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Cornell University Library 
 PR4878.L17S2 
 
 The scales of Heaven: poems narrative, I 
 
 3 1924 013 496 272 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013496272 
 
SHE Scales of 
 [Heaven: Poems, 
 Narrative, Legendary, 
 and Meditative, with 
 a few Sonnets. By 
 Frederick Langbridge. 
 
 Mors brevis, vita longa. 
 
 LONDON 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 62 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 
 
 1896 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 ilvi 
 
These are the things which I should like the 
 
 readers of my poor verses to find and to retain: — a 
 
 tolerance stumbling at nothing, and recognizing the 
 
 noble side of intolerance : a sympathy as wide and as 
 
 deep as human nature : a patient hope in that supreme 
 
 revelation to our time, the length of God's days and 
 
 ways : a living, growing faith, and, therefore, a faith 
 
 undergoing a constant process of waste and of renewal, 
 
 not a mummy assent, swathed and eviscerate, and 
 
 doomed to drop to dust at the first touch of outer 
 
 air — a faith which realizes behind the clouds and 
 
 thick darkness a divine Face, and which feels at the 
 
 burning heart of all inevitable, subduing, regenerating 
 
 Love. 
 
 Frederick Langbridge. 
 
 S. John's Rectory, Limerick, 
 June 1 8th, 1896. 
 
Contents. 
 
 LEGENDS AND TALES. 
 
 The Scales of Heaven - 3 
 
 The Curse of Cain - - - - - 21 
 
 How Pilate Washed his Hands - - - 33 
 
 The Unforgiven Sin - - - - - 41 
 
 Esau and the Angels ----- 49 
 
 The Vision of Rabbi Nathan - - - 55 
 
 Selim the Innocent - - - - - 61 
 
 The Narrow Way - - - - - 65 
 
 The Miser - - - - - - 71 
 
 The Ballad of the Babushka ~ ~ ~ 79 
 
 THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS. 
 
 The Choice ------ 89 
 
 That Which was Lost - - - - 94 
 
 The Loyal Heart 98 
 The Change - - - - - -100 
 
The Lonely Way - - - - -103 
 
 The Plough - - - - - - 105 
 
 Blessed are Ye that Hunger Now - - 109 
 
 Deity - - - - - - -in 
 
 The Two Crowns - - - - -112 
 
 The Daily Cross - - - - -116 
 
 The Birds' Sermon - - - - -118 
 
 The Little Wanderer - - - - -119 
 
 The Fisherman - - - - - -120 
 
 The Heart's Flowers - - - - - 122 
 
 Perfect Peace - - - - - 124 
 
 The Dark River - - - - - 125' 
 
 A Quiet Inn - - - - - -127 
 
 " Mother's Girlie " - - - - -131 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 Work-a-Day Weeds - - - - 137 
 
 Whatsoever a Man Soweth- - - - 138 
 
 Mors Immortalis - - - - -139 
 
 My Saint- ______ i^ 
 
 Paradisus Purgatorius- - - - - 141 
 
 The Devil's Bond - - - - - 142 
 
The Great Day- _____ i^,- 
 
 Sincerity - - - - - - -144 
 
 Lost - - - - - - -145 
 
 MEDITATIVE POEMS IN BLANK VERSE. 
 
 Pizarro's Line - - - - - -149 
 
 The Crown of Sorrows - - - - 154 
 
 Dumb Prophets - - - - 155 
 
 No Form nor Comeliness - - - - 156 
 
 Isolation - - - - - - -160 
 
 Sympathy- - - - - - - 165 
 
 Home - - - - - - -168 
 
 Failure - - - - - - 173 
 
 The Last Word * - - - - -179 
 Notes _______ j8ij 
 
Legends and Tales. 
 
THE SCALES OF HEAVEN. 
 
THE SCALES OF HEAVEN. 
 
 )HERE were twelve spirits newly come to Heaven, 
 ) The clear and azure June of whose deep eyes 
 I Large wonder misted yet ; and these were drawn, 
 | In woven sweetness, like a chain of flowers, 
 Round those true scales that pluck, the germ and soul 
 From the pufF'd shell of actions. Unto these 
 Spake the calm seraph set of God to mark 
 The judgment of the balance : " Ye that gaze, 
 Late-open'd blossoms on the spray of life, 
 Now shall ye read a little in the book 
 Of our wise Father's dealings ; for this day 
 He shall award to the best deed of earth 
 The dearest crown of Heaven." 
 
 Then, growing bold 
 At the bright warden's gracious look and word, 
 One that did roam a little child in Heaven 
 Question'd for all her fellows : " May we know, 
 O clear-brow'd warden, wherefore yonder spirit, 
 Whose face is veil'd, but from whose vesture shines 
 A light of stars and snow, and whose blest feet 
 Have trodden in the hush and dreamful down 
 Of river lilies, standeth there, with wings 
 
 5 
 
That quiver in a dim and golden haze, 
 Orbing for flight?" 
 
 " That blessed minister," 
 Answer'd the warden, " He whom God accounts 
 The gentlest pinion speeding on His will, 
 Beareth the prize when judged. But bend your eyes 
 Over the little earth, in yonder place, 
 For there a deed is doing that anon 
 These weights must balance." Down the cloudy steep 
 Glanced his bright finger, letting fall a ray 
 Like to a moted ladder of the sun, 
 And drawing with it, in a zone of stars, 
 The gaze of those young spirits. 
 
 Lo, a dome, 
 Into the massy courses of whose walls 
 A thousand years had built their hungering hearts 
 And every thought that rises : through whose lights 
 Day dropt in wine and jewels : piling now 
 A woodland darkness : lying here at rest 
 In smooth and lucent pools, and touching there 
 So tenderly a stone-wrought warrior's face 
 It seem'd transfigured by the inward glow 
 Of a rich vision ; steeping priestly robes 
 In lambent rainbows ; wreathing aureoles 
 6 
 
For all unsainted curls ; and breaking up 
 In bands of shade and freaks of pattern'd sun 
 A company thick-thousanded that sat 
 Still as one watcher o'er a sick man's rest, 
 With every nerve made hearing. 
 
 For a voice 
 As right as silence, an unmeasured voice, 
 That gather'd all the wonder of the stars, 
 And that old sorrow of the breaking sea, 
 And the wide whispering of the plumed night 
 And the deep heart, its brother, spake great words, 
 And words so true that each word as it fell 
 Smote with a poignant strangeness ; then did seem 
 Older than life and longing. Of large things 
 Largely he spake, of love and service, death, 
 And life, nursed at her bosom : of the shows 
 And shadowy seemings here, the verities 
 Kept for those eyes whose lids are shutter'd down 
 On dusty darkness : of the passionate rose 
 That pricks and fades, and the thorn-twisted crown 
 That buds with living roses. 
 
 Long he spake, 
 Laying a spell on every soul that heard, 
 Lifting the earthiest from the ruts and mire, 
 
And drawing finer spirits half-way on 
 To the soft curve of Heaven. A man stone-deaf 
 Sat with the thick tears drying on his cheeks 
 Moved by the face that spake. 
 
 At last the voice 
 Roll'd richly into silence, and, behold, 
 While mighty music wove its splendid coils, 
 The sermon rose to Heaven, and on the scales 
 Falling, demanded judgment. 
 
 " Light, too light," 
 Spake the recording spirit, " Yet to God 
 Surely no idle gift. Some baser stuff 
 Mix'd with the very gold ; else had that scale 
 Where burns the testing diamond waver'd up, 
 Out-balanced. Not at once upon the brows 
 Of that our second Chrysostom shall cling 
 High Heaven's consummate crown." 
 
 And on that word 
 One of those new-come spirits, whispering, said : 
 " ' Tho' I do speak as with an angel's tongue, 
 And have not charity, I am become 
 As sounding brass or as a tinkling cymbal.' 
 Some leaven of self-love, perchance, hath marr'd 
 The love that gave this gift." 
 8 
 
Down the steep sky 
 Pointed again the warden of the scales, 
 And lo ! his pointing was as white sea-wings 
 Silver'd with sunrise : and the watching twelve 
 Look'd and beheld. 
 
 In their black-panell'd hall 
 Sat the grey fathers of a gated town, 
 Nodding in council ; unto whom was brought, 
 And straightway read, a letter : 
 
 " I who write, 
 A solid merchant, freeman of your burgh, 
 Am mindful of a time when all one night 
 Of roaring March, your silent gusty streets, 
 White with cold moonshine, collied with the shade 
 Of timber'd upper stories, round whose tops 
 Clouds blew like sea-birds, with loud steps, I paced, 
 A hungry stripling planning wealthy schemes. 
 And, now those golden visions are minted coin, 
 Some tribute on her bounty would I pay 
 To the kind town that made me. Wherefore, Sirs, 
 Take that I send, and build therewith a lodge, 
 Open as God's own gates, with food and cheer, 
 To feet that press the night." 
 
 9 
 
And, when they knew 
 The greatness of the gift, those councillors 
 Stared, moon-struck, till at length there brake a cry, 
 " A King had bragg'd of half! " and thereupon 
 Among those quiet men uprose a shout 
 Such as had never shaken their old hall 
 Since it was known how God and the good sea 
 Had splinter' d Spain for firewood. In a breath 
 The news was buzzing down the alley'd streets, 
 Wetting hard eyes and kindling sallow cheeks, 
 Shaming the meanness out of little souls, 
 And making meagre earth a mellower sod 
 For hope and love to feed in. 
 
 Even then, 
 While sharp-chinn'd misers grasp'd each other's hand, 
 And talk'd of school-boy loves, past the stone cross, 
 With keen and kindly face and frosty hair, 
 Stepping about some business of the hour, 
 Went the rare deed's plain doer. " Ay," one said, 
 " A right King's gift : " and, " True," his friend replied : 
 " Give him a right King's welcome :" straight his hat 
 Swung to his knee, and — that example spread — 
 The old man pass'd down a long lane of neighbours, 
 Bareheaded all and silent, and the most 
 10 
 
Scarce seeing him for tears : so that folk said 
 No man within the living backward gaze, 
 And few among time's worthies, ever knew 
 Such ripe red-hearted homage. 
 
 1 Then the gift 
 
 Mounted to Heaven, and, falling on the scales, 
 Demanded judgment. 
 
 Firm the balance stood, 
 And scarce those gazing spirits check'd a cry, 
 " The poise is equal, and that prize is won, 
 The dearest crown of Heaven." 
 
 But in a while, 
 Lifting the shining sorrow of his face, 
 Spake the mild warden : " With the marts of men, 
 That which is written on this paper pass'd 
 For thrice a proud King's ransom. Mark its worth 
 On these heart-uttering scales, where it doth ride 
 Challenging Nothing, and the poise is just. 
 Light, light upon the weights, yea, lighter this 
 Than very vanity — an idle shred 
 Of empty paper." 
 
 Then the astonied twelve, 
 Scanning the writing, read but two bare words, 
 The writer's name, and* fitly ushering that, 
 
 U 
 
The flourish of a pen. And, on that sight, 
 She of the new-come angels, whispering, said: 
 " ' Tho* I give all my goods to feed the poor, 
 And have not charity, it profits me 
 Nothing.' " 
 
 Again down the sheer wall of Heaven 
 Pointed the bright Recorder of the scales, 
 And lo ! there fell a rain of melting stars, 
 And the young angels gazed. 
 
 On brazen shields 
 And brazen trumpets beat so fierce a sun, 
 It seem'd God's judgment-day had risen in wrath, 
 And all the swimming world was passing, fused 
 In a dim glaze of heat. And the swift light 
 Of mooned swords, and the great scarlet glare, 
 And the wild music's scream, wrought on the brain 
 A dancing madness. All the air was dead, 
 Save for the fans that shook like plumy birds 
 Dyed in the sunset. Only fitfully 
 Came a long shiver and heave, as of the sides 
 Of a huge beast that dies in agony. 
 
 Then there arose a shout, and lo! his hands 
 12 
 
Plaited before him, riding on a mule, 
 One was led forth and carried to a mound 
 And a squared platform. Him upon his feet 
 They lifted, midmost of the howling crowd, 
 And question'd him if yet he did repent 
 Of his foul words against the dreadful gods, 
 That crack the river-beds and make the air 
 A buzz of stinging death ! 
 
 Forth look'd the man 
 With a proud face and high, and, answering, said : 
 " There is no God but the great God of Heaven, 
 Whom I his servant preach to you, and Christ, 
 His pity stamp'd in clay. As for your Gods 
 Some be misshapen stocks, and other some 
 The wily blackness of the heart of Hell 
 Clothed with the lust ye love. Repent, believe, 
 Ere the quick anger of the Lord come down 
 And strike you into nothing." 
 
 On that word 
 They caught the man and bound him to a stake, 
 And, piling fagots round him, drew a spark 
 From splint and whirling steel, and set a torch, 
 And all the wrathful wood roar'd out in spires 
 And snaky coils and licking tongues of flame, 
 
 13 
 
And, while he cried on God with a loud voice, 
 The spirit of the man, like a white flame, 
 Shot up and pass'd. 
 
 Then one to other spake 
 Those watchers of the Heaven : " The prize is won, 
 And he shall take it here of God's own hand, 
 Even the Martyr's crown." 
 
 And lo ! therewith 
 A strong soul was among them, keen and clear, 
 As newly washen in the flood of life, 
 With rapt astonished eyes, wherein the pain 
 Still clung, a fading film, and him they gave 
 Greeting in Heaven. 
 
 Fast on the flashing feet 
 Of that bold martyr rose the martyrdom, 
 And fell for judgment on the crystal scales, 
 And he who wrought it stood with them that gazed, 
 And watch'd its trial by the weights of God. 
 
 Then for a little while the balances 
 Strove for the mastery, staggering to and fro, 
 But soon the diamond trembled to its rest, 
 And the deed rose, out-scaled ; and " Light, too light,' 
 Spake the recording seraph : " some alloy 
 Shames even this fine gold. Not for thy brows, 
 
 «4 
 
Spirit of flame and burning sword of God, 
 Elect and palmed martyr, is that gift, 
 High Heaven's consummate crown." 
 
 " Yea and Amen," 
 Answer'd God's witness, bending brow to knee 
 In adoration : " I, that hitherto 
 Dream'd of no lightness in the gift I gave, 
 Now rede where lightness dwelt. Words of quick flame 
 Lived on my lips, and the flame sprang not all 
 From love's enkindled heart. Of wrath divine 
 Much did I argue, grafting on my God 
 My pricks of petty spite : naming Him Love, 
 I show'd Him hate, and tetchy self-esteem, 
 And black and brooding gloom, feeding its heart 
 With a red dream of vengeance. In this cup, 
 The pouring forth of life in martyrdom, 
 Mingled fierce wrath and the blind bigot's joy, 
 As well as faith and holy constancy, 
 And God's own yearning for the gentle soul 
 He slowly fashion' d. Praise, eternal praise, 
 That this my mingled offering is not spurn'd, 
 Cast forth as evil. For some gentler brow 
 That crown whereof ye tell." 
 
 Again he bent, 
 
 *5 
 
Adoring, and that new-come angel spake : 
 " * Yea, tho' I give my body to be burn'd, 
 And have not charity, it profits me 
 Nothing.' " 
 
 Again the warden of the scales 
 Pointed to earth, and they who watch'd beheld 
 Rainbows that dawn'd and died : and, after that, 
 A city cellar, crowded with coarse lives, 
 Fetid and dank, and heavy with the reek 
 Of drink and smoke : and there were evil jests 
 And dreadful laughter. Into that safe earth 
 Burrow'd by human vermin, lo! there ran, 
 In limping wise, yet swiftly, a young lad, 
 Ancient as sin, wilted and wizen'd and warp'd 
 With ten black years, all winter : to his bare 
 Breast-bone, beneath his fringed and pennon'd rags, 
 Hugging a piece of offal newly claw'd 
 From some rank guest-house floor : and after him, 
 Drawn by the savour of the hidden meat, 
 A small dog of the city. Having crawl'd 
 To his close corner, darting here and there 
 Looks fierce and furtive, forth he brought the meat 
 And tore it with his glance. Yet ere his teeth 
 16 
 
Clash'd on the bite, his quick and roving eves 
 Lit on the dog beside him. Lank it was, 
 With ribs that hoop'd stark famine, and one foot 
 Dangled as broken. So the ravenous boy, 
 Owning superior hunger, rent the meat 
 And flung the dog a morsel. Then he thought 
 Himself to eat, but ere the bit could pass 
 His snarling lips, a paw was on his knee, 
 Urging remembrance. That piece too he flung, 
 And so went on feeding the gulping dog 
 Till all was given. Then on the sopping straw 
 The child lay down, and, curling close for warmth, 
 The dog beside him. And the wounded thing 
 Shiver'd and moan'd, lifting its paw in pain, 
 Till, tearing off a streamer of his rags, 
 The boy made shift to bind it. Eased at length, 
 His little trembling neighbour lick'd his face, 
 And thrust the sound foot fondly in the grasp 
 Of the strong patron. So they lay awhile, 
 Blest in each other's warmth and fellowship, 
 And soon were sleeping. 
 
 Then the deed arose 
 Mounting to Heaven, and, on the crystal scales 
 Falling, demanded judgment. And, behold! 
 Even as a stone that sinks in a clear well, 
 
 17 
 
Down dr^ve the scale that held it, and its peer 
 Flung up the outweighted diamond, and all Heaven 
 Shouted : " The crown is won ! " And ere that voice 
 Spread into rest, the angel of the lilies, 
 That tenderest of the messengers of God, 
 Sank down the sky, like a soft dream of snow, 
 Till, with the folding of his wings, there slid 
 Over the city roofs, a moony shimmer, 
 Smoothing the plumes of silence. 
 
 Suddenly 
 Within that cellar every jarring voice 
 Softened, and a gross ruffian to his mate, 
 Whisper 'd : " The snow is falling," and a girl 
 Who had the cruel city-stones for bread 
 Let her eyes cloud, and murmur'd in a trance, 
 " Home, home ! what makes me think of home to-night, 
 And that tall lily in the little bed 
 Shaped like a heart ? " 
 
 With that a murderer rose, 
 And, stepping softly over the wet stones, 
 Gazed on those two that slept — the ragged child 
 And the hurt dog. " How fast he sleeps, how fast," 
 Moan'd the pale watcher, " God, to sleep like that! 
 Look how he smiles." 
 
 And then a woman spake : 
 18 
 
" Play-acting has he been. See what he wears 
 Circling his brow." 
 
 Meanwhile on tip-toe tread, 
 In a strange silence, all the company 
 Had gather'd round the sleeper. 
 
 " 'Tis a crown," 
 Whisper'd that poor girl of the tarnish'd name, 
 "A crown of twisted thorns." 
 
 Then spake a thief, 
 Gazing behind her : " Snow, the snow again ! 
 Look, how it shines." 
 
 " Not snow, it was not snow," 
 Answer'd the girl : " Right up the sky it pass'd — 
 Something — I know not what. Ah me ! ah me ! 
 That tall white lily!" 
 
 And in Heaven they stood, 
 Gazing. 
 
 " And that," in a soft musing, spake 
 
 She of the new-come spirits, " is our God's 
 
 Best gift and crown." 
 
 The warden of the scales 
 Bow'd his bright head, and answer'd : " Yea, Amen, 
 " And God Himself wears even such a crown." 
 
 19 
 
THE CURSE OF CAIN. 
 
THE CURSE OF CAIN. 
 
 iHE sun's round eye glared in the sky, 
 
 And its eye was red : 
 I The river of Gihon gurgled by 
 
 With a clotting dread. 
 A shivering horror curdled cold 
 
 Thro' brake and bough. 
 The berries, whiter than milk of old, 
 Were scarlet now. 
 
 There was something white that upward flew 
 
 Like a windy flame : 
 There was something red that steam'd and grew 
 
 A cry, a Name : 
 There was something bare, with a dogging stare, 
 
 Always the same. 
 
 Cain thrust his arm across his eyes : 
 
 The red knife fell : 
 There came a sob from the crimson skies, 
 
 And a laugh from Hell. 
 He heard, above, the red reek call 
 
 With a whinnying "scream : 
 
 He felt at his feet the red drip crawl 
 
 In a clogging stream. 
 
 23 
 
There are fire and darkness above the trees, 
 
 A wrathful p|ace, 
 Where there used to gleam, with the twilight breeze," 
 
 A light, a Face. 
 There is a Voice that cleaves apart 
 
 The piled gloom, 
 Low on the ear, and loud on the heart, 
 
 And uttering doom : 
 
 " In the happy field where ye laugh'd and play'd 
 
 In the wind and sun, 
 In the holy field where ye knelt and pray'd 
 
 When the day was done, 
 By stealth, O Cain, thou hast smitten and slain 
 
 Thy mother's son. 
 
 " Behold the stain that crusts thy hand 
 
 Where the blood hath dried! — 
 Scour as thou wilt with water and sand, 
 
 That stain shall abide. 
 Behold the hate in thy heart blood-red ! — 
 
 On thy brow shall it stand ; 
 It shall glare in thine eyes, a darkness, a dread, 
 
 A doom, a brand. 
 24 
 
" I call no pest from the east or the west, 
 
 Thy life to fray ; 
 The bale and blight of thy soul of night 
 
 On thy soul I lay. 
 Go forth : thou hast sown, and water'd, and grown— 
 
 Now eat alway." 
 
 Cain heard and look'd. To the river's brim 
 
 The grass grew rank : 
 The lark dropt dead at the glance of him ; 
 
 The lily shrank ; 
 But, strangling a blasted yew's mid-height, 
 
 The serpent clung ; 
 Its coils were dight with a splendid light, 
 And its eye like a fire did sting and smite, 
 And it lick'd his body wherever it might 
 
 With fondling tongue. 
 
 Cain set his arm to blind the stare 
 
 Of the eyes on the ground. 
 He was not aware of a woman there 
 
 With locks unbound. 
 He was not aware of a tear-drown'd face 
 
 To his garment set : 
 He did not feel, as he left the place, 
 
 That his hand was wet. 2 c 
 
For years and years of bitter breath 
 
 Cain went his way. 
 Long dead was Adam, and dead was Seth, 
 
 And his grand-child grey, 
 And a common face was the face of death, 
 
 Met every day. 
 
 Cities were now with castled walls, 
 
 Where hammers rang ; 
 And, mingling its blast with the linnet's calls, 
 
 The trumpet sang ; 
 And war rode out, with the chieftain's shout, 
 
 And the armour's clang. 
 
 Cain pass'd, and the thick and roaring mart 
 
 Was hush'd and lone : 
 The robber that leapt to smite his heart 
 
 Dropt with a moan : 
 The two-year child that peep'd and smiled 
 
 Grew wizen and weak : 
 The dying saint in his rapturous calm, 
 Hymning fair death in a golden psalm, 
 
 Died with a shriek. 
 26 
 
The heart of Cain was old and frore, 
 
 And his force was quell'd ; 
 And the hair of Cain was long and hoar, 
 
 Tangled and fell'd. 
 And passing men that look'd at him 
 
 Did clear their sight, 
 Then glance again, in a wonder dim 
 
 That his hair was White. 
 
 Weary was Cain and weak and numb, 
 
 And his faded eye 
 Told that his season long had come 
 
 To drop and die. 
 But he heard the blood of his brother cry 
 
 As it cried anon, 
 And the gleam leapt up in his sunken eye, 
 
 And he still lived on. 
 
 But he knew at length — at length he knew — 
 
 That his will must yield. 
 His gaze was mist, and his feet thereto 
 
 Stumbled and reel'd. 
 There were dusky wings that troubled the air, 
 
 Crowding his track, 
 And he felt their eyes in a clutching stare, 
 
 Tho' he look'd not back. 
 
 27 
 
" I will creep afar," he whisper'd his soul, 
 " From the Cursed ground. 
 
 I will find that shore where the sea doth roll 
 On earth's last bound. 
 
 I shall have most might with the fiends to fight, 
 
 Furthest from where the steel did bite, 
 And the red snake wound." 
 
 He made, with a will that would not swerve, 
 
 For a lone sea-shelf; 
 But ever his step did turn and curve 
 
 In on itself. 
 His force was the force of a windlestraw 
 
 In a whirlpool thrown ; 
 For a secret power did suck and draw 
 
 To a goal unknown. 
 
 He turn'd him whither the strange power drew, 
 
 And his eye did rest 
 On a sunny nook where white flowers grew, 
 
 A verdurous nest, 
 Favour'd of beam and wind and dew, 
 
 Apart and blest. 
 28 
 
He urged his pace to that bower of grace i 
 
 His strength was low : 
 The dews of death were damp on his face, 
 
 And he scarce could go. 
 He felt the last throe tear and rip ; 
 He held his soul with tooth and lip ; 
 The fiends did whine like hounds in the slip 
 
 When they scent a doe. 
 
 He set his foot in the bowery place ; 
 
 He stagger'd and fell : 
 The fiends closed round on the soul in chase 
 
 With laugh and yell. 
 His eyes did glaze in a dread amaze : 
 The place was changed from the olden days, 
 
 But he knew it well. 
 
 " Lord God," he mutter'd, " Thy way is just, 
 
 And Thine arm is long : 
 Thro' a thousand miles of desert dust 
 
 And of city throng, 
 Thou hast drawn me back to the field and the flood 
 
 Where Abel died : 
 The voice and cry of my brother's blood 
 
 Are satisfied. 
 
 29 
 
" And yet, O God — I know not why — 
 
 There sounds in my ears 
 No drip of blood on the sward hereby, 
 
 But a plash of tears. 
 My soul is a wolf that gets no grace, 
 
 Yet lo ! this day, 
 Tho* my prayer drive back and sting my face, 
 
 I needs must pray." 
 
 His jaw fell wide ; his spirit fled — 
 
 With riot and din, 
 With a windy rush of pinions spread, 
 
 The fiends brake in. 
 Then back they drave ; for they were aware 
 Of a woman in raiment white and fair 
 That clasp'd and bore thro' the halo'd air 
 
 The man of sin. 
 
 Then, hushing all, a Voice did fall, 
 
 A Voice of snow : 
 " Back to the pit whence ye did flit, 
 
 Black wings of woe. 
 The spirit of Cain doth now attain 
 
 To the land of rest. 
 He sinketh deep in a drift of sleep 
 
 On his mother's breast. 
 
 3° 
 
" Lo, in Mine ears the blood and the tears 
 
 Did plead and pray ; 
 But the strong tears gush'd till the blood was hush'd, 
 
 And sank away. 
 No soul wherefor a soul doth weep 
 
 From grace is cast ; 
 For deep must answer the calling deep, 
 
 And he comes at last." 
 
 3i 
 
HOW PILATE WASHED HIS HANDS. 
 
HOW PILATE WASHED HIS HANDS. 
 
 I PLATE'S face is sharp and white, 
 
 Sharp and fever-eyed : 
 ' He gets but little grace o' night 
 
 Since his sweet lady died. 
 
 " Bring lights, bring lights, and a boy that sings, 
 
 Bring lights and wine," he said : 
 Then scared the young lad with a frown, 
 And struck both cup and flagon down : 
 " Is no white wine in all the town 
 
 That alway my draught is red ? 
 
 " Nay, never weep, my pretty child ! 
 
 Thy lute hath golden strings : 
 But we that sit in the ivory chair 
 
 Are vex'd with many things. 
 
 " Thy hand on Claudia's troubled eyes 
 
 The down of dreams did shake. 
 What cause was hers to gaze and start, 
 
 That had a lily for a heart ? 
 She was a leafy soul apart : 
 
 I love thee for her sake. 
 
 35 
 
" When thou art come to noon-day years, 
 
 And wear'st a pucker'd brow, 
 And canst not shed so easy tears 
 
 As wet thy soft cheek now, 
 If thy dear wife should crave a boon, 
 Remember she may leave thee soon, 
 
 And her sweet prayer allow. 
 
 " A governor harks to every voice, 
 Nor follows his own sole rede — 
 
 God's curse on Annas' snarling jaw ! 
 
 God's curse on Caiaphas' velvet paw! 
 God's blight on all the breed ! 
 
 " Let the blood be red on the pillow, 
 And red within the cup, 
 
 And red on the hands they stretch in prayer- 
 Red fire to burn them up. 
 
 " Where is the basin ? " Pilate said, 
 
 And put his ring aside : 
 " The hands, I swear, be never fair 
 
 This dusty Summer tide." 
 
 36 
 
The young lad dropp'd the rosewater 
 
 In a ewer of beaten gold : 
 Then over against the couch he stands 
 And pours the water on Pilate's hands, 
 
 Sparkling, sweet, and cold. 
 
 Pilate dealt the boy a blow : 
 " Where fill'd ye yonder ewer? 
 
 In all this kennel of filthy Jews 
 Is never a fountain pure, 
 
 That still ye bring me clotted ooze 
 Red from the shamble sewer? " 
 
 Slowly the stare fell off and grew 
 
 Into a listening look : 
 The sleeve across his face he drew, 
 
 And all the broidery shook. 
 
 * * # # * 
 
 Pilate hath craven Cassar's grace 
 
 To lay his lordship down, 
 For he hath gotten enow of wealth, 
 And haply rest shall bring him health : 
 Pilate buys him a house by stealth 
 
 Up by the white alp's crown. 
 
 37 
 
Pilate look'd on the frozen snow, 
 
 So broad and bright that lay : 
 
 Pilate sigh'd and clear'd his brow : 
 
 " I shall have water pure enow, 
 
 And I will wash my hands, I vow, 
 
 Seven times seven each day." 
 
 They fill'd the basin with virgin snow : 
 
 Pilate laves and sighs : 
 " On yonder scar the soil is red : 
 Or the sunset's burning shaft," he said, 
 
 " Doth flicker on mine eyes." 
 
 There cometh word of a holy well 
 That springs among the sands : 
 
 Pilate fetcheth water thence 
 That he may wash his hands. 
 
 There cometh word of a costly shrine 
 In a sunny white-wall'd town, 
 
 Wherein, before the crown of thorns, 
 The pilgrim folk fall down : 
 
 Pilate selleth the half his goods, 
 And buyeth the thorny crown. 
 
 38 
 
He hath grown very gentle now ; 
 
 He doth not strike or chide ; 
 But alway, alway he washeth his hands 
 
 By morn and eventide. 
 
 To every wandering beggar wight 
 
 He giveth drink and meat, 
 And ever before the board is dight 
 
 He washeth the poor man's feet. 
 
 One night, when gusty bells did clang, 
 
 The night of Christmastide, 
 There came a little barefoot boy 
 
 From wanderings lone and wide. 
 
 Pilate wash'd the bleeding feet, 
 
 Wash'd and dried them well, 
 Cool'd them with ointment rich and sweet, 
 
 While great tears o'er them fell. 
 
 And when, at length, the pretty head 
 
 Nodded deep and deep, 
 Pilate bore the boy to bed, 
 
 Crown'd with holy sleep, 
 And kept such watch 1 about the bed 
 
 As tender mothers keep. 
 
 39 
 
Morning broke, and Pilate's folk 
 
 About their service come : 
 In the doorway each one stands, 
 Lifting high astonied hands, 
 
 Staring wild and dumb. 
 
 Cold and grey, old Pilate lay, 
 
 Cold and grey and dead : 
 The crown of thorns with redden'd spray 
 
 Did fret his rimy head : 
 His hands, as white as buds of may, 
 
 Were cross'd upon the bed. 
 
 Nigh to his reach a basin stands, 
 
 A towel new-damp'd also : 
 One whispers, " Hath he wash'd his hands? 
 
 The water is pure as snow." 
 
 40 
 
THE UNFORGIVEN SIN. 
 
THE UNFORGIVEN SIN. 
 
 ^MS|HE sin I had wrought I knew right well 
 
 I Would sink ten souls in bottomless hell ; 
 
 I I pray'd, and my prayer drave back from the skies, 
 JDust in my teeth and brine in my eyes. 
 
 I had a wife — a soul, ah me ! 
 Tender and pure as lilies be. 
 Her bosom dried up, her cheeks fell in, 
 Breathing and lying beside my sin. 
 
 The death in her eyes began to yearn ; 
 I knew she would go when the night did turn. 
 I knelt and pray'd to her sharpening face, 
 As drowning men to the Mother of Grace : 
 
 " Your spirit chafes — it will not stay ; 
 But one more wrench and it breaks away. 
 The gates for you wide-open stand, 
 And Christ leans forward to take your hand. 
 
 " Oh, when you come so near, so near, 
 He cannot turn aside His ear ; 
 Weary Him ever, and take no nay, 
 To let my sin be purged away. 
 
 43 
 
" Greer 
 
 ,#ng on earth, all bent and old, 
 
 dry bleach'd bones in the wormy mould, 
 
 dT feeding hell's fire with my unburnt sins, 
 
 ^Send me a sign that His grace begins." 
 
 Her fingers press'd, her long arm fell ; 
 Her face was a beautiful thin sea-shell. 
 I felt the poplars shake and sigh, 
 And the darkness move as her soul went by. 
 
 My goods to feed the poor I sold ; 
 
 I mated with none save hunger and cold ; 
 
 Daily my back with the scourge I tore, 
 
 And my knees with praying were lame and sore. 
 
 I took my staff within my hand ; 
 I journey'd afoot through many a land ; 
 Frost and fire by bitter turn 
 Into my bones did bite and burn. 
 
 I came to a town where the skies were sick, 
 And the mottled air was curdled thick ; 
 The doors stood wide, and the whole had fled, 
 And the dying were left to bury the dead. 
 
 44 
 
The air I breathed was plague-struck breath, 
 My light was the glare in the eyes of death ; 
 Black lips I cleansed from the oozy gout, 
 And writhen bodies I straighten'd out. 
 
 Spotted like toads the corpses lay ; 
 I carried them one by one away ; 
 Under the blurr'd and blister'd sun 
 Slowly I buried them one by one. 
 
 But there came no sign, and I rose again, 
 And wander 'd on with the heart of Cain, 
 Tending on beggars and wights forlorn, 
 And glad if my wages were blows and scorn. 
 
 I was fain of the stocks and the rotting cell ; 
 Full sweet on my back the scourging fell ; 
 I drank of the gutter, and had for fare 
 What offal the dogs of the town might spare. 
 
 Ever and ever I wandered on ; 
 
 I came to a leper town anon ; 
 
 And there I dwelt till the years were nine, 
 
 Hoarding my flakes and waiting a sign. 
 
 45 
 
Scaly and crippled and blear of sight, 
 Shrunken and bent to half my height, 
 A loathing and sore in the eyes of men, 
 I finish'd my three-score years and ten. 
 
 Then I knelt me down and lifted my eyes 
 Up to the hard and brazen skies, 
 Crying, " O God, I am sure this day 
 My sin shall never be purged away. 
 
 " Thine eye, O God, of a surety knows 
 My foulness, my fasting, my stripes and blows, 
 These years that I might have lain soft in bed, 
 And pour'd my wine and broken my bread. 
 
 " Men have I seen whose sin was great 
 Turning to Thee when the time was late, 
 And, after light penance and dole of alms, 
 Ending in triumph, yea, fill'd with psalms. 
 
 " Yea, I have seen the robber rest 
 With hands laid cross-wise over his breast, 
 And peace on his forehead as dear and deep 
 As comes to the babe in his chrisom sleep. 
 46 
 
" I blame Thee not, who am sores and dust ; 
 Yea, God Thou art and Thy way is just — 
 Tho' my prayer is made gall these fifty years, 
 And mine eyes are baked that they shed no tears. 
 
 " My sin abideth. Amen, I say : 
 
 Burn me in hell for ever and aye ; 
 
 Yet once and no more Thy gates undo 
 
 The space of an inch that this prayer come thro'. 
 
 " Grant that my sin, whose buds were sweet, 
 Whose fruit in loathing my soul must eat, 
 Have power to turn one sinner's face, 
 That he come not down to my woful place." 
 
 I spake, and behold ! the skies were blue ; 
 Mine eyes were wet with a blessed dew ; 
 While a hand stretch'd over the vault afar 
 And kindled the light of the evening star. 
 
 Pardon'd, yea, pardon'd ! behold the sign ! 
 God, was this tender spirit mine? 
 My sin had slipp'd from my wither'd soul 
 As a slough from a serpent, and left me whole. 
 
 47 
 
And now I am bathed in the good God's smile : 
 Sweet death shall come in a little while, 
 And my soul shall pass through the shining gates 
 As white as the soul of my love who waits. 
 
 48 
 
ESAU AND THE ANGELS. 
 
ESAU AND THE ANGELS. 
 
 !ED Esau sat and watch'd the sunset flame, 
 [And to the tent, behold! a Stranger came, 
 'Clad in a simple weed, but with an eye 
 [That both could melt and kindle terribly. 
 
 And Esau kept his seat, and made no bow, 
 
 But, frowning, question'd him : " Whence comest thou ? ' 
 
 " From God," he answer'd, and the great word fell 
 As tho' the Vision in the Name did dwell. 
 
 " Despatch thine errand," Esau then made scoff, 
 " For every knave that hath been scourged off, 
 In lack of other hope to gnaw a crust, 
 Doth take God's service : brief, if speak thou must." 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord," that other made reply, 
 (And Esau sought and could not meet his eye), 
 " Because to Me thou dost not give the praise, 
 Nor seek unto My face, nor go My ways, 
 But all thy heart is very far from Me, 
 Not thine, but Jacob's, shall the birthright be." 
 
 Then Esau strove a bitter jest to break, 
 But the jest stuck : and in a while he spake : 
 
 5i 
 
" God's knee is on my breast : I strive in vain : 
 Yet are His dealings neither just nor plain." 
 
 " Wherein, O Esau! hath He dealt amiss? " 
 
 And Esau, darkening, answer'd : " Lo, in this. 
 My brother talks with angels : they are sent, 
 Making mild morning in the midnight tent, 
 To fray what moves in darkness from his sleep : 
 And in the noontide, lo ! his shelter'd sheep 
 Burn as with fire, and all the watersprings 
 Wash golden 'neath the rushing sphered wings. 
 Thus fares it with smooth Jacob : while to me 
 (Who well might snap my brother on my knee 
 As one snaps sticks) — to me, the firstborn son, 
 No angel cometh. Say, is this well done? " 
 
 To whom the other answer'd : " Thou, whom God 
 Scoop'd from the ground and kneaded to a clod, 
 And warm'd thee with the heat from out His hand, 
 Which cooling, thou shalt crumble back to sand : 
 Thus saith the God that form'd thee : ' Peevish Dust, 
 My ways are equal and thy ways unjust. 
 Thou who dost answer Me, and chide, and say, 
 
 52 
 
" To me no angel cometh," lo ! this day 
 Three of the holy ones that see my face 
 I sent to thee with messages of grace, 
 And thou didst answer roughly.' " 
 
 Then in awe 
 And wonder Esau : " Angel, none I saw ; 
 I pray thee tell me when this chanced, and how." 
 
 The Man made answer : " First, when there did bow 
 A woman, saying, ' Lo ! thy wife hath borne 
 A maiden child,' and thou didst laugh in scorn. 
 The second time, when from the herdsmen ran, 
 Glancing behind him, a scared, panting man, 
 Crying : ' My Lord, the while the camels fed 
 The tribes brake on thy servants, and we fled, 
 But some are hit with arrows, and are slain, 
 And of the camels scarcely ten remain.' 
 The third time, when a beggar, trembling sore, 
 And leprous, falling here within the door, 
 Craved food, to prop his weekness for the way, 
 And thou didst rise and smite him that he lay." 
 
 So spake the Man, and lo ! while yet he spake, 
 An awful brightness from his raiment brake, 
 
 S3 
 
And round his feet a ring of giory shone 
 And quiver'd, and, behold, the Man was gone. 
 
 Then Esau, falling flat, sent forth a cry : 
 *' Lo ! I have look'd on God, and I must die ! " 
 
 54 
 
THE VISION OF RABBI NATHAN. 
 
THE VISION OF RABBI NATHAN. 
 
 }HE creeping incense misted all the air 
 With spices, and the people bow'd in prayer. 
 The Rabbi Nathan kneeling in his place, 
 ( (A prison'd angel look'd out of his face) 
 As the slow shaken waves did lap and roll, 
 Felt a deep drowse fall muffling all his soul. 
 Thicker above him did its circles draw, 
 Until his spirit (for he slept not) saw 
 As one that stands upon the ocean bed 
 Sees thro' the glimmering greenness overhead 
 Wash'd weeds that fall and flicker on the eye, 
 And floating rocks and a faint wavering sky. 
 Then did the dimness furl away and pass, 
 And his clear spirit was as burning brass, 
 And that invisible world that everywhere 
 Is pour'd around us like a finer air, 
 Threw on its lucent face reflections true, 
 And to this shape the Rabbi's vision grew. 
 
 The time and place were such as they had been, 
 Nor any change had touch'd the very scene. 
 'Neath the white clouds of incense, slowly borne, 
 The congregation bow'd like rain-laid corn. 
 But lo ! before the Rabbi's purged eyes 
 
 57 
 
Their prayers as breath in frosty air did rise ; 
 Or as the soul from lips death leaves agape 
 Slips lightly forth, a moted fluctuant shape. 
 Yea, and the air did vibrate, flash and sing, 
 As when a snow of seabirds, wing on wing, 
 Doth rise, and sweep, and blot the sun awhile, 
 From, some grey, desolate, wave-wasted isle. 
 Past palmy pillar and thro' massy beam, 
 They soar'd and floated lightly as a dream. 
 But when they met the blue sky's arched spring, 
 Even as a dove that drops with broken wing, 
 Lo, prayer on prayer did roll and shoot and fall, 
 Heaven's gate just touch'd, but enter'd not at all. 
 And Nathan, gazing, to this truth did win — 
 They might not pass because of fleshly sin 
 That clung and weigh'd them down. 
 
 Some prayers again 
 Up to the cedarn roof did scarce attain, 
 Then, beaten back, in wandering wreaths they went, 
 Creeping away as each might find a vent. 
 And of these thwarted prayers the greater part 
 Rose from a cumber 'd, lucre-loving heart. 
 
 Yea, and some prayers drave back on them that spoke, 
 Blinding the eyes with bitter poisonous smoke, 
 
 5 8 
 
Clogging the throat, and breeding sores within. 
 And Nathan knew the fierce and festering sin 
 That made these prayers to rankle in the soul, 
 A spreading foulness, not a making-whole, 
 Was some old hatred, deep, and black and fell, 
 Housed in the heart, and loved and tended well. 
 
 Yet, here and there, behold, a prayer arose 
 And pierced the sky, and caught soft sunshot glows, 
 And, melting, broke in drops of healing dew. 
 
 And now from out the heart of Heaven there drew, 
 An arm, a glory, great and very bright, 
 That flash' d as some swift star that cleaves the night, 
 And in a golden vial quaintly wrought 
 The dropping nardy dews that great arm caught. 
 Then, where the very Heavens shrank away, 
 From the dread splendour quick with fiery spray, 
 The burning void that God's own feet had made, 
 That arm stretch'd forth, and lo ! the prayers were laid. 
 
 Then Nathan fell and lay upon his face, 
 And spoke not, thought not, stirr'd not from his place, 
 But let his soul flow out upon the air 
 In ecstasy too deep for praise or prayer. 
 
 59 
 
SELIM THE INNOCENT. 
 
SELIM THE INNOCENT. 
 
 ION," saith old Hafiz, calm, austerely mild, 
 To little Selim, brown Mustapha's child, 
 " While but an eye-blink I did turn my head, 
 Certain fair apples, gold and dusky-red, 
 Spying their chance, slipt lightly from my stall : 
 Pass'd they this way, I pray thee, some or all ? " 
 
 " Ah," saith the boy, with gentle, wounded gaze, 
 " Thou mockest me, misdoubting of my ways. 
 O strap of Truth's own sandal ! (tears will rise) 
 In Selim's care safe were thy merchandise. 
 Ill boys there be — and no great way from hence — 
 Given to spoil and apt to violence : 
 Stones do they cast, yea, and they brawl and smite, 
 But in their counsels I have no delight — 
 A gracious boy, and such as one may teach, 
 And like to shining glass in all my speech." 
 
 " Yet," answers Hafiz, with a clouding brow, 
 " Yonder my apples lay, and lie not now, 
 And, save thyself, no creature " — 
 
 " Ah, my woe ! 
 Thou doubtest little Selim ! even so ; 
 Selim is doubted, named of some ' the good ! ' 
 Yet would I prove my whiteness if I could. 
 
 *3 
 
Eye-tooth in Judgment's jaw, let truth be tried ! 
 Behold my sleeves — no apples do they hide : 
 Naught in my bosom bulgeth ! " 
 
 Candid soul ! 
 He lifts his arms and — forth the apples roll! 
 
 Friend (if a moral flounce the stuff allow) 
 Be we not quick to censure, I and thou ; 
 Lest in our speech rebuke to vice we dole, 
 While in our actions — -forth the apples roll. 
 
 64 
 
THE, NARROW WAY. 
 
THE NARROW WAY. 
 
 JN thro' the buzzing streets doth Hassan fare, 
 Black Hassan, with his jars of earthenware ; 
 On past the mosque with piebald minaret 
 I Keen as a blade against the blue sky set. 
 Past the small cells where sit the merchant-folk, 
 Each 'neath his lid, cross-legg'd, and wreathed in smoke ; 
 First past the row of such as trade in silk — 
 Golden as honey, smooth and white as milk — 
 And hushful carpets and rich-mingled rugs ; 
 Then past the row of them that simmer drugs, 
 Where all the air like a rich memory grows 
 With myrrh and sandal, ambergris and rose ; 
 And past the seat of him that graveth charms, 
 Circling the mighty Name that shields from harms. 
 
 Movement and glow, soft shadow, gilded light! 
 Turban and fez, brown skin and black and white, 
 Shimmer of silk, and blaze of burning brass, 
 And sound of anklets tinkling as they pass ! 
 
 Here be veil'd ladies, girls that bear in crates 
 Soft pink-foot doves, or drums of figs or dates, 
 Gaunt scowling tribesmen of the bare Soudan, 
 And mild-eyed merchantmen from Ispahan. 
 The driver shouts, the water-vendor cries, 
 
 67 
 
The blind man sits and rolls his sacred eyes ; 
 Yonder a cut-purse plies his nimble toil, 
 And there a conjuror wears a snaky coil ; 
 While the tall camel bares his yellow teeth, 
 And lifts his chin in scorn of all beneath. 
 
 On thro' the hubbub, thick with jostling schemes, 
 Fareth Black Hassan, nursing golden dreams. 
 Hardly he wots, one hand upon his tray, 
 His feet have enter'd now the narrow way, 
 Where the broad tide of life that smoothly coursed 
 Grows turbid, down this cramping channel forced, 
 Whose jutting windows one to other lean, 
 Pinching the wide sky to a slit between. 
 He hears his marriage music squeal and beat, 
 And crash triumphant down the lantern'd street ; 
 He starts — the ware lies shatter'd at his feet. 
 
 Black Hassan stares, then lifts his hands to chide ; 
 He stops and turns — one speaketh at his side. 
 A sheykh it is, white-hair'd and apt to teach. 
 " Feed not," he saith, " ill hap with evil speech. 
 Give praise to Allah, and, with patient soul, 
 Lift of the vessels such as yet be whole. 
 
 " And mark, my son, this alley, named the Strait, 
 68 
 
Hath for its mouth a straiter arch and gate, 
 Where camels wedge — yea, man and mule and ass 
 Must often loose their lading ere they pass. 
 
 " Therefore, when next this narrow way thou tread, 
 Carry a lesser load upon thy head : 
 Yea, and, I rede thee, do not hither bear 
 Freightage of perishing and brittle ware : 
 And see, my son, thou keep a heedful eye, 
 That marks thy going well and warily. 
 So shalt thou mourn no more these rubs of fate, 
 But safely thread the way and pass the gate." 
 
 He ends : and lo ! a voice from calmer air : 
 " God is most great ; come ye to pray'r, to pray'r." 
 
 69 
 
THE MISER. 
 
THE MISER. 
 
 )HERE was a poor old soul that sat 
 Without the roaring city, 
 
 I And caught within a dinted hat 
 The crumbs of passing pity. 
 
 One day they missed him from his place, 
 
 And straight, with jubilation, 
 Another of the begging race 
 
 Annexed the favoured " station." 
 
 But that damp hole whereto at night 
 
 The palsied scarecrow shuffled 
 Sent forth no smoke, and flung no light, 
 
 Lay dark, and dumb, and muffled. 
 
 The children clustered round the door, 
 
 And, later on, the older ; 
 Then, having thumped his knuckles sore, 
 
 One burst it with his shoulder. 
 
 The walls were sobbing : well- they knew 
 What draught, and rot, and rain, meant ; 
 
 The rats had gnawed the hat, in lieu 
 Of choicer entertainment. 
 
 73 
 
Ah ! there the master sat, in state ! 
 
 The knee the chin was meeting ; 
 One hand hung stiffly o'er the grate 
 
 That not a stick was heating. 
 
 The jaw had dropt ; the mouth was wide ; 
 
 The blear eyes half-unshuttered. 
 One laid his hand upon the side, 
 
 And ";Dead! — stone-dead!" he muttered. 
 
 With that the youngsters raced and ran 
 To fetch the-first physician. . . . 
 
 " Yes, dead," pronounced the learned man : 
 " A case of inanition. 
 
 " In other words " (the doctor smiled), 
 
 " He died of sheer starvation ! " 
 Then round him rose a hubbub wild 
 
 Of harsh-voiced indignation. 
 
 " Starved. Starved ! " " And in a Christian land ! " 
 
 " For want of one poor copper ! " 
 The doctor gloved his plump white hand, 
 
 And murmured, " Most improper ! " 
 
 74 
 
He bowed and left. The uproar loud 
 
 Was rising into riot, 
 When^. at a voice from out the crowd, 
 
 There fell a sudden quiet. 
 
 " If Jack was starved, why, lads, I say, 
 
 It's rather more than funny. 
 I know for certain yesterday 
 
 He took a power of money." 
 
 Then heads were nodded : every man 
 
 Than all the rest was wiser. 
 " I told you so," the murmur ran : 
 
 " A miser, sir ! a miser ! " 
 
 " He might have had a golden bed, 
 
 And golden step and scraper ;" 
 " And hung the walls," another said, 
 
 " With Bank of England paper." 
 
 " The walls — that's where he's stowed the dust! " 
 
 And straight, with frantic labour, 
 Each soul began to poke and thrust, 
 
 And elbow off his neighbour. 
 
 75 
 
But now dark helmets towered on high : 
 Great voices thundered, " Stop, there ! " 
 
 Like hounds whipped off the folk stood by, 
 And stared with watering chop there. 
 
 The room was cleared : the search went round ; 
 
 The cracks and holes were many, 
 And here was found a shining pound, 
 
 And here a battered penny. 
 
 The chinks between the oozy flags 
 Were plugged with sterling stoppers ; 
 
 The laths were lined with twists and bags 
 Of silver, gold, or coppers. 
 
 " A thousand ! " said the sergeant. " Yes, 
 
 A thousand pound and over ! 
 With this against his name, I guess, 
 
 A man might live in clover. 
 
 " And there he crouched, without a friend. 
 While round him roared the alley, 
 
 Without an inch of candle-end 
 To light him through the Valley ! 
 
 76 
 
" Dead ! starved like any outcast whelp ! 
 
 In deadly dread of plunder, 
 He stifled down the moan for help, 
 
 And kept the rattle under. 
 
 " Here — tie the bag, and seal it tight ! 
 
 It plagues one's palm with itches. 
 That face will haunt me many a night — 
 
 Starved in the midst of riches ! " 
 
 Those words the piteous story clinched. 
 
 I sighed and fell a-thinking. 
 I saw the dead face, white and pinched, 
 
 Amid the golden clinking. 
 
 Then, while I sat with half-closed eyes, 
 
 My musings dimmed and clouded, 
 Faint, flitting forms began to rise ; 
 
 They rose, and cleared, and crowded. 
 
 I looked, not heeding rags or lace, 
 
 Not weighing rank or role there, 
 But peering down through every face 
 
 To read the naked soul there. 
 
 77 
 
And lo ! I read — my gaze sufficed : 
 
 Each depth I did examine — 
 Soul after soul, O loving Christ ! 
 
 Was lean and pinched with famine ! 
 
 On, on before my view they passed, 
 
 In endless turmoil thronging ; 
 Some wild, some dazed, and some that cast 
 
 A look of hopeless longing. 
 
 And few did heed a tender Face, 
 
 A Voice of pleading pity, 
 That pressed unmeasured gifts' of grace 
 
 On all the hungering city, 
 
 " Poor souls ! " (on spake that Voice), " what lie 
 Blinds, dulls your ears, bewitches? 
 
 Poor souls ! why will ye starve and die 
 'Mid free, unbounded riches?" 
 
 78 
 
THE BALLAD OF THE BABUSHKA. 
 
 The Wise Men, on their journey to find the Christ, called on 
 the Babushka to accompany them. " / cannot come" she an- 
 swered, " till I have swept my house;" and the caravan went 
 on without her. A little later the Babushka followed, but was 
 unable to overtake the Magi. 
 
 Since that day she has wandered on for ever, vainly seeking 
 the Christ-child. For His sake, and for the hope that it may 
 be He, every young child is dear to her. The Babushka is the 
 Santa Claus of Russia. 
 
 My ballad, as will be apparent, follows the legend very closely, 
 making no attempt at historical vrai semblance, and barely seek- 
 ing to suggest oriental colour and accessory. 
 
THE BALLAD OF THE BABUSHKA. 
 
 )HE moon's light shell did ride alone, 
 
 Toss'd in the racing rack ; 
 I The poplars whiten'd with a moan, 
 Each in its belt of black. 
 
 Forth from her window in the thatch 
 
 Babushka thrust her head. 
 " Now who comes here, ere day is clear, 
 
 To knock so loud ? " she said. 
 
 " Three Kings are we of Araby, 
 
 And lo ! by gap and peak, 
 Fast do we ride, with a star for guide, 
 
 A greater King to seek. 
 
 " We seek a King shall save us all, 
 
 And lo ! a marvellous thing, 
 He lieth cradled in a stall, 
 
 A round-faced baby-King. 
 
 " Do on thy head-gear, good woman, 
 
 Do on thy sandal shoon : 
 By God's good grace we see His face 
 
 Ere rounds yon sickle-moon." 
 
 81 
 
" I keep no maid in service paid 
 
 My household turns to do, 
 And eight-day deep is dust to sweep 
 
 Or ever I ride with you." 
 
 " We cannot wait before your gate ; 
 
 Ye do our patience wrong : 
 The red star shakes like a heart that breaks 
 
 To see us dally so long." 
 
 Then, harsh and high, the driver's cry 
 
 Roll'd round his rimy beard : 
 The ass did gaze as he jingled by, 
 
 And the long-lipp'd camel sneer'd. 
 
 And there did creep upon the air 
 
 Odours of holy spice, 
 As tho' an angel had lighted there, 
 
 Breathing rich Paradise. 
 
 " Ye are hasty folk," Babushka spoke, 
 " Too hot for guides of mine : 
 
 The dust my house shall never choke 
 For all the stars that shine." 
 82 
 
With that she girt her woven skirt, 
 
 And wrought a bustling space, 
 Till back did gleam from tile and beam 
 
 Her nodding shiny face. 
 
 And then a camel scream'd afar, 
 
 She heard the ringing chains, 
 And lo ! the pulse of the bearded star 
 
 Was leaping in her veins. 
 
 " O I will climb thro' rut and rime 
 
 The Mizpeh's beacon'd top, 
 And, when so nigh they hear me cry, 
 
 The tawny train will stop." 
 
 But when she won the tufted rise, 
 
 Mad snow-whirls dazed the air, 
 And trails of fire broke from her eyes, 
 
 And stars roll'd everywhere. 
 
 Yet once and again a bridle-chain 
 
 Chimed on her ears forlorn, 
 As a slipping thought in a sick man's brain 
 
 Before the shivering morn. 
 
 83 
 
She wander'd on as a last year's leaf, 
 
 She drifted here and there, 
 And all the lost world's homeless grief 
 
 Did hunger in her stare. 
 
 She felt no change of dearth or mirth, 
 
 Of ice or glazing heat, 
 While all the sharp flints of the earth 
 
 Grew round beneath her feet. 
 
 The wind blows danker for her tears ; 
 
 Her sighs the sad woods fill : 
 She seeks a goal she never nears : 
 
 O God, she wanders still ! 
 
 " Whither away, O pale woman ! 
 
 With yearning eyes and wild ? " 
 " O I do seek, in a world so bleak, 
 
 A King that is a child ! 
 
 " They call'd me once, — I know not when : 
 Their swords were broken spheres : — 
 
 Belike ye met rich-vested men 
 With gold drops in their ears?" 
 84 
 
And when the year is musky May 
 Dream-dazed is all her sense ; 
 
 She tracks down every sweet-snow'd way 
 The shaken frankincense. 
 
 And when she meets a twelvemonth child 
 She looks in hungering doubt. 
 
 Within her eyne a lamp doth shine, 
 And slowly burnetii out. 
 
 She kisses it with running tears ; 
 
 She sighs, a soul perplext : 
 " This is not He," then murmureth she, 
 
 " But it will be the next." 
 
 And, when a lighted town doth rise, 
 
 She moans, a shaken thing ; 
 " There be so many stars," she sighs, 
 
 " So many bridles ring ! " 
 
 And so she drifts adown the years, 
 
 A ghost with questing eyes, 
 While faint bells babble on her ears, 
 
 And swimming stars arise. 
 
 85 
 
And so she blows about the world, 
 
 A foam-flake on the blast, 
 Till she do sight Christ's window-light, 
 
 Apd kiss His feet at last. 
 
 86 
 
Thoughts and Counsels. 
 
THE CHOICE. 
 
 jHEN all the rites were sped, 
 
 And the life bled 
 jOf the due thousand bulls, anointed, crown'd, 
 Young Solomon lay down upon his bed, 
 And in night's mid profound 
 Behold a Vision, a Voice, 
 Bidding his soul make choice : 
 " Of things for which men live, 
 Choose thou what I shall give." 
 And the king spake : " My feet scarce keep the ground ; 
 I am a little child upheld and led. 
 Grant me, I pray Thee, wisdom to bestead, 
 
 That this Thy flock be sound." 
 Wherefore, with wisdom, on the king God shed 
 All pleasure to abound." 
 
 Doth not each young man tread 
 With crowned head ? 
 Doth he not rule with naked " Yea " or " Nay," 
 From Tarshish and the isles e'en to the red 
 Great rising of the day ? — 
 A land of misty heights, 
 Valleys of soft delights, 
 
 89 
 
Ocean and shadowy wood, 
 And a land whose gold is good ? — 
 O thou whom nowise purple doth array, 
 
 young man humbly lodged and nurtured, 
 Yea, eating in thy sweat thy daily bread, 
 
 I rede thee well, and say 
 That realm of Solomon was but a shred 
 Of thy world-mating sway. 
 
 Thy strength that doth not tire, 
 Thine eye of fire, 
 Thy heart that mocketh danger's blackest frown, 
 Thy feet not recking aught of flint or mire, 
 Thy proud head blond or broWn ; 
 Thy kind uncourted deep 
 Regenerating sleep, 
 Thy body, lissom and fain, 
 Yielding no hold to pain — 
 O, lord of these, and hopes that drop not down — 
 Bright hopes and dreams that to the heavens aspire- 
 
 1 tell thee, youth, no master of the lyre, 
 
 No seer of dread renown, 
 Sage, conqueror, tsar, but longs with great desire 
 One hour to wear thy crown ! 
 90 
 
Some night when thou dost lie 
 With curtain'd eye, 
 Haply this common night of all the year, 
 
 Lo, thou shalt know a Presence draweth nigh ; 
 And, looking not for fear, 
 Shalt feel about thy bed 
 A brightness cloudy and dread, 
 Yea, and shalt hear thy name 
 Spoken in words of flame : 
 And then shall Life make question keen and clear : 
 " What ^hall I give thee ? Search and yield reply, 
 There is not anything too great or high — 
 
 Fame, wisdom, golden gear ; 
 Question the deep, take counsel of the sky, 
 What thing to hold most dear." 
 
 Then o'er thy spirit's glass 
 Shall shine and pass 
 A fair procession of all lovesome things — 
 All glorious gauds that merchantmen amass ; 
 All dear delights of kings : 
 White limbs and melting eyes, 
 And tender symmetries : 
 
 9i 
 
Wine for the gods' carouse, 
 Bays for victorious brows. 
 " To drink all rapture while a moment wings : 
 To carve thy name on ever-during brass : 
 Weigh Heaven's thick-powder'd planets ; sift and class 
 
 The soul's faint whisperings : 
 Choose : — for the night descends, the night, alas ! 
 Wherein no sweet bird sings." 
 
 Again the Voice shall flow 
 Subdued and low, 
 Speaking not all without nor all within ; 
 
 " These things are thine to take or to forego, 
 Thou whose great days begin. 
 There is a boon beside 
 Not unto thee denied : 
 There is another way 
 Free to thy feet this day." 
 Then shalt thou see, apart from all the din, 
 The jangling voices and the shifting show, 
 A narrow path where many a thorn doth grow, 
 
 A path whose bourn doth win 
 A hillside crowned with a tree of woe — 
 A tall cross gaunt and thin. 
 92 
 
What wilt thou answer, thou 
 With dream-lit brow ? 
 What wilt thou ask of life to hold in trust ? 
 
 Bright wings the dark with moon-soft gleams endow, 
 Poised o'er that hour august : 
 Yea, and the hordes of hell 
 Are silent, hearkening well. 
 The worlds await thy voice, 
 Hush'd for the awful choice. 
 " What shall I give thee ? " — answer, for thou must. 
 The word hath fallen : thou hast chosen now : 
 God's great Recorder graves it deep, I trow : 
 
 Thy heart shall have its lust ; 
 Yea, and thy choice abides tho' Heaven shall bow, 
 And all the suns be dust. 
 
 93 
 
THAT WHICH WAS LOST. 
 
 JEVER by black decree, 
 The fruited gallows-tree 
 Did wrench apart a soul so fell and grim 
 And hands so foully red 
 But thickly over him — 
 Men's wonder, loathing, dread — 
 Redeeming tears were shed, 
 A woman's sorrow gushing rich and free 
 As over one misled, 
 
 Exceeding weak, 
 But known to the deep heart of motherhood 
 
 Not reft of grace and good, 
 But worthy that rich rain upon his cheek. 
 
 Hath she not murmur'd o'er 
 
 The fairy shoes he wore, 
 When — slowly gathering doubtful heart of grace — 
 He first put forth adventurous on the floor, 
 
 And, lured by hands before, 
 Did gain good haven of the far-off chair ? 
 
 Doth she not bow her face 
 
 Over the holy place 
 
 94 
 
Where she doth keep embalmed bliss of yore, 
 Kissing the sun from that thin curl of hair 
 
 The first she trembling shore ? 
 Goes she not yet half tip-toe by the bed, 
 
 Hushing her breathing deep, 
 Not as in awe of pinions whitely spread, 
 But of that smile the innocent mouth doth keep, 
 
 And of the baby head, 
 Crown'd with inviolate majesty and dread 
 Security of sleep ? 
 
 What booteth it to harp upon his guilt ? 
 She only museth on his pretty ways 
 That passing folk would often stop to praise. 
 
 Nay, picture if thou wilt 
 
 The blood that he hath spilt — 
 Picture his hands in Cain's red mystery dyed ; 
 She telleth, with a little happy laugh, 
 
 How in that happy tide 
 Her finger served the rosy hand for staff 
 
 In toddlings at her side. 
 
 Ah, yes ! she knoweth of his foolish walk : 
 Truly her boy hath err'd. 
 
 95 
 
He was too apt to hearken idle talk, 
 And evil friends he made 
 Who thrust him on whence fear themselves deterr'd ; 
 But — had they left his life upon the stalk — 
 One day his mother's tears, his mother's word, 
 Had surely found that old self overlaid, 
 And he had turn'd him back 
 To that remember'd track 
 Wherefrom he stray'd 
 Bewilder'd and beguiled, 
 And he had sat beside her sweet and staid, 
 Her gentle-hearted child. 
 Well, now she hath him back. The wrong is past : 
 She kisseth down his eyes 
 On tender thoughts and healing memories, 
 Her boy return'd at last. 
 
 Let none persuade thee, what became so clear 
 
 Beneath the mother's kiss — 
 Grace overlaid by many a sinful year — 
 
 Our Father's love shall miss. 
 
 Nay, tho' to men severe 
 Only the black and cruel Now appear, 
 
 Most certainly, I wis, 
 96 
 
God shall recall an olden time and dear, 
 
 And fix His gaze on this. 
 Despair not of the wanderer otherwhere : 
 
 He shall be cleansed from every miry stain, 
 And loving hands shall rest upon his hair, 
 While he doth smile with innocent eyes and fair, 
 , God's little child again. 
 
 97 
 
THE LOYAL HEART. 
 
 | WELLS there thy soul within 
 > A customary sin, 
 
 ' One that as housemate, with a right confess'd, 
 I Sits down to daily fare, 
 Takes its own kindly chair, 
 ' And holds the fireside freedom of thy breast ? 
 
 Then, ruin'd soul, forbear 
 
 To mock thy God with pray'r. 
 1 How shall He greet a word on this gait said ? — 
 
 " Lo, at this board of mine 
 
 Where I and Satan dine, 
 We wait for Thee to bless the wine and bread?" 
 
 My brother, dost thou weep 
 
 As lacking might to keep 
 Thy heart inviolate of a loathed sin, 
 
 Which — evermore denied, 
 
 And often thrust outside — 
 By wink or wile an entrance still doth win ? 
 98 
 
Untwist thy coil of fear ; 
 
 Lift up a face of cheer ; 
 In one small sin made welcome Hell is crown'd, 
 
 But where a score breaks thro' 
 
 And the will standeth true, 
 God's whitest angel treads on homely ground. 
 
 Tho' sin hath burst the wall, 
 
 Thy drawbridge doth not fall, 
 To battle still the loyal steeples ring, 
 
 Still the old flag doth fly, 
 
 And all the applauding sky 
 Greets a brave city holden for the King. 
 
 99 
 
THE CHANGE. 
 
 WORK of Christ the Lord, 
 A mighty sign ! 
 J Lo, at the marriage-feast they wanted wine : 
 t He bade them fill the jars, and wine was pour'd, 
 Exceeding pure and fine. 
 
 Again : His hearkening folk 
 Had need of bread : 
 The hungry wilderness around them spread ; 
 One brought Him barley-loaves : He bless'd and brake, 
 And all the throng was fed. 
 
 Such is the husky wrap, 
 The sheathing fold, 
 Wherein the living germ is swathed and roll'd : 
 Done once and ended is the outward hap ; 
 The spirit grows not old. 
 
 A day like all the rest, 
 
 Some common day, 
 
 By the cool well or on the dusty way, 
 
 One meeteth with a Stranger, soon confess' d 
 
 More than His looks betray. 
 
 ioo 
 
O great and very strange 
 
 The thing now wrought ! 
 Truly this man hath hearken'd not for naught ! 
 Kinsfolk and neighbours marvel at a change 
 Beyond all dreamer thought. 
 
 Whence are this light and glow, 
 This fire divine? 
 What made this homely draught to burn and shine ? 
 Behold, again the Work of long ago — 
 The water is made wine ! 
 
 Christ takes another soul 
 For dwelling place : 
 None marks with awe a bright transfigured face : 
 His brow doth quiver with no aureole, 
 Nor shine as chrysoprase. 
 
 Lo, the old workday round 
 This man doth go. 
 He useth not the speech God's freedmen know ; 
 He walks no fiery peak, no dreadful ground, 
 Scorning the ruts below. 
 
 IOI 
 
Not angels' food we see, 
 But barley bread. 
 What is it this plain man hath done or said ? 
 All wisdom preacheth ; hunger'd yet we be. 
 He speaks, and souls are fed. 
 
 Ah, clear to understand, 
 And nowise dim ! 
 What wonder here for gazing seraphim ? 
 He gave himself to Christ, and Christ's great hand 
 Hath bless'd and broken him. 
 
 Yield thou thy heart, and lo ! 
 In God's good tide, 
 Of these two works one shall not be denied — 
 The water turn'd to wine of jewell'd flow, 
 Or the bread multiplied. 
 
 102 
 
THE LONELY WAY. 
 
 [HE night is dead, the night is dark : 
 I scarce may go or stand. 
 
 I My futile lamp without a spark 
 Hangs rattling in my hand. 
 
 I pluck the darkness like black wool — 
 
 The silence breatheth deep : 
 The wind is lost and sorrowful, , 
 
 And the mists creep. 
 
 And yet I do not crave a ray, 
 
 Nor a hand to touch my own : 
 I know that whoso comes this way 
 
 Must travel it alone. 
 
 God holdeth gently in His arms 
 
 Those that His children be, 
 And lulleth down their vain alarms, 
 
 Keeping them perfectly, 
 
 He teacheth them the little prayer 
 
 That serves them sweetly still, 
 And sends them daisies everywhere 
 
 Their gentle hands to fill. 
 
 103 
 
And if they ever wake in dread, 
 
 Scared by a dream of pain, 
 Lo, God is watching by the bed, 
 
 And they may sleep again. 
 
 But those that be of sterner kin 
 
 He guides a little way, 
 Then shuts them in the dark to win 
 
 Heaven's wicket as they may. 
 
 And they must feel with hand and knee, 
 
 And hear Hell's river flow, 
 And cross by the bridge of a fallen tree, 
 
 While the devils laugh below. 
 
 But, after, when He needs a man 
 To make His counsels known, 
 
 He turneth to the little clan 
 That went this way alone. 
 
 104 
 
THE PLOUGH. 
 
 )H, not with a smile of cheer, 
 Ready and sure and glad ; 
 
 Ah, not with a careless brow, 
 Would I see thee stand, O lad, 
 In the gray of the hooded year, 
 
 In the gloom of the doubtful dawn, 
 With the mist on mountain and lawn, 
 Putting thy hand to the plough ! 
 
 So easy it is to start, 
 
 So heavy and hard to maintain ! 
 
 So many there be that vow, 
 So few that endure the strain ! 
 I would see thee humble of heart, 
 
 With eyes made large with the weight 
 Of a day of decision and fate, 
 Putting thy .hand to the plough. 
 
 Stretch out thy soul from thine eyes, 
 For the Will of the world doth hark, 
 
 Waiting thy grip to endow 
 With the strength of the tides and the dark : 
 
 105 
 
Thy life in a moment lies ; 
 
 Yea, one are beginning and end, 
 If God from the Centre bend, 
 And clasp thy hand on the plough. 
 
 Thy fingers close on the shaft, 
 Thou shearest a sod of the land : 
 
 The Merciful keep thee now 
 From a task that broke in thy hand, 
 From a cup set down unquafFd, 
 
 A duty known and spurn'd, 
 A goal from which thou hast turn'd, 
 A hand unclasp'd from the plough. 
 
 Our God hath a father's heart, 
 And a face that is tender-eyed : 
 
 But our God hath a clinging hand ; 
 And, though thou thrust it aside 
 To walk in a, way apart, 
 
 Where the roads are two or three 
 His hand shall certainly be 
 To turn thee that way He plann'd. 
 1 06 
 
Thou kneadest the dough with pain, 
 God poureth the yeast withal ; 
 
 He maketh thy weakness strength : 
 He bringeth force from the fall : 
 Thou grievest over thy gain : 
 
 The failure weighing thee down 
 Is grown thy glory and crown : 
 Thy sin is thy grace at length. 
 
 Yet weary will be the way, 
 Weary and lone and long, 
 
 Many the brier and the slough, 
 Ere God, the tender and strong, 
 Shall bring thee back to this day, 
 
 Ere He right the wrong of this hour, 
 When thou stoodest, nigh to His power, 
 To clasp, and to loose, the plough. 
 
 This day is a day of choice, 
 Of pathways turning afresh, 
 
 Of threads unravell'd, I trow, 
 From the old threads' woven mesh. 
 
 107 
 
Ah, shall we weep or rejoice 
 
 That ever before our eyes 
 A vision of souls doth rise, 
 With hands that reach for the plough ? 
 
 Oh, come ! we will bow our heads, 
 Then look to the hills above : 
 We will ask not When or How : 
 He weaveth our broken threads 
 In a woof of wisdom and love. 
 
 And, in spite of the hands that grasp 
 With a faint and faltering clasp, 
 Our Father guideth the plough. 
 
 108 
 
BLESSED ARE YE THAT HUNGER NOW. 
 
 )E unto you that say, 
 I" My soul is full this day! 
 I Life hath no peak unsunn'd, no pool unbrimm'd; 
 'The thing my heart conceiv'd, my hand express'd; 
 I pour'd and pluck'd my Best. 
 No gate stood barr'd, no tender glory dimm'd, 
 
 No footpath wound astray. 
 Life is a doublet fashion'd to my will 
 
 Whose padded form I fill." 
 
 Stuff'd with coarse good and low, 
 Woe to your fulness, woe ! 
 Break forth and cry, crave sore defeat and pain, 
 Lest all the stagnant life do mortify, 
 
 The ripe soul rot and lie. 
 That which is perfect hath no goal to gain, 
 
 But hastes to overthrow. 
 One are ye with corruption and gross death 
 That not awakeneth. 
 
 Blessed are ye that say, 
 " Hunger'd I go alway ! 
 
 109 
 
All music wails a want ; eve's dream-flusht sky 
 Stabs me with longing keen as new despair 
 For sunsets otherwhere. 
 No sovereign rose, no golden poesy 
 
 Doth its own smart allay. 
 Ever I stretch, in thought, in art, in speech, 
 At that I cannot reach." 
 
 Ah, hunger sweet and stark ! 
 Lo, in each groping dark, 
 Each baffled stroke, each dim and desolate cry, 
 Each dew-bright face that dwelleth in a dream, 
 Each thought of phantom gleam, 
 Thy soul doth carve its immortality : — 
 God plans no broken arc ; 
 His hands drop spheres, and past this bourn and bound 
 Thy life shall globe its round. 
 
 no 
 
DEITY. 
 
 FALLEN world," ye cry, " a ruin'd race,' 
 j Moaning for aye your weary Ichabod : 
 , For me the hedgerow flameth : I abase 
 i My soul in every street to walk unshod, 
 And, smiled on by a baby's tender face, 
 I veil my eyes before the Incarnate God. 
 
 in 
 
THE TWO CROWNS. 
 
 IN my young heart the merry morning sang : 
 
 | No shy thing stirr'd, 
 
 [ Crisping the grass, no bird 
 
 » Puff'd its glad throat, no trill of laughter rang, 
 
 No lover's arm did gird 
 
 The maid preferr'd, 
 With quick delicious pang, 
 No bud broke prison, no madcap squirrel sprang ; 
 But my heart gave the word. 
 
 Most delicate my May of life had been : 
 
 But June hath glows 
 More costly, and the rose 
 Keeps richer charms beneath the rounding screen 
 Warm kisses must unclose ; 
 Sweet days are those 
 That light the maid serene, 
 Yet comes a day shall crown her wife and queen, 
 One day the future knows. 
 
 And now between my arms I bow'd my head : 
 A numbing chain 
 Did bind me, heart and brain. 
 112 
 
Alas for ruin'd vase and perfume shed 
 
 And soft dreams dreamed in vain ! 
 
 To-morrow Pain 
 Would stand beside my bed, 
 
 Saying, " Arise, and let us break our bread : 
 We will not part, we twain." 
 
 Then, while my molten lids did burn and beat, 
 I was aware 
 Of a soft light and fair, 
 Yet deem'd that phantasy mine eyes did cheat 
 With a sick inward snare. 
 
 Nay, One stood there, 
 White-robed, with shining feet, 
 Within whose Face all blessed dreams did meet : 
 A gold flame ring'd His hair. 
 
 He look'd on me with deep and lucent eyes, 
 And when He spake 
 Meseem'd the morning brake. 
 No cold expectancy, no dark surprise 
 My heart did overtake. 
 
 Nor terror shake ; 
 In some clear hidden wise, 
 
 "3 
 
I knew that voice from dim eternities 
 Before my soul did wake. 
 
 " Poor heart ! " He said, " It was not fate's cold scorn, 
 Nor demon spite, 
 Nor chance out of the night, 
 That smote thy blossom'd life and left thee lorn : 
 Look up ! behold aright ! " 
 
 And in my sight, 
 With hands that nails had torn, 
 Two crowns He held — one, woven all of thorn ; 
 One, thorns and roses bright. 
 
 " Behold," He spake, " this crown I wore for thee, 
 Where it was set 
 The blanched scars are yet. 
 This thorny crown I wore to make thee free, 
 And pay thy heavy debt. 
 
 Dost thou forget ? — 
 Nay, that might never be. 
 This mingled crown wilt thou not wear for Me ? — 
 In mine no roses met. 
 114 
 
Therewith He set the crown upon my brow, 
 And, kneeling there, 
 I felt the sharp thorns tear ; 
 Yet murmur'd, " Lord, since it indeed is Thou 
 That givest this to wear, 
 
 Give strength to bear." 
 My prayer He did allow : — 
 Ah, thorny crown ! I would not lose it now ! 
 The roses are so rare. 
 
 "5 
 
THE DAILY CROSS. 
 
 )AKE UP thy cross," He said:— 
 
 J Who lets it lie 
 
 I Shall not escape his heavy doom thereby ; 
 
 }For God shall surely bind it on instead. 
 
 His burden none may fly ; 
 But, taking it not up, thou hast this loss — 
 Thou bearest a mule's lading, not a cross. 
 
 " Take up THY CROSS," He spake :— 
 Ah, deem no more 
 This cross some wind hath wafted to thy door : 
 'Twas grown and hewn and carven for thy sake 
 
 Grey mists of time before. 
 Sure as thy folded arms its form combine 
 Over thy bosom, this one cross is thine. 
 
 " Take up thy cross THIS DAY : "— 
 O thou perplext ! 
 " To-morrow and the next day and the next ! — 
 My strength is not sufficient," thou dost say, 
 
 Pondering o'er Satan's text. 
 From corn unsown why bakest bitter bread ?— 
 " Take up thy cross this day," the Master said. 
 116 
 
" Take up thy cross," said Christ, 
 " AND FOLLOW ME," 
 Go forward boldly : doubtless thou shalt see 
 His footprint shining : thou shalt be sufficed : 
 
 But yonder, waiteth He. 
 Yea, and thy cross shall quicken, till in fine 
 Thou shalt not bear its weight, but it bear thine. 
 
 117 
 
THE BIRDS' SERMON. 
 
 IOOD Saint Francis preach'd to you, 
 (Careless bedesmen of the skies : 
 [I, a preacher tired enow, 
 (Come without my homilies, 
 Not a pulpit but a pew 
 Craving of your charities ; 
 Charm my dusty weariness 
 With your sylvan cheeriness : 
 Gentle birds, the sky is blue : 
 Prithee, sing and make me wise. 
 
 118 
 
THE LITTLE WANDERER. 
 
 JO light, no voice ! the hamlet sleeps, 
 |The night is blurr'd and wild ; 
 plow thro' the muffling whiteness creeps 
 'A little barefoot child. 
 His large eyes, innocent and fair, 
 
 Are dim with dancing snow ; 
 The flakes are hardening in his hair — 
 Oh, whither shall he go? 
 
 He pauses, trembling in the blast — 
 
 Twelve from the belfry clock ! — 
 Up to thy door he steals at last, 
 
 And beats with quavering knock. 
 Oh, draw the bolts, and lead him in, 
 
 And show him loving cheer ! — 
 The Child shall heal thee of thy sin, 
 
 And bless thee all the year. 
 
 119 
 
THE FISHERMAN. 
 
 ! 0-DAY the water glances, 
 And the boat sails free ; 
 ) She curtseys and she dances 
 l O'er a summer-shadowed sea; 
 And her brown sail golden-bright 
 
 In the sun doth shine, 
 Till she twinkles out of sight 
 On the low sky-line. 
 
 Anon she reels and staggers 
 
 In the darkness blind ; 
 There are knotted whips and daggers 
 
 In the hands of the wind. 
 The growling waves leap o'er her, 
 
 Like beasts at the throat, 
 And the black rocks crouch before her — 
 
 God help the boat ! - 
 
 Fair and foul weather, 
 
 We do a man's part ; 
 We take the two together, 
 
 And keep a stout heart. 
 
 120 
 
There's the lass at home to love us, 
 And the darling's white bed, 
 
 And the good God's above us 
 God's overhead. 
 
 121 
 
THE HEART'S FLOWERS. 
 
 HAVE a little garden plot 
 I That lieth all apart, 
 [ A leafy, lonely, darkling spot, 
 > And shapen like a heart : 
 And there I long some flow'rs to see 
 
 Of goodly bloom and smell, 
 To pleasure Him who gave it me, 
 And loves the garden well. 
 I have a little garden-plot 
 
 That lieth all apart, 
 A leafy, lonely, darkling spot, 
 And shapen like a heart. 
 
 I know that I have sorest need, 
 
 Of patience, thought, and care ; 
 For many a tough and stubborn weed 
 
 Hath taken rooting there, 
 And these do flaunt by right of birth, 
 
 While flow'rs as aliens grow ; — 
 Because the light and shallow earth 
 
 Doth touch the rock below. 
 I have a little garden-plot 
 That lieth all apart, 
 
 122 
 
A leafy, lonely, darkling spot,v 
 And shapen like a heart. 
 
 Sometimes I weep, fordone, and fain 
 
 To put my labour by, 
 Beholding weeds that spring again, 
 
 And flow'rs that spring/ to die. 
 But then I feel my Master's gaze, 
 
 And, tho' mine eyes be dim, 
 I toil again thro' patient days 
 To raise those flow'rs for Him. 
 I have a little garden-plot 
 
 That lieth all apart, 
 A leafy, lonely, darkling spot, 
 And shapen like a heart. 
 
 123 
 
PERFECT PEACE. 
 
 IENTLE mothers vigil keep 
 [While their darlings' eyelids close ; 
 I O the slumber deep ! 
 ]0 the balmy sleep ! 
 Come the little heart to steep 
 In a vast repose ! 
 
 What can vex their dreams with fear ? 
 Mother, mother watches near. 
 
 Trust, my brother, trust as they : 
 Richer love and more profound 
 Leads thee on thy way, 
 Guards thee night and day : 
 Might of wider reach and sway 
 Girds thy being round. 
 
 Jesu's love is always near — 
 Shall his little children fear ? 
 
 124 
 
THE DARK RIVER. 
 
 ) HE river flowed wide and stilly, 
 And the voice of its crooning deep 
 Lulled even the dreaming lily 
 
 I To a yet more charmed sleep. 
 
 The umbrage deepened and darkened, 
 
 And the river's runic roll, 
 As I hearkened, and mused, and hearkened, 
 
 Grew into my wistful soul. 
 
 Instead of the dreaming lily 
 
 Were weeds all clinging and black, 
 
 And the river, sluggish and chilly, 
 Seemed clogged in its inky track. 
 
 I woke with a start and a shiver 
 
 And a gasp of difficult breath — 
 I had dreamed I walked by the river 
 
 That cleaves the Valley of Death. 
 
 I turned, and behold ! a shimmer 
 
 Of mystical light untold, 
 The glory and molten glimmer 
 
 Of ruby and pearl and gold ! 
 
 125 
 
Mine eyes with the deep tears thickened, 
 
 And lowly I bowed my head ; 
 And there as the splendour quickened, 
 
 I spoke to my heart and said : 
 
 " Fear not ! through the valley of shadows, 
 In faith be the dark bank trod, 
 
 For the river flows out to the meadows 
 That glad the city of God ! " 
 
 126 
 
A QUIET INN. 
 
 (One of the meanings of the word Hospital is a guest- 
 house or inn.) 
 
 jHERE, 'neath its ancient archway, dark and slow, 
 ( Creeps the canal to the broad river's flow, 
 I The clank of cranes, the song the ship-boy sings, 
 | And the bright snow and dazzle of swift wings, 
 Back from the busy pavement but a pace, 
 Who will may enter a still cloistral place : 
 A no-man's land, midway 'twixt life and death, 
 Where worldly schemes are blurr'd to misty breath ; 
 Where the near noises to the heart are far, 
 And the clock stands, and all things drowsy are. 
 
 This is the inn that turneth none away, 
 Where all are welcome, though but few can pay ; 
 Where no man rattles dice or calls for ale, 
 But the guests' eyes are dull and their cheeks pale ; 
 Where lamps burn late and all lie long abed ; 
 Where chambermaids, by sleep unvisited, 
 Move with so pure a pity in their eyes, 
 And stir their hands in so sweet ministries, 
 That many a one hath fancied in the gloom 
 Angels did go about the hushful room. 
 
 127 
 
This is the inn whence now and then a guest 
 Departs with sealed eyes and hands at rest : 
 A guest whose score is quit, and now who goes 
 To straiter bed but a more wide repose. 
 But commonly the caller turns him back 
 To the old work and life's familiar track, 
 Heal'd of his hurt, and strong, and sound, and whole, 
 Better'd and braced in body and in soul. 
 
 Ah, pray forget not, by his bed of pain 
 One sat — and kneel'd — and words his heart did gain, 
 So rich and sweet, that thro' the dinning day 
 Their perfume clings and will not go away. 
 
 But come on tip-toe — prithee, come apart ! 
 Come with a tear-bright smile upon your heart : 
 Enter a room where 'neath each coverlid 
 A drooping human blossom lies half-hid ; 
 Where, by the medicine-bottles' grim array, 
 Quaint toys are ranged upon a little tray ; 
 Where bleat mild lambs, miraculously white, 
 And inch-high soldiers charge for King and Right, 
 And rosy dolls, that tiny mothers pet, 
 Make the pale cheeks that press them paler yet. 
 128 
 
Ah, on these boards, what time the watchman calls, 
 Soft as a dream, I think, a footstep falls, 
 And on the head, its clustering ringlets shorn, 
 That tosses, tosses, tosses, night and morn, 
 Is laid a touch so magically kind, 
 That straight it wins the rest it could not find, 
 And the large wistful eyes like daisies close 
 In the long lull of beautiful repose. 
 
 And by this cot, where — scarce of human strain — 
 The shell-slight fingers pick the counterpane, 
 Gently He bends, and straightway o'er the face 
 There grows a holier calm, a tenderer grace, 
 A brooding peace, ineffable and vast ; 
 Rest, rest, the perfect rest, has come at last. 
 
 Who is that quiet comer ? He Who said, 
 Laying His hand upon the baby-head, 
 And smiling down exceeding tenderly — 
 " Suffer the little ones to come to Me." 
 
 Ah, friends! while sickness ever lies in wait 
 To scale the wall, or burst the fragile gate ; 
 While peril strikes in every random hoof, 
 
 129 
 
Pants from each funnel, hangs from every roof, 
 Lives in the summer's dust, the winter's rain, 
 And shifts for ever with the shifting vane ; 
 While every vital breath may prove a claim 
 To bear not Life's but her dark brother's name- 
 While man's frail bloom is to the flowers akin — 
 How should we fare without our quiet inn ? 
 
 130 
 
MOTHER'S GIRLIE. 
 
 |H, a golden realm was mine 
 
 (Golden crown, too, soft and curly) 
 'When I reigned, by right divine, 
 " Mother's girlie ! " 
 
 Like some cell of honey'd dew 
 
 Not a liveried loud bee misses 
 Was my pouting mouth that drew 
 All the kisses. 
 
 " Kiss, O kiss ! a kiss for me ! " — 
 Every comer seem'd a claimant 
 Every lap a Marshalsea, 
 
 Pending payment. 
 
 When my bright head bless'd the day, 
 Dangling loose its white sun-bonnet, 
 Each warm beam and wandering ray 
 Settled on it. 
 
 I was all creation's pet ; 
 
 Not a thing did fear or doubt me, 
 And the morning could not get 
 On without me. 
 
 131 
 
Oh, I wept for wounded worms, 
 
 Pray'd for birds in churlish weather, 
 Talk'd with puss on equal terms, 
 Chums together. 
 
 There were fairies in the glen, 
 
 Tripping fairies, quaint and pretty ; 
 Glistering white angels then 
 
 Watch'd the city. 
 
 Often, often in my dreams 
 
 Came a shade of drooping tresses, 
 Tender touches, flitting gleams, 
 Soft caresses. 
 
 Now the goodfolk dance no more, 
 Or their secret sentries fear me ; 
 And the angels — needed sore — 
 
 Come not near me. 
 
 Ah, but Christmas ! — in my hand 
 
 Christmas placed a rod enchanted ; 
 Dull Impossible was bann'd, 
 
 Dreams were granted. 
 
 132 
 
All my fancies faint and fine, 
 
 Wandering like moony vapours, 
 Then before my eyes did shine 
 
 Ring'd with tapers. 
 
 Now no wishing-wand I own, 
 
 Santa Claus ignores my stocking ; 
 Luck, invoked by horse-shoes thrown, 
 Comes not knocking. 
 
 Ah, but if a wish of mine, 
 Sole survivor of a legion, 
 Way might win to that benign 
 Roseate region, 
 
 Where the rainbow-gold rings true, 
 Harebells chime in timed tinkle, 
 And a drop of moonshine dew 
 
 Cures a wrinkle ; 
 
 I would wake to find the dawn 
 
 Peeping in with beamy blushes, 
 While about the latticed lawn 
 
 Call'd the thrushes : 
 
 133 
 
" Come, the birds and squirrels wait; 
 
 Not a flower but open'd early ; 
 "Pis your birthday — you are eight ; 
 All the world is keeping fete ; 
 Meet the Summer at the gate, 
 
 Mother's girlie ! " 
 
 *34 
 
Sonnets. 
 
WORK-A-DAY WEEDS. 
 
 ( The Fleshly Body.) 
 
 )ME hours agone this habit I indued, 
 Dressing in darkness, ere my feet did fare 
 From my strait chamber to the din and glare 
 [Of lamps, and a rough shouldering multitude. 
 Well hath it met my need, tho' coarse and rude, 
 But, having laid it on my bedside chair, 
 I reck not of it more, but leave it there 
 To serve another, furbish'd and renew'd. 
 
 To-morrow, bidden to fair company, 
 I shall put on silk of a noble loom, 
 Yea, and go gallant in my shining plume ; 
 
 So, seemly-suited all my hap shall be, 
 Till, last, I issue from my tiring-room 
 
 Glorious, and meet to wait on Majesty. 
 
 137 
 
WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH. 
 
 JHAT a man soweth surely he shall reap : 
 Not in thy circumstance or outward state 
 Look thou to meet inevitable fate. 
 [Thy lordship or thy clownship in thy sleep 
 Lieth beside thee in a little heap : / 
 
 And doubtless one day, either soon or late, 
 Thou shalt unwrap the fold most intimate, 
 Even thy flesh : God's judgment bites more deep. 
 
 Not there, not there ! Not in life's ante-room, 
 Nor in its presence-chamber, waiteth doom, 
 
 But in thy spirit's close and secret cell : 
 Thou sowest thine own heart, and it shall be 
 Thy dreadful dole or fair felicity 
 
 To reap thyself, and be thy Heaven or Hell. 
 
 138 
 
MORS IMMORTALIS. 
 
 )HE ruin'd roses blew about the bed ; 
 
 A maiden's hearse, pale-plumed, went shivering past 
 And, while I hearken'd to the wailing blast 
 )Whereon the gentle ghost of Summer fled, 
 A shadowy figure with a cowled head, 
 
 Rose from the river, chill and vague and vast, 
 And, moving onward, slowly overcast 
 The daylight, and the world lay white and dead. 
 
 I said, " Thoughts perish : down topple tower and throne : 
 The mountains are a breath : the seas run dry : 
 
 The stars are shed like roses overblown : 
 
 Hath naught o'erleap'd that sentence, * Thou shalt die?' " 
 
 Then the wind wax'd, and from its hollow moan 
 Death made himself a voice, and answer'd, " I." 
 
 139 
 
MY SAINT. 
 
 [ET not God's breath the bright inviolate hair 
 Warden with;floating flame : along the breast 
 Abandon not the hands in such possess'd 
 I Fruition of repose : the vision bare 
 Of that rich rapture. Show me eyes that stare 
 Thro' mists of anguish in a clutching quest 
 Where faith, whirl'd onward, all but sinks oppress' d 
 Down the black gulf and hollow of despair. 
 
 Give him no lily but a thorny rose, 
 
 A rose of red and passionate desire. 
 God's brightest holy ones are never those 
 
 Who came from heaven in virginal attire, 
 But such as cleansed in blood their overthrows, 
 
 And forged their pureness in a heart of fire. 
 
 140 
 
PARADISUS PURGATORIUS. 
 
 |HAT ! will the wires for ever clang and crash, 
 And will the pealing anthem still aspire, 
 The great White Throne burn on with inward fire, 
 [ And golden wall and street give flash to flash ? 
 The argent water with each quivering plash 
 
 Swoons like the swelter'd sands : the ringed choir 
 Shimmers and pulses, tire on molten tire : 
 Yea, my bright screening hands mine eyes abash. 
 
 O God, dear God ! the good days that are done ! 
 
 My delved easeful bed, most cool and deep, 
 The little whispers of wind that used to run, 
 
 Rocking the elm-tree rooks, to whom the sheep 
 Sent drowsy answer, and of sounds was none 
 
 But lapt me in another fold of sleep ! 
 
 141 
 
THE DEVIL'S BOND. 
 
 IT the fair feast of life a jolly year, 
 
 (Thus antic wisdom ends the fable still) 
 The man hath carved and call'd, yea, ta'en his fill 
 iOf love and song and wine's bright-beaded cheer. 
 Now, while his silken sweet he whispers near, 
 Why doth her bosom shake with creeping chill ? — 
 Lo, one stands yonder waiting with the bill : 
 " Master, thy soul ! — mine by indenture clear." 
 
 Rejoice, O young man ! give thy heart its lust 
 Of cates and delicates ; yea, wreathe the bowl, 
 And bid thy laughing lady kiss thee fond : 
 Take thy good year : the fiend denies not trust : 
 Only remember thou hast sign'd the bond, 
 Nor in due season grudge to pay thy soul. 
 
 142 
 
THE GREAT DAY. 
 
 »0, the great day that sees God's purpose wrought ! 
 Time in His lap doth lie, a woven skein, 
 Sin is His awful aureole, and pain 
 
 j On His forefinger shines, a pearl sun-caught. 
 
 I Yea, the great day, the end of all God's thought : 
 The stars roll anthems, all the airy main 
 Washes bright rapture, mingled with the strain 
 
 I Of human cycles to the vintage brought. 
 
 Creation praises. Lo, God lifts His hand, 
 
 Spreading mild lightning on from sphere to sphere ; 
 The tide of triumph stops ; the planets stand ; 
 
 Yea, the worlds hearken, as high God speaks clear : 
 " Broken is all the harmony I plann'd : — 
 There is a gnat whose voice I do not hear." 
 
 143 
 
SINCERITY. 
 
 LET me be myself, thought, life, and pen ! 
 Give me that ancient roughness of the rind 
 With scent and savour of a heart and mind, 
 I Ere custom roll'd us out, machine-made men. 
 God cannot save shirt-fronts, and Satan's ken 
 Grows filmy, peering for a soul defined 
 To take perdition's print ; so death is kind, 
 And when we slumber wakes us not again. 
 
 Yet, could I find myself, on some clear wise, 
 With dew or thunder, there were work to do : 
 
 To watch dead leaves, accomplish prophecies, 
 Before the Lord to cleave some lie in two, 
 
 To melt fierce truths in fervent charities, 
 To forge a constitution or a shoe. 
 
 144 
 
LOST. 
 
 {HE hand hung heavy, and the eyes were wide, 
 And all the courts of life stood null and bare, 
 And the priest praying at the bedside chair 
 I Rose and beheld the sinner : — " He hath died 
 Mumbling the bones of vice, God's grace denied, 
 His foot upon perdition's final stair, 
 Eaten of wormy darkness and despair : 
 Lost, with the loss that alway shall abide. 
 
 Lost." And the spirit from its changing shell, 
 Thro' the sheer gulf of fire that bites like frost, 
 
 Plunged to the bourn of night and polar hell, 
 Moaning ; and straight the heapy dark was crost 
 
 By a soft splendour, and a whisper fell, 
 
 " Lo, I have found the sheep which I had lost." 
 
 H5 
 
Meditative Poems in Blank 
 Verse. 
 
PIZARRO'S LINE. 
 
 !N a lone isle, where, from the reedy ooze, 
 I Changing with oily lights, lean fever crept, 
 i Drawing a soul with every yellow coil, 
 I Pizarro flounder'd with his murmuring mob, 
 That burn'd and shiver'd and cursed, and strain'd their eyes 
 Over the rearward mist, while constancy 
 Smiled with but chattering teeth, and the rain lash'd, 
 And the fires squelch'd, and the ground sobb'd and sank 
 Under the moaning sleeper. 
 
 On a day 
 The mutinous whine grew to a growl, a roar : 
 " Back to the boats, and back to Panama. 
 Our jaws grow lank on diet of wealthy dreams 
 And aguish waking. When the fat change comes, 
 'Tis swampy earth in spadefuls. Back we say, 
 To Panama and plenty." 
 
 On the word, 
 Pizarro drew his sword across the sand, 
 And jagg'd a hero's answer. Then he spake : 
 " Southward, beyond the line, are rain and rot, 
 The griping void, the horror-breeding lightness, 
 
 149 
 
Loose skin and yellow eye, and limbs slow dragged, 
 
 Like cannon through the marsh : false hope, false path, 
 
 False guide, false comrade, and death's dogging foot 
 
 Close on the heels of each, till thou and he 
 
 Throw but one shadow : this : and, at the length, 
 
 Your goldenest thought made sterling, land and love, 
 
 Soft airs and purple languors, power, a name 
 
 Storied and musical, a round fair pearl 
 
 Set in the crown of Spain and sovereign Time, 
 
 Drawing all hearts : a light upon a rock 
 
 To men that strive with tempest and stark night, 
 
 Even this burning truth : a strong man's soul 
 
 Lives in his purpose, and the servile heart 
 
 Beats but a faltering echo. To the south, 
 
 These things : and northward, on the hither side, 
 
 Whole skins and barley-bread. Great hearts, Castilians, 
 
 Choose as befits you. I — I know not ' Backward : * 
 
 I step across the line." 
 
 They watch'd him there 
 One still long moment, then, with clank and curse, 
 A man strode after, and upon his heels 
 Another, till there stood beyond the line 
 Eleven and Pizarro ; and the rest 
 150 
 
Came over slowly, as the great hull swings 
 Drawn by the steady tide. Pizarro's sword 
 Fate made her 'graving tool, and carved this line : 
 " Peru hath fallen." 
 
 Brothers, even so, 
 Cometh to us the choice. One jut of time 
 Throweth the watershed of lengthy life. 
 Never thereafter may we stand the same 
 Easy-shod men, with comfortable hearts, 
 That hum about our business. From that hour, 
 Either we walk as one before whose eyes 
 Shineth a steadfast light, within whose soul 
 A clear voice whispereth low : or else we sit 
 As he that heard his destiny march on, 
 Beheld it halt, turn, beckon, round the curve, 
 While still he mused and doubted. 
 
 Oh, that hour ! 
 It calls with all deep voices of the soul ; 
 It speaks from old and dim eternities, 
 Before and after. Happy he that answers, 
 " Lo, here am I," and even with the word 
 Leaves the receipt of custom or the ship, 
 
Turns not to wave farewell, takes nothing up, 
 But nails his eyes unto the beckoning hand, 
 And follows. Whatsoever hap he meet, 
 Fame or the stocks, rags or thick-pearled purple, 
 Surely that man hath grasp'd the skirt of God, 
 And found his blessedness. 
 
 But ah! for him, 
 That lingering other ! Though life feed him full 
 With all things pleasant, though he never front 
 A black-robed hour, nor in his cushion'd lot 
 One feather fret, oh ! still that man shall turn 
 Sidewise his head, and hearken, then shall blink 
 On the bright faces and the golden lights, 
 Sighing, Methought I heard — nay, it was naught : 
 It comes but once — that music." 
 
 Only mark : 
 To that white peak of life, that heavenmost hour, 
 Lead daily paths. If thou wouldst greatly choose 
 In the great moment when the world doth beat 
 In thy soul's pulse, and Heaven and rifted Hell 
 Hang poised upon the issue, rightly choose 
 In the small choice that waiteth for thy nod 
 Now and to-morrow. 
 152 
 
Brother, thou hast climb'd 
 Darkling to that high hour, and lo ! a flash, 
 Baring the heaven behind thee, flings thee out 
 Framed in a flaming world, an, inky Titan, 
 Sole and tremendous. Yea, but that wide flare, 
 It led thee not nor set thee in thy place : 
 That did the footpaths of thy silent days : 
 The great light but reveal'd thee. Brother, kneel : 
 Look to thy steps and question with thy heart. 
 
 153 
 
THE CROWN OF SORROWS. 
 
 MAN of sorrows I — ay, of mine and thine 
 j And all the laden world's ; and yet, be sure, 
 | A Man not sorrowful ; for He did love 
 iWith an unbounded heart, Himself denied, 
 And not one human woe, but trod our ways 
 With feet that hasten'd Springtime ; from all tears 
 He charm'd the brine ; and ever He did stand 
 At that soft curve where earth and heaven meet 
 And melt together. Every drop of dew 
 Glass' d the eternal goodness ; every babe 
 Shone with a soft divinity, and came 
 With God's last tender message : yea, and sin 
 Was a lost cry that call'd for clasping arms 
 And balms and healing words. Paint ye no more 
 Life's Perfect Blossom with a drooping head 
 And wilted leaves, but say, " Behold, this Man — 
 Crown'd with the thorns of ruin'd Paradise, 
 Clothed on with purple dyed in the rich blood 
 That well'd from the world's heart-wound — He did wear 
 The dreadful bliss that girdeth Deity. 
 And drank the wine they pour for very God." 
 
 154 
 
DUMB PROPHETS. 
 
 IOD hath His patient long economies, 
 And His imperial waste. He gathers up 
 The dew-drop from a roseleaf, while His suns 
 Blow down the wind like crisp and autumn leaves 
 Crackling to shredded ruin. Oftentimes 
 He breeds a prophet in a supreme hour 
 Fed with the blood of aeons : fashions him 
 In the large mould Olympian : fires his heart 
 With flame from Heaven's high altar ; in his ear 
 Breathes the quick word of imminent salvation 
 To the world's moaning need : then on his lips 
 Layeth His finger, and the man is dumb, 
 And speaks his message in signs and struggling sounds, 
 And the world stares and wonders. So he dies, 
 And carries back to God His word unsaid. 
 
 ISS 
 
NO FORM NOR COMELINESS. 
 
 [HERE are whose faces move as base couriers 
 Stirring mistrust to meet them ; whose far hope 
 
 | Is to live down the slander of their looks. 
 
 Have we not known-them, bright and lamped souls, 
 Set in the shutter 'd windows of dull eyes ? 
 Have we not known them, fair and sculptured forms 
 Distorted by false mirrors : precious balms 
 Pour'd in vile vessels ; large and sovereign thoughts 
 Writ in a crabbed hand that few may spell ; 
 Yea, melodies made for a seraph choir 
 And croak'd by hoarse street-singers thro' the fog ? 
 
 Ah, they whose sad cross is their very self 
 (Which is not verily their very self!) — - 
 Ah, they that have no form nor comeliness 
 That men desire them ; sufferers doom'd to bear 
 For form, deformity, for face, defacement ; 
 On their sad patient heads, behold, my heart 
 Breaks all its spikenard, and upon their feet 
 (Poor marred feet) weeps itself dry of tears 
 In pity for the pity of their fate. 
 
 Are there not gracious faces that our souls 
 Go out to meet with singing? that depart 
 156 
 
And take the sweet-air'd summer ? crowning smiles, 
 And tones that leave the hearers broken debtors, 
 Paying with all they own but half they owe? 
 
 Yet often-times a swart and ugly god 
 Squats in the golden shrine : a base usurper 
 Doth king it in the palace. Hard, most hard, 
 Great spirits meanly lodged, to view the state, 
 The costly service, yea, the freakish pomp, 
 Wherewith the upstart feasts his flatterers ; 
 Yea, haply — bidden to the wanton show — 
 To hear the obsequious titter grace the jest 
 That mocks your homely weed. Hard, very hard, 
 Ye souls elect, ye true anointed spirits, 
 Knowing yourselves for what ye are, to muse ; 
 " Never for me will voices take that tone 
 That falleth softly, like the mother's hand 
 On her one darling's head ! Never will eyes 
 Rest on me meltingly and lingeringly, 
 Loth to retire ; and never charmed hearts 
 Gather and cling about my blossom'd sweetness 
 As bees about the lime ! " 
 
 Your cross, your cross, 
 Behold, it is a cross that, gently borne, 
 
 *57 
 
Meetly and sweetly, giveth you to rank 
 Among God's dearest martyrs. Yea, and know 
 Ye shall not walk unloved: clear upward eyes, 
 At home in heaven, shall truly search you out, 
 The fair star cloak'd in cloud ; for such there be, 
 Elect and few, as look not on the height 
 Nor on the countenance, but even as God 
 Behold the heart ; and these shall honour you, 
 Made free of their great guild. And if ye win 
 A heart to mate your own, its far-brought love 
 Shall burn with a most pure and fragrant flame 
 When a light wind hath pufF'd out fantasy, 
 And passion reeks in the socket. If ye miss, 
 In the loud thronged alleys of this world 
 The soul that went to meet you — that one soul 
 That would have made your broken arc a sphere ; — 
 If all the calling of your spirit's wave 
 Moan itself out on the unanswering night ; — 
 Rest you in this firm thought : — ye keep within 
 The pledge of Heaven and your right of entrance. 
 He that did plan the palace of your soul 
 Domed not within it that fair central hall 
 For dumb and cobwebb'd darkness. It shall shine, 
 Fulfill'd of light and music and the voice 
 158 
 
( 
 
 All its blind echoes groped for. Ask no more. 
 
 Vex not thy thought with " How shall this thing be? " 
 
 Only be sure the heart that earth left void 
 
 Bright Heaven shall brim. Your Maker doth not mock. 
 
 159 
 
ISOLATION. 
 
 JO they not tell us this invincible bluff 
 kThat, sole and simple, in the great King's name, 
 'Holds the rich land against the wave, and tears 
 I The trample and thunder of their walled charge 
 I To scarves and fringes, and with one light touch 
 Crumbles the floating palace for the laps 
 Of them that gather touchwood : that his rock, 
 Massy and brute, molten and hammer'd and cool'd 
 In that old forge fed with the central fires 
 Where earthquake taps the sledge ; — the type and top 
 Of iron oneness : — e'en as yonder cloud 
 That the wind puffs and scatters o'er the sky, — 
 Is verily a thin diffusive breath 
 Of lonely atoms, twain whereof will touch 
 Not while the round world trundles, held apart 
 In grip of primal law ? 
 
 Thus, even thus, 
 Fares it with human souls, thin smoke and breath 
 Misting the mirror of time. We meet, we meet, — 
 Families, friendships, clans, societies, 
 Towns, nations, races, manhood — loop'd and knit, 
 Drawn over and under, cross'd this way and that, 
 1 60 
 
Wrought, figured and finish'd in one woof conjoint 
 And piece of human life ; still, by decree 
 And ordinance divine, shut in and off, 
 Yea, gulf 'd and orb'd by the lone mystery 
 Wherein each sayeth " I." Lo, linking hands, 
 We stretch across the interstellar space 
 And unclaim'd voids of God. 
 
 Tell me, fair soul, 
 Thou, by the round of gold upon thy hand 
 And by the love that is the sun and rain 
 Of thy most flowerlike spirit, gather'd close 
 As heart to heart may creep : — in the sheer night, 
 In the loud stillness and the crowding blank, 
 Reaching thy hand to touch thy sleeper's side, 
 Dost thou not shiver to feel the sundering deep 
 That makes thy spirit a star, for ever drawn 
 To melt and merge with one soft fused light 
 In the great sun it worships, ever flung 
 Backward, and turning round upon itself, 
 Held lonely and afar ? Ah, thou mayst tell 
 Thy foibles, frets and fancies — broider'd braid 
 Thou wearest on the hem and skirt of life 
 For quaintness and for seeming : but the thought 
 That feels thy bosom rise, thy soul-deep fears, 
 
 161 
 
Thy questionings, thy clinging hopes that hug 
 The very heart of being — touching these, 
 No dog that looketh up into thine eyes, 
 And catcheth at thy gown and moaneth low, 
 Wears a more piteous dumbness. Nay, I wis, 
 By right of larger scope and deeper plunge 
 Of incommunicable thought and sense, 
 Dumb man and not dumb brute bears signal doom 
 And brand of muteness. Ah, thou wistful mother, 
 Press thy babe's lips to thine and round thy throat 
 Necklace the warm sweet arms, then weep, weep, weep, 
 Break thy rich heart in tears, because thy child 
 Shall walk beside thee all life's dusty length 
 Alien, apart, remote ; because thy love, 
 Thy travail and thy longing, the dear gift 
 Of thine own flesh for raiment of this being, 
 Serves not to bridge that chasm and old abyss, 
 Aye channell'd deeper by the wash of tears, 
 That drops 'twixt soul and soul. Ah, very lone, 
 Lone as the desert, lone as the mid-sea, 
 Lone as the loneliest tract of the still air, 
 Lone as the white peak where one frozen man 
 Hath watch'd a thousand winters jag and spear, 
 This loud and jostling highway that we tread 
 162 
 
To where the green turf rolls. 
 
 When thou art sad, 
 Canst thou pluck out the reason ? Being judged, 
 Doth not the plea go back into my heart, 
 Because thou meetest in the kindest eyes 
 The arresting pike and bar? The cold blind fears, 
 The horror of great darkness, the vague want, 
 The tears that come when thou didst think to smile — 
 Deep, deep they lie, beyond the plummet of speech, 
 Beyond the utterance of clinging hands ; 
 They have nor voice nor name. 
 
 When thou shalt lie, 
 Heedless of thick tears rain'd upon thy cheek, 
 Deaf to the'deep-sobb'd word that gather'd up 
 Thy uncommingling soul ; yea when the coins 
 Weigh down thine eyes and shut their nighted stare 
 In on thine apathy, lo! in that day 
 Thou shalt not be more near nor more apart 
 From life's familiars than thou art to-night, 
 Placed in the midmost of the chairs that ring 
 Thy bright and friended hearth. 
 
 Ah, Spirit and Life, 
 Eternal Fount of fire, whence float our souls, 
 These sparks that fret the blackness, was this doom 
 Of silence and aloofness laid on men 
 
 163 
 
That every homeless heart might stretch its arms, 
 
 And hide itself in Thee? For Thou dost know. 
 
 We lift our eyes, and all our tale is told. 
 
 Quite from the well of being trembles up 
 
 The sorrow and the pity and the sore 
 
 Deep longing, and we lay our tired heads down 
 
 Gently and restingly as doth a child 
 
 On whose wet cheek the mother's lips have prest 
 
 Heart-easing kind forgiveness. 
 
 Ah, one day, 
 Walking together in God's happy close, 
 How shall we smile into each other's eyes, 
 Saying, " Thou knowest now." For all the flaws 
 And clinging clouds that drave between our hearts 
 Shall have roll'd up and off, leaving each soul 
 Clear blue and eye of June. Yea, we shall know, 
 One day not very far. 
 
 And till that day 
 Let us walk gently with our brother mute, 
 In awe and pity, stretching forth in prayer 
 His dumbness and our own ; for Heaven doth hear, 
 And all the separate needs of sever'd souls 
 Are drawn together and made close and one, 
 Woven and wrought in that soft robe of love 
 That falls and rises with the Heart of God. 
 164 
 
SYMPATHY. 
 
 |HOU who hast never thro' the reeling night, 
 ' As the wild stars plunged to thy labouring sobs, 
 j Wrestled with God's dark angels : thou whose life 
 I Is ridged by no white scar : upon whose heart 
 
 No gravestone lieth, nor a little cross, 
 
 So heavy thro' its flowers : take off thy shoes, 
 
 And in the outward porches kneel and pray, 
 
 But enter not this dim and awful shrine 
 
 Of sovereign sorrow. 
 
 And for thee — O thou, 
 
 Modish bereavement's dainty devotee, 
 
 Whose face and garments measure to a hair 
 
 The delicately-graduated pang ; 
 
 Whose vigilant woe ne'er lagg'd an hour behind 
 
 Its fitting shade and texture — hold thee far. 
 
 Give us a dog to lay his true head down, 
 
 And nestle, only lifting solemn eyes 
 
 Of troubled question, conscious of an air 
 
 He may not enter : give us e'en a cat 
 
 With her sleek apathy : a sunny bird 
 
 Shaking shrill music through the silent house : 
 
 These live their life aloof, and let us be. 
 
 Thou only comest, a thin made-up thing 
 
 165 
 
Of practised sighs and simpers, doling out 
 Bereavement's well-bred dues, exhibiting 
 The latest charming modes in sympathy, 
 'Twixt shopping and the park. Yea, hold thee far. 
 What doest thou, poor sham, with God and night, 
 And the deep waters, and a naked soul 
 Suck'd into blackness, with its helpless hands, 
 And eyes that clutch the void? Go thou and learn 
 Of those true comforters who came to Job, 
 And sat three days, three days, without a word, 
 Yielding a noble heart its ancient right 
 To break in silence. 
 
 Tact and garter'd grace 
 And fine repression thou shalt get by rote 
 Where light fans whisper, managed voices pace, 
 And hearts beat under velvet : Sympathy 
 Thy hands must pluck in other sort of night 
 Where olive-boughs drop blackness on the dews 
 Of still Gethsemane. 
 
 The quiet hand 
 Whose touch is healing, and the eyes where dwell 
 Pity's twin angels, and the homelike voice 
 Reaching the soul by kind familiar ways, 
 And the calm presence in the bedside chair 
 1 66 
 
Throned by right divine, accepted straight 
 As something God hath done, tho' the poor wife 
 Must weep apart, and e'en the mother's face 
 Waken strange terrors : these no mart of man 
 Yieldeth its chapman : Thou must buy of God. 
 
 Think not of suffering as the rack and wheel 
 Whereon God breaks the rebel to His will. 
 When God doth say, " Come higher," He bids thee lean 
 And climb to thy sick chamber : when His hand 
 Lieth most fatherly upon thy head, 
 It presseth down the thorns. Full-hearted wine 
 He poureth ever, but the last is best, 
 And when crude youth hath drunken His good glee 
 Ripe age shall sup His sorrow. Not the sun, 
 Nay, but the furnace fashioneth the heart 
 To bell great music, and life's whitest bliss 
 Hath its rich root in pain. 
 
 O gentle brother, 
 Yield thee to God's large hands, and thou shalt grow 
 One of His comforters, a voice of peace, 
 Blest heir of all men's sorrows, with soft eyes 
 Where every grief shall find its homely rest, 
 And half the Riddle's answer : sure of thee, 
 Grasping thy pity while it gropes for God. 
 
 167 
 
HOME. 
 
 THINK of that Jerusalem above, 
 And all my soul is dazzled with the sheen 
 , And glint of glories. In the costly light, 
 • The iris'd splendour, the white festal robes, 
 And the great music, where shall rest be found 
 For my tired heart, my quivering, aching nerves, 
 Lanced, torn and bruised with sharp and heavy sounds, 
 For my weak brain, where all the wheels and feet 
 Shuffle^ and break and roar? O God, my God, 
 A little greenness and a little balm 
 Of clinging silence, and the rustle and lap 
 Of quiet water ! Just an hour or twain 
 To drift with clouds, and feel my sunny face 
 Chequer'd with leaves and wings : to bathe, deep, deep, 
 In the full growing hush, the busy peace, 
 The restful country noises! 
 
 Ah, clear soul, 
 Old Seer of purple Patmos, on whose eyes, 
 Tranced and shut, the viewless daylight fell 
 Rainbow'd, whose pen dropt pearls, whose workday words 
 Were beaten gold, and all thine awful page 
 A ray'd and pulsing glory, not for us — 
 The country hearts whom God ordained to hear 
 168 
 
The singing and the tinkling of the rain, 
 
 To smell wood-smoke, and feel the wind, and watch 
 
 The soundless traffic of the isled sky : 
 
 Poor dreamers, by the cruel city caught 
 
 And hung in cages, whose few songs are all 
 
 Green memories and longing — not for us 
 
 Was thy great vision domed : unblinking souls 
 
 May joy in that broad glare : we crave for rest 
 
 And a lull'd Heaven of shadows. 
 
 On our dreams 
 Far other picture falls of life beyond 
 The round and turn of time. 
 
 Here while I sit 
 And see the silent shepherd of the clouds 
 Gather his flock for folding, and the sun 
 Burns molten-red, and strikes the squalid streets 
 To aisled and vista'd splendour, lo ! the bell 
 In three slow Pangs, thrice-doled, that buzz and sting, 
 Rolls out the Angelus, and passing men 
 Lift their poor hats, and, standing, say the words 
 The angel spake to Mary, till the sound 
 Has drawn away in thinn'd and dwindling waves 
 And trembled into silence : then, behold ! 
 From factory and warehouse, smirch-faced men, 
 
 169 
 
Lunging their arms into their fringed sleeves, 
 And chattering girls, bareheaded, save for shawls 
 Drawn hood-wise, issue forth, a long dark stream 
 With current setting homeward. 
 
 Ah, such homes ! 
 Cellars that dive among the drains, where rats 
 Die for their charter'd rights, and all the floor 
 Is puddled foulness ; where the light of Heaven 
 Is only random hearsay : rattling garrets, 
 Bare-ribb'd as death, with brick and paper panes 
 And peeling plaster silver'd by the snail ; 
 Where the tub stands beside the sleeper's head 
 To save the sopping pillow. Ah, such homes ! 
 So scant of food and furniture, so full 
 Of draughts and hollowness and moss'd decay, 
 And huddled hunger ! 
 
 Yet (to God be praise!) 
 Nor sourest squalor, famine's numbing nip, 
 Nor ugly vice, the fungus of such soil, 
 Unhomes these dwellings. Tho' the cupboard rumble 
 And the black grate strike chill, the heart o' the house 
 Beats warm and kindly ; yea, a sanctity 
 Wardens its door ; it is a place apart, 
 A shrine, a love, a healing. Home ! home ! home ! — 
 170 
 
It call'd thro' all the harsh and dinning day 
 
 Like far-off music. Now the clock strikes Home, 
 
 And the foot hurries on to catch the heart. 
 
 See, on that step a ragged woman stands, 
 
 Holding a barefoot child that crows and fights 
 
 To go to father. Look, she leads him in. 
 
 The meal is ready and the chair is set, 
 
 And the fire leaps to greet him. Rest is come : 
 
 He shall be heal'd of all the dour day's hurt ; 
 
 Fatigue shall pass, moroseness peel away, 
 
 And all God's secret writing on the heart, 
 
 Tenderness, patience, trust, shall shine out clear, 
 
 Drawn by the warmth of home. 
 
 Ah, rest, deep rest, 
 Kindly and intimate, the blessed voices, 
 The eyes that see our hearts, sweet-breathing peace, 
 Shutter'd from fret and jar — we clasp them all 
 In one soft-letter'd word of native sound 
 That makes gruff voices gracious, naming Home. 
 
 Brother, Death keeps his secret, and the vault 
 Yieldeth void echoes to the ear that hangs 
 Craving a whisper. One short step from here 
 Toucheth the core of silence : none may guess 
 What sights await the unsealing of the lids 
 
 171 
 
Weigh'd down on vacancy. And yet, methinks, 
 Not strange that world will be, nor fenced and bourn'd 
 From the old life we loved : I do not deem 
 Heaven's lamps are very far : and, as for me, 
 I fill its life with good work gladly done, 
 And quiet country sounds, and loving eyes, 
 And looks that hold remembrances and dreams, 
 And one rich Presence at the soul of all, 
 The living Heart of home. 
 
 Whene'er I view 
 A face whereon the dusky wings of death 
 Have shed their shadow, alway do I find 
 Exceeding peace, a peace beyond the drop 
 Of our poor plummets, and I know it breathes 
 From the eternal peace whose waves have wash'd 
 That utmost point of time ; and when I speak 
 To him so seeming near, yet sunk so far 
 Into the gulf we probe not, naught I tell 
 Of golden-paven streets and gates of pearl 
 And mighty music : only this I say : 
 " Brother, dear brother, thou art going home." 
 
 172 
 
FAILURE. 
 
 {LD friend, about whose kindly eyes and mine 
 {The black fowl's foot doth sink thro' equal years, 
 i Dost mind thee how, deep into melting June, 
 I We rode together in our flashing mail, 
 Asking no alms of Summer, flinging back, 
 Doubled, the gold that every sunbeam gave, 
 Bound for the tourney : — we, whose prize, forejudged, 
 Hung ripe and ready as the wayside rose : 
 So sure that the gross corporal set and shock 
 Appear'd as if to mouth and hoarsely rant 
 Fate's seemly-spoken word : who, long years past, 
 Not crown'd, not overthrown, but jostled by, 
 Sit on this bench retired of life's old square, 
 And hear the far-off noises? 
 
 True and dear, 
 Better than brother, thou whose root is deep 
 In my rich memories, thou whom life hath led 
 By diverse ways to one self bourne with mine, 
 And taught one lesson, on that day supreme 
 When God shall call His conquerors to their croWns, 
 Not all from thrones and judgments shall they come : 
 Nay, more from workhouse, hospital and ditch, 
 From every lee and backward where the world 
 
 *73 
 
Washes its waste, already deeply crown'd 
 With the red stab of thorns. 
 
 To fail— to fail! 
 Is it to fall shorn thro', stretching bare hands 
 To clutch some mailed lie? To yield the block 
 The first red vintage of a trampled truth ? 
 To lift the voice and cry in the dead night? 
 To beat at bolted doors? To feed on dreams? 
 To pour the molten soul into a song, 
 And never ask ' who buys? ' — Is this to fail ? 
 Then ope the gospel at the opening page, 
 And add this title to the name of Christ — 
 " The Man who fail'd." 
 
 To fail — what is to fail ? 
 Haply — thy foot upon the frore white ways, 
 Call'd of the virgin splendours and the peaks 
 That see the clean stars brighten — to glance back, 
 Stand, sigh, look upward, slowly pivot round, 
 Drawn by the twinkling village in the mist 
 And the red fire's roar of greeting. Or, perchance — 
 Because that God, Who sent thee with a word 
 Doth use an old-time freedom in His speech, 
 Laying on urban acts His country names — 
 To fine His message to such fortunate phrase 
 
 174 
 
As spares the delicate sinner's cheek and wins 
 The bearer graced reception. Or, perchance, 
 To toil thro* twenty numb and pinching years, 
 Till — that same day whereon the Spirit of God, 
 Grieved, hath turn'd from thy stark, starved soul — 
 Thou fling thee back upon a padded chair, 
 And cry, " Fair soul, be merry." Is it this, 
 Brother, is this to fail ? 
 
 I look around 
 And ask my heart, what price hath each man paid 
 For that furr'd gown he wears ? and answer comes, 
 This man, his strength, and that, his pleasant things, 
 And this, the smile within ; and — while I greet, 
 Gladly, clear brows with crowns allow'd of Heaven 
 And feet that walk'd to wealth thro' kindly ways — 
 Not less I thank the love that held me back 
 From power and praise, saying, " Thou shalt not go, 
 Nor take their large reward," and bade me keep 
 Green paths and quiet thoughts : because I know 
 He that doth study the world's alchemy, 
 And breweth its elixir, readeth thus : 
 " First cast thou in thy soul." 
 
 And when I muse 
 On reedy purposes that pierced the hand, 
 
 175 
 
On broken efforts, aspirations clogg'd, 
 
 And thwarted prayers ; while that a cry ascends ; 
 
 " See ! in my bosom not the reaper's sheaf, 
 
 Scarce the poor gleaner's handful ! " and again ; 
 
 "JLo, broken is my fence and my well dry : 
 
 My tender blossom goeth up as dust, 
 
 And all my heart is brine : " and, low between, 
 
 Weariful, endless, " Ah, to sleep, to sleep ! 
 
 To sleep as sleep my fathers, recking naught, 
 
 Made one with dew and silence ! " when the deep 
 
 Of the world's sorrow answers my sorrow and moans : 
 
 I think of One Whose ways are not our ways, 
 
 Nor His thoughts ours ; whose measuring-rod not sorts 
 
 With earthly standards, who doth toss a sun 
 
 Makeweight against a feather, and sees a tear 
 
 Balance an ocean ; and my heart doth nurse 
 
 Large thoughts and patient. 
 
 Lo, the long day done, 
 The last sheaf cut and bound, I hear God call 
 His reapers to their wages, and there come 
 A strong man with his stook, a little child 
 That hath but pick'd a poppy, and a woman 
 Lifting her empty hands, and God doth say, * 
 Smiling, " My children, enter : enter all : 
 176 
 
Well have ye borne the slow day's heavy hand, 
 Looking the fierce noon bravely in the face. 
 See, equal lies achievement in these scales 
 That weigh not work but will." 
 
 Then one is brought 
 Fetter'd and manacled with heavy chains 
 And stain'd with miry fallings, and he looks 
 With eyes that strive to hide their Wan appeal, 
 Deeming they plead for pity undeserved, 
 Impossible : and lo ! the Voice of God 
 Deepens the silence, and the fetters fall. 
 " Enter," saith God : " deep in the dusk of Heaven 
 Thy restful place is set. Bright is the bower 
 Of those that wore white robes and kept them white 
 Simply, as doth the lily : graced the seat 
 Of them who cleansed in blood of their own souls 
 The stains of hate and passion : yet, behold, 
 Room is reserved exceeding close to Me— ■ 
 Where I may alway lean and touch their heads, 
 And speak a lullina word — for such as thou, 
 Who, looking down, scarce find the heart to say, 
 " My tfobe is foul : I could not keep it white : 
 And yet — Thou knowest — yet I think I tried." 
 Come, brother, let us pray : " Pass o'er my crown : 
 
 177 
 
Pardon my shining vesture : be not Thou 
 Extreme to mark my graces : only look 
 On my sad empty heart that could not find 
 Its peace where Thou wert not. In that lone cry 
 That breaketh from me in the homeless night 
 I think that Thou didst call me, even me, 
 To come and sit where I might reach my hand 
 And touch thy vesture. That is all my hope." 
 
 178 
 
THE LAST WORD. 
 
THE LAST WORD. 
 
 |E that would know what lies Beyond, 
 Or if Beyond there be, 
 
 l Will ye be hearten'd or despond 
 At what hath chaneed to me ? 
 
 My mother, ere her pain reposed, 
 And her' fond lips grew dumb, 
 
 Did promise, if a door unclosed, 
 She would most surely come. 
 
 Her word was alway very truth, 
 
 Her love was holy flame ; 
 I was alone in tempted youth ; 
 
 And yet she never came. 
 
 Not Heaven, I know, her soul could win 
 
 To self-absorbed content, 
 While I was hovering close to sin, 
 
 Nor knew what sinning meant. 
 
 Is there indeed no spirit speech 
 Our fleshly sense may know, 
 
 That never did her lips beseech 
 Or chide me long ago ? 
 
 181 
 
Or, unto those that see the end, 
 That view life whole and clear, 
 
 Do pain and sin in blessing blend, 
 And leave no place for fear? 
 
 Haply the heavy cloud of tears 
 And sweat and deathly dew, 
 
 Grows white and splendid as it nears 
 God's dome of tender blue. 
 
 " All roadways," said the Roman pride, 
 " All roadways lead to Rome ; " 
 
 Perchance, howe'er men's paths divide, 
 At last they bring them home. 
 
 Strange, devious ways there be, I know, 
 Whereby God's gates are found, 
 
 And he that would by short cuts go 
 Doth wander widely round. 
 
 I have not known of mortal mould 
 A wretch so fell and grim, 
 
 But when the story all was told 
 I needs must weep with him. 
 182 
 
The soul I counted near the brute 
 
 Was nearer the divine : 
 I dare not to my God impute 
 
 A duller heart than mine. 
 
 Time takes my strength, but gives my ken * 
 
 A wider range and scope : 
 I view the heaven-sway'd lives of men 
 
 With endless trust and hope. 
 
 No more I label, sort, define 
 
 God's dealings deep and dread : 
 I raise to Heaven these eyes of mine, 
 
 And all my creed is said. 
 
 183 
 
Notes. 
 
THE CURSE OF CAIN. (p. ai.) 
 
 " In a wonder dim 
 That his hair was white." 
 
 There is an innocence in white hair that has invested many 
 an evil old age with a spurious pathos and a false tenderness. 
 
 The eyes that followed Cain felt an instinctive incongruity 
 between the man's snowy locks and a certain suggestion of 
 redness that went with his general appearance. 
 
 I have no legendary authority for the story of this ballad. 
 
 HOW PILATE WASHED HIS HANDS, (p. 33.) 
 
 " Legends cluster round his (Pilate's) name. It is said 
 that he studied in Huesca, Spain ; had Judas Iscariot for his 
 servant, and that the emperor (Tiberius) had his dead body 
 thrown into the Tiber. Then evil spirits possessed it, and 
 caused the river to overflow. After the flood, his body was 
 put in the Rhone by Vienne; and there again it caused a 
 storm, so that it was transported to the Alpine Mountain, 
 now called Mount Pilatus, near Lucerne, and there sunk in 
 the deep pool on its top ; but again it caused strange com- 
 motion. . . . Every year, on Good Friday, the Devil 
 takes him out of the pool, and sets him upon a throne, 
 whereupon he washes his hands. The wife of Pilate — called 
 Procla, or Claudia Procula, whose solemn warning, " Have 
 thou nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have 
 suffered many things this day in a dream because of him " 
 (Matt, xxvii, 19), is introduced so dramatically in Matthew's 
 account of the trial of Jesus — appears in the Pilate legend as 
 
 187 
 
a proselyte of the gate. Origen, Chrysostom, and Hilary 
 assert that she became a Christian. The Greek Church 
 makes her a saint, and observes Oct. 27 as her day. Her 
 dream has been considered by Jews as a magical deed of 
 Christ to effect his deliverance, but by Christians (Pseudo- 
 Ignatius, Ad Philip., 4, Bede, Bernard, Heliand) as a work 
 of Satan, to hinder the atoning work of Christ." 
 
 Leyrer: Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia. 
 
 The foregoing summary of the Pilatic legends will enable 
 my readers to judge in what proportion the legendary and 
 the imaginary are blended in my ballad. 
 
 The anachronisms, it scarcely needs to be said, are not 
 unintentional. 
 
 THE UNFORGIVEN SIN. (p. 41.) 
 
 This poem has already appeared in a volume of selections 
 from my poems, called " A Cracked Fiddle." I reproduce 
 it as having an affinity with its present associates which it had 
 not with its original random company. No other poem in 
 this collection has been printed in any volume of mine. 
 
 ESAU AND THE ANGELS, (p. 49.) 
 
 As this story has been accepted by a distinguished critic as 
 the embodiment of a genuine legend, it may be as well to say 
 that it has no legendary authority whatever. Its moral and 
 motive I have tried to epitomise in the title of one of the 
 small poems in my collection, A Cluster of Quiet Thoughts: 
 " Dat Deus angelos : tu fer oculos." 
 188 
 
THE MISER, (p. 71.) 
 
 The essential facts of this story repeat themselves period- 
 ically. In my ballad I have followed pretty closely the details 
 of a somewhat recent occurrence in Limerick. 
 
 Incredible as it may seem, the behaviour attributed to the 
 Doctor has been taken as a general charge of inhumanity 
 against the medical profession. Nothing was further from 
 my thoughts, my intention being merely to suggest a some- 
 what easygoing acceptance of occasional cases of starvation 
 among the masses by the classes. 
 
 THE PLOUGH, (p. 105.) 
 
 This poem was suggested by the picture by Mr. W. C. T. 
 Dobson, R.A. 
 
 The reference in the penultimate stanza is to the New 
 Year. 
 
 A QUIET INN. (p. 127.) 
 
 This poem was written and read as a prologue to a dra- 
 matic performance given at the Athenasum, Limerick, in aid 
 of the funds of Barrington's Hospital in that city. 
 
 MOTHER'S GIRLIE, (p. 131.) 
 
 " Ah, but Christmas ! — in my hand 
 
 Christmas placed a rod enchanted." 
 
 The reference here is to the wunschzettel or " wish-list," 
 
 189 
 
on which, all over Germany, children are accustomed to write 
 down the things they particularly desire to have. 
 
 " And a drop of Moonshine dew 
 Cures a wrinkle." 
 Fairy doctors attribute special efficacy to washes made from 
 herbs gathered under particular phases or aspects of the moon. 
 I think, but am not quite sure, that moonlight-dew has a part 
 in some potent prescriptions for the restoration of faded 
 beauty, 
 
 WORK-A-DAY WEEDS, (p. 137.) 
 
 M Ei estin soma psuchikon, estin kai pneumatikon." 
 
 1 Cor. xv, 44. 
 
 WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH.. (p. 138.) 
 
 " I sent my soul through the invisible 
 Some letter of that after-life to spell : 
 
 And by-and-by my soul returned to me, 
 And answered, ' I myself am Heav'n and Hell.' " 
 
 Fitzgerald's rendering of Omar Khayyam. 
 
 MORS IMMORTALIS. (p. 139.) 
 
 " A maiden's hearse, pale-plumed, went shivering past." 
 
 In Ireland, and, I suppose, in other Roman Catholic 
 countries, the hearses of the unmarried are distinguished by 
 white plumes. 
 190 
 
THE GREAT DAY. (p. 143.) 
 
 On the morning of November 16th, 1892, I awoke with 
 the idea of this Sonnet, and with the last line shaped almost 
 exactly as it stands, present in my mind — whether as carried 
 out of a dream, or as forged in some automatic mental process 
 precisely synchronous with the recovery of consciousness, I 
 will not undertake positively to determine. I fully believe, 
 however, that I have to thank a dream for the suggestion, and 
 there are circumstances which give anterior probability to that 
 belief. In an early volume of verses, Gaslight and Stars, I 
 have published a poem of which the first twenty lines or so 
 were undoubtedly composed during sleep wherein conscious- 
 ness was never completely lost nor the brain left quite without 
 a hand at the wheel. Furthermore, in childhood, for a con- 
 siderable period, I was accustomed to subject my dreams to 
 the control of my will, reproducing night after night upon 
 the mental retina the same exquisite vision of Heaven, and 
 transporting myself thither. 
 
 After a time, I lost the power of compelling that lovely 
 dream — my Magna sed Apia, the longed-for consummation 
 of every dull day, the real spiritual life which was making 
 the automatic animal life a weary inanity — the sucked skin of 
 a grape. Then I began to be vexed by persistent nightmares, 
 which — powerless though I was to repel them — I was not 
 quite without means of controlling. It was clearly understood 
 between me and the hag bestriding the black mare that as soon 
 as I could hear my own voice saying " I am awake," she was 
 to make the sinister beast lift her weight from my chest. At 
 this moment, after thirty years, I retain a singularly vivid im- 
 
 191 
 
pression of my double personality — one self struggling against 
 the paralysis of nightmare : the other turning an intent ear 
 to distinguish the first outward cry, that it might proclaim 
 the sleep broken, and bid the hag begone. These personal 
 experiences — repeating to a great extent those of Robert 
 Louis Stevenson — have for me imparted great probability to 
 the story of Peter Ibbetson and " Mary Towers " and their 
 happy haven in dreamland. My strong conviction is that 
 dreams are not the mere irrelevancies which they are commonly 
 esteemed, but are creatures not unendowed with moral sense, 
 capable of control, direction and education. 
 
 It seems to be an indubitable fact that people are beginning 
 to dream poems, plots, theses. 
 
 Most of the captured suggestions of the night— or is it 
 rather the early morning? — are not of the highest literary 
 quality. We all remember the disappointment of the poet 
 whose Kubla Khan shrank in the morning light to 
 
 " Walker on one leg, 
 
 Walker on two : 
 Something to dream of, 
 
 Something to do." 
 
 My belief, however, is, that the time is not far distant when 
 gorgeous dreaming will be comparatively general, and when 
 the " airy navies " of the night will be taught to obey the 
 helm. Dreamland will be conquered and annexed to literature. 
 
 " There is a gnat whose voice I do not hear." 
 Recoiling from the grotesquerie of the idea of the gnat, 
 and fearing that by its retention the solemnity of the whole 
 192 
 
conception would be risked, in one draft of this sonnet I 
 altered the last line as follows : — 
 
 " The cry of a hurt bird doth reach me here." 
 On further consideration, however, I restored the original 
 line, in the deliberate conviction that the grotesquerie was 
 only skin-deep, and that the thoughtful reader would justify 
 my decision. Besides, I felt a scruple against tampering with 
 the gift of a dream. 
 
 ISOLATION, (p. 1 60.) 
 
 " . . Lonely atoms, twain whereof will touch 
 Not while the round world trundles." 
 The following words from " Dr. Jekyll's Statement of the 
 Case " are suggestive in this connection. 
 
 " I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been 
 stated, the trembling immateriality, the mist-like transience, 
 of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired." 
 
 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 
 
 THE LAST WORD. (p. 179.) 
 
 " Did promise, if a door enclosed, 
 She would most surely come." 
 
 This promise was actually given to me, as, no doubt, it has 
 been given to many others. Perhaps it has been kept. Who 
 can tell but that those suggestions of warning or of persuasion 
 which come we know not whence, and which we attribute 
 most commonly to some obscure working of conscience, are 
 not the influences of the minds of beloved ones who are in 
 the spirit? 
 
 v *93 
 
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