to be Ephesus : 
 
 " And no one asks his fellow any more 
 
 " ' Where is the promise of His coming ? ' but 
 
 " ' Was He revealed in any of His lives, 
 
 " ' As Power, as Love, as Influencing Soul ? ' 
 
 " Quick, for time presses, tell the whole mind out, 
 
 " And let us ask and answer and be saved ! 
 
 " My book speaks on, because it cannot pass ; 
 
 " One listens quietly, nor scoffs but pleads 
 
 " ' Here is a tale of things done ages since ; 
 
 " '- What truth was ever told the second day ? 
 
 " ' Wonders, that would prove doctrine, go for nought. 
 
 " ' Remains the doctrine, love ; well, we must love, 
 
 " ' And what we love most, powei: and love in one, 
 
 " ' Let us acknowledge on the record here, 
 
 " ' Accepting these in Christ : must Christ then be ? 
 
 " ' Has He been ? Did not we ourselves make Him ? 
 
 " ' Our mind receives but what it holds, no more. 
 
 " ' First of the love, then ; we acknowledge Christ — 
 
 " ' A proof we comprehend His love, a proof 
 
 " ' We had such love already in ourselves, 
 
 " ' Knew first what else we should not recognize. 
 
 " ' 'T is mere projection from man's inmost mind, 
 
 " ' And, what he loves, thus falls reflected back, 
 
 " ' Becomes accounted somewhat out of him ; 
 
 " ' He throws it up in air, it drops down earth's, 
 
 " ' With 'shape, name, story added, man's old way. 
 
 " ' How prove you Christ came otherwise at least ? 
 
 " ' Next try the power : He made and rules the world : 
 
314 -A Death in the Desert. 
 
 " ' Certes there is a world once made, now ruled, 
 
 " ' Unless things have been ever as we see. 
 
 " ' Our sires declared a charioteer's yoked steeds 
 
 " ' Brought the sun up the east and down the west, 
 
 " ' Which only of itself now rises, sets, 
 
 " ' As if a hand impelled it and a will, — 
 
 " ' Thus they long thought, they who had will and hands : 
 
 " ' But the new question's whisper is distinct, 
 
 " ' Wherefore must all force needs be like ourselves ? 
 
 " ' We have the hands, the will ; what made and drives 
 
 " ' The sun is force, is law, is named, not known, 
 
 " ' While will and love we do know ; marks of these, 
 
 " ' Eye-witnesses attest, so books declare — 
 
 " ' As that, to punish or reward our race, 
 
 " ' The sun at undue times arose or set 
 
 " ' Or else stood still : what do not men affirm ? 
 
 " ' But earth requires as urgently reward 
 
 " ' Or punishment to-day as years ago, 
 
 " ' And none expects the sun will interpose : 
 
 " ' Therefore it was mere passion and mistake, 
 
 " ' Or erring zeal for right, which changed the truth. 
 
 " ' Go back, far, farther, to the birth of things ; 
 
 " ' Ever the will, the intelligence, the love, 
 
 " ' Man's ! — which he gives, supposing he but finds, 
 
 " ' As late he gave head, body, hands and feet, 
 
 " ' To help these in what forms he called his gods. 
 
 " ' First, Jove's brow, Juno's eyes were swept away, 
 
 " ' But Jove's wrath, Juno's pride continued long ; 
 
 " ' As last, will, power, and love discarded these, 
 
 " ' So law in turn discards power, love, and will. 
 
 " ' What proveth God is otherwise at least ? 
 
 " ' All else, projection from the mind of man ! ' 
 
A Death in the Desert. 315 
 
 " Nay, do not give me wine, for I am strong, 
 " But place my gospel where I put my hands. 
 
 " I say that man was made to grow, not stop ; 
 
 " That help, he needed once, and needs no more, 
 
 " Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn : 
 
 " For he hath new needs, and new helps to these. 
 
 " This imports solely, man should mount on each 
 
 " New height in view ; the help whereby he mounts, 
 
 " The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall, 
 
 " Since all things suffer change save God the Truth. 
 
 " Man apprehends Him newly at each stage 
 
 " Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done ; 
 
 "'And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved. 
 
 " You stick a garden-plot with ordered twigs 
 
 " To show inside lie germs of herbs unborn, 
 
 " And check the careless step would spoil their birth ; 
 
 " But when herbs wave, the guardian twigs may go, 
 
 " Since should ye doubt of virtues, question kinds, 
 
 " It is no longer for old twigs ye look, 
 
 " Which proved once underneath lay store of seed, 
 
 " But to the herb's self, by what light ye boast, 
 
 " For what fruit's signs are. This book's fruit is plain, « 
 
 " Nor miracles need prove it any more. 
 
 " Doth the fruit show ? Then miracles bade 'ware 
 
 " At first of root and stem, saved both till now 
 
 " From trampling ox, rough boar and wanton goat. 
 
 " What ? Was man made a wheelwork to wind up, 
 
 " And be discharged, and straight wound up anew ? 
 
 " No ! — grown, his growth lasts ; taught, he ne'er forgets : 
 
 " May learn a thousand, things, not twice the same. 
 
3i5 A Death in the Desert. 
 
 " This might be pagan teaching : now hear mine. 
 
 " I say, that as the babe, you feed awhile, 
 
 " Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself, 
 
 " So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth : 
 
 " When they can eat, babe's nurture is withdrawn. 
 
 " I fed the babe whether it would or no : 
 
 " I bid the boy or feed himself or starve. 
 
 " I cried once, ' That ye may believe in Christ, 
 
 " ' Behold this blind man shall receive his sight ! ' 
 
 " I cry now, ' Urgest thou, for I am shrewd 
 
 " ' And smile at stories how John's word could cure — 
 
 " ' Repeat that miracle and take my faith 1 ' 
 
 " I say, that miracle was duly wrought 
 
 " When, save for it, no faith was possible. 
 
 " Whether a change were wrought i' the shows o' the 
 
 world, 
 " Whether the change came from our minds which see 
 " Of shows o' the world so much as and no more 
 " Than God wills for His purpose, — (what do I 
 " See now, suppose you, there where you see rock 
 " Round us ?) — I know not ; such was the effect, 
 "<So faith grew, making void more miracles 
 " Because too much : they would compel, not help. 
 " I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ 
 " Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee 
 " All questions in the earth and out of it, 
 " And has so far advanced thee to be wise. 
 " Wouldst thou unprove this to re-prove the proved ? 
 " In life's mere minute, with power to use that proof, 
 " Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung ? 
 " Thou hast it ; use it and forthwith, or die ! 
 
A Death in the Desert. 317 
 
 " For I say, this is death and the sole death, 
 
 " When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, 
 
 " Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, 
 
 " And lack of love from love made manifest ; 
 
 " A lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes ; 
 
 " A stomach's when, surcharged with food, it starves. 
 
 " With ignorance was surety of a cure. 
 
 " When man, appalled at nature, questioned first 
 
 " ' What if there lurk a might behind this might ? ' 
 
 " He needed satisfaction God could give, 
 
 " And did give, as ye have the written word : 
 
 " But when he finds might still redouble might, 
 
 " Yet asks, ' Since all is might, what use of will ? ' 
 
 " — ^Will, the one source of might, — he being man 
 
 " With a man's will and a man's might, to teach 
 
 " In little how the two combine in large, — 
 
 " That man has turned round on himself and stands : 
 
 " Which in the course of nature is, to die. 
 
 " And when man questioned, ' What if there be love 
 
 " ' Behind the will and might, as real as they ? ' — 
 
 " He needed satisfaction God could give, 
 
 " And did give, as ye have the written word : 
 
 " But when, beholding that love everjrwhere, 
 
 " He reasons, ' Since such love is everywhere, 
 
 " ' And since ourselves can love and would be loved, 
 
 " ' We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not,' — 
 
 " How shall ye help this man who knows himself, 
 
 " That he must love and would be loved again, 
 
 " Yet, owning his own love that proveth Christ, 
 
 " Rejecteth Christ through very need of Him ? 
 
3 1 8 A. Death in the Desert. 
 
 " The lamp o'erswims with oil, the stomach flags 
 " Loaded with nurture, and that man's soul dies. 
 
 " If he rejoin, ' But this was all the while 
 
 " ' A trick ; the fault was, first of all, in thee, 
 
 " ' Thy story of the places, names and dates, 
 
 " ' Where, when and how the ultimate truth had rise, 
 
 " ' — Thy prior truth, at last discovered none, 
 
 " ' Whence now the second suffers detriment. 
 
 " ' What good of giving knowledge if, because 
 
 " ' O' the manner of the gift, its profit fail ? 
 
 " ' And why refuse what modicum of help 
 
 " ' Had stopped the after-doubt, impossible 
 
 " ' I' the face of truth — truth absolute, uniform ? 
 
 " ' Why must I hit of this and miss of that, 
 
 " ' Distinguish just as I be weak or strong, 
 
 " ' And not ask of thee and have answer prompt, 
 
 " ' Was this once, was it not once ? — then and now 
 
 " ' And evermore, plain truth from man to man. 
 
 " ' Is John's procedure just the heathen bard's ? 
 
 " ' Put question of his famous play again 
 
 " ' How for the ephemerals' sake, Jove's fire was filched, 
 
 " ' And carried in a cane and brought to earth : 
 
 " ' The fact is in the fable, cry the wise, 
 
 " ' Mortals obtained the boon, so much is fact, 
 
 " ' Though fire be spirit and produced on earth. 
 
 'f ' As with the Titan's, so now with thy tale : 
 
 " ' Why breed in us perplexity, mistake, 
 
 " ' Nor tell the whole truth in the proper words ? ' 
 
 " I answer, Have ye yet to argue out 
 " The very primal thesis, plainest law, 
 
A Death in the Deserts 319 
 
 " — Man is not God but hath God's end to serve, 
 
 " A master to obey, a course to take, 
 
 " Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become ? 
 
 " Grant this, then man must pass from old to new, 
 
 " From vain to real, from mistake to fact, 
 
 " From what once seemed good, to what now proves best : 
 
 " How could mah have progression otherwise ? 
 
 " Before the point was mooted ' What is God ? ' 
 
 " No savage man inquired 'What is myself?' 
 
 " Much less replied, ' First, last, and best of things.' 
 
 " Man takes that title now if he believes 
 
 " Might can exist with neither will nor love, 
 
 " In God's case — what he names now Nature's Law — 
 
 " While in himself he recognizes love 
 
 " No less than might and will : and rightly takes. 
 
 " Since if man prove the sole existent thing 
 
 " Where these combine, whatever their degree, 
 
 " However weak the might or will or love, 
 
 " So they be found there, put in evidence, — 
 
 " He is as surely higher in the scale 
 
 " Than any might with neither love nor will, 
 
 " As life, apparent in the poorest midge, 
 
 " (When the faint dust-speck flits, ye guess its wing) 
 
 " Is marvellous beyond dead Atlas' self— 
 
 "Given to the nobler midge for resting-place ! 
 
 " Thus, man proves best and highest^God, in fine, 
 
 " And thus the victory leads but to defeat, 
 
 " The gain to loss, best rise to the worst fall, 
 
 " His life becomes impossible, which is death. 
 
 " But if, appealing thence, he cower, avouch 
 " He is mere man, and in humility 
 
320 A Death in the Desert, 
 
 " Neither may know God nor mistake himself ; 
 " I point to the immediate consequence 
 " And say, by such confession straight he falls 
 " Into man's place, a thing nor God nor beast, 
 " Made to know that he can know and not more : 
 " Lower than God who knows all and can all, 
 • " Higher than beasts which know and can so far 
 " As each beast's limit, perfect to an end, 
 " Nor conscious that they know, nor craving more ; 
 " While man knows partly but conceives beside, 
 " Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact, 
 " And in this striving, this converting air 
 " Into a sohd he may grasp and use, 
 " Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone, 
 " Not God's, and not the beasts' : God is, they are, 
 " Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. 
 " Such progress could no more attend his soul 
 " Were all it struggles after found at first 
 " And guesses changed to knowledge absolute, 
 " Than motion wait his body, were all else 
 " Than it the solid earth on every side, 
 " Where now through space he moves from rest to rest. 
 " Man, therefore, thus conditioned, must expect 
 " He could not, what he knows now, know at first ; 
 " What he considers that he knows to-day, 
 " Come but to-morrow, he will find misknown ,■ 
 " Getting increase of knowledge, §ince he learns 
 " Because he lives, which is to be a man, 
 " Set to instruct himself by his past self : 
 " First, like the brute, obliged by facts to learn, 
 " Next, as man may, obliged by his own mind, 
 " Bent, habit, nature, knowledge turned to law. 
 
A Death in the Desert. 32 1 
 
 " God's gift was that man should conceive of truth 
 
 " And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake, 
 
 " As midway help till he reach fact indeed. 
 
 " The statuary ere he mould a shape 
 
 " Boasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and next 
 
 " The aspiration to produce the same ; 
 
 " So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout, 
 
 " Cries ever ' Now I have the thing I see : ' 
 
 " Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought, 
 
 " From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself. 
 
 " How were it had he cried ' I see no face, 
 
 " ' No breast, no feet i' the ineffectual clay ? ' 
 
 " Rather commend him that he clapped his hands, ' 
 
 " And laughed ' It is my shape and lives again ! ' 
 
 " Enjoyed the falsehood, touched it on to truth, 
 
 " Until yourselves applaud the flesh indeed 
 
 " In what is still flesh-imitating clay. 
 
 " Right in you, right in him, such way be man's ! 
 
 " God only makes the live shape at a jet. 
 
 " Will ye renounce this pact of creatureship ? 
 
 " The pattern on the Mount subsists no more, 
 
 " Seemed awhile, then returned to nothingness ; 
 
 " But copies, Moses strove to make thereby, 
 
 " Serve still and are replaced as time requires : 
 
 " By these, make newest vessels, reach the type ! 
 
 " If ye demur, this judgment on your head, 
 
 " Never to reach the ultimate, angels' law, 
 
 " Indulging every instinct of the soul 
 
 " There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing ! 
 
 " Such is the burthen of the latest time. 
 " I have survived to hear it with my ears, 
 
 II. Y 
 
32 2 A Death in the Desert. 
 
 " Answer it with my lips : does this suffice ? 
 
 " For if there be a further woe than such, 
 
 " Wherein my brothers struggling need a hand, 
 
 " So long as any pulse is left in mine, 
 
 " May I be absent even longer yet, 
 
 " Plucking the blind ones back from the abyss, 
 
 " Though I should tarry a new hundred years ! " 
 
 But he was dead : 't was about noon, the day 
 Somewhat decUning : we five buried him 
 That eve, and then, dividing, went five ways, 
 And I, disguised, returned to Ephesus. 
 
 By this, the cave's mouth must be filled with sand. 
 
 Valens is lost, I know not of his trace ; 
 
 The Bactrian was but a wild childish man. 
 
 And could not write nor speak, but only loved : 
 
 So, lest the memory of this go quite, 
 
 Seeing that I to-morrow fight the beasts,' 
 
 I tell the same to Phoebas, whom believe ! 
 
 For many look again to find that face. 
 
 Beloved John's to whom I ministered. 
 
 Somewhere in life about the world ; they err : 
 
 Either mistaking what was darkly spoke 
 
 At ending of his book, as he relates, 
 
 Or misconceiving somewhat of this speech 
 
 Scattered from mouth to mouth, as I suppose. 
 
 Believe ye will not see him any more 
 
 About the world with his divine regard ! 
 
 For all was as I say, and now the man 
 
 Lies as he lay once, breast to breast with God, 
 
A Death in the Desert. 323 
 
 [Cerinthus read and mused ; one added this : 
 
 " If Christ, as thou aflSrmest, be of men 
 
 " Mere man, the first and best but nothing more, — 
 
 " Account Him, for reward of what He was, 
 
 " Now and for ever, wretchedest of all. 
 
 " For see ; Himself conceived of life as love, 
 
 " Conceived of love as what must enter in, 
 
 " Fill up, make one with His each soul He loved : 
 
 " Thus much for man's joy, all men's joy for Him. 
 
 " Well, He is gone, thou sayest, to fit reward. 
 
 " But by this time are many souls set free, 
 
 " And very many still retained alive : 
 
 " Nay, should His coming be delayed awhile, 
 
 " Say, ten years longer (twelve years, some compute) 
 
 " See if, for every finger of thy hands, 
 
 " There be not found, that day the world shall end, 
 
 " Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ's word 
 
 " That He will grow incorporate with all, 
 
 " With me as Pamphylax, with him as John, 
 
 " Groom for each bride ! Can a mere man do this ? 
 
 " Yet Christ saith, this He lived and died to do. 
 
 " Call Christ, then, the illimitable God, 
 
 " Or lost ! " 
 
 But 't was Cerinthus that is lost.] 
 
324 
 
 FEARS AND SCRUPLES. 
 
 Here 's my case. Of old I used to love him, 
 This same unseen friend, before I knew : 
 
 Dream there was none like him, none above him,- 
 Wake to hope and trust my dream was true. 
 
 II. 
 Loved I not his letters full of beauty ? 
 
 Not his actions famous far and wide ? 
 Absent, he would know I vowed him duty, 
 
 Present, he would find me at his side. 
 
 III. 
 
 Pleasant fancy ! for I had but letters. 
 
 Only knew of actions by hearsay : 
 He himself was busied with my betters ; 
 
 What of that ? My turn must come some day. 
 
Fears and Scruples. 325 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Some day " proving — no day 1 Here 's the puzzle. 
 
 Passed and passed mj turn is. Why complain ? 
 He 's so busied ! If I could but muzzle 
 
 People's foolish mouths that give me pain ! 
 
 V. 
 
 " Letters ? " (hear them !) " You a judge of writing ? 
 
 " Ask the experts ! How they shake the head 
 " O'er these characters, your friend's inditing — 
 
 " Call them forgery from A to Z 1 
 
 VI. 
 
 "Actions? Where's your certain proof" (they bother) 
 " He, of all you find so great and good, 
 
 " He, he only, claims this, that, the other 
 " Action — claimed by men, a multitude ? " 
 
 VII. 
 
 I can simply wish I might refute you, 
 
 Wish my friend would, — by a word, a wink, — 
 
 Bid me stop that foolish mouth, — you brute you ! 
 He keeps absent, — why, I cannot think. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Never mind ! Though foolishness may flout me. 
 One thing 's sure enough : 't is neither frost, 
 
 No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me 
 Thanks for truth— though falsehood, gained— though 
 lost. 
 
326 Fears and Scruples. 
 
 IX. 
 
 All my days, I '11 go the softlier, sadlier, 
 For that dream's sake ! How forget the thrill 
 
 Through and through me as I thought " The gladlier 
 " Lives my friend because I love him still ! " 
 
 X. 
 
 Ah, but there 's a menace someone utters ! 
 
 " What and if your friend at home play tricks ? 
 " Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters ? 
 
 " Mean your eyes should pierce through solid bricks ? 
 
 XI. 
 
 " What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy 
 " Lay on you the blame that bricks — conceal ? 
 
 " Say '■At least I saw who did not see me, 
 " ' Does see now, and presently shall feel i ' " 
 
 XII. 
 
 "Why, that makes your friend a monster ! " say you : 
 " Had his house no window ? At first nod, 
 
 " Would you not have hailed him ? " Hush, I pray you ! 
 What if this friend happen to be — God ? 
 
327 
 
 ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES. 
 
 I AM a goddess of the ambrosial courts, 
 And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed 
 By none whose temples whiten this the world. 
 Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along ; 
 I shed in hell o'er my pale people peace ; 
 On earth I, caring for the creatures, guard 
 Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek. 
 And every feathered mother's callow brood, 
 And all that love green haunts and loneliness. 
 Of men, the chaste adore me, hanging crowns 
 Of poppies red to blackness, bell and stem, 
 Upon my image at Athenai here ; 
 And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends above, 
 Was dearest to me. He, my buskined step 
 To follow through the wild-wood leafy ways. 
 And chase the panting stag, or swift with darts 
 Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low, 
 Neglected homage to another god : 
 Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight smoke 
 Of tapers lulled, in jealousy despatched. 
 A noisome lust that, as the gadbee stings, 
 
328 Artemis Prologizes. 
 
 Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself 
 The son of Theseus her great absent spouse. 
 Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage 
 Against the fury of the Queen, she judged 
 Life insupportable ; and, pricked at heart 
 An Amazonian stranger's race should dare 
 To scorn her, perished by the murderous cord : 
 Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll 
 The fame of him her swerving made not swerve. 
 And Theseus, read, returning, and believed, 
 And exiled, in the blindness of his wrath, 
 The man without a crime who, last as first, 
 Loyal, divulged not to his sire the truth. 
 Now Theseus from Poseidon had obtained 
 That of his wishes should be granted three, 
 And one he imprecated straight — " Alive 
 " May ne'er Hippolutos reach other lands ! " 
 Poseidon heard, ai ai ! And scarce the prince 
 Had stepped into the fixed boots of the car 
 That give the feet a stay against the strength 
 Of the Henetian horses, and around 
 His body flung the rein, and urged their speed 
 Along the rocks and shingles of the shore, 
 When from the gaping wave a monster flung 
 His obscene body in the coursers' path. 
 These, mad with terror, as the sea-bull sprawled 
 Wallowing about their feet, lost care of him 
 That reared them j and the master-chariot-pole 
 Snapping beneath their plunges like a reed, 
 Hippolutos, whose feet were trammelled fast. 
 Was yet dragged forward by the circling rein 
 Which either hand directed ; nor they quenched 
 
Artemis Prologizes. 329 
 
 The frenzy of their flight before each trace, 
 
 Wheel-spoke and splinter of the woeful car, 
 
 Each boulder-stone, sharp stub and spiny shell, 
 
 Huge fish-bone wrecked and wreathed amid the sands 
 
 On that detested beach, was bright with blood 
 
 And morsels of his flesh : then fell the steeds 
 
 Head-foremost, crashing in their mooned fronts, 
 
 Shivering with sweat, each white eye horror-fixed. 
 
 His people, who had witnessed all afar, 
 
 Bore back the ruins of Hippolutos. 
 
 But when his sire, too swoln with pride, rejoiced 
 
 (Indomitable as a man foredoomed) 
 
 That vast Poseidon had fulfilled his prayer, 
 
 I, in a flood of glory visible, 
 
 Stood o'er my dying votary and, deed 
 
 By deed, revealed, as all took place, the truth. 
 
 Then Theseus lay the woefuUest of men, 
 
 And worthily ; but ere the death-veils hid 
 
 His face, the murdered prince full pardon breathed 
 
 To his rash sire. Whereat Athenai wails. 
 
 So I, who ne'er forsake my votaries. 
 Lest in the cross-way none the honey-cake 
 Should tender, nor pour out the dog's hot life ; 
 Lest at my fane the priests disconsolate 
 Should dress my image with some faded poor 
 Few crowns, made favours of, nor dare object 
 Such slackness to my worshippers who turn 
 Elsewhere the trusting heart and loaded hand, 
 As they had climbed Olumpos to report 
 Of Artemis and nowhere found her throne — 
 I interposed : and, this eventful night, — 
 
33° Artemis Prologizes. 
 
 (While round the funeral pyre the populace 
 
 Stood with fierce light on their black robes which bound 
 
 Each sobbing head, while yet their hair they clipped 
 
 O'er the dead body of their withered prince, 
 
 And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated 
 
 On the cold hearth, his brow cold as the slab 
 
 'T was bruised on, groaned away the heavy grief— 
 
 As the pyre fell, and down the cross logs crashed 
 
 Sending a crowd of sparkles through the night. 
 
 And the gay fire, elate with mastery. 
 
 Towered like a serpent o'er the clotted jars 
 
 Of wine, dissolving oils and frankincense. 
 
 And splendid gums like gold,) — my potency 
 
 Conveyed the perished man to my retreat 
 
 In the thrice-venerable forest here. 
 
 And this white-bearded sage who squeezes now 
 
 The berried plant, is Phoibos' son of fame, 
 
 Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught 
 
 The doctrine of each herb and flower and root, 
 
 To know their secret'st virtue and express 
 
 The saving soul of all : who so has soothed 
 
 With lavers the torn brow and murdered cheeks. 
 
 Composed the hair and brought its gloss again. 
 
 And called the red bloom to the pale skin back. 
 
 And laid the strips and jagged ends of flesh 
 
 Even once more, and slacked the sinew's knot 
 
 Of every tortured limb — that now he lies 
 
 As if mere sleep possessed him underneath 
 
 These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh cheer. 
 
 Divine presenter of the healing rod, 
 
 Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye, 
 
 Twines his lithe spires around ! I say, much cheer ! 
 
Artemis Prologizes. 331 
 
 Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies ! 
 •And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs, 
 Ply, as the sage directs, these buds and leaves 
 That strew the turf around the twain ! While I 
 Await, in fitting silence, the event. 
 
332 
 
 PHEIDIPPIDES. 
 
 First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock ! 
 
 Gods of my birthplace, demons and heroes, honor to all ! 
 
 Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in 
 praise 
 
 — ^Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the aegis and 
 spear ! 
 
 Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your 
 peer, 
 
 Now, henceforth and forever, — O latest to whom I up- 
 raise 
 
 Hand and heart and voice ! For Athens, leave pasture 
 and flock ! 
 
 Present to help, potent to save. Pan — patron I call ! 
 
 Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return ! 
 See, 't is myself here standing alive, no spectre that 
 
 speaks ! 
 Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens 
 
 and you, 
 " Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid ! 
 
Pheidippides. 333 
 
 -." Persia has come, we are here, where is She ? " Your 
 
 command I obeyed, 
 Ran and raced : like stubble, some field which a fire runs 
 
 through. 
 Was the space between city and city : two days, two 
 
 nights did I burn 
 Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks. 
 
 Into their midst I broke : breath served but for " Persia 
 
 has come ! 
 "Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and 
 
 earth ; 
 " Razed to the ground is Eretria — but Athens, shall 
 
 Athens sink, 
 " Drop into dust and die — the flower of Hellas utterly die, 
 "Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, 
 
 the stander-by ? 
 " Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch 
 
 o'er destruction's brink ? 
 "How, — ^when? No care for my limbs ! — there 's light- 
 ning in all and some — 
 "Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it 
 
 birth ! " 
 
 O my Athens — Sparta love thee ? Did Sparta respond ? 
 Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust, 
 Malice, — each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified 
 
 hate ! 
 Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. 
 
 I stqpd 
 Quivering, — the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch 
 
 from dry wood : 
 
334 Pheidippides. 
 
 " Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate? 
 " Thunder, thou Zeus ! Athene, are Spartans a quarry 
 
 beyond 
 " Swing of thy spear ? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them 
 
 ' Ye must ' ! " 
 
 No bolt launched from Olumpos ! Lo, their answer at 
 
 last! 
 " Has Persia come, — does Athens ask aid, — may Sparta 
 
 befriend ? 
 " Nowise precipitate judgment — too weighty the issue at 
 
 stake ! 
 " Count we no time lost time which lags through respect 
 
 to the Gods ! 
 " Ponder that precept of old, ' No warfare, whatever the 
 
 odds 
 " ' In your favour, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is un- 
 able to take 
 " ' Full-circle her state in the sky ! ' Ahready she rounds 
 
 to it fast : 
 "Athens must wait, patient as we — who judgment 
 
 suspend." 
 
 Athens, — except for that sparkle, — thy name, I had 
 
 mouldered to ash ! 
 That sent a blaze through my blood ; off, off and away 
 
 was I back, 
 — Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false 
 
 and the vile ! 
 Yet " O Gods of my land ! " I cried, as each hillock and 
 
 plain. 
 Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them 
 
 again. 
 
Pheidippides. 335 
 
 " Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid 
 
 you erewhile ? 
 " Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation ! 
 
 Too rash 
 " Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack ! 
 
 " Oak and olive and bay, — I bid you cease to enwreathe 
 " Brows made bold by your leaf ! Fade at the Persian's 
 
 foot, 
 " You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn 
 
 a slave ! 
 "Rather I hail thee, Parnes, — trust to thy wild waste 
 
 tract ! 
 " Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain ! What matter if 
 
 slacked 
 " My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave 
 " No deity deigns to drape with verdure, — at least I can 
 
 breathe, 
 " Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the 
 
 mute ! " 
 
 Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge ; 
 Gully and gap, I clambered and cleared till, sudden, 
 
 bar 
 Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way. 
 Right ! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure 
 
 across : 
 " Where I could enter, there I depart by ! Night in the 
 
 fosse ? 
 " Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise ! No 
 
 bridge 
 " Better ! " — when — ha ! what was it I came on, of wonders 
 
 that are ? 
 
336 Pheidippides, 
 
 There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he — majestical Pan ! 
 
 Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned 
 his hoof : 
 
 AH the great God was good in the eyes grave-kindly — 
 the curl 
 
 Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe, 
 
 As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw. 
 
 " Halt, Pheidippides ! " — ^halt I did, my brain of a whirl : 
 
 •' Hither to me ! Why pale in my presence ? " he gra- 
 cious began : 
 
 " How is it, — Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof? 
 
 " Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast ! 
 "Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more 
 
 helpful of old ? 
 " Ay, and still, and forever her friend ! Put Pan to the 
 
 test! 
 " Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have 
 
 faith 
 " In the temples and tombs ! Go, say to Athens, ' The 
 
 Goat-God saith : 
 " ' When Persia — so much as strews not the soU^is cast 
 
 in the sea, 
 " ' Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your 
 
 most and least, 
 " 'Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the 
 
 free and the bold ! ' 
 
 " Say Pan saith : ' Let this, foreshowing the place, be the 
 
 pledge!'" 
 (Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear 
 — Fennel, whatever it bode — I grasped it a-tremble with 
 
 dew) 
 
Pheidippides. 337 
 
 " While, as for thee ..." But enough ! He was gone. 
 
 If I ran hitherto — 
 Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but 
 
 flew. 
 Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the 
 
 razor's edge ! 
 Pan for Athens, Pan for me ! myself have a guerdon rare ! 
 
 Then spoke Miltiades. "And thee, best runner of 
 
 Greece, 
 " Whose limbs did duty indeed,— what gift is promised 
 
 thyself? 
 "1 Tell it us straightway, — Athens the mother demands of 
 
 her son ! " 
 Rosily blushed the youth : he paused : but, lifting at 
 
 length 
 His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the 
 
 rest of his strength 
 Into the utterance — " Pan spoke thus : ' For what thou 
 
 hast done 
 " ' Count on a worthy reward ! Henceforth be allowed 
 
 thee release 
 " ' From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in 
 
 pelf!' 
 
 " I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to 
 
 my mind ! 
 " Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel 
 
 may grow, — 
 " Pound— Pan helping us— Persia to dust, and, under the 
 
 deep, 
 n. z 
 
338 Pheidippides. 
 
 "Whelm her away for ever ; and then, — no Athens to 
 
 save, — 
 " Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the 
 
 brave, — 
 " Hie to my house and home : and, when my children 
 
 shall creep 
 " Close to my knees, — recount how the God was awful 
 
 yet kind, 
 " Promised their sire reward to the fiiU — rewarding him 
 
 —so ! " • 
 
 Unforeseeingone ! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day : 
 
 So, when Persia was dust, all cried " To AkropoUs ! 
 
 " Run, Pheidippides, one race more ! the meed is thy due ! 
 
 "-' Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout ! " He flung 
 down his shield, 
 
 Ran like fire once more : and the space 'twixt the Fen- 
 nel-field 
 
 And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs 
 through, 
 
 Till in he broke : " Rejoice, we conquer ! " Like wine 
 through clay, 
 
 Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died— the bliss ! 
 
 Sq, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of 
 
 salute 
 Is still " Rejoice ! " — his word which brought rejoicing 
 
 indeed. 
 So is Pheidippides happy for ever, — the noble strong man 
 Who could race like a God, bear the face of a God, 
 
 whom a God loved so well 
 
Phetdippides. 339 
 
 He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was 
 
 suffered to tell 
 Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he 
 
 began. 
 So to end gloriously — once to shout, thereafter be mute : 
 " Athens is saved ! " — Pheidippides dies in the shout for 
 
 his meed. 
 
 z 2 
 
34° 
 
 THE PATRIOT. 
 
 AN OLD STORY. 
 
 It was roses, roses, all the way. 
 With myrtle mixed in my path like mad : 
 
 The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, 
 The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, 
 
 A year ago on this very day. 
 
 II. 
 The air broke into a mist with bells. 
 
 The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. 
 Had I said, " Good folk, mere noise repels^ 
 
 " But give me your sun from yonder skies ! " 
 They had answered " And afterward, what else ? " 
 
 III. 
 
 Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun 
 To give it my loving friends to keep ! 
 
 Nought man could do, have I left undone ; 
 And you see my harvest, what I reap 
 
 This very day, now a year is run. 
 
The Patriot. 341 
 
 IV. 
 
 There 's nobody on the house-tops now — 
 Just a palsied few at the windows set ; 
 
 For the best of the sight is, all allow, 
 At the Shambles' Gate— or, better yet. 
 
 By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. 
 
 I go in the rain, and, more than needs, 
 A rope cuts both my wrists behind ; 
 
 And I think, by the feelj my forehead bleeds. 
 For they fling, whoever has a mind, 
 
 Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Thus I entered, and thus I go ! 
 
 In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. 
 " Paid by the world, what dost thou owe 
 
 " Me ? " — God might question ; now instead, 
 'T is God shall repay : I am safer so. 
 
342 
 
 POPULARITY. 
 
 Stand still, true poet that you are ! 
 
 I know you ; let me try and draw you. 
 Some night you '11 fail us : when afar 
 
 You rise, remember one man saw you. 
 Knew you, and named a star ! 
 
 My star, God's glow-worm ! Why extend 
 That loving hand of His which leads you. 
 
 Yet locks you safe from end to end 
 
 Of this dark world, unless He needs you, 
 
 Just saves your light to spend ? 
 
 His clenched hand shall unclose at last, 
 I know, and let out all the beauty : 
 
 My poet holds the future fast. 
 Accepts the coming ages' duty. 
 
 Their present for this past. 
 
Popularity. 343 
 
 IV 
 
 That day, the earth's feast-master's brow 
 Shall clear, to God the chalice raising ; 
 
 " Others give best at first, but Thou 
 " Forever set'st our table praising, 
 
 " Keep'st the good wine till now ! " 
 
 V. 
 
 Meantime, I '11 draw you as you stand, 
 With few or none to watch and wonder : 
 
 I '11 say — a fisher, on the sand 
 
 By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder, 
 
 A netful, brought to land. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Who has not heard how Tyrian shells 
 Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes 
 
 Whereof one drop worked miracles. 
 And coloured like Astarte's eyes 
 
 Raw silk the merchant sells ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 And each bystanaer of them all 
 Could criticize, and quote tradition 
 
 How depths of blue sublimed some pall 
 — ^To' get which, pricked a king's ambition ; 
 
 Worth sceptre, crown and ball. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Yet there 's the die, in that rough mesh, 
 * The sea has only just o'er-whispered ! 
 Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping fresh, 
 
 As if they still the water's lisp heard 
 Through foam the rock-weeds thresh. 
 
344 Popularity. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Enough to furnish Solomon 
 Such hangings for his cedar-house, 
 
 That, when gold-robed he took the throne 
 In that abyss of blue, the Spouse 
 
 Might swear his presence shone 
 
 X. 
 
 Most like the centre-spike of gold 
 Which burns deep in the blue-bell's womb 
 
 What time, with ardours manifold. 
 The bee goes singing to her groom, 
 
 Drunken and overbold. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Mere conchs ! not fit for warp or woof ! 
 
 Till cunning come to pound and squeeze 
 And clarify, — refine to proof 
 
 The liquor filtered by degrees, 
 While the world stands aloof. 
 
 XII. 
 
 And there 's the extract, flasked and fine. 
 And priced and saleable at last ! 
 
 And Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes and Nokes combine 
 To paint the future from the past. 
 
 Put blue' into their Une. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Hobbs hints blue, — straight he turtle eats : 
 Nobbs prints blue, — claret crowns his cup : 
 
 Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats, — 
 Both gorge. Who fished the rourex up ? 
 
 What porridge had John Keats ? 
 
345 
 
 PISGAH-SIGHTS. L 
 
 Over the ball of it, 
 
 Peering and prying, 
 How I see all of it. 
 
 Life there, outlying ! 
 Roughness and smoothness, 
 
 Shine and defilement, 
 Grace arid uncouthness ; 
 
 One reconcilement. 
 
 Orbed as appointed, 
 
 Sister with brother 
 Joins, ne'er disjointed 
 
 One from the other. 
 All 's lend-and-borrow ; 
 
 Good, see, wants evil, 
 Joy demands sorrow, 
 
 Angel weds devil ! 
 
346 Pisgah- Sights. 
 
 III. 
 
 " Which things vtxasX—why be ? " 
 
 Vain our endeavour ! 
 So shall things aye be 
 
 As they were ever. 
 " Such things should so be ! " 
 
 Sage our desistence ! 
 Rough-smooth let globe be, 
 
 Mixed — man's existence ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Man — wise and foolish, 
 
 Lover and scomer, 
 Docile and mulish — 
 
 Keep each his comer ! 
 Honey yet gall of it ! 
 
 There 's the life lying, 
 And I see all of it. 
 
 Only, I 'm dying ! 
 
fisgah- Sights. 347 
 
 PISGAH-SIGHTS. 2. 
 
 Could I but live again, 
 
 Twice my life over, 
 Would I once strive again ? 
 
 Would not I cover 
 Quietly all of it — 
 
 Greed and ambition — 
 So, from the pall of it. 
 
 Pass to fruition ? 
 
 " Soft ! " I 'd say, " Soul mine ! 
 
 " Three-score and ten years, 
 " Let the blind mole mine 
 
 " Digging out deniers 1 
 " Let the dazed hawk soar, 
 
 " Claim the sun's rights too ! 
 " Turf 't is thy walk 's o'er, 
 
 " Foliage thy flight 's to." 
 
348 Pisgah- Sights. 
 
 III. 
 
 Only a learner, 
 
 Quick one or slow one, 
 Just a discerner, 
 
 I would teach no one. 
 I am earth's native ; 
 
 No re-arranging it ! 
 /be creative, 
 
 Chopping and changing it ? 
 
 March, men, my fellows ! 
 
 Those who, above me, 
 (Distance so mellows) 
 
 Fancy you love me : 
 Those who, below me, 
 
 (Distance makes great so) 
 Free to forego me, 
 
 Fancy you hate so ! 
 
 Praising, reviling. 
 
 Worst head and best head. 
 Past me defiling. 
 
 Never arrested, 
 Wanters, abounders, 
 
 March, in gay mixture, 
 Men, my surrounders ! 
 
 I am the fixture. 
 
Pisgah-Sights. 349 
 
 vi. 
 
 So shall I fear thee, 
 Mightiness yonder ! 
 
 Mock-sun — more near thee, 
 What is to wonder ? 
 
 So shall I love thee, 
 Down in the dark, — ^lest 
 
 Glowworm I prove thee, , 
 ' Star that now sparkiest ! 
 
35° 
 
 PISGAH-SIGHTS. 3. 
 
 Good, to forgive ; 
 
 Best, to forget ! 
 
 Living, we fret ; 
 Dying, we live. 
 Fretless and free, 
 
 Soul, clap thy pinion ! 
 
 Earth have dominion, 
 Body, o'er thee ! 
 
 Wander at will. 
 Day after day, — 
 Wander away, 
 
 Wandering still — 
 
 Soul that canst soar ! 
 Body may slumber : 
 Body shall cumber 
 
 Soul-flight no more. 
 
Pisgah- Sights. 351 
 
 III. 
 
 Waft of soul's wing ! 
 
 What lies above ? 
 
 Sunshine and Love, 
 Skyblue and Spring ! 
 Body hides — where ? 
 
 Ferns of all feather, 
 
 Mosses and heather, 
 Yours be the care ! 
 
352 
 
 AT THE "MERMAID." 
 
 The figure that thou here seest . . Tut ! 
 Was it for gentle Shakespeare put ? 
 
 B. JoNSON. (Adapted.) 
 
 I — " Next Poet ? " No, my hearties, 
 
 I nor am nor fain would be ! 
 Choose your chiefs and pick your parties, 
 
 Not one soul revolt to me ! 
 I, forsooth, sow song-sedition? 
 
 I, a schism in verse provoke ? 
 I, blown up by bard's ambition. 
 
 Burst — your bubble-king ? You joke. 
 
 Come, be grave ! The sherris mantling 
 
 Still about each mouth, mayhap. 
 Breeds you insight — ^just a scantling — 
 
 Brings me truth out — just a scrap. 
 Look and tell me ! Written, spoken, 
 
 Here 's my life-long work : and where 
 — Where 's your warrant or my token 
 
 I 'm the dead king's son and heir ? 
 
At the " Mermaid." 353 
 
 III. 
 Here 's my work : does work discover 
 
 What was rest from work — my life ? 
 Did I live man's hater, lover ? 
 
 Leave the world at peace, at strife ? 
 Call earth ugliness or beauty ? 
 
 See things there in large or small ? 
 Use to pay its Lord my duty ? 
 
 Use to own a lord at all ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Blank of such a record, truly, 
 
 Here 's the work I hand, this scroll, 
 Yours to take or leave ; as duly. 
 
 Mine remains the unprofTered soul. 
 So much, no whit more, my debtors — 
 
 How should one like me lay claim 
 To that largess elders, betters 
 
 Sell you cheap their souls for — fame ? 
 
 Which of you did I enable 
 
 Once to slip inside my breast 
 There to catalogue and label 
 
 What I like least, what love best, 
 Hope and fear, believe and doubt o^. 
 
 Seek and shun, respect — deride ? 
 Who has right to make a rout of 
 
 Rarities he found insiSe ? 
 
 II. A A 
 
354 At the ^^ Mermaid.'' 
 
 VI. 
 
 Rarities or, as he 'd rather, 
 
 Rubbish such as stocks his own : 
 Need and greed (O strange) the Father 
 
 Fashioned not for him alone ! 
 Whence — ^the comfort set a-strutting, 
 
 Whence — the outcry " Haste, behold ! 
 " Bard's breast open wide, past shutting, 
 
 " Shows what brass we took for gold I " 
 
 Friends, I doubt not he 'd display you 
 
 Brass — myself call oreichalch, — 
 Furnish much amusement ; pray you 
 
 Therefore, be content I balk 
 Him and you, and bar my portal ! 
 
 Here 's my work outside ; opine 
 What 's inside me mean and mortal ! 
 
 Take your pleasure, leave me mine ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Which is — not to buy your laurel 
 
 As last king did, nothing loth. 
 Tale adorned and pointed moral 
 
 Gained him praise and pity both. 
 Out rushed sighs and groans by dozens, 
 
 Forth by scores oaths, curses flew : 
 Proving you were cater-cousins, 
 
 Kith and kindred, king and you ! 
 
At the "Mermaid." 
 
 355 
 
 IX 
 
 Whereas do I ne'er so little 
 
 (Thanks to sherris) leave ajar 
 Bosom's gate — no jot nor tittle 
 
 Grow we nearer than we are. 
 Sinning, sorrowing, despairing, 
 
 Body-ruined, spirit-wrecked, — 
 Should I give my woes an airing, — 
 
 Where 's one plague that claims respect ? 
 
 Have you found your life distasteful ? 
 
 My life did and does smack sweet. 
 Was your youth of pleasure wasteful ? 
 
 Mine I saved and hold complete. 
 Do your joys with age diminish ? 
 
 When mine fail me, I '11 complain. 
 Must in death your daylight finish ? 
 
 My sun sets to rise again. 
 
 XL 
 
 AVhat, like you, he proved — your Pilgrim— 
 
 This our world a wilderness, 
 Earth still gray and heaven still grim. 
 
 Not a hand there his might press. 
 Not a heart his own might throb to, 
 
 Men all rogues and women — say, 
 Dolls which boys' heads duck and bob to, 
 
 Grown folk drop or throw away ? 
 
35 6 At the " Mermaid." 
 
 XII. 
 
 My experience being other, 
 
 How should I contribute verse 
 Worthy of your king and brother ? 
 
 Balaam-Hke I bless, not curse. 
 I find earth not gray but rosy, 
 
 Heaven not grim but fair of hue. 
 Do I stoop ? I pluck a posy. 
 
 Do I stand and stare ? All 's blue. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Doubtless I am pushed and shoved by 
 
 Rogues and fools enough : the more 
 Good luck mine, I love, am loved by 
 
 Some few honest to the core. 
 Scan the near high, scout the far low ! 
 
 " But the low come close : " what then ? 
 Simpletons ? My match is Marlowe ; 
 
 Sciolists ? My mate is Ben. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Womankind — " the cat-like nature, 
 
 " False and fickle, vain and weak " — 
 Scarcely this sad nomenclature 
 
 Suits my tongue, if I must speak. 
 Does the sex invite, repulse so, 
 
 Tempt, betray, by fits and starts ? 
 So becalm but to convulse so. 
 
 Decking heads and breaking hearts ? 
 
At the " Mermaid." 357 
 
 XV. 
 
 Well may you blaspheme at fortune ! 
 
 I " threw Venus " (Ben, expound !) 
 Never did I need importune 
 
 Her, of all the Olympian round. 
 Blessings on my benefactress ! 
 
 Cursings suit — for aught I know — 
 Those who twitched her by the back tress, 
 
 Tugged and thought to turn her — so ! 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Therefore, since no leg to stand on 
 
 Thus I 'm left with, — joy or grief 
 Be the issue, — I abandon 
 
 Hope or care you name me Chief ! 
 Chief and king and Lord's anointed, 
 
 I ? — ^who never once have wished 
 Death before the day appointed : 
 
 Lived and liked, not poohed and pished ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " Ah, but so I shall not enter, 
 
 " Scroll in hand, the common heart — 
 
 " Stopped at surface : since at centre 
 
 " Song should reach Welt-schmerz, world-smart ! ' 
 
 " Enter in the heart ? " Its shelly 
 , Cuirass guard mine, fore and aft ! 
 
 Such song " enters in the belly 
 " And is cast out in the draught" 
 
358 At the " Mermaid." 
 
 xvin. 
 
 Back then to our sherris-brewage ! 
 
 " Kingship " quotha ? I shall wait — 
 Waive the present time : some new age . . 
 
 But let fools anticipate ! 
 Meanwhile greet me — " friend, good fellow, 
 
 " Gentle Will," my merry men ! 
 As for making Envy yellow 
 
 With " Next Poet "—(Manners, Ben !) 
 
559 
 
 HOUSE. 
 
 I. 
 
 Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself ? 
 
 Do I live in a house you would like to see ? 
 Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf? 
 
 " Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key ? " 
 
 II. 
 Invite the world, as my betters have done ? 
 
 " Take notice : this building remains on view, 
 " Its suites of reception every one, 
 
 " Its private apartment and bedroom too ; 
 
 in. 
 
 " For a ticket, apply to the Publisher." 
 No : thanking the public, I must decline. 
 
 A peep through my window, if folks prefer ; 
 
 But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 I have mixed with a crowd and heard free talk 
 In a foreign land where an earthquake chanced 
 
 And a hbuse stood gaping, nought to balk 
 Man's eye wherever he gazed or glanced. 
 
360 House. 
 
 The whole of the frontage shaven sheer, 
 
 The inside gaped : exposed to day, 
 Right and wrong and common and queer, 
 
 ^Bare, as the palm of your hand, it lay. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The owner ? Oh, he had been crushed, no doubt ! 
 
 " Odd tables and chairs for a man of wealth ! 
 " What a parcel of musty old books about ! 
 
 " He smoked, — no wonder he lost his health ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 " I doubt if he bathed before he dressed. 
 
 " A brasier ? — the pagan, he burned perfumes ! 
 " You see it is proved, what the neighbours guessed : 
 
 " His wife and himself had separate rooms." 
 
 vm. 
 
 Friends, the goodman of the house at least 
 
 Kept house to himself till an earthquake came : 
 
 'T is the fall of its frontage permits you feast 
 On the inside arrangement you praise or blame. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Outside should suffice for evidence : 
 
 And whoso desires to penetrate 
 Deeper, must dive by the spirit-sense — 
 
 No optics like yours, at any rate ! 
 
House. 361 
 
 X. 
 
 " Hoity toity ! A street to explore, 
 
 " ' Your house the exception ! ' With this same key 
 " ' Shakespeare unlocked his hearty once more ! " 
 
 Did Shakespeare ? If so, the less Shakespeare he ! 
 
362 
 
 SHOP. 
 
 So, friend, your shop was all your house ! 
 Its front, astonishing the street. 
 
 Invited view from man and mouse 
 To what diversity of treat 
 Behind its glass — the single sheet ! 
 
 What gimcracks, genuine Japanese : 
 Gape-jaw and goggle-eye, the frog ; 
 
 Dragons, owls, monkeys, beetles, geese ; 
 Some crush-nosed human-hearted dog : 
 Queer names, too, such a catalogue ! 
 
 III. 
 
 I thought " And he who owns the wealth 
 " Which blocks the window's vastitude, 
 
 " — Ah, could I peep at him by stealth 
 " Behind his ware, pass shop, intrude 
 " On house itself, what scenes were viewed ! 
 
Shop. 363 
 
 IV. 
 
 " If wide and showy thus the shop, 
 " What must the habitation prove ? 
 
 " The true house with no name a-top — 
 " The mansion, distant one remove, 
 " Once get him off his traffic-groove ! 
 
 v. 
 
 " Pictures he likes, or books perhaps ; 
 " And as for buying most and best, 
 
 " Commend me to these city chaps ! 
 " Or else he 's social, takes his rest 
 " On Sundays, with a Lord for guest. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Some suburb-palace, parked about 
 " And gated grandly, built last year : 
 
 " The four-mile walk to keep off gout ; 
 " Or big seat sold by bankrupt peer : 
 " But then he takes the rail, that 's clear. 
 
 VII. 
 
 " Or, stop ! I wager, taste selects 
 
 " Some out o' the way, some all-unknown 
 
 " Retreat : the neighbourhood suspects 
 " Little that he who rambles lone 
 " Makes Rothschild tremblje on his throne ! " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Nowise ! Nor Mayfair residence 
 Fit to receive and entertain, — 
 
 Nor Hampstead villa's kind defence 
 
 From noise and crowd, from dust and drain, — 
 Nor country-box was soul's domain ! 
 
. 364 Shop. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Nowise ! At back of all that spread 
 Of merchandize, woe 's me, I find 
 
 A hole i' the wall where, heels by head, 
 The owner couched, his ware behind, 
 — In cupboard suited to his mind. 
 
 X. 
 
 For, why ? He saw no use of life 
 But, while he drove a roaring trade, 
 
 To chuckle " Customers are rife ! " 
 To chafe " So much hard cash outlaid 
 " Yet zero in my profits made ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 " This novelty costs pains, but — takes ? 
 " Cumbers my counter ! Stock no more ! 
 
 " This article, no such great shakes, 
 " Fizzes like wild fire ? Underscore 
 " The cheap thing — thousands to the fore ! " 
 
 XII. 
 
 'T was lodging best to live most nigh 
 (Cramp, coffinlike as crib might be) 
 
 Receipt of Custom ; ear and eye 
 
 Wanted no outworld : " Hear and see 
 " The bustle in the shop ! " quoth he. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 My fancy of a merchant-prince 
 
 Was different. Through his wares we groped 
 Our darkling way to — not to mince 
 
 The matter — no black den where moped 
 
 The master if we interloped ! 
 
Shop. 365 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Shop was shop only : household-stuff? 
 
 What did he want with comforts there ? 
 " Walls, ceiling, floor, stay blank and rough, 
 
 " So goods on sale show rich and rare ! 
 
 " ' Sell and scud home,' be shop's affair ! " 
 
 XV. 
 
 What might he deal in ? Gems, suppose ! 
 Since somehow business must be done 
 
 At cost of trouble, — see, he throws 
 You choice of jewels, everyone 
 Good, better, best, star, moon and sun ! 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Which lies within your power of purse ? 
 
 This ruby that would tip aright 
 Solomon's sceptre ? Oh, your nurse 
 
 Wants simply coral, the delight 
 
 Of teething baby, — stuff to bite ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Howe'er your choice fell, straight you took 
 Your purchase, prompt your money rang 
 
 On counter, — scarce the man forsook 
 His study of the " Times," just swang 
 Till-ward his hand that stopped the clang, — 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Then off made buyer with a prize. 
 Then seller to his " Times " returned, 
 
 .And so did day wear, wear, till eyes 
 Brightened apace, for rest was earned : 
 He locked door long ere candle burned. 
 
366 Shop. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 And whither went he ? Ask himself, 
 Not me ! To change of scene, I think. 
 
 Once sold the ware and pursed the pelf, 
 Chaffer was scarce his meat and drink, 
 Nor all his music — money-chink. 
 
 XX 
 
 Because a man has shop to mind 
 
 In time and place, since flesh must live, 
 
 Needs spirit lack all life behind. 
 All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive, 
 All loves except what trade can give ? 
 
 XXI. 
 
 I want to know a butcher paints, 
 A baker rh3?mes for his pursuit, 
 
 Candlestick-maker much acquaints 
 His soul with song, or, haply mute. 
 Blows out his brains upon the flute ! 
 
 XXII. 
 
 But — shop each day and all day long ! 
 Friend, your good angel slept, your star 
 
 Suffered eclipse, fate did you wrong ! 
 From where these sorts of treasures are, 
 There should our hearts be — Christ, how far ! 
 
367 
 
 A TALE. 
 
 I. 
 
 What a pretty tale you told me 
 
 Once upon a time 
 — Said you found it somewhere (scold me !) 
 
 Was it prose or was it rhyme, 
 Greek or Latin ? Greek, you said, 
 While your shoulder propped my head. 
 
 Anyhow there 's no forgetting 
 This much if no more, 
 
 That a poet (pray, no petting !) 
 Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, 
 
 Went where suchlike used to go. 
 
 Singing for a prize, you know. 
 
 III. 
 Well, he had to sing, nor merely 
 
 Sing but play the lyre ; 
 Playing was important clearly 
 
 Quite as singing : I desire. 
 Sir, you keep the fact in mind 
 For a purpose that 's behind. 
 
368 A Tale. 
 
 IV. 
 
 There stood he, while deep attention 
 
 Held the judges round, 
 — Judges able, I should mention, 
 
 To detect the slightest sound 
 Sung or played amiss : such ears 
 Had old judges, it appears ! 
 
 V. 
 
 None the less he sang out boldly, 
 
 Played in time and tune. 
 Till the judges, weighing coldly 
 
 Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon, 
 Sure to smile " In vain one tries 
 " Picking faults out : take the prize ! " 
 
 When, a mischief ! Were they seven 
 
 Strings the lyre possessed ? 
 Oh, and afterwards eleven. 
 
 Thank you ! Well, sir, — ^who had guessed 
 Such ill luck in store ? — it happed 
 One of those same seven strings snapped. 
 
 VII. 
 
 All was lost, then ! No ! a cricket 
 
 (What "cicada"? Pooh!) 
 — Some mad thing that left its thicket 
 
 For mere love of music — flew 
 With its little heart on fire. 
 Lighted on the crippled lyre. 
 
A Tale. 369 
 
 VIII. 
 
 So that when (Ah joy !) our singer 
 
 For his truant string 
 Feels with disconcerted finger, 
 
 What does cricket else but fling 
 Fiery heart forth, sound the note 
 Wanted by the throbbing throat ? 
 
 IX. 
 
 Ay and, ever to the ending, 
 
 Cricket chirps at need. 
 Executes the hand's intending. 
 
 Promptly, perfectly, — indeed 
 Saves the singer from defeat 
 With her chirrup low and sweet. 
 
 •X. 
 
 Till, at ending, all the judges 
 
 Cry with one assent 
 " Take the prize — a prize who grudges 
 
 " Such a voice and instrument ? 
 " Why, we took your lyre for harp, 
 " So it shrilled us forth F sharp ! " 
 
 XI. 
 
 Did the conqueror spurn the creature, 
 
 Once its service done ? 
 That 's no such uncommon feature 
 
 In the case when Music's son 
 Finds his Lotte's power too spent 
 For aiding soul-development. 
 
 B B 
 
370 A Tale. 
 
 XII. 
 
 No ! This other, on returning 
 
 Homeward, prize in hand, 
 Satisfied his bosom's yearning ; 
 
 (Sir, I hope you understand !) 
 — Said " Some record there must be 
 " Of this cricket's help to me ! " 
 
 xiri. 
 So, he made himself a statue : 
 
 Marble stood, life-size ; 
 On the lyre, he pointed at you, 
 
 Perched his partner in the prize ; 
 Never more apart you found 
 Her, he throned, from him, she crowned. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 That 's the tale : its application ? 
 
 Somebody I know 
 Hopes one day for reputation 
 
 Through his poetry that ^ — Oh, 
 All so learned and so wise 
 And deserving of a prize ! 
 
 If he gains one, will some ticket. 
 
 When his statue 's built. 
 Tell the gazer " 'T was a cricket 
 
 " Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt 
 " Sweet and low, when strength usurped 
 " Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped ? 
 
A Tale. 371 
 
 ' -XVI. 
 
 " For as victory was nignest, 
 
 " While I sang and played, — 
 " With my lyre at lowest, highest, 
 
 " Right alike, — one string that made 
 " ' Love ' sound soft was snapt in twain, 
 " Never to be heard again, — 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " Had not a kind cricket fluttered, 
 
 " Perched upon the place 
 " Vacant left, and duly uttered 
 
 " ' Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass 
 " Asked the treble to atone 
 " For its somewhat sombre drone.'' 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 But you don't know music ! Wherefore 
 
 Keep on casting pearls 
 To a — poet ? All I care for 
 
 Is — to tell him that a girl's 
 " Love " comes aptly in when gruff 
 Grows his singing. (There, enough !) 
 
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