ON THE ROAD TO LIBERTY
 
 ON THE ROAD TO 
 LIBERTY 
 
 Poems and Ballads 
 
 by 
 
 J. BRUCE GLASIER 
 
 Edited with MEMOIR and PREFACE by 
 J. W. WALLACE 
 
 THE NATIONAL LABOUR PRESS, LTD. 
 
 30 Black riars Street, Manchester ; and 8/9 Johnson's Court, 
 Fleet Street, London
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 MEMOIR vii xvii 
 
 PRLFACE xix xxiv 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS xxv xxviii 
 
 POEMS (18771895). 
 
 A HIGHLAND IDYLL 1 
 
 THE HIGHLAND REAPERS 3 
 
 MY MOUNTAIN MAID 5 
 
 LNDER THE WYCH ELM 6 
 
 MONKLAND GLEN 8 
 
 HEY-DAY 11 
 
 A PARTJNG OF THE WAYS 12 
 
 THS SKYLARK 13 
 
 THE MIRACLE OF MORN 14 
 
 THE ORACLES OF NIGHT 15 
 
 A FRAGMENT : MAY, 1920 22 
 
 TRANSFIGURATION 24 
 
 TO THE EVKNING STAR . 25 
 
 IN ENGLAND Now 27 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 32 
 
 MICHAEL DAVITT 35 
 
 ToE. U 36 
 
 SHE COMES IN SILKEN WINDS ii8 
 
 A MAY MORN INVITATION 39 
 
 THE WINE AND JEST 40 
 
 LOVE'S CONJURATION 41 
 
 To MY BETROTHED MAY, 1893 42 
 
 BY WlNDFJRMERE .. .43 
 
 v. 
 
 1367167
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 POEMS {Continued). PAGE. 
 
 ADIEU 43 
 
 To KATHARINE 46 
 
 THE WIZARDRY or LOVE 46 
 
 EtMTHALAMIUM 47 
 
 To MY WAR-MAIDEN WIFE 48 
 
 DARK NIGHT AND LONELY ROAD 49 
 
 SPRING IN RIVINGTON 49 
 
 BALLADS (18851920). 
 
 ON THE ROAD TO LIBERTY 52 
 
 WB'LL TURN THINGS UPSIDE DOWN 53 
 
 WHEN THE REVOLUTION COMES 55 
 
 MARCHING ON TO LIBEBTY 56 
 
 B.'.LL\D OF LAW AND ORDER 58 
 
 A TOAST 60 
 
 THE CHILDREN'S INTERNATIONAL 61 
 
 THK SHAN VAN VOCHT 63 
 
 THE RHYME or JOHNNY FREE 65 
 
 POEMS (19191920). 
 
 LA COMMUNE 69 
 
 REVOLUTION 70 
 
 THE DREAM OF THE EARTHLY PARADISE 72 
 
 Two INVOCATIONS (To FREEDOM) 72 
 
 A MAY DAY PJEAN 75 
 
 A VANISHED WORLD 76 
 
 IN TIMES OLDEN 77 
 
 EMPYREAN 79 94 
 
 APPENDIX . . 95 100 
 
 VI.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 J. BRUCE GLASIER 
 
 " Socialism means not only the Socialisation of wealth, but 
 of our lives, our hearts ourselves.' 9 
 
 THE above sentence from the last chapter of Bruce 
 Glasier's book, " The Meaning of Socialism," 
 gives the keynote to which his self-appointed and 
 strenuous apostolate of Socialism for forty years and all 
 his aims and activities were attuned in full accord. From 
 first to last he was " a dedicated spirit,'* giving to 
 Socialism, which was to him the cause of all mankind, the 
 utmost devotion and strength of his mind, heart, and body, 
 with a selfless singleness of aim which left all personal 
 considerations out of sight as of no account. For its sake 
 " he scorned delights and lived laborious days," im- 
 molating on its altar gifts which would have won him 
 distinction in other fields, cheerfully accepting hardship 
 and struggle, and never seeking place or popularity, but 
 striving only and always to serve and to give of his best. 
 And in the five-and-a-half years of his fatal illness he 
 compelled even severe pain and weakness to be subservient 
 to his indomitable resolution to spend every available 
 minute of time, and every particle of his strength, in 
 service of enduring value. 
 
 It was this obviously untainted and complete " Social- 
 isation " of himself, and the underlying enthusiasm and 
 idealism which sustained it, that gave him an abiding place 
 in the hearts of the workers everywhere, which more showy 
 
 vii.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 gifts of oratory and public prominence can never secure 
 without it. And the memory of it, and of its wonderful 
 heroism and beauty in the last years of his life combined 
 with the recognition of his many-sided gifts, sagacity of 
 judgment and breadth of vision will long remain an 
 inspiration and shining example to young men and women, 
 *' spirits of the morning sort," in the days to come, and 
 will perhaps be his greatest special gift to the movement. 
 
 By heredity and early environment he was admirably 
 fitted for the work of his life. Born in Glasgow, March 25, 
 1859, he was the eldest of a family of two sons and five 
 daughters. His father was a farmer, and Bruce's early 
 years were spent near the coast of Ayrshire and on the 
 island of Arran. 
 
 Bruce describes his father (in some as yet unpublished 
 chapters of autobiography from which several quotations 
 are made here) as " an extraordinary man," who " out- 
 classed in force of character all the men of his neighbour- 
 hood." Tall, erect, with broad shoulders and swinging 
 step; frank, cheery, fearless and proud; he had great 
 intellectual power and independence of mind. He loved 
 poetry and music, regularly gave his children verses to 
 learn, knew Burns's poems by heart, was an outspoken 
 Republican and Atheist, and it was from him that Bruce 
 inherited his strongly rational and propagandist bent of 
 mind. 
 
 But it was to his mother that Bruce says he owed " the 
 poetical and imaginative cast of my mind, and my deep 
 humanitarian and democratic sympathies." In an article 
 in the Labour Leader, June 1, 1906, he wrote very finely 
 and tenderly of her " heroism and toil for the little home 
 
 viii.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 community under her care." " Well do I see these things 
 now well do I see from what love, what infinite toil of a 
 mother's hands, much of our solicitude for the weal of 
 others, and sense of citizenship, has come. The songs, 
 too, as she cradled us on her knee; the stories of Wallace 
 and the heroes ; of Knox, who ' never feared the face of 
 man ' ; of John Brown of Petershill, and the martyrs was 
 it not from these that the kindling of the flame of freedom 
 and pity came which afterwards broke out into an 
 insurrectionary glow? " 
 
 His mother came of a family of Highland crofters. 
 We get a delightful glimpse of one of her uncles on page 99 
 of " The Meaning of Socialism." Another will be referred 
 to later. Her father " was in his day the best beloved man 
 in Arran. By calling a fisherman and crofter, he was a 
 Gaelic poet, a fine violinist, a most charming singer, and 
 was a universal favourite at country fairs and evening 
 gatherings round the peat-lires in the farms and cottages." 
 
 After leaving school, and previously during his holidays, 
 Bruce worked on the farm, etc., and in summer herded 
 his father's sheep on the hills of Arran, crossing the sea 
 in cattle boats, and once, at least, going to Ireland. This 
 continued until his father's death. 
 
 Here is his own account of those days in Arran : " Then 
 came the days of herding on the Highland hills, with 
 Burns's poems turned over page by page among the 
 heather, and the never-ceasing songs of the streams down the 
 glens. The glory of those days with the great lonely moor- 
 lands spreading afar, the song of the skylark ringing in 
 the blue sky, the blithe murmur of the wild bees journeying 
 from flower to flower ; the climbing of the hills and sudden 
 
 ix.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 flashing into view of the wide-gleaming Western sea; the 
 happy homeward coming in the evening with the dog 
 leaping joyfully at my side; the men and women circled 
 round the peat fire, the old songs, the fiddle and the dance, 
 the legends of Celtic kings, and the dark stories of Glencoe 
 and Highland evictions that made the women sob and the 
 men clench their hands these are memories which tinged 
 my whole being, and coloured with inexpressible radiance 
 the thoughts of Socialism in my mind in after days." 
 
 From his early boyhood Bruce had wished to become 
 an architect, and his mother, as soon as he was old enough, 
 had him articled in an office in Glasgow. In that city lived 
 his mother's uncle, " Uncle Neil," for whom Bruce soon 
 came to feel an extraordinary affection and reverence, and 
 whom he ever after regarded as " one of the finest types 
 of men Scotland ever produced." He was " a stern 
 Calvinist Presbyterian in creed," but was full of the 
 sweetest natural kindness, cheerfulness, and good humour. 
 Through years of misfortune in later life " he bore himself 
 with a magnanimity, patience, and upright humility that 
 mark, I think, the highest grace of character attainable 
 by man." He had a great love of the best literature and 
 of science, and did his utmost to develop Brace's kindred 
 tastes and qualities. No wonder Bruce loved him, and 
 became an earnest student under his guidance. " How 
 happy I was then ! " Bruce fully accepted his theology, 
 and became deeply and sincerely religious, not only in 
 outer observance, but in all his thoughts, aspirations, and 
 conduct. And he looked forward to becoming eventually 
 a minister of the Gospel, and " an apostle after the manner 
 of Paul."
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 This lasted for two years, when " suddenly a great bank 
 of cloud spread over the sky, and blotted out the radiance 
 of my summer days." An introduction to Darwin's and 
 other books seemed to assail the very foundations of his 
 faith, and threw him into a fever of agonising doubt and 
 struggle which lasted silently for a whole year. During 
 this period he often sat reading far into the night, and 
 then tossed sleeplessly on his bed in dreadful mental 
 suffering and unrest. He passionately sought the Truth 
 alone, and at last the struggle came to an end, and he 
 emerged into the scientific Agnosticism of the period. 
 
 It was a true deliverance for the time, with greater 
 deliverances to follow. It left him without the sustenance 
 and joy of the highest elements of religious faith and 
 illumination until, near the end of his life, these came to 
 him in new forms ; and it narrowed his outlook. But it 
 was a true idealism and religious spirit which inspired his 
 stern veracity, and his insistent digging down to the 
 foundations of all his beliefs, and these now became 
 concentrated on the social problems which confronted him. 
 
 He was now seventeen and his development proceeded 
 rapidly. As a schoolboy he had written freely in rhyme, 
 and shown exceptional artistic aptitudes, and between his 
 seventeenth and twenty-second years he wrote a great 
 quantity of verse, most of which he afterwards destroyed. 
 Whatever its defects may have been, there is evidence that 
 even in those early days he had the vision and intuitive 
 perceptions of a true poet, and his profession involved 
 some continual practice and study of art. 
 
 But the degraded conditions of life and work under 
 which so many persons in Glasgow lived, and which he 
 
 xi.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 witnessed daily, aroused in him an ever-deepening spirit 
 of revolt. He saw clearly that they resulted from the 
 power of the rich to deprive the workers of the main fruits 
 of their toil, and he longed to help in bringing about " a 
 state of complete social equality wherein no man could 
 make his fellow a slave." The Spirit of Freedom was to 
 him, as to Shelley, no mere abstraction of poetic fancy, 
 but a living Power to whose service he vowed himself. 
 
 By the time he was twenty, and for about three years 
 afterwards, he was already advocating Socialism on the 
 platforms of Literary and Radical Societies in Glasgow, 
 having arrived at it by his own course, for there was then 
 no Socialist literature or organisation in the country. At 
 the same time he was taking active part in Irish and 
 Highland Land League agitations. And in 1883 he served 
 on the Executive of Henry George's campaign. 
 
 In the summer of 1884 (Bruce now twenty-five), he 
 formed with two or three others the first Social Democratic 
 organisation in Scotland. A few months later, when 
 Morris and others seceded and formed the Socialist League, 
 Bruce and his friends took part in the secession, and 
 established branches in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other 
 towns. In December of that year Bruce met William 
 Morris for the first time in Edinburgh, and was introduced 
 to him as " one of the most enthusiastic propagandists in 
 Scotland." Thus began an intimate friendship of which 
 Bruce has left us a full and valuable account in the last 
 book he wrote. 
 
 Except for a few years of such subordinate and ill-paid 
 professional work, far below the recognised scope of his 
 abilities, as provided the necessary means of livelihood 
 
 xii.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 without impairing his complete freedom of action outside 
 it, Bruce devoted his whole life thenceforth to Socialist 
 work. For he saw clearly that there can be no true and 
 noble national art of any kind, and no dignity and beauty 
 of national life, until the whole social order is reorganised 
 on a new basis. Then, and then only, can poetry, art, 
 and literature, worthy of the soul of the man, become 
 generally diffused and arrive at full stature. 
 
 The apostolate " after the manner of Paul," of which 
 he had dreamed in boyhood, now became the reality of 
 his life. But how different in its external character ! Yet 
 it involved the same self-sacrificing earnestness and zeal, 
 the same missionary spirit and ceaseless journeyings and 
 toil, the same continual spending of himself, and the same 
 disregard of hardships, poverty, and a hostile world. 
 
 We have seen how he was prepared for it : how the 
 spirit of past generations of Scottish life at its best; the 
 influences of Highland hills, glens, and streams ; the 
 national love of freedom, valour, and song; and the sane, 
 sweet, leal-hearted humanities of open-air life on land and 
 sea all entered into him to make him what he was, and 
 found expression in his voice and pen. It was the protest 
 of a noble past against the squalor of the sordid and 
 soulless commercialism into which we have fallen, and an 
 appeal to us to create a nobler future. 
 
 This appeal he voiced in almost every town and village 
 in England and Scotland, South Wales, and parts of 
 Ireland; often speaking in t1\e open air, or wherever be 
 could get an audience, and lodging in the cottages of the 
 workers of whom his intimate knowledge was un- 
 paralleled. What an influence he carried into countless 
 
 xiii.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 homes by his unaffected camaraderie, his sympathies, his 
 elevation and breadth of view in conversation, his wide 
 culture, his pawky humour, and his love of jollity and 
 fun, as well as by the industrious writing which filled his 
 leisure ! It was indeed an apostolate " after the manner 
 of Paul " not only in its external character, but also in 
 its exemplification of the love for one's fellows which 
 " beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, 
 endureth all things," and is utterly opposed to militarism 
 and coercion by force. 
 
 The history of his more public work has been outlined 
 in the Memoirs which have appeared since his death, and 
 is probably familiar to the readers of this short sketch. 
 Here we can only deal with the things which determined 
 his special characteristics. 
 
 Fortunate in his mother and sisters, he was also 
 supremely fortunate in his wife. In his devotion to the 
 Cause, in the self-denying idealism which inspired his life, 
 and in all his aims and work, she was his equal mate and 
 comrade, and a constant incentive and aid to his highest 
 and best performance. And to his deep-hearted nature, 
 his experiences as a father were precious lessons which 
 influenced his whole life and work. 
 
 He grew continually in depth and nobleness of character 
 and in range and amplitude of power and influence. And 
 the last years of his life were an inspiring revelation to 
 all who knew him. 
 
 The outbreak of the Great War, after all his work during 
 many years for international solidarity and peace, and in 
 spite of all efforts to avert it, was a terrible blow to him. 
 Early in 1915 he learned that he was suffering from cancer.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 At first the knowledge only filled him with a grim, silent 
 determination to spend his remaining days in the utmost 
 service of which he was capable, and he continued his 
 journeyings and work as long as he possibly could. When 
 no longer able to travel he set to work writing " The 
 Minstrelsy of Peace," including all the references to books 
 and visits to local libraries it involved. 
 
 Hitherto he had concentrated all the energies of his mind 
 and body on his work as a propagandist of Socialism, and 
 in the organisation of the movement at home and abroad 
 on an international basis. Now most of his previous 
 activities were necessarily laid aside, and he set himself to 
 give the movement the best service his new conditions of 
 life allowed, and the loftiest inspiration within his reach. 
 Face to face with the certainty of approaching death, h's 
 essentially religious spirit sought the sustenance which his 
 immersion in constant work had previously denied him, 
 but which all the deeper instincts of his nature as poet, 
 artist, and prophet fitted him to receive, and which under 
 other circumstances would long ago have been his. Now 
 he gradually awoke to perception of the wonderful new 
 light which has for long been coming into the world through 
 many channels, and which will slowly and subtly, but 
 surely transform all our institutions and modes of living. 
 Everything of essential value in the faith of his Uncle 
 Neil the losing of which had once cost him so much 
 distress, and had left him in the dimness of twilight instead 
 of in joyous light was now restored to him, freed from 
 disfiguring errors, and at one with the perceptions of the 
 wisest seers in all ages and lands. He rejoiced in its 
 transfiguration of all life, and in its power to heal soul and 
 body. xv .
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 Though his disease was not eliminated, its progress was 
 arrested, and he gathered new strength. In the winter of 
 1918-19 he resumed his travels and work, but in the 
 inclement weather of January he caught a severe cold, and 
 soon after his return home was believed to be dying. To 
 the surprise of the doctor he gradually recovered to a 
 wonderful degree ; but during the remaining sixteen months 
 of his life was confined to bed except when he came 
 downstairs to celebrate his daughter's wedding, his sailor 
 son's return home after a voyage, etc., when he was the 
 jolliest of the company. 
 
 He often said that this was the happiest period of his 
 life. It was certainly the most wonderful period to all who 
 witnessed it. His worldly affairs were all settled, the burden 
 of his previous work and responsibilities laid aside, he had 
 already passed in spirit through the gates of death, and 
 he now lived in the full assurance and light of immortality. 
 Accepting present pain and weakness and the prospect of 
 death with perfect equanimity, he grew continually more 
 serene, joyous, tenderly considerate and loving. His chief 
 concern had always been to give his fullest service, and 
 he now wrote the books " The Meaning of Socialism " 
 and " Memories of William Morris " which were his last 
 gift to the community, with the heroic determination and 
 fortitude of a martyr testifying to his faith at the stake 
 undergoing two severe operations solely in order that his 
 working life might be prolonged a little. His last work 
 was fittingly the revision of some of his early poems. For 
 his poetic genius had come to him again, filling him with 
 a greater happiness than he had ever known, and he wrote 
 two new lines within an hour of his death. His last behest 
 
 xvi.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 to his wife was " Be glad ! Be glad," and at noon on 
 June 4, as the sunlight streamed throiigh the windows of 
 his room, his family saw his eyes " looking steadfastly into 
 Heaven " for many minutes, with a rapture of perfect 
 satisfaction and peace, ere he passed silently into wider 
 Freedom and Joy. J. W. WALLACE. 
 
 xv 11.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 MEN and women everywhere throughout the country who 
 have known Bruce Glasier personally, or heard him speak, 
 will welcome the poems in this volume, because of the 
 further intimacy they afford with one whose whole life was 
 spent in the service of " the Great Idea, the idea of perfect 
 and free individuals," which Whitman says " is the mission 
 of poets." And the preceding Memoir reprinted from the 
 Socialist Review by the kind permission of the editor will 
 enable readers of the poems to give them their right setting 
 in relation to the greater poem of Bruce's life, and to the 
 circumstances in which they had their origin. 
 
 The story of the completing of most of these poems, as 
 told by Mrs. Glasier in an introduction to two poems 
 printed in the Leicester Pioneer, gives them an added 
 interest. 
 
 At the end of January, 1919, when Bruce was believed 
 to be very near death, an old friend visited him, and in 
 the course of conversation expressed a wish that Bruce had 
 written more Socialist songs. After the friend had gone, 
 " he turned to me with a strange, wistful smile. He was 
 then almost too weak to lift his hand. * I have never been 
 able to write songs or poems,' he said. * At one time I 
 used to think I heard them but that was long, long ago, 
 in the early eighties, when I was quite young, and the hope 
 of Socialism was just dawning. I wonder V 
 
 xix.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 " And then he made a confession to me. Downstairs, 
 hidden away where he had thrust them in 1887, in a big 
 file of old Press cuttings and tattered MSS., were two old 
 note-books filled with fragments of poems. He told me 
 that he had found that his work on them absorbed him too 
 much ; they kept him working at night in fierce emotional 
 mood, and left him exhausted in days when, as he phrased 
 it, * honest Socialist agitators were needed far more than 
 poets or architects.' * You see,' he said, and the colour 
 mounted to his brow, * I loved the work so it became a 
 kind of temptation of personal ambition and I just 
 thrust it away once and for all. But if you can find the 
 books I would like to look at some of the fragments once 
 again.' " 
 
 She found the books and brought them to him. " As 
 Bruce turned the brown pages over, a sudden resurgent tide 
 of life seemed to flow into his veins. He asked for a pencil, 
 and swiftly, though his hand trembled so he could scarcely 
 form the letters, he wrote in the completion of some half- 
 dozen unfinished lines in less than that number of minutes." 
 
 From that time he began to recover strength, to the 
 amazement of the doctor and all others. " But as soon 
 as a real measure of strength returned to him, the poems 
 were again laid aside to write * The Meaning of Socialism ' 
 and ' Memoirs of William Morris.' ' 
 
 When the last line of the second book was written 
 Bruce was attacked by influenza, and it was once again 
 the call of his poems which helped to bring him back to 
 life. The completion of " Johnny Free " (in gratitude lo 
 the children of the Socialist Sunday School who had sung 
 under his window on May Day) was his first effort, and 
 
 xx.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 after that he rallied again wonderfully. In spite of extreme 
 weakness he himself completed, copied, and set in order 
 for publication all but one or two of the poems which appear 
 in the present volume except some of the political ballads 
 which had been printed during the last fortnight of his 
 life. The poem " Empyrean," with its 59 verses, was 
 written complete from the rough notes of some eleven verses 
 in the old MSS. book. 
 
 It will be seen from the above how deep and strong was 
 the poetic impulse in Bruce, and how complete was the 
 self-sacrificing devotion to the main work of his life which 
 led him to renounce for its sake the satisfaction of all his 
 instincts as poet and artist as well as of deeper instincts 
 still, which only found satisfaction in the enforced seclusion 
 of his last years. 
 
 In their general arrangement the poems are placed 
 approximately in the order in which they were written, and 
 represent three successive stages in Bruce 's work as a poet. 
 
 First, the period preceding 1887 (by which time he was 
 twenty-eight). 
 
 Second, the period between 1887 and 1919, during which 
 Bruce gave himself entirely to his Socialist work, and wrote 
 no poems except some political ballads and twelve short 
 poems addressed to his wife. 
 
 Third, the last months of his life, during which he revised 
 and copied his earlier poems, and wrote a few new ones. 
 
 Dates attached to the poems are only given where they 
 appear in the original MS. 
 
 xxi.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The First Period. (Preceding 1887.) 
 
 The poems at the beginning of the volume are different 
 in character from those which follow, and obviously reflect 
 some of the influences which surrounded Bruce in his 
 untroubled boyhood and remained with him later. The dew 
 of youth is still upon them, and their idylls of Highland 
 scenes and incidents are full of its joyous, full-blooded zest 
 and open-heartedness, combined with a keen and reverent 
 perception of all loveliness, and of the charm of 
 unsophisticated and innocent life under natural conditions. 
 
 With the poems " The Parting of the Ways " and " The 
 Miracle of Morn " the themes are changed. The former 
 marks Bruce's sense of the call away from art to the service 
 of the poor and despoiled in which he spent his life. 
 
 The four following poems give expression to his deep 
 sense of the significance of Nature's loveliness, and to his 
 delight in solitary communings with her. " The Oracles 
 of Night " shows how painfully he felt the discord between 
 the intuitive perceptions of his poet-soul and the Agnosticism 
 in which his intellect was bound, and from which he could 
 not free himself. As originally written the poem was only 
 part of a longer poem he projected and then abandoned. 
 It is concluded here by the addition of an untitled fragment 
 written during the last week of his life. This fits in appro- 
 priately here, if it was not definitely intended to follow the 
 preceding verses, as an affirmation of his later position. 
 
 The poem " To the Evening Star " has a special interest 
 because he was engaged in its revision when he died. On 
 the previous day he wrote the seven lines beginning " Thou 
 mightest be the genius of that ideal," and the two lines 
 following these were written within an hour of his death. 
 
 xxii.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In the poem " Transfiguration " he describes briefly, but 
 very nobly and beautifully, an actual experience (not, 
 however, to be interpreted too literally) which to Bruce 
 meant the definite consecration of all his after-life and 
 energies to " man's redemption." 
 
 " In England Now " was written in 1883, after a visit 
 in Sheffield to a workshop which the sunlight only entered 
 very briefly and partially during a few days in the year. 
 " Michael Davitt " was written in the same year, and 
 " Jesus of Nazareth " in 1886. Three or four of the poems 
 at the end of the book were also drafted in this earlier 
 period. 
 
 The Second Period. (18871919.) 
 
 As already stated, the only poems written during this 
 period were the political ballads and the short poems 
 addressed to his wife. 
 
 In 1895 Bruce designed decorative borders to four of the 
 twelve poems to his wife, which are here published, for the 
 first time, by his express wish. It was his unfulfilled inten- 
 tion to do this for the whole series of twelve, but the 
 necessary leisure never came. 
 
 The Third and Last Period. (19191920.) 
 
 In addition to revising and fair-copying his earlier poems, 
 Bruce added new verses to " Johnny Free " and " La 
 Commune," and wrote the second " Invocation to 
 Freedom," the " May Day Paean," the Envoy to " The 
 Oracles of Night," and almost the whole of " Empyrean." 
 When the reader reflects that Bruce was in the last stage 
 of a painful and mortal disease, that he had been weakened 
 
 xxiii.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 by two very severe operations, and that his strength had 
 been still further depleted by an attack of influenza, this 
 will seem a very marvellous achievement. Yet even more 
 wonderful was the increasing illumination and radiant 
 happiness which so sustained him during the sixteen months 
 during which he lay bedfast that at the very end of his 
 life it overflowed into his work on the poems triumphing 
 over physical disaster and weakness as if they were relatively 
 of no account. That was a living poem, more poignantly 
 sacred and beautiful than words can express. 
 
 xxiv.
 
 _ , 
 
 (9ke wine Art3 Je^F afc tf 
 do no1' Ke&f 
 
 on my bo^poi 
 (oH&t" ^4\fobbc^ ife pain ok (viitie; 
 
 oa tke cyiifk.oiifk 
 doof; . 
 tremblin 
 fo 
 
 ee, ^coee^ 1*55 , v (^ 
 is 4*1owio^ o'er.
 
 en m 5ocoe wood 
 
 wkere ?Ke Abides! 
 nltke Ur^ begirt^ to >irt 
 nd jroM her cell ^Ke glides-, 
 ' 
 
 Hie ^tar> tkclrf&ir 
 j t i j ' 
 
 nci ^ IAV docori my 
 
 lOAitder" by tkc Kedeer*ou>5 diw, 
 On tke youo nno 
 f"adiAnce oa -t^e 
 Vflnd lo! 
 
 mystic spell 
 Is no riaoe fk^tj. MAV 
 Rer rik o'er Kill or dell; 
 
 cVer on cnv 5oul fKerfe 
 dominiort 

 
 v^ 
 
 ee now, the -field* Are white wi 
 $ chanced and cHostly scene! 
 _n bank t% bower the- snowflakes Wow 
 
 (!A tQ here all wev> <old ^ oYeen. 
 * <^ f*~^ 
 
 fy lower* 4? fraGrant wall, 
 
 '* I I I r-l J 
 
 Van*heu AS A cloud; 
 2>Ke brook Hwit chanted thro' our 
 orient in A sKroucl. 
 
 o' <oitKout be bleak <^cold 
 A cbanoed world we see; 
 _ jwmmer in my K^Arf X Kold 
 <[^Of corastAnt Jov for tKee 
 
 tXlkereln for fKee ^re woods &|1i 
 j^nd song of birds ^ streams, 
 nd troupe? of oo Id en wingecl hours 
 
 not fade; 
 
 _ 5ummer that sKall Ust; ^K 
 tQkcre fhou CAtist dwell in sheen or 
 /li " i - 1 -- '-' J by frost or blast. ^ 
 * ' -"**^^i
 
 On the Road to Liberty 
 
 A Highland Idyll 
 
 SHE stood all wonder-stricken by the field, 
 One sun-brown arm across the gate-bar thrown; 
 Her milk-pail held akimbo : thus alone, 
 A perfect vision to my eyes revealed. 
 
 So beautiful ! My feet and heart stood still, 
 Transfixed a moment with the glad surprise; 
 A hurried challenge passed between our eyes, 
 
 Then instant proclamation of goodwill. 
 
 A garland of fair words I proffered her : 
 A wistful look met mine, then tinkled clear 
 Sweet syllables, which, wordless to my ear, 
 
 Made far-off memories within me stir. 
 
 Strangers in speech, yet from the same race sprung, 
 The silver link of kinship nipped in twain ! 
 Around us rose the giant peaks amain, 
 
 Whose glory proudly o'er our childhood hung. 
 
 Her dark brown hair fell softly from her brow, 
 Straying adown her bosom like dark rills, 
 Between the glimpses of two fairy hills 
 
 Which grudgingly her kirtle did allow.
 
 POEMS 
 
 Her petticoat high kilted to the knee ; 
 
 Her sun-kissed feet crept cosy in the grass ; 
 
 Fain, too, would I have kissed them, but alas, 
 I did misdoubt me of such gallantry. 
 
 Withstanding me with full, frank eyes, she bore 
 The fragrant milk-pail teeming to my mouth; 
 And I, though parched with a sweeter drouth 
 
 Drank deeply of its white ambrosial store. 
 
 A wayside briar stood my interpreter : 
 Seizing the fullest rose upon its crest, 
 Pricking my hand on purpose in the quest, 
 
 To taste how sweet were pain for sake of her 1 
 
 I pinned it on her gown with trembling hand, 
 Her blushing cheek made pale the rose's hue; 
 I kissed its fragrant petals ere she knew, 
 
 And was the richest lad in all the land. 
 
 The wild notes of the lark pealed overhead, 
 The incense of the heath suffused the place, 
 I hardly dared to look upon her face 
 
 Such reverence her beauty round her shed. 
 
 Far up the hill, my waving cap did lure 
 Her wistful gaze, long lingering at the gate, 
 And all that afternoon I walked elate, 
 
 With snatches of old songs across the moor.
 
 POEMS 
 
 The Highland Reapers 
 
 I LIE upon the hillside on the grass, 
 Watching the reapers in the vale below; 
 The sun burns overhead with tropic glow, 
 The breeze rests on my brow, too faint to pass. 
 
 The flocks are grazing round me tranquilly, 
 The lark deep in the blue its rapture trills ; 
 And far away, enlapped between the hills, 
 
 Sleeps as a child the blue-eyed Western sea. 
 
 It is not solitude : on rainbow wings 
 The butterfly flits gorgeously, the bee 
 Murmurs from bell to bell ; with tuneful glee 
 
 The blithe grasshopper through the tall grass springs. 
 
 I hear the reapers' voices in the vale ; 
 
 Merrily they sing, and laugh, and reap away ; 
 
 O, who have sturdier, happier hearts than they 
 Hearts bred to brave the mountain mist and gale? 
 
 Yes, merrily with laughter, shout and song, 
 
 They bind the golden barley in the sun; 
 
 Blithe lads and lasses brim of love and fun, 
 And tales and songs for Winter's evenings long. 
 
 O blessed brows and breasts and swinging arms ! 
 
 Sun-browned, and moist with toil's sweet cleansing flood 
 Fresh stems from which the race anew may bud 
 
 And girls like apples blossom round our farms.
 
 POEMS 
 
 Now a young swain has slipped, with glowing eye, 
 Beside a rosy lass and caught her waist, 
 And kisses no, she bounds with blushes chaste 
 
 Protesting from his clasp, with a sweet cry. 
 
 Down, down, half-buried in the sheaves they go, 
 
 One over other in the merry strife ; 
 
 She pleads, he laughs, he kisses her my life I 
 Her heart has not yet found its place, I trow. 
 
 Her nut-brown hair, dishevelled o'er her face, 
 Her kirtle parting on her bosom white, 
 Her half-reproachful eyes, have made her quite 
 
 Bewitching in her lithesomeness and grace. 
 
 Now all day long her heart will throb the more, 
 The flushes on her cheek will come and go ; 
 And in the twilight she will note a glow 
 
 Beyond the hill-tops, unperceived before. 
 
 And in the night her eyes will flash from sleep, 
 " I did but dream," she will half-sigh, while yet 
 Almost her lips feel with the kisses wet, 
 
 Almost she sees the blue sky o'er her leap !
 
 POEMS 
 
 My Mountain Maid 
 
 s 
 
 HE is a creature of the dawn, 
 
 So fresh, so bright and fair, 
 Sweet breathing of the hay, new-mown, 
 And caller mountain air. 
 
 Her cheek soft-tinted as the rose 
 
 After a summer shower, 
 Perfumed with the bloom that blows 
 
 In far-off Eden's bower. 
 
 The lustre of her fair blue eyes 
 Is pure as Hesper's light; 
 
 Her smile O, kiss it ere it flies, 
 And dream of it all night ! 
 
 Her heart, the home of every grace, 
 Is tender, warm and true; 
 
 The kindness beaming in her face 
 Glows in her bosom too. 
 
 So lightly steps she in the dance, 
 Such charm her movements show 
 
 A troop of joyful fancies prance 
 Where'er her footsteps go.
 
 POEMS 
 
 And sweetly sings she as she sits 
 
 Milking at eventide ; 
 While I enchanted of my wits 
 
 Stand listening by her side. 
 
 Sweet maid, may dearest life be thine; 
 
 Thee every joy possess ; 
 And love around thy heart entwine 
 
 A wreath of happiness. (1877) 
 
 Under the Wych Elm 
 
 "T "W THITHER are thy fair thoughts wending- 
 ^/^/ In what realm ? 
 
 Lying 'neath the long boughs bending 
 
 Of wych elm : 
 
 While the sunshine amorous of thee, 
 Thro' the woven leaves above thee, 
 
 Rains a shower 
 Of golden radiance on thy bower. 
 
 I could grudge the sun its shining 
 
 So on thee 
 On thy daisied couch reclining 
 
 Perfectly ! 
 
 And the soft wind that caresses 
 Thy fair bosom where thy tresses 
 
 Fondly lie : 
 While I sit and gaze on thee and sigh. 
 
 6
 
 POEMS 
 
 Thy bright eyes have left their beaming 
 
 On my heart; 
 Burdened it with sweetest dreaming 
 
 Yea, thou art 
 
 One who hast a world created 
 In my thoughts with love elated, 
 
 And dost sit 
 Veiling thy beauty everywhere in it. 
 
 Yon clouds gorgeously reposing 
 
 In the sheen, 
 Are as magic folds disclosing 
 
 Thee, my queen ! 
 
 In their soft and glowing whiteness, 
 Robed in noon-tide's perfect brightness, 
 
 Thou dost rest, 
 With thy burning cheeks and snowy breast. 
 
 In the twilight's shadowy splendour 
 
 When I stray, 
 O'er me thy enchantment tender 
 
 Is alway : 
 
 So, I stand and look and listen 
 'Neath the stars whose fair eyes glisten 
 
 Down on me, 
 Rapt in the spell of my idolatry.
 
 POEMS 
 
 Ah ! what whispering persuasion 
 
 In the night ! 
 Ah ! what sweet anticipation 
 
 Of delight! 
 
 In each stir of branch and bracken 
 Which the quiet night winds waken 
 
 I do hear 
 The music of thy footsteps drawing near ! 
 
 Fairest, tell me, whither wending 
 
 In what realm 
 Far beyond the long boughs bending 
 
 Of the elm- 
 Are thy thoughts ? May I come to thee, 
 And, as the wind and sunshine woo thee, 
 
 May I bow 
 And place my wreath of kisses on thy brow ? (1883) 
 
 Monkland Glen 
 
 SWEET girl, since first that morn when you 
 Led me so blithely o'er the dew 
 To yon fair Glen; 
 Often in fancy's sweeter hours 
 I seek its dells and cloistered bowers 
 With you again ! 
 
 8
 
 POEMS 
 
 The lofty trees that overhead 
 Their wondrous tracery outspread, 
 
 The twilight gloom ; 
 The crooked paths arid tangled sprays, 
 The twinkling, never-ending maze 
 
 Of leafy bloom ; 
 
 The hermit's cell of long ago 
 
 And Calder's stream, winding below, 
 
 O'er rocky verges, 
 Leaping and eddying along, 
 Mingling in one unceasing song 
 
 Ditties and dirges. 
 
 How wonderingly we sat and gazed, 
 At our own happiness amazed, 
 
 Till with a start 
 
 You rose up tall amidst the leaves, 
 And the soft rustling of your sleeves 
 
 Fluttered my heart ! 
 
 Our tardy haste ! Have you forgot 
 
 How often your white gown was caught 
 
 By trailing bramble ? 
 
 And how you still would lose the track 
 And out of odorous culs-de-sac 
 
 We had to scramble ?
 
 POEMS 
 
 How once far down the bank you slipped 
 In half alarm, and how you tripped 
 
 And cast a shoe ? 
 
 All's fair in war ! the valley swayed 
 As you with crimson cheeks prepaid 
 
 The ransom due ! 
 
 How rare you looked, all petal blown ! 
 Your dark hair tumbling from its throne 
 
 Upon your shoulders ; 
 And with what fearless liberty 
 Insurgent in your foot and eye 
 
 You scaled the boulders ! 
 
 Then homeward; while the setting sun 
 Cast our twain shadows into one 
 
 Across the field; 
 
 And with the silence of the birds, 
 The night came forth with shining swords 
 
 And silver shield. 
 
 And now, I often wonder me 
 
 Where, where in all the world you be, 
 
 My Monkland maid ? 
 The many widening years have borne 
 Us far adrift since that fair morn : 
 
 And all things fade. 
 
 10
 
 POEMS 
 
 Yet still that morn keeps fresh, and you 
 Are young and shining as the dew : 
 
 And oft I start 
 
 For still your glance, your blithesome trill, 
 Your white frock flashing down the hill 
 
 Flutters my heart ! 
 
 O maid, that Glen, the twilight gloom, 
 
 The chanting stream, the clustering bloom, 
 
 Haunt my mind ever; 
 And you, embowered amidst the green, 
 A loveliness, a joy serene, 
 
 Shall perish never. (1887) 
 
 Heyday 
 
 I HAVE a pain, and, faith, I know 
 No doctor ere can cure it; 
 And if he could, 'twere little good, 
 I'd rather far endure it ! 
 Although a misanthrope I seem 
 Of sense and mirth forsaken; 
 Although I in the day-time dream, 
 And in the night keep waken. 
 
 Chorus : 
 Heyday, for wisdom's way ! 
 
 Hey ho, for prudent poses O ! 
 But Love's the dower to bring the flower 
 
 To Lassies' cheeks, the roses, O ! 
 
 ii
 
 POEMS 
 
 Two lovely eyes upon my heart 
 
 Have shed their twilight splendour; 
 And now, I dare avow the part 
 
 Has grown exceeding tender. 
 But what of that ? If we have eyes 
 
 'Twas meant that we should use them ; 
 If we have hearts, 'tis no surprise 
 
 That we at times should lose them ! 
 
 A plague on party politics, 
 
 They sour our nobler feelings : 
 A plague on trade, a pack of tricks, 
 
 And vile, dishonest dealings. 
 Let us have life it soon will pass 
 
 And seize on all its chances; 
 The best of all, a bonnie lass 
 
 With sweet, bewitching glances ! (1881) 
 
 A Parting of the Ways 
 
 HAT land is this, what vision of strange 
 
 meaning ? 
 
 What palace steps are these whereon I stand ? 
 Tell me, sweet lady, am I wake or dreaming ? 
 I feel and know the touch of thy fair hand. 
 
 Nay but, what forms are these that crouch together, 
 Outside the door, amidst the blast and snow? 
 
 Wherefore abide they out in such wild weather? 
 Dear Christ ! they shiver and are weeping so ! " 
 
 12
 
 POEMS 
 
 *' Nay, heed them not, good sir, the feast is waiting," 
 She said, and looked at me with calm, sweet eyes : 
 
 And in my heart, two pleas of love debating, 
 
 The palace vanished : morning filled the skies. 
 
 The Skylark 
 
 A TRIAL minstrel ! deep in the blue sky 
 Flooding the air with rivulets of song ! 
 Heavenward thy flight, and yet thou dost belong 
 To the brown earth : I drink thy liquid joy ! 
 
 Yea, thou, a little, tiny thing dost give 
 
 Thy rapture glorious liberty, while I, 
 
 Who too am full of gladness, vainly try 
 To hymn the joy I feel this rnorn to live. 
 
 Thy song ascends ! Up, up, with thee I go, 
 Up, buoyed upon thy wings of melody : 
 Nearer the sun nearer thy goal of glee 
 
 The senses' yoke no more I seem to know. 
 
 Baffled ! thy rapture can no further soar, 
 Now gradually droop thy wings and note; 
 Together down the steep emprise we float, 
 
 Together, back to earth, we sink once more. 
 
 13
 
 POEMS 
 
 The Miracle of Morn 
 
 O NEVER lessening miracle of morn l 
 What wondrous spell of radiance outflows 
 From thee as from a fountain in the sky, 
 Moving majestically and garlanding 
 With brightest hues the Sun's transcendent way. 
 O wondrous efflorescence of the dawn ! 
 That brings forth all the wizardry of light, 
 Changing as by an enchanter's magic stroke 
 Night into day, dark into light, and void 
 Into an infinitude of being : 
 Forth from the void and darkness lifting up 
 The living world in all its loveliness 
 
 Of form the hills and forests, vales and glowing fields, 
 The streams, the changing clouds, the shining sea, 
 And all the marvellous train of living things, 
 The creatures of the wild in endless shapes. 
 
 Forth from the mountains the first whisper comes; 
 And sudden and unseen the darkness stirs, 
 Instinctive, as an army bent on flight. 
 Striking its tents in silence, crowding down 
 Into the vales, and hiding swift away 
 In every hollow, nook and lurking place. 
 And then ere yet the eye has time to scan 
 A great transfiguration in the East !
 
 POEMS 
 
 The Oracles of Night 
 
 O WONDERFUL is Night when the moon pours 
 Her horn of radiance on the earth, each hill 
 And vale, and wood, and pool transfiguring 
 With mystic beauty ! All is silent save 
 The air whispering among the hidden leaves, 
 And the faint scintillations of the stars. 
 With what soft steps, what loveliness of mien 
 Thou walk'st the valleys when the sun is gone ! 
 Thy ambient robes wide shadowing o'er the fields, 
 Ingathering, sweet Shepherdess of Sleep, 
 The flocks of men, and beasts into their folds, 
 Leaving the earth to stillness undisturbed ! 
 
 Then comes into the heart a strange new joy, 
 
 A glow as if of welcoming within 
 
 Some angel-influence from another life; 
 
 And the soul, warmed and energised, looks forth 
 
 With bold emprise into the mysteries 
 
 Of the Unseen. 
 
 O wonderful it is 
 
 To gaze into the deep, dilating blue, 
 And pierce the vistas of Infinitude ! 
 And wonderful the strange imaginings 
 That come upon us ! Then do we begin 
 To doubt all our philosophies, and feel 
 The infirmity of all our reasonings.
 
 POEMS 
 
 And our conceits so valiant in debate 
 
 Shrink back on us, affrighted little things ! 
 
 Then comes the tidal surge of faith and doubt 
 
 Now a deep sense of power omnipotent 
 
 Floods through the soul, uplifted and aglow, 
 
 Submerging all our scepticism : now 
 
 The sapping ebb the chill reflow of doubt 
 
 Circling like serpent coils upon the heart : 
 
 And we fall backward, mute, dismayed, forlorn, 
 
 Appalled at the significance of things 
 
 The vast vagary of the Universe ! 
 
 It is not thus when on a summer day 
 We stand in 'wildering sunshine ; when the sky, 
 Opaque with iridescence, intercepts 
 Our too adventurous sight, and curtains out 
 Our atom's part in space; when all the hills 
 And vales and woods, and ever-flowing waters 
 Seem animate with one sufficing joy; 
 And myriad hues of light, and myriad sounds 
 Transfuse the soul with ecstasy, and blend 
 Our being in the common life of earth, 
 Its harmony and rapture of existence. 
 Night speaks not so. Betimes the very air 
 Seems but the moving of the Invisible ; 
 And every shade the haunt of mystic powers, 
 And every star a far intelligence 
 From which might come at any instant forth 
 A voice ineffable an utterance 
 Of Wisdom's self wherein all that we know 
 Were soluble as match-light in the noon. 
 
 16
 
 POEMS 
 
 Yea, I have loved and joyed in thee, O Night ! 
 I am enamoured of thee, and have sought 
 Thee far on the lone hills, where I have lain 
 Upon thy lap, and thy sweet whisperings 
 Have flowed into my being. O ever may 
 My soul seek refuge in thy breast and gain 
 Renewal of its sight in the strong peace, 
 The splendour and the mystery of thine eyes ! 
 
 'Twas in the joy of thy companionship 
 That oft-times in my youthful questionings 
 I strayed alone among the silent hills 
 And hidden glens, to meditate on themes 
 That racked my thought-sick brain without respite ; 
 While Doubt lurked as a devil in my soul, 
 And Reason's light was as the flame of hell. 
 Until, at last, worn almost to a spectral thing, 
 I gave my soul to Reason, fearing still 
 Lest I had sinned the sin of sins, for ever 
 Closing upon myself the Kingdom's gates, 
 Yet in my torment crying out to God 
 If He were merciful to mercy show ; 
 If truth were His no blame wer't truth to seek ; 
 Wherefore no longer should I strive to bear 
 The fetters Priestcraft fashioned for mankind. 
 
 Calmly the Moon looked down, when on the brink 
 High o'er the tide at midnight I cast forth 
 The Book of Faith into the dull, flat sea :
 
 POEMS 
 
 And as I watched it sink, a leaden thing, 
 Beneath the wreathing circlets of the splash 
 That fled from it, full reverently her beams 
 Sealed o'er the spot. And I looked up and lo 1 
 The Moon shone as a face compassionate, 
 And I, renewed in strength, in hope, in joy, 
 Cried forth : " Fairest of Night's fair sisterhood ! 
 Bear witness to rny soul it shall be free ! 
 Free as the spirit of the winds that sweep 
 Across the mountain tops and rake the plains 
 Bearing the clouds exultant in their might. 
 No thought shall be too high for me, or low; 
 No creed too sacred, doctrine too profane, 
 Which to explore in search of truth. 
 Too long, too long, have I been thralled in doubt, 
 Entombed in mysteries. There is no greater hell 
 Than doubt and fear : no greater joy than freedom, 
 Fearless, and daring all things to inquire 
 Trustfully as a child, fearing no ill. 
 Yea, henceforth I am free ! And 1 shall joy 
 To roam upon the towering peaks of thought 
 And stand upon its precipices wild, 
 Which I have shuddered but to think upon." 
 Thus rashly made I unto thee, O night, 
 My youthful vow with youthful arrogance : 
 Vain boast of Reason's sovereignty, of thought 
 Free as a bird in heaven with wings full spread ! 
 ****** 
 
 Not years, nor months had gone, when wearily, 
 One evening, after many absorbed hours, 
 I laid my book upon the shelf, distraught. 
 
 18
 
 POEMS 
 
 " There is no sleep to-night," I said, and went 
 Towards the window, and looked out upon 
 The drowsied world. 
 
 And the Night beckoned me. 
 So I went forth. The village was asleep. 
 Quietly I threaded up the grassy streets 
 Under the shadow of the cottages, 
 And soon was in the upper fields. It was 
 An hour of utmost beauty : the full moon 
 Illumed the world like an enchanted hall. 
 High circling hills with distant peaks of snow 
 Looked o'er the vale, enswathed in misty sheen, 
 And all was silent, save a murmurous hush 
 As if the spheres held converse. Glad was I 
 To feel myself alone upon the earth, 
 The shadow of the mountains at my feet; 
 And feel the cool, soft air upon my brow, 
 Sweet-smelling of the pine and heather-bloom, 
 Wet with the dew. Gladly I pressed me on 
 Whither I heeded not, save mountain wards. 
 
 Then rose the mighty slopes, that drew my steps 
 Through dewy bracken and thick rushes green ; 
 Leaping o'er wakeful streams, and scaling rocks, 
 I panted up through vaguely luminous glens, 
 And, underneath the shadows of gaunt cliffs, 
 I paused betimes to breathe and scan the scene 
 That as by magic rose beneath my gaze.
 
 POEMS 
 
 At length upon a pinnacle I stood, 
 High up, half-lifted into the night's noon, 
 Overlooking half the world, vales, shining lakes 
 And wondrous mountain ranges spreading far. 
 I stood, quick-breathing, all my veins aglow 
 Despite the wintry lancing of the air. 
 
 Long, held as in a trance, I gazed around 
 
 Thoughts countless, wordless, crowding on my brain- 
 
 Until there grew within a wild desire 
 
 To challenge Nature's self, to know if, here 
 
 Among these ancient hills the truth of Life, 
 
 The mystery of the Universe, was known. 
 
 Then looking o'er the brooding hills whose brows 
 
 Had borne the countless seasons of the sun, 
 
 And in whose granite frames were written deep 
 
 The story of creation, unimpaired, 
 
 I threw abroad the up-cry of my soul : 
 
 " Is there a God ? " 
 
 Startled from sleep, the rocks 
 Listened, half -doubting the incredible words. 
 " Is there a God ? " 
 
 Then far across the vales 
 
 The words came echoing back from hill to hill 
 " A God ? A God ? A God ? " As though a host 
 Of demons hidden in their caverns mocked 
 The blasphemy. " God ? " and gleefully 
 Enjoyed their faithless import. Then the sound 
 Faded into the silence of the night. 
 
 20
 
 POEMS 
 
 Yet seemed it that the mountains held their breath, 
 Long listening for some reassuring sign, 
 Crouching together fearfully. 
 
 Trembling 
 
 As one guilty of some vast sacrilege 
 Yet guiltless, too silent, long time, I stood. 
 Then towards the host of Night I raised my eyes, 
 And once again invoked their sympathy. 
 
 " Ye everlasting stars ! speak to my soul ! 
 
 Ye orbs that plenish the eternal deep, 
 
 From the cold, soulless earth I turn to ye ! 
 
 Be not ye silent also. Speak to me. 
 
 Answer, have ye not heard His voice, or seen 
 
 Some shadow of His presence midst your spheres ? 
 
 Has no word passed, no whisper, no least sign 
 
 Of Him whose being makes all things to be ? 
 
 Have ye not felt His spirit like the morn 
 
 Go forth in glory o'er the sunlit Heaven ? 
 
 Wherefore with acclamation cry aloud, 
 
 * Yea, God is here, we have beheld His face.' 
 
 Mutely ye listen : Answerless, ye stare I 
 
 Why look ye all so suddenly obtused, 
 
 Things reft of thought, inanimate, blind, dumb, 
 
 Hard gleaming crystals, bedded in the rock? 
 
 Alas, ye do but mock my agony." 
 
 21
 
 POEMS 
 
 How cold, how silent is the Universe ! 
 
 It is a dead thing wholly. Hapless man ! 
 
 If thou wouldst seek to know " Is there a God ? " 
 
 Ask not the Universe. It has no soul, 
 
 No knowledge, no intelligence, no love : 
 
 Its shuddering depths but echo back thy voice. 
 
 A Fragment: May, 1920 
 
 YEARS pass. Amidst the stoutest stress of men 
 My days were spent, hard wrestling with the woes 
 Of centuries the fruit of ignorance, 
 Of weak and brutal sloth, enslaved by greed, 
 Religion, poetry, art, almost forgot 
 No dreams or fancies save of man redeemed 
 From man's oppression and the Golden Age 
 When man at last shall reign o'er his own earth, 
 Finding his fullest weal in Commonweal. 
 
 From no light-bearer have I turned away 
 Whate'er the hue or volume of his beam. 
 Science and Reason still in their domain 
 Hold o'er my mind their old accustomed sway. 
 No knowledge comes unwelcomed to my door, 
 No doctrine, new or old, stands out, denied, 
 But hospitably each is entertained 
 At my mind's board, with glass and pipe and song. 
 
 22
 
 POEMS 
 
 Yet am I changed. A new and larger sight 
 
 Has gradually grown within my mind, 
 
 A new expanse of sense of things unknown, 
 
 Of progress leading to the infinite. 
 
 And more and more, as searching out the things 
 
 Unsearchable, my thoughts turn inward, where 
 
 The Universe reveals its mysteries 
 
 Of Love Triumphant and Eternal Life. 
 
 I know, I know the argument : I know, 
 
 Oh, co-disciple, where I stumble whilst 
 
 Thou, in thy manhood's strength, keep'st Reason's road. 
 
 But I am changed Wherefore? I cannot tell, 
 
 Except in words that bid the mockers mock, 
 
 Like children's gestures, or Galileo's plan 
 
 Of heliocentric heaven, or the charts 
 
 Columbus spread before his mariners 
 
 Or him who by the shores of Galilee 
 
 Was from the darkness of the womb redeemed, 
 
 Whose only answer to the sceptics was 
 
 " Whereas that I was blind, now do I see." 
 
 2 3
 
 POEMS 
 
 Transfiguration 
 
 I. 
 
 HE sought for God, and fled the multitude 
 Afar amidst the mountains lone and dread ; 
 Eagerly, by an inward beckoning led, 
 On a high peak at night he marvelling stood ; 
 And as a while the glistening spheres he viewed 
 The starr'd expanse above ; below outspread 
 The sleeping hills with mystic hues o'ershed 
 He felt the world's mysterious brotherhood. 
 Then suddenly a splendour o'er him fell 
 And lo, there stood a being fairer far 
 Than aught that raptured poet's tongue can name : 
 As illumed ivory, or translucent shell, 
 
 She shone, her radiance veiling moon and star, 
 Her wings fresh dripping with the morning's flame. 
 
 II. 
 
 O never hath the silvery air of night 
 
 Been strained with sweeter sound ; nor 'neath the moon 
 Has mortal gained of God a godlier boon 
 
 Than when down bending in her radiant might 
 
 Her whispering fell as from the infinite 
 Upon his ear : And even as in a swoon 
 Of melody the lark sings in the noon, 
 
 So sank his soul enfolded in her light. 
 
 Anon he wakened, and lo, shining clear 
 
 He saw through curtaining mists the morning throw 
 Its golden-shafted spears across the skies ; 
 
 And a great litany pulsed in his ear, 
 
 And a new chrism burned upon his brow, 
 And Man's redemption glowed before his eyes. 
 
 24
 
 POEMS 
 
 To the Evening Star 
 
 DIDST thou come tip-toe o'er the hill, sweet Star, 
 To hang thy lamp a beacon o'er the sea ? 
 So sudden is thy marvel in the sky ! 
 How tranquilly thou sittest there alone 
 Fairest of all the sisterhood of heaven ! 
 Looking down on us in our little world 
 With sweet solicitude. What tenderness 
 Is in thine eye, half-wistful in its gaze, 
 Even as a maiden's waiting at the gate. 
 Surely in thee has God enbeamed that love, 
 Whose such intensity glows into flame, 
 Wherefrom man's soul has caught the spark divine 
 Of his ideal. Yea, all loveliness 
 In thee seems immanent all excellence 
 That lifts the soul's dominion from the ground. 
 
 Celestia ! Never surely hast thou shone 
 
 With such rare exhalation; else have I 
 
 Never before had eyes so cleansed to see 
 
 The vesture of thy beauty in the night ! 
 
 How all the earth is marvelling in thy beam, 
 
 So eloquent, like music of the viol. 
 
 What sweet beatitude indwells in thee, 
 
 That draws from the gross bulk of things our thoughts, 
 
 Obtuse and blase, to renew our sense 
 
 Of the sublimity of little things : 
 
 The glistening shell upon the stretching shore; 
 
 The ripple lingering on the pebble's brow ; 
 
 The feet half -peeping from the children's cot ; 
 
 25
 
 POEMS 
 
 The speedwell glinting in the dusky hedge; 
 The red-breast in the thorn; the wide-eyed hare 
 Nibbling beneath the fern the thousand things 
 That lisp for us the syllables of life ! 
 
 Thou mightest be the genius of that ideal 
 Of spiritual love and purity, which we, 
 Have ever in our soul's deep glades beheld 
 Pass in the perfect form of womanhood. 
 Surely thou hast been sent, Sweet Hesperus, 
 To linger o'er the earth when toil is done, 
 To cheer the weary and despondent heart, 
 *And by thy pure, inspiring loveliness 
 *To win our souls to higher paths oi life. 
 
 Thou speak'st or seem'st to speak to me, Sweet Star 
 
 And gladly would my soul, beholding thee, 
 
 (Like one in contemplation of the Sign) 
 
 Pour forth its ecstacy in litanies : 
 
 Yea, who could gaze on thee, so pure, so sweet, 
 
 So passing beautiful, and in him feel 
 
 No rapture, no out-cry of soul, to win 
 
 The benediction of thy heavenly beam ! 
 
 * The lines marked with a star in the margin were penned by Bruce 
 Glasier just before hi* spirit passed into new life. As he laid down his 
 pen he entered into his "glad surprise," breathing his last at 12 noon, 
 June 4, 1920. 
 
 26
 
 POEMS 
 
 In England Now 
 
 (Written during the " In Darkest England " agitation, about 1883, 
 
 after visiting a workshop into which the sunlight never 
 
 entered except in midsummer.) 
 
 MOST blessed sunshine ! hardly dare 
 My dazzled sight a welcome bear 
 To thy sweet flood ; 
 Yet though my eyes are thus denied, 
 My heart to thee is open wide 
 In gratitude, 
 
 In joy and praise that thou hast made 
 O'er dismal roofs and gables' shade 
 
 This visit sweet; 
 
 And all so bounteously dost pour 
 Out of thy heart this golden store 
 
 Here at our feet ! 
 
 In joy and praise, to greet thee here 
 Amidst this noisome atmosphere 
 
 And dreary din ; 
 Amidst the pallid creatures bent, 
 From morn to night, toiling intent 
 
 To keep life in. 
 
 27
 
 POEMS 
 
 Those ghostly faces hardly lit 
 With life, those livid looks that flit 
 
 From wheel to wheel ; 
 Those fingers moving quick beneath 
 The heavy cylinders and teeth 
 
 Of gleaming steel ! 
 
 Most radiant guest ! hadst thou a thought 
 Of finding human creatures caught 
 
 In bondage thus? 
 
 Couldst thou conceive in God's fair plan 
 Of life, that man should make for man 
 
 This Tartarus ? 
 
 Outside, upon the street and wall, 
 I watch thy radiance brightly fall, 
 
 Casting quaint shadows ; 
 And wistfully I think upon 
 The cool shade by the elm trees thrown 
 
 Upon the meadows. 
 
 'Tis summer now ; somewhere, I know, 
 The fields and streamlet edges glow 
 
 With leaf and flower; 
 But here, no summer thou dost bring 
 No May, no June no garlanding 
 
 Of bank and bower. 
 
 28
 
 POEMS 
 
 Most blessed and most radiant flood ! 
 Thou bringest me here a multitude 
 
 Of thoughts most sad : 
 Gone now is all the phantasy 
 Of glorious promise which to me 
 
 Thy beams once had. 
 
 Untasted that sweet hope of love, 
 Of raptured tryst in dell and grove, 
 
 By lake and stream ; 
 While yet the heart was young, and life 
 Held still undimmed by sordid strife 
 
 Its joy and dream. 
 
 All unachieved, all quite denied, 
 The dreams of travel far and wide, 
 
 In wondrous lands. 
 The hopes of fame, to win a place 
 With the high heroes of our race, 
 
 Where Sidney stands. 
 
 The chimes that from the steeple fall, 
 That one time were a merry call 
 
 From the thorpe tower, 
 Now toll out harshly as the sound 
 Of jailor, jangling on his round, 
 
 Each dreary hour. 
 
 29
 
 POEMS 
 
 I watch the busy street below, 
 Its pageantry of life, its flow 
 
 Of rich and poor; 
 
 And the grim meaning of the scene 
 No gorgeous sophistry can screen, 
 
 No vaunt obscure. 
 
 Surely there lurks a loathsome lie 
 Beneath all our philosophy; 
 
 Or some fell blight 
 Has fallen on the leaf of life, 
 Turning to bitterness and strife 
 
 Love and delight ! 
 
 Sweet sunshine, lo ! thou'rt gone ! thy stream 
 Contracting to a slender gleam 
 
 Has fled our wall, 
 
 Where, only when thy orb runs high 
 In June, canst thou an ingress spy 
 
 'Twixt sables tall. 
 
 Yea, only a few days each year 
 Canst thou peep in upon us here, 
 
 Where death is rife ; 
 Thou whose unceasing flood regales 
 Our England's thousand glowing vales 
 
 With joy and life.
 
 POEMS 
 
 O England, England, once thy name 
 To me was as the golden flame 
 
 That fills the noon ; 
 Thy heart aglow for liberty 
 As glowing land and shining sea 
 
 In joyous June. 
 
 Great seemed thy might, and great thy care, 
 Thy men brave and thy women fair, 
 
 Who bred no slaves : 
 Thy soul that could not thraldom brook, 
 Thy ships that seized the rats and shook 
 
 Them from the waves. 
 
 Hast thou for us no arm to wield ? 
 For us no shining sword and shield, 
 
 O England great? 
 
 Hast thou no might for us oppressed ?- 
 For us the children of thy breast 
 
 Inviolate ? 
 
 O England, is thy prophecy 
 
 Of glorious times to come when we 
 
 Toil not, nor crave? 
 Sunshine, art thou for us a sign 
 Of Gates of Life that only shine 
 
 Beyond the grave?
 
 POEMS 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth 
 
 ONAZAREAN CHRIST ! whose life appears 
 To us, far glistening through the night of years, 
 As light of planet beaming o'er the sea ; 
 Wayfaring Son of God ! from whose lips flowed, 
 By desert-sides and unfrequented road, 
 
 A fountain spring of pure democracy : 
 O blessed folk, who clustered round thy feet 
 Drinking with thirsty ears thy words most sweet ! 
 
 Thou wert the agitator of thy day, 
 
 Assailing wrongs that had grown fat and grey 
 
 Down centuries of ignorance and fear; 
 Oppression that devoured in law's disguise; 
 Rulers that, drunk with flattery and lies, 
 
 The wailings of the people would not hear : 
 Thou didst rebuke the rich man at his feast 
 And bared the blasphemy of scribe and priest. 
 
 And art thou he whose temples stud the earth, 
 Like stars in heaven when no moon is forth ? 
 
 Art thou the Christ to whom the nations bow? 
 Whose praises all the congregations sing, 
 Peer, politician, usurer, priest and king ? 
 
 Do those who cursed of old adore thee now ? 
 Art thou so changed, O Christ ? so changed are they 
 As darkness into light, night into day?
 
 POEMS 
 
 They call thee God, and worship thee with words, 
 And ceremonies, and persecuting swords, 
 
 And outward pomp but in their hearts, not they I 
 They praise thee with their lips, whom their hearts spurn, 
 And daily unto Mammon incense burn; 
 
 And ceaseless rob, and lie and cheat and slay : 
 They mouth thy precepts while their thoughts devise 
 Misdeeds that mar the earth and mock the skies. 
 
 O Christ ! thy spirit does not dwell in these 
 The modern scribes and priests and pharisees, 
 
 The usurers that crowd the market place 
 Who would to Pilate drag thee quick wert thou 
 Again within their grip, and bind thy brow 
 
 With triple thorns, and spit upon thy face ; 
 And crying " Lawbreaker " and " Communist 
 Scoff, scourge, and crucify again the Christ. 
 
 No, not with these does thy pure spirit bide, 
 Who every morn and noon and eventide 
 
 Perpetuate the parable of Dives; 
 Who build thee temples and with oil and spice 
 Perfume thy altars, yet deny thee thrice 
 
 Every hour of their cold, selfish lives. 
 Who rob the poor, and when they ask for bread 
 In thy name, give them prison stones instead. 
 
 33
 
 POEMS 
 
 Not with proud bishops robe<3 in silk and lawn, 
 Not with sleek pastors who on fortune fawn, 
 
 Gossiping in the squire's drawing-room; 
 Who dexterously their ministry apply, 
 To pass the camel through "the needle's eye," 
 
 And bring Heaven's chariot to the rich man's tomb : 
 Who hurrying on the road of wealth and pride 
 Pass the afflicted on the other side. 
 
 No, not with these is found thy spirit, Christ ! 
 But rather, as of old ; with the despised, 
 
 The poor, the oppressed, the friendless and the rude; 
 Those whom the goodly folk of great estate 
 Would suffer not to pass inside their gate 
 
 The weary, heavy-laden multitude; 
 Yea, rather with the poor outcast betrayed, 
 Than proud-lipped lady gorgeously arrayed. 
 
 With those who would a fairer temple raise 
 To thee of gratitude and love and praise, 
 
 Than ever yet has been beneath the skies; 
 By building up of human happiness, 
 By universal justice and redress 
 
 Wiping the tears so from grief-laden eyes 
 By scourging wrathfully, even as thou didst, 
 The thieves and moneymongers from our midst. 
 
 34
 
 POEMS 
 
 With those whose hearts for human weal beat warm 
 Amidst the biting frost and blinding storm 
 
 Of calumny, indifference and rebuke; 
 Who with high purpose boldly walk elate 
 Thro* persecuting fires of Church and State ; 
 
 Who steadfast in the face of tyrants look : 
 Who meekly brave the fury of the crowd, 
 Battered and bleeding, but with hearts unbowed. 
 
 With these, O Christ, art thou ! with these we claim 
 Thy martyrdom, thy precepts and thy name, 
 
 Thy healing hand, thy blessing, thy redress. 
 Ours is thy resurrection and thy reign, 
 Thy Kingdom spreading wide from main to main, 
 
 Thy peace, thy fellowship, thy gentleness. 
 From thrones, dominions, priesthoods and all powers, 
 We claim thee we unbind thee Christ is ours ! 
 
 1886. 
 
 (Michael Davitt was prevented, on his release from penal servitude, 
 from addressing a public meeting at Oldham in 1883 by the Feniana, 
 who howled him down and threatened him with revolvers. The 
 " reason " for this hostility was his avowal in favour of constitutional 
 rather than insurrectionary agitation. ) 
 
 35
 
 POEMS 
 
 THEY cannot bring his noble soul to bay; 
 They cannot chain his fearless spirit down : 
 But they can hiss at him, and yell like fiends, and 
 drown 
 
 In ghoulish clamour what his speech would say : 
 Ay, they can league them with the tyrants, they 
 Can join their country's enemies, and wage 
 A war of ignorant and recreant rage 
 Against the truest heart they have to-day. 
 Is Ireland free ? Have they nought else to do 
 
 But play themselves like fools and cowards so ? 
 Their chivalry and patriotism, too, 
 
 Are cast aside like rags, to strike a blow 
 At what at England ? No ! but at the man, 
 The best of Ireland's sons, the first in Freedom's van. 
 
 To E. U. 
 
 (With a copy of Burns's songs.) 
 
 LIFT up the auld Scotch fiddle-bow ! 
 Lay down your Browning and Rossetti 
 How blithely does it stir the heart, 
 And touch the inmost part, 
 Ettie. 
 
 The modern Muse, what joy has she, 
 Wi' puffy pierrots and confetti? 
 The barefoot Muse o' Kyle for me, 
 High-kilted to the knee, 
 Ettie! 
 
 36
 
 POEMS 
 
 And you, I vow, by your bright e'en, 
 
 Your Laxey* gown and hair sae jetty, 
 Hae held a licht at Halloween, 
 And link't it on the green, 
 Ettie 1 
 
 When swung the auld Scotch fiddle-bow, 
 
 Among the Highland reels, Ettie, 
 The lads a'loupin* like a lowe, 
 The lasses live as eels, 
 Ettie ! 
 
 * Laxey, We of Man, where Ruskin homespuns are woren by water 
 pcwer. 
 
 37
 
 POEMS 
 
 She Comes in Silken Winds 
 
 SHE comes in silken winds that blow 
 From banks of odorous flowers ; 
 She weaves bright visions from the glow 
 Of blithesome noonday hours; 
 By shady stream and sunny sea 
 She gathers sweetest minstrelsy. 
 
 Away down in the month of June 
 When a bright shower has fled, 
 
 Unseen she lies in happy swoon 
 Upon a flowery bed; 
 
 And lo ! her long hair in the grass 
 
 Entangles my feet as I pass. 
 
 Maybe on some far rocky isle 
 
 Which mariners may not find, 
 
 I dwell with her in pearly caves 
 
 Midmost the waves and wind 
 
 The white spray breaking in my face 
 
 She clasps me in her glad embrace. 
 
 When in some wood awandering 
 Perchance where she abides ! 
 
 Sudden ! the lark begins to sing 
 And from her cell she glides, 
 
 And, as a Vestal, 'mid the trees, 
 
 Bends my soul to her mysteries. 
 
 38
 
 POEMS 
 
 Oft when the stars their fair lamps trim, 
 
 And I lay down my book, 
 To wander by the hedgerows dim, 
 
 On the young moon to look : 
 A radiance on the way I see 
 And lo ! she brightly walks with me. 
 
 Ah ! witless me ! could I enthral 
 Her in some mystic spell 
 
 There is no name that I may call 
 Her nigh o'er hill and dell; 
 
 But ever on my soul there lies 
 
 The glad dominion of her eyes. 
 
 A May Morn Invitation 
 
 ORISE, my bonny lass, 
 See, the morning sun ! 
 Throw off the drowsy sheets, 
 And put your kirtle on. 
 Your bed may be cosy, 
 
 And your eyes full of dreams ; 
 But there's glory on the mountains, 
 And joy in the streams. 
 
 39
 
 POEMS 
 
 And whither are we going? 
 
 And wherefore do we go ? 
 To meet the summer coming 
 
 O'er the mountains O ! 
 While the lark is in its nest, 
 
 And dull folks are asleep, 
 And the mists from the valleys 
 
 Do drowsily creep. 
 
 Let the lazy lie abed 
 
 Till the noon is high, 
 Let the timid mope afire 
 
 Till their veins grow dry; 
 But we'll be to the mountains 
 
 Where the clouds are all aglow, 
 And welcome in the summer 
 
 This May morning O. (1893) 
 
 The Wine and Jest 
 
 THE wine and jest are going round- 
 I do not hear or see : 
 Tho* may be I am sitting here, 
 My soul it sits by thee : 
 I drink a glass 
 To thee, sweet lass, 
 That hast transfigured me. 
 
 40
 
 POEMS 
 
 My blessing on thy bosom fair 
 
 That throbbed its pain on mine; 
 My blessing on thy quivering lips 
 That sealed my fate with thine : 
 I drink a glass 
 To thee, sweet lass, 
 May every joy be thine. 
 
 My blessing on the hallowed night 
 
 I held thee at the door ; 
 My blessing on thy trembling hand 
 That thrilled me to the core : 
 I drink a glass 
 To thee, sweet lass, 
 My heart is flowing o'er. (1898) 
 
 Love's Conjuration 
 
 L 
 
 OVE fills my heart with song, 
 
 As the summer winds atune 
 A birchen dell the winds 
 From the hillside on the noon 
 Of a sunny day in June. 
 
 My thoughts flow as a stream 
 That sparkles to the sea; 
 
 Through many wondrous ways 
 Wandering tunefully 
 Full fresh and sweet to thee.
 
 POEMS 
 
 My soul is as the star 
 
 Of twilight in the west; 
 In thine eyes azure deep 
 
 It dwells in sweetest rest, 
 
 Where all its beams are blest. 
 
 My life is as the day, 
 
 And thou thou art its sun; 
 But there would be no day 
 
 If the glad sun were gone, 
 All would be dark, my own. (1893) 
 
 To My Betrothed May, 1893 
 
 WE'RE going to the front, no ! we will not lag 
 behind 
 
 The army of the peoples o'er the sea ; 
 Where their swords salute the sun, where their 
 
 war-cry clasps the wind, 
 In their victory or defeat we must be. 
 
 If one man has to die, be that one man you and I 
 Whoso seeks to live is murderer of his mate; 
 
 But if as one we dare either life or death to share, 
 We shall march, a host of fire, thro' Freedom's gate. 
 
 The earth shall break in twain ere they sunder us again, 
 Our Cause the world shall girdle like the sun : 
 
 And the harvest of our words we will sickle with our swords 
 Ere Oppression shall undo what Love has done. 
 
 42
 
 POEMS 
 
 By Windermere 
 
 (June, 1893.) 
 
 THE sun's warm glow is on the lake 
 Whose blue limbs throb and glisten, 
 Her murmurous protestations break 
 Upon the pebbles, listen ! 
 
 The winds are wooing in the woods, 
 
 The flowers are all in rapture; 
 Many a blush beneath their hoods, 
 
 And many a bride to capture ! 
 
 And you, my bonny bride, my joy ! 
 
 A joy that has no fleeting, 
 Your eyes are marvelling on your boy 
 
 And how his heart is beating ! 
 
 Adieu 
 
 MUST I those fetters fair unloose, 
 And quit my neck of their sweet yoke ? 
 And must I those fond lips refuse 
 To longer seal the vow they spoke ? 
 Proud as an emperor would I stay 
 
 A prisoner in thy embrace ; 
 Yet must I tear myself away, 
 An exile from my darling's face ! 
 
 43
 
 POEMS 
 
 How brightly glows the world above, 
 
 How gently breathes the earth below; 
 A fairer night ne'er hallowed love, 
 
 Yet from thy bosom I must go. 
 O why such haste, O shining moon, 
 
 To climb the spangled sky to-night? 
 O midnight hour, why thus so soon 
 
 Spread thy cold wings on our delight ? 
 
 Soft, soft as o'er the dewy flowers 
 
 The night wind sweeps its airy train, 
 May o'er thee glide the lightsome hours, 
 
 Till I return to thee again. 
 While dark and drear, as were the night 
 
 Did moon and stars forsake the skies, 
 My heart shall be^robbed of the light, 
 
 The dewy radiance of thine eyes. 
 
 Yet must I truly say, farewell, 
 
 And bid my own sweet love adieu 
 Of our twain joy pronounce the knell, 
 
 And sever so our breasts in two ? 
 Were we not brave enough to part, 
 
 How little worth were it to bide ; 
 O, I'll bring back a truer heart, 
 
 And worthier arms for thee, my bride ! 
 
 (Barrow, 1898.) 
 
 44
 
 POEMS 
 
 To Katharine 
 
 *' y^ GUID new year," to my dear lass. 
 
 The same to my sweet wife ; 
 Another to my comrade, who 
 Has pledged me life for life. 
 
 A 
 
 Three hearts, from which had I to choose, 
 
 My peace wore all undone ; 
 Could I not tell this miracle 
 
 That they are three in one 1 
 
 A fairest trinity, to whom 
 
 I purest worship give; 
 Within the skies of her blue eyes 
 
 A heaven is where I live. 
 
 But nine new moons have known our love 
 
 And six have seen us wed; 
 With joyous sight, the threshold white 
 
 Of this new year we tread. 
 
 " A guid new year " yea, till the toil 
 
 Of our great hope is done, 
 May I renew this wish with you, 
 
 And we be two in one ! 
 
 (January 1, 1894) 
 
 The Wizardry of Love 
 
 SEE now the fields are white with snow 
 A changed and ghostly scene ! 
 On bank and bower the snowflakes blow 
 Where all was gold and green. 
 
 45
 
 POEMS 
 
 Twixt night and morn, as sound we slept, 
 The fields and hills have flown ! 
 
 The winter suddenly has crept 
 Down from the Arctic zone ! 
 
 Our leafy dwelling in the wood 
 
 Has vanished as a cloud ! 
 The brook which sang our every mood 
 
 Lies silent in a shroud. 
 
 But though without be bleak and cold, 
 
 And a changed world we see : 
 A summer in my heart I hold 
 
 Of constant joy for thee. 
 
 Wherein for thee are woods and flowers, 
 And song of birds and streams, 
 
 And troupes of golden-winged hours, 
 And sleep and radiant dreams. 
 
 A loveliness that shall not fade, 
 
 A summer that shall last, 
 Where thou canst dwell in sheen or shade, 
 
 Untouched by frost or blast. 
 
 And where as colder grow the nights, 
 The hearth shall warmer glow : 
 
 And thou the seasons' twain delights 
 In two-fold joyance know. 
 
 46
 
 POEMS 
 
 Epithalamium 
 
 THE fairest summer of the years 
 Awoke my love at dawn, 
 And kissed her eyes, whereon the spears 
 Of the Valkyries shone. 
 
 And summer took her by the hand 
 
 And led her unto me; 
 And all the joys of sea and land 
 
 Bore her bridal company. 
 
 And never were the flowers more gay 
 
 Never the fields more green; 
 Nor sang the lark a sweeter lay 
 
 Out of the noontide sheen. 
 
 She came as sunlight through a wood, 
 
 As soft winds down a hill ; 
 Her touch made all things sweet and good 
 
 That ever had seemed ill. 
 
 The olden days of love and song, 
 
 The happier days to be, 
 All seemed to gather in a throng 
 
 Of golden augury. 
 
 Love's kingdom dazzling in my sight, 
 
 I trembled now to grasp 
 It seemed as though the very light 
 Bent living in my clasp. 
 
 47
 
 POEMS 
 
 And never was more dearly loved 
 
 A maid unto a wife, 
 Nor ever wife more sweetly proved 
 
 Love is the throne of life. 
 
 (June 21, 1894) 
 
 To My War-Maiden Wife 
 
 I CRAVED of Freedom's hand a sword, 
 In lifelong fight to bear; 
 And freedom held me to my word 
 
 " Take ye this weapon fair, 
 And in thy heart as by thy side its glory shalt thou wear." 
 
 A glad form flashed from out the sun 
 
 Bright breathing by my side : 
 " Take thou the gift thy prayer has won , 
 
 Thy sword shall be thy bride. 
 A prophecy that shall be told wide as the world is wide." 
 
 And now for vengeance unto wrong 
 
 And victory to right ! 
 For here, at last, is man made strong 
 
 With more than human might, 
 
 To do what God has left undone sunder the dark from 
 light. 
 
 (January 23, 1895) 
 48
 
 POEMS 
 
 Dark Night and Lonely Road 
 
 DARK night and lonely road, 
 Chill winds from unknown hills 
 And yet we tread 
 In hope and dread 
 Where faith her quest fulfils. 
 
 Hard boulders at our feet 
 And tangled furze and heath, 
 
 And drear sounds creep 
 
 Up the gorge deep, 
 Hushing the words we breathe. 
 
 Keep close to me, my love; 
 
 Thy touch doth make me strong : 
 
 Sweet maid, sweet wife, 
 
 Whose life gives life 
 The morn will break ere long. 
 
 Spring in Rivington 
 
 T 
 
 HE sun has doffed his winter's hood, 
 
 His locks are all ablaze ; 
 The hills, shy of his merry mood, 
 Shrink deep in luminous haze. 
 
 49
 
 POEMS 
 
 So fierce his gleam upon the lake, 
 
 It spears my sight : so warm 
 The sky, that I unwrap and take 
 
 My cloak upon my arm. 
 
 Yet speeds the wind from the North's bow, 
 And switches through the trees; 
 
 While still the clutches of the snow 
 On hidden corners seize. 
 
 And it is Spring 1 but yesterday 
 
 We heard gruff Winter's roar; 
 We piled the fire and bolted tight 
 
 The windows and the door. 
 
 And now ere yet the tyrant's tread 
 
 Has died in hill and wood, 
 The sweet young voice of Spring has sped 
 
 The joy of bird and bud. 
 
 See, too, the- Coltsfoot's yellow head, 
 
 He wears no shirt or shoon 
 He's popping naked from his bed 
 
 Thinking that it is June ! 
 
 There is a gladness in the light, 
 
 A whispering in the air; 
 A hope, a promise, a delight, 
 
 Pulsating everywhere. 
 
 50
 
 POEMS 
 
 Even the hard earth seems to hail 
 
 Our steps with jocund clap; 
 And bids us bound o'er hill and dale 
 
 Blithe as a boy mad-cap. 
 
 O Spring, what mystery of joy 
 
 Betokens this, that seems 
 To cleanse the soul of stain and cloy 
 
 And freshen all its streams? 
 
 Fain would my spirit cry aloud 
 
 The joy it feels to be 
 With field and wood and lake and cloud 
 
 In this festivity. 
 
 If but my love were with me now, 
 
 My breast on hers I'd fling ; 
 And pray all living things may know 
 
 The blessing of the Spring. (1894)
 
 BALLADS 
 
 On the Road to Liberty 
 
 " We all belong to the glorious band of strolling players of whom 
 Shakespeare, it the chief." Sir J. E. MILLAIS at the Savage Club 
 dinner. 
 
 And WE all belong to the glorious band of rebels and outlaws 
 who, with sword and song, have preserved the right-of-way to 
 Freedom. 
 
 WE'VE come o'er many a mountain, 
 We've forded many a stream; 
 We've wandered thro' the night-time 
 And 'neath the noonday gleam : 
 But whether over hill or dale, 
 
 Or over stream or sea, 
 Our hearts are aye a-roving 
 On the road to liberty. 
 
 CHORUS : 
 
 A-roving on the road, 
 A-roving on the road 
 On the road to liberty. 
 
 We bear good script upon our belts, 
 
 And fiddles in our hands ; 
 And with goodwill and minstrelsy 
 
 Bring freedom to all lands. 
 To our blithe tunes the women lilt 
 
 The bairnies on their knee ; 
 The old men cry, " Heaven bless you 1 " 
 
 On the road to liberty. 
 
 We eat when we are hungry, 
 
 We drink when we are dry ; 
 We rest when we are weary, 
 
 We live before we die ! 
 
 52
 
 BALLADS 
 
 We kiss the lassies when they're dole, 
 
 And fain with us they be, 
 Oh, there's life and love a-roving 
 On the road to liberty ! 
 
 There's a castle on yon hill; 
 
 We'll look in upon the way, 
 And bid ourselves be welcome, 
 
 And the gentle-folks " Good-day." 
 We'll make the ancient halls resound 
 
 With festive mirth and song; 
 Oh, we bear no beggars' wallets 
 
 As we merrily march along. 
 
 There's a big cask in the vaults, 
 
 Where the country's juice is stored, 
 And none may touch the liquor 
 
 Save the rich man arid the lord. 
 But we'll tap its great round belly 
 
 And let the liquor flow : 
 And we'll make a bonfire of the staves 
 
 As we merrily, merrily go. (1887) 
 
 We'll Turn Things Upside Down 
 
 (Tune : " A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea.") 
 
 OH, the world is overburdened 
 With the idle and the rich ! 
 They bask up in the sunshine 
 While we plod in the ditch; 
 But zounds ! we'll put some mettle 
 
 In their fingers and their thumbs, 
 When we turn things upside down, my lads, 
 And the Revolution comes ! 
 53
 
 BALLADS 
 
 Oh, we'll turn things upside down, 
 Oh, we'll turn things upside down, 
 They will wonder what has happened 
 When we turn things upside down ! 
 
 Plain living may be wholesome, 
 
 And wondrous virtues may 
 Abound beneath ribs scant of flesh 
 
 And pockets scant of pay. 
 It may be poverty is best 
 
 If rightly understood ; 
 But we'll turn things upside down, my lads 1 
 
 We don't want all the good ! 
 
 Oh, we'll turn, etc., 
 
 Oh, we'll turn, etc., 
 
 May they thrive on their philosophy, 
 
 When we turn things upside down. 
 
 They're never done extolling 
 
 The nobility of work; 
 But, the knaves ! they always take good care 
 
 Their share of toil to shirk. 
 Do they send their sons and daughters 
 
 To the workshop or the mill ? 
 Oh, we'll turn things upside down, my lads, 
 
 It will change their tune, it will ! 
 
 Oh, we'll turn, etc., 
 
 Oh, we'll turn, etc., 
 
 They can practice all their precepts 
 
 When we turn things upside down ! (1891) 
 
 54
 
 BALLADS 
 
 When The Revolution Comes 
 
 c 
 
 OME, every honest lad and lass ! 
 
 Too long we've been kept under 
 By rusty chains of fraud and fear- 
 We'll snap them all asunder ! 
 
 When the Revolution comes, 
 When the Revolution comes, 
 It's coming fast our turn, at last ! 
 The Social Revolution ! 
 
 A thunderstorm of Freedom shall 
 Go forth among the people ; 
 
 Our flag shall flourish o'er the land 
 On every stalk and steeple ! 
 
 When, etc. 
 
 The knave who lives in idleness 
 By plundering his neighbour, 
 
 Shall learn to use the pick and spade, 
 And live by honest labour ! 
 
 When, etc. 
 
 The landlord and capitalist 
 If you should wish to see 'em, 
 
 You'll have to take a holiday 
 And search in the museum ! 
 
 When, etc. 
 
 55
 
 BALLADS 
 
 For such as contrite editors, 
 
 And penitent policemen, 
 We'll find nice sinecures, and say : 
 
 Go live and die in peace, men. 
 
 When, etc. 
 
 Then let us hail the coming day ! 
 
 The glorious hope before us ! 
 And with brave deeds anticipate 
 
 The good time of our chorus ! 
 
 When the Revolution comes, 
 When the Revolution comes, 
 Then three cheers give, of " Long, long live 
 The Social Revolution ! " (1888) 
 
 Marching on to Liberty 
 
 (Tune : " Marching Through Georgia.") 
 
 WE'RE marching on to liberty, we're marching to 
 the time 
 Of universal brotherhood and peace in every 
 clime; 
 
 We're marching to the triumph of our principles sublime 
 Carrying the red flag to victory. 
 
 56
 
 BALLADS 
 
 CHORUS : 
 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! in Freedom's van are we ; 
 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! we march to liberty, 
 
 To the cities of the Commune, and the glorious time 
 
 to be, 
 Carrying the red flag to victory. 
 
 We are the mob, the working class, the Proletariat ; 
 Pinched and poor are we, while they, the knaves ! are rich 
 
 and fat; 
 But wait, the day is coming, boys ! we mean to change a 1 ! 
 
 that; 
 For we are marching to liberty. 
 
 They're blocking up the highways ; yes they think to keep 
 
 us back ; 
 
 By piling barriers of law and falsehood on the track; 
 We'll break the barriers down and burn them into cinders 
 
 black, 
 As we go marching to liberty. 
 
 What though they make each fingerpost a gibbet shall we 
 
 quail? 
 
 Or turn each ancient hostelry into a county jail 
 Or break the bridges down our fathers built for our avail 
 We'll still keep marching to liberty. 
 
 57
 
 BALLADS 
 
 We'll drive the robbers from our lands, our meadows, and 
 
 our hills, 
 We'll drive them from our warehouses, our workshops, and 
 
 our mills; 
 We'll wish them merry on their bonds, their bankbooks 
 
 and their bills I 
 A we go marching to liberty. 
 
 Then on to revolution, boys ! We'll cleave a highway 
 
 broad 
 Where fell the fearless pioneers, as freedom wards they 
 
 trod; 
 And though we fall as they fell millions follow on the road, 
 
 To carry the red flag to victory. (1889) 
 
 Ballad of Law and Order 
 
 (Tune : " Vicar of Bray.") 
 
 SINCE all our institutions are 
 In danger at this moment 
 From notions which those Socialists 
 Their utmost do to foment; 
 Against all their vile principles, 
 
 Which truly most abhorred are, 
 Let every patriot invoke 
 
 The power of Law and Order. 
 
 58
 
 BALLADS 
 
 CHORUS : 
 
 Against all their vile principles, 
 
 Which truly most abhorred are, 
 Let every patriot invoke 
 
 The power of Law and Order. 
 
 Some people may have different viewg 
 
 Of how best to enforce it 
 Now Buckingham's opinion was 
 
 And firmly I endorse it : 
 " Of all the methods I have tried, 
 
 The hangman and the sword are 
 The stoutest means to propagate 
 
 Respect for * Law and Order ' ! " 
 
 CHORUS : 
 
 Against all other principles, 
 
 Which truly most abhorred are, 
 Let every patriot invoke 
 
 The power of Law and Order. 
 
 Now let the clergy inculcate 
 
 In all their prayers and sermons, 
 How blest peculiarly are we 
 
 Above the French and Germans ; 
 And let their admonition be : 
 
 " These blessings the reward are 
 Of our unbounded loyalty, 
 
 And iove of * Law and Order.' " 
 
 Against all other principles, etc. 
 59
 
 BALLADS 
 
 In every nursery and school, 
 
 And barrack-room and prison, 
 Let sheets be stuck upon the walls 
 
 Conspicuous to the vision. 
 On which in ornamental text, 
 
 With neat appropriate border, 
 Set forth the words " Sedition shun, 
 
 And reverence ' Law and Order V 
 Against all other principles, etc. 
 
 And let us sing, " God save the Queen," 
 
 We could not do without her, 
 And all the peers and gentlefolks 
 
 She likes to keep about her; 
 And while our voices and our hearts 
 
 In glorious accord are, 
 Acclaim the peerless apothegm 
 
 Of " Long live * Law and Order '." 
 Against all other principles, etc. (1889) 
 
 A Toast 
 
 WITH Freedom in our hearts, 
 And our glasses in our hands ; 
 With a comradeship and Cause 
 Electric thro' all lands : 
 Here we stand all rebels true ! 
 
 And we pledge the joy we feel 
 In the battle that we bear, 
 
 In our Cause the Commonweal. 
 Let our glasses ring ! 
 60
 
 BALLADS 
 
 Never while the poor abide, 
 
 And the weaker are oppress'd, 
 Shall we give Oppression peace, 
 
 Shall we give our efforts rest. 
 What tho' we be as one, 
 
 And the enemy a host? 
 We'll battle and we'll win, 
 
 Right will yet be uppermost ! 
 Let our glasses ring ! 
 
 A curse on tyrants all ! 
 
 On oppressors everyone ! 
 On every shape of wrong 
 
 That blackens in the sun : 
 A blessing on all those 
 
 Who battle for the right; 
 To their hearts increase of hope, 
 To their hands increase of might ! 
 Let our glasses three times ring : 
 One Oppression's knell, 
 Two The people free, 
 Three Let us ring it well 
 Our friends where'er they be ! 
 
 (1892) 
 
 The Children's International 
 
 H 
 
 ERE we gather in a ring, 
 Here a garland fresh we fling, 
 Flowers are we just blossoming, 
 Blossoming together. 
 
 61
 
 BALLADS 
 
 Chorus : 
 
 We will up and march away, march away, 
 March away, march away, march away, 
 
 march away, 
 We will up and march away, march away, 
 
 Marching all together. 
 
 Good folks all, a word with you, 
 What a world to bring us to ! 
 We shall make the world anew, 
 Boys and girls together. 
 
 We will up, etc. 
 
 We are children, but some day 
 We'll be big and strong, and say 
 None shall slave, and none shall slay, 
 All shall work together. 
 
 We will up, etc. 
 
 Hand to hand, how far we reach, 
 Each for all, and all for each ; 
 Thus we play, and thus we teach 
 Hearts and hands together. 
 
 We will up, etc. 
 
 Now our clasping hands we raise, 
 Holding high a crown of praise, 
 Crown of hope for better days 
 Nations linked together. 
 
 We will up, etc. 
 62
 
 BALLADS 
 
 Forward, stepping row by row, 
 Waves of freedom, on we flow; 
 Singing, shining as we go, 
 Comrades all together. 
 
 We will up, etc. (1908) 
 
 The Shan Van Vocht* 
 
 (Tune : " The Shan Van Vocht.") 
 
 HEAVEN'S blessing on the head 
 Of the Shan Van Vocht ! 
 They thought that she was dead 
 The dear old Shan Van Vocht ! 
 But she's still alive, you see, 
 With her wondrous prophecy 
 Immortal may she be, 
 
 Our own dear Shan Van Vocht I 
 
 There's a rumpus in the town ! 
 
 Lo, the Shan Van Vocht ! 
 Cries the Mayor in his gown, 
 
 " What, the Shan Van Vocht ! 
 Lived she not in ancient times? 
 Died she not in many climes ? 
 Faith, there's mischief in the rhymes 
 
 Of the Shan Van Vocht." 
 
 Gaelic: Little old woman, or spaewife. In Celtic folklore aad song 
 she ie traditional and emblematic of the wit, wisdom and good fortune of 
 the people's cause. 
 
 63
 
 BALLADS 
 
 Oh, the winsomeness and sooth 
 
 Of the Shan Van Vocht ! 
 And the ever-sweetening youth 
 
 Of the Shan Van Vocht ! 
 To her gown the children cling, 
 Wives their arms around her fling, 
 And the poor their blessings bring 
 To the Shan Van Vocht. 
 
 While at work, someone will say, 
 " Hush ! the Shan Van Vocht ! " 
 
 And we thought you far away 
 Ah ! our Shan Van Vocht ! 
 
 Often by the fire at night 
 
 She comes in just like a sprite ! 
 
 And we're witched till morning light 
 With the Shan Van Vocht. 
 
 By what token may we know 
 She's the Shan Van Vocht? 
 Wears she red cap or sabots, 
 
 This dear Shan Van Vocht? 
 By her tidings glad and true, 
 By her love outstretched to you, 
 By your own heart leaping through 
 To the Shan Van Vocht. 
 
 64
 
 BALLADS 
 
 For our love what shall we give 
 
 To the Shan Van Vocht ? 
 For our love, we'll toil and live 
 
 For the Shan Van Vocht ! 
 She's the dawning of our day, 
 She's the promise of our May, 
 She's for ever and for aye 
 
 Our own dear Shan Van Vocht ! 
 
 The Rhyme of Johnny Free 
 
 HERE'S good luck and right good cheer 
 To Johnny Free ! 
 Whose fame is far and near : 
 Where'er he be, 
 
 There's a shaking of old bones, 
 There's a quaking 'mong the drones, 
 There's a tumbling down of thrones, 
 One, two, three ! 
 
 For the Devil is not dead, 
 
 Says Johnny Free ; 
 He's alive sting, hoof, and head 
 
 Says Johnny Free. 
 He's in profit and in rent, 
 He's on Labour's shoulders bent, 
 And he sits in Parliament, 
 
 And in P.C.
 
 BALLADS 
 
 Not with smooth and silken words 
 
 Speaks Johnny Free; 
 But with precepts sharp as swords, 
 
 Right dauntlessly ; 
 Making proclamation bold, 
 As the prophets spake of old, 
 When the good times were foretold 
 
 Yet to be. 
 
 Hear the beating of Heaven's drum ! 
 
 Cries Johnny Free; 
 Lo, a mighty storm shall come 
 
 (As you shall see) 
 Which shall tyranny o'erthrow, 
 And the mountains be brought low, 
 As foreshadowed long ago 
 
 In Judee. 
 
 First, the land we shall acquire, 
 
 Says Johnny Free; 
 By what methods shall transpire, 
 
 Says Johnny Free; 
 Railways, mines and their contents, 
 And then all the implements 
 Of production and per cents, 
 
 Says Johnny Free. 
 
 66
 
 BALLADS 
 
 These preliminaries done, 
 
 Says Johnny Free, 
 We'll have fairly well begun 
 
 The Jubilee ! 
 
 Then the sun's glad zone shall bind 
 In one brotherhood mankind ; 
 War be evermore consigned 
 
 Beneath the sea ! 
 
 But what, should they resist, 
 
 Johnny Free? 
 The Landlord and Capitalist 
 
 The bourgeoisie ? 
 
 With what? with sword and gun? 
 Nay, that won't be fight, but fun 
 Why, we're a hundred to their one, 
 
 Laughs Johnny Free. 
 
 The rich folk and the great 
 
 Fear Johnny Free; 
 The old parties of the State 
 
 Scorn Johnny Free ! 
 They have cast him into jail, 
 But stone walls do not avail, 
 Thus the spirit shall prevail, 
 
 Says Johnny Free.
 
 BALLADS 
 
 The editor looks wise 
 
 At Johnny Free; 
 " Humph, he don't advertise, 
 
 Don't Johnny Free ; 
 There's some truth in what he teaches, 
 But our patrons it impeaches, 
 We will just suppress your speeches, 
 
 Johnny Free ! " 
 
 The clergy are perplexed 
 
 With Johnny Free ; 
 They would like to quote a text 
 
 At Johnny Free : 
 
 For their sermons and their prayers 
 With their practice he compares, 
 And the " Fifth of Matthew " bears 
 
 Out Johnny Free. 
 
 So hurrah, and loud applause 
 
 For Johnny Free I 
 And good luck to our good cause ! 
 
 Johnny Free; 
 
 Long live the Commonweal, 
 World-wide as the heart's appeal, 
 Bound in brotherhood, not steel, 
 
 From sea to sea. 
 
 (1885. Completed May, 1920) 
 
 68
 
 POEMS 
 
 La Commune 
 
 DOWN in France in seventy-one, 
 Flashed a flame out of the sun : 
 Flashed and cleft the cannon's smoke 
 Where her wondering eyes awoke. 
 
 Right beneath the barricade 
 In a trench they found her laid ; 
 Angry bullets o'er her sped, 
 Round her lay the martyr'd dead. 
 
 Her first cry was smothered in 
 Dying shrieks and cannon din, 
 She was baptised in a flood 
 Of Parisian workmen's blood. 
 
 What a world in which to fling 
 A human soul ! a fosterling ! 
 Loving hands of refugees 
 Bore her safely o'er the seas. 
 
 Outcast, stricken, froward, wild 
 O'er the world a vagrant child, 
 Ixmg she fared, her rebel feet 
 Torn by prison floor and street. 
 
 Now how fairly hath she grown ! 
 Grace of curve and strength of bone, 
 Flash of eyes love that will set 
 The world aflame with freedom yet. 
 
 69
 
 POEMS 
 
 No mere mortal form is she, 
 But our faith's divinity; 
 In the dreaming of her eyes 
 Gleams the earthly paradise. 
 
 Hand to hurt, or tongue to shame 
 Who shall risk them in the flame 
 Of our love ? Lo, at a word 
 Millions would uplift the sword. 
 
 Yet the sword its power shall cease 
 Her might is the might of peace : 
 Might of peace, of love, of joy, 
 That which nothing can destroy. 
 
 She has come to be our Queen, 
 Queenlier than Queen has been : 
 Queen of life, our Queen of May, 
 Ours for ever and for aye. 
 
 Revolution 
 
 LO, they come with hope abounding; 
 Their march is in the street ; 
 Oppression's doom is sounding 
 In the tramping of their feet. 
 
 They, the toilers of the city; 
 
 They, the toilers of the field ; 
 For whom Mercy had no pity, 
 
 And Justice had no shield. 
 70
 
 POEMS 
 
 They march, their hearts are glowing 
 With the fire of Freedom's breath; 
 
 Their hands have the bestowing 
 Of the gift of life or death. 
 
 The heroic dead arisen, 
 
 March exultant by their side; 
 
 And from exile and from prison 
 Come their comrades glorified. 
 
 Their hopes are as the morning, 
 As the quieting of the night 
 
 As a clarion blast of warning, 
 As a sweet song of delight. 
 
 Yea, their hearts throb with a gladness 
 As if their blood were wine, 
 
 And their brains burn with a madness 
 Which shall yet be deemed divine. 
 
 For a vision shines before them, 
 Making all the daylight dim : 
 
 And its glory trembles o'er them 
 Like the flight of cherubim. 
 
 And within its bright unfolding 
 The " Glorious times to be " 
 
 Which long in dark beholding 
 Now in noontide light they see.
 
 POEMS 
 
 The Dream of the Earthly Paradise 
 
 THERE is a prophecy come down the ages, 
 Persisting through the long, blood-soaken years ; 
 From mind to mind, of poets, seers, and sages, 
 Tracking its way, laving men's hopes and fears. 
 
 Like a pure mountain spring that wells forth sparkling 
 Far up the misty height, and bright descends 
 
 From rock to rock, through dells and mosses darkling, 
 Widening and deepening as it onwards wends, 
 
 Till it shall flow, a broad, abounding river, 
 Coursing through fertile lands and cities fair : 
 
 A Nile of civilisation, a godlike giver 
 
 Of life and joy to peoples everywhere. (1920) 
 
 Two Invocations to Freedom 
 
 1. (1881.) 
 
 THE wild wind shrieking loudly through the night, 
 The roar of streams and waterfalls that dash, 
 The crashing thunder, the rain's gleeful splash, 
 Adown the darkness from the rocky height : 
 
 O wild song of the tempest and the rain ! 
 
 Thy mighty minstrelsy makes glad my soul; 
 
 I listen to thy music roll and roll 
 From the black sky and mountain peak and plain. 
 
 72
 
 POEMS 
 
 In the loud, matchless measures of thy chords 
 Song of the mountain tempest, bold and free ! 
 There is an utterance of liberty 
 
 Surpassing all the power of human words. 
 
 With what fierce joy thy swift and cleaving blast 
 
 Blows down the torrent steep with shattering strength 
 O Freedom, has the time not come at length 
 
 To send thy tempest through the darkness vast? 
 
 Yea, let thy power omnipotent go forth 
 With storm and lightnings through the hearts of men, 
 Let thy strong thunders speak, till hill and glen 
 
 Reverberate thy accents o'er the earth. 
 
 With searching fire, and wrath, and judgment come, 
 And cleave and crash for ever in the dust 
 The cities, rottening with greed and lust, 
 
 Quench their foul incense in thy cleansing doom 1 
 
 Flash ! flash ! O see, O hearken, Freedom thou ! 
 
 Can'st thou abide and slumber in thy bed ? 
 
 Is not the time for sloth and dreaming fled ? 
 Waits not the Day on the horizon now ? 
 
 2. (1919.) 
 
 WHERE sleeps, O Freedom, thy resistless might? 
 Thy flameless bolts are sunken in the sod; 
 Be thou no more as Jupiter, but God ! 
 Let thy strong love be lifted in our sight. 
 
 73
 
 POEMS 
 
 Yea, be them God ! and give to us a sign 
 Hold fast the earth with healing in thy hand, 
 That we may feel thee, and so understand 
 
 That power and peace are adequately thine. 
 
 Thy storms, thy thunders and thy terrors cease; 
 
 Send forth thy sun ! make sweet and pure the earth, 
 That in the hearts of nations may have birth 
 
 The sovereignty of fellowship and peace. 
 
 Hallowed no more be wrath and strife and death : 
 The torches glimmering in the sepulchres : 
 Life is thy bride, so let thy strength be hers, 
 
 Let her arise rejoicing in thy breath. 
 
 Bring forth the Golden Years : O Golden Years I 
 When man's last fear of man shall pass away, 
 And a great gladness shall suffuse the day, 
 
 And a new song ascend amidst the spheres. 
 
 A May Day Paean 
 
 SHE comes, down-stepping from the steeds of morning, 
 Her feet bright with the dewdrops of the hills ; 
 Her wind-woven tresses all devices scorning; 
 Her radiance the air with pleasure fills. 
 
 74
 
 POEMS 
 
 She comes, the fairest of Earth's sun-given daughters, 
 Enrobed in radiance orient as the dawn ; 
 
 And joy, sweet as the fall of sunny waters, 
 Leaps in all hearts her beauty shines upon. 
 
 All things of gladness are awake to greet her; 
 
 The flowers spring rapturously in field and glade ; 
 The birds sing louder, all the ways smell sweeter; 
 
 The forest younglings frolic unafraid. 
 
 She is our May ! The well-beloved, the chosen 
 Queen of our day-dreams, golden hopes and song ! 
 
 How we have waited her ! what dark and frozen 
 Fears lay upon our hearts these winters long ! 
 
 She comes to dwell with us down in the valleys, 
 To be our Queen, encrowned with love and joy; 
 
 Our hearts her throne, our cottages her palace ; 
 Her swordless realm no sword can ere destroy. 
 
 She comes to fill our villages and meadows 
 
 With life abloom, and fruitage of blithe hands ; 
 
 And give enchantment to the woodland shadows, 
 With children playing in their fairy bands. 
 
 The cities, too, shall wake and burst asunder 
 Their bonds, and be no more as reeking sties ; 
 
 And with the valleys vie with works of wonder, 
 Upraising glowing towers into the skies. 
 
 75
 
 POEMS 
 
 She comes, and lo ! our hearts leap as from prison, 
 Glad of our fellows, fearless of their wrong 
 
 Knowing deliverance has at last arisen : 
 
 No more shall love be weak, or terror strong. 
 
 Sing, sing our hearts ! Fling forth our song as garlands ; 
 
 Make sweet her way, make beautiful our mirth : 
 So shall the nations sing, and all the far lands 
 
 Join in one song as noon goes round the earth. 
 
 A Vanished World 
 
 OH that the fabled Elfin world were true, 
 And all the wondrous scenes of fairyland ! 
 With what quick-beating pulses would we stand 
 Within this dell and its deep winding view ! 
 
 Alas, the night has surely lost for ever 
 
 The mystery and magic that once made 
 
 The glen, the rocky dell and leafy glade 
 Palaces of enchantment. Alas ! never 
 
 Shall we again with listening steps behold 
 
 The wood nymphs braid their tresses 'neath the trees, 
 Nor hear in the swift rustlings of the breeze 
 
 The Erl-King's pageant gliding through the wold. 
 
 Maybe this dim and narrow cave has been 
 A secret entrance to Titania's hall, 
 Where many a cantrip, court and festival 
 
 Were held in fealty to the Fairy Queen 1 
 
 76
 
 POEMS 
 
 Here in this plot some urchin may have spied 
 The goblins' revel in the midnight dim; 
 And 'twixt the tree roots in their orgies grim 
 
 Crawl monstrous dragons, spiney and red-eyed ; 
 
 Or, lurking in some hollow, suddenly 
 
 Swarm forth swart legions from the under- world, 
 Those earth-fire denizens by whom were hurled 
 
 Mountains like pebbles into lake and sea. 
 
 In Times Olden 
 
 TRUE minstrelsy is dead ! In the times olden 
 The bard was welcomed, glad, at every door; 
 By cottar's fire, and in halls blazon'd golden, 
 To eager ears his lays he chanted o'er. 
 
 I see the housewife sit, her baby hushing, 
 Watching with curious eye the minstrel's face ; 
 
 The young lass bending by her lover blushing, 
 The spinning wheel, the bow upon the brace. 
 
 I see the baron's hall, feast-spread, torch-lighted ; 
 
 Proud knights and guerdoned ladies gathered round ; 
 The trophies of the hunt, of wrongs requited ; 
 
 The horn, the falcon and the faithful hound. 
 
 We have gone back from beauty ; we have parted 
 With much that sweetened toil and compensed strife : 
 
 The glee, the merry-making, the light-hearted 
 Song, and dance, and play of olden life. 
 
 77
 
 POEMS 
 
 The Yule-log and the May-pole; the fantastic 
 Masques and pageants, festivals and fairs; 
 
 The thousand interludes that made elastic 
 
 The length of days, their joys and toils and cares. 
 
 Now, minstrelsy and mirth no longer enter 
 
 Deeply into our lives : they do but trim 
 The dull exterior, the soul, the centre, 
 
 Is grown more sombre, wearyful and grim. 
 
 No more the horn of forester a-roaming ; 
 
 The shepherd's pipe among the yellow broom; 
 The maid's blithe song a-milking in the gloaming ; 
 
 The weaver's merry ditty at the loom. 
 
 No more the song that swung the blacksmith's hammer; 
 
 The miller's lay as jocund as his wheel, 
 But hark, the dreary, dull, inhuman clamour. 
 
 The ceaseless blasphemy of steam and steel ! 
 
 Yet when the winds of February are blowing, 
 And the keen frost is hard upon the fields; 
 
 Unseen the germs are quickening and growing 
 Of all the flowers and fruits that summer yields. 
 
 Shall we, beholding the dark winter's blighting, 
 Believe that cold and dark must ever be? 
 
 That summer days in radiant bloom delighting 
 Are poet's dreams, which we shall never see? 
 
 78
 
 POEMS 
 
 Alone upon the hills by night o'ertaken, 
 Have we not feared lest day might never come ? 
 
 When lo, the dawn ! the wondrous valleys waken, 
 The skylark warbles and the wild bees hum ! 
 
 Maybe some morning when we wake from dreaming, 
 The vision shall not perish from our eyes ; 
 
 But will grow brighter with the sunlight streaming, 
 And the lark singing in the clear blue skies. 
 
 Empyrean : A Rhapsody 
 
 As left to his Comrades, June 4, 1920. 
 
 THE glory of a summer day 
 Is round me as I stand, 
 Where full a hundred hills array 
 Their banners round the land; 
 Fold upon fold 
 Of green and gold, 
 And purple, far expand. 
 
 High on a pinnacle upborne, 
 
 Half-way into the sky; 
 Across the pathway of the morn, 
 Almost I seem to fly; 
 But at my feet, 
 Blinking most sweet, 
 The mountain heath I spy.
 
 POEMS 
 
 I spy the mountain heath, yet feel 
 Rejoiced to glide through space, 
 Breasting its blue waves as a keel 
 Against the tide's swift race ; 
 While still I hold 
 Fast to this old 
 Grey rock's unyielding base. 
 
 An old grey rock, whose visage stern 
 
 The mom upleaps to kiss ; 
 Where nightly the white mists return, 
 Nor take his frown amiss : 
 And while they sleep, 
 His grave eyes keep 
 Watch over the abyss. 
 
 How glad it is once more to breathe 
 
 Outside the city's walls ! 
 But yesterday I walked beneath 
 The shadow of St. Paul's, 
 Where myriad fold 
 Through deeps untold 
 A monster dragon crawls. 
 
 And hardly in my ears are dead 
 
 The hopeless surge and din; 
 And hardly from my eyes is fled 
 The vision of its sin 
 Of life grown foul, 
 Of prey and prowl, 
 And soulless gape and grin. 
 
 80
 
 POEMS 
 
 But here, where all things seem to rise 
 
 As with a shout of joy, 
 To join the pageant of the skies 
 And bear the sun convoy 
 The God and King 
 Of everything, 
 Warm-hearted as a boy, 
 
 Here comes no marring sound or sight 
 
 Of human lust or gain : 
 The ever-purifying light, 
 
 Flashing from hill and plain, 
 Cleanses the soul, 
 Making it whole 
 And sweet from wound and stain. 
 
 Yea, here the soul its wounds may heal, 
 
 The soul regain its wings ; 
 And the heart grow too big to feel 
 The prick of little things 
 Here break the crust, 
 The clay and rust, 
 Of selfish hardenings. 
 
 Here where the ever-wreathing years 
 
 Roll, break and ebb and flow, 
 The wondrous scene unchanged appears 
 The blasts, the floods, the snow, 
 Pass as a breath, 
 While still beneath 
 The ancient banners blow. 
 
 81
 
 POEMS 
 
 A magian tower ! whence o'er the crest 
 
 Of centuries I scan 
 
 The primal world, while yet its breast 
 With molten torrents ran ; 
 The ebb and flow 
 Of epochs slow, 
 Long ere man's reign began : 
 
 The mighty travail of the earth, 
 
 Her vast volcanic throes, 
 The giant mountains come to birth, 
 Titanic powers jocose, 
 Making huge rents 
 In continents 
 Ocean her bed disclose. 
 
 I watch the fro/en tide creep back 
 
 Towards the polar zone ; 
 And life resurging in its track, 
 Of herb and tree wild-grown, 
 The migrant birds, 
 The huge, gaunt herds, 
 The mighty mastodon. 
 
 I see the hills cast off the yoke 
 
 Of Alpine frost, and lo ! 
 The coming of the birch and oak, 
 The rose, the plum, the sloe ; 
 The brotherhood 
 Of field and wood, 
 And England all aglow I 
 
 82
 
 POEMS 
 
 YET countless courses of the sun, 
 The summers flush and fade ; 
 And, lo ! at last the Master one 
 He in " God's image made " 
 From cave and mound, 
 Prowling around, 
 Swart, ominous, afraid. 
 
 Outcast from wood and wild, as though 
 
 Under a primal curse; 
 Marked as by nature's self her foe 
 A brood she feared to nurse : 
 All living things 
 On feet and wings, 
 Shy of his look averse. 
 
 Whence come ? Out of the distant East,- 
 
 He leaves his human trace; 
 Somewhat of deity : a beast 
 Higher and yet more base : 
 A ceaseless quest, 
 An urge, behest, 
 Furrowed upon his face. 
 
 And this is man : the coming lord 
 
 Of all the earth's domain; 
 Our human sire, whose will and word 
 Shall destiny ordain; 
 And earth, and air 
 And ocean, bear 
 His inexorable chain. 
 
 83
 
 POEMS 
 
 From whose rude hands shall yet arise 
 
 An Athens, Thebes, and Rome ; 
 From whose dull brain the vast emprise 
 Of Plato, Newton, come; 
 The minds elate 
 That consecrate 
 Temple and catacomb. 
 
 O strange, unwelcome wight, to whom 
 
 The gift of life we owe ; 
 O strange Pleiocene sire, for whom 
 We feel no human glow 
 Dreeing his fate 
 To man's estate 
 A myriad years ago ! 
 
 ******* 
 
 YET countless courses of the sun, 
 In far-off primal days : 
 Lo, comes a host (and many a one), 
 Creeping into yon bays : 
 And far across 
 Upland and moss 
 Glistens their alien gaze 
 
 Comes, as if wind-blown with the mist 
 
 Of morning o'er the seas, 
 From a far folk (so fate did list), 
 Hither, as hiving bees, 
 To a new bower, 
 Richer in flower, 
 'Midst sheltering hills and trees. 
 
 84
 
 POEMS 
 
 While clings the sea-wind to their hair, 
 
 The sea-weed to their feet, 
 They hie their way, O valley fair, 
 Into thy rare retreat, 
 While all agleam 
 Thy songful stream 
 Hastens their steps to greet. 
 
 With joy their journeying they spare, 
 
 Their spears strike in the ground; 
 With joy their wives and babes they bear 
 Into the laud new found ; 
 And through the haze 
 Of night upblaze 
 A hundred hearths around. 
 
 Our fathers they : strong-limbed and rude 
 
 For winter's wolf and wind ; 
 Well knew their after-foes their mood : 
 Yet guileless folk and kind, 
 With simple skill 
 Of forge and mill 
 And loom, and reeds entwined. 
 
 Adown the years still gleam their spears, 
 
 And in our common speech 
 Lingers their laughter and their tears, 
 Their mysteries, and each 
 Yuletide and May 
 We homage pay 
 Their feast-fires on the beach.
 
 POEMS 
 
 II. 
 
 BUT hark ! what sweet enchantment floats 
 Out in the airy deep ! 
 
 Throb, throb, and thrill the lark's clear notes 
 In the still noon, whose sleep 
 Is undisturbed, 
 Save by th' uncurbed 
 Bleat of the mountain sheep. 
 
 Far down the vale upon the green 
 
 A mere speck to the eye 
 The old grey church peers through the sheen, 
 As though fain to descry 
 Some friendly face 
 That might retrace 
 Memories of days gone by. 
 
 There stands alone an old stone tower 
 
 That, when the night winds sweep, 
 And the tough yew trees, frightened, cower, 
 And the pale tombstones peep 
 Stirs its old bones, 
 Mumbles and groans, 
 As dreaming in its sleep. 
 
 And there, almost beneath my toe ! 
 
 The old mill rests, forlorn; 
 Around it, as fresh-fallen snow, 
 The plum tree and the thorn, 
 Their blossoms spread, 
 As for a bed 
 Upon a bridal morn. 
 
 86
 
 POEMS 
 
 See, branching through the ancient weald, 
 
 The old road and the new, 
 Like silken braids loosely unreeled, 
 Far-stretching out of view 
 Down in green nooks, 
 Bridging the brooks 
 That laugh as they run through. 
 
 And lo, what invitation sweet 
 
 Yonder invites the eye ! 
 Where the two valleys fondly meet, 
 And linked together lie 
 A very bower, 
 Where every hour 
 Fresh hues and shadows vie. 
 
 Fair as if nature's self had sought 
 
 Cunningly to prepare 
 In this fair land, a fairest spot, 
 An Eden passing fair; 
 No scene more choice 
 Could eyes rejoice 
 Than she has fashioned there. 
 
 So fair, so richly dowered, replete, 
 
 Each season's need supplied; 
 With timber, stone, and wool and wheat, 
 And marketing spread wide; 
 Her argosies 
 On the near seas 
 Harvesting every tide. 
 
 87
 
 POEMS 
 
 Now fair as a forsaken bride 
 
 Who calmly hides her pain ; 
 Sweet as a mother who, moist-eyed, 
 Looks wistfully down the lane, 
 Thinking of feet 
 Whose patter sweet 
 Will never come again. 
 
 So fair ! now so bereft ! her reign 
 
 O'er pleasant stir has fled ; 
 Extinct her ancient chatelaine 
 Of thriving homes that spread 
 Her largesse wide 
 On every side, 
 And sturdy peasants bred. 
 
 All gone ! The homesteads and the folk 
 
 Erased from off the scene; 
 The thatched roofs and the dreamy smoke, 
 The market musterings, keen 
 With news and tales 
 From neighbouring vales, 
 The pastimes on the green. 
 
 The ploughman singing to the vale, 
 
 The herdman on the hill, 
 The milkmaid lilting at her pail, 
 The chatter of the mill ; 
 The forge's clang 
 That all day rang 
 Its tattoo of goodwill ! 
 88
 
 POEMS 
 
 The old man hirpling on his staff, 
 
 Gossiping at the door, 
 The buxom dame, whose merry laugh 
 Lit up his heart once more, 
 As off she flew 
 To bake or brew 
 Or spin another score. 
 
 All ceased ! its simple tune of life : 
 
 Piped out, its little lay ! 
 The click of shuttles that made strife 
 With drowsiness all day; 
 The maiden's sigh, 
 The new-born cry, 
 The children's noisy play. 
 
 All gone, as if by some fell flood 
 
 Swept out into the sea, 
 Or by war's wrack, in flame and blood, 
 Blasted from things that be. 
 No judgment less, 
 So one would guess, 
 Wrought such calamity. 
 
 O ye who boast of England's fame, 
 
 Of England's wealth and pride, 
 Lo, here is written England's shame, 
 Wide as the vales are wide; 
 No flood or war 
 Smote the vales bare 
 But Mammon's sucking tide. 
 
 89
 
 POEMS 
 
 And o'er its woe God's day and night 
 
 Have woven a mystic screen, 
 With weft and woof of dark and light, 
 The centuries between, 
 
 Through which, in vain, 
 Our eyes we strain, 
 Glints of the past to glean. 
 
 ANEW light from the noontide breaks, 
 Suffusing o ? er the hills ; 
 A marvellous minstrelsy awakes, 
 As of unnumbered rills ; 
 A luminous mist 
 Of amethyst 
 The listening valley fills ! 
 
 A mist in which is lifted up 
 
 A vision in my sight, 
 Wherein as by some magic cup 
 Spellbound, in Time's despite 
 I gaze and see 
 In phantasy 
 The world's new plum aged flight. 
 
 From East to West the gates of day 
 
 Pour forth a glorious band; 
 Behold, the Daughters of the May, 
 Uplift life's new Command ; 
 Below, above, 
 The might of Love 
 The might of God's right hand. 
 90
 
 POEMS 
 
 O happier days, O happier hearts, 
 
 O children yet to be; 
 O Toil redeemed, O glowing Arts, 
 From sordidness set free; 
 For ye unseen 
 Till now has been 
 Man's long adversity. 
 
 For ye the hearts of heroes flamed, 
 
 The martyrs' limbs were torn; 
 Whose glory as a cloud has framed 
 An archway o'er the morn, 
 Through which our souls 
 To higher goals 
 With sun and stars are borne. 
 
 For ye are now their battles won, 
 
 Their vanquished hosts upraised; 
 The victories of the sword undone, 
 The conquerors abased. 
 For ye, the spires 
 Of Moloch fires 
 Have ceased at last to blaze. 
 
 No more shall war's dark terrors stem 
 
 The fountains of the sun; 
 O happier youth ! O mightier men ! 
 Promethean race begun 
 Victors new-found, 
 From self unbound 
 Man's loftiest freedom won.
 
 POEMS 
 
 The children, yea, the children come, 
 
 The children Blake foreknew; 
 With twinkling steps and merry hum 
 Blossoms of every hue; 
 A joyous throng 
 Dancing along 
 The Golden Age anew ! 
 
 See, too, the hills and plains burst forth 
 
 As a great golden flower ! 
 The world abloom in a new birth 
 Of field and town and tower; 
 Garden and wild 
 Linked, reconciled, 
 In man's redeemed power. 
 
 A new accord of human kind 
 
 With Earth's domain and brood, 
 A large compassion, freely bind 
 A common brotherhood : 
 A gentleness, 
 A sweet excess 
 Of will for all things good. 
 
 Cities reborn, in them outshines 
 
 A nobler art than shone 
 On the Acropolis, or the shrines 
 Of Florence and Rouen : 
 Gazing, I seem 
 Rapt in a dream 
 With Shelley and St. John. 
 
 92
 
 POEMS 
 
 With Zion's mighty prophets, they 
 
 Whose souls burn in the van ; 
 Plato and More, who lit the way 
 With dawn ere dawn began ; 
 With Morris, whose 
 Thrice-gifted muse 
 Sang the new march of man. 
 
 Fling forth my song with joy to meet 
 
 The birth of coming days; 
 Fling forth my song with joy to greet 
 The choir of joy and praise, 
 Whose chant exhales 
 Up from the dales 
 Love's joyous Marseillaise ! 
 
 Mighty fulfilment, from the first 
 
 Quickening in Time's womb : 
 The Earth at last in splendour burst 
 Whole, in Elysian bloom : 
 O wondrous leaven ! 
 Kingdom of Heaven, 
 Thy reign on Earth has come. 
 
 93
 
 POEMS 
 
 THE glory of a summer day 
 Fades gently on the hills, 
 The evening breaks its solemn ray, 
 Another splendour fills : 
 The heavens . . 
 The .... 
 Besprent with daffodils. 
 
 Night, night with stately gesture, 
 
 Calls forth her wondrous spheres, 
 And draws her sacred vesture 
 
 Awake, or still in vision-bound, 
 My Magian Tower I quit, 
 
 And as I leap, 
 The startled sheep 
 Bound ghostly in the . . 
 
 (Left unfinished, June, 1920) 
 
 94
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 A poem which Bruce wrote and published in the spring of 1880, 
 when he was barely twenty-one, entitled "Empire Against Liberty: 
 A Song for Nihiliste," has not been included with his other poems, 
 because of hie later reprobation of its spirit, but it so fitly marks 
 a stage of hie evolution that we append a portion of it here. 
 
 We have seen how his inborn and ardent love of Liberty was 
 fostered and intensified by his early associations, and by the stories 
 of the heroes which he heard at his mother's knee. It is easy, there- 
 fore, to understand his flaming indignation against the Tsarist tyranny, 
 and his passionate sympathy with the revolutionists who faced the 
 worst tortures and death in attempting to end it. He flung himself 
 into the support and championship of the latter with voice ajid pen, 
 and even thought seriously for a time of joining them, and made 
 some preparation to do so. 
 
 These feelings found powerful expression in the poem even as 
 will be seen to the advocacy of tyrannicide. 
 
 But, as time went on, Bruce became more and more convinced 
 that no violence of any kind can be of real service in preparing 
 the way to a higher form of society Violence he came to see 
 can only add new evils to those already existing. And he 
 not only repudiated certain elements in this poem, but he drew a 
 blue pencil across two of the poems addressed to his wife (" To My 
 Betrothed" and "To My War-Maiden Wife ') because of "their 
 martial clang." 
 
 In his fine Preface to " The Minstrelsy of Peace " he h&s expressed 
 his persuasion " that poetry and art derive their quality of genius 
 from ' inspiration ' or, in other words, that song (and its equivalent 
 in the artist) wells up within the poet, as within the skylark, from a 
 source beyond the seat of the reasoning faculties, and that the source 
 is itself the hidden fountain of all human wisdom and prophecy, as 
 well as of the intuitions of beauty and happiness in life." And he 
 shows at length that any glorification of war and violence is foreign, 
 and even hostile, to the true nature of poetry. 
 
 95
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Empire Against Liberty 
 
 To the Patriots Pestel, Ryelieff, Mouravieff, Bestoujeff, and 
 
 Kahoffski, executed before the Citadel, St. Petersburg, 
 
 July 25, 1826, by Tsar Nicholas. 
 
 THE dead do in the living live, and ye 
 Are leading now the sons of freedom on ! 
 The night is passing quickly, and the dawn 
 Breaks in the east the dawn of Liberty ! 
 
 Its beams are on your brows a wreath of light ! 
 But pale your cheeks your hair now whiter grown 
 Your country's sufferings have been your own 
 
 Through the long years of dark and cheerless night. 
 
 Your souls girt with a never-dying life, 
 
 Nor dungeon, nor the tomb hath quenched their fire ! 
 
 Still do they burn with freedom's fierce desire, 
 Still eager thirst for Freedom's final strife ' 
 
 I see your eyes refltct the morning's sheen 
 I see your swords gleam bright ! Oh, when shall we 
 Stand in its noontide, armourless, and see 
 
 The earth entranced in its rays serene? 
 
 Ye lead the sons of Freedom on ! they come, 
 To strike the Despot from his bloody throne, 
 To break the dungeon and the palace down, 
 
 And hail the convict and the exile home ! 
 
 Ye lead the sons of Freedom on ! they come, 
 Asserting life, and liberty, and right, 
 Against the craft of selfishness and might, 
 
 That long hath held them impotent and dumb. 
 
 Ye lead the song of Freedom on ! they come ; 
 Your words are thrilling in their hearts, a power 
 No Despot's chains can hold, nor dungeon tower, 
 
 Nor scaffold, nor the oblivion of the tomb ! 
 
 96
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Ho, Citizens of Freedom ! by that name, 
 Glorious as the sun ! I here speak forth 
 Against the Imperial Despot of the North 
 
 Against his tyranny ! Lo, I proclaim. 
 
 Humanity supreme ! above domain 
 Of Empire, Law, or Creed, or Despot's might, 
 And no king, priest, or peasant hath the right 
 
 To cause his fellowmen to suffer pain ! 
 
 Ho, Citizens of Freedom ! every man 
 Whose heart beats high for liberty and right; 
 Who feels the throb of Freedom's keen delight ; 
 
 And deems his fellow's happiness his own. 
 
 Look on the sun ! to-day he hath beheld 
 An. Empire chained its liberty and life 
 Trodden beneath a Despot's feet its strife 
 
 For Right and Freedom by oppression quell'd. 
 
 Yea, it is so, O'er Russia's vast domains, 
 One man, to gratify his power and greed, 
 Oppresses millions ! Little doth he heed 
 
 The crime and misery by which he reigns. 
 
 There Desolation spreads her frozen wings, 
 There Terror whispers in every wind, 
 There Despotism walks abroad, and blind 
 
 Destruction gluts on human sufferings. 
 
 And he the Tsar the latest of a line 
 Of blackest murderers as ever trod 
 The eai'th, is titled with the name of God; 
 
 " Lord of the Earth, Imperial, and divine !" 
 
 Reading last night a record of his crime, 
 My heart grew sick, I ceased, and murmured low : 
 " England can it be that thou dost know 
 
 That these things are and slumberest the time?" 
 
 97
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 I could not sleep, I walked out in the night 
 To cool my fev'red brow to ponder why 
 Such infamy could be. The dark blue sky 
 
 Glistened above with stars supremely bright. 
 
 Methought they gazed on me, as if to speak 
 In pity of my fellowmen who lay 
 Buried in dungeons, hidden from the day, 
 
 Tortured in fetters, weary, cold and weak. 
 
 Toiling the endless day in fulsome gloom, 
 Shivering in the damp and icy air, 
 With sickly faces, and long matted hair, 
 
 Digging like worms, the channels of their tomb. 
 
 And wherefore? Heavens! How can such things be 
 Beneath the bright sun and on this fair earth ! 
 Because against oppression, they stood forth, 
 
 And claimed the right of manhood to b free ! 
 
 Because upon the Despot who doth hold 
 His bloody sceptre dripping o'er the land 
 They dared to raise their eyes and fearless stand ; 
 
 Demanding justice manfully and bold ! 
 
 Because against the Despot whose dark throno 
 Is piled upon a mountain heap of dead, 
 They spoke out fearlessly like men and said : 
 
 " Wherefore, all our years in torture groan?" 
 
 Because they dared to say : " Shall he, one man ! 
 Trample the lives of millions year by year 
 Making the country desolate with fear, 
 
 And we not seek to stay him if we can ? 
 
 Should he who hath all human law defied 
 And revelled in his country's tears and blood;
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Yet be himself allowed to live, and shame, 
 Humanity and justice? Heavens! is there 
 No nobler Brutus now no heart will dare 
 
 With one sure blow the people's right proclaim !" 
 
 These words glowed like a furnace in my soul, 
 Boiling my being's passion o'er. " Earth, 
 The time shall be when Freedom shall go forth 
 
 A power Omnipotent from pole to pole ! 
 
 " When mankind, conscious of their manhood, shall 
 
 No longer grovel at the feet of kings, 
 
 Nor pile abundance, by their sufferings 
 To glut the Despots, who their lives enthrall. 
 
 " Lo, I am weak, yet with my heart's voice I 
 Will speak aloud in Freedom's sacred cause, 
 Against all Tyrants and tyrannic laws, 
 
 Against all servitude and cruelty." 
 
 Then rise ye freemen for your fellowmen 
 For Liberty ! and strike the Despot down ! 
 Break into fragments his blood-tarnished crown ; 
 
 Let not a relic of hia power remain ! 
 
 The hireling hordes the satraps who uphold 
 His infamy, sweep from their dens of gain 
 Those knaves and servile sycophants, who'd drain 
 
 Their brother's blood to gain a grain of gold. 
 
 Yes, with that strength that conscious right doth give 
 That thrills thro' every nerve thro' every vein ; 
 End with one blow this arch-oppressor's reign 
 
 Suffer no Tyrant on this earth to live ! 
 
 Suffer no power of man no law, no creed, 
 
 To tarnish human liberty and right ; 
 
 Guard with your heart and hand's supremest might 
 The birth-right of your being ! ye h.ave need ! 
 
 99
 
 How grand ! how glorious ! Liberty appears 
 
 VVht n struggling in the foremost front of war ! 
 When patriots around their hearts' blood pour 
 
 To gain their rights, and dry their country's tears ! 
 
 Oh, never while th light of yon bright sun 
 Gladdens the earth ! may men ignobly cease 
 To lift their swords for freedom ! Hence ! false Peace 
 
 'Twould cringe and cower beneath a Tyrant's throne ! 
 
 No ! nobler impulses shall lead the soul : 
 The love of Right th' indignant scorn of wrong ! 
 The hate of Despotism, and the strong 
 
 Impulse of Freedom, brooking no control ! 
 
 And thou Humanity ! when w shall stand 
 In the sun conquerors, we will gladly lay 
 Our swords upon thy altar, where they may 
 
 Unlifted lie until thou dost command ! 
 
 100
 
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