s/'W, ^ % A^^si^3 Cornell University Library PR 4042.S12 Sacred and profane love and other poems, 3 1924 013 209 659 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013209659 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE AND OTHER POEMS MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE AND OTHER POEMS BY ALFRED AUSTIN POET LAUREATE MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON I 908 K.?.c^^^3 TO W. J. COURTHOPE, C.B. LATE PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY 0*" OXFORD AND AUTHOR OF THE 'HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY,' THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED IN CONSECRATION OF THIRTY YEARS OF UNBROKEN FRIENDSHIP CONTENTS Sacred and Profane Love . Other Poems — A Shakespeare Memorial The Wind speaks . Sisyphus . Mozart's Grave Lines written on visit on the Loire . A Farewell . Wardens of the Wave Primacy of Mind . A Question answered Awake ! Awake ! . December Matins . The White Pall of Peace The Dance at Darmstadt iNG the Chateaux PAGE I 3° 3" 41 48 53 58 62 65 67 72 74 79 81 vin CONTENTS Love's Wisdom If they dare ! Occasional Sonnets— A Wintry Picture Time's Defence Resignation . Time's Weariness . Any Poet at any Time Love of Life . Too Late. Forgiveness Spiritual Love An Autumn Homily The Evening Light PAGE 93 lOI 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 no III SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE " Sacred and Profane Love,'' the name ascribed by tradition to the well-known picture by Titian in the Villa Borghese, Rome, suggested the title of the following Poem. The Picture has long been re- garded as symbolical ; and symbolical, likewise, is the Poem. But the symbolism of the latter is, as far as the author knows, distinct from any hitherto ascribed to the Picture ; contrasting, as it does, Worldly Ambition with Spiritual Aspiration, the Political career in its lower aspect with the Literary career in its highest. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE In the dark shadow of the windless pines Whose gloomy glory lines the obsequies Of the gaunt Claudian Aqueduct along The lone Campagna to sepulchral Rome, A Northern youth, companionless, reclined. Pondering on records of the Roman Past, Kingdom, Republic, Empire, longwhile gone. Hard-by, through marble tomb revivified, Rippled-and bubbled water crystalline, Inwelling from the far-off Sabine hills. When lo ! upon the tomb's deep-dinted rim 3 4 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE Slowly there broadened on his gaze two shapes, Material embodiment of those The great Venetian in resplendent hues Upon the canvas lastingly portrayed, Christened by fame Profane and Sacred Love. One was in rich habiliments arrayed. With dimpling folds about her rounded limbs, And heaving corset of embossed brocade, Compressing beaker for her brimming breasts. Jewels were in her hair, jewels entwined Themselves round her columnar throat, and thus On him she gazed unshrinkingly, and seemed Sensuous seduction irresistible. The other in nude innocency clad, All save veined vineleaf cincture round her waist, Sate with her gaze averted, and beheld Only her image trembling in the wave. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE I Her had he fain accosted, but the dread Of violating her aloofness checked The movement of his mind, and held him mute. So to the One resplendently enrobed. Familiarly fearless as herself. He turned, albeit his thought was otherwhere, As elsewhere his desire, and boldly said : " If with your earthly seeming be conjoined Gift and capacity of earthly speech, Speak to me, earthly, an you will, and break The all too spacious silence with your voice." Her curving lips, whose fulness seemed to pledge Intoxicating kisses, drooped apart, And to her orbs upsurged volcanic fire, As she with prompt unhesitating voice. Commanding more than musical, rejoined. Whereat that Other ever and anon 6 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE Would for a moment turn to him her face, To note the interpretation of his heart And wavering of his will, and then once more Her look averted to the Sabine hills, And cloudless vault of overarching Heaven. Profane Love speaks I " I am the Goddess mortals call Profane, Yet worship me as though I were divine ; Over their lives, unrecognised, I reign, For all their thoughts are mine. II " I was coeval with the peopled Earth, And, while it lasts, I likewise shall endure. For Destiny endowed me at my birth With every mundane lure. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE 7 III "Men rear no marble temple to my name, No statues mould in Minster or in mart, Yet in their longings silently proclaim My throne is on their heart. IV " Unto the phantom Deities of air They pay lip homage, carven altars raise, To these bow down with ceremonial prayer, And sycophantic praise. V " With them I kneel, but neither praise nor pray. While tapers burn, hymns float, and organ rolls. Because I know that there too can I sway And stupefy their souls. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE " Their pompous flatteries are not for me, My panegyric is the secret sigh : Wherefore should mortals monuments decree To Me who cannot die ? VII " I am the fountain of wealth, titles, power, 'Tis I ordain the pedestal and bust. When there doth toll the inevitable hour, The hour of death and dust. VIII " Ruby, and pearl, and diamond, and the ore Torn from the entrails of the Earth, are mine ; Mine are the cargoes shipped from shore to shore, Spices, and silks, and wine : SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE g IX " Wherewith men buy what crafty barter brings, — Greater the gain, more hazardous the risks,— Toil from the many, coronets from Kings, And lust from odalisques. X " If such content not, since your hopes aspire On heights of popularity to tower, I can conduct you on yet swifter tire To winning-peak of Power. XI " Then without scruple, pity, or restraint, Cleave you your conquering way ; for there is nought, Of all that worldlings crave and hirelings paint, But can be seized or bought. lo SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE XII " Myriads from mine and furrow, quay and loom, Shall congregate to hear you pledge and prate, Hailing you heaven-sent warder-off of gloom, And Saviour of the State. " And lissom sirens, temptingly attired. With heartless hearts, self-seeking as your own, By your sonorous phrases will be fired, And gather round your throne. XIV " Platform and Senate, Cabinet and Court, You shall cajole, convert, or overawe ; Whithersoe'er you speciously disport, Your wordy Will be law. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE XV " But many and many a worshipper have I, So cannot grant monopoly of power : Others there be who fain would climb as high As you, and have their hour. " Then their ambition with your own will shock, And they awhile on foremost seat may reign : Men's favour is a quicksand, not a rock, And veers like gust and vane. XVII " Then must you with invectives fume and rage All through the land, denouncing evil times. With histrionic passion ; 'tis a stage ' For mountebanks and mimes — 12 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE , XVIII " Slandering the foes who slander you, and so, If thousands hate, thousands will hail, your name. Till you in notoriety shall grow, The herd confound with Fame. XIX " Them that o'erwhelm, vindictiveness o'erwhelms, So nought shall you from Fortune's wheel entice. Gambling for Self's predominance with Realms And Empires for your dice. XX " If with the years male energy should wane, Orders and honours on you shall be shed : Thus will you still in man's remembrance reign, A halo round your head. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE 13 XXI " And when at length the End of all life's ends Doth with the little lay the mighty down, And domination finally descends Graveward without its Crown, XXII " Processions populous, bedizened hearse, And mourners ermined shall your dust convey To pompous tomb, and vying prose and verse Protract your little day. XXIII "What though your name grow faint, as time recedes, Like scarce-heard wave upon a far-off shore. And wax the record of your words and deeds A voice and nothing more, 14 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE XXIV " You will have drained all that the world can give, All boons and blandishments of Love Profane, Success and homage, for which sane men live, And all the rest is vain." She ceased ; and, as she ceased, then Sacred Love, That ever and anon meanwhile had bent On him her look, and smilingly surmised, From his vague gaze and inattentive ears, That he was only waiting for Her voice, Like to the moon fleeting through fleecy clouds. Her undissembled beauty on him bared, And with a voice like sylvan rivulet That haunts the woodlands, muffled half by leaves, Serene and slow with silvery clearness spake. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE 15 I " In the unseen first-fostering of breath Whose secret is by Science vainly sought, Uncertain borderland 'twixt Life and Death, I share the silence of the Mother's thought. II " Her love is not more anxious than is mine, Together we await the human cry. For even then I, Sacred Love, divine If it will grow to voice that may not die. Ill " And I its foster-mother am, and feed Its suckling dreams, and watch it waxing strong, Giving it for its plaything moorland reed. That it may grow and ripen into Song. i6 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE IV " For Love Profane doth sleeplessly await Its coining, to mislead it on its way, Whispering, ' Become what Greatness deemeth great, Till mighty Rulers recognise your sway.' " I listened tremblingly while Love Profane Strove to entice you to the worldling's throne, Along the worldling's way, but strove in vain. Now hath She gone, and we are here alone." His gaze that had on Her who thuswise spake Fastened, since indivisibly intent Upon the cadence of her voice, quick turned At these last words, to look for Love Profane. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE i7 But lo ! its effigy from marble rim Had vanished, like the face of Roman sway, Kingship, Republic, Empire ; and the flow Of water welling through the rifled tomb Was the sole sound he heard, until her voice Melodiously measured, spake once more. VI " Rise and come near to me, and take my hand. And lay your cheek against my cheek, for sign That you henceforth will know and understand That all the children of the Muse are mine. VII " Your parent am I, though I seem so young. It is my birthright never to grow old ; Young shall I keep so long as songs are sung. By such fresh offspring gladdened and consoled. c i8 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE VIII " I was beside the font when you were brought Into the granite-pillared House of Prayer ; Smiled at your loneliness when first you sought To sing away your load of childish care. " Rapture maternal fluttered in my heart When you yourself disdainfully' denied What worldlings prize, and chose the better part, Wending where now I find you at my side. " I know your present sorrow, since you fear I have forsaken you and left you lone. And Rome has silenced what you held so dear. Wait ! from the unseen seed the flower is grown. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE 19 XI " Rome is the tomb of Heroes, and of Kings, Consuls, and conquerors, and world-wide sway : What wonder, should it silence him that sings Before he learns what he must sing and say ? XII " But you may live and die, a Voice unheard : I promise not what I can not fulfil : Only, — in the Beginning was the Word, It was with God, and it is godlike still. XIII " But unto you, as unto all my line. Or strong or weak, resounding or obscure, I pledge the gifts inalienably mine. Gifts that content and pleasures that endure : 20 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE XIV " Companionship of woodlands, hills, and streams, And gentle womenkind, to whom you owe Youth in your heart, and shaping of your dreams. And these will teach what more you need to know. XV " Nature's still fresh society will keep Your feelings young, as you each April follow Coy maiden Spring, when she awakes from sleep In windflower dell and primrose pillowed hollow : XVI " Watch Autumn wax in splendour day by day, Then, slowly yielding unto Time's assault. Her moribund magnificence decay. To sleep entombed in Winter's icy vault ; SACRED AND PROFANE. LOVE zi XVII "And when the boughs stretch bare and fallows hoar, And plovers wheel about the moorland wide, Hear the pinched wind wailing through chink and door, With piteous prayer to share the warm fireside. XVIII " Nature's capriciousness leaves just the same Her inmost self; she does nor change nor veer ; Just as the seasons lend, with varying name. Their contrast to the oneness of the year. XIX " The Poet's love no base-bred difference knows Of high and low, the peasant and the peer, Save that his tenderness more heed bestows On humble sorrow than luxurious tear. 22 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE XX " Childhood's keen questioning, Youth's gropings blind, Manhood's ambition, Age's graver part. Alike can move his understanding mind, And rouse his promptly sympathising heart. XXI " Here, 'mid the ruins that you now behold. You will imbibe the meaning of the Past, Learning to weigh the new by what is old, The things that perish, and the things that last. XXII " Instructed thus, keep severed in your mind The Passing from the Permanent, and prize Only the precious heirlooms of Mankind, Thought that ennobles. Art that vivifies. S4CRED AND PROFANE LOVE 23 XXIII " Vex not your mind with riddles that beguile The unwise to wrangle over things unknown. 'Tis not for Song to enrage, but reconcile, So to the Tower of Babel add no stone. XXIV " But while from futile feuds you dwell apart, Never forget to render what is due. In hour of need, from manly hand and heart. To the male Land whose soil engendered you. XXV " Should opulence, and ease, and base desire Deaden effeminate ears to just alarms, Sound all the clanging octaves of the lyre, And rouse a nation's manhood unto arms, 24 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE , XXVI " Save only then, no clamorous crowds must mar The musing silence of secluded days, Whose course should journey quiet as a star. That moves alone along Heaven's trackless ways. XXVII " Then will you 'mid deserted Abbey walls Hear both the matin and the vesper bell, The girdled Brothers chanting in their stalls. And see the Prior praying in his cell. XXVIII " The Present and the Past shall seem but one, Kingdoms, and Creeds, and Sceptres, passed away, Stand out, in retrospection's noonday sun. As Kingdoms, Creeds, and Sceptres, of to-day. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE 25 XXIX " In the fair hospitable Tuscan Land, Where Raphael and Donatello wrought, Sojourn, and ponder till you understand The masculine restraint themselves were taught — XXX " Taught by the disentombed Minervan mind That, in the days still governing if gone, Within the rugged Parian block divined Majestic calmness of the Parthenon. XXXI " And when, departing hence, you wandering wend Where the brief Attic splendour dawned and shone, Pray to Athene she to you will lend The golden curb she lent Bellerophon. 26 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE XXXII " Nor be the Hill Hellenic sculptors trod Your one sole haunt, but, let who will condemn. Kneel at all altars ' To the Unknown God,' Alike at Athens or Jerusalem. XXXIII " Siren and seraph, athlete, anchorite. Saints of the cloister, satyrs of the grove. In one and all seek meaning and delight, Reigning Jehovah, abdicated Jove. XXXIV " Deem not the Oracles to-day are dumb ; They from their graves the World's course still forecast. From things long gone expound the things to come, And prophesy the Future from the Past. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE 27 XXXV " And not from Gothic shrine and classic urn, From dome, or spire, or portico alone, Study the mystery of Art, but learn From each in turn to apprehend your own. XXXVI " Not least from its loved twin, melodious sound, The universal unseen soul of things, Whose utterance men invoke when words are found Powerless to frame their vague imaginings. xxxvn " And, when the riper Youth that men call Age Welcomes the closing dispensation, death, Song that soothes sorrow and makes suffering sage, Shall linger with you till your farewell breath. 28 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE , XXXVIII "Not crowded aisle and ceremonial nave Claim those that have from me life's lesson learned. Who best have loved them bear them to their grave, Where they near home lie ' quietly inurned.' " * Then, like the cadence of a closing song, Her soft voice sank to silence, and he felt Her arms fold round him, and so widened his, Eager to share in privileged embrace : When, lo ! the vision vanished with the voice, . And all he saw were the calm Sabine hills, And all he heard, the lisping of the wave Clear-welling through the rifled marble tomb. But all She had said sank deep into his heart, And what She said is truly written here. ^ Hamlet, i. 4. OTHER POEMS A SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL Why should we lodge in marble or in bronze Spirits more vast than earth, or sea, or sky ? Wiser the silent worshipper that cons Their words for wisdom that will never die. Unto the favourite of the passing hour Erect the statue and parade the bust ; Whereon decisive Time will slowly shower Oblivion's refuse and disdainful dust The Monarchs of the Mind, self-sceptred Kings, Need no memento to transmit their name : Throned on their thoughts and high imaginings, They are the Lords, not sycophants of Fame. Raise pedestals to perishable stuff: Gods for themselves are monuments enough. 30 THE WIND SPEAKS I " In the depth of Night, on the heights of Day, Would you know where I rest or roam ? In vain will you search, for I nowhere stay. And the Universe is my home. II " When you think to descry on the craggy steep My skirts as I mount and flee From the wrecks I have wrought, I am sound asleep In the cradles rocked by the sea. 31 32 THE WIND SPEAKS III " There is never an eye that hath seen my helm, Though I traverse the ocean's face ; There is never a foot that hath trod my Realm, Or can guide to my dwelling-place. " Then how will you challenge my Will and me. Or, how what I do, arraign ? Bewail as you may, I alone am free, You can neither imprison nor chain. " Your dungeons clang on the blood-red hand. And fetter the monster's claw. If I merge 'neath the wave, if I level on land. It is that my will is law. THE WIND SPEAKS 33 VI " You have cleared the main of the corsair's keel, And the forest of outlaws' tread ; Your hounds follow swift on the felon's heel, And the trail of the ravisher fled. VII " But when I harry the woods, or scour The furrows of foam for prey. The blushing bloom of the Spring deflower. Or outrage the buds of May, VIII " Where, where are they that can hunt me down. Or catch up my tacking sail. Can bridle my lust with scourge or frown, As I speed me away on the gale ? 34 THE WIND SPEAKS IX " I heed no menace, I hark no prayer And, if I desire, I sate : 'Tis but when I want not that I spare, But neither from love nor hate. " Let the feeble falter in their intent, Or, slaking it, feel remorse. Though I never refrain, I never repent I am nothing but Will and Force. XI " The flocks of the wandering waves I hold In the hollow of my hand, And I let them loose, like a huddled fold, And with them I flood the land ; THE WIND SPEAKS 35 XII " Till they swirl round villages, hamlets, thorpes, As the cottagers flee for life : Then I fling the fisherman's flaccid corpse At the feet of the fisherman's wife. XIII " I blow from the shore as the surges swell. And the drenched barque strains for port. But heareth in vain the lighthouse bell And the guns of the hailing fort. XIV " Where speedeth the horseman o'er sand or veldt That boasteth a seat like mine .' I ride without stirrup, or bit, or belt, On the back of the bounding brine. 36 THE WIND SPEAKS XV " And it rears and plunges, it chafes and foams, But I am its master still. And its mettle I tame till it halts or roams At whatever pace I will. XVI " I shatter the stubborn oak, and blanch The leaves of the poplar tree, And sweep all the chords of bough and branch. Till I make them sound like the sea. XVII " O, where is there music like to mine. When I muster my breath and roll Through the organ pipes of the mountain pine, Till they fill and affright the soul ? THE WIND SPEAKS 37 XVIII " Then smoothly and softly, 'twixt shore and shore, I float on the dreaming mere ; And motionless then you suspend your oar. And listen, but cannot hear. XIX " For I have crept to the water's edge, And deep under reed-mace crest Am faintly fanning the seeded sedge, Or rocking the cygnet's nest. XX " If I strip the maidenly birches bare Of their dainty transparent dress. It is that their limbs may look more fair In their innocent nakedness. 38 THE WIND SPEAKS XXI " I weave from the leaves of the beech-capped steep A coverlet gold and red, And under its quiet warmth I creep, And sleep till the snows are fled. XXII " Then I wake, and around the maiden's feet I flutter each fringe and fold, And playfully ripple the vestal pleat That hints of her perfect mould. XXIII " I linger round dimpled throat and mouth. Till her warm lips fall apart, And with the breath of the scented south Keep thawing her chaste cold heart. THE WIND SPEAKS 39 XXIV " Then she harks to the note of the nightingale And the coo of the mated dove, And murmurs the words of the poet's tale, Till the whole of her life is Love. " I unlimber the thunder, I aim the bolt. Till the forest ranks waver and quail, Then hurl down the hill and over the holt My squadrons of glittering hail. XXVI " I soar where no skylark mounts and sings, But the heavenly anthems swell, And fan with the force of my demon wings The furnace of nethermost Hell. 40 THE WIND SPEAKS XXVII " Like the Soul of Man, like God's Word and Will, Whence I come and whither I go, And where I abide when my voice is still, You know not, and never shall know." SISYPHUS Midway his upward unavailing course Sate Sisyphus, his back against his load, Halting a moment from that task of doom. Adown his swollen cheeks ran streams of sweat Dripping from thick-drenched locks; and watery beads Gathered and stood on his stupendous limbs. The sinews of his arm, like gnarled knots On hollow bark of legendary oak, Credentials of incalculable years. Bulged up, and in his horny hands outspread Upon his wrinkled knees, the arching veins 41 42 SISYPHUS Glittered like tempered steel. His stertorous breath Moaned like to bellows in cyclopean forge, Wherewith in smithy subterranean Against the Gods rebellious demigods Fashion their molten ineffectual bolts. But when, asudden, swift on angry flash. Rumbled imperious thunder overhead, At the commanding mandate, Sisyphus, Bulkily rising, straightened limbs relaxed. And turned him yet again unto his task. Mumbling the while habitual lament. " Why was I chosen for this hateful task. Fantastically futile, which the Gods Lay on their victim, for their own disport ? Rather a thousand times upon the wheel Would I, Ixion-like, be racked, or lift SISYPHUS 43 The tantalising gourd-Cup to my lips. I was no wickeder than they, and I Founded Ephyra in a stony land, Raised monolithic temples to the Gods, And made the name of Corinth glorious from Peloponnesus unto Attica. Was it a crime to be Ulysses' sire By sportive Anticlea ere she wed Laertes, bringing him a Royal heir ? Yearning for whom, when Circe and her lures From Ithaca withheld his bark, she died. If such to me imputed be a crime, Then all the Gods are bestial criminals. Lustful, adulterous, meretricious Gods. What more was my offence ? Was it because I from the clustered sister-Pleiades Lured Merope to earth to share my love. 44 SISYPHUS * Not an ephemeral, but strong-nuptialled love ? Whereat the Gods, envying a mortal's joy, Darkened her light in Heaven, and vengefully In me infused her immortality, That I might strain for ever at the task Of aiding upward downward-destined world. " If mortals were but once by doom allowed To Umit their ambition, and abide On some material or majestic height ! But onward, upward, ever are they urged By the half-God within their blood to pass Beyond the flaming barriers of the world, Where the inexorable sentries stand To drive them back, and me, unwilling drudge. Forced downward by the weight I upward rolled. When to the very pinnacle of Art, SISYPHUS 45 Majestically lovely, for restrained, Hellenic minds from barbarous gropings towered. The beast in mortals sensuously craved For craft more carnal, Goddesses undraped In marble, to such use recalcitrant. Satyrs and fauns, licentious comedy, Provocative of laughter or of lust, Dethroning the Ideal for the Real. When the stern Roman on the world imposed By forceful dominance the Reign of Law, Then did the East with tribute undermine The male-won Empire, and barbarian hordes Rent the Imperial marble from its limbs, And revelled in the wreck of its decline. " O, but now ! now ! now ! Heavier the load, weightier than ever yet, 46 SISYPHUS For men, infatuated, now conceive, Eliminating Spirit, they will find In matter immaterialised the germ. Fountain, and origin of all that moves. But behind Fate there is another Fate, And yet another, undiscoverable. Yet Man, again illusioned, presses on, Fondling the fancy he will shortly pierce Unto the generating source of things, The Atom atomless : whereat the Gods Shake with ironic laughter, since themselves Know it not, neither do they seek to know. Aware, above them there are other Gods, May-be one sole impenetrable God, Never created, never dying. One With the unbounded Universe, Himself The soul and substance of Eternity. SISYPHUS 47 That is my one last hope, that He will free My body from this pagan servitude, And with omnipotent mercifulness merge My Being into His ! " MOZART'S GRAVE' Where lies Mozart ? Tradition shows A likely spot : so much, no more : No words of his own time disclose When crossed He to the Further Shore, Though later ages, roused to shame, On tardy tomb have carved his name. 1 " Was haben sie da ? " was the inquiry when the hearse drew up with Mozart's body at the gate of the cemetery. " Ein Kapellmeister,'' was the answer. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 48 MOZART'S GRAVE 49 The sextan asked, " What may this be ? " " A Kapellmeister." " Pass it in : This common grave to all is free, And for one more is room within. It fills the fosse. Now tread it down, With pauper, lunatic, and clown." Yet had he wizarded with sound Electors, Cardinals, and Kings, While there welled forth from source profound The flow of silvery-sounding springs, Music of tenderness and mirth, One with his very soul at birth. so MOZART'S GRAVE And they ? Where are they now ? The bust, The elaborately carven tomb, Whose scrolls, begrimed by age and dust, None care to stoop and scan for whom. Are all remaining to express Their monumental nothingness. Mitre, and coronet, and Crown, Gaze into space that heeds them not, Unmeaning pomp of dead renown. Medley of Monarchs long forgot. Who from the nations' ghastly strife Won immortality — for life. MOZART'S GRAVE 51 VI Once, on Nile's bank an artist raised A temple at the King's command, And on it name august emblazed. But when a flood submerged the land, His name was washed away, and lo ! The artist's own stood out below. VII Thus vanish ostentatious lives. But, through all time, belov'd Mozart, Your magic memory survives. Part of the universal heart : In joy a sympathetic strain, In sorrow, soother of our pain. 52 MOZART'S GRAVE VIII The Potentates on whom men gaze, When once their Rule hath reached its goal, Die into darkness with their days ; But Monarchs of the mind and soul With light unfailing and unspent Illuminate Fame's firmament. December 1907. LINES WRITTEN ON VISITING THE CHATEAUX ON THE LOIRE " River rolling past the grey Battlements of yesterday, Palace strongholds reared by hands Summoned from transalpine lands, Skilled in wedding strength with grace, Fort with stately dwelling-place, Vizored brow with siren tress, Majesty with loveliness, — S3 S4 THE CHAtEAVX ON THE LOIRE River, that beheld their sway Dawn and dwindle, then decay, Linger, loiter, while I sit, As the sunshine-shadows flit. Pondering pictures of the vast Panorama of the Past, And, with retrospective gaze. Tell me of the vanished days." Still the river rolled and rolled 'Twixt its banks of green and gold. Winding, wandering, slowly through Starwort white and speedwell blue. Flowing onward, heedless where. Irresponsive to my prayer. THE CHATEAUX ON THE LOIRE 55 But, as motionless I dreamed Of dim yesterdays, there seemed From the plain to reach mine ears Murmurings of the bygone years. Till the river's undertone Blent its musings with my own. IV " Seaward I meander on. All unchanged to gaze upon. As when sceptre, pomp, and power, Threatening parapet and tower. Warrior grim and maiden gay Fought and laughed the hours away : S6 THE CHATEAUX ON THE LOIRE Captains, Cardinals, and Kings, Sepulchred with meaner things, Nothing to distinguish now Mitred head from minion brow, Fleshless skull from fleshless skull, Arrogant from beautiful ; . Nameless relics of a name : — I alone abide the same." Lingering still, I sate and mused, Thought and feeling interfused With the Chateaux and the stream In an intermittent dream. Till the Future wore at last Likeness to the shadowy Past, THE CHATEAUX ON THE LOIRE 57 And I wondered if to-day, Loftily as yesterday, Will, departing, leave behind Monuments of heart and mind. Love and reverence will restore, When men dwell in them no more. A FAREWELL Good-bye, old year, good-bye ! Gentle you were to many as to me, And so we, meditating, sigh, Since what hath been will be. That you must die. Hark ! In the crumbling grey church tower. Tolls the recording bell The deeply-sounding solemnising knell For your last hour. How quietly you die ! No canonised Saint 58 A FAHEWELL 59 E'er put life by With less of struggle or complaint. You seem to feel nor grief nor pain, No retrospection vain, As if, departing, you would have us know It is not hard to go, Since pang is none, but only peace, in Death, And Life it is that suffereth. Closer and clearer comes the last slow knell, And on my lip for you awaits That final formula of Fate's, The low, lamenting, lingering word, Farewell ! For you the curved-backed sexton need not stir The mould, for there is nothing to inter. No worn integument to doff, No bodily corruption to put off ; 6o A FAREWELL Begotten of the earth and sun, And ending spirit-wise as you begun, You pass, a mere memento of the mind, Leaving no lees behind. Hark ! What is that we hear ? A quick-jerked, jocund peal, Making the fretted church tower reel. Telling the wakeful of a young New Year, Young, but of lusty birth. To face the masked vicissitudes of earth. Let us, then, look not back. Though smooth and partial was the track Of the receding Past, But through the vista vast A FAREWELL 6i Of unknown Future wend intrepid way, Framed to contend and cope With perils new by vanished yesterday, Whose last bequests to Man are Love, and Faith, and Hope. 'J '.•> WARDENS OF THE WAVE Not to exult in braggart vein Over a gallant foe, Or boast of triumphs on the main, The Gods alone bestow ; Vainglorious clarion, clamorous drum, For which the vulgar crave, Not these, not any such, become The Wardens of the Wave. 62 WARDENS OF THE WAVE 63 No, but when slumbering war-dogs wake, To the last gasp of breath Face combat for one's Country's sake, With male disdain of death ; For this did Nelson live and die, Far from his Land and home. Making his roof-tree of the sky, His pillow on the foam. Ill And if our race to-day recall His last triumphant doom, Place wreaths on his unfading pall. And flowers upon his tomb. 64 WARDENS OF THE WAVE 'Tis to remind us still to keep Aggression's lust in awe, And with dominion of the deep Guard Freedom, Peace, and Law. IV And not alone upon the waves That sentinel our shore, Service that disciplines, not enslaves, Should rule us, as of yore ; So that our Island Citadel May tranquilly respond With the calm signal, " All is well," To every Sea Beyond. PRIMACY OF MIND Mens agitat molem. — Aeneidos Lib. vi. I Above the glow of molten steel, The roar of furnace, forge, and shed, Protectress of the City's weal. Now, Learning rears her loftier head ; II That Progress may at length descry It lacks the clue to guide aright. And, conscious of its blindness, cry Unto the Muse, "More light ! More light ! " 65 r 66 PRIMA CY OF MIND That Wealth may fitly yield the throne To Letters, Science, artist-skill, And Matter, willing subject, own Mind must be lord and master still. The University of Leeds, dth October 1904. A QUESTION ANSWERED I SAW the lark at break of day Rise from its dewy bed, And, winged with melody, away Circle to Heaven o'erhead. I watched it higher and higher soar, Still ceasing not to trill. When, though I could descry no more Its flight, I heard it still. 67 68 A QUESTION ANSWERED III But shortly quavered back its note, And, hovering into sight, I saw it, homeward sinking, float Over its nest of night. " Tell me," I cried, " glad songster, why You, privileged to wend Up to the blue and boundless sky. Where only wings ascend, v " Full into Heaven, to look and gaze Whither our thoughts aspire, And, unrebuked, terrestrial lays Blend with celestial choir, A QUESTION ANSWERED 69 VI " Why you, thus welcomed to the height Of minstrelsy and mirth, Pavilioned high from mortal sight. Come back again to Earth." VII Then shook the lark again its wings. And, fluttering o'er its bed Deep-bosomed in the grassy floor, In rippling answer said : — VIII " 'Tis joy to mount, alone, aloft, Into the ether clear, And thence look down on garth and croft Of red-roofed hamlets here. 70 A QUESTION ANSWERED IX " To sing my song through endless space, Towering above, above, While mortals watch with upturned face Of longing and of love ; X " Then, for a while, unseen to pass Through unsubstantial dome, But treble back to tangled grass — Not Heaven, withal my home. " And tell me, when I skyward sing. Am I unlike to you, That on Imagination's wing Strain sometimes out of view A QUESTION ANSWERED 71 XII " Into the radiant Realms untrod Song can alone descry, And whilom join, by grace of God, Angelic company XIII " Yet sink down from the firmament Back to life's dearth and dole. Knowing full well that song was sent To comfort and console." AWAKE! AWAKE! " Awake, awake, for the Springtime's sake, March daffodils too long dreaming ; The lark is high in the spacious sky And the celandine's stars are gleaming. The gorse is ablaze, and the woodland sprays Are as purple as August heather. The buds unfurl, and mavis and merle Are singing duets together. " The rivulets run, first one by one. Then meet in the swirling river, And on out-peeping roots the sun-god shoots The shafts of his golden quiver. 72 AWAKE! AWAKE! 73 In the hazel copse the thrush never stops Till with music the world seems ringing, And the milkmaid hale, as she carries her pail, Goes home to the dairy, singing : " And the swain and his sweet in the love-lanes meet. And welcome and face each other, Till he folds her charms in his world-wide arms. With kisses that blind and smother." Then the daffodils came, aflame, aflame, In orchard, and garth, and cover. And out April leapt, first smiled, then wept. And longed for her May-day lover. DECEMBER MATINS " Why, on this drear December morn, Dost thou, lone Misselthrush, rehearse thy chanting ? The corals have been rifled from the thorn, The pastures lie undenizened and lorn. And everywhere around there seems a some- thing wanting." Whereat, as tho' awondering at my wonder, And brooded somewhere nigh a love-mate nesting, 74 DECEMBER MATINS 75 He more loud and longer still 'Gan to tremble and to trill, Height after height of sound robustly breasting ; As if o'erhead were Heaven of blue, and under, Fresh green leafage, and he would Cleave with shafts of hardihood The mists asunder. Only the singer it is foresees, Only the Poet has the voice foretelling. When the ways harden and the sedge-pools freeze, He hears light-hearted Spring upon the breeze. And feels the hawthorn buds mysteriously swelling. Though to the eaves the icicles are clinging, Or from the sunward gables dripping, dripping. 76 DECEMBER MATINS He with inward gaze beholds Liberated flocks and folds, The runnels leaping, and the young lambs skipping, And dauntless daffodils anew upspringing, So throughout the wintry days Meditates prophetic lays, And keeps on singing. Ill Not the full-volumed Springtime song. Not April's note with rapture overflowing, Melodious cadence, early, late, and long, Now low and suing, now serenely strong. But the heart's intimations musically showing That Love and Verse are never out of season. DECEMBER MATINS Tj Though the winds bluster, and the branches splinter, He, through cold and dire distress. Companioned by cheerfulness, Descries young Mayday through the mask of Winter. Doubt and despair to him were veiled treason, Fashioned never to despond, By Foreseeing far beyond The range of Reason. Therefore, brave bird, sing on, for some to hear If faintly, fitfully, and though to-morrow Will be the shortest day of all the year. Though fields be flowerless and fallows drear. And earth seems cherishing some secret sorrow, 78 DECEMBER MATINS The dawn will come when it anew will glisten With tears of gladness, glen and dingle waken, Winter's tents be furled and routed, April notes be sung and shouted. Over the fleeing host and camp forsaken ; The nightingale ne'er cease, the cuckoo christen Hedgerow posies with its call. And unto glee and madrigal The whole world listen. THE WHITE PALL OF PEACE "There have been heavy falls of snow in various parts of the country, . . . The average depth of the snow is six inches." — Telegrams from Pretoria and Capetown, June 14M. Over the peaceful veldt, Silently, snowflakes fall ! Silently, slow, unfelt, Cover the Past with a pall ! II Brave brother Boers, let us hie To your and our brothers dead ; Over the spot where they lie Tears, yours and ours, be shed ! 79 So THE WHITE PALL OF PEACE III Underneath turf, cross, and stone Combat and discord be husht ! Blest be the heroes unknown. Blest be their deeds and dust. IV Now that the war-clamours cease, And silently snowflakes fall. Give we the kiss of Peace, And one Flag be the Flag of us all ! THE DANCE AT DARMSTADT In the city of Darmstadt, the Sabbath morn Shone over the broad Cathedral Square, And to nobly, richly, and lowly born. The belfry carilloned call to prayer. Then banker, and burgher, and learn'd in law. With clean-cut forehead and firm-set jaw. Master, and prentice, and tradesman trim, Pikemen stalwart of port and limb, 8i G 82 THE DANCE AT DARMSTADT Pledged to die for their native town, Scholars stately in cap and gown, Splendid and simple, halt and hale, Rosy tapster and student pale. Stepped from their thresholds, and gravely trod The streets that lead to the House of God. And, hurrying after them, maid and dame. Wives, and daughters, and sweethearts, came. All in their Sabbath best arrayed. Delicate ribbon and dainty braid, Creaseless corset and kirtle clean. Of sombre homespun or silken sheen. Rustling by with looks demure. As bright as posies, and just as pure. And tight to their kirtles their children clung, With ambling footstep and nimble tongue, Prattled and questioned them all the way, THE DANCE AT DARMSTADT 83 Forgetting quite 'twas the Sabbath Day, Till they came to the great Cathedral Square, Where the organ pealed through the House of Prayer. " Now why do you waste the summer day ? " Cried a velveted stripling with locks of gold. And eyes Uke forget-me-nots in May, When the milch-cows stream from the wintry fold. " Week after week you troop in there, To mutter and mumble the self-same prayer. Through the self-same psalmody drowse and nod; And that's what you, sooth, call praising God ! Look ! the sun is shining on roof and spire, And the wings of the swallow never tire, The stork hovers over her callow nest. And Spring is folded to Summer's breast. 84 THE DANCE AT DARMSTADT There's a flutter of love in the lime-tree leaves, And the starlings flute on the Rathhaus eaves. Come away, come away where the sycamore swings Its tassels of gold, and the blackbird sings, Where the river swirls past a tangled ledge Of willow-weed, meadow-sweet, thyme, and sedge, Where the veins of the vine are flushed with juice. And the trout in the stream past the miller's sluice Cast wavering shadows on stone and sand ; And, when we have rambled through all the land, We will halt at the Inn with the Jocund Sign, And freshen our throats with the Mosel wine. But, ere ever we go, let us, hand in hand. Be comrades sworn of a joyous band, And, while they jabber and wail in there. Have a dance in the sunny Cathedral Square." THE DANCE AT DARMSTADT 85 Then tabor and viol began to sound, And ribald and losel to beat the ground, Boys who mocked at the Sacred Name, And wantons brazening out their shame. With languishing eyes and streaming hair, They footed it all about the Square, Footed, and frolicked, and revelled round, To the viol's twang and the tabor's sound ; Shouted, and clapped their hands for glee ; Was never such madcap company : Forward, backward, forward once more. Like ebb and flow on a tidal shore, Trooped together more near and near, Like a troop of colts at a sound they fear, Then scampered away and scattered wide, Again to draw to each other's side ; Hand within hand, and face to face. 86 THE DANCE AT DARMSTADT Twirled and circled in lewd embrace, Hurried, slackened, then swept along, Trilling and trolling a shameful song, Hurtful and hateful to godly ears. Never, I ween, in all the years Since the Autumn woods waxed sere and brown. Was danced such a dance in Darmstadt town. Now the sermon was over, the service done. And the grave-faced worshippers, one by one, Poured into the bright Cathedral Square, And beheld the ungodly dancihg there. Then they cried, " Now, shame on you ! Stay ! O stay ! Surely ye know 'tis the Sabbath Day, The day of the merciful mighty Lord : If ye flaunt His mercy, yet dread His sword ! " THE DANCE AT DARMSTADT 87 Yet never an instant the dancing stayed, But ribald stripling, and wanton maid. Gasped out, " Don't you see we are nigh to drop With panting and pain, but we cannot stop. The demons have entered our limbs, and we No longer have power to pause or flee. They force us to hammer the hard hot ground. And make us pirouette round and round. Will never some Christian soul advance, And break the spell of this demon dance ! " Then the sober and godly would fain have heard Piteous cry and panting word. But a something stronger than human will Fettered their feet, and kept them still Helplessly watching the ghastly crew ; So swiftly they whirled, and so fast they flew, 88 THE DANCE AT DARMSTADT It made one giddy to see them there. So, out of the broad Cathedral Square, Banker and burgher, and learn'd in law, With clean-cut forehead and firm-set jaw, Master and prentice, and tradesman trim, Pikemen stalwart of port and limb. Sister, and sweetheart, and wife demure. As fresh as posies, and just as pure, With children clutching their mother's gown. Homeward walked through the awestruck town. But still, when the godly crowd had gone, The derelict band went dancing on. The sunlight glittered on roof and spire. And the wings of the swallow did never tire, The stork hovered over her callow nest. And Spring was folded to Summer's breast. THE DANCE AT DARMSTADT S9 Far away in the woodland the sycamore swung Its tassels of gold, and the blackbird sung. The river went swirUng past tangled ledge Of willow -weed, meadow-sweet, thyme, and sedge. The veins of the vine were flushed with juice. And the trout poised still by the miller's sluice. But, though longer and longer the shadows grew, Still gambolled and anticked the ribald crew, Wavered and wantoned in broken line. As though mad-drunk with the Mosel wine, Reeled and rolled till the sun went down. And the stars shone over the darkened town. Golden stars in a dome of blue ; Careered and capered the whole night through. Till their loose flesh flapped on their creaking bones, 90 THE DANCE AT DARMSTADT And they staggered and dropped on the hard dry stones. And when at last in a heap they lay, Like refuse the scavenger carts away, They throbbed up still, as at farmyard pyre The flickering flames of an unfed fire ; Nor yet from their ghastly gambols ceased, Till the sun ensanguined the pallid East, And the starlings piped on the Rathhaus eaves. Never, never since wintry woods waxed brown, Was danced such a dance in Darmstadt town. LOVE'S WISDOM Amor che nella mmte mi ragiona. DiVINA COMMEDIA, PURGATORIO, II. V. I lO. Love, that in my mind seeks Reason's aid. Parafhrase. I CRAVE not love, for it would only bring Tears to your eyes, and anguish to your heart ; I am in Autumn, you are still in Spring, And you must linger after I depart. Then to you Summer would scarce Summer be, Vainly for you the roses bloom and climb. Vainly Life's harvest ripen on the tree. Withered by Winter long before its time. Therefore, let loving, dear, be mine alone. You yielding only tenderness and trust. So that to you be widowhood unknown. And you with tears not deify my dust. Enough for me if in your voice, your eyes, I dream of bliss, but strain not for the prize. 91 The following lyric was written at a memorable moment, a few years back, when the defensive spirit of the nation was suddenly roused to the highest pitch. It was not published, because it was thought it might aggravate mischievously the popular emotion. If it is now printed here, it is only as a contribu- tory reminder to the English People that they live in the presence, not of a passing, but of a permanent menace, against which it is their bounden duty, since they cherish Peace and detest War, to guard by every resource at their command, alike on sea and on land. 92 IF THEY DARE ! Realm of ocean-guarded Peace, Humming loom and grazing steer, Farm, and forge, and woven fleece. Happier, homelier, year by year. Hark ! athwart the wintry air. Menace mutters, foemen glare : Leave the shuttle, leave the share. For the spear ! 93 94 IF THEY DARE I Envious of her world-wide race, Goaded by the greed and hate Of the hungry and the base For the opulent and great, " See," they whisper, " did we band All against Her, hand-in-hand, We might bring that haughty Land Face with Fate." Ill Plotters insolent and vain. Muster then your servile swarms. Moated by the unbridged main. We but laugh at such alarms. IF THEY DARE! 95 Blinded braggarts, to forget England old is England yet, And can meet, as once She met. World in arms. IV Come athwart the ocean's crest. Mob and Monarch, crowd and Crown ! Slavish East, or shrilling West, Come, and strike at her renown. Madmen ! by your threats inane What is it ye hope to gain ? Think of France, think of Spain, Smitten down ! 96 IF THEY DARE! Derelict on wind and wave, Tossing with the tossing tide, Crushed by ice-floe, tombed in cave. See the Armada's pomp and pride : Prince and Pontiff, Rome and Spain, Leagued against Her, leagued in vain ; England and her mother-main Side by side. Think of that self-sceptered King, Caesar not by birth but brain, Who with arbitrary wing Hovered over hill and plain : IF THEY DARE! 97 Headlong from that haughty height Forced to sue to England's might, And accept, for eagle's flight. Cage and chain ! Still they cry, " She is alone, And must truckle to our nod." What ! with half the world her own ! What ! still wielding Neptune's rod ! She is lonely as the breeze, Lonely as the stars or seas, Lone, unreachable as these, Lone as God ! 98 IF THEY DARE I VIII Let the bandits then deride Loneliness they shall not share. We are lonely, unallied, As the lion in his lair. Doubters, dastards, now be dumb : Sound the clarion ! Roll the drum ! Let them menace, let them come. If they dare ! OCCASIONAL SONNETS 99 The Italian Sonnet is admirably suited to the Italian language, by reason of the opulence, perhaps the exces- sive opulence, of rhymes in that tongue. But though there are not a few Italian Sonnets in our own, of the highest merit and of spontaneously natural construc- tion, the form associated with the practice of Shake- speare lends itself more readily to English verse. Its weakness lies in the closing couplet too often following the quatrains with an anti-climax. In some of the Sonnets here printed the final line is an Alex- andrine ; a deviation from precedent left to the judgment of the reader. A WINTRY PICTURE Now in the woodlands from the creaking boughs The last sere leaves are loosened and unstrung, Where once the tender honeysuckle clung, And the fond mavis fluted to his spouse. Already dreaming of her winter drowse, And brooding dimly on her unborn young, The dormouse rakes the beechmast, and among The matted roots the moldwarp paws and ploughs. Over the furrows brown and pastures grey The melancholy plovers flap and 'plain ; And, along shivering pool and sodden lane, As lower droop the lids of dying day. Like to a disembodied soul in pain, The homeless wind goes wailing all the way. TIME'S DEFENCE " Why am I deemed an enemy of men Who would beyond Life's limit life prolong ? If they believe that they will live again, How can it be that I have done them wrong ? Is it not I who rout the Winter snows, And Spring's melodious symphonies renew. Bring back the blush unto the budding rose, And christen Summer's birth with morning dew? 'Tis I that ring the silvery nuptial peal, When streams the Bridal up the rustic nave, And if around the bier where mourners kneel I toll the passing-bell and dig the grave, From death and grief I half dispel the gloom. Inscribing words of hope upon the loved one's tomb." RESIGNATION Since we the march of Time can-not arrest, Keep you in step with him till Time shall end : Thus will you journey with more easeful breast, Nor mar the rhythm that you cannot mend. Nor ever yearn impatiently to reap Harvest allotted unto mellower years. But, having sown the seed, take care to keep Its growth from tares till soaring stem appears. Neither, when Summer from your life shall wane, And Autumn fsuit keep dropping from the bough, Look back and sigh regretfully in vain For joys no longer seasonable now : Thus will your hours make music to the end, And Life, you loved so, become Death your friend. 103 TIME'S WEARINESS Slow Time, that carrieth such a monstrous load From every stage and hostel of the Past, Do you not weary of the endless road. And ask how long Life's journeying will last ? Still growing burden on your patient back. Piled are the medley miseries of mankind. No bourne in sight along the lengthening track. No comfort seen, before you or behind. Should you but swerve or stagger in your pace, Hope with strained halter tuggeth you along, And where old sores still leave their smarting trace, Hard on your heels Fate plies its knotted thong. So must you on, though panting and distressed. Not even death for solace or for rest. 104 ANY POET AT ANY TIME Time, thou supreme inexorable Judge, Whom none can bribe, and none can overawe. Who unto party rancour, private grudge. Calmly opposeth equitable law. Before whom advocacy vainly strives To make the better cause to seem the worse. To thy Tribunal, when our jangling lives Are husht, I leave the verdict on my verse. Irrevocably then wilt thou proclaim What should have been, what now must ever be. If in oblivion perish should my name. Or shine aloft in mighty company. I to my kind proffering of my poor best, Remit to Time's arbitrament the rest. 105 LOVE OF LIFE Why love life more, the less of it be left, And what is left be little but the lees. And Time's subsiding passions have bereft One's taste for pleasure, and one's power to please ? Is it not better, like the waning year, Without lament resignedly to fade, Since by enduring ordinance all things here Are in their season shattered and decayed ? If you have shared in April's freshet song, And Summer can without reproach recall. Yearn not Autumnal harvest to prolong. Nor shrink from Winter that awaits us all ; But, lightened of the load of earthly ties, Pursue with homeward step your journey to the skies. io6 TOO LATE Had you but shown me living what you show, Now I am gone, to keep my grave-plot green. And I but known what vainly now I know, Lying here alone, how happy had I been ! If you with smiles had gladdened our joint home, As now you drench my tenement with tears. Up life's ascent together had we clomb. And traversed hand-in-hand the slope of years. Still is it solacing to feel you lay Upon my sepulchre devoted flowers. When hitherward you wend your widowed way 'Neath scorching sunshine or through drifting showers. Pity that love is ofttimes forced by Fate, In this unpunctual World, to come — too late ! 107 FORGIVENESS Now bury with the dead years conflicts dead And with fresh days let all begin anew. Why longer amid shrivelled leaf-drifts tread, When buds are swelling, flower -sheaths peeping through ? Seen through the vista of the vanished years. How trivial seem the struggle and the crown, How vain past feuds, when reconciling tears Course down the channel worn by vanished frown. How few mean half the bitterness they speak ! Words more than feelings keep us still apart. And, in the heat of passion or of pique, The tongue is far more cruel than the heart. Since love alone makes it worth while to live. Let all be now forgiven, and forgive. loS SPIRITUAL LOVE Could you but give me all that I desire, I should be richer, and you no more poor. Companionship beside the household fire, And common cares that train one to endure. 'Tis not your senses, but your self, I want. Kinship of vision, sympathy of mind. That so the bond be based on adamant, And Love made fast by sanctities that bind. Yet do not think insensible my gaze To delicate loveliness of form and face, But that I covet in the same embrace The Spirit's yearnings with the body's grace. Give me all these, and add, with lengthening years, The sweet sad smil^, and piety of tears. 109 AN AUTUMN HOMILY Here let us sit beneath this oak, and hear The acorns fitfully fall one by one, The final harvest of the fading year Now Summer eves and Autumn days are done. The orchard rows stand desolate and bare, Even the mellow quince is gathered now ; The furrow yields the sickle to the share, And lonely trunks stretch out the leafless bough. Thus wanes the body ere the mind decays, And through the heart the vernal sap still flows. While warm within, on short-lived winter days, The soul's clear lamp unflickeringly glows. So are we one with Nature, in the round Of seasonable change, knit by some tie profound. THE EVENING LIGHT Angels their silvery trumpets blow, At dawn, to greet the Morning Glow, And mortals lift adoring eyes To see the glorious sun arise. Then, winged by Faith, and spurred by Hope Youth scans the hill, youth scales the slope. Its pulses bound, its thoughts exult. It finds no danger difficult. Quickens its pace, disdaining ease Victor before it comes and sees. Feeling the Universe its own, The Sovereign of a Self-made Throne. THE EVENING LIGHT Each hope fulfilled, obtained each prayer, We glory in the Noonday Glare. Welcome the blinding heat of strife, Deeming resistance part of life. We deal the blow, return the stroke, Fighting our way through dust and smoke, Until, our battle-banner furled, We tower above a conquered World ; Whether one leads mankind along By gift of speech or grace of song. Seizes by forceful hand the helm, Or adds an Empire to the Realm, Confronts the sun with forehead bare, Exulting in the Noonday Glare. THE EVENING LIGHT 113 III But, as the lengthening shadows glide Silent towards the eventide, And dew baptizes leaf and flower In twilight's sanctuary hour, A sacred Something haunts the air, Tender as love, devout as prayer. And in the lofty dome afar Glimmers one bright outriding star. Announcing to the watchful sight Coming battalions of the Night. Then Noonday Glare and Morning Glow Fade into shadowy Long-ago. One feels Earth's vain ambitions fade Into the vanished dust they made. 114 THE EVENING LIGHT All that the glow of dawn foretold, And all the glare of noon unrolled, Seem nothing to the quiet joy No clamour mars, no cares destroy, 'Twixt restless day and restful night, That Cometh with the Evening Light. THE END Printtdby R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh. MR. ALFRED AUSTIN'S POEMS Extracts from an Article in the QMarferly Review of 15th January 1908 on "The Poetry OF Mr. Alfred Austin." ' ' Foe poetry of the objective kind the primary equipment of the poet must include a wide outlools on life, an instinctive insight into the motives of other men and women and the varieties of human circumstance, together with some formal or at all events some virtual philosophy, by means of which the facts of life are bound together or focalised, and, being thus referred to the origin or the ultimate potentialities of humanity, are made the subjects of emotions indefinitely wider than, but comparable to, those which are excited by the passions of the individual human being. In subjective poetry, such as that of a Sappho or a Keats, philosophy and a general knowledge of men and women go for nothing. In objective poetry, such as that of a Dante, a Shakespeare, and a Goethe, they are not indeed everything, but they are the first thing. They are not the fire on the altar, but they are the offering to which the fire is applied. In other words, when we are dealing with any objective poet — and the greatest poets of the world have belonged to the objective order — the ultimate standard by which his rank and his significance are to be measured is what he means as a thinker, as an observer, and as an impassioned critic of life, not the manner in which he produces his notes as a singer. The importance of the latter is vital, but it is sub- sidiary to the importance of the former. ' ' Mr. Austin's poetry, considered comprehensively, belongs to the objective order, and requires, in common vrith that of. the greatest poets of the world, to be judged by the kind of standard to which we have just alluded. Whatever its merits otherwise, it is more than a series of ' effusions ' which can be dismissed as good or bad in accordance with their individual prettiness. It must be taken as the work of a man who has, for a long series of years, endeavoured with a consistency which can only now be appreciated, to deliver a message to the I 2 THE "QUARTERLY REVIEW" world (if so hackneyed a phrase may be forgiven to us), the content of which, from his earliest expressions of it to his latest, has known little other change than that of continuous development. What Mr. Austin's message to his contem- poraries is becomes much more apparent when we glance at his works collectively than it is if we confine ourselves to a perusal, however careful, of any one of them. We will do our best to present it in brief terms to the reader, as it is only through a consideration of this that we can estimate Mr. Austin fairly. ' ' Mr. Austin's character has been happily touched upon and illustrated by a brother poet, Mr. William Watson, who has contributed a critical preface to a collection of Mr. Austin's minor poems. ' To be frankly local, ' Mr. Watson truly says, ' in the sense in which Burns and B^ranger — yes, and one may add Homer and Virgil — are local, has not seldom been a direct road into the general heart of man,' and Mr. Austin, he proceeds, local as he mainly is at once by temperament and intention, may justly regard his localism as one means of reaching the universal. Mr. Watson explains himself by saying that in the Poet Laureate's character two ' dominant notes ' are ' love of country ' and ' love of the country,' and he shows by the case of Shakespeare how this double patriotism may make the poet greater as a poet by making him a virile and impassioned citizen. There are two points, however, which we think Mr. Watson has neglected, and which require to be mentioned here. Mr. Austin's devotion to his own land, and his patriotic sense that, for himself at least, it is superior to any other, is accompanied, as it could not have been in the case either of Burns or Shakespeare, by a sympathy with the local genius of other countries also, especially of Greece and Italy, which is founded on wide knowledge of their literatures and personal familiarity with their life. His British preferences have therefore no tinge of provincialism. Further, that love of ' the ' country, as opposed to the town, which Mr. Watson rightly specifies as one of his most distinctive traits, implies far more than a susceptibility to those aspects of nature which ' haunted Wordsworth like a passion,' and were the main inspiration of Keats. For Mr. Austin love of the country is closely associated with a philosophy of social life which is, in an age like the present, so distinct and challenging as to merit the appellation of polemical. It is a philosophy in which there is no note of asceticism, but which is nevertheless a protest ON MR. ALFRED AUSTIN'S POEMS against excessive personal luxury, and the kinds of ambition and the kinds of activity which minister to it. Every rank and avocation, from the peasant's up to the prince's, has, in his view, its proper dignity, and, when set in appropriate circum- stances, its proper beauty. Wealth, as he conceives of it, is ideally the symbolical adornment and the necessary material mechanism of certain high activities, far-reaching social services, and lives whose wholesome tenour becomes influential by reason of their conspicuous stateliness, and is not merely the instrument, as to many of its present possessors it seems to be, of a competitive self-indulgence which degrades and vulgarises those who make it their chief object, and generates a bitter and gratuitous discontent amongst others by offering them a base example which they are not able to imitate. ' ' The fact that he began his poetic career as a satirist, introduces us to a fundamental trait of his character, and exhibits him as being before all things a normal and healthy man, in close contact with realities, judging his fellows in the light of lofty and courageous principles, and denouncing vice and frivolity, not as a fanatic, but as a man of the world and a philosopher. He is not a poet as distinguished from a man of the world, but he is a man of the world distinguished by possessing the temperament of a poet. ' ' The poetical works of the Laureate are too numerous and voluminous to admit of our referring in detail to more than the most important and representative of them ; but the fore- going examination of his attitude and character generally will enable us to see at once into what groups his works naturally divide themselves, and to understand what, in each case, have been his aims and the nature of his inspiration. He is, as we set out with observing, not distinctively a lyrical or subjective poet. The lyrical impulse is nevertheless strong in him ; and a series of lyrics — many of them being of an autobiographical kind — has accompanied his larger and less personal works. Of these last the most important consist of five dramas, and one long romance or philosophical novel in verse. The five dramas are 'The Tower of Babel,' 'Savonarola,' 'Alfred the Great,' ' Fortunatus the Pessimist,' and 'Prince Lucifer.' The romance is 'The Human Tragedy.' Our most satis- factory course will be to deal with these groups separately, taking the dramas first, then ' The Human Tragedy,' and the lyrical poems last. "His dramas are themselves separable into two groups. THE "QUARTERLY REVIEW The first comprises 'The Tower of Babel,' 'Savonarola,' and 'Alfred the Great,' and may in a broad sense be called political. The second comprises ' Fortunatus* the Pessimist ' and ' Prince Lucifer ' ; and may, in contradistinction to the former, be described as mainly philosophical. " To ' The Tower of Babel ' the author gives a second title, namely, 'A Celestial Love-drama,' which we regard as being infelicitous, and doing injustice to his intentions. Nothing could well be more remote from the interests of the present day than a celestial love-drama enacted on the plain of Shinar. But the main interest of Mr. Austin's poem is, as he himself gives us to understand, not the philanderings of one of the sons of God with one of the daughters of men. He means us to take the poem as a symbolical representation of the ambitious attempts of human society to escape from its own limitations by means of an enlarged control over the resources of material life. ' The Tower of Babel, ' for Mr.' Austin, means the modern world endeavouring to found happiness and dignity on a mere accumulation of wealth, in the manner which he attacks in 'The Season' and 'The Golden Age.' The love- story of his drama deals with the visit of a winged spirit to the earth, in the course of which he becomes enamoured of the wife of the chief builder of the tower. The wife has long regretted what she divines to be the insensate ambition of her husband, and she finds relief in a purely platonic intimacy with this visitant from another world. The husband, however, having been at last killed when the tower is thrown down by the deity, the wife finds happiness in a complete union vrith her lover ; and the moral of the drama is that, though man by material means cannot lift earth to heaven, the higher affections are a means by which heaven may be drawn down to earth. " In ' Savonarola ' and ' Alfred the Great ' he preaches a cognate moral, but his means in both these cases are much better suited to his ends. The Florence of Savonarola and the Medici is for him not an historical Florence only. It is a symbol of the world to-day, and the corruption due to an excessive struggle after the merely material appliances of civilisation. The love-story here, which has no winged spirit either for hero or heroine, is meant to portray in the colours of daily life those simple yet supreme satisfactions of the human spirit which, adorned by culture, yet uncorrupted by luxury, constitute, as Aristotle taught, the apex of the moral triangle, ON MR. ALFRED AUSTIN'S POEMS and lie not only between, but above, the too much and the too little. At the same time, in Savonarola's end Mr. Austin symbolises the vireaknesses vchich beset endeavour of even the noblest kind, and the irony of fate which either thwarts it or denies completeness to its results. ' Alfred the Great, ' again celebrates a healthy and elevated love as the master-key to human felicity ; but this doctrine is here connected with an exhibition of the nobility of inherited power which realises that its chief splendour is derived from far-reaching and heroic work successfully performed for others. The times of King Alfred are, for the imaginations of most Englishmen, almost as shadowy as those of King Arthur : but Mr. Austin, to institute an inevitable comparison, makes of his national hero a far more living and a far more intelligent man than Lord Tennyson, with portent and miracle to aid him, made of his ' blameless king. ' Mr. Austin's typical English ruler, who himself translates Boethius, seeks to disseminate learning amongst his semi-barbarous subjects, to unite a dismembered country under an intelligible system of government, and to lay the foundations of an efficient national navy, is, as a symbolical figure, much more useful and stimulating than the wielder of an enchanted sword, and the head of a body of knight-errants — men whose main business, when they were not unhorsing and maiming one another, was to prosecute a series of private and now meaningless adventures. ' ' Mr. Austin's two philosophical dramas, ' Fortunatus the Pessimist' and 'Prince Lucifer,' are, we think, in respect of their general scheme, still better constructed, with reference to his inner purpose, than ' Savonarola ' or ' Alfred the Great. ' The action of both takes place in the present day ; but Mr. Austin, while keeping in touch with contemporary conditions and types of character, contrives with much artistic ingenuity to generalise them and even to universalise them. We will give the reader the story of both these poems, which will enable him to understand the scope of the poet's meaning, and to follow us presently when we refer to their strictly literary merits. "In 'Fortunatus,' 'Prince Lucifer,' and 'The Human Tragedy,' the genius of Mr. Austin reaches its high-water mark. The two dramas are obviously not meant for acting ; and, unlike the ' Faust ' of Goethe — itself wholly unactable — they have no situations which could be made effective on the stage ; but, as related to the intention of the author, they are MR. ALFRED AUSTIN'S POEMS skilful and impressive in their construction, and they exhibit marked originality in the manner in which characters and incidents belonging to the present epoch are detached from what is merely temporary and affiliated to what is enduring and universal. This is specially true of ' Fortunatus. ' The manner in which modern Kent, with its woodlands, its clergy, its landed proprietors, and its peasants, is converted, without afSicting us with any sense of the incongruous, into a world in which the spirit of evil follows his trade as a pedlar and plies his spells at night within a magic circle of glow-worms, shows Mr. Austin to possess the imagination of a true poet. In ' The Human Tragedy ' the modernism is more literal ; and here, on other grounds, a tribute should be paid to the writer, who essays to lift actual events, still comparatively recent, into the loftiest regions of feeling and comprehensive thought of a narrative whose events, otherwise treated, might have been those of an ordinary novel. ' ' Enough, we think, has now been said to show that for the post which Mr. Austin occupies he has many signal qualifications. No other living English writer of verse, so far as we know, unites in the same degree the qualifications of the scholar, the scholarly traveller, the keen student of politics, the close observer of actual warfare, the speculative thinker, the devoted cultivator of the Muses, and the friend of the farmer and the cottager. But we have not called attention to Mr. Austin's many accomplishments, described his principal works, and indicated his far-reaching, many-sided and lofty aims merely in order to show that he is worthy of the official lavurel. Our principal object has been to bring home to the general reader the fact that when Mr. Austin addresses his contemporaries as a poet, they are not being addressed by any mere maker of verses, but by a systematic thinker and a man of exceptional gifts, who has serious things to express, and who is compelled by the fatality of his nature to use verse as his means of expressing them. "These passages from 'The Human Tragedy,' together with those which we have selected from his two best dramas, though we might have multiplied them viith advantage, had this been practicable, are enough to demonstrate the one fact on which we are here anxious to insist, namely, that Mr. Austin knows as well as anybody what musical, polished, and lucid verse is, and is perfectly capable of producing it. He need fear no rivalry in these respects from any living writer. " THE GARDEN THAT I LOVE Second Series "Mr. Alfred Austin's new volume of happy talk and observations in ' The Garden that I Love ' will surely meet with a cordial welcome from all who have come under the charm of the earlier one. And here it may be said that the friendly four — the writer, the poet. Lamia, and Veronica — have a discussion on that which is meant by 'charm,' and after following their discussion we still unhesitatingly apply the word to these books. In his second series the talks in the garden take place at midsummer, in autumn, in spring, and so round to autumn again ; they deal with the beauties of the garden, with birds and flowers ; they touch upon poetry and literature, and even high politics, all in an easy, cultured, and fascinatingly pleasant manner. We seem to be in a gracious company of thoughtful people, gifted with unusual charm in the way of expressing themselves, and we move by easy grada- tions amid a variety of themes from the poetry of Byron and Tennyson to lavender from Ann Hathaway's cottage and roses and other flowers, from egotism and nationality to blossoms and birds. All is natural and unforced, and all — the word is inevitable — is invested with charm. ' ' Mr. Austin's new volume is a worthy companion to the old, and should be read by all who have gardens that they love, and who like to muse and talk in them. The prose talk is interspersed with short poems, and incidentally we have a hint that the author of a satire published over forty years ago has an unpublished philippic against certain manifestations of the present time. We confess that ' Cassandra Speaks ' piques our curiosity." — Daily Telegraph. THE GARDEN THAT I LOVE THE POET LAUREATE ON GARDEN MAGIC "The mere mention of the name of 'The Garden that I Love ' evokes a host of fragrant recollections. Few among us, perhaps, could recall the exact date of its first appearance, but there is not one of us who read it when it was so much talked about and so highly praised that did not take up from it some of its sunshine and its sweetness. Now the Poet Laureate has given us a Second Series of these rich and intimate thoughts of his on gardens that are not made wholly with hands, and on perplexities in art and in life that beset most women and men who think yet cannot put the profound pain that attends them into words. It is admittedly hard to capture the : careless raptvue of an early mood — particularly when the multitude have broken in upon it and have stamped upon it crudely, highly-coloured imitations — and yet we are bold enough to say that the Second Series of 'The Garden that I Love' is in many ways greater than the First, which won so much fame, because it is the product of supreme manhood, of a period peculiarly rich in poetical activities, and of an indomitable courage ' to paint the thing as he sees it.' Not that Mr. Austin has not many moods. He has, and in some of these we can wander with him at will in what has been so well described as 'a garden full of tangled sweetness, where lilies have lifted their tall heads and roses blown from the beginning of time. ' ' ' These, however, are but quotations culled, for the most part, quite at random. Practically every page in the book will yield passages, illuminating and fascinating, of equal richness to those above. Indeed, the Second Series of ' The Garden that I Love ' should frankly delight all jlovers of good poetry and of fine suggestive prose." — The Standard. IN A POET'S GARDEN ' ' When Mr. Alfred Austin first introduced us some years ago into that secluded but spacious and sunshiny garden that we all learned to love, he created almost a new type of literature. Of imitators there have inevitably been many, but amidst them all his book holds its place for quiet delicacy and charm. To essay in a second series to repeat a fine achievement is, as he THE GARDEN THAT I LOVE knows, a step of doubtful wisdom ; or, as he puts it, ' striking the rock twice is, as a rule, rather a useless performance,' but his defence (amply justified by his success) is that ' after a lapse of a dozen or so years, the.same tiling is no longer the same thing. ' ' One sometimes hears that a subject has been done to death. Then bring it to life again, if you can, by breathing into it your own personality, your mind, heart, and soul ' ; and if sometimes he handles themes that have become trite, he has always something to say as fresh and inspiriting as a breath from his beloved garden." — Birmingham Post. "The Poet Laureate was the first to invent the garden diary book, in which every sort of pleasant subject was discussed and the whole brought into some cohesion by garden- ing chat interspersed through its pages. In going back to that form of literature the Poet Laureate has only shown how very much better he does it than his imitators. His garden lore is delightful, delicately written, and at the same time exceedingly practical ; and the original poetry with which his pages are interspersed is just the kind of charming verse that is best read under the shade of a beech or in the corner of an apple orchard. We cannot have too much of Lamia and Veronica and the Poet, or hear enough of the lovely garden in which they have lived together in amity." — Daily Mail. ' ' When a poet sets out to write prose about a garden he must be a very poor poet or an even poorer gardener if he cannot be interesting — and even something more. Now, Mr. Alfred Austin is neither a poor poet nor a poor gardener, and as a result his second series of ' The Garden that I Love ' (Macmillan, $s.) is full of alluring charm." — T7te Daily Express. ' ' ' The Garden that I Love ' : Second Series (Macmillan) comes a long time after its predecessor, which appeared in 1894. In the interval we have had, or endured, a flood of gossipy books of the gardening variety. We have no hesita- tion in saying that the Poet Laureate has shown himself the fittest to continue his chronicles. His writing has humour and charm, and that touch of scholarship which puts us on speaking terms with Virgil and Dante — matter more exhilarating than cookery recipes and snippets stolen from old herbals." — The Athenmum. ' WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR POETICAL WORKS (In order of fuhlication) THE SEASON : A Satire. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. SS- THE GOLDEN AGE : A Satire. Crown 8vo. 53. MADONNA'S CHILD. Fcap. 8vo. 2S. 6d. net. THE TOWER OF BABEL. A Celestial Love Drama. Crown 8vo. ss. THE HUMAN TRAGEDY. Crown 8vo. t,i. SAVONAROLA : A Tragedy. Crown 8vo. ss- LYRICAL POEMS. Crown 8vo. 5s. NARRATIVE POEMS. Crown 8vo. 55. ENGLISH LYRICS. Crown Svo. 3s. 6d. PRINCE LUCIFER. Crown 8vo. 5=- FORTUNATUS THE PESSIMIST. Crown 8vo. 53. ALFRED THE GREAT : England's Darling. Crown 8vo. ss. 6d. net. THE CONVERSION OF WINCKELMANN, and other Poems. Crown 8vo. 53. A TALE OF TRUE LOVE, and other Poems. Crown 8vo. 53. FLODDEN FIELD : A Tragedy. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net. THE DOOR OF HUMILITY. Crown 8vo. 23. net. PROSE WORKS THE GARDEN THAT I LOVE. Extra Crown 8vo. 6s. IN VERONICA'S GARDEN. Extra Crown 8vo. 6s. LAMIA'S WINTER QUARTERS. Extra Crown 8vo. 63, Gilt Edition. los. 6d. HAUNTS OF ANCIENT PEACE. Illustrated by E. H. New. Extra Crown Svo. 6s. THE POET'S DIARY. Edited by Lamia. Extra Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. THE GARDEN THAT I LOVE. Second Series. Extra Crown 8vo. 53. net. MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON