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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013496355 
 
THE ALHAMBRA 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 

 m 
 
 5- (g. dUXoM^ctouih 
 
 3lol)n lane, Cfie iBoDIep ^eaD, 
 Hontion anD Ji^eto ^otk 
 
 189d 
 
I tender my thanks to the Editors of Literature, The 
 Saturday Re'vienv, The Telloiv "Book, The Speaker, and 
 The Westminster Qazette respectively, for kind permission 
 Co reprint the poems that appeared in those journals. 
 
To Oscar Browning 
 
 To feed the soul through gilded bars 
 Fain are the fond, and fain the l<jnd; 
 But where it listeth blows the wind 
 
 And storms on undiscovered stars. 
 
 Oh ! chanced it in some alien world, 
 
 Befell it in some far-ofF age. 
 
 Our shallop took her pilgrimage 
 Where Thames' pale current coiled and curled ? 
 
 When floating on, — the man, the boy, — 
 By Eton's elms and Windsor's towers. 
 We sowed the sweet unconscious hours 
 
 Whose blossom is remembered joy ! 
 
Though drifted, since that evening fled, 
 A lifetime from those isles and w^eirs, 
 Through dim amazement of the years 
 
 I hold a bright, unbroken thread ! 
 
 Your sympathy alone was clue 
 
 To labour's faintly-glimmering end. 
 And though your faith outran me, Friend, 
 
 I dedicate my vrork. to you. 
 
 Far distant now are Windsor's pile 
 And Eton's elms ; yet on we float ; 
 And hark ! I hear the waves that moat 
 
 Tie silence of Avilion's Isle ! 
 
 March, 1897. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dedication.— To Oscar Browning v 
 
 The Alhambra - • I 
 
 To William Watson at Windermere 7 
 
 To I. Albeniz u 
 
 England and America - . . . . 12 
 
 America's Declaration of War, 1898 - - . - 15 
 
 Revelation 16 
 
 " O Sing unto the Lord a New Song " - - - - 18 
 
 Psalm xc. - 22 
 
 Mors, Morituri Te Salutamus ! 23. 
 
 The Inquest 2e 
 
 Col. Gerard Noel Money, C.B. 26 
 
 Thomas Ashe 27 
 
 Beside a Grave - - 28 
 
 " The Days that are no more " ..... 29 
 
 Rest 30 
 
 " He that is without Sin " 31 
 
 Any Father to Any Son 32 
 
 Children 33 
 
 Stodham Woods 34 
 
 The Rother 36 
 
 Ingens Aequor 37 
 
 At Cimiez 39 
 
 Queen Guenevere's Maying 40 
 
 An Impression 41 
 
Vlll 
 
 Perfume 
 
 - - - - 
 
 PACE 
 42 
 
 A Ballad of Cornwall 
 
 . 
 
 ■ 43 
 
 The Riddle 
 
 . 
 
 - - 45 
 
 The Eternal Conflict 
 
 . 
 
 - 48 
 
 The Homily - 
 Love at First Sight 
 
 - 
 
 - - 50 
 - 51 
 
 Pure Imagination 
 The Singer's Search 
 At Last 
 
 . 
 
 52 
 
 ■ - - 53 
 
 54 
 
 Nellie 
 
 . 
 
 - - ■ 55 
 
 Moieties - 
 
 . 
 
 - - 56 
 
 Predestination 
 
 . 
 
 - • - 58 
 
 Soul to Soul - 
 
 . 
 
 - 59 
 
 For Ever 
 
 . 
 
 - 60 
 
 Aliquid Amari 
 Twilight in London 
 Fervaal 
 
 . 
 
 - 61 
 
 - 63 
 - - ■ 64 
 
 Epitaphs 
 
 The Nut-Brown Maid 
 
 
 - 6s 
 68 
 
 " Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan " - 
 Notes - - - . . . 
 
 - 76 
 
 - 77 
 
The Alhambra 
 
 GRANADA 
 
 O LAND of flowers and sapphire skies, 
 "Where seraphs walk in sweet disguise 
 
 Of earthly maidens' vesture ! 
 Meseems you keep within your eyes 
 The first, vast, virginal surprise 
 
 Of God's creative gesture ! 
 
 The Angel of Art has sealed on thee 
 
 His signet and his sign, — 
 The Alhambra ! Like a phantasie, 
 
 Half human, half divine ! 
 
 A marble fountain ! Ocean shell ! 
 
 Or flame, that coils and spires 1 
 A perfedt thought ! As who should tell. 
 
 In one, the World's desires ! 
 
 Most gorgeous Word of blazoned Art, 
 
 In whose eternal scroll 
 The student who can read a part 
 
 Is Master of the whole ! 
 
VIll 
 
 Perfume 
 
 . 
 
 - 42 
 
 A Ballad of Cornwall 
 
 - 
 
 43 
 
 The Riddle 
 
 . 
 
 45 
 
 The Eternal Conflict 
 
 . 
 
 - - 48 
 
 The Homily 
 
 - 
 
 - 50 
 
 Love at First Sight 
 
 - 
 
 51 
 
 Pure Imagination - 
 
 - 
 
 - 52 
 
 The Singer's Search 
 
 - 
 
 - 53 
 
 At Last - 
 
 . 
 
 - 54 
 
 Nellie 
 
 . 
 
 - 55 
 
 Moieties - 
 
 . 
 
 ■ ■ 56 
 
 Predestination 
 
 . 
 
 - - 58 
 
 Soul to Soul - 
 
 . 
 
 - 59 
 
 For Ever 
 
 . 
 
 60 
 
 Aliquid Amari 
 
 . 
 
 - 61 
 
 Twilight in London 
 
 . 
 
 ■ - 63 
 
 Fervaal ... 
 
 
 - ■ 64 
 
 Epitaphs 
 
 . 
 
 - - 65 
 
 The Nut- Brown Maid - 
 
 - 
 
 68 
 
 " Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht 
 
 uns hinan " - 
 
 - - 76 
 
 Notes . 
 
 - 
 
 - 77 
 
The Alhambra 
 
 GRANADA 
 
 O LAND of flowers and sapphire skies, 
 Where seraphs walk in sweet disguise 
 
 Of earthly maidens' vesture ! 
 Meseems you keep within your eyes 
 The first, vast, virginal surprise 
 
 Of God's creative gesture ! 
 
 The Angel of Art has sealed on thee 
 
 His signet and his sign, — 
 The Alhambra ! Like a phantasie, 
 
 Half human, half divine ! 
 
 A marble fountain ! Ocean shell ! 
 
 Or flame, that coils and spires 1 
 A perfeft thought ! As who should tell, 
 
 In one, the World's desires ! 
 
 Most gorgeous Word of blazoned Art, 
 
 In whose eternal scroll 
 The student who can read a part 
 
 Is Master of the whole ! 
 
ir 
 
 LINDARAJA 
 
 Within this casket was empearled, 
 As Heaven's own Designate, 
 
 A Queen ; whose empire o'er the World 
 No rival dare debate ! 
 
 But yet her fee of sovereignty 
 
 Was not by armies ruled ! 
 Her beauty's sheen, her sovran mien, — 
 
 By these men's hearts were schooled ! 
 
 Ah, Lindaraja ! Men are blind, 
 
 Or else beneath thy grace, 
 'Twere theirs to find the Eternal Mind, 
 
 And guess the Eternal Face ! 
 
Ill 
 
 GENERALIFE 
 
 Here, as if cast by pilfering feys, 
 Are scattered Nature's gems : 
 
 Her olivine, her chrysoprase, 
 Her crowns and diadems ! 
 
 Scarce held the Garden God first made 
 
 And gave the Man to till. 
 More flow^ery lawns, more fragrant shade, 
 
 Or birds of sweeter bill ! 
 
 Here couches Love 'mid fronded fern ; 
 
 Here maidens, venturing in. 
 Achieve their liberty to learn 
 
 The sacredness of sin ! 
 
 B — 2 
 
IV 
 
 ZAMBRA 
 
 Warriors, from the war returning. 
 Cast aside the sword and lance ! 
 
 Zambra's myriad lamps are burning ! 
 Zambra woes with song and dance ! 
 
 Don the safiron robes of pleasure ! 
 
 Brood no more on bloody fights ! 
 Houris' arms await the pressure, 
 
 Lip to lip, of amorous knights ! 
 
 Lo ! along the enchanted alley 
 
 Shines the vagueness of the moon ! 
 
 There the Alm^es dance and dally, 
 There the lisping lovers croon ! 
 
EL CERCO 
 
 They come, the Christians abhorred. 
 
 Drunk with the blood of their Lord ! 
 
 Who shall deliver Islam 
 
 From the Cross of the red oriflamme ? 
 
 They pass ; and destruction and dearth 
 
 Follow, and crushed to the earth 
 
 Lies Art ! Thou wert chosen to scourge 
 
 The pride of a People, to purge 
 
 Their splendour, Castille, and o'erthrow 
 
 The genius of Joy with the genius of Woe ! 
 
VI 
 
 LA SILLA DEL MORO 
 
 " Farewell, ferewell ! Thy doom endears 
 Thy beauty ! . . . . God is just ; 
 
 Yet must I weep with woman's tears 
 Thy glory in the dust ! 
 
 " To lose thee is to die ! And yet 
 
 I cling to life, for fear 
 In death's confusion I forget 
 
 How fair thou art, how dear !" 
 
 So mourned Granada's latest King, 
 
 Deeming that Art was dead ; 
 But still the flowers our footsteps ring 
 
 And still the stars our head ! 
 
To William Watson at Windermere 
 
 I COUNT thee, Watson, happier far 
 Than we who Hve in fooHsh noise. 
 
 With inharmonious minds that mar 
 The measure of our scanty joys ! 
 
 From thee the inarticulate hills 
 Expect the voice to them denied. 
 
 For thee the whisper of the rills 
 A thousand-fold is multiplied ; 
 
 And every tarn reflefts for thee 
 Procession of the bygone years, 
 
 When clouds in hooded pageantry. 
 Like memories, flit across the meres ; 
 
 The flowers reach up to kiss thine hand, 
 The trees lean down to touch thine head. 
 
 The birds acclaim thee ; all the land 
 Is conscious of a poet's tread ! 
 
 All seems aloof from mortal pain; 
 
 Thou communest with all in song. 
 Clear-welling with a purer strain 
 
 Than ever flowed from human wrong. 
 
8 
 
 O happy in the woodland maze ! 
 
 O happy on the mountain steep ! 
 But we are locked in wilder ways. 
 
 And alien from the hills of sleep ! 
 
 No " rivulets dance," no torrents flow. 
 No " forests muse " of pine or oak ; 
 
 We marvel if a floweret blow 
 
 Beneath a heaven so smeared with smoke. 
 
 And here no joyous impulse moves 
 
 The minds of men with random waves, 
 
 But up and down these stony grooves 
 We hurry, like a gang of slaves. 
 
 Ah, vainly would'st thou bend to hear. 
 Or vainly would'st thou strain to see 
 
 The mystic Spirit bards revere 
 Of Nature's prodigality ! 
 
 A giant, clanking golden chains ; 
 
 A monster, bound in torments fierce ; 
 Whose strong integument of pains 
 
 No shaft of joy is keen to pierce; 
 
 What more than this can poet spy 
 
 Beneath our brave pretence and show ? 
 
 'Tis light to lift, that bravery. 
 That broidered coverlid of woe ! 
 
And yet perchance I do thee wrong ; 
 
 Perchance, beneath immediate ill, 
 Thy clearer insight, trained and strong, 
 
 May catch a deeper vision still : 
 
 Maybe, though greeting Nature's face 
 
 In cloud and crag, in lake and glen, 
 At least her footsteps thou canst trace 
 
 Among the meaner ways of men ! 
 
 Maybe, her paths by thee discerned. 
 
 Are less obscure than sages deem ; 
 The poet's prescience having learned 
 
 What Science only dares to dream : 
 
 That Nature is not twain or trine ; 
 
 Though none know whither, none know whence 
 Her journey, yet no less divine 
 
 Is sense, than things perceived by sense. 
 
 But take thou the unfinished thought, 
 To mould it, in some later lay, 
 
 By finer inspiration wrought. 
 And sing me all I fail to say ; 
 
 Let not the cloistral peaks bar out 
 Profaner creatures from thy ken, 
 
 Or fold thee from the faith and doubt 
 Of common minds and fellow men ! 
 
10 
 
 Though Windermere thy heart allure, 
 Or Rydal, with her sacred hills, 
 
 Forget not whom the towns immure 
 To turn the cranics and tread the mills ! 
 
 London, July, 1897. 
 
II 
 
 To I. Albeniz 
 
 I CANNOT say what I would say ; 
 
 My eyes are filled with tears, dear friend ; 
 Because our life must pass away 
 
 And all our sweetest moments end. 
 
 But yet this privilege is ours, 
 
 That hand in hand we twain have trod 
 The maze of Art's authentic bowers, 
 
 And walked with Love and talked with God. 
 
12 
 
 England and America 
 
 I 
 
 PRESIDENT Cleveland's message, 
 
 DECEMBER, 1 895 
 
 Yes ! it was well, and passing well, that we — 
 To do their pleasure — for so small a thing, 
 Refused to set wild war upon the wing. 
 
 Or to defile that unensanguined sea, 
 
 That flows between our Countries of the Free, 
 With freight of fratricide ! We let them ring 
 Alarum ; kept us crimeless ; and shall bring 
 
 White record to the days that are to be ! 
 
 The time will come, when they will look with shame 
 On that time-serving message of their Chief; 
 
 His use ignoble of their noble name 
 
 For paltry purpose, must be charged with grief 
 For the harvest of their Age, when every sheaf 
 
 Is garnered of their folly and their fame. 
 
'3 
 
 II 
 
 JANUARY, 1897 
 
 " How beautiful the feet of them that bring 
 
 Good tidings o'er the mountains, news of peace ! " 
 So cried the Hebrew prophet, long release 
 
 From long captivity previsioning. 
 
 And Cyrus came, with healing on his wing 
 For Israel ; but not by Persia, Greece, 
 Nor Rome, God made the world from war to cease; 
 
 No, nor by Christ, nor any Christian King ! 
 
 But England, watching by her moated main, 
 Yet tasting in convergent winds the taint 
 Of slaughter and the tears of those that weep 
 The tyranny of battle, hears again. 
 With spiritual ear, the far and faint 
 
 Footfall divine, that treads the "untrampled 
 deep." 
 
H 
 
 m 
 
 THE AMERICAN SENATE's AMENDMENT 
 
 More right divine, perchance, ye arrogate 
 Than Kings anointed ; yet ye little prove 
 Your title to investiture of Love, 
 
 Which is Divinity ; but consecrate 
 
 To enmity ye seem ! For when, as late, 
 
 Peace left aw^hile her heavenly Ark, that hove 
 A little nearer Earth, the gentle dove 
 
 Could find no harbour in your flood of hate. 
 
 Hither and thither dark confusions smite. 
 In maddened chivalry of pride and pelf; 
 
 The nations of the world, like factions fight. 
 As reasonless as Ghibelline and Guelph : i 
 
 Yet Earth has never seen a viler sight 
 
 Than this vile war ye wage on Peace herself ! 
 
 March, 1897. 
 
IS 
 
 America's Declaration of War, 1898 
 
 The sly Freebooters of the Earth 
 Open their ranks, to welcome in 
 
 The youngest Race God brought to birth, 
 By serpent reasons lured to sin. 
 
 *' Peace and goodwill " — the promise failed 
 As soon as made, erased with gore ; 
 
 And once again the Christ is haled 
 Behind the reeking wheels of War ! 
 
i6 
 
 Revelation 
 
 Man is a pilgrim ; in ambiguous ways 
 
 And twilight days, 
 By endless revelation led along, 
 
 An endless song 
 Of aspiration and of hope he sings ; 
 
 To which our strings, 
 O minstrels, let us tune, and time our staves 
 
 To match those waves 
 And tides of choiring voices, that profound 
 
 As many waters sound. 
 
 What though some discord of suspended pain 
 
 Distress the strain ? 
 Some dissonance of unresolved desires 
 
 Torment the wires ? 
 These are the unripe buds upon the tree 
 
 Of harmony ; 
 The sunbeams of the summer solstice lack 
 
 Not bars of black. 
 And life would be no more than senseless breath 
 
 Without the sense of death. 
 
 Moreover there is one persistent voice 
 
 That cries, " Rejoice ! " 
 'Tis Love's ; and, as he sings, all other sound 
 
 Comes circling round, 
 
17 
 
 And all the trembling notes, like lonely elves, 
 
 Submit themselves 
 To his supreme persuadence. Incomplete 
 
 Although so sweet. 
 Even his melody. Because it flows 
 
 For ever, without close. 
 
i8 
 
 " O Sing unto the Lord a New Song " 
 
 Oft to the men of battle poets raise 
 
 An ode of praise, 
 And oft the choric epitaph they rear 
 
 Above the bier 
 Of valour, — resolute, without disdain, 
 
 Though godly Spain, 
 Invincible, in cannon-freighted keel. 
 
 From Cadiz steal, 
 Or godless France her flaming fingers lave 
 
 In Egypt's wave, 
 And yellowing harvest-fields of Belgium beat 
 
 With blood-bedabbled feet. 
 
 And oft to Love the Muses will return 
 
 From themes more stern, 
 To build a stately altar to his name, 
 
 And feed his flame 
 With thrice-distilled oils of simple joy, 
 
 Unwont to cloy ; 
 That there with hushed and hesitating feet 
 
 May lovers meet, 
 And learn the secret of his mystic power, — 
 
 That the only flower 
 Of perfect chastity proceeds 
 From mutual passion's winged seeds. 
 
19 
 
 Alas ! why strike we no sublimer string, 
 
 Nor dare to sing 
 Jehovah, and his mercies manifold, 
 
 Renowned of old 
 In Judah's temple ? where, like seraphim's 
 
 Majestic hymns, 
 Antiphonies 'neath cedarn arches rolled. 
 
 To harps of gold 
 And dulcimers ; while damsels, dancing round, 
 
 Shook forth the timbrel's sound. 
 
 When erst, O God, the Hebrew minstrel tried 
 
 From thee to hide, 
 In vain 'neath muffling canopies of night 
 
 He shunned thy sight, 
 In vain o'er ocean-solitudes was borne 
 
 On wings of morn ; 
 Beyond the universe's utmost bound 
 
 Thy face he found, 
 Beyond the stars and light's extremest belt 
 
 Thy presence felt ; 
 For when he turned from thee and fled. 
 Thy spirit followed not, but led. 
 
 But now the shelved record of the rocks 
 
 The psalmist mocks ; 
 Before thy motion at primeval dawn 
 
 A veil is drawn 
 Of countless ages ; down a myriad links 
 
 Creation sinks 
 Through teeming generations, swarm on swarm, 
 
 From form to form ! 
 
 C — 2 
 
20 
 
 The abyss is void of thee, and back we reel 
 
 And vainly feel 
 The stars, — if in the heavens may linger 
 One impress of their maker's finger f 
 
 Yet, though thou dwell'st not in the empyrean, 
 
 We raise our paean 
 To thee, wrho ridest not the wind nor storm, 
 
 Whom neither form 
 Nor hue reveals, nor substance can contain. 
 
 Nor symbol vain ! 
 To thee, who art not God of seft or race. 
 
 Of land or place, 
 Of century or era, age or aeon, 
 
 We raise our solemn paean ! 
 
 Sing, every voice, that never chanted spell 
 
 To cozen hell, 
 Nor sought by adulation, born of fear, 
 
 To charm God's ear ! 
 Blow, trumpets, blow, that shatter to the ground, 
 
 With sevenfold sound, 
 The walls of superstition and offence 
 
 Against God's sense ; 
 And ye, that live by love's harmonious law, 
 
 Soft music draw. 
 With fingers fleet, from lyre and lute, 
 Like forest rain, when winds are mute ! 
 
 Eternally revealed, yet never known. 
 
 Thee, thee we own ! 
 From man's false images of thee are cast 
 
 The shadows vast 
 
21 
 
 Of doubt and dread, that lie upon his mind 
 
 So black inclined ! 
 Yet shadows are but measures of the light ; 
 
 The darkest night 
 Is but the token of the sun withdrawn, 
 
 The promise of a dawn. 
 
22 
 
 Psalm xc 
 
 From seon to seon 
 Ere the mountains were born Thou art God I 
 Thou turnest the sons of the earthborn, 
 Thou turnest back mortals to dust. 
 For in thine eyes a thousand years lapsing 
 Are past as a watch in the night ! 
 We blossom as herbs in the morning, , 
 That are mown down and withered at eve ! 
 Our days die away as a murmur, 
 And thy fury has finished our years ! 
 How foolish our boasting and travail ! 
 In vanity born to take flight ! 
 O learn us our life-days to number. 
 That wisdom may home to our hearts. 
 
23 
 
 Mors, Morituri Te Salutamus! 
 
 I HATE thee, Death ! 
 Not that I fear thee, — more than mortal sprite 
 
 Fears the dark entrance, whence no man returns ; 
 For who would not resign his scanty breath. 
 Unreal joy, and troublesome delight. 
 To marble coffer or sepulchral urn's 
 
 Inviolate keeping ? 
 To quench the smouldering lamp, that feebly burns 
 Within his chamber, to procure sweet sleeping, 
 Is not a madman's aft. And yet I hate thee. 
 Swift breaker of life's poor illusion. 
 Stern ender of love's fond confusion, 
 And with rebellion in my heart await thee. 
 
 Like mariners we sail, of fate unwist, 
 With orders sealed and only to be read 
 
 When home has faded in the morning mist 
 And simple faith and innocence are fled ! 
 
 Oft we negleft them, being much dismayed 
 By phantoms and weird wonders 
 
 That haunt the deep, 
 By voices, winds, and thunders. 
 
24 
 
 Old mariners that cannot pray nor weep, 
 And faces of drowned souls that cannot sleep ! 
 Or else our crew is mutinous, arrayed 
 Against us, and the mandate is delayed. 
 
 But when the forces that rebelled 
 
 Are satisfied or quelled; 
 
 When sails are trimmed to catch the merry wind, 
 
 And billows dance before and foam behind; 
 
 Free, free at last from tumult and distraftion 
 
 Of pleasure beckoned and of pain repelled, — 
 
 Free from ourselves and disciplined for adtion, — 
 
 We break the seal of destiny, to find 
 
 The bourne or venture for our cruise designed, 
 
 Then, at that very moment, hark ! a cry 
 
 On deck ; and then a silence, as of breath 
 Held. In the offing, low against the sky, 
 
 Hoves thy black flag ! . . . Therefore I hate 
 thee. Death ! * 
 
 See Note A. 
 
25 
 
 The Inquest 
 
 Not labour kills us ; no, nor joy : 
 
 The incredulity and frown, 
 The interference and annoy. 
 
 The small attritions wear us down. 
 
 The little gnat-like buzzings shrill, 
 The hurdy-gurdies of the street, 
 
 The common curses of the will — 
 
 These wrap the cerements round our feet. 
 
 And more than all, the look askance 
 Of loving souls that cannot gauge 
 
 The numbing touch of circumstance, 
 The heavy toll of heritage. 
 
 It is not Death, but Life that slays : 
 The night less mountainously lies 
 
 Upon our lids, than foolish day's 
 Importunate futilities ! 
 
26 
 
 Col. Gerard Noel Money, C.B. 
 
 Hadst thou not died 
 I would not ask to ride 
 By Death's pale side; 
 
 But since thou art a corse, 
 
 I ride by his white horse 
 And wish Life's black battalions woe betide ! 
 
 Thou in no case 
 
 Wert servant of disgrace, 
 
 But ever sett'st thy face 
 
 With that much merrier part 
 
 Of honour and good heart : 
 Therefore with thee and Death I choose to pace. 
 
27 
 
 Thomas Ashe 
 
 In disappointed loneliness 
 
 A gentle bard has passed away, 
 Who for no guerdon would betray 
 
 The mission of a bard, — to bless ; 
 
 Too late, too late shall we confess 
 We need the rills of song that stray 
 With fringe of flowerets feintly gay, 
 
 Not only streams of strain and stress. 
 
 But now our jaded taste disdains 
 Forget-me-not and water-cress, 
 
 The rose of cultivated pains 
 
 And passions to our lips we press, 
 
 We scarcely notice when there wanes 
 A soul of simple tenderness. 
 
 Jan., 1890 
 
28 
 
 Beside a Grave 
 
 Thou hast passed away into darkness, 
 No more may I see thy face, 
 
 And the dead world in its starkness 
 Is my appointed place. 
 
 What art thou, dear ? An essence, 
 A vapour, a nothing ? Or one 
 
 Absorbed in a mightier Presence, 
 A sun swallowed up by a sun ? 
 
 What wert thou, dear, when beside me 
 Thy feet kept an equal pace 
 
 With mine ? A dream to deride me 
 With false, ephemeral grace? 
 
 Had love then his final fruition ? 
 
 Is blossoming-time outwrought ? 
 Was the worth of our intuition 
 
 Of immortality nought ? 
 
29 
 
 " The Days that are no more " 
 
 The torpid night has filled the languid air 
 With breath of roses lulled with dew to sleep, 
 
 The murmurous bees are housed in honeyed lair. 
 And nothing wakes except the hearts that weep. 
 
 O days that are no more, seen down long aisles 
 And avenues of time, where trembling light 
 
 Dimples the world with universal smiles, 
 
 In home, in childhood, when all care was slight ; 
 
 O days that are no more, come yet again ! 
 
 Come with your snowy drapery and your dream ! 
 Waft me the fragrance of your summer rain. 
 
 Bring me your flowers, unveil your morning beam! 
 
 Come yet again ! . . . But there shall never be 
 Such days again ; for these no sweetness store, 
 
 These do not come with happiness to me, 
 These are not like the days that are no more ! 
 
30 
 
 Rest 
 
 Sometimes it seems true happiness can dwell 
 Only where thought and contemplation weave 
 Uninterrupted webs; to take our leave 
 
 For ever of the world in cloistered cell, 
 
 With no distraftion save the solemn bell 
 
 That summons dead and living ; not to grieve 
 For slaughtered summer-times beyond reprieve, 
 
 And all the ill that never can be well ; 
 
 Each day to worship at the heavenly throne, 
 Which for our weakling sense we symbolise 
 
 By the proportioned stateliness of stone, — 
 Long glades of column and of arch, that rise 
 
 All-resonant with untumultuous tone ; — 
 Sometimes this seems the only worthy prize. 
 
31 
 
 " He that is without Sin " 
 
 What is her value if AfFeftion stint 
 Her confidence, for every dubious deed? 
 What is a cord if it should snap at need ? 
 
 Or shield, if it should shatter at a dint ? 
 
 Go, pious ! tithe your cummin and your mint, — • 
 The cheap rebuke, love sacrificed to creed, — 
 And gather up your skirts with careful heed, — 
 
 Lest precious self should catch an evil hint ! 
 
 Fair saints, that are more Christ-like than the Christ, 
 More virgin than the Maid Immaculate, 
 
 Whose kisses and embraces are unpriced. 
 Save by an offer of the marriage state, 
 
 The eye that watches is the eye enticed ! 
 The sins men hunt they never truly hate. 
 
32 
 
 Any Father to Any Son 
 
 For thee a crown of thorns I wear, 
 And thought imperative constrains 
 
 My labouring heart for thee to bear 
 The travail of a woman's pains ; 
 
 For with intolerable presage 
 
 Of all the amazements of thy life, 
 The pits of ancient woe I guage. 
 
 The vast impediments of strife ; 
 
 Or else in dreadful dreaming cast, 
 I see thy form before me fly, 
 
 By prescience never overpast 
 
 Nor fleetest foot that love can ply. 
 
 Still as thy shadow must I run, 
 When all the shadows fall behind. 
 
 And in the rich seduftive sun 
 
 Thou to the darker bars art blind. 
 
33 
 
 Children 
 
 Watch with me and listen 
 By the sweet enchanted bowers. 
 Where the children dance with children, hand in 
 hand! 
 
 Bright their blue eyes glisten 
 Like the dew-besprinkled flowers, 
 When the morning stoops to kiss the sleeping land ! 
 
 Hear the laughter flowing. 
 Like a brook's melodious bubble. 
 From the happy heart of boy and girl at play 1 
 Clouds o'erhead are blowing 
 That are charged with tears of trouble ; 
 But the winds of God shall drive them on, to-day. 
 
 Dancing to the measure 
 Of benignant music's rapture. 
 How the melody their eagerness controls ! 
 Lo ! the sprite of pleasure 
 We so vainly strive to capture 
 Is the playmate and companion of their souls ! 
 
34 
 
 Stodham Woods 
 
 I CANNOT tell where I have been, 
 
 This sweet fore-noon, with tempered tune. 
 
 Or worthy of the scene. 
 
 This is the time when fresh primroses 
 Are in the forefront of Spring posies, 
 And nestling down between their groups 
 
 The violet stoops, 
 While still along the byway shine 
 Spring's natal stars, the celandine. 
 
 Though the blackthorn's bloom is set, 
 Braving the chill breeze's bite 
 
 With blossom white. 
 Bracken-curls are stubborn yet ! 
 Save those splashes of pale flowers, 
 Born in March, of April-showers, 
 The woods are brown, and dead leaves choke the 
 bowers. 
 
 So Nature seems to hesitate 
 Ere she assume her summer state ; 
 Such buds are there that long to bloom, 
 Such glows impatient of the gloom; 
 So much there seems in aft to sing. 
 Such wistfulness, such preluding ! 
 
35 
 
 I wandered where these pleasures meet ; 
 The mossy path beneath my feet 
 As in a girdle clasped the hill, 
 Along whose base a tinkling rill 
 With gentle flood 
 Was whispering to the whispering wood. 
 
 Perchance it fears the open field. 
 
 That stretches to the seaward Downs, 
 
 And seeks in forest arms to shield 
 
 Its shyness from the proffered crowns, 
 
 The sun-enamelled green and gold, 
 
 Of meadows amorously bold. 
 
 Perchance — But ah ! my spirit faints 
 In presence of these woodland saints ! 
 Divinity of flower and tree. 
 And musing water's minstrelsy. 
 
 The building bird's hilarity. 
 The thrill, the frolic, and the glee, — 
 
 With these we hold no parity ! 
 They foil the bards that master me ! 
 
36 
 
 The Rother 
 
 RIVER, flowing by the house 
 Where dwells my patient mother, 
 
 1 bend to thee, I whisper close, — 
 Oh hear me, whispering Rother ! 
 
 Faster than thou the time has slid 
 Since first I strolled beside thee, 
 
 But thou hast journeyed as God bid 
 And therefore joys betide thee ! 
 
 While I have run a wayward course ; 
 
 My moods have kept no season ; 
 Breaking the channel of my source 
 
 To follow Rhyme and Reason 1 
 
 But thou, where cattle love to browse 
 And doves call one another, 
 
 Flow on, dear river, by the house 
 Where dwells my patient mother ! 
 
37 
 
 Ingens Aequor 
 
 " The huge various monotonies, the fervent and fluent 
 colours, the vast limits, the fresh sonorous strength, the 
 certain confusion and tumultuous law, the sense of windy 
 and weltering space, the intense refraction of shadow and 
 light, the crowded life and inanimate intricacy, the patience 
 and the passion of the sea. — A. C. Swinburne. "Essay on 
 mUiam Blaie." 
 
 Come hither, O exquisite thought ! 
 
 Come hither, O splendour of words ! 
 Let a texture be woven and wrought. 
 
 Not to pifture the flocks and the herds. 
 Not to celebrate forest or mead. 
 
 The loitering lapse of the rill. 
 The lisp of the breeze in the reed. 
 
 Or the gush of the wind on the hill, 
 The crypt of the midnight empearled 
 
 With the stars and the planets above. 
 The boisterous fame of the world. 
 
 Or the passionate silence of love, — 
 But in praise of the Sea ; that immense 
 
 And vague glory of waters amassed ; 
 That beauty transcending the sense, 
 
 Like a mirage, elusive and vast ; 
 With shadow and image of cloud, 
 
 That palpitate, purple or pale. 
 
38 
 
 With furrows of emerald, ploughed 
 By the murmuring, odorous gale; 
 
 With marvel of sunlight and mist, 
 With magic of mutable form, 
 
 With music of " wild waves whist," 
 And slow subsidence of storm. 
 
 O chiming monotonous change ! 
 
 O changeless melodious beat ! 
 O refluent rhythmical range 
 
 Of fairy invisible feet ! 
 The nations may traverse and trace 
 
 A populous path o'er the wave. 
 And with militant messages lace 
 
 The floor of the mariner's grave; 
 The peaks of the virginal snows 
 
 May be pierced for the clambering car ; 
 The cleavage of ocean will close. 
 
 And his wounds have a transient scar ! 
 The groves of the forest may fall. 
 
 The rivers grow blacli: with the shame 
 Of their burden, the skies with their pall 
 
 Of the sulphurous refuse of flame ; 
 War may trample o'er hill and o'er dale. 
 
 Trade may bruise all the fields with her tread. 
 The billow records not the trail 
 
 Of humanity, living or dead ! 
 Unpolluted are channel and main. 
 
 Their breezes are fragrant and free ; 
 Man cannot impress with his pain 
 
 The fugitive foam of the sea ! 
 
39 
 
 At Cimiez 
 
 These olive-woods and orange-groves, 
 
 These tulips, harlequins of glee, 
 Yon flecks of cloud, like woolly droves, 
 
 Across the blue immensity, — 
 
 This ancient ilex, sombre green. 
 
 The hill where stood Diana's shrine. 
 
 The shimmering waters' distant sheen, — 
 
 Touch they your heart ? They cannot mine ! 
 
 Man takes not Nature for his Saint, 
 
 Her beauty is no more his creed j 
 The very breezes bear a taint 
 
 Of his insatiable greed. 
 
 As gladly, gluttonous for gain. 
 
 He digs the flowers and fells the trees. 
 
 So would he foul the sapphired main 
 Or tear the heavenly tapestries J 
 
40 
 
 Queen Guenevere's Maying 
 
 In Maytime, merry Maytime, 
 
 When freshest flowers are springing. 
 And blithest birds are singing 
 
 By night-time and by daytime, 
 Old love renews beginning, 
 
 In Maytime, in Maytime, 
 
 The lusty lovers' playtime. 
 
 The North, from black embrasure 
 
 Of tempest, vainly hurled 
 The winter's white erasure 
 
 Across the summer world. 
 
 For Maytime, merry Maytime, 
 Is prankt with greens and yellows. 
 And bird with bird enfellows 
 
 By night-time and by daytime ; 
 New love to marriage mellows^ 
 
 In Maytime, in Maytime, 
 
 The lusty lovers' playtime. 
 
41 
 
 An Impression 
 
 A SOUND of the sea is in my ears, 
 Of the sea that knows no rest ; 
 
 His muttering boughs the willow rears, 
 For a wind is in the west. 
 
 A wind was born in the western sky 
 When the day was wed to night, 
 
 For bridals and birth the torch flared high 
 In the day-god's halls of light. 
 
 I stand on the river-shore alone, 
 And I gaze on the lordly scene, 
 
 On vanishing sun, and rising moon, 
 And the sable girth between. 
 
42 
 
 Perfume 
 
 In love's delightful hours 
 We passed the mignonette 
 
 And plucked the blue-eyed flowers 
 That bade us Not Forget ; 
 
 But now the blue-eyed flowers 
 We pass and we forget ; 
 
 The scent of those dear hours 
 Comes back with mignonette ! 
 
43 
 
 A Ballad of Cornwall* 
 
 Sir Tristram lay by a well, 
 
 Making sad moan ; 
 Fast his tears fell ; 
 
 For wild the wood through, 
 Stricken with shrewd 
 Sorrow he ran, 
 When he deemed her untrue- 
 La Beale Isoud ! 
 For he loved her alone. 
 
 So as he lay 
 
 Wasted and wan. 
 
 Scarce like a man. 
 Pricking that way 
 
 His lady-love came. 
 
 With her damsels around, 
 
 And her face all aflame 
 With the breezes of May; 
 
 While a brachet beside her 
 
 Still bayed the fair rider. 
 
 Still leaped up and bayed her ; 
 A small scenting hound 
 
 That Sir Tristram purveyed her. 
 
 * See Note B. 
 
44 
 
 So she rode on ; 
 
 But the brachet behind 
 
 Hung snuffing the wind ; 
 Till seeking and crying 
 
 Faster and faster. 
 Beside the well lying 
 
 She found her dear master ! 
 Then licking his ears 
 And cheeks wet with tears, 
 For joy never resting, 
 Kept whining and questing. 
 
 Isoud (returned, 
 
 Seeking her hound) 
 Soon as she learned 
 
 Tristram was found. 
 Straightway alighting. 
 
 Fell in a swound. 
 
 When, by her lover 
 Won to recover, 
 Isoud was lying 
 Pale and complying, 
 Who shall the greeting 
 Tell of their meeting ? 
 Joy, by no tongue 
 E'er to be sung. 
 Passed in that plighting! 
 
 Thus while they dallied, 
 Forth the wood sallied 
 An horrible libbard, and bare 
 The brachet away to his lair ! 
 
45 
 
 The Riddle 
 
 Love, o'er-fond of straying, 
 Met with Kitty maying, — 
 Straight began this saying : 
 
 " Maiden, tell me truly 
 What is Love ? " 
 
 And duly 
 Kitty made reply; 
 
 " Ask of girls unruly ! 
 Nought of Love know I ! " 
 
 Then said he:- 
 
 " Beseech you 
 Tarry while I teach you ! " 
 
 On a bank sat Kitty, 
 While he sang this ditty ; 
 
 " Kin to all, yet kinless ! 
 Sin of all, yet sinless ! 
 Passion's purple festal ! 
 Passion's proudest vestal ! 
 Artist that can mould you 
 Till the selves that hold you 
 No more form nor fold you ! 
 
46 
 
 Both divine and human ; 
 Far to seek, yet common ; 
 Babbled of the many, 
 Hardly known of any ! 
 Waving wings of feather, 
 Yet with strength to tether 
 Life and Death together !" 
 
 While he sang these snatches, 
 Down from russet thatches 
 
 Sparrows fly and buntings ; 
 Martins, swifts, and swallows. 
 Whom the South wind follows, 
 
 Leave their mazy huntings; 
 Warblers crowd the willows; 
 While along the shallows 
 
 Trouts and graylings glisten ; 
 Larks on cloudy billows, 
 Softly as on pillows. 
 
 Lay their songs, to listen ! 
 
 Every stalk of clover 
 
 Turns its head to hear him ; 
 Buttercups lean over. 
 
 Striving to be near him ; 
 Foxglove, fringing hedges, 
 
 Tilts her fairy flagon. 
 While from leafy ledges 
 
 Butterfly and dragon 
 Lean, and emmet-peoples 
 
 (Careless now of thrushes), 
 Whom the grass o'er-steeples. 
 
 Perch on reeds and rushes ! 
 
47 
 
 Paddock, newt, and lizard, 
 
 Mole and vole and rabbit 
 Fear no more the wizard 
 
 Snake in emerald habit ; 
 Charmed he lies ; but drowsing 
 
 Owls in eyries waken ; 
 While the fields of browsing 
 
 Cattle are forsaken ! 
 Creatures throng delighted, — 
 
 Running, creeping, winging ! 
 Only Kitty slighted 
 
 Love's old-fashioned singing ! 
 
 She alone, that ditty 
 
 Hearing, dared to flout it ; 
 " Love ? " she cried : " 'tis pity 
 
 Nought you know about it ! ' 
 
48 
 
 The Eternal Conflict* 
 
 Luis 
 
 Refined and penetrated 
 
 By God's refulgent fire, 
 In body separated. 
 
 Our spirits shall aspire, 
 In holy love embracing. 
 
 The mystic mount to climb, 
 Beyond the sin enchasing. 
 
 Beyond the reach of Time ; 
 Until those purple petals 
 
 Round Love Divine involved, 
 Intense as molten metals, 
 
 Saints, martyrs, and absolved. 
 In Paradise expanding. 
 
 All pain with peace allay. 
 That passes understanding, 
 
 And none can take avk^ay ! 
 
 Pepita 
 
 Alas ! I cannot follow 
 Your spirit in its flight ! 
 
 Such Love to me seems hollow 
 And empty of delight ! 
 
 * See Note C. 
 
49 
 
 I love your very vesture, 
 
 Your shadow and your name; 
 I love your voice and gesture,— 
 
 Your self! and feel no shame ! 
 The folly of my senses 
 
 Can Death alone efface ! 
 For Love in fond offences 
 
 Finds sacramental grace ! 
 My heart, though clayed and clodded. 
 
 Has flowered without a stain ! 
 Pepita disembodied 
 
 Must be Pepita slain ! 
 
50 
 
 The Homily* 
 
 Who preaches Love is wrong 
 No flower must ever see, 
 
 Nor hear the song-bird's song 
 Deride his homily ! 
 
 Who teaches Love was made 
 
 Accurs'd, must never be 
 Where all the summer glade 
 
 Derides his homily ! 
 
 How foolish Man's arraignment 
 Of Love, whose strength of mirth 
 
 Enforces an enchainment 
 On the sorrow of the Earth ! 
 
 * See Note C, 
 
5» 
 
 Love at First Sight 
 
 Love at first sight, be true 
 
 Once, in the world's despite ! 
 Once, in a season due. 
 
 Souls that are kin unite ! 
 Once let our hearts pursue 
 
 Trace of a lost delight ! 
 Love at first sight, be true ! 
 
 Love at the first sweet sight ! 
 
 Love as of old appear ! 
 
 Now, though the world be cold ! 
 Now, though the cynic sneer, 
 
 Soul into soul enfold ! 
 Now to the world endear 
 
 Passion instead of gold ! 
 Love as of old appear ! 
 
 Love, as they loved of old ! 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 Pure Imagination 
 
 She lies in her little room 
 
 And all around her creep 
 The quietness and gloom 
 
 And the sacredness of sleep. 
 
 My spirit breaks the seals 
 
 Of jealous night's duress, 
 And close beside her steals 
 
 To watch her loveliness. 
 
 There droops her flower-like head, 
 Petalled and rayed with curls ! 
 
 An aster of golden-red 
 
 The leafage of night enfurls ! 
 
 Ah me ! She lies in her couch 
 Like a babe on its mother's breast ; 
 
 And my spirit is fain to crouch 
 Back to its lone unrest. 
 
53 
 
 The Singer's Search 
 
 In vain o'er all the land I wander 
 Still far from me my darling hies, 
 
 In vain I sing my ditties tender, 
 I hear but echo's mocking cries ! 
 Ah ! lonely, lonely through the world I wander ; 
 
 Red o'er the hills I see the morning rise. 
 And happy creatures wake, Love's hours to squander, 
 
 Till charmed to sleep, by night's enchanting eyes ; 
 Still lonely, lonely through' the world I wander. 
 
 And like a shadow, Love before me flies ! 
 
 In vain I search through every city, 
 Still far from me my darling hies ; 
 
 In vain I sing my tender ditty. 
 She never to my voice replies ! 
 Ah ! lonely, lonely through the sleepless city. 
 
 Amid the jostling crowd a minstrel sighs ; 
 The seekers after pleasure gaze with pity, 
 
 The seekers after wealth with scornful eyes ; 
 Still lonely, lonely through the sleepless city 
 
 I follow Love, and Love before me flies. 
 
54 
 
 At Last 
 
 At last, my love, thou comest, though so late ; 
 
 Upon thy bosom I retrieve some hours ; 
 
 There is a scent again of summer flowers, 
 Surviving the first breath of wrinter's hate : 
 Thy voice that never chides me, though ingrate, 
 
 Is like the song of joy-birds in their bowers 
 
 Not yet deserted, though the blossom showers, 
 And all the gadding breezes whisper Fate. 
 
 Yet, O my love, where wert thou in the days 
 When I was searching all the summer long 
 
 On sultry plains and barren mountain ways ? 
 Why did I never hear thy trysting song ? 
 
 Ah ! long, lost hours, worn out in sad amaze ! 
 Scarce for Time's gift can I forgive his wrong ! 
 
55 
 
 Nellie 
 
 When shadows are breaking 
 
 And dawn is at hand, 
 When morning is making 
 
 New mirth in the land, 
 No fairer it brightens 
 
 Than, pure of all blame, 
 The soul that enlightens 
 
 Your fece with its flame ! 
 
 The world, vainly asking. 
 
 May peer in your eyes 
 For modesty masking 
 
 Or truth in disguise; 
 There innocence dwelling 
 
 Returns, like a dove 
 The serpent repelling, 
 
 A look full of love ! 
 
56 
 
 Moieties 
 
 It seems most strange that thou and I 
 Should not have met in years gone by ; 
 It seems most strange that souls so mated 
 To long disunion should be fated. 
 
 Few, few indeed, dare trust their bark 
 Upon life's waters deep and dark 
 With hope to find a land of rest, 
 An isle by Cytherea blest. 
 
 Perhaps few need or seek for more 
 Than coasting by their native shore, 
 Where they may gain in many a cove 
 Safe anchor, unpresumptuous love ! 
 
 The few that great ideals cherish 
 On mountains and in deserts perish. 
 Fringed by delusive herbs and trees, 
 That beckon to the homeless seas. 
 
 Upon the sand they thrust their prow. 
 They stake life's treasure on the throw ; 
 The hungry sea comes up behind, 
 Before them shrieks the desert wind ! 
 
57 
 
 How happy, if on waste or mountain 
 An unsuspedled vale or fountain 
 The wanderer find ! More happy he, 
 If there he meet a nymph like thee ; 
 
 Who never learnt 'neath Christian spires 
 The virtue of concealed desires, 
 Nor tainted with a careful coldness 
 The purity of true love's boldness ; 
 
 Nor yet destroyed love's heavenly fruit 
 By plucking up his earthly root, 
 Nor set up Principle above 
 The larger principle of Love ! 
 
58 
 
 Predestination* 
 
 Ah yes ! Ah yes ! I had my dream ! 
 
 Fantastical creations ! 
 Down roaring street, by rustic stream, 
 
 In fairy habitations ! 
 
 Some bore a mild and modest mien, 
 And some behaved more lightly, 
 
 And others hovered just between 
 The saintly and the sprightly. 
 
 But God, to guard the senses, set 
 
 A form of finer essence 
 Within my heart ; before we met 
 
 I learnt to love your presence ! 
 
 Deep calls to deep and flame to flame ! 
 
 Afar, my spirit owned you ; 
 I saw you long before you came, 
 
 And welcomed and enthroned you ! 
 
 * See Note C. 
 
59 
 
 Soul to Soul 
 
 These eyes where laughing Loves recline, 
 These lips that just divided pout 
 To let the fluttering kisses out, 
 Like birds from Love's own shrine, — 
 
 To pain or please 
 
 You gave me these ; 
 But still I ask, will You be mine ? 
 In weal or woe, in Love's eternal bond, 
 In life and death, and all that lies beyond, 
 
 Will You be mine ? 
 
 These glances that so ardent shine. 
 
 These words that come with reckless rout 
 And rush of passion thronging out. 
 Sweet vows at Love's own shrine, — 
 To pain or please 
 You give me these ; 
 But still I ask, will You be mine? 
 In weal or woe, in Love's eternal bond. 
 In life and death, and all that lies beyond, 
 Will You be mine ? 
 
6o 
 
 For Ever 
 
 I joy or grieve 
 Alone for thee ! 
 Like birds in mating feather. 
 When nests they weave 
 
 In wonted tree, 
 Our spirits cleave 
 
 Together ! 
 
 Though death removes 
 And grants no grace 
 To all love's dear endeavour. 
 It still behooves 
 
 My soul to chase 
 My only love's 
 
 For ever ! 
 
6i 
 
 Aliquid Amari 
 
 I HEARD a sailor singing, as he leaned against the 
 
 shrouds ; 
 The ocean fled beneath him and above him flew 
 
 the clouds ; 
 And the breezes moaned in answer, and the voices 
 
 of the main : 
 " However happy Love may be, the core of Love 
 
 is pain." 
 
 The breezes learnt the burden, and murmured to 
 
 the land ; 
 The sailor's wife was sitting in her cottage by the 
 
 strand ; 
 And when she heard them whisper, her heart replied 
 
 again : 
 " However happy Love may be, the core of Love 
 
 is pain." 
 
 They left the woman weeping and hurried to the 
 
 town, 
 Where gallant lads and ladies were walking up and 
 
 down; 
 To each they told their message, and all confessed 
 
 it plain : 
 " However happy Love may be, the core of Love 
 
 is pain." 
 
62 
 
 Then hearken, all ye lovers! Be mindful, when 
 
 ye meet. 
 To promise nought or little ere this proverb ye 
 
 repeat ; 
 Ye surely shall have proof thereof; ye shall not 
 
 speak in vain : 
 " However happy Love may be, the core of Love 
 
 is pain." 
 
63 
 
 Twilight in London 
 
 I HAVE heard the ocean's cadence 
 
 Along the Eastern shore, 
 I have heard the winds contending 
 
 In the forest of Glen More; 
 I have heard the throstle fluting 
 
 Over his hawthorn nest, 
 And the nightingale disputing 
 With the sorrow in her breast : 
 But oft have I found more sweet 
 The thunder and beat 
 Of a London street ; 
 The thunder and beat 
 Where the cross-ways meet, 
 When the lamps are lit, in a London street. 
 
 I have heard a Spirit, hidden 
 
 Within that hollow roar. 
 Softer than warbler wooing. 
 
 Louder than winds at war j 
 I have heard the sound assurging 
 
 Over the city's moan, 
 And the World's confusion merging 
 In Love's diviner tone; 
 
 Ah ! then have I found them sweet. 
 The thunder and beat 
 Of a London street ; 
 The thunder and beat 
 Where the cross-ways meet. 
 When the lamps are lit, in a London street. 
 
64 
 
 Fervaal* 
 
 Higher and higher, O Human Race, 
 The Law of Sex shall lead thee on ; 
 
 The glory of the Eternal Face, — 
 The Father, Mother, and the Son. 
 
 Thou shalt not leave the joy behind, 
 But wilful pleasure shall grow less. 
 
 When thou hast learnt the impassioned mind 
 Of Love in all his loveliness ; 
 
 When thou from dread of lust art free, 
 
 The secret of Religion's rule, 
 When thou hast lawful liberty 
 
 And all thy teachers are at school. 
 
 The Woman-Spirit leads the Man ; 
 
 Higher and higher I see them climb, 
 The pilgrims of a trackless plan. 
 
 Among the folded hills of Time. 
 
 * See Note D. 
 
6s 
 
 Epitaphs 
 
 Dante 
 
 Crooning Earth has cradled well 
 Me that plunged to crypts of Hell, 
 Me that climbed the heavenly dome, 
 Wearied out and welcomed home. 
 
 Keats 
 
 Not " in water," — but the flood 
 
 That with passionate impulse beats ! 
 
 Every youthful poet's blood 
 
 Spells the sacred name of Keats. 
 
 ji Fool 
 
 Stranger, stay ! yet shed no tear ; 
 For a fool lies buried here ; 
 Yet, since he unfinished lies, 
 God in time may make him wise. 
 
66 
 
 A Wise Man 
 
 Stranger, weep ! Beneath this stone 
 Lies a man for knowledge known : 
 Yet, since he was wholly wise, 
 God forbade him Paradise. 
 
 A Fair Woman 
 
 In this green chest is laid away 
 The fairest frock she ever wore ; 
 
 It clothed her both by night and day, 
 And none shall wear it evermore. 
 
 An Infant 
 
 This sweet infant never knew 
 What a woman's lips can do ! 
 Yet a woman's lips no less 
 Brought him to this loneliness. 
 
 A Wife 
 
 Once I learnt in wilful hour 
 How to vex him ; still I keep. 
 
 Now unwilfully, my power : 
 Every day he comes to weep. 
 
 A Soul 
 
 Underneath this turved mould 
 Lies a creature late unsouled : 
 Birds of paradise contrive 
 111 in crystal cage to thrive. 
 
67 
 
 A Waif 
 
 Hither was she brought unknown ; 
 Now to love and knowledge grown, 
 She has journeyed back alone. 
 
 Beaten 
 
 In the arms of Death I curled, 
 Unadjusted to the World: 
 All too fierce the World has proved, 
 Because I loved, because I loved. 
 
 F — 2 
 
68 
 
 The Nut-Brown Maid* 
 
 Now every day, 'tis fashion's way, 
 
 It is both writ and said, 
 That love is scathe, and woman's faith 
 
 Is utterly decay'd ; 
 Yet have there been good women seen 
 
 Who never falsely play'd. 
 And first and best before the rest 
 
 Record the Nut-brown Maid ; 
 Who, when her love had come to prove 
 
 Her truth, and make his moan. 
 Would not depart, for in her heart 
 
 She loved but him alone. 
 
 Said he, " Dear heart, now must we part, 
 
 Or else great harm shall grow ; 
 My foes are nigh and I must die 
 
 A shameful death, I trow. 
 Or else must flee — the one must be, 
 
 None other way I know. 
 But to withdraw as an outlaw, 
 
 And take me to my bow ; 
 Wherefore adieu, my own heart true; 
 
 None other rede 1 can, 
 But I must to the greenwood go 
 
 Alone, a banished man." 
 
 * See Note E. 
 
69 
 
 She 
 
 " O God, what is this worlde's bliss 
 
 That changeth as the moon ! 
 My summer's day in lusty May 
 
 Is darked before the noon ! 
 Farewell, ye say ? Ah, nay ! ah, nay ! 
 
 Why will ye be unkind ? 
 If it is so that ye will go, 
 
 I will not stay behind ; 
 But woe and bliss as reason is 
 
 Will share with you anone ; 
 For in my mind of all mankind 
 
 I love but you alone." 
 
 He 
 
 " Nay, I you rede to take good heed 
 
 What men will think and say, 
 If it be told of young and old 
 
 That ye have gone away ; 
 They'll blame your ill and wanton will, 
 
 Your lack of maiden pride. 
 If ye run out without a doubt 
 
 With outlawed men to bide. 
 Rather than ye should thus for me 
 
 Receive the neighbours' ban. 
 Forth will I to the greenwood go 
 
 Alone, a banished man." 
 
 She 
 
 *' Though it be sung of old and young 
 That I have lost my fame. 
 
70 
 
 Theirs be the charge that speaks so large 
 
 In hurting of my name ; 
 For I will prove that faithful love 
 
 It is devoid of shame ; 
 From your distress and heaviness 
 
 To shrink would be the blame ; 
 Who would deny to do as I, 
 
 True lovers they are none. 
 But in my mind of all mankind 
 
 I love but you alone." 
 
 He 
 
 " The thorny ways, the deep valleys, 
 
 I dread ye'll not sustain, 
 None other house but leaves and boughs 
 
 In snow and frost and rain. 
 No homely care, no wholesome fare. 
 
 No comfortable wine ; 
 No sheets so clean to lie between, 
 
 Of finest linen twine ; 
 The cold and heat and evil meat 
 
 Will make you weak and wan. 
 So I must to the greenwood go 
 
 Alone, a banished man." 
 
 She 
 
 " But ye have craft to shoot a shaft 
 And slay the forest deer ; 
 And who would sup from better cup 
 Than river-water clear ? 
 
71 
 
 My health is sure, I shall endure, 
 
 And comfort find in this. 
 That where ye be, meseems, pardie, 
 
 I cannot fare amiss ! 
 Without more speech I you beseech 
 
 That we were soon agone, 
 For in my mind of all mankind 
 
 I love but you alone." 
 
 He 
 
 " All men are free without pitie 
 
 An outlawed man to bind, 
 Hanged to be upon a tree, 
 
 And waver in the wind ; 
 If foes surround (whom God confound!). 
 
 What rescue could ye find ? 
 Forsooth, I trow, you and your bow 
 
 For fear would draw behind ; 
 Your heart would fail and not avail 
 
 To counsel any plan ; 
 Hence will I to the greenwood go 
 
 Alone, a banished man." 
 
 She 
 
 " Truly ye spoke that women folk 
 But feeble are in fight. 
 Yet for your sake my love will make 
 
 Me bold as any knight, 
 And if your foes should round you close, 
 And threaten day or night. 
 
72 
 
 I would withstand with bow in hand 
 To grieve them as I might. 
 
 But oh ! to part, it makes my heart 
 As cold as any stone, 
 
 For in my mind of all mankind 
 I love but you alone," 
 
 He 
 
 " Ye must do more, dear heart, before 
 
 I let you go with me. 
 Your hair must sheer above your ear. 
 
 Your kirtle by the knee, 
 If bow in hand ye would withstand 
 
 Our foeman, if need be. 
 And since this night, before the light. 
 
 To woodward must I flee. 
 If go ye will, all this fulfil 
 
 As shortly as ye can. 
 Else will I to the greenwood go 
 
 Alone, a banished man." 
 
 She 
 
 " This is to do much more for you 
 
 Than 'longs to womanhede ; 
 Scant kirtle wear and short my hair. 
 
 To pull a bow at need ! 
 O mother dear, I only fear 
 
 Your sorrow for the deed ! 
 But now, adieu ! I must ensue 
 
 Where love and fortune lead ! 
 
73 
 
 Quick, let us flee, for yonder, see, 
 The night has nearly flown ! 
 
 And in my mind of all mankind 
 I love but you alone." 
 
 He 
 
 " A baron's child to be beguil'd 
 
 In forest wild to wend, 
 With outlaws roam and leave your home, 
 
 Almighty God forfend ! 
 I'm but a squire, and poor my sire, 
 
 To forest let me speed, 
 Lest ye should say, another day. 
 
 That by my cursed deed 
 Ye were betray'd ; wherefore, dear maid, 
 
 The best rede that I can 
 Is that I to the greenwood go 
 
 Alone, a banished man." 
 
 She 
 
 " Whate'er befall, I never shall 
 
 Of this thing you upbraid. 
 But if ye go and leave me so. 
 
 Then ye have me betray'd ; 
 For though that I of ancestry 
 
 A baron's daughter be. 
 Yet have ye proved how I you loved, 
 
 A squire of low degree, 
 And still shall do — to die for you 
 
 If there be need anone. 
 For in my mind of all mankind 
 
 I love but you alone." 
 
74 
 
 He 
 
 " Mine own dear love, I see you prove 
 
 That ye be kind and true. 
 Of maid or wife, in all my life, 
 
 The best I ever knew ! 
 Be merry and glad, be no more sad ! 
 
 The case is changed anew; 
 For it were ruth that for your truth 
 
 Ye should have cause to rue ; 
 Be not dismay'd, whate'er I said 
 
 To you when I began ! 
 I will not to the greenwood go, 
 
 I am no banished man 1 " 
 
 She 
 
 " These tidings be more glad to me. 
 
 Than to be made a queen ! 
 If I were sure they should endure ; 
 
 Yet it is often seen 
 That men will break the vows they make 
 
 In times of love or spleen ; 
 I fear some guile ; ye shape some wile 
 
 To steal from me, I ween ; 
 Then sadder state would be my fate 
 
 And I more woe-begone ; 
 For in my mind of all mankind 
 
 I love but you alone," 
 
 He 
 
 " Your dread may end, for God forfend 
 That I should do outrage 
 
75 
 
 To your fair fame, or ever shame 
 
 Your noble lineage ; 
 Now understand, to Westmoreland, 
 
 Where is mine heritage, 
 I will you bring, and with a ring — 
 
 True wedlock's holy gage — 
 I will you take and lady make 
 
 As shortly as I can. 
 For you have won a baron's son, 
 
 And not a banished man ! " 
 
 Here may we see that women be 
 
 In love meek, staunch, and kind ; 
 Let never men accuse them then 
 
 Of variable mind. 
 But rather pray to God we may 
 
 To them be true inclin'd. 
 Since God oft proves the folk he loves, 
 
 True charity to find ; 
 And since men would that women should 
 
 Be meek to them, each one. 
 Much more ought they God's will obey, 
 
 And serve but Him alone. 
 
76 
 
 " Das Ewig-Weibliche 
 Zieht uns hinan." 
 
 Goethe. The last luords in " Faust.'" 
 
 Follow the Woman Spirit ! Onward and onward 
 
 soar, 
 Far from the chasing Demons ! Hark to their 
 
 baffled roar ! 
 Follow the Woman Spirit, thorough the noxious 
 
 night. 
 Follow her, like the swallow, seeking for love and 
 
 light ! 
 
 Let not the World entice thee ! Push all its hands 
 
 aside ! 
 Let this alone suffice thee; follow thy destined 
 
 bride ! 
 There is none other guidance, there is none other 
 
 goal ; 
 Follow her still-receding, heavenly-leading Soul ! 
 
 Foulness and Folly pursue thee ; fiercer than either, 
 
 Fame ! 
 Envy, Hatred, and Malice, — this is his triple name ! 
 Flee, flee away for ever ! Thorough the noxious 
 
 night 
 Follow the Woman Spirit, seeking for Love and 
 
 Light ! 
 
77 
 
 NOTES 
 
 A 
 
 Msrs, morlturi te salutamus. 
 
 The verb " to hove " is no doubt a little archaic. 
 Perhaps it dropped out of use from the natural confusion 
 with the preterite of " heave " (which I have used on 
 page i6), corresponding with that between '' lay" and the 
 preterite of " lie." " Hove" is connected with " hover." 
 It is constantly used by Malory; and Gower, Chaucer, 
 and Spenser employ it. It seems to me too good a word 
 to be lost — by poets, at least. 
 
 B 
 
 A Ballad of Cornwall. 
 
 See Malory's Morte cHJlrthur, Bk. IX., ch. xxi. 
 (Globe Edition). 
 
 C 
 
 The Eternal Conflict^ The Homily and Predestination. 
 
 Written for the Opera " Pepita Jimenez," composed 
 by Seiior Albeniz, performed at Prague in 1897, and 
 founded on Juan Valera's novel of that name, first made 
 known in England by Mr. Coventry Patraore in his 
 Religio Poeta. 
 
 D 
 
 Fervaal. 
 
 The Opera by Vincent d'Indy. My verses are 
 intended for an epitome of the meaning of this great 
 work, which has never appeared in England. 
 
78 
 
 lie Nut-Brown Maid. 
 
 I have formed my version of this splendid old balla( 
 from Bishop Percy's Reliques (Dodsley, 1765). As h 
 gives it, it is very confused, unsuited to modern taste, an( 
 obsolete in pronunciation and rhyme. My aim has beei 
 to diminish these obstacles to the reader's enjoymen 
 without destroying the quaint beauty of the original 
 Prof. Courthope says that the germ of the poem is con 
 tained in a pastoral dialogue by Robert Henryson, entitle! 
 " Robene and Makyne" (History of English Poetry. Mac 
 millan, 1897. Vol. I., p. 369). It was first printed ii 
 Jlrnolde's Chronicle, a book supposed to have been pub 
 lished about 1521. It was reprinted in the Muse's Mercur^ 
 in 1707, where it was described as " near 300 years old.' 
 Prof. Courthope, however, considers that it is " certainly 
 a composition not later than the early part of the sixteentl 
 century " (Ibid., Vol. II., p. 57). It was again reprintec 
 in the Prolusions in 1760, the editor of which collated th( 
 versions of two editions of Jlrnolde's Chronicle ; and finally 
 Bishop Percy compared the Prolusions with a third editioi 
 of the Chronicle in Cambridge University Library. 
 
 The traditional connection of the Nut- Brown Mail 
 with Henry Clifford, Wordsworth's famous Shepherc 
 Lord (see his Song at the feast of "Brougham Castle), ii 
 very curious, and it would be extremely interesting tc 
 trace its origin. Wordsworth makes the lady a fairy, or 
 what authority he does not say (see the First Canto o: 
 The IVhite Doe of Rylstone and the Notes in Macmillan'i 
 Complete Edition, 1893). '^^^ whole tale of the vendetta 
 between Clifford's family and the Warwicks, of his lather*! 
 death at the battle of Towton(see Shakespeare's Henry VI) 
 and of his own life down to the days of Bosworth Field 
 Brougham Castle, and Barden Tower, is one of the mosi 
 romantic in history. In 1894 an Opera on this subject 
 written by me, and composed by Senor Albeniz, wai 
 performed at Barcelona. 
 
79 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THE TijySLdlTION OF ST. LOVE THE DIVINE 
 Square i6«rs., 3J. 6d. net. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 
 
 "The reader feels behind this verse always a brave and 
 tender spirit, a soul which has at any rate ' beat its music 
 out ' ; which will not compromise, which cannot lie, 
 which is in love with the highest that it sees. This little 
 book is an addition to our literature ; and it is so because 
 it has the strong personal note so long lacking, the rebel tire 
 that is lit from clear sight, and a gift of expression both 
 exact and direct." — Mr. Stephen Phillips, in The 
 Academy. 
 
 " Mr. Money Coutts' verse challenges attention, not 
 only from the audacity of its subject-matter, but also from 
 the novelty of its form. Out of the simplest materials this 
 author has fashioned quite a new instrument for the purposes 
 of his half-contemplative, half-satirical muse. . . . Here 
 is a man who has high thoughts and a distinct poetic gift. , 
 There is terse, epigrammatic strength, pregnant simile, and 
 fine imagination in nearly every one of his fifty quatrains of 
 quatrains ; and, of course, his wit is never lacking." — 
 "N. O. B.,"in The Echo. 
 
 " It is not every writer who is master, as was quite truly 
 said of Mr. Money Coutts some years ago, of " the rare and 
 diiTicult art of clothing thought in the true poetic language." 
 ITiere is much, as we have pointed out, in the subject and 
 purport of the present volume, which has made exceptional 
 
8o 
 
 demand for the display of this mastery ; and, as we have 
 also endeavoured to show, it has rarely failed to meet with 
 an adequate response. . . . It is in giving voice to 
 those noble if somewhat nebulous aspirations of the modem 
 poet, from Shelley downwards, towards a state of things in 
 which Love and Light shall together rule a world enfranchised 
 from the bondage of creed and dogma, that the poet touches 
 his highest point of excellence in the matter of expression." — 
 Literature. 
 
 "Mr. Money Coutts may almost be said to have 
 invented a new instrument for contemplative, philosophic, 
 and satirical poetry. He has taken the simplest of English 
 stanzas, the eight-syllable quatrain with alternative rhymes, 
 and has made a new unit by grouping these quatrains in 
 sections of four apiece. This quatrain of quatrains becomes 
 in his hands a highly effective literary instrument, with a 
 character and individuality of its own. . . . Not one of 
 these groups of quatrains is without its flash of imagination, 
 passion, or wit, while in many the compression of thought 
 and style, the epigrammatic force, is very remarkable." — 
 The Daily Chronicle. 
 
 "Terse yet lucid, hammered hard yet flexible, his 
 poetry is a miracle of craftsmanship. He has invented a 
 new poetic form, to wit, the quatrain of the quatrain. . , 
 He is a poet of revolt . . . asserting the omnipotence 
 of love, and pleading nobly for nobility in art." — The Star. 
 
 "There is a fund of strong and right feeling in Mr. 
 Coutts. . . , He has the gift of indignation. . . . 
 He is a prophet." — The Illustrated London News. 
 
 "Mr. Coutts's Muse is eminently thoughtful and worth 
 dwelling yn'Ca.." —The Globe. 
 
 "He is unquestionably masterly in giving musical 
 cadence to his bold and straightforward thoughts." — Daily 
 Mail. 
 
8i 
 
 " We can warmly recommend this poem by Mr. Coutts, 
 as possessing not merely high literary excellence, but as 
 embodying a noble and inspiring message." — The New Age. 
 
 " The verse is, from first to last, strenuous and pregnant, 
 adapted wonderfully — with a manner inevitably elliptic but 
 not obscure — to the deliberate and tuneful expression of 
 abundant thought." — The Manchester Guardian. 
 
 " His work is one of most serious purpose, and men 
 and women who are not fools, and given over to blind 
 indulgence, will find in it high counsels for the conduct of a 
 goodly and noble life. There is something in the book, 
 indeed, for all sorts of workers and thinkers and dreamers." — 
 The Glasgow Herald. 
 
 " Flawless in facet, and shining with the unmistakable 
 light of poetic genius." — The Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 " He has put cadence and music and true poetry into 
 his work." — The Irish Independent Weekly, 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 'POZIMS 
 
 Crotvtt Svo., y. 6d. net. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 
 
 " ' The Essay in a Brief Model ' is one of the strongest 
 and finest poems I have read in the poetry of the present 
 age."— Prof. R. G. Moulton. 
 
 " Mr. Money Coutts is master of the rare and difficult 
 art of clothing thought in the true poetic language." — H. D. 
 Traill (in The Graphic). 
 
82 
 
 " The verse is marked all through by great vigour, 
 compression of thought, and particularly by descriptive force 
 and fitness." — Statist. 
 
 " Best of all are the sonnets, some of which, in their 
 careful and elaborate technique, remind us of M. de Heredia's 
 Pierrerie." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " Mr. Money Coutts' thoughts are fair and noble. . . . 
 The verse holds them enthralled, like fairy princesses in 
 enchanted dungeons." — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 " Limiting my reply to books of verse by writers new 
 to me, I could say that three have interested me particularly : 
 Units, by Miss Winifred Lucas ; Christ in Hades, by Mr. 
 Stephen Phillips ; and the Poems of Mr. Money Coutts." — 
 Mrs. Meynell (in Tke Academy). 
 
 " Mr. Money Coutts has surprised us after a fashion that 
 does him much credit. . . . He has grappled with no 
 less a theme than is the mainspring of that magnificent work. 
 The Book of yob. . . . It is beyond all question a noble 
 conception. . . . Mr. Money Coutts has evidently an 
 absolutely perfect ear for rhythm." — National Observer. 
 
 " This may be confidently pronounced an exceedingly 
 brilliant achievement in English verse, worthy of comparison 
 with the best work of the masters." — Chicago Tribune. 
 
 ' ' ' An Essay in a Brief Model ' is Miltonic. . . . Every 
 line is pregnant with an almost equal power. . . . All is 
 good stuff, thick-woven as heavy wool, and yet flexible as 
 rarest silk. ... If this be not great poetry, I am totally 
 ignorant of that product." — Edgar Fawcett (in Collier s 
 Weekly). 
 
 JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 
 
rnell University Library 
 rn 40^if.L.)A5 1898 
 
 The Alhambra and other poems, 
 
 3 1924 013 496 355 
 
i i'i 
 
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 ii r 
 
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