-ary 
 
 PR 5226.R9M9 
 
 Music from the maze. 
 
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/cu31924013539832 
 
MUSIC FROM THE MAZE 
 
MUSIC FROM THE MAZE 
 
 BY 
 
 MARCUS S. C. RICKARDS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "C«EATIOn's HOPE," " THB EXILES," ETC. 
 
 LONDON-. PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR 
 
 AT THE CHISWICK PRESS TOOKS COURT 
 
 CHANCERY LANE 
 
 1899 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prelude i 
 
 Labyrinths 2 
 
 Listening to the Corncrake ^ 
 
 To a Sparrow 7 
 
 An Agapemone . , . . . 9 
 
 To a Yellow Wagtail 17 
 
 To an Owl ,.,.19' 
 
 Our Tale of Love 21 
 
 To a Kestrel 22 
 
 Nofturnal Bliss .24 
 
 To a Spotted Flycatcher .......... 26 
 
 To a Brood of Nuthatches 28 
 
 A Refleftion 29 
 
 To my Schoolfellows 30 
 
 To a Flock of Snow Buntings 32 
 
 To a Wild Pear Tree 34 
 
 To a Flock of Knots 36 
 
 To a Nuthatch , 38 
 
 On a May-Tree in Full Bloom ....... 40 
 
 Cuckoo-Calls «....,.. 42 
 
 To a Bluebell 45 
 
 Joy in Memory , 47 
 
 To a Family of Swifts 48 
 
 The Rose Tree's Discourse 50 
 
 To a Flock of Oyster Catchers 52 
 
 Optimist v. Pessimist ..,.:. .....53 
 
 Heart Union - 57 
 
 The Birth of Philanthropy , ... 59 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Soul-Cushions 60 
 
 Unsated Souls 61 
 
 Silent Wooing 64 
 
 To a Buttercup 65 
 
 Suppressed Emotion 67 
 
 Lines Written at Westward Ho ! for the Albums of 
 
 Three Sisters 68 
 
 Clevedon 69 
 
 The Linnet's Haunt 7° 
 
 Post Mortem 7* 
 
 Fortune's Wooing 75 
 
 Cynthia 7^ 
 
 Unvalued Tokens 7^ 
 
 Kith and Kin , . . 78 
 
 Love's Day-Dream 80 
 
 A Sermon in Stone 81' 
 
 Inseparable 82 
 
 Invocation of Ideal Beauty 84 
 
 Neglefted AfFeftion 91 
 
 The Flower of My Song 92 
 
 Called Back 94 
 
 Mahdi Mortuus . 95 
 
 A Prophecy 99 
 
 A Seaside Rhapsody. . loi 
 
 A Diamond- Jubilee Ode 102 
 
 Clifton 104 
 
 Woman's Ministry no 
 
 Pressed Flowers 115 
 
 A Song of Gladness 114 
 
 My Father's Bible 115 
 
 Nature's Supply 119 
 
 Insoluble 121 
 
 On a Sudden Death 123 
 
 Unforgotten ,. 126 
 
 On the Sea of Life 127 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 »AGX 
 
 Spells of the Night 128 
 
 Fortune-Telling 130 
 
 Shadow and Sunshine 132 
 
 A Song for the Sorrowful 133 
 
 Unmated 134 
 
 A Study in Still Life 137 
 
 Joy in Season 139 
 
 A Philosophic Outlook 140 
 
 Neglcdted Chances 143 
 
 Cheer Amid Darkness ■. . . 144 
 
 Renovation 14$ 
 
 Oxford in Retrospeft 146 
 
 Anticipation 1 54 
 
 The Sum of Duty 155 
 
 Pledges of Eternity 155 
 
 To a Daphne 156 
 
 A Reverie on Life 158 
 
 Love's Threefold Aspeft 161 
 
 A Song of Thorns 162 
 
 Daylight and Darkness 164 
 
 A Criticism of Life 164 
 
 To a Daffodil 166 
 
 The End 168 
 
MUSIC FROM THE MAZE 
 
MUSIC FROM THE MAZE. 
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 A SUNNY day with tearful moods, 
 A landscape with the vernal look, 
 Starred hedgerows, faintly flushing woods. 
 Gold sallows silvering by the brook, 
 Green, daisied dells, where many a tongue 
 Rejoiced that Earth was gay and young ; 
 
 I watched them sadly, for I felt 
 
 Deflowered, untuneful, and too old 
 
 For scenes where youthful pleasure dwelt, 
 
 And gaiety alone was told — 
 
 When wings swept by me, and a voice 
 
 Seraphic carolled out, " Rejoice ! 
 
 " Art thou the senior of hoar Earth 
 And duller than her wintry death ? 
 For long millenniums ere thy birth 
 She hath re-found her tuneful breath. 
 And flowered, 'mid April smile and tear. 
 Be thou as young each opening year ! " 
 B 
 
PRELUDE. 
 
 Upstarting with a thrill and flush, 
 I sought the angel, but in vain. 
 What if it were the flitting thrush 
 Now mad with music in the lane ? 
 I know the spirit of the Spring 
 Inspired the note and sped the wing. 
 
 To quicken in my sluggish heart 
 
 Green buds of joy, pure flowers of thought, 
 
 Fair vistaed views, unborn of Art, 
 
 Ethereal flights, of self untaught ; 
 
 And crowning all, a fairy chime 
 
 To echo down the slope of Time. 
 
 LABYRINTHS. 
 
 A TWILIT tangle thro' which many stray. 
 
 And others thread their way — 
 
 Thorns intertwined with flowers ; 
 Sad marshes here, and there enchanting bowers ; 
 A wild, to conquer which tasks human powers ; 
 
 With intermittent gleams. 
 And hints that naught around is quite the thing it seems. 
 
 Such is the World wherein the infant eye 
 
 Opens to earth and sky. 
 
 No certitude is here — 
 Only the room for play of hope and fear ; 
 The light with shadow blent, the sweet with drear ; 
 
LABYRINTHS. 3 
 
 Merely the instinfl sure 
 That One will pilot all who struggle on — no more ! 
 
 Such largely, too, is Nature's double face 
 
 To all who there would trace 
 
 A moral unity, 
 And proof that all live on who seem to die. 
 One day we vote them true, the next a lie. 
 
 Thro' puzzle-paths we press, 
 To laugh and weep o'er clues that mock our empty guess. 
 
 Such is the sacred Book where every mind 
 
 Its proper Truth may find — 
 
 A waste, or flowery dell 
 To each, as he delights in heaven or hell ; 
 Quickset with brambles to the infidel ; 
 
 Nor easy to the man 
 Of faith, who yet can trace thro' devious paths one Plan. 
 
 And such, too, is the hidden life of each — 
 
 A dim and difficult reach. 
 
 Where lurking Right and Wrong 
 In form Protean, with seduSive song. 
 Woo the vext pilgrim as he creeps along ; 
 
 A mazy solitude 
 Of keen or bitter woe, and pleasure many-hued. 
 
 Alas ! alas ! yet were it otherwise. 
 
 Were all to heart and eyes 
 
 Quite plain, were men not free 
 To take or leave — to follow or to flee ; 
 Where could be individuality ? 
 
 Where room for moral growth ? 
 Where goad to war with self, or spur to conquer sloth ? 
 
4 LABYRINTHS. 
 
 Thus He Who formed us can our temper test. 
 
 And educate our best ; 
 
 Nor ever will the true 
 Fail of the hint and gleam, or cease to hew 
 The tangle for a path to the clear view ; 
 
 While they who darkly rove — 
 Still they are God's, and He is Pity, Truth, and Love. 
 
 LISTENING TO THE CORNCRAKE. 
 
 Queen of the darkness, Sleep ! they now are quelled 
 Who battled for so long against thy crown ; 
 Behold thy loyal liege-men who rebelled. 
 But one by one laid every weapon down ! 
 O happy people thus to win thy grace ! 
 
 gentle magic that can now bewitch 
 So many a frolic form, and fiery face, 
 
 And tuneful voice, and nodding tree and flower I 
 
 No heart in mansion, meadow, grove, or ditch 
 
 But wanders to its heaven this moonlit hour. 
 
 Save one that vainly woos, and one that mocks thy power ! 
 
 1 am the suitor, fanned for long by air 
 Whose purfume thro' my open windows swept ; 
 Enchanted by a nightingale's despair 
 
 Till love, like hope, grew weary, and he slept ; 
 Charmed by the wistful stars, the tender moon, 
 Far silver meads and vales, too lovely all 
 For even eyelids heavy for thy boon. 
 
LISTENING TO THE CORNCRAKE. 5 
 
 I close them now upon my couch, butf find 
 
 Them impotent to yield me to thy thrall, 
 
 For thro' the unforgotten fields doth wind 
 
 That mocking one to bar thy calm from sense and mind. 
 
 O how he winds, as if he knew right well 
 For all his scorn that quietude and rest 
 Mean gradual subjefiion to thy spell ! 
 So, like the fiend-forsaken one in quest 
 Of vain repose, with futile discontent 
 He wanders thro* dry places, hidden and fleet. 
 Tracked by a rough perpetual lament, 
 Down ditches domed by eglantine and may. 
 Bright kingcupped meadows, faintly gilded wheat. 
 Grass-fields, to be full reaped at dawn of day, 
 Where now forsaken scythes gleam 'mid the new-mown 
 hay. 
 
 Thro' all he wanders, skulking as of old 
 His fathers did in the dear halcyon time. 
 When nights were silver all, and days all gold. 
 And even their call one note of a sweet chime — 
 When oft I vainly crouched to watch them pass 
 Or, wild with joy, bent o'er the freckled spoil 
 Left by the mowers in the wavy grass ; 
 Or sporting 'mid the stubble found one still, 
 Tho' overdue to some far orient soil. 
 Enough ! I wax more wakeful thro' the thrill 
 Born of sweet Memory ; let Fancy task her skill. 
 
 That call — ^'tis like a note, harsh if alone. 
 Recurrent thro' a heavenly no3urne; 
 A fugitive foreboding quickly flown 
 Before the heart its bearing can discern ; 
 
6 LISTENING TO THE CORNCRAKE. 
 
 A heavy-winged thought that yet doth speed 
 
 Down twilit tangles of a dreamy brain 
 
 Elusively ; the one unhappy deed 
 
 That echoes sadness thro' a lovely life ; 
 
 The Nemesis men fear, but shun in vain ; 
 
 The jarring of an intermittent strife ; 
 
 The croak thro' homely haunts of a complaining wife. 
 
 Or shall I deem that heavenly landscape those 
 Bright fields of Christendom down which there range, 
 Like yon wild feet that never find repose, 
 The wandering Jew's, whose travail hath no change ; 
 Or shall it figure the pure Christian view 
 And him the sceptic spirit ? let the scene 
 Now image Tartary who learnt to rue 
 Grim Tamerlane first near and then afar ; 
 Or the f^ir plains of Europe, long serene 
 Till restless Buonaparte their calm did mar ; 
 As when there crosses heaven a baleful wandering 
 star. 
 
 Now will I feign a seascape calm like this, 
 
 Moon-silvered too, a saffron sky-line o'er 
 
 Not wavy grass, but ripples green that kiss, 
 
 Yet with harsh grating chide, a pebbly shore : 
 
 And now a sadder simile — yon plain 
 
 Dewy and fair is tearful twilit Earth ; 
 
 That jarring note the mystery of Pain ; 
 
 I on my bed the hearer who might sleep 
 
 To dream in lonely bliss, and idle mirth. 
 
 Did not the plaint of eyes that wildly weep. 
 
 And hopeless hearts that throb, a restless circuit keep. 
 
ODE TO A SPARROW. 7 
 
 Kind Sleep, in league with Pity from above, 
 Can that rude rebel be in thine employ, 
 A Jesuit to tease me into love 
 Toward all souls who fail of rest and joy ? 
 For, brooding o'er their wrong, I, tired out now. 
 Thro' his reiteration win thy grace. 
 At length, at length, thy soft enchantments throng 
 My weary brain ; thought, feeling, sound, and sight. 
 Are blent in sweet confusion ; thine embrace 
 Is round me, powerless in thy gentle might. 
 Earth melts into a heaven of golden dream — Good- 
 night ! 
 
 ODE TO A SPARROW. 
 
 Thou common-place of feathered form, 
 
 A tribute to thy worth 
 From one who sings of shine and storm. 
 
 Sea, river, heaven, and earth ! 
 Who, dull and dusky tho' thou be, 
 Would no more dream of slighting thee 
 Than lovers of mankind would scorn 
 The lowly for the better born. 
 
 A happy day for thee is this. 
 
 When Prose hath elbowed Song ; 
 
 And men cry down patrician bliss. 
 To right the People's wrong — 
 
ODE TO A SPARROW. 
 
 A fitting time to sing thy praise, 
 Thou proser 'mid sweet meadow lays, 
 Thou rank plebeian of the streets 
 Whom everybody always meets ! 
 
 Yet 'mid tame tones a mellow sound 
 
 May break a prosy spell ; 
 Oft in the vulgar have I found 
 
 Virtue that pleased me well ; 
 And 'tis the seer's prerogative 
 To weigh the worth of all that live. 
 Uncurtaining for blinder eyes 
 Full many a beautiful surprise. 
 
 They wrong thee, the pale city-folk, 
 
 Befogged for half the year. 
 Who deem thee grimy with the smoke 
 
 Thro' which they vainly peer ; 
 Strange to thy rural guise, and mode, 
 And ways in lane, and field, and road, 
 Thy wedded love 'mid eave and thatch 
 The while thy mate doth brood and hatch. 
 
 Bravado, born of wrong, doth bid 
 
 Yon pinions pertly quake ; 
 A fiouncing girl, or baby chid 
 
 Might give that wilful shake ! 
 No landlord's license wilt thou ask 
 In dust to roll, in sunshine bask ; 
 Defying, like a son of toil, 
 Unfair monopoly of soil. 
 
AN AGAPEMONE. 
 
 O heed not the disdainful crew ! 
 
 One eye doth fondly bend 
 On lovely tint and chastened hue 
 
 Harmonious in their blend. 
 The far May-carol one keen ear 
 Doth quit with thy shrill clamour near, 
 Brisk feet have left (tho' guests have come) 
 The social board with thy due crumb. 
 
 Rare beauty and sweet song above 
 
 Not always win the heart ; 
 And homely forms and tones we love 
 
 When brighter things depart. 
 Change alters not, nor Time destroys 
 Life's simples, Nature's sturdy joys — 
 Air, sunshine, ocean, field, and tree, 
 Herb, daisy, hedgerow, spray, and thee. 
 
 AN AGAPEMONE. 
 
 I KNOW a vale — all lovers know it well — 
 Where joy and beauty weave a twofold spell. 
 To charm the child of nature who doth stray 
 
 From the world-trodden way 
 With one in harmony of heart and will ; 
 Or flred with heavenly ardour, if alone. 
 
 That nothing be unshewn : 
 For Love his hidden wealth will scarce reveal 
 To eyes that sympathy doth not unseal ; 
 No glance, no peering, if the heart be chill 
 
 Can win his rapture-thrill. 
 
10 AN AGAPEMONE, 
 
 Where is the vale ? you ask. Nay, seek it out ! 
 My pencil hath no hues to clear your doubt. 
 Can any point the way whereby to find 
 
 Light's glory, to the blind ? 
 Yet will I paint my piSure. Mark you this ! 
 'Tis a sweet haunt where sky, and wave, and earth 
 
 Blend in a tuneful mirth — 
 A watered dingle, whence the eye can round 
 Rare beauty to the dim horizon's bound — 
 Where all doth woe, and ill, and wrong, dismiss, 
 
 That Love may squander bliss. 
 
 He lords it ever here : the glowing sky 
 Doth view the rippling sea with amorous eye ; 
 Ere he bids earth farewell, the iiery sun 
 
 Clasps her his smile hath won ; 
 The watching stars, that thro' her curtain peep. 
 Wink eyes of tender meaning, and forget 
 
 Calm duty, to coquette ; 
 Impassioned flowers are fondled by the breeze. 
 The while with honeyed lips they fool the bees ; 
 The stream doth mirror brooding clouds, who weep 
 
 That they apart must keep. 
 
 Heaven could not, would not, harm a spot so fair : 
 No vapours mass, no storm-cloud gathers there : 
 The whirlwind recoUeSs itself, to blow 
 
 Elsewhere the hail or snow. 
 The showery line is drawn outside ; nor here. 
 Save for the rainbow's orange, red, and green. 
 
 Would rain be ever seen. 
 The tide seems always swelling to the beach 
 With wave and zephyr blending in soft speech ; 
 
AN AGAPEMONE. II 
 
 The sun doth only stint his golden cheer 
 That moonlight may appear. 
 
 The flowers adore their kind — and me, to judge 
 From jealous looks that seem to owe a grudge 
 To winged hoverers that oft incline 
 
 Their curious eyes to mine. 
 No child could woo me with more roguish glance, 
 No lady set a more bewitching snare 
 
 To trap me unaware. 
 They languish now, and then they toss their head ; 
 And my belief is that the scent they shed 
 Is nothing but a silent sweet romance. 
 
 Love's tender utterance. 
 
 I worship them, but doth the violet know 
 
 His heart, who haunts the bank to watch her blow ? 
 
 The sorrel, cowslip, thyme, do I reveal 
 
 To them the love I feel ? 
 Can we, in primrose language, e'er explain 
 That all her sunny eye would have us learn. 
 
 We heartily return ? 
 When bluebells, lest we should forget them, thrill, 
 Can we convince them we are suitors still ? 
 Yet the shy look, the perfume's soft caress 
 
 Oft make me hope they guess. 
 
 I watch them here, and fancy their desire 
 
 Fulfilled when I bend lowly to admire. 
 
 Or learn from them what in their gentle way 
 
 Nature doth bid them say. 
 Yet oft I wonder if we please them best 
 In freeing them to soothe the human heart 
 
 By the diviner art 
 
12 AN AGAPEMONE. 
 
 Of meek self-sacriBce and sympathy, 
 That with us they may languish, fade, and die ; 
 And so I gather them, at home to rest, 
 Or better, on my breast. 
 
 The warblers here, each with a happy mate, 
 'Twould task my muse their amours to relate ; 
 Wren, robin, linnet, bunting, wagtail, lark. 
 
 With many a Rnch I mark ; 
 Love's lunatics, no madhouse could restrain. 
 Are here let loose ; and while they romp and rave. 
 
 The cuckoo plays the knave. 
 Yet Love so counts it all his own preserve 
 That her depravity his cause doth serve : 
 Fired with his glow, the foster pair are fain 
 
 Their foundling to sustain. 
 
 Nor do they sing to woo their brides alone ; 
 
 I hear their love for me in every tone. 
 
 Inspired by mine for them ; and well they know 
 
 My feelings ebb and flow. 
 The mavis thrills me from a heart of joy ; 
 The merle's sweet melancholy knells my gloom ; 
 
 The robin's chime doth bloom 
 My spirit's paradise with flowers of hope ; 
 Beneath the skylark's harmony I grope, 
 A darkened soul an angel would decoy 
 
 To some divine employ. 
 
 No shower of lovelier music ever flowed 
 From tuneful chaffinch than to-day's sweet ode. 
 Like falling stars that silvered on my sight 
 One keen November night. 
 
AN AGAPEMONE. 13 
 
 The linnets on the heath so clearly chime 
 That Fancy doth a purling brook recall, , 
 
 Or tinkling waterfall ; 
 The bullfinch's low cadence lingers on, 
 Like music from dear voices that are gone ; 
 The greenfinch yearns for a celestial clime 
 
 To crown the loves of Time. 
 
 The flies' soft hum, the music of the bees. 
 Are like the voices borne upon a breeze 
 That sweeps the fields of memory to bring 
 
 Back many a perfumed thing. 
 All is transflgured here, nor would I harm 
 One hoverer ; and all that sport and fly 
 
 Ar-e human to my eye : 
 To brush away a gnat would be to chase 
 From my horizon some long-vanished face. 
 To wave a moth aside with wilful arm 
 
 Would melt some bygone charm. 
 
 The butterflies, O how they mingle here. 
 And toy and languish 'mid a wild career j 
 So fairy is each plume, so bright the hue. 
 
 That to my dreamy view 
 They look like happy seraphs from the sky. 
 Who, blending in high rapture hover round 
 
 A consecrated ground ; 
 That if one fail to love or joy, a glance 
 At them may fire the heart, or make it dance ; 
 That souls may preen their halcyon wings, and try 
 
 Thus splendidly to fly. 
 
 As love's sweet music lingers round this place 
 I carol here to move and cheer my race ; 
 
14 AN AGAPEMONE. 
 
 For every bard hath his peculiar gift 
 
 To lighten and uplift ; 
 And mine is to reveal kind Nature's heart — 
 To prove how every feature of her can 
 
 Hold intercourse with man. 
 I shew how all that meeteth sense hath wings 
 To waft him to the Good above all things, 
 And try to mantle thoughts that gleam and dart 
 
 In a choice robe of art. 
 
 All glows and sparkles here where'er I turn ; 
 The Moses in me oft sees bushes burn ; 
 The Joshua bids sun and moon stand still, 
 
 Or rise and set at will ; 
 With holy ancients here I share the sight 
 Of Seraphim who tutor me with lore 
 
 From the celestial Shore. 
 Were but my conscience purged, my spirit pure, 
 Glory might cling to me, and none endure 
 To meet my face awhile, so strangely bright 
 
 With visionary light. 
 
 Oft hath my Grecian heart felt sprites around. 
 Blithe masqueraders on enchanted ground ; 
 Seen nympths in fainting flowers, and frolic gods 
 
 In many a tree that nods ; 
 Heard the clear streamlet tinkle in reply 
 When the soft music of a Naiad spoke, 
 
 Or Dryad in some oak ; 
 Known thro' the night-bird's agony the tale 
 Of Innocence, whom Passion did assail ; 
 Watched serried legions in the glowing sky 
 
 Flame forth to faint and die. 
 
AN AGAPEMONE. 15 
 
 My vale doth also charm the crowd that shuns 
 The realm of Fancy, and avoids her sons. 
 Yet hither drawn, the poetry that lurks 
 
 In every mortal works. 
 Music upbubbles from dry wells of song ; 
 Unwatered eyes, like torrid summer-rills, 
 
 A heavenly fountain fills ; 
 A tender pathos penetrates their tone 
 From whose heart-language sympathy hath flown, 
 The while Strength learns that to be always strong 
 
 Doth the true nature wrong. 
 
 Here loiters Age, and lo ! the furrowed face 
 Steals youthful splendour from the lovely place ; 
 If mourners front its sunshine, every tear 
 
 Like dew doth disappear ; 
 If bitter pain the heart or body rack 
 'Tis solaced here ; the while a healing balm 
 
 Steals from the gentle calm. 
 Grief is forgotten 'mid the sylvan joy ; 
 And O, the wealth in store for girl and boy ! 
 Here children troop, and hive the sweet they lack, 
 
 Before they saunter back. 
 
 'Tis like a hospital, where, sick of hate, 
 Men come, to find the fever soon abate : 
 A convalescent home, whence all depart 
 
 With tone of mind and heart ; 
 They who had hotly quarrelled save for this. 
 Have caught here in each other's countenance 
 
 A reconciling glance ; 
 Here women lose the spite they come to nurse ; 
 Here Balaam stays to bless, tho' brought to curse ; 
 
1 6 AN AGAPEMONE, 
 
 Here faltering friendship seals unbroken bliss 
 By an absolving kiss. 
 
 Or shall I say an epidemic reigns 
 
 For ever here, that genders aches and pains, 
 
 The ache that yearns to medicine distress. 
 
 The pain that pines to bless. 
 Hearts whole and loveless leave here ill at ease, 
 InfeSed with the spirit of the clime. 
 
 To break o'er woe and crime. 
 Schemes that naught baffles, plans that none can daunt 
 Are oft conceived in the prolific haiint 
 Thus tainted by the one supreme disease, 
 
 A mortal vainly flees. 
 
 Melt not my fond illusion, spare the breath 
 That would remind me of woe, strife, and death ! 
 
 whisper not that Earth can hold no rest 
 
 For many a troubled breast. 
 That sad November wrecks the wealth of May ! 
 
 1 tell you that if wrong hath marred this spot 
 
 I have discerned it not. 
 Death hath bewitched me if he ever passed 
 Across its happy marge from first to last. 
 The flies seem ever bright, the warblers gay. 
 
 The blooms without decay. 
 
 " Ah ! " do you urge ? " since joy and beauty veil 
 Their light on earth, 'tis but a fairy tale ; 
 Ay, and for this too, that unshadowed Love 
 
 Haunts only Heaven above." 
 Well, have it as you like ! I do but ask 
 A human heart, one prompt to thrill and throb 
 
 To laughter, sigh and sob — 
 
ODE TO A YELLOW WAGTAIL. 17 
 
 A pulse alive to perfume, sight, and sound, 
 A spirit that finds Heaven in common ground. 
 For even you in sunny love to bask, 
 And revel in my masque ! 
 
 ODE TO A YELLOW WAGTAIL. 
 
 Flaming ripples have I seen 
 Laugh along the ocean green ; 
 Sunny waves across the corn 
 Wanton in a breezy mirth ; 
 Smiling beams that gild the morn 
 Shoot thro' mists to gloomy earth ; 
 Yet thy golden mates and thou 
 Sport more gleefully I vow. 
 
 Thee I single, for thy ways 
 Blithe and trustful win my gaze. 
 Round the browsing kine they skip. 
 While along the flowery glade 
 Thou all daintily dost trip, 
 Like a happy, innocent maid. 
 Come ! while I the palm award 
 To my favourite of the sward. 
 
 Ah ! I note thine anxious look 
 In the mirror of yon brook : 
 Who could vaunt so rare a charm. 
 Such a form, such fairy grace, 
 C 
 
ODE TO A YELLOW WAGTAIL. 
 
 And know nothing of alarm 
 Lest a rival in the race 
 For the crown of loveliness 
 Make her splendour look the less ? 
 
 Radiant one ! with thee in view 
 Cowslips tremble for their hue ; 
 As a belle's debut doth make 
 Other beauties bridle up, 
 Glaring envy now doth wake 
 In the gaudy buttercup ; 
 While the primrose pales in fear 
 Of dishonour, with thee near. 
 
 Thou art quaking ! dost thou dread 
 Lest by glitter half misled, 
 I should cheat thee of the prize — 
 Thee less bright than some of them. 
 Yet to sympathetic eyes 
 Worthier of the diadem ? 
 Empty tremor, for I see 
 What I value most in thee ! 
 
 All, fair-fashioned, bright and smart. 
 Thou alone dost fire my heart, 
 With the light of liberty. 
 Free as thought and feeling, thou 
 Flittest between earth and sky. 
 Like my airy fancies now. 
 Thee I crown ! in gratitude 
 Brighten my despondent mood ! 
 
 Linger 1 for our other gold 
 Spreads the wing it ought to fold. 
 
TO AN OWL. 19 
 
 Silken tresses turn to grey, 
 Glowing joys escape like dreams, 
 Glittering treasure will not stay, 
 Honours faint like sunny beams. 
 What ! hast thou too glanced and gone, 
 Like the loves that round me shone ? 
 
 Glory ! ye are dancing back, 
 Hope and promise in your track — 
 Hope of a diviner joy 
 Here, however fugitive ; 
 Promise, nothing can destroy, 
 Of far more than Earth can give. 
 Gloom now alternates with glow ; 
 Freedom can but come and go. 
 
 TO AN OWL. 
 
 Thou tyrant of the hollow tree, 
 The dusky wood, the twilit lea. 
 
 Prithee awake or sleep ! 
 The king of night should drowse by day. 
 Or at the least allow his prey 
 
 Their carnival to keep. 
 
 Why wrapped in slumber wilt thou blink 
 Half-hooded eyes, and make them slink 
 
 In terror from their feast ? 
 Ah ! empty question, for I see 
 
20 TO AN OWL, 
 
 Grim Nature hath conferred on thee 
 The dower of bird and beast. 
 
 The hawk, whose realm is sunny light, 
 The feline prowler of the night. 
 
 Blend in thy mode and make. 
 ASion is varied by repose : 
 Thine eyes are watchful when they close. 
 
 And sleepy when they wake. 
 
 Past-master of duplicity. 
 That vigilant yet curtained eye 
 
 Hath won thee twofold fame. 
 Minerva's bird is reckoned wise. 
 And yet stupidity allies 
 
 To her tradition, shame. 
 
 Inaptly so in my esteem. 
 
 For dullards lack that cunning gleam ; 
 
 What fool is half so sly ? 
 Nay, let me fancy thee a type 
 Of many a one whose judgment ripe 
 
 Bears fruit in sophistry — 
 
 A votary of Earth and Heaven, 
 Whose worldly wisdom tries to leaven 
 
 True godliness with gain. 
 A crafty referee whose guile 
 Will two contenders reconcile, 
 
 The booty to retain. 
 
 A sage diplomatist who leans 
 
 This side and that, yet plainly means 
 
OUR TALE OF LOVE. 21 
 
 To fool them both at length. 
 A solemn judge who lifts a paw 
 To lay down and enforce the law 
 
 Of tyranny and strength. 
 
 And from a human point of view 
 
 Thou mockest mouse and mole and shrew 
 
 As our poor race is scorned — 
 By Time, who, neither slow nor swift. 
 Leaves play for hope and room for shrift, 
 
 To none, surprised or warned — 
 
 By Chance, who, from a careless throng. 
 On ground of neither right nor wrong, 
 
 A few doth single out — 
 By Death whose quiet step doth near 
 The dupes of Day's unshadowed cheer 
 
 To tease them into Night. 
 
 OUR TALE OF LOVE. 
 
 Beneath the blue we whispered, 
 
 Eyed by the glowing sun ; 
 And dreamy earth woke into mirth 
 
 O'er two hearts blent in one : 
 The goldfinch wooed a lovely mate 
 
 From the pink orchard-spray. 
 The while we lingered by the gate. 
 
 And went our happy way. 
 
22 OUR TALE OF LOVE. 
 
 Yet heaven looked half forbidding ; 
 
 The holy sun grew faint ; 
 A veiling mist vowed while we kissed 
 
 That neither seemed a saint. 
 But laughing earth with rosy face 
 
 Acquitted us of harm. 
 For nature hath a proper grace 
 
 And passion a pure charm. 
 
 And when our mingling spirits 
 
 Drew rapture from above, 
 The mist rolled by, the sun and sky 
 
 Shed glory on our love ; 
 The fairy finch divinely sang, 
 
 And plumed a purer gold ; 
 While loud the echoing landscape rang 
 
 With Love's sweet story told. 
 
 TO A KESTREL. 
 
 Hawk that hovers o'er the lea ! 
 Cradled in a spiring tree. 
 Art thou to thy pedigree 
 
 Faithful, in descending ? 
 Wast thou nurtured thus on high 
 For an earthly destiny, 
 Or for the blue golden sky, 
 
 Ever upward tending ? 
 
TO A KESTREL. 23 
 
 Balanced now between the two, 
 Thou dost look both false and true ; 
 Impotent to bid adieu 
 
 For a while to either. 
 Which befitteth thee the more — 
 Low to sink or high to soar ? 
 One who knew thee not before 
 
 Well might answer " Neither," 
 
 Sinking, thou wilt follow all 
 Fashioned for an earthly thrall, 
 Their' s who hurled aloft would fall 
 
 To a native station. 
 Soaring thou wilt near a clime 
 Too ethereal and sublime 
 For a thing of Space and Time, 
 
 Save in aspiration. 
 
 Canst thou not maintain that poise. 
 Proof against the twin decoys ; 
 Charmed by both the rival joys, 
 
 Yet with neither mingling ? 
 I am cast for heaven and earth ; 
 Hath not each its proper worth ? 
 May I grace the double birth 
 
 Thus, by neither singling ? 
 
 Joy ! an omen — swift as thought 
 Swooping downward thou hast caught 
 Nether prey, and I am taught 
 
 Earth should not be slighted. 
 Musing, let me quit repose 
 For due sustenance, and close 
 
24 TO A KESTREL. 
 
 Bravely with terrestrial foes 
 Prom the outlook sighted. 
 
 Ha ! thou art on high again ; 
 Verdant grove, and spangled plain, 
 Spread a flowery lure in vain 
 
 While the sunbeams love thee. 
 Glittering eyes with golden rings. 
 Flaming feet, and ruddy wings, 
 Stamp thee for the nobler things 
 
 Beckoning above thee ; 
 
 Ay, and make me feel they claim 
 Mortals dowered with the same — 
 Eye of fire and wing of flame 
 
 Mark men out for mounting. 
 Human in the happy mean ; 
 Hovering mid the twofold scene ; 
 Yet while scorning naught terrene. 
 
 Heaven the birthright counting. 
 
 NOCTURNAL BLISS. 
 
 Quiet Night! when all the mortal 
 In our nature wins repose, 
 We are wafted to the portal 
 That disturbing Day doth close. 
 Mid thy silence, at the border 
 Of the wondrous spirit-deep 
 
NOCTURNAL BLISS. 25 
 
 Stands a rosy-mantled warder 
 With a golden key — soft Sleep. 
 
 Shining angels troop to greet us, 
 Guardians of the soul from birth ; 
 Dearest of delights ! they meet us 
 Who have left us lorn on Earth. 
 Thro' their happy haunt we wander, 
 Mid undreamt-of joys revolve ; 
 Riddles which by day we ponder 
 Darkly, thro' their lore we solve. 
 
 Yet, methinks, we may not travel 
 Nightly to the Realm above. 
 Mortal meshes to unravel, 
 Mysteries to plumb by love. 
 Sleep doth bid the spirit enter 
 If to the bright gate she soar ; 
 Yet her hope and yearning centre 
 Oft below the radiant door. 
 
 What if then the lovely legion, 
 Pitying our impotence. 
 Wing its glory to the region 
 Where we lie enthralled by sense ? 
 Many an eve we sink to slumber 
 Leaden-winged, and wake at dawn 
 Lightened from the clogs that cumber ; 
 Conscious of a veil withdrawn ; 
 
 Rich in some immortal token 
 
 Of the tutelage above ; 
 
 Sure of many a link unbroken 
 
26 NOCTURNAL BLISS. 
 
 In the riven chain of love. 
 So I dare to hold, believing 
 Sense and spirit oft combine, 
 Tender Night ! to gild our grieving 
 Thro' some alchemy of thine ! 
 
 ODE TO A SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. 
 
 Fairy I have wooed for long 
 Unsustained by look or song. 
 Who each ilowery May's return 
 Doth my overture rejefl ! 
 Unrequited love doth burn 
 All the brighter for negleS : 
 So I trill a lay to thee, 
 Tuneless tho' thou art to me. 
 
 Oft have I in friendly quest 
 Called to greet thee in thy nest, 
 Hoping that thou wouldst display 
 Many a secret joy, but tho' 
 Courtesy required thy stay 
 Thou didst start, and glance, and go : 
 E'en my shadow makes thee flit 
 From the pale where thou dost sit. 
 
 Empty caution, vain alarm ! 
 Or is it that thou wouldst charm 
 An admirer on to more 
 Ardour in the hot pursuit, 
 
ODE TO A SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. 27 
 
 Rightly deeming we adore 
 Most atnid a hopeless suit ? 
 Conscious thou art dull and plain, 
 Wouldest thou more homage gain ? 
 
 Nature doth our lives equip 
 With the means for fellowship ; 
 Beauty-spots-of youth in each 
 Now have gone, and left us grey : 
 Both, beneath yon elm or beech, 
 Love to dream an hour away. 
 Hungry, thou art prone to fly 
 Down and up, and so am I. 
 
 Thine the body's flitting ; mine 
 The hid soul's unrest divine : 
 Both would capture all with wings 
 Floating near us while we dream : 
 Thou, unheeding airy things ; 
 I, elusive thoughts that gleam — 
 Fairy joys that flash and glance 
 Like the giddy May-fly's dance. 
 
 I have music, thou hast none- 
 True, but mine will soon be done ! 
 Silently, at Nature's beck, 
 From the scene we wing our flight. 
 Autumn gale and wintry wreck 
 Quenching sunshine and delight : 
 Here to-day, to-morrow flown ; 
 Now, together^then, alone. 
 
28 TO A BROOD OF NUTHATCHES. 
 
 TO A BROOD OF NUTHATCHES. 
 
 O THE red-letter days of life ! 
 When, truant from all toil and strife, 
 
 We gain a sylvan spot ! 
 To light upon some loveliness 
 Whose beauty hath a charm to bless 
 
 The tame or troubled lot. 
 High festivals that naught can mar, 
 Be they in memory's calendar. 
 
 And one of them divinely beamed 
 That summer-morning when ye seemed 
 
 At hide and seek to play. 
 The sapphire sky, the emerald dell. 
 The flowers, the music, wove a spell 
 
 That beckoned me to stay. 
 And watch you circle round a beech — 
 Now near at hand, now out of reach. 
 
 Entranced, a glory o'er me crept 
 Akin to his, who, while he slept, 
 
 The shining ladder viewed. 
 Bright angels were ye, up and down 
 A golden sunbeam, at whose crown 
 
 Of tender light He stood. 
 Who guards our being from above. 
 And thro' Earth's beauty tells His love. 
 
A REFLECTION. 29 
 
 Oft comes that vision back to me, 
 The lovely scene, the sungilt tree. 
 
 Your robe of red and blue, 
 While in the dazzling glow ye shone ; 
 And then, alas ! when it had gone. 
 
 Your simple form and hue. 
 For Angels vanish with the Light 
 That chariots them into sight. 
 
 A REFLECTION. 
 
 Dost thou disdain the joy of Earth ? 
 Then bless the Power Who gave thee birth 
 For any wealth of heart and mind 
 That lifts thee o'er the vulgar kind — 
 That kindles the transcendent glow. 
 Without whose ardour none can know 
 The truest told to human heart ; 
 Or fitly the high lore impart. 
 
 But art thou fashioned for the bliss 
 Of commoner delight than this ? 
 Belaud thy Maker, bless Him much 
 That thou art never out of touch 
 With all around thee — never shunned 
 By darkness that will not be sunned — 
 Nor falsely reckoned far above 
 The world of faS, the toil of love. 
 
30 A REFLECTION. 
 
 The blind are happy void of sight, 
 And wealth unwon few prize aright : 
 Thy loveliest vision, finest tone. 
 Are now, as ever, thine alone. 
 Fret not ! the fairest blossoms bloom 
 In sunshine shadowed oft by gloom. 
 'T might dwarf thy best, the double dower- 
 Both sympathy and lofty power: 
 
 TO MY SCHOOLFELLOWS. 
 
 Dear friends, who in the dawn of life 
 
 My joy and sorrow shared ! 
 How have ye mid the noon-day strife 
 
 And contemplation fared ? 
 I hear of many ; some I meet ; 
 But most I never, never greet, 
 Tho' Fortune leave you winged feet 
 
 By pleasure only snared ! 
 
 Ah ! how we played mid shower and sun 
 
 To win a boyish fame : 
 Have any of you vifiory won 
 
 In the world's larger game ? 
 Or better, scored a triumph bright 
 In the supreme unfaltering fight 
 Of darkness with the hosts of light, 
 
 Where failure ends in shame ? 
 
TO MY SCHOOLFELLOWS. JI 
 
 We frolicked over sea and land 
 
 Aflame to do and dare. 
 We built our houses on the sand, 
 
 Our castles in the air. 
 The chainless energy and will, 
 In some, I doubt not, lingers still : 
 But Fancy's Are, hath that grown chill 
 
 Mid life's prosaic care ? 
 
 Re-kindle it, that heaven-born flame, 
 
 Or earth may look too cold ! 
 The glow that warmed you then, will shame 
 
 You out of gloom when old. 
 Thro' life's bleak day heap fuel up ! 
 To let the bubbling matin-cup 
 Of Pleasure cool before you sup 
 
 Were foolishness untold. 
 
 For some I almost fear to ask. 
 So void were they of grace : 
 
 Are they, then slow to learn the task. 
 Now laggards in life's race ? 
 
 Fond eyes I know have ceased to weep 
 
 O'er some, so long has been their sleep ; 
 
 And others chide the hours that creep 
 With tardy, cruel pace. 
 
 Our youthful loves were pure and true. 
 
 Our linking firm and fast. 
 Have some who even then did woo 
 
 Won their desire at last ? 
 
32 TO MY SCHOOLFELLOWS. 
 
 Do any life's full dowry miss, 
 And scorn the tie, the home, the kiss, 
 To linger on in lonely bliss. 
 Till wooing- time be past? 
 
 How oft in trouble, care, or pain, 
 Hath memory lent me cheer. 
 
 By calling up the forms again 
 Imperishably dear ! 
 
 Oblivious Time shall never cheat 
 
 My heart of joy so pure and sweet. 
 
 The Past is with me till we meet : 
 O may the hour be near ! 
 
 TO A FLOCK OF SNOW BUNTINGS. 
 
 Wild pilgrims from the cheerless North, 
 I thank the gale that hurled you forth 
 Wave-wearied on our shore ; 
 Yon skylarks, too, that so befriend 
 Your lonely lot, and deign to blend 
 With birds that never soar ! 
 The glee and movement charm my eyes 
 And tempt me to soliloquize. 
 
 O herald not, like Goth or Hun, 
 A host the empire to outrun. 
 While they are in the clouds ! 
 For Greece upsoaring soon was lost, 
 
TO A FLOCK OF SNOW BUNTINGS. 33 
 
 And Rome fell dreaming, to her cost, 
 While stragglers beckoned crowds. 
 Be that far from you ! skylarks wrong 
 The sunny day who stint their song. 
 
 They woo you, as we welcome those 
 
 That brave the cold of ArSic snows 
 
 The far North Pole to gain ; 
 
 Or maybe, as musicians love 
 
 The throng who, while they sing above. 
 
 Drink in the melting strain : 
 
 And, haply, as the dull delight 
 
 In beauty, and adore the bright. 
 
 Nature, who gives to one the Muse, 
 And to another lovely hues. 
 Hath mantled you in grace : 
 Nor know I many a fairer thing 
 Than your manoeuvres on the wing ; 
 And it would shame our race 
 If spy ensnared, or fowler shot 
 Such charmers of our wintry lot. 
 
 I feign you wild Siberian guests 
 Whom hospitable Britain rests 
 With music, mirth, and fare — 
 Who brighten our grey silent time 
 With lore and legend from the clime 
 That vaunts the snowy bear ; 
 Or Danes, whose gracious mien and spell 
 Hath made warm England love them well. 
 D 
 
34 TO A FLOCK OF SNOW BUNTINGS. 
 
 O ! when, the winter o'er, we part, 
 Still linger in my summer heart, 
 To haunt its fields and flowers : 
 And gambol while the choir uprise 
 In tuneful circle to the skies, 
 And breed amid the bowers : 
 For guests we truly love remain 
 Tho' sense appear to make us twain. 
 
 TO A WILD PEAR TREE. 
 
 Thou silent dreamer by the gate 
 
 Of a bright orchard plot. 
 Where smile thy nobler kin, stern Fate 
 
 Hath barred thee from their lot! 
 So Eve, for many a wistful hour, 
 With dreary look and fruitage sour, 
 Might haply gaze on Eden's bower 
 From an accursed spot. 
 
 Or better still, yon trees shall stand 
 
 For saints in Paradise ; 
 Whom thou, deformed by evil's brand. 
 
 Dost view with hopeless eyes ; 
 Their bloom so stainless, thine impure. 
 Their fruit superb, thine immature ; 
 Thy livelong tale a forfeiture 
 
 Of nobler state and guise. 
 
TO A WILD PEAR TREE. 35 
 
 Nor doth thy fate alone invite 
 
 My look of sympathy : 
 Truth's rigour, and the tender light 
 
 Of beauty hallow thee : 
 And I am gnarled and ageing fast ; 
 And I from Eden am outcast ; 
 And I, too, hunger that, at last, 
 
 I may transplanted be. 
 
 Fast ageing — and the mistletoe, 
 
 White-berried, fresh, and green. 
 
 That wreathes thee, lends a happy glow, 
 A blithe and merry mien ; 
 
 As Memory keeps my childhood's bliss. 
 
 Youth's innocence, the stolen kiss. 
 
 The wintry dance, nor lets me miss 
 One face from the bright scene ! 
 
 An Eden outcast — ah ! too true ; 
 
 For sin my birthright stole ; 
 The glory to my being due. 
 
 Hath left me, body and soul : 
 And part of me is dead, like those 
 Dry branches whereon nothing grows- 
 No tender green, or blushing snows, 
 
 Or fruit of golden hue. 
 
 Away, vain tears ! for no remorse 
 Can make the withered live. 
 
 The all remaining keep from loss — 
 The all so fugitive ! 
 
36 TO A WILD PEAR TREE. 
 
 Brave heart ! more energy, more toil ; 
 And look ! yon dry bough doth not spoil 
 The lovely bloom ; but, like a foil, 
 A heightened charm doth give. 
 
 Thou hast no Paradise in store 
 
 Poor plant, for all thy dream ! 
 But I, more wise than heretofore, 
 My birthright may redeem : 
 And flowers immaculate, and fruit 
 Whose wealth and flavour none dispute. 
 May flourish, worthy of a root 
 Fed by a living Stream. 
 
 TO A FLOCK OF KNOTS. 
 
 The many kindle at the view 
 (The blend of outline, texture, hue). 
 And leave in rapture ; but the few 
 
 Remain to note each trait. 
 This morn, of all that linger long 
 O'er golden sand and billows' song, 
 How many mark the feathered throng 
 
 That feed and fight and play ? 
 
 My eye is on your busy joys : 
 But why the turmoil, strife, and noise ? 
 Am I the villain that decoys, 
 The fowler fain to kill ? 
 
TO A FLOCK OF KNOTS. 37 
 
 Ah ! who that saw you pitch, and droop 
 Your curve of lovely wing, to troop 
 Along the beach, a graceful group, 
 Could be a murderer still ? 
 
 Ye range the line of flowing tide, 
 As in the day of Danish pride, 
 Whose vanity a king would chide : 
 
 In view of sea and sky 
 The billows breaking on that coast 
 Updrove you near the fawning host 
 Who, chiming in an empty boast. 
 
 Would Herod him on high. 
 
 Was it a wild OSober day, 
 
 When shanks of green and wings of grey 
 
 Played hide and seek mid the white spray. 
 
 That he their vaunt would quell ? 
 Or was it on a vernal beach. 
 When happy flocks swept out of reach. 
 All flaming-hued — a lover each. 
 
 While some stood sentinel ? 
 
 O king, who vainly bad'st the wave 
 Retire that dared thy throne to lave. 
 The God whom thou extolledst gave 
 
 Their charms for human lore ! 
 Thou and thy courtiers who ensnared 
 And slew His monitors had shared 
 Wisdom Divine, if ye had spared, 
 
 Watched, aye and copied more. 
 
38 TO A FLOCK OF KNOTS. 
 
 Fair birds, 't would make an angel weep 
 To note how here as then men keep 
 The sense to value you asleep. 
 
 The eye to mark you sealed ! 
 One honour reached you thro' their shame- 
 The royal gourmand stamped his fame 
 On you : ye bear the vaunted name 
 
 To which those courtiers kneeled ! 
 
 TO A NUTHATCH. 
 
 Arboreal pilgrim ! many a time 
 Have I stood sentry near a lime, 
 Or oak, or elm, to watch thee climb 
 
 And note thy ways. 
 Now let me honour one in rhyme 
 
 That met my gaze. 
 
 'Tis not that thy brisk form doth lend 
 Life to the tree — that thou dost spend 
 A fiery spirit — or the blend 
 
 Of thy soft hues : 
 Nor yet the way thou dost ascend 
 
 That wakes my muse : 
 
 Nor the afFeSion for thy bride 
 Which bids thee clamber by her side. 
 Whene'er she quits the snowy pride 
 Of your hid home, 
 
TO, A NUTHATCH. 39 
 
 No, nor the care wherewith ye guide 
 Your brood that roam. 
 
 All clamberers herein consent : 
 
 But thou art sole in downward bent ; 
 
 The summit of accomplishment 
 
 Finds thee untired ; 
 And oft the ease of thy descent 
 
 Have I admired. 
 
 I sing it now, for while I see 
 Pull many climb the social tree, 
 And struggle up with dignity ; 
 
 Few lose renown, 
 Or meet the lapse from high degree 
 
 Without a frown. 
 
 Our spirit's flame, our manhood's might, 
 Are leagued to help us up the height ; 
 But let reversal come ere quite 
 
 We gain' the top, 
 Ahd soul and body shun the fight 
 
 To break the drop. 
 
 And life — how loftily we scale 
 
 The mount while youth and health prevail ! 
 
 But ah ! brave mentor ! when they fail 
 
 Be mine the grace, 
 The cheer wherewith thine upward trail 
 
 Thou dost retrace ! 
 
40 ON A MAY-TREE IN FULL BLOOM. 
 
 ON A MAY-TREE IN FULL BLOOM. 
 
 O GRACE of Earth, O balm of Air ! 
 So fragrant, so divinely fair, 
 What scent is worthy to compare 
 With this, what lovely scene ? 
 A snow-fall, born of the blue skies ? 
 A whiif from flowers of Paradise ? 
 From whiter foam did Venus rise 
 To reign as Beauty's queen ? 
 
 May's glory from November's tomb ! 
 Bright wings and music 'mid the bloom 
 Enfolded long in wintry gloom ! 
 Fair ministry of joy ! 
 Thy summer beauty wakes the thought 
 That I thro' darkness may be brought 
 To grace and purity, and wrought 
 For some divine employ. 
 
 But lighter fancies hold me now — 
 
 Sin lurks beneath the purest brow. 
 
 As thorns beset each whitened bough 
 
 Within thy spotless whole. 
 
 Full many a one an angel seems, 
 
 Round whom bright- winged beauty teems ; 
 
 When near approach would melt all dreams 
 
 And lift the aureole. 
 
ON A MAY-TREE IN FULL BLOOM. 41 
 
 And many another wears as gay 
 A guise, as perfeS an array : 
 A queen of joy she looks — but stay ! 
 The veil is backward blown — 
 Behold the thorny life, whose mask 
 'Mid glow and music seemed to bask ! 
 Ay, ponder o'er its pangs, nor ask 
 For other than thine own ! 
 
 And snow doth mantle many a haunt 
 Of devils, dreary, keen, and gaunt : 
 Scarce any sharpness but doth vaunt 
 A fragrant, calm outside. — 
 Dark doubt below, belief above. 
 Virtue that Time doth soon disprove. 
 Hate masquerading as true love, 
 Shy meekness cloking pride. 
 
 And once I met a maid like thee 
 Thou gentle, white, deceitful tree ! 
 Round whom coquetted airily 
 A myriad fain to kiss. 
 I took her hand, and thought her heart 
 Was mine, but lo ! a sudden dart 
 Unfooled me, for I keep the smart 
 From that far day to this. 
 
42 CUCKOO-CALLS. 
 
 CUCKOO-CALLS. 
 
 No poet ever can have heard 
 
 Thy sylvan clamour, fairy bird ! 
 
 With pulse unquickened, brain unstirred, 
 
 And spirit uninspired. 
 So oft thine advent hath been sung, 
 And on thy note the changes rung, 
 I had been mute, but can his tongue 
 
 Be still, whose heart is fired ? 
 
 And none who note, as I do now, 
 Thy cadence from a leafy bough. 
 Hath told a giddy world that thou 
 
 Art come to turn it wise — 
 To bid it ponder ere the choice 
 Of many a gay deilant voice. 
 That makes the thrilling sense rejoice. 
 
 Yet pilots on to sighs. 
 
 O schemer, who wilt soon destroy 
 The quietude and household joy 
 Of startled ones, whom thy decoy 
 
 Hath lured from happy nests ! 
 Thou mindest me of many a field 
 Where linger dupes whose doom is sealed, 
 Since heart and will they blindly yield 
 
 To one whose call arrests. 
 
CUCKOO-CALLS. 43 
 
 'Mid the sweet meadow of life's spring 
 Fair Pleasure trails a lovely wing, 
 And from some vantage-peak doth sing 
 
 The oft-repeated strain. 
 Those syren tones of blithe misrule, 
 How strange their magic to befool 
 The soaring soul, while Wisdom's school 
 
 Doth discipline in vain ! 
 
 With Age reminding that the tune 
 Doth falter, like thy call in June, 
 And that, with Autumn, sure and soon, 
 
 The miisic will have fled ; 
 With echoes of an empty Past, 
 Delight unfledged, and hope outcast 
 To cradle some intruder vast 
 
 That clamoured to be fed ! 
 
 'Mid fields of sober, fruitful toil 
 The demagogue doth chant of spoil 
 And piracy, nor fears recoil 
 
 Of aught upon himself: 
 Upstarting workers quickly throng 
 To hear the annual twofold song 
 Of byegone harm and present wrong. 
 
 That merit force and pelf. 
 
 Enchanting scenes before them float, 
 An Eden near, a Heaven remote. 
 Like all imagine when thy note 
 Re-echoes thro' the wood — 
 
44- CUCKOO-CALLS. 
 
 While Poverty, that giant guest, 
 Doth oust all comfort from the nest, 
 And brii>g to an unpitying test 
 The promise of near good. 
 
 'Mid fields of flowering culture oft 
 Hath shouted one who bravely scoffed 
 At all below, as from aloft 
 
 He feigned some gospel new — 
 " The Past is Winter dead and dark, 
 And chilly Spring's advance, but hark ! 
 This bright evangel stamps the mark 
 
 Of Summer on the view : 
 
 " Lo ! Thought's dull pastures, how they rise 
 In sudden bloom toward the skies ! " 
 So vaunteth he — but criticise 
 
 His song, and what appears ? 
 'Tis but the roguish note of old; 
 The Present is the Past retold ; 
 Leaf, flower, and fruitage will unfold, 
 
 As ever, thro' the years. 
 
 They call, they promise, they depart. 
 To leave each dupe a bleeding heart ; 
 And yet, like thee, all play a part 
 
 In the world-mystery — 
 The fields would forfeit half their grace. 
 Shorn of the instinSs of thy race, 
 Profaning to its dire disgrace 
 
 The vernal history ! 
 
TO A BLUEBELL. 45 
 
 TO A BLUEBELL.^ 
 
 Look up, thou lovely sylvan flower ! 
 Why should a Hly hang its head 
 That hath no rival in the bower, 
 
 And hardly in the bed ? 
 A purple robe hath marked thy birth 
 For dignity, and royal mirth ; 
 Let sunbeams kiss each lifted cup. 
 And breezes toy with it — look up ! 
 
 What girl her ringlets ever shook 
 With coyer wilfulness than this ? 
 Thou shunnest both the flaming look 
 
 And the encircling kiss. 
 A magic in the balmy breeze 
 Hath set thee trembling, ill at ease ; 
 Nor hath a constellation bright 
 A charm to win thy gaze at night. 
 
 ^ According to the ancient myth Hyacinthus was greatly 
 beloved both by Apollo and Zephyms ; and the latter, whose 
 afFeflion was not returned, grew jealous of the former, who was 
 intrusted with the education of Hyacinthus. As Apollo was 
 playing quoits one day with his pupil, Zephyrus blew a quoit 
 thrown by Apollo upon the head of Hyacinthus, and killed him, 
 after which Apollo changed his blood into a flower which bore 
 his name, and placed his body among the constellations. 
 
46 TO A BLUEBELL. 
 
 Ah ! now I have it — thou dost rise 
 From his immortal blood, who while 
 His body gleameth in the skies 
 
 Doth thro' thy beauty smile. 
 Apollo weaveth still a charm ; 
 Doth Zephyrus still compass harm, 
 That Hyacinth in floral state 
 Remembereth a cruel fate ? 
 
 Nay, tremble not ! the zephyr's love. 
 Hath naught of envy in it now ; 
 Apollo woos thee from above 
 
 Thro' many a screening bough ; 
 The tender gale that round thee plays 
 Would toss thy bloom to front his rays : 
 The gentle air, the genial sun. 
 To keep thee fair are both at one. 
 
 What ! wilt thou never look aloft ? 
 Then 'tis a Hyacinthine star, 
 Methinks, that beams an influence soft 
 
 Upon thee from afar ; 
 And seals thee for an earthly lot, 
 A quiet life in this green spot — 
 To bloom in beauty mid the shade. 
 And squander perfume thro' the glade. 
 
JOY IN MEMORY. 47 
 
 JOY IN MEMORY. 
 
 Will the hours of glory, 
 
 That shone thro' the tears of Time, 
 
 Tell a Joyous story 
 
 When life hath foregone its prime ? 
 
 Will the vanished pleasure 
 
 One dream of delight restore ? 
 
 Can we spend our treasure, 
 
 Yet keep it for evermore ? 
 
 Ah ! the rainbow's splendour 
 
 Doth fade in a tearful sky ; 
 
 Tho' divinely tender. 
 
 The hues of the evening die : 
 
 If a faint reflefiion 
 
 Doth bloom the sad grey awhile, 
 
 Like a spent afie£!ion 
 
 It melts in a joyless smile. 
 
 Yet the bow's bright magic 
 Kind memory guardeth well ; 
 And naught fair or tragic 
 Effaceth the evening spell : 
 So the heart's young gladness 
 Still liveth to glow again 
 With a lovely sadness, 
 A glory no cloud can stain. 
 
48 JOY IN MEMORY. 
 
 And a hand doth beckon 
 
 Me back from the misty tears 
 
 To an hour that I reckon 
 
 The best in the byegone years. 
 
 Point on, gentle finger, 
 
 To joy that then mocked despair ! 
 
 If thy magic linger 
 
 Delight may now conquer care. 
 
 TO A FAMILY OF SWIFTS. 
 
 Hopeful in movement, yet hppeless in hue, 
 Which do ye image, vociferous crew ? 
 Demons of darkness, or seraphs of light. 
 Prophets of wrong, or exponents of right ? 
 Wildly careering, and wheeling about. 
 Ever till now have ye left me in doubt — 
 Doubt that your rapture to-day doth dispel, 
 Stamping you children of heaven and not hell. 
 
 Manner, and method, and tone, and employ. 
 
 Chime of ecstatic, unchangeable joy. 
 
 Light is the parent of joy ; the abyss 
 
 Yieldeth no pleasure, no glory like this. 
 
 Right is the mother of freedom ; a chain 
 
 Bindeth wrong's brood to abasement and pain. 
 
 Angels ye are, and a message for Earth 
 
 Gleams thro' your darkness, and sounds in your mirth. 
 
TO A FAMILY OF SWIFTS. 49 
 
 Is not your colour the hue that is worn 
 By every preacher of bliss to the lorn ? 
 Gloomy they look to the children of sense ; 
 Dark is their Creed, and its Sign an offence : 
 Yet but the envelope borrows from dusk, 
 Fair is the kernel tho' dull be the husk ; 
 All true delight outward splendour doth lack, 
 Fitly, methinks, are they mantled in black. 
 
 Fitly as sable is worn for the dead, 
 Who to a glory unvisioned have fled ; 
 Fitly as evening doth shrine the star-ray ; 
 Fitly as night is the womb of the day ; 
 Fitly as song bubbles up from the heart 
 Steeped in the gloom of dejeSion or smart ; 
 Fitly as ye in the garb of despair 
 Shriek the delight that is rending the air. 
 
 Who could be dull with so blithe a refrain ? 
 Gladness alone in my heart can remain. 
 O 'tis the sun that thick vapour enshrouds 
 Piercing the mists and dispelling the clouds ! 
 Ye are the blackness that broods o'er the sea 
 Bursting to flood lovely moonlight on me. 
 Dark as the thunder-cloud ere the deep boom, 
 Shrill as the whirlwind, ye flash on my gloom. 
 
 Was it for nothing, black birds, that ye rose 
 Out of pure egg-shells that rival the snows, 
 And that to others as white as your own. 
 Life of your life, ye will shortly have flown ? 
 Was it to hint that keen vision may find 
 Good out of evil, before and behind, 
 E 
 
50 TO A FAMILY OF SWIFTS. 
 
 Darkness the child and the parent of light, 
 Joy masquerading in mantle of night ? 
 
 Speed like the ravens of old, that did bring 
 Food to the Prophet who pined by the spring ! 
 Bear to my Cherith a banquet divine — 
 To my lone heart be your triumph a sign ! 
 Let the dark thoughts that now throng it appear 
 Radiant with hope, while ye circle and veer ! 
 Sadness, begone ! dull dejefiion, adieu ! 
 Follow and fade with them into the blue ! 
 
 THE ROSE TREE'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 Queen of the garden fair ! 
 
 Why should thy breath 
 Swoon on the perfumed air 
 
 Into dumb death ? 
 Fain would I wrest thy tale 
 From the light wandering gale, 
 And, ere it faint or fail. 
 
 Hear what it saith. 
 
 Flowers of thine every year 
 
 Thro' joy and gloom 
 Deck what we hold so dear — 
 
 Home, altar, tomb. 
 Oh, thou hast much to say : 
 Much both of grave and gay. 
 
THE ROSE TREE'S DISCOURSE. 51 
 
 In thy sweet, silent way, 
 Eloquent bloom ! 
 
 Much thro' thy glowing spoil 
 
 Culled for each tide ; 
 Fresh mid our dust and moil, 
 
 Calm mid our pride — 
 Much thro', thy prophecies, 
 Waking faint memories 
 That brim the heart and eyes — 
 
 Much, much beside. 
 
 Doth not a whisper breathe 
 
 Of early dreams — 
 Of a pink-budded wreath 
 
 Kissed by sunbeams, 
 Of a wild jubilee 
 Thro' a growth fair and free. 
 Round which Creation's glee 
 
 Tunefully streams ? 
 
 Doth not a voice recount 
 
 Riper employ ? 
 Full-blown delight, the fount 
 
 Of honeyed joy ; 
 First-love's delirious spell, 
 Wooing, and marriage-bell, 
 Rapture no heart can tell. 
 
 No wrong destroy. 
 
 Doth not an accent warn 
 
 That joy will blow 
 'Mid many a cruel thorn 
 
 Lurking below — 
 
52 THE ROSE TREE'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 That, like thy beauty, bliss 
 Faints at too rude a kiss ? 
 For, closely clasped, we miss 
 Perfume and glow. 
 
 Doth not a whisper hint 
 
 At a far hour 
 When ne'er a sunny glint 
 
 Gleams on the bower. 
 When grace and joy are past ? 
 For, 'mid the icy blast, 
 Down the leaves flutter fast 
 • From the spent flower. 
 
 Doth not a tone remind 
 
 That perfume shed 
 May linger long behind 
 
 Loveliness dead ? 
 Oft a memorial trace 
 Haunteth the empty place 
 Where many a charm and grace 
 Flourished and fled. 
 
 TO A FLOCK OF OYSTER CATCHERS. 
 
 O THERE are cries that voice the heart of May, 
 And forms that shape the spirit of the bay. 
 And scenes whose magic memory bears away 
 To recreate at will !' 
 
OPTIMIST V. PESSIMIST. 53 
 
 Such was your note when first ye met my sight ; 
 The chequered beauty of your wings in flight, 
 The breezy freshness, and the golden light ; 
 The blue serenely still. 
 
 Gay sea-pies, white as snow, and black as ink ; 
 Like sunset, orange ; and like dawning, pink ! 
 Your colours catch the eye that we may link 
 
 Your work and play to man's — 
 That your aSivity our sloth may chide. 
 Your craft and skill our sluggish wit may guide. 
 Your joyful unity condemn our pride. 
 
 Who sport in cliques and clans. 
 
 Scold us more shrilly till your toil we match ; 
 Our secrets from their envelope we snatch, 
 Our wealth from rocky frontiers we detach 
 
 With your agility ! 
 Till from oppression and disdain we keep ; 
 And skimming ever and anon the deep 
 Of glittering pleasure, in blithe commune sweep 
 
 Back to our haunt with glee. 
 
 OPTIMIST V. PESSIMIST. 
 
 Are evil, woe, and pain 
 But morning-mists that melt into the blue, 
 Or tearful clouds that gather for more rain 
 
 And darkness ever new ? 
 
54 OPTIMIST V. PESSIMIST. 
 
 I lately strove for long 
 With one who held that some should follow Right, 
 And find eternal Day — some follow Wrong, 
 
 And know eternal Night. 
 
 The Holy Book, he said, 
 Revealed immortal Life, unending Death : 
 By Words inspired the spirit should be led. 
 
 Not by mere human breath. 
 
 He urged that they whose will 
 Was chained to evil, scorning to be free. 
 While here would deeper sink, and deeper still 
 
 To all Eternity. 
 
 He pointed me to Light, 
 And made me mark the shadow that it cast ; 
 To prove that, for the Future to be bright, 
 
 Gloom too must ever last. 
 
 He bade me view the Poles, 
 So far removed, and evermore apart; 
 The shores, he urged, between the sea that rolls. 
 
 Divide as heart from heart. 
 
 Creation's texture shews 
 Evil the warp, of Good the lovely woof. 
 Nought can a vital principle foreclose ; 
 
 That was his final proof. 
 
 It failed to reach me — why ? 
 There was a something in me that rebelled : 
 A doubt no argument could satisfy, 
 
 A hope no proof dispelled. 
 
OPTIMIST V. PESSIMIST, 55 
 
 Methought, " I cannot bring 
 Strong evidence all this to countervail ; 
 Yet let me look ; for scarce a questioned thing 
 
 But tells a two-fold tale." 
 
 Not that I failed of heed 
 To Words Divine ; but much seems left obscure ; 
 And that hope glistened thro' the Christian Creed 
 
 I could not but feel sure. 
 
 That most in a dark age 
 Denied it, was far less to me than this, 
 That loftier souls had gleaned from every page 
 
 All should at length iind bliss. 
 
 Tho' Revelation leave 
 Evil's dark votaries in hopeless doom, 
 God's works belie their doflrine who believe 
 
 Dawn cannot streak their gloom. 
 
 When midnight breeds no day, 
 Storm clouds no rainbow, and rough waves no calm ; 
 When sorrow comes no healing can allay. 
 
 And pain untouched by balm : 
 
 When mortals shed no tear 
 O'er woe, e'en well deserved, in Wrong's foul den ; 
 Then will I, cast my hope, and hug my fear — 
 
 Never, my God, till then ! 
 
 What if all final things 
 Be fraught with meaning open to the wise ? 
 Not one when catechized but comfort brings 
 
 To wistful, peering eyes. , 
 
56 OPTIMIST V. PESSIMIST. 
 
 I went to Nature first, 
 Who over death, and wrong, and suffering beamed ; 
 As if to show all now was at the worst. 
 
 Nor all quite what it seemed. 
 
 I marked the certain Sleep 
 That ends a day by evil overborne : 
 Her bondsmen writhe, her dreamers fret and weep, 
 
 Yet hail a hopeful morn — 
 
 I sought the shrine of Death ; 
 Yet tho' he told me nought of after-life, 
 I saw all marbled from the final breath 
 
 In calm devoid of strife. 
 
 I bade sad Memory 
 Unveil the changeless Past, both fair and foul ; 
 And lo ! soft sweetness, like a tender sky 
 
 To charm vext Ocean's scowl. 
 
 And Music at my call 
 Blent every discord in one harmony, 
 And bade me read in echo's lingering fall 
 
 A lovely prophecy. 
 
 The Year's completed round 
 Is robed in snow, as at her course begun ; 
 May not our race be white at either bound. 
 
 Lost purity re-won ? 
 
 If the Poles figure forth 
 A gulf eternal, can there be no bridge ? 
 Is not the south as snowy as the north. 
 
 Spotless at either ridge ? 
 
HEART UNION. 57 
 
 And then my heart I asked 
 If ever its depraved imagining 
 Could feign Love, Truth, and Righteousness, untasked, 
 
 To end all suffering. — 
 
 Could feign strong Fatherhood, 
 Foreknoviring all, who yet could life bestow 
 On any, that might barter destined good 
 
 For hopeless sin and woe — 
 
 Could feign Creative Power, 
 Who left unmade or fashioned, at His Will ; 
 Yet made aught sentient, with an endless dower 
 
 Of torment to fulfil. 
 
 It throbbed a thousand times, 
 " Nay, never ! " and to Moral Sense I went 
 Whose negative, since with all else it chimes. 
 
 Be my last argument ! 
 
 HEART UNION. 
 
 Bend o'er me, like the sky above 
 The ocean, in perpetual love ! 
 So tutor me that none may err 
 Who seek in me thy charaSer : 
 That every motion of thy heart 
 May have in mine its counterpart, 
 Or somewhat at the least to shew 
 That to thy charm I ebb and flow. 
 
58 HEART UNION. 
 
 Thy stainless blue and golden light 
 Shall find me calm, and clear, and bright ; 
 With answering shadows when I feel 
 That glooms upon thy glory steal. 
 A gathering gale, a stormy cloud 
 Of thine shall make me moan aloud. 
 Thy tears, down raining, from my deep 
 Heart-breakers foam, and fall, and weep. 
 
 Whatever Thought and Fancy trace 
 On thee are in my tell-tale face ; 
 Thine inspiration is a wind 
 To ripple my responsive mind ; 
 The hopes that in thy bosom rest 
 RefleS their splendour in my breast ; 
 And from thy lofty being's strife 
 Is born whatever stains my life. 
 
 And tenderly we intertwine. 
 As fades the sky-and-ocean line. 
 The two are blent in matin mist 
 Like we are joined who early kissed. 
 As both appear in darkness one. 
 None severs us in trouble — none ; 
 And shadows clearing, all shall see 
 That thou art very heaven to me. 
 
THE BIRTH OF PHILANTHROPY. 59 
 
 THE BIRTH OF PHILANTHROPY. 
 
 'Tis like far music from an angel band, 
 
 The tones of Love 
 That first enchant us in the fairy land 
 
 Thro' which we move. 
 Poised like the golden flies o'er perfumed flowers, 
 Or basking in the. sunbeams 'mid bright bowers, 
 We start to hear them thro' the gentle hours 
 
 Steal from Above. 
 
 While the dim early consciousness doth last, 
 
 The tune is all : 
 But with the happy dream of childhood past, 
 
 The notes will fall 
 On critic ears that would resolve their sum ; 
 And hearts that, by the harmony o'ercome. 
 Would know from whom and whence each tone doth 
 come 
 
 Of their sweet thrall. 
 
 The nearer music, the advancing truth, 
 
 O how they fill 
 The wistful being of prophetic youth ! 
 
 The senses thrill. 
 The spirit quickens with a strange delight. 
 Ere Love's fair minstrelsy appears in sight. 
 They come — and we, before the vision bright. 
 
 Adult, stand still. 
 
6o THE BIRTH OF PHILANTHROPY. 
 
 For opening Manhood into bloom will burst 
 
 When it doth know 
 That the far sounds that seemed all heavenly first. 
 
 From mortals flow, 
 Chiming of Love, yet hidden from the ken, 
 Till the ripe heart be ready for them, when 
 They march in view with various pipe — true men 
 
 In radiant show. 
 
 Enraptured by the melody, we long 
 
 To play a part ; 
 The fount of music from that tuneful throng 
 
 Is but the heart ; 
 Our private pipe would swell the harmony ; 
 Let Love enlist us in that company ! 
 And so we joy in others' revelry 
 
 Till all depart. 
 
 SOUL-CUSHIONS. 
 
 O MIND that questions all, repose 
 
 On what is shewn 
 By anything whereof one knows 
 
 What can be known ! 
 The eye but resteth on the robe 
 That mantleth a mysterious globe ; 
 Behind it none will ever probe, 
 
 Till Time be flown. 
 
UNSATED SOULS. 6 1 
 
 O fevered heart that will not rest 
 
 In mortal love, 
 Recline on some dear human breast, 
 
 And look above ! 
 In its fond loyalty discern 
 Eternal constancy, and learn 
 That One doth live Who cannot turn 
 
 And will not move. 
 
 O aching conscience, pillow thee 
 
 On some kind word 
 That saith man's grace doth hold thee free 
 
 From guilt incurred ! 
 And think — if human pardon shine 
 Thus brightly, how much more Divine 
 May not sweet Heaven to me incline. 
 
 Who so have erred ? 
 
 UNSATED SOULS, 
 
 Dowered with an environment 
 Of the brightest God can give. 
 Why the nameless discontent 
 With the all mid which ye live ? 
 Heaven so golden. Earth so fair. 
 Life so hopeful, love so sweet, 
 How is it that everywhere 
 Your strange wistfulness we meet ? 
 
62 UNSATED SOULS. 
 
 Preachers know the piercing gaze 
 That will brook no sophistries : 
 Lovers chide with sad amaze 
 Hungry and unhappy eyes. 
 All the more ye press and strain, 
 Nigh the heaven of earthly bliss. 
 Would ye the horizon gain, 
 And o'erleap it — why is this? 
 
 Ask the bird and fly that spoil 
 Native shells in peeping out, 
 Snowdrops while they rend the soil. 
 Rosebuds reddening as they sprout : 
 Questioned, they will tell the cause — 
 Latent longing, quick desire 
 Bid all being mock the laws 
 Of Earth's thrall, and skyward spire. 
 
 Sunny beams with golden glint 
 Flashing through the leaden cloud. 
 Then retiring, sadly hint 
 That ye cannot pierce your shroud ; 
 Curtained by the veil of sense, 
 Tantalized by nobler things, 
 Baflled, yet unconquered : hence 
 All the sighs, the questionings. 
 
 Argus-eyed, like heaven above 
 Is the dusky mortal scene. 
 Worlds of prisoned life and love 
 Look so pure, but ah ! so keen — 
 
UNSATED SOULS. 63 
 
 Orbs encircle me like those 
 Twinkling thro' the chilly night ; 
 Fixed, yet alien from repose ; 
 Mid the darkness strangely bright. 
 
 Yet as some enchanting globe 
 Beams a welcome, many a time 
 Almost tempting me to probe 
 Deep behind its silvery clime ; 
 So mid numbers oft I chance 
 On a look that half betrays 
 All beneath it, a shy glance 
 That invites my curious gaze. 
 
 Limpid eyes, false sentinel 
 Of your fortress, and true guide 
 To the spy who fain would tell 
 What the shrinking soul doth hide. 
 Diving down your deep I muse, 
 Is your midnight like the spheres ? 
 Are ye wet with heavenly dews. 
 Or with earth's wild passion-tears ? 
 
 Or like stars thro' winter frost 
 Are ye always dry and bright. 
 Shining on, whate'er the cost, 
 Thro' the dark and lonely night ? 
 Tearful cease to vainly weep ! 
 Fearless still with patience bear I 
 Earth's sad vigil all must keep 
 Who Heaven's festival would share. 
 
64 UNSATED SOULS. 
 
 Do ye tell of Truth unfound, 
 Joy untasted, Love unwon, 
 Strife by viSory uncrowned, 
 Deeds (how vainly !) wished undone ? 
 Take this comfort ! all ye ask 
 Nears you thro' the stress and pain ; 
 While, but for the muffling mask 
 Ye were short of 'half your gain. 
 
 SILENT WOOING. 
 
 She asked me in the garden 
 
 What flower I liked the best ; 
 And thro' my choice I tried to voice 
 
 The love that fired my breast. 
 The blossom's beauty would I name 
 
 Whereof she most partook ; 
 I knew she understood my aim 
 
 From her shy, laughing look. 
 
 The spirit of the violet 
 
 Was in her heart and eyes ; 
 And on her face a lily-grace, 
 
 A rose's warm surprise ; 
 The snowdrop imaged one all pure ; 
 
 The crocus, one all bright. 
 The pansy looked a miniature 
 
 Of a fair dreamy sprite. 
 
TO A BUTTERCUP, 65 
 
 No blossom could I single, 
 
 So eloquent was each ; 
 When half in fun, she gathered one 
 
 Of all within our reach. 
 The posy piflured her full worth. 
 
 Her fairy self, and she, 
 In yielding it with bashful mirth 
 
 Gave the best flower to me. 
 
 TO A BUTTERCUP. 
 
 Still looking up with patient gaze, 
 Memento of the golden days 
 
 When thou and I were young ! 
 Unfolding from a nether birth. 
 With power to win a brighter worth 
 By rising from ignoble earth 
 
 From whence we both had sprung. 
 
 Each debtor to a Sun above. 
 
 Whose dazzling rays were leagued in love 
 
 With wind and dew and rain. 
 To fire us into glorious growth, 
 If only we were nothing loath 
 And waved away contemning sloth. 
 
 Earth's welcome to remain. 
 
 'Twas thine, wise flower, to look aloft 
 Thro' gale and moisture, rude and soft, 
 F 
 
66 TO A BUTTERCUP. 
 
 To let them lift thee up, 
 And fold thee in thy Sun's embrace ; 
 And lo ! his form and beams and grace 
 Are figured in the golden face 
 
 Of a mere buttercup. 
 
 'Twas mine to scorn the rivalry 
 Of love, that to a better Sky 
 
 Was fain to lift my soul. 
 Downbent, the drop, the breath, the storm, 
 Were impotent to mould her form ; 
 A brighter Sun could not conform, 
 
 Or lend an aureole. 
 
 had I but allowed the kiss. 
 The lingering look, I too ere this 
 
 Had imaged that pure Sun. 
 Some Angel, glowing thro' His Power, 
 Had spied from an eternal Bower, 
 (As I behold thee, lovely flower !) 
 
 That He and I were one. 
 
 Yet tutored by yon vision fair 
 
 1 scorn to droop into despair. 
 
 Thou hiddest me, brave bloom. 
 Contemn my lot and covet thine ; 
 And turning to the Light Divine 
 At length, in His refleSion, shine 
 
 The brighter for past gloom ! 
 
SUPPRESSED EMOTION. 67 
 
 SUPPRESSED EMOTION. 
 
 A SHALLOW grief in tears we tell : 
 A deep one, hardly comes to light. 
 For every fountain, many a well 
 Forbears to bubble into sight. 
 
 Light ills may breathe a tender wail ; 
 Our truest wrong begets no sigh : 
 This imaged in the zephyr-gale, 
 That in a torrid, tranquil sky. 
 
 Yet not for ever can the heart 
 Bear bitterness thus inly pent ; 
 Not always will the tears that start 
 Fall back, or grief refuse a vent. 
 
 Oft will a threatened outburst loom 
 Like thunder o'er a quiet day ; 
 To gather, in meridian gloom. 
 Yet vanish all unspent away. 
 
 But as a spell of burning days 
 Is freshened by nodurnal dew, 
 So we, by lonely, hidden ways. 
 Our spirits lighten and renew. 
 
 To ease the heart, which else would break, 
 The veiling night is all thine own ; 
 That critic eye and ear awake 
 May mark no tear, nor hear one moan. 
 
68 LINES WRITTEN FOR THREE ALBUMS. 
 
 LINES WRITTEN AT WESTWARD HO ! 
 FOR THE ALBUMS OF THREE SISTERS. 
 
 Strange pebble on the ridge of earth, 
 By the dark ocean's power upcast, 
 Ask not the secret of thy birth, 
 Nor study to unveil thy past ! 
 This of thy being is one cause — 
 That firm as flint thy soul may stand 
 Mid millions, faithful to the laws 
 Immutable on sea and land. 
 
 The charm of spring is in thy face : 
 Bloom on in summer loveliness ! 
 Tho' autumn wind must mar thy grace 
 And wintry snow upon thee press. 
 Let fragrance linger round this spot, 
 And wander on, to perfume earth, 
 That men may mark the garden plot 
 Which gave so sweet a floweret birth. 
 
 Bright seaweed tossed out on the sand 
 Of Time from the Eternal Main, 
 'Tis thine to linger on the strand 
 Awhile, and be swept back again ! 
 Tho' none may gather thee and press 
 Thy form between memorial leaves, 
 Of thine immortal loveliness 
 No gulfing tide our heart bereaves. 
 
CLEVEDON. 69 
 
 CLEVEDON. 
 
 Seek ye the glow that never fades, 
 The beauty that decayeth not ? 
 Behold them here ! no change invades 
 
 Thy charm, thou lovely spot ! 
 Fair straggler on the Channel-side, 
 The current of my mortal tide 
 In flow or ebb doth ever seem 
 Begilt by that perennial gleam ! 
 
 In flow : for many an hour of health 
 Hath grown more joyous in thy light ; 
 Frame, mind, and heart have won new wealth 
 
 From plain, and dale, and height. 
 Enchanted garden! calm and joy 
 Have met me here as man and boy : 
 The glancing Muses round me play 
 When thro' thy labyrinth I stray. 
 
 In ebb : for was it not disease 
 That winged me to thee as a child ? 
 And pain hath curtsied oft to ease 
 
 When by thy spell beguiled. 
 With thy nepenthe grief and gloom 
 In hot pursuit have found no room : 
 And thy delight makes Heaven draw near 
 When common Earth doth look too drear. 
 
70 CLEVEDON. 
 
 In flow and ebb : for truest life 
 
 Is lived apart from Space and Time : 
 
 In the lone spirit's calm and strife 
 
 Doth being grow sublime : 
 And Memory hath ever power 
 To paint thee as befits the hour ; 
 So deeply is thy charm impressed. 
 So truly, in my loyal breast. 
 
 Eden of lovers, painters, bards j 
 Elysium for the sick and sad ! 
 I marvel any disregards 
 
 What makes my life so glad-^ 
 Bower, terrace, grove, and sunset hue. 
 And each incomparable view. 
 Angels of grace, mar all device 
 That would dismantle Paradise I 
 
 THE LINNET'S HAUNT. 
 
 A RING of golden gorse beguiled 
 My feet from a rough mountain-way- 
 And from it rose a bird that smiled 
 And carolled on a gleaming spray, 
 
 O the sweet music of the song ! 
 O the bright glory of the bloom ! 
 My heart was lonely, but a throng 
 Of fancies glittered thro' the gloom. 
 
THE LINNET'S HAUNT. 7 1 
 
 Sky, sea, and land, in order lent 
 A field for wild imaginings ; 
 So well the sound and vision blent 
 With heavenly and earthly things. 
 
 The yellow circle seemed the sun 
 Aflame the western wave to kiss ; 
 While from his rim, ere day was done, 
 An angel sang of love and bliss, 
 
 Then I beheld 'mid summer seas 
 A golden island of the blest, 
 Whence fairy music on the breeze 
 Charmed weary mariners to rest. 
 
 That ring of flowering thorn was next 
 This twofold home of ease and pain ; 
 The flower-throned minstrel he who vexed 
 By nether sharpness joy doth gain. 
 
 And then 'twas gold-paved heaven at last 
 Won by a winged chanter bright 
 Who, earth's keen maze of trouble past. 
 On his pure heritage doth light. 
 
 Refreshed, from the fair dream I rose : 
 I was the warbler, and the gold 
 My chequered lot till life shall close ; 
 Then — bliss, by Fancy all untold. 
 
72 POST MORTEM. 
 
 POST MORTEM. 
 
 If after the change that unfetters the soul 
 
 I were free to return for a day of the Time 
 
 I now deem of such little account, on parole, 
 
 To be back before Midnight should tell out her chime. 
 
 Enlightened of Paradise, how would I spend 
 The moments, in view of each broken earth-link. 
 With power to impress upon all, foe or friend, 
 My being and will ? Let me think, let me think ! 
 
 Would I seek to revive the old care and delight, 
 Living over again the gay smile and sad tear ? 
 What use ? would the tender Time-chain re-unite ? 
 Who, what — could now vary one dear vanished year ? 
 
 Behind would I leave the immutable Past, 
 And try to transfigure the wrong that must stop ; 
 Or from the decay of the fruit that it cast. 
 Engender, like Nature, a new happy crop. 
 
 I would hold in contempt what on Earth is our boast ; 
 I would vaunt the true value of what we despise : 
 And if at my will men could see me, the ghost 
 Of what they once knew should oft steal on their eyes. 
 
 What for ? that, like Hamlet, survivors may learn 
 To avenge me of wrong in the body ? Not so. 
 Should men thro' my speSre, like Banquo's, discern 
 The one who in life had most injured me ? No. 
 
POST MORTEM. 73 
 
 Full fraught with delight from the shadowless Shore, 
 My spirit would scatter rare gifts while it sped ; 
 Like a lovely spring gale sweeping on with a store 
 Of beauty and life for the dark and the dead. 
 
 As a bright girl who visits a city of woe, 
 Bringing sweet country-freshness to squalor and need, 
 Its light would bequeath an ineffable glow; 
 An aroma of grace from its calm would proceed. 
 
 High hope and resolve would be brought to the birth. 
 In the heart of calm sleepers o'er whom it might pause; 
 As a warm spell of sunshine may leave wintry earth 
 Quick with impulse whereof one bright hour is the 
 cause. 
 
 Would it in the dark graveyard or avenue lurk 
 To wantonly frighten the foolish and vain ? 
 To startle the early-afoot for their work, 
 Would it steal on their notice in some twilit lane ? 
 
 Ah ! no ; a white sign-post at Life's parting ways, 
 It might linger in metaphor, hardly in fa.8. ; 
 To waken men's feelings, not creep on their gaze, 
 Save where thus alone it could stay a vile aS. 
 
 At morn it should quicken the priest to uphold 
 The Truth, and the lawyer the Right to maintain ; 
 Check the banker and broker from worshipping gold. 
 And the shopman from bartering honour for gain. 
 
 And would-be deceivers should pause thro' its charm. 
 And tears in some penitent eyes should upwell ; 
 The felon in gaol should repent of his harm. 
 And Heaven should welcome the truant from hell. 
 
74 POST MORTEM. 
 
 At noon, in the garden, or mid the gay parks. 
 The lounger should thrill and the libertine quake ; 
 Mute spirits upsoaring should carol like larks, 
 And prayer from the deep of dumb hearts should out- 
 break. 
 
 And in the dark hospital patients might think. 
 Thro' its magic, of glory, forgetting their woe ; 
 As when a sweet sunbeam doth steal thro' the chink 
 Of a dungeon, and brighten a heart with its glow. 
 
 And in the soft gloaming when lovers entwine, 
 It should hallow the cornfield, the stile and the grove, 
 And the nightingale's music should sound more divine 
 Thro' its charm, as true hearts grew diviner in love. 
 
 If in the grey churchyard fresh tears should bedew 
 The wreath that a lonely one lays on a tomb ; 
 A vision unearthly should flash on her view. 
 And flowers of new hope in her spirit should bloom. 
 
 It should linger at night by a dear dreamer's bed, 
 Who, wrapped in soft slumber, might feel it was near ; 
 And waking should gaze on the form of the dead, 
 To win some sweet token of love, without fear. 
 
 One day of the thousand unvalued in life — 
 O the harvest of glory from that to be gleaned ! 
 The comfort and calm to be shed on its strife ; 
 The hearts from its evil and wrong to be weaned ! 
 
 Twice twelve of the hours within which can be done 
 Such a marvel of mercy, and goodness, and love. 
 Too brief — yet, believe me, much wealth should be won 
 For my meed of rejoicing in Eden above ! 
 
FORTUNE'S WOOING. 75 
 
 Back gazing from Paradise many a thorn 
 In the exile of earth would look mantled in white : 
 On many a thistle, keen, angry and lorn. 
 Imperial purple should bloom in delight. 
 
 FORTUNE'S WOOING. 
 
 She courted me at first, and I 
 
 Felt nothing loath. 
 I kindled to her look and sigh, 
 
 And fought with sloth. 
 She seemed to conquer native pride. 
 So much she longed to be my bride. 
 A pauper I ? let her provide 
 
 The means for both ! 
 
 We would not wed now, tho' she won 
 
 My constant gaze. 
 My outlook was as when the sun 
 
 Bursts thro' the haze. 
 I was the lady, she the knight 
 Parading ever in my sight ; 
 The ruff" who to the reeve a bright 
 
 Love-garb displays. 
 
 But lo ! when she had bid me burn. 
 
 She grew quite chill. 
 With sigh and tear I sought to turn 
 
 Her wayward will. 
 
76 FORTUNE'S WOOING. 
 
 She flouted me, and broke her vow, 
 But not my heart — O no ! for now 
 She moves toward me, wondering how 
 I can be still. 
 
 I'll tell her] I have done with thee, 
 
 Thj' calm and strife ; 
 A pensioner I'll never be 
 
 On any wife ! 
 I scorn and quit thee from this hour, 
 And live, whatever storm may lower, 
 By my true self and native power. 
 
 The single life ! 
 
 CYNTHIA. 
 
 Her beauty rose upon my day, 
 A crescent moon three parts concealed ; 
 I wondered what she would display 
 When all her being was revealed. 
 Too many a woman, well I knew. 
 Is fair enough to public view ; 
 For all her loveliness is spent 
 In fashion's glittering firmament. 
 
 The shadows fell around me soon ; 
 
 Weal turned to woe, pain conquered health ; 
 
 Another quarter of that moon 
 
 Was then unveiled by gentle stealth — 
 
, CYNTHIA. 77 
 
 Our social part is oft at strife 
 With that which touches busy life : 
 But she my trouble beamed upon, 
 And in whate'er she handled shone. 
 
 The twilight deepened, and behold 
 A third pure quarter was displayed ! 
 A quiet tale serenely told 
 Emerged, to cheer me, from the shade — 
 Not she, but others, let me know 
 That home was silvered by her glow : 
 And thro' her presence, calm and bright. 
 Mine soon was bathed in lovely light. 
 
 And at my darkest, she allowed 
 The one remaining part to shine. 
 Reserve till then had kept the shroud 
 O'er that which made her wholly mine — 
 The love from which is born all grace 
 Of heart, and mind, and form and face. 
 Full moon it was when I could see 
 That she had given hers to me ! 
 
 Fair is the Day ; when all above 
 
 The heart's deep want doth sing and bloom : 
 
 But fairer is the Night, if love 
 
 Uncurtain glory over gloom. 
 
 Full many in a golden hour 
 
 Have shown rare charm and worth and power 
 
 But in my Midnight one pure soul 
 
 Was orbed into a perfeS whole. 
 
78 UNVALUED TOKENS. 
 
 UNVALUED TOKENS. 
 
 The fairy shows of love, we pass them by — 
 The tender trifles, the fond word and look. 
 Meet a cold spirit, an averted eye, 
 Which hardly noticed this, and that mistook. 
 
 We are the heedless ones who hurry past 
 The delicate hues of many-tinted eve ; 
 Forgetful that the glory fading fast 
 No golden legacy of light will leave. 
 
 Then come the ashen sky, the lonely way. 
 The memory with no enchanted store, 
 The thought that all would not be cold and grey 
 Had we but looked, and loved, and lingered, more. 
 
 KITH AND KIN. 
 
 They come and go ; 
 They haunt the changeful ocean of my life ; 
 They share the tidal pulse, the ebb and flow, 
 
 The calm, the strife. 
 
 Each a fair barque 
 With full equipment for a troubled lot. 
 They win my shore, the few to disembark. 
 
 The many, not. 
 
KITH AND KIN. 79 
 
 O bliss to feel 
 The thronging joys that hurry out from these ! 
 Ah me ! that those but turn a glancing keel 
 
 To woo the breeze. 
 
 And yet they shape 
 A course, I doubt not, to some end Divine. 
 Their charter is to many a spirit-cape, 
 
 More lone than mine. 
 
 They come — but whence ? 
 From that horizon dim where vision fails ; 
 From the dark deep o'er my sea-line of sense 
 
 Each calmly sails. 
 
 They go — but where ? 
 Back to the mystery each, the voyage done ; 
 They melt into the sky, the purple air, 
 
 The golden sun. 
 
 But others seem 
 To fade from view in mist and hurricane. 
 I'd give my all to know it but my dream 
 
 Who see not plain. 
 
 Far stormy skies 
 So oft delude, for near there is no gale. 
 Ah well ! at least to all a haven lies 
 
 Beyond the veil. 
 
8o LOVE'S DAY-DREAM. 
 
 LOVE'S DAY-DREAM, 
 
 As the glow of matin skies 
 Fires the dell and tints the lea ; 
 Sunshine from thine opening eyes , 
 Floods my heart with golden glee. 
 
 Lightly shed, and quickly gone, 
 May thy tears like early showers, 
 Freshening what they fall upon, 
 Star it with unfolding flowers. 
 
 Let thy gaze at dreamy noon 
 Quench despair and quicken mirth ; 
 As the heavenly blue of June 
 Sheds meridian joy on earth. 
 
 Gladdened thus, be thine the calm 
 In the afternoon of all ; 
 Softening into vesper psalm, 
 Folded flowers and twilight fall. 
 
 But before thine ears retire 
 Underneath their lovely veil, 
 Dart a sunset-glance to fire 
 Every heart — hill, grove and dale. 
 
 Oft in tears doth Nature sleep. 
 As the dewy dark doth prove : 
 Hearts at nightfall cannot weep 
 If new dawn awake new love. 
 
A SERMON IN STONE. 8 1 
 
 A SERMON IN STONE. 
 
 Sinful and self-condemned I sought, 
 
 One golden day, a leafy wood ; 
 
 When lo ! a flower-girt statue brought 
 
 Strange cheer, as quietly it stood 
 
 In contrast with the feet which rove, 
 
 The hearts which throb, thro' that green grove. 
 
 The sculptor had portrayed a man 
 
 Competing in a race of old, 
 
 With limbs extended as he ran, 
 
 DeRant brow and flgure bold. 
 
 Hope reached me thro' that strenuous form 
 
 To nerve my heart, and quell its storm. 
 
 It flashed upon me at a glance 
 That heavenly runners are like him — 
 One part of each is in advance. 
 And one outstrips another limb. 
 Contending for a crown, the soul 
 Must reckon progress on the whole. 
 
 While pressing on, to curb our pride 
 A sin we yield to keeps us back. 
 Then lowly love, our other side. 
 Comes to the front with what we lack ; 
 That our whole being may attain 
 A step along the difficult plain. 
 
 Right hand and foot now to the fore 
 An ample energy impart — 
 G 
 
82 A SERMON IN STONE. 
 
 Yet will they bring us forward more 
 Than left limbs nearer to the heart ? 
 Both what we do and what we feel 
 Advance us — strength and loving zeal. 
 
 A darling sin we mourn awhile 
 That we are impotent to quench. 
 What if it vex, thro' Heavenly guile 
 To goad us on to one brave wrench ? 
 How the athlete with a fierce swing 
 Of his lithe form doth onward spring ! 
 
 I thank the man who marbled out 
 That cast ; the owner too I thank. 
 That it doth face the heart devoiit 
 Who wanders to the leafy bank : 
 Him most I thank Who thro' the sight 
 Of it hath lent me cheer and might. — 
 
 Embowered contender, seasons speed, 
 
 And Death thy circling leaves shall chase ; 
 
 And swifter coursers shall succeed 
 
 Him who now marks thy stony race ; 
 
 Immovable, still run, and teach 
 
 The lore that lightened him, to each ! 
 
 INSEPARABLE. 
 
 We cannot sever with a heart 
 The same as tho' we did not part : 
 Ere love could re-unite us, each 
 Might blame the other for the breach. 
 
INSEPARABLE. 83 
 
 If we forgave, should we forget 
 The strife that left our eyes so wet ? 
 Nor could we revel in a Past; 
 As now, undimmed from first to last. 
 
 The sun doth bid adieu, and burn 
 For others, and at dawn return 
 To win a welcome from the eyes 
 Who missed him from the twilit skies. 
 Warm summer doth the earth caress. 
 And robe her in a lovely dress, 
 To leave her lorn, yet reappear 
 With golden smile to dry each tear. 
 
 But none of them can thrill and throb 
 With rapture, none can sigh and, sob. 
 Doth nature know the happy spell 
 That linked us while we loved so well ? 
 The hidden hope, the nameless joy 
 That severance might well destroy : 
 The jealousy which will not brook 
 That stranger eyes should steal a look. 
 
 O there are sunless days, when all 
 Doth linger in gloom's dusky thrall. 
 And years when earth's enchanting face 
 Is robbed of half the summer grace ! 
 And such a year, or such a day 
 Our parted life might well portray : 
 Far better, bonds that lightly fret 
 Than freedom weighted with regret ! 
 
84 IDEAL BEAUTY, 
 
 INVOCATION OF IDEAL BEAUTY. 
 
 THOU SO long, so emptily pursued, 
 Shine out upon me ! be the eyes now blest 
 That peer and fail, the weary heart renewed. 
 
 1 woke into the world by thee caressed, 
 
 But looking, thou didst leave me, and the quest 
 Hath filled my life, of one then half unveiled 
 Who challenged me to chase her and arrest 
 The glory that before me ever sailed — 
 Me, wealthy if I won, a pauper if I failed. 
 
 Foil me no longer ! life is on the wane, 
 
 And yet the prophecy is unfulfilled 
 
 That strenuous effort would not be in vain ; 
 
 For that first glance which my young spirit thrilled 
 
 Was bright with promise that if I but willed 
 
 To banquet on thy face, so should it be — 
 
 Now let one longing look life's evening gild, 
 
 As when above a cold grey autumn-sea 
 
 Green gold and crimson blend in vesper harmony. 
 
 If I but willed it — why, no thirsty soul 
 
 Hath ever panted for pure water more ; 
 
 No mariner round whom fierce billows roll 
 
 Could long so wildly for a gentle shore ! 
 
 What lark hath half so truly pined to soar 
 
 That hymned the hidden sunlight from a cage ? 
 
 I am a suitor aching to adore ; 
 
 A learner mad for an enlightening sage ; 
 
 An heir that brooks no bar from a bright heritage. 
 
IDEAL BEAUTY. 85 
 
 If I but willed it — ^like an April field 
 With seeds evolved by sunlight into flowers, 
 At thy full gaze my wintry heart would yield 
 Such bright fertility that in fair bowers 
 Virtue and Love in sport thro' golden hours 
 Should wed for ever, and a laughing brood 
 Of happy graces, or benignant powers. 
 Dry every tear, dispel the fretful mood, 
 Shed glory over toil, and charm my solitude. 
 
 Am I not true ? what wouldst thou from me yet ? 
 
 More care, and time, and tears, and labour spent ? 
 
 Nay, I have paid in full my every debt. 
 
 Was fond Endymion ever more intent 
 
 On winning her who o'er his slumber bent ? 
 
 Nor am I dreaming when I feel thee near. 
 
 But wide-awake ; yet ah ! so impotent 
 
 To break the spell that bids thee disappear. 
 
 And leave outwitted hands, and eyes that vainly peer. 
 
 How oft have I, preventing the pink dawn. 
 Stood sentinel (lest thro' a golden gate. 
 With bars of gloom too suddenly withdrawn 
 Thou with thy train sweep on, and I be late) 
 Yet even so, viewed but thy queenly state. 
 Thy look of light, for others, not for me. 
 Turned from my heart, and left it desolate. 
 As when warm beams, that gild a waking earth. 
 Retire and rob the hill of glow, the vale of mirth. 
 
 And oft at even when a sunset-light 
 Was flamed by thee, and my enraptured hearty 
 Hot as the fire that made the West so bright, 
 Hath leapt to hue and tint unwon by Art, 
 
86 IDEAL BEAUTY. 
 
 And I in ecstasy have caught one dart 
 Of sidelong glory, thy calm face hath turned 
 To bid the majesty and glow depart ; 
 And naught in heaven or earth hath longer burned 
 But the poor kindled brain whose homage thou hast 
 spurned. 
 
 And oft the riot of the sea and wind 
 
 Hath lured me to some lonely precipice ; 
 
 '• They rave of her ", methought, *' and I shall find 
 
 The frenzy lead me to her promised bliss : 
 
 A rebel gale, while whispering of this, 
 
 Woke sleeping waves who rush to tell me first." 
 
 In the tossed rainbow-foam I felt thy kiss ; 
 
 Thy breath in the wild air ; each billow burst 
 
 In splendour, yet thy look eluded me accurst. 
 
 And glittering fields have wooed me with a smile. 
 And gleaming waters have enticed me near ; 
 With nodding trees to share their lovely guile 
 And flowers with knowing look ; and in my ear 
 Fast flitting birds have chanted ♦' She is here ", 
 And golden-belted bees — and I, too fond. 
 Have followed them, to mingle a sad tear 
 With matin dews, for field and silvery pond 
 Let me but skirt thy train of glory just beyond. 
 
 Where wilt thou tarry ? in no ivied nook. 
 Sweet briary lane, green cuckoo-haunted place, 
 Geraniumed hedgerow, or moss-margined brook ; 
 For down a many have I given thee chase ; 
 Nor in the starlit canopy of space — 
 
IDEAL BEAUTY. 87 
 
 Too oft at sundown hast thou failed me there. 
 Ah ! to the query, some bright human face, 
 When hopeless echo seemed to answer " Where ? " 
 Hath ever and anon flashed forth divinely fair ; 
 
 As if to hint " She doth but turn to taunt. 
 
 Pursued thro' golden sky, or silvery dome. 
 
 Or piSured earth ; for spirit is her haunt, 
 
 Nor vainly to its temple will she come. 
 
 O'er form and feature she doth gently roam. 
 
 To settle, like a sungilt butterfly, 
 
 When neflar of the heart doth charm her home. 
 
 In curve of lip she dwells, in flashing eye — 
 
 In love's equipment, scorn's parade, fear's panoply ! " 
 
 There have I sought thee, ah, how long, how oft ! 
 Forms have I studied for their own dear sake. 
 And forms for thine — fond faces pure and soft 
 Who loved me, eyes that beamed and lips that spake 
 Of grace and glory ; and as one doth break 
 A morning slumber, I have pardoned foe 
 And ruffled friend, if haply I might wake 
 The dreaming soul within ; and thro' the glow 
 Of love or anger thy divinest beauty know. 
 
 Yea, as men pause before a work of Art, 
 
 A finished portrait, or a statue fair. 
 
 So I, a connoisseur, have stood apart 
 
 In life's long human gallery whene'er 
 
 I lit on aught dainty beyond compare. 
 
 Charms that the glancing crowd have hurried past 
 
 Have chained me — loveliness of contour, hair. 
 
 Hue, countenance, and mien, have held me fast. 
 
 Glory ephemeral, and glory born to last. 
 
08 IDEAL BEAUTY. 
 
 .And looks have lit on me by golden chance, 
 On me unworthy of their precious wealth — 
 The lingering love-gaze and the passion-glance. 
 Full contemplation, and regard by stealth. 
 A happy member of Love's commonwealth. 
 My share hath fallen to me ; while in hours 
 Of grief and gloom, and trouble, and ill health. 
 Sweet eyes, as of an angel from the bowers 
 Of Paradise, have calmed my heart with gentle showers. 
 
 But in them all, what have I won of thee ? 
 
 Have I been more than as a baffled boy 
 
 Who steals upon the moth to watch it flee ; 
 
 An angler startled by the gleaming joy 
 
 Of the upleaping trout he would decoy ; 
 
 A moonlit serenader who doth plead 
 
 Beneath the lattice with a maiden coy ; 
 
 Or one who, thinking he had sown the seed 
 
 Of a bright-tinted flower, wins but a homely weed ? 
 
 As when the flaming eye of darkness opes 
 
 In summer lightning-gleam, and momently 
 
 We view enchanted plains, and groves and slopes, 
 
 That with fire-portalled Eden almost vie. 
 
 Till sudden gloom re-curtains earth and sky : 
 
 As when a lovely rainbow just behind 
 
 The stormy outlook hath escaped the eye 
 
 Till the fast-fading hues grow undefined ; 
 
 So has it been with me ; too soon bereft — or blind. 
 
 Nor have I followed thee by sight alone ; 
 My hearing hath partaken in the quest. 
 Just missing thee in many a tender tone 
 And lovely cadence ; longing to arrest 
 
JDEAL BEAUTY. 89 
 
 In vain some dying echo, whose bequest 
 Was the belief that thou wert surely there. 
 Hath music on the water stirred my breast, 
 Have evening bells chimed out upon the air 
 Without my wild lament, my passionate despair ? 
 
 How I have thrilled when some piano played, 
 Or organ winged me to a heavenly height. 
 When for the moment earth has seemed arrayed 
 In vesture woven from the loom of light ; 
 And all the world within has sparkled bright 
 As when meridian fires have asked the waves 
 To dance to music of their own delight ! 
 Yet have I even then been he who craves 
 A smile from one who scorns to gratify her slaves. 
 
 And I have tracked thee by another sense, 
 For I have felt thee draw divinely near 
 In gentle perfume from the innocence 
 Of lily, violet, and all that rear 
 Their sweet shy faces in the new-born year. 
 And many a rose that looked thy fragrant throne, 
 Or scented bloom that decked the summer's bier ; 
 Yet quickly hast thou vanished, zephyr-blown ; 
 No trembling flower but what hath nodded "She is 
 flown." 
 
 Nor hath the world of Sense alone been ranged ; 
 I have pursued thee in the realm of Thought. 
 The lore of ages hath been interchanged 
 With what to-day's enlightenment hath taught. 
 And masterworks by Art and Fancy wrought. 
 
90 IDEAL BEAUTY. 
 
 Thro' many a fine felicity of speech. 
 
 Or happy inspiration, have I sought 
 
 To bring thine excellence within my reach — 
 
 In vain, in vain ! I have been foiled by all, by each ! 
 
 E'en in the lofty realm of noble FaS 
 
 Thou hast befooled me. I have lit on thee, 
 
 If ever, in the self-denying a.61, 
 
 The work of love, the deed of sympathy. 
 
 The hidden grace, the help none else could see. 
 
 With welling tear, and holden breath I oft 
 
 Have half unriddled thy fair mystery, 
 
 Yet but as one tiptoed, with movement soft. 
 
 Spies the leaf-hidden bird that spreads her wing aloft. 
 
 Aloft ! ah ! wilt thou lure me there ? was that 
 
 Thine aim thro' all this splendid mockery ? 
 
 May be, may be, for every air-fed gnat, 
 
 Dizzy with rapture in the summer sky. 
 
 Disdaining flowery earth, and dancing high 
 
 Above the flashing ripple of a stream. 
 
 Shames me, too fond of nether Wealth to fly ; 
 
 So fettered to the water-brink, whence gleam 
 
 The bubbling joys of Time, that I misread that dream. 
 
 That thrilling early vision — what was it, 
 And what the promise of that infant time ? 
 But a sweet pledge that very Heaven should flit 
 Before my spirit, from that innocent prime 
 Thro' deepening life ; that so the mortal clime 
 Beflt her not, nor drowse her into dull 
 Oblivion of her Destiny sublime : 
 For ah ! the daily opiates, how they lull 
 Into a deep content, and higher hope annul. 
 
NEGLECTED AFFECTION. 91 
 
 Let me not sleep like one mid Alpine snows 
 
 Bereft, in slumber, of all pain and ache ! 
 
 As mountain angels keep him from repose 
 
 By flashing lights lest he should never wake, 
 
 So let no deathly torpor overtake 
 
 My spirit, bitten by the world's keen frost ! 
 
 Thine intermittent gleams, O bid them break 
 
 Her calm relapses till the wild be crossed 
 
 And the Divine Hospice enfold the lorn and lost ! 
 
 That Shelter won, adieu to fitful rays 
 
 And foiled endeavour, and benumbing cold ! 
 
 Welcome ! the banquet of thy promised gaze ! 
 
 The prophecy fulfilled, I shall behold 
 
 The all of thee thy glimmering left untold ; 
 
 And find that in belauding thee I bent 
 
 Within the Temple of God, manifold. 
 
 Yet One, Immutable, Omnipotent, 
 
 Whose Glory is with Earth's fair panorama blent. 
 
 NEGLECTED AFFECTION. 
 
 Too late we know the worth of many a gleam, 
 Love's arrow from an angry cloud or mist — 
 The backward glance, the reconciling beam 
 That lit a wilful face we left unkissed. 
 
 Too late we feel the sweet unnoticed things 
 Whereby a heart would shew yet hide her love — 
 Shy violets, whose balm the zephyr wings 
 Past a self-centred dreamer in the grove. 
 
gi NEGLECTED AFFECTION. 
 
 Too late we feel them if unpitying Death 
 Have claimed the face, and spirited the heart : 
 And thro' memorial groves the phantom breath 
 Of the unvalued violets doth dart. 
 
 Too late we feel them if the living face 
 Be kissed by others, and the heart be cold : 
 If Love, in ending our long day of grace, 
 Begin another tale, more truly told. 
 
 O sadder than the thought of golden noon 
 Or crimson eve to a benighted one. 
 Is the dark recoUeSion of Love's boon 
 Let go unprized, and none to comfort, none ! 
 
 Day's dying splendour hath an after-glow ; 
 The chill of midnight-darkness doth abate : 
 Nor tender light, nor hope, have they who know 
 The worth of slighted love too late, too late. 
 
 THE FLOWER OF MY SONG. 
 
 Begot in care, conceived in woe, 
 
 It was not born in mirth. 
 But in what answers to the snow 
 
 Wherein white flowers have birth. 
 God's faultless Bloom began to grow 
 
 Upon a wintry Earth. 
 
THE FLOWER OP MY SONG. 93 
 
 Daughter of trouble and of bliss, 
 
 And nursed by hope and fear, 
 A father's law, a mother's kiss 
 
 Both shape its young career : 
 And like all wayward children, this 
 
 Now smiles, now wears a tear. 
 
 Ah, how the heart's tempestuous strife 
 
 Doth bid it bud and sprout ! 
 Oh, how the sunshine of my life 
 
 Will bring its beauty out ! 
 Unfolding when the rains are rife, 
 
 'Twill open mid the drought. 
 
 And haply, if from summer skies 
 
 Thro' many a genial hour 
 Day's golden and Night's silver eyes 
 
 Blend in maturing power, 
 I soon shall win the welcome prize 
 
 Of a completed flower. 
 
 And will it share the snowdrop's doom? 
 
 .Ah ! who can tell ? yet I 
 Deem that song wins perennial room 
 
 Thro' its own purity : 
 And mine should be too pure a bloom 
 
 For men to let it die. 
 
94 CALLED BACK. 
 
 CALLED BACK, 
 
 Faces of line and hue 
 Fair to the last, 
 What hath become of you 
 Where ye have passed ? 
 
 Less of you lingereth 
 In the dark tomb. 
 Than in the violets' breath 
 That from it bloom. 
 
 Yet if the mould be gone 
 Into the void, 
 
 All that hath thro' it shone 
 Lives undestroyed. 
 
 O to find where and how ! 
 But ah ! too vain ! 
 Is there aught here and now 
 That doth remain ? 
 
 Art may perpetuate 
 Much for our cheer ; 
 But can she recreate 
 Glance, smile, and tear? 
 
 Memory fain would let 
 Naught of you slip — 
 How can we long forget 
 Brow, eye, and lip ? 
 
MAHDI MORTUUS. 95 
 
 And if a portrait lack 
 
 Life from the soul, 
 
 Love can half charm you back 
 
 As a bright whole. 
 
 Oft when a frame or book 
 Shrines a dear face, 
 Almosi a living look 
 Steals o'er its grace : 
 
 Oft when sad memory 
 Calls up the dead, 
 O'er the brow lip and eye 
 Strange lijght is shed. 
 
 Oft in a happy dream 
 More doth return. 
 Spirit, form, feature, beam 
 Kindle and burn. 
 
 What are they all but sparks 
 From the live fire 
 Of a hid soul that harks 
 To Love's desire ? 
 
 MAHDI MORTUUS. 
 
 Away from home, with heaven and earth so bright, 
 So full of cheer for body, heart, and brain, 
 A letter comes to turn my day to night. 
 My calm to storm, my joy to aching pain. I 
 
96 MAHDI MORTUUS. 
 
 " A death ? " you ask — too true ; " the death of 01 
 Most dearly loved and longed for ? " right once mo 
 " A relative maybe, wife, daughter, son ? " 
 No — 'tis a dog I shed these heart-drops o'er ! 
 
 But what a dog ! a monarch mid his kind. 
 Brave, handsome, sprightly, clever, fleet of limb ; 
 His room is empty, never shall I find, 
 Tho' seeking far and near, the like of him ! 
 
 And yet a form of symmetry unique, 
 A fund of rare canine accomplishment, 
 . Perished and past, should hardly wet the cheek, 
 Or even merit passionate lament. 
 
 Far more now quickens me — the priceless worth 
 Of love all vanished, loyalty all fled. 
 Attachment, all too rare on chilly earth. 
 Found to the full in my dear Mahdi dead. 
 
 So did they name him, partly for his hue, 
 Partly to honour a majestic port ; 
 A sultan was he, a black hero too. 
 With emperors well worthy to consort. 
 
 Ah ! there are hearts too stoically chill, 
 Eyes that too seldom either weep or frown ! 
 Yet hours do come when, struggle as we will, 
 Upwelling tears cannot be driven down. 
 
 You never knew our Mahdi, if you hold 
 Us childish if we honour him with tears ; 
 For we adored and loved him, young and old \ 
 He mingled with us all, as with his peers — 
 
MAHDI MORTUUS. 97 
 
 I shall return, and my familiars meet, 
 
 A welcome group, when I have reached the gate : 
 
 But one as true as they will never greet 
 
 The master more in this terrestrial state. 
 
 My shrubs and flowers and fruitage I shall mark 
 In leafy shade, unseen beyond a doubt ; 
 But never shall I hear a joyous bark 
 Assure me he had peeped and found me out. 
 
 I sought his kennel every morn and eve, 
 And knew if out he would return anon : 
 Ah ! I may come again, and sadly leave — 
 Come all forgetfully to find him gone. 
 
 He, a retriever, never looked more proud 
 Than when he did his duty, carrying 
 Some trifle trusted to him, or allowed 
 To seek for and restore a hidden thing. 
 
 Yet, generous to a fault, he never clung 
 To what he valued most, but let it go 
 When a small poodle-mate, giddy and young. 
 Would fain, half envious, be humoured so. 
 
 My matin wandering, my vesper stroll, 
 Void of his company will lack their zest — 
 The care to keep the ardour in control 
 Which for his master's welfare fired his breast. 
 
 My dog ! thou wouldst have given thy life for me. 
 Or had I gone the earlier, wouldst have pined 
 By the grave side. — Can any eulogy 
 I sing be over tender, over kind ? 
 H 
 
98 MAHDI MORTUUS, 
 
 But wherefore weep for thee ? a life was thine 
 As fair as any dog could hope to live — 
 Play for all faculties and powers canine, 
 A death whose pain was light and fugitive. 
 
 And when I see how ill thy fellows fare ; 
 Oft at the hands that should prote£{ and tend, 
 I thank the Power that left thee in our care 
 Not as a drudge, or plaything, but a friend. 
 
 O mystery of mysteries that Love 
 And Righteousness can leave full many a life 
 Like thine to woe, and calmly from Above 
 Look down on livelong pain, and mortal strife ! 
 
 Marvel of marvels that the crew accurst 
 Who torture them to suffering's utmost throe 
 Still linger oh to do their hideous worst. 
 While God remains above, and hell below ! 
 
 Yet none of it was thine, and when the death 
 That comes to all o'ertook thee at the last, 
 Did aught — did any, wait the iinal breath 
 To waft thee to repose, life's turmoil past? 
 
 Why not, when one could scarce a virtue name 
 But what did shine in thee before our eyes ? 
 If human loyalty could Eden claim, 
 Thou art in thine appropriate Paradise. 
 
 Our loving hands shall lay thine earthly part 
 Beneath the green or flower-bespangled sod ; 
 But who can bury treasure of the heart ? 
 Nor can decay touch aught that comes of God. 
 
A PROPHECY, , 99 
 
 And whence if not from Him arose thy truth, 
 Thy love, self-sacrificing sympathy. 
 Patience in pain, and meekness amid ruth — 
 The all, in brief, that was of Christ in thee ? 
 
 No Heaven for us if not for thee, methinks ! 
 And, happy hope ! we yet may meet again : 
 Our mutual love doth keep us living links 
 Of the now hidden yet immortal Chain. 
 
 " Friend, go up higher ! " may be said to one 
 Who did true service in the lowest room. 
 God save the other, evil and undone. 
 In his kind mercy from a nether doom ! 
 
 Yet shall we meet ! thy deathless part, recast 
 From Nature's crucible in being new. 
 Shall greet me somewhere, somehow, at the last ; 
 Till then, dear mate of Earth, adieu, adieu ! 
 
 A PROPHECY. 
 
 Shall, we ever mingle 
 In the joy. of a common life 
 Who are now so single 
 In feeling, so prone to strife ? 
 Is there aught above thee. 
 Before, or around, that gives 
 Hope that all shall love thee. 
 And thou shalt love all that lives ? 
 
100 A PROPHECY. 
 
 Yes, the stars of twilight 
 In a silvery eifluence blend 
 That the whole of their shy light 
 The shadowy earth may befriend. 
 In the golden weather, 
 When nature doth faint with thirst. 
 The clouds flow together 
 O'er the fever of all to burst. 
 
 Flowers are jointly shedding 
 
 Sweet perfume to charm the glade ; 
 
 Bower and tree are spreading 
 
 Twined growth to give shelter and shade ; 
 
 Banded flies are maying 
 
 To banquet the heart and eye ; 
 
 The leagued birds are playing 
 
 Mid pause of their harmony. 
 
 All unite in chorus. 
 
 That in a sweet Age to come 
 
 The joy round and o'er us 
 
 Will And man its crown and sum. 
 
 Then in perfefl union 
 
 Our strangeness and woe will cease ; 
 
 And in full communion 
 
 The world shall know perfefi peace. 
 
A SEASIDE RHAPSODY. I or 
 
 A SEASIDE RHAPSODY. 
 
 Calm ocean is swelling, 
 As if to rehearse a new harmony ; 
 
 White wavelets are spelling 
 A chorus to echo thro' earth and sky : 
 
 The winds seem to listen 
 Like angels who poise to unfurl their wings ; 
 
 The sunny beams glisten 
 As harps that are turned flash their golden, strings. 
 
 Do ye pause, gentle breezes. 
 To spirit me hence upon wings of joy 
 
 From trouble that teases 
 And cares that disturb, and delights that cloy ? 
 
 Doth thy Are, happy gleaming. 
 Flame forth thro' the gloom to enchant my soul ? 
 
 Can the swell and the streaming. 
 Glad sea, waft my heart on their rush and roll ? 
 
 Methinks there now sleepeth 
 Along the bright beach many a vacant shell, 
 
 Whose guest ocean kepp^th ^ 
 Alive and unhurt thro' a boisterous spell. 
 
 Calm angels who lavish 
 On mortals delight from the Realm of grace, 
 
 A soul can ye ravish 
 Awhile, and leave here but a radiant face ? 
 
102 A SEASIDE RHAPSODY. 
 
 The music is bursting ! 
 My vision is blinded by flashing gold : 
 
 My spirit is thirsting 
 To banquet on rapture and bliss untold. 
 
 Eternity's billows ! 
 Enfold her and bear her to heavenly love, 
 
 That softest of pillows. 
 No sorrow can ruffle no care remove ! 
 
 A DIAMOND-JUBILEE ODE. 
 
 Full many a noon of beauty dies 
 With early promise unfulfilled. 
 Hope melts in vesper tears and sighs, 
 
 For matin music stilled. 
 How many a love, whose radiant birth 
 Glowed like the dawn on chilly earth. 
 Leaves those it made divinely one. 
 Like earth that weeps a vanished sun ! 
 
 Not every reign that opened well 
 Hath worn its splendour to the last : 
 Nor every monarch kept the spell 
 
 That bound a nation fast. 
 Twice did a camp or city ring 
 While Israel cried " God save the King " ; 
 But Saul and Joash knew no day 
 That closed with a calm sunset-ray. 
 
A DIAMOND-JUBILEE ODE. 103 
 
 A people's reverence and love 
 Lit on the one for outward shew : 
 So high his stature, far above 
 
 The throng that surged below. 
 The other charmed them by the truth 
 And innocence of tender youth, 
 Sole heir, the single promise left 
 To those of Royalty bereft. 
 
 Great Queen! the merits blend in thee 
 For us who value moral height ; 
 Thou pattern of nobility 
 
 To keep our virtue bright ! 
 Thou heiress of a royal Race, 
 What marvel that thy maiden face 
 When first it met a nation's gaze 
 Evoked such loyalty and praise ? 
 
 A sixty years hath fled, and we. 
 
 Who love thy Person, Throne, and Laws, 
 
 Outrival in our jubilee 
 
 Their unapproved applause. 
 We sing the glory that now seems 
 As far above their hopes and dreams 
 As noon excels the promise shy 
 That faintly streaked the orient sky. 
 
 A tranquil sunset. Lady fair ! 
 Due evening splendour ! Heaven and Earth, 
 Be all your bright enchantment there 
 To crown such grace and worth ! 
 
104 A DIAMOND-JUBILEE ODE. 
 
 A lovely after-glow be shed 
 
 Upon us when the light is fled ; 
 
 To linger long around the scene 
 
 That knew a grand and glorious Queen ! 
 
 CLIFTON. 
 
 Strange likes we have, of sympathy begot ; 
 Dislikes we feel whose cause no heart can tell ; 
 Some features charm, while others draw us not ; 
 One haunt doth lack a rival's potent spell. 
 But mark this marvel ! to my view one place. 
 Unlike another, wears a human face, 
 Whose magic oft doth quicken me to feel 
 Her weeping 'mid my woe, her smiling 'mid my weal. 
 
 And such an one art thou ! and scarce a line 
 
 I draw between thee, and a kindred heart : 
 
 If it interpret me, thou dost divine 
 
 My mood, and fitting balm or tone impart — 
 
 A friend may vex or chide me ; never yet 
 
 Hast thou made memory ache, or spirit fret. 
 
 A loved one whispers cheer ; hast thou no voice 
 
 Of stream or rustling wood to bid my heart rejoice ? 
 
 I daily think of thee ; my dreaming eye 
 Oft on thy peerless beauty opens wide: 
 I see thee beckon, and the glowing sky 
 Of that bright morn will find me at thy side : 
 
CLIFTON. 105 
 
 Or if rude fate forbid, or duty foil, 
 Swiftly kind fancy wings me to thy soil ; 
 Upon thy breezy upland I recline, 
 And terrace, garden, bridge, and grove and slope are 
 mine. 
 
 Nor doth mere sympathy the love explain : 
 
 My youthful haunt, my manhood's home wert thou ; 
 
 Association helped to forge the chain 
 
 For ever binding us — most firmly now. 
 
 'tis the outcome of a golden joy 
 Drawn from thy glory by a dreaming boy, 
 The produiS of full many an aim and plan 
 Nursed 'mid rare beauty by a wistful, anxious man I 
 
 'Tis the attachment born of tender fears. 
 
 And nameless thought, and aspiration high. 
 
 And disappointment, and despairing tears. 
 
 And happy things I never thought would die. 
 
 Thou art the sepulchre of many a scheme. 
 
 The cemetery of visioned hope and dream ; 
 
 And lives that I had lost my all to save 
 
 Have found not far from thy delight a garden grave. 
 
 Yet without all thou wouldst have won my love } 
 Such charms could never have appealed in vain ; 
 Thy speaking likeness hangs my couch above, 
 
 1 look, and ere I sleep I look again. 
 Thy name arrests me, and I feel a flush 
 Of joy, and while they talk of thee I blush. 
 Thy memory doth thrill me, and inspire 
 
 My music, and doth wing my every word with lire. 
 
Io6 CLIFTON. 
 
 Thy garb concerns me ; do I like thee best 
 In vernal emerald, summer's rich brocade, 
 Triste autumn-robe, or white of winter, dressed ? 
 Love's indecision brings its ready aid : 
 We fence with such a question and reply 
 In dubious terms of general eulogy. 
 One can but say, " I have no choice — in all 
 Thy dress enchants me, and thyself my heart doth 
 thrall." 
 
 What of thy Past ? I will not call thee born 
 
 Of the great city near, nor wast thou bred 
 
 By her alone ; nay, she had left thee lorn 
 
 E'en now, but for the balm thy glory shed. 
 
 Thy healing ministry — one day they came 
 
 Who, peering, praised, and cradled thee in fame. 
 
 Better for thee had she who grandly toiled 
 
 Hard by, thy beauty shunned, and left it all unspoiled. 
 
 The charm that dazzled other eyes she marked. 
 And (as a relative befriends the girl 
 Whom unadmired she barely had remarked) 
 She fed and brought thee up, and joined the whirl 
 Of fashion for thy sake, and gave thee wealth. 
 Nay, in communion with thee found new health. 
 But ah ! the hideous price — roads, quarries, rails, 
 Spoiled tangle, levelled trees, clipped groves, and 
 tuneless vales. 
 
 As if a foster-mother were to trim 
 A fair young lady to a vulgar taste, 
 And crop her rippling ringlets for a whim. 
 Or deem her beauty an untidy waste : 
 
CLIFTON, lOf 
 
 And still vile hands profane thy sanfiities, 
 Sweet viSim of rude brains, and purblind eyes ! 
 Ah ! when a child to womanhood hath grown 
 Her form is sacred, and her loveliness her own. 
 
 Heiress of Fortune thus, the wealth and ease 
 
 That marked thy growth and progress wrong thee now : 
 
 Fashion sought other founts for her disease 
 
 And failed thee — but that high too placid brow 
 
 Bespeaks a chara£{er enthralled by sense. 
 
 Capacity much marred by indolence : 
 
 The vicious lines are on thy face which tell 
 
 That Fashion, quitting thee, bequeathed an evil spell. 
 
 Her shade revisits thee from time to time, 
 And nods approval ; for the arboured walk 
 Is paced by beauty, and the bands still chime ; 
 And health and wealth and vigour stroll, and talk. 
 And toy, and languish ; and the winter dance. 
 And summer show, retain the old romance ; 
 And Might remains content to waste the power. 
 Designed to move the world, in a fair Eden bower. 
 
 Dear leafy cloisters, sweet arboreal haunts, 
 
 Thorn-spangled plains ! ye were not made for this. 
 
 But for the fostering of all that daunts 
 
 Life's barriers, and turns its woe to bliss — 
 
 For toil's refreshment, and for health's support ; 
 
 For love's due food, but not for aimless sport. 
 
 Or a perennial lounge wherein to lurk 
 
 Deaf to the common call that summons each to work. . 
 
I08 CLIFTON. 
 
 Yes, Fashion wronged thee by her eirly touch, 
 And thou dost woo the genius of thy youth : 
 Yet 'twere unfair to chide thee overmuch, 
 For the soft clime that steeps thee is in truth 
 The cause of half the languor, half the sloth 
 That for a while did paralyze thy growth — 
 That now doth dwarf thy energy, and wreck 
 Full many a scheme, and hold prosperity in check. 
 
 And in thy look and bearing I can read 
 
 That thou art stamped with an unchanging seal : 
 
 The deep, hard lines of a perpetual creed 
 
 Are graven on thee, not for thy true weal. 
 
 Who can forecast the Future ? what are we 
 
 That our cramped views should bind posterity ? 
 
 Ah ! God forgive the holiest who stays 
 
 The Progress that all life and living thought obeys. 
 
 Lo ! from that fettered faith what feuds have risen : 
 Souls peeping like spring-germs break thro' the chain, 
 And, skyward flowering, mock their early prison ; 
 The pendulum of thought swings back again : 
 Extremes are vaunted : they who should have kissed, 
 Scorn fellowship, and on their due insist : 
 Peace vanishes ; love flies so bleak an earth 
 While careless GaUios want to know Religion's worth. 
 
 And I, who turn on thee a lover's look. 
 Mourn o'er the manacles, and hate the strife : 
 Saintly and true they were who thus mistook 
 Belief for love, and protest for pure life — 
 
CLIFTON. 109 
 
 Yet tho' they fettered sister haunts as well, 
 Blind to the tyranny of such a spell, 
 Where prophets chain, the priest is freedom's foe. 
 And then the people love, alas ! to have it so. 
 
 Such are thy flaws : thy virtues shall I vaunt ? 
 Ah! who can name the countless ? yet, methinks, 
 An eulogy might well belaud a haunt 
 Of lofty affluence loyal to the links 
 That bind her to the penury below. 
 Like a true foster-child thou dost bestow 
 On thine old mother all her care could claim : 
 Thyself her glory, thou art proud to share her name. 
 
 And the wide world — how many a gentle life 
 Cares but for kin and country ! j'et I mark 
 In thee a thought for outer woe and strife, 
 A studious eflbrt to begild their dark 
 Who grope and falter on in foreign climes ; 
 Who weep and writhe beneath un-English crimes ; 
 Whose single claim is that their lot is man's. 
 For all are patriots, few cosmopolitans. 
 
 And then thy culture — for I notice oft 
 A paradox in gay or easy lives — 
 The chainless spirit frets to soar aloft, 
 And mid the sloth art grows and learning thrives. 
 Thy laughing face for every sensuous line 
 Doth wear a look of something more divine — 
 The impress of high thought, the gentle grace 
 Of all that tutors self, be it a man or place. 
 
a 10 CLIFTON. 
 
 But were thy virtues less, and vices more, 
 Pair empress of my heart ! 'twould matter naught ; 
 Love doth not calculate : its golden store 
 Is squandered oft, but never, never bought : 
 Who most deserve it sometimes get the least. 
 It is not so with thee ; yet mine increased 
 The faultier 1 found thee : and the spell 
 That charmed, will charm me to the end — Farewell, 
 farewell ! 
 
 WOMAN'S MINISTRY. 
 
 To keep the tabernacle fair 
 Committed to her spirit's care, 
 That no ungentle touch profane. 
 Nor aught ignoble mar or stain 
 A calm exterior undimmed 
 By lamp low-burning or half-trimmed. 
 To let it look so pure and bright 
 That hovering angels fain to light 
 May settle there, nor only leave 
 Their fire, but glow from her receive — 
 That fluttering mortals may return 
 To one whose lantern thus can burn ; 
 Nor like moths circling round a flame 
 Go less resplendent than they came. 
 That men may start to see such grace 
 Transparent thro' a human face ; 
 And in the tranquil radiance find 
 The charm of sun and moon combined— 
 
WOMAN'S MINISTRY. Ill 
 
 That living, it by day may shed 
 
 Warm love, and calm, by night — that dead 
 
 All viewing it mid many a tear 
 
 May think " a glorious soul dwelt here." 
 
 To beautify the temple where 
 
 Her spirit offers praise and prayer — 
 
 To spend the treasure of a heart 
 
 Renewed on all, and every part : 
 
 To let no talent be unused 
 
 In homage, nor one gift excused 
 
 From celebration of His worth 
 
 Who brought Heaven's glory down to earth: 
 
 To blend with the grand organ-roll 
 
 The music of a grateful soul : 
 
 To decorate the Holy Place 
 
 With vassal Nature's timely grace — 
 
 Bright Christmas evergreen to prove 
 
 The freshness of Incarnate Love ; 
 
 White Paschal lilies whose sweet breath 
 
 Spells triumph over wintry death ; 
 
 Pink Pentecostal peonies too 
 
 Fed on Heaven's Sunshine, Wind and Dew — 
 
 That men may mark, the loving touch 
 
 Of a true woman pardoned much ; 
 
 And Christ accept the work of one 
 
 Devout who " what she could, hath done." 
 
 To deem one human temple set 
 Apart for her to pay Love's debt 
 Of tender care and guardianship, 
 And tribute of heart, eye, and lip. 
 
Jil WOMAN'S MINISTRY. 
 
 That fane (of father, brother, friend 
 Or husband), reverently to tend : 
 So far as stranger spirits can 
 Commingle — to adorn that man ; 
 Exchange the withering blooms of vice 
 For deathless flowers of Paradise ; 
 See that a tuneful heart doth raise 
 The melody of Joy and praise. 
 Perfumed the while with incense rare 
 The breathing of perennial prayer. 
 To watch lest aught without him be 
 Untrue to the hid harmony : 
 Nor this, that all be spent on one 
 But that her love, on him begun. 
 May grow till manj' more display 
 Her gentle care, her bright array : 
 Yet so that men in one behold 
 The tale of woman's love full told. 
 
 To serve within the temple vast 
 Of Nature, where her lot is cast ; 
 To lightly tread, and whisper low, 
 And wander gently to and fro ; 
 Not aimlessly as if to shirk 
 Aught of her own peculiar work, 
 But often pausing to admire 
 Dome, pavement, tracery and choir ; 
 To join, 'mid lights all burning dim. 
 The common prayer, the general hymn ; 
 To hear the many tones that teach ; 
 For God doth from that pulpit preach ; 
 And every day is Sunday there ; 
 And all is Sacramental fare ; 
 
PRESSED FLOWERS. 1 13 
 
 And truth and love and hope in grief, 
 The Articles of all belief; 
 To keep the loiterers in view , 
 If haply they may worship too ; 
 To hold in love and reverence 
 What meets the eye of faith and sense ; 
 That so when she hath left that Fane 
 Her ministry be judged not vain. 
 
 PRESSED FLOWERS. 
 
 Withered blooms, your grace and breath 
 While they lingered lent me joy ! 
 Now I cherish all that Death 
 Could not wreck or Time destroy. 
 Wings the summer glory took — 
 Little of its wealth would stay. 
 See the pages of my book 
 Fold you lovely in decay ! 
 
 Faded flowers of many a mind. 
 Wit, imagination, thought. 
 Once, in forms of beauty shrined. 
 Fragrance to my soul ye brought ! 
 Spent is the aroma now, — 
 Yet the leaves that hold you RU 
 Shelves of honour, and I vow 
 They are turned and studied still. 
 I 
 
114 PRESSED FLOWERS. 
 
 Blossoms of the heart, your spell 
 Once perfumed the whole of life ! 
 Tender things too sweet to tell. 
 Love-looks, kisses after strife. 
 Tears and whispers, have ye fled ? 
 Nay, in Memory's page ye rest, — 
 From the vanished and the dead. 
 Ye are left — the one bequest. 
 
 A SONG OF GLADNESS. 
 
 Joy, joy, joy. 
 In the flush of the tender Spring ; 
 In the scent of the fleld and the laugh of the lane. 
 And the flutter of fairy wing. 
 In the swelling of buds of thought. 
 
 The unfolding of flowers of the heart ; 
 In the music of love, and the new note taught 
 By Nature unwedded to Art. 
 
 Joy. joy. joy. 
 
 In the Summer of blossom and glow ; 
 In the silken wings furled 'mid the forest shade, 
 
 And the warbling hushed or low. 
 In the splendour of thought's fair bloom, 
 
 Heart-roses, heart-lilies, full blown ; 
 In a love that hath left glitter, song, and perfume, 
 
 To banquet on bliss of its own. 
 
MY FATHER'S BIBLE. I tS 
 
 Joy. joy. joy. 
 
 In the Autumn of mild decay ; 
 In the mellow corn reaped, and the woodland tints, 
 And the warblers that will not stay. 
 In the harvest that memory yields, 
 
 The hue of heart-flowers as they fade, 
 Hope's watery sunset o'er withering fields 
 Where all but the fruit is decayed. 
 
 Joy, joy, joy. 
 
 In the Winter of Nature's death ; 
 In the desolate dingle and flooded field, 
 
 Icy Dawn, and grey Eve's bitter breath. 
 In the gloom of the palsied brain 
 
 And the heart-garden frosted o'er : 
 For Love cannot die, and there yet doth remain 
 Full many a Summer in store. 
 
 MY FATHER'S BIBLE. 
 
 It peeped from out the pile of books 
 A random hand had strewn around. 
 And begged of me by tender looks 
 
 To lift it from the ground. 
 " A thirsting eye," it seemed to say, 
 " Drank in my beauty day by day ; 
 A hungry heart devoured my worth — 
 His eye and heart who gave thee birth." 
 
Il6 MY FATHER'S BIBLE. 
 
 Alas ! it charmed me not for long ; 
 Mine was the tale so often told : 
 I took vile ore of tale and song, 
 And left the precious gold. 
 All folly hath the seed within 
 Of its reward : I did not win 
 What study might have won — nay worse, 
 I toyed with sin, I wooed the curse. 
 
 My Father, did thy spirit plead 
 With mine, or had the Truth a spell 
 At length to make me lift and read 
 What thou didst love so well ? 
 Mid feelings I could not resist 
 The Book was reverently kissed. 
 Ah ! wisdom also doth contain 
 The germ of what her converts gain. 
 
 And lo ! it was as when one finds. 
 Back in a happy haunt, each flower 
 Shed an aroma that reminds 
 
 Of some sweet bygone hour. 
 Rare perfume from each lovely tale 
 Was borne upon the heavenly gale 
 That swept my spirit, and I read 
 As one reviving from the dead. 
 
 O it was wisdom, after years 
 Of disregard the leaves to turn ! 
 They brimmed my wintry eyes with tears ; 
 They made my bleak heart burn. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 1 1 6, line z,for "the tale so often told" r^«(/"the story 
 
 often told." 
 Page iig, line 6,yor "we fret and chafe against monotony" 
 
 read " what heart hath ever left a means untried ? " 
 
MY FATHER'S BIBLE. 117 
 
 The impress strange and sweet they wore 
 Of him whose name and guise I bore ; 
 In part from notes on many a text 
 Born of his mood when glad or vexed. 
 
 These lighting up dark words of Truth, 
 It grew on me that here was one 
 Who left them not in age or youth 
 
 Dishonoured or undone. 
 Once more, a boy I sat beside 
 The parent fond, the gentle guide. 
 Whose glowing spirit all could trace 
 In tender look, and loving face. 
 
 Nor this alone — the Book portrayed 
 His likeness Who transfigured all 
 In every age, on whom He made 
 
 A glory-beam to fall. 
 Dark ancients shone like stars thro' Him ; 
 And soon I traced in outline dim 
 Familar features, half-Divine, 
 The Christ that lit thee. Father mine ! 
 
 Bright stars, for all their silvery spell. 
 Are too removed from twilit men. 
 Who steer by earthly light as well 
 Thro' quicksand, reef, or fen : 
 And so the saintly tales of old 
 Are far above us, till retold 
 In some pure homely life, whose glow 
 Is round the wanderer below. 
 
ir8 MY FATHER'S BIBLE. 
 
 And such was thine — a life devout 
 Born of belief that here alone 
 Was food Divine, and all without, 
 
 Bread never, but a stone. 
 Not thine perchance their larger creed 
 Who Christ in man and nature read, 
 And deem that here with high intent 
 The human and Divine are blent. 
 
 But perish strife ! it matters not 
 That we, imbued with modern lore, 
 RejeS or foster much of what 
 
 Was held or shunned of yore ; 
 If, following our simple sires. 
 We lead the life this Book requires ; 
 No creed is wrong, whate'er it be, 
 That makes men. Father, live like thee ! 
 
 We gaze upon the piSures true 
 Of soldier-ancestors, and hope 
 That since they live in us, we too 
 With foes may bravely cope : 
 So, not despairingly I look 
 Upon thy portrait in this Book ; 
 And thank the Power that made me wise 
 Thereon to rest my rebel eyes. 
 
NATURE'S SUPPLY. II9 
 
 NATURE'S SUPPLY. 
 
 Two cravings mock us here : the one for change, 
 
 Born of our swift mortality, yet nursed 
 
 By many a lovely gleam, fitful and strange. 
 
 Of that eternity which held us first ; 
 
 How emptily we try to quench the thirst ! 
 
 We fret and chafe against monotony ; 
 
 We quaff a sparkling current, and unversed 
 
 In life's sad lore we leave it satisfied ; 
 
 And lo ! our fevered lips return to the cool tide. 
 
 The other craving is for permanence: 
 
 For that the God within us genders sighs 
 
 Amid the ecstasy of thrilling sense : 
 
 Eternal fountains fiash before our eyes 
 
 Untasted, to delude and tantalize. 
 
 We are like those who haunt a summer stream 
 
 Fed by no rain from the unpitying skies : 
 
 Or desert pilgrims led on by the gleam 
 
 Of taunting hopes that fade like an illusive dream. 
 
 Yet He who made us thirst doth bid us drink 
 Here, even here, from an unfailing spring. 
 Nature doth beckon us (a lovely link 
 Between Himself and every human thing) 
 That to her reservoir our want we bring. 
 Where is eiiough awhile our thirst to slake 
 For that calm constancy whereof I sing : 
 And when we covet change, if we betake 
 Our fever to her fount, we lose the throb and ache. 
 
120 nature's supply. 
 
 Immortal mountains, never-failing sea, 
 
 Perennial plains, undying firmament ! 
 
 I feel your spell ; your power encircles me ; 
 
 With my divinest being are ye blent. 
 
 Ye are not like the faces o'er me bent 
 
 In love one moment, and the next in blame : 
 
 Nor like the cherished forms that Death hath rent 
 
 From my lone life. Ye always look the same, 
 
 A witness to the truth of the unchanging Name. 
 
 Yet do ye meet the other fond desire ; 
 
 No day, no hour, but a reviving draught 
 
 From your deep cistern cools my spirit-fire. 
 
 Never have I rejoiced but ye have laughed, 
 
 And never wept, but ye with subtle craft 
 
 Have made your beauty melt in answering tears : 
 
 And each revolving season have I quaffed 
 
 The rippling verdure, vowing that the years 
 
 Hold each a varying wealth unguessed till it appears. 
 
 Abiding rest — 'tis graven on the whole ! 
 All looks a quiet dream, an endless sleep. 
 Untouched by times that speed, and tides that roll — 
 His empire Who perpetual state doth keep : 
 Yet ceaseless movement too^shy joys that peep 
 And vanish, wings that come and go ; bright flowers 
 That wither to the gales that o'er them sweep. 
 High grandeur, which doth mock our fleeting powers. 
 Above ephemeral grace, and lovely motion towers. 
 
 Sweet natural vision ! 'tis thy charm unique 
 To our twin longing thus to minister — 
 Thus to allay our every whim and freak 
 By means that best befit its chara3er ; 
 
INSOLUBLE. 121 
 
 A Spell so mighty, potent sorcerer ! 
 
 Lurks in that blend of changefulness below 
 
 And constancy above, that I refer 
 
 All moods to thee, I who am mingled so, 
 
 The heir of lofty calm, the sport of ebb and flow. 
 
 INSOLUBLE. 
 
 We cannot mingle, or unscreen 
 The secrets of the soul : between 
 Two lives must run a river fast — 
 The current of a separate Past. 
 A chasm that no power can bridge 
 Doth part each spirit : from the ridge 
 Of a sole being mine now tries 
 To track the source of yon wet eyes. 
 
 A figure fronts my open sight. 
 The loveliest in a scene of light : 
 Beauty hath tasked herself to mould 
 A shape of symmetry untold — 
 A face like summer on warm hills. 
 And smiling fields and rippling rills — 
 Yet eyes like the despairing gray 
 Of rain, unlit by bow or ray. 
 
 Lone weeper ! art thou yet aware 
 That one would fathom thy despair ? 
 For my keen spirit felt somehow 
 That thine was on the watch just now. 
 
122 INSOLUBLE. 
 
 Stay as thoU art until I trace 
 The springs that vitalize thy face ! 
 The telescope of sympathy 
 I lift, the hidden fount to spy. 
 
 Ah ! who can rightly read a heart 
 Wherein he hath as yet no part ? 
 Nay, can the most discerning tell 
 The joy that haunteth many a cell, 
 The ambushed hope, the lurking fear, 
 From whose embrace is born a tear 
 Rocked in the cradle of a sigh 
 Ere globuled in a heavenly eye. 
 
 ^11 vainly vainly I employ 
 My skill in fathoming thy joy ; 
 The cause, the nature of thy hope 
 Are curtained from my telescope : 
 The wistful fear — I cannot think 
 From what a saint like thee doth shrink. 
 So wise thou lookest ; passion-tears 
 Flow but from fools, and mutineers ! 
 
 Drops have no right upon a cheek 
 That doth tranquillity bespeak. 
 A summer-drought on Indian plains 
 Is not the time for stormy rains : 
 Unclouded sunshine bears no shower : — 
 Doth dew lie on a noonday flower ? 
 One might as confidently look 
 For truth in a bright fairy-book. 
 
ON A SUDDEN DEATH. 1 23 
 
 Thou sweet enigma ! I divine 
 That now thy spirit glimpses mine. 
 But wherefore doth she lift her glass ? 
 My barrier she may not pass. 
 Infinitude the vision blocks ; 
 Ah ! cruel gulf, ah ! lonely rocks; 
 We cannot one the other reach — 
 Yet we can signal, each to each. 
 
 Drop not thy glass, while mine I hold ! 
 The secret need not be untold ; 
 Our spirits may not cross the fence. 
 Yet meet me in the realm of sense ! 
 The river of the Past is wide ; 
 O bid my shallop brave the tide ! 
 And, if no bygone intercept. 
 Tell me thyself why thou hast wept. 
 
 ON A SUDDEN DEATH. 
 
 Three joys of yestertide I valued well — 
 A fragrant flower, like noonday, golden-bright, 
 A silvery star with tender evening-spell, 
 A friend who solaced me from morn to night. 
 
 To-day the sweet flower blossoms as before, 
 This eve the star a gentle beam will shed ; 
 No day, no night, of Time for evermore 
 Will bring the human cheer — my friend is dead ! 
 
»24 ON A SUDDEN DEATH. 
 
 Dead, tho' I met him but a fortnight past 
 Smiling and well, and no foreshadowing look 
 Bid me regard that greeting as our last. 
 The closing chapter of our friendship's book ! 
 
 Dead, tho' they never dreamt who bore his name 
 That such a soul and body thus could part, 
 Dead, tho' no premonition thrilled my frame, 
 No sadness drew a curtain round my heart ! 
 
 Dead, while I trifled the dark hour away ; 
 And none of them mid their unconscious mirth 
 Did aught that haply, keeping Death at bay, 
 Had kept thee with me upon sunny Earth ! 
 
 Dead, and I left to live without thy love. 
 Twin of my spirit, double of my soul ! 
 Die, flower of Earth ! and deathless star above 
 Fade from the Heaven that his spirit stole ! 
 
 Nay, linger on ! for are ye not the best. 
 The truest emblems of his history ? 
 Stay ! while mine eyes upon your beauty rest, 
 My thoughts upon the mortal mystery — 
 
 His lower life was imaged by the flower — 
 Sheltered and solitary, shy and calm. 
 Unfolding simple wealth and quiet power. 
 And breathing, like its perfume, tender balm. 
 
 As gentle, and unselflsh, as yon bloom, 
 A joy to all, he did but live to fill 
 Sweetly and well his own appointed room, 
 With head bowed meekly to his Maker's will. 
 
ON A SUDDEN DEATH. 1 25 
 
 God's sunshine came — he gladly drank it in ; 
 God's storm blew on him — but he did not strive : 
 Were not both needful for the flower to win 
 Its proper beauty, to unfold and thrive ? 
 
 The tranquil star doth figure his true life, . 
 The higher Being hid with Christ in God- — 
 With Him Who shone thro' nether pain and strife, 
 " The Son of Man in Heaven" while Earth he trod. 
 
 If ever mortal shared that Life Divine, 
 The quiet born of virtue, it was thou ! 
 No star to duty true could brighter shine. 
 No Christian better keep the saintly vow. 
 
 Sweet flower, my passion wronged thee ! never shed 
 Thy fragrance, but stay on in lovely bloom ! 
 Alas ! the tender eye, the shaking head 
 Tell me thou too shalt share his mortal doom. 
 
 O changeless star of evening ! thou alone 
 Of all my trinity of joy canst stay : 
 The flower must wither ere the spring be flown ; 
 The loving face hath marbled into clay. 
 
 Pure token of immortal Life ! shine on. 
 That I may read his glory in thy glow — 
 And feel he changeth not where he hath gone. 
 But from his Heaven doth lighten me below. 
 
126 UNFORGOTTEN. 
 
 UNFORGOTTEN- 
 
 There stole a deepening gloom 
 Over our golden trance : 
 Ah ! how the thunder-boom, 
 The fiery lightning-glance, 
 The gale, the blinding tears 
 Float back from the far years. 
 
 Enfolded once again. 
 Fair grew our dream of love : 
 A greener earthly plain, 
 A bluer heaven above 
 Enchanted us — but yet 
 I would that strife forget ! 
 
 Born of the feud, fresh flowers 
 Of present beauty smiled : 
 A future too was ours 
 That from the past beguiled. 
 Now, flowers and future gone 
 The past I feed upon. 
 
 O pasture, 'mid thy bliss 
 Are black unhappy trees ! 
 Memorial vow and kiss 
 Were Eden but for these — 
 These growths of love left dark 
 By passion's fatal mark. 
 
ON THE SEA OF LIFE. l^^ 
 
 I shun the blue and green, 
 To haunt the dark and drear 
 Where from a lovely scene 
 Our quarrels stand out clear. 
 Why did the lightning blast, 
 And will the ruin last ? 
 
 ON THE SEA OF LIFE. 
 
 \.THER \ the other vessels seem 
 In calm, tho' mine be tossed ; 
 
 heir sails have caught the golden gleam 
 That never mine hath crossed : 
 
 beir voyage looks a sunny dream 
 While mine all charm hath lost. 
 
 tor child ! thy sad complaint is their's, 
 
 They covet thy delight : 
 ich his own destiny compares 
 
 With those that look more bright ; 
 :t every mortal mariner shares 
 
 Calm, sunshine, storm, and night. 
 
 ither ! I journey quite alone 
 
 They are so distant all ; 
 ley hardly signal when I moan. 
 
 Or heed me if I call : 
 ith ever breeze to any blown 
 
 The ills that me befall? 
 
128 ON THE SEA OF LIFE, 
 
 Dear child ! they tell me that of thee : 
 In vain the call and cry : 
 
 From the large lonely human sea 
 Prayer doth but reach the sky. 
 
 All must uplift the plaint to Me 
 Who pine for sympathy. 
 
 Father ! I fear me that no shore 
 Awaits my shallop frail. 
 
 Yon dim horizon purpled o'er 
 Enfolds full many a sail ; 
 
 I doubt not 'tis their golden door 
 To rest, who do not fail. 
 
 My child ! no vessel I have wrought 
 And launched is wrecked at last ; 
 
 Awhile some look the whirlwind's sport 
 On rock or shallow cast ; 
 
 Yet all at length shall win the port ; 
 And, trust me ! thou, not last. 
 
 SPELLS OF THE NIGHT. 
 
 Oft before we sink to sleep 
 All is gloom and misty tears. 
 As when clouds of evening weep 
 Ere the daylight disappears. 
 
SPELLS OP THE NIGHT. 129 
 
 Yet with fiery wings unfurled, 
 In new ecstasy we rise 
 To a bright and lovely world, 
 Canopied by glittering skies. 
 
 How was it I woke to-day 
 Joyous, tho' I longed at eve 
 That my soul could wing her way 
 To a clime where none can grieve ? 
 Hath she wandered therfe, and seen 
 Glories that the world of sense 
 While its shadows intervene 
 From our wakefulness doth fence ? 
 
 Seers have whispered that in birth 
 Every soul doth bear the trace 
 Of past splendour to the Earth 
 That becomes her dwelling-place : 
 Doth my mortal part, new-born 
 Daily from the realm of rest. 
 So receive back every morn 
 The transfigured spirit-guest ? 
 
 Sleep ! for all thou dost impart, 
 Whether human or Divine, 
 Be the music of a heart 
 Ravished into glory thine ! 
 For they yield thy due, I think. 
 Only who behold in thee 
 A communicating-link 
 With a veiled Eternity. 
 
 K 
 
130 FORTUNE-TELLING. 
 
 FORTUNE-TELLING. 
 
 There are who study sleeping earth. 
 And read her history from birth : 
 The quiet heaven is read by some 
 To know what changes are to come ; 
 While others And the human palm 
 An augury of storm or calm. 
 
 I cannot read your life unless 
 Your face doth wear earth's dreaminess : 
 The heaven of your blue eye must shine 
 With sunny splendour into mine : 
 Nay more — the oracles demand 
 That you repose in mine your hand. 
 
 A hasty word might baffle me, 
 And mar my patient scrutiny ; 
 One look away and I am foiled ; 
 My reading of the heaven is spoiled ; 
 If your hand struggles to be free. 
 Adieu to all my palmistry ! 
 
 Your earthly tale, I tell it now — 
 No quaking hath convulsed that brow ; 
 No hidden fire disturbed the grace, 
 The contour of that lovely face ; 
 And yet the features here and there 
 Reveal faint lines of charafier ; 
 
FORTUNE-TELLING. 131 
 
 Lines adown which the current joys 
 Have tinkled in harmonious noise, 
 Lines that attest the ebb and flow 
 Of tenderness, but hardly woe ; 
 The faintest furrow that brief ill 
 Could grave, perhaps may linger still. 
 
 Your world hath been a fairy bower 
 An arbour both from heat and shower. 
 Whence peeping sadness in affright 
 Hath fled in vision of your light ; 
 An ocean doth your earth enzone 
 Which ne'er a hurricane hath known. 
 
 Your heavenly record ? here the sign 
 I mark of intercourse Divine ; 
 Were truth and reflitude not dear 
 Would that pure eye have been so clear ? 
 Had you from honour been beguiled 
 It could not thus have shone and smiled. 
 
 Not as the heartless silent sky 
 That chills our hope is that kind eye — 
 The sunny ray, the moonlight beam, 
 That mock the while they make us dream ; 
 But as the Heaven concealed behind — 
 The throbbing Heart, the thoughtful Mind. 
 
 It beams with hope, it flashes zeal, 
 And sympathy with all appeal ; 
 It laughs with joy, it weeps with pain. 
 Yet shows the rainbow thro' the rain ; 
 'Tis like the sky in this — that woe 
 Is' lightened by its genial glow. 
 
132 FORTUNE-TELLING, 
 
 And if you ask, " Doth it display 
 A sign of change ? " I answer, " Nay." 
 'Twill but improve, that heavenly tale : 
 Love, Truth and Virtue cannot fail. 
 Change holdeth naught but evil's curse, 
 With God for doSor, Hope for nurse. 
 
 Your earthly future, do you ask ? 
 
 To tell it is no easy task. 
 
 The hand that doth in mine repose. 
 
 What will be wrought by it, who knows ? 
 
 Some marks are there which auger ill : 
 
 Yet that may be averted still. 
 
 If it be free, I fear that life 
 Holds small tranquillity, much strife : 
 If it should clasp another's, you 
 May find him false to one all true : 
 If it remain — why loose your hold 
 With one sweet prophecy untold ? 
 
 SHADOW AND SUNSHINE. 
 
 One gentle eve, while vowing 
 
 True love and lasting troth, 
 A quiet sky with closing eye 
 
 Shed tears upon us both ; 
 White blossoms wandering from the may 
 
 Foretold a severed lot. 
 Frail bluebells shook, and from a spray 
 
 The merle piped " Trust her not ! " 
 
A SONG FOR THE SORROWFUL. 133 
 
 All vainly did they warn me ; 
 
 Her tones were honey-sweet ; 
 So rare a grace, so fair a face 
 
 Knew nothing of deceit. 
 What right had sunset, bird, and flower 
 
 To mar a hope so glad ? 
 But ah ! she fled one fatal hour. 
 
 And left me lone and sad. 
 
 One tender mom there reached me 
 
 A letter writ in tears : 
 " Her love," she said, " had never fled ; 
 
 'Twas mine, as in old years. 
 A glancing sunbeam, a blithe song, 
 
 A snowdrop's purity 
 Prayed me to overlook her wrong ; 
 
 And back she flew to me. 
 
 A SONG FOR THE SORROWFUL. 
 
 Sad hearts, will ye never revive ? 
 
 All Nature is wronged by your gloom ; 
 For winter doth wail that the spring may arrive. 
 
 Who but weeps that the summer may bloom. 
 The thunder clouds gather to burst 
 
 In a flood of new life o'er the plain ; 
 Why even the blackthorn all gloomy and cursed 
 
 Will wear a white mantle again ! 
 
134 A SONG FOR THE SORROWFUL. 
 
 Wet lids that abandon delight, 
 
 Ye are shamed by the orb of the day, 
 And the silvery calm that the many-eyed night 
 
 From the dusk of her heart doth display ! 
 Sad lips, if ye will not rejoice. 
 
 Ye are scorned by the lark on the wing, 
 That pipes a gay carol to bid men rejoice 
 
 Ere winter have yielded to spring ! 
 
 Soon flow the gay sparkle and froth 
 
 Of the tide that is ebbing from shore : 
 The whirlwind now whistling to north 
 
 Hath westerly sunshine in store : 
 And Fortune's sad current will turn ; 
 
 Her gale to fair quarters shall veer ; 
 Yet better than wait for her flckleness, learn 
 
 To scorn her by gladness and cheer ! 
 
 UNMATED. 
 
 The -gentle Powers, how well they tutor man 
 
 To the appointed plan. 
 
 So foreign to the heart 
 At first, of an Eternity apart ! 
 -Singly we come, and singly we depart : 
 
 As if it thus were shewn 
 That after-being is, like former-life, alone. 
 
UNMATED. 135 
 
 Here in our pupilage 'tis slowly borne 
 
 Upon the heart forlorn ; 
 
 Seclusion were not good. 
 Linked as we are in a high brotherhood : 
 Nor could we win it even if we would. 
 
 'Tis thro' a fancied mate 
 For ever failing us we reach the single state. 
 
 Tho' from the first full many a hint and sign 
 
 Should lead us to divine. 
 
 However Earth delude, 
 That our Eternal lot is solitude. 
 Here none can on our joy and grief intrude ; 
 
 And 'tis too sadly plain 
 That e'en to willing minds none can true access gain. 
 
 O, how we woo them, kinsman, lover, friend ', 
 
 And fancy that we blend ; 
 
 And dream of unions made 
 Ere twin souls were in fleshly garb arrayed. 
 Unions which Time and Change shall ne'er invade ; 
 
 Which Death's cold kiss shall seal. 
 And no Eternal law can alter or repeal. 
 
 We deem our love unchanging as the sun 
 
 When first we feel at one ; 
 
 To find, alas, too soon ! 
 That it hath varying phases like the moon : 
 Till something comes to sever the commune ; 
 
 And henceforth We are far 
 Asunder in our course as wandering star from star. 
 
136 UNMATED. 
 
 Beggared of human love, or with it too. 
 
 The pining heart will woo 
 
 Unmarriageable things — 
 Art, fame, wealth, wisdom, cheer — and firm it clings 
 Thereto, till each in turn unfurls sad wings, 
 
 To vanish from the fool 
 Unlettered in the lore of life's relentless school. 
 
 Time-loves ! what are ye but the scaffolding 
 
 By whose support we bring 
 
 A perfe3 edifice 
 Of earthly being to the realm of Bliss, 
 Or failing of it, to the dark abyss ? 
 
 Then will ye fall away. 
 Each that hath held us up, all that have been our stay. 
 
 And yet no scaffolding could serve the part 
 
 Ye play ere ye depart ; 
 
 For as your spell doth roll 
 Over her surface ye enrich the soul : 
 Ye heal the wounds that else might not be whole : 
 
 Ye fit her for the lot. 
 Where no experience of Earth shall be forgot. 
 
 Father of spirits, we Thy progeny 
 
 Can but resemble Thee ! 
 
 The Majesty Divine 
 We here inherit lets none intertwine 
 With other, and our destiny is Thine — 
 
 All, in harmonious blend ; 
 Each, in a unity that hath no term, no end. 
 
A STUDY IN STILL LIFE. 1 37 
 
 A STUDY IN STILL LIFE. 
 
 Fairest of the forms around, 
 Languid thro' the balmy heat ! 
 Lulled by many a murmuring sound, 
 Thine unconsciousness I cheat. 
 Chequered more than ocean bright. 
 Stranger than my story-book. 
 Seems the tale of shade and light 
 Told me in thy quiet look. 
 
 Waves ! still chant your lullaby ; 
 Warblers ! pipe no ardent lays ; 
 Lest she lift a startled eye 
 To my penetrating gaze. 
 None can tell the storied wealth. 
 Read the true, the hidden life. 
 Till he turn a glance by stealth 
 On the sleep of care and strife. 
 
 For the lines of conquered care 
 Score that deep tranquillity ; 
 Marks of conflifi too are there — 
 Battles crowned by viSory. 
 No mere innocence of youth 
 Could evolve so pure a face ; 
 Tempted Right, beleaguered Truth 
 Vaunt their triumph in its grace. 
 
138 A STUDY IN STILL LIFE. 
 
 On the beauty I behold 
 God hath set the hall-mark true, 
 Stamping her as finest gold, 
 Figured with His image too : 
 For the workings that have scarred 
 Nature's smoothness are akin 
 To the furrows that so marred 
 One Who met and vanquished sin. 
 
 Lips of love ! how many a balm 
 Ye have dropped on grief and pain ; 
 Eyes of hope ! how kind and calm 
 Ye will look unsealed again. 
 Ah ! what meekness ; such a brow 
 No earth-coronet adorns ; 
 What if angels view it now 
 Circled with a crown of thorns ! 
 
 Birds and billows ! chime aloud ;. 
 Lady wake ! I long to know — 
 I, so earthly, selfish, proud. 
 All that glorifies thee so — 
 I, unworthy e'en to tread 
 Near a virtue so divine : 
 Wake, and pardon me, and shed 
 Thy heart's fragrance over mine ! 
 
JOY IN SEASON. 139 
 
 JOY IN SEASON. 
 
 Spring is sleeping in her heart ; 
 Be the winter ne'er so chill, 
 Everything shall play the part 
 Nature meant it to fulfil. 
 What if stormy tears and sighs 
 Vex her spirit from above ! 
 One sweet morning she shall rise 
 To a golden world of love — 
 
 Love, like an unopened book 
 With a story soon begun — 
 Lurking in his troubled look 
 Who will shortly be her sun. 
 Heaven shall gild her with his kiss, 
 Bloom her by his balmy breath ; 
 In the dawning of their bliss 
 Spring shall wake from wintry death. 
 
 Beauty's robe her heart shall don 
 Jewelled with sweet flowers of hope ;■ 
 Thawing rills shall tinkle on. 
 Freshening fairy plain and slope ; 
 Music her delight shall tell ; 
 AH, enchanted, soon shall sing 
 Love's new lay ; while thro' her spell 
 Other winters yield to spring. 
 
140 A PHILOSOPHIC OUTLOOK. 
 
 A PHILOSOPHIC OUTLOOK. 
 
 I MARKED them all, the wooers and the won, 
 
 Love's harmony begun, 
 
 Blend in a passion- kiss — 
 Pledge of a spirit-bond, a heavenly bliss ; 
 Hope's golden promises fuliilled in this 
 
 The climax of delight. 
 The spring without a fall, the day that hath no night ! 
 
 I watched them all, the runners in the race 
 For comfort, wealth, or place — 
 Each dreaming that the goal 
 
 Of his ambition was a rounded whole, 
 
 The thing that would content him body and soul — 
 Aflush with hope and strife, 
 
 And grasping in the end what to his view was Life. 
 
 I saw them all, the men of art and thought, 
 By inspiration taught 
 Heaven's secrets, and impelled, 
 
 In mighty madness that could not be quelled. 
 
 To beautiful expression ; each upheld 
 Mid toil and weary sigh 
 
 By the heart's highest hope — of Immortality. 
 
 And then I studied Nature, who the while 
 Cheered them by look and smile. 
 Perchance it was a dream, 
 
A PHILOSOPHIC OUTLOOK. 14I 
 
 But on her face a mockery did seem 
 
 To lurk, in moonlit calm and sunny beam ; 
 
 As tho' at heart she laughed 
 O'er the success of some deep-laid design of craft. 
 
 Was it mere fancy that I heard her say, 
 
 " I set them all to play ; 
 
 And thro' the fervent flame, 
 Each doth unconsciously fulfil my aim : 
 Tho' they are cheated, they enjoy the game; 
 
 And sportiveness must tire. 
 And vain satiety must crown the heart's desire ? 
 
 " All serve the Kind thro' this their fiery mirth : 
 
 The lovers people Earth ; 
 
 The runners for a prize 
 Keep the World going by their agonies. 
 And make it richer thro' their enterprize : 
 
 The seer and artist give 
 Rare treasure to the Race thro' hoping they may live." 
 
 So plain this seemed to me, I held it true ; 
 
 For on a nearer view 
 
 Were lovers who scorned change. 
 But whom long years or chance did yet estrange ; 
 And viSors who their guerdon would exchange ; 
 
 And sons of thought and art. 
 Now careless of all fame the Future could impart. 
 
 And in my soul was born a hideous doubt 
 
 I could but reason out — 
 
 Doth she implant the hope 
 Of life to come that we may better cope 
 
142 A PHILOSOPHIC OUTLOOK, 
 
 With earthly ^vil ? is a telescope 
 
 To spy a dim fair Land 
 Put for the common weal in each deluded hand ? 
 
 Yet studied more minutely than before 
 
 A truer look she wore : 
 
 Marks of maternal care 
 Blent with the guile, which now appeared more fair ; 
 As if with nobler aim she laid the snare ; 
 
 And in her face I read 
 Love, sympathy, and truth, as tho' her voice had said : 
 
 " Will not a Mother calm their after-fret 
 
 Whom she to play hath set ? 
 
 Each heart I have beguiled 
 To loftier joy, in view whereof I smiled. 
 And love parental singles every child ; 
 
 The common good were won 
 At too extreme a cost with any left undone. 
 
 To the large Love for which the spirit yearns 
 
 The sated lover turns. 
 
 What tho' the prize be vain ? 
 The runner reaps the fruit of toil and pain. 
 In courage, skill, and patience that remain. 
 
 Hath seer or sceptic proved 
 The dead have thrilled not when posterity approved ? " 
 
 All this was borne upon my happier heart 
 
 Lest the great hope depart 
 
 That savours life, and makes 
 Amends for all our troubles and mistakes — 
 
NEGLECTED CHANCES. 1 43 
 
 The hope which Nature, maybe for our sakes 
 
 Doth not affirm, but prop 
 By many a token should our faith decline or drop. 
 
 For now the sun, ere I withdrew my gaze. 
 
 Beamed acquiescent rays : 
 
 A cheerful wind did blow 
 O'er trees and flowers to make them nod me, " No, 
 This is not all, thou art a babe below. 
 
 We bloom, we fall, we rise. 
 As thou and all thy kind fail but to seek the Skies. " 
 
 NEGLECTED CHANCES. 
 
 Lost opportunities ! ye danced 
 Before us once, and smiled and glanced 
 Like fairy maids, each fain to bless 
 Another with her happiness. 
 Hope shone in your bewitching look. 
 And Fancy spread her glowing book : 
 In vain, in vain ! we did not seize 
 The boon, but lingered in our ease. 
 
 And now we muse, as men reflefi 
 
 On lovers lost thro' sheer negleS. 
 
 " Did I," they ponder, "seem too coy ? 
 
 Did her coquetry mar my joy ? 
 
 Or did her warmth outflame my care ? 
 
 How sweet she looked, how bright and fair ! 
 
 Fool that I was. O gentle Fate 
 
 Have pity ! call her back ! " — too late ! 
 
14+ NEGLECTED CHANCES. 
 
 Too late ? Ah yes — if ye return 
 'Tis but to bid us vainly burn. 
 Ye come as a dear courtship seems 
 To live again in empty dreams. 
 Ye linger but as echoes last ; 
 As tints that tell of summer passed ; 
 As vivid gleams to shew how bright 
 Our way had been with your delight. 
 
 Ye He uneasy in your grave, 
 Dead chances that none cared to save ! 
 For ghostly vengeance oft ye rise 
 To taunt the slothful and unwise. 
 Their wild appeal who did not choose 
 Your warm embraces, ye refuse. 
 The living charm we would not clasp ; 
 The phantom now eludes our grasp. 
 
 GHEER AMID DARKNESS. 
 
 The dusk, for all its hint of harm, 
 Hath many a compensating charm. 
 No swell at dawn is half so bright 
 As curling waves that ilash by night. 
 The stars of silver, shy by day. 
 Beam forth in many a lovely ray. 
 The night's musician trills a song 
 That shames the merry matin throng. 
 
RENOVATION. 145 
 
 Sheet lightning, that we scarce behold 
 At noontide, floods the green with gold. 
 While steps of flaming beauty dart 
 From clouds whose thunder awes the heart. 
 
 So, when the shadows fall around 
 
 A faithful spirit, is it found : 
 
 The rippling care, the billowy strife 
 
 Are edged with glory, tipped with life. 
 
 Dead dear ones, mid earth's splendour veiled. 
 
 Bend o'er the heart whose sun hath paled ; 
 
 And living lips divinely sing 
 
 Of love that hath not taken wing. 
 
 A sudden blaze from opening skies 
 
 Makes Earth a peep of Paradise ; 
 
 And if a tempest thunder, lo ! 
 
 On fiery stairs bright angels glow. 
 
 RENOVATION. 
 
 The hope that shone to vanish unfulfilled. 
 The faded dream, joy's tale left half untold, 
 The love that fortune marred, or absence chilled, 
 The all that fired the happy days of old — 
 
 Fed by heart-fuel did they vainly burn ? 
 And o'er the ashes do we vainly weep ? 
 Creator true, is nothing to return ? 
 Thy golden promise wilt Thou fail to keep ? 
 
146 RENOVATION. 
 
 Nay, phoenix-like there surely will arise 
 From each spent ember a diviner bliss 
 (The true successor of what flames and dies) 
 To make another world atone for this. 
 
 OXFORD IN RETROSPECT. 
 
 Smiles are thy due, thou haunt of happy years, 
 Nay, ringing laughter over bygone mirth ! 
 How comes it that I hardly check the tears 
 Which rise unbidden while I sing thy worth? 
 O ! thou art with the things that could not last : 
 Home joyaunce, nursery rapture, school delight, 
 And many more, which the unyielding Past 
 Restores to naught but hallowing Memory : 
 And thou art mantled in such tender light 
 Thro' her soft charm ; and my dear days with thee 
 Look so divine, that I play truant mid my glee. 
 
 For oft my heart doth wander from the throng, 
 
 The merry scenes that I recall so well. 
 
 To muse on graver ones ; some that belong 
 
 To thee, and some begotten of a spell 
 
 Of gloom that shadowed half that golden time : 
 
 And oft I dream o'er some death-silenced tone 
 
 That lent its triumph to our vocal chime. 
 
 Or some warm heart that distance doth estrange. 
 
 Shine out, fair City, that to thee back flown. 
 
 While o'er thine unforgptten joys I range. 
 
 My happy' music may no more to sadness change ! 
 
OXFORD IN RETROSPECT. I47 
 
 If memory sweep a finished life, I think 
 
 Two spots will claim the tenderest regard — 
 
 One is the place of birth, that golden link 
 
 With ante-natal being ; so 1 guard 
 
 Devoutly in my heart thy terraced lawn 
 
 And ample portico, and gabled eaves, 
 
 Shy Worcester, my first mansion in the dawn 
 
 Of cloistered being ! the enchanted scene 
 
 Mine eyes first lit upon mid April leaves 
 
 And music, tho' milleniums intervene 
 
 Were hallowed as thy Fane, and as thy garden green. 
 
 And then if after-life should all be spent 
 
 Within one home, that were the other spot. 
 
 I but a babe in college-being bent 
 
 My steps to thee, and shared thine honoured lot. 
 
 Grey Merton, whom I glory to call mine ! 
 
 Firstborn of many sisters, archetype 
 
 Of cloistered harmony, where sage divine 
 
 And shy philosopher blend happily 
 
 With giddy students callow and unripe. 
 
 Kind to their folly, if they dance not to their pipe. 
 
 Smile on me, Merton, as thou oft hast done 
 
 When (backward gazing from a primrose plain. 
 
 Or cowslip mead, or violet vale) the sun 
 
 Gilding thy distant tower hath made me feign 
 
 My flowery walk to be the cultured way 
 
 Whereof my sojourn in thee was the start ! 
 
 Or when, a hill surmounted, the soft ray 
 
 That gilt thy pinnacles hath bid me think 
 
 That save for thee I had not climbed : my heart 
 
 Before I knew thee was of those that shrink 
 
 From steep endeavour's base and lofty effort's brink. 
 
148 OXFORD IN RETROSPECT. 
 
 But in a life reviewed (as when the eye 
 
 Star-gazing rests on many a point of light 
 
 Purer than others in a purple sky) 
 
 We single out some mansions of delight ; 
 
 So doth enchanting Magdalen now share 
 
 My heart with Christ Church, Trinity, and New, 
 
 And lettered Balliol, nor can I forbear 
 
 A tender backward glance at Oriel, 
 
 And calm sequestered Corpus : and I view 
 
 All Souls' and Wadham tenderly as well ; 
 
 While round me fair St. John's hath wove a magic spell. 
 
 Bid me now dream of thee as a bright whole, 
 Dear Oxford, twofold in thy charm ; a form 
 Of beauty that enshrines a twofold soul, 
 One that befits thy genius — grey and green I 
 Grey as thy centuries of hoary Time, 
 Thy doSors with their venerable mien. 
 Thy long tradition, and old classic lore — 
 Green as the fresh hearts in their youthful prime. 
 Who star the quad or thro' the gateway pour. 
 Bent on new rivalry in wicket, ball, and oar. 
 
 O how I love that form ! thine aged look 
 
 Is precious as my mother's time-worn face; 
 
 The scars and furrows live in memory's book 
 
 Like the dear portrait of her saintly grace. 
 
 Thy fretted stonework, battlements and spites 
 
 Are as her lines of charafier, or those 
 
 That tell of triumph over youthful fires 
 
 And point to calm above and Heavenly joy ; 
 
 Thy chiming bells are as the tones that rose 
 
 From her dear lips to teach me, when a boy, 
 
 And guide me to the Right, or from the Wrong decoy. 
 
OXFORD IN RETROSPECT. 149 
 
 No less I linger o'er thy youthful mien, 
 The freshness of thy beauty, the bright robe 
 That mantles thee of spring and summer green. 
 Thy garden-secrets was I wont to probe, 
 The flowery labyrinth, the leafy gloom : 
 Thy terraced groves were my perennial haunt. 
 Like one who courts a beauty in her bloom, 
 First, all enchanted me, and then, each trait; 
 For learning soon to love her, he will vaunt 
 Half-hidden charms unfolding day by day, 
 As he begins to know each turn and mode and 
 way. 
 
 Let them examine me who know thee best. 
 
 In garden-lore, and I will point them out 
 
 Each evergreen wherein shy blackbirds nest. 
 
 Each bough from which the happy thrushes shout. 
 
 The robin's haunt, the redstart's ivied wall, 
 
 The undergrowth of the sweet nightingale : 
 
 And every warbler's note would I recall ; 
 
 For they are as the varied voice to me 
 
 Of silver-throated love : nor would I fail 
 
 To tell each golden butterfly and moth and bee. 
 
 And every honied flower that yields them jubilee. 
 
 But the beloved form of old or young 
 
 Is dear by reason of the soul within. 
 
 By none, methinks,. hath thine been duly sung. 
 
 Mother of many bards ! nor could I win 
 
 So difficult a laurel ; my meek muse 
 
 Would press a reverent finger on her lip : 
 
 Yet a brief tribute will she not refuse 
 
 To thee, thou best of Universities ! 
 
 Thy heart is with the goodly fellowship 
 
150 OXFORD IN RETROSPECT 
 
 Of lofty things : Breath from the glowing Skies 
 Inspires thee for thy work, thine aim and enterprize. 
 
 True to thy motto, with " the Lord thy Light," 
 The outflow of thine inner fount of life 
 Glides on as Eden's fourfold river, bright 
 With a refleSed Heaven : the rippling strife 
 Of thine aSivity is golden from the beams 
 Of an eternal Sun ; and our low-lying land 
 Is blest by thine invigorating streams. 
 Mesopotamia is our Britain : thine 
 Are the fresh rivulets on every hand 
 That bid it blossom and bear fruit Divine, 
 And for whose living power both Heaven and Earth 
 combine. 
 
 But let me to my simile return : 
 Thy soul- is dual as thy form — both age 
 And youth in her employment I discern ; 
 Thine ancient lore, thy classic heritage. 
 That grand apotheosis of the Past, 
 And inspiration from a faded heaven. 
 The immemorial things thou holdest fast. 
 Thy calm routine, and self-complacent round 
 Betoken hoary age ; and yet the leaven 
 Of youthful ferment in thee oft hath crowned 
 With triumph due reform whereon dull age hath 
 frowned. 
 
 O that the battle between age and youth 
 Within thy soul were to more purpose fought — 
 More in the cause of Virtue, Right, and Truth, 
 Less for mere antique subtleties of thought ! 
 
OXFORD IN RETROSPECT. 151 
 
 The time-worn love of ease and indolence 
 That turns full half the year to holiday 
 Doth hardly chime with modern view and sense ; 
 And if it did, 'tis thine to lead and teach, 
 To set the time, to be before the day ; 
 And thine, to bring within the common reach 
 The hidden lights of Thought, of Art, of Song, of 
 Speech. 
 
 Builder of poets' sepulchres ! why dost 
 
 Thou not take timely heed from past neglefi ? 
 
 What ! lift dead reputations from the dust, 
 
 When, living, thou might'st win them due respeS ? 
 
 Justice and Truth endow thee with due light; 
 
 Why leave them in the dark to fade and die ? 
 
 If seers and thinkers had but common right, 
 
 Would any wither like a sunless flower ? 
 
 A singer perish out of Oxford ? No, 
 
 It cannot be ! Yet Oxford hath the power 
 
 To bid exotics that delight her blow 
 
 Within a garden fair, kissed by a golden glow. 
 
 And should we fail of our ancestral claim ? 
 
 Doth not thy motto mission thee to much 
 
 Which to negleS would mar thy Christian fame ? 
 
 To renovate the Dogma out of touch 
 
 With what to-day's large outlook deems the Truth 
 
 High Heaven equips thee ! for the power to change, 
 
 Remodel and reform, is in. thy youth. 
 
 While the conserving hold is in thine age. 
 
 For this the Oxford in our Church might range 
 
 The realm of Science and the sacred Page, 
 
 And charm the truant creeds back to their heritage. 
 
152 OXFORD IN RETROSPECT. 
 
 And then thy giant power thou couldst employ 
 
 To stay the tide whose flow doth shame our day, 
 
 Whelming the landmarks between man and boy, 
 
 And Right and Wrong — the conflifi of vain play 
 
 That wastes the ardour meant to move mankind^ 
 
 The love of sport which agonizes those 
 
 Dumb lives wherewith our own are intertwined ; 
 
 The lust for War, that can but keep alive 
 
 The doomed distinSion between friends and foes. 
 
 Teacher of Truth ! if Englishmen must strive, 
 
 Fire them with holy zeal that naught of these survive ! 
 
 Throned on the shore of Culture and true Thought 
 
 Play King Canute to the fast-rising tide. 
 
 And watching Britons shall be timely taught, 
 
 And the rude waves retire for all their pride ! 
 
 They will not scorn thee if He be thy Light, 
 
 Thy Strength, Who is not disobeyed, 
 
 Who saith to seas that mock a monarch's might 
 
 " Thus far, no further shall ye go ; for here 
 
 At My command, shall your proud waves be stayed." 
 
 Then, too, within the academic sj3here 
 
 Should not high Honour bid one blot quite disappear ? 
 
 Doth it beseem thy chivalry of old, 
 Thy vaunted logic too, that the weak sex 
 (Whom now thy grace or justice doth enfold) 
 Should run an equal race to find that checks 
 On them alone bar out the winner's prize ? 
 O doth it need a high prophetic gift. 
 An outlook keen, to mark the twilit rise 
 Of woman ? Be it as a sun to gild 
 Our dawning day, or as a moon to lift 
 
OXFORD IN RETROSPECT. 1 53 
 
 The mists wherewith our night had else been filled — 
 Her inequality of lot is nigh fulfilled. 
 
 And we, who glory in our Colonies, 
 
 And on whose ear Imperial echoes chime. 
 
 Would fain behold a little Oxford rise 
 
 From thee in every Briton-haunted clime. 
 
 True to the old tradition, thou and they 
 
 In links of literary empire one. 
 
 And let the Light that fires thee shed a ray 
 
 Of beauty on our city-life at home, 
 
 To cheer the prisoned masses ; for the Sun 
 
 That brightens all beneath the open Dome 
 
 Doth bid a golden beam into the chamber roam. 
 
 But hold ! the Nemesis of all who dream 
 Hath followed me, and stopped the clock of Time. 
 The Oxford of my day hath been the theme 
 Too largely of my over daring rhyme. 
 Should I forget how nobly thou since then 
 Hast risen to thy Heaven-born destiny ? 
 But doth the skylark choose his music when 
 He soars ? tho' dropped to earth he may recall 
 Some cadence as unworthy of the sky : 
 That do I now — and yet perchance not all 
 The burden of my song is wild or whimsical. 
 
 But even so, the magic Memory weaves 
 Is over thee, fair Oxford ! charm and grace 
 Of all that may have marred them she bereaves. 
 The lines of beauty on full many a face 
 I now recall, but hardly one defe£i. 
 
15+ OXFORD IN RETROSPECT. 
 
 The faults, I have forgotten, in the soul 
 
 Of each I loved ; the spell, I recolleS — 
 
 The virtues, and the fascinating ways. 
 
 So linger with me thou — a varied whole 
 
 Toned down and softened by a hallowing haze, 
 
 Thou summer-misted dream, thou haunt of golden rays! 
 
 ANTICIPATION. 
 
 More pure delight is in the herald morn 
 Than in the glitter that the noon doth yield : 
 More vernal joy of budding leaf is born 
 Than of the open foliage of the field. 
 
 So the true happiness of life doth rise 
 More from the prophecy than from the quest: 
 And less than either from the captured prize ; 
 Hope, not fruition, doth enshrine our best. 
 
 Then, too, the terrors of the night appal 
 Most while the glowing sunset fire doth fade ; 
 The winter-dread lurks i;i the leafy fall. 
 To vanish mid the naked lane and glade. 
 
 And so the shock of numbing grief we feel 
 Less than we felt the thought of it at first ; 
 'Tis with us in our woe as in our weal ; 
 Fear, not endurance, doth contain our worst. 
 
PLEDGES OF ETERNITY. 1 55 
 
 THE SUM OF DUTY. 
 
 From birth, 
 
 Thro' gradual life 
 
 What doth thy manhood ask 
 
 Of thee, ordained to rise from earth 
 
 To Heaven, thro' light and shadow, calm and strife ? 
 
 Self-conquest, and the due fulfilment of thy task, 
 
 Truth, honour, mercy, love, and holy dread ; 
 
 The play of every power, remembering 
 
 The brevity of mortal breath: 
 
 And then to bow thy head 
 
 Before thy King 
 
 In death. 
 
 PLEDGES OF ETERNITY. 
 
 Such bitter with our sweet is ever blent 
 That at the summit of our joy we sigh : 
 What need ? if restlessness and discontent 
 Be toi^ens of our immortality? 
 
 The sons of Time would feel its food suiBce ; 
 The heirs of Earth would bask in her delight ; 
 No serpent could despoil their paradise, 
 No sadness tinge their calm, no wrong their right. 
 
156 PLEDGES OF ETERNITY. 
 
 The clouds that melt into the tranquil blue 
 Are full of tears, and hurry on apace : 
 The billows foam and fret as if they knew 
 Their destiny were ocean's calm embrace. 
 
 The empty longing, the unsated love. 
 The very sin that levels thee to earth, 
 Are but the title-deeds to Rest above, 
 If thou be true to thine eternal Birth. 
 
 Thy sigh should not be as the gathering gale, 
 But like the breeze that heralds a fair day : 
 Thy tears, each rainbow-hued, like drops that fail 
 When sunlight triumphs thro' the morning-grey. 
 
 TO A DAPHNE.' 
 
 What here, and out this wintry morn. 
 Thou who didst once Apollo scorn. 
 Now in arboreal state reborn 
 
 To virginal delight ! 
 And is thy pedigree forgot, 
 The pathos of thy former lot, 
 That one a river-god begot 
 
 Can flower in such a site ? 
 
 ' Daphne, according to the legend, was a daughter of the 
 river-god Peneus, and was beloved by Apollo. Deaf to hiS| suit, 
 and flying from him, she besought her father or Jupitir to 
 proteft her. Her prayer was heard, and she was changed into a 
 laurel. A little early flowering plant of that tribe which goes by 
 her name is here referred to. 
 
TO A DAPHNE. 157 
 
 Here from a bleak unwatered bed 
 Doth spring a fair and delicate head, 
 So bright when sister shrubs are dead 
 
 That I can feel no doubt 
 Thine is the true Lethean bliss : 
 But hold — by Juno ! what is this ? 
 A warm embrace, a fiery kiss 
 
 From sunshine blazing out ! 
 
 Didst thou then fool the Power above 
 Who deemed thee a pure helpless dove, 
 And changed thee to escape a loVe 
 
 Abhorrent to thy heart ? 
 Ah ! fickle Nymph, so like the sex 
 Men charm to-day, to-morrow vex, 
 The sun-god, mocking wiles and checks. 
 
 Now wins thee at a dart. 
 
 Hence didst thou so divinely rise, 
 The earliest to seek the skies 
 With face of innocent surprise. 
 
 Shy joy, and flushing hope ? 
 'Tis thine to prove, triumphant flower, 
 That Love can sway the mightiest Power ! 
 More sunshine be thy petals' dower. 
 
 More beauty as they ope. 
 
158 A REVERIE ON LIFE. 
 
 A REVERIE ON LIFE. 
 
 Why are we here ? 
 Why thus ? Why fettered till the mortal hour, 
 Dupes of bright hope, and slaves of dusky fear. 
 
 Tried past all power ? 
 
 Doth a young soul 
 Reach ripeness thro' one frame, one testing-time ? 
 Earth's sweet sad music, can it be the whole 
 
 Of the set chime ? 
 
 Nay, let me deem 
 Life but an epoch in the spirit's growth ; 
 With ampler period at one extreme. 
 
 Maybe at both : 
 
 The overture 
 Begun, of some grand oratorio : 
 Tentative notes, feeble and immature, 
 
 Now loud, now low : 
 
 A solo sung 
 To give effeS to melody before ; 
 Or fuller tone to an untutored tongue 
 
 Destined for more. 
 
 An interlude 
 Mid some enchanting movement that will end 
 In song, wherein the human multitude 
 
 Shall ever blend. 
 
A REVERIE ON LIFE. 159 
 
 How many fade 
 Like morning clouds into the boundless blue ! 
 Earth's wisdom half unlearned, the soul is paid 
 But half her due. 
 
 How many cling 
 Like autumn fruitage long, yet fall unripe ! 
 But in the end, can children of a King 
 Fail of the Type ? 
 
 Some, true and fair, 
 Look fresh from a pure ante-natal home : 
 Some live as tho' the flend had trained them ere 
 
 On Earth they roam : 
 
 None die too good 
 To be unbettered by strange discipline : 
 None die so bad but that they may be wooed 
 
 At length from sin. 
 
 Too brief the stay 
 Of all for the equipment of a heart — 
 What soul her due divinity can pay 
 
 Ere she depart ? 
 
 Oft, what is life ? 
 One peep at splendour thro' an opening door ; 
 One drill with soldiery aflame for strife ; 
 
 One pull to Shore : 
 
 Withhold thy tears 
 O'er powers that find no scope for their employ ! 
 The field is waiting, past these empty years 
 
 Of woe and joy. 
 
l6o A REVERIE ON LIFE. 
 
 Weep if thou wilt 
 For moral loss, and failure to attain ! 
 But know thy life, for all its wrong and guilt, 
 
 Hath not been vain. 
 
 Who ordered it 
 Had one great aim ; one thing was to be done ; 
 And ere thou vanish hence, the mark is hit ; 
 
 The objeS won. 
 
 Some crookedness 
 Had to be straightened at whatever price ; 
 Thy tale of years for that, no more no less, 
 
 May just suffice. 
 
 What if in all 
 Beside, thou have degraded and lost ground ? 
 Hereafter means to lift thee from that fall 
 
 May yet be found. 
 
 How many a piece 
 Is overlooked in chess, the queen to gain ! 
 And so to make thy crowning evil cease 
 
 Much may remain. 
 
 Yet strive and weep — 
 Weep for thy Past, and in the Future strive ! 
 Sure but of this, that from Death's nearing sleep 
 
 Thou wilt revive. 
 
LOVE'S THREEFOLD ASPECT. l6r 
 
 LOVE'S THREEFOLD ASPECT. 
 
 Love hath faces three — one turns 
 Toward the Earth where passion burns : 
 Far too ample he to shun 
 Any two that would be one. 
 Form hath favour with him where 
 Feeling doth the empire share : 
 Even on that lowly plane 
 He alighting may remain. 
 
 Heavenward another face 
 Ever looks, as one whose grace 
 Owes all beauty to the bright 
 Splendour of a formless Light — 
 Of a Joy. unvisioned, save 
 By the souls who, pure and brave, 
 Live above the mortal birth 
 That hath fettered form to Earth. 
 
 Then a third face fronts the hell. 
 Where sin, woe and hatred dwell. 
 More Divine that gaze of Love 
 Even than the look above — 
 Never more so than when sighs 
 Of regard win hating eyes. 
 Starved of fuel, yet aflame. 
 Love doth best deserve the name. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 A SONG OF THORNS, 
 
 A SONG OF THORNS. 
 
 There is a pathos in yon scene 
 
 Of beauty and of blight : 
 Mid roses gay, and foliage green 
 
 Sharp prickles mock delight. 
 O why, when shoots were wild with hope. 
 Did dew and sunshine some unope. 
 And others leave to vainly cope 
 
 With the keen tempest's spite ? 
 
 Ah ! who can say ? I only know 
 
 'Tis thus within the soil 
 That yieldeth sungilt hopes — some blow. 
 
 And some, bleak whirlwinds spoil. 
 For every rosy dream fulfilled 
 One faintly flushes, to be chilled : 
 And loves that charmed, and joys that thrilled, 
 
 Oft sharpen in recoil. 
 
 Young thoughts upspringing intertwine ; 
 
 And each sad heart can tell 
 That this is shaped by heavenly shine, 
 
 And that by gusts from hell : 
 Hot efforts kindled by one spark 
 Upflame to win the holy mark, 
 Or fade into an emblem dark 
 
 Of evil's dwarfing spell. 
 
 And ah ! the world-wide mystery. 
 The bright, the joyless, brood — 
 
A SONG OF THORNS. 163 
 
 That twofold outcome of life's tree. 
 
 The evil and the good ! 
 Nor only that tho' many smile, 
 As many frown and fret the while. 
 With no nejjenthe to beguile 
 
 The bleak and bitter mood — 
 
 Not this alone, but that the life 
 
 Is parent of the guise : 
 Some, militant mid gale and strife, 
 
 Unfold to the pure skies : 
 Some yield to sloth, nor covet grace. 
 Until a keen ignoble face 
 Reveals a spirit hard, and base. 
 
 Bereft of power to rise. 
 
 And yet, tho' Nature's double yield 
 
 Lend symmetry to earth, 
 And flower and thorn each other shield. 
 
 Nor either fail of worth ; 
 The nobler self repels the thought 
 That our sad world hath so been wrought, 
 Nor brooks that shame can cling to aught 
 
 Which knew a heavenly birth. 
 
 True Rose of Sharon, why steal down 
 
 Our valley to adorn ? 
 And why uplift and wear the crown 
 
 Of curse, and pain, and scorn ? 
 Why but to charm our tears away ? 
 Thy wreath of sorrow knew decay 
 To show that life shall yield one day 
 
 The rose without the thorn. 
 
164 DAYLIGHT AND DARKNESS. 
 
 DAYLIGHT AND DARKNESS. 
 
 Laugh, laugh, for the glory of earth, 
 
 The beauty, the joy and the cheer ! 
 For age's content, and young music and mirth. 
 
 Laugh awhile, yet keep many a tear ! 
 Doth never the sunset bequeath 
 
 Wind and rain to the scene of delight, 
 As tho' paling day ere he vanish would breathe 
 
 A lament for the fast-falling night ? 
 
 Weep, weep, for the sorrow of life, 
 
 The evil, the care, and the pain ! 
 For the passionate grief, empty effort, and strife. 
 
 Weep, weep, yet laugh quickly again ! 
 If the vapours of night leave their mark, 
 
 In the drops that bedew the earth's face. 
 The fire-fronted morn that hath conquered the dark 
 
 Dries them up to leave never a trace. 
 
 A CRITICISM OF LIFE. 
 
 Time's hoary prodigal, the Past, 
 From the great Now of life offcast, 
 Doth wear a half eternal glow 
 The while it silvers on below. 
 
A CRITICISM OF LIFE. 1 65 
 
 The Future too, the heir of Time, 
 Doth borrow from a heavenly clime 
 The glory of the babe unborn. 
 The promise of the reddening morn. 
 
 But rarely doth the Present seem 
 
 Lit up with a supernal gleam ; 
 
 Yet in its fleeting vain employ 
 
 We find apology for joy. 
 
 Too oft we shun the Past, for there 
 
 Is no intoxicating fare ; 
 
 Nor quaff that balm for tears and $ighs, 
 
 The Future's cordial prophecies. 
 
 Our outlook is the zone of grey 
 
 Which links past night and coming day ; 
 
 This silvered by a tender moon ; 
 
 That fired by golden sunbeams soon. 
 
 We on the middle darkness brood 
 
 And shun Hope's wine, and Memory's food, 
 
 The native cheer, the fertile source 
 
 Of healing thro' the mortal course. 
 
 The spirit hath two faces ; one 
 
 Views bye-gones — all felt, said, and done : 
 
 On that soft scene — a moonlit haze 
 
 Toned down, and tempered — it doth gaze : 
 
 The other turns toward the all 
 
 That is to be, the magical 
 
 Unfolding of the day divine, 
 
 That opens with prophetic shine. 
 
 Thus Janus-like she fronts the two 
 Whence we our forces may renew. 
 
l66 A CRITICISM OF LIFE, 
 
 The Present she doth hardly face, 
 So thick the veil of Time and Space, 
 Before, her eyes are, and behind ; 
 Yet nothing can her vision blind ; 
 For many a back or forward glance 
 Doth pierce the shadowy expanse : 
 
 Eternity ! from thy twin wealth 
 Of Past and Future flows our health. 
 This phantom care, and speSral strife. 
 And ghostly glory, are not life : 
 Mere flfiions of illuding sense 
 They offer us for truth, pretence. 
 What is, they veil by what doth seem ; 
 And we prefer the empty dream ! 
 
 TO A DAFFODIL,' 
 
 Thou golden dreamer by the water side 
 At sight of thee is many a fancy born ! 
 Thou beamest like the sun, in glowing pride, 
 On ocean's answering wave some happy mom. 
 
 • Narcissus, according to mythology, was beloved of all the 
 maidens and nymphs around for his surpassing beauty. Echo 
 pined away to a mere voice, because of him, Tiresias the seer 
 predifled that he would live to old age, if he should not become 
 acquainted with himself. Being heated one day in the chase, he 
 went to drink from a fountain, and there saw for the first time the 
 refleflion of his own loveliness. Nothing could turn the unhappy 
 youth from this fountain, and his raging passion for himself 
 destroyed him ; the gods transformed him into a yellow flower, 
 of which the daffodil is a species. 
 
TO A DAFFODIL. 167 
 
 Like yellow China, thou dost progress scorn : 
 
 Wind-swept, thou wilt to a vain image bow. 
 
 Like Israel to the golden calf: lovelorn 
 
 And pensive like a nymph thou lookest now ; 
 
 Or Naiad who would bathe beneath a screening bough. 
 
 And thou wast human once ! a sunny youth, 
 By many a maiden idolized and wooed ; 
 Beloved of fainting Echo to her ruth ; 
 A mighty hunter, yet thyself pursued 
 By a strange fortune thou couldst not elude, 
 Which led thee hot and weary to the spring. 
 That imaged forth thy bright similitude ; 
 Whereto O self-enamoured ! thou didst cling 
 Till all thy manly grace became the flower I sing. 
 
 O wealth of loveliness, O golden blaze ! 
 Had I but half thy charm, I too might bend 
 By some refleSing pool, and gaze, and gaze, 
 And all my manhood on self-glory spend. 
 Truly the gods who changed thee did befriend 
 All who, like me, are hot from Beauty's chase ; 
 For in yon limpid lake, and this fair blend 
 Of flower and clear refleSion is a grace 
 Beyond what I behold in my self-conscious Race. 
 
 Vain self-idolaters ! (like him of old 
 
 Adored on Dura, and who in a dream 
 
 Saw his own glory in the head of gold) 
 
 With faces bowed to a refleSing stream 
 
 The gods chain each of us to self-esteem. 
 
 Kin, country, creed, all that we hold most dear, 
 
 From self alone derive their worth supreme. 
 
 Ah me ! may all who in the mirror peer 
 
 Find charms, bright egoist! like those that greet me here. 
 
l68 THE END. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Sad words, if they be knelling love or life. 
 Or aught that hath begun with promise fair ! 
 
 Glad words, if they be told of pain or strife, 
 And bid the heart for better things prepare ! 
 
 Words sad and glad to all who thread the maze 
 Where pain doth end in pleasure, light in shade ; 
 
 Who, cheered by joyful, charmed by tender lays, 
 Hear many a one begin, another fade. 
 
 A warbler now his melody hath hushed, 
 
 Sad would he feel if none should miss the voice ; 
 
 Glad, if to hear it but one face hath flushed 
 And thro' its music but one heart rejoice. 
 
 Tho' mid life's labyrinth one note may well 
 And wisely stop, if other carols blend : 
 
 Be many a haunting echo a sure spell 
 To conjure up delight that hath no end. 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS ! — CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. 
 
CREATION'S HOPE. 
 
 By the same Author. 
 Price IS. 6d. 
 
 Extrafts from Reviews. 
 
 SpeBaUr, — "There are fine passages in the poem, and the argument on 
 both sides is conduced with considerable ability." 
 
 Scotsman. — "In 'Creation's Hope' Mr. Marcus Rickards has produced 
 a poem which easily redeems the promise of his earlier volume of ' Son- 
 nets and Reveries, * Mr. Rickards' verses have nothing in them that is 
 conventional, except the rhymes and measures. The thought is simple, 
 the feeling pure, the expression clear of cant." 
 
 Graphic, — "The sceptical line of reasoning is very capably followed. 
 The poet faces a despondent pantheism with an eloquent expression 
 of faith. Mr. Rickards' work is informed by deep and profound 
 meditation on the mysteries of the Universe, and only a man of high 
 culture could weave so gracefully the meshes of his cogent and subtle 
 reasonings," 
 
 Literary World, — " A much more ambitious effort. Mr. Rickards 
 moves easily in verse, and occasionally relieves his theme by fragments of 
 graceful fancy." 
 
 Puhlk Ofinkn. — "A fine conception, and the execution is worthy of 
 the theme. Mr. Rickards has, in not a few instances, given us passages 
 of much beauty and power, more particularly in dealing with Nature, and 
 human sympathy with her many moods." 
 
 Dundee Advertiser. — *' The poem indicates that the writer is a man of 
 scholarly attainments and a truly poetic heart. Many of the thoughts 
 and fancies are exceedingly beautiful, and always clothed in graceful 
 language." 
 
 Devon and Exeter Gazette, — " The theme is skilfully and felicitously 
 worked out, and while the language breathes a solemn reverence for all 
 that is beautiful in Nature and sublime in Divinity, in places it reaches 
 the dramatic, so intensely stirring is its quality. ... A poem full of 
 sterling merit." / 
 
 Gloucester Journal, — " The poem reveals just the same properties which 
 place the author's earlier poems on such a high level of excellence. 
 Personally, we prefer the Sonnets : but that does not debar us from 
 recognizing in Mr. Rickards' work the genius which it undoubtedly 
 contains." 
 
 Glasgow Herald, — "The story is finely told." 
 
 Han^shire Independent, — " The poem throughout exhibits deep thought, 
 and a masterly grasp of the truths of Scripture." 
 
 Torkshire Herald, — " Thoughtful, scholarly, and devout." 
 
 J. BAKER AND SON, CLIFTON. 
 
SONGS OF UNIVERSAL LIFE. 
 
 By the same Author, 
 Price $s. 
 Extradls from Reviews, 
 
 Saturday Revieiv, — "Mr. Marcus Rickards, author of 'Sonnets and 
 Reveries ' and ' Creation's Hope,* has still further added to his literary 
 fame. These new poems may well be said to redeem the promise of his 
 earlier work. His verses have the merit of being the outcome of 
 a genuine freshness of thought and feeling, and are not written solely for 
 the sake of verse-making. The descriptive poems, notably 'Nature's 
 Cycle' and * Arno's Vale Cemetery, near Bristol,' show a keen love for 
 and observation of Nature, and considerable grace and charm of expression. 
 They fall short of the highest descriptive poetry only from an absence of 
 human interest and personal individuality. The ' Ode to Love,' one of 
 the longest poems in the book, is the outcome of a singularly thoughtful 
 and refined mind, steeped with a sense of the spiritual background under- 
 lying most earthly things," 
 
 Times. — "* Songs of Universal Life' strikes some notes of genuine 
 poetical inspiration. Mr. Rickards writes skilfully and gracefully. He 
 has a keen sympathy for Nature and with country life, and a sincere love 
 of birds and their, ways." 
 
 Daily telegraph, — "A pleasant volume of verse, full of the same inspira- 
 tion which fired Wordsworth's fancy, is published by Mr. Marcus 
 Rickards. In the quieter walks of poetry, and especially on such subjects 
 as come of the contemplation of Nature, he writes smooth, easy verse of 
 good workmanship and original conception. Mr. Rickards, for instance, 
 scores off his brother poets when he points out in some graceful lines that 
 the sybaritical nightingale, which only sings in the most luxurious circum- 
 stances, has been the subjefl of innumerable odes, while the sedge-warbler 
 has been utterly neglefted." 
 
 Dundee Advertiser. — "Perhaps there is no one who is more likely to 
 take a high place among the poets of the future than Mr. Marcus 
 Rickards, who has just added to his former achievements these ' Songs of 
 Universal Life.' Through all there runs a healthiness of sentiment and 
 a human sympathy. The workmanship is excellent." 
 
 Author, — ** Verses written by one who is a true lover of Nature, and 
 who would make of the common objects which he sees around him 
 a ladder to the higher philosophy. The poetry is simple and unstrained j 
 the thoughts rise at times to an unexpefted level." 
 
 Graphic. — " Mr, Marcus Rickards, the author of 'Creation's Hope,' a 
 work which we had occasion to praise cordially some time ago, gives us a 
 volume of * Songs of Universal Life.' He is both naturalist and poet in 
 one, a fa£t which will especially strike the reader in that charming poem 
 ' Nature's Cycle,' a delightful series of woodland piftures." 
 
 J, BAKER AND SON, CLIFTON. 
 
LYRICS AND ELEGIACS. 
 
 By the same Author. 
 
 Price 4J. net. 
 
 Extrafts from Reviews. 
 
 Scotsman. — " ' Lyrics and Elegiacs ' are such as tliis writer's former 
 poems liave led his readers to expe£l, poems of a genuine inspiration 
 marlced .by thoughtfulness and the studious merits. They sing of the 
 beauties of nature with some of Wordsworth's charm, and of human life 
 and character with purely artistic graces and felicities 5 at times they re- 
 call the stern poetry of Emerson. Work at once so thoughtful and so 
 beautiful is rare ^ and the book will be highly prized by those who can 
 appreciate it." 
 
 Puilisiers' Circular. — " Mr. Rickards has much feeling, some imagina- 
 tion, and considerable skill in the technique of versificaiion. He has, 
 too, that enviable power of saying much in a few simple words." 
 
 Nottingiam Guardian. — "Four collections of Mr. Rickards' previous 
 efforts have put the guinea stamp upon his work, and now comes a fifth. 
 Many of the pieces in ' Lyrics and Elergiacs ' are beyond the capabilities of 
 mere 'minor poets.' Their elevation of tone is admirably sustained, and 
 many of the themes are instinfl with a chastened beauty. Mr. Riclcards 
 is master of many metres and never untuneful. " 
 
 Bookman. — "There is far more of the stuff of poetry in Mr. Rickards' 
 volume than in nine-tenths of the minor verse of to-day. He has made 
 his verse out of his own life, a life of thinking and unafiefted feeling." 
 
 Glasgow Herald. — " A volume to which the admirers of this poet will 
 give a genial welcome. It is an earnest set of songs, pure in thought, 
 and high in moral tone. Mr, Rickards has wide sympathies, and, like 
 the best poets, he finds his themes in all the manifestations of nature and 
 human nature." 
 
 Westminster Review. — "The verse of Mr. Marcus Rickards sometimes 
 contains charming ideas. In illustration here is a stanza from an ' Ode 
 to a Redbreast ' in which two lines are really fine." 
 
 Saturday Review. — " ' Lyrics and Elegiacs ' is a volume of thoughtful 
 and refined verse, marked by a subdued tone of melancholy, and some 
 grace of expression. Mr. Rickards excels, perhaps, in the sober treatment 
 of themes that inspire meditation. He gives us odes to the latest primrose, 
 the redbreast, the violin, and other simple subjefls. His treatment of 
 them is pleasant and unaffe<5ted." 
 
 Liverpool Mercury. — "These poems are evidently the result of uncommon 
 powers of observation, and of deep thought : their musical quality is 
 delightful, and the topics dealt with involve much that is of enduring 
 interest." 
 
 Academy. — "Mr. Rickards out in the fields has sensations that miss 
 the drudging intelleft j the loveliness of flower and tree speak poetry to 
 him. He is earnest, thoughtful, and suggestive. There are hundreds of 
 lines that arrest. The book is abundantly interesting." 
 
 ^Birmingham Gazette. — " From the ' Ode to the Latest Primrose' we cull 
 these stanzas — lines of which Herrick, Crashaw, or Vaughan, need not 
 
 have been ashamed." 
 
 GEORGE BELL AND SONS, LONDON. 
 
POEMS OF LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 By the same Author. 
 Priqe 4J. dd. net. 
 
 Extra6ts from Reviews. 
 
 Times. — " A new volume by a singer whose love of birds and sympathy 
 with Nature inspires many a graceful strain." 
 
 Publishers' Circular. — " IWr. Rickards' work may be read with pleasure, 
 and many will return to it again and again. The series of charming 
 verses on our wild birds would have gained by being together." 
 
 Bookman. — " Mr, Rickards' poems are marked by clearness, melody and 
 good sense. Sometimes they just miss being very notable in expression. 
 They are very agreeable to read." 
 
 Scotsman. — "They maintain a tranquil level excellence of their own, 
 and they show a refinement, thoughtfulness, self-restraint, and skill in 
 verse-making such as cannot fail to excite the admiration of anyone who 
 can read the poen>s with sympathy." 
 
 Weekly Register. — "Mr. Rickards has more and better thought than goes 
 to the making of many popular poets ; and life and religion to him are 
 serious things, blended in everything of that Nature on which he loves to 
 meditate." 
 
 Literary World. — " Mr Rickards has a knack of redeeming his faults 
 by inserting in every one of his volumes fragmentary beauties that cause 
 him to be forgiven, ... A writer who displays the highest capability in 
 a hundred places. Consider this fragment for a moment. . . . The 
 idea is loveliness in perfe^ion. It is poetry of the finest order, of a quality 
 that the author dispenses generously." 
 
 Academy. — " Another book of poems by Mr. Rickards ; here again we 
 have the same strange union of strength with weakness, the unsupported 
 fragments of great beauty, the big effefl just missed by a hair's breadth. 
 Mr. Rickards indeed, in the matter of constant poetic feeling is certainly 
 superior to several of the tuneful gentlemen who enjoy a repute which 
 might be divided at least ten times by his." 
 
 North British Daily Mail. — "This volume of poems generally reaches a 
 high level of excellence." 
 
 Author. — "The poet is always pleasing and unafFefled. Those who 
 like simplicity in style, purity of thought, and rippling melody will find 
 these qualities in Mr. Marcus Rickards." 
 
 Dundee Advertiser. — " We have read with unqualified pleasure ' Poems 
 of Life and Death.' We hope to revert to it again and again to enjoy the 
 beautiful thoughts so rhythmically expressed. In every poem, and almost 
 in every verse there are not only felicity of phrase and richness of poetic 
 fancy, but originality of thought and wealth of suggestive idea," 
 
 GEORGE BELL AND SONS, LONDON, 
 
THE EXILES— A ROMANCE OF 
 LIFE. 
 
 By the same Author. 
 Price 4J. 6d. net. 
 
 Extrafts from Reviews, 
 
 Literary fforld. — " Mr. Marcus Rickards' poetical wqrks increase at a 
 steadier rate than those of any other of our bards. All who are acquainted 
 with the woric of Mr. Rickards know that they may confidently expeft 
 beauties of thought and di&ion in any book bearing his name. ' The 
 Exiles ' will not disappoint." 
 
 Northern ffiig. — " A writer who justly deserves a place above that of 
 the minor poets of our time. In his new volume ' The Exiles ' Mr. 
 Rickards is seen at his best and strongest as a poet." 
 
 Botkseller, — " Without entering into the strufiure of the story of Mr. 
 Rickards' poem, it is only fair to notice the high quality of much of his 
 verse. His descriptions of nature are quite Keatsian." 
 
 Scotsman, — "An impressive elevation of feeling is preserved throughout 
 the poem. . , . fulfilling in a sustained effort the high expe£la[ions raised 
 by Mr. Rickards' former colledions of less exafting lyrical poems." 
 
 Glasgow Herald. — " ' The Exiles ' is full of poetry, readers will find 
 glints and gleams of it in every page." 
 
 Birmingham Post. — " There are passages of great beauty in the volume, 
 and some of the lyrics are poignant and sweet." 
 
 Englishwoman. — " 'My Secret ' for instance, a sparkling little piece, 
 brilliant for its exquisite pictorial minuteness, argues a poet of genuine 
 inspiration." 
 
 Siueen. — "His lyrics are full of the love of Nature, which is his chief 
 inspiration." 
 
 British JVtekly. — "It might not be too much to say that here and 
 there they have something of ' the light that never was on sea or land.' " 
 
 Merdeen Free Press. — "This story is told in a number of different 
 measures, exhibiting in the correftness of rhythm and rhyme, in stanzas 
 too that are noted for their difficulties, a proof that the author is a poet of 
 the most painstaking kind. . The spirit of the poem bears a likeness to 
 that of the ' The Princess,' and a very considerable one to that of the 
 ' Faerie jjueen.' At his best he is very fine." 
 
 Perthshire Advertiser. — " Mr. Rickards is well known to all lovers of 
 modern English poetry as one of Nature's sweetest singers and most earnest 
 students. His former poems have already created for him a circle of true 
 admirers. The whole book is charafterised by fine insight, true poetic 
 power, artistic grace, and quiet subdued strength." 
 
 ffeslern Morning News. — " Here are felicity of expression, richness of 
 poetic fancy, and originality of idea in very pleasing combination, which 
 will go to make his book popular with the multitude." 
 
 GEORGE BELL AND SONS, LONDON. 
 
POEMS OF A NATURALIST. 
 
 By the same Author. 
 Price 4J. ()d. net. 
 Extrafts from Reviews. 
 Vestmimter Beviem. — " Many beautiful thoughts and happy notions are 
 :tered about this little boolc." 
 
 Sirmingham Post. — " The keynote to Mr. Riclcards' poetical genius may 
 round in some lines in a poem entitled 'My Pensioners.' Passionate 
 e of the seen, earnest speculation as to the unseen, find vocal and 
 sical utterance throughout a volume which bears on every page the 
 ication of a distinct and individual personality." 
 
 \Ianchester Guardian. — *'Mr, Marcus Rickards has an intense love of 
 ural beauty, uncommon power of description and keen and minute 
 ervation. He is a skilled versifier, and writes particularly well in 
 pETStic measures. Altogether this is a coUeflion of more than usual 
 ;rest." 
 
 batsman. — "The poems present a singularly equable accomplishment 
 ivorkmanship. They are always true to the Wordsworthian canons of 
 try, and while simple in di£tion, are never lacking in an elevated 
 ousness of thought. The book will confirm the admiration of those 
 
 know its author's former work." 
 
 Gloucester Journal. — ** Mr. Rickards uses words with that discrimination 
 
 1 economy which are among the marks of the literary artist. ' Nature's 
 )nder' reminds one strongly of a poem of Matthew Arnolds'. 'The 
 conciliation' is one of the gems of the book." 
 
 Dundee Advertiser. — "Mr. Rickards has the faculty of imparting to his 
 npositions an influence or charm which allures the reader from page to 
 e." 
 
 bookseller. — "We have hardly space to quote Mr. Rickards' verses as they 
 erve to be quoted at length ; but we willingly recognize his fluency, 
 entirely sympathise with his tastes." 
 Bristol Mercury. — " He has imagination and a power of description of no 
 an order." 
 
 liherdeen Tree Press. — " The dominant note is the author's passion for 
 ture, and he has in part given voice to it in a very musical and charming 
 l" 
 
 Jloucester shire Chronicle. — "For subtlety of thought, profound observation, 
 I beauty of metrical composition, the work will vie with anything 
 ich he has yet done." 
 
 Ihurch Bells. — " So rich and varied is the vein of thought that we appear 
 be at times in the company of the saintly Keble, or the pensive 
 )rd8worth," 
 
 Birmingham Gazette. — "He has a large store of poetic feeling and 
 gi nation." 
 
 'Merary World. — " No one, we presume, who has in times past partaken 
 the poetic abundance set forth for his acceptance by Mr. Marcus 
 kards, will be slow to welcome a fresh volume from the author of 
 ings of Universal Life.' He is blessed by a nature as earnest as it it 
 
BT THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 SONNETS AND REVERIES. 
 Price $!. 
 
 LYRICAL STUDIES. 
 Price 4J. net. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 J. BAKER AND SON, 
 
 Clifton.