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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013535509 
 
NEW POEMS 
 
BOOKS BY 
 MR. STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 POEMS : with which is incorporated 
 " Christ in Hades " 
 Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net 
 
 Fourteenth Edition 
 
 PAOLO & FRANCESCA : a Play 
 Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net 
 
 Twenly-fifth Thousand 
 
 HEROD : a Tragedy, &c. 
 Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net 
 
 Twenty-second Thousand 
 
 ULYSSES : A Drama 
 Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net 
 
 Tenth Thousand 
 
 MARPESSA 
 
 Illustrated by Philip Connard 
 In cloth, is. net ; in leather, 
 IS. 6d. net 
 
NEW POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 LONDON : JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
 NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY : MCMVIII 
 
Printed by Ballantyne fir» Co. Limited 
 Tavistock Street, London 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ENDYMION I 
 
 GRIEF AND GOD 17 
 
 CITIES OF HELL 22 
 
 MIDNIGHT — THE 3IST OF DECEMBER, I9OO ... 28 
 
 A poet's prayer 41 
 
 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 45 
 
 A GLEAM 49 
 
 THE QUEST OF EDITH $2 
 
 DREYFUS 64 
 
 THAT SHE REPENT ! 67 
 
 AFTER RAIN 69 
 
 A MAN ! . 72 
 
 EARTH-BOUND 75 
 
 THE SON 77 
 
 THOUGHTS AT SUNRISE 81 
 
 " MARTINI LUIGI IMPLORA PACE " . . . -85 
 
 THE TORTURERS 87 
 
 THOUGHTS IN A MEADOW 91 
 
 V 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 THE DREAMING MUSE -94 
 
 TO A LOST LOVE . ... 9? 
 
 ORESTES ... .... lOO 
 
 THE PARTING OF LAUNCELOT AND GUINEVERE I05 
 
 A girl's LAST WORDS . . ... I08 
 
 THOUGHTS AT NOON .... . IIO 
 
 AT NIGHT . , .112 
 
 A MOTHER . 114 
 
 lOLE (A TRAGEDY IN ONE ACT) ... . II7 
 
NEW POEMS 
 
Certain of the following poems are here 
 reprinted by permission of the Editors of The 
 Nineteenth Century, The Spectator, The Daily 
 Chronicle, The Cornhill Magasine, The Century 
 Magazine and The Saturday Review, to whom 
 the author desires to express his acknowledg- 
 ments. 
 
ENDYMION 
 
 Endymion, glistering from the morning stream, 
 In beautiful cold youth with virgin eyes, 
 Sprang naked up the Latmian steep, and stood 
 In the red sunrise shaking from his hair 
 The river-drops, and laughed, he knew not 
 
 why. 
 Hardly might one believe that he was born 
 Out of a mortal woman and with pain ; 
 But that his mother, like some pleasant tree. 
 Whose husband is the kind-embracing sun, 
 Had yielded him at leisure to the ground. 
 He breathed and suffered not ; and all his 
 
 youth 
 
2 ENDYMION 
 
 Was filled with quiet singing, secret glee ; 
 His dewy thoughts yet trembled on the leaves. 
 And if he wept, he wept but in his dreams ; 
 For sadness, that all day on us attends, 
 Was his delicious toy in midnight hour ; 
 Dimly he sorrowed under many stars ; 
 And, rousing, he would wonder at those drops 
 Upon his cheek. And if he loved at all, 
 'Twas in some dream, where all we trust is 
 
 true. 
 Moonlight unfading musical with waves. 
 Now as he stood, and in the sunrise dripped. 
 The dedicated Dawn with downcast look 
 Was gently led by the enraptured Sun 
 Up to the high noon-ritual, till at length 
 She opened at the ocean her grave eyes. 
 Then, as she slowly fliushed, Endymion 
 
ENDYMION 3 
 
 Released his flocks upon the slope : and so 
 Even from the blue unto the golden hour, 
 Without a thought, under the open sky, 
 Without emotion to and fro he moved. 
 Sweet-blooded, and with perfect sleep inspired. 
 But when the orb was dropping in the cold, 
 And faintness came upon the fields, and birds 
 Ceased in the thickets one by one, he penned 
 His sheep secure ; until the summer Moon 
 On the horizon burned a forest green. 
 Lighting, as in a temple, fiery aisles, 
 And one tremendous nave with banners hung ; 
 Ushering mystery upon the air. 
 Now was She swimming full in the dark vault. 
 The darker for her beauty, when she seemed 
 To pause ; there was no breathing in the 
 heaven. 
 
4 ENDYMION 
 
 Lo ! like a lily vast the luminous Bloom 
 Unfolded slow upon the noon of night : 
 A moment, like a rain-drop at its edge, 
 Selene, brightly faltering, earthward slid ; 
 And all the argent Flower had closed again. 
 Endymion heard his name amid the stars 
 Breathed ; and again " Endymion ! " he heard 
 Cried out in passion between earth and heaven ; 
 Then " O Endymion !" stole into his ear : 
 He feels Selene naked in his arms. 
 " O human face so far beneath my pain," 
 She murmured ; " suffer me to touch thy lips ; 
 For though I rule the night, yet still am I 
 A woman : without love I cannot live. 
 Alone, alone for ever, Endymion ! 
 Unwedded, barren, and yet brilliant young. 
 Cold is my life ; but thou art warm and glad. 
 
ENDYMION 5 
 
 Chill are my veins ; but I can feel thy blood 
 Run from thy rich heart to thy finger-ends. 
 Kiss me but once, that I may feel thy joy 
 Spring through my veins and tingle in my 
 
 soul." 
 She kissed him : and Endymion trembling 
 
 said, 
 " O mystic Brilliance, why hast thou disturbed 
 My simple youth that was so pleased to 
 
 breathe .' 
 Till now I was content 'twixt grass and cloud ; 
 To be alive I deemed a lavish gift, 
 And ripen slowly under falling beams. 
 To me it was enough to hear the shower, 
 And the low laughter blown from the bright 
 
 sea. 
 To me till now it hath sufficed to watch 
 
6 ENDYMION 
 
 The summer quivering over holy bloom, 
 Or August apple wooed by orchard grass, 
 Or stripped December waving mournfully 
 Her bared arms to the cloud. This was the 
 
 world 
 To me ; but now what melancholy sweet 
 Steals over me, what magical distress, 
 Distant delicious trouble and new pain ! 
 Ah ! Ah ! what hast thou done ? for I begin 
 To grieve for ancient wars, and at the thought 
 Of women that have died long, long ago, 
 For sea-tossed heroes labouring toward the 
 
 West. 
 Ah ! Ah ! what hast thou done ? for I am 
 
 thrilled 
 With perils in the enchanted dawn of Time, 
 And I begin to sorrow for strange things 
 
ENDYMION 7 
 
 And to be sad with men long-dead ; O now 
 I suffer with old legends, and I pine 
 At long sea-glances for a single sail. 
 Yet have I deeper pleasure than ever yet : 
 What now I feel, I would not now forgo ; 
 This folding closer, and this drawing up 
 To the still Soul which hath imagined us. 
 Listen 1 the sea is on the verge of speech, 
 The breeze hath something private for me : 
 
 Night 
 Would lead me, like a creature dumb, with 
 
 signs. 
 And though I grieve with all, with all I live : 
 I am a sitter by the cottage-fire ; 
 By perfect-sleeping children ; by the bed 
 Of the cold maid who slumbers in her bloom ; 
 Of lovers clasped together after years, 
 
8 ENDYMION 
 
 Long years : I pace the deck superb of ships, 
 I charge amid the hurtle of faces grim, 
 I sing at eve to aged silent men. 
 
 I must vent this woe, this ecstasy, 
 Or I shall die of joy and pity : now 
 
 Sweet words are fluttering at my mouth, and 
 
 sounds 
 Which it were death to leave upon the tongue ! 
 
 1 must make music of my brother's pain. 
 Give me thy lips anew, transcendent Grief! " 
 Then spoke Selene, brightening as she spoke : 
 " Love, though my lips inflicted on thee pain, 
 It was a glorious pain : thou hadst a sight 
 Into the deep Bosom that sighed the stars. 
 Thou wast permitted for strange things to 
 
 grieve 
 And to be sad with men long-dead : yet know 
 
ENDYMION 9 
 
 The boundless bliss of that world-sympathy, 
 When tenderness has found its lovely word, 
 And all the pity into music passed. 
 Now can we never part, Endymion ; 
 Too deeply have we mingled. Wilt thou 
 
 come, 
 And drift upon this bosom through the deep ? 
 Say, wilt thou lead a life which, though less 
 
 bright. 
 Is beautiful to those of noon aweary. 
 The rarer day of spirits exquisite ? 
 Is it so little ocean to allure, 
 Or rise in silence on the battle-field ; 
 To soothe the spires and steeples of the world, 
 Or the blue-darting pyramids ; to clothe 
 In lovely raiment even the starkest crag ; 
 Make the Sahara like a lily bloom. 
 
lO ENDYMION 
 
 A huge and delicate flower ; to reconcile 
 The coldest hills ; to fill the gaps of stone, 
 To gloze with glory intervals of Time ; 
 To breathe into the bones of cities dead 
 An argent soul, reweave the passionate halls 
 Where waves the grass, and prostrate empires 
 
 old 
 Raise into trembling immortality ? 
 Is it so little to rebuild a world 
 Where all seems possible at last, where Death 
 Is not, nor parting, nor the dreaded chill, 
 Nor coldest age, nor injury, and where 
 Slowly the dreaming earth begins to trust ; 
 To feel those fragile souls that dread the sun 
 Sweetly unfold themselves ; or to restore 
 To toilers grown so diffident with dust 
 The spacious revelation of the night ? 
 
ENDYMION II 
 
 And I am conscious — ah, believe it still — 
 Cold though I seem, and passing, passing on. 
 Of all those upturned faces and long looks. 
 At times indeed it seems to me that I 
 Was later born than ever the sun or stars, 
 And that, perchance, so many faces raised, 
 So many ballads lone, and secret strings. 
 So many far, far thoughts, and spoken names 
 Slowly created in the heaven this arc. 
 And made the sadness that my being is." 
 He but half-heard her, and as in a trance 
 Murmured : she caught him upward in her 
 
 arms 
 Dreaming, to where the sphere still paused for 
 
 her. 
 And all the dark earth glides from under them 
 Floating in silent heaven together wrapped. 
 
12 ENDYMION 
 
 But now Selene feared : ocean uncharmed 
 Hither and thither mutinously swayed, 
 Earth rushed as in eclipse : the vast Design 
 Was conscious, muttering its Maker's name ; 
 On Nature's brow stood out the extreme 
 
 drops ; 
 She shuddered, and experienced final cold. 
 Selene knew ; and to Endymion said : 
 " Sweet, I must set thee down ; " and she with 
 
 him 
 Slid out of heaven into a valley fresh, 
 Far from the cities and the noise of men, 
 A secret place ; yet open to the stars. 
 Here then she laid him, and said over him : 
 " Sweet, I must set thee down : for now I see 
 How cruel the eternal ways of heaven ; 
 That only from my loneliness comes light, 
 
ENDYMION 13 
 
 That my bereaved life this candle is. 
 I may not overlong approach the earth. 
 I had so yearned for joy ; and to be loved 
 A little, if only such a simple love 
 As hath a gleaner's wife in evening hour — 
 Kind hands, a still and sweet anxiety, 
 Brave prudent talk about the coming day, 
 Even with this could I have been so pleased. 
 I had but hoped for happiness ; yet this 
 Most natural hope estranged the faithful sea, 
 Eclipsed the earth, brought Nature near to 
 
 death. 
 Those then who bear the torch may not 
 
 expect 
 Sweet arms, nor touches, no, nor any home 
 But brilliant wanderings and bright exile.. 
 Here then I lay thee down, far, far from men, 
 
14 ENDYMION 
 
 And to the sky return : but yet at times, 
 Ah ! yet at times, I still must visit thee. 
 Incline and touch thee swiftly at midnight. 
 And lest thy face like any face should be 
 Buried away, and I should only feel 
 With melancholy mouth a grassy mound ; 
 I give thee immortality, for I 
 Will suffer not my darling to decay." 
 Then said Endymion : " After that high kiss, 
 After that sorrow more supreme than joy, 
 That floating in Imagination's heaven. 
 How should I live again in earthly field .' 
 After thy dimness, what to me is light ? 
 After thy kiss, I feel I cannot die. 
 Then suffer me immortally to dream." 
 " So be it then. Dream on, Endymion," 
 She answered, " and at deep of midnight I 
 
ENDYMION 15 
 
 Will lean and kiss thee: thou shalt feel my 
 
 kiss 
 In deepest dream ; and I shall hear thy lips 
 Distinct into the quiet say my name, 
 And yet, sweet boy, think not that in this 
 
 dream 
 Thou shalt not suffer, for thy trance shall be 
 More quivering intense than waking hour. 
 Cities shall be in it, and like to clouds 
 White dynasties subsiding and rebuilt 
 In blue eternity : though closed thine eyes. 
 Never had mortal such deep sight as thine. 
 Though deaf thine ear, thunder shall be in it. 
 Trumpets, and sound of snow, and note of 
 
 birds, 
 Lashed caverns and the earliest lisp of babes ; 
 Thou shalt with all rejoice and weep and die 
 
i6 ENDYMION 
 
 For ever ; though the dream hold on its 
 
 course." 
 She spoke ; and they two slowly drew apart, 
 He, faint already with that endless dream, 
 Where such as he must live far-off from men. 
 Yet thrilled with all the arrows of mankind ; 
 And she who had descended to inspire, 
 Not suffered overlong to touch the earth, 
 Departed to her own throne and her place. 
 Nature respired, and reassured herself : 
 Delighted ocean on his mistress fawned. 
 Who from rejection grown more radiant. 
 Passed, and in purer moonlight lapped the 
 
 earth. 
 And so she keeps her light and he his dream. 
 
GRIEF AND GOD 
 
 Unshunnable is grief; we should not fear 
 The dreadful bath whose cleansing is so clear ; 
 For He who to the Spring such poison gave, 
 Who rears his roses from the hopeless grave ; 
 Who caused the babe to wail at the first 
 
 breath, 
 But with a rapture seals the face of death ; 
 Who circled us with pale aspiring foam. 
 With exiled Music yearning for her home, 
 With knockings early and with cryings late. 
 The moving of deep waters against Fate ; 
 Who starred the skies with yearning, with 
 
 those fires, 
 
 17 B 
 
i8 GRIEF AND GOD 
 
 That dart through dew their infinite desires ; 
 Or largely silent and so wistful bright 
 Direct a single look of love all night ; 
 Who gave unto the Moon that hopeless quest 
 Condemned the wind to wander without rest ; 
 He, as I think, intends that we shall rise 
 Only through pain into His Paradise. 
 Woe ! woe ! to those who placidly suspire, 
 Drowned in security, remote from fire ; 
 Who under the dim sky and whispering trees 
 By peaceful slopes and passing streams have 
 
 ease ; 
 Whose merit is their uncommitted sins. 
 Whose thought is heinous, but they shun 
 
 the gins 
 And those o'erflowering pits that take the 
 
 strong. 
 
GRIEF AND GOD 19 
 
 The baited sweetness and the honeyed wrong ; 
 Who watched the falling yet who never fell, 
 Shadows not yet ascended into Hell. 
 No sacred pang disturbs their secular life, 
 Eluding splendour and escaping strife ; 
 They die not, for they lived not ; under earth 
 Their bodies urge the meaner flowers to birth ; 
 Unstung, unfired, untempted was their soul ; 
 Easy extinction is their utmost goal. 
 To those whom He doth love God hath not 
 
 sent 
 Such dread security, such sad content ; 
 Young are they carried to the font of pain. 
 In coldest anguish dipped again, again ; 
 Or else into His burning are they led, 
 Desirous of His glory to be dead ; 
 When He descends, like Semele they die. 
 
20 GRIEF AND GOD 
 
 Proud to be shrivelled in His ecstasy ; 
 
 Or through the night of life they ebb and 
 
 flow 
 Under the cold imperial Moon of woe. 
 Some of His favourites are too fiercely 
 
 wrought 
 To spend upon the sunny earth a thought, 
 But ever by an inward peril driven, 
 Neglect the gleaming grass and glimmering 
 
 heaven. 
 And some by thorny sweetness are betrayed, 
 By beauty of those bodies He hath made ; 
 And some o'er wearied, have so tired a head. 
 They ask like children to be laid in bed. 
 But He hath branded on such souls his name, 
 And He will know them by the scars of flame. 
 As Christ in the dark garden had to drink 
 
GRIEF AND GOD 21 
 
 The brimming cup from which His soul did 
 
 shrink ; 
 As Dante had to thread the world of fire, 
 Ere he approached the Rose of his desire ; 
 So fear not grief, fear not the anguish, thou, 
 The paining heart, the clasped and prostrate 
 
 brow ; 
 This is the emblem, and this is the sign 
 By which God singles thee for fields divine ; 
 From such a height He stoops, from such a 
 
 bliss, 
 Small wonder thou dost shudder at His kiss. 
 
CITIES OF HELL 
 
 I 
 
 I FELL into a trance : my spirit passed 
 Beyond the boundaries of the earth, until 
 I paused upon some dismal height, and gazed 
 Beneath me vast and various cities lay ; 
 Cities of earth they seemed, resurgent here. 
 
 II 
 
 Familiar, as I gazed, they grew, and clear : 
 London discolouring the rolling clouds ; 
 Next !f aris in sunbeams, then moonlit Rome ; 
 Last Babylon abandoned to great stars : 
 These I beheld rebuilded upon space. 
 
 22 
 
CITIES OF HELL 23 
 
 III 
 
 Down to that other London with slow pace 
 
 Venturing, I into a chamber came, 
 
 Where breathed a man, as after murder, fast. 
 
 In fury bent above a woman ; she, 
 
 New- murdered, listless to me turned her head. 
 
 IV 
 
 Then said I to the woman : " Being dead. 
 Why in this tragic London chamber still 
 Linger you ? " She made answer : " He who 
 
 stares 
 With everlasting fury in my face 
 Within this room in frenzy murdered me. 
 
24 CITIES OF HELL 
 
 " Such power hath passion upon stones that he 
 
 Transported into space the very walls, 
 
 The hour, the room, this bed where still I 
 
 droop. 
 Hither at death we naturally came, 
 Inheriting the home that moment built. 
 
 VI 
 
 " Nothing is changed — nothing ; his furious 
 
 guilt 
 Detains this chamber fast, and bids it stand. 
 Ah, God ! the twilight star without, the branch 
 Rustling, the long white cloud upon the sky, 
 By his magnetic rage do still cohere. 
 
CITIES OF HELL ^S 
 
 VII 
 
 " O listen, friend ! Dost thou not even hear 
 The running of the river through the arch, 
 The very breeze with gentleness of rain ? 
 Then, how it sighed ! Now it hath passed 
 
 away. 
 The softest noises of that hour endure. 
 
 VIII 
 
 " Our spirits to these walls hath he bound sure ; 
 We, murderer and murdered, private live. 
 Millions have hither hurled the hour, the place. 
 The scenery of their sins : so rises here 
 Another London and a second Rome. 
 
26 CITIES OF HELL 
 
 IX 
 
 " Oh, if thou marvellest at this earthly home, 
 This rustle of earthly foliage after death, 
 This pattering of rain beyond the grave, 
 Then tremble ! Nothing done, or said, or 
 
 thought. 
 Shall ever perish : none can ever die." 
 
 X 
 
 " Is there no hope, then ? Must you two," 
 
 said I, 
 " Spend in this earthly room eternal years 7" 
 " I have forgiven him ; my part is done," 
 She answered : " if but once his rage subside, 
 Straight would these walls dissolve, releasing 
 
 us." 
 
CITIES OF HELL 27 
 
 XI 
 
 Listless again, when she had spoken thus, 
 She grew ; that other breathing fast I heard. 
 Then sudden as a child I cried for earth : 
 Down rushing, I was 'ware at last of waves, 
 Then spires ; and to the body I returned. 
 
MIDNIGHT— THE 31ST OF DECEMBER 
 1900 
 
 Lo ! now on the midnight the soul of the 
 century passing, 
 And on midnight the voice of the Lord ! 
 "In the years that have been I have made an 
 oblivion for anguish, 
 And stillness in place of a cry ; 
 I have lain round the knife as a numbness, on 
 nerves as an ether, 
 I am He that hath healed," saith the Lord. 
 " I have fallen as a veil upon woe, as a slumber 
 on sorrow. 
 As a blank on the reeling brain. 
 
 28 
 
MIDNIGHT 3 1 ST OF DECEMBER 19OO 29 
 
 In the years that have been I have shown me a 
 smoother of pillows, 
 A closer of fixed eyes. 
 In the years that shall be I will come as an 
 healer to cities, 
 And as dew to a parched land. 
 In that day shall the Northern City, the 
 country of iron, 
 Lapse into living green, 
 And the city of furnaces fade, the city of wheels, 
 
 The city of the white faces. 
 The griding city, the city of gongs and of 
 hammers, 
 Whose floor is of embers and ashes. 
 And her in whose soul the iron hath entered 
 whose bosom 
 Is filled with a fatal milk, 
 
MIDNIGHT— 3 1 ST OF DECEMBER IQOO 
 
 lose spirit fainteth in greyness of lead, and 
 
 whose yearning 
 Hath died in a phosphorus mist, 
 vill lead out of hissing and venomous travail 
 
 and vapour 
 To a city spacious and clear, 
 id I will abolish utterly smoke and 
 
 confusion, 
 On roaring will set my feet ; 
 1 the wailing whistle of engines, the tunnelled 
 
 shrieking. 
 The groaning labour of steam ; 
 1 the houses with windows as eyes that stare, 
 
 yet see not 
 The forlorn, the endless vistas, 
 will make me a city of gliding and wide- 
 
 wayed silence. 
 
MIDNIGHT — 3 1 ST OF DECEMBER I9OO 31 
 
 With a highway of glass and of gold, 
 With life of a coloured peace and a lucid leisure 
 
 Of smooth electrical ease ; 
 Of sweet excursion, of noiseless and brilliant 
 travel, 
 With room in your streets for the soul. 
 And that blistering wind that maketh the heart 
 to withdraw, 
 And the spirit to flinch from love, 
 Ye shall change it to balm, and the South- 
 wind shall blow in your houses 
 The rainy soul of the rose. 
 And a charm ye shall take from the ebbing 
 and flowing of ocean 
 That shall make the night as the day. 
 And the storfed strength of the tides ye shall 
 use for your labour, 
 
32 MIDNIGHT — 3 1 ST OF DECEMBER I9OO 
 
 And bind it to tasks and to toil. 
 Yet forget not the beauty of night in her 
 coming and going, 
 Forget not the sprinkled vault, 
 Nor eve with her floating bird and her lonely 
 star, 
 Nor the reddening clouds of the eve ; 
 Forget not the moon of the poet, nor stars of 
 the dreamer. 
 Though ye live like to spirits in ease. 
 
 " In the years that have been I have bound 
 man closer to man, 
 And closer woman to woman ; 
 And the stranger hath seen in a stranger his 
 brother at last, 
 And a sister in eyes that were strange. 
 
MIDNIGHT — 3 1 ST OF DECEMBER I9OO 33 
 
 In the years that shall be I will bind me nation 
 to nation 
 And shore unto shore," saith our God. 
 " For this cause I will make of your warfare a 
 terrible thing, 
 A thing impossible, vain ; 
 For a man shall set his hand to a handle and 
 wither 
 Invisible armies and fleets, 
 And a lonely man with a breath shall 
 exterminate armies, 
 With a whisper annihilate fleets ; 
 And the captain shall sit in his chamber and 
 level a city, 
 The far-off" capital city. 
 Then the Tsar that dreameth in snow and 
 broodeth in winter, 
 
 c 
 
34 MIDNIGHT 3 1 ST OF DECEMBER I9OO 
 
 That foiled dreamer in frost, 
 And the Teuton Emperor then, and the Gaul 
 and the Briton 
 Shall cease from impossible war, 
 Discarding their glittering legions, armadas of 
 iron, 
 As children toys that are old. 
 As a man hath been brought, I will bring unto 
 judgment a nation ; 
 Nor shall numbers be pleaded for sin. 
 And that people to whom I gave in commission 
 the ocean 
 To use my waters for right, 
 Let them look to the inward things, to the 
 searching of spirit, 
 And cease from boasting and noise. 
 Then nation shall cleave unto nation, and 
 Babel shall fall : 
 
MIDNIGHT 3 1 ST OF DECEMBER 19OO 35 
 
 They shall speak in a common tongue, 
 And the soul of the Gaul shall leap to the soul 
 of the Briton 
 Through all disguises and shows ; 
 And soul shall speak unto soul — I weary of 
 tongues, 
 I weary of babble and strife. 
 Lo ! I am the bonder and , knitter together of 
 spirits, 
 I dispense with nations and shores. 
 
 " In the years that have been, in the rocks I 
 have shown ye a record 
 And a ledger in layers of chalk ; 
 I have shown ye a book and a diary faithful in 
 caverns, 
 An account in the depths of the earth. 
 
36 MIDNIGHT 3 1 ST OF DECEMBER 19OO 
 
 When ye swayed to and fro as a jelly in ooze 
 of the ocean, 
 I foresaw, I determined, I planned. 
 And I brooded on primal ooze as a mother 
 broodeth. 
 And slime as a cradle I watched. 
 When ye hung on the branches of trees, when 
 ye swung and ye chattered, 
 I made ready, prepared and decreed 
 That in years that should be I would bring ye 
 with patience through aeons, 
 From slime through the forest to bliss ; 
 I would wean ye from climbings and fury to 
 wings and to wisdom, 
 From dark sea-stupor to life. 
 
MIDNIGHT 3 1 ST OF DECEMBER I goo 37 
 
 " In the years that have been I have broken 
 the barriers to knowledge, 
 I have shattered your barriers and bars ; 
 I have led, like steeds from a stable, Forces and 
 Powers, 
 I have bidden ye mount them and ride. 
 In the years that shall be ye shall harness the 
 Powers of the aether 
 And drive them with reins as a steed ; 
 Ye shall ride on a Power of the air, on a Force 
 that is bridled, 
 On a saddled Element leap ; 
 And rays shall be as your coursers, and heat as 
 a carriage. 
 And waves of the aether your wheels ; 
 And the thunder shall be as a servant, a slave 
 that is ready, 
 
38 MIDNIGHT — 3 1 ST OF DECEMBER I9OO 
 
 And the lightning as he that waits. 
 Ye shall send on your business the blast, and 
 the tempest on errands, 
 Ye shall use for your need, Eclipse. 
 In that day shall a man out of uttermost India 
 whisper, 
 And in England his friend shall hear ; 
 And a maid in an English meadow have sight 
 of her lover 
 Who wanders in far Cathay. 
 In that day shall ye walk to and fro on the sea 
 without terror. 
 And pace without fear the foam, 
 As a field of the evening the Mediterranean 
 
 lying, 
 The Atlantic a lawn for your feet. 
 
MIDNIGHT' — 3 1 ST OF DECEMBER I9OO 39 
 
 " Yet remember the ancient things, the things 
 that have been, 
 And meekly inherit the Earth ! 
 And or ever those days be ended, the veil shall 
 be rent — 
 The veil upon Nature's face. 
 And the dead whom ye loved, ye shall walk 
 with, and speak with the lost. 
 The delusion of Death shall pass : 
 The delusion of mounded earth, the apparent 
 withdrawal. 
 The snare of sightlessness fade. 
 Ye shall shed your bodies, and upward shall 
 flutter to freedom, 
 For a moment consent to the ground. 
 Lo ! I am the burster of bonds and the breaker 
 of barriers — 
 I am He that shall free," saith the Lord. 
 
40 MIDNIGHT — 3 1 ST OF DECEMCER I9OO 
 
 " For the lingering battle, the contest of ages is 
 ending, 
 And victory foUoweth Me. 
 They set them in order of battle, they ranged 
 them against Me — 
 Chaos and Anguish and Time 
 And Madness and Hunger and Sorrow and 
 Night and the Grave — 
 But victory foUoweth Me. 
 Lo ! I come, I hasten, I set my procession in 
 order, 
 In order of triumph I come ; 
 At the wheels of my chariot pacing, like alien 
 captives. 
 Anguish and Time and Death, 
 
 To a multitude out of the uttermost spheres 
 assembled. 
 
 With a shout of delivered stars." 
 
A POET'S PRAYER 
 
 That I have felt the rushing wind of Thee : 
 That I have run before thy blast to sea ; 
 That my one moment of transcendent strife 
 Is more than many years of listless life ; 
 Beautiful Power, I praise Thee : yet I send 
 A prayer that sudden strength be not the 
 
 end. 
 Desert me not when from my flagging sails 
 Thy breathing dies away, and virtue fails : 
 When Thou hast spent the glory of that gust. 
 Remember still the body of this dust. 
 Not then when I am boundless, without bars, 
 When I am rapt in hurry to the stars ; 
 41 
 
42 A POETS PRAYER 
 
 When I anticipate an endless bliss, 
 
 And feel before my time the final kiss, 
 
 Not then I need Thee : for delight is wise, 
 
 I err not in the freedom of the skies ; 
 
 I fear not joy, so joy might ever be. 
 
 And rapture finish in felicity. 
 
 But when Thy joy is past ; comes in the 
 
 test. 
 To front the life that lingers after zest : 
 To live in mere negation of Thy light, 
 A more than blindless after more than sight. 
 'Tis not in flesh so swiftly to descend, 
 And sudden from the spheres with earth to 
 
 blend ; 
 And I, from splendour thrown, and dashed 
 
 from dream, 
 Into the flare pursue the former gleam. 
 
A POETS PRAYER 43 
 
 Sustain me in that hour with Thy left hand, 
 And aid me, when I cease to soar, to stand ; 
 Make me Thy athlete even in my bed, 
 Thy girded runner though the course be sped '. 
 Still to refrain that I may more bestow, 
 From sternness to a larger sweetness grow. 
 I ask not that false calm which many feign, 
 And call that peace which is a dearth of 
 
 pain. 
 True calm doth quiver like the calmest star ; 
 It is that white where all the colours are ; 
 And for its very vestibule doth own 
 The tree of Jesus and the pyre of Joan. 
 Thither I press; but O do Thou meanwhile 
 Support me in privations of Thy smile. 
 Spaces Thou hast ordained the stars between 
 And silences where melody hath been : 
 
44 A POET S PRAYER 
 
 Teach me those absences of fire to face, 
 And Thee no less in silence to embrace, 
 Else shall Thy dreadful gift still people Hell, 
 And men not measure from what height I fell. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 
 
 I 
 
 Not taken scythe in hand from field half -reaped, 
 
 Not early stolen in thy wine of May, 
 
 Not lingering on to death through life eclipsed 
 
 But fortunately old, in fragrant fame, 
 
 Thou from the Sun hast passed into the dark, 
 
 II 
 
 Warrior with deep unwillingness to wound, 
 Smiter that ne'er didst learn the art to stab, 
 Exquisite knight, so gentle to the end ; 
 Of chivalry antique and gracious words : 
 Foeman, with sweetness of an elder day. 
 45 
 
46 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 
 
 III 
 
 Not in the press of war didst thou go down, 
 But seeing death was near, thou didst retire ; 
 Preparing as a runner for that course. 
 That final struggle, and that different field. 
 With pain preparing and with solemn care. 
 
 IV 
 
 The saint and poet dwell apart ; but thou 
 Wast holy in the furious press of men, 
 And choral in the central rush of life. 
 Yet didst thou love old branches and a book, 
 And Roman verses on an English lawn. 
 
 V 
 
 Thy voice had all the roaring of the wave, 
 And hoarse magnificence of rushing stones ; 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 47 
 
 It had the murmur of Ionian bees, * 
 
 And the persuading sweetness of a shower. 
 Clarion of God ! thy ringing peal is o'er ! 
 
 VI 
 
 Yet not for all thy breathing charm remote, 
 Nor breach tremendous in the forts of Hell, 
 Not for these things we praise thee, though 
 
 these things 
 Are much ; but more, because thou didst 
 
 discern 
 In temporal policy the eternal will ; 
 
 VII 
 
 Thou gav'st to party strife the epic note, 
 And to debate the thunder of the Lord 
 
48 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 
 
 To mlanest issues fire of the Most High. 
 Hence eyes that ne'er beheld thee now are 
 
 dim, 
 And alien men on alien shores lament. 
 
A GLEAM! 
 
 Ah ! You and I love our boy 
 
 Such a warrior is he ; 
 
 So splendid of limb, so swift and so joyous, 
 
 At his lightest word we touch each other and 
 
 smile ; 
 We watch him secretly, earnestly, out of the 
 
 shadow, 
 Our eyes like angels attend him about the room. 
 Ah ! You and I love our boy ! 
 And yet when we wander out in the falling 
 
 darkness, 
 When the glooming garden discloses her soul 
 
 in dew, 
 
 49 D 
 
so A GLEAM 
 
 In that hour of odour and longing, 
 
 Of voices ceasing in leaves, 
 
 When a human trouble arises from evening 
 
 meadows, 
 A divine home-sickness from heaped grass, 
 Then I know that it is riot of him you are 
 
 thinking sorely. 
 But still you remember the other, the girl-child 
 
 that vanished. 
 Scarce had we kissed her with awe, when she 
 
 died ; 
 We but named her, and lost her. 
 And they say to us, " Why, O why. 
 With yon beautiful boy in your sight, 
 Do ye still hark back to the other face that 
 
 is fled ? " 
 But because of her swiftness in passing. 
 
A GLEAM SI 
 
 Because she just smiled, and died ; 
 
 She moveth us more than the other to tender 
 
 thought, 
 And the wistful puzzle of tears. 
 I shall know, ere the sun arises, 
 By a sudden stirring of thee, 
 Or blind slight touch in the dark, 
 Or face upturned in quivering dream. 
 That your heart, like mine, has gone home in 
 
 the hush to its dead. 
 Through dew and beginning birds ; 
 Unto her hath returned. 
 Who dazzled, and left us to darkness, 
 But a beam, but a gleam ! 
 
THE QUEST OF EDITH 
 
 A CLOUDED moon was on the Field of Blood, 
 And dew was falling down upon the dead, 
 When to the high pavilion of the duke, 
 Who on the battle-ridge did eat and drink, 
 Two women, hooded and slow stepping, stole. 
 On to the dark-browed conqueror they came. 
 And she, the elder, kneeling, touched his hand. 
 Then said he, " Who art thou ? " She 
 
 answered him, 
 " Knew'st thou not by my touch I am his 
 
 mother ? 
 Sir, I have come unto thee for my son 
 Harold, the King : to beg of thee his body 
 52 
 
THE QUEST OF EDITH 53 
 
 That I may bury it with solemn rite. 
 Five sons I had ; and all to-night are dead : 
 My wild Sweyn over seas ; and Tostig next 
 Fell with Hardrada on the Northern moor ; 
 Now Harold, Gurth, and Leofwin at once 
 All slain : a little thing I ask of thee, 
 Now all those boys I loved lie without 
 
 breath. 
 To take my dearest up into my arms. 
 And carefully to lay him in the earth." 
 She ended, and bowed her o'er that dreadful 
 
 hand. 
 But he, the humming battle in his ear. 
 And in his eyes the blood ; thus answered her; 
 " Untombed let lie the accursed of the Church, 
 And on his flesh the raven glut her young ! " 
 Then she, the taller, she of the swan-neck, 
 
54 THE QUEST OF EDITH 
 
 Edith the fair, the blown lily of England, 
 Flung back her hood and on the conqueror 
 
 flamed 
 A sudden angel in the banquet lights. 
 In rolling glory of dishevelled hair. 
 Her beauty made a darkness in the place, 
 The blood-bespattered knights forgetting wine 
 None stirred : but all men wondered and 
 
 sighed once. 
 Outspoke that virgin with the widowed eyes, 
 Collecting in herself a people's grief : 
 " Norman, thou durst not so demean the brave. 
 Who England loved, and Edith, and England 
 
 first : 
 Who tarried not by fierce Hardrada's corse, 
 Nor lingered while ye plundered his dear land. 
 But from the North in anger came on you. 
 
THE QUEST OF EDITH SS 
 
 And stood up with his battle-axe, and clove 
 The gathered chivalry of many realms ; 
 The arrow and no army overcame him." 
 Then was the conqueror troubled by her 
 
 words, 
 And swelling breast, where Harold's head had 
 
 lain. 
 His captains all about him murmuring praise, 
 And he, repenting of unworthy speech, 
 Said, " Who art thou that speakest without 
 
 fear ? " 
 She answered, " I am she whom Harold loved, 
 And who loved Harold : now I do but ask 
 That I may have his body to bury it." 
 Then to the woman spoke the moved Duke : 
 " Lady, depart ; take with thee whom thou wilt, 
 And find thy dead .out from among the dead, 
 
56 THE QUEST OF EDITH 
 
 And bury him with music and with rite 
 Duly : " and those two passing out beheld 
 The lifeless armies under cloudy moon ! 
 And no man to another spoke a word. 
 Two priests, who had loved Harold, through 
 
 the dark 
 The burning women with pale torches lit. 
 How many a night so dark had Edith once 
 Tarried for him to whom she hurried now ! 
 So she went swiftly on before those three ; 
 And as a lady through her garden goes 
 Ruined around her by a night of storm. 
 To save a single flower that she had loved. 
 Brushing the other blooms that drip in the sun. 
 So went she wistful over the bowed field, 
 Looking through all those faces for a face, 
 — But thou, to save thy rose, art come too late. — 
 
THE QUEST OF EDITH 57 
 
 And here a fixed eye regarding her, 
 Or at her feet a dead youth with bright hair, 
 Surprised her, seeming young in such a place, 
 Or suddenly illumed on the dark hill 
 A motionless horse, an old and cloven head ! 
 The silence too that followed on such sound 
 Appalled her ; silence closer to the soul, 
 Than hush of Arctic field in wrapping snow, 
 Or supreme Himalaya in sunrise ; 
 A silence that had heard ; as of some sea 
 A hoar and haunted surge whither are blown 
 Under the stars wild sails of long ago. 
 Now following Edith other ladies came, 
 Hoping to find, some husband or some son, 
 — One led a little child about the field — 
 Wives that a moonbeam might to widows 
 change, 
 
58 THE QUEST OF EDITH 
 
 And mothers whom the passing of a cloud 
 Might instantly bereave for evermore. 
 But those they quested had disguised them 
 
 well, 
 Piled indiscoverable in their blood, 
 Ensanguined, scarred, distorted, trampled, 
 
 strewn. 
 So rough the work of war that scarcely she, 
 Who with her lord had lain for many a year. 
 Sat with him at his board, and in his hall, 
 And watched his face in silence out of shadow, 
 And learned him in the gathering twilight well; 
 Scarce she who had borne unto him many 
 
 children. 
 She even, might find him out in such a field. 
 There, not that mother who in prayer had 
 fallen 
 
THE QUEST OF EDITH $9 
 
 Beside the starry beds of dreaming babes 
 Had hovered o'er their youth, and hived their 
 
 words, 
 And seen with twitching mouth their earliest 
 
 rage, 
 Might lightly know those children of her sighs ; 
 A sister might her brother see and pass him. 
 And yet at times from the still field arose 
 A far-off " Oh," or a shrill single cry ; 
 Even a name, uttered, and then no more. 
 But now the three lacked Edith in the night. 
 Waving their torches hither and thither : she 
 Had stolen off upon a secret trail, 
 Lured by her wounded darling through the 
 
 dark, 
 Or called by the dead man in silent voice 
 Across the field : no use had she for torch, 
 
6o THE QUEST OF EDITH 
 
 Her own eyes lit the woman to her love, 
 
 And her own heart guided her certain feet. 
 
 They groping doubtful, ever hesitating, 
 
 Stumbling beneath the glimmer over the slain 
 
 At last perceived her busy, and alone ; 
 
 With difficulty lifting armfed limbs. 
 
 Corse after corse she moves but never him. 
 
 Suddenly with a cry deferring dawn 
 
 She flew upon a form that none might know 
 
 Save she ; those priests, with torches leaning 
 
 close, 
 And well remembering their beloved king. 
 Knew not that shape from recognition hewn, 
 Harold by Senlac altered so : even she 
 Who bore him looked on him and knew him 
 
 not. 
 But Edith doubted not : Ah ! by what sign. 
 
THE QUEST OF EDITH 6i 
 
 And holy between undivided hearts, 
 Grew she so certain of that marthd face, 
 And the mown beauty of tall manhood ? Yet 
 She chose it out for all the stains and blows, 
 Not any scar did trouble her true soul, — 
 And as she streamed above him in her hair, 
 And with her long hair wiped away the blood. 
 Using those yellow tresses he had loved, 
 Over her issued clean the autumn moon. 
 Even the moon, so used to mortal woe, 
 To gazing on death-bed, and battle-field. 
 Herself the brilliant candle of our sorrow. 
 Herself the restless glory of this grief, 
 Was troubled by the woman in mid-sky. 
 But Edith held that to her which was Harold 
 Nor was aware of those two standing priests 
 Nor mother in a paler grief retired. 
 
62 THE QUEST OF EDITH 
 
 Nor of those ladies with their burdens who, 
 As laden women from the harvest field 
 Returning, pass beside one busy still. 
 Past her returned : nor now was she aware 
 Of moon or dew : the sting, the sword was 
 
 here, 
 The cup, the burning crown, the robe of blood, 
 And the great Earth a shadow : while she lay 
 In dreadful bliss of sad possession wrapt. 
 But those three now in gentle dread withdrew 
 Out of the solemn sorrow ; yet they watched, 
 Until the holy night had faded off. 
 And a breeze fluttered, and the world grew 
 
 cold, 
 All those uplifted faces glimmering ! 
 At last the woman leaned above the man, 
 And kissed him full upon the lips : and day 
 
THE QUEST OF EDITH 63 
 
 Dawned : in the light her heart broke, and she 
 died. 
 
 In one grave were they buried by the sea, 
 Coming together, though in dust at last ; 
 And when the tide has turned, steadily flows 
 Over and over them the English foam. 
 The Sea permitting what the Church forbade. 
 
DREYFUS 
 
 O Country of the unconquerable Dream ! 
 O ever true in darkness to the Gleam ! 
 France! that didst never count the cost of 
 
 right, 
 Rewaken in thy frenzy for the light ! 
 Like lovers, we will not believe thee base. 
 But speak hot words and passion to thy face. 
 Be swift and terrible, as thou wert of old ! 
 Thou art not France, if once thou canst be 
 
 cold! 
 O by that soldier whom thou could'st not shake, 
 That ever-breaking heart thou could'st not 
 
 break ; 
 
 64 
 
DREYFUS 65 
 
 That dying body that refused the dust, 
 
 That solitary brain that would not rust ; 
 
 With Suicide an opiate put by, 
 
 And Madness a rejected luxury ; 
 
 And by that woman sleepless for a sail. 
 
 That widow with no grave whereon to wail ; 
 
 By all the flaming injury, and sense 
 
 Of most intolerable innocence ; 
 
 Arise ! Arise ! O be thou swift and fell ! 
 
 Of burning liars be thyself the hell ! 
 
 Or fling them far on that accursed isle ! 
 
 Deep waters put between thee and their guile ! 
 
 Hasten to purge thee, France ! to make thee 
 
 pure ; 
 Or seek in sternest surgery thy cure ! 
 Else that pale Jew, how like to Him that 
 
 dies 
 
 E 
 
66 DREYFUS 
 
 In marble on the walls before their eyes,* 
 Shall haunt thee as that Other haunts man- 
 kind, 
 And thee in sleepless night for ever bind. 
 
 * On the walls of the Court at Rennes hangs the marble 
 figure of a dying Christ. 
 
THAT SHE REPENT! 
 
 Thy vengeance, God of old, upon the Gaul ! 
 
 For retribution as for rain we call ! 
 
 Is there not passion where Thy tempests roll. 
 
 Or in Thy thunder some tremendous soul ? 
 
 We praise Thy patience of the growing hour. 
 
 Thy wisdom gradual that brings the flower ; 
 
 But sudden intervention now we pray, 
 
 And flaming ire as in the elder day ! 
 
 Thou that didst rush to war, Thou more than 
 
 Mars! 
 Didst lead 'gainst Sisera the armM stars ; 
 Thou that in ancient days didst hear, didst see, 
 When Pharaoh would not set Thy people free ; 
 67 
 
68 THAT SHE REPENT 
 
 Lord of the darkness upon Egypt sent , 
 That darkness hurl on France, that she repent ! 
 That plague upon her pour, and bend that bow 
 That she may let the child of Israel go ! 
 
AFTER RAIN 
 
 After rain, after rain, 
 O sparkling Earth ! 
 All things are new again, 
 Bathed as at birth. 
 
 Now the pattering sound hath ceased, 
 Drenched and released 
 Upward springs the glistening bough 
 In sunshine now ; 
 And the raindrop from the leaf 
 Runs and slips ; 
 Ancient forests have relief. 
 Young' (foliage drips, 
 AH the Earth doth seem 
 69 
 
70 AFTER RAIN 
 
 Like Dian issuing from the stream, 
 
 Her body flushing from the wave, 
 
 Glistening in her beauty grave ; 
 
 Down from her as she doth pass 
 
 Little rills run to the grass : 
 
 Or like perhaps to Venus, when she rose, 
 
 And looked with dreamy stare across the sea, 
 
 As yet unconscious of the woes, 
 
 The woes, and all the wounds that were to be 
 
 Or now again. 
 
 After the rain. 
 
 Earth like that early garden shines 
 
 Vested in vines. 
 
 O green green 
 
 Eden is seen ! 
 
 After weeping skies 
 
 Rising Paradise ; 
 
AFTER RAIN yi 
 
 Umbrage twinkling new 
 
 'Gainst the happy blue, 
 
 God there for His pleasure, 
 
 In divinest leisure, 
 
 Walking in the sun 
 
 Which hath lately run ; 
 
 While the bird sings clear and plain 
 
 Behind the bright withdrawing rain. 
 
 Soon I shall perceive 
 
 Naked glimmering Eve, 
 
 Startled by the shower, 
 
 Venture from her bower, 
 
 Looking for Adam under perilous sky ; 
 
 While he hard by 
 
 Emerges from the slowly dropping blooms, 
 
 And warm delicious glooms. 
 
A MAN! 
 
 I 
 
 O FOR a living man to lead ! 
 
 That will not babble when we bleed ; 
 
 O for the silent doer of the deed ! 
 
 II 
 
 One that is happy in his height ; 
 And one that, in a nation's night, 
 Hath solitary certitude of light ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 Sirs, not with battle ill-begun 
 
 We charge you, not with fields unwon 
 
 Nor headlong deaths against the darkened gun ; 
 
 7* 
 
A MAN 73 
 
 IV 
 
 But with a lightness worse than dread ; 
 That you but laughed, who should have led, 
 And tripped like dancers amid all our dead. 
 
 V 
 
 You for no failure we impeach, 
 Nor for those bodies in the breach, 
 But for a deeper shallowness of speech. 
 
 VI 
 
 When every cheek was hot with shame. 
 When we demanded words of flame, 
 O ye were busy but to shift the blame ! 
 
74 A MAN 
 
 VII 
 
 No man of us but clenched his hand, 
 No brow but burned us with a brand, 
 You ! you alone were slow to understand 
 
 VIII 
 
 O for a living man to lead ! 
 
 That will not babble when we bleed ; 
 
 O for the silent doer of the deed ! 
 
EARTH-BOUND 
 
 Though from the body I am past, 
 
 Still to Earth I am bound fast ; 
 
 Immortal voices call me low 
 
 I may not go ; 
 
 But like a bird out of the night 
 
 Beat ever in on this warm light, 
 
 I heard an angel say 
 
 " Come away ! " 
 
 I answered, " Let me bide 
 
 " Where I have died ; 
 
 " Near to the blowing grass and Sun, 
 
 "Where I have run." 
 
 And then I said, 
 
 75 
 
76 EARTH-BOUND 
 
 " 'Tis dreary to be dead, 
 
 " And watch the budding lane, 
 
 " And hear the rain : 
 
 " To pine about the green, 
 
 " And haunt the sheen. 
 
 " O rare, rare, 
 
 " Are human faces, and still fair ! " 
 
 Spirit am I, but cannot yet 
 
 Go from these ancient pastures wet ; 
 
 Though from the body I am past, 
 
 Still to Earth I am bound fast. 
 
THE SON 
 
 I 
 
 WHY is your hate of me so deep, 
 
 Father ? 
 
 1 grieve so that I may not sleep 
 
 For thinking how to turn your heart ; 
 And up in cruel wonder start. 
 
 II 
 
 Although this body's strong to bear, 
 
 Father ! 
 I droop and falter round your chair ; 
 Stand like a woman at your knees 
 In deep anxiety to please. 
 77 
 
78 THE SON 
 
 III 
 
 Why is the look refused me quite, 
 
 Father ! 
 That on my brother dwells like light ? 
 At evening when the room is dim 
 Your shining eyes roam after him. 
 
 IV 
 
 When I come near your lip is set, 
 
 Father ! 
 With something you can ne'er forget. 
 What's vile in him, you think it strong ; 
 What's good in me, you make it wrong. 
 
 O when my heart, the labour done, 
 Father ! 
 
THE SON 79 
 
 Is homing toward the setting sun ; 
 Out of the glory and the gold 
 I enter, and your face is cold. 
 
 VI 
 
 When you were near to death, you said, 
 
 Father ! 
 " See that he comes not near my bed ! " 
 I stood on the dark stair alone, 
 And swayed about to hear you moan. 
 
 VII 
 
 Will something ever 'tween us stand, 
 
 Father ? 
 Too deep for me to understand ? 
 Even in the womb you hated me. 
 When I was dumb and might not see. 
 
80 THE SON 
 
 VIII 
 
 When first I blinked at this great light 
 
 Father ! 
 Your hate of me was blinding bright ; 
 And with the air I felt your scorn 
 When first I shivered to be born. 
 
 IX 
 
 O since I can no way abate, 
 
 Father ! 
 Your steady and enduring hate ; 
 Then strike me dead ! When you shall see 
 My very blood, you'll pity me. 
 
THOUGHTS AT SUNRISE 
 
 The summer night is waning, and the morn 
 Breaks over steaming streams and silent fields, 
 With dim, far voices of the early dawn. 
 God and his world are now at peace ; this 
 
 calm, 
 Even now, might deepen to Eternity. 
 Oh, break it not ! oh, stain it not ! O God, 
 Stay thou that rising Sun, nor let him rise 
 Once more upon the weary sin and strife. 
 And cries that curse him thro' the burning 
 
 blue! 
 Come hither, O ye sons of men ! and kneel, — 
 Pray to a God ye never prayed to yet, 
 
 8i F 
 
82 THOUGHTS AT SUNRISE 
 
 Who in his wide and wistful tenderness 
 Maketh each day the self-same dawn that 
 
 broke 
 On Eden, — that, remembering what ye were, 
 The Dawn's sweet innocence might call ye 
 
 back, — 
 An awful, mute appeal to turn again. 
 Nay, but he suffers in that Heaven of heavens. 
 About him are the deeps, Space, with her 
 
 sounds, 
 The Heaven, with all her dreams of star 
 
 and sun, 
 The singing of a thousand worlds ; to him, 
 Serene, immortal beings bow them low. 
 All these are perfect, yet he hears afar, 
 In that dim, little planet that he loves, 
 Man jarring ever on his harmonies. 
 
THOUGHTS AT SUNRISE 83 
 
 Aye, yearning in his cold and perfect worlds 
 For Man who might have sympathy with him, 
 Move with conceptions vast and burning 
 
 thoughts 
 From beauty unto beauty, peopling worlds, 
 He grieves, though not the less a God for 
 
 grief. 
 Man is all out of tune with his design, 
 Who might have shared in that first splendid 
 
 thought. 
 Conception striving with an utter Space, 
 Sound with eternal still that knew her not, 
 And light with the vague dark, till at the last 
 He struck his vast conception into bounds. 
 Still makes he for mankind the innocent dawn 
 Noon, twilight, and the night, that makes the 
 
 heart 
 
84 THOUGHTS AT SUNRISE 
 
 Break into singing at her shining stars. 
 
 Yet is man but a trembling worshipper, 
 
 Who heeds not that deep cry from Calvary — 
 
 A God appealing to the love of man, 
 
 With those stretched arms that would embrace 
 
 a world — 
 That should have echoed in him, made the 
 
 earth 
 One fearless Heaven, without a thought of 
 
 Hell,— 
 Man, who can learn not through defeat and 
 
 death 
 Sorrow's last gift, a sympathy with God. 
 
"MARTINI LUIGI IMPLORA PACE" 
 
 Had'st thou in all the brightness won 
 Such dark experience of the sun, 
 That in the Roman violets wet 
 Above thy head these words are set, 
 " Martini Luigi asks for peace " ? 
 
 Wast thou too sanguine, and too frail 
 To watch the glory fade and pale ? 
 Was it some long decline of trust 
 That sadly wrote above thy dust, 
 ' Martini Luigi asks for peace " ? 
 85 
 
86 "martini LUIGI IMPLORA PACE 
 
 Or was it, in the dew of life, 
 Some sudden hurt from friend or wife 
 That ached till thou could'st only die, 
 And wrung from thee at last the cry, 
 " Martini Luigi asks for peace " ? 
 
 Or wast thou, like some happy child. 
 That plays, and builds, and is beguiled ; 
 Then, weary of its lovely toys. 
 And half-fatigued with simple joys, 
 Drowsily, fretful, asks for peace ? 
 
 Whate'er the cause, thy prayer is mine : 
 I for the perfect slumber pine ; 
 1 crave no city in the skies. 
 Or Patmian dreamer's paradise ; 
 Only, like thee, I ask for peace. 
 
THE TORTURERS 
 
 [Suggested by a letter to the Daily Chronicle from the 
 author of "The Ballad of Reading Gaol."] 
 
 The key is turned ; before my eyes 
 The garnished torture-chamber lies : 
 A burnished place, without a stain, 
 With speckless galleries of pain j 
 The moody torturers behind, 
 Th' experienced wreckers of the mind. 
 O then their hellish task began, 
 To madden me their fellow man ; 
 To take a human creature fair, 
 Then loose an idiot to the air. 
 'Twas God who said " Let there be light ! ' 
 But they restore the dreadful night ; 
 87 
 
88 THE TORTURERS 
 
 The instruments of chaos, they 
 Roll back the gloom upon His day. 
 
 The merest darkness did they find 
 
 To wrap my solitary mind ; 
 
 So deep, that I no more believed, 
 
 Nor hoped ; but fearfully conceived 
 
 That I God's creature had been hurled, 
 
 Out of his scheme, to a blank world, 
 
 Where no thing grew, nor was there sound, 
 
 Only a blackness without bound ; 
 
 Even Christ in such a gulph was blind. 
 
 And groped for me, but could not find. 
 
 Yet saw I on the ebon night 
 
 Roses that dripped with raindrops bright, 
 
 I saw the green Atlantic swell 
 
 With slow bright dance within my cell. 
 
THE TORTURERS 89 
 
 Roses and ocean disappeared, 
 
 And then the darkness worse I feared. 
 
 At last one called me as from dawn, 
 
 And I on him was swift to fawn, 
 
 And by such terror was unmanned, 
 
 I could have kissed that cruel hand. 
 
 Eternal hunger did they use 
 
 My reason slowly to confuse ; 
 
 And to the grave they kept me nigh, 
 
 Yet would not let me wholly die : 
 
 Ever half-in, half-out of death, 
 
 I drew a calculated breath ; 
 
 My eyes from slumber did they keep, 
 
 Eyes that had earned eternal sleep. 
 
 Such humbleness as none should feel 
 I felt ; and to a man would kneel ; 
 
9° THE TORTURERS 
 
 Before him like a brute would lie, 
 
 And lift to him a shifting eye. 
 
 My wife to view her husband came ; 
 
 I was inured to every shame : 
 
 Caged like an ape, my antics played. 
 
 Until she fled from me afraid. 
 
 No more can I recall, until, 
 
 When on me they had worked their will, 
 
 I slowly climbed the winding stair. 
 
 And drifted helpless through the air. 
 
THOUGHTS IN A MEADOW 
 
 O WHY in this breathing field, this meadow of 
 Maytime, 
 A-flurry with silverous gusts ; 
 Why, O my soul, must thou still with a sadness 
 behold it : 
 Strangely disturbed from far ? 
 And why is thy bliss never simple and never 
 entire ? 
 What hinders thee so to be gay ? 
 
 O soul, hadst thou waked on a world but newly 
 created ; 
 If thou wert the first that had breathed ; 
 91 
 
92 THOUGHTS IN A MEADOW 
 
 Then this brooding arch of the blue were 
 beautiful merely, 
 Perfect the greenness of grass. 
 But ah, through thine eyes unnumbered dead 
 ones are peering ; 
 To the windows the phantoms throng ; 
 Those millions of perished women, and poets 
 and lovers, 
 Gaze where thou gazest and breathe ; 
 And by ghosts is the blowing meadow-land 
 unforgotten ; 
 Memories deepen the blue. 
 So through tears not our own is the sunset 
 strangely pathetic ; 
 And splendid with thoughts not ours. 
 So feel we from far-off hills a soft invitation, 
 A divine beckon and call. 
 
THOUGHTS IN A MEADOW 93 
 
 At the sudden mysterious touch ot a stranger 
 we tremble ; 
 At h'ghtning from eyes in a crowd ; 
 And a child will sorrow at evening bells over 
 meadows, 
 And grieve by the breaking sea. 
 O never alone can we gaze on the blue and the 
 greenness ; 
 Others are gazing and sigh ; 
 And never alone can we listen to twilight 
 music ; 
 Others listen and weep, 
 And the woman that sings in the dimness to 
 millions is singing ; 
 Not to thee, O my soul, alone. 
 
THE DREAMING MUSE 
 
 No Muse will I invoke ; for she is fled ! 
 
 Lo ! where she sits, breathing, yet all but dead 
 
 She loved the heavens of old, she thought 
 
 them fair ; 
 And dream'd of Gods in Tempe's golden air. 
 For her the wind had voice, the sea its cry ; 
 She deem'd heroic Greece could never die. 
 Breathless was she, to think what nymphs 
 
 might play 
 In clear green depths, deep-shaded from the 
 
 day; 
 She thought the dim and inarticulate god 
 Was beautiful, nor knew she man a clod ; 
 94 
 
THE DREAMING MUSE 95 
 
 But hoped what seem'd might not be all 
 
 untrue, 
 And feared to look beyond the eternal blue. 
 But now the heavens are bared of dreams 
 
 divine. 
 Still murmurs she, like Autumn, This was 
 
 mine ! 
 How should she face the ghastly, jarring Truth, 
 That questions all, and tramples without ruth .' 
 And still she clings to Ida of her dreams. 
 And sobs, Ah ! let the world be what it seems ! 
 Then the shy nymph shall softly come again ; 
 The world, once more, make music for her 
 
 pain. 
 For, sitting in the dim and ghostly night 
 She fain would stay the strong approach of 
 
 light; 
 
96 THE DREAMING MUSE 
 
 While later bards cleave to her, and believe 
 That in her sorrow she can still conceive ! 
 Oh, let her dream ; still lovely is her sigh : 
 Oh, rouse her not, or she shall surely die. 
 
TO A LOST LOVE 
 
 I CANNOT look upon thy grave, 
 Though there the rose is sweet : 
 
 Better to hear the long wave wash 
 These wastes about my feet ! 
 
 Shall I take comfort ? Dost thou live 
 
 A spirit, though afar, 
 With a deep hush about thee, like 
 
 The stillness round a star ? 
 
 Oh, thou art cold ! In that high sphere 
 
 Thou art a thing apart. 
 Losing in saner happiness 
 
 This madness of the heart. 
 
 97 G 
 
98 TO A LOST LOVE 
 
 And yet, at times, thou still shalt feel 
 A passing breath, a pain ; 
 
 Disturb'd, as though a door in heaven 
 Had oped and closed again. 
 
 And thou shalt shiver, while the hymns, 
 The solemn hymns, shall cease ; 
 
 A moment half remember me : 
 Then turn away to peace. 
 
 But oh, for evermore thy look, 
 Thy laugh, thy charm, thy tone. 
 
 Thy sweet and wayward earthliness, 
 Dear trivial things, are gone ! 
 
TO A LOST LOVE 99 
 
 Therefore I look not on thy grave, 
 
 Though there the rose is sweet ; 
 But rather hear the loud wave wash 
 
 These wastes about my feet. 
 
ORESTES 
 
 Me in far lands did Justice call, cold queen 
 Among the dead, who after heat and haste 
 At length have leisure for her steadfast voice, 
 That gathers peace from the great deeps of 
 
 hell. 
 She call'd me, saying : " I heard a cry by 
 
 night ! 
 Go thou, and question not ; within thy halls 
 My will awaits fulfilment. Lo ! the dead 
 Cries out before me in the under-world. 
 Seek not to justify thyself : in me 
 Be strong, and I will show thee wise in time : 
 For, though my face be dark, yet unto those 
 
 lOO 
 
ORESTES loi 
 
 Who truly follow me through storm or shine, 
 For these the veil shall fall, and they shall see 
 They walked with Wisdom, though they knew 
 
 her not." 
 So sped I home : and from the under-world 
 Forever came a wind that fiU'd my sails, 
 Cold, like a spirit : and ever her still voice 
 Spoke over shoreless seas and fathomless 
 
 deeps. 
 And in great calms, as trom a colder world ; 
 
 Nor slack'd I sail by day, nor yet when night 
 Fell on my running keel, and now would burn, 
 With all her eyes, my errand into me. 
 So sped I on, fiU'd with a voice divine : 
 And hardly wist I whom I was to slay , 
 My mother ! but a vague, heroic dream 
 Possess'd me ; fired to do the will of gods, 
 
102 ORESTES 
 
 I lost the man in minister of Heaven : 
 Nor took I note of sandbank, nor of storm, 
 Nor of the ocean's thunders, when the shores 
 All round had faded, leaving me alone : 
 I knew I could not die, till I had slain ! 
 But, when I came once more upon the land 
 That rear'd me, all the sweetness of old days 
 Came back on me : I stood, as from a dream 
 Waked to a sudden, sad reality. 
 And when, far off, I saw those ancient towers, 
 The palaces and places of my youth, 
 I long'd to fall into my mother's arms. 
 And tell a thousand tales of near escapes. 
 And lo ! the nurse that fondled me of yore. 
 Fell with glad tears upon my neck, and told 
 How she, and how my mother, all this while 
 Had dream'd of all I was to do, and said 
 
ORESTES t03 
 
 How dear I should be to my mother's eyes. 
 Her words shook me, but shook not my 
 
 resolve. ' 
 For even then there came that sterner voice, 
 Echoing to what was highest in the soul. 
 Then, like to those who have a work on 
 
 earth, 
 And put far from them lips of wife or child. 
 And gird them to the accomplishment ; so I 
 Strode in, nor saw at all mine ancient halls ; 
 And struck my father's murderess, not my 
 
 mother. 
 And, when I had smitten, lo ! the strength of 
 
 gods 
 Pass'd from me, and the old, familiar halls 
 Reel'd back on me ; dim statues, that of old 
 Holding my mother's hand I marvell'd at, 
 
104 ORESTES 
 
 And questioned her of each. And she lies 
 
 there, 
 My mother ! ay, my mother now ; O hair 
 That once I play'd with in these halls ! O eyes 
 That for a moment knew me as I came, 
 And lighten'd up, and trembled into love ; 
 The next were darkened by my hand ! 
 
 Ah me! 
 Ye will not look upon me in that world. 
 Yet thou, perchance, art happier, if thou go'st 
 Into some land of wind and drifting leaves. 
 To sleep without a star ; but as for me, 
 Hell hungers, and the restless Furies wait. 
 Then the dark Curse, that sits upon the towers 
 Bow'd down her awful head, thus satisfied, 
 And I fled forth, a murderer, through the 
 
 world. 
 
THE PARTING OF LAUNCELOT AND 
 GUINEVERE 
 
 Into a high- walled nunnery had fled 
 Queen Guinevere, amid the shade to weep, 
 And to repent 'mid solemn boughs, and love 
 The cold globe of the moon ; but now as she 
 Meekly the scarcely-breathing garden walked, 
 She saw, and stood, and swooned at Launcelot 
 Who burned in sudden steel like a blue flame 
 Amid the cloister. Then, when she revived, 
 He came and looked on her : in the dark 
 
 place 
 So pale her beauty was, the sweetness such 
 That he half-closed his eyes and deeply 
 
 breathed ; 
 
 I OS 
 
io6 LAUNCELOT AND GUINEVERE 
 
 And as he gazed, there came into his mind 
 That night of May, with pulsing stars, the 
 
 strange 
 Perfumed darkness, and delicious guilt 
 In silent hour ; but at the last he said : 
 " Suffer me, lady, but to kiss thy lips 
 Once, and to go away for evermore." 
 But she replied, " Nay, I beseech thee, go ! 
 Sweet were those kisses in the deep of night ; 
 But from those kisses is this ruin come. 
 Sweet was thy touch, but now I wail at it. 
 And I have hope to see the face of Christ : 
 Many are saints in heaven who sinned as I," 
 Then said he, " Since it is thy will, I go." 
 But those that stood around could scarce 
 
 endure 
 To see the dolour of these two ; for he 
 
LAUNCELOT AND GUINEVERE 107 
 
 Swooned in his burning armour to her face, 
 And both cried out as at the touch of spears : 
 And as two trees at midnight, when the breeze 
 Comes over them, now to each other bend, 
 And now withdraw ; so mournfully these two 
 Still drooped together and still drew apart. 
 Then like one dead her ladies bore away 
 The heavy queen ; and Launcelot went out 
 And through a forest weeping rode all night. 
 
A GIRL'S LAST WORDS 
 
 I WONDER, do they ever speak 
 My name in that green home 
 
 And silent fields beyond the streets 
 And pavements that I roam ? 
 
 Mother, I dread to see thy face ; 
 
 Gentle thou art, I know, 
 But never canst forgive me quite, 
 
 Howe'er thy tears may flow. 
 
 My father, harder far than thou, 
 I should not fear so much : 
 
 Thou art a woman— there it is — 
 And couldst not bear my touch. 
 io8 
 
A GIRL S LAST WORDS 109 
 
 But I am dying : O at last 
 
 Come up the stair to me ! 
 And smooth my pillow as of old 
 
 For the long night to be ! 
 
THOUGHTS AT NOON 
 
 The stillness and the spell of the blue noon 
 I drank and felt a spirit from the sun 
 Of deep and utter bliss steal down on me, 
 Steeping my brain in peace. I seemed to 
 
 be 
 At one with the creator and at rest, 
 Sucking the sunbeam with no afterthought. 
 Surely 'tis much, I said, to be alive, 
 To have drawn in beauty thro' the eye, the 
 
 ear. 
 The nostril, to have breathed all wandering 
 
 airs, 
 
 no 
 
THOUGHTS AT NOON m 
 
 And seen this trembling glow, and heard, as 
 
 now. 
 Birds warbling in aerial rivulets : 
 
 To have known these things and to thank God 
 and die. 
 
AT NIGHT 
 
 Sometimes a wild and glorious star 
 Streams like a spirit on the pane, 
 
 And then I feel thou art not far, 
 That I shall see thee once again ! 
 
 Sometimes a dim, unhappy sphere 
 Peers in the half-light on my bed. 
 
 And then I dream, forgive it, dear, 
 That thou for evermore art fled. 
 
 Yet better far that sphere dim-furled. 
 And hushed in sadness like a sign, 
 
 Than this rude dawn which brings the world 
 To roar between my soul and thine. 
 
AT NIGHT "3 
 
 Yes, harder through the roar and light 
 To bear the loud world patiently, 
 
 Than on through all the lonely night 
 To suffer and remember thee. 
 
 M 
 
A MOTHER 
 
 O MOTHER, that from thy pure heart each night 
 Sendest up prayers for me to highest God ; 
 For me, who wander without fixed light, 
 And have not faith to tread where thou hast 
 
 trod ; 
 Grieve not, though God no answer yet hath 
 
 given ; 
 He knows that mine is not a lasting doom ; 
 Though thou be caught up into highest 
 
 heaven. 
 And I be banished into outer gloom ; 
 For then the aching absence of thy face 
 Shall work in me such swift immortal pain, 
 "4 
 
A MOTHER IIS 
 
 That I shall struggle through the worlds of 
 
 space 
 In burning hope to be with thee again. 
 And I shall strive for thy white purity 
 For fear of everlasting losing thee. 
 
lOLE 
 
 A TRAGEDY IN ONE ACT 
 
 [The scene is laid tn the city of Corinth, at that 
 time hotly besieged by the Spartans. On the 
 right is the house of Pelias. On the left 
 centre is the Temple of Juno. The time is 
 the hour approaching sunset. The scene 
 is unchanged throughout the Act.'] 
 
 117 
 
CHARACTERS 
 
 Pelias (a renowned and aged Corinthian general). 
 
 Laomedon {a rich young Corinthian noble). 
 
 Phorcos {a leader of the citizens of Corinth). 
 
 An Old Man 
 
 loLE {daughter of Pelias, betrothed to Laomedon). 
 
 Leucippe {mother of Laomedon). 
 
 Priestess of the Temple 
 
 Crowd of citizens, maidens attending on Iole, etc. 
 
 ii8 
 
\Before the rising of the curtain a sound of 
 shouting is heard, and as it rises a crowd of 
 .Corinthian citizens is discovered clamouring 
 before the doors of the house of Pelias- 
 Some are armed, and women carrying babes 
 are amongst them.] 
 
 Phorcos, 
 
 Pelias, Pelias, descend and help us ! 
 Tarry not still within, to all denied, 
 Nursing an ancient wrath ! Lo ! we are come 
 To pray thee lay aside thy bitterness, 
 And lead us forth again as in old days 
 Against the Spartan who is at our gates. 
 119 
 
120 lOLE 
 
 The flying rumour of thy splendid name 
 
 Shall hearten all our friends, and shake our 
 
 foes. 
 Hearken, grey warrior, withering within 
 In cold estrangement ! Thou and thou alone 
 Canst smite the enemy and save our hearths ; 
 Arise, then, as of old and lead us forth ! 
 Hear us, great Pelias ! 
 
 Crowd. 
 
 Hear us, Pelias ! 
 Pelias, hear us ! 
 
 [Pelias slowly comes out on to the steps 
 of his house, where he stands. 
 
 Pelias. 
 What would ye with me ? 
 
lOLE 121 
 
 Crowd. 
 Deliver us from the Spartan, Pelias ! 
 
 Pelias. 
 
 You men of Corinth, on five desperate fields 
 This arm hath propped your city which else 
 
 had fallen ; 
 Five times in battle I delivered you. 
 Yet have ye suffered me to linger on 
 In penury, for home this rotting manse. 
 Which the dank ivy eats ; and here I droop 
 Discarded to the grave. Yet, now behold, 
 Ye have remembered Pelias at last ! 
 Why ? For the Spartan batters at your gates. 
 In your prosperity I may decay, 
 But in your danger ye would seek me out, 
 
122 lOLE 
 
 Return ; defend the city as ye can, 
 For Pelias will lead you nevermore. 
 To-morrow, too, my daughter lole 
 Weds young Laomedon, and leaves my house 
 Twice desolate : this night then of all nights 
 I would not quit my child were Corinth falling. 
 \^FIe makes as though to go in.'] 
 
 An Old Man. 
 
 On many a fierce field, Pelias, at thy side 
 Have I not fought .' Hast thou forgot my face ? 
 
 Pelias. 
 No, I remember thee. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Remember, then. 
 
lOLE 123 
 
 How thy dead wife did love this city, how 
 Here she was born, and here she wedded thee. 
 Would she not urge thee once more to the field 
 Fearing the doom of her beloved towers. 
 And walls and olden winding ways of home ? 
 For her sake, not for ours, come down and help 
 us ! 
 
 [A shout of triumph is heard from the 
 wall.] 
 Hark, how the Spartan triumphs ! 
 
 Crowd. 
 
 Pelias, 
 Pelias, help us ! 
 
 Pelias [moved]. 
 
 Not for Corinth then. 
 But for one buried woman I do here 
 
124 lOLE 
 
 Repent. [Cries of joy.] But I will question first 
 
 the goddess 
 If I shall prosper in the shock of spears. 
 
 [//« goes and stands on the steps of the 
 temple.^ 
 Goddess, vouchsafe me answer : If I go 
 Forth to the battle, shall I save the city, 
 
 [The Priestess appears.^ 
 Or is the doom of Corinth fallen on her ? 
 
 Priestess. 
 
 Thus saith the goddess, queen of the wide 
 
 heavens, 
 " Hear, Pelias ! If thou goest forth to battle, 
 Thou shalt deliver the city with thy sword. 
 
 [Great shout of joy.] 
 But one thing is required of thee : that thou, 
 
lOLE I2S 
 
 When thou returnest bright from victory, 
 
 Shalt slay in sacrifice whatever first 
 
 Shall meet thee coming forth out of thy doors." 
 
 Pelias. 
 
 That shall not trouble me. 
 
 [Another shout from the wall.] 
 Bring forth my armour. 
 [His armour is brought and is quickly 
 put upon him : lastly Iole enters 
 bearing his helmet, which she places 
 on his head amid loud cries ofjoy."] 
 My child, my only child, abide within. 
 I go to beat the Spartan from our gates. 
 Kiss me. Now, friends, unto the reeling wall ! 
 Who follows Pelias, who then ? 
 
126 lOLE 
 
 [He rushes off surrounded by cheering 
 crowd. lOLE stands gazing after him. 
 Enter LaomedON and his mother 
 ■with attendants. During the dialogue 
 the light slowly wanes. 
 
 Laomedon 
 
 lole! 
 
 lOLE. 
 Laomedon ! 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 What tumult this and cry 
 About your quiet house ? 
 
 Idle. 
 
 The citizens 
 
lOLE 127 
 
 Crying upon my father to descend 
 And hurl him on the Spartan. 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 Hath he gone ? 
 
 lOLE. 
 This moment hath he burst into the battle. 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 And I have from the battle held aloof, 
 Incurring public enmity : since I 
 Stood by him in his wrath against the city. 
 My mother — [He goes up. 
 
 lOLE. 
 And mine too [going to Leucippe]. 
 
128 lOLE 
 
 Leucippe. 
 
 My child, I came 
 But for a moment with Laomedon, 
 To say that all things wait you in our house 
 Burnished and clean, and all the rooms are 
 
 bright 
 With sparkling silver and with glowing gold. 
 And everywhere in vases and in bowls 
 In slow thought have I set your favourite 
 
 flower ; 
 And you, where'er you stray about the house, 
 
 Shall be surprised from window and from nook 
 By sudden sweetness on the winding stair ; 
 Long silken robes are smoothed and spread for 
 
 you, 
 And olden jewels lighting inner glooms. 
 
lOLE 129 
 
 So shall you come to us, beautiful child, 
 Not as a stranger mazed in strange halls, 
 But to a home indeed. I pass away. 
 
 lOLE. 
 No, no ! 
 
 Leucippe. 
 
 Well, then, I yield authority. 
 I wonder, child, if you can love my boy 
 As I have done — I cannot think it — ah ! 
 I know your love how deep — but can it be 
 Made up as mine is of so many prayers. 
 Such breathed heaven, and sighed futurity. 
 Then solitary tears, and quaking thoughts ? 
 It cannot be. And yet of all good things 
 That might befall him, this I most had hoped 
 That he should choose for him e'en such a wife. 
 
'30 lOLE 
 
 I OLE. 
 
 With all my heart and blood and breath I love 
 him. 
 
 Leucippe. 
 
 I know it ; but you cannot understand 
 
 How difficult it seems to this grey heart, 
 Wearied, and making now no newer friends. 
 Only a few and faithful keeping now. 
 Arid therefore wrapped and folded up in him, 
 At last to yield him to thy fresher youth, 
 A dying tree unto a springing flower ! 
 And — ah, I know it — were he torn between 
 Us two, he would obey the younger voice, 
 Stranger and sweeter. Now forgive these 
 tears. 
 
lOLE I3> 
 
 Old age will ever for itself repine. 
 
 I must return — to-morrow [kissing her]. 
 
 I OLE. 
 
 Ah, to-morrow ! 
 [They embrace. Exit Leucippe with 
 attendants. 
 
 Laomedon [coming down]. 
 What hath my mother said that makes thee 
 pale ? 
 
 lOLE. 
 
 Nothing — ^but for my father am I pale. 
 I wish he had not melted to that cry. 
 If anything befell him on this night — 
 
132 lOLE 
 
 This night of all we should not now be wrought 
 To apprehensions, but together clasped, 
 Dreaming against the red orb of the sun. 
 Silent in deep thoughts of the life to be. 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 That lovely life that quivers even now 
 In unseen daybreak ! 
 
 lOLE. 
 
 And in Eastern clouds 
 Beginning to be rosy for our sake. 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 And soon the moon shall come, and soon the 
 stars ! 
 
lOLE 133 
 
 lOLE. 
 
 And moon and stars shall fade into that day. 
 I think to-night shall come a hush in heaven, 
 And all the air be awed before our bliss, 
 And children shall awaken in the stillness 
 Asking why such a silence holds the earth. 
 
 Laomedon. 
 There shall be music, too, for ears that hear it ! 
 
 lOLE. 
 And low, sweet voices of the younger gods ; 
 
 Laomedon. 
 Meetings of spirits amid moony forests ; 
 
134 lOLE 
 
 lOLE. 
 
 And risings of plunged lovers from the deep. 
 And as I dream the gods shall come to me, 
 Silent, and bringing splendours to my room 
 Like strange gifts laid out for a sleeping child. 
 Yet while so many suffer on the earth 
 We are so glad. Are we too glad ? 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 Too glad .' 
 
 lOLE. 
 
 Tell me when first thy heart confessed this 
 
 love 
 Wert idle or busy when the sweet news came .' 
 
lOLE 135 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 Ah, who shall say ? " That moment broke the 
 
 dawn, 
 That moment sprang a star upon the air ! " 
 When I was quickened, in my mother's womb, 
 I dimly sought thee with unopened eyes, 
 And when I wailed to live, I wanted thee. 
 And when I grew, and grieved, and loved the 
 
 Past, 
 Beautiful women from sea-legends thronged 
 Round thee, and looked on me from out those 
 
 eyes. 
 
 I OLE. 
 
 Those then it was whom thou didst love, not 
 me. 
 
136 lOLE 
 
 Laomedon. 
 No ; but I mingled thee with stories old. 
 
 lOLE. 
 
 I have about my spirit in the sunset 
 
 A sense of opening and unfolding things, 
 
 Wild wonder — and that joy that sends the 
 
 lark 
 Shuddering through azure into Elysium. 
 And yet — my father — 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 Be not, lole, 
 Troubled to-night. 
 
lOLE 137 
 
 I OLE. 
 
 If he were safe returned — 
 
 [Ske goes to the steps of the temple."] 
 
 Strong Goddess ! Out of heaven incline thine 
 
 ear 
 To my beseeching, that my father come 
 Safe from the battle. Here we stand, we 
 
 two, 
 In such deep happiness as streams but once 
 On mortals : he to-morrow leads me home. 
 Then suffer no unlucky thing to mar 
 This marriage hanging in a summer dawn ! 
 This perfect human frail felicity ! 
 I will go in now, having prayed, to await him. 
 The timbrel shall be struck and we will dance. 
 That when he runs in triumph from the war 
 
138 lOLE 
 
 I too, his child, shall clasp him triumphing. 
 Farewell a little while. 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 A little while. 
 
 [Exit lOLE. 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 [Gazing on the setting sun.\ 
 O, thou descending glory I Shed on me, 
 And upon her thy blessing from the west. 
 And when thou dost regild the eastern wave. 
 Stream with a special splendour on us two, 
 Or fall in silent kindness on our heads ! 
 
 [A cry is heard from the wall, ana 
 a citizen rushes on, covered with dust.] 
 What is that cry ? 
 
lOLE 139 
 
 Citizen. 
 
 Victory, victory ! 
 See ! Pelias comes in triumph from the wall, 
 Borne hither glorying with uplifted sword ! 
 The Spartan Hies, and all his dead are left. 
 
 [Another cry, louder and nearer. 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 I'll steal within the shadow, and behold 
 Father and daughter in one triumph clasped. 
 
 [ Various Soldiers and Citizens rush on, 
 shouting ; at last a concourse bear- 
 ing Pelias in their midst. As he 
 approaches his house the doors are 
 thrown open from within and I OLE 
 and her maidens come dancing down 
 
14° IDLE 
 
 the steps, playing on timbrels, 
 Pelias suddenly reels backwards 
 with a cry. 
 
 Pelias. 
 Thou — thou ! 
 
 A Citizen. 
 He reels — uphold him lest he fall ! 
 
 Another. 
 
 Some wound, in the hot fight unnoted, now 
 O'ercomes him. 
 
 Another. 
 All stand from him — give him space ! 
 
lOLE 141 
 
 Pelias. 
 
 [Slowly recovering, while lOLE and 
 Laomedon bend over him.] 
 Here am I broken, friends ; depart from me ! 
 For that which it has come on me to do 
 I can do best alone. But, lole ! 
 Stay thou — Yes, yes, and thou, Laomedon ! 
 Ye two with me in this thing are concerned. 
 
 Phorcos. 
 
 Then reassure all these ere they depart, 
 Thou art not wounded. 
 
 Pelias. 
 
 No — not in their sense! 
 
142 lOLE 
 
 Phorcos. 
 
 Awhile we leave thee, then, but will return 
 Bearing for thee the crown of victory. 
 
 [The crowd slowly goes off, murmuring. 
 
 Pelias. 
 
 Children, the dreadful words which I must 
 
 speak 
 I will speak briefly. When I sought the goddess 
 If I should prosper in the shock of spears, 
 Thus did she answer me : " Hear, Pelias ! 
 Thou shalt deliver the city with thy sword. 
 But one thing is required of thee : that thou, 
 When thou returnest bright from victory, 
 Shalt slay in sacrifice whatever first 
 Shall meet thee coming forth out of thy door." 
 
lOLE 1^3 
 
 And thou, my daughter, thou hast met me first. 
 This, goddess, then, dost thou require of me, 
 That I who saved the city shall slay my child. 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 Surely this thing shalt not be done in Corinth ! 
 While I have breath and blood in me I cry 
 "This shall not be! " I care not for the gods, 
 Nor god, nor goddess in this dear extreme. 
 What justice is in this — what law ? what 
 
 right ? 
 That thou, because thou hast delivered 
 
 Corinth, 
 Must therefore turn the sword on thine own 
 
 child ! 
 And she — what hath she done that she must 
 
 die? 
 
144 lOLE 
 
 She is too great a price to pay for Corinth. 
 Not all the reared cities of the world 
 Are worth the smallest drop of blood in her. 
 Strange priest, whose victim is thy only child. 
 
 Pelias. 
 Spare thy wild words ! 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 Remember, too, that thou, 
 In slaying her, shalt slay me too with her. 
 Thinkst thou I could survive that death of 
 
 deaths, 
 Or linger in a glimmer after her. 
 The world a body whence the soul hath fled ? 
 And this shall kill my mother in her halls. 
 Who waits to lay a daughter on her heart. 
 
lOLE 145 
 
 How empty those old arms to-morrow morn ! 
 And thou shalt dash that fair futurity 
 Built by us two adream in a cold world, 
 The holy language of unsundered souls, 
 The steady bliss, or sorrow bravely shared. 
 For when I take in mine thy daughter's hand, 
 I loose it not till the last numbness. Then 
 Wilt thou destroy this fair imagined life, 
 Conceived with dim eyes under many stars, 
 With silence, or with whisper beautiful ? 
 I call upon thee to withstand the gods. 
 Here I, Laomedon, do cry aloud 
 There is no justice in the hollow heaven ! 
 But if, old man, thou wilt not fight the gods, 
 I will withstand thee ere thou dost this thing. 
 Ere thou shalt touch that bosom with the steel, 
 I, loving thee, will slay thee with my hands 
 
146 lOLE 
 
 Pelias. 
 
 Son, do thy words make easier this deed ? 
 I would I saw some way to evade the doom ; 
 And yet, which way I look, it seems that I 
 Must pay for victory the price required. 
 For how shall blind and transitory things 
 Argue the wisdom that directs the sun, 
 And sees beyond all winds a windless west ? 
 And yet — and yet — how should I gird myself 
 With priestly stroke to spill the blood I gave ? 
 I who have lain in trouble through the night. 
 Had I but spoken a swift word to her. 
 Clouding a moment her transparent life. 
 She is more close to me than any child ; 
 The woman I did love so leaves in her 
 Much of herself, remembered of all men, 
 
lOLE 147 
 
 Smiles in her smile, and kisses me anew. 
 The girl hath old soft ways and moods of her, 
 And in her moving, too, the deep slight charm. 
 If I shall slay her, I slay two in one ! 
 How holy art thou then, so filled with her ! 
 And by this death I touch thee, and thy 
 
 mother, 
 Who waits with wistful thought within thy 
 
 halls ; 
 And last, that fair imagined mutual life, 
 And the long melody oi mingled souls 
 Silenced ! And I too, having done this 
 
 thing. 
 How shall it aid me in my hollow home, 
 How shall it comfort me when rain begins 
 At early eve, that I did save the city ? 
 Shall it make up to me for loss of her 
 
148 lOLE 
 
 That I shall hear behind me where I walk 
 Strange voices murmuring praise ; or stand 
 acclaimed 
 
 Wearing their crown, her blood upon my hand ? 
 Rather let death upon the dying fall ! 
 Goddess, since this my victory demands 
 Death, and no less a price ; suffer thou me. 
 Who conquered, so to die ! Is not my blood. 
 Albeit old and pale, acceptable ? 
 Or must that crimson fountain spout for thee ? 
 I wait thy word to fall upon my sword, 
 Myself to atone for my own victory. 
 Answer me, goddess ! answer ! [A pause.] 
 
 She is dumb ! 
 
 I OLE. 
 Father, and thou beloved, hear me speak ! 
 
lOLE 149 
 
 When first I heard thy dreadful words I stood 
 Amazed, and slowly the full drift perceived : 
 Thou, having saved the city, must slay thy 
 
 child. 
 Then said I to myself, " How should I die ? 
 How should my father with those very hands 
 That lifted me with laughter o'er his head, 
 And pulled my face back for the perfect kiss. 
 Strike through my heart ? I am his only child ; 
 No brother have I, nor sister, and my mother 
 Under my gathered roses lies asleep. 
 I am the sole companion of his life, 
 And he will sit most lonely if I leave him." 
 When I no more shall sing to thee at even, 
 Father, or touch the strings in falling light, 
 Or ask thee of my mother in the dusk, 
 Bringing relief to thee to speak of her, 
 
15° lOLE 
 
 And ease with spoken words the dwelling 
 
 mind. 
 And it would grieve me in the ground to think 
 That this white head unkindly might be used. 
 First of thy loneliness I thought, my father. 
 Then thou, ah ! thou, upon the edge of bliss 
 And yearning but for red clouds in the east. 
 Suddenly dashed ! But no ! I cannot speak 
 Of what lies warm and hushed between us two. 
 Dearest, if this come not to pass, be silent : 
 It was too beautiful now to recall. 
 Indeed, I cannot well believe that thou 
 Could'st take life up again where I had left it. 
 Still feeling vainly for a little hand. 
 We have so grown together thou could'st not, 
 Torn clean away, go bleeding on alone. 
 Last of myself I thought — how hard to die ! 
 
lOLE 151 
 
 For had I been a babe that just beholds 
 
 The light, sweet chuckling, and then loses 
 
 breath, 
 It had not been so difficult ; or had I 
 Endured remote and lone into old age, 
 Had faded from a garden to a grave, — 
 Passing without a tear into the stars. 
 But I all o'er am tingling for sweet life. 
 And all my blood is eager for the earth. 
 My heart wild with the wonder of the place. 
 Now suddenly to leave this purple light, 
 And go a ghost unto a birdless grove ; 
 Aye to remember under grieving boughs. 
 With souls that rust by rim of rivers old, 
 Conveying ever downward the dry leaf ! 
 And — in this hour there is no shame to say it — 
 I would have loved thine arms about me fast. 
 
isa lOLE 
 
 The thrilling kiss, and mastering clasp of thee, 
 
 And to surrender to thy smouldering touch, 
 
 Yielding my mystery in deep of night. 
 
 And I have that in me which deeply craves 
 
 For children, to bear sons unto my lord, 
 
 To bring lives like a vassal to my king, 
 
 To feel the gums of heroes at my breast, 
 
 And mighty poets drink their fill of me. 
 
 Then must I go imperfect to the dark 
 
 In tragic purity into the gloom, 
 
 Untouched into the region of the dead .' 
 
 Yet, father, yet belovdd, there hath crept 
 
 Into mine ear a far and secret call ; 
 
 A sweet, and a low, and yet a mighty voice, 
 
 I know not whence, that sayeth to me 
 
 " Come ! " 
 Something is touched within me from on high, 
 
lOLE 153 
 
 Nobler than care for thee, or love of thee, 
 Or holier wish for children, or desire 
 For the earth splendour ; something that ere- 
 now 
 Hath urged to deeds whereof we reason not, 
 To deeds which bow the head and blind the 
 
 eyes ; 
 Mighty rejections of uplifted souls, 
 And sea-shore pyres and ever-ringing deaths, 
 And dooms that dazzle still from setting suns. 
 I of this cup it seems am capable. 
 Yet is there nothing in this hour of tears, 
 Nor have I the least quiver of the nerve ; 
 How quiet is this heart that soon shall stop ! 
 I feel that I am carried from the earth, 
 And lifted up, I know not by what hand ; 
 Alcestis winds her arm about my waist. 
 
1 54 lOLE 
 
 And pale Iphigenia kisses me. 
 
 How large, too, is the manner of my death ! 
 
 Behold I fall, but for a city saved. 
 
 Behold I die, but for a people freed ! 
 
 Therefore am I prepared to take thy stroke 
 
 Even as kindly, father, as thy kiss. 
 
 But, O, with thee the anguish, not with me ! 
 
 And yet recall that strong fleet loosing blow ; 
 
 The priestly father and the victim child ; 
 
 Remember Agamemnon, lord of men, 
 
 Who, as his daughter flowed unto the ground, 
 
 Felt on his neck the favourable breeze 
 
 Releasing all the sails in Aulis bay. 
 
 Take me within. And — since thou art a 
 
 soldier — 
 Thou knowest where to strike me — here, is't 
 
 not? 
 
lOLE 15S 
 
 Once, and no more, that I may have no pain — 
 I know this death is nobler than all life. 
 
 [Pelias and Iole ascend the steps. 
 
 lole! 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 Iole 
 
 Ah beloved, make no cry, 
 While we in silence take our last embrace ! 
 
 [They pass into the house. The stage 
 slowly darkens, there is a pause. 
 
 Laomedon. 
 
 Did she cry out then > No, she will not cry. 
 Still silence ! And for me a blow self given ! 
 
 \Exit. 
 
156 lOLE 
 
 [Citizens and others rush on with 
 acclamation, calling the name oj 
 Pelias. Phorcos stands on the 
 steps holding in his hands the crown 
 of victory. Pelias comes slowly from 
 within. There is a bloodstain on 
 his hands and robe. 
 
 Pelias. 
 
 Friends, I would not intrude on public joy 
 A private grief, or general triumph jar 
 With single sorrow ; one word will I speak, 
 Lifting these bloody hands unto the clouds, 
 Then go within. The gods, whom none may 
 
 flout, 
 Decreed that if I should deliver Corinth, 
 Then should I sacrifice whatever first 
 
lOLE 157 
 
 Should meet me coming forth out of my 
 
 doors. 
 Now she that met me first was my own 
 
 child. 
 So, being young, I laid her on my arm, 
 And drove the sword at one stroke through her 
 
 heart ; 
 I do not think I gave her any pain. 
 This soil then on my hands and on my robe. 
 It is the life-blood of my only child. 
 I have no son, my wife is in her grave ; 
 Therefore with lonely hands I take this 
 
 crown 
 And place it as a conqueror on my brow. 
 And in the days to come, when I am cold, 
 Forget not, men of Corinth, that I saved, 
 Not without grief, this city and your homes. 
 
[58 lOLE 
 
 [TAe crowd disperses in silence. Then 
 the Priestess appears on the steps 
 of the temple, she and Felias gazing 
 on each other as the curtain falls. 
 
POEMS 
 
 By STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 Fourteenth Edition 
 
 Times. — " Mr. Phillips is a poet, one of the half-dozen men 
 of the younger generation whose writings contain the indefin- 
 able quality which makes for permanence.'' 
 
 Spectator. — "In his new volume Mr. Stephen Phillips more 
 than fulfils the promise made by his ' Christ in Hades ' : here 
 is real poetic achievement — the veritable gold of song. ' ' 
 
 Academy. — " How should language, without the slightest 
 strain, express more ! It has an almost physical effect upon 
 the reader, in the opening of the eyes and the dilation of the 
 heart." 
 
 Westminster Gaiette. — "But the success of the year is the 
 volume of poems by Mr. Stephen Phillips, which has been 
 received with a chorus of applause which recalls the early 
 triumphs of Swinburne and Tennyson." 
 
 The Onlooker in Blackwood's Magazine. — "This volume 
 has made more noise than any similar publication since 
 Alexander Smith shot his rocket skyward. But in this case 
 the genius is no illusion. There are passages here which 
 move with the footfall of the immortals, stately lines with all 
 the music and the meaning of the highest poetry." 
 
 Mr. W. L. Courtney in Daily Telegraph. — " The man who, 
 with a few graphic touches, can call up for us images like 
 these, in such decisive and masterly fashion, is not one to be 
 rated with the common herd, but rather as a man from whom 
 we have th« right to expect hereafter some of the great things 
 which will endure." 
 
PAOLO ^ FRANCESCA 
 
 BY STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 Twenty-fifth Thousand 
 
 Times. — "Simple, direct, concerned with the elemental 
 human passions, and presenting its story in the persons of 
 three strongly-defined characters of the first rank, it should 
 appeal to the dramatic, sense as well as to the sense of poetic 
 beauty. A very beautiful and original rendering of one of 
 the most touching stories in the world." 
 
 Mr. William Archer in Daily Chronicle, — "A thing of 
 exquisite poetic form, yet tingling from first to last with 
 intense dramatic life. Mr. Phillips has achieved the impos- 
 sible. Sardou could not have ordered the action more 
 skilfully. Tennyson could not have clothed the passion in 
 words of purer loveliness." 
 
 Mr. W. L. CouRTNBY in Daily Telegraph. — " We possess 
 in Mr. Stephen Phillips one who redeems our age from its 
 comparative barrenness in the higher realms of poetry." 
 
 The Westminster Gazette. — " This play is a remarkable 
 achievement, both as a whole and in its parts. It abounds 
 in beautiful passages and beautiful phrases. A man who 
 can write like this is clearly a force to be reckoned with." 
 
 Mr. Owen Seaman in Morning Post. — " Mr. Phillips has 
 written a great dramatic poem which happens also to be a 
 great poetic drama. We are justified in speaking of Mr. 
 Phillips's achievement as something without parallel in our 
 age." 
 
 Standard. — "A drama which is full of golden lines. A 
 powerful but chastened imagination, a striking command 
 of the resources of the language, and an admirable lucidity 
 alike of thought and expression are combined to produce a 
 play which will give pleasure of a lofty kind to multitudes 
 of readers." 
 
HEROD: A Tragedy 
 
 By STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 TWENTY-FIRST THOUSAND 
 Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net. 
 
 Daily TelegrapL — "It is simple, magnificent, grandiose, 
 awaking, as Aristotle demanded, our pity and our terror." 
 
 Mr. Max Beerbohm in Saturday Review. — " His drama is 
 so fiery coloured, so intense, the characters so largely pro- 
 jected, the action so relentlessly progresses, till the final 
 drops of awe are wrung from us, that only the greatest of 
 dramatic poets could accompany with verse quite worthy 
 of it." 
 
 Atkenceum. — "Not unworthy of the author of the ' Duchess 
 of Malfi.' " 
 
 Globe. — " Its grim imagination and fantasy may be com- 
 pared with that of Webster." 
 
 Daily Graphic. — "Intensity which entitles it to rank with 
 the works of Webster and Chapman. " 
 
 Mr. William Archer in the World. — " The elder Dumas 
 speaking with the voice of Milton.' ' 
 
 Times. — " In other words, Mr. Stephen Phillips is not only 
 a poet and a rare poet, but that still rarer thing, a dramatic 
 poet." 
 
 The Spectator. — " The purely dramatic quality of the play 
 is surprisingly high. There remains the literary quality of 
 the I verse, and here, too, we can speak with few reserves. 
 Mr. Phillips's blank verse is flexible, melodious, and majestic. 
 He coins splendid phrases to fit the grandiose imaginings of 
 the distempered mind of the King. 
 
 ' The red-gold cataract of her streaming hair 
 ' Is tumbled o'er the boundaries of the world " 
 is an image worthy of Marlowe, of whom we are again and 
 again delightfully reminded." 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — " A gain to the British acting drama, 
 no less than to the loftier literature of our time." 
 
ULYSSES: A Drama 
 
 IN A "PROLOGUE AND THREE ACTS 
 
 By STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 TENTH THOUSAND 
 Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net 
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 Daily Telegraph. — " It is a grateful task to discover in the 
 new volume many indications of that truly poetic insight, 
 that vigorous expression of idea, that sense of literary power 
 and mastery which have already made Mr. Stephen Phillips 
 
 famous There is a finely perceptive quality in all 
 
 Mr. Phillips's scenic touches which, combined with rheto- 
 rical fervour and the most indubitable natural vigour, makes 
 the new dramatic poem, ' Ulysses,' a very worthy contribu- 
 tion to modern literature." 
 
 Daily Chronicle. — "Mr. Phillips is, in the fullest sense of 
 the word, a dramatic poet. Any critic who has bound him- 
 self to canons of dogma which would exclude such work as 
 Mr. Phillips has hitherto given us had better unbind himself 
 with what speed hie may ; for this is a case in which the 
 poet will assuredly have the last word." 
 
 Standard. — " ' Ulysses ' will add to Mr. Phillips's reputa- 
 tion as one of the few living masters of English song." 
 
 Daily Mail. — " In the power of its imagery and the beauty 
 of its phrase it is not unworthy to stand beside ' Christ in 
 Hades ' and ' Paolo and Francesca.' " 
 
 Mr. James Douglas in the Star. — " ' Ulysses' is a splendid 
 sliower of iazzliiig jewels flung against gorgeotis tapestries that are 
 shaken by the wind of passion. Mr. Stephen Phillips is the 
 greatest poetic dramatist we have had since Elizabethan times." 
 
TWENTIETH THOUSAND 
 
 MARPESSA 
 
 By STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 FhOWERS OF PARNASSUS. Volume 3 
 
 With about 7 Illustrations. Demy i6mo (sJ x 44 inches). 
 
 Bound in Cloth, is. net. 
 Eound in Leather, is. 6d. net. 
 
 OTHER VOLUMES IN 
 
 FLOWERS OF PARNASSUS 
 
 Demy i6mo (sJ x 4J inches). Gilt Top. 
 Bound in Cloth, Gilt Top. Price is. net. 
 Bound in Leather, Gilt Top. Price is. 6d. net. 
 
 A Series of Famous Poems Illustrated under the 
 General Editorship of Francis Coutts 
 
 gray's elegy 
 
 browning's the statue and the bust 
 
 ROSSETTI'S THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 
 
 THE NUT-BROWN MAID 
 
 TENNYSON'S A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN 
 
 TENNYSON'S THE DAY DREAM 
 
 SUCKLING'S A BALLADE UPON A WEDDING 
 
 FITZGERALD'S OMAR KHAYYAM 
 
 POPE'S THE RAPE OF THE LOCK 
 
 WATTS-DUNTON'S CHRISTMAS AT THE "MERMAID" 
 
 BLAKE'S SONGS OF INNOCENCE 
 
 SHELLEY'S THE SENSITIVE PLANT 
 
 WATSON'S WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE 
 
 RELIQUES OF STRATFORD-ON-AVON 
 
 MILTON'S LYCIDAS 
 
 WORDSWORTH'S TINTERN ABBEY 
 
 LONGFELLOW'S THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP 
 
 WATSON'S THE TOMB OF BURNS 
 
 CHAPMAN'S A LITTLE CHILD'S WREATH 
 
 MORRIS'S THE DEFENCE OF GUENEVERE 
 
 HOGG'S KILMENY 
 
 DAVIDSON'S THE BALLAD OF A NUN 
 
 WORDSWORTH'S RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE 
 
 KEATS'S ISABELLA 
 
 TENNYSON'S MAUD 
 
 THE SONG OF SONGS, WHICH IS SOLOMON'S 
 
NEW POETRY 
 
 THE PO EMS OF 
 WILLIAM WATSON 
 
 Edited and arranged, with an Introduction, by J. A. SPENDER. 
 In 2 Volumes. With Portrait and many new Poems. 
 Crown 8vo, gs. net. 
 
 Times. — " William Watson is, above all things, an artitt who is proud 
 of his calling and conscientious in every syllable that he writes. To 
 appreciate his work you must take it as a whole, for he is in a line with the 
 high priests of poetry, reared, like Ion, in the shadow of Delphic presences 
 and memories, and weighing every word of his utterance before it is given 
 to the world." 
 
 Aiheneeum. — " His poetry is a ' criticism of life,' and, viewed as such, it 
 is magnificent in its lucidity, its elegance, its dignity. We revere and 
 admire Mr. Watson's pursuit of a splendid ideal ; and we are sure that his 
 artistic self-mastery will be rewarded by a secure place in the ranks of our 
 poets. . . , We . may express our belief that Mr, Watson will keep his 
 high and honourable station when many showier but shallower reputations 
 have withered 'away, and must figure in any representative anthology of 
 English poetry. . . . 'Wordsworth's Grave/ in our judgment, is Mr. 
 Watson's masterpiece , . . its music is graver and deeper, its language is 
 purer and clearer than the frigid droning and fugitive beauties of the 
 ' Elegy in a Country Churchyard.' " 
 
 Westminster Gazette. — " It is remarkable that when Mr, Watson's poetry 
 directly invites comparison with the poetry of preceding masters his 
 equality always, his incomparable superiority often, becomes instantly 
 apparent. . . . No discerning critic could doubt that there are more 
 elements of permanence in Mr. Watson's poems than in those of any of 
 his present contemporaries. ... A very treasury of jewelled aphorisms, 
 as profound and subtle in wisdom and truth as they are consummately 
 felicitous in expression." 
 
 Bookman. — " From the very first in these columns we have pleaded by 
 sober argument, not by hysterical praise, Mr. Watson's right to the fore- 
 most place among our living poets. The book is . a collection of 
 works of art, like a cabinet of gems," 
 
 spectator. — " The two volumes will be welcomed by the poet's numerous 
 admirers. There is a pleasure in the possession of a complete edition of a 
 great writer's works. . . . We must apologise for quoting so copiously, but 
 the book is so full of beautiful things that in his pleasure at seeing them all 
 together the critic is irresistibly tempted to take them out and remind 
 his readers of them separately." 
 
 St. James's Gazette.- — " The publication of these volumes confers a distinct 
 benefit on contemporary thought, contemporary poetry, and on English 
 literature in a wider sense." 
 
 Mr. William Archer (in the Morning Leader). — "Among the critics of 
 the nineties enamoured of this or that phase of eccentricity, affectation, 
 or excess, Mr. Watson had to pay dearly for his austere fidelity to his ideal 
 of pure and perfect form. But these days are past ; detraction now hides 
 its diminished head ; the poet ... is clearly seen to be of the great race." 
 
RECENT POETRY 
 
 SELECTED POEMS OF 
 JOHN DAVIDSON 
 
 Foolscap 8vo 
 Bound in Cloth, 3s. 6d. net. Bound in Leather, 5s. net 
 
 Times. — " There are not more than two or three living 
 writers of English verse put of whose poems so good a 
 selection could be made. The poems in the selection are 
 not only positive ; they are visible." 
 
 Athenimm. — "There is urgent need for a collected edition 
 of Mr. Davidson's poems and plays. The volume and the 
 variety of his poetry ought to win for it wider acceptance. It 
 is indeed curious that poetry so splendid as Mr. Davidson's 
 should fail to get fuller recognition. There are many aspects 
 of his genius which ought to make his work popular in the 
 best sense of the word. He has almost invented the modern 
 ballad. . . . He handles the metre with masterly skill, filling 
 it with imaginative life and power." 
 
 Literary World. — " We count ourselves amongthose to whom 
 Mr. Davidson has made himself indispensable. " 
 
 Daily Mail. — " Mr. Davidson is our most individual singer. 
 His variety is as surprising as his virility of diction and 
 thought." 
 
 St. James's Gazette. — "This volume may serve as an intro- 
 duction to a poet of noble and distinctive utterance. ' ' 
 
 New Age. — " The book contains much that Mr. Davidson's 
 warmest admirers would best wish to remember him by. 
 There is a subtle charm about these poems which eludes 
 definition, which defies analysis." 
 
 T.P.'s Weekly. — ' ' Mr. Davidson is one of the most individual 
 of living poets ; he has a rare lyrical faculty. " 
 
 Morning Post. — "Mr. Davidson is as true a poet as we have 
 now among us. . . . he has included nothing that we do not 
 admire. ' ' 
 
 Daily Graphic. — " This delightful volume." 
 
 Dundee Advertiser. — " Its poetry gives out a masterful note. 
 . . Mr. Davidson's poem pictures. " 
 
CORNISH BALLADS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER 
 
 VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 
 Edited by C. E. BYLES 
 
 illustrated by 
 J. LEY PETHYBRIDGE 
 
 Price $s, net. 
 
 This book is a revised edition of Hawker's Complete Poems, 
 publislied in 1899 at 7s. 6d. Ttie chief differences consist of the 
 reduction in price, the inclusion of a numbrir of fresh illustrations 
 and a few additional poems, and a general improvement in the 
 " get-up "of the book. In binding it will be uniform with "Foot- 
 prints of Former Men .in Far Cornwall." The new illustrations 
 will include the following : — 
 
 ILLUSTRATION io illustrate 
 
 Clovelly 
 The Black Rock, Wideraouth 
 St. Nectan's Kieve 
 Morwenstow Church (Exterior) 
 The Well of St. Morwenna 
 The Well of St. John . 
 The Source of the Tamar . 
 Launcells Church 
 
 The Figure-head of the Cale- 
 
 dimia 
 Boscastle cliffs in a storm . 
 
 Hartland Church 
 St. Madron's Well 
 
 HennacIifF 
 
 Tintagel 
 
 Effigy of Sir Ralph de Blanc- 
 Minster in Stratton Church 
 Sharpnose Point . , . . 
 Portrait of Sir Bevill Granvillel . 
 The Font in Morwenstow Church 
 
 'Clovelly." 
 
 " Featherstone's Doom." 
 
 " The Sisters of Glen Nectan." 
 
 ' ' Morwennae Static. " 
 
 ' ' The Well of St. Morwenna." 
 
 " The Well of St. John." 
 
 " The Tamar Spring." 
 
 " The Ringers of Launcells 
 Tower." 
 
 " The Figure-head of the Cale- 
 donia at her Captain's Grave." 
 
 "The Silent Tower at Bot- 
 treaux." 
 
 " The Cell by the Sea." 
 
 "The Doom-Well of St. Mad- 
 ron." 
 
 " A Croon on Hennacliff." 
 
 "The Quest of the Sangraal." 
 
 "Sir Ralph de Blanc-Minster 
 Bien-Aimfi." 
 
 " The Smuggler's Song.'' 
 
 ' ' The Gate Song of Stowe." 
 
 "The Font." 
 
THE WORKS OF 
 FRANCIS COUTTS 
 
 THE REVELATION OF ST. LOVE THE 
 DIVINE. Square i6mo. Price 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 THE ALHAMBRA AND OTHER POEMS. 
 Crown 8vo. Price 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS : A Poem. 
 Square l6mo. Price 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 THE POET'S CHARTER ; or, The Book of 
 Job. Crown 8vo. Price 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 MUSA VERTICORDIA : Poems. Crown 8vo. 
 Price 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF KING ARTHUR. 
 
 Crown Bvo. Price 5 s. net. 
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
 The Academy. — " 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." 
 
 Literature. — " It is not every writer who is master, as was 
 quite truly said of Mr. Coutts some years ago, of the rare and 
 difficult art of clothing thought in the true poetic language." 
 
 St. James's Gazette. — "All who know Mr. Coutts' other 
 poems already will have much joy of this volume and look 
 eagerly for more to follow it, and those who do not yet 
 know them may well begin with this and go back to its 
 predecessors." 
 
The LOVER'S LIBRARY 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 FREDERIC CHAPMAN 
 
 Size sJ X 3 inches. 
 
 Bound in Paper Boards . Price is. net. 
 
 Bound in Cloth . . . Price is. 6d. net. 
 
 Bound in Leather . . Price 2s. net. 
 
 Bound in Parchment . . Price 3s. net. 
 LOVE POEMS OF SHELLEY 
 LOVE POEMS OF R. BROWNING 
 THE SILENCE OF LOVE, By E. HOLMES 
 LOVE POEMS OF TENNYSON 
 LOVE POEMS OF LANDOR 
 LOVE POEMS OF E. B. BROWNING 
 LOVE POEMS OF BURNS 
 LOVE POEMS OF SUCKLING 
 LOVE POEMS OF HERRICK 
 LOVE POEMS OF W. S. BLUNT (PROTEUS) 
 SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE 
 LOVE SONGS FROM THE GREEK 
 LOVE POEMS OF BYRON LOVE POEMS OF POE 
 LOVE POEMS OF MOORE THE SONG OF SONGS 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 GOLDEN THOUGHTS 
 
 Pott 8vo (6 X 3f inches). 
 Bound in Cloth .... Price is. net. 
 Bound in Leather . . , Price 2s. net. 
 First Volumes : 
 GOLDEN THOUGHTS FROM THE GOSPELS 
 GOLDEN THOUGHTS FROM THOREAU 
 GOLDEN THOUGHTS FROM SIR THOS. BROWNE 
 
 PRINTED upon a paper specially manufactured for the 
 series, with end papers and cover design by Charles 
 Ricketts, and border designs by Laurence Housman. 
 Each volume has a frontispiece, and is bound in a manner 
 which will recommend the series as specially appropriate for 
 presents. 
 
 LONDON : JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO STREET, W. 
 NEW YORK: JOHN LANK COMPANY, IIO-II4 WEST 32ND ST.