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
