19
Weep not to-day: why should this sadness be?
Learn in present fears
To o’ermaster those tears
That unhindered conquer thee.
Think on thy past valour, thy future praise:
Up, sad heart, nor faint
In ungracious complaint,
Or a prayer for better days.
Daily thy life shortens, the grave’s dark peace
Draweth surely nigh,
When good-night is good-bye;
For the sleeping shall not cease.
Fight, to be found fighting: nor far away
Deem, nor strange thy doom.
Like this sorrow ’twill come,
And the day will be to-day.
[NEW]
POEMS
NEW POEMS
ECLOGUE I
THE MONTHS
BASIL AND EDWARD
Man hath with man on earth no holier bond
Than that the Muse weaves with her dreamy thread:
Nor e’er was such transcendent love more fond
Than that which Edward unto Basil led,
Wandering alone across the woody shires
To hear the living voice of that wide heart,
To see the eyes that read the world’s desires,
And touch the hand that wrote the roving rhyme.
Diverse their lots as distant were their homes,
And since that early meeting, jealous Time
Knitting their loves had held their lives apart.
But now again were these fine lovers met
And sat together on a rocky hill
Looking upon the vales of Somerset,
Where the far sea gleam’d o’er the bosky combes,
Satisfying their spirits the livelong day
With various mirth and revelation due
And delicate intimacy of delight,
As there in happy indolence they lay
And drank the sun, while round the breezy height
Beneath their feet rabbit and listless ewe
Nibbled the scented herb and grass at will.
Much talked they at their ease; and at the last
Spoke Edward thus, ’'Twas on this very hill
This time of the year,—but now twelve years are past,—
That you provoked in verse my younger skill
To praise the months against your rival song;
And ere the sun had westered ten degrees
Our rhyme had brought him thro’ the Zodiac.
Have you remembered?’—Basil answer’d back,
’Guest of my solace, how could I forget?
Years fly as months that seem’d in youth so long.
The precious life that, like indifferent gold
Is disregarded in its worth to hold
Some jewel of love that God therein would set,
It passeth and is gone.’—’And yet not all’
Edward replied: ’The passion as I please
Of that past day I can to-day recall;
And if but you, as I, remember yet
Your part thereof, and will again rehearse,
For half an hour we may old Time outwit.’
And Basil said, ’Alas for my poor verse!
What happy memory of it still endures
Will thank your love: I have forgotten it.
Speak you my stanzas, I will ransom yours.
Begin you then as I that day began,
And I will follow as your answers ran.’
JANUARY
ED. The moon that mounts the sun’s deserted way,
Turns the long winter night to a silver day;
But setteth golden in face of the solemn sight
Of her lord arising upon a world of white.
FEBRUARY
BA. I have in my heart a vision of spring begun
In a sheltering wood, that feels the kiss of the sun:
And a thrush adoreth the melting day that dies
In clouds of purple afloat upon saffron skies.
MARCH
ED. Now carol the birds at dawn, and some new lay
Announceth a homecome voyager every-day.
Beneath the tufted sallows the streamlet thrills
With the leaping trout and the gleam of the daffodils.
APRIL
BA. Then laugheth the year; with flowers the meads are bright;
The bursting branches are tipped with flames of light:
The landscape is light; the dark clouds flee above,
And the shades of the land are a blue that is deep as love.
MAY
ED. But if you have seen a village all red and old
In cherry-orchards a-sprinkle with white and gold,
By a hawthorn seated, or a witchelm flowering high,
A gay breeze making riot in the waving rye!
JUNE
BA. Then night retires from heaven; the high
winds go
A-sailing in cloud-pavilions of cavern’d snow.
O June, sweet Philomel sang thy cradle-lay;
In rosy revel thy spirit shall pass away.
JULY
ED. Heavy is the green of the fields, heavy the trees
With foliage hang, drowsy the hum of bees
In the thundrous air: the crowded scents lie low:
Thro’ tangle of weeds the river runneth slow.
AUGUST
BA. A reaper with dusty shoon and hat of straw
On the yellow field, his scythe in his armës braw:
Beneath the tall grey trees resting at noon
From sweat and swink with scythe and dusty shoon.
SEPTEMBER
ED. Earth’s flaunting flower of passion fadeth fair
To ripening fruit in sunlit veils of the air,
As the art of man makes wisdom to glorify
The beauty and love of life born else to die.
OCTOBER
BA. On frosty morns with the woods aflame, down, down
The golden spoils fall thick from the chestnut crown.
May Autumn in tranquil glory her riches spend,
With mellow apples her orchard-branches bend.
NOVEMBER
ED. Sad mists have hid the sun, the land is forlorn:
The plough is afield, the hunter windeth his horn.
Dame Prudence looketh well to her winter stores,
And many a wise man finds his pleasure indoors.
DECEMBER
BA. I pray thee don thy jerkin of olden time,
Bring us good ice, and silver the trees with rime;
And I will good cheer, good music and wine bestow,
When the Christmas guest comes galoping over the snow.
Thus they in verse alternate sang the year
For rabbit shy and listless ewe to hear,
Among the grey rocks on the mountain green
Beneath the sky in fair and pastoral scene,
Like those Sicilian swains, whose doric tongue
After two thousand years is ever young,—
Sweet the pine’s murmur, and, shepherd, sweet thy pipe,—
Or that which gentle Virgil, yet unripe,
Of Tityrus sang under the spreading beech
And gave to rustic clowns immortal speech,
By rocky fountain or on flowery mead
Bidding their idle flocks at will to feed,
While they, retreated to some bosky glade,
Together told their loves, and as they played
Sang what sweet thing soe’er the poet feigned:
But these were men when good Victoria reigned,
Poets themselves, who without shepherd gear
Each of his native fancy sang the year.
ECLOGUE II
GIOVANNI DUPRÈ
LAWRENCE AND RICHARD
LAWRENCE
Look down the river—against the western sky—
The Ponte Santa Trinità—what throng
Slowly trails o’er with waving banners high,
With foot and horse! Surely they bear along
The spoil of one whom Florence honoureth:
And hark! the drum, the trumpeting dismay,
The wail of the triumphal march of death.
RICHARD
’Twill be the funeral of Giovánn Duprè
Wending to Santa Croce. Let us go
And see what relic of old splendour cheers
The dying ritual.
LAWRENCE
They esteem him well
To lay his bones with Michael Angelo.
Who might he be?
RICHARD
He too a sculptor, one
Who left a work long to resist the years.
LAWRENCE
You make me question further.
RICHARD
I can tell
All as we walk. A poor woodcarver’s son,
Prenticed to cut his father’s rude designs
(We have it from himself), maker of shrines,
In his mean workshop in Siena dreamed;
And saw as gods the artists of the earth,
And long’d to stand on their immortal shore,
And be as they, who in his vision gleam’d,
Dowering the world with grace for evermore.
So, taxing rest and leisure to one aim,
The boy of single will and inbred skill
Rose step by step to academic fame.
LAWRENCE
Do I not know him then? His figures fill
The tympana o’er Santa Croce’s gate;
In the museum too, his Cain, that stands
A left-handed discobolos....
RICHARD
So great
His vogue, that elder art of classic worth
Went to the wall to give his statues room;
And last—his country’s praise could do no more—
He cut the stone that honoured good Cavour.
LAWRENCE
I have seen the things.
RICHARD
He, finding in his hands
His life-desire possest, fell not in gloom,
Nor froth’d in vanity: his Sabbath earn’d
He look’d to spend in meditative rest:
So laying chisel by, he took a pen
To tell his story to his countrymen,
And prove (he did it) that the flower of all,
Rarest to attain, is in the power of all.
LAWRENCE
Yet nought he ever made, that I have learn’d,
In wood or stone deserved, nay not his best,
The Greek or Tuscan name for beautiful.
’Twas level with its praise, had force to pull
Favour from fashion.
RICHARD
Yet he made one thing
Worthy of the lily city in her spring;
For while in vain the forms of beauty he aped,
A perfect spirit in himself he shaped;
And all his lifetime doing less than well
Where he profess’d nor doubted to excel,
Now, where he had no scholarship, but drew
His art from love, ’twas better than he knew:
And when he sat to write, lo! by him stood
The heavenly Muse, who smiles on all things good;
And for his truth’s sake, for his stainless mind,
His homely love and faith, she now grew kind,
And changed the crown, that from the folk he got,
For her green laurel, and he knew it not.
LAWRENCE
Ah! Love of Beauty! This man then mistook
Ambition for her?
RICHARD
In simplicity
Erring he kept his truth; and in his book
The statue of his grace is fair to see.
LAWRENCE
Then buried with their great he well may be.
RICHARD
And number’d with the saints, not among them
Who painted saints. Join we his requiem.
[ECLOGUE III]
FOURTH OF JUNE AT ETON
RICHARD AND GODFREY
RICHARD
Beneath the wattled bank the eddies swarm
In wandering dimples o’er the shady pool:
The same their chase as when I was at school;
The same the music, where in shallows warm
The current, sunder’d by the bushy isles,
Returns to join the main, and struggles free
Above the willows, gurgling thro’ the piles:
Nothing is changed, and yet how changed are we!
—What can bring Godfrey to the Muses’ bower?
GODFREY
What but brings you? The festal day of the year;
To live in boyish memories for an hour;
See and be seen: tho’ you come seldom here.
RICHARD
Dread of the pang it was, fear to behold
What once was all myself, that kept me away.
GODFREY
You miss new pleasures coveting the old.
RICHARD
They need have prudence, who in courage lack;
’Twas that I might go on I looked not back.
GODFREY
Of all our company he, who, we say,
Fruited the laughing flower of liberty!
RICHARD
Ah! had I my desire, so should it be.
GODFREY
Nay, but I know this melancholy mood:
’Twas your poetic fancy when a boy.
RICHARD
For Fancy cannot live on real food:
In youth she will despise familiar joy
To dwell in mournful shades; as they grow real,
Then buildeth she of joy her far ideal.
GODFREY
And so perverteth all. This stream to me
Sings, and in sunny ripples lingeringly
The water saith ’Ah me! where have I lept?
Into what garden of life? what banks are these,
What secret lawns, what ancient towers and trees?
Where the young sons of heav’n, with shouts of play
Or low delighted speech, welcome the day,
As if the poetry of the earth had slept
To wake in ecstasy. O stay me! alas!
Stay me, ye happy isles, ere that I pass
Without a memory on my sullen course
By the black city to the tossing seas!’
RICHARD
So might this old oak say ’My heart is sere;
With greater effort every year I force
My stubborn leafage: soon my branch will crack,
And I shall fall or perish in the wrack:
And here another tree its crown will rear,
And see for centuries the boys at play:
And ’neath its boughs, on some fine holiday,
Old men shall prate as these.’ Come see the game.
GODFREY
Yes, if you will. ’Tis all one picture fair.
RICHARD
Made in a mirror, and who looketh there
Must see himself. Is not a dream the same?
GODFREY
Life is a dream.
RICHARD
And you, who say it, seem
Dreaming to speak to a phantom in a dream.
4
ELEGY
THE SUMMER-HOUSE ON THE MOUND
How well my eyes remember the dim path!
My homeing heart no happier playground hath.
I need not close my lids but it appears
Through the bewilderment of forty years
To tempt my feet, my childish feet, between
Its leafy walls, beneath its arching green;
Fairer than dream of sleep, than Hope more fair
Leading to dreamless sleep her sister Care.
There grew two fellow limes, two rising trees,
Shadowing the lawn, the summer haunt of bees,
Whose stems, engraved with many a russet scar
From the spear-hurlings of our mimic war,
Pillar’d the portico to that wide walk,
A mossy terrace of the native chalk
Fashion’d, that led thro’ the dark shades around
Straight to the wooden temple on the mound.
There live the memories of my early days,
There still with childish heart my spirit plays;
Yea, terror-stricken by the fiend despair
When she hath fled me, I have found her there;
And there ’tis ever noon, and glad suns bring
Alternate days of summer and of spring,
With childish thought, and childish faces bright,
And all unknown save but the hour’s delight.
High on the mound the ivied arbour stood,
A dome of straw upheld on rustic wood:
Hidden in fern the steps of the ascent,
Whereby unto the southern front we went,
And from the dark plantation climbing free,
Over a valley look’d out on the sea.
That sea is ever bright and blue, the sky
Serene and blue, and ever white ships lie
High on the horizon steadfast in full sail,
Or nearer in the roads pass within hail
Of naked brigs and barques that windbound ride
At their taut cables heading to the tide.
There many an hour I have sat to watch; nay, now
The brazen disk is cold against my brow,
And in my sight a circle of the sea
Enlarged to swiftness, where the salt waves flee,
And ships in stately motion pass so near
That what I see is speaking to my ear:
I hear the waves dash and the tackle strain,
The canvas flap, the rattle of the chain
That runs out thro’ the hawse, the clank of the wind
Winding the rusty cable inch by inch,
Till half I wonder if they have no care,
Those sailors, that my glass is brought to bear
On all their doings, if I vex them not
On every petty task of their rough lot
Prying and spying, searching every craft
From painted truck to gunnel, fore and aft,—
Thro’ idle Sundays as I have watch’d them lean
Long hours upon the rail, or neath its screen
Prone on the deck to lie outstretch’d at length,
Sunk in renewal of their wearied strength.
But what a feast of joy to me, if some
Fast-sailing frigate to the Channel come
Back’d here her topsail, or brought gently up
Let from her bow the splashing anchor drop,
By faint contrary wind stay’d in her cruise,
The Phaethon or dancing Arethuse,
Or some immense three-decker of the line,
Romantic as the tale of Troy divine;
Ere yet our iron age had doom’d to fall
The towering freeboard of the wooden wall,
And for the engines of a mightier Mars
Clipp’d their wide wings, and dock’d their soaring spars.
The gale that in their tackle sang, the wave
That neath their gilded galleries dasht so brave
Lost then their merriment, nor look to play
With the heavy-hearted monsters of to-day.
One noon in March upon that anchoring ground
Came Napier’s fleet unto the Baltic bound:
Cloudless the sky and calm and blue the sea,
As round Saint Margaret’s cliff mysteriously,
Those murderous queens walking in Sabbath sleep
Glided in line upon the windless deep:
For in those days was first seen low and black
Beside the full-rigg’d mast the strange smoke-stack,
And neath their stern revolv’d the twisted fan.
Many I knew as soon as I might scan,
The heavy Royal George, the Acre bright,
The Hogue and Ajax, and could name aright
Others that I remember now no more;
But chief, her blue flag flying at the fore,
With fighting guns a hundred thirty and one,
The Admiral ship The Duke of Wellington,
Whereon sail’d George, who in her gig had flown
The silken ensign by our sisters sewn.
The iron Duke himself,—whose soldier fame
To England’s proudest ship had given her name,
And whose white hairs in this my earliest scene
Had scarce more honour’d than accustom’d been, —
Was two years since to his last haven past:
I had seen his castle-flag to fall half-mast
One morn as I sat looking on the sea,
When thus all England’s grief came first to me,
Who hold my childhood favour’d that I knew
So well the face that won at Waterloo.
But now ’tis other wars, and other men;—
The year that Napier sail’d, my years were ten—
Yea, and new homes and loves my heart hath found:
A priest has there usurped the ivied mound,
The bell that call’d to horse calls now to prayers,
And silent nuns tread the familiar stairs.
Within the peach-clad walls that old outlaw,
The Roman wolf, scratches with privy paw.