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VERSES 
 
VERSES 
 
 By W. H. MALLOCK 
 
 i 
 
 LONDON 
 
 Published by HUTCHINSON & CO. 
 
 AT 34, PATERNOSTER ROW 
 
 1893 
 
 ft 
 
 a 
 
Printed by Hattll. IVatscn. S- yimy, Ld.. Undmi and Afksluril 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TO MADAME DE * * * * . . . . . 7 
 
 HAEC OMNIA DABO TIBI . . . . I3 
 
 THE sibyl's books . .... 17 
 
 HUMAN LIFE . . . 21 
 
 TO ' VIOLET FANE ' .... 25 
 
 TO A CHILD .... 29 
 
 TO A DEAD DOG 35 
 
 TO ANOTHER DEAD DOG . . . . 39 
 
 WILL ... .... 43 
 
 MARGARET . . .... 47 
 
 A NEW FKANCESCA 5 1 
 
 LINES WRITTEN IN CALAIS TO V. C. IN THE SOUTH 
 
 OF EUROPE . 55 
 
 BOAT SONG . . 59 
 
 A PHILOSOPHIC LOVER . . 63 
 
 5 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 TO AN ENGAGED WOMAN . 
 
 THE TOWER AT BEAULIEU REVISITED 
 
 LINES 
 
 HIPPOLYTUS TO ARTEMIS 
 THE SEA NYMPHS TO PROMETHEUS . ' 
 CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS BY A MODERN THINKER 
 STROPHES (FROM ' A SONG AFTER MOONRISE ') 
 THE AUTHOR OF ' SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE ' 
 PULVERIS EXIGUI MUNUS ... 
 
 FROM VICTOR HUGO 
 
 LINES ON THE RIVIERA .... 
 
 ' THE SOULS ' . 
 
 TO IRMA . ... 
 
 CIRCUMSTANCE . . . 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 TO IRMA 
 
 TO IRMA 
 
 TO IRMA 
 
 FROM BEAUDELAIRE 
 
 TO IRMA 
 
 PAGE 
 
 • 67 
 
 73 
 77 
 81 
 
 8S 
 89 
 
 95 
 103 
 107 
 "3 
 "7 
 121 
 129 
 133 
 137 
 141 
 145 
 149 
 153 
 >S7 
 
TO MADAME DE * * * * 
 
 CrJiOM AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL) 
 
TO MADAME DE » * » * 
 
 (.FROM AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL) 
 I. 
 
 WHAT gift shall I give you ? Suppose, if you 
 please, 
 I had houses and acres and fashion and fame. 
 And a name,— Need I tell you, my friend, that of 
 these 
 I could give you not one, dear — not even my name ? 
 
 II. 
 
 But something I must give — a something with 
 qualities 
 To move you or prove you. So since, as I've said, 
 I can't give the things that the world calls realities, 
 I bring you my hopes. Will you take them 
 instead ? 
 
 9 
 
TO MADAME DE 
 
 III. 
 
 They are excellent hopes. I can speak, for I know 
 them. 
 I've nursed them and reared them through good 
 and through ill. 
 And they in return — you can't think what I owe 
 them — 
 When all things had left me, they clung to me 
 still. 
 
 IV. 
 
 As the days and the nights became lonelier and 
 colder. 
 As I slept with a sigh, or awoke with a moan, 
 They were by me, to breathe, with their cheeks on 
 my shoulder, 
 ' Take courage : you shall not be always alone ! ' 
 
 How simply they spoke ! yet they chased my de- 
 jection ; 
 For they hinted of one who should come through 
 the gloom, 
 To the hearthstone of life with the fire of affection. 
 And should turn to a chamber what else were a 
 tomb. 
 
TO MADAME DE * 
 
 VI. 
 
 How trite were their phrases ! Yet all that was 
 tragic 
 Was touched by their voice, and receded from 
 life : 
 For they sang a redemption, a passion and a magic 
 Into words such as home, and a hearth, and a 
 wife : 
 
 VII. 
 
 Till what seems to the youth like a vain iteration 
 Of copy-book platitudes bought by the quire. 
 
 Was flamed on the man like a new revelation 
 Of the glory of God in a scripture of fire. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Yes— that's what my hopes did. Despair and com- 
 plaining 
 They turned into patience ; and day after day, 
 When my darkness returned, like the clouds after 
 raining, 
 They would soothe me and cheer me, and sing it 
 
 away. 
 
 II 
 
TO MADAiyiE DE • « » • 
 
 IX. 
 
 Tell me, then — will you take them ? — my gift that 
 I'm bringing ? 
 But before you accept them, there's this to be 
 said — 
 'Tis merely that now they have done with their 
 singing. 
 They are silent. I've killed them. I bring you my 
 dead. 
 
 Nay, turn not away in disgust from their faces. 
 Look at least on them once ; and perhaps you 
 will see 
 That to you, dear, my mute ones still speak from 
 their places ; 
 And you'll hear them, and murmur, ' He killed 
 these for me.' 
 
HAEC OMNIA DABO TIBI 
 
HAEC OMNIA DABO TIBl 
 
 OH, World, whose days like sunlit waters glide, 
 Whose music links the midnight with the 
 morrow, 
 Who, for thine own, hast beauty, power, and pride ! 
 Oh, World, what art thou ? And the World replied, 
 ' A husk of pleasure round a heart of sorrow.' 
 
 Oh, child of God, thou who hast sought thy way 
 
 Where all this music sounds, this sunlight gleams, 
 'Mid prid^knd power and beauty day by day : 
 And what art thou ? I heard my own soul say, 
 ' A wandering sorrow in a world of dreams.' 
 
 15 
 
THE SIBYL'S BOOKS 
 
THE SIBYL'S BOOKS 
 
 LIFE is a Sibyl, who to Youth 
 Offers the golden books of Truth, 
 And Youth rejects them ; for, indeed, 
 The dazzling lines are hard to read. ' 
 But what cares Life for that ? She goes, 
 And in the fire a volume throws. 
 When Manhood ripens, as before 
 She offers still her dwindling store, 
 In vain : — till one day Age divines 
 What seems some meaning in the lines. 
 And starts, and stays her with the call, 
 ' Bring your books back : I'll take them all.' 
 ' Good,' cries the Sibyl, 'that's to say. 
 All that are undestroyed to-day. 
 Take them.' She spreads her bundle bare, 
 And not a single book is there. 
 ' What's this ? ' She laughs. ' Ere man has learnt 
 To read my books, the books are burnt ! ' 
 ' Life, you're a mockery ! ' ' Man,' is Life's reply, 
 ' Without my books you know me. Such am I.' 
 
 19 
 
HUMAN LIFE 
 
HUMAN LIFE 
 
 LIKE smoke I vanish, though I bum like flame ; 
 I flicker in the gusts of wrong and right, 
 A shining frailty in the guise of might. 
 Before, a nothing— and behind, a name. 
 
 23 
 
TO 'VIOLET FANE' 
 
TO 'VIOLET FANE' 
 
 (WRITTEN IN A COPY OF 'A ROMANCE OF THE 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY') 
 
 FAR in an unseen world I place my treasure, 
 And in this near world, you : 
 But will you find that your world gives you pleasure, 
 Or I, that mine is true ? 
 
 27 
 
TO A CHILD 
 
TO A CHILD 
 
 O DAINTY figure, floating hair, 
 O small face, turn and let me see ! 
 Turn, Irma, turn ! A child like you 
 Has always charm for me. 
 
 O sad as death, and soft as love, 
 
 What's this that I in you behold ? 
 All life seems gazing from the eyes — 
 The eyes of eight years old. 
 
 All life ! Why, child, what's life to you ? 
 
 Your dog, your doll — a toy, a pet — 
 These are its joys : — and, for its griefs. 
 They're things as small. And yet, 
 
 31 
 
TO A CHILD 
 
 Between your eyelids swims the look 
 
 That says, ' My faith in prayer is o'er.' 
 Your mouth seems quivering to the lost, 
 ' Kiss me that kiss once more ! ' 
 
 Is this a fancy, do you think ? 
 
 Merely an idle fancy ? Nay, 
 Your face but says before its time 
 What soon your heart will say. 
 
 That look was moulded in the past, 
 Before your father's days began ; 
 And means what life will mean for you, 
 And long has meant for man. 
 
 Those clear young eyes before they fade 
 
 Shall scan their past, and read ' In vain.' 
 Irma, I see the stainless cheek 
 Where life shall write a stain. 
 
 But ah ! I see the fire which first 
 
 Shall cast its soft disguise divine 
 O'er earth and heaven ; and envy those 
 For whom your eyes will shine. 
 
 32 
 
TO A CHILD 
 
 Whose pulses shall be stirred by yours, 
 And who, on the wet sands of youth. 
 
 Shall found that house of faiths and hopes 
 Which poets dream is truth. 
 
 O happy dream, and happy they 
 Who dream it one by one with you ! 
 
 Ah ! by your aid might I once more 
 Dream, and believe it true ; 
 
 Before once more I wake, as you 
 And I, and all, must wake to feel 
 
 Their fair dreams broken one by one 
 On Time's relentless wheel. 
 
 For love builds up, and life destroys ; 
 
 But well — ^however this may be, 
 Irma, ere love shall live for you 
 
 He will be dead for me. 
 
 33 
 
TO A DEAD DOG 
 
TO A DEAD DOG 
 
 WHERE are you now, little wandering- 
 Life, that so faithfully dwelt with us. 
 Played with us, fed with us, felt with us, 
 Years we grew fonder and fonder in ' 
 
 II. 
 
 You who but yesterday sprang to us. 
 Are we for ever bereft of you ? 
 And is this all that is left of you — 
 
 One little grave and a pang to us ? 
 
 37 
 
TO ANOTHER DEAD DOG' 
 
TO ANOTHER DEAD DOG 
 
 THOU art gone to sleep, and we — 
 May we one day sleep like thee. 
 Prinny, were this heart of mine 
 Half so true, my dog, as thine,' 
 I my weary watch should k6ep 
 For a something more than sleep. 
 
 41 
 
WILL 
 
WILL 
 
 " Oh, living will, that shalt endure." 
 
 WE Strive to will the right ; but what's our will ? 
 A die whose casts we nickname good or ill, 
 Loaded by fate — a tendency, a taint, 
 Which Fate has dealt us. This with all her skill 
 
 Does Science prove : and this is man's complaint : 
 ' Sinning, an idiot conscience stabs me still, 
 Which yet has no one blessing for restraint.' 
 
 45 
 
MARGARET 
 
O' 
 
 MARGARET 
 
 ^H, her cheek, her cheek was pale. 
 Her voice was hardly musical ; 
 But your proud grey eyes grew tender 
 
 Child, when mine they met, 
 With a piteous self-surrender, 
 Margaret. 
 
 Child, what have I done to thee ? 
 Child, what hast thou done to me ? 
 How you froze me with your tone 
 
 That last day we met ! 
 Your sad eyes then were cold as stone, 
 Margaret. 
 D 49 
 
MARGARET 
 
 Oh, it all now seems to me 
 A far-off weary mystery ! 
 
 Yet — and yet, her last sad frown 
 Awes me still, and yet — 
 
 In vain I laugh your memory down, 
 Margaret. 
 
 50 
 
A NEW FRANCESCA 
 
A NEW FRANCESCA 
 
 (MRS. S/NCL^/R'S SONG IN THE ' NEW REPUBLIC ) 
 
 * Passion-pale they met 
 And parted.' 
 
 Lord Tennyson's Guinevere. 
 
 DARLING, can you endure the liquid weather, 
 The jasmine-scented twihghts, oh my dear ? 
 Or do you still remember how together 
 We read the sad sweet Idyl ' Guinevere,' 
 Love, in one last year's twilight ? 
 Galeotto fu il libra, e chi lo scrisse> 
 
 Ah, the flowers smelt sweet, and all unheeding 
 
 Did I read to you that tender tale, 
 Oh, my love, until my voice, in reading 
 
 How those lovers greeted ' passion-pale,' 
 Trembled in the soft twilight. 
 Galeotto fu il libra, e chi lo scrisse. 
 
 Dante's Inferno, v. 137. 
 
 53 
 
A NEW FRANCESCA 
 
 Then our eyes met, and then all was over — 
 All the world receded cold and far ; 
 
 And your lips were on my lips, my lover ; 
 And above us shook a silver star. 
 
 Through depths of melting twilight. 
 
 Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse. 
 
 Darling, no July will ever find us 
 On this earth, together, more. Our fates 
 
 Were but a moment cheated. Then, behind us 
 Shrilled his voice for whom Caina' waits. 
 Shattering our one sweet twilight. 
 
 Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse. 
 
 I shall know no more of summer weather, 
 Nought will be for me of glad or fair. 
 
 Till I join my darling, and together 
 We go for ever on the accursed air, 
 There in the dawnless twiUght. 
 
 Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse. 
 
 * Dante's Inferno, v. 107. 
 
 54 
 
LINES WRITTEN AT CALAIS 
 TO V. C. IN THE SOUTH OF EUROPE 
 
LINES WRITTEN AT CALAIS TO V. C. 
 IN THE SOUTH OF EUROPE 
 
 ' Is there a wish for which you dare not pray ? 
 Then pray to God to take that wish away.' 
 
 YESTERDAY a cloudless sky was glowing, 
 All the flowers were floj|jering yesterday ; 
 And to-day a bitter east is blowing, 
 
 Flowerless all the flowers, theXkies are grey. 
 Yesterday there breathed a life beside me — 
 
 Now the lips and eyes are far away. 
 Deep in memories of the past I hide me, 
 And I pray for her, whate'er betide me, 
 Every wish for which I dare to pray. 
 
 57 
 
BOAT SONG 
 
BOAT SONG 
 
 HOLLOW and vast, starred skies are o'er us. 
 Bare to their blue profoundest height. 
 Waves and moonlight melt before us 
 Into the heart of the lonely night. 
 
 Row, young oarsman, far out yonder. 
 Over the moonlight's breathing breast. 
 
 Rest not — give us no pause to ponder ; 
 All things we can endure but rest. 
 
 Row, young oarsman ; row, young oarsman ; 
 
 Into the crypt of the night we float. 
 Fair, faint moon-flames wash and wander — 
 
 Wash and wander about our boat. 
 
 6i 
 
BOAT SONG 
 
 See how shadow and silver mingle 
 Here on the wonderful wide bare sea ; 
 
 And shall we sigh for the blinking ingle ? 
 Sigh for the old known chamber — ^we ? 
 
 Not a fetter is here to bind us, 
 Love and memory loose their spell. 
 
 Friends of the home we have left behind us, 
 Prisoners of content, farewell ! 
 
 Do we sigh for the old smiles tender — 
 The homely love, and the pure repose ? 
 
 Sighing bosoms, would ye surrender 
 Sighs like ours for smiles like those ? 
 
 Row, young oarsman, far out yonder. 
 Over the moonlight's breathing breast. 
 
 Rest not — give us no pause to ponder. 
 All things we can endure but rest ! 
 
 Row, young oarsman ; row, young oarsman ; 
 
 See how the diamonds drip from the oar. 
 What of the shore and friends ? young oarsman, 
 Never row us again to shore ! 
 62 
 
A PHILOSOPHIC LOVER 
 
A PHILOSOPHIC LOVER 
 
 {TO THE WIFE OF AN OLD SCHOOLFELLOW) 
 
 LET others seek for wisdom's way 
 In modem science, modem wit, — 
 I turn to love, for all that these, 
 These two can teach, is taught by it. 
 
 Yes, all. In that first hour we met 
 And smiled and spoke so soft and long, love, 
 
 Did wisdom dawn ; and I began 
 To disbelieve in right and wrong, love. 
 
 Then, as love's gospel clearer grew. 
 And I each day your doorstep trod, love, 
 
 I learned that love was all in all, 
 And rose to disbelieve in God, love. 
 
 E 65 
 
A PHILOSOPHIC LOVER 
 
 Yes, wisdom's book ! you taught me this, 
 And ere I half had read you through, love, 
 
 I learned a deeper wisdom yet — 
 I learned to disbelieve in you, love. 
 
 So now, fair teacher, I am wise, 
 
 And^firee : 'tis truth that makes us free, love. 
 But you — ^you're pale ! grow wise as I, 
 
 And learn to disbelieve in me, love. 
 
 66 
 
TO AN ENGAGED WOMAN 
 
TO AN ENGAGED WOMAN 
 
 WHICH is the better, which the kinder part — 
 To leave you quite, to cast you quite aside, 
 And in one cold farewell to hide with art 
 
 The pain and passion nature will not hide ; 
 Or still to hold and fold you to my heart, 
 
 And in a vain drearh dream you still my bride, 
 Nor ever call one loving word the last, 
 Until the past become indeed the past ? 
 
 This is the question which, this whole blank day, 
 
 I ask my heart, as I sit here alone. 
 Watching the dull waves break in Beaulieu bay ; 
 
 And answer from my heart receive I none. 
 What makes it mute ? you ask. I will not play 
 
 With hackneyed phrases. Oh, my own, my own, 
 There is no need to say my heart is breaking ; 
 Pain makes it mute, although 'tis only aching. 
 
 69 
 
TO AN ENGAGED WOMAN 
 
 Pain in my heart, and silence in my ears, 
 
 Gloom in my eyes — my eyes and ears that miss 
 
 Your eyes and voice, and vague regrets and fears 
 Clouding my thoughts — my life is come to this : 
 
 With one keen sense through all, that all my years 
 Have closed their meaning in your hopeless kiss. 
 
 Ah ! "once again, before the moment slips. 
 
 Love, let me leave my life upon your lips. 
 
 What ! do you chide me for that desperate cry. 
 And say I tempt you ? Yes, I feel you do. 
 
 Listen to me, then ; I have this reply : 
 Let Love, my loved one, judge 'twixt me and you. 
 
 Inquire of Love, who still stands lingering by, 
 And gives us still his licence to be true. 
 
 And will not wholly leave us, till betwixt 
 
 My life and yours there is the great gulf fixed. 
 
 Ask Him, for He has made you one with me; 
 
 You are with me, and around me everywhere. 
 I feel you in the mountains and the sea, 
 
 And when I breathe you feed me in the air. 
 And oh, my soul's true soul, the thought of thee 
 
 Moves me to pray, and mixes with ray prayer. 
 Ask Him, for still — He still can point to-day 
 Towards Heaven, and say, ' In me behold the way. 
 
 70 
 
TO AN ENGAGED WOMAN 
 
 Ask Him to-day. He will have said * Farewell/ 
 Farewell to you, farewell to me — to-morrow : 
 
 And where He dwelt another Love will dwell, 
 With haggard, pitying eyes, and lips that borrow 
 
 Their hopeless sentence from the gates of Hell, 
 ' Through me the way is to the eternal sorrow ' ; 
 
 And lure and warn us in the same low breath — 
 
 ' Take life from me, but know my life is death.' 
 
 71 
 
THE TOWER AT BEAULIEU 
 REVISITED 
 
THE TOWER AT BEAULIEU 
 REVISITED 
 
 ONE true hour of love lies there, 
 Dead in the clear unburying air 
 Hear distracted Memory call, 
 ' Who shall give it burial ? ' 
 Memory ! thou of little wit, 
 There be three shall bury it. 
 Let the World, false, vain, and loud, 
 Be the grave-clothes and the shroud ; 
 Let the Devil's Scorn of Good 
 Be the heavy coffin-wood ; 
 And let false love be the clay 
 That hides all from the light of day. 
 
 75 
 
LINES 
 
LINES 
 
 HOMELESS man goes, even on life's sunniest 
 slope, 
 And yet between two homes he takes his way — 
 Between to-morrow — that's the home of Hope — 
 And Happiness, whose home is yesterday. 
 
 Yet, man, complain not. Thank your fates instead. 
 And call them good, before they bring you worse — 
 
 The days when Hope shall in her home lie dead. 
 And Happiness forgotten fade in hers. 
 
 79 
 
HIPPOLYTUS TO ARTEMIS 
 
HIPPOLYTUS TO ARTEMIS 
 
 (AFTER EURIPIDES) 
 
 MINE own, my one desire, 
 Virgin most fair 
 Of all the virgin choir ! 
 Hail, O most pure, most perfect, loveliest one ! 
 
 Lo, in my hand I bear, 
 Woven for the circling of thy long gold hair. 
 Culled leaves and flowers, from places which the sun 
 
 The spring long shines upon, 
 Where never shepherd hath driven flock to graze, 
 
 Nor any grass is mown ; 
 But there sound through all the sunny sweet warm 
 days. 
 Mid the green holy place. 
 The wild bee's wings alone. 
 Yea, and with jealous care 
 The maiden Reverence tends the fair things there, 
 And watereth all of them with sprinkling showers 
 Of pearled grey dew from a clear running river. 
 
 83 
 
HIPPOLYTUS TO ARTEMIS 
 
 Whoso is chaste of spirit utterly, 
 
 May gather there the leaves and fruits and flowers- 
 
 The unchaste, never. 
 But thou, O goddess, and dearest love of mine — 
 
 Take, and about thine hair 
 
 This anadem entwine — 
 
 Take, and for my sake wear. 
 Who am more to thee than other mortals are. 
 
 Whose is the holy lot 
 As friend with friend to walk and talk with thee, 
 Hearing thy sweet mouth's music in mine ear. 
 
 But thee beholding not. 
 
 84 
 
THE SEA NYMPHS TO 
 PROMETHEUS 
 
THE SEA NYMPHS TO 
 PROMETHEUS 
 
 (.AFTER AESCHYLUS) 
 
 SUFFERER, fear not, love hath sent us, 
 Yearning with compassion we ! 
 We have stilled our fathers' tongue, fain to prevent us, 
 We have left our clear homes in the deep blue sea. 
 We have travelled far 
 In our winged car, 
 For thee, for thee ! 
 
 For through our still, wave-dripping grottoes rang 
 
 A hideous brazen clang, 
 Breaking our noonday dreamings in our peaceful sea. 
 
 With unsandalled feet 
 
 Breathless and fleet 
 To our winged car we sprang. 
 
 For thee, for thee. 
 
 87 
 
CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS,^ BY A 
 MODERN THINKER 
 
CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS, BY A 
 MODERN THINKER 
 
 (.AFTER MR. MATTHEW ARNOLD) 
 
 THE windows of the church are bright ; 
 'Tis Christmas Eve ; a low wind breathes ; 
 And girls with happy eyes to-night 
 Are hanging up the Christmas wreaths ; 
 
 And village voices by-and-by 
 
 Will reach my windows through the trees, 
 With wild, sweet music : ' Praise on high 
 
 To God : on earth, good-will and peace.' 
 
 Oh, happy girls, that hang the wreaths 
 
 Oh, village fiddlers, happy ye ! 
 Christmas to you still truly breathes 
 
 Good-will and peace'; but not to me. 
 
 91 
 
CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS 
 
 Yes, gladness is your simple r61e, 
 Ye foolish girls, ye labouring poor ; 
 
 But joy would ill beseem my soul — 
 To sigh, my part is, and endure. 
 
 For once as Rousseau stood, I stand 
 Apart, made picturesque by grief — 
 
 One of a small world-weary band, 
 The orphans of a dead belief. 
 
 Through graveyards lone we love to stray. 
 And sadly the sad tombs explore, 
 
 And contradict the texts which say 
 That we shall rise once more. 
 
 Our faith is dead, of course ; and grief 
 Fills its room up ; and Christmas pie 
 
 And turkey cannot bring relief 
 To such as Obermann and I. 
 
 Ah, Obermann, and might I pass 
 This English Christmas-tide with thee. 
 
 Far by those inland waves whose glass 
 Brightens and breaks by Meillerie ; 
 
 92 
 
BY A MODERN THINKER 
 
 Or else amongst the sternest dells 
 Alp shags with pine, we'd mix our sighs, 
 
 Mourn at the sound of Christmas bells. 
 Sniff at the smell of Christmas pies. 
 
 But thou art dead ; and long, dank grass 
 And wet mould cool thy tired, hot brain ; 
 
 Thou art lain down, and now, alas ! 
 Of course you won't get up again. 
 
 Yet, Obermann, 'tis better so ; 
 
 For if, sad slumberer, after all 
 You were to re-arise, you know 
 
 'Twould make us feel so very small. 
 
 Best bear our grief this manlier way. 
 And make our grief be balm to grief ; 
 
 For if in faith sweet comfort lay. 
 There lurks sweet pride in unbelief. 
 
 Wherefore, remembering this, once more 
 Unto my childhood's church I'll go, 
 
 And bow my head at that low door 
 I passed through standing, long ago. 
 
 93 
 
CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS 
 
 I'll sit in the accustomed place, 
 
 And make, while all the unlearned stare, 
 A mournful, atheistic face 
 
 At their vain noise of unheard prayer. 
 
 Then, while they hymn the heavenly birth 
 And angel voices from the skies, 
 
 My thoughts shall go where Weimar's earth 
 For ever darkens Goethe's eyes ; 
 
 Till sweet girls' glances from their books 
 Shall steal towards me, and they sigh : 
 
 ' How intellectual he looks. 
 And yet how wistful ! And his eye 
 
 Has that vain look of baflSed prayer ! ' 
 And then when church is o'er I'll run. 
 
 Comb misery into all my hair. 
 And go and get my portrait done. 
 
 94 
 
STROPHES 
 
 {.FROM 'A SONG AFTER MOONRISE') 
 
STROPHES 
 
 {FROM -A SONG AFTER MOONRISE') 
 
 Strophe I. 
 
 I 
 
 BOWED my laurel'd head 
 Above my lyre, and said : 
 ' What new song shall I sing across the strings ? 
 
 Madden'd for whose new sake 
 
 What new noise shall I make ? ' 
 And I answered : ' Lo, I will sing of no new things ; 
 
 I will turn to her once more 
 
 I have sung so oft before — 
 Freedom — and worship her, and curse some kings. 
 
 Set on her motherly knee. 
 
 Her nursing arms round me, 
 I will cling about her neck as a child clings, 
 
 Re-wounding with my kiss 
 
 Each scarce-healed cicatrice, 
 Doing to her divers and disgusting things ; 
 
 Whilst in her ears my chaunt, 
 
 Re-risen and reboant. 
 Sounds as one sounds who, being senseless, sings. 
 G 97 
 
STROPHES FROM 
 
 Strophe II. 
 
 Oh, one cant name of many names I have chosen — 
 
 Freedom — lo, once again I call to thee ; 
 By the cold earth's iron-bound ends and oceans 
 frozen, 
 
 By the rivers that run billowing to the sea, 
 By the lisp and laughter of Spring in leafy places, 
 
 By the storms that follow and the calms that flee, 
 By the pale light flung in men's funereal faces 
 
 From holocausts of kings, we bum to thee ; 
 By the seas that link us and the lands that sever, 
 
 By the foes upon our weather-side and lee — 
 By all these things and all other things whatever. 
 
 We call and howl and squeak and shriek to thee, 
 Calling thee early and late, 
 Wild, inarticulate. 
 Calling and bawling that thou set something free. 
 
 98 
 
'A SONG AFTER MOONRISE^ 
 
 Strophe III. 
 
 But where is the something — a land 
 In the east, or the uttermost west — 
 A land with a grievance, a curse ? 
 I heed not her name or her place, 
 So shame on her brow be a brand, 
 So she have but a white scourged breast. 
 And a name that will scan in verse ; 
 And I ask for the royal race, 
 For the land opprest. 
 
 But where shall I find her — wftere ? 
 I mean the land with a wrong 
 Not already outworn 
 By those that have sung for her sake. 
 For Byron and bards that were, 
 Were singing of Freedom long 
 Before I was thought of or born, 
 And they plucked all the plums from the 
 cake. 
 From the cake of song. 
 
 99 
 
STROPHES FROM 
 
 Strophe IV. 
 
 Ah, but would that I 
 
 Had been the first of these ! 
 I would have drained them dry, 
 These themes of war and peace, 
 Nor have left one song to sing of Italy, 
 
 Nor a poet's picking on the bones of Greece. 
 
 Then with flowers an^ fire. 
 
 And bitter foam and wine, 
 And fangs and fierce desire, 
 And things I call divine, 
 I would nauseate so the world that no man's lyre 
 Should again be struck to a note I had once made 
 mine. 
 
 100 
 
'A SONG AFTER MOONRISE' 
 
 Epode 
 
 I HUNG my laurel'd head 
 Down on my lyre, and said : 
 ' What answer does my sovereign, Freedom, make ? ' 
 And in the air I heard 
 Not even a whispered word 
 From her for whom my very lungs do ache, 
 
 And, as an addled egg is, is my brain : 
 Wherefore for her most royal and holy sake^ 
 
 I think I will behowl her once again. 
 Hear me, O goddess ! for it indeed is I 
 
 That call thee, at thy knees. 
 And don't be frightened, please, 
 At the many things I shall adjure thee by. 
 Come to us, bright in clear re-arisen ascendency. 
 
 Loosen o'er us all thine orient oriflamme ! 
 By the power Mat Arnold calls ' a stream of tendency,' 
 
 By the Christianity we have proved a sham. 
 By the lowering name that darkened Hebrew story 
 
 We have turned to Thou art not, that was once I Am; 
 We thy singers, we thy sons that work Thee glory 
 
 With the unburnt offerings of our worthless verses 
 Heaped on thy shrine, adjure thee and adore thee : 
 I, the clamouring herd's choregus, I implore thee 
 
 lOI 
 
FROM 'A SONG AFTER MOONRISE' 
 
 By all the things that we bemire with curses — 
 That is, by all the holy things that are, 
 
 Rise and make manifest upon us thy mercies. 
 Rise o'er us all a large and lovely star. 
 For the night is now far spent ; the air gives warning 
 With a dewy stir and chillness of the morning, 
 And the wan dark whitens on the eastern hill. 
 Bumthroughtheeast.growlarge, and lighten, until 
 In the saffron of the sunrise we discern thee 
 
 Shining and trembling like a tear of gladness. 
 Draw near to us, we will love thee, we will learn thee — 
 Learn thee to the heart, and love thee even to 
 madness — 
 If thou wilt only hear us in our crying. 
 
 Across the night. 
 Conjuring thee by this our rhythmic sighing — 
 
 Our songs which might 
 Have many senses, but which have not one sense 
 
 A man may see ; 
 By the sounding and the fluent foam of nonsense 
 
 We shower on thee ; 
 By the shallow and the babbling things, our mothers, 
 
 From whom we spring ; 
 By the barking and the braying things, our brothers, 
 
 Like whom we sing ; 
 By all the fatuous things, our near relations. 
 
 That chaunt and cheer us ; 
 By the people, and the people's demonstrations, 
 - Oh, Freedom, hear us ! 
 
 102 
 
THE AUTHOR OF 'SONGS BEFORE 
 
 SUNRISE ' 
 
THE AUTHOR OF 'SONGS BEFORE 
 
 SUNRISE ' 
 
 OH, master of music and thunder, 
 And measures that sway like the sea, 
 Could only my reason take wing 
 And follow my heart as you sing, 
 Singer in winter of spring. 
 To the fiiture, and welcome the wonder 
 Awaiting a world of the free ; — 
 
 Then would my lips which are cold 
 Be on fire as your lips are, and I, 
 Adding my song to your own, 
 As a rill to an ocean of tone, 
 As an echo you strike from a stone. 
 On the rulers who rule as of old, 
 I would turn, and upbraid them, and cry — 
 
 105 
 
THE AUTHOR OF SONGS 
 
 ' What ! are ye deaf to our warning — 
 Drowned in your dreams ? But we, 
 Faithful and few on the height, 
 We have watched long, long, for the light ; 
 And discern we at last through the night 
 That the long low lights of the morning 
 Are already awake on the sea.' 
 
 Then were my soul as a note 
 Longing to startle the dark — 
 Then were it fain from the frore 
 Earth, as the lark does, to soar 
 To the watch-towers of morning, and pour 
 As you do, o'er earth through the throat 
 Of a bugle the songs of a lark ! 
 
 ro6 
 
PULVERIS EXIGUI MUNUS 
 
PULVERIS EXIGUI MUNUS 
 
 (/iV THE MANNER OF MR. MATTHEW ARNOLD) 
 
 SOFTLY the evening- descends, 
 Violet and soft. The sea 
 Adds to the silence, below 
 Pleasant and cool on the beach 
 Breaking ; yes, and a breeze 
 Calm as the twilight itself 
 Furtively sighs through the dusk, 
 Listlessly lifting- my hair, 
 Fanning my thought-wearied brow. 
 
 Thus I stand in the gloom 
 Watching the moonrtrack begin 
 Quivering to die like a dream 
 Over the far sea-line 
 To the unknown region beyond. 
 
 109 
 
PULVERIS EXIGUI MUNUS 
 
 ' So for ages hath man 
 Gazed on the ocean of time 
 From the shores of his birth, and, turning 
 His eyes from the quays, the thronged 
 Marts, the noise and the din 
 To the far horizon, hath dreamed 
 Of a timeless country beyond. 
 
 Vainly : for how should he pass. 
 Being on foot, o'er the wet 
 Ways of the unplumbed waves ? 
 How, without ship, should he pass 
 Over the shipless sea 
 To the timeless country beyond ? 
 
 ■ Ah, but once — once long ago. 
 Came there a ship white-sailed 
 From the country beyond, with bright 
 Oarsmen, and men that sang ; 
 Came to humanity's coasts. 
 Called to the men on the shore, 
 Joyously touched at the port. 
 
 Then did time-weary man 
 Climb the bulwarks, the deck 
 Eagerly crowding. Anon 
 With jubilant voices raised, 
 And singing, " When Israel came 
 Out of Egypt," and whatso else 
 
PULVERIS EXIGUI MUNUS 
 
 In the Psalm is ■written, they passed 
 
 Out of the ken of the land, 
 
 Over the far sea-line, 
 
 To the unknown region beyond. 
 
 ' Where are they now, then — they 
 That were borne out of gight by the ship- 
 Our brothers, of times gone by ? 
 Why have they left us here 
 Solemn, dejected, alone. 
 Gathered in groups on the shore ? 
 Why ? For we, too, have gazed 
 O'er the waste of waters, and watched 
 For a sail as keenly as they. 
 Ah, wretched men that we are ! 
 On our haggard faces and brows 
 Aching, a wild breeze fawns 
 Full of the scents of the sea. 
 Redolent of regions beyond. 
 Why, then, tarries the ship ? 
 When will her white sail rise 
 Like a star on the sea-line ? When ? 
 
 ' When ? — And the answer comes 
 From the sailless face of the sea, 
 " Ah, vain watchers, what boots 
 The calm of the evening ? 
 
PULVERIS EXIGUI MUNUS 
 
 Have ye not watched through the day 
 Turbulent waves, the expanse 
 Endless, shaken with storm. 
 And ask ye where is the ship ? 
 Deeper than plummet can dive 
 She is bedded deep in the ooze. 
 And over her tall mast floats 
 The purple plain of the calm." 
 
 ' Yes — and never a ship, 
 Since this is sunken, will come 
 Ever again o'er the waves — 
 Nay, not even the craft with the fierce 
 Steersman, him of the marsh. 
 Livid, with wheels of flame 
 Circling his eyes, to smite 
 The lingering soul with his oar. 
 
 Not that even ; but we 
 Drop where we stand one by one 
 On the shingles and sands of time, 
 And cover in taciturn gloom, 
 With only perhaps some tear. 
 Each for his brother the hushed 
 Heart and the limitless dreams 
 With a little gift of sand.' 
 
FROM VICTOR HUGO 
 
 H 
 
FROM VICTOR HUGO 
 
 THE Tomb said to the Rose, 
 ' Those tears the mornings weep 
 Into thy petals deep, 
 What does love's flower with those ? ' 
 
 The Rose said to the Tomb, 
 
 ' And thou, what dost thou — say — 
 With that which day by day 
 
 Drops in thy gulfs of gloom ? ' 
 
 The Rose said, ' I do this : 
 
 Out of each tear I make 
 
 A soul of perfume wake — 
 Honey and ambergris.' 
 
 ' Poor flower,' the Tomb said, ' I, 
 Out of each clod that slips 
 Mute through my earthen lips. 
 
 Make a winged soul on high.' 
 
 "5 
 
LINES ON 'THE RIVIERA 
 
LINES ON THE RIVIERA 
 
 ^WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM) 
 
 AH ! what ailed you to bid rhyme for you me — me 
 who have done with rhyme ? 
 Would you ask of a tree figs, when you know well it 
 
 is past the time ? 
 See the lute that I breathed love to ; it hangs now on 
 
 a broken string : 
 One song only of all songs have I now courage or 
 
 heart to sing. 
 Oh, my luminous land, glowing with blue under and 
 
 blue above. 
 Land whose violets breathe sweeter than all mouths 
 
 that have murmured love ! 
 Oh, my land of the palm, olive and aloe, land of the 
 
 sun, the sea. 
 Still my heart is a child's, turning in long longing to 
 
 thee, to thee ! 
 
 119 
 
'THE SOULS' 
 
 (TO MISS M T IN ANSWER TO A QUESTION) 
 
'THE SOULS' 
 
 (.TO MISS M T IN ANSWER TO A QUESTION) 
 
 {March zgtkf i8go) 
 
 YOU asked me, Miss M , one day last 
 November, 
 If a certain production was due to my pen — 
 A Paper on ' Souls.' I replied, you remember. 
 That I'd not even seen it, — I've done so since then. 
 
 Well — you said it was good: an^ — ah me! — when 
 you said it. 
 How I wished I could claim what had pleased you, 
 as mine ! 
 But now, to be candid, I own, since I've read it. 
 That the treatment seems poor, for a subject so fine. 
 
 123 
 
'THE SOULS' 
 
 All the same, if 'tis really a thing you see wit in, 
 There's nothing so low, or so light, or so high. 
 
 That I could not have sunk or have soared to have 
 written, 
 Could it only have won me a glance from your eye. 
 
 But vain are such wishes. A glance from Miss M , 
 
 What language of mine could command or control ? 
 
 I never could master the psychical argot 
 That a soul, as I gather, expects from a soul. 
 
 For the souls are like flowers, that look out from the 
 border 
 
 Of Eden, on us the poor children of Eve ; 
 Oh, marvellous flowers, we are not of your order, 
 
 'Tis an order we cannot so much as conceive. 
 
 You were born of some pollen that sinks and that 
 settles 
 From heaven ! But we from the red earth are 
 grown, 
 And the dust and the flesh are a worm in our petals. 
 That cankers the blossoms before they are blown. 
 124 
 
'THE SOULS' 
 
 Whilst you ! — Why, it seems that the dew remains 
 fresh on 
 
 Your bright lives for ever. Some mystical means 
 Enables you still to retain the possession 
 
 Of all that our twenties have left with our teens. 
 
 Your names in themselves — I run over a few of them — 
 Proclaim what you are, and confirm what I say. 
 
 I allude to your Ladies. I know one or two of them. 
 And I know two are ' constant,' I think. one is 'gay.' 
 
 We are neither. We shift, or fate shifts our devotion, 
 From this love to that love : and still as we roam. 
 
 We find that our hearts, at each fresh locomotion. 
 Are heavier and sorer anji farther from home. 
 
 You discuss Aristotle and Mill : on the issue 
 Qf creeds and of systems your brains are employed : 
 
 But for u^, they are merely the rags of a tissue 
 Once woven to shelter man's eyes from the void. 
 
 125 
 
'THE SOULS' 
 
 You keep talking of faith, of devotion, and purity, 
 Things deep and things high are your favourite 
 themes. 
 We have dreamed of them too ; hut our songs, in 
 maturity, 
 Have sunk to one burden, ' Good-bye to our dreams.' 
 
 For you. Life's a garden, whose vista discloses 
 The Heavens at the end ; but it looms op our sight 
 
 Like a thicket of briars with a few withered roses, 
 And beyond is the night, is the night, is the night. 
 
 Oh, sons, and oh, daughters of art and of culture. 
 Forget for a moment your play and your parts, 
 
 And take pity upon us, for whom time is a vulture 
 Which leaves us our livers and feeds on our hearts. 
 
 What I say is in earnest. I urge you to think of it. 
 
 Miss M , I'm specially speaking to you ; 
 
 For your set is perfection, and you are the pink of it. 
 
 Bethink you, for us is there nought you can do ? 
 
 126 
 
THE SOULS' 
 
 You might surely explain by what mental appliance 
 
 You are able tcrfix the illusions of youth. 
 You might save us from memory, and save us from 
 Science, 
 Which is leading us down to the death which is 
 truth. 
 
 I say ' us.' You'll remark that in these my petitions 
 I've invariably spoken of ' us ' and of ' we ' ; 
 
 But, well — ^like all patriots and most politicians, 
 When I speak about 'us,' I am thinking of ' me.' 
 
 Just a word in your ear. I am sure I should suit you 
 all. 
 
 Suppose you admit me as one of your band. 
 I'll admire you — the feeling of course must be mutual : 
 
 I'll discuss with you all things I least understand. 
 
 I'll take interest in life with a faith that ne'er frets 
 itself, 
 And I'll bravely forget, as I warm to the task, 
 That such interest is merely despair that forgets itself. 
 And that laughter is merely a sigh with a mask. 
 
 127 
 
'THE SOULS' 
 
 And such verbs as 'admire' and 'rise higher' and 
 ' aspire ' 
 
 I will conjugate daily in all moods and tenses ; 
 And I'll prove on the whole that I must be a soul, 
 
 For I'll show you I've quite taken leave of my senses. 
 
 128 
 
TO IRMA 
 
TO IRMA 
 
 THE world was bright with many a prize 
 Of power and pride for me. 
 I looked at thee with dreaming eyes, 
 And left the world for thee. 
 
 With waking eyes — with eyes bereft 
 Of dreams I see thee now. 
 
 The paltriest prize I loved and left 
 Was not so vain as 4hou. 
 
 I'll seek again for power and pride : 
 
 Ah no ! — Too late I see 
 That all things else are dross beside 
 
 My broken dream of thee. 
 
 131 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 DOES there seem anger in my voice or glance 
 Ever ? Or worse — mistrust ? If this should be. 
 Forgive me, for the dust of circumstance 
 Blows in my eyes, and makes them not to see. 
 
 I only see you who each day are dearer — 
 I see the breast on which I long to lean, 
 
 So near, yet every star in heaven is nearer, 
 And all the winds of twilight sweep between. 
 
 135 
 
AUTUMN 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 I WRONGED you when I dared to say 
 You were unkind, untrue. 
 I see you love me, as to-day 
 I see the skies are blue. 
 
 Oh, love, look up ! Our skies in spring 
 Were not more bright, more clear. 
 
 And they and you seem whispering 
 The same things in my ear. 
 
 Let me consider what they say ! 
 
 The airs that fan my cheek 
 Are full of words. Or is it they. 
 
 Or is it you, that speal^ ? 
 
 139 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 ' ' Trust us, " they say. "You feel our touch ; 
 
 It still is soft and fair. 
 Trust us ; but trust us not too much, 
 
 We are not what we were. 
 
 " The sun is high, and clear the sky ; 
 
 The beds are starred with flowers, 
 But slow and stiU a secret chill 
 
 Is creeping through the hours. 
 
 " How warm the gleam of yonder stream ' 
 
 But every morning spies 
 In shadows dim along the brim 
 
 A furtive fringe of ice. 
 
 " Oh fool, beware — Your heart lies bare. 
 
 Be warned in time, and fold 
 Your cloak across your breast or e'er 
 
 Your veins are numbed with cold.' 
 
 140 
 
TO IRMA 
 
TO IRMA 
 
 WHAT shall I write that may hint of my love for 
 you ? 
 My pen trembles idly, and doubts as it dips. 
 Teach me some name that is tender enough for you ; 
 Or else hold me silent, my love, with your lips. 
 
 143 
 
TO IRMA 
 
TO IRMA 
 
 I HAVE known — but not known it with you — the 
 dejection 
 That follows when passion has wounded affection. 
 I have known, but know only with you, dear, how 
 
 single 
 Is the joy that turns pain into peace, when they 
 mingle. 
 
 147 
 
TO IRMA 
 
TO IRMA 
 
 YOUR eyes and mine are turned towards the light. 
 How can our footsteps tend towards the night ? 
 They do not,' cannot : — though above our road 
 Sorrow and cloud are gathering like a load. 
 For learn this secret : — 'Tis to be allowed 
 To make a silver lining to our cloud : 
 And we will turn the dark to daylight by 
 That one clear lamp, our own fidelity. 
 You will be faithful — will you ? This I know : 
 I shall not leave you till you make me go. 
 
 / 
 
 151 
 
FROM BEAUDELAIRE 
 
FROM BEAUDELAIRE 
 
 THE breeze-stirred hour draws on, when as its 
 slim stalk swings, 
 Each flower sends up its soul like censer swung at 
 
 prayer. 
 The wandering sounds and scents wheel through 
 the evening air, 
 A languorous dance that forms and floats on way- 
 ward wings. 
 Each flower sends up its soul like censer swung at 
 prayer, 
 Wails like a heart in pain the lute through all its 
 
 strings. 
 Moves to its sound the dance that wheels on lan- 
 guorous wings ; 
 Like some great lighted shrine the heavens are sad 
 and fair. 
 
FROM BEAUDELAIRE 
 
 Wails like a heart in pain the lute through all its 
 strings, 
 A heart that hates the void circling it everywhere. 
 Like some great lighted shrine the heavens are 
 sad and fair, 
 The sun sinks dim with blood staining his wounded 
 
 wings. 
 A heart that hates the void circling it everywhere, 
 Culls from the past a store of loved and shining 
 
 things. 
 The sun sinks dim with blood staining his 
 wounded wings, 
 In me your memory shines — a monstrance raised at 
 prayer. 
 
 156 
 
TO IRMA 
 
TO IRMA 
 
 SEE in the west the day fails ! 
 Low on the sands the waves sound. 
 Slow on the down the lean sails 
 Of the mill drift round. 
 
 See in the west is one star ! 
 
 See, a day we have found fair 
 Is leaving the things that still are 
 
 For the things that once were. 
 
 Hold me fast by your true hand — 
 Turn away from the changed sea ! 
 
 Our day forsakes the forlorn land, 
 Never forsake me. 
 
 159 
 
PR4972.M5vT""'™™"^'-"'"'^ 
 Verses.