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 Cornell University Library 
 PR6015.E49A61913 
 
 Aphrodite, and otiier poems, 
 
 3 1924 013 624 360 
 
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/cu31924013624360 
 
APHRODITE 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW VOKK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 DALLAS • ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 lOEONTO 
 
APHRODITE 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HELSTON 
 
 ^togorfe 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1913 
 
Pi.i Sobl I 
 
 . COFYUCHT. IOI3 
 
 Bv THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electiotyped. Published November, 1913 
 
 I am indebted to the Editors of The English Review, The 
 Poetry Review, Poetry and Drama, The FoEUiCi Justice, 
 The Clarion, The New Age, The Isis, The Daily News 
 AND Leader, and The Oxford Fortnightly, for permission 
 to republish some of the poems included in this volume. 
 
 J. H. 
 
 FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY 
 NEW YORK, N. Y., u. s. A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Modern Idealised Conveksations : page 
 
 lonicera i 
 
 In a Garden 42 
 
 Aphrodite at Leatherhead 67 
 
 His Answer to Those Who Imputed Impurity 
 
 TO Him, in Regard to the Preceding Poem . . 97 
 
 The Thorn Brake: A Tragedy 98 
 
 To Algernon Charles Swinburne 137 
 
 Shelley : A Criticism of a Criticism 146 
 
 The Pilgrim's Way 152 
 
 Blame Thou Not Love! 169 
 
 March 173 
 
 A Garden in the Fields 176 
 
 In Medias Res 177 
 
 In Autumn 179 
 
 Wood-Sorsel 180 
 
 To Germany in Her Progress towards Socialism 181 
 
 Before Daybreak 187 
 
 CupiDO Mundi 194 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sensations in Solitude 196 
 
 By Sleeping Waters 200 
 
 The Wanderer 201 
 
 A Fool's Dream 202 
 
 Evening: Wimbledon 203 
 
 Mood-Magic 205 
 
 MicKLEHAH Downs 206 
 
 A Ballad of Hell 207 
 
 A Southdown Sunday 210 
 
 White Witchcraft 211 
 
 Moods at May Dawn 212 
 
 Midsummer: Morning 217 
 
 Wayfarings 219 
 
 WisLEY Pond: Evening 221 
 
 The Oak in the Forest 223 
 
 Before a Picture 225 
 
 Summer in Fairlight 226 
 
 A New Year's Day 228 
 
 Love Lyrics 232 
 
 A Man's Song 233 
 
 A Girl's Song 235 
 
 A Child's Song 236 
 
 Michaelmas Daisies 237 
 
 Sibylla 239 
 
 The Noon Spell 250 
 
 April isth, 1912 254 
 
 In Memoriam 256 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Sonnets : page 
 
 Absolutio: The Release of the Dayspring . . 258 
 
 Dusks of Sleep 259 
 
 Storm in May 260 
 
 Sea-'Lone 262 
 
 Mate-Magic 263 
 
 The Elm-Ridge 264 
 
 Leith Hill 266 
 
 moontide 268 
 
 Ad Infinitum 269 
 
 November 270 
 
 To Mrs. Hyndman 272 
 
 Labour Unrest 273 
 
 Mammon 27s 
 
 "While Human Nature's What It Is" .... 276 
 
 Blasphemy LaWs 277 
 
 "Red England" 278 
 
LONICERA 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 This is the hour God goes upon the hills 
 For vigil, and to watch the western sky. . . . 
 I doubted not He went there in those days 
 When you and He were otherwise. . . . And 
 
 now 
 We two meet so, nor marvel at the years 
 That built a temple over my desire. 
 And made my madness holy that is dust ; 
 That made my soul reverberant, and made 
 My pulses echo anthems learnt of God. . . , 
 Whose fault was it that diapason's done ? 
 Whose flaw, that fractured first the tender truth 
 Of ties that not all of the outer world 
 In wrath had broken up, nor death destroyed? 
 Yours — ^that were in the spirit unashamed 
 At mean things done disloyal to our love — < 
 Love that is loyal loves not treachery : 
 
2 LONICERA 
 
 I say the spirit's is the parent sin, 
 
 If flesh be less than soul for humankind ! 
 
 There is no respite for a man who loves. 
 
 His body knows no stagnant periods; 
 
 But, as a tide without an ebb, desire 
 
 Flows in upon him ever, unappeased : 
 
 Only by consummation comes his calm. 
 
 These things came out of chaos with the sun. 
 
 Oh yes. Morality ! And yet I think 
 
 Is Woman's Wit the older word, with more 
 
 Of saving grace in it than half the codes 
 
 That seek to starve our sex and not to save. 
 
 The man who loves may ease a woman's whims 
 
 And load himself without her sympathy. 
 
 And kneel before her spirit in his own 
 
 Bowed by a weight of his unworthiness. 
 
 No man is man to lackey vanity 
 
 And ask a woman's pardon for his place. 
 
 Ungracious women mother many sins. . . . 
 
 Bitter? No! Bitterness is past for me. 
 
 For me the past is dead and full of dust. 
 
 And I, unmoved, have seen her that I loved 
 
 Go by with less of light upon her hair 
 
 Than on September stubble-fields. With less 
 
 Of weariness than wonder now there comes 
 
LONICERA 3 
 
 Her image on me, sometimes, unawares — 
 Though with the wonder of a poor surprise. 
 Yet since no man may live and quite forget, 
 Though where he loved he wooed but his own 
 
 dreams, 
 I still must keep one meaning for my mind 
 From that old splendour silenced in my heart. 
 The scent of honeysuckle wakens it : 
 And once again is summer glorious. 
 With her old sun-strength ardent, greatly good. 
 If ever you were glad I loved you, keep 
 Such gladness fresh with woodbine fragrances. 
 If so it please you. Something less than joy 
 Is heartened into ache, if less than pain; 
 And the dead days are not so dead for me. 
 This is my only harvest of our love — 
 To find me wistful at the woodbine flowers. 
 For I remember how you went with me. 
 One morning, down the middle of the year. . . : 
 The long road yet comes grey across the hill 
 By dense dark woods and shine of ruddy wheat. 
 Where ruddier poppies hide or take the sun. 
 And purple knapweeds darkling dream across 
 The variant gold of bird's-foot trefoil days. 
 
4. LONICERA 
 
 Swifts, like spent arrows glancing from the 
 
 clouds, 
 Drift down the wind, high over us : and all 
 The ways of little streams are half revealed 
 By fragrant methods of the meadowsweet. 
 But most the honeysuckle I recall. 
 It is a land whose likeness mocks our own; 
 Where August comes to meet us from the hills. 
 This is your kingdom left you at the last — 
 Your last of love, where once you had held sway 
 From my horizons northward, to the south. 
 And from the sunrise, out beyond the arch 
 Of the half-sunken sun to solemn things 
 That have their home behind a sunsetting; 
 From star-dawn on the sapphire slopes of night, 
 By midnight's massed momentous quietude. 
 To lovely latitudes where morning moves 
 In orient twilight putting out the stars. . . . 
 I bared my soul before you, having trust; 
 Without which love goes weakly with slow 
 
 wings. 
 Since love that is not free may hardly know 
 Sweet pride in his own servitude, or choice, 
 I blame you nowise that a naked soul 
 Was in your eyes a thing to stimulate 
 
LONICERA S 
 
 Vain lusts in you and gape of curious men. 
 But since you did this, so did you destroy 
 My trust in you ; and trust is that in love 
 Whereby men grow to greater, as men rise 
 From baseness only having trust in God — 
 That Purpose men call God, which stands for 
 
 truth 
 Whereof is evil known for evil. . . . Now, 
 It seems, you would regain your empery? 
 You, who have with your own hands shorn away 
 Such dignity as might a sin-soiled man. 
 From power of passion's purifying fire, 
 Forge as a sceptre meeter made for love. . . 
 Stand near a little! Let me search your eyes 
 If I may read a hunger there that shames 
 Some semblance of its shadow into mine. . . . 
 For I have seen on long-forgotten trails 
 Old hounds, half blind, that rummaged in the 
 
 weeds. 
 Hunt mute a hundred paces and give tongue — 
 A whimper that awakes from out their blood 
 On who-knows-what old phantom quest; cast 
 
 back. 
 And troubled, stare above their heavy haws 
 At far dim fields, and hearken echoings 
 
6 LONICERA 
 
 Of memories running strongly. Once I sought, 
 As all men on their hunting days must go, 
 Perforce, to find a mate and make them 
 
 mad. . . . 
 Who knows I now may chance on some old trail 
 Of passion, that was you in other years? 
 I say I cannot cross the woodbine's zone 
 But I pick up a line that leads to you. . . . 
 Because of that far off behind-the-hedge. 
 Where not more fragrant was the woodbine 
 
 blown 
 Upon my senses than your sun-warm hair. . . . 
 I climbed through thorns and gathered of the 
 
 flowers. 
 And I had climbed. ... I might have gathered 
 
 you. 
 I saw your soul there to my hand that day; 
 And all your body brushed me like a fire 
 Of August suns that strikes a field of wheat 
 Hotly, with sudden passion, under clouds. . . . 
 I would not cross a field to seek you now — 
 This is the saddest thing of love, I think. 
 Before, I would have sought you through the 
 
 world. . . . 
 
LONICERA 7 
 
 "A law of life, all moral laws above — 
 
 Who breaks shall surely scourge him with 
 a rod: 
 Whoso shall oflfer insult unto love ' 
 Shall spit upon the very face of God." 
 
 So I have heard, and likewise this for truth: — 
 This is the hell of women, to have slain. 
 Not as the splendid wantons of old time — 
 Hot-mouthed, so even lust was eloquent 
 With raptured immolation — love's desire. 
 But on the altar of their meaner moods, 
 Vainglorious promptings, braggart self-conceits. 
 And that cheap pride of cheaper modesty 
 Mouthing a lover's passion for the praise 
 Of idle ears, and turning tender trust 
 To vulgar tribute : modesty that craves 
 Envy from other women while it scorns. 
 As things immodest, franker unrestraint 
 Of women quick to love and quick to own. . . . 
 There is no heaven lovers may not climb 
 With the strong pulse of two-fold passion blent 
 In psychic pinions Godward, nor no hell 
 So deep that Love may hide his dead away 
 Among its nadir-night of mocking stars. 
 
8 LONICERA 
 
 That haunt like ghosts what love might else have 
 
 been. . . . 
 Such reverence as man may give was yours 
 Freely. I knew no higher God than Love, 
 Nor needed any. Now is Reverence 
 Done to such death as no dog ever died. 
 And when you lied against my love there died 
 Something, in flower, that will not bloom again. 
 Remains, one day among ripe harvest-lands — 
 I may not lose its mocking memory. 
 You would not lose it also? So, you say? 
 Well, since Love levies, like an overlord. 
 Tribute of every season, if you crave 
 The arid harvest of defeat and drouth, — 
 If you are fain for fruit of bitterness, 
 We two needs make but pilgrimage along 
 The smiling margins of that Dead-Sea place. 
 Abele trees whiten every wind, and there 
 Love walks, in sepulchretis, by the corn. 
 And by the corn the honeysuckles blow: 
 Whilst August brings the lengthening night ; and 
 
 sweet 
 The great green Mother's peace is and her rest 
 Until her lord shall turn to her again. 
 We, who have never mixed us, well may meet 
 
LONICERA 9 
 
 And turn once more by unforgetful ways; 
 (Belike the Traveller's Joy remembers us 
 In some warm-scented corner of those lands) 
 With quiet eyes fulfil a destiny — 
 Grave-watchers of resurgent death-in-love. . , . 
 Tomorrow then ? Now go — ^before the night, 
 That settles eastward hard upon our tracks, 
 Rises and clothes the ways before us, as behind. 
 It's strange that now the west is over dark 
 For all its crimson ; while the east, for all 
 Its sable shade, gleams like a broad blue flower. 
 No man, it seems, may bridle so his blood 
 Some shadow may not start it from his hand. 
 Since love is over for us I would lust 
 In nowise for you — why, I hardly know. 
 I loved you with my body and my soul : 
 My body sinned, I think, for weariness 
 Of passion striving hard with hopeless things. 
 But in my soul there was more purity 
 Than had sufficed to keep me clean for you. 
 Had you been less ungracious. Now that love 
 Is over for us I would near his grave 
 With none of impious passion in my heart, 
 But with clear eyes, though eyes that cannot 
 weep. 
 
lo LONICERA 
 
 Calm thoughts, — perhaps with flowers of wood- 
 bine flung 
 Before his last sole shrine. Therefore I say 
 Go from me now, a hungry man in this — 
 I may not stand beside you in the dark: 
 Ghosts are revealed of night as well as stars; 
 And troubled spirits, of its quietude. . . . 
 She's gone. . . . God! how this dark hedge 
 
 breathes of her! 
 I would her soul were half as sweet to me. 
 
 This morning finds your mood unchanged? I 
 
 thought 
 You would repent you of last night's desire. 
 Since you have still the same mind on this thing. 
 What shall be said between us? . . . Going 
 
 grey? 
 Yes, long ago. You have not altered much — 
 Excepting that one alteration Time 
 Had hardly wrought with all his change of 
 
 years. . . , 
 Some cloud and sun the morning promises, 
 
LONICERA II 
 
 Wind from the south-west, but no rain, I think ; 
 The same as was that morning long ago. 
 
 
 THE 
 
 WOMAN 
 
 It rained that 
 
 day. . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 
 
 Oh? 
 
 
 THE 
 
 WOMAN 
 
 Once. Behind the hedge; 
 
 While you were at the honeysuckle. I 
 
 Looked up and felt great drops that splashed like 
 
 tears 
 Twice on my face. I kissed you, afterwards. 
 When you had done with gathering flowers for 
 
 me. . . . 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 You can remember that . . . and yet you lied. 
 Like spiteful women lie, to wound a man — 
 Snakewise — and dragged my love about the 
 
 streets ; 
 Like men for whom is tender trust almost 
 A thing as worthy confidence as tavern friends 
 Stooping with beer in bars at closing-time! . . . 
 
12 LONICERA 
 
 Here is the train, we need' not ride together 
 If you prefer to be alone. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Thanks : no. 
 Alone with you if possible. I would 
 Drink to the dregs this day you dedicate 
 To calm (I think that was the adjective) 
 Thoughts, and to such of seemlier obsequies 
 As may redeem us from the vulgar end 
 Of our dead love. ... Go on, and spare me 
 
 not. 
 Say she you loved had no real part in me — 
 A snob, whose other name you told to stars, 
 Until the vestry dust-cart came and cried : 
 "Your goddess was ungracious, and a liar, 
 And girdled with a ten- fold vanity !" . . . 
 Perhaps some mental and some psychic growth 
 Had followed — love, they say, works miracles — 
 Without a disproportionate display 
 Of vanity. Who knows ? — ^the latter might have 
 
 shrunk. 
 Nay, might have dwindled down when deeper 
 
 things 
 
LONICERA 13 
 
 Were round us: when the streams of our two 
 
 lives 
 Fused in the star-fire on the outer deep 
 I might have lost the beacon on the hill 
 By no more miracles than latitude, 
 Wider horizons, solitude a deux; 
 Nor needed other solace under stars. . . 
 I was ungracious, now I will not be : 
 Miracle-methods it shall be for us ! 
 For you, I mean. Your love had cast them out — 
 (With certain small concessions made, what time 
 The necessary grace had wrought in me) 
 The seven devils of my self-esteem. 
 And I had learnt me more of truth and 
 
 trust. . . . 
 No! I will have it so — miraculous. 
 (Thanking you kindly, sir, for your dissent.) 
 Why not ? Strange things are not so rare ; and 
 
 once 
 Two different baker's carts went by our house. 
 Nor one gold medal had they, 'twixt the two. 
 Bitter? No. Bitterness is past for me! 
 I was but learning truth — and graciousness. 
 Good precepts reach apt scholars readily, 
 'Tis dunces add up evil on their thumbs. 
 
14 LONICERA 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Forgive yourself, and me — ^through you! . . . 
 
 My faith, 
 Once gone in you, went badly like a thief 
 Who, running wild for months about the woods. 
 Hides first from fear, but afterwards he hides 
 Less from his fear than his distrust of men. 
 You lost your power to hold me, when you lied, 
 But when you stooped to that I learnt distrust 
 Of my own senses-'— deemed you less than you 
 ,(As once through lover's eyes I deemed you 
 
 more) 
 In all things else. And since it is that hate 
 But languishes on foods that feed contempt, 
 Hate left no heir within my heart but dust : 
 Not good to fight on; albeit I fought. Success 
 (I rose in spite of, not because of, you) 
 Had dust and ashes on it when it came. 
 There have been days — September-toned — when I 
 Have felt the sun's peace mock me, and night- 
 times 
 Of dark trees' commune under cloudy stars, 
 I would we might have shared for punishment 
 All dust and ashes, rather than, alone, 
 
LONICERA IS 
 
 That I found Elysium-fruited Fame 
 Or bliss of Gods. . . . Contempt is like a cloud 
 For men who make the sun a sign for truth : 
 They see it stain the heavens, from afar. 
 Nor heed it hides the sun from other eyes. 
 But when they feel it all the world is charged 
 About them. So I deemed you base in all. . . . 
 Men judge too harshly where they once have 
 
 loved. 
 But this extenuation will I claim — ' 
 Were I a shameless liar to the world. 
 For very shame I would not lie to you. And if 
 Eternity and Gods have left for us, 
 And for our planet's pastures feeding souls, 
 Ideals of a market-place supreme. 
 Where none may live by Truth alone, but starve; 
 If Manhood's mind be Falsehood's, and the liar 
 The last achievement of the solar years, 
 I say I had felt shame to lie to you! 
 Ungracious that I harp on this ? Not so. 
 I do but seek a reason for my scorn — 
 For whose scorns, without, condemns himself. 
 And not the thing he tries. . . . And yet a 
 
 doubt 
 
1 6 LONICERA 
 
 Comes. . . . that my love was less than won- 
 derful? 
 Belike no man may love as women do ? 
 Helen of my mythology had more 
 Of Fable's truth than all the towers of Troy: 
 My lady breathed — ^but as a lady's-maid! 
 I said these things ; and scornful died my love. 
 Had I loved on and been the better man? 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Neither the better nor the worse— a man : 
 
 Men do not love as women do. We love, 
 
 And do defiances, iconoclasms. 
 
 Against our god, who is a jealous god 
 
 Beyond the God of Moses, — wilfully. 
 
 And having slain a lover, love him more. 
 
 But men love women for their better selves. . . . 
 
 Or for our bodies. Women love for this, 
 
 We live for love; and more than once have died 
 
 For men whose very baseness mocks the beast. 
 
 Grown wanton to the lips as Jealousy 
 
 A woman well may lie to hurt a man 
 
 And lose her soul to heal him afterwards. . . . 
 
 But here's the place — ^the old church through the 
 
 trees. 
 Should we be married there, you said. We'll go 
 
LONICERA 17 
 
 And watch the wedded sleeping side by side. 
 We ne'er shall sleep so now, or afterwards. 
 I would know all the lessons learnt from love 
 On that last pallid page where, darkling, flowers 
 The purple plant of pleasure's plenilune — ■ 
 Solatium dulcamara — wordlessly. 
 We may forget his April light, forget 
 His middle-madness stronger than the moon 
 On ardent eyelids kissed in summer leaves ; 
 The nightshade stings our memories to tears. 
 Because we knew no middle sweetness Love 
 Is like to deal us more of bitterness, 
 Or so it strikes a woman. . . . and a man? 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Perhaps men are more weak albeit more strong, 
 And therefore dig their graves the deeper. Men 
 Shed curses on the tombs of their dead loves 
 Where women go more quietly to weep. . . . 
 The place is painful in its peace, but stay 
 If you would further. . . . He was ninety-two : 
 Helen, his wife, came here — a year before. 
 I wonder when they left off loving. See, 
 She bore him children in her nineteenth year. 
 Their firstborn, yonder, grew to be a man. 
 
1 8 LONICERA 
 
 And left off living early — ^twenty-one. 
 
 No doubt they put that rose-bush by his head, 
 
 With shaking hands that touched beneath the 
 
 mold. 
 Who knows he knew what love was, otherwise? 
 He sleeps no less the sounder. . . . Time we 
 
 went, you say? 
 Yes. It is some few miles — out there. The sun 
 Is shining on the shadow of the woods 
 That lie around the corn-lands where it 
 
 grows. . . . 
 Woodbine or woody-nightshade, take your 
 
 choice. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I think you could be cruel to me to-day. . . . 
 I am a woman, spare me not, but strike — 
 I struck you long ago. Now take revenge. 
 Love is the cruellest of things alive. 
 We shall not live for ever, punish me! 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 You wrong me. I would comfort. No, you're 
 
 right ! 
 I will not go like this towards a tomb — 
 
LONICERA 19 
 
 This tiger thing that creeps along my blood 
 To spring and lust across love's resting- 
 place. . . . 
 Oft since that day we crowned you with a kiss 
 The lady of my heart, by yonder wheat, 
 (They planted wheat again, I see, this year) 
 I have in spirit watched these lands. As one 
 Who on high hills at evening stands at gaze — 
 To trace his journeys of the day and mark 
 Some belt of far old woodland hiding streams 
 Whereat he drank, and after, lying down, 
 Dreamed some divine-born daughter of the 
 
 woods 
 Looked with soft eyes upon a son of men. . . . 
 Or through a sunset for your bridal-veil 
 You watch, as women do a lover's road 
 At evening tryst. But these are deadly 
 
 dreams. . . . 
 Here suzerainty for you is and ends. 
 Who once were queen of "all my nights and 
 
 days." 
 And no man dares do outrage on his queen, 
 In hours like this, for very fear of shame. 
 I will not with concupiscence discrown 
 The last poor remnant left me of my love. 
 
20 LONICERA 
 
 Rather I would go calmly by your side 
 And be at peace with you and all the world, 
 And if that peace be painful — go in pain. 
 Than with the pulse of passion lacking love. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Yes? You rebuke me now — from out your 
 
 blood, 
 Because you praised me out of passion — then. 
 Praise sweet to me ; and blame, its aftermath. 
 Is only less because the passion's less : 
 I will not utter falsehood now. . . . But no ! 
 Your sovereign lady (speaking for the past) 
 Comes from her throne to guide you graciously ; 
 All truth in her, and such humility 
 As well befits a queen before a grave. 
 Her sceptre's shadow points her punishment — 
 Take back your lust: go with me like a friend. 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Yes, Helen, let us go as friends to-day. . . . 
 The same hedge : that white poplar by the road. 
 Watching its long grey solitude for toll 
 Of vagrant winds, that passing pay their tune 
 Of silver music wanly in the leaves. 
 
LONICERA 21 
 
 And over it — ^look — high against the clouds. 
 The thin black wings that glance along the 
 
 sky. . . . 
 Once past this oak wood and the wheat begins. 
 Men must come here, and yet — a motorcar 
 A mile or so this side of Romanhurst — ■ 
 The legions might have gone but yesterday. 
 There seem so few of dwellers in the land ! . . . 
 How the downs dream through long grey dis- 
 tances — ■ 
 Their very combes are full of sleep. . . . See 
 
 here! 
 Here's the old field, and, further on, the path 
 Between the wood of ashes and the corn. 
 Forgive the sorry pun. . . . Yes, sweet and 
 
 thick, 
 As in that other August, there it climbs — 
 Its fairy fragrance woven through the wind. . . . 
 I will go first : the thorns have overgrown 
 The entrance to the path. So here we stand ! 
 Now I will gather for you once again — 
 From this same plant that reaching through the 
 
 thorns 
 Climbs on across the years, beyond our love. 
 There! Some few sprays for each of us to cast 
 
22 LONICERA 
 
 In votive fashion, where we stood and kissed, 
 Before the shrine of fruitless. . . . why! In 
 
 tears? 
 There is no rain to-day! You never wept. 
 Before. Your eyes were always somewhat cold- 
 Yet some such natures have been fierce with 
 
 love. . . . 
 No! you and I had best not kiss again. . . . 
 How the sun fires the wind across the corn. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Love me a little — half a day — an hour ! 
 Is it so hard to love? I know that once 
 You loved me without learning. Let the trees 
 Teach you what I, whom once you loved, may 
 
 not — 
 Some trick, some semblance, every shadow learns' 
 From the reality that casts it forth ; 
 Nor are the shadows all unreal — am I ? . . . 
 You may not? So? You would not act un- 
 truth? 
 I think is woman's wit then all unknown 
 In women that have lost a lover! You — 
 Yours be the liar's part now. . . . not because 
 
LONICERA 23 
 
 You may not do this thing. . . . that's not the 
 
 word! 
 You will notf Why? And Why's a woman, 
 
 too: 
 I hate her. ... oh, I hate her well enough ! 
 She would not stoop to lie against her love, 
 Oh no! She's worth your trust! She would 
 
 forgive — 
 Being nobler — though you sinned a hundred 
 
 times ! 
 You came to-day to sin here, in your heart. 
 With one who was not worth your love, and 
 
 blamed 
 (Being so greatly honest) an effect, 
 Lest in a clamant cause your own desire 
 Cried Hypocrite upon you! Oh my God! 
 Oh God, who made us women ! . . . 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Don't, I say! 
 Our love is dead between us, at your hands : 
 Were you as God you might not waken it. 
 If there be sin within my heart, I craved 
 Your help to. . . . 
 
24 LONICERA 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Keep you clean of me for her ! 
 You sinned with other women, loving me: 
 That you deceived me nowise, though you 
 
 wronged. 
 Has given you into my hands. Now go to her, 
 (The spirit's is the parent sin, you said) 
 Say, "I have sinned in spirit against your love. 
 Forgive me !" Do not doubt she will forgive : 
 She would forgive you, so, a hundred times! 
 Now sin with me in earnest — once, no more : 
 Say, "Lo, I met a wanton in the woods. 
 And in the woods lay down with her and 
 
 sinned." 
 Then ask forgiveness, ask a hundred times. 
 And see if she forgive you for one sin! . . . 
 Shameless? I lost respect of yours, and yet — 
 
 my love. 
 For all I hate you now, is not so poor 
 That I may not regain it, by a sin! 
 I say you dare not mix with me and say 
 That you despise me then. Despise yourself, 
 Hate me like hell the moment after : yes ! 
 Despise me, no ! That is the way of men, 
 
LONICERA 2S 
 
 For men love women for their better selves — ■ 
 Or for our bodies. Love my body, now: 
 Henceforth you may despise me ne'er again. 
 This is your love I sinned against and slew 
 By vanity and some ungraciousness : — 
 My body may restore respect I lost; 
 And yet the spirit's is the parent sin! 
 Though you should hate me I may have respect : 
 You loved me till — I threw respect away ! 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 It seems I did not love you then at all? 
 I worshipped you as something worthy such, 
 And finding you were other, lost my love. 
 What is your moral ? That even the lower love 
 Has in it more than reverence may know ? 
 It may be. For the god that Moses knew 
 Becomes a nonsense name to thinking men. 
 But when love goes we'll say God help the world ! 
 Yet, since you women say you live for love. . . . 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Will, kiss me once. . . . and you shall go to her ! 
 You loved me, yes, you loved me ! I forgave 
 Each sin, in secret, though they maddened me. 
 
2$ LONICERA 
 
 Who knows you loved me more than. . . . more 
 
 than. . . . I— 
 I never loved you as I love you now 
 When hate is more than iron in my soul. . . . 
 A-h! . . . Oh, my dear, my lost one! Comfort 
 
 me! 
 Let me but live this day out! Hark, the wind 
 Sinks to a whisper, and the wheat is full 
 Of murmurs and insidious desire. . . . 
 No, now you shall not go to her. . . . but go — 
 Just you and I together, hand in hand. 
 Into deep woods and hide us and forget. 
 Forget all things but this one day. Yes, yes. 
 Kiss me a hundred times beneath this oak — 
 'Twill last our lives out, like the tree ! Say now, 
 "Helen I love you !" Though it be a lie 
 It is an echo of the greatest truth 
 The years have ever taught me. . . . Oh, my 
 
 dear. 
 Let me but breathe a moment. Now again ! . . . 
 My darling, I have dreamed I was your wife. 
 Ere my fool-folly drove you from my side, — 
 Let all things dreamed and done be in your kiss ! 
 I am grown old in longing; make me young. 
 
LONICERA 27 
 
 The years roll back. . . . that August long 
 
 ago. . . . 
 See, I will lay this woodbine in my breast. . , . 
 Kiss my two eyes first — blind me, both my hands, 
 And — all things teaching two-fold tender- 
 ness. . . . 
 I am not shameless to your lips ? My blood, 
 Afire to feel the homage of your own. 
 Makes me yet beautiful enough for praise 
 Of those same lips that scorned me long ago? 
 I well had lost — ^had lost a hundred times — 
 Respect of yours, had I but kept your love. 
 Though it be such of love as. . . . How I 
 
 blush — 
 To say I am not shameless, from my heart ! 
 And this wild flower that brought you back to 
 
 me — 
 Who knows? — my heart may wither ere it dies. 
 You would not leave me now — until the dark? 
 How dark it is among these leaves; and, listen, 
 A stream comes here to murmur. . . . Yes, my 
 
 love, 
 I will not fail you now, and live, ah no ! 
 I failed you of my folly in the past. 
 And wisdom when it reached- me came too late 
 
28 LONICERA 
 
 To save me then, or you. This is our hell. 
 The chiefest hell of woman — ^to have been loved. 
 And to have failed her man — the man she loved. 
 For women love but once in all their lives 
 With their full strength of loving. And for 
 
 you — 
 The woman that I was not was your mate 
 Though you should wed a dozen ! I was proud, 
 As I am humble, even for your lust. 
 Yet have I so much pride as women hoard 
 For exorcisms when their changing blood 
 Conjures a ghostly guerdon from the grave 
 Of love self-slain : — ^the woman I was not 
 Had more of your love than another may : 
 I have no choice, but glory in my greed. 
 My barren kingdom, where I kindled scorn 
 In votive places where you worshipped love. 
 Is yet not quite so laid waste but I know 
 It was my own though all its temples pass. 
 No other may depose me though I reign 
 Among waste dust of shadow-shaken lands. 
 For me, such penalty of loneliness 
 As comes from the soul-coffers of a queen; 
 And, though your soul be tmafraid of death 
 As unafraid of living out the years. 
 
LONICERA 29 
 
 This be exacted of you : Had you been 
 Of nobler stuff than many men be yet, — 
 Had you but had the patience of old pain, — 
 I had been slave of yours — ^as much a slave 
 As fire is to the four winds of the world; 
 Nay, rather, as a flame, had clave to you. 
 Though all the hate of both the hemispheres 
 Had torn all shelter from you save my 
 
 arms! . . . 
 You loved me — ^not as traders do their tills — 
 Had you forgiven me the pride of fools, 
 The vice of liars, only — only that! 
 Now this must meet you, guised as Memory 
 With some unhealed old trouble in the eyes : — 
 You shall escape the woman that was not. 
 And turning on your tracks, say, "Where is she? 
 I did but fly a wraith of hollow dust !" 
 And lo, in lonely places she will stand. 
 As women for forgiveness, who are proud. 
 When all their pride goes over to their love. 
 Then shall you dimly — as through dust, maybe — 
 See far ofif, firelight-shadowed things that forge 
 At his. Love's own, immortal fires and streams. 
 Armour of proof, and perfect-fashioned faith, 
 Large trust, and fearless flawless happiness 
 
30 LONICERA 
 
 Where The Soul welds two beings into one. . . . 
 I am grown greedy of our separate lives 
 Of punishment. Yet, since 'twas I that failed 
 (Though I would have you, rather than forget, 
 Sicken with dust of ashes in your heart) 
 I im grown eager for that ecstasy 
 Of penitential passion women crave. 
 I would you were one dead, I think, at times. 
 Whose eyes my hands, unseen, had closed for 
 
 ever — 
 Glad with the grief of jealousy. I hate you 
 
 still- 
 Just hate, apportioned for my punishment : 
 Hatred whose lineaments are like to Love's 
 Of the imperfect creature — less than hate 
 As the far less than love. My love, my love, 
 We might have grown together, vein for vein! 
 Crowned every day with tender nights of stars; 
 And ruled, as one, o'er realms whose wonder- 
 ment 
 Had made each city street a Parthenon! . . . 
 This only now is left me — penitence : 
 I lead me to that ghost-walk of regret 
 Where "love" asks now, and thanks me from the 
 past. 
 
LONICERA 31 
 
 God knows what taught you love then. You 
 
 have taught 
 What love might have been for us, since, to me. 
 In this dim place I will do sacrifice. 
 You shall not save me from myself : you cared 
 Too little in the past to save for you 
 The woman that you dreamed I might have 
 
 been — ■ 
 Yet who puts faith in dreams? But teach me 
 
 now 
 To be all humble, since nor man nor woman, 
 Has so much pride they must not bow the knee- 
 It may be to some secret god of theirs. 
 In this dim place I will do sacrifice — ■ 
 I say you shall not save me. . . . 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Helen, this — 
 This makes you mine for ever. ... I would 
 
 give. . . . 
 I would I could give man's equivalent. 
 But there is none. ... I know you generous — 
 It is the first time, but I know it now. 
 And yet love is beyond me — that is truth. 
 That I would lust for you now is truth also — 
 Yet shame is sharp within me, none of joy: 
 
32 LONICERA 
 
 I doubt we know a meaning for these things. 
 
 Unless it be there is no good but love, 
 
 And all things done for love's sake are good 
 
 things. . . . 
 Once I had more of happiness to gather flowers 
 For you, than to pluck all my pleasures now 
 Out of you so. We came for honeysuckle — 
 For woodbine we may gather in the dark. 
 Nightshade, and haply of the deadlier kind. . . 
 Sin is the sorrowfullest of things alive : 
 Yet now I care for nothing but to sin — 
 There is no peace for me but penitence. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 "With quiet eyes fulfil a destiny." 
 Your words — and once you loved me! This I 
 know, ^ 
 
 That men and women may love many times — 
 With little hurt or harm in it as love : 
 Nor bruise each other more than willow trees 
 That scarce may touch in shadow on a stream. 
 But where some men and women love, they hate 
 At least one lurid life of night and day 
 When Hell usurps their heavens and desires. 
 But mostly 'tis the woman hates the man; 
 Until the knife is sharp enough to wound. 
 
LONICERA 33 
 
 She strikes; and turns it in the flesh; and feels 
 
 The poison of his passion in her side 
 
 For vengeance on her. 'Tis but evidence 
 
 Of truth, that in all sweets a poison lurks 
 
 When taken to repletion. And the soul 
 
 Is never poor that may be passionate ; 
 
 Nor passion quite so poor as not to crave 
 
 Among the margins of The Infinite 
 
 Satiety insatiate. ... I do not doubt 
 
 Imagination is the caste of souls. . . . 
 
 And when such women love such men they lose 
 
 Hatred at last, and after hatred, life. 
 
 Or ever they may lose their love again. 
 
 For these there is no peace in life unless 
 
 Each gets to each and mixes love with love 
 
 Beyond the shallow waters of the world. 
 
 And lips feed lips with fire wherein are fused 
 
 The inner heats that melt Eternity 
 
 Each side the Present. The imagination 
 
 Is but the flame of myriad molten suns 
 
 Loosed from the slow retorts of stellar time — 
 
 A protoplasm for the mind of man, 
 
 That, taking thought, transcends a planet's 
 
 wings. . . . 
 For these women are nights and days and years 
 
34 LONICERA 
 
 But as are trees along a ruined road 
 That is not lonely so one other walks — 
 Though it be on some far off stretch, with seas 
 
 between, 
 Yet ever drawing nearer. Afterwards — 
 When they have met athirst, and gone aside 
 Into waste lands where only starlight comes. 
 And there flung off restraint, and mingled there, 
 And made their peace more piteous for kind 
 
 words 
 Above old wounds of their own hate — ^there 
 
 comes 
 Great loneliness of parting. But the sun. 
 Linking the stealthy footways of the dark, 
 Shines not so bright as their own sign of "sin" 
 Henceforth — ^though they should never meet 
 
 again. . . . 
 There is no peace for me unless we "sin," , 
 
 Though there be none for either afterward. 
 Since no such woman mates her save with him. 
 Though she have husbands more than one in life, 
 That in her soul acknowledged is for lord. 
 For whom her body bondslave is and glad. 
 My life is less than this my marriage-night 
 Though I should live a century of years. 
 
LONICERA 35 
 
 God save me afterwards, we'll say. You save 
 
 me now ! 
 I have set all my being like a star 
 This night shall waken to white flame, to burn 
 My very heart out, spendthrift on the dark. 
 My hour comes on triumphant! I thank God — 
 For power to "sin," and lose my soul, may- 
 be! .. . 
 Not she can keep you from me for this night — 
 Though she, being nobler, will forgive the 
 
 sin. . . . 
 For now I know this thing for truth in us : — 
 Unless we mix together, at the last, 
 Though we be long past loving, it shall rise 
 Intolerable beyond the darks of death. 
 And Memory shall do murder ere we pass. 
 Either we two are destined to deny 
 Our hearts' one truth of nightshade-nurtured 
 
 need. 
 Or to live, die, above all Destiny — 
 Saying, "What need have we of any gods : 
 The world has paid for gods an hundredfold 
 In tears and bloody tribute !" GOD himself — 
 Can in nowise conceal this truth in us: — 
 
36 LONICERA 
 
 No peace is for us two unless we "sin!" 
 Though there be Hell hereafter. Man made 
 
 gods 
 To make poor men more patiently afraid. 
 And murdered Truth to make a mountebank — 
 Fit emblem for the thing Morality. 
 But for such gods had men long since thrown off 
 The incubus of Mammon's incest. Now 
 They rise at last and do their gods to death. 
 They do these things. It may be they are 
 
 right. . . . 
 I learnt to lie from childhood up, in church. 
 Small wonder that I grew to tolerate 
 A thing acclaimed as holy ! You forgave — 
 You could not, nor can I, forget I lied 
 Against our love. Now gladly I forget 
 God, and forgive him! He must need, by this, 
 Mankind's forgiveness badly ! In his name 
 We have been taught to worship Compromise 
 Not for its truth but for its cowardice. 
 Ere this night closes I will crown by "sin" 
 The one high and indomitable truth 
 That comes to flower upon my soul, as stars 
 Above dark tides. I know no God but Love, 
 
LONICERA 37 
 
 Now. Since you showed me Hira, though 
 
 through my tears. 
 Take your reward in all your will of me! 
 See, how the setting sun has sanctified 
 The woods, and put a passion in your face 
 To consecrate the latent soul men see 
 In sunsets ! Oh, my dear, I do not doubt 
 Forgotten dust lies under these still woods. 
 That once stood here together while the night 
 Came darkling in across those eastern hills. 
 Dust that was living lovers, long apart. 
 That crept together here, and panting clung 
 Their night out to the chill verge of the dawn 
 When day meant death; and when the day was 
 
 come. 
 Would part no more, but laughed and took their 
 
 death, 
 And clung their night of ages out. But now 
 Men do not love in such wise; but they love 
 Their women for an hour, maybe a year. 
 Though all their life they well may love a horse 
 To ruin; or if they should strike a ball 
 Some score of yards beyond another man 
 They die content. . . . No, now we will not 
 
 talk. 
 
38 LONICERA 
 
 But wait my hour. The yearning of the dark 
 Is over us already. ... I would I had 
 (Forgive me now such woman's fantasies) 
 A handful of my own wild woodbine flowers 
 From out the hedge. Will, gather once again 
 For me — ^my bridal-flowers ; I will await 
 Their coming and my lord's, within the sound 
 Of that small stream I may not see but hear. 
 Its broken voice of whispers I shall hear 
 Henceforth through life. Maybe, when I am old, 
 I still shall find it singing if I come : 
 I must come here again before I die. 
 But once, I think : no more : when I am old. . . . 
 No, dear, we cannot miss : be quickly gone. 
 And quicker back to me. Well, kiss me 
 then! . . . 
 
 * * :tf * 4f * dif 
 
 Thanks, dear! No, I will kiss my thanks. . . . 
 
 Why, Will! 
 What is it? Tell me, dear! Tell me, I say! 
 Why is your face so white and full of. . . . 
 
 tears ? 
 My darling, have no fear for me! My 
 Sin . . . 
 
LONICERA 39 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Let be! No talk of sin, Helen, for us! 
 
 I found more things than woodbine by the 
 
 hedge : 
 Love. . . . 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 L-o-v-e? 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 And great fear : but no more sorrowing 
 For the dead past and all its loneliness. . . . 
 Though fledged with flight of slow unhappy- 
 years. 
 Love had won. . . . 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 L-o-v-e?. 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 home to his darkened shrine. 
 And lo, the fragrance of his incense waked 
 From every flower : first, like to fear, and then — 
 Like to such joy as I have never known. 
 
40 LONICERA 
 
 So strong it left me stricken. And the flowers 
 I clutched at as do drowning men at straws 
 They tell of . . . . then I stumbled back to you. 
 Love has come back. . . . 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 L-o-v-ef, 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Love — ^to save us both! 
 Good God! Get up, girl, don't kneel down to 
 
 me! 
 There, there, that's better! Kiss me! Kiss the 
 
 flowers, 
 Rather. No need of any nightshade now, 
 For you or me, my Helen ! . . . Ah, I feared 
 'Twould be too much for you, my dear. Lie 
 
 still. . . . 
 You will not loose those flowers again awhile. 
 How cold her hard-shut hand is. It's a swoon. 
 Of course. . . . My God! can it be. . . . 
 
 Christ! not death. 
 Helen, speak to me! Helen! Fool I was — 
 I choked with it; and now her wilful heart. . . . 
 
LONICERA 41 
 
 Yes, yes, dear! You're all right? Eh? Yes, 
 
 alive. 
 My woodbine-bride! My dariing. , . . 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Hush. ... the stars! 
 
IN A GARDEN 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I came away, and soothed my soul with stars 
 And that pale crescent harp up there that hangs, 
 Filled of dumb music, 'mid the cedar tree. 
 I am grown sick and weary of it all! 
 The dirty lusts of calumny and spite 
 That crave and feed excitements slanderous! 
 Are these things men and women that we 
 
 meet? — 
 Creatures with sentient souls ; or mountebanks 
 Who train themselves to bow and scrape for 
 
 hire. 
 Pay debts of food and drink with compliments, 
 Or cultivate with airs the great inane, 
 Or train their tongfues to move as serpents 
 
 crawl ? 
 Bah ! I am sick and weary of it ! When 
 That woman gorging on dead singing-birds, 
 42 
 
IN A GARDEN 43 
 
 Between her mouthfuls, mocked me with a smile 
 For my defence of Joan's lapse from grace, 
 I could have struck her like some drunken drab 
 Aroused to tavern vixenhood. That thing! 
 That harlot for a husband's sweated gold 
 Wrung from the lives of starving women's toil! 
 I hate her ! and I hate them all, and. . . . 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Me? 
 I think the starry sedative you sought 
 Has proved but ineffectual anodyne? 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I humbly crave your pardon, good my lord! 
 It is not meet that women should be heard! 
 Your pardon, good my lord, for feeling shown! 
 Words impolite, and worse than impolite — ■ 
 Vulgar with warmth of feeling! 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Hush, my dear. . . . 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I am your dear ? Oh yes ! I am your dear ! 
 
44 IN A GARDEN 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 I think you women have gone sudden mad 
 With liberty to scan the planes of life, 
 Yet lacking fit adjustment of the brain 
 To view in true perspective anything! 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Ah! I have roused you, good my lord, at last! 
 We two have been engaged for near a month — 
 Yet beat me not, I pray you till we wed ! . . . 
 I cynical? Who taught us cynicism. 
 Hypocrisy, and dirty little lies? 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 I think you do not mean to be unkind 
 But that within you is some strange unrest 
 That marriage will allay. . . . 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Or make revolt, 
 The more relentless for a garb of smiles 
 To greet my lord's acquaintances and beam 
 With placidly enthusiastic eyes 
 (You praise my eyes, or did in by-gone days) 
 
IN A GARDEN 45 
 
 Upon the miracles that Jones has wrought. . . . 
 Red-coated men that hammer little balls. 
 He holed in two, ye gods, he holed in two ! 
 And still the stars swing on around their pole. 
 How Brown at bridge — ^but Brown at bridge 
 
 should awe 
 And hush the splendours of a million stars: 
 I sometimes think Brown is the greater man ! 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 I think you women have gone sudden mad ! . . . 
 Fools that you are, who, born to rule a world 
 Through flesh of your own nurture, bring forth 
 
 flies, 
 A fume of empty words, 
 For fretful buzzing in the market-place! 
 Above vain theories, whose windy life 
 Is flatulent with growths of ignorance. 
 In that you, seeking evil for complaint. 
 Deem all things evil that may e'er refute 
 The vanity of Egotism's vast receipts 
 To mend a world by claiming what should be. 
 And only be, and not at all what is. 
 Had you the makings of a universe! 
 
46 IN A GARDEN 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Whence comes this tone, O good my future lord ? 
 I, who have taught me dignity by deeds. 
 And calm repose as Beauty's highest crown. 
 From your allusions to some stateliness. 
 Perchance I may now learn corollary — 
 Some silence that is wooden — from the saw 
 That "silver speech" and "golden silence" hold. 
 But no! Henceforth no more hypocrisy. 
 Whose other name's Convention. I will stand 
 Henceforth for woman's freedom like a. . . . 
 
 like. . . . 
 Our theories are saner than your own ! 
 I am not dumb: I have some intellect. 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Think you that man will love an intellect 
 
 As man loves woman ? Think you he will strive 
 
 The nobler in the press of life if you. 
 
 Seeing injustice to your sex in things, 
 
 Add to the fret of battle arguments 
 
 On abstract ethics — conjuring a gale 
 
 Of wordy war to scatter thistledown? 
 
IN A GARDEN 47 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 I. . . . 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Send out your emissaries, search the world 
 From where the north's white silence quickening 
 
 feels 
 Reflections of mysterious gleams and glows. 
 To frozen tumults of Antarctic seas 
 Congealed beneath the night of southern Cold. 
 You shall not meet one creature of such kind. 
 Far less a race of men, — upon itself 
 By Intellect begotten! 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 I. . . . 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Take heed! — 
 Apostates from a creed that Nature taught 
 Her daughters through long ages of a world ; 
 And, for a sign that they may ne'er forget, 
 Ordained her rites of sacrificial pain 
 Through all the seasons of a woman's year. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I say that. . . . 
 
48 IN A GARDEN 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Sex is no more than a name 
 That dwells in text-books on First Principles, 
 Or definition for Creation's law ! 
 And not the vital principle of Life itself, 
 Girt with the memories of a million springs, 
 Robed with the star-shot raiment of the dusk 
 That hung in sympathy about a myriad loves. 
 To weave its spells of starry pattern o'er 
 The duller warp and woof of human lives ! 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I. . . . 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Phantom illusory of poets' brains! 
 Whose refutations walk the world to-day 
 In garish irony, for you to point 
 A moral — even men who live as swine 
 And wallow in a slough of sensual mire : 
 Yet stay — are women always noble, pure? 
 
 • THE WOMAN 
 
 I want. , . . 
 
IN A GARDEN 49 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 The shadow for the substance, so i 
 Scoff at man's love then: from its idle dreams 
 Turn to Equality of Sex, and Equal Rights 
 To fashion laws that you can not enforce. 
 You whose allotted task, to fashion men. 
 Was once the primal duty; now no more. 
 Since higher destinies have bridged the gulf 
 That yawned between your so-called slavery 
 And Freedom's soil, where party factions breed 
 Sufficient offspring. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 You won't let me speak. . . . 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 The right to have a word in everything! 
 
 There lies no selfishness nor greed; no thought 
 
 Of anything but Justice — sexless, pure ! 
 
 The liberty to rave, because the world 
 
 Is not as you would have it ! Ere you claim 
 
 Authority in all things, pause awhile, 
 
 And humbly learn the lessons of your own ! 
 
 You have a kingdom : yes, in very truth 
 
50 IN A GARDEN 
 
 You have! Does no injustice dwell therein? 
 Is man sole tyrant in the scheme of things? 
 Have you no better work in those your realms, 
 No higher duty to your sex — ^to man? 
 Or does your treatment of each other show 
 Such pure example that a world shall crave 
 Initiation in your precepts — ^means 
 Whereby it reach salvation and the stars? 
 Or are you cravens shrinking from the toll 
 That you must pay to nature and your 
 
 kind? . . . 
 Twin Elementals every healthy male 
 Combines within his soul — ^the need of strife, 
 And need of rest within a woman's arms. 
 Cross him and vex, or flout him with the jeers 
 Of sexless egotism, he will find 
 Such comfort as a harlot's arms may yield. 
 Who then shall benefit? Though you made laws. 
 As many as the webs that bind the blades 
 Of autumn grasses, they should stay him not, 
 And hinder him as little! Take you heed. 
 Lest too much zeal for freedom should infect 
 Him, with a freedom brooking no restraint! 
 Pause ere you talk of justice, there are things — 
 There are some laws writ in no statute book, 
 
IN A GARDEN 51 
 
 That spring from ethics little as the sun; 
 
 Yet as the sun all potent to command 
 
 The spheres they dominate, and as the sun 
 
 Essential for the equipoise of things 
 
 Of human as of planets' energy. . . . 
 
 Or think you that, by simply taking thought 
 
 Among yourselves, a higher destiny 
 
 Than Motherhood you can evolve? Perhaps 
 
 You can invent a system for all time, 
 
 Of such perfection, that by power of vote 
 
 You shall ordain that Inequality 
 
 Shall cease, and Human Nature yield its store 
 
 Of age-accumulated instincts, claims, — 
 
 Because to maiden womanhood may seem 
 
 Gross things of passion and impurity. 
 
 And virtue only in emasculate! 
 
 Who, seeing Love afar off as a star 
 
 Clothed in pale fire of purity ineffable. 
 
 Forgets that stars have shadows, closer 
 
 seen. . . . 
 Now I have done didactics, and would find 
 The lover once again — for all your hate! 
 Me also do you hate, my lady fair? 
 For fair you are — ^amid this place of stars. 
 And in this dusk of old-world yews, more fair, 
 
52 IN A GARDEN 
 
 Perhaps, than ever woman ought to be ! 
 Seeing that men are mortal flesh and blood 
 And in their veins are stored a myriad stars 
 And memories of innumerable moons, 
 Whereunder man has wooed his way through 
 time. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Why did. . . . why did you not to me before 
 Give of your poetry? You fed my love 
 With compliments, as lap-dog loves are fed! 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Not poetry — ^but only rhetoric. 
 
 Yet answer me. What answer rhetoric 
 
 Shall draw from you, unprompted aught of 
 
 Love, 
 Who would betray all judgments with a kiss? 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I think that its own echoes answers are. 
 On many points with equal justice could 
 We women most of mankind well arraign. . . . 
 And for your blessed word to beat us with. 
 
IN A GARDEN 53 
 
 To awe us into meek obedience — 
 
 You talk of Strength as if it were a sword, 
 
 That only man may handle. I know not 
 
 If men were men by virtue of their strength; 
 
 Or haply, if were men as elephants 
 
 Our sense of Right, our souls, our loves, might 
 
 be 
 Ten- fold as powerful. If Justice be 
 A child of body's strength I do not know. 
 Or if that are his offspring. Mind and Soul. . . . 
 
 "And she who bare him, yet shall beacon him. 
 When blinded of the brute that is in Force, 
 
 Towards a Strength whose eyes are never dim 
 With worshipped wonders, trifles to the 
 horse." 
 
 I hpld him more a man whose soul is strong 
 
 Than Hercules without one; as I hold 
 
 A poet greater than a pugilist. . . . 
 
 I never guessed you poet till to-night. 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Such poet's hand as touched it was but Love's: 
 Love makes all men as poets, though he makes 
 Their music sometimes mute. 
 
54 IN A GARDEN 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 It is not Love! — 
 Not Love's the fault ! Oh no ! It is their own ! 
 I think we creatures of this latter day. . . . 
 Hypocrisy's a canker in our hearts. 
 We two have spoken much as grocers deal — 
 Have weighed our words and wrapped them; 
 
 and with string 
 Clipped from Conventions hanging over us 
 Taught Love to trade, as they apprentices ! 
 Taught him, who should have taught us poetry — 
 And poetry that helps our souls to grow 
 To saner, larger life than clods' or clowns'. 
 We stifle souls, and mouth moralities; 
 And bind us with swaddling-bands of codes : 
 To be correct in all things, and to prove 
 Futility God's word. Development. 
 We clamour for improvements made of mind. 
 And silence all complainings of our souls. 
 I think some higher kind of anthropoid 
 Might do as well with training. . . . Yet you 
 
 wrong — 
 We women are but drawing swords for Love! 
 For love of man seems in this latter day 
 
IN A GARDEN 55 
 
 To be a thing of gifts from hand and brain. 
 Things potent to command our hearts to love? 
 Then such love is but harlot like a bride; 
 And a chimera, nothing more — the soul. . . . 
 And for your talk of old-world wisdoms : Man — 
 Were "Ancestors" his one philosophy, 
 Or "Wisdoms of the Ages" only wise — 
 Might still have chattered on among the boughs, 
 Among the roots of the dark-dreaming seas 
 Have slept impalpable. . . . Nay, this your 
 
 breast. 
 Which has too much a stranger been to mine ! 
 Has it not evidence of sex as old, 
 Older, and of some other than your own? 
 Has She not seen examples long enough 
 Wrought of her sons for wisdom, good my 
 
 lord? 
 Oh no! you do us women wrong, who strive 
 To make ourselves a meaning otherwhere. . . . 
 Man's soul is all that makes him more than 
 
 brute. 
 His mind ? I think some higher anthropoid 
 Might do as well with training. ... O you 
 
 men! 
 lYou have been loud with panders' praise of gold 
 
56 IN A GARDEN 
 
 To make us women harlots in our hearts, 
 Till, sexless gibes, we mock Maternity ! 
 To make us hypocrites, cheats, liars all ! 
 You sneer at Greed and crown him overlord. 
 And wonder why is woman prostitute ! 
 You have acclaimed the liar and the thief, 
 And wonder men are liars, that they steal ! 
 Have made the business of a world your boast 
 To prove an honest man beneath a rogue. 
 And so pervert all to dishonesty. 
 I think you lords our masters none too wise! 
 We do but strive to crown Love over lusts, 
 And help us all to larger life than slaves'. 
 How shall the soul grow but with liberty — 
 And liberty to strive for higher things ? 
 Methinks a little learning safe in this — ■ 
 That Love alone can be the ultimate 
 And supreme ethic for a world of men. 
 Unless souls are but mere monstrosities. . . . 
 And I. . . . I loved you, O my lord to be ! 
 And you spoke pretty things, and for me 
 
 fetched 
 And carried. And you spoke with dignity. . . . 
 I dared not tell you of my love. Oh no! 
 Your dignity had made my music mute. 
 
IN A GARDEN 57 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Then blame you but Convention ! Blame iiot me, 
 Or blame me henceforth with injustice! 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 A— h! 
 My dear! My dear! I. . . . 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Hush, my love, be still! 
 The moon is dark and all the world is still. 
 To-night is very wonderful. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Oh! 0-h! 
 0-h! 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Now shall you speak all your heart's de- 
 sire 
 And tell me all the meanings of your love ! 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I loVed you from the first. ... It was to me 
 Fair as the morning, but a misty thing 
 
58 IN A GARDEN 
 
 As mornings sometimes are. . . . And then you 
 
 went, 
 And it was as a dawn defeated, grey, 
 A dawn that had but borrowed from the dark 
 A little lapse of life and sunk again. 
 You came once more, and with you came the sun. 
 And through my dreams the spring crept always 
 
 then, — 
 There were birds singing in a place of leaves, 
 I think, or so it seemed to me. And then the 
 
 dark: 
 They told me you were wild. ... I pictured 
 
 arras 
 About you, of some woman of the night. . . . 
 I think my soul was dark with many nights 
 In which no star came ever, only clouds 
 And pale loose limbs of passions bought and 
 
 sold. 
 I was but girl, but in me was the stuff 
 Of poetry; and poets see these things. 
 I hated you; yet hating had been glad 
 To be your — woman. So I, hating, loved. . . . 
 It is the way of women, that, I think. . . . 
 Oh love, my love! I think I had not feared 
 To have gone down to shameful death for you! 
 
IN A GARDEN 59 
 
 Yes, kiss me now ! How hot your face is. . . . 
 
 a-h! . . , 
 And the years passed : I grew to harder things. 
 Oh yes, my heart was hardened, many 
 
 times. . . . 
 And drugged myself with Pleasure's platitudes. 
 Golf, bridge, or horses racing — anything. . . . 
 I think to live for these things is to find 
 Life good, as life is to a drunkard good. 
 Before it leaves his body but a cask. . . . 
 Yes, life is good to drunkards — for a span. . . . 
 No, now you shall not kiss me, yet awhile. 
 I sinned against my love. Stay ! Hear it all ! 
 I never guessed you loved me, but I sinned. 
 There was a man — a. poet — crossed in love. 
 But as has been with poets, powerful 
 To draw some women's souls toward the 
 
 stars. . . . 
 He took me out into a place of stars — 
 I told him that I loved, and was not loved. 
 And bade him kiss me there, as man might kiss 
 The woman that he loved. ... I had a will 
 To feel myself within his arms, and feel 
 You in his kiss catch fire upon my soul. . . . 
 He kissed me so I could have gone away 
 
6o IN A GARDEN 
 
 With him, for very weariness of love. . . . 
 For longing, though it were by deputy, 
 To ease the pent up pain of womanhood. 
 I sinned with him, in spirit, many times, 
 Against my love for you. . . . But that one 
 
 time 
 Is all man's arms have held me, save your own. 
 I think you may forgive me, good my lord ? 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 My dear, of course I do, but. . . . 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Afterwards. . . . 
 At Ascot. . . . you remember. . . . Mother said, 
 Men must have women. . . . Oh, I hated her — 
 That woman near the coaches ! For I saw 
 How you talked there together. And I went — 
 When you had gone — and questioned her. But 
 
 what 
 I did, or said, I scarcely know. For you 
 Had grown more nearer to me than before. 
 I spoke to her, I know, and that her face 
 Broke out upon my words like shouted 
 
 shame. . . . 
 
IN A GARDEN 6i 
 
 And when I saw she pitied with her eyes. 
 
 My pride had made me easy murderess, 
 
 But that she laughed — as women laugh in 
 
 hell. . . . 
 I sometimes think hell lives in laughter. . . . 
 
 Then 
 I pitied her; and once again she laughed — ' 
 In other wise — and singing went away. . . . 
 Until I die I shall remember her. 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 My dear, I. . . . 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 No ! I would not have the blight 
 Of the world's poison-growth, Hypocrisy, 
 Find ever entrance in our love's red rose! . . . 
 The moon has power to ripen growing 
 
 corn. . . . 
 This night of stars has ripened love for us 
 And bade his every petal feel their fire. 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Forgive me, and forget. . . . 
 
62 IN A GARDEN 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I would forgive. 
 Were you the murderer of my own soul. 
 Forget, I cannot. That is woman's way. . . . 
 I think it is the only way we have. . . . 
 And yet, I think, were you as some men are, 
 A trader on our strength and weakness, love. 
 Whereby your selfish sins forgiveness found — 
 Your pleasure's debts all cancelled by my pain, 
 Your honour and my own in pawn to lust, — 
 I had as lief you killed me as my soul ! 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Shame holds my tongue, so that I. . . . 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Kiss me, then! 
 You will be true to me? Ah yes, I know — 
 I feel that I shall hold you spite of all : 
 Though men, they say, are not as women are, — 
 That sudden gusts beat down their con- 
 stancy. . . . 
 I think were I grown sudden bestial 
 You still would find me faithful, good my lord ! 
 
IN A GARDEN 63 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 My love! My sweet! My wife that will be 
 
 soon! 
 I know not how to tell you all. . . . 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Kiss me! 
 And / will tell you all. How as a vane, — 
 When the wind dies at sundown in the west 
 That was the east wind of a summer dawn, — 
 Swings east again at evening, so my dreams 
 Set nightwards ever now, — against the time 
 When in some secret hush of ecstasy 
 My maidenhood may secret yield her up 
 Such blowth as love has brought to full, for 
 
 love 
 To glory but the more in gathering; 
 Or from her maiden musings wake a bride; 
 Or dream in lands of sleep whose boundaries 
 Know strong invasion of a husband's arms. 
 Oh love ! My love ! I know not how to tell. . . . 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Kiss me ! 
 
64 IN A GARDEN 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 The sweetness of the passioned pain 
 That sometimes strikes my spirit: nor the fear 
 That death or dreadful happening may come 
 Between us, and turn life and dreams to dust 
 And God to mockery. . . . For many times. 
 Even as now — ^when under quiet stars — 
 I have felt tiny hands about my breasts, 
 As light, as soft, as star-fire on my eyes 
 Drawing my heart to Godward. Oh my love ! 
 I know not if it be a shameless thing 
 My lips would utter for. . . . 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 I know there is — 
 There is a — something holy in your face! 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 But. . . . Oh, I cannot say it! 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Listen! S— sh! 
 
 ■Her mother made the match. Though old Sir 
 George 
 
IN A GARDEN 6s 
 
 Was easy fish to hook. My husband helped. 
 
 He thought it was worth risking something on — 
 
 A good investment for us. Then the fool 
 
 Must needs go fall in — love, they call it! Love! 
 
 And bolted With some artist-idiot 
 
 Or poet-lunatic! I was so mad 
 
 I could have prayed she'd starve — the thankless 
 
 fool! 
 How dreadfully annoying for you both! 
 
 Annoying! 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Oh the. ... 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 S-sh! My sweetheart! Hush! 
 They're gone. Forget them. Teach me of your 
 
 love! 
 I am the puppet of my own philosophy 
 And am grown full of wisdom like a fool. 
 I doubt if men but guess at purity. 
 Where women know. Their chastity is such 
 As keeps from sin for shame and not for joy — 
 A penitence, not passion. 
 
66 IN A GARDEN 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Some women! 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 I think that was a very woman spoke ? 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Y-e-s, I suppose it was. ... I will forget 
 That ever were as those two in the world. 
 I will forget all things that keep us wise, 
 As the world teaches wisdom. Good my lord, 
 I think we will not play at cards to-night ? 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 Four streams: whose whole delight in island 
 
 lawns, 
 Dark-hanging alder dusks and willows psle 
 O'er shining grey-green shadowed waterways, 
 Makes murmuring haste of exit from the vale — 
 Through fourteen arches voluble 
 Where river tide-weed sways; 
 Whose burthen is of things insoluble 
 From hidden deeps below the hills where yawns 
 Some veinous and insatiable Desire, 
 That sits for ever there 
 When Summer fills the valley with slow fire, 
 Whereto the stealthy Mole is minister 
 In secret places damp and caverns dire. 
 
 Red brick-work lichened grey; grey stone to 
 
 green: 
 Mossed corner-crannies flowerful with flame: 
 And red roofs hiding daily deeper now, 
 67 
 
68 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 As Spring comes quietly the hills between — 
 With deeper breath misting the elms below. 
 And the old walls — ^but yellow ere she came — 
 Are gladly golden as they take the sun; 
 And brightly bronze about them poplars 
 
 grow. . . . 
 All things in shine and shadow seem to know 
 That spring is everywhere and benison. 
 Clear to their pebbled floors the waters move 
 To mix their several courses in one tide. . . . 
 And there I saw Spring floating, like a bride 
 Veiled in the weft of her own dreams : and Love 
 Laughed in the spray he shook from off his vans ; 
 And through bright water-drops his countenance 
 Was roguish as a young god's face above 
 The amorous ways of some white nymph, grown 
 
 coy 
 Of love for long, till conquered by the boy 
 Among her secret rushes. I descried 
 These things, and others, on the southern side. 
 
 Yea, all was sweetly, of a sudden, strange. 
 Were no more houses, but great woods that 
 
 passed 
 Into the shadows of some mountain range 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 69 
 
 Crowned with a sunlight coronet of snows. 
 
 Now shining flowers, by verdant glooms o'ercast, 
 
 Along a bank beside blue water rose. 
 
 Blue water broken by low waterfalls 
 
 And plashy places, strewn with rocks and 
 
 sand, 
 As Naiads would delight. There one did 
 
 stand 
 In a broad sunlight; like some statue planned 
 Of Love himself, whose marble meaning calls 
 Out of the ages : — ^more a vital thing 
 Than many a heart of beats grown dead to 
 
 spring, 
 Whose body is a sepulchre that palls. 
 With its own pallid plinth, all burgeoning 
 Of primal joys at Love's chief festivals. 
 All loveliness to make one greatly mad 
 With dreams whereof men grow more madly 
 
 great 
 Upon that glory which, of starry date, 
 Crowns Beauty's co-eternal high estate; 
 All these good things she had. 
 There was a sweet, pure passion in her eyes 
 To make all cynic sense grow gladly wise — 
 E'en sorrow, wisely glad. 
 
70 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 All things, it seemed, to her were ministers : 
 Thrushes, flute-throated, shook the shades with 
 
 song, 
 In amorous, rich, and lovely echoes long. 
 So, nightingales in sunlight would rehearse 
 Their moontide music : and a fairy throng 
 Of blue-winged butterflies would oft repair 
 To visit the broad blossom of her hair. 
 That, like some golden-hanging creeper, clung 
 Round the wild rose-buds of her bosom there. 
 All things that deem it more to live and die, 
 And to bring forth and blossom, than to lose 
 The fear of death by being never born. 
 Did pilgrimage about her feet — ^to vie 
 In plenitude of thanks. And each in turn, 
 Among a many there, had power to choose 
 That gift she deemed most gracious. Thus 
 
 cuckoos 
 Made woodland evening mellow with their crj'. 
 But sometimes sang all night, till they should 
 
 learn 
 The ordered harmony of night and morn 
 That pleased her most. And all that liberty 
 Which is Love's servant and his great reward — 
 Whose virtue bids growth grow, and melody 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 71 
 
 Be made of bird, and leaves' delightful tune, 
 And the green grateful guerdon of the sward 
 Be gladder, being free; 
 And all the phased enchantment of the moon, 
 And every change of sun or starry light, 
 That made her woodland places wonderful 
 With cloud and beams and shadows dark or 
 
 bright — 
 All these did praise her of their own accord, 
 Whilst all around was heard, 
 On loom-gales tender over day and night. 
 The mystery of Love's most lovely word. 
 Spring's foam-flung "APHRODITE." 
 All white she was, but as the foam of May 
 Is white on apple-orchards under stars. 
 Her like I have not seen by mortal day, 
 By many a night, when dreams were avatars 
 Of Love's delight, I have not seen it. Nay ! 
 Not since youth died, and love has passed 
 
 away. . . . 
 It may be few are tempted so as are 
 Poets ; for whom is woman's loveliness 
 Made lovelier than morning may express 
 With all those hues whereof her melting star 
 Is tender witness. Through the evening woods 
 
72 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 Song floating on the sunset's ardent floods 
 
 Is very lovely : and there is a noon, 
 
 So tense with Summer's passionate distress 
 
 Of extreme silent Beauty's breathlessness 
 
 That all things seem to swoon 
 
 Down the large luxury of languor's dreams — 
 
 So prodigal it teems 
 
 With passion's trance, mid-rapture craves for 
 
 boon. 
 All greatly good are these: their several praise 
 Make up the total of the poet's ways 
 That lead his soul to God that is in art. 
 But surer lies there even, 
 Of all his roads to heaven : — 
 High dreams, wherein a woman plays her 
 
 part; 
 Where, mingled in some supreme period. 
 Their blood accelerates the heart of God. 
 
 Who has loved greatly has more greatly lived 
 Than those for whom is life a market-place. 
 Not for his breadth of Being were contrived 
 Of man the scales, or measure of his grace. 
 But he has made his bargain face to face 
 With God— if there be God in more than lies 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 73 
 
 Of ancient vogue, that in the Truth's disguise 
 Were hawked by priests as unction for sore eyes, 
 Till all the world was blinded, and fell down 
 Before such gods beside whom wood and stone 
 Were truths of wholesome aspect. At the throne 
 Of her, God's goddess of the year's great Truth 
 That is in Spring and primal Nature's passion, 
 I did fall down in fancy of such fashion 
 That all my soul, and body too, forsooth ! 
 Cried out in worship holy. Like a youth. 
 When Longing's ecstasies would fan the fires 
 Of love's delirium to strange desires 
 That hang 'twixt earth and heaven, was I then! 
 Forgotten, all, were baser things of men: 
 All baseness known of women I forgot. 
 And all the morning of pure passion's pain 
 Rang rapturous responses through my brain — 
 Love's own dear antidote. 
 
 Then spake I to this lady in such wise : — 
 
 "O Incarnation lovely of my Love, 
 
 O lovely lust of Increase called of Spring, 
 
 Bride of Burgeoning, 
 
 1 am become all bridegroom for thine eyes ! 
 In every sense of me thine echoes teem ; 
 
74 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 By this broad mirror of the noon above 
 
 The stars still set and rise 
 
 To watch thee from the darkness of their dream! 
 
 Their passion I can trace 
 
 Reflected in thy face ! 
 
 For thee, with voice of worship, calls the stream ; 
 
 The slow clouds rise from holy mountain tops 
 
 Like incense for thee blown in silver steam ; 
 
 And the pure fountain drops 
 
 Her singing shade of rainbows through the beam ! 
 
 All things are quick to love, this April day. 
 
 There is a world of longing in the wind 
 
 About thy tresses twined : 
 
 It listeth, or it lusteth — Who shall say? 
 
 "O Goddess of the glory in green leaves, 
 I am heart-hungry, I, thy worshipper ! 
 And fasting sense within my soul perceives, 
 Thou lovely whisperer, 
 That famished I may feed my full of thee ! 
 Let us behind the mountains and the sea 
 To some far land where sorrow never dwells, 
 Nor ever evil comes ; 
 
 Where often I have tracked thee through the 
 dells, 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 75 
 
 And thy soft south wind roams 
 Laden with fragrant breathing of bluebells I 
 There may I mix myself with bounteous thine : 
 In all my various need and veins I pine : 
 Let me be made one with thee, and divine! 
 
 "God gave His sanction, surely, when He gave 
 A soul to man and beauty to the world, 
 To claim the light within a falling wave, 
 The moonrise and the daydawn dew-empearled. 
 And every daedal impulse of the sun, 
 For Joy's own bride. Imagination. 
 To fill with increase earthly truth, and save. 
 With gracious things, the soul this side the 
 
 grave. . . . 
 And thou, O lovely One, art all of Truth ! 
 Thou art Truth's greatest goddess, that I know : 
 Long have I loved thee, from my youngest youth 
 Upwards. Oh, hear me. Goddess ; let us go ! 
 And, as we go, forgive that I have sinned 
 In loving thee too little anywhere ! 
 I hear a voice of whispers on the wind : 
 'Fair as she is, she yet would be more fair. 
 And yet more dear, for thee to clasp her there, 
 Than thou hast ever known f 
 
76 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 Surely the fountain's shade is in thy hair, 
 
 Clear-falling, full of music of low tone. 
 
 And trees are surely making lovely moan 
 
 To swell my longing's prayer : — 
 
 Alone! — the fountain; and the trees — ^alone! 
 
 Oh, hearken! Oh, mine only goddess, hark! 
 
 Immortal ocean mads me — yon great pine 
 
 Voices that sea whereon we will embark 
 
 For lands of love, where lesser suns grow dark 
 
 Behind us, and before us, greater shine 
 
 On thine own island always! where the lark 
 
 Sings without ceasing, and his cloud of song 
 
 Is all of cloud 'twixt us and deep blue heaven! — 
 
 Lest thou shouldst slay me of this madness 
 
 stark. 
 Lest I, perchance, of love should do thee 
 
 wrong. . . . 
 I could do ravishment upon thee, even! 
 
 "Oh, no ! I meant it not, my Aphrodite ! 
 Be not in haste to anger thee for such ! 
 If I did haste to lead me to delight. 
 Blame me not now for loving thee too much ! 
 See, with a song I'll charm thee till art kind ; 
 Till all things matter nothing, only love ! 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 77 
 
 I'll woo thee till art won for very shame 
 Thou didst keep Love long waiting but to prove 
 The patience, not the passion, of his kind — 
 The wisdom, not the wonder, of his name!" 
 
 "Where thy green bowers are, by the white foam, 
 
 Oh, Aphrodite, be mine! 
 
 O'er waves of that song the sea sings in the pine 
 
 I am fain to pursue thee, to follow thee home, 
 
 To Desire's own echoing shrine! 
 
 Dark the stars are above us: wait not for the 
 
 night. 
 Oh, haste! Let us love by thine own April light. 
 To those dream-island murmurs of thine. 
 Aphrodite! 
 Aphrodite! Spring's lady! Be mine!" 
 
 Then did my lady from her gracious eyes 
 Make only answer for a little space; 
 But dreams as old as any paradise 
 Were passing o'er the Eden of her face. 
 She made as if to speak me answer thrice ; 
 And twice there came a whisper full of "Nays !" 
 And once there came a whisper full of sighs — 
 She was a very woman in her ways ! 
 
78 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 Whoso has heard the birch-wood's voice of 
 
 praise 
 In all her leafy languages arise. 
 When warm winds mould her myriad hair of 
 
 green, 
 With sunlight soft between. 
 And tenderness and tuneful artifice, 
 Has heard an echo, but he has not seen 
 How breathed my lady's bosom then, I ween ! 
 For — shaking out her shining hair — thuswise 
 She sang ; and for the manner how she sang, 
 I think the wind sang like it to the sea 
 A million years ago, 
 Or by some C3rtherean promontory 
 That morning when from ocean's cave she 
 
 sprang, 
 With warm hair wet and heavy, hanging low. 
 All foam and mystery. 
 
 "/ am more fair, and haply far more human, 
 Than mortal maids ungracious in their love? 
 O Love of Mine, that wouldst so have me woman, 
 The sun sees, all the sky looks down above! . . . 
 My bosom for a great delight of kisses 
 Grows tender, as to woo me to thy mind. 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 79 
 
 / am grown fain to hide me in my tresses. . . , 
 Nay, then! shall Aphrodite prove unkind? 
 And am I fair, and am I dear to thee? 
 
 Love, O Love! that thou so temptest me!" 
 
 And I went to her : we were all alone ! 
 And very real and near my lady smiled. 
 And very far away had all things gone 
 With Love's own lonely landscapes reconciled 
 But hardly. Now a shade of April trees 
 Made murmur through the kisses of the sun 
 About our coming, and a choir of birds 
 Sang all at once old Hymen's morning 
 hymn. . . . 
 
 1 did not see there any Cherubim 
 
 Or flaming swords, or flaming fiddlesticks. 
 To frighten folk away with fire-work tricks. 
 And all the snakes were silent that were there 
 Save those soft golden ones — ^my lady's hair, 
 Through which she oft would whisper golden 
 
 words 
 So all her hair grew eloquent, and dim 
 With golden shadow all her countenance. 
 I thought the blue love-lightnings of her glance 
 Had waked men made of Arctic-midnight cold, 
 
8o APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 Had made more timid love be overbold: 
 
 For me, I walked in trance, 
 
 Too tender to be fearful, organ-souled. 
 
 From which she shook the utmost chords of 
 
 sense, 
 That trembled round her wild white innocence 
 Like choral dawns round life's high places rolled. 
 
 We two alone through all an April shade ! 
 Great hollies flickered argent fire and gloomed 
 Like dark blue midnight memories that loomed 
 Still permeate with brooding sense of stars. 
 And with a sense of day's own dye there bloomed 
 Long spaces steeped in bluebells' azure light. 
 Till earth rose heaven. Soft winds disarrayed 
 The birch with splendour so her myriad hairs 
 Were as green water-fountains falling bright 
 About shy limbs of their own silver sprite. 
 And from her greenwood lairs 
 Through many a silent breathing of blown trees 
 Did Echo steal on Echo unawares. 
 And shadow-haunted glade 
 Across a world of woodland : then the breeze 
 Burdened with brine and long-drawn cadences, 
 Deep, solemn-sounding only as the sea's ! 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 8i 
 
 Now flashed the foam-white crescent wave and 
 
 curled 
 The long blue shine of waters crowding home 
 With all the plangent pulse of ocean's world, 
 Eager to fill each separate mouth of foam 
 With sigh of breathing kisses salt and slow, 
 And print its passioned progress o'er the strand : 
 The sun was scarce more golden than the sand 
 Among the dunes of grassy beaches low. 
 And from the sea-wind's wide-flung first embrace 
 That shook the birches' hair with amorous storms 
 Such sweet, strong madness shuddered through 
 
 the place 
 We two were nigh to panic, in alarms 
 That only lovers feel when face to face 
 And joys to warmer grow. 
 I durst not ask surrender of those charms 
 She was become as eager to forgo 
 As I to lose my way amid her arms, 
 As she to lose her woman's way of "No !" 
 Her sense and mine swayed, trembled, danced, 
 
 and flung 
 Madly against each other. The blue sky 
 Darkened against a darker sea. We clung — 
 We two together — for a space, to sigh 
 
82 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 And pant with longings inarticulate 
 
 In any language save of starry date 
 
 That Love interprets through tumultuous tears 
 
 His own warm wishes dye, 
 
 For everlasting meaning to the years ; 
 
 God's breath of Lust, love's lips would sanctify. 
 
 In every vein some ancestor of old 
 
 Who clasped his bride in caverns oversea 
 
 Spake to me then ; and Passion's paean rolled 
 
 Mute from the margins of eternity 
 
 With its own might of message. "Comfort me I 
 
 O Love of Mine, you loved me long ago : 
 
 Because thou art, thou wast — in Arcady ! — 
 
 Before Love's lure was laid in Ilion ! — 
 
 Before Astarte or Semiramis, 
 
 Thou sawest in far forgotten years agone 
 
 How the moon held her midnight mysteries 
 
 In the untrodden places of the snow 
 
 On highest Himalaya! — We were one 
 
 In sun-warm sands that waited Babylon, 
 
 O Love of Mine that loved me long ago ! 
 
 We two may meet and mix but once, no more, 
 
 In each of all our myriad lives, and oh ! 
 
 A myriad streams of mingling through me flow 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 83 
 
 To mate with thine, beloved, by the shore!" 
 
 She spake it ; and I knew her mine to love 
 
 In her most intimate and tender trance. 
 
 In rapture where the inner circumstance 
 
 Of Being breaks in primal blowth above 
 
 The bridal-beds of elementary pain. 
 
 I watched her pure eyes clouding with the stain 
 
 Of passion-surges grown intolerable 
 
 Against the flood-gates of her maidenhood : 
 
 And in her face a lovely shameful mood 
 
 Stained, with its blushing darkness of eclipse, 
 
 Her white skin scarlet as her anxious lips 
 
 That whispered: "Love me when the tide is 
 
 full!" 
 She had slipped down and left me so I stood 
 As one from dreams, when sudden waking strips, 
 From out the closure of his arms, delight 
 In some dear woman, captive all the night. 
 Whose tender ministrations memories mock 
 Through empty, hateful portals at his blood. 
 She had slipped down beneath me so I stood 
 Shaken, in that green shadow of the wood; 
 Swaying, and staring at the stricken trees 
 Writhing among embraces of the breeze, 
 I saw their white limbs rock : 
 
84 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 Without, I heard the echoes of the tide. . . . 
 
 And now she made a place for me beside 
 
 Her lithe limbs laid among deep grass and good 
 
 For lovely strife at amorous victories : 
 
 She hid her facf within its golden hood 
 
 Of ardent hair, her only veil, — ^my bride ! 
 
 And as I kissed her through it, "At the 
 
 flood. . . . 
 At the full flood-tide take me !" then she gasped. 
 And so we waited, mutely mad through all 
 Anticipation's raptured interval. 
 
 Limbs interwoven, beating bosoms clasped. 
 
 ******* 
 
 The tide had turned an hour : the outer deep 
 Echoed with fainter music in our ears, 
 Breathed in our blood soft, tuneful things of 
 
 sleep : 
 And soft, pleached sunlights dried her passion's 
 
 tears. 
 I watched a thousand recollections creep 
 In faint, quick flushes from her bosom's nest 
 To hide among her golden shade of hair. . . . 
 My lovely Aphrodite! Oh, to rest 
 All weariness of sordid struggle there. 
 But once again ! To me thou wast more fair, 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 85 
 
 And art, than aught; and full of God's own love 
 And all the wonder of His wedded years! 
 I kissed His hand when I have kissed thy breast. 
 Surely, if there be God found anywhere ! 
 My Aphrodite! Only once again! . . . 
 The memory of our mingling soars above. 
 Star-like, among the spheres. 
 Fraught with new meaning is the stellar Wain: 
 God's lovely lust is wound about the stars, 
 And every earthly atom woos its kind! 
 All pregnant Nature teemed that avatars 
 Be born in Man, to breed from every wind 
 Response of holy Truth, so that the mind 
 Of all men hear His message in their youth; 
 And hearing, know, as know they surely can. 
 That naught which man may ever do for Truth 
 Compares with all that Truth shall do for man! 
 Truth only may teach Beauty, Beauty this : — ■ 
 That Love alone is worthy lord of souls; 
 Hate, but a hireling still the beast controls — 
 Ugly, a mean thing, full of blemishes. 
 That yet shall rise, as man rose from the beast, 
 Through many purifyings, till its yeast 
 Be potent as a purer Manhood's barm 
 For use on evil only, and all harm 
 
86 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 Has lost its power to choke the centuries. 
 Yea ! in that tranquil hemisphere of time 
 Men call the future hate shall cleanse the earth 
 With manifold Truth's teaching, for sublime 
 Example even unto love that worth 
 Is in all things that best fulfil their birth. 
 Yea ! as the Yeast of God, in man shall rise 
 The sun of Truth, till evil come to dearth 
 Among the outer darkness, and fulfil 
 Its life in one great catacomb of 111. . . . 
 As I dreamed thus beside her, here her eyes, 
 That had been veiled awhile with drowsy peace. 
 Opened : it seemed she knew my thoughts. "To 
 
 these, 
 O Love of Mine, shalt add this other thing : — 
 Lust waSj that Love might be. They blaspheme 
 
 God 
 Who criticise His methods. Lust is good, 
 And he who mocks it doth imbue his blood 
 With mockery against God's grace of Spring. 
 Lust is His breath who quickened all a world — 
 Too good a thing to waste on baser joy: 
 Whoso shall lose his lust in loveless ease 
 Shall find his pleasure only to destroy. 
 This shall be truth for lovers : — Only love 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 87 
 
 Than lust in them should holier be : above 
 
 All other ways shall this one purify!" 
 
 She paused in thought. Then both her white 
 
 arms curled 
 Softly about my neck. She whispered : "Dear, 
 Remember this hereafter ; I am near, 
 Yea, very near thee always; and would guide 
 My poet's passions only to her side 
 Thou mayest love, and loving her, love me." 
 She spake the last a trifle wistfully. 
 "And I will so awake, I promise thee. 
 Her woman's nature, thou needst never roam 
 To clasp me ever by this island foam. . . . 
 My memory shall move you in your home," 
 
 At that I made to answer ; but she stopped 
 
 My mouth with many kisses for a space. 
 
 I kissed her tender eyelids when they dropped, 
 
 That could not hide the longing in her face. 
 
 But afterwards, again I answered her, 
 
 "My goddess, though were every woman fair, 
 
 That would not make her love me — make her 
 
 love: 
 I doubt some women know what love may be!" 
 Her eyes were laughing as she answered me. 
 
88 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 "No? Can all men love? Art a foolish one! 
 There are some things e'en poets' brains above. 
 I say we women are so great at it, 
 So old we are in passion's lovely lore, 
 Not all men-poets that the sun shone on 
 Have guessed how deep Desire in us can sit 
 And sing such songs as Sappho sang of yore — 
 Nay, sings in us for ever! There is more 
 Of God's own meaning than a man may guess 
 In woman that is Woman!" . . . Strange dis- 
 tress 
 Shook out in tremors through her frame: she 
 
 wept 
 Such poignant tears as only women keep. 
 And long it took to kiss them into sleep : 
 The tide was out ere she had ceased to weep. . . . 
 
 Only the wind sighed. . . . In her arms I slept. 
 ******* 
 
 Evening. . . . The further sky had faded light : 
 It gave the sharp sea-line a deeper hue 
 Than ere I slept : somewhat more darkly bright 
 The sea seemed, — one unbroken, lovely blue 
 Save for its host of small waves falling white. 
 As the slow tide made over emerald rocks 
 And broad brown levels of the chevroned sand 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 89 
 
 That gleamed to gold in places. Aphrodite 
 Sat by me, holding mine with one small hand 
 The while the other spread out wayward locks 
 For Fancy's idle weaving so I saw 
 Her blue-blown bosom's founts that glimmered 
 
 through 
 Had fed too long the sea-wind's chilly maw. 
 And at the sight my passion sprang anew 
 To robe her round in warm protection's clasp. 
 But she brake from me with a sudden gasp — 
 "O Love of Mine, the hour is come! Adieu! 
 Adieu? Oh, ay! Farewell! ... yet not fare- 
 well, . . . 
 No more may Aphrodite be such bride 
 To thee as she. . . . Alas ! Alas !" she cried. 
 I seized her then, her resolution tried 
 So sorely, that she, moaning, made to tell 
 I should once more take all my last long fill 
 Of her; but, soon as I had had my will, 
 She must be gone for ever from my side — 
 In mortal shape, that is. . . . And here the 
 
 tide, 
 Meseemed, spake sudden from a falling wave 
 Of deeper tone than heretofore. She gave 
 A nod of piteous gesture to the sea: 
 
90 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 Her smooth throat shuddered as she echoed, 
 
 "Hark!" 
 And in her eyes a birth of tears grew dark: 
 And then she gave her lovely self to me. 
 
 But of some things we spake. ... I shall not tell 
 Of that last anguish of our mingled lives, 
 That like some unforgetful fever drives 
 Along my blood this moment. How she made. 
 As the stars strengthen, so desire in me 
 More manifest with lovely light and shade. 
 This may I: — At the last we kissed farewell, 
 There by the shore of that dark evening sea. 
 That ne'er may fade from out my memory 
 Till life's last pulse has faded in a knell. . . . 
 Yea, we stood up together at the last : 
 She had looked seaward thrice: her blown hair 
 
 fell 
 In whispering, wild sadness — "It is past!" — 
 About my breast. . . . The tide was calling home 
 My lovely one. She shivered in a blast 
 That sounded like a summons from the foam 
 She might not disobey. . . . And then I heard 
 Far out upon the sea-line, near the sun, 
 A murmur of waves falling grow to one 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 91 
 
 Clear word, that shone like sea-birds, seen 
 
 afar. 
 Shine when they leave the water suddenly; 
 And silent as the foam fades, or a star 
 Among wide waste sea-waters was that word 
 The sea-line spake to me. 
 And, as it came, the trees around were stirred 
 Strangely, as of some Sorrow passing through; 
 And the wind rose three sudden times and 
 
 shrilled, 
 And at the sound the shadow of the sea 
 Passed over eyes that had been heaven's hue ; 
 And thrice her hair was shaken as it filled, 
 With sharp, small sounds she stifled ere they 
 
 grew 
 Larger and tore my ears, while passion thrilled 
 Her tightened arms. And then our lips with- 
 drew 
 That had shut hard in stricken hold on each: 
 And blind with parting's pain 
 I stood where we had lain ; 
 And from our bridal-bed had last of speech 
 With her, my bride. For now she turned again — 
 The tide was round her little feet — and called; 
 And all the sea in echo rose and fell : 
 
92 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 "Farewell, O Love ! O Mortal Love, farewell ! 
 
 We have not loved in vain ! 
 
 Already in me quickens graft of thee! 
 
 And all my womb, with mortal love enthralled. 
 
 Shall burgeon with fresh fruit of Poetry! 
 
 That poetry which makes men to me turn. 
 
 Even as thou didst mix with me, to make 
 
 My love a meaning so their senses ache 
 
 With purer passion when their lust shall burn : — 
 
 Seeing that loveless lust begets a rod. 
 
 Whereby the soul is beaten from the brute. 
 
 And the blind brute knows but the beast for 
 
 God; 
 Till God's own voice be mute, 
 Where blasphemy for ugliness doth yearn. 
 And now I go ! Take comfort ! I am near 
 When thou shalt clasp some tender woman 
 
 kind. 
 Surely, I promise thee, shall be more dear 
 Her kisses, for my teaching !" And the wind 
 Spake of a sudden, solemn ; and the trees 
 Shook, all together; and a shape of foam 
 Clung wildly white upon her, round her knees : 
 Her hair, her hand, waved; and she turned her 
 
 home. 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 93 
 
 Then from the bower of birch-trees, that had 
 
 hung 
 With tender tapestries our joys, and sung 
 Our bridal benison, I brake and cried. 
 As one from whom love's last despair has 'wrung 
 Hatred of future living. In the tide, 
 As men may fling life from them, then I flung. 
 And sought my death in tombs that held my 
 
 bride. 
 But with soft strength resistless I was borne. 
 Three separate times of struggle, back to land — 
 She would not let me drown. So life forlorn 
 Went up with baffled death once more to stand 
 'Midst those green imprints of impassioned 
 
 hours, 
 Where fragrant from her body lay the grass, 
 And the mute stems of broken bluebell-flowers 
 Bore bridal-witness. Thence I saw her pass 
 Toward the falling darkness far away, — 
 Her gold hair like a floating flame. Alas ! 
 The lovely golden head that might not stay. 
 Swift sank the sun from out our wedding- 
 day, 
 And sorrowful for me that sundown showed 
 The while I watched her, passing, float afar. 
 
94 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 Till, in her place, there loomed a sudden star 
 And through a mist of purple twilight glowed 
 Insistent, white, and wonderful. And soon. 
 As one that sees a darkness on the moon. 
 Infected with an earthlight, shape and shine — 
 Upon the shadow of the further coast 
 I saw, above the wan foam-water's line, 
 A glooming shape that floated on the dark 
 Of April's ebbing flood, against a ghost — 
 Like a faint flame that silver limbs display — 
 And glimmered lonely o'er the wave : a stark, 
 Still shape that gloomed beside a silver ray — 
 The crescent of a month that might be May. 
 
 And, as befoundered by some larger sense. 
 By passion brought to birth for vain delight — ; 
 Whose wings, alas, are less than infinite. 
 Nay, weak as wide and wild with the Immense — 
 My soul beat blindly down that bridal-night 
 Whose joy was flown before its screen of stars 
 Had dropped a veil of splendours dark and 
 
 bright 
 On love's own splendid shame. As iron bars 
 The darks that shut upon me seemed, and rang 
 As iron rings reverberant when my soul, 
 
APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 95 
 
 Too feeble for the quest on which it sprang, 
 
 Shuddered upon them ; till such strong control 
 
 As Frenzy has for madmen rioted 
 
 Its own despair to ruin that was ease, 
 
 And the mad stars, distraught as mine own head, 
 
 Grew quiet with their old accustomed peace. 
 
 Then like a man from such a grave arisen 
 
 As holds the springtide-splendours of a dream, 
 
 'Gainst which is life a thing grown pale in 
 
 prison, 
 My soul went sadly forward down a stream 
 Of half-remembered twilight things that draw 
 The patient pulses from their sleepy blood 
 Back into power of living. Soon I saw 
 The darkness break and scatter from a wood. 
 Familiar with a host of laughing leaves 
 In England's loveliest late April mood. 
 That drew my feet by threads of grassy track 
 Adown green slopes and sunlight. Sense con- 
 ceives 
 No light so swift as then came rolling back 
 The town above, the bridge whereon I stood. 
 
 •(S •(£ ^ •!» 5|. 3|C 3|t 
 
 Then I awoke, and watched a little space 
 
 The four small streams grow into one ; and heard 
 
96 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 
 
 A train behind me whistle. But the place 
 Was strange for Surrey still. And afterward, 
 Her name clung to my ears, her glory glowed. 
 At every bend along the London road. 
 
HIS ANSWER TO THOSE WHO IM- 
 PUTED IMPURITY TO HIM, IN RE- 
 GARD TO THE PRECEDING POEM. 
 
 I sing that BEAUTY which is born of God, 
 Or gods be things as grocers use to gull 
 Mankind with the belief their goods are full 
 Of virtues that may never cross the road. 
 I sing DESIRE DEGRADED is a thing 
 Such as might bring a very god to tears : 
 That love is lovelier for its lust ; as Spring 
 Exalts, not makes a harlot of, the years. 
 
 For Lust that is The Dog with Bad Name given 
 Sends all the stars in protest over heaven. 
 And who requites the Spirit of his Birth 
 With ignominy — sends that spirit forth 
 To shameful death, not joyous peace and strife, 
 To help make harlots while he robs his wife. 
 
 97 
 
THE THORN BRAKE: A Tragedy 
 
 A tale of sisters, twins, and of their love 
 That with the vestal fires of maidenhood 
 Shone through all seasons of their younger 
 
 youth 
 As twin stars burn in calm communion. 
 And as twin stars, dusked by the smallest cloud. 
 So sorrow, touching one, had darkened both. 
 Nor gladness moved, nor wonder woke them so 
 But that each felt the other's in her own : 
 To fret in separation, or to joy 
 In unison when separation o'er, — 
 Their several natures had a common aim. 
 To share their pleasures was their greatest good : 
 In grief their solace was to mix their tears. 
 A mother's life was forfeit at their birth : 
 At harvest, in their thirteenth summer. Death 
 Came gleaning through the August evening 
 
 fields 
 And called the farmer, there among his men: 
 A red moon rising saw them fatherless. 
 98 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 99 
 
 The farm was sold, save only that they kept 
 A cottage for their own, with garden ground 
 Set thick with flowers and hoary apple trees 
 Below a wooded shoulder of the hills. 
 Here change came seldom with the changing 
 
 years : — 
 A lonely valley, with the western end 
 Closed with a ridge of pines that darkling reared 
 Its crest and made a shadow night and day, 
 Or smoked against the twilight when the dusk 
 Went with damp breath and chill among the 
 
 trees — ■ 
 Seen from the cottage. 
 
 In the summer time 
 The place was full of quiet such as dwells 
 In low lands where the meadow waters move 
 Slowly and silently by narrow ways 
 'Mid the long fragrance of the meadowsweet. 
 Here time laid balm upon the wounds of death; 
 And love sufficed them, where the means to life 
 Of country pleasures, health, and quiet days 
 Within their cottage home were amply theirs. 
 They knew contentment, seeking not to know 
 A fuller life where life was full to them, — 
 The country's face, with features like a friend 
 
loo THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 Passed in their journeys through the years of life 
 By woods and hills and little market town, — 
 Where wildflowers grew, and where the streams 
 
 came down. 
 Like voices heard in echo, from the hills 
 To lose at once their language and their breath 
 Within a mere, where moorhens made their 
 
 home 
 And no man went — a. marshy loneliness 
 Of water darkling in the dusk of reeds. 
 A place where sound came seldom, save in sighs ; 
 Whose lightest laughter seemed the marigolds'; 
 And, for the younger of the twain, possessed 
 With spirits sombre — for the elder, sad, 
 Who went there oft. To them were known the 
 
 birds 
 That filled with song the silent breast of dawn 
 And with thanksgiving filled all waking hours 
 When the young year came softly through the 
 
 land. 
 The stars they knew that climbed the solemn 
 
 east 
 When night obscured with sleep the orient hills : 
 And they would wander hand in hand at dusk 
 Upon the down behind them, wondering 
 
THE THORN BRAKE loi 
 
 To see the death-fires of the passing day 
 Burn to their ashes, till the purple west 
 Seemed only one great silence and a star. 
 Then would their handclasp tighten as they 
 
 went, 
 Lest, in the season of her singing time, 
 The nightingale should wake the wood with 
 
 pain 
 Each felt was in the song and knew not why. 
 Save that the lark's was gladness unto hers. 
 Thus homeward wending, they would wait for 
 
 sleep. 
 And dream together by each other's side; 
 So, the old dame who dwelt alone with them 
 Would set their meals, and so their ingle stools 
 When winter's night ran roaring through the 
 
 hills 
 That girt the place with strength and solitude. 
 Alike in these things were they as the west 
 Is like the east at noonday when the sun 
 Sees not a cloud within the ambitus 
 Of wide horizons to depose his reign; 
 Not more unlike the sunset's burning breast 
 The cool of eastern evening — otherwise: 
 Love made them one, and Nature different. 
 
102 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 Beneath their hands the cottage garden grew 
 Into such loveliness as love begets 
 In old-world places, when to Nature given. 
 The jessamine, the clematis, the yellow rose. 
 Clung f ondlier to the lichen on the walls : 
 The arch of hazel boughs above the gate, 
 Each year with fuller tribute welcoming. 
 Became a bower where roses' fragrant breath 
 Vied with the honeysuckle's eloquence 
 Inviting love to enter. And beyond 
 Were high delights of blue delphiniums : 
 Great bell-flowers, and larkspurs, marigolds. 
 Sweet Williams variant, forget-me-nots. 
 Grew thickly there: and came there from the 
 
 field 
 Germander speedwells, grey as kittens' eyes, 
 That love to look from hedgerows at the sun. 
 With all their blue-eyed sisters ; campions ; 
 Stitchworts: and from the wild the rose-bay 
 
 came 
 And made one damp green corner bright with 
 
 bloom. 
 
 Behind a dusk of sweetbriar 'gainst the road 
 The sisters would enjoy with simple pride 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 103 
 
 The comments of such folk as passed; and there 
 
 Would sit and sew, and talk of many things, 
 
 And hazard guesses only half in jest 
 
 At footsteps waiting softly by the gate 
 
 O' nights, that love's low music filled and stars. 
 
 And each would laugh and fall to wondering, 
 
 And laugh again, and doubt that Love would 
 
 come. 
 And if he came, be welcome. 
 
 So five years 
 They grew together, though between them 
 
 change 
 Had passed and left one other than before : 
 And she, mistrustful of herself, spoke not. 
 But her first secret from her sister kept — 
 Knowing the other all in ignorance. 
 Nell, by an hour the elder, long had reached 
 The plangent press of waters where the stream 
 First feels the trouble of the outer sea 
 And innocence is lost in womanhood. 
 Ere yet the current of her sister's life, 
 Through laughing shallows full of little song, 
 Had danced its merry way to deeper things. 
 Rose they had named her, and had named her 
 
 well: 
 
104 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 A white rose touched with red along the lips, 
 And in her cheeks the roses waxed and waned 
 Through the swift seasons of her many moods. 
 Her hair was like the Autumn's, full of gold : 
 Her eyes were virginal as early skies 
 Seen through calm dusks at daybreak: and her 
 
 voice 
 Had in its echoes something of the stream's, 
 When through low arches of a greenwood way 
 A brook's small comment is a grateful thing. 
 All grace was in her such as joys the sense. 
 And in her every movement gladness woke. 
 Her tenderness was more than April days. 
 Darker, her sister Nell, with hazel eyes ; 
 Deep-bosomed for her years, and larger limbed : 
 Her hair's black coil from sunlight borrowed 
 
 bloom. 
 As clouds do when with sunset darkly dyed. 
 Her sister's gladness touched her as a child's. 
 And oft would make her fearful lest befall 
 Some unknown happening, and such a joy. 
 Dimmed once of storms that shake the deeps of 
 
 sex. 
 Lose light in fading so it shone no more. 
 For to her sister, Nell was mother too. 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 105 
 
 And with a mother's eyes the future feared, — 
 Vague dreads born of her own awakenings. 
 At times, to some responsive chord unheard 
 Of any save the soul to which attuned. 
 The girl in sunset places would grow sad 
 The while the world grew old and sorrowful 
 As Rose had never seen it, — with regret 
 Immitigable, vast, of primal things. 
 
 It chanced one sabbath they had gone to hear 
 A preacher, whose renown preceded him 
 Across the hills through all that country side : 
 A wild man drunk with his own eloquence; 
 Whose honesty of faith had robbed his sense; 
 Till, flushed with songs of victory, his pride 
 At being in the confidence of God 
 Could scarce restrain his deep humility. 
 Who promised much for those who would re- 
 ceive 
 The message running riot through his soul, 
 ((For those who would not was much dreadful- 
 
 ness) 
 Of how God had revealed himself by Faith 
 And spoken words of wonder that were Truth, — 
 
io6 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 Of how Truth dwelt within his God's own 
 
 Word- 
 How truth which proved itself was but of man, 
 Though by it learned men might weigh a star. 
 The test applied of Faith proved greater things. 
 Facts by that touchstone less than fiction were : 
 A rib became a woman : suns stood still 
 Upon the city Gibeon, the moon 
 Within the valley Ajalon; and while 
 The Amorites were slaughtered righteously, 
 Few among all who heard him pitied them. 
 But moved to wonder were they as they stood 
 Upon that English hillside where he preached. 
 For even as he spoke he raised his eyes 
 And all his hearers followed, wondering; 
 Nor did the sun they looked on greatly move. 
 Of many things he spoke. How Jonah fared 
 Within the belly of a monstrous fish : 
 And marvelled they the more how wonderful 
 God was in those, the days of miracles. 
 (Soon after this, it was, the navvies came 
 From foreign parts, and at the squire's word 
 Enclosed another mile of common-lands.) 
 And God had bidden him go through the world 
 To preach eternal love and endless life 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 107 
 
 Of future bliss beyond the dreams of man — 
 His vanity well nourished by the thought 
 How an eternal punishment of flame 
 And worms that died not would avenge his creed 
 On those who listened and believed him not. 
 And many there who heard were touched to 
 
 tears : 
 And some- fell down and strewed their hair with 
 
 dust, 
 Proud that they found them lower than the dirt, 
 And thought of all God's goodness unto man, — 
 Of how in sin they had walked heedlessly, — 
 How they were missing Heaven for a Hell 
 That made repentance easy. So they ran 
 About the preacher and about the place. 
 On all who would not hearken pressing tracts. 
 In which a sailor on a desert isle, 
 Who had cursed everything with dreadful oaths. 
 Found a stream running softly down its course 
 Full of fresh water, — how God bade him drink 
 (His thirst was awful) and henceforth repent. 
 
 The two girls listening to the discourse stood 
 Close to the preacher ; and her sister's arm 
 Nell held the tighter when she saw her eyes 
 
io8 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 Fill with a light words had not kindled there, — 
 Saw how she heeded more his face and voice 
 Than aught his lips could conjure from his 
 
 brain : 
 And when the man flung wide his open arms 
 The young girl started forward eagerly 
 Ere a quick shame had quenched her eyes with 
 
 tears. 
 While through its flurry Nell had plainly seen — 
 As through the smoke the swans' wings 
 
 threshed from foam 
 On Winderne Manor's long water, near by — 
 The virgin pinions of first passion beat 
 The calm of sleeping waters into storm. 
 He who had caused it, being quick to mark 
 The workings of the spirit in a crowd, 
 Saw her confusion ; when he saw her face, 
 Struck on a word, — ^and stumbled, — found him- 
 self, — ' 
 And poured again a flood of burning words 
 Upon his hearers; though it seemed to Rose 
 His soul leapt through them seeking only hers. 
 His eyes she felt upon her till she burned 
 From head to foot so all her body blushed : 
 Then fear took hold on her, she knew not why, 
 
The thorn brake lo^ 
 
 And left her weak for shame to make complete 
 The havoc of her youthful senses. Nell, 
 Feeling her sister's shame upon her too, 
 Half angered at her, drew her from the crowd 
 And walked beside her silently : and Rose, 
 Who felt her silence hid but a rebuke, 
 Went humbly with her, mutely miserable. 
 Nell then at last : "How could you. Rose !" But 
 
 she 
 Returned no answer with her lips, but glanced 
 With eyes that dumbly pleaded through their 
 
 tears 
 Toward the other; and then blindly sought 
 Her sister's arm, and softly clung to it. 
 In manner beyond eloquence of words. 
 Craving some sympathy. They now had reached 
 A road, that went through woodlands past their 
 
 home 
 And lost itself in leafage and dead years, 
 Where, like a league-long grave among the hills. 
 Its grassy silence lay alone through time ; 
 But here, a cutting through a chalky land 
 Clothed with long bents, blue scabious flowers, 
 
 and thick 
 With berried boskets of wayfaring-trees. 
 
no THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 Stray poppies glowed in the September sun. 
 And autumn's quiet filled the afternoon. 
 Here Nell, repenting of her haste for words, 
 Made other reparation with her lips 
 Upon her sister's blushes. Whereat Rose — . 
 And she with many roses tremulous: 
 "Oh Nell, I love him!" But the other felt 
 A sense of strangeness, wherein jealousy 
 Was foster-parent to a growing fear, 
 Come on her so that all the place was changed; 
 And down the road, in fancy, saw go by. 
 Slowly and sorrowfully, what had been 
 And now no longer would be — ^their old life, 
 With echoes of its passing on her ears 
 Sounding forebodement and a vain regret; 
 While yet she saw the preacher's passioned eyes 
 Darken within her sister's and her own; 
 And turned away : and all the place grew dusk 
 Before her soul. Then, of a sudden, Nell 
 Saw floating through the shade that bound her 
 
 eyes 
 A vision of her sister long ago. 
 Kneeling, with down-bent golden head, upon the 
 
 field 
 
THE THORN BRAKE ni 
 
 The night her father died; and when it passed 
 Her eyes were waiting wide with motherhood. 
 
 At nightfall there arose a glooming wind 
 That swept into its breast the golden spoil 
 Of many woodlands gathered in the dark. 
 And made a sound of sorrow through the vale. 
 Elijah Hurst — so was the preacher called — 
 Walked eastward in the evening; and he saw 
 The cottage window square with ruddy light 
 Marred by the night- wind's burden of blown 
 
 leaves ; 
 Stopped at the gate, and fumbled for the latch. 
 Entered, and found his way, between the beds 
 Of wan blue flowers that usher autumn in, 
 Towards the porch, and knocked upon the door. 
 And then he saw and knew her standing there, — 
 A light behind her, and her figure dark 
 Against the light, and all the shape of her 
 Beheld by him and through such mystery 
 As shrouds while it unseals the springs of sex. 
 So that he stood athirst and wanted her. 
 Forgot his errand, seeking for her face. 
 Then, with an effort moved to memory. 
 From papers that he carried, one or two 
 
112 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 Held out to her, and saying that he called 
 
 To leave the Word he preached. How that he 
 
 fared 
 On foot along the valley to a town 
 Beyond the hills, where many dwelt in sin 
 And waited for his Master's call to arms 
 Against the hosts of Satan. There next week 
 He had three meetings ; and returned again 
 To preach, next Sunday, on the same hillside 
 Where he, that day, had many converts made. 
 And (Rose it was) she answered, how she heard 
 His message there; then stammered; — ^and both 
 
 knew 
 They would be no more strangers from that 
 
 hour. 
 She watched him to the gate, and felt the night 
 Close on him like a hateful thing of hands 
 That held her back from happiness. Then she. 
 
 returned 
 To where her sister waited with still eyes 
 Fixed hard upon her sewing ; so that Rose 
 Held out to her the papers hastily — 
 Finding excuse there readiest to her hand 
 For blushes that the fireplace mirror showed. 
 As with bright eyes she searched her traitor face 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 113 
 
 Aikme with banners of love's anarchy; 
 
 Then sat her down, and made pretence to read. 
 
 Nell, of a sudden, ceased her work and came 
 
 And stood beside her sister, and bent down, — 
 
 Taking her hands within her own. But Rose 
 
 With petulance of passion to be free 
 
 Of aught that might rebuke her secret dreams 
 
 Or check the woman waking in her soul. 
 
 Turned with half frightened and averted eyes ; 
 
 And with the coward cruelty of fear 
 
 Found shame's relief in hurting one she loved; 
 
 Withdrew her hands and hardened all her heart; 
 
 And hated all things that might keep from her 
 
 The man she loved, or thoughts or dreams of 
 
 him. 
 Then swift as April sunshine through wet woods 
 Pursues the flying rain among the trees. 
 Her mood had changed, — ^the clouds were 
 
 broken up 
 That hung unseen but felt between them there. 
 And like a child she clung to Nell, and told. 
 With shy soft eyes, how all unmeant had been 
 Her sudden temper; how she not herself 
 Had felt, but full of strangeness, — simple words 
 •Ending in simpler language of a kiss. 
 
114 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 But when that midnight wrapped the valley 
 
 close 
 In nether darkness and the wind was wild 
 With wail of mournful meaning in the trees, 
 Nell wakened from her sleep to stifled sobs, 
 Half heard, half felt, beside her, and lay still 
 With all the menace of the night without 
 Embodied in a sudden sense of fear 
 Upon her, as she listened to the child 
 Become a woman by the stormy breath 
 Of passion's advent. Then she softly spoke; 
 And sought amid the darkness till she found 
 Her sister's neck warm-throbbing to her hand 
 Beneath the yellow hair, and drew her close. 
 And kissed her sobs through silence into sleep; 
 Then lay and held the sleeper in her arms. 
 The slow night passed while thus awake she 
 
 lay. 
 Till — when the thinning shadows round the 
 
 dawn 
 Fled down the east wind's moaning westward 
 
 path — 
 In the first twilight of the day she saw 
 Her sister's face had changed, as though the 
 
 night. 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 115 
 
 Then passing, had concealed within its shade 
 The lapse of glad and sad, eventful years. 
 
 Behind the brow that overlooked their home 
 The high downs dropped to northward; pines 
 
 began, 
 lAnd in dark ridges rolled toward the plains. 
 But, ere the chalk hills rested on the sand, 
 Abele trees glimmered wanly o'er the pines ; 
 With brakes of thorn, and ferny undergrowth : — 
 A solitude that summer filled with shade 
 Of silver-gleaming shadows; winter full 
 Of dreariness — a. barren place of ghosts, 
 Wherein the thorn trees writhed their sombre 
 
 limbs 
 Of sinister suggestion, and a rust 
 Stained all the poplars. 
 
 Here Elijah Hurst 
 By chance had seen the sisters, where the tract 
 Of wilderness, divided long ago 
 By what had once been roadway, now again 
 Closed up its heart against the feet of man. 
 Unseen of them he watched her with warm eyes 
 For whom his soul were forfeit. Then her 
 
 fate — 
 
n6 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 If such a thing as fate be in the world — ■ 
 Laid hands about and turned her so she saw 
 His watching from the gloom among the wild ; 
 But told it not, save only to her heart 
 Through all the night that followed and the day. 
 
 For him he haunted it for many days. 
 
 Until he felt the melancholy Thing 
 
 In all his blood ; like to the thing he craved 
 
 That tempted him from Godward womanwise. 
 
 Safe harbourage it seemed for his desire, 
 
 A secret place to nourish secret sins 
 
 Among the shameful limbs that writhed, and 
 
 bound 
 His sense and soul. 
 
 And when at last — alone — 
 She next came there, with feet that trod in hope 
 And fear as many times as she her heart 
 Heard beating in her bosom, there they met. 
 
 Love lives the liefer for a lonely land : 
 And love was easy speaking on his lips 
 Where every word had helpmate in her ears. 
 That had not listened only had they lost 
 Their power to hearken to their pulse of life. 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 117 
 
 These things were in December, when the sun 
 Makes western afternoon a crucible 
 Wherein is melted finest gold of heaven, 
 When clouds are brown that cross it, and low 
 
 rays 
 Bring the brown birch woods into winter bloom. 
 In such an hour their meeting: and her soul 
 Drank of the glory golden from the west. 
 The while his words were golden as the hour, 
 And as the gold of heaven all her dreams. 
 Deep sheltered in the wilderness at last 
 They found themselves, and waited for the dusk : 
 And when a star first flowered in the thorns 
 He drew her close, and for the first time kissed 
 Her mouth that clung to his so that his soul 
 Grew softly dark with craving for her lips. 
 Then kissed her eyes ; and all the place for her 
 Was softly dark with swoon of young desire. 
 Three times they met by stealth there after- 
 wards ; 
 And ever hiding deeper in its glooms. 
 As louder grew the clamour in their hearts. 
 And fiercer and more tender, tenderness. 
 There Sin they watched, affecting not to see 
 The warm-eyed things of whispers amorous ; 
 
ii8 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 The place seemed full of spirits for them both, 
 That leagued themselves to aid him with their 
 
 arts — 
 Weaving soft spells in which she loved her toils, 
 And sighing sank the deeper, or would break. 
 Only to joy the more in rapt return; 
 Until her wish and will together came 
 And robbed her of all strength but that of love. 
 Nerving her senses while he drugged her soul. 
 Repentance was salvation, so he taught, 
 That potent lure to lecher's honeyed snares : 
 And oft she fluttered round it night and day. 
 But when the new year bound the wolds with 
 
 frost 
 And silence lay like death among the thorns, 
 A man and woman went in there to sin. 
 
 In February, when a thousand rills 
 Went murmuring along the valley, Nell 
 Knew first the secret of her sister's shame. 
 Rose, maddened by her guilt, in sudden fear 
 Confessed in one wild outburst, and fell down — 
 Lying in swoon about her sister's feet. 
 So long she swooned it seemed more like to death 
 Than life grown mercifully mute and saved 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 119 
 
 From the intolerable anguish of the soul 
 
 A breathless breathing space. When once again 
 
 A faint flower blossomed in her cheeks, and Nell 
 
 Saw the pale eyelids' fluttered opening 
 
 And heard the sighing breath, from respite o'er. 
 
 Take up its burden of life's being, Rose 
 
 Found a forgiveness stronger than despair; 
 
 And told of things that put the sun away. 
 
 Then Nell went up across the hill and passed 
 Into the wild among the hateful trees. 
 And came upon the man who waited there. 
 And they walked back towards the valley road. 
 The while he listened to a tale for him 
 But too well known now colder eyes could read. 
 And must read often, in the scroll of lust 
 The sacrilege that passion wrote as love. 
 Black guilt had struck him silent so he feared 
 The sound of his own voice would but accuse 
 The treachery that fain excuse had found 
 But that the hands of shame were on his throat 
 To choke the lies that lurked there: and his 
 
 words 
 That came at last were echoes out of hell 
 Wherethrough a guilty wretch cried nakedly. 
 
I20 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 And Nell within her heart her sister's doom 
 
 Heard spoken by another — that his wife. 
 
 And when he ceased she stood and watched the 
 
 pines. 
 That as a funeral pyre upon the ridge 
 Smoked in the sunset's conflagration. There, 
 And while she watched, he prayed her to forgive. 
 But all her thoughts were otherwhere. The 
 
 man 
 Clutched at her arm with shaking hands that 
 
 stung. 
 And aU his touch spoke treason. Then she saw 
 Below them, in the valley road, draw near 
 A farmer's wife whose tongue was Scandal's 
 
 own, — 
 A woman Nell detested for a snake. 
 But Hurst, the preacher, blinded of remorse. 
 Saw not her coming, and with ghastly lips 
 Was whispering to Nell to kiss for him 
 The sister he had wronged. At that she turned, 
 And in her eyes were things inscrutable. 
 She, trembling, shut them close, but moved to 
 
 him; 
 Said quickly — "Kiss me once"; and she would 
 
 pass 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 121 
 
 His farewell on to Rose, and all his words : 
 Next felt his lips — ^unflinching though they clung 
 Like hateful shame upon her own; and then 
 Went silently from him she saw no more. 
 
 Ere the last windflower of that spring had blown, 
 Nell with her sister passed from out the vale. 
 And hid their life in London; for the shame 
 Of dreaded shadow now was certainty. 
 In stupor Rose lived on; with stricken eyes 
 That feared the light, and long since drained of 
 
 tears 
 In one the fountain of whose tears was dry; 
 A broken flower, and bruised to death for sure. 
 But that a sister's arm had lifted her. 
 And with calm, fearless hands kept off the winds 
 That blow about the world in seeking out 
 And screaming over things that hide from shame. 
 And when her time was near upon her. Rose 
 Prayed Nell to take her back there if she died, 
 .Where in the valley both their parents slept; 
 !A.nd where they once had dwelt in peace. . . 
 
 The child 
 Was healthy, and the mother lived. But Nell, 
 With eyes that watched unceasingly for aught 
 
122 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 That might retard her sister's bid for life 
 
 Of other than a shameful misery. 
 
 Saw she was fretting, deathward for the hills. 
 
 And for the wildflowers laughing in the meads 
 
 Along the valley. London never smiled; 
 
 And fain would she have crept back to their 
 
 home 
 But for the shame she dared not front. 
 
 The place 
 Was still as they had left it, — ^the old dame. 
 Now dead among her people, — still their own. 
 
 By now the child was near a twelvemonth old, — 
 A fairy mite, who with her mother's hair 
 Had darker eyes. 
 
 Then Nell first told of her 
 Who saw them kiss, above the valley road ; 
 And she acclaimed herself indififerent 
 To scorn of man or woman or the world; 
 And asked to be the mother of the child. 
 And for the shame she laughed at it ; and drew 
 A picture of their old life, with the child 
 Shared of them both in secret. 
 
 So at last, 
 When Christmas made the watercourses mute 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 123 
 
 In all the lower valley-level's snow. 
 And a great frost had silenced all the winds, 
 The two returned ; and Nell, with Rose's child 
 Held tightly in her arms, took on the shame 
 That was their Yuletide greeting through the 
 
 vale; 
 Wherein the prophecies the woman spoke. 
 With Scandal's passion of cold lust, had found 
 Already credence — now to be confirmed. 
 
 Long lay that winter heavy on the land; 
 And heavy-hearted Rose was ; till a day 
 When a warm south wind came across the hills. 
 And of a sudden all the valley waked 
 With murmured voice of liberated snows. 
 In hurry from their prison-house of frost 
 To mix them with the mighty Mother's joy. 
 That swept in sun and shadow for the spring. 
 And Rose went out into the garden ground, 
 And watched the long white seed-plots reappear 
 And hoar again the apple branches grow. 
 Then thawed the frosts of winter from her heart 
 In great glad tears that washed her soul of sin. 
 And Nell, who saw, went quietly and laid 
 The child within her mother's arms and tears : 
 
124 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 While from the oldest apple tree a thrush, 
 Who there had sung unheard through all one 
 
 spring, 
 Burst into song : and winter passed away. 
 
 In London, Nell by chance had met and loved, 
 With passion that is as God's breath in life, 
 One who had loved her at first sight, but urged 
 His suit in vain. For Nell had put aside 
 The love of man, save only from her heart : 
 Therein she gave God praise for having loved. 
 A young man, author and a painter, he 
 Whom the girl loved: he knew not of the child. 
 For ere they met she had in secret thought 
 •Planned how to lift her Rose's life from shame. 
 Therefore she bade her lover love no more, — 
 Breaking her heart to bend it to her will. 
 
 Three years the sisters watched their little 
 
 flower — 
 The baby Rose — grow upward in the sun ; 
 Nor any blight fell on their rosebud's bloom. 
 Three years of peace, where striving to forget 
 Was all their trouble. 
 
 Then an illness came 
 
THE THORN BRAKE i2i 
 
 Upon the child, who sickened near to death. 
 And maid and mother watched with mother's 
 
 pain 
 The shadow falling through those days of spring 
 Across a world of sunbeams filled with song. 
 Nell stood one evening, when the light was gone, 
 Alone in anguish by the cottage door, — 
 Her virgin bosom aching for the child. 
 But Rose kept vigil in the room above 
 Beside the little one. The air was calm 
 As all the place was quiet — save the bell 
 That led the sheep, slow grazing, through the 
 
 night 
 Along the hillsides. Once a bird sang late 
 From out the hazels in the copse behind. 
 Blue-shadowed in dusk mystery; where dreamed 
 Dumb nightingales, who bided there in tryst 
 Against the amorous comings from the south, 
 In patient passion mute. But to the girl 
 The little life was all for her of spring 
 Upon the world in that calm evening close . . . 
 Steps sounded through the briars : and the gate 
 Swung to the entrance of a form her soul, 
 From years' communing in the dark of dream. 
 Had known amid a moonless midnight. Then 
 
126 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 Ernest, her lover, clasped her hands and called 
 Once, quickly, through the shadows : "Nell ! My 
 
 Nell!" 
 And she for very love's sake in reply : 
 "Oh Ernest!" and more softly, "Let me bide. 
 It cannot be!" — and fain had told him all. 
 But he, grown hungry through his barren years. 
 Stopped short her words with kisses suddenly, 
 And held her to him so his passion beat 
 Like flame around her senses; and she sighed 
 And lay all subject, broken in his arms. . . . 
 Then like a spirit wailing cried the child. 
 And to his soul the meaning with the cry 
 Sprang from the riddle that had balked his love ; 
 Nor unrevealed the secret any more. 
 When, like a moan, the woman broke from him. 
 And pity bade him question not, though Love 
 Beat all his wings to death in wild despair. 
 For in her face dumb Misery gone blind 
 Stared at him, stricken speechless, reft of sight. 
 Of its own self. And he had turned to go 
 But that a woman's voice came : "Oh my child ! 
 My baby! Oh my baby!" and he stood. 
 Without the door, like one who waits on hope 
 Beside the gate of fear. He heard "Good-bye" ; 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 127 
 
 And saw her vanish, whom he late had held, 
 Into the house ; and then he followed her — 
 To stand within the doorway, wondering. 
 Then Rose ran down, and saw him standing 
 
 there. 
 Stopped, and stared hard a second, but went on 
 About her errand, and returned again 
 And passed the stranger, breathless in her haste. 
 There, afterwards, that night he heard the tale. 
 And Rose within his hands her sister's laid ; 
 Kissed Nell ; and crying softly, left the two 
 To make their peace in private, while she sobbed 
 And prayed beside her own — child of her sin. 
 Wherefrom the Shadow with the morning 
 
 passed : 
 And the child lived, and smiling fell asleep. 
 
 When April flushed with coming life of May 
 Through all her bosom ; while a mist of blue 
 Lay, like the vapour of an ?zure rain 
 Dyed deep with heaven, through the oakenshaws, 
 Copses of hazel, and lush windrows green, 
 Nell and her lover made them man and wife, — 
 Their home with Rose. 
 
 And there for them next year 
 
128 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 A daughter blessed their marriage. And the child 
 Grew strongly, hazel eyed, and large of limb. 
 And even as her mother's was her hair 
 For darkness. But a second child was dead 
 Ere light was ever in its eyes; and Nell 
 For long lay feeble, — ^this in their next year 
 Of wedded love that nothing else had marred. 
 
 Now little Rose— (the other child a "Nell") 
 With years become a quiet little maid 
 Who kept a solemn counsel of her own 
 In eyes that grew more serious and dark — 
 It seemed had longings for the higher lands. 
 And shunned the meadows. So when Nell lay ill, 
 After her dead-born infant, and they missed — 
 One afternoon in autumn — ^little Rose, 
 Her mother sought with Ernest in the hills 
 Behind the cottage ; and among the thorns — 
 Not having found — ^they went some ways apart 
 And called, and searched the thickets, but in vain ; 
 Until they came together suddenly. 
 Then in that moment all the place grew strange, 
 The while they stared a space and with soft eyes 
 Towards each other : and in Ernest's heart 
 He knew a sinful something waking there : 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 129 
 
 And Rose broke out in blushes — stammering 
 About the child; and frightened at the thing 
 Which brought her blushes, turned from him 
 
 and passed 
 Out of the, thorns, and shuddered as she went. 
 And then they found the little maid asleep — 
 Upon her mouth the stain of dewberries. 
 
 When Nell at last grew into stronger life 
 She had been glad to find a way to death ; 
 For Rose fell ill, and in her illness spoke 
 Wild things, in one delirious moment's tongue. 
 Of love for Ernest, dark with horror, guilt, 
 And such a shame as made her former sin 
 Seem venial by contrast. But she nursed 
 Her sister back to life, and prayed her own 
 Might give her strength to bear the greater 
 
 wrong 
 In silence and in secret. For there came 
 A day when in her heart she knew the man 
 Who was her husband loved her sister more. 
 Nor ever day was wanting now to show 
 Some bitter proof that made her long for death 
 But for her little daughter's sake. 
 
 The two, 
 
130 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 After their meeting in the thorns, had strove 
 Against the thing with horror. But their blood 
 Seemed to have taken up a poison there 
 So softly hideous, subtle of desire, — 
 Though hard and long they fought it, — ^that 
 
 their veins 
 Ached ever now to meet there once again 
 And see each other stare with guilty eyes. 
 Among the shameful trees. But neither spoke 
 Of love, but rather kept apart; and both 
 Prayed that the woman they had wronged in 
 
 thought 
 Might never guess, nor suffer by their sin. 
 Then Rose would take to going there alone; 
 And Ernest leashed his cravings and remained. 
 For all he knew by instinct of her goal. 
 And when he went would Rose keep to the house, 
 Yet knew the manner of his going there. . . . 
 But when the new year bound the wolds with 
 
 frost 
 And silence lay like death among the thorns, 
 A man and woman went in there to sin. 
 
 From that day onward Nell was stricken down 
 Upon a bed she never left alive. 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 131 
 
 But lay and waited for the end she knew 
 Was coming; but she made no sign she knew 
 The other thing. One day she asked her man 
 To marry Rose when she was gone. And he, 
 His soul 'twixt shame and sorrow racking 
 
 him. 
 Had told her all, but deemed it then more kind 
 To hold his peace ; save that he would wed Rose 
 If so it might be, as she asked. 
 
 But Rose, 
 The night her sister died, came to the bed 
 And lay there like to death herself; until 
 A frightful passion of remorse laid hold 
 Upon her so she screamed her infamy, — 
 In frenzy for forgiveness ere she died. 
 And Nell's great heart made answer with a 
 
 smile — 
 Affecting not to understand, and breathed 
 But some farewell of whispers to her child 
 That slept beside her, and it beat no more. . . . 
 Then Ernest kissed his dead wife once, and said : 
 "Thank God she never knew!" But Rose was 
 
 dumb 
 Before her sister's silence, and afraid 
 So that she dared not kiss her dead, but lay 
 
132 The thorn brake 
 
 Prone in a death-watch on the floor all night, 
 The while her soul did penance deep in hell. 
 
 A year the cottage held them, and apart. 
 Nor ever either went among the thorns. 
 Then Ernest spoke again what Nell had wished, 
 As they walked home together from her grave 
 One Sabbath morning. All the valley drowsed, — 
 It was the hot high noontide of the year, 
 When July lays a flame upon the land 
 And a blue light comes over bramble leaves 
 In the pleached dusks of summer-darkened 
 
 woods. 
 But in her heart were ashes and dull pain 
 She knew would leave her never; so she craved 
 That year at least might pass ere they were one. 
 
 It chanced that Ernest left her after Yule 
 To visit London — ^there on business called. 
 And Rose, in afternoon, ere he returned. 
 Left the two children playing, and went up 
 Into the hills and passed among the thorns; 
 Drawn there by sudden impulse, that compelled 
 Once more her heart to hearken to the thing 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 133 
 
 That cried within her blood. There she sought 
 
 out 
 The thorns that first were witness to her shame ; 
 Shivered and moaned, and wept her bitter tears, 
 And called on her dead sister to forgive ; 
 Nor in her anguish heeded that the night 
 Came swiftly, till the thickets all were dusk. 
 And in the dusk a man was watching her. 
 Who stepping lightly on the leaves came close, 
 Then whispered wildly, "Rose!" — so that her 
 
 heart 
 Scarce dared to beat for fear. And then she saw. 
 Cried out, and panted, "You!"^ — then failed of 
 
 words. 
 Elijah Hurst had hidden in the brakes. 
 Since the first frost of autumn, many times — 
 But sometimes watched the cottage from the 
 
 hills. 
 And there had seen her with the other man. 
 His wife had died : and he returned to claim 
 The girl his lust had made his in the years 
 When they had loved among the thorns. And yet 
 The place laid potent hands upon his soul, 
 And all his blood was bondslave to its spell; 
 Till passion mixed with madness of such love 
 
134 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 As he had never known in by-gone years. 
 His face was dark with longing as he told 
 The fury that possessed him; punishment 
 That had been his for years : — she must forgive, 
 And let him right the wrong. And, as she heard 
 Him who had made her mother, all her flesh 
 Turned to him; but her soul, with loathing 
 
 fraught, 
 Clave to the other, and shrank back in fear 
 From the dark eyes that searched it. Then the 
 
 man. 
 Knowing for him were better death than life 
 Without her, came to take her in his arms : 
 But when he saw her eyes he kept away. 
 For Rose saw standing there between the thorns, 
 Amid a place of moonbeams, sister Nell ; 
 And from her tortured senses love of man 
 Faded, and left her only with desire 
 Of peace with her lost sister. And it seemed 
 Nell knew, for of a sudden, wide her arms 
 Stretched out towards the living she had loved. 
 And Rose cried once the dead girl's name, and 
 
 fell 
 Amid the place of moonbeams 'twixt the thorns : 
 Or e'er his hand had touched her she had died. 
 
THE THORN BRAKE 135 
 
 Above the thorns the silent heart of night 
 Filled with the white peace of the moon. Below, 
 The man knelt, praying softly by the dead ; 
 And speaking tender words and pitiful 
 Himself would answer. But when came a cry 
 Upon the hills he rose, and breathing hard. 
 Sought for and found the drug wherewith he 
 
 eased 
 The pangs of conscience through the nights of 
 
 hell 
 When Memory went mad along his brain. 
 And as he followed her he heard her name 
 Cried through the dusks of death, amid ' the 
 
 thorns. 
 Where Ernest came with lights and found them 
 
 there. 
 
 They laid her by her sister : but the man, 
 Self-slain, they buried lonely by the wall. 
 And there would little Rose, in after years. 
 Come many times ; and to the younger child 
 Read by the graves ; or quietly alone 
 Would watch and tend her father's. If her tears 
 Fell there, or if she greatly grieved, none knew. 
 
136 THE THORN BRAKE 
 
 And some there were who thought she did not 
 
 grieve. 
 And some there were who said the girl was 
 
 strange 
 And not as other maids are. All agreed 
 She was a harmless, patient lass enough. 
 
 And Ernest took himself another wife. 
 But had no children. 
 
 Many courted Nell : 
 So she at last was wed ; and in the vale 
 Bore children to her husband. 
 
 But for Rose, 
 She loved no man, it seemed, or none loved her ; 
 Though all agreed her harmless lass enough — 
 Albeit her mother and her father sinned. 
 In which some blamed the woman, some the man. 
 But she, who blamed nor dead nor living, grown 
 To womanhood, in silence, blamed the thorns. 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF ALGERNON 
 CHARLES SWINBURNE 
 
 (Died April lo, 1909) 
 
 This April night that takes into its breath 
 The nightingale's first passion faint and sparse — 
 Surely thy name it saith, 
 Like music in the heath, 
 A shining music shaken from the stars! 
 With Song's immortal crown 
 Though death thy life enthrone, 
 To-night my soul would humbly look to thine, 
 Here, where mine eyes looked last upon thine 
 own. 
 Here, where thy feet a thousand times have 
 trod. 
 Nor clearer should the starry-circled zone 
 
 137 
 
138 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 
 
 Burn, than thy glory, if aught be divine 
 
 And Love and Truth and Beauty make for 
 GOD. 
 Shall I not find thee here. 
 Master ? nor know thee near ? 
 I feel the fires of heaven on mine eyes : 
 Though dark to mortal sight 
 The earth-line halves the night 
 I share the endless glory of the skies. 
 And seems it me the winds have answer 
 
 given, 
 Blown earthward from behind the stars in 
 heaven. 
 
 I hear thine echoes round, as though the world 
 Fills her own flight with paeans through the 
 spheres 
 
 Whilst dying creeds as rotting leaves are swirled 
 Along the dust of the decaying years, 
 
 Till all the tree of Priestcraft's faith be bare 
 Of fruit or any blossom as of leaves : 
 Yea, as a god in whom no man believes 
 
 Shall surely perish, faith shall perish there. 
 
 Before man was were only Truth and Song. 
 
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 139 
 
 Yea, singer, seer, and prophet, — Master, thou ! 
 Who sawest the future clearly come to pass, 
 As from some far serene beyond the brow 
 
 Of Morning, — and God mirrored in a glass 
 Wherein are Love and Truth where Fears are 
 now. 
 When man at last shall forth true and strong 
 Of his own spirit. Truth shall right the wrong, 
 
 The light of very God, that Falsehood mars : 
 Still shall be heartened April into song. 
 And there be heard old music in the stars. 
 
 What shall be said of thee, for poets' part 
 Of tribute that the world must always owe. 
 So long as Thought may burgeon into 
 speech, 
 The language lovely from thy long-ago? 
 For me be said : — "Thou didst so do for Art 
 What Art herself shall only do for man." 
 
 Whereby The Soul is quick with life to 
 teach. 
 To all, her truths of Beauty that express 
 The glory of her spirit's loveliness 
 Lips breathing baser lifehood never can. 
 
I40 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 
 
 For thee, no more with blasphemies bedight 
 
 Shall forceful Fraud disguise the beast it is, 
 Nor large Untruth add any sun to night 
 
 Or star to day by vaunt of sophistries. 
 But Man's own Truth hast clothed with living 
 light 
 
 To justify in song The Harmonies. 
 One day in his own spirit shall he come 
 
 The sweetlier for thy singing to the gates 
 
 Of Truth's white temple, wherein Manhood 
 waits. 
 By orient aisles of Beauty, to his home. 
 
 And that great organ of Time's hemisphere 
 Where never wind nor whisper yet has passed 
 Shall waken from its silent sleep at last. 
 
 Then shall the people answer : — "Man is here ! 
 
 Love, Truth, and Beauty — with nor hope nor 
 fear, 
 Nor gains of Gods or Mammon overcast!" 
 
 4 
 
 The spirits of all winds and seas and suns, 
 
 The many-throated music made in spring. 
 Move in thine own; with that deep chord that 
 runs 
 
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 141 
 
 Throughout Time's heart-beats, ever echoing. 
 Yea, Master, is such music in thine own, 
 That in thy song Time's pulse awakes and 
 falls. . . . 
 Or with large sounds of wonder 
 Thy words are rolled in thunder 
 And boom of breakers on the landward 
 
 walls. . . . 
 Where clanging deep to deep reverberant calls 
 And all the mouths of ocean make their moan. 
 On seamew pinions glides 
 Above the swirl of tides 
 Thy singing, as of sea-winds bred and blown. 
 Yea, Master, is such music in thine own! 
 
 5 
 
 Here where thou wendedst I have ofttimes wan- 
 dered 
 When the larks hold their joyous evening choir 
 Until the shadow-lengthening day retire 
 From off the gorse and broom with gold-dust 
 squandered. 
 Nor grudge all hours of light their lilt's re- 
 frain ; 
 Leaving to dark, laments, for Itys slain, 
 
142 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 
 
 Of that bright bird thou, living, lovedst so well. 
 Alas ! now nightingale and lark no more 
 Can charm thy heedless ear; or Death restore 
 
 To thee, within thine island tomb, a subtler 
 spell — 
 Sea voices on the shore. 
 
 6 
 
 Alasf, Nay! Wherefore shall I weep for thee? 
 Who art not for man's tears but for Time's 
 
 praise : 
 Nor shall of man be counted all thy days. 
 'O sweet strange elder singer," bear with me! 
 I weary, and awhile am fain for rest ; 
 Oh, lend me of such peace as fills thine own, 
 An hour ! — then ■ of thy strength to feed my 
 breast 
 (That I may stand alone) 
 With fire of singing as with fire of flame — 
 (I ask but of thy strength, not any fame) 
 Some spark of that which dwells about thy 
 name. 
 With such a light as burns along the west. 
 Once more I wait and watch : the day is gone : 
 Comes night, and a great silence o'er the land : 
 
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 143 
 
 And down the dusk, like dead leaves blown upon, 
 Thy footsteps echo past me as I stand! 
 
 7 
 
 Master ! I loved thee ! Stay ! ... ah, hast thou 
 passed 
 
 Into the southward darkness evermore ? 
 Wilt thou for me wait, even at the last, 
 
 If Death's tide turn to shore? 
 Yea, thou art gone, and never to return, 
 For all my soul to thee for ever yearn. 
 For all my soul of thee were fain to learn 
 
 That secret sea-way's lore. 
 Is it but sleep unknown of dreams out there 
 
 Where are no stars nor is there any sun? 
 Hast thou found on that flood fall stars more 
 fair — 
 
 Now these of earth are done? 
 Or with some star death-stricken into air 
 
 Perchance thy soul is one ? . . . 
 For thee no more shall winter melt in spring, 
 
 Though men should die as larks rise from the 
 heath, 
 
 Singing, with but a more ethereal breath, 
 A happier song to suns in holier skies ; 
 
144 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 
 
 For thee no shrouds shall autumn evenings 
 bring 
 When earthly summer dies. 
 
 8 
 
 Farewell ! thou art beyond all joy and sorrow. 
 Sleep, Master, through the ages, by the sea. 
 While man shall wake at all to any morrow, 
 In Song for ever shall thy kingdom be. . . . 
 Farewell? I feel art near, nor me forsaken ! 
 Strong beats my blood: the battle bugles 
 sound 
 Along the world, till all the night be shaken. 
 And Freedom's wings by Fear no more be 
 bound. . . . 
 And surely shall of death no man discover 
 
 If in it there be aught, till death befall : 
 Life still shall good be found to every 
 lover : 
 Unborn shall no man love nor live at all. . . , 
 If in all good things love be found the 
 
 best, 
 Shall there be any kinder thing than rest? , . . 
 
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 145 
 
 For all in vain we question ! Not more vainly 
 The thrush, his speckled breast inflating, 
 
 strains 
 With song for him for whom no sound re- 
 mains. 
 Nay ! were it better, even if more plainly — 
 Knowing the fruits of Life — we saw in Death 
 Stranp'e orchard-lands of unknown blossom, 
 'neath 
 A changeless sky of light, and always light, 
 Should we not miss the harvest Death debars — 
 The seeds which fruit in strife that makes or 
 mars? 
 If Death were one long day where is no night. 
 Should we not miss the stars ? 
 
SHELLEY 
 A Criticism of a Criticism. 
 
 They say it: "Beautiful and Ineffectual" — ^thou. 
 
 Then is the sun all potent save of fire, 
 
 Growth, and the might to swing the spheres and 
 
 swing 
 Through their eternal courses night and day. 
 Nor ever sentient things his face behold 
 In other wise than rocks do from the hills. 
 That greet his coming with insensate calm 
 And with dull veins absorb an age of noons. 
 Or his death-lights watch drowning on the dark, 
 Unmoved to aught but colder silentness, — 
 Than streams and waters shrunken at his 
 
 breath, — 
 Than all the hours he kindles that burn down 
 In viewless ashes drifted over time. 
 Aye, is his beauty then but unbeholden 
 That permeates all being save of soul; 
 Though every evening pool a sunset holds, 
 146 
 
SHELLEY 147 
 
 Though trivial things against an evening sky- 
 As kites against a sunset — ^he invests 
 With tangible appeal inseparate 
 From that supreme abstraction which is Soul, 
 For which their muter insignificance 
 Is touched to eloquence. And in the lives, 
 Separate and individual of a myriad men 
 Shall not thy song be ineffectual — 
 To kindle hours in which man sees his soul 
 Clothed with an essence other than of life 
 Devoted to brute instincts of the blood? 
 For verily was clad with cloud and beams 
 Thy singing and as meteors clothed about 
 With an ethereal murmur from the stars. 
 Shall not the clouds be ineffectual too. 
 For drouth and long desire of thirsty lands ? 
 Wherein are souls athirst with longings void — 
 Seeing that life within the life of flesh 
 Wants nothing other than of meat and drink, 
 A house wherein to mate in love or lust. 
 And temples for the gods that priests have made. 
 Fine raiment, and the plaudits of its kind 
 For breath whereof it cries : "Behold a man !" 
 How many stars have gone to make a man? 
 Shall not the stars be ineffectual too, 
 
148 SHELLEY 
 
 And not their message null and meaningless, 
 For all it strive through time to reach a world, 
 O singer of the Unity of Things ? 
 
 O Song that sang from twilight gulfs in skies. 
 Wherethrough came morning ineffectual 
 For earth where men lay darkling — darkling lie, 
 As early larks to daydawn's audience 
 Watching faint stars die on the stage erf heaven, 
 O singer of a day that is to be ! 
 O singer of a coming age of Truth ! 
 When man shall knit his soul to otherwhere 
 Than that chimera of a fabled heaven 
 Old charlatans, acclaimed God's confidants 
 In some hereafter, spread about the world 
 And with old ink of blood made mystical 
 To catch dull brains as crimson threads do fish. 
 Aye, though unto this day Hypocrisy, 
 They warn us, is within the wheels of life 
 As oil upon hot axles ; and that Truth 
 Long since had left from lubrication dry 
 The Man-machine, and every train of gears 
 Whereby the social engines of the world 
 Drive with their rhythmic motions Change's 
 loom. 
 
SHELLEY 149 
 
 Well may this be where lies for truth are taught ; 
 Where Might disguised old custom labels Right 
 And Mammon fain had kept the people dark 
 With creeds and consecrations like a cloud : 
 Whereout a Voice, presumptuous like a priest's : 
 "Be patient, O ye people, there is Heaven!" 
 Lest through humilities that were his irons 
 Man file his way to present liberty. 
 Most ineffectual was thy scorn of Faith 
 That herded men by ways of hell and heaven, 
 O singer of a day that is no more ! 
 
 Thee shall not love find ineffectual? 
 
 O flume of song among the floats of God 
 
 That drive the mills of Mingling ! to a tune 
 
 Of echoes from the fountain-heads of life — 
 
 Whilst mirrored in thy deeps is face of her, 
 
 Who with soft shining strength doth regulate 
 
 The everlasting impulse of the sea 
 
 And draw fair flesh of woman round to love — 
 
 As ineffectually as thy voice 
 
 Touches the soul of love to tenderness 
 
 Of many-murmured waters and soft sighs 
 
 Swept from some amorous island down the dark. 
 
 The love that men do barter for and buy 
 
ISO SHELLEY 
 
 Shall haply cry thee Poet ! But the love 
 
 That lives in sun and moonbeams, smiling 
 
 flowers, 
 And all the primal purities of spring; 
 In passion's purest blossoms of delight — 
 Eyes warm with gentle radiance of joy 
 And with supreme of tears contentment-glad 
 When two hearts beat their pulses into one — 
 For thee shall ineffectual be and vain. 
 And vain be all that gracious love of friends 
 That fain would bind a world with Friendship's 
 
 bonds : 
 Only for Hate thou sangest liberty ! 
 
 And ineffectual be thy song for her 
 
 iWhose name is great among all names that rise 
 
 Star-like upon the heavens — ^Liberty ! 
 
 O Glorious of all constellated kind, 
 
 Whose cradle was the vertebrae of stars ! 
 
 All things have growth by virtue of thy will, 
 
 All — ^motion! Breath that moves with life 
 
 Planets and dust of pollen in a flower : 
 
 The first foundation of all Law and last : 
 
 Song that was made from silence by a star! 
 
 As little ships geek big ones in the night 
 
SHELLEY 151 
 
 Upon a tideless sea, all lesser gods 
 That shall outlast a single night of time 
 Shall seek thine oracles ! And there shall come 
 The lightnings from thy throne of stars, and 
 
 flash 
 The meaning of thy Meaning through the 
 I spheres ! 
 O Liberty, did Shelley nought for thee? 
 
 Nay, Poet ! By the waves that stopped thy heart. 
 By fire that would not burn it, shall thy name 
 Be carried — ^by the wave that is the world. 
 Be carried by the fire that is in song ! 
 Till only Truth, and Liberty, and Love 
 Shall be the Gods that lend man heart of grace. 
 O "Beautiful and Ineffectual"! 
 Who soundedst through thy golden harmonies 
 The noblest truth the world shall ever hear : — 
 Of Progress latent in the human soul; 
 That Time's Titanic birth of after years. 
 The Mighty Mind of Darwin, went to prove 
 The fundamental Purpose men call life, — ■ 
 The keynote for the orchestra of God. 
 
THE PILGRIM'S WAY 
 
 We wander there on divers days, 
 
 My soul and I, through ways of dream. 
 
 To me its lonely landscapes teem : — 
 A very world of Pilgrim's Ways. 
 
 Where pilgrim suns their daily arc 
 
 Transfuse with slow transplendency ; 
 And to mid-heaven's majesty 
 
 Translate on wings of song the lark 
 
 Or on the downland ridges high 
 
 Pass over silent ones in crowds — 
 Majestic, solemn, smiling clouds. 
 
 The mute assemblies of the sky. 
 
 Or shouting winds, that stamped the seas 
 A little lapse of hours before. 
 Rush on, and, tempest-throated, roar 
 
 Through straining cordage of the trees. 
 152 
 
THE PILGRIM'S WAY 153 
 
 Or in some evening-close of calm — 
 'Mid thymy places of the chalk 
 I feel around their whispered talk. 
 
 Their fragrance, all my soul embalm. 
 
 I know there is then that distils. 
 
 From lower things of life, the pure; 
 A blessing strangely sweet as sure — 
 
 A holiness among the hills. 
 
 I lose myself in that still air. 
 
 And find in losing such a peace 
 That sudden had my ways to cease 
 
 I would that they might finish there; 
 
 And be made one with air and earth ; 
 
 And mix me with sepulchral chalk. 
 
 And in the life of flower and stalk 
 
 There every spring be brought to birth. 
 , * * * 
 
 There, though are dreams that fade like stars — 
 That, star-like, never wholly fade 
 From out the brain — ^are open laid 
 
 Some dreams that fade more like to scars. 
 
154 THE PILGRIM'S WAY 
 
 And if to peace, that men have known 
 By wondrous ways of wedded love, 
 I let a wistful fancy rove 
 
 To find a solace not my own — 
 
 'Tis but my faith may falter not 
 
 In Life, where Life is all my faith; 
 Nor — if my bridal-peace be death — ■ 
 
 My faith before my body rot. 
 
 And though I crave a little joy 
 
 Before I last lie down to sleep — 
 I did not make my blood to leap 
 
 For sorrow I was born a boy. 
 
 * * * 
 
 There, also, pilgrims oft I meet. 
 
 Long dead who are alive to-day; 
 That, thinking on their Pilgrim's Way, 
 
 My dreams stretch out like hands to greet. 
 
 Like humble hands grown warm with love 
 To give great thanks whene'er we pass : 
 I often meet them where the grass 
 
 Is green against the blue above; 
 
THE PILGRIM'S WAY 155 
 
 Long hillsides where my fancy lurks 
 
 And wide blue eyes of scabious flowers 
 Watch wistfully the skies for hours. 
 
 And there I seem to see their works 
 
 Sweep past, as on some mighty wind 
 
 Through all a world of divers lands : 
 Spread out, by men of mighty hands. 
 
 The works of men of mighty mind. 
 
 And there the men of mighty soul 
 Come quietly and stand at gaze. 
 And dream at what the distance says, 
 
 And hear a soundless thunder roll. 
 
 And glorious there Art's mighty ones 
 
 Stand wrapped in dreams of god-like 
 
 thought. 
 And there in living marble caught 
 
 Shines on the fire of Grecian suns. 
 
 To make her deathless meaning plain. 
 And holy there Madonnas mild 
 From star-like eyes above the child 
 
 Rebuke the baser lusts of men. 
 * * * 
 
156 THE PILGRIM'S WAY 
 
 And there I see him, where he stands 
 Wild-eyed and fearless on the brow. 
 It seems he waits in tryst. And now 
 
 Another comes and takes his hands 
 
 Across the ways of life and death. 
 
 And with a cry from out the stars 
 I hear arraigned before the bars 
 
 Of Truth and Man the Gk)d of Faith. 
 
 And then an awful silence falls. 
 
 The soundless Voice of God is heard. 
 
 And God has spoken, and His Word 
 Is— TRUTH. And from the judgment-halls 
 
 The two great brother-singers come. 
 
 And Shelley Swinburne's hand again 
 Holds, saying: "Brother, not in vain 
 
 We sang to strike the liar dumb." 
 
 And he who lately went from us 
 
 Turns with calm light about his eyes. 
 And thus they pass toward the skies. 
 
 Yea, there in dreams I saw them thus. 
 
THE PILGRIM'S WAY 157 
 
 And as they fade amid the blue 
 
 A star of streaming song-cloud floats 
 Above and rains its radiant notes : 
 
 And with the lark they pass from view. 
 
 Above. Before me, as they pass, 
 Goes by, below, a little breath 
 Of dust, and wastes amid the heath 
 
 And vanishes among the £;rass. 
 
 Below. Forgotten dust that screamed 
 Its little spites and hates and fears; 
 Forgotten of men's eyes and ears 
 
 As gods whose lips with lies were seamed. 
 
 * * * 
 
 And there, his eyes a starry mist. 
 
 The great white one hangs bloody-browed. 
 With all the anguish of him loud — 
 
 The blasphemy of men and Christ. 
 
 That sin of thine, O Nazarene? 
 
 Hast cleansed thyself with bloody sweat? 
 
 Has not enough been poured out yet 
 To keep thy tree's roots wholly green ? 
 
158 THE PILGRIM'S WAY 
 
 And yet there is much more of love, 
 Than lies, about thee, Nazarene! 
 I often see thee when the green 
 
 Grows dark against the blue above. 
 
 Much love, as hate in them who go 
 About thee in thy naked shame. 
 And to the murder of thy name 
 
 Have sung thy praises high and low. 
 
 As, mouthing Christ, they crucify. 
 
 On myriad crosses wrought of gold, 
 The wretched sheep who seek thy fold 
 
 And find salvation — when they die. 
 
 How long, O Christ, shall this be well? 
 For all thy blood and tears and ruth, 
 Till man shall worship but the truth 
 
 In vain the tri'.th thou hadst to tell. 
 
 Till man shall see them what they are 
 Who make thy promise but a cloak 
 Above the laboured breath they choke, 
 
 Shalt thou be these things' avatar. 
 
THE PILGRIM'S WAY 159 
 
 E'en yet Religion's large pretence 
 
 Would put the robes of heaven on 
 Authority's putrescent sun — 
 
 That fen-fire lamp of impudence. 
 
 E'en yet shall souls of men be slaves 
 
 By priestly bribe or patient fear? . . . 
 Christ, wouldst thou have thy kingdom here 
 
 Fall down into the dust of graves ? 
 
 Would that she held more truth of thee 
 
 Though all earth's skies were always blue! 
 But now the Bible's truth is too 
 
 The liar's apt apology. 
 
 These things, O Christ, be said of me. 
 
 (As one who wrought with hands and brain 
 
 Along the toiling ways of men) 
 Leave but the lie nailed to the tree. 
 
 Come down, and be a man, and win 
 A place no smaller soul can reach; 
 Acclaimed as first of all who teach. 
 
 Who loved the sinner, hating sin. 
 
i6o THE PILGRIM'S WAY 
 
 Unless be Manhood only man 
 
 By virtues born of beak and claw, — i 
 Him greatest with the largest maw 
 
 Since pterodactyl-truths began. 
 
 Come down, and see thy kingdom come ! 
 Yet may it hap till Toil has burst 
 The throats of Greed grown Godhead first 
 
 That Hate's high priest be stricken dumb? 
 
 I have no head, for thee as God, 
 To bow ; nor make I any prayer. 
 But, did I see thee standing there. 
 
 True priest of true men's-brotherhood, 
 
 I would kneel down and humbly pray 
 
 To thee to teach me what might serve — 
 Some work of mine men's hearts to nerve 
 
 Along some future Pilgrim's Way. 
 
 Some song that might refresh the root 
 
 For flowers of Manhood truth shall breed. 
 Ere men no more with golden seed 
 
 Furrow the matrix of the brute. 
 
 * * * 
 
THE PILGRIM'S WAY i6i 
 
 I see man's temples on the plains; 
 
 Upon the hills his temples are: 
 
 I often see there from afar 
 The wind catch fire upon their vanes. 
 
 And some have spires and some have none. 
 But all are wrought of men to prove 
 The God of Hell the God of Love. 
 
 They built them theirs in Babylon. 
 
 Men say more glorious there they built. 
 I have no doubt they built them welU 
 The God of Love the God of Hell 
 
 To prove, and proved him to the hilt. 
 
 But these be wise men. Poets fools 
 
 Have been acclaimed since fools began. 
 I know myself a foolish man. 
 
 And, in a land where Mammon rules, 
 
 Am glad to find some place of flowers. 
 
 Where wild bees come and murmuring climb 
 With honeyed song among the thyme : 
 
 I love to watch them, hours on hours. 
 
i62 THE PILGRIM'S WAY 
 
 And sit with them, and ponder there. 
 And, as was ever with such fools, 
 I wonder why that Mammon rules 
 
 A land grown wise and old in prayer. 
 
 And there on hopeless pilgrimage 
 
 A woman's shape of Hunger goes : 
 For apes within a cage of clothes 
 
 A money-monger clears a stage. 
 
 And thinking thus, I wonder WHY 
 
 That Mammon rules : and then I know 
 Religion's cloud will have to go 
 
 From off the earth — ^when off the sky. 
 
 No pictures of Eternal Bliss 
 
 May longer patient keep the poor: 
 Truth drives dishonoured from her door 
 
 The trickster-god of centuries. 
 
 I see Thee Unborn criticise 
 
 The Pilgrim's Ways whereby we passed. 
 
 "The deaths (they slowly say at last) 
 Of Gods and Mammon synchronise." 
 * * * 
 
THE PILGRIM'S WAY 163 
 
 And fraught with passion pure above 
 The lust of loves that harlots' are 
 The Future stands for avatar 
 
 To glorify the sex of love. 
 
 I doubt ideals of sexless love 
 
 Be other than Perversion bears : 
 Not by that Pilgrim's Way the years 
 
 To future-far horizons move. 
 
 But rather, somewhere down the past, 
 A road there was for Two in One — 
 A lonely Thing that saw the sun. 
 
 One day, another shadow cast. 
 
 'Tis not my fancy but has guessed, 
 
 In idle moments, idle things ; 
 
 The thought about my bosom clings 
 Whene'er I look upon my breast. 
 
 And that same sun — who witness bore 
 
 To wondrous workings time has known 
 In sex some other than my own — 
 
 Confirms Duality the -more. 
 
i64 THE PILGRIM'S WAY 
 
 Who says, no more the years divide 
 
 That sex in twain that was the One, 
 Unseals the silence of the sun 
 
 To warn a world of men he lied. 
 
 But neither now is her distress 
 
 Good reason that his strength is more, 
 Whose strength though multiplied a score 
 
 Had hardly made the mammoth's less. 
 
 The mammoth and his might are dust 
 Beneath some fallen forest's own : 
 I hear a holier trumpet blown ; 
 
 And love is lovelier for its lust. 
 
 I see the Woman stand at last — 
 
 An equal Soul with Man's to save: 
 Life makes them equal as the grave — 
 
 Since clouds of cant are overpast. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Yes, as I sit and ponder there, 
 
 These things before my vision rise: 
 I feel such wonder through my eyes 
 
 I doubt if more they well could bear. 
 
THE PILGRIM'S WAY 165 
 
 But, as with fools, I wander off 
 
 On wild bees' wings by Fancy lent. 
 To damp waste places dusk with mint 
 
 And all the green delights thereof. 
 
 And drink their fragrance deep : or cull 
 A moral from the musk-rose bloom : — 
 That, though life's end should be a tomb. 
 
 The world is very beautiful. 
 
 With Beauty which for ever lives 
 
 From starry things to things of earth : 
 Some deem it but of little worth ; 
 
 And see in sunsets — adjectives. 
 
 On wild bees' wings along the downs, 
 
 Through ferny hollows dark with pine 
 And places sweet with wild woodbine, 
 
 That many a bramble bosket crowns. 
 
 Cool coverts carpeted with green 
 
 Where primrose lights of spring had shone. 
 
 The hazels whisper, "On, and on!" 
 Some pilgrim loitered there, I ween. 
 
i66 THE PILGRIM'S WAY 
 
 The forebears of those trees a staff 
 Perhaps provided. Or to rest 
 He sank, and finished there his quest 
 
 Belike they speak his epitaph. 
 
 On wild bees' wings among the fern; 
 And watch green lizards in the sun 
 Like flames of emerald wild-fire run; 
 
 And on again, and then discern 
 
 Winged fairy flakes of moonlight-blue — 
 The butterfly of chalky hills ; 
 Whose joyous agitation fills 
 
 The noonday night of some old yew. 
 
 Though under heavier skies my home. 
 Far off that Pilgrim's Way I sing, 
 I know that as I write the Spring 
 
 Is moving there ; and long to roam. 
 
 Through ways of dream my soul and I 
 Go out to where the feet of her, 
 To Kentish fane from Winchester, 
 
 Along the Pilgrim's Way go by. 
 
THE PILGRIM'S WAY 167 
 
 Feet pacing slow as yet, but strong; 
 
 Soft feet and bright with shine of showers ; 
 
 Light footsteps leaving prints of flowers 
 And echoes that break into song. 
 
 Now, veiled with nights of starry tone. 
 
 The world's great lovers come, and meet 
 And kiss. I hear their pulses beat 
 
 The patterns of their blood to one. 
 
 And hasting, southward set my face 
 To where the cloudy hills are dim. 
 And as I go I make a hymn. 
 
 And sing it in some lonely place 
 
 When that old road I strike once more. 
 
 Yea, all my heart is full with thanks. 
 
 And there I meet them, ranks on ranks, 
 The pilgrims I have met of yore. 
 
 I meet them ... all ? It matters not 
 
 That one, my boon-companion there. 
 Comes nowise now: when days are fair 
 
 There comes a silence in my throat. 
 
1 68 THE PILGRIM'S WAY 
 
 Sometimes. ... It matters not. Above 
 His throat is filled with song : he sings 
 On mortal, of immortal, wings, 
 
 And all the Pilgrim's Ways of love. 
 
 * * * 
 
 And there I see a Woman kneel, 
 
 A child's face there among the shades ; 
 That dream, alas, that dream-like fades— 
 
 The unborn child some women feel. 
 
 I watch the slow earth-children climb 
 The tree of life towards the star. 
 By Pilgrim's Ways that Women are 
 
 I see them scale the heights of Time. 
 
 The love we bear our Motherland, 
 In holier pulses of the blood — 
 The glorious love of Motherhood, 
 
 The easier there I understand. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Yes, as I write, out there I know 
 
 The Spring moves with soft feet of her, 
 From Kentish fane to Winchester. 
 
 I hear her footsteps, and I go. 
 
BLAME THOU NOT LOVE! 
 
 Blame thou not Love, if, blinded of the stars, 
 Thou wast more tender than the world allows — 
 Grown old, in growing wise. 
 Nor deem true wisdom every compact bars 
 Between love's lips and longings, save with 
 vows 
 Might barter-men devise. 
 Blame thou not Love, if he whom thou didst call 
 
 "Lover," as women speak to silence shame, 
 Loved thee in spring and left thee ere the fall : 
 The blame were thine or his, not Love's the 
 blame ! 
 Blame thou not Love, should passion maze thy 
 soul 
 With stormy splendours over day and night. 
 Or visions of inviolable peace, 
 Wherein, by grace of Him, might' st make thee 
 whole 
 When gracious arms have drawn thee through 
 delight 
 Of his last ecstasies, 
 169 
 
I70 BLAME THOU NOT LOVE 
 
 Though one with dreams that die from lack of 
 life 
 She, whom thy votive dreamings made, be- 
 comes ; 
 Though thou shouldst live to learn thy hero's 
 wife 
 Is mated to a many martyrdoms ; — 
 If these things come upon thee, blame not Love ! 
 But taking thought take comfort. Wherefore, 
 kneel 
 The while some shadow saith 
 A few small words the quiet wings above. 
 That never more Empyreal pulse may feel. 
 "Love led himself to death." 
 Belike, or, "SunHre smote him through the head, 
 
 As one that lived intolerable days, 
 Whose knights had drawn him Godward! He is 
 dead." . . . 
 But one smooth white wing- feather ! ... Go 
 your ways. 
 
 But one smooth white wing-feather? Yea, and 
 this. 
 Haply, amid your bosom evermore, — 
 It once beat nigh to God. 
 
BLAME THOU NOT LOVE 171 
 
 Sometime, long after sunset's harmonies 
 Have hushed themselves to sleep along the 
 shore. 
 Go out there, softly shod. 
 And standing, fling your feather on the tide ; 
 
 And the wan white foam-water shall conceal 
 That last of Him for ever, or decide 
 If it be such all ocean may not steal. 
 
 And if it be? Or hate, or scorn, or worst 
 Of all things left from love — indifference. 
 One sharp short breathing-space 
 Shall leave you lovers; and the dark shall burst 
 Amid the matrix of the night's immense 
 So shall come forth such face 
 As once with lovers' eyes ye saw grow dear 
 
 Beyond all other faces. So shall come 
 Forgotten hungers harshly on you there. 
 
 Old tenderness grown grievous. . . . Get ye 
 home! 
 
 If these things come upon thee, blame not Love ! 
 Say rather. Life without Him would be less 
 Than such as brutes may breed. 
 
172 BLAME THOU NOT LOVE 
 
 Who once hath loved hath lived all else above 
 Less liberal lusts may glean from selfishness, 
 Whereon doth hatred feed. 
 Whoe'er have loved! give thanks, though it be 
 done. 
 Yet stay not over-long beneath the stars : 
 Make ye your match with Memory in the sun, 
 Lest in the night he take you unawares ! 
 
MARCH 
 
 The magic of March is upon me, a sense of the 
 
 world 
 Astrive in the sap of the limbs of the striving 
 
 trees. 
 Shining arms of the wind with a shout are about 
 
 me curled. 
 Sunbeams lighten the flowers for beginning bees. 
 The primrose touches my sight as though 'twere 
 
 a tender place 
 Where the nerves of the soul respond to the 
 
 hand of tears 
 When joy is a thing grown dim in the eyes, as a 
 
 longed for face. 
 Come from the dark, redeems the sorrow; of 
 
 sunless years. 
 Is it rain in their dewy depths where the eyes 
 
 of the violet 
 Glow deep with delight and leaves? or is it my 
 
 own are wet? 
 
 173 
 
174 MARCH 
 
 glorious wild glad thing 
 Gone into my blood to-day. 
 Where glamours of gold that swing 
 From heaven's high arch of grey 
 And under each tasselled spray 
 Are making their magic good. . . . 
 The air it is as a flood 
 
 That mirrors the moving sky. 
 And fleets of the clouds go by 
 Whilst wonderment they unload: 
 
 1 breathe, and they fill my blood 
 With silence, and haste away. 
 Or joy that is grave and gay 
 Comes on as I breathe again. 
 Shadow and shine of rain. 
 Laughter and loud caress 
 
 From mouths of the winds that press 
 The print of their singing way 
 All over earth's nakedness. 
 The heights of thy maddest mood 
 Methinks I had understood 
 The hardlier were it less — 
 That depth of thy tenderness. 
 Where hazels are whispering 
 
MARCH 175 
 
 And the grey oak trunk and the green 
 
 Stand over the celandine 
 
 And watch all the waking wood. 
 
 March, thou art made as man ! — 
 As a man that lives 
 
 For a passionate quest through a world that is 
 made with strife. 
 
 1 have heard thee speak "Alone" as only a human 
 
 can; 
 And the sound of thy searching gives 
 The hint of an echo that hides in the breasts and 
 
 the hair of a wife. 
 And as a man thou art become, O March, and 
 
 human, 
 That all day long dost search the wolds and hills ! 
 Where there are primroses and daffodils 
 Thou goest like a lover for her sake : 
 Thou wouldst be fierce and tender in the brake : 
 Thou art as man, and April is thy woman ! 
 
'A GARDEN IN THE FIELDS 
 
 Outside, the unmown meadows are that gleam 
 With all their white-and-golden margarets ; 
 As though some ploughing of the starry team 
 Gave earth another Galaxy, that sets 
 When the scythe comes, and no man quite for- 
 gets 
 Who once was child though gone be grace of 
 
 dream. . . . 
 When the stars go, how the stars shine. 
 None may, who may forget all else divine. 
 
 With all the sweets of scent and sound she wears, 
 When bees' wings move in her wide honeyed zone ' 
 To one soft song, the lime tree shades and shares 
 This rose-garden's full fragrance with her own. 
 As fragrant as are roses kissed upon 
 By Evening's amours under early stars 
 Her shadows are. . . . They seem to keep 
 In their green dusk a sense of things asleep. 
 176 
 
IN MEDIAS RES 
 
 Along the grass 
 
 Below dark beeches russet-stained with fruit 
 
 Dank bindweeds pass. 
 
 Where but for sound of myriad flies are mute 
 
 The brakes of shining privet, sickly sweet 
 
 From half white blossoms over-blown : 
 
 The scattered fallen fragrance round their feet 
 
 Still breathes of rain that bruised and beat them 
 
 down. 
 But in the privet boughs 
 No bird to-day dares to be amorous, 
 While glooms with their grey faces watch his 
 
 house. 
 Midsummer here makes manifest her grief 
 Bereft of him and in the midst of things — 
 Nay, Love himself hides fearful like a thief. 
 Somewhere, with frightened plumage on his 
 
 wings. 
 
 177 
 
178 IN MEDIAS RES 
 
 When, like a clarion through those ash trees, 
 
 hark!— 
 The thrush confirms his tenure and his love. 
 The shadow on the woods yields up its dark 
 With half reluctant haste to beams above. 
 The sun smiles: and a wind grown warm and 
 
 glad 
 Goes by, and there is that within its tune 
 Whereof the world takes comfort being mad 
 With God's insanity of summer noon. 
 
IN AUTUMN 
 
 I see the sun grow old, 
 Grow grey and old, and, full of quiet, creep 
 From the still slopes and chasmed ways of clouds 
 That fill the frontiers of his place of sleep : — 
 Wan suns, that bleach the shadows cast 
 On stubble-fields all day with mist of gold. 
 Where evenings — each one earlier than the last — 
 From golden mist prepare their paler shrouds. 
 As nightfall gathers stars with viewless hand. 
 So death goes wide and gathers in the dusks : 
 The sharp white breath of morning on the land 
 Gleams whiter for the empty chestnut husks. 
 
 179 
 
WOOD-SORREL 
 
 Though purple Pasque and white anemone 
 Unfold their trembling stars to April skies, 
 That sensitive soft closure of thine eyes — 
 Is it not well with thee? 
 
 Haply the dark doth weigh upon thy joy? 
 Rain and the night, — with these, as one afraid, 
 Thou dost thy simple artifice employ. 
 Wild Wood-Sorrel, small shamrock of the shade. 
 
 Wild Wood-Sorrel, O wild white Wood-Sorrel! 
 
 O triple-heart of lovely little leaves! 
 
 That draws mine own heart so my memory 
 
 cleaves 
 To thee, where thou dost dwell. 
 Hazels are all about thee filled with song; 
 And freshly fair as their bright burgeoning. 
 On beautiful broad pinions drives along 
 The yellow Brimstone butterfly of Spring. 
 1 80 
 
TO GERMANY 
 
 IN HER PROGRESS TOWARDS SOCIALISM 
 
 From out the hills of India the seed of human- 
 kind 
 Went wandering across a western world; 
 Till they cleansed them and their faces from the 
 darks they left behind 
 As the west winds' brighter breath about them 
 curled. 
 For the sense of things was coming to a planet 
 that had swung 
 Through old ages but a shape of singing 
 flame. 
 And the womb of earth conceived again, and 
 born of her there sprung 
 Fresh fruit of primal Purpose : and her name 
 Was Liberty — ^the first of names to be, 
 i8i 
 
i82 TO GERMANY 
 
 Though as yet for little else than noumenon — 
 Blind as yet and knowing little but the instinct 
 
 to be free : 
 In her soul the endless calling of some ever- 
 lasting sea — 
 As the Volga and the Danube felt their pas- 
 sion's mystery 
 And the twins of one white bosom, Rhine and 
 Rhone. 
 
 Though the rages of the jungle ran as ravin in 
 their blood ; 
 Though the tiger was tenacious of his lust; 
 Though their eyes shone bale and murder; 
 though their souls were unsubdued, 
 Save of death and many women, as their dust; 
 Though they wrested and they ravished so to 
 glut them was to live 
 Such as life found only good, nor made them 
 laws 
 Where all law was but The Strongest's, Love 
 at last there came to give 
 Men to Manhood, and the tiger shed his claws. 
 ^Andthey went upon the mountains and the 
 plains, 
 
TO GERMANY 183 
 
 And in long-forgotten forests made their 
 home. 
 And the Roman found them stronger than the 
 
 strongest of his chains, 
 For they carried seed of Liberty like passion in 
 
 their veins, 
 And the Roman spake it of them, and the thing 
 he spake remains — 
 That their women were a pattern unto Rome. 
 
 And the ages passing slowly saw the later Cae- 
 sars rise: 
 And the tyranny of later Rome began ; 
 Till was humbled there a continent about the 
 feet of Lies : 
 But Germany was waiting with the man. 
 And the voice of Luther thundered; and al- 
 though they sought to burn. 
 Poison, torture, maim, and murder as they 
 might. 
 Mostly in the south they did it, northward men 
 began to turn 
 To the first far beams of morning from the 
 night. 
 
1 84 TO GERMANY 
 
 England's Channel and the German Ocean saw 
 God's great mercy manifested on his 
 
 priests, 
 Till the whole Armada vanished in his mercy 
 
 and the maw 
 Of the seas that sucked up Spain and leapt with 
 
 mercy's iron paw 
 On her warships and them mangled, as with 
 
 mercy tooth and claw 
 A tiger tears his victims at his feasts. 
 
 Shall our England's Newton nothing owe thy 
 Kepler, Germany, — 
 They who tireless tracked the secrets of a 
 star? 
 Or thy galaxies of Science that shall light the 
 world to be 
 Darken at the isle where Darwin's ashes are? 
 Shall blood-brotherhood be broken that has 
 drawn Religion's fangs 
 And sterilized the poison-pest of popes ? 
 Comes a day when Truth for manhood like a 
 star in heaven hangs 
 And the Peoples by her aid shall find their 
 hopes. 
 
TO GERMANY 185 
 
 Shall be known then, undisguised of gold or 
 priest, 
 Gods that scorned him, helping Mammon in 
 his needs. 
 Though a score of Christian kaisers yet may 
 
 clench a mailed fist 
 And with mighteous abnegation make appeal to 
 
 Jesus Christ — 
 For whose teaching, but for priests and kings, 
 might now be socialist 
 All the lands to which the star of Freedom 
 leads. 
 Shall not England then acclaim thee? With a 
 song across the waves 
 Shall our Motherland not greet thy Father- 
 land? 
 Shall their children bow for ever down to Mam- 
 mon like to slaves? 
 War, upon their foreheads, Cain-like, set its 
 brand ? 
 Though of surety shall men strive still, when is 
 GOLD but only gold. 
 When are gods and kings forgotten as its 
 power, 
 
1 86 TO GERMANY 
 
 Man shall strive for other freedom than of gilt 
 Oppression's mould — 
 On their god and gold alike shall come his 
 hour. 
 And the time shall be passed over when he 
 thrives 
 Who is only lord of others' poverty; 
 Till is war but only murder done on inoffensive 
 
 lives ; 
 As the day is passed when white men needs must 
 
 murder for their wives, — 
 As the day when men for holiness need cut them- 
 selves with knives, 
 O Germany! A welcome unto thee! 
 
BEFORE DAYBREAK 
 
 Dream-voices called me, — when the night was 
 late, — 
 
 Ere yet the skies held but a single star. 
 My soul crept darkling out by slumber's gate 
 
 To where the sea-banks of the morning are. 
 
 To coasts of cloud, where like a falling sea 
 Night with her winds and stars draws off 
 from day 
 
 Into deep waters of Infinity, 
 
 My soul by leaguered shadows found a way. 
 
 The draining sea-ways of the dark were filled 
 ' With gleam of sullen stars; a clanging wind 
 Far out was moving; nearer, echo shrilled 
 As from shrunk throats by passing passion 
 thinned. 
 
 There crouched my soul, as one who by a tide. 
 In lonely and waste lands where Death is king, 
 187 
 
1 88 BEFORE DAYBREAK 
 
 Keeps mournful watch with ghosts of them who 
 died 
 Baffled of love and life and everything. 
 
 Around, spent waters of the night went past — 
 Slow eddies thick with sands of time and 
 storms, 
 Where shapes obscene their horrid shadows cast 
 Like shardbourne things begot from huge sea- 
 worms. 
 
 Then seemed it me that Change, her mighty 
 womb 
 Aborting from the myriad growth of years, 
 Shuddered; and issue thence, as from a tomb, 
 Pale memories of old Pain grown blind in 
 tears. 
 
 Grown blind in watching for defeated dawn, 
 Grown blind of tears till quenched all light 
 within, — 
 Starved sightless eyes that stared where ever 
 yawn 
 The grey abysses that are sorrow's kin. 
 
BEFORE DAYBREAK 189 
 
 Came others then, who soothed them with 
 strange gods. 
 And pictured heavens of eternal calm; 
 Pitied, and mocked, their blindness; beat with 
 rods; 
 And to bruised mouths held bloody sweat for 
 balm. 
 
 These crowned and robed with signs of Hatred 
 were — ■ 
 
 Incestuous Hate, in vesture gilded o'er. 
 That Avarice and Tyranny from Fear 
 
 Inherit as their birthright evermore. 
 
 From far among blue twilight wastes of time. 
 Where man's first-fruits had soul for after- 
 math. 
 Came those who watched it struggle from the 
 slime, — 
 Red-reaping went and shouting, "God is 
 Wrath!" 
 
 Then like some ghastly phantasm that Guilt 
 Weaves through her thoughts with her own 
 stained hands 
 
I90 BEFORE DAYBREAK 
 
 Rose vapors thick with blood fumes priests had 
 spilt. 
 Wherein the divers godheads choked the 
 lands. 
 
 And sinful flesh had priestly purge for leaven ; 
 
 So only man could hope to move his God 
 Where burst his soul 'mid flames and shrieks to 
 heaven, 
 Or quenched his shrieks and sins were in his 
 blood. 
 
 Then one came from a city Nazareth, — 
 A mild man teaching; children at his side. 
 
 "Love one another. God is Love," he saith. 
 And him they hated and they crucified. 
 
 And ever grew the sun-obscuring blight 
 Of altar smoke pontifical and reek: 
 
 Wars, and men shouting; battlefields at night. 
 And priests and spoilers searching cheek by 
 cheek. 
 
BEFORE DAYBREAK 191 
 
 With fiercer flames of her own impious Hell 
 From blasphemous blown breath of priestly 
 liars 
 The murder-lust of Rome with whine and yell 
 Sprang up; and beasts like priests went light- 
 ing fires. 
 
 Truth outraged saw her tortured children slain 
 And Falsehood's bastard brood grow sleek 
 and thrive; 
 
 Saw Bruno's brave strong spirit slip its chain, 
 Undaunted though his body burnt alive. 
 
 And Priestcraft leagued with Kingcraft how to 
 bind 
 
 The people soul and body like to slaves ; 
 Teaching to bear all burdens was to find 
 
 God's grace and true salvation — IN THEIR 
 
 GRAVES. 
 
 * * * 
 
 O Soul of Man, unbroken of the years; 
 It was for this that Truth a star should 
 weigh ? 
 
192 BEFORE DAYBREAK 
 
 That gods like these should fill the night with 
 fears 
 And put back heaven from an earthly day? 
 
 Save one word, "TRUTH," what word has any 
 God? 
 
 All else is dark as starless midnight's breasts. 
 While Immortality is Mammon's rod 
 
 There is no blasphemy like that of priests. 
 
 Now make they moan for fear the people see; 
 
 O Soul of Man ! heed not the liar's ruth, — 
 The hoary lies of grey senility 
 
 Still masquerading in the guise of truth. 
 
 The bait of hopes that led to Mammon's lure — 
 At last the long conspiracy is done! 
 
 O Soul of Man! fear nothing — day is sure: 
 Truth, dawn-discovered, rises with the sun! 
 
 Arise! The word is clarioned like the morn! 
 
 And east and west dissilient darks divide 1 
 Shall future ages name it sluggard-born 
 
 That Swinburne waked with singing ere he 
 
 died? 
 
 * * * 
 
' BEFORE DAYBREAK 193 
 
 If these things be not, Soul of Man, in thee — 
 Shall there be any in thee called sublime? 
 
 Nay, life and manhood are but mockery. 
 And history — a shambles and a crime! 
 
CUPIDO MUNDI 
 
 Ye have made me a thing for scorn — ^ye who 
 
 claim to be children of God ! 
 God of all things in all lands and in all of the 
 
 waters of earth! 
 For behofd, my name on your lips is as dust of 
 
 the earth ye have trod — 
 I who have quickened a world with the infinite 
 
 wonder of birth! 
 I am fit for a harlot's spoil, for a pander's 
 
 greed — 
 Such priests have ye given me : I have given ye 
 
 life. 
 Stews for my temples, I, and scorn for a place 
 
 in your creed — 
 I, without whom had been nor marriage of man 
 
 or wife. 
 Who hath given ye life but I — His will and His 
 
 breath? 
 
 194 
 
CUPIDO MUNDI 195 
 
 Ye who have found Hfe good! wherefore the 
 
 finger of scorn? 
 Is it infinite peace ye crave? — the guerdon of 
 
 death? 
 Through me ye have found and shall find, for 
 
 of me ye are born. 
 Not in the likeness of day, with the eyes of the 
 
 morn. 
 But as a starless night is, blind as the sneer be- 
 neath — 
 So have ye graven my image, with dead leaves 
 
 and dust for a wreath! 
 So have ye fashioned me, so! and your scorn I 
 
 requite with a rod, 
 A scourge from my garland of shame, I healer 
 
 eternal of dearth! 
 Who quicken the world with the life and the 
 
 infinite wonder of God — 
 So have ye fashioned me, so! even Lust who 
 
 have given ye birth. 
 
SENSATIONS IN SOLITUDE 
 
 Nature, is it well ? 
 I long have loved thee ! In thine every mood 
 When thou hast spoken I have understood. 
 Why art thou so intolerable become? 
 Loose me, I say, and let my spirit home ! 
 Loose me in this vague lapse, this last of light 
 Ere stars are born from bridal-beds of Night, 
 And let me find such solace as the trees 
 Have in the dusk embraces of the breeze. 
 Their murmurs of mysterious meanings hide 
 The amorous ache of lovers side by side; 
 Whose twilight talk is commune far above, 
 Yea, deeper down than language goes for 
 
 love. . . . 
 Of love, that lives unutterable things. 
 Become articulate on muted strings 
 Of dumb desire, that reft of speech awakes 
 To murmur and to marvel how it aches 
 Only, and find no use in any word 
 
 E'en ears of two-fold tenderness have heard 
 
 196 
 
SENSATIONS IN SOLITUDE 197 
 
 Dreadful the dusk grows, and with veiled de- 
 light 
 Somewhere, that hides amid the Infinite, 
 As deeper stars, of what I may not see 
 Yet must I feel wring all the roots of me. . . . 
 What art thou now that comes, that sighest so? 
 Didst thou and I love in some Long- Ago ? 
 And now, a ghost, dost haunt the glooming wind 
 At evening, for thy penance where we sinned 
 In loving by too little or too much? 
 Is mine to live whilst Memory hints at such 
 Across a tomb of far forgotten years 
 That shine and darken down my soul as tears? 
 My doom to dream; and thine to drift, aloud 
 For me with Longing, like yon evening cloud? 
 Did I do wrong upon thee in the days 
 We met among some fallen forest's ways. 
 Thou loving where I lusted ? Womanwise — 
 Since seldom man for strength of loving vies 
 With woman — dost thou strive to get to me. 
 For that we two were lovers Destiny 
 Destroyed of Iswift snake-poison ere we died. 
 Or of hate's twin-born serpent-sister, pride. 
 Who fain would kiss forgiveness once, and cease 
 Where passion comes not ever, only peace ? 
 
198 SENSATIONS IN SOLITUDE 
 
 Dost thou so strive, to shame me, sighing thus 
 About some twilight of Love's ambitus? 
 Am I the tomb? — ^to which hast striven long. 
 Self-shameful, as are women that do wrong 
 On Love, God's supreme godhead. Am I him 
 Thou didst go hate — for jealousy, or whim 
 Of vanity, or sake of spite's revenge. 
 Those petty powers that bid some women range 
 To do obedient all their bests on her 
 Who builds of her own hands love's sepulchre? 
 Speak ! Whosoe'er thou art ! I too have sinned, 
 It may be I have suffered. . . . Hath the wind. 
 That it should whisper darkling down to death ? 
 All Sorrow might have spoken things it saith. . . . 
 Hath it no wistful wisdom, nought of speech 
 For memory, save such as ruins teach 
 By silent stones and stony silentness, — 
 No love that is in longing, to express ? 
 No tender truth at Twilight-tide, to move 
 The soul of man to deeper things of love? 
 To all this place of shadows, comes no sigh 
 Breathed forth for pain of pent-up passion, nigh 
 To swoon from its own long desire and need? 
 Of these things takes the Nightfall never heed 
 
SENSATIONS IN SOLITUDE 199 
 
 In all her voices heard in wind or tree? 
 All ye who may lie lonely, answer me. . . . 
 
 High meadow grasses, mourning down the 
 
 darks, 
 Hold Song asleep within their latent larks 
 A-dream of dawn's delirious climb through gates 
 Of dewy daylight, dearer for their mates 
 That sent them skyward singing. . . . May the 
 
 soul 
 Whose wings are fed of earth, by love's control 
 Fare forth to find a heaven, but the one 
 Whose wings are weary ere the day begun 
 Lets light upon its lack of love, fare forth 
 Nowise, though it be night upon the earth? 
 Nor whisper where a bird may sing? nor find 
 Some answer ever spake along the wind ?. . . . 
 
 Hush ! O'er yon elm that stands and sways alone 
 The cloud seems thinner so the stars are blown 
 Faintly above his brooding shape, that yields 
 Slow arms to Night among the dreaming 
 
 fields. . . . 
 And like a sound a night-swallow went past. 
 To lead man out of loneliness at last. 
 
BY SLEEPING WATERS 
 
 To-day no winds come here. 
 All Crummock Water feels a tranoe 
 On her dark breathless bosom clear. 
 No longer do white sunfires dance 
 In fairy fleets and one by one 
 On Buttermere. 
 
 Upon the world the might 
 Of Midsummer its magic has begun: 
 
 And every mountain height 
 Seems to grow quieter in the sun's sight; 
 And all things to grow smaller in the sun. 
 
 200 
 
THE WANDERER 
 
 All you who needs must hearken ! this is good : — 
 Wind on the hills ; and in the valleys, calm ; 
 And sunsets like a sadness in the blood, 
 Albeit with wondrous power of peace for balm; 
 And shining on its endless period 
 The starry Plough within the grip of God ; 
 And the larks' evening hymn and morning psalm. 
 
 20I 
 
A FOOL'S DREAM 
 
 I saw a man amid a place of stones 
 Who built a house of dust to dwell therein; 
 Who, when the wind unbuilt it, in loud tones 
 Cursed, and another straightway did begin. 
 
 And others of his kind to ease their ruth 
 Were greatly busy in this wise: — 
 They gathered stones: I saw an altar rise; 
 Wherefrom one shouted, "This alone is sooth. 
 Beware, the transitory dust of Truth! 
 Behold, the holiness of Compromise!" 
 
 202 
 
EVENING: WIMBLEDON 
 
 Blue-shouldered birds that sit and scream in 
 woods, 
 That haunt the passing splendour on slow 
 wings 
 And speed the falling leaf with sudden 
 cries : — 
 These — and the wind in low autumnal moods; 
 Where April's choir of wilding joyance sings 
 When loom-gales deck the skies. 
 
 No other sound : no footfall : the green grass 
 Gathers the dropping acorns one by one 
 The jays grow greedy over, gliding down. 
 And where the smiling white may-blossom was 
 Gloom, heavy hearted, in a solemn sun 
 Old thorn-brakes bloody-brown. 
 
 Swart bracken and the brambles' spotted death 
 Fill the fast flagging footsteps of the year. 
 The poplar has divested her of woe. 
 203 
 
204 EVENING: WIMBLEDON 
 
 And all her spire the wind fills with his breath : — 
 He that sang Love all day, when leaves were 
 near, 
 Sings now of Long-Ago. 
 
 That bluest of green trees, her sister dark, 
 No more now borrows dye from azure heaven 
 To paint her rustling vestures verdurous, 
 But quietly her limbs are motioned stark : 
 Where thrushes founded fanes of song at even 
 Stars find an empty house. 
 
 The birch strews every hollow deep with gold 
 And braids the twilight softly in her hair; 
 Nor no man comes to mark her lovely loss, 
 Though in the dusk her beauties yet unfold 
 (And in the dusk her limbs are very fair) 
 Seven miles from — Charing Cross. 
 
MOOD-MAGIC 
 
 As I walked into an April wind 
 I felt her hair around me roll. 
 In eyes waxed full of an April mind 
 I saw my footsteps fill behind 
 With secret of my goal. 
 
 Yet no one followed! I found her there, 
 And led thereto by a wind-blown Word. 
 I did not dream she could be so fair! 
 Against brown bracken her leaping hair 
 Was fire — but fire unheard. 
 
 The place was .... just as the place had been : — 
 The blue sky and the long brown hill; 
 White flicker of flame on the dark bright 
 
 green,— 
 The hollies her secret share between. . . . 
 If ever she was — ^they will. 
 205 
 
MICKLEHAM DOWNS 
 
 Mickleham Downs! Mickleham Downs! 
 
 What is it that thy beeches hide? 
 
 The stoat skims over thy blown hillside; 
 
 He stands and stares at me. 
 
 Pixie rings, shadowy things, 
 
 Sound of a far off sea. . . . 
 
 And it rises and falls and drowns 
 
 In the voices of wind and tree 
 
 As I lie and listen: — ^They ride! they ride! 
 
 Fleet-foot horses that long since died. . . 
 
 What shall be said of thee? 
 
 206 
 
A BALLAD OF HELL 
 
 The Hell of Priests. — -A thing for scorn of men. 
 And for the hearts of little children, fear. 
 A lure obscene to bait the traps of Faith, 
 Where bloody reek of dead men done to 
 death 
 Cries yet to men for vengeance, drawing 
 near — 
 When Truth shall cleanse the world of creeds 
 again. 
 And all their impious calumnies that sere 
 The unctuous lips of priests with lying 
 breath. 
 Grown slanderous professing to revere. 
 A god whose' love is half a hatred fell : — 
 This is the burden of an earthly Hell. 
 
 The Hell of Harlots. — Deeper none than this 
 For those, who, having loved, have sunk to 
 shame — 
 
 207 
 
2o8 A BALLAD OF HELL 
 
 ,Who, having once known heaven, from a 
 
 pit 
 Through nights and days must see the stars 
 of it 
 And feel the more their darkness, as their 
 name: 
 Whose lips have known, and sold love with a 
 kiss: 
 Who have bought gold to gild their body's 
 blame : 
 Who needs must hear the Thing of spotted 
 feet. 
 Where livid shadows of corruption flame. 
 That waits for women having love to sell : — 
 This is the burden of an earthly Hell. 
 
 The Hell of Drunkards. — Freedom of a slave 
 With thirst for master, free to feed on fire 
 And to drink poison, till for poison yearn 
 The sense and soul, till blood to craving 
 turn 
 And fill the veins with loathing and desire : 
 To pluck with palsied hands from manhood's 
 grave 
 The bittersweet of memories and the brier : 
 
A BALLAD OF HELL 209 
 
 To drain the dregs of dust from dead hope's 
 
 urn 
 And mix with madness maudhn tears and 
 
 mire. 
 To laugh, and hear the echoes of a knell : — 
 This is the burden of an earthly Hell. 
 
 The Hell of Lust. — Here is the suicide 
 Of gifts, God-given antidote of dearth ; 
 Soul slain of self, and body dirt defiled 
 In dying, leaving torture for a child — 
 The blossom withered to the blight of birth. 
 The eyes of little children crucified 
 
 With pain and punishment to mock their 
 mirth 
 That once have looked upon him so, and 
 smiled. 
 Shall haunt him till his own have closed on 
 earth 
 Who enters here — he surely so shall tell: — 
 This is the burden of an earthly Hell. 
 
'A SOUTHDOWN SUNDAY 
 
 The green great ridges under skies of cloud: 
 White scars of chalk : and sheep-bells in the hills. 
 Where from dusk juniper the storm-cocks 
 
 crowed — 
 In all a combe no latent thrush is loud. 
 The sabbath silence fills 
 A village. And the climbing road above, 
 Where scabious flowers fringe its narrow cleft, 
 — Save only where the murmuring beeches 
 
 move — 
 Was not more quiet when the Roman left. 
 
 The song of grassy places thick with thyme 
 In the warm fragrance of the middle year. 
 When all the sounds of summer seem to rhyme. 
 The clematis among the dogwoods climb — 
 The Traveller's Joy is here. 
 And here for Life's wayfarers there is balm. 
 Wild marjoram, and drowsy bees there by. . . . 
 Here the high hills hold a communion calm 
 With all the silent concourse of the sky. 
 
 2IO 
 
WHITE WITCHCRAFT 
 
 Her hair is fragrant as the musk 
 
 Of garden evenings, when the lark 
 
 Is down, and God is good to men in dreams. 
 
 When cherry orchards pale the dusk 
 
 And sheeted bloom-ghosts haunt the dark 
 
 Oft have I seen her silent over streams. 
 
 If in the meadow water-ways 
 She hides herself, or if she be 
 At all, I know not : but I think more fair 
 She grows now than in boyhood's days. 
 Hush, 'twixt that poplar and the tree 
 All blossom! No? ... . But bitter-sweet grew 
 there. 
 
 211 
 
MOODS AT MAYDAWN 
 
 I waked as one who on the shores of sleep 
 Has heard afar his pulses' quiet tune, 
 When in his veins the night has flowed along 
 To echoes light as those perchance the deep 
 Hears only from the footsteps of the moon. 
 Then suddenly there mounts a wave of song, 
 And makes it morning: so it was begun 
 For me, that music ma,de before the sun. . . . 
 The night it was when April is away 
 Ere the dawn kindles in the eyes of May. 
 
 Thereat I rose. And drifting down the world 
 With twilight foam about the white gean trees 
 I heard the May-tide making on and on; 
 Until around my being came and curled 
 Inundant joy grown deep in mysteries 
 Revealed as stars are, not by light alone. 
 In that half dark I heard the thrushes call. 
 And leaves commime, how from their poplar 
 tall 
 
 212 
 
WOODS AT MAYDAWN 213 
 
 Another moon would fling a denser shade : 
 And higher suns would hotlier climb, they said. 
 
 In that dim hour I hearkened many things 
 Come darkling 'twixt the night and day: a 
 
 shower, 
 That touched the broad black poplar into tears 
 Of tremulous delight, meseemed had wings 
 Whose passing shook the scent from every 
 
 flower 
 And brought their fragrant breathing to my ears. 
 A wind awoke, and through the hawthorn bosk 
 Went like a lover whispering at dusk ; 
 And starry eyes the cloud had closed awhile 
 Looked down again and faded in a smile. 
 
 In hollow places, hiding from the dawn 
 
 The night held her last court. With rumour's 
 
 breath 
 Of coming change her hyacinths forsook 
 The purple of her presence. I was drawn 
 To watch their myriad host that streamed be- 
 neath 
 Grow larger with each trembling air that shook 
 
214 WOODS AT MAYDAWN 
 
 The azure of a new allegiance 
 
 Over their serried sweets' obedience. 
 
 I saw a thrush sweep through them shouting, 
 
 "Day!" 
 They rose in ranks and murmured it was May. 
 
 Where couchant bugles lull the ears of Sleep 
 When she lies out o' nights among her brood 
 Of dewy shadows, where the glowworms come, 
 And great moths go with lustrous eyes to steep 
 Their tongues in honeyed hours beside the wood, 
 I wandered till I heard a pine tree hum, 
 Above my head, old things equivocal. 
 And in my brain his magic musical 
 Told of forgotten Mays the place had known. 
 That none remembered save himself alone. 
 
 And here the ground v/as broken up with sighs : 
 Black heath and gloomy furrows filled with 
 
 dearth 
 Made moan upon the hill and in my heart. 
 For all I felt the morning in my eyes. 
 Here like a dark disquiet lay the earth 
 From heaven's divine dim breast a thing apart. 
 
WOODS AT MAYDAWN 215 
 
 Till on me too as on the place did seem 
 Such blind eclipse as Love's celestial dream 
 Must wear on earth at times, beyond the suns, 
 When all things men call good go out at once. 
 
 So stood I, when there floated high above 
 A sound of silver music heard afar, 
 Made by no mortal breathings men employ 
 But by the life between the lips of Love. 
 The first lark in the last light of a star 
 Silvered his song and wings and all their joy 
 Of beating in blue air. And on me came 
 Expectancy, desires without a name. 
 Large as the kindling east, wherein a thrush 
 Sat burning, mute, upon a golden bush. 
 
 A glory grew upon the gorse, untold 
 
 By poet yet, nor e'er by painter caught 
 
 On some sheer breathless moment's mountain 
 
 height. 
 When from each nerve of sense the manifold 
 Quick chords of Beauty tremble into thought 
 Too swift for words that brush or pen may write. 
 Whilst her own auras lit that lonely place 
 The Maydawn came, like to the living face 
 
2i6 WOODS AT MAYDAWN 
 
 Of Love beloved amid the gorse and dew 
 Of primal planets when the world was new. 
 
 Then worked within my soul the yeast of years 
 
 That rose to Man, and which some men call 
 GOD. 
 
 I knew that all this glory was my own. 
 
 So went I on ; and holy to my ears 
 
 Earth made her songs for May's white period. 
 
 From each thick-budded hawthorn bower blown 
 
 Came love's exultant clarion call to joy. 
 
 And flowers that timid artifice employ 
 
 Against the damps and darks heard too, I wis. 
 
 I watched them ope their eyes. . . . But Herb- 
 Paris 
 
 I gathered there, for that for true love is. 
 
MIDSUMMER: MORNING 
 
 Go gladly ; but for greater joy lie down, 
 
 And Joy thy boon and bedfellow shall be — 
 
 Here where the parsley-ferns encompass thee 
 
 In fairy-forest fashion of their own. 
 
 And here, within the breath of breezes blown 
 
 From sunward, Joy shall voice about the woods 
 
 Her high inundant hour's infinitudes. 
 
 And rumours rife with amorous undertone. 
 
 Now passionate dim places gloom with grass 
 
 Deep under hazel arches dusk and still : 
 
 And where a drapet of dog-violet was. 
 
 White bedstraw is and golden tormentil. 
 
 * * * 
 
 My lady of all dear desire. 
 The year is at the full ! 
 Mid-rapture like Midsummer breathes and 
 sways 
 Of sweet things deepest done 
 Since bashful lips begun 
 217 
 
2i8 MIDSUMMER: MORNING 
 
 When Spring came coyly to Love's long em- 
 brace. 
 Oh grant in dreams I may acquire 
 Some measure of thy grace! 
 Here are green grots and grassy caverns 
 cool: 
 Leaves dark with verdant sleep 
 Where lovers' limbs may keep 
 That eloquence no slumber's draughts may 
 dull. 
 I feel in lover-wise 
 Thy hand across my eyes. 
 Thy hair is like a sunfiire through green leaves 
 wandering : 
 It burns upon my brow 
 Like kisses lingered through 
 When love for very Love's sake durst nought 
 but kiss and cling. 
 If thou shouldst seek to slay me now, 
 
 Sweet, would I fear the fire? 
 Or wake to wisdom where I dream a fool — 
 If thou shouldst bid me bide me 
 In folly, but beside thee? 
 My lady of all dear desire, 
 The year is at the full! 
 
WAYFARINGS 
 
 I love all roads that have green sides of grass, 
 Where giant purple knapweeds, dark and wild, 
 Still nod their shaggy welcome when I pass, 
 
 Above pale clover flowers. 
 I used to think they loved me, as a child ; 
 And though they have forgotten now, alas, 
 And now they only nod where once they smiled, 
 
 I wander there for hours. 
 
 I love such ways as lead where no one knows — 
 Nor cares, but I : where once the Roman trod. 
 Where spreading hogweed stands in stately rows, 
 
 Nor woodbine-breezes cloy. 
 It may be Fancy, or it may be God — 
 A sense is ofttimes with me then that goes. 
 Past where the larks their utmost song unload, 
 
 Beyond the heights of joy. 
 
 I love all goings westward when the way 
 Is girt about with evening; when low gleams 
 219 
 
220 WAYFARINGS 
 
 Are yet above dim woods, and yet the day 
 Lingers though night appears. 
 
 Within my soul a yearning sadness teems. 
 
 From Twilight comes it, then? From God it 
 may. 
 
 But certain there is then with me that seems 
 Beyond the depths of tears. 
 
WISLEY POND: EVENING 
 
 The evening like an echo fades : the lark 
 Immortal music feeds on mortal worms, 
 And, silent on his earthly quest employed, 
 Leaves one late singer to await the dark 
 
 Alone, where erstwhile hundreds had en- 
 joyed 
 High feasts of sunset harmony. And swarms 
 Of myriad midges in frenetic maze 
 
 Dance madly down their little day to death: 
 The bats are busy beating through the haze : 
 Far off, an owl hoots somewhere in the heath. 
 
 Encircling armies of the serried pines 
 
 Close darkling up their ranks against the dusk. 
 Where sucks the water darkling at the sand. 
 Only upon the middle mere there shines 
 
 A luminous pale twilight, as they stand 
 With sombre breathings brooding, while the 
 husk 
 
 221 
 
222 WISLEY POND: EVENING 
 
 Slips from them silently as time and slow. 
 
 And some there are that lost their place, to fall 
 Long-drowning by the margin, long ago. 
 
 Still gaunt and grey the dead limbs drip and 
 call. 
 
 They drip, and call to me of days when here, 
 As boy, I saw them boldly by the edge. . . . 
 I did not dream to drown so near to life 
 Were easy, but to-night a Thing of fear 
 
 Grows plainer for the dark, a sound is rife 
 Of sorrow in the swart and stunted sedge. . . . 
 Hark! .... 'Twas those poplars shivering at 
 the moon 
 As the wind rises with her. . . . Now it 
 comes! .... 
 From all their ranks, as vibrant strings in tune, 
 The pines' own diapason moans and hums. 
 
THE OAK IN THE FOREST 
 
 Here, when the dark her dusky glamour flings 
 
 Across the breast of midnight's mighty trance, 
 I mark the beat of awful planet wings, — 
 Lone planets on eternal wanderings; 
 And all the lapse of starry circumstance. 
 
 * * * 
 Where are you now, — O lives of little span 
 That held Love's high communion 'neath my 
 boughs 
 And leaves aflower with star-fire, — maid and 
 
 man? 
 You loved For Ever — so your legend ran — 
 
 And called the stars to witness lovers' vows. 
 Your secrets have survived you! And your 
 love? .... 
 If Love be only not more strong than Death, 
 Rest you content, you Memories that rove 
 Among the nights around me! — so shall prove 
 Unquenched is love though quenched the 
 lover's breath. 
 
 223 
 
224 THE OAK IN THE FOREST 
 
 And you who loved a minute or an hour ! 
 
 And you who with warm eyes looked soft at 
 lust 
 And loved in your own fashion, till the flower 
 You plucked had withered and its honey-dower 
 
 Was barren and unprofitable dust ! 
 
 Where are you now, while still the same old fires 
 Through years of lonely travel light at last 
 
 Among my branches, cold as dead desires ? 
 
 And yet .... the lights, the anthems, of the 
 starry choirs 
 Seem kinder for your calling in the past. 
 
BEFORE A PICTURE 
 
 Grey eyes that haunt me like some distant sea 
 
 Whose echoes wreck my soul ! 
 
 Cold as death is, and sure as death will be, 
 
 You watch for whom? for what? for me? 
 
 Deadly as some still shoal 
 
 Whereon strange gleams play wanly. But the 
 
 night 
 Is not so dark as your unholy light 
 And your desire unnamed. 
 Unnamed ? . . . . Who knows the anger of your 
 
 spite 
 Shall learn the things that long your heart has 
 
 claimed. 
 Insatiate, inwardly. . . . 
 Have done : weep. . . . Nay ! forgive me, I am 
 
 shamed ! 
 Forgive me! MISERY. 
 
 225 
 
SUMMER IN FAIRLIGHT 
 
 Fairlight ! and fair the chequered darks that cloak 
 
 Thy bosom from the wide search of the sun 
 With lattice leaves of ash and lichened oak, 
 
 Where little liquid echoes lightly run 
 From the damp ledges of thy Dripping Well, 
 By ways grown dim with fern-shadows, and 
 spun 
 Like silver threads through silence, or the 
 sound 
 Of blown trees making murmur in the dell 
 When trees and tide hold vague communion — 
 As rumours by the sea-winds noised around. 
 
 Fairlight ! and fair when Noon o'er sea and land 
 Weaves her strong spells of sleep and drowsy 
 stress 
 And the enchantment of her glimmering wand 
 Mirage makes of the mute sea's breathless- 
 ness ; — 
 
 a26 
 
SUMMER IN FAIRLIGHT 227 
 
 When on the further deep the distance calls 
 From bloomy banks of shimmering silentness 
 With that mute voice that from horizons 
 comes, 
 Till on the senses straining seaward falls 
 
 A lapse, wherethrough, down a blue water, 
 press 
 Dream-driven craft and fleets of phantasnls. 
 
 Fairlight ! and fair when wealth of sunset-gold 
 Endows the world with Evening's large 
 content. 
 For then it seems thy magic manifold 
 
 Takes on a deep, diviner element. . . . 
 Here — that saw once the death wings of the 
 Dane 
 Beat coastwise filled of murder's fell intent — 
 Flows darkling by thy front of cliflfs and 
 scars 
 The sea that slew the murder-priests of 
 Spain. . . . 
 Night comes, and Peace, on sapphire pinions 
 blent. 
 Made perfect in a plenitude of stars. 
 
A NEW YEAR'S DAY 
 
 Like silver veins that breathe maroon and mist 
 The birches fill The Hollow's heart unheard — 
 Though all the streams go murmuring to their 
 
 tryst 
 The pool that holds them silent afterward 
 Is not more still with brimful quiet now : 
 The winds come nowise here the hills below. 
 
 Grey copes of cloud have darkened, all day long, 
 The sun's face from his firstling of the year. 
 When silence suddenly becomes a song — 
 There is no more of winter anywhere! 
 But some strong spirit haunting solitudes 
 That sings its heart out from the underwoods. 
 Where pollard willows seem a bush on fire 
 For flame-bright growth of fixed resplendency 
 This glad ghost of a Phoenix-like desire 
 Makes, haply, his incarnate mystery; 
 228 
 
A NEW YEAR'S DAY 229 
 
 Red willow-shoots that flame-like fire its 
 
 joy. . . . 
 I have heard thrushes sing so — as a boy. 
 
 * * * 
 
 A sky more meet for deathdays than for birth : — 
 All day The Hollow had forgot the sun. 
 I went : 'twas January on the earth. 
 I heard : and lo, a miracle was done ! 
 And streams that hide save for much murmur- 
 ing 
 Took on a two- fold secret from the thing. 
 
 Whereat I sought the willow clump, to see 
 The spirit singing through its wattled house; 
 Whilst all around foregathered silently 
 Such strange Unknown as live behind the boughs. 
 They watched with me — a dusky shadow-swarm. 
 (Sometimes in moon-lit brakes they touch my 
 arm.) 
 
 Then as a woman anxious with her mate 
 For bridal wonders grew the lonely combe : 
 I felt The Mother's yearning for the weight 
 Of sun-fired seed fill all her furrowed womb. 
 
230 A NEW YEAR'S DAY 
 
 Primordial things, and strange prophetic heat : — 
 I felt her holy ardours through my feet. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Like one who in the winter of love's ruth 
 Lies out o' nights with his pale love, the stars. 
 Because some maid on earth has less of truth 
 And graciousness for him than nature sparse 
 In all that makes for heaven, there to find 
 In far off fire some passion to his mind, — 
 
 In things beyond, to find Life's recompense 
 For what the shadow. Fate, can fling on life, — 
 To mount on mental longings to immense 
 And clasp the constellations for a wife, — 
 To flinch no more for smart in sense of loss 
 Than night's blue breast that screech owls scratch 
 across, — 
 
 (These things are left the bosom grown forlorn, 
 When wisdom has forgetfulness for goal. 
 Whereof 'tis more to be than not be born 
 Though the mind turn upon and mock the soul : 
 'Tis very death indeed ere life has ceased 
 That finds the wind blow always from the east.) 
 
A NEW YEAR'S DAY 231 
 
 So sought I there, though winter's dearth was 
 
 dumb 
 With dreariness and trouble of the skies ; 
 And found for boon a kindlier Voice was come 
 So all the world was taken by surprise 
 To such glad purpose that I overheard 
 The New Year's wonder spoken, like a word 
 Whose echoes breathe a blessing afterward. 
 
LOVE LYRICS 
 
 (To a Woman.) 
 
 I dream of her throughout the day. . . . 
 Like clouds across the Milky Way, 
 
 That waken stars and feel the bosom stir 
 Of midnight 'neath their soundless flight, 
 In dreams my soul upon the night 
 
 Roams silent as a cloud in search of her ; 
 
 And finding, finds such joy — not heaven, 
 Nor all its stars, has greater even ! 
 
 (To Nature.) 
 
 Ah, give her to me. Mother ! All my life 
 Is hungry for her! Oh to call her Wife! 
 No more I ask of thee but only this, 
 And I will thank thee every time we kiss ! 
 Mother, thy heart can tell thee how I ache, I 
 
 long,— 
 Mine does but echo thine eternal song. . . . 
 Why are these things, dear Mother? Tell me! 
 
 Why? 
 I know not, no, nor wiser men than 1 1 
 232 
 
A MAN'S SONG 
 
 Sundown makes me long for love. 
 'Tis not good to lie alone! 
 When the west is darkly red 
 And the birds prepare for bed; 
 When the star-drift floats above 
 And the woods in darkness drown, 
 'Tis not good to lie alone. 
 Sundown makes me long for love. 
 
 Sundown makes me long for love. 
 'Tis not good to lie alone ! 
 Man shall strive by day ; but rest 
 In a woman's arms is best. 
 Weary days more weary move 
 Round to nights no kisses own. 
 'Tis not good to lie alone. 
 Sundown makes me long for love! 
 
 233 
 
234 A MAN'S SONG 
 
 Sundown makes me long for love. 
 'Tis not good to lie alone ! 
 Love should be the end of strife. 
 Whoso ne'er has clasped a wife 
 Him shall every night reprove, 
 That with tender joys should crown. 
 Sundown makes me long for love. 
 'Tis not good to lie alone! 
 
A GIRL'S SONG 
 
 In summer days 
 
 By lonely ways 
 I met a lad who spoke to me. 
 
 We both were young: 
 
 We did no wrong : 
 Nor were there eyes to see. 
 
 But what we did, 
 
 Or where we hid. 
 The birds alone were witness of. 
 
 Or if we both 
 
 To part were loth. 
 I liked him well enough. 
 
 And now I'm wed. 
 
 He may be dead. 
 And husbands are not always kind. 
 
 I sometimes pass 
 
 That way, alas. 
 And listen to the wind. 
 
 233 
 
A CHILD'S SONG 
 
 Down by the mill-pool. 
 
 Ere the swallows come. 
 
 Where the water tumbles 
 
 Ever into foam, 
 
 Blooming in the springtime, 
 
 Long before the swallows. 
 
 Brave and bold, 
 
 Full of gold. 
 
 See the sunny sallows! 
 
 Down by the mill-pool. 
 When we're fast asleep, 
 Men with lighted lanterns 
 Round the sallows creep. 
 Catching 'em in hundreds — 
 Some as big as swallows ! 
 Shaking moths 
 Into cloths, 
 'All along the sallows! 
 336 
 
MICHAELMAS DAISIES 
 SONG 
 
 Wanly blue-and-gold beneath her golden-blue 
 Where SEPTEMBER'S peace has passed into 
 the skies, 
 Where the quiet breath of autumn creeping 
 through 
 Clothes maturing apple-garths in mellow guise, 
 They are blooming by the orchard, all arow. 
 And they mock me with the sun's peace in 
 their eyes. 
 Till I seem to see you stand, 
 With the daisies in your hand, 
 In that soft September sunlight long ago. 
 
 Have you since come here to wonder why we 
 met 
 In this garden-close beside the apple trees? 
 Do the daisies know we parted, even yet. 
 When their pale eyes feel them kissed on by 
 the bees. 
 That they sway themselves together, to and 
 fro, 
 
 237 
 
238 MICHAELMAS DAISIES. SONG 
 
 In this golden calm, for all there is no breeze? 
 While I seem to see you stand, 
 With the daisies in your hand, 
 In that soft September sunlight long ago. 
 
 By the wildwood where we wandered and the 
 stream 
 There are memories of an autumntide that 
 was. 
 In the fern-filled hollow where we went to dream 
 Lie the dreams we left, that other Michaelmas. 
 But in places that none ever seems to know 
 Had in years agone a greener kind of grass, 
 By the orchard hedge you stand. 
 With the daisies in your hand. 
 In that soft September sunlight long ago. 
 
SIBYLLA 
 
 (A dream, after a glimpse of the butterfly, 
 Limenitis Sibylla, in a Kentish woodland.) 
 In wayless wildwood where such shadows meet, 
 Green shades that crossed the sunlight on slow 
 feet 
 Moved eastward down the gold of after- 
 noon. 
 Fern — ^where the foxglove flowers, and lizards 
 fleet: 
 And bramble bosks — where bees come and 
 commune. 
 
 The lizards fleet and flash among the fern : 
 With purple pride the foxgloves brood and bum : 
 
 The silver blowth of brambles in July 
 Wings the wild bees with rapturous return: 
 
 And with the wild bees to the woods go I. 
 
 239 
 
240 SIBYLLA 
 
 As one who hides him — ^when the clouds are slow 
 On far of? hillsides and noon's afterglow 
 
 Mounts like a scented sunfire in his brain, 
 Whereof warm dreams and golden come and 
 go- 
 In a green place where dryads might have 
 lain. 
 
 Or some wild nymph of woodlands lately gone 
 To coy in deeper coverts, who anon 
 
 May yet return, and, feeling her surprise 
 Grows while by mortal glances fed upon, 
 
 Seal with her mouth a sleep upon his eyes. 
 
 So, the beginning : and I found it good. 
 And a great store of honey in the wood — 
 
 Such sweets as man may cull from dreams 
 for drink, 
 Midsummer's drowsy draughts that draw the| 
 blood 
 Dream-wise : they made me drunkard there, 
 I think. 
 
 For I sat darkling in cool shadows deep; 
 And the dim leaves spake to me slowly — '"Sleep," 
 But, lest I failed of deeper dreams, her name 
 
SIBYLLA 241 
 
 Of dusky wings wherefrom white wonders 
 leap, — 
 "SIBYLLA": cloudy, but with stars she 
 came. 
 
 She floated by the foxgloves ; and I heard 
 Her name within me waken like a word 
 
 Of tender whispers told to slumber's tide. 
 Belike the leaves that loomed about me stirred — 
 
 Blown hair they breathed, of some warm- 
 waking bride. 
 
 To silver shine of bramble-flower she wed 
 Such tremulous desire the brake, instead, 
 
 A birth of starry bloom seemed bent upon. 
 Awhiles I watched. . . . Dreams rose into my 
 head 
 
 With dusk and fire of her : the sun was gone ! 
 
 Then Her I saw, — ^blue darkness filled thCiland, — 
 The sky behind her, trees on either hand : 
 
 Fledged by the night she stood so, un- 
 awares — 
 
242 SIBYLLA 
 
 Where dusk wings were, now by the heavens 
 vanned 
 And with intolerable delight of stars. 
 
 "Now surely she," I said, "is very fair ! 
 
 The night has wrought wide pinions thus for her. 
 
 Behold, she brings stars to me by her grace !" 
 At that her shut eyes opened 'neath her hair. 
 
 As I drew close. It was my lady's face ! 
 
 My lady who in dreams is good to me ! 
 Of strange sweet ways she is and mystery 
 
 That with soft hands she lays love on my 
 eyes — ■ 
 Love woven into dreams, wherethrough I see 
 
 Two lovers make them one in paradise. 
 
 No sins are in that Eden, only love : 
 
 Its seven days are full of flowers thereof. 
 
 Its seven nights — of stars to gather by ; 
 And on the seventh there are stars enough : 
 
 My lady is as sweet as she is shy. 
 
 Therefore I durst not speak for tenderness. 
 I wot there are such things Love may express 
 By silence, as by splendour, of his wings. 
 
SIBYLLA 243 
 
 There seem no stars by noonday, but they guess 
 Rightly, I wot, who hold there be such 
 things. 
 
 Whereat she smiled, — her eyes with dreams un- 
 blown 
 Were as twin flowers by twilight overgrown 
 
 That loosens all their sweetness on the dark. 
 I knew she smiled from dreams where we, alone. 
 Lay under leaves when none there were to 
 mark. 
 
 A veil of gauze, as fine as moonlit dew. 
 
 Lit her lithe limbs and let their longing through. 
 
 For now my lady moved, and now the brake 
 Clung hard upon her subtile shape anew : 
 
 I feared for her dear whiteness' tender sake. 
 
 I ne'er had known my name could sound as 
 
 sweet — ■ 
 She put such wistful welcome into it. 
 
 I took the thorns unheeded in my hands 
 And felt her grateful gladness move to meet 
 
 My lips, in ways a woman understands. 
 
244 SIBYLLA 
 
 Released from out the bondage of the briers — 
 Unbound, she would not break from the desires 
 That drew our bosoms close with kindlier 
 bond. . . . 
 The stars for joy redoubled all their fires ; 
 
 The fern put forth her fragrance — every 
 frond. 
 
 "Sibylla, sweet !" — ^the blue dark shone ; the wood 
 Made all its leaves to murmur like our blood — 
 
 "There is no name that I may love you by 
 So sweet as may sttfifice love's amplitude." . . . 
 
 The stars sang, all together, from the sky. 
 
 "Yet, since I love, content you," — and we kissed : 
 As autumn moonlight were her eyes for mist — 
 
 "My maiden-bride of many midnights ! come 
 Winged with white stars to flutter in my breast 
 
 And melt my veins to molten honeycomb." 
 
 "Say how you love me: say it all," she said — ■ 
 A whisper creeping upwards o'er her head; 
 
 That blushed because my heart-beats brought 
 her shame. 
 
SIBYLLA 245 
 
 Though wherewithal her ears were comforted 
 For that her body shared both bliss and 
 blame. 
 
 Now surely God was good to me ! Her throat 
 Leaned back half hurt beneath my hand that 
 wrote 
 
 With sudden stain of passion on its white. 
 And from low lids looked forth for antidote 
 
 Eyes half ashamed surprised in their delight. 
 
 "I love you for your love and tenderness, 
 Your gracious ways that but rebuke to bless 
 
 The savage still in most men living lone. 
 I am ashamed, before such gentleness 
 
 That my desires are fiercer than your own. 
 
 "Albeit, I am constrained to keep me pure 
 For you, my one delight's investiture: 
 
 All of my life I am grown fain to give. 
 I wot death with you well I might endure — ■ 
 
 Since if you die small wish have I to live. 
 
 "You are the grace of God in whom I trust. 
 Only my love is holier than my lust : 
 
 My body is aflame from every sense 
 
246 SIBYLLA 
 
 To burn upon your altars, down to dust — 
 Yea, all my days I would do reverence." 
 
 At that my lady caught my lips to hers; 
 And from her mouth I felt a universe 
 
 Of starry things wax eloquent for bliss. 
 Unborn, from far off baffled lives and worse, 
 
 Joy came to fruit; and tears were in her 
 kiss. 
 
 We, hand in hand, had wandered : now we sank 
 Into dim grass : and ferny shadows dank 
 
 With cool delight of dewfall, calm with 
 night. 
 Stood sentinel about us, rank on rank. 
 
 And ash trees' plumy tops all starry-dight. 
 
 Her limbs lay fast to mine — soft limbs that shone 
 
 As clouds behind which late the moon has gone : 
 
 She loosed her hair from out its bonds and 
 
 bound 
 
 My head to hers, with hands love wrought upon 
 
 So much — from sheer excess of joy I 
 
 frowned. 
 
SIBYLLA 247 
 
 Wherefore her gentleness was grieved, and grew 
 One with the night and star-filled trees and dew. 
 
 And made to kiss me so between the eyes 
 I felt like him long pain has stricken through — 
 
 Who finds him healed and under evening 
 skies. 
 
 Such are my lady's lips for gentle ways — 
 Perfect : and he who would perfection praise 
 
 Should be more poet than am I, although 
 I did love-labour half my mortal days 
 
 To paint one picture of her kissing so. 
 
 Lest that my ears had heard her loving heart 
 Beat out too much of music for the part 
 
 That modesty bids woman's body take 
 In that old chorus whence Love learnt his art, 
 
 A sudden shame had sent her through the 
 brake. 
 
 I durst not let her go for love of her, 
 Who is for me beyond all maidens fair. 
 
 And as are maids for men, whene'er we 
 meet. 
 In those long dreams wherein she lets me wear 
 
 Her kisses, for her favoured favourite. 
 
248 SIBYLLA 
 
 So that I held her like a flower; and fed 
 My lips upon the blossom of her head ; 
 
 And kissed her eyelids down; and made her 
 lips 
 5weet silent signs for lovers newly wed — 
 
 Mute in their wait for maidenhood's eclipse. 
 
 "Sibylla!" — and, afloat adown the dark, 
 Old songs the morning and the evening lark 
 
 Had left, I heard, and in my pulse the pang 
 Of nightingales : and through my veins a spark 
 
 Of midnight's most mercurial splendour 
 sprang — ■ 
 
 "I would awake no more and find you not ! 
 I am grown even as a harp, I wot. 
 
 Whereon no hands make music; but the 
 wind, 
 Who lusteth while he listeth in that spot, 
 
 Comes, and leaves echo-aching strings be- 
 hind." 
 
 "For very love I am grown sick of life 
 Without you! Yea, my body is but strife, 
 And all my soul is as a stricken place 
 
SIBYLLA 249 
 
 Wherein wild men strive round a sleeping wife !" 
 I saw a change come darkling on her face — 
 
 Seen hardly now for dusk of red that dims ; 
 Yea, one great rose, sent upwards to the brims 
 Of shadow sweet with hair of her: her 
 breasts 
 Waxed full with fire as amorous moons: her 
 limbs 
 Were lures Love laid for men in old forests. 
 
 Her wild white witchery was hardly still 
 In tremulous warm silence ere the will 
 
 To fly the thing she longed for left her then : 
 There are some dreams the twain of us fulfil 
 
 Where God is very good to lonely men. 
 
 My wildflower gathered under starry streams ! 
 My wildwood-wif e who loves me out of dreams ! 
 
 My maiden-bride of ferny nights and 
 bowers ! 
 My lady whose white passion-flower gleams 
 
 Star-like among a cloud of sleeping-hours! 
 
THE NOON-SPELL 
 
 Now in dense wolds of summer, dark with leaves, 
 The spell is working in the middle wood, — 
 Watched of slow clouds and seen within my 
 
 blood. 
 O Mother Nature, now my heart perceives 
 And mine eyes feel the magic of thy mood ; 
 That with tense passion weaves 
 Hushed incantations round this hour of thine 
 So all the earth is still. . . . 
 Hast thou made mute the murmur of the pine 
 That I may better hear this heart of mine, 
 "Only a cloud moves hardly from the hill"? 
 
 O Mother Nature, hearken! 'Tis the hour. . . . 
 Now all my being to thy breast is caught ! 
 Bind me my brows with vision so the noon 
 Like some green boscage teems 
 250 
 
THE NOON-SPELL 251 
 
 (Watched far away through telescopes of 
 
 thought — 
 As men through glass watch quiet breed afar 
 'Neath settled leaves of umbrages remote) 
 With silence and the loosestrife's purple dower; 
 Some grey-green island in a tide of dreams, — 
 A cloud of willows floating, — so it seems 
 Silence itself in flower. 
 
 Mother Nature, grant in me this boon. . . . 
 
 1 dare not speak thee loud. This aspen brake 
 Forgets to breathe for very passion's sake : 
 The trees have lost their tune : 
 
 And all around their leaves forget to shake 
 In this vast vague mid-rapture that is noon. 
 
 Loosestrife .... and yellow comfrey let there be 
 (I will lean down and listen in the fern — 
 So mayest thou better answer make to me) 
 In this dream-island hour set in noon's wavelesS 
 
 tide .... 
 Hardly a ripple rounds it. I discern 
 A matron Summer — ^mantled as a bride 
 Below her in the dusks the willows cast. 
 Ever she sits and dreams, and at her side 
 
252 THE NOON-SPELL 
 
 The smooth, slow, silent waters eddy past. 
 Below, in that dark mirror of their deeps, 
 She is made young with Spring and bridal hope : 
 And where a willow weeps 
 Among the shade of its long hair's grey cope 
 Spring smiles at her ; until a shadow creeps 
 O'er dreams in cloudy sleep now lost at last. 
 
 I know not if I sleep. ... All things are 
 
 strange. . . . 
 And if the trees are real I hardly know. 
 Through eyes that once had watched them long 
 
 ago 
 In this green light I feel the shadows change. . . 
 In the near fields, brimful of quietness. 
 The drowsy kine their dusky bodies hide 
 Among thick shades adown the covert side. 
 
 There where the light is low 
 
 I feel upon my face a Dryad's tress : 
 
 And in my veins the oaks their sap have breathed. 
 
 The clouds have filled my brain full of the skies. 
 
 I will lie down with all my body sheathed 
 
 In their strong sleepiness. . . . 
 
 O Mother, lay thy hand upon mine eyes. 
 
THE NOON-SPELL 253 
 
 Oh let me lose myself, myself forget, — 
 
 With thee my soul attune 
 
 Where joy is dream, lest waking be regret .... 
 
 Let me remember warm green places wet : — 
 
 Some glowing afternoon 
 
 Of rain and sun when May the throes of June 
 
 Felt full in her where hawthorn ardours met. 
 
 And all her bosom swoon. 
 
 Oh let me feel the Spring when Summer comes 
 
 Touch with a trance each pulse along my veins. 
 
 Or let me to far fields where idly hums 
 
 The great wild bee his drowsiest refrains. . . . 
 
 I feel thy glamour falling, falling, falling. 
 
 Now may I lose myself in thee for^sure. 
 
 I hear old voices calling, calling, calling. . . . 
 
 I am become an echo, that remains. 
 
 Of suns and songs and winds and trees and 
 
 rains. . . . 
 An echo? Yea, the Present is no more. 
 
APRIL 15th, 1912 
 
 Feast ye and sing for a while! Night cometh, 
 and soon shall ye sleep 
 In my dense dark places of death where none 
 shall disturb you in time, 
 Nor the sound of the world shall come ever, till 
 Earth shall be stricken and leap, 
 And the rattle of bones and of iron shall an- 
 swer Catastrophe's chime. 
 
 Is it finished ? So soon ? Is it dark down there, 
 O children of earth ? 
 For most of you light shall trouble tired eyes 
 out of sleep never more. 
 Yea, for some, it were kinder ye buried were, 
 deeper than death is from birth. 
 Than to drift, with your death-opened eyes, 
 where is only a sun for a shore. 
 
 254 
 
APRIL 15th, 1912 2S5 
 
 Only a sun ! and the stars that are suns ! — letting 
 loose with their light ere ye left, 
 Haply, the night of the womb whence ye brake 
 into earth-light and love: 
 And the beams that were born ere ye brake — ^ye 
 of living and loving bereft. 
 Shall visit you quiet at night, and the flesh of 
 your bodies remove. 
 
 * * * 
 
 But a sense of a Something beyond — a shadow 
 of different stars, 
 Shook off my desire, and went on, neither 
 loving nor hating, and ran. 
 More swift than the wave of the world, to the 
 knees of its own avatars, 
 And stronger in silence than storm in my ears 
 made answer THE SPIRIT OF MAN. 
 
IN MEMORIAM 
 
 Captain Scott and the "very gallant gentlemen" 
 who died with him, March, 1912 
 
 Time's mysteries are Man's chief monument: 
 
 Truth quarried by his courage witness bears 
 That he may harness heaven to his bent 
 
 Whose knowledge is the sum of all the years. 
 Now to earth's secret place his feet have striven ! 
 
 Where ages turn in Desolation's womb 
 And dearth to ghastly death-in-life is given 
 To him is given glory for a tomb ! 
 The unapparent South 
 Yields up her truth in tribute to the brave : 
 
 And from a dead man's mouth, 
 Above the horror of her winds that rave 
 With pitiless wide murder o'er his grave, 
 
 The Spirit of Man, undaunted, mocks his 
 doom. 
 
 256 
 
IN MEMORIAM 257 
 
 Honour to them! Who, 'midst the fruitless 
 throes 
 Of barren birth, and monstrous ice and 
 gloom, — 
 Where, hundred-leagued, the ambush of the 
 snows 
 Awaits to choke with death 
 All fruit of mortal breath 
 And hide the thing Man's lips spake ere they 
 
 froze, — 
 Went forth for Truth and found! The whole 
 world knows! 
 
ABSOLUTIO: THE RELEASE OF THE 
 DAYSPRING 
 
 Sleep, hiding in her hair the dreams of men. 
 
 Crept from the world: the calm grey feet of 
 morn 
 
 Stirred on the drowsy darkness of the corn : 
 And August woke among the hills again. 
 And star by star unloaded was The Wain, 
 
 As from his dusky penthouse they were borne ; 
 
 The whiles a daybreak-bird's indubious horn. 
 Reiterate, far echoed from the plain. 
 
 In that large hour the little shadows come 
 And spread themselves from grass and stone 
 
 and tree 
 When breaks the vast wave of Expectancy, 
 Whose orient hush has held the dark earth dumb, 
 I stood on the high hills and felt the sum 
 Of many shadows pass, in mine, from me. 
 
 258 
 
DUSKS OF SLEEP 
 
 Came one to me along the dusks of sleep 
 In such a guise as made my heart of fire, — 
 My dream, of magic filled, as from a lyre 
 
 Touched by some vaster passion's wings that 
 sweep 
 
 Through all the fundamental chords to reap 
 The madness from the music of Desire. 
 She, through low leaves and crimson flowers, 
 nigher 
 
 And ever nigher to my bed did creep. 
 
 Then silence fell. I lay — like Love in trance 
 From extreme torture of his hour delayed — 
 
 Below the mute mad meanings of her mouth, 
 That filled her hair as though some April shade 
 Where nightingales with muted countenance 
 Keep watch for loves long coming from the 
 south. 
 
 259 
 
STORM IN MAY, 
 
 Tall poplar trees that tempt a thunder-sky: 
 
 And cavernous great chestnuts girt with bloom. 
 
 And those white founts of fragrance which 
 illume 
 The dark clear daylight where the hawthorns lie : 
 At midnight, when the moon has mounted high 
 
 And dropped her pale contagion on the gloom, 
 
 So have I seen them shine, and shadows loom 
 Even as now among them and as nigh. 
 
 For all the clouds draw in, by closures grey, 
 Till one gfrows dread, and darkling mutters deep; 
 (If God has ever spoken in His sleep 
 
 I have no doubt it was in such a way) 
 And through the chestnuts' arboured grottoes 
 creep 
 
 Echoes that hush the blackbird in the may. 
 260 
 
STORM IN MAY 261 
 
 II 
 
 Why is the world so solemn stilly grown? 
 Hardly the poplar moves in all her spire. 
 And here the wan wild-parsley seems of wire, 
 So stifif it stands; nor any leaf has blown, 
 Surely, since loud that last bird's flight was flown 
 A while ago. . . . Ah! Godhead of Desire! — 
 The polar-loves' intolerable fire 
 Comes with a frightful fusion to its own ! . . . 
 A hundred lions hide in yonder hill ; 
 They roar at once ! The trees go frantic — ■ 
 
 SOUND, 
 Like huge old worms that gnaw them under- 
 ground, 
 Makes all the woods with shuddering -echoes 
 
 fill. . . . 
 Now on the blowth the bright shafts wreak their 
 will 
 As the rain's ruin dyes the grass around. 
 
SEA-LONE 
 
 The sea speaks; and her lonely voice is heard 
 With far off passion by the inland pine : 
 A silence in the west grows more divine 
 
 With echoes of her immemorial word 
 
 That sadness which is sunset might have stirred — 
 There, where the heart of day's deserted shrine 
 Lets out its last of life incarnadine — 
 
 In her, for votive memories afterward. 
 
 For me, I wait and listen. In my blood 
 She shakes the pulses with that solemn tone. 
 There is some secret Time has made her own 
 Too long, too large : not all her maidenhood 
 May hide some longing hardly understood. . . . 
 Or is it / who would not be Alone? 
 
 262 
 
MATE-MAGIC 
 
 By such enchantments is my soul pursued 
 
 As, woven, might be nets for starry things, — 
 To take some amorous meteor as he springs 
 Filling half heaven with his excitement's mood 
 At some star fair beyond its multitude, — 
 
 So strong they come. . . . Some unseen siren 
 
 sings 
 Within the passioned twilights of her wings 
 And lures men on to Love's dear hardihood. . . . 
 And now with immaterial meshes warm 
 They draw my being: scarcely I may know 
 Aught but — She waits among the woods be- 
 low. . . . 
 In night's blue flower the starry splendours 
 
 swarm 
 Thick with strange sweets. ... If e'er in love 
 be harm 
 God knows it was not I who made it so! 
 
 263 
 
THE ELM-RIDGE 
 
 I 
 
 The west is loud with wind awake and wild 
 To sow a hundred paces of their lee 
 With ravished gold that makes a harmony 
 
 Of dying leaves to songful death beguiled. 
 
 And sometimes things but hardly reconciled, 
 Of frantic sorrow sudden brought to be, 
 From the black harp of every stricken tree 
 
 Break out in moan, or sob like to a child. 
 
 Sometimes, also, a note of music shakes 
 Its broken echoes o'er leaves fallen far 
 
 Among serp grass and spotted bramble brakes. 
 Whose deathward flight is watched by the first 
 star. 
 
 These only from the topmost boughs are 
 swirled. . . . 
 
 Dreams — ^starry-high — are scattered round the 
 world. 
 
 264 
 
THE ELM-RIDGE 265 
 
 II 
 
 Each side the ridge are woodlands grey and grim 
 The dusk afresh clothes on with glooming 
 
 shade. 
 Therein are such as will not be gainsaid — 
 
 Their hour is come for spectral things and dim. 
 
 They rise when starbeams fall and quicken them 
 With fires eterne that quickened man and maid 
 Ere joys of life and love asleep were laid 
 
 With death, whose leaves and loves are one to 
 him. 
 
 One shadow of two shadows breast to breast 
 Now from the wood stands forth, the whiles I 
 hear 
 
 The elm-tree harps give of their solemn best; 
 Two shadows of a shade, now, like to Fear — 
 
 The love that knew no kisses knows not rest, 
 
 A cry from nightwards echoes down the west. 
 
LEITH HILL 
 
 Old watcher of the ancient Street of Stane ! 
 
 Who sawest, beneath, that last of Rome go by ; 
 
 And myriad years of sunset wax and die, — 
 Of stricken stars by shafts of morning slain; 
 How many a monstrous midnight filled the plain 
 
 With black vast seas of shadows, whence the 
 cry 
 
 Of bafHed winds about thee and the sigh ; 
 How moons unknown of men were wont to wane. 
 
 Old guardian of strange secrets unrevealed 
 To mortal eyes and ears ! thy swarthy brow, 
 Night-furrowed 'neath the starry Titan's 
 plough, 
 Hath knowledge in what wise the pathless Weald 
 266 
 
LEITH HILL 267 
 
 Gloomed, when afar his hate the mammoth 
 squealed. . . . 
 And I may lie within thy bosom now. 
 
 II 
 
 The larch and pine with ocean commune keep 
 Of immemorial moment — ^talk that flows 
 Out of a time that saw how waters rose 
 
 And fell, with all the passion of the deep 
 
 Hungry before thee to yon southern steep 
 Where that far Southdown shadow comes and 
 
 goes. 
 And the gorse flames, and here the heather 
 glows. 
 
 Till the years climb upon thy knees to sleep. 
 
 Oft have I felt toward thee from afar 
 
 Out of the south ! Yea, I have heard thee call 
 
 When thy great head beneath the northern star 
 Hath nodded through some solemn evening's 
 pall. 
 
 As I have drawn me nearer, and to me 
 
 Seemed like a friend strong in large sympathy. 
 
MOONTIDE 
 
 Now her inundant coming laps the hill ; 
 And the strong argent of the moontide's flush 
 Spreads out along autumnal ranks of rush ; 
 While the stiff tawny sedges standing still 
 Pass each by each obedient sentinel 
 The watchword of the night's translucid 
 
 hush. . . . 
 And starry craft — that sometimes westward 
 push 
 Slow prows all night across the pool and fill 
 Jts furlong with a myriad leagues of heaven — 
 Fade like to phantoms. . . . Now a white owl 
 goes 
 Through broad oblivions down his ghostly 
 
 beats 
 Where white waves drown the starry craft 
 by fleets. • . . 
 Oft have I watched the pool when the moon 
 
 rose: 
 I see the owl hide in its moonlight even. 
 268 
 
AD INFINITUM 
 
 Blown cloud-rack brings a beauty to the stars : 
 
 And loud the long night labours without rest 
 To this high worship of her avatars 
 
 Through dim reverberant archways of the 
 west. 
 Now do the clamant winds that dusk the skies 
 
 Each sitting splendour with their incense move ; 
 Heaven hears, and glides, and opes and shuts its 
 eyes: 
 
 Space echoes with a Universe in love. 
 
 The Spirit of zodiacal Desire, 
 
 Whose midmost shrine intolerably is there. 
 Draws, as a dance draws, her irradiate choir 
 
 With planetary passion in her hair. 
 My soul, above the earth-wind's wanderings 
 Caught up, communes with her, the Soul of 
 Things. 
 
 269 
 
NOVEMBER 
 
 A song-bird, silent, by a beamless sun 
 
 Sits where the winds fall dead beyond each 
 
 leaf. 
 Dank with slow-weeping, motionless, veiled 
 grief, 
 November drops about her, one by one. 
 Here brackens break their stubborn hearts upon 
 The swarthy memories of green joys — ^as if 
 For days that bound their glowing emerald 
 sheaf 
 With dim delights of dewfall — ^past and done. 
 
 The dusky breath of woodlands pales and 
 glooms : 
 Strange shadows meet and part across the 
 
 wild: 
 And through the mist — as quiet as a child 
 ayo 
 
NOVEMBER 271 
 
 Grown solemn at a darkling place of tombs — 
 Life watches death. . . . There comes a 
 
 Mystery 
 Like ghosts at night that haunt one from the 
 
 sea. 
 
TO MRS. HYNDMAN 
 July ist, 19 13 
 
 Mother of those whose need of mothering 
 Made them your children! By your open 
 
 grave 
 High summer speaks with voice tall poplars 
 have 
 
 At noon, and larks have found a place to sing. 
 
 Though round July's blue mirror coil and cling 
 The factory's dark breath. For you, who gave 
 Love-labour, yet more men shall live to save 
 
 The seed of men from Mammon's harvesting. 
 
 Wherefore I think you would not have us weep 
 That stand together here and in the sun 
 Look last on you, who from long labour won 
 
 This quiet ground's full heritage of sleep. 
 
 But tears within the heart would have us keep 
 That human love like yours grows fresh upon. 
 
 272 
 
LABOUR UNREST 
 
 I met men going loudly through the land : 
 And each man his mouth the clarion 
 Of Truth. I hearkened things ere they were 
 gone 
 That any fool, they said, could understand. 
 Meseemed it came about the earth was planned 
 So men might Profits make e'en from the sun. 
 (Of shining bright examples there were none 
 More clear or ready to man's eye or hand.) 
 Thus was the sun a sign, for high emprise 
 Set forth in heaven, and for earth reward. 
 Nay ! Christ, they call God's son, put in His 
 word 
 For Caesar, with the tribute in His eyes. 
 (Thereat some fools made answer in surmise. 
 That patient men would come to curse the 
 Lord.) 
 
 273 
 
274 LABOUR UNREST 
 
 n 
 
 But if it be (as some have hardly guessed) 
 Exalted gold begets a kindred creed 
 Whose votive hands grow gradually to greed, 
 May CAPITAL not bear SELF-INTEREST? 
 For him who now fulfils his faith the best, 
 What shall be said? Has he not sown the 
 
 seed? 
 Has not the harvest fruit for him indeed? 
 For him the sun shall rise along the west. 
 Or, — ^hate shall be his guerdon who has sown 
 Hatred, for love of gold, — who mouthing 
 Christ, 
 That poor men may keep heaven for their 
 shares. 
 Does blasphemy against that orient throne 
 
 Where Truth restores the psychic palimpsest 
 Till Manhood's meaning rises on the years. 
 
MAMMON 
 
 Hypocrisy's arch-thief of Souls ! thy birth 
 Was bestially begotten in this wise : — 
 Thy dam for lust of Gold lay down with Lies 
 
 To found a brothel's dynasty for earth ; 
 
 That honest lust she might debauch, and dearth 
 Be purer passion's portion ; as the skies 
 Through lips of falsehood in the priest's dis- 
 guise 
 
 Mocked mundane life of souls for little worth. 
 
 Apotheosised pimp! by grace of greed 
 
 Grown godhead, till of Man thou shalt be 
 slain ! 
 
 With gods that scorned, and helped thee in thy 
 need 
 By vile impostures on the poor, remain 
 
 For meaning, that the Soul of Man may know 
 
 Their truth begat their final overthrow. 
 
 275 
 
"WHILE HUMAN NATURE'S WHAT 
 IT IS" 
 
 When Neolithic craniums were smashed 
 
 By celts of stone the same excuse was found 
 Among the philosophic gathered round, 
 
 And brains with social epigram were dashed. 
 
 Ofttimes the penny-pundits' pens have splashed 
 This ink of instinct broadcast with a sound 
 Of many engines moistening such ground 
 
 As once the prehistoric rains had plashed. 
 
 Were Human Nature other than it were 
 In places long forgotten by the sun, 
 
 The phantom men call Progress might appear. 
 
 And the soul's life, now narrow as the seas, 
 Might broaden into drinking-troughs — ^begun 
 
 In vain while Human Nature's what it is. 
 
 276 
 
BLASPHEMY LAWS 
 
 Earth waits for Justice while men watch the sky. 
 Bound by the throat she lay, as with a cord, 
 Her darkening lips from priestcraft's gripe 
 abhorred 
 
 Sending along the years their stifled cry 
 
 For man to put her shameful slaying by. 
 Now at the light of Truth's revolted sword 
 Another god goes like an overlord 
 
 Who has outlived the terror of his eye. 
 
 Who claim to have the word of Deity 
 Anent some future heaven shall go forth 
 Themselves into the future — ^things for mirth : 
 No vaunt so vain as their humility, 
 As much a jest as Jove has come to be. 
 For men who claim a larger life on earth. 
 
 377 
 
"RED ENGLAND" 
 
 "Imagination and Property go together. . . ." 
 Vide the above book issued by an anti- 
 socialist organization. 
 
 This then is Truth of Wisdom ! For such end 
 Christ crucified hung bleeding from the cross. 
 Imagination fires but its own loss 
 That may not wealth of Fortune's fuel spend. 
 That soul may rise whose wings for gain de- 
 scend. 
 And poets who have sung of Mammon's dross 
 Have brains as poor in blowth as arctic-moss 
 Beside the tropic grandeurs gold has penned. 
 This thing for Truth of Souls ! by Property 
 Man justifies his making, and his God's. 
 Lest Avarice should fail for avatars 
 Shall Dividends behold Divinity 
 
 Through eyes of nobler ardours than the 
 clod's — 
 Whose guineas glow scarce brighter than the 
 stars. 
 
 278 
 
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