Corneir University Library 
 PR 5703. VS3 
 
 Poems of the future. 
 
 3 1924 013 566 769 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013566769 
 
POEMS OP THE PUTUKE. 
 
 VICTOR M. VITA.^ 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 ARTHUR H. MOXON, 12 TAVISTOCK: STREET, 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1879. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 POSTERITY :-AND MY SISTER. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 In Line 2, Page 47, for " invisible " read " inviolate." 
 In Verse 6, Line 3, Page 55, for "loved " read " lov6d." 
 In Line 2, Page 81, insert " down " after " look. '' 
 Page 122, footnote, read " Bkkohard." 
 In Line 4, Page 146, for ' ' improved " read " unproved. " 
 In Line 10, Page 149, for " bless'd " read " blessed." 
 In Line 18, Page 167, for " so " read " To.'" 
 
 My sister ! Soul who art brother of my soul, 
 Whose love is more than sister's love to mine, 
 The best I have knowii, the truest to console, 
 First to respond, and deepest to divine ; 
 Who hast soothed my wounds so oft with oil ; with 
 
 wine 
 Restored my spirit ; whose bright sympathy 
 Has beckoned forth my drea.ii8, to play with thine — 
 The only dreams spared by reality, 
 My mocker else — those dreams here do I pledge to thee . 
 
 These first-fruits of my thoughts — (thoughts that 
 
 before 
 I gave them to the world, I gave to thee, 
 "Who canst interpret by supplying more 
 Than my words say, knowing how imperfectly 
 They speak, knowing I mean more than words may be 
 Adequate to suggest ; who hast sent to meet 
 The feeble utterance of these thoughts, to me 
 Return more precious, thoughts wMUttered sweet — 
 In perfect comprehension) — these lay I at thy feet. 
 
n'EDICATION. 
 
 POSTERITY :-AND MY SISTEE. 
 
DEDICATORY. 
 
 My sister ! Soul who art brother of my soul, 
 Whose love is more than sister's love to miae, 
 The best I have knowii, the truest to console, 
 First to respond, and deepest to divine ; 
 Who hast soothed my wounds so oft with oil ; with 
 
 wine 
 Restored my spirit ; whose bright sympathy 
 Has beckoned forth my drea.rts, to play with thine — 
 The only dreams spared by reality, 
 My mocker else — those dreams here do I pledge to thee . 
 
 These first-fruits of my thoughts — (thoughts that 
 
 before 
 I gave them to the world, I gave to thee, 
 "Who canst interpret by supplying more 
 Than my words say,- knowing how imperfectly 
 They speak, knowing I mean more than words may be 
 Adequate to suggest ; who hast sent to meet 
 The feeble utterance of these thoughts, to me 
 Return more precious, thoughts wjiuttered sweet — 
 In perfect comprehension) — these lay I at thy feet. 
 
DEDICATORY. 
 
 In tribute of the young ideals fair 
 
 Mutual, -which we did long since consecrate 
 
 Unto each other ; in the hope to share 
 
 Yet their blest influence ; do I dedicate — 
 
 — Ignoring what be their desert, their fate — 
 
 These to thy name. Would it might ever be 
 
 I could immortalise it — make it great — 
 
 Let its remembrance lovely as to me 
 
 Be unto others : then my songs were worthy thee. 
 
 All through thy life, which up to mine has grown, 
 Since I was child, thou littlg, sister child. 
 Thou hast my heart's one passionate secret known- 
 Yea, even familiar with its ravings wild 
 Hast learned to fear them not ) but solaced mild 
 With intimate counsel, with companion aid, 
 — Won me to tame my frenzy, reconciled 
 My force to its subdual ; and, final, made 
 Free outlet for it when it could no more be stayed. 
 
 ! If, as I accept thy prophecy 
 
 Of future and of fame for me, I could 
 
 Be but inspired to give true augury 
 
 Of thy life, thou accepting it : — I would 
 
 (Heaven seal my reading of it !) — all the good 
 
 Of earth's gift, all the beautiful of its waste 
 
 Put to thy portion ; — for thy maidenhood 
 
 Be love, in all its fulness. / would taste 
 
 Bliss by mere sips, then pass it on to thee in haste. 
 
 All the delights that I have held so light — 
 For charm of change, for curiosity, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Trionfo, 1 
 
 Tragedy Fragments — 
 
 The End, 5 
 
 Endless, 13 
 
 Fate and Creed, ...... 25 
 
 Not Knowing, 37 
 
 "Afloat," 42 
 
 Rue, 45 
 
 Auf Wiedersehen, 46 
 
 Wave Omenry, . 49 
 
 Veritas Vietrix, 51 
 
 The Last Look, ....... 55 
 
 The Meaning 60 
 
 The Outcast and the Child, 67 
 
 Knight Errantry, 84 
 
 Ewiges Sehnen 85 
 
 Life, 88 
 
 First Love, 91 
 
 Last Love, 94 
 
 Gloriously Fell, 99 
 
 Elindred Spirits, 104 
 
 From the Secret Studio, 108 
 
 In Pace, . . ' Ill 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 Page 
 
 Three Aspects of " The Love of Women "— 
 
 
 Kathleen's Invocation, .... 
 
 114 
 
 Non ti Soordar di me, .... 
 
 . 123 
 
 Of my Poet 
 
 . 134 
 
 " Chansonnette," 
 
 . 144 
 
 Even our Faith, 
 
 . 145 
 
 The Philosopher to his Death-Potion, . 
 
 148 
 
 Shadow and Form, 
 
 155 
 
 Experientia Docet, 
 
 . 169 
 
 After Sunset, 
 
 162 
 
 Troth, 
 
 166 
 
 Emblematic, 
 
 167 
 
 The Dream of Life, 
 
 169 
 
 Only a Coquette, 
 
 172 
 
 Ahnung, 
 
 180 
 
 Sesame, 
 
 181 
 
 To " Feu ma Maltresse," .... 
 
 183 
 
 Unrest, 
 
 186 
 
 Fragments of Thought — 
 
 
 Alfred de Musset, and TJne Autre, 
 
 191 
 
 Nous Avona Ghang^, . . . 
 
 191 
 
 Herzensbluttropf, 
 
 192 
 
 Plasm, 
 
 192 
 
TEIONFO. 
 
 The great, full moment is arrived for me 
 
 To which my being hath tended, with its whole 
 
 Endowments, its complete capacity, 
 
 Since it hath felt intensity of soul. 
 
 And recognised its power to outward fling 
 
 The impulses that through its inmost roll, 
 
 The shocks that move its depths, the potent swing 
 
 Of subtlest instincts of identity 
 
 Into the universal ; learnt to bring 
 
 All motions of the lesser life, the free 
 
 Utterances of the individual will 
 
 Within the scope of the grand unity 
 
 Which sways all diverse thoughts and actions still. 
 
 Linking them, each in infinitesimal place. 
 
 In one unbroken order, to fulfil 
 
 The plan complete moulded of infinite space, 
 
 Infrstngible, imperturbable. To thee 
 
 Who hast spanned the cycles of Time's goalless race, 
 
 Felt the impalpable throb of harmony 
 
 Through the chaotic void, with its dtill roar 
 
 Of world's confusion, of life's destiny, 
 
 Its deafening whirr, its rush for evermore 
 
 From change to change of purposelessness vain, 
 
POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Its rocking speed, its sudden spasms ciuick o'er, 
 
 Its deathly lapse to impotence inane, 
 
 Its dull, cold, heavy torpidness, its start 
 
 Of grim recoil convulsive : with disdain 
 
 Tearing all bonds, all boundaries apart, 
 
 Precipitating thyself unguided, lone. 
 
 In awful formlessness ; — to thee, who art, 
 
 spirit most mystical, of might unknown, 
 Shivering through my mortality, dread-rife, 
 
 1 have strained and striven ; and to thee alone, 
 
 spirit most wonderful, genius of life, 
 
 1 stretch, with absolute trust, my wide desire, 
 That vivifies itself through constant strife, 
 By being fixed on thy swift flight ; the higher 
 Thou soarest, yet the more I feel for thee, 
 And cling after thy shadow, and aspire 
 With agonising, with sick ecstasy. 
 
 With pangs of rapturous pain, most faint and keen, 
 
 Most sharp and languishing. 0, when shall be 
 
 The moment of attainment ? when I lean 
 
 Panting against the pillar for bound-mark set 
 
 Of the conquered ages \ What is, what hath been, 
 
 Hath it such term ? glory of life ! And yet 
 
 So bitter hath been my seeming endless cry, 
 
 Throughout my search — long, long regret ! — 
 
 To find such glory j at least, or ere I die 
 
 To look on its assurance, or to dwell 
 
 A moment in its belief. why, why 
 
 Is it incompatible with life, as well 
 
 As with death's horrible extinction ? Nay, 
 
 Life is so long, too long, yet may not tell 
 
 The triumph which should take its shame away : 
 
TRIONPO. 
 
 Surely, for that, at last, it was create ; 
 Its ultimate meaning, surely, therein lay — 
 weary cry ! wrestling long with fate, 
 Shall it be baffled ] No ; there fall on me 
 From gloom to .gloom of this my shadowy state 
 Whisper-like gleamings, portents of to be, 
 Shaking my weak heart with inspiring thrill, 
 With strength of instantaneous certainty, 
 
 strength, refresh thyself ! Falter not, will ! 
 It must be given thee ; that thou seek'st is thine, 
 That object only which thy wish shall fill, 
 That perfect union with the source divine 
 
 Of Life's eternal secret. . , . Ah, most dear, 
 Most exquisite glory of existence — ^Mine ! 
 
 1 feel it now — the moment grand is here. 
 Moment of my foreboding : it Jiust be 
 My everlasting faith, my love sincere. 
 
 My earnestness, receives its crown : on me 
 
 Fulness of knowledge pours, passing all sense. 
 
 It seems the eve of my eternity, . . . 
 
 The inexpressible calm, the bliss intense, 
 
 The satisfaction finished, the delight 
 
 Of strifeless, timeless peace, would whelm me. Hence 
 
 Disturbing phantoms of my soul's past night, 
 
 Ye restless heavings of my troubled thought. 
 
 Stings of my single griefs— ye have no right 
 
 To mar my spirit's placidity — as ought 
 
 More than the stirs ruffling the stable sea ; 
 
 The swells that near its surface sweep — are nought ; 
 
 And nought are my own life-thrills unto me. 
 
 Save that with pain I feel them quiver slight 
 
 Below the oneness vast, the entirety 
 
POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Of all life-movement. The pure flood of light 
 
 Anon must break into reflections fleet 
 
 In flashing on my self-hood ; . . . but the sight 
 
 That passes o'er such breaks -with patience meet, 
 
 Shall soon behold unhindered, fearlessly, 
 
 Only the utter brightness — in one sheet 
 
 Of dazzling light, of perfect purity. 
 
TRAGEDY FRAGMENTS. 
 
 THE END. 
 (Soliloquy hy a Desperado on the Eve of Suicide. ) 
 
 Hebe must I pause, in the tempestuous rush 
 In which Life's forces dire have plunged my soul. 
 Here against Life at last I make revolt, 
 And take my stand, thou more pitying, 
 More equal power, here before thee, Death I 
 My burdened spirit flees for refuge here 
 Unto thee, with its overwhelming charge 
 Of questions awful and importunate. 
 0, I must have the answer ! answer me ! 
 Answer ! answer, answer ! All these years 
 I have cried to Life, in vain ; and now, to thee 
 I cry, answer ! Dearth ! 0, answer me ! 
 
 I have used my prowess to its utmost pitch ; 
 
 My strength is all exhausted ; it hath done 
 
 Great things : — hath met in fierce attack the might 
 
 Of passion, and hath overcome ; hath borne 
 
 The onslaught of a thousand ills combined — 
 
 Grief, disappointment, envy — even remorse; 
 
 Hath vanquished Fear : that foe should be the last, 
 
 For utterly my energies are spent, 
 
 And my last weapon is lost. I stand alone 
 
 All feeble, and disarmed, the final shock 
 
POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 To encounter, with the adversary dread, 
 
 The last, the unconquerable one — Despair. 
 
 Now must I look in my' opponent's face, 
 
 And without quarter fall ; else, quailing, pray 
 
 For terms, and shamefully surrender ; else 
 
 Flee, and be henceforth hunted through the world 
 
 By the triumphant vanquisher, whom once 
 
 I had boasted I would meet, and in fair field 
 
 Wrestle with manfully. Fair field, alas ! 
 
 May unto mortals ne'er accorded be 
 
 In the tremendous combat that they wage 
 
 With all the powers of Destiny. But, so, — 
 
 I have /fought my/fight, an(^i)oured my/blood in/ vain. 
 
 I will /not soil/my colours in, retreat ;' 
 
 Into^the face' I look'Despair ; \ stand 
 
 Before the tyrant — not /resisti-hg — not 
 
 Desisting ; with indiflFerenoe, to receive 
 
 The last blow. Still audacious, I will die. 
 
 Yes. . . , I have struggled free of soul, and felt 
 
 Contempt of men, in their traditions bound, 
 
 fatal freedom ! Let one planet be 
 
 Beleased from its inevitable law 
 
 Of gravitation, guide compulsory-^- 
 
 Who, then, or what, should be accountable 
 
 For the wide path opened unto it in space ? 
 
 Were there not infinite opportunity 
 
 For the new sweep of a limitless career ? 
 
 How ■were it with that planet ? Would it not 
 
 Be shattered into atoms helplessly ?— ^ 
 
 And I as helpless: Whither shall I go 
 
 Now I have left the safe track, circumscribed 
 
TRA GED Y FRA GMENTS. 
 
 By the old bounds set up in pathless space % 
 
 Is it my fault that their compulsion failed ? 
 
 If they were law, why then not absolute ? 
 
 Why not escapeless, once imposed on me, 
 
 And constant ? How can that, which lets itself 
 
 Be scorned, rejected with impunityj 
 
 Claim our inviolable allegiance ? 
 
 And, failing that, charge us with sacrilege 
 
 Who thus do break its bonds ? Is it \ffeaven's gift, 
 
 Beason 1 which, by its use — or even abuse 
 
 Possible, with the gift unto our charge 
 
 Committed — bears on the resistless soul 
 
 By its sheer force away, away from Heaven ? 
 
 So far ! should we ever find it true. 
 
 That once beloved, now vanished myth of Heaven, 
 
 Might we not curse it for this godlike gift, 
 
 Seductive thus to poor humanity 1 . . . 
 
 Who would not seek out Heaven 1 Who would not love 
 
 With every faculty of mind and heart 
 
 God, were it realisable! as we all 
 
 Have loved it once, in its sublime idea. . . . 
 
 But, to be thus misled — if this be sin, 
 
 'Tis arbitrary as the punishment, 
 
 ! I have found it w a fearful thing 
 To be without God in the world. God ! — God ! 
 Long after all the sweet and hallowed hopes 
 Laid by religion round that sacred name 
 To guard it from assailment rude, had fledj 
 The blessed spell of memory clung to it, 
 And, with a mighty power^ warded from it 
 All profanation. I have bowed before 
 
8 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 That idol — ^yea, and done it solemn rites 
 With reverent homage, — when I long had ceased 
 To hold belief in its fond efficacy — 
 For the mere love I bore its loveliness. 
 I have paid worship to its presence in awe, 
 Constrained by my strong yearning to the ideal 
 Which unto others, in their simple faith, 
 Yielded implicit satisfaction. Well 
 Had I not lost that faith ; for I have gained 
 No substitute — and learned to look for none. 
 This is the curse — Without God m the world. 
 ! better — ^it were better to be out. 
 Out into aU the horrors of the Unknown, 
 Than thus, unknowing, with untamed desire 
 To know, be ceaseless menaced by the vague 
 Unanswerable terrorism of dreams ; 
 Tantalised with hallucinations ; mocked 
 By fictions of the unstable consciousness ; 
 Humiliated by the pauseless strife 
 Of reason and unreason in the souL 
 
 If there is not a God, who rules by laws 
 
 To which men's actions, either by the sure 
 
 Penalty of infraction manifest. 
 
 Or by obedience, must submit themselves, 
 
 Then there is Faie ; who rules, however blind, 
 
 Purposeless, and malign as despots rule ; 
 
 And just as sure, men's actions, unto her 
 
 Either submissive or rebellious vain. 
 
 Are subject to her sway. — ^Yes, there is Fate ;— 
 
 A most ironic arbitress, who laughs 
 
TRA GED y FRA GMENTS. 
 
 When men, embarassed by two meeting paths 
 
 Lying before their way unclear, choose one 
 
 In a chance moment — one uncertain step 
 
 Take, and are evermore condemned to go 
 
 Through the by-path misleading ; following oat 
 
 Its cursed intricacies, severed far 
 
 And hopelessly from the desired highway 
 
 Which leads through life so even, unopposed 
 
 By obstacles that throng the ravines deep 
 
 Through which the tangled, devious by-paths stray. 
 
 Who are they, who can find their way direct, 
 
 And keep it unconfused ] The privileged 
 
 On whom, in her caprice,' Fate showers her gifts. 
 
 The wariest, else, must stumble and be lost. 
 
 Yes, there is Fate ; who laughs convulsively 
 
 When daring hands make rash experiment — 
 
 Seizing some poisoned cup, perchance, to try. 
 
 In sport of curiosity, the effect 
 
 Of its intoxication momentary — 
 
 In a few instants is the risk repaid ; 
 
 The proof has stood, the effervescence brief 
 
 Is over, . . but its work of gradual blight 
 
 Eemaius in perpetuity ; a force 
 
 Inscrutable dwells in it, and doth course 
 
 Into the blood, tainting it evermore, 
 
 Transforming its vitality, with bane 
 
 AU ineradicable. — Life is full 
 
 Of such insidious poisons : the lips 
 
 Steeped in them, nnsuspectingly ! the hearts 
 
 Scathed with their deathless burning ! the souls 
 
 That writhe in lingering throes of that slow pain 
 
 Drunk long since in the draught of reckless play ! 
 
10 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 So have / been deluded and accursed ; 
 So have 1 been entangled in my doom. 
 
 My strength of thought has been of no avail 
 
 To guide my actions in the complex web 
 
 Of opportunity, of consequence, 
 
 Of chance, of impulse and of circumstance. 
 
 My will, that once hath given the impetus — 
 
 Unwitting oft — to some swift shaft of Fate 
 
 Hath no more power to interrupt its course. 
 
 Or check its speed. Were aU our lots ordained. 
 
 And all apparent inconsistency 
 
 Eeducible to arbitrary plan ; — 
 
 However harsh and ruthless be the law 
 
 By which undeviatingly were held 
 
 All our forced actions, thai at least could be 
 
 Indisputably fixed, and recognised, 
 
 And by its victims contemplated : then, 
 
 With stolid resignation, or proud calm, 
 
 We could endure, and wait j give up, and rest. 
 
 Or, were the conduct' of our destiny 
 
 Given into our own hands, might we choose out 
 
 What means we would, and mould them as we pleased, 
 
 And guide their forces, and direct their strength ; 
 
 Might we but undeceived once calculate 
 
 The impending train of one deliberate act, 
 
 The ancestry of but one moment's whim, 
 
 The progress of one motion from its start. 
 
 The tendency of one development 
 
 To its conclusion : then we need not shrink 
 
 To take upon ourselves in its fuU weight 
 
 Our duty of responsibility : 
 
TRA GED Y FHA G ME NTS. 1 1 
 
 Then might we judge, and ponder ; think and dare ; 
 
 Accept the ultimate issues of our deeds 
 
 Whether they be good or evil ; expiate 
 
 With careless ooutage-^negligence, or ill, 
 
 Or self-inflicted wrong. Whate'er might be 
 
 Our errors, and the sufferings they entailed, 
 
 To all of these were reason reconciled. 
 
 But 'tis this contradiction cynical 
 
 In the eternal order, that thus moves 
 
 To passionate complaint the goaded soul. 
 
 'Tis this fortuitous, counteracting law, 
 
 This horrible constraint of liberty. 
 
 Sarcastic freedom of necessity ; 
 
 This stein ccmpulsiou of mere accident ! . . . 
 
 Since I haVe failed to learn the lo^c of liife. 
 
 To thee I turn, Death ! and do appeal 
 
 To thee, to teach me thine. I have taught myself 
 
 (In sheer despair of finding compromise 
 
 Midst multitudious systems that compete 
 
 For acceptation, to account for all " 
 
 The anomalies, all the perversities 
 
 Of moral order ; in despair to prove 
 
 Consistency in any principle. 
 
 Or, in its application feasible ' 
 
 Universality) this axiom 
 
 Agnostic. ! the lesson has been hard. 
 
 And in my heart's blood have I written it, 
 
 And with my life will I its record seal, 
 
 So earnest am I, though so itapious — 
 
 There is no right: 
 
12 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 . . . . Therefore, There is no wrong. 
 
 And is this all ] All that rewards the years 
 Snatched from world's pleasures, and pure, innocent 
 
 joys, 
 
 Unto the quest of this forbidden fruit. 
 
 This knowledge madly thirsted for % Is this 
 
 All that redeems the fury unexpressed 
 
 Of the protracted anguish of those hours 
 
 Which I have sacrificed — alas ! in vain ! — 
 
 To the fierce ardour of my longing soul 
 
 Absorbed in its inquiry '! Is this all i 
 
 Yes : all ! Now have I carried my research 
 
 As far as it is possible within 
 
 The limits of this life. Now I have tried 
 
 All the experiments within the reach 
 
 Of my command : but none was final. Now 
 
 I will thwart those blind forces that may be 
 
 In chanee collusion to drag on my life 
 
 Into their possible contingencies 
 
 Of combination. I wiU interfere 
 
 And break their continuity ; withdraw 
 
 As individual, from the mingling mass 
 
 In rash confusion, chaos general. 
 
 At least I will, by voluntary act, 
 
 Draw in the reins with tight and vigorous clutch, 
 
 Curbing, by wiU, my life's fatuitous course. 
 
 Death ! To thee, at last, I bring my plaint. 
 For the full play of my soul's powers, I demand 
 A new beginning — Or if not — The End. 
 
TSA GED y FRA GMENTS. 1 3 
 
 ENDLESS. 
 
 I MUST submit. Eebellion is in vain. 
 
 Solemn renewal there hath now been made 
 
 Of the compact whereby I am bound to Life. 
 
 I dared to deem the period was nigh 
 
 Of the expiration of its terms, whereon 
 
 I might demand, at my own choice, release ; 
 
 But I have knelt before the throne of Death 
 
 And in that presence-chamber, lowly bowed, 
 
 Proffered my bold request ; and solemnly 
 
 Have been refused, and with reproach abashed ; 
 
 And at Death's awful hands have taken back 
 
 My life as gift. I know that I must live : 
 
 I may not look fbr respite speedy now 
 
 From these responsibilities, which I 
 
 Myself, these cares which adversaries fierce 
 
 Have wound about me. I must break through all 
 
 To clear for my tired feet a little path 
 
 Where I may walk along, encumbered not 
 
 By the tangle that has long been gathering round 
 
 Through my own desperation, my neglect. 
 
 How fain would I lie down awhile, and sleep ! 
 
 Throw off, as with a dream, the weary load 
 
 Of my accumulation of regrets ; 
 
 Wake up, and find my life lie all spread out 
 
 Before me, to begin anew, to form 
 
 Its future course, unfettered by restraints 
 
 Of the obligations of my long-mourned past ! 
 
 Would that retaliation e'er might be 
 
 Exhausted ; would that consequence were spent ! 
 
14 POEMS OF THE FLTURE. 
 
 Idle the wish ! I must take up again 
 
 The thread I had cast down impatiently — 
 
 Must ravel it out, and work it to the end. 
 
 Ah ! Eest shall come at last ! And now and then 
 
 There will be time to turn my thoughts away 
 
 From the bewildering of their changeful throes, 
 
 And fix them peaceful on that solace blest. 
 
 Death, in his own good time, at his sweet will, 
 
 Shall cancel all these cruel bonds ; shall make 
 
 Me like to my surroundings ; — all alike 
 
 Patient, and mute, guiltless and passionless. 
 
 And sometimes, thinking on that certainty 
 
 I feel no more the present sting of life ; 
 
 (Sin is that sting — the sting of life, not death) 
 
 I feel already what the soothing calm 
 
 Of sure annihilation works for all. 
 
 Nay, oft am I astonished, in the midst 
 
 Of a wild paroxysm possessing me. 
 
 When the ungovernable force of thoughts 
 
 In rashest strife, crowding on memory, 
 
 Has left my reason breathless to sustain 
 
 The shook of those unintermittent darts, 
 
 Wherewith they goad — ah ! not to madness — worse. 
 
 To the mad longing for madness as relief — ■ 
 
 When I have flung myself upon the ground 
 
 In furious inanition, in revolt 
 
 At the impotent confusion that doth rage 
 
 Of all the passions in their conflict dire : 
 
 Then, in that conflict's forced and helpless pause, 
 
 Sudden a chill fit falls upon my heart ; 
 
 I start, as one who finds he beats the air ; 
 
 I gasp, as one who with returning sense 
 
TRA GED Y FRA GMENTS. 15 
 
 Sees the last phaatasm of a fading- dream 
 
 Identify itself with some unstrange 
 
 Eemembered object in his waking life. 
 
 The disillusion seems complete and clear ; 
 
 It seems that I am my old self no more, 
 
 That a new self is possible to me, 
 
 Disimplicated from my cursed chains, 
 
 My thraldom of the present and the past. 
 
 It seems that all my griefs are griefs no more — 
 
 Almost as though they never had been mine. 
 
 It seems as though the horrible thoughts, so long 
 
 My close companions, were called up at will. 
 
 And might be wantonly dismissed j it seems 
 
 My very woes are all imaginary, 
 
 My sadness is but feigned. Then I arise, 
 
 With a strange feeling — it is not of strength, 
 
 But like to the forebodings of faint strength 
 
 In one who rises from a long, deep trance, 
 
 And feels his way uncertainly, and tries 
 
 To call to him his former consciousness. 
 
 To make it tally with the impressions new 
 
 Of the regifted sense ; and springs to life, 
 
 And staggers, but half-recovered, dizzily. 
 
 To me comes, in such moments, dim desire 
 
 To go forth, a new man, into the world, 
 
 And drink with feverish haste some draught of joy. 
 
 But the old numbness steals on me apace. 
 
 The old bewildered sense of pain; the old 
 
 Despairing apathy reclaims me soon 
 
 Such is the life I have to look unto — 
 Such I accept it. I have ceased to cry, 
 Ceased to undo, to struggle, to lament : 
 
l6 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 I live, and know my own heart's bitterness. 
 
 How often have I songht to challenge death, 
 
 And sought in vain. Like to that king, who tried 
 
 In youth all poisons, so that when he would 
 
 Their aid, to end his weariness, it failed — 
 
 I have to danger so inured myself 
 
 That all the efforts of my hardihood 
 
 Have finally been baffled. I have found 
 
 Tt boots me not to seek an earlier end. 
 
 Than for my charmed life in some future waits. 
 
 Then, I have given myself sweet flattery ; 
 
 Said that I must be by God|s will reserved 
 
 For some great deed to do, some goodness yet 
 
 Whose service may retrieve my wasted soul. 
 
 It must be that I am observed by Heaven, 
 
 And kept for holy purpose ; it must be 
 
 That I am destined for whate'er, henceforth, 
 
 Shall complicate, by seeming chance, my lot. 
 
 There mu?t be yet some meaning in my life ; 
 
 There must be hope for me ; — must be some power 
 
 Lefl in me, to develop for world's weal. 
 
 My spirit, trampled down in sin and grief 
 
 Shall yet be raised ; its vindication yet 
 
 Shall be acknowledged by the Lord of life. . . . 
 
 And, when that ecstasy has died away, 
 
 I seek for satisfaction from myself. 
 
 And find, in newer guise, that which I sought 
 
 In death, now in that search I have been foiled. 
 
 The old, vain, fervent, passionate desire 
 
 For immortality, has now recoiled 
 
 Upon the love of life, I thought before, 
 
 I had no love of life : I never longed 
 
TRA GED y FRA G ME NTS. 1 7 
 
 For the happiness that it was life's to give, 
 
 Ere I had forfeited my claim to it. 
 
 I shut my eyes upon the offerings fair 
 
 Wherewith life tempts life-lovers : I would none 
 
 Of such delusions ; but the life beyond, 
 
 Whose beauty all was in stability, 
 
 And yet whose dearest charm was mystery. 
 
 Whose very being was but of belief — 
 
 For that would I have ojioe given all besjde ! 
 
 But that dear yearning shamefully was mocked : 
 
 For my renunciation of earth's bliss 
 
 Heaven rendered me — only blank doubt ; returned 
 
 To my wild prayers for affirmation, but 
 
 A cold, derisive, iterated — No. 
 
 I can recal even now the shock, the thrill. 
 
 Of that first whelm of anguish, when I found 
 
 Myself by God abandoned, left a prey 
 
 To the clamour of my own heart's questionings 
 
 Unanswerable ; I could not deaf myself 
 
 To the awful execrations of the voice 
 
 That echoed God's negation in my soul. 
 
 Then did I, fierce and desperate, dash myself 
 
 Into life's pleasures ; — caring not for ought 
 
 (It was too late % for all capacity 
 
 Of joyousness through my stern toil was gone 
 
 But vowing in defiance, I would snatch 
 
 By force some recompense for broken trust. 
 
 Unholiness should yield me some return 
 
 For holiness deceived. . . . Too well, too well 
 
 The world responded to my mad demand. 
 
 Its pleasures, tbat I thought to take by storm 
 
 And sacrifice to my indifference 
 
 B 
 
i8 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 With scornful pride, came surely at my call ; 
 
 Came, and avenged tbemselyes on me j o'ercame 
 
 And then betrayed me ; lured me in their toils. 
 
 Made me fast captive, then deserted me. 
 
 And yet in my deep pain I almost dare 
 
 Eejoioe that I \o%t first my hopes of Heaven ; 
 
 That it was not through late distrust of men 
 
 I learnt to cast away all faith in God : — 
 
 That had been fearfuUer. And yet, perhaps. 
 
 Had it not been that I bad let go faith, 
 
 And hope, and prayer, and trust in heavenly love. 
 
 They might have saved me, when the danger came 
 
 In which I had no help, and so succumbed. 
 
 The seaman, who, in sport or heedlessness, 
 
 Loses his rudder while the sea is calm, 
 
 And recks not of his loss — must rue it soon, 
 
 Proving his need, when comes the ruthless storm 
 
 And shatters his frail craft. So I went down 
 
 In such a storm, that many another man. 
 
 Firm in belief, of duty's guidance sure, 
 
 Had battled with more manfully. At least 
 
 I am not called to answer for my fate ; 
 
 Such as it is, it must be. It is strange 
 
 How I am changed by it ; for now the life 
 
 I longed to .give up, with its every joy 
 
 TJntasted, yet in possibility — 
 
 Now that its privilege is barred from me, 
 
 Now that its pains and sufferings alone 
 
 Are open to me — now I turn to it 
 
 And eager meet my portion of contempt. 
 
 I live, I live ! to struggle with my woes, 
 
 To silence conscience ; to acquit myself 
 
TRA GED Y FRA GMENTS. 19 
 
 Unto the world of all my debts of soorn, 
 
 To render to society its dues 
 
 Of wrong and prejudice ; to bear, unoowed, 
 
 The taunts of cowards and the' threats of fools ; 
 
 To tread the same earth with the unimpeached, 
 
 Bearing myself with equal carriage firm ; 
 
 To endure the wearisome monotojiy 
 
 Of my existence upon sufterance ; 
 
 To hold my peace with my own frantic heart ; 
 
 Silently, constantly, to acquiesce 
 
 In my soul-degradation ; to wear on 
 
 Day after day, outwardly all engrossed 
 
 With the world's trivialities (enough 
 
 To satisfy, it seems, those whom they serve, 
 
 But sickening unto me, who must observe 
 
 Their details, lest omission should impute 
 
 Their slight of me — not my disdain of them) J 
 
 To be yet inwardly intent absorbed. 
 
 In my self-torturing consciousness of grief, 
 
 Which men without can touch not, come not near. — 
 
 This is the life that triumphs in me now ; 
 
 'Tis this impels my soul, denies it rest, 
 
 Fills it with exultation, — yea, sometimes 
 
 I have a kind of substitute for joy, 
 
 ('Tis not joy's self — I have known that ; if not, 
 
 I could not know the ruin it entails :) 
 
 My sorrow has itself at last grown dear ; 
 
 I look on it with reverence, apart 
 
 From acts of folly whereto it is bound, 
 
 Apart from brief inflictions of remorse. 
 
 Associated with the unshriven sins 
 
 Whereof that sorrow is the consequent : 
 
JO POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 It hath to me an innate sacrednesa 
 That separates it from its outward signs, 
 Exalting it to holiness of its own. 
 It even seems that in comparison 
 Unto this sacredness — the joys of men, 
 Their common gladness, their deserved success. 
 Are yet prerogatives inadequate ; 
 They pall at the sublimity of mine. — 
 I know not whence it is, but it would sesm. 
 That in that bliss which I unlawfully 
 Made seizure of — that precious, stolen joy. 
 No less beloved, now lost, although its loss 
 Be the very punishment awarded me 
 For my impiety — in that lost joy 
 There was a holiness essential 
 So potent, that it could not be profaned 
 Even by my lawless touch ; and when the joy 
 For evermore beyond my glimpse was drawn 
 Lest I, unfit for its recipience, 
 Should with my yearning love pollute its fame- 
 That holiness untainted still did cling 
 Unto its memory — spite of saddest shame. 
 Spite of the annulment of my title bold 
 To win and hold the glory of that dear joy : 
 No retribution e'er can take from me 
 All that the joy left with me, when 'twas gone. 
 My pain could not be what it is — my pain, 
 Just mine, if it were modified not so 
 By following .upon just such bliss as mine. 
 The desecration has not all undone 
 The consecration ; somewhat of the breath 
 From that divine spell lingering halloweth me 
 
TRAGEDY FRAGMENTS. 21 
 
 In my humiliation ; and I feel 
 
 As though the very bitterness, of shame — 
 
 The punishment, the penitence, the grief 
 
 That shut me in, apart from all mankind. 
 
 Were but the outer wall, that roughly guards 
 
 As in a stronghold most impregnable 
 
 The inmost sanctity of my frail bliss. 
 
 Nay, sometimes it would seem, in some rapt hour 
 
 Of inspiration, when my soul bursts free 
 
 From the pressure of the bonds that cannot quite 
 
 Paralyse all resistance — looking back 
 
 On the visioned mingling of my fatal joy 
 
 And all its after pangs of sin and grief. 
 
 That after all I did not pay too dear ; 
 
 That heaven and earth, combining to exact 
 
 Full compensation for the cheated bliss. 
 
 Though they might more inflict than all demands 
 
 Of the most vengeful justice for the offence — 
 
 Could never overdraw the payment so 
 
 As to redeem the worth of that past joy. 
 
 ! heavenly strange is that inherent power 
 
 Of blessed memory to purify 
 
 Whatever to its sacred guardianship 
 
 Hath been entrusted ; from all vile alloy. 
 
 All dross, it separates the thing beloved, 
 
 Preserving crystal-clear its saving charm, 
 
 Keeping the best of all the soul has lost 
 
 In its apotheosis. By .this grace 
 
 There comes at times to even the worst of men, 
 
 The most defiled, the unredeemable, 
 
 Between the tossings of his troubled sleep. 
 
 In the vague hovering of his partial sense 
 
POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 'Twixt the dull torpor and the restless start 
 
 Of his delirious, self-destructive thought — 
 
 A momentary, vision-vivid flash 
 
 Of pure remembrance ; and he seems to see 
 
 The pictures hanging on his nursery walls, 
 
 Or the clear outline of the ancient chair, 
 
 Wherein his old nurse rooked him, long years gone / 
 
 Nay, even the details of some transient scene 
 
 Of play-hour ; the perspective of the view 
 
 Seen at the angle of one favourite pane 
 
 In the old high-barred window, through the gap 
 
 In the branches of the tree against the wall ; 
 
 The arrangement in some corner of the toys 
 
 Strewn in profusion — order undesigned ; 
 
 Or for one moment he perceives a scent 
 
 That seems to blow across the field of hay ; 
 
 Or almost feels the soft caressing touch 
 
 Of the daisy-balls that used to pass his cheek 
 
 When other child hands flung them to and fro, 
 
 In mutual sport with him ; and the deep shower 
 
 Of dewy grass which fell against his face 
 
 As close he laid it in the clover low. 
 
 Or yet again, upon his ear there springs 
 
 With sudden sharpness, through all distance borne. 
 
 The tearing of the ivy, at the leap 
 
 Of feet whose clinging daringly let go 
 
 From the projecting stone, so good to climb ; 
 
 And the soft dry rustle of the fallen leaves 
 
 Pressed in the hurried chase 'neath tangled boughs. 
 
 Or yet, with eager, panting breath, again 
 
 Himseems that he inhales the fragrant smoke 
 
 Of the dead leaves burning in the damp, dusk air 
 
TSA GEDY IiRA GMENTS. 23 
 
 To close with stately rite an autumn day ; 
 
 Or pierces with bright youthful eyes the mist 
 
 To see the flickering gleam of the inside iire 
 
 Throw forth its waiting welcome o'er the shade 
 
 Of the winding walk, which the returning feet 
 
 After far rambles, dragged up wearily 
 
 To reach the steps between the steep, grassed banks 
 
 To the foot of the open door, proclaiming " Home ! " 
 
 Watches long seconds from the balcony 
 
 With gleeful expectation, as on moms 
 
 Of early frost, or sudden chill, to see 
 
 First sign of snowflakes shivering through the sky ; 
 
 And then calls back the flutter of joyousness 
 
 At the glad, scarce-believed discovery 
 
 Of the fine prints on the drifts of thick-massed snow. 
 
 Of bird-feet 'neath the slily scattered crumbs. 
 
 AH these impressions of familiar things 
 
 Of days far past — idly, unconsciously. 
 
 Had sealed themselves upon the changing heart, 
 
 And grown into its growth, and lived its life. 
 
 Without obscuring the divinity 
 
 Of their first likeness. These are yet his own ; 
 
 Forsake him not, as do good men, and good 
 
 Kesolves at last, good hopes, and good desires ; 
 
 He may retain them in their purity, 
 
 Even to the scaffold's foot ; in the dark cell 
 
 His dreams are visited by their blest smiles ; 
 
 They fatde not even before the dark of death ! 
 
 So I, in the desolation of my curse, 
 
 Have visitations from the spirit pure 
 
 Of what the world deems my accursed joy — 
 
 And boast, I have not paid for it too dear ! 
 
2^4 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 No true joy, though it but one moment dure, 
 
 Is bought too dear, if bought with lifelong pain ; 
 
 For, through that pain, there thrills for evermore, 
 
 Subtly diflfused, the essence of the joy — 
 
 Which is, indeed, itself imperishable. 
 
 And incorruptible ; it waneth not 
 
 For all the ills by which it lieth hid ; 
 
 It doth become the very spring of life — 
 
 Strength of its purpose, secret of its power. 
 
 The clue that threadeth all its mystery .... 
 
 While they who have their present good, laugh cold 
 
 At this sweet trust, which they illusion deem. 
 
 And mocking say — What ! you, bereft of peace. 
 
 You who have lost the right which virtue gives 
 
 Her faithful sons, to have and to enjoy, 
 
 To' take their share in this world's blessings — ^you 
 
 Nourish yourselves with such poor travesties 
 
 Of hopes and of consolements ; you are fain 
 
 To mock yourselves with dreams — ^to live on dreams. 
 
 What are they good to you? They are but dreams . . 
 
 Ay ! but good dreams are better, better far 
 
 (And how much dearer, only dreamers know) 
 
 Than those most tangible verities, which they 
 
 Who grasp and hold them, to themselves call real. 
 
 And with much anxious care must strive to keep. 
 
 And from decay preserve ; and then, too oft 
 
 At last they lose them. But those true delights 
 
 Which never we dare touch with hands profane, 
 
 To drag down from their holy pedestal 
 
 In the ideal fane, where dwells secure 
 
 The imperturbable image of those truths 
 
 To spirit-perception real and actual — 
 
TRA GED Y FRA GMENTS. 25 
 
 These are Vernal; these alone ofwr own; 
 
 These are our own, because not only ours, 
 
 But accessible to each member true 
 
 Of the universal brotherhood. Our own 
 
 And one another's ; mutual is the joy 
 
 With which we realise them ; and that joy 
 
 Can only in its full intensity 
 
 Be felt, imparted in community. 
 
 Ah ! joy sublime, too beautiful, too dear 
 
 To be delivered to the sacrilege 
 
 Of competition with the rival joys 
 
 Which to the satisfied yield happiness. 
 
 Alas ! too fragile, too ethereal 
 
 To bear confrontal with the shocks of care ; 
 
 It cannot lead me peacefully through life. 
 
 May not defend me from my enemies ; 
 
 I cannot throw me back on its support 
 
 Against the passionate storms that surge o'er me 
 
 And shake my soul : in such dread hours, for me 
 
 It hath no promise,, no comfort, and no help. 
 
 It merely is the blessing of my grief, 
 
 The sorrow that doth sanctify my sin. 
 
 But sin, and grief, and blessedness of pain, 
 
 All blend to make my life one ecstasy 
 
 Of passive tremor ; of hopeless, joyless bliss. 
 
 FATE AND CREED. 
 
 Thou soul, cast down and shaken with distress — 
 Thou refugee, all trembling and perplexed 
 
26 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 From the upheaval of the old beliefs 
 
 Whereto the dearest treasures of thy heart 
 
 Had been confided — Lonely, wretched one, 
 
 Comfortless in thy desolation, hear 
 
 A blessed word of sweet consolement true. 
 
 Receive a new religion ; turn thee to 
 
 Its centre, with a worship full of awe 
 
 As that which thou wouldst bring unto a God. 
 
 Take on thy lips and in thy heart its creed ; — 
 
 It is but the reversal of those words 
 
 Which, at thy abjuration of all trust 
 
 In heavenly pity, and government divine. 
 
 Thou hast adopted for thy cry, to express 
 
 Thy sheer despair, " It mmi be, for ii is." 
 
 No, no ! Let go that awful negative ; — 
 
 Search farther : see if yet thou mayst not bring 
 
 The straggling fragments of thy scattered thought 
 
 Into accordance with the master-spell 
 
 Of harmony, in these calm words pronounced — 
 
 " It is, because it must be." Think but so : 
 
 All is explained ; thus, all is rendered clear .... 
 
 Thou must resign thyself — for. Fate is God. 
 
 Listen, and hear Fate's message to thy soul. 
 " Thou hast yet my mission to achieve. Say not :- 
 Life will not have me, nor death : what can I do ? 
 What am I ? Sport of both, tny own soul's curse :- 
 Ignorant art thou as helpless, thus to rave, 
 Presumptuous as despairing. Life and death 
 Make of thee what thou art : yet not their tool 
 Art thou, their victim merely ; tket/ are mine ; 
 They mould thee to my purpose ; I through them 
 
TRA GED Y FRA GMENTS. 27 
 
 Work ; and my work is manifest, behold, 
 
 In the whole story of Humanity. 
 
 Thou, with thy deeds, thy sufferings, and thy thoughts. 
 
 Art but an atom infinitesimal 
 
 In the great work, ever developing. 
 
 Ever progressing, 'neath my watchful eyes. 
 
 Yet thou, such as thou art, and meaner things-»- 
 
 The meanest, and the wretchedest, are part 
 
 Of this my work. So art thou dignified, 
 
 So are thy pains, thy wonderings, justified ! 
 
 mortal ! Take what I accord to thee : 
 Fate's gifts are precious ; often when they seem 
 Most cruel, they possess a value rare. 
 Incalculable : spurn them not. — Beware 
 
 How thou dost misinterpret thy own lot: — 
 Inviolably holy, and most high 
 In that it is appointed thee by me — 
 By me, to whom its desecration, oft 
 Threatened by thy unreasoning, impious scorn, 
 Were insult deadly, treason blasphemous. 
 Thou, who bewailesfc with such wild lament 
 The sufferings of thy life — what knowest thou 
 Of my sublimest purpose, whereunto 
 
 1 deign to make them instrument ] Thy wrongs, 
 Thy errors irretrievable — for them 
 
 Why dost thou soil thy soul with vain regrets i 
 
 How darest thou, incapable ! — to judge 
 
 Of the ingredients which I cast into 
 
 The great alembic, whence I would distil 
 
 Eternal types % — Futurity is mine, 
 
 My preparation from the present of thee, 
 
 And of thy human fellows ; and what share 
 
28 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Therein shall fall to thee — that is alone 
 
 Worthy thy aspiration or desire : 
 
 And so much only as there shall endure 
 
 From toils and pains, from efforts and from strifes, 
 
 From enterprise of mortals — of all this 
 
 So much as shall abide in its results 
 
 To mould one other single destiny, 
 
 To modify one circumstance, to bend 
 
 The standard of one recognised ideal — 
 
 To impress a during stamp on flexile Time — 
 
 So much, no more, is counted to the score 
 
 Of each one's life. So, if Posterity 
 
 Upon thy weakness buildeth strength, then I 
 
 Have in that strength the satisfaction full 
 
 Of finished purpose ; and in mine, be thine. 
 
 In my achievement find thy only bliss. 
 
 Though it absorb not only thy dear life. 
 
 But the whole energies, and the best love 
 
 Of countless thousands, struggling like to thee 
 
 Through age on age ; each being but a step 
 
 Up to the consummation I design. 
 
 Wherein each aspirant shall reach his crown, 
 
 Each individual life having its part 
 
 In the one general ultimate victory 
 
 For the human struggle. — 0, ye striving ones, 
 
 Look backward, on the lives of all the past, 
 
 And make comparison. The happy ones 
 
 That calm have glided to a peaceful end. 
 
 Merged in the common joys which were their goal. 
 
 Enough unto themselves, having of toil 
 
 Eeward, for efibrt duly recompense, 
 
 And self-exhausting satisfaction felt 
 
TRA GED V FRA GMENTS. 29 
 
 In every moment separate and complete 
 Of their existence finished. . . Well. Such lives — 
 What impress have they made? What more is left 
 When they are done % What rules, what thoughts, 
 
 what acts 
 Salute them ancestors ? . . . They are effaced, 
 And with them all the capabilities 
 That lay in them, of which ye nought may know. 
 But those which stand out darkly from the page 
 Of history (which men this world's record deem) 
 Authentic, or of story (which, indeed. 
 Is record — though of spirits, not of names) — 
 The lives that stand out terribly distinct 
 With their appendages of curse and crime. 
 Of anguish wrestled with, of shame subdued, 
 Those whose career has isolated them 
 In an existence of their own, apart 
 From the surrounding gladness and content — 
 An utter lonenesa of unthinkable woe ; — 
 Whose thoughts, whose darings, and whose sufferings. 
 Yea, even whose brand of infamy — remain 
 To their descendants of mankind, to show 
 New combinations of the elements 
 Eternal, still new secrets to reveal 
 Of spiritual mysteries — . . . These have lived. 
 Would ye undo their actions \ or recal 
 Their soul-throes ? Wield compulsion o'er those lives, 
 To set them in conformity unto 
 The even current of the markless crowd ? 
 They are your life, ye mortals of to-day ; 
 Ye learn your lessons from their pictured deeds, 
 Inspire your poems with their breathing pain, 
 
30 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Immortalise their transitory pangs ; 
 
 In following up their deviating tracks 
 
 Find clues to guide you through the labyrinth 
 
 Of the untried ; from their experiments 
 
 Induce new rules for your philosophy. ' 
 
 Ye see, in them, the universe condensed — 
 
 See them diffused into the universe. . . . 
 
 Choose, then, if ye could choose j choose which ye 
 
 would — 
 The perpetuity of mind, through strife. 
 In infinite essence, or the blissful state 
 Which, by its nature's limits, tends unto 
 Its own annihilation. But 'tis vain — 
 Thou mayst not choose : I choose for thee : but thou, 
 Know, now, my choice, and see that it is good. 
 Take thou my revelation. . . . I am Fate." 
 
 That is Fate's message. Wilt thou not accept 
 
 The charter that she thus holds out to thee, 
 
 Initiating thee in the privilege 
 
 Of her high order ? mystic brotherhood. 
 
 Whose pass-word, that grand word necessity, 
 
 So holy, so sufficing to all those 
 
 Who are admitted of the fellowship. 
 
 Is yet uncomprehended, meaningless, 
 
 To the profane, — as thou hast been — ^^shut out 
 
 From that most blest communion. Ponder well 
 
 The dictates of that voice divine, whereby 
 
 Thy frantic, fearful doubts shall be allayed. 
 
 Without that revelation, what art thou 1 
 
 What hast thou left to lean on t Ah, too well 
 
 Thou knowest thy destitutioa For how long. 
 
TRAGEDY FRAGMENTS. 31 
 
 Thy constant prayer hath been, " Save me from life ! " 
 
 More thou hast known not how to ask ; and less 
 
 Not dared, since that one moment that revealed 
 
 In its unutterable horror to thee 
 
 Thy powerlessness to strive against thy doom. 
 
 And ever since that moment, thou ha?t writhed 
 
 In consciousness of degradation. Yea, 
 
 The cry wrung from thy lips in agony, 
 
 " 0, take this curse away from me ! " — that cry 
 
 That was not answered — echoes in thy heart 
 
 With an eternal mockery. Thou deemst 
 
 It was not heard ? Ah ! call that moment back, 
 
 If thou canst clearly bring it back to thought 
 
 Dissociated from its madness. — Yea, 
 
 The curse which thou hadst borne so long, the curse 
 
 Laid upon thee by Fate, the curse of life — 
 
 Thou didst cry out, at last, in rage, and say 
 
 It was too hard — too horrible to bear ! 
 
 God would not answer thee — Chance did not send 
 
 Relief; thyself wouldst judge thy righteous cause, 
 
 Wouldst brave the end 
 
 What was it held thee back ? — 
 Thy good or evil genius ? ... In thy soul 
 Wild fury raved o'er its own impotence ; 
 All was undone — thy utmost effort failed j 
 The way was barred by which thou wouldst escape 
 The ills which crowded in conspiracy 
 For thy destruction : thou wert self-deceived ; 
 Thy trusted refuge had but proved a snare 
 To drag thee farther into the full swing 
 Of forces on thy ruin concentrate. 
 There was no freedom from their baleful strength 
 
32 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 To be by most stupendous effort won ; — 
 
 The extreme step, upon whose boasted power 
 
 Thy contemplation long had stayed itself 
 
 For the assertion of thy bold intent 
 
 Was tried — and failed thee. In the supreme test 
 
 Thy will was dulled, thy triumph snatched away, 
 
 Thy struggling hope crushed down for evermore, 
 
 Thy soul confounded — thy resistance cowed. . . 
 
 So, in thy passionate self-reproach, thy storm 
 
 Of loathing and humiliation — thus 
 
 Didst thou, defiant, utter impiously 
 
 The challenge to the demon of thyself, 
 
 Accursing. — " On my own head be the blood 
 
 Of all the future sorrow, sin and shame, 
 
 For me and mine, that may accrue from this — 
 
 This act of indecision ; this retreat 
 
 From my fixed purpose j this failure of my will 
 
 To execute its own long-formed decree, 
 
 To give effect at last to its resolve 
 
 "Well reasoned out, and utterly. Now I see 
 
 I must be henceforth, as before, the prey 
 
 Of my spontaneous deeds, my unforeseen 
 
 Impulses, and the baneful influence 
 
 Of my resistless fellows — friends or foes." .... 
 
 Now from that frenzy which possessed thee then 
 
 Thou art recovered. Summon all thy strength 
 
 Of mind, and on this question bring to bear 
 
 Thy judgment calm, . . . WhM was it held thee back? 
 
 What was it, but the spirit of all life, 
 
 The spirit irresistible governing 
 
 Within thee, but not of thee ; which pervades 
 
 All organisms, all individual forms 
 
TRA GED Y FRA GMENTS. 33 
 
 That give expression separate to the one 
 Force vital, thus in each pervading all j 
 The spirit, undisoerned so long by thee, 
 That dominates all actions, and that rules 
 In every interruption, — every pause 
 Of energy,^-in every seeming -waste 
 As well as in success ; that vindicates 
 ' Every expenditure by final aim ; 
 That harmonises impulse and event, 
 Adapting most conflicting influences 
 Unto the absolute certainty — their end. . . . 
 Learn thou but this. Assimilate thy will 
 Unto this.fatalism that swayeth it. 
 Seek not to guide the forces infinite 
 With which thou art confront, with which to cope 
 Thy partial knowledge must be, can but be 
 Inadequate. Cease the perplexing toil 
 Of wresting circumstances from their ends 
 To accord them with thy reason ; cease the attempt 
 To avert those consequences that depend 
 Upon a power not thine^which to construe 
 Is to thy might all as impossible 
 As to possess it, or to look into ' 
 Its origin. Cease to oppose to Fate 
 Thy erring will, thy vacillating thought, • 
 Thy labour of endeavour ; it must be 
 Without avail — believe it, ere too late. 
 Hast thou not seen, what the result hath been 
 Of thy impassioned efibrts % — Thy resolve 
 (And thou wast resolute, with all the strength 
 Of instinct) in confusion had its end. 
 The voice that spoke within thee, urging thee 
 
34 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 To meditation of the desperate act 
 
 Which some inscrutable, inconceivable power 
 
 Has thwarted. . . . Seemed it not to rule in thee 
 
 With so imperious an authority 
 
 That thou must cherish such a faith in it 
 
 As others feel in laws they deem divine ? . . . 
 
 Thou wouldst obey it, as thy being's law : 
 
 But it is overmastered. How ? By what ? . . . 
 
 The terrible mystery hath flung thy soul 
 
 Into its lowest depths of agony. 
 
 Thy terror. has ulimanned thee. Now look up — 
 
 All is not over. Thou mayst yet be brave 
 
 If thou wilt look thy destiny in the face, 
 
 Dare it, but not defy it. Thou must drink 
 
 Yet deeper of the cup of suifering, 
 
 It is not all exhausted : there must be 
 
 More sorrow yet, more wrong reserved for thee. 
 
 Thou by endurance canst alone fulfil 
 
 Thy duty, and redeem thy spirit's pledge 
 
 To the invisible powers of life. That pledge 
 
 Were forfeit, shouldst thou keep the awful vow 
 
 Which thou hast perjured. Yet, now, think thee well ; 
 
 Eemember, how thou wouldst have kept it ; how 
 
 Thou hast raved, because thou couldst not keep it. Say, 
 
 Was not thy prayer heard ? Came the answer not 
 
 In that divine refusal, which did blight, 
 
 fool ! thy futile and imperfect scheme 
 
 With its negation ? Nay, God heard thy prayer ; 
 
 The Fate-god gave thee succour in that hour 
 
 Of mortal danger ; — saved thee from thyself. . . . 
 
 Prayer ! Answer ! Is Fate dallied with by prayers 1 
 
 Doth the eterqal reason fluctuate 
 
TRAGED Y FRAGMENTS. 35 
 
 For human protestation or appeal.!^— ^' 
 
 Nay, rather, the immovable decree 
 
 Was with thy groan of prayer compatible ; : 
 
 That prayer but showed the converse to its seal, 
 
 The correspondence in thy spirit's law 
 
 With the universal order, whereunto 
 
 It^is subincident, subordinate . . . 
 
 Now, brace thy faculties, in readiness 
 
 For their predestined function ; be thou true 
 
 To thy election ; waver, hence, no more 
 
 In thy sworn service to thy God, to Fate. 
 
 There may be crime ordained thee to commit : — 
 
 So, then, with holy, desperate resolve 
 
 Commit that crime ; and it shall find its place 
 
 In the full cycle of the ordinance 
 
 Of Destiny. Still hold to thy firm faith 
 
 In thy new God, necessity, which takes 
 
 The place, to thee, of thy abandoned Law ; 
 
 Tremble not at the apparent negligence 
 
 Of the new order, which disorder seems 
 
 To thee, whose point of view long time hath been 
 
 In error ; and so in changing suddenly. 
 
 Thy sight at first is dazzled and confused ; 
 
 All seems involved in inconsistency ; 
 
 Thou canst not find the beauty of symmetry 
 
 Which thou hast sought, whose absence thou hast 
 
 mourned 
 In thy vain search through shattered systems false 
 Whose wrecks crowd on thy orbit, and impede 
 Thy vision of the horizon clear beyond.. — 
 Tremble not, doubt not ; keep thy thoughts still fi'ee, 
 And thy will purej still think thouholily, 
 
36 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 And, through whatever actions intricate 
 
 The force of life bear thee, resisting, on — 
 
 Thou shalt have Fate's support ; her strengthening 
 
 word 
 To nerve thee for the conflict ; in thy need 
 Communion sanctifying ; in thy shame 
 Her sweetest consolation ; for thy sin 
 Her absolution. Henceforth, be thy prayer 
 Not " Let this cup pass from me : " but, as He 
 Whose suffering ignominy for so long 
 Hath glorified mankind, to his God cried — 
 " Not my will, thinehe done." ... It shallhe done : 
 The one will only is omnipotent : 
 And, conscious or unconscious, all the laws 
 By which men frame their conduct, or by which 
 The conduct of the inanimate universe 
 Is governed — all from this will are derived. 
 The issues of all struggles must conform, 
 The ends of all diversity in means 
 Must be adapted to — Necessity. 
 
NOT KNOWING. 
 {From, a passage in a biography.) 
 
 " He died, not knowing." And Fame's laurels swung 
 Their garlands pendant o'er his after name. 
 
 He thought that vainly he had wept and sung ; — 
 sad ! to die without the grasp of Fame. 
 
 Fame ! — to have reached to her the striving hands, 
 To have languished for one far glimpse of her smile. 
 
 Only to be repulsed — the bold demands 
 
 With shame requited, turned to mockery vile. 
 
 To have set life's fairest, dearest gifts at nought, 
 Flouted her injuries with calm disdain, 
 
 For the hot pursuit of one absorbing thought, 
 The intensity whose thrill could numb all pain ; 
 
 To have travailed, in the loneliness and dread 
 
 Of that deep life, forsaken by repose. 
 With revelation of innate truths unsaid, 
 
 And brought it forth with sharp exceeding throes ; 
 
 Through all existence to have felt the strain 
 Of powers to which full utteranqe was denied. 
 
 To have sought their knowledge true with yearnings 
 vain, 
 — cruel ! and not knowing, to have died ! 
 
38 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 The consciousness within himself to bear 
 Of sacred gifts, committed to his charge, 
 
 Yet recognised not : the long, sick despair 
 Of the failing mission, with its scope so large : 
 
 Forced by the expansion of world-stretching thought, 
 Impelled by the hidden working of pent rage 
 
 To cry with irrepressible cry, that sought 
 To cry out ringing to the coming age — 
 
 That sought to echo age on age beyond, 
 
 O'er all the sympathetic clangs of earth, 
 ' To sound through many a cry responsive fond 
 — ^And self to have deemed it stifled at its birth ! 
 
 To feel towards all the human brotherhood 
 In the simultaneous pulse of their one woe 
 
 — Eeflecting all their evil, all their good, 
 
 — To feel for them — to touch — and not to know ! 
 
 ! call it not light vanity, the wild 
 
 Untamable longing for the ecstatic state 
 
 Where only can such pangs be reconciled, 
 Where only is such anguish compensate. 
 
 Mistake it not — nor trifle with its power, 
 
 That passionate fervour, that mad love of fame . . , 
 What is it % Wish for life's success as dower 1 
 
 Desire to be remembered by a name ? 
 
 Not that, not that for which he fearful pined, 
 Whose worship eeaseless quite consumed away 
 
NOT KNOWING. 39 
 
 All energy of will and heart and mind, 
 
 All but tlie strength for that one boon to pray ! 
 
 It was in -him the eager, one desire 
 
 Which none who hath would lose, spite of its pain, 
 That the moments which had flushed 'neath holy fire 
 
 Should ever semblance of its glow retain. 
 
 That the sense, which once had palpitated fleet 
 In answer to the tremble of touch divine," 
 
 Should not let fade the impression strange and sweet, 
 JSfor be extinct in one faint memory fine. 
 
 That those grand visions, which could ne'er be told. 
 Should not be lost, without much struggle and strife; 
 
 That the wondrous burden in his faltering hold 
 
 Should whelm him not, nor sink from him with life. 
 
 That the soul-blood which he spilt on the hard plain 
 Of arid life, might nourish future flowers ; 
 
 That sparks of spirit-glory from his paiu 
 Might shoot forth into the eternal hours. 
 
 So did he spend his life in writhings strong 
 To embody but one thought that might abide.: 
 
 But all the efibrts, all the wonder long 
 
 Won him not triumph. Knowing not, he died. 
 
 I4ves, in their vast shoals sweeping endless on 
 Are transient manifest, and pass away.: 
 
 . , . They are too many to be known ; are gone 
 Without a trace that may survive the day. 
 
40 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 They give forth noisy sounds, in busy hum, 
 Each undistinguished in the general jar ; 
 
 Then, after each other, with each other, dumb 
 They fall : — Such are the countless lives that are. 
 
 Yet all lives live not to themselves ; beyond 
 They call, to one another, and are heard : 
 
 They pass — ^yet where be souls that can respond 
 They linger in the lives that they have stirred. 
 
 But even thus, their impress swift is past ; 
 
 Theblendedsounds, the nutual lives, must die; . . . 
 Yet there are universal lives, that last 
 
 From life to life, keeping identity — 
 
 Lives that are part of every life that strives; 
 
 Whose thoughts have share in every human lot ; 
 Whose- voice, not hushed, quivers through sounding 
 lives — 
 
 And his was one, although he knew it not. 
 
 He knew not ; but it was so. Not for him 
 
 The satisfaction, but for us, to know ; 
 We, by analogy, interpret dim 
 
 The reason whose secret can console our woe. . . . 
 
 To live, not knowing ! — hard doom, which we 
 
 Must yield to ! — That dear bliss that might have 
 been, 
 
 We have been cheated of ; but if it be 
 By falseness or by fate, we may not ween. 
 
NO T KNO WING. 41 
 
 0, not to know ! — to have the dull regret 
 
 That aohes in many a life, through all its moan 
 
 Never explained, never redeemed. ... Ah ! yet, 
 It may be. . . What we know not shall be known. 
 
" AFLOAT. " (SOHWAEMEBEI). 
 
 Familiar Spirit ! Unto thee 
 How long have I been devote, my sea ! 
 To thee am I pledged by solemn vow, 
 Often and often renewed : — and now 
 It seems as though thou didst call to me 
 " Eemember thy fealty to the sea ! " 
 
 I have sworn, my first love shall be my last ; — 
 
 If I have been fickle in times long past — 
 
 If my fancy hath fluttered, my will oft ranged 
 
 O'er frivolous lovers ; — my heart, unchanged, 
 
 Still incorruptible unto thee 
 
 Hath guarded its loyalty, my sea ! 
 
 Light is my heart ; scarce I feel it beat. 
 
 As though thou didst rock it to slumber sweet ; 
 
 On my lips yet lingers the ripple's kiss — 
 
 None other defile them, after this ! — 
 
 ! blest to die in a wave's embrace, — 
 
 To smile, as it laughed up into my face, 
 
 With a smile that no sadness should e'er allay, 
 
 That no more in tears should fade away — 
 
 The old, old longing comes back to me 
 
 To end my life in its love — in the sea ! 
 
"AFLOAT." 43 
 
 I lean baok^ — ^my head is on tliy breast : 
 
 Ah ! Never in human arms would I rest ; 
 
 They could not be tender and strong as thine, 
 
 To bear me up as I calm recline, 
 
 In a rapturous sense that pervades me all : — 
 
 Thou tirest not — never wilt let me fall — 
 
 Yet thou boldest me not as in bonds ; no need 
 
 To shrink from thy touch, lest its ipower impede 
 
 My force of will ] — I resist not thee ; 
 
 I struggle not ; for thou leavest me free ; — 
 
 Free, though so closely uuto thee pressed — 
 
 I feel not thy grasp ; my will is at rest. 
 
 Without restraint, I may listless glide — 
 
 I may toss my arms, I may fling them wide — 
 
 Thou vauntest no mastery over me ; — 
 
 And yet, thou knowest I am thine, my sea ! 
 
 Yes — thine ! I am thine ! — Wilt thou claim me now ? 
 
 Wilt thou bear me away, to redeem my vow ] 
 
 Assert thy lordship ! Unto thy sway 
 
 My heart is responsive, and must obey : 
 
 Keep me more close — do not let me go ; — 
 
 I know thy language : speak to me low 
 
 In the mystic voice I have learnt to hear. 
 
 Which so oft has mvirmured its secrets dear 
 
 To my spirit, that understands — 0, well ! 
 
 Love can interpret the weirdest spell. 
 
 In darkness, and stillness, unto me 
 
 Thou hast spoken ; and I have listened to thee : 
 
 Mysterious communion hath been between 
 
 Thee and me ; for love-tokens have there been 
 
 Symbols I treasure — ^none else has known 
 
44 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Their meaniug; — they tell me I am thine own.- 
 — Say to me — " Darling ! " I will hear 
 And answer the summons : I do not fear 
 To follow thy call. — ! let me be 
 With thee for ever, my sea ! my sea ! 
 
KUE. 
 
 " Six months ago, this morn, I made a vow ;• — 
 And broke it ere the eve ! 
 ! had I been more loyal, surely now 
 I had not thus to grieve. 
 
 " Let it be past — all that hath been between ; 
 Here would I fain efface 
 From my life's record what too dear hath been, 
 Even to its faintest trace. 
 
 " Upon my heart I boasted once to set. 
 When it should come forth free, 
 A seal, in one word — Vinci : — And even yet 
 That word its seal shall be. 
 
 " Let now the wild confusion be all o'er, 
 That sprang from one raah hour ; 
 Its wilderment entangle me no more — 
 I have freed me from its power. 
 
 " After the long life lived in so short a space 
 My vow do I renew ; 
 Not quite in vain its lessons I retrace — 
 This time, I will be true!" 
 
AUF WIEDERSEHEN. 
 
 In the sacred brotherhood of universal sympathy 
 We were two brothers : — in the mystic bond we vowed 
 
 to be 
 True to each other, far beyond all time. We chose 
 
 to bear 
 A secret pledge to one another, on the heart to wear, 
 Sign of our holy order, that should be perpetually 
 Truth-talisman, and signet^seal of our love's mystery ; 
 We chose a watchword, which should each to each 
 
 , henceforth betray 
 Whatever lapse of years, or change of scene, should 
 
 cross our way. 
 We, that had looked in one another's souls so soon, 
 
 and known 
 So quickly, all the mutual truths learnt by close love 
 
 alone. 
 We promised that the word I ga,ve him, should we 
 
 meet again. 
 Was to be our recognition-token: — this — " AufWieder- 
 
 schen." 
 
 On the battle-field we parted, as we met ; new friends, 
 
 to part ; 
 New friends, with all the trust of oldest friendship at 
 
 the heart ; 
 
AUF WIEDERSEHEN. 47 
 
 Comrades, for once, in duty — severed then, at duty's 
 
 call, 
 With the mystic bond uniting us, invisible through all. 
 And our only words at parting were the words he bade 
 
 remain 
 Treasured up for future greeting — first and last — 
 
 "AufWiedersehen." 
 
 Now, oft I ask myself the question, tortured with 
 these new 
 
 Sad doubts, undreamed of in our early faith. — Is it 
 still true. 
 
 The blest, mysterious union I believed in long ago % 
 
 Or has it lost its virtue ? ShaU I let my clinging go ? 
 
 My trustful clinging to its subtle potency ? . . ; We 
 said 
 
 No fate could ever separate true soul friends, living 
 or dead. 
 
 But .... Can our bond endure, ignoring even the 
 bounds of Time? 
 
 Did our imperfect speech translate aright the truth 
 sublime 
 
 That we sought with all love's daring to interpret ? — 
 Are there set 
 
 No limits to the claims by which our spirits, even yet, 
 
 Demand unbroken fellowship? Mayyetsome powerfulfil 
 
 The 'pledge still wifjredeemed — ^made void unto our im- 
 potent will ? 
 
 Do they hold good, those words whose fond remem- 
 brance seems to be — 
 
 Must be, unless such unknown power there be^mere 
 mockery % 
 
48 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 We met no more. How shall we meet 1 — The blessed 
 
 words remain 
 Unspoken ; in my heart the waiting watchword rests 
 
 in vain, 
 Unchallenged; and the longing thought in life un- 
 satisfied 
 Is carried to the awful sphere beyond ; the love that 
 
 cried 
 Disconsolate so oft, doth lift itself with strong desire, 
 And dareth of eternity importunate require 
 Answer to its unresting plea. ... If in infinity 
 Eenewal of this life, however modified, may be^ — 
 If soul force in the scope ahead shall find expression 
 
 still ; 
 If, through all changing, be defined identity of will — 
 May the pledges here annulled be recognised, accepted, 
 
 there f 
 The struggling spirit-claims acknowledged, after their 
 
 despair \ 
 And our watchword, unimpaired by its delay, full 
 
 meaning gain 
 Even as earnest and fulfilment all in one ? Auf 
 •.1 
 
WAVE OMENEY. 
 
 I HAVE just seen two waves meet, face to face ; 
 
 One with the ebb was coming, one with the flow ; 
 
 Before they broke into that rash embrace 
 
 I thought each had a separate way to go ; — 
 
 Each had its own, its separate way to go — 
 
 But what of either track doth now appear 1 
 
 Have the two blent together, or still near 
 
 Kept, and so changed their current t Who doth know 
 
 How close upon each other they two clung, 
 With showering kisses of impetuous spray ! 
 Passionately their curling arms they flung 
 To twine each other. — So they lost their way ; 
 In intermingling so, they lost their way ! — 
 But soott the opposite forces in them tore 
 Inevitably them asunder ; — and bore 
 On their first destined way, unaltered 1 Nay ! 
 
 The motive wherewith each had been endued 
 Had in the shock, which for a moment blent 
 Each with the other's, been of both subdued — 
 The mutual energy had all been spent. 
 Each had destroyed the other ; itself each spent ; 
 No force was left ; the rush, the speed were gone ; 
 
so POEMS OF THS FUTURE. 
 
 After the parting, each must slow drag on 
 Waning and listless. — Ah ! could waves repent ! 
 
 The scattered waters crawl, subside, efface — 
 Vain struggle ! — effort vain against the innate 
 Tendence : — resistance fails to leave its trace ; 
 For waves, for man, there is one rule, one fate ; — 
 For waves, for man, there is one law, one fate ; 
 The warm heart in us may deny its sway ; 
 The will revolt, in protest, as it may — 
 And, trying its counter might — submit, too late ! 
 
 Two lives may meet ; upon each one impressed 
 Purport distinct, direction of its own ; 
 And for brief space of love's deluding rest 
 They merge into each other, and seem as one ; — 
 Would thwart their different destiny and be one, 
 Guide their course, form a path : — But hence must go, 
 Parted, and scattered ; — broken powers, to flow 
 In the wide waste of being, lost, unknown ! 
 
VEEITAS VICTRIX. 
 
 A VOICE spoke, long ago, within my soul, 
 
 Waking it urgently, with sudden start, 
 
 To consciousness of revelation : — " Truth 
 
 Is mighty, and must prevail." — And then I took 
 
 Those fatal words to be my talisman. 
 
 To fix the aims of all my coming life. 
 
 Absorb its interests, guide its vague career. 
 
 And fill its one devotion For I thought 
 
 That that same voice in the eternal years 
 Shoiild speak to me once more, and thrill through me 
 For but one moment, which should henceforth live 
 In my whole being for ever. .... 
 
 But I learnt 
 My motto wrongly, in my rash, fond pride ; 
 And ever, rushing through the chaos of thoughts 
 And things and phantasms round me, at wild speed 
 On my own way, I gloried to myself. 
 Saying, " Truth indeed is mighty ; and hy that 
 I vrill prevail." .... I could not fail ! — In spite 
 Of the opposition^ the perversity 
 Of facts and speculations, that the more 
 I struggled with them, seemed the less to yield. 
 My trust in my almighty talisman 
 Kept constant my defiance : and I said — 
 " I must be Victor." .... 
 
S2 POEMS Ot THE FUTURE. 
 
 On my soul, at last, 
 Fell fearful certainty, that broke the spell 
 Of my most dear delusion. — Shudderingly 
 Feeling that I was mocked, I cried, " Truth ! 
 How have I been deceived ! My hopes in thee 
 How cruelly betrayed ! — Disdamful Truth, 
 I am not thy soldier, but thy conscript, then — 
 Thy victim, not thy martyr ! I may die 
 For thee, or live without thee ; but to thee 
 'Tis all the same ; thou smilest still serene. 
 Turning thy cold face from me ; thou dost pass 
 O'er ages, o'er the universe, in march 
 Triumphal, and dost tread beneath thy feet 
 Thy votaries ; — and the passionate souls that bound. 
 With aspirations, to obstruct thy way. 
 Falling before thy path, to worship thee 
 And have their homage once accepted of thee. 
 Are swept aside at thy approach, to make 
 Free passage for thee ; and thou, haughtily, 
 Gliding on even course, dost leave them prone 
 With prayers unheeded, grovelling in despair, 
 No longer subjects — suppliants nevermore. 
 With hope to serve thee, and with wish to rise 
 And play the hero for thee — ^but thy slaves, 
 Crushed and confounded, baffled, scorned, and quelled ! 
 — But I shall never see thee. Go thy way, 
 And I will go in my own might, nor strive 
 To look upon thee ; but sustain the fight 
 Into whose press I am flung, unhelped by thee ; 
 Nor seek to give thee glory, nor to win 
 Thy blessing — since my cause no more is thine ! " 
 
VERITAS VICTRIX. S3 
 
 So, I went on my way ; and wearily 
 
 Wrestled with powers of darkness and of dread, 
 
 With shapes of horror undefined, with might 
 
 Indomitable ; met them, one by one, 
 
 Desperate and all unaided. But although 
 
 I had no hope, no aim, no meaning even 
 
 To animate me — still, with firm resolve, 
 
 With dull, unflinching effort, did I keep 
 
 The obligations of the conflict ; still 
 
 I wavered not, nor turned aside, whate'er 
 
 Danger or terror on my forward path 
 
 Threatened my progress. — I went on ; and stopped 
 
 Before each strange encounter on my way. 
 
 To question it ; and would not be denied. 
 
 Demanding satisfaction absolute 
 
 To my continuous challenge ; — though no end 
 
 To my endurance could I faint descry, 
 
 I yielded not, but wrestled ; would not tire 
 
 Though weary, weary. . . . 
 
 And it then befel 
 To me, as unto Jacob, when 'tis told 
 His adversary did become his €fod 
 After his awful wrestling. Unto me 
 One came, and wrestled with me. ... I had said 
 " I will be victor," in my boastful pride, 
 And — I was vanquished: . . . But my victor was God ! 
 For it was Truth, at last, on whom I had looked 
 Unwitting face to face — ^the unknown God ! 
 And, when the struggle was over — only then 
 I knew by what sublime and heavenly power 
 I had been overcome ; and found with joy 
 That the past struggle left a blessing with me ; — 
 
54 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Yea, that that might that had subdued my own 
 Was henceforth mine ; from ray resistance vaia 
 The strength I could not baffle, was become 
 My guerdon, and the prize of victory, 
 More dear than victory self. And from that time 
 No longer has my watchword been, for self 
 " Victor ! " — But now with sacred awe I guard 
 This watchword, which upon my heart I bear — 
 " Veritas Victrix ! " . . . Thus doth truth prevail ! 
 
 Veritas Victrix ! . . . That was the true voice. . . 
 And surely. ... I shall hear it speak^ again ! 
 
THE LAST LOOK. 
 
 I. DESPONDENCY. 
 
 And is it death 'i The dear, the lovely form 
 Lies, so restful ! where 'twas wont to rest : 
 
 So softly, so serenely, I would fancy 
 
 In slumber sweet those eyelids still were prest. 
 
 Herself we loved : yet we could only know 
 Her spirit bodied in its earthly home ; 
 
 This was the only token we might cherish 
 For her : her soul breathed to us hence alone. 
 
 We could not the pure spirit, then, behold — 
 That was too holy for these mortal eyes 
 
 To gaze upon ; the soul all fair, unclothed 
 Hath being that we cannot realise. 
 
 But its dear dwelling was this silent form 
 From which we watched it, awfully, depart ; 
 
 DissolVd is that mysterious, subtle union — 
 Cold are the lips, and motionless the heart. 
 
 This solemn presence, that we feel so near, 
 Dispels the tender thoughts that wont to rest 
 
 So fondly on our dear one's loved image. 
 And ruthless breaks the ties once sweet and blest. 
 
56 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Bowed down beneath the dark and dreadful spell 
 Our sonls yield yearningly, with futile strife, 
 
 AU. the long hallowed, old associations 
 
 That cling around our darling's silenced life. 
 
 Now, thought is bafiled in the trembling search 
 To track her spirit in those regions wide 
 
 So far removed from our faint contemplation. . . . 
 But yesterday, she was so near our side — 
 
 Close by us ! face to face ! And as we gazed 
 
 We saw her smile -on us : — she was our own. . . , 
 
 Now, parted from us — by what dread transition % 
 What is she ? — Inconceivable ! unknown ! 
 
 So like to us, a little while ago — 
 
 Nay, one of us . . . . how strange to think upon ! 
 — Lost unto us — merged in the great Eternal — 
 
 Beyond our failing love for ever gone ! 
 
 .... To look into the mysteries of death. 
 
 How fearful ! from our partial view, this side — 
 
 And she — alone — hath entered, past recalling. 
 The infinite, wildering depths, all dark, untried ! 
 
 No word for us from these lips more shall fall ; — 
 And all the long communion that hath been. 
 
 Is that no more % So quick sunk in oblivion 
 
 For her and us, with death's veil drawn between \ 
 
 These gentle hands so often we have pressed, 
 
 The dear, bright eyes whose gaze we loved to meet — 
 
THE LAST LOOK. 57 
 
 No more give sign to us ; nor love nor pity, 
 Nor trust, respondeth to our love so sweet. 
 
 We cannot near her in the wildest dream ; 
 
 We may not stretch our hands forth, tremblingly, 
 To feel one last, fond, clinging grasp : unspoken 
 
 Love's wistful message in the heart must lie. 
 
 Those passionate last words — -too late were said .... 
 
 We send them after, through the dark, in vain ! . . 
 Our anxious thoughts^-we know not if they foUow, 
 
 Nor if her own look back to us a^ain ! 
 
 0, cruel parting ! — Souls that here so true 
 Through life have kept together, side by side, 
 
 Must thus all fearfuUy be rent asunder. 
 And mourning hearts be left unsatisfied ! 
 
 No possible, that this great mystery 
 Be solv'd ; but only the stern certainty 
 
 That the inevitable, though it tarry 
 
 Cometh — and we must bear it, helplessly. 
 
 And so we say — Farewell. Destiny 
 Inscrutable ! How pitiless is Fate ! 
 It mvM be : — for^ it is. Farewell, farewell, farewell, 
 dearest ! . . . . 
 Thought droops, when it would soar to reach thy 
 state ! 
 
S8 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 II. INTUITION. 
 
 Bend we down tenderly, to gaze once more 
 On the dear face, still features, closed eyes 
 
 Which still retain the semblance of our loved one 
 In their long rest, where stiU such beauty lies. 
 
 We may not call her ours again, on earth ; 
 
 We may not see the beauteous face again ; 
 Our last fond look of it must now be taken — 
 
 It hath no smile more now, to soothe our pain. 
 
 . . . Then must we sever all our thoughts of her 
 From the familiar face o'er which we weep ] 
 
 How can we bring her back into our fancy % 
 What image of her now can memory keep ? 
 
 . . . Ah ! she is far away : her spirit fair 
 
 Hath found the endless path, that ©pens bright 
 
 Beyond these gloom-closed realms, wherefrom — mist- 
 hidden — 
 We seek in vain the all-revealing light. 
 
 Herself still lives ; the full and perfect life 
 
 Of which our shrinking minds no form can frame. 
 
 Hope, dreaming, flies on dim, mysterious traces. 
 And — in far glimpses — sees her- — still the same ! 
 
 Interprets all the inspirations fleet 
 
 •Which holy love breathes into our frail thought, 
 And trusts to Truth to show, at its unfolding. 
 
 All realised that we have daring sought. 
 
THE LAST LOOK. S9 
 
 She is not changed — ^unless the sweet hope err, 
 And our high longings have aspired in vain — 
 
 But the blest spirit, freed from fleshly fetters, 
 Unto its native freedom doth attain. 
 
 We have not known that spirit as it is ; 
 
 Earth's ties have bound it down, birth quelled its 
 powers, 
 Stain'd its pure essence, marred its heavenly likeness, 
 
 Made it seem, mortal — ^like these souls of ours. 
 
 But yet, believe, nought can that force subdue 
 
 Which, proudly conscious, struggles through our life 
 
 To assert itseK o'er doubt, despair, and blindness, 
 And gains, at last, the mastery in the strife. 
 
 At last ! — yes ; this grand principle of life 
 Shall break forth, following Hope's triumphant 
 flight, 
 From th' intricate path that windeth through our 
 darkness 
 — And, sudden, burst upon the heaven-beamed light. 
 
 And in that rapture, kindred sotds shall meet 
 And learn to know each other, as ne'er before ; 
 
 Take up familiar converse, long years broken. 
 To endure, thenceforth, tireless, for evermore. 
 
 Then will our darling look on us again. 
 
 And we behold her — shining in clearest light. .... 
 Till then, she still shall linger in our memory. 
 
 In this dear form on which we gaze to-night ! 
 
THE MEANING. 
 
 Man, fretful murmuring o'er his lot — proud man, 
 
 reviling Fate, 
 Complains of unrequited griefs, of pains inadequate ; 
 Moans o'er the sorrow without end, the anguish borne 
 
 in vain. 
 That mock his insufficient life with its unmeaning pain. 
 Nor aught avails the eager strife of even the bravest 
 
 mind 
 In its impassioned effort yet some hidden law to find, 
 Some universal law, whose revelation shall contain 
 Both purpose of the mystery, and interpretation plain : — 
 That may not be ; man must not hope unto his 
 
 destiny 
 For reason it wiU render him e'er reconciled to be : 
 We may not grapple with the cause of life's bewilder- 
 ment, 
 Nor harmonise perplexities, whilst we are still intent 
 On finding some solution that shall answer for our weal ; 
 On recognising as divine guidance that we can feel. — 
 Alas ! the futile task ! — Even hope it passes, as belief : 
 Not unto us the satisfaction we demand of grief ; 
 Not for our sake our sufferings : — it seems we have no 
 
 claim 
 To read ourselves the charm writ in our lives, or spell 
 
 its name. 
 
THE MEANING. 6i 
 
 But in our groping dreams, a faint conjecture dim doth. 
 
 sway 
 Sometimes ; it hovers o'er the soul, and points out, far 
 
 away 
 Mysterious looming in deep shade, a possibility 
 Full of promise, wherein folded may the glorious 
 
 meaning lie. 
 
 May it not be that, far beyond the range of human 
 
 soul 
 Infinite spirits have their scope % And unto their control 
 Be ordered every detail of the universe, that we 
 See but imperfectly, we beings of a low degree. 
 Conceiving false relations of the inconceivable whole. 
 Deeming ourselves the acme —knowing not the higher 
 
 soul, 
 Whose motions to our consciousness can be no more 
 
 made clear 
 Than our thoughts can be translated to a firefly : 
 
 — Were not here 
 A glimpse of the analogy that may establish reign 
 Between us and the exalted ones to whom the rest is 
 
 plain % — 
 Does not the world, as known to us, with forms of 
 
 being throng 
 All far removed from our high state ? And do not all 
 
 belong 
 To us ? — and to our spirits do not all, however far 
 In grade from one another severed, seem but what they 
 
 are 
 For <mr interpretation? That we read them, as we 
 
 will, 
 
62 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 And behold their paina and glory, for our explanation 
 
 still ■! 
 Some, little joys they find to make their own life glad 
 
 and bright ; 
 The butterfly's existence may be gay with brief delight; 
 The bird that warbles in our bowers tunes not unto 
 
 our ear 
 His joyous song ; yet it is ours, the song so blissful 
 
 clear, 
 Albeit outpouring 'from the fulness of a heart, whose 
 
 strain 
 Bursts forth as from a child's heart laughs forgetful- 
 
 ness of pain. 
 And the songless birds, that twitter through their day 
 
 unsought, unknown, 
 May find their life entire one spell of blessedness 
 
 their own — 
 Yet they — for us — exist not ; when they die, they have 
 
 not been. . . . 
 And loveliness and gladness seem in soulless things 
 
 oft seen — 
 But only for the joy they render, only unto earth 
 The adornment of their beauty, do we count their lives 
 
 of worth. 
 And equally do we deem blessed whatever for our joy 
 We torture, or despoil ; what for our service we 
 
 destroy. 
 The bee, that toils so peacefully among the summer 
 
 flowers — 
 How beautiful and fit we find her work;. . . foritisours; 
 The purpose of her busy life, the end of all her toil, 
 Submits itself to our luxurious wish, becomes our spoil. 
 
THE MEANING. .63 
 
 The lovely things with plumage for whose sake they 
 
 must be slain ; 
 The powerful ones whose strength, the weak whose 
 
 frailty is our gain ; 
 The forms of life ephemeral whose gifts but glad our 
 
 eye; 
 The toilers who bequeath their beauteous work to us, 
 
 then die ; 
 The storers of our priceless pearls, our treasures from 
 
 the seas, 
 Corals of wondrous beauty, perfect sheU-shapes. . . . 
 
 What are these 
 But creatures that in countless shoals are crowded, 
 
 . life on life. 
 Merely that the results of labour whence their lives 
 
 were rife 
 Should yield such pleasure for our ease % — How many, 
 
 then, again, 
 Are formed but for the pleasure that is yielded from 
 
 their pain ? 
 Whose fluttering agony may for awhile subserve our 
 
 taste — 
 Ours are they ; ours to wound, to bruise, to maim, to 
 
 kill, to waste — 
 For the luxury of splendid hues, rich dyes, or fair 
 
 threads fine. 
 For the momentary gleams of tints in dying throes 
 
 that shine — 
 All use, all combinations that have been since Time 
 
 began, 
 Of animate and inanimate things — are for the use of 
 
 man. 
 
64 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 And if the helpless things could choose whether or not 
 
 to be 
 (Were they endowed with reason for the choice, to 
 
 judge as we) 
 If they could but discern what were the functions, 
 
 which to fill 
 Was their existence called for, — minister to human 
 
 will- 
 Would they grudge to us the gladness from their life 
 
 derived ? or say 
 That their beauty, useless unto them, as well were 
 
 thrown away % 
 That their pains, from which the source of man's de- 
 light must be supplied 
 Were purposeless? That that brief space of time 
 
 before they died 
 Was the measure of their meaning ? that the world's 
 
 plan were the same 
 Whether or not their transitory phantasms went and 
 
 came % 
 — They might : but we, unmoved, should still regard 
 
 them as our own. 
 Still see the need which they were formed to satisfy 
 
 alone. 
 Still feel that it was just to look on them as made to 
 
 be 
 Material for our art to work upon ; no cruelty 
 In using them to gratify delight of sense or mind 
 Should we reproach to us. Should we not vindication 
 
 find 
 In the law of compensation % — ^fitness thus of means 
 
 to eudl 
 
THE MEANING. b% 
 
 And find all purposes fulfilled that well with ours 
 
 would blend 1 
 See the comprehension of the lower in the higher life, 
 Whose perfecting subordinates all agents, without 
 
 strife ? 
 
 So we, whose pains of life seem all arranged so 
 
 carelessly. 
 We may be good to play with — to be played by 
 
 Destiny. 
 From our struggles agonising, may there not evolved be 
 (Well may we dare to guess it : be it not so, how 
 
 know we ? — ) 
 Some joyous apparition, some sublime, transcendent 
 
 sight, 
 Which to faculties we reck not of may bring intense 
 
 delight ? 
 Unknown of us, there may exist some powers Of being, 
 
 higher 
 Than our dull consciousness can reach, our tremulous 
 
 desire ; 
 The mysteries of such life must from our wistful gaze 
 
 e'er be 
 Hidden ; or but with partial sense, and awe confused, 
 
 may we 
 Behold in some surpassing sign of nature manifest 
 One trait of the manifold might, the wondrous ener- 
 gies, that rest 
 In the spirits unrevealed — ^which are for us to grasp 
 
 or know 
 What we are to the creeping things on which our eyes 
 
 may glow. 
 
66 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 If we could think that blessed eyes which we shall 
 
 never see 
 Saw transient gleams of beauty flash from our brief 
 
 agony; 
 Could we think that webs were woven whose bright 
 
 hues we ne'er may know, 
 From threads that we unceasing spin out from our 
 
 lives of woe — 
 That all our failing purposes were, by a perfect art, 
 "Worked into a beauteous plan in whose deljght we 
 
 have no part ; r 
 
 That our dear, imperfect schemes, > A^en off in their 
 
 deficiency, ^ '^S 
 
 Were for higher ends adaptedl^j^fevenly symmetry; 
 That some fine sense, inco^^piHe by ours, could 
 
 ours conceive, ^^^ 
 
 Could in quiverings of Time eternal harmony perceive, 
 Might we not, satisfied, our self-hood and its love 
 
 resign, 
 Acknowledging that infinite sense that felt by us, 
 
 divine?. . . . 
 Were it not well to look upon our passions as the 
 
 thrill 
 To which that sense beyond us should respond ? Yea, 
 
 might not still 
 Our human faint endeavour, that had failed to com- 
 prehend 
 That unknown being into whose reality we blend. 
 Call it God ? And with mute worship to its spell our 
 
 spirits bow. 
 And live in it, as we live /or it — die once, and suff'er 
 
 now? — 
 
THE OUTCAST AND THE CHILD. 
 
 " Do I love thee ?".... Only from a little child 
 
 Could such a question e'ei* be breathed to me 
 
 Now. . . It is strange ; ,the sound of those dear words 
 
 So long unwonted, thrills' my very soul. 
 
 And yet, alas ! I looked for no more love — 
 
 Enough : I have had enough ! — all over, now. .... 
 
 But I have been in a delicious trance 
 
 Wy?**^ thou, unheeding little babbler ! thou, 
 
 Inc&nate sinless beauty wonderful, 
 
 Hast clambered o'er me, gleeful prattling ; played 
 
 With my loose hair, and peeped inquisitive 
 
 Into my unclenched hands, to count their rings. 
 
 Thou didst "make friends with me" — ^yes, at first 
 
 sight ! 
 What was it drew thee to me in my smile ? 
 It was a sad smile, and not meant for thee — 
 They were not pleasant thoughts that called it forth ; 
 My spirit's dream was far from scenes like this — 
 But thou didst, uninvited, rash break in, 
 Running up to me, as by accident. 
 And then, half shy as at a stranger, half 
 Rejoicing to have found a playmate here 
 Instead of solitude^-didst hide thy face 
 Upon my shoulder. — And I cannot tell 
 How long thou hast shared the mossy couch with me. 
 
68 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Beneath the shade of these retiring trees 
 
 Where I, reclining wearily, alone, 
 
 Had sought an hour of respite, unobserved, 
 
 To give myself up to my desolate grief. 
 
 But thou incessantly, with charming wiles 
 
 Hast won my meditation back to earth 
 
 (It was not straying heavenward, before ! ) 
 
 In spite of me, thou hast forced me to take heed 
 
 Of thy gay interruptions. Yet, withal, 
 
 Thou canst not cheat me wholly of myself — 
 
 The very contrast of the light and dark 
 
 Which thou unwittingly intrudest on me 
 
 Must be by me the more acutely felt 
 
 That it is inconceivable by thee ! 
 
 Ah ! child ! Thou hast not tasted of that tree 
 
 Whose fruit is knowledge of the evil. Thou 
 
 Beholding me in moments whose distress 
 
 May have no witness (for whoever knows 
 
 The meaning of such anguish, knows too well 
 
 The cause of its keen sting) — wert thou with me 
 
 When I am free to shed remorseful tears 
 
 Whose bitterness I hide not from.'myself. 
 
 Yet to myself may not acknowledge oft, 
 
 But only when alone — ^thou, couldst thou look 
 
 Upon those tears — wouldst never understand ; 
 
 Wouldst see the suffering, but not the sin : — 
 
 Unto the pure all things, indeed, are pure ! 
 
 It seems as they had power — would that might be 
 
 As true as beautiful — it is almost so — 
 
 To purify all human things, with stain 
 
 However vile, which innocently they 
 
 Eeceived into their blessed confidence. 
 
THE OUTCAST AND THE CHILD. 69 
 
 I, in full knowledge of the barrier drawn 
 
 Between me and the virtuous human kind, 
 
 I, without plaint, the edict recognise 
 
 Of my rejection from society j 
 
 I without protest do accept ite ban — 
 
 Yet feel as though some "Secret, higher law 
 
 Unrecognised, to thy pure spirit were known. 
 
 Unto whose sanctity I might appeal 
 
 For its protection. Yea, thy innocence, 
 
 Eeversing by its privilege divine 
 
 The sentence on my head, — doth plead my cause 
 
 And yet itself give judgment ; — I, bent down 
 
 In my humility, do hear it pronounce 
 
 Acquittal. Ah, its voice is very low ; 
 
 Only to ears whose hearing by sharp pangs 
 
 Of sorrow has been made quick, perceptible. 
 
 The world is utter. deaf to that sweet voice ; 
 
 There is enough .of music, and of stir 
 
 From the war-marches and triumphal songs, 
 
 To deaden it. Only to those like me, 
 
 The captives, bruised, and mourners, trodden down — 
 
 To us it penetrates : and oh ! to us 
 
 What sweetness in its compensation dwells ! 
 
 We have our consolations, dreamed not of 
 
 By those who need them not.^ — How oft I feel 
 
 The dumb compassion of inanimate things. — 
 
 The beauties of free Nature : — .unto me 
 
 Their inarticulate converse renders more 
 
 Than to her stainless, glad communicants. 
 
 A subtle fellow-feeling, part expressed, 
 
 But more withheld, and dim conjecturable. 
 
 Is by my lonely spirit, in its moods 
 
70 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Of deep dejection, secretly perceived 
 
 In the mysterious stillness of the boughs, 
 
 In the crimson-steeped radiance through the veil 
 
 Transfused of far-off, sunset filtering clouds ; — 
 
 It tells me, that at least there is one fane 
 
 So sacred, that all worshipper^ who draw 
 
 Together, to partake its holy rites. 
 
 Must in their common reverence be merged 
 
 In one abasement. All ; the righteous proud, 
 
 The highest in earth's moral-order grade. 
 
 Must bow before this holiness from far. 
 
 With the despised and reprobate j yes, all 
 
 Unto the spirit of this purity, 
 
 This mystery of Nature, be profane. 
 
 Yet unto all, the sacred precincts wide 
 
 Are open — condescension infinite 
 
 Eeceiving all the human erring race 
 
 Into blest commune with its sanctity ; 
 
 Inspiring all with the same pious awe, 
 
 Breathing one absolution over all ! . . . 
 
 Such is the solace that my spirit draws 
 
 When, in deep-wooded groves, or on the hills 
 
 Where the fresh breeze is sickened by no scorn 
 
 Of city's breath ; or, in blest intervals 
 
 Between the summer and winter of toilful years. 
 
 Beside the eternal sea, the symbol grand 
 
 Of sorrow conquering and absorbing joy, 
 
 I steal away, and hide me from the crowd, 
 
 The mingling of my foes and crueller 
 
 False friends — then do I triumph over them. 
 
 Over myself — my past, my sins, my woes, 
 
 My wrongs, in one proud psean of contempt ! 
 
THE OUTCAST AND THE CHILD. 71 
 
 . . . Another solace oft I love to seek ; 
 
 Unfailing is it, though too soon it grows 
 
 Wearisome ; — 'tis the comfort that I find 
 
 When on my breast I yearningly caress 
 
 A little playful kitten ; with soft paws 
 
 That pat my cheek confidingly, with eyes 
 
 Large, yellow, innocent, that gaze at me 
 
 With a quaint, wondering look sometimes ; — or yet 
 
 I fancy it — ^with pitying tenderness ; 
 
 The little sportive creature never tires 
 
 Of gambol at my feet, or on my knee ; 
 
 And, as I stroke the round and silky head, 
 
 Or smoothly lay back the small upstart ears, 
 
 The thought comes to me almost peacefully — 
 
 How to this little kitten I am all 
 
 That the most stately lady, the most fair 
 
 And prudent matron, could be \ how none else 
 
 Could take my place, perhaps, to this one small 
 
 And inconsiderable creature. — No, 
 
 The faithful, loving, gentle little friend 
 
 Stops not to make inquiries, to review 
 
 My antecedents ; danger is there none 
 
 That this true friend, this imdiscerning friend 
 
 May ever slight me, at the whispered word 
 
 Of scandal — or forsake me, or look cold 
 
 With haughty censure. — Such is my soul-aid 
 
 Derivable from soulless animals.-^— 
 
 And just at first, beauteous little child ! 
 
 Such seemed the meaning of the transient calm 
 
 Which thy consoling prettiness, on me 
 
 So artlessly displayed, threw o'er my soul. 
 
 For thou art all as trusting ignorant, 
 
12. POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 As guileless. — Yet the human soul in thee 
 
 Shall, with the labouring years, expand into 
 
 The consciousness, the knowledge, and the dread 
 
 Which are the shadow cast by hateful guilt 
 
 On fearful innocence. — To look on thee, 
 
 And feel how thou would'st loath me, hadst thou but 
 
 Attained to thy full heritage ! — the world 
 
 Shall put thee in possession of it, soon^- 
 
 Too soon ; and then thou shalt discriminate, 
 
 Even as those around thee, who would point 
 
 At me with horror — and then drop their voice 
 
 In speaking of me, if they knew thee near ; 
 
 And to thy curious questions, or the prayer 
 
 Earnest imploring, whereby thou mightst seek 
 
 To deprecate their anger, when they found 
 
 Thou hadst been with me — they would shake the head. 
 
 Sigh, and perhaps in silence pray, for thee ; 
 
 But never would they let thee hear my name. 
 
 Or touch upon this little episode, ^f 
 
 This hour we spend together ; they would watch 
 
 Anxiously, day by day, waiting to see 
 
 If any faint remembrance followed thee 
 
 Of our chance meeting ! they need not thus 
 
 Distract themselves with paltry, vain alarms ! 
 
 I know, this little stolen happiness. 
 
 This littlejoy which thou hast found with me. 
 
 Is harmless to thy soul : I would forego 
 
 For thy sake, love, this blessed, soothing dream : — 
 
 I would relinquish this illicit joy. 
 
 Did I not feel that even in my arms 
 
 There could not be contamination, yet. 
 
 For thee, — for suph as thee. Ah no, not yet. 
 
THE OUTCAST AND. THE CHILD. 
 
 7.3 
 
 In a few years — few years to me ! God grant 
 
 It may be many years ! — thou, too, shalt be 
 
 Woman ; and then, thy hand in touching mine 
 
 Were sullied — ^thou at least wouldst deem it so ; 
 
 I know not if it would be so indeed ; 
 
 If the mature soul, keeping its first truth 
 
 And unsuspicious guilelessness — might not 
 
 Be mercifully to itself exempt 
 
 From the mysterious law of moral taint 
 
 Whereto association with, the accursed 
 
 Condemns the baser, more degraded soul. — 
 
 I know not 3 it is not for me to judge j 
 
 The culprit may ^ not be interpreter 
 
 Of that law's stringency, by which is made 
 
 The award of his perpetual banishment : 
 
 I bear my exile, and I murmur not. — 
 
 But thou art not yet subject to the code 
 
 Which regulates world-virtue's intercourse ; 
 
 Thou art heyond its pale as much as I : 
 
 But thy exception is not mine^ — alas ! 
 
 Fatal distinction ! Thou art on thw side ; 
 
 Not yet admitted ,into citizenship 
 
 Of the august republic. — I^beyond — 
 
 Cast forth — deprived for ever of. my claim 
 
 To its fraternity. Ah ! well for thee 
 
 Could'st thou protract thy lingering without : 
 
 But, once the bounds are open unto thee — 
 
 God help thee evermore to keep within. 
 
 May'st thou be never tempted by the fiends 
 
 That lured me, fool, to clear the definite line 
 
 Of that reserved enclosure. Onca without, 
 
 That line is ne'er repassed ; no entrance more 
 
74 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Shall ever to entreaties of despair 
 
 Be granted ; penitence, of no avail, 
 
 Soon learns to dash away its piteous tears. 
 
 We outcasts walk, at last, with firmer tread 
 
 Upon the precipices, that reveal 
 
 Sudden abysses 'neath our devious path, 
 
 Than those who dwell in safety — as they call 
 
 Their temporary guaranty : — who knows 
 
 How soon its talisman shall prove to them 
 
 As useless as to us \ At sorest need 
 
 Their vain security may fail them ; so, 
 
 In constant trembling of uncertainty. 
 
 And sense of danger dimly understood. 
 
 They walk with painful steps, 'midst their restraints 
 
 Guarded imperfectly, — not guided : — We, 
 
 After the first, irrevocable slip, 
 
 We grow sure-footed. — 0, these awful thoughts 
 
 That never cease to Jiaunt me, viill recur. 
 
 Is even thy pure presence impotent 
 
 To exorcise their magic ? Hast thou then 
 
 No counter-charm to my own spirit's ban % 
 
 Must I be still reminded what I am. 
 
 When I had feigned by thy enchanting aid 
 
 Illusion so delightful ? Must these taunts 
 
 Of my tormenting demons even encroach 
 
 On the dear hour that would once more of peace 
 
 Make restoration to my memory \ , . . . 
 
 And thou dost lay thy innocent sweet lips, 
 
 Thy rosy, warm, soft lips, unto my cheek 
 
 How long, how long it is since human touch 
 
 I have borne without a shudder. . . . Yet thine eyes 
 
 Look up to mine with full, frank, asking gaze : 
 
THE OUTCAST AND THE CHILD. 75 
 
 It seems that they must read mine through, as clear 
 
 As angel glances, or the sight of God. — 
 
 Long have I steeled myself, to look with stare 
 
 Of bold defiance into all the eyes 
 
 The mocking, cold eyes of the cruel world, 
 
 That turn their questioning insolence on mine 
 
 And seek from my impassive face to read 
 
 My heart's most deadly secret : such demands 
 
 I can meet daring — parry shame by scorn. 
 
 But thine appealing look ! 0, shouldst thou give 
 
 Expression to the tender, wondering dread 
 
 That all but speaks from those sweet wistful eyes 
 
 (Some intuition, wiser than the guess 
 
 Of pitiful suspicion, and more true 
 
 Than sneers of slander, must be hidden there), 
 
 If thou shouldst ask some question, ask it out 
 
 With mild simplicity, that straight should probe 
 
 My guilty consciousness. — What could I say 1 
 
 My eyes must droop from thine ; and from the clasp 
 
 Of thy small, clinging hands around my neck, 
 
 I shrink away — Ah ! had I paused, as now, 
 
 Once, at the gaze imperative of eyes 
 
 Less holy— hesitated, or opposed 
 
 Eesistance less impulsive and more strong 
 
 To their fell fascination, which doth work 
 
 Even now — ^even now — as long as my spoilt life ! 
 
 Had I but shrunk — J!fo : back into these thoughts 
 
 I will not suffer me to wander now. 
 
 Let me forget, one moment ; let me feel 
 
 As but a moment since, when thy embrace 
 
 Startled me into the delusion sweet 
 
 That I might be even as a child, with thee ! 
 
76 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Surely, my heart is dead now to all love 
 
 As well as to all hate ; I have achieved 
 
 That victory o'er my passion, in revenge 
 
 For its persistent injuries : I have learnt 
 
 With absolute indifference to regard 
 
 All men, requiring in return no less 
 
 From men to me. But thou, bright little one, 
 
 Thou hast a spell from which I have no power 
 
 To fend myself ; it charms my heart once more, 
 
 And though I dare not open it to thee, 
 
 Though I must hold it closed to thy fair love, 
 
 Thou yet reveal'sfc to me the springs concealed 
 
 Whose pent-up waters have not lost their force ; 
 
 They might rush out once more, in surging flood 
 
 Of warm affection, overwhelming all 
 
 Their barriers, were they once unlocked . . . But thoii 
 
 Who art the first to have that dangerous power 
 
 Since one who, ruinously, long ago 
 
 Wielded it o'er my will, to my own hurt — 
 
 Thou hast nor skill nor will to wield it so. 
 
 Thou teachest me to know my heart ; to find 
 
 A truth there that I blush not to confess 
 
 To my own soul ; though unto others, now, 
 
 I may not candidly this truth avow 
 
 More than I was permitted then to hide 
 
 That self-avowing truth, whose pitiless 
 
 Betrayal was my spirit's blight. To thee 
 
 I will not breathe this truth, though thou dost seek 
 
 Its confirmation by thy prayerful look. 
 
 The love thou askest of me I may not give ; 
 
 And yet I cannot, though I would, withhold 
 
 Its fulness from thee ; though thou shouldst not seek, 
 
THE OUTCAST AND THE CHILD. 77 
 
 It were compelled. / love thee : I, -whose love 
 
 Must ever be a demon,, to all those 
 
 Who cope with it ; because it once hath been 
 
 Endued with its own curse, which clings to it 
 
 As did the leprosy to him who dared 
 
 Unhallowed contact with the infected lure 
 
 Which harmlessly passed by the holy one 
 
 Who, resolute in godly strength, declined 
 
 Its proffered bribes. — Let not my leprosy 
 
 Cleave unto thee — Be spotless from my curse ! . . . . 
 
 ..." Give thee a kiss ! " Nay, child ! — Upon my lips 
 
 Yet dwells that poison — God preserve thee from 
 
 All such contagion !....! must leave thee now. . . . 
 
 " Will I not come again % "— rWhat ! thou dost weep 
 
 Already ! — Thiukest thou to have found so soon 
 
 A friend % — ^Ah well ! In even so short a time 
 
 Hath many a soul found its immortal foe, 
 
 Being by attraction irresistible 
 
 Impelled to recognise the affinity 
 
 Which draws it on most surely to its doom ! 
 
 In just as short a time, the fateful flash 
 
 Hath oft illumed the groping consciousness 
 
 To swift perception of the glittering thread 
 
 That long o'erhead had floated unsuspect ; — 
 
 Then, at one moment's impetus, the grasp 
 
 Is ventured. — ^And that thread becomes a clue 
 
 Leading inevitably evermore 
 
 The wanderer through the darkness unrelieved ; 
 
 It never can be shaken off; it winds ■ 
 
 About his feet, entangling them ; and so 
 
 By its deceptive guidance, henceforth on 
 
 Leads him — on — on — on — onwards to the cleft 
 
78 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Predestined for his fall . . . ! blessed tears ! 
 
 Sweet child tears, ■wherein can no omen dwell 
 
 Of evil. — Dost thou weep to let me go 1 
 
 Canst thou so quickly love me ] Is the love 
 
 Of innocence so quick to be aroused, 
 
 That is not goaded by a wrathful Fate ? 
 
 Ay ! — ^but it is as quick to be forgot ! 
 
 It hath no link with consequences dire 
 
 Which, once the spring be touched, close fast upon 
 
 Their victim ; — it is not a lovely snare, 
 
 From which escape is hopeless. 0, thy love 
 
 To me, is not to fear ; — 'tis not hlach love. — 
 
 That blackness which doth line the unfathomed gloom 
 
 Of God's black hate. . . . Yes, love me, if thou wilt, 
 
 Just for this little moment ; love me, weep ! 
 
 The love that parting kills is of no worth 
 
 For weapon in the warfare devils wage. — 
 
 Thou wilt forget me, all as easily 
 
 As thou dost shed these tears ; as easily 
 
 As I, who weep not, smile : falsely I smile ; — 
 
 As thou dost truly weep ; and yet, thy tears 
 
 Are far more transitory than my smile ; 
 
 That passes with me where I may not weep ! 
 
 .... My darling ! — No, I must not come again. . . . 
 
 That I have had, for this once, access to thee 
 
 Is by some chance--— some strange mistake. Ah, no ! 
 
 Thou hast a mother ; she will keep thee from 
 
 All danger of companionship like mine, 
 
 Trust me, now, while it cannot do thee ill. — 
 
 But there must come a day, when all the aid 
 
 Of watchful love — the tenderest support 
 
 Shall lose its safe-guard ; there shall be no shield 
 
THE OUTCAST AND THE CHILD. 79 
 
 To ward from thee the fiery ordeal 
 
 Which thy soul's adversary, the malign 
 
 Devil — or God — may have ordained for thee : 
 
 Then, to the strength of thy own spirit's mail 
 
 Must thy salvation be entrusted ; then 
 
 With arms which none can wield for thee, must thou 
 
 Brave the encounter — ^pass through it alone, 
 
 And wear eternally upon thy head 
 
 The laurels snatched by thy own valour — else 
 
 The brand of irretrievable defeat ! — 
 
 Ah ! shouldst thou in that conflict ever stake 
 
 Thy happiness, thy honour — if it be 
 
 That in its issue thou must lose thy all — 
 
 God hear my solemn adjuration ! grant 
 
 That thou and I may meet again ! O, then 
 
 Will I remember, for thy sake, this hour 
 
 Whose blessedness, to thee lost as to me, 
 
 Shall then from thy remembrance faded be. 
 
 What thou hast been to me — refreshment blest 
 
 Eestoring to my languid soul the draught 
 
 Of my lost youth, of heavenly purity, — 
 
 That cannot I, for all my grateful love. 
 
 My tender yearning for thy weal, to thee 
 
 Eender :— But there may be some service sweet 
 
 Of recompense that I can do thee. — When 
 
 The world expels thee, and all sympathy 
 
 Turns from thee in thy desperate hour of need, 
 
 While yet thy heart is human sensitive, 
 
 Before it has grown hard, inured to guilt ; 
 
 When the first stroke of thy great punishment 
 
 Bewilders thee ; when thou art stunned, confused. 
 
 Scarce comprejiending all the agony 
 
8o POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Of thy life's broken future. — Come to me ! 
 
 Lean thou thy head upon me, trustingly, 
 
 As now thou dost ; and look me in the eyes 
 
 With the same confidence : I will repay 
 
 Then, if I may, this moment. I, grown old 
 
 In the sad wisdom that experience brJBfgs 
 
 (The saints say that experience is but wrought 
 
 By tribulation. — So is it with me !) 
 
 Will give thee all of comfort that I can ; 
 
 Will lavish on thy bowed head such caress 
 
 As thy own mother, if she could forgive, 
 
 Might not unshrinkingly accord ; will hear 
 
 The story of thy wretched wrong and woe 
 
 Without a look, a gesture of reproach' : — 
 
 Or, what thou wouldst not teU, wiU patient spare 
 
 To thy abashed and faltering speech.; will take 
 
 Thy weary form into my arms, that then 
 
 Shall seem a haven from the evil world, 
 
 A welcome rest, care-burdened one ! — My heart 
 
 Shall open then its record, so fast sealed 
 
 That only unto grief like mine its bonds 
 
 E'er shall give way — ^but I will tell thee aU 
 
 — All that has made me what I long have been, 
 
 And yet now I have lived through all ! . . . I wiU — 
 
 .... God ! forgive me this wild vow ! Sweet child, 
 
 I have been near- — so near, I tremble now 
 
 To think it — near to wishing that might he. 
 
 In my rash craving for the possible boon 
 
 That thus were mine to render thee. . . Oh, no ! — 
 
 Kather than contemplate the fearful thought 
 
 An instant, that thou mayst be yet like me, 
 
 Down even to level with my sympathy. 
 
THE OUTCAST AND THE CHILD. , 8i 
 
 Instead of far up on the heights, wherefrom 
 
 Thou shouldst look and spurn me in my grief, — 
 
 Bather than that, God take thy pure young life 
 
 And rescue it from a mere possible breath 
 
 Of ignominy. — ^Ah ! but thou must toil 
 
 To struggle free from the assailing mire 
 
 Through whose defilement must all life drag on j 
 
 And though thou be of might to assert thy will, 
 
 And foil the demons laying wait for thee — 
 
 Yet, with what frightful wounds thou mayst come 
 
 through 
 Thy battle ; with spent strength, and deathly pain. 
 And awful weariness. Thou mayst break thy heart 
 In keeping pure thy hands. heaven ! the lot 
 Of those that love and live is terrible ! 
 I would that thou wert saved from it ; I would 
 That thou shouldst die I — darling ! — that were best; 
 I pray God for thee, that thou soon mayst die ! 
 Why did not holy lips breathe o'er my head, 
 When I was pure as thou, the prayer which I, 
 With lips polluted, now breathe over thine '! 
 Might I have passed away from life, with smile 
 Of parting-greeting to the gentle face 
 Of that dear mother, who did fondly stoop 
 To look upon the child who lay so still 
 Upon her breast — while she strange guesses made 
 Of the angel-dreams that kept my eyelids closed — 
 had my life so ended ! — Now I had been 
 An innocent dead child ; — not yet perhaps 
 Wholly forgotten, but in loving hearts 
 Leaving a dim, dead, fragrant memory. — 
 Now, when I die, I shall be soon enough 
 
»2 POEMS OP THE FUTURE. 
 
 Forgotten ; but my fame lives with my life, 
 
 And will not leave me to oblivion 
 
 .... That laugh! that little gurglinglaugh! — itseems 
 To give the lie to my dread earnestness ; 
 The sparkles in thy merry eyes, that shine 
 Through the tear-clouds, that have not vanished 
 
 quite. . . . 
 little one ! I wiU not look on thee 
 Longer — I cannot. Dearest, say goodbye j 
 Now I must go. . . Yes, yes, my hand is cold. . . . 
 Thy nestling fingers round it close again 
 After the first start. . . . Now again, that burst 
 Of uncontrollable, exuberant mirth ! . . . 
 How little canst thou read my answering laugh ! 
 Thou deem'st it flows from like light-heartedness. 
 Even to my ears its sound falls musical — ■ 
 Although I know the note whereon 'tis struck. 
 Yes — I have taught myself the graceful art 
 Of laughter — practised spontaneity ! 
 My merriment is always at command. 
 They speak, astonished, of my levity — ■ 
 They say, I have become so frivolous- 
 Wonderful, in regard unto the weight 
 With which my life is laden ; it should be crushed. 
 No ! it is gifted with a self-recoil 
 Whose power protects it 'gainst the rudest shock. 
 My bearing shall not wantonly betray 
 The lasting sorrow preying on my heart.— 
 And yet — thou showest me that my boast is vain ; 
 With thee, I lose my cunning ; my gay tones, 
 My chosen modulations, faintly break : 
 It will not ring, my voice ; thou art too quick, 
 
iveep lune xogemer, . . . jjearesi iiiiie pei 
 
 Let me go. — I must leave thee. ... ! farewell ! 
 
KNIGHT EREANTEY. 
 
 " "Who art thou, warrior staunch and bold, 
 In arms and in mien like the knights of old 1 
 ... errant knight ! Hear this warning told — 
 Those who would dare must bear.'' 
 
 " vainly thy boding words are said ! 
 I have challenged Life : on my fearless head 
 Have fallen the bolts of her fury dread — 
 Let me dare, who so well can bear ! 
 
 " I have chosen for watchword — it glitters here 
 On the pennon that waves from my champion spear, 
 That beckons onward my bold career — : — 
 They who tdll bear may dat e. 
 
 " This is the warfare I choose for me : — 
 To wrest the great secret from destiny ! 
 ... I have proved my weapons in agony — 
 I dare — I can bear/ ... I dare ! " 
 
EWIGES SEHNEN. 
 
 Alas ! May nought than immortal be ? 
 Not even the anguish of memory ? . . 
 'Tis strange, when so long all my joys are fled, 
 That I weep, at last, for a sorrow dead ! 
 
 ! the very pain that so much has cost 
 Is too precious to be unmourned lost ; 
 'Tis the dearest sadness, to be bereft 
 
 Of the only relic my bliss had left — 
 
 The bliss that so long since went from me ; 
 
 But I vowed that its fondness should deathless be ; 
 
 No other gladness should ever take 
 
 The vacant place, for my lost love's sake ; 
 
 There was nought that again could bid me care. . . 
 
 But the Fast — all my hopes were buried there, 
 
 And my eager joys ; so, resignedly 
 
 1 turned me iinto their memory — 
 
 For that could not die ; its low voice cried 
 With a constant wail ; thrpugh my life did glide 
 Like a ghost, the one thought that hence must be 
 My haunting spirit eternally. 
 
 ! the world's current hath not ceased to flow ; 
 It holds no pause, for my stagnant woe ; 
 And I have drifted on with the stream 
 Moving unconscious, as in a dream — 
 
86 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 No interests new, no joys, no cares 
 
 Have drawn my sympathies unto theirs — 
 
 The terrible loneliness hath still 
 
 Clung unto me, as it ever will ; — 
 
 But the wild regret, that absorbed me 
 
 With passion of long intensity, 
 
 Has slow relaxed ; and my life drifts on 
 
 Away — away — ^from that bliss far gone^ — 
 
 And the haunting thoughts, in the din and the strife, 
 
 Are silenced ; the life of my seeming life^ 
 
 The inner, the only real to me, 
 
 Is merged in the outer reality. — 
 
 And I cannot, except by respites brief 
 
 Luxuriate in my cherished grief; 
 
 No longer, familiar as of old 
 
 Doth my soul with the Past secret converse hold. . . 
 
 And I miss the spectre> in the end. 
 
 That filled the place of my dearest friend ; 
 
 When that place is void, I would call back there 
 
 Even pain, that kept it from being bare,^- 
 
 That held it from all intrusion free, 
 
 Sacred, though desolate, unto me : — 
 
 Now, that the sanctified ground once more 
 
 Be common, and open as before — ■ 
 
 Free for all trifles to enter there 
 
 And efface the dark traces — I cannot bear ! 
 
 ! when every holy sign is gone 
 
 From memory — leave it alone, alone ! 
 
 It cannot, it must not be cast away — 
 
 For the faded joy's sake let it stay; 
 
 Though the hope that died, should it once more wake 
 
 Could not stir the heart that it failed to breaks 
 
EWIGES SEHNEN. 87 
 
 Could not cause one pulsing to flutter higher, 
 Nor call back one moment of fond desire — 
 Though all that so passionate real did seem 
 Hare sunk lifeless cold, as a vague, past dream. . . 
 ! let it be kept as a dream, apart- 
 Hallowed in thought to the musing heart, 
 Like the dreams of blest childhood so far away. 
 That pale fropa the mocking glare of the day. . . 
 ! worship it unto Eternity !•.... 
 Nay! — the mortal doom!. . . 0, that may not be 1 
 
 Alas ! My sweet grief I in vain recall : 
 Well may I weep ; for it was my all. 
 No joy, no sorrow, can move me now — 
 My listless soul at no shock doth bow : 
 I may not hope, and I cannot care. . . . 
 All, all is past ! . . . 0, is this — despair? 
 
LIFE. 
 
 We coTild not, if we ■would, say what is Life : 
 
 Strange, fearful essence of a thing divine. 
 
 We could not say whence comes each gentle breath 
 
 Which, as a soft wind from another laud, 
 
 Eises, and falls, and passes fleet away. . . . 
 
 Yet, life is not a vapour, to be dispelled 
 
 By a chance moment in impalpable space. 
 
 'Tis something, holy in its mystery. 
 
 Unconquerable in its inherent power^ 
 
 Mighty and deep, with an instinctive force 
 
 Self-moving — self-existent — self-enduring — 
 
 Perpetuating itself through all the strife 
 
 Of the opposing forces ; undismayed 
 
 By all its contradictions— ^evil, and death. 
 
 Fear, weakness, ignorance ; unsubdued by Fate, 
 
 Undaunted by negation ; and over doubt 
 
 Despair and error ever triumphing. . . . 
 
 Time cannot cincture Life. A record brief 
 
 Of transieateat appearances is all 
 
 Within his limits comprehended : — Sudden, 
 
 Scornfully flinging from her his frail fetters. 
 
 The exhaustless soul-life sweeps beyond his bounds, 
 
 Leaving within his tremulous grasp no clue 
 
 To guide his gropings after her trackless flight. 
 
LlfE. 89 
 
 Life ! sublime and awful ! — ^What art thou ? . . . 
 
 Stretching forth grandly o'er all time and space, 
 
 From ages remotest past to Tistas dim 
 
 Of possible shadowed-forth futurity ; 
 
 Thou endless universal ! whose elements 
 
 Compared with that vast whole which they compose 
 
 — The individual to the infinite — 
 
 Seem so poor, little, imperceptible. 
 
 Dying away as swift as they arose. 
 
 Each evanishing from the arena wide 
 
 A brief, a stifled breathing — fading away 
 
 One into another, as the years roll on 
 
 And generations pass and are forgotten. . . . 
 
 Yet is the life-flood ever proudly pouring 
 
 Itself impetuous forth ; unchecked, still moving — 
 
 The one, eternal force — to which all others 
 
 Yield — all contained in, all resolved to — thee ! 
 
 Life ! thou light of Time's dark chaos ! How 
 Dost thou awaken in the mortal breast % 
 Whence dost thou kindle that ecstatic flame 
 Which burns, more brightly ever, to no end ? 
 How dost thou enter this material world 
 And animate it by thy impulses ? 
 Where springs thy motive-power, which ruleth all 
 The universe — owning thee master, thee 
 Glorious, triumphant, bless6d, godlike Life ! 
 
 We know not, yet : — we do not know thee, Life ; 
 We wait to know thee, yon the realms of Time, 
 In thy blest native sphere — on those pure shores 
 Where mists of Death ne'er baffle the supreme sight. 
 
go POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 The earth-bound spirit, imperfect and warped as yet, 
 
 Must shrink to contemplate with giddy gaze 
 
 The mystery of that life beyond itself 
 
 Wherein all spirits have being ; origin 
 
 Of all existence, into which back flow 
 
 Its never-ending streams ; the life which never 
 
 Changes, nor pauses — strives, nor is assailed ; 
 
 Subject to no conditions — omnipotent. 
 
 We know not of the life the soul can bea* 
 
 In the completeness that she shall attain 
 
 When her high destination is revealed. 
 
 We know not of the life that is to come, 
 
 Eeceiving our rapt spirits (after the pause 
 
 In which their bondage ceases) into itself. 
 
 Bliss of existence inconceivable ! 
 
 Glorious development of the infinite force 
 
 Lying latent, and but partially concealed, 
 
 In the frail germ entrusted to the charge 
 
 Of struggling, unassured Humanity. 
 
 Who, from this faint and doubtful first assay 
 
 Of her immortal powers — anew endowed 
 
 With strength unfailing — ^riseth invincible 
 
 , Above all limitations — beyond the sense 
 
 Of her own insufficieuce— ;perfeoted 
 
 Into the fuliiess of — Eternal Life t 
 
FIEST LOVE. 
 (Entered Apprenticeship. ) 
 
 I HAD just left school ; so I was not a school-boy ; 
 
 Was ready to go into life j and the way 
 I was taught to know the world — ^my first lesson, 
 So eagerly rushed at, was this — a love lesson : — 
 
 Given to me in a " motherly way. " 
 
 She was a maiden ; fair, slim, stately — 
 
 A year or two out of her teens;, they say ; 
 
 I did not think, was she younger or older ; 
 
 I did not see that a boy might not love her, 
 
 Or dream she could love in a motherly way. 
 
 I did not mean to fall in love with her ; 
 
 But I was pleased that she deigned to J)lay 
 With a cavalier so young and so simple, 
 When she accepted my acts of homage : 
 
 (Shd took them, it seems, in a motherly way !) 
 
 Boys are vain : I was not quite so presuming 
 As to fancy I could be helper or stay, 
 
 Or give to her all she would want from a lover ; 
 
 Yet it seemed that she liked to have me follow her, 
 My patroness sweet, with her mothetly way ! 
 
92 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 She treated me as no child : I was flattered 
 
 — Spite of misgivings from day to day — 
 At finding her put on the same little coquetries 
 That she assumed with her whiskered admirers, 
 For me : — to call ihxii a motherly way ! 
 
 Once I fixed my eyes long upon her — 
 
 Too long for such warm glances to stay ; 
 
 I was down at her feet, looking up at her ; 
 
 She turned her face from me, would not look down to me 
 — Truly, a very motherly way ! 
 
 She laid her soft little hands on my shoulder — 
 Tenderly, gently their light touch lay ; 
 
 I never stopped, to think did she know it ? 
 
 To wonder, whether she thought I knew it % — 
 I did not feel it a motherly way. 
 
 I dared to ask, would she let me kiss her ? 
 
 She moved not from me, nor pushed me away ; 
 Only she blushed, and her eyes drooped a little ; 
 And she let a half-smile on her lip-curves linger — 
 
 . . AU, of course, in most motherly way ! . . 
 
 Every charm, every grace that she had, all her prettiness 
 
 Would she show off, merely on mej display 
 The wonderful power her eyes had of changing. 
 In sudden brightenings, in wistful effusions — 
 Indescribably : — ! in a " motherly way ! " 
 
 Her woman's wit dazzling she laid out before me ; 
 Brought her force of mind to bear on me j nay, 
 
FIRS! LOVE. 93. 
 
 Did not grudge from the stores of her deep soul-treasure 
 To murmur bewilderings cf mysteries, of secrets 
 Too dangerous to touch on, in motherly way. 
 
 Why would she drift into subjects so earnest 
 
 With me, if she looked on me fit but for play ? 
 Like the boys she teased, and the girls she petted ? 
 
 ! her voice in speaking to me, rang — faltered — 
 
 Sank low and faint ; not in motherly way. 
 
 She feared not to seize my impulses ; mould them. 
 Youth's strong-springing thoughts, as they rose ; 
 to her sway 
 She fashioned the tendencies, principles, feelings 
 Whose influence must bend my whole life-course ; — 
 took on her 
 Such onus, for sake of her motherly way. 
 
 1 heard her answer her brothers, laughing, 
 
 (" You will flirt with even a boy ! " said they) 
 — " Flirt ? not a bit of it ! — He is good fun for me ; 
 Keally, I take quite an interest in him — 
 
 Just, you know, in a motherly way ! " 
 
 ... I was a boy, after all ; she a woman 
 
 I ought to have known it ; she knew it ; — ^yea 
 She did not forget herself. — I, for my folly 
 Had my hard stroke ; learnt its moral, unplaining — 
 That was what came of the motherly way ! 
 
LAST LOVE. 
 
 [Seqml to ' ' Entered ApprentkesMp. ") 
 
 Good-bye, dearest ! My heart calls after. 
 And follows you far. You think it is done, 
 Tour love-dream ; you know not my heart is won, 
 You cannot listen into its laughter. 
 Short shall this parting be---soon past ; 
 And then — I come back. . . . and own to you aU : I am 
 yours, at last. 
 
 I need to be wooed : it is women's doing ; 
 Their own the blame, if my faith is gone 
 In reflections of my own love-gazes on 
 Their pretty stare.— Of that kind of wooing 
 I have had enough. Such meaningless eyes 
 Have looked me through to brief fascination, with 
 simpers and sighs. 
 
 I have been a gone coon so often : the breaking 
 Of hearts I have learnt and unlearnt in a day ; 
 Have triiled two or three hours away 
 In one evening, with two or three styles of love-making: 
 Have practised on different subjects : — the same 
 I have found with them all : at next meeting, they 
 quite have forgotten my name ! 
 
LAST LOVS. 95 
 
 Without a thrill, in seizing or dropping, 
 Many a careless hand have I kissed ; 
 Prais'ed the brightness of many eyes ; but no mist 
 Has risen into them, shyly stopping 
 The compliment^— coolly asked by a look-^. 
 I can read, unembarassed, the face of a hold 
 coquette, as a book. 
 
 But you ! — I can even detect the throbbing 
 Of the fingers you lay on my arm so soft ; 
 You lean on me always so lightly ; and oft 
 In the quick caught breath I fancy a sobbing. 
 As you half retract the low words you say — 
 I have to bend down so close, to be sure; — that 
 frights them away ! 
 
 I am sick — yes, downright sick, of love-making j 
 Heartily tired, at last, of play : 
 I cannot play at it with you ; your way 
 Is so strange — ^your innocent earnest-taking. 
 There is more to you in love than " high art." 
 A conquest is not, to you, good payment as price of 
 a heart. 
 
 It spoils all fun j for you have no notion 
 Of fighting me with my own weapons ; the rest 
 Of women are aU fair game ; nay, the best 
 They have had of it yet with me. My devotion 
 Is spent in this warfare of gallantry ; 
 I have met my equal _ before ;— but you are tqo 
 much for me. 
 
96 JFOEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 You call up all the old chivalrous feeling, 
 You grave little darling ! that many a day 
 In the long years past I have mocked away. 
 How much there was left for your revealing 
 In the depths of my unstirred, stagnant heart 
 I could not have deemed. — Emotion made me 
 tremble to part ! 
 
 You believe yet in the object of living ; 
 The dream of existence is real to you. 
 Pity to wake — as you sooii must do 
 If I leave you alone to your fate ; all giving — 
 And nought in exchange to be taken ! So 
 Goes the lot of the trusting and simple — to teach 
 them wisdom, I trow. 
 
 I have learnt it ; the women have taught me. 
 Once, an ideal of womanhood 
 I had : I have lost it ; — if ought as good 
 As your sweet perfection mytriumphs had bought me, 
 I had not found so bitter to drink 
 The cup of revenge : betraying is sad as betrayal, I 
 think. 
 
 I cannot be cynic with you. For passion 
 Capacity all is worn away ; 
 But I feel my heart opening day by day, 
 In a tender, fatherly-brotherly fashion : — 
 To love and protect you, your guide to be, 
 And have you cling to the rest of my life, is future 
 to me. 
 
LAST LOVE. 97 
 
 — It can be. A quiet home — affection 
 
 Easing my calmed life of all its care — 
 
 My little one nestling beside me there, 
 Her young life growing to my direction — 
 
 Her thoughts, her hopes, and her will all mine — 
 
 For that let the memory vanish of flirtations toasted 
 in wine. 
 
 Let me drink to the joys of love at its truest. 
 In the wine I drink at my own fireside^ 
 Where soon I shall lead you, a happy bride. 
 
 We wiU live retired, with friends of the fewest ; 
 No show to disturb us ; no gaiety 
 To break our peace ; — I have done with all dash, all 
 mad levity. 
 
 I shall settle down. We will live together 
 Models of virtue, tasting home-bliss 
 To the fuU. ... 0, have you a guess of this ? 
 
 Does your fluttering heart muse this moment, whether 
 I think of you after last night's good-bye ? — 
 Send your thoughts in search of me ! — trust them to 
 reach me safe, by and bye. 
 
 Absence will test us. I do not fear you ; 
 
 Others may come with their vows : you will be 
 Your own heart's keeper. Keep true to me — 
 
 Guard your best love still for me ; . . . and near you 
 Soon you will find me again, — to claim 
 The beautiful gift you have taught me to prize. 
 You will be just the same. 
 
98 POEMS OP THE PVTVRE. 
 
 At my first step you will start ; our meeting 
 Will scare away from your eyes the sad smile ; 
 The rustle of my first kiss for a while 
 Will charm back the blush that rose for my greet- 
 ing. ... 
 And what shall I gay after that ? . . . After all 
 I do not know ! . . . Ah, bewitcher ! / love ymi — 
 You have me in thrall ! 
 
GLOKIOUSLY FELL. 
 
 Against the arched ■wall of the transept white 
 Eises a marble sculptiired monument, 
 . Commemorative of the fame of one 
 Who died in battle. Flung beside his steed,. 
 In whom the throes of life's last agony 
 Are quivering, leans the warrior, sunk to earth. 
 His limbs relax ; scarce can the nerveless form 
 Support the bead thrown back with straining gaze 
 To look where, closely nearing him, there speeds 
 The figure, strong and beautiful, of one 
 Superb and fleet — angel of Victory. 
 The solemn messenger, with hovering wings, 
 Droops toward the flaccid hand which stretches forth 
 Unto the wreath of bays suspended held 
 In the fair angel-hand, above the form 
 Of the dying hero. On the extended hand 
 Death falls, prohibiting its mortal touch. 
 And the wreath floats for ever, in that pause, 
 
 Above the brow in death immortalised 
 
 Thus speaks the marble eloquence j— below 
 Is graven in the stone " Fell gloriously." 
 
 And in the spirit awful sanctified 
 Of the solitary gazer, who stands long 
 
POEMS OF THE FLTURE. 
 
 In contemplation of the mystery- 
 Presented in such symbolism divine, 
 Heroic aspirations rise in flood, 
 Transforming, with their suddenness, the soul 
 From its wonted state of slow conformity 
 To the requirements of the sordid world, 
 Its gentle acquiescence in the life 
 That with its dictum so hath worked upon 
 The imperiousness of its first native bent, 
 As to quite tone it down, and smoothly check 
 The enthusiasm that once was holy fire. — 
 The compromise with practicality 
 Its trammels loosens now, unwarily ; 
 The youthful ardour, not all calmed away. 
 Upsurging sweeps before it in its rush 
 All prudence of the faculties matured, 
 And plays the master. In the swift-freed thought 
 Ideal anticipations reawake 
 Of glory possible, of fame to seek, 
 Of a career elect, a future wooed, 
 Of a vocation claiming all the power, 
 The love, the passion, and the sacrifice, 
 The patience, and the energy of life. 
 No danger seems an obstacle ; no count 
 Of risk can make him pause : no boding dread 
 Of long renunciation, of regret. 
 Of disappointment, or of failing end. 
 Can hold back his quick daring. Only there 
 Where peril challenges, and scorn to be 
 Confronted, and suspense to be endured — 
 There seems the path worthy of his proud choice : 
 And if prophetic in his spirit looms 
 
GLORIOUSL Y FELL. 
 
 A warning of the terror imminent, 
 
 That cannot be escaped at last, he feels 
 
 In that high moment equal to the fate 
 
 Of meeting it — ^not quailing at its blight. 
 
 If after his struggle, when the end has come. 
 
 Breaking his chosen pathway — in the speech 
 
 Of men must live the record that he fell — 
 
 Let them, then say " He fell," but stop not there : 
 
 His record be — " He fell — ^but gloriously." .... 
 
 Magic impulsion, strange constraining power 
 
 Of those inspiring words ! — Strange meaning, words 
 
 Unblending. Was it glorious, then, to fall 1 
 
 Was not the glory for the rest reserved. 
 
 Those who returned victorious, and who wore 
 
 Their laurel on the living brows ? . . Ah no ! 
 
 Better to die : better to have the life 
 
 Finished to perfectness, triumphant end. 
 
 It is at death alone that angels come. 
 
 And hold out those celestial crowns of bays 
 
 Which never mortal-opening eyes may see. 
 
 The dying glance can see them, with its power, 
 
 Its clearness of far reaching vision brief. 
 
 Such vision renders all unfit for life 
 
 The sated eyes — as much as holy awe 
 
 Forbids renewal, of life's scenes profane. 
 
 After the holy unction at the last 
 
 Hath been administered to him who waits 
 
 For rending of the screen before heaven's light. — 
 
 Best and most satisfying fate is his 
 
 Whose hand falls stifi' in death ere he can grasp 
 
 The withering bays which earthly honour life. 
 
POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 For him the immortal bays are flourishing 
 That twine their wreaths unto his memory. 
 
 How many a glorious life is left uncrowned 
 Until the crowning moment comes with death ! 
 Such of the noblest lives is epitaph, 
 " Gloriously fell." .... 
 
 How often is the fall 
 But measure of the height of the ascent — 
 How many a mountain summit, nearly scaled, 
 Glooms back stern satire on the aspirants 
 Who with the infatuate gaze of late despair 
 Behold it, lone and inacessible 
 Towering in its cold grandeur, as they reel 
 From the unyielding precipice ; while far 
 Below, the myriads journeying through the plain. 
 Pursue their even round, saunter or crawl, 
 Eest when they will, and come unto the end 
 Of their appointed circle, having made 
 The passage round the threatening mountain's foot 
 Safely and peacefully — to iind the end 
 Merely as the beginning. — ! to fall 
 Means often but to have too short attained : 
 To aspire, stupendous, to the infinite, 
 And be by shackles of the finite tripped — 
 That is to fall. — 'Glorious it is to fall ! 
 Most true, most holy end for yearning aims, 
 Fulfilment all-sufficient of the hopes 
 And sacred pledges of the most intense 
 And earnest manhood, in those thriUing words 
 " Fell gloriously." . . . 
 
 And here, in this most blest 
 
GLORIOUSLY FELL. 103 
 
 Most solemnising presence of our fane, 
 
 This hero-temple ; here, the hallowing pledge 
 
 I take within my soul, and vow myself 
 
 To its observance with aU loyalty. 
 
 All truth and deep attachment ; changelessly 
 
 Constant to keep in view to my life's end 
 
 This martial-strong resolve that burns in me, 
 
 Whose utterance apotheosis finds 
 
 In the sublimely sculptured emblem there. 
 
 — For ever are we all at war with life ; 
 
 And, conquering or conquered, may not hope 
 
 To come back from the field, bearing our bays ; 
 
 So then, when soon or late disarmed I fall 
 
 Let it at least be gloriously. ... God ! 
 
 — So rise the prayer I breathe in the pure name 
 
 Of the ultimate religion, that includes 
 
 The best, the dearest of all worships old. 
 
 The capability of all to come, 
 
 The whole of spiritual sympathies. 
 
 Whatever longings after Deity 
 
 Have purified men's thoughts, and raised their wills. 
 
 From time to endless ; — unreproved by doubt, 
 
 I, lifted now to rapturous reverence, pray 
 
 In that religion universal — God ! 
 
 Be my pledge faithful kept, my service true. 
 
 Its end accomplished nobly, and my fight 
 
 Victoriously achieved by glorious fall ! 
 
KINDEED SPIRITS. 
 {Emilia Viviani to SheUey in absence.) 
 
 Never to meet again, we two have parted ; 
 
 Shall we to one another be no more 1 
 It has been all then but a blissful dream ; the brief 
 illusion 
 
 Faded, the Beat is left — blank as before. — 
 
 No ! not for that hath risen the glorious vision 
 Flashing on my bewildered eyes the light 
 
 Which my despair, in aidless struggles with the 
 dreadful darkness. 
 Has passionately called — the blind for sight. 
 
 No more vouchsafed than a pure, transient gleaming 
 O'er the gloom ; but I will hold for ever dear 
 
 It has been : — yea : the concentration of the utter 
 brightness 
 Which comes, for once, to make all endless clear. 
 
 Can I forget 1 It hath no durance finite. 
 
 That joy ; not to be grasped, then let go by — 
 
 But, now / know : it was the Eevelation, one-sufficient, 
 At last, in response to my heart's wild cry. 
 
 Alone, so long, have I all vainly striven 
 In grief, with questionings and perplexity, 
 
KINDRED SPIRITS. 105 
 
 Horribly — hopelessly — and yet not daunted : in one 
 supreme moment 
 The life-withheld transcendence is found — in thee ! 
 
 Souls that have been so close, but once, are nearer 
 — For all the distance that must come between — 
 
 Each to the other thro ugh Eternity, than those who linger 
 In bonds where never parting may have been. 
 
 There is a wondrous sympathy inspireth 
 Affinities in hearts which it doth move ; 
 
 Absence can loose not that strong charm that rules 
 their separate throbbings. 
 Nor null their union ; — it is more than love ! 
 
 Love may be bann'd to us ; the blessed solace 
 Which others yearn for ; — to face together strife. 
 
 To lean upon each other, thus work out our unsolv'd 
 destinies blended, 
 Beading with mutual gaze the spell of life — 
 
 Deeming it were so, only ; and not knowing 
 What sorrow, in compensation, teacheth me ; — 
 
 By reverent commi;ining with sacred doom intimate, 
 to interpret 
 Aweless, her mystic and unscanned decree. . . . 
 
 The phantasms of our outward self, — at present 
 Life keepeth them apart i as Death doth seem 
 
 To ■ sever those Life's mockery held deluded yet : — 
 known truly 
 Life and Death are changes but of one fleet dream. 
 
io6 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Both substitues of shifting shows unreal 
 
 For the true substance that in soul doth dwell ; 
 
 While that — enduring age through symbols inadequate 
 — ne'er, ceaseth 
 Eesistless sole, all Being to compel. 
 
 Veiled by whatever form perceptible ; rendered 
 In what entanglement of circumstance ; 
 
 The subtle power of the sweet influence, uncontrollable 
 Moulds individual destiny — Twt chance. 
 
 Not chance ! Inevitably souls each other 
 
 Sway and subdue, unchecked by space or time ; 
 
 Mingle, absorbing each other's essence ; inscrutably 
 evolving 
 Action, whose harmony is Fate sublime. 
 
 The guiding clues each of the other's being 
 
 Coming in contact once — intricately 
 Are twinid ; then, though courses devious draw them 
 on to spheres far sundered. 
 
 They evermore guard innate unity. 
 
 Too vast the scope of such wound fates for scanning 
 Of mortal dazed conception ; mystery blest 
 
 Instinctive conscious but in the initiate ; cherished 
 secret, 
 By spirits whose force doth 'neath their semblance rest. 
 
KINDRED SPIRITS. 107 
 
 For them — ^the " might have beens " shall be translated 
 Into the perfectness of one full speech ; 
 
 Lost glimpses of the unattainable — all comprehended 
 In the wide sweep of one view of boundless reach. 
 
 Under all maze of thought, and deed, and passion, 
 Souls yet keep true to their deep law divine ; 
 
 Through this life — incomplete phase of existence 
 infinite — and beyond it — 
 'Tis changeless — I thine only — and thou — mine. 
 
FEOM THE SECRET STUDIO. 
 Two Pictures, 
 
 NlOBE. 
 There stands she, stately cold, and queenly fair, 
 Enooroneted by her own dark hair ; 
 In the grey eyes, 'neath that cold brow divine, 
 Doth cold light ever without sparkling shine. 
 Man cannot guess from her cold smile unmoved 
 If ever she have hated, or have loved ; — 
 Nor from the cold, impassive hands, now pressed 
 Coldly upon the cold unheaving breast. 
 From those cold eyes long have the tears been gone ; 
 Those firm, cold lips no quiver lighteth on ; — 
 Yet on the erect, cold, marble-rigid head 
 Some awful weight of sorrow, heavy dread 
 Must once have fallen ; — and passed away again. 
 Having on memory an eternal pain 
 For burden left ; whence comes the stony stare 
 That from the Past looks ceaseless through the fair 
 Stone-cold and tearless eyes. But what joys dead 
 Have stonily thus fixed the unbowed head — 
 May not be learnt ; — this only can be known. 
 By gazing on the face so fearful grown — 
 That there is loss whose weeping turns the heart to 
 stone. 
 
 Medusa. 
 This is, indeed, the face that once hath been 
 So beautiful ; that now may not be seen 
 
FROM THE SECRET STUDIO. 109 
 
 Without a blighting horror, that doth chill 
 
 The heart's warm life, and petrify the will. 
 
 But still, though no more lovely, all who dare 
 
 To gaze into it see that it is fair ; 
 
 Yea, that a terrible beauty therein lies — 
 
 In the unextinguished torment of the eyes ; 
 
 The anguish burning in the frenzied glare 
 
 Of those wide eyes, whose fury is despair, 
 
 Hath more of fascination than doth dwell 
 
 In tenderest love-glances ; yea, more fell 
 
 The look flashed from their deathless agony 
 
 Than the longing pain wherein sweet love doth die. 
 
 In the awed gazer's mind, wild doubts begin 
 
 Their haunting question — " Is it sorrow, or sin. 
 
 Whose fearful curse is on such beauty laid, 
 
 Whose evil breath hath good and gladness stayed ? " . . 
 
 The spirit that strives this mystery accursed 
 
 To interpret, answereth — alas ! . . . Sin first — 
 
 Then sorrow : as the one was, so must be 
 
 The other ; consequence eternally 
 
 Evolving retribution ; certain fate 
 
 From whose wound chains no struggle can extricate. . . 
 
 . . And ah ! be sure, those deadly eyes have not 
 
 Their cruel gleam without full payment got ; 
 
 The secret of their fatal power must be 
 
 In the incompensable cruelty 
 
 Dealt first to her : — So cruel are alone 
 
 Eyes whose own torture tortures into stone ! 
 
 Some speechless wrong hath unto her been wrought 
 
 Wherein herself had part ; but shuddering thought 
 
 Can frame thereof no adequate conceit ; 
 
 The infinite pain no finite sense can meet. — 
 
no POEMS OE THE FUTURE. 
 
 Light were it to divine, at least, her crime 
 
 Was love ; but of its forms, that through all time 
 
 Change, with new terrors — which, it was that made 
 
 Her forfeit — ne'er to mortal soul afraid 
 
 Hath been revealed. Such punishment as hers 
 
 Must cast its bane o'er the whole universe : 
 
 The measure of her suffering must be paid 
 
 By all who look on what she hath been made : — 
 
 Thus never shall on life the ancient curse be stayed. 
 
IN PACE. 
 
 ! EESTFUL sweetness that o'er me creeps — 
 
 Till I fall back into the reverie 
 Where each regret, each reproach, charmed sleeps — 
 
 ! where, if not here, is peace for me 1 
 For me, for me, who have long forsworn 
 
 The quiet and calm that in earth's joys seem ; — 
 Put them away, as at breath of mom 
 
 We lay by the other self of dream. 
 
 There was a blessedness, long ago. 
 
 That kept my heart so safe in its spell — 
 My very soul wonders now, to know 
 
 How holy it was — yet -I feel it well : 
 'Twas the innocence of my childhood's day ; — 
 
 0, not its carelessness, not its mirth 
 Would I crave now — so long since passed away — 
 
 But I dream here its truth come back to eaarth ! 
 
 Once, all this calmness could weary me. — 
 
 A restless longing, a deep desire 
 In the fling, in the changes of life to be. 
 
 Stormed at my heart, till my blood was fire. 
 All woes, all wrongs on my soul to bear 
 
 In the fight for pleasure, seemed me best ; — 
 Now the strife is o'er that I prayed to dare. 
 
 How sweet it is to return to rest ! 
 
POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 — To try every joy that life can give, 
 
 And every sorrow, in losing more — 
 Until we deem that to cease to live 
 
 Were acme of all that went before — 
 Then, when exhausted passion is low 
 
 And languid, to be o'erwhelmed with bliss — 
 Passive to yield to its calm, strong flow — 
 Ah ! what is happiness, if not this ? . . . , 
 
 I may sink, in a trance that comes most nigh 
 
 Unconsciousness of identity. 
 As I gaze on the lights that shift o'er the sky 
 
 And glimmer opaline on the sea. 
 I cannot tire now — tire to gaze 
 
 Through the fluttering tracery of my bower 
 On the lucent hues in their dim spray haze, 
 
 And the clear green, flecked with the white foam 
 shower. 
 
 My every thought with my eyes is led 
 
 To the bright enchantment that keeps them bowed ; 
 The flash of the silver sweeps that spread 
 
 O'er the grey stretch under the morn-rent cloud. 
 While the measured monody faint doth greet 
 
 My ear, from far, of the sighing waves 
 Plashing around the rocks at my feet 
 
 Ere they leap high into the distant caves. 
 
 How blessed, to let the sunlight stream 
 O'er shade that the griefs of life have brought ; 
 
 To lose the sense, in its glorying gleam 
 
 Of the stain on feeling, and wish, and thought ! 
 
IN PACE. 113 
 
 0, sorrow and joy alike may fade, 
 
 Or mingle to tinge my soul's cloud-gloom ; 
 
 The shadows and lights whence its sky is made 
 Are high yon the region of their doom ! 
 
THREE ASPECTS OF "THE LOVE OF WOMEN." 
 
 KATHLEEN'S INVOCATION. 
 
 {To Si. Kevin, sleeping in his mountain cell), 
 
 .... Asleep ! 0, innocent, childlike, holy sleep ! — 
 
 Dreamless : no haunting thoughts may dare disturb 
 
 The sweet serenity of thy tranquil brow. 
 
 'Tis I, methinks, who dream : — to stand so close, 
 
 Beside thee — look upon thy face again, — 
 
 And yet thou knowst it not. I must not stir. 
 
 Else might my lightest sigh chance mar thy rest. 
 
 I would not have thee open thy calm eyes, 
 
 By penitential tears so purified 
 
 As only without shrinking to endure 
 
 The visions beatific which surround 
 
 With sacred spell thy blessed solitude, — 
 
 To encounter them with the detested sight 
 
 Of this face — this once loved, now hated face ; — 
 
 God knows how long its memory troubled thee, 
 
 And shut out from thy soul its peaceful thoughts, 
 
 Becalliug to thee hours of sinful joy 
 
 With horrible temptation — tiU at last 
 
 Thou didst grow mighty, through thy fasts and prayers, 
 
 Aad fleshly torture, and the still more fierce 
 
 Conflicts with thy own human heart — with all 
 
 That once was as thyself, that now hath been 
 
 Cast from thee, leaving thee mere saint ; — and now, 
 
 As thy soul loathes the thronging fiends, who come 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. IIS 
 
 Around thee in thy hours of weakest strength 
 To assail thee with their impious mockery, 
 And peril thy salvation ; — as o'er them 
 Thou yet dost triumph ; — so thou loathest me j 
 Dost triumph, so, o'er my forsaken love. 
 
 ! never dost thou give one tender thought 
 To her, the lost through love of thee ; no more 
 Dost thou look back — for that were sacrilege, 
 
 1 would not that thou wert so frail — upon 
 That expiate time when to each other we 
 
 Were all on earth — and that was more than Heaven ! 
 
 No pity canst thou feel — (thai were a sin, 
 
 Perhaps, — I must not wish it — ) for my woes 
 
 That have outlived thine : thou hast Heaven on earth. 
 
 Now ; and between us there is fixed a gulf . . . 
 
 ! it is terrible ! — I see thee still, 
 
 But with a cruel, ever maddening sense 
 
 Of separation, that of death beyond. 
 
 Thou art as far from me — as God ! And still 
 
 Like him, more fearful that thou art so near. . . . 
 
 Those hands, that lie so restful on thy breast 
 
 Folded, as in brief pause of wrestling prayer.-^ 
 
 Are they the very hands, warm flesh and blood 
 
 That once clasped mine ?— Seized them imperiously. 
 
 Compelling them to passionate caress 1 — 
 
 That drew me fervently to thy embrace 
 
 Until our faces met % — In that close kiss 
 
 How hot my lips felt thine . . . O Heaven ! those lips 
 
 On which there lingers now the softest smile, 
 
 Eelio of thy unearthly musings How 
 
 Couldst thou have deemed that there were danger yet 
 In my cursfed presence — all unfelt by thee, 
 
ii6 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 The angel guarded ; — ^how should I have power 
 
 To break through that charmed atmosphere, that here 
 
 Shieldeth thee ? — if to fiends impenetrable 
 
 Much more to me, faint, trembling reprobate 
 
 Mortal, by mortals and immortals spumed, 
 
 Bearing my outward shame and inward grief 
 
 With an unbreaking heart ; yet from the spell 
 
 Of this thy holiness, shrinking in dread. 
 
 Thou needst not fear my desecrating band 
 
 Touching thy own imploringly, to feel 
 
 The pulse responsive to its thriU. once more. 
 
 Thy lips are cleansed : mine have once tasted hhodn^ 
 
 And never ought can slake their thirst again. 
 
 .... Eestlessly as I stray, roaming the haunts 
 
 Of that dear past, too falsely beautiful. 
 
 My feet are driven hither ; the steep path 
 
 To me in vain denies the access barred 
 
 To other wanderers ; lightly the ascent 
 
 I scale ; no terror holds me back : — and here 
 
 Beside thy desolate couch, by the lone crag, 
 
 Thy only shelter from the mountain blasts, 
 
 Thou silent watcher of the precipice 
 
 That lieth darkly down, far down below 
 
 The sullen guardianship of thy retreat — 
 
 Here do I crouch ; dizzy, and stunned, and faint ; 
 
 Stifling my frantic breathing, hushing down 
 
 The gasping throbs of my quick-leaping heart. 
 
 Lest they should to thy slumber chaste betray 
 
 Intrusion so unhallowed. . . . ! it is 
 
 No cheat of hope that leads me thus to thee, 
 
 Luring me to renewal of the bliss 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. 117 
 
 That but a little while ago— long, 
 
 Long while ! — My soul's life and its death between — - 
 
 Was real :— r-for now, although its memory 
 
 Is all too vividly burned into me 
 
 To leave my heart erased of it an hour — 
 
 Now, it is more than past. . . If thou wert dead — 
 
 (Alas ! Alas ! Why eouldst thou not have died % 
 
 Then might my thoughts have followed thee to heaven, 
 
 And to find thee, my prayers had day and night 
 
 Ascended tirelessly unto the saints — 
 
 And I had so been saved ! . . . .) — If thou wert dead, 
 
 And 'twere thy corpse thus coldly beautiful 
 
 Lying umoved before me — I were not 
 
 More still in my despair, more stricken mute 
 
 Before the solemn sight — than by the look 
 
 Of pure oblivion on thy sleeping face. . . . 
 
 If thou shouldst sudden wake, and see my eyes 
 
 Bent on thee — thou need'st start not from their gaze ; 
 
 There shines no more pleading reproach^— no more 
 
 Importunate entreaty in these eyes 
 
 Forwept — which once were lighted by the glow 
 
 Kindled respondent in them by the flash 
 
 Of thy most ardent glances. — ^Ah, fond light 
 
 Extinct for ever ! — Dread no more its power 
 
 To dazzle thee — I feel, thou hast no part 
 
 In ought of earth, — ^white clothed in purity ! 
 
 Thou unto holiness hast given up love : 
 
 And I for love have given up holiness. 
 
 Thou to thy soul's weal hast made sacrifice 
 
 Of me, and of thy love : ... for thy soul's weal 
 
 Thei I resign — ^but ah 1 not hve — not love ! 
 
Ii8 POEMS Ot THE fUTURE. 
 
 I have made sacrifice of my own soul, 
 
 And in return have but my guilty love. 
 
 And yet, that love, all bitter and accursed, 
 
 Without one sweet alleviation — reft 
 
 Of every solace, every soothing hope — 
 
 Is more to me than Heaven or holiness. 
 
 I would not part with one of its true pangs 
 
 For the eternal bliss of saintly souls ; 
 
 Nor render up my passionate memories 
 
 Of those few hours of sweet, sad heedless joy, 
 
 Though every one can count long, dragging months 
 
 Of torturing retribution. All the pain 
 
 Of the eternity of suiFering 
 
 Which must requite that bygone happiness 
 
 Is far outweighed by the surviving bliss 
 
 Of but one moment of enchanted love. — 
 
 One of those moments lived in thy embrace, 
 
 That cannot be recalled : — Not all thy vows 
 
 Of abnegation can undo its speU, 
 
 Nor from my heart efface its impress deep. 
 
 No penance, or of God or man devised 
 
 Can stamp it out. No ! while my soul hath life 
 
 (Which, for its everlasting punishment, 
 
 Must be conceded,) nought shall wrest from me 
 
 The recognition in my spirit of thine, 
 
 The consciousness of what hath been. — Hath been % 
 
 Nay is for ever. — Thou art mine no more, 
 
 And with the gladness which thou didst renounce 
 
 Is gone, perforce, my portion of delight — 
 
 But love, in sorrow immortalised for me 
 
 Hath now become my all in all. And still 
 
 It must be so. Through whate'er change henceforth 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. 119 
 
 My demon-transformation draweth me — 
 This mighty, all-engrossing love must cling 
 Inseparable, to my identity. , . , . 
 I will teach devils what is human love 
 That cannot be extinguished by hell-iire ; 
 How, in the endless realm of sin and woe 
 Where penitence, they say, is even shut out, 
 And all the gentler feelings that still dwell 
 Mere, in lost souls, are turned to passions fierce, 
 And horrible remorse alone may reign — 
 How even there Love can be conqueror, 
 Carrying his triumphs 'midst the loveless fiends. 
 My damn6d soul shall scornfully refuse 
 To bend beneath the rule of envious hate. 
 Through all the execrations blasphemous 
 Uttered against the blessed — I alone, 
 Companionless in agony, will gaze 
 Up to the far Heaven from the infinite depths. 
 And see thee in thy rapture — unalloyed 
 By thought of my perdition — ^unperturbed 
 In the eternal ecstasy wherein 
 Thy heavenly adoration hath calm joy, 
 Enduring in a passionless repose 
 Of perfect satisfaction. ... I will look, 
 Undazzled by the glories of the rays 
 Of the intense lustre — by the majesty 
 Of Godhead, awful frowning in its wrath 
 On the doomed sinner, all unterrified ; — 
 Look, through the ages, . . . only look on thee ! 
 Enough for me, enough to bear me through 
 The unintermittent torture steadfastly, 
 Be knowledge of thy bliss celestial, 
 
120 POEMS OF 7 HE FUTURE. 
 
 And contemplation of thy perfeotness. . . . 
 
 After brief struggle, thou hast overcome ; 
 
 Wear ceaseless thou the crown of martyrdom, 
 
 So be it mine to bear its cross for thee 
 
 Now, and hereafter. Thou art victor : I 
 
 Am vanquished ; and at my great victor's stroke 
 
 I bow submissive ; taking all the ills 
 
 He doth award to me, with worship meek ; 
 
 Kissing his feet, who has bound me as his slave 
 
 For all eternity-^for it is He, 
 
 The mightiest, dearest master o'er the earth, 
 
 — Ay, and o'er Hell, whither I follow him : 
 
 'Tis love, the beauteous victor ; and since Heaven 
 
 Is banned unto his sway — I would not have 
 
 My portion there. Bather weep oat my life 
 
 Of vain regrets-then, deathless, evermore 
 
 Consuming, not consumed, in flames of doom 
 
 Cherish my human love, my lovely sin — 
 
 Than share thy blessed saintly state with thee ; 
 
 Dwell on for aye,, like thee, in Paradise, 
 
 Absorbed in heavenly love, and God — not thee ! 
 
 ... Be thou, more glorious, victor over Love, 
 
 And as thy meed, take Heaven."-To me, leave Hell, 
 
 And quenchless love, and burning thoughts of thee. ... , 
 
 Ah ! but . . if it were thus : were we but so 
 Separate — thou in Heaven, and I in Hell — ■ 
 There were not then this dull, this sickening pain 
 Longer for me ; which every dreary hour 
 Writhes round my heart, crushing it down even here. 
 ! this is worse than parting !— --thus to be 
 In the same life with thee, and know our souls 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. 121 
 
 Severed irreparably. — ^Were my woe 
 
 Infinite, I could bear it ; as I will 
 
 With patience infinite, in the life to come; 
 
 But ! to go back now into the world, 
 
 The laughing, joyous world, that once hath been 
 
 So beautiful for me ; and in the crowd 
 
 Of living, loving creatures, all alone 
 
 Struggle with my abiding curse of guilt — 
 
 Unworthy even to raise a thought to thee, 
 
 Yet with a restless yearning still impelled 
 
 To sink myself, with all my aching griefs. 
 
 In thy existence, which absorbeth mine 
 
 With placid, cruellest unconsciousness — 
 
 While thou, in thy proud sanctity, art held 
 
 So far aloof — unchanging, though so changed 
 
 To me, whom life nor death shall change for thee. . , . 
 
 Would that were at an end. . . . The end must be. . . 
 
 But in this waiting for it, surely, lies 
 
 The very essence of the bitterness 
 
 Of my atonement. . . . Ah ! methiuks thy brow 
 
 Is troubled. ... Is it but a passing shade ? 
 
 Is it, indeed, or does my frenzied brain 
 
 By its incessant, concentrated gaze 
 
 Feign the most faint reflection glimmering 
 
 O'er thy calm, sleeping face, of thy rapt soul 1 . . . . 
 
 How often have I watched thy speaking looks, 
 
 Interpreting what words cannot declare 
 
 Of spirit-utterance, only love inspired . . . 
 
 Thou self once taughtest me the precious lore 
 
 — How strange, remembrance of it eagerly 
 
 Bushes back on me now — the secret truth 
 
 " That bodily contact of things animate 
 
POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Set free in one another wondrously 
 
 Invisible — working forces ; which would then 
 
 With one another intermingle ; so 
 
 Upon the spirits in those bodies pent 
 
 Work mightily, with mutual influence." . . .* 
 
 What if it were, that yet some power might dwell 
 
 In that unseen current of sympathy 
 
 Opened mysterious once, between us both ? — 
 
 That merely through my nearness unto thee 
 
 That power might subtly manifest itself 
 
 And so, against my will, into thy soul 
 
 In its deep trance, some motion, drawn from mine 
 
 Might steal, and stir it ? . . . . Ah ! . . . What 
 
 have I done 
 If that be so ? . . . What would 1 1— Giddily 
 My reason pauses . . . Ah ! . . I shudder ! . . . . Now 
 I know not whether I shall make recoil 
 Or spring forth daringly : — to what % — ! now 
 Desperate resolve, like madness, seizeth me. 
 I am all overpowered by a strong might. 
 Rousing rhapsodic in me wild desire 
 That must, that will have vent. ... ! to bring back 
 By the illusion of one moment blest 
 The past ; might it but restore to me, 
 This wretched me, the sense of thy embrace . . . 
 In the transition of that moment, I 
 Would meet with rapture my eternal doom ! . . . 
 Mightst thou but look once more into my eyes 
 — 'One last, long look — And take me in thy arms. . . 
 . , And fling me thence to death ! . . . , 
 
 * This idea taken from ScbeSel's Ehehard, 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. 123 
 
 Awake ! Awake ! 
 My love ! My own ! — I call upon thee ! Hear 
 For the last time my voice : no farther plaint 
 Shall startle thy lone stillness ; let it be 
 Henceforth profound, unbroken ; mortal voice 
 Disturb it nevermore. — ^Bat once, hear ! 
 Answer my solemn summons — Wake ! awake 
 Love calls to thee — answer ! — There is but 
 One answer — that is Death ! Wake ! Wake ! — wake ! 
 
 NON TI SCORDAR DI ME. 
 (Tht New Satamella.) 
 
 " Do not forget me." .... But I did not speak. 
 
 Ah me ! How often have I wondered, since, 
 
 Has he thought of that silence 1 Called it back 
 
 To his remembrance half as tenderly 
 
 As I have murmured through those words of his, 
 
 Over and over, till they have become 
 
 A never silent echo, haunting stiU 
 
 The deepest hidden caverns of my heart ? . . . . 
 
 All my unspoken love was in my eyes ; 
 
 I know he read it there ; they grew so dim 
 
 With looking up in wild and fervent strain 
 
 Of passionate resistance — ^that no more 
 
 Could they behold him ; — Out to vacancy 
 
 Straight gazed they forward terribly, as if 
 
 The awful fascination of the ban 
 
 Which lay upon me, were compelling them 
 
 To look beyond the darkness of my soul, 
 
 Unconscious, and be blinded. Nought I knew 
 
124 POEMS 01< THE FUTURE. 
 
 Or felt, but fearful helplessness. . . . But he, 
 
 — Well I remember — looked into my face 
 
 With downward searching gaze, that seemed to take 
 
 Possession of it first — then pierce below 
 
 Into my inmost soul, and enter there. .... 
 
 Will he remember, then, that look, as long 
 
 As I his voice ? The accents deep and low 
 
 Seem thrilling, even now, upon the air 
 
 Close to my ear ; their sound oppresses me 
 
 As doth the constant vision that some spell 
 
 Renders companion to the guilty one 
 
 To quicken his remorse ; seen but to him, 
 
 A secret burden weighing on his soul, 
 
 And well-nigh stifling it with crushing dread \ — 
 
 So does my spirit struggle with the charm 
 
 Which in its meshes yet entangles it ; 
 
 So does it seek in vain to free itself 
 
 From the perpetual haunting of that sense 
 
 Of the far, far gone past. 'It is all gonS"- 
 
 It should be banished to forge tfulness. 
 
 By what right do our actions, rash and blind, 
 
 And in their consequences all too sure 
 
 Inflicting on us retribution full 
 
 For our ill-fated waywardness, live on 
 
 Even in their ghosts, with irrepressible power 
 
 To fetter and impede for e'er our wills 1 
 
 Why can I live no more the present life. 
 
 Nor find the actual true again to me 1 
 
 Am I not all wildered, as in a dream. 
 
 Living an unreal life, beneath the curse 
 
 Of that e'er present past, that merges all 
 
 My faculties in its absorbing spell 1 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. 125 
 
 That draws, mesmeric, my identity 
 
 Unto itself— dulling my energies. 
 
 Making one dread confusion in my soul % . . . 
 
 That was our parting^ Every lightest word 
 
 That passed our fated lips in such brief space 
 
 Is solemnised into a prophecy . 
 
 The thoughtless incidents — the sign scarce marked 
 
 At our strange meeting — ^the familiar thoughts 
 
 We interchanged — our converse, by dim sense 
 
 Of awe embarrassed — the omens vague that rose 
 
 In earnest speech — all were symbolical ; 
 
 All have been fearfully translated ; all 
 
 Have found fulfilment — ay ! the curse ! the curse, 
 
 Hath triumphed, and gained utterance over me. 
 
 Did I not recognise it in that hour 
 
 When Destiny came and looked me in the face 
 
 In answer to my challenge ? — I was proud, 
 
 Desperate," and defiant : I bad looked 
 
 So long into the mysteries of Death — 
 
 My gaze had grown too dizzy ; — ^pained, and dazed. 
 
 Yet, though not scatheless, dauntless was I still ; 
 
 And unto Fate I cried Not Death 1 not Death ! — 
 
 I am baffl«d ; let me but turn round and look 
 
 As deep into the depths of Life ; for me 
 
 They can have nothing terrible : What can awe 
 
 One who hath stood before Eternity 
 
 With questionings and defiance ? — I would prove 
 
 The mightiest forces Life can bring to bear 
 
 On my untempted soul ; would test the pangs 
 
 Of sharpest anguisb wMch thy will perverse 
 
126 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Can wreak upon a rebel 'gainst thy law ! . . . 
 Life ! henceforth be thy banes and blessings mine ; 
 Let me then touch thy gifts, so long disdained, 
 And see if they shall turn to curses now 
 For me, who dare to seize them recklessly, 
 Paying no tribute to their ruler, who 
 Demands as homage what my spirit free 
 Eefuses, on its individual strength ; 
 Bearing no talisman to turn aside 
 The potency of their strange influence 
 Which, guided by some force inherent, claims 
 The lordship o'er the soul, to make or mar. 
 To raise it, or subdue ; to form- — to quell. . . . 
 My soul would try her prowess with thee. Life, 
 In single combat ! . . . So, alone, unwarned, 
 I flung myself into the tumult fierce 
 Of the wild storm that sways humanity. 
 
 And I mads good my boast. Did I not walk 
 
 By precipices, trembling not to fall ? 
 
 Did I not on the pleasures of the hour 
 
 Stake unscanned periods of consequence ? 
 
 Nay, did I not, for transient impulse, risk 
 
 Life-long regrets with calm audacity \ 
 
 .... But Fate hath iron chains, for those who thus 
 
 Eesist her yoke ; vast their circumference. 
 
 Yet 'tis unbroken ; and the doomed one 
 
 Who in vain confidence would spurn restraint. 
 
 Deeming his course unshackled — finds at last 
 
 How they inextricably close him round : 
 
 Eelentlessly they fall across his path 
 
 Perhaps just where he swoops with headlong speed 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. 127 
 
 In triumph of his orbit's boundlessness. 
 
 . . . And I ! for laughing Fate to scorn, must learn 
 
 With what 'stern mockery she can repay. . . . 
 
 Thus hath her order been avenged on me, 
 
 Proving her sovereignty upon my will. 
 
 I was not left in singleness of soul 
 
 To bear my colours through the conflict hot. . . 
 
 Life ! thy mysteries were too great for me ! 
 The darkness of the abysses infinite 
 
 Of the unknown — caused not my gaze to quail ; 
 But in these complicated mazes, where 
 The end was hidden in illusive mist 
 And no less the beginning — all confused 
 
 1 strayed, and lost myself in finiteness 
 
 .... His being fell within my being's spell ; 
 His life lived into mine. . . Alas for me ! 
 
 I looked with dazzled eyes, and. saw it come 
 Within the range of my sad spirit's gloom 
 And hover fearless o'er me — the bright-rayed, 
 The beauteous, the transcendent — it was Lme. 
 Love, the sublimest blessing. . . pure love ! — 
 To me it came in guise of direst curse. 
 My soul, so shrouded in its dark despair. 
 Should have been all impervious to that light. 
 Why was I not more resolute ? Why not 
 Closed I my eyes, and hid them from its glare % 
 
 ! it was not for me ! — I knew too well ; 
 
 1 put not forth my hands exultingly 
 
 To draw it without shudder to my grasp. 
 That blessing ; — ^but I let it pass me nigh, 
 And linger trustingly in my caress — 
 Instead of shrinking from its presence blest 
 
128 POEMS OP THE FUTURE. 
 
 As should polluted feet from holy ground; 
 
 I let that all-surpassing radiance shine 
 
 Full on my eyes ; which, for that one swift flash 
 
 Whereon, undaunted, they estatic gazed, 
 
 Must evermore be darkened hopelessly. 
 
 I gave myself up to the fleeting charm, 
 
 And drank of its intoxicating draughts. 
 
 And learned its mystic symbolism, and grew 
 
 Initiate in its secrets ; took my fill 
 
 Of its brief bliss. . . . There was no warning voice 
 
 To check my mad impetuosity — 
 
 No gentle touch to hold me back. For what 
 
 Were right and wrong to me ? Had I not learnt 
 
 To look on them as vague, and arbitrary. 
 
 Standards of unfixed value, wavering 
 
 Before the scrutiny of Eeason bold ? 
 
 O'er me they boasted no authority. 
 
 Eepentance I disclaimed ; and the mere name 
 
 Of evil was no fright to me ; it had 
 
 No absolute existence ; it was but 
 
 Acknowledged in the human systems frail 
 
 Which I had searched and tried, and cast away 
 
 In bitterest dissatisfaction. Nought 
 
 Could they afibrd to my incessant plea, 
 
 My craving for some clue to certainty 
 
 I had brought many a wrong on my own head. 
 
 And warped and strained my faculties, and turned 
 
 Into the current of most innocent joys 
 
 The springs of fatal and accursed regrets 
 
 By my rash strife to wrest unto my good 
 
 The evil that might lie athwart my course.-, . . 
 
 Why not assert my boundless soul-claims now, 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. lag 
 
 And try my spirit's force against the ban 
 Prohibiting all heavenly source of joy t — 
 And so, I dared aspire unto the heights 
 Where the ethereal radiance glowed intense, 
 And was absorbed by it, and in its flush 
 Had my transfiguration. .... Vain ! in vain ! 
 The sacred temple which I have profaned 
 Is shut against me ; and I wander now 
 Desolate, in the dark, without its bounds. 
 Doomed to eternal hungering and thirst 
 After the rapture of its hallowed rites ! 
 
 I did not pause to count the cost. . . God! 
 The immeasurable consequences ! — How 
 In that bewilderment could I see clear 1 
 The risk was infinite. — I staked it all — 
 All, on one moment's madness. For I knew 
 I should but hurt myself : on me alone 
 The harm would copie that ne'er might be undone. 
 He should go forth untrammelled on his way 
 After the brief indulgence of a dream 
 Which soothed his spirit with respite of delight — 
 While unto mine 'twas revelation of doom ! 
 His life should be hereafter blest: for him 
 Were weaving happy ties of worldly peace 
 Which I would seek not to entangle. — I 
 Would never throw my shadow o'er the light 
 That goodness beamed around his future fair. . . 
 . . . I bound my curse more closely on my soul, 
 And vowed, in agony of expiring joy. 
 It should not compass him. — sacrifice 
 Of love to love I^Upon my oath I took 
 
130 POEMS OP THE FUTURE. 
 
 The sacrament, in poison. Though it burnt. 
 My lips, yet true in my heart's depth I keep 
 Its consecration still inviolate. .... 
 
 We did not say Farewell. . . We thought so soon 
 
 To meet again, — and if it had been so ? 
 
 He wished to be my better angel ; Nay, 
 
 In spite of me, he would be. — And what if 
 
 That had been possible ? . . Nay — nay ; such thought 
 
 I must not dare ; my mind is no more free. — 
 
 The inevitable doom came on us both ; 
 
 Fate took me at my word : my solemn vow, 
 
 She held me to it, most religiously. — 
 
 My prayer that he should be absolved — alas \ 
 
 I know not, was it heard : there haunteth me 
 
 Like a vague horror, the anguish of the doubt 
 
 Whether he feels the meshes dragging him 
 
 Into their intricacy — ^limiting 
 
 The freedom of his chosen soul-career : 
 
 Whether his future is all sullied o'er 
 
 By the associations of thsnt past : — 
 
 Whether his spirit sickens neath the blight 
 
 Once breathed on it by contact with my curse. 
 
 We are parted, and for ever. I am left 
 
 To bend beneath the unaverted load 
 
 Of my appalling destiny. The weight 
 
 In secretness of soul oppresses me ; 
 
 'Tis mine no more to struggle with it : now 
 
 If I would yet assert the hero in me 
 
 That will not be crushed down nor trampled out 
 
 — It must be by impassive fortitude, 
 
THE LOVE OP WOMEN. 131 
 
 Silent acceptance of my curse ; no more 
 
 I wear it openly, and wrestle free 
 
 In soul-assurance. But through my despair* 
 
 I cling to that proud consciousness which yet 
 
 Unshaken holds me with a strengtheaing grasp, 
 
 Beckoning still, as it hath done of old, 
 
 My spirit's course amidst the dangerous paths 
 
 Which menace with abysses horrible. 
 
 I have dared, and home the wildest shocks of Life ; 
 
 Have dashed myself against her forces dread, 
 
 And am not shattered. Still I stand erect. 
 
 And cry to Fate, " Thou mightier than I, 
 
 To thee will I not yet subject myself. 
 
 I have not fallen before thee : do thou still 
 
 Hurl after me thy vengeance. I endure 
 
 All the results, though, with thy malice armed, 
 
 Of my unguided, irretrievable acts. — 
 
 But in this conflict I am none subdued, 
 
 Not more than in my futile enterprise 
 
 Against the mysteries of the unseen. 
 
 TAi« is as hopeless. . . . Yea, and I have paid 
 
 As dearly for my daring. Death and Life 
 
 Are leagued against me. . . Ido rwt succumb."' 
 
 But ah ! Sometimes my victor-boldness quails ; 
 
 All my defiant courage lieth low. 
 
 And I, deserted, prone as passion's prey, 
 
 Sink in an agonising, whelmed sense 
 
 Of insupportable torture. Then I wail 
 
 For the lost joy that never was my own — 
 
 AH the more dear for what it might have been — 
 
 Then do I long ta change my lot ; to escape 
 
132 POEMS OP THE PUTURE. 
 
 The pressure of heroic destiny : 
 I long to comfort me in my strange grief, 
 And weep for pitifulness ; long to feel 
 The sweetness of love's sorrow — not alone 
 The bitterness of this abandonment. . . 
 
 Then comes a meteor-thought o'er the deep gloom 
 Of my obscure soul ; then a faint-flashed hope 
 Lights through me, and dies. — If there should he, 
 
 beyond 
 The sphere of this material universe 
 Preliminary (yet continuing it, 
 As the creations which men postulate 
 From elements chaotic, through the strife 
 Of their unwearied forces working out 
 Modifications inexhaustible 
 To climax of development) — A world 
 Of perfect re-adjustment, clear accord 
 Of impulses with opportunities — 
 A world that yields unintercepted scope 
 To the conjunction of affinities, 
 And perfecting of capabilities, 
 Released from the supremacy of doom. — 
 If that dim-comprehended, grand idea 
 Of blessedness conjectural, were a state 
 Where this same consciousness should be renewed, 
 And personalities come forth again 
 Each with distinctive attributes endowed, 
 Each unto other recognisable 
 By the soul-impress all indelible 
 Of character, immortal as the Truth — 
 And we should meet once more — How would it be t 
 
THE LOVE OP WOMEN. 133 
 
 May I take comfort in that thought ]— Will he 1 — 
 Nay ; or his thoughts must cease to be, as now, 
 Holy : his holiness must ward from him 
 The haunting whispers which would keep alive 
 The lost love that he lavished once on me. 
 His life for lack of it will feel no void — 
 Rather, discumbered, its completeness reach 
 In glad communion with the good and blest. 
 He need not be drawn downward to the earth 
 By frenzied memories of temptation sore ; 
 My vision need not come before his soul 
 To bar its flight unto his heaven of thought. 
 His aspirations soar — away from me. 
 Beyond the region which we mutual trod. . . 
 O'er them has my contamination failed. 
 His heart was mine — I was magnanimous 
 — Rather, perhaps, I was most impotent — 
 His soul was left in freedom. That I knew : 
 — We never might be joined in holy bond — 
 He was as 'twere a god, apart from me 
 Though he might stoop to me — 0, gods before 
 Have stooped to rashest maidens, who have sinned. 
 Who, having lost all good, all hops of earth — 
 Have yet presumed aspiring unto heaven, 
 And deemed to dare sacredest heavenly joys 
 Earthly-weak ! — ^with impunity : and theirs 
 Has been the fate, the punishment now mine ! 
 .... So do I read their lesson : — else there were 
 No meaning in the glorious olden myths, 
 The holy symbolisms that speak to us 
 Of the soul's deepest secrets, through the signs 
 Of beautiful religions, with their awe 
 
134 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Of nature's mysticism, their living might 
 
 Of spirit penetration. — So I feel 
 
 How utter powerless was my brief strength 
 
 In its infatuated bravery 
 
 To cope with his brief weakness ; to o'eroome 
 
 The impelling force of the divine in him 
 
 Howe'er obscured, and unclear manifest 
 
 By my gross presence ! he never was 
 
 He could not he — he never will be mine ! 
 
 And dare I wish that he should think of me, 
 
 His- evil temptress ? — What was I to him \ 
 
 — That I shall never know. For him, 'twere best 
 
 It all might be as though it had not been. 
 
 For me alas ! — it never can be so. — 
 
 " Do not forget me ! " — No : love can betray. 
 
 Can mock, can murder — but cannot forget. 
 
 OF MY POET. 
 
 A Maiden Phantasy, 
 
 I KNEEL before a portrait ; and I gaze 
 Immeasurable moments of still awe ; 
 While the majestic beauty of the brow. 
 The far outstretching gleam of the deep eyes 
 Whose glamour, whose unearthly lustre, speak 
 Even from the motionless mute picture there ; 
 The harmony divine, the wondrous power 
 Of the noble features, in their silence strong, 
 Their grand, sad pensiveness — sink in my soul 
 And permeate it, as I fondly deem, 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. I35 
 
 With essence like as of that mighty soul 
 
 Whose motions oaoe to such a mortal form 
 
 Gave life, and beauty, and a visible place 
 
 Amongst things tangible. He, who. is now 
 
 An inspiration, by his memory, 
 
 By his ethereal presence, in the spell 
 
 Of kindred thought, of deep-felt influence 
 
 Shed in the strength of his immortal worda 
 
 Over the wide of all the ages — he 
 
 Moved once, amidst his fellow-mortals ; he, 
 
 Subject unto their frailties, bound and barred 
 
 By spirit-compelling chains of accident ; 
 
 Change, mood, the world — ^all tossed him in their 
 
 sport, 
 From stage to stage of varying episode. 
 He lived the life with nameless men ; he paid 
 The tributes of all mean and little lives 
 
 Exacted He was touched, was looked upon 
 
 By jostlers journeying on their few years' rut 
 
 Dragged in the limitless fields of Time — ^which he 
 
 Skirted, to clear them for Eternity ! — 
 
 He was : — and this was he. ... I tey in vaia 
 
 To feel that I am sure of it, and keep 
 
 Its firm conception in my constant mind, 
 
 Beiterating ever — " Thus he looked — 
 
 Just so." — Until I know the face by heart. 
 
 And yet, with each renewal of the look 
 
 I have some change to find, or, finding not, 
 
 I grow distract, and realise with rage 
 
 The incapability of painted stuif 
 
 To give presentment of the spirit form. 
 
 To speak with truth of living lineaments : 
 
136 POEMS Of THE FUTURE. 
 
 Then sometimes rebel thoughts, most passionful, 
 Surge up, and take possession of my will, 
 Crying — 0, had I but been born, and died, 
 Before his actual form had passed from earth ! 
 Alas ! I live too late ! — The -worth of life 
 Is only in the conscious privilege 
 Of sharing his humanity with him, 
 Of being called to the same mystic strife, 
 Of being steeped in self-same rhapsody, 
 And in its understanding partial 
 Being taught by slow degrees weak to conceive 
 The coursings of the essential soul in him. — 
 But why should I, who know this, and who feel 
 The nearness of the spirit-tie that waves 
 Between us o'er the unspaced labyrinth 
 Of the invisible — Why should I be doomed 
 To live apart from his identity, 
 Kemote from farthest echo of his voice. 
 From lingering sign of bodily certainty? 
 ! had I lived in contact with him blest, 
 Had but the rapture of such interchange 
 Of speech, and look, and touch, vouchsafed to me 
 As to the wayfarers who, heeding not, 
 Unmindful of their high prerogative, 
 Were near to him, in long companionship 
 — Walked side by side with him, yet felt no dread- 
 Thrown by a thousand turns of daily life 
 Into association intimate 
 
 With his soul-breathings ? — Wherefore was not I 
 So happy \ — 0, to have poured out to him 
 All that is hidden in my soul — that must 
 For ever stagnate in' its undrawn depths 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. 137 
 
 Wanting the magic beck to charm it forth ! 
 
 ■ — 0, to have made him look upon me once ! 
 
 To have treasured everlastingly the tones 
 
 He flung me careless, in some passing chance 
 
 Of meeting — some requirement imminent 
 
 Of courtesy. . . Or what if there had been 
 
 A closer bond ? And -we, intuitive, 
 
 Had found the likeness and the waiting love 
 
 In one another's spirits % — For I know, 
 
 It is — I do not dream it ; — all my life 
 
 Is not in idle fancy fashioned so 
 
 To sympathy with his ; — but there must be 
 
 Some likeness — some calm possibility 
 
 Of union in our souls : . . . And had we met 
 
 — As my dream-daring loves to figure me 
 
 With glorious audacity, that once 
 
 Hereafter, we shall meet in absolute life ; 
 
 Traversing mutual that eternal vast 
 
 Of being which may spread beyond our sleep — 
 
 Pacing, in intervals of chaos-dance 
 
 Or resting-pause in flings of searching whirl 
 
 Through universe-paths, the arcades of stars ; 
 
 Threading the milky way for infinite hours 
 
 Together, in a passionless lover's bliss — 
 
 New, self-immersing, passing all delight — 
 
 In ravishment so spiritual and pure 
 
 As to out-scope hot heart's intense desire. . . . 
 
 Sweet madness ! — Ah ! that were a heavenly scheme, 
 
 Kenounced with madness, and with dreams of heaven ! 
 
 — But he has been on earth : — ^And if on earth 
 
 We might have met — Earth-heaven ! . . 0, had we met, 
 
 How eagerly had recognition sprung 
 
I'iS POEMS Of THE FUTURE. 
 
 From each soul secret ! All the want of mine, 
 
 And all the depth of his sufficiency 
 
 From his ; how had the immediate kindling woke, 
 
 And we had been united, each to each 
 
 Indissolubly, of necessity ! 
 
 My adoration perfect satisfied, 
 
 And he in the adoring utterly 
 
 Perfected, and fulfilled, and manifest 
 
 But this is frail Faith's wavering. I should be 
 
 Filled with all satisfaction, but to know 
 
 That he has lived ; to breathe the breath of life 
 
 That he has beautified, and made more true. 
 
 More real, more vivid, more sincere to me ; 
 
 In that his life is life for all mankind ; 
 
 Is life which is life's sparkling diadem, 
 
 Blazing with brightness through the looming dark 
 
 That would extitiguish deeds and thoughts of men ; 
 
 Is life which sings clear-voiced to reverent Fame 
 
 Life's hymn — the pure hymn of life's sacredness ! 
 
 His loves, his doubts, his passions, and his dreams. 
 
 His griefs, his wrestlings, his dark hours of pain, 
 
 His glooms of spirit-wrung despondency — 
 
 His terrible misgivings — live for us : 
 
 His light streams o'er the eventide of time 
 
 In undimmed glow of glory ; his great heart 
 
 Whose throbs of giant pain are hushed to peace. 
 
 Is beating through all hearts that throb with pain. 
 
 His trances of ecstatic godlike joy 
 
 Infuse our ecstasies with joy of gods ; 
 
 His lightning visions lambent flash atliw&,rt 
 
 The darkening dense of our drear dreamlessness ; 
 
 Our sorrow in his sorrow finds itself 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. 139 
 
 Throned, and seer-soeptred, and with amaranth 
 crowned. 
 
 His life was as a mournful symphony 
 Whereto all plaintive melodies are set ; 
 "Whereto all passionate improvisos wild 
 May fling themselves, and into cadence fall ; 
 Whereto the impetuous throbbings of tense chords 
 Of yearning humanness may harmonise. 
 His wailings — as of those most sensitive strings 
 That palpitate with every faint-stirred wave 
 Of the impulsion of a dying sound — 
 Utter quick responses to the low notes 
 Struck sympathetic to their melancholy. 
 Entrancing intertanglement ! weird-blent 
 Discords, to whose unjarring resonance 
 Diminished harmonies from every surge 
 Of passion's broken phrases, from the crash 
 Of agonisings in tempestuous shrieks 
 Concentrate, from the heavings and the gasps 
 Of the soul minor, rush into accord ! 
 
 ! it is good to live, and know that he 
 Has lived ; 0, it is good for me to bask 
 In contemplation of that being, that once 
 Has been ; and shall be ; and for me still is. — 
 And, having been, makes being mine to me ! . . . 
 
 My thoughts, all uncontrollable, strain up, 
 Escaping from me in perplexity — 
 And when they utterly have gone from me. 
 Left me bewildered, me to seek in vain 
 To follow on vague traces of their track, 
 
140 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 To seize some clue that may recal them to me, 
 
 Or bind to the remembrance of their sway 
 
 My after thoughts . . . then have I solacement, 
 
 Then do I know that they, my precious thoughts, 
 
 My priceless ones, my lost ones, are not lost. 
 
 Though lost to me ; I know that they are gone 
 
 On their proud path, their unimpeded way, 
 
 Gone on towards his, gone up to meet his thoughts. 
 
 His thoughts which, all embracing, deign to stretch 
 
 To their reception : — his sublime, great thoughts 
 
 Eternised, ever hover, ever float 
 
 In the infinite : — So all the straying thoughts 
 
 Of the travail of our mortal anguish throes 
 
 Must meet in them, must be absorbed in them. 
 
 Must be resolved in their grand unison ! 
 
 ! and those omnipresent, almighty thoughts 
 
 Diffuse themselves over all time, aU place — 
 
 They come to me, they reach down even to me ; 
 
 And when they cannot lift me up to them. 
 
 They make me all content to be abased ; 
 
 Make even my degradation glorious. 
 
 By being compared unto that altitude. 
 
 That unapproachable majesty of theirs ! 
 
 — ! there are moments in the which, to feel 
 
 How we, how all the day-dwellers of earth 
 
 Are crushed into one common nothingness 
 
 In presence of the ineffable magnitude 
 
 Of those, Time's great ones, is such supreme bliss 
 
 That the mere revelling in it raises us. 
 
 And makes us transiently inspired, to know 
 
 That this our littleness, contained in them 
 
 (Because their greatness all of us contains) 
 
 Is magnified ; is taken up into 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. 141 
 
 Their breadth of being ; we are great in them 
 
 As they are great for us ; the many small 
 
 In the one greatness thus becoming one 
 
 Lose both themselves and their own littleness, 
 
 And in the universal are — what I 
 
 May be — nay, am, as often as I fling 
 
 My soul in its excessive rapture, far 
 
 From consciousness of all external things. 
 
 From meditation of vicissitudes, 
 
 Of earthly consequences, hourly cares — 
 
 As often as I drink 'the unsating draught 
 
 Of realisation of his realness, 
 
 His veritable intensity, his fores 
 
 Of soul pervading — when I feel so full 
 
 Of the glory that I share in being one 
 
 Who can commune in his communion free, 
 
 And in his open fellowship have joy, 
 
 That I do feel his presence, and his power. 
 
 More than in universal ; — I do feel 
 
 That he is mine; as though he had but lived 
 
 To be my antetype ; to echo back 
 
 To my heart-cravings satisfying cries ; 
 
 To be reflection for me of the needs. 
 
 The wonderings, inexpressible by me, 
 
 And ne'er for me by other to be expressed, 
 
 But only by his potency : — meseems 
 
 As though the far-off life he lived on eai-th 
 
 Amongst his peers, removed from influences 
 
 That now determine the allotted course 
 
 To every struggling pilgrim of this age — 
 
 As though that life had but been lived apart 
 
 For me to live into ; a life for mine 
 
 To find a refuge in, from this chill life 
 
142 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 That spreads around me — strange, unreal to me, 
 I cannot find myself therein ; — it seems 
 The essence of my life has been hid in his, 
 And only as he will distil it to me 
 May I partake of it : — 0, it does seem 
 My life is his, he is my only life. 
 And in his life am I, who could not be 
 Without it, — he interprets unto me 
 All that I feel, or know, or wish, or dare ; 
 It is through him I long ; through his delights 
 T recognise my own ; and through his grief. 
 Surely, I suffer j with the self-same pangs 
 And quiverings. . . . Only, where I lay me low 
 And abject, that the storm sweeps over me, 
 And the fell victor passion treads me down, 
 And I succumb, — and even at last may grow 
 Resigned to the invincible anguish, . . there 
 He conquered ; he has borne aloft for me 
 The standard of man's splendid might of will ; 
 And over life's woes and heart's frailty, high 
 It fluttereth, triumphant evermore. 
 . . . Ah, glorious one ! in every onslaught dread 
 Of world-foes, of opinion tyrannous, 
 Of slander, treachery, arbitrariness, 
 He breasted aU the fury ; stood his ground 
 With foot firm, head erect, and brow unstained. 
 He did assert victorious liberty, 
 . Did vindicate his pure soul-royalty — 
 He was the unfailing champion of the true, 
 The noble, and the fearless, in the race 
 Of man inherent ; Manhood, fallen alas 
 Unto most vile abasement, is in him 
 Dignified, raised unto its lofty height 
 
THE LOVE OF WOMEN. 143 
 
 Of privilege, of empire, and of pride. . . . 
 
 beautiful ! — that wert thou to the world, 
 That was the plan stupendous, and the end 
 Of thy most bless6d mission. But to me, 
 What wert thou ? . . . ! what art thou ! 
 
 , . . , Thus, my heart 
 
 Floods unto him It is more pure than love, 
 
 More mighty, more divine than ought can be 
 Which agitates the passion fleet that men 
 Call love, and glorify, as though it were 
 A force of exaltation. . . What it is 
 Never as mortal do I long to know ; 
 
 1 am content — nay, not content ; for such 
 Serenity as in contentment dwells 
 
 Is not compatible with this strange glow 
 
 Of ardent zeal . . yet will I say, content ; 
 
 Content with my devotion ultimate. 
 
 My one aim, my absorption, my intense 
 
 Fill of existeneei ... I will call it love, 
 
 Since I do know no other name on earth — 
 
 And that name never shall be desecrate 
 
 By being turned aside to lowlier flamie. — 
 
 Unto no living one shall my quick pulse 
 
 Quicken, no eager flush shall fire my cheek 
 
 Nor wild pant check my breath, at sudden dart 
 
 Of spirit communication, at swift word 
 
 Of unvoiced message deep sunk in the heart, 
 
 From one of these, the pigmies of my race 
 
 Who now surround me — while my soul is vowed 
 
 Unto the worship of the immortal one. 
 
 The deep-revered, the long-loved, faithful loved 
 
 Of the great dead — the chosen of my soul. 
 
 Its true ideal — my one love — my own ! 
 
" CHANSONNETTE." 
 
 If life might all be dreaming, 
 And ne'er a dream might fade ; 
 
 Or all be real that's seeming, 
 How blissful life were made. 
 
 If but the golden future 
 
 Might e'er " come true '' to me — 
 Or that sweet past come back again. 
 
 How beauteous all would be ! 
 
 To live in that dear waking dream 
 My soul were all too blest ; 
 
 And weariness were charmed away. 
 And longing — ah ! at rest ! 
 
EVEN OUR FAITH. 
 
 ! THE dearest thing to lose is that which was never 
 posaesst ; 
 For all that has once been ours is for ever and ever 
 our own ; 
 The lightest touch that has lain on our hand leaves 
 trace of its rest ; 
 We feel it again, when we will — its impress for us 
 alone. 
 
 The one good-night that was said in a voice we shall 
 hear no more 
 Says itself over again in each waking watch of the 
 night, 
 Lulls to the sweetest of sleep, with a spell that was 
 never before 
 In the hushing words oft repeated of tones familiar 
 and light. 
 
 But nought that has given us reckoning — of our joy^ 
 our longing, our trust. 
 Is so sacred as that -faint wish that could not be 
 measured in life, 
 The uninterpreted omen, that ne'er was made good, 
 that yet must 
 Hover deep on our spirit's depths to touch and allay 
 their strife. 
 
X46 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 The mystic, ecstatic strain at the bounds of rapture, 
 that went 
 From the ken of the soul, leaving after a'need never 
 understood ; 
 The striving towards bliss too far, that its force on 
 the way all spent ; 
 The aimless, the wild devotion to the improved 
 invisible good : 
 
 The vision that has come to us, when we closed our 
 eyes from the light. 
 Then opened them full for sure gaze, to find it 
 vanished and fled — 
 The day offers things that are real, day after day, to 
 our sight ; 
 But we choose to return to the darkness, and cherish 
 its dream instead. 
 
 0, the false love is dearer, dearer than the tnie, though 
 it come at last ; 
 It rules, usurper; it cannot vanquish the soft 
 regret 
 For the meteor charm eclipsed unfulfilled, that im- 
 challenging passed 
 Incomparable ; — no memory like that which we 
 should forget. 
 
 No promise that hath its reward can render ixs half 
 the grace 
 Of the vague, the beautiful hope that flitted, faded 
 away 
 
EVEN OUR FAITH. 147 
 
 Insensibly, ere it was questioned, the mystery that 
 glanced in our face 
 And was lost in the height o'er our head, in the flight 
 that no ■wonder could stay. 
 
 A wound that is made can heal, more sharp or less 
 though it be, 
 And the deeper or the less deep by a different scar 
 is shown ; 
 But the pain undefined, too wide for a place, draweth 
 constantly ; 
 No sign : but in every part a nameless sickness alone. 
 
 We drink at the cup of yearning, but never may have 
 our fill 
 Though we drink ourselves mad ; we pour out our 
 heart on deceptions sweet. 
 They fail us, our faith is spoiled without reparation j-r- 
 and still 
 We sigh for them possible. No disillusion is quite 
 complete. . . . 
 
 .... And the Truth that we feel our way to by 
 treacherous guesses alone 
 If we reach we can grasp it not, feel not its evident 
 place at our side, 
 Nor manifest even to ourselves its presence — ^nor let it 
 be shown 
 To the world, waiting, how the fai/r lie vie have wor- 
 shipped it Truth that has lied. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHEE TO HIS DEATH-POTION. 
 
 Dear draught of Death ! Sweet salve to sense ! How 
 
 do I welcome thee ! 
 Dearer than potent loye-philter, sweeter than sweet 
 
 to me : 
 Welcome, to lips that oft have thirsted as they thirst 
 
 not now, 
 With fervid thirst that never draught of life can quell 
 
 as thou ! 
 I have drunk madness from the bowl whence glows the 
 
 sparkling wine ; 
 Drunk deep from many a languid cup a lassitude divine; 
 But the transient spells have failed to soothe the rage 
 
 that raves in me — 
 That can alone the lasting languor that I seek in thee. 
 The intoxication of one passionate moment, made eteme, 
 Can satisfy alone the longing fires that in me burn. 
 
 Life hath itself its opiates; thereof I have quaffed too 
 
 deep; 
 I have known too oft the listlessness of their ecstatic 
 
 sleep : 
 Oblivion's trance luxuriously hath closed my eyes in 
 
 peace — 
 ! the blissful sense of soothing brief which bade 
 
 sensation cease — 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS DEATH-POTION. 149 
 
 But ! the waking agonised ! the shuddering shook, 
 
 the change 
 At the reopening of the eyes upon the old, yet strange 
 Life dreariness : — the sickening new revulsion, the 
 
 cold thrill 
 At finding when the dream was fled the darkness 
 
 clinging still ! 
 
 My last hour ! My last moment ! Now 
 
 the life that was in me 
 Hath surged itself quite out. How oft from unreality 
 I have been startled into realijess ; hurled, with awful 
 
 power, 
 From cheat of dream-bliss to the dragging of the 
 
 cruel hour : — 
 And now — I scarce conceive — scarce dare believe this 
 
 certainty — 
 The bless'd prospect scarce can yet be realised to me ; — 
 To think, that no to-morrow now can bring me more 
 
 the pain 
 Of opening eyes upon the struggle back from sleep 
 
 again ! 
 ! wild anticipation ! Beatific ecstasy ! 
 Kapt tremor of delight, absorbing as infinity ! 
 whirl of exultation, seizing on my reeling brain. 
 Dashing its frenzied eagerness beyond the grasp of pain ! 
 0, glory of bliss ineffable ! — To feel, it draweth nigh — 
 It comes — it shall not shrink from me again — to die — 
 
 to die ! 
 mystery ! . . What sudden flash may gleam these 
 
 eyes before. 
 Dazzling them past all vision, ere they fade for ever- 
 more — 
 
ISO POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 What paroxysm of intense sensation — what sublime 
 New consciousness — what subtle combination — fusion 
 
 of time 
 With the eternal limitless — what wonder — what swift 
 
 glow 
 Of perfect knowledge soon must rush on me — how 
 
 may I know? 
 — What shall be mine — or what excess of clear ideas 
 
 — what plain 
 Presentment of those verities that speech can ne'er 
 
 attain ; 
 What fulness of the inexpressible, rendering satiate 
 The flooded faculties. ... I know not. — Brief the 
 
 space to wait 
 Ere all reveals itself to me, victor by Eternity 
 Of the secrets in life's silence hid. ... I once, un- 
 
 reasoningly 
 Demanded energy perpetual — sought, with storm of 
 
 strife 
 For exercise of all my force — some elixir of life ; 
 But now, for that vague indeterminate energy, mere rest ; 
 An absolute lull in my conflicting forces, deem I best. 
 — To pass, with all my possible powers, at one sur- 
 passing thrill. 
 One effort grand, into quiescence utter — that I will ! 
 
 Strange, how in its last moments this my personality 
 As it hovers over nothingness — about extinct to be — 
 Keeps its very vivid consciousness — asserts its innate 
 
 power 
 With importunate iusistance, strong as in life's earliest 
 
 hour. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS DEATH-POTION, is I 
 
 . . . The soul that will annihilate itself, how can it be 
 In the instant of transition, all that now I feel in me % 
 What is it, that seems swelling with a thousand 
 
 powers combined ? 
 Instinctjwith thousand impulses, extending infinite mind 1 
 The gathering up of all that ever was, or is, in me ? 
 The seeming germ immutable of all that yet shall be ? 
 Full with forebodings that might stretch to reach 
 
 Eternity, 
 With nascent quiverings that would seem beginnings 
 
 of to be ? . 
 
 .... Is it transmutable, indeed, into the latent store 
 Of faculties which shall renew the race for evermore — 
 The universa,l force, unconscious of identity, 
 Waiting to be called forth to individuality, 
 Beady to be resumed into an active state again, 
 As the fitful energy breaks forth, that long has dormant 
 
 lain. 
 When some modified conditions find it change of 
 
 scope anew ? . . . . 
 Is this life principle within my being as sure, as true ? 
 Is it imperishable ? — Does its nature still remain 
 In the wondrous conservation all tmchanged ? — Does 
 
 it retain 
 Potentiality infinite ? — Or may it die away 
 Exhausted with successive cycles, as the sun-force may 1 
 Or can it be crushed out without indemnity 1 — effaced 
 As the transient prints on melting suow^ the lines on 
 
 water traced ? . . . 
 Wonder inscrutable to itself is this iiumanity ? — 
 How long have I impetuous asked myself, What now 
 
 oithee 
 
IS3 POEMS OP THE FUTURE. 
 
 I ask — solution of the mystery ; answer full and clear. 
 No more delusions I accept ; — I seize the answer — here ! 
 
 Ah ! often in the pause of the slow, toilsome, waiting 
 
 years, 
 With tears whose mockery hath recalled memory of 
 
 holier tears, 
 The passion of a wish has come on me — the wild 
 
 thought stirred 
 With frantic fire my spirit's torpor : — "Ah ! had Heaven 
 
 but heard 
 The prayer that I in childhood breathed, that I a child 
 
 might die — 
 Ah ! little comprehending then ! — Alas, the unwitting 
 
 cry—, 
 What prophecy it uttered of the manhood's fore- 
 doomed strife — 
 What instinct filled it of the undivining dread of life ! 
 Why did not God believe me ? " — in its bitterness hath 
 
 said 
 My heart, when writhing consciously in that fulfilled, 
 
 full dread. 
 How have I longed to call back from the depths of my 
 
 past peace 
 That bless6d childhood ! — go back imto that, and with 
 
 it cease ; 
 How have I longed to lay my head upon its innocent 
 
 breast. 
 There close my wearied eyes without a thought and 
 
 take my rest. 
 What rapture, then, to recognise, now I no more can 
 
 pray, 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS DEATH-POTION. IS3 
 
 Requital of that prayer, whose yearning ne'er hath 
 passed away ! 
 
 All that I once have had, and lost, — of joy, of love, of 
 
 thought. 
 In spirit-preseuce for one moment back to me is 
 
 brought ; 
 All that I have been, nowisme; what, but an hour before 
 Was severed from me by long years of change — is 
 
 mine once more : 
 Fairest youth, with all its fairness ; — e'en pure child- 
 hood's purity ; 
 All the ardour long burnt out, the fancy lost, 
 
 revive in me ; 
 Those past moments I have lived through, in the rush 
 
 of passions rife. 
 When life lived into one moment, and one moment 
 
 lived through life — 
 How long since their vitality has faded ! — But they 
 
 blend 
 With the actual' moments of this later selfhood — at 
 
 its end, 
 Now these moments, charged with present individuality, 
 Verge on to the one extinction where all quenched 
 
 alike shall be, — 
 And the past becomes the present — for the present is 
 
 the past. 
 All life's moments reuniting in one moment — that the 
 
 last! 
 Theonemoment of solution, wherein all of life dothlie — 
 Moment brief of comprehension — ^present — past — 
 
 futurity ; 
 
1 54 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 When all that hath been, all that e'er might be, 
 
 participate 
 In the swift passing of one moment's being concentrate 
 
 Now even the meaning ceaseth of the very memory 
 Of the anguish whence deriveth all my life's intensity ; 
 It has come, at last, the ebb of all vibrations of desire; 
 'Tis the ultimate cessation of the passion-feeding fire. 
 No feeling pulsate^ through me more ; regret is all 
 
 gone by ;— 
 lenvynot the happiestones who ne'er have longed to die. 
 No looking back disturbs my blissful calm ; no 
 
 tremulous doubt j 
 All changefulnesa, all vacillating fear, are now died out; 
 Nought know I of remorse :— the wrong, the sorrow 
 
 of my lot, 
 Not unremembered, but effete as though remembered 
 
 not ; 
 The stumbling in my ended course — the slipping . . 
 
 ay, the fall. . . . 
 The signet of necessity is stamped upon them all ! . . . 
 Even on this final action ; — to the general harmony 
 Of the universe, it sways obedient. — This is what 
 
 muit be, , . , 
 Farewell, fond contemplation ! — All engrossment 
 
 now be o'er — 
 Heil dir ! beloved death-bringer ! . . . I pledge thee 
 
 — ah ! — no more. 
 
SHADOW AND FORM. 
 
 'Tis true that there is nought to be desired, 
 
 Nought, save desire itself : if that were lost 
 
 All that seems now so beautiful, ungained, 
 
 Would become loathsome, and a weariness. 
 
 Possession sickens — ay, of the rarest joy. 
 
 If we could have all granted and assured 
 
 Whose search makes life one eager, rushing race. 
 
 For which the imploring cry raves through the world, 
 
 Beaching past Heaven, and finding never bourne 
 
 To arrest its course impetuous — were it so, 
 
 Then life were nought, and there were nought beyond. 
 
 . . . . " Victory, or the abbey ! " — cry inspired. 
 Inspiring ! All the might that greatest deeds ' 
 Of warfare, wonderful accomplishment 
 Of skill and courage, of success, required. 
 Worked in the spell of that alternative. 
 . . . But it was figured merely ; its effect 
 Most real and true — its promise vacant, void ; 
 The trusted compact with posterity 
 Utterly disregarded ;'the proud hope 
 So strong with the living, to the sacred dead 
 Unrealised. . . . Were the aspiring words 
 Only vain, futile bubble-blowing of speech 1 
 
IS6 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Nay, their immortal spirit hath a truth 
 
 High and mysterious, that lives on in act, 
 
 In will and in intention, in ideal 
 
 Personal, national, cosmopolitan. 
 
 Let not presumptuous reason of man demand 
 
 Stuff to oppose unto the verity 
 
 Of the unmanifest, ethereal 
 
 Substance : ... it were as fond, as laughable. 
 
 As 'tis to ask of science render count 
 
 Of the soul's essence — in psychology 
 
 " Victory — or — " Well, it was victory, — 
 
 For our interpretation glorying ; 
 
 He could not have its consciousness, and yet 
 
 The sweet sense of the mystic unfulfilled. 
 
 Which is at the heart of all our longings deep. 
 
 " Westminster Abbey !" — The reproachful voice 
 
 Of surface sentiment, the railing loud 
 
 Of overweening, satisfied, yet slight 
 
 Perception of fitness — cry out in disgust 
 
 That the fair symmetry of the recompense 
 
 Is marred, and retribution frustrate made. 
 
 It is not so ! 0, earnest readers all 
 
 Of the law beneath the letter^O ye know 
 
 It is not so. The spirit is fulfilled 
 
 Of that sublime adjural ; as must be 
 
 Spite of all contradictions obvious 
 
 Ever the spirit pure and absolute 
 
 Of influence-working charm or prophecy. 
 
 ! reverent lovers of the deathless dead. 
 
 Can ye stand in that silent emptiness 
 
 Midst all the monumental mockery. 
 
 And feel that by the mouldering dust beneath 
 
SHADOW AND FORM. 157 
 
 Our glorious dead are represented best ? 
 
 That they whose past selves are the legacy 
 
 Of the survivors, selfless living out 
 
 On the memory of their identity, 
 
 Are best unto their fame associate 
 
 By the records of these walls f Do not your souls 
 
 Bear record otherwise f Do ye not feel 
 
 When most by your religious ecstacy 
 
 Subdued, and in fit frame for consort pure 
 
 With the unseen presence of the form divine 
 
 One, manifold, that lendeth glory and awe 
 
 To the columned cavern of Godhead — feel ye not 
 
 That he is there ? — He — not his relic bones 
 
 Beneath the age-trod aisle-floor casketed ; — 
 
 But the prophetic cry, that was at once 
 
 Life-pass and epitaph of the soldier soul, 
 
 Is in the holy, the fame-rustling air 
 
 That sanctifies the precinct stones, enshrined ! 
 
 Did not the dying Bruce bequeath his heart 
 
 Unto his faithful vassal, with the charge 
 
 To bear it, fighting, to the Holy Land, 
 
 In the soothing faith its last rest should be there V 
 
 How was the wish fulfilled ? More lavishly 
 
 Than ever mortal could fulfil design. 
 
 Unto the bearer of the sacred pledge 
 
 The unthrobbing heart was more than mightiest spell 
 
 — Sovereign salvation of his dear renown, 
 
 Incitement to most godly-daring deeds. 
 
 He never reached the sweet goal of desire, 
 
 But died, o'er whelmed with glory, in the trust 
 
 To which his death was faithful, , . Then that heart 
 
IS8 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Was carried sadly back to Scottisli soil, 
 
 And laid to rest in Melrose Abbey walls. . . 
 
 And to futurity it was bequest 
 
 Of the most noble poem, which has dwelt 
 
 Unwritten, but not powerless, in the souls 
 
 Of all who hear the legend, all who muse 
 
 Upon the mighty destiny of that heart 
 
 So far beyond its boding — ay, beyond 
 
 Its hottest wish, its most exultant leap. 
 
 And they who cherish the remembrance grand 
 
 Of that pathetic story — if they think 
 
 Of the ruins where thel)urial hath been — 
 
 Must needs surrender to the inward voice 
 
 That cries " gallant heart ! Thov, art not there ! " 
 
 What is accomplished shows what may be done, 
 
 What is projected only, shows what might. 
 
 The ideal that remains but in idea 
 
 Loses not its first brightness, nor in aught 
 
 Is from the perfect pattern derogate ; 
 
 That which is carried out must suffer and fall, 
 
 Submit to compromise, and be pollute. 
 
 Descending from the far-off throne where high 
 
 It stands, a model for all time to come, 
 
 A wonder, and a worship. That which is 
 
 Can never overpass the boundary 
 
 That limits it from the iinattainable 
 
 Of that which might be, that which should be. Look 
 
 To that, and ye are lightened ; turn away 
 
 From the apparent — ^find the hidden real. 
 
EXPERIENTIA DOCET. 
 
 " The little fools ! " — we wise ones say ; 
 
 Seeing how they rush onward to their ill, 
 
 Seeing our sage words, our dear-learned counsels, still, 
 
 How they are thrown away. — 
 
 Bash ones ! — ^before your eyes each day 
 Pass not examples of the truth we tell 1 
 Only experience sad can teach you well, 
 And — ^then — " Too late ! " you say. 
 
 And yet our warning we repeat, 
 Discouraged not, in hope to find, some day, 
 But one who timely may be turned away 
 From that fell poison sweet. 
 
 " Touch not, taste not ! — though so fair," 
 (To the deluded ones we earnest cry) 
 " That lovely fruit ye hover longing hy — 
 Its knowledge is despair ! 
 
 " It is the fatal fruit, so sweet 
 
 At the first eager taste ; but evermore 
 
 The tempted one shall rue that moment sore 
 
 When he did take and eat. 
 
l6o POEMS OP THE FUTURE. 
 
 " For all too quickly is he cursed ; 
 
 The sweetness into bitterness soon turns, 
 
 And leaves with him. a sickening pain, that burns 
 
 With an enduring thirst ! 
 
 " And once that harm is done, no more 
 Can ought be found that may be remedy : — 
 Think of the long, sure suffering, and pass by. — 
 The joy were briefly o'er ! " 
 
 — In vain : we still entreat in vain ; 
 
 The wild infatuation urges on 
 
 The reckless ones to snatch the sweet ; — 'tis gone- 
 
 The bitter doth remain ! . . . 
 
 There comes a voice from out the crowd 
 — ^Victims of that dire curiosity — 
 It breaketh in with strange audacity — 
 It crieth out aloud — 
 
 " Yes ! it is even as you say — 
 
 We, who would not be warned, did seize and eat. 
 
 And by the bitterness after that sweet 
 
 Must we our boldness pay. 
 
 " And yet, for all the after pain. 
 We would not that enchanting sweetness first 
 Forego, for knowledge of the lasting thirst, 
 If we might choose again ! 
 
 " We would not pass untempted by, 
 
 And live, not having known the taste ; nor yet 
 
EXPERIENTIA DOCET. i6i 
 
 BenouQce the bitter, if we must forget 
 The sweetness past thereby. 
 
 " We know not how — ^but it is so, 
 That after revelling on that bitter-sweet 
 We would of no more dainties henceforth eat, 
 No other sweetness know. 
 
 " We never now could find our bliss 
 
 In aught of the delights which yet remain 
 
 To those who have not known the joy, the pain, 
 
 That we have lost in this. 
 
 " One blessed moment only stayed 
 The gladness ; but our very life is left 
 Changed by it ; and we would not be bereft 
 Of that whence it is made ! " — 
 
 Alas ! — then you must go your way ; 
 There is no saving from the treacherous snare, 
 No power of help, no wisdom to be\vare, 
 If that be as you say. 
 
 If that indeed be all the gain 
 Your fatal knowledge unto you hath brought,'-^ 
 If that be wisdom by experience bought, — 
 Such wisdom is in vain I 
 
 We wise ones need not lift our voice — 
 Let folly cry, and be held back no more. 
 But teach the world its lesson, as before, 
 To sorrow and rejoice ! . . . . 
 
AFTER SUNSET. 
 
 Hast watched the sky 
 
 Tinted with evenings brightest, fairest hues. 
 To greet the solemn passing of the sun 1 
 Seems not all Nature in that mellowed light 
 To grow more fair ? and gentle eventime 
 Shedding a softened halo o'er the earth 
 To make its beauties seem more wonderful 1 
 
 But — when the sun has gone from the fair west ; 
 
 And the last streak of glorious, radiant hue 
 
 That heralded his flight, has passed away ; 
 
 And the bright lines of golden, seeming lit 
 
 With wildfire from his dying majesty, 
 
 Have faded from each cloud's resplendent marge ; 
 
 While from his chariot part the tints sublime 
 
 That gathered from the crest of each far hill 
 
 To lend a glory to his dying hour 
 
 And usher it out with pomp of kingly state ; — 
 
 When the soft shades of silvery eventide 
 
 Have deepened o'er the mountain's gloomy brow : 
 
 And the last glimmering brightness leaves the sea, 
 
 Where twilight shadows are creeping ; and from the 
 
 wave 
 Is yielded sadly in the rose-tinged foam 
 
AFTER SUNSET. 163 
 
 The last fair beam reflected in its glow; — 
 
 When the proud monarch, verging to his fall, 
 
 With one last efifort of superb command 
 
 Gathers together all the lingering rays 
 
 That faint unto the advancing gloom of night. 
 
 And marshals them, in deep mysterious gleams 
 
 Of parting light that roll along the sky 
 
 Till they unite in one grand canopy 
 
 To mirror on the darkening sky (with gloom 
 
 Too soon to be obscured) the shimmering hues 
 
 Whose brilliancy late flooded those pale clouds — 
 
 When the translucent tints, that floated o'er 
 
 The fleecy flecks, absorbing them utterly 
 
 In their pure lustre (they, ardent with mystic glow 
 
 Transfigured gleamed one moment, to melt in light) 
 
 — Have faded from the heaven's dull leaden hue — 
 
 Then — then — draws near the dark and dreary night ! 
 
 ! when thus evening waneth — hast thou sighed 
 That those sweet charms should pass within an hour 
 And mourned the fleeting beauty now no more ? . . . . 
 
 Watch ! Seest thou not, far o'er the mountain side, 
 
 Parting the dark folds of yon heaVy cloud, 
 
 A gentle star steal forth upon the night ? 
 
 Watch ! . . still ! — So sileatly — ^and scarce perceived — 
 
 Star after star shines out, . . . until, ere long. 
 
 The heavens are gleaming with their awful light — 
 
 And space seems widening to infinity. 
 
 The restless struggle — the change — the uncertainty — 
 
 Seem sunk into the far past ; — nought can stir 
 
 The stillness of this serenity ; no jar 
 
164 POEMS Ot THE FUIURE. 
 
 Subsist against this blissful sense of rest. — 
 ! doth this spell not call up in thy soul 
 Joy yet more sacred ] And inspire in thee 
 More noble thoughts ? Seems not thy spirit then 
 More great, more powerful ? And this gloom to be 
 More worthy of thy reverence and thy love 
 Than evening's transient, mocking loveliness] 
 Now that hath passed, with its delusive shows, 
 How sweet it seems to turn, as in relief, 
 To this grand emblem of enduring calm : 
 How changless, and how imperturbable 
 Its glory ! — how deep, how holy its repose ! 
 Ah ! Night can give more peace unto thy heart, 
 And wake sublimer powers within thy soul. 
 And breathe into thy mind more blessed themes. 
 And teach thee how with Nature to commune 
 In higher and more hallowed intercourse — 
 Than day, with its bright sunlight ; or its close 
 In sunset splendour, and brief beauty of change. 
 
 Thus, in the darkening night-time of thy grief, 
 When turns thy soul in anguish to that fair pa^t 
 But late with all its joys, ics visions bright 
 Of supernatural glory, parted from thee :- — 
 When from thy life the illusive light is gone 
 Whose glory beaming o'er it had made it seem 
 Too beautiful for true, flooding it o'er 
 With loveliness and radiance all unreal — 
 Then shall Heaven send a pure, still light, to gleam 
 Through thy deep darkness ; and that light shall bring 
 Far clearer revelations, visions more true 
 Of the mysterious spiritual things. 
 
AFTER SUNSET. 165 
 
 Thaa the departed bliss of thy regret. 
 And, ia that blessed light, thy soul shall be 
 Lift up toward that far brightness gleaming ever 
 Beyond the horizeu dim that bounds our view. 
 
TEOTH. 
 
 My recantation ! — No, that cannot be ! 
 'Tis not within my wilL poetry, 
 My love of life, my lifij of love ! to thee 
 I am bound for ever. Not at prayer of mine 
 Was the glorious boon acceded to me ; thine 
 The choice, the search of me. my divine 
 Sovereign, my perfect mistress, at the voice 
 Of thy first movement in me, I did rejoice, 
 Before full comprehension of thy choice : 
 With awed unquestioning reverence, at thy feet 
 I fell, with vow of true obedience sweet, 
 Ready thy absolute behest to meet. 
 
 To love thee unrequite were ecstasy. 
 But now thy gracious recognition to me 
 Hath come — now may I ever worship thee 
 In calm, full, strong assurance — my God ! 
 Poetry ! 
 
EMBLEMATIC. 
 
 Fate plays Parrhasius with me : — not as he, 
 
 That olden painter, for art's sake pitiless 
 
 With bodily torment had his victim racked. 
 
 That to the world he might bequeath the work 
 
 Won from the expressive throes of dying pain, 
 
 Snatching from transitory agony 
 
 Its soul of beauty, to delineate 
 
 In art immortalised beatitude. . . . 
 
 Not from such suffering might in me be found 
 
 Material for the artist of my race : — 
 
 But 'tis my very soul that shall be torn, 
 
 Heedless of my brief anguish ; — rent to shreds, 
 
 In disregard of rebel impotence, 
 
 Or the tremendous, yet all futile strain 
 
 Of effort to endurance : 'tis my soul 
 
 That must in present moments be convulsed 
 
 Beyond capacity of my frail powers 
 
 So grasp with comprehension resolute. . . 
 
 But so it is, that in some wondrous way 
 
 Tis sacrificed unto futurity, 
 
 This soul, whose quiverings must some purpose serve, 
 
 Known only to the master, who doth use, 
 
 His mystic power upon it ruthlessly. 
 
 Henceforth its very tatters may be kept 
 
i68 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 For long elaboration by his band — 
 
 The potter's hand, that moulds his plastic clay 
 
 Into sublimest symbolism of form, 
 
 Begardless of its substance loatbliest, 
 
 Serenely, through its writhingsof eflFete 
 
 Unorganised resistance, firm and calm 
 
 Persisting, till his absolute design 
 
 Subdue, transform, transfigure the yielding stufi', 
 
 I'o the perfection of the finished work 
 
 I in a potter's hand am clay — hut clay ; 
 
 And ere the master-spirit, that on me 
 
 Worketh his will, hath raised me to such height 
 
 Of glorious probability — 'tis need 
 
 That I have been degraded, in the mire 
 
 Trampled and crushed. , . Nor can I hope to share 
 
 The triumph of the after perfectness 
 
 Of the ideal to be wrought forth in me ; 
 
 Since 'tis the workmanship, and not the clay, 
 
 That owns the beauty and the blessedness. 
 
 That serveth to the glory and the joy 
 
 Of coming ages ; and that doth endure 
 
 To immortality, when the vile stuff 
 
 Hath its identity complete absorbed 
 
 Unto extinction, in the form divine. . . . 
 
 Poor grovelling, transient, unregarded clay — 
 
 Despised, indeed ; let it be still despised 
 
 And lose not its humiliation^ till 
 
 Past recognition it become endued 
 
 With the divinity, transmitted once 
 
 To its base medium — for Eternity. 
 
THE DREAM OF LIFE. 
 
 LtFB, and not death, to me — seems like a sleep ; 
 
 Which, in a lingering dream — successions fleet 
 
 Of changing dreams — faint consciousness doth keep. 
 
 So ... . childhood is the first fair, blissful dream. . . . 
 
 And youth — half-waking lapse, where all things seem 
 
 Still tinted with th' enchanted light that fell 
 
 O'er that pure, lovely vision ; and its spell 
 
 Hath power to lure the fancy, that, dreaming on, 
 
 Seeks still to mingle beauteous dream-forms gone 
 
 With its confused, awaking sleep j — and so 
 
 Youth's dream from child-dream's light hath caught its 
 
 glow. 
 For so celestial beamed — so clear — so bright 
 The glamour of the yet scarce melted light. 
 That fain the uncertain sense would deem it true. 
 And struggles not to lose it quite from view ; 
 To &ame the visions of its after sight 
 Unto similitude of that blest light. 
 
 So life dreams on. — The fitful, broken sleep 
 Youth's hopeful vision may not ever keep — 
 To manhood gliding, whence the light must fade 
 Of the bright images, whose beauty made 
 A glory, which at first so real did seem. 
 To hover o'er the passing of the dream. 
 
170 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 But now no more those liharms around it dwell ; 
 
 No more, obedient to sweet fancy's spell, 
 
 The thronging forms their wasted likeness keep : 
 
 But, lost in a perturbed and restless sleep, 
 
 Dark, fearful figures dim flit to and fro, 
 
 — Shapeless — confused — uncertain — come and go. 
 
 The dreamer holds no longer 'neath his sway 
 
 His dream ; nor hath he power to bid it stay. 
 
 Not vivid visions, seeming-real, and clear. 
 
 Delude him now : — a vague and helpless fear 
 
 Burdens the trance-bound spirit ; and o'er it steals 
 
 A strange, uncomprehending awe, that feels 
 
 A boding of the moment to awake. 
 
 Which soon, with dreadful shock, must sudden break 
 
 The spell of these illusions ; and leave, alone, 
 
 The horrible darkness, with, its depths unknown — 
 
 The nothingness in which all being must end — 
 
 Of which a doubtful consciousness doth blend 
 
 With the yet wavering sense, that strives in vain 
 
 The ever-fading mockery to retain. 
 
 One moment of dread transition ; and no more. . . . 
 
 The horror of that bewilderment is o'er. — 
 
 From fettered sleep the waking soul unbound 
 
 Conscious assumes her glorious powers new found ; 
 
 Grasps the full comprehension, fearlessly, 
 
 Of all her being's awful mystery ; — 
 
 Into herself all force of life receives, 
 
 And all its grandeur, all its truth, perceives. . : . . 
 
 The dream is broken — in reality ! 
 
 The soul froin life's sleep awakes into Eternity ! 
 
TITE DRZAM OF LIFE. 171 
 
 Then sees the spirit, how that fair dream of yore 
 
 That faded slowly till 'twas dream no more — 
 
 Was no delusion ; and its transient light, 
 
 That dimmer ever grew to earthly sight. 
 
 Was but a faint glow of celestial gleam. 
 
 Shed erst o'er childhood, whose imperfect dream 
 
 Such a conception of that light attained 
 
 As might by mortal senses be retained ; 
 
 Whose beauty as a shado-yying-forth should be 
 
 Of the soul's true and heavenly destiny : 
 
 And the fair likeness in that dream dim traced 
 
 (Ne'er from the darkening spirit quite effaced 
 
 That deep and deeper into the gloom must go. 
 
 And mist unpierced by that ethereal glow). 
 
 Must only then, at last, forgotten be 
 
 When realised in most blest certainty : — 
 
 The sweet dream lost but in fulfilment ; past 
 
 All changing maze, all fleeting shows, at last 
 
 To the freed soul opens Eternity ; 
 
 Where, far transcending all thought, all prophecy, 
 
 The infinite source of that piure light revealed shall be 
 
ONLY A COQUETTE. 
 
 Only a coquette ! — So winning, and so sweet, 
 
 — So innocent, I read her. Was I blind 1 
 
 Did she not to me show, even despite herself. 
 
 The secret goodness of her deepest soul 1 
 
 It is there — or it has been : — I am sure, 
 
 Too sacred for the jeering world to see 
 
 Into whose conventions she has fallen bound ; 
 
 They only ask her brilliance. I, who felt 
 
 The truth in her, o'erlaid by all those lies 
 
 She glittered in — I would have laid it bare. 
 
 Have vindicated in her, for her sake. 
 
 The noble nature in her — ^had she would 
 
 For my sake, for my love's sake. Wanton fool. 
 
 Hovering between the choice of Heaven and Hell ! 
 
 She stopped the string of the yearnings that I touched) 
 
 Whose motions, had they had full way allowed, 
 
 Had swept space with the infinite vibratinga 
 
 Of the natural chord, — successive reproduced, 
 
 Echoing, faint, faint, distance on distances — 
 
 Whose ground-note, ere 'twas muffled, I struck true 
 
 That moment when her eyes drooped, and her lip 
 
 Struggled 'twixt sweet humility and scorn, 
 
 Before I said I loved her — when I asked 
 
 If love might not be better than the crowns 
 
ONLY A COQUETTE. 173 
 
 Of adulation, and the triumphs gained 
 O'er all the envious, who could but avow- 
 That she was beautiful. . . . Might it not be 
 A sweeter victory to know herself 
 Not to the world, to one, one only — dear ? 
 Ah ! had she answered then — because no speech 
 Framed itself to the tones so apt to dart 
 The lances keen of wit and arrogant play — ■ 
 For that I know, the silence gave consent ; 
 And half the moment owned that she was won. 
 It was but half a moment. — Then we burst 
 Upon the crowd, into the lights and flags, 
 The rustle, and the distant music and stir. ... 
 Not an hour after, and I saw her pass — 
 I, watching for a dropping glance to fall 
 On me, who waited in the corridor. 
 Wrapt in my blisful musing, unaware 
 Of the fling around me, and the flying feet. — 
 She saw me not ; her eyes were fixed upon 
 JEer cavalier ; — he closer to her side 
 Than I had been in my soft murmurings. 
 Those two seemed listening to each other's looks ; 
 She gazed up to him — he was very tall — 
 As though her eyes would drink from his. Her smile 
 Was mournful, but derisive hauteur loomed 
 From her white brow. I heard the words she spoke. 
 ... "I find that there is surfeit of all sweets ; 
 Of all things one may have enough too soon 
 — Even of freedom — even of fun : indeed 
 One can grow tired of being young. I do. 
 My life is not so good to me, that I 
 Love not death better ] nay, I think that now, 
 
174 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Having run through all enjoyments, only this 
 
 Is left me to desire for novelty : 
 
 And any moment I were grateful, glad, 
 
 That death should come and take me by surprise ; 
 
 I would not cavil at it for its lack 
 
 Of ceremony — chide it inopportune. 
 
 If at the end of this next valse — with your— 
 
 My heart might in one instant cease to beat, 
 
 I would not ask for warning ; would not stay, 
 
 Not for one mundane sigh, for one regret. 
 
 Not for one lingering starlight air adieu, — 
 
 Not for one last sip of champagne ! " . . . Was it she, 
 
 Who turned the humour with such flippant words % 
 
 She, without change of gesture or of mien 
 
 Drifting so lightly into scoffing strain, 
 
 Availing her of her too versatile 
 
 Mood-phases, thus to blazon to the view 
 
 Of the unreligious, of the stranger, who 
 
 "Not iutermeddleth " — her immortal pains 
 
 In alternation with bright repartee. 
 
 Soulless by contrast, — swiftly, easily. 
 
 Gliding o'er the transit, as indifferent 
 
 To the difference ; and all to, amuse herself, 
 
 To strike, to startle, to bring out, to try 
 
 The last acquaintance of ten minutes' stand ! — 
 
 ! could I then have spoken ! Could I but 
 
 Have intercepted — with an earnest speech 
 
 That should have caught and checked her levity 
 
 But he, the coxcomb, eager-drawling, snatched 
 The opportunity to dawdle out 
 Loudly a compliment ! — about the strange 
 Eeversal of the usual privilege — 
 
ONLY A COQUETTE. 175 
 
 The Tinlooked for probability tbat she 
 
 Should fall at his feet, ere upon his heart 
 
 He might make bold to lay her. — Scurrilous fool, 
 
 And sneaking cynic ! — 0, she did not blush ! — 
 
 As her light dress trailed past me, from her hair 
 
 A spray of flower detached itself, and fell 
 
 By fluttering stages, from the gauzy scarf 
 
 That swept her shoulders, to the hanging lace 
 
 Entangled in the girdle of her fan 
 
 — Thence flung from the frail tassel to the floor. 
 
 — I stooped me after her to drag it up — 
 
 Only to find its debris sparkling there 
 
 Crushed and dispersed — down-trodden by the heel 
 
 Of the swaggering partner. So I heard no more 
 
 How the -word-tbumament pursued its course, 
 
 Nor how its end might tally with its grave 
 
 Solemn beginning. And I had not time 
 
 — Or will — or common sense — in thinking o'er 
 
 The sudden revelation — to feel shocked, 
 
 Indignant, at her wild, unmaidenly 
 
 Impiety. I only thought, with thrill 
 
 Of passionate sympathy — " Then she is sad ! 
 
 This life of change, of outward gaiety. 
 
 Is not enough for her ; she takes the whirl 
 
 Of inclinations, part ungratified. 
 
 Part sated, — at its value ; turns from it 
 
 And looks beyond it, giddy. . . Dreary queen. 
 
 Tired of her joyless kingdom ! Sick of power, 
 
 Sway-weary ! — ^Ah, she knows not what it is 
 
 She needs ; but I have found it for her : would 
 
 I could persuade her to believe' it ! then 
 
 Accept at my own hands the unfailing cure ; 
 
176 POEMS OP THE FUTURE. 
 
 Be satisfied, and rest ; yield and be glad ; 
 
 Know both the want and its fulfilment, both 
 
 In one — taught in one moment, in one kiss ! 
 
 'Tis I will do the deed ; 'tis T will be 
 
 Her teacher, her inspirer ; I will place 
 
 The nectar to those dry lips, that through smiles 
 
 Of stoicism inefiable, are hot 
 
 For thirst with which the unh^aving bosom bums. 
 
 . . . She can be melancholy ; she who deigns 
 
 To lay aside her cold serenity 
 
 For sport with merry mockers ; — who can dress 
 
 Tormenting thoughts with phrases light and gay, 
 
 And in sad cadence utter trifles fond ; — 
 
 Whose lightsomeness betrays heart-vacancy ; 
 
 She pines : she knows not — ^but I have the charm 
 
 To kindle her young life to glory : lovet 
 
 I have love to bring her ! . . by that need of it 
 
 She hath, who needs nought else, yet, needing that 
 
 Hath all the rest too little — she shall be 
 
 Love to my love. My love for her. She is mine." . . 
 
 Audacity exultant ! Joyous thought ! 
 
 Undoubting aspiration ! — I could smile 
 
 Now, at my own simplicity. Belief 
 
 Is very true, and can suspect no guile. — 
 
 ! I can think of it no longer ! — Wrath 
 
 Hastens me on. . . . One flash of memory 
 
 Shows me my siren in that farewell hour 
 
 — I did not know it was farewell ; I thought 
 
 It was the first when my new Paradise 
 
 Should open to me, and receive me lord 
 
 And rightful owner ; — me, who long without 
 
 Had dwelt, in adoration of close gaze. 
 
ONLY A COQUETTE. 177 
 
 Ah ! had I but held back for evermore, 
 Gazing and feasting on the loveliness 
 Free unto me as unto all men then, 
 Who were content to be outside and gaze. 
 
 ! I drew nearer ; and was yet not near 
 Enough ; would enter in, and take to me 
 
 Of its delights possession. ... Ah ! . . thii hiss I . . . 
 
 1 had dreamed my life away in it, for hours 
 Of wonder, of anticipation. . . Fool, 
 
 To make such trial ! After all, perhaps 
 My test was wrong : it failed me wretchedly. 
 ... I stormed her in one fervid, seething kiss, 
 Hoping that she would pale, and that her awe 
 Would faithfully betray her love to me. 
 But her cheek quivered not ; and she looked up — 
 In my arms — ^turning on me most dazzlingly 
 Her dark, superb eyes ; and in them I saw 
 A calm, clear laugh, in tearful moisture hidden ; 
 And her caressing, silvery voice sobbed low 
 Untrembling — " Oe n'est que le premier pas 
 Qui ooute:" — shame ! then mine was not the first I 
 — It cost her nothing ; she was used to it. 
 .... She told me afterwards, when I adjured 
 Her tenderness to me, by memory of 
 That one embrace, that I so sacredly 
 Meant, loyal ; — -told me that a kiss, to her, 
 Was a mere physical sensation ; said 
 " That one thing as another must be good 
 To kiss, so it were flesh : "—A girl's, those words !— 
 I think she had learnt the new philosophy ! 
 It was, I found, the kind, fraternal mode 
 Of her admirers all to greet her so. 
 M 
 
t78 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Surely it must have palled upon her ! stale 
 
 Even then ; how wearyinglyit must have grown 
 
 Unto her custom ! — how many arms 
 
 Have wreathed around her since ! how oft her head 
 
 Has laid itself sweetly on other breasts 
 
 In condescending dalliance, as with me then ! — 
 
 — She, tossed from one to another, at their will, 
 
 Not caring — she, who should have had my love. 
 
 And been my angel. What may she not be 
 
 Now ? Has she fallen, at last, fronii the proud height. 
 
 The perilous precipice whereon she played ? 
 
 Or only gradual bent, more low and low, 
 
 Till she is now as much beneath the need 
 
 Of man's protection as of his real love ? 
 
 She, who disdained the one, must surely be 
 
 Bereft, at last, of both — faithless to both. 
 
 Worthless. . . And yet — she was so much to me ! 
 
 She might have been so good ; she was so fair : — 
 
 She had been gentle. 0, what could it be 
 
 Made her degraded, wicked ] Is there ought 
 
 Hath such a devilish power o'er woman's soul ? 
 
 Yes ! vanity ! — ^profane, mad, merciless 
 
 Vanity ! Ah, we know that — we, as men. 
 
 Know what it is ; but not what it can be 
 
 In woman — in its empire over her. 
 
 She is its slave — 'endued with terrible might 
 
 Lent to her by her master — ^vanity ! 
 
 'Twas that which made her listen to me, take 
 
 The flattering words I offered to her face 
 
 Like all the rest who thronged around her ; all 
 
 Had learnt the dialect, and came with lips 
 
 Twisted to false mock-vows, which I in truth 
 
ONLY A COQUETTE. 179 
 
 Took ; and they pleased her equally from me 
 And those who travestied. Truth was to her 
 'Eo dearer than a lie ; and she doled out 
 Exact to all, mixed meed of truth and lie. . . . 
 No more of her ! — she is not for my thought — 
 " Guarda e passa ! " — Only a Coquette, , . . 
 She is done with, is she not? Then that is all! 
 
AHNUNG. 
 
 Out of my sorrow, that dieth, 
 
 Come great gladness, that shall live ; 
 
 The joy that grief purifieth 
 
 Be mine — not to have, but give. 
 
 Into my loneliness enter 
 
 The lives of all that shall be ; 
 
 In my thoughts unspeakable, centre 
 All motions of sympathy. 
 
 For the slow, sad present, that fleeth 
 
 And the fair past, fled — 
 Be mine the far future, that seeeth 
 
 The durance of all bliss dead ! 
 
SESAME. 
 
 Love is a moment's mastery : its strange spell 
 Is worked by chance coincidence most slight 
 Of episode and mood — of thought and sight, 
 Of touch and impulse. Ay, as sure, as well 
 The magic power effects its sorcery 
 Within one pulse-beat — as in years of foredoomed 
 energy. 
 
 A voice, deep, sweet, low, sympathetic, heard 
 In the sudden when soul-music through the still 
 Of the inward secret trembles ; and the will 
 Is stretched in longing to be answering stirred 
 By swift perceived accord. — Such voice must be 
 At such conjunction of the spirit forces — destiny. 
 
 One word, one smile, one whisper, one caress — 
 Enough : the enchantment binds the captive fast. 
 Into the unsearched darkness of the past, 
 Through all the intricate of the wilderness 
 Of circumstance, of influence unknown. 
 Of the life long hidden, quick revealed, the new-roused 
 thought has flown. 
 
 Bash thought ! patient as strength, as instinct bold, 
 It follows out the associations far 
 
182 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 — The most remote — of that strange life ; there are 
 IN'o clues to the present that remain untold. 
 Every dim feeling, sign too faint to last — 
 Interpreted j transient expression caught ere it hath 
 
 And not the past or present alone can be 
 Thrown into light by passion's instant glare 
 Unto perception perfect ; but its share 
 Claims the illuminate thought, audaciously, 
 In the farthest reaching future. Every right 
 Of love is won — or missed — at once, at love's first 
 stroke of might. 
 
TO "FEU MA MAITEESSE." 
 
 My aister heard &om you the other day : 
 
 In her letter, a message for me 
 Included — your Idnd regards : I may 
 
 Take myself so maoh flattery : — 
 
 You remember me, at least. But how t 
 
 No more than the words imply 1 
 No otherwise 1 — I might well by now 
 
 Have passed from your memory ; 
 
 — That I was quite prepared for ; long 
 Since you threw me over ; 'twas right 
 
 To have done with me so :— but ! it is wrong 
 To hold me ia thought so slight- 
 
 Have I forgotten that summer day ? 
 
 Not I J — I wonder, have you i 
 In the glorious woods that you chose for play, 
 
 When you fooled me— and loved me, too. 
 
 Out of the sunlight, in the cool shade, 
 How sweetly were secrets smiled ! 
 
 How easily meanings whispered, vows made, 
 How charmingly hearts beguiled !. 
 
i84 POEMS Oil THE FUTURE. 
 
 You loved me, me for myself, all me, 
 
 Though you loved so many more ; 
 I understand now how that can be — 
 
 Not then : — had I known before ! 
 
 Or perhaps you were not yourself at all ; 
 
 Did not show for just what you were, 
 But acted a part, as you would at a ball, — 
 
 You, the actress everywhere ! 
 
 ! you should have thrown off your tricks, your wiles 
 And softened at nature's spell ; 
 
 In the air was not radiance more than your smiles ; 
 And love seemed in both, as well. 
 
 And I, when I found me at your feet. 
 Seemed so in my natural place ; 
 
 1 could wonder not, in the presence sweet 
 Of the glamour of your face. 
 
 Keep of me what remembrance you will 
 — Though I rather would say, Forget — 
 
 But if any it be, be it earnest still — 
 For I, what I was, am yet. 
 
 And if you know that 'tis I indeed 
 
 Who all that long time ago 
 Flung my soul to you in its trust and its need — 
 
 How you tossed it me back you know. 
 
 How you had your way with it ; how you took 
 For use, what you would of it ; then 
 
TO " FEU MA MAITRESSE." 185 
 
 Went on your way with a scornful look 
 — No thanks — not a smile again ! 
 
 That was well, if you would I should be no more 
 
 To you — 'twas for you to will ; 
 But nought could be hence as it was before, 
 
 — You cannot be you to me, still ! 
 
 Send me no words : — call not back the past ; 
 
 Do not venture a doubtful claim 
 On associations of old, at last, 
 
 In friendship's, in memory's name. 
 
 You were all, or nought to me ; I to you 
 
 Cannot be what you want of me, 
 — If you mean to waste me and have me too : 
 
 I tell you, it cannot be ! 
 
UNREST. 
 
 The song of a weary pilgrim 
 
 Beside Time's fated strand, 
 
 Doomed to tread the mystic track 
 
 Whose end is hidden, which turns not back, 
 
 Through the shades of a dreary land. 
 
 " ! my soul is sick and weaiy ; 
 
 My feet are tired and sore ; 
 
 My journey is lone and mournful — ■ 
 
 Shall I wander for evermore ? 
 
 The way, so long and tedious — 
 
 I know not where it may tend ; 
 
 Will it never lead to a pathway ] 
 
 Shall I never find the end 1 
 
 On, on I go ; but all vainly ; 
 
 My feet lead me round and round, — 
 
 Must I thus stray for ever ? 
 
 May never a rest be found ? 
 
 ! vain and unanswered longings, 
 
 Will ye ne'er be calmed to peace 1 
 
 ! pilgrimage sore and dreary, 
 
 Will never thy anguish cease ? " 
 
 Forth chanted, bitter and wailing, 
 Monotonous, dull and low, 
 
UNREST. 187 
 
 Came from life's path the echo 
 
 Of that sad plaint's ceaseless flow. 
 
 And the pilgrim, with this dark burden 
 
 Of unrest upon his soul, 
 
 "Wandered through Fate's stem marches. 
 
 And knew not they had a goal ! 
 
 There came, then, a vision to him ; 
 
 And a voice spoke, sweet and blest, 
 
 Answering in his soul the strife, 
 
 The yearning, the long umrest — 
 
 " On ! on ! — Fate hath appointed 
 
 A journey drear for thee ; 
 
 Thofu. canst not thread its mazes. 
 
 Its bourne thou canst not see ; 
 
 Steep is the path, and rugged ; 
 
 'Tis vain to hope for a rest 
 
 Till thy destiny be attained 
 
 And thy joxuuey ended, blest. 
 
 And though, whilst thou faintly toilest, 
 
 Thou knowest not where it tend — ■ 
 
 Press on, xmtiring only — 
 
 And thou shalt achieve the end. 
 
 Still struggle bravely onwards, 
 
 Till there come in sight — the goal ; 
 
 Then the sweetest sense of restfulness 
 
 Be granted unto thy soul. 
 
 All the blissful realising 
 
 In one transient moment's gleam 
 
 Of the restless, troubled yearnings 
 
 That shall fade away as a dream. 
 
 The weariness, care, and sadness 
 
i88 POEMS Oh THE FUTURE. 
 
 Fall from thy spirit away, 
 
 Sinking in long oblivion, 
 
 Lulled into peace for aye. 
 
 Then the tedious journey is ended — 
 
 Not a weary step o'er again ; 
 
 To this end they have all been leading — 
 
 The anguish, the doubt, the pain. — 
 
 .... Wake ! put on all thy vigour ; 
 
 Stretch forth with all thy strength ; 
 
 No more unanswered questionings ; 
 
 —-Trust — hope — thou shalt find, at length ! " 
 
 As the sleeping trance passed from him, 
 And the day-light greeted his eyes. 
 The waking senses came rushing 
 With an eager, glad surprise ; 
 And he felt, in his new sweet blessedness 
 As though the fetters did fall 
 That so long the soul had burdened 
 That fretted and chafed at their thrall. 
 And an energy, strange and hopeful, 
 Fired in each nerve and limb ; 
 And a strong resolve woke in him, 
 — His spirit awoke in him. 
 
 Forward he went ; nor ceased 
 
 The painful path to tread ; 
 
 But ! how many dragging years 
 
 The gloomy journey led ! 
 
 The sweet hope ne'er quite failed him — 
 
 But ! how oft it grew dim, 
 
 When the same unrest and fearfulness 
 
UNXESr. 189 
 
 Perplexed and weighed on him. 
 How oft he longed, impatient, 
 But to lie down and rest j 
 To give up the dreary pilgrimage 
 And its far-off bourne so blest ! 
 But he paused not ; and ever onward 
 Wandered, with failing strength, 
 Till his weariness gained upon him — 
 He must give up, at length ! 
 So faint grew his limbs, and weary. 
 He scarce could tread one step more ; 
 But until that promised bourne appeared 
 How might his journey be o'er ? 
 He struggled on : — then, powerless, 
 He fell to the earth, at last- 
 But the pain, the aching, the tiredness. 
 Were passing from him fast. . . 
 And again, as though he were tranced, 
 He heard the sweet low voice 
 Whose call he so true had followed, 
 Whose tones bade his heart rejoice— 
 " Best ! thou shalt go no farther^ — 
 The goal that thou couldst not see. 
 That, seeking, thou still hast hoped for, 
 Is here appointed thee ! 
 No mark for thine eyes discerning ; 
 It might not to thee be known 
 Where the end was doomed to the pathway. 
 Thou hadst trodden in pain, alone. 
 No rest on the way was given ; 
 But the languor, that at last 
 Came so strong, and overpowered thee 
 
igo POEMS Of 7 HE FUTURE. 
 
 Was sign that it all was past ! 
 
 Now, the rest so long denied thee, 
 
 Cometh, unsought, to thy soul ; 
 
 Rise not — no more shalt thou wander — 
 
 This, pilgrim, is the goal. 
 
 For ever — and ever — and ever 
 
 Sleep on ; all peaceful and blest ; 
 
 All care, — all longing — all weariness 
 
 Lulled to eternal rest ! " — 
 
 And the Voice all gently faded, .... 
 And left him — still and calm : 
 And a sweet sense, his soul pervading 
 With peace, brought a wondrous balm. 
 His spirit all thrilled — filled 
 With ecstasy, pure and blest. . . 
 All laid to sleep, the longings 
 Unanswered, the wild unrest ; 
 One moment of rapture, passing 
 To dreamless, unmoved rest. 
 
 All life long was his pilgrimage, 
 
 And in death he reached the Goal ; 
 
 And the rest he found, — shall come, at length, 
 
 To every weary souL 
 
FEAGMENTS OF THOUGHT, 
 
 ALFRED DB MUSSET — AND UNB AUTRE. 
 
 Sorrow, too, hath her worshippers. A voice 
 
 Cried once unto the Gods for a great grief. 
 
 The prayer was answered. Unto him whose choice 
 
 Was made so strange and awful, came a brief 
 
 Exquisite rapture, first, forcing his soul rejoice. . . 
 
 Fatal, delusive, treacherous ! — The speU 
 
 Was of love's madness cast, to purpose bent 
 
 Of the heaven-courted fury, which swift fell 
 
 Upon the insatiate suppliant. Thus was sent 
 
 The crowning anguish of joy's quick life. — It was well. 
 
 And. there was one who wearied her of rest, 
 And sickened of the joy she ne'er had known, 
 And put its vision from her. To be blest 
 She asked better than happiness alone ; 
 Not bliss, nor hope : — ^but more : and it was granted 
 .... Was it best? 
 
 NOUS AVONS CHANGE. 
 
 Blest forgers of the noble myths of old, 
 The trust, the reverence, the piety 
 Of those dear beauty adorers, patriots bold, 
 Priests, poets, pilots of humanity — 
 
192 POEMS OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Mild, pitiful, was their most gentle creed ; 
 Not ours : for they unto their HeU assigned 
 Their Lethe : we are soothed not so : — indeed 
 It is in Heaven that we must Lethe seek — nor Heaven 
 without it find ! 
 
 HBBZENSBLUTTROPP. 
 
 Long had I to keep a treasure, whose dear worth I did 
 
 not know. 
 Alas ! I guarded it carelessly — and too soon I let it go. 
 Now it is lost to me, deem I it all preciousest things 
 
 above : 
 And I love it for aye, with a sorrow that is greater 
 
 than even the love. 
 
 PLASM. 
 
 Of no life should the standard be success. 
 How should it be 1 — Not each one his own fate 
 To fashion hath ; but all the lives to bless 
 That his can comprehend — or touch. The world can 
 wait. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 .S". Cowan &" Co., Printers, Perth.