IV
Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay,
Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay!
I've better counsellors; what counsel they?
CHO.— Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"
HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE [SEA][°]
Nobly, nobly, Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
°[3]Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar[°] lay;
°[4]In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar[°] grand and gray;[page 71]
"Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?"—say,
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God and pray,
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
SUMMUM [BONUM][°]
All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:
In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:
Breath and bloom, shade and shine,—wonder, wealth, and—how far above them—
Truth, that's brighter than gem,
Trust, that's purer than pearl,—
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe,—all were for me
In the kiss of one girl.
A [FACE]
If one could have that little head of hers
Painted upon a background of pure gold,
Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers!
No shade encroaching on the matchless mould
Of those two lips, which should be opening soft
In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,
For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft
Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's
Burden of honey-colored buds to kiss
And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this.
Then her little neck, three fingers might surround,
How it should waver on the pale gold ground
Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!
I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts
Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb
Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb:
But these are only massed there, I should think,
Waiting to see some wonder momently
Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky
(That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by),
All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye
Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.
SONGS FROM PIPPA [PASSES][°]
Day! Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last:
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
10Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.
All service ranks the same with God:
If now, as formerly He trod
Paradise, His presence fills
Our earth, each only as God wills
Can work—God's puppets, best and worst,
Are we: there is no last nor first.
The year's at the spring
[page 74] 20 And day's at the morn:
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in His heaven—
All's right with the world!
Give her but a least excuse to love me!
When—where—
How—can this arm establish her above me,
30 If fortune fixed her as my lady there,
There already, to eternally reprove me?
("Hist!"—said Kate the queen;
But "Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
"'Tis only a page that carols unseen,
Crumbling your hounds their messes!")
Is she wronged?—To the rescue of her honour,
My heart!
Is she poor?—What costs it to be styled a donor?
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.
40But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her![page 75]
("Nay, list!"—bade Kate the queen;
And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
"'Tis only a page that carols unseen,
Fitting your hawks their jesses!")
THE LOST [LEADER][°]
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat—
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed;
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
10Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
°[13]Shakespeare[°] was of us, Milton° was for us,
°[14]Burns,[°] Shelley,° were with us,—they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,[page 76]
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!
We shall march prospering—not through his presence;
Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre:
Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,
20Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,
Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him—strike gallantly,
30Menace our heart ere we master his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!
APPARENT [FAILURE][°]
"We shall soon lose a celebrated building."
—Paris Newspaper.
No, for I'll save it! Seven years since
I passed through Paris, stopped a day
°[3]To see the baptism of your Prince,[°]
Saw, made my bow, and went my way:
Walking the heat and headache off,
I took the Seine-side, you surmise,
°[7]Thought of the Congress,[°] Gortschakoff,°
°[8] Cavour's° appeal and Buol's° replies,
So sauntered till—what met my eyes?
10Only the Doric little Morgue!
The dead-house where you show your drowned:
°[12]Petrarch's Vaucluse[°] makes proud the Sorgue,°
Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.
°[14]One pays one's debt[°] in such a case;
I plucked up heart and entered,—stalked,
Keeping a tolerable face
Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:
Let them! No Briton's to be balked!
First came the silent gazers; next,[page 78]
20 A screen of glass, we're thankful for;
Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text,
The three men who did most abhor
Their life in Paris yesterday,
So killed themselves: and now, enthroned
Each on his copper couch, they lay
Fronting me, waiting to be owned.
I thought, and think, their sin's atoned.
Poor men, God made, and all for that!
The reverence struck me; o'er each head
30Religiously was hung its hat,
Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,
Sacred from touch: each had his berth,
His bounds, his proper place of rest,
Who last night tenanted on earth
Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,—
Unless the plain asphalt seemed best.
How did it happen, my poor boy?
You wanted to be Buonaparte
°[39]And have the Tuileries[°] for toy,
40 And could not, so it broke your heart?
You, old one by his side, I judge,[page 79]
Were, red as blood, a socialist,
A leveller! Does the Empire grudge
You've gained what no Republic missed?
Be quiet, and unclench your fist!
And this—why, he was red in vain,
°[47] Or black,—poor fellow that is blue[°]!
What fancy was it, turned your brain?
Oh, women were the prize for you!
50Money gets women, cards and dice
Get money, and ill-luck gets just
The copper couch and one clear nice
Cool squirt of water o'er your bust,
The right thing to extinguish lust!
It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce:
It's fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
60 That, after Last, returns the First,
Tho' a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst
FEARS AND [SCRUPLES][°]
Here's my case. Of old I used to love him.
This same unseen friend, before I knew:
Dream there was none like him, none above him,—
Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.
°[5]Loved I not his letters[°] full of beauty?
Not his actions famous far and wide?
Absent, he would know I vowed him duty,
Present, he would find me at his side.
Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters,
10 Only knew of actions by hearsay:
He himself was busied with my betters;
What of that? My turn must come some day.
"Some day" proving—no day! Here's the puzzle.
Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain?
He's so busied! If I could but muzzle
People's foolish mouths that give me pain!
"[Letters]?" (hear them!) "You a judge of writing?
Ask the experts!—How they shake the head
O'er these characters, your friend's inditing—
°[20] Call them forgery from A to Z°!
"Actions? Where's your certain proof" (they bother)[page 81]
"He, of all you find so great and good,
He, he only, claims this, that, the other
Action—claimed by men, a multitude?"
I can simply wish I might refute you,
Wish my friend would,—by a word, a wink,—
Bid me stop that foolish mouth,—you brute you!
He keeps absent,—why, I cannot think.
Never mind! Tho' foolishness may flout me.
30 One thing's sure enough; 'tis neither frost,
No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me
Thanks for truth—tho' falsehood, gained—tho' lost.
All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier,
For that dream's sake! How forget the thrill
Thro' and thro' me as I thought, "The gladlier
Lives my friend because I love him still!"
Ah, but there's a menace some one utters!
"What and if your friend at home play tricks?
Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters?
40 Mean your eyes should pierce thro' solid bricks?
'What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy?
Lay on you the blame that bricks—conceal?
Say 'At least I saw who did not see me,[page 82]
Does see now, and presently shall feel'?"
"Why, that makes your friend a monster!" say you;
"Had his house no window? At first nod,
Would you not have hailed him?" Hush, I pray you!
What if this friend happen to be—God?
INSTANS [TYRANNUS][°]
Of the million or two, more or less,
I rule and possess,
One man, for some cause undefined,
Was least to my mind.
I struck him, he grovelled of course—
For, what was his force?
I pinned him to earth with my weight
And persistence of hate;
And he lay, would not moan, would not curse,
10As his lot might be worse.
"Were the object less mean? would he stand
At the swing of my hand!
For obscurity helps him, and blots[page 83]
The hole where he squats."
So, I set my five wits on the stretch.
To inveigle the wretch.
All in vain! Gold and jewels I threw,
Still he couched there perdue;
I tempted his blood and his flesh,
20Hid in roses my mesh,
Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth:
Still he kept to his filth.
Had he kith now or kin, were access
To his heart, did I press:
Just a son or a mother to seize!
No such booty as these.
Were it simply a friend to pursue
'Mid my million or two,
Who could pay me, in person or pelf,
30What he owes me himself!
No: I could not but smile thro' my chafe:
For the fellow lay safe
As his mates do, the midge and the nit,
—Thro' minuteness, to wit.
Then a humour more great took its place
At the thought of his face:
The droop, the low cares of the mouth,[page 84]
The trouble uncouth
'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain
40To put out of its pain,
And, "no!" I admonished myself,
"Is one mocked by an elf.
Is one baffled by toad or by rat?
°[44]The gravamen's[°] in that!
How the lion, who crouches to suit
His back to my foot,
Would admire that I stand in debate!
But the small turns the great
If it vexes you,—that is the thing!
50Toad or rat vex the king?
Tho' I waste half my realm to unearth
Toad or rat, 'tis well worth!"
So, I soberly laid my last plan
To extinguish the man.
Round his creep-hole, with never a break
Ran my fires for his sake;
Overhead, did my thunder combine
With my under-ground mine:
Till I looked from my labour content
60To enjoy the event.
When sudden ... how think ye, the end?[page 85]
Did I say "without friend?"
Say rather, from marge to blue marge
The whole sky grew his targe
With the sun's self for visible boss,
While an Arm ran across
Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast!
Where the wretch was safe prest!
°[69] Do you see! Just my [vengeance] complete,
70The man sprang to his feet,
Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed!
—So, I was afraid!