1 1 -aggg^ijwipa^i g ' ^ji g affiaw i w^f'w* ^ ^^ itfflWfWWIBi Hi-MBWWIi^Kl'iili* lljfTw'lillF Cornell University Library PR 4613.D3F5 Flotsam and jetsamirhymes °'J.. J"{'J.?,]|jI-^* 3 :524 013 341 767 The original of tiiis 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/cletails/cu31924013341767 RHYMES OLD AND NEW. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM RHYMES OLD AND NEW^ BY ALFRED ^OMETT, AUTHOR OF 'RANOLF AND AMOHIA." LONDON: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE. lAll rights reserved.l TO (if ever there were one!) 'a mighty poet and a subtle-souled psychologist,' — , TO ROBERT BROWNING, THIS LITTLE BOOK, WITH A HEARTY WISH THE TRIBUTE WERE WORTHIER, IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. CONTENTS. PART THE FIRST. , PACE hougoumont ' • 3 The Forest Beauties : Upper Canada, 1834. : .... 6 A Glee for Winter . . . ... . . ■. .11 A Stage-Coach in the Alleghanies 13 Song for a Family Party 17 A Valentine . . ' 20 '- A Kiss : Sappho to Phaon .23 Lines sent to Robert Browning, 1840, on a certain Critique on ' Pippa Passes ' . . . . . . . 25 With a Knapsack in the- Tyrol . .... 28 At Jefferson's Tomb, MoNxicELLO, 1834 '. . . 31 Lake. Wallenstadt ... 32 Kamouraska 39 At Tell's. Chapel ,_^ ... 43 A Christmas Hymn (Old Style, 1837) . . .44 A Glimpse of Italy 'from the Stelvio 47 LiijLiE Raymond 52 A Reveille — Lake Zurich 57 viii Contents. PAGE ' Go TO Sleep ' 60 A Soul of Goodness in Things Evil 66 Two Banquets 7' PART THE SECOND. Invisible Sights 75 Childish Facts 77 Two Pictures 81 What Matter, what Matter, O Friend ! .... 83 Livingstone 84 Fireworks 92 The Servian Leader's Last Address 98 On a recent Cry about Sentiment loi The Arrival of the Archduchess 102 The Waterman ... 108 This is the Sea-Beach 113 An Invitation 114 NiVELLA 117 Children 120 Cripplegate 127 Prayer 141 A Christmas Hymn (New Style, 1875) 142 The Bride of the Avon ....."... 154 Saint Paul's 161 The six poems at pages 6,-11, 13, 17, 3s, and 44, respectively, were printed in Blackwood's Magazine in the years 1837, 1838, or 1839. The Christmas Hymn (1837) has often been reprinted in America. PART THE FIRST HOUGOUMONT. The air is sweet and bright and hot, And loaded fruit-trees lean around ; Their black unmoving shadows spot The twinkling grass, the sunny, ground ; No sound of niirth or toil' to wrong The orchard's hush at Hougoumont ! And silver daisies simply deck With' meek bright eyes that orchard-plot ; And therein lurks, an azure speck, The tiny starred Forget-me-not — Fond type of hearts that love and long In lonely faith, at Hougoumont. Flotsam and Jetsam. HI At every step the beetles run, Where none pursue, in vain concealed ; Each mailed coat glistens in the sun. Where none attack, an idle shield ! And ants unheeded scour and throng The velvet sward at Hougoumont. IV The headlong humble-bee alone Assaults the old and crumbling wall ; His busy bugle. faintly blown. With many a silent interval ; Unchecked he tries each nook along The moss-grown wall at Hougoumont. Aloft the moaning pigeons coo. One gurgling note unvaried still ; The faltering chimes of Braine-le-Heu' The meads with hollow murmurs fill ; And skylarks shower out all day long Swift-hurrying bliss o'er Hougoumont. Hougoumont. VI With transport lulled in dreamy eyes, June woos you to voluptuous ease ; At every turn Love smiling sighs,; Dear Nature does her best to please ! How sweet some loved one's loving song, Couched in green shade at . . . Hougoumont! — Oh God ! what are we ? Do we then Form part of this material scene ? Can thirty thousand thinking men Fall — and but leave the fields more green ? 'Tis strange — but Hope, be stanch and strong ! It seems so at sweet Hougoumont. , Flotsam and Jetsam. THE FOREST BEAUTIES; Upper Canada, 1834. Let me their lovely forms recall ! I love them each, I love them all. The First, she is a maiden tall. With all the grace that needs must be Allied to faultless symmetry ; With eyes, serene in mirth or woe, Mostly in modest digliity Down-dropt, albeit of loving glow > A mien so proudly unpretending. The lofty with the lowly blending ! The Second is a gentle creature. More rustic, yet as fair of feature ; Reserved, and sparing of her speech ; Yet eloquence no voice could reach Instils a face whose features fair The Forest Beauties. Seem all absorbed in eyes and hair — Such large dark eyes — such long dark hair ! Her long dark hair luxuriant, .wound With classic taste her head around ; With taste she knows not of — so rar'e ; With carelessness surpassing care ! Her eyes — their darkly btirning light Doth overflow the pupils bright ; And when downcast, fills all between The dark-firinged lids with jetty sheen : Dear eyes, their earnest tenderness Not staid reserve can quite suppress ! Oh dearest ! for therein you see Love struggling' with timidity ! What though habitually an air Composed, nay almost grave, she wear, A rebel glance will now and then Steal upward from its crystal den. And tell, in spite of her control Her deep devotedness of soul ! Her. lip — her cheek — oh ! words are weak To paint her lip, her brow, her cheek ! Not formed by perfect rule, yet far More lovely than more regular ! Who would not change the beauties shown. On canvas oft, so oft in stone, Flotsam and Jetsam. For features fresh wherein may be A fine peculiarity ? For lineaments in which we trace A marked, an individual grace, Something we do not elsewhere find In loveliest of womankind ! But oh, that something 1 no one knoweth From whence it comes, wherein it gloweth ! In conscious strength it seems to sit, Defying us to fathom it : Love, curious wonder, and delight So rouse each other, so excite, ' We gaze with joy, again, again, That almost deepens into pain, So much we long, yet strive in vain, The subtle secret to explain ! So torture thought to make it tell. In what consists, wherein may dwell, The witchery we can feel so well. The fascination of the spell ! The Third is lively, young .and gay ; In form, O what more like a Fay, With eyes of shyly-glimmering grey, Whereon long lashes blackly lie Like fir-tree tops on moonlit sky ! ' The Forest Beauties. Dear maidens ! what though you were bred Where forests like an ocean spread, Your friends, your models, such as live In Backwoods where no polish is, I know few charms dense cities give Of heart or person that you miss ! So well you know your proper due^ Your own, and that of others too ! Retiring still, still self-possessed ; With unassuming prudence blest, And cheerfulness, the quietest : With softness, spirit so combined As both to rouse. and soothe the mind Is yours ; a modesty refined ; And you are simple, frank, and kind ! Of tempers so sedately sweet That grief or pain you seldom meet : The thorns that harsher objects tear Wound not the soft, elastic air ! , Content's a thing to you unknown, > Because it is so much your own : The insect bred within the rose How sweet its home is, never knows ; Till launched on wings to haunts untried Wherein no fragrance may abide ! 10 Flotsam and Jetsam. ^Farewell, bright maidens ! when alone Far down beneath the torrid zone, Dear thoughts of you shall with me glide Like stars that travel by our side At midnight when we swiftly ride, Stop when we stop, observant, true, And when we move, move onward too ! Farewell ! farewell ! a foreign shore I seek, and ne'er shall see you more ! Not see you, but remember still With love depending not on will ; I could not, if I would, forget A place I leave with such regret : I could not coldly call to mind Dear friends, so beautiful and Kind ; No ! I shall love, where'er I roam. Those kind dear friends, that far off hon II A GLEE FOR WINTER. Hence, rude Winter ! crabbed old fellow, Never merry, never mellow ! Well-a-day ! in rain and snow What will keep one's heart aglow ? Groups of kinsmen, old and young, Oldest they old friends among ! Groups of friends, so old and true, That they seem our kinsmen too ! These all merry all together. Charm away chill Winter weather ! II What will kill this dull old fellow ? Ale that's bright, and wine that's mellow ! Dear old songs for ever new ; Some tme love, and laughter too ; 1 2 Flotsam and yetsam. Pleasant wit, and harmless fun, And a dance when day is done ! Music — friends so true and tried — Whispered love by warm fireside — Mirth at all times all together — Make sweet May of Winter weather ! 13 A STAGE-COACH IN THE ALLEGHANIES. There is a weary listless hour For those who roam by land or sea,' When most they sink beneath the power Of travel's dull monotony : When jarring boat or jolting stage Have been a torment many a league ; When pleasant views no more engage, And sights and sounds alike fatigue : What then can rouse, revive, attract ? ' 'Tis Fancy ! her green grafts endue- The worn-out stem of barren Fact, And bid it bloom with joy anew. But most of all those day-dreams dear, ■Which own the lordship of the will. Most dear are those which feign thee near, My love, my fond employment still ! 14 Flotsam and Jetsam. Suppose to-day, some cruel fate Had made that tender frame, those frail And delicate limbs, the' Costly freight Of our rude coach, which crawls like snail Across the Alleghanies' brow, Where rocks through flowers their grey heads thrust ; Suppose the searching heat as now Burn'd on the cheek, — the stifling dust In yellow clouds obscured the view ; The jolting coach incessantly From side to side our bodies threw ; And there wert thou alone with me — O gentle creature ! could'st thou bear The troubles of the painful way ? To see such gentle creature there Alas ! were greater pain than they ! What could I do but make thee rest Within my arms around thee spread — What else but make my anxious breast A pillow for thy precioas head ! With planted foot, now here, now there. Observant meet each sudden shake — And firm and quick, with cautious care. The force of each concussion break ? And when the sun's remorseless beam Had made thee weak and very -faint, A Stage-Coach in tJie Alleghanies. ib; I How would I bless the liinpicj stream That still with self-'convprsing plaint Survived a six-weeks' summer drought, And fill'd its streak'd and sandy track Across the high-road pencilled out, With spirit neither dim nor slack, By heat, by thick dust unefface'd — = Eair type of cheerful innocence That meekly walks misfortune's waste ! And water I would gather thence, For want of better cup to choose, E'en in the bright tin pail, I wis. Which for their horses drivers use To dip in wayside brooks like this ; And putting back thy raven hair ' With tender skill by true-love given. Would! not bathe thy temples fair, So white, with veins as blue as heaven ? Nay — make a fan of chestnut boughs, And bid the winnowing breezes woo Those soft-sealed lids, those meek-curved brows, Sweet cheeks, and lips unparted too ? Oh I would nurse thee, I would brood O'er thy distress with fondness fraught With searching watchfulness that would Anticipate thy very thought ! 1 6 Flotsam and jfetsam. With more devoted delicate care Than mothers give, than infants ask ; Dehght so deep, such rapture rare Would so endear the gentle task ! And I would soothe thee all the while With broken words of whispered love ; And thou at last would'st faintly smile, And those full lids would slowly move Their fringes — and thy languid eyes Would yield one tender thankful glance, Then close again ; but I would prize Thy looks revived — thy countenance Resign'd though faint, in tranquil rest ; Not now exhausted — pallid— sad ; And gazing on those features blest, How thankful I should be, and glad ! Then would my lips sink down on thine, For their sweet warmth and softness burning ; And cling until they grew to mine With thirst as deep, with kindred yearning ! I hear thy heart's thick panting then Nay, Fancy ! wherefore thus deride me ? The coach has stopped — and worldly men Are talking politics beside me ! 1834. 17 SONG FOR A FAMILY PARTY, Ye whose veins are like your glasses From the same old vineyard fed With a racy generous liquor Which may Time keep running red ! Come, old ifriends and near relations,. Take the oath we couch in song ; Hand-in-hand come pledge it fairly. All who've known each other long ! II Green heads, grey heads, join in chorus, All who can or cannot sing ; Put your hearts into your voices Till we make the old house ring ! Let us swear by all that's kindly, All the ties of old and young, We will always know each other As we've known each other long ! c 1 8 Flotsam and Jetsam. Ill By the house we oft have shaken — House where most of us were bom — When the dance grew wild and romping, And we kept it up till morn ! By the old convivial table Where we oft have mustered strong ; By the glasses we have emptied To each other's health so long ! IV By our schoolboy freaks together, In old days with mischief rife — Fellowship when youth on pleasure Flimg away redundant life ! By bereavements mourned in common ; By the hopes, a fluttering throng. We have felt when home returning. Parted from each other long ! By the fathers, who before us. Silver-haired together grew, Who so long revered each other — Let us swear to be as true ! Song for a Family Party. 19 Swear no selfish jealous feeling E'er shall creep our ranks among, E'er make strangers. of the kinsmen Who have- known each other long ! No ! whate'er our creed or party, Riches, rank, or poverty, With a second home — without one, True and trusty still we'll be ! Still we'll drink and dance together, Gather still in muster strong. And for ever know each other, As we've known each other long ! 1837. 20 Flotsam and Jetsam. A VALENTINE. That morning of all mornings of my life ! That window of all windows in the world ! Square-mullioned, diamond-latticed, ivy-framed, How tiger-like I watched it ! prowling keen The balustraded garden moss-o'ergrown, Darkened with cedars close up to the wall, That roofed the outside stair, and aisled the straight Broad, shadowy walks about which I had chafed Restlessly pacing from the peep of day ! And O the happy fever of the heart When that white obstinate curtain that %6 long So ruthlessly immovable had hung, Lifted a little comer, but enough To let out bliss how measureless ! for she, She to the window came ! You would have thought It was some loving sunbeam had been lured Into her sacred chamber yestereve. Shut in by chance while loitering there Ipeguiled, A Valentine. ■ 21 All night detained in its delightful prison, And chose this moment for its bright escape ! — The Mom, so bashful though in robes of pearl (Like a poor damsel made a rich man's bride) Stole through a gap in that high cedarn screen, Stole timidly and sought admittance there ! But most like one in dusky twilight-time Who comes upon a mirror unawares, 1 Started to see an image of herself, With innocent eyes that might have been her own, And brightlier blushed to find, herself forestalled ! O but that blush was by a rosier one Rivalled in radiant gladness, when the Maid Peeping so shyly from the window saw Whose longing 'twas that worshipped her below ! — Could she have hid the gladness that she felt ? Ah no ! howe'er she wished it ! Then as ever, Her soul was like a beehive built of glass, And you could see her sweet thoughts everyone Like honey-bees at work. For sweetness she From everything extracted and to all ' Dispensed it ; never niggard of the stores Which more for others than herself she kept In choice abundance hived within her heart A heart so circled with sincerity *C3 22 Flotsam and Jetsam. Of such transparent and crystalline temper, A glance would show its inmost cells o'erflowing With golden love and pure benevolence ! So did she let her guileless joy be seen That morning ; so for many a chequered year Through the dim paths and highways of this world She walked — a naked soul — a visible mind — My Valentine — that morning ; and through Ufe. 23 A KISS. (SAPPHO TO PHAON. I Sweet mouth ! O let me .take One draught from that delicious cup ! The hot Sahara-thirst to slake That burns me up ! II Sweet breath ! — all flowers that are, Within that darling frame must bloom ; My heart revives so at the rare Divine perfume ! Ill — Nay, 'tis a dear deceit, A drunkard's cup that mouth of thine ; Sure poison-flowers are breathing, sweet, That fragrance fine ! 24 Flotsam and Jetsam. IV I drank — the drink betrayed me Into a madder, fiercer fever ; The scent of those loye-blossoms made me More faint than ever ! Yet though quick death it were That rich heart-vintage I must drain, And quaff that hidden garden's air, Again— again ! 25 LINES SENT TO ROBERT BROWNING, 1841, ON A CERTAIN CRITIQUE ON ' PIPPA PASSES.' Ho t everyone that by the nose is led, Automatons of which the world is full ! — You myriad bodies each without a head That dangle dolt-like from a critic's skull ! Come hearken to a rare discovery made, A mental marvel notably displayed ! A black squat ^Beetle, potent for his size, Pushing tail-first by every road that's wrong. The dirt-ball of his musty rules along — His tiny sphere of grovelling sympathies, — Has knocked himself full-butt with bliindering trouble Against a Mountain he can neither double Nor ever hope to scale. So, like a free, Pert, self-complacent Scarabseus, he Takes it into his horny head to swear — There's no such thing as any mountain there ! 26 Flotsam and yetsam. An Eagle breasting the bright empyrean, Up in the fine air musical with stars Singing full-toned their everlasting paean ; The air which vibrates to no earthly jars, Nor trembles at the penny- trumpets' din Small critics blow — has somehow swooped within A bustling Cockchafer's astonished ken, Whose pin's-head peepers, tasked their utmost when He steers his groping flight on April eves Through old familiar lime and chestnut leaves, And finds them perfect for his feat of feats, To fly against the face — derange the features, And half put out the eyes, of nobler creatures, — These dots are straightway set to work to measure ~ The Eagle's darmg rush into the retreats Of bluest heaven ; the skiey whirls he weaves In the full swing of his imperial pleasure ! But troubled soon and staggering with amaze. His optics beaten in by the full blaze. Steadied alone by self-conceit — the pin Round which fate dooms his fussy brains to spin. To this conclusion (Genius ! oh be dumb !) The insect wits of him have wisely come. He holds that Sun-aspiring bird is not The zenith-king we took him for at all ; Lines sent to Robert Browning. 27 And since himself can only see a dot Just like himself, the bird must be as small ; He swears that subtle element is raw, A mass of clouds through which no eyes e'er saw ; And though some azure gleams he deigns to find. And half confesses to a Sun behind. Those gleams are rare, that Sun is weak and dim, Because so — insupportable by Mm / Doubdess the Eagle must henceforward shun His baths of orient light — his dallyings with the Sun 28 Flotsam and Jetsam. WITH A KNAPSACK IN THE TYROL. The rain fell fast ; the clouds were low ; The mountains gra:nd and dreary ; Beside the Etsch's foaming flow I wandered wet and weary. A town was reached : now where's an Inn ?- The empty streets I threaded Past gilded Tigers, Grapes of tin, And Eagles double-headed. Ill ' Full choice ! ' thought I, ' but which to try Of all these inns so merry ! ' What sight just then was seen hard by — Quick answer to my query ? ' Wzt/i a Knapsack in the Tyrol. 29 IV A Lion, two-tailed, red as blood — The breeze that slowly swayed in ? Not that ! but in the doorway stood In Tyrol trim, a Maiden ! ' O mirth one spies through such disguise — Lips pouting so demurely ! O lazy archness in, such eyes ! — You are resistless surely ! VI ' Good beds ; good cheer ; bright lager beer ! Fresh trout ! — 'tis notide wasted ! ' So in I went ; and soon, I fear, The fresh — red lips were tasted ! VII Nay, think no shame, O spare your blame ! Those simple maidens, trust 'em ! . A kiss or two's a tiifling claim ; 'Twas but the country's custom. 30 Flotsam and Jetsam. VIII But Norma mine ! take down your sign ; 'Tis useless quite, and why, dear ? Look you but out, and rain or shine, No traveller can pass by, dear ! 1837. 31 AT JEFFERSON'S TOMB. MONTICELLP, 1 834. And said'st thou, Jefferson, ' All men are free ! ' Why then does tyrant Death imprison thee ? — ' All men are equal,' -fondly said'st thou too ? Thy Grave, with mournful mock, proclaims it true ! 32 Flotsam and Jetsam. LAKE WALLENSTADT. Lonely, as a place enchanted Lies the Lak6, in silence deep ; Round, as warrior chiefs undaunted Watch some throneless queen asleep, Stand the cliffs in stern array ! Fissured piles of strata grey By the water worn away ! — Your large eyes would larger grow At their monstrous forms, I know. With a solemn joy elate, Were you here, my bonnie Kate ! II , Far above, their blue tpps soar, Spire and tower in outUne bold ; All beseamed with snow-streaks hoar. Solemn, lonely, bright and cold. Lake Wallenstadt. ,33 There the soft clouds as they rove Pause — and stooping from above Kiss the crests they seem to love ! You would deem them spirits fair Playing each one with the hair Of its giant warrior mate, Were you here, my lively Kate ! Ill Black upon the slopes so green Swg.rm the arrow-headed pines ; Hpre, like troops with steady mien ^ Who in ordeT;ed squares and lines Wait attack with vantage good ; There like foragers pursued By a peasant multitude. In close flight they seem to press Up the hill, till we coiild guess Which their stronghold, what their fate. Were you here, my wiiisome Kate ! IV Balanced on the mountain side, i^igh in dizzy loneliness, • Oft a daring pine is spied, Like a .cragsman in distress. 34 Flotsam and Jetsam. Where all footing seems to end Doubtful which way next to wend If to mount or to descend ! Empty air around, beneath, It would take away your breath That sheer depth to calculate, Were you here, my gentle Kate ! Now the gliding vessel passes Cascades all around us dashing : Some in downward-pointed masses Densely smoking, fiercely flashing ! Some upon the slopes recline Like fixed veins of silver, fine As the network spiders twine ; Others hang like rippled tresses Smoothly combed, a Maiden dresses : You could ne'er your gazing sate Were you here, my fincrnerved Kate ! VI Overhead the clouds float by. But can scarce their way pursue, For the tall cliffs touch the sky ; Look ! from its intensest blue Lake Wallenstadt. 35 Comes a snowy cascade slipping, O'er successive ledges tripping \ — 'Tis a whitewinged Angel stepping Down from heaven ! Oh you would prize Those serenely -glowing eyes, That sweet smile compassionate. Were you here, my deep-souled Kate ! VII , Faintly sing the thrushes, hark ! Far in yonder air-hung grove ; Pouring bolder notes, the lark Dots the azure up above ! Lavishly his lays he flings All around, and as he sings, Spreads and folds his trembling wings With uneasy motion, quite Thrilled, convulsed with his delight ! You would sing with joy as great Were you here, my sweet-voiced Kate ! VIII By the ashy rocks below, Mark, a hermit tisher gray, How the heron, to and fro, Slowly flaps his stealthy way ! 36 Flotsam and Jetsam. Though alit, his long wings, see, Still are flapping, as though he Poised himself unsteadily ; Stirless, then, and gray as well, As the rocks are — could you tell Where he sits, his prey to wait, Were you here, my bright-eyed Kate ? IX Oft the beetling ramparts ape Gothic gables, quaintly planned ; Oft seem faced with many a shape Carved by ancient Coptic hand. — Watchful, mid the trees aloof Dark red chalets, weather-proof With projecting shadowy roof. Seem to hint how well you may In this tranquil Eden Stay : — What desire would they create Were you here, my pensive Kate ? X Some, depressed to see all kindness Sunk in ruthless rage for gold; Sick of party's cherished blindness. Thus their wishes might unfold : Lake Wallenstadt. %J Here, with joys unknown to riot, Sound repose and simple diet, Books, and love, and thoughtful quiet, One might dream a life away. Always cheerful, often gay ! — You would wish for no such fate. Were you here, my wiser Kate ! XI Well you know though Nature waste Wonders here no words can frame. Custom dulls the keenest taste, Use makes even wonders tame ! Leisure has a leaden wing ; Happiness where'er it spring Always is an active thing ; And whatever it profess, Solitude is selfishness :— Homely truths would have their weight, Were you here, my thoughtful Kate ! XII Then our dear and noble land Would present to memory's eye If no hills, no rocks so grand. Hearts a,s firm and minds as high ! 38 Flotsam and Jetsam. Nature never has designed Aught so wondrous as the Mind, Of mysterious humankind : You would know where Mind is flashing, Rapid as the cascade dashing ! You would bless your hotre, your state, Were you here, my English Kate ! 1838. 39 KAMOURASKA. 'TwAS night ; in light caleche we sped Through Kamouraska's leafy ways ; The silver 'Sire of Waters,' spread Before us, shone tlirough faintest haze. II The moonlight, not the moon, was seen ; Cross-furrowed snow o'er all the sky ; Thin, even, channel-netted screen, Like sands by troubled seas left dry. HI A carriage passed ; a glimpse we had ; One man, and maidens two or three ; His face so grave, theirs sweet and sad. Sad as the moon, and fair as she. 40 Flotsam and Jetsam. IV ' English : ' the driver said^no more : Into the night they passed away. English ! the thought came o'er and o'er — What special cause for grief have they I I Idiew the faces English — knew The 'beauty by none other worn ; The tint as pure as April dew, And rosy as the rising Morn. VI Yet to this driver, so it seemed, The sad expression proved the race : But how, methought, if gloom be deemed Their special sign, its cause to trace ? They are as free as mountain wind ; They spread their sway from East to West ; The sunbeams run from Ind to Ind, Yet ever on their red cross rest Kc^mouraska. 41 VIII Wealth, glory, knowledge, strength are theirs : Theirs spirit only spurred by foil ; If aught Divine man's essence shares, 'Tis native to their noble soil. IX Theirs, like the Roman's soul, erect. No feebleness of frenzy feels ; In strong self-mastering self-respect With grand emotions coolly deals. Children of England, choice of men. Let this your power, be still your pride ! First masters of yourselves, and then Masters df whom you will beside ! XI To Reason's laws still proudly bend ; And Passion's rule contemptuous spurn j Still in the social- scale ascend — But why the mien so sadly stern ? Flotsam and Jetsam. XII Is it the haunting Infinite That discontents your souls with Earth ? Something that robs of grekt and bright, All outward glory, inner worth ? XIII Something for which Life finds no room, — ■ Can neither sate nor yet repress. Which hangs in grandeur and in gloom About your deepest consciousness ? — XIV I know not ; yet that glimpse so brief," By Kamouraska's moonlit wave, Of travellers proudly touched with grief. To me somehow such impress gave : XV Till so construed, this English face With more attractive meaning glowed. Than any glory, gift or grace A partial fancy e'er bestowed, ■ 43 AT TELES CHAPEL. When chains are rent, God's work is done, And God's avenged in Freedom won ! To Man that God his image gave, 'Tis wronged — 'tis outraged ,in a slave. Therefore it was a righteous deed, And worthiest of their Christian creed, To raise, upon the simplest sod Where William Tell had fought or trod A holy altar unto God ! 1837. 44 Flotsam and Jetsam. A CHRISTMAS HYMN. (old style. 1837.) It was the calm and silent night ! — Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was Queen of land and sea ! No sound was heard of clashing wars ; Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain ; Apollo, Pallas, Jove and Mars, Held undisturbed their ancient reign, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago ! II 'Twas in the calm and silent night ! — The sfenator of haughty Rome Impatient urged his chariot's flight, From lordly revel rolling home ! A Christmas Hymn. 45 Triumphal arches gleartiing swell His breast with thoughts of boundless sway ; What recked the Roman what befell A paltry province far away, 1 In the solemn midnight Centuries ago ! Ill I Within that province far away Went plodding home a weary boor : A streak- of light before him lay, Fall'n through a half-shut stable diaor Across his path. He passed — for nought Told what was going on within ; How keen the stars ! his only thought ; The air how calm and cold and thin, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago ! O strange indifference ! — low and high Drowsed over common joys and cares : The earth was still — but knew not why ; The world. was listening — unawares ! 46 Flotsam and Jetsam. How calm a moment may precede One that shall thrill the world for ever ! To that still moment none would heed, Man's doom was linked no more to sever In the solemn midnight Centuries ago ! It is the calm and solemn night ! A thousand bells ring out, and throw Their joyous peals abroad, and smite The darkness, tharmed and holy now ! The night that erst nO name had worn, To it a happy name is given ; For in that stable lay new-born The peaceful Prince of Earth and Heaven In the solemn midnight Centuries ago ! 47 A GLIMPSE OF ITALY. Vl-aU THE STELVIO. Not yet, not yet, Elysian land, Must we be lured by thy beguiling ! Not yet may bask in skies so bland, With such deep witchery smiling ! Not yet may bless in rapture mute. Their hyacinthine soft illusion ! Nor breathe the Eden flower and fruit Perfume in wild profusion ; III Where puipled vines entwining toy, Each luscious laden branch pursuing, Then o'er them stretch in languid joy The liquid azure wooing. 48 Flotsam and Jetsam. Like wanton snakes with vain caress Their heads in empty sunshine swaying, While laughs that coy blue loveliness And mocks their amorous praying ! Where moonlight soothes warm lakes with showers Of labyrinthine lambent kisses ; And nightingales in noontide bowers Tune such untimely blisses ! VI Not yet we seek town, field and stream, Rose-lit with Art or classic story ; Not yet in dim delight may dream O'er ground so thick with glory ! VII From grand regrets, Circean charms Of soul or sense, we turn our faces, And seek thy hardier sister's arms — An Amazon's embraces ! ■ A Glimpse of Italy. 49 yiii The golden lakes like glittering pages Around the royal Righi sleeping ; The Faulhom's band of hoary sages Their stern cold vigil keeping; IX The Gemmi's granite battlements Hung darkly from the depth of heaven ; And maddening down the mountain rents, WKite torrents headlong driven ! The glacier's sea of huddling cones, Its tossing tumult tranced in wonder ; And 'mid ijiysterious tempest-tones, The lauwine's sliding thunder. O joy ! to seek bright cliffs — far-spied O'er morning mist-glooms — silvery-gleaining Through sun-lit fleece-bars, each beside Its shadow, slowly steaming ! E so Flotsam and Jetsam. XII By Lauterbrun ; up Meyringen ; Between the flanking walls to wander And airy turrets of the glen Of fiercely groaning Kander ! XIII To thread the green white-speckled vales Beneath some rampart so high-towering — Across the clouds its summit sails ! — Then watch black pines low-cowering ; XIV Or crowding upward, where they pause, Close-phalanxed storming some great fastness ; Or strew their slain huge trunks like straws Upon the mountain's vastness ! XV While Earth and Sky against us fight, A savage scowling combination. To struggle up each giant height In weary exultation ! A Glii^pse of Italy. 5 1 XVI To climb the skies on mountain sides, An ocean-waste of peaks commanding ; And drink the gale the eagle rides, Breast, heart, and soul expanding !- XVII This first ; — and then aside we fling Stem toilsome resolution's armour ; . And rush where all thy Syrens sing,l Thou everlasting charmer ! 52 Flotsam and Jetsam. LILLIE RAYMOND. I THINK ... if you saw in a fairy palace For lamp an Arum as big as a chalice, Wherein its Queen had chanced to imprison One beam caught from the Sun new risen — One fine shaft of blinding white, And one of tenderest crimson light Flung oif at eve on ocean's shore With all the kingly robes he wore ; Could you see their brilliant sheening Mellowed by such intervening Pure, pellucid, pearly screening ; Why then I think . . . but doubt it rather, A faint idea 'twere yours to gather Of the delicate blending of roseate brightness With s*eet Lillie Rayniond's diaphanous whiteness ; How sweet Lillie Raymond's fair-blossoming features Shed a halo like some high-beatified creature's ! l^illie Raymond. 53 II I think ... in an Arab court somewhere — Dark-fringed with plants of bloom most rare, And many a leaf from flesh to hair ; Breathing through the trembling heat Many a scent, cool, chymic, sweet — Breathing from that emerald dlisk Camphor and lemon, mint and musk ; If, midst the white piazzas set. All marble of Morisco fret. You marked a dainty fountain-jet Singing up in silver splendour. Straight as an arrow, straight^and slender ; Then watched a cataract's snowy rope. Lying on a moimtain's slope ; ■ Saw the fixed swift-moving veins. Finely-fibred sinuous skeins Of foam in milky mazes wandering. In every curve of grace meandering : Why then I think ... in some doubt ... you could giiess What opposite beauties coalesce, — What rich waves of loveliness mingle in lightness With sweet Lillie Raymond's tall wandlike uprightness ; How sweet Lillie Raymond's rich figure so fashioned Keeps the gaze never sated; Love ever impassioned ! 54 Flotsam and Jetsam. Ill I think . . . if you saw a Swan slow- swimming Down a river crystal-brimming — Not swimming, say, all effort hiding, In white glory trancelike gliding ; Then if you saw the swaying grace Of an Emu's stately pace ; And o'er notions gathered thence — Sweet pride and gentle confidence — Could diffuse a subtile sense Of the elastic lively gestures Of slim gazelles in Syrian pastures. When Spring and Love lend double joyance, Each light bound a lighter buoyance : Why then I think . . . still with a sprinkling Of doubt. . . . you might haply get an inkling Of the sprightly erectness and ease so endearing Of sweet Lillie Raymond's fine walk and frank bearing ; How sweet Lillie Raymond in motion and manner Is as graceful and free as an eddying banner ! I think ... if you wove the dazzling notion Of sleek slips of azure ocean, L illie Raymond. 5 S A-gold with sparkles, leaping, linking, Dall3'ing, dancing, trembling, shrinking ; Alid the cool calm lustre worn By the innocent-breaking Morn, When little wavfes in snow-fringed bands Gently lap the yellow sands ; Could you mix such fair bright things With shy gleams from ravens' wings ; Moon-lit dewdrops shining wet On ripe black currants' skins of jet ; Or whate'er gives notion fitter Of brilliant blackness, sable glitter : Why then I think ... no, scarcely can deem Even then you could guess how changefully beam The mingled bewildering bright and dark flashes Through sweet Lillie Raymond's black curling eyelashes ; How sweet Lillie Raymond's rare glances can fire us Through the glow of black pupil, the gleam of blue iris 1 I V I think ... if in wild admiration You ransacked all God's great creation For types of beauty, spirit, sweetness, Fit to paint in clear completeness, This pearl, this darling, this delight, This topmost charm of raptured sight ; 56 Flotsam and Jetsam. Her cheek — the orient cloud-tint's fineness ; Her eyes, a heaven of blue benignness Darkening to such weird divineness ! Her breath — fresh wallflowers summer-blowing, All her timid true-love showing In its quickened coming — going Through lips like crimson corn-bells glowing In sunset's crimson overflowing ! Those lightning- wreaths— swift mantlings gay O'er chin, cheek, many a dimple's play,' Lips, eyelids, eyes — her sudden smiles ! Her careless witcheries, artless wiles ; Her mirth ; her mimic arch simplicities ; Pretty mock pruderies ; feigned rusticities ; Large-hearted sympathies that spring At every thought of silffering, And run all golden-rippUng warm O'er rigid rule and freezing form ! Yes ! if you ransacked all creation To paint this piquant strange temptation. Why then I think . . . and do not doubt it, 'Twere loss of time to set about it ; For you never could guess though all types you should tether What sweet Lillie Raymond is like altogether ! — How sweet Lillie Raymond wins, witches, entrances, , He only who knows her — knows, pictures or fancies ! 57 A REVEILLE.— LAKE ZURICH. Azure-cleaving Hill-tops heaving Like a sea's, great billows drifting ! Snow-plots those blue summits scarring Like its foam when winds are warring ! Cliifs, whose ruddy ramparts rise up Gleaming grandly to the skies up, Where that speck — an Eagle — ^flies up ! Shilling softly — Shadowed softly, - Lower slopes ofvgreen uplifting Hamlets, fields, and woods that cluster Richly round the Lake's blue lustre ! II Fishes leaping O'er the sleeping Mirror, where so many a mansion, S8 Flotsam and Jetsam., Many a cottage shyly cowering, Bosoraed soft mid trees embowering, Peeping out like things suspected, Or in bolder groups collected. Are in long white streaks reflected. Which so lightly — O so lightly , Hung all round that blue expansion, Snowy silken fringe resemble — Shimmeringly hang and tremble ! Ill Boats sldw-stealing As if feeling Their calm way to secret blisses ; Some with saUs, tall, white, and doubled In the water, clear, untroubled ; Some with low-peaked prows advancing. Dipping oars each moment glancing. White and scarlet pennons dancing Only faintly — Very faintly. To the languid lazy kisses Stolen by some tiny toying Breeze, itself the calm enjoyipg ! — A Reveille. — Lake Zitrich. 59 IV . Come then, fairest, ■ Brightest, rarest ! Be no more by slumber cheated ! See ! in sunshine many a boat, love, Seems to beckon us afloat, love, Gay with red-striped awning yonder, To a scene where love might wander Ever, and grow ever fonder ! Take one, dearest ! — Let us, dearest ! — And my Sylph-queen therein seated, To these charms of earth and heaven, What a crowning charm were given ! 6o Flotsam and Jetsam. GO TO SLEEP. GooD-night, my life's love ! go to sleep ! Those simple words how much they mean 1 Your darling form I still may keep, Your head may on my shoulder lean ; The casket my fond arm may clasp — The jewel — Soul, escapes my grasp ! II Sleep is a still, enchanted wood With narrow walks which you must tread Quite by yourself, whoe'er intrude. Elf, fairy, goblin, demon dread ! — Dear, may you find, in this your plight, A pleasant pathway to the light ! Go to Sleep, 6i III Sleep, sweet one, is an opening door Into the other world ; the hole, Like urchins at a peepshow poor, You peer through at the realms of Soul But you must look through it alone, To two at once 'tis never shown. lY Sleep is a faithful friend black-stoled, Who in the hush, on tiptoe steals To break the chains of Sense that hold The Soul its captive; and reveals The clime Day's prison-walls shut out With brightness built all round about. Day is a restless Harlequin Whose wand half frights the Soul away ; But Sleep the shy recluse can win To quite forget h,er house of clay ; From Day to hidden garrets flown, Sleep brings fair guests to lure her down. 62 Flotsam and Jetsam. VI Sleep ushers in all Spirit-things ; Our elbow-mates good Angels be ; We hear the rustling of their wings, We seem to feel Eternity ; Our dead ones greet us ; souls we miss Conie from their world to comfort this. VII A magic-lantern, Sleep ! each slide A life ! — a rich kaleidoscope That turns and shakes out issues wide Of folly, fear, hate, kindness, hope : A garden, where a moment bears The blossom and the fruit of years. VIII Dreams in her Mart are chapmen prime Who cheaply sell experience rare ; Condemned for murder — foul with crime — Shame, guilt, remorse, unstained we share' ; Uninjured test all dooms of love ; And O, what deadhest perils prove ! Go to Sleep. 6'^ IX Pushed o'er a cliff, in wild despair We cling, and see against the sky Its trembling grass, through empty air As sweeps, the breeze so faintly by ; We grasp a bush — Ah treacherous stay. We feel its roots are giving way ! Our eyes we shut, our teeth we set, like lightning fall — pur breath is gone ! But, strange event unheard of yet, Like thin cascades from vast heights thrown. Whisked o^ in mist, — from that dread brink As on a nurse's lap we sink !— XI Crisp sunset-beams green meads enfold ; Brushing the buttercups we range; ' See, love, your chin reflects their gold ! '- A sudden sense of something strange At hand — a rumble and a shake — A lurid gloom our fears awake ! 64 Flotsam and Jetsttm. Look ! pale red rays stand fixed in air, Shot from the earth that quivering heaves; The trees turn purple ; here and there A cold light glitters on the leaves Like faces livid with the flames Of liquids burnt at Christmas games. XIII Then seems the roaring sky one black And wide rock driving overhead With many a broad and branching crack ! Our only thought is : 'We are dead ! Horror ! the world is at an end ! ' And then — those rocks do not descend ! — XIV Awake, the coverings of the couch, Still shuddering, round us close we pull, Lest we the awful Spirits touch, Of v/hich the chamber must be full ; It seems so still — so deeply hushed After that world split, shattered, crushed ! Go to Sleep. 6$ XV O rich, sweet, dreadful Sleep, why mix Your guests such cups of bootless fright ? Is there a meaning in your tricks ? — Methinks such lessons you indite To teach us actual Death to view As such a harmless terror too ! XVI Then go to Sleep, sweet ! I must lend Your Soul to her, whate'er her mood ; ^weet Soul, go seek her, as a friend Whose wildest freaks will work you good ! And look from those dear windows blue At morn — and tell all you've been through ! 66 Flotsam and Jetsam. A SOUL OF GOODNESS IN THINGS EVIL. (To M.D., iS Dearest ! bylaws of their own are the Spirits of all of us governed ; Feelings identical quite, seldom can two of us share ; Lately "we proved it a truth, when the blindness of that so revered One, Mastered by delicate skill, left him a prisoner freed ; When from the rapturous East insupportable Light reapproaching Came like a conqueror crowned triumphing into his soul. Entered the long-closed portals, and routing the legions of Dark- ness, Gladdened the eyes that of yore gleamed as he oft would recount Feats of Sea-Captains — our grand ones ; or keen as the Chilian eagle's, Kapid as lynxes that leap over the plains of Thibet, A Soul of Goodness in Things Evil. €j Oft so delightedly sparkled to catch in the offing the white- winged Wandering homes of the Deep, stealing through sunshine and shade, Swelling and shrinking so slowly from one to the other horizon — , Spectres that silently rise, silently melt into air ! Sad that immurement in sooth ; thick-stifling the pall that enveloped Wholly this exquisite World, making a midnight, at noon ; Green-waving Earth with her cities, the luminous purples of Heaven, — Life's inexhaustible shows, swooned to a desolate blank ; Quenched were the golden enigmas that shine overhead, and the lindens Blossoming close by the door, felt in faint odours, were gone ; Gone was the innocent archness of beauteous grandchildren's glances ; ,. Dimmed all the splendour that played sunnily over their hair ! Books too, that give to the spirit a foretaste of bodiless freedom. Argosies floating through Time, charged with the commerce of thought ; Books that enwrap and embalm dead Intellects living for ever — ' Sealed up, inanimate, dumb, turned to mere mummies of Mind. — How, like a Ship dismasted, a log on the limitless Ocean, Drifts such a lustreless life, breasting the billows of woe ! 68 Flotsam and Jetsam. Ill Such was the mournful calahiity, such and so great the affliction ; Like was our joy when it ceased — only diversely displayed. ' Mary ! your heart, gushed gratefully forth in a passionate stanza Flung from a fiery soul hundreds of ages ago ; Words which the diademed Minstrel, throned by the mountains of morning, Chaunted to harpstrings that rung grandly o'er Siloa's chime ! Notable they and familiar, those words of the Warrior-Poet ; Why ! — but that therein he dives daringly into the deep — Into the infinite Darkness which is (for how else can we phrase it ?) Is the ineffable One — cause and substratum of life ! Therein personifies boldly that all-inconceivable Essence ; Scruples no whit to ascribe human affections thereto ; Aye ! from his clear deep sense of a conscious ubiquitous presence. Moulds individual Will, fashions a generous friend ; Dares e'en to 'bless' the unspeakable Wonder for 'tenderest mercies' ! — — Transient bubble of foam blessing the Ocean it specks ! Seems it not idly presuming in mortals to predicate ever Be what it may as to Him, Him or his ' feelings ' for us 2 Truly, my Mary, 'twere wisest to take with a calm acquiescence Whether the good or the ill, measureless mysteries both ! A Soul of Goodness in Things Evil. 69 Tell me, of things but external, what good may not issue in evil, Tell me the ill, if you can, never productive of good ! Just to this life let us be, with its joys and its sorrows so blended ; Then amid raptures for good, evil will riot go unpraised. ' V Ah, when I think of that scene of endurance and anguish and triumph, And with the eye of the mind picture its phases again — There in his darkness the Old Man, hoary with seventy winters — Lionlike-^equal to all — lording it sternly o'er pain ; There with his glorious power, the Son of miraculous Science, Clearing new paths for the light, waving the shadows away ; There too, in depth of suspense — itiute — dumb but for glances of trouble, Dearest relations and friends anxiously waiting apart ; Or, when the crisis was over, with keen unrelaxing affection. Watching by day and by night, utterly dead to themselves ; Then, can I say how this poor undervalued Humanity straightway Shining in rainbow light, trembles transfigured, sublime ! Then in my soul I acknowledge the mystical beauty of Evil, Stimulant, nutriment, cause, precious occasion of all — Rich dark soil whence arose such ambrosial fruits of the spirit. Fortitude, patience and hope, science, affection and joy ! 70 Flotsam and Jetsam. VI Well is it, Mary mine, so to regard the afflictions bf others — Well, but far better be sure, so to consider our own And to remeihber in sorrow or suffering how much we are feeding Goodness, and laying up stores Virtues around us require. VII Long may the rescued one live in this new light arisen at even. Strange, as when cloud has obscured darkly the firmament's face. Haply the curtain is raised, and the red and the richness of sunset, Tranquilly, tearfully bright, stream at the skirts of the sky ! Nay ! not to sunset or evening gleams will we liken that new light; Cheerfuller symbol therein beings immortal should see ! Call it the faint dawn rather of the infinite Day that awaits us, Coming Eternity's sun casting its glimmer before, So to expand and intensify, spite of a moment's relapsing. Into a noon unconceived, never to darken again ! 1841. 71 71V0 BANQUETS. (On the Death of D. C. and S. C, 1854.) Feast set, lights gleaming, music gushmg j Two blooming boys with happy faces, On each young breast Hope's rosebud blushing,' Prepare to take their places. II But see, with splemn kindly gesture, Beckons the Seneschal so hoary : ' Not yours these seats — this humble vesture ; Not yours this homely glory ! Ill ' Come from a Banquet brief and specious,- Come to a far imperial palace, Where glows the board with cates more precious, With richer draughts the chalice. 72 Flotsam and Jetsam. IV ' There brighter lights and loftier pleasance And more illustrious guests await you ; There the Great King's pervading presence > With ampler smile shall sate you. ' Come, young twin hearts, without dejection- Fair double Star, disparting never. One halo of divine affection Shall circle both for ever ! ' — VI Ah ! summons to be heard with gladness, Though Life indeed a feast so gay were But call it toil and strife and sadness — How doubly happy they were ! PART THE SECOND INVISIBLE SIGHTS. I ' So far away so long— 'and now Returned to England ? — Come with me ! Some of our great " celebrities " You will be glad to see ! ' 11 Carlyle— the Laureate — Browning — these! These walking bipeds — Nay, you joke ! — Each wondrous power for thirty years O'er us' head-downward folk III Wrapt skylike, at the Antipodes, — Those common limbs — that common trunk ! 'Tis the Arab-Jinn who reached the clouds, Into his bottle shrunk. 76 Flotsam, and Jetsam. The flashing Mind — the boundless Soul We felt ubiquitous, that mash Medullary or cortical — That six- inch brain-cube ! — Trash ! 1873. 71 CHILDISH FACTS. I ' At Kylve there was no weathercock — You recollect the conscious shock Of self-reproof that stifles His curious mood, the Bard's, who knew so well To sing the depth of trifles, When his persistent questionings compel The tiny Boy-romancer To feign that fibbing answer. 11 Two childish facts may I record, With food for thought as richly stored ? — 'What ! 'with wide eyes unmoving, I heard a small boy ask his mother mild, ' Did God, the good, the loving, Really bid Abram kill his darling child ? ' — The long-fringed lids asunder With horror, grief and wonder. 78 Flotsam and Jetsam. Ill Pat reasons then and orthodox ! — Yet, smoothing her pet- Hamlet's locks, (Black velvet dress enhancing Of course, their gold floss soft as ever gleamed Spun from cocoons fast-dancing And jerking on warm water) she, it seemed, Felt fact and gloss as cruel Almost as did her jewel. IV Again. Broad walks and lawns so soft. And ' noble pines ' whose shoots aloft, ^ Long, spincTfurred, sleek, like leeches With mere luxuriance sinuously upwrithe ; And thick-leaved oaks aiid beeches. And violet skies where summer suns make blithe And blaze through hot Decembers, Smouldering up here like embers : 'Tis there I see a Boy bright-eyed Come skipping from a damsel's side, Brimful of childish glory : Childish Facts. 7g ' O such a tale she read, our nurse Aglaia, O such a pretty story ! — There was a great great Giant named GoUa'h, As tall as any steeple, Who frightened all the people, VI ' And killed them with a spear he had, Like that big flagmast. Then a lad (So brave, he killed a Jion !) Left his white sheep to nibble the green grass. And came, and wouldn't try on The iron coat and helmet all of brass ; And took five pebbles only Picked from the streamlet lonely, VII ' And one small, cord the stones to throw, And came to fight the Giant so ! And when the great fierce fellow Saw such a red-cheeked boy, " What dog am I " (So he began to bellow) " To fright with sticks ! "^And as the lad drew nigh, He growled, with big tusks gnashing Great eye-balls rolling, flashing, 8o Flotsam and Jetsam, VI n ' Lips smacking — " Fee ! faw ! fum ! I smell The blood of " . . . No ! ' the boy's face fell— ' " I'll grind his bones, I'll eat him — \ I'll give his flesh to fowls ^" . . . A puzzled look; False memory so did cheat him, The place of mimic bounce and swagger took ; And so the story ended. In Norse and Jewish blended. IX O commentators ! neat-wigged men Of lore ! from strained conclusions when Your hard-pressed noddles need ease, From Moab-stones and wedge-scored fragments turn To these cherubic D.D.s; Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings learn ! What's all your erudition To infant intuition ! i873- 8i TIVO PICTURES. From East to West his dark wings spread Across the lurid clouds full-fed With thunder rolling dun and red ! His puissant arm raised zenith high ; His falchion flashing to the sky ; The streaming of his golden hair Mocking the fiery sunset's glare : — With eyes that fixed straightforward, bum With doom, — relentless, ruthless, stem — And seem to warn : ' Through endless Time, Think, think of all the effects of crime ! ' — Such the form, high Justice pleads, The power to conquer Evil needs ! a 82 Flotsam and Jetsam. II In saintly robes that simply flow, As white as soft unsullied snow Or blue as skies that cloudless glow : While cherubs round her swarm and shine Through golden atmosphere divine ; Her fair arms crossing, lightly prest Upon her young maternal breast ; With eyes that upward turned adore The goodness they for all implore ; Or do'vmward bent in pity, say : 'Think, think of all that tempts astray !' — Such the form fond Mercy pleads, The power to conquer Evil needs ! . 83 I What matter — what matter — O friend, though the Sea In lines of silvery fire may slide O'er the sands so tawny and tender and wide, Murmuring soft as a bee ? — i ' No matter, no matter, in sooth,' said he : ' But the sunlit sands and the silvery play, Are a trustful smile long past away : — No more to me ! ' II What matter — what matter — dear friend, can it be. If a long blue stripe, dim-swelling and dark Beneath the lighter blue headland, may mark All of the town we can see ? — ' No matter, ho matter, in truth,' said he : ' But the streak that fades and fades as we part, Is a broken voice and a breaking heart : — No more to me ! ' 1875- 84 Flotsam and Jetsam. LIVINGSTONE. Once more, ye millions, in this roar And rush of life — O pause once more ! Pause for a moment's pulse of grief, and pay the senseless ashes A great dead Spirit wore, the debt you cannot pay the Spirit ! For the poor clay's poor glory borrow The sable pageantry of sorrow ; To that proud Fane convey it, where in vain Oblivion dashes Its surge against the rocklike fame our most renowned inherit ; The death-demolished Shape restore in deathless stone ; In marble mimicry revive the flitting phantom gone ! Fix it in breathing bronze to grace your finest square — Noble amid the noblest there ! Give honours all — the best how small — Pomp, anthems, plumes, processions slow, All gloomy gauds of garish woe — Livingstone. SJ To rites his rpugh black followers paid ! The nine-months' funeral mardh they made, And toiled and bore those relics dear A thousand mjles in hope and fear Through tribes at peace and tribes at war From Afric's heart to Zanzibar ! — Alas, all honours bright or dim, But soothe ourselves, not solace him I Solace ! — at mute Ilala's melancholy goal Death on his last of conscious life, such lonely anguish, stole ; No face of kith or kindred nigh to comfort, cheer, console ! ' Build me a hut to die in; Heap grass upon the roof,' he said, ' Cold — cold!' — O piteous, piteous words to breathe his latest sigh in, A hero so high-souled ! — But comfort ye, O comfort ye !— tomb, tablets, statues, plan ; And load with honour, reverence, love, the dust that was the Man! , 11 How famed amid Aonian flights, Ideal heroic height of heights. That billowy battle echoing yet in grandly-rolUng water. Of old Homeric Song by races immemorial cherished ! But here, in combat mightier, grander,' Than when Pelides brayed Scamander, 86 Flotsam and Jetsam. Battling his coil of River-Systems gloriously perished No visionary vulgar hero of a thousand slaughters ! But one great heart — Humanity's most human child ; Her loving Champion calmly keen ; indomitably mild ; Inexorably firm in merciful emprise ; Relentless in self-sacrifice ! T,o save that life in such a strife, No striding God with eyes aflame, No day-outdazzling Goddess came ! Only across far Ocean's blue, Once to his aid a Stranger flew : Did fabled rage to root out wrong E'er dream a rescue worthier song ? , Those rough jack-boots and leathern belt, That whiter veiled hat of homely felt To screen the bold benignant brow. Hid real romance of ruddier glow Than laurelled Genius lends gold casque or jewelled mail Of errant knights for glory athirst or holiest Holy Grail ! — Alas, that all the generous help should be of no avail ! ' Build me a hut to die in ; ^ Heap on more grass I' he murmured, '■Cold — so cold!' — Piteous — such piteous words to breathe his latest sigh in. Discoverer dauntless-sbuled ! — But comfort ye, O comfort ye ! to think through life's short span, How hero kindles hero in the kindly cause of Man ! Livingstone. 87 III O mute reserve of things sublime ! O day that hfts a torch to Time ! When lost for years in lawless lands and Rapine's rude dominions The grand old graybeard stood revealed — calm, simple, unim- posing ! Only the cap's-gold band long faded, Dim aureole round the brow care-jaded. True envoy of the Essential Good as truthfully disclosing. As lightning-liveried Angels' palms, or Seraphs' sunbeam-piniors ! Lo ! there — as when in some pale cluster'faint and far Unguessed, the keen Sky-searcher finds his faipous flying star — The Man half Myth comes forth ! of wan and weary mien. Yet buoyant, resolute, serene. But more renown that Day shall crown, When, his bold way through regions won, Unknown since first uprose the Sun, He left one daring track of light From Vasco's storm-beleaguered height To where on azure hyaline Ked-roofed Loanda's white walls shine ; Then scorned in high-rapt heedlessness The Siren voices of success j : Turned unbeguiled from beckoning Fame And forced his fever-stricken frame 88 Flotsam and Jetsam. Back to the East once more ; the accomplished marvel spurned As little worth, so irluch might still by still more toil be learned ! But mark what meed that lion-crippled Lion-heart has earned : ' Build me a hut to die in : Heap on the roof more grass : O cold— so cold ! ' — Most piteous, piteous words to' breathe his latest sigh in, King-traveller truest-soured' ! — But comfort ye, O comfort ye ! so great a course he ran ; Such wondrous deeds are done by resolute enduring Man ! IV How blest who give their lives to bless Mankind with more of happiness ! So given was his : to open lands where one day shall luxuriate His country's Commerce giant-limbed : and Peace in union glorious With Freedom, Light and Order revel, Where now ramps every fiend of Evil ; To witch a hundred wives stark nude in patterned paint uproarieus, Brute-kings on infants fed, leap high in maniac dance infuriate ; Or murderous thrice as men, wild women-regiments slay For Sots who lop off human heads like thistletops in play ; Skulls hang on trees like fruit : — O were the day at hand When fast and far Steamship or car, Shall bear Skill's rich results by banks Where reeds slide up in tufted ranks, Livingstone, 89 So stilly downward creeps the while The loglike studded crocodile ; — Or furrow-foain some vast expanse Of silver, where Morn's level glknce Gilds rings far-circUng from their source — The pink-white rolling river-horse ! Yes ! happier Life shall haunt her bowers, Full parks and woods aflame with flowers ! But he, the oppressed one's friend and father, East and West, The blameless, brave and gentle Giaour e'en Moslem bigots blest, Must nothing learn or know of this, lapped in unconscious rest ! ' Build me a hut to die in ; Heap grass upon the roof; so cold — so cold I ' — Piteous, ah piteous words, to breathe his latest sigh in, Great pioneer pure-souled ! — But comfort ye, O comfort ye ! such blessings he began ; The Moming-star' of such a noon was this much-suffering Man ! Do not these dee^d great Spirits breathe In hearts that feel what they bequeath ? Still cries not his : 'Thou crusher of the snake-armed- Monster hideous That stained with clouds of .shame and crime the incarnadined Atlantic, 90 Flotsam and Jetsam. England ! with riches never-ending, And empire like the skies extending Which victories thick as stars have won — O use thy power gigantic For Afric, vexed by vampire- chiefs and robber-gangs perfidious ! Loose her long rows of wretches strung beadlike for sale — Hell's rosaries where fiends count no prayer, but curse and groan and wail : Let Knowledge blazing through the jungle Ignorance, scare Witchcraft and all worse reptiles there ! What nobler task should nation ask ? The Roman made a proud decree That taxed the whole wide World should be ; A loftier hest Heaven leaves for thee — Let all a wider World be free ! Spain's vaunted victor-days of old Loom glimmering red with blood and gold : But Thou ! let Freedom's flute-notes low By Ophir's coast, once golden, flow ; And Time shall waft the holy tune Up to the Mountains of the Moon ! Then shall a lovelier Law of boundless Love, infuse Some rteverence for the meanest clay a human Soul indues ! ' — Lives not his own in thoughts like these ? — But on that scene we muse : Livingstone. 91 ' Build me a hut to die in ; I am going home,' he murmured, ^Cold — so cold!' — " Ah J not all piteous words, to breathe his latest sigh in, That hero heavenly- souled ! — Then comfort ye, O comfort ye ! for only one thing can. The high immortal Hope that soothed the lonely-dying Man ! 1874. 92 Flotsam and Jetsam. FIREWORKS. I DREAMT. There was a great crowd gazing At fireworks set before them blazing. The crowd were ' Missing Links ' ; Cambodia's Great Temple shows no shapes more odious]; Flat skulls, flat brows, yet convex noses. Such as her ruined Fane discloses, Men's heads in conflict fierce off'-twisting, Spite of tame elephants assisting ; — Such gibbering folk as grinned in ages Long ere men lived o'er Lakes on stages ; Left shells on midden — flints in barrow, ' Or split hyena-bones for marrow. Fireworks. 93 The Pyrotechnist was a creature Of noblest presence — Greek in feature. He sent a single cracker bouncing — The Links' delight there's no pronouncing : A single squib he showed them fizzing — Their rapture drowned the small tube's whizzing : One Roman candle fireball-shotted — Down on their hams from, fear they squatted : One Catherine-wheel's flame-petals playing — Their gibbering hushed seemed almost praying : A rocket skyward rushed up solely — They shrieked him God-— a Fetish wholly ; So wondrous fine his working — scheming ; He, too, so like themselves in seeming ! Then the good Pyrotechnist lastly Brought one great work to please them vastly ; 94 Flotsam and Jetsam. So grand, he felt in its ignition The dimax of his Exhibition. He fixed it — lighted — set it whirling ; Squibs fizzed in streams from its unfurling : It whirled away ; in its progression, Up flew fireballs in bright succession ! Still on it whirled ; such gems emitting, Such gold-thorns branching, fire-flowers flitting. Such rings of flame, concentric, linking, Such panting discs, expanding, shrinking ; The very Saint from whom they named it. If such her wheel, could scarce have blamed it ! Still on it whirled — such rockets dashed up, As if to heaven's keystone they flashed up ; Then split in melting stars and fine tails, Long-stealing jewelled cats-o'-nine-tails ; Fireworks. , 95 You would have thought the Man-Ape nation Must have gone mad with admiration ! But who can hit Men-Monkeys' notions ? Who guess a Missing- Link's emotions ? For up jumped one — lank, sly and shifty — (His ' facial angle ' well-nigh fifty) Cries out, ' Pray stop your mopping, mowing ; He no more made the things he's showing — ' The toys by Time and Chance provided — Made them no more than you or I did ! ' Here is no skill — no trick needs solving ; 'Tis all produced by that revolving ! ' And powder's force — pasteboard's compression, Cause that revolving, that progression ; ' Until a squib that one could pocket, Grows of itself into a rocket ! ' g6 Flotsam and Jetsam. This sudden light, first notions scattering, Makes that swart tribe one sea of chattering ; Their flow of veneration staunches — They can but blink and scratch their haunches : Still more so when up danced a second, {His brow some forty-five was reckoned) Who mouthed at, mocked the placid showman : ' That Thing's a Phantom, friends, and no man ! ' O Monkey-Men, 'tis clear j for seeing The firework -making proved his Being, ' That myth of firework-making banished — Argal, his Being too has vanished : ' Your senses cheat you, in conclusion : — Anthropo-Simian brain-illusion ! ' His lofty scorn, his eyebrows twitching High-raised, his logic so bewitching. Fireworks. 97 His lips protruded, red eyes leering, Set all the mob the Showman jeering ; 'Off with you, spectre ! bogle flimsy, Dissolving ghost, exploded whimsy ! You once packed off, that explanation Leaves "LINK" the Lord of all Creation !'— The Showman seemed at this reviling To fade into the background, smiling : Bedimmed by dust-clouds light-defying Their antics kept about them flying : Some Ape-Men who (quite mad reputed). Still thought they saw him, were so hooted, I woke — with admiration glowing To find the Missing-Links so knowing. March 1874. 98 Flotsam and Jetsam. THE SERVIAN LEADER'S LAST ADDRESS. I Friends — comrades — freemen to the last ! Our sun of life is setting fast ; One struggle more ; the die is cast ; Behold, your tyrants nigh ! II Their power is crushing. Ruthless heaven Into their hands our race has given : In stem despair we still have striven, Spurning our destiny ! Ill • No choice is left us. Brutes may be Content to live in slavery ; The beasts with despots may agree ; Men cannot choose but die ! The Servian Leader's Last Address. 99 IV No statesmen grope your Cause to find ; That Cause is sun-clear to the bUnd ; They fight to rank with humankind Who fight for Uberty ! What battles you have fought with me You know full well. Your fate you see. With no vain talk of victory, I lead you on to die ! VI 'Twere insult to you to rehearse Your wrongs. All bitter words were worse. He who has coldness but to curse, Our deathmate shall not be ! VII No sighs — no weak regrets. Away With thoughts of wife or child to-day ! All — but some tyrant there to slay, , Then firee in death to he ! lOO Flotsam and Jetsam. VIII Die like your sires. Their loud blood cries To God and Time. One patriot dies, And from his dust a thousand rise ; Your sons' sons shall be free ! IX Yes, we will die ! But ere we go To. realms which no oppressors know, Now for one deathstroke at the foe ; Revenge yourselves — and die ! lOI ON A RECENT CRY ABOUT SENTIMENT. I December 1876. This—' sentiment,' fpul Turks! that fires each drop Of blood, at women — babes- — by thousands slain ? How sentimental, then, the curse on Cain ! How morbid, to these ethics of the Shop, The whirl of leaping flames that knew no stop Till whitely glared the calcined Dead-Sea plain ! Nay, God himself, how superfine a strain He rolled in thunders from black Sinai's top, Launching at murderous Lust such lightning brands ! The cynical base taunt do Thou not heed. Majestic' England ! — would'st thou sit alone In one wide waste of selfish power and greed, Deaf as a Statue 'mid Egyptian sands, (jigantic — ^human-featured, yet — a stone ? I02 Flotsam and Jetsam. THE ARRIVAL OF THE ARCHDUCHESS. Welcome — and welcome thrice over, Marie from Muscovy's shore ! Merry bell-chimings to Thee and thy Lover Peal out the welcome our thunder-ships roar ! Well may Spring's best sunshine mellow Myriad banners, black and yellow, Bright with blue and crimson blended ! O well may troops of girls sea-girt in hues like azure ocean, Or white as ocean-foam, desire for thee a life all roses ; Upon thy pathway flower-festooned fling down fresh showers of posies, Aiid breathe to Love, thy Prince and Thee, their innocent devo- tion ! But 'mid loud joy-bursts, lavish, unsuspended — Come silent thoughts of things of yore, Old links with thy great land and race of friendUest emotion ! The A r rival of the A rchduchess , 103 II Stories we think of we loved so — Joined in our juvenile days ; Two of two heroes whose manliness moved so Purest of sympathy, paramount praise ! One thy Consort- Duke's name-giver, Dear to English hearts for ever. He who made us first a nation, Alfred, all perfect patriot-king ! in hallowed light abiding, How shines he through the thousand years, to give us mild assur- ance Of the majesty of steadfast Will, the might of calnl Endurance, Swamp-isled in thicks of Athelney from swarms of Dane-foes hiding. Shaping arrows, in firm sad meditation How best his hapless land to raise, ' While oaten-cakes were scorching and the swineherd's shrew was chiding ! Ill Yes, and the other as brave is. Bravely defiant of Time ; Tale of a King too, and founder of Navies, More too by manhood than kingship sublime ! 104 Flctsam and Jetsam. 'Twas thy Russia's mighty moulder, 'Twas her grandeur's grand unfold er, He, thine own throne-nested Eagle, High towards that Sun, his Country's weal, his fietce flight ever winging ; Thy wild ancestral Wonder, whose impetuous self-reliance Took Civilisation by the throat to force her to compliance ! Lives not his stalwart image still, to young remembrance clinging, In squalor of a splendour more than regal, In Deptford's dockyard-pitch and grime. Lord of the lives of millions he, the shipwright's hammer swinging ? Memories — glorious, greater, Speak in majestical tone : How, as we foiled the proud World-desolater, England and Russia stood fearless alone ! How, in high self-desecration Moscow's holiest conflagration. Vengeful as the skies it reddened. Blazed back to icy death aghast Gaul's brigand hosts from plunder ; While Spain's green orange-groves beheld- — stern Duty's aegis o'er him — That iron Fate advancing still, driving her foes before him ! The A r rival of the A rchduchess. 105 What ! can one hapless hurricane of wild heroic blunder All sense of such deep sympathy have deadened? No ancient feuds- inveterate grown, — Respect for mutual valour left, shall this our friendship sunder ? V No ! but if rancour to banish — Any resentment remain, Princess, to-day at thy sight it should vanish. Cast o'er .thy coming no shadow of pain ! O the force of finest graces ! Blest that fortunate fair face is — Doubly blest thy blush es, beauties ! Their happy privilege, far more than protocols, despatches, To help two haughty Empires their last bitterness to smother. And make a hundred million hearts beat kindlier towards each other ! Thy sweetest presence seems to whisper how to both attaches One mission, — sdftly smiles their common duties ; ^ Nay, to large souls of loftier strain. Hints how some Power Divine from both for work harmonious watches ! VI Well ! may not each be a Warder, Both in true unison be? They for Authority conquer, and Order — Order for ever and Liberty we ! io6 Flotsam and Jetsam. If our Queen of Freedom peerless, Thy great Czar, and warriors fearless Spread the Eagle or the Lion ; If Cossacks scoured the Khivan plains black shadowed 'mid their glaring By Timour's bleached skull-pyramids, and clove those turban- spangles ; Or if our kilted Highland pride, through fevering forest-tangles. To fire Kumasi's shambles red, its fiery path went tearing ; Did they not both in kindred spirit ply on Towards one great end where both agree — To give the World more peace for work, no turbulent tyrant sparing ? — VII Aye ! and what heights unascended. Wonders kind Fate might decree. Rise at the dream of alliance so splendid — Lords of the Land with the Kings of the Sea ! Room for both — their ships and legions : See revived the lovely regions Now by loathly mildew blighted ; Byzance beneath the Eagle's wing and Lion's might upgrowing ; Glad Palestine ; — and Haroun's towns, gay as in fairy story ! Sparkling through Asian marts re-thronged, see traffic's tranquil glory; The A rrival of the A rchduchess. 1 07 Through Afric's gleaming gateway too — white Cairo — mark it flowing ! — Drilled myriads, steel-clad monsters, see, united ! Amphibious Giant, setting free And on two Continents at last, peace, light arid life bestowing ! VIII Once through fair Indies our fiat Shivered foul Slavery's sway ; Once spoke thy Sire — and no Serfdom to sigh at Lingered from Lapland to sunny Cathay ! BritQn, Russ ! that godlike mission> Work — in mutual recognition ; ( Rivals be Where chains are broken ! — But let this air with pealing bells and cannon-thunders riven, Flags, flowers and motto-stars to make the night one blaze Of blessing. This Princess fair through London Town triumphantly progress- ing— As Dove and Rainbow showed of old Earth reconciled with Heaven — How bright the skies between us now betoken ; And o'er the sunshine of to-day How strong our hope no hostile clouds may evermdre be driven lo8 Flotsam and Jetsam. THE WATERMAN. I Pale March, a silenced brawler, smiles : Along the river-bank for miles One stunted copsewood burnt and black — ' Sight-seers, thick as they can pack Or London can outpour them ! As thick and black as mussels glued, A bristling crust o'er sea-reefs rude — Green-spiralled mussels violet-dyed That gape fresh-glossed as morning's tide Comes hissing, sparkling o'er them. II What draws the countless crowds ? — Two crews ; Contagious rage for rival ' Blues ' ; — Calm modern phase of ancient scenes When charioteering ' Blues ' and ' Greens ' Set Emperors, Bishops, crazing ; The Waterman. 109 Swept nobles, beggars, Church and Sta,te, Down two fierce floods of foaming hate. Till half the East in blood was drenched, And thirty thousand slaughters quenched Byzantine flames far-blazing. Ill Hark ! o'er the bank so copselike spread A roar comes rolling overhead ! A still renewed re-plunging crash As when with launching whirl and lash Sea-surges swiftly creaming Through shingles drive and scour ; thus high And hoarse it. seems birdlike to fly In' air, no way allied or mixed With that dense press beneath it fixed, Still, dark and silent-seeming. IV So our aquatic athletes keen — Each high-trained eight one smooth machine All fire and sinew balanced on A flying wedge scarce seen ere gone — Their silver pathway splendid no Flotsam atid Jetsam. With neatly desperate skill have skimmed ; Like some crastacean spindle-limbed Sea-darters — sped with that long roar ! — The myriad-tempting glimpse is o'er, The emulous spasm ended ! And now the moving masses break, As slow as mists when sunbeams wake ; In bright deray, barge, steamer, boat Weave crossing tracks : but one thing note ! Look how the tide has risen Around a flat where loitering throngs Better good cheer with cheery songs, Jest much at winners, losers more. Till crystal-barred from either shore, Pent in an emerald prison. VI Crowd great, need urgent, wherries few ! Their glorious chance the boatmen knew ; A silver mine that soaking strand, A small Potosi close at hand, Ring-fenced by silver waters ! The Waterman. 1 1 1 But there, in sweet reserved distress Two dainty damsels, see ! whose dress, (Piquant simplicity's extreme) Cool grace, and calm dark glances seem To mark them France's daughters ; VII No English coin, no change have they, Yet must the trebled fare prepay ; One gold Napoleon all they boast ; The crowd too busy, self-engrossed. Push by, their plaint neglecting : At last, a rough-spun waterman Makes out 'whafs up^ as best he can ; Stops, lifts his low-crowned hat, as fain To rub his brow and rouse his brain ; A moment stands reflecting, VIII Reflects, resolves, preluding low : ' Well, dash my buttons ! here's a go ! I'm blest if 'taint a chance to lose ; — But come ! the ^rtttj parky-vooz (I beg the ladies' pardon. 112 Flotsam and Jetsam. — Mean no offence) shall never say John Bull can't do, once in a way The proper thing — leastways '11 try ; 7'// pull the ladies over, I, And charge 'em, not a farden ! ' So said — so done. A trifling act 1 Of fine blunt gallantry compact No less — heart-polish pure and bright ! And patriot-promptings there unite, Clear even to cynic blindness, With philanthropic feeling true ; Aye, there's the touch of Nature too, Which spite of race, rank, speech or skin, Can make the whole wide World akin In world-acknowledged kindness ! ' "3 This is the Searbeach — here was the victory ! Here fought the heroes — struggled the brave.— Plaintively rpurmurs the wind in the loneliness ; Plaintively breaks the desolate wave ! Here there was shouting ; here shrieking and groaning ; Here shed the heroes their glorious gore ! — , Plaintively breaks the billow unlistened to, Mournfully lapping the solitary shore ! 1 14 Plotsam and Jetsam. AN INVITATION (Unpublished Proem to 'Ranolf and Amohia.') Well ! the Truth shall be welcomed with hardy reliance.; All the lovely unfoldings of luminous Science, AH that Logic can prove or disprove, be allowed ; There is room for belief, though such Evil intrude, In the dominance still of a Spirit of Good ; There is room for a hope, such a handbreadth we scan. In the permanence yet of the Spirit of Man ! — Aye, and bless the far seeker, nor blame the fine dreamer ; Leave Reason her radiance — Doubt her due Cloud ; Yet may this be avowed ! An Invitation. IIS From our Life, from Reality, too shallow- hearted, Has Romance — has all glory idyllic departed — From the workaday World all the wonderment flown ? Well, but what if there gleamed in an Age cold as this, The divinest of poets' ideal of bliss ? Yea, an Eden could lurk, in this Empire of ours, With the loneliest love in the loveliest bowers ? In an era so rapid with railway and steamer. And with Pan and the Dryads like Raphael gone — What if this could be shown ? Ill Come, my friends ! if the pride of negation has chafed^you. From the comfortless comforting coldly vouchsafed you. Discontented content with a chilling despair ; Let us try, as we float down a rhyme unrestrained. If a glimttier, though faint, of these truths may be gained; Through the gloom of eclipse as we wistfully steal. If no faintest aur^olar rays may reveal That the Future is haply not utterly cheerless : While the Present has joy and adventure as rare As the Past when most fair. ii6 Flotsam and Jetsam. And if, in this faith, you will roam undisdaining To a land whelre the fanciful fountains are raining Swift brilliants of boiling and beautiful spray In the violet splendour of skies that illume Such a wealth of wild ferns and such crimson tree-bloom Where a people primeval is vanishing fast With its faiths and its fables and ways of the past ; with Reason and Fancy unfettered and fearless, Come plunge with us deep into regions of Day — Come away — and away ! llf NIVELLA. I How Nature's Soul and Man's respond Love-blended ! — Years ago I had, dear Love, a love so fond, A love all snow ! Scarce whiter from Carrara mine Could marble e'er make Flaxman pine Into some pure ideal divine His strict Greek soul to throw ; Some sweet austerity in stone, Like Beatrice, near that light-lost Throne, With eyes in radiant reverie calm ; Star-crowned ; and in her hand a palm. II One summer eve ere daylight died. This young snow-love and I, We met,^ the hushed lone Lake beside, > — Ah, throbbingly ! 1 1 8 Flotsam and Jetsam. In robe of that rich blue she came, Called from the Cardinal, the same Such tremors thrilled at Cromwell's name. White on the azure sky Hung pointed snow-streaks far away, Like prints of moor-hens' feet in clay ; Hung loosely. Sky and mountains, one In hue, seemed azure, sky alone. Ill Sighs then — such broken utterance then. But I remember well. Do you ? . . . one blissful moment, when Like some swift spell The silent sacred streaks of snow Flushed with a sudden roseate glow, Daintier than down-held daisies show ; And then, as it befell. That snow-cheek o'er the dress of blue Flushed with as rare a rose-light too ; For shyly then with moth-wing press. The snow— hand touched a timid ' Yes.' Nivella. 119 IV But since that eve, no peak of snow, If ever seen by me, AMt in pure blue sky, although Alone I be, But seems its loveliness to dower With human love — wear all the power And sweet oppression of that hour ; Nor ever do I see My snow-love drest in blue ev'n now, But on the mild maternal brow A rapt ethereal stillness lies, The sanctity of sunset skies. 1873- 1 20 Flotsam ana Jetsam. CHILDREN. Children ! from the darkling Spirit-region, sparkling With its fresh night-dew ! Lovely laughing Sphinxes, Pretty mystic minxes, Everyone who thinks is Pilzzled oft by you ! Here's a tiny creature, Mirth in every feature — Veins that run delight ! Such a pet and plaything — Midsummer and May-thing ! — Cheeks whose gipsy white Children. 1 2 r Damask rose-hue tinges ; Eyes — with wondrous fringes Curling — long — blue-black, Which, above, beneath are Thick, close-set as teeth are For fine hair refining. In a sable-shining Comb of polished lining Of the turtle's back ; III Well, this plaything playing, Pet— her pets arraying, This quicksilver Blanche, Though a romp so wild too. Though a thorough child too, Still to toys so staunch : Four years old or nearly, Loved and loving dearly,— Yes, this midge, this fly, Pauses 'mid her raptures — Coming life's pre-captures— Those long lashes gravely Lifts, and tells you bravely. Calmly too and suavely, She would like to die ! 122 • Flotsam and Jetsam. IV Not that she has notions Caught from babe-devotions, Angel, harp or throne ! — Vainly you remind her What she'd leave behind her ; Chocolate cream-nuts gone ! ' Turk's Delight,' she craves for ; Dolls she dotes on — slaves for ; From her surplus life Six at once supplying With mock laughter — crying ; Whims for ranks and stations, Dress-^a hundred fashions. Prattle, pets and passions. Mimic love and strife ! What ! leave sister Marion — Those dark eyes Hilarion — Any devotee Might have prayed with surely ; . They look up so purely Innocent and free ! Children. 1 23 Traits yoa'd lavish on a Miniature Madonna ; Brow serene and clear, Open, and alluring With the frank assuring Goodness it expresses ; Everything one blesses ! — Then such golden tresses ! — Could she leave her here ? vi^ What ! leave sister Saintie — Elfin ! — like a dainty Fairy-hunter's horn, Little nose upturning ; Eyes so shrewd — discerning — Whence sly sparks are born, Gleams of speaking muteness — Comical acuteness ; Locks across the brow 'Short-clipt like a valance, Down each cheek to balance. Silky curtains, flowing ; Tongue satiric showing Thoughts so odd and knowing! — Would she lose her now ? 124 Flotsam and Jetsam. VII Blanche ! so full of fun too ! Who the chair will run to, ' No — no kiss for you ! ' WheedUng looks' entreating, Eyes that coax repeating, ' Come and take one — do ! ' Thread-ball-chasing kitten — Hearts, when some day smitten, Will they smart for this ? Baby yet — beginning Tiny wiles of winning ; Traps of nature's setting ; Artless spirit-netting; Infa.ntine coquetting For a mother's kiss ! VIII Well, your talk — she knows it ; So repeats, to close it. Yes ! she would be dead ! Then away she dances. Tosses — tumbles — prances — Scarce knows heels from head ! Children. 125 Wild as she were aping, Say, Kate Vaughan escaping Earth, the air to tread ; When, with' many an antic Fancifully frantic, Thistledown kept twirling Madly in a hurling Hurricane — her whirling Leaves but lumps of lead ! IX What can be her reason ? Summer her one season — Eden every breath ! Does the mite discover, Brimful life runs over Into love of death ? Does to heaven her nearness Give unconscious clearness To her faith in bliss ? Seems it to such joyance — Spirit-fount's upbuoyance. Nothing new is frightful ? Change, or wrong or rightful. Can but be delightful — Cannot come amiss ? — 126 Flotsam and Jetsam. O the more one ponders, Children — mystic wonders — Less one looks you through ! Lovely little Sphinxes, Pretty puzzling minxes, Wisest wight that thinks is Staggered oft by you ! 1877. 127 CRIPPLEGATE ' And Milton's grave, which is it ? Pew-opener say ! — 'Twas to Cripplegate Church a visit We paid one day. But ' Indeed I scarce can tell,' she said ; ' somewhere I know Beneath that row of pews ; quite hidden, though ; Five paces from the pillar there It might be found, no doubt, with care ; But the place you cannot see.' —Strange that this should be ! II O cold neglect how hateful ! We murmured then ; Is posterity thus grateful To greatest men ! 128 Flotsam and Jetsam. And is this the fine exchange Earth's mightiest are to share For that old-fashioned dream of Life elsewhere ! — Nay ! Milton fills, supreme, alone, I The Poet-patriot's shrine and throne, With renown each year increased ; ^Something this at least ! Ill Think how — O glorious notion ! Our English tongue . Is an earthquake wave of ocean, A tide yet young That will girdle the round world with richest human speech ; And hundreds of her noblest millions teach This Milton's name to love and bless ! — Aye truly ! and great happiness Will a fame so full and fair Give the -bones down there !^ IV But had he not while living A grand career ' We may call without misgiving Full guerdon here ? What ! with Cromwell's mighty sword to match his mighty pen ! To lift aloft in ringing Europe's ken, Cripplegate. 129 To lightning-rampired heights of Mind The cause of Freedom — all mankind ! Then with loftiest bards before Fiery-winged to soar ! — Aye ! but a little nearer Regard that life : See, for soul-communion dearer, Poor child — his wife ! This the love-ht clear Urania throned on youthful dreams ! Phlegmatic earthen image all she seems.— But then his free enlightened friends Will soothe, support him, make amends ! — No — they eye him now askance ; Sour — with frigid glance. For why? he dares to bid them Test Wedlock's link ; Like Athenians old, would rid them Of fear to think ! They are scared, king-quellers all ! with cobwebs round and round Of Custom_and Judaea so blindly bound ; K 1 30 Flotsam, and Jetsam. ' Those who on Reason all things rest Hemlock and halter answer best ; Need to curb God-given powers, In a world like ours ! VII Better with dilettanti Of Florence play ; Praise — at proper distance— Dante ; Or pondering say, ,(With the Cause half-lost abroad — such half-hearis everywhere=- At home the bitterness of mere despair !) Where stands amor in that love-whine Of sweet TibuUus, so divine, And the critics read amer — Which do you prefer ? ' VIII Short while then shone ascendant That Cause, a star Though with gloomy light resplelident. Too narrow far ! — But the Hero-Ruler dead — down with the Hero- Bard ! Down with their Cause, for flesh and blood too hard ! Cripplegizte. 131 Who wills may thrive, who wills may fail, Dear England must have cakes and ale ; So a grinning slave will be ; Not so grimly free ! IX Now see the world neglecting This King serene : Where o'er ' Jewin-Street' projecting Old houses lean, Do but fancy the old room ! how London sunlight scant On its green-fading tapestry aslant The latticed window's image (hrows — Dim gold that slowly comes and goes As in silence — little known — There he sits alone ! Day springing — day declining. Night ever lies Oh those sightless but clear-shining Majestic eyes ; — And in bodily torture too — ' gout in his hands and feet ; '- Is this the stately youth that went to greet X32 Flotsam and Jetsam. The starry Galileo thrown Into his Tuscan cell to groan, Just because the wild Earth slid Not as Monkery bid ! There, with emotion paler We see him pause At the door-sill while the gaoler Aside withdraws ; On the gloom his amber hair to flowing glory turns Sun-caught ! what pitying indignation burns In that archangel mien and brow ! — Yet mark the mighty Sufferer now Still in silent protest proud, Conquering ills — unbowed ! — XII Some friend steals in to pray him At home to keep ; There's a bravo may waylay him If out he creep ! Such a desperado prqwls the street at dusk of late ; Some royalist's long rancour hired to sate — . Crippleg ate. 133 With stealthy dagger-steel by night His deadlier dagger-pen requite ! Well ! assail the bJind who may God shall be his stay ! XIII Perhaps a skull-capped neighbour Calls, while his soul At its dear divinest labour Lists some last roll — Of his broad Atlantic sea of song — that grandly grows And grandly sinks to its melodious close \ — So now this friend the pen shall hold, Reel off the fresh- spun thread of gold ; Though of puritanic taste — Over-straitly laced ! XIV O joy, to hive such treasures ! Be first to track In such worid-entrancihg measures The fljdng rack Of tumultuous splendours and the thousand-streaming roar Of multitudinous harmonies that o'er 1 34 Flotsam and Jetsam. His couch came thronging through the bright Last slumber-time of his long night ! — Then to fix some flash how brief Of sublimest grief ! XV Hark ! while the grey eyes gleaming Yearn to and fro, With immortal sadness teeming Those accents low Soar aloft. ■ , ■ ^ Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell!' . . . The solemn theme While those deep- organ- tones pursue How feels the sour stiff penman ? — ' True ; But with pagan fancies fraught — Ah ! such heathen thought ! ' XVI Blind — sick — in danger^ — ^lonely — Can worse remain ! — At the dim green chamber only Glance once again. In the silence, whose the voice ? His daughter's — o'er a book ; Those square old Hebrew characters that look Cripplegate. 135 Like creeping files of muffled men Jn some Dantesque infernal den, Who — a flat rock on each head — Steal with shuffling tread. XVII Or crinkled print Hellenic (Fine gold-wire twist !) Is to Aerno glory scenic, Mere gibberish — mist ; But to him ! the Shape before those bright rapt mournful orbs All their pink inner vacancy absorbs ! The Titan writhing unsubdued — Type of terrific fortitude ! By a gloomier grander one Soon to be outdone. XVI II And she for this dull duty Has lost a treat ' With her friend, that faded beauty This June^day sweet, In the peak-roofed coach low-hung where ostrich-fanned she sate ; Plumes lilac-soft in honey-hued tall hat ; I ^6 Flotsam and Jetsam. Full farthingale whose folds eclipse The briony-bell's silk-purple lips, As the stomacher its spike— t- Sharper than a pike. XIX Style, truly, not the newest — That were too free ! But the bliss, when skies are bluest The Mall to see All a-glitter with gallants all feathers, lace and bows : Such wit ! and to revive this drooping Rose, O such a rain of comphments, More luscious than the luscious scents They diffuse as they parade. Musk and orangeade ! XX There too, in laughing leanness, That swarthy king Of salacious mirth and — ^meanness. Stalks with his ring Of gazelle-eyed four-legged pets and lynx-eyed pets on two- More spiteful, spoilt — less sensitive and true, Cripplegate. 137 The Castlemaines and Querouailles, Whom that sublime Prince- prig Versailles So adores, enslaves with pay, Like their royal prey ! Perhaps — attraction sweeter ! Perhaps . . . some one Had contrived, by chance, to meet her . '. . The merchant's son With the secret glance she feels at Church from off his prayer Oft magnetised by hers and her bright hair, Coif-stifled though its chestnut light ! And something might have chanced that might Have released her from this doom — Cripplegate and gloom ! XXII That awful Lord Protector Was blunt, yet kind ; Had he lived all would respect her. Rough and refined ; At his Court she might have shone ere now ; though grave enough. Glad change from all this Greek and Hebrew stuff ! 138 Flotsam and Jetsam. That tale her father too dictates ; Eve — Eden — Adam — how she hates ! And the Devil — ^just the same — Loathes their very name ! XXIII Her heart for pleasure thirsting Sinks as she reads, With the pent vexatjon bursting Her fancy feeds : How they choke her, the forced words 1 Her mother's light rash mood, Her father's haughty will, both fire her blood ; 'I* will be her death — this life so drear ; And see ! a new stepmother here ! Then she wishes he were dead — Blind — this father — dead ! Ah life — ah home how bitter ! Fame full of pain ! What a guerdon from its glitter Must great work gain ! — But of guerdon wherefore prate ! must all be selfish then ? Good ne'er self-paid or paid by good to men ' Cripplegate, 139 Will none, to reach their nature's height; In proud self-sacrifice delight ? To advance the human race, None all self efface ? XXV Height ! yes a flea's leap merely, Were this the whole ! And if nothingness be clearly The race's goal, Why this rage to Hft and light its purposeless career ! Say nought is proved— disproved— all doubtful here, Hope lives, and tnen will still aspire ! But make extinction sure, the fire Will to reckless chaos flare, Smoulder to despair ! XXVI What ! Life and all we cherish In life is all ! Then the race, 'twere better perish ! This blind Earth-ball, Better, better it were dashed at once into the Sun, Its feverish, futile, aimless fluttering done ; 140 Flotsam and Jetsam. Or whirled a ghastly cinder-shower Through Space for ever ! then would power So divine no more deceive — Millions cease to grieve ! XXVII But Reason hints — still better If nothing sure Can be won from life or letter, Bid Hope endure ! Let her paint — with Socrates and Shakespeare and the rest, Through space-girt astral Islands of the Blest, How Milton's soaring soul and will, Unsated and expanding still. Still inherit, sphere by sphere Light — more full and clear ! May 1875. PRA YER. WELf-, pray ! — though in good sooth, ,to pray Is to doubt God, who's injured?— Nay, To some strong souls opprest with clay, , Staggering along their clouded way, It seems a stimulant and stay: And Where's the wit can surely say What bounds the must-be — what thd may ? 142 Flotsam ana Jetsam. A CHRISTMAS HYMN. (New Style, 1875.) Again the dumb delight, The winding'-sheet of Winter white ! The great World's feverish moan sinks mute and muffled, As Nature lays cool hands divine Upon its weary heart, awhile unruffled : The splendour-fibred trees pure coral shine ; All still ! — and if small birds, so black and large, perchance In sudden startled quest On* the dazzling tracery rest And shake snow-powder off, they but enhance The sacred silence of the bright white univei'sal trance. A Christmas Hymn, 145 Then bells burst out along The pale dim-burnished sky they throng; Their floating tones in yellow light dissolving, Like joys that die in rapture soft ; Or peal on peal in headlong haste revolving, Full many a merry somersault aloft The airy tumblers turn in their ethereal play ; , Or dovra, down, down they come From the full resounding dome, In frank, confiding, open-armed array, Like blissful Angels charged to bring their old good news to- ' day ! Ill But why so glad,'you bells ? 'Tis shame and wrong your rapture tells ! Cold Morn ! why halo round with cheery kindness Your chill return, which but recalls That deed of rabid hate and ruinous blindness. Most piteous scene in History's pictured halls, The one World-murder done in ghostly Palestine ! Isit a cause for mirth That the dull ferocious Earth In mirk and mystery Igft so long to pine. So welcomes, Spirits when they come surcharged with light divine ! . 144 Flotsam and yetsam. IV Swords flash and sceptres wave—' , Could none that gentlest grandeur save ! O widest woe ! that this, Time's boon most royal, A rabble spurned with ribald scorn — No worldly might to worth so wondrous loyal ! — See ! 'tis the golden solitary IVJorn ; See ! 'splendid mists, still palms and glistening kine ; the Sun Undiamonds the blades Of the shortening fi^-tree shades ; Soft clouds ascending gently one by one The hollow cave of liquid light, emerge o'er mountains dun ; V If, by the poppied corn, There sits in Syrian garb wayworn. Upon a rock the level beams are firing. One who, of ample brow sublime. And ardent look serene yet so aspiring. Speaks such great-hearted music, for a time The brazen-kilted Knight his Emperor's work delays. Must draw the studded rein ; And the boor his creaking wain Let stand — spellbound by thoughts that so amaze — , So boundless, kindling, fresh, they match that rising Day-Star's rays: A Christmas Hymn. 145 VI If still, as Sunset fills With awe the hushed vermilion hills,' Blue dusk the listening fishers' lake obscuring — Those easy and immortal words Drop quietly as footprints less enduring Red petrified sea-beaches' keep of birds A million years ago alit from vanished skies : — Can none, O churlish Fate ! Of the brave and wise and great — None look into those deep mysterious eyes. And read how vast a human Soul-informs that clay disguise t VII To murder one so young ! To still that wonder-teeming tongue Ere half the fulness of its mellowed glory Had flashed in mild -sheet-lightnings forth ! . Who knows, had that majestic Life grown hoary. Long versed in all man's weakness, woes and worth. What beams had pierced the clouds that veil this voyage of care Not Zeus,' nor Baal's throne pjor Osiris quelled alone, But Doubt, or worse assurance of Despair, Or Superstition's brood that blends the tiger with the hare I 146 Flotsam and Jetsam. VIII Who knows but we had caught Some hint from pure "impassioned Thought, How Matter's Hnks and Spirit's that still fly us, Can break and still leave Spirit free ; How Will can act o'ermastered by no bias, ; Why Good omnipotent lets Evil be ; What balm heals beauteous Nature's universal flaw ; And how, below, above, , It is Love, and only Love Bids keen Sensation glut Destruction's maw — Love rolls this groaning Sea of Life on pitiless rocks of Law ! IX This day, then, must we ask Befits it riot its radiant mask, Where Spring's, green pulses sleep, so soon to waken. Beneath bright innocence of snow ? But rather, like the human heart forsaken. Some grand still Polar waste, where sad rays throw Long violet solemn shades, and luridly illume -Each iceberg's sullen ftown, As the blood-red Sun goes down At ghastly noon, and to their dismal doom Leaves moaning crags and grinding floes in loneliest lifeless gloom ? A Christmas Hymn. 147 X Nay — is it then so slight ' A thing that this Day sprung to light Of moral beauty Man's supreme ideal ; A soul of sympathy so vast 'Twas scarce conceived till first he made it real ! That of all Facts left for the heart at last — Looming beyond the light by Logic's pharos thrown, Its faintest circled rim, 1 In the supersensuous dim, The most majestic — loveliest — made its own The purest, widest, truest Soul, and loftiest ever known ! XI At least — at lowest, say, A quickening breeze of Life this day Came, when into dead calm had feebly drifted Man's Hope of Hopes — an Albatross Flapping vain wings to rise — and freshly lifted The worn Seafarer for a flight across Some thousands of new years o'er the Material Deep Where Man must founder not. Or his very race would rot ! Fell swamp , from which kind Fate his course must keep Or down 'mid crawlers of the sHme 'twill be his doom to creep 148 Flotsam and Jetsam. XII What ! this One, Nature's— all ! (Though why not God's, that Mystery call ?) O none the less Mankind's upsoaring splendid Through brightening gyres of Circumstance Is with his great heart-truths and hopes so blended, To keep that height they give its only chance ! — So firmly through the woof — to crown the array so dense Of Shapes of light and love — Amaranthine flowers he wove, The imperial purple of pre-eminence Man wears, were tattered, would you tear those wreaths immortal thence ! XIII True, this Soul-Conqueror — this — World-melting Marvel from the Abyss — Cared not, in subtly faint Hellenic fashion To syllogise of life to-be. But kindled to insatiate ttiirst and passion That old ambition of Eternity Which fires Man's heart for noblest deeds it di;eams of here ! Breath mightiest and alone To evoke its grandest tone \ Of each harmonious rise in his career, Each diapason of ascent, the stirring key-note clear ! A Christmas Hymn. 149 XIV But this One bade him strain, Say you, to heights he seeks in vain — Ideal perfections that bemock his station ? Nay, but the endless strain and strife Secure his nature's endless elevation !^- The germ, deep-hid in life, of higher life, Conscience, this Sunburst woke ; Truth, Justice, Love, his ray So quickened to outflower With predominance and power. The palmy growth still claims imperious way Through this World's cramping crystal walls to some diviner Day! XV And if, in fine excess , And secret happy consciousness, The fervid aim at fitness for instalment In some rare clime Truth, Love and Right Flush with full bloom unreached in this enthralment, Be forced to leap into a faith like sight In such rare clime extant, its actual glorious goal, — Against assurance sure It must endlessly endure ! Shall not the first these heart-depths to unroll Be hailed Discoverer and dear King among the Lords of Soul ! I so Flotsam and Jetsam. ,xvi Spurn from his Faith — of Will Love-fired to selfless war with 111, And deathless life to soothe the undying fever — Hell's blight, the shamble's stains and steams ; It were a Sun to flood and flush for ever The boundless blue^no cloud-hole's shower of beams Silvering the sea-gloom — glory girt with hate and shame ! A lily pure, that creed Would be loved — what crimson weed Of Greece so loved ! sweet faiths of graceful fame Olympian poppies of no charm beside its fragrant flame !. XVII What though wan Logic deems Illusions these immortal dreams ; Hesperian garden-growth of golden apples Which she can prove not — see nor touch ; Their realm at least is real ; for all she grapples Of actual fruit or blossoin hangs o'er such A shadowy garden's wall, and springs from roots within ; Aye ! all she sees and knows But in Mystery springs and grows : Her simplest queries can no answer win : ' What can Attraction be? or Force ? or Motion how begin ? ' A Christmas Hymn. 151 XVIII To sing that golden fruit Hope, Justice, Love, are never mute ; White Maidens warbling through the Dusk its splendour ; And Science, our Alcides> true Shall make the Dragon — Matter — ^yet surrender The Spirit-realm it guards and glides into ! Meanwhile the men of mightiest heart our course must light ; All honour be to them. And to Him the diadem Who rose, the Atlas from whose heaven-bathed height In clearest prospect glowed the unimaginable sight ! XIX Fear you 'twill die away, FUt, wholly fade in fancied Day ? Is the World's long advance a masque so hollow ! But Heart is pioneer of Mind — The pillared fire her patient march must follow ! He, to transfigure, glorify his kind, Made all the Universe a breathing human breast ; Man's race,, one rose of snow Through Eternity to blow. His great Idea ! shall Hope or Reason rest Below, while, though mist-veiled, on high, towers so sublime a crest! 152 Flotsam and Jetsam. * XX Look where gigantic flowers Most gorgeous deck Peruvian bowers ; Milk-white lake-lilies purple-hearted shining Shield-broad, each leaf an islet wide, A leathery floor with crinkled wine-dark liiiing Deep-cabled, firm, where ghostlike stalk and glide Plover and Ibis shy, by no vibration checked : — 'Tis on black lakes obscure Which the forest-glooms immure ; Ink-waters strange that no light-rays reflect : — So in sad days of darkest doubt' Truth's brightest blooms expect ! XXI Think you the mighty Sea Of Nature can exhausted be ? Press on, O Man !, no upward impulse scorning ! High instincts pant their race to run ! Fresh Souls will come auroral — sons of Morning, To rouse and rein these coursers of the Sun Along the empyreal path He was the first to trace ! — — Then still recall, O Earth, With a festal smile, his tirth ! For this, o'er Earth's benumbed and beauteous face, Still, Winter, breathe your chilly charms of kindliest innocent grace ' A Christmas Hymn. 153 XXII You hollies scarlet-bossed, Purfle with dainty rims of frost Your puckered leaves for this — or gleam snow-spangled ! Prank every fringe with crystals gay, You cedars ! Ring sweet bells, by fears unjangled j Peal forth melodious promise of a day When in more l^imindus love — more loving knowledge great- In the serene sunShine Of intelligence divine, The whole majestic World shall walk elate With her sublimest hero's faith in Man's exalted fate ! 1 54 Flotsam and Jetsam. THE BRIDE OF THE AVON. (A True Incident.) Soft and subdued is the breath of the flageolets, Sweet are the violins, plaintively gay ! Happy though pensive, see, Maidens how beautiful, Pansies and violets strew by the way ! Snowy their robes are, their ribbons all roseate ; — Silvery flashes the Avon hard by ; Dimly far- sparkles the Severn cerulean. Sails on its blue like the flecks on the sky ! Sunnily streams the procession, and closes, Look ! where the Bride, in a lace-curtained litter Borne by gay servitors, screened from the glitter. Cushioned on satin reposes. The Bride of the A von. 155 Over the ramparts of Bristol, hoar battlements Long ago levelled, they carry her now : Open the curtains — that vision, Ah scorn it not ! Eighty still winters have hallowed that brow ! Silkiest silver o'er features angelical, Clear in the crystalline beauty of Age ; Calmness seraphic, a marble serenity. Surely no gauds of this life can engage ; Triumph is there, but how faint are its traces ; Firmness how gentle ! yet sweet satisfaction Sealed in repose, is the simple attraction Nothing you read there effaces. Ill Dead ! — and the noon-glow is gladdened with melody ; Dead I and rich blossoms enamel the -way ! — Sixty slow summers have faded like phantasies Since she first shone in that bridal array, Hazelike and gem-lit as dreams of the happiness She and her lover then looked for in vain ! Fairfax was fighting for Parliament sturdily, Sieging this town^and her lover was slain — IS6 Flotsam and Jetsam, Killed when new-wedded, these ramparts assailing ; There was he laid, by the love-tended hollies i — Muffled the drums were and knell-like the volleys : Honours how sad — unavailing ! IV • Did she not hide it — her anguish unspeakable ? O never doubt her — and mastered its throes As in the awe of her calm Will's intensity, And a resolve like a Fate, she arose,^^ Pale, yet too blest at its life-doom— and silently Vowed to that vanished victorious Soul, Consort her own should be ever and consecrate ! Aye, and let years o'er her loneliness roll. Still should the husk of poor beauty he cherished Join his cold dust in the dress she was wearing When he last kissed her and blest her repairing To the fierce fight where he perished ! \ Sixty long years, then, she lived in this constancy, Breathing affection with every breath ; He was her husband, but far away travelling — Travelling safe from disaster or death ! The Bride of the A von. 157 Something eternal, alive in her consciousness, Blooming a wild-flower natural there Linked her in light with the region ineflable, Sunshine he roamed in — she waits but to share ; Something within her that brooked no misgiving Mirrored his Soul with such fervid emotion, Oft at the call of her yearning devotion, Present it stood by her, living ! VI Sixty years thus — neither sighing nor sorrowful, Lived she — attaining where others aspire : Quietly rapturous — blissfully reticent — Strangely assured of her utmost desire. Freely she mingled in mournings — festivities — Cheerful and tranquil, whate'er might betide ; Always at will, could she not in her solitude Sit with her bridegroom unseen by her side ? O the delight of that secret communing ! Voice at her heart's core, to solace oi: stir it, Heard in her rapt exaltation, her spirit Ever to gladness attuning ! 1S8 Flotsam and Jetsam, VII Mighty events, all their country's vicissitudes Passing, still coupled his soul with her own ; — Holy great days when our forefathers glorious Struck for the Truth — set the Mind on its throne — Shivered the shackles off Conscience ; she knew it then. Proud was her hero, thrice happy his glance ! Grovelling days, when a hireling and reveller Lavished on lusts what he crouched for to France : Days when a choke-damp was numbing a nation — Bigot and tyrant — mole-eyed, marble-hearted : Ah, what a bliss from all this to be parted. Spared all the shame and vexation ! But the pale King they rejoiced at, who wearily' Toiled to the height of his noble design ; Showed how the people's proud statue of Liberty Might in true Royalty's diadem shine. Wonders still flashed as her life's light grew shadowy, Brought her still nearer that life-treasured sod ; England ablaze with incredible victories — ■ Marlborough marching through Europe a God ! Ah, had her hero like this one succeeded ! The Bride of the Avon. 1 59 Nay — but he died in a holier quarrel : Better so trained for some loftier laurel — Work in that sphere to be needed ! IX Then she directed the will long determined on ; How her true wedding-day still they should see ; How that dear grave, with its osier-bound coverlet Emerald-green should her bridaUcpuch be ! Coffinless he was, and she would be coffinless ; Sables and plumes and all sorrow forsworn ; ■ She in the dress she had long ago fruitlessly Blushing in blossoming loveliness worn ; Just as himself in the uniform lay there Crimsoned, alas ! as the sash she had fastened When to do battle for Freedom he hastened — Died too for Freedom that day there ! Thus was her death-day her day of reunion, T)ay of revival, rejoicing and pride ! Had she not loftily held to her fealty, Worthy of him who so loftily died ! i6o Flotsam and Jetsam. Thus is her burial-bridal symbolical ; Thus as their relics their spirits shall meet ; Rites hymeneal these rites, not, funereal, Flowers and maidens and music complete ! — — Sparkles on Severn's blue dimness are dancing ; White o'er the sky flow the flecks evanescent — ' Gleams of the future and drea,ms of the present — Mysteries bright and entrancing ! XI feound then, you violins, triumphing tenderly ; Softly and joyously, flageolets, play ! Truly this Spirit has earned a high destiny — Bravely asserted its claim ove'r clay ! Say there is nothing, then, earthly or heavenly. Science ne'er dreamt of ; say Atoms exist, Frame without intellect things intellectual, Marvels of Mind with no Mind to assist ; Hearts there will still be too high to dissever Hope from their instincts, as strong as assurance. Telling the soul of its deathless endurance, Living and loving for ever ! January 1875. i6i SAINT PAUL'S. NOT here the faint illuming, not the mystery sombre-dooming That o'ershadows old Cathedrals of a dimly-dreaming time ; Grand as Forests with their tangles, interlacing high arch-angles, And long alleys pillar-crowded ; type of Faith that stifles, strangles All discursive Speculation and free Reason as a crime ! Not their faery-frowning fretwork, not their glamour-lights and glooming — 'Tis another kind of grandeur makes this Temple so sublime ! What a thrill of exultation — sense of freedom, elevation, As its luminous expansion seems to welcome you and cheer ! Now aspiringly ascending, and now lovingly o'erbending, Such a whirl of golden circles so harmoniously blending ! M 1 62 Flotsam and Jetsam. How the lovely lines of lustre link, dispart and reappear ! With a majesty how graceful, what a grand serene elation, And a flowery sunny gladness, like the World's in Spring-career ! Ill Tis as Nature had the moulding of this Temple — its upholding — And had deigned to proud Invention her diviner might to prove ; So had fashioned it in keeping with the Planets in their leaping. With the Suns and starry Systems in resplendent circles sweeping ; And that ample dome of heaven circumambient above. In its tender blue infinitude of beauty all-enfolding, Sweetly swathing all Creation with immensity of Love ! IV Is not this the very Shrine for the consummate Faith men pine for, Bright and boundless as the Future of the enfranchised human mind ? Which shall gather all the races in real Catholic embraces. Lend idealised World-worship every Muse's gifts and graces ; When the nation to its marvel of magnificence less blind, Shall fulfil the dream of glory 'twas imagined so divine for. And invest it with the splendours its conceiver first designed. Saint Paul's. 163 V Then those massy piers upstanding so symmetrical, commanding, Flute and fillet shall be tinted with striation flowery-warm ; And the rainbow arcs diverging from them everjrway, and merging In the maze of circled beauty, as o'er cataract-clouds upsurging, Shall be robed in radiant colours iridescent as their form ; While a thousand golden gleamings, to the Dome's superb expanding, Flash around as happy Earth's do, when Hope's symbol crowns the storm. Then those windows peyistylar, free from muUion, mask, or viler Leaden lattice, shall seem gateways clear to heaven's empyreal glow; Where, with plumes — on viewless crystal — ruby, emerald, amethystal, Shall great typical Archangels, ardour-fired or rapture- whist all, Hush the dome — like sacred sunrise — as they stand in burning row. On its sill each new-alighted, or down -looking with grave smile, or Beckoning, upward, ere it soar off, the aspiring hearts below. There the Lords of Light and Science — there the Heroes whose defiance Of the bigotries and tyrannies bade grovelling Man arise ; 164 Flotsam and .Jetsam. There to kindle high emotion, martyr-deeds of deep devotion, On the scaffold, in the dungeon, on the battle-field or ocean — All the world-ennobling wonders of sublime self-sacrifice Shall appeal with dumb persuasion, shall relive for rich appliance, In white permanence of marble, in mosaic's deathless dyes. VIII There shall soft choir-voices stealing through tumultuous thunder- pealing Float like blossoms snowy-blissful on the Music-storm around. Rock in soaring undulation or descend each sweet gradation In the silvery-falling torrent of ecstatic adoration : AH the grand apocalypses of soul-elevating Sound Shall each ocean-cave uncover of unfathomed human Feeling, And awaken far-off echoes in its mountain- glens profound ! IX For that Ritual shall be laden with Arts richnesses — arrayed in All the lightnings of the outer and the inner world in turn ; Take the Reason, take the Senses — take whatever most intense is To upwaft the wayward Spirit to ethereal influences ; As a Naiad by both handles would uplift her sparry urn To a diamond-spattering fountain; as you raise a drowning Maiden By her hand, her hair, her raiment — any hold you first discern. Saint Paul's. 165 Then shall Genius seek and Sort all the experience of this mortal And so multiform Existence, individual and whole ; Skim the cream off all the Ages — sound the hearts of Saints and Sages, Fan to flame the inspiration of a hundred Poets' pages ; Keenly peering at two Miracles to pierce their mystic stole — The sweet miracle of Nature through the Sense's sunny portal — Through the' portal of dusk Consciousness, the miracle of Soul. Then the Splendour- shroud unskeining of the Sensuous round us reigfiing, Then shall Science show 'tis Spirit weaves cocoon-like that rich veil ; On the gossamer webs of Guidance as they float without subsidence Through the ages, flash her sunlight ; mark their mystical abidance In^each single life to lure it to its blessing here or bale ; And as History sluices, sifts them, keep, felicitously straining From auriferous Time-deposits, Hope's precipitate gold grail., XII Then 'twill be our bliss securer, not to blench at Reason purer, But to launch the joyous Spirit with a large abandonment 1 66 Flotsam and Jetsam. On the Infinite over — under us ; with no cramped^ conceits to sunder us, In the frank assimilation and right welcome of the wonderous, Let the Soul expand and revel to the topmost of its bent ; Well persuaded that the wider Feeling's reach is, all the surer With Reality and Truth will be its harmonised concent ; XIII Never doubting, each pursuer — every mighty-hearted wooer Of those measureless high majesties, the Universe and Man, That the deeper we explore them, and the freelier we adore them, And the more erect and boldlier we bear ourselves before them. The clearlier shall we gather their significance and plan ; Be more certain that our logic is more luminous and truer The more generous its deductions from the Infinite we scan ! XIV Then no creed that scantly blesses, scares and curses and represses, Shall restrain the grander instincts — chain the Sun-aspiring brood ; But a fuU enchanting river of conceptions of the Giver Of Existence, ever broadening, ever brightening, shall for ever Waft us welcomer convictions that its end is wholly good ; Ever lead to loftier darings and sublimer tendernesses. And still wider love and warmer for the human brotherhood ! Saint Paul's. , 167 XV But for such a faith of soaring Sense and Reason far exploring, All of Love and Light commingled — universal — disenthralled, Were not this the happy station, this imperial illustration And epitome, the loveliest, the lordhest, of Creation .With its many-circling splendours, starry-wheeling, golden-balled — Which when England crowns, completes it, all poor pedantries ignoring. Not one gate but the whole Temple shall The Beautiful be called ? 1873- LOMDON : PRINTED BY 9P0TTISW00DE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET r '^ .^C'^ V ^s^ ^ x^ ^0« ^v ^\ ^ ^ \ \ \