LATER POEMS
1
RECOLLECTIONS OF SOLITUDE
AN ELEGY
Ended are many days, and now but few
Remain; since therefore it is happy and true
That memoried joys keep ever their delight,
Like steadfast stars in the blue vault of night,
While hours of pain (among those heavenly spheres
Like falling meteors, the martyr's tears)
Dart their long trails at random, and anon,
Ere we exclaim, pass, and for aye are gone;
Therefore my heedy thought will oft restore
The long light-hearted days that are no more,
Save where in her memorial crypt they shine
Spangling the silent past with joy divine.
But why in dream of this enchanted mood
Should all my boyhood seem a solitude?
Good reason know I, when I wander there,
In that transmuted scene, why all is fair;
The woods as when in holiday of spring
Million buds burst, and flowers are blossoming;
The meadows deep in grass, the fields unshorn
In beauty of the multitudinous corn,
Where the strait alleys hide me, wall'd between
High bloomy stalks and rustling banners green;
The gardens, too, in dazzling hues full-blown,
With wafted scent and blazing petals strewn;
The orchards reddening thro' the patient hours,
While idle autumn in his mossy bowers{368}
Inviteth meditation to endear
The sanctuaries of the mellowing year;
And every spot wherein I loved to stray
Hath borrowed radiance of eternal day;
But why am I ever alone, alone?
Here in the corner of a field my throne,
Now in the branching chair of some tall tree
Drinking the gale in bird-like liberty;
Or to the seashore wandered in the sun
To watch the fateful waves break one by one;
Or if on basking downs supine I lie
Bathing my spirit in blue calms of the sky;
Or to the river bank am stolen by night
Hearkening unto the moonlit ripple bright
That warbles o'er the shallows of smooth stone;
Why should my memory find me all alone,
When I had such companions every day
Jocund and dear? 'Twixt glimpses of their play
'Tis a vast solitude, wherein I see
Only myself and what I came to be.
Yet never think, dear spirits, if now ye may
Remember aught of that brief earthly day,
Ere ye the mournful Stygian river crost,
From our familiar home too early lost,—
O never think that I your tears forget,
Or that I loved not well, or love not yet.
Nor ye who held my heart in passion's chain,—
As kings and queens succeed in glorious reign—
When, as a man, I made you to outvie
God's work, and, as a god, then set you by
Among the sainted throng in holiest shrine
Of mythic creed and poetry divine;
True was my faith, and still your loves endure,
The jewels of my fancy, bright and pure.{369}
Nor only in fair places do I see
The picture fair now it has ceased to be:
For fate once led me, and myself some days
Did I devote, to dull laborious ways,
By soaring thought detained to tread full low,—
Yea might I say unbeauteous paths of woe
And dreary abodes, had not my youthful sprite
Hallow'd each nook with legends of delight.
Ah! o'er that smoky town who looketh now
By winter sunset from the dark hill-brow,
Under the dying trees exultantly
Nursing the sting of human tragedy?
Or in that little room upstair'd so high,
Where London's roofs in thickest huddle lie,
Who now returns at evening to entice
To his fireside the joys of Paradise?
Once sacred was that hearth, and bright the air;
The flame of man's redemption flickered there,
In worship of those spirits, whose deathless fames
Have thrilled the stars of heaven to hear their names;
They that excell'd in wisdom to create
Beauty, with mortal passion conquering fate;
And, mid the sovran powers of elder time,
The loveliness of music and new rhyme,
The masters young that first enthrallèd me;
Of whom if I should name, whom then but thee,
Sweet Shelley, or the boy whose book was found
Thrust in thy bosom on thy body drowned?
O mighty Muse, wooer of virgin thought,
Beside thy charm all else counteth as nought;
The revelation of thy smile doth make
Him whom thou lovest reckless for thy sake;
Earthborn of suffering, that knowest well
To call thine own, and with enamouring spell{370}
Feedest the stolen powers of godlike youth
On dear imagination's only truth,
Building with song a temple of desire;
And with the yearning music of thy quire,
In nuptial sacrament of thought and sense
Hallowest for toil the hours of indolence:
Thou in thy melancholic beauty drest,
Subduest ill to serve thy fair behest,
With tragic tears, and sevenfold purified
Silver of mirth; and with extremest pride,
With secret doctrine and unfathomed lore
Remainest yet a child for evermore,
The only enchantress of the earth that art
To cheer his day and staunch man's bleeding heart.
O heavenly Muse, for heavenly thee we call
Who in the fire of love refinest all,
Accurst is he who heark'neth not thy voice;
But happy he who, numbered of thy choice,
Walketh aloof from nature's clouded plan:
For all God's world is but the thought of man;
Wherein hast thou re-formed a world apart,
The mutual mirror of his better heart.
There is no foulness, misery, nor sin,
But he who loves finds his desire therein,
And there with thee in lonely commerce lives:
Nay, all that nature gave or fortune gives,
Joys that his spirit is most jealous of,
His only-embraced and best-deserving love,
Who walketh in the noon of heavenly praise,
The troubled godhead of his children's gaze,
Wear thine eternity, and are loved best
By thee transfigured and in thee possest;
Who madest beauty, and from thy boundless store
Of beauty shalt create for evermore.
1900.
2
Gay Marigold is frolic,
She laughs till summer is done;
She hears the Grillie chirping
All day i' the blazing sun.
But when the pale moon rises,
She fain her face would hide;
For the high Queen of sorrows
Disdains her empty pride.
Fair Primrose haunts the shadow
With children of the Spring,
Till in the bloomy woodland
The nightingale will sing.
And when he lauds the May-night
And spirits throng the grove,
The moon shines thro' the branches
And floods her heart with love.
3
MATRES DOLOROSAE
Ye Spartan mothers, gentle ones,
Of lion-hearted, loving sons,
Fal'n, the flower of English youth,
To a barbarous foe in a land uncouth:—
O what a delicate sacrifice!
Unequal the stake and costly the price
As when the queen of Love deplor'd
Her darling by the wild-beast gor'd.{372}
They rode to war as if to the hunt,
But ye at home, ye bore the brunt,
Bore the siege of torturing fears,
Fed your hope on the bread of tears.
Proud and spotless warriors they
With love or sword to lead the way;
For ye had cradled heart and hand,
The commander hearken'd to your command.
Ah, weeping mothers, now all is o'er,
Ye know your honour and mourn no more:
Nor ask ye a name in England's story,
Who gave your dearest for her glory.
May 20, 1902.
4
A VIGNETTE
Among the meadows
lightly going,
With worship and joy
my heart o'erflowing,
Far from town
and toil of living,
To a holy day
my spirit giving,...
* * *
Thou tender flower,
I kneel beside thee
Wondering why God
so beautified thee.—{373}
An answering thought
within me springeth,
A bloom of the mind
her vision bringeth.
Between the dim hill's
distant azure
And flowery foreground
of sparkling pleasure
I see the company
of figures sainted,
For whom the picture
of earth was painted.
Those robèd seers
who made man's story
The crown of Nature,
Her cause his glory.
They walk in the city
which they have builded,
The city of God
from evil shielded:
To them for canopy
the vault of heaven,
The flowery earth
for carpet is given;
Whereon I wander
not unknowing,
With worship and joy
my heart o'erflowing.
1901.
5
MILLICENT
Thou dimpled Millicent, of merry guesses,
Strong-limb'd and tall, tossing thy wayward tresses,
What mystery of the heart can so surprise
The mirth and music of thy brimming eyes?
Pale-brow, thou knowest not and diest to learn
The mortal secret that doth in thee burn;
With look imploring 'If you love me, tell,
What is it in me that you love so well?'
And suddenly thou stakest all thy charms,
And leapest on me; and in thy circling arms
When almost stifled with their wild embrace,
I feel thy hot tears sheltering on my face.
1901.
6
VIVAMUS
When thou didst give thy love to me,
Asking no more of gods or men
I vow'd I would contented be,
If Fate should grant us summers ten.
But now that twice the term is sped,
And ever young my heart and gay,
I fear the words that then I said,
And turn my face from Fate away.
To bid thee happily good-bye
I have no hope that I can see,
No way that I shall bravely die,
Unless I give my life for thee.
1901.
7
One grief of thine
if truth be confest
Was joy to me;
for it drave to my breast
Thee, to my heart
to find thy rest.
How long it was
I never shall know:
I watcht the earth
so stately and slow,
And the ancient things
that waste and grow.
But now for me
what speed devours
Our heavenly life,
our brilliant hours!
How fast they fly,
the stars and flowers!
8
In still midsummer night
When the moon is late
And the stars all watery and white
For her coming wait,
A spirit, whose eyes are possest
By wonder new,
Passeth—her arms upon her breast
Enwrapt from the dew{376}
In a raiment of azure fold
With diaper
Of flower'd embroidery of gold
Bestarr'd with silver.
The daisy folk are awake
Their carpet to spread,
And the thron'd stars gazing on her make
Fresh crowns for her head,
Netted in her floating hair
As she drifteth free
Between the starriness of the air
And the starry lea,
From the silent-shadow'd vale
By the west wind drawn
Aloft to melt into the pale
Moonrise of dawn.
1910.
9
MELANCHOLIA
The sickness of desire, that in dark days
Looks on the imagination of despair,
Forgetteth man, and stinteth God his praise;
Nor but in sleep findeth a cure for care.
Incertainty that once gave scope to dream
Of laughing enterprise and glory untold,
Is now a blackness that no stars redeem,
A wall of terror in a night of cold.
Fool! thou that hast impossibly desired
And now impatiently despairest, see
How nought is changed: Joy's wisdom is attired
Splendid for others' eyes if not for thee:
Not love or beauty or youth from earth is fled:
If they delite thee not, 'tis thou art dead.
1914.
10
TO THE PRESIDENT OF MAGDALEN
COLLEGE, OXFORD
Since now from woodland mist and flooded clay
I am fled beside the steep Devonian shore,
Nor stand for welcome at your gothic door,
'Neath the fair tower of Magdalen and May,
Such tribute, Warren, as fond poets pay
For generous esteem, I write, not more
Enhearten'd than my need is, reckoning o'er
My life-long wanderings on the heavenly way:
But well-befriended we become good friends,
Well-honour'd honourable; and all attain
Somewhat by fathering what fortune sends.
I bid your presidency a long reign,
True friend; and may your praise to greater ends
Aid better men than I, nor me in vain.
11
TO JOSEPH JOACHIM
Belov'd of all to whom that Muse is dear
Who hid her spirit of rapture from the Greek,
Whereby our art excelleth the antique,
Perfecting formal beauty to the ear;
Thou that hast been in England many a year
The interpreter who left us nought to seek,
Making Beethoven's inmost passion speak,
Bringing the soul of great Sebastian near:{378}
Their music liveth ever, and 'tis just
That thou, good Joachim, so high thy skill,
Rank (as thou shalt upon the heavenly hill)
Laurel'd with them, for thy ennobling trust
Remember'd when thy loving hand is still
And every ear that heard thee stopt with dust.
12
TO THOS. FLOYD
How fares it, friend, since I by Fate annoy'd
Left the old home in need of livelier play
For body and mind? How fare, this many a day,
The stubborn thews and ageless heart of Floyd?
If not too well with country sport employ'd,
Visit my flock, the breezy hill that they
Choose for their fold; and see, for thence you may,
From rising walls all roofless yet and void,
The lovely city, thronging tower and spire,
The mind of the wide landscape, dreaming deep,
Grey-silvery in the vale; a shrine where keep
Memorial hopes their pale celestial fire:
Like man's immortal conscience of desire,
The spirit that watcheth in me ev'n in my sleep.
1906.
13
LA GLOIRE DE VOLTAIRE
A DIALOGUE IN VERSE.
A.
Je donnerais pour revivre à vingt ans
L'or de Rothschild, la gloire de Voltaire.
I like that: Béranger in his printems,
Voltaire and Rothschild: what three graces there
Foot it together! But of old Voltaire,
I'd ask what Béranger found so sublime
In that man's glory to adorn his rhyme.
Was it mere fame?
B.
Nay: for as wide a fame
Was won by the gold-garnering millionaire,
Who in the poet's verse might read his name
And what is that? when so much froth and scum
Float down the stream of Time (as Bacon saith),
What is that for deliverance from the death?
Could any sober man be proud to hold
A lease of common talk, or die consoled
For thinking that on lips of fools to come
He'll live with Pontius Pilate and Tom Thumb?
That were more like eternal punishment,
The true fool's Paradise by all consent.
Béranger thought to set a crown on merit.
A.
Man's merit! and to crown it in Voltaire?
The modest eye, the gentle, fearless heart,
The mouth of peace and truth, the angelic spirit!
Why Arouet was soufflé with the leaven,{380}
Of which the little flock was bid beware:
His very ambition was to play a part;
Indifferent whether he did wrong or right,
So he won credit; eager to deny
A lie that failed, by adding lie to lie;
Repaying evil unto seven-times-seven;
A fount of slander, flattery and spite;
Vain, irritable; true but to his face
Of mockery and mischievous grimace,
A monkey of the schools, the saints' despair!
B.
Yet for his voice half Europe stood at pause
To hear, and when he spoke rang with applause.
A.
Granted he was a wonder of his kind.
There is a devilish mockery in things
Which only a born devil can enjoy.
True banter is of melancholy mind,
Akin to madness; thus must Shakespeare toy
With Hamlet's reason, ere his fine art dare
Push his relentless humour to the quick;
And so his mortal thrusts pierce not the skin.
But for the superficial bickerings
That poison life and never seem to prick,
The reasonable educated grin,
Truly no wag is equal to Voltaire;
His never-dying ripple, wide and light,
Has nigh the force of Nature: to compare,
'Tis like the ocean when the sky is bright,
And the cold north-wind tickles with surprise
The briny levels of the infinite sea.
—Shall we conclude his merit was his wit,
His magic art and versatility?{381}
B.
And think of those foredoom'd in Dante's pit,
Who, sunk at bottom of the loathly slough,
Made the black mud up-bubble with their sighs;
And all because they were unkind to Mirth,
And went with smoky heart and gloomy brow
The while they lived upon the pleasant earth
In the sweet air that rallies to the sun,
And ne'er so much as smiled or gave God thanks:
Surely a sparkle of the Frenchman's fun
Had rescued all their souls.
A.
I think I see
The Deity who in this Heaven abides,
Le bon Dieu, holding both his aching sides,
With radiant face of Pan, ruddy and hairy:
Give him his famous whistles and goat-shanks,
And then present him to Alighieri.
B.
Nay, 'twixt the Frenchman and the Florentine
I ask no truce, grave Dante weaving well
His dark-eyed thought into a song divine,
Drawing high poetry from heaven and hell—
And him who lightly mockt at all in turn.
A.
It follow'd from his mundane thought of art
That he contemn'd religion: his concern
Was comfort, taste, and wit: he had no heart
For man's attempt to build and beautify
His home in Nature; so he set all by
That wisdom had evolved with purpose kind;{382}
Stamped it as folly, or as fraud attacked;
Never discerning how his callow zest
Was impiously defiling his own nest;
Whereas the least philosophy may find
The truths are the ideas; the sole fact
Is the long story of man's growing mind.
B.
Upon your thistle now I see my fig—
Béranger thought of Voltaire as a seer,
A latter-day John Baptist in a wig;
A herald of that furious gospel-storm
Of words and blood, that made the nations fear;
When sickening France adulterously sinn'd
With Virtue, and went mad conceiving wind.
He ranks him with those captains of reform,
Luther and Calvin; who, whate'er they taught,
Led folk from superstition to free thought.
A.
They did. But whence or whither led Voltaire?
The steward with fifty talents given in charge,
Who spent them on himself, and liv'd at large;
His only virtue that he did not hide
The pounds, but squander'd them to serve his pride;
His praise that, cunning in his generation,
He of the heavenly treasure did not spare
To win himself an earthly habitation.
B.
Deny him not this laurel, nor to France
The apostolate of modern tolerance:
Their Theseus he, who slew the Minotaur,
The Dragon Persecution, in which war
He tipp'd the shafts that made the devil bleed;{383}
And won a victory that hath overcome
Many misdoings in a well-done deed;
And more, I think, the mind of Christ revealing,
Yea, more of common-sense and human feeling
Than all the Creeds and Bulls of Christendom.
A.
Yet was he only one of them that slew:
The fiend had taken a deadly wound from Bayle;
And did he 'roar to see his kingdom fail'
'Neath Robespierre, or raise his head anew?
Nay, Voltaire's teaching never cured the heart:
The lack of human feeling blots his art.
When most his phrase with indignation burns,
Still to the gallery his face he turns.
B.
You bear him hard. Men are of common stuff,
Each hath some fault, and he had faults enough:
But of all slanderers that ever were
A virtuous critic is the most unfair.
In greatness ever is some good to see;
And what is character, unless it be
The colour of persistent qualities,
That, like a ground in painting, balances
All hues and forms, combining with one tone
Whatever lights or shades are on it thrown?
Now Voltaire had of Nature a rich ground,
Two virtues rarely in conjunction found:
Industry, which no pedant could excel,
He matched with gaiety inexhaustible;
And with heroic courage held these fast,
As sailors nail their colours to the mast,
With ruling excellence atoning all.
Though, for the rest, he still for praise may call;{384}
Prudent to gain, as generous to share
Le superflu, chose si nécessaire;
To most a rare companion above scorn,
To not a few a kind, devoted friend
Through his long battling life, which in the end
He strove with good works richly to adorn.
I have admired, and why should I abuse
A man who can so long and well amuse?
A.
To some Parisian art there's this objection,
'Tis mediocrity pushed to perfection.
B.
'Judge not,' say I, 'and ye shall not be judged!'
A.
Let me say, 'praise men, if ye would be praised:'
Let your unwholesome flattery flow ungrudged,
And with ungrudging measure shall men pour
Their stifling homage back till ye be crazed,
And sane men humour you as fools past cure.
But these wise maxims deal not with the dead,
'Tis by example that the young are led,
And judgement owes its kindness but to them;
Nor will I praise, call you me hard or nice,
One that degraded art, and varnished vice.
They that praise ill thereby themselves condemn.
B.
Béranger could not praise.
A.
Few are who can;
Not he: if ever he assay'd to impart
A title loftier than his own renown,{385}
Native irreverence defied his art,
His fingers soil'd the lustre of his crown.
Here he adored what he was envious of,
The vogue and dazzling fashion of the man.
But man's true praise, the poet's praise, is love.
B.
And that, perhaps, was hardly his affair....
Pray, now, what set you talking of Voltaire?
A.
This only, that in weeding out my shelves,
In fatherly regard for babes upgrown,
Until they learn to garden for themselves,
Much as I like to keep my sets entire,
When I came out to you I had just thrown
Three of his precious works behind the fire.
14
TO ROBERT BURNS
AN EPISTLE ON INSTINCT
1
Thou art a poet, Robbie Burns,
Master of words and witty turns,
Of lilting songs and merry yarns,
Drinking and kissing:
There's much in all thy small concerns,
But more that's missing.
2
The wisdom of thy common sense,
Thy honest hate of vain pretence,
Thy love and wide benevolence
Full often lead thee
Where feeling is its own defence;
Yet while I read thee,{386}
3
It seems but chance that all our race
Trod not the path of thy disgrace,
And, living freely to embrace
The moment's pleasure,
Snatch'd not a kiss of Nature's face
For all her treasure.
4
The feelings soft, the spirits gay
Entice on such a flowery way,
And sovran youth in high heyday
Hath such a fashion
To glorify the bragging sway
Of sensual passion.
5
But rakel Chance and Fortune blind
Had not the power:—Eternal Mind
Led man upon a way design'd,
By strait selection
Of pleasurable ways, to find
Severe perfection.
6
For Nature did not idly spend
Pleasure: she ruled it should attend
On every act that doth amend
Our life's condition:
'Tis therefore not well-being's end,
But its fruition.
7
Beasts that inherited delight
In what promoted health or might,
Survived their cousins in the fight:
If some—like Adam—
Prefer'd the wrong tree to the right,
The devil had 'em.{387}
8
So when man's Reason took the reins,
She found that she was saved her pains;
She had but to approve the gains
Of agelong inscience,
And spin it fresh into her brains
As moral conscience.
9
But Instinct in the beasts that live
Is of three kinds; (Nature did give
To man three shakings in her sieve)—
The first is Racial,
The second Self-preservative,
The third is Social.
10
Without the first no race could be,
So 'tis the strongest of the three;
Nay, of such forceful tyranny
'Tis hard to attune it,
Because 'twas never made to agree
To serve the unit:
11
Art will not picture it, its name
In common talk is utter shame:
And yet hath Reason learn'd to tame
Its conflagration
Into a sacramental flame
Of consecration.
12
Those hundred thousand years, ah me!
Of budding soul! What slow degree,
With aim so dim, so true! We see,
Now that we know them,
Our humble cave-folk ancestry,
How much we owe them:{388}
13
While with the savage beasts around
They fought at odds, yet underground
Their miserable life was sound;
Their loves and quarrels
Did well th' ideal bases found
Of art and morals:
14
One prime distinction, Good and Ill,
Was all their notion, all their skill;—
But Unity stands next to Nil;—
Want of analysis
Saved them from doubts that wreck the Will
With pale paralysis.
15
In vain philosophers dispute
'Is Good or Pleasure our pursuit?'—
The fruit likes man, not man the fruit;
The good that likes him,
The good man's pleasure 'tis to do 't;
That's how it strikes him.
16
Tho' Science hide beneath her feet
The point where moral reasonings meet,
The vicious circle is complete;
There is no lodgement
Save Aristotle's own retreat,
The just man's judgement.
17
And if thou wert not that just man,
Wild Robin, born to crown his plan,
We shall not for that matter ban
Thy petty treason,
Nor closely thy defection scan
From highest Reason.{389}
18
Thou might'st have lived like Robin Hood
Waylaying Abbots in the wood,
Doing whate'er thee-seemèd good,
The law defying,
And 'mong the people's heroes stood
Living and dying:
19
Yet better bow than his thou bendest,
And well the poor man thou befriendest,
And oftentime an ill amendest;
When, if truth touch thee,
Sharply the arrow home thou sendest;
There's none can match thee.
20
So pity it is thou knew'st the teen
Of sad remorse: the Might-have-been
Shall not o'ercloud thy merry scene
With vain repentance,
Nor forfeit from thy spirit keen
My friendly sentence.
15
THE PORTRAIT OF A GRANDFATHER
With mild eyes agaze, and lips ready to speak,
Whereon the yearning of love, the warning of wisdom plays,
One portrait ever charms me and teaches me when I seek:
It is of him whom I, remembering my young days,
Imagine fathering my father; when he, in sonship afore,
Liv'd honouring and obeying the eyes now pictur'd agaze,
The lips ready to speak, that promise but speak no more.{390}
O high parental claim, that were not but for the knowing,
O fateful bond of duty, O more than body that bore,
The smile that guides me to right, the gaze that follows my going,
How had I stray'd without thee! and yet how few will seek
The spirit-hands, that heaven, in tender-free bestowing,
Holds to her children, to guide the wandering and aid the weak.
And Thee! ah what of thee, thou lover of men? if truly
A painter had stell'd thee there, with thy lips ready to speak,
In all-fathering passion to souls enchanted newly,
—Tenderer call than of sire to son, or of lover to maiden,—
Ever ready to speak to us, if we will hearken duly,
'Come, O come unto me, ye weary and heavy-laden!'
[1880.]
16
AN INVITATION TO THE OXFORD
PAGEANT, JULY 1907
Fair lady of learning, playfellow of spring,
Who to thy towery hospice in the vale
Invitest all, with queenly claim to bring
Scholars from every land within thy pale;
If aught our pageantry may now avail
To paint thine antique story to the eye,
Inspire the scene, and bid thy herald cry
Welcome to all, and to all comers hail!
Come hither, then he crieth, and hail to all.
Bow each his heart a pilgrim at her shrine,
Whatever chance hath led you to my call,
Ye that love pomp, and ye that seek a sign,{391}
Or on the low earth look for things divine;
Nor ye, whom reverend Camus near-allied,
Writes in the roll of his ennobled pride,
Refrain your praise and love to mix with mine.
Praise her, the mother of celestial moods,
Who o'er the saints' inviolate array
Hath starr'd her robe of fair beatitudes
With jewels worn by Hellas, on the day
She grew from girlhood into wisdom gay;
And hath laid by her crozier, evermore
With both hands gathering to enrich her store,
And make her courts with music ring alway.
Love her, for that the world is in her heart,
Man's rude antiquity and doubtful goal,
The heaven-enthralling luxury of art,
The burden'd pleading of his clay-bound soul,
The mutual office of delight and dole,
The merry laugh of youth, the joy of life
Older than thought, and the unamending strife
'Twixt liberty and politic control.
There is none holier, not the lilied town
By Arno, whither the spirit of Athens fled,
Escap't from Hades to a less renown,
Yet joyful to be risen from the dead;
Nor she whose wide imperious arms were spread
To spoil mankind, until the avenger came
In darkening storm, and left a ruin'd name,
A triple crown, upon a vanquish't head.
What love in myriad hearts in every clime
The vision of her beauty calls to pray'r:
Where at his feet Himâlaya sublime
Holds up aslope the Arabian floods, or where{392}
Patriarchal Nile rears at his watery stair;
In the broad islands of the Antipodes,
By Esperanza, or in the coral seas
Where Buddha's vain pagodas throng the air;
Or where the chivalry of Nipon smote
The wily Muscovite, intent to creep
Around the world with half his pride afloat,
And sent his battle to the soundless deep;
Or with our pilgrim-kin, and them that reap
The prairie-corn beyond cold Labrador
To California and the Alaskan shore,
Her exiled sons their pious memory keep:
Bright memories of young poetic pleasure
In free companionship, the loving stress
Of all life-beauty lull'd in studious leisure,
When every Muse was jocund with excess
Of fine delight and tremulous happiness;
The breath of an indolent unbridled June,
When delicate thought fell from the dreamy moon:
But now strange care, sorrow, and grief oppress.
'Ah! fewer tears shall be,—'tis thus they dream,—
Ah, fewer, softer tears, when we lie low:
On younger brows shall brighter laurel gleam:
Lovelier and earlier shall the rosebuds blow.'
For in this hope she nurs'd them, and to know
That Truth, while men regard a tetter'd page,
Leaps on the mountains, and from age to age
Reveals the dayspring's inexhausted glow.
Yet all their joy is mingled with regret:
As the lone scholar on a neighbouring height,
Brooding disconsolate with eyelids wet
Ere o'er the unkind world he took his flight,{393}
Look'd down upon her festal lamps at night,
And while the far call of her warning bell
Reach't to his heart, sang us his fond farewell,
Beneath the stars thinking of lost delight;
'Farewell! for whether we be young or old,
Thou dost remain, but we shall pass away:
Time shall against himself thy house uphold,
And build thy sanctuary from decay;
Children unborn shall be thy pride and stay.
May Earth protect thee, and thy sons be true;
And God with heavenly food thy life renew,
Thy pleasure and thy grace from day to day.'
17
IN MEMORY OF THE OLD-ETONIANS
WHOSE LIVES WERE LOST IN THE S. AFRICAN WAR
An ode set to music by Sir Hubert Parry and performed when
K. Edward VII inaugurated the Memorial Hall at
Eton College
I
Resound! Resound! To jubilant music ring!
Your birthday trumpets sound the alarm of strenuous days.
Ye new-built walls, awake! and welcome England's King
With a high GLORY-TO-GOD, and holy cheer of praise.
Awake to fairest hope of fames unknown, unseen,
When ye-too silver and solemn with age shall be:
For all that is fair upon earth is reared with tend'rest teen,
As the burden'd years to memory flee.{394}
II
Lament, O Muse of the Thames, in pride lament again,
With low melodious grief remember them in this hour!—
Beyond your dauntless joy, my brother, was our pain.
Above all gold, my country, the lavish price of thy power—
The ancient groves have mourn'd our sons, for whom no more
The sisterly kisses of life, the loved embraces.
Remember the love of them who came not home from the war,
The fatherly tears and the veil'd faces.
III
Now henceforth their shrine is builded, high and vast,
Alway drawing noble hearts to noble deeds;
In the toil of glory to be, and the tale of glory past:
While ever the laughing waves of youth pass over the meads,
And the tongue of Hellas is heard, and old Time slumbereth light
In the cradle of Peace. O let thy dancing feet
Roam in our land and abide, dear Peace, thou child of Right,
Giver of happiness, gentle and sweet.
18
ODE TO MUSIC
WRITTEN FOR THE BICENTENARY COMMEMORATION OF
HENRY PURCELL
Music composed by Sir Hubert Parry, and performed at the
Leeds Festival and Commemoration Festival in
London, 1895
I
Myriad-voiced Queen, Enchantress of the air,
Bride of the life of man! With tuneful reed,
With string and horn and high-adoring quire
Thy welcome we prepare.
In silver-speaking mirrors of desire,{395}
In joyous ravishment of mystery draw thou near,
With heavenly echo of thoughts, that dreaming lie
Chain'd in unborn oblivion drear,
Thy many-hearted grace restore
Unto our isle our own to be,
And make again our Graces three.
II
Turn, O return! In merry England
Foster'd thou wert with infant Liberty.
Her gloried oaks, that stand
With trembling leaves and giant heart
Drinking in beauty from the summer moon,
Her wild-wood once was dear to thee.
There the birds with tiny art
Earth's immemorial cradle-tune
Warble at dawn to fern and fawn,
In the budding thickets making merry;
And for their love the primrose faint
Floods the green shade with youthful scent.
Come, thy jocund spring renew
By hyacinthine lakes of blue:
Thy beauty shall enchant the buxom May;
And all the summer months shall strew thy way,
And rose and honeysuckle rear
Their flowery screens, till under fruit and berry
The tall brake groweth golden with the year.
III
Thee fair Poetry oft hath sought,
Wandering lone in wayward thought,
On level meads by gliding streams,
When summer noon is full of dreams:
And thy loved airs her soul invade,
Haunting retired the willow shade.{396}
Or in some walled orchard nook
She communes with her ancient book,
Beneath the branches laden low;
While the high sun o'er bosom'd snow
Smiteth all day the long hill-side
With ripening cornfields waving wide.
There if thou linger all the year,
No jar of man can reach thine ear,
Or sweetly comes, as when the sound
From hidden villages around,
Threading the woody knolls, is borne
Of bells that dong the Sabbath morn.
IV
I
The sea with melancholy war
Moateth about our castled shore;
His world-wide elemental moan
Girdeth our lives with tragic zone.
He, ere men dared his watery path,
Fenced them aloof in wrath;
Their jealous brotherhoods
Sund'ring with bitter floods:
Till science grew and skill,
And their adventurous will
Challenged his boundaries, and went free
To know the round world, and the sea
From midday night to midnight sun
Binding all nations into one.
2
Yet shall his storm and mastering wave
Assure the empire to the brave;{397}
And to his billowy bass belongs
The music of our patriot songs,
When to the wind his ridges go
In furious following, careering a-row,
Lasht with hail and withering snow:
And ever undaunted hearts outride
His rushing waters wide.
3
But when the winds fatigued or fled
Have left the drooping barks unsped,
And nothing stirs his idle plain
Save fire-breathed ships with silvery train,
While lovingly his waves he layeth,
And his slow heart in passion swells
To the pale moon in heav'n that strayeth,
And all his mighty music deep
Whispers among the heapèd shells,
Or in dark caverns lies asleep;—
Then dreams of Peace invite,
Haunting our shore with kisses light:
Nay—even Love's Paphian Queen hath come
Out of her long retirèd home
To show again her beauty bright;
And twice or thrice in sight hath play'd
Of a young lover unaffray'd,
And all his verse immortal made.
V
I
Love to Love calleth,
Love unto Love replieth:
From the ends of the earth, drawn by invisible bands,
Over the dawning and darkening lands
Love cometh to Love.{398}
To the pangs of desire;
To the heart by courage and might
Escaped from hell,
From the torment of raging fire,
From the sighs of the drowning main,
From shipwreck of fear and pain,
From the terror of night.
2
All mankind by Love shall be banded
To combat Evil, the many-handed:
For the spirit of man on beauty feedeth,
The airy fancy he heedeth,
He regardeth Truth in the heavenly height,
In changeful pavilions of loveliness dight,
The sovran sun that knows not the night;
He loveth the beauty of earth,
And the sweet birds' mirth;
And out of his heart there falleth
A melody-making river
Of passion, that runneth ever
To the ends of the earth and crieth,
That yearneth and calleth;
And Love from the heart of man
To the heart of man replieth:
On the wings of desire
Love cometh to Love.
VI
I
To me, to me, fair hearted Goddess, come,
To Sorrow come,
Where by the grave I linger dumb;
With sorrow bow thine head,
For all my beauty is dead,{399}
Leave Freedom's vaunt and playful thought awhile,
Come with thine unimpassioned smile
Of heavenly peace, and with thy fourfold choir
Of fair uncloying harmony
Unveil the palaces where man's desire
Keepeth celestial solemnity.
2
Lament, fair hearted queen, lament with me:
For when thy seer died no song was sung,
Nor for our heroes fal'n by land or sea
Hath honour found a tongue:
Nor aught of beauty for their tomb can frame
Worthy their noble name.
Let Mirth go bare: make mute thy dancing string:
With thy majestic consolation
Sweeten our suffering.
Speak thou my woe; that from her pain
My spirit arise to see again
The Truth unknown that keeps our faith,
The Beauty unseen that bates our breath,
The heaven that doth our joy renew,
And drinketh up our tears as dew.
VII
DIRGE
Man born of desire
Cometh out of the night,
A wandering spark of fire,
A lonely word of eternal thought
Echoing in chance and forgot.
I
He seeth the sun,
He calleth the stars by name,{400}
He saluteth the flowers.—
Wonders of land and sea,
The mountain towers
Of ice and air
He seeth, and calleth them fair:
Then he hideth his face;—
Whence he came to pass away
Where all is forgot,
Unmade—lost for aye
With the things that are not.
2
He striveth to know,
To unravel the Mind
That veileth in horror:
He wills to adore.
In wisdom he walketh
And loveth his kind;
His labouring breath
Would keep evermore:
Then he hideth his face;—
Whence he came to pass away
Where all is forgot,
Unmade—lost for aye
With the things that are not.
3
He dreameth of beauty,
He seeks to create
Fairer and fairer
To vanquish his Fate;
No hindrance he—
No curse will brook,
He maketh a law
No ill shall be:{401}
Then he hideth his face;—
Whence he came to pass away
Where all is forgot,
Unmade—lost for aye
With the things that are not.
VIII
Rejoice, ye dead, where'er your spirits dwell,
Rejoice that yet on earth your fame is bright,
And that your names, remember'd day and night,
Live on the lips of those who love you well.
'Tis ye that conquer'd have the powers of Hell
Each with the special grace of your delight;
Ye are the world's creators, and by might
Alone of Heavenly love ye did excel.
Now ye are starry names
Behind the sun ye climb
To light the glooms of Time
With deathless flames.
IX
Open for me the gates of delight,
The gates of the garden of man's desire;
Where spirits touch'd by heavenly fire
Have planted the trees of life.—
Their branches in beauty are spread,
Their fruit divine
To the nations is given for bread,
And crush'd into wine.
To thee, O man, the sun his truth hath given,
The moon hath whisper'd in love her silvery dreams;
Night hath unlockt the starry heaven,
The sea the trust of his streams:{402}
And the rapture of woodland spring
Is stay'd in its flying;
And Death cannot sting
Its beauty undying.
Fear and Pity disentwine
Their aching beams in colours fine;
Pain and woe forgo their might.
After darkness thy leaping sight,
After dumbness thy dancing sound,
After fainting thy heavenly flight,
After sorrow thy pleasure crown'd:
O enter the garden of thy delight,
Thy solace is found.
X
To us, O Queen of sinless grace,
Now at our prayer unveil thy face:
Awake again thy beauty free;
Return and make our Graces three.
And with our thronging strength to the ends of the earth
Thy myriad-voicèd loveliness go forth,
To lead o'er all the world's wide ways
God's everlasting praise,
And every heart inspire
With the joy of man in the beauty of Love's desire.
19
A HYMN OF NATURE
AN ODE WRITTEN FOR MUSIC
The music composed by Sir Hubert Parry, performed at
the Gloucester Festival, 1898
I
Power eternal, power unknown, uncreate:
Force of force, fate of fate.
Beauty and light are thy seeing,
Wisdom and right thy decreeing,
Life of life is thy being.
In the smile of thine infinite starry gleam,
Without beginning or end,
Measure or number,
Beyond time and space,
Without foe or friend,
In the void of thy formless embrace,
All things pass as a dream
Of thine unbroken slumber.
II
Gloom and the night are thine:
On the face of thy mirror darkness and terror,
The smoke of thy blood, the frost of thy breath.
In silence and woful awe
Thy harrying angels of death
Destroy whate'er thou makest—
Makest, destroyest, destroyest and makest.
Thy gems of life thou dost squander,{404}
Their virginal beauty givest to plunder,
Doomest to uttermost regions of age-long ice
To starve and expire:
Consumest with glance of fire,
Or back to confusion shakest
With earthquake, elemental storm and thunder.
III
In ways of beauty and peace
Fair desire, companion of man,
Leadeth the children of earth.
As when the storm doth cease,
The loving sun the clouds dispelleth,
And woodland walks are sweet in spring;
The birds they merrily sing
And every flower-bud swelleth.
Or where the heav'ns o'erspan
The lonely downs
When summer is high:
Below their breezy crowns
And grassy steep
Spreadeth the infinite smile of the sunlit sea;
Whereon the white ships swim,
And steal to havens far
Across the horizon dim,
Or lie becalm'd upon the windless deep,
Like thoughts of beauty and peace,
When the storm doth cease,
And fair desire, companion of man,
Leadeth the children of earth.
IV
Man, born to toil, in his labour rejoiceth;
His voice is heard in the morn:{405}
He armeth his hand and sallieth forth
To engage with the generous teeming earth,
And drinks from the rocky rills
The laughter of life.
Or else, in crowded cities gathering close,
He traffics morn and eve
In thronging market-halls;
Or within echoing walls
Of busy arsenals
Weldeth the stubborn iron to engines vast;
Or tends the thousand looms
Where, with black smoke o'ercast,
The land mourns in deep glooms.
Life is toil, and life is good:
There in loving brotherhood
Beateth the nation's heart of fire.
Strife! Strife! The strife is strong!
There battle thought and voice, and spirits conspire
In joyous dance around the tree of life,
And from the ringing choir
Riseth the praise of God from hearts in tuneful song.
V
Hark! What spirit doth entreat
The love-obedient air?
All the pomp of his delight
Revels on the ravisht night,
Wandering wilful, soaring fair:
There! 'Tis there, 'tis there.
Like a flower of primal fire
Late redeem'd by man's desire.
Away, on wings away
My spirit far hath flown,{406}
To a land of love and peace,
Of beauty unknown.
The world that earth-born man,
By evil undismay'd,
Out of the breath of God
Hath for his heaven made.
Where all his dreams soe'er
Of holy things and fair
In splendour are upgrown,
Which thro' the toilsome years
Martyrs and faithful seers
And poets with holy tears
Of hope have sown.
There, beyond power of ill,
In joy and blessing crown'd,
Christ with His lamp of truth
Sitteth upon the hill
Of everlasting youth,
And calls His saints around.
VI
Sweet compassionate tears
Have dimm'd my earthly sight,
Tears of love, the showers wherewith
The eternal morn is bright:
Dews of the heav'nly spheres.
With tears my eyes are wet,
Tears not of vain regret,
Tears of no lost delight,
Dews of the heav'nly spheres
Have dimm'd my earthly sight,
Sweet compassionate tears.{407}
VII
Gird on thy sword, O man, thy strength endue,
In fair desire thine earth-born joy renew.
Live thou thy life beneath the making sun
Till Beauty, Truth, and Love in thee are one.
Thro' thousand ages hath thy childhood run:
On timeless ruin hath thy glory been:
From the forgotten night of loves fordone
Thou risest in the dawn of hopes unseen.
Higher and higher shall thy thoughts aspire,
Unto the stars of heaven, and pass away,
And earth renew the buds of thy desire
In fleeting blooms of everlasting day.
Thy work with beauty crown, thy life with love;
Thy mind with truth uplift to God above:
For whom all is, from whom was all begun,
In whom all Beauty, Truth, and Love are one.
POEMS
IN
CLASSICAL PROSODY
| PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS | ||
| Fp. | I. | Daniel Press. 1903. |
| " | II. | Monthly Review. July, 1903, with an abstract of Stone's Prosody, as there used. |
| No. | 3. | Printed by C. H. Daniel. 1903. |
| " | 8. | In 'Pelican,' C.C.C., Oxford. |
| " | 9. | English Review. March, 1912. |
| " | 21. | New Quarterly. Jan. 1909, with an essay on the Virgilian Hexameter, &c. |
These experiments in quantitive verse were made in fulfilment of a promise to William Johnson Stone that I would some day test his theory. His premature death converted my consent into a serious obligation. This personal explanation is due to myself for two reasons: because I might otherwise appear firstly as an advocate of the system, secondly as responsible for Stone's determination of the lengths of English syllables. Before writing quantitive verse it is necessary to learn to think in quantities. This is no light task, and a beginner requires fixed rules. Except for a few minor details, which I had disputed with Mr. Stone, I was bound to take his rules as he had elaborated them; and it was not until I had made some progress and could think fairly well in his prosody that I seriously criticized it. The two chief errors that I find in it are that he relied too much on the quality of a vowel in determining its syllabic length, and that he regarded the h as always consonantal in quality. His valuation of the er sound is doubtful, but defensible and convenient, and I have never discarded it. My earlier experiments contain therefore a good many 'false quantities', and these, where they could not be very easily (though inconsistently) amended, I have left, and marked most of them in the text: a few false quantities do not make a poem less readable. Thus a long mark over a syllable means that Stone reckoned it as long, and that the verse requires it to be so pronounced, but that I regard it as short, or at least as doubtful. For example on p. 414 Rūin is thus written. Of all accented long vowels in 'open' position the long u seems perhaps to retain its quantity best, but there is evidence that Tennyson held it to be shortened, and I do not know whether it might be an exception or go with thĕory, pĭety, pŏetry, &c. Again, where a final syllable should be lengthened or not shortened by position, but lacks its consonantal support, I have put av in the gap: these weak places are chiefly due to my accepting Stone's unchanging valuation of h. My emancipation from Stone's rules was gradual, so that I have not been able to distinguish definitely my earlier experiments from the later, in which the quantities are such as I have now come to approve of: but my line-for-line paraphrase of Virgil is such a later experiment. It was accompanied in the New Quarterly by a long examination of the Virgilian hexameter, to which I would refer any one who is interested in the subject. In these English hexameters I have used and advocate the use of Miltonic elision. The mark ' in the text shows where I have purposely allowed a short syllable to sustain a long place. Though the difficulty of adapting our English syllables to the Greek rules is very great, and even deterrent—for I cannot pretend to have attained to an absolutely consistent scheme—yet the experiments that I have made reveal a vast unexplored field of delicate and expressive rhythms hitherto unknown in our poetry: and this amply rewarded me for my friendly undertaking.
1
EPISTLE I
TO L. M.
WINTRY DELIGHTS
Now in wintry delights, and long fireside meditation,
'Twixt studies and routine paying due court to the Muses,
My solace in solitude, when broken roads barricade me
Mudbound, unvisited for months with my merry children,
Grateful t'ward Providence, and heeding a slander against me
Less than a rheum, think of me to-day, dear Līonel, and take
This letter as some account of Will Stone's versification.
We, whose first memories reach half of a century backward,
May praise our fortune to have outliv'd so many dangers,—
Faultiness of Nature's unruly machinery or man's—; 10
For, once born, whatever 'tis worth, LIFE is to be held to,
Its mere persistence esteem'd as rēal attainment,
Its crown of silver reverenc'd as one promise of youth
Fruiting, of existence one needful purpose accomplish'd:
And 'twere worth the living, howe'er unkindly bereft of
Those joys and comforts, throu' which we chiefly regard it:
Nay,—set aside the pleasant unhinder'd order of our life,
Our happy enchantments of Fortune, easy surroundings,
Courteous acquaintance, dwelling in fair homes, the delight of
Long-plann'd excursions, the romance of journeying in lands
Historic, of sēeing their glory, the famous adornments 21
Giv'n to memorial Earth by man, decorator of all-time,
(—As wē saw with virginal eyes travelling to behold them,—)
Her gorgeous palaces,vher tow'rs and stately cathedrals;
Where the turrets and domes of pictured Tuscany slumber,{412}
Or the havoc'd splendours of Rome imperial, or where
Glare the fretted minarets and mosks of trespassing Islam,
And old Nilus, amid the mummied suzerainty of Egypt,
Glideth, a godly presence, consciously regardless of all things,
Save his unending toil and ēternal recollections:— 30
Set these out of account, and with them too put away ART,
Those ravishings of mind, those sensuous intelligences,
By whose grace the elect enjoy their sacred aloofness
From Life's meagre affairs, in beauty's rēgenerate youth
Reading immortality's sublime revelation, adoring
Their own heav'nly desire; nor alone in worship assist they,
But take, call'd of God, part and pleasure in crēation
Of that beauty, the first of His first purposes extoll'd:—
Yea, set aside with these all Nature's beauty, the wildwood's
Flow'ry domain, the flushing, softcrowding loveliness of Spring, 40
Lazy Summer's burning dīal, the serenely solemn spells
Of Sibylline Autumn, with gay-wing'd Plenty departing;
All fair change, whether of seasons or bright recurrent day,
Morning or eve; the divine night's wonderous empyrean;
High noon's melting azure, his thin cloud-country, the landscape
Mountainous or maritime, blue calms of midsummer Ocean,
Broad corn-grown champaign goldwaving in invisible wind,
Wide-water'd pasture, with shade of whispering aspen;
All whereby Nature winneth our love, fondly appearing
As to caress her children, or all that in exaltation 50
Lifteth aloft our hearts to an unseen glory beyond her:—
Put these out of account; yea, more I say, banish also
From the credit sŭm of enjoyment those simple AFFECTIONS,
Whose common exercise informs our natural instinct;
That, set in our animal flesh-fabric, of our very lifeblood
Draw their subsistence, and even in ungenerous hearts{413}
Root, like plants in stony deserts and 'neath pitiless snows.
Yea, put away all Love, the blessings and pīetiesvof home,
All delicate heart-bonds, vital tendernesses untold,
Joys that fear to be named, feelings too holy to gaze on; 60
And with his inviolate peace-trīumph his passionate war
Be forgone, his mighty desire, thrilling ecstasies, ardours
Of mystic reverence, his fierce flame-eager emotions,
Idolatrous service, blind faith and ritual of fire.
If from us all these things were taken away, (that is all art
And all beauty whate'er, and all love's varied affection,)
Yet would enough subsist in other concerns to suffice us,
And feed intelligence, and make life's justification.
What this is, if you should ask me, beyond or above the rejoicing
In vegetant or brute existence, answer is easy; 70
'Tis the reflective effort of mind that, conscious of itself,
Fares forth exploring nature for principle and cause,
Keenly with all the cunning pleasure and instinct of a hunter,
Who, in craft fashioning weapon and sly snare, tracketh after
His prey flying afield, and that which his arm killeth eateth.
History and SCIENCE our playthings are: what an untold
Wealth of inexhaustive treasure is stored up for amusement!
Shall the amass'd Earth-structure appeal to me less than in early
Childhood an old fives-ball, whose wraps I wondering unwound,
Untwining the ravel'd worsted, that mere rubbish and waste
Of leather and shavings had bound and moulded elastic 81
Into a perfect sphere? Shall not the celestial earth-ball
Equally entertain a mature enquiry, reward our
Examination of its contexture, conglomerated
Of layer'd débris, the erosion of infinite ages?
Tho' I lack the wizard Darwin's scīentific insight
On the barren sea-beaches of East Patagonia gazing,{414}
I must wond'ring attend, nay learn myself to decipher
Time's rich hīeroglyph, with vast elemental pencil
Scor'd upon Earth's rocky crust,—minute shells slowly collecting 90
Press'd to a stone, uprais'd to a mountain, again to a fine sand
Worn, burying the remains of an alien organic epoch,
In the flat accretions of new sedimentary strata;
All to be crush'd, crumpled, confused, contorted, abandon'd,
Broke, as a child's puzzle is, to be recompos'd with attention;
Nature's history-book, which shē hath torn as asham'd of;
And lest those pictures onvher fragmentary pages
Should too lightly reveal frustrate Antiquity, hath laid
Rūin upon rūin, revolution upon revolution:
Yet no single atom, no least insignificant grain 100
But, having order alike of fate, and faulty disorder,
Holds a record of Time, very vestiges of the Creation;
Which who will not attend scorns blindly the only commandments
By God's finger of old inscribed on table of earth-stone.
This for me wer' enough: yet confin'd Gēology's field
Counts not in all Scīence more than the planet to the Cosmos;
Where our central Sun, almighty material author,
And sustainer, appears as a half-consumed vanishing spark,
Bearing along with it, entangled in immensity's onward
Spiral eddies, the blacken'd dust-motes whirl'd off from around it. 110
But tho' man's microscopical functions measure all things
By his small footprints, finger-spans and ticking of clocks,
And thereby conceive the immense—such multiple extent
As to defy Idēas of imperative cerebration,—
None the less observing, measuring, patiently recording,
Hē mappeth out the utter wilderness of unlimited space;
Carefully weigheth a weight to the sun, reckoneth for it its path
Of trackless travelling, the precise momentary places{415}
Of the planets and their satellites, their annual orbits,
Times, perturbations of times, and orbit of orbit. 120
What was Alexander's subduing of Asia, or that
Sheep-worry of Europe, when pigmy Napoleon enter'd
Her sovereign chambers, and her kings with terror eclips'd?
His footsore soldiers inciting across the ravag'd plains,
Thro' bloody fields of death tramping to an ugly disaster?
Shows any crown, set above the promise (so rudely accomplisht)
Of their fair godlike young faces, a glory to compare
With the immortal olive that circles bold Galileo's
Brows, the laurel'd halovof Newton's unwithering fame? 129
Or what a child's surmise, how trifling a journey Columbus
Adventur'd, to a land like that which he sail'd from arriving,
If compar'd to Bessel's magic divination, awarding
Magnificent Siriusvhis dark and invisible bride;
Or when Adams by Cam, (more nearly Leverrier in France,)
From the minutely measur'd vacillation of Uranus, augur'd
Where his mighty brother Neptune went wandering unnamed,
And thro' those thousand-million league-darknesses of space
Drew him slowly whene'er he pass'd, and slowly released him!
Nil admirari! 'Tis surely a most shabby thinker 139
Who, looking on Nature, finds not the reflection appalling
And if these wonders we must with wonder abandon,
Astronomy's Cosmos, the Immense, and those physical laws
That link mind to matter, laws mutual in revelation,
Which measure and analyse Nature's primordial orgasm,
Lifegiving omnipotential Light, its speed to determine,
Untwist its rainbow of various earthcoloring rays,
Counting strictly to each its own millionth-millimetred
Wave-length, and mapping out on fray'd diffraction of ether
All the adust elements and furnaced alchemy ofvheav'n;
Laws which atone the disorder of infinit observation 150
With tyrannous numbers and abstract theory, closing{416}
Protean Nature with nets of principle exact;
Her metamorphoses transmuting by correlation,
All heat, all chemical concourse or electrical action,
All force and all motion of all matter, or subtle or gross:—
If we these wonders, I say, with wonder abandon,
Nor can for mental heaviness their high study pursue,
Yet no story of adventures or fabulous exploit
Of famous'd heroes hath so rōmantic a discourse,
As these growing annals of long heav'n-scaling achievement
And far discoveries, which he whovidly neglecteth 161
Is but a boor as truly ridiculous as the village clown,
In whose thought the pleasant sun-ball performeth a circuit
Daily above mother earth, and resteth nightly beneath her.
Nor will a man, whose mind respects its own operations,
Lightly resign himself to remain in darkness uninform'd,
While any true scīence of fact lies easy within reach
Concerning Nature's ēternal essential object,
Self-matter, embodying substratum of ev'ry relation
Both of Time and Space, at once the machinery and stuff
Of those Idēas; carrier, giver, only receiver 171
Of such perceptions as arise in sensible organs.
Now whether each element is a cōherency of equal
Strictly symmetric atoms, or among themselves the atoms are
Like animals in a herd, having each an identity distinct,
—So that atoms of gold compar'd with sulphur or iron
Are but as ancient Greeks compar'd with Chinamen and Turks;—
Nor whether all elements are untransmutable offspring
From one kind or more thro' endless eternity changing,
Or whether invisibles claim rightly the name of immortals,
I make novenquiry; matter minutely divided 181
Showing a like paradox, with ever-continuous extent,
And, as Adam, the atom will pose as a naked assumption:—
But since all the knowledge which man was born to attain to
Hath these only channels, (which must limit and qualifyvit,){417}
We shall con the grammar, the material alphabet of life,
Yea, ev'n more from error to preserve our inquisitive mind,
Than to secure well-bēing against adversity and ill.
Surely if all is a flux, 'tis well to look into the flūid,
Inspect and question the apparent, shifty behaviour, 190
Wherein lurketh alone our witness of all physical law,
As we read the habits unchanging of invisible things,
Their timeless chronicles, the unintelligent ethic of dust:
In which dense labyrinth he who was guiding avised me,
With caution saying 'Were this globe's area of land
Wholly cover'd from sight, pack'd close to the watery margins
With mere empty vessels, I could myself put in each one
Some different substance, and write its formula thereon.'
Thus would speak the chemist; and Nature's superabundance,
Her vast infinitude of waste vāriety untold, 200
Asvher immense extent and inconceivable object,
Squandering activities throughout ēternity, dwarfeth
Man's little aim and hour, his doubtful fancy: what are we?
Our petty selfseekings, our speedily passing affections?
Life having existed so extravagantly before us;
Earth bearing so slight a regard or care for us; and all
After us unconcern'd to remain, strange, beautiful as now.
May not an idle echovof an antique pōetry haunt me,
'Friendship is all feigning, yeavall loving is folly only'?
—Yet doth not very mention of antique pōetry and love 210
Quickly recall to better motions my dispirited faith?
And I see man's discontent as witness asserting
His moral idēal, that, born of Nature, is heir to
Her children's titles, which nought may cancel or impugn;
Not wer' of all her works man least, but ranking among them
Highly or ev'n as best, he wrongs himself to imagine
His soul foe to her aim, or fromvher sanction an outlaw.{418}
Nay, but just as man should appear more fully accordant
With things not himself, would they rank withvhim as equals:
Judging other creatures he sets them wholly beneath him;
His disquīet among manifold and alien objects 221
Bēing sure evidence, the effect of an understanding,
And perception allow'd by Nature solely to himself.
Highly then is to be prais'd the resourceful wisdom of our time,
That spunged out the written science and thēories of life,
And, laying foundation of its knowledge in physical law,
Gave it prēeminence o'er all enquiry, erecting
Superstructive of all, bringing ev'ry research to the object,
Boldly a new scīence of MAN, from dreamy scholastic
Imprisoning set free, and inveterate divination, 230
Into the light of truth, to the touch of history and fact.
Since 'the proper study of mankind is man',—nor aforetime
Was the proverb esteem'd as a truism less than it is now,—
'Tis strange that the method lay out of sight unaccomplisht,
And that we, so late to arrive, should first set a value
On the delusive efforts of human babyhood; and so
Witnessing impatiently the rear of their disappearance,
Upgathering the relics and vestiges of primitive man,
Should ratifyvinstinct for scīence, look to the darkness
For light, find a knowledge where 'twas most groping or unknown: 240
While civilization's advances mutely regarding
Talk we of old scapegoats, discuss bloodrites, immolations,
Worship of ancestors; explain complexities involved
Of tribal marriages, derivation of early religions,
Priestly taboos, totems, archaic mysteries of trees,
All the devils and dreams abhorr'd of barbarous ages.
And 'tis a far escape from wires, wheels and penny papers
And the worried congestion of our Victorian era,{419}
Whose many inventions of world-wide luxury have changed
Life's very face:—but enough wē hear of progress, enough have 250
Our conscious scīence and comforts trumpeted; altho'
Hardly can I, who so many years eagerly frequented
Bartholomew's fountain, not speak of things to awaken
Kind old Hippocrates, howe'er hē; slumbereth, entomb'd
'Neath the shatter'd winejars and rūined factories of Cos,
Or where hē wander'd in Thessalian Larissa:
For when his doctrine, which Rome had wisely adopted,
Sank lost with the treasures ofvher deep-foundering empire,
Novart or scīence grew so contemptible, order'd 259
So by mere folly, windy caprice, superstition and chance,
As boastful Medicine, with humours fit for a madhouse,
Save when some Sydenham, like Samson among the Philistines,
Strode bond-bursting along with a smile of genial instinct.
Nor when here and there some ray, in darkness arising,
Hopefully seem'd to herald the coming dawn, (as when a Laennec
Or Jenner invented his meed of worthy remembrance,)
Did one mind foresee, one seer foretell the appearance
Of that unexpected daylight that arose upon our time.
Who dream'd that living air poison'd our SURGERY, coating
All our sheeny weapons with germs of an invisible death, 270
Till he saw the sterile steel work with immunity, and save
Quickly as its warring scimitars of victory had slain?
Saw what school-tradition for nature's kind method admir'd,
—In those lifedraining slow cures and bedridden agues,—
Forgotten, or condemn'd as want of care in a surgeon?
Tho' Medicine makes not so plain an appeal to the vulgar,
Yet she lags not a whit: her pregnant thēory touches
Deeper discoveries,vher more complete revolution
Gives promise of wider benefits in larger abundance.
Where she nam'd the disease she now separates the bacillus; 280{420}
Sets the atoms of offence, those blind and sickly bloodeaters,
'Neath lens and daylight, forcing their foul propagations,
Which had ever prosper'd in dark impunity unguest,
Now to behave in sight, deliver their poisonous extract
And their strange self-brew'd, self-slaying juice to be handled,
Experimented upon, set aside and stor'd to oppose them.
So novel and obscure a research, such hard revelations
Of Nature's cabinet,—tho' with fact amply accordant,
And by hypothesis much dark difficulty resolving,
Are not quickly receiv'd nor approv'd, and sensitive idlers,
Venturing in the profound terrible penetralia of life, 291
Are shock'd byva method that shuns not contamination
With crūel Nature's most secret processes unmaskt.
And yet in all mankind's disappointed history, now first
Havevhis scouts push'd surely withinvhis foul enemies' lines,
And his sharpshooters descried their insidious foe,
Those swarming parasites, that barely within the detection
Of manifold search-light, have bred, swimming unsuspected
Thro' man's brain and limbs, slaying with loathly pollution
His beauty's children,vhis sweet scīons of affection, 300
In fev'rous torment and tears, his home desolating
Of their fair innocence, breakingvhis proud passionate heart,
And his kindly belief in God's good justice arraigning.
With what wildly directed attack, what an armory illjudged,
Has he, (alas, poor man,) with what cumbrous machination
Sought to defend himself from their Lilliputian onslaught;
Aye discharging around him, in obscure night, at a venture,
Ev'ry missile whichvhis despair confus'dly imagin'd;
His simples, compounds, specifics, chemical therapeutics,
Juice of plants, whatever was nam'd in lordly Salerno's 310
Herbaries and gardens, vipers, snails, all animal filth,
Incredible quackeries, the pretentious jugglery of knaves,
Green electricities, saints' bones and priestly anointings.
Fools! that oppose his one scīentific intelligent hope!
Grant us an hundred years, and man shall hold in abeyance
These foul distempers, and with this world's benefactors{421}
Shall Pasteur obtain the reward of saintly devotion,
His crown hēroic, who fought not destiny in vain.
'Tis success that attracts: 'twas therefore so many workers
Ran pellmell to the schools of Nature in our generation, 320
While other employments have lack'd their genius and pined.
Our fathers' likings wē thought semibarbarous, our art
Self-consciously sickens in qualms of an æsthetic aura,
Noisily in the shallows splashing and disporting uninspir'd.
Our famed vulgarities whether in speech, taste or amusement,
Are not amended: Is it foolish, hoping for a rescue,
First to appeal to the strong, for health to the healthy amongst us?
—For the Sophists' doctrine that Grace is dying of old age
I hold in derision, their inkpot thēories of man,
Of his cradle of art, his deathbed of algebra;—and see 330
How Scīence has wrought, since we went idling at Eton,
One thing above surmise:—An' if I may dare to remind you
How Vergil praises your lov'd Lucretius, (of whom
My matter and metrevhave set you thinking, as I fear,)
In that glory which ends 'et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis avari':
Sounded not most empty to us such boast of a pagan,
Strangely to us tutor'd to believe, with faith mediæval,
Torture everlasting to be justly the portion of all souls,
Nor but by the elects' secret prēdestiny escaped? 340
If you think to reply,—making this question in answer,—
'Did the belief disturb for a moment our pleasure in life?'
No.—And men gather in harvest on slopes of an active
Volcano: natheless the terror's ēnormity was there;
Now 'tis away: Scīence has pierced man's cloudy common-sense,
Dow'rd his homely vision with more expansive an embrace,
And the rotten foundation of old superstition exposed.
That trouble of Pascal, those vain paradoxes of Austin,
Those Semitic parables of Paul, those tomes of Aquinas,{422}
All are thrown to the limbo of antediluvian idols, 350
Only because we learn mankind's true history, and know
That not at all from a high perfection sinfully man fell,
But from baseness arose: We have with sympathy enter'd
Those dark caves, his joyless abodes, where with ravening brutes,
Bear or filthy hyena, he once disputed a shelter:—
That was his Paradise, his garden of Eden,—abandon'd
Ages since to the drift and drip, the cementing accretions
Whence we now separate his bones buried in the stalagma,
His household makeshifts, his hunting tools, his adornments,
From the scatter'd skeletons of a lost prehistoric order, 360
Its mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, the machairodos, and beasts
Whose unnamed pastures the immense Atlantic inundates.
In what corner of earth lie not dispersed the familiar
Flinty relics of his old primitive stone-cutlery? what child
Kens not now the design, the adapted structure of each one
Of those hand-labor'd chert-flakes, whether axe, chisel, or knife,
Spearhead, barb of arrow, rough plane or rudely serrate saw?
Stones that in our grandsires' time told no sermon, (awaiting
Indestructible, unnumber'd, on chary attention,)
From their prēadamite pulpits now cry Revelation. 370
Not to a Greek his chanted epic had mortal allurement,
Conjuring old-world fancies of Ilium and of Olympus,
As this story to me, this tale primæval of unsung,
Unwritten, ancestral fate and adversity, this siege
Of courage and happiness protracted so many thousand
Thousand years in a slow persistent victory of brain
And right hand o'er all the venom'd stings, sharpnesses of fang
And dread fury whate'er Nature, tirelessly devising,
Could develop with tooth, claw, tusk, or horn to oppose them.
See now Herakles, who strangled snakes when an infant 380
Invhis cradle alone; and nought but those petty stonechips{423}
For the battle: 'twas wonder above wonders his achievement:
Yea, and since he thought as a child 'twas natural invhim,
Meeting in existence with purposes antagonistic,
Circumstances oppos'd to desire, vast activities, which
Thwarted effort, to assume All-might as spiteful against him.
Nay, as an artist born, impell'd to devise a religion,—
So to relate himself idēally with the immortal,—
This quarrel of reason with what displeas'd his affections
Was not amiss. The desire and love of beauty possess man:
Art is of all that beauty the best outwardly presented; 391
Truth to the soul is merely the best that mind can imagine.
No lover ēternal will hold to an older opinion
If but lovelier ideas, with Nature agrēeing,
Are to his understanding offer'd.... But enough: 'tis an unsolv'd
Mystery.—Yet man dreams to flattervhis dēity saying
'Beautiful is Nature!' rather 'tis various, endless,
And her efforts fertile in error tho' grand in attainment.
If wé, while praisingvher scheme and infinite order,
Are compell'd to select, our choice condemns the remainder;
Nor can wisdom honour those loathly polluting offences, 401
Whose very names to the Muse are either accursèd or unknown.
Nay, if such foul things thou deemest worthy, the fault was
Making us, O Nature, thy judge and tearful accuser.
Turn our thought for awhile to the symphonies of Beethoven,
Or the rever'd preludes of mighty Sebastian; Is there
One work of Nature's contrivance beautiful as these?
Judg'd by beauty alone man wins, as sensuous artist;
And for other qualities, the spirit's differentia, Nature
Scarce observes them at all: that keen unfaltering insight, 410
Wherebyvearthly desire's roaming wildernesses are changed
Into a garden a-bloom; its wandering impossible ways
Into pillar'd avenues, alleys and fair-flow'ry terrac'd walks,
(Where God talks with man, as once 'twas fancied of Eden;)
That transcendental supreme interpreting of sense,{424}
Rendering intelligence passionate with mystery, linking
Sympathy with grandeur, the reserve of dignity with play;
Those soul-formalities, the balance held 'twixt the denīal
And the betrayal of intention, whose masteries invite,
Entice, welcome ever, meet, and with kindliness embrace; 420
Those guarded floodgates of boundless, lovely resources,
Whence nothing ill issues, no distraction nor abortion
Hindering enjoyment, but in easy security flow forth
Ecstasies of fitness, raptures and harmonies of heav'n.
Surely before such work of man, so kindly attemper'd,
Nature must be asham'd, had shē not this ready answer,
'Fool, and who made thee?'—
I shall not seem a deserter,
Where in an idle essay my verse to a fancy abandon'd
Praiseth others: rather while art and beauty delight us,
While hope, faith and love are warm and lively in our hearts,
Sweet our earthly desire and dear our human affection, 431
We may, joyfully despising the pedantries of old age,
Hold to the time, nor lose the delight of mortal attainment;
Keenly rejoicing in all that wisdom approves, nor allowing
Ourselves at the challenge of younger craft to be outsailed;
But trimming our old canvas in all change of weather and wind,
Freely without fear urge o'erseas our good vessel onward,
Piloting into the far, unmapp'd futurity.—Farewell.
2
EPISTLE II
TO L. M.
TO A SOCIALIST IN LONDON
Novethical system, no contemplation or action,
No reason'd attitude of mind nor principle of faith,
Neither Sōcratical wisdom nor saintly devotion,
Buildeth a fortress against heart-ache & compassionate grief,
Nor responds to desire, nor with true mastery yieldeth
Easy repose to the mind; And since all our study endeth
Emptily in full doubt,—fathoming the divine intention
In this one thing alone, that, howsōe'er it affect us,
'Twas never intended for mortal fancy to compass,—
Ivhave concluded that from first purposes unknown 10
None should seek to deduce idēal laws to be liv'd by;
And, loving art, am true to the Muse, & pōetry extol:
Therefore 'twas that afore I prais'd & heartily enjoy'd
Your human verses, Fraser, when nobody bought them,
More than again I praise those serious exhortations,
Wherewith you wu'd amend the degraded people about you.
Nay tho' like a prophet with heav'n-sent dignity inspir'd,
With ready convincement and stern example assuring,
Mightily you proclaim your love-messag' in the assembly,
Exhibiting panacēas of ancient ill, propagating 20
Out of a Scotch cerebrum the reforming zeal of a Tolstoi,
I listen all unmov'd, as a sceptic among the believers.
Yet what a charm has an earnest soul, whom sympathy uncheckt
For human suffering has strengthen'd and dedicated
Bravely to serve his kind, to renounce his natural instinct,
And liv' apart, indulging in acts of mercy, delighted
In wisdom's rock-hewn citadelvher law to illustrate,
Embodying the pattern of self-integrity complete.{426}
Yea, what a charm pervades discourse, that loftily reason'd
Points the narrow pathway throu' this world's ugly disorder;
How very fair will appear any gate of cleanliness, open 30
From the city's tumult, its rank impurity, its dread
Vulgarity's triumph: Nay sure & bounteous as Truth,
Beautiful in confusion appeareth Simplicity's way.
—'Simple it is, (yóu say) God is good,—Nature is ample,—
'Earth yields plenty for all,—and all might share in abundance,
'Were profit and labour but fairly divided among them.
'Scarce any laws are needed in our Utopia but these,—
'No fruitless labour to provide mere useless adornment,
'No money encouraging man's sloth & slavery, no rents 40
'Of titeld landlords, no pamper'd luxury breeding
'Fleshly disease, worst fiend & foe of mind body and soul;
'All should work, and only produce life's only requirements:
'So with days all halfholidays, toil healthfully enjoy'd,
'Each might, throu' leisure hours of amusement pīety and peace,
'In the domestic joys & holy community partake.—'
—This wer' a downleveling, my friend; yoū need, to assure me,
Fix a limit to the folk; else, as their number is increas't,
Their happiness may dwindle away, & what was at outset
Goal & prize, the provoker of all your wise revolution, 50
Will by subdivision disappear in course of atainment.
When goods arevincreas'd, mouths arevincreas'd to devour them:
If the famine be reliev'd this season in India, next dearth
Will be a worse. Yoū know how one day Herschel acosted
Súch a philanthropical Save-all, who claimed to acomplish
Some greatest happiness for a greatest number; 'Attend, man;
(Saíd-he) Resólve me anon one query: Suppose Adam and Eve
First crēated on Earth but twice ten centuries ere Christ,{427}
That they gat four children in all, who liv'd, getting also
Four to the pair: Had thus mankind ever equaly increast 60
By moderate families but doubling in each generation,
How many souls would now be alive to revise the conundrum
Of greatest happiness? Novanswer? Well, 'tis a long sum.
Say if on earth such a crowd could stand. No? Pray then imágine
All earth's land as a plain, & all this company thereon,
Piled together like peas in a pintpot: How many layers?
No guess? Then how high the column? How far wu'd it extend
Into the sky?—To the moon?—Further—To the sun?—To the sun! Pshaw!
That column of happy men would reach up, as I fathom its height,
Million dīameters of Neptune's infinit' orbit.' 70
Myvobjection annoys your kindly philanthropy?—'It proves
'Too much.'—Yes nature shows in that scrutiny bankrupt;
Mere matter in deposit gives out. Yóu wish to determine
No limit of future polities: your actual object
Is to relieve suffering, to repeal injustice acruing
From monied inheritance, which makes a nonentity potent
For public mischief, who might, if usefully harness'd
In common employment, have assisted social order.
Why should Law give fifty talents where Nature alloys one?
For money is the talent of supreme empery: Gold, Gold 80
Envieth all, getteth all, absorbeth, mastereth all things:
It pusheth out & thrusteth away pitilessly the weak ones,
Those ill-fated, opprest, unfortun'd needy: Beneath them
Yawns the abyss. Down down they fall, as a stream on a mountain,
With ceaseless cataract. None hearkeneth; only the silent
Grave, that darkly devours their cry of desperate anguish.
Spáre me the story; believe more feel this grief than avow it:{428}
'Tis put aside from thought with death's incurable evil;
Left for them, that assume mankind as cause, to lament it.
And what if all Nature ratify this merciless outrage? 90
If her wonder of arch-wonders, her fair animal life,
Her generate creatures, her motion'd warmblooded offspring,
Haunters of the forest & royal country, her antler'd
Mild-gazers, that keep silvan sabbath idly without end;
Her herded galopers, sleeksided stately careerers
Of trembling nostril; her coy unapproachable estrays,
Stealthy treaders, climbers; her leapers furry, lissom-limb'd;
Her timorous burrowers, and grangers thrifty, the sandy
Playmates of the warren; her clumsy-footed, shaggy roamers;
Her soarers, the feather'd fast-fliers, loftily floating 100
Sky-sailers, exiles of high solitudinous eyries;
Her perching carolers, twitterers, & sweetly singing birds;
All ocean's finny clans, mute-mouthers, watery breathers,
Furtive arrow-darters, and fan-tail'd easy balancers,
Silvery-scale, gilt-head, thorn-back, frill'd harlequinading
Globe and slimy ribbon: Shell-builders of many-chamber'd
Pearly dwellings, soft shapes mosslike or starry, adorning
With rich floral fancy the gay rock-garden of ebb-tide:
All life, from the massive-bulkt, ivory-tusht, elephantine
Centēnarian, acknowledging with crouching obeisance 110
Man's will, ev'n to the least petty whiffling ephemeral insect,
Which in a hot sunbeam engend'ring, when summer is high,
Vaunteth an hour his speck of tinsely gaudiness and dies:
Ah! what if all & each of Nature's favorite offspring,
'Mong many distinctions, have this portentous agreement,
Mouth, Stomach, Intestine? Question that brute apparatus,
So manifoldly devis'd, set alert with furious instinct:
What doth it interpret but this, that Life Liveth on Life?
That the select creatures, whovinherit earth's domination,
Whose happy existence is Nature's intelligent smile, 120
Are bloody survivors of a mortal combat, a-tweenwhiles
Chanting a brief pæan for victory on the battlefield?{429}
Since that of all their kinds most owe their prosperous estate
Unto the art, whereby they more successfully destroy'd
Their weaker brethren, more insatiably devour'd them;
And all fine qualities, their forms pictorial, admired,
Their symmetries, their grace, & beauty, the loveliness of them,
Were by Murder evolv'd, to 'scape from it or to effect it.
'Surely again (yoū say) too much is proven, it argues
'Mere horror & despair; unless persuasion avail us 130
'That the moral virtues are man's idēa, awaken'd
'By the spirit's motions; & therefore not to be conceiv'd
'In Nature's outward & mainly material aspect,
'As that is understood. You, since you hold that opinion,
'Run your own ship aground invoking Nature against me.'—
Then withdraw the appeal, my friend, to her active alīance;
Bē pessimist Nature with a pitchfork manfully expell'd,
Not to return. Yet soul in hand, with brutal alegiance,
Hunters & warriors do not forget the comandment.
See how lively the old animal continueth in them: 140
Of what trifling account they hold life, yet what a practis'd
Art pursue to preserve it: if I should rightly define sport
Slaughter with danger, what were more serious and brave?
Their love of air, of strength, of wildness, afford us an inkling
Of the delight of beasts, with whom they might innocently
Boast a fellow-feeling, summoning them forth to the combat.
Nay dream not so quickly to see her ladyship expell'd.
Those prowling Līons of stony Kabylia, whose roar
Frights from sleep the huddled herdsmen, soon as the sudden night
Falls on Mount Atlas, those grave uxorious outlaws 150
Wandering in the Somali desert or waste Kalahari,
Sound a challenge that amid summer-idling London is answer'd
Haply in Old Bond Street, where some fashionably attired youth
Daintily stands poising the weapon foredoom'd to appay them:{430}
Orvhe mentally sighteth a tiger of India, that low
Crouches among the river jungles, or hunts desolating
Grassy Tarâi, 'neath lofty Himálya, or far southward
Outacamund, Mysore's residency, the Nilgherry mountains
By Malabar; yea, and ere-long shall sight him in earnest,
Stalked as a deer, surprised where hē lay slumbering at noon
Under a rock full-gorged, or deep in reedy covert hid 160
By the trackers disturbed: Two grand eyes shall for a moment
Glare upon either side the muzzle. Woe then to the hunter,
If hē blench! That fury beclouded in invisible speed
What marksman could arrest? what mortal abide his arrachement?
Standing above the immense carcase hē gratefully praiseth
God for a man-eater so fine, so worthy the slaying.
See him again; 'tis war: one hill-rock strongly defended
Checks advance, to be stormed at cost of half the assailants.
Gaily away they go, Highlanders, English, or Irish, 170
Or swart Ghoorkas against the leaden hail, climbing, ascending,
Lost in a smoke, scattering, creeping, here there, ever upwards:
Till some change cometh o'er confusion. Who winneth? ah! see!
Ours have arrived, and he who led their bravery is there.
None that heard will ever forget that far-echoing cheer:
Such heard Nelson, above the crashings & thundering of guns:
At Marathon 'twas heard and all time's story remembers.
See him again, when at home visitingvhis episcopal uncle:
That good priest contrast with this good captain, assay them:
Find a common-measure equating their rival emotions; 180
Evaporate the rubbish, the degrading pestiferous fuss
Of stuck-up importance, the palatial coterie, weigh out
Then the solids: whose life would claim the award of an umpire
For greatest happiness? High-priest or soldier? Adjudge it{431}
By their books: Let a child give sentence. Ev'n as a magnet
Turns and points to the north, so children's obstinate insight
Flies to the tale of war, hairbreadth scapes, daring achievements,
Discoveries, conquests, the romance of history: these things
Win them away from play to devour with greedy attention
Till they long to be men; while all that clerkly palaver 190
Tastes like wormwood.—'Avast! (I hear yoū calling) Avast there!
I forbid the appeal.'—Well, style my humour atrocious;
Granted a child cannot understand; yet see what a huge growth
Stands to be extermin'd, ere you can set dibble in ground.
Nay, more yet; that mighty forest, whose wildness offends you,
And silences appal, where earth-life self-suffocating
Seethes, lavish as sun-life in a red star's fi'ry corona;
That waste magnificence, and vain fecundity, breeding
Gīants & parasites embrac'd in flowery tangle,
Interwoven alive and dead, where one tyrannous tree 200
Blights desolating around it a swamp of rank vegetation;
Where Reason yet dreams unawakt, & throu' the solemn day
Only the monkey chatters, & discordant the parrot screams:
All this is in man's heart with dateless sympathy worshipt,
With filial reverence, & awful pīeties involv'd;
While that other picture, your formal fancy, the garden
Of your stingy promise, must that not quench his imágin'd
Idēals of beauty, his angel hope of attainment?
What to him are the level'd borders, the symmetric allotments,
Where nothing exceedeth, nothing encroacheth, nor assaileth;
Where Reason now drudgeth a sad monomaniac, all day 211
Watering & weeding, digging & diligently manuring
Her label'd families, starch-makers, nitrogen-extract-
Purveyors, classified potherbs & empty pretenders
Of medical virtues; nay ev'n and their little impulse{432}
T'ward liberal fruiting disallow'd by stern regulation;
So many beans to a pod, with so many pods to a beanstalk;
Prun'd, pincht, economiz'd miserly til' all is abortion,
Save in such specimens as, but for an extravagant care,
Had miserably perish'd. What madness works to delude you, 220
Bēing a man, that yoū see not mankind's predilection
Is for Magnificence, Force, Freedom, Bounty; his inborn
Love for Beauty, his aim to possess, his pride to devise it:
And from everlasting his heart is fixt with affections
Prēengag'd to a few sovranly determinate objects,
Toys of an ēternal distraction. Beautiful is Gold,
Clear as a trumpet-call, stirring where'er it appeareth
All high pow'rs to battle; with mágisterial ardour
Glowing among the metals, elemental drops of a fire-god's
Life-blood of old outpour'd in Chāos: Mágical also 230
EV'RY recondite jewel of Earth, with their seraphim-names,
RUBY, JACYNTH, EMERALD, AMETHYST, SAPPHIRE; amaranthine
Starry essences, elect emblems of purity, heirlooms
Of deathless glories, most like to divine imanences.
Then that heart-gladdening highpriz'd ambrosia, blending
Their dissolute purples & golds with sparkling aroma,
That ruddy juice exprest from favour'd vintages, infus'd
With cosmic laughter, when upon some sécular epact
Blandly the sun's old heart is stirr'd to a septennial smile,
Causing strangefortun'd comfort to melancholy mortals: 240
Friend to the flésh, if mind be fatigued; rallying to the sound mind,
When succour is needed 'gainst fainting weariness of flesh;
Shall Wine not be belov'd? Or now let Aristotle answer
What goods are,—Time leaves the scholar's inventory unchang'd;—
All Virtues & Pow'rs, Honour & Pleasure, all that in our life
Makes us self-sufficient, Friends, Riches, Comeliness, and Strength;{433}
They thatvhave these things in plenty desire to retain them,
And win more; while they that lack are pleas'd to desire them.
Nay and since possession will leave the desire unappeasèd,
Save in mere appetites that vary with our physical state, 250
Surely delight in goods is an ecstasy rather attendant
On their mental image, than on experienc'd operation.
So the shepherd envies the monarch, the monarch the shepherd's lot,—
'O what a life were this, How sweet, how lovely!' the king cries.
Whence, I say, as a man feels brave who reads of Achilles;
One looking on riches may learn some kindred elation,
And whatever notions of fortune, luxury, comfort,
Genius or virtue, are shown to him, only as aspects
Of possible bēing, 'tis so much gain to desire them;
Learning Magnificence in mean obscurity, tasting 260
Something of all those goods which Fate outwardly denies him.
But say none shall again be king or prosperous or great,—
Arguing 'all eminence is unequal, unequal is unjust',—
Should that once come about, then alas for this merry England,
Sunk in a grey monotone of drudgery, dreamily poring
O'er her illumin'd page of history, faln to regretful
Worship of ancestors, with nought now left to delight her,
Nought to attain, save one nurst hope, one ambition only
Red Revolution, a wild Reawakening, & a Renaissance.
Impatiently enough yoū hear me, longing to refute me, 270
While Ivin privileg'd pulpit my period expand.
Who could allow such a list of strange miscellaneous items,
So-call'd goods, Strength, Ríches, Honour, Gold, Genius, and Wine?
Is not Wisdom above Rubies? more than Coral or Pearl?
Yours is a scheme deep-laid on true distinctive asortment,
Parting use or good from useless or evil asunder;
Dismissing accessories, while half my heathenish invoice{434}
Are Vanity's vanities. Well; truly, as old Solomon said,
So they be: What is excepted? What scapes his araignment?
Is't Pleasure or Wisdom? Nay ask Theologia: Good-works, 280
Saith-she, offend her nostril. If I distinguish, asserting,
Say, that if Ivenjoyed my neighbour's excessive income
I would hire me a string-quartett not an automaton car,
You blame equally both our tastes for luxury, indeed
His shows more of a use. If man's propensity is vain,
Vulgar, inane, unworthy; 'tis also vain to bewail it:
Think you to change his skin? 'Twere scale by scale to regraft it
With purer traditions; and who shall amend the amenders?
Nay let bé the bubbles, till man grow more solid in mind,
Condemn not the follies: My neighbour's foolery were worse,
Sat he agape listening to Mozart, intently desiring 291
All that time to be rattling alóng on a furious engine
In caoutchouc carapace, with a trail of damnable oilstench.
Yea, blame not the pleasures; they are not enough; pleasure only
Makes this life liveable: nor scout that doctrine as unsound:
Consider if mankind from puling birth to bitter death
Knew nought but the sorrows, endured unrespited always
Those agonizing assaults which no flesh wholly can escape;
Were his hunger a pang like his starvation, alievement
Thereof a worse torture, like that which full many die with;
Did love burn his soul as fire his skin; did affections 300
Rend his will, as Turks rend men with horses asunder;
Were his labour a breathless effort; his slumber occasion
For visiting Furies to repair his temple of anguish;
Were thoughts all mockeries; slow intelligence a deception;
His mind's far ventures, her voyages into the unseen
But horror & terrified nightmare; None then had ever heard
Praise of a Crēator, nor seen any Dēity worshipped.
'Twas for heav'nly Pleasure that God did first fashion all thing,{435}
Nor with other benefit would holy Religion attract us 310
Picturing of Paradise. Consult our Lady's Evangel,
Where Saint Luke,—colouring (was it unconsciously, suppose you?)
Fact and fable alike,—contrasts a beggar with a rich man,
And from holding a fool's happiness too greatly in esteem
Makes pleasure ēternal the balance of temporal evil,
And the reverse; nor shrinks, ascribing thus to the next world
Vaster inequalities, harsher perversity than this.
You have a soul's paradise, its entry the loop of a needle,
Come hither & prithy tell me what I must do to be savèd
I, that feeding on Idēals in temperat' estate 320
Seem so wealthy to poor Lazarus, so needy to Dives:
What from my heav'n-bound schooner's dispensable outfit
Has to be cast o'erboard? What see yoū here that offends you?
These myriad volumes, these tons of music:—allow them
Or disallow? Fiddle and trichord?—Must all be relinquished?
Such toys have not a place in your socīety; you say
Nobody shall make them, nor made may justly acquire them.
Yet, should a plea be alleged for life's most gracious adornment,
For contemplative art's last transcendental achievement,
Grief's almighty solace, frolicking Mirth's Purification, 330
For Man's unparagon'd High-pōetess, inseparate Muse
Companion, the belov'd most dearly among her sisters,
Revivifīer of age, fairest instructor of all grace,
His peacemaker alert with varied sympathy, whose speech
Not to arede and love is wholly to miss the celestial
Consolatries, the divine interpreting of physical life,—
Yoū wince? make exception? allow things musical? admit
So many faked viols, penny trumpets, and amateurish
Performers? Nay, nay! stand firm, for concession is vain.
Music is outmeasurably a barefaced luxury, her plea 340
Will cover art, (—almost to atone art's vile imitations—);{436}
My Japanese paintings, my fair blue Cheney, Hellenic
Statues and Caroline silver, my beautiful Aldines,
Prized more highly because so few, so fondly familiar,
Need no tongue to defend them against rude hands, that assail them
Only because their name is Rarity; hands insensate,
Rending away pitilessly the fair embroideries of life,
That close-clust'ring man, his comfort pared to the outskirts
Ofvhis discomfort, may share in meanness unenvied
But what if Ivunveil the figure that closely beside you 350
Half hides his Hell-charred skeleton with mysteries obscene,
That foul one, that Moloch of all Utopias, ancient
Poisoner & destroyer-elect of innumerous unborn?
Know you the story of our hive-bees, the yellow honey-makers,
Whose images from of old have haunted Pōetry, settling
On the blossoms of man's dream-garden, as on the summer-flow'rs,
Pictures of happy toil, sunny glances, gendering always
Such sweet thoughts, as be by slumbrous music awaken'd?
How all their outward happiness,—that fairy demeanour
Of busy contentment, singing at their work,—is an inborn 360
Empty habit, the relics of a time when considerate joy
Truly possest their tiny bodies; when golden abundance
Was not a State-kept hoard; when feasts were plentiful indulg'd
With wine well-fermented, or old-stored spicy metheglin:
For they died not then miserably within the second moon
Forgotten, unrespected of all; but slept many winters,
Saw many springs, liv'd, lov'd like men, consciously rejoicing
In Nature's promises, with like hopes and recollections.
Intelligence had brought them Scīence, Genius enter'd;
Seers and sages arose, great Bees, perfecting among them 370
Copious inventions, with man's art worthily compared.
Then was a time when that, which haps not in ages of ages,
Strangely befel: they stole from Nature's secresy one key,{437}
Found the hidden motive which works to varīety of kind;
And thus came wondrously possest of pow'r to determine
Their children's qualities, habitudes, yea their specialized form
Masculine or feminine to produce, or asexual offspring
Redow'rd and differenced with such alternative organs
As they chose, to whate'er preferential function adapted,
Wax-pocket or honey-bag, with an instinct rightly acordant.
We know well the result, but not what causes effected 381
Their decision to prefer so blindly the race to the unit,
As to renounce happiness for a problem, a vain abstraction;
Making home and kingdom a vast egg-factory, wherein
Food and life are stor'd up alike, and strictly proportion'd
In loveless labour with mean anxīety. Wondrous
Their reason'd motive, their altrūistic obedience
Unto a self-impos'd life-sentence of prison or toil.
Wonder wisely! then ask if these ingenious insects,
(Who made Natur' against her will their activ' acomplice,
And, methodizing anew her heartless system, averted 391
From their house the torrent of whelming natural increase,)
Are blood-guiltless among their own-born prógeny: What skill
Keeps their peace, or what price buys it? Alack! 'tis murder,
Murder again. No worst Oriental despot, assuring
'Gainst birthright or faction or envy his ill-gotten empire,
So decimates his kin, as do these rown-bodied egg-queens
Surprise competitors, and stab their slumbering infants,
Into the wax-cradles replunging their double-edged stings.
Or what a deed of blood some high-day, when the summervhath 400
Their clammy cells o'erbrim'd, and already ripening orchards
And late flow'rs proclaim that starving winter approacheth,
Nor will again any queen lead forth her swarm, dispeopling
Their strawbuilt citadel; then watch how these busy workers
Cease for awhile from toil; how crowding upon the devoted{438}
Drones they fall; those easy fellows gave some provocation;
Yet 'tis a foul massacre, cold murder of unsuspecting
Life-long companions; and done bloodthirstily:—is not
Exercise of pow'r a delight? have yóu not a doctrine
That calls duty pleasure? What an if they make merry, saying
'Lazy-livers, runagates, evil beasts, greedy devourers, 411
'Too happy and too long ye've liv'd, unashamed to have outliv'd
'Your breeders, feeders, warmers and toiling attendants;
'Had-ye ever been worthy a public good to accomplish,
'Each had nobly perish'd long-ago. Unneeded, obese ones,
'Impious encumbrance, whose hope of service is over,
'Who did not, now can not, assist the community, Ye die!'
My parable may serve. What wisdom man hath attain'd to
Came to him of Nature's goodwill throu' tardy selection:
Should her teaching accuse herself and her method impugn,
I may share with her the reproach of approving as artist 421
Far other idēals than what seem needful in action.
This difficulty besets our time. If you have an answer,
Write me it, as you keep your salt in savour; or if toil
Grant you an indulgence, here lies fair country, direct then
Your Sabbath excursion westward, and spend a summer-day
Preaching among the lilies what youvhave preached to the chimneys.
3
PEACE ODE
ON CONCLUSION OF THE BOER WAR, JUNE 1902
Now joy in all hearts with happy auguries,
And praise on all lips: for sunny June cometh
Chasing the thick warcloud, that outspread
Sulfurous and sullen over England.
Full thirty moons since unwilling enmity,
Since daily suspense for hideous peril
Of brethren unrescued, beleaguer'd
Plague-stricken in cities unprovided,
Had quencht accustom'd gaiety, from the day
When first the Dutchman's implacable folly,
The country of Shakspeare def̄ing,
Thought with a curse to appal the nation:
Whose threat to quell their kinsmen in Africa
Anger'd awhile our easy democracy;
That, reckless and patient of insult,
Will not abide arrogant defīance:
They called to arms; and war began evilly.
From slily forestor'd, well-hidden armouries,
And early advantage, the despot
Stood for a time prevalent against us:
Till from the coil of slow-gathering battle
He rancorous, with full moneybags hurried,
Peddling to European envy
His traffic of pennyworthy slander.{440}
For since the first keel launch'd upon Ocean
Ne'er had before so mighty an armament
O'errun the realm of dark Poseidon,
So resolutely measur'd the waters,
As soon from our ports in diligent passage
O'er half the round world plow'd hither & thither
The pathless Atlantic, revengeful
Soldiery pouring on Esperanza:
Nor shows the Argive story of Ilium,
With tale of ancient auxiliar cities,
So vast a roll of wide alliance
As, rallying to the aid of England,
Came from the swarming counties accoutering,
And misty highlands of Caledonia,
With Cambria's half-Celtic offspring,
And the ever-merry fighting Irish:
Came too the new world's hardy Canadians,
And from remote Australia champions
Like huntsmen, and from those twin islands
Lying off antipodal beyond her,
Under the old flag sailing across the sea:
For mighty is blood's empery, where honour
And freedom ancestral have upbuilt
Inheritance to a lovely glory.
Thee, France, love I, fair lawgiver and scholar:
Thy lively grace, thy temper illustrious;
And thee, in all wisdom Diviner,
Germany, deep melodist immortal;
Nor less have envied soft Italy's spirit,
In marble unveil'd and eloquent colour:
But best love I England, wer' I not
Born to her aery should envy also.{441}
Wherefore to-day one gift above every gift
Let us beseech, that God will accord to her
Always a right judgement in all things;
Ev'n to celestial excellencies;
And grant us in long peace to accumulate
Joy, and to stablish friendliness and commerce,
And barter in markets for unpriced
Beauty, the pearl of unending empire.
May, 1902.
4
EVENING
From Wm. Blake[A]
Come, rosy angel, thy coronet donning
Of starry jewels, smile upon ev'ry bed,
And grant what each day-weary mortal,
Labourer or lover, asketh of thee.
Smile thou on our loves, enveloping the land
With dusky curtain: consider each blossom
That timely upcloseth, that opens
Her treasure of heavy-laden odours.
Now, while the west-wind slumbereth on the lake,
Silently dost thou with delicate shimmer
O'erbloom the frowning front of awful
Night to a glance of unearthly silver.
No hungry wild beast rangeth in our forest,
No tiger or wolf prowleth around the fold:
Keep thou from our sheepcotes the tainting
Invisible peril of the darkness.
5
POVRE AME AMOUREUSE
From Louise Labe, 1555
(Sapphics)
When to my lone soft bed at eve returning
Sweet desir'd sleep already stealeth o'er me,
My spirit flīeth to the fairy-land of
her tyrannous love.
Him then I think fondly to kiss, to hold him
Frankly then to my bosom; I that all day
Have lookèd forvhim suffering, repining,
yea many long days.
O blessèd sleep, with flatteries beguile me;
So,vif I ne'er mayvof a surety havevhim,
Grant to my poor soul amorous the dark gift
of this illusion.
6
THE FOURTH DIMENSION
(Hendecasyllables)
Truest-hearted of early friends, that Eton
Long since gáve to me,—Ah! 'tis all a life-time,—
With my faithfully festive auspication
Of Christmas merriment, this idle item.
Plato truly believ'd his archetypal
Idēas to possess the fourth dimension:
For since our solid is triple, but always
Its shade only double, solids as umbrae
Must lack equally one dimension also.
Could Platovhave avoided or denied it?{443}
So Saint Paul, when in argument opposing
To our earthly bodies bodies celestial,
Meant just those pretty Greek aforesaid abstracts
Of four Plātonical divine dimensions.
If this be not a holy consolation
More than plumpudding and a turkey roasted,
Whereto you but address a third dimension,
Try it, pray, as a pill to aid digestion:
I can't find anything better to send you.
7
JOHANNES MILTON, Senex
Scazons
Since I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Man's Maker and Judge, Overruler of Fortune,
'Twere strange should I praise anything and refuse Him praise,
Should love the creature forgetting the Crēator,
Nor unto Himvin suff'ring and sorrow turn me:
Nay how coud I withdraw me fromvHis embracing?
But since that I have seen not, and cannot know Him,
Nor in my earthly temple apprehend rightly
His wisdom and the heav'nly purpose ēternal;
Therefore will I be bound to no studied system
Nor argument, nor with delusion enslave me,
Nor seek to pléase Him in any foolish invention,
Which my spirit within me, that loveth beauty
And hateth evil, hath reprov'd as unworthy:
But I cherish my freedom in loving service,
Gratefully adoring for delight beyond asking
Or thinking, and in hours of anguish and darkness
Confiding always onvHis excellent greatness.
8
PYTHAGORAS
Seasons
Thou vainly, O Man, self-deceiver, exaltest
Thyself the king and only thinker of this world,
Where life aboundeth infinite to destroy thee.
Well-guided are thy forces and govern'd bravely,
But like a tyrant crūel or savage monster
Thou disregardest ignorantly all bēing
Save only thine own insubordinate ruling:
As if the flowër held not a happy pact with Spring;
As if the brutes lack'd reason and sorrow's torment;
Or ev'n divine love from the small atoms grew not,
Their grave affection unto thy passion mingling.
An truly were it nobler and better wisdom
To fear the blind thing blindly, lest it espy thee;
And scrupulously dovhonour to dumb creatures,
No one offending impiously, nor forcing
To service of vile uses; ordering rather
Thy slave to beauty, compelling lovingkindness.
So should desire, the only priestess of Nature
Divinely inspir'd, like a good monarch rule thee,
And lead thee onward in the consummate motion
Of life eternal unto heav'nly perfection.
Elegiacs
9
AMIEL
Why, O Maker of all, madest thou man with affections
Tender above thyself, scrupulous and passionate?
Nay, if compassionate thou art, why, thou lover of men,
Hidest thou thy face so pitilessly from us?
If thou in priesthoods and altar-glory delitest,
In torment and tears of trouble and suffering,
Then wert thou displeas'd looking on soft human emotion,
Thou must scorn the devout love of a sire to a son.
'Twas but vainly of old, Man, making Faith to approach thee,
Held an imagin'd scheme of providence in honour;
And, to redeem thy praise, judg'd himself cause, took upon him
Humbly the impossible burden of all misery.
Now casteth he away his books and logical idols
Leaveth again his cell of terrified penitence;
And that stony goddess, his first-born fancy, dethroning,
Hath made after his own homelier art another;
Made sweet Hope, the modest unportion'd daughter of anguish,
Whose brimming eye sees but dimly what it looketh on;
Dreaming a day when fully, without curse or horrible cross,
Thou wilt deign to reveal her vision of happiness.
10
Ah, what a change! Thou, who didst emptily thy happiness seek
In pleasure, art finding thy pleasure in happiness.
Slave to the soul, whom thou heldest in slavery, art thou?
Thou, that wert but a vain idol, adored a goddess?
11
WALKING HOME
From the Chinese
Thousand threads of rain and fine white wreathing of air-mist
Hide from us earth's greenness, hide the enarching azure.
Yet will a breath of Spring homeward convoying attend us,
And the mellow flutings of passionate Philomel.
12
THE RUIN
From the Chinese
These grey stones have rung with mirth and lordly carousel;
Here proud kings mingled pōetry and ruddy wine.
All hath pass'd long ago; nought but this rūin abideth,
Sadly in eyeless trance gazing upon the river.
Wouldst thou know who here visiteth, dwelleth and singeth also,
Ask the swallows fl̄ing from sunny-wall'd Italy.
13
REVENANTS
From the French
At dead of unseen night ghosts of the departed assembling
Flit to the graves, where each in body had burial.
Ah, then rēvisiting my sad heart their desolate tomb
Troop the desires and loves vainly buried long ago.
14
From the Greek
Mortal though I bé, yea ephemeral, if but a moment
I gaze up to the night's starry domain of heaven,
Then no longer on earth I stand; I touch the Creator,
And my lively spirit drinketh immortality.
15
ANNIVERSARY
See, Love, a year is pass'd: in harvest our summer endeth:
Praising thee the solemn festival I celebrate.
Unto us all our days are love's anniversaries, each one
In turn hath ripen'd something of our happiness.
So, lest heart-contented adown life easily floating,
We note not the passage while living in the delight,
I have honour'd always the attentive vigil of Autumn,
And thy day set apart holy to fair Memory.
16
COMMUNION OF SAINTS
From Andre Chenier
What happy bonds together unite you, ye living and dead,
Your fadeless love-bloom, your manifold memories.
17
EPITAPHS
Fight well, my comrades, and prove your bravery. Me too
God call'd out, but crown'd early before the battle.
18
I died in very flow'r: yet call me not unhappy therefore,
Ye that against sweet life once a lament have utter'd.
19
When thou, my belovèd, diedst, I saw heaven open,
And all earthly delight inhabiting Paradise.
20
Where thou art better I too were, dearest, anywhere, than
Wanting thy well-lov'd lovely presence anywhere.
21
IBANT OBSCURI
A line for line paraphrase of a part of
Virgil's Æneid, Bk. VI.
They wer' amid the shadows by night in loneliness obscure
Walking forth i' the void and vasty dominyon of Ades;
As by an uncertain moonray secretly illumin'd 270
One goeth in the forest, when heav'n is gloomily clouded,
And black night hath robb'd the colours and beauty from all things.
Here in Hell's very jaws, the threshold of darkening Orcus,
Have the avenging Cares laid their sleepless habitation,
Wailing Grief, pallid Infections, & heart-stricken Old-age,
Dismal Fear, unholy Famine, with low-groveling Want,
Forms of spectral horror, gaunt Toil and Death the devourer,
And Death's drowsy brother, Torpor; with whom, an inane rout, 278
All the Pleasures of Sin; there also the Furies in ambusht{449}
Chamber of iron, afore whose bars wild War bloodyhanded
Raged, and mad Discord high brandisht her venomous locks.
Midway of all this tract, with secular arms an immense elm
Reareth a crowd of branches, aneath whose leafy protection
Vain dreams thickly nestle, clinging unto the foliage on high:
And many strange creatures of monstrous form and features
Stable about th' entrance, Centaur and Scylla's abortion,
And hundred-handed Briareus, and Lerna the wildbeast
Roaring amain, and clothed in frightful flame the Chimæra,
Gorgons and Harpies, ' and Pluto's three-bodied ogre.
In terror Æneas upheld his sword to defend him, 290
With ready naked point confronting their dreaded onset:
And had not the Sibyl warn'd how these lively spirits were
All incorporeal, flitting in thin maskery of form,
He had assail'd their host, and wounded vainly the void air.
Hence is a road that led them a-down to the Tartarean streams,
Where Acheron's whirlpool impetuous, into the reeky
Deep of Cokytos disgorgeth, with muddy burden.
These floods one ferryman serveth, most awful of aspect,
Of squalor infernal, Chāron: all filthily unkempt
That woolly white cheek-fleece, and fiery the blood-shotten eyeballs: 300
On one shoulder a cloak knotted-up his nudity vaunteth.
He himself plieth oar or pole, manageth tiller and sheet,
And the relics of mén in his ash-grey barge ferries over;
Already old, but green to a god and hearty will age be.
Now hitherward to the bank much folk were crowding, a medley
Of men and matrons; nor did death's injury conceal
Bravespirited heroes, young maidens beauteous unwed,
And boys borne to the grave in sight of their sorrowing sires.
Countless as in the forest, at a first white frosting of autumn
Sere leaves fall to the ground; or like whenas over the ocean
Myria^d birds come thickly flocking, when wintry December 311
Drives them afar southward for shelter upon sunnier shores,{450}
So throng'd they; and each his watery journey demanded,
All to the further bank stretching-oút their arms impatient:
But the sullen boatman took now one now other at will,
While some from the river forbade he', an' drave to a distance.
Æneas in wonder alike and deep pity then spake.
'Tell-me,' said he, 'my guide, why flock these crowds to the water?
Or what seek the spirits? or by what prejudice are these
Rudely denied, while those may upon the solemn river embark?' 320
T'whom[B] then briefly again the Avernia^n priestess in answer.
'O Son of Anchises, heavn's true-born glorious offspring,
Deep Cokytos it is thou see^st & Hell's Stygia^n flood,
Whose dread sanctio^n alone Jove's oath from falsehood assureth.
These whom thou pitiedst, th' outcast and unburied are they;
That ferryman Chāron; those whom his bark carries over
Are the buried; nor ever may mortal across the livid lake
Journey, or e'er upon Earth his bones lie peacefully entomb'd:
Haunting a hundred years this mournful plain they wander
Doom'd for a term, which term expired they win to deliv'rance.' 330
Then he that harken'd stood agaze, his journey arrested,
Grieving at heart and much pitying their unmerited lot.
There miserably fellow'd in death's indignity saw he
Leucaspis with his old Lycian seachieften Orontes,
Whom together from Troy in home-coming over the waters
Wild weather o'ermaster'd, engulphing both shipping and men.
And lo! his helmsman, Palinurus, in eager emotion,
Who on th' Afric course, in bright star-light, with a fair wind,
Fell by slumber opprest unheedfully into the wide sea:
Whom i' the gloom when hardly he knew, now changed in affliction, 340
{451}First he addrest. 'What God, tell-me O Palinurus, of all gods
Plúckt you away and drown'd i' the swift wake-water abandon'd?
For never erst nor in else hath kind responsive Apollo
Led-me astray, but alone in this thing wholly deluded,
When he aver'd that you, to remote Ausōnia steering,
Safe would arrive. Where now his truth? Is this the promis'd faith?'
But he, 'Neither again did Phœbus wrongly bespeak thee,
My general, nor yet did a god in his enmity drown me:
For the tiller, wherewith I led thy fleet's navigation,
And still clung to, was in my struggling hold of it unshipt, 350
And came with-me' o'erboard. Ah! then, by ev'ry accurst sea,
Tho' in utter despair, far less mine own peril awed me
Than my thought o' the ship, what harm might háp to her, yawing
In the billows helmless, with a high wind and threatening gale.
Two nights and one day buffeted held I to the good spar
Windborne, with the current far-drifting, an' on the second morn
Saw, when a great wave raised me aloft, the Italyan highlands;
And swimming-on with effort got ashore, nay already was saved,
Had not there the wrecking savages, who spied-me defenceless,
Scarce clinging outwearied to a rock, half-drowned & speechless, 360
Beát me to death for hope of an unfound booty upon me.
Now to the wind and tidewash a sport my poor body rolleth.
Wherefore thee, by heav'n's sweet light & airness, I pray,
By thy Sire's memories, thy hope of youthful Iulus,
Rescue-me from these ills, brave master; Go to Velija,
O'er my mortality's spoil cast thou th' all-hallowing dust;{452}
Or better, if so be the goddess, heav'n's lady-Creatress,
Show-thee the way,—nor surely without high favoring impulse
Mak'st thou ventur' across these floods & black Ereban lake,—
Give thy hand-to-me', an' o'er their watery boundary bring me 370
Unto the haven of all, death's home of quiet abiding.'
Thus-he lamented, anon spake sternly the maid of Avernus.
'Whence can such unruly desire, Palinurus, assail thee?
Wilt thou th' Eumenidan waters visit unburied? o'erpass
Hell's Stygian barrier? Chāron's boat unbidden enter?
Cease to believe that fate can bé by prayër averted.
Let my sooth a litel thy cruel destiny comfort
Surely the people of all thy new-found country, determin'd
By heav'n-sent omens will achieve thy purification, 379
Build thee a tomb of honour with yearly solemnity ordain'd,
And dedicate for ever thy storied name to the headland.'
These words lighten awhile his fear, his sadness allaying,
Nor vain was the promise his name should eternally survive.
They forthwith their journey renew, tending to the water:
Whom when th' old boatman descried silently emerging
Out o' the leafy shadows, advancing t'ward the river-shore,
Angrily gave-he challenge, imperious in salutation.
'Whosoever thou be, that approachest my river all-arm'd,
Stand to announce thyself, nor further make footing onward.
Here 'tis a place of ghosts, of night & drowsy delusion: 390
Forbidden unto living mortals is my Stygian keel:
Truly not Alkides embarkt I cheerfully, nor took
Of Theseus or Pirithous glad custody, nay though
God-sprung were they both, warriors invincible in might:
Hé 'twas would sportively the guard of Tartarus enchain,
Yea and from the palace with gay contumely dragged him:
Théy to ravish Hell's Queen from Pluto's chamber attempted.'
Then thus th' Amphrysian prophetess spake briefly in answer.
'No such doughty designs are ours, Cease thou to be movèd!
Nor these sheeny weapons intend force. Cerberus unvext{453}
Surely for us may affray the spirits with 'howling eternal, 401
And chaste Persephone enjoy her queenly seclusion.
Troian Æneas, bravest and gentlest-hearted,
Hath left earth to behold his father in out-lying Ades.
If the image ' of a so great virtue doth not affect thee,
Yet this bough'—glittering she reveal'd its golden avouchment—
'Thou mayst know.' Forthwith his bluster of heart was appeasèd:
Nor word gave-he, but admiring the celestial omen,
That bright sprigg of weird for so long period unseen,
Quickly he-túrneth about his boat, to the margin approaching, 410
And the spirits, that along the gun'al benchways sat in order,
Drave he ashore, offering readyroom: but when the vessel took
Ponderous Æneas, her timbers crankily straining
Creak'd, an' a brown water came trickling through the upper seams.
Natheless both Sibyl ánd Hero, slow wafted across stream,
Safe on th' ooze & slime's hideous desolation alighted.
Hence the triple-throated bellowings of Cerberus invade
All Hell, where opposite the arrival he lies in a vast den.
But the Sibyl, who mark'd his necklaces of stiffening snakes,
Cast him a cake, poppy-drench'd with drowsiness and honey-sweeten'd. 420
He, rabid and distending a-hungry' his triply-cavern'd jaws,
Gulp'd the proffer'd morsel; when slow he-relaxt his immense bulk,
And helplessly diffused fell out-sprawl'd over the whole cave.
Æneas fled by, and left full boldly the streamway,
That biddeth all men across but alloweth ne'er a returning.
Already now i' the air were voices heard, lamentation,
And shrilly crying of infant souls by th' entry of Ades.
Babes, whom unportion'd of sweet life, unblossoming buds,
One black day carried off and chokt in dusty corruption.—
Next are they who falsely accused were wrongfully condemn'd{454}
Unto the death: but here their lot by justice is order'd. 431
Inquisitor Minos, with his urn, summoning to assembly
His silent council, their deed or slander arraigneth.—
Next the sullen-hearted, who rashly with else-innocent hand
Their own life did-away, for hate or weariness of light,
Imperiling their souls. How gladly, if only in Earth's air,
Would-they again their toil, discomfort, and pities endure!
Fate obstructs: deep sadness now, unloveliness awful
Rings them about, & Styx with ninefold circle enarmeth.—
Not far hence they come to a land extensive on all sides; 440
Weeping Plain 'tis call'd:—such name such country deserveth.
Here the lovers, whom fiery passion hath cruelly consumed,
Hide in leafy alleys ' and pathways bow'ry, sequester'd
By woodland myrtle, nor hath Death their sorrow ended.
Here was Phædra to see, Procris ' and sad Eriphyle,
She of her unfilial deathdoing wound not ashamèd,
Evadne, ' and Pasiphae ' and Laodamia,
And epicene Keneus, a woman to a man metamorphos'd,
Now by Fate converted again to her old feminine form.
'Mong these shades, her wound yet smarting ruefully, Dido
Wander'd throu' the forest-obscurity; and Æneas 451
Standing anigh knew surely the dim form, though i' the darkness
Veil'd,—as when one seëth a young moon on the horizon,
Or thinketh to' have seen i' the gloaming her delicate horn;
Tearfully in oncelov'd accents he-lovingly addrest her.
'Unhappy! ah! too true 'twas told me' O unhappy Dido,
Dead thou wert; to the fell extreme didst thy passion ensue.
And was it I that slew-thee? Alas! Smile falsity, ye heav'ns!
And Hell-fury attest-me', if here any sanctity reigneth,
Unwilling, O my Queen, my step thy kingdom abandon'd. 460
Me the command of a god, who here my journey determines
Through Ereban darkness, through fields sown with desolation,{455}
Drave-me to wrong my heart. Nay tho' deep-pain'd to desert thee
I ne'er thought to provoke thy pain of mourning eternal.
Stay yet awhile, ev'n here unlook'd-for again look upon me:
Fly-me not ere the supreme words that Fate granteth us are said.'
Thus he: but the spirit was raging, fiercely defiant,
Whom he approach'd with words to appease, with tears for atonement.
She to the ground downcast her ' eyes in fixity averted;
Nor were her features more by his pleading affected, 470
Than wer' a face of flint, or of ensculptur'd alabaster.
At length she started disdainful, an' angrily withdrew
Into a shady thicket: where her grief kindly Sychæus
Sooth'd with other memories, first love and virginal embrace.
And ever Æneas, to remorse by deep pity soften'd,
With brimming eyes pursued her queenly figure disappearing.
Thence the Sibyl to the plain's extremest boundary led him,
Where world-fam'd warriors, a lionlike company, haunted.
Here great Tydeus saw he eclips'd, & here the benighted
Phantom of Adrastus, ' of stalwart Parthenopæus. 480
Here long mourn'd upon earth went all that prowess of Ilium
Fallen in arms; whom, when he-beheld them, so many and great,
Much he-bewail'd. By Thersilochus his mighty brothers stood,
Children of Antenor; here Demetria^n Polyphates,
And Idæus, in old chariot-pose dreamily stalking.
Right and left the spirits flocking on stood crowding around him;
Nor their eyes have enough; they touch, find joy unwonted
Marching in equal stép, and eager of his coming enquire.
But th' Argive leaders, and they that obey'd Agamemnon
When they saw that Trojan in arms come striding among them, 490
Old terror invaded their ranks: some fled stricken, as once{456}
They to the ships had fled for shelter; others the alarm raise,
But their thin utterance mock'd vainly the lips wide parted.
Here too Deiphobus he espied, his fair body mangled,
Cruelly dismember'd, disfeatur'd cruelly his face,
Face and hands; and lo! shorn closely from either temple,
Gone wer' his ears, and maim'd each nostril in impious outrage.
Barely he-knew him again cow'ring shamefastly' an' hiding
His dire plight, & thus he 'his old companyon accosted.
'Noblest Deiphobus, great Teucer's intrepid offspring, 500
Who was it, inhuman, coveted so cruel a vengeance?
Who can hav' adventur'd on thée? That last terrible night
Thou wert said to hav' exceeded thy bravery, an' only
On thy faln enemies wert faln by weariness o'ercome.
Wherefor' upon the belov'd sea-shore thine empty sepulchral
Mound I erected, aloud on thy ghost tearfully calling.
Name and shield keep for-thee the place; but thy body, dear friend,
Found I not, to commit to the land ere sadly' I left it.'
Then the son of Priam ' 'I thought not, friend, to reproach thee:
Thou didst all to the full, ev'n my shade's service, accomplish. 510
'Twas that uninterdicted adultress from Lacedæmon
Drave-me to doom, & planted in hell, her trophy triumphant.
On that night,—how vain a security and merrymaking
Then sullied us thou know'st, yea must too keenly remember,—
When the ill-omened horse o'erleapt Troy's lofty defences,
Dragg'd in amidst our town pregnant with a burden of arm'd men.
She then, her Phrygian women in feign'd phrenzy collecting,
All with torches aflame, in wild Bacchic orgy paraded,
Flaring a signal aloft to her ambusht confederate Greeks.
I from a world of care had fled with weariful eyelids 520
Unto my unhappy chamber', an' lay fast lockt in oblivyon,{457}
Sunk to the depth of rest as a child that nought will awaken.
Meanwhile that paragon helpmate had robb'd me of all arms,
E'en from aneath the pillow my blade of trust purloining;—
Then to the gate; wide flíngs she it op'n an' calls Menelaus.
Would not a so great service attach her faithful adorer?
Might not it extinguish the repute of her earlier illdeeds?
Brief-be the tale. Menelaus arrives: in company there came
His crime-counsellor Æolides. So, and more also
Déal-ye', O Gods, to the Greeks! an' if I call justly upon you.— 530
But thou; what fortune hitherward, in turn prithy tell me,
Sent-thee alive, whether erring upon the bewildering Ocean,
Or high-prompted of heav'n, or by Fate wearily hunted,
That to the sunless abodes and dusky demesnes thou approachest?'
Ev'n as awhile they thus converse it is already mid-day
Unperceiv'd, but aloft earth's star had turn'd to declining.
And haply' Æneas his time in parley had outgone,
Had not then the Sibyl with word of warning avized him.
'Night hieth, Æneas; in tears our journey delayeth.
See our road, that it here in twain disparteth asunder; 540
This to the right, skirting by th' high city-fortresses of Dis,
Endeth in Elysium, our path; but that to the leftward
Only receives their feet who wend to eternal affliction.'
Deiphobus then again, 'Speak not, great priestess, in anger;
I will away to refill my number among th' unfortun'd.
Thou, my champyon, adieu! Go where thy glory awaits thee!'
When these words he 'had spok'n, he-turn'd and hastily was fled.
Æneas then look'd where leftward, under a mountain,
Outspread a wide city lay, threefold with fortresses engirt,
Lickt by a Tartarean river of live fire, the torrentia^l 550
Red Phlegethon, and huge boulders his roundy bubbles be:
Right i' the front stareth the columnar gate adamantine,
Such that no battering warfare of mén or immortals{458}
E'er might shake; blank-faced to the cloud its bastion upstands.
Tisiphone thereby in a bloodspotty robe sitteth alway
Night and day guarding sleeplessly the desperat entrance,
Wherefrom an awestirring groan-cry and fierce clamour outburst,
Sharp lashes, insane yells, dragg'd chains and clanking of iron.
Æneas drew back, his heart by' his hearing affrighted:
'What manner of criminals, my guide, now tell-me,' he-question'd, 560
'Or what their penalties? what this great wail that ariseth?'
Answering him the divine priestess, 'Brave hero of Il[îû]m,
O'er that guilty threshold no breath of purity may come:
But Hecate, who gave-me to rule i' the groves of Avernus,
Herself led me around, & taught heav'n's high retribution.
Here Cretan Rhadamanthus in unblest empery reigneth,
Secret crime to punish,—full surely he-wringeth avowal
Even of all that on earth, by vain impunity harden'd,
Men sinning have put away from thought tillvimpenitent death.
On those convicted tremblers then leapeth avenging 570
Tisiphone with keen flesh-whips and vipery scourges,
And of her implacable sisters inviteth attendance.'
—Now sudden on screeching hinges that portal accursèd
Flung wide its barriers.—'In what dire custody, mark thou,
Is the threshold! guarded by how grim sentry the doorway!
More terrible than they the ravin'd insatiable Hydra
That sitteth angry within. Know too that Tartarus itself
Dives sheer gaping aneath in gloomy profundity downward
Twice that height that a man looketh-up t'ward airy Olympus.
Lowest there those children of Earth, Titanian elders, 580
In the abyss, where once they fell hurl'd, yet wallowing lie.
There the Alöīdæ saw I, th' ungainly rebel twins
Primæval, that assay'd to devastate th' Empyræan{459}
With huge hands, and rob from Jove his kingdom immortal.
And there Salmoneus I saw, rend'ring heavy payment,
For that he idly' had mockt heav'n's fire and thunder electric;
With chariot many-yoked and torches brandishing on high
Driving among 'his Graian folk in Olympian Elis;
Exultant as a God he rode in blasphemy worshipt. 589
Fool, who th' unreckoning tempest and deadly dreaded bolt
Thought to mimic with brass and confus'd trample of horses!
But 'him th' Omnipotent, from amidst his cloudy pavilyon,
Blasted, an' eke his rattling car and smoky pretences
Extinguish'd at a stroke, scattering ' his dust to the whirlwind.
There too huge Tityos, whom Earth that gendereth all things
Once foster'd, spreadeth-out o'er nine full roods his immense limbs.
On him a wild vulture with hook-beak greedily gorgeth
His liver upsprouting quick as that Hell-chicken eateth.
Shé diggeth and dwelleth under the vast ribs, her bloody bare neck
Lifting anon: ne'er loathes-she the food, ne'er fails the renewal. 600
Where wer' an end their names to relate, their crimes and torments?
Some o'er whom a hanging black rock, slipping at very point of
Falling, ever threateneth: Couches luxurious invite
Softly-cushion'd to repose: Tables for banqueting outlaid
Tempt them ever-famishing: hard by them a Fury regardeth,
And should théy but a hand uplift, trembling to the dainties,
She with live firebrand and direful yell springeth on them.
Their crimes,—not to' hav lov'd a brother while love was allow'd them;
Or to' hav struck their father, or inveigled a dependant; 609
Or who chancing alone on wealth prey'd lustfully thereon,
Nor made share with others, no greater company than they:{460}
Some for adultery slain; some their bright swords had offended
Drawn i' the wrong: or a master's trust with perfidy had met:
Dungeon'd their penalties they await. Look not to be answer'd
What that doom, nor th' end of these men think to determine.
Sóme aye roll heavy rocks, some whirl dizzy on the revolving
Spokes of a pendant wheel: sitteth and to eternity shall sit
Unfortun'd Theseus; while sad Phlegias saddeneth hell
With vain oyez to' all loud crying a tardy repentance,
"Walk, O man, i' the fear of Gód, and learn to be righteous!"
Here another, who sold for gold his country, promoting 621
Her tyrant; or annull'd for a base bribe th' inviolate law.
This one had unfather'd his blood with bestial incest:
All some fearful crime had dared & vaunted achievement.
What mind could harbour the offence of such recollection,
Or lend welcoming ear to the tale of iniquity and shame,
And to the pains wherewith such deeds are justly requited?
Ev'n when thus she' had spok'n, the priestess dear to Apollo,
'But, ready, come let us ón, perform-we the order appointed!
Hast'n-we (saith-she), the wall forged on Cyclopian anvils
Now I see, an' th' archway in Ætna's furnace attemper'd, 631
Where my lore biddeth us to depose our high-privileg'd gift.'
Then together they trace i' the drooping dimness a footpath,
Whereby, faring across, they arrive at th' arches of iron.
Æneas stept into the porch, and duly besprinkling
His body with clear water affixt his bough to the lintel;
And, having all perform'd at length with ritual exact,
They came out on a lovely pleasance, that dream'd-of oasis,
Fortunate isle, the abode o' the blest, their fair Happy Woodland.
Here is an ampler sky, those meads ar' azur'd by a gentler{461}
Sun than th' Earth, an' a new starworld their darkness adorneth. 641
Some were matching afoot their speed on a grassy arena,
In playful combat some wrestling upon the yellow sand,
Part in a dance-rhythm or poetry's fine phantasy engage;
While full-toga'd anear their high-priest musical Orpheus
Bade his prime sev'n tones in varied harmony discourse,
Now with finger, anon sounding with an ivory plectrum.
And here Æneas met Teucer's fortunate offspring,
High-spirited heroes, fair-favor'd sons o' the morning,
Assarac and Ilos ' and Dardan founder of Iliu^]m: 650
Their radiant chariots he' espied rank't empty afar off,
Their spears planted afield, their horses wandering at large,
Grazing around:—as on earth their joy had been, whether armour
Or chariot had charmed them, or if 'twer' good manage and care
Of the gallant warhorse, the delight liv'd here unabated;
Lo! then others, that about the meadow sat feasting in idless,
And chanting for joy a familyar pæan of old earth,
By fragrant laurel o'ercanopied, where 'twixt enamel'd banks
Bountiful Eridanus glides throu' their bosky retirement.
Here were men who bled for honour, their country defending; 660
Priests, whose lives wer' a flame of chastity on God's altar;
Holy poets, content to await their crown of Apollo;
Discoverers, whose labour had aided life or ennobled;
Or who fair memories had left though kindly deserving.
On their brow a fillet pearl-white distinguisheth all these:
Whom the Sibyl, for they drew round, in question accosted,
And most Musæus, who tower'd noble among them,
Center of all that sea of bright faces looking upward.
'Tell, happy souls, and thou poet and high mystic illustrious,
Where dwelleth Anchises? what home hath he? for 'tis in his quest 670{462}
We hither have made journey across Hell's watery marches.'
Thertó with brief parley rejoin'd that mystic of old-time.
'In no certain abode we-remain: by turn the forest glade
Haunt-we, lilied stream-bank, sunny mead; and o'er valley and rock
At will rove-we: but if ye aright your purpose arede me,
Mount-ye the hill: myself will prove how easy the pathway.'
Speaking he léd: and come to the upland, sheweth a fair plain
Gleaming aneath; and they, with grateful adieu, the descent made.
Now Lord Anchises was down i' the green valley musing,
Where the spirits confin'd that await mortal resurrection 680
While diligently he-mark'd, his thought had turn'd to his own kin,
Whose numbers he-reckon'd, an' of all their progeny foretold
Their fate and fortune, their ripen'd temper an' action.
He then, when he' espied Æneas t'ward him approaching
O'er the meadow, both hands uprais'd and ran to receive him,
Tears in his eyes, while thus his voice in high passion outbrake.
'Ah, thou'rt come, thou'rt come! at length thy dearly belov'd grace
Conquering all hath won-thee the way. 'Tis allow'd to behold thee,
O my son,—yea again the familyar raptur' of our speech.
Nay, I look't for 't thus, counting patiently the moments, 690
And ever expected; nor did fond fancy betray me.
From what lands, my son, from what life-dangering ocean
Art-thou arrived? full mighty perils thy path hav' opposèd:
And how nearly the dark Libyan thy destiny o'erthrew!'
Then 'he, 'Thy spirit, O my sire, 'twas thy spirit often
Sadly appearing aroused-me to seek thy fair habitation.
My fleet moors i' the blue Tyrrhene: all with-me goeth well.
Grant-me to touch thy hand as of old, and thy body embrace.'
Speaking, awhile in tears his feeling mutinied, and when
For the longing contact of mortal affection, he out-held 700{463}
His strong arms, the figure sustain'd them not: 'twas as empty
E'en as a windworn cloud, or a phantom of irrelevant sleep.
On the level bosom of this vale more thickly the tall trees
Grow, an' aneath quivering poplars and whispering alders
Lethe's dreamy river throu' peaceful scenery windeth.
Whereby now flitted in vast swarms many people of all lands,
As when in early summer 'honey-bees on a flowery pasture
Pill the blossoms, hurrying to' an' fro,—innumerous are they,
Revisiting the ravish'd lily cups, while all the meadow hums.
Æneas was turn'd to the sight, and marvelling inquired, 710
'Say, sir, what the river that there i' the vale-bottom I see?
And who they that thickly along its bank have assembled?'
Then Lord Anchises, 'The spirits for whom a second life
And body are destined ar' arriving thirsty to Lethe,
And here drink th' unmindful draught from wells of oblivyon.
My heart greatly desired of this very thing to acquaint thee,
Yea, and show-thee the men to-be-born, our glory her'after,
So to gladden thine heart where now thy voyaging endeth.'
'Must it then be-believ'd, my sire, that a soul which attaineth
Elysium will again submit to her old body-burden? 720
Is this well? what hap can awake such dire longing in them?'
'I will tell thee', O son, nor keep thy wonder awaiting,'
Answereth Anchises, and all expoundeth in order.
Know first that the heavens, and th' Earth, and space fluid or void,
Night's pallid orb, day's Sun, and all his starry coævals,
Are by one spirit inly quickened, and, mingling in each part,
Mind informs the matter, nature's complexity ruling.
Thence the living creatures, man, brute, and ev'ry feather'd fowl,
And what breedeth in Ocean aneath her surface of argent:
Their seed knoweth a fiery vigour, 'tis of airy divine birth, 730
In so far as unimpeded by an alien evil,
Nor dull'd by the body's framework condemn'd to corruption.
Hence the desires and vain tremblings that assail them, unable{464}
Darkly prison'd to arise to celestial exaltation;
Nor when death summoneth them anon earth-life to relinquish,
Can they in all discard their stain, nor wholly away with
Mortality's plaguespots. It must-be that, O, many wild graffs
Deeply at 'heart engrain'd have rooted strangely upon them:
Wherefore must suffering purge them, yea, Justice atone them
With penalties heavy as their guilt: some purify exposed 740
Hung to the viewless winds, or others long watery searchings
Low i' the deep wash clean, some bathe in fie^ry renewal:
Each cometh unto his own retribution,—if after in ample
Elysium we attain, but a few, to the fair Happy Woodland,
Yet slow time still worketh on us to remove the defilement,
Till it hath eaten away the acquir'd dross, leaving again free
That first fie^ry vigour, the celestia^l virtue of our life.
All whom here thou see^st, hav' accomplished purification:
Unto the stream of Lethe a god their company calleth,
That forgetful of old failure, pain & disappointment, 750
They may again into' earthly bodies with glad courage enter.'
* * *
Twín be the gates o' the house of sleep: as fable opineth 893
One is of horn, and thence for a true dream outlet is easy:
Fair the other, shining perfected of ivory carven;
But false are the visions that thereby find passage upward.
Soon then as Anchises had spok'n, he-led the Sibyl forth
And his son, and both dismisst from th' ivory portal.
FINIS
| INDEX | |
|---|---|
| INDEX OF FIRST LINES | |
| [A], [B], [C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H], [I], [J], [L], [M], [N], [O], [P], [R], [S], [T], [V], [W], [Y] | |
| PAGE | |
| A cottage built of native stone, | [354] |
| A coy inquisitive spirit, | [27] |
| After long sleep when Psyche first awoke, | [105] |
| Again with pleasant green, | [252] |
| Ah heavenly joy, | [219] |
| Ah, what a change, | [445] |
| All earthly beauty hath one cause, | [204] |
| All women born, | [241] |
| A man that sees by chance, | [206] |
| Among the meadows, | [372] |
| And truly need there was, | [113] |
| An effigy of brass, | [349] |
| Angel spirits of sleep, | [291] |
| An idle June day, | [206] |
| A poppy grows upon the shore, | [234] |
| Ariel, O,—my angel, my own, | [299] |
| A single lamp there stood, | [161] |
| A song of my heart, | [311] |
| Assemble, all ye maidens, | [238] |
| At dead of unseen night, | [446] |
| A thousand times hath in my heart's behoof, | [201] |
| At times with hurried hoofs, | [205] |
| Awake, my heart, to be loved, | [277] |
| Away now, lovely Muse, | [221] |
| A winter's night with the snow about, | [272] |
| Beautiful must be the mountains, | [311] |
| Beauty sat with me, | [215] |
| Because thou canst not see, | [268] |
| Behold! the radiant Spring, | [255] |
| Belov'd of all to whom that Muse is dear, | [377] |
| Beneath the wattled bank, | [330] |
| Betwixt two billows of the downs, | [301] |
| Bright day succeedeth unto day, | [61] |
| Bright, my beloved, be thy day, | [363] |
| But Aphrodite to the house of Zeus, | [153] |
| But Eros now recover'd from his hurt, | [169] |
| But fairest Psyche still in favour rose, | [97] |
| Christ and his Mother, | [313] |
| Clear and gentle stream, | [225] |
| Close up, bright flow'rs, | [71] |
| Cold is the winter day, | [308] |
| Come gentle sleep, I woo thee, | [211] |
| Come, rosy angel, thy coronet donning, | [441] |
| Crown Winter with green, | [297] |
| Dear lady, when thou frownest, | [232] |
| Dreary was winter, | [220] |
| Ended are many days, | [367] |
| Eternal Father, who didst all create, | [221] |
| Fair lady of learning, | [390] |
| Fight well, my comrades, | [447] |
| Fire of heaven, whose starry arrow, | [290] |
| Flame-throated robin, | [309] |
| For beauty being the best of all we know, | [191] |
| For thou art mine, | [188] |
| Gay and lovely is earth, | [53] |
| Gay Marigold is frolic, | [371] |
| Gay Robin is seen no more, | [285] |
| Gird on thy sword, O man, | [407] |
| Gloom and the night are thine, | [403] |
| Hark! the world is full of thy praise, | [364] |
| Hark to the merry birds, | [283] |
| Hark! what spirit doth entreat, | [405] |
| Haste on, my joys, | [269] |
| Heavy meanwhile at heart, | [145] |
| His poisoned shafts, | [240] |
| How coud I quarrel or blame you, | [193] |
| How fares it, friend, since I, | [378] |
| How well my eyes remember, | [332] |
| I care not if I live, | [203] |
| I climb the mossy bank, | [338] |
| I died in very flow'r, | [448] |
| If I coud but forget and not recall, | [207] |
| I found to-day out walking, | [a]468] |
| I have loved flowers that fade, | [263] |
| I have sown upon the fields, | [351] |
| I heard a linnet courting, | [231] |
| I heard great Hector, | [213] |
| I know not how I came, | [246] |
| I live on hope, | [218] |
| I love all beauteous things, | [281] |
| I love my lady's eyes, | [278] |
| I made another song, | [237] |
| In all things beautiful, | [202] |
| In autumn moonlight, | [215] |
| I never shall love the snow again, | [309] |
| In midmost length of hundred-citied Crete, | [89] |
| In still midsummer night, | [375] |
| In the golden glade, | [317] |
| In thee my spring of life, | [190] |
| In this May-month, | [307] |
| In this neglected, ruin'd edifice, | [209] |
| In ways of beauty and peace, | [404] |
| I praise the tender flower, | [272] |
| I saw the Virgin-mother, | [245] |
| I stand on the cliff, | [266] |
| I travel to thee with the sun's first rays, | [201] |
| I will be what God made me, | [218] |
| I will not let thee go, | [232] |
| I wish'd to sing thy grace, | [347] |
| I would be a bird, | [198] |
| Je donnerais pour revivre à vingt ans, | [379] |
| Joy, sweetest lifeborn joy, | [275] |
| Let praise devote thy work, | [300] |
| Let us, as by this verdant bank, | [250] |
| Long are the hours the sun is above, | [235] |
| Look down the river, | [327] |
| Look! Look! the spring is come, | [318] |
| Love not too much, | [302] |
| Love on my heart from heaven fell, | [287] |
| Love that I know, | [217] |
| Love to Love calleth, | [397] |
| Lo where the virgin veiled in airy beams, | [71] |
| Man, born of desire, | [399] |
| Man, born to toil, | [a]469] |
| Man hath with man, | [323] |
| Mortal though I be, yea ephemeral, | [447] |
| My bed and pillow are cold, | [273] |
| My delight and thy delight, | [339] |
| My eyes for beauty pine, | [286] |
| My lady pleases me and I please her, | [202] |
| Myriad-voiced Queen, | [394] |
| My soul is drunk with joy, | [46] |
| My spirit kisseth thine, | [298] |
| My spirit sang all day, | [281] |
| My wearied heart, | [220] |
| No ethical system, no contemplation, | [425] |
| Nothing is joy without thee, | [199] |
| Now all the windows, | [340] |
| Now in wintry delights, | [411] |
| Now joy in all hearts, | [439] |
| Now since to me altho' by thee refused, | [193] |
| Now thin mists temper, | [304] |
| O bold majestic downs, | [251] |
| O flesh and blood, comrade to tragic pain, | [197] |
| O golden Sun, whose ray, | [261] |
| O heavenly fire, life's life, | [40] |
| O Love, I complain, | [335] |
| O Love, my muse, | [286] |
| O miserable man, | [37] |
| O my goddess divine, | [204] |
| O my life's mischief, | [205] |
| O my uncared-for songs, | [212] |
| O my vague desires, | [46], [264] |
| Once I would say, | [210] |
| One grief of thine, | [375] |
| On the Hellenic board of Crete's fair isle, | [137] |
| Open for me the gates of delight, | [401] |
| O that the earth, or only this fair isle, | [72] |
| O thou unfaithful, | [273] |
| O weary pilgrims, | [198] |
| O youth whose hope is high, | [280] |
| Perfect little body, | [267] |
| Poor withered rose, | [228] |
| Power eternal, power unknown, | [403] |
| Rejoice, ye dead, | [196], [401]{470} |
| Resound! Resound! To jubilant music ring, | [393] |
| Riding adown the country lanes, | [342] |
| Sad, sombre place, | [258] |
| Say who be these, | [195] |
| Say who is this with silvered hair, | [296] |
| See, Love, a year is pass'd, | [447] |
| See, whirling snow, | [306] |
| Sense with keenest edge unused, | [343] |
| Since I believe in God, | [443] |
| Since not the enamour'd sun, | [214] |
| Since now from woodland mist, | [377] |
| Since then 'tis only pity looking back, | [210] |
| Since thou, O fondest and truest, | [279] |
| Since to be loved endures, | [303] |
| Since we loved, | [346] |
| Sometimes when my lady sits by me, | [234] |
| So sweet love seemed, | [305] |
| Spirit of grace and beauty, | [350] |
| Spring goeth all in white, | [286] |
| Spring hath her own bright days, | [199] |
| Sweet compassionate tears, | [406] |
| Tears of love, tears of joy, | [207] |
| The birds that sing on autumn eves, | [293] |
| The cliff-top has a carpet, | [229] |
| The clouds have left the sky, | [283] |
| The dark and serious angel, | [217] |
| The day begins to droop, | [345] |
| Thee fair Poetry oft hath sought, | [395] |
| The evening darkens over, | [279] |
| The fabled sea-snake, old Leviathan, | [200] |
| The full moon from her cloudless skies, | [277] |
| The green corn waving in the dale, | [288] |
| The hill pines were sighing, | [288] |
| The idle life I lead, | [290] |
| The image of thy love, | [209] |
| The lonely season in lonely lands, | [314] |
| The north wind came up, | [315] |
| The pinks along my garden walks, | [289] |
| The poets were good teachers, | [189] |
| There is a hill, | [248] |
| There's many a would-be poet, | [192]{471} |
| There was no lad handsomer, | [319] |
| The saddest place, | [355] |
| The sea keeps not the Sabbath day, | [341] |
| The sea with melancholy war, | [396] |
| These grey stones have rung with mirth, | [446] |
| These meagre rhymes, | [214] |
| The sickness of desire, | [376] |
| The snow lies sprinkled on the beach, | [298] |
| The south wind rose at dusk, | [336] |
| The spirit's eager sense, | [211] |
| The storm is over, | [294] |
| The summer trees are tempest-torn, | [292] |
| The upper skies are palest blue, | [282] |
| The very names of things belov'd, | [189] |
| The whole world now is but the minister, | [188] |
| The wood is bare, | [227] |
| The work is done, | [200] |
| The world comes not to an end, | [212] |
| The world still goeth about to shew and hide, | [197] |
| They that in play can do the thing they would, | [187] |
| They wer' amid the shadows, | [448] |
| This world is unto God a work of art, | [195] |
| Thou art a poet, Robbie Burns, | [385] |
| Thou didst delight my eyes, | [274] |
| Thou dimpled Millicent, | [374] |
| Thousand threads of rain, | [446] |
| Thou vainly, O Man, self-deceiver, | [444] |
| Thus to be humbled, | [203] |
| Thus to thy beauty, | [191] |
| To me, to me, fair hearted Goddess, come, | [398] |
| To my love I whisper, | [339] |
| To us, O Queen of sinless grace, | [402] |
| Truest-hearted of early friends, | [442] |
| Turn, O return, | [395] |
| 'Twas on the very day winter took leave, | [216] |
| Voyaging northwards, | [359] |
| Wanton with long delay, | [284] |
| Weep not to-day, | [320] |
| We left the city when the summer day, | [270] |
| What happy bonds together unite you, | [447] |
| What is sweeter than new-mown hay, | [292]{472} |
| 'What think you, sister', | [121] |
| What voice of gladness, | [306] |
| When Death to either shall come, | [347] |
| When first I saw thee, dearest, | [216] |
| When first we met, | [241] |
| When from the lowest ebbing, | [129] |
| When I see childhood, | [208] |
| When June is come, | [289] |
| When men were all asleep, | [265] |
| When my love was away, | [294] |
| When parch'd with thirst, | [208] |
| When sometimes in an ancient house, | [194] |
| When thou didst give thy love to me, | [374] |
| When thou, my beloved, diedst, | [448] |
| When to my lone soft bed, | [442] |
| Wherefore to-night so full of care, | [260] |
| Where San Miniato's convent, | [196] |
| Where thou art better I too were, | [448] |
| While Eros in his chamber hid his tears, | [177] |
| While yet we wait for spring, | [190] |
| Whither, O splendid ship, | [244] |
| Who builds a ship, | [194] |
| Who has not walked upon the shore, | [236] |
| Who takes the census of the living dead, | [213] |
| Why art thou sad, | [347] |
| Why hast thou nothing, | [348] |
| Why, O Maker of all, | [445] |
| Will Love again awake, | [242] |
| Winter was not unkind, | [192] |
| With mild eyes agaze, | [389] |
| Ye blessed saints, | [219] |
| Ye Spartan mothers, | [371] |
| Ye thrilled me once, | [296] |
FOOTNOTES:
[A] There is another alcaic translation from Blake on p. 71 in 'Demeter'. The Ode on p. 72 is iambic, and the Chorus on pp. 53, 54 is in choriambics.
[B] Line 321. 'T'whom' is from Milton, in imitation of Virgil's admired Olli. It is not admitted in the ordinary prosody.