RANSetlFTS FMJt 
 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 William SMarp. 
 
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 iMww^')^ 
 
3 1924 013 546 548 
 

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EARTH'S VOICES, 
 TRANSCRIPTS FROM NATURE, 
 
 S O S P I T R A, 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SHARP. 
 
 • I hear the immense chorus over all the world of the return to joy.' 
 
 Towards Democracy xvii. 
 
 LONDON : 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. 
 
 1884. 
 
 U 
 
 C6 
 
p^(,(,^zi\ 
 
IN 
 
 High Esteem and in Personal Regard 
 
 to my friend, 
 
 WALTER H. PATER, 
 
 FELLOW OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD, 
 Author of 'Studies in the History of the Renaissance,' Eto. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013546548 
 
The lines entitled ' Sleepy Hollow ' and the Sonnets ' Mne- 
 mosyne ' and ' La Pia ' have already appeared in The Academy, 
 and three or four of the ' Transcripts from Nature ' in The 
 Athenaum. 
 
 For courteous permission to reprint the copyright verses 
 called ' The Last Aboriginal ' and ' Birchington Revisited,' I 
 am indebted in the one instance to the Proprietors of CasseWs 
 Magazine, and in the other to the Editor of Harper's. 
 
 W. S. 
 
' It is enough to lie on the sward in the shadow of green 
 boughs, to listen to the songs of summer, to drink in the sun- 
 light, the air, the flowers, the sky, the beauty of all I 
 
 want to be always in company with these, with earth, and sun, 
 and sea, and stars by night.' 
 
 ' The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the 
 only hours when we really live, so that the longer we can stay 
 among these things, so much the more is snatched from inevit- 
 able time.' 
 
 Richard Jefferies. 
 
 ' The ieEdium vita results from incapacity to see To 
 
 write the poetry of Ennui is to mistake the first function of 
 
 the poet, whose special work it is to lend a new seeing to our 
 
 eyes, to enable us to see the glory and the wonder of Nature's 
 
 largess.' 
 
 Theodore Watts. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 EARTH'S VOICES : 
 
 1. HYMN OF THE FORESTS 3 
 
 2. THE HYMK OF RIVERS - . . 
 
 3. THE SONG OF STREAMS - 8 
 
 4. THE SONG OF WATERFALLS 
 
 5. SONG OF THE DESERTS . iq 
 
 6. SONG OF THE CORNFIELDS II 
 
 7. SONGS OF THE WINDS - 12 
 
 8. THE SONG OF FLOWERS 15 
 
 9. THE WILD BEE ig 
 
 10. THE FIELD MOUSE - . ij 
 
 11. THE SONG OF THE LARK ig 
 
 12. THE SONG OF THE THRUSH ig 
 
 13. THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE - . 20 
 
 14. THE RAIN-SONGS - - 21 
 
 15. THE SNOW-WHISPER 23 
 
 16. SIGH OF THE MISTS 25 
 
 17. THE RED STAG 26 
 
 18. THE HYMN OF THE EAGLE 27 
 
 19. THE CRY OF THE TIGER 28 
 
 20. THE CHANT OF THE LION 
 
 21. THE HYMN OF MOUNTAINS 
 
 22. THE OCEAN CHORUS 
 
 23. THE HYMN OF SUMMER . . jj 
 
 24. THE HYMN OF AUTUMN - . - 37 
 
 25. THE HYMN OF WINTER - . jg 
 
 26. THE HYMN OF SPRING 4O 
 SOSPITRA - - - - 43 
 
 TRANSCRIPTS FROM NATURE {Mrst S(ries) - 69 
 
 29 
 32 
 33 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 GASPARA STAMPA - 
 Mater Dolorosa 
 
 Miscellaneous Sonnets and Poems 
 AUSTRALIAN SKETCHES : 
 
 1. THE LAST ABORIGINAL 
 
 2. IN THE RANGES - 
 
 3. NOON-SILENCE 
 
 4. THE stock-driver's RIDE 
 ;. DEATH OF THE LUBRA - 
 
 6 to 17. Transcripts 
 
 18. MORNING IN THE BUSH - 
 
 19. JUSTICE 
 
 20. THE COROBBOREE 
 MOONRISE-SKETCHES : 
 
 1. MOONRISE AT SEA 
 
 2. MOONRISE IN AUSTRALIA 
 
 3. MOONRISE FROM lONA, N.B. 
 
 4. MOONRISE OVER THE LAGOONS OF VENICE 
 
 5. MOONRISE ON THE ANTARCTIC 
 
 THE SHADOWED SOULS 
 
 Sleepy Hollow - 
 
 birchington revisited 
 
 June's Advent 
 
 Phantasy 
 
 Miscellaneous Poems {Graffiti (V Italia) 
 
 A RECORD 
 
 RAINBOW SKETCHES : 
 
 1. THE RAINBOW 
 
 2. TOWARDS sunset - 
 
 3. drifting rain-lights - 
 
 4. the circle of ulloa - 
 
 5. IN THE ANTARCTIC (Day-dawn : before Storm) 
 The Wandering Voice 
 
 TRANSCRIPTS FROM NATURE (Second Series) 
 madonna natura 
 Notes 
 
 85 
 108 
 109 
 
 123 
 
 125 
 
 126 
 127 
 130 
 131 
 13s 
 136 
 136 
 
 138 
 139 
 140 
 141 
 142 
 144 
 146 
 148 
 150 
 
 151 
 152 
 161 
 
 177 
 177 
 179 
 181 
 182 
 18s 
 187 
 202 
 204 
 
EARTH'S VOICES. 
 
EARTH'S VOICES. 
 I. HYMN OF THE FORESTS. 
 
 jE are the harps which the winds play, 
 A myriad tones in one vast sound 
 That the earth hearkens night and day- 
 A ceaseless music swaying round 
 
 The whole wide world, each voiceful tree 
 
 Echoing the wave-chants of the sea. 
 
 For even as inland waves that moan 
 But break not 'midst the unflowing green 
 Our trees are : and when tempests groan 
 And howl our frantic boughs between. 
 Our tumult is as when the deep 
 Struggles with winds that o'er it sweep. 
 
 'Neath bitter northern skies we stand. 
 Silent amidst the unmelting snows. 
 Gaunt warders of the desolate land : 
 Silent, save when the keen wind blows 
 The drifting wreaths about our feet. 
 Then moan we mournful music sweet. 
 
 I — 2 
 
Eai'tJis Voices. 
 
 Or in vast ancient woods of beech 
 
 Far south we make Spring's dearest home 
 
 The haunt of myriad songsters, each 
 
 A living flow'r made free to roam 
 
 From bough to bough, and thence we send 
 
 A forest-music without end. 
 
 'Neath tropic suns and ceaseless glow 
 With orient splendours we are filled : 
 'Midst Austral solitudes we grow, 
 Where seldom human voice has thrilled : 
 And ever and where'er we rise 
 We chant our ancient harmonies. 
 
 For aye the sea sings loud and long 
 
 In strange and solemn mystery 
 
 A wonderful transmitted song — 
 
 The echo of all history — 
 
 This song o'er all earth's lands we sing 
 
 While round the circling seasons swing. 
 
 II. THE HYMN OF RIVERS. 
 
 Through all the wide lands of the earth 
 We journey onward to the sea : 
 Swift from the hills that give us birth 
 In melting snows we race in mirth 
 Down through green meadows joyously, 
 Through wood and dale and desert lands, 
 Where bridges span our floods with bands 
 And cities foul our many strands. 
 
Earth! s Voices. 
 
 THE NILE. 
 
 From Afric depths I come 
 
 With ever mightier flow, 
 
 Thro' deserts vast I go, 
 Past crumbling cities dumb 
 
 And dead, and Sphinxes fair 
 
 That with a stony stare 
 
 Brood on in old despair. 
 
 Past Thebes and Memphis I 
 Roll on my turbid flood : 
 Tired now of ceaseless blood, 
 
 Beneath this blazing sky 
 I fain would bring long peace. 
 From drought a long surcease. 
 
 THE TIBER. 
 
 Majestically, like some great song 
 That moves unto a choral end, 
 
 My yellow waters sweep along 
 Through Rome, until at last they wend 
 Through lonely Latin swamps till loud 
 Sea-thunders greet them glad and proud. 
 
 THE RHINE. 
 
 Thro' pasture-lands and vine-clad heights 
 
 I curve and sweep — 
 With memories of a thousand fights 
 
 Lying hidden deep. 
 With echoes of uncounted wars 
 
 Long laid asleep — 
 Past ruins of ancient castles grim 
 
 Upon each steep. 
 
Earth's Voices. 
 
 A thousand meadows I make green 
 
 With all delight 
 Of flowers, till cornfields clothe the scene 
 
 Where once the might 
 And dread and tumult of fierce war 
 
 Filled day and night 
 With blood and death— tho' now I flow 
 
 With waters bright. 
 
 I am bless'd and bless : I crave no more 
 Than that my waves may onward pour 
 
 Forever thus, and be to all 
 The best inheritance of yore. 
 
 THE THAMES. 
 
 Through wooded banks and lovely ways 
 
 My silver waters flow : 
 I linger long in some sweet place 
 
 Where lilies blow : 
 
 Past villages and towns I swim 
 With ever-widening size, 
 
 Until at last I chant my hymn 
 Where London lies. 
 
 The commerce of the world I bear, 
 Till seaward I have pass'd 
 
 And, blent with salt waves, onward fare 
 Through ocean vast. 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 With mighty rush and flow I sway 
 For ever on my kingly way, 
 And sing a new song night and day 
 Wherever my brown waters stray : 
 
Earth's Voices. 
 
 I sing a great land that shall be 
 The glory of Humanity, 
 I chant of nations all made free 
 Under the flag of Liberty : 
 
 Old beyond count, yet young am I — 
 I read the stars that flash on high, 
 And in their secret signs espy 
 A great and glorious prophecy. 
 
 THE AMAZON. 
 
 Through tropic forests and old lands 
 With ruin'd fanes, past sun-scorch'd sands. 
 My mighty flood rolls vast and strong. 
 Chanting a dirge-like ocean song ! 
 
 THE MURRAY. 
 
 Through Austral plains my waters flow. 
 
 Through gum-tree forests deep ; 
 And silently I grow and grow 
 
 Until at last I sweep 
 A thousand miles through plain and wood, 
 
 Then turn my face to where 
 I hear the thundering tidal flood 
 
 Boom through the air. 
 
 THE GULF STREAM. 
 
 From out the Gulf of Mexico 
 Impetuously my waters flow 
 And through the fierce Atlantic glide, 
 A wondrous tepid azure tide — 
 Till all the lands in the North seas, 
 Where else the Polar winds would freeze 
 All life, are filled with warmth and stand 
 Each like a long-drawn emerald band. 
 And as from north to south I swing 
 My song is what the sea-waves sing. 
 
Earths Voices. 
 
 Innumerable, our songs are blent 
 
 In one great chorus that is sent, 
 
 Now sad and strange, now full of mirth, 
 
 In circling music round the earth : 
 
 We are the children of the sea. 
 
 And we too whisper as we flee 
 
 The secret of life's mystery. 
 
 III. THE SONG OF STREAMS. 
 
 With ceaseless murmur of song 
 
 We slip through meadow and wood, 
 And we love to linger long 
 
 Where old dead cities brood 
 With stealthy sweep or with swirl 
 
 Thro' highland and lowland we flow ; 
 In flood-time our waters we hurl. 
 
 In drought we move shrunken and slow. 
 
 We sing, like the birds who beside us 
 
 Are fiU'd with the joy of their days. 
 And we follow the course that doth guide us 
 
 Throughout the long length of our ways — 
 And when in some mightier river 
 
 Or depths of the sea we are tost. 
 There also we live on forever. 
 
 For nought that hath lived can be lost. 
 
EartJis Voices. 
 
 IV. THE SONG OF WATERFALLS. 
 
 Like veils of mist 
 Adown the hills 
 We bend and twist 
 In a myriad rills, 
 And sway and quiver in the air with a thousand rain- 
 bow-thrills. 
 
 O'er crag and fell 
 
 We bound in glee, 
 Weaving our spray-spell 
 Mistily 
 About the sunlit mountain heights that flash like the 
 flashing sea. 
 
 Past mountain-vales 
 
 And hill-tarns deep, 
 And pine-wood dales 
 Where the winds sleep. 
 We bend, we sway, we quiver with laughter loud, 
 we spring, we sweep. 
 
 The winds at morn 
 
 Us break in spray ; 
 But we laugh to scorn 
 Their fierce swift play — 
 What though they break us at day-dawn, wt triumph 
 throughout the long day ! 
 
10 Earth's Voices. 
 
 We fall and shiver, 
 
 Through pools we splash ; 
 We flow like a river 
 And downward flash, 
 And loud is our tumult of laughter when over hill- 
 ledges we crash 
 
 Deep down thro' the heart 
 
 Of a silent wood, 
 Where the roedeer start 
 And the wild doves brood, 
 Filling the quiet greenness there with echoes of hill- 
 strains rude. 
 
 From the sun's birth 
 Till the stars creep 
 From the dark, our mirth 
 Doth never sleep. 
 But ever we bend, we sway, we quiver with joy, we 
 spring, we sweep ! 
 
 V. SONG OF THE DESERTS. 
 
 Wide, open, free, unbounded, vast. 
 
 We leagueless stretch the wide world o'er : 
 
 Above us sweeps the desert blast. 
 
 Or booms the lion's reverberate roar 
 
 Or the long howl of wolves that race 
 
 Like shadows o'er the moonlit space 
 
 In tireless, swift, relentless chase. 
 
Eartfis Voices. 1 1 
 
 We are the haunt of all the winds, 
 O'er us as o'er the sea they sweep 
 In boundless freedom : each blast finds 
 A leagueless waste whereo'er to leap 
 And race uncheck'd, — and day and night 
 We hear the wild rush of their flight, 
 A desert-music infinite. 
 
 Ten thousand leagues of grassy plain 
 We stretch, or trackless wastes of sand-: 
 O'er us no mortal king doth teign, 
 But Bedouin or savage band 
 And wild-eyed beasts of prey alone 
 Wander about our tameless zone. 
 That bondage never yet hath known. 
 
 VI. SONG OF THE CORNFIELDS. 
 
 For miles along the sunlit lands 
 We sway in waves of gold, — 
 
 A yellow sea that past the strands 
 Has inland rolled. 
 
 The sweet dews feed us thro' the night, 
 The soft winds blow around ; 
 
 The dayshine gladdens us with light 
 And stores the ground. 
 
12 Eartlis Voices. 
 
 We feed a thousand happy birds. 
 
 The field-mice have their share- 
 Surely to these the reaping swords 
 Some grains can spare. 
 
 The deep joy of the joyous earth, 
 We feel it throb and thrill ; 
 
 The sweet return of natural mirth, 
 Spring's miracle. 
 
 All lands rejoice in us, we have 
 
 A glory such as kings 
 Might envy — but our gold we wave 
 
 For humbler things. 
 
 Our golden harvest is for those 
 Who strive and toil through life. 
 
 Who feel its agonies, its throes, 
 Its want, its strife. 
 
 O'er all the broad lands 'neath the sun. 
 We spring, we ripen, glow ; 
 
 The seasons change, the swift days run,- 
 Again we grow. 
 
 VII. SONGS OF THE WINDS. 
 
 I. The. North Wind. 
 
 Across the Polar seas. 
 
 From where the frozen snow 
 
 Melts with no summer breeze 
 But lieth for ever so. 
 
EartKs Voices. 1 3- 
 
 I come, with surging sound 
 
 And frozen rains that sting, 
 And lash the wintry ground 
 
 With furious wing. 
 
 But when 'tis summer weather 
 
 I cool the sun-scorch'd earth. 
 And chase the clouds together. 
 
 And laugh with joyous mirth. 
 
 2. The East Wind. 
 
 Keen and relentless 
 
 My blasts sweep across 
 Where the Baltic billows 
 
 And North Seas toss ; 
 
 Like bolts from the bow 
 
 In a tumult of war. 
 They rush and they strike 
 
 Wild coasts afar. 
 
 And inland hurrying 
 
 They sweep and they swirl, 
 And the blossoms of spring 
 
 From the orchards whirl. 
 
 And I laugh to hear 
 
 The moan of the trees, 
 And the sound and tumult 
 
 Of stormy seas. 
 
14 Earths Voices. 
 
 3. The West Wind. 
 I come from out the West, 
 And I breathe a breath of rest, 
 
 And the sweet birds greet me singing 
 From every tiny nest. 
 
 I am the wind of flow'rs — 
 I haunt the wild-wood bow'rs — 
 And when my song is ringing 
 Spring knows her sweetest hours. 
 
 But when the autumn days 
 Grow short, I rise and race 
 
 Thro' all the woodlands, flinging 
 Strewn leaves o'er every place. 
 
 When winter comes once more. 
 With deep tumultuous roar 
 
 I sweep o'er ocean, bringing 
 Wild tempests to each shore. 
 
 4. The South Wind. 
 From burning deserts bare. 
 From tropic gardens where 
 Sweet blooms and spices rare 
 Make fragrant the warm air, 
 
 I come, and o'er the deep. 
 Where storm-winds no more sweep 
 But soft-aired breezes creep. 
 Summer I bear asleep. 
 
Earth! s Voices. 15 
 
 Sweet Summer ! in her dreams 
 Her face is fair with gleams 
 Of thought of running streams, 
 Of flowers, and moonshine beams. 
 
 When I have reached the strand 
 I lay her on the sand 
 And blow away sleep's band — 
 Till, waking, through the land 
 
 She runs with eyes aglow 
 With joy where rivers flow. 
 Where myriad roses blow. 
 And leaves wave to and fro. 
 
 And after many days. 
 When o'er the brown burnt ways 
 That thirst 'neath the sun's rays 
 She cares no more to gaze, 
 
 i carry her again 
 Back to her Southern plain — 
 And till spring comes again 
 I moan and rave in pain. 
 
 VIII. THE SONG OF FLOWERS. 
 
 What is a bird but a living flower ? 
 
 A flower but the soul of some dead bird ? 
 And what is a weed but the dying breath 
 Of a perjured word ? 
 
1 6 Earth's Voices. 
 
 A flower is the soul of a singing-bird, 
 
 Its scent is the breath of an old-time song : 
 But a weed and a thorn spring forth each day 
 For a new-done wrong. 
 
 Dead souls of song-birds, thro' the green grass 
 
 Or deep in the midst of the golden grain. 
 In woodland valley, where hill-streams pass, 
 We flourish again. 
 
 We flowers are the joy of the whole wide earth. 
 
 Sweet nature's laughter and secret tears — 
 Whoso hearkens a bird in its spring-time mirth 
 The song of a flow'r-soul hears ! 
 
 IX. THE WILD BEE. 
 
 Where in the fields the new-mown hay 
 
 Sweet fragrance makes, I wing my way : 
 
 I swing within the pliant fold 
 
 Of bindweed7bell, or o'er the gold 
 
 Of dandelions and kingcups pass : 
 
 At times entangled in the grass 
 
 I sip the purple orchis sweet. 
 
 Or climb the campion's stalk, then fleet 
 
 With gauzy wings and happy hum 
 
 Close to the seeding limes have come. 
 
 Then off to where the hawthorn blows, 
 
 And thence where meadow-sweet thick grows ! 
 
EartKs Voices. ij 
 
 All through the day I hum and fly, 
 My honey-search ne'er cease to ply. 
 And, when the sunlight passes swift. 
 Upon the evening breeze I drift 
 To where within my tiny nest 
 I safely drowse in well-earned rest. 
 
 X. THE FIELD MOUSE. 
 
 When the moon shines o'er the corn, 
 
 And the beetle drones his horn. 
 And the flittermice swift fly. 
 And the nightjars swooping cry. 
 And the young hares run and leap, 
 We waken from our sleep. 
 
 And we climb with tiny feet 
 
 And we munch the green corn sweet, 
 
 With startled eyes for fear 
 
 The white owl should fly near. 
 
 Or long slim weasel spring 
 
 Upon us where we swing. 
 
 We do no hurt at all : 
 Is there not room for all 
 
 Within the happy world ? 
 
 All day we lie close curled 
 
 In drowsy sleep, nor rise 
 
 Till through the dusky skies 
 The moon shines o'er the corn. 
 And the beetle drones his horn. 
 
 2 
 
1 8 EartKs Voices. 
 
 XI. THE SONG OF THE LARK. 
 
 High up in azure heaven 
 
 I sing a magic song, 
 And thrill the wild notes sweetly 
 
 In rapture loud and long. 
 
 O joy of azure heaven, 
 
 Of white clouds as they pass, 
 O joy of sweet flow'rs blooming 
 
 Down in the cool green grass. 
 
 O joy of winds that bear me — 
 
 burst of song made free — 
 A fount of songtide spraying 
 
 In a purple sea ! 
 
 O rapture of sweet music — 
 
 Too sweet, too glad, too dear — 
 What mystery, what wonder, 
 
 1 see and hear ! 
 
 O joy of perfect singing ! 
 
 O joy of life made free ! 
 O world-joy, springing, ringing, 
 
 Joy, joy, alone I see ! 
 
Earth's Voices. ig 
 
 XII. THE SONG OF THE THRUSH. 
 
 When the beech-trees are green in the woodlands 
 
 And the thorns are whitened with may, 
 And the meadow-sweet blows and the yellow gorse 
 blooms 
 I sit on a wind-waved spray, 
 And I sing through the livelong day 
 From the golden dawn till the sunset comes and the 
 shadows of gloaming grey. 
 
 And I sing of the joy of the woodlands, 
 
 And the fragrance of wild-wood flowers, 
 And the song of the trees and the hum of the 
 bees 
 In the honeysuckle bowers, 
 And the rustle of showers 
 And the voice of the west-wind calling as through 
 glades and green branches he scours. 
 
 When the sunset glows over the woodlands 
 
 More sweet rings my lyrical cry 
 With the pain of my yearning to be 'mid the 
 burning 
 And beautiful colours that lie 
 'Midst the gold of the sun-down sky. 
 Where over the purple and crimson 'and amber the 
 rose-pink cloud-curls fly. 
 
 2—3 
 
20 EartKs Voices. 
 
 Sweet, sweet swells my voice thro' the woodlands, 
 
 Repetitive, marvellous, rare : 
 And the song-birds cease singing as my music 
 goes ringing 
 And eddying echoing there. 
 Now wild and now debonnair. 
 Now fiU'd with a tumult of passion that throbs like 
 a pulse in the hush'd warm air ! 
 
 XIII. SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 Keen, through supremest music. 
 My song is fill'd with pain : 
 Hark ! 'tis the same sad strain 
 That with pathetic cadence thrilled 
 The Thracian plain, 
 When after Procne's flight I sang alone. 
 And thro' my deathless music sent a dying moan. 
 
 "What moonlit glades, what seas 
 Foam-edged have I not known ! 
 Through ages hath not flown 
 Mine ancient song with gather'd music sweet — 
 By fanes overthrown. 
 By cities known of old and classic woods, 
 And, strangely sad, in deep-leaved northern solitudes ? 
 
Earth's Voices. 2 1 
 
 Nightly my song swells forth, 
 When the grey stock-dove broods 
 And whirling bat eludes 
 The forest ' boughs, and rings and pants and 
 thrills 
 
 In passionate interludes — 
 Too sweet, too sad, O sorrow and old-time pain, 
 The love, the glory I see, that will not come again. 
 
 XIV. THE RAIN SONGS. 
 
 I. The Rains of the Equinox, 
 
 From the gather'd clouds we sweep 
 
 With lance-like shafts of rain. 
 And we lash the sounding deep, 
 
 And we scour the sodden plain ; 
 And we wheel like armies vast 
 
 With a hissing sound of mirth. 
 When the thundering trumpet -blast 
 
 Of Tempest wakes the earth. 
 
 Where the grey seas fume and rave 
 
 We rush with stinging sleet, 
 Till the foam on each white wave 
 
 In scatter'd spray flies fleet ; 
 And over the lonely hills 
 
 We pass in a driven cloud, 
 And feed the mountain-rills 
 
 Till they surge with clamour loud. 
 
22 EartKs Voices. 
 
 Then past the forest trees 
 
 Upon the wind we hurl, 
 And o'er the low lying leas 
 
 In gusts we sway and swirl, 
 Past hamlet, village, and town, 
 
 Till o'er great cities we sway, 
 And break and stream straight down 
 
 In a mist of smoky grey. 
 
 2. Summer Rain. 
 
 When we're slowly falling, falling, 
 Through the hush of summer eves. 
 
 And the nightingales are calling 
 Their sweet notes mid the green leaves, 
 
 And the hlac boughs are sending 
 Their keen fragrance thro' the air, 
 
 And the slim laburnums bending 
 With their weight of golden hair. 
 
 Then we feel the thirsty flowers 
 
 Uplift their blooms again ; 
 For the kiss of the sweet cool showers. 
 
 And the ebb of sun-heat pain. 
 
 And we breathe a breath of healing 
 Over all things that we pass ; 
 
 Till with tired wings we go stealing 
 To our sleep in the green grass. 
 
Earth's Voices. 23 
 
 3. The Torrid Rains. 
 
 Above the sun-scorch'd sands we break 
 
 In ceaseless fall for many days, 
 An.d a sweet sound of waters make 
 
 Within the dried-up river-ways. 
 
 Far amid lonely deserts wide 
 
 We thrill faint springs with life again, 
 
 Where the wild things at dusk may glide, 
 And quench at last their thirstful pain. 
 
 And when at length the clouds arise. 
 
 They bear us far away to where 
 Pant similar lands beneath fierce skies 
 
 And furnace-breath of fiery air. 
 
 XV. THE SNOW WHISPER. 
 
 Softly, silently, through the night 
 We fall in starry flakes of white, 
 Like wings that make no sound at all 
 We downward float and drift and fall ; 
 A myriad downy feathers we, 
 Shrouding the land mysteriously. 
 We cover all the hill-peaks grey. 
 And silently pursue our way 
 Down mountain valleys where no sound 
 Echoes along the frozen ground ; 
 
24 EartKs Voices. 
 
 We make a thick drift where the sheep 
 
 Huddle together in their sleep, 
 
 And o'er the weary stag's retreat 
 
 We pass and shroud the tracks its feet 
 
 Have made, and where the shivering hares 
 
 Crouch low we clothe their barren lairs ; 
 
 Then o'er the hill-side pastures pass 
 
 And cover up the meadow-grass. 
 
 And on the branches of the trees 
 
 Pile thickly till they bend and sway 
 
 As though borne down by some strong breeze ; 
 
 And in the empty nests we lay 
 
 Some votive feather-plumes like those 
 
 Which once bore up the songs that rose 
 
 From every woodland bough ; then o'er 
 
 The cart-wheeled roadways to the door 
 
 Of each farm-house and tiny cot. 
 
 With stiffly-ordered garden plot — 
 
 Till all the land is clothed with light 
 
 Soft shining robes of stainless white. 
 
 And when the wintry moon gleams pale 
 In the cold steel-blue dawn o'er dale 
 And meadow and hill — and far 
 In a faint shine the morning star 
 Trembles from sight — and suddenly 
 A sun-wave, like a wave o' the sea, 
 Upwells from the east in a great flood 
 O'er hill and, valley and plain and wood — 
 
Earth! s Voices. 25 
 
 Behold, the sleeping earth lies there. 
 No longer frozen, bitter, bare, 
 But sacred, white, serenely fair. 
 
 XVI, SIGH OF THE MISTS. 
 
 We haunt the marge of streams. 
 And where the bittern booms 
 'Mid twilight marish glooms. 
 
 And where the curlew screams 
 
 Above dim lowlying iields, 
 We drift with motions slow : 
 Or trailing swift we go 
 
 Where the pine-forest yields 
 
 Before the tempest's force. 
 And hang in vapoury drifts 
 Or trail in ghostly rifts 
 
 Amongst the boughs all hoarse 
 
 With windy tumult wild : 
 
 Like ghosts,, wan, dismal, grey. 
 We haunt the dreary way 
 
 Where barren rocks are piled : 
 
 'Mid valleys dark and dim 
 We brood in sunless dells : 
 We weave our dreamy spells 
 
 Round ancient castles grim. 
 
26 Earth! s Voices. 
 
 ,Aye voiceless, with no sound 
 
 At all where'er we be, 
 
 We drift mysteriously 
 Or brood along the ground. 
 
 XVII. THE RED STAG. 
 
 For leagues the purple heather lies 
 Upon the hills ; the brackens rise 
 Yard high, and from the thorny gold 
 Of gorse-shrubs swift the kestrel flies 
 Unsated from the rabbits' hold : 
 And everj^where the fresh wind sings 
 A joyous song, a fragrance flings. 
 And sweeps above the fern and makes 
 The green fronds toss as when it flakes 
 The calm sea-silence with white foam — 
 And swoops from height to height, and clings 
 To barren crags where nought doth roam 
 Save we, swift-footed stags, in flight — 
 With gusty cries it hurls its might 
 Against those serried peaks that bare 
 Rise up and know no life-joy fair. 
 Save when the golden eagle's wings 
 With rushing sound surge through the air. 
 
 Ev'n as these mountain winds are we, 
 Untamed and tameless, wild and free ; 
 For us the glory of the hills. 
 Their lonely barren majesty — 
 
Earths Voices. 27 
 
 For us the surging mountain rills 
 When melted snow their torrents fills, 
 The windy heights, the sunlit glory 
 Of mountain bastions scarred and hoary ; 
 And leagueless moors and mighty lakes. 
 And each lone pine-clad promontory 
 Round which the sea a fierce dirge makes — 
 The children of the hills are we, 
 Untamed and tameless, wild and free. 
 
 XVIII. THE HYMN OF THE EAGLE. 
 
 Upon a sheer-sloped mountain height 
 My eyrie is ; from thence my sight 
 Looks down o'er the wide lands below : 
 I watch the wild winds swoop and blow 
 In savage violence — but here 
 They howl in vain ; I have no fear 
 Who am the lord of this high sphere. 
 
 At sunrise on this peak I stand, 
 
 And watch the glory flood the land ; 
 
 And then on mighty wings I speed 
 
 Far hence for lowland prey to feed 
 
 My clamorous young — though when night falls 
 
 Still echo loud their fledgling calls 
 
 About these gloomy mountain walls. 
 
28 EartJis Voices. 
 
 I watch the moon rise o'er the sea 
 
 And inland sail mysteriously, 
 
 A globe of silver fire on high ; 
 
 Then pulse the planets in the sky, 
 
 And flash the stars, and meteors stream ; 
 
 And then I drowse, to wake with dream 
 
 Of prey, and thro' the stillness scream. 
 
 XIX. THE CRY OF THE TIGER. 
 
 Deep in the jungle-grass I lie 
 Until the burning sun on high 
 Hath flamed to death — till shadows fall 
 And far and wide the bulbuls call. 
 
 Then swiftly, with slow waving tail, 
 I follow some fresh-beaten trail. 
 Or through the rice-stems wanly green 
 I watch the peasant, gaunt and lean. 
 
 Upon the further river-side : 
 
 Or nigh some pool I softly glide 
 
 And when the wild-deer seek the ground 
 
 I spring with one tremendous bound 
 
 And drink with thirsty tongue the hot 
 Sweet blood, while far oif round me trot 
 The coward jackals with fierce eyes 
 Watching for remnants of my prize. 
 
Eari/is Voices. 29 
 
 With savage mate I haunt the woods 
 And roam these deadly soHtudes, 
 Howl answering howl, until the night 
 Is filled with terror of our might. 
 
 Twin deaths, we stalk through jungles deep, 
 With swift fierce cries we bend and leap : 
 In hollow thunders far away 
 Our savage howls resound till day. 
 
 XX. THE CHANT OF THE LION. 
 
 Athwart the burning bronze-hued sands I send my 
 
 deep hoarse roar, 
 As boom the tidal seas that break upon a barren 
 
 shore : 
 
 Then back the dun hyenas howl, or fleet gazelles far 
 
 hear 
 And like a flying cloud drift swift across the waste in 
 
 fear: 
 
 The distant camels hearken in the long straight 
 
 caravan. 
 They know the King who feareth not their puny 
 
 master man. 
 
 Through cloudless days of blazing heat, through 
 
 fiery afternoons 
 I crouch and hear the desert winds moan out their 
 
 mystic runes. 
 
30 Earth's Voices. 
 
 But when the burning orb has set, and in the purple 
 
 sky 
 The star of evening leaps and flames and palpitates 
 
 on high, 
 Then down unto the desert-pool with stealthy steps I 
 
 creep. 
 And niid the tall green rushes bend and bide my 
 
 deathly leap : 
 At times alone come stealthily the fierce hyenas 
 
 there. 
 Or red-eyed wolves the water lap and howl thro' the 
 
 still air, 
 Or midst the reeds the leopard's yellow hide, black- 
 spotted, gleams. 
 Or o'er some festering carcase flap gaunt vultures 
 
 with hoarse screams : 
 At times alone the wild boar comes, or writhe upon 
 
 the ground 
 The mighty coils of cobras which long fasting hath 
 
 unwound — 
 Then loud and terrible and fierce my roar booms 
 
 o'er the waste, 
 And like a great gaunt shadow o'er the moonlit 
 
 tracts I haste, 
 
 But far the yellow zebras snort and spurn my 
 
 stealthy flight 
 And like meteors flash and vanish through the lonely 
 
 night. 
 
Earth's Voices. 3 1 
 
 But oftentimes the shy gazelles or great-horned 
 
 fleet-foot deer 
 With wary eyes in companies unto the pool draw 
 
 near, 
 
 And when assured they drink their fill and high their 
 
 antlers fling. 
 Like a sudden bolt from heaven within their midst 
 
 I spring : 
 Or if they come not nigh at all, mayhap the great 
 
 giraffe 
 Stoops o'er the wave his mighty neck the longed-for 
 
 boon to quaff, 
 Then with a sudden roar upon his yellow neck I 
 
 hurl. 
 And far across the desert sands rider and wild steed 
 
 whirl. 
 
 Until at last he sways and falls with red tongue 
 
 loUing out, 
 And then his quivering breast I tear with one long 
 
 savage shout — 
 And far and wide thereafter booms across the level 
 
 plain 
 My hoarse deep roar, like thunderous surge upon the 
 
 distant main. 
 
32 Earth's Voices. 
 
 XXI. THE HYMN OF MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The mighty giants of the world are we ; 
 High o'er the level lands and seas we rise : 
 
 Great winds sweep round our brows majestically 
 Save when above the highest clouds, 'mid skies 
 Of windless calm, we only hear their sighs, 
 
 At times a mere faint hum, as to and fro 
 
 They surge through mighty pinewoods far below. 
 
 For us long silence and eternal peace : 
 The holy garment of the pure white snow 
 
 Abides upon our heights where all things cease 
 To live, and where no Spring-breaths blow 
 A sudden bloom of sweet flowers high and low : 
 
 Alone o'er each wide slope and hollow vale 
 
 The drifting clouds their purple shadows trail. 
 
 Far down amongst the hills that cluster round, 
 What solemn stillness reigns, tho' there each gale 
 
 Howls like a famish'd wild-beast, and doth bound 
 From height to height in vain attempt to scale 
 These upper peaks, serene and cold and pale, 
 
 Above all violence of night or day. 
 
 Grandly supreme, inviolate for aye. 
 
 We know the secret of the planets, where 
 They leap in flame upon their heavenly way ; 
 
 We watch the constellations fill the air — 
 The meteors flash, as though in Titan fray 
 Great Powers launched these burning stars to slay 
 
EartKs Voices. 33 
 
 Rebellious foes in some abyss of space : 
 These, not earth's puny troubles, meet our gaze. 
 
 XXII. THE OCEAN CHORUS. 
 
 Sea meeting sea, we circle round all lands 
 
 And chant aloud our old eternal song : 
 With wild fierce music upon northern strands 
 
 We break, or surge white tropic shores along; 
 And thunder hoarsely our tempestuous boom 
 
 Far inland till the hollow blast has rolled 
 'Midst distant vales with ominous sound of doom, 
 
 The echo of sea-dirges manifold. 
 
 THE BLACK SEA. 
 
 Round desolate lands I sway, 
 
 Round promontories bleak. 
 With tumult fierce alway 
 
 My sullen wrath I wreak. 
 
 THE MEDITERRANEAN. 
 
 Like a vast turquoise I 
 
 Flow flowery lands between : 
 But oft I moan and sigh 
 
 For what hath been. 
 
 THE ATLANTIC 
 
 Deep, turbulent, and wide, 
 
 My waters seldom rest, 
 But surge in tameless pride 
 
 From east to west. 
 
34 Earth's Voices. 
 
 THE INDIAN OCEAN. 
 
 I bear a thousand freights — 
 
 Of these I tribute take : 
 No spoil my hunger sates, 
 
 My long thirst doth not slake. 
 
 THE AUSTRAL SEA. 
 
 An ancient land I keep 
 
 That lay unknown for long, 
 Drowsed in a mighty sleep 
 
 By my monotonous song. 
 
 THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Empress of seas, I roam 
 
 Amidst a thousand isles 
 Fringed round with snow-white foam — 
 
 But treacherous my smiles ! 
 
 THE ANTARCTIC. 
 Wan waves o'er grey wastes wander 
 
 Where drifting icebergs go ; 
 With sullen surge I ponder 
 
 Upon mine ancient woe. 
 
 THE ARCTIC SEA. 
 Around the Polar world 
 
 My vast green billows sweep — 
 Or hopelessly are hurled 
 
 'Gainst icewalls stern and steep. 
 
 Sea meeting sea, one ocean ever flows 
 With one tumultuous chorus-song for aye — 
 
 The same although it chants the eternal snows 
 That shroud the grim death of each Polar day. 
 
Eartlis Voices. 35 
 
 Or lifts a joyous voice, a tumult strong 
 Where o'er blue waves the wind of summer flees : 
 
 Ominous, terrible, glorious is our song, 
 The blended chants and dirges of our seas. 
 
 XXIII. THE HYMN OF SUMMER. 
 
 Of late I wander'd far o'er southern lands ; 
 
 With lips long parch'd and dry I sang no strain ; 
 But wandering inland from hot barren strands 
 O'er sun-scorch'd mountain and o'er burning 
 
 plain. 
 Upon drear treeless wastes I moved with pain 
 Of fiery thirst, and sped athwart the sands 
 With eager passionate gaze, 
 But shivered as alone through the fierce bronze-hued 
 haze 
 The treacherous mirage afar did gleam. 
 And nought \ heard but the hyena's scream. 
 The mournful howl of wolves, and o'er and o'er 
 The lion's roar. 
 
 But now that thence I come at call of Spring, 
 How sweet the breath is of the fresh blue sea ! 
 
 My thirst and weariness aside I fling. 
 And feel once more serenely glad and free : 
 Old memories of past joys come to me. 
 
 Each hour some reminiscence sweet doth bring : 
 
 3—2 
 
36 EartKs Voices. 
 
 And now once more I pass 
 Through green-leaved forests and o'er soft emerald 
 grass, 
 By honeysuckle hedges, cowslipp'd plains, 
 Down lovely, winding, interlacing lanes ; 
 And ever as I go earth's joy fulfilled 
 Is round me thrilled. 
 
 Mine eyes are soft with dreams of happy things ; 
 
 Within my breath there is a drowsy spell ; 
 The woods grow warm and still, the stock-dove 
 wings 
 Through silent glades where late Spring's miracle 
 Awoke the joyous life through grove and dell : 
 No more with keen electric tremors sings 
 The nightingale, though sweet 
 The yellowhammer yet his glad song doth repeat 
 "Where far and wide upon the sun-hazed heights 
 The prickly gorse still flaunts its golden lights, — 
 Though still upon the moor the stonechat's cry 
 Rings loud and high. 
 
 Swift winds upraise my golden tresses fair ; 
 A fragrance of blown roses floats around ; 
 
 I sing a low song through the hot sweet air, 
 A syren song, such as in old days wound 
 'Midst perilous rocks with magic dreamy sound 
 
 That breathed of love and rest, of white arms bare 
 
Earth's Voices. 37 
 
 And wildly dreamful eyes 
 And snowy breasts, of ancient old-world strains, and 
 sighs 
 Of dear delights that almost were too sweet. 
 Of falling fairy laughters, elfin feet, 
 And murmur'd whispers low as furtive breeze 
 On sundown seas. 
 
 In dusky eves, when in a mazy dance 
 
 The grey gnats hum and o'er each twilit field 
 The nightjar swoops with sudden dissonance, 
 And drowsy sheep-bells ring across the weald. 
 And 'midst the ripening corn from sight con- 
 cealed 
 The corncrake cries, I breathe mine old romance 
 O'er meadow, wood, and dale. 
 And sigh a subtle magic through the moonbeams 
 pale. 
 Till lovers, speechless with their new won bliss. 
 Together cling, as though each lingering kiss 
 Were an embodied joy that might not be 
 Recaught when free. 
 
 XXIV. THE HYMN OF AUTUMN. 
 
 I love the purple moors and northern hills 
 
 Where the deer leap and whirling curlews cry ; 
 
 I love the breath of the west wind that thrills 
 The mountain-pines until mellifluously 
 They send a wild strain through the listening sky : 
 
38 Earth's Voices. 
 
 I love to watch the azure shadows creep 
 Across the windless surface of the deep. , 
 
 But more my joy is in the fields of grain, 
 
 In orchards fiU'd with fruit, — the ruddy pear, 
 
 Peaches that through September suns have Iain 
 And breathed the sweetness of the mellow air, 
 Vines heavy with the purple weight they bear, 
 
 October woodlands where the brown nuts fall 
 
 And where the redbreasts still their sweet cries call. 
 
 But most I love th' autumnal peace that broods 
 When ere the equinox come windless days : 
 
 When spreads a golden glory o'er the woods, 
 An amber-tinted crimson-deepening blaze : 
 Ah ! then I love to dream of Summer's ways, 
 
 And have no fear of Winter stern and dumb. 
 
 Because I know sweet Spring again will come. 
 
 XXV. THE HYMN OF WINTER. 
 
 Southward I come from where eternal snows 
 Lie mass'd in frozen continents ; before 
 
 My wandering feet a bitter wild wind blows, 
 And howls o'er ocean-waste and barren shore 
 
Earths Voices. 39 
 
 And lonely uplands, till o'er fertile plains 
 In fierce tempestuous fury it doth cast 
 
 Its sounding might, and round the homesteads 
 flies 
 With fierce auxiliaries of stinging rains 
 
 And icy sleet whirled forth on new-born blast, 
 Engender'd 'midst the dark dense vaporous 
 skies. 
 
 Far south my herald tempest speeds, and then 
 
 With snow-bewildering steps I softly come 
 And breathe my deadly breath o'er hill and glen, 
 And leave the leafless forest bare and dumb, 
 And turn to a moveless wave each amber stream. 
 And freeze the lakes and pools to blocks of white. 
 And dust with silver frost the meadow-grass — 
 Wan, deathly, soundless, like a ghost I gleam ; 
 Intangible, yet nought resists my might, 
 
 But stiffens when with chill blank eyes I pass. 
 
 Nature sleeps fast while I relax no breath : 
 Within the bleak grey air the very rooks 
 Wing with infrequent flight : I breathe cold death 
 Where frozen kingfishers haunt sedgy brooks 
 And where amidst the snow-clad fields the hares 
 Shiver, and skylarks with numbed pinions lie 
 Songless for ever now on alien ground : 
 All that was once so joyous wanly wears 
 
 A shroud of white, and mournful melancholy 
 In silence broods and hearkens to no sound. 
 
40 Earths Voices. 
 
 When on some day, after long-falling snow. 
 
 My wild wind wanders from the south again, 
 I break my frozen spell, and to and fro 
 Wander an uncrown'd king, till I am fain 
 To reach once more my changeless Polar waste — 
 And as I northward go with sullen pace 
 I hear faint joyous echoes far off ring, 
 I hear behind fleet dancing footsteps haste, 
 And looking back I see the shining face 
 
 And flower-filled hands of bird-surrounded 
 Spring, 
 
 XXVI. THE HYMN OF SPRING. 
 
 Across the green fields singing 
 
 I lead my joyous way, 
 A myriad bird-songs ringing 
 
 Above my flower-strewn way : 
 The white clouds drift above me 
 
 Within an azure sky, 
 Life stirs and thrills around me — 
 
 I laugh and onward fly ! 
 Adown the lanes and hedges 
 
 The blackthorns turn to snow, 
 Along brown forest-edges 
 
 The first primroses blow ; 
 
Earths Voices. 41 
 
 A lark rings high and gladly, 
 
 A blackbird whistles sweet, 
 A speckled thrush sings madly 
 
 Within some green retreat : 
 With joy the whole land quivers. 
 
 Woods, meadows, hills, and vales. 
 Swift streams and rolling rivers. 
 
 When nigh my sweet voice hails. 
 A breath of balm, of healing, 
 
 I follow Winter's strife — 
 Like death he comes slow stealing. 
 
 But I with songs of life : 
 I am the transformation 
 
 Of all that long since fled. 
 The glorious resurrection 
 
 Of Earth's innumerous dead. 
 
SOSPITRA. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 The legend of Sospitra had long haunted my imagination : 
 and when, one day in the late spring of last year, lying in 
 a grassy hollow far out on the Roman Campagna, I came across 
 a detailed reference to this legend in one of Ouida's eloquent 
 books, the unexpected occurrence impressed me with such per- 
 sistency that finally the story expanded into verse. 
 
 The legend runs that Sospitra was visited by two spirits in 
 the guise of Chaldeans, and that they endowed her with more 
 than mortal power and knowledge, giving her supremacy over 
 all creatures, and insight not only into the hearts of men, but 
 also into the great laws of the universe. The ' Chaldeans ' gave 
 her lordship over herself, so that she could know neither grief 
 nor mortal weakness, lordship over herself and over all things — 
 save Love and Death. Proud, content, supremely wise, she 
 dwelt far from the haunts of her kind, amongst ancient ruins in 
 a lonely desert. 
 
 As it is at this point the poem commences, and as the legend 
 is fully evolved before the close, the ' argument ' need not here 
 be further extended. 
 
SOSPITRA. 
 
 [OSPITRA dwelt amidst the waste, 
 Her home a ruined temple was ; 
 Thereby the fiery wild-ass raced, 
 There the swift leaping wolf did pause. 
 But never came there any one 
 Of all the tribes under the sun. 
 
 II. 
 At dawn she heard the winds arise, 
 
 And knew where their swift wings would sweep 
 Thro' that long day : athwart the skies 
 
 She watched th' infrequent cloudlets creep. 
 And saw where in remote lone lands 
 The rains would break their vapour-bands. 
 
 III. 
 She watched the long growth of the noon, 
 
 The waning of the ample day ; 
 She watched the circling of the moon 
 
 Through splendour of the Milky Way ; 
 Morn, noon, and night, she saw where each 
 Successive passed, what far-off beach 
 
46 Sospitra. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Of isle within Pacific seas 
 
 Gleamed silver in the sunrise light, 
 
 At the same time when Afric trees 
 
 Stood parched amid the fierce noon's might. 
 
 And dusk of evening slowly stole 
 
 Where the grey windy north seas roll. 
 
 V. 
 
 All things before her were laid bare, 
 All knowledge and all power she had ; 
 
 She knew no sorrow, felt no care. 
 Had perfect vision, and was glad : 
 
 Even as in a glass she saw 
 
 The evolution of one law. 
 
 VI. 
 
 She watched the life of nations grow. 
 She heard the sound of puny wars. 
 
 Each mockery of triumph blow 
 
 Beneath the same unchanging stars : 
 
 She heard the sound of prayers rise. 
 
 Felt the old stillness 'midst the skies. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Within her brain each thought that passed 
 Within the minds of men was held ; 
 
 Her gaze on each new dream was cast. 
 To her the mists were all dispelled ; 
 
 She saw in flawless nakedness 
 
 Each truth that man would curse or bless. 
 
Sospitra. 47 
 
 vm. 
 Far in an old deserted land 
 
 Sospitra dwelt, 'mid columns vast 
 That ruin'd stood amidst the sand, 
 
 And had stood since that far off past 
 When Baal fell, and far and wide 
 The nations mocked his shattered pride. 
 
 IX. 
 
 There sovereign and supreme she dwelt ; 
 
 To her the desert wild things came — 
 The antelope before her knelt. 
 
 The fierce hyena there grew tame, 
 The lion wandered there by night 
 And let her hand caress his might. 
 
 X. 
 
 The nightingales that sang anear 
 
 Flew to her call ; lithe serpents twined 
 
 Before her path ; and knew no fear 
 The grey-green lizards she would find 
 
 On broken marble pedestals. 
 
 Or clinging to the ruin'd walls. 
 
 XL 
 
 She had strange dreams, she felt the throb 
 Of the great world-heart pulse and swing ; 
 
 She heard the low continuous sob 
 Which universal death did wring. 
 
 Amidst the loud and jubilant strife 
 
 For ever echoing from life. 
 
48 Sospitra. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Her days were calm and sweet and still ; 
 
 Her soul, knowing all things, was at peace : 
 O'er her no breath of mortal ill 
 
 Might blow, nor Time for her increase 
 The burden of his years : alone. 
 Death some far day might claim his own. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Death, and that other power — Love : 
 But death would never come to her, 
 
 From earth around or world above. 
 If she ne'er turned idolater 
 
 Before the face of him whose eyes 
 
 Give man his dreams of paradise. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And ever when she thought of this 
 Sospitra smiled : she saw too clear 
 
 The mockery of his transient bliss 
 
 To dread though Love should draw anear : 
 
 She saw his myriad worshippers 
 
 Tread o'er his countless sepulchres. 
 
 XV. 
 
 To her all passions were as things 
 Of little heed, like leaves that fall. 
 
 And which the wind takes up and flings 
 Aside : o'er her they had no thrall — 
 
 She knew their heights and depths, but wise, 
 
 She looked through each with cold calm eyes. 
 
Sospitra. 49 
 
 XVI. 
 
 But most she loved the mystery 
 Of night, when o'er the desert plain 
 
 The twilight shadows stealthily 
 Grew into darkness, and like rain 
 
 The soft dews cooled the ground and made 
 
 A new life thrill through each grass-blade. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Oft then she wandered from her home, 
 
 And sought the lonely silent sands ; 
 Beneath the stars she loved to roam 
 
 And call to her the wandering bands 
 Of fleet gazelles, or by her side, 
 Feel the fierce tawny lion glide. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Or midst the ruins she would sit 
 
 And watch the solemn moonrise fill 
 The ancient halls, where the bats flit 
 
 Hither and thither, whistling shrill : 
 And dream that once again Baal's priests 
 Held here their sacrificial feasts. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 These when she wished alone for peace : 
 
 But when the life-blood overbold 
 Thrilled in her veins and would not cease 
 
 To stir strange thoughts she scarce controU'd, 
 She sat within her home — and then 
 She looked into the souls of men : 
 
 4 
 
50 Sospitra. 
 
 XX. 
 
 The inmost secret of each soul 
 To her was bare ; the hearts of all 
 
 She read as she might read a scroll : 
 She saw Death sweep above them all 
 
 And ever and again stoop low 
 
 And out some flickering life-flame blow. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Ev'n as a scroll that was outroU'd, 
 So unto her the wide world lay : 
 
 She saw men perish 'midst the cold 
 Of northern lands, and far away 
 
 The fierce sun beat o'er deserts wide 
 
 And men athirst who gasped and died. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 She watched the furious tempest sweep ; 
 
 The shattered vessel plunge and bound 
 Till swallowed up within the deep ; 
 
 She saw the dead men swaying round 
 And round in the green depths, with slow 
 Long swing and eyes that nothing know, 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 She saw the miner in the womb 
 Of the dark earth : the diver slim 
 
 Deep down in the strange world of gloom 
 Above the cluster'd pearl-shells swim : 
 
 And ever as she heard and saw. 
 
 Her soul was fill'd with some strange awe. 
 
Sospitra. 5 1 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 How little seemed each living thing, 
 How puny life of man — brute — flower : 
 
 And yet, how wonderful the Spring 
 That with regenerative power 
 
 Swept round the earth — how vast, how great, 
 
 Humanity confederate ! 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Sospitra saw, and was content : 
 
 What mattered each small life was vain 
 
 When all in one great whole were blent, 
 When all were links in one vast chain 
 
 That rose from earth's remotest sod 
 
 And passed the stars and reached to God ! 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 These things Sospitra felt and knew. 
 
 Before her all of life being glass'd : 
 But when the mortal spirit grew 
 
 Weak with intense keen sight at last — 
 How gladly then she turned to where 
 The fresh wind fill'd the desert air, 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Felt its keen breath upon her face, 
 And how it swept the whitening grass 
 
 Like foam at sea, and swooped in chase 
 Of the swift deer it could not pass : 
 
 How gladly then she sought the flow'rs 
 
 Upon the plains, and spent long hours 
 
 4—2 
 
52 Sospttra. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 In tireless wandering to and fro, 
 Ev'n as a white cloud in the sky 
 
 Speeds where'er windy currents go : 
 
 She watched the great -wing'd eagles fly, 
 
 The wild-ass snort in desert pride 
 
 Then stamp and race up to her side. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 She wished for nothing more ; her heart 
 Desired no things she knew of old — 
 
 It felt no longing, knew no smart — 
 And yet not passionless or cold 
 
 Her nature — rather, like a hill 
 
 With calm snows clad, whose heart fires fill. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 But one day a strange restlessness 
 
 Fell on her, and a keen desire 
 To know the ill or happiness 
 
 Of life herself — to feel the fire 
 Ev'n though it should consume : but weak 
 A moment only, with blanch'd cheek 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 She changed her thought — for well she knew 
 That if Love strove with her and won — 
 
 Even as a leaf a wild wind blew. 
 So would she be : for ever done 
 
 The serene glory of her days, 
 
 The sight and knowledge of God's ways. 
 
Sospitra. 53 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 And so the seasons fled : the rains 
 
 Swept from the skies : the winter passed : 
 
 And one day o'er the shining plains 
 
 Spring, singing, wandered back at last : 
 
 Sospitra, glad, supreme, soul-strong, 
 
 Sang back a sweet rejoicing song. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Beautiful beyond women she : 
 
 Yet never had she felt again 
 The wish amongst her race to be : 
 
 Safe from all grief, or fear, or pain. 
 She watched the unswerving laws of life 
 Move on forever through the strife. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 She looked, and felt her soul expand 
 
 To see Humanity so great — 
 In power, in will, in faith, so grand — 
 
 Heedless of love or scorn or hate 
 From Powers it dimly knew — but she 
 Saw God's Will working ceaselessly. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 One eve o'ercast the sky became ; 
 
 Great purple-shadowed clouds rose high : 
 There was a flash, a lurid flame — 
 
 And all the vast vault of the sky 
 Seemed one great mass of whirling fire, 
 With crash on crash and tumult dire. 
 
54 Sospitra. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 While a dull hollow roaring sound 
 Swept through the heavens — as at sea 
 
 A cyclone like a beast doth bound 
 Upon the waves, and furiously, 
 
 Finding its strength is vainly thrown. 
 
 Howls with a long reverberate moan — 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 An hour of sound and fire and strange 
 
 Convulsion and bewild'ring riot ! 
 But suddenly there came a change — 
 
 The lightnings ceased, the sky grew quiet, 
 The shattered clouds were swept away 
 And faint stars fiU'd the twilight grey. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Sospitra felt the peace, and slept ; 
 
 She dreamed strange dreams : she saw a host 
 Of spirits, and each spirit wept ; 
 
 She saw a bleak and lonely coast 
 Where one soul evermore did pace — 
 She looked, and knew her own pale face : 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 But last she dreamed that once again 
 The Spirits who had come before. 
 
 Who gave her power o'er things to reign, 
 To be than mightiest king far more — 
 
 That these two Spirits came and stood, 
 
 With eyes that on her soul did brood : 
 
Sospitra. 55 
 
 XL. 
 
 And that one spake to her and said, 
 ' Still is it well with thee ? Hast thou 
 
 No wish for mortal joys, fair maid — 
 Would' st fain fulfil thy days as now ? 
 
 But, if thou would'st not change, be strong — 
 
 For Love and Death have waited long.' 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Then down through sleep's phantasmal ways 
 In dreams she wandered sad, alone. 
 
 Until she came to a drear place 
 And saw a monumental stone 
 
 Whereon she read, Here lies the dmt 
 
 Of one who placed in Love her trust. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Then deeper still she slept, and dreamed 
 No further dreams the whole night long : . 
 
 And when at dawn the sunlight streamed 
 And woke her, she cried out, ' Yea, strong 
 
 I am, and fear nor Love nor Death, 
 
 The chill cold touch, nor fiery breath !' 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 She rose, and with swift footsteps passed 
 
 Between the columns, all aglow 
 With roseate-hues, and faced the vast 
 
 Reach of the plains, felt the winds blow 
 About her the sweet desert scent — 
 Was proud, and glad, serene, content. 
 
56 Sospitra. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 That eve upon the waste she spied 
 What never she saw there before — 
 
 A horseman swaying side to side, 
 
 With reins fall'n down as if from sore 
 
 Fatigue — or out of sheer despair 
 
 In being on trackless deserts bare. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 With steadfast eyes awhile she gazed 
 
 And watched the horseman nearer come : 
 
 She saw his eyes were dim and dazed, 
 
 His dry parch'd lips were fixed and dumb. 
 
 And that upon his clothes there lay 
 
 Thick clots of blood from some fierce fray. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Then with a slow strange smile she rose 
 And 'midst the temple-columns stood — 
 
 A marble goddess in her pose. 
 
 And even as rharble was her mood : 
 
 And thus she watched the horseman ride 
 
 With weary languor to her side. 
 
 XLVI I. 
 
 And he, who had no hope at all 
 Save that in this deserted fane 
 
 Death would not long abide his call 
 Nor hesitate to end his pain, 
 
 Stood wearily before the face 
 
 He judged the goddess of the place. 
 
Sospitra. 57 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Then suddenly he forth did reach 
 
 His hands, and half in mockery 
 And half unknowing what his speech 
 
 Might be, he cried out bitterly — 
 ' Oh thou, pale goddess, whose old fame 
 Is blown away like dust — whose name 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 ' Is rumoured in no lands, and here 
 Is less than any flower that springs 
 
 To life with each returning year. 
 
 Who art less than these bright dying things 
 
 That in the sunlight live an hour — 
 
 Less than the least of these thy pow'r : 
 
 L. 
 
 ' Yet ev'n to thee I pray, who now 
 Know all prayer to be vain indeed — 
 
 To thee at last I bend my brow, 
 Who of all other gods take heed 
 
 But little — and since He they call 
 
 The Lord Omnipotent o'er all 
 
 LI. 
 
 ' Has heard no weary cry of mine 
 
 Upon these desert plains — lo I 
 Before thee bend, and offer wine 
 
 Of blood, and life's faint ebbing cry 
 To thee who as a true god must 
 Rejoice I turn again to dust. 
 
58 Sospitra. 
 
 LII. 
 
 ' The wine of blood and life's last sob 
 I lay before thy shrine, who art 
 
 So lonely now, I would not rob 
 The long despair of thy chill heart 
 
 Of such slight pitiful worship as 
 
 My soul can give ere it doth pass. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 ' Take thou my life, poor goddess, take — 
 Unless indeed some power remain 
 
 Of thine old faculty to make 
 
 The pulse of life beat swift again — 
 
 Take thou or heal, who standest there 
 
 Cold, passionless, serenely fair 1' 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Scarce had he spoken, ere with moan 
 Of fear and awe his heart grew still : 
 
 He saw a tremor in the stone 
 
 And watched the mantling life-blood fill 
 
 The face, and heard a low voice say, 
 
 ' Whence comest thou who here dost pray ?' 
 
 LV. 
 
 Then with the surge of hope he fell 
 Upon his knees, and cried, ' O save 
 
 Me now, who by some miracle 
 
 Dost speak, like one who from the grave 
 
 Comes back with message to restore 
 
 Sweet hope to one who hoped no more 1' 
 
Sospitra. 59 
 
 LVI. 
 
 But with his cry his strength ebb'd fast, 
 
 Prostrate he fell before her feet ; 
 Sospitra thought the life had passed, 
 
 The weary throbbing heart to beat — 
 But ere long breathed he a slow breath. 
 And not as one that perisheth. 
 
 LVI I. 
 
 And then as in a dream he rose 
 
 And stagger'd where Sospitra led 
 His feeble frame to sweet repose. 
 
 Cool water for the wounds that bled. 
 And food and wine, and slumbers deep 
 With one to guard and safe watch keep. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 But even as they entered where 
 Her secret room was, an old wound 
 
 Reopened, and he gasped for air 
 And gave a cry and once more swooned : 
 
 She caught him in her arms, afraid 
 
 That Death his final thrust had made — 
 
 LIX. 
 
 But where his faintly beating heart 
 Lay close to hers she felt it throb : — 
 
 A moment, and his eyes apart 
 Wide opened, and a low glad sob 
 
 Broke from his lips, and ere she knew 
 
 His arms with sudden strange strength drew 
 
6o Sospitra. 
 
 LX. 
 
 Her body close to his until 
 
 They stood together breast to breast, 
 And then she felt his life-blood thrill 
 
 Her own, and knew his hot lips pressed 
 To hers, and, all her heart aflame. 
 Heard his mouth utter some sweet name. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 Then from her arms he fell, and slid 
 Upon the couch : some moments she 
 
 With strange glad eyes her flushed face hid 
 Within her hot hands tremulously, 
 
 And then she swiftly bent o'er him, 
 
 But as she looked her soul-sight dim 
 
 LXII. 
 
 And dimmer grew, until no more 
 She saw life like a scroll outrolled. 
 
 Nor read the strange mysterious lore 
 Her spirit brooded on of old : 
 
 Her dreams seemed far away to her. 
 
 Buried in some strange sepulchre. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 She laved his wounds, and brought him wine 
 And food, that when he should awake 
 
 He might have these things for a sign 
 He lived indeed, and might partake 
 
 And gain his past strength back, and be 
 
 Once more his old self verily. 
 
Sospitra. 6 1 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 And then Sospitra left, and through 
 
 The silence of the dusk she went ; 
 She saw the same stars in the blue 
 
 Dark vault, she felt the same sweet scent 
 Blown from the wide free plains, saw race 
 The swift deer fleeing from place to place — 
 
 LXV. 
 
 The same, and yet to her how strange 
 They were : they did not seem her own 
 
 Familiar sphere, or else some change 
 Had over them a dim veil thrown, 
 
 As evening mists rise up and steal 
 
 And make the landscape seem unreal. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 No thoughts were hers, but many sighs : 
 One prayerful voice alone she heard 
 
 'Midst all the universe ; her eyes 
 
 Saw one who gazed, whose sudden word 
 
 Had lit a fire within her veins 
 
 And thrilled her with ecstatic pains. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 Long while she wandered to and fro 
 In this dream-mood, then slowly turned 
 
 And sought the room where he lay low 
 
 Whom she had saved : a soft flame burned 
 
 Therein, and by its crimson light 
 
 She saw he slumbered still, death-white. 
 
62 Sospitra. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 And as she watched, sleep came on her ; 
 
 She in a dreamless slumber lay 
 As if entranced ; no sounds there were 
 
 In that still place, though far away 
 The hoarse hyenas on the plain 
 Howled in their savage hunger-pain. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 And while she slept, he woke : strange awe 
 Filled him at first — he dimly thought 
 
 This was a goddess whom he saw 
 
 Beside him, whose pure face he sought 
 
 With questioning eyes and heart that thrilled, 
 
 But ever with a fear that chilled. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 But as the strange magnetic gaze 
 Of human sight can ev'n control 
 
 The mind of one whom fevers daze 
 And waken the sense-clouded soul. 
 
 So in her sleep Sospitra stirred, 
 
 And muttered dreamily one word — 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 The one word Love, and through her eyes 
 Two single tears came forth, and low 
 
 From parted lips breath'd sudden sighs : 
 But he who watched, with heart aglow 
 
 With sudden exultation cried, 
 
 ' No goddess she who here beside 
 
Sospitra. 63 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 * Me dreams, no prophetess austere ! 
 
 No goddess ever yet did keep 
 A mind a mortal swayed, no tear 
 
 A goddess ev'n in secret sleep 
 E'er knew, no sad sighs ever moaned 
 Nor even in dreams Love's lordship owned!' 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 And with his low exulting cry 
 
 Sospitra woke, his last vvords still 
 Like dream-sounds echoing mockingly — 
 
 Love's lordship — how the words did fill 
 Her heart with a delirious bliss 
 And all her old calm strength dismiss ! 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 Then as a rain-cloud comes on swift 
 
 Aerial wings across the vault 
 Of heav'n, and the grey rain-mists drift 
 
 Till the lost wayfarer, at fault. 
 Succumbs and drops — so fever drew 
 A mist across his mind and blew 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 Phantasmal visions o'er his sight, 
 
 Until his struggling soul sank far 
 In darkness, as when clouds at night 
 
 Hide the keen pulse of fieriest star : 
 For days he lay thus, till at last 
 One eve the fever ceased and passed. 
 
64 Sospttra. 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 The ebb of strength returned and flowed 
 Till the new life felt sweet and strange : 
 
 While day by day Sospitra glowed 
 
 With lovelier beauty : some swift change 
 
 Had turned the seer into a woman, 
 
 Made the divine calm heart grow human. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 One eve they sat together where 
 
 Beyond the fane two palm-trees stood : 
 
 There was a stillness in the air, 
 Not ev'n the desert -wind did brood 
 
 Afar ; and neither spoke nor stirred. 
 
 Each vaguely waiting some swift word. 
 
 Lxxvin. 
 Slowly above the level waste 
 
 The full moon rose and sailed on high : 
 At times swift sudden meteors raced 
 
 And flashed athwart the solemn sky : 
 The planets pulsed in fire, and bright 
 The starry hosts shone through the night. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 Long silent they, till overhead 
 
 A burning meteor swung through space, 
 A crimson flame that flashed and sped : 
 
 Then swiftly turned they face to face. 
 And with one low sweet cry she knew 
 His lips were press'd to hers and drew 
 
Sospitra. 65 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 Her soul to his : she felt his breath 
 Come quick and hard — and glad, elate, 
 
 Her spirit cried — ' If this be death, 
 
 Lo, than poor Life how much more great !' 
 
 Then passionate ardours swept her soul. 
 
 As a wind sweeps o'er waves that roll : 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 She clung to him, she felt each kiss 
 
 Like flame her very being fill, 
 She quiver'd with the strange new bliss. 
 
 She felt it throb, and pulse, and thrill — 
 She knew the Passion of Love, and fell 
 A slave 'neath its resistless spell. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 O hours thereafter and strange night — 
 How sweeter far than the old dream, 
 
 To yield beneath Love's conquering might ! 
 Could any after-glory stream 
 
 Upon the soul that would not be 
 
 Compared with this a mockery ! — 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 So thought Sospitra : and for days 
 
 In this long ecstasy of love 
 She dwelt, content alone to gaze 
 
 Upon her lover's face above, 
 To hear the music of his words, to feel 
 Sweet rapturous longings o'er her steal. 
 
 5 
 
66 Sospitra. 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 The days and weeks went past ; till he 
 Felt weary for his life of old : 
 
 The time grew long monotony, 
 
 Passion wax'd faint and then lay cold 
 
 And dead : and one day far he rode 
 
 But never sought the ruin'd abode 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 Again, nor her who erewhile gave 
 Him life, and thereby also laid 
 
 Her greatness in a deep sure grave. 
 Ev'n as a flower doth droop and fade 
 
 Sospitra paler grew, faint, weak — 
 
 She could not cry aloud nor speak 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 A single prayer : she had no pow'r 
 At all as she of old-time had : 
 
 To her brought now the midnight hour 
 No wondrous visions : she grew glad 
 
 No more with fervour of high thought, 
 
 God's mystic ways no more she sought. 
 
 LXXXVI I. 
 
 A woman now, she knew that Death 
 
 Would follow Love, and for his rest 
 She sighed with many a bitter breath : 
 
 Till one night words came- — ■' It is best 
 I would not love's sweet dream undo, 
 h ough thus his mockery I rue. 
 
Sospitra. 67 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 ' I also am of those who live 
 
 A brief swift span, who pass away 
 With all life's passions fugitive ; 
 
 But ah, in that miraculous day 
 When all Life's complex mysteries 
 Were clear unto my steadfast eyes, 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 ' I saw, as I might read a scroll, 
 That death was but a change, a birth, 
 
 A rest, and that th' enfranchised soul 
 Reached to a higher life on earth — 
 
 That ever upward, upward, went 
 
 The soul in its divine ascent : 
 
 xc. 
 ' Therefore I fear no more at all ; 
 
 Therefore I do not cry again 
 For the old glory I let fall 
 
 From out my life : through joy, through pain 
 I shall reach onward, till once more 
 My life is as my dream of yore.' 
 
 xci. 
 Slowly the long dull hours went by : 
 
 No more Sospitra far and wide 
 Roved o'er the plains, but listlessly 
 
 She watched the days to evenings glide. 
 The moon succeed the sun, the stars the moon, 
 Each slow dawn lead to fiery noon. 
 
 5—2 
 
68 Sospitra. 
 
 xca. 
 Death came to her one lonely eve 
 
 And looked upon her pale sad face : 
 ' Though Love doth pass, I shall not leave 
 
 Thee ever in my silent place,' 
 He whispered gently through her sleep, — 
 Then breathed o'er her his slumber deep. 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 The wind blows there with hollow sound ; 
 
 The circling seasons bring no change : 
 When sweet Spring's breath along the ground 
 
 Wakens the flow'rs, no footsteps range 
 The fragrant ways, no song is heard 
 Save the shrill music of some bird. 
 
 xciv. 
 The ruined columnSj stone by stone. 
 
 Stand silent 'midst the desert vast : 
 There the hyena howls alone, 
 
 Or swells the fierce sirocco-blast 
 Or the dull roar of lions, like sea 
 Calling to sea monotonously. 
 
TRANSCRIPTS FROM NATURE. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 These ' Transcripts ' (including the selection in the latter 
 part of this volume), like those which appeared in The Human 
 Inheritance : And Other Poems, are portions of a series forming 
 a kind of private Liber Studiorum, and are here inserted in no 
 natural sequence, but almost at random. This, while practically 
 a necessity on the part of the selector, is calculated to afford 
 more diversity of interest to the reader. 
 
 As a rule, but not invariably, I have used the detached 
 couplet which finishes each ' Transcript ' as the means of some 
 supplementary touch, heightening the effect by bearing in some 
 way or other upon the broad outline produced in the preceding 
 six lines. The ' Transcripts ' are uniform throughout, save 
 slight modifications of the final couplet in Nos. x. and xiv. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 
 
 I. Troutling. xvi. A Venetian Sunset. {Be- 
 
 II. The Wasp. fore a change^ 
 
 III. In a Garden. xvil. An ' Impression.' 
 
 IV. The Kingfisher. xviii. The South Foreland. 
 V. Fireflies. (Ardennes.') {Stormy sunset.) 
 
 VI. The Firefly. {Tuscany^ xix. Sea-shallows. 
 
 VII. Tangled Sunrays. xx. The Ninth Wave. 
 
 VIII. A Rain-mist. xxi. The Caves of Staffa. 
 
 IX. Mt. Pilatus. (Thunder^ xxil. Loch Coruisk. 
 x. Music and Moonlight. XXIll. The Afterglow. (Canary 
 
 XI. Signa. Islands^ 
 
 xil. A Boulder. {Roman Cam- xxiv. Sunset at the Azores. 
 
 pagna.) xxv. On the Thames Embank- 
 
 XIII. Sunset on the Maremma. ment. 
 
 XIV. A Sirocco Noon. XXVI. Empire. {Persepolis.) 
 
 XV. The Laguna Morta. 
 
TRANSCRIPTS FROM NATURE. 
 
 I. TROUTLING. 
 
 j N the clear grey-brown stream the reeds 
 Rise like tall branchless pines, and 
 
 glades 
 Are there, where in the twilight shades 
 Like flowers seem the water-weeds : 
 And to and fro amidst the slim 
 Reflected leaves the troutling swim 
 
 Like birds amongst the trees, but sing 
 No song, and flit on noiseless wing. 
 
 II. THE WASP. 
 Where the ripe pears droop heavily 
 The yellow wasp hums loud and long 
 His hot and drowsy Autumn song : 
 A yellow flame he seems to be. 
 When darting suddenly from high 
 He lights where fallen peaches lie : 
 
 Yellow and black, this tiny thing's 
 A tiger-soul on elfin wings. 
 
72 Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 III. IN A GARDEN. (Midsummer.) 
 
 Above the beds of mignonette, 
 
 Or 'midst the wall-flowers' drowsy spells 
 Or swaying in Canterbury bells 
 The brown bee hums : o'er wild-thyme wet 
 With streamlet sprays, the dragon-fly 
 Hangs blue-black 'gainst the azure sky : 
 
 And like blown wild-rose leaves alow 
 White butterflies drift to and fro. 
 
 IV. THE KINGFISHER.l 
 
 'Neath drooping grasses slips the stream. 
 And on a bulrush bending low 
 The ' bird of March ' sways to and fro 
 
 A-shimmer in his sunlit gleam ; 
 
 Some splendid orchid seems he there. 
 
 Soft swaying in the bright Spring air. 
 
 With yellow iris-flowers around 
 
 And gold marsh-mallows o'er the ground. 
 
Transcripts from Nature, 73 
 
 V. FIREFLIES. (7m the Ardemes.f 
 
 Softly sailing emerald lights 
 Above the cornfields come and go, 
 Listlessly wandering to and fro : 
 The magic of these July nights 
 Has surely even pierced down deep 
 Where the earth's jewels unharmed sleep, 
 
 And filled with fire the emeralds there 
 And raised them thus to the outer air. 
 
 VI. THE FIREFLY. 
 
 The short sweet Tuscan twilight dreams 
 Into the reverie of night — 
 Darkness and stillness, save a light 
 
 That comes and goes with sudden gleams ;- 
 
 A living flame, an unborn soul 
 
 Slow wandering towards an unspied goal, 
 
 Thus in its shining devious flight 
 The firefly seems to me to-night. 
 
74 Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 VII. TANGLED SUNRAYS. 
 
 Aslant from yonder sunlit hill 
 
 The lance-like sunrays stream across 
 The meadows where the king-cups toss 
 
 r the wind, and where the beech-leaves thrill 
 
 With flooding light they twist and turn 
 
 And seem to interlace and burn, 
 
 Until at last in tangles spun 
 
 'Mid the damp grass their race is run. 
 
 VIII. A RAIN-MIST ON LAKE LUGANO. 
 
 Dark as the night, — and still as though 
 The mountain-shadows lying there 
 Defied the wind's power to lay bare 
 
 Their haunts of endless sleep, — below 
 
 The rugged hills Lugano lies. 
 
 No longer blue beneath blue skies : 
 
 But o'er it broods a filmy mist, 
 Stone-grey just touch'd with amethyst. 
 
Transcripts from Nature. 75 
 
 IX. MOUNT PILATUS. {Thunder, without wind or rain.) 
 
 A livid blue-black pall, with streaks 
 Of lurid light, doth darkly frown 
 Above Pilatus looking down 
 
 With sovran scorn on lesser peaks ; 
 
 Wan shifting lights upon these lie — 
 
 But no rains fall, no wind-wings fly 
 
 Though now the steel-blue lightnings flash 
 Where the scarr'd peak withstands the crash. 
 
 X. MUSIC AND MOONLIGHT. {Lake of Lucerne.) 
 
 The violet wavelets ripple in 
 
 Upon the shelving shore ; and through 
 The scented limes a glimpse of blue, 
 The purple-blue of night, I win : 
 Yonder Lucerne lies mass'd, all white 
 In the full moon's redundant light, 
 
 And happy laughter comes on fleet 
 Aerial wings, and echoing music sweet. 
 
76 Transcripts from Nature^ 
 
 XI. SIGNA. 
 
 Thro' winter and thro' summer's days 
 Hoar Signa dreams her old-time dream 
 The olives make a silvery gleam 
 
 About her sun-white hillside ways 
 
 And the old houses mellow-toned. 
 
 "Widowed, still sitteth she enthroned, 
 
 Still watches Arno's swift stream flee 
 "With dead leaves to the Pisan sea. 
 
 XII. A BOULDER. {On the. Roman Campagna.) 
 
 A sea of billowy green around — 
 Above, the hollow azure dome : 
 This rock, half buried in the loam, 
 
 Has reached, man knows not how, this ground ; 
 
 Time-worn, and scored as with sea-shells. 
 
 It doth not heed the blue harebells — 
 
 The twin blue butterflies at rest — 
 The lizard — on its old grey breast. 
 
Transcripts from Nature. yj 
 
 XIII. SUNSET ON THE MAREMMA. 
 
 Vast tracts of swamp and desert-land 
 Stretch leagueless onward from the hills : 
 No broad stream flows, but sluggish rills 
 Crawl thro' the moss and marsh and sand : 
 No sign of life, save one black crow 
 That on a tireless wing doth go : 
 
 The whole one crimson hue, from gleams 
 Blood-red, the dead sun's dying beams. 
 
 XIV. A SIROCCO NOON : FROM SAN NICOLETTO. 
 
 As through a silver-woven veil 
 Of gauze, I see Venezia gleam 
 Thro' the June heat ; a soft blue gleam 
 
 Shifts o'er the shallow sea ; a sail, 
 
 Of saffron with a strange device, 
 
 Hangs idly where a shallop lies 
 
 Moveless : — o'erhead the acacia-blossoms turn 
 r the faint wind ; around, the poppies burn. 
 
78 Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 XV, THE LAGUNA MORTA. 
 
 Above, the intense blue of the sky — 
 Flawless, save that a white gull wings 
 Seaward — soundless, save that there rings 
 A rapturous lark-song from on high : 
 But all around a dead drear waste 
 Stretches for miles — rank swamps ungraced 
 
 By life, save where the yellow newts 
 Revel 'midst ooze-fed marish roots. 
 
 XVI. A VENETIAN SUNSET : BEFORE A CHANGE. 
 {Returning from Torcello.) 
 
 In violet hues each dome and spire 
 Stands outlined against flawless rose 
 O'er this a carmine ocean flows 
 
 Streak'd with pure gold and amber fire, 
 
 And through the sea of sundown-mist 
 
 Float isles of melted amethyst : 
 
 Storm-portents, saffron streamers rise, 
 Fan-like, from Venice to the skies. 
 
Transcripts from Nature. 79 
 
 XVII. AN 'IMPRESSION.' 
 
 {Midnight, on the Laguna di Mestre, under the long railway 
 bridge spanning the distance between Venice and the mainland.') 
 
 A hundred arches left and right 
 Are mirror'd in the calm lagoon ; 
 The stars pulse there, and the gold moon 
 
 Sails through a nether sphere of night : 
 
 A distant roar — a flame — a crash — 
 
 A whirling fiery bolt — a flash — 
 
 The train is gone ; the echo's o'er ; 
 The arch'd lagoon is still once more. 
 
 XVIII. THE SOUTH FORELAND. {Stormy Sunset.) 
 
 Across th' ensanguined sea the sun 
 
 Sinks slowly through the blood-red west ; 
 The wind hath moaned itself to rest ; 
 
 A star leaps forth — the day is done ; 
 
 Far down below the tide doth lift 
 
 Itself against the cliff, with swift 
 
 Resurge adown the shingly shore 
 And hollow, deep, resilient roar. 
 
8o Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 XIX. SEA-SHALLOWS. 
 
 The slow tide rises up the rocks 
 Waving the seaweed to and fro, 
 The amber tresses in their flow 
 Seeming Hke those long mermaid-locks 
 In which drown'd sailors lie adream : 
 Between them little fishes gleam, 
 
 And clouds of wavering shrimps o'er bars 
 Of sand, and fork'd slow-moving stars. 
 
 XX. THE NINTH WAVE. 
 
 Lying here upon this rock whose base 
 The grey sea keeps, I watch the waves, 
 Wind-driven and rebellious slaves, 
 Sweep hither in their reckless race : 
 Now one dies, now another rears 
 And breaks in countless briny tears, 
 
 But one, the ninth, green, hollow, vast, 
 Towers ere it falls, defying the blast. 
 
Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 XXI. THE CAVES OF STAFFA. 
 {Gale from the South-West.) 
 
 The green Atlantic seas wash past 
 
 The mighty pillars of basalt ; 
 
 A vast sea-echo through the vault 
 Swells like a captive thunder-blast ; 
 The wind fierce show'rs of spray doth sweep 
 Through the cave's gulf, and loud the deep 
 
 Resistless billows in their course 
 Thunder within in tumult hoarse. 
 
 XXII. LOCH CORUISK. {Skye.) 
 
 The bleak and barren mountains keep 
 A never-ending gloom around 
 The lonely loch ; the winds resound, 
 
 The rains beat down, the tempests sweep, 
 
 The days are calm and dark and still, — 
 
 No other changes Cor'uisk fill. 
 
 Scarce living sound is heard, save high 
 The eagle's scream or wild swan's cry. 
 
 6 
 
82 Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 XXIII. THE AFTERGLOW. {Canary Islands.) 
 
 The purple twilight dwelleth long 
 Amid these western isles, and fills 
 The ocean with a peace that stills 
 
 The soul, as with their strange sea-song 
 
 The old-time syrens soothed away 
 
 The unrest of an earlier day : 
 
 The crescent moon and one large star 
 Hang o'er the Afric coast afar. 
 
 XXIV. SUNSET AT THE AZORES. 
 
 {Against the Orange Groves.) 
 
 Across the Atlantic's moving gold 
 The aerial floods of sunset flow, 
 Till all the orange-orchards glow 
 As if earth's ingots hither rolled 
 Were mass'd, the giant task being done, 
 To get a last touch from the sun : 
 
 The sky-gold reddens — redder shine 
 The groves, as steeped in ruby wine. 
 
Transcripts from Nature. 83 
 
 XXV. ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT. 
 
 {Cleopatra's Needle.) 
 
 Through centuries where the fiery sun 
 Of Egypt scorched the desert sands, 
 Greeted alone by Bedouin bands, 
 The obelisk beheld Time spun 
 Through generations as though hurled 
 Down the long slope of a dead world : 
 
 Now here it stands ; but doth it see 
 For England Egypt's destiny ? 
 
 XXVI. EMPIRE. (PersepoHs.) 
 
 The yellow waste of yellow sands, 
 The bronze haze of a scorching sky ! 
 Lo, what are these that broken lie, 
 
 Were these once temples made with hands ? 
 
 Once towers and palaces that knew 
 
 No hint of that which one day threw 
 
 Their greatness to the winds — made this 
 The memory of Persepolis ? 
 
 6—2 
 
GASPARA STAMPA. 
 
NOTE TO ' GASPARA STAMPA.' 
 
 Gaspara Stampa — the Venetian Sappho as she has been 
 called — was one of the most poetic and fascinating personages 
 of the poetic and fascinating times in which she lived. The 
 friend of Titian and Sansovino and others of that brilliant com- 
 pany who made Venice for a time the centre of the highest 
 civilization, she had also every personal qualification — genius, 
 beauty, culture — save that of patrician birth. Loving, and for a 
 time loved by the Count of CoUalto, one of the princeliest and 
 most accomplished of the nobles of Venice, she was unfortunate 
 in having her passionate love ill-rewarded. The Lord of Col- 
 lalto, while on a mission to Paris, was there enthralled by the 
 famous Diane de Poitiers, and this becoming known to Gaspara 
 so preyed upon her life that, after writing many beautiful, 
 dignified, and pathetic verses and sonnets, in which she em- 
 balmed her disastrous passion, she died, or, as is sometimes 
 said, poisoned herself, in the full bloom of her lovely and 
 accomplished youth. 
 
 For my first acquaintance with the incidents of her life and 
 the subjects of her verses (which I was fortunate in making 
 before going to Venice) I am indebted to the eloquent little 
 essay by Mr. Eugene Benson, the well-known American painter, 
 residing in Rome. This essay prefaces a number of admirable 
 translations of Gaspara Stampa's sonnets, by ' George Fleming,' 
 the author of ' A Nile Novel,' etc., the whole forming a little 
 book which was published in 1882, by Roberts Bros., of New 
 York. 
 
 In the following lines I have merely endeavoured to give four 
 representative scenes from the life of Gaspara, founded partly 
 on her own statements and partly on strong probability. (^See 
 also Notes.) 
 
 If so slight a thing were worth dedicating, the writer would 
 have asked his friend, Mr. Eugene Benson, to let him associate 
 it with bis name — not only as a mark of personal regard, or as 
 an acknowledgment of indebtedness, but also from the high 
 opinion he has of Mr. Benson as an artist. 
 
GASPARA ST AMP A. 
 
 Saffo d^ nostri tempi alia Gaspara. 
 I. At San Salvatore? 
 
 jDOWN its stony sunwhite bed 
 
 The hill-stream slipp'd — not as it sped 
 In winter when it raged along 
 In reckless ecstasy of song, 
 Nor as in early Spring full fed 
 By melting snows — but shrunken thin 
 And with a dreamy murmuring sound 
 Betwixt the rocks and stones it wound : 
 It sang the cool joys of Cadore, 
 It whisper'd lowly o'er and o'er 
 The secrets which the flowers had lain — 
 The flow'rs of the Trevisian plain — 
 Upon its wavelets knowing they 
 Would reach the great sea one sure day, 
 That sea of which they vaguely knew 
 As where their song-bird lovers flew 
 When the sweet months had gone and all 
 The land was no more musical. 
 
88 Caspar a Stampa. 
 
 The blue Venetian Alps rose sheer 
 
 And stretch'd far north, divinely clear, 
 
 Height blending into height until 
 
 It seemed as if the wave would fill 
 
 And break and sweep in azure flood 
 
 O'er mountain, meadow, and vale, and wood. 
 
 Above the wild Piave's stream 
 
 An ancient cedar dreamed its dream 
 
 In windless silence solemnly, 
 
 Rememb'ring how the swift years fly, 
 
 How brief the life of flower and bird 
 
 And man, how futile every word 
 
 Of love, whether of wooing wind 
 
 Or mated songsters when they find 
 
 Their nests wind-swept, or men who vow 
 
 Time shall be unto them as now. 
 
 And midway in its vast deep shade, 
 
 Cool, fragrant, dark as greenest glade 
 
 In some old forest, hand in hand 
 
 Two lovers sat, with eyes that scanned 
 
 Each other as with eager thirst 
 
 The traveller in some lone land 
 
 Beholds a visioned paradise 
 
 Nor knows the vision then accurst. 
 
 There was a wonder in her eyes, 
 
 A wonder that such joy could be 
 
 For her, and all the world not see 
 
Caspar a Stampa. 89 
 
 The glory that upon it dwelt : 
 Holding her lover's hand she felt 
 The wide green earth a transient dream, 
 And Time an evanescent gleam, 
 And Fate an empty sound that blew 
 About the windy wastes of space. 
 And Death a shadow faint that flew 
 Far off with an averted face. 
 
 Ev'n as a flower she was, so fair. 
 
 So sweet and delicate and rare : 
 
 A face that one might see in dreams. 
 
 With deep dark eyes whose sudden gleams 
 
 Flashed straight from the pure soul within ; 
 
 And like a halo was the hair 
 
 In golden glory gather'd where 
 
 The lily-neck rose white and thin. 
 
 A lily seemed she verily 
 
 To him whom all men thought to be 
 
 The perfect rose of manlihood : 
 
 Within the eyes that oft did brood 
 
 Upon Gaspara's loveliness 
 
 Life ever burned in passionate mood ; 
 
 The very joy of joyousness, 
 
 The lust of life was his, the glow. 
 
 The fervour which in youth some know 
 
 When all life's joyous fragrant flow'rs 
 
 Hedge the glad way whereon we go, 
 
 Heedless of Time's relentless hours. 
 
90 Gaspara Stampa. 
 
 « 
 
 So sat the twain one autumn day 
 
 In the cool cedarn shade whence they 
 
 Looked down where the Piave flowed 
 
 Beneath, and past the sun-scorched road 
 
 That led to white Collalto, high 
 
 Against the azure of the sky, 
 
 Amongst its olive-groves, upon 
 
 The blue heights reaching on and on 
 
 Till lost in that aerial haze 
 
 Which is the breath of autumn days : 
 
 Behind them the Trevisian plain 
 
 Lay bathed in light, its fields of grain 
 
 Like sheets of shimmering gold, and far. 
 
 With the swift sparkle of a star. 
 
 Where a broad band stretch'd wide away 
 
 The azure Adriatic lay. 
 
 Long had they silent sat ; for love 
 Broods on itself, ev'n as a dove 
 Dreams scarcely crooning o'er its peace : 
 Love scorns poor words, it hath release 
 In silence. When at last he broke 
 The silence with the words he spoke 
 It seem'd to both as if the hour 
 Were filled with some magnetic pow'r, 
 Some vivid, keen, electric force 
 That drew them each to each, — as though 
 Twin leaves they were in one strong flow 
 
Gaspara Stampa. ^ 91 
 
 United 'midst a torrent's course. 
 
 ' Love, love,' he cried, and bending low 
 
 He kiss'd the tremulous lips again 
 
 And yet again till the sweet pain 
 
 Of yearning in her eloquent eyes 
 
 And the soft magic of her sighs 
 
 Set his hot heart aflame to hold 
 
 Her lovely body in embrace, 
 
 To feel her arms his frame enfold, 
 
 With breast to breast and face to face. 
 
 Sweet hours, too soon they passed away. 
 The glory on the plain grew grey 
 And Twilight stole with misty feet 
 From purpling hill to hill to meet 
 The swarthy darkness as it came 
 With one bright starry signal flame : 
 Then hand in hand the lovers went 
 Up the steep hill-side path to where 
 The castle's moonlit towers leant 
 Against the purple-shadowed air. 
 
92 Gaspara Stampa. 
 
 II. At Titian's House in Venice^ 
 
 As the sun set o'er the low land 
 Where Mestre lies, a goodly band 
 With Titian held festivity : 
 Slowly a glory changed the sea 
 Till o'er each broad lagoon there rolled 
 A tide of purple, crimson, gold. 
 Or delicate amber : far away 
 The blue aerial hills rose clear 
 Beyond where the north islands lay 
 Bathed in soft purphsh light ; more near 
 Burano and Murano gleamed. 
 And where by San Michele drear 
 The buried dead of Venice dreamed 
 A sudden saffron splendour streamed. 
 
 All were the guests of Titian there : 
 
 Gaspara Stampa, noble, fair; 
 
 Irene, beautiful and young. 
 
 For whom the fierce Tedeschi swung 
 
 Their swords ; and Palma's famous maid, 
 
 Violante of the golden hair ; 
 
 Cornelia who so often played 
 
 Sweet tunes to still the strange unrest 
 
 Her brother knew : and for the rest, 
 
 Varchi was there, and Bembo whom 
 
 With Sansovino 'midst that room 
 
Gaspara Stampa. 93 
 
 Titian most loved, the tall fair slim 
 
 Molino, and anigh to him 
 
 The lord Collalto debonair, 
 
 And lastly with a mocking air 
 
 Pietro Aretino, who 
 
 Made most men his keen rancour rue.^ 
 
 Swift gondolas upon the tide 
 
 Like swans went past, and far and wide 
 
 The tinkling of the vesper bells 
 
 Rang clear, or came in low soft swells 
 
 Across the calm lagoons ; at times 
 
 A voice rose singing idle rhymes, 
 
 Or a clear lute or mandolin 
 
 Played one of those old tunes that win 
 
 Our souls to memories of past years 
 
 And fill the eyes with sudden tears. 
 
 A brief while all sat hushed and still. 
 
 Till Aretino rose to fill 
 
 His neighbour's glass : then Titian spake — 
 
 ' When from such silence we awake 
 
 Is it not even as we had seen 
 
 Some strange new thing, as we had been 
 
 Within the heavenly places where 
 
 Pure spirits fill the holy air ?' 
 
 ' Yea,' Sansovino said, ' we see 
 
 Then : at other times we dream. 
 
94 Gaspara Stampa. 
 
 But Aretino laughed, 'To me 
 
 Such moments pleasant are, they seem 
 
 Restful indeed, but more of earth 
 
 Than heaven, a breathing-space for mirth 
 
 To rest herself, for thought to sleep, 
 
 A time the delicate wine to keep 
 
 Within the mouth until we catch 
 
 Its subtlest flavour, even to snatch 
 
 Some moments' slumber. Come, we're fain 
 
 For music — let's do hfe no wrong : 
 
 Fair Violante, sing that strain 
 
 Of mine I made for singing long 
 
 Ago and called " The Syren-Song." ' 
 
 C Violante sings .■) 
 
 There where the lotos scents the drowsy day. 
 And hushful fountains fall in ceaseless spray 
 And strange bright birds their sweet songs sing alway- 
 
 I dream, dream, dream of soinething sweet and dear. 
 But when I dream I dream in secret fear. 
 
 The great gold-hearted lilies lie alow 
 Upon the gliding waters as they flow, 
 Like white moons in a liquid sky they glow. 
 
 Upon a bank of violets I lie 
 
 Watching the purple shadows flitting by. 
 
 And dream my dreanis fulfilment is anigh : 
 
Gaspara Stampa. 95 
 
 And the cool waters kiss my white limbs fair. 
 And all about me falls my veil of hair, 
 And some strange longing fills me unaware. 
 
 But here at night, anigh the whisfring stream, 
 
 I lie amid the lotos-lilies' gleam, 
 
 And feel the sweetness of some coming dream. 
 
 As when a nightingale doth sing 
 
 At twilight and repeated sweetness fling 
 
 Far thro' the dusky woods, so sang 
 
 The singer with a voice that rang . 
 
 Far out across the twilit sea, 
 
 Now clear and strong, now hushfully 
 
 With magic in the low sweet notes : 
 
 The fisher-folk within the boats 
 
 That southward sailed swift crossed and prayed 
 
 As though indeed some Syren maid 
 
 Sang a too sweet prophetic tune. 
 
 Then slowly rose th' autumnal moon, 
 Golden and round, and made a track 
 Of ever-changing silver where 
 The tidal wash of the lagoon 
 Swept past the islands, purple-black 
 Already in the dusky air. 
 And smilingly Collalto took 
 His mandolin, with one swift look 
 To where Gaspara sat with eyes 
 That answered with a glad surmise : 
 
96 Gaspara Stampa. 
 
 {Collalto sings :) 
 
 Wkile sways the restless sea 
 
 Beyond the shore, 
 And the waves sing listlessly 
 
 Their secret lore. 
 And the soft fragrant air 
 
 From off the deep 
 Scarce stirs thine outspread hair,- 
 , / 
 
 Far up in purple skies 
 Great lamps hang out. 
 
 White flames that fall and rise 
 In motley rout; 
 
 While fall their silvern rays 
 O'er crag aiid steep. 
 
 Woodlands and meadow-ways,— 
 Sleep! 
 
 While the mooris amber gleams 
 
 Gild rock andflovfr, 
 Let no untimely dreams 
 
 Possess the hour : 
 Let no vague Jears the heart 
 
 'Mid slumber keep. 
 In dreams love hath no smart, — 
 Sleep I 
 
 When he had ceased, with a slow smile 
 Scarce hiding its malicious guile 
 Pietro Aretino said, 
 ' To whom, fair lord, to which sweet maid 
 
Gaspara Stampa. 97 
 
 Were these words sung ? For surely she 
 Will answer with swift courtesy ?' 
 But even as he spake and sneered, 
 Gaspara turned with eyes that feared 
 No mocking, but with far-off gaze 
 Sang, with a strange light on her face :* 
 
 I gaze into thine eyes 
 And gazing there beheld 
 
 The glory of Paradise : 
 Only one fear can make my hope grow cold. 
 Only one dread within my heart still lies — 
 Would st thou wert mine to my last hour to hold! 
 
 Ofair and fatal face, 
 
 That steals my soul away, 
 
 O sweet divinest grace : 
 O miracle of love — that thou should stj>r ay 
 My heart's desire, that knows no little space 
 Wherein it never doth thy rule obey. 
 
 But with a sudden evil look, 
 
 Lent Aretino o'er, and took 
 
 From off its place a small guitar. 
 
 And said, ' Love is a fallen star : 
 
 We do not well to rant and rave 
 
 Of what is soon quenched in the grave. 
 
 Which doth not break death's silence, nor 
 
 Arise, when once the tomb's closed o'er. 
 
 I call it what it is : a thing 
 
 To have awhile, laugh, jest at, fling 
 
 To the winds again — but never I 
 
 7 
 
98 Caspar a Stampa. 
 
 Pray for Love's lordship endlessly. 
 Here is my song : — ' 
 
 But Titian said, 
 ' Nay, is not Love that seed God laid 
 Beyond the gates of Paradise — 
 An Eden-flower to grow and rise, 
 Which whoso gathereth shall know 
 His soul is no mere empty breath, 
 Nor closed stand the Gates of Death ?' 
 
 Then Bembo : ' Love is God's first seal 
 To sanctify the soul's advance : 
 Death is the next.' 
 
 ' And when we feel/ 
 Gaspara said, ' Love's quenchless fire, 
 We fall not but we reach up higher :' 
 
 ' Love is a Spirit of Desire,' 
 Collalto cried, ' it kills or saves : 
 Lords are we of it or else slaves.' 
 
 To whom, Molino : * 'Tis a dream 
 
 Wherein we catch a transient gleam 
 
 Of some life past or yet to come : 
 
 It is the flower of things, the sum 
 
 And head ' — whereat laughed loud again 
 
 Swart Aretino, ' Be it pain, 
 
 Or peace, or joy — here is my strain : — ' 
 
Gaspara Stampa. 99 
 
 Love is a burning flame : 
 It feeds on shame : 
 Lust is its other name, — 
 Love is a bitter flame. 
 
 Love dwells in no one heart : 
 It hath a poison' d dart. 
 And leaves a bitter smart 
 In the bruised heart. 
 
 Love is a bitter thing, 
 An empty jest to fling, 
 A lewd song to sing, 
 Love is a bitter thing — 
 
 A bitter thing, aflame, 
 It feeds on shame : 
 Lust is its other name — 
 Lmie is a burning flame. 
 
 III. A t Murano. 
 
 From garden-ways that to the sea 
 Sloped down 'neath many a cypress tree 
 A sound of laughter came, — for there, 
 Rejoicing in the sweet spring air, 
 A joyous company was met : 
 But two by a white parapet 
 Together stood, Gaspara one. 
 The other, he who late had won 
 A happy meed of generous praise 
 For the sweet beauty of his lays 
 To subtle thought and music grown ; 
 Together there they stood alone, 
 
 7-3 
 
lOO Gaspara Stampa. 
 
 Tall slim Molino in the flower 
 
 Of his full fame, she in the power 
 
 Of her acknowledged loveliness. 
 
 The cool wind touched with light caress 
 
 The soft gold of her lovely hair, 
 
 And lovelier than the flower most rare 
 
 Transplanted from the east that grew 
 
 Within these gardens was her face. 
 
 A certain sadness left its trace 
 
 Within the dreamful eyes, for he, 
 
 He whom she loved so steadfastly, 
 
 Far hence * made glad the land of France :'' 
 
 To him life was a wide romance, 
 
 To her 'twas one sole episode : 
 
 He had fair paths — she one straight road. 
 
 She knew not why her friend thus chose 
 
 To turn awhile aside from those 
 
 Who loved and honoured both : but glad 
 
 She was to ask if aught of news 
 
 Of the good lord Collalto had 
 
 Of late been heard — with some excuse 
 
 Of careless interest as though 
 
 His very name sent not a glow 
 
 Throughout her face : but with no smile 
 
 Molino turned his face awhile 
 
 And spake not — all his heart being thrill'd 
 
 With sorrow and his dark eyes filled 
 
Ga'ipara Stampa. loi 
 
 With tears that he who loved her so 
 Should be her messenger of woe. 
 Well knew Molino whom she loved, 
 Well knew he that she looked unmoved 
 On him, although with kindly eyes 
 And sweet familiar courtesies 
 She met him ever — well he knew 
 The lord Collalto her heart drew 
 Unto his life, as the moon draws 
 The waves of ocean without pause — 
 And bitterly he cursed this lord 
 That idly tossed aside his word 
 And for an untrue woman's sake 
 Forsook one true, one fit to make 
 A man's life fair and strong and sweet. 
 
 None joined them there with wandering feet, 
 
 But long a strange vague silence lay 
 
 Betwixt them, as 'tween windy day 
 
 And night a silence oft doth dwell. 
 
 At last Gaspara cried — ' O tell 
 
 Me quick this thing you have to say : 
 
 He is not dead whom I so well 
 
 Have loved and love !' 
 
 ' He lives, but he, 
 O dear, sweet friend, hath turn'd from thee : 
 Be Strong ! I would to God that vain 
 
102 Gaspara Stampa. 
 
 My words were, that this dreadful pain 
 Might then not seize thy tender heart. 
 Gaspara — friend — no words my tongue 
 Would e'er have utter'd to thy hurt, 
 Had I not feared some coarse jest flung 
 Or that some heedless fool might blurt 
 The truth out unawares : dear friend, 
 Forgive me when I say an end 
 Hath come upon thy high pure love — 
 For he hath thrown it as a glove 
 Aside — he is not worthy thee. 
 Who long hath loved him faithfully !' 
 
 ' Molino, I adjure thee by the trust 
 I have in thee, all kindness thrust 
 From out thy speech and let me have 
 The bitter truth that nought can save !' 
 
 ' A famous courtezan has made 
 His weak heart captive : he has laid 
 Honour aside, and knows no more 
 The love he vowed thee o'er and o'er. 
 In rumour you have heard her name — 
 Diane de Poitiers — heed her shame 
 And his no more, Gaspara ! Dead 
 He is to thee whose heart has bled 
 In bitter ruth to hear.' 
 
 • Alas ! 
 I^know it to be true : Love has 
 
Gaspara Stampa. 103 
 
 For women ever a fierce thorn 
 Behind each flow'r ; a bitter scorn 
 In Hope disguised : O true good friend 
 I pray thee take me hence. The end 
 Is come. The dream is dreamed. It is 
 An old, old song. O life's poor bliss 1' 
 
 {Aretino crosses the path, singing ■) 
 
 Love dwells in no one lieart : 
 It hath a poisoned dart, 
 And leaves a bitter smart 
 In the bruised heart. 
 
 Love is a bitter thing. 
 An etnpty jest to fling, 
 A lewd song to sing. 
 Love is a bitter thing. 
 
 IV. The Last Journey. 
 
 Nigh where the barren sandy shore 
 
 Of Malamocco met the roar 
 
 And surge of the tempestuous sea, 
 
 Gaspara lay. Her misery 
 
 Oft led her thither, where no eyes 
 
 Would watch her grief, and where her sighs 
 
 Unnoticed fell. For miles the strand 
 
 Stretch'd bleak and bare — a waste of sand 
 
 Where only the sea-poppies grew. 
 
 And where the wailing sea-birds flew 
 
 Like ghosts of the unburied dead 
 
 Lying fathoms deep : for leagues outspread 
 
I04 Gaspara Stampa. 
 
 The foam-swept Adriatic lay, 
 Until it met the sky-line grey 
 And sky and sea grew one dull waste 
 Wherethro' the riotous tempest raced. 
 
 All day she lay there like a flower 
 
 Rent from its place by the wind's power 
 
 And broken : nor as time waned fast 
 
 And the fierce tempest wheeled and passed, 
 
 Saw she the peaceful afternoon 
 
 Bring transient rest ere once again 
 
 The changing wind and driving rain 
 
 Swept the sea-spray o'er each lagoon. 
 
 At last even of this second pain 
 
 Of silence she grew tired, and so 
 
 She rose and wandered to and fro 
 
 Where the cold grey insistent waves 
 
 Swung heavily upon the shore : 
 
 And murmuring to herself she said, 
 
 ' O happy they that in their graves 
 
 Lie still and quiet, who feel no more 
 
 Life's bitterness : O happy dead ! 
 
 Would God I in my narrow bed 
 
 Slept the long sleep, and heard no sound 
 
 At all, and no remembrance found. 
 
 No tears, no sighs, no ghostly past. 
 
 No kiss that turns to dust at last, 
 
Caspar a Stampa. 105 
 
 No bitter mockery of love, 
 Nor foiled Hope leaving all aghast 
 The shivering soul : to hear above 
 No sound, not even the sweet birds, 
 For it might chance some stinging words, 
 Some lover's vow, might reach me there 
 And I should know the dreadful air 
 Of life once more, and feel again 
 Slain Love's intolerable pain.' 
 
 And then she knew that she would see 
 No morrow : and the mystery 
 Of coming death brought such release 
 From grief, and such a sense of peace. 
 It seemed to her as if even then 
 She died, as if the world of men 
 Were a past dream, and she were free : 
 So then she made this song,* that he 
 Might one day read and know how well 
 She loved — 
 
 ' To suffer grief is to be strong. 
 
 And to be strong is beautiful and rare ;' 
 'Twas in thy court, O Love, I learned it there, 
 This sad, sweet song ! 
 
 No one man dwells thy ways among. 
 
 Who shall not learn thy thousand ways of grief 
 Or how wild fears succeed each poor relief 
 In darHning throng : 
 
io6 Gaspara Stampa. 
 
 There too a man may learn to put away 
 The crownid summit of his heart's desire- 
 But O, the bitter burning of lov^sfire — 
 Its bitterer ashes grey 1 
 
 Swift in the waning afternoon 
 
 Her gondoliers o'er the lagoon 
 
 Urged the frail bark until they passed 
 
 The Way of the Slaves and glided fast 
 
 Before the wave-washed stairs that led 
 
 Where ' Santa Maria ' rose on high 
 
 In domed majestic symmetry. 
 
 Westward, beyond the broad canal, 
 
 The blue-black sky was like a pall 
 
 Drawn straight and smooth, with one broad span 
 
 Of ominous orange-gold that ran 
 
 Mid-way : and, nearer, fiery drifts 
 
 Of crimson cloud with fringe-like rifts, 
 
 Ev'n as serrated seaweed swings 
 
 In the strong flow of a swift tide, 
 
 Swayed to and fro, while overhead 
 
 Dull bronze and lurid purple spread 
 
 And intermingled. One white flash 
 
 Fill'd the whole sky with fire, and crash 
 
 Followed tempestuous crash, and blaze 
 
 Streamed after blaze, till fire and sound 
 
 And Venice all were interwound. 
 
Gaspara Stampa. 107 
 
 And as the gondola flew fast 
 Up narrow ways it darted past 
 Swart Aretino's palace where 
 He sat at meat with friends and quaffed 
 His wine, and mocked, and loudly laughed 
 To see the dread upon each face : 
 Then hummed unto himself a space, 
 And sang : — 
 
 Love is an ended song j 
 A cruel wrong; 
 Love lasts not long: ' 
 'Tz's an old-time song. 
 
 Love is a bitter thing, 
 An empty jest to fling, 
 A lewd song to sing : 
 Love is a bitter thing. 
 
io8 Mater Dolorosa. 
 
 MATER DOLOROSA. 
 
 IHE, brooding ever, dwells amidst the hills ; 
 Her kingdom is call'd Solitude ; her 
 
 name — 
 More terrible than desolating flame — 
 Is Silence ; and her soul is Pain. 
 Day after day some weightier sorrow fills 
 Her heart, and each new hour she knows 
 The birth of further woes. 
 And whoso, journeying, goes 
 Unto the land wherein she dwells for aye 
 Shall not come thence until have passed away 
 For evermore the bright joy of his years. 
 She giveth rest, but giveth it with tears, 
 Tears that more bitter be 
 Than drops of the Dead Sea : 
 But never gives she peace to any soul. 
 For how could she that rarest gift bestow 
 
 Who well doth know 
 That though in dreams she can attain the goal, 
 In dreams alone her steps can thither go : — 
 Solitude, Silence, Pain, for all who live 
 Within the twilit realms that are her own. 
 And even Rest to those who seek her throne. 
 But these her gifts alone : 
 Peace hath she not and therefore cannot give. 
 
Sonnets for two Pictures by Rossetii. 1 09 
 
 SONNETS FOR TWO PICTURES BY 
 ROSSETTI. 
 
 I. MNEMOSYNE. 
 
 [HE looks, in vision, upon some dead thing 
 With steadfast eyes, subtly interpretive 
 Of somewhat wonderful that once did 
 live 
 
 Beneath soft alien skies in some old Spring — 
 She hears the laughter that shall no more ring, 
 She hears the words no lips shall ever give 
 Again in twilight moments fugitive. 
 She knows the pain that long since lost its sting. 
 
 Her right hand holds the lamp of memory 
 Low burning, and behind her dies the day 
 
 As dies for her the present. Hush ! she hears 
 Some antique time-forgotten mystery. 
 
 Known only where the swart priests used to pray 
 In shrines that were grown old in ancient years. 
 
no Sonnets for two Pictures by Rossetti. 
 
 II. LA PIA.* 
 
 ' Ricorditi di me che son la Pia ; 
 Siena me fe' disfecemi Maremma ; 
 
 Scalsi colui che inanellata pria 
 Disposando m'avea colla sua gemma.' 
 
 Dante. 
 
 She sits behind the rampart, with sad eyes 
 Watching the grey mists on the desolate plain 
 Hover above the pools of stagnant rain — 
 
 A dreary landscape underneath drear skies : 
 
 Along the mouldy battlements there lies 
 His crimson banner, and close by are lain 
 Fierce Nello's lances — cursed be his pain 
 
 Who caused her all these tears and weary sighs. 
 
 The stifling day is dead — dead as the fire 
 That in her heart flamed once with glad desire 
 
 For him who wedded her one fatal day — ; 
 Death dwells in the Maremma, whose foul air 
 Insidious moves about her everywhere, 
 
 Misty and cold and damp and drear and grey. 
 
 * La Pia (de' Tolommei) is she who is mentioned in the 5th 
 Canto of ' II Purgatorio ' as the bride of Nello della Pietra, and 
 who was so cruelly imprisoned by the latter in a lonely fortress 
 in the Maremma, where malaria erelong finished what grief 
 had begun. 
 
Sonnets on three Paintings by Bazzi. 1 1 1 
 
 SONNETS ON THREE PAINTINGS BY 
 BAZZI. {Sodona.)^ 
 
 I. THE ' ST. SEBASTIAN ' OF THE UFFIZII. 
 
 [TILL young, still wonderful, august, and 
 fair — 
 These long eventful ages that have fled 
 With changeful years where Arno's flood 
 has sped 
 Through Tuscan dust until its sea-rest where 
 The Pisan waves wash in, have brought no air 
 Of dim decay about thy lovely head ; 
 Death has not come although thy wounds have 
 bled 
 So long ; nor yet about thy body bare 
 Has Time enwrapt his dull and dubious hue : 
 With neck thrown back, and face, that fairer is 
 
 Than ever man's was, lifted to the blue 
 Of heaven for all the summer winds to kiss 
 
 And soothe thy deathly pain — what is the clue 
 Thine eyes have found, dreamful with mysteries ? 
 
1 1 2 Sonnets on thtee Paintings by Bazzi. \ 
 
 II. * CHRIST BEFORE THE SCOURGING.' (Siena.) 
 
 No lurid sky is here, thunder and rain 
 
 Come from no heaven in wrath, no fierce men shake 
 Their spears before the sad strain'd eyes, or make 
 
 Their laughter shrilly mock his bygone reign : 
 
 Only the figure of a man in pain — 
 
 Dire thirst of spirit that no hand will slake — 
 A man who doth not fear, who doth not quake 
 
 Although he knows how agony can gain 
 
 The soul from its allegiance — for, far off. 
 
 He sees beyond the cross, the grave, and death 
 A multitude of ever nobler years — 
 
 What then to him the cruel jeer and scoff, 
 What then to him although a few hours' breath 
 Be spent in agony too great for tears ? 
 
Sonnets on three Paintings by Bazzi. 1 1 3 
 
 III. ON THE NINETEENTH FRESCO OF THE ST. BENE- 
 DICT SERIES ON THE CLOISTER-WALLS OF THE 
 MONASTERY OF MONTE OLIVETO MAGGIORE. 
 
 (Come Florenzo manda malefemmine al Monastero.) 
 
 Wouldst thou indeed, St. Benedict, have stood 
 Thus undismayed while this fair wanton band 
 Came from the outer world, that joyous land 
 
 Long since condemned by thee ; could thy calm mood 
 
 Have thus outlasted ; would not strange thoughts 
 brood 
 Within that eager brain until thy hand 
 Withstayed awhile the banishing command 
 
 And beckon'd rather for glad wine and food ? 
 
 But if, Florenzo, curses dwelt with thee 
 Because of tempted saints, at least we feel. 
 As Bazzi did, a joyous rapture steal 
 
 Our sense away, — for like a dream is she 
 Who, clothed in undulating azure folds. 
 Still breathes the charm which over men she holds. 
 
1 1 4 During Music. 
 
 DURING MUSIC. 
 
 TEARS that well up to my eyes, 
 
 And vagTie thoughts wandering thro' 
 my brain, 
 Whence come ye ? From what alien skies, 
 From what dim sorrow, what strange pain ? 
 
 I hear old memories astir 
 
 In dusky twilights of the past : 
 
 voices telling me of her, 
 
 My soul, whom now I know at last : 
 
 1 know her not by any name. 
 
 But she with hope or fear is pale ; 
 I see her ere this body came 
 
 From mortal womb with mortal wail. 
 
 Later and later through long years, 
 
 Through generations of dead men, 
 I see her in her mist of tears, 
 
 I see her in her shroud of pain, 
 
 I see her whom the asons have raised 
 
 From one dim birth to. endless life ; 
 I see her strive, regain, re-fail 
 
 Forever in the endless strife. 
 
During Music. i r 5 
 
 I see her, soul of man, and soul 
 
 Of woman, and in many lands : 
 Her eyes are fixt on some far goal 
 
 But she hath neither thrall nor bands. 
 
 On one day yet to come I see 
 
 This body pale and cold and dead : 
 
 The spirit once again made free 
 Hovers triumphant overhead. 
 
 Again, again, O endless day, 
 
 I see her in new forms pace on, 
 And ever with her on the way 
 
 Fair kindred souls in unison. 
 
 O wandering thoughts within my brain, 
 
 O voices speaking low to me, 
 O music sweet with stingless pain. 
 
 Bring clear the vision that I see 1 
 
 O ecstasy of sound, O pain 1 
 
 Too sad my heart, too sad the tears 
 
 It bringeth to my eyes again. 
 Too strange the hopes, too strange the fears. 
 
1 1 6 Outlines. 
 
 OUTLINES. 
 
 1. TWO MAJESTIES. {A picture by Gerome.) 
 
 |PON a vast grey barren block 
 
 Of granite towering o'er the waste 
 Of level sands a lion hath paced, 
 And now lies crouching : from the rock 
 He stares o'er leagues of deserts where 
 No object gleams through the clear air — 
 While far away the cloudless sun 
 In golden blaze his rest hath won. 
 
 II. MELANCHOLIA. {Alhvecht Diircr.) 
 She sits, with symbols of the pride 
 
 That Reason hath, about her strewn : 
 
 Her lips move with no secret rune, 
 But on her forehead doth abide 
 Weariness of all things that be, 
 And from her eyes dreams Mystery. 
 
 Life she hath drunken to the dregs, and lo 
 
 She knows scarce more than children know. 
 
 in. VERONICA VERONESE. {Dante Gabriel Rossetti.) 
 
 She strikes the mystic chord, and on 
 Her face the low soft echo seems 
 To dwell : and in her eyes are dreams 
 
 That Love not yet hath stirr'd but shone 
 
 On only from afar, until 
 
 The hour come of his conquering will. 
 Fair spirit of woman and sweet sound — 
 Each seems with other interwound. 
 
The Water-Joy. ii7 
 
 THE WATER-JOY.* 
 (0» the Lesse — Southern Belgium.) 
 ERE at the river-bend, where stoop 
 The trailing willows on one side, 
 We drift by banks where, stretching 
 wide, 
 
 A low rich meadow bears a troop 
 Of wilding flowers, moon-daisies white, 
 Tall meadow-sweet with blossoms light, 
 King-cups and purple scabious. 
 The snow-white chickweed, slim hare-bell. 
 The tiny scarlet pimpernel, 
 And trailing white convolvulus. 
 
 Fair as the fairest, on the stream 
 The Lesser water-lilies gleam 
 In starry masses far and near. 
 The joy of running waters clear. 
 
 THE CRESCENT MOON. 
 |,S though the Power that made the nautilus 
 A living glory o'er seas perilous 
 Scatheless to roam, had from the utmost 
 deep 
 
 Called a vast flawless pearl from out its sleep 
 And carv'd it crescent wise, exceeding fair, — 
 So seems the crescent moon that thro' the air 
 With motionless motion glides from out the west. 
 And sailing onward ever seems at rest. 
 
 • The Frog-bit, or Lesser Water-lily. See Note lo. 
 
1 1 8 A Dream. 
 
 A DREAM. 
 
 AST night thro' a haunted land I went, 
 Upon whose margins Ocean leant 
 
 Waveless and soundless save for sigbs 
 That with the twilight airs were blent. 
 
 And passing, hearing never stir 
 Of footfall, or the startled whirr 
 
 Of birds, I said, ' In this land lies 
 Sleep's home, the secret haunt of her.' 
 
 And then I came upon a stone 
 Whereon these words were writ alone, 
 
 The soul who reads, its body dies 
 Far hence that moment without moan. 
 
 And then I knew that I was dead, 
 And that the shadow overhead 
 
 Was not the darkness of the skies 
 But that from which my soul had fled. 
 
Morning. 1 1 9 
 
 ■ MORNING. 
 
 jEE, see, the sunlight breaking 
 Over the mountain walls. 
 In golden shafts and streamers 
 Adown their slopes it falls ; 
 The curled white clouds are flushing, 
 The dim grey tarns are blushing. 
 And o'er the upland places 
 The joyous cuckoo calls ! 
 
 It steals adown the valleys. 
 
 It takes the pine tops there, 
 And all the aery birches 
 
 Wave now like golden hair ; 
 O'er torrents wildly splashing 
 A myriad lights go flashing 
 And make a dazzling shimmer 
 
 Within the spray-swept air. 
 
 With fiery crimson glowing 
 
 Shine all the mountain walls ; 
 Hark, the sweet noise like laughter 
 
 Of a myriad waterfalls ! 
 The curled white clouds are flushing. 
 The dim grey tarns are blushing 
 And o'er the upland places 
 
 The joyous cuckoo calls ! 
 
I20 Outlines. 
 
 OUTLINES. 
 
 I. SAPPHO. 
 
 I HE high Leucadian steep aglow 
 
 With sunlight on its tinted side ; 
 Dark blue, sky-bounded far and wide 
 The Attic ocean dreams below ; 
 And on the highest craggy height 
 A woman stands in waving white : 
 
 'Tis she whose heart's name was Desire, 
 Who in the deep waves quenched its fire. 
 
 II. LAIS. 
 Within a marble balcony 
 She silts whom all of Greece called fair, 
 Lais of the won drous golden hair : 
 Beyond her is the dimpled sea, 
 Beside her the wild fig-leaves twine 
 In shadow with the trailing vine : — 
 So fair without ; within lie deep 
 The tigress-lusts that never sleep. 
 
 III. HYPATIA. 
 
 She stands within the lecture-room, — 
 A glory on her perfect face : 
 Perhaps some echo fills the place. 
 
 Some echo of the coming doom 
 
 When she, defiant still, will stand 
 
 With brave eyes scorning the foul band : 
 What care hath she of death — it means 
 The ruptured veil that true life screens. 
 
AUSTRALIAN SKETCHES. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 ' Australia has rightly been named the Land of the Dawning. 
 Wrapped in the mist of early morning, her history looms vagiie 
 and gigantic. The lonely horseman riding between the moon- 
 light and the day sees vast shadows creeping across the 
 shelterless and silent plains, hears strange noises in the 
 primeval forest, where flourishes a vegetation long dead in other 
 lands. ... In Australia alone is to be found the Grotesque, 
 the Weird, the strange scribblings of Nature learning how to 
 write.'— Marcus Clarke. 
 
a^M W^^ 
 
 AUSTRALIAN SKETCHES. 
 
 THE LAST ABORIGINAL. 
 
 SEE him sit, wild-eyed, alone. 
 
 Amidst gaunt, spectral, moonlit gums- 
 He waits for death : not once a moan 
 From out his rigid fixt lips comes ; 
 His lank hair falls adown a face 
 
 Haggard as any wave-worn stone, 
 And in his eyes I dimly trace 
 The memory of a vanished race. 
 
 The lofty ancient gum-trees stand, 
 
 Each grey and ghostly in the moon, 
 The giants of an old strange land 
 
 That was exultant in its noon 
 When all our Europe was o'erturned 
 
 With deluge and with shifting sand, 
 With earthquakes that the hills inurned 
 And central fires that fused and burned. 
 
 The moon moves slowly through the vast 
 
 And solemn skies ; the night is still, 
 Save when a warrigal springs past 
 
 With dismal howl, or when the shrill 
 
124 Australian Sketches. 
 
 Scream of a parrot rings which feels 
 A twining serpent's fangs fixt fast. 
 Or when a grey opossum squeals, 
 Or long iguana, as it steals 
 
 From bole to bole disturbs the leaves : 
 But hush'd and still he sits — who knows 
 
 That all is o'er for him who weaves 
 With inner speech, malign, morose, 
 
 A curse upon the whites who came 
 And gather'd up his race like sheaves 
 
 Of thin wheat, fit but for the flame — 
 
 Who shot or spurned them without shame. 
 
 He knows he shall not see again 
 
 The creeks whereby the lyre-birds sing — 
 He shall no more upon the plain, 
 
 Sun-scorch'd, and void of water-spring. 
 Watch the dark cassowaries sweep 
 
 In startled flight, or, with spear lain 
 In ready poise, glide, twist, and creep 
 Where the brown kangaroo doth leap. 
 
 No more in silent dawns he'll wait 
 By still lagoons, and mark the flight 
 
 Of black swans near : no more elate 
 Whirl high the boomerang aright 
 
Australian Sketches. 125 
 
 Upon some foe : he knows that now 
 
 He too must share his race's night — 
 He scarce can know the white man's plough 
 Will one day pass above his brow. 
 
 Last remnant of the Austral race 
 
 He sits and stares, with failing breath : 
 
 The shadow deepens on his face, 
 
 For 'midst the spectral gums waits death : 
 
 A dingo's sudden howl swells near — 
 He stares once with a startled gaze, 
 
 As half in wonder, half in fear, 
 
 Then sinks back on his unknown bier. 
 
 IN THE RANGES. 
 
 Through a dark cleft between two hills 
 
 A narrow passage leads the way 
 
 Close by a lonely lake ; two rills. 
 
 Its children, sing the livelong day, 
 
 And from the water's lapping edge 
 
 The low tones of the long reeds come — 
 
 No other sound, save in the sedge 
 
 A black swa,n crooning ; all the heights are dumb. 
 
 This cleft leads to an open space 
 Where arching tree-ferns grow around, 
 A still and solitary place : 
 Long waving grass grows from the ground. 
 
126 Australian Sketches. 
 
 And great green lizards half-awake 
 
 Lie silent hours, and in the light 
 
 The fiery glances of a stealthy snake 
 
 Keep glinting, glinting, like twin stars at night. 
 
 Beyond, a wooded gully lies — 
 
 A greenstone on the topaz plain ; 
 
 In its deep shade no glaring skies 
 
 E'er shine, so thick are overlain 
 
 The branches of the ancient trees ; 
 
 Within its depths the lyre-bird hides, 
 
 And, save at mid-noon, never cease 
 
 The bell-birds singing where the streamlet glides. 
 
 Far off on higher uplands grow 
 
 The spicy gum and hardy box. 
 
 The delicate acacias throw 
 
 Their feather-leafings o'er the rocks. 
 
 And grey-green misletoe doth creep 
 
 Till tree by tree is overlaid — 
 
 While in the noonday stillness sleep 
 
 The bright rosellas 'mid the wild-vine's shade. 
 
 Gippsland, Jan., 1878. 
 
 NOON-STLENCE. {Australian Forest.) 
 A lyre-bird sings a low melodious song — 
 Then all is still : a soft wind breathes along 
 The lofty gums and faintly dies away : 
 And Silence wakes and knows her dream is day. 
 
Australian Sketches. 127 
 
 THE STOCK-DRIVER'S RIDE. 
 
 O'er the range, and down the gully, across the river 
 
 bed 
 We are riding on the tracks of the cattle that have 
 
 fled: 
 The mopokes all are laughing and the cockatoos are 
 
 screaming. 
 And bright amidst the stringy-barks the parrakeets 
 
 are gleaming : 
 
 The wattle-blooms are fragrant, and the great mag- 
 nolias fair 
 
 Make a heavy sleepy sweetness in the hazy morning 
 air, 
 
 But the rattle and the crashing of our horses' hoofs 
 ring out 
 
 And the cheery sound we answer with our long 
 repeated shout — 
 
 Coo-ee-coo-ee-eee 1 Coo-ee-coo-eee — Coo-ee — Coo- 
 
 ee! 
 ' Damnation Dick ' he hears us, and he shrills back 
 
 Whoo-ee-ee ! 
 ' Damnation Dick ' the prince of native trackers thus 
 
 we call 
 From the way he swigs his liquor and the oaths that 
 
 he can squall ! 
 
128 Australian Sketches. 
 
 Thro' more ranges, thro' more gullies, down sun- 
 scorched granite ways 
 
 We go crashing, slipping, thundering in our joyous 
 morning race — 
 
 And the drowsy 'possums shriek and o'er each dried- 
 up creek 
 
 The wallaroos run scuttling as if playing hide-and- 
 seek: 
 
 And like iron striking iron do our horses' hoofs loud ring 
 As down the barren granite slopes we leap and slide 
 
 and spring ; 
 Then one range further only and we each a moment 
 
 rein 
 Our steaming steeds as wide before us stretches out 
 
 the grassy plain ! 
 
 And ' Damnation Dick ' comes running like a human 
 
 kangaroo 
 And he cries the herd have bolted to the creek of 
 
 Waharoo ! 
 So we swing across the desert and for miles and miles 
 
 we go 
 Till men and horses pant athirst i' the fierce sun's 
 
 fiery glow. 
 
 And at last across the plains where the kangaroos fly 
 
 leaping 
 And the startled emus in their flight go circularly 
 
 sweeping, 
 
Atistralian Sketches. 129 
 
 We see the trees that hide the spring of Waharoo 
 
 and there 
 The cattle all are standing still — the bulls with a fierce 
 
 stare ! 
 
 Then off to right goes Harry on his sorrel ' Pretty 
 
 Jane,' 
 And to the left on ' Thunderbolt ' Tom scours across 
 
 the plain, 
 And Jim and I well-mounted and on foot ' Damnation 
 
 Dick' 
 Go straight for Waharoo and our stockwhips fling 
 
 and flick ! 
 
 Ho there goes old ' Blackbeetle,' the patriarch of 
 the herd! 
 
 His doughty courage vanish'd when Tom's long leash 
 cracked and whirred, 
 
 And after him the whole lot flee and homeward head- 
 long dash — 
 
 What bellowing flight and thunder of hoofs as thro' 
 the scrub we crash ! 
 
 Back through the gum-tree gullies, and over the 
 
 river-bed, 
 And past the sassafras ranges whereover at dawn we 
 
 sped. 
 With thunderous noise and shouting the drivers and 
 
 driven flee — 
 And this was the race that was raced by Tom, Jim, 
 
 Harry, and me ! 
 
 9 
 
I ^o Australian Sketches. 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE LUBRA* 
 
 Stung by an adder unto death 
 
 To this rough hut she comes to die : 
 
 All day the fierce noon's fiery breath 
 Hath filled the blazing sky — 
 
 The long, strange, soundless Austral day 
 Where through primeval forests come 
 
 No cry or song, and far away 
 The bell-birds ev'n are dumb — 
 
 At sundown, tumult sweeps the skies 
 From where a thousand parrots shrill ; 
 
 The laughing-birds' terrific cries 
 The rapid twilight fill. 
 
 And when the great moon rising gleams 
 Athwart the rotting hut where low 
 
 The lubra bends, one cry she screams 
 As though some unseen blow 
 
 Had stricken her with sudden might : — 
 Without, flits past the wailing owl, 
 
 And through the gloom of darkening night 
 Swells high the wild-dog's howl. 
 
 * The native name for ' wife.' 
 
AUSTRALIAN TRANSCRIPTS. 
 
 1. AN ORANGE GROVE. (Victoria.) 
 
 [HE short sweet purple twilight dreams 
 Of vanish'd day, of coming night ; 
 And like gold moons in the soft light 
 Each scented drooping orange gleams 
 From out the glossy leaves black-green 
 That make through noon a cool dark screen. 
 The dusk is silence, save the thrill 
 That stirs it from cicalas shrill. 
 
 II. BLACK SWANS ON THE MURRAY LAGOONS. 
 
 The long lagoons lie white and still 
 
 Beneath the great round Austral moon : 
 The sudden dawn will waken soon 
 With many a delicious thrill : 
 Between this death and life the cries 
 Of black swans ring through silent skies — 
 
 And the long wash of the slow stream 
 Moves as in sleep some bodeful dream. 
 
 9— a 
 
132 Australian Transcripts. 
 
 III. BREAKING BILLOWS AT SORRENTO. {Victoria.) 
 
 A sky of whirling flakes of foam, 
 A rushing world of dazzHng blue : 
 One moment, the sky looms in view — 
 The next, a crash in its curv'd dome, 
 A tumult indescribable. 
 And eyes dazed with the miracle. 
 
 Here breaks by circling day and night 
 In thunder the sea's boundless might. 
 
 IV. SHEA-OAK TREES ON A STORMY DAY. 
 
 {S.E. Victoria.)''^ 
 O'er sandy tracts the shea-oak trees 
 
 Droop their long wavy grey-green trails : 
 And inland wandering moans and wails 
 The long blast of the ocean-breeze : 
 Like loose strings of a viol or harp 
 These answering sound — now low, now sharp 
 And keen, a melancholy strain : 
 A death-song o'er the mournful plain. 
 
 V. MID-NOON IN JANUARY. 
 
 Upon a fibry fern-tree bough 
 A huge iguana lies alow. 
 Bright yellow in the noonday glow 
 With bars of black, — it watcheth now 
 A gorgeous insect hover high 
 Till suddenly its lance doth fly 
 
 And catch the prey — but still no sound 
 Breathes 'mid the green fern-spaces round. 
 
Australian Transcripts. 133 
 
 VI. IN THE FERN. (Gippsland.) 
 The feathery fern-trees make a screen 
 
 Wherethrough the sun-glare cannot pass — 
 Fern, gum, and lofty sassafras : 
 The fronds sweep over, palely green, 
 And underneath are orchids curl'd 
 Adream through this cool shadow-world ; 
 A fragrant greenness — like the noon 
 Of lime-trees in an English June. 
 
 VII. SUNSET AMID THE BUFFALO MOUNTAINS. 
 
 {N.E. Victoria.y^ 
 Across the boulder'd majesty 
 
 Of the great hills the passing day 
 Drifts like a wind-borne cloud away 
 Far off beyond the western sky : 
 And while a purple glory spreads, 
 With straits of gold and brilliant reds. 
 An azure veil, translucent, strange. 
 Dreamlike steals over each dim range. 
 
 VIII. THE FLYING MOUSE. {New South Waks — 
 Moonlight.y^ 
 
 The eucalyptus-blooms are sweet 
 With honey, and the birds all day 
 Sip the clear juices forth: brown-grey, 
 
 A bird-like thing with tiny feet 
 
 Cleaves to the boughs, or with small wings 
 
 Amidst the leafy spaces springs. 
 
 And in the moonshine with shrill cries 
 Flits batlike where the white gums rise. 
 
134 Australian Transcripts. 
 
 IX. THE WOOD-SWALLOWS. {Sufirise.)* 
 The lightning-stricken giant gum 
 Stands leafless, dead — a giant still 
 But heedless of this sunrise-thrill : 
 What stir is this where all was dumb ? — 
 What seem like old dead leaves break swift, 
 And lo, a hundred wings uplift 
 A cloud of birds that to and fro 
 Dart joyous midst the sunrise-glow. 
 
 X. THE BELL-BIRD. 
 
 The stillness of the Austral noon 
 Is broken by no single sound — 
 No lizards even on the ground 
 
 Rustle amongst dry leaves — no tune 
 
 The lyre-bird sings — yet hush ! I hear 
 
 A soft bell tolling, silvery clear ! 
 Low soft aerial chimes, unknown 
 Save 'mid these silences alone. 
 
 XI. THE ROCK-LILY. (New South Wales.)^* 
 
 The amber-tinted level sands 
 
 Unbroken stretch for leagues away 
 
 Beyond these granite slabs, dull grey 
 
 And lifeless, herbless — save where stands 
 
 The mighty rock-flow'r towering high. 
 
 With carmine blooms crowned gloriously : 
 
 A giant amongst flowers it reigns. 
 
 The glory of these Austral plains. 
 
 * The wood-swallows of Australia have the singular habit of 
 clustering like bees or bats on the boughs of a dead tree. 
 
Australian Transcripts. 135 
 
 XII. THE FLAME-TREE. {^ew South WaUs-Y 
 
 For miles the lUawarra range 
 Runs level with Pacific seas : 
 What glory when the morning breeze 
 Upon its slopes doth shift and change 
 Deep pink and crimson hues, till all 
 The leagues-long distance seems a wall 
 Of swift uncurling flames of fire 
 That wander not nor reach up higher. 
 
 MORNING IN THE BUSH {December). 
 
 The magpie midst the wattle-blooms 
 
 Is singing loud and long : 
 What fragrance in the scatter'd scent. 
 
 What magic in the song ! 
 On yonder gum a mopoke's throat 
 
 Out-gurgles laughter grim. 
 And far within the fern-tree scrub 
 
 A lyre-bird sings his hymn. 
 Amongst the stringy-barks a crowd 
 
 Of dazzling parrakeets — 
 But high o'er all the magpie loud 
 
 His joyous song repeats. 
 
136 Australian Sketches. 
 
 JUSTICE. {Uncivilized and, Civilized^ 
 
 « 
 
 Ling-Tso Ah Sin, on Murderer's Flat 
 One morning caught an old grey rat : 
 * Ah, white man, I have got you now ! 
 But no — ^dust be upon my brow 
 If needless blood I cause to fall — 
 So go, there's world-room for us all !' 
 
 That night Ah Sin was somehow shot — 
 By accident I For he had got 
 From earth a little gold — black sin 
 For ihee, though not for us, Ah Sin ! 
 Murderer's Flat, Feb., 187S. 
 
 THE COROBBOREE. (Midnight.) 
 
 Deep in the forest-depths the tribe 
 A mighty blazing fire have made : 
 
 Round this they spring with frantic yells 
 In hideous pigments all arrayed — 
 
 One barred with yellow ochre, one 
 
 A skeleton in startling white. 
 There one who dances furiously 
 
 Blood-red against the great fire's light, — 
 
 With death's insignia on his breast. 
 In rude design, the swart chief springs ; 
 
 And loud and long each echoes back 
 The savage war-cry that he sings. 
 
Australian Sketches. 137 
 
 Within the forest dark and dim 
 The startled cockatoos like ghosts 
 
 Flit to and fro, the mopokes scream, 
 And parrots rise in chattering hosts ; 
 
 The gins and lubras crouch and watch 
 With eager shining brute-like eyes, 
 
 And ever and again shrill back 
 Wild echoes of the frantic cries : — 
 
 Like some infernal scene it is — 
 
 The forest dark, the blazing fire, 
 The ghostly birds, the dancing fiends, 
 
 Whose savage chant swells ever higher. 
 
 Afar away gaunt wild-dogs howl, 
 
 And strange cries vaguely call : but white 
 
 The placid moon sails on, and flame 
 The silent stars above the night. 
 
MOONRISE SKETCHES. 
 
 I. MOONRISE AT SEA. 
 
 |HE long slow swell of the still sea 
 Rises and falls, and sluggishly 
 The wind-bound ship rolls to and fro, 
 Soundless, save when the huge sails go 
 With a heavy boom from left to right : 
 A few stars only trail their light 
 In quivering snaky gleams below 
 In the sea's depths, as though from caves 
 Within whose twilight glooms no waves 
 Move ever serpents writhe and rise : 
 But westward far where sea and skies 
 Blend in one darkness breaks a beam. 
 Of wan faint light — and now a gleam 
 Curv'd like a golden scimetar 
 And bright as though welded from a star 
 Hangs for a moment, grows and grows 
 More round and large, a golden rose 
 Of one immaculate petal made : 
 And now the moon is risen, has laid 
 The music of her magic smile 
 Upon the dim dark seas till mile 
 
Moonrise Sketches. 139 
 
 On mile, league upon league, are bright 
 With a broad track of silver Hght, 
 And all the ship's sails seem to be 
 Of moonbeam-gossamer woven free. 
 
 II. MOONRISE IN AUSTRALIA. 
 
 A trackless forest all around 
 
 Of lofty gums that from the ground 
 
 As saplings sprang in ages past : — 
 
 The short sweet twilight fadeth fast 
 
 And from the forest depths I hear 
 
 The locust's whirling noise, the clear 
 
 Soft magpie song, the sudden scream 
 
 Where cockatoos like white ghosts gleam 
 
 Among the melancholy boughs. 
 
 The wild-dog's bark from where there browse 
 
 Stray herds of kangaroos, the cry 
 
 Of something death-struck — as I lie 
 
 And listen to these sounds I see 
 
 Long moonbeams pierce a lofty tree 
 
 Like random lances thrust to kill 
 
 Some fiend who baffles all their skill ; 
 
 And even as with sleepy eyes 
 
 I watch, the full moon through the skies 
 
 Sails with a seeming moveless motion, 
 
 A globe of fire in a purple ocean. 
 
14° Moonrise Sketches. 
 
 HI. MOONRISE FROM lONA, N.B. 
 
 Here, where in dim forgotten days 
 
 A savage people chanted lays 
 
 To long since perished gods, I stand : 
 
 The sea breaks in, runs up the sand. 
 
 Retreats as with a long-drawn sigh. 
 
 Sweeps in again ; again leaves dry 
 
 The ancient beach, so old and yet 
 
 So new that as the strong tides fret 
 
 The island barriers in their flow 
 
 The ebb-hours of each day can know 
 
 A surface change. The day is dead, 
 
 The sun is set, and overhead 
 
 The white north stars shine keen and bright ; 
 
 The wind upon the sea is light 
 
 And just enough to stir the deep 
 
 With phosphorescent gleams and sweep 
 
 The spray from salt waves as they rise : 
 
 And yonder light — is't from the skies. 
 
 Some meteor strange, a burning star — 
 
 Or a lamp hung upon a spar 
 
 Of vessel undescried ? It gleams 
 
 And rises slowly, till it seems 
 
 A burning isle, an angel-throne 
 
 Reset on earth, a mountain-cone 
 
 Of gold new-risen from sea-caves — 
 
 Until at last above the waves. 
 
Moonrise Sketches. 141 
 
 Salt with Atlantic brine, it swims 
 A silver crescent, Now no hymns 
 In the wild Runic speech are heard, 
 No chant, no sacrificial word : 
 But only moans the weary sea, 
 And only the cold wind sings free, 
 And where the Runic temples stood 
 The bat flies and the owl doth brood. 
 
 IV. MOONRISE ON THE VENETIAN LAGOONS. 
 
 A more than twilight darkness dwells 
 
 Upon the long lagoons : the bells 
 
 Of distant Venice come and go 
 
 Like sounds in dreams ; the tide's soft flow 
 
 Sweeps onward, and a wandering gull 
 
 Flits o'er the track of yon black hull 
 
 Just fading in the gloom — no more 
 
 I see or hear 'tween shore and shore : 
 
 But as I lie and dreamily 
 
 Watch the dark water from the sea 
 
 Slip past the boat, in its blurred sky 
 
 I see the crescent moon on high 
 
 Casting curv'd golden flakes far down 
 
 Amidst the calm lagoon — a crown 
 
 Broken innumerably up, 
 
 The gold bands of a broken cup. 
 
142 Moonrise Sketches. 
 
 I take an oar and make a rift 
 In the soft tide of the lagoons, — 
 And lo, the blade itself doth lift 
 A score of quivering crescent moons, 
 And as they ilash I seem to see 
 Each droplet with a small moon flee. 
 
 v.. MOONRISE ON THE ANTARCTIC. 
 
 The huge white icebergs silently 
 Voyage with us through this lonely sea, 
 Noiseless and lifeless, yet they seem 
 Like haunted islands in a dream 
 Holding strange secrets that no one 
 May know and live. In the bright sun 
 They shine immeasurably fair. 
 Bluer than bluest summer air. 
 Or clear to the very heart with green 
 Pure light, or amethyst as seen 
 'Mid sunset-clouds — but now they shine 
 With a cold gleam and have no sign 
 Of loveliness. The ship swings on, 
 Plunging mid surging seas whereon 
 Few vessels ever sail, and as 
 Slowly the long hours come and pass 
 The late moon rises cold and white, 
 And sends a flood of wintry light 
 Along the sweeping waves and round 
 Our black and sea-worn hull. A sound 
 
Moonrise Sketches. 143 
 
 Far off dies while it grows — some seal 
 Long-drifted, frozen, waking but to feel 
 Death's grip. And now the spectral isles 
 Grow whiter, icier still, and seem 
 More hollow, with a strange weird gleam 
 As though some pale unreal fires 
 Consumed them to their utmost spires 
 Yet without flame or heat. And still 
 The moon doth rise, and seems to fill 
 Each berg anew with life : we sail 
 Upon a strange sad sea, where pale 
 And moonshine isles float all around, 
 Voyaging onward without sound. 
 
THE SHADOWED SOULS. 
 
 Tf the soul withdraweth from the body, what profit thereafter 
 hath a man of all the days of his life f 
 
 |HE died indeed, but to him her breath 
 Was more than a light blown out by death : 
 He knew that they breathed the self-same 
 air, 
 
 That not midst the dead was her pale face fair 
 But that she waited for him somewhere. 
 
 To some dead city, or ancient town, 
 
 Where the mould'ring towers were crumbling down. 
 
 Or in some old mansion habited 
 
 By dust and silence and things long dead, 
 
 He knew the Shadows of Souls were led. 
 
 For years he wandered a weary way. 
 His eyes shone sadder, his hair grew grey : 
 But still he knew that she lived for whom 
 No grave lay waiting, no white carv'd tomb. 
 No earthy silence, no voiceless gloom. 
 
 But once in a bitter year he came 
 To an old dying town with a long dead name : 
 That eve, as he walked thro' the dusty ways 
 And the echoes woke in the empty place, 
 He came on a Shadow face to face. 
 
The Shadowed Souls. 145 
 
 It looked, but uttered no word at all 
 Then beckoned him into an old dim hall : 
 And lo, as soon as he passed between 
 The pillars with age and damp mould green 
 His eyes were dazed by a strange wild scene. 
 
 A thousand lamps fill'd the place with light, 
 And fountains glimmered faerily bright ; 
 But never a single sound was heard. 
 The dreadful silence was never stirred, 
 Not even the breath of a single word 
 
 Came from the shadowy multitude, 
 
 More dense than the leaves in a summer wood, 
 
 Than the sands where the swift tides ebb and flow ; 
 
 But ever the Shades moved to and fro 
 
 As windless waves on the sea will go. 
 
 Then he who had come to Shadow-land 
 Swift strode past many a group and band ; 
 But never a glimpse he caught of her. 
 In fleeting shadow or loiterer, 
 For whom the earth held no sepulchre. 
 
 He knew that she was not dead whom he 
 
 So loved with bitterest memory. 
 
 To whom through anguish'd years he had prayed ; 
 
 Yet came she never, no sign was made, 
 
 No touch on his haggard frame was laid. 
 
 10 
 
146 Sleepy Hollow. 
 
 At last to an empty room he came, 
 And there he saw in letters of flame — 
 ' This is that palace no king controls, 
 A place unwritten in human scrolls — 
 This is the Haunt of Shadowed Souls : 
 
 ' If thy Shadow-soul be here no more 
 Seek thine old life's deserted shore : 
 And there, mayhap, thou wilt find again, 
 Recovered now through sorrow and pain. 
 The Soul thou didst thy most to have slain.' 
 
 SLEEPY HOLLOW* 
 
 {In Memoriam : Ralph Waldo Emerson.) 
 
 E sleeps here the untroubled sleep 
 
 Who could not bear the noise and moil 
 Of public life, but far from toil 
 A happy reticence did keep 
 
 With Nature only open, free : 
 
 Close by there rests the magic mind 
 Of him who took life's thread to wind 
 
 And weave some poor soul's mystery 
 
 * In Sleepy Hollow Cemetery are the graves of Thoreau and 
 Hawthorne (to whom respectively reference is made in the first 
 three verses) and near them, about two years ago, were laid the 
 remains of Emerson, 
 
Sleepy Hollow. 147 
 
 Of spirit-life, and make it live 
 
 A type and wonder for all days ; 
 
 No sweeter soul e'er trod earth's ways 
 Than he who here at last did give 
 
 His body back to earth again. 
 And now at length beside them lies 
 One great and true and nobly wise, — 
 
 A King of Thought, whose spotless reign 
 
 The overwhelming years that come 
 
 And drown the trash and dross and slime 
 Shall keep a record of till Time 
 
 Shall cease, and voice of man be dumb. 
 
 At last he rests, whose high clear hope 
 
 Was wont on lofty wings to scan 
 
 The future destinies of man — 
 Who saw the Race through darkness grope. 
 
 Through mists and error, till at last 
 The looked-for light, the longed-for age 
 Should dawn for peasant, prince, and sage, 
 
 And centuries of night be past. 
 
 Thy rest is won : O loyal, brave. 
 Wise soul, thy spirit is not dead — 
 Thy wing'd words far and wide have fled. 
 
 Undying, they shall find no grave. 
 
 10 — 2 
 
148 Birchington Revidted. 
 
 BIRCHINGTON REVISITED. 
 
 (D. G. R.) 
 
 |E sleeps a quiet sleep at last 
 
 Who wearied for such blissful hours ; 
 The stress of high-strung life is past, 
 The veil of death is o'er him cast, 
 And for him hence no dark sky lowers. 
 
 Sweet is the air here, clear and sweet ; 
 
 The larks with jubilant voices sing. 
 And still their songs re-sing, repeat ; 
 The grass, starr'd white with marguerite, 
 
 Is yet memorious of Spring. 
 
 Yonder the blue sea, windless, still,' 
 
 Meets the blue sky-line far away — 
 Soundless, save when the wavelets spill 
 Their little crowns of foam, and fill 
 
 The rock-pools full with swirling spray. 
 
 How sweet to rest here, and to know 
 
 The silence and the utter peace ! 
 To lie and rest and sleep below 
 While far away tired millions go 
 
 With eyes all yearning for such ease. 
 
Birchington Revisited. 149 
 
 'Tis better thus : alone, yet safe 
 
 From night and day, from day and night ; 
 
 Not here can jarring discords chafe 
 
 Thy soul too sensitive, or waif 
 
 Of stinging envy blown from spite. 
 
 'Tis quiet here, and more than all 
 Things else is rest a boon to thee — 
 
 Rest, peace, and sleep : above, the pall 
 Of heaven ; and past the white cliff- wall 
 The ceaseless mystery of the sea. 
 
150 Junes Advent. 
 
 JUNE'S ADVENT. 
 
 |UNE, wandering hence, smiles through the 
 summer heat 
 In answer to the beckoning hand of 
 May, 
 
 Who, Hly-crown'd, flits deck'd in green array 
 Through field and wood, and with her presence 
 
 sweet 
 Fills all the birds with joy, and 'neath her feet 
 Leaves fragrant flowers about each hedge-girt 
 
 way : 
 Laughing she chides sweet June for his delay — 
 Her rose-crown'd lover, whom she longs to meet. 
 
 Behold he comes, with splendour on his brow, 
 All summer in his dark-blue dreamful eyes. 
 
 And lips that move with murmurs of sweet 
 song — 
 And lo, each recognising forest-bough 
 
 Waves joyous welcome, and with eager cries 
 Him thrushes greet with music loud and long. 
 
Phantasy. 1 5 1 
 
 PHANTASY. 
 
 JIDING o'er a lonely plain 
 I came unto a wood — 
 And there I met, in dreamful mood, 
 A damsel singing a low strain, 
 All ye who love me love in vain I 
 
 Her song it seemed far away, 
 
 But oh her kiss was sweet : 
 
 She led me to some green retreat, 
 And there within her arms I lay 
 The livelong day. 
 
 A II ye who love me love in vain — 
 
 I kissed her wistful face 
 
 But found a leaf-strewn space 
 Alone, and far I heard her strain. 
 All ye who love me love in vain. 
 
 I seek the wood in twilit hours — 
 
 At times I hear her sing : 
 
 At times her white arms round me cling : 
 She leads me into magic bow'rs 
 And sings and wreathes me wilding flow'rs. 
 
 Her eyes are tears, and pain 
 
 Is in her kiss, but wildly gay 
 
 She laughs, and fades away. 
 And through the dim wood floats the strain, 
 A II ye who love me love in vain. 
 
152 Quince Blossoms. 
 
 QUINCE BLOSSOMS. 
 
 (to v. h. m. b.) 
 
 |0W delicately sweet and rare 
 
 These blossoms that the Roman air 
 
 Hath nurtured exquisitely well : 
 A mighty branch ! how late it knew 
 The fresh warm winds that round it blew 
 Where high its parent tree did dwell. 
 
 And now within your room they make 
 A sweetness, as when lilies take 
 
 The gloom from willow-darken'd streams : 
 Here Spring lies captive, where no wind 
 With furtive breath its blooms shall find 
 
 Nor mock each transient blossom's dreams. 
 
 Love, Poetry, and Art are flow'rs 
 Sweet as the quince, and fill life's hours 
 
 With joy and fragrance even as these : 
 Thrice happy thou that these three hast, 
 Sweet deathless flow'rs that aye will last 
 
 Though quince-blooms wither on their trees. 
 Rome, April, 1883. 
 
May- Day. 153 
 
 MAY-DAY. 
 
 {Castello del' Quattro Torre — near Siena.) 
 
 BOVE, the Four Towers feel the wind 
 With half-closed pinions rest and play 
 Around the bastions old and grey — 
 But o'er the olive-slopes behind 
 It sweeps like some aerial stream, 
 Till every leaflet seems a gleam 
 Of silver and the grasses sway 
 In light and shade for miles away. 
 
 Around, the flowering wild-beans make 
 A fresh Spring fragrance in the air : 
 The crimson clover everywhere 
 Tempts the brown bees, and poppies shake 
 Their dust amongst the corn and stand 
 Like flames all over the green land — 
 And in the sunlight's golden glare 
 The snow-white lilies seem more fair. 
 
 The swallows sweep in endless flight 
 Above the orchard-slopes below, 
 White with the scented blossom-snow : 
 
 And hark ! from yonder tree-clad height 
 
 The sweet voice of the Spring rings clear — 
 
 The herald Cuckoo, ever dear : 
 
 And 'midst the warmth, the peace, the glow, 
 The birthday of sweet May I know. 
 
154 -^^ ihs Val Mugnone. 
 
 IN THE VAL MUGNONE. 
 
 (to a. m. f. r. and v. p.) 
 
 jjPRING'S laughter rings down thro' the 
 valley ; 
 A thousand sweet blossoms are there ; 
 The world hath grown young and is happy 
 And heedless of care. 
 
 The river flows dashing and splashing 
 Past banks where the primroses blow ; 
 
 The sunlight is streaming and flashing 
 Where white olives grow. 
 
 Joy beats through the heart of the valley : 
 
 A thrush sings loudly and long : 
 With the flow'rs and the birds we are happy, 
 
 And life is a song. 
 
In Maremma. 155 
 
 IN MAREMMA. 
 
 I HE ardent azure sky above — 
 Cloudless save little snowy isles 
 That without motion seem to move 
 So silently they sail through miles 
 Of that calm blue of upper sea, 
 White shoreless isles, unstable, free — 
 
 Around, an ocean of green grass, 
 Leagues upon leagues of rolling ground 
 That stretch unbroken till they pass 
 From sight in one long swelling mound 
 That fades indefinitely away 
 Into the sky-line's hazy grey. 
 
 Far north a rugged mountain-chain 
 Seems like a soft indefinite band 
 Against the deeper blue ; a plain 
 Sweeps thence south-westward till the sand 
 That drifts about the Latin shore 
 Its sterile verdure covers o'er — 
 
 A plain where marshy waters meet 
 Drear pestilential tracts, where ring 
 No human voices, though the sweet 
 Song of the lark is trilled through Spring, 
 And myriad scented flowers unfold 
 And bloom above the treacherous mould. 
 
156 A Sunset. 
 
 At times a lonely horseman rides 
 Across the waste on shaggy steed ; 
 There too the hunted brigand hides ; 
 And often, with swift reckless speed, 
 The fierce wild-cattle snort and fly. 
 Tameless with savage liberty. 
 
 A SUNSET. {From the Gates of Volterra.) 
 
 jlBOVE the rugged Apennines 
 In long thick wavy purple lines 
 The storm-clouds rest : a space doth lie 
 Betwixt them, and here glares an eye 
 
 Socketless, blood-red, terrible. 
 
 Slowly the fire-globe sinks, — but as 
 
 Some miracle were come to pass. 
 
 Some ominous enchantic spell, — 
 
 Through the dark cloud-mass lying below 
 
 A sword of lurid red doth crawl 
 
 From whose serrated edges fall 
 
 Great blood-like clots — as if some woe 
 
 Impended where Volterra hung 
 
 Where the last gleams of day were flung. 
 
On the Campagna. — Fireflies. 157 
 
 ON THE CAMPAGNA. 
 I. 
 LARK high in the heavens, 
 A wilderness of grass — 
 White cloudlets trailing slowly 
 Blue shadows as they pass — 
 Songs, flowers, and windy spaces 
 
 Of skies divinely clear — 
 If Heaven is anywhere 
 'Tis surely here ! 
 II. 
 The white moon leads the planets. 
 
 Stars fill the skies — 
 But where the flow'rs are sleeping 
 
 Grey mists arise — 
 The poison-mists are drifting. 
 
 As o'er a shallow mere : 
 If death lurks anywhere 
 'Tis surely here. 
 
 FIREFLIES. (Jn the Cascine : Florence.) 
 
 INDER the olive-boughs and o'er 
 
 The long lush grass the fireflies wheel 
 In lonely flight, or rise and reel 
 In a strange mazy dance before 
 Yon ancient ilex that can keep 
 A darkness where no moonbeams creep : 
 Like souls they seem that have no rest, 
 With death-hghts seeking still hfe's quest. 
 
158 In the Protestant Cemetery at Florence. 
 
 IN THE OLD PROTESTANT CEMETERY 
 AT FLORENCE. 
 
 (Easter, 1883.) 
 
 I HE light wind scarcely breathes between 
 The close-set cypress boughs, nor stirs 
 To varying shades the ilex-green ; 
 
 A blackbird calls, a song-thrush whirrs 
 Through leafy dusk till somewhere near 
 Again its sweet wild song swells clear : — 
 
 But otherwise no sound to break 
 The hallowed peace that broods where lies 
 
 The dust of her* for whose sweet sake 
 Firenze and its ardent skies 
 
 To all who love her sweet song-lore 
 
 Are dear and sacred evermore. 
 
 The river that she loved flows nigh. 
 
 Slow washing to the Pisan sea — 
 Behind, where solemn hills slope high 
 
 The Vallombrosan torrents flee 
 'Mid crags and pines — and yonder way 
 Morello and Fiesole. 
 
 * E. B. B., obiit 1861. 
 
In the Protestant Cemetery at Florence. 159 
 
 The Tuscan spring is warm and bright 
 As when she loved to watch the sun 
 
 Turn oHve-leaves to slips of light, 
 
 As fair the flowers where children run 
 
 And laugh amidst their childish pranks 
 
 Upon grey-green Mugnone's banks : 
 
 But quiet the urgent heart, the brain 
 That wrought with ceaseless love and care 
 
 Sweet songs compact of joy and pain, 
 Dreams from a soul that knew no air 
 
 Of common earth — now where songs are 
 
 The breath of souls she dwells afar. 
 
 And as I think of her my heart 
 
 Turns back to last year's Easter-tide,* 
 
 Remembering with a sudden smart ; 
 I see again the cliffs beside 
 
 The broad blue sea, in crescent bent 
 
 Half round the windy breast of Kent — 
 
 I see the little graveyard lie. 
 
 The tombs encrusted with sea-salt ; 
 
 Above, I hear the larks sing high 
 
 Within the cloud-flecked azure-vault — 
 
 And surely that sound from the deep 
 
 Must soothe those sleeping their long sleep. 
 
 * D. G. R., obiit Easter, 1882. 
 
1 60 In the Protestant Cemetery at Florence. 
 
 He too has rest, and knows no more 
 
 Of joy or pain : and as the sea 
 Is secret, so for evermore 
 
 His voice is hushed. The mystery 
 Of song ! But no, afar he sings. 
 Afar he knows diviner springs. 
 
 Afar he feels the mystic change 
 
 That veiled death wrought, — or here again 
 His new-framed soul doth upward range 
 
 Preparing for a nobler strain : 
 The joy of Death ! that leaves us here 
 To live anew, or to some sphere 
 
 Beyond the earth and mortal woes 
 Wafts spirits to some stellar bliss ! 
 
 Ev'n as a flower from winter's throes 
 Is born to feel Spring's breathless kiss. 
 
 So is he filled with joy who here 
 
 Wept oft to find life barren, drear. 
 
A RECORD. 
 
 II 
 
A RECORD. 
 (a fragment.) 
 
 HEAR the dark tempestuous sea 
 Boom through the night monotonously, 
 The hoarse faint cries of breaking waves 
 Lashed by the wind that moans and raves 
 
 Upon the deep — I hear them fall 
 
 Against cliff-bases smooth and tall, 
 
 A music wild, funereal. 
 
 I seem to listen to a sound 
 That circles earth for ever round, 
 The dirge of an eternal song, 
 A dull deep music swept along 
 The listening coasts of many lands, 
 Sighed mournfully o'er level sands. 
 Or thunder'd amidst rocky strands. 
 
 II- 
 
164 A Record. 
 
 I sit within my lonely room 
 
 Where the lamp's flame just breaks the gloom, 
 
 And thro' the darkness of the night 
 
 I see far down a starry light 
 
 Where nestled safely in the chine 
 
 The village street in one long line 
 
 Doth like a glittering serpent shine. 
 
 The keen wind blows through the dark skies, 
 The stars look down like countless eyes 
 That see and know, and therefore stare 
 Unmoved 'midst their serene high air : 
 And life seems but a dream, a shade 
 Which fleeing Time o'er space hath laid. 
 But which with Time shall one day fade. 
 
 Old memories are mine once more, 
 I see strange lives I lived of yore ; 
 With dimm'd sight see I far off things, 
 I feel the breath of bygone springs. 
 And ringing strangely in mine ears 
 I hear old laughter, alien tears 
 Slow falling, voices of past years. 
 
A Record. 165 
 
 Far back the soul can never see — 
 But dreams restore mysteriously 
 Dim visions of a possible past, 
 A time ere the last bond was cast 
 Aside that bound the struggling soul 
 Unto the brute, and first some goal 
 Loomed dimly over Life's vast shoal. 
 
 And dreaming so I live my dream : 
 
 I see a yellow turbid stream 
 
 Heavily flowing thro' clustered weeds 
 
 Of tropic growth, and 'midst the reeds 
 
 Of tall green rice upon its bank 
 
 A crouching tiger, long and lank, 
 
 With slow tail swaying from flank to flank : 
 
 Its eyes are yellow flames, and burn 
 Upon a man who dips an urn 
 Into the Ganges' sacred wave, 
 Unknowing he has reached his grave — 
 A short hoarse roar, a scream, a blow ! 
 And even as I shudder, lo 
 My tiger-self I seem to know. 
 
1 66 A Record. 
 
 And dreaming so I live my dream : 
 
 I see a sunrise-glory gleam 
 
 Against vast mountain-heights, and there 
 
 Upon a peak, precipitous, bare, 
 
 I see an eagle scan the plain 
 
 Immeasurable of his domain. 
 
 With fierce untameable disdain : 
 
 When first the stars wax pale, his eyes 
 Front the wide east where day doth rise, 
 And with unflinching gaze look straight 
 Against the sun, then proud, elate. 
 On tireless wings he swoops on high 
 O'er countless leagues, and thro' the sky 
 Drifts like a dark cloud ominously : 
 
 Then as day dies and swift night springs; 
 
 I hear the sudden rush of wings 
 
 And see the eagle from the plain 
 
 Sweep to his eyrie once again 
 
 With fierce keen dauntless eyes aglow — 
 
 And even as I watch them, lo 
 
 Mine eagle-self I seem to know. 
 
A Record. 167 
 
 And dreaming so I live my dream : 
 
 I hear a savage voice, a scream 
 
 Scarcely articulate, and far 
 
 I see a red light like a star 
 
 Flash 'neath old trees, and the first fire 
 
 Made by the brutish tribe burn higher 
 
 Until unfed its flames expire : 
 
 I see the savage whose hand drew 
 
 The fire from wood, whose swift breath blew 
 
 The flame until it gained new strength, — 
 
 I see him stand supreme at length. 
 
 And pointing to the burning flame 
 
 Bend low his swart and trembling frame 
 
 And cry aloud a guttural name : 
 
 A god at last the tribe hath found, 
 
 A god at whose strange crackling sound 
 
 Each man must bend in dread until 
 
 This strange new god hath worked his will : 
 
 But lo, one day the fire spreads fast, 
 
 And ere its fury is o'erpast 
 
 The tribe within its furnace-blast 
 
1 68 A Record. 
 
 Hath perish'd, save one man alone 
 Who far in sudden fear hath flown : 
 But with a gleam of new-born thought 
 A second flame he soon hath wrought 
 Only to tramp it down, aware 
 At last that no dead god lies there, 
 Or one for whom no man need care. 
 
 He looks around to see some god. 
 And far upon the fire-scorch'd sod 
 He sees his brown burnt tribesmen lie, 
 And thinks their voices fill the sky, 
 And dreads some unseen sudden blow— 
 And even as I .watch him, lo 
 My savage-self I seem to know. 
 
 And dreaming so I live my dream : 
 I see a flood of moonlight gleam 
 Between vast ancient oaks, and round 
 A rough-hewn altar on the ground 
 Weird Druid priests are gathered 
 While through their midst a man is led 
 With face that seems already dead : 
 
A Record. 169 
 
 A low chant swell's throughout the wood, 
 
 Then comes a solemn interlude 
 
 Ere loudlier rings dim aisles along 
 
 Some ancient sacriiicial song ; 
 
 Before the fane the victim kneels, 
 
 And without sound he forward reels 
 
 When the priest's knife the death-blow deals : 
 
 The moonlight falls upon his face, 
 
 His blood is spatter'd o'er the place, 
 
 But now he is ev'n as a flow'r 
 
 Uprooted in some tempest hour. 
 
 Dead, but whose seed shall elsewhere grow : 
 
 And as I look upon him, lo 
 
 Some old ancestral self I know. 
 
 Thus far dreams bring mysteriously 
 Visions of past lives back to me ; 
 Visions alone perhaps they are. 
 Each one a wandering futile star 
 Flash'd o'er the mental firmament,— 
 Yet may be thus in past times went 
 My soul in gradual ascent. 
 
170 A Record. 
 
 None sees the slow sure upward sweep 
 By which the soul from life-depths deep 
 Ascends — unless, mayhap, when free 
 With each new death we backward see 
 The long perspective of our race. 
 Our multitudinous past lives trace 
 Since first as breath of God through space 
 
 Each came, and filled the lowest thing 
 
 With life's faint pulse scarce quivering ; 
 
 So ever onward upward grew. 
 
 And ever with each death-birth knew 
 
 An old sphere left, a mystic change — 
 
 A sense of exultation strange 
 
 Thus through a myriad lives to range. 
 
 But even in our mortal lives 
 At times the eager spirit strives 
 To gain through subtle memories 
 Some hint of life's past mysteries — 
 Brief moments they, that flash before 
 Bewilder'd eyes some scene of yore, 
 Some vivid hour returned once more. 
 
A Record. 171 
 
 Swift through the darken'd clouds of sense 
 A sudden lightning-gleam intense 
 Reveals some glimpse of the long past, j 
 Some memory comes back at last — 
 And yet 'twas but a sudden strain 
 Of song — a scent — a sound of rain — 
 Some trifle — made all clear again. 
 
 With a swift flash such glimpses come 
 And go — but there are times for some 
 When keen the vision is, so keen 
 That thenceforth the indelible scene 
 Remains within the mind for aye. 
 Some reminiscence sad or gay. 
 Some action of a bygone day. 
 
 Thus came to me memorious gleams 
 
 From the closed past, no sleep-brought dreams 
 
 But revelations flashed out swift 
 
 Upon the mind : a sudden lift 
 
 Of the dense cloud of all past years, — 
 
 A moment when the thrilling ears 
 
 Heard, or the eyes slow filled with tears. 
 
172 A Record. 
 
 Thus hath there flashed across my sight 
 
 A desert in a bhnding light 
 
 Of scorching sun, a dreary waste 
 
 Of burning sand where seldom paced 
 
 The swift gaunt camels with their freight 
 
 Of merchandise, but where the weight 
 
 Of silence lay inviolate. 
 
 There a few sterile rocks lay white 
 In the sun's glare, a band by might 
 Of old convulsion thither hurled 
 In the far days of the young world : 
 And in their midst a hollow cave 
 Was cleft, where dwelt, as in a grave. 
 One who came thence his soul to save. 
 
 Young, and from out the joyous strife 
 
 Of men he came to this drear life : 
 
 No more for him the wine's swift spell, 
 
 No more for him love's miracle — 
 
 But bitter as the dead sea dust 
 
 Seem'd all past joys, — dread things to thrust 
 
 Aside, all equally accursed. 
 
A Record. i 73 
 
 In fervid prayer all day he sought 
 God's grace : in dreams at night he fought 
 The fierce temptations born of youth : 
 Awake, he strove to reach God's truth — 
 Asleep, he felt his passions rise 
 And darken all the heav'nly skies 
 With dread deceitful lovely lies. 
 
 Thus year by year he fell and rose 
 In endless conflict, till his woes 
 Fill'd all his days with burning tears 
 And dreadful never-ending fears : 
 Haggard he grew from scanty food. 
 With sun and blast and shelter rude 
 And terrors of his lonelihood. 
 
 With long hair streaming out behind 
 He raced before the burning wind, 
 With wild insane strained eyes alert 
 For demons lurking to his hurt — 
 And though the sun beat fiercely hot 
 Upon the sands, he heeded not 
 But like a wand'ring shadow shot 
 
174 -^ Record. 
 
 Across the burning level waste, 
 
 Oft shouting as he wildly raced 
 
 ' My body is in hell, but I, 
 
 Its soul, thus hither speed and cry 
 
 To God to blow me as a leaf 
 
 From out this agony of grief. 
 
 To slay, and give me death's relief!' 
 
 Oft as he fled, with from his mouth 
 
 The white froth blown thro' maddening drouth, 
 
 He pass'd the crouching lion's lair — 
 
 But when his shrill laugh fill'd the air 
 
 The desert monarch shrank, as though 
 
 He feared this raving shadow's woe, 
 
 This haggard wretch with eyes aglow. 
 
 But when the sun sank past the west 
 
 The hermit fled the desert, lest 
 
 God's eyes should lose him in the night, 
 
 And foes Satanic guide his flight 
 
 Till soul and body once again 
 
 Made one should with the pangs of twain 
 
 In hell for ever writhe in pain. 
 
A Record. 175 
 
 But when sleep came to him he lay 
 In peace, and oft a smile would play 
 Upon his face as though once more 
 In dreams he lived his life of yore, — 
 The life he did himself dismiss. 
 The old sweet time of joy and bliss, — 
 Heard laughter, or felt some loved kiss. 
 
 Thus have I seen, and seeing known 
 
 That he who lived afar alone, 
 
 A hermit on a dreary waste. 
 
 Was even that soul mine eyes have traced 
 
 Through brute and savage steadily. 
 
 That he even now is part of me 
 
 Just as a wave is of the sea. 
 
 Far out across the deep doth swell 
 
 The hoarse boom of the Black- Rock bell, 
 
 A heavy moan monotonous. 
 
 An inner sea-sound ominous 
 
 As though throughout the ocean there 
 
 Relentless Conscience aye did bear 
 
 A bitter message of despair. 
 
176 A Record. 
 
 Still sweeps the old impetuous sea 
 Around the green earth ceaselessly — 
 Changeless, yet full of change, it seems 
 The very mirror of those dreams 
 We call men's lives — for are not they 
 Like life-sea waves Fate's wind doth sway 
 And break, yet which pass not away 
 
 Through depths of silent air, but blend 
 Once more with the great deep and lend 
 Their never dying music sweet 
 To the great choral song complete ; 
 Each death is but a birth, a change — 
 Each soul through myriad byeways strange, 
 Through birth and death, doth upward range. 
 
RAINBOW SKETCHES. 
 
 I. THE RAINBOW. 
 
 |HE rain-clouds slowly trail from the dun 
 hills 
 And the grey mists retreat from the 
 grey seas, 
 
 And a fresh wind comes forth and shakes the trees 
 And blows the foam from the o'er-flooded rills, 
 
 And softly then the sun the wet sky fills 
 
 With chastened lights, and a long shimmer flees 
 From cloud to cloud till over the drench'd leas 
 
 A Rainbow curves its arc and glows and thrills. 
 
 II. TOWARDS SUNSET. (Western Islands, N.B.) 
 
 The whole sky to the west is wild 
 With storm and tempest ; clouds are piled 
 Mass upon mass, like mountain-heights 
 In skyey regions far ; strange lights 
 
 12 
 
178 Rainbow Sketches. 
 
 Gleam o'er their hollow flanks as though 
 The furious wind that rears them so 
 Breath'd fiery breaths — and overhead 
 A maze of flying mists is spread, 
 Cloud, mist, and rain, pure dazzling white 
 A moment, lurid next and bright 
 In slaty black, and now dull grey 
 Descending in broad sheets away 
 In furious rain above the sea. 
 
 Far in the west shines yellowly 
 A widening cloud-strait, and thereby 
 The sun descending leaves the sky 
 With ominous gleams — crimson flames. 
 Purple, and bronze, hues without names ; 
 And ever underneath toils wide 
 The windy sea, with wave and tide 
 Lashing each other into flying 
 Foam. Now, just as day is dying. 
 The storm-clouds with a sudden thrill 
 Seem windless and grow strangely still. 
 And almost doth it seem as though 
 Yon fugitive soft lights that glow 
 Are the dying storm's dying smiles 
 Dreamily waving to and fro. 
 Like mists of the Enchanted Isles : 
 Still wavering they blend and rise 
 Till perfectly they arch the skies 
 
Rainbow Sketches. 179 
 
 In one vast crescent bow, far seen 
 O'er land and sea — an arch of green 
 And soft and shadowy amethyst, 
 Crimson as pure as sunrise-mist, 
 Azure ethereally blue, 
 And yellow gold with opal hue : — 
 Some moments thus it flawless stands, 
 A sign, a glory o'er the lands — 
 The Soul of Hope it is we see 
 Cloth'd in her immortality. 
 
 III. DRIFTING RAIN-LIGHTS. 
 
 Around this lonely sea-loch stand 
 Huge mountain-shapes, a giant band 
 Dwelling in solitude for aye, 
 And silent save when through the grey 
 Chill skies the eagle screams, or down 
 Some sheer abyss where shadows frown 
 In noontide loosen'd boulders fall 
 Whirling and crashing, until all 
 Is still once more, and once again 
 The mountain-silence broods in pain. 
 
 A curdling fume beyond the reach 
 Of yonder headland, where the beach 
 Scarce slopes a yard, betrays the tide's 
 Fierce struggle where the current glides 
 
 12—2 
 
i8o Rainbow Sketches. 
 
 With swiftly outward flow, and as 
 The conquering tide-waves inward pass 
 The sleeping wind unfolds its wings 
 And with sweet sudden laughter springs 
 Upon the loch and sweeps the spray 
 From startled wavelets fleeing away, 
 Whence wheeling to the slopes it flies 
 And where the heavy white mist lies 
 Strikes with dividing pinions till 
 The furtive sunlight on each hill 
 Gleams, and the toiling vapours curl 
 From crag to crag and wreathing whirl 
 To higher mountain-hollows where 
 Gaunt larches cling 'mid boulders bare. 
 
 And as the grey clouds slowly lift, 
 
 The sudden shimmering rain-lights drift 
 
 Hither and thither, flash and fly 
 
 As though bright spirits fill'd the sky — 
 
 Wings here of azure, there of red, 
 
 A golden glory overhead, 
 
 A sudden rosy glow, a streak 
 
 Of purple over some grey peak, 
 
 A lovely waft of green (as though 
 
 Some laughing sky-sprite from below 
 
 Had filch'd a sea-wave's hue), a gleam 
 
 Of amber like a strayed moon-beam, 
 
 A sudden joyous skyey revel 
 
 O'er mountain heights and lowland level, 
 
Rainboiv Sketches. i8i 
 
 Now forming to an arch, again 
 Flashing in drifting sprays of rain- 
 Fair phantom hues that pass away 
 Blown on the breath of dying day. 
 
 IV. THE CIRCLE OF ULLOA.i'' 
 
 The white mists swathe the mountain-flanks 
 
 And shroud the melancholy ranks 
 
 Of gaunt green pines, until these seem 
 
 Like ghostly figures in a dream 
 
 Each standing silent by his grave. 
 
 Far off swift mountain torrents rave 
 
 Down rugged gorges, and below — 
 
 Half muffled by the wastes of snow — 
 
 A cataract in thunder booms. 
 
 No sunlight fills these twilit glooms 
 
 But only a wan greyness drear, 
 
 And only where the peaks rise sheer 
 
 Above the pine-clad heights the sun 
 
 Faint yellow shines — a dismal gleam, 
 
 No flashing golden coloured stream. 
 
 But in the west a quiver stirs, 
 As though a wind amidst the firs 
 Were waving slow tired wings ere swift 
 Awakening it rose to drift 
 
]82 Rainbow Sketches. 
 
 From hill to dale, from dale to hill, 
 And the long waving pine-boughs fill 
 With sudden music wild and sweet : 
 Yet no wind comes with wings to beat 
 The silence into sound — but slow 
 A waving luminous mass doth glow 
 And palpitate, and stretch, and rise, 
 And hang suspended in the skies 
 Until a mighty arch gleams' there, 
 A moonshine-coloured rainbow fair : 
 Of palest amber is its hue 
 And delicate as starlit dew. 
 Till as a silver stream at dawn 
 Slow stealing through a twilit lawn 
 It seems to bend and circling flow 
 Right through the mountain mists below. 
 And curve again and upward sweep 
 Till with a flash, a gleam, a leap 
 The arch becomes a mighty ring 
 And 'midst the windless mists doth swing. 
 
 V. IN THE ANTARCTIC : AT DAYBREAK, BEFORE 
 A STORM. 
 
 Hither and thither the icebergs go 
 With the urgent wind or the current's flow. 
 And the stormy daydawn pales the fires 
 That the stars had lit in the frozen spires, 
 
Rainbow Sketches. 183 
 
 And the amber glow of the midnight moon 
 Wanes swift in a dim wan silver swoon 
 From the heart of each iceberg drifting slow 
 With the wind and the current to and fro, 
 While the darkling dawn of the colourless day 
 Breaks o'er a thousand leagues of grey. 
 
 And the sunrise coming brings no glad light, 
 
 No golden glory, no radiance bright ; 
 
 But a strait of crimson that gleams blood-red 
 
 And an ominous purple overhead 
 
 Foretell of the wailing winds that will rise 
 
 And sweep on their wild wings through the skies 
 
 And howl and shout in their furious chase 
 
 Of the waves and clouds in their twin swift race : 
 
 And up from the south great masses come drifting, 
 
 Night-black and snow-white, falling and lifting. 
 
 With quivering rain-lights gleaming and shifting. 
 
 But ere the wind and the rain and the hail 
 Sweep down on the billows whereover we sail, — 
 Like ghosts from the grave, like spirits that shine 
 In the garb of their new-born life divine. 
 From the womb of the clouds, round the brow of the 
 
 gale 
 Swift streamers of dazzling light combine. 
 And flash and shimmer and swing on high 
 Till five bright rainbows spanning the sky 
 Of furious tempest prophesy. 
 
184 Rainbow Sketches. 
 
 And the pinnacled icebergs rock and sway 
 'Midst rising billows and clouds of spray, 
 And each holds deep in its frozen mass 
 A prison'd rainbow — one green as grass, 
 One blue as a sapphire fill'd with light, 
 One shining all over with diamonds bright. 
 One deeply flushing from base to spire 
 With a glorious ruby's changeful fire, 
 One all ablaze with an orange gleam — 
 Till each iceberg there and each wave as well 
 Are changed by a glorious miracle 
 To a splendour greater than any dream. 
 
The Wandering Voice. 185 
 
 THE WANDERING VOICE. 
 
 HEY hear it in the sunless dale. 
 It moans beside the stream, 
 They hear it when the woodlands wail, 
 And when the storm-winds scream. 
 
 They hear it, — going from the fields 
 Through twilight shadows home, — 
 
 It sighs across the silent wealds 
 And far and wide doth roam. 
 
 It moans upon the wind No more 
 The House of Tredgar stands : 
 
 It comes at dusk, and o'er and o'er 
 Haunts Tredgar's lands. 
 
 He rides down by the foaming hnn — 
 
 But hark ! what is it calls 
 With faint far voice, so shrill and thin. 
 
 The House of Tredgar falls. 
 
1 86 The Wandering Voice. 
 
 He lifts the revel-cup at night — 
 What makes him start and stare, 
 
 What makes his face blanch deadly white, 
 What makes him spring from where 
 
 His comrades feast within the room, 
 And through the darkness go — 
 
 What is that wailing cry of doom, 
 That scream of woe ! 
 
 No more in sunless dells, or high 
 
 On moorland ways is heard the moan 
 
 Of the long-wandering prophecy : — 
 In moonlit nights alone 
 
 A shadowy shape is seen to stand 
 
 Beside a ruin'd place : 
 It waves a wildly threatening hand, 
 
 It hath a dreadful face. 
 
TRANSCRIPTS FROM NATURE. 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
SECOND SERIES. 
 
 I. The Rookery at Sunrise. XIV. 
 
 II. On a Thames Backwater. xv. 
 
 III. October Woodlands. xvi. 
 
 IV. The Pink Acacia. xvil. 
 V. Mountain-Haze. xvill. 
 
 VI. The Yellow Poppy. xix. 
 
 VII. Magnolias. xx. 
 
 VIII. The Coral Isle. xxi. 
 
 IX. Green Seas. XXII. 
 
 x. Frozen Rainbows. 
 
 XI. Summer Icebergs. xxiir. 
 
 XII. The Evening Star. (Ai xxiv. 
 
 Sea.) XXV. 
 
 xiil. The Ruined Hill-Tower, xxvi. 
 
 An Autumnal Evening. 
 
 Traveller's Joy. 
 
 A Crystal Forest. 
 
 The Moors . September. 
 
 The Dead Stag. 
 
 The Haunt of the Osprey . 
 
 The Blasted Pine. 
 
 Summer Yellows. 
 
 Afterglow. (^Cumberland 
 
 Fells.) 
 A Winter Hedgerow. 
 Wild Swans. 
 The Eagle. 
 The Salmon Pool. 
 
TRANSCRIPTS FROM NATURE. 
 
 I. THE ROOKERY AT SUNRISE.^^ 
 
 jHE loftly elm-trees darkly dream 
 
 Against the steel-blue sky; till far 
 I' the twilit east a golden star 
 O'erbrims the dusk in one vast stream 
 Of yellow light, and lo ! a cry 
 Breaks from a windy nest — the sky 
 
 Is filled with wheeling rooks — they sway 
 In one black phalanx towards the day. 
 
 II. ON A THAMES BACKWATER. 
 
 Its sweeping boughs the great ash trails 
 Across the slow-flowing wave : around 
 White waterlilies swim ; no sound 
 
 Disturbs the silence save when sails 
 
 On the outer flood a passing boat — 
 
 A water-hen quite close doth float, 
 
 And, near, a kingfisher's bright gleam 
 Is mirror'd deep within the stream. 
 
1 90 Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 III. OCTOBER WOODLANDS. 
 
 Here from this lichen'd crag I see 
 The woodlands reach to yonder blues 
 Which are the upland downs, in hues 
 Of gold and red ; pale greenery 
 Yet unstain'd by the sun, and boughs 
 Of dark-green firs where cushats drowse ; 
 
 Afar, poised motionless, a pair 
 Of falcons hover in the air. 
 
 IV. THE PINK ACACIA. 
 
 Soft clusters mid the shadowy green — 
 The pale sea-green acacias make 
 When ruffling winds their leaflets shake- 
 Lie thick and close, as blooms are seen 
 Upon the pear-tree's boughs in May 
 Or apple with its blossom-spray : 
 
 A flash that melts to pink — such are 
 Dawn's hues when pales the morning-star. 
 
Transcripts from Nahire. 1 9 1 
 
 V. MOUNTAIN-HAZE. 
 
 The mountain-haze hides gulf and steep, 
 
 A silver shifting gauzy veil : 
 
 But as the hillside shadows fail 
 And the glens waken from their sleep, 
 Soft pink suffuses it — until 
 It glows all saffron — seems to thrill 
 
 In lucent gold — and then 'tis gone 
 And lost where late the sunrise shone. 
 
 VI. THE YELLOWS POPPY.* 
 
 Like flakes of beaten gold along 
 
 The shingly beach the poppies blow : 
 Their sunder'd blossoms to and fro 
 Are drifted by the wind among 
 The salt sea-grass, and o'er the wave 
 - That fain this upper beach would lave : 
 
 Spring laughs not only o'er the land. 
 
 But with her smiles transforms the strand. 
 
 * The beautiful Yellow Horned Poppy is familiar to those who 
 know our southern shores. It is one of the very few flowers, 
 like the Sea-side Convolvulus, the Sand-wort, etc., that grow 
 close to the margin of the sea. 
 
192 Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 vii. MAGNOLIAS. (Australia.) 
 
 The lofty blue-gums tower on high, 
 A giant circle round us here — 
 And tree-ferns fringe the little mere 
 Around whose edge white masses lie, 
 A thousand snowy blooms o'erbent 
 With golden hearts and wondrous scent ; 
 
 And in the little dark-blue pond 
 Another bloom-world gleams beyond. 
 
 VIII. THE CORAL ISLE. 
 
 A calm and waveless purple sea 
 
 Scarce breathes with long slow heavy breath : 
 A cloudless sky : 'twould be like death 
 
 If rose not yonder faerily 
 
 A magic isle with cool green palms, 
 
 Adream 'mid coral-girdled calms, 
 
 Around whose barriers night and day 
 The sea-swell breaks in clouds of spray. 
 
Transcripts from Nature. 193 
 
 IX. GREEN SEAS. {Jena del Fuego.) 
 
 With thunder on this iron shore 
 The fierce green South Pacific seas 
 Break without ceasing : when no breeze 
 Blows from the icy south they roar 
 Like famish'd hons, shaking wild 
 Their foamy manes where rocks are piled : 
 
 When tempests ravage, then they grow 
 Gaunt heralds of resistless woe. 
 
 X. FROZEN RAINBOWS. (Antarctic Icebergs.) 
 
 A north wind fills the straining sails, 
 The blue-green sea is creased with white, 
 An albatross screams in its flight 
 And foam -jets rise from spouting whales : 
 Beyond, around, great icebergs pass. 
 Some amber, blue, some green as grass. 
 
 Some filled with glorious lights — these seem 
 Like rainbows in a frozen dream. 
 
 13 
 
1 94 Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 XI. SUMMER ICEBERGS. {By Moonlight.) 
 
 The black waves hurry on in hosts, 
 Relentless squadrons 'neath the pale 
 Cold moon ; and thro' the moonshine sail 
 Great grey wan shapes like island-ghosts : 
 O'ertopphng, for the seas have laid 
 Fierce hands upon their bases, made 
 
 A hollow sound of waters where 
 Of late was dead dumb polar air. 
 
 XII. THE EVENING STAR. (^At Sea.f^ 
 
 Aflame with silver fires that glow 
 With ruby-change and amethyst. 
 Pants, pulses thro' this sundown mist 
 
 The even-star, and to and fro 
 
 O'er the sea-depths and weedy caves 
 
 It dances in a myriad waves. 
 
 Though still it thrills and throbs on high, 
 The sole flame in the purpling sky. 
 
Transcripts from Nature. 195 
 
 XIII. THE RUINED HILL-TOWER. 
 
 A grey old tower of rough-hewn stone, 
 Part ivy-clad, with sunlit base 
 Where shadow'd branches interlace : 
 
 Without, a blue pine stands alone 
 
 Above where two stained columns lie, 
 
 Memorial of days gone by. 
 
 In the mere-waters dark and still 
 The shadow sleeps of the tower'd hill. 
 
 XIV. AN AUTUMNAL EVENING. 
 
 Deep black against the dying glow 
 
 The tall elms stand ; the rooks are still ; 
 No windbreath makes the faintest thrill 
 Amongst the leaves ; the fields below 
 Are vague and dim in twilight shades — 
 Only the bats wheel in their raids 
 
 On the grey flies, and silently 
 Great dusky moths go flitting by. 
 
 13—2 
 
1 96 Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 XV. travellers' joy. {Trailing Clematis.) 
 
 The trees are leafless now, save where 
 Some shelter'd oak prolongs its dream 
 Of unfled Summer ; by the stream 
 The wither'd sedges show the lair 
 Of some dead coot ; but near the ways 
 The scarlet hips shine thro' a maze 
 
 Of clouded feathery blossoms light, 
 Which in the sunshine gleam snow-white. 
 
 XVL A CRYSTAL FOREST.^' 
 
 The air is blue and keen and cold, 
 
 With snow the roads and fields are white ; 
 But here the forest's clothed with light 
 
 And in a shining sheath enrolled. 
 
 Each branch, each twig, each blade of grass. 
 
 Seems clad miraculously with glass : 
 
 Above the ice-bound streamlet bends 
 Each frozen fern with crystal ends. 
 
Transcripts from Nature. 1 9 7 
 
 XVII. THE MOORS. (September.) 
 
 A sky of rich deep blue : beneath, 
 A mighty sterile mountain-range ; 
 Far west with shifting shades doth change 
 
 The sea ; all else is purple heath — 
 
 A glorious purple world wherein 
 
 A myriad lives each morn begin, 
 
 Where the grouse call, and the grey hare 
 Leaps, and whirling curlews fill the air. 
 
 XVIII. THE DEAD STAG. 
 
 Upon the purple moor quite dead 
 The antlered monarch lonely lies. 
 The proud fire vanisht from his eyes ; 
 The mountain-sunset burns blood-red. 
 And makes the tarn beside the stag 
 Flame like an outstretched crimson flag : 
 
 Two hooded crows their wings flap near, 
 Not long to be kept back by fear. 
 
198 Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 XIX. THE HAUNT OF THE OSPREY. 
 
 {Western Highlands.) 
 
 A rugged scaur in the mid-lake 
 
 Stands high and peak'd ; on this doth rest 
 The ragged semblance of a nest ; 
 Here the young birds their hunger slake 
 With fish the parent ospreys bring, 
 Here they shriek loud their hungering ; 
 
 Here the sea-eagles breed, and here 
 As savage chiefs they rule through fear. 
 
 XX. THE BLASTED PINE. 
 
 The barren granite cliffs withstand 
 The Atlantic surge that day and night 
 Breaks in the thunder of its might : 
 
 And on the furthest spur of land — 
 
 A mighty fissured crag — rears high 
 
 A blasted pine against the sky : 
 
 Dead, lightning-riven, black, alone, 
 
 Its bare boughs answer the wind's moan. 
 
Transcripts from Nature. 1 99 
 
 XXI. SUMMER YELLOWS. 
 
 The hill-side shimmers with live gold 
 Of scented gorse ; the celandine 
 Lights up the lanes ; o'er meadows green 
 Kingcups and daffodils have rolled 
 A sunshine wave ; and by the stream 
 Marsh-mallows and tall iris gleam : 
 
 With sweet wild song the goldfinch flies, 
 And oft the yellowhammer cries. 
 
 XXII. AN AFTERGLOW AMID THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 FELLS. {December, 1883.) 
 
 Gloom shrouds the hills and hides the dales, 
 The wintry sun an hour has set : 
 But lo ! a blood-red parapet 
 
 Leans from the sky, and crimson veils 
 
 Of stealthy vapour cling and crawl 
 
 About the night's funereal pall — 
 
 Till with a wind it seems to sway 
 And drift in burning flakes away. 
 
200 Transcripts from Nature. 
 
 XXIII. A WINTER HEDGEROW. 
 
 The wintry wolds are white ; the wind 
 Seems frozen ; in the shelter'd nooks 
 The sparrows shiver ; the black rooks 
 Wheel homeward where the elms behind 
 The manor stand ; at the field's edge 
 The redbreasts in the blackthorn hedge 
 
 Sit close, and under snowy eaves 
 
 The shrewmice sleep 'mid nested leaves. 
 
 XXIV. WILD SWANS. {Western Isles.) 
 
 An inland strait of the salt sea 
 
 Lost in a purple wilderness 
 
 Where seldom wandering feet transgress : 
 Low rainy hills stand mournfully 
 Amid the wide drear waste — and where 
 The sea-loch laps their bases bare 
 
 The wild-swans with the dying light 
 Wheel, screaming, in their phalanx'd flight. 
 
Transcripts from Nature, 201 
 
 XXV. THE SALMON POOL. 
 
 The tassell'd birch o'erhangs the pool, 
 Clear amber, where the pebbles shine 
 Like opals amid golden wine ; 
 And where the margin dark and cool 
 Reflects a tremulous world of green 
 The thrush from its lithe spray has seen 
 
 A band of living silver lie 
 
 Deep down in moveless symmetry. 
 
 XXVI. THE EAGLE. (PF^sfem Highlands.) 
 
 Between two mighty hills a sheer 
 Abyss — far down in the ravine 
 A thread-like torrent and a screen 
 Of oaks like shrubs — and one doth rear 
 A dry scarp'd peak above all sound 
 Save windy voices wailing round : 
 
 At sunrise here, in proud disdain, 
 The eagle scans his vast domain. 
 
MADONNA NATURA. 
 
 I love and worship thee in that thy ways 
 Are fair, and that the glory of past days 
 
 Haloes thy brightness with a sacred hue : 
 Within thine eyes are dreams of mystic things, 
 Within thy voice a subtler mtisic rings 
 
 Than ever mortal from the keen reeds drew ; 
 Thou weav'st a web which men have called Death 
 But Life is in the magic of thy breath. 
 
 The secret things of Earth thou knowest well ; 
 Thou seest the wild-bee build his narrow cell. 
 
 The lonely eagle wing through lonely skies. 
 The lion on the desert roam afar, 
 The glow-worm glitter like a fallen star. 
 
 The hour-lived insect as it hums and flies ; 
 Thou seest men like shadows come and go. 
 And all their endless dreams drift to and fro. 
 
 In thee is strength, endurance, wisdom, truth : 
 Thou art above all mortal joy and ruth. 
 
 Thou hast the calm and silence of the night : 
 Mayhap thou seest what we cannot see, 
 Surely far off thou hear'st harmoniously 
 
 Echoes of flawless music infinite. 
 Mayhap thou feelest thrilling through each sod 
 Beneath thy feet the very breath of God. 
 
Madonna Natura. 203 
 
 Monna Natura, fair and grand and great, 
 I worship thee, who art inviolate : 
 
 Through thee I reach to things beyond the span 
 Of mine own puny life, through thee I learn 
 Courage and hope, and dimly can discern 
 
 The ever nobler grades awaiting man : 
 Madonna, unto thee I bend and pray — 
 Saviour, Redeemer thou, whom none can slay ! 
 
 No human fanes are dedicate to thee, 
 But thine the temples of each tameless sea. 
 
 Each mountain-height and forest-glade and plain : 
 No priests with daily hymns thy praises sing, 
 But far and wide the wild winds chanting swing, 
 
 A nd dirge the sea-waves on the changeless main, 
 While songs of birds fill all the fields and woods. 
 And cries of beasts the savage solitudes. 
 
 Hearken, Madonna, hearken to my cry : 
 Teach me through metaphors of liberty. 
 
 Till strong and fearing nought in life or death 
 I feel thy sacred freedom through me thrill, 
 Wise, and defiant, with unquenched will 
 
 Unyielding, though succumb the mortal breath- 
 Then if I conquer take me by the hand 
 And guide me onward to thy Promised Land ! 
 
NOTES. 
 
 1. Transcript No. iv., p. 73. As Mr. W. Stokes has pointed 
 out {Academy, i6th February, 1884), Tennyson, when re- 
 ferring to the kingfisher as ' the sea-blue bird of March,' in 
 Stanza xci. of In Memoriam, has evidently taken the phrase 
 from Alcman, who, in his twelfth fragment, uses an identical 
 Greek phrase. Voss, in his hexametrical translation, speaks of 
 it as the purpurner vogel des friihlings. 
 
 See also subsequent suggestions in the Academy (15th 
 March) in favour of the wheatear, the blue titmouse, and the 
 swallow : but there is little doubt that both Alcman and the 
 Laureate meant the kingfisher. 
 
 2. Transcripts Nos. v. and vi., and p. 157 : — While the fireflies of 
 Italy are invariably of flame colour, varying from red to pale 
 crimson, and even to faint orange, those I have seen in more 
 northern latitudes — as in the Ardennes and the Province of 
 Luxembourg — have as invariably been green, as well as 
 generally less resplendent. The farther south, the warmer the 
 clime, the more brilliant are these ' wandering fires.' 
 
 3. Gaspara Stampa, Pt. \. San Salvatore is where the Lords 
 of CoUalto had their seignorial residence. The name ' Cadore ' 
 in the ninth line is Anglicised from CadorL 
 
 4. Gaspara Stampa, Pt. IL, lines 15 to 30. Irene here refers 
 to the beautiful Irene of Spilemburg : Violante Palma was that 
 lovely daughter of the famous painter of the same surname, 
 whose portraiture the latter has transmitted to us in many paint- 
 ings, but most memorably in the beautiful ' Sta. Barbara ' in the 
 
Notes. 205 
 
 Church of Sta. Maria della Formosa, in Venice : Cornelia was 
 Titian's sister : Molino was a well-known poet in his time, and 
 of course the names of Sansovino, Varchi, Cardinal Bembo, 
 and Pietro Aretino require no comment. 
 
 5. Gaspara Stampa, Pt, II. The foregoing lines are based on 
 the fine painting by Mr. Eugene Benson, entitled An August 
 Evening at Titian^s Home, Venice, exhibited at the Royal 
 Academy in 1882. 
 
 6. Gaspara Stampa, Pt. II. Song on page 97, beginning / 
 gaze into thine eyes, is founded on the fifth and fourth of the 
 Sonnets by Gaspara as translated by ' George Fleming.' I 
 have kept as literally as practicable to the latter's more 
 measured rendering. 
 
 7. Gaspara Stampa, Pt. III., line 22. The meaning of the open- 
 ing lines of Gaspara's ninth Sonnet. 
 
 8. Gaspara Stampa, Pt. IV. Song on page 105 is almost literally 
 the beautiful rendering by ' George Fleming ' of Sonnet 
 VI. Here the two closing lines have no prototypes in that 
 sonnet, but such are to be found elsewhere amongst Gaspara's 
 sonnets or madrigals. 
 
 9. Sonnets on Paintings by Bazzi (JSodona). I have elsewhere 
 {Art Journal, April, 1884) pointed out the advisability of 
 either invariably calling this great artist by his right name, or 
 else using what was probably the name he assumed when (like 
 Titian) he was made a Count Palatine — viz., Sodona. Vasari's 
 nickname should now be forgotten, if on no other account than 
 on the principle of De mortuis, etc. 
 
 10. Page 117. The Water-Joy (from the generic name of the flower, 
 which is from the Greek words ' water ' and ' to rejoice '; is the 
 Lesser Water Lily, or, as it is commonly called, ' Frog-Bit.' 
 The latter name is in reference to the haunts of this plant : 
 in Germany also it is called Der Froschbiss. Its thick masses 
 of white stars render pools and streams doubly beautiful, and 
 none more so than the lovely Lesse, which flows into the 
 Meuse at Anseremme, near Dinant. 
 
2o6 Notes. 
 
 1 1. Page 132. TheShea-Oak( Casuarina)has long drooping filaments 
 instead of leaves. The sound these give forth on a stormy day 
 is extremely mournful, heightened by the dreariness of the 
 surrounding tracts. 
 
 \ia. Page 132, Transcript No. V. The giant lizard (here referred to), 
 the ' Monitor,' or Hydrasaurus varius, varies from four to six feet 
 in length. Although it can bite severely, it is not harmful to 
 man. When there is not a sound from any living thing to be 
 heard in the forest, when even the bell-birds are silenced, and 
 the scorpions and centipedes are torpid in the furnace-heat, 
 the monitor basks upon some spreading bough, motionless for 
 hours, but ready in a moment for any restless beetle or other 
 insect that may come his way. The first time I saw one 
 (116° in the shade) it literally seemed to radiate heat, but it was 
 probably impervious to the fiery breath of noon to which it lay 
 fully exposed. 
 
 12. Page 133. Only those who have witnessed the beautiful pheno- 
 menon referred to in the final couplet can have any true idea of its 
 exquisite loveliness. This mysterious veil of translucent blue 
 clothes the Austral hill-ranges only for a few wonderful moments 
 during the brief twilight that is just long enough to form a 
 recognisable interlude between day and night. 
 
 13. Page 133. The ' Flying Mouse ' here referred to is not a bat, but 
 one of the Phalangista. The Phalangers of Australia are different 
 from the opossums of America. The Flying Mouse is the 
 smallest of the so-called flying opossums — and indeed is one of 
 the smallest animals in creation — Wallace mentioning that ' it 
 could go to sleep in a good-sized pill-box.' 
 
 14. Page 134. The Rock-lily (Z'oryaw/y^^j fjr(r(?/.ra) has a flower-stalk 
 thirty feet high, crowned with lily-like blooms of a rich dark- 
 red hue, and several feet in circumference. 
 
 1 5. Page 135. The Brachychiton acerifoliunt, or ' flame-tree ' of the 
 colonists, when covered with its large crimson blooms, is a 
 most beautiful sight, especially when seen en masse. In the 
 right season, the lUawarra mountain range (on the eastern side 
 
Notes. 207 
 
 of New South Wales) is said to be conspicuous for miles at 
 sea by reason of the glowing crimson of these flame-trees in full 
 flower. 
 
 16. Page 181. The scientific name given to this remarkable phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
 17. Transcript No. i., p. 189. A remarkable occurrence which, cir- 
 cumstances being favourable, any one may see for himself who 
 would think the sight worth rising for before day-dawn. Shelley 
 had seen it at least once, as is evident by his graphic passage 
 in the Lines written amongst the Euganean Hills. Mr. 
 Stopford Brooke, also, in the notes to his delightful volume of 
 Selections from Shelley, records having himself witnessed the 
 spectacle. 
 
 18. Page 194. Since this Transcript was written I find that in a 
 poem called ' Even Star,' in his pleasant volume lo in Egypt : 
 and other Poems, Mr. Richard Garnett has expressed the same 
 motif much more successfully. The lines to which I refer are 
 these : 
 
 " The grey sky sparkles with my fairy light ; 
 I mix among the dancers of the sea. 
 Yet stoop not from the throne I must retain 
 High o'er the silver sources of the rain.' 
 
 19. Page 196, Transcript No. XVI. In Canada, Norway, Scot- 
 land, and other northern countries, this beautiful winter-transfor- 
 mation can frequently be seen. It is caused by intense frost 
 setting in immediately upon a thaw, thus congealing the damp 
 upon even the tiniest twigs and blades of grass and fern- 
 fronds into sheaths of thin transparent crystal. As the sun's 
 heat intensifies, the crackling and dripping are incessant, and 
 the change and beauty beyond description. 
 
BV THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THE HUMAN INHERITANOE ; AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 ' Strikingly original.' — Aihenaum. 
 
 'There is a mystical glAw and rapture, a sort of passionate and 
 sensuous realization of beauty, a depth of colour about his pictures of 
 nature, which shows that he has drunk deep at true fountains.' — British 
 Quarterly. 
 
 ' Mr. Sharp is to be congratulated on being the first to render into 
 English verse a scene like this (eight stanzas quoted). This is from a 
 singular and original poem called Motherhood, in which man's mysterious 
 kinship with all animated nature is enforced with a Darwinian 
 boldness, ' — AthemEum. 
 
 ' That these poems form a most remarkable first volume there can be 
 no doubt. In these days of mocking-birds the reader will be arrested 
 and refreshed by their noticeable originality and by a spirit of pure, 
 
 virile strength which characterizes every poem in the collection 
 
 We fee! assured that a new name, destined to become conspicuous, has 
 been added to the ranks of our nineteeth century poets.' — Morning- 
 Post. 
 
 ' Mr. Sharp possesses the broad sympathies, the wide range of sus- 
 ceptibility to impressions, and the faculty of idealism, which are the 
 gifts of the true poet. He has at hand, too, exceptional felicity of 
 diction and descriptive power. . . . The Human Inheritance is con- 
 ceived throughout with picturesque force and genuine passion. Mother- 
 hood contains a bold but pure and suggestive treatment of a theme 
 which few poets have chosen to handle.' — Scotsman. 
 
 ' A work which we are bound to regard as a very notable perform- 
 ance. Twenty years ago a volume so full of thought, so pregnant with 
 suggestion, and so clearly the early, and to some extent immature, out- 
 come of a very genuine poetic impulse, would certainly have established 
 its author's name. . . . (Mr. Sharp's) work must yet honour him in a 
 high degree. . . . The distinguishing note of his book is its freshness. 
 . . . He will no doubt one day write a nature poem that will live.' — 
 Liverpool Mercury. 
 
ON THE ' TRANSCRIPTS FROM NATURE.' 
 
 ' The division of the book entitled " Transcripts from Nature,' shows 
 not only a love of nature, but an accurate observation of her ways not 
 often met with even in her most ardent lovers, but when met with 
 always of rare value. ' — Morning Post. 
 
 ' This is worth doing and pleasant when done. Mr. Sharp's gallery 
 of these tiny vignettes is worth walking in.' — TAe Academy. 
 
 ' In his " Transcripts from Nature," Mr. Sharp is in his element. 
 We would gladly welcome a further instalment of these poems. ..." 
 Friday Review. 
 
 ' This welcome volume of verse closes with briefer and more lyrical 
 forms . . . the gem-like " Transcripts from Nature" have a musical, 
 free, yet concentrated expression of their own.' — Yorkshire Post. 
 
 'These consist of short word-pictures of natural scenery, drawn with 
 artistic feeling and with a keen appreciation of the spiritual significance 
 underlying nature's beauty.' — Literary World. 
 
 'The " Transcripts" are quaint and picturesque.' — Graphic. 
 
 ' The volume ends with a series of " Transcripts from Nature," each 
 one of them containing a picture so gracefully and sOj poetically pre- 
 sented to the mind's eye that every one might serve for an artist to 
 transfer to caxiyzs,.' —Court Journal. 
 
 ' These brief pictures are as7resh and as charming as the best Eng- 
 lish water-colours — photographic impressions of some aspect of nature 
 swiftly caught, and prisoned in words, as a fly in amber.' — Boston 
 Herald {U.S.A.). 
 
DANTE GABRIEL BOSSETTI 
 
 A RECORD AND A STUDY. 
 
 ' Every page bears marks of thought and appreciative judgment. . . . 
 Mr. Sharp writes as one having authority, and if careful and even pro- 
 found study implies authority, the author has legitimately earned his 
 right to speak.' — IVestminsier Review. 
 
 ' Not less admirable than the fulness and accuracy of the " Record " 
 of Rossetti's work is the fairness and critical acumen of the " Study."' 
 . . . He writes in a spirit distinctly critical and impersonal.' — The 
 Academy. 
 
 ' To record with any degree of completeness the work of this most 
 unwearied worker in the various departments of graphic and pictorial 
 art, of poetry, imaginative prose, criticism, and translation, was a work 
 of no ordinary difficulty; but Mr. Sharp has brought to his allotted task 
 the truest enthusiasm and a perseverance which nothing can daunt, and 
 he has produced what may be regarded as, for all practical purposes, a 
 complete account of the life-work of Rossetti in art and literature. . . . 
 The criticisms that occur throughout the volume are temperate and well- 
 weighed.' — Edinburgh Courant. 
 
 ' Having had the great privilege of the friendship of the late poet and 
 artist, the author has unusual insight as to the history of Rossetti and 
 his works. ... A critic of art and a writer of poems, he is thus 
 further to be trusted or respected in what he has to say.' — Glasgow 
 Herald. 
 
 ' Mr. Sharp has written a volume which no student of either the 
 poems or the paintings of the late Dante G. Rosetti can afford to ignore. 
 Its non-perusal would be the reader's loss.' — Birmingham Gazette. 
 
 ' A faithful and exhaustive account of one of the greatest literary and 
 artistic geniuses of the present century.' — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 'Towards the settlement of Rossetti's place in the temple of fame as a 
 worker, either with pen or pencil, Mr. Sharp's " Record and Study " is 
 an indispensable &\&' —Scotsman. 
 
 ' Mr. Sharp's book, in short, will long remain the authority on the 
 subject.' — The Graphic. 
 
■^*?'Pw^ 
 
 £^'- 
 
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