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B*ALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EUINllURGH AND LONDON 
 
Jamti TnumJOi.i. 
 
 !.3 
 
A 
 
 VOICE FROM THE NILE 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 JAMES . Tp O M S O N 
 ("B. v.") 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT," " VANE's STORY,'" AND 
 "essays and PHANTASIES." 
 
 IV/TH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR 
 
 BERTRAM DOBELL. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 REEVES AND TURNER, ige^STRAND. 
 1884. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LAST POEMS. 
 
 A Voice from the Nile 
 
 Richard Forest's Midsummer Night . 
 
 Insomnia . 
 
 /' He Heard her Sing 
 
 The Poet and his Muse 
 
 The Sleeper 
 
 Modern Penelope gg 
 
 At Belvoir 
 
 A Stranger .... 
 
 Law z/. Gospel . 
 
 The Old Story and the New Storey 
 
 Despotism tempered by Dynamite , go 
 
 EARLY POEMS. 
 The Doom of a City .... . Q2 
 
 The Deliverer . . i6o 
 
 A Festival of Life 
 
 Tasso to Leonora . 
 
 A Happy Poet .... 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 lo 
 
 28 
 41 
 55 
 62 
 
 70 
 
 75 
 8i 
 86 
 
 169 
 186 
 
 202 
 
VI 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Suggested by Matthew Arnold's "Stanzas from 
 THE Grande Chartrf.usf. " 
 
 By THE Sea 
 
 Prologue to the Pilgrimage to St. Nicotine 
 Arch Archery 
 Low Life . 
 
 The Dreamer . 
 
 Robert Burns . 
 
 William Blake 
 
 Song .... 
 
 A Chant . 
 
 On a Broken Pipe . 
 
 A Proem 
 
 Notes . . . . 
 
 214 
 228 
 233 
 239 
 243 
 247 
 250 
 252 
 253 
 255 
 256 
 257 
 259 
 
JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 " You would have kept me from' th« Desert sands 
 
 Bestrewn with bleaching bones, 
 And led me through the friendly fertile land's, 
 
 And changed my weary moans 
 To hymns of triumph and enraptured love, 
 And made our earth as rich as Heaven above." 
 
 A Poem, a Drama, or a Novel, the perusal of which 
 has moved our admiration, or affected our feelings, can 
 hardly fail to make -us desire to know something, of its 
 creator. We feel that the powers developed by the author 
 must correspond with the faculties inherent in the man, 
 and that the man must be at least as interesting as his 
 work. It is not by insignificant or commonplace natures 
 that works of enduring merit can be produced. Only by 
 virtue of possessing unusual depth of feeling, intensity of 
 aspiration, or wealth of intellect, does an author produce 
 a masterpiece ; and his success is always in direct pro- 
 portion to the fineness and richness of his own person- 
 ali'ty. Sometimes, indeed, the character of an author will 
 impart a factitious importance to his works. How dim 
 and shadowy a figure would Dr. Johnson now appear, 
 had his reputation depended solely upon his writings ! 
 
viii Memoir. 
 
 Our interest in the works of Burns, Byron, and Shelley 
 is surely doubled, at least, by the knowledge we possess 
 of the events of their lives. And if, in becoming 
 acquainted with their aspirations and their achievements, 
 their errors and their sins are also made known to us, 
 even so we have to consider that their faults were such 
 as belong to mankind in general, while their genius be-, 
 longed to themselves alone. The faults of common men 
 die with them because the men themselves are forgotten, 
 whereas the sins of a Burns or a Byron are remembered 
 because he has himself immortalised them. 
 
 Mr. Thomson's works are excellent enough' to stand 
 upon their own merits ; yet there is much in them that 
 may seem obscure to those who know nothing of his life. 
 His poems have this in common with those of Burns and 
 Byron, that their in terest is int enselygersonal. Most of 
 them are reflections of his own ijodividuality, and their 
 interest depends upo n the skill wi th which Jiejias_rpn- 
 dered his personal feelings interest ing t o the reader, 
 rather than to his having dramatically expressed the 
 thoughts and feelings of others. The key to his writings 
 is to be founds in^e^yents^of-his -life, and it is this key 
 that I have endeavoured to supply in the following pages. 
 
 James Thomson was born at Port Glasgow, on the 
 23d of November, 1834. Both of his parents were 
 Scotch, and James was their first child. The father had 
 attained a good position in the merchant navy, and at 
 one time occupied the post of chief officer in a ship 
 trading to China. His mother was a zealous Irvingite, 
 and it seems probable that it was to her he owed his 
 deeply emotional and imaginative temperament. About 
 
Memoir. ix 
 
 five years after the birth of James a second son was born, 
 and in little more than a year afterwards the mother died. 
 The father had by this time fallen somewhat in the social 
 scale, owing, it is said, to habits of intemperance. I 
 cannot give any other particulars respecting him, save a 
 somewhat vague report that he became imbecile and died 
 a few years afterwards. On the mother's death, the infant 
 child was taken charge of by relatives living at Port 
 Glasgow. Some friends of the father exerted themselves 
 in favour of James, and through their interest he was 
 admitted into that excellent institution, the Caledonian 
 Orphan Asylum. Here he proved himself a quick and 
 intelligent scholar, and his rapid progress in acquiring 
 knowledge gave the greatest satisfaction to his tutors. 
 
 When the time came for him to quit the Asylum, the 
 question arose of what was to be his future profession. 
 What he himself desired was to obtain a clerkship in a 
 bank or a city merchant's office. But no such place was 
 to be obtained except on condition of his serving for a 
 time without pay, and this he could not do, for he was 
 entirely without resources. He had, it is true, well-to-do 
 relatives in London, but they gave him no assistance. 
 No choice was left to him but to take the advice of some 
 of the masters at the Asylum, who advised him to qualify 
 for the post of a schoolmaster in the army. He did so, 
 although he much disliked the idea, and he was allowed 
 to join the service as assistant-schoolmaster. In this 
 capacity he was sent to Ireland, the garrison which he 
 joined being stationed at Ballincollig, near Cork. It 
 may be remarked here, that his position in the army, 
 however distasteful it may have been to him, was not an 
 
Memoir. 
 
 altogether unenviable one. The usual routine of school 
 duty consists, I am told, in teaching the children for 
 three hours in the forenoon, an equal time being devoted 
 to the instruction of the adults in the afternoon. This 
 leaves a good deal of time free for study or recreation, 
 and there is plenty of evidence to- show that Thomson 
 made the best use possible of his leisure hours at this 
 period., 
 
 During the time that he remained at the Asylum he 
 spent his holidays at the home of a kind and liberal 
 gentleman, an old friend of his father. From one of the 
 daughters of this gentleman much of the information 
 here embodied has been derived ; and I will now quote 
 from her account of him a very interesting passage : — 
 
 " Being several years yoranger than James, I cannot 
 recollect much about him' as a boy, but I remember we 
 always thought him wonderfully clever, very nice-looking, 
 and very gentle, grave and kind. He was always moat 
 willing to attend to our whims, but my eldest sister was 
 his especial favourite. Her will seemed always law to 
 him'. She was gay, as he was grave, but whatever Helen 
 said or did won appreciation from him. . . . Previous, to 
 going (to Ireland) he earnestly requested that my sister 
 might be allowed to correspond with him, a request 
 which my parents thought it wiser to refuse. I was 
 allowed, however, to- do so, and althoQgh his letters came 
 few and far between, I always welcomed and appreciated 
 them. He used to endeavour to guide my tastes, and 
 gave me good advice as to the books I should read, 
 semidiing me Charlotte Bronte's ' Life and Letters,' Mrs. 
 
Memoir. 
 
 Browning's ' Aurora Leigh/ some poems by Robert 
 Browning, and a few other books." 
 
 "Wonderfully clever, very nice-looking, and very 
 gentle, grave and kind " — such is the happy and expres- 
 sive phrase in which this lady sums up the impression 
 which James Thomson made upon her and her sister in 
 his youth. Nor was there any degree of partiality in 
 their judgment, which was only that which any one 
 coming in contact with him must have formed. Quick 
 in acquiring knowledge, he had a memory that retained 
 his acquirements firmly and tenaciously. Languages he 
 mastered easily and thoroughly ; and I am assured that 
 he might have won a foremost place as a mathematician, 
 had he persevered with his studies in that science. In 
 literature his taste was at once catholic and unerring : 
 he could relish Swift as well as Shelley, Fielding as well 
 as Mrs. Browning. He had his special literary favourites 
 of course, but I do not think he ever failed to recognise 
 the merits of a really great work, or ever valued a poor 
 or feeble one beyond its deserts. In short, it is hardly 
 possible to imagine a youth of more promise than his 
 was, and none who- knew him then could have supposed 
 that he was doomed to a hopeless and joyless existence,, 
 which was, in his own words, " a long defeat.'' 
 
 The army cannot be considered as a good school of 
 morals or manners ; and it is easy to conceive that the 
 coarse and prosaic life of the camp and the barrack-room 
 was very distasteful to the young student ; for he had in 
 full measure the fine sensibility and highly-strung nervous 
 organisation that usually accompany poetic gifts. But 
 it seems likely that what made his situation most irksome 
 
xii Memoir. 
 
 was that he saw little prospect of escaping from it, and 
 of attaining a position more congenial to his disposition, 
 and offering more scope to the abilities which he felt 
 himself to possess. To be gifted with fine feelings and 
 to nurse great aspirations, yet to be compelled to labour 
 at uncongenial or repulsive tasks is a sufficiently un- 
 fortunate fate; and the victim of such circumstances 
 either sinks eventually to the level of his surroundings, 
 or suffers cruelly in the endeavour to escape from 
 them. 
 
 It was a noticeable trait in Thomson's character that 
 he hardly ever failed to make warm friends of those with 
 whom he came in familiar contact. He had not long 
 entered the army before he had won the devoted friend- 
 ship of Joseph Barnes, who was the Garrison-Master of 
 the station to which he was attached. This gentleman 
 was a self-educated man, who had attained his position 
 entirely by the force of his own abilities. In befriending 
 Thomson he was seconded by his wife, a most excellent 
 and kind-hearted woman. In some Sonnets, written in 
 1862, but not intended for 'publication, Thomson de- 
 lineates with an affectionate pen the characters of these 
 two friends of his youth. Mr. Barnes he describes 
 
 " A man of genial heart and liberal mind, 
 
 A man most rich in that rare common-sense 
 Whose common absence in its name we find ; 
 
 A man of nature scorning all pretence, 
 And honest to the core, yet void of pride, 
 
 Whose vice upon that virtue most attends ; 
 A man of joyous humour unallied 
 
 With malice, never making foes but friends.'' 
 
Memoir. xiii 
 
 Mrs. Barnes, whom he addresses as the "second 
 
 Mother of my orphaned youth," is thus delineated : — 
 
 " Thou patient heart to suffer and endure. 
 Thou placid soul to mirror heavenly truth, 
 
 Thou gracious presence wheresoe'er you go 
 To gladden pleasure or to chasten strife, 
 
 Thou gentlest friend to sympathise with woe, 
 Thou perfect Mother and most perfect Wife." 
 
 In another Sonnet he says : — 
 
 " My dear dear friends, my heart yearns forth to you 
 
 In very many of its lonely hours ; 
 Nor sweetlier comes the balm of evening dew 
 
 To all-day-drooping in fierce sunlight flowers. 
 Than to this weary withered heart of mine 
 
 The tender memories, the moonlight dreams 
 Which make your home an ever-sacred shrine. 
 
 And show your features- lit with heavenly gleams." 
 
 Another of these Sonnets is of such interest and 
 ihiportance that I need make no apology for quoting it 
 in full :— 
 
 " Indeed you set me in a happy place. 
 
 Dear for itself, and dearer much for you, 
 And dearest still for one life-crowning grace — 
 
 Dearest, though infinitely saddest too : 
 For there my own Good Angel took my hand, 
 
 And filled my soul with glory of her eyes, 
 And led me through the love-lit Faerie Land 
 
 Which joins our common world to Paradise. 
 How soon, how soon, God called her from my side. 
 
 Back to her own celestial sphere of day ! 
 And ever since she ceased to be my Guide, 
 
 I reel and stumble on life's solemn way ; 
 Ah, ever since her eyes withdrew their light, 
 I wander lost in blackest stormy night." 
 
 This Sonnet sums up in brief the sad story of his life. 
 
Memoir. 
 
 It tells the tale of his first meeting with his "Good 
 Angel ; " of his intense and overmastering affection for 
 her ; of her untimely death, and of his life-long misery 
 and despair. Few words are needed to tell the story ; 
 but what a world of sufifering is summed up in them ! 
 
 This young girl was the daughter of the Armourer- 
 Sergeant of a regiment in the Garrison. That she was 
 a creature of uncommon loveliness, both of person and 
 of mind, seems to be certain. She was described by 
 Mrs. Barnes as resembling in character the Evavgeline 
 St. Clair of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." I mention this 
 rather unwillingly, for I confess that my feeling with 
 regard to the authoress of that once popular novel is 
 anything but one of respect. Yet it must be owned, I 
 think, that in delineating Eva St. Clair she has well 
 pourtrayed a character of peculiar charm and sweetness. 
 Twenty years ago it would probably have been difficult 
 to find a reader who was not well acquainted with 
 " Uncle Tom's Cabin ; " but its popularity has so much 
 declined of late years, that it is likely enough that Eva 
 St. Clair is a name only to the great majority of the 
 present generation. It seems worth while therefore to 
 quote a short passage from the novel, in which her 
 appearance and character are described : — 
 
 "Her form was the perfection of childish beauty, 
 without its usual chubbiness and squareness of outline. 
 There was about it an undulating and aerial grace, such 
 as one might dream of for some mythic and allegorical 
 being. Her face was remarkable, less for its perfect 
 beauty of feature, than for a singular and dreamy 
 earnestness of expression, which made the ideal start 
 
Memoir. xv 
 
 when they looked at her, and by which the dullest and 
 most literal were impressed, without knowing why. The 
 shape of her head and the turn of her neck and bust 
 was peculiarly noble, and the long golden-brown hair, 
 that floated like a cloud around it, the deep spiritual 
 gravity of her violet-blue eyes, shaded by heavy fringes 
 of golden-brown, all marked her out from other children, 
 and made every one turn and look after her, as she 
 glided hither and thither. Nevertheless, the little one 
 was not what you would have called either a grave child 
 or a sad one. On the contrary, an airy and innocent 
 playfulness seemed to flicker like the shadow of summer 
 leaves over her childish face, and around her buoyant 
 figure. . . . Always dressed in white, she seemed to 
 move like a shadow through all sorts of places without 
 contracting spot or stain ; and there was not a corner or 
 nook v/here those fairy footsteps had not glided, and 
 that visionary golden head, with its deep blue eyes, 
 fleeted along." 
 
 It is to be observed that this is the portrait of quite a 
 young - girl ; but it is obvious that a very slight degree of 
 alteration is needed to make it apply to one much older. 
 Moreover, the passage I have quoted agrees -so well with 
 the various references in Mr. Thomson's writings to his 
 lost love, that I can hardly doubt that it is an essentially 
 true picture of her. We have in " Vane's Story " a 
 description of her which wUl well bear comparison with 
 the above extract : — 
 
 " For thought retraced the long sad years, 
 Of pallid smiles and frozen tears 
 Back to a certain festal night, 
 A whirl and blaze of swift delight, 
 
xvi Memoir. 
 
 When we together danced, we two ! 
 
 I live it all again ! . . . Do you 
 
 Remember how I broke down quite 
 
 In the mere polka ? . . . Dressed in white, 
 
 A loose pink sash around your waist, 
 
 Low shoes across the instep laced, 
 
 Vour moonwhite shoulders glaticing through 
 
 Long yellow ringlets dancing too. 
 
 You were an Angel then ; as clean 
 
 From earthly dust-speck, as serene 
 
 And lovely and beyond my love, 
 
 As now in your far world above." 
 
 Thomson's devoted love was fully reciprocated by the 
 object of it. Both of them were still very young; so 
 young indeed, that it would scarcely have been a wonder 
 if the rough soldiers amongst whom they lived, had been 
 inclined to ridiciile their attachment. But they were 
 generally liked and respected : and all who knew them 
 felt a kindly interest in them, and wished them well. 
 Their dream of love and happiness was brief indeed in 
 duration, but it was perfect and unalloyed whilst it 
 lasted. 
 
 Amongst those with whom he became acquainted in the 
 army, the most notable was Charles Bradlaugh. Both 
 entered the service about the same time. They were then 
 youths of sixteen and seventeen years, Bradlaugh being 
 the senior by about fourteen months. It was a strange 
 chance that brought these two, so unlike in nearly every 
 respect, together. Bradlaugh, the man of action and 
 enterprise, ever striving for practical ends, yet loving a 
 contest, whether physical or mental, as much for its own 
 sake as for any advantage it might bring him : of firm 
 and inflexible determination, who, when he has once 
 
Memoir. xvii 
 
 resolved to attain an object, never rests until that object 
 is achieved. Thomson, the student, the idealist and 
 poet, or say the dreamer, who shrank with almost 
 morbid dislike from the noise and tumult of publicity, 
 and who, like Hamlet, was fitted rather for contempla- 
 tion than for action. What points of contact had they 
 to bring them together and unite them in the bonds of 
 friendship ? It is probable, indeed, that each liked and 
 respected the other for the very qualities which he him- 
 self lacked ; certain it is that they remained for many 
 years on terms of intimate friendship. 
 
 Bradlaugh, even at this early period of his life, had 
 made himself known as an advocate of extreme political 
 and theological views. Thomson had been pretty well 
 grounded in Presbyterian theology,^ and although his 
 views at this time may not have been strictly orthodox, 
 yet he still believed in Christianity. Many and animated 
 were the discussions that took place between them at this 
 period — discussions that left each of them (as is usually 
 the case) still of his own opinion. It would be a mistake 
 to suppose that Thomson's opinions were modified in 
 any way, owing to his intimacy with Bradlaugh. What- 
 ever views he adopted were the .result of careful inquiry 
 and long meditation, and few persons were less likely to 
 be swayed by the opinions of others. If he was any 
 man's disciple, he was the disciple of Shelley, in whom 
 
 ^ He once gave me an amusing account of the sufferings he 
 underwent in committing to memory what is known as the As- 
 sembly's Shorter Catechism, and of how he used to lie awake in 
 bed shivering at the thought that he would have to learn another, 
 longer and harder even than that. 
 
 b 
 
xviii Memoir. 
 
 he recognised his poetical and personal ideal. He 
 studied his works with minute and loving care, and to 
 the last never ceased to speak of him in terms of admira- 
 tion and gratitude.! It is very probable that the study 
 of Shelley's writings first led Thomson to doubt the truth 
 of the doctrines of Christianity ; but he would not have 
 accepted even Shelley's conclusions had they not tallied 
 with those which he arrived at by independent inquiry 
 and thought. A change of creed to a sensitive person 
 must ever be a painful process, and there is plenty of 
 evidence to prove that it was so in Thomson's case. But 
 one of his most marked characteristics was his complete 
 intellectual honesty. His convictions were slowly formed, 
 tenaciously held, and always expressed with vigour and 
 decision. He never modified or softened the expression 
 of his ideas from fear of Mrs. Grundy, or to conciliate 
 his readers.^ Had he been less sincere or uncompromis- 
 ing his literary career would doubtless have been more 
 successful. 
 
 Thomson remained in the army as assistant school- 
 master for about two years, the regiment to which he was 
 attached being stationed in Ireland during the whole of 
 -that time. At the end of this period he was (according 
 to the usual practice) sent to the Training College at 
 
 ■• " Shelley " was the title of one of his earliest poems. It was 
 written in 1855. It contains some fine passages ; and I have omitted 
 it from the present volume rather from want of space than from any 
 misgiving as to its excellence. 
 
 2 It is worth noting that one of his articles was found to be too 
 audacious even for the uncompromising National Reformer. After 
 two instalments of it had appeared, the third and concluding portion 
 was suppressed. 
 
Memoir. xix 
 
 Chelsea to finish the course of studies necessary to qualify 
 him for the post of a schoolmaster. The usual practice 
 is for the students to remain there for two years, which 
 period is required in most cases in order to fit the candi- 
 dates for their duties. In his case, however, it was quite 
 unnecessary to keep him there for such a length of time : 
 indeed, he was quite able to pass the necessary examina- 
 tions after he had been there only six months. Routine, 
 however, exacted a stay of at least eighteen months 
 before he was allowed to receive his appointment as 
 schoolmaster. 
 
 It was towards the close of his stay at the College that 
 he received the news of the death of his beloved. One 
 morning there came a letter stating that she was danger- 
 ously ill : the next morning came the news of her death. 
 Words cannot picture his grief and sorrow for her. For 
 three days after receiving the news of her death, no food 
 passed his lips, and it can hardly be doubted that he 
 intended to starve himself to death. Had he done so 
 the world would have lost much ; but he himself would 
 have lost nothing that he cared for, and would have 
 been spared long dreary years of suffering and despair. 
 Thenceforth Regret and Sorrow were, his inseparable 
 companions, and without hope and almost without object, 
 his was rather a death-in-life than a healthy and natural 
 existence. In striking him thus through his aifections, 
 destiny had wounded him where he was most vulnerable. 
 No other affliction could have affected him as he was 
 affected by this. In after-years he was doomed to endure 
 much poverty : he suffered constant rebuffs in his endea- 
 vours to get his works published; and finally neglect 
 
XX Memoir. 
 
 and discouragement so far affected him, that for " seven 
 songless years " his muse was almost or altogether silent. 
 These would have been grievous trials to most poets, and 
 perhaps to him also under other circumstances : but his 
 capacity for suffering was exhausted by his one great 
 -grief, and all his other misfortunes were borne with stoical 
 indifference. 
 
 He left the Training College in 1854, when the 
 Crimean War was about to begin. He was first sent to 
 serve with a militia regiment in Devonshire. Afterwardis 
 he served at Aldershot, Dublin, Jersey, and other places. 
 As regards his conduct as a schoolmaster, it may be 
 remarked that his duties were always efficiently 'per- 
 formed ; but, as he felt little interest in his profession, 
 he made no pretence of doing so, and in consequence, 
 perhaps, did not obtain so much credit as he really 
 deserved. 
 
 It must not be thought that he yielded himself an 
 unresisting victim to the melancholy and despair that 
 had fastened themselves so firmly upon him. He read 
 extensively and studied deeply ; but it was the composi- 
 tion of poetry that best enabled him to forget for a time 
 his sorrows. He destroyed many of the poems written 
 in his early manhood ; but enough remain to attest the 
 industry with which he cultivated his poetical talents. 
 In the years 1854 to i860 he wrote many poems, some 
 of which are of considerable length. Perhaps the 
 most remarkable of these is "The Doom of a City," 
 which was written in 1857. Comparing this with "The 
 City of Dreadful Night," written fourteen or fifteen years 
 later, we find a great difference of tone and spirit, but 
 
Memoir. xxi 
 
 nearly the same power of conception and execution. 
 Both are characterised by mastery of thought and lan- 
 guage, ease of versification, and command of various 
 metres. Both display the same power of picturesque 
 description : a power that invests the scenes and events 
 described with extraordinary vividness. A painter would 
 find in both many incidents inviting him to transfer them 
 to his canvas, and he might do so almost without intro- 
 ducing a single detail that he did not find described in 
 the poet's verses. In concentration of thought and 
 intensity of expression, " The City of Dreadful Night " 
 is as a whole superior to the earlier poem ; yet there are 
 some passages in " The Doom of a City " which equal 
 even in these points the later poem. As regards the 
 change that took place in the author's ideas in the 
 interval that elapsed between their composition, the 
 earlier poem supplies interesting evidence. The author 
 of " The Doom of a City " believes in an over-ruling 
 Providence, and in the Immortality of the Soul. He 
 strives to reconcile the existence of evil with belief in a 
 benevolent Creator, and labours to show that mankind 
 are themselves responsible for the miseries they endure. 
 Yet it may be perceived even here that he held these 
 doctrines with no firm assurance, and that he was trying 
 to convince himself that he believed them, rather than 
 holding them with a complete conviction of their truth. 
 
 His first pubUshed poem was " The Fadeless Bower," 
 which appeared in Taii's Edinburgh Magazine for July, 
 1858, with the signature of " Crepusculus." He continued 
 to contribute to the pages of that magazine until it was 
 discontinued in 1 860. " Bertram to the Lady Geraldine," 
 
xxii Memoir. 
 
 " Tasso to Leonora," " The Lord of the Castle of Indo- 
 lence," and " A Festival of Life " were among the poems 
 which he contributed to its pages. That at the time of 
 their publication they did not attract much, if any atten- 
 tion may perhaps be accounted for by considering that 
 Tait at that time had sunk very low both in circulation 
 and influence. 
 
 About the same time he contributed some prose essays 
 to the London Investigator, a periodical edited by Charles 
 Bradlaugh. Amongst these were " Notes on Emerson " 
 and "A Few Words about Burns." Both articles are written 
 in a spirit of warm admiration and appreciation of the 
 great qualities of the subjects of them ; and I venture to 
 think that the Burns celebration which produced such 
 floods of prose and verse about him, brought forth 
 nothing superior to Thomson's essay as a vindication of 
 his life and genius. 
 
 We obtain an interesting glimpse of Thomson as he was 
 in i860 from the lady whose picture of him as a youth 
 I have already quoted. I give the account nearly in her 
 own words, as I could hardly hope to improve upon her 
 artless and unaffected story. After stating that they had 
 had no personal intercourse with him for some years, she 
 proceeds thus : — 
 
 " At last he wrote saying that he was to have a fort- 
 night's holiday, and would pay us a visit. We were all 
 excitement at his coming. I had previously informed 
 him in one of my letters that Helen had become a 
 Ragged School teacher, and in reply he said he could 
 not imagine a creature so bright and in his remem- 
 brance so beautiful, being arrayed in sombre habili- 
 
Memoir. xxiii 
 
 ments and acting such a character. When he arrived 
 Helen met him in the most demure manner possible, 
 and kept up the deception, or rather tried to do so, for 
 he was not to be deceived. Two days after his arrival, 
 when he was sitting reading, she suddenly sent something 
 flying at his head, at which he started up saying ' Ah ! 
 I have just been quietly waiting for this 1 you have been 
 acting a part which does not become you, but you have 
 now resumed your true character, and are the Helen of 
 old.' During this visit we thought him much altered in 
 appearance and manners ; indeed, we were somewhat dis- 
 appointed. He was by no means so manly-looking as 
 when he left London, and was painfully silent and de- 
 pressed. He went from us with the intention of again 
 going to Aldershot, but from that day until Mr. Maccall ^ 
 mentioned him to us, we never once heard of him. Ever 
 since we have felt greatly puzzled to account for his 
 singular conduct." 
 
 It is no wonder that these ladies, knowing nothing 
 of the story of his lost love, were puzzled to account for 
 his silence and depression. He was always singularly 
 reticent, in speech at least, about his private feelings, 
 and only to those who had known him long, and whose 
 friendship he had put to the proof, did he even hint at 
 the cause of his unhappiness. I say " cause " because 
 there cannot be a doubt that the death of his " only love " 
 was the root of his misery : yet along with this there was 
 another circumstance which contributed to his unhappi- 
 
 ^ William Maccall, author of " Elements of Individualism," and 
 of many other remarkable, but unappreciated works. 
 
xxiv Memoir. 
 
 tiess. He had much in him, in fact, of the " self-tortur- 
 ing" spirit which afflicted Rousseau, and which drove 
 Cowper into insanity. These moods of self-dissatisfaction 
 he has well depicted in " Vane's Story," which is, in fact, 
 when rightly read, as candid and complete an autobio- 
 graphy as was ever written. 
 
 " I half remember, years ago, 
 Fits of despair that maddened woe, 
 Frantic remorse, intense seltscorn, 
 And yearnings harder to be borne 
 Of utter loneliness forlorn ; 
 What passionate secret prayers I prayed ! 
 What futile firm resolves I madfi ! 
 As well a thorn might pray to be 
 Transformed into an olive-tree ; 
 As well a weevil might determine 
 To grow a farmer hating vermin ; 
 The /am that I am of God 
 Defines no less a worm or clod. 
 My penitence was honest guile ; 
 My inmost being all the while 
 M'as laughing in a patient mood 
 A( this externe solicitude,- 
 Was waiting laughing till once more 
 I should be sane as heretofore ; 
 And in the pauses of the fits, 
 That rent my heart and scared my wits". 
 Its pleasant mockery whispered through. 
 Oh, what can Saadi have to do 
 With fenitence ? and what can you ? 
 Are Shiraz roses wreathed with rue ? " 
 
 It will be seen that the above extract not only depicts 
 the moods I have spoken of, but also records his final 
 deliverance from them. But he was afflicted by them 
 for a good many years, and they contributed to bring 
 
Memoir. xxv 
 
 about the state of nervelessness and want of self-com- 
 mand into which he fell during the last three or four 
 years of his life. 
 
 The reader may perhaps ask whether there was not 
 some reason for these fits of self-scorn and remorse ? I 
 answer that there was probably as much reason for them 
 in Thomson's case as there was in Cowper's. The good 
 man suffers more from remorse for the commission of 
 some microscopic offence, than the bad man who commits 
 some atrocious crime. Thomson saw this clearly in after- 
 years ; and he has well satirised the mood in which we 
 accuse ourselves of being desperate sinners (which yet 
 it is probable that no really good man is altogether a 
 stranger to) in the following epigram : — 
 
 "■Once in a saintly passion 
 
 I cried with desperate grief, 
 O Lord, my heart is black with guile, 
 
 Of sinners I am chief. 
 Then stooped my guardian angel 
 
 And whispered from behind, 
 ' Vanity, my little man. 
 
 You're nothing of the kind.' " 
 
 Iri i860 the National Reformer was established, and 
 Thomson became one of its contributors. His articles, 
 however. Only appeared at rather long intervals in the 
 early volumes of that paper. His first important contri- 
 bution to its pages was an essay on "Shelley." It is a 
 most eloquent tribute to the genius and essential great- 
 ness of the "poet of poets." 
 
 Early in 1861 appeared a poem entitled "The Dead 
 Year." It reviews in an interesting and forcible manner 
 the chief events of the year i860. The two stanzas 
 
xxvi Memoir. 
 
 descriptive of Mazzini and Garibaldi may be quoted as 
 fairly representative of the spirit of the poem : — 
 
 " She! h^g tyi,g noblc sons ; by these she is. 
 
 The Thinker ; who inspired from earliest youth, 
 
 In want and pain, in exile's miseries, 
 
 'Mid alien scorn, 'mid foes that knew not ruth, 
 Has ever preached his spirit's inmost truth ; 
 
 Though friends waxed cold, or turned their love to hate. 
 
 Though even now his country is ingrate. 
 
 The Doer, whose high fame as purely shines 
 As his,'' whc) heretofore Sicilia won 
 
 With victories flowing free as Homer's lines, 
 Sublime in action when the strife is on. 
 Sublime in pity when the strife is done ; 
 
 A pure and lofty spirit, blessed from sight 
 
 Of meaner natures' selfishness and spite." 
 
 In 1863 the beautiful poem " To our Ladies of Death " 
 appeared in the National Reformer, and after that date 
 his contributions to it, both in prose and verse, became 
 more frequent. It is unnecessary to enumerate his 
 various writings in it ; but it may be stated that most of 
 the poems included in the two volumes already issued, 
 and a large proportion of the prose writings contained in 
 "Essays and Phantasies," first appeared in \h& Reformer. 
 It is hardly necessary to say that their appearance in 
 such a quarter scarcely tended to advance his reputation. 
 But in it he could publish without restraint his most 
 heterodox productions, and his writings, it must be 
 recollected, were often as heterodox from the Secularist 
 as from the Christian standpoint. I do not know of any 
 
 1 Italy. 
 
 ^ Timoleon's. See Plutarch's Lives ; whence the simile in the 
 following line. 
 
Memoir. xxvii 
 
 other paper or magazine in which " Vane's Story," or 
 "The City of Dreadful Night" would have been allowed 
 to appear. 
 
 Thomson left the army in October, 1862. He had 
 long been weary of his position in it ; but the immediate 
 cause of his leaving was that an accusation of a breach 
 of military discipline was made against him. The story 
 is not worth telling at length : but it may be stated that 
 whether the accusation was true or false, it was one that 
 reflected no moral blame upon him whatever. On leav- 
 ing the army he applied to Mr. Bradlaugh, who was then 
 acting as managing clerk to a solicitor named Levison, 
 to know whether he could iind employment for him. 
 Bradlaugh at once engaged him as a clerk in his office, 
 and also offered him a home with his own family. 
 Thomson accepted this offer, and for some years there- 
 after the most intimate relations existed between them. 
 
 I do not find anything specially worthy of record 
 during the next nine or ten years of Thomson's life, 
 although, in a literary point of view, these years were 
 perhaps his best and most productive period. In 1869 
 Mr. Froude accepted his poem called " Sunday up the 
 River " for Fraser's Magazine, of which he was then the 
 editor. Before inserting it, he asked Charles Kingsley's 
 opinion upon it, whose judgment was warmly in its 
 favour. This was almost the only instance (before the 
 publication of "The City of Dreadful Night" in 1880) in 
 which he was enabled to get one of his productions 
 published, apart from the Secular papers. It may be 
 worth mentioning that at one time he wrote two or 
 three articles for the Daily Telegraph, and he might 
 
xxviii Memoir. 
 
 perhaps have been regularly engaged upon that paper ; 
 but leader-writing to order was by no means to his taste. 
 
 In 1872 he became secretary to a company which was 
 formed to work an American silver mine. In this 
 capacity he was sent out to America by the shareholders: 
 to report upon the prospects of their speculation. There 
 he discovered that the shareholders had been deluded 
 into purchasing an utterly unsound concern, so that his 
 mission and his situation as secretary came to an end 
 together. His general verdict upon the Americans is 
 well expressed in the following extract from a letter to a 
 friend which he wrote while there : — 
 
 " I think we must forgive the Americans a good deal 
 of vulgarity and arroga!ice_ibr some generations yet. 
 They are intoxicated with their vast country and its 
 vaster prospects. Besides, we of the old country have 
 sentJiiem_for years_past, and are still sending them, our 
 half-starved and ignorant millions.. The Americans of 
 the War orTndepehdence were really a Bxltiah.j;ace, and 
 related to the old country as a Greek colony^ to its 
 mother city or state. But the Americans of to-da.y_are 
 only a nation in that they instinctively adore^their^union. 
 All the heterogeneous ingredients are seething in the 
 cauldron with plentyLof scum and air, bubbles atop. In 
 a century or two they may get stewed down into homo- 
 geneity — a really wholesome and dainty dish, not to be 
 set before a king though, I fancy. I resisted the im- 
 pression of the mere material vastitude as long as 
 possible, but found its influence growing on me week 
 by week : for it implies such vast possibilities of T;noral 
 and intellectual expansion. They are starting over here 
 
Memoir. xxix 
 
 with aUj)ur_ex2erience and culture at their command, 
 without any of the -obsolete burdens^ an dim pediments 
 which ia Jhe course of a thousand years hasabecome 
 inseparable from our institutions, and with a country 
 which will want ino_re .labour and mpre_people for many 
 generations to come." 
 
 TheiTcbmes a characteristic passage about himself : — 
 " I am quite well again. Though never perhaps very 
 strong, and rarely so well as to feel mere existence a 
 ■delight (as to a really healthy person it must be; no 
 inferior condition, in my opinion, deserves the name of 
 health), I am seldom what we call unwell. When 
 travelling about I always find myself immensely better 
 than when confined to one place. With money, I 
 -believe I should never have, a home, but be always going 
 to and fro on the earth, and walking up and down in it, 
 like him of whom I am one of the children." 
 
 Soon after his return from America he was engaged by 
 the proprietors of the Nd7a York World to go to Spain 
 as their Special Correspondent with the Carlists, who 
 were then (1873) in insurrection against the Republican 
 government. Their cause was apparently prospering, 
 and it was supposed that they were about to make a bold 
 stroke and march upon Madrid. This however they did 
 not attempt, and though there was much marching and 
 counter-marching there was very Uttle real fighting. 
 Thomson gave in the pages of the Secularist an enter- 
 taining account of his Spanish experiences. He remained 
 in Spain about two months, and whilst there was for a 
 time prostrated by a sun-stroke. 
 
 Shortly after his return to England, he became 
 
XXX Memoir. 
 
 secretary to anoth'er company, which also collapsed after 
 a brief career. In 1874 he published in the National 
 Reformer his most remarkable work," The City of Dread- 
 ful Night." This poem was much more fortunate than its. 
 predecessors, for it attracted a good deal of notice in 
 literary circles, and was very favourably spoken of in the 
 Academy. The Spectator devoted an article to it, which, 
 though censuring its tone, yet did some degree of justice 
 to the remarkable powers of the author. But what most 
 delighted Mr. Thomson was a few words of praise from 
 thp author of "Adam Bede." For "George Eliot "he 
 always felt and expressed the deepest admiration, and her 
 praise probably gave him the greatest degree of pleasure 
 that he was capable of feeling. Here is an extract from 
 her letter : — " My mind responds with admiration to the 
 distinct vision and grand utterance in the poem which 
 you have been so good as to send me. Also I trust that 
 an intellect informed by so much passionate energy as 
 yours will soon give us more heroic strains with a wider 
 embrace of human fellowship in them — such as will be 
 to the labourers of the world what the odes of Tyrteus 
 were to the Spartans, thrilling them with the sublimity of 
 the social order, and the courage of resistance to all that 
 would dissolve it." 
 
 Mr. W. Ml Rossetti (to whose edition of Shelley's 
 Poetical Works Thomson had contributed some notes) 
 also expressed his great admiration for the poem, and 
 thenceforth remained on very friendly terms with the 
 author. Philip Bourke Marston, the unfortunate Oliver 
 Madox Browne, and Miss Blind may also be mentioned 
 
Memoir. xxxi 
 
 as persons who felt and expressed high admiration for 
 " The City of Dreadful Night." 
 
 Apologising for whatever may seem egotistical in the 
 narrative, I shall now proceed to give some account of my 
 own acquaintance with Mr. Thomson. When I read on 
 its first appearance in the National Reformer the poem 
 " To our Ladies of Death " I became convinced that it 
 must be the work of a genuine poet. I read it again 
 and again, my admiration increasing with each perusal. 
 Thenceforth I looked eagerly in each issue of the 
 Reformer for some new poem or essay from the pen of 
 "B. V."* 
 
 The impression upon my mind of the great powers of 
 this unknown writer deepened with time, and my won- 
 derment was great that an author of such genius should 
 confine it to the pages of the Reformer. 
 
 "The City of Dreadful Night" when first published 
 ran through four or five numbers of the N^ational Re- 
 former. It was, however, crowded out of the paper one 
 week, and held over to the next number. Thereupon I 
 wrote to the editor to express my disappointment at its 
 non-appearance, taking occasion at the same time to 
 
 ' Bysshe Vanolis. " Bysshe "was chosen because of Thomson's 
 reverence for Shelley, and " Vanolis " as an anagram of Novalis, the 
 assumed name of the German mystic and poet, Friedrich von Har- 
 denberg. It wiU be remembered that the life and character of the 
 latter were largely affected by the untimely death of a young girl 
 to whom he was deeply attached. Hardenberg, however, was not 
 so inconsolable as Thomson, for he formed another attachment in 
 no long time after his first love's death. A much closer parallel to 
 Thomson's storywas that of another German poet, Ernst Schultze; but 
 of him Thomson knew nothing until a few months before his death. 
 
xxxii Memoir. 
 
 avow my admiration of it, and of Mr. Thomson's writings 
 generally. The editor handed my note to Mr. Thomson, 
 who thereupon wrote me the following letter :— 
 
 " Dear Sir, — I have just received from Mr. Bradlaugh 
 your note about myself, and hasten to thank you heartily 
 for your very generous expressions of approval of my 
 .writings. While I have neither tried nor cared to win 
 any popular applause, the occasional approbation of an 
 intelligent and sympathetic reader cheers me on a some- 
 what lonely path. 
 
 "You must not blame Mr. Bradlaugh for the delay in 
 continuing my current contribution to his paper. ... As 
 an Editor he must try to suit his public, and the great 
 majority of these care nothing for most of what. I write. 
 As for this ' City of Dreadful Night,' it is so alien from 
 common thought and feeling, that J knew well (as stated 
 in the Proem) that scarcely any readers would care for 
 it ; and Mr. B. tells me that he has received three or four 
 letters energetically protesting against its publication in 
 the M i?., yours I think being the only one praising it. 
 Moreover, one must not forget that there is probably no 
 other periodical in the kingdom which would accept such 
 writings, even were their literary merits far greater than 
 they are. . . . 
 
 " While preferring to remain anonymous for the public, 
 I have no reason to hide my name from such corre- 
 spondents as yourself — Yours truly, 
 
 "James Thomson (B. V.)" 
 
 In replying to this letter, I expressed a wish to become 
 personally acquainted with Mr. Thomson. He was 
 
Memoir. xxxiii 
 
 pleased to accede to my request, and thenceforth we re- 
 mained on terms of friendship up to the time of his death. 
 " Why don't you bring out your poems in book form ? " 
 was naturally one of the first questions I put to him. 
 Thereupon he explained that he thought it very unlikely 
 that any publisher could be found who would risk 
 money in publishing them, and that he had no means 
 of paying for their publication himself, as most modern 
 poets have to do. This led me to make an offer of such 
 assistance as might be in my power to give him. At first 
 I intended to take the entire risk of their publication upon 
 myself, but my circumstances took rather an unfortunate 
 turn about that time, and I was compelled, very much to 
 my regret, to abandon the idea. Mr. Thomson then tried 
 various publishers, most of whom told him frankly that 
 there was no market for poetry, and that they could not 
 undertake to publish for him. This was fair enough, and 
 he had no ground for dissatisfaction with these gentle- 
 men : but it is not so easy to excuse a certain publisher, 
 who, after making a definite promise to publish, and 
 keeping him for some months in suspense, at last refused 
 to fulfil his engagement. Whilst I am upon this subject, 
 it will be well perhaps to relate the circumstances under 
 which the poems were eventually published. It happened 
 to occur to me in a fortunate moment that an application 
 to Messrs. Reeves & Turner on Mr. Thomson's behalf 
 might meet with supcess. I had already made an un- 
 successful trial in another quarter, the gentleman to whom 
 I proposed it valuing his respectability far too much to 
 run any risk of forfeiting it by publishing anything so 
 heterodox as "The City of Dreadful Night." Messrs. 
 
Memoir. 
 
 Reeves & Turner being liberal-minded men who had 
 already distinguished themselves by bringing out the hand- 
 somest and most complete edition of Shelley's Works, 
 were not alarmed even by Thomson's heterodoxy, and it 
 was promptly agreed upon that " The City of Dreadful 
 Night, and other Poems " should be issued at the joint 
 risk of those gentlemen and myself. 
 
 Returning to Thomson's connection with the National 
 Reformer and Mr. Bradlaugh, it has to be noted that in 
 1875 disagreements took place between the editor and his 
 most brilliant contributor, which led to the latter's secession 
 from that paper. I have already dwelt upon the utter 
 unlikeness of character of the two men ; and considering 
 this, it is by no means surprising that they eventually 
 disagreed ; the wonder is rather that they remained friends 
 for so long a time. 
 
 It was now necessary for Thomson to seek for other 
 employment ; and he was fortunate enough to obtain 
 a literary engagement, which during the few years he was 
 yet to live was to prove his main dependence. Messrs. 
 Cope, the well-known tobacco-merchants of Liverpool, 
 published at this time a monthly periodical called Copds 
 Tobacco Plant I suppose their main object in issuing 
 it was to advertise their business ; but however this may 
 be, their periodical was of an unusually bright and enter- 
 taining character. It was conducted by Mr. John Fraser, 
 whose success in discovering unknown talent, and in 
 availing himself of it, made him a model editor. The 
 contributors were paid on a very liberal scale, and it is 
 probable that Thomson derived almost as much advan- 
 
Memoir. xxxv 
 
 tage from his contributions to the Tobacco Plant as from 
 all his other literary labours put together. 
 
 To the Tobacco Plant Thomson contributed articles 
 on Ben Jonson, Rabelais, John Wilson, James Hogg, 
 and Walt Whitman ; also reviews of books, a series of 
 papers on Tobacco legislation, Szc. He was, in short, 
 one of its most constant contributors from 1875 until 
 it was discontinued in 1881. 
 
 Shortly after Thomson's secession from the National 
 Reformer a new Freethought paper was started, entitled 
 the Secularist. To this periodical he now transferred 
 his services, and during the eighteen months that it lasted, 
 he was a constant contributor to its pages. His articles 
 in it were on the most various subjects, and any one who 
 now looks through a file of it, must become convinced 
 that his talents as a journalist were of a very high order, 
 though it may be regretted indeed that his powers were 
 so wasted. One of his most important contributions to 
 the Secularist was a series of articles on Heinrich Heine, 
 who (after Shelley) was the author with whom Thomson 
 was most in sympathy, and whom he had most thoroughly 
 studied. His translations from him have gained general 
 praise ; and I think it may be truly said that no other 
 translator has so well rendered the spirit and music of 
 Heine into English. One of the projects which were 
 cut short by his untimely death was a book on Heine, 
 which he had undertaken to write. 
 
 I will now quote a few passages, which are of general 
 or personal interest, from his letters to me. The follow- 
 ing paragraph, which is from a letter dated June 20, 1874^ 
 refers to a poem by Mr. W. M. Rossetti :— 
 
xxxvi Memoir. 
 
 " ' Mrs. Holmes Gray ' I want to read carefully before 
 returning. If he wrote that in 1849 when he must have 
 been very young, I can't understand how he came to 
 abandon poetry for criticism. It is quite mature in firm 
 grip of thi subject, and has no youthful faults of redun- 
 dancy, rhetoric, exaggeration, ornament for ornament's 
 sake, affectation, and so forth." 
 
 In a letter dated June 24, 1874, after referring to the 
 notice in the Academy of the " City of Dreadful Night," 
 he adds, " I have just written to the editor thanking him 
 and his critic, and saying that it seems to me a very 
 brave act on the part of a respectable English periodical, 
 to spontaneously call attention to an atheistical writing 
 (less remote than, say, Lucretius), treating it simply and 
 fairly on its literary merits, without obloquy or protesting 
 cant." 
 
 I quote the following passage from a letter dated 
 January 9, 1876, because it gives his answer to some 
 censures that have been passed upon his use of certain 
 words in his poems : — 
 
 " With regard to Mr. BuUen's criticisms on 'Our Ladies 
 of Death,' — criticisms which really flatter me, as any 
 man's work is really praised by such examination, — I 
 must hold myself right. The only English Dictionary I 
 have by me is a school one, but as such little likely to 
 venture on neologisms ; moreover, it is very good of its 
 kind, being Reid's of Edinburgh. This gives Sombre, 
 Sombrous, dark, gloomy ; Tenebrous, Tenebrious, dark, 
 gloomy, obscure (and, of course, Tenebrious implies 
 Tenebriously) ; Ruth, pity, sorrow; Ruthful, merciful, 
 sorrowful ; Ruthfully, sadly,, sorrowfully. The huge 
 
Memoir. xxxvit 
 
 Worcester Webster, into which I looked a day or two 
 after your letter came, agrees as to tenebrious and ruth ; 
 I forgot to look in it for sombrous. But as to ruth, I 
 used it in the common sense of pity, not that of sadness 
 and sorrow. When I wrote — 
 
 ' My life but bold 
 In jest and laugh to parry hateful ruth,' 
 
 I meant to parry the pity of others, not to parry my own 
 sadness, which, indeed, jest and laugh must intensify 
 instead of parrying. My thought was much like that of 
 Beatrice, 'The Cenci,' Act v., Sc. 3 :— 
 
 ' Shall the light multitude 
 Fling at their choice curses or faded pity. 
 Sad funeral flowers to deck a living corpse 
 Upon us as we pass, to pass away ? ' 
 
 And from the light indifferent multitude, as you must 
 know, curses are even less unwelcome than pity when 
 we are profoundly suffering. I looked into the Diction- 
 aries not knowing whether their authority would sustain 
 or condemn me, as I am used to trust in careful writing 
 to my own sense of what is right ; this, naturally, having 
 been modified and formed by reading of good authors. 
 Even had the Dictionaries condemned me, I should in 
 these cases have been apt to assert my own correctness ; 
 in many others I should be ready to yield without con- 
 test. In the ' City of Dreadful Night ' I used tenebrous 
 instead of tenebrious; just as good writers use, as it 
 happens to suit them, either funeral or funereal, sul- 
 phurous or sulphureous (Shelley often in 'Hellas'), &c. 
 You will think that I have troubled you with many 
 words on a verv little matter As it is now just 
 
xxxviii Memoir. 
 
 eleven p.m., and I have much to do to-morrow, I will 
 conclude in pity for myself if not in ruth for you." 
 
 The next extract is from a letter dated November i, 
 1878 :— 
 
 " I am very sorry but scarcely surprised that things 
 are not very flourishing with you just now. You are 
 correct in supposing that it is ditto with me. With the 
 natural depression of trade infinitely aggravated during 
 the past two years by the wretched impolicy of our Jewish- 
 Jingo misgovernment, it cannot be well with anybody but 
 arm-manufacturers, exchange speculators, and Hebrew 
 adventurers; and things seen likely to grow much 
 worse before they get better. . . . The 'Improvisations'^ 
 I shall be delighted to see. It is so scarce that I have 
 never yet been able to come across it, and have never 
 seen any mention of it save that by Rossetti in his supple- 
 mentary chapter (a very fine one) to the ' Life of Blake.' 
 It is not even in the British Museum, having been 
 printed for private circulation only, if I remember aright. 
 I should think it would be a real treasure to any of 
 Wilkinson's few admirers ; for, as you know, the fewer 
 the devotees of any man or thing, the more enthusiastic." 
 
 The following is from a letter dated December 23, 
 1878 :— 
 
 " Many thanks for the 'Improvisations.' . . . A brief 
 glance at it, and perusal of the remarkable note at the 
 
 ^"Improvisations from the Spirit," by Dr. Gartli Willdnson. 
 Mr. Tliomson was a warm admirer of Dr. Wilkinson's writings, and 
 under the title of "A Strange Book," he published a series of 
 articles on the "Improvisations" in the pages of the Liberal, a 
 monthly magazine. 
 
Memoir. xxxix 
 
 end, make me anticipate its study with unusual in- 
 terest. . . . Just lately, and in these days I am pretty 
 busy for Fraser ; and well for me that it is so, for I have 
 not earned a penny save from him the whole year. 
 There is more work to do on the Tobacco Duties ; and 
 also verse and prose for the Christmas Card, but not so 
 much as last year, nor offering such genial opportunities 
 and associations as Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims.^ 
 The subject this time is the Pursuit of Diva Nicotina, 
 in imitation of Sir Noel Paton's Pursuit of Pleasure. 
 Paton is a good painter and poet too, but of the ascetic- 
 pietistic school, or with strong leanings to it." 
 
 The next quotation is from a letter dated October 19, 
 1879:— 
 
 "I can still but barely manage to keep head above 
 water — sometimes sinking under for a bit. You see 
 what I do for Cope. I have not succeeded in getting 
 any other work except on the Liberal, and this is of 
 small value. ... I thank you for keeping the Whit- 
 man 2 for me : I sold it with other books when hard up. 
 In the meantime I have the latest 2 vol. edition in hand 
 from Fraser, who has requested some articles on him 
 when Tobacco Legislation, &c., will allow. I mean to 
 begin him now in the evenings at home, as the Legisla- 
 tion can be done only in the Museum. He may occupy 
 such intervals in the paper as did the Wilson and Hogg, 
 both done by request : the ' Richard Feverel ' was on my 
 
 1 This refers to two large coloured plates which were issued with 
 the Tobacco Plant, for which Thomson wrote explanatory and 
 descriptive matter in verse and prose. 
 
 2 Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." 
 
xl Memoir. 
 
 own suggestion. George Meredith, to whom I sent a 
 copy, wrote me a very flattering because very high- 
 minded letter. He has seen the 'City ;' and though by 
 no means sanguine with such a public as ours, he thinks 
 it should float a volume. The admiration of so many 
 excellent literary judges really surprises me. ... All 
 this about myself because I have nothing else to write 
 about, going nowhere and seeing no one." 
 
 July I, 1880, he writes: — 
 
 " Last Tuesday I spent with Meredith ; a real red- 
 letter day in all respects. He is one of those person- 
 alities who need fear no comparisons with their best 
 writings." 
 
 Here is a passage from a letter dated January 5, 
 1881 :— 
 
 "With Mr. Wright and Percy I went to George 
 Eliot's funeral. It was wretched tramping through the 
 slush and then standing in the rain for about three- 
 quarters of an hour, with nothing to see but dripping 
 umbrellas. I was disappointed by there being any 
 chapel service at all. At the grave old Dr. Sadler 
 mumbled something, of which only two or three words 
 could be distinguished by us only a couple of yards 
 behind him." 
 
 During the last two years of his life Thomson was 
 frequently at Leicester, where he had many good friendsi 
 of whom Mr. J. W. Barrs was perhaps the most zealous. 
 Here he was comparatively happy, as the following 
 extract from a letter dated June 21, 1881, will show : — 
 
 " We are here four miles from Leicester, with railway 
 station a few minutes off, in a pleasant villa surrounded 
 
Memoir. xli 
 
 by shrubbery, lawn, meadow and kitchen garden. Host 
 and hostess (sister) are kindness itself, as are all other 
 Leicester friends. We lead the most healthy of lives, 
 save for strong temptations to over-feeding on excellent 
 fare, and host's evil and powerfully contagious habit of 
 sitting up till about two a.m. smoking and reading or 
 chatting. I now leave him to his own wicked devices 
 at midnight or as soon after as possible. Despite the 
 showery weather we have had good drives and walks 
 (country all green and well- wooded), jolly little picnics, 
 and lawn-tennis ad infinitum. (N.B. — Lawn-tennis even 
 more than lady's fine pen responsible for the uncouthness 
 of this scrawl.) In brief we have been so busy with 
 enjoyment, that this is the first note I have accomplished 
 (or begun) in the seventeen days. . . . P.S. — Grass and 
 ground too wet for lawn-tennis this morning, else this 
 scrawl might not have got scrawled." 
 
 It will most likely occur to the reader that there is 
 some degree of incongruity between the passage just 
 quoted, and the general tenor of the narrative. But in 
 truth the change was so great from his soUtary existence 
 in London to the, comfort and cheerfulness of his life 
 in Leicester, that it is no wonder if he became for a time 
 comparatively happy. In London he lodged in one 
 narrow room, which was bed-room and sitting-room in 
 one, and where he could hardly help feeling a sense of 
 poverty and isolation. A morning spent at the British 
 Museum, an afternoon walk through the streets, and an 
 evening passed in reading or writing : such was the usual 
 course of his daily life in London. Visits to or from his 
 few London friends sometimes varied the monotony of 
 
xlii Memoir. 
 
 his existence; and now and then he would go to a 
 concert or to the Italian Opera, for he was passionately 
 fond of music. In London, in short, it was almost im- 
 possible for him to forget his sorrows : in Leicester the 
 kind attentions of his friends, their cheerful pastimes and 
 lively conversation, only allowed him to remember them 
 at intervals. 
 
 I have already said that it was not Thomson's custom 
 to parade his sorrows in public ; but that he was, on the 
 contrary, uncommonly reserved about his private feelings. 
 It would never have occurred to a casual acquaintance 
 that he was one whose existence was a burden that he 
 could scarcely endure. When with friends he was an un- 
 usually pleasant companion. He conversed easily and 
 fluently on whatever subject might happen to be started, 
 and frequently gave utterance to a happy jest, or an epi- 
 grammatic phrase. There was not the slightest degree of 
 assumption in his manner, nor did he ever allude to his 
 own writings, except when he was invited to do so. But 
 his wounds were not the less painful, because he did not 
 exhibit them in public ; and of their deep and permanent 
 character, I had once a striking proof. We were talking 
 together lightly and cheerfully enough, when a casual re- 
 mark which I made chanced to recall the memory of his 
 lost love. Well do I remember the effect upon him : 
 how his voice changed, and how tears started to his 
 eyes! 
 
 I have already related the circumstances under which 
 his first volume of poems was ultimately published by 
 Messrs. Reeves & Turner. This was in April 1880, 
 and the book was on the whole favourably received by 
 
Memoir. xliii 
 
 the press and the pubUc. Perhaps the most generous 
 and unstinted recognition of the interest and importance 
 of the poems was in an article by Mr. G. A. Simcox in 
 the Fortnightly Review. Naturally enough the tone and 
 spirit of the "City of Dreadful Night" came in for a 
 good deal of adverse criticism, although the power and 
 excellence of the writing were generally acknowledged. 
 One acute critic, whose penetration is not usually so 
 much at fault, expressed an opinion that the intensely 
 gloomy character of the poem did not represent its 
 author's real feelings, but was merely assumed in accord- 
 ance with a prevailing poetical fashion. Thomson must 
 have smiled rather bitterly on reading this, for if ever 
 there was a work which expressed with entire sincerity its 
 author's mind and feelings, that work was "The City of 
 Dreadful Night." It was the outcome of long years of 
 suffering and despair, of ceaseless yearnings, fruitless 
 regrets, and continual ponderings upon the mysteries 
 of human life. True or not to humanity at large — and 
 doubtless, to make it true universally, the dreadful gloom 
 would have to be lightened with many rays of sunlight — 
 it was at least a true expression of the author's thoughts 
 and experiences ; and it is to be feared that his case was 
 by no means singular, and that the inhabitants of " The 
 City of Dreadful Night " are far more numerous than 
 comfortable and respectable optimism has any concep- 
 tion of. The poem must always remain unsurpassed as 
 a picture of the night-side of human nature : that there 
 is another side Thomson was well aware, and he is 
 perhaps as successful in depicting the bright as the 
 dark aspect of life. 
 
xliv Memoir. 
 
 The measure of success which attended the issue of 
 his two volumes of poems ^ naturally gave him much 
 pleasure : but it was too late for that or any change 
 in his circumstances to benefit him much. The same 
 degree of success, had it been obtained ten or twelve 
 years earlier, would doubtless have had the happiest 
 results. How unfortunate it was that appreciation of his 
 gifts came so late will be seen when it is considered that 
 for nearly or quite seven years (1875 to 1 881) he almost 
 entirely discontinued the writing of verse. How much 
 might have been accomplished in those years, if only he 
 had been encouraged by the sunshine of success ! But 
 his spirit was now in a great degree broken, his energies 
 were relaxed, and the tough constitution that had enabled 
 him to endure so long a pilgrimage of sorrow, was at last 
 breaking down. For these results I am bound to say 
 that his misfortunes were not alone responsible. That 
 he should become during these latter years a victim of 
 intemperance was hardly surprising, however much it was 
 to be deplored. His early loss, his poverty, his comr 
 parative failure as an author, the sense of isolation and 
 despair that possessed him, and which at night deprived 
 him even of sleep ; that he sought refuge from the con- 
 sciousness of such miseries as these in the temporary 
 forgetfulness derived- from drink, could not be wondered 
 at. Let the reader peruse the poems of " Mater Tene- 
 brarum" and "Insomnia," both of which depict with 
 
 ^ "Vane's Story, and other Poems," was issued in October 1880. 
 "Essays and Phantasies," which was issued in 1881, had only a 
 qualified success. Only a few critics recognised the great excellence 
 of Thomson's matter and style in prose. 
 
Memoir. xlv 
 
 absolute fidelity his night thoughts and experiences, and 
 he will have some idea of the causes which impelled him 
 with irresistible power to drown thought and remembrance 
 in the Lethe of alcohol. Yet it must not be thought that 
 he yielded unresistingly to its temptations. Against it he 
 would strive hard, and for a time perhaps successfully, 
 so that he would seem to have overcome his enemy : but 
 the spell would at last prove too powerful for him, and 
 he would remain enslaved by it for a season, until he 
 was left at last utterly exhausted and unnerved. To see 
 him when he was in this condition was a most painful 
 sight, and it used to afflict me in no ordinary degree. I 
 must be excused, however, from dwelling further upon 
 this painful subject : let it suffice to say, that he became 
 more and more a victim of intemperance, until it ulti- 
 mately hastened, if it did not cause his death. 
 
 Of the last few months of his life I need not say much. 
 The reader will see by the dates affixed to the poems in 
 the early part of this volume, that his poetic powers had 
 only been lying dormant, and that the vein of his genius 
 was by no means exhausted. The poems here printed 
 will, I think, bear comparison with the best of his earlier 
 productions, with the possible exception of " Weddah 
 and Om-el-Bonain." Even this masterpiece of narrative 
 poetry he might have equalled or surpassed if he had 
 lived, for he stated that he had conceived the story of 
 another poem which he thought would give full scope to 
 his powers. But this, like much else, was to remain un- 
 accomplished : he was taken ill on June i, 1882, and 
 being removed to University College Hospital, died 
 there on June 3. He was buried at Highgate cemetery, 
 
xlvi Memoir. 
 
 in the same grave as his friend Austin Holyoake, on 
 June 8. 
 
 I borrow from Mr. Flaws' excellent essay on Thomson ^ 
 the following description of his personal appearance and 
 manner : — 
 
 " He looked like a veteran scarred in the fierce affrays 
 of life's war, and worn by the strain of its forced marches. 
 His close-knit form, short and sturdy, might have endured 
 any amount of mere roughings, if its owner had thought 
 it worth a care. It is rare to find so squarely massive a 
 head, combining mathematical power with high imagina- 
 tion in so marked a degree. Hence the grim logic of 
 fact that gives such weird force to all his poetry. You 
 could see the shadow that ' tremendous fate ' had cast 
 over that naturally buoyant nature. It had eaten great 
 furrows into his broad brow, and cut tear-tracks down- 
 wards from his wistful eyes, so plaintive and brimful of 
 unspeakable tenderness as they opened wide when in 
 serious talk. And as he discussed the affairs of the day, 
 how the pDet would merge in the keen-sighted trenchant 
 critic, whose vocabulary was built up of the pure and racy 
 English of all the centuries, always striking yet never 
 pedantic ! " 
 
 One reflection will probably have suggested itself to the 
 reader of the foregoing sketch. Was not — he may perhaps 
 ask — the fact that Thomson allowed his whole existence to 
 be blighted by the death of a young girl, evidence of an 
 essentially weak or defective character ? To be endowed 
 — like Burns for instance — with passions and aifections 
 of extraordinary force, is undoubtedly a misfortune, and 
 
 ^ Published in the Secular Review. 
 
Memoir. xlvii 
 
 the possessor of them, if he is capable of sometimes reach- 
 ing the highest heaven of enjoyment, must atone for this 
 by frequently descending into the deepest hell of despair : 
 but it would be absurd enough on the part of those whose 
 feelings are dull, and whose passions are torpid, if they 
 claimed, on those scores, to possess the more perfect tem- 
 perament. No doubt if Thomson had been ruled by 
 reason alone, he would have quickly forgotten his " only 
 love," and his life would have been happier, or, at least, 
 would have been something altogether different from what 
 it was. But in the lives of most men (and women too) 
 reason plays a very small part compared with the part 
 played by the feelings or affections. If we were ruled by 
 reason alone we should cease to regret a parent, a lover, 
 or a friend, the instant they were cold in death : but one 
 who could do so would scarcely be regarded as human at 
 all. As grief for the departed is natural to us, in what 
 way shall we set bounds to it ? Those whom we love or 
 respect but little, we do not long grieve for ; but what 
 length of time can assuage our grief for those whom we 
 have loved with the whole strength of our hearts ? Thom- 
 son, being a poet, was therefore a man of far more than 
 ordinary intensity of feeling. What Mr. Palgrave has 
 said of Shakespeare (in relation to the " Sonnets ") applies 
 equally well to Thomson : — 
 
 " ' There is a weakness and folly in all excessive and 
 misplaced affection,' says Mr. Hallam. . . . Such ex- 
 cess, however, as it must appear in the light of common 
 day, is perhaps rarely wanting among the gifts of great 
 genius. The poet's nature differs in degree so much 
 from other men's, that we might almost speak of it as a 
 
xlviii Memoir. 
 
 difference in kind. This, in the sublime language of the 
 ' Phsedrus,' is that ' possession and ecstasy with which the 
 Muses seize on a plastic and pure soul, awakening it and 
 hurrying it forth like a Bacchanal in the ways of song.' 
 A sensitiveness unexperienced by lesser men exalts every 
 feeling to a range beyond ordinary sympathies. Friend- 
 ship blazes into passion. The furnace of love is seven 
 times heated. An imperious instinct demands that Beauty 
 and the adoration of Beauty shall, somehow, spite of 
 human faults and faithlessness, and the grave itself, 
 secure the ' eternity promised by our ever-living poet.' " 
 No critical estimate of Mr. Thomson's place in 
 English literature can be attempted here : for I have 
 neither the right nor the ability to make such an 
 estimate. A poet should be judged by his peers : and I 
 have often felt no small degree of indignation when I 
 have read a review by some anonymous or obscure 
 scribbler, who, all unconscious of his own intellectual 
 deficiencies, has presumed to lecture Mr. Browning or 
 Mr. Swinburne in the style adopted by a pedagogue 
 towards a dull scholar. But I will not deny myself the 
 pleasure of quoting some words relating to Thomson 
 from the pen of the Rev. J. W. Ebsworth, a gentleman 
 whose knowledge of our old poetical literature is cer- 
 tainly unsurpassed, even if it is not unequalled : and 
 who, if he had not devoted himself to the labour of 
 bringing to light the works of others, must have made a 
 reputation as a poet for himself. He says : — " Of his 
 genius, true and strong, there can be no question what- 
 ever among competent judges. If we except Browning, 
 there is no poet living who can be considered as his 
 
Memoir. xlix 
 
 superior. With his theological or anti-theological views 
 I had no quarrel ; I only regretted some few utterances 
 (chiefly in foot-notes) which might prove hindrances to 
 his being generally accepted. Such things did much 
 to retard the general recognition of Shelley's genius." 
 
 Looking back upon what I have written, I feel how 
 inadequately I have performed my task. I only at- 
 tempted it because of my earnest desire to see some degree 
 of justice done to the memory of one whom I admired 
 indeed as an author, but whom, in an even greater 
 degree, I loved as a man. The world is strangely blind 
 to its great men, and a Shelley, a Wordsworth, a Brown- 
 ing,' or a George Meredith has to die, or at least to 
 labour unnoticed for many years, before the great British 
 public begins to discover that a splendid addition has 
 been made to its most glorious endowment. If I have 
 done a little to hasten the coming of the time when 
 Thomson's great gifts shall be appraised at their true 
 value, my labour has not been in vain, and I shall not 
 go unrewarded. 
 
 I must not conclude without thanking most heartily 
 my friend Arthur H. BuUen, Esq., who has kindly looked 
 over the proofs of the present volume, and to whom I 
 am also indebted for some valuable suggestions. Nor 
 must I omit to mention Thomson's old friend, Mr. John 
 Grant, whom I have to thank for having furnished very 
 much of the information upon which I have founded the 
 present memoir. 
 
LAST POEMS. 
 
A VOICE FROM THE NILE.^ 
 
 I COME from mountains under other stars 
 
 Than those reflected in my waters here ; 
 
 Athwart broad realms, beneath large skies, I flow, 
 
 Between the Libyan and Arabian hills, 
 
 And merge at last into the great Mid-Sea ; 
 
 And make this land of Egypt. All is mine : 
 
 The palm-trees and the doves among the palms, 
 
 The corn-fields and the flowers among the corn. 
 
 The patient oxen and the crocodiles, 
 
 The ibis and the heron and the hawk, 
 
 The lotus and the thick papyrus reeds. 
 
 The slant-sailed boats that flit before the wind 
 
 Or up my rapids ropes hale heavily ; 
 
 Yea, even all the massive temple-fronts 
 
 With all their columns and huge effigies, 
 
 The pyramids and Memnon and the Sphinx, 
 
 This Cairo and the City of the Greek 
 
 As Memphis and the hundred-gated Thebes, 
 
 ^ Reprinted by permission from the Fortnightly Review. 
 
 A 
 
A Voice from the Nile. 
 
 Sais and Denderah of Isis queen ; 
 Have grown because I fed them with full life. 
 And flourish only while I feed them still. 
 For if I stint my fertilising flood, 
 Gaunt famine reaps among the sons of men 
 Who have not corn to reap for all they sowed. 
 And blight and languishment are everywhere ; 
 And when I have withdrawn or turned aside 
 To other realms my ever-flowing streams, 
 The old realms withered from their old renown, 
 The sands came over them, the desert-sands 
 Incessantly encroaching, numberless 
 Beyond my water-drops, and buried them. 
 And all is silence, solitude, and death. 
 Exanimate silence while the waste winds howl 
 Over the sad immeasurable waste. 
 
 Dusk memories haunt me of an infinite past. 
 Ages and cycles brood above my springs, 
 Though I remember not my primal birth. 
 So ancient is my being and august, 
 I know not anything more venerable ; 
 Unless, perchance, the vaulting skies that hold 
 The sun and moon and stars that shine on me ; 
 The air that breathes upon me with delight ; 
 And Earth, All-Mother, all-beneficent, 
 
A Voice from the Nile. 
 
 Who held her mountains forth like opulent breasts 
 To cradle me and feed me with their snows, 
 And hollowed out the great sea to receive 
 My overplus of flowing energy : 
 Blessfed for ever be our Mother Earth. 
 
 Only, the mountains that must feed my springs 
 Year after year and every year with snows 
 As they have fed innumerable years, 
 These mountains they are evermore the same. 
 Rooted and motionless ; the solemn heavens 
 Are evermore the same in stable rest ; 
 The sun and moon and stars that shine on me 
 Are evermore the same although they move : 
 I solely, moving ever without pause, 
 Am evermore the same and not the same ; 
 Pouring myself away into the sea, 
 And self-renewing from the farthest heights ; 
 Ever-fresh waters streaming down and down. 
 The one old Nilus constant through their change. 
 
 The creatures also whom I breed and feed ' 
 Perpetually perish and dissolve, 
 And other creatures like them take their place, 
 To perish in their turn and be no more : 
 My profluent waters perish not from life, 
 
A Voice from the Nile. 
 
 Absorbed into the ever-living sea 
 Whose life is in their full replenishment. 
 
 Of all these creatures whom I breed and feed, 
 One only with his works is strange to me, 
 Is strange and admirable and pitiable, 
 As homeless where all others are at home. 
 My crocodiles are happy in my slime. 
 And bask and seize their prey, each for itself. 
 And leave their eggs to hatch in the hot sun, 
 And die, their lives fulfilled, and are no more, 
 And others bask and prey and leave their eggs. 
 My doves they build their nests, each pair its own. 
 And feed their callow young, each pair its own. 
 None serves another, each one serves itself; 
 All glean alike about my fields of grain. 
 And all the nests they build them are alike, 
 And are the self-same nests they built of old 
 Before the rearing of the pyramids, 
 Before great Hekatompylos was reared ; 
 Their cooing is the cooing soft and sweet 
 That murmured plaintively at evening-tide 
 In pillared Karnak as its pillars rose ; 
 And they are happy floating through my palms. 
 
 But Man, the admirable, the pitiable, 
 These sad-eyed peoples of the sons of men, 
 
A Voice from the Nile. 
 
 Are as the children of an alien race 
 
 Planted among my children, not at home, 
 
 Changelings aloof from all my family. 
 
 The one is servant and the other lord. 
 
 And many myriads serve a single lord : 
 
 So was it when the pyramids were reared. 
 
 And sphinxes and huge columns and wrought stones 
 
 Were haled long lengthening leagues adown my banks 
 
 By hundreds groaning with the stress of toil 
 
 And groaning under the taskmaster's scourge, 
 
 With many falling foredone by the way, 
 
 Half-starved on lentils, onions, and scant bread ; 
 
 So is it now with these poor fellaheen 
 
 To whom my annual bounty brings fierce toil 
 
 With scarce enough of food to keep-in life. 
 
 They build mud huts and spacious palaces ; 
 
 And in the huts the moiling millions dwell. 
 
 And in the palaces their sumptuous lords 
 
 Pampered with all the choicest things I yield : 
 
 Most admirable, most pitiable Man. 
 
 Also their peoples ever are at war. 
 Slaying and slain, burning and ravaging. 
 And one yields to another and they pass. 
 While I flow evermore the same great Nile, 
 The ever-young and ever-ancient Nile : 
 
A Voice from the Nile. 
 
 The swarthy is succeeded by the dusk, 
 
 The dusky by the pale, the pale again 
 
 By sunburned turbaned tribes long-linen-robed : 
 
 And with these changes all things change and pass, 
 
 All things but Me and this old Land of mine, 
 
 Their dwellings, habitudes and garbs, and tongues : 
 
 I hear strange voices ;'• never more the voice 
 
 Austere priests chanted to the boat of death 
 
 Gliding across the Acherusian lake, 
 
 Or satraps parleyed in the Pharaoh's halls ; 
 
 Never the voice of mad Cambyses' hosts, 
 
 Never the voice of Alexander's Greece, 
 
 Never the voice of Csesar's haughty Rome : 
 
 And with the peoples and the languages. 
 
 With the great Empires still the great Creeds change ; 
 
 They shift, they change, they vanish like thin dreams, 
 
 As unsubstantial as the raists that rise 
 
 After my overflow from out my fields. 
 
 In silver fleeces, golden volumes, .rise, 
 
 And melt away before the mounting sun ; 
 
 While I flow onward solely permanent 
 
 Amidst their swiftly-passing pageantry. 
 
 Poor men, most admirable, most pitiable, 
 With all their changes all their great Creeds change ; 
 
 ^ " and Nilus heareth strange voices." — Sir Thomas Browne. 
 
A Voice from the Nile. 
 
 For Man, this alien in my family, 
 
 Is alien most in this, to cherish dreams 
 
 And brood on visions of eternity, 
 
 And build religions in his brooding brain 
 
 And in the dark depths awe-full of his soul. 
 
 My other children live their little lives, 
 
 Are born and reach their prime and slowly fail, 
 
 And all their little lives are self-fulfilled ; 
 
 They die and are no more, content with age 
 
 And weary with infirmity. But Man 
 
 Has fear and hope and phantasy and awe. 
 
 And wistful yearnings and unsated loves. 
 
 That strain beyond the limits of his life, 
 
 And therefore Gods and Demons, Heaven and Hell : 
 
 This Man, the admirable, the pitiable. 
 
 Lo, I look backward some few thousand years. 
 And see men hewing temples in my rocks 
 With seated forms gigantic fronting them, 
 And solemn labyrinthine catacombs 
 With tombs all pictured with fair scenes of life 
 And, scenes and symbols of mysterious death ; 
 And planting avenues of sphinxes forth, 
 Sphinxes couched calm, whose passionless regard 
 Sets timeless riddles to bewildered time, 
 Forth from my sacred banks to other fanes 
 
A Voice from the Nile. 
 
 Islanded in the boundless sea of air, 
 
 Upon whose walls and colonnades are carved 
 
 Tremendous hieroglyphs of secret things ; 
 
 I see embalming of the bodies dead 
 
 And judging of the disembodied souls ; 
 
 I see the sacred animals alive, 
 
 And statues of the various-headed gods, 
 
 Among them throned a woman and a babe, 
 
 The goddess crescent-horned, the babe divine. 
 
 Then I flow forward some few thousand years, 
 
 And see new temples shining with all grace, 
 
 Whose sculptured gods are beautiful human forms. 
 
 Then I flow forward not a thousand years, 
 
 And see again a woman and a babe, 
 
 The woman haloed and the babe divine ; 
 
 And everywhere that symbol of the cross 
 
 I knew aforetime in the ancient days. 
 
 The emblem then of life, but now of death. 
 
 Then I flow forward some few hundred years, 
 
 And see again the crescent, now supreme 
 
 On lofty cupolas and minarets 
 
 Whence voices sweet and solemn call to prayer. 
 
 So the men change along my changeless stream, 
 
 And change their faiths ; but I yield all alike 
 
 Sweet water for their drinking, sweet as wine. 
 
 And pure sweet water for their lustral rites : 
 
A Voice from the Nile. 
 
 For thirty generations of my corn 
 Outlast a generation of my men, 
 And thirty generations of my men 
 Outlast a generation of their gods : 
 O admirable, pitiable Man, 
 My child yet alien in my family. 
 
 And I through all these generations flow 
 Of corn and men and gods, all-bountiful, 
 Perennial through their transientness, still fed 
 By earth with waters in abundancy ; 
 And as I flowed here long before they were, 
 So may I flow when they no longer are. 
 Most like the serpent of eternity : 
 Blessfed for ever be our Mother Earth. 
 
 NoTjember, 1881. 
 
( lo ) 
 
 RICHARD FOREST'S MIDSUMMER 
 NIGHT. 
 
 I. 
 
 The sun is setting in pale lucid gold, 
 
 From out that strange sweet green 
 The heavens through half their lucid breadth unfold, 
 
 Unfathomably serene. 
 
 The moon is risen, formless, vague and wan, 
 
 Until the glory wane ; 
 Less moon as yet than thin white cloud, whereon 
 
 Young yearning eyes fix fain. 
 
 The splendour ripples on the broad calm bay 
 
 Where still some white sails gleam 
 Like sea-birds in the ofiSng far away, , 
 
 Suspended as in dream. 
 
 The. wavelets whisper on the soft sands wide. 
 
 Soothing their thread of foam, 
 The silver fringe of the advancing tide, 
 
 Nearer and nearer home. 
 
Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. ri 
 
 The hammers ringing on the building ships 
 
 Are ceasing from their chime ; 
 Our toils are closing in this sweet eclipse 
 
 Of tranquil vesper-time. 
 
 O day slow-dying in the golden west, 
 
 O far flushed clouds above, 
 O slowly rising moon, your infinite rest 
 
 Brings infinite longing love. 
 
 II. 
 
 But what come forth with the dark, 
 
 With the dusk of the eve and the night ? 
 
 When the lessening sails of that single barque 
 Shall be wholly lost to sight, 
 
 And the latest song of the latest lark 
 Shall be mute in the mute moonlight. 
 
 All the stars come forth on high 
 
 Like spirits that cast their shrouds. 
 And the solemn depths of the darkening sky 
 
 Are filled with their radiant crowds. 
 And Hesper, lovely as Love's own eye, 
 
 Shines beneath purple clouds ; 
 
 And the maidens and youths on earth, 
 On the shores of the sands and the piers. 
 
13 Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 
 
 Like a sudden bountiful beautiful birth, 
 
 In the flower of their happy years, 
 With babble and laughter and musical mirth 
 
 Under the silent spheres. 
 
 With the silent stars above, 
 
 And the maidens and youths below 
 
 With their murmurs sweeter than voice of the dove, 
 By the calm sea's plash and flow, 
 
 All the soft warm air breathes bliss and love 
 In the sunset's after-glow. 
 
 For the burning hours are past, 
 
 And the toils of the day are done. 
 And the peace of the night is come at last. 
 
 And the moon succeeds the sun ; 
 And the pulses of Heaven and Earth throb fast, 
 
 All the thousands throbbing as one. 
 
 III. 
 
 Oh, a myriad stars may shine, 
 
 But ever the one sole Moon, 
 The Queen of the stars and the night divine, 
 
 The Queen most fair and boon. 
 For her mystical shine is Love's best wine. 
 
 And her midnight Love's own noon. 
 
Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 13 
 
 I have heard that the smallest star 
 
 Is a much more mighty sphere, 
 Than the regnant moon in her silver car 
 
 That we love and worship here ; 
 But behold, the star it is faint and far, 
 
 While our tnoon is bright and near. 
 
 Let the star in ifs distant skies 
 
 Burn glorious and great, 
 A sun of life to the far-off eyes 
 
 In the -planets that swell its state ; 
 But it sways not the tides of our seas as it rides, 
 
 Nor the tides of our human fate. 
 
 So, there on the shining sand. 
 
 And there on the long curved pier, 
 Fair ladies circle fulgent and grand. 
 
 Each in her proper sphere ; 
 But the sun so far is a little star, 
 
 While my Love is near and dear : 
 
 Is near and dear and bright, 
 
 The Queen of my Heavens above. 
 The pure sweet light of my darkest night, 
 
 My Lotus, my Lily, my Dove ; 
 And my pulses flow and thrill and glow 
 
 In the sway of Her splendid love. 
 
14 Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Farewell, fair margent of the sea, 
 
 Fair city of the noble bay ; 
 I, seek my Love who looks for me, 
 
 Not far away, not far away. 
 Over the hill of wood and lea. 
 
 And near that other bay adown 
 
 The winding valley lone and lown. 
 
 The valley with its tethered kine. 
 
 The orchard plots and fields of grain, 
 
 So tranquil in the broad sunshine. 
 
 More tranquil now the high stars reign. 
 
 And tranquil most and most divine 
 When over it comes floating soon 
 The mystic splendour of the moon. 
 
 The cottage nestles sheltered well 
 Among rich apple-trees, embowered 
 
 In its side-nook of dimpled dell ; 
 Roses and jasmine starry-flowered 
 
 Clothe all its front ; the tide's long swell 
 Sounds up the valley slow and calm, 
 To ebb away a dying psalm. 
 
 Through clouds of delicate blossom white 
 The red tiles burn with steadfast glow. 
 
Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 15 
 
 Or through green leaves and apples bright 
 And hoary stems a-slanting low, 
 
 When morning crowns the eastern height ; 
 The blue smoke quivering up the air 
 Its slender breath of household prayer ; 
 
 The sweet flowers flush and glow and yearn, 
 
 With wild bees humming in their bloom, 
 The lane comes winding like a burn 
 
 Through banks of golden gorse and broom, 
 And edged with grass and fringed with fern ; 
 
 The rapturous larks are singing high 
 
 In all the regions of the sky. 
 
 But that is day, these days of June 
 
 A-verging into hot July, 
 And this is night, more rich and boon, 
 
 Although its hours so swiftly fly : 
 O light of lovers, gracious moon. 
 
 My own Moon waits me full of love. 
 
 Brighter than all heaven's stars above. 
 
 V. 
 Ere the road curves up through the shade 
 
 With its transverse moonlight bars. 
 While above in the leafy gloom of the glade 
 
 Hang the glittering fruits of the stars ; 
 
1 6 Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 
 
 Let me pause for a moment and turn and look down 
 
 Beyond all the villa clumps duskily brown, 
 
 And beyond all the pale yellow lamps of the town ; 
 
 To the sea and the noble bay 
 
 Lulled asleep in the broad moonshine ; 
 To the shore where our youths and our maidens stray 
 
 On the sands and the pier's long line, 
 Like a swarm of bees that suspend their flight 
 To gather the honey of love and delight 
 In the heart of the azure-leaved Flower of the Night. 
 
 Like a swarm of buzzing bees 
 
 Whose busy mjirmurs float 
 On the wide-wafting wings of the southerly breeze. 
 
 Merged into one vague note : 
 They are drunk with the honey of love and of bliss. 
 And they throb with the stars of the azure abyss, 
 And the air is as soft as a tremulous, kiss. 
 
 I shall find Her all alone 
 
 At the wicket of garden and lane, 
 Or out of the porch by the rose o'ergrown 
 
 She will glide all flushed and fain : 
 So gather your honey, you bees that swarm, 
 I drink-in my nectar all golden and warm 
 From a flower-cup the fairest in colour and form. 
 
Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 17 
 
 VI. 
 Do I love you more for your own grand sake, 
 
 Or more for the bliss you bring to me ? 
 You big black arms of the elms that make 
 
 The little white arms cling to me. 
 
 Do I love you more for your own sweet sake, 
 Or more for my heart's desire to me ? 
 
 You flowers of the night whose perfumes make 
 The sweetest breath suspire to me. 
 
 Do I love you more for your own dear sake, 
 Or more for the joys that rill through me ? 
 
 You nightingales whose voices make 
 The dearest soft voice thrill through me. 
 
 Do I love you more for your own bright sake, 
 Or more for the joys that stream on me? 
 
 You stars of the heaven whose glances. make 
 The brightest moist eyes beam on me. 
 
 Do I love you more for your own dear sake, 
 Or more for the bliss possessing me ? 
 
 You whispering waves of the sea that make 
 The dear lips mute caressing me. 
 
 Do I love you more for your own pure sake, 
 Or more for the Heavens you declare to me ? 
 
liS Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 
 
 You naked moon, whose splendours make 
 The soul of her pure love bare to me. 
 
 Oh, I love you all for your own love's sake, 
 And my love of my Love and her love to me, 
 
 Dear earth and sea and heavens that make 
 This life as the life above to me. 
 
 VII. 
 She is not there at the rustic gate. 
 
 Nor in the garden, nor in the porch : 
 Lucy ! the hour is not yet late, 
 
 The moon, our this night's signal torch, 
 The beacon-fire of our hearts' desire, 
 Over the wooded promontory 
 Shines on our bay in all her glory. 
 
 Good Father nods in his old arm-chair, 
 
 A-dozing over his evening pipe, 
 The old brown jug at his elbow there 
 
 Half-full of the old ale humming-ripe ; 
 For his work is done with the set o' the sun. 
 And he settles down content and placid, 
 Sweetness without one drop of acid. 
 
 And our little Mother upright sits. 
 Under her glasses glancing keen 
 
Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 19 
 
 And listening sharp as she knits and knits ; 
 
 Nothing unheard, nothing unseen ; 
 Ifer work is not done with the set o' the sun. 
 And she never noi 
 Until her head in 
 
 Or else the dear old cc 
 
 Some game they hav 
 
 Cribbage, — and how si: 
 
 Perhaps Don Pedro 
 
 And Lucy and I must 
 
 Which shall prove 
 
 Or youth or eld at 
 
 But Lucy, Lucy, where 
 
 Not in the garden, n 
 
 Not in the porch a-lool 
 
 Not at the parlour-la 
 
 Can she sew or read ar 
 
 How the stars are 
 
 And I am without 
 
 O Lucy, Lucy ! can yo 
 
 O'er the loves in a be 
 Out from the back-shac 
 
 Lucy is here ! Lucy 
 Dancing light in her ey 
 
30 Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 
 
 White rose in her hair, red rose in her fingers, 
 How she hastens ! — and how she lingers ! 
 
 Oh, the smile of your mouth ! — but I want niy own 
 kiss ! 
 Oh, the flush of your face ! — but your head on my 
 breast ! 
 Oh, the rose in your yellow hair fragrant with bliss 1 
 
 Oh, the rose in your hand by my own hand caressed ! 
 O dear form I enlace in this perfect embrace, 
 
 My Love all a-tremble with passion and yearning. 
 While under my kisses the pure neck is burning ! 
 
 VIII. 
 Oh, how the nights are short. 
 
 These heavenly nights of June ! 
 The long day all amort 
 With toil, the time to coiirt 
 
 So stinted in its boon ! 
 
 In winter brief work-days. 
 
 Long rest-nights dark and cold, 
 Dank mists and miry ways, 
 Black boughs and leafless sprays, 
 No sweet birds singing bold. 
 
 I find this order strange. 
 And not at all the right ; 
 
Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 21 
 
 Not thus would I arrange : 
 May I propose a change 
 In seasons, day and night ? 
 
 Cold days, warm nights, be long. 
 
 Cold nights, warm daySj be brief : 
 Warm nights of scent and song, 
 Nights long as love is strong, — 
 Oh, Love should have relief! 
 
 Yet some days we would spare, 
 
 Long days of love and rest, 
 So long, so rich, so rare, 
 When but to breathe the air 
 Is to be fully blest. 
 
 When deep in fern we lie 
 With golden gorse above ; 
 
 Deep sapphire sea and sky. 
 
 Ringing of larks on high. 
 
 Our whole world breathing love. 
 
 Long days of perfect rest ! 
 
 Long days of infinite bliss ! 
 Your head upon my breast ; 
 Possessing and possessed, 
 
 Dissolving in a kiss. 
 
%% Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 
 
 IX. 
 Oh, how the nights are short, 
 
 These heavenly nights of June ! 
 The long hot day amort 
 With toil, the time to court 
 
 So stinted in its boon ! 
 
 But three or four brief hours 
 
 Between the afterglow 
 And dawnlight ; while the flowers 
 Are dreaming in their bowers, 
 
 And birds their song forego ; 
 
 And in the noon of night, 
 As in the noon of day, 
 Flowers close on their delight, 
 Birds nestle from their flight. 
 Deep stillness holdeth sway : 
 
 [ Only the nightingales 
 
 Yet sing to moon and stars. 
 Although their full song fails ; 
 The corn-crake never quails, 
 But through the silence jars. 
 
 So few brief hours of peace ; 
 And only one for us, 
 
Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 23 
 
 Alone, in toil's surcease, 
 To feed on love's increase : 
 It is too cruel thus ! 
 
 Did little Mother chide 
 
 Because our sewing dropped 
 And we sat dreamy-eyed ? 
 Dear Mother, good betide. 
 
 The scolding must be stopped. 
 
 Dear Mother, good and true, 
 
 All-loving while you blame. 
 When spring brings skies of blue 
 And buds and flowers anew, 
 
 I come in with my claim ! 
 
 I claim my Love, my Own, 
 
 Yet ever yours the while, 
 Under whose care hath grown 
 The sweetest blossom blown 
 
 In all our flower-loved isle. 
 
 The Spring renews its youth 
 
 And youth renews its Spring : 
 Love's wildest dreams are truth, 
 Magic is sober sooth ; 
 
 Charm of the Magic Ring 1 
 
24 Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 
 
 X. 
 
 As we gaze and gaze on the sleeping sea 
 Beneath the moon's soft splendour, 
 
 The wide expanse inspires a trance 
 Most solemn and most tender. 
 
 The heavens all silent with their stars, 
 The sweet air hardly breathing, 
 
 The liquid light of ripples bright 
 Wreathing and interwreathing. 
 
 The tide self-poised now at the full. 
 Scarce swaying, almost soundless ; 
 
 The sea between twin skies serene, 
 Calm, fathomless and boundless. 
 
 What specks are we in this vast world, 
 Our little lives how fleeting ! 
 
 While star on star is throbbing far. 
 What matter two hearts beating ? 
 
 How many many million years 
 Those living lights supernal 
 
 Shone ere our birth on this small earth ! 
 Yet they are not eternal. 
 
 How many many million years, 
 When we have passed death's portal, 
 
Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 25 
 
 Those stars shall shine as now divine ! 
 Yet they are not immortal. 
 
 Deep as may be the deepest sea, 
 
 Yet deeper is our love, dear ; 
 Our souls dilate with bliss as great 
 
 As all the heavens above, dear. 
 
 We float in dream until we seem 
 
 With all these worlds revolving ; 
 Our love intense, our bliss immense, 
 
 Throughout the whole dissolving. 
 
 A calm profound and infinite 
 
 Within us as without us ; 
 Our pulses beat in union sweet 
 
 With all the Life about us. 
 
 We are the whole World yet ourself 
 
 By some divine illusion ; 
 The I in Thee and Thou in Me 
 
 By mystic interfusion. 
 
 Our soul-tides poising at the full. 
 Scarce swaying, tranced in glory, 
 
 Have reached the clime of timeless time 
 Amid the transitory. 
 
2,6 Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 
 
 We have not spoken now so long, 
 
 But mute in still caressing, 
 Without one kiss have breathed the bliss 
 
 Too perfect for expressing. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Good night ; good night ! how truly hath been sung, 
 It is good night then only when the tongue 
 
 Need never say Good night; 
 When hearts may beat together till the morrow 
 Dawns on long hours fulfilled of bliss not sorrow, 
 
 And eyes that close for darkness, frayed and stung 
 By the so less sweet light. 
 
 Good night ; good night ! I leave you to sweet sleep 
 And lovely dreams of love divinely deep ; 
 
 May this be your good night : 
 My straining arms reluctantly surrender 
 Into the arms of sleep divinely tender 
 
 My Dearest thus, to safely surely keep 
 Until the morn shines bright. 
 
 Good night ; good night ! I leave you and go back 
 Into the silent city ; and, alack ! 
 
 Can this be my good night ? 
 Yet Love, Bliss, Memory, radiant Hope are burning 
 In brain all throbbing and in heart all yearning, 
 
Richard Forest's Midsummer Night. 27 
 
 As moon and stars in skies that else were black 
 With glorifying might. 
 
 Good night ; good night ! If parting when so brief 
 Is yet so bitter, what would be our grief 
 
 With Good-bye for Good night ! — 
 Farewell ! for weeks, for months, for years, for ever ! 
 Alas for Lovers whom the Fates thus sever ! 
 
 Where can they look for comfort or relief? 
 Oh, worse than mortal blight ! 
 
 Good night ; good night ! for more than twenty hours ! 
 The sleeping time of all the birds and flowers, 
 
 Fpr whom it is good night ; 
 The waking time of all the sun's wide glory : 
 Ere yet the moon has crowned yon promontory 
 
 To-morrow evening, back to Eden's bowers 
 I come with swerveless flight. 
 
 Good nigjit ; good night ! my Life, my Love, my Bliss! 
 But one more last embrace, one more last kiss. 
 
 To sweeten sour Good night : 
 O dear Heavens, have her in your holy keeping ! 
 O moon and stars, watch tenderly her sleepirig ! 
 
 O sun, thou regent of our World-abyss, 
 Awake her to delight ! 
 
 December, 1881. 
 
( 2« ) 
 
 INSOMNIA. 
 
 ' Sleepless himself to give to others sleep." 
 " He giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 I HEARD the sounding of the midnight hour ; 
 
 The others one by one had left the room, 
 In calm assurance that the gracious power 
 
 Of Sleep's fine alchemy would bless the gloom, 
 Transmuting all its leaden weight to gold, 
 To treasures of rich virtues manifold, 
 
 New strength, new health, new life ; 
 Just weary enough to nestle softly, sweetly, 
 Into divine unconsciousness, completely 
 Delivered from the world of toil and care and strife. 
 
 Just weary enough to feel assured of rest. 
 Of Sleep's divine oblivion and repose. 
 
 Renewing heart and brain for richer zest. 
 Of waking life when golden morning glows. 
 
 As young and pure and glad as if the first 
 
 That ever on the void of darkness burst 
 With ravishing warmth and light ; 
 
 On dewy grass and flowers and blithe birds singing, 
 
Insomnia. 29 
 
 And shining waters, all enraptured springing, 
 Fragrance and shine and song, out of the womb of night. 
 
 But I with infinite weariness outworn, 
 
 Haggard with endless nights unblessed by sleep, 
 
 Ravaged by thoughts unutterably forlorn, 
 Plunged in despairs unfathomably deep. 
 
 Went cold and pale and trembling with affright 
 
 Into the desert vastitude of Night, 
 Arid and wild and black ; 
 
 Foreboding no oasis of sweet slumber. 
 
 Counting beforehand all the countless number 
 Of sands that are its minutes on my desolate track. 
 
 And so I went, the last, to my drear bed. 
 
 Aghast as one who should go down to lie 
 Among the blissfully unconscious dead, 
 
 Assured that as the endless years flowed by 
 Over the dreadful silence and deep gloom 
 And dense oppression of the stifling tomb. 
 
 He only of them all. 
 Nerveless and impotent to madness, never 
 Could hope oblivion's perfect trance for ever : 
 An agorty of life eternal in death's pall. 
 
 But that would be for ever, without cure !— 
 And yet the agony be' not more great ; 
 
30 Insomnia. 
 
 Supreme fatigue and pain, while they endure, 
 
 Into Eternity their time translate ; 
 Be it of hours and days or countless years, 
 And boundless seons, it alike appears 
 
 To the crushed victim's soul ; 
 Utter despair foresees no termination, 
 But feels itself of infinite duration ; 
 The smallest fragment instant comprehends the whole. 
 
 The absolute of torture as of bliss 
 
 Is timeless, each transcending time and space ; 
 The one an infinite obscure abyss, 
 
 The other an eternal Heaven of grace. — 
 Keeping a little lamp of glimmering light 
 Companion through the horror of the night, 
 
 I laid me down aghast 
 As he of all who pass death's quiet portal 
 Malignantly reserved alone immortal. 
 In consciousness of bale that must for ever last 
 
 I laid me down and closed my heavy eyes, 
 As if sleep's mockery might win true sleep ; 
 
 And grew aware, with awe but not surprise, 
 Blindly aware through all the silence deep. 
 
 Of some dark Presence wa,tching by my bed. 
 
 The awful image of a nameless dread ; 
 
Insomnia. 3^ 
 
 But I lay still fordone ; 
 And felt its Shadow on me dark and solemn 
 And steadfast as a monumental column, 
 And thought drear thoughts of Doom, and heard the 
 bells chime One. 
 
 And then I raised my weary eyes and saw. 
 
 By some slant moonlight on the ceiling thrown 
 And faint lamp-gleam, that Image of my awe, 
 
 Still as a pillar of basaltic stone, 
 But all enveloped in a sombre shroud 
 Except the wan face drooping heavy-browed, 
 
 With sad eyes fixed on mine ; 
 Sad weary yearning eyes, but fixed remorseless 
 Upon my eyes yet wearier, that were forceless 
 To bear the cruel pressure ; cruel, unmalign. 
 
 Wherefore I asked for what I knew too well : 
 
 O ominous midnight Presence, What art Thou ? 
 Whereto in tones that sounded like a knell : 
 " I am the Second Hour, appointed now 
 To watch beside thy slumberless unrest." 
 Then I :" Thus both, unlike, alike unblest ; 
 
 For I should sleep, you fly : 
 Are not those wings beneath thy mantle moulded ? 
 O Hour ! unfold those wings so straitly folded. 
 And urge thy natural flight beneath the moonlit sky. 
 
3 a • Insomnia. 
 
 " My wings shall open when your eyes shall close 
 
 In real slumber from this waking drear ; 
 Your wild unrest is my enforced repose ; 
 
 Ere I move hence you must not know me here." 
 Could not your wings fan slumber through my brain, 
 Soothing away its weariness and pain ? 
 " Your sleep must stir my wings : 
 Sleep, and I bear you gently on my pinions 
 Athwart my span of hollow night's dominions, 
 Whence hour on hour shall bear to morning's golden 
 springs." 
 
 That which I ask of you, you ask of me, 
 O weary Hour, thus standing sentinel 
 Against your liature, as I feel and see 
 
 Against my own your form immovable : 
 Could I bring Sleep to set you on the wing, 
 What other thing so gladly would I bring ? 
 
 Truly the Poet saith : 
 If that is best whose absence we deplore most. 
 Whose presence in our longings is the foremost. 
 What blessings equal Sleep save only love and death ? 
 
 I let my lids fall, sick of thought and sense, 
 But felt that Shadow heavy on my heart ; 
 
 And saw the night before me an immense 
 
 Black waste of ridge-walls, hour by hour apart, 
 
Insomnia. 33 
 
 Dividing deep ravines : from ridge to ridge 
 Sleep's flying hour was an aerial bridge ; 
 
 But I, whose hours stood fast, 
 Must climb down painfully each steep side hither, 
 And climb more painfully each steep side thither, 
 And so make one hour's span for years of travail last. 
 
 Thus I went down into that first ravine. 
 
 Wearily, slowly, blindly, and alone, 
 Staggering, stumbling, sinking depths unseen. 
 
 Shaken and bruised and gashed by stub and 
 stone; 
 And at the bottom paven with slipperiness, 
 A torrent-brook rushed headlong with such stress 
 
 Against my feeble limbs. 
 Such fury of wave and foam and icy bleakness 
 Buffeting insupportably my weakness 
 That when I would recall, dazed memory swirls and 
 swims. 
 
 How I got through I know not, faint as death ; 
 
 And then I had to climb the awful scarp. 
 Creeping with many a pause for panting breath. 
 
 Clinging to tangled root and rock-jut sharp ; 
 Perspiring with faint chills instead of heat, 
 Trembling, and bleeding, hands and kiiees and feet ; 
 
34 
 
 ■Insomnia. 
 
 Falling, to rise anew ; 
 Until, with lamentable toil and travel 
 Upon the ridge of arid sand and gravel 
 I lay supine half-dead and heard the bells chime Two ; 
 
 And knew a change pf Watchers in the room, 
 
 Without a stir or sound beside my bed ; 
 Only the tingling silence of the gloom. 
 
 The muffled pulsing of .the night's deep dread; 
 And felt an image mightier to appal. 
 And looked ; the moonlight on the bed-foot wall 
 
 And corniced ceiling white 
 Was slanting now ; and in the midst stood solemn 
 And hopeless as a black sepulchral column 
 A steadfast shrouded Form, the Third Hour of the night. 
 
 The fixed regard implacably austere. 
 
 Yet none the less ineffably forlorn. 
 Something transcending all my former fear 
 
 Came jarring through my shattered frame outworn : 
 I knew that crushing rock could not be stirred ; 
 I had no heart to say a single word. 
 
 But closed my eyes again ; 
 And set me shuddering to the task stupendous 
 Of climbing down and up that gulph tremendous 
 Unto the next hour-ridge beyond Hope's farthest ken. 
 
Insomnia. 35 
 
 Men sigh and plain and wail how life is brief : 
 
 Ah yes, our bright eternities of bliss 
 Are transient, rare, minute beyond belief. 
 
 Mere star-dust meteors in Time's night-abyss ; 
 Ah no, our black eternities intense 
 Of bale are lasting, dominant, immense, 
 
 As Time which is their breath ; 
 The memory of the bliss is yearning sorrow, 
 The memory of the bale clouds every morrow 
 Darkening through nights and days unto the night of 
 Death. 
 
 No human words could paint my travail sore 
 
 In the thick darkness of the next ravine. 
 Deeper immeasurably than that before ; 
 
 When hideous agonies, unheard, unseen. 
 In overwhelming floods of torture roll, 
 And horrors of great darkness drown the soul. 
 
 To be is not to be 
 In memory save as ghastliest impression. 
 
 And chaos of demoniacal possession 
 
 I shuddered on the ridge, and heard the bells chime 
 Three. 
 
 And like a pillar of essential gloom, 
 Most terrible in stature and regard, 
 
36 Insomnia. 
 
 B lack in the moonlight filling all the room 
 
 The Image of the Fourth Hour, evil-starred, 
 Stood over me ; but there was Something more, 
 Something behind It undiscerned before, 
 
 More dreadful than Its dread, 
 Which overshadowed it as with a fateful 
 Inexorable fascination hateful, — 
 A wan and formless Shade from regions of the dead. 
 
 I shut my eyes against that spectral Shade, 
 
 Which yet allured them with a deadly charm. 
 And that black Image of the Hour, dismayed 
 
 By such tremendous menacing of harm ; 
 And so into the gulph as into Hell ; 
 Where what immeasurable depths I fell, 
 
 With seizures of the heart 
 Whose each clutch seemed the end of all pulsation, 
 And tremors of exanimate prostration, 
 Are horrors in my soul that never can depart. 
 
 If I for hope or wish had any force. 
 
 It was that I might rush down sharply hurled 
 
 From rock to rock until a mangled corse 
 Down with the fury of the torrent whirled. 
 
 The fury of black waters and white foam. 
 
 To where the homeless find their only home, 
 
Insomnia. 37 
 
 In the immense void Sea, 
 Whose isles are worlds, surrounding, unsurrounded, 
 Whose depths no mortal plummet ever sounded, 
 Beneath all surface storm calm in Eternity. 
 
 Such hope or wish was as a feeble spark, ' 
 A little lamp's pale glimmer in a tomb. 
 
 To just reveal the hopeless deadly darkj 
 
 And wordless horrors of my soul's fixed doom : 
 
 Yet some mysterious instinct obstinate, 
 
 Blindly unconscious as a law of Fate, 
 Still urged me on and bore 
 
 My shattered being through the unfeared peril 
 
 Of death less hateful than the life as sterile : 
 I shuddered on the ridge, and heard the bells chime Four. 
 
 The Image of that Fifth Hour of the night 
 Was blacker in the moonlight now aslant 
 
 Upon its left than on its shrouded right ; 
 And over and behind It, dominant, 
 
 The Shadow not Its shadow cast its spell. 
 
 Most vague and dim and wan and terrible. 
 Death's ghastly aureole. 
 
 Pregnant with overpowering fascination. 
 
 Commanding by repulsive instigation. 
 Despair's envenomed anodyne to tempt the Soul. 
 
38 Insomnia. 
 
 I closed my eyes, but could no longer keep 
 Under that Image and most awful Shade, 
 Supine in mockery of blissful sleep, 
 
 Delirious with such fierce thirst unallayed ; 
 Of all worst agonies the most unblest 
 Is passive agony of wild unrest : 
 Trembling and faint I rose, 
 And dressed with painful efforts, and descended 
 With furtive footsteps and with breath suspended, 
 And left the slumbering house with my unslumbering 
 woes. 
 
 Constrained to move through the unmoving hours. 
 Accurst from rest because the hours stood still ; 
 
 Feeling the hands of the Infernal Powers 
 Heavy upon me for enormous ill, 
 
 Inscrutable intolerable pain. 
 
 Against which mortal pleas and prayers are vain, 
 Gaspings of dying breath. 
 
 And human struggles, dying spasms yet vainer : 
 
 Renounce defence when Doom is the Arraigner ; 
 Let impotence of Life subside appeased in Death. 
 
 I paced the silent and deserted streets 
 
 In cold dark shade and chillier moonlight grey ; 
 
 Pondering a dolorous series of defeats 
 
 And black disasters from life's opening day, 
 
Insomnia. 39 
 
 Invested with the shadow of a doom 
 
 That filled the Spring and Summer with a gloom 
 
 Most wintry bleak and drear ; 
 Gloom from within as from a sulphurous censer 
 Making the glooms without for ever denser, 
 To blight the buds and flowers and fruitage of my year. 
 
 Against a bridge's stony parapet 
 
 I leaned, and gazed into the waters black ; 
 And marked an angry morning red and wet 
 
 Beneath a livid and enormous rack 
 Glare out confronting the belated moon, 
 Huddled and wan and feeble as the swoon 
 
 Of featureless Despair : 
 When some stray workman, half-asleep but lusty, 
 Passed urgent through the rainpour wild and gusty, 
 I felt a ghost already, planted watching there. 
 
 As phantom to its grave, or to its den 
 
 Some wild beast of the night when night is sped, 
 
 I turned unto my homeless home again 
 To front a day only less charged with dread 
 
 Than that dread night ; and after day, to front 
 
 Another night of — what would be the brunt ? 
 I put the thought aside. 
 
 To be resumed when common life unfolded 
 
40 Insomnia. 
 
 In common daylight had my brain remoulded ; 
 Meanwhile the flaws of rain refreshed and fortified. 
 
 The day passed, and the night ; and other days, 
 And other nights ; and all of evil doom ; 
 
 The sun-hours in a sick bewildering haze, 
 The star-hours in a thick enormous gloom, 
 
 With rending lightnings and with thunder-knells ; 
 
 The ghastly hours of all the timeless Hells : — 
 Bury them with their bane ! 
 
 I look back on the words already written, 
 
 And writhe by cold rage stung, by self-scorn smitten, 
 They are so weak and vain and infinitely inane. . . . 
 
 " How from those hideous Malebolges deep 
 
 I ever could win back to upper earth, 
 Restored to human nights of blessed sleep 
 
 And healthy waking with the new day's birth ? " — 
 How do men climb back from a swoon whose stress. 
 Crushing far deeper than all consciousness, 
 
 Is deep as deep death seems ? 
 Who can the steps and stages mete and number 
 By which we re-emerge from nightly slumber ? — 
 Our poor vast petty life is one dark maze of dreams. 
 
 March, 1882. 
 
( 41 ) 
 
 HE HEARD HER SING. 
 
 We were now in the midmost Maytime, in the full green 
 
 flood of the Spring, 
 When the air is sweet all the daytime with the blossoms 
 
 and birds that sing ; 
 When the air is rich all the night, and richest of all in 
 
 its noon 
 When the nightingales pant the delight and keen stress 
 
 of their love to the moon ; 
 When the almond and apple and pear spread wavering 
 
 wavelets of snow 
 In the light of the soft warm air far-flushed with a deli- 
 cate glow ; 
 When the towering chestnuts uphold their masses of 
 
 spires red or white, 
 And the pendulous tresses of gold of the slim laburnum 
 
 burn bright, 
 And the lilac guardeth the bowers with the gleam of a 
 
 lifted spear, 
 And the scent of the hawthorn flowers breathes all the 
 
 new life of the year. 
 
43 He Heard her Sing. 
 
 And the linden's tender pink bud by the green of the 
 
 leaf is o'errun, 
 And the bronze-beech shines like blood in the light of 
 
 the morning sun, 
 And the leaf-buds seem spangling some network of 
 
 gossamer flung on the elm, 
 And the hedges are filling their fretwork with every 
 
 sweet green of Spring's realm ; 
 And the flowers are everywhere budding and blowing 
 
 about our feet. 
 The green of the meadows star-studding and the bright 
 
 green blades of the wheat. 
 
 An evening and night of song. For first when I left 
 
 the town, 
 And took the lane that is long and came out on the 
 
 breeze-swept down, 
 The sunset heavens were all ringing wide over the golden 
 
 gorse 
 With the skylarks' rapturous singing, a revel of larks in 
 
 full force, 
 A revel of larks in the raptures surpassing all raptures of 
 
 Man, 
 Who ponders the blessings he captures and finds in each 
 
 blessing some ban. 
 
He Heard her Sing. 43 
 
 And then I went on down the dale in the light of the 
 
 afterglow, 
 In that strange light green and pale and serene and 
 
 pathetic and slow 
 In its fading round to the north, while the light of the 
 
 unseen moon 
 From the east comes brightening forth an ever-increasing 
 
 boon. 
 And there in the cottage my Alice, through the hours so 
 
 short and so long. 
 Kept filled to the brim love's chalice with the wine of 
 
 music and song : 
 And first with colossal Beethoven, the gentlest spirit 
 
 sublime 
 Of the harmonies interwoven, Eternity woven with Time ; 
 Of the melodies slowly and slowly dissolving away through 
 
 the soul, 
 While it dissolves with them wholly and our being is 
 
 lost in the Whole ; 
 As gentle as Dante the Poet, for only the lulls of the stress 
 Of the mightiest spirits can know it, this ineffable gentle- 
 ness : 
 And then with the delicate tender phantastic dreamer of 
 
 night. 
 Whose splendour is starlike splendour and his light a 
 
 mystic moonlight, 
 
44 He Heard her Sing. 
 
 Nocturn on nocturn dreaming while the mind floats far 
 
 in the haze 
 And the dusk and the shadow and gleaming of a realm 
 
 that has no days : 
 And then she sang ballads olden, ballads of love and of 
 
 woe, 
 Love all burningly golden, grief with heart's-blood in its 
 
 flow; 
 Those ballads of Scotland that thrill you, keen from the 
 
 heart to the heart. 
 Till their pathos is seeming to kill you, with an exquisite 
 
 bliss in the smart. 
 
 And then we went out of the valley and over the spur 
 
 of the hill, 
 And down by a woodland alley where the sprinkled 
 
 moonlight lay still ; 
 For the breeze in the boughs was still and the breeze was 
 
 still in the sprays, 
 And the leaves had scarcely a thrill in the stream of the 
 
 silver rays. 
 But looked as if drawn on the sky or etched with a 
 
 graver keen, 
 Sharp shadows thrown from on high deep out of the 
 
 azure serene : 
 
He Heard her Sing. 45 
 
 And a certain copse we knew, where never in Maytime 
 
 fails, 
 While the night distils sweet dew, the song of the night- 
 ingales : 
 And there together we heard the lyrical drama of love 
 Of the wonderful passionate bird which swelleth the 
 
 heart so above 
 All other thought of this life, all other care of this earth, 
 Be it of pleasure or strife, be it of sorrow or mirth, 
 Saving the one intense imperious passion supren\e 
 Kindling the soul and the sense, making the world but 
 
 a dream. 
 The dream of an aching delight and a yearning afar and 
 
 afar. 
 While the music thrills all the void night to the loftiest 
 
 pulsating star : — 
 "Love, love only, for ever; love with its torture and 
 
 bliss ; 
 All the world's glories can never equal two souls in one 
 
 kiss." 
 
 And when I had bidden farewell to my Love at the 
 
 cottage door, 
 For a night and a day farewell, for a night and a day 
 
 and no more, 
 
4^ He Heard her Sing. 
 
 I went down to the shining strand of our own beloved 
 
 bay, 
 To the shore of soft white sand caressed by the pure 
 
 white spray, 
 In the arms of the hills serene, clothed from the base to 
 
 the crest 
 With garments of manifold green, curving to east and to 
 
 west; 
 And high in the pale blue south where the clouds were 
 
 white as wool. 
 
 Over the little bay-mouth the moon shone near the 
 full; 
 
 And I walked by the waves' soft moan, for my heart was 
 
 beyond control, 
 And I needed to be alone with the night and my love 
 
 and my soul. 
 And I could not think of sleep in the moonlight broad 
 
 and clear. 
 For a music solemn and deep filled all my spirit's sphere, 
 A music interwoven of all that night I had heard. 
 From the music of mighty Beethoven to the song of the 
 
 little brown bird. 
 
 And thus as I paced the shore beneath the azure abyss, 
 And my soul thrilled more and more with a yearning and 
 sadness of bliss. 
 
He Heard her Sing, 47 
 
 A voice came over the water from over the eastern cape, 
 Like the voice of some ocean daughter wailing a lover's 
 
 escape, — 
 A voice so plaintive and distant, as faint as a wounded 
 
 dove, 
 Whose wings are scarcely resistant to the air beneath and 
 
 above, 
 Wavering, panting, urging from the farthest east to the 
 
 west, 
 Over some wild sea surging in the hope forlorn of its nest ; 
 A voice that quivered and trembled, with falls of a broken 
 
 heart, 
 And then like that dove reassembled its forces to play 
 
 out its part ; 
 Till it came to a fall that was dying, the end of an in- 
 finite grief, 
 A sobbing and throbbing and sighing that death was a 
 
 welcome relief: 
 And so there was silence once more, and the moonlight 
 
 looked sad as a pall. 
 And I stood entranced on the shore and marvelled what 
 
 next would befall. 
 
 And thus all-expectant abiding I waited not lotig, for soon 
 A boat came gliding and gliding out in the light of the 
 moon, 
 
48 He Heard her Sing. 
 
 Gliding with muffled oars, slowly, a thin dark line, 
 Round from the shadowing shores into the silver shine 
 Of the clear moon westering now, and still drew on and on. 
 While the water before its prow breaking and glistering 
 
 shone. 
 Slowly in silence strange ; arid the rower rowed till it lay 
 Afloat within easy range deep in the curve of the bay : 
 And besides the rower were two ; a Woman, who sat in 
 
 the stern, 
 And Her by her fame I knew, one of those fames that 
 
 burn, 
 Startling and kindling the world, one whose likeness we 
 
 everywhere see ; 
 And a man reclining half-curled with an indolent grace 
 
 at her knee. 
 The Signor, lord of her choice ; and he lightly touched 
 
 a guitar ; — 
 A guitar for that glorious voice ! Illumine the sun with 
 
 a star ! 
 She sat superb and erect, stately, all-happy, serene. 
 Her right hand toying unchecked with the hair of that 
 
 page of a Queen ; 
 With her head and her throat and her bust like the bust 
 
 and the throat and the head 
 Of Her who has long been dust, of her who shall never 
 
 be dead, 
 
He Heard her Sing. 49 
 
 Preserved by the potent art made trebly potent by love, 
 While the transient ages depart from under the heavens 
 
 above, — 
 Preserved in the colour and line on the canvas fulgently 
 
 flung 
 By Him the Artist divine who triumphed and vanished 
 
 so young : 
 Surely there rarely hath been a lot more to be envied in 
 
 life 
 Than thy lot, O Fornarina, whom Raphael's heart 
 
 took to wife. 
 
 There was silence yet for a time save the tinkling capri- 
 cious and quaint. 
 Then She lifted her voice sublime, no longer tender and 
 
 faint. 
 Pathetic and tremulous, no ! but firm as a column it rose, 
 Rising solemn and slow with a full rich swell to the close, 
 Firm as a marble column soaring with noble pride 
 In a triumph of rapture solemn to some Hero deified ; 
 In»a rapture of exultation made calm by its stress intense. 
 In a triumph of consecration and a jubilation immense. 
 And the Voice flowed on and on, and ever it swelled as 
 
 it paured. 
 Till the stars that throbbed as they shone seemed 
 throbbing with it in accord ; 
 
He Heard her Sing. 
 
 Till the moon herself in my dream, still Empress of all 
 
 the night, 
 Was only that voice supreme translated into pure light : 
 And I lost all sense of the earth though I still had sense 
 
 of the sea ; 
 And I saw the stupendous girth of a tree like the Norse 
 
 World-Tree ; 
 And its branches filled all the sky, and the deep sea 
 
 watered its root, 
 And the clouds were its leaves on high and the stars were 
 
 its silver fruit ; 
 Yet the stars were the notes of the singing and the moon 
 
 was the voice of the song, 
 Through the vault of the firmament ringing and swelling 
 
 resistlessly strong ; 
 And the whole vast night was a shell for that music of 
 
 manifold might. 
 And was strained by the stress of the swell of the music 
 
 yet vaster than night. 
 And I saw as a crystal fountain whose shaft was a column 
 
 of light 
 More high than the loftiest mountain ascend the abyss 
 
 of the night ; 
 And its spray filled all the sky, and the clouds were the 
 
 clouds of its spray. 
 Which glittered in star-points on high and filled with pure 
 
 silver the bay ; 
 
He Heard her Sing. 51 
 
 And ever in rising and falling it sang as it rose and it fell, 
 And the heavens with their pure azure walling all pulsed 
 
 with the pulse of its swell, 
 For the stars were the notes of the singing and the moon 
 
 was the voice of the song 
 Through the vault of the firmament ringing and swelling 
 
 ineffably strong ; 
 And the whole vast night was a shell for that music of 
 
 manifold might, 
 And was strained by the stress of the swell of the music 
 
 yet vaster than night : 
 And the fountain in swelling and soaring and filling be- 
 neath and above, 
 Grew flushed with red fire in outpouring, transmuting 
 
 great power into love. 
 Great power with a greater love flushing, immense and 
 
 intense and supreme, 
 As if all the World's heart-blood outgushing ensanguined 
 
 the trance of my dream ; 
 And the waves of its blood seemed to dash on the shore 
 
 of the sky to the cope 
 With the stress of the fire of a passion and yearning of 
 
 limitless scope. 
 Vast fire of a passion and yearning, keen torture of rap- 
 ture intense, 
 A most unendurable burning consuming the soul witH 
 
 the sense : — 
 
52 He Heard her Sing. 
 
 " Love, love only, for ever ; love with its torture of bliss ; 
 
 All the world's glories can never equal two souls in one 
 kiss: 
 
 Love, and ever love wholly; love in all time and all 
 space ; 
 
 Life is consummate then solely in the death of a burn- 
 ing embrace." 
 
 And at length when that Voice sank mute, and silence 
 fell over all 
 
 Save the tinkling thin of that lute, the deep heavens 
 rushed down like a pall. 
 
 The stars and the moon for a time with all their splen- 
 dours of light, 
 
 Were quenched with that Voice sublime, and great dark- 
 ness filled the night .... 
 
 When I felt again the scent of the night-flowers rich and 
 sweet, 
 
 As ere my senses went, and knew where I stood on my 
 feet, 
 
 And saw the yet-bright bay and the moon gone low in 
 my dream, 
 
 The boat had passed away with Her the Singer supreme ; 
 
 She was gone, the marvellous Singer whose wonderful 
 world-wide fame 
 
 Could never possibly bring her a tithe of her just acclaim. 
 
He Heard her Sing. ^^i 
 
 And I wandered all night in a trance of rapture and 
 yearning and love, 
 
 And saw the dim grey expanse flush far with the dawn- 
 ing above ; 
 
 And I passed that copse in the night, but the nightin- 
 gales all were dumb 
 
 From their passionate aching delight, and perhaps who- 
 ever should come 
 
 On the morrow would find, I have read, under its bush 
 or its tree 
 
 Some poor little brown bird dead, dead of its melody. 
 
 Slain by the agitation, by the stress and the strain of the 
 strife. 
 
 And the pang of the vain emulation in the music yet 
 dearer than life. 
 
 And I heard the skylarks singing high in the morning 
 sun, 
 
 All the sunrise heavens ringing as the sunset heavens had 
 done: 
 
 And ever I dreamed and pondered while over the frag- 
 rant soil. 
 
 My happy footsteps wandered before I resumed my 
 toil : — 
 
 Truly, my darling, my Alice, truly the whole night long 
 
 Have I filled to the brim love's chalice with the wine of 
 music and song. 
 
54 He Heard her Sing. 
 
 I have passed and repassed your door from the singing 
 
 until the dawn 
 A dozen times and more, and ever the curtains drawn ; 
 And now that the morn is breaking out of the stillness 
 
 deep, 
 Sweet as my visions of waking be all your visions of sleep ! 
 Could you but wake, O my dearest, a moment, and give 
 
 one glance, 
 Just a furtive peep the merest, to learn the day's advance 1 
 For I must away up the dale and over the hill to my toil, 
 And the night's rich dreams grow pale in the working 
 
 day's turmoil ; 
 But to-night, O my darling, my Alice, till night it will not 
 
 be long. 
 We will fill to the brim love's chalice with the wine of 
 
 music and song ; 
 And never the memory fails of what I have learnt in my 
 
 dream 
 From the song of the nightingales and the song of the 
 
 Singer supreme : — 
 "Love, love only, for ever ; love with its torture and bliss ; 
 All the world's glories can never equal two souls in 
 
 one kiss : 
 Love, love ever and wholly; love in all time and all space ; 
 Love is consummate then solely in the death of a burn- 
 ing embrace." 
 
 February, 1882. 
 
( 55 ) 
 
 THE POET AND HIS MUSE. 
 
 I SIGHED unto my Muse, " O gentle Muse, 
 
 Would you but come and kiss my aching brow, 
 And thus a little life and joy infuse 
 
 Into my brain and heart so weary now ; 
 Into my heart so sad with emptiness 
 Even when unafflicted by the stress 
 
 Of all our kind's poor life ; 
 Into my brain so feeble and so listless, 
 Crushed down by burthens of dark thought resistless 
 Of all our want and woe and unresulting strife. 
 
 " Would you but come and kiss me on the brow. 
 
 Would you but kiss me on the pallid lips 
 That have so many years been songless now. 
 And on the eyes involved in drear eclipse ; 
 That thus the barren brain long overwrought 
 Might yield again some blossoms of glad thought. 
 
 And the long-mute lips sing, 
 And the long-arid eyes grow moist and tender 
 With some new vision of the ancient splendour 
 Of beauty and delight that lives in everything. 
 
56 The Poet and his Muse. 
 
 " Would you but kiss me on the silent lips 
 
 And teach them thus to sing some new sweet song ; 
 Would you but kiss my eyes from their eclipse 
 
 With some new tale of old-world right and wrong : 
 Some song of love and joy or tender grief 
 Whose sweetness is its own divine relief, 
 
 Whose joy is golden bliss ; 
 Some solemn and impassioned antique story 
 Where love against dark doom burns out in glory, 
 Where life is freely staked to win one mutual kiss. 
 
 " Would you but sing to me some new dear song 
 
 Of love in bliss or bale alike supreme ; 
 Some story of our old-world right and wrong 
 
 With noble passion burning through the theme : 
 What though the story be of darkest doom, 
 If loyal spirits shining through its gloom 
 
 Throb to us from afar ? 
 What though the song with heavy sorrows languish. 
 If loving hearts pulse to us through its anguish ? 
 Is not the whole black night enriched by one pure star? " 
 
 And lo ! She came, the ever-gentle Muse, 
 Sad as my heart, and languid as my brain ; 
 
 Too gentle in her loving to refuse. 
 
 Although her steps were weariness and pain ; 
 
The Poet and his Muse. 57 
 
 Although her eyes were blank and lustreless, 
 Although her form was clothed with heaviness 
 
 And drooped beneath the weight ; 
 Although her lips were blanched from all their 
 
 blooming, 
 Her pure face pallid as from long entombing. 
 Her bright regard and smile sombre and desolate. — 
 
 " Sad as thy heart and languid as thy brain 
 
 I come unto thy sighing through the gloom, 
 I come with mortal weariness and pain, 
 
 I come as one compelled to leave her tomb : 
 Behold, am I not wrapt as in the cloud 
 Of death's investiture and sombre shroud ? 
 
 Am I not wan as death ? 
 Look at the withered leafage of my garland. 
 Is it not nightshade from the sad dim far land 
 Of night and old oblivion and no mortal breath ? 
 
 " I come unto thy sighing through the gloom. 
 My hair dishevelled dank with dews of night. 
 
 Reluctantly constrained to leave my tomb ; 
 With eyes that have for ever lost their light ; 
 
 My vesture mouldering with deep death's disgrace, 
 
 My heart as chill and bloodless as my face, 
 My forehead like a stone ; 
 
58 The Poet and his Muse. 
 
 My spirit sightless as my eyes are sightless, 
 My inmost being nerveless, soulless, lightless, 
 My joyous singing voice a harsh sepulchral moan. 
 
 " My hair dishevelled dank with dews of night. 
 From that far region of dim death I come, 
 
 With eyes and soul and spirit void of light, 
 
 With lips more sad in speech than stark and dumb : 
 
 Lo, you have ravaged me with dolorous thought 
 
 Until my brain was wholly overwrought. 
 Barren of flowers and fruit ; 
 
 Until my heart was bloodless for all passion, 
 
 Until my trembling lips could no more fashion 
 Sweet words to fit sweet airs of trembling lyre and lute. 
 
 "From the sad regions of dim death I come; 
 
 We tell no tales there for our tale is told, 
 We sing no songs there for our lips are dumb. 
 
 Likewise our hearts and brains are graveyard mould ; 
 No wreaths of laurel, myrtle, ivy or vine. 
 About our pale and pulseless brows entwine, 
 
 And that sad frustrate realm 
 Nor amaranths nor asphodels can nourish. 
 But aconite and black-red poppies flourish 
 On such Lethean dews as fair life overwhelm. 
 
 "We tell no tales more, we whose tale is told; 
 As your brain withered and your heart grew chill 
 
The Poet and his Muse. 59 
 
 My heart and brain were turned to churchyard mould, 
 
 Wherefore my singing voice sank ever still ; 
 And I, all heart and brain and voice, am dead ; 
 It is my Phantom here beside your bed 
 
 That speaketh to you now ; 
 Though you exist still, a mere form inurning 
 The ashes of dead fires of thought and yearning, 
 Dead faith, dead love, dead hope, in hollow breast and 
 brow." 
 
 When It had moaned these words of hopeless doom, 
 
 The Phantom of the Muse once young and fair, 
 Pallid and dim from its disastrous tomb, 
 
 Of Her so sweet and young and dibonnaire. 
 So rich of heart and brain and singing voice, 
 So quick to shed sweet tears and to rejoice 
 
 And smile with ravishing grace ; 
 My soul was stupified by its own reaping, 
 Then burst into a flood of passionate weeping, 
 Tears bitter as black blood streaming adown my face. 
 
 " O Muse, so young and sweet and glad and fair, 
 O Muse of hope and faith and joy and love, 
 
 O Muse so gracious and so dibonnaire. 
 
 Darling of earth beneath and heaven above ; 
 
 If Thou art gone into oblivious death. 
 
 Why should I still prolong my painful breath ? 
 
6o The Poet and his Muse. 
 
 Why still exist, the urn 
 Holding of once-great fires the long-dead ashes, 
 No sole spark left of all their glow and flashes. 
 Fires never to rekindle more and shine and burn ? 
 
 " O Muse of hope and faith and joy and love, 
 Soul of my soul, if Thou in truth art dead, 
 A mournful alien in our world above, 
 
 A Phantom moaning by my midnight bed ; 
 How can I be alive, a hollow form 
 With ashes of dead fires once bright and warm ? 
 
 What thing is worth my strife ? 
 The Past a great regret, the Present sterile. 
 The Future hopeless, with the further peril 
 Of withering down and down to utter death-in-life. 
 
 " Soul of my soul, canst Thou indeed be dead ? 
 
 What mean for me if I accept their lore 
 Thy words, O Phantom moaning by my bed, 
 
 " I cannot sing again for evermore " ? 
 r nevermore can think or feel or dream 
 Or hope or love— the fatal loss supreme ! 
 
 I am a soulless clod ; 
 No germ of life within me that surpasses 
 The little germs of weeds and flowers and grasses 
 Wherewith our liberal Mother decks the graveyard sod. 
 
The Poet and his Muse. 6i 
 
 " I am half-torpid yet I spurn this lore, 
 
 I am long silent yet cannot avow 
 My singing voice is lost for evermore ; 
 
 For lo, this beating heart, this burning brow, 
 This spirit gasping in keen spasms of dread 
 And "fierce revulsion that it is not dead. 
 
 This agony of the sting : 
 What soulless clod could have these tears and sobbings. 
 These terrors that are hopes, these passionate throb- 
 bings ? 
 Dear Muse, revive ! we yet may dream and love and 
 sing ! " 
 
 February, 1882. 
 
( 6a ) 
 
 THE SLEEPER.^ 
 
 The fire is in a steadfast glow, 
 
 The curtains drawn against the night ; 
 
 Upon the red couch soft and low 
 Between the fire and lamp alight 
 
 She rests half-sitting, half-reclining, 
 
 Encompassed by the cosy shining. 
 
 Her ruby dress with lace trimmed white. 
 
 Her left hand shades her drooping eyes 
 
 Against the fervour of the fire, 
 The right upon her cincture lies 
 
 In languid grace beyond desire, 
 A lily fallen among roses ; 
 So placidly her form reposes, 
 
 It scarcely seemeth to respire. 
 
 She is not surely all awake. 
 
 As yet she is not all asleep ; 
 The eyes with lids half open take 
 
 A startled deprecating peep 
 
 ^ Reprinted, by permission, from the Cornhill Magazine. 
 
The Sleeper. 63 
 
 Of quivering drowsiness, then slowly 
 
 The lids sink back, before she wholly 
 
 Resigns herself to slumber deep. 
 
 The side-neck gleams so pure beneath 
 
 The underfringe of gossamer, 
 The tendrils of whose faery wreath 
 
 The softest sigh suppressed would stir. 
 The little pink-shell ear-rim flushes 
 With her young blood's translucent blushes. 
 
 Nestling in tresses warm as fur. 
 
 The contour of her cheek and chin 
 Is curved in one delicious line. 
 
 Pure as a vase of porcelain thin 
 
 Through which a tender light may shine ; 
 
 Her brow and blue-veined temple gleaming 
 
 Beneath the dusk of hair back-streaming 
 Are as a virgin's marble shrine. 
 
 The ear is burning crimson fire. 
 
 The flush is brightening on the face, ■ 
 
 The lips are parting to suspire, 
 The hair grows restless in its place 
 
 As if itself new tangles wreathing ; 
 
 The bosom with her deeper breathing 
 Swells and subsides with ravishing grace. 
 
64 The Sleeper. 
 
 The hand slides softly to caress, 
 
 Unconscious, that fine-pencilled curve 
 
 " Her lip's contour and downiness," 
 Unbending with a sweet reserve ; 
 
 A tender darkness that abashes 
 
 Steals out beneath the long dark lashes. 
 Whose sightless eyes make eyesight swerve. 
 
 I'he hand on chin and throat downslips. 
 Then softly, softly on her breast ; 
 
 A dream comes fluttering o'er the lips. 
 And stirs the eyelids in their rest. 
 
 And makes their undershadows quiver, 
 
 And like a ripple on a river 
 
 Glides through her breathing manifest. 
 
 I feel an awe to read this dream 
 
 So clearly written in her smile ; 
 A pleasant not a passionate theme, 
 
 A little love, a little guile ; 
 I fear lest she should speak revealing 
 The secret of some maiden feeling 
 
 I have no right to hear the while. 
 
 The dream has passed without a word 
 Of all that hovered finely traced ; 
 
The Sleeper. 6^ 
 
 The hand has slipt down, gently stirred 
 
 To join the other at her waist ; 
 Her breath from that light agitation 
 Has settled to its slow pulsation ; 
 
 She is by deep sleep re-embraced. 
 
 Deep sleep, so holy in its calm, 
 
 So helpless, yet so awful too ; 
 Whose silence sheds as sweet a balm 
 
 As ever sweetest voice could do ; 
 Whose tranced eyes, unseen, unseeing. 
 Shadowed by pure love, thrill our being 
 
 With tender yearnings through and through. 
 
 Sweet sleep ; no hope, no fear, no strife ; 
 
 The solemn sanctity of death, 
 With all the loveliest bloom of life ; 
 
 Eternal peace in mortal breath : 
 Pure sleep from which she will awaken 
 Refreshed as one who hath partaken 
 
 New strength, new hope, new love, new faith. 
 
 January, 1882. 
 
( 66 ) 
 
 MODERN PENELOPE. 
 
 (riddle solved.) 
 
 What did she mean by that crochet work ? 
 
 The work that never got done, 
 Lolling as indolent as a Turk, 
 
 Looking demure as a Nun : 
 What subtle mystery might lurk 
 
 (Of course there must be one) 
 In that Penelope web of work. 
 
 The work that never got done ? 
 
 She lolled on the low couch just under the light 
 
 So very serene and staid : 
 We had some other guests that night, 
 
 One sang, another played, 
 A couple discovered the stars were bright. 
 
 Of course a youth and a maid, 
 I watched her knitting under the light 
 
 So very serene and staid. 
 
 I knew that she was a rogue in her heart. 
 As roguish as ever could be, 
 
Modem Penelope. 67 
 
 And she knew that I knew, yet would not dart 
 
 A single glance at me, 
 But seemed as it were withdrawn apart 
 
 Amid the companie, 
 A nun in her face, with a rogue in her heart 
 
 As roguish as ever could be. 
 
 I like a riddle when its knot 
 
 Involves a pretty girl, 
 I puzzle about, now cold, now hot, 
 
 Through every loop and twirl, 
 For the question is " Who " as well as " What " ? 
 
 And the answer is thus a pearl, 
 And really you cannot study the knot. 
 
 Unless you study the girl. 
 
 With a graceful lazy kittypuss air 
 
 She fingered the net and the ball : 
 At first she started to work on the square. 
 
 And then she undid all : 
 To make it round was next her care. 
 
 But the progress was strangely small. 
 With a graceful lazy kittypuss air 
 
 Trifling with net and ball. 
 
 About her lips a quiet smile 
 Came hovering, then took rest : 
 
68 Modern Penelope. 
 
 A butterfly in the selfsame style 
 
 Will choose some sweet flower's breast : 
 
 Her eyes were drooping all the while, 
 But the drooping lids expressed 
 
 The satisfaction of a smile 
 Like a butterfly at rest. 
 
 Her hands kept floating to and fro 
 
 Like a pair of soft white doves, 
 In gentle dalliance coy and slow 
 
 Around a nest of Loves : 
 And against my chair her couch was low, 
 
 And six was the size of her gloves, 
 They were charming those hands there to and fro 
 
 Like a pair of soft white doves. 
 
 Her fair face opened like a flower, 
 
 And a sigh thrilled the smile on her lips, 
 And her eyes shone out with a dazzling power 
 
 From the dream of their half-eclipse 
 As she welcomed the trill of "A summer shower" 
 
 With plausive finger-tips — 
 Oh ! her eyes so bright, and her face like a flower, 
 
 And the exquisite smile of her lips ! 
 
 Those hands kept floating soft and white 
 Our hearts to mesmerise, 
 
Modern Penelope. 69 
 
 Those dark eyes keep half-veiled their light 
 
 To lure and lure our eyes ; 
 That web is but a subtle sleight 
 
 To mesh us by surprise : 
 Do I not read your riddle right, 
 
 Penelope the wise ? 
 
 O you niin in face with the rogue in your heart 
 
 As roguish as ever can be, 
 You have played an immensely wiser part 
 
 Than the old Penelope : 
 You have caught twin loves in the toils of your airt. 
 
 And neither will ever get free : 
 You have won the game of a heart for a heart, 
 
 And when shall the settling be ? 
 
 1882. 
 
( 70 ) 
 
 AT BELVOIR 
 
 St 
 
 A BALLAD, 
 
 (" In mai 
 
 My thought 
 
 Sweet haf 
 " The bridal 
 
 A day of 
 A day to xni 
 
 In joy a t 
 When two g 
 
 The shad; 
 
 A maiden 11 
 
 Unconsci( 
 And fragran 
 
 Deep in h 
 A Poet old i 
 
 Yet not tc 
 Made young 
 
 By such a 
 
^t Belvoir. 7 1 
 
 The other two beyond our ken 
 
 Most shamefully deserted, 
 And far from all the ways of men 
 
 Their stealthy steps averted : 
 Of course our Jack would go astray, 
 
 Erotic and erratic ; 
 But Mary ! — well, I own the day 
 
 Was really too ecstatic. 
 
 We roamed with many a merry jest 
 
 And many a ringing laughter ; 
 The slow calm hours too rich in zest 
 
 To heed before and after : 
 Yet lingering down the lovely walks 
 
 Soft strains anon came stealing, 
 A finer music through our talks 
 
 Of sweeter, deeper feeling : 
 
 Yes, now and then a quiet word 
 
 Of seriousness dissembling 
 In smiles would touch some hidden chord 
 
 And set it all a-trembling : 
 I trembled too, and felt it strange ; — 
 
 Could I be in possession 
 Of music richer in its range 
 
 Than yet had found expression ? 
 
72 Jt Belvoir. 
 
 The cattle standing in the mere, 
 
 The swans upon it gliding, 
 The sunlight on the waters clear, 
 
 The radiant clouds dividing ; 
 The solemn sapphire sky above, 
 
 The foliage lightly waving, 
 The soft air's Sabbath peace and love 
 
 To satisfy all craving. 
 
 We mapped the whole fair region out 
 
 As Country of the Tender, 
 From first pursuit in fear and doubt 
 
 To final glad surrender : 
 Each knoll and arbour got its name, 
 
 Each vista, covert, dingle ; — 
 No young pair now may track the same 
 
 And long continue single ! 
 
 And in the spot most thrilling-sweet 
 
 Of all this Love-Realm rosy 
 Our truant pair had found retreat. 
 
 Unblushing, calm and cosy : 
 Where seats too wide for one are placed. 
 
 And yet for two but narrow, 
 It's " Let my arm steal round your waist, 
 
 And be my winsome marrow ! " 
 
At Belvoir. 73 
 
 Reclining on a pleasant lea 
 
 Such tender scenes rehearsing, 
 A freakish fit seized him and me 
 
 For wildly foolish versing : 
 We versed of this, we versed of that, 
 
 A pair of mocking sinners. 
 While our lost couple strayed or sat 
 
 Oblivious of their dinners. 
 
 But what was strange, our maddest rhymes 
 
 In all their divagations 
 Were charged and over-charged at times 
 
 With deep vaticinations : 
 I yearn with wonder at the power 
 
 Of Poetry prophetic 
 Which in my soul made that blithe hour 
 
 With this hour sympathetic. 
 
 For though we are in winter now, 
 
 My heart is in full summer : 
 Old Year, old Wish, have made their bow ; 
 
 I welcome each new-comer. 
 " The King is dead, long live the King ! 
 
 The throne is vacant never ! " 
 Is true, I read, of everything, 
 
 So of my heart for ever ! 
 
74 -^t Belvoir. 
 
 My thoughts go on to next July, 
 
 More happy thoughts, more tender ; 
 " The bridal of the earth and sky," 
 
 A day of perfect splendour ; 
 A day to make the saddest heart 
 
 In bliss a firm believer ; 
 When two True Loves may roam apart 
 
 The shadiest walks of Belvoir. 
 
 There may be less of merry jest 
 
 And less of ringing laughter, 
 Yet life be much more rich in zest 
 
 And richer still thereafter ; 
 The love-scenes of that region fair 
 
 Have very real rehearsing, 
 And tremulous kisses thrill the air 
 
 Far sweetlier than sweet versing ; 
 
 The bud full blown at length reveal 
 
 Its deepest golden burning ; 
 The heart inspired with love unseal 
 
 Its inmost passionate yearning : 
 The music of the hidden chord 
 
 At length find full expression ; 
 The Seraph of the Flaming Sword 
 
 Assume divine possession. 
 January, 1882. 
 
( 75 ) 
 
 A STRANGER. 
 I. 
 
 It is not surely, this, a little thing, 
 
 That day and night and every Sabbath day 
 Throughout these months of winterless glad Spring, 
 
 March mild as April, April sweet as May, 
 
 And May as rich as June in common years, 
 It has been given me upon my way. 
 
 Given to me and all my village peers. 
 
 But most to me as my full heart knows well, 
 Brimming my eyes with tender wistful tears 
 
 And throbbing with strange awe ineffable. 
 
 To meet and pass, to follow with slow pace. 
 Or on the street or in our quiet dell 
 
 Or through the fields, that Lady of all grace 
 With sweet sad eyes and noble mournful face. 
 
 II. 
 
 We know not who she is or whence she came. 
 
 She and her little boy with her own eyes 
 And brow and patient smile, whose Christian name 
 
76 A Stranger. 
 
 Without the surname tells us where he lies 
 
 With her heart buried in the selfsame grave : 
 The larks were singing in the soft blue skies, 
 
 And even some few violets were brave 
 
 To breathe faint sweetness on the bland warm air, 
 Good Valentine such benediction gave, 
 
 When she arrived with him, her anxious care, 
 
 Her only joy, her terrible dark grief: 
 In early April he was lying there ; 
 
 The Spring all blithe with bud and flower and leaf 
 And scent and song above his Spring so brief. 
 
 III. 
 
 Only the Christian name upon the stone 
 
 Above the date of birth and date of death ; 
 Two syllables of everlasting moan, 
 
 Immortal sorrow breathing mortal breath, 
 
 Continual weeping that would fain not weep, 
 Sad comforting that vainly comforteth 
 
 The deadly anguish graven far more deep 
 Upon the heart than on the marble cold 
 " For so He giveth His belovfed sleep." 
 
A Stranger. 77 
 
 Yet with a lofty patience she controlled 
 
 The outward signs of anguish ; eve and morn 
 Tending that little bed of sacred mould 
 
 And others near it that wereleft forlorn ; 
 Praying, I think, to sleep herself outworn. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Her sorrow flowed with blessings from above ; 
 Her heart of joy and hope was in that tomb. 
 But not her heart of sympathy and love : 
 
 While her young flower was fading from its bloom 
 
 She had been wonderfully sweet and kind ; 
 And now that it was buried in the gloom 
 
 Her own sore suff'ering did but closelier bind 
 
 Her heart to other hearts in aU distress ; 
 The little angel in her sad soul shrined 
 
 Was a true angel of pure gentleness 
 
 And soft compassion and unwearying will 
 To soothe and aid and with all solace bless : 
 
 Our joys and sorrows take our nature still ; 
 
 Hers wrought bright good from her own darkest ill. 
 
78 A Stranger. 
 
 Tenderness, worship, bliss in yearning pain ! — 
 
 To see her young and fair and more than fair, 
 Amidst us yet not of us, sole remain 
 
 As sanctified already unaware'; 
 
 To see the peacefulness of pure white brow 
 Beneath the smoothness of the rich brown hair ; 
 
 The cloistral solitude without the vow ; 
 
 The self-renunciation mild and meek 
 
 With meekness that is ever glad to bow, 
 
 Evading honours such as others seek. 
 
 Yet in its stooping cannot help but rise ; 
 To hear that soft slow voice its good words speak ; 
 
 To feel the fascination of those eyes. 
 Solemn and dark and deep as midnight skies. 
 
 VI. 
 
 I did not wonder she could be so pure 
 
 Amidst our petty cares and sordid strife. 
 But how our common meanness could endure 
 
A Stranger. 79 
 
 Beneath the lofty radiance of her life ; 
 
 Until I saw how, fine and soft and clear 
 As starbeams quivering through the darkness rife, 
 
 Her effluence shone on souls all dull and drear : 
 
 Then as the Moon in moving through the Night 
 Bears round her ever her own hemisphere 
 
 Of tranquil beauty arid entrancing light 
 
 By solemn shadows more mysterious made, 
 Her regnant beauty turned all darkness bright 
 
 Or glorified mysteriously its shade ; 
 
 Fair Queen most queenly as in Night arrayed. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Oh, joyless joy of this most bounteous June, 
 For with the Maytide She is gone, is gone ! 
 All men adore and love the one sole Moon ; 
 
 But she of all on whom her light has shone, 
 
 Of all her pure and gracious light has blest, 
 Discerns no mortal save Endymion, 
 
 To him alone unveils her virgin breast. 
 
 On him alone outpours her love divine. 
 What shall we do who undistinguished rest ? 
 
8o A Stranger. 
 
 Shall we against her solemn choice repine ? 
 
 Or shall we rather lift our souls above 
 To hold her ever in a crystal shrine, 
 
 The perfect beauty of Heaven's brooding Dove, 
 The sacred vision of Heaven's reachless Love ? 
 
 March, 1882. 
 
( 8i ) 
 
 LAW V. GOSPEL.^ 
 
 The Gospel and the Law of late 
 
 Have been at sad dissension 
 Before the Judge and Magistrate : 
 
 Old Satan's last invention. 
 Of course the Law upholds the Law, 
 
 The Gospel over-ruling ; 
 And those who have St. Paul in awe 
 
 Must seek more modern schooling. 
 
 The Gospel says, Swear not at all ; 
 
 The Law, or good or bad law, 
 Says, You must swear, whate'er befall. 
 
 Or else I fine you, Bradlaugh. 
 Whereon he goes and swears himself 
 
 In solemn legal banter ; 
 His fellow-members on the shelf 
 
 Deposit him instanter. 
 
 ^ This and the two pieces following are reprinted from the 
 Weekly Dispatch. "Despotism Tempered by Dynamite" was the 
 last poem written by the author. 
 
 r 
 
82 Law V. Gospel. 
 
 And then we have that narrow sect 
 
 Of most Peculiar People, 
 Who by the Book their way direct, 
 
 And not by the Church steeple. 
 They read how Asa sought not God, 
 
 But doctors, being sickly ; 
 And therefore slept beneath the sod 
 
 With his forefathers quickly. 
 
 St. James enjoins, When one is ill. 
 
 Send for an elder straightway ; 
 Anoint and pray (no doctor's bill !) 
 
 And thus elude Death's gateway. 
 So said so done ; and then report 
 
 Of death of son or daughter, 
 And parents sentenced by the Court 
 
 To prison for manslaughter. 
 
 And now a new and noisy set — 
 
 The Army of Salvation — 
 Our equal-minded justice fret 
 
 With constant botheration : 
 For sometimes they obstruct the way. 
 
 And sometimes cause a riot ; 
 Too much of zeal — too much, we say, 
 
 Why can't the fools keep quiet ? 
 
Law V. Gospel. 83 
 
 The dean and canons in their stalls 
 
 Are placid as stalled cattle, 
 And never rush out from St. Paul's 
 
 To give the devil battle. 
 In streets and lanes to brawl and fight 
 
 Is far too low and rowdy ; 
 No, if he wants a spar, invite 
 
 Him home to Mrs. Proudie. 
 
 On Tuesday, March, the fourteenth day, 
 
 Before Sir Thomas Owden, 
 A youth was brought who blocked the way, 
 
 Already over-crowden — 
 Threadneedle-street — the wild War Cry, 
 
 This well-dressed youth was selling : 
 A camel and a needle's eye — 
 
 The rest requires no telling. 
 
 Sir Thomas said he understood 
 
 How men in shabby raiment. 
 To get a living, bad or good. 
 
 Should do this thing for payment ; 
 But he could never understand 
 
 How any young man, dressed all 
 In decent clothes, could join the band, 
 
 Like this young Henry Restall. 
 
84 Law V. Gospel. 
 
 " It's not to get a living, sir," 
 
 This youth spoke fast and faster ; 
 " I have been called to minister — 
 
 I work for God, my Master." 
 Sir Thomas answered (much I grieve 
 
 If you don't find it ion sens), 
 He never could be made believe 
 
 In such outrageous nonsense. 
 
 This hardened youth he made reply, 
 
 "We have reformed some thousand 
 Poor drunkards ; " Sir T. winked full sly. 
 
 And sneezing sneered, " £>er Tausend/" 
 And for a fortnight did remand, 
 
 Upon his good behaviour, 
 That youth, who now should understand 
 
 He mustn't cry his Saviour. 
 
 Just think of Simon Peter thus, 
 
 And all the zealous dozen, 
 Brought up before Asinius, 
 
 Our Owden's great fore-cousin. 
 He would have quickly stopped their prate 
 
 On a police-court summons ; 
 We should have no Archbishop Tait, 
 
 No pious House of Commons ! 
 
Law V. Gospel. 85 
 
 'Tis true they were but fishermen 
 
 And suchUke, poor and humble ; 
 And thus might earn a living then 
 
 Approved by every Bumble. 
 But preach a Gospel nof for pelf ! ■ 
 
 Absurd to Owden thinkers ! — 
 Just keep your Good News to yourself, 
 
 And cease reforming drinkers ! 
 
 March, 1882. 
 
( 86 ) 
 
 THE OLD STORY AND THE NEW 
 STOREY. 
 
 (House of Commons, Thursday March 23. ) 
 
 " For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have 
 more abundance : but whosoever hath not, from him shall be 
 taken away even that he hath." — Matthew xiii. 12. 
 
 The Old Story says : We've another 
 
 Young prince who will wed like a man ; 
 Let us give him, because of his mother, 
 
 An extra ten thousand per ann. 
 She has barely enough for herself, sirs ; 
 
 Not five hundred a week is his sum ; 
 Some of you have vastly more pelf, sirs ; 
 
 Let our vote be unanimous, come ! 
 
 The New Storey ^ says — (It is mentioned 
 How, hating such meanness to hear, 
 
 The noble array of the pensioned 
 
 Assailed him with laughter and jeer) — 
 
 1 Mr. Storey, M.P. for Sunderland. 
 
The Old Story and the New Storey. 87 
 
 He says : Public money should solely 
 
 For good public service be spent. 
 (Dear lords, what a doctrine unholy ! 
 
 Why it saps at your rights to your rent !) 
 
 He says : What I urge 'gainst a wasteful 
 
 And unjust proposal like this 
 Must to many of you be distasteful, 
 
 And the wherefore too palpable is ; 
 Since one hundred and ten of your body. 
 
 And one hundred and twenty-six peers, 
 For no service, or service of shoddy 
 
 Keep bleeding us numberless years. 
 
 He says : This ten thousand per annum 
 
 You would lavish on one wealthy pair — 
 Many hundred a grandad and grannam 
 
 Would keep in a comfort too rare ; 
 Or in Sunderland — that's my own borough — 
 
 A small place — laugh on ! — would secure 
 Education quite free and quite thorough 
 
 Without any rate on the poor. 
 
 He says : These same princes as dummies 
 
 In army and navy fill posts, 
 While veterans, scorched up like mummies, 
 
 Must starve in the cold like their ghosts. 
 
88 The Old Story and the New Storey. 
 
 He says : Sweep away lordly flunkeys, 
 If you really this money must clutch, 
 
 Those bedizened and posturing monkeys — 
 Your Gold Sticks in Waiting and such. 
 
 He says — But fine ears we won't batter 
 
 With more of his speech unpolite ; 
 So we'll give our own view of the matter, 
 
 And our view of course is the right. 
 We say : When your State-ship you're building, 
 
 If you will have a gilt figure-head, 
 Of course you must pay for the gilding ; 
 
 We say — there's no more to be said. 
 
 It is true that the head a ship carries 
 
 In proportion costs little when built ; 
 It is true that this head never marries 
 
 And breeds little heads to be gilt. 
 It is true — but sane words are a treasure 
 
 Too precious for subjects like these — 
 Having set up such heads at your pleasure. 
 
 You can set them aside when you please. 
 
 April, 1882. 
 
( 89 ) 
 
 DESPOTISM TEMPERED BY 
 DYNAMITE. 
 
 There is no other title in the world 
 So proud as mine, who am no law-cramped king, 
 No mere imperial monarch absolute, 
 The White Tsar worshipped as a visible God, 
 As Lord of Heaven no less that Lord of Earth — 
 I look with terror to my crowning day. 
 
 Through half of Europe my dominions spread. 
 And then through half of Asia to the shores 
 Of Earth's great ocean washing the New World ; 
 And nothing bounds them to the Northern Pole, 
 They merge into the everlasting ice — 
 
 I look with terror to my crowning day. 
 
 Full eighty million subjects worship me — 
 Their father, high priest, monarch, God on earth ; 
 
90 Despotism Tempered ly Dynamite. 
 
 My children who but hold their lives with mine 
 For our most Holy Russia dear and great, 
 Whose might is concentrated in my hands — 
 I look with terror to my crowning day. 
 
 I chain and gag with chains and gags of iron 
 The impious hands and mouths that dare express 
 A word against my sacred sovranty ; 
 The half of Asia is my prison-house, 
 Myriads of convicts lost in its Immense — 
 I look with terror to my crowning day. 
 
 I cannot chain and gag the evil thoughts 
 Of men and women poisoned by the West, 
 Frenzied in soul by the anarchic West ; 
 These thoughts transmute themselves to dynamite ; 
 My sire was borne all shattered to his tomb — 
 I look with terror to my crowning day. 
 
 My peasants rise to their unvarying toil, 
 And go to sleep outwearied by their toil. 
 Without the hope of any better life. 
 But with no hope they have no deadly fear. 
 They sleep and eat their scanty food in peace — 
 I look with terror to my crowning day. 
 
Despotism Tempered hy Dynamite. 91 
 
 My palaces are prisons to myself; 
 I taste no food that may not poison me ; 
 I plant no footstep sure it will not stir 
 Instant destruction of explosive fire ; 
 I look with terror to each day and night — 
 With tenfold terror to my crowning day. 
 
 May, 1882. 
 
( 93 ) 
 
 THE DOOM OF A CITY. 
 
 A FANTASIA. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 I. 
 
 The sky was spacious warm and bright, 
 The clouds were pure as morning snow; 
 In myriad points of living light 
 The sea lay laughing to and fro. 
 Above the hills a depth of sky, 
 Dim-pale with heat and light intense, 
 Was .overhung by clouds piled high 
 In mountain-ranges huge and dense ; 
 Whose rifts and ridges ran aloft 
 Far to their crests of dazzling snow, 
 Whence spread a vaporous lustre soft 
 Veiling the noontide's azure glow. 
 
The Doom of a City. 93 
 
 Through mists of purple glory seen 
 Those dim and panting hill-waves lay, 
 Absorbed into the heavens serene, 
 Dissolving in the perfect day. 
 
 But when the sun burned high and bare 
 In his own realm of solemn blue. 
 The clouds hung isolated there. 
 Dark purple grandeurs vast and few ; 
 Like massive sculptures wrought at large 
 Upon that dome's immensity. 
 Like constant isles whose foamlit marge 
 Rose high from out that sapphire sea. 
 
 And all the day my boat sped on 
 With rapid gliding smooth as rest, 
 As if by mystic dreamings drawn 
 To some fair haven in the West ; 
 Flew onward swift without a gale 
 As if it were a living thing. 
 And spread with joy its snow-white sail 
 As spreads a bird its snow-white wing ; 
 Plashed on along the lucid deep 
 Dividing that most perfect sphere, 
 A vault above it glowing steep, 
 A vault beneath it no less clear ; 
 
94 The Doom of a City. 
 
 Within whose burning sapphire-round 
 The clouds the air the land the sea 
 Lay thrilled with quivering glory, drowned 
 In calm as of Eternity. 
 
 II. 
 
 Anear the dying of that royal day 
 Those amber-vested hills began to swerve ; 
 And soon a lofty Pharos, gleaming white 
 Upon its isle set darkly in the light. 
 Beckoned us onward to the spacious bay 
 Encompassed broadly by their noble curve. 
 And so at length we entered it ; and faced 
 The thin dark lines of countless masts, all traced 
 Upon the saddest sunset ever seen — 
 Spread out like an interminable waste 
 Of red and saffron sand, devoured by slow 
 Persistent fire ; beneath whose desolate glow 
 A City lay, thick-zoned with solemn green 
 Of foliage massed upon the steeps around. 
 Between those mast-lines flamed the crystal fires 
 Of multitudinous windows ; and on high • 
 Grand marble palaces and temples,, crowned 
 With golden domes and radiant towers and spires, 
 Stood all entranced beneath that desert sky. 
 Based on an awful stillness. Dead or dumb 
 
The Doom of a City. 95 
 
 That mighty City through the breathless air 
 Thrilled forth no pulse of sound, no faintest hum 
 Of congregated life in street and square : 
 Becalmed beyond all calm those galleons lay, 
 As still and lifeless as their shadows there. 
 Fixed in the magic mirror of the bay 
 As in a rose-flushed crystal weirdly fair. 
 - A strange, sad dream : and like a fiery pall, 
 Blazoned with death, that sky hung over all. 
 
 III. 
 Where, eastward from the town, the shore was 
 
 low, 
 I drew at length my shallop up the sand, — 
 The quiet and gloomless twilight gathering slow ; 
 And took my way across the lonely strand, 
 And onward to the City, lost in thought. 
 Who shall his own wild life-course understand ? 
 From terror through great terrors I am brought 
 To front my fate in this mysterious land. 
 In my old common world, well fenced about 
 With myriad lives that fellowed well my own, 
 Terror and deadly anguish found me out 
 And drove me forth to seek the dread Unknown ; 
 Through all whose terrors I have yet been brought. 
 Though hopeless, helpless, utterly alone. 
 
g6 The Doom of a City. 
 
 May yet my long wild night be blessed with morn ? 
 Some revelation from the awful Throne 
 Awaits me surely : if my life, torn free 
 From dire Egyptian bondage, has been led 
 In safety through the all-devouring sea ; 
 If, lost in foodless deserts, it was fed 
 Though murmuring ever ; hath it truly trod 
 Such paths for nothing ? Shall it not be brought 
 To stand awe-stricken 'neath some Mount of God 
 Wrapt in thick clouds of thunder fire and gloom, 
 And hear the Law of Heaven by which its doom 
 To good or evil must be henceforth wrought ? 
 
 • IV. , 
 
 The moon hung golden large and round, 
 Soothing its beauty up the quiet sky 
 In swanlike slow pulsations, while I wound 
 Through dewy meads and gardens of rich flowers, 
 Whose fragrance like a subtle harmony 
 Was fascination to the languid hours. 
 A tender mist of light was interfused 
 Upon the hills and waters, woods and leas. 
 Throughout the gloomless gloaming ; and I mused 
 Dim thoughts deep-floating in delicious dream, 
 Until the long stern lines of cypress trees. 
 Amidst whose plumes funereal there did seem 
 
The Doom of a City. 97 
 
 To creep with quivering sobs a moaning breath, 
 Awed back my heart to life — to life and death. 
 Far in the mystic moonlight lay outspread, 
 in trance of solemn beauty still and weird, 
 That Camp and City of the ancient dead ; 
 And far around stood up in dense array 
 Those monumental marbles ever reared 
 By men still battling with the powers of Life 
 To those released before them from its sway : 
 Victors or vanquished in the fearful strife. 
 What matters ? — ah, within our Mother's breast. 
 From toil and tumult, sin and sorrow free, 
 Sphered beyond hope and dread, divinely calm. 
 They lie, all gathered into perfect rest ; 
 And o'er the trance of their Eternity 
 The Cypress waves more holy than the palm. 
 
 V. 
 A funeral train was gathered round a bier : 
 The reverend priest with lifted hands and face. 
 Appealing silently to Heaven's grace 
 For this young soul called early from our sphere ; 
 And white-robed maidens pale, whose hands scarce held 
 What further symbol flowers they had to shed 
 Upon their sweet lost sister, — awe and dread 
 Numbing their noisier grief, they stood compelled 
 
98 The Doom of a City. 
 
 To meet Death's eyes which wither youth from Life ; 
 
 And leaning sole against a tree apart, 
 
 As one might lean just stricken to the heart, 
 
 A youth, wrought calm by woe's self-slaying strife — 
 
 His head was sunken nerveless on his breast, 
 
 He stood a dumb blind statue of Despair. 
 
 While all yet moved not, I approached them there. 
 
 Murmuring : They bring this maiden to her rest 
 
 Beneath the pure sad moon, in thoughtful night, 
 
 Rather than in the garish day whose King 
 
 Rides through the Heavens for ever triumphing 
 
 Throned above ruth in never-darkened light ; 
 
 That ere the blank dawn chills them they may gaze. 
 
 And see her soul as some white cloud on high 
 
 Floating serenely up the star-strewn sky. . . . 
 
 My steps were now close near them, when amaze 
 
 Convulsed me with a swooning suddenness — 
 
 What people dwell within this Silent Land, 
 
 Who thus have placed, through day and night to stand, 
 
 This Scene complete in all its images 
 
 Of Life in solemn conference with Death, 
 
 Amidst the wide and populous solitude 
 
 Of Death's own realm ? — a people of strange mood. 
 
 For all, — the maidens meek with bated breath 
 
 And eyes weighed down by awe and fear and sorrow, 
 
 The priest appealing to the Heavens above, 
 
The Doom of a City. 99 
 
 The youth whose mortal night could hope no morrow, 
 The sweet young girl new riven from his love, — 
 All save the flowers, the withered flowers alone, 
 Were carven weirdly in unconscious stone. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Beneath my gaze was spread the princely mart. 
 
 From out the folded hills came broad the stream 
 
 Whose pulse flowed lifefuU through the City's heart- 
 
 The City dead in ever-voiceless dream. 
 
 From all her stately mansions, reared apart 
 
 'Midst lawns and gardens, came no lamplight gleam, 
 
 No cheerful glow and smoke of household fire ; 
 
 No festal music dying through the night. 
 
 Sad in its death as joyous in its birth ; 
 
 No serenades intoning soft desire, 
 
 To which young hearts in secret throb delight ; 
 
 No noise of banded revellers issuing forth 
 
 With shouts and songs and jars. 
 Who find the pale moon reeling joUily 
 And twinkling laughters in the high cold stars. 
 
 Between the hills and sea 
 
 Only a dark dead dearth 
 Of soulless silence yawned in dreadful mystery. 
 
] oo The Doom of a City. 
 
 VII. 
 
 My limbs were shuddering while my veins ran fire, 
 
 And hounded on by dread 
 
 No less than by desire, 
 I plunged into the City of the Dead, 
 And pierced its Mausolean loneliness — 
 Between the self-sufficing palaces, 
 Broad fronts of azure, fire and gold, which shone 
 Spectrally pallid in the moonlight wan ; 
 Adown great streets ; through spacious sylvan squares. 
 
 Whose fountains plashing lone 
 Fretted the silence with perpetual moan ; 
 Past range on range of marts which spread their wares 
 Weirdly unlighted to the eyes of heaven, 
 Jewels and silks and golden ornaments, 
 Rich perfumes soul-in-soul of all rare scents. 
 Viols and timbrels, — G wild mockery ! 
 Where are the living shrines for these adorning's ? 
 Shall love-tormented phantoms hither hie, 
 Resolvfed that the tomb be no more mute. 
 And thrill their heart-sick plaints from lyre and lute 
 To plead against fair' phantoms' cruel scornings ; 
 Wakening dim ghosts of buried melodies 
 To shiver out beneath the scornful skies, 
 And wander homeless till they fail of breath 
 About this desert realm of timeless death ? 
 
The Doom of a City. loi 
 
 VIII. 
 
 What saw I in the City, which could make 
 
 All thought a frenzy and all feeling madness ? 
 
 What found I in the City for whose sake 
 
 Blank death were welcome as a restful gladness ? 
 
 I hold it truth, that what the stars and moon 
 
 Can gaze upon with clear and steadfast eyes, 
 
 Still soaring as of old to reach their noon, 
 
 Serenely regnant in unwithered skies ; 
 
 That scene should never fill a human being 
 
 With hopelessness of horror in the seeing. 
 
 Can souls be blighted where the mere trees grow ? 
 
 Can lives be frozen where the dead streams flow ? 
 
 Can Man be prostrate where the fleeting mountains 
 
 Stand up and fling abroad their joyous fountains ? 
 
 Could oceans, hills, stars, heavens, those imageries 
 
 And shadows of our sole realities, 
 
 Endure but for a moment undestroyed 
 
 Were we extinct — Eternity left void ? 
 
 O truth beyond our sin and death's concealing ! — 
 
 The ghastliest den, worst Hell of pain and fear. 
 
 In which a spirit can have will, thought, feeling. 
 
 Is to that spirit no unnatural sphere ; 
 
 Nor justifies that spirit for the death 
 
 Of firm selttrust, of love and hope and faith. 
 
I02 The Doom of a City. 
 
 - 
 
 IX. 
 What found I in the City, then, which turned 
 My deep and solemn hope to wild despair ? 
 What mystery of horror lay inurned 
 Within the royal City great and fair? 
 What found I ? — Dead stone sentries stony-eyed. 
 Erect, steel-sworded, brass-defended all, 
 Guarding the sombrous gateway deep and wide 
 Hewn like a cavern through the mighty wall ; 
 Stone statues all throughout the streets and squares, 
 Grouped as in social converse or alone ; 
 Dim stony merchants holding forth rich wares 
 To catch the choice of purchasers of stone ; 
 Fair statues leaning over balconies, 
 Whose bosoms made the bronze and marble chill ; 
 Statues about the lawns, beneath the trees ; 
 Firm sculptured horsemen on stone horses still ; 
 Statues fixed gazing on the flowing river 
 Over the bridge's sculptured parapet ; 
 Statues in boats, amidst its sway and quiver 
 Immovable as if in ice- waves set : — 
 The whole vast sea of life about me lay, 
 The passionate, heaving, restless, sounding life. 
 With all its tides and billows, foam and spray. 
 Arrested in full tumult of its strife 
 Frozen into a nightmare's ghastly death. 
 
The Doom of a City. 103 
 
 Struck silent from its laughter and its moan ; 
 
 The vigorous heart and brain and blood and breath 
 
 Stark, strangled, coffined in eternal stone. 
 
 X. 
 
 Look away there to the right — How the bay lies broad 
 and bright, 
 All athrob with murmurous rapture in the glory of the 
 moon ! 
 See in front the palace stand, halls and columns nobly 
 planned ; 
 Marble home for marble dwellers is it not full fair and 
 boon ? 
 See the myriads gathered there in that green and wooded 
 square. 
 In mysterious congregation, — they are statues every 
 one : 
 All are clothed in rich array ; it is some high festal day ; 
 The solemnity is perfect with that pallid moon for sun. 
 See the theatre ranged high to its dome of deep blue sky ; 
 Tier on tier of serried statues glare impassioned on its 
 stage, 
 On its background of deep night, on its sculptured Chorus 
 white. 
 On its lofty sculptured actors locked in deadly tragic 
 rage: 
 
I04 The Doom of a City. 
 
 Perhaps the drama was too great, — Titans, Furies, eyeless 
 Fate 
 Brooded in such sulphurous darkness thunder-swollen 
 o'er its doom, 
 That the multitude abide overwrought and petrified. 
 Waiting till satyric sun-bursts rend away the crushing 
 gloom. 
 Turn, and o'er the river mark that huge structure scowling 
 dark : 
 It is black stone seamed with crimson, hopeless death 
 with cruel gore : 
 In it stony jailers guard stony prisoners evil-starred ; 
 Dungeoned thus within their dungeon, they are calm 
 and groan no more. 
 Note the temples every one — How the great gods are un- 
 done ! 
 Not a steer or goat or doveling for their holy hunger 
 dies : 
 Cold, long quenched their sacred fires ; dull, long dumb 
 their flattering quires ; 
 All the very priesthood staring at rich gifts with stolid 
 eyes ! 
 Not a maid whose yielding charms can enrich a god's 
 bold arms ; 
 Yet perchance they dwell contented though thus shorn 
 of wealth and state : 
 
The Doom of a City. 105 
 
 Nectar-and-ambrosia-blest, they may bask in perfect rest, 
 Since (with marble joints and larynx) Man rests unim- 
 portunate ! 
 Ha! search eagerly around — every vault beneath the 
 ground, 
 Every mansion, every chariot, every galley, everywhere ; 
 And for ever, ever find all this blissful human kind 
 Lifted up from clay's corruption into marble firm and 
 fair: 
 Fear and shame and anguish stilled, every evil passion 
 killed, 
 Crooked forms and ugly faces grown transcendent 
 works of art ; 
 While the grand or lovely mood of the fair and young 
 and good 
 Is beatified in beauty that can nevermore depart. . . . 
 And the full moon gazeth down on the smokeless lamp- 
 less town. 
 In a solemn trance of triumph, with her choir of radiant 
 stars ; 
 For their peace is vext no more by a curse-and- shriek- 
 swelled roar. 
 By ferocities, obscenities, inebriate brawls and jars : 
 Nay, the very grass and trees, and the disencumbered 
 breeze, 
 And the stainless river-waters, and the broad bright 
 glittering bay, — 
 
1 06 The Doom of a City. 
 
 Do they all joy that the strife of our sordid restless life 
 Is now locked in adamantine bonds of perfect peace 
 for aye ? 
 Ever-loved and gracious garth, Mystic Mother of our 
 birth, 
 This is cruel, bitter, terrible, this joy in our dead rest ! 
 Canst Thou still leap forth and run, glory-speeded round 
 the Sun, 
 O Thou Niobe of World-stars, with Thy fairest and Thy 
 
 best — 
 With Thy vigorous youthful darling lying stbne-cold on 
 Thy breast ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 The Palace gates stand open wide and free ; 
 The King and Queen and all their company, 
 Transfigured in full splendour of their pride. 
 Came flowing forth in one refulgent tide. 
 While trumpets rang their silver-throated blare 
 Of jubilation through the sunny air ; 
 Swept onward slowly 'neath the azure skies 
 Between the myriads of adoring eyes, 
 And poured into the Theatre's dense sea 
 Of many-billowed life triumphantly ; 
 As some grand river in the sunset shine 
 May pour its boon of gold and crimson wine. 
 
The Doom of a City. 107 
 
 Brimming the fulness of the purpled ocean 
 
 Wtiich heaves and sparkles, murmuring proud emotion. 
 
 Gathered together, all awaited there 
 
 Such scenic storms as purify life's air ; 
 
 W^ose scathiess lightnings shimmer wildly grand, 
 
 Whose lofty thunders soothe sure peace more bland ; 
 
 And now, without a throb, without a breath, 
 
 They wait, all frozen into icy death. 
 
 XII. 
 
 O marble Monarch, far more awful now 
 
 Than when thy crown begirt a throbbing brow ! 
 
 No tyrant ever lived so dire and dread 
 
 As He who sways the sceptre in thy stead ; 
 
 Never before on earth did any state 
 
 Beneath oppression cower thus desolate, 
 
 Thus utterly resigned to crushing Fate ! 
 
 Silence btoods ghastly on the dead realm's throne : 
 
 Whatever life, in prayer, or sigh, or moan. 
 
 Would shake the Nightmare of his tyranny. 
 
 Shudders with anguish, horror, lunacy, 
 
 To feel its scorned and strangled pleadings creep 
 
 Like homeless spectres through the vacant deep. 
 
 And wither into nothingness at last — 
 
 Devoid of refuge, unrelieved, aghast. 
 
io8 The Doom of a City. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Palace gates indeed stand open wide : 
 Perchance the stately sepulchre may hide 
 Some single life amidst the desolation, 
 Preserved alone in mystical salvation, 
 Entranced apart in holy contemplation ? 
 Pace up the steps, tread through the hall, — and see 
 In scattered groups all lounging listlessly 
 Those armoured gallants of the Royal Guard — 
 Poor fellows 1 they have found it sadly hard 
 To make their stately moments speed along, 
 Though spurred with wine and gaming, jest and song, 
 Cruelly mulcted of their sumptuous share 
 In the great festival proceeding there. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Haste on, haste on ; awaken from their tomb 
 
 The ghostly echoes, swarming through the gloom. 
 
 Haunting your footsteps, gathering rank on rank. 
 
 Rustling demoniac through the deadly blank ; 
 
 Better, far better that the air be rife 
 
 With weird deliriums of demoniac life, 
 
 Than void with utter idiotic death. 
 
 Haste on, with burning blood and breathless breath; — 
 
The Doom of a City. 109 
 
 How clear are all things round the rapid flight ! 
 
 Shrouded in gloom or washed with pale moonlight, 
 
 The chemistry of terror thus intense 
 
 Burns them all lurid on the shrinking sense. — 
 
 See the mild maiden lettiiig loose her soul 
 
 In tears and blushes o'er the tender scroll 
 
 Which plains his anguish since they two were parted, 
 
 And raves that she, poor thing, is stony-hearted. 
 
 Hurry from room to room, from' hall to hall ; 
 
 And mark the effigies on every wall — 
 
 Warriors and minstrels, nobles. Kings, and priests, 
 
 Adoring, conquering, feasting royal feasts ; 
 
 Olympian forms, ladies divinely fair 
 
 With lily-sceptred hands and flower-crowned hair ; 
 
 See each and all ey'n as you hurry past 
 
 Burst into sudden life, and swarming fast 
 
 Join in the tingling chase through death and night, 
 
 While clamorous echoes voice their mad delight. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Most sweet young Mother ! thou hadst ample pleasure 
 Left quiet alone here with thine infant treasure ; 
 Which, poised unsurely on its feeble limbs, 
 Across the sea-strange marble toward thee swims, — 
 One foot half-lifted, while the arms outplead 
 For thine extended arms to help its need : 
 
no The Doom of a City. 
 
 It stands, thou kneelest ; never on thy breast 
 Shall it fall forward in triumphant rest. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Far in his lofty turret whence the bay 
 
 And half of Heaven's vault were seen alway ; 
 
 The bay, the distant ocean, and with these 
 
 Broad scope of temples streets and palaces, 
 
 The theatre, the square ; the moving throngs, 
 
 Whose converse-murmurs flashing into songs 
 
 And laughters winged with joy were wont to rise 
 
 And wander birdlike through the sun-tranced skies, 
 
 Rippling deliciously the languid air ; 
 
 Alone, yet not alone, the Sage dwelt there. 
 
 Doubtless his individual life required 
 
 In seeming solitude to be inspired 
 
 By constant intercourse with general life. 
 
 And with the universal Spirit ri/e 
 
 In Man and Nature, — One in all their forms. 
 
 Alike contented with its worlds and worms. 
 
 Through all its countless masks alike resplendent. 
 
 The Breath of Life, eternal and transcendent. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 He sits, the full-length statue of a Sage, 
 Amid the busts of those of every age 
 
Tke Doom of a City. lu 
 
 Who handed on the torch of Wisdom, bright 
 
 With growing splendour, 'thwart the billowy night 
 
 Of shoreless Ignorance. Before him lies 
 
 The roll which telleth on what mysteries 
 
 He shed its lustre till they shone out clear : 
 
 I trace its periods by the moonlight here. 
 
 It is with swelling reverence dedicate, 
 
 " Unto the King magnifical and great ; 
 
 The bounteous Sun by whom we live and move 
 
 And flourish ever : Who commands our love 
 
 Even more throughly than our perfect awe ; 
 
 Swaying His burning Throne by Heavenly law, 
 
 While lifted far — by nature as by birth — 
 
 Above the petty statutes of our earth : 
 
 Who while His warmth createth and sustaineth 
 
 Rich life in all, lights all ; and no less deigneth 
 
 To feed abundantly with life and light 
 
 What humble spheres may strive to temper night 
 
 In realms left dark" while His imperial sway 
 
 Vouchsafeth happier realms their boon of day : 
 
 To Him, by Whom our heritage is grown 
 
 The flower o' the World; to Him whose godlike throne 
 
 Shall ever stand beside its subject sea, 
 
 Fulgent with valour, arts and equity, 
 
 Based on a princely people's love and bliss : 
 
 Chrysandros, Tyrant of Cosmopolis ! " ' 
 
112 The Doom of a City. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Follow the problems which he hath resolved 
 
 Though heretofore in clouds of doubts involved : 
 
 " Shall this fair World consume in course of time ? 
 
 Our Earth is young? or old ? or in her prime ? " 
 
 Whereto the Theses proud, less said than sung 
 
 In liberal phrases of his golden tongue : 
 
 " This glorious Universe shall live for ever ; 
 
 By all decay and death diminished never, 
 
 Nor added to by constant birth and growth ; 
 
 But in the balanced interchange of both, 
 
 Ascending slowly by successive stages 
 
 Of nobler Good and Beauty through the Ages ; 
 
 Until its infinite ^ther and the Whole 
 
 Of stars and spheres that through it flashing roll 
 
 Shall be informed with conscious Life and Soul : 
 
 The All, one perfect Sphere, breathing one breath 
 
 Of cosmic Life too pure for birth or death. . . . 
 
 Our Earth has scarcely ceased to be a child. 
 
 Sweet in its grace, but ignorant and wild : 
 
 She putteth on about these very years 
 
 The bloom of maidenhood, whose smiles and tears 
 
 Are all of Love : she openeth out her heart 
 
 In throbs of passionate rapture, to impart 
 
The Doom of a City. 113 
 
 The dearest secrets of her treasured beauty 
 To Man, her Lord ; constrained by yearning duty 
 Which he shall recompense with wiser love : 
 How blest are we all previous men above, 
 Born in this Spring of her millennial Youth ! — 
 
 gracious Truth, divine and tranquil Truth, 
 As I long years have worshipped only Thee, 
 Thou hast at length unveiled Thy face to me, 
 That I may ever of Thy priesthood be ! " 
 
 XIX. 
 
 1 trace not further in the tingling scroll 
 
 The steps by which he reached this glorious goal. 
 
 It is too horrible : — alone, alone, 
 
 I make mad dalliance with the empty flesh, 
 
 Whose form is whole, whose ghastly bloom is fresh ; 
 
 And by my side, that hater of the soul — 
 
 The grinning, the accursfed Skeleton ! 
 
 It is too horrible — O dreadful God, 
 
 Thou know'st — only Thou, 
 What dismal paths my shuddering feet have trod ; 
 Yet never knew I agony until now ; 
 Never, — O Thou who heardst me when I said 
 Coldly and quietly, with confirming heart, 
 " I take thee, Misery, for my faithful Bride : 
 Despair hath smoothed the secret marriage-bed 
 
114 The Doom of a City. 
 
 Wherein we two, embracing close, may hide, 
 
 And wreak our stern unwitnessed vow — 
 Never in life, nor after death, to part. 
 I love thee for the love which only Thou 
 
 Dost bear me : Thy caresses 
 Sting my faint heart. Thy kisses on my brow 
 Are fire and numbing frost, Thy tingling tresses 
 Like serpents creep about me even now. 
 O my enamoured Darling, deadly sweet ! 
 
 Sorcery smitten Sorceress ! 
 
 Queen of lurid loveliness ! 
 Most tender-hearted ministrant of 111 ! 
 My life, my soul is lying at your feet ; 
 Possess me, use me, at your own wild will ! " 
 
 XX. 
 
 fool, fool, fool ! cherishing fatal madness ! 
 Mad with self-consciousness of guilt and woe, 
 Mad with the folly of the world's much gladness 
 While it was no less sunk in guilt and woe ; 
 
 1 shut myself up from the lives around me. 
 Eating my own foul heart — envenomed food ; 
 
 And while dark shadows more and more enwound me. 
 Nourished a dreary pride of solitude ; 
 The cords of sympathy which should have bound me 
 In sweet communion with earth's brotherhood. 
 
The Doom of a City. 115 
 
 I drew in tight and tighter still around me, 
 
 Strangling my best existence for a mood. 
 
 What — Solitude in midst of a great City, 
 
 In midst of crowded myriads brimmed with Life ! — 
 
 When every tear of anguish or of pity, 
 
 When every shout of joy and scream of strife, 
 
 When every deed and word and glance and gesture. 
 
 Every emotion, impulse, secret thought 
 
 Pent in the soul from all material vesture, 
 
 Through all those myriads spread and interwrought ; 
 
 Inspiring each the air with its own spirit. 
 
 Rayed forth as light is from a fount intense ; 
 
 The universal ^ther forced to bear it, 
 
 A certain though mysterious influence 
 
 Affecting duly every other creature 
 
 That breathed its breath of life ; for good or ill. 
 
 For pain or pleasure, acting on each nature. 
 
 Beyond the consciousness, despite the will. 
 
 Dire Vanity ! to think to break the union 
 
 That interweaveth strictly soul with soul 
 
 In constant, sane, life-nourishing communion : 
 
 The rivers ever to the ocean roll, 
 
 The ocean-waters feed the clouds on high 
 
 Whose rains descending feed the flowing rivers : 
 
 All the world's children must how quickly die 
 
 Were they not all receivers and all givers 1 
 
11.6 The Doom of a City. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 But this is Solitude, O dreadful Lord ! 
 My spirit starves in this abysmal air — 
 
 Of every human word, 
 Of sigh and moan, of music and of prayer, 
 Of passionate heart-beats felt though never heard, 
 
 So utterly stript bare : 
 The awful heavens are tranquil and divine, 
 Serene and saintly in their purple deep 
 
 The moon and young stars shine ; 
 No living souls beneath their influence leap, 
 No other eyes are fixed on them with mine : 
 
 Men said that Death and Sleep 
 Are brothers ; — yes, as lurid lightnings may. 
 Be kindred to the glory of calm day, 
 Or darkness of the restful night-tide boon 
 To darkness of the sun eclipsed at noon. . . . 
 The Soul is murdered ; and her world bereft 
 
 By some dire doom still left, 
 A fadeless corpse whose perfect form is rife 
 "With ghastly affectations of true life.'' 
 
 XXII. 
 How long, how long, I cowered beside the Sage ; 
 Whose head was lifted, fronting full the skies 
 
The Doom of a City. 1 1 7 
 
 In tranquil triumph from his victory lone. 
 
 Beneath that broad brow rough with thought and age, 
 
 The pitiless light-beams glittered on his eyes, 
 
 Like fatal swords flashed keen against a stone 
 
 To sharpen them for piercing to the heart, — 
 
 How was his triumph smitten, pierct, and slain ! 
 
 But cowering there apart, 
 Upon those swelling eyeballs, that stern head, 
 I ever gazed ; while in my burning brain 
 
 A cold thought soothing spread : 
 As one who drains a poison-chalice slowly, 
 In fixed and infinite longing to be dead ; 
 So let my yearning vision cleave amain 
 To this grand marble image melancholy, 
 Till I have drunken in to the last drain 
 That poisonous Spirit of Death which fills it wholly. . . . 
 The flesh that crept like worms is growing numb ; 
 The raging fire of blood is dying cold ; 
 The rout of fiendish thoughts are almost d umb : 
 The heavens fade like a Vision cycles-old, 
 Where from dead eyes gaze thoughts uncomprehended : 
 Thank God, I soon shall cease to be alone ; 
 My mad discordant life is nearly blended 
 With all this realm's unsufiering death of stone. 
 
( "8 ) 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE JUDGMENTS. 
 
 A multitudinous roaring of the ocean ! 
 Voices of sudden and earthquaking thunder 
 
 From the invisible mountains ! 
 The heavens are broken up and rent asunder 
 
 By curbless lightning-fountains, 
 Streaming and darting through that black commotion, 
 In which the moon and stars are swallowed with the sky. 
 Throughout the Mausolean City spread 
 Drear palpitations, long-drawn moan and sigh ; 
 And then — an overwhelming whirlwind blast ? 
 Or else, indeed, the irrepressible cry 
 Of all its statues waking up aghast ! 
 Doth God in final Judgment come thus heralded ? 
 
 II. 
 I saw Titanic forms dark, solemn, slow, 
 Like thunderclouds imperious o'er the wind 
 Sweep far with haughty tramplings to and fro ; 
 
The Doom of a City. 119 
 
 I heard great voices peal and trumpets blow : 
 Strange fragments of their chanting shook my mind. 
 
 " If the owl haunts doleful ruins and lives in the sombre 
 
 night, 
 Could it joy in the cheerful homes of men, could it love 
 
 the noonday light ? 
 If the serpent couches in jungles and deserts of burning 
 
 sand, 
 Would it rather cast its slough in the peopled corn-rich 
 
 land? 
 If the great bear prowls alone in desolate wastes of ice, 
 Could it joy to range in herded power through a tropic 
 
 Paradise ? 
 If the vulture gorges on carrion and all abhorrent things, 
 Would it rather slake with fruits and wine the rush of its 
 
 obscene wings ? 
 
 " We sought through the archives of Fate, through all the 
 
 records of Doom, 
 Records of noontide refulgence, records of lightning-seared 
 
 gloom : 
 And lo, we have never found while the highth and the 
 
 depth we explored. 
 We have never yet traced out Punishment or Reward. 
 
120 The Doom of a City. 
 
 " Peace may be happy and sweet ; bitter and heart-rend- 
 ing Strife ; 
 Sin is corruption and death, Virtue is health and life : 
 But every being is placed in that sphere, in that crisis, 
 
 that spot, 
 Which alone its own nature demands and asserts for its 
 
 lot: 
 As itself from itself its web the spider spins out, 
 Doth each all the net of relations which weave it about : 
 The sun shines the sun by the lustre he lavishes forth ; 
 For his might and his life and his light circles round him 
 
 the earth : 
 All the World — this infinite azure robe sphere-spangled 
 
 sublime, 
 In which God walks forth revealed and veiled to the 
 
 creatures of Space and Time, 
 Is all interwoven in one (each atom, each star, as each soul, 
 Evolving so duly the threads of its work for its part in 
 
 the Whole) : 
 With a woof and warp of might and light and mysteries 
 
 all is wrought, 
 For the many-figured many-hued being and passion and 
 
 thought. 
 
 "Here hath a spirit full bliss to breathe ever-bland golden 
 air; 
 
The Doom of a City. 1 31 
 
 Here hath a spirit wild hurrying storms of doubt, dread, 
 
 anguish, despair : 
 For the world-realms are swept on their path for ever, 
 
 through day and night ; 
 And their course is advanced no less, no more, in the 
 
 gloom than in the light : 
 And the journey is infinite truly, — through every various 
 
 clime 
 Do the countless myriads wander on, through every season 
 
 of time ; 
 Cool water for him in the desert-blaze, red fire for him 
 
 in the frost, 
 Languor for him in the summer-peace, fierce heart for the 
 
 tempest-tost : 
 While all whence they know not whither they know not 
 
 wend; 
 Who appraiseth the means and progress, who conceiveth 
 
 the end ? 
 But we swear by the Life Eternal, we swear by Eternal 
 
 Death, 
 We swear by the Fate supreme which rules in every pulse 
 
 and breath ; 
 That strong or weak, simple Or wise, polluted or most holy 
 Each each day is fed with the food befitting him fully 
 
 and solely." 
 
132 The Doom of a City. 
 
 III. 
 
 Again deep peace, again the stars and moon : 
 I stood between the theatre and square, 
 Beholding as before the statues there 
 
 Unstirred and silent in the lethal swoon. 
 
 Lo ! in the empyrean grew a light — 
 
 A great and awful Splendour, through its shroud 
 Of fold on fold of massy thundercloud 
 
 Intensely burning down with steadfast might. 
 
 Wherefrom a Voice descended vast and lone ; 
 Of thunder-dreadfulness, of sea-fierce anger, 
 Yet in its lofty silver-volumed clangour 
 
 Chanting an unimpassioned monotone : 
 
 "When all the wine is poisoned it must be 
 
 Destroyed utterly ; 
 The vessels also which contained it must 
 
 Be burned and ground to dust." 
 
 Instantly shudderings shook the stony crowd ; 
 Son;e rigid arms with writhing spasms were lifted. 
 Some dungeon-throats with frenzy-spasms rifted 
 
 By hideous strangled voices shrieking loud : 
 
 Abominable Fate, 
 
 We hurl thee back thy hate ! 
 
The Doom of a City. 123 
 
 The poison and the wine — 
 Our sins and souls are thine ! 
 Ah ! pangs of utter death 
 Stifle our breath — 
 Hear us ; we plead ; hear us ; oh, wait ! " 
 
 No answer came save trumpet-voices blaring 
 Death and destruction as in furious fray ; 
 And while those forms gasped out their cry despairing 
 They sank down crumbling into dusty spray. 
 Then, as the trumpet clamours died away. 
 Did crash on crash in clear succession sound, 
 Like lingering peals of thunder ; each the knell 
 Of house or column falling to the ground 
 In sudden ruin, as those statues fell. 
 
 And next, as if the solid hills were all 
 
 Disseated now to glide tremendously 
 
 Over the town and plunge athwart the sea, 
 
 A mass of gloom enveloped in its pall 
 
 Temple and palace, basement dome and spire ; 
 
 Then o'er the marble crowd submerging came : 
 
 Its black oppression burned throughout my frame, 
 
 A torture of intolerable fire. 
 
 Yet when at length its ponderous bulk was rolled 
 
 Over the shrinking waters out of sight, 
 
124 The Doom of a City. 
 
 The City and the steadfast statues white 
 Stood all unchanged about me ; but, behold, 
 The uttered condemnation had been wrought 
 Upon the ruined fragments, — they were naught. 
 
 IV. 
 
 That cloud-consuming fire still held the sky. 
 Blotting its worlds out wholly ; while the sphere 
 Seemed listening breathless in an awful fear. 
 
 Till that great Voice again rang forth on high : 
 
 "When now the sapless tree bears bloom nor 
 
 FRUIT, 
 
 Why linger trunk and root? 
 Let it be hewn away and fire-destroyed ; 
 
 And in its place left void 
 a living tree be set to spread and rise, 
 Responsive to the bounty of the skies/' 
 
 The sentence smote some statues like a sword ; 
 With nerveless gestures pitiful to see 
 They moaned their helpless hopeless litany, 
 
 " We lived, we lived, O great and dreadful Lord ! " 
 
 Then as they crumbled into dust away, 
 
 The Answer speeded from the hills behind, — 
 
 A noise of rushing like a mighty wind ; 
 
The Doom of a City. 125 
 
 The ashen fire-flood in a tempest grey 
 Hissed through the City and the wan array ; 
 And hurrying o'er the sea, as if its might 
 With grim joy hasted to fulfil such trust, 
 Swept all the human and palatial dust 
 To irretrievable Chaos, Death and Night. 
 
 And when that deadly storm of fire was past, 
 A Voice came roaring like its final blast : 
 
 " Whose virtue cannot pay their Life's expense, 
 
 Whose souls are lost in sense. 
 They are no more; themselves with God have 
 willed, — 
 
 Their iEON is fulfilled." 
 
 V. 
 Once more that fire possessing sole the sky, 
 
 Once more deep silence o'er the lessened throng 
 
 Of waiting statues ; and it lasted long 
 Ere that great Voice again pealed forth on high : 
 
 " When he who had a Palace and its power. 
 
 Well-favoured for his dower. 
 Has proved unjust and proud, has spent its trea- 
 sures 
 
 On selfish pomps and pleasures ; 
 
ia6 The Boom of a City. 
 
 He must descend from his exalted place : 
 
 Yet, if in deep disgrace 
 He do not sink still deeper, till his breath 
 
 Be wholly quenched in death ; 
 But learn to build again his kingly heart, 
 The throne awaits him and the kingly part." 
 
 Ah ! what a multitude of statues then 
 
 Were shaken by the thunder of this doom ! — 
 " O Lord ! all perish if Thou wilt consume 
 
 In justice ! Lord have mercy on frail men ! " 
 
 Ev'n as the crash of smitten structures roared 
 
 The answering Judgment-terrors filled the sky : 
 
 Inexorably swift it streamed and poured 
 
 A red-fire deluge from that cloud on high, 
 
 Which drowned the City and the multitude. 
 
 Devouring all the space from hills to sea. 
 
 Hissing and roaring the resistless flood 
 
 Plunged through the trembling earth, in haste to flee 
 
 With its vast ravage ; and the earth gaped wide 
 
 To swallow in that cup of wrath amain. 
 
 Then gnashed her seared and riven jaws to hide 
 
 What shook her yet with shuddering throbs of pain. 
 
 How many had become the torrent's prey, 
 
 Swept down abrupt into some lower sphere ! 
 
 But of the rest — can vision cheat me here ? 
 
The Doom of a City. 137 
 
 What forms are these amidst the wan array 
 
 Of human marble ? Strange new stony forms — 
 
 These serpents, panthers, wolves, these apes and swine, 
 
 Vultures and hawks and owls, with sheep and kine. 
 
 And many others, brutes and birds and worms, 
 
 Couched in unutterably piteous rest, 
 
 The sorcery of that Judgment-fire attest. 
 
 VI. 
 
 No more wild agonies shook the steadfast Earth : 
 That night of cloud, unable to sustain 
 Its soul of fire, was withering ; when again 
 
 Upon the silence that great Voice flowed forth : 
 
 " When he who should have travelled all the 
 
 DAY, 
 
 Has lingered on his way 
 
 To SPORT WITH idlers ; OR IN COMMON FEAR 
 Of lone PATHS STEEP AND DREAR, 
 
 Has turned aside to pace down crowded roads 
 
 Of rich and gay abodes ; 
 He must plod this day's journey on the morrow 
 
 With weary rue and sorrow. 
 Ere he can win his happy home, and greet 
 
 The dear friends waiting for his laggard feet." 
 
 Whereunto statue-voices low implored : 
 " Free human fellowship is very sweet ; 
 
128 The Doom of a City. 
 
 Bitter with our own kind as foes to meet — 
 Heavy the load of uncompanioned life ! 
 Alas, we are so weary-sick of strife ! 
 Grant us awhile Thy perfect peace, O Lord ! " 
 
 The humble plaining of that saddest prayer, 
 
 Relapsing into stony silentness, 
 
 So filled my heart that I was unaware 
 
 Until surrounded by its sway and stress, 
 
 How the deep Ocean rushing from its lair 
 
 Bellowed against the hillslopes planted broad ; 
 
 While fierce from sea-vast cloudglooms in the air. 
 
 Blazoned with dreadful sentences of God 
 
 In writhed and quivering lightnings wrought, the rain 
 
 Intense of swerveless thunderbolts streamed down, 
 
 Crashing amidst the ruins of the town. 
 
 And shrieking through the loud inundant main. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The flood below, the flood above ebbed soon 
 Completely ; fair and still the green earth lay, 
 Beneath a heaven surcharged with tenfold day. 
 More holy-sweet of lustre than the moon. 
 I gazed : the statues stood there as before, 
 Like dateless boulders by the old sea-shore : 
 But of the City's vast palatial pride 
 Of all the works of Man on every side — 
 
The Doom of a City. 129 
 
 The theatre's stupendous cirque of tiers, 
 
 The pharos and the galleons and the piers, 
 
 Remained no vestige ; save that here and there, 
 
 Bathed in the sea of crystal-lucent air, 
 
 Some fragment wall, some column cleft stood dim, 
 
 More like strange rocks than structures reared by Him. 
 
 Had that swift deluge been the stream of Time, 
 
 And every billow some vast age sublime. 
 
 Over the vacant City flowing ever 
 
 Until a mind should swoon in the endeavour 
 
 Such infinite cycles of its course to mete. 
 
 Erasure had been scarcely more complete. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The cloud was vanished from the perfect sky ; 
 Heaven earth and sea all floated from my sight. 
 Bathed in a dimness of exceeding light 
 
 Too pure, intense, and calm for mortal eye. 
 
 And yet I saw as we may see in trance, — 
 Saw how a gradual change beatified 
 The statues who had never yet replied 
 
 When those dread Judgments took dread utterance. 
 
 As Memnon woke to music with the dawn, 
 They in the solemn splendour seemed to rouse 
 
130 The Doom of a City. 
 
 From death to life, with glory on their brows ; 
 A calm grand life, eyes shut and breath undrawn. 
 
 The crystal sea of sky then streamed away, 
 
 The inmost Heavens revealed themselves abroad : 
 A Throne . . . the Vision of the Living God . . . 
 
 Ravished and blind upon the earth I lay. 
 
 Once more a Voice descended vast and lone, 
 The Voice of Infinite Love Omnipotent ; 
 Sweeter than life or death, it swelled and blent 
 
 The Universe all tuned into one tone : 
 
 " The soldier who has fought the noble fight, 
 
 Persistent for the right. 
 Enduring all and daring all to prove 
 
 His glad unpurchased love 
 And faithfulness, in triumph and defeat : 
 
 What doom for him is meet ? 
 
 The Battle, with the day it filled, is done ; 
 
 The field is lost or won : 
 Let Night then greet him well with joy and rest 
 
 By holy visions blest ; 
 That on the Morrow he may rise up strong 
 
 Hopeful and fresh and young, 
 
The Doom of a City. 131 
 
 His sharp wounds healed, to do and dare once more 
 
 Heroic as before, — 
 But with a loftier rank, with nobler power. 
 
 With far more generous dower. 
 And so for ever through the Nights and Days 
 While he remaineth lord of his own praise. 
 He may go on, exalted more and more. 
 Till final triumph crown the fateful war ; 
 Till Love and Life and Bliss (which once was 
 
 Faith) 
 Have vanquished wholly Evil, Falsehood, Death ; 
 The loftiest station that his soul can fill, 
 The utmost sway commensurate with his will, 
 The All of Wisdom that he can believe. 
 Of IvOve and Goodness that he can receive. 
 Are then his dower from the reachless Throne 
 And Him who reigns eternally thereon." 
 
 IX. 
 
 I heard it all, — there prostrate on the ground ; 
 
 I floated in the Voice as in a sea, 
 
 Or as a cloud may float dissolvingly ' 
 Within the sapphire noontide's burning bound. 
 
 And when it ebbed it left my shrinking soul 
 To shudder back into its cave of clay, 
 
133 The Doom of a City. 
 
 Blind, hopeless, one dead atom fallen astray 
 From vital union in and with the Whole. 
 
 After a time, from such fierce consciousness 
 
 Of personal being as is lunacy — 
 
 As not to know is perfectly to be — 
 I was withdrawn by human utterances : 
 
 " O Lord ! let us be hidden, let us die ! 
 
 Thy love and wisdom are too infinite ! 
 
 We throb unpeaceful in Thy perfect light, 
 Star-specks of gloom no Sun can glorify. 
 
 " Were we less dark than our old midnight sphere, 
 Transplant us not into Thy blinding day. 
 Lord, we adore Thee, Perfect, Sole, for aye — 
 
 Our sins and weakness crush our spirits here ! " 
 
 X. 
 
 No answer sounded. I arose and stood. 
 
 The gates of Heaven were shut, the Vision gone ; 
 
 But still undimmed miraculously shone 
 That tenfold noon of glareless sanctitude. 
 
 They stood — the Spirits who had conquered life ; 
 
 Erect, yet pleading, hands uplifted, there ; 
 
 Glorious — yet wan with that divine despair : 
 Was this the crowning issue of the strife ? 
 
The Doom of a City. 133 
 
 The noble faces slowly turned to where 
 The dim hills floated, exquisitely drawn 
 Or interfused, like breathless streaks of dawn, 
 
 Upon the breathless ocean of wide air. 
 
 Thereon uplifted stood a lofty band ; 
 
 Some burning with the glory of their wings ; 
 
 Some golden-crowned and purple-robed like Kings ; 
 Some clad in white, a palm-branch in the hand ; 
 
 Some like stern warriors armed with shield and sword ; 
 Some swaying crystal cups in which the -fire 
 Of red wine quivered ; while a radiant quire 
 
 Striking their harps sang loud with sweet accord. 
 
 XI. 
 
 "Dear Friends, come ! we wait for you ; 
 Strong and wise and pure and true. 
 Why, alas, ascend so few? 
 
 " Where are the myriads that should now be here ? 
 
 How have they wasted all the lavish dower 
 With which God fitted them to rule their sphere — 
 
 The Passion and the Vision and the Power ? 
 For ever hoping, disappointed ever. 
 
 We know too well the constant tragic doom : 
 
134 The Doom of a City. 
 
 Vision hath seen, with scarce a work-endeavour, 
 Then closed its eyes for more voluptuous gloom ; 
 
 Passion hath disenshrined the awful soul. 
 Its large heart tempting fatal fleshly lusts ; 
 
 And Power hath shaken off divine control, 
 To gorge itself with universal trusts. 
 
 " For the undone Many, ruth. 
 Ye have conquered, true to truth ; 
 Dare our wine of Joy and Youth. 
 
 "The tree whose trunk and branches dark and bare 
 
 Withstood the storms of Winter, planted strong ; 
 Doth glorify itself in summer's air 
 
 With leaf and fruit and nested bird's blithe song : 
 The earth-realm labouring blind and dumb and cheerless, 
 
 Yet ever onward, through the reign of night ; 
 Leaps forth with joy majestically fearless 
 
 Into the pure new heaven of morning light. 
 Again stern Winter with its storms shall come. 
 
 But find the tree grown stronger 'gainst its wrath ; 
 Again the night-gloom, weary, blind and dumb, 
 
 But find the realm far forward on its path. 
 
 " Then dear Friends, come, come away ! 
 Now is Summer, now is Day. 
 Joy assumes imperial sway ! " 
 
The Doom of a City. 135 
 
 XII. 
 
 As when the warm spring-breezes overblow 
 Some silent, frozen, melancholy main, 
 Its waters heave and throb and rend their chain, 
 
 And singing in the sunbeams flash and flow : 
 
 So with the breathing of that gracious song 
 
 Those Spirits burst their trance of silent sadness ; 
 Their bosoms heaved with glorious life and gladness ; 
 
 Clear-eyed, erect, full-voiced, advanced their throng : 
 
 " O Brothers of this Heaven supreme and glorious ! 
 
 O Sisters of this greeting full of love ! 
 Into what a dawn of perfect day victorious, 
 
 Do ye usher us, and welcome us above ! 
 The World o'erflows with life serene and tender ; 
 
 The air, the light is all celestial wine ; 
 Our inmost soul is interfused with splendour 
 
 And harmony divine ! 
 
 " As birds the boundless azure sky-deep winging, 
 As breezes flowing round and round the earth. 
 
 As flowers into the vernal welcome springing. 
 As fountains leaping seaward bright with mirth ; 
 
 Our thoughts throughout Infinity float chainless. 
 Our souls encompass spheres of life sublime, 
 
i$6 The Down of a City. 
 
 Our beings thrill and glow with new life stainless, 
 Our swift joy laughs at Time ! 
 
 " The worlds go wheeling far their cycled courses, — 
 
 From the fathomless Unbirth of the Abyss, 
 By golden laws attuning counter-forces 
 
 Built up into the noonday Heaven of Bliss : 
 And pervading all, sustaining all, enwreathing 
 
 With Its infinite embrace beneath, above, 
 The ^ther — the Divine eternal breathing 
 
 Of Life and Light and Love ! " 
 
 XIIL 
 
 So singing they advanced with measured pace ; 
 And like a silver morning-mist were drawn 
 Slow floating up the hillside wood and lawn. 
 
 Unto that high seraphical embrace. 
 
 All stood triumphant, beautiful, divine, 
 
 Between the heaven and earth ; all stood there bright; 
 
 Informed, transfigured with the holy light 
 As crystal cups with sacramental wine. 
 
 I would have stood there evermore and gazed 
 Entranced in adoration, consciousless, 
 Upon that beauty of all holiness 
 
 In human forms embodied and upraised. 
 
The Doom of a City. 137 
 
 Alas ! the universal light too soon 
 
 Was fading, flowing backward to its fount, 
 Until they stood upon that sombre mount 
 
 Sole-shining o'er the dark earth as a moon. 
 
 And still the glory-stream flowed back to God ; 
 
 And they with it were floated up the sky ; 
 
 Whose gates shut blank against my straining eye, 
 And left the earth a dark and soulless clod — 
 
 Left all the earth like some most desolate shore 
 Wherefrom has ebbed the free and living tide ; 
 And left me stranded on its dark waste wide, 
 
 A wreck to be recovered nevermore. 
 
 O Life ! this is thy deepest woe of all — 
 That as a soul regains its heaven of birth, 
 The body drags it swooning back to earth, 
 
 Stunned, hopeless, blind with its tremendous fall. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 When I arose the ever ancient Night 
 
 Filled with his sombre pomp the earth and sky : 
 No memories of that doom of dire afiright 
 Perturbed the calm ; and undismayed on high 
 
138 The Doom of a City. 
 
 The moon and stars where they had shone befor 
 Shone on in cold and stern sublimity. 
 The hills loomed dark upon the silent shore, 
 
 Round which the waves in thoughtful monotone 
 Rolled their old voice of Ever — evermore. 
 A royal City dwelt upon this throne, — 
 
 And what now left of all its wealth and pride ? 
 A few strange groups of pallid-gleaming stone ! 
 But Nature cares not for the ruin wide, 
 
 Her dreaming beauty glows in perfect bloom : 
 Most cold, imperial, unlamenting Bride, 
 Her Lord and Bridegroom scarcely in the tomb. . 
 
 The moon sank slowly down from heaven's crest 
 Pale radiance lined and flecked the eastern glooiii : 
 A stir, a breathing thrilled the world's deep rest ; 
 
 No wakening bird, half-wakened, here and there 
 Uttered uncertain warning from its nest ; 
 But spread a cold and fresh and fragrant air. 
 
 That seemed with lifeful breath to cleanse away 
 The grosser shades and vapours everywhere. 
 And all memorials of the night's dismay, 
 
 That pure and odorous the earth might greet 
 The first divine embraces of the Day, 
 Now hurrying up the heavens with fiery feet. 
 
 The crown of burning gold upon his head. 
 Cloud-robed with gold and purple, light and heat . 
 
The Doom of a City. 
 
 Ages on ages in their course have shed 
 
 Ruin of fire and tempest on the earth, 
 Uncounted aeons of her sons are dead ; 
 Yet she exults with aboriginal mirth, 
 
 Nor feels her frame grow weak, her blood grow c 
 But pure and strong and young as at her birth 
 When first God's hand her glorious path outroUed 
 
 For day by day He seals her with His sign — 
 Night's tomb is rent, the gates of heaven unfold 
 To let the ever-youngest Dawn divine. 
 
 Bathe her in balms of sempiternal youth. 
 I think no human soul which here doth pine 
 In personal anguish and with general ruth, 
 
 Without these Dawn-evangels fresh from God 
 Could feel its immortality a truth. 
 Dear are all dawns ; but this that coming trod 
 
 The eastern heavens to kiss the earth's pale brov 
 With heavenly benedictions, when the rod 
 Of the Avenging Justice was but now 
 
 Withdrawn from penal smitings dire ! — what spe 
 That mortals use, what words of lofty vow 
 Or soaring chant can emulate and reach 
 
 The awe, the bliss, the gratitude, the love, 
 
 That saving dawn brought with it from above ? 
 
140 The Doom of a City. 
 
 XV. 
 
 What a dawn asce-ndeth fair through the pure and sil 
 air, 
 Fain to greet with holy rapture what a glorious vii 
 Earth ! 
 From her sins and fears and woes, from her memor 
 by the throes 
 Of a fierce regeneration born anew in perfect birth 
 But what forms, what forms are they, there between 
 sea-loved bay 
 And the spiritual hills with the woods that clothe tl 
 feet; 
 Human forms erect in power, beasts that crouch i 
 birds that cower. 
 But all wrought in fadeless marble, white and shin: 
 pure and sweet? 
 Lo ! as ever more and more broadening out the di 
 doth soar, 
 Kindling emerald purple golden quivering splendc 
 round her way ; 
 What a flush — as if of Life kindling with triumphant si 
 Through the torpid marble — fires them, though f 
 all so steadfast stay ! 
 Lo ! as ever more and more music with the dawn c 
 soar. 
 
The Doom of a City. 141 
 
 Breezes whisper, leaflets murmur, waters warble joy 
 for day ; 
 What a thrill — as if of Life stirring with triumphant strife 
 Through the rigid marble — heaves them, though they all 
 so silent stay ! 
 These are forriis that couch and stand, still as marble 
 fountains grand, 
 Still in meek victorious patience, till the Sea of Life 
 arise ; 
 Till the World-sustaining Sea, Soul of all Eternity, 
 
 Once more fill them with Its waters of the Life that 
 never dies. 
 When the Royal Sun shall leap glorious on yon eastern 
 steep, 
 Gazing grand athwart this province of his measureless 
 domains ; 
 Straightway at that conquering sign, straightway at that 
 glance divine, 
 Soul shall fill them, stone encarnate, life-blood gush 
 through all their veins. 
 And this Nature which doth dream in Titanic sloth 
 supreme. 
 Hill and river, wood and meadow, heaven of azure, 
 careless sea, 
 Shall have all its want fulfilled, strength employed and 
 hosom thrilled 
 
14a The Doom of a City. 
 
 By a lordly domination — soul and thought ar 
 
 free. 
 Oh, that these who in this hour shall attain sue 
 
 dower, 
 Consecrated Lords and Bridegrooms weddin 
 
 virgin Earth, 
 Have such holy strength of will, love faith 
 
 quenchable, 
 Wisdom, justice, making concord of inherit 
 
 worth. 
 As shall give a nobler being from the blissful 
 
 birth ! 
 
 xvr. 
 
 As one who in the morning-shine 
 
 Reels homeward, shameful, wan, adui 
 From orgies wild with fiery wine 
 
 And reckless sin and brutish lust : 
 And sees a doorway open wide. 
 
 And then the grand Cathedral space 
 And hurries in to crouch and hide 
 
 His trembling frame, his branded faci 
 
 The organ-thunders surge and roll 
 And thrill the heights of branching st 
 
 They shake his mind, they crush his so' 
 His heart knells to them with a moar 
 
The Doom of a City. 143 
 
 He hears the voice of holy prayer, 
 The chanting of the fervent hymn ; 
 
 They pierce his depths of sick despair, 
 He trembles more, his eyes are dim. 
 
 He sees the world-wide morning flame 
 
 Through windows where in glory shine 
 The saints who fought and overcame, 
 
 The martyrs who made death divine : 
 He sees pure women bent in prayer, 
 
 Communing low with God above : — 
 Too pure ! what right has he to share 
 
 Their silent feast of sacred love ? 
 
 How can he join the songs of praise ? 
 
 His throat is parched, his brain is wild : 
 How dare he seek the Father's gaze, 
 
 Thus hopeless, loveless, and defiled ? 
 How taint the pureness — though he yearn 
 
 To join such fellowship for aye ? . . . 
 He creeps out pale — May he return 
 
 Some time when he shall dare to stay ! 
 
 As he within that holy fane. 
 
 Was I upon that solemn shore ; 
 One murky cloud, one spoiling stain, 
 
 One jarring note, — all these and more : 
 
144 The Doom of a City. 
 
 A Spectre from the wicked Past, 
 Familiar with the buried years ; 
 
 The joys that fade, the griefs that last, 
 The baffled hopes, the constarit fears ; 
 
 The fair, fair dawn of many a day 
 
 That sinks in storm-clouds red and wild; 
 The souls that in their huts of clay 
 
 Are crushed and buried, all defiled ; 
 The Lusts that rage like savage steeds, 
 
 While Will with reinless hand sleeps on, 
 And drunken Thought but goads their, speeds, - 
 
 Then one mad plunge, and all is gone ; 
 
 The Moods that strew palm-branches now 
 
 And with Hosannas fill the sky. 
 Then shortly crown with thorns the brow 
 
 And mock and scourge and crucify ; 
 The error, guile and infamy, 
 
 The waste of foul and bloody strife, 
 The unforeseen catastrophe. 
 
 That make the doleful drama, Life. 
 
 Ah, what had I to do with these 
 Young lovely souls serene and clear. 
 
 Awaking up by fine degrees 
 To life unsullied as its sphere ? 
 
The Doom of a City. 145 
 
 The Spectre that has roamed forlorn, 
 Sin-restless, through the sombre night ; 
 
 Must creep to its old grave at morn. 
 Nor blot the world of life and light. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Where I had left it, on the lonely strand, 
 Uninjured lay my boat, and lovely ; seeming 
 Some fair sea-creature, of the midsea dreaming 
 
 To light foam-whispers on the yellow sand. 
 
 While yet we skimmed the wavelets of the bay, 
 Methought there rose, ev'n as the sun arose, 
 A vehement Chorus hurrying to its close- 
 Fresh as the breath of the awakened day. 
 
 With vital fires the morning seemed to glow 
 While it rang onward like a trumpet-blast 
 Of keen reveille crying : Night is past ! 
 
 Arouse ye dreamers, to the day and foe ! 
 
 The stars for ever sweep through space, surrounding 
 Their sun-kings and God's central hidden Throne 
 
 With splendour and deep music far-resounding. 
 Though heard by pure celestial ears alone : 
 
 Their music chants His lofty praise for ever. 
 
 Their splendours burn to Him the Light Divine ; 
 
 K 
 
146 The Doom of a City. 
 
 In their grand uneager motions pausing never, 
 They live and sing and shine. 
 
 Eternally they sweep on their vast courses, 
 
 With solemn joy fulfilling His behest ; 
 While the balance of stupendous counter-forces 
 
 Buildeth up a stable Infinite of rest. 
 And the .^Ether, breathing life through vast pulsations, 
 
 Thrills with rapture to their God-supported flight ; 
 And its waves against the rushing constellations 
 
 Break in the foam of light. 
 
 Each world-sphere groweth grandly through the ages 
 
 From its lifeless weltering unsubstantial birth, 
 Through unnumbered fiery throes and cyclic stages 
 
 Till it shines in heaven a life-abounding earth ; 
 Till its vapours are green fields and glorious oceans, 
 
 Till with countless living beings it is rife : 
 By harmony constraining dread commotions 
 
 It is crowned and thronged with life. 
 
 Until conscious, doubting, worshipping Immortals, 
 As they journey on their infinite Life-way, 
 
 Passing through its Birth and Death mysterious portals 
 Inform with spirit-fire the clothing clay : 
 
 And the dead, spectral, consciousless Material 
 Is a dwelling-place for essences divine ; 
 
The Doom of a City. 147 
 
 Throbs with thought and passion deathlessly ethereal, 
 A Heaven-honoured shrine. 
 
 All spirits from their infancy's blind sleeping 
 
 Must struggle to a strong and noble prime 
 Through sins, dangers, anguish, terrors, — ever reaping 
 
 Costly fruits in every season of swift Time : 
 From their fountain in its deepest dark foundation, 
 
 Glory-shrouded in the shadow of God's Throne, 
 Through all worlds to their highest soaring station 
 
 By unrest all have grown. 
 
 Life is only by perpetual on-flowing ; 
 
 Torpid rest is the true life-devouring death ; 
 Through stern struggles all things ever are upgrowing ; 
 
 Sighs and moanings prove a vital-throbbing breath. 
 One alone — Eternal, Infinite, AUholy, 
 
 Is in changeless rest ; the Perfect grows nor grew : 
 Finite souls and all things live by progress solely. 
 
 All are but what they do. 
 
( 148 ) 
 
 PART III. 
 
 THE RETURN. 
 
 Long tranquil days one more than seven ' 
 The beamless sun from out the main 
 
 Went burning through the vault of Heaven, 
 And circled to the deep again : ' 
 
 While day by day in dreamful ease 
 
 We glided o'er the glistening seas. 
 
 Long calm autumnal nights just seven 
 The moon with all her starry train 
 
 Went shining through the vault of Heaven, 
 And circled to the deep again : 
 
 While night by night in dreamful ease 
 
 We glided o'er the glimmering seas. 
 
 Long days so rich in rest, so still j 
 As warm as love, as calm as truth ; 
 
The Doom of a City. 149 
 
 Long nights which did those days fulfil, 
 
 As some sweet girl a fervent youth : 
 While day and night in dreamful ease 
 We floated o'er the silent seas. 
 
 Time set within his circled sky 
 
 A topaz sun, a diamond moon. 
 And thick star-pearls, and made thereby 
 
 A marriage-ring of blissful boon ; 
 With which in ever^dreamful ease 
 We floated o'er the happy seas. 
 
 Did Nature sleep, and dream in sleep 
 
 Of all the Spring and Summer toil 
 Her children were about to reap, — 
 
 The wealth of corn and wine and oil : 
 As day and night in dreamful ease 
 We floated o'er the sleeping seas ? 
 
 Or was it her deep-thoughted mood ; 
 
 A little sad, such loss had been ; 
 And grieved, the dear Past seemed so good ; 
 
 Yet proud, triumphant and serene : 
 As day and night in dreamful ease 
 We floated o'er the solemn seas ? 
 
 I lay in one long trance of rest 
 And contemplation, — free from thought 
 
150 The Doom of a City. 
 
 Of Future issue, worst or best 
 
 To be from Past and Present wrought : 
 While day and night in dreamful ease 
 We glided o'er the trancfed seas. 
 
 II. 
 
 Before me, in the drowsy night outspread, 
 The City whence in anguish I had fled 
 
 A vast dark Shadow loomed : 
 
 So still, so black, it gloomed. 
 It seemed the darkness of a great abyss 
 
 Gulphed in a desert bare ; 
 
 Around whose precipice 
 Dim lamps burnt yellow in the vacant air. 
 Lifted on high portentous. Yet to me 
 Its dark suggestions were of Life, not Death ; 
 Its awful mass of life oppressed my soul : 
 The very air appeared no longer free, 
 But dense and sultry in the close controul 
 Of such a mighty cloud of human breath. 
 The shapeless houses and the monstrous ships 
 Were brooding thunderclouds that could eclipse 
 
 The burning sun of day ; 
 Surcharged with storms of such electric life, 
 Keen as the Ughtning to its chosen prey, 
 Curbless and dreadful when aroused to strife. . . 
 
The Doom of a City. 
 
 ho once has gazed upon the face of Death 
 )nfounds no more its calm with cahnest Sleep ; 
 le terror of that beauty shadoweth 
 is spirit with an influence too deep. 
 
 III. 
 
 id while I gazed upon the sleeping City, 
 id pondered its unnumbered destinies, 
 flood of awe and fear and love and pity 
 relied in my heart and overflowed my eyes 
 
 With unexpected tears, 
 le burden of the message I had brought 
 om that great City far across the sea 
 ly heavy on my soul ; as if for years 
 id years I had been wandering wearily 
 travail with it : now the time was spent ; 
 3W, as a cloud with fire and thunder fraught, 
 must give birth with throes of agony, 
 id perish in the bearing. So I leant 
 ick in the boat, all desolate and distraught, 
 ings shuddering through the faintness of cold fea 
 ;ath passed his hand across my brow ; but went 
 ) lay its plenary pressure on some heart ^ 
 lat throbbed true life — ' for this poor pulse,' thou| 
 He, 
 
152 The Doom of a City. 
 
 Bearing all peace with him ; when suddenly 
 That Spirit which will never be withstood 
 Came down and shook and seized and lifted me, — 
 As men uplift a passive instrument 
 Through which to breathe whatever fits their mood, 
 Stately triumphal march or war-note dread, 
 Anthem, gay dance, or requiem for the dead ; 
 And through my lips with irrepressible might 
 Poured forth its own stern language on the night. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Haughty and wealthy and great, mighty, magnificent, 
 free, 
 
 Empress in thine own right of the earth-surrounding 
 sea ! 
 
 Broad and deep flows the river that feedeth thy mighty 
 heart, 
 
 Bringing from all the zones to crowd thine imperial mart 
 
 Of all their produce the best — their silks, their gems, their 
 gold, 
 
 Their fruits and corn and wine, their luxuries thousand- 
 fold: 
 
 Thy merchants are palaced princes, thy nobles scorn 
 great kings. 
 
 Thy meanest children swell with pride beneath thy sha- 
 dowing wings ; 
 
The Doom of a City. 153 
 
 And thy voice throughout the world, complacently serene, 
 Proclaims ' Of all my Sisters, I am the rightful Queen ! 
 This one is blind, this deaf, and that other is but a mute ; 
 This one is fair indeed, but drunken and dissolute ; 
 This is a very slave, dishonoured long ago ; 
 This one is dying of age, that other of want and woe ; 
 This one is proud and great, but a heathen in her soul, 
 And subject to fatal frenzies, raging beyond control : 
 But I, I am rich and strong, I am wise and good and free ; 
 Throned above them. Empress sole of the earth-surround- 
 ing Sea ! ' 
 
 " Yes, indeed thy power is great, but thy evil is great 
 no less, 
 
 And thy wealth is poor to pay the debt of thy guiltiness ; 
 
 And the world is judged with justice, and thou must 
 pass through that fire 
 
 Which hath tested so sternly the glitter of Venice and 
 Carthage and Tyre : 
 
 For no wealth can bribe away the doom of the Living 
 God, 
 
 No haughtiest strength confront the sway of His chasten- 
 ing rod. 
 
 Repent, reform, or perish ! the Ages cry unto thee : 
 
 Listen, oh listen, ere yet it be late, thou swarthy Queen 
 
154 The Doom of a City. 
 
 " Thy heritage vast and rich is ample to clothe 
 The whole of thy millions of children beyonc 
 
 need; 
 One of the two main wheels whereon thy F; 
 
 move 
 Is that each as he loves himself so shall he his r 
 
 love : 
 But thy chief social laws seem strictly framed tc 
 That one be corruptingly rich, another bitterly j 
 And another just starving to death : thy fanes ; 
 
 sions proud 
 Are beleaguered with filthy hovels wherein poor 
 
 crowd, 
 Pining in body and soul ; untaught, unfed by tl 
 Who are good if they merely dribble bland al 
 
 fatal woes — 
 Resigning scarcely aught of their pleasure and ] 
 
 content, 
 Nor dreaming that all their life is one huge embe 
 
 " The sumptuous web of thy trade encompassir 
 
 globe 
 Is fretted by gambling greed like a moth-eaten 
 Is slimed by creeping fraud, is poisoned by fa 
 
 breath. 
 
The Doom of a City. 155 
 
 " The mass of thy rulers live with scarcely one noble 
 aim, 
 
 Scarcely one clear desire for a not inglorious fame ; 
 
 Slaves to a prudence base, idolaters unto Might, 
 
 Jailers of lofty zeal, infidels to pure Right, 
 
 Deaf to the holy voice of the Conscience of the World, 
 
 Blind to the banner of God when it floats in the storm 
 unfurled ; 
 
 They, and with them the array of thine actual Priest- 
 hood, thy proud 
 
 And numberless Father-confessors, — ineffable crowd 
 
 Of scribes who by day and by night, unceasingly blatant, 
 dictate 
 
 rhine every move in the contest with Time the Servant 
 of Fate. 
 
 " Thy flaring streets each night affront the patient skies 
 With an holocaust of woes, sins, lusts and blasphemies ; 
 When thy thousands of harlots abroad with the other 
 
 thousands are met 
 3f those who made them first and who keep them harlots 
 
 yet : 
 30 dreadful, that thou thyself must sometimes look for 
 
 the fire 
 That rained from heaven on Sodom to make thee one 
 
156 The Doom of a City. 
 
 " Thy Church has long been becoming the Fossil of a 
 
 Faith ; 
 The Form of dry bones thou hast, but where are the 
 
 blood and breath ? 
 Dry bones, that seem a whole, with dead sinews binding 
 
 the parts. 
 Inert save when bejuggled to ghastly galvanic starts : 
 Though thou swearest to thy people, ' The King is but 
 
 sick, not dead ' — 
 Gaining the time while you choose you another in His 
 
 stead ; 
 Though thy scribes and thy placemen all, most of whom 
 
 know the fact, 
 Vouchsafe in His name to write, pretend by His will to act: 
 Where are the signs of His life ? — While living He never 
 
 ceased 
 To thrill with the breath of His being thy realm from the 
 
 West to the East ; 
 While He lived He fought with sin, with fleshly lust and 
 
 pride ; 
 While He lived His poor and mean were wealthy and 
 
 dignified ; 
 While He lived His reign was freedoih, faith, chastity, 
 
 peace and love ; 
 And the symbol borne pn his banner was not the raven 
 
 but dove ; 
 
The Doom of a City. 157 
 
 "hile He lived there yawned a Hell with a Devil for his 
 
 foes, 
 nd a God-ruled Heaven of triumph before his followers 
 
 rose; 
 /^hile He lived the noblest of men were wholly devoted 
 
 to Him, 
 'he saints, the bards, the heroes, in soul and mind and 
 
 limb,^- 
 /ho now without a Leader, mournful in silence wait, 
 rirding each one himself to his lonely fight with Fate. 
 
 But thou, O Queen, art false : a liar, if He is dead 
 
 nd becoming a mammoth fossil whose eeon is wholly 
 sped; 
 
 . traitor if still He lives and shall for ever reign, 
 
 or thou spurnest the laws most sacred of all He doth 
 ordain, 
 
 hould Christ come now from Heaven, to reap the 
 harvest sown 
 
 ^hen He buried Himself in the earth, watered with blood 
 of His own, 
 
 low many Christians indeed could He gather with strict- 
 est care 
 
 rom thy two hundred myriads who claim in Him a share? 
 
 le agonisfed to save thee and thy children all ; 
 
 .nd He saveth scarcely enough to delay thy deadly fall. 
 
158 The Doom of a City. 
 
 " For fall thou wilt, thou must — so proud as thy state is 
 
 now, 
 Thou and thy sisters all, scarce better or worse than 
 
 thou, 
 If ye do not all repent, and cleanse each one her heart 
 From the foulness circling with its blood to poison every 
 
 part. 
 Woe to thy pampered rich in their arrogant seliishness ; 
 Woe to thy brutelike poor who feel but their bread- 
 distress ; 
 Woe to thy people who dare not live without hope of 
 
 wealth, 
 Who look but to fruits of the earth for their life and 
 
 saving health ; 
 Woe to thy rulers who rule for the good of themselves 
 
 alone. 
 Fathers who give their children crying for bread a 
 
 stone 
 Woe to thy mighty men whose strength is unused or 
 
 sold ; 
 Thy sages who shut their eyes when Truth is stern to 
 
 behold ; 
 Woe to thy prophets who smite Peace, Peace, when it is 
 
 a sword ; 
 Thy poets who sing their own lusts instead of hymns of 
 
 the Lord ; 
 
The Doom of a City. 159 
 
 Thy preachers who preach the life of what they feel to 
 
 be death ; 
 Thy sophists who sail wild seas without the compass of 
 
 faith ; 
 Thy traders trading in lies and in human bodies and 
 
 souls ; 
 Thy good men cursing those better who strive on to 
 
 loftier goals : — 
 The final Doom evolveth, burdened with woe on woe, 
 Sure as the justice of God while yet by His patience slow; 
 For the earth is pervaded wholly, through densest stone 
 
 and clod. 
 With the burning fire of the law of the Truth of the 
 
 Living God ; 
 Consuming the falsehood, the evil, the pride, the lust, 
 
 the shame. 
 With ever-burning unrelenting irresistible flame ; 
 Until all save the purest spirit, eternal, of truth and love. 
 Be altogether consumed away, beneath as well as above." 
 
 1857- 
 
( i6o ) 
 
 THE DELIVERER.^ 
 
 I WAS a captive. Massive walls sevenfold 
 Encompassed all the prison, high and bare ; 
 
 The stone, the brass, the iron, the triple gold. 
 And yet another which we knew not there. 
 
 Year after year I wasted there alone ; — 
 
 Now quiet, crushed beneath that woe immense ; 
 
 Now moaning with a weary changeless moan ; 
 Now frantic with still-baffled impotence : 
 
 And heard at times through all that stony gloom 
 
 The idiotic laugh, the piercing cry 
 Of others ; each within his living tomb 
 
 Chained wretched, helpless, impotent as I. 
 
 Until one eve, when I felt sick to death, 
 I found a love-prayer cowering in my heart ; 
 
 And clothed it with strong wings of passionate breath. 
 And sent it thro' the Heavens to plead our part. 
 
 ^ Reprinted by permission from the Fortnightly Review. 
 
The Deliverer. i6i 
 
 Ireadful Lord, O gracious God, I know 
 
 at I and all the other captives here 
 
 : wrought, each for himself, this doom of woe : 
 
 t Thou, All-merciful, bend down thine ear ! 
 
 s, alas ! what have we for a plea ? 
 ; are most wretched ; wretched most in this, 
 tho' we strive, we cannot burn to Thee 
 love as Thou to us and all that is." 
 
 at same night, when I was fallen asleep 
 ter such agony of yearning prayer, 
 ice came gliding through my slumber deep, 
 voice, a glow, a waft of vital air. 
 
 ce ; and, raising gloom-attempered eyes, 
 ey blinked at lustre, but no form could see. 
 Voice rang singing sweet, " Awake, arise ! 
 d come out hither, and be ever free ! " 
 
 )d — the fetters kept no longer hold ; . 
 ■alked straight forward through the dungeon-wall, 
 through the others — brass and iron and gold ; 
 d passing thro' them felt them not at all. 
 
 ill the while that Voice sang full and sweet, 
 !ome forth, come forth, poor captives every one ! 
 
1 63 The Deliverer. 
 
 Oh, shut not fast your ears when I entreat ! 
 
 Come forth, and breathe the air and see the sun ! " 
 
 I thought myself quite free, when, lo ! I found 
 An adamantine barrier foil me there : 
 
 I could not see, could scarcely feel its bound, — 
 A wall, a curtain woven of pure air. 
 
 What poignant anguish pierced my blissful trance, 
 Thus baffled at the very verge of Heaven ! — 
 
 " Dear Angel of divine deliverance, 
 Assist me here^ for I in vain have striven ! " 
 
 Louder and sweeter rang the glorious Voice, 
 " Has one, then, wakened up to feel my breath ? 
 
 All holy spirits in your choirs rejoice ; 
 
 Another soul is saved from bonds and death ! " 
 
 The Spirit was beside me dazzling bright ; 
 
 It burned the way before me through that wall ; 
 And I was free beneath the heaven of night, 
 
 Nor felt the barrier I passed thro' at all : 
 
 But looking back could see a wall-veil then, 
 As smooth as glass, opaquely black as jet. 
 
 Towering on high beyond my farthest ken ; 
 But know not by what name to call it yet. 
 
The Deliverer. 163 
 
 )ne who almost swooning drinks of wine, 
 
 drank in deep the universal air 
 
 I glorious freedom of the world divine ; 
 
 hen fell down worshipping the Splendour there. 
 
 lised me gently as a wounded dove, — 
 Revere, but worship not, a fellow soul : 
 jre the infinite Wisdom, Truth, and Love, 
 ?he life and breath and being of the Whole." 
 
 vas compact of such intense pure flame, 
 That still mine eyes were shut to It, in sooth ; 
 e ardour from It thrilled through all my frame 
 Like new and purer blood, new life, new youth. 
 
 Icissed my brow with such a ravishment 
 Df burning bliss that half I swooned away, 
 d felt my spirit soaring forth unpent 
 From its dissolving funeral urn of clayl 
 
 lenceforward re-assume thy primal dower ! 
 [ bless thee unto perfect liberty 
 ' holiest faith and love : 'tis in thy power 
 As thou art now, in heart to ever be. 
 
 Dn earth's most miry ways shall slip thy feet. 
 This brow itself may catch the evil stain ; 
 
164 The Deliverer. 
 
 But faith and love can burn thee pure and sweet : 
 — Farewell, until we may unite again ! " 
 
 How did these gracious words beneficeiit 
 Fill me with dread and agony ! — I cried, ' 
 
 " Great Spirit, if it be thy blest intent 
 To save me truly, leave not yet my side ! 
 
 " Stay with me yet awhile, Deliverer, Thou ! — 
 I am too weak with chains, too blind with gloom. 
 
 For unassisted life ; left lonely now, 
 I must relapse into that hideous tomb. 
 
 " Or at the least, disrobe awhile Thy form 
 Of its too much effulgence, that my sight 
 
 May meet thy face ; and so thro' every storm 
 Preserve one Guiding-star, one Beacon-light.'' 
 
 " Because I burn in my pure nakedness. 
 Thou canst not meet me with thy mortal gaze . . 
 
 Thy prayer is granted : a material dress, 
 
 A form of shadowing gloom my soul arrays." 
 
 Oh bliss ! I saw Her thro' the sevenfold veil ; — 
 
 A mighty Seraph shining riiby-cleai:, 
 Clothed in majestic wings of golden mail ; 
 
 A sun within the midnight atmosphere. 
 
The Deliverer. 165 
 
 But still her countenance I scarce could scan, 
 
 For living glories of the golden hair, 
 And rapture of the eyes cerulean 
 
 As solemn summer heavens burning bare. 
 
 Around her head a crystal circlet shone. 
 Fore-crested with a pure white flying dove : 
 
 In emeralds and in sapphires writ thereon, 
 
 Athwart the brow, one word was flaming, — Love. 
 
 And when she spoke her voice was now so sweet 
 In soft low music, tremulous with sighs. 
 
 That one might dreaming hear his Mother greet 
 With such a voice his soul to Paradise. 
 
 " He is so weak, so weak who should be strong. 
 Weak as a babe, faint-hearted, almost blind ; 
 
 The curse of previous bondage clingeth long : 
 He must not lapse into that den behind. 
 
 " The sun indeed shines ever in the sky : 
 
 But when the realm is turned from him to night, 
 
 When moon and stars gleam faint and cold on high 
 Or else are veiled by stormy clouds from sight ; 
 
 "The traveller then through field and sombre wood 
 Finds his own poor dim lamp best guide his feet 
 
i66 The Deliverer. 
 
 The man at home his household taper good 
 For useful light, his household fire for heat. 
 
 " Celestial flowers are set in earthly clay : 
 However small the circle of a life, 
 
 If it be whole it shall expand for aye ; 
 
 And all the Heavens are furled in Man and 
 
 " So thou, the man, the circle incomplete, 
 Shalt find thy other segment and be whole ; 
 
 Thy manhood with her womanhood shall meet 
 And form one perfect self-involving soul. 
 
 "Thy love shall grow by feeling day by day 
 Celestial love, thro' human, blessing thee; 
 
 Thy faith wax firm by witnessing alway 
 Triumphant faith for ever glad and free. 
 
 " By her obedience thy soul shall learn 
 How far humility transcendeth pride ; 
 
 By her pure intuitions shall discern 
 The fatal flaws of reason unallied. 
 
 "Thou shalt see strength in weakness conquer 
 The bravest action with the tenderest heart, 
 
 Self-sacrifice unconscious hallowing 
 
 The lightest playing of the meanest part. 
 
The Deliverer. 167 
 
 " Chastity, purity, and holiness 
 
 Shall shame thy virile grossness ; and the power 
 Of beauty in the spirit and its dress 
 
 Reveal all virtue lovely as a flower. 
 
 " Till love for her shall teach thee love for all ; 
 
 Till perfect reverence for her shall grow 
 To faith in God which nothing can appal, 
 
 Tho' His green world be dark with sin and woe. 
 
 " Children, by all they are to glad and grieve, 
 Shall teach thee what a loving Father is, 
 
 And how to give is better than receive : — 
 I bless thee with all household charities. 
 
 " A priceless boon ! and, like such boons to men, 
 A glorious blessing or a fatal curse : 
 
 Thou canst not sink back into yon vile den ; 
 Sinking at all, thou sinkest to a worse.'' 
 
 When thus her words were ended, it might seem 
 That I was lapsing from a heavenly trance 
 
 Into some scarce less blissful earthly dream. 
 So wonderfully did a change advance. 
 
 Her supernatural beauty grew less bright, 
 Tho' scarce less beautiful ; the fiery name 
 
i68 The Deliverer. 
 
 Died out like fire ; the wings of flashing light 
 Were slowly back-withdrawn into her frame. 
 
 The Spirit of the empyrean Heaven 
 
 Was incarnated into human birth, 
 The purest Seraph of the loftiest Seven 
 
 Became a maiden of this lower earth. 
 
 Yet still she was the same, thus different : 
 
 The pinions there, tho' not put forth in power ; 
 
 The glory there, tho' in the body pent ; — 
 Both sheathed thus safely till the fitting hour : 
 
 And in her mien, and on her face and brow, 
 And in her violet eyes, as clear the sign 
 
 Of Love supreme and infinite shone now 
 As when it blazed in jewel-fires divine. 
 
 I woke. A tender hand all silently 
 
 Had drawn the curtain and dispersed the gloom ; 
 The whole triumphant morning in a sea 
 
 Of warmth and splendour dazzled thro' the room. 
 
 The dearest face, the best-belovfed eyes, 
 
 Were shining down upon me where I lay ; — 
 
 Aglow with love and rapturous surprise. 
 Seeing my fever was all passed away. 
 
 November, 1859. 
 
( i69 ) 
 
 A FESTIVAL OF LIFE. 
 
 " The One remains, the many change and pass ; 
 Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly ; 
 Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
 Stains the white radiance of Eternity, 
 Until Death tramples it to fragments. . . ." 
 
 Shelley's Adonais. 
 
 The wind, in long gusts roaring, 
 Over the sea-waste hurled with passionate might 
 The torrent-rush of ponderous rain down-pouring 
 Through that unbounded darkness of wild night. . . 
 I gazed into the tumult ; seeing naught ; 
 But mastered by it into solemn thought, 
 Such as can seldom brood in garish day, — 
 
 Whose myriad sounds and forms and hues 
 
 Their, sparkling sensual wine infuse. 
 Till the soul drowses in its drunken clay. 
 Night scorns to pamper fleshly ears and eyes 
 With earth's poor store of fleeting luxuries, 
 
 Appealing to the Soul alone 
 
 In its stupendous Monotone, 
 Austerely murmuring spells of timeless mysteries. 
 
170 A Festival of Life. 
 
 Long sightlessly outgazing 
 
 I stood, when through the cloven dark, behold, 
 
 A dome of purest crystal lifted, blazing 
 
 With living splendours — purple, jasper, gold. 
 
 And crowning all, serenely arched on high, 
 
 A solemn depth of sapphire like a sky. 
 
 Far-piercing tremulous lines of watery light 
 And sheeted lustres wild and riven, 
 Like sunset glories tempest-driven, 
 
 It pours against the streaming gloom of night. 
 
 Sustaining this aerial canopy 
 
 White marble columns gleam unsteadfastly ; 
 Yet by its hovering poise in air, 
 ' It seems self-borne to revel there, 
 
 Surmounting furious blasts over the lurid sea. 
 
 I stand by it envaulted. . . . 
 The palace thrills throughout from dome to floor 
 In swells of jubilant harmony, exalted 
 By the storm's intermittent clash and roar : 
 How the full volumes of orchestral sound 
 Outsurge continuously and sweep around ! 
 As clouds by winds, see, swayed by their sweet measure, 
 All floating, gliding, sinking, heaving. 
 The countless Masquers interweaving 
 An Iris-coloured maze of dizzy pleasure 
 
A Festival of Life. 171 
 
 About the sea-like floor of marble green, 
 
 All waved with multitudinous waves, whose sheen 
 
 And restless shades the vision cheats ; 
 
 They seem to flow beneath the feet- 
 Which thrid that graceful dance of festive life serene. 
 
 Around the shorelike border, 
 Opening to arched recess and far aisle dim, 
 The feast-spread tables range in stately order. 
 What golden bowls, a-tremble to the brim. 
 Beneath the lamps in constellations shine 
 With jewels and the jewel-gleams of wine ! 
 What fruits are clustered into glorious piles 
 
 Throughout the feast's magnificence. 
 
 On whose uncumbered affluence 
 Flowers shed the grace of their ethereal smiles 1 
 Round the broad tables sumptuous couches flow. 
 Soft as June clouds, suffused with many a glow. 
 
 Of crimson, amber, violet dark : 
 
 Deep-dyed from each recesses' arc 
 The massy curtains fall, down-sweeping full and low. 
 
 And children sport there tameless. . . . 
 O happy, happy children ! happier far, 
 Possessed by unsought joyance free and aimless. 
 Than those tall masks with laboured pleasures are. 
 
172 A Festival of Life. 
 
 Through feast and dance they flit with shining faces, 
 Wreathing, unwreathin?, in capricious chases. 
 With ringing laughters at their own swift wiles. 
 
 And yet a few, of strange grave mood, 
 
 Pace in shadowy solitude 
 Those many-columned labyrinthine aisles, 
 Which, opening through the oriels, link to zone 
 The gem-bright feast with dark grey caverned stone : 
 
 Though scarcely man or woman dares 
 
 That dusk instinct with lightning-glares, 
 Down whose far desert vistas waves and tempest moan. 
 
 The dome's broad-soaring lustres 
 Are poised upon one massive coil of gold ; 
 A ruby-crested serpent, starred with clusters 
 Of flashing gems ; its mighty bulk outrolled 
 In cyclic rest for ever; while, consumed. 
 The End in the Beginning lies entombed : 
 Gorgeous the symbol of Eternity ! 
 
 The grand pilastered sweep of wall 
 
 Lives and glows around the hall. 
 Divinely pictured ; earth and sea and sky 
 Have yielded the best grandeurs and delights 
 Of all their rolling seasons, days and nights. 
 
 To make these fields of space expand 
 
 Into an infinite Wonder-land 
 By their infinitude of dream-surpassing sights. 
 
J Festival of Life. 173 
 
 Sculptures serenely gracious 
 From out the flowing draperies' regal dyes, 
 Around the banquet-circle cool and spacious, 
 Gleam half-revealed to my enchanted eyes. 
 How can the festival flow undelayed 
 Amidst the heavenly visions here displayed ? 
 How is it not rapt still, in breathless trance ?^ 
 What scenes of rock, field, sky and sea, 
 Flung round in infinite harmony ! — 
 That wood where uncouth creatures sport and dance 
 In the weird dimness streaked with silvern fays : 
 That Eden quivering in the noontide blaze. 
 
 Nymphs languid in its fountain-bowers : 
 
 That sea-built City's domes and towers 
 
 Consuming in the Sunset's slow-breathed fiery haze ! 
 
 " Evohe ! our high Palace ! 
 We dance, we dance, with dance- exulting feet ! 
 We grow immortal, draining bowl and chalice 
 Of this life-burning wine-blood nectar-sweet. 
 And banqueting on this ambrosial food ! 
 While ever and anon, in rapturous mood 
 Outstealing from the revel, pair by pair 
 
 Hide far within some dim recess. 
 
 And, faint with fervid eagerness, 
 Unlock the wildering wealth of love they share ! 
 
174 A Festival of Life. 
 
 What though black Night inspheres us, — storm and rain 
 Assaulting this fair Heaven with fury vain ? 
 
 Our music-storm poured strong and fast 
 
 Can balance well the outer blast, 
 And yon resplendent dome for evermore sustain ! " 
 
 With clash of wine-cups ringing, 
 So rose from flower-crowned feasters swaying there 
 The fervent Paean, swelled with choral singing 
 By many a gallant Knight and lady fair. 
 What strength of wisdom and sure self-reliance 
 Could make these bold to fling such gay defiance 
 To all the dreadful Powers of ancient Night ? — 
 
 These — pigmies swarming in the deep 
 
 Beneath their own dome's burning sweep ; 
 These — motes invisible beneath Heaven's height ! 
 But ere was ended the impetuous song, 
 A tremor ran electric through the throng : 
 
 With pallid cheek and restless eye. 
 
 With urgent voices loud and high,- 
 Fear made them more and more the vauntful strains 
 prolong. 
 
 " Ha ! what a burst of thunder ! 
 How the swift lightnirigs blanched our splendours pale ! 
 Reweave the links of dance, too long asunder ! 
 Let loose again the music's lifeful gale ! . . . 
 
A Festival of Life. 175 
 
 But who are these, this never-bidden Pair, 
 Unnoticed while our joy-song dimmed the air? 
 Who are these masked in such mysterious wise ? 
 
 What twain of all our company 
 
 Are missing from the revelry ? — 
 They have assumed this melancholy guise 
 To shed fantastic wildness on our sport. 
 All here ! — then who are Ye, not of our court ? 
 
 Whence come ye ? wherefore thus invade 
 
 Our blissful brightness with the shade 
 Of sombre masks and robes, and joy-contemning port ? " 
 
 Silent and dark and solemn, — 
 While the mixed tumult of amazement died 
 In deep hushed awe, — firm-planted as the column 
 Of dusky-splendid porphyry at their side. 
 The Strangers stood, absorbing all the scene 
 With slow calm eyes and wonder-baffling mien ; 
 Two awful Spirits of the outer Night ! 
 
 For age-like moments that ensued 
 
 The Saturnalian multitude 
 Was frozen into marble undelight ; 
 Continued numb with terror, — lost and drowned 
 In that weird breathless agony profound, 
 
 Like a Nightmare's stifling pain 
 
 Crushing, maddening heart and brain, 
 When utter, monstrous Silence yawns like death around. 
 
176 A Festival of Life. 
 
 Till life, resurgent, tingled 
 
 In burning blood through every shrunken vein ; 
 
 And one deep panting from all breasts commingled 
 
 To mark remission of that deadly strain 
 
 And over tension of the subtle strings 
 
 Whose music is the life of living things. . . . 
 
 Again with joy and power from secret caves 
 
 The full dance-harmonies outstreaming 
 Woke the Masquers from their dreaming, 
 
 Again they floated on the buoyant waves. 
 
 And all, it seemed, with fiercer yearning thirst. 
 
 Triumphant o'er the pallid swoon now burst. 
 Seized the fiery cup of bliss 
 Mantling high to greet their kiss ; 
 
 And in delirious draughts awe doubt and fear immerst. 
 
 The dim voluptuous languor 
 Of clouds surcharged with perfumes, slow and dense 
 UproUed from precious burnings, veiled the clangour, 
 The harmonized confusion grown intense, 
 Reckless, and surging with a wild desire 
 Most keenly hungered when most fed, like fire ; 
 — Veiled the vast revel, even from their seeing. 
 
 Whose Bacchic frenzy broken loose 
 
 Was now the element profuse 
 That breathed it into such portentous being. 
 
A Festival of Life. 177 
 
 And few of all involved in this rich screen 
 Saw now the Strangers of mysterious mien ; 
 Whose dark intolerable eyes 
 Burned through the tumult and disguise, 
 Commanding like Omniscience all the wildered scene. 
 
 But power to me was given 
 To see, to pierce the gloomy robes austere. 
 Which (as our world's gross night hides Hell and 
 
 Heaven, 
 From mortals sick with longing, wild with fear) 
 Concealed these Two in undistinguished shade. 
 I saw the Vision of a Queen, arrayed 
 In midnight purple laced with snowy cloud, 
 Which as her bosom heaved shone far 
 With purest jewels, star on star. . . . 
 Grand Queen ; dread Pythoness : her tall form bowed : 
 Transcendent beauty lost in desolate grace : 
 Her long dark hair thrown down about a face 
 So pale with awful mysteries 
 Of perfect love and woe and bliss. 
 That my own heart grew wild panting for her embrace. 
 
 But, Heaven be our protection 
 Against the Demon standing at Her side ! — 
 By what dread lunacies of blind affection, 
 Or monstrous Destiny to Her allied ! 
 
lyS A Festival of Life. 
 
 Infernal Horror ! — His rent forehead crowned 
 
 With hideous snakes writhing and interwound, 
 
 A many crested coil distinguishless ; 
 
 While through black cloud with red fire sea 
 His vast and fleshless frame appeared 
 
 Momently shuddering into Nothingness. 
 
 On His disfeatured face was stamped a grin 
 
 Of unimagined foulness, hate and sin, 
 
 Anguish, greed, and rage and scorn, 
 And fiendish triumpli most forlorn. . , . 
 
 Thus stood They side by side amidst the festal din 
 
 Wilder and ever wilder 
 The revel surged beneath its glowing dome ; 
 And still the outside rage grew ever wilder, 
 As if all powers that have in Night their home, 
 Lightning and thunder, rain and stormy blast, 
 Held their wild revel in its sightless vast. . . . 
 Then those Two Shapes were moved from stony re 
 And, keeping still their sable shroud. 
 Moved forward mingling with the crowd ; 
 Each with a strange keen eagerness represt. 
 He seized an aged yet carousing Knight ; 
 She kissed a young girl's forehead drooping white ; 
 These dancing linked in languid grace. 
 Those hurrying forth with swerveless pace, 
 
A Festival of Life. i'j() 
 
 Soon through a curtained portal passed from out our 
 sight. 
 
 There rose shrill lamentation 
 From revellers fixed awaiting their return ; 
 Inexplicable grief and consternation 
 Possessed them, — dread yet keen desire to learn 
 The fate of those led forth so suddenly ; 
 And tremulous murmurings spread. . . . Then all 
 
 might see 
 Those Shapes mysterious coming back alone. . . . 
 
 The Silence gave one reckless shout, 
 
 " The Knight was old and wearied out, 
 The Maid was sick and faint some hours agone : 
 These have but ushered them to rest and peace. 
 In sooth full kindly — But why therefore cease 
 
 The banquet and the dance ? Away ! 
 
 Every moment of delay 
 Is squandered from our joy's brief unreturning lease." 
 
 The rude spell fearless-hearted 
 Swayed back the riant feast-joy's ebbing flood : 
 But one — the Lover of the girl departed — 
 Approached the Woman desperately, and sued 
 With passion such as will not be denied 
 For reunition with his promised bride. 
 
A Festival of Life. 
 
 She led him forth in Her divine embrace ; 
 
 And then returned without the boy, 
 
 Inspired by some exalted joy, 
 Which shone with holy splendour in Her face, 
 A.nd bounded in Her port and heaved Her breast. 
 But of the remnant every one represt 
 
 In silence of uneasy thought 
 
 The wonder that within him wrought : 
 The mystery had power to awe down open quest. 
 
 Thenceforth a voice of wailing, 
 3f grief that spurned all comfort, still increast, 
 For dear ones lost for ever, countervailing 
 The shouted songs and laughters of the feast ; 
 tVhose wine ran like a mountain rill, which grows 
 [n strong and swift abundance as it flows. 
 For the dread Strangers thinned the joyous rout ; 
 
 With stern and Fateful ministry 
 
 Removing almost momently 
 VEan, woman, child, youth, maid, — selected out 
 3y some inscrutable and lawless law. 
 ilany to Her went willingly, I saw ; 
 
 And fascinated by the bliss 
 
A Festival of Life. 1 8 1 
 
 But it was shameful, fearful, , 
 
 To mark of those He gestured to His side 
 How many shrank, with ravings wildly tearful 
 Of idiot pleas ; while stalwart feastmen cried 
 " Grant us but one more hour of wine-fired glee ! 
 Others may fail ; but we, lacchus ! we 
 Could mount high revels with the mounting sun." 
 A few with high-wrought calmness grand 
 Took His stretched imperious hand, 
 And seemed, though then all powerless and undone. 
 To cope with His Omnipotence of Fate, 
 Yielding at once with undissembled hate. 
 
 But trembling wretches clustered near. 
 Already summoned forth by Fear 
 To time-destroyiiig pangs no doom could aggravate. 
 
 O infinite tempest raging ! 
 O awful Visitants from Heaven and Hell ! 
 These mortals scorn and mock your dark presaging, 
 And wreak high feast-strains on their own deep knell. 
 See, through the clouds of incense wildly glancing, 
 What Mcenads with wild cries are wildly dancing ! 
 All masks off-torn, their white limbs flash and shine. 
 
 Flung out tossing through the whirls ; 
 
 Dishevelled tresses, wanton curls, 
 A-flame with flowers and dripping crimson wine, 
 
A Festival of Life. 
 
 ish naked bosoms with their fiery trace, — 
 lite, perfect breasts, full-swelled to the embrace 
 
 Which those wild eyes of humid light 
 
 Fiercely passionate now invite : — 
 e Palace, through their whirlwind, seems to reel in space. 
 
 Alas, how sad and dreary 
 ,ned the whole scene there as the Night grew late ! 
 len many of the Masquers, sick and weary, 
 ■( longing that those Ministers of Fate 
 luld choose them for removal : when of all 
 lom They had taken from the festival 
 one returned ; though mourners fiercely craved 
 
 The never answering Shapes of Black 
 
 To bring them, but a moment, back, 
 d on the threshold of the Night-storm waved 
 sir feeble torches, quenched as soon as lit, 
 king lost darlings through the Infinite : 
 
 And when at times some dreadful ghost. 
 
 Imaging the loved and lost, 
 uld through the startled feast with bodeful gestures 
 flit. . . . 
 
 The lamps were quickly failing ; 
 
A Festival of Life. 183 
 
 Flapping about the corpselike sculptures wan : 
 The floor, the cupola which glimmering shone, 
 The rain-dark marbles, in the tempest thrilled : 
 Where late the noble feast was spread 
 Lay scattered flower-blooms dim and dead, 
 'Mid stains of sullen-oozing wine outspilled 
 From urns and goblets shattered and o'erthrown, 
 And fragments in a sick confusion strown ; 
 And lost in all the ghastly waste. 
 On couches tottering and displaced. 
 Flushed victims of the orgy, helpless, senseless, prone. 
 
 Yet evermore those Strangers 
 Went gathering in their harvest ; and no less, 
 As men who face to face with deadly dangers 
 Inebriate their terror and distress, 
 A few kept up the revel with a madness 
 Of reeling, shrieking glee which was not gladness. 
 Till — portents of the near approaching Doom — 
 Waitings, laughters, wild and fierce, 
 Through the storm-swung darkness pierce, 
 And spectres people the dull flickering gloom. . . . 
 A deep foreboding hush pervades the place : 
 To that dis-covered Twain in one wild race 
 All reel along the quaking floor ; 
 There grows a mighty booming roar, 
 As I am rapt away into the outer space. 
 
84 A Festival of Life. 
 
 With storm and fire and thunder 
 These rearward billows of Night's Ocean dash 
 Against the Palace : it is rent asunder, 
 Rent, shattered, with an instantaneous crash. 
 On, undelayed, exultingly they sweep, 
 Whirling its fragments through their wild waste de( 
 Precipitant in their stupendous sway 
 
 The glowing fragments crystalline, 
 
 Gold, jewels, precious marbles, shine 
 Like showering meteors ; high and far away. 
 Portentous, the Snake's blazing wheel is borne. 
 In dalliance with the lightnings whose fierce scorn 
 
 Smites into view wan wailing shades . . . 
 
 The whole Night-Chaos hurrying fades 
 Over the livid sea, before the dismal morn. 
 
 " O utter desolation ! 
 O blighted beauty, splendour, triumph, bliss ! 
 Alas, the gay and thoughtless congregation 
 Flung out unsheltered to the dark Abyss ! 
 Bright Vision faded ! never more can shine 
 A joy-insphering Palace so divine." 
 Lamenting thus, I sank in sleep or swoon. . . . 
 
J Festival of Life. 185 
 
 3as bent its dome's immeasurable height ; 
 \. few calm clouds o'erfraught with living light 
 
 Melt in the quivering crystalUne ; 
 
 Beneath the Eternal Sun divine, 
 Ensphering half the world in glory and delight. 
 
 This is the Vision solely, 
 Trancing all aspiration with content ! 
 Beauty all-perfect, blessedness all-holy, 
 \re veiled beyond that crystal firmament. 
 The breathless concave yearneth to the Hymn 
 Df all the Hosts of Stars and Seraphim; 
 The Hallelujah's raptured Monotone, 
 
 To whose vast swell the world-strewn Sea 
 
 Of ^ther throbs eternally, 
 Circling the footstool of that nameless Throne 
 iVhose veil's far shadow floods this noon with light. . . 
 — O self-sequestered Earth ! O gross, weak sight ! 
 
 For which beneath such heavenly day 
 
 Yawneth fathomless for aye 
 \ spectre-haunted gulf of Sphere-completing Night. 
 
 February, 1857. 
 
( i86 ) 
 
 TASSO TO LEONORA: 
 
 FROM HIS DUNGEON ; IN MISERY AND DISTRACTION. 
 
 " Ha ! thy frozen pulses flutter 
 With a love thou dar'st not utter. 
 Lady, whose imperial brow 
 Is endiademedwith woe ! 
 
 All the wide world beside us 
 Show like multitudinous 
 Puppets passing from a scene ; 
 What but mockery can they mean ? " 
 
 Shelley — Misery ; a Fragment. 
 
 Noblest Lady, throned above 
 All my soaring hopes of love ; 
 Could you read my fate's dark truth, 
 You would give me scornless ruth. 
 
 Dawn by dawn I wake to say, — 
 I will drive all thought away 
 Of Her I cannot hope to win ; 
 Vain regret is coward sin. 
 
Tasso to Leonora. 187 
 
 Yet each night I yearn to be 
 Wandering far alone with thee, 
 Through still Dreamland's dimmest grove 
 Moonlit by thy heavenly love. 
 
 Ah, the long days dark and cold ! 
 life, bereft of thee, unsouled — 
 Save for Memory ! — crawls on slow, 
 One sick swoon of barren woe. 
 
 Ah, the long nights dreadly still ! 
 When sleep flies my frantic will ; 
 When through filmy dreams its sting 
 Consciousness darts quivering. 
 
 But when rich Sleep's nectar'd balm 
 Bathes my weary heart in calm ; 
 Life, Strength, Joy are all re-found, ^ 
 With thy pure love glory-crowned. 
 
 Thus thou hast my soul unsphered ; 
 Waking life is dead and weird ; 
 Deathlike trance is life : — ah me ! 
 All our being seems to be 
 Interfused with mockery. 
 
 Yes — as Love is truer far 
 Than all other things ; so are 
 
1 88 Tasso to Leonora. 
 
 Life and Death, the World and Time, 
 Mere false shows in some great Mime, 
 By dreadful mystery sublime. 
 
 Do not scorn me, Sweet, I crave ; 
 Perhaps this woe may somewhat rave : 
 Yet how should It ? — I can feel 
 Truth itself at times less real. 
 
 Do not scorn me, — for behold ! 
 Near and Nearer swiftly rolled 
 Solemn glooms of that great Night 
 No false day shall dawn to blight. 
 
 Then the everlasting sleep, 
 Shall our souls in rapture steep, 
 Then in tranced Eternity 
 Thou shalt be made One with me ! 
 
 Play our parts out in this Mime ! — 
 Spectres mocking spectral Time, 
 Whose grim mockery keeps us hurled 
 Reeling through our spectral World. 
 
 What a Theatre expands ! 
 For its Stage all seas and lands ; 
 By the moon and high stars lit ; 
 Vaulted by the Infinite. 
 
Tasso to Leonora. ' 189 
 
 Heavens ! and I must bear a part, 
 With my restless passionate heart 
 Coffin 'd in this foul dead den 
 From the surging seas of men. 
 
 Well ... we all must act our time 
 On the unreal Stage sublime ; 
 None of us is what he seems, 
 Dramatizing frenzy-dreams. 
 
 By such monsters fleered, stung, tost, 
 In such wildering mazes lost ; 
 How superbly serious all" 
 Thread the restless, senseless brawl 
 Of our rabid Carnival ! 
 
 Noble, beautiful, serene, 
 Thou must play the part of Queen ; 
 Crowned with unreal gems and gold. 
 Phantom purples round thee rolled. 
 
 Sweep with stately step the stage ; 
 Act great passions, love and rage. 
 With yon crowd of half-souled things 
 Masked as nobles, princes, kings. 
 
 I must act a wretch forlorn, 
 Wealthless, rankless, lowly born ; 
 
190 Tasso to Leonora. 
 
 Cursed more with a soul and sense 
 Bounteous, regal, too intense : 
 
 Ay, a woeful Wretch indeed ; 
 Say a starved incarnate Need, 
 Ever with consummate art 
 In his strange half-tragic part 
 Living on an empty heart ! 
 
 Well, Dear, brief must be our task ; 
 Little matters in what mask 
 We may rant our mimic rage 
 On our unsubstantial Stage. 
 
 So, Sweet Love, sustain your role. 
 Freeze the pulses of your soul ; 
 Fair, grand, queenly dignified, 
 Case yourself in marble pride. 
 
 I — the while, — by evidence 
 Of my purest love intense, 
 Sure that when the Play is o'er 
 You are mine for evermore — 
 
 I will madly waste and moan. 
 Pouring out against thy throne 
 All my life of love, — flung back 
 In wild foam o'er gulfs of black. 
 
Tasso to Leonora. 191 
 
 Let some hollow princely mask, 
 In thine Alpine sunshine bask ; 
 Blight me with well-feigned scorn ; 
 Let me pine and rage forlorn : 
 
 Have it counted lunacy, 
 My audacious love for Thee ! 
 In a lazar-dungeon thrust. 
 Make me mad to prove you just. 
 
 Brava, Dearest ! noble, grand ! 
 Played with wondrous self-command ! 
 
 great Theatre world-filled, 
 
 Whom her spell holds rapt and thrilled, 
 Shout the plaudits too long stilled ! 
 
 I, too, — do not I act well 
 All the horrors of this Hell ? 
 Act so well. Love, that I feel 
 Sometimes as if all were real ! 
 
 What a sickly, foolish fear ! 
 Love soon re-assures me, Dear : 
 
 1 must ape such anguish vile 
 With an inward settled smile. 
 
 Do I seem to writhe with pain 
 Under thy assumed disdain ? 
 
192 Tasso to Leonora. 
 
 Do I seem, indeed, to be 
 
 Far too mean for hope of thee ? 
 
 Do I really seem to brood 
 In this dark den's solitude, 
 Phrenzied by the foetid gloom 
 Of such hideous living tomb ? 
 
 Do I seem to cringe, and crave 
 Mercy from the poor dull slave, 
 Who, disguised in sceptred power. 
 Acts thy brother for the hour ? 
 
 Yet I scorn him : and serene, 
 Far above this mimic scene 
 With its shows of Space and Time, 
 Dwell with thee in love sublime. 
 
 Ah ! your part so grand and fine 
 Must be harder yet than mine ; 
 Bitter, but to seem, in sooth, 
 False to love's eternal truth : 
 Ah ! you have my saddest ruth. 
 
 Still, our parts are so forth writ 
 In this Mime whose venomed wit 
 Our poor wits so far transcends. 
 On its acting life depends. 
 Wild it is, but soon it ends. 
 
Tasso to Leonora. 193 
 
 Joy ! the Play must soon be done ! 
 Then the lamps called Stars and Sun 
 Shall be quenched in perfect gloom 
 By the grand foreclosing Doom ; 
 
 Then the Stage of land and sea; 
 Shall down-vanish utterly ; 
 Then the fretted azure roof 
 Roll oiT like a burning woof ; 
 
 Then the serried multitude 
 Surge out in a vast dim flood ; — 
 All, all fade and vanish quite, 
 Leaving void and silent Night. 
 
 Then, once more alone, my Sweet, 
 We shall in the strange dark meet : 
 You will doff your tinselled pride, 
 I shall throw my rags aside. 
 
 Then in silent darkness deep 
 Comes the everlasting sleep. 
 Comes the inexpressive bliss 
 Of our union's perfectness ! 
 
 Time's loud turbid stream shall flow. 
 With its perils, strife and woe, 
 
194 Tasso to Leonora. 
 
 Far from where our Soul then lies 
 Tranced in still Eternities : 
 
 Tho', soft breathed, from far away, 
 Its dim soothing murmurs may 
 Lull us to profounder rest, 
 Swaying with the Ocean's breast. 
 
 For we seek home after this j 
 Clinging with a fonder kiss 
 For the parting which so pained, 
 For the cold neglect you feigned. 
 
 We two only, — Woman, Man, 
 Wedded ere the Mime began, 
 Heaven-created Man and Wife 
 For our whole true timeless life : 
 
 Soul of soul and heart of heart ; 
 Each alone a wretched part, 
 Lifeless, useless, maimed, unright. 
 Ever yearning to unite 
 
 In the perfect spheral Whole, 
 Living, self-sufficing Soul, 
 Swayed through ^ther crystalline 
 Circling restful in the shine 
 Of the central Sun Divine. . . . 
 
Tasso to Leonora. 195 
 
 What, although this trance at times 
 Must be broken by such mimes ? 
 What, though we must earn by these 
 Our reposeful ecstasies ? 
 
 Dearest, all the false cold days, 
 With their bitter mocking Plays, 
 Swiftly die to glorious Night 
 When we meet in new delight. 
 
 So two actors, Man and Wife, 
 Mimic freely rage and strife. 
 Suffering, terror, madness, death, / 
 
 Whatsoe'er the fable saith : 
 
 Earning thus wherewith to feed 
 That which is their life indeed, — 
 Long, calm, rich with love intense. 
 Secret from the shallow sense 
 Of the blatant audience. 
 
 Ah, my weak bewildered heart ! 
 Do I act my monstrous part 
 With too earnest lifelike truth ? — 
 Darling, bless me with thy ruth. 
 
 Yes, at times my heart is torn 
 By thy well-pretended scorn : 
 
196 Tasso to Leonora. 
 
 Soothe this foolish heart of mine 
 With some secret loving sign. 
 
 Perhaps it feeleth Love to be 
 Of such sacred verity, 
 That thy merely feigned untruth 
 Frets it like a serpent-tooth. 
 
 Grant it some dear secret sign 
 Which no other can divine, — 
 But a word, a flower, to prove 
 That you are my own, own Love. 
 
 Act thy strange part not so well ; — 
 Even now, with pangs of Hell, 
 I dread that your neglect is true. 
 Doubting you, my Soul's Soul, you ! 
 
 But I strangle such base doubt. . . . 
 How the drear plot lingers out ! 
 What a Chaos, baffling thought ; 
 Real with spectral interwrought ! . . 
 
 Lo, the wondrous Universe ! 
 Hear its mystic powers rehearse 
 Sweet and subtle melodies, 
 Vast and solemn harmonies. 
 
Tasso to Leonora. 197 
 
 Glorious shifting sceneries, see ; 
 And the dome's infinity, 
 Lamp'd by all the rhythmic quires 
 Of those unconsuming fires ! 
 
 Mark the stony Fate that broods, 
 Mark the angel multitudes, 
 Watching for the tragic range 
 Of impassioned strife and change. 
 
 O sublimest Theatre ! 
 Vexed with the insensate stir 
 Of this doleful Mime distraught. 
 By such pigmy puppets wrought. 
 
 Pigmies : and they feel it well. 
 While their hollow vauntings swell : 
 How uneasily they roam 
 Through its grandeurs, not at home ! — 
 
 Restless in its crystal calms. 
 Trembling at its thunder-psalms, 
 Cowering from its noon-poured light, 
 Shuddering through its scenic night. 
 
 How their poor rants quail and die 
 Far beneath its solemn sky ! 
 
198 Tasso to Leonora. 
 
 How their clouds of passion all, 
 Tumid grandeurs ; burst and fall 
 From its deep-based mountain-wall ! 
 
 Blood and filth defile the Stage, 
 Filth of lust and blood of rage ; 
 Which they will not understand 
 Are but self-pollution, and 
 Suicide at second-hand. 
 
 Every one there, bad or good, 
 Is by all misunderstood. 
 Knowing not himself, — yet strives 
 To scheme the law for countless lives. 
 
 Each is different from each. 
 None hears right another's speech : 
 Yet all fume and fight for aye. 
 With anguish, hatred, death, dismay. 
 To make others be as they. 
 
 Every step they take perplext 
 Taints the freedom of the next ; 
 Every thought and word and deed 
 Curbeth all that shall succeed : 
 
 Yet they still must move, nor pause. 
 By the Drama's rigorous laws ; 
 
Tasso to Leonora. 199 
 
 Yet no true Life can there be 
 
 Save in thoughts and deeds quite free. 
 
 There work foolish Hate and 111, 
 Eager, subtle, fierce of will*; 
 Good and Love, alas, behold, 
 Flagging, wavering, languish cold. — 
 
 Love ! — O Seraphs looking down. 
 Who of all that wear the crown, 
 That have won the sacred kiss 
 Which should symbol Love's pure bliss. 
 Even dream what true Love is ? 
 
 Sternly real the galling pain 
 
 Of the vanquished hondman's chain; 
 
 But the Victor's diadem 
 
 Ever lacks its crowning gem. 
 
 Nearly all the noblest parts 
 Ruined by bad heads or hearts ; 
 Those in whom redemption lies 
 Chained, with cankering energies. 
 From sublime activities. 
 
 Each aspiring burst, swayed back, 
 Soon plods round the old drear track ; 
 Hope dies, — strangled in the knot 
 Of such ever-ravelled plot. 
 
20O Tasso to Leonora. 
 
 Did no sequent acts extend 
 On unto a perfect End 
 Far beyond these brief life-days, 
 What a hopeless, ghastly -maze ! 
 
 Yes ! did'st Thou not light the scene, 
 Leonora, O my Queen ! 
 One deep sigh would rend my hearty 
 " Oh, that I had had no part ! " . . . 
 
 As it is, — to keep, perchance, 
 Sane amid the dizzy dance — 
 Muse I this fixed truth sublime, 
 All is but a mocking Mime. 
 
 Yet foul demons in my ear 
 Hiss most wordless hints of fear, — 
 That this hideous dream's wild strife 
 Is our soul's substantial life ! 
 
 How the moment's thought appals ! — 
 That these stifling dungeon-walls 
 Are of real during stone ; 
 That I fester here alone ; 
 That you cannot be my own ! 
 
 No ; it is a fiendish lie. 
 
 God our Father reigns on high : 
 
Tasso to Leonora. ' 301 
 
 You are truer than my faith. . . . 
 Oh, were life untwined from death ! 
 
 But, you cannot scorn me, Dear, 
 Though I sink in doubt and fear ? 
 You too know, this mad Mime done, 
 We shall evermore be one ? 
 
 Cling, cling fast to this dear faith. 
 Rock of life in sea of death : 
 Our mazed web of doom is .wrought 
 Under God's directing thought. 
 
 For were life no flitting dream. 
 Were things truly what they seem, 
 Were not all this World-scene vast 
 But a shade in Time's stream glass'd ; 
 
 Were the moods we now display 
 Less phantasmal than the clay. 
 In which our poor spirits clad 
 Act this Vision, wild an,d sad, 
 I must be mad, mad, — how mad ! 
 
 November, 1856. 
 
( 202 ) 
 
 A HAPPY POET. 
 
 Driven by Tnysterious care and restless pain 
 
 The World rolls round me full of noise and strife, 
 
 Racking what is not loss to dubious gain : 
 I live apart my self-fulfilling life 
 
 Serenely happy, breathing golden air 
 
 Unvext by these dark storms of pain and care. 
 
 The tumult whirls for ever to and fro : 
 
 I see it all in vision ; strangely wild 
 And incoherent, yet by some rich glow 
 
 Of vigour, thought and passion reconciled ; 
 Its mystery also, wJierein dreams Delight, 
 Brings dear old friends, tho' dimly, back to sight. 
 
 O happy-dowered Soul ! whom God doth call 
 
 To Life's imperial Banquet as a guest 
 Greeted with gladness in its lofty Hall ; 
 
 Bathed clean and cool, sprinkled with odours, drest 
 
A Happy Poet. 203 
 
 In fair white folds of free and flowing grace, 
 The festal raiment of the splendid place ; 
 
 Who then is couched 'midst wise and valiant friends, 
 In place of honour near the glorious Throne 
 
 Wherefrom the Host such kingly welcome sends 
 That all may feel His treasures all their own ; 
 
 And who is further gifted to divine 
 
 The subtlest savours of the fruit and wine. 
 
 Is it not strange ? I could more amply tell 
 Such woes of men as I discern or dream, 
 
 Than this great happiness I know so well. 
 
 Which is in truth profounder thaii they seem ; 
 
 And which abides for ever pure and deep, 
 
 Beneath all dreams of wakefulness or sleep. 
 
 For this whole world so vast and complicate. 
 With every being nourished on its breast. 
 
 With all its mighty workings-out of Fate, 
 With that one Soul in all its life exprest. 
 
 Must surely all be mine, and mine alone ; 
 
 Its power and joy are so indeed my own. 
 
 Spring, summer, autumn, winter, float for aye, 
 Weaving continually their wondrous robe. 
 
 Of purple Night inwrought with golden Day 
 About our earth, whose calm and mighty globe 
 
204 A Happy Poet. 
 
 Through all the World-strown aether crystalline 
 Floats ever circling round the sun divine. 
 
 The faint voluptuous trance of summer noon, 
 Young spring's blithe tenderness so green and fair, 
 
 The golden wealth of quiet autumn boon. 
 The star-keen life of winter glittering bare, 
 
 Carol harmonious beauty and delight, 
 
 And proffer all their treasures as my right. 
 
 The birds rejoice in singing for my joy, 
 And shaking sunshine thro' the clustered leaves : 
 
 A brain that never plotteth them annoy, 
 
 A heart that loves them and their injury grieves, 
 
 Swift bird and beast and jewelled insect free 
 
 Full well can trust ; one brotherhood are we. 
 
 The flowers all love me, and the trees befriend ; 
 
 Lily and' rose are eager to impart 
 By fragrance, colour, or some perfect bend, 
 
 Delicious secrets that surprise my heart ; 
 I muse beneath the forests, and they are 
 With all their countless tongues oracular. 
 
 Snow-vested mountains mighty and austere 
 Persuade me : Climb us from thy lowly home, 
 
 And we will be thine Altars ; offer here 
 From our pure silence to yon naked dome 
 
A Happy Poet. 205 
 
 rhy sacrificial thoughts, in breathless awe 
 ^d adoration of Eternal Law. 
 
 ind evermore old Ocean murmurs me : 
 Come forth, and love our heritage, my Child ; 
 
 lafe-cherished on my bosom shalt thou, be 
 In death-sweet calms, in tempests dark and wild ; 
 
 >dence of moonlit waves and mid-sea moan 
 
 ihall dower thy Voice with many a mystic tone. 
 
 ) vaulted sKy, O bounteous land and sea, 
 O perfect World, the Palace and the Shrine 
 
 )f infinite beauty, truth and mystery. 
 That flood the soul with yearning bliss divine 
 
 Till it dissolves in their exuberant might, 
 
 ts some frail cloud surcharged with noon's full light. 
 
 The banquet-hall is noble, and its wine 
 
 A nectar worthy of Olympian lyres ; 
 iolemn and sacred is the infinite shrine. 
 
 With stars immortal for its altar-fires ; 
 ^et shrine and palace are scarce noticed things 
 Vhen all the guests and worshippers are kings : 
 
 mperial all ; each freer than the sun 
 
 Doth live and move, supreme, self-centred, sole ; 
 ind yet they are my people, every one ; 
 
 Mv life of heart and brain is in the whole ; 
 
2,o6 A Happy Poet. 
 
 Their hopes, fears, woes, joys, virtues, sins, despairs, 
 Their full-orbed lives are mine no less than theirs. 
 
 The stern exultance of the thoughtful youth 
 Enrolled against the tyrants of his land ; 
 
 The noblest victor's self-contemnirig ruth 
 
 When fireless eye must gaze on bloody hand ; 
 
 The greed of power, the sateless lust of pride. 
 
 Whence kingly robes in blood are purple-dyed ; 
 
 The deep complacency of subtle skill 
 
 In ravelled games, though winning wins a loss ; 
 
 The drear perversity with which one's will 
 With wretched consciousness persists to cross 
 
 His own best good, his dearest friends' best prayers, 
 ^ Devouring sullenly their generous cares ; 
 
 The fogs of fear in which their fellows loom 
 
 Like threatening monsters, and the firm earth yields ; 
 
 The mists of hope and love-joy which illume 
 
 With golden strangeness their poor homes and fields ; 
 
 The sophistries of passion-moulded thought 
 
 By which they use to make " I would," " I ought : " 
 
 Free childhood's life, so rich it need not ask 
 Poor thought to justify its flower-fresh grace ; 
 
 Youth's yearning tumult when the constant mask 
 Seems falUng first from Nature's glorious face. 
 
A Happy Poet. 207 
 
 The infinite joy and sadness of its strife 
 To probe the awful secrets of our life ; 
 
 The firm deliberate strength of manhood's prime, 
 Appraising well the World, its smiles and frowns, — 
 
 Yet for the spoils and triumphs of this Time 
 Ceding the heirship of eternal crowns ; 
 
 Old age with Heaven's first rays upon its brow, 
 
 Yet clinging feebly to the worn-out Now : 
 
 His nature who from action will refrain 
 
 In plenitude of spiritual thought. 
 And his who keepeth every nerve a-strain 
 
 In constant labour, hope and fear distraught ; 
 (In thought's pure sether float all worlds of life ; 
 The cold eye sees, warm being lives through strife) : 
 
 Those eagle spirits native to the skies 
 
 Who drink the Sun's bare splendour, and contemn 
 Such painted screeris as unanointed eyes 
 
 Must interpose between His shine and them, — 
 The veils and imageries through which their sense 
 Alone can bear the formless light intense ; 
 
 (But Suns shine spheric to the eagle-eye, 
 Though formless to the owlet-sight, when bare) : 
 
 The soul opprest with its humanity, 
 Which must have God's most personal love and care ; 
 
2o8 A Happy Poet. 
 
 The self-ruled souls, that need not supplicate, 
 Feeling themselves divine and peers of Fate : 
 
 All, all are mine, are Me. How vast the Stage ! 
 
 Imperious Doom, unvanquishable Will, 
 Throughout the Drama constant battle wage ; 
 
 The Plot evolves with tangled good and ill ; 
 The passions overflood the shores of Time ; 
 With God the full Solution waits sublime. 
 
 If I so much conteinplate all the scene 
 As if to pleasure me the whole were wrought, 
 
 I gaze upon the actors great and mean 
 With reverent love, with unaccusing thought ; 
 
 Their wails and curses are mine own no less 
 
 Than their most tranquil strains of nobleness. 
 
 And yet, how ever-gracious is my dower. 
 
 Whose noon-tide bliss consumes its first alloy, 
 
 Whose midnight woe by some celestial power 
 Enkindles purest stars of solemn joy : 
 
 My lover glows, the world is all June-bowers ; 
 
 My widower weeps, the tears rain April-showers. 
 
 For I must sing of all I feel and know ; 
 
 Waiting with Memnon passive near the palms. 
 Until the heavenly light doth dawn and grow 
 
 And thrill my silence into mystic psalms ; 
 
A Happy Poet. 209 
 
 From unknown realms the wind streams sad or gay, 
 The trees give voice responsive to its sway. 
 
 For I must sing ; of mountains, deserts, seas, 
 
 Of rivers ever flowing, ever flowing ; 
 Of beasts and birds, of grass and flowers and trees 
 
 For ever fading and for ever growing ; 
 Of calm and storm, of night and eve and noon, 
 Of boundless space, and sun and stars and moon : 
 
 And of the secret sympathies that bind 
 
 All beings to their wondrous dwelling-place ; 
 
 And of the perfect Unity enshrined 
 
 In omnipresence throughout time and space. 
 
 Alike informing with its full control 
 
 The dust, the stars, the worm, the human soul : 
 
 And most supremely of my human kin ; 
 
 Their thoughts and deeds, their valours and their fears, 
 Their griefs and joys, their virtue and their sin, 
 
 Their feasts and wars, their cradles and their biers, 
 Their temples, prisons, homes and ships and marts, 
 The subtlest windings of their brains and hearts. 
 
 In all their faiths and sacraments I see 
 Celestial features through the earthly veil, 
 
 In all their dreams some deep reality, 
 
 In all their structures beams that cannot fail> 
 
2IO A Happy Poet. 
 
 In all their thoughts some truth which doth inspire, 
 In all their passions sparks of quenchless fire. 
 
 For singing, in all thoughts I glimpse the law 
 
 Ineffable, eternal, veiled behind. 
 And robe it in full verse-folds dark with awe ; 
 
 And singing, in all passions I must find 
 New secrets more impassioned, crowning them 
 With golden words, a fulgent diadem. 
 
 So heartless gibes of infidel mistrust. 
 
 And quibblings spun by some poor wretch to snare 
 His conscience into sanction of his lust, 
 
 Or bind it into cowardly despair, 
 Come forth from me the universal Nay 
 That limits all our life's triumphant Yea. 
 
 So softest sighings of a maiden's heart 
 
 When first Love's fingers touch the trembling chords. 
 Thrill through my soul with their delicious smart, 
 
 And fly abroad from me new-winged with words 
 So bright and beautiful and swift to soar 
 That all must love them now and evermore. 
 
 I sing, I sing, rejoicing in the singing, 
 
 And men all love me for my songs so sweet, 
 
 Even as they love the rapturous lark upspringing . 
 And siuging loud his joy the sun to greet ; 
 
A Happy Poet. 2 1 1 
 
 lappiest lot, to win all love and blessing 
 r that whose own delight is past expressing ! 
 
 ; men in truth not joyous strong and whole, 
 But lofty strains thro' broken lyres expressed ? 
 r frame is all attunfed to my soul, 
 My limbs are glad to do my mind's behest ; 
 wander through the wide realm many a day, 
 free as thoughts that wander every way : 
 
 dimb the mountain brow thro' moonlit gloom, 
 With vigorous breathing of its lonely air, 
 d watch the traijcfed dawn from out her tomb 
 To perfect resurrection waking there : , 
 
 revel through the storm when fire and rain 
 d thunder, make a man all heart and brain : 
 
 pierce the inmost heart of solemn woods, 
 Where our great Mother coucheth grand and dim, 
 d baring her full breast in solitudes, . 
 Suckles each child as if she had but him, 
 th that same milk magnificent and bold 
 lence Gods and Titans drew their strength of old ; 
 
 i plunge away from earth on lonely shores 
 A.nd breast the green sea-surges foaming strong, 
 ;e as an eagle when it sways and soars 
 The billows of the tempest-sea among ; 
 
312 A Happy Poet. 
 
 To sail alone the deep, past rocks and caves, 
 From isle to isle upon the heaving waves : 
 
 To row adown great rivers from their rills, 
 
 Gliding thro' dawn and eve and noon and night, 
 
 Winding between the patient woods and hills, 
 
 The broad green meadows, fields and gardens bright; 
 
 Past homesteads each sole-sacred as a star 
 
 Gleaming thro' clustered foliage near and far ; 
 
 Past peaceful hamlets loosely gathered round 
 
 Their spires still pointing from the graves to God ; — 
 
 Past rich and mighty cities far-renowned, 
 So overcharged with life the soul is awed 
 
 To think but of such massed intensity ; 
 
 And so into the earth-surroundmg sea. 
 
 How the rich days of life and joy and light. 
 
 The unregretful, unforeboding days, 
 Usher me softly into solemn night ; 
 
 Then sleep her spell divine upon me lays, 
 And I am tranced and fed with perfect rest. 
 Or wander far through dreamland, fancy-blest 
 
 Then, when the night's dusk curtains are withdrawn. 
 And sleep dissolves her spell of mysteries, 
 
A Happy Poet. 213 
 
 With what eternal freshness each new dawn 
 Greets me with fair and golden promises ! 
 While born anew and young with day's new birth 
 I hear the lark out-trill my infinite mirth. 
 
 So rich and sweet is Life. And what is Death ? 
 
 The tranquil slumbers dear and strange and boon 
 That feed at whiles our waking being's breath ; 
 
 The solemn midnight of this glorious noon, 
 With countless distant stars, and each a sun. 
 
 Revealed harmonious with our daily one. 
 
 1857: 1859. 
 
( 214 ) 
 
 SUGGESTED BY MATTHEW ARNOLD'S 
 
 " STANZAS FROM THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE." 
 
 That one long dirge-moan sad and deep, 
 Low, muffled by the solemn stress 
 
 Of such emotion as doth steep 
 The soul in brooding quietness, 
 
 Befits our anguished time too well. 
 
 Whose Life-march is a funeral knell. 
 
 Dirge for a mighty Creed outworn — 
 Its spirit fading from the earth. 
 
 Its mouldering body left forlorn : 
 Weak idol ! feeding scornful mirth 
 
 In shallow hearts ; divine no more 
 
 Save to some ignorant pagan poor ; 
 
 And some who know how by Its light 
 The past world well did walk and live, 
 
 And feel It even now more bright 
 Than any lamp mere men can give ; 
 
Suggested by Arnold's " Stanzas." 215 
 
 So cling to It with yearning faith. 
 Yet own It almost quenched in death : 
 
 While many who win wealth and power 
 And honours serving at Its shrine, 
 
 Rather than lose their worldly dower 
 
 Proclaim their dead thing " Life divine ; " 
 
 And sacrifice to coward lust 
 
 Their own souls' truth, a people's trust. 
 
 And will none mourn the mighty Dead, — 
 
 Pillar of heavenly fire and cloud, 
 Which through this life's wild desert led 
 
 For whole millenniums each grand crowd 
 Of sages, bards, saints, heroes, all 
 Whose names we glory to recall? 
 
 None mourn Him, dead, with deep-moved soul, 
 Whom, living, all our sires adored ? 
 
 None feel the heavy darkness roll 
 Stifling about us, when the Lord 
 
 Leaves us to walk by our own light. 
 
 That one pale speck in boundless Night ? — 
 
 That earthly lamp when sun and star, 
 When all the heavenly lights are lost : 
 
 Does it shed radiance round afar ? 
 Our pathway is by deep gulfs cross'd : 
 
3i6 Suggested ly Arnold's " Stanzas." 
 
 It fathoms none. We lift it high : 
 It casts not one beam on the sky. 
 
 If He thus died as no more fit 
 
 To lead the modern march of thought, 
 
 Supreme, — commanding, guiding it, 
 With noblest love and wisdom fraught ; 
 
 He was at least Divine ; and none 
 
 Of human souls can lead it on. 
 
 We pine in our dark living tomb, 
 Waiting the God-illumined One 
 
 Who, only, can disperse the gloom ; 
 Completing what the Dead begun, 
 
 Or farther leading us some space 
 
 Toward our eternal resting-place. 
 
 But Israel wanders shepherdless, 
 Or gloom-involved unmoving lies. 
 
 And in despair's stark sinfulness 
 Reviles the promised Paradise 
 
 It cannot reach — Father divine ! 
 
 Let us not long thus hopeless pme. 
 
 Still the deep dirge-notes long and low 
 
 Breathe forth strange anguish to recall- 
 Could we forget — our direst woe : 
 A proud strong Age fast losing all 
 
Suggested by Arnold's " Stanzas." 217 
 
 Earth has of Heaven ; bereft of faith ; 
 And living in Eternal Death. 
 
 And loudly boastful of such life : 
 
 Blinded by our material might, 
 Absorbed in frantic worldly strife, 
 
 Unconscious of the utter Night 
 Whose palpable and monstrous gloom 
 Is gathering for our spirits' tomb. 
 
 We feel as gods in our own hearts ; 
 
 Seeming to conquer Time and Space ; 
 Wealth gorging our imperial marts ; 
 
 Earth pregnant, from the fierce embrace 
 Our matter-lusting spirits press, 
 With unexampled fruitfulness. 
 
 God, answering well our worldly prayer, 
 
 Our hearts' chief prayer through all the hours 
 
 Of selfish joy and sordid care, 
 
 Comes down to us in golden showers : 
 
 God turns to Mammon at our cry ; 
 
 Our souls wealth-crushed, dross-stifled lie. 
 
 Those few, how rich ! while this great mass. 
 
 Myriads with equal greed for gold, 
 Sink in such want and woe, alas ! 
 
 As never can on earth be told : 
 
31 8 Suggested hy Arnold's " Stanzas." 
 
 These starve, and those yet wealthier rise ; 
 Meanwhile in both the spirit dies. 
 
 Hear now the thrilling dirge-notes peal 
 The anguished cry in thunder rolls : — 
 
 The few yet left who think and feel, 
 Who yearn with strenuous soaring souls 
 
 For more than earth or time can grant ; 
 
 Where, where shall they appease their want ? 
 
 Black disbelief, substantial doubt 
 Wreathe — blent into one louring cloud 
 
 Through which Heaven's light can scarce shine out- 
 Round all the Faiths : all in such shroud 
 
 Fade ghostlike to th' entombing Past : 
 
 Our Heaven is wildly overcast. 
 
 Yet each Creed, senile, sick, half-dead, 
 
 With bitter spite and doting rage 
 Reviles all others. Whoso, led 
 
 By thirst of love to pilgrimage. 
 Seeks now old God-given Wells of Life, 
 Finds drought-dry centres of vain strife ; 
 
 And turns away in blank despair, 
 
 To scoff or weep as fits his mood. 
 O God in Heaven, hear our prayer ! 
 
 We know Thou art, Allwise, Allgood, 
 
Suggested ' by Arnold's " Stanzas." 219 
 
 Yet sink in godless misery : 
 
 Oh, teach us how to worship Thee ! 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The great Form lies there nerveless still : 
 
 But as we fix our longing gaze 
 It grows in grandest beauty, till 
 
 We worship in entranced amaze ; 
 Such holy love and wisdom seem 
 To be there rapt in heavenly dream. 
 
 Oh, if He may once more awake ! 
 
 Oh, if it be not death, but sleep ! — 
 And He from that dread slumber break 
 
 Refreshed and strong, full-powered to sweep 
 The darknefss from our path again ; 
 Once more the Guiding Star of men ! 
 
 Yet — though it be death — view It well. 
 
 The brow, how nobly high and broad ! 
 What love on those shut lips might well ! 
 
 This Form sublimely templed God : 
 And, if not perfect, is a shrine 
 Approaching well the most divine. 
 
 Do not turn hastily away 
 From mighty death to petty life ; 
 
220 Suggested by Arnold's " Stanzas." 
 
 Gaze in deep reverence on the clay 
 
 With such a soul's expression rife : 
 Read here, read long, the features worn 
 By One incarnate Heavenly-born. 
 
 So may we hope to recognise 
 
 That Greater One who shall succeed 
 
 This death-bound Monarch, who now lies 
 In mute appealing for our need : 
 
 God cannot long desert His earth ; 
 
 In the Old's death the New has birth. 
 
 What say we? — we know well this truth. 
 There is no death for the Divine ; 
 
 Which lives in ever-perfect youth : 
 The Form alone — its earthly shrine — 
 
 Is subject to earth's mortal sway ; 
 
 Sickens, and dies, and rots away. 
 
 Thus each Form in its turn expires. 
 
 No more with all revealed Truth rife, — 
 
 Which even at that time inspires 
 Some new and nobler form with life, 
 
 Grander and vaster to express 
 
 More of Its infinite heavenliness. 
 
 Thus has it been since Time's first birth, 
 Thus must it be for evermore ; 
 
Suggested ly Arnold's " Stanzas." 2,2,1 
 
 Still lie, moth-eaten, on the earth 
 
 Old garments which this Spirit wore ; 
 Till, soiled and rent, they were ofT-thrown, 
 And wider-flowing robes put on. 
 
 They could not grow with His great growth, 
 Pauseless though slow throughout the years ; 
 
 And vainly worshippers — so loath 
 
 To leave what lengthened use endears — 
 
 May still the empty robes adore ; 
 
 Their virtue was from Him who wore. 
 
 Let none say the Divine is dead, 
 
 Although this Form be soul-less quite : 
 
 The Heavenly Sun doth ever shed 
 His lifeful heat, His saving light ; 
 
 Never our earth doth lose His ray, 
 
 Save when she turns herself away. 
 
 Let none say the Divine is dumb, 
 Although His voice no more we hear : 
 
 It is that we are deaf become. 
 
 For measured to each eye and ear 
 
 His glory shines. His voice outspeaks ; 
 
 To each He gives the most it seeks. 
 
 Our spirits may for ever grow ; 
 And He will fill them as before. 
 
222 Suggested by Arnold's " Stanzas." 
 
 And still their measure overflow 
 
 With His unlessened infinite More : 
 He gives us all we can receive ; 
 He teaches all we can believe. 
 
 The pure can see Him perfect-pure ; 
 
 The strong feel Him, Omnipotence ; 
 The wise, All-wise ; He is obscure 
 
 But to the gross and earth-bound sense : 
 Alas for us with blinded sight 
 Who dare to cry, There is no light ! 
 
 PART in. 
 
 Nay, ask us not to rise and leave 
 
 Him from whom power and life seem gone ; 
 
 Say not that it is weak to grieve ; 
 Duty does noi, now, urge us on : 
 
 In vain ye urge ; too well we know 
 
 We cannot by our own strength go. 
 
 Vainly ye choose you Saviours now 
 Of men, — however good and wise 
 
 Be those your mean faith would endow 
 With power to which no man can rise : 
 
 No best men living lure our faith , 
 
 From the Divine though veiled in death. 
 
Suggested by Arnold's " Stanzas." 233 
 
 Vainly ye wander every way 
 
 Throughout the eartli in search of Heaven, 
 Changing your useless path each day 
 
 With each new transient impulse given 
 By human guides, who still agree 
 In naught but fallibility. 
 
 We should know better from the lore 
 Of worldly wisdom — keen mistrust — 
 
 On which our minds so love to pore ; 
 Nor leave for any child of dust 
 
 This One Divine : to Him adhere 
 
 Till the diviner One appear. 
 
 My brothers, let us own the truth. 
 Bitter and mournful though it be, — 
 
 That we, who spent our dreary youth 
 In foul and sensual slavery. 
 
 Are all too slavish, too unmanned. 
 
 For Conquerors of the Promised Land. 
 
 In unprogressive wanderings 
 
 We plod the desert to and fro ; 
 Arid fiery serpents' mortal stings. 
 
 Earthquake and sword and weary woe 
 And pestilence deal fearful death 
 Amongst us for our want of faith. 
 
324 Suggested by Arnold's " Stanzas." 
 
 Far-scattered o'er the Waste forlorn 
 
 Our bones shall whiten through the years, 
 
 And startle pilgrims yet unborn ; 
 
 Our noblest captains, priests and seers, 
 
 Dark death shall one by one remove. 
 
 For lack of wisdom, faith, or love. 
 
 Yet be we patient, meek and pure. 
 Unselfishly resigned to God's 
 
 Mysterious judgments ; and endure 
 Our sore scarce-intermitted loads 
 
 Of grief and weary pain, imbued 
 
 With sternly passive fortitude : 
 
 And pray that those who shall succeed 
 Prove worthy of a happier life 
 
 Than we dare ask for as our meed ; 
 That they a constant noble strife 
 
 Victorious against 111 may wage, 
 
 And gain the glorious heritage. 
 
 Cease now to cry and storm, and move, 
 By such tumultuous toil opprest 
 
 As, without guidance, vain must prove. 
 When God keeps still can ye not rest ? 
 
 When He sends night so dark and deep, 
 
 Why shrink from renovating sleep ? 
 
Suggested by Arnold's " Stanzas." 225 
 
 Sleep, to His care resigned, a space ; 
 
 That when He rises in His might 
 To lead our hosts from this dire place. 
 
 We may have strength and heart to fight 
 All evils that would bar our way. 
 And march unfaltering all the day. 
 
 Yes, let us stay in loving grief, 
 
 Which patient hope and trust yet cheer, 
 
 Silent beside our silent Chief, 
 Till His Successor shall appear ; 
 
 Till death's veil fall from off His face. 
 
 Or One anointed take His place. 
 
 Nay, — our adoring love should have 
 More faith than to believe that He, 
 
 Before Another comes to save, 
 Can leave us in blind misery 
 
 Without a Guide : God never can 
 
 So utterly depart from man. 
 
 We will move onward ! — let us trust 
 That there is life and saving power 
 
 In this dear Form which seems but dust. 
 Arise, arise ! though darkness lower. 
 
 Earnest, bold-hearted, cease to mourn ; 
 
 It shall before our hosts be borne. 
 
 p 
 
326 Suggested by Arnold's " Stanzas." 
 
 Triumphantly He ever led 
 
 Our faithful armies while alive ; 
 
 What though His form be cold and dead, 
 His Spirit doth that death survive : 
 
 We conquer by that Soul this Form 
 
 Enshrined, not ill, while free and warm. 
 
 Thus men have honoured fellow men, 
 Who dying left a lofty fame ; 
 
 And won most glorious victories then 
 By inspiration of a Name : 
 
 If in men's names such life abode. 
 
 Shall there not in His, — Son of God. 
 
 A dawn-light creeps throughout the gloom. 
 Sullenly sinks the storm of wrath ; 
 
 Life blossoms in our desert tomb ; 
 Mysteriously we find a path 
 
 Which leadeth on to Paradise. 
 
 Thus to our love's faith He replies ! 
 
 But, while the dirge still rolls away 
 In passionate thunders wildly blent 
 
 With mournful moanings, let us pray 
 
 Still on our Holy War intent — 
 
 " O God^ revive the seeming Dead ; 
 
 Or send Another in His stead ! 
 
Suggested ly Arnold's " Stanzas." %%'] 
 
 " The wintry midnight drear is past, 
 But still the dawn gleams grey and cold ; 
 
 Dread phantoms haunt each restless blast, 
 Our stumblings still are manifold : 
 
 Oh, let Thy cloudless Sun rise soon, 
 
 And flood us with His summer noon ! " 
 
 July, 1855. 
 
( a28 ) 
 
 BY THE SEA. 
 
 I. 
 
 The burning golden Rose of the Day 
 
 Droops down to the Western Sea ; 
 And the amber and purple flush of the sky 
 
 And the crimson glow of the sea 
 Ebb, ebb away, — fade, fade and die ; 
 While the earth, all mantled in shadowy grey. 
 Washes her brow with a restful sigh 
 
 In the cool sweet dews of the gloaming. 
 
 Then the shining silver Lily of the Night 
 
 Opens broad her leaves divine. 
 
 Afloat on the azure hyaline 
 Of the heavenly sea ; and her purest light 
 Kisses the earth that dreaming lies 
 
 In a still, enchanted sleeping ; 
 While the heavens with their countless starry eyes 
 
 Still watch are keeping. 
 
By the Sea. 229 
 
 The Earth loves the golden Rose of the Day, 
 From which she distils the fiery wine 
 
 Of immortal youth and magnificent might ; 
 
 But the Sea loves the silver Lily of the Night, 
 
 For her beams are as wands of a holier sway, 
 Whose spell brings the trance divine : 
 
 The Rose for Life's feast and the festal array. 
 The Lily for Death's shrine. 
 
 II. 
 
 " The moving waters at their priestlike task 
 Of pure ablution round earth's human shores." 
 
 — Keats. 
 
 The earth lay breathless in a fever-swoon 
 
 Beneath the burning noon, 
 Sun-stricken, dazed with light and sick with heat : 
 Then came the waters from the cool midsea 
 
 Trooping up blithe and free. 
 And fanned her brow with airs so fresh and sweet 
 And crept about her gently and caressed 
 
 Her broad unheaving breast 
 With the white cincture of a magic zone ; 
 Bathing and swathing her faint limbs, that were 
 
 In the fierce sun-fire bare, 
 With lucid liquid folds of rich green purple strown. 
 
23 o By the Sea, 
 
 Then as the sun went sinking to his rest 
 
 Down the enamoured west, 
 The waves were leaving the calm earth to drean 
 Bearing the smirch of her long day's turmoil, 
 
 The sweat of her fierce toil, 
 The sultry breaths and languid feverous stream; 
 Bearing all far away, and as they went 
 
 Whispering with blithe content, 
 To drown and cleanse them in the pure midsea 
 The while the earth all dewy sweet and clean, 
 
 And drowsily serene 
 Beneath the star-dewed heavens might slumber 
 and free. 
 
 III. 
 
 A BATHING SNATCH. 
 
 O Sun lay down thy golden bridge 
 
 Across the waters clear ! 
 O foam flash round each rock and ridge 
 
 That soon shall disappear ! 
 O tide swell up a full spring-tide 
 
 Upon the shingly shore ! 
 For, oh, I love thy surge-sweep wide 
 
 And long-resounding roar ! 
 
By the Sea. 231 
 
 IV. 
 
 A LAMENT. 
 
 Leafless and brown are the trees ; 
 
 And the wild waste rocks are brown, 
 Which the wan green sea so stealthily 
 
 Comes creeping up to drown ; 
 And the north-west breeze blows chill, 
 
 And the sky is cold and pale ; 
 And nevermore from this desolate shore 
 
 Shall I watch my true-love's sail. 
 
 V. 
 
 The stars came gliding out of the sea 
 
 To gaze on the sleeping city, 
 With a tremulous light in their glances bright 
 
 Of wonderful love and pity. 
 
 The breeze was breathing its olden song 
 
 In a drowsy murmurous chanting ; 
 While the noble bay, with its moonlight spray, 
 
 Kept time in a slumbrous panting. 
 
 The city couched in a deep repose 
 
 All toil, all care suspended ; 
 The roar and the strife of its turbid life 
 
 In the calm of nature blended. 
 
333 By the Sea. 
 
 Alas ! I sighed with a weary sigh, 
 That all the sin and sorrow, 
 
 Now dreaming there, so calm and fair, 
 Must wake afresh to-morrow. 
 
 Would that the whole might thus rest ( 
 Entranced, for ever sleeping ; 
 
 The sea and the sky, and the stars on '. 
 And those myriads born for weeping 
 
 Jersey, 1861-1862. 
 
( ^33 ) 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PILGRIMAGE TO SAINT NICOTINE OF THE HOLY 
 HERB. 
 
 In every country and in every age 
 
 Have men been wont to go on pilgrimage. 
 
 As I have read, — each visiting that shrine 
 
 Which seems to him most blessed and divine ; 
 
 Athwart far lands, athwart the wild sea foam : 
 
 Some to Jerusalem, and some to Rome ; 
 
 And some to Lourdes, — trh lourdes, iris lourdes, God wot, 
 
 Les pauvres &mes which seek that sacred spot ; 
 
 And some to Santiago far in Spain, 
 
 Anear the roar of the Atlantic main ; 
 
 And some unto our I^ady of Lorette, — 
 
 Full many votaries this Dame doth get : 
 
 The very Paynims bring their vows and prayers 
 
 To Mecca and to Yeddo and Benares : 
 
 While others piously seek out the tombs 
 
 Of mighty men who have fulfilled their dooms, 
 
234 Prologue. 
 
 The fields where battles long ago were fought, 
 
 The scenes wherever wondrous worts were wrought, 
 
 The sites of antique cities overthrown, 
 
 The fanes of fair gods dead and turned to stone : — 
 
 What need write more? when saint and bard and 
 
 sage 
 Declare our whole life but one Pilgrimage ; 
 A journey from the cradle to the bier 
 Of all the restless millions wandering here ; 
 A toilsome travel of all things alive 
 Unto the Temple where they all arrive. 
 And bowing down before the Shrine of Death 
 Find peace at last in breathing their last breath. 
 
 But furthermore thus teacheth the wise man ; 
 That age by age our human caravan 
 Is like unto all those that went before 
 And all that shall come after evermore : 
 New names, new robes, new thoughts and words and 
 
 deeds, 
 New toys and treasures, sciences and creeds, 
 But ever the same passions and same needs : 
 The same old Drama on the same old Stage, 
 The same old tears and laughters, joy and rage ; 
 The selfsame characters upon the Scene, 
 Wise, foolish, rich and poor, and great and mean ; 
 
Prologue. 235 
 
 Old actors fall away with weary hearts, 
 
 Fresh actors come to take the selfsame parts ; 
 
 And whosoe'er the destined roles may fill, 
 
 Hamlet is Hamlet — Osric, Osric still ; 
 
 And ever with the fifth act come the knaves 
 
 To vent their clownish jests and dig the graves ; 
 
 And ever with the last scene entereth 
 
 Some princely one demanding — " O proud death. 
 
 What feast is toward in thine eternal cell ? " 
 
 And so the Play is over : very well, 
 
 It shall be played again, and have a run, 
 
 Coeval with the earth's around the sun. 
 
 Lo this is what men call philosophie. 
 Whereof I know not anything perdie. 
 But it hath brought us to our proper theme. 
 Our Card of beauty and of joy supreme. 
 Our peerless Pilgrimage unto the Shrine 
 Of most beneficent Saint Nicotine. 
 Five hundred years agone Dan Chaucer went 
 A-riding through the pleasant lanes of Kent, 
 In April on the eight and twentieth day. 
 Which were with us I ween a week in May,i 
 
 ^ There has been much learned astronomical discussion, of 
 dubious import, about the exact time of the year, as indicated in the 
 opening of the Prologue to the "Canterbury Tales." If the deep 
 scientific gentlemen engaged had but condescended to look forward 
 
336 Prologue. 
 
 He and his compagnie of twenty-nine, 
 
 Both men and women, to the holy shrine 
 
 Of Him by hot Knights at the altar slain. 
 
 And now by Master Froude killed over again 
 
 All in cold blood ; alas ! a piteous doom, 
 
 Sword-pierced in life and pen-pierced in the tomb : 
 
 But Master Freeman now hath set to work 
 
 To maul this Froude as if he were a Turk ; 
 
 And he who kicked A'Becket as he lay 
 
 Is like to kick the bucket in this fray. 
 
 This compagnie it was of all degrees, 
 
 The high, the low, the midway ; and all these. 
 
 Yea, each and all, our Poet doth rehearse 
 
 And picture lifelike in his cordial verse ; 
 
 to the Man of Law's Prologue they might have read in the beginning 
 thereof — 
 
 "And though he [the host] were not depe expert in lore, 
 
 He wiste it was the eighte and twenty day 
 
 Of April, that is messager to May. " 
 
 This may suffice to fix the date accurately enough for us who are not 
 astronomers. The Old Style, I suppose, would then be about eight 
 days behind the New, as the difference I believe increases three days 
 in every four centuries (one in each of the three which is not a mul- 
 tiple of four), and was eleven days in 1752, when tht New Style 
 was adopted in England (we all know how the populace vociferously 
 demanded the eleven days of which they conceived themselves de- 
 frauded) : the Russians, who keep to the Old Style, now date twelve 
 days behind us. Thus Chaucer's April 28 would be our May 6. In 
 reading Herrick and his contemporaries on the delights of going a- 
 Maying, we are apt to forgetthat their May-day the ist was our nth ; 
 so with many old weather proverbs. 
 
Prologue. 33 7 
 
 As sweet and rath as his own daisy was 
 
 " Upon the smalfe, softfe, swotfe gras," 
 
 As rich and free and cheerful as the gush 
 
 Of gratulation from a mid-June thrush : 
 
 I rede you read him once and twice and thrice, 
 
 And over again ; it is my boon advice ; 
 
 And learn what all these men and women were 
 
 In mind and body, state and garb and air ; 
 
 And feel what full red-blooded life did flow 
 
 Thorough their veins five hundred years ago ; 
 
 And find what Tales they told upon their way 
 
 Of noble tragedy and jolly play ; 
 
 And see that we are now what they were then, 
 
 Since fashions change, not women, neither men. 
 
 What this first Poet, whom we love so well, 
 Of merrie England, in his verse did tell 
 Of these glad Pilgrims, both their mind and make. 
 That Artist of the Visions clepfed Blake, 
 Who also sang delightful young-world songs, 
 Soaring aloof from all our old-world wrongs. 
 Did picture forth with pencil and engrave, 
 Form after form to match the Poet brave : 
 We touch not him, for he was grand and wild ; 
 We leave this giant who became a child. 
 A graceful limner, Stothard was his name, 
 Did set himself to enterprise the same. 
 
238 Prologue. 
 
 And him we follow in our noble Card ; 
 But whereas he went backward to the Bard 
 Through all the centuries, to match his rhyme, 
 We choose our Pilgrims from our very time : 
 For why ? our Saint is not the Saint of old, 
 But hath more votaries a hundredfold ; 
 Lo' you shall hear of him anon, but first 
 Behoves the jolly Pilgrims be rehearsed ; 
 New Saint, New Pilgrims, but the counterparts 
 Of Chaucer's rout en route in brains and hearts. 
 
 1878. 
 
( 239 ) 
 
 ARCH ARCHERY. 
 
 ou ask me, darling, why I smile, 
 
 And at what pleasant thing ? 
 [y thoughts go back a few months' while 
 
 To the fairest day in spring ; 
 
240 ^rch Archery. 
 
 Over the rolling waves of sward 
 
 We lightly skimmed along ; 
 While the larks from the cloud and the azure 
 
 Freely their first full song 
 
 Then leaf-like came a-dropping down, 
 When their joy thro' heaven was told, 
 
 To the short sweet grass, to the gorse half bro 
 Half lit with shining gold. 
 
 And I said or thought : Not Dian queen 
 
 With her quiver arid her bow, 
 A statelier form, a purer mien. 
 
Jrch Archery. 241 
 
 Hit we the mark, or hit we not, 
 What merry laughs and jeers ! 
 
 Gaily we tripped along the glen 
 Between the targets two. 
 
 With riant races now and then 
 For arrows in the dew. 
 
 O arch was she with her jest and smile, 
 
 And arch was I, I ween ; 
 But the Archer archest all the while 
 
 Was shooting there unseen. 
 
 Swift, swift and keen his arrows flew. 
 
 Well aimed at either heart ; 
 And pierced the poor things thro' and thro', 
 
 With a strange delicious smart. 
 
 Well — when the match was fairly done. 
 
 Who triumphed, she or I ? 
 We both had lost, we both had won ; 
 
 It ended in a tie. 
 
 For that third Archer, we agreed. 
 
 Alone should judge the case ; 
 And thus he solemnly decreed, 
 
 With wisdom in his face. — 
 
343 ' jirch Archery. 
 
 " You — maiden of the witching eyes, 
 You — happiest of men ; 
 
 Must share the honour and the prize, 
 Nor ever strive again. 
 
 "For thus on either I bestow 
 The meed that fitteth well — 
 
 She is the tuistress of the bow, 
 He bears away the bell." 
 
 Cunagh, i860. 
 
( 343 ) 
 
 LOW LIFE. 
 
 AS OVERHEARD IN THE TRAIN. 
 
 That jolly old gentleman, bless his white hat ! 
 Wouldn't come in to spoil our chat ; 
 We are alone and we can speak, — 
 What have you done, Miss, all the week ? 
 
 " Oh, all the day it's been fit and shew, 
 And all the night it's been trim and sew. 
 For the ladies are flocking to Exeter Hall 
 In lovely light dresses fit for a ball." 
 
 Under your eye a little dark streak, 
 And a point of red on the top of your cheek, 
 And your temples quite dim against your hair ; 
 This sha'n't last very much longer I swear. 
 
 And what is the news from the workroom now ? 
 " The week began with a bit of a row j 
 Emmy Harley married young Earl 
 Just in the busy time ! " — sensible girl ! 
 
^44 Low Life. 
 
 " That was on Monday ; Missis said 
 It was very ungrateful, very ill-bred, 
 And very unkind to us when she knew 
 The work so heavy, the hands so few. 
 
 "But this was nothing : the minute we woke 
 On Wednesday, before it seemed any one spoke, 
 We knew that poor Mary Challis was dead ; 
 Kate Long had been sleeping in the same bed. 
 
 " Mary worked with us till twelve, when tea 
 Was brought in to keep us awake, but she 
 Was so ill then. Miss Cooper sent her to bed ; 
 And there in the morning they found her dead ; 
 
 " With Kate fast asleep by her side : they had come 
 To see how she was, and the sight struck them dumb : 
 At last they roused Kate and led her away ; 
 She was sick and shuddering all the day. 
 
 " Kate says when she went up at four to their room 
 She was stupid with sleep ; but she marked a faint bloom 
 On Mary's pale face, and she heard her breathe low — 
 A light fluttering breath now quick and now slow ; 
 
 " And feared to disturb her, for s^e had a cough, 
 But the moment she laid her head down she was off, 
 And knew nothing more till they stood by the side 
 Of the bed : p'r'aps Mary slept on till she died. 
 
Low Life. 345 
 
 " They buried her yesterday. Kate was there, 
 And she was the only one Missis could spare ; 
 Some dresses were bound to be finished by night, 
 For the ladies to go in to Church all right. 
 
 " Poor Mary ! she didn't fear dying she said. 
 
 Her father drinks and her mother is dead ; 
 
 But she hoped that in Heaven the white garments wear 
 
 For ever ; no fashions and dressmaking There." 
 
 My Love, if the ladies most pious of all 
 Who flock to the Church and to Exeter Hall 
 Find Heaven has but one dress for rich as for poor. 
 And no fashions, they'll very sooo cut it I'm sure. 
 
 I saw you ten minutes on Tuesday night, 
 Then I took the 'bus home for I had to write ; 
 And I wrote and I wrote like a,n engine till five, 
 When my fingers were dead and the letters alive. 
 
 A fair bill of costs from, a deuce of a draft 
 In our Cashierjs worst scrawl like Chinese ran daft ; 
 With entries between, on the margin, the back. 
 And figures like short-hand marks put to the rack. 
 
 But our Common-law Clerk is going away, 
 
 And the Gov'nor had me in yesterday. 
 
 And said he would try me, he thought I might do ; 
 
 And I jumped at the chance, for this child thinks so too. 
 
246 Low Life. 
 
 Just fancy, each morning a jolly good walk, 
 And instead of the copying, bustle and talk ! 
 And if I do well — and well I will do — 
 A couple of sov.s a week for my screw ! 
 
 And then when I'm free of the desk and the stool, 
 Do you think you will keep to the nunnery rule 
 Of the shop, till you go off like Mary some night 
 Smothered in work from the air and the light. 
 
 We'll use our professional talents, my dear : 
 
 You shall make such a wedding dress, best of the year ! 
 
 And a wonderful marriage-deed I will draw 
 
 With magnificent settlements perfect in law. 
 
 Thus doing our duties in thpse states of life 
 In which it has pleased God to call us, my wife 1 
 " And how much a year will you settle on me?" 
 My body and soul and — what we shall see. 
 
 i86S- 
 
THE DREAMER. 
 
 Sing the old song while the dear child is sleeping, 
 
 Sing it most sweetly and tenderly low ; 
 Not to awake her again to her weeping ; 
 
 Let the soft notes through her dream gently flow. 
 What, though the passionate tears were down-streaming 
 
 From eye-balls long parched, when she lay down to 
 rest: 
 Poor thing, she now is most tranquilly dreaming ; 
 
 Her life is again with His 'dear presence blest. 
 
 See, o'er her wan face what joy brightly flushes ; 
 
 Beneath the dark lids how her eyes swell and gleam ! 
 The sweet smile is drowned in the glow of love-blushes ! 
 
 Yes ! he companions her now in the dream. 
 Darling ! her lips murmur softly and slowly, — 
 
 What sacred vows and confessions of love ? 
 Is not this Dream-life most blessfed and holy, 
 
 Less of the earth than of Heaven above ? 
 
248 The Dreamer. 
 
 No, do not draw down the white lawny curtain : 
 
 The moonlight sleeps still on her hair, on her face ; 
 Mystical blending of shadow uncertain 
 
 With lustre as holy as Heaven's blessed grace. 
 It stirs not her slumber, but chastened and tender-7- 
 
 Our musical murmur half-thrilling its breast — 
 Pervades with a blissful entrancement of splendour 
 
 That dim world of dreams where her soul findeth rest. 
 
 Sing the old song still with low-voicfed sweetness. 
 
 To harmonise well with her brief dream of bliss, 
 Blending therewith to ecstatic completeness : — 
 
 The poor pallid lips, are they trembling a kiss ! 
 So may the words and the scenes of her vision 
 
 To her tranced spirit more exquisite grow ; 
 With beauty and glory and rapture Elysian 
 
 Subtly attuned to our soft music's flow* 
 
 And she may, alas, when she wakes with the morrow 
 
 To bitter reality, hopeless and lone. 
 Remember far more to sooth anguish and sorrow 
 
 Of the dream and the dream-words of him who is gone : 
 And so, when we sing the old song in her hearing, 
 
 May she with wonder and secret joy find 
 The dear words, the bliss of her dream re-appearing 
 
 With the loved music that flows through her mind. 
 
The Dreamer. 249 
 
 , Perhaps she now hears him an old love-lay singing ; 
 
 Does it not thrill in her eager, fixed face ? 
 Or hears the old Church-bells in golden chimes ringing 
 
 The union that cannot in this world take place. 
 But sleep, darling, sleep ; oh, dwell long in that heaven, 
 
 The strange, solemn dream-land so holy and calm, 
 Which God hath in mercy to such as thee given ; 
 
 Where all stricken hearts may find wound-healing balm. 
 
 1855. 
 
( 350 ) 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 He felt scant need 
 Of church or creed, 
 He took small share 
 In saintly prayer, 
 His eyes found food for his love ; 
 He could pity poor devils- condemned to hell. 
 But sadly neglected endeavours to dwell 
 
 With the angels in luck above : 
 To save one's precious peculiar soul 
 He never could understand is the whole 
 
 Of a mortal's business in life, 
 While all about him his human kin 
 With loving and hating and virtue and sin 
 
 Reel overmatched in the strife. 
 " The heavens for the heavens, and the earth for the 
 
 earth ! 
 I am a Man — I'll be true to my birth — 
 Man in my joys, in my pains." 
 
Robert Burns. 25 1 
 
 So fearless, stalwart, erect and free, 
 He gave to his fellows right royally 
 
 His strength, his heart, his brains ; 
 For proud and fiery and swift and bold — 
 Wine of life from heart of gold, 
 The blood of his heathen manhood rolled 
 
 Full-billowed through his veins. 
 
 1859. 
 
( 252 ) 
 
 WILLIAM BLAKE. 
 
 He came to the desert of London town 
 
 Grey miles long ; 
 He wandered up and he wandered down, 
 
 Singing a quiet song. 
 
 He came to the desert of London town, 
 
 Mirk miles broad ; 
 He wandered up and he wandered down, 
 
 Ever alone with God. 
 
 There were thousands and thousands of human kind 
 
 In this desert of brick and stone : 
 But some were deaf and some were blind, 
 
 And he was there alone. 
 
 At length the good hour came ; he died 
 
 As he had lived, alone : 
 He was not missed from the desert wide. 
 
 Perhaps he was found at the Throne. 
 
 1866. 
 
( ^53 ) 
 
 SONG. 
 
 " The Nightingale was not yet heard, 
 
 For the Rose was not yet blown." ^ 
 His heart was quiet as a bird 
 
 Asleep in the night alone, 
 And never were its pulses stirred 
 
 To breathe or joy or moan : 
 The Nightingale was not yet heard 
 
 For the Rose was not yet blown. 
 
 Then She bloomed forth before his sight 
 
 In passion and in power, 
 And filled the very day with light, 
 
 So glorious was her dower ; 
 And made the whole vast moonlit night 
 
 As fragrant as a bower : 
 The young, the beautiful, the bright, 
 
 The splendid peerless Flower. 
 
 ^ "Traveller in Persia" (Mr. Binning); cited by Mr. Fitzgerald 
 in the notes to his translation of Omar Khayyam. 
 
254 Song. 
 
 Whereon his heart was like a bird 
 When Summer mounts his throne, 
 
 And all its pulses thrilled and stirred 
 To songs of joy and moan, 
 
 To every most impassioned word 
 And most impassioned tone ; 
 
 The Nightingale at length was heard 
 ■ For the Rose at length was blown. 
 
 Febi~uary, 1877. 
 
( 255 ) 
 
 A CHANT. 
 
 While the trees grow, 
 While the streams flow, 
 While the winds blow, 
 
 We will be free !' 
 Free as trees growing, 
 Free as streams flowing, 
 Free as winds blowing, 
 
 Evermore free ! 
 
( 256 ) 
 
 ON A BROKEN PIPE. 
 
 Neglected now it lies a cold clay form, 
 So late with living inspirations warm : 
 Type of all other creatures formed of clay— 
 What more than it for Epitaph have they ? 
 
( 257 ) 
 
 A PROEM. 
 
 " Carouse in the Past." 
 
 Robert Browning's Saul. 
 
 We will drink anew of old pleasures ; 
 
 In the golden chalice of song 
 We will pour out the wine-like treasures 
 
 Of memories hidden long. 
 
 Old memories, hidden but cherished, 
 In a heart-nook deep and calm ; 
 
 They have not faded and perished 
 Like the old friends they embalm. 
 
 We will call them forth from their darkness 
 As we call forth a rare old wine 
 
 Which the long rich years have mellowed 
 Till the flavour is divine. 
 
 In a glorious intoxication 
 
 Will we revel while such drink may last ; 
 
 And dead to the leaden-houred Present, 
 
 Live in golden hours of the Past. 
 1854. 
 
 R- 
 
NOTES. 
 
 It seems proper to give some account of the way in which 
 my editorial duties have been performed. All the poems 
 in the early part of the volume (pp. i to 75) were pro- 
 posed for publication by the author himself : so that, with 
 regard to them, I had no duty to perform except to print 
 them as they stood. It may be worth while, however, 
 to mention that " Richard Forest's Midsummer Night,'' 
 as originally written, consisted of twelve sections, two of 
 which the author had marked for omission. One of 
 these sections, however, I have thought it best to retain. 
 The three pieces reprinted from the Dispatch seemed 
 to me worth giving if only as evidence of the versatility 
 of the author's powers. 
 
 With regard to the early poems which are given in the 
 latter part of the volume, I must own my entire responsi- 
 bility for their selection and arrangement. I have ex- 
 plained in the introductory memoir my views as to the 
 peculiar character and merits of " The Doom of a City." 
 In a copy of this poem, which the author presented to 
 his friend Mr. John Grant, there is an explanatory note 
 appended to it, which seems worth quoting : — 
 
 "I call it a. Fantasia, because (lacking the knowledge 
 and DOwer to deal with the theme in its enical inteQ'rit:v\ 
 
26o Notes, 
 
 I have made it but an episode in a human life, instead 
 of a chapter in the history of Fate. Thus it is through- 
 out alloyed with the feelings and thoughts, the fantasies 
 of the supposed narrator; and the verse has all the 
 variableness and abrupt transitions of a man's moods, 
 instead of the solemn uniformity of the laws of Fate. 
 
 " The City of the Statues is from the tale of Zobeide in 
 the History of the Three Ladies of Bagdad and the Three 
 Calenders. This episode and the account of the King- 
 doms of the 3ea in ' Prince Beder and ,' impressed 
 
 my boyhood more powerfully than anything else in the 
 'Arabian Nights.' 
 
 "The 'Voyage' is certainly tiresome: but a penny 
 steamboat will not carry one to a City where the people 
 are all petrified, — not simply in soul and mind, but also 
 in flesh and blood and bone." 
 
 In explanation of the last paragraph it is necessary to 
 state that the poem originally consisted of four parts, the 
 first of which was entitled " The Voyage.'' This part I 
 have ventured to omit, for although there is some forcible 
 writing in it, it is certainly inferior in merit to the rest of 
 the poem. Moreover, the author once informed me that 
 it was his intention to alter and curtail this part, which, 
 however, he never found an opportunity of doing. It 
 may be stated that this first part relates how the narrator 
 of the story puts forth to sea in an open boat : how he 
 encounters a fearful storm, and afterwards a sea-monster, 
 from both of which he escapes. I have made the poem 
 commence with the last section of the first part j but no 
 other alteration or omission has been made. 
 
Notes. 261 
 
 T^e Poet and his Muse, p. 55. 
 
 To the original MS. of this poem the following note 
 was appended, " Kot true now, but true of seven songless 
 years." 
 
 The Doom of a City, p. 92. 
 
 In the copy of this poem from which I have already 
 quoted an explanatory passage, a few notes occur written 
 in pencil. These seem to be worth preserving, and I 
 therefore give them below : — 
 
 " ' The chemistry of terror thus intense 
 
 Burns them all lurid on the shrinking sense.' p. 109. 
 
 " De Quincey has a like simile in the ' Opium-Eater ' : — • 
 ' The fierce chemistry of his dreams burns daily objects intc 
 insufferable splendour.' ' 
 
 " ' It is with swelling reverence dedicate,' p. in. 
 
 " The dedication suggested by that of Bacon's ' Advance- 
 ment of Learning.' 
 
 " ' I take thee, Misery, for my faithful Bride,' p. 113. 
 " See Shelley's ' Misery, a Fragment.' 
 
 " ' Their Man is fulfilled,' p. 135. 
 "This is, I conceive, the true meaning of ^on, as de- 
 veloped in one of De Quincey's papers, ' On the Scriptural 
 Expression Eternity.' 
 
 " ' The stars for ever sweep through space, surrounding,' p. 145. 
 
 "[This chorus was] written in 1 855 : adopted here because 
 something of the kind was wanted, and its existence hin- 
 dered me from writing a new Chorus specially for this 
 
262 . Notes. 
 
 piece. It does not fit in precisely, and is the only bit of 
 thus-adopted work." 
 
 A Festival of Life, p. 169. 
 At the end of a copy of this poem which the author 
 presented to Mr. Grant, I find the following note : — " I 
 fear that you will find the above very turgid throughout 
 ('The wreck of matter in the crash of words,' to improve 
 Addison's notorious line) ; but the conception was so 
 dithyrambic, and the stanza so long and elaborate, that I 
 have not been able to tone down the diction." 
 
 £y the Sea, p. 228. 
 The pieces given under this heading are extracted 
 from a long narrative poem, called " Ronald and Helen," 
 the main portion of which is written in the same metre 
 as "Weddah" and Om-el-Bonain." It is not one of 
 Mr. Thomson's best works ; but nevertheless it contains 
 many brilliant passages : and I shall be glad if the 
 present volume meets with suflScient success to justify 
 the publication of that and the rest of the uncollected 
 poems. 
 
 Prologue to the Pilgrimage to St. Nicotine, p. 233. 
 The poem of which this is the commencement was 
 written to accompany and explain a large coloured plate, 
 an imitation or rather burlesque of Stothard's " Canter- 
 bury Pilgrims." Each of the Pilgrims represented some 
 prominent personage of the day, and the verses summed 
 up, in a few pungent lines, his or her characteristics. 
 The whole piece is worth reprinting, but this could not 
 well be done without reprinting the plate also. 
 
Notes. 263 
 
 Robert Burns, p. 250. 
 These lines are extracted from the article on Burns 
 which I have mentioned in the Memoir. The verses are 
 there stated to be part of "a queer ode dedicated to 
 him:" and after giving them the author adds: — "The 
 somewhat inebriate dithyrambist is perhaps right in 
 seizing as the essential characteristics of Burns his vigor- 
 ous strength and intense human or earthly sympathies." 
 
 William Blake, p. 252. 
 This poem forms the conclusion of Thomson's Essay 
 on Blake, which was published in the National Reformer. 
 
 PRINTED BY BALLANTYKE, HANSON AND CC. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 
MorKs b^ James ^bomson. 
 
 The City of Dreadful Night, and other Poems, ^s. 
 
 Vane's Story, and other Poems. 5^. 
 
 Essays and Phantasies. 6^-. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "Those who received Mr. Thomson's 'City of Dreadful Night' 
 as a singidarly powerful manifestation of poetic imagination 
 will be naturally eager to learn how he deals with prose. When 
 we say we are not disappointed, we have given him high praise. 
 We do not mean that his command of prose is as great as his 
 mastery of metre, for it fails here and there ; but that he can write 
 such English as few can write nowadays is, we think, beyond dis- 
 pute. The opening essay, called ' Our Lady of Sorrow,' is the 
 prose equivalent of 'The City of Dreadful Night.' Indeed, one can 
 trace a marked correlation between Mr. Thomson's prose and poetic 
 work. In the essay, as in the poem, there is gloomy beauty, a pro- 
 found and pathetic despair, and a keen sympathy with humanity. 
 The language is majestic, sonorous, and musical, and in perfect 
 harmony with the vague sublimity of the thought. In the articles 
 called 'Open Secret Societies,' the 'Sayings of Sigvat,' and 'A 
 Walk Abroad,' the same qualities are displayed, but not to such an 
 impressive extent. 'The Fair of St. Sylvester' shows Mr. Thom- 
 son's power of expressing a joyous and graceful vein of feeling, just 
 as ' Sunday up the River ' showed a poetic expression of this mood. 
 ... As a literary work, and as manifesting a rare delicacy of hu- 
 mour, we are inclined to value the paper entitled ' Indolence,' above 
 all but the first essay. In it Mr. Thomson shows that he has the 
 making of an essay.ist/Kr«;j«»z//«. And this is the more noticeable, 
 because a really fine essayist is the rarest of all literary phenomena, 
 even when essay-writing alone is attempted, and particularly re- 
 markable when met in conjunction with Mr. Thomson's pther gifts. 
 . . . Generally we may say that Essays and Phantasies is a book 
 which will delight all who care for fine English prose, high imagina- 
 tion and suggestive ingenuity." — Spectator. 
 
 "Mr. Thomson is already well known to most readers as the author 
 of a strange and brilliant volume of poems, ' The City of Dreadful 
 
Night,' in which the melancholy pessimism of Leopardi is expressed 
 with the exquisite music of the ' Castle of Indolence,' and in which, 
 at the same time, with a strange contradiction inherent in poetic 
 natures, the author has celebrated the country enjoyments of the 
 lower classes as they have seldom been done before. Indeed there 
 are those among Mr. Thomson's readers who think he did higher 
 thin5;s in his wonderful ' Sunday at Hampstead,' and ' Sunday up 
 the River,' than in all the defiant pessimism and despairing melan- 
 choly of ' The City of Dreadful Night.' That Mr. Thomson is not 
 so attractive in prose as in verse is hardly to be wondered at, for if 
 a man can write really good verse he is natufally more interesting 
 tlian the man who can write really good prose, because the one 
 accomplishment is rarer than the other, especially in this genera- 
 tion of little poets. As most of Mr. Thomson's poems were collec- 
 tions of earlier years, so most of these essays are collected from the 
 various papers to which they were contributed any time between 
 1864 and 1875." — Westminster Review. 
 
 "The appearance of a verse-writer of real power who belongs to 
 no school, and can hardly be called a debtor to any living poet, is 
 a thing to be welcomed with something more than the attention 
 commonly given to a new volume in metre. . . . We are speaking of 
 Mr. Thomson as of a new poet ; the truth is, that most of the pieces 
 in this volume are dated from ten to fifteen years ago, some 
 farther back still, and some few have already been published. 
 But the scattered and casual publicity of magazines is not enough 
 for solid reputation. To many lovers of poetry Mr. Thomson's 
 work will doubtless be as new as, we confess, it is to ourselves. 
 . . . Mr. Thomson dedicates his book to the memory of Leopardi, 
 and he has certainly drunk deep of Leopardi's intense pessimism. 
 - . . Whether this bitterly despairing mood is really the one 
 most congenial to the poet, is a matter on which we have no 
 title to be curious, nor would the inquiry be relevant to the artistic 
 merit of his work. In any case, it is not the only mood he 
 is capable of. In ' Sunday at Hampstead ' and ' Sunday up the ' 
 River,' Mr. Thomson gives us two idyllic scenes full of brilliant 
 verse and fancy. From ' Sunday up the River ' we quote some 
 lines on a sunrise of early summer ; which, be it observed, are not 
 mere ornamental description, but have, as all true poetic descrip- 
 tion should have, their definite function in expounding the poet's 
 mind. . . . There is a power in these lines which reminds one of 
 Shelley, though there is no question of imitation. But to set 
 them off as is their due the lighter verse that follows ought also 
 to be quoted. Indeed, frequent transitions of tone and metre are a 
 marked feature of the poem, which is not so much a single idyll as 
 a Lisderkreis. ' The Naked Goddess ' is a legend or allegory for 
 
every reader to interpret as he will. To many it will seem strange, 
 to some foolish ; those who know Blake will breathe in it a familiar 
 air. Either Mr. Thomson has caught inspirations from Blake for 
 this poem (and caught them very well), or it is a singular coincidence 
 of poetical temper. Another piece to be specially mentioned, as 
 showing at its best Mr. Thomson's command of verse and dic- 
 tion, is 'The Lord of the Castle of Indolence.' .... We have 
 shown as much of Mr. Thomson's poetic style as can fairly be 
 shown in the space of a review. It has the first and best mark 
 of genuine poetry, the directness and large simplicity which seem 
 to make discussion impossible. The words are not built or driven 
 together, but come in their places as if it were the most natural 
 thing for them to do, and they could not help it. This quality of 
 Mr. Thomson's work reminds us now and then of Wordsworth, 
 we mean in his happier vein, when he is naturally and truly 
 simple, not in the pieces where he affects a forced and bald 
 rusticity. Mr. Thomson incliides in his volume some modestly 
 entitled 'Attempts at Translation from Heine.' They are very 
 good, but their interest is rather dimmed by the company in which 
 they appear. Plenty of people are always ready to translate Heine 
 more or less tolerably — and well enough, perhaps, for those who 
 cannot read t^e original. But such verse as that of ' The Lord of 
 the Castle of Indolence ' is not to be hkd to order, or to be met 
 with every day. We hope that we may 'one day expect from Mr. 
 Thomson, not more finished work, for that we could hardly desire, 
 but something framed on a scale and with a continuity of design 
 which shall give his powers ampler scope." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " The author has high gifts. . . . These are mainly a direct- 
 ness, brilliance, and vigour, such as we see in Ebenezer Elliott, 
 without his ill temper, and with a native melody, and a sense of 
 beauty, such as the Corn- Law Rhymer never showed." — Athenaum. 
 
 "The present volume of verse is an unusually interesting one, 
 testifying, indeed, to a certain lack of range in the author's thought, 
 and to a concentration of his ide,as upon certain riddles which the 
 wise indifference of the wise is apt to leave unattempted, but singu- 
 larly melodious in expres^on, dignified and full of meaning, and 
 bearing witness to reading as well as to tneditation. . . . The 
 [leading] poem ends with two 'descriptively allegorical passages of 
 extreme beauty. The one is a vision of.a sphinx and an angel, who 
 face each oth^r, undergoing metamorphoses as the spectator gazel, 
 so that the angel, at first armed and winged, loses his wings, then 
 his sword, and then falls prostrate at the feet of the unchanging 
 sphinx. The other is a description of the Melencolia not unworthy 
 to be inscribed as a legend under the print itself. But it is exceed- 
 
4 
 
 ingly rare to find a volume, in which so large a number of the pieces 
 contained have a distinct and individual poetic attractiveness. . . . 
 That he has vifhat somebody once called a fin? gloomy imagination is 
 not contestable, and, fortunately, he is not always given up to it. His 
 book, if it were ever possible to induce Englishmen to buy poetry 
 ejccept as they buy wine — not because of its goodness, but because 
 of the name of the seller — ought to be widely read. . » . On the 
 whole, the interest and the attraction of the volume are of the most 
 considerable, though we cannot help wishing that Mr. Thomson 
 had read Shakespeare more, and Leopardi less." — Academy, 
 
 " When Mr. Thomson elects to write naturally, ahd' dwell on the 
 glory and virtue of nature we are at one with him. Many, parts of 
 ' Sunday at Hampstead ' are excellent, so is ' Sunday up the River,' 
 reprinted from Eraser ; and best of all is the allegorical fable of 
 the ' Nalced Goddess.' Perhaps the choicest morsel is ' E. B. B.', a 
 graceful little dirge for our greatest woman poet, Mrs. Browning." — 
 Graphic. ' 
 
 '"In the Room,' a dialogue between the articles of furniture in 
 a darkened and unopened room, leading at last to the disclosure that 
 the occupant is lying dead upon the bed, having died by his own 
 hand, has a fine gradual horror, which is masterly in its way ; while 
 the poems entitled ' Sunday at Hampstead ' and ' Sunday up the 
 River,' strike us as being as fresh and original as anything we have 
 read for a considerable time. . . . Such songs as ' Drink ! Drink ! 
 open your Mouth,' and ' As we Rush, as we Rush in the Train,' have 
 the best singing quality, and do no small credit to their author." — 
 Notes and Queries. 
 
_. Cornell University Library 
 
 pn9iS7.v8 
 
 A voice from the Nile, and other poems. 
 
 3 1924 013 564 079