Poems in Many Lands

by Rennell Rodd

They will not come! for on the coral shore
The good ship lies, by little waves caressed,
All stormy ways and wanderings are o’er,
No more, no more!
But long sweet rest,
In cool green meadow-lands, that lie along the West.

Or if beneath far fathom depths of waves
She lies heeled over by the slow tide’s sweep,
Deep down where never any swift sea raves,
Through ocean caves,
A dreaming deep
Of softly gliding forms, a glimmering world of sleep.

Then have they passed beyond the outer gate
Through death to knowledge of all things, and so
From out the silence of their unkown fate
They bid us wait,
Who only know
That twixt their loves and ours the great seas ebb and flow.

THEORETIKOS.
A Thought of Darwin.

He dwelt unblinded with eternal truth,
Through long communion perfected, not once
Did he misdeem the prelude for the song,
And looking onward, to his ample view
That long to-come when he should be no more
Outweighed the moment of his passing here.
And he was happy, and his peace was full,
Having outlived the struggle—not as those
Who take the world on faith, and rest content
With the old verdicts, question, wonder not,
But feeling trusting loving are at peace.
He sought and found one little germ of truth,
Made pure his spirit of all chance and change,
Held fast on things abiding, learned to stand
On ever loftier summits-till at last
TI is brow grew starry and his searching eyes
Blue with the mirrored distance, and he heard
The everlasting music, Time and space
Were part with every heart-beat, and almost
God seemed to whisper in his listening ear.
What need for him of all your wonder world?
He made the wonder visible—enough
This little handful of the common clay
A seed to sow therein, and then to watch
The hidden forces quicken into life,
Till leaf by leaf some flower-star unfolds,
One flower of all the flowers, because the sun
Is in the skies, one sun of all the suns.
Search but the structure of one daisy’s heart
Your lore has no such miracle as this!—
And look at all the infinite device,
The texture of the leaves of all the trees—
Is there not marvel here enough? And yet
Ye crave new signs and wonders to convince
And wander lost upon your devious ways.
Ye will but gaze upon a part, and grow
In little wisdom overwise, therefore
Your partial grasp is barren to conceive
The thought Infinity, Time wilders yet
Because ye measure with your finite gauge,
And Motion maddens through your own unrest.
He let the world go gladly, hand in hand
He walked with Reason, till thought strained away
And God grew nearer,—so he built his mind
A bridge to span from sun to sun of all
The starry systems;—like a faint far dream
The changing pageant of men’s lives unrolled,
And he stood by serenely,—but with him
The calm was struggle in a lordlier way,
Absorbed and dwelling with eternal truth,
Whose star o’ershone him; till it seemed that life
And death were one, and from the throbbing brow
The craving died away,—and now he rests
With that fair choir from many times whose souls
Have earned the right of knowledge after death.

ROME.

I.—FROM THE HILL OF GARDENS.

The outline of a shadowy city spread
Between the garden and the distant hill—
And o’er yon dome the flame-ring lingers still,
Set like the glory on an angel’s head:
The light fades quivering into evening blue
Behind the pine-tops on Ianiculum;
The swallow whispered to the swallow “come!”
And took the sunset on her wings, and flew.