Cornell University Library 
 PR 4063.B2SL8 
 
 Love-songs. 
 
 3 1924 013 210 871 
 
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/cu31924013210871 
 
POETICAL WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 GEORGE BARLOW^. 
 
 POEMS AND SONNETS. In Three Parts. 1871. 
 A LIFE'S LOVE. 1873. ' 
 UNDER THE DAWN. 1875. 
 THE TWO MARRIAGES: a Drama. 1878. 
 THROUGH DEATH TO LIFE. 1878. 
 THE MARRIAGE BEFORE DEATH, AND OTHER 
 POEMS. 1878. 
 TIME'S WHISPERINGS. 1880. 
 
 " Mr. Barlow writes not merely fluently but with a copimand 
 
 of both language and thought His verse is full of 
 
 promise." — Wulviinsler Review. 
 
 " Mr. Barlow has not only a fluent pen but an indubitable gift 
 of beautiful and harmonious expression. He is no careless work- 
 man, trusting to the force of genius alone and neglecting the 
 strictness of method and the grace of form. Indeed, grace and 
 finish are the conspicuous and prevailing qualities of his poetry." 
 — Literary fVorld. 
 
 " Mr. Barlow's chief excellence is the way in which he weaves 
 the world of nature external to him with the fancies of imagina- 
 tion and the feelings of the human heart ; hence it is that his 
 poetry — which we can cordially commend to all lovers of the muse 
 — is full of similes drawn from the world of external nature." — 
 Standard, 
 
LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 
 GEORGE BARLOW, 
 
 Author of "Time's Whisperings," "Throdgh Death to 
 Life," etc. 
 
 " If ' poets are all who love, who think great truths and tell them, 
 and the truth of truths be love,' then Mr. Barlow is a poet of no 
 mean order." — British Quarterly Review. 
 
 REMINGTON AND CO. 
 133, New Bond Street, W. 
 
 \^Removed from St Arundel Street, Sirand,'\ 
 
 1880. 
 
 \AU Rights Reserved^ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Daisy's Thimble ... ... ... ... ... i 
 
 To the Universe-God ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 The Last Farewell... ... ... ... ... lo 
 
 A Death-Song ... ... ... ... 13 
 
 Early Poems (Written in 1870) — 
 
 I. An Earth-Song ... ... ... 19 
 
 II. A Bridal-Chant. Hexameters. ... 23 
 
 III. The Emigrant's Song ... ... ... 24 
 
 IV. The Dead Men's Song ... ... 27 
 
 V. The Wife's Return ... ... ... 29 
 
 VI. Good-Night ... ... ... 3' 
 
 VII. Beyond the Years! ... ... ... 33 
 
 To a Lily: Sonnets — 
 
 Summer Love. 
 
 Bruised Blossoms ... ... ... 37 
 
 The Lily and the Rose ... ... 38 
 
 The Battle of Flowers ... ... ... 39 
 
 Crimson and Many Flowers ... ... 40 
 
 A Woman's Blnom ... ... ... 41 
 
 Parting. 
 
 Those Summer Nights .. ... 4s 
 
 Sweet Fancy's Hand ... ... . . 46 
 
 A Far-off Hill ... ... ... 47 
 
 With Whiter Plumes ... ... ... 48 
 
 Love and Honour ... ... ... 49 
 
 The Magic of Memory ... ... 50 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Winter Love. 
 
 This Afternoon 
 
 A Sun-God 
 
 A Talisman 
 
 Love's Cruelty ... 
 
 I Send a Song 
 
 And shall I see you ? 
 
 Where Thou art, Sweet 
 
 Even as the Dove 
 Ode to England ... 
 To Thee, Sweet 
 Yearning 
 
 A Farewell to Poetry ... 
 To Ella Dietz: Poet and Actress 
 To Kathleen Gordon, Girl-Genius 
 God and Beauty ... 
 Sonnet: The Revelations of the Ages 
 To Shelley 
 To Keats 
 Three Sonnets — 
 
 I. The Christs of the Ages 
 II. The Crucifixion of Manhood 
 III. The Crucifixion of Womanhood 
 To Woman ... 
 
 To the English Poets of the Past ... 
 So He Ceased to Believe in Man 
 So He Entered the Church of Rome 
 Christ and Woman 
 To Apollo 
 
 To Gertrude entering a Convent 
 A White Rose in November 
 To Christ 
 To Beatrice 
 To the Unchanged God 
 
 PAGE 
 
 55 
 56 
 57 
 58 
 59 
 60 
 61 
 62 
 6.3 
 73 
 79 
 81 
 86 
 
 9i 
 100 
 
 •05 
 106 
 
 113 
 
 120 
 121 
 122 
 123 
 131 
 134 
 136 
 138 
 148 
 
 155 
 157 
 160 
 
 •65 
 
LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 DAISY'S THIMBLE. 
 
 I. 
 
 dear small thimble 
 Which, fingers nimble 
 
 Have used so daintily, scores of times, 
 
 1 hold you lightly, 
 Shining so brightly. 
 
 And think of your wearer in far new climes,. 
 
 When these same fingers 
 
 O'er which love lingers. 
 Will turn the pages no more of my rhymes, 
 
 II. 
 
 These hands, here growing 
 
 Like blossoms blowing. 
 So white and tender, so soft and still. 
 
 Youth's golden flowers 
 
 In life's first hours, 
 In meadow and coppice, by stream and rill. 
 
 Have gathered : now never 
 
 For ever, for ever. 
 Our English roses their touch will thrill. 
 
 B 
 
LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 III. 
 
 Good-bye, good-bye to you. 
 
 My verses sigh to you, 
 O dainty finger that wearest the shell, — 
 
 The silver agile 
 
 Dear thimble fragile 
 Whose daily glitter I know so well ; 
 
 See how I take you 
 
 For her sweet sake, you 
 Small silver token, which unseen fell. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Fell from her finger, 
 
 Fated to linger 
 Henceforth for ever in secret lair ; 
 
 "Yea, when the owner, 
 
 Unconscious donor, 
 Is breathing the arid and Eastern air. 
 
 Thou shalt be sign to me. 
 
 Breathe a soft line to me, 
 Memory of hours and flowers that were. 
 
 V. 
 
 The fingers that used thee, 
 
 Daintily bruised thee 
 With soft sweet pressure of snow-white tips. 
 
 Will no more glitter 
 
 Amid the litter, 
 The spangled litter of work-room snips— 
 
 They soon the roses 
 
 That Love discloses 
 Must gather, growing as grow the lips. 
 
daisy's thimble. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The sacred flowers 
 
 Of Love's deep bowers 
 'They soon shall gather, those fingers dear ; 
 
 They pass away from us, 
 
 A sun-sweet ray from us, 
 "To lands where suns strike rapid and sheer; 
 
 They leave us, grieve us, 
 
 Sadden, bereave us. 
 Just at the dawn of the rosebud year. 
 
 VII. 
 
 O dawning rosebud. 
 
 Whiter than snows bud. 
 Pass forth and gladden the strange far land ; 
 
 Leave our pale bowers 
 
 And storm-swept flowers 
 Behind, and gather in white quick hand 
 
 The fairy legions 
 
 Of blossoms in regions 
 Unknown, untrodden, a stranger strand. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Thine hands have lingered, 
 
 Plucked and have fingered 
 English hair-bells, whose stems were slight ; 
 
 English roses 
 
 And hedge-side posies 
 Which laughed, upgazing with laughing might 
 
 Into the fairer 
 
 Eyes, bluer and rarei-. 
 Which pierced the blossoms like star-rays bright. 
 
4 liOVE-SONGS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 These were the flowers 
 
 Of tender, hours 
 Of girlhood, laughing as laughed the maid : — 
 
 These were the first days. 
 
 Free from love's thirst days, 
 Soft happy moments while love delayed 
 
 His ardent coming, 
 
 Nor yet the humming 
 Of his swift wings over the young winds strayed. 
 
 X. 
 
 This was the May-time 
 
 Of growth and of playtime. 
 The season wherein the plumps were shaped 
 
 That, snow-white pinions, 
 
 In new dominions, 
 Snow-white, or lovely and rainbow-draped, 
 
 Shall soon remind us 
 
 That time did blind us 
 While one more blossom its sheath escaped. 
 
 XI. 
 
 A blossom growing 
 
 Without our knowing. 
 To shine, fuU-petalled, in other fields ; 
 
 To gleam, bright-golden, 
 
 Not in the olden 
 Sad land which yearly its tribute yields 
 
 To India's younger 
 
 Yearning and hunger, 
 A rose to blazon the flag she wields. 
 
DAISY S THIMBLE. 
 
 XII. 
 
 If ever returning, 
 
 The full rose, burning. 
 Bright, full-grown, beautiful, lights our shore. 
 
 What will it say to us. 
 
 Soft yea or nay to us ; 
 Will it be mindful of days before ? 
 
 Will it forget them. 
 
 Leave or regret them, 
 Will there be one look soft as of yore ? 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Will there be one look, 
 
 Star-look or sun-look. 
 Sweet as the smiles were, tender of old, 
 
 A soft smile starry 
 
 For hope to carry 
 Upward in arms that clasp it and fold 
 
 The dear look beaming. 
 
 Lightening and gleaming. 
 In from our chill land's vapour and cold ? 
 
 XIV. 
 
 If ever again to us, 
 
 Thrice welcome then to us. 
 The rose returneth, ah ! shall we know 
 
 The. same shape older, 
 
 The curve of shoulder. 
 The innocent young lips ? Will there be glow 
 
 Of recognition, 
 
 O rosebud vision — 
 Ah, who can tell us ? — time's waves fast flow. 
 
6 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Yea, faster even 
 
 Than ripples in heaven 
 Of love's fair ocean, love's moonlit streams ; 
 
 Fierce time advances 
 
 With surge-white lances. 
 Across life's furrows his huge wave gleams ; 
 
 His ponderous massive 
 
 Charge, stubborn and passive. 
 Bears force more cogent than love's frail dreams, 
 
 XVI. 
 
 So rose returning 
 
 With petals burning 
 Clear-shaped, love-reddened, across the foam, 
 
 We may not know thee. 
 
 May pass, forego thee ; 
 A foreign blossom not formed at home 
 
 Thou then may'st seem to us, 
 
 A distant dream to us. 
 No straight stalk fashioned in English loam. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 So it may be then ! 
 
 What shall we see then ? 
 The English Daisy — or some strange stem 
 
 With new grafts clinging 
 
 Not of our bringing. 
 And our hands having no part in them ? 
 
 Nor our hearts knowing 
 
 The weird buds growing. 
 Whose garish colours our eyes contemn. 
 
DAISY S THIMBLE. ^ 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 O Daisy simple. 
 
 With sweet smile-dimple, 
 Ohj keep thine eyes on thine English name : — 
 
 Be ever Daisy 
 
 Through Indian hazy 
 Strange summers when heaven one widelit flame 
 
 Burns fierce above thee ; 
 
 So shall we love thee 
 Though ceasing more of thy life to claim. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Be English rosebud, 
 
 Through fierce sky glows, bud 
 Above thee, paling thy tender bloom ; 
 
 White, white for ever. 
 
 In soul changed never. 
 But deepening only in pure perfume : — 
 
 Lifted by passion 
 
 In sweet true fashion, 
 As years flit by thee, and swift consume. 
 
 XX. 
 
 And thou, small token. 
 
 Shapely, unbroken, 
 I'll keep thee by me till she returns. 
 
 In sign that, moulding 
 
 To woman, but holding 
 In safe sweet keeping. Love o'er her yearns ; 
 
 I kiss the thimble, 
 
 Whose bright shield nimble 
 From nimble fingers the needle spurns. 
 
TO THE UNIVERSE-GOD. 
 
 I. 
 
 O God who broodest o'er the ocean spaces, 
 
 And shinest in the gold- winged glimmering cars 
 Wherein night's steeds are yoked for heaven-high 
 races, — 
 Splendid amid the cream-white hosts of stars. 
 Divine and fragrant in all flowery places. 
 Awful where red-lipped War his pale bride chases. 
 Glory his white-lipped bride 
 Through battle's foaming tide, — 
 Great God serene amid the bloodless faces 
 
 Of all the outstretched dead. 
 And golden on the head 
 That shines with girlish golden hair and graces 
 
 Some half-grown rosebud girl,^ 
 And foam-white in the curl 
 Of waves that scour the sand with ravenous paces, — 
 Oh lift the yearning world, swift day by day. 
 With sweet victorious pulse along its stedfast way ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Thou art in heaven and in the utter deep 
 
 Of fiery flame-winged hell, and in the light 
 Of suns and moons and in the spotless sleep 
 
 Of children, — in their glances clear and bright : 
 Thou art in the golden corn the reapers reap. 
 And in the thundering cataracts that leap 
 Along the shaking rocks ; 
 Thou art in the snow-white flocks 
 
TO THE UNIVERSE-GOD. 9 
 
 And in the April tender buds that peep 
 
 With laughter through the panes ; 
 Thou art in the blood-red stains 
 Of crime, and in all daring deeds that keep 
 Earth's tidal waters pure j 
 And through sin's groves obscure 
 Thou passest as a breeze with wings that weep,^ 
 In all the vales of earth and in the sky 
 Thy white strange glory, God, we, worshipping, 
 descry. 
 
 in. 
 
 But, most of all, thou shinest in the fair 
 
 Splendour of man and in the tender heart 
 Of woman, and in love's rose-gladdened air : 
 
 All loveless souls thou piercest witlf thy dart, 
 Through passionless pale flesh thine arrows tear. 
 And cowardly souls thou tanglest in a snare, — 
 Thou scourgest them until 
 Thou hast thy final will. 
 Yea, till the fruits of flower-sweet love they bear ; 
 Thou art within the rose 
 Of love when first it glows, 
 A joy, a deep delight, a wonder rare; 
 
 Thou art within the bloom 
 Of passion, a perfume 
 That brings the utter peace of heaven's hope there j 
 Thou hast thy crown eternal in the power 
 'Whereby all budding loves burst into burning 
 flower. 
 
THE LAST FAREWELL. 
 
 Ten years ago the sweet sea shone supreme 
 With glow and splendour of love's early dream ; 
 Passion touched every wave with magic gleam. 
 
 The white waves, laughing, foamed anear our feet;: 
 The summer afternoons, "mid flowers, were sweet ; 
 We wandered through the woods, the golden 
 wheat. 
 
 Now where art thou ? And, sweetheart, where- 
 
 am I? • 
 Where are the sunsets of that early sky ? 
 Love's silver streams have vanished j they are dry.- 
 
 Thou hast chosen — keep to it —thy fitting part, 
 And given away thy spirit, and thy heart ; 
 My thought no longer lingers where thou art. 
 
 Lo ! our great rose of love I take in hand. 
 
 And, glancing once back, towards the fair lost 
 
 land, 
 I let thy face with its sweet breath be fanned. 
 
 Once more, once more ; then towards a shoreless- 
 sea. 
 And mountains where thou mayest not follow me,. 
 I pass ; God's world is wide ; we both are free. 
 
THE LAST FAREWELL. II 
 
 Or rather free thou art not ! thou art bound. 
 Fettered by this world's anklets to its ground ; 
 Thou hast lost thy wreath ; thy chaplets are un- 
 wound. 
 
 If thou art gone, all roses are not dead ; 
 
 The fair white lily lifts, for thee, its head ; 
 
 Thy voice is hushed ; the May-winds speak instead. 
 
 Still, though not round thy feet, the grasses blow. 
 The woods, the sea-side hanging woods we know. 
 Watch the fern-fronds unfasten, row by row. 
 
 If thou art dead, the old live waves are white; 
 The old moon glimmers o'er the old tracks at 
 
 night ; 
 The same sun climbs the flashing midday height. 
 
 Thy ghost, thy phantom, fleeteth into air; 
 And, where it was, this summer rose is fair. 
 Sweet with the smell still of thy waving hair. 
 
 Thou hast not strength to face the fiery morn ; 
 I leave thee ; not with anger, not with scorn ; 
 As twilight, when the golden day is born. 
 
 Yea, thou art twilight ; glimmer with thy face 
 Once more upon my path, then let the race 
 Begin for me that leads to love's embrace. 
 
 To love's embrace ; but, lost love, not to thee ; 
 Unto mine heart "Long-bound heart, thou art 
 
 free," 
 I say ; " unfettered, chainless as the sea." 
 
12 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Farewell, farewell ; along the winds my cry 
 Sounds, like the sea's wail when the storm is high. 
 When the pent sea-shriek mixes with the sky. 
 
 Farewell, farewell ; no kiss, nor grasp of hand ; 
 Only one look from seaward towards the land ; 
 Thou, blind, art dead ; God lives to understand. 
 
 May 15, 1879. 
 
A DEATH-SONG. 
 
 Bury me not 
 
 In some lone spot. 
 Though tender flowers be there of love's own 
 training ; 
 
 Yea, not the meadow-sweet 
 
 And ferns about my feet 
 Would keep my lonesome spirit from complaining ; 
 
 My soul would fly afar 
 
 Where human spirits are, 
 In sight of human forms some solace gaining. 
 
 Take me to where 
 
 In weighted air 
 Of mine own well-beloved eternal city 
 
 Great fervid thoughts arise, 
 
 "V ea, where men's glowing eyes 
 Gleam ever with fresh hope or love or pity ; 
 
 Oh set me but within 
 
 London's impassioned din. 
 And even my dead pale lips may chant a ditty. 
 
 Plant fragrant bloom 
 Above my tomb, 
 Yea, all the season's gentlest maiden flowers ; 
 Ferns, and the creamy grace 
 Of lilies thereon place. 
 
14 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 And build above me rose-hung shaded bowers j 
 
 But take my body not 
 
 To any country plot. 
 There to be tortured by the brainless showers. 
 
 Let flowers of thought 
 
 To me be brought. 
 Yea, all the pent-up city's burning treasures ; 
 
 "When lovers young begin 
 
 Their new sweet life to win. 
 Let me in spirit smile amid their pleasures ; 
 
 Let the strange sunset red 
 
 That crowns dim London's head 
 Be the first air of heaven my wing-sweep 
 measures. 
 
 Not by the sea 
 
 Oh bury me. 
 Not 'mid the white waves desperate and foaming ; 
 
 Some gentle forest grave 
 " I would the sooner have 
 And join the nightjars there amid the gloaming, 
 
 And bloom in meadow-sweet 
 
 And touch the lingering feet 
 Of lovers through that moonlit forest roaming. 
 
 That would be peace. 
 Yet not release 
 From all the life- long load of care and craving; 
 The life of tender flowers 
 And joy of woodland hours 
 
A DEATH-SONG. I^ 
 
 Balm to my spirit cleansing, soft, and saying, 
 Doubtless would sometimes give — 
 Yet there I should not iive. 
 
 But only sleep, the green leaves round me 
 waving. 
 
 No rest I crave, 
 
 No quiet grave, 
 But ceaseless passionate life", — yea, this for ever; 
 
 A living spirit high 
 
 I would not sloop to die 
 Or cease the old songful turbulent endeavour ; 
 
 I would for ever know 
 
 Sweet love, though that be woe. 
 And passion, though its pain abateth never. 
 
 Give me, Death, 
 
 Not slumbering breath 
 As of a child, but all a man's completeness ; 
 
 Grant me the perfect strength 
 
 And risen power at length 
 Of man, and pour upon me woman's sweetness 
 
 From lips of women dear 
 
 Whom thy hand may bring near. 
 Staying for me their heavenly swift-foot fleetness. 
 
 Yea, not the tomb. 
 But woman's bloom, 
 Deathless, immortal, perfect, endless, holy- 
 Let this, my meadow-sweet, 
 My dawning spirit meet. 
 
l6 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Trembling with tender footstep, soft and slowly. 
 Towards my new-born desire, 
 Waking ray spirit-lyre 
 
 Again, and all mine heart renewing wholly. 
 
 Let such indeed. 
 
 Death, be my meed. 
 Reward supreme, surpassing, beatific ; 
 
 Deathless am I, O Death, 
 
 If but the pure flower-breath 
 Of woman in life-giving tides pacific 
 
 Wander above the mould 
 
 Which doth my body hold ; 
 I fear not then thy dart and lunge terrific. 
 
 I fear thee not 
 
 If but my lot 
 Bring me love's sacred gifts and spotless favour r 
 
 Yea, if love's utmost glow 
 
 My living soul may know 
 And love's fruits innermost most precious savour, 
 
 Methinks I have a force 
 
 Thee, pale Death, to unhorse, 
 And never at thy thundering tilt need waver. 
 
 O woman sweet 
 Whose gentle feet 
 Have brought me in this world mine holiest 
 blessing, 
 
 Be near me, kiss me, when 
 No help avails of men. 
 
A DEATH-SONG. I'J 
 
 But only thine help, godlike and caressing ; 
 
 Lift me above the tomb. 
 
 Yea, sever thou the gloom. 
 And deaden thou death's fleshly pangs distressing. 
 
 Divide with me 
 
 Death's foaming sea. 
 Smiling defiance at death's sable minions ; 
 
 Cleave thou the sounding air, 
 
 Sweet — open me a fair 
 Road into heaven by white surge of thy pinibns ; 
 
 Bid all the stormy waves 
 
 Be still, and grass-grown graves 
 Be but as love's rose-perfumed pure dominions. 
 
 Rise with me, love. 
 
 This life above. 
 Long ere the actual death the doorway shadeth ; 
 
 That when his real step sounds. 
 
 And his cold breath abounds, 
 And his deep sword our fast-joined heart invadeth, 
 
 Victors already we 
 
 May, in our calm strength, be — 
 And conquerors then, as each the other aideth. 
 
 Then in no tomb. 
 No death-crowned gloom. 
 We — you and I, sweet love — will rest or tarry j 
 No blossoms shall we need. 
 Nor priests to intercede, 
 
 c 
 
l8 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Nor prayers our air-light souls towards heaven to 
 carry : 
 
 For death died long ago 
 When, white as just-fallen snow, 
 God stooped, august from heaven, our souls to 
 marry. 
 
EARLY POEMS. 
 
 (Written in 1870.) 
 I. 
 
 AN EARTH-SONG. 
 
 I. 
 
 That I could sing the splendour, 
 
 And some account could render 
 Of all the joys of living like a man upon the earth ; 
 
 The wonder of the daytime, 
 
 The greenery of May-time, 
 The mystery of death-time, the mystery of birth ! 
 
 II. 
 
 That I could pierce the ether. 
 The earth — and plunge beneath her 
 Wide-rolling prairie-panoply of surface-smiles and 
 flowers ; 
 
 And get me to the centre, 
 , And find the fires that rent her 
 'Cliffs and chasms and mountain-tops, the live vol- 
 canic powers ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Returning to things human, 
 
 Pd sing of man and woman. 
 And all the life of love-time, the glory of the land ; 
 
 How man is handed over, 
 
 A child become a lover, 
 iFrom woman unto woman, from tender hand to 
 hand. 
 
aO LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Man leaves at last his mother. 
 And findeth in another 
 A wondrous new development of love that ceaseth 
 never ; 
 
 More wonderful than dreams were, 
 Fulfilled with fairyland, fair 
 Fruition of the fancy-realm that seemed a myth 
 for ever. ' 
 
 •V. 
 
 And as he sits a-dreaming, 
 
 Along his brain is streaming 
 A river of recollection that linketh old and new ; 
 
 He sees the realization 
 
 Of childhood's admiration 
 Of doughty deeds of heroes, of the beautiful and 
 
 true. 
 
 * 
 
 VI. 
 How clearly he remembers 
 By stirring up the embers 
 Of memory, how Woman first appeared in childish 
 dreams ; 
 
 A goddess of the ether 
 Who smiled on men beneath her. 
 All garmented in sunset, and bright with burning 
 beams. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Calm, crowned, an earthly centre. 
 Her robes without a rent, her 
 
EARLY POEMS. 21 
 
 Presence an embodiment of all we fancied fair ; 
 With eyes of wondrous seeming, 
 With tenderness all gleaming, 
 And a light upon her raiment, and a glory in heir 
 hair. 
 
 VIII. 
 One hardly likes to think of it. 
 Again in dreams to drink of it, 
 A draught of joy so wonderful, a picture passing 
 pure; 
 
 And yet, not all ungrateful, 
 We are glad that in the hateful 
 Dark lanes of later4ife a ray of light can still endure. 
 
 IX. 
 
 A memory of the vision. 
 The dream, the intuition. 
 The God-vouchsafed glimpses of the life that 
 ought to be ; 
 
 Ah me ! the early river. 
 The flakes of light that quiver 
 Across its course miles upward from the weary 
 weary sea ! 
 
 X. 
 
 It leaps along the sandbanks 
 
 And laughs at ween the fern-ranks. 
 With splashing and with dashing, and with 
 sounds of happy glee ; 
 
 It has not seen the to\vn yet. 
 
 The grief is further down yet. 
 The child is not the model of the man that is to be. 
 
a2 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Then come the town-pollutions : 
 An aeon of ablutions 
 Shall not restore the freshness of the stream above- 
 the town ; 
 
 The Arve has joined the Rhone now. 
 With tardiness of flow now, 
 And weightier wave of water it for ever runneth' 
 down. 
 
 XII. 
 On towards the sea though ! 
 Little does the streajji know 
 All the wealth of wonderment awaiting it in 
 death ; 
 
 Dreams that it shall find there 
 All before it found fair, 
 Purity of raiment, and a joy that takes the breath.. 
 
 XIII. 
 Fullest restoration 
 To rightful rank and station ; 
 Perfected development of all the dreams of youth ; 
 Even for him a May-queen, 
 Fair, with eyes of grey-green. 
 And bloom of black-brown tresses, and the white- 
 ness of the truth. 
 
 Good Friday, 1870. 
 
EARLY POEMS. 23 
 
 II. 
 
 A BRIDAL-CHANT. 
 
 Hexameters. 
 
 Over the hills and far away, right into the home 
 of the summer. 
 
 Hand in hand together they go, towards the region 
 of sunset; 
 
 She, fair as a daughter of Eve ; he, bright as a 
 beam of Apollo, 
 
 Straight, upright as a rod, not bent and bowed 
 together. 
 
 Like to the careworn men who within this fortu- 
 nate island 
 
 Toil and moil for a crust, and exist, and dream 
 they are living. 
 
 Fair as the sons of Greece who beneath the un- 
 speakable ether 
 
 Wrought, and fought with the gods, the givers of 
 might to mortals. 
 
 Givers of might and of manhood, and lust of doing 
 and daring ; 
 
 Givers of strength in the struggle, and endless 
 perseverance. 
 
 Fair as Psyche is fair, bright, beautiful, gift of the 
 goddess 
 
 (She who rewards the brave with ecstasy not to be 
 uttered). 
 
 Sweet as Venus herself, was the Bride who blos- 
 somed before him. 
 
a4 LOVE-SONGS, 
 
 III. 
 
 THE EMIGRANT'S SONG. 
 
 Hark to the dashing of the deep blue sea 
 As the sides of the boat are gleaming 
 
 Through deep-drawn furrows of the lands that are 
 free, 
 With a foam-line after us streanjing ! 
 
 Life before us, and room to expand ! 
 
 Let us steer for the home of the sunset, 
 Let us make for the shores of an infinite land 
 
 And smile at the swift waves' onset. 
 
 Let us cast from off us the chains of the old 
 
 And look to a life that is new ; 
 As the creeds of the past wax fainter and cold. 
 
 Clear rises a creed that is true. 
 
 We shall soon be free ; far out of the reach 
 Of the priests, and the tales of tradition ; 
 
 Fear not: we shall ground on a gravelly beach. 
 And arrive at a rightful condition. 
 
 Let us leave the churches that clamour and cry. 
 
 And put the books on the shelves; 
 Come, inen, my brothers> at least we will try 
 
 To find us a faith for ourselves ! 
 
EARLY POEMS. 25 
 
 "We are leaving lands where respectable saints 
 Look down on the poor and the old ; 
 
 "Where Nature is scorned, and humanity faints. 
 And women are bought and sold. 
 
 Where priests shriek shouts, and condemn their 
 betters. 
 While women fall faint, and fade before them, 
 .Believing in lies, believing in fetters, 
 
 And not in the truth of the Spirit that bore them. 
 
 "The Spirit that lords it over the sea, 
 
 Shines in the sunshine, walks in the wind, 
 
 -Sounds in the life of the leaves of a tree. 
 Kisses the eyes of a soul that has sinned. 
 
 "Clothed upon with the might of the thunder 
 And brighter than brightness of lightning rays ; 
 
 .Fulfilled with life — dividing asunder 
 
 The soul and the body, the nights and days. 
 
 The Spirit that breathes in the infinite ether. 
 
 And clothes the night with a mantle of stars; 
 _All-gracious ; smiling on mortals beneath her ; 
 Spirit of peace-time. Spirit of wars. 
 
 .Strong to rejoice in the roar of the battle. 
 Strong to inspire the might of a man 
 
 Calm in the midst of its thunderous rattle. 
 Leaping alert in the heart of the van. 
 
 Holding the threads of the life of the nations. 
 Songs of the seasons, tides of the sea ; 
 
 Dealing rewards and condemnations. 
 Fashioning, causing to cease to be. 
 
a6 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Bringer of birth-time, worker of wonder. 
 
 Daily developing life in the earth ; 
 Maker of heat, light, forger of thunder. 
 
 Seasons of sadness, hours of mirth. 
 
 Maker of hours of work and of playtime, 
 And above all things. Author of love — 
 
 Love the incarnate spirit of May-time, 
 
 Spirit that broods with the wings of a dove. 
 
 Love that slayeth and love that healeth. 
 
 With the power of life and death in his wings 7 
 
 Love with the ice-cold power that congealeth. 
 And love the looser of frozen strings. 
 
 Sweet love that gladdens with gleams of the 
 spring-time, 
 And scent of flowers, and singing of birds ; 
 And leaves that re-echo the lilt of the wind- 
 rhyme. 
 And laughter, and musical lowing of herds. 
 
 Such is the Spirit that fools are blaspheming. 
 Preaching of darkness, horrors of hell. 
 
 Torturing souls who are timidly dreaming 
 That if a God reigneth it must be well. 
 
 Well for the good men, well for the sinners, ■ 
 Well for the priests, whose power shall fall ; 
 
 Well for the saints and the feeble beginners ; 
 Some way or other, well for us all. 
 
EARLY POEMS. 27- 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE DEAD MEN'S SONG. 
 
 I. 
 
 Praise we death 
 Who stays our breath 
 
 And sends us rest from pain j- 
 Slay we life 
 With edge of knife 
 
 And hurl him back again. 
 
 II. 
 
 Praise the tomb. 
 
 The utmost gloom 
 Of garments graveyards hold'; 
 
 The dead men's lyre. 
 
 And flames of fire 
 From mouth of skeleton rolled. 
 
 III. 
 
 Praise the dance 
 
 Of feet that prance 
 Upon the ball-room floor 
 
 Deep down below. 
 
 Where worm-buds grow, 
 And light's alive no more. 
 
2l8 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Slay we love. 
 
 The feeble dove. 
 And smear her wings with clay ! 
 
 Here below 
 
 We dead men know 
 Her not — the beetles play, 
 
 V. 
 
 And mosses damp, 
 And clink of clamp, 
 
 And spiders' webs entwined 
 In hair of ours, 
 In woven bowers, 
 
 Are dear to dead men's mind, 
 
 V, 
 
 Half-eaten eyes 
 
 With no, surprise 
 We see : that sort of thing 
 
 Is common here ; 
 
 Whole eyes are dear ; 
 This is the song we sing. 
 
EARLY POEMS. 29. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE WIFE'S RETURN. 
 
 Deary me, what a dirty room ! 
 Quick, my husband, bring me a broom. 
 And let me sweep away the gloom 
 That reigns when I'm not here. 
 
 This is the way you treat the place 
 When I, your wife, no longer grace 
 This home of ours with the light of my face- 
 'Tis enough to move a tear ! 
 
 Get you gone, and let me alone ; 
 Out of the way ; and when you're flown 
 I'll sweep it clean as if 'twere mown — 
 You go and fetch the beer. 
 
 The only thing, I often think, 
 That the men are fit for is to drink 
 Or empty soap-suds into the sink : 
 I'm never away but I fear ; 
 
 Fear for the garden most of al'. 
 Dream of the pigs, and hear them squall. 
 And see the children playing at ball 
 On the flower-beds, far and near. 
 
^O LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 See the potatoes going to rotj 
 The peas in pieces, and what not. 
 The cabbages all a mouldy lot. 
 And never a currant clear. 
 
 Never you mind — I'm home again. 
 And that's the chief thing j only when 
 Next time I go, be sure that then 
 You manage better, dear. 
 
EARLY POEMS. 
 
 31 
 
 VI. 
 
 GOOD-NIGHT. 
 
 Good-night, good-night ! 
 Till dawn of day 
 May soft sleep stay 
 By youj I pray ; 
 
 Till breaks the light ; 
 
 Good-night — good-night; 
 
 Good-night, good-night 1 
 The day was glad 
 When you I had 
 In sight, but sad 
 
 Is now my plight j 
 
 Good-night — good-night. 
 
 Grood-night, good-night ! 
 The darkness teems 
 With you : in dreams 
 I hunt the gleams 
 
 Of tresses bright ; 
 
 Good-night — good-night. 
 
 Good-night, good-night ! 
 Till to-morrow 
 Sorrow — sorrow : 
 Then we borrow 
 
 Wings for flight ; 
 
 Good-night — good-n ight. 
 
 Good-night, good-night ! 
 
 I think of you. 
 
 My hero true, 
 
 The long night through ; 
 Till shines the light ; 
 Good-night — good-night. 
 
 Good-night, good-night ! 
 To-morrow, sweet. 
 Again we meet. 
 And gone the feet 
 
 Of evil plight; 
 
 Good-night — good-night. 
 
 Good-night, good-night ! 
 I feel your hand, 
 I see you stand 
 In dim dream-land. 
 
 In garments bright; 
 
 Good-night — good-night. 
 
 Good-night, good-night ! 
 Yours am I, sweet. 
 Slow to sigh, sweet. 
 Swift to fly, sweet. 
 
 Strong for flight ; 
 
 Good-night— good-night: 
 
32 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Good-night, good-night ! Good-night, good-night !' 
 The last adieu : The last kiss blown. 
 
 To-morrow's dew The last look flown, . 
 
 Will fall on two. From off his throne 
 
 On love alight ; Must love alight ; 
 
 Good-night— good-night. My own — good-night. 
 
EARLY POEMS. 33 
 
 VII. 
 
 BEYOND THE YEARS ! 
 
 Beyond the years there lies a compensation 
 For all this heaped-up mountainous pile of woe. 
 This Alpine elevation of the snow 
 Of sorrow, this most piteous tribulation, — 
 
 These oceans filled at founts of women's 
 tears ; 
 For all, I tell you, waiteth compensation 
 Beyond the years 1 
 
 For all the agony, and heart-sick groaning. 
 And agitation of uplifted hands 
 That seek to pull God down from where He stands 
 And force His silent eyes to see the moaning, 
 
 To listen to the heaving of the lands. 
 There waiteth somewhere, somehow, compen- 
 sation ; 
 A flower expands 
 
 Of hope that beckon eth weary footsteps forwa:rd 
 
 Towards a possibility of life, 
 
 A possible cessation of the strife, 
 A possible approach of earth's ship shoreward : 
 As watcheth for a husband's step a wife, 
 
 Our eyes are strained towards this compensation 
 
 For ceaseless planetary tribulation. 
 
 This cutting of the cord of our damnation 
 With keen-edged knite. 
 
 D 
 
TO A LILY. 
 
 SUMMER LOVE. 
 
TO A LILY. 
 
 SUMMER LOVE. 
 
 BRUISED BLOSSOMS. 
 
 My love went— flinging from her mantle fast 
 
 Along the dusty and forsaken road 
 
 Strange flowers and fruits that bloomed and 
 shone and glowed. 
 Re-lighting the pale tapers of the pastj 
 Making the wilderness a temple vast ; 
 
 And a sweet woman, slighter but as fair. 
 
 Went, gathering bruised blossoms in her hair. 
 And round about their stems her veil she cast. 
 
 And unto me she brought the flowers and fruits. 
 Weeping, and with soft pity in her eyes. 
 
 And laid her tender hand on severed roots j 
 And if a bud or any petal lies 
 
 Broken, she waileth — and the sundered shoots 
 To re-establish in green bloom she tries. 
 
38 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 THE LILY AND THE ROSE. 
 
 A lily with the fragrance of my rose 
 
 Mingled strange fleeting odours passing sweety 
 And in the imprint of that flower's feet 
 
 Left novel tints and subtle signs of snows ; 
 
 Now in my heart a double blossom blows. 
 And all my soul is ravished by the heat 
 Of summer twice inflamed^ and seems to beat 
 
 Responsive as the ascending season grows. 
 
 For first the rose with crimson scent delayed 
 The full outpouring of the lilj^s breath. 
 And faint her presence was and pale as death,. 
 
 And timidly she lingered in the shade ; 
 
 But now I kiss with valour every braid. 
 
 And yearn ecstatic o'er each word she saith.^ 
 
SUMMER LOVE. 39 
 
 THE BATTLE OF FLOWERS. 
 
 Two flowers struggled hard within my soul, 
 
 The spirits of a lily and a rose — 
 
 And first on high the crimson odour grows. 
 And next a snow-white vapour seems to roll 
 The gates of sound asunder, and control 
 
 My heart till song's liquescence overflows ; 
 
 So each, sweet flower alternate rules and blows. 
 Each in a variously fragrant stole. 
 
 But lo ! one morning when I woke I saw 
 Myself adorned in smooth delicious white — 
 And, wondering at the unaccustomed sight 
 Of such a body made devoid of flaw. 
 Perceived myself with deep unuttered awe 
 Clothed in the lily's plumes from left to right. 
 
40 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 CRIMSON AND MANY FLOWERS. 
 
 " I loved another blossom," so I said — 
 
 " And she was somewhat fairer, sweet, than 
 you ; " 
 
 The maiden answered not, but closer di-ew 
 The tender-shielding bounty of her head. 
 And in that moment lo ! one love was dead 
 
 And golden wings proclaimed a goddess new, 
 
 And as her pinions fluttered into view 
 The sun was risen turbulent and red — 
 
 The vehement approach of a new day 
 That shall surpass the former, and outshine 
 
 With a supreme unparalleled display 
 Those weeping misty seasons that were mine. 
 And round about my rugged brows shall twine 
 
 Crimson and many flowers for thorns and grey. 
 
SUMMER LOVE. 4I 
 
 A WOMAN'S BLOOM. 
 
 "My heart hath suffered, sweet one:" But she 
 brought 
 The nearer that down-bending, gracious head. 
 And, though no word articulate was said, 
 "That tender tolsen hath a marvel wrought, 
 A miracle of healing beyond thought — 
 For on a lonely grave a rose was red 
 That moment, and a crimson heart that bled 
 Was stanched and white, and ceased to suffer 
 aught : — 
 
 And over me there flowed a wealth of hair. 
 
 And that strange endless unforeseen perfume 
 Was subtle arid abundant in the air — 
 
 The fire that scorches but doth not consume. 
 The sweet outpouring of a woman's bloom. 
 
 Unutterably wonderful and fair. 
 
PARTING. 
 
PARTING. 
 
 THOSE SUMMER NIGHTS. 
 
 When we were happy in those summer nights. 
 Making great London but a soft green wood 
 As each beside, the pther silent stood. 
 
 Breathing a mutual nosegay of delights, 
 
 We were not conscious of love's present heights^ — 
 But now, possession being cold and thin. 
 With no sweet golden lovers' gate to win. 
 
 We recognise and eulogise love's rights. 
 
 "Ah ! that was sweet"— r-so each may sob and say — 
 " That evening when glad August in the trees 
 And shrubs made such a tender lovers' breeze : " 
 For, visible from an October grey,. 
 The past is as a gold transfigured day. 
 
 The present as the sapless nights that freeze. 
 
46 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 SWEET FANCY'S HAND. 
 
 It is sweet fancy's hand that crowns the past — 
 For, when we were together, you and I, 
 The ground was dull and motionless and dry. 
 
 Across it a wan veil of colour cast ; 
 
 Now, swept by my imagination's blast. 
 It glitters like a countless summer sky. 
 And round about our feet the flowers fly, 
 
 And wings of birds succeed each other fast. 
 
 For every step we took I see a flower 
 
 Bloom in the dreary desert of the squares, — 
 The arid pasture of our London airs 
 Is even as a sweet rose-planted bower. 
 And every spot we lingered in an hour 
 An endless flood of vegetation bears. 
 
PARTING. 47 
 
 A FAR-OFF HILL. 
 
 Ah, sweet, now you are gone, I see the days 
 We spent together, colourless before, 
 Flame with triumphant lustre more and more,i 
 
 Till every street we threaded is a blaze 
 
 Of splendour, and the sad dust-stricken ways 
 Shine as a moon-enamoured silver shore ; 
 My fancy brings each tone of yours of yore. 
 
 And eveiy smile, into my weeping gaze. 
 
 It always is so : as a sun-kissed hill 
 Shines in the distance, girt about with fear 
 
 And mystery, whose beauty could not fill 
 The over-daring eye when we were near. 
 
 So gleams a far-off passion, — soft and still 
 And awful, and unutterably clear. 
 
48 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 WITH WHITER PLUMES. 
 
 I loved a lily : The sweet flower was near. 
 And, bearing petals less majestic far. 
 Shone as a lesser individual star. 
 
 Made by a sweet proximity as dear 
 
 As the imperial rose, — and white and clear 
 The lily shone ; but when the flower was full^ 
 Another hand had interfered to pull 
 
 The petals, — an intruder's foot was here. 
 
 And so I miss my lily and my rose. 
 Fated to love for ever but to find 
 
 "No flower for me her tenderest depths disclose ;, 
 Yet bear I some triumphant mirth of mind. 
 In that the lily kissed me, and hath shined 
 
 Because of me with whiter, plumes of snows. 
 
PARTING. 49 
 
 LOVE AND HONOUR. 
 
 I stood before a grave, — and honour said, 
 " Heap loudly on the corpse that lies therein 
 Dust and departure — that the soul may win 
 
 The eternal halo of a passion dead, 
 
 And round about her lips for roses red 
 
 Twine lilies pale as her own life hath been ; 
 And seize thine harp, sad singer, and begin 
 
 Some low-voiced tune to tears and yearning wed. 
 
 But love said, " Rather let the corpse awake ! 
 And let sweet lips for roses be the charm 
 To bring towards an unhesitating arm 
 
 The tender limbs and soft desires that shake 
 
 And flutter as a lily for thy sake — 
 Even as a lily loud in her alarm." 
 
50 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 THE MAGIC OF MEMORY, 
 
 I. 
 
 When you were with me, sweet, I could not lead 
 Your presence through the corridors of rhyme :; 
 But you are smitten by the snows of time, 
 
 And by swift disappointment's sword I bleed. 
 
 And, having chosen an unselfish creed, 
 In every flowery avenue of mind 
 A gracious footprint of my love's I find. 
 
 And sonnets spring by thousands out of seed ! 
 
 Before I lost you, I was silent, — now 
 That I have given you into other hands. 
 The gardens of my brain are tuneful lands, 
 And linnets twitter round about my brow. 
 And nightingales are loud on every bough, 
 
 And thrushes chant your praise in laughing 
 bands. 
 
 II. 
 
 The roads we trod together, gleam and shine, — 
 Grey, cold, and sour, and flint-bedecked before, — 
 But now the moon of fancy on the shore 
 
 Of bitter absence sheds a silver line. 
 
THE MAGIC OP MEMORY. 51 
 
 And, as the gossamer-woven webs combine 
 To elude our present overpowering tread. 
 But flame in sweet prismatic green and red 
 
 And gold and fairy lacework clean and fine 
 
 When distance has transfigured the broad field — 
 
 So every stone we touched in this dull town, 
 
 Then garbed in ordinary dust and brown, 
 A golden flash of colour seems to yield. 
 And shines like some anointed luscious shield. 
 
 Under the bitter fire of memory's frown. 
 
WINTER LOVE. 
 
WINTER LOVE. 
 
 THIS AFTERNOON. 
 
 This afternoon I go to meet my love, — 
 
 And, through the earlier, moments of the day. 
 My pulses like swift throbbing surges play, 
 
 Mixed with the soft respiring of a dove, 
 
 And pinions beat the azure cliffs above 
 And frolic in and out each windy bay — 
 I triumph ; for she hath not answered " Nay j" 
 
 I hold her written word in sign thereof. 
 
 Ah, love ! "tis but a wintiy afternoon. 
 Yet will we make it as a summer sleep 
 Winged with strange odours passing soft and 
 deep — 
 A clear and passionate crimson-hooded swoon : 
 And though our ruddy heaven be over soon. 
 It leaves a rose for either heart to keep. 
 
^6 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 A SUN-GOD. 
 
 Soon thou shak lay thy tender hands on me 
 And the strong force of passion shall ignite^. 
 Struck as a sudden comet into light 
 
 By the inviting flame of love I see 
 
 Bloom as a crimson mantle over thee — 
 
 Even as the snows below the hills are white, 
 But next the Alpine sun shine red and bright,. 
 
 Rosy for miles upon the mountain-knee. 
 
 Yea, thou shalt change me from a quiet star. 
 Following the universal rounded road. 
 
 Desiring thee in silence from afar. 
 
 Into a sun-god, — bearing the white load 
 
 Of thy sweet misty body in a car 
 
 Of flame towards some desirable abode. 
 
WINTER LOVE. 5^ 
 
 A TALISMAN. 
 
 I have not seen you^^and the days have been 
 But as a meagre and remorseful time. 
 The likeness of some frozen blue-clad clime. 
 
 Some destitute abode of tears and sin } 
 
 But summer is upon. us, and we win 
 
 The roses and the dreams of mute delight 
 That clothe the sweet limbs of a summer night,,. 
 
 And hem the fragrant arms of summer in. 
 
 Summer is as a fragrant rose-plumed bird. 
 Young, and delirious with its own desire; 
 Winter is as a worn-out aged fire — 
 
 But somewhere of a talisman I heard 
 
 That hath the magic potency to gird 
 
 Roses about each wintry wan-built briar. 
 
jS LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 LOVE'S CRUELTY. 
 
 Sweet, every meeting-time may be our last ! 
 
 We stand upon time's beach, and, after, one 
 
 May launch a boat with cunning keel to run 
 Against the sidelong pressure of the blast, 
 With curved resistance of a reedlike mast. 
 
 Into the hollows of the western sun — 
 
 Time finished, red eternity begun. 
 Our love may be but as a rosebud past. 
 
 Crying in some disastrous nook of garden 
 After the heels of summer, who declares, 
 
 Invincible and destitute of pardon, 
 His lips are languid for Australian airs, — 
 And, with love's endless cruelty, prepares 
 
 The alternate hemisphere to inflame and harden. 
 
WINTER LOVE. 59 
 
 I SEND A SONG. 
 
 This afternoon I am to meet you, sweet. 
 The torrents of my longing overflow, 
 As from white clouds descending streams of 
 snow 
 
 Cover with feathery flakes our halting feet : 
 
 ■I send a song in front of me to meet 
 The soft advancing rosebud-lips I know 
 So truly, that I think I see them grow 
 
 With increase soft and odorous and fleet. 
 
 Song ! lay upon her lips my panting soul 
 Already in advance of this slow clockj 
 That it may sway from side to side, and rock 
 Even as a flower floating in a bowl 
 Upon those fragrant billowy tides, the whole 
 Of which shall overwhelm me when I knock. 
 
6o LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 AND SHALL I SEE YOU? 
 
 And shall I see you, sweet, and are you still 
 
 Soft and as white and gentle as before ? 
 
 And doth the moon still beam along the shore 
 With tender eyes and yellow rays that thrill 
 The pebbles and the yearning foam, and spill 
 
 Their passionate effulgence more and more ? 
 
 Sweet, thou shalt lay thine hand upon the sore 
 Heart-spot of parting, and thine eyes shall fill 
 
 The cup of my strong being till it yearns 
 And trembles into air and overflows : 
 
 Even as the sun's imperious mandate turns 
 The bending face and body of a rose 
 Upward — till every petal doth unclose. 
 
 Blushing, and every vein and fibre burns. 
 
WINTER LOVE. 6l 
 
 WHERE THOU ART, SWEET. 
 
 Where thou art, sweet, it matters not to know 
 
 Whethersweet summer's sceptre reigns s upreme. 
 
 For thou art girded with a luscious dream 
 That darts a rosy radiance over snow, 
 -As thou dost tread triumphant to and fro, — 
 
 The light wherewith thy winged feet do teem ; 
 
 Where they have trodden, the amorous grasses 
 seem 
 To blossom into flame and overflow, 
 
 As at the advent of twin goddesses ; 
 And, when thy hand is laid upon my neck, 
 
 It is even as a shower divine to bless 
 The solemn marble, cleansed from every fleck 
 By the descending silvery flames that check 
 
 The thunders of sin's turbulent distress. 
 
62 .LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 EVEN AS THE DOVE. 
 
 Even as the dove weutj errant from the ark, 
 Speeding with hopeful pinions through the deep- 
 To analyse the awful void, and peep 
 
 If anywhere a green and living spark 
 
 Her eyes of bright intelligence might mark — 
 Fly, fragrant-winged song, towards my love. 
 Dividing with the white breast of a dove 
 
 The inanimate resistance of the dark. 
 
 Seek her, and hover over her in spite 
 Of the dark-panoplied adulterous storm, 
 
 And seize from off her lips a rosebud white. 
 Tender and irreproachable and warm, — 
 And hasten with that soft inviolate form 
 
 Through the wild ebbing armies of the night. 
 
 1871. 
 
ODE TO ENGLAND. 
 
 STROPHE I. 
 
 At length the lands arise 
 With heaven-seeking eyes ; 
 No more they search the past. 
 And backward glances cast 
 Towards fields of Galilee 
 And that blue inland sea : 
 But every land adores 
 The God of its own shores. 
 The Deity of its hills. 
 The Spirit of its rills. 
 Redeemer of its plains, 
 Who o'er its cities reigns 
 Cleansing each soul from stains. 
 
 STROPHE n. 
 
 Lift up your eyes towards the morning brightness, 
 Dwell no more 'mid the past like sons of slaves ; 
 
 Lo ! even here shines the exceeding whiteness 
 Of Venus 'mid the surging crowns of waves. 
 And Jesus rises from ten thousand graves. 
 
'6+ LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 The heroes of high history of each nation 
 
 Speak in the burning records of the race ; 
 "Through wrongs, through woes, through speech- 
 less tribulation. 
 They sought the living God's great changeless 
 
 face 
 And now they shine star-saviours in each 
 place. 
 
 Bright are their eyes and deathless is their 
 glory ; 
 Lift up your eyes to their eyes all ye lands 1 
 
 Yea, every nation, listen to the story 
 
 Of those who moulded it with iron hands, 
 And loosed its dim primeval swaddling-bands. 
 
 STROPHE III. 
 
 O England, dwell no longer 
 
 'Mid shows of things, and dreams : 
 
 Rise, for thou art the stronger ! 
 Thy sunrise o'er thee beams 
 And round about thee streams. 
 
 Stronger thou art and fairer 
 Than lands thou hast obeyed : 
 
 Thine azure heavens are rarer ; 
 Why art thou thus afraid ? 
 Why lingerest in the shade ? 
 
ODE TO ENGLAND, 65 
 
 Hast thou no spirits diviner 
 
 Tiian Jesus, Moses, Paul ? 
 Art thou content with minor 
 
 Slow-sandalled feet that crawl. 
 
 Not fly— that stumble, fall ? 
 
 Hast thou no hearts that carry 
 A yearning force supreme ? 
 
 Must thou for ever tarry, 
 
 Possessed by some pale dream. 
 While past thee nations stream ? 
 
 Rise ! greater than the immortal 
 Spirits of Greece and Rome 
 
 Thou hast within thy portal : 
 Within the ring of foam 
 That girds thine island-home. 
 
 STROPHE IV. 
 
 England ! bring thou blossoms from all thy hills'; 
 Wreathe thou tender lilies from sides of rills 
 Golden, flowing through vales that plenty fills. 
 
 Golden crowns of the corn, and crowns of red 
 Autumn leaves for the new God's kingly head 
 Bring thou ; he needs a wreath, for his wreaths 
 are dead. 
 
 Dead are the Jewish wreaths, and the flowers of 
 
 Rome : 
 Now God plunges his feet deep in the English 
 i. foam, 
 
 Seeking this land for rest, craving a Western home- 
 
 P 
 
66 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Wilt thou hound him away, shriek him away 
 
 from thee ? 
 Hurl him wandering forth over the barren sea ? 
 Build him a temple rather, marble in purity. 
 
 Let God rest and dream, hidden in thy deep meads. 
 Hidden and wreathed in flowers, soothing the brow 
 
 that bleeds 
 Yet from the spears and thorns, finding delight 
 
 he needs. 
 
 Here is a land for a God ; fair in body and soul. 
 England, give to thy God body and heart, — thy 
 
 whole 
 Measureless splendid might, as of tides that 
 
 round thee roll. 
 
 STROPHE V. 
 
 Lo ! in tender accents, hark ! the high God 
 
 speaks ; 
 England, let his message flush thy languid 
 
 cheeks 1 
 Give to him the great gift that his longing seeks. 
 
 Give to him thy children, fair and strong and free. 
 Pure and brave and happy, splendid flowers of thee, 
 .Give to him thy manhood, thy maturity. 
 
 '"Weary am I," God saith, "of the pallid past; 
 .Brace me, wind of England, after burning blast 
 O' the arid Eastern deserts, where my soul was 
 
 casti 
 
ODE TO ENGLAND. 67 
 
 '" Now I turn me Northward : shall I find a race 
 -Fit to stand before me, unabashed of face? 
 ^hall I find in England home and dwelling- 
 place ? " 
 
 ANTISTROPHE I. 
 
 Doth England hear and turn 
 With longing eyes that yearn 
 And sparkle at the voice 
 Of Deity, and rejoice ? 
 Or doth she, cowed and pale, 
 Hidden beneath the veil 
 Of her own feebleness, 
 Tremble at the stress 
 And force of fiery sound 
 That girdled her around 
 When the high God spoke. 
 And thunderlike he broke 
 The silence, and she woke. 
 
 ANTISTROPHE H. 
 
 Wilt thou with ferns and flowers from deep dim 
 valleys 
 Weave a divine sweet frontlet for thy king, 
 O England ; now thy soul his trumpet rallies. 
 What wilt thou in thine arms, O England, 
 
 bring ? 
 Wherewith wilt thou the eternal forehead 
 ring? 
 
68 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 The bay-leaves wilt thou bind of all thy singers- 
 Around the eternal forehead broad and white,. 
 Touching with womanly and reverent fingers 
 The brow, the eyes of marvellous sweet 
 
 light : 
 Then wilt thou bring rose-crowns of lovers 
 bright ? 
 
 Oh, most of all, be thine own self, and ring 
 him 
 With thine own strengthened and victorious 
 spul : 
 This chiefest of all gifts, O England, bring 
 him ! 
 Mingle in love's clear sacrificial bowl 
 The wine of thine own heart made flawless, 
 whole. 
 
 ANTISTROPHE III. 
 
 Let love at length its mission 
 In thine own home fulfil : 
 
 Let love's sweet utmost vision 
 Of perfect soul and will 
 All devious passions still. 
 
 Let love at length be chainless ; 
 So shall love be supreme. 
 
 Then for the first time stainless, 
 A golden sunrise-gleam 
 Upon a golden stream. 
 
ODE TO ENGLAND. 69 
 
 Pour through thine own dear meadows, 
 England, one burst of song, 
 
 Scattering pain's shadows 
 
 And all the black-plumed throng 
 Of sorrows, strange and strong. 
 
 Meet, utterly white, fearless. 
 The God who for thee pines : 
 
 Glad, sighless, pangless, tearless. 
 Casting aside the signs 
 Of suffering he divines. 
 
 Thine immemorial sorrow 
 He knoweth, and shall slay : 
 
 Lo ! crimson dawns the morrow 
 Of many a mournful, day 
 Through centuries grim and grey. 
 
 ANTISTROPHE IV. 
 
 Not the dreams of the past, of the days of old, 
 God needs : not strange dreams of the walls of 
 
 gold 
 In heaven and jewels and pearls and treasure un- 
 told. 
 
 Not these things ; but the breath of the English 
 
 air 
 And blossoms of spring from dells where ferns are 
 
 fair 
 And jewels of star- white petals than pearls more 
 
 rare. 
 
yO LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 And jewels of glances bright and tender and grey 
 Better to God now, dearer, than star-like ray 
 Of glances piercing the cloudless Eastern day. 
 
 And weapons of strong men's arms from the 
 
 Northern plains 
 Wbereover the future's sun, now rising, reigns ; 
 Rich armour of fearless countless hearts for his 
 
 fanes. 
 
 These and the sound of our seas by day by night, ' 
 The limitless organ-peal of breakers white 
 Thrilling the new-found heart of God with might.. 
 
 And the utter strength of the soul : this God re- 
 quires ; 
 And all the worship and music of English lyres 
 And worship of limitless sea-like hearts he de- 
 sires. 
 
 ANTISTROPHE V. 
 
 Lo ! with brave sweet accents England turns to- 
 
 thee 
 Great God of the past world, king now of the sea 
 Girding her white cliffs, lord of futurity. 
 
 " Take my thousand meadows ; take each hill and 
 
 plain ; " 
 So saith England : " over free glad spirits reign ; 
 Rule till as my seas are, souls are clear of stain. 
 
ODE TO ENGLAND. 7 1 
 
 " Pour thy kingly presence through the throbbing 
 
 land : 
 Sons of God by thousands shall before thee stand 
 Holding daughters of thee by the white, white 
 
 hand. 
 
 " Sons of God and daughters, saviours, shalt thou 
 
 find 
 In the race thou choosest ; leaders of mankind. 
 Voiced as are the surges, winged as is the wind." 
 
 ■ EPODE. 
 
 Beyond the faintest region of stars or skies 
 Lo! England pierces the future with sunbright 
 eyes. 
 
 Great spirits beyond the spirits who crowned the 
 
 past 
 Shall lift the future towards summits unreached 
 
 and vast. 
 
 Already the sound of their feet at the doors is 
 
 heard 
 And the wide land shakes and quakes at their loud 
 
 first word. 
 
 Christ-men, Christ-women, whose feet at the 
 
 bright doors stand 
 Shall lift and redeem and heal and deliver the 
 
 land. 
 
^i • LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 The God in their eyes shall pierce through the 
 
 lessening gloom 
 Attd their splendour of heart shall be treasure and 
 
 flame and perfume. 
 
 And the places waste shall blossom, the wild ways 
 
 sing 
 At the message of peace and redemption and joy 
 
 they bring. 
 
 These England bearing thou shalt stand forth as 
 
 a queen 
 And rule the future, triumphant and great cf 
 
 mien. 
 
 And God in thy waves and upon thy hills shall 
 
 sound 
 And in women's souls and in men's with God's 
 
 kiss crowned. 
 
TO THEE, SWEET. 
 
 The music of thy song, sweet, 
 Has sounded through the night : 
 
 Its accents pure and strong, sweet, 
 Its fervour calm and bright, 
 
 'Have lifted me along, sweet. 
 
 Have brought God's heaven in sight. 
 
 ■I rested on the sound, sweet. 
 
 With happy eyes closed fast : 
 Its tender magic bound, sweet. 
 
 My soul ; its glory cast 
 A golden veil around, sweet, — • 
 
 It changed the weary past. 
 
 I hear the song by night, sweet, 
 
 I hear it in the day : 
 At dawn of soft-grey light, sweet. 
 
 It shines upon my way ; 
 Ever its flame in sight, sweet, 
 
 Leads, like some heaveu-sent ray. 
 
 Oh, I will try, my own sweet. 
 
 To be to thee the flower 
 Thou singest of; my tone, sweet, 
 
 With woman's tender power 
 Shall soothe — ;thou shalt be shown, sweet. 
 
 Love's deepest rose-hung bower ! 
 
74 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 And in that bower of joy, sweet. 
 Thy sorrows kissed away. 
 
 Shall pain not nor annoy, sweet ; 
 My heart in thine shall stay: 
 
 Love's pleasure shall not cloy, sweet,. 
 Nor bloom of love decay. 
 
 I dreamed a tender dream, sweet, — 
 
 I tell it to thee here ; 
 But the pure, gracious theme, sweet,. 
 
 Is only for thine ear : 
 It was a sunrise-gleam, sweet. 
 
 Beautiful, noble, clear. 
 
 I dreamed I came to thee, sweet, — 
 All barriers slipped away : 
 
 All raitnent fell from me, sweet, 
 I was as white as day ; 
 
 I laughed in utter glee, sweet, 
 More glad than I can say ! 
 
 All raiment earthly melted 
 Away in that fair dream : 
 
 Alone with beauty belted, 
 O lover, I did seem ! 
 
 I stood by thee and felt it 
 
 Sweet, sweet, — a heaven-gleam ! 
 
 Naked I stood for thee, sweet, — 
 Divinely white and pure : 
 
 God clothed with passion me, sweet ;; 
 But all that could obscure 
 
 And hinder soft love, He, sweet. 
 Stripped with a mandate sure. 
 
TO THEE, SWEET. 75 
 
 So all my beauty came, sweet, — 
 
 Is it so much indeed ? 
 About thee like a flame, sweet, 
 
 Thy blossom, yea thy meed ; 
 I had no thought of shame, sweet, 
 
 I knew what love decreed. 
 
 I passed into thy form, sweet, 
 
 Just like a soft, soft breeze, 
 A dear leaf-shaking storm, sweet. 
 
 That laughs amid the trees : 
 White, tender, loving, warm, sweet, — 
 
 White as the white, white seas. 
 
 I rushed into thine arms, sweet, 
 
 I rushed into thy soul : 
 Dead was each fear that harms, sweet, 
 
 I saw love's sacred whole 
 Revealed : now nought alarms, sweet, — 
 
 I've read love's deepest scroll. 
 
 I passed with perfect peace, sweet. 
 
 Into a life quite new : 
 From bondage to release, sweet, 
 
 A freedom won by you : 
 Past pangs and sorrows cease, sweet, — 
 
 I sing, glad in the blue. 
 
 I sing for very gladness, 
 
 I, who was once afraidj: 
 I, who once in deep sadness 
 
 Sat, as in dark damp glade ; 
 I, who have met grim madness. 
 And longed to sip night-shade. 
 
^6 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 I sing ; for thou hast won me, 
 
 Sweet lover, poet, king : 
 Thy loving soul hath spun me 
 
 Soft wedding-raiment ; ring 
 Of genius given, and done me 
 
 Proud honour ; so I sing. 
 
 I come to thee in dreaming, 
 I come in waking thought : 
 
 When fancies swift are streaming 
 Throughout me, clasped and caught 
 
 In golden network gleaming, 
 1 come : such dreams IVe brought 1 
 
 I come on earth ; in heaven. 
 Sweet love, I'W come the more : 
 
 When earth's worn garb is riven 
 And on the eternal shore 
 
 Life's bark is tossed and driven. 
 My love at last I'll pour 
 
 In utter perfect power, sweet. 
 Upon thee ! thou shalt know 
 
 What pleasure love can shower, sweet. 
 What woman's hand can throw 
 
 Of magic round her bower, sweet — 
 How woman's heart can glow ! 
 
 I'll come to thee at last, sweet, 
 
 And be thy very queen ; 
 A whisper on the blast, sweet, 
 
 A crown of starry sheen : 
 I'll give thee all my past, sweet. 
 
 It s storms, its hours serene. 
 
TO THEE, SWEET. 77 
 
 I'll give thee the old loves, sweet, 
 
 Such as the old loves were 1 
 Lead thee through former groves, sweet, 
 
 Wherein, not all unfair. 
 The former singing doves, sweet, 
 
 Sang, — in the youthful air. 
 
 I'll give thee all the wonder 
 
 Of sweet, sweet youthful days : 
 Delight at wild stern thunder, 
 
 Joy in the lightning-blaze; 
 The past, the now, the yonder. 
 
 In one glad wreath I raise. 
 
 I come to thee a girl, sweet. 
 
 Long ere my mother died, 
 And bring thee a pale curl, sweet, 
 
 Cut when I lett her side: 
 Better than gold or pearl, sweet, — 
 
 A gift of me thy bride ! 
 
 The great strange billows hoaiy 
 
 I saw by childhood's seas 
 I bring thee, and the glory 
 
 Of myriad forest trees ; 
 Yea, all the pure life-story 
 
 Learned at my mother's knees. 
 
 My sorrows and my prayers, sweet. 
 
 My groaning and my tears. 
 The balm of summer airs, sweet, 
 
 Hopes, agonies, and fears; 
 All these your strong soul shares, sweet. 
 
 Yea, all the long, long years ! 
 
78 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 The years before we met, sweet. 
 Before dear passion spoke, 
 
 And tender eyes were wet, sweet. 
 And love his golden yoke 
 
 Upon our shoulders set, sweet. 
 And all the old fetters broke. 
 
 I give thee all these things, sweet ; 
 
 My body and my soul 
 My utter passion brings, sweet, — 
 
 Myself: I give the whole. 
 I've got no golden wings, sweet, 
 
 No nectared honeyed bowl. 
 
 But womanhood's dear whiteness 
 
 Of body, spirit, mind. 
 And lips of untouched brightness. 
 
 And faithfulness thou'lt find ! 
 Oh, love hath perfect rightness. 
 
 And sweetly all designed ! 
 
 Oh, take me : hold me close, sweet, 
 I'm but a woman's soul, 
 
 A clinging woman-rose, sweet. 
 Whose tendrils round thee stole 
 
 To find in thee repose sweet, 
 
 Love, husband, heaven-joy, goal ! 
 
YEARNING. 
 
 ■Sad are all we to think 
 
 Of sorrows, and wasted lives 
 
 In the dim great towns, in the hives 
 
 Of the people ; for one that thrives. 
 
 How many lost souls sink, 
 Sink each day, do you think ? 
 
 Why does He not stay His hand, 
 
 God, who knows of it all ? 
 
 Was He strong to slacken the thrall 
 
 Of the Jews, and Jericho's wall 
 To shake for a Hebrew band — 
 
 Shortened for us is His hand ? 
 
 If we are too many, we protest ; 
 
 If we are too many for His eye 
 
 To cover, for Him to espy. 
 
 Let us cease to be, let us die; 
 .Let us sink in the sea to our rest. 
 
 And cease not, dying, to protest. 
 
 To protest against high God who made 
 More souls than His hands could keep. 
 Who holdeth our sad tears cheap. 
 And agony all we reap. 
 
 The reward with which we are paid. 
 We, whom alive He has made. 
 
8o LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 But, if He has not forgotten 
 Any whom His hands have made. 
 And no one, of all men, has strayed 
 From His sight ; if He covers with His shade 
 
 Each of us, by Him begotten. 
 It is well, our torment is stayed. 
 
 Here, upon earth, it is wrong 
 
 For a father to leave his child 
 
 Without a provision ; less mild 
 
 Than a mother is God who has smiled 
 The world into being ? we are strong. 
 
 Were it so, to say it is wrong. 
 
 Surely, in His hand, for each 
 
 Hidden, must our God have in store 
 Gifts He is willing to outpour. 
 Waiting, and willing, and more ; 
 
 Waiting till He can reach 
 With His own, the hand of each. 
 
 Waiting until each cries 
 
 For his Father, and looks to His hand ; 
 
 Then will His bounty expand. 
 
 And silent deserts of sand 
 Beneath sun, beneath blue sweet skieSj 
 
 Shall be changed to a green glad land. 
 
 1870. 
 
A FAREWELL TO POETRY. 
 
 I take within mine hand 
 
 The relics of the land 
 Of dreams and songs and hopes and fair past 
 glory ; 
 
 I gather all the past 
 
 And round about it cast 
 A mistlike robe of soft remembrance hoary ; 
 
 My singing days I bind 
 
 Together, and swift wind 
 In one the golden threads of life's fast-deepening: 
 story. 
 
 Dear blossoms, roses red. 
 
 That once about my head 
 Waved with a flood of soft caressing splendour, 
 
 I bid you all farewell ; 
 
 Yea, to each flower that fell 
 Upon youth's brows from heaven with flower- 
 touch tender ; 
 
 A long goodbye to all — 
 
 White roses, lilies tall ; 
 I would not fail to one sweet final thanks tc> 
 render. 
 
8a LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 O ferns and meadow-sweet, 
 
 rivulets that beat 
 With silveiy footing once amid the grasses, 
 
 A 'long, long, long goodbye 1 
 
 O many a sunset sky, 
 giant purple clouds in heaped-up masses, 
 
 O seas that climbed and surged. 
 
 By wintry storm-blasts urged. 
 Farewell — ere from you all my mortal vision passes! 
 
 Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye — 
 
 Blue perfect summer sky. 
 And all the dreams of youth and hopes that 
 wandered 
 
 Towards heaven on sun-bright wings : 
 
 A new chant in me rings. 
 And gone are the old ecstasies I pondered ; 
 
 Farewell, ye high designs, 
 
 The wreath that manhood twines 
 Is better than the leaves youth wildly plucked and 
 squandered. 
 
 O happy days of song 
 
 That, when my heart was strong. 
 
 Brought me'life's holiest rest and sweetest treasure. 
 For ever, now, farewell : 
 The silent time-waves swell, 
 
 And their foam-crests no man can pass or measure 
 Beyond the singing days. 
 Beyond the need of bays, * 
 
 Urge me — towards death's sublime unidle wakeful 
 leisure. 
 
A FAREWELL TO POETRY. 83 
 
 To those who love, I leave 
 What' my hand doth achieve 
 'Of passionate pure love-praise and worthy singing : 
 The lovers who shall come 
 When this my voice is dumb 
 
 Shall hear in song faint echoes of it ringing, 
 And I shall seem to be 
 In heaven or on the sea, 
 
 Or in the blossoms round their ladies' white 
 brows clinging. 
 
 Oh, am I not a part 
 
 Of England's songful heart. 
 
 And can I pass and be no more a token ? 
 Shall not the lovers young 
 To whom my soul hath sung 
 
 Hear by my chant the summer silence broken ? 
 Shall not some girlish heart 
 Tremble and bound and start, 
 
 As if a real live voice some sudden word had 
 spoken ? 
 
 I cannot wholly die 
 
 If from the blue dear sky 
 i bend in gracious song above true lovers ; 
 
 If in the forest deep 
 
 Among the leaves I sleep. 
 And murmur 'mid the green, close-foliaged covers j 
 
 If o'er the eternal sea 
 
 Some sign and speech of me 
 In the wide track of pure mysterious moonlight 
 hovers. 
 
84 LOVE-SOKGS. 
 
 If in my city too, 
 
 London made great and new. 
 My voice is heard, though I am gone for ever ; 
 
 If lovers, in my town. 
 
 My singing for a crown 
 Wear, then as the red sunset ceaseth never, 
 
 I too shall never cease. 
 
 Nor dwindle nor decrease, 
 Nor from my well-loved streets my spirit-presence- 
 sever. 
 
 So, farewell, lovers all ! 
 
 Around me once I call 
 The well-known English flowers and English faces ; 
 
 On every side of me 
 
 Dear blossoms I would see 
 Once more, sweet petals plucked from all loved 
 places j 
 
 And round me once again 
 
 The glad strong looks of men 
 My friends I'd meet, — and eyes whose light all 
 sorrow chases. 
 
 Sweet eyes of love once more 
 Upon me, as before, 
 
 Glance tenderly, lift once again long lashes ! 
 And, ocean, once more sound. 
 And blossoms, once abound. 
 
 For every flower some pang of death abases ! 
 And, lyre of mine, one song 
 In death's teeth, clear and strong 
 
 Cast, — ere death's conquering tide across my 
 heart-strand dashes ! 
 
A FAREWELL TO POETRY. 85 
 
 Then let me pass from life, 
 And song and love and strife, 
 
 Content, my labour done, my soul not fearing; 
 Not doubting that I go 
 Towards regions where the glow 
 
 Of sunset on our mountains disappearing 
 Is a new rose-red day 
 On grander peaks than they. 
 
 Peaks which my ardent swift fatigueless foot 
 is nearing. 
 
TO ELLA DIETZ: POET AND^ 
 ACTRESS: 
 
 O dark-eyed singer 
 
 And soft sweet bringer 
 Of dreams that haunt us with dear white wings^ 
 
 Singer that comest 
 
 From far and hummest 
 The tune new to us that through thee rings, 
 
 Lift us we pray thee, 
 
 From day to day thee 
 Seeking, as round us thy soft soul clings. 
 
 II. 
 
 In new sweet glowing 
 
 Soft numbers flowing 
 Sing to us of lands we ne'er have known ; 
 
 Of rivers whose tides 
 
 Lave measureless sides 
 And lakes that put to the shame our own. 
 
 And forests gigantic. 
 
 And breathe the Atlantic 
 Upon us in song, by the great winds blown> 
 
TO ELLA. DIETZ: POET AND ACTRESS. Sf 
 
 III. 
 
 Thou bringest for dower 
 
 A new world's power 
 And thine own beauty of voice and heart ; 
 
 Gifted as thou. 
 
 With the genius-brow. 
 Why shouldst thou ever retreat, depart ? 
 
 Stay with us rather 
 
 Sweet one, and gather 
 Crowns for thy young head, crowns for thine Art. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Gather the flowers 
 
 Here growing from bowers 
 Wherein thy young fair feet shall tread ; 
 
 Lo ! England's pages 
 
 From far strange ages 
 Yearn for thee, burn for thee, wait to be read ; 
 
 The might of our race 
 
 Shall flame in thy face 
 And gird thee and arm thee and ring thine head. 
 
 V. 
 
 Thou comest to add 
 
 Thine own soul glad 
 Or sorrowful sometimes unto the few 
 
 Great women who live 
 
 With us ever and give 
 Their hearts so tender, so sweet of hue, 
 
 To the ages, to bless. 
 
 To heal and redress, 
 Whose souls are as song-birds heard in the blue. 
 
88 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 At seasons a queen 
 
 Immortal, serene. 
 Is sent by Apollo to lift and delight : 
 
 Her golden hair 
 
 Is his fetter, his snare, 
 And it draws by its glory, allures by its might; 
 
 For a season she stands 
 
 With his harp in her hands 
 And we mark in her eyes the god's glance bright. 
 
 VII. 
 
 So is it with thee : 
 
 From over the sea 
 Thou comest a new song bringing, divine; 
 
 The god in thine eyes 
 
 As the sun in the skies. 
 And the voice of the god in the sound of thy 
 rhyme ; 
 
 Black-haired, Apollo 
 
 The gold-haired follow 
 Towards heights yet grander, peaks more sublime. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 With self-denial, 
 
 Through pain, through trial, 
 The high god follow, and work his will : 
 
 Not those he chooses 
 
 Whom pain refuses 
 To crown, — not such doth the high god thrill ; 
 
 Yea, those who would follow 
 
 The steps of Apollo 
 Must face the night-wind bitter and shrill. 
 
TO ELLADIETZ: POET AND ACTRESS. 89 
 IX. 
 
 Not in the daylight. 
 
 Fickle, and gay light, 
 _Are high crowns fashioned, and great songs sung: 
 
 Lo ! through the starlight 
 
 The gold-haired far light 
 Apollo is seen and his voice hath rung 
 
 Beneath the moonlight, 
 
 Breathing a tune light 
 Which round the red lips eddied and clung. 
 
 X. 
 
 If thou wilt find him, 
 
 Seize and wilt bind him, 
 iligh up the mountains, beneath the stars, 
 
 Follow thou fearless ; 
 
 The rough rocks cheerless 
 Traverse and heed not the moist fresh scars ; 
 
 High in the azure 
 
 Thou shalt have pleasure. 
 Beyond all limits, above all bars. 
 
 XI. 
 
 But few can follow 
 
 King-god Apollo ; 
 And of these singers, of women how few 
 
 There have been truly 
 
 Who faithfully, duly, 
 'The great god served and his greatness knew; 
 
 Wilt thou make over 
 
 As bard, as lover. 
 Thy soul to the song-god, canst thou be true ? 
 
go LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 xir. 
 
 Yea, true for ever. 
 
 Though gladdened never 
 By voice delusive of fluctuant praise 
 
 Of dim-souled hearer ; 
 
 Oh how far clearer 
 Ring out Apollo's own splendid lays 1 
 
 The sun-god's kiss, 
 
 Thou mayest have this, 
 The sun-god's lips, and the song-god's bays.- 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Lift up thy spirit. 
 
 Make thine and inherit 
 Our land's past story, our country's calm ; 
 
 Let our seas gladden thee, 
 
 Our sorrows sadden thee. 
 Our summers soothe thee with waft of balm ;, 
 
 Our winters brace thee. 
 
 Our hearts encase thee 
 As thou our roses within thy palm. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Let every flower 
 
 In every bower 
 Of England greet thee with upturned face ; 
 
 Rose and each lily 
 
 And hair- bell hilly 
 And delicate snowdrop's maiden grace ; 
 
 And snow-drop girls 
 
 With golden curls 
 Brought for thy welcome from many a place 
 
TO ELLA DIETZ :. POET AND ACTRESS. 9 I. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Thy voice shall reach us. 
 
 Thine heart shall teach us 
 Of things we know not : thy lyre shall sound 
 
 By the great white surges 
 
 The North wind urges ' 
 
 With terrible glee, as it shakes the ground ; 
 
 And in our summer 
 
 O sweet new-comer 
 Thy softer songs shall laugh and abound. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Thyself a flower 
 
 Thy pure scent shower 
 fair flower-singer about our shore : 
 
 A new scent tender 
 
 Of new strange splendour. 
 Sweet as the scents were gathered of yore 
 
 From the harp-swaying fingers 
 
 Of some three singers 
 Who sang the song-god's altar before. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Some three or four, 
 
 Apollo no more 
 Took pains to nurture nor cared to crown : 
 
 They passed away from us 
 
 And took the day from us, 
 And all the leaves of our life were brown, 
 
 And autumn came 
 
 And the dead year's shame 
 At their departure and cold death's frown. 
 
•pa 
 
 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Now, dark-eyed chanter, 
 
 Be giver, be granter 
 -Of new spring to us ; bid England's plains 
 
 At thy sweet footing 
 
 Awake, forth-shooting 
 New green shafts as at the soft spring-rains 
 
 Bid summer blossoms 
 
 Ope bright glad bosoms. 
 And violets peep in the moist moss-lanes. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Arising later. 
 
 Thou shalt be greater 
 Than many and many who came and sang 
 
 Till the high hills sounded 
 
 As songs abounded. 
 And the echoing sea-waves laughed and they rang: 
 
 Thou shalt step higher. 
 
 With more sweet fire 
 Within thy spirit, more pure song-pang. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Not bay-leaves olden 
 
 But his own golden 
 Dear locks Apollo shall bend and twine 
 
 Within thy dark, 
 
 Like many a spark 
 Of flame-flies floating, let loose in thine : 
 
 And an English rose 
 
 In the dark hair glows 
 To render it ever and ever divine. 
 
TO KATHLEEN GORDON, 
 GIRL-GENIUS. 
 
 I. 
 
 O girl-soul tender^ 
 
 And girl-form slender. 
 What dreams have traversed from side to side 
 
 Thy young fair being. 
 
 Beyond our seeing — 
 What thoughts have smitten with wing-wafts wide- 
 
 The moonlit ocean 
 
 Of hopes in motion. 
 Around thee surging in life's first pride. 
 
 11. 
 
 Dreaming for ever, 
 
 Despairing never. 
 How beautiful art thou, spirit divine 1 
 
 A blossom in girl-shape. 
 
 Purer than pearl-shape, 
 Born upon earth as a rose to shine ; 
 
 Born to deliver 
 
 The souls that quiver 
 From arrows of life as from salt sea-brine. 
 
94 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 III. 
 
 Born to delight us 
 
 With song-beams that smite us. 
 Calm, gladden us, heal us — dreaming of things 
 
 That men dream never 
 
 And reach not ever 
 With masculine strong stern struggle of wings ; 
 
 Teacher of poet, 
 
 Thou dost not know it. 
 But sweet within thee our song-god sings. 
 
 rv. 
 
 Sings, and he brings to us 
 
 Tender soft wings, to us 
 Showing delights new, found not of old ; 
 
 In thy light fairy 
 
 Dear diction airy 
 The song-god speaks and his speech is of gold. 
 
 And he laughs in laughter 
 
 Of thine, and, after. 
 He clings to us, sings to us, gentle but bold. 
 
 V. 
 
 Thou wast a flower 
 
 In some dim bower 
 Of Paradise, doubt not ; now thou art here 
 
 To sing for years to us. 
 
 Laughter and tears to us. 
 Spread forth thy pinions, and have no fear ; 
 
 The airs will carry thee. 
 
 Thy genius marry thee 
 In thought to spirits whose songs are clear. 
 
-TO KATHLEEN GORDON, GIRL-GENIUS. 95 
 
 VI. 
 
 Whose songs are tender, 
 
 Grave, and of splendour 
 Divine in ages long past and dead : 
 
 Shelley shall sing to thee 
 
 And Keats' soul cling to thee ; 
 For robe and raiment, to crown thine head. 
 
 Thou shalt have glory 
 
 Of ages hoary, 
 The singing of past days round thee shed. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Hold to thy power 
 
 O girl, O flower, 
 Both firm and humble, both true and brave ; 
 
 Hearts thou shalt gladden. 
 
 Some souls perhaps sadden. 
 But more deliver and heal and save ; 
 
 Add to our pleasure 
 
 With thy sweet treasure 
 •Of fancies bountiful, frolick or grave. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Twine for our meadows 
 
 Sunbeams and shadows 
 -Of delicate true song, as in the strain 
 
 Thou just hast given us. 
 
 Whose dart hath riven us 
 "Wondering to find in the song-god's fane 
 
 So young a singer, 
 
 So sweet a bringer 
 ♦Of gifts that only the young flowers gain. 
 
g6 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 For only the singers, 
 
 Young, sweet, are bringers 
 Of all that falls from the high god's hand ; 
 
 Yea, such souls only. 
 
 Pure, wondrous, lonely. 
 Before Apollo uncrowned, crowned, stand ; 
 
 Crowned not as older 
 
 Bards fiercer or colder, 
 But crowned with rosebuds, band upon band, 
 
 X. 
 
 Not e'en with bay-leaves. 
 
 Sorrow's dark stray leaves. 
 But only rosebuds bright as the morn. 
 
 Bright as thine own heart ; 
 
 Just as thou blown art 
 Yesterday only, so these were born 
 
 Yesterday, sweet one. 
 
 Subtle and fleet one — 
 From rose-twigs for thee were plucked and torn„ 
 
 XI. 
 
 Thy white brow bears yet 
 
 No sign of cares, yet 
 Some sorrow thy song would seem to pour ; 
 
 Thou hast within thee 
 
 Strange thoughts that win thee. 
 Lure thee and draw thee to lands before j 
 
 To seasons unseen yet. 
 
 Cloudless, serene yet. 
 Towards passions the years yet garner in store_ 
 
TO KATHLEEN GORDON, GIRL-GENIUS. 97 
 
 XII. 
 
 O girl-heart dreaming 
 
 Of gold hair gleaming 
 And anthems swelling, and dark bright eyes. 
 
 Thy young life coming. 
 
 Like far wings humming 
 Above the blossoms 'neath sunstruck skies. 
 
 Hints of its wonder 
 
 Breathes — in the thunder 
 Of night, and the light of moons that rise. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A flower thou blowest, 
 
 .Tust that, — tior knowest 
 The strange lands shadowed thy feet shall tread ;, 
 
 Best that thou know not. 
 
 While such skies glow not. 
 Fierce, sultry, scorching, above thine head ; 
 
 The sunrise over thee 
 
 Shields, like a lover, thee ; 
 What knowst thou, child-heart, of sunset red I 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Thou needst not linger 
 
 Pale sweet girl-singer 
 As yet, nor ponder by death's dark streams ;. 
 
 Yet, in thy singing 
 
 Their ripples ringing 
 Surge upward slowly, and softest dreams 
 
 Pour through thy yearning 
 
 Heart bounding and burning, 
 And crown thy spirit with weird sad gleams, 
 
 H 
 
98 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Dreams thou hast fashioned, 
 
 Tender, impassioned. 
 Of death, of heaven, of things unseen ; 
 
 But wings supremer 
 
 O dear girl-dreamer 
 Than angels* even shall o'er thee lean ; 
 
 Love's plumes shall crown thee. 
 
 In sweet joy drown thee. 
 Ere death thou facest, soft and serene. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Ere death thou facest 
 
 In love's thou placest > 
 
 Thy palm so trustful and towards love's eyes 
 Thou gazest upward 
 As heaven and hopeward. 
 
 As towards star-blazoned and spotless skies : 
 Not for us only 
 The young song lonely 
 
 On lonely wing-beats glitters and flies. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Thou shalt be flower 
 
 In love's fair hour 
 To those we see not — to him we see 
 
 Not either; lady 
 
 Now 'neath the shady 
 Dear branches supple of youth's slim tree 
 
 Resting, and singing 
 
 The soft songs clinging 
 To girl-friends' spirits, to many, to me. 
 
TO KATHLEEN GORDON, GIRL-GENIUS. 99 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 But dream thou onward 
 
 Moonward and sunward, 
 'Starward and seaward, skyward, — and hold 
 
 Dear, dear, the flowing 
 
 Locks, golden, glowing, 
 Thy sweet songs tell of, — for nought but gold 
 
 Thou wilt, thou sayest ; 
 
 Thy voice delayest 
 Never for black locks, true to the old ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Yet perhaps in ages 
 
 Which thy song-pages 
 Now dream not of, blue glances or brown 
 
 May flash above thee. 
 
 Wound thee, or love thee. 
 More than the looks which pain thee or crOwa 
 
 In soft white girlhood. 
 
 Jewel-hood, pearl-hood, — 
 Smile thee to heaven, or slay with a frown. 
 
 XX. 
 
 But howso be it 
 
 Thou mayest not flee it. 
 Thy song, thy mission of music and pain : 
 
 Pain ; for the poet 
 
 Must, heart-wrung, know it, 
 Or worthless, feeble and false, his strain : 
 
 Music ; for these* 
 
 Songs blown on the breeze 
 In the heart of the world as a gift remain. 
 
 * Poems, in MS., by Kathleen Gordon, aged fourteen. 
 
GOD AND BEAUTY. 
 
 What is the meaning of it all ? 
 Surely God did not create 
 Souls of His people in hate. 
 Handing to instrurtients of fate, 
 
 Binding in bitterness of thrall. 
 
 His children; giving us gall. 
 
 Gall to eat, vinegar to drink ; 
 We who long for the eyes 
 Of Beauty, and look to the prize 
 That in arms of endurance lies. 
 
 Neither from fires do we shrink ; 
 
 Heart of not one of us flies. 
 
 If God is strong to succeed, 
 Then we can trust and abide. 
 Rest in the shadow of His side. 
 Trust in the God we have tried. 
 
 Careless, ready to bleed ; 
 
 If He is strong to succeed. 
 
 Nothing we care for but this, 
 
 That in harmony God shall bring 
 Out of each of us some good thing. 
 Tuning our voices to sing ; 
 
 Beauty is one thing and bliss ; 
 
 Nothing we care for but this. 
 
GOD AND BEAUTY. lOI 
 
 Why did He give to us love, 
 
 Only to take it away ? 
 
 Love the light of a day, 
 
 That lasts but the spring of a spray 
 Beneath the feet of a dove ; 
 Why did He give to us love ? 
 
 Love we have seen, and we know. 
 Yea, we know she is fair ; 
 Yea, we have woven her hair 
 In our hands, and who shall compare 
 
 To her limbs the new-fallen snow ? 
 
 Love we have seen, and we know. 
 
 'God we know not, neither see ; 
 Neither in heaven, nor on earth ; 
 News was there once of His birth. 
 Men shook hands in their mirth. 
 
 Women laughed in their glee; 
 
 Where now, tell us, is He ? 
 
 -One thing we know, we are sad ; 
 Yet the face we have seen 
 Of Beauty, and hands of our Queen, 
 And light of her eyes between 
 Dark clouds and mists we have had. 
 And sight of her garments' sheen. 
 
 If God loves her as we. 
 And with His power (as they say. 
 Strong as the might of the day) 
 Brings her to pass as we pray, 
 -Souls of us calm can be ; 
 
 If so He loves her as we. 
 
I02 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 We who love but the scent 
 
 Of the wave of her hair in the way 
 As the flowers the dawn of the day. 
 Love her more than our words can say. 
 And towards the road that she went 
 Would fall on our knees and pray. 
 
 We who have given up all 
 
 To be unto her as the dew 
 
 To the sun; who have sworn to be true;,. 
 
 We who are glad in the blue, 
 But beneath the grey skies fall 
 As a song-bird struck right through. 
 
 If God cares for her face 
 Then we love Him, and stand 
 Ready to cling to His hand, 
 To be led of Him up to the land 
 Of promise. His own fair place, 
 A gladsome, a wished-for strand. 
 
 If God cares for her not, 
 
 Neither is willing to bring 
 
 Beauty in everything 
 
 To be, let pale priests sing ! 
 Faces with tears we blot. 
 Fingers of wailing we wring. 
 
 But one hope yet avails ; 
 
 That out of the smoke and the dust: 
 
 Blossom a rose-tree must; 
 
 This is the sole strong trust 
 To close up a mouth that rails ; 
 This one hope yet avails. 
 
GOD AND BEAUTY. lOJ 
 
 Hope that if we are cast down. 
 
 All unable to stand. 
 
 If our faces are fanned 
 
 By fires of hell, and the land 
 Is dark, yet God's is the crown 
 And mighty His strong right hand. 
 
 Yea, if He treads upon us. 
 
 Beautiful souls to make. 
 
 Let us not tremble nor quake, 
 
 Let us not quaver nor shake ; 
 Little let God heed us, 
 If Beauty our Queen is at stake ! 
 
 She whom of all we adore; 
 
 Loving the feathers of her wings. 
 Breath of the air where she sings, 
 Sound of the motion she brings 
 As she shakes the ethereal floor. 
 And the light that about her clings. 
 
 Loving the light of her eyes 
 
 As the bird the breath of the morn. 
 As the hounH the lilt of the horn. 
 As the sun the beauty of dawn. 
 The face of his bride in the skies 
 By the mists of night from him torn. 
 
 As the sailors watching at night 
 The first faint flush in the air 
 Of the streaks of the wind-waved hair 
 Of Aurora, and fingering fair 
 
 Of the clouds touching in fresh light. 
 
 As a sign to us all she is there. 
 
104 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 As a man tIred-out through the day 
 The first fresh fall of the dews 
 That give to a worker the news 
 That at last he may cast off the shoes 
 
 Of fatigue, and hasten away, 
 
 Nor longer his rest refuse. 
 
 As a lover who has not seen 
 For a weary sighing of years. 
 For a long outpouring of tears. 
 For a manifold mist of fears. 
 
 The face of a maiden, a queen, 
 
 Is glad, when her footstep nears. 
 
 As a mother, who longs for her son 
 Gone to the fire of the wars. 
 Gone as it were to the stars 
 So the distance seems, that mars 
 His features, is like to run 
 To the sound of home-coming cars. 
 
 As all these love, we too 
 
 Are in love with the face of our Queen, 
 We poets j we who have seen 
 Her glory, the light of the sheen 
 Of her raiment ; only a few 
 In the print of her passing have been. 
 
 1870. 
 
SONNET. 
 
 THE REVELATIONS OF THE AGES. 
 
 .■Strip off dead husks, thefrait will be the sweeter; 
 
 Shake out dead petals, brighter blooms the 
 rose ; 
 ■Cast off the worn-out shoes, the feet are fleeter. 
 
 Fitter to race along the road that goes, 
 With many windings, toiling through the ages. 
 
 Revealing ever newer points of view, 
 .Each turn unfolding fresh sweet landscape-pages. 
 
 And broad descents, and hills and valleys new ; 
 Places of which our fathers never dreamed. 
 
 Strange, perilous, by feet of man untrod. 
 And -which to them impassable would have 
 seemed, — 
 
 But which we have to traverse, trusting God, 
 •God who for certain leaves no single age 
 Without its fitting revelation-page. 
 
 1870. 
 
TO SHELLEY. 
 
 I. 
 
 Thy spirit which trod, 
 
 Gold-sandalled, a god. 
 The grasSj that blossomed beneath its tread,. 
 
 At Oxford and saw, 
 
 Unsmitten of awe. 
 The centuries gathered behind it in red 
 
 Vast sunset-waves, 
 
 Doth it live yet, and saves 
 Immortal its glory among the dead ? 
 
 II. 
 
 The surf of the sea 
 
 Of thought was to thee 
 But calm clear ripples of inland lakes 
 
 Wherein to delight 
 
 With free-swimming might 
 'Mid the blue dear surges and white foam-flakes :• 
 
 In the old grey town 
 
 Thou plaitedst thy crown, 
 Oxford, and threadedst its harsh thought-brakes- 
 
TO SHELLEY. lOf 
 
 III. 
 
 God was to thee 
 
 As the voice of the sea^ 
 As the wings of the surges, the plumes of the blast : 
 
 Little indeed 
 
 Of the tame pale creed 
 That broods blood-stricken above the past 
 
 Thy soul did reck ; 
 
 Without rein, without check. 
 It followed its own God-yearning vast. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Marsh-marigolds 
 
 Each dense dyke holds 
 By Oxford, and long grass-fields at night 
 
 Gleam weird and strange. 
 
 And the low hill-range 
 Is purple at sunset against the bright 
 
 Sky orange or red ; 
 
 And the moonrays wed 
 O'er the silvery river the last faint light. 
 
 V. 
 
 These thou didst see. 
 
 And seen too of me 
 Were the weird grey hollows, the wild long hills. 
 
 The gleaming expanse 
 
 Of the ripples that dance 
 On Isis, and all that the swift gaze fills 
 
 From Iffley to where 
 
 The white waves tear 
 At Sandford the foam that the fierce stream spills^ 
 
Io8 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Then thou didst fly 
 
 The dim mist-sky 
 Of England and sangest in Italy's vales. 
 
 More sweet than the sound 
 
 Heard there without bound 
 As it throbs and rises, ascends and fails. 
 
 Of the nightingale-song 
 
 When its ecstasy strong 
 Now triumphs and leaps, now weeps and wails. 
 
 VII. 
 
 What didst thou know 
 
 Of love ? Was it woe, 
 ■Or gladness passing the frail mute dream 
 
 Of men who aspire 
 
 But find not a lyre 
 Like thine, so watch but thy gold harp-gleam 
 
 As it glittereth swept 
 
 By the fingers that slept, 
 That rested, never from song's bright theme ? 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Oh, love to thee 
 
 Was as soft as the sea 
 At softest even : it was not the sound 
 
 Of the fierce-tongued surges 
 
 The fierce breeze scourges — 
 It was as the blossoms that star the ground. 
 
 Filled with perfume 
 
 And glory of bloom, 
 A mantle of beauty to plain and mound. 
 
TO SHELLEY. IO9. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Were the women who wove 
 
 For thee raiment of love 
 As stars of passion within thine hair ? 
 
 Bright stars merely, 
 
 Or loved more nearly — 
 Who was thy bride, most sweet of the fair 
 
 Women who gave 
 
 Lips gracious to save. 
 And filled thy summer with rose-sweet air ? 
 
 X. 
 
 What laughter of bright 
 
 Lips, beauty of white 
 Limbs ever sufficed for, satisfied thee ? 
 
 What rose was as red 
 
 As thy dreams on it shed ? 
 Yea, thy thoughts were more white than the waves 
 of the sea. 
 
 And the heavens unclear 
 
 By thy song-sky dear. 
 Wherethrough thou wast wont to exult and flee. 
 
 XL 
 
 What rich buds even 
 
 In Italy's heaven 
 Were rich as the buds in the dreams of thy song > 
 
 What marvellous flow 
 
 Of ripples aglow 
 Danced gold in the sunlight, white in the throng 
 
 Of the white moonbeams. 
 
 Through the winged soft dreams 
 Of thy spirit alert, divine and strong ? 
 
no LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Oh, blossoms indeed, 
 
 A princely meed. 
 Thou hast given us, Shelley : and skies and seas. 
 
 And the voice of a rhyme 
 
 Unending, sublime, 
 And the laughter of fays in the leafage of trees, 
 
 And the tidal motion 
 
 Of song's sweet ocean, 
 The glitter of insects, the humming of bees. 
 
 XIII. 
 ' The universe 
 
 In thy pure verse 
 Gloweth and floweth, speaketh and sings : 
 
 From rose to lily, 
 
 From vale to hilly 
 Far rock-bound region on far-spread wings 
 
 Thou floatest and seizest 
 
 What bloom thou pleasest ; 
 Yea, what thou wiliest, thy quick harp brings. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And so in the sphere 
 
 Of high thought, clear 
 And brave thy voice is, fearless, unchained : 
 
 Thou wast not afraid 
 
 Of Calvary's shade ; 
 Free on the hill-top thy foot remained : 
 
 Thou wast not bound 
 
 By the calm sweet sound 
 Of Christ's voice, nor by the Church-crimes stained. 
 
TO SHELLEY. Ill 
 
 XV. 
 
 Pure of the flood 
 
 Of innocent blood 
 "Spilt by the Church thou wast : for a friend 
 
 Christ thou knewest 
 
 And in skies bluest 
 •Of great thought soughtest him, didst not bend.; 
 
 Thy bright head never 
 
 Need bend, nor ever 
 •Can Christ in the sheer song-land contend. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 He hath his crown, 
 
 And thou thine own, 
 -Shelley, — thy song-crown perfect indeed : 
 
 His wreath of pain 
 
 He hath, and his fane, 
 A.nd the thorns that yet on the white brow bleed ; 
 
 But thou, an immortal. 
 
 By thine own portal 
 Mayest enter the gates of the God we need. 
 
 xvn. 
 
 For England in song 
 
 Untrammelled and strong 
 Yearn we to hear now, not to be told 
 
 Of deeds outworn. 
 
 In a far land born ; 
 We need but love, ^o our hearts to hold. 
 
 And the lips of the rose 
 
 That in England blows. 
 Woman, sweeter than women of old. 
 
112 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Not Palestine, 
 
 Nor the fig and the vine, 
 But the corn and the clover, the clear-eyed maid* 
 
 On the cliff-top standing 
 
 With glance commanding 
 Searching our broad seas, — the oak-trees' shade^ 
 
 The purple heather. 
 
 The grey wild weather 
 In England, the furze-crowned fern-lined glade 
 
 XIX. 
 
 This we need : 
 
 Thou gavest a creed, 
 Shelley, which brings us high help now ; 
 
 God in the soul , 
 
 Of each, and the whole 
 Of the leafy wide world, not one bough 
 
 Of a palm-tree faded. 
 
 And grasped in jaded 
 Priest's hands — broken and tangled how ! 
 
 XX. 
 
 Thou wast the first 
 
 Through whose song burst 
 The chant of England, freeing her soul 
 
 From the dry harsh letter. 
 
 The ruinous fetter 
 Of creeds that around.her whit*limbs stole 
 
 As ravening snakes 
 
 In the dead-branch brakes : 
 She gives thee her rose-heart, gives thee the whole P 
 
TO KEATS. 
 
 I. 
 
 O crowned immortal 
 
 Who through the portal 
 Of life didst pass to a deathless tomb. 
 
 Where art thou singing 
 
 And thine hands bringing 
 Immortals blossoms of grander bloom 
 
 Than those that awoke 
 
 At thy swift harp-stroke 
 Ere our earth failed thee and rang thy doom ?" 
 
 II. 
 
 What dreams surrounded 
 Thy young soul bounded 
 
 And barred on all sides as thou didst sing. 
 Of cowslip and daisy 
 And spring morns hazy. 
 
 Soft-brooding ever with young white wing; 
 Above our meadows. 
 And through time's shadows 
 
 Moving, a song-god, an uncrowned king ^ 
 
 I 
 
I 14 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 III. 
 
 What dreams we know not. 
 
 Which thy songs show not, 
 Filled thy young spirit and smote thine heart 
 
 With stroke as of oars 
 
 Nigh musical shores. 
 Some with sweet pleasure and some with smart ? 
 
 What thoughts supreme 
 
 In a flash, in a dream. 
 Of love, of life, of thine own fair Art ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ne'er wast thou wingless, 
 
 But alway stingless. 
 Pure alway, gentle and tender and high : 
 
 A poet indeed 
 
 With thine heart for a creed 
 And thy temple the uttermost deep blue sky. 
 
 And the sound of the sea 
 
 For hymnal to thee. 
 And the voice of the breeze for thy soul's own sigh. 
 
 V. 
 
 The stars were thine own 
 
 And thy locks were blown 
 By the wind of the night as a spirit indeed 
 
 Of friendliest greeting ; 
 
 Thy heart swift-beating 
 Went traversing valley and dingle and mead. 
 
 Finding in each 
 
 Songs sweeter than speech 
 Of the birds who sang to thee, tuned thy reed. 
 
TO KEATS. 115 
 
 VI. 
 
 Greek-souled, Greek-eyed, 
 
 Thy spirit espied 
 Things hidden from all of us, given to thee 
 
 For balm and delight ; 
 
 Full oft through the night 
 'Or the tangle of leaves 'mid the boughs of a tree 
 
 Came nymphs new-risen 
 
 For thee from their prison, 
 .And mermaids shone in the gulfs of the sea. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The dead ideal 
 
 To thee was real ; 
 And real life gave thee one strange sweet dream : 
 
 Thou diedst crying 
 
 On one, far-flying 
 In spirit to where our white waves gleam 
 
 From Italy's shore ; 
 
 One loved as of yore. 
 And sought while launched upon death's still 
 
 stream. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 What hast thou now, 
 
 Keats ? visited how 
 Is the heaven-high spirit by love's glance bright ? 
 
 What tresses are fair 
 
 In the summer-soft air. 
 More summer-soft ever for pulse of the flight 
 
 Of song-woven pinions 
 
 Which flood the dominions 
 Of death with torrents of golden light ? 
 
Il6 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Hath thy kiss lighted 
 
 Soft and invited 
 On dear lips redder than lips of queens 
 
 Who make this earth to us 
 
 Gracious in mirth, to us 
 Bringing the glory of all sweet scenes ? 
 
 Whom hast thou wedded, 
 
 White-souled, gold-headed ? 
 What breast above thee with rapture leans ? 
 
 X. 
 
 Oh, are they fairer, 
 
 Those queens, and rarer 
 In passionate beauty than flowers below 
 
 Loved and proclaimed of us ? 
 
 Are they ashamed of us ? 
 Seek they for singers whose lips they know 
 
 In heaven, and we hear not. 
 
 Worship, revere not, — 
 Scorn they the passions our songs bestow ? 
 
 XI. 
 
 Hath love the splendour. 
 
 The dear glow tender. 
 In heaven that crowns us toiling and tired ? 
 
 Hast thou Keats fashioned 
 
 New lyrics impassioned. 
 By love of celestial sweet eyes fired ? 
 
 Now is thy song 
 
 As soft and more strong. 
 By the women of deathland sought and inspired > 
 
TO KEATS. 117 
 
 XII. 
 
 Oh are they sweet 
 
 With lily-clear feet, 
 And lips like the scent of the first May rose 
 
 In a shower at morn ; 
 
 And their laugh is it born 
 In the high pure air where no frail foot goes. 
 
 But only the singer's 
 
 Firm step that lingers 
 ■Gentian-like 'raid the untouched snows ? 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Thy dreams now are blessed. 
 
 Thy soul is at rest 
 Having passed from the earth where never a bard 
 
 Hath trodden save sadly. 
 
 Endlessly, madly, 
 To struggle in fate's steel bondage hard. 
 
 Till sweet death came 
 
 And her plumage of flame 
 Left the prison-barriers crushed and charred. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Then comes the sky. 
 
 The night wind's sigh, 
 The sense of release and the leaves of the trees 
 
 Tenderly dancing 
 
 And gold stars glancing 
 O'er billows of limitless fetterless seas. 
 
 And th e terrible gladness. 
 
 Transfiguring sadness. 
 Of visions of moonlit and measureless leas. 
 
Il8 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XV. 
 
 One day to each of us. 
 
 Close, within reach of us, 
 Comes the waft of the rose-like breath 
 
 Of the passionate bride 
 
 For whom we have sighed, 
 Yea, the passionate exquisite bosom of death, 
 
 And the lips of the night 
 
 Soft, flower-light, 
 And the word that the night's mouth whispering: 
 saith. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Then shall we see 
 
 The kingdom of thee, 
 Keats ? all thy treasure uncounted, untold ? 
 
 Thy brides in the sky 
 
 And thine ecstasy high, 
 And thy laughter as tender and clear as of old. 
 
 And thy singing supreme. 
 
 Like love's through a dream. 
 Rich from thy god's mouth moulded of gold. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Or hast thou found 
 
 And conquered and bound 
 Some sweet flower-singer as soft and as young- 
 
 In heaven, and chained her, 
 
 Loved and retained her 
 For ever while ever thy glad lips sung 
 
 Perfect, divine to her. 
 
 Sweet line by line to her — 
 Wonderful honeyed decoys of thy tongue ? 
 
TO KEATS. 119 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Oh, is she listening. 
 
 The soft eyes glistening 
 At»all the magic of thy fond strain ? 
 
 Now no more lonely 
 
 Thou art but only 
 Alone with one in the love-god's fane : 
 
 Rested at last 
 
 With sorrow in the past 
 Dead, while the flowers of the past remain, 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Through the soft June light. 
 
 Summer clear moonlight. 
 Conquering spirits, I cry to your land : 
 
 Crown us at last too, 
 
 Suflfering the blast too 
 Of sorrow ; stretch down a white strong hand 
 
 To singers who need 
 
 Your presence indeed. 
 Who yet uncrowned on the dim earth stand. 
 
 XX. 
 
 O bride of Keats 
 
 Whose heart now beats 
 For the singer whose spirit knows pain no more. 
 
 Remember that we 
 
 'Mid the waves of the sea 
 Of time yet struggle, — hear thou the roar 
 
 Of the breakers : oh aid 
 
 Till we too have made 
 The ultimate haven, the sorrowless shore !; 
 
THREE SONNETS. 
 
 THE CHRISTS OF THE AGES. 
 
 There are whose spirit-pangs do far exceed 
 
 The pangs the Hebrew weaveth in his crown : 
 Not on one Son of God high God smiled down. 
 But such throughout the foolish centuries bleed. 
 Oh, thrice accursed is the small dim creed 
 
 That cramps its votaries' souls before one 
 
 Cross ; 
 Poor mole-eyed spirits ! they couiit all suflFer- 
 ings dross 
 Save Christ's, — the English blood-rose but a 
 weed ! 
 
 The Christs o' the ages, men and women fair 
 In spirit as was Christ, or fairer far. 
 
 Are crucified indeed — no perfumed air 
 
 Of incense-worship crowns them, and no star 
 
 Gleams apostolic, fiery, o'er their head : 
 
 Men worship not ; God worships them instead. 
 
 (^Written on the eve of Qood Fridwy, Ma/rch 25, 1880.) 
 
THREE SONNETS. 121 
 
 II. 
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION OF MANHOOD. 
 
 {For Good Friday, 1880.) 
 
 To-day, as ever, pale mankind is nailed 
 Upon the bitter cross ; the people go 
 To weep false tears o'er overrated woe, — 
 
 Weeping because one far-off fair life failed. 
 
 And what of heights of manhood left unsealed 
 To-day, because this piteous farce runs so ? 
 What of the sufferers dying beneath snow 
 
 Of want of love to-day, by no hymns hailed ? 
 
 Ah 1 shall there be an Easter morn for these. 
 As through the blood-stained centuries not one 
 
 day 
 Hath not loomed like Good Friday gaunt and 
 grey 
 CTpon them ; from grim immemorial seas 
 
 Of timeless suffering, grievous, marred and 
 
 wan. 
 What Easter torch shall light the spirit of 
 man ? 
 
122 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION OF WOMANHOOD.. 
 
 And what of woman ? Shall she not arise 
 Splendid as risen Christ on Easter monij — 
 Seeking, dew-kissed, sun-crowned, a flower 
 new-born, 
 Untraversed haunts of unfamiliar skies ? 
 Shall not the sweet God shine within her eyes ? 
 Shall not hdr swordless white hand laugh to 
 
 scorn 
 The pale black -armoured foes who would have 
 torn 
 Her banner down, that floated lily-wise ? 
 
 Oh, Christ is risen ; leave his grave in peace. 
 
 Rise thou, O woman, from thine own poor 
 dreams ; 
 
 Lo ! even for thee an Easter morning gleams 
 Triumphant, and thine utter woes shall cease 
 
 Mayhap : no more shall flow the sacred blood- 
 
 Of crucified, sad, tortured womanhood. 
 
 {ffrittm on Raster Eve, March 2 J, 1880.) 
 
. TO WOMAN. 
 
 I. 
 
 Not of any wonder 
 
 High in heaven clear. 
 Soaring beyond thunder. 
 
 Making for man's ear 
 Music that fails divinely through the azure sheer- 
 
 II. 
 
 Not of any skylark 
 
 High in heaven I sing : 
 Loftier than the high lark 
 
 With my songful wing 
 I would sail, glad-seeking yet a fairer thing. 
 
 III. 
 
 Fairer thing, and sweeter 
 Than the lark at dawn ; 
 Tenderer, completer. 
 
 Out of God's heart gone ; 
 More silver-voiced than birds, swift-footed as a 
 fawn. 
 
 IV. 
 Glorious in the azure. 
 
 White above the sea, 
 Man's supremest pleasure. 
 Grand in purity. 
 Woman thou art : and heaven I find, in seeking thee.. 
 
3 24 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 V. 
 
 Wonderful thy song is, 
 Fairer than the lark ; 
 Tender it and strong is. 
 Bursting through the dark, 
 Till all the heavens for wonder hush themselves 
 and hark. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Marvellous thy singing ; 
 
 Sweet thy snow-white form. 
 Ever to man's clinging, 
 
 Faithful through each storm, 
 Every surge of anguish, tender still and warm. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Through the night of trouble. 
 Through thy long sad past. 
 Thou hast sung; now double. 
 Sweet, thy song at last ; 
 •Sing, for thy night is over, thine enemies down^ 
 cast. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Sing in the glad clear morning, 
 
 O woman-spirit, — sing : 
 Thy life-long sorrows scorning j 
 Soft-brushing with white wing 
 .Aside each hindering hostile pestilential thing. 
 
TO WOMAN. 125, 
 
 IX. 
 
 Bring to man the gladness 
 That he fain would know ; 
 
 Banish all our sadness ; 
 Make an end of woe ; 
 Create a perfect heaven amid thy bowers below. 
 
 X. 
 
 Sweet, create God's heaven. 
 
 Golden, glad, and clear. 
 In earth's valleys even; 
 Yea, love, even here : 
 Bring the divine redemption with thy presence 
 
 XI. 
 
 Be to man a saviour 
 
 Gentle-souled and white, 
 Sweet in pure behaviour. 
 Glad in modest might ; 
 Assert thy woman's sceptre, claim thy queenly 
 right. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Be to earth a blossom 
 
 Soft, divine indeed ; 
 Take man to thy bosom, 
 
 Man, in utmost need ; 
 Give to his endless yearning, gentle lady, heed. 
 
[26 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Build thy bower of roses. 
 
 Golden, sweet, divine 
 On earth : where love reposes 
 'Neath ivy and woodbine 
 Build thou thy palace, made imperishahly thine. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Let thy wondrous singing 
 Sound o'er earthly seas ; 
 Lo 1 thy voice is ringing 
 Silver in each breeze 
 •Of summer, and amid the green thick-foliaged 
 trees. 
 
 XV. 
 
 God in thee revealing 
 All his tender grace 
 Shines ; his love is stealing. 
 Love, throughout thy face ; 
 Thine hand upon earth's meadows, blossoms in 
 each place. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Where thou art, the lily 
 
 Straightway doth appear; 
 Roses o'er the hilly 
 Rocky fields and sheer 
 Bloom; thou bringest eternal glory, sweetheart, 
 here. 
 
TO WOMAN. 
 
 127 
 
 XVII. 
 
 All my song I render. 
 
 Lady, unto thee; 
 Worshipping thy splendour. 
 
 All thy purity : 
 Listening to thy low laughter and thy magic glee. 
 
 • XVI IL 
 
 All the bending glory 
 Of the golden corn. 
 Crests of billows hoary, 
 Crimson clouds at mom, — 
 _And all earth's countless splendours, for thy sake 
 are born. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Not, like Shelley's wonder. 
 
 Singing in the sky. 
 Not sad thoughts from yonder 
 Bringest thou, sweet, nigh ; 
 jBut only utter gladness laughing in thine eye. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Only utter gladness 
 
 Sounding in thy voice. 
 Now thy former sadness 
 Letteth thee rejoice, 
 IHavIng fled back for ever, like a tempest-noise. 
 
128 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 xxr. 
 
 Bring us sweet redempticfn. 
 Sweet onCj in thy breast; 
 Virtue, and exemption 
 From the weary quest 
 For what might be more fitting, what the eternaB 
 best. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Thou the eternal best art, 
 Thou the endless queen. 
 Thou man's perfect rest art. 
 Tender, white, serene. 
 The sweetest of all songsters that have ever been.. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Sweetest of all singers. 
 
 Softest of all birds. 
 Flowers within thy fingers, 
 Laughter in thy words, 
 Lo ! for thy service now his sword man's spirit 
 girds. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Not an angel — fairer; 
 Lovelier, thou art : 
 Not a skylark — rarer ; 
 Gifted with a heart 
 Even more full of songs that down the deep blue: 
 dart. 
 
TO WOMAN, 1291 
 
 XXV. 
 
 All my heart and fire 
 Unto thee I bring.; 
 Bless thouj love, my lyre, 
 Let it nobly sing 
 Thee the eternal queen of every poet-king. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 All my yearning spirit. 
 
 Love, to-ni^ht I raise ; 
 Let my soul inherit 
 At the end of days 
 That heaven whence thou stoopest, coveting our 
 lays. 
 
 XXVIL 
 
 For our lays thou lovest. 
 Though thou art a queen. 
 
 Woman ; though thou movest 
 Over floors sereae, 
 Golden iij skies untroubled, measureless in sheen. 
 
 XXVITI. 
 
 Yea, our songs thou hearest. 
 
 And thou dost bestow 
 Power ; yea, love, thou carest 
 For thy bards below 
 Snatching at sacred joys they may not fully know, 
 
 K 
 
130 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 O thou rose eternal, 
 
 Heavenly love, made fair 
 Not as flowers diurnal. 
 Filling all the air , 
 Of utter heaven with fragrance passing man's 
 speech rare ; 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Take this song and bear it 
 Through the clouds of night; 
 
 For thy garland wear it. 
 Smile with smile most bright 
 Upon my soul, and make it, as thy soul is, white ! 
 
TO THE ENGLISH POETS OF THE 
 PAST. 
 
 Ye whose lips were wet 
 With the self-same sea, 
 Hearken unto me : 
 Let now my voice by your victorious harps be met. 
 
 Ye too struggled on ; 
 Following after fame 
 Till at length it came — 
 .But came not till your mortal shapes were dead 
 and gone. 
 
 Ye too loved and spake 
 In the English air : 
 Found the same flowers fair ; 
 Marked the same tides upon the same white cliff- 
 sides break. 
 
 Ye too in your time 
 
 Knew love's wonder here : 
 Found love's message dear; 
 Recorded love's worth in imperishable rhyme. 
 
 Oh that in the end 
 I may join, I too, 
 You great voice, — and you, — 
 May touch the hands of many a true bay- wreathed 
 friend ! 
 
1^2 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Sunely with the same 
 Passion of pure love 
 Which your hearts did raovq, 
 I too love the shores wherein ye won your fame.. 
 
 Singing in an age 
 When the noises sharp 
 Drown out many a harp. 
 Imperious battle harder than your war we wage. 
 
 Yea, if but one heart 
 Doth respond to ours, 
 Resting in our bowers 
 Of song, it is reward thought great for living Art.. 
 
 Yea, if but one heaths ; 
 And if dead we find 
 All the bards who twined 
 Round their brows of old the laurels of past 
 years — 
 
 If but these we find 
 Gladdened by our song. 
 All our souls are strong 
 To face the bitter days of obloquy unkind. 
 
 For the self-same land 
 Shall receive our word. 
 Over which was poured 
 The sacred stream of song from many a former 
 hand. 
 
TO THE ENGLISH POETS OF THE PAST. 133 
 
 And though in our day 
 Listeners are but few, 
 Splendider is too 
 Thp victory of the voice which nothing can gain- 
 say. 
 
 The victory of the harp 
 Sure-voiced as the sea : 
 O'er which there can be 
 No mist nor vapour flung by foolish tongues that 
 carp. 
 
 O great English bards 
 Grant us in the end 
 Triumphj and extend 
 To each who struggleth now "mid waves vvhose 
 force retard Sj 
 
 As each soul deserves. 
 Greeting from on high, 
 Help, and victory ; 
 If but to the utter end each battles on, nor 
 swerves. 
 
so HE CEASED TO BELIEVE IN^ 
 
 MAN. 
 
 A thinkerj young, was worried and stung 
 
 By gibes of friends and priests ; 
 The peace he sought could not be brought 
 
 By pleasure or jovial feasts; 
 A peace they proffered, a rest they offered 
 Far from the battle's van — 
 So he ceased to believe in Man ! 
 
 He ceased to believe in Man and receive 
 
 The gifts Man has to hold : 
 The strong despair whose face is fair. 
 
 Yea, sweeter than wrought gold ; 
 The endless scope of desperate hope ; 
 
 The proud Church waved her fan- 
 So he ceased to believe in Man ! 
 
 He could no more upon the shore 
 
 Delight in ocean's waves ; 
 He could no longer stand far stronger 
 Than foam-white leagues of graves ; 
 His power was spent, his head was bent, 
 He trembled, pale and wan — 
 So he ceased to believe in Man 1 
 
so HE CEASED TO BELIEVE IN MAN. I35 
 
 The glorious earth no more with mirth 
 
 Unutterable delayed him : 
 The pleasant flowers and woodbine bowers 
 
 Had all, he thought, betrayed him ; 
 The roses red were fickle and dead ; 
 
 He could not life's girth span — 
 So he ceased to believe in Man I 
 
 The wondrous sound of music bound 
 
 His being now in vain ; 
 A woman's eyes (wherein there lies 
 
 A cure for every pain) 
 Could not entreaty were no more sweet; 
 He failed their depth to scan — 
 So he ceased to believe in Man I 
 
 And heaven-sent love was but a dove^ 
 
 No lustre on its pinions ; 
 The struggle of thought went all for nought, 
 
 The woods were death's dominions ; 
 The azure sky was hollow and diy. 
 
 Earth groaned beneath a ban — 
 So he ceased to believe in Man ! 
 
so HE ENTERED THE CHURCH 
 OF ROME. 
 
 Then pale priests came with comfort tame 
 
 But grateful to his soul ; 
 They offered him a temple dim. 
 
 They brought an honeyed bowl ; 
 He could not shrink, he chose to drink ; 
 He sought a quiet home — 
 So he entered the Church of Rome ! 
 
 He ceased to plead, he ceased to bleed, 
 
 He cannot struggle now ; 
 He cannot fight, he has lost the light. 
 
 It flames not on his brow ; 
 Far from the rattle of earth's wild battle 
 His frail feet longed to roam — 
 So he entered the Church of Rome ! 
 
 He longed for peace and calm release 
 
 From all the labour of thought; 
 He longed for pleasure and gentle leisure — 
 
 He has found the gifts he sought : 
 High thought is curbed, he is not disturbed ; 
 He yearned for a painted dome — 
 So he entered the Church of Rome 1 
 
so HE ENTERED THE CHURCH OF ROME. 137 
 
 His heaven is sure, his bliss secure, 
 
 The angels wait for him ; 
 His harp is ready beyond the eddy 
 Of death's stream cold and dim ; 
 His bright robe waits beyond the gates 
 
 Of heaven : he shunned life's foam — 
 So he entered the Church of Rome ! 
 
 His joy is certain : he draws the curtain 
 
 On earth, and its windy fate; 
 He cares not now what furrows plough 
 
 Our foreheads, what sore weight 
 •Of trouble and care we have to bear ; 
 
 His feet stuck in earth's loam — 
 So he entered the Church of Rome ! 
 
 .He shrank from thought— the terror it brought. 
 
 Its passionate joy as well : 
 He shall not see the life of the free. 
 
 His high Church is his hell ; 
 (He shall not enter the fair centre 
 Of Man's perfect home. 
 Far from the Church of Rome. 
 
CHRIST AND WOMAN. 
 
 Are there not, king. 
 King of many lands, 
 
 Brooding with broad wing 
 Over seas and sands. 
 Free yet from thine hands. 
 Full many shores whereto free joyous spirits cling ? 
 
 Are there not, O lord 
 
 Of the church-fed air 
 Which is round us poured 
 For our birth-day fare 
 In England everywhere. 
 Yet souls untrammelled girt with courage . for ar 
 sword ? 
 
 If our women find 
 
 In thee all they seek. 
 Deaf and pale and blind. 
 Noble not but weak — 
 Yet hath not some cheek 
 Of woman flushed for love of her own kith and 
 kind ? 
 
CHRIST AND WOMAN, 139. 
 
 If our churches groan 
 
 With the praise they pour 
 In their weary tone 
 On thee evermore. 
 Yet hath not some shore 
 Crowns of another Christ, and other worship 
 known ? 
 
 Is the rose more red 
 
 Since the Saviour's birth ? 
 Or the lily's head 
 Tenderer in worth ? 
 Greener is the earth ? 
 Doth any Lazarus here come smiling from the- 
 dead ? 
 
 Do the loaves increase 
 
 For our needy crowd ? 
 Do our terrors cease ? 
 
 Doth the ghostlike shroud 
 
 Of sorrow at the loud 
 Mandate of any Christ divide, disclosing peace ?■ 
 
 Have the high sheer waves 
 
 At Christ's bidding spared 
 Seamen, — have the graves 
 That their gulfs prepared 
 Yielded souls that dared 
 To tempt the awful deep back from their frothy 
 caves ? 
 
14® LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Have the breakers stood 
 
 Silent at the touch 
 Of a Saviour good, 
 
 Rescuing from their clutch 
 Souls he valued much ? 
 Have blossoms burned new-born on rods of barren 
 wood? 
 
 Hath the grave again 
 
 Opened to set free 
 Any sons of men, — 
 
 Given to liberty 
 
 Any soul that we 
 Have marked its iron bars and bitter paling pen?- 
 
 What hath Christ for these 
 
 English yearning souls 
 Done that they should cease. 
 As the world- wave rolls 
 Onward over shoals 
 And sunken reefs, to seek in their own spirits 
 peace ? 
 
 Peace within the shores 
 
 Where their life was born. 
 Over which God pours 
 Crimson blush of morn, 
 Which he clothes with corn,— 
 Round which their sails are white, and round 
 which throb their oars. 
 
CHRIST AND WOMAN. 141 
 
 Pleasure in the land 
 
 That indeed their own 
 They may call, and stand 
 On it as a throne. 
 By its breezes blown. 
 Girt with its cliffs and yellow wastes of sea- 
 washed sand. 
 
 Oh, is this not ours. 
 
 All this island-shore ? 
 Green and glad with bowers ; 
 Undismayed by war ; 
 Over which there pour 
 Fresh from God's fruitful hand the ever-fruitful 
 showers. 
 
 Is it not thine own, 
 
 Brother ? why then seek 
 Alien shores and groan, 
 Awe-struck at the peak 
 Of Sinai, or some creek 
 Whose rocky bluffs once rang to Christ's alluring^ 
 tone? 
 
 Why this discontent ? 
 
 Why this wild desire. 
 Longing ever bent 
 With increasing fire 
 On an Eastern lyre, 
 That wayward and harsh-toned uncertain instru- 
 ment ? 
 
:14a LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Are not the strong seas 
 Of our pent-iip coast 
 Touched by wintry breeze 
 Music deep ? a host 
 Of singers we may boast, 
 Yea^may not we ? — the birds among our summer 
 trees ? 
 
 And have not we the grace 
 
 Of perfect womanhood 
 Among us — yea, each face. 
 Sweet and pure and good. 
 Womanly in mood. 
 Brings God before us, God made plain in every 
 place. 
 
 Christs we have, and kings : 
 
 Women-Christs divine. 
 Bearing snowier wings 
 Than the wings that shine, 
 Noble in outline. 
 Upon the Christ who on the rain-dyed gibbet 
 swings. 
 
 Is not Woman more 
 
 Even than the rose ? 
 Shall she not, too, soar 
 
 Past all earthly woes. 
 
 Till bright gates disclose 
 In. heaven heroic hearts for her too to adore ? 
 
CHRIST AND WOMAN. 143 
 
 Are not her lips sweet. 
 And her tresses fair ? 
 And shall she retreat. 
 Hustled through the air, 
 When her foes declare 
 "That God's step sounds alone in Christ's ap- 
 proaching feet ? 
 
 Is not every bride 
 
 Unto us as pure 
 As the Christ who sighed 
 In the groves obscure 
 Where e'en now endure 
 ^Stories that drip with blood, memories of how he 
 died? 
 
 Did he rise alone ? 
 
 Shall not we too rise 
 To our fitting throne. 
 Triumph in our eyes. 
 Cleaving sundered skies, ^- 
 Have we pot too the Father, and his glory 
 known ? 
 
 Hath the Father one 
 
 Only child and heir ? 
 Favourite chief son. 
 
 Who alone may share 
 
 All the treasures fair 
 Amassed since first his Sire creative toil begun ? 
 
144 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Shall not Woman rise 
 
 Bursting all the 'bars 
 That now mock her sighs. 
 
 Sweep along the stars — 
 
 All that stays and mars 
 Long left behind in lower under-trodden skies ? 
 
 Shall she not surpass 
 
 Saviours and ascend 
 To the seas of glass, 
 
 All high heaven for friend ? 
 Is there any end 
 To blossoms that smile upward, round her, froro^ 
 the grass ? 
 
 Hath the Holy Ghost 
 
 Not a cliff- top lair 
 Somewhere in our coast ? 
 Is not English air 
 Sweet enough and fair 
 Enough to bring down many a bright angelic- 
 host ? 
 
 White and pure indeed 
 Are the angels seen 
 With us, whose feet bleed 
 'Mid the grasses green ; 
 Thick clouds fail to screen 
 From us high heaven ; we have the angel-help we 
 need. 
 
CHRIST AND WOMAN. 145 
 
 Not in this our age 
 
 Did tile Christ-king rise : 
 Not his war we wage 
 'Neath our stormier skies. 
 Echo not his sighs ; 
 Contend not, as did he, with winds' and waters' 
 rage. 
 
 Rather in the stress 
 
 Of our surging thought 
 Struggle we no less : 
 
 No less hearts have brought 
 Purified of aught 
 That might obscure or cloud the faith our tongues 
 confess. 
 
 The utter faith in man 
 
 And the Power that leads 
 Onward through life's span 
 Man, — who toils and bleeds, 
 Suffers and succeeds. 
 Completes at last the work his birthday breath 
 began. 
 
 Faith in the great soul 
 
 Human, and the Power 
 Latent in the whole. 
 
 Sweet in the rose-bower, 
 Tender in love's hour, 
 Who, silent, works on towards the foreseen cer- 
 tain goal. 
 
 L 
 
146 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Faith in man's soul's light. 
 
 And the perfect doom 
 Of day to follow night ; 
 
 Night again with gloom 
 
 To rest us, and entomb 
 The sadness of the day, healing with gentle might. 
 
 Faith in the course of things. 
 
 Certain and sublime. 
 Towards the utmost springs 
 Of morning : towards a clime 
 Sunnier, and a rhyme 
 Beating more gladsome yet through broad crea- 
 tion's wings. 
 
 Therefore not one King 
 
 Worship we, but crown 
 Man, and 'neath man's wing 
 Gladly rest, — and down 
 Towards life's furrows brown 
 We look; no more our hands round heaven's 
 flower-stalks cling. 
 
 Woman we elect 
 
 Tender snow-white queen : 
 Man, the lord, is decked 
 Now in lordly sheen ; 
 Priests who came between 
 Man and the Power that made, with anger we 
 reject. 
 
CHRIST AND WOMAN. I47 
 
 For God's mouth shall bend, 
 
 Tender, unto each. 
 Kissing each as Friend, 
 If we will but reach 
 Upward, and beseech, 
 fearless, the Power that wrought, to mould us to 
 the end. 
 
TO APOLLO. 
 
 I. 
 
 King Apollo 
 
 O'er mount and hollow 
 
 Do I not follow with weary feet ? 
 Do I, pursuer. 
 Where skies are bluer 
 
 And meadows softer, recede, retreat ? 
 Thy gold hair flaming 
 In front flight shaming 
 
 Leads onward ever, than stars more sweet. 
 
 II. 
 
 How many follow 
 
 Thee, lord Apollo, 
 Yet lay no hands on thy garments' hem ! 
 
 They sink down weary 
 
 By road-side dreary, 
 Sink, and the world hears nought of them ; 
 
 Their harps are taken. 
 
 Their god forsaken. 
 And the austere lips of the god condemn. 
 
TO APOLLO. 149 
 
 III. 
 
 O condemnation • 
 
 From heaven-high station 
 Severely spoken, — O gold-haired king ! 
 
 Let me swerve never 
 
 But, patient ever, 
 At thy feet or in thy pathway sing : 
 
 Sing by the meadows. 
 
 And through the shadows, 
 ;Soft-brushing grasses with ghost-like wing. 
 
 IV. 
 
 By river flowing, 
 
 By white tide glowing 
 Of ocean's margent, by mead and rill ; 
 
 By star-lit valleys 
 
 Whence thy foot sallies 
 O sudden song-god and all is still ; 
 
 By dawn, by daylight, 
 
 By gold star-ray-light. 
 By sweet moon-beam-light; 'neath shade of hill : 
 
 V. 
 'Mid grass, 'mid clover. 
 Swift-foot, a rover, 
 
 'Mid golden ranks of the gold-haired corn — 
 Gold-haired as thou 
 Of the snow-white brow 
 
 Whence all the music of earth was born- 
 Through darkness deep 
 When frail souls sleep. 
 
 At murky midnight, at crimson morn : 
 
150 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Through youthj through seasons 
 When love's swift treasons 
 
 Are surging round us like waves of seas ; 
 Through manhood's stiller 
 Strong years O filler 
 
 Of all the air with the song of the breeze — 
 Through life to dealh 
 Let thy sweet song-breath 
 
 Lift me and waft me whither it please ! 
 
 vn. 
 
 I dread not sorrow 
 
 If by it I borrow 
 A strength more ample, a lyre more true y 
 
 If by the pain -wave, 
 
 The red blood-rain-wave. 
 My wings more potent, invade the blue 
 
 Of loftier heaven ; 
 
 Then would I even 
 'Mid pangs my tremulous song renew. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 But surely, surely. 
 
 Patiently, purely, 
 I have thee followed, O lord, O king! 
 
 I have not trembled. 
 
 Nor quaked, dissembled 
 Before the world, — but the deep pure thing 
 
 Thou gavest me, loudly, 
 
 Strongly and proudly, 
 I have not ceased, through life, to sing. 
 
TO APOLLO. 151 
 
 IX. 
 
 I have not lost it. 
 
 Nor blurred nor crossed it 
 With threads invasive of mere self-vvrill ; 
 
 My message clearly 
 
 Have spoken — nearly 
 The sole night-singer when all was still 
 
 In the hushed dark sometimes ; 
 
 Till there would come times 
 When all thy woods loud lyres would fill. 
 
 X. 
 
 The gift thou gavest 
 
 Among the bravest. 
 The dearest, sweetest, of loves and friends, 
 
 I've used ; not heeding 
 
 Feet full-oft bleeding 
 And heart that the world's sharp spear-head rends ; 
 
 Now may I rest 
 
 On the night's dim breast 
 As at thy coming my pale chant ends. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Lo ! thou appearest 
 
 Apollo and clearest 
 The heaven above thee with awful might: 
 
 The clouds before thee 
 
 Retreat — high o'er thee 
 Within thy tresses the sun flames bright : 
 
 And the seas thy footing 
 
 Follow with floating 
 Ripples of august golden light. 
 
152 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Now let me, weary. 
 
 The black night dreary 
 Evade for ever, now thou art here : 
 
 My song is ended 
 
 Now, fierce, extended 
 Across the skies thy white steeds rear ! 
 
 My song is over 
 
 Now thou, song's lover, 
 As gold-haired bridegroom dost appear. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Take my pale singing : 
 
 Let some notes ringing 
 High upward, skyward, remain, abide : 
 
 But oh thy laughter 
 
 So sweet, comes after. 
 So silver-clear o'er the charmed sea- tide; 
 
 And what can singers 
 
 Of earth with fingers 
 Feeble fashion for song thy bride ? 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Is she too golden 
 
 Of locks, and holden- 
 Within her hands is a harp-stem true? 
 
 Or black-haired rather, 
 
 Nereus her father, 
 Did she step forth from the sea-caves blue 
 
 With musical feet 
 
 Apollo to meet, — 
 With grey glance subtle, snow-white of hue ? 
 
TO APOLLO. 153 
 
 XV. 
 
 Yea, she was gracious 
 
 Within the spacious 
 Deep domes of singing beneath the waves ; 
 
 And what can our song. 
 
 Our pale earth's flower-song 
 That twines with roses the grass of graves 
 
 Be to the tender 
 
 And soft-voiced splendour 
 Of white seas breaking in dim sea-caves ? 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Yet hear our flower-song, 
 
 Our red-rose-bower song. 
 And take it tenderly, great song-king j 
 
 For there are in it 
 
 Not chirp of linnet 
 And son'g-thrush only, but notes that ring 
 
 Forth sweeter, greater 
 
 Than these O hater 
 Of all things little, O gold of wing ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Not songs that languish 
 
 But deep heart-anguish 
 And throbs unspoken of nights and days. 
 
 These, these, we bring thee 
 
 And with them ring thee. 
 Not with the flower-stalks, not with the bays : 
 
 Oh bend Apollo 
 
 And hear the hollow 
 >firoan of the earth's voicej take it as praise. 
 
I54 " LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 While thou wast wedded, 
 
 Our groans have eddied 
 From lonely bosoms upon the breeze : 
 
 While thou wast toying 
 
 With thy bride, cloying 
 Thy soul with sweetness, our soul did freeze. 
 
 Pallid and crownless 
 
 And naked, renownless, 
 Hopeless as arms of the storm-lashed trees ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Therefore remember 
 
 With us December 
 Abides while summer O gold-haired king 
 
 Is with thee alway. 
 
 And thy bright hallway 
 With laughter of red lips laughs and may ring :. 
 
 Alone not ever 
 
 Thou wast, — yea never 
 With lone lips hadst thou had heart to sing. 
 
 XX. 
 
 So when thou flamest 
 
 In dawn and aimest 
 Thy final arrows at earth's last night. 
 
 Forget not those who 
 
 In pain arose, — who 
 Sang to thee, song-god, when nought was bright 
 
 Save only the endless 
 
 Love then thought friendless 
 Wherewith they longed for thee, longed for thy 
 light. 
 
 Feb. lo, i88cx 
 
TO GERTRUDE ENTERING A 
 CONVENT. 
 
 Ah ! weak and frail— but yet so sweety so pure ! 
 Thou art English, rosebud ! yet could'st not endure 
 The strong salt breeze, but must thy soul secure 
 Within these close-barred flowerless scentless 
 gates. 
 
 Thou art English : yet the sweet and stalwart 
 
 breeze 
 That laughs delighted 'mid our bright oak trees 
 And sweeps across the emerald lavish leas 
 
 Thou could'st not bear; what breeze thy coming, 
 waits ? 
 
 all shut in apart from suns and stars 
 Within these bloomless barren spouseless bars, 
 How black a cowardly crime thy girlhood mars, 
 Thine English girlhood, spoilt by froward fates !; 
 
 How deep a weak-souled crime thy life begins ! 
 How crowned thy forehead is with others' sins ! 
 Oh, if the eternal Bridegroom thee, sweet, wins. 
 Thou art not won, if love's pursuit abates 1 
 
 Yea, if love's English foot throughout the gloom< 
 Thee follows not, nor cares to seek thy tomb. 
 Thou art lost — yea, lost, for all the hectic bloom 
 That heaven upon thy pale cheek reinstates. 
 
156 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Thou art lost, abandoned, sold : thy body young 
 That English true lips might have loved and sung 
 Is buried deep, deep ; round thy neck have clung 
 Foul serpents of the dusk, like hissing hates. 
 
 O flower, white flower, why wilt thou thus away ? 
 O rose, sweet rose, why will thy footsteps stray ? 
 X.0 1 night before thee lies, but crimson day 
 Behind ; oh pause ere yet the last bolt grates. 
 
 O blossom, blossom, wandering down the track. 
 Alone, uncherishedj wilt thou not turn back ? 
 Thou know'st not yet how dark it is alack ! 
 Within that vault thy purpose meditates. 
 
 By every English rose of thee a part 
 Pause maiden, slaughter not thy young fair heart : 
 Yea, drop from thy white hand the priest-forged 
 dart; 
 Lo ! rose-like love thy being renovates. 
 
 By every English woman glad and strong 
 Hear thou the swift notes of an English song : 
 Do not thy white soul this unfathomed wrong : 
 Do England's soul no wrong; heed not these 
 baits. 
 
 The great white soul of England calleth thee : 
 In every white wave of the thundering sea 
 Its mandate sounds; it sounds again through me; 
 Pause, ere thine hand thine own soul dissipates. 
 
 Pause, Gertrude ; by thine own dear English name 
 That burns our hearts with longing like a flame 
 Do not thy soul and England's soul this shame : 
 Pause, ere thy fall our foemen's craving sates. 
 
A WHITE ROSE IN NOVEMBER. 
 
 T thought it was summer when I saw the white 
 
 rose ! 
 Oh can it be November, when so bright a blossom 
 
 glows ? 
 The tender blossom-maiden I place within mijr 
 
 song, 
 To bloom therein, and smile therein, the whole 
 
 year long ! 
 
 It cannot be November, it must be tender June : 
 The birds amid the tree-tops will wake and whisper 
 
 soon : 
 The seas, blue-bright for summer, will chant their 
 
 chorus strong 
 And flowers will crown our foreheads, the glad 
 
 year long ! 
 
 Oh summer ever reaches us, if but a summer- 
 maid. 
 
 Sweet June wreathed in her tresses, gold August 
 in each braid. 
 
 Smiles, laughs ; if but her accents, so silver-sweet 
 and clear. 
 
 Bring all the songs of spring-time, yea, every 
 throstle, near. 
 
138 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 1 knew it was summer when I saw the white 
 
 rose ! 
 Through not another blossom so sweet a beauty 
 
 glows ; 
 I know not any blossom so tender-sweet and 
 
 white, 
 Though many blossoms richer have flamed upon 
 
 my sight. 
 
 It always must be summer when the white rose 
 sings. 
 
 With music in her outspread sun-seeking petal- 
 wings 1 
 
 It always must be summer where the white rose 
 gleams, 
 
 For summer's self pursues her and glitters in her 
 dreams. 
 
 O white rose, white rose, soon you will be far 
 From England and my singing ; but watch some 
 
 clear glad star 
 That shineth over England above the Indian sea 
 And send your love, soft, star-like, by that glad 
 
 star to me. 
 
 ■O white rose, white rose, soon you will be wed. 
 And all our days of laughter and singing will be 
 
 dead ; 
 But white rose, white rose, take my kiss away 
 Hid soft amid your petals, and therein let it stay I 
 
A WHITE ROSE IN NOVEMBER. Ijp 
 
 Hid sweet amid your petals; oh therein let it 
 
 rest, 
 White rose, white rose, as in a scented nest 
 •Of young soft blessed fragrance;. and when you 
 
 watch the foam 
 That breaks o'er Indian sand-banks, wave hands to 
 
 me at home 1 
 
 Nov. i5, 1878. 
 
TO CHRIST. 
 
 Have we not garlands in these latter days 
 Whether of gold or rosebuds or of bays — 
 
 Have we not fitting joys and loves to treasure — 
 Snow-stars of winter,, green light spring-tide- 
 sprays. 
 Passion with heart-throbs tender beyond 
 measure ; 
 Friendship of manhood, woman's love and praise ?• 
 
 Have we not white seas beating round our shoresj 
 And in our ironbound creeks the throb of oars ? 
 
 Have we not all the early summer sweetness 
 Of morning, and delight that even pours 
 
 Upon us at the burning day's completeness — 
 And the same sunset's cloud-built golden doors ? 
 
 What is there wanting ? Are the skies not gold ? 
 The clouds not tipped with crimson as of old ? 
 
 Is the gold hair of women grown less ample— r 
 The fire of love a worn-out thing and cold — 
 
 Yea, do the heavy-footed centuries trample 
 AH that humanity would clasp, enfold ? 
 
TO CHRIST. l6l 
 
 May we not mark within our own grey sea 
 Tints fairer than o' the lake of Galilee? 
 
 Is any flower +han the English rose more 
 splendid ? 
 Are women than our women more divine ? 
 
 Are sweeter sprays and goldener extended 
 In Jewish fields than English lush woodbine ? 
 
 Can we not meet the high God face to face. 
 Yea, pant and wrestle for his pure embrace ? 
 
 Oh, what have we to do with legends devious 
 On whose clear brows the English God hath 
 shone ? 
 
 Why bind our souls by lore of ages previous — 
 Why guide our spirits by aspirations gone ? 
 
 See how the sweet sun on our cliff-tops shines j 
 Sweeter than suns that thread meandering vines ; 
 
 There is not any greater God or purer 
 Than the strong God within the soul of each : 
 
 Nor God-inspired majestic record surer 
 Than the long centuries of English speech. 
 
 Lo ! in the gathered voice of English song 
 
 Is God, than Gods of Jewish speech more strong. 
 
 Than all the Hellenic oracles supremer. 
 Than Christ's own crown and spirit more divine : 
 
 England rise up ! thou slow of heart, thou 
 dreamer ! 
 Lo ! here is God, and not in Palestine ! 
 
 M 
 
l62 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Lo ! here to-day the high God stands before 
 Thy face O England and his feet thy floor 
 
 Impress, and he within thy blue waves singeth 
 And on the green slopes of thy thousand hills : 
 
 Be blind no more,— see all the bloom he 
 bringeth, 
 Mark how his endless hand thy summer fills. 
 
 Traitor thou art : yea traitor to thy Lord, 
 And murderer of thy God with foolish sword : 
 
 He stands before thee, and thou dost not know 
 him 
 But wanderest in the Palestinian vales ; 
 
 Yea, blind, inane and vain, thou dost forego him 
 And EavStward spreadest soulless fatuous sails. 
 
 Traitor thou art, O England ! rise up now 
 And gaze towards thine own sky with fearless 
 brow : 
 Hear thou within the music of thy waters 
 The many-voiced fair psalm of God thy king; 
 Mark in the flower-sweet white forms of thy 
 daughters 
 The fairest blossoms that the ages bring. 
 
 Christ's voice was sweet, but sweeter is thine own 
 O England, and a loftier seat thy throne 
 
 Than his throne ; Lord Christ shalt thou for 
 ever 
 Rule with thine alien sceptre young great lands ? 
 
 Shall these rise up full-grown, defiant, never .' 
 Is there no foot against thy foot that stands ? 
 
TO CHRIST. v6^ 
 
 "Yea, I stand forth to-day' in England's name 
 And through my song upon my fellows shame 
 I cry in that they spread not fearless pinions. 
 And haply so transcend thee in the air, 
 
 ■ Reaching auguster spirit-high dominions, 
 rinding a Father's bosom yet more fair 1 
 
 A tenderer Mother- God in star-strewn night, 
 A kinglier Father-God within the bright 
 
 Abode of day ; king Christ, thou art usurper 
 Of English hearts ! thy crown shall pass away. 
 
 Thy chant be but as tongue of liunet-chirper 
 To future nightingales' full-voicSd lay. 
 
 The age advances : lo ! the white waves break 
 With thunder upon thunder, and they take 
 
 The trembling shore by inches ; art thou stable 
 When all life's sands and rocks are insecure ? 
 
 Thine empire rotten, and thy creed a fable, 
 -Shalt thou, the unsuccessful prince, endure ? 
 
 ^Successful art thou, and triumphant, king ! 
 Victorious and snow-white thine outspread wing ! 
 But not victorious as the priests who crown 
 thee. 
 Victorious only through the simple soul : 
 
 In waves of blood these friends of thine would 
 drown thee. 
 And tides of blood above thy followers roll. 
 
164 LOVE-SONGS." 
 
 The soul of man is thine ; and thine own town : 
 Jerusalem thou hast for seal and crown. 
 
 But not the towers of ours the Western 
 nations, 
 Yea, not the roses of our English fields ! 
 
 OflFerings of Easterns, sacrifice, oblations. 
 But not the corn the white chalk-cliff-top yields. 
 
 Thou hast for handmaids English maidens frail 
 Who turned at thy presumptuous coming pale. 
 
 Forsook their English lover-souls and gave thee- 
 What feeble power of passion-joy they knew : 
 
 Thou hast not, nor shouldst have from hell tO' 
 save thee. 
 One great soul of one English woman true. 
 
 Rest thou content with glances dark, and hold 
 Thine hand from meddling with bright locks of 
 gold: 
 Test not the Northern heart or Northern 
 weather 
 But dwell thou in thy balmy Palestine, 
 Thine olive-skinned lithe loves and tho,u to- 
 gether, 
 Thou hast no rule where English grey eyes shine. 
 
TO BEATRICE. 
 
 I. 
 
 The swift years follow 
 
 Each othePj and hollow 
 As we grow older their voices sound; 
 
 Now dim behind as, 
 
 A sun to blind us 
 Once, yea suu-sweet o'er the charmed bright 
 ground, 
 
 Shines love, low-gleaming. 
 
 Like red sun dreaming 
 Behind dark forest or green far mound. 
 
 II. 
 
 Still, still there quiver 
 
 The ripples of river, 
 The snow-white sheets of the sea-born foamj 
 
 The meadow-sweet lifted 
 
 By June-breeze, drifted 
 ■In soft bloom-powder, doth flutter and roam 
 
 The wood-glades deep 
 
 Where our dreams sleep, 
 Sleep, and abide in their fair old home. 
 
l66 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Hi. 
 
 There roses many. 
 
 For us not any, 
 Blossom ; new lovers their bloom shall seek > 
 
 New face of maiden 
 
 With new love laden 
 Shall flame in the forest, and new lips speak 
 
 The same soft message 
 
 Of sweet calm presage ; 
 New tides, white-footed, charge up the creek, 
 
 IV. 
 
 Apollo and love 
 
 Yet hover above 
 The chaste green woodland ; ' singers are there ; 
 
 Birds in the larches, 
 
 And under the arches 
 Of grim grey tall trees, echo their fair 
 
 And yearly delight. 
 
 And gold through the night 
 Falls gently the flood of the wood-nymphs' hair.. 
 
 V. 
 
 These yet abide. 
 
 Through the years deride 
 Our love, our pleasure, our hopes of things 
 
 That pass swift-sweeping, 
 
 Their dim eyes weeping, 
 Now by us and fly us on dank dark wings ; 
 
 The old same splendour 
 
 Of meadow-sweet tender 
 In one white flush to the moist dale clings. 
 
TO BEATRICE. 167 
 
 VI. 
 
 Thou art not there 
 
 woman, fair 
 Long-lost loved spirit of early days ; 
 
 Then ohVhere art thou, 
 
 And where thy heart, thou 
 Who wanderest from me in flowerless ways 
 
 Where is no singing. 
 
 Yea, no voice ringing 
 For ever as ever with changeless praise. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The years escape us, 
 
 The long months drape us 
 In wearisome mantle of deepening gloom ; 
 
 Oh dost thou, lady, 
 
 Dream of the shady 
 Dell where we met when the rose was in bloom 
 
 And the white small lily 
 
 Starlike the hilly 
 Dear northland gladdened, with love's perfume ? 
 
 VIIL 
 
 Green were the alleys 
 
 Of woods, the valleys 
 Were bright with summer, the soft still streams 
 
 Dappled the meadows 
 
 With silver • the shadows 
 Of evening made more tender the dreams 
 
 The stars and the moon 
 
 Took charge of soon 
 Splendescent, and crowned with viewless gleams. 
 
1 68 LOVE-SOSTGS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But not by one light 
 Shone love, — the sunlight 
 
 Flamed through the glittering afternoon 
 On lovers in corn-fields 
 Where laughter is born, fields 
 
 Sweet as the meads of the sky the moon 
 Divides demurely 
 With white foot, purely 
 
 Rousing in all hearts love's sure tune. 
 
 X. 
 
 Wonderful laughter 
 
 Of thine years after 
 Rang sweet within me, O girlish queen 1 
 
 Wonderful gladness 
 
 That smote the sadness 
 Of all the black strange years between 
 
 Came on the heels of it. 
 
 Chimed in the peals of it, 
 As though no night of our sorrow had been. 
 
 XI. 
 Still by me I hear it. 
 Tender and clear it 
 
 Rings out, gentle and pure as of old ; 
 Again I am near thee 
 And watch thee and hear thee, 
 
 Yea, in my hand thine hand I hold, , 
 And the laughter deathless 
 Trembling and breathless 
 
 Keeps me, superb from the mouth of gold. 
 
TO BEATRICE. 169 
 
 xir. 
 
 O golden girl-mouth, 
 
 Though time's waves swirl, mouth, 
 About thee, they hinder no throb of song ; 
 
 They choke thy laughter 
 
 Never for after 
 Their passing sweet as before and as strong 
 
 The dear laugh ringeth, 
 
 To my soul clingeth, 
 Drowneth the years' wails weary and long. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Ten years between us 
 
 Serve but to screen us 
 The better from others, the closer to draw 
 
 Our hearts together. 
 
 As in wild weather 
 Souls cling more closely and ice-hearts thaw. 
 
 When some tossed vessel 
 
 Rises to wrestle 
 With thundering waves that follow and awe. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 So as we rise 
 
 To battle with skies 
 Of later lifetime and waves whose sound 
 
 Struggles to 'whelm 
 
 Our tired-out helm. 
 And shoals where many a keel doth ground. 
 
 The old green bowers 
 
 Beckon, and hours 
 CJome back, forgotten, but now new-found. 
 
170 LOVE-SONGS, 
 
 XV. 
 
 How hath death revelled 
 
 'Mid locks dishevelled 
 Since at our feet the stream lisped low t 
 
 How many have left us, 
 
 Dark arrows have cleft us, 
 Arrows sped from the death-god's bow r 
 
 And 1 hough Apollo 
 
 The death-god follow, 
 Some sad seeds hath he of song to sow. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The golden harp-string 
 
 Is sometimes sharp string 
 And hath its message of sorrow and grief; 
 
 Sometimes autumnal 
 
 The song-god's hymnal 
 Seems, and saddened the song-god's leaf 
 
 With hues as of death. 
 
 And the song-god's breath 
 Like a wounded bird's breath, bitter and briefs 
 
 XVIT. 
 
 Therefore I dying 
 
 Or livinsr, relying 
 On Fate, on woman, on man, or on him 
 
 Who some souls urges 
 
 With vehement surges 
 Of song, that "they cease not till eyes grow dim. 
 
 Across time's torrent. 
 
 Ten years' red current. 
 Gaze — as across a sea-strait grim. 
 
TO BEATRICE, I7L 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 My whole soul yearns to thee, 
 
 WeepSj and turns to thee. 
 Lady, so far in the years behind : 
 
 Thy breath comes sadly, 
 
 Yet not ungladly. 
 Just as the waft of a rose on the wind, 
 
 And thy voice clearly 
 
 Whispereth nearly ; 
 My spirit by the old waves I find. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Thou art not altered, 
 
 Nor have I faltered 
 In my clear mission of endless song : 
 
 If death should seize us. 
 
 His cold touch freeze us, 
 Long ere a dfcade as sad, as long. 
 
 Pass once more by us. 
 
 He may not deny us 
 The past, its beauty, its love-voice strong. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Death cannot foil us 
 
 Wholly, despuil us 
 Of one sweet love-throb that e'er hath leapt 
 
 Through the bosom that bounded 
 
 As some foot sounded, 
 Dear to us, clear to us, —near to us stept ; 
 
 The old woods yet the same for us 
 
 With song-flowers flame for us. 
 Though ten years' summers have dawned and have 
 slept. 
 
 Feb. 13, 1880. 
 
TO THE UNCHANGED GOD. 
 
 Thou changest never 
 
 Though men change ever, 
 Yeaj veer as waves of the shifting tides ; 
 
 Our seasons pass, 
 
 We wither as grass 
 That lies burnt brown on the mountain's sides ; 
 
 But thou remainest 
 
 And death disdainest. 
 Thy firm foot over the centuries strides. 
 
 II. 
 
 When Rome was young 
 
 Thy lips in it sung. 
 The Grecian hill-sides caught from thee 
 
 Their rose-red light 
 
 Of joy ; in the night 
 Of unknown eras thou wast, and the sea 
 
 Has known thee, Lord, 
 
 And its music has poured 
 Forth for thee since ever it came to be. 
 
TO THE UNCHANGED GOD. I73 
 
 III. 
 
 When we look back 
 
 And a flower in the track 
 Behold and cling to, where passion hath been 
 
 In the sweet dim past for us, 
 
 A blossom to last for us, 
 A white soft-centred memory, a queen. 
 
 We are but a part 
 
 Of thy changeless heart. 
 Thine endless spirit, kingly, serene. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thou art in the bowers 
 
 Of memory, the flowers 
 The long years gather and treasure and keep :, 
 
 In first love's tender 
 
 And infinite splendour, 
 infinite God, thine eyes too weep : 
 
 And thou dost delight 
 
 In the calm of the night 
 When lovers upon thy soft breast sleep. 
 
 V. 
 
 Not one white rose 
 
 Without thee blows. 
 Thou art in the meadows that smile in the morn ; 
 
 The long grey hills 
 
 Thy presence fills. 
 And the roar of the breakers is thy strong scornJI; 
 
 And summer divine 
 
 Is surely thine. 
 And all its scents at thy word are born. 
 
I„74 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 vr. 
 
 We are but a dream, 
 
 We live not, we seem 
 To live, but our living is over and past 
 
 In the hour's of a day ; 
 
 Yet thou dost stay, 
 Thy beauty fades not, thy breath doth last 
 
 Fragrant as long 
 
 As the roses throng 
 The green earth,- down to it pink leaves cast. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Me singing to-day 
 
 The self same lay 
 Tliat David sang or Apollo or bard 
 
 Of unknown city. 
 
 Time shall not pity ; 
 No passion may death's pale foot retard; 
 
 The singers of old 
 
 Are silent and cold, 
 The fire of time their harps hath charred. 
 
 vni. 
 
 Ruth in the corn 
 
 As a flower was born 
 For a season : she passed to the death-god's hold ; 
 
 The red corn-poppies 
 
 Her fading copies, 
 She faded as faded the corn-ears gold 
 
 'Mid which she gleaned 
 
 When the strong man leaned 
 Eager to watch her, ardent of old. 
 
TO THE UNCHANGED GOD. I 75 
 
 IX. 
 
 Helen is gone, 
 
 The lips are wan 
 That once to fetter had but to speak ; 
 
 The strange great queen 
 
 In the shades is seen — 
 The moons of the shades lie soft on the cheek 
 
 Which Antony kissed ; 
 
 TNow the winds and the mist 
 Of Lethe alone the white shape seek. 
 
 X. 
 
 How many were fair 
 
 In the dense mid^air 
 ■Of the clustered ages that gave the west 
 
 Its glory and crown ; 
 
 Their loves, their renown, 
 Their veiy names, 'mid the dead flowers rest; 
 
 Iseult is dead 
 
 And the crowned gold head 
 ■Of Guinevere; grasses cling to her breast. 
 
 XI. 
 
 And swift-soul Mary 
 
 Who came with fairy 
 .Dreams in her clear gaze, flowers in her hand 
 
 To charm all mortals, 
 
 Hath passed the portals 
 "That open upon the songless land ; 
 
 The black gates clang, 
 
 And the voice that rang 
 Is hushed, and the white feet far from us stand. 
 
176 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 So surely a season 
 
 Of sudden dark treason 
 Of death is coming to each and all ; 
 
 But changeless thou 
 
 God laughest, as now 
 Before thy winter the frail flowers fall ; 
 
 As cold snows settle 
 
 On thin rose-petal, . 
 And ivy straggles o'er tower and hall. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 To-day we sing to you. 
 
 Our swift songs cling to you, 
 O world of blossoms we soon shall leave ; 
 
 But what of to-morrow ? 
 
 Will it bring sorrow ? 
 Will some for our passing sigh once and grieve ^ 
 
 A singer to-day 
 
 Like a bird on a spray 
 Clings to the world's branch ; will it receive ? 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Will it receive him. 
 
 Sadden or leave him, — 
 He for a day sings, only a day ; 
 
 Others shall follow. 
 
 Never Apollo 
 Hath not a song-word potent to say ; 
 
 But what world takes them. 
 
 As this forsakes them. 
 The singers whom this world's gods betray ^ 
 
TO THE UNCHANGED GOD. I 77 
 
 XV. 
 
 We pass through the flowers, 
 
 World, of your bowers. 
 And some we gather and some disdain ; 
 
 We pluck in your valleys 
 
 The flower- wreath that tallies 
 Best with the song-flowers born in our strain ; 
 
 And then we fold 
 
 Our plumelets of gold. 
 Or of grey, and quit you : our songs remain. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 But oh whither we 
 
 Depart, to what sea 
 With strange dark waves, what garden, what 
 bower. 
 
 Who knows or can say ? 
 
 What summer-sweet day 
 Awaits us, or sorrowful ice-filled shower ? 
 
 What guerdon to win ? 
 
 What joys gathered in ? 
 What rose of new passion, unspeakable flower ? 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Are there women as white 
 In the bowers of the night 
 Of death as in rose-hung bowers of the day ? 
 Are there faces as fair 
 In that desolate air 
 
178 LOVE-SONGS. 
 
 Where the wings of the hours hang sodden and 
 grey ? 
 
 Are there mouths that can kiss ? 
 Is there infinite bliss 
 Of love, or doth all love vanish away ? 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 No soul can reply : 
 
 From that mystical sky 
 Come but faint murmurs, no clear voice rings 
 
 Downward in answer, 
 
 And but a romancer 
 Seems each one who message inadequate brings 
 
 From that strange far land. 
 
 Weirder than star-land. 
 Whence throbs all music on monstrous wings. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 For music is death. 
 
 And God, and the breath 
 Of new-born flowers who change may defy ; 
 
 The lips of the Lord 
 
 Through its cadences poured 
 In it thunder and laugh and reward and reply ; 
 
 In it seas of the speech 
 
 Of God on the beach 
 Of time plunge downward from fathomless skv. 
 
 XX. 
 
 But all else changes 
 As time's foot ranges 
 Pitiless, ceaseless, over our plains ; 
 
TO THE UNCHANGED GOD. 1 79 
 
 His barren relentless 
 
 Blossomless scentless 
 finger the date of our death retains ; 
 
 And lo ! as we sing 
 
 A sudden soft wing, 
 Death's, darkens the chamber and hushed are our 
 strains. 
 
 Printed by Remington & Co., 133, JJew Bond Street, W.