V.
The wide seas lay before us
The moon was late to rise,
The skies were starry o’er us
And Love was in our eyes;
And “like those stars, abiding,”
You whispered “Love shall be,”
Then one great star went gliding
Right down into the sea.
Since then beyond recalling
How many moons have set!
And still the stars keep falling,
But the sky is starry yet:
And I look up and wonder
If they can hear and know,
For still we walk asunder,
And that was years ago.
BELLA DONNA.
Two tear-drops of the bluest seas
Were prisoned in those laughing eyes,
And soft as wind in summer trees
The music of her low replies;
A sunbeam caught entangled there
Makes light in all her golden hair;
The wild rose where the wild bees sip
Is not so delicate as this,
And yet that little rose-curled lip
Is very poisonous to kiss,
And they were stars of wintry skies
That lit the lustre in her eyes.
And she will smile and bid you stay
And love a little at her will,
And love a little—and betray
But smile as ever sweetly still;
She knows that roses fade away,
To-morrows turn to yesterday.
She walks the smooth and easy ways
Apparelled in her queenly dress,
She hears no word that is not praise,
And ever of her loveliness;
And she will kill, that cannot hate,
Dispassionately passionate.
JOSEPH BARA.
In the year of battles, ninety-three,
In Vendée, by the westward sea,
The word was whispered—Liberty.
There was a child that would not stay,
When he watched them arm and ride away,
For the sword was bared in la Vendée.
Thirteen years, and girl-like fair,
With blue wide eyes and yellow hair—
And the word had moved him unaware.
“Mother,” he said, “if I were old,
My arm should win the young ones gold—
A boy’s life may be dearly sold.
“Mother, the hearts of the children bleed,
There are lips enough for one hand to feed,
And the youngest born have the greater need.”
In the year of battles, ninety-three,
In Vendée by the westward sea,
He rode to fight for liberty.
They wondered how his stedfast eye
Could see the strong men bleed and die,
His shrill lips shape the battle cry.
At Chollet, in the month Frimaire
They found the lion in his lair,
And long the struggle wavered there.
Till wide and scattered, man with man,
The bloody waves of battle ran,
The boy was leading in the van.
His bugle at his waist he wore,
His sword-arm pointing straight before,
And on his brow the tricolore.
Horse and rider overthrown,
Lay about him stark as stone,
The bugle boy stood all alone.
They closed about him menacing,
To strike him seemed a murderous thing;
“Take life, cry homage to the King!”
Fearless their bayonets he eyed,
The dead he loved were at his side,
And “Vive la République,” he cried.
Sword thrust and bayonet
In his young heart’s-blood met,
The groan died in his lips hard set,
And through his eyes shone life’s regret.
O’er his torn and bleeding breast
All the storm of battle pressed,—
He lay lowly with the rest.
When the bitter fight was done
There they found their little one,
Stark and staring at the sun.
Freedom, let thy banners wave,
Where he lies among the brave,
For that young fresh life he gave!
Song above the names that die
Shrine his name in memory!
IN CHARTRES CATHEDRAL.
Through yonder windows stained and old,
Four level rays of red and gold
Strike down the twilight dim,
Four lifted heads are aureoled
Of the sculptured cherubim,
And soft like sounds on faint winds blown
Of voices dying far away,
The organ’s dreamy undertone,
The murmur while they pray;
And I sit here alone, alone,
And have no word to say;
Cling closer shadows, darker yet,
And heart be happy to forget.
And now, the mystic silence—and they kneel,
A young priest lifts a star of gold,—
And then the sudden organ peal!
Ave and Ave! and the music rolled
Along the carven wonder of the choir,
Thrilled canopy and spire,
Up till the echoes mingled with the song;
And now a boy’s flute note that rings
Shrill sweet and long,
Ave and Ave, louder and more loud,
Rises the strain he sings,
Upon the angel’s wings!
Right up to God!
And you that sit there in the lowliest place,
With lips that hardly dare to move;
You with the old sad furrowed face,
Dream on your dream of love!
For you, glide down the music’s swell
The folding arms of peace,
For me wild thoughts, I dare not tell
Desires that never cease.
For you the calm, the angel’s breast,
Whose dim foreknowledge is at rest;
For me the beat of broken wings,
The old unanswered questionings.
BY THE ANNIO.
(PASTORAL.)
Here where shallows ripple by,
And the woody banks are high,
Every little wind that frets
Waves the scent of violets;
Here the greening beech has made
Such a palace of cool shade,
You and I would rather sit
Silent in the shade of it,
Seeking questions and replies
Only through each other’s eyes.
Sweet, than climb the thorny ways
Up their barren hills of praise.
In the gloom of yonder glen
Hides the crimson cyclamen,
And the tall narcissus still
Lingers near the reedy rill,
In the ooze the rushes grow
Pipes for merry lips to blow;
Here the songs that we shall sing
Shall be all of love or spring;
Here the emerald dragon-fly
Flits and stays and passes by,
While the bird that overhead
Mocked our song, grows unafraid,
Splashing till his breast be cool
At the margin of the pool.
In my hand the hand I hold
Lies more daintily than gold;
On your lips is all the praise
I would barter for my lays,
In your eyes I look to see
Witness of my sovereignty.
They that long for high estate
Turn to look for love too late,
Climbing on at last they find
Love has long been left behind;
Sweet, we do not envy these
In our riverland of trees.
Seldom feet of mortals pass
Here along the dewy grass;
Only in the loneliest spot,
Where the woodman enters not,
Spirits of these groves and springs
Make their nightly wanderings.
Never now they walk at day
Since the Satyrs fled away,
Only when the fireflies gleam
Up the winding wooded stream,
You may hear low silver tones,
Like the ripple on the stones,
Asking some familiar star
Where their olden lovers are.
Listen, listen, up above
All the branches sing of love!
When the world is tired of May,
When the springtide fades away,
When the clouds draw over head,
And the moon of love is dead,
When the joy is no more new,
Seek we other work to do!
Only while the heart is young
Let no other song be sung!
BY THE CRUCIFIX.
He tells his story with his young sad eyes,
The rags are drooping from his sunburnt breast,
He had sat down a little while to rest,
Far off the country of his longing lies;
He sits there looking at his bare bruised feet
And sees the rich man and the priest pass by,
There where the crucifix is planted high
On the grass bank outside the village street.
Beside him lies his little flageolet—
The children danced that morning when he played,
Laughed loud to hear the music that he made;—
Now the day closes and he wanders yet.
Oh, if some one of all the folk who pass,
Would turn and speak one word and hear him though,
And help! It were so small a thing to do;
And all they see him lying in the grass.
So the day ended, and the evening sun
Cast the long shadows down; he turned and saw
The crucifix blood-red, and in mute awe,
He crossed himself, and shuddered, and went on.
And then, it seemed that the pale form above
Moved slowly, lifting up the thorn-crowned head,
And the drooped eyelids opened, and he said,
“Oh, ye who make profession of your love,
“With voices echoing a hollow cry,
My name is ever on your lips, and yet
I wander wearily and ye forget,
I am as nothing to you passers by,
“I had no heed of any shame or loss,
And will ye leave me tired and homeless still
Oh, call my name by any name ye will,
But leave me not for ever on my cross!”
“UNE HEURE VIENDRA QUI TOUT PAIERA.”
It was a tomb in Flanders, old and grey,
A knight in armour, lying dead, unknown
Among the long-forgotten, yet the stone
Cried out for vengeance where the dead man lay;
No name was chiselled at his side to say
What wrongs his spirit thirsted to atone,
Only the armour with green moss o’ergrown,
And those grim words no years had worn away.
It may be haply in the songs of old
His deeds were wonders to sweet music set,
His name the thunder of a battle call,
Among the things forgotten and untold;
His only record is the dead man’s threat—
“An hour will come that shall atone for all!”
IN THE ALPS.
It is spring by now in the world, but here
The doom of winter on all the year;
A little brown bird flits to and fro,
Watching perhaps for a rift of blue
Where the mists divide and the sky looks through,
Or a crocus-bell in the half-thawed snow.
Little brown bird, have you no nest here
When winds blow cold in the long starlight?
Never a tree, and the fields so white—
And are you ever a wayfarer?
It is spring by now in the vales below,
And why do you stay in the world of snow?
IN NOTRE DAME DE....
There were two had died one day
So they told me by the way;
“One, ah well, poor soul,” they said,
“Better off that he is dead,
Such a poor man!—but the other
He was our good prefect’s brother;
Rich! And surely of great worth;—”
Both at one now—earth and earth!—
“Half the town is deep in prayer;
Round him at our Lady’s there;
But the poor man’s funeral
Is in the church outside the wall;
Aye, our Lady’s nave is wide,
Would you lay them side by side?”
So I followed both these dead;—
Where the poor man’s pall was spread,
Boarded in his box of deal,
There were only six to kneel,
And a priest that hurried through
Such quick office as would do.
Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine,
Et lux perpetua luceat ei.
Oh, but here how good to see
The great sable canopy!
All the columns shrouded o’er,
The rich curtains at the door,
And the purple velvet pall,
And the high catafalque o’er all,
Where a hundred tapers glow
On the same pale face of death below.—
All the good town’s folk are there,
Some to weep and some to stare;
Little recks he how ye weep,
Very sound he lies asleep;
Little recks he how ye pray,
For his ears are sealed alway!
Many a monk to thumb his beads,
Chant his canticles and creeds;
Aye and here with quivering lips
O’er his meagre finger-tips
Prays the priest, and all the while
Drones the deep organ thrill; and then
Along the gloomy curtained aisle,
Swells the full chant again;
Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine,
Et lux perpetua luceat ei.
Now beyond the city wall
Winds his pomp of funeral;
Feebly do those tapers flare
In the sunshine’s summer glare,
Loud above their chanting swells
The horror of the tolling bells,
Tapers burn where light is needed
For the living, not the dead!
Aye, and if your chants be heeded,
For the living be they said!
Where were all this folk who pray
When the poor man passed this way?
Long ago the spirit fled,
All of him that was of worth,
In his sojourning on earth;
Wherefore o’er a body dead,
Need long litanies be said?
Shall the jewelled cross he presses
In those bony hands of his,
Aught avail, when death caresses
With his equal mouldering kiss?
Shall the rosary they twined
Round and round his stiffened wrists,
Hold his body sanctified
From the worms, the socialists?
Gaudea sempiterna possideat!
So the two that died one day
Travelled down the selfsame way,
One in simple coffin board
Painted cross along it scored,
One with all his high estate
Graven on the silver plate,
All the pomp that he could save
To adorn him in the grave,
Lily wreaths of eucharis
To cover those poor bones of his,
From the graveyard’s mouldy sod,—
But the poor man’s soul and this
Went the same way up to God!
In Paradisum deducant te angeli,
Æternam habeas requiem!
By the sable shrouded door,
Of our Lady’s church once more!
Softly came low music floating from above,
And a voice seemed to breathe its cadence through;
“Peace, peace! Lo this we did it of our love,
There was so little we could do!”
Requiem æternam dona iis, Domine,
Et lux æterna luceat iis.