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UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
" The highest condition of art is when it interrogates the thought of the epoch 
 
 in the nation and in humanity The thought of the epoch in humanity — 
 
 whatever appearances may say to the contrary — is a religious transformation." 
 — Mazziwi, Preface to Critical and Literary Works. 
 
 " In a soft-complexioned sky. 
 
 Fleeting rose and kindling grey. 
 Have you seen Aurora fly, 
 At the break of day ? "— Rossetti. 
 
UNDER THE DAWN 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE BARLOW, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " POEMS AND SONNETS," ANn "a LIFe's LOVE.' 
 
 Eontron : 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1875. 
 
DEDICA TION. 
 
 I LEAVE the starry night behind, 
 And stand upon the gleaming hills 
 Of sunrise, and the future thrills 
 
 My spirit, — which was dead and blind 
 With frost and apathy that kills, 
 
 And hopelessness ; I mark mankind 
 
 Proceeding towards a kinglier mind. 
 
 As one before me sang of stars, 
 And twilight, and the early day. 
 
 And hope the bigots' sword-hilt mars, 
 So would I, further on Time's way, 
 Emerging from the tender grey 
 
 Of early morning, and the scars 
 
 Of early battle, mark the bars 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 Of happy crimson in the East — 
 
 Religions of the world do wane 
 
 Like lights upon a window-pane 
 When the rich sacramental feast 
 
 Is over, and the priestly train 
 Has vanished ; when their songs have ceased, 
 And sober daylight has increased. 
 
 Religions of the world do wane — 
 But yet the hope of man is high, 
 And underneath the crimson sky 
 
 Of morning, he awakes a strain 
 The sweeter in that dawn is nigh, 
 
 Bringing the close of many a pain, 
 
 And many a golden joy to gain. 
 
 As summer slides from flower to flower. 
 From gracious lily unto rose, 
 
 From violet unto fervent bower 
 Of honeysuckle at the close 
 Of summer, when the winds repose, 
 
 And all is silent for an hour, 
 
 ,Till autumn wakes with breezy power ; — 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 As summer slips from bloom to bloom, 
 And spring from sweet bird's song to song, 
 
 And winter's ice-encircled tomb 
 Is but the circlet of a throng 
 Of voices that shall shout ere long, 
 
 And blossoms that shall burst the gloom, 
 
 Eager spring's brilliance to resume ; — 
 
 So man's hope changes ; but the same 
 Rich life in other forms doth blow, 
 As many buds do rend the snow 
 
 With various shafts of coloured flame, 
 But each some flowery hope doth show, 
 
 And some resplen,dent, scented aim — 
 
 III such a guise religion came 
 
 Upon the earth ; the rose of Greece 
 Is over, and the lily pure 
 Of Christendom shall not endure, 
 
 But this too hath a time to cease — 
 A fragrant burial to secure, 
 
 A rapt and exquisite release, 
 
 The ages' sempiternal peace ! 
 
DEDICA TION. 
 
 The peace of past religions waits 
 
 For Christianity as well, 
 Behold, a new flower at the gates, 
 
 A fresh truth to proclaim and tell ; 
 
 Behold, with tears the red rose fell 
 That bloomed above the Grecian States ; 
 The lily falls : thro' loves and hates, 
 
 And troubles outward and within. 
 We pass to meet the future — we, 
 
 On whom the shadow dark has been 
 Of faiths we had not strength to flee : 
 Our white rose, of a certainty, 
 
 To those fallen blossoms next of kin. 
 
 The future for her own shall win. 
 
 The intense spirit of Greece is ours, 
 And all the Hebrew, pure desire ; 
 Our s o»o i wi t h Hebrew holy fire. 
 
 Our maids with fragrant passion-flowers. 
 We crown — our poets bear a lyre 
 
 That sings a song of various hours ; 
 
 Their hands are sweet from varied bowers. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 The intense heart of Greece unites, 
 In this the morning of the world, 
 With aspirations first unfurled 
 
 On austere Sinaitic heights 
 When awful wreaths of mist were whirled 
 
 About the brow of Moses : flights 
 
 Of fancy, raptures, pains, delights, 
 
 Of all the ages, sweep their stores 
 Into the future's ample arms, 
 
 Strange shells from Asiatic shores, 
 Greek sculpture, Scandinavian charms, 
 All, all, we gather ; nought alarms 
 
 Our eager venture ; at our doors 
 
 The past her various treasure pours. 
 
 And these songs of the morning I 
 Would dedicate, my sweet, to thee. 
 
 Though thou didst, like a woman, fly 
 The future's cold austerity, 
 Eager to test the crowns that be 
 
 Behind, desiring to ally 
 
 Thy spirit to the starlit sky. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 Thou hadst not strength to search the cold 
 And unpropitious future seas ; 
 Yea, thou didst dread the early breeze 
 
 Of morning, and thy lips were bold 
 Among the pleasaunces of trees 
 
 Behind, and palaces of gold 
 
 Behind, and temples tall and old. 
 
 The future thou didst quite despise ; 
 It turns a deaf ear unto thee 
 Therefore ; thou shalt not, surely, see 
 
 With mortal, wonder-smitten eyes 
 The vision of the mom that we 
 
 With rapt desire and rich surmise 
 
 Mark in the sunlight-stricken skies. 
 
 Rest in the mountains far behind. 
 Among the temples that shall fall, 
 
 While we partake the lovely wind 
 Of morning, that doth soothe us all ; 
 Yet unto thee my songs shall crawl 
 
 As humble worshippers, and find, 
 
 It may be, some reception kind. 
 
DEDICA TION. 
 
 It may be that thyself shalt own, 
 When age doth bring a clearer view 
 
 Of truth, that Love's most dainty tone 
 Was in the singer of the new, 
 When, his harp's restless cordage thro' 
 
 The keen-edged wind of mom was blown, 
 
 And fresh sounds and fresh sights were shown. 
 
 Few women have the strength to seek 
 The truth thro' trouble unto death ; 
 But soft winds woo their fragrant breath, 
 
 And roses suit their rose-soft cheek. 
 And each word that the soft mouth saith, 
 
 A thousand lovers mark ; they speak 
 
 No truths from austere mountain-peak. 
 
 The softest gardens are their own. 
 The softest brilliance of a lawn 
 In summer, not the cold grey dawn 
 
 And ocean's distant, half-heard tone, 
 When faint explorers' feet are drawn 
 
 Towards some far distant waste unknown, 
 
 And winds are frorii that desert blown 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 Towards their approach ; to thee I leave 
 The so-called happiness of life, 
 
 And these songs, sung where warriors grieve 
 And women mix not in their strife, 
 I send from struggling poet's fife 
 
 Towards that glad garden thou didst weave 
 
 For thine own pleasure — I achieve 
 
 No great things ; I have lost my song, 
 For, Alice, I have failed of thee. 
 
 And, therefore, I have lost the throng 
 Of fancies that I used to see 
 Around, within, beside of me. 
 
 And growing sadness does me wrong, 
 
 Tho' once for thee my lyre was strong. 
 
 But what I can do, this I do. 
 And what I can say, this I sing, 
 And what I may weave, that I bring j — 
 
 The morning is in pleasant view, 
 And to that bright dawn's skirts I cling. 
 
 Hating the past, but with a true 
 
 Love, loving the delicious new. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 As one before me sang of clouds, 
 And daybreak, and the hopeless hope 
 
 That in the creed he chanteth shrouds 
 Its form, so would I seek to ope 
 The gateways of a hopeful hope, 
 
 And unto thee, deUcious Alice, 
 
 I bring the outskirts of Time's palace. 
 
 July 15, 1873. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE been told that this b^ok is only " an echo of 
 ' Songs before Sunrise.' " And, in regard to my sonnets 
 already published, I have been constantly accused of 
 imitating Mr. Rossetti. Having borne the latter charge 
 and the more general statement of the former patiently 
 for upwards of three years and a half, I think that the 
 time has come to say a few words in my own defence. 
 
 First let me, on general grounds, protest against the 
 habit which has grown upon the more superficial class of 
 critics of late, of referring all new volumes of poetry to 
 one of two schools — either to that of Swinburne or that 
 of Rossetti. (It used to be Tennyson ; but the critics 
 have changed their note.) If an author writes a sonnet 
 with a certain ring about it, and ventures to praise the 
 beauty of a lady's hair, he is straightway set down as a 
 follower of Mr. Rossetti ; — perhaps even complimented, 
 as I have been, on succeeding in writing a line worthy 
 
xvi PREFACE. 
 
 of his master. In the same way, if he quits the region 
 of the sonnet, and writes passionate verses, venturing 
 (deluded poet !) to suppose that such words as " foam," 
 "flower," "sanguine," "bitter," "rose-red," "blood- 
 red," "flame-coloured," "fire," "froth," "barren," "ser- 
 pent," " kisses," " blossoms," " fruitless," " eyelids," &c., 
 are the common property of English authors, he is 
 straightly and violently apprised of his mistake by a 
 petulant shriek from the assembled critics. When he 
 succeeds, with difficulty, in separating the syllables of 
 this impassioned shriek or wail, and arriving at some- 
 thing articulate, he finds that he has been unconsciously 
 violating Mr. Swinburne's patent : that he is set down, 
 and is for evermore to be branded as a Swinburnian. 
 Now, surely it is time that the insufferable foolishness 
 of this sort of thing should cease, and that critics 
 should read a little further than " foam," before they 
 stamp the book which is under their notice as Swin- 
 burnian — a little further than "hair," before they 
 make up their minds that the author is a hopeless 
 imitator of Rossetti. Golden tresses and brown 
 gleamed upon the foreheads of women before Mr. 
 Rossetti lived : and the sea foamed and raved, and 
 lovers chose vehement words in which to express their 
 passion, as long before the advent of Mr. Swinburne. 
 A writer in the Contemporary Review of June, 1874, 
 towards the close of a notice of Lord Lytton's " Fables 
 in Song," said very justly : — " It is no more reasonable 
 
PREFACE. xvii 
 
 to regard the influence of the sire's muse as prejudicial 
 to the waxing fame of his son, as a poet, than to clack, 
 after the manner of a small but exorbitant clique, over 
 tricks of manner, metre, and language supposed to have 
 been stolen from Tennyson or Swinburne, as if a style 
 could become copyright, or patent beauties were to be 
 protected by pains and penalties.* A fair test would be to 
 enquire whether so called plagiarisms are integral or 
 casual and superficial. If only the latter, or if simply 
 the result of a cultivated taste, assimilating delicacies 
 within its reach and ken, it is well for poetry that there 
 should continue to be 'free trade. '" The above is one 
 proof among many that the abler and more discerning 
 critics are beginning to revolt against the self-assertion 
 of a critical " school," and that healthier times of clearer 
 vision are coming. Would it be believed that I was 
 once accused of borrowing from "Enoch Arden," 
 because I called the sunset " scarlet " ? This is the very 
 reductio ad absurdum of the accusation of plagiarism, I 
 should recommend poets who wish to meet the views ot 
 their critics to sing of black sunsets, and green lilies, and 
 blue roses, and brown foam — that would, at any rate, be 
 original. As sunsets are unfortunately addicted, in 
 common with lilies and violets and roses and grass, to 
 borrowing, with the most audacious plagiarism, the very 
 
 • I have italicized the above passage, as it Expresses so very happily 
 the folly of the view which I am here endeavouring to combat. 
 
xviii PREFACE. 
 
 tints and hues of those that have gone before, it is 
 difficult to see how an accurate describer can avoid 
 plagiarizing also. 
 
 So far for the general question. Next let me state 
 that when my sonnets were written I had never read Mr . 
 Rossetti's work. I once opened his book in the library 
 of the Oxford Union Society, and quickly perceived a 
 certain similarity between his verses and my own. 
 This being the case, I followed my first impulse, 
 and hurriedly closed the book — feeling, even then, 
 a sorrowful foreboding of the tumultuous accusations 
 of plagiarism, which would subsequently be hurled 
 against me. But before I shut the book my eye fell upon 
 a sonnet of Mr. Rossetti's concerning the Virgin Mary. 
 The general drift of this sonnet I bore away in my mind, 
 and on reaching home I wrote an answer to it, which 
 was published in "Poems and Sonnets," partiii., p. ii6. 
 This is all the reading of Mr. Rossetti which I did for 
 a long time. I was determined to be able to answer 
 the objections which I even then foresaw by an honest 
 statement of the fact that I had not read the verses of 
 my alleged master ; and, therefore, at the cost of some 
 self-denial, I did not read Mr. Rossetti's book till the 
 spring of this year. Thus the accusation of plagiarism 
 in that direction, at any rate, falls to the ground. This 
 matter must, of course, seem trivial enough to most 
 people, and hardly worth adverting to at such length. 
 Yet it is not a slight matter for a young poet, upon his 
 
PREFACE. xix 
 
 first attempt, to be branded, as I was, in a powerful 
 paper like the Spectator, as a sedulous imitator of a 
 man whose sonnets he had never read. And when I 
 see the same process applied to poet after poet, as each 
 rises with flushed face and trembling wings, to the great 
 discouragement of honest artistic effort, and the serious 
 vitiation and perversion of public taste (for it is con- 
 sidered enough, in regard to a new book, to pick up the 
 critics' casual cry, and to say of so-and-so : " Oh, he 
 is an imitator of Swinburne ; or an echo of Tennyson ; 
 or a feeble copy of Rossetti ! ") — seeing this, I feel 
 that the time has come for speaking out, and pleading 
 for a nobler standard of artistic judgment and a loftier 
 measure of insight among those whom my voice may 
 reach. 
 
 Up to this point I have spoken principally of my 
 sonnets and Mr. Rossetti. Let me fairly admit that 
 I have been very largely influenced by Mr. Swinburne, 
 though I believe my verse contains sufficient original 
 elements to entitle it to be considered quite apart from 
 his. But of this others must judge ; I may, however, 
 be allowed to point out very briefly the cardinal dif- 
 ferences between the point of view of "Songs before 
 Sunrise '' and that of " Under the Dawn." Mr. Swin- 
 burne's book is pantheistic : mine is theistic. While his 
 passionate and omnipotent trumpet-voice gives most 
 majestic poetic utterance; to the speculations of Comte 
 and the varied cries of struggling humanity, with constant 
 
XX PREFACE. 
 
 political reference to the coming triumphs of his ideal 
 "immeasurable republic," my humbler harp seeks to 
 celebrate the triumphs of an approaching theistic creed, 
 akin to that of Emerson, Theodore Parker, M. D. Conway, 
 F. W. Newman, F. P. Cobbe, W. R. Greg, and Mazzini. 
 The distinction is most clear ; " Under the Dawn " is 
 written from what is assumed to be (this is not the place 
 for discussing how far my point of view is the true one) a 
 position beyond that of the author of " Songs before Sun- 
 rise :" — further in advance, clearer, brighter, nearer the 
 dawn. The dawn has not yet fully gleamed upon either of 
 us ; but theism surely is the nearer to its crimson beauty. 
 Nothing is more noticeable in " Songs before Sunrise " 
 than the absence of the tender personal element for 
 which all forms and phases of the Christian Creed make 
 such ample provision. This element, with all that it 
 implies of hope and love and triumph, the singer, vast 
 as is his genius, has not fully absorbed. Therefore, as 
 an exponent of the religion of the future, his book is 
 incomplete; for much that Christianity bought with 
 dearest blood and preserved by perpetual sacrifice, is 
 pitilessly omitted. Indeed, there runs through many of 
 Mr. Swinburne's poems a sort of passionate contempt 
 for the yearnings and hopes of the individual man ; the 
 poetic repetition of many of the anti-personal ideas of 
 Comte. Thus :— 
 
 " — ^Pass on then and pass by us and let us be, 
 For what light think ye after life to see ? 
 
PREFACE. xxi 
 
 And if the world fare better will ye know ? 
 And if man triumph who shall seek you and say ? 
 — Enough of light is this for one life's span, 
 That all men bom are mortal, but not man : 
 And we men bring death lives by night to sow, 
 That man may reap and eat and live by day." 
 
 — The Pilgrims. 
 
 " I shall bum up before thee, pass and perish. 
 
 As haze in sunrise on the red sea-line ; 
 But thou from dawn to sunsetting shalt cherish 
 
 The thoughts that led and souls that lighted mine.'' 
 
 — Mater Triumphalis. 
 
 " Fool, wilt thou live for ever? Though thou care 
 With all thine heart for life to keep it fast. 
 Shall not thine hand forego it at the last ? 
 
 Lo, thy sure hour shall take thee by the hair 
 Sleeping, or when thou knowest not, or wouldst fly ; 
 And as men died much mightier shalt thou die." 
 
 — Tiresias. 
 
 It is this personal element, wanting in " Songs before 
 Sunrise," largely present in Christianity and in the 
 theistic writings of Parker and Mazzini, which I have 
 endeavoured to supply ; or rather to make a movement 
 towards supplying. Mr. Conway, in his very remarkable 
 " Earthward Pilgrimage*," says : — " What will be the 
 circle wide enough to enclose the excommunicated 
 Nineteenth Century? We have had a Church of Priestly 
 authority, a Church of Biblical authority, a Church of 
 Christ ; there is nothing left for us but a Church of God. 
 • Pp. 312. 313- 
 
xxii PREFACE. 
 
 In that common term of all religions, which priests have 
 preserved in their superstitions only as a seed is kept 
 through ages in the shroud of a mummy, we may behold 
 
 the germ of the next religion of mankind. 
 
 Simple theism has but few churches now ; it is a newly 
 discovered and as yet unexplored continent ; but so was 
 America a little while ago. They who, like Plymouth 
 Pilgrims, have settled in the winter time on its rocky 
 verge know little as yet of its prairies, savannahs, and 
 Eldorados ; but they already see that it is to be the next 
 great home of human hearts and thoughts." 
 
 It is this all-embracing, all-renovating theism which I 
 have tried to sing. Much has been done for it in prose ; 
 little, as yet, in song. As my predecessor said of Liberty, 
 made one, in his vision, with the marvellous breasts and 
 face of his perfect Republic, so I say of the supreme 
 theism which shines upon the vision of a few, — 
 
 " Birds shall wake with thee voiced and feathered fairer, 
 
 To see in summer what I see in spring ; 
 I have eyes and heart to endure thee, O thunder-bearer, 
 
 And they shall be who shall have tongues to sing." 
 
 GEORGE BARLOW. 
 
 SWEETBRIARS, BlACKHEATH, 
 November, 1874. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACE 
 
 Dedication v 
 
 Preface xv 
 
 A Hymn of Love i 
 
 My Brother 41 
 
 The Children of Men 4.3 
 
 A Prayer 45 
 
 The Same, and not Another 46 
 
 What Think Vou? 48 
 
 Give me that Rose 50 
 
 Death is Better S^ 
 
 Freedom 56 
 
 Love's Flight 60 
 
 Heaven: A Psychological Study 63 
 
 Thou could'st not Watch with Me 77 
 
 A Lament 81 
 
 Lost Voices 99 
 
 The Planet's Boat-Song.... 104 
 
 Christ's Sermon in the City 109 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty 123 
 
 Man's Protest 133 
 
 Hymn at Man's Nativity 138 
 
 To Mazzini Triumphant , 159 
 
 The Old and the New 184 
 
 Sonnets : 
 
 England's Charge to Italy, and Italy's Answer 194 
 
 From Blackheath to Gravesend 196 
 
 Abbey Wood 201 
 
 Blood Drops 204 
 
 Pain-Chords 207 
 
 My Whole Life Long 210 
 
UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 A HYMN OF LOVE. 
 
 Love sprang from the clean fair furrows^ and clove the 
 
 abysses of foam, 
 Where the wallowing sword-fish burrows, the mermaid's 
 
 inviolate home. 
 And over the snow-capped mountains, remote inacces- 
 sible ways, 
 By the earliest springs of the fountains, sounds softly the 
 
 psalm of her praise, 
 And she shines in the gleams of morning, and falls in 
 
 the feet of the dew. 
 And crimson her banner of warning floats, sweetly 
 
 dividing the blue, 
 And maidens are mute, and receive her with blushes, and 
 
 laughter, and sighs, 
 If a man be a coward and leave her, he sickens and 
 
 straightway dies, 
 
2 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 By her power all women are stately, and she shapes the 
 
 advance of their feet, 
 As a goddess she walketh sedately, and her presence is 
 
 goodly to meet, 
 And some have been happy and found her in the quiet 
 
 repose of their homes. 
 And chained, and encircled, and bound her; from others 
 
 she flutters and roams 
 In advance as a beacon for ever, as a token the pulse of 
 
 her feet. 
 And her girdle she looseneth never, though a man be a 
 
 lover and sweet, 
 But she dances, for laughter is pleasant, in advance of 
 
 him, glitters away, 
 And no sooner his passion is present than he finds she 
 
 was only in play ; 
 So she shines and retreats and advances, and flatters and 
 
 slays and consumes. 
 And her home is a palace of dances, and her mansion a 
 
 garden of tombs. 
 
 But her feet are as ivory shining like stars through the 
 
 lanes of the night, 
 And her hair she is tenderly twining, and her eyes are as 
 
 beacons and bright, 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 3 
 
 So she lures the pale ships to destruction, and shatters 
 
 them, fierce, on the rocks 
 Where the waves in recoil and refluxion tear their sides 
 
 in exuberant shocks, 
 As the sharks and the sword-fish devour them, and the 
 
 fangs of the herds of the sea, 
 And the waves overburden and scour them, and the 
 
 winds are unloosened and free, 
 When the long grey rollers and solemn come thundering 
 
 ■in from the south. 
 Like a giant impassable column, each curling a leonine 
 
 mouth, 
 And a mane that blusters and brightens, and shaking 
 
 unsearchable hands. 
 Till it bursts and disperses and whitens the shingle, and 
 
 furrows the sands ; 
 But she smiles, doth the goddess, and winneth a wreath 
 
 for each wayfarer slain, 
 For by blood she resumes and beginneth each epoch and 
 
 year of her reign. 
 Swift changing our prayers into cursing, our shouts into 
 
 shrieking and groans. 
 While her hands, being subtle, are nursing broad bubbles 
 
 that break into moans. 
 For from every wave she can cull them, the bubbles that 
 
 break into tears, 
 
 1 — 2 
 
4 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 And so bruise, deaden, and dull them, these windy and 
 
 petulant years, 
 And first give a man, for a season, red roses and kisses 
 
 and hope. 
 And laurels and hours of reason and room for desires, 
 
 and scope 
 For love and for work and for action, and labour of 
 
 months and of years, 
 With woman's caress for distraction, and her breast when 
 
 the eventide nears, 
 And her face to encourage and strengthen, and her hands 
 
 to make certain and sure, 
 And her bosom to broaden and lengthen the deeds of a 
 
 man that endure. 
 And her kisses to cover and move him, and her lips to 
 
 make tender and white. 
 And her body to perfect and prove him through the 
 
 hours and moods of the night. 
 And her swift approbation to keep him in the struggling 
 
 crest of the van 
 And to plunge and encircle and steep him in the courage 
 
 befitting a man, 
 And her tender reproach to remind him of feet treading 
 
 backward and frail, 
 To strengthen and compass and bind him in a suit of 
 
 impassable mail, 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. S 
 
 To crown and to cherish and plume him with an eagle's 
 
 intemperate crest, 
 And to scourge and to pierce and consume him if he fails 
 
 of the absolute best, 
 To garb him each day for the battle, and to nerve him 
 
 for iron and shocks, 
 When the foemen like cowardly cattle are smitten by 
 
 gauntleted knocks, 
 When the ranks of the slain are divided, and the spears 
 
 being bloody are sure, 
 And the beaten are bruised and derided, and only the 
 
 giants endure. 
 When the wings of the scavengers glisten as the swords 
 
 that were lusty by day. 
 And the nightbirds gather and listen, and the vultures 
 
 collect and obey 
 The ravenous instinct of tearing, consuming, and gorging 
 
 the slain, 
 Beaks whetted, and talons preparing for a bloody and 
 
 obstinate reign. 
 
 For this she can strengthen a hero — a woman — by love of 
 
 her soul, 
 Though he be but a coward, a Nero, she can conquer, 
 
 abate, and control. 
 
6 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And mould, and environ, and fashion, and make him as 
 iron or steel, 
 
 As a sword of invincible passion, as a dauntless and iron- 
 shod heel, 
 
 As a trumpet to sound and be urgent, as a banner to 
 wave and be sweet. 
 
 As a foam-crested breaker resurgent, with the noise of a 
 storm in his feet. 
 
 As a long cloud purple and massive, and pregnant with 
 boisterous rain, 
 
 Or a knight, mailed, silent, and passive, who wastes not 
 a sinew in vain. 
 
 All this can a woman, by simple and soft means, further 
 
 and do. 
 Though she knows not the force in her dimple, and the 
 
 magic retained in her shoe. 
 And her power for truth and redemption, for peace and 
 
 for heaven and rest. 
 And the wonderful calm and exemption from trouble we 
 
 find in her breast. 
 But Love, as I say, having given a woman and roses and 
 
 songs. 
 Is shortly ashamed,- and has striven by yeasty impetuous 
 
 wrongs 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 7 
 
 To turn her and frighten and shame her, and melt sweet 
 
 passion to scorn, 
 For who shall question or blame her, when Love's .wrath 
 
 rose and was bom. 
 With a storm and a rustle and shaking of the black fierce 
 
 plumes of her wings, 
 Attended by clamour and quaking of neighbouring terri- 
 fied things ? 
 Yea, who shall blame her or seek her of those that have 
 
 sight and are 'ware 
 That the ages have groaned to bespeak her, but have 
 
 found but the wind of her hair ? 
 For she flies in advance of the nations, and her breath is 
 
 the breath of a rose, 
 But her bosom provides tribulations, and her feet scatter 
 
 hailstones and snows. 
 And she flings firom her plumes being golden, and bright, 
 
 and as sweet as the sun, 
 Many sorrows that slay and wax olden. Life's race being 
 
 lately begun, 
 And she smiles, and her eyes are so gracious, and she 
 
 turns as a maiden who fears 
 Lest the woods and the path be too spacious, and halts 
 
 ^ till her follower nears, 
 Then glideth in front — but she lingers to gather a lily, or 
 
 pluck 
 
8 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Some loitering rose with her fingers, or a grass-stalk 
 
 dainty to suck, 
 That he may have time, and a reason to follow her close, 
 
 and be found 
 At some soft and convenient season beseeching her grace 
 
 from the ground. 
 
 So Love and her glances are cunning, and her eyes are 
 
 not slow to be turned. 
 But her feet are as swift at the running as her lovers are 
 
 sure to be spumed. 
 To be hurled into sorrow and distance, and grievous and 
 
 snow-coloured ways, 
 By the certain recoil and resistance of her springy and 
 
 rose-hung sprays, 
 When a man takes heart and endeavours to pull one down 
 
 to his face. 
 Or covets a rose, and he severs the branch — ^has mistaken 
 
 the place ! 
 For, lofty as ever, rebounding, the rose-branch leaps and 
 
 is strong, 
 And pink laughs tinkle, resounding from the sisterly 
 
 boisterous throng ! 
 He has only a twig for a booty, and the rose blushes 
 
 redder on high, 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 9 
 
 With softer and languider beauty, and a softer more 
 
 amorous sigh ; 
 So he leaps, and is baffled, and flutters to the ground with 
 
 a sting in his feet, 
 And curses, and leaves her, and mutters, but the rose 
 
 abides gracious and sweet. 
 
 So is Love ; and her voice on the mountains was a 
 
 treacherous boon from the first, 
 And salt are the springs of her fountains, promoting per- 
 petual thirst, 
 And the palms of her bounty are bitter, and she gives 
 
 with a thorn in her hands ; 
 And she slays with a smile and a twitter — then binds up 
 
 the wandering bands 
 Of sweet brown hair, and increases the grace and the 
 
 speed of her feet. 
 She binds but she never releases, yet the bands of her 
 
 serfdom are sweet. 
 And she laughs, like a girl at a lover, and she calls him a 
 
 fool for his pains, 
 And he knows it, but cannot discover a sweeter that 
 
 sways him and reigns : 
 For the face of a girl, being cruel, is nathless sweet to a 
 
 man, 
 
lo UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And he laughs to pile fodder and fuel for her greed with 
 
 the force that he can, 
 And he chooseth to wince and be broken, and elects to 
 
 be smitten and bruised, 
 And desires a blood-stained token — to be pierced and 
 
 deceived and abused, 
 And hardly treated, and trodden by the delicate soles of 
 
 her feet 
 Which are daintily covered and shodden in sandals silver 
 
 and sweet. 
 And twined as a ribbon around her, a gracious encircling 
 
 cord, 
 That hath seized and hath bitten and bound her, though 
 
 'tis nathless cursed and abhorred ; 
 For the biters are sometimes bitten, and a snake being 
 
 crushed will turn, 
 And the smiters are now and then smitten, and at seasons 
 
 the furnacers bum. 
 And the seagulls startle and vanish, being dragged under 
 
 waves by a fish, 
 And the eels are rebellious and banish the cooks and 
 
 devour the dish. 
 
 So a girl has been known to be broken by the blows and 
 the hammers of Love, 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. ii 
 
 Grow pale, and be meek for a token, and cease to be 
 
 seated above 
 The back of the man she had corded in an iron and 
 
 perilous chain, 
 Which hath snapped, and recoiled, and rewarded its 
 
 donor with exquisite pain. 
 
 But Love laughs, standing in heaven, and seeing the tears 
 and the sighs, 
 
 And the working of manifold leaven, and the closing of 
 manifold eyes, 
 
 And the ending of months of embraces, and beginnings 
 of eras of sobs, 
 
 Thistles sown in the flowery places, and a thorn that in- 
 creases and robs 
 
 The pale honeymoon of its pleasure — for now he is 
 cruel, and cold. 
 
 And she is alone, and has leisure, and shortly they both 
 will be old j 
 
 And the roses are dry and are faded, and the scent of the 
 lilies is gone, 
 
 And the bride's cheeks weary and jaded, and the bride- 
 clothes scattered and wan, 
 
 And the violets pale and a scandal to keep in the leaves 
 of a book, 
 
12 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And kisses are scanty to handle, smiles rare and a labour 
 to hook, 
 
 And the bride, disenthroned, discontented, divorced and 
 amazed and in tears, 
 
 Sees with horror the newly-invented, matrimonial, discon- 
 solate years. 
 
 But Love, as for Love, in the splendour and petulant 
 
 pulse of her feet 
 On the waves that surround her, and render a tuneful 
 
 homage and sweet, 
 As for Love, with her white hands holden on the wings 
 
 and the arms of the airs, 
 She shall not wax feeble nor olden ; her beauty increases 
 
 and bears 
 The future and past and the present, and huddles them 
 
 close to her breast, 
 And to each for a season 'tis pleasant, and to each in the 
 
 end 'tis a jest; 
 For she slays and disthrones and displaces ; no heaven 
 
 is hers, being sweet 
 With the smiles of immaculate faces and the throbs of 
 
 immaculate feet, 
 But a land of destruction and iron, and spear-points 
 
 clustered and keen, 
 
A HYMN OF LO VE. 1 3 
 
 And of wastes that hyaenas environ, and tigers, and wolf- 
 cubs unclean, — 
 And of loves that are girdled with sorrow, and joys that 
 
 are crowoed with a curse, 
 And kisses that vanish to-morrow, and leave us in 
 
 trouble, and worse 
 Than if she had never uplifted our soul in the palms of 
 
 her hands, 
 And made us as angels, and gifted with sacred unspeak- 
 able lands 
 Of delight, and of dreams, and of stories, and perfect 
 
 and passionless sleep, 
 And molten and musical glories — having left us to 
 
 stammer and weep. 
 Having left us to groan and be heavy through nights 
 
 over-bitter and long, 
 With never a tune, but a bevy of storm-claps instead of 
 
 a song. 
 And thunder and terror and anguish for her beauty by 
 
 night and by day, 
 That our souls may be straitened and languish, as our 
 
 hands have forgotten to pray. 
 That the faces we see may be grievous, and our friends 
 
 as a company clad 
 With intent to betray and deceive us, and our rising and 
 
 sitting be sad, j 
 
H UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 That the mornings no more may be gracious in summer, 
 
 nor grasses be sweet, 
 Nor paths in the woodlands capacious, and fern-fronds 
 
 cool to our feet, 
 And the Sense of the pastures pleasant, and the touch of 
 
 the plumes of the morn, 
 And the voice of a day being present, and at even the 
 
 sound of the horn 
 That bids man rest and be quiet in his house in the 
 
 arms of a wife. 
 Leaving terror and sins and the riot of passions for fra- 
 
 granter life. 
 And a calmer more beautiful manner of love and desire 
 
 and strength, 
 And a softer more exquisite banner, and kisses of shape- 
 lier length. 
 Enduring, and sweet, and returning in seemly and fruit- 
 ful rain, 
 i^ot foaming and biting and burning with teeth that take 
 
 pleasure in pain. 
 For, when sin's rapture is over, comes sacred silence of 
 
 thought, 
 And conscience burns to uncover the pit towards which 
 
 we are brought, 
 By music, perhaps, or a flower, or some kind voice of a 
 
 friend, 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 15 
 
 Restoring our innate power, but bringing self to an 
 
 end, 
 That the soul may be fit for the healing, and tender and 
 
 dexterous hand 
 Of a woman, her power revealing, and her pity, in choos- 
 ing to stand 
 As redeemer and goddess and saviour, with a calm in 
 
 the soles of her feet. 
 And a heaven in modest behaviour, and eyes not a 
 
 snake's eyes but sweet 
 And gentle, and green for a season, till they" soften and 
 
 shade into brown, 
 For the simple and generous reason, that pity has melted 
 
 them down. 
 Their colour improving, refining, and blending, and mix- 
 ing, till each 
 As the glance of a song-bird is shining, and gracious as 
 
 such is her speech, 
 For she tarries and steps and advances, as a light flaming 
 
 into the gloom. 
 And her feet have a murmur of dances, and her hands 
 
 are as swords to consume 
 The horror and wrath and uncleanness, and madness 
 
 and craze in the eyes, 
 For a change introducing serenenesa, and valour and' 
 
 duty for lies, 
 
i6 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And tortuous coils and exactions, and trumpery pitiful 
 ways, 
 
 And selfish incessant distractions of souls that were lost 
 in a maze 
 
 Of foul thoughts, solitude, error, remorse, suicidal de- 
 spair, 
 
 And agoriized thunder-struck terror, and hell's hot inor- 
 dinate air ; 
 
 But now she relieves him, and moves him, and speaks to 
 him gently, and tries 
 
 How a woman can comfort, and proves him by the lamp 
 and the love in her eyes. 
 
 Having sought him, and finally found him, she will bind 
 him in rose-spun bands, 
 
 For her grace and her pity has crowned him, and her 
 tender and maidenly hands 
 
 Shall annul and disperse and uncover the heads and the 
 crowns of the past. 
 
 For is he not hers and a lover, and has she not won him 
 at last ? 
 
 There are many divisions, and phases, and sides and 
 
 solutions of Love 
 Who sits as a woman that grazes, with one arm lifted 
 
 above 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 17 
 
 Her beautiful clear-veined shoulders, the stones on the 
 
 heavenly floor, 
 But her foot reaches down to the boulders that cover 
 
 hell's rock-strewn shore ; 
 Like a maiden who sits by a river, and one hand loosens 
 
 her hair, 
 But her feet are playful, and shiver, and shine, and are 
 
 lissom and fair 
 In the cool weed-haunted waters — for her face is as 
 
 heaven, but her feet 
 Tarry where foul river-fog slaughters ; but her hands and 
 
 her tresses are sweet. 
 So is Love that encloses and handles both foul and 
 
 celestial things. 
 Having harlequin separate sandals, and diverse unsimilar 
 
 rings 
 On her dainty bediamonded fingers, and flowers and 
 
 leaves in her hair. 
 Some possessed by an odour that lingers, like dreams of 
 
 a bride, on the air 
 So gently and softly and sweetly, one cannot but hold 
 
 and be sure 
 That a flower encircled so meetly must be gracious and 
 
 wholesome and pure. 
 But blossoms there are which are loaded with a heavy 
 
 and obstinate scent. 
 
1 8 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Whose bloom, being bruised and corroded, an atmo- 
 sphere evil hath lent, 
 Black, sad with cold loss and repentance, and a sense of 
 
 departure and tears. 
 And an iron inflexible sentence of lonely and pitiless 
 
 years ; 
 For he shall not renew nor discover the ancient ineffable 
 
 days. 
 When a maid by the side of a lover stepped, softly 
 
 dividing the sprays. 
 And the tangles, and woodland arches, and the ferns 
 
 with the grace of her feet, 
 Those delicate mutual marches, divine, and a memory 
 
 sweet 
 In abysses of waste recollection, by the founts and the 
 
 birth-place of tears. 
 And the grey rocks piled in connection with glaciers 
 
 frozen of fears. 
 And rain, and the waters of sorrow, having snows as a 
 
 shadow above, 
 With barely a gentian to borrow the hues and the savour. 
 
 of love. 
 
 Now Time, and its curse, matters little, and visions 
 hasty and few 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 19 
 
 Impede not a jot nor a tittle man's love, so it only be 
 
 true; 
 For I see that the passion of Dante rose clear, and its 
 
 colour was born. 
 From the short condescension and scanty of years inter- 
 cepted and torn, 
 By a grievous death and a bitter, and a new grim horror, 
 
 in twain, 
 Yet a purer and sweeter and fitter the ages have searched 
 
 for in vain, 
 A calmer and clearer and stronger, more golden and 
 
 great in the end, 
 For God has no cunning, a longer more delicate lover to 
 
 send. 
 Whose feet are as soft as embraces, and his voice as the 
 
 strings of a lyre. 
 And his visions as heavenly faces, and his mantle as 
 
 heavenly fire 
 Streaming over and through him and round him, till he 
 
 gleams as the globe of the sun. 
 Which has quitted, its altar, and bound him in rays that 
 
 encircle and run 
 Round the wonderful forehead, creative, and shadowed 
 
 by calm of the bays, 
 And the deep dark eyes, contemplative, as a prophet's 
 unsearchable gaze, 
 
20 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 As a prophet's, fixed, firm, and, in season and out of it, 
 
 piercing the sky- 
 Like an eagle's, for none other reason than this — 'tis 
 
 their nature to fly. 
 And to leap, and exult in the regions where never a bird 
 
 else flew. 
 But their plumes, by battalions and legions, have cloven 
 
 and smitten the blue, 
 By companies, squadrons, surmounting the azure im- 
 pregnable airs, 
 Old triumphs and goodly recounting to young irresistible 
 
 pairs 
 Of soft-plumed eaglets aspiring to mount to the feet of 
 
 the sun. 
 Wings failing them not, neither tiring, till the red long 
 
 journey is done. 
 
 Although Love seems to be cruel, she shall in the end 
 be sweet. 
 
 It lasts not for ever, this duel 'twixt Love and our vehe- 
 ment heat, 
 
 For, if a man be faithful, he finds, when he shall have 
 died. 
 
 Love's bosom soft, not wrathful, and her heart as the 
 heart of a bride — 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 21 
 
 As the heart of a bride being gracious when night and its 
 
 wonderment nears, 
 And the halls of love's palace are spacious, and she min- 
 gles, with delicate fears, 
 Sweet kisses and sobs — retrograding, advancing, and 
 
 doubtful of heart, 
 Desires alternate invading each maidenly dubitant 
 
 part; 
 For passion and eagerness kindle the red, sweet gleams 
 
 in her face. 
 But they sink and diminish and dwindle, for modesty 
 
 yielding a place. 
 And the old coy terror and girlish, when he steps in his 
 
 fortitude near. 
 For he seems as a wronger and churlish, and her heart 
 
 beats swift and in fear. 
 Like the beautiful innocent panting of a sweet bird held 
 
 in the hand, 
 While the boy who has seized her is ranting, and rude, 
 
 and his comrades stand 
 In a circle to praise his achievement, and the new-found 
 
 delicate bird. 
 For they share not her sobs and . bereavement, nor the 
 
 wailing of parents heard. 
 Who circle, with bitter intoning, round their careless 
 
 unscrupulous heads, 
 
22 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And shrieking, and calling, and moaning — but the boys' 
 
 stride home to their beds. 
 And lo ! in the cool of the hours of even the nestling 
 
 fails, 
 And is one with all dead, sweet flowers, and her wings 
 
 are as mute as the veils 
 That folded and shrouded and shielded the lilywhite form 
 
 of Elaine 
 When her heart being broken had yielded to Lancelot's 
 
 pitiless reign. 
 So the maiden is sweet and uncertain, and her diverse 
 
 unsearchable moods 
 Spread a soft unaccountable curtain across her — she 
 
 brightens, and broods. 
 And sobs, and will smile, and will languish, and her 
 
 beauty is urgent and beams. 
 Next she pines as a prisoner in anguish, and her bosom 
 
 is pregnant, and teems 
 With sighs and with yearnings unuttered, unspoken and 
 
 wonderful things 
 Half coyly and timidly muttered — next the songbird 
 
 recovers and sings 
 With soft and expedient passion, and a tuneful but 
 
 tremulous voice. 
 In so tender and loving a fashion that he cannot but 
 
 weep and rejoice 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 23 
 
 That at last he has softened and brought her to a sense 
 
 of his presence arid calm, 
 And a sense of the love that has sought her with firm 
 
 irresistible palm 
 Through oceans and valleys and trouble, and over the 
 
 mountains and hills, 
 Through sorrows that served to redouble his passion, 
 
 and iron-hewn ills 
 His sword has been potent to shatter, and has cloven 
 
 their foreheads in twain. 
 But — she loves him, and what does it matter, that sound 
 
 of invisible pain, 
 Of long-past chains, and the rattle of previous shackles 
 
 and bands. 
 And the gleams of that hard-fought battle, and the signs 
 
 of importunate lands 
 Long traversed and left and forgotten when roses and 
 
 beauty are near. 
 Like the lilies whose roots lying rotten recollect but the 
 
 dawn of the year. 
 But still she needs gentle invasion, for she knows not 
 
 what Heaven is like. 
 And a delicate seemly persuasion, till her colours droop 
 
 softly and strike. 
 Like the drooping attire of a lily shone hotly upon by 
 
 the sun. 
 
24 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 In some region unshady and hilly, where arbours and 
 
 groves there are none, 
 But rocks, and the valleys, and voiceless, tossed floods 
 
 of grey boulders and stones — 
 So the lily is faded, and choiceless, and robbed of her 
 
 silvery tones, 
 The sweet low sounds that are ready by the banks and 
 
 the lips of a stream. 
 When white leaves laugh in an eddy as white hands 
 
 wave in a dream. 
 But to-morrow she knows, and her beauty is tenderer, 
 
 far more soft. 
 Being kissed and imprisoned for booty, for a prize, not 
 
 seldom but oft, 
 In his hands that are gentle and pressing, and his lips 
 
 that are tuneful and sure, 
 And his arms being wide and caressing, and his body a 
 
 garden, and pure, 
 And filled with the fruits of desire, and of sacred and 
 
 soundless dreams, 
 When the nights are an ocean of fire, and the mornings a 
 
 mantle of beams. 
 Flung wildj from the flights of the swallows next the 
 
 circles and rims of the sun. 
 Those fathomless untold hollows no feet of a sinner have 
 
 won ; 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 25 
 
 For at morning comes swift revelation to a mortal em- 
 bracing a bride, 
 For a season as one of the nation of angels, and hurled 
 
 in the tide 
 Of gold-winged creatures ascending for ever the ivory- 
 stairs, 
 Their plumes intermingling and blending with the feathers 
 
 and feet of the airs 
 That laugh, intercircle, and clamour, like countless 
 
 exuberant herds 
 Whom the sun's risen crown doth enamour, or frolicsome 
 
 thousands of birds 
 Flying upward, and striking and flapping the flushed red 
 
 face of the morn. 
 Till her eyes are unclosed by the clapping of pinions, 
 
 and straightway is bom 
 A. young child naked and solemn, the untried dawn of a 
 
 day. 
 With body yet smooth as a column, and feet unenfeebled, 
 
 and grey 
 With the dews that caress, and surround him, and are 
 
 soft, and as pearls in his hair. 
 Having smitten and blinded and bound him in volumes 
 
 of vehement air — 
 As a man who with urgent endeavour, and laughter, and 
 
 lips that are sweet, 
 
26 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Pelts a woman with flowers, and never gives over till 
 
 down to her feet 
 She shines as a bower of roses, and violets, and cowslips, 
 
 and may. 
 Till her pouting rejoinder discloses that she knows he 
 
 was only in play, 
 And her face is so beautiful, smiling through the leaves 
 
 and the various hues. 
 That his hands are already re-piling new flower-heaps 
 
 whence he may choose. 
 
 But Love and the moods of a maiden are endless, and 
 
 woe to the man 
 Whose mind, over-burthened and laden, sings loudly and 
 
 strong in the van 
 Of beauty and laughter and kisses, and the diverse shades 
 
 of her eyes. 
 For, in that he numbered her blisses and told them, she 
 
 shuns him and flies. 
 Runs gaily, and wildly, and madly, being woman and 
 
 frail and perverse. 
 Into arms that will cover her sadly, and give her no folly 
 
 to nurse. 
 Being grave, and of common-hewn fashions, not^ringed as 
 
 with flowers and songs, 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 27 
 
 And girdled with voluble passions, and fancies in turbu- 
 lent throngs, 
 That leap and amaze and surround her, till her loveliness 
 
 falls burnt blind 
 With the blossoms with which they had crowned her, and 
 
 seeks for a prudenter mind. 
 More calm, robed also sedately, with a quieter tone in 
 
 his feet, 
 And an elderly presence and stately, and an ancient and 
 
 orderly beat 
 Of passions in order, and under supreme and a quiet 
 
 control. 
 Not raging and rending in sunder the storm-tossed sides 
 
 of the soul. 
 But holding her gently, and seeing some beauty, no doubt, 
 
 in her eyes. 
 Then turning, and sleeping, and fleeing her presence, for, 
 
 friends, he is wise ! — 
 " And a man is a fool to be taken and seized by a woman 
 
 by storm. 
 The wings of his fortitude shaken, and his brain over- 
 eager and warm 
 With incessant, intemperate craving, and his heart over- 
 
 burthened and mad 
 With mute unavoidable raving, and his days garbed 
 
 grimly and sad, 
 
'S UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And his nights as funereal mansions, in trappings engen- 
 dered of sighs, 
 
 And his dreams as delirious expansions of day's storms, 
 troubles, and lies. 
 
 A man needs change, and distraction, and not to be 
 caged with a wife, 
 
 And sundered from vehement action, and the great 
 undertakings of life ; 
 
 For a woman is small to fill only the brain and the heart 
 of a man, 
 
 Being large, left empty and lonely in such case — no wife 
 can 
 
 Be more than a comfort, and tender, and a soft recollec- 
 tion at home. 
 
 But let no man make a surrender of the feet that should 
 flutter and roam, 
 
 Exploring, and proving, and sounding, with masculine 
 powerful strides. 
 
 The furthest world — surrounding a bevy of brainless 
 brides !" 
 
 So they think ! the men who, with iron, seize, hamper, 
 
 and harrow, and chain 
 The women whose hearts they environ, thank Heaven, 
 
 not seldom in vain ! 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 29 
 
 But the poets, whose life is no better than one long pas- 
 sionate yeam, 
 One ceaseless strain at a fetter, one restless stamp and 
 
 return, 
 Like a leopard whose wearisome marches have crumbled 
 
 the floor of his cage, 
 For he sighs for the green broad arches of the forest, and 
 
 grinneth in rage. 
 And wild unappeased recollection of his home in the 
 
 heart of the rocks. 
 Where fawns are a daily refection, and totter 'neath 
 
 velvety knocks — 
 As a man from the hand of a lady, who loves to be 
 
 smitten and bruised ^ 
 
 By her velvety palm, and the shady long curved claws 
 
 carefully used ; 
 For she folds, and conceals, and retains them, till her 
 
 moment is present and clear, 
 Then, swift, like a leopard, outstrains them, till he shrinks 
 
 and is pallid for fear. 
 Though he learns in the end, in a season, that sweeter it 
 
 is to be slain 
 By a beautiful woman in treason than to conquer a lesser, 
 
 and reign 
 Over some meek-mouthed and subsiding, obedient, com- 
 monplace girl 
 
30 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Voice over-subdued to be chiding, and lips over-solid to 
 
 curl, 
 And brain over-fat to be cruel, and hands over-timid to 
 
 smite. 
 To break up a lover as fuel, and torture, and linger, and 
 
 bite, 
 And watch, with the face of a leopard, his sorrow — then 
 
 sparkle, and smile, 
 And seek, like a wandering shepherd, a new sheep's face 
 
 to defile ! 
 
 The poets whose life is no better than one long pas- 
 sionate yearn, 
 Give loves that are true to the letter as woman's are 
 
 certain to turn. 
 Recoil, and astonish, and bruise us, being bent like a reed 
 
 in the hand, 
 For, "men are but made to amuse us, as puppets to 
 
 please us, and stand 
 Like dancers or dolls in the middle of a circle of women 
 
 around " — 
 Who move to the tune of some fiddle, bright-wreathed, 
 
 and decorous, and crowned 
 With flowers and circlets sweet-scented, and the buds of 
 
 the fields in their hair, 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 31 
 
 And tiaras and fashions invented to make beauty even 
 
 more fair, 
 To adorn, and improve, and to strengthen their slender 
 
 and delicate grace 
 Of limbs, and to largen and lengthen their goddess-hewn 
 
 ivory face. 
 To embellish and widen the river of wonderful- tresses 
 
 that flows. 
 With a shake and a laugh and a quiver, over regions of 
 
 fathomless snows, 
 ' Undulating and coiling and leaping, and waving in long 
 
 brown bands 
 Over fingers dividing it, peeping, like stars, from the 
 
 endless strands. 
 
 — The poets whose life is no better than one long pas- 
 sionate sob. 
 
 Seek not to escape from her fetter, nor seek they, weary, 
 to rob 
 
 A mistress of hours of labour, for her sweet presence is 
 theirs 
 
 Whether wielding a mattock or sabre, or whether a lover 
 prepares 
 
 Works grand, exalted, heroic, with masculine vigour and 
 skill, 
 
32 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Unlike the aforesaid stoic, his mistress is evident 
 still, 
 
 For, truly, he cannot forsake her, for such is his tempera- 
 ment 
 
 Through life he was fated to take her, wherever, when- 
 ever he went — 
 
 Whether fighting, or if on a journey, or reading, or speak- 
 ing at times. 
 
 Or in intellectual tourney, or traversing alien climes. 
 
 He seeks not to shun her, she meets him, she bends 
 from the midday sky. 
 
 And at eventide she entreats him, at night she is yet 
 more nigh. 
 
 When the moon is risen he sees her, he hears her in 
 every wind. 
 
 No poet is any who flees her, but churlish, uncouth, and 
 unkind, 
 
 A statesman, perhaps, but a lover in God's fair truth he 
 is not, 
 
 For this man's love doth discover his lady in every spot. 
 
 As a rose, as a flower in the hedges, as a silver swan by 
 the lake. 
 
 As a soft-singing bird in the sedges, a soft-voiced lark in 
 the brake. 
 
 The pearly gleams of morning she adds to her maiden 
 attire, 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 33 
 
 The moon shines but for adorning, the sun flames but 
 
 for a fire 
 Yet more to enhance her beauty — the grasses, with deh- 
 
 cate stems 
 Inwoven, are hers for a booty, and dewdrops are rich 
 
 diadems. 
 And all the heaven doth love her, the stars, and countless 
 
 lights 
 Whose orbs glide gently above her through sacred mists 
 
 of the nights, 
 And the poet her slave doth revere her, incarnate in 
 
 everything. 
 But most of all he can hear her when ripples of music 
 
 ring. 
 And never he strives to escape her, like common loveless 
 
 men, 
 In the folds of his heart he would drape her, like a 
 
 sweet wild fawn in a den. 
 Made one with her so wholly that, if for a moment 
 
 he 
 Forgot her. Death's melancholy must slacken forehead 
 
 and knee. 
 And into the hell of destruction of being his self must 
 
 fall. 
 Dragged down by a pitiless suction — this being the end 
 
 of all/ 
 
 3 
 
34 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Bound up, enclosed in a woman, as in some golden 
 
 vault, 
 Without her he fails to be human in type — for there is 
 
 such a fault 
 As loving her over-intensely, in a widening boundless 
 
 ring, 
 With no limits nor bars, but immensely, as the nightin- 
 gales shamelessly sing 
 With sweet puffed throats over-swelling, in an unsubdued 
 
 strenuous way. 
 Their psalmody pulsing and welling, till the night is as 
 
 loud as the day ; 
 So this passion forewarns and advises of the height and 
 
 the heat of the flame 
 That in heaven springs, sparkles, and rises, where no 
 
 tears soften and tame 
 The free broad play of the measures, and tunes, and the 
 
 songs of the soul, 
 Spreading forth, as an eagle, its treasures, and taking 
 
 account of the whole, 
 And searching, with vast retrospection, the former and 
 
 infinite ways. 
 With unclouded and clear recollection of years and of 
 
 hours and days. 
 And seconds, and dazzling minutes when love was a 
 
 songbird and sweet, 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 35 
 
 When couples were tuneful as linnets, and lips very 
 tender to meet, 
 
 And hands very ready at clasping, and waists very slender 
 and near, 
 
 And palms very close in the grasping, and love's palace 
 and presence was here. 
 
 But passion, as such, is a token of the wonders about to 
 be shown, 
 
 The ecstasies sealed and unspoken, that heaven retains 
 for its own. 
 
 When kisses are perfect and cease not, but deepen and 
 mount with the morn, 
 
 And lips cling fast and release not each other when day- 
 light is born — 
 
 For the first strange sense and emotion is there a per- 
 petual boon, 
 
 Nor is there reflux of the ocean, but a constant increase 
 of the moon 
 
 Of beauty and laughter and labour, of sweet and imma- 
 culate hands 
 
 That know neither sword-hilt nor sabre, but an endless 
 peace through the lands 
 
 Shines, gleams, and is manifest over broad acres of 
 countless corn, 
 
 And crimson expanses of clover, and grass-fields wild 
 and unshorn 
 
 3—2 
 
36 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 By the covetous hands of invaders, and the ruthless 
 
 trample of steeds, 
 With cannon and carts for their aiders, till the corn is a 
 
 pasture of weeds. 
 
 In heaven return and are taken the dreams and desires 
 we saw 
 
 When over us fell as a shaken, sweet robe Love's insa- 
 tiate law, 
 
 And we first were aware of her beauty, and the endless 
 delight of her voice, 
 
 Being one with strong labour and duty, and unconquered 
 heroical choice 
 
 Of the firmer side and the stronger, whether life be the 
 last thing or no. 
 
 Whether souls shall endure and be longer than death's 
 cold enfeebling flow. 
 
 Than the waves of the ultimate river that scatter the 
 ultimate sands. 
 
 With a dash and a sparkle and quiver of salt and in- 
 vincible hands, 
 
 On the extreme shores, where the seamless, blue-grey 
 plants gleam and are cold. 
 
 And spirits crowd, naked and dreamless, and wan and 
 forgotten and old, 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 37 
 
 To ask for a boat and a steerer, if any may haply be 
 found 
 
 Who shall skilfully usher them nearer to a higher, less 
 treacherous ground, 
 
 Where mountains are firm and are stable, and grasses 
 are tender and sweet. 
 
 And a dead man perhaps may be able to rise on regene- 
 rate feet, 
 
 And walk, and may shout, and deliver his soul in a new- 
 born song — 
 
 Then beckon the spirits that quiver, to be valiant, and 
 hasten along, 
 
 For one has made trial and found it, the new and the 
 exquisite life, 
 
 And has clasped and has gathered and bound it, as a 
 flower made short by the knife, 
 
 In a nosegay to handle and cover his naked and robeless 
 form, 
 
 For death is no bride, nor a lover, but a searching and 
 pitiless storm, 
 
 As of hail to unfasten and rend us, as of snows to dis- 
 perse us and bind. 
 
 As of violent emotions to end us, in a rage and downfall 
 of the mind. 
 
38 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 But whether death brings a conclusion, and once slays 
 
 each man, or no. 
 Whether some new and wonderful fusion of spirit and 
 
 body may flow 
 And rush in a torrent together, and so a beginning be 
 
 born 
 Of sweeter, more summerlike weather, and a softer, more 
 
 summerlike morn. 
 And brighter, more summerlike seasons, and a nobler, 
 
 more musical day. 
 Or whether the ruin of reasons and spirits Death's hand 
 
 doth convfey. 
 Being terrible, cold, and remorseless, having never a 
 
 boat nor a steed 
 To traverse that river, but horseless at the hour of ulti- 
 mate need. 
 And a man, with no weapon and helpless, shall wrestle 
 
 and shout and be slain 
 By that monster barren and whelpless who slaughters 
 
 and gives not again. 
 But takes and he swallows, and straightway his gullet iy 
 
 opened anew 
 As a wide and insatiable gateway with humanity travel. 
 
 ling through 
 In an army of corpses for ever, to feed him and nourish 
 
 and keep 
 
A HYMN OF LOVE. 39 
 
 His stomach in constant endeavour, lest it fail and be 
 
 torpid and sleep, 
 And so one man should escape him, and rise, and by 
 
 stroke of his sword 
 Unmake and despoil and unshape him, overhurling our 
 
 tyrant and lord, 
 The king of the centuries seated with our pangs and our 
 
 tears at his feet. 
 For he loves to be sought and entreated, and mankind's 
 
 homage is sweet. 
 And he loves the incense of the altar, and the songs that 
 
 waver and strain. 
 And the sounds that diminish and falter, and the voices 
 
 that murmur in pain. 
 And the women that groan and implore him for sweet- 
 hearts, husbands, and sons, 
 For as ointment their trouble flows o'er him, and as 
 
 spikenard sparkles and runs ! — 
 Whether life be the victor or death be, our swords or his 
 
 pitiless feet. 
 Whether his red throat or our breath be more lasting, 
 
 and subtle, and sweet, 
 We know that Love smileth immortal, and her hands are 
 
 the hands of the free, 
 As a woman she watcheth the portal, and encloseth the 
 
 floor of the sea 
 
40 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Of existence in her sweet girdle, in gracious and merciful 
 
 bands, 
 And death is a corpse on a hurdle by the light and the 
 
 force of her hands ; — 
 We know that, though we are forsaken, and our spirits 
 
 are torn and accursed, 
 Love's empire is safe and unshaken, and stable and firm 
 
 as at first, 
 For, like a long breaker irom seaward, Love tramples 
 
 and passes our lives 
 Left broken and drowning to leeward, but Love is a lion 
 
 and thrives. 
 
MY BROTHER. 
 
 TO A. C. S. 
 
 Brother, my brother, my sad-toned brother — 
 
 The same as ever, but yet more fair. 
 Thou shalt surely find her ; never another ; 
 
 And cool, sweet hands of her grace shalt share. 
 
 My pale, strong brother, my sweet-winged brother. 
 Thou shalt know that summer-fiUed, rose-fed air 
 
 In heaven, and her face — ^never another — 
 And " the likeness and look of her throat and hair.™ 
 
 O brother to sorrow, O bay-crowned brother, 
 With the thorns upon brows as a weight to wear, 
 
 She hath to soothe thee, she and none other — 
 Thy soul to the meadows of peace to bear. 
 
42 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 O brother, my brother, my clear-voiced brother. 
 With a name to weep and a name to dare, 
 
 That old one love of thine, never another, 
 
 Shall ht "startled and stricken, awake and aware.'' 
 
 Ah ! brother, brother, my well-loved brother, 
 I know thy love, and am bold to declare 
 
 That thou shall find her — as sweet, and none other, 
 And the eyes, and the lips, and the old same hair. 
 
THE CHILDREN OF MEN. 
 
 The children of men came nigh to me, 
 And sang of the loves that were lost, 
 And the blight, and the spears of the frost. 
 Red splinters, and spars wind-tost, 
 
 And the tears in their eyes I could see, 
 And the signs of the swords that exhaust ; 
 
 And black-stained woe upon faces, 
 As when a man presses grapes — 
 And abundant rustle of crapes 
 I heard, and I saw strange shapes, 
 
 And white, bruised arms of our graces. 
 And necks made red at the napes ; 
 
 And sounds of sighing and sorrow. 
 And sweet, wan faces and pale, 
 And a dismal multifold wail 
 
44 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 I heard, and I saw boats sail 
 To a sea with no to-morrow, 
 And a cloudless sky without veil. ' 
 
 And I laughed to think of the roses, 
 And the loves, and the sweet lost days. 
 And the untrodden fair long ways. 
 And the grasses, and untouched sprays 
 
 Of the chestnuts, and one that reposes 
 On the beach that heaven obeys ; 
 
 The fair gold beach of the present, 
 Clothed with stones and with sand, 
 A beautiful soft-spun land — 
 And sweet on the floor is her hand. 
 
 And her feet to the weeds are pleasant. 
 And her soles to that wet far strand. 
 
A PRAYER. 
 
 BROAD, sweet death, with tender hands and eyea, 
 Wilt thou not hear, and flutter unto me, 
 And let me presently awake and see 
 
 The summer — and her image in thy skies ? 
 
 June 20, 1871 i 
 
THE SAME, AND NOT ANOTHER. 
 
 The same, and not another ! 
 The old face, and eyes, and well-remembered hair. 
 With heaven's pure light upon them shed more fair, 
 
 These wait for thee, my brother. 
 On the cool white marble threshold^ of life's last long 
 stair. 
 
 The same, and not another ! 
 As she used to be in the glory of her youth, 
 A very rose of womanhood in sooth, 
 
 This flower for thee, my brother. 
 Waits, after death is traversed, and sobs make room for 
 truth. 
 
 The same, and not another ! 
 For there is not any other in the world, 
 
THE SAME, AND NOT ANOTHER. 47 
 
 And out of it thy soul has swift been hurled 
 
 In search of her, my brother, 
 And the wings of thy sweet songfulness are choked and 
 furled. 
 
 The same, and not another ! 
 For there is not any other in the skies, 
 And broken thy sweet lute unsmitten lies, 
 
 My brother, O my brother. 
 And round about thy forehead the cold night wind flies. 
 
 The same, and not another ! 
 Or else I say there is not any God, 
 And a shadow in the place of him has trod 
 
 The earth — and our Mother 
 Is no mother, and abolished is the beauty of her nod. 
 
WHAT THINK YOU? 
 
 Love he hath taken away, 
 And roses, and over us grey 
 Sad clothes he hath chosen to convey — 
 Think you that he can be God ? 
 
 Yea ! for the rose shall be sweet, 
 And our lips shall the same lips meet, 
 When the silver sound of her feet 
 Is present — at Death's calm nod. 
 
 Love he hath taken, and a bride, 
 And cold is our unkissed side ; 
 Think you, when this doth betide, 
 
 That the king that they praise can be good ? 
 
WHAT THINK YOU? 49 
 
 Yea ! for the flower shall be fair, 
 In congenial, sweet-washed air 
 In heaven ; he takes, to prepare 
 The very thing that we would. 
 
 Love he hath taken, and our soul, 
 And white seas over us roU ; 
 Think you he knoweth the whole, 
 Is he pitiless — this strong Lord ? 
 
 Nay ! for the lily shall be new, 
 And a dainty attire of dew 
 She shall smile, sweet lady, to view, 
 And over her balm shall be poured. 
 
 Love he hath taken, our delight. 
 And wrapped us around with the night. 
 What think you ? Can this be right ? 
 Is there a God ? 
 
 Yea ! for the love is sweet 
 That tenderly touches the feet 
 Of Death, and is eager to meet 
 Death's keen rod. 
 
GIVE ME THAT ROSE. 
 
 Give me that rose ! I see that it has blown 
 Upon your bosom, give me, for mine own, 
 That rose to which such favour has been shown, 
 Give me that rose ! 
 
 Give me that rose, the eager lover saith, 
 Give me that rose, made brighter by your breath. 
 To be to me a sign, a token until death — 
 Give me that rose ! 
 
 Give me that rose ; you have not given me much; 
 A finger now and then, a dainty lip to touch, 
 But never any boon, no tender favour such 
 As to that rose ! ' 
 
GIVE ME THAT ROSE. 51 
 
 And (Ais she gave him ; nothing else beside. 
 To another she was given, as a blossom, as a bride, 
 But her lover withered, grew feeble, and he died. 
 As did the rose ! 
 
 4—2 
 
DEATH IS BETTER. 
 
 Death is better ! and why ? 
 Because the sands of the soul, 
 That stammer and flutter and roll, 
 Halt, and are tamed, and are dry. 
 When their tremulous beads run nigh 
 To that ultimate fiery goal. 
 
 Death is better ; for there 
 We are not plagued any more 
 By things we cherished before. 
 And no love's wonderful hair 
 Comes fluttering, fierce and fair, 
 Along that desolate shore. 
 
 Death is better ! for life 
 Is an unsearched desperate pit, 
 And our souls are swallows and flit 
 
DEATH IS BETTER. 53 
 
 At the mouth in a tortuous strife — 
 But when Death gleams and his knife, 
 We do not flutter but sit. 
 
 Death is better ; so come, 
 Thou much-loved villanous knave, 
 And scatter the mould of the grave 
 
 With cunning finger and thumb ; 
 
 Believe us, that there are some 
 Thy coming shall calm and save. ! 
 
 For Death hath a diverse face, 
 
 To some he is strong and a cord, 
 
 To others the blade of a sword 
 Keen-sharpened, devoid of grace — ■ 
 To others a gentle embrace 
 
 And a soft and supreme reward. 
 
 For as the wind in the dark, 
 
 Coming down in a railway train 
 
 In summer, is blown in vain 
 Round that travelling swift- win gad spark, 
 So is death but a toothless shark 
 
 To a soul whose life is pain. 
 
 One long throb, and a flow 
 Of one long pitiless stream. 
 The groan of an endless dream. 
 
54 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And a pale perpetual show 
 Of sounds that flicker and glow, 
 Waver and sparkle and beam ; 
 
 But never rise to a lamp, 
 
 To the light of the face of a bride. 
 To a strong-pulsed silvery tide. 
 
 But are intermittent and damp — 
 
 For souls foam hard and champ 
 Their bits, when lost loves ride ; 
 
 Ride, and are bitter, and near, 
 That never a man may escape 
 That following sweet-voiced shape. 
 
 But his soul may bend and may hear 
 
 For ever the tramp of a fear. 
 And for ever the rustle of crape ; 
 
 And for ever the shiver of hands, 
 And for ever the feet of the lost, 
 And the throbs that search and exhaus^ 
 Girdled with steel-spun bands, 
 For her hair, in sweet wide strands, 
 Is over him waved and tossed ; 
 
DEATH IS BETTER. 55 
 
 Over him, down to his feet, 
 
 A terror, and yet so good 
 
 That, just as an image of wood, 
 He hath halted upright to meet 
 That shower of soft rain sweet, 
 
 Hath paused, and considered, aijd stood — 
 
 And hath tenderly pursed his face 
 
 To enjoy, and drink, and receive ; 
 
 For only a fool would leave 
 A goddess-inhabited place — 
 A distant and doubtful grace, , 
 
 And an unknown boon to achieve. 
 
FREEDOM. 
 
 PHCEBUS TO MARGARET. 
 
 Thou art mine, my lady, now — 
 Eyes, and heart, and hands, and brow ; 
 
 Let him sound the bitter trumpet of his loss, 
 As we cross the swollen river, 
 And the waves that climb and quiver. 
 
 Laughing at the fiery crested heads they toss. 
 
 Thou art mine, my lady, now ! 
 
 Let him agonize, and bow, 
 And stand staring on the shore with feeble hands, 
 
 As we leave his face behind, 
 
 Mute, and thunderstruck, and blind, 
 And his feet that spurn and violate the sands. 
 
FREEDOM. 57 
 
 Thou art mine, my lady, now ! 
 
 And therefore do I vow, 
 By thy lips pressed close, and tender, and thrice sweet. 
 
 That I will be to thee 
 
 Not a husband such as he, 
 But a lover everlasting, as is meet. 
 
 For a husband is a fool, 
 
 And they learn in that slow school 
 Lisps, and faint infirm emotions, and cold words ; 
 
 But ours is such a life 
 
 As the merry mad-cap strife 
 'Mong the reckless, loud, and violent-hearted birds. 
 
 MARGARET TO PHCEBUS. 
 
 Thou art mine, my Phoebus ! I 
 
 Have ta'en courage to deny 
 And make havoc of the popular foul creed ; 
 
 And I do it with a loud. 
 
 Loving heart ; I build my shroud. 
 And I pierce myself, and bruise myself, and bleed- 
 
 With my own unwavering hands. 
 Leaving husband and fair lands, 
 
58 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And a palace, and a city, for thy sake ; 
 
 Counting this a thing of course, 
 
 So I add to thy sweet force 
 What of love my circled loving hands can take. 
 
 So I carry unto thee 
 
 The true golden heart of me, 
 Unpurchased and unshaken by his gold ; 
 
 For, in that I am thine, 
 
 I swear that I will shine 
 As no wife, but as thy true love from of old. 
 
 For a wife is but a dame 
 
 Who conceals, for very shame, 
 The absence of the quality of love ; 
 
 But, Phoebus, thou and I 
 
 Are as tender birds that fly. 
 Winged with tender floating plumage, up above. 
 
 PHCEBUS TO MARGARET. 
 
 There to tarry and be strong. 
 
 And to hurl a sinking song 
 On the heads of listening loveless churls beneath ; 
 
 For our children, as a crown. 
 
 Some clear message sending down. 
 Some clear silver note of warning we bequeath. 
 
FREEDOM. 59 
 
 In the trees and in the blue, 
 
 Where, Margaret, I and you, 
 In the trees and in the heavens — you and I — 
 
 Shall ascend, and, being strong, 
 
 Dart an arrow of gold song, 
 To awake a timid people by-and-by. 
 
 That these may be as we, 
 
 And may hearken, and may see 
 Love's true guerdon. Love's true victory and crown ; 
 
 And may burst the iron bands 
 
 With a might of iron hands. 
 Breaking battlements and walls of custom down ; 
 
 That Love may be as free 
 
 As the blue unfettered sea. 
 Having wings as are an eagle's, and her eyes 
 
 Bent in red unflinching gaze, 
 
 Through the mists and severed haze. 
 Towards the circle of the sun about to rise. 
 
LOVE'S FLIGHT. 
 
 I WENT a sailing, sailing, 
 
 With my lady bright, 
 Wings failing, and plumes paling. 
 
 Through the night. 
 
 By many misty meadows 
 
 Devoid of bloom, 
 And dim blue shadows, 
 
 Cleaving the gloom ; 
 
 By many green hedges, 
 And rivers, and broad lakes, 
 
 By whose edges 
 The feu-grass quakes ; 
 
 By many tall mountains, 
 Snowy and sublime, 
 
LOVE'S FLIGHT. 6i 
 
 And sweet flower-circled fountains, 
 Whose ripple is a rhyme ; 
 
 By many moons, and flaming 
 
 Immense red trees, 
 We flew together, aiming 
 
 Our flight at these ; 
 
 By many wrinkled oceans, 
 
 Crawling at our feet, 
 We fluttered, and the motions 
 
 Of our plumes were sweet ; 
 
 Through high exulting airs 
 
 We went, and smiled, 
 Remembering soft prayers 
 
 When a child — 
 
 For we saw them seated 
 
 As angels, yellow and red, 
 In the skies, and greeted 
 
 Each familiar head ; 
 
 Lost to us for ever. 
 
 Unanswered, so we thought, 
 Trembling backward never, 
 
 Upward hurled for nought. 
 
63 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 But my gentle lady 
 
 Seized my hands, and said, 
 " Rest, as in some shady 
 
 Hollow of sweet bed " — 
 And then first she made me 
 
 Aware that I was dead! 
 
HEAVEN : A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 
 
 A VISION of Heaven. On the marble floors 
 
 Stood three immortals ; two were women ; one 
 Passed, as a man, towards the gold-gleaming doors, 
 
 Whose latches, by angelic palms undone, 
 Admitted to an open flowery lawn, 
 Burnished, and overladen by the sun ; 
 
 It seemed about the hour of crimson dawn ; 
 
 One woman's eyes slione most divinely green — 
 Like green seas — and her neck was like a fawn — 
 
 Slender and graceful— and she stepped a queen, 
 And a most delicate dimple on her cheek 
 Did testify of merry wit unseen, 
 
64 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 AVhich whoso will be valiant to seek, 
 
 Like some bold knight upon a perilous quest, 
 
 Shall first be pure, and temperate, and meek, 
 
 * 
 And skilled, besides, in courtly quip and jest ; 
 
 But when she smiled, it was as if the sun 
 Burst with a sudden flame some larchen nest, 
 
 And through the tender green red rays did run 
 Laughing, and lissome on their fiery feet — 
 Even such a brilliance from her beauty spun 
 
 Did overcome beholders with a sweet 
 Exuberancy, and inner sense of bloom ; 
 And as the impulsive swan's approach is fleet. 
 
 And as his breast divides the watery tomb. 
 
 Like some bright angel gliding through the airs, 
 So did her steps the rapid meads consume. 
 
 The other lady's radiant brow declares 
 
 Keen wit, and subtle force of many things ; 
 
 So, swept 'mid many soft celestial pairs, 
 
 They advance, and, smiling, each to the other sings 
 
 Of unforgotten earth, and daisies pink. 
 And forests where the fairies dance in rings, 
 
HEAVEN: A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 65 
 
 And rushes bright in spring-tide on the brink 
 Of silver rivers, quivering through the haze, 
 
 Where wag-tails stoop their slender heads to drink, 
 
 And water-rats scud swiftly through the maze 
 
 Of flowering reed, and peppermint, and grass, 
 And blue forget-me-not, and woodbine sprays 
 
 That overhang the stream ; and beetles pass 
 
 Through the great leaves of lilies, white or yellow, 
 
 That gleam like flakes of vari-coloured glass 
 
 Upon the waves — see what a supple fellow 
 Is that one gliding all athwart the reeds. 
 Blue-backed and shiny ! Tiny voices mellow 
 
 Of happy insects, too, the passer heeds. 
 And as he dreams upon a thymy bank, 
 
 To soothing whisper soothing sound succeeds, 
 
 And half-seen shapes do glimmer through the rank 
 
 And steamy water-foliage ; star-like flowers. 
 And here and there he views the nimble prank 
 
 Of fishes, fi'Ogs, and swallows ; and in bowers 
 Of bright green starwort dragon-flies are seated. 
 Not testing yet their vibratory powers ; 
 
 S 
 
66 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And many subtle notes of birds repeated 
 
 Flame from the neighbouring woods, like silver streams 
 Of sound and colour mixed, and a conceited 
 
 Loud thrush is ululant ; his bright throat teems 
 With vocal fancies, and from spray to spray 
 He hurls the windy utterance of his dreams. 
 
 With many visions of so sweet a day 
 
 The ladies, swept through heaven on crystal wing, 
 Had, erst, beguiled the tedium of their way. 
 
 Teaching each other novel tricks to sing, 
 And laughing now and then, as woman will. 
 Being an artless, simple-headed thing. 
 
 But nojy they stayed each rapid plumy quill. 
 Seeing a man, and, overjoyed, exclaimed, 
 " Ha ! thou art mine, sweet, all unaltered still !" 
 
 Forth from each face a recognition flamed — 
 " He is my very husband," says the one, 
 
 " The very man I married, trimmed, and tamed." 
 
 " Nay," says the other, " he is that sweet sun 
 Who shone upon my early life, made bitter 
 By thoughts impoverished and dreams undone." , 
 
HEAVEN: A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 67 
 
 So, like two linnets in a bough, they twitter, 
 Each fixing on him earnest supple eyes, 
 That with repressed desire do flame and glitter, 
 
 Even as a double sunset in the skies, 
 
 One green, one grey, but either tinged with red ; 
 For in hot cheeks the amorous roses rise. 
 
 " You married him — he loved me; for he said 
 His very soul and all its wealth was mine. 
 And in a leash his power of voice I led ; 
 
 " So that he cared for nothing, save to twine 
 Delicious wreaths of violet-scented songs. 
 And these in many a feathery, leafy line 
 
 " Flew round about my unheeding feet in throngs, 
 As bees besiege a blooming currant-bush, 
 
 Whose budding honey to each mouth belongs ; 
 
 " So sonnets, with an agile heat and rush. 
 Did overwhelm me, till, as a red rose, 
 Down to my shoulders I was fain to blush ! 
 
 "Say, sir, are you not mindful now of those ?• 
 " But, lady, 'tis my wife ! I thought that here 
 In heaven all hearts were crystal as the snows, 
 
 5—2 
 
68 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 " And each incapable of any sneer ; 
 
 But that, in truth, 'tis not exactly so 
 I now begin, sweet early love, to fear. 
 
 " Oh ! t^u didst waken first the rosy glow 
 Of passion ; when I called, thou didst disdain 
 The fiery floods that then did overflow, 
 
 " Like some volcano's luminous red rain ; 
 And so I married Her to lay remorse — 
 I married /ler to cudgel thick-backed pain ; 
 
 " I thought Platonic love ! the winged horse 
 Prevailed in heaven, and that his golden wings 
 Surpassed all doubt and selfishness of course. 
 
 " I see that heaven is paved with other things ; 
 
 That, as on earth, no woman can abide 
 A rival, but another's presence stings. 
 
 " I thought to float so softly on the tide 
 Of double ministry ; but now, behold ! 
 A fissure doth disperse my double bride, 
 
 " My woman, wrought of silver and of gold — 
 
 For first love is of gold, and after her, 
 'Tis well if even silvery gauze enfold 
 
HEAVEN: A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 69 
 
 " The woman fashioned of later air ; 
 A large unselfishness, the people taught, 
 In heaven should give to each the power to share 
 
 " Her proper influence, and envy naught ; 
 But now those sidelong looks do testify 
 That even in heaven can Jealousy be caught, — 
 
 " And that strong passion agitates the sky 
 Wherein with gauzy wings, and crystal mail, 
 The cherubim and seraphim do fly ; 
 
 " See, my sweet green-eyed love is still and pale, 
 
 And my soft grey-eyed charmer is on fire 
 To flesh her talons in the other's veil, 
 
 " And red with pent-up volume of desire : 
 Oh, miserable man ! to be divided 
 Upon the faggots of so sweet a pyre, 
 
 " Thus tortured, and perverted, and derided, 
 
 When to be sacrificed for either were 
 As if a ravished saint to heaven glided 
 
 " In cars and happy pinions light as air; 
 Now my first love, reviving, burns me through. 
 And wraps me in unutterably fair 
 
70 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 " Excess of roses, and a pearly dew 
 Too sweet and too ethereal to tell. 
 Save only to the s)rmpatbetic few 
 
 " On whom the bardic fire from heaven fell- 
 And now my later lady with her mouth, 
 So soft, and as the purple violets' smell, 
 
 " O'erwhelms me, like a garden, in the south : 
 
 One virgin is the fit dower of a man, 
 But two do trickle over me in truth, 
 
 " As if two equal-bodied streamlets ran ' 
 From a piny mountain, and the one is green, 
 The other grey, and silver-tinged, and wan ; 
 
 " Even so the pearly brilliance of my queen 
 Dismays me softly, and her hands surpass 
 The beauty of all soil: things later seen, 
 
 " As spring's is sweeter than the autumn grass, 
 And apple-blossMn glorious in May — 
 
 But all such pink and delicate bloom doth pass 
 
 " Not able to resist the straigbter ray 
 
 Of Phcebus ; then the sweet grey eyes do gleam 
 Upon me, and her bosom doth display 
 
HEAVEN: A PYSCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 71 
 
 " Scent and effulgence of a summer dream. 
 My beautiful, my eyes of violet, 
 That with delicious thoughts do bud and teem, 
 
 " Dost mind the forest-glade in which we met, 
 
 And the first love-look, and the first long kiss, ; 
 With lips immutably together set ? 
 
 " But now the lady shines who swayed the bliss 
 Of boyhood, and, behold, she loves me best, 
 And, like a meteor, risen with fiery hiss, 
 
 " Her splendour overcomes my supple breast ! 
 
 For, as a swan, she struggles through and through, 
 With tender feet, the reedy dismal nest 
 
 " Of my sad bosom, and it blooms anew 
 With lilies white and yellow, and with flowers 
 Red, purple as the heaven's own holy hue, 
 
 " And, see, she fills me with eternal powers 
 
 Of thought and understanding ; O my lady. 
 Poured over me in mystic maiden showers 
 
 " Of white dispersed effulgence, as a shady 
 Sweet rivulet doth crystallize a wood — 
 The soft continuance of that stream had made* me 
 
72 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 " A god divinely jubilant and good ; 
 
 But thou didst fly in terror through the hollows. 
 With rapidly receding, tarnished hood, 
 
 " Like frightened purple backs of scudding swallows ; 
 But now thy sweet face softly doth return, 
 And over hill and dale thy adorer follows — 
 
 " And all his spirits tremblingly do yearn, 
 
 And all his heart is compassed by a flame 
 That doth divide, and extirpate, and burn 
 
 " The later follies of a lower aim : 
 take him to thy breast, and let the splendour 
 Of thine immediate rose-bloom soothe and tame 
 
 " The ravished spirit that he again would render 
 
 To be irrevocably, wholly, thine ; — " 
 But then a sweet voice, silvery and tender. 
 
 Did whisper, " Nay, my hero, thou art mine !" 
 And I was 'ware that in some mossy wood, 
 Under a monstrous growth of purple pine, 
 
 Over my head a slender seraph stood, 
 
 And loaded me with violets, and a love. 
 From foot to crimson apex of tall hood, 
 
HEAVEN: A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 73 
 
 Unspeakable, did circle her ; above 
 'Twas as a golden halo, and her crown 
 Was seemly as the gold crest of a dove 
 
 Through reverent sprays of larches fluttering down. 
 
 Whose back is green, but head as rapid fire ; 
 And, in my dream, the woman seemed to frown 
 
 As if retaining some untold desire ; — 
 So I became aware that heaven and death 
 Cannot set straight the bent strings of the lyre. 
 
 As one with overweening fancy saith ; 
 
 For that a woman will not know content, 
 Nor peaceful passage of her gentle breath. 
 
 Until she be supreme — his heart not rent. 
 But all her own. It will not do to say 
 
 " In heaven bright-gold unselfish wings are lent," 
 
 For still a woman's shoulders are of clay, 
 
 And their pure warmth shall melt the heavenly plumes, 
 And make them as the feathers of to-day. 
 
 Which her fierce soul repeatedly consumes ; 
 Platonic preachers ! I do bid you all 
 Forth from among dim philosophic tombs, 
 
74 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And mark this trio in the golden hall 
 
 Of heaven, and 'mid the turrets and white towers 
 That overtop and overshadow all. 
 
 Mark the rich access of new heavenly powers, , 
 But see that passion hath the ruddier grown 
 For influx of red blood from heavenly flowers, 
 
 And more imperious yet her urgent tone. 
 
 " Each heart," ye say, " shall overshadow each. 
 Seizing each petal straightly towards it blown, 
 
 " And similar tendrils every soul shall reach 
 Towards similar tendrils, for to each belongs 
 A repertory of some separate speech, 
 
 " And unto God the central Song of songs : 
 
 Where sympathy is present, there in heaven 
 Is union, and the close angelic throngs 
 
 " Make marriages, by similar feeling driven ! 
 And many marriages of earth are changed, 
 And fulsome links of earth asunder riven 
 
 " By the broad wind whose healthy breezes ranged 
 
 Over celestial fields" — it will not do ; 
 Though all the angelic hosts aloud harangued 
 
HEAVEN: A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 75 
 
 A woman, would she, be content to view 
 Herself dispersed among the red and green, 
 Red Gabriel perhaps, or grim Ezekiel blue ? 
 
 Even as passion on the earth hath been, 
 
 So it shall be for ever ; o'er the hills 
 Of heaven there shines no novel sun, I ween, 
 
 Dispersing and redeeming all our ills ; 
 No novel rainbow, making all things clear. 
 Illumes the tender froth of heavenly rills, 
 
 But there is turgid passion — even as here — 
 
 And jealousy, and, perhaps, even hate, 
 And insolence, and bigotry, and fear. 
 
 And, when, the seasons hurl us, soon or late. 
 Into that vapid waste of hazy sky. 
 There will be quarrels between Ruth and Kate, 
 
 Nor will Ruth hesitate to tell a lie. 
 
 To bring her Alfred sooner to her breast, 
 For the immediate pressure of God's eye — 
 
 Since, sooner shall a bird forsake her nest. 
 Than woman be content to mix her soul 
 With the great soul of Love, at second-bes^] 
 
76 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And, since we cannot make things sweet and whole, 
 
 We count creation but a sorry jest, 
 And join God's laughter, as the wild years roll. 
 
THOU COULD'ST NOT WATCH WITH ME. 
 
 Thou could'st not watch with me, my lady fair ! 
 The winds are sharp, and bitter is the night, 
 And thou art all too weak to wait the light 
 
 That, like a lion springing from his lair, 
 Shall presently be with us in red might : 
 
 But thou art binding dilatory hair, 
 
 And sending shafts of singing through the air. 
 
 II. 
 
 Thou could'st not watch with me, my lady sweet ! 
 
 The past is pleasant, and the future sad ; 
 
 The past is easy, but new roads are bad, ; 
 And flints are merciless to tender feet. 
 
 Demanding many a soft flower for a pad : 
 
78 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Stay, tarry quiet in thy soft retreat, 
 
 Nor tempt the new day's labour and its heat 
 
 III. 
 
 Thou could'st not watch with me, my lady white ! 
 Thine are the roses and the pleasant meads. 
 And the good simple crowns of former creeds ; 
 
 But not the ecstatic rapture of the fight. 
 
 And the endless garland of the soul that bleeds : 
 
 I would not change my part with thine to-night, 
 Though thy rich kisses led my coward's flight. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thou could'st not watch with me, my lady pale ! 
 Thine are the quiet valleys, and the rivers 
 Where the long brown reed suns itself and shivers ; 
 
 But not the mixing of red swords and mail. 
 
 And noise of broken spears and sundered quivers : 
 
 Which, in the end, shall tell a loftier tale, 
 And one of kinglier more proud avail ? 
 
THOU COULD'ST NOT WATCH WITH ME. 79 
 
 V. 
 
 Thou could'st not watch with me, my lady slow ! 
 
 Thine are the faces hollow with despair ; 
 
 But mine, new hopes, where a new moon is fair, 
 Casting across wide seas a flood of snow, 
 
 Impearling all the ocean from her lair : 
 
 'Tis dark with thee, sweet ; but it is not so 
 Under this crescent and her pearly glow. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Thou could'st not watch with me, my lady sad ! 
 
 Where are the hopes and thoughts that soared to- 
 gether 
 
 In the old amazing, reckless, foam-winged weather, 
 And soft prognostications we have had, 
 
 Trying fortune at a dandelion feather ? 
 
 Thou hast left me, thou art feeble, thou art bad — 
 And 1 am but a broken-hearted lad ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 Thou could'st not watch with me, my lady, whom 
 I would have followed, even unto death 
 
8o UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And far beyond, if sO' thy rose-bud breath 
 And all thy wonderfiil rose-scented bloom 
 Were mine, in such a manner as Love saith ; 
 
 For then there were no terror in the tomb, 
 And every sin that bounty should consume. ' 
 
A LAMENT. 
 
 " By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept." 
 
 Before I lose Love's being, and my heart 
 
 Ceases to feel the pressure of his dart, 
 
 I would return, once only, to my love, 
 
 As to the sweet nest of a mountain dove 
 
 Her amorous mate returns with eager cries ; 
 
 So would I once more gird me, and arise. 
 
 And seek, rejecting fiercely milder pleas, 
 
 Th' unaltered and imperishable seas. 
 
 Where, with that soft-haired woman for my bride, 
 
 I dreamed upon the silver-fiowing tide. 
 
 AU presents to her feet, and songs, I brought. 
 And wayward golden gifts transcending thought. 
 And all the blossom of a hoped-for name. 
 And passion, as a beautiful large flame 
 
 6 
 
82 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Aspiring, with red increase of clear top, 
 
 To mountain-summits, where God's eagles stop 
 
 Upon their journey to the heavenly city ; 
 
 All tenderness, and fair renown, and pity, 
 
 And goodness, and the eternal hope of life, 
 
 I spread before her sweet embroidered knife. 
 
 That she might slay the very heart of me. 
 
 Like a white breaker tumbling in mid-sea 
 
 Upon the tiny fabric of a boat ; 
 
 So was I willing never more to float 
 
 Upon the yeasty tempest of life's tide. 
 
 But rather prayed that, clasping a cold bride, 
 
 I might awake, with flourish of cold horn. 
 
 The mists and melancholy planets bom 
 
 Among the icy mountain-tops of death ; 
 
 Yea, had her sweet and honey-scented breath 
 
 But mir\gled, as a flowing stream, with mine. 
 
 We had not been as mortals, but divine. 
 
 Made one for ever with th' unyielding gods, 
 
 And all their fame, and glitter of their rods, 
 
 Mixed in some mystic undivided way. 
 
 And ruling, with indisputable sway. 
 
 The plumage of the forest, and the com. 
 
 And all the flowers from Sol's sweet breathing bom. 
 
 The poppies red that fragrant Ceres wears, 
 
 And myrtle that full-bosomed Venus bears, 
 
A LAMENT. 83 
 
 And every tiny blossom of the field — 
 Some such a sceptre we had come to wield. 
 
 And we had ridden as sea-birds on the foam, 
 And made the azure height a ready home, 
 And trodden the mystic islands that divide 
 With white brows the soft Caribbean tide, 
 Where are all fair shapes, and the water flows 
 As from some trembling sunset-fount that glows 
 Against the pearly bosom of the sky. 
 
 sweet breast ! once brought tenderly most nigh 
 To my own yearning spirit in a dream, 
 
 1 try the breasts of women, but they seem 
 But as cold shapes in colder marble dressed 
 Compared with that tense vision which possessed 
 My heart, and mind, and body to the feet. 
 
 For all the room was fiUed with fragrance sweet, 
 An odour so ineffable and strange," 
 That to no purpose doth my fancy range 
 The hollows of fair diction, to describe 
 A nature so ethere^ — next a tribe 
 Of soft flowers, as it were — I saw them not — 
 Or spirits dressed as soft; flowers, free from spot, 
 
 6—2 
 
84 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Flowed over me, and with clear gentle hands 
 
 Removed each stain contracted in these lands 
 
 Of poverty, and foul disease, and death ; 
 
 But, over and above, I felt thy breath, 
 
 My sweet lost lady, as a silver stream. 
 
 Or odorous music fainting thro' a dream. 
 
 Pervading and possessing all my flesh 
 
 And all the tissues of my soul, with mesh 
 
 Most delicate, and vibratory, and fine ; 
 
 Past sins and blessings in a clear great line 
 
 Stood white before my qlear transfigured gaze, 
 
 No longer hampered with the fog and haze 
 
 Of this our dull mortality, but keen 
 
 As the true emerald glances of my queen ; 
 
 Then came the wonder of your spirit-form. 
 
 Riding superb upon a flowery storm 
 
 Of snows, and mists, and roses, and soft things. 
 
 With dainty flutter of seraphic wings. 
 
 Creating, like rapt Jacob, in that spot 
 
 A jewelled altar excellently wrought, 
 
 So that I said, although I was alone, 
 
 " How soft you are, sweet, and how soft a tone 
 
 Hath pierced my melting bosom through and through." 
 
 As with the touch of circumambient blue, 
 
 Your spirit then encircled me — I wept, 
 
 And all my involuntary senses crept 
 
A LAMENT. 85 
 
 For very awe at the unaccustomed sight 
 
 Of so superb a lady robed in white 
 
 Dividing the thick vapour of my room 
 
 With wings and body equal in white bloom, 
 
 And breasts whereon the scarlet blossoms smiled 
 
 Like the soft breasts and beauty of a child, 
 
 When thou wast very near — and then I rose, 
 
 Desiring this strange vision to disclose 
 
 Its inner sense ; but not a word was said, 
 
 It was as if I held a woman dead. 
 
 After, I slept, but in my hollow dreams 
 
 You walked my brain's mute chamber, clad in beams 
 
 Spun from the argent tissues of the moon, 
 
 And clothed me with so silvery a swoon 
 
 That, when I woke, my face was like a god 
 
 From whose fair cheeks a splendour has o'erflowed. 
 
 I slept, and woke, and slept and woke again. 
 
 But all the time you watched me, and the pain, 
 
 And dismal solitude, and groans of years. 
 
 Fled to a lone abyss, dissolved in tears, 
 
 And all the murky vapour of despair ; — 
 
 O thou most delicate, O thou most fair, 
 
 With sweet short flower-lips, and the emerald eyes, 
 
 Hear these last glimmering snatches as they rise. 
 
 Recalling all the wondrous things I felt 
 
 When spirit into spirit seemed to melt ] 
 
86 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And yet you loved another, and our doom 
 Is separate, and that garden of choice bloom 
 Was but a dreamy Paradise in air. 
 Supremely unreal, and so, supremely fair. 
 For every craving then was satisfied, 
 A golden god had found a silver bride, 
 And the sweet torrents flowing from your mouth. 
 Like inundating streamlets in the south. 
 Washed quickly with a moist delicious breath 
 Each sin and every feebleness to death. 
 Because the dream was fair, it was not true, 
 I am divided wholly, sweet, from you, 
 And on this windy earth we meet no more. 
 Neither upon the large eternal shore 
 Where Dante's pallid ghost for ever sits. 
 And near him Beatrice, a sea-bird, flits. 
 Striving in vain with amorous beat of wings 
 To re-awaken perished former things, 
 For loves sink wholly, and their end is death. 
 And no joy re-arouses their spent breath. 
 Love, I was tender then — but now I know. 
 Since thou hast fled and left my spirit so, 
 That iron, for red ichor, fills my veins 
 That bubble with intolerable pains 
 And sick desires swift-hastening to the tomb — 
 Ah ! as I think, my lady's white wings loom 
 
A LAMENT. 87 
 
 From the sad corners of Time's hollow cave, 
 And in the air her banished pennons wave, 
 As once above the tumbling northern seas 
 She fluttered, like a white bird in the breeze, 
 Leading her panting follower quickly on : 
 Since that date many novel plumes have shone, 
 But none possess the power to move the stone 
 That Death's perpetual energy has thrown 
 Over the entrance of our risen life, 
 Or loosen his implacable red knife. 
 
 Sweet poets round their mistresses have flung 
 The mantle of the l3Te from which they sung ; 
 With some such melody, had I the skill. 
 The coming years and lustres I would fill, 
 Sending thy name, like Dante, in a song, 
 The eternal haunts and billowy meads among, 
 That so the untested ages might be 'ware 
 Of thine own glittering maze of black-brown hair 
 Which drew me, as a tender forest draws 
 A fairy cognizant of its sweet laws, 
 Desirous there to penetrate, and hide 
 Washed bosom in the green tumultuous tide. 
 Plunging, as in a delicate loud stream. 
 Into that moving mass of leaflets — theme 
 
88 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Delicious ! so would I have plunged my sorrow 
 Deep in those tresses lost for many a morrow, 
 Removing 'mid their delicate perfume 
 Each trace of former treachery and gloom. 
 O passion ! passion ! passion ! now I die 
 Hurled from thy blazing and voluptuous sky, 
 Even as an eagle-claw might hurl a lark 
 Into a waste of deep abysses dark, 
 Or cleave the broken spirit of a quail 
 Who sought his azure pasture to assail ; — 
 But once voluptuously my spirit trode, 
 Armed like a blazing and abundant god, 
 The fields that now I fail, alas ! to reach, 
 Downdropping towards a miserable, low beach. 
 O passion ! passion ! passion ! — once as flame 
 The holy impress of thy finger came. 
 Resolving into one tempestuous night 
 Thy former potency, and pristine might, 
 And all thy former store of Love's young flowers. 
 And honey mixed in frequent meads and bowers. 
 But now thou art but as a woman fled, 
 Leaving her lover cast away and dead ! 
 For all the world, and heaven, is nothing now. 
 Not Caucasus with white careering brow. 
 Nor monstrous marble-pillared Apennines, 
 Nor tresses of the moist ItaUan vines. 
 
A LAMENT. 89 
 
 Nor cities seated in the fickle North 
 
 Where rain and sunstrokes dart, alternate, forth, 
 
 Nor tumult of the happy bounding seas, 
 
 Nor blessings flying on a summer breeze, 
 
 Nor all the talk of birds, and lips of flowers. 
 
 And lips of young girls in their rose-hung bowers, 
 
 And laughter, and their happy smiling faces — 
 
 I feel the loss of thee in all such places — 
 
 And, from the loss of thee, I rise and wail 
 
 Like billows on an autumn evening pale 
 
 Lamenting the departure of the sun. 
 
 O thou most delicate ! whose lips were spun, 
 
 From roses culled by Venus in some nook 
 
 Desirable, beside a bubbling brook, 
 
 And whose fair cheeks Apollo's glory gave. 
 
 And locks were plaited in a nymph-filled cave. 
 
 And whose white arms sweet Juno's self alone 
 
 Plucked from the handles of her ivory throne. 
 
 And for whose eyes swart Vulcan searched the deep 
 
 Where gods their emeralds and diamonds keep, 
 
 And whose soft limbs were moulded by divine 
 
 Dexterity firom snows and eglantine, 
 
 So that a lover felt thy bosom cold 
 
 And liquid, mixed with those sweet flowers of gold. 
 
 Pervade his trembling body through and through. 
 
 Not otherwise than the descending dew 
 
90 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Drips gently on the slow rejoicing lawns, 
 
 As with ten thousand steps of tiny fawns, 
 
 Or as the horse-chestnut showers upon the ground 
 
 Sweet blossoms, with a tender rippUng sound — 
 
 thou most delicate and dainty bird ! 
 Whose voice in the unknown avenues I heard. 
 Mixed with the tender dreams and sobs of youth. 
 For whose sake I aspired towards perfect truth, 
 Seeking with ardent vision to discern 
 
 The higher instinct at my every turn, 
 
 And follow it through trouble unto death — 
 
 1 say that heaven, if robbed of thy sweet breath, 
 Is but a listless, hopeless heaven to me, 
 Where I shall all indifferently be ! 
 
 Oh ! songs, and vast abounding tunes that smote 
 My spirit, sailing as a crystal boat 
 Through oceans and abysses of fair dreams, 
 How far away your giant concert seems ; — 
 When all the sky was as a hollow bell. 
 And earth was as a vale, in which there fell 
 The abundant clamour and soft-sandalled feet 
 Of music mystically tongued and sweet. 
 Proclaiming vanished visions past recall. 
 With Immortality beyond them all. 
 Clear as a gate beyond the setting sun 
 When labour and its turbulence is done, 
 
A LAMENT. 9i 
 
 And through that barrier with a gentle touch 
 We pass, emerging from Death's icy clutch 
 Into a bright array of newer things — 
 
 memory of each delight that clings 
 Still to me with a frantic craving hand. 
 Vanish, for 'tis her desolate command ! 
 
 In heaven if we should meet, I know not how 
 
 To gaze upon thee with untroubled brow ; 
 
 For thou wast unto me as Beatrice, 
 
 Although thine own heart was of foam or ice. 
 
 Or as the fickle sea-weed that is tossed 
 
 From amorous wave to wave, and straightway lost; 
 
 But I was faithful, and I mixed thy name 
 
 With sounding currents of prophetic fame. 
 
 And, when I walked in woods, and by swift streams, 
 
 1 saw thy garments vanish 'mid pale beams, 
 Clothed in alluring drapery of mist ; 
 
 The branches were divided by thy wrist. 
 
 As, in the dainty fables of old Greece, 
 
 N)niiphs' shoulders, whiter than a lamb's white fleece, , 
 
 Were fair against the bending branches green ; 
 
 So, with all-fair thoughts mingled I, my queen, 
 
 Thy spirit, and thy laughter, and thy form, 
 
 Whether with purple pulse of thunder-storm. 
 
 Or vast irradiance of the gleaming sky. 
 
 And through sleep's lanes and meadows ardently 
 
92 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 I fluttered forth, as to a trysting-place 
 
 Where I should meet some silver-footed grace, 
 
 Who, with full bosom and with rosy mouth. 
 
 Should pacify the dread perpetual drouth 
 
 Of my parched being — all the mountain-spurs 
 
 Clothed grandly with inimitable firs, 
 
 And with designs and marble shades inwrought, 
 
 Were yours, by virtue of my fresh young thoughtj 
 
 And, underneath the starry heaven and moon, 
 
 I heard your voice, as an entrancing tune. 
 
 And when I pressed my face against a rose. 
 
 It was as if the breath that no man knows 
 
 Delighted and enslaved me in a dream, 
 
 And when the first sun cast his first gold beam 
 
 Across the glittering pastures from the east, 
 
 I held with thee a lone delicious feast ; 
 
 For thou didst so possess me that I felt 
 
 All pleasures through thy violent body melt, 
 
 As through the violence of an organ-tune 
 
 Stream, stars, and sun, and palpitating moon. 
 
 All joys and sorrows of humanity 
 
 Merged in the tumult of one raving sea. 
 
 That shakes the trembling spirit till it groans, 
 
 As purple mists of muffled undertones 
 
 Swathe body, and soul, and sinews, and dumb flesh, 
 
 In one resounding vibratory mesh, 
 
A LAMENT. 93 
 
 Commingling and dispersing all things fair 
 
 As with a current of intensest air, 
 
 So that our nerves do creep upon the chords, 
 
 Pierced, as it were, by exquisite sharp swords. 
 
 Till, if we could, our very souls should leap 
 
 Into the abyss of that organ-deep, 
 
 Made one for ever with the eternal sound, 
 
 And wandering as ghostly shades around 
 
 The interior, whence the ghostly concert springs. 
 
 Swept onward on inevitable strings ; — 
 
 So, lady, doth my spirit fly to thee, 
 
 Horsed on the thunders of loose melody. 
 
 Ignorant, and craving only to be found 
 
 Within the barriers of that mystic sound, 
 
 At whose surpassing high command I build 
 
 Fair crowns and colonnades with which I gild 
 
 The trembling, holy precincts of my dream ; — 
 
 O thou most delicate ! O thou whose beam 
 
 Of maiden moonlight never fell across 
 
 The ocean of my spirit ! what a loss 
 
 And huge eternal undoing is mine, 
 
 That thou wast never present, sweet, to twine 
 
 The undying garlands of thy perfumed hands 
 
 Around me, save upon the fruitless sands 
 
 Of one immeasurably fragrant dream ; 
 
 Through heaven thy weird departing beauties gleam, 
 
94 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And through that heaven, — most hollow, and sad, and 
 
 pale, — 
 I still pursue, with wet remorseless sail. 
 The shadow of the gliding of thy bark. 
 Diminished now to a tremulous small spark 
 Splashing the slender waves that crisp heaven's sea ; 
 I am not ready to abandon thee, 
 And by thine eyes' own emerald sparkling light 
 I track thee through the terrors of Time's night 
 
 Yea, as the music smites my earnest soul 
 With rapt intelligence beyond control, 
 I leave the city, and these southern plains, 
 And all my fancy wings itself, and strains 
 Bright plumes to meet the northern piercing blast, 
 Pregnant with fair suggestions of the past. 
 I stream along the windy echoing chords. 
 Nursing the assistance that the tune affords, 
 And feel heaven opened, as my spirit sails 
 By flowery banks, and through responsive vales, 
 And many forests, goodly, dark, and dim. 
 And silver waters bubbling to the brim. 
 And lanes made bright with yellow eglantine. 
 And meads impurpled with the heavy vine ; 
 Through these I wander, searching for my love, 
 As the grey, winged desires of a sad dove 
 
A LAMENT. 95 
 
 Flit over mounts, and valleys, and tall trees. 
 
 In search of the receding mate she sees. 
 
 Till they meet softly in a mossy nest. 
 
 And all desires and troubles fade to rest. 
 
 So do I, lifting wings of fancy large, 
 
 Pursue by meadow, and wide lake, and marge 
 
 Of the resounding, pitiless, broad sea, 
 
 The fl3dng phantom that I christen thee. 
 
 Following through endless ranks of hollow corn, 
 
 From eventide till the triumphant mom 
 
 Sits on the mountains with a rosy cheek. 
 
 But I — I find not the fair boon I seek, 
 
 Not 'mid the moist abundant apple-groves, 
 
 Spotted with grey disturbing wings of, doves ; 
 
 Not 'mid the vine-leaves, nor the wet long grass 
 
 Through which, with tears and diligence, I pass ; 
 
 Not in the sunset, nor the gleams of day ; 
 
 Nor art thou hidden in twilight shadows grey. 
 
 I may not see thee ; but I fling my song 
 
 To rustle, like a floating star, among 
 
 The billows of abundant black-brown hair, 
 
 I found the sweetest gift of aU gifts fair. 
 
 Yea, well it was, my love, in very deed, 
 
 That thou didst deign but passing Uttle heed 
 
 To my desire, for I had found thy breast 
 
 A poisonous and over-bearing nest 
 
96 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 To dwell in — thou hadst burnt me through and through 
 
 As with a fiery rain of velvet dew, 
 
 Leaving no mortal fabric to survive 
 
 The immersion in that over-luscious hive. 
 
 Yea, even as bees are drowned in honey sweet, 
 
 I had swooned, a dead man, at thy fair, kind feet ; 
 
 But, since they are cruel, my torn life is left. 
 
 That otherwise had been so sweetly reft. 
 
 So sweetly murdered. Ah ! these women find 
 
 Dumb targets for their daggers in mankind. 
 
 And when they see us bleeding, they rejoice 
 
 With even a tenderer, more placid voice, 
 
 And softer movement of white steady hands ; 
 
 Their victims redden seas, and capes, and lands. 
 
 And still the old passion seizes upon all 
 
 Who step within the plastic earthly ball ; — 
 
 Surely their breasts are whiter, so I say, 
 
 Whose locks are tinged with age-announcing grey — 
 
 Surely their breasts are sweeter than of old, 
 
 And hair of far more wonderful deep gold 
 
 Than when I walked among them as a youth ; 
 
 Their lips are riper now, in very truth, 
 
 And eyes of far more wonderful bright blue. 
 
 Or the unexampled tender hazel hue 
 
 That filled the liquid glances of my queen ; 
 
 The future differs not from what has been, 
 
A LAMENT. 97 
 
 But love and sorrow do divide our breath, 
 And light us on the lonely inarch. to death. 
 
 Death, most bountiful ! O Death, most good ! 
 
 1 wonder, art thou as a green-girt wood, 
 Filled with the singing of rejoicing birds, , 
 And angels eloquent with risen words ? 
 Or art thou as some icy hollow cave, 
 
 Or moss-built circle of a sleepy grave ? 
 
 Or art thou as the thunders of the deep 
 
 Wherethrough the sharp-finned monstrous dolphins leap? 
 
 Or art thou as a soft and budding bank 
 
 Lighted with ruby flowers and grasses rank, 
 
 Whereon two talking lovers may abide 
 
 From happy morning till cool eventide ? 
 
 I leave the old meadows, mistress, and I fly 
 To some more taciturn and peaceful sky ; 
 But yet again the old raptures that I felt 
 Do bum me, and throughout me storm and melt, 
 And therefore, weeping, with these many words 
 I summon up the past — my future girds 
 Fresh vigorous loins to adventure novel things, 
 And soon I change the measure of my strings. 
 The cup o'er which so often I have grieved, 
 Which from thine hands I primarily received, 
 
98 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Resolveth now its sacred golden form, 
 
 Like some changed genius in a thunder-storm. 
 
 Into the gilded brackish vase of art, 
 
 Containing no solution for the heart ; 
 
 Love's crystal thus is changed ; my hand receives 
 
 A vessel dank with withered autumn leaves — 
 
 For that sweet vase my lady touched with lips 
 
 Sweeter than any flower the red bee sips. 
 
 wonderful and delicate perfume ! 
 That filled the faint recesses of the room 
 When, like a gliding ghost, my lady came 
 Riding on joyous curve of silvery flame, 
 
 1 wonder is there anything so sweet 
 
 In heaven for the dying sense to meet ? 
 For surely then my spirit would have fled 
 Gladly, to join the harp-strings of the dead ; 
 Yea, over the pale river then I passed. 
 Horsed like a prophet on a whirlwind blast. 
 And plucked fair endless blossoms from beside 
 Immortal Life's unceasing silver tide, 
 Where, seated on that quiet thymy bank, 
 She waited for me, 'mid ,the rushes rank. 
 To give the kiss for which in tears I wait 
 Now, till I cross the limit of Death's gate. 
 
LOST VOICES. 
 
 My power of voice and song. 
 
 And harp and spirit strong, 
 I seized at the sad ending of a day, 
 
 And brought them unto her 
 
 Who, cruel, would confer 
 ISTo laurel-leaves, save those with weeping grey. 
 
 And in my rage, I broke. 
 
 As lightning tears an oak. 
 The instruments whereon I used to play. 
 
 These shall no more resound, 
 So said I, nor abound 
 With many-coloured, subtle tints of song : 
 My flute, and harp, and lyre, 
 In sacrificial fire 
 
 7--2 
 
loo UNDER THE DAWN, 
 
 I place, amid the burnt infernal throng 
 Of spirits, whose parched feet 
 Do cool that nether heat, 
 
 Who walk the infernal burning haunt? among. 
 
 The voices that were good, 
 
 By lake, and mount, and wood, 
 For ever — yea, for ever now have ceased ; 
 
 The voices that could slake 
 
 The thirst of sea and lake. 
 By the broad chants of storm-winds unappeased ; 
 
 The voices that could move 
 
 A listening maid to love, 
 Are even as dead spirits just released. 
 
 On rapid wings they fly 
 
 Towards a newer distant sky ; 
 I shall not hear their tender voices sound 
 
 By river or by marge 
 
 Of ocean blue and large ; 
 I shall not hear them rusde o'er the ground. 
 
 As the breezes move in May 
 
 Many a gentle, leafy spray. 
 When the songs of yellow-breasted birds abound. 
 
LOST VOICES. ic 
 
 I shall not hear their sighs, 
 Nor mark them with mine eyes, 
 
 For all sweet loves and sounds are withered things- 
 Like blossoms in a bed 
 "that once was sweet and red. 
 
 They fold late, tarnished, dismal-coloured wings. 
 And it is as if a blast 
 Of ice-cold wind had passed 
 
 On the feathers of some frightened bird who sings. 
 
 The voices that were great. 
 Ere the coming of dark Fate^ 
 
 Have vanished 'mid the rushes on Time's bank. 
 As a rapid bird doth gleam. 
 Through the grasses in a dream. 
 
 Disappearing 'mid their wildernesses rank ; 
 To whom have I to turn 
 For the vengeance which doth bum 
 
 As a fire \nthin me — whom have I to thank ? 
 
 For the passing of the fair 
 Gleams of sunny former air, 
 And this whistling of a wintry novel breeze ; 
 For the changing of the heat, 
 And of tender flowers and sweet. 
 
loi UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Into glaciers where the shuddering fingers freeze ; 
 For the breaking of my harp, 
 As by swords inured and sharp, 
 
 As by warriors whom such devastations please 
 
 For the shifting of a girl 
 
 Who is supple as each turl 
 That her fingers in their frailty move and touch ; 
 
 For the shifting of her heart, 
 
 That is pointed as a dart, 
 Being gold-tipped, yet a dangerous thing to clutch; 
 
 For the shifting of her soul, 
 
 That is as an honeyed bowl, 
 Yet 'tis poisoned in the bottom over-much. 
 
 For these and such-like things, 
 
 Having poisonous subtle stings. 
 Who shall answer, who compensate or repay ? 
 
 God ? I say the world is full 
 
 As a miasmatic pool 
 Of foul vapours steaming up from life's foul clay. 
 
 And how shall God make sweet 
 
 Such a marshy torrid heat, 
 Fiercer e'en than Afric's torridest midday ? 
 
LOST VOICES. 103 
 
 How shall He in the end 
 
 Make such a planet tend 
 Towards some glad mysterious haven unforeseen, 
 
 Bringing right harmonious motion 
 
 Out of life's capricious ocean, 
 With its ceaseless waves of grey, and black, and green. 
 
 How shall He, with His spear, 
 
 Make the heaven bright and clear. 
 And the thunder-clouds and copper skies serene ? 
 
THE PLANET'S BOAT-SONG. 
 
 As I lay beneath the shining of the moon 
 
 On a pleasant night in August, I was 'ware 
 Of the surging of our planet and its tune 
 
 As it climbs on brazen pinions through the air. 
 And its resonance became a poem soon, 
 
 Which my recollection struggles to declare, 
 Gathering up the golden fragments of my swoon, 
 
 In its pristine sweet entirety firm and fair. 
 
 "I am climbing," said the planet, "through broad space. 
 
 And I see the oceans beating on their way 
 In a blue, tumultuous, never-ending race, 
 
 And I mark the crimson jubilance of day. 
 And the corn-fields waving in their golden grace. 
 
 And the monstrous heaped-up thunders, black and grey, 
 And the little sons of men, each in his place, 
 
 At their battles, and their labour, and their play. 
 
THE PLANET'S BOAT-SONG. 105 
 
 " As I fly through tumid oceans of black cloud, 
 
 Like a, boat through black, swift, vibratory seas, 
 Immersing my vast body in a shroud — 
 
 Like a coffin unbedecked by flowers — of these, 
 And the nimbus-cohorts by my keel are ploughed, 
 
 And the copper-coloured squadrons by my knees, 
 A sailing chant at my vast lips is loud, 
 
 Ye may mark it, ye may learn it, if ye please. 
 
 " All the neighbouring friendly planets in my song 
 
 I shake hands with, and I greet and recognize. 
 Even as arm in arm our clusters stroll along 
 
 The parade-ground and the vistas of the skies, 
 Gold-haired' Venus, Mars the vehement and strong. 
 
 And the Great Bear, cunning, silver-toothed, and wise ; 
 Many others in a swift red-footed throng 
 
 Round the spray of my fast parogress gleam and rise. 
 
 " Spinning through this blatant series of gold balls 
 
 I can mark their varied surfaces of life, 
 And their various temples, monuments, and halls. 
 
 While I rend the swift air as with edge of knife. 
 Nor is there any lover's voice that calls 
 
 To his mistress, or a cannon-shout of strife. 
 But its whisper, or its thunderous message, falls 
 
 On my ears, with wondrous drums of hearing rife. 
 
io6 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 " I can pierce the purple heather on the hills, 
 
 I can enter crystal palaces of seas, 
 And sweet fountains which a sweeter presence fills, 
 
 Even mermaids with their snowy arms and knees, 
 I can fathom the deep secrets of deep rills — 
 
 For creation is as open as I please, 
 And the general energetic whisper thrills 
 
 All my spirit, as the thyme-scent maddens bees. 
 
 "All the battks and the tumults of the earth. 
 
 Are a festival, a proper part of me. 
 Yea, a portion of my green surpassing girth, 
 
 And rich feeders of my deep tempestuous sea. 
 Bringing roses and anemones to birth. 
 
 And white lilies and such timid things to be, 
 And originating red-lipped maidens' mirth 
 
 Out of horror and fierce strokes and agony. 
 
 *' What if one man perish ? Truly, kt him fall ! 
 
 Are there not ten thousand others just as good. 
 Whom ten thousand girls expect in tower and hall, 
 
 And ten thousand mothers watch on hill and wood — 
 Twenty thousand valiant hearts on which to call, 
 
 Where one cowardly soul has withered, having stood 
 As a coward upon my brave progressive ball. 
 
 Where each dweller has made progress as he could ? 
 
THE PLANETS BOAT-SONG. 107 
 
 " By the underlying attitude of things, 
 
 Which the seekers and the singers dub sublime, 
 Every bird by brave necessity hath wings, 
 
 Every mountain-goat strong feet wherewith to climb, 
 Every poet talent by the which he sings 
 
 And creative force well fitted unto rhyme, 
 Even as I myself disperse the airy rings 
 
 By my pinions to a right melodious time. 
 
 " Let a man be wicked, sinner, if he may — 
 
 He but feeds the stalwart universal plan. 
 He but feeds its greatening course from day to day, 
 
 He but feeds it as his cringing spirit can, 
 Built of stubble and of pewter-stuff and clay — 
 
 Let a man strive as a hero in the van, 
 He but serves the great progression to obey, 
 
 With the spirit and the purpose of a man. 
 
 " Not a soul shall be sufficient to retard 
 
 The great passion of the seasons, as they roU 
 Through the wintry barriers, iced and mute and hard, 
 
 Towards fair summer seasons where fair lovers stroll 
 Through each forest, and in every city-yard. 
 
 For the wings of Time are excellent and whole. 
 And no power of human effort hath debarred 
 
 Their supreme effulgent course, beyond control. 
 
loig UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 " From my high, exalted eyrie I look down, 
 
 And I see the blood-stained terror and the sins= 
 That contaminate each hill and lake and town, 
 
 But r also see the goal the future wins, 
 And Earth's future clear and unpolluted crowni 
 
 When the clearer reign of Excellence begins, 
 And things sweet and pure and tender wear renown r 
 
 Towards this consummation every planet spins. 
 
 " When the rivers of the Earth shall run no more 
 
 Foully mixed with signs of foul decay and mud. 
 And the silver waves shall beat on Virtue's shore, 
 
 And the streams shall not be coloured as with blood, 
 And the sUver fountains as with human gore. 
 
 But the waters shall be one dehcious flood, 
 Sweeter, purer, and more crystal than of yore, 
 
 Bearing pearls and precious jewels in the bud. 
 
 " Let a man by power endeavour to withstand 
 
 The necessity that beareth Time's slow song 
 Towards the future, glad, voluptuous, sinless strand. 
 
 And it is as if he strove against the strong 
 Waves that slowly eat the slowly sinking land, 
 
 With their billows fierce and iron-tongued And long, 
 Climbing onward in a fierce and clamorous band ; 
 
 Even such is the sure overthrow of wrong." 
 
CHRIST'S SERMON IN THE CITY- 
 
 Beneath our haze of London smoke 
 Christ stood in human garb again, 
 
 Bearing once more the fleshly yoke 
 Of sorrow, and of fiery pain, 
 And this world's fiery blows that rain 
 On strongest rowers, as they strain 
 
 Broad heaving chests at every stroke : 
 
 Hurling the world's slow vessel through 
 The palpitating seas of Time, 
 
 And sundering the flashing blue. 
 In harmony to sweet-voiced rhyme, 
 In harmony to Progress' chime, 
 Watching her full-mouthed chant sublime. 
 
 Most ancient, yet ever new ; 
 
UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Hurling the world's slow boat along 
 With struggle, and with yearning sobs, 
 
 And eyes that worship Progress' song ; 
 Yea, each adoring bosom throbs 
 As if a woman sits and robs 
 Their spirits, flying like the globes 
 
 That greet the oars, a frantic throng, 
 
 After her swift exulting feet — 
 So Progress sits within the stern 
 
 Of this world's vessel, and we greet 
 Her countenance at every turn, 
 And our adoring spirits bum,' 
 And all our hearts do follow, and yearn 
 
 For pressure of her bosom sweet. 
 
 Yea, as we struggle at the oars. 
 
 We meet her with clear yearning eyes. 
 
 And she transfers from moving shores 
 Her own to our looks as they rise, 
 Even as a lover, rowing, tries 
 To catch with some new sweet surprise 
 
 His lady's glance, which veers and soars. 
 
 Timid, and steering carefully. 
 And glancing fast from side to side, 
 
CHRISrS SERMON IN THE CITY. 
 
 Dreading the river, or the sea, 
 And rude tumultuous boats that ride, 
 Having for freight no gold-haired bride. 
 Upon the swift alarming tide 
 
 That seeks the ocean : so do we 
 
 Worship our mistress at the helm, 
 
 And, governed by the sweet grey eyes. 
 Dread tempests none that overwhelm 
 
 With sudden shock of white surprise 
 
 Ignoble spirits, as they rise 
 
 From where the westward thunder lies 
 In Neptune's black uncertain realm. 
 
 And Christ has come to take again 
 His share of modern work and toil 
 
 Tempestuous, and his share of pain 
 And misery 'neath suns that broil, 
 And languid sickly moons that foU 
 The lamps that would be filled with oil, 
 
 And ready for the Bridegroom's reign. 
 
 He stands within the city, dressed 
 
 In ordinary quiet guise, 
 But with a passion unrepressed 
 
 Gleaming from deep-set wells of eyes. 
 
U2 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Whence pity and love, triumphant, rise 
 And seek with weeping wings the skies — 
 Yea, through our city's smoke-fed vest ! 
 
 He stands within the city's smoke. 
 Far more a man, and more a god 
 
 Than when he bore the Hebrews' yoke. 
 And scourged the proud men with his rod, 
 And comforted with kindly nod 
 Siimers whose tears had stained the sod. 
 
 Who wept 'neath alder brown, and oak. 
 
 Far more a god than ever when 
 His Manhood was denied, and he 
 
 Was separated from the men 
 His glorious spirit died to see 
 For ever white, and firm, and free, . 
 Not bending slavish neck, or knee, 
 
 On mountain, or by lake, or glen, 
 
 Even to himself exalted high 
 And placed upon a special throne, 
 
 Brought nearer to the Father's eye 
 Than any follower of his own. 
 Brought closer to the heavenly tone 
 Of cymbals — further from the moan 
 
 Of earth's perpetual agony. 
 
[CHRIST'S SERMON IN THE CITY. 113 
 
 Further from all the cares of earth, 
 Uplifted as a special son 
 
 Of more than ordinary worth 
 Towards heaven, and rivalled here by none, 
 Though all life's golden threads are spun 
 From God's hands, and their tissues run 
 
 Round every cradle and new birth. 
 
 Standing within the city's smoke, 
 
 With fiery accent Christ reproves 
 His worshippers who place a yoke 
 
 Upon the nations Time removes 
 
 With pitiless fingers from the grooves 
 
 Our shoulders suffer — for he loves 
 Truth most of aU, as when he spoke 
 
 In pinnacled Jerusalem, 
 
 Saying, " The soul that learns of me 
 Shall wear the Truth for diadem, 
 
 And Truth shall set his spirit free 
 
 From every slavish misery. 
 
 Nor shall he longer bow the knee 
 To any gold tyraimic hem, 
 
 " Whether of sin, or fate, or devil — . 
 For I will shortly free the race 
 
114 UNDER THE DAWN, 
 
 From the red thraldom of things evil. 
 Even by the marring of my face 
 In that accursed bitter place 
 Where, without beauty, without grace. 
 
 With fiends around me in loose revel, 
 
 " I conquer Satan once for all ; 
 
 Let every brave man do the same, 
 And step as high in heaven's fair hall 
 
 As if with Christ's own feet he came ; 
 
 Yea, let him nourish clearer flame 
 
 Of purity, and heal the lame 
 And sickly, and release from thrall 
 
 " The sinner with far surer hand 
 Than ever was my own, when I 
 
 Sent lame men leaping through the land. 
 And blind men eager now to try 
 To pierce with happy gaze the sky, 
 Freed from the darkness where they lie, 
 
 An ignorant and hopeless band. 
 
 " I still preserve the metaphors 
 With which my first disciples spake. 
 
 Hushing the silver-dripping oars 
 To listen, in that lonely lake. 
 
CHRIS VS SERMON IN THE CITY. 115 
 
 To tales they fashioned for my sake, 
 In that they loved me ; but the break 
 Of day brings brighter, lovelier stars, 
 
 " And sweet Truth shines upon the hills ; 
 
 Ye see, no longer through a cloud, 
 Those ancient Galilean rills. 
 
 And Jesus in his agony bowed 
 
 Like any poor man who has ploughed 
 
 And toiled, or any saint that vowed 
 To God the oil with which he fills 
 
 " The vase of his self-sacrifice ; 
 
 At last ye see me as I am, 
 No God on mounts of snow and ice, 
 
 No sacrificial sheep or ram. 
 
 With power to save and power to damn, 
 
 In no such guise my spirit came 
 To thread the dismal haunts of vice 
 
 " And call the evil therefrom ; rather 
 
 As a pale-browed heroic man, 
 A pale self-sacrificing father, 
 
 Or lover, eager if he can. 
 
 To perish in the rose-red van. 
 
 With forehead on a sudden wan. 
 If so his dying soul may gather 
 
 8—2 
 
ii6 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 " Red bloom of gloiy for the sweet 
 Pale woman looking out for news, 
 
 There where the rocks and water meet 
 And mingle browns and greys and blues, 
 And the great coasting vessels cruise 
 In England — fearing lest she lose, 
 
 Yet worshipping, with woman's heat 
 
 " Of silent passion, as her own 
 Her lover's surely coming glory — 
 
 With some such shout, with some such tone, 
 I perished on the gallows gory 
 Before my youthful head grew hoary ; 
 And, as upon a promontory 
 
 A dying bird is backward blown 
 
 " Into the deep abyss of cliff, 
 
 Yet finds death better than it seems. 
 
 Or as the thin keel of a skiff 
 
 Doth vanish with gold transient gleams. 
 Drawn down beneath the ocean-streams, 
 And finds a pleasant vale of dreams. 
 
 So Death to me was gracious ; if, 
 
 " My brothers, ye would apprehend 
 The Hebrew hero who has swayed 
 
, CHRIST'S SERMON IN THE CITY. ii7 
 
 These stormy years from end to end. 
 
 The first thing — cease to be afraid ; 
 
 The second — cease to be delayed 
 
 By priestly fervent cries conveyed 
 Along the cars the breezes lend ; 
 
 " And, thirdly, with clear vision enter 
 
 That fragrant universal room 
 Whereof each mortal is the centre, 
 
 And yet the very outmost bloom : 
 
 Believe no dreams of broken tomb, 
 
 / traversed hell, / saw death's gloom, 
 In spite of many a brave inventor ! 
 
 " I am risen ; only risen as 
 
 Ye now must fail to comprehend ; . 
 Not with the foot that trode the grass 
 
 In Galilee ; my clear limbs bend 
 
 To earthly airs no longer : — ^friend, 
 
 Listen to me, and condescend 
 To hear the very fact that was : 
 
 " I saw their marvellous fond tales 
 
 With pity, yet with yearning love ; 
 They strove to tear aside the veils 
 
 God wears, and watch without a glove 
 
1 1 8 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 His bright hand lowered from above, 
 They inclosed His Spirit in a dove, 
 A bird that sickens, throbs, and ails ; 
 
 " They inclosed Himself in human form, 
 Yes, brethren, centred even in me, 
 
 And gave their God a body warm. 
 And muscles, and a sinewy knee. 
 That their slow faithlessness might see, 
 Not knowing God, not knowing that He 
 
 Is visible in every storm, 
 
 " Riding upon the outspread wings 
 Of time, of thunder, and of space, 
 
 Not closed in any fleshly rings. 
 But manifested in each place. 
 And in each innocent child's face, 
 And every delicate girl's grace, 
 
 And throat of every bird that sings — 
 
 " And valiant shoulders of a man. 
 And inmost tissues of the brain, 
 
 The bravest sword in every van. 
 The foremost 'mid the bloody rain. 
 And sweetest rhyme in every strain — 
 Yet Personal He doth remain, 
 
 Invisible since time began. 
 
CHRIST S SERMON IN THE. CITY, 1 1 9 
 
 " The perfectly incarnate God 
 
 Is in the perfect coming race 
 That shall achieve a kingly rod 
 
 And queenly sceptre in each place ; 
 
 Yea, herein shines the Father's face, 
 
 And His unspeakable clear grace, 
 And their foot sounds upon the sod, 
 
 " As His foot ; but the Hebrew king, 
 
 The past Jehovah, even I, 
 Already to my garments cling 
 
 Signs of decay ; I have to die. 
 
 That Man may be exalted high. 
 
 And many a bright bird in the sky 
 The praise of his new sceptre sing. 
 
 " Let God and Man be all in all ; 
 
 I perish, yea, I feel again 
 Death's icy pangs throughout me crawl. 
 
 And his moist teeth in every vein ; 
 
 I care not ! so the Race retain 
 
 Sweet Beauty, and their sons remain 
 Godlike, immaculate, and tall. 
 
 " But, sweet and fair and foolish friend 
 I pray you, cease to worship me, 
 
I20 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 For in this age my sceptre ends, 
 And priests who strove tyrannically 
 To set me where I would not be 
 Are plunged at last in terror's sea, 
 
 And, with a crash, their God descends. 
 
 " Descends ; as Dagon fell of old 
 In that devout' dim-lighted hall. 
 
 With rustle of jewels and of gold ; 
 Even so the priestly God shall fall 
 In their great midmost festival, 
 And Man shall be the crown of all. 
 
 And new sweet blossoms shall unfold 
 
 " Their tender grace before his look ; 
 Sweet petals, unbeheld before. 
 
 Bloom from beside each running brook. 
 And delicate grasses from the shore, 
 And stalks and leaves unseen of yore. 
 That coarser eyes of men ignore. 
 
 Now shine by every curve and crook 
 
 " Of the sweet-shining river of Time, 
 As down its gentle progress comes, 
 
 Helped on by many a helpful rh)nne. 
 Not unbeholden too, to drums 
 
CHRISTS SERMON IN THE CITY. 
 
 And swords, and the perplexed hums 
 Of armies, and the foam and scums 
 Of many a yeasty sinful clime ; 
 
 " Bearing upon its bosom all 
 
 The mingled ecstasies of lifcj 
 The wings that soar, the feet that crawl, 
 
 The murderer swaying bloody knife, 
 
 The lover, all his senses rife 
 
 With pleasure — husband too, and wife, 
 In tower and cottage, and in hall. 
 
 " Time bears these foaming beads along 
 
 Towards the far-sounding purple sea. 
 Till they unite in ocean's song. 
 
 At last set loose — made clean and free 
 
 From personal impurity. 
 
 Eager at last to join and be 
 A sinless and melodious throng. 
 
 " I watch the flowing stream of time, 
 From Calvary, across the years, 
 
 And from my pinnacle sublime 
 Am cognizant of Death that nearSj 
 
UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 But all my individual tears 
 And hopes and joys and cries and fears 
 Shall sink — Humanity shall climb, 
 
 " A Saviour new, towards unshaped stars. 
 Achieving heights I never trode. 
 
 Triumphant even in fiercer wars, 
 Brought nearer to the heart of God 
 And His sweet passionless abode, 
 By even a more terrific road. 
 
 And sorrow that more sadly mars 
 
 " The forehead of Humanity — 
 
 Whose members are as struggling limbs 
 Whereby the body mounts the tree 
 
 Of Progress ; thus the creature climbs, 
 
 TUl Death inevitable dims 
 
 Its brightness, and the glazed eye swims, 
 And sinews shudder awfully. 
 
 " But yet the Race shall rise again, 
 
 As I, its predecessor, rose 
 From all the torments and the pain. 
 
 And bruising agony of blows, 
 
 And horror, as of storm-swept snows ; 
 
 Follow, fair race, where Jesus goes — 
 Suffer, to laugh — to live, be slain !" 
 
THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty sang to me 
 A soft ear-clasping strain, 
 
 Of moons, of suns, and of the sea, 
 Of snow-showers and of rain, 
 
 Of terror, of strife, and agony, 
 Of hearts rent, and of pain. 
 
 But thro' the song there ran a sense 
 Of sweet things yet to come. 
 
 Beyond our earthly hearing dense, 
 Of flowers superb with bloom. 
 
 Of the overthrow of every fence. 
 The unfastening of each tomb. 
 
 I felt that I could see the whole, 
 No longer as in part 
 
124 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Seeing — the waves aside did roll 
 
 That suffocate the heart 
 Of mankind ; as a broken bowl 
 
 Death did asunder start ; 
 
 The wine of life flowed fair and free 
 From that pale broken glass, 
 
 I heard the thunder of the sea, 
 Drowned mariners did pass 
 
 Before my gaze ; they smiled on me 
 Like flowers that smile in grass. 
 
 So these smiled, thro' the herbage rank 
 Of the slowly-yielding deep, 
 
 Slow-climbing from that monstrous tank 
 Up black cliffs sheer and steep. 
 
 Leaving behind their bones that stank, 
 Bringing only eyes to weep. 
 
 I knew them by their eyes that shone 
 More bright than heretofore, 
 
 Although their living flesh was gone, 
 Left rotting on the shore. 
 
 Yea, piled in putrid heaps and wan 
 Where they were slain of yore. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 125 
 
 I knew them by their gleaming eyes, 
 
 Still faithfully the same, 
 And similar yearning looks that rise, 
 
 And similar bright flame 
 Of valour and of enterprise, 
 
 That death had failed to tame. 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty sang to me 
 
 About their various fate. 
 The solemn secret of the sea 
 
 Rang thro' her chant sedate, 
 I saw that only Purity 
 
 Doth ope the heavenly gate. 
 
 That only Purity can show 
 
 The secrets of all time, 
 And God's face in a tender glow, 
 
 Or awful and sublime 
 With secrets He alone doth know. 
 
 The history of each clime. 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty sang to me ; 
 
 I listened to her voice. 
 As to the wind in a tall oak-tree 
 
 Bidding the boughs rejoice, 
 As to the accents maidenly 
 
 Of one who makes her choice ; 
 
126 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Her final choice that shall not swerve 
 
 For torture, or for death, 
 For sorrow, or for sundered nerve, 
 
 Or what an enemy saith, 
 Following her love thro' crook and curve 
 
 With worshipful fair breath. 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty sang to me 
 
 As some such maiden's tone, 
 Or as the whisper of the sea 
 
 Towards quiet lovers blown, 
 Seeming with broad-extended glee 
 
 To sanctify their own. 
 
 As the sweet power of these sweet things 
 
 Sang Beauty to my soul. 
 Even now her dulcet whisper clings 
 
 About me — thro' my whole 
 Enamoured silent heart it rings. 
 
 As then my heart it stole. 
 
 Even as whenever music sounds, 
 
 Tho' it was years ago, 
 My blood leaps up and throbs and bounds 
 
 As once it used to flow 
 At Love's voice^Love's, that smites and wounds 
 
 With many a honeyed blow. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 127 
 
 So, at the memory of the song 
 
 That Beauty sang to me, 
 I rise up, renovated, strong 
 
 As some fair sapful tree 
 That hurls its limbs for boughs along. 
 
 Erect, and fearlessly. 
 
 I know that, tho' the windy years 
 
 Make havoc of things frail. 
 And joys are followed fast by fears 
 
 Flying with faster sail, 
 There comes a time when clouds and tears 
 
 Shall have no more avail. 
 
 For so the Spirit of Beauty sang, 
 
 Sounding from rock and tree, 
 Such was the prophecy that rang' 
 
 With dulcet voice on me. 
 Re-echoing from cliffs that hang 
 
 Above the echoing sea. 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty gave me hope. 
 
 Renewing fair desire ; 
 For me one day shall sweetly ope 
 
 Those purple gates brought nigher, 
 Towards which, as towards a palace-cope, 
 
 I struggle and aspire. 
 
128 UNDER THE DAWN, 
 
 The purple gates that lead to life 
 
 Endless, ecstatic, free, — 
 This shall I enter when death's knife 
 
 Is gracious unto me, 
 Sweet purple gates with voices rife, 
 
 As limes with many a bee. 
 
 With many a bee in summer — so, 
 Fair watchers at those gates 
 
 Bring tender yearning hearts that glow 
 With pity, and hope that mates 
 
 Their pity — weeping for our woe, 
 Weeping till this abates. 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty sang to me, 
 
 I but repeat her song. 
 Mixed with the murmur of the sea, 
 
 And waters rolled along, 
 And noise of many a murmuring tree, 
 
 And rocks, an echoing throng. 
 
 It was as if the mingled voice 
 Of many a sweet-voiced maid 
 
 Then sounded, bidding earth rejoice, 
 And flowers in every glade 
 
 Spring forth to gladden each one's choice, 
 In sunshine or in shade. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 129 
 
 I saw the dead begin to move, 
 
 I saw their forms awake 
 On mount, in forest, and in grove, 
 
 By many a silent lake. 
 Their faces all did shine with love 
 
 So that I did not quake. 
 
 Their faces all were sweet to me, 
 
 I recognized my friends, 
 Some slain in war, some drowned at sea, 
 
 Or dying as mostly ends 
 Frail man ; from under many a tree, 
 
 Whose ghostly arch extends 
 
 Above their tombs, they rustled forth, 
 
 But I was not afraid 
 Even tho' an ice-blast from the north 
 
 Their ice-cold garb conveyed — 
 I knew these souls were souls of worth, 
 
 I should not be betrayed. 
 
 Then many more came climbing up, 
 
 Faces I did not know. 
 Some whose cold limbs were sent to sup 
 
 On ice-fields and on snow, 
 Others who perished by the rope, 
 
 Or by the red fire's glow. 
 
 9 
 
I30 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 All were alike, for all were glad ; 
 
 They pointed to the lyre 
 Of Beauty, and not one was sad ; 
 
 One similar desire 
 Pervaded them, one hope they had, 
 
 With one mind they aspire, 
 
 Desirilig to be strings upon 
 The harp which Beauty plays ; 
 
 If over one her white hand shone, 
 Sweeping in subtle ways 
 
 His flowing chords, all pain was gone, 
 And nought was left but praise. 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty sang to me, 
 And all these souls did shake 
 
 With love, like leaves upon a tree, 
 Or rushes in a brake. 
 
 Or the scales that quiver violently 
 Upon a shining snake. 
 
 With love they all did tremble ; she 
 Swept hand across the chords : 
 
 Ah ! had she done that thing to me, 
 Though fingers were as swords, 
 
 For joy I'd perished silently, 
 Not even with loving words. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 131 
 
 Even as a lover, overmuch 
 
 Enamoured of his queen, 
 Awaiteth not her, lovely touch 
 
 And all her bosom's sheen, 
 But dieth gazing — even such 
 
 Had been my fate, I ween. 
 
 Had Beauty further smiled on me. 
 
 And given me gifts to hold, 
 Some rose or lily perhaps that she 
 
 Round her bright brow did fold. 
 Some jewel loosened carelessly, 
 
 Or trinket wrought of gold. 
 
 But, in that Beauty's song was mine. 
 
 She shall herself become, 
 With bosom smelling of eglantine. 
 
 And Hps of sweet rose-bloom. 
 And hands round which white lilies twine. 
 
 Beyond the advancing tomb, 
 
 Mine wholly : yea, no more in part, 
 
 But wholly ; more than we 
 With straining, feeble, earthly heart 
 
 Can yet attain to see, 
 Beyond the power of poet's art 
 
 Is Love as it shall be. 
 
132 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty ends her song, 
 
 But something better still 
 She has given me ; hope ecstatic, strong. 
 
 That, doing her sweet will, 
 I shall not tarry over-long 
 
 Before kind love shall kill 
 
 My body, and bring my spirit near 
 
 To one that never yet, 
 Through seasons cloudy, seasons clear. 
 
 Since first our long gaze met, 
 Have I ceased sweetly to revere. 
 
 And sadly to regret. 
 
MAN'S PROTEST. 
 
 Against the God who forged despair and thunder, 
 
 I, Man, protest ; 
 Who gave us love, and hid his poison under 
 
 Love's snowrwhite treast ; 
 Who gave us life, and cleaves that life in sunder 
 
 When it seemeth him best. 
 
 I, Man, the lordly spirit of all things, 
 
 Thus tortured, wail ! 
 I, Man, the fairest of all tall things 
 
 That walk or fly or sail, 
 Gathering the common outcry of all small things, 
 
 With face not pale, 
 
 But open and large and as the heaven above me, 
 Do protest ! 
 
134 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Make common cause with Man, all ye who love me ; 
 
 To my breast 
 Fly, tortured beasts and birds whose pangs do move me; 
 
 Therein rest. 
 
 Yea, rest, and be at peace from all things evil ; 
 
 I, Man, have spoken ; 
 Fear not the fiery threats of God or devil, 
 
 Christ hath broken 
 The swords with which the fiends were wont to revel- 
 
 For a token 
 
 He hath sent upon me the spirit of Man a power 
 
 To disturb and to defy 
 The God who slew your spirits till this hour 
 
 With agony, 
 And bruised the delicate bloom of many a flower 
 
 With thunder from his sky. 
 
 He hath sent upon me the spirit of Man a glory 
 
 Unseen before. 
 Now that the long past ages find me hoary. 
 
 And Time's shore 
 Lengthens, and all the unceasing human story, 
 
 I pour 
 
MAN'S PROTEST. 135 
 
 Strength endless, courage undivulged upon you— 
 
 Prosper, for I 
 Am mightier than the God that has overthrown you ; 
 
 Against his sky, 
 Whence his storm of thunder and rain has blown you, 
 
 I protest, and I cry. 
 
 Against a God who tortures human creatures 
 
 Without a purpose fair. 
 Who makes and mars, and makes again their features, 
 
 Till they cannot bear 
 Their own bestowed intolerable natures. 
 
 Given for a snare. 
 
 Against this God, I, Man, with all my fire 
 
 Of spirit, do protest, 
 Hurling against him from my trembling lyre. 
 
 And trembling breast, 
 The arrows of unutterable desire. 
 
 The sounds of an unspeakable unrest 
 
ODE 
 
 ON THE MORNING OF MAN'S NATIVITY. 
 
 This is the morn, and this the happy hour, 
 Wherein the soul of Man, enslavfed long, 
 
 Bursts from slow bud to final beauty of flower, 
 With all creation for his harp and song ; 
 Man, bent, defiled by ages of black wrong, 
 
 At length asserts his sweet supremacy. 
 
 And takes the lingering sceptre of the earth and sea. 
 
 .A.S one before me sang the happy birth 
 
 Of Christ, and through long years the sweetest sound 
 Of Milton's lyre has added tuneful mirth 
 , To Christmas, heard when blazing logs abound, 
 
 And blue ice stiffens on the imprisoned ground, 
 
ODE. 137 
 
 So would I strive to give some voice to Him 
 Who surely hence shall rule the coming ages dim. 
 
 III. 
 
 Help me, no fabled muse, but rather Thou, 
 Swift Spirit of the widening universe. 
 
 To accomplish with success my tuneful vow ! 
 Grant me a reed melodious, and terse, 
 Arid fragrant, for I hymn no fabled curse. 
 
 But rather, from our century's mountain-tops. 
 
 Of pleasure do I sing and progress' holy crops. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I prophesy the end of Christ's fair reign, 
 I prophesy a fairer, even of Man, 
 
 Who, having suffered the collective pain 
 Of Calvary, and groaned for a span, 
 Even since the flood of toilsome life began, 
 
 Is risen — and he sits with sceptre sweet 
 
 At this our river-fountain, where wide ages meet. 
 
THE HYMN. 
 
 O SACRED head of Man, 
 
 Defiled for a span, 
 But risen now, and with new might proceeding 
 
 To unbar the ages' doors, 
 
 And ope the brazen floors 
 Wherein the paUid sons of men were bleeding, 
 
 Thine is it surely to undo 
 
 All fetters, and provide the race with armour new. 
 
 For thou, instead of Christ, 
 Providing a new tryst 
 
 In the wide world, but in no local garden, - 
 Shalt bring upon us great 
 Blessings unseen as yet. 
 
 And mysteries of holier life and pardon 
 
THE HYMN. 139 
 
 Of all the sick ensanguined past, 
 Bestowing on us gifts that verily shall last. 
 
 III. 
 
 Full many years ago 
 
 He sang of blood and snow, 
 
 This poet whom I strive to imitate — 
 
 He sang of Christ and tears, 
 And sorrow of bruised years. 
 
 And famished sinners thundering at the gate 
 
 Of an exclusive, narrow heaven — 
 
 / lead the sinner therein though his crimes be seven. 
 
 I am the clear-voiced bard 
 
 Whom no crimes may retard. 
 Nor any folly, nor cruelty, nor sin, — 
 
 My heaven is wrought of God 
 
 Who lays aside his rod, 
 And bids each, even the vilest sinner, in ; 
 
 For the slow faiths of previous time 
 
 Give place to something greater, holier, more sublime. 
 
140 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Behold, the new Christ stands 
 
 At the portal of the lands, 
 Wreathed not with thorns alone, but also flowers ; 
 
 His face not only shines 
 
 With tears — ^he also twines 
 Around his head the roses of glad hours ; 
 
 Behold, he standeth at the gate ! 
 His name is one with Progress, and with Life, and 
 Fate. 
 
 VI. 
 
 All life, all knowledge are 
 
 Cohfained in Man's new star, 
 All shapes, all sweet similitudes of bliss, 
 
 With lordly presence he 
 
 Shall stride across the sea. 
 And earth and air and all that therein is ; 
 
 •The fabled sceptre Jesus held 
 
 Descends on sacred Man, by God's design impelled. 
 
 VII. 
 
 All scientific gain 
 
 Is Mankind's to retain, — 
 
THE HYMN. 141 
 
 All secrets of the unfathomable deep, — 
 
 All bounties of the skies 
 
 He searches with his eyes, 
 And marks the young stars when their first limbs leap 
 
 With pleasure through the quivering void, 
 
 By God's own tender palm benevolently buoyed. 
 
 YIII. 
 
 All novel thoughts of love 
 Are Man's, who from above 
 
 Draws down the golden chain of progress sweet, 
 For nothing is exempt 
 From error, though men dreamt. 
 
 As Milton, of a Christ with blameless feet, 
 
 And as the Greeks in older times 
 
 Recorded perfect gods in smooth, immortal rhymes. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But let me never swerve, 
 Sweet Spirit, but with nerve 
 
 Clear, and with chant of never-ceasing praise. 
 Hymn Man, the sacred king. 
 Whose crown the ages bring, 
 
 Whose throne of gold the impetuous ages raise. 
 
142 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 At whose divine and untired feet 
 
 All forces of the past, and past religions meet. 
 
 X. 
 
 Let me, with harp untired, 
 By passionate craving fired, 
 
 Resound the great indissoluble name 
 
 Of Man, the great new God, 
 Swordless, nor helm, nor rod 
 
 Adding fictitious lustre to his flame. 
 
 Nor any fancied virgin's womb 
 Bestowing on his flesh inexplicable bloom. 
 
 XI. 
 
 O women ! mothers wronged 
 
 By fancies that belonged 
 To the early Christian undeveloped thought, 
 
 How long will ye submit 
 
 By balerfires to be lit, 
 And into heathen bondage to be brought 
 
 By men who prophesy extremes, , 
 
 And all foul errors meet and bear fruit in their dreams ? 
 
 XII. 
 
 How long will ye disdain 
 Man's simple snow-white reign, 
 
THE HYMN. 143 
 
 And over him the smiling face of God, 
 The Mother of Mankind, 
 The Lord of muscle and mind. 
 
 Swaying the swinging planets with his nod, 
 
 And all desires of temporal things — 
 
 How long will ye disdain the faith the sweet age brings ? 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A swordless faith and clear 
 
 As waters when the year 
 Brings back the balmy colouring of June, 
 
 As white as evenings when 
 
 The moon upon a fen 
 Sheds down the lustre of a silvery swoon, 
 
 As sweet as voices of young girls 
 Twining among themselves, some brown, some golden 
 curls. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A faith as high as Man 
 Looms sweetly in the van 
 
 Of Progress, and I sing it as I may ; 
 ' Tall as the tallest oak, 
 
 Whose each successive stroke 
 
 Makes feebler creeds and systems that grow grey ; 
 
144 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Whose each successive sturdy blow 
 
 Lays many a king and prelate, many a tall tree low. 
 
 XV. 
 
 O, faith divine and fair, 
 
 Now breathing in the air. 
 Now heard amid the topmasts of the trees, 
 
 For thy sake I would die, 
 
 O come, sweet, lift me high, 
 Even with thine own most odorous viewless breeze, 
 
 Above the heads of current things 
 
 To where the heavenly Love-bird in her freedom sings ! 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Above Life, Time, and Fate, 
 
 Towards the heavenly gate 
 Whereby are clustered all those spirits fair, 
 
 From Jesus unto him 
 
 Who from our island dim 
 Caught a rapt sight of azure heavenly air. 
 
 And left our island for its sake, 
 
 Following that azure sky wherever it might take. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 From Jesus to that bard 
 Who fled the ice-blasts hard 
 
THE HYMN. I45 
 
 Of England, and in azure Italy 
 
 Sang things too sweet to tell, 
 Till those swift breakers fell 
 
 Above his head, and hurled his spirit high — 
 
 From Christ to Shelley, poets stand 
 
 Like stars beside the gates of heaven's starry land. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The faith they preached abides, 
 Though life's remorseless tides 
 
 Do sink the individuals one and all ; 
 
 The hope they preached remains. 
 Emerging from time's stains. 
 
 And bearing wings, whereas it did but crawl. 
 
 And every century adds thereto 
 
 Fresh meaning, and a scope magnificently new. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 But not the single face 
 
 Of any, though his grace 
 Be ample, and his kingly head be fair. 
 
 Shall tarry as a god. 
 
 With autocratic nod. 
 Swinging a devious sceptre in earth's air. 
 
146 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 But all shall sink, providing way 
 
 For Mankind's rosy sun that ushers in the day. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Yea, Christ shall sink, that new, 
 
 Strong Manhood may bedew 
 The earth with fragments of divinity : 
 
 And therefore in my psalm 
 
 The Hebrew's divine calm 
 I celebrate not, but the struggling knee 
 
 Of the collective Man who comes. 
 
 Flushed with the gleam of sabres and the glare of drums. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 For through the foaming time 
 
 • Man, single and sublime, 
 Doth struggle with a scarce-emerging head. 
 
 Yea, through the swords and gongs. 
 
 And red-lipped battle-songs, 
 And pale-lipped adjuration of the dead — 
 
 He comes, he comes, the infant child. 
 Cradled on waves tempestuous, hushed by storm-blasts 
 wild! 
 
THE HYMN. 147 
 
 XXII. 
 
 He comes — no shepherds bring 
 Their bounty, all hearts sing 
 
 For joy that he, the Saviour, doth appear, 
 And some, a few who said 
 The Man-child was not dead, 
 
 When all the cowardly world did quake for fear, 
 
 These in the foremost row of saints 
 
 Reap joy so wondrous that the joy-struck spirit faints. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Return, ye gods of Greece, 
 Whom Milton said should cease, 
 
 Return, and add your radiance to the new 
 Glory about to be, 
 - For we have need of ye, 
 
 We need your gold-haired beauty to bedew 
 
 The quivering cradle wherein lies 
 
 The very god ye sought with tears and faint surmise. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The incarnation true, 
 Not worshipped hitherto, 
 
148 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Of God the motionless and viewless whole ; 
 
 The manifestation fair 
 
 Of God the Lord of air, 
 And earth, and fire, and all the waves that roll ; 
 
 The perfect limitless delight 
 
 Of nations, absolute in never-ending might. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Fly; not sweet pagan ghosts. 
 
 But all ye wandering hosts 
 Of fancies tha:t around the cradle flew 
 
 Of Christ — miraculous dreams, 
 
 Let in the morning's beams, 
 Let in the pitiless and searching blue, 
 
 Let in the piercing morning air. 
 Too keen for that past saviour, though his crown be 
 fair! 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 And shudder, not ye sprites 
 Pagan, but those whose rites 
 
 Initiated many a bloody day ; 
 
 Tremble, thou James and Paul, 
 Your infant-god shall fall. 
 
 Already doth his infant cheek turn grey ; 
 
THE HYMN. 149 
 
 He owned the stable for one night, 
 
 But vanishes before the morning's ruddy light. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The morning comes ! my song 
 
 Must cease its current long, 
 The morning-star is watching at the birth 
 
 Of Man, God's complete child ; 
 
 I cease my singing wild, 
 For many a voice with far more potent mirth 
 
 Waits to attend the Saviour bom 
 
 With serviceable reed and a much mellower horn. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 So ended I — the muse 
 
 Said, "Cease not, nor refuse 
 To celebrate yet further in sweet words 
 
 The child whose birth is come 
 
 To wake a planet dumb, 
 And who for victory already girds 
 
 Loins mightier than the Christ's who falls, 
 
 Liked fabled Lucifer, from heaven's sounding halls. 
 
1 50 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 " Forget not to record 
 Who perished by the sword, 
 
 And who by tongues of pitiless blood-red flame, 
 For the dear sake of him 
 Whose clouded face was dim, 
 
 And dim the o'ershadowed purport of his aim. 
 
 Till, in these days arising, he 
 
 With mighty sceptre wields a world-wide sovereignty. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 " Approach, ye watchers, who 
 
 By night, amid the dew. 
 And hopeless clouds of sorrow and despair. 
 
 Watched whether Man might wake, 
 
 And braved death for his sake^ 
 And all the swords and weltering fires that were — 
 
 Approach ; the tomb is empty now, 
 
 Man rises as an eagle o'er a mountain-brow. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 "Man rises : he shall pass 
 Triumphant through the grass 
 
THE HYMN. 151 
 
 And nettles that surround his lowly grave ; 
 
 Not angels, who at first 
 
 Christ's victory rehearsed, 
 Shall flutter round the newly-opened cave, 
 
 But souls divine, well-versed in tears, 
 Who mark with yearning awe the bright shape that 
 . appears. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 " For, though they worshipped long 
 With sword and prayer and song, 
 
 Yet shall they be astonished in the end. 
 For Man is greater than 
 The thought that they began. 
 
 And every growing vigorous day shall lend 
 
 Fresh vigour to his limbs, and grace 
 
 More beautifiil shall crown his rapid-ripening face. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 " Take, bard, thy pen and sing 
 Of this sweet coming thing 
 
 When all the lingering meadows shall be green. 
 For long enough the sound 
 Of winter without bound. 
 
 And dismal cymbals built of ice have been ; 
 
152 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 As Christ was bom in winter's deep 
 
 Man shall in gracious summer issue forth from sleep." 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 I heard ; and I resumed 
 
 My singing just entombed 
 Within the sorry marble of fatigue : 
 
 I heard ; and took my harp, 
 
 Whence notes both sweet and sharp 
 I bring forth, mixed in a melodious league : 
 
 I heard, and gladly do obey, 
 
 Hymning again Man's advent and his golden sway. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 I glance throughout the world, 
 Where gradually is furled 
 ^ The flag of Christ, victorious before ; 
 I see new martyrs now. 
 With firm unshaken brow, 
 By river and by lake and hill and shore ; 
 
 Christians, once slain, are slayers, and 
 
 Their flag is washed in blood and smeared in many a land. 
 
 xxxvi. 
 
 Their flag was white before, 
 But now red currents pour 
 
THE HYMN. 153 
 
 Their sanguine horror over its white folds, 
 For priests, with soul perverse, 
 Have made Christ as a curse, 
 
 And fifty curses their foul temple holds, 
 
 Therefore their flag is rent asunder, 
 
 And all their faces pale before the coming thunder. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 The thunder of new things 
 
 Around, and in us, rings. 
 The heavens are rent, the temple's outer veil 
 
 Is torn, the thick clouds break, 
 
 On many a hill and lake, 
 Clear lustrous suns the impurpled past assail ; 
 
 The deities of Greece return. 
 Their bright looks reappear from many a tomb and 
 urn. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Their glad looks reappear. 
 
 For in Man's coming year 
 All truth he recognizes for his own. 
 
 Whether in Greece 'twas bom. 
 
 Or where at early mom 
 By faint airs the Norwegian pines are blown, 
 
154 UNBER THE DA WN. 
 
 Or where in China's teeming house 
 
 Strange yellow-mantled priests and deities carouse. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 All foolish fancies fly 
 
 Adown a vaporous sky 
 That daily groweth clearer and more clear ; 
 
 Man bends alone to God, 
 
 Not now to any rod 
 Of Hebrew, whether gentle or austere, 
 
 Not now to any Christ or Paul, 
 
 For all their golden shrines and silver altars fall. 
 
 XL. 
 
 Fall, fast as Milton said 
 
 The old gods being dead 
 And vanquished were departing from the earth — 
 
 As in his song they wept, 
 
 And cruel ashes crept 
 Across the hearths where deities had birth. 
 
 So bitter ashes creep amain 
 
 Over the altar-floor where Christ began his reign. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 The stable is a stall. 
 And nothing more at all, 
 
THE HYMN. 155 
 
 His Virgin-mother is a woman pale, 
 
 And Christ himself appears, 
 As the holier Man-child nears. 
 
 As fiery genius clad in genius-mail — ' 
 
 And all things take their proper form, 
 
 No longer viewed through rifts in superstition's storm. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 No trembling shepherds now 
 
 Perform an early vow, 
 But, round the cradle of the Saviour, long 
 
 Watchers and guards have been, 
 
 With rapture in their mien. 
 And these, instead of that angelic song 
 
 Which filled the heavenly stairs let down. 
 
 Bring blossoms of their pain well-suited for his crown. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 With holy tear-stained bloom 
 
 They lingered it his tomb, 
 While many coarse surrounding soldiers slept, 
 
 With sacred tear-stained flowers 
 
 They waited, yea, for hours. 
 Or round his cradle on soft tip-toe crept ; 
 
iS6 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 With joy unstained by tears at last 
 
 They greet him in his freedom, sorrow being past. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 It is not easy now, 
 
 Though I with aching brow 
 And aching hand and fiery pen should strive 
 
 To render this sweet tale, 
 
 It is not of avail, 
 No power hath any bard who is alive 
 
 In fullness of fair words to speak 
 
 The beauty of the rose upon our infant's cheek. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 For Christ was but a man. 
 
 But our sweet babe began 
 Before the single, separate birth of races ; 
 
 In every woman he ' 
 
 Is manifest, and she 
 Is but as one of his soft feminine faces ; 
 
 All beauty of form, and grace superb, 
 
 Is his who rides upon wide life without a curb. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Our limitless desire 
 We worship in the fire 
 Of genixK, and the beauty of a girl, 
 
THE HYMN. 157 
 
 We see him manifest 
 In every sacred breast 
 Of wifehood, and as sacred virgin's curl ; 
 
 Confined not to a man or race, 
 
 We worship him revealed as present in each place. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 And, seeing that this thing 
 Approaches with slow wing. 
 
 And that it is not manifest as yet, 
 Save only to the vision 
 Of souls escaped from prison 
 
 Whose longing eyes with love of it are wet. 
 
 It is no easy task to say 
 
 Words worthy of the ripe, inevitable day. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 But Milton's song was based 
 
 On fables undisplaced ; — 
 He took his flowers of song from plants that filled 
 
 His country, and behind 
 
 Gleamed stories to his mind, 
 Whereby the impetuous struggling soul was stilled ; 
 
iS8 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 But, when an epoch gleams in front, 
 Harder indeed it is to bear the tuneful brunt. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Therefore we wait for some 
 Great singer who shall come 
 
 To set the dawning epoch to a tune 
 
 Sublime as Milton's, when 
 With power of singers ten 
 
 He set to melody the sinking moon 
 
 Of Christendom — but now the sun 
 Demands a novel lyre for brilliance begun. 
 
 L. 
 
 So, dawning era, tak^ 
 
 My spirit for thy sake 
 Faint with the love that finds no words to speak ; 
 
 Destroy me, but bring nigh 
 
 The happy time that I 
 Seeing, declare with diction hoarse and weak ; 
 
 I love thee ; let some singer give 
 
 My love a fitting voice in verses meet to live. 
 
FROM A POET MILITANT TO MAZZINI 
 TRIUMPHANT. 
 
 At last, our brother, thou hast left the land 
 
 Of trouble and of sorrow and dismay, 
 And joined thy harp to the ecstatic band 
 
 Whose voices and whose glad lyres sing alway 
 
 In regions where God's presence is as day ; 
 The countenance beloved on earth by souls 
 
 Who fought for hope, for freedom, and the grey 
 And reverend city by which Tiber rolls, 
 Now vanishes with tears from earthly lists and scrolls. 
 
 II. 
 Would that I had the notes of Shelley, and 
 The organ-voice of Milton, and his sight 
 Nurtured on heavenly visions sweet and grand, 
 
i6o UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 The more so for the absence of the light 
 Common, with which the common earth is dight ; 
 Would that I had the voices of all singers, 
 
 And all their palms, and robes of lustrous white. 
 That I might fit the chant that in me lingers 
 To words less weak and frail, with more auspicious fingers ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Would that I had the reed whose swift point sang 
 Of paradise, and heaven's heights, and of hell. 
 
 From which the immortal soul of the era rang ; 
 For, truly, things as great are ours to tell. 
 With whom in these last ages it is well. 
 
 Yea, things as vast to sing with a sonorous 
 
 And wide-mouthed trump, or softly-cadenced shell- 
 
 The beauty of the mother-age that bore us. 
 
 And many a flaming star borne perilously o'er us. 
 
 IV. 
 
 For inspiration is not dead ; it seeks 
 The worthy presence of a worthy bard. 
 
 Then with a glorious rose inflames his cheeks : 
 He Cometh ; but the slow time doth retard 
 His labour, and surrounding ice is hard 
 
 For any, even a trumpet-blast to melt. 
 And barriers interpose, not built of card, 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. i6i 
 
 And in the midway iron blows are dealt, 
 
 And many iron shocks that singer shall have felt. 
 
 The singer whom we see not, but who stands 
 
 Most surely at the gateway of the time, 
 With risen power upon immaculate hands, 
 
 And all a sun's fresh brilliance in his rhyme ; 
 
 Loud as the thunder in its organ-chime. 
 Yet soft as the sweet speaking of a girl 
 
 Fed upon fairy-tales and lore sublime, 
 Who laughs, sweet-shaking many a-golden curl, 
 At dexterous fairy-tales of palaces of pearl. 
 
 VI. 
 
 So sweet and yet so strong shall be the diction 
 
 Of the great singer soon about to be ; 
 He shall disdain the haunts of ancient fiction. 
 
 And ancient iron-armoured revelry. 
 
 And tales of knights who struggled knee to knee, 
 For he shall mark before him in the fighting 
 
 Of the wide peoples, and the foaming sea 
 Of present thought, a subject grand, delighting 
 His fiery spirit, all the paler epochs blighting. 
 
1 62 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Casting himself with faith and sweet persuasion 
 
 Into the yeasty channel of our days, 
 And seizing each fair opportune occasion, 
 
 He shall achieve as bright a crown of bays. 
 
 With as divine a worship of those sprays. 
 As any who in previous epochs drew 
 
 The people with the fervour of their lays ; 
 Laurels at these the lavish people threw — 
 But his crown shall be filched from heaven's starry blue. 
 
 And thou, Mazzini sweet, hast paved the way ! 
 
 Saint John thou art to this fair coming bard. 
 Singing with blameless heart thy prose-clad lay. 
 
 Him all the icy seasons do retard. 
 
 The spring breathes feebly, and Earth's firost is hard ; 
 Our glad inwreathed Redeemer comes not yet, 
 
 Anointed with fresh flowers and spikenard ; 
 By no green hill-side may his steps be met. 
 His footstep presses not the wandering mignonette. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But, our Mazzini, thou hast made the path 
 Easier, for where thy lonely soul hath bled, 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. 163 
 
 Pierced either by false friends' or prelates' wrath, 
 Soft flowers, impurpled with that living red, 
 Along the lonely way a radiance shed, — 
 
 Where thou hast groaned, birds have caught up the note 
 And hurl it transformed round about the head 
 
 Of one who, following with swift soul, doth float 
 
 Along the self-same way as in pursuing boat. 
 
 Easier it is for Christ, O great Saint John, 
 
 When comes the approaching Healer of our age, 
 To put his healing store of garments on, 
 
 And open out a less tempestuous page 
 
 Of Being ; — thou, interpreter and sage, 
 Hast gone before, and all the path is ready, 
 
 And the fierce elements less madly rage, 
 And less oppressive is the devious eddy 
 Of priestcraft, and the true stand stronger and more 
 steady. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Therefore we worship with religious awe, 
 
 Mazzini, thy fair spirit, that has past 
 
 The wood-side beyond which man never saw. 
 
 We cannot follow yet j desire is fast, 
 
 II — 2 
 
1 64 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Both fleet of foot and wing, but Earth's sad blast 
 Has yet to be endured a little season, 
 
 A little longer with faint fluttering mast 
 Life's vessel 'mid this elemental treason 
 Surges and toils, perhaps for some sufficient reason. 
 
 XII. 
 
 But, happy soul, it is not so with thee ; 
 
 Thy strife is ended, and thy banner waves 
 Beyond that bitter, foam-encircled sea ; 
 
 Beyond the cold domain of clay and graves, 
 
 Thou art, and all thy spoken message saves, 
 Even as the Comforter from Christ was sent 
 
 To comfort those who, hidden in black caves 
 And gruesome forests, by fierce anguish rent, 
 Held to the blood-stained road by which their Master 
 went. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 That glorious season doth return to us, 
 
 And, as the first brave Christians did endure 
 The rack, the thumb-screw, and the bloody truss, 
 
 With simple hearts that perished for the pure, 
 
 So, in this unretuming age, be sure, 
 The thumb-screws and the tortures of sharp words, 
 
 Misunderstanding too that doth obscure 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. 165 
 
 The faces even of friends, and many herds 
 
 Of sufferings strange, await the hero whose hand girds 
 
 XIV. 
 
 His loins to run a novel torch-lit race ; " 
 And, first of these new martyrs, with white brow, 
 
 Sacred Mazzini, in the foremost place. 
 With white, immaculate attire, art thou. 
 Keeping a sacred and unspotted vow — 
 
 That thou wouldst give thyself to Italy, 
 The fairest fruit of many a fragrant bough 
 
 Which now doth seek the freshly opened sky. 
 
 Wherethrough the winds of new and better hope do fly. 
 
 XV. 
 
 What shall I say ? What words are built of fire, 
 To express the living spirit that I feel ? 
 
 Take me with living blast of strong desire. 
 So that, alive, as a dead man might reel. 
 Or as the golden-handled stars do wheel 
 
 Their bodies in the midst of flaming heaven, 
 I turn sick at the force of that appeal, 
 
 Arid struggle to escape this fleshy leaven. 
 
 By purple teeth of red, ensanguined terror driven ! 
 
1 66 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 I sink, I fail, my speechless voice is dumb — 
 As the white moon that wanders from afar,' 
 
 Filling the skies with silvery flame and bloom, 
 Then sinking with a slow diminished car. 
 Made like the lustre of a large faint star. 
 
 Till all the heavens are blue and shine no longer, 
 Divided by that gleaming snow-white bar, 
 
 And, lastly, ruddy day is proved the stronger ; 
 
 So do I disappear, a paltry verbiage-monger. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 But, none the less, with soft love that is mute 
 As woman when she sees her lover near. 
 
 Let me upon my heart's interior flute 
 Sing to thee ceaselessly, Mazzini dear, 
 Who, when the age was sick and shook for fear. 
 
 With strong hand didst usurp the kingly sway, 
 And gayest us sight of summer for a year ; 
 
 But now, with thee, the summer is away, 
 
 And all Time's skies are mournful, overcast and grey, 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Thou art gone where peace and summer are abiding, 
 Not, as with us, exceptional good things, 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. 167 
 
 But, where thou art, sweet streams are alway gliding, 
 And with sweet voices the rapt woodland rings ; 
 With thee the Love-bird in clear freedom sings ; 
 
 There are not any fetters, no, nor sorrow, 
 Nor iron eagles with remorseless wings, 
 
 Nor need a man in terror dread to-morrow, 
 
 Each coming day fresh sheen of rose-red hope shall 
 borrow. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 So is it with thee, but with us the labour 
 Of imminent and sad things presses hard, 
 
 But here and there, with scanty stroke of tabour 
 Struggles some versatile, ambitious bard 
 To advance the epoch that our sins retard, 
 
 As I do struggle — and the wild wind blows 
 My numbers, rent like palaces of card, 
 
 Into a dismal place made white with snows, 
 
 And what is pent within no woman-spirit knows. 
 
 XX. 
 
 But through the sorrow, brother, thou hast journeyed ; 
 Harder than I fight hath thy spirit fought, 
 
 With actual steel lances thou hast tourneyed. 
 Into which conflict I have not been brought, 
 Yet all the horror of lonely tears and thought 
 
i68 . UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Is not a small thing, is it, brother mine ? 
 
 These present birth-pangs, are they all for nought ? 
 Or shall I, at mine own life's ending, twine 
 Sweet laurels of glad victory, perfect even as thine ? 
 
 XXI. 
 
 This, this we know, that one of us emerges 
 With triumph from the terror and the pangs 
 
 Of life, even as a diver from thick surges 
 Is risen, — while his iron armour clangs 
 Around him, and, complacent, he harangues 
 
 His fellows, telling of the deep mid-ocean, 
 And rocky hollows, and of sharks' keen fangs. 
 
 And scarlet sea-flowers in melodious motion, 
 
 Illustrating his search with many a fruitful notion. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 So, from the horrors of the trembling deep 
 
 Mazzini rises into heavenly air, 
 And regions wherein yet we may not peep, 
 
 But which, we are sure, are exquisitely fair; 
 
 To risen souls he recoimts many a lair 
 Of pain and horror in our earth behind, 
 
 So that they stand with horror-stricken hair 
 Around him, as with ears half deaf, and blind, 
 He emerges from the ocean, resolute of mind. 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. 169 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Fair risen spirits round him stand ; as many 
 
 Have watched a drowned man convoyed from the deep, 
 
 Who, eager, mark the surgeons, if, perhaps, any 
 May rouse him from that temporary sleep. 
 And, as with pulse and throb the slow limbs leap 
 
 To life renewed, their joy is so exceeding 
 That even hardy mariaers do weep — 
 
 So, not without tears doth Mazzini bleeding 
 
 Emerge from life's wild breakers round his body speeding; 
 
 To all the prophets great who went before 
 
 He is united, being perfect now ; 
 To Milton, who illumined England's shore 
 
 With light that wandered from his darkened brow 
 
 To illume a wider field ; to all who vow 
 Their lives to freedom ; most of all to those 
 
 Who guided through the waters the sweet prow 
 Of Italy, sweet vessel yclept the " Rose," 
 Fair as a woman, white as woman's breast of snows. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 To Shelley, and to him whom Shelley mourned 
 In that most tuneful of all elegies. 
 
170 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Is our Mazzini's snow-white soul returned, 
 Even as a lark reseeks the voiceless skies 
 From which he fell, with fresh soliloquies ; 
 
 Shelley and Adonaisare together; 
 Each to outsing the other softly tries, 
 
 Like throstles vying in uncertain weather, 
 
 Straining the yellow root of every puffed-out feather. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 But most of all to Christ, I see him draw. 
 
 With similar heroic outlook near, 
 I mark their meeting, but with sacred awe, 
 
 And somewhat in me yet of earthly fear, 
 
 I do retreat from words I may not hear ; 
 Not otherwise than as a woman who 
 
 Will not, with brain less ample, interfere 
 Seeing her husband holding converse due 
 With some large-brainbd friend, but meekly leaves the 
 two. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 These prophets speak together of approaching 
 Beauty of life, and hope of novel things ; 
 
 Strange subjects and remote disclosures broaching. 
 They talk of over-burthened crests of kings. 
 And how God's Love-bird in her pleasure sings ; 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. 171 
 
 They talk of new grand unions of the nations, 
 
 And peace the coming blood-red epoch brings, 
 And giant arms of grand confederations, 
 Hurling aside the church and all her spent damnations. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Their faces are too bright for me to ?ee 
 
 Without the cover of a kindly veil 
 An angel flings in pity unto me ; 
 
 But none the less they bid my singing hail. 
 
 And greet me, sick with ecstasy and pale. 
 As in some feeble sort a fellow-fighter, 
 
 Pierced by the horror of earth's lonely wail ; 
 As one who struggles if he may make lighter 
 The burthen of the earth, and make her body brighter. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 They speak of poets ; and a vision flits 
 
 Before me of earth's circle of pure bards, 
 Who, with impetuous spear-points of sharp wits, 
 
 Do speed the pleasure that slow fate retards ; 
 
 Building with bright, imaginative cards 
 The temples of the future, and gilt houses. 
 
 And brilliant markets, and triumphal yards. 
 Wherein the Future's gladsome toil carouses ; 
 Before my face I see robes, mantles, sceptres, blouses. 
 
172 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 The various labour of the future streams, 
 
 In one grand vision clear, before my gaze. 
 No longer as the food for idle dreams, 
 
 But radiant with immeasurable blaze 
 
 Of truth ; in delicate, astounding ways, 
 The mantle of the future is unfolded. 
 
 I mark each forehead sacred with the bays. 
 And every brow by kingly purpose moulded, 
 Each heart by sorrow's swords or nails of misery scolded. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 I see the hope of every patriot finished, 
 
 The dream of every sorrowing bard complete ; 
 
 The altar of Earth's prayers is undiminished, 
 But each petition, with exalted feet, 
 Has sought the inmost chamber-hollows sweet 
 
 Wherein God sits to answer ; He doth spurn 
 No single flame of sacrificial heat ; 
 
 He gathers all our words into an urn 
 
 Whence presently our hope shall magnified return, 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 God gathers all our hearts into his bosom; 
 They rise like scentless lilies wan and pale ; 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. 173 
 
 He doth return them as the blood-red blossom 
 Of some superb rose that might proudly sail 
 Upon a woman's breast ; our mingled wail 
 
 Is melody if heard from out the sky, 
 Even from behind the Holy Temple's vail, 
 
 Whereto thro' paths of misery we fly, 
 
 Ascending to our homes, God's palaces on high. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 So much I learned; but then the Italian vision 
 
 Of joy and beauty on my spirit broke ; 
 As the green earth doth bound from winter's prison. 
 
 Spuming with laughter every icy yoke, 
 
 A liberated universe then spoke ; 
 I marked the re-united shores of nations ; 
 
 The passion of the re-united folk 
 Brought incense and immaculate oblations 
 Of fruitful hearts to God as happy protestations. 
 
 xxxiv. 
 
 The sounds of prayer were common ; yet no churches 
 Usurped the grim protection of a creed ; 
 
 The wings of white prayers fluttered through the birches, 
 And pure petitions gambolled in each mead ; 
 No longer do our poet-martyrs bleed. 
 
174 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 For truth is worshipped, reverenced everywhere. 
 The Spirit of Truth doth calmly take the lead, 
 All hearts are free as freest mountain-air, 
 All souls of men are white, made exquisitely fair. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 And, fairest of all lands, I saw thine own, 
 
 Mazzini, rising softly from the waste 
 Of many a scattered church and vanquished throne ; 
 
 Like some pure island on the waters placed 
 
 By hands of a creating God in haste 
 Thy country gleamed, superb with many towers. 
 
 Grand with the endless city that hath graced 
 The avenues of Time, and furnished flowers 
 Of beauty to adorn the universe's bowers. 
 
 xxxvi. 
 
 At last, Mazzini, thou art understood ! 
 
 Thy passion, and thy valour, and thy love. 
 Thou art not veiled with any paltry hood ; 
 
 Thy spirit, rich with presence of the Dove 
 
 Of Holiness, is visible above 
 The Rome that shall be ; therein thou art praised 
 
 By every free-bom poet who doth move 
 Numbers majestic with delight ; high raised 
 Thou art where once the fires of persecution blazed. 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. 175 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 We pray thee, help us ; we are puzzled sorely, 
 Hard bound by clanking fetters of the age, 
 
 We struggle, we affpire, succeeding poorly, 
 Down-stricken by the adamantine rage 
 Of elements we know not how to assuage ; 
 
 But thou art treading some soft, flowery mead, 
 Or turning some fresh philosophic page 
 
 Of heavenly knowledge ; — help our souls in need ; 
 
 Be present as a god to save and intercede. 
 
 Be present with us j let thy trusty spirit 
 
 Visit not only Italy, thine own, 
 But do thou, in sweet sympathy, inherit 
 
 Salt shores by alien, fiercer breezes blown, 
 
 Inhabited by tribes of hoarser tone ; 
 Our England gave thee refuge ; guide us on 
 
 Through struggle, sorrow, and collective groan ; 
 Until our great contentment shall have shone, 
 And we may reach the country whither thou art gone. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Our England boasts a noble race of singers, 
 Our England in the time that doth draw near,- 
 
176 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 The age that shall be present, tho' it lingers, 
 Making away with every sword and sneer, 
 And doubtful, sick presentiment of fear. 
 
 Shall play a noble part ; her bards sball speak 
 The spring-tide message of the worldly year. 
 
 As from some pale, prophetic mountain-peak, 
 
 Upon the which they wait with countenances meek. 
 
 XL. 
 
 The summer of the planet shall be sounded 
 From Italy — thy land, thy love, thine own ; 
 
 Thy love that soared, exceeded, and abounded, 
 Shall be re-gathered into richer tone 
 When Italy's red, liberal rose is blown, 
 
 For great Italian poets shall arise 
 
 Even sweeter than the flute of Dante flown 
 
 Towards flowery hollows of celestial skies ; 
 
 Great prophets of intense, unfathomable eyes. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 The spirit of Italy shall find a measure. 
 The summer of the future shall pervade 
 
 The land God granted as a perfect treasure 
 Of sunlight to the lands he set in shade; 
 By river and by sunny nook and glade 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. 177 
 
 The triumphs of Italia shall be counted, 
 
 Like some white-breasted, flower-engirdled maid, 
 Upon the white steed of her freedom mounted, 
 She shall be seen ; the fangs of priestcraft shall be 
 blunted. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 The central God shall speak through many voices. 
 Through women, and through young men, or a child; 
 
 When all the fragrant bridal-room rejoices, 
 Rich with faint perfumes as of roses piled, 
 Or savours of broad meadows undefiled, 
 
 God shall be there ; and every bride shall know it, 
 Revealing God's breast in her bosom mild, 
 
 Not needing an inspired high-priest to show it. 
 
 Nor any voice of sage, nor word-revolving poet. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 O grand Mazzini, such a season waits us ; 
 
 I see it dimly, and I strive to sing 
 The coming pleasurable time that mates us 
 
 To this divine soul of a lovely thing ; 
 
 Already do the buds of roses cling 
 To the sweet casement, all the buds are swelling. 
 
 The fields are laden with the odorous spring, 
 
178 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 And, in accordance, I would be foretelling 
 Love's spring in numbers sweet most softly upward 
 welling. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 The hyacinths will soon bedeck the corners 
 
 Of many a happy and most fragrant wood ; 
 ■\Vhy should the sons of men be perjured mourners, 
 
 When blossoms, rich for many a bridal rood, 
 
 Join happy voices in their solitude ? 
 Self-sacrifice provides to human sorrow 
 
 A key, and this was thy perpetual mood, 
 And therefore do we softly seek to borrow 
 At thy most sacred tomb gifts fitted for the morrow. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 We do not wait to see thy body rise, 
 As once disciples lingered at a tomb. 
 
 With moumfiil tear-drops in their down-cast eyes,— 
 We do not look to see the perfect blooni 
 Of risen Mazzini issue from the gloom, 
 
 As once those Hebrews said that Jesus walked 
 From spent hell-fires that struggled to consume. 
 
 In vain, the gentle hands and voice, that talked 
 
 So softly — Satan's sting immeasurably balked ! 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. 179 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 We do not look to see our hero enter, 
 With visible body, a rent heaven of blue, 
 
 Dividing as an arrow swift the centre 
 Of that stupendous azure dome we view, 
 Cleaving its sounding hollows through and through 
 
 With dazzling wings of passionate intention, 
 And pearly radiance and impurpled hue. 
 
 We spoil not God's pale beauty by invention 
 
 Of richer dyes ; we choose a white rose for our mention , 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 The cheeks of Death are white ; that pale rose hovers 
 
 Softly upon the features of the dead. 
 Softly upon pale women who had lovers. 
 
 Whose cheeks were once thrice kissed to roses red, 
 
 Whose lips with crimson loveliness once bled ; 
 Death's white flower covers these with tender petals, 
 
 Above the rich departing crimson shed ; 
 And we — we seek not with invention's nettles 
 To spoil the eternal peace God's hand eternal settles. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 God places on the dead his solemn palm, 
 As a white, pure, imperishable rose, 
 
i8o UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Imperishable in a fragrant calm ; 
 
 And we — we strive not madly to unclose 
 The petals that his tender hands dispose 
 
 Upon the corpse, august in its new sleep ; 
 But over it God's sacred blossom blows, 
 
 And unintelligible tears we weep, 
 
 But not for sorrow, no, for something e'en more deep. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 For Death is unto us as something deeper. 
 
 More holy than it seemed to men before ; 
 The dead man is a voluntary sleeper 
 
 Upon God's breast — we cannot, as of yore, 
 
 A risen, pallid Lazarus implore, 
 But rather, with a love too deep for words. 
 
 The quiet dust to quiet dust restore, 
 Knowing that our departed labourer girds 
 His loins to toil afresh 'mid sinless, happy herds 
 
 L. 
 
 Of God's quick creatures, in some sinless mansion, 
 It may be 'mid the measureless white air. 
 
 Or in some vast, ecstatic brain-expansion 
 Of all the slow yet wondrous powers that were. 
 Tedious to him, yet excellently fair 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. i8i 
 
 With due regard to whence he, perhaps, had risen 
 
 As from a dark and mist-clothed valley-lair 
 Into a mountain-ether ; from a prison, 
 Unto a palace steps each man, from fate to vision. 
 
 LI. 
 
 But into higher regions steps the dead : — 
 And thither, O our Leader, thou art gone. 
 
 With sacred, unpolluted human head ; 
 Beyond Death's mountains a new sun has shone. 
 Tipping the previous summits faint and wan 
 
 As with a light insufferably pure : 
 O brother, has not some pure-breasted swan 
 
 Of soft Italian loveliness been sure 
 
 At last to heal the soul that nobly did endure. 
 
 LII. 
 
 Upon the earth thou wast a lonely man, 
 Thou art not, I am certain, lonely now. 
 
 A solitary honour is the van 
 
 Of battle, or of thought ! a lonely brow 
 For certain that which doth allegiance vow 
 
 To purposes unfathomed by the frail 
 
 And fickle herd, who understand not how 
 
 One passion, vast, imperishable, pale 
 
 With its most intense life, may garb a man in mail. 
 
1 82 ■ UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Driving him surely from the grassy meadows 
 
 Of daisy-flecked, harp-haunted common life, 
 Towards the mute and scentless mountain-shadows : 
 
 Towards some unsearchable, sequestered strife; 
 
 So that he severs with religious knife 
 The bonds that tie him to the common soul, 
 
 For his soul with a secret voice is rife, 
 And o'er his spirit secret whispers roll, 
 Urging him fiercely on towards many a viewless goal. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 But, brother, I am certain that the passion. 
 
 Pent-up, misunderstood, imprisoned long. 
 Has mixed, in some celestial, fearless fashion. 
 
 With the soft music of a woman's song ; 
 
 Thine heart of love was tender, yet most strong, 
 But it was wholly given to Italy — 
 
 Or so it seemed to us — but we were wrong ! 
 Some personal p,assion thou shalt surely see. 
 Who didst on earth adore, demanding no soft fee. 
 
 The sacred kiss of Italy, most pleasant. 
 Is printed on thy dead, heroic brow, 
 
TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT. 183 
 
 But with some perfect spirit thou art present, 
 Some soft embodiment of Italy, now. 
 Who shall reward thee — ah ! we know not how, 
 
 Being with remnants of the body blind ; 
 Some woman, the fruition of thy vow, 
 
 Thy purest manhood shall most surely find. 
 
 In whom Italia's self shall, visibly, be kind. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 
 Henceforth Venus is pale, 
 
 And stripped is her snow-white mail ; 
 
 As a sea-bird's her faint wail 
 Resounds thro' the mists of the shore. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 
 Out of the ashes of Rome 
 
 Rises a new tall dome ; 
 
 The peoples shall make it their home, 
 Not wreathed with trophies of war. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 Trample the blossoms of Greece, 
 Their poets and heroes shall cease. 
 But praise we our Lord of Peace, 
 
 The deep-browed king we adore. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 Watchers that tarried beheld. 
 On golden pinions impelled, 
 Christ's figure — death being quelled, 
 
 Quelled was their misery sore. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW. 185 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 
 Venus from out of the deep 
 
 Risen is, risen from sleep ; 
 
 Take courage, ye that weep. 
 For her face shines over the shore. 
 
 " Christ being dead, Hveth no more " — 
 
 Out of that Hebrew dead 
 
 Rises a banneret red ; 
 
 The peoples have travailed and bled ; 
 Our Mars shall initiate war. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Praise we rather our sages' 
 Who inscribed fathomless pages 
 For a gift and a light to the ages ; 
 
 Their calm-browed strength we adore. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Watchers that wait at the grave 
 Of our goddess, see plumes wave 
 In the mouth of that desolate cave ; 
 
 And their souls are no more sore. 
 
i86 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 Praise we, in hymn and in song, 
 Jesus, his sword-arm strong ; 
 Approach we, a jubilant throng, 
 
 Low bending Christ's altar before. , 
 
 " Christ being raised dieth no more " — 
 The storm of the terror of God 
 As lightning leaps on the spd, 
 But he guides his lambs with a rod 
 
 Gentle, as ever of yore. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 As a King, as a Monarch, He stands 
 On a golden throne ; He disbands 
 Past sorrows and sins of the lands. 
 
 Peace, bounty, and love to outpour. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more ''- 
 What is beauty but clay. 
 Created but for a day, 
 In a feeble, mutable way ? 
 
 Frail oaths their goddess swore. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 
 From the snow-white calm of her breast 
 Flies healing for spirits opprest ; 
 'Tis a home, a temple, a nest. 
 
 For nations homeless before. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Gone is the terror that slew. 
 And our Lady, alive and new, 
 Shines as a bird in the blue, 
 
 Shines, as she glistened of yore. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Gleameth upon us the beauty 
 Of Venus, our joy and our booty 
 Spotless ; hers is our duty. 
 
 And service of praise we outpour. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Beauty is endless ; Christ 
 With death- worms holds fair tryst ; 
 Death's beetles his body enticed — 
 
 Now, where is that oath which he swore ? 
 
UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 He, the Lamb that was killed, 
 O'er tribes converted and thrilled 
 Shall rule ; Death fled when he willed, 
 
 As a fawn at a lion's roar. 
 
 " Christ being raised dieth no more " — 
 Shines the dawn of a year 
 Sinless, redemption is near ; 
 For seasons hoary and drear. 
 
 Soft summer flames at the door. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more" — 
 Zeus and Here are white 
 With extreme terror and affright ; 
 As moons sink swallowed in night. 
 
 They sink ; our Sun doth soar. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 Fame is of little account, 
 To a lordlier life we mount, 
 To a crystal ceaseless fount, 
 
 All worldly yearning is o'er. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Christ as a lamb shall flee 
 When his trembling gaze doth see 
 Our leopard's approaching knee ; 
 
 When he hears her full throat roar. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Summer is in the smile 
 Of beauty ; their swords do defile 
 Our goddess, their leaders beguile 
 
 Our people ; Death treads at the door. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " - 
 But for a season He 
 With red, vindictive knee. 
 Doth triumph violently ; 
 
 For a time his red wings soar. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more "- 
 Sweet are the limbs of a girl, 
 Sweet is each golden curl 
 Her fingers lazily twirl. 
 
 And bosom her hands pass o'er. 
 
I90 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 N3rmphs and goddesses nude 
 Are abolished, broken, subdued ; 
 The unseemly shapes they viewed 
 
 We hurl in haste to the floor. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 
 Roses are but for an age 
 
 Thoughtless, we turn Time's page ; 
 
 Heavenly flowers engage 
 Our vision — these Christ wore. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 Praise we Christ, who is strong. 
 And his sword, keen-edged, is long ; 
 His heart is as sweet as a song, 
 
 And as soft as a kiss to the core. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 Ours are the golden hills 
 Of Heaven, and amber rills 
 Whose bed no torrent fills, 
 
 And gifts from the heavenly store. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW. 191 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Kissed by the foam-flakes, our 
 Immaculate foam-born flower 
 Steps, under a foam-bell shower, 
 
 With white foot over the floor. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Nay ! there is many a crown ; 
 Fame puts smooth bay-leaves down ; 
 The forehead that knows no frown 
 
 Love's earliest rose-buds wore. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Truth ! their masculine kiss 
 Is but as a serpent's hiss 
 By beauty's sweet-mouthed bliss — 
 
 Her mouth is sweet to the core. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Ours are flowery glades 
 Upon earth, and cool, deep shades 
 Of beeches, and bright-browed maids- 
 All earth's kindly store. 
 
192 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 He is risen, and Summer, on wings 
 Rose-white, rises and sings ; 
 All good gifts he brings, 
 
 All high hopes to the fore. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more "- 
 Surely Jehovah is here 
 In this peasant's figure austere ; 
 To the Lord Judsea is dear, 
 
 And earth's plains snowy and hoar. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more " — 
 Listen ! our sages speak 
 With rose-flushed, passionate cheek, 
 Yet are they gentle and meek, 
 
 Christ's sweet evangelists four. 
 
 " Christ being raised, dieth no more '' — 
 Surely we /trust in the face 
 Of Jesus ; our hands we place 
 Round the body that, by God's grace, 
 
 The spotless Virgin bore. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW. 193 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 
 She is risen ! Lady sweet, 
 
 Trample with pitiless feet 
 ' Our bodies ; but, we entreat, 
 Bring lovely days to the fore. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Beauty is in all places 
 And persons, and various races ; 
 Sweet summer her white breast graces, 
 
 She crowneth the groves that are hoar. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more '' — 
 Beauty's evangelists fair 
 Are fire, and water^ and air. 
 And this sweet earth ; we are 'ware 
 
 Of these, her spirits four. 
 
 " Christ being dead, liveth no more " — 
 Safely we trust in thee ; 
 For meadow, and mountain, and lea. 
 And blue, dim wastes of the sea. 
 
 Thine endless bosom bore. 
 
 13 
 
 fKS 
 
SONNE TS. 
 
 ENGLAND TO ITALY. 
 
 [England's Charge to Italy on sending Keats, her well-loved- 
 son, thither for the restoration of his health, and Italy's answer. 
 Written after reading Wordsworth's sonnet on the departure of Sir 
 Walter Scott for Naples.] 
 
 Italia ! Sister ! to thy tender charge 
 With confidence I give my poet child ; 
 Our winds and strenuous waves were all too wild 
 
 For him — his spirit lingers on the marge 
 
 Of icy death — approach, swift-footed barge, 
 And bear him o'er the waters undefiled, 
 To regions where perpetual Sol has smiled ; 
 
 Let peace be his, and restoration large. 
 
 Then let him with a vigorous step re-seek 
 The barrier of my iron-girdled shore, 
 
 Sweet-voiced as ever, but no longer weak, — 
 Singing from lustier throat than heretofore, — 
 
 With soft Italia's bloom upon his cheek ; 
 Be speedy, sail, and smite the furrows, oar ! 
 
ITALY TO ENGLAND. 
 
 He was too fair ! I loved him overmuch. 
 
 Sweet sister, is it altogether ill 
 
 That he no more can feel the wintry chill, 
 No more be pierced by sorrow's icy touch ? 
 That he has, once for all, escaped the clutch 
 
 Of poverty and loneliness and scorn, 
 
 And that another poet has been bom 
 Into Elysian fields, made fair with such ? 
 
 I laid a tender hand upon his head — 
 Alas ! the love and passion in it slew ; 
 
 Now is he numbered with the gifted dead, 
 Whose wings divide the unfathomable blue 
 
 Ol my bright heaven ; — and their fame is shed 
 Upon me in remembrance ever new. 
 
 13—2 
 
FROM BLACKHEATH TO GRAVESEND. 
 Suggested by Wordsworth's Series of Sonnets on the River Duddon. 
 
 I JOURNEYED by wild marshes yesterday, 
 Where lonely bands of wandering cattle fed, 
 With here and there a straw-stack or a shed, 
 
 And all the skies were overhung with grey ; 
 
 It was a dismal region, yet I say 
 That many swift and pleasing fancies sped 
 Throughout me, nor was rapture wholly dead ; 
 
 No lack of colour poesy can slay. 
 
 In that dim waste I seemed to apprehend 
 A spirit present, lordly and as fair 
 
 As any whose bright sceptre doth extend 
 Thro' viewless avenues of mountain air, 
 
 Or over slopes where clustering birches bend, 
 And many a scudding goshawk finds his lair. 
 
FROM BLACKHEATH TO GRAVESEND 197 
 
 Since not in mountain-regions I was born, 
 But by the silver bank of gliding Thames, 
 Where many an iron steamer duly stems 
 
 The current, somewhat have I of high scorn 
 
 For singers who can only sound their horn 
 In lofty regions, where the sun begems 
 Cold mountain-tops — whose blazing diadems 
 
 From lustrous scenes of easy thought are torn. 
 
 The grandeur of a mountain, who denies ? 
 
 Grant me the patient insight, heavenly muse, 
 To own thy sacred presence 'mid dim skies, 
 
 And low surrounding flats of slime and ooze 
 O'er which the wandering love-sick plover flies, 
 
 Tender with uniformity of hu es. 
 
 3- 
 
 O mountain-regions, stately and exalt, 
 Am I then false and treacherous to you. 
 Your perfectly transparent skies of blue, 
 
 Your grand rock-masses woven of basalt. 
 
 And precipices where the wild birds halt 
 
 With some more daring, giddier flight in view, 
 And nooks where birches cluster two and two^ 
 
 And verdant sheen of many a mossy vault ? 
 
198 UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 Not so ! but one has sung you whom to attempt 
 
 To rival were a folly — ^as for me, 
 From giddy mountain-eulogies exempt, 
 
 Let me the rather seek the still grey sea. 
 And rivers as the river where I dreamt 
 
 But yesterday, my vanished love, of thee. 
 
 4- 
 
 For not the mountains, not the lordly void 
 
 Of untempestuous and ecstatic air 
 
 That finds 'mid those high summits cool and fair 
 A resting-place and temple unalloyed, 
 Not these allure me — nor, by these decoyed, 
 
 Do I forget, sweet muse, my native lair — 
 
 The home, still more significant, of her 
 By whose sweet face my fainting youth was buoyed. 
 
 Amid the marshes spreading towards the deep. 
 By Woolwich and by Gravesend, with the power 
 
 Of coming ocean-life upon their sleep, 
 I still can linger many a happy hour, 
 
 And many a happy silent watch can keep, 
 Happier than in a fern-clad mountain bower. 
 
 S- 
 The great ships steal along — I muse, I think 
 Of wonders that their keels shall soon traverse ; 
 
FROM BLACKHEATH TO GRAVESEND. 199 
 
 I mark the mariners our islets nurse, 
 Clustered in gazing circles on the brink 
 Of pier and shore, watching slow topmasts sink, 
 
 As many a hardy story they rehearse ; 
 
 Waste regions I divide with fancy terse. 
 And unintelligible joys I drink. 
 
 The spirit of the universe is mine, 
 
 Perhaps most of all ia such a quiet scene. 
 
 Where floating logs along the river line 
 Give motion to an endless waste serene. 
 
 And here and there black rocking boats combine 
 To hint at life that elsewise had not been. 
 
 6. 
 
 Steal on, slow circles of the eddying river, 
 
 Climb on, swift prows of sharp ascending boats ! 
 
 I mark ye, and I mark each straw that floats 
 Upon the waves, and sun's red rays that quiver 
 Thro' the dense air of afternoon, and shiver 
 
 Across my searching gaze like lustrous motes ; 
 
 Each item of the view my outlook notes, 
 From the long hills to flats that ebb for ever. 
 
 But now the robe of evening mist descends. 
 The river groweth darker, and the tides 
 
UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Are less apparent, as their outset blends 
 With the green shore's remote inclosing sides, 
 
 And with the closing day my spent lyre ends. 
 And this faint tune its passionate love provides. 
 
 7- 
 
 But, O ye solemn mountains, loved of him 
 Who most of all has stood with accents pure 
 Among our recent bards whose songs endure, 
 
 Who now sits 'mid the winged seraphim 
 
 With harp not weary and with eyes not dim. 
 And lips no earthly sickness can obscure. 
 Sweet mountains, be not wroth with me, — be sur 
 
 With love of ye my looks do ofttimes swim. 
 
 But in that I was born in lowly lands. 
 And in a lowly region sought my bride. 
 
 These speak to me as no man understands, — 
 And, with unearthly mystic power supplied, 
 
 I seem to tread the desolate reach of sands, 
 And mark the low waste washing of the tide. 
 
ABBEY WOOD. 
 
 Bright hill-sides, covered thick with yellow heads 
 Of daffodils — a primrose here and there, 
 The subtle smell of spring-time in the air, 
 
 A brimstone-plumaged butterfly who speeds' 
 
 On wings ecstatic thro' the shining meads, 
 As if a flying daffodil it were, 
 A distant prospect sweet beyond compare, 
 
 Showing the silver Thames amid its reeds. 
 
 Such was the scene that met our earnest gaze, 
 O Violet, when we rested on the hill, 
 
 Marking the slow departure of the haze 
 From valley, upland, and meandering rill, 
 
 A prospect whose pure soothing presence stays 
 Within me as a sunny comfort still. 
 
UNDER THE DA WN. 
 
 I felt the sweet sense of the spring-time steal 
 Throughout me, renovating every nerve ; 
 I marked the distant river's every curve, 
 
 And the far echo of a church-bell's peal ; 
 
 As we were making our sequestered meal, 
 With appetites the forest airs did serve — 
 Upon a neighbouring bark with cunning swerve 
 
 A creeper* climbed and twisted, wheel on wheel. 
 
 The silence and the pleasure of the place 
 Pervaded us — we could not but be sure 
 
 That here was manifest the perfect grace 
 Of Beauty, and her bosom soft and pure, 
 
 And the exceeding grandeur of her face : 
 The eyeless, smoke-fed city ceased to allure. 
 
 3- 
 But, chiefly, I was startled by a sense 
 Of what a wondrous pleasure it would be 
 To glide, soft-footed, thro' that grove we see, 
 Dividing the fir thickets tall and dense. 
 When the bright sun of morning shone intense, 
 With perfect-bosomed Love beside of me. 
 The early dawn illumining each tree. 
 And every leaf and flower and dark grey fence. 
 
 • The bird tCerthia familiaris) — not the plant. 
 
ABBEY WOOD. 203 
 
 I seemed to hear the gentle feet of Love 
 Upon the mossy, sun-illumined floors, 
 
 And felt that 'twas a pleasure far above 
 The passion of the painted corridors 
 
 Of theatres, to traverse, like a dove, 
 
 Dawn's beauty on those leafy forest-shores. 
 
BLOOD-DROPS. 
 
 To My Beauty. 
 
 Rosy petals, red as blood, 
 Towards my lady's sweet abode. 
 In a trembling hand I bring — 
 Piercing all my heart, I sing. 
 Musically, blood-drops fall, 
 
 And I gather gather all. 
 
 Placing them within a cup. 
 That therein my sweet may sup, 
 And be so fulfilled of me. 
 In a vision verily. 
 Gleams of roses, passing red, 
 I bestow around her bed, 
 Gleams of roses, passing fair, 
 Fragrant as with summer air, 
 Dipped in crimson, grand attire. 
 Face-flushed with poetic fire, 
 
BLOOD-DROPS. 205 
 
 Beautiful from suffering — 
 These flowers in my hand I bring; 
 Red they are, I know it well, 
 Blood-red, as from flaming hell. 
 Lurid, awfully intense 
 With some inner crimson sense, 
 Bright with things I may not speak. 
 Lest I pain your tender cheek ; 
 Lady, lay your hand on these, 
 Lily-fingers, if you please, 
 And it may be they shall bloom 
 As white roses from their tomb 
 Of concentred suffering ; 
 As a glad bard I shall sing. 
 And my Book shall no more be 
 Blood-drops, of a verity. 
 Rather tears of perfect joy, 
 White flowers gathered from a boy, 
 Petals purely white, instead 
 Of those awful blossoms red. 
 And, for beads of sanguine hue. 
 Only sweet tears shed by you, 
 Trickling from the eyes of green. 
 Sweetest colour ever seen ; 
 With whose worship I began 
 Love that raised me to a man. 
 Sacred Love, that since pursued 
 Me through many a recreant mood — 
 
2o6 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Holy Love, that would not let 
 My weak, cowardly heart forget — 
 Perfect Love, that did redeem 
 Life from many a sinful dream — 
 Happy Love, that brings me here, 
 As of old a suppliant, dear — 
 Joyous Love, that draws me back 
 To the unforgotten track — 
 Faithful Love, that still shall last 
 When our mortal years are past, 
 When the heavens are clear in view. 
 And the heavenly mountains blue 
 Gleam upon us — love that ends 
 Not, but surely, sweetly, blends 
 With the fast-approaching sea 
 Of a white eternity. 
 
PAIN-CHORDS. 
 
 To Beauty. 
 
 Pain-chords sounding from my harp, 
 Sometimes bitter, sometimes sharp, 
 Sometimes from excess of pain 
 Ringing out a worthy strain, 
 Sometimes whispering low delight 
 As of waters in the night. 
 Sometimes burning with the heat 
 Of Apollo's midday feet. 
 Sometimes tender as the moon 
 Floating thro' her nightly swoon — 
 Such chords in my hand I bting. 
 Piercing all my soul I sing. 
 Not to personal Beauty now 
 Do I make my songful vow. 
 Not to lips of rosy red 
 Is my harp's allegiance wed, 
 
2o8 UNDER THE DAWN. 
 
 Not to any breast of snow 
 Do I recount tales of woe, 
 Not to any eyes of green 
 Sing of sorrows I have seen, 
 Rather to the Lord of all 
 Coming, at His knees I fall. 
 Bringing gifts whence He may choose ; 
 Flowers I brought of varied hues 
 To my Lady — to the Lord 
 Many a sorrow-smitten chord 
 I would carry, mixed as well 
 With the old familiar swell 
 Of Love's music; lay thine hand, 
 God of sky, and sea, and land. 
 Lay thy holy hand on these. 
 Thy pure fingers, if it please, 
 And it may be they shall sound 
 As songs wherein joys abound, 
 And my Book shall no more be 
 Pain-chords, of a verity, 
 Rather tunes of perfect joy, 
 Glad notes chanted from a boy. 
 Songs of happy calm instead 
 Of those chords to which were wed 
 Storms and sick delirious things, 
 With black vengeance on their wings, 
 Many a terror and discord 
 Written with red point of sword. 
 
PAIN-CHORDS. 209 
 
 Many an evil-sounding tune- 
 Beauty ! change these sad sounds soon 
 Into heavenly hymns of life, 
 That, exultant, from this strife 
 I may rise^remembering thee ; 
 Beauty, who didst ravish me, 
 When the first poetic fire 
 Swept with fury o'er my lyre- 
 Beauty, who would'st never let 
 My weak fainting heart forget — 
 Passionate Beauty, who didst save 
 From a foul, inglorious grave 
 My sad genius many times, 
 Giving me to life and rhymes 
 Once again — God, Saviour, Queen, 
 Hear me ! thou know'st what I mean. 
 
 14 
 
MY WHOLE LIFE LONG. 
 
 Ah! sweet, that vision lasted but one short summer 
 
 night ; 
 I dreamed of you, I prayed to you — and then you took 
 
 your flight. 
 I fancied on the next day I had conquered and was 
 
 strong ; 
 'Tis not so ! I shall dream of you my whole life long! 
 
 I have wooed an abstract Goddess, I have bent before 
 the feet 
 
 Qf art with humbler homage, and have found her foot- 
 stool sweet. 
 
 But time brings back reality ; for once I did thee wrong, 
 
 Avenged thou art — I dream of thee my whole life long ! 
 
MV WHOLE LIFE LONG. 2U 
 
 In life's wild turmoil mankind (so say they) doth forget 
 The eyes that early longing with delicious glances met ; 
 I doubt it — when a lull comes, that unforgotten song 
 Of Passion rises sweetly, thro' my whole life long ! 
 
 What do I care for Progress, for Battle, or for Joy ? 
 True pleasure hath forsaken me, I sorrow from a boy; 
 One night I seemed to reach you — now sunlit fancies 
 
 throng, 
 And you shine in the sunlight my whole life long ! 
 
 To merge oneselt in working is well enough for those 
 Who never lost their reasons in smelling at a rose, 
 But bitter disappointment is for ever as a prong 
 To goad me into thoughts of Thee my whole life long ! 
 
 " Come, let it pass," they say to one ; " assert the inborn 
 
 power 
 Of manhood : why should any man beyond the passing 
 
 hour 
 Be moved by woman's beauty ? " I know not, but the 
 
 gong 
 Of vivid memory ceases not — my whole* life long ! 
 
POEMS AND SONNETS. 
 
 By GEORGE BARLOW. 
 
 In Three Parts, price Js. dd. each. Crown Zvo, cloth. 
 JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 and 75, Piccadilly. 1871. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 Part I. — "Mr. George Barlow's 'Sonnets' is, in several re- 
 pects, a clever arid remarkable book. . . , Mr. Barlow has a 
 peculiar gift for quaint and captivating titles. The ' Ecstasy of the 
 Hair,' 'My Own Dart,' 'Blue Weather,' 'Death's Lips and 
 Palms,' ' To have Beheld,' are felicitous and suggestive fancies. 
 . . . This would scarcely have been remarked, did it arise from lack 
 of power to perfect. From the evidence of his better work, we are 
 convinced that the author has all that is needful of such power, to 
 make of the many eidola of good things that sprinkle his volume, 
 real embodiments of genius. Such evidences are not rare. . . . Mr. 
 Barlow has, however, sterling qualities that compensate even these 
 crudities ; and if we have been particular in the enumeration of his 
 faults, it is that these qualities are great enough to merit care in their 
 culture — care in their liberation from the occasional clumsiness that 
 obscures them. If Mr. Barlow be a young man, his career is, to a 
 great measure, in his own hands." — Blanchard Jerrold, in 
 Lloyd's News, Feb. 26, 1871. 
 
 "To the Rossetti subdivision, we think, the volume before us 
 belongs. It has the loving yearning after loveliness which character- 
 jzes the writers referred to, but it has no obscurity, and it has a fine 
 
human sentiment of its own. There is, also, a sympathy with 
 nature which evidently is not assumed, not accepted at second-hand, 
 but which bursts forth from the inner personality of the writer. The 
 verse, if not great, is uniformly sweet, and (which is a virtue) we 
 can all follow its meaning."— W^W/S/y Dispatch, March 26, 1871. 
 
 " A new singer to us is Mr. Barlow, but one who unquestionably 
 fingers the chords of his harp with a delicate, reverential, and, 
 withal, somewhat masterly touch. His theme is love, with varia. 
 tions ; and charmingly and archly he discourses upon that ancient 
 but ever new topic, owning apparently inexhaustible resources 
 within himself of heart-melody. His laudations of beauty have 
 nothing in them that is sickening or sensual ; on the contrary, they 
 are moderate and graceful. His sentiment is not less tender than 
 true and pure ; his thoughts of beauty are refining and elevating. 
 He has less mannerism than most of the young writers in the present 
 day, and shows a generous appreciation of others, which is, to a 
 certain extent, some proof of merit in himself." — Public Opinion, 
 April I, 1871. 
 
 "The author expresses his admiration 01 American Society for 
 being free from ' the pruning of Convention's hand,' but it is much 
 to be regretted that he has forborne to apply more of such pruning 
 to his own work. .... There are grace and melody in the 
 pieces entitled, ' Reminiscence ' and ' The Discovery of Love,' 
 and another called ' The Waking of Beaut/ shows a genuine 
 worship, which ought some time to bear worthier fruit" — Spectator, 
 Aprils, 1871. 
 
 " This is the first part only of a collection which, thus far, reveals 
 so many graces that a reader of taste may well wait impatiently for 
 the second." — Illitstrated London News, April 22, 1871. 
 
 Speaking of Part iii., The Westminster Review, for April 1874, 
 says : — • 
 
 " Mr. Barlow has probably, without knowing it, been influenced 
 by the feeling of the day. And a man may resemble another in his 
 style without having read him. Influences are, as it were, in the 
 air. The series of poems ' Under the Gaslight,' appears to us to 
 represent much of the spirit of the rising generation of poets. Mr. 
 Barlow writes not merely fluently, but with a command of both 
 
language and thought. His ideas are thoroughly under his control. 
 Again, the series of poems ' Christ is not Risen,' well represent 
 much of the spiritual unrest — for we have no better title — of the 
 day. It would be utterly impossible, judging by the present 
 volume, to say what Mr. Barlow may do. His verse is full of 
 promise. " 
 
 Parts I., II., III. — "Mr. Barlow is a poet of no mean capacity, 
 whose muse is specially devoted to the somewhat unthankful task 
 
 of producing somiets In Part ii. Mr. Barlow 
 
 is at his best, and his success in poems of less strict metre than is 
 required for the sonnet is such as to induce us to wish he had 
 avoided the more laborious task. As one of many excellent short 
 pieces we may instance 'A Dream of Roses.' .... We 
 have read Mr. Barlow's three volumes with interest and pleasure, 
 which is more than can be said of much of the poetry of the 
 i&y."— Weekly Disfatch, Aug. 17, 1873. 
 
 " Mr. Barlow has read poetry, and it is probable that he under- 
 stands it. There is no evidence in his more serious work of 
 
 misdirected energies or ill-chosen subjects His 
 
 sonnets are of a subject and intention which does not forbid com- 
 parison with Petrarch himself." — Illustrated Review, Aug. 28, 
 
 1873- 
 
 " The author seems to have attained a perfect mastery over the 
 purely mechanical part of verse-writing, which would make his 
 productions easy reading, were it not for the weariness induced by 
 their sameness and number. Love, animal beauty, and the 
 superiority of theism over Christianity are the prevailing themes." 
 — Graphic, Oct. 4, 1873. 
 
 "Mr. Barlow has, we have said, poetical fancy, and now and then 
 terse expressions. For instance, 
 
 An hour of play, 
 A life of wrong, 
 expresses shortly the tale of many a sad heart ; and the idea of 
 troubles 
 
 Threshing the wheat of one's mind like a flail 
 is very good." — Notts Express, Feb. 24, 1874. 
 
 " Mr. Barlow has given us here a large number of poems on a 
 very few subjects, and chiefly in one form — the sonnet. ' Sonnets 
 
on Love' fill np the first volume ; short poems entitled, ' Grains 
 of Sand,' and songs follow, nearly all on the same inexhaustible 
 theme ; if we were to give one title to what remains, it would be 
 ' Religious Aspirations and Reflections.' The quality of his work 
 is by no means out of proportion to the quantity. He has not only 
 a fluent pen, but an indubitable gift of beautiful and harmonious, if 
 not commonly powerfiil, expression. He is no careless workman, 
 trusting to the force of genius alone, and neglecting the strictness of • 
 method and the grace of form. Indeed, grace and finish are the con- 
 spicuous and prevailing qualities of his poetry, and the number of 
 awkward lines and words put in to save the credit of a rhyme is so 
 small as to be almost unnoticeable. The thoughts expressed in a way 
 so admirable are more often subtle and delicate than strong, though 
 strength is not entirely wanting. In these characteristics the style 
 and the thought are one, or, at least, the style faithfully reflects the 
 
 texture of the thought Like other poets of the present 
 
 day, our author has a word, or rather a good many words, to say on 
 religious subjects. A set of sonnets, entitled ' Christologia,' is devoted 
 to the Subject of the Resurrection of Christ ; and ' The Cry of the 
 Universe' contains passages of remarkable poetical vigour, but of 
 an extremely anti-ecclesiastical tendency, on the boundless subject 
 of the existence of evil." — Literary World, June 19, 1874. 
 
 " Mr. Barlow has succeeded in the difficult task of writing a large 
 number of love-poems without cloying his readers with a surfeit of 
 
 sweets. Variety has not been sacrificed to unity 
 
 Perhaps the most notable feature in Mr. Barlow's work is the 
 capacity which it displays for entering with equal fervour into what 
 we may call, after Mr. Matthew Arnold, the Hellenistic and the 
 Hebraistic modes of approaching beauty and love. This faculty is 
 the more remarkable if, as may be pretty clearly discerned from 
 internal evidence, the writer is a very young man. He can sing 
 with the blithe abandonment of the Greek, as well as with that 
 reverential adoration characteristic of the Hebrew spirit which had 
 mastered the great secret wliich the bright, limited Greek imagina- 
 tion seems never to have leamt — that the highest love can only be 
 rightly approached ii:omi.the still higher level of duty. To have 
 apprehended and embodied this truth is something; and for a 
 young poet it is much. But, what is still more, he has perceived 
 
and given adequate poetic utterance to the yet wider law tliat 
 between Hellenism and Hebraism at their highest there can be no 
 opposition ; — that at the loftiest level of each they coalesce and are 
 
 fused into one harmonious whole Mr. Barlow has 
 
 given us some songs and lyrical snatches which have the true 
 musical ring. 'The Enchantress of the Shore,' 'Yet how Fair,' 
 ■ August,' ' Weeping Alone,' all show considerable lyrical power, 
 
 and a genuine feeling for rhythm Mr. Barlow is, 
 
 so far as we know, the first English poet who has fully apprehended 
 the poetic truth with which the theistic idea — destined, so far as 
 can be yet foreseen, to be hereafter consciously recognized, as it has 
 hitherto been unconsciously held, as the basis of all possible 
 
 religious faith — is instinct Of the religious poems, 
 
 the two most ambitious are, ' Christ is not Risen,' and ' The Old 
 and the New.' The aim and scope of both are similar. The 
 object of the former, as we are told in an undeniably fine, though 
 perhaps rather florid, prose introduction, is, ' to show the way 
 back from heaven to earth.' This poem was evidently written 
 under the influence of a reaction from Christian ideas and spiritual 
 enthusiasm towards the sweet, child-like, ancient faith in and love 
 
 of nature for her own sake In ' The Old and the 
 
 New,' the writer has attempted, as he cays in a prefatory sonnet 
 to the reader, ' to trace two flowing currents,' — viz. Naturalism 
 and Christian Revelation — which ' traverse with unceasing restless 
 
 speed the ages.' These poems are full of promise. 
 
 They clearly show a lively and delicate imagination ; considerable 
 musical and rhythmical power ; and last, though not least, religious 
 and artistic instincts in harmony with the best tendencies of the 
 day." — Human Nature, Sept., 1874. 
 
By the same Author. 
 
 A LIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 Square Zvo, cloth, price 6j. 
 JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 and 75, Piccadilly. 1873. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " ' A Life's Love ' is a volume of short poems from the pen of one 
 who evidently derives much of his inspiration from Mr. Swinburne. 
 As far as we have glanced at them, the poems are the reverse of 
 commonplace." — Examiner, July 26, 1873. 
 
 " Mr. Barlow's muse has much original power and culture, but it 
 
 is a little too exuberant in the power of imitation His 
 
 chief excellence is the way in which he weaves the world of nature 
 external to him with the fancies of imagination and the feelings of 
 the human heart ; hence it is that his poetry, which we can cordially 
 commend to all lovers of the muse, is full of similes drawn from 
 the world of external nature." — Standard, July, 1873. 
 
 "Mr. Barlow's book of sonnets, entitled 'A Life's Love,' reveals 
 earnestness of feeling, refinement of taste, and some aspiration. . 
 The endeavour after an elevated artistic ideal is apparent, but the 
 poems are less remarkable for what they are in themselves than 
 suggestive of what their author, with his idealistic tendency and 
 tenderness, and charm of sentiment, may one day produce. . . . 
 Much of the mystic element is perceptible in Mr. Barlow's verse. 
 ... It is impossible not to wish well to a young poet whose faults 
 are evidently those of youth and inexperience. When the early 
 
subjectiveness of intellect and feeling have progressed into a more 
 objective stage, these slight inartistic blemishes will doubtless dis- 
 appear. . . Time is the test to show what real creative power may 
 be behind the downy shoots of the first growth. We shall, how- 
 ever, look forward to Mr. Barlow's further efforts in the hope that 
 his rSle of poet may not have been undertaken lightly to be aban. 
 doned." — Antiquary, Aug. 23, 1873. 
 
 " The perfect English Sonnetter has not yet presented himself to 
 the public. Mr. George Barlow has, perhaps, more than any other 
 modem writer devoted himself to the making of sonnets. . . . 
 From the quantity of sonnets he has written, we should say that he 
 has faith in the style he has adopted, and in himself as the exponent 
 of the style. Whether, however, he is the long-expected perfect 
 sonneteer we doubt, although some of the stanzas in ' A Life's Love ' 
 contain some of the most charming and delightful poetry we have 
 read for some time. Mr. Barlow is Petrarchan in manner. We have 
 Petrarchan subtleties and Petrarchan conceits. Petrarch's sonnets 
 immortalise his love for Laura ; George Barlow's ' Life's Love ' is 
 not mentioned by name, but the love is evidently genuine and the 
 lady human. . . . The sonnet entitled ' The Pearl Necklace ' 
 is, in our opinion, the brightest and most valuable gem in Mr. 
 Barlow's rich collection. If it be not true poetry we are greatly 
 deceived." — Civil Service Review, Sept. 13, 1873. 
 
 " It is not often a volume of poems exactly fulfils the announce- 
 ment on the title-page ; but ' A Life's Love,' is really what it pro- 
 fesses to be. There is plenty of internal evidence that some of 
 these poems were commenced very early in the poet's life, and an 
 allusion to Dickens's grave takes us to recent times. The book 
 consists of 100 pages, each page being devoted to one sonnet, with 
 
 a title and a pretty • pictorial heading Mr. 
 
 Barlow's poems have a great deal of happy expression and a certain 
 ring of music." — Gloie, Nov. 27, 1873. 
 
 " There is a sort of genuineness in the stir of confused heated feel- 
 ing that sets in motion a mob of fancies, sometimes strange and 
 quaint, sometimes pretty if not unfamiliar, always musically ex- 
 pressed." — Academy, Jan. 31, 1874. 
 
 " Is it possible to have too much of love? We shall not be so 
 ungallant as to answer yes, without qualification, but we had un- 
 
questionably too much of love, as sung by Mr. Rossetti when we 
 read his sonnets (we do not make affidavit that we read them all), 
 and we have not been able to imbibe the enormous dose of love 
 
 administered to us in this book by Mr. Barlow 
 
 In conclusion let us admit that Mr. Barlow has a considerable 
 command of language and imagery. He ought to read some 
 vigorous naturalistic poetry, with strong, rough human interest in 
 it." — Literary World, June 5, 1874. 
 
 " For a specimen of the predominance of the Hebrew spirit let us 
 take the really fine sonnet called 'Love's Unity.' .... The 
 sonnet is evidently Mr. Barlow's favourite poetic vehicle, and it is 
 perhaps in his sonnets that he is most successful." — Human Nature^ 
 Sept., 1874.