Death

He carved the red deer and the bull
Upon the smooth cave rock,
Returned from war with belly full,
And scarred with many a knock,
He carved the red deer and the bull
Upon the smooth cave rock.

The stars flew by the cave's wide door,
The clouds wild trumpets blew,
Trees rose in wild dreams from the floor,
Flowers with dream faces grew
Up to the sky, and softly hung
Golden and white and blue.

The woman ground her heap of corn,
Her heart a guarded fire;
The wind played in his trembling soul
Like a hand upon a lyre,
The wind drew faintly on the stone
Symbols of his desire:

The red deer of the forest dark,
Whose antlers cut the sky,
That vanishes into the mirk
And like a dream flits by,
And by an arrow slain at last

Ah! little thought she, when, with wild delight,
By many a torrent's shining track she flew,
When mountain-glens and caverns full of night
O'er her young mind divine enchantment threw,

That in her veins a secret horror slept,
That her light footsteps should be heard no more,
That she should die--nor watch'd, alas, nor wept
By thee, unconscious of the pangs she bore.

Yet round her couch indulgent Fancy drew
The kindred, forms her closing eye requir'd.
There didst thou stand--there, with the smile she knew.
She mov'd her lips to bless thee, and expir'd.

And now to thee she comes; still, still the same
As in the hours gone unregarded by!
To thee, how chang'd, comes as she ever came;
Health on her cheek, and pleasure in her eye!

Nor less, l...

Go, perjured man; and if thou e'er return
To see the small remainders in mine urn,
When thou shalt laugh at my religious dust,
And ask: where's now the colour, form and trust
Of woman's beauty? and with hand more rude
Rifle the flowers which the virgins strewed:
Know I have prayed to Fury that some wind
May blow my ashes up, and strike thee blind.

(For My Mother)



The halls that were loud with the merry tread of young and careless feet
Are still with a stillness that is too drear to seem like holiday,
And never a gust of laughter breaks the calm of the dreaming street
Or rises to shake the ivied walls and frighten the doves away.

The dust is on book and on empty desk, and the tennis-racquet and balls
Lie still in their lonely locker and wait for a game that is never played,
And over the study and lecture-room and the river and meadow falls
A stern peace, a strange peace, a peace that War has made.

For many a youthful shoulder now is gay with an epaulet,
And the hand that was deft with a cricket-bat is defter with a sword,
And some of the lads will laugh to-day where the trench is red and wet,
A...

“Shut your ears, stranger, or turn from Ghost Glen now,
For the paths are grown over, untrodden by men now;
Shut your ears, stranger,” saith the grey mother, crooning
Her sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in.

To-night the north-easter goes travelling slowly,
But it never stoops down to that hollow unholy;
To-night it rolls loud on the ridges red-litten,
But it cannot abide in that forest, sin-smitten.

For over the pitfall the moon-dew is thawing,
And, with never a body, two shadows stand sawing
The wraiths of two sawyers (step under and under),
Who did a foul murder and were blackened with thunder!

Whenever the storm-wind comes driven and driving,
Through the blood-spattered timber you may see the saw striving
You may see the saw heaving, and fall...

The year lies fallen and faded
On cliffs by clouds invaded,
With tongues of storms upbraided,
With wrath of waves bedinned;
And inland, wild with warning,
As in deaf ears or scorning,
The clarion even and morning
Rings of the south-west wind.

The wild bents wane and wither
In blasts whose breath bows hither
Their grey-grown heads and thither,
Unblest of rain or sun;
The pale fierce heavens are crowded
With shapes like dreams beclouded,
As though the old year enshrouded
Lay, long ere life were done.

Full-charged with oldworld wonders,
From dusk Tintagel thunders
A note that smites and sunders
The hard frore fields of air;
A trumpet stormier-sounded
Than once from lists rebounded
When strong men sense-confounded
Fel...

    Haggard as if resurgent from a tomb,
    The moon uprears her ghastly, shrunken head,
    Crowned with such light as flares upon the dead
    From pallid skies more death-like than the gloom.
    Now fall her beams till slope and plain assume
    The whiteness of a land whence life is fled;
    And shadows that a sepulcher might shed
    Move livid as the stealthy hands of doom.

    O'er rigid hills and valleys locked and mute,
    A pallor steals as of a world made still
    When Death, that erst had crept, stands absolute -
        An earth now frozen fast by power of eyes
    That malefice and purposed silence fill,
        The gaze of that Medusa of the skies.

Yes, there is one who makes us all lay down
Our mushroom vanities, our speculations,
Our well-set theories and calculations,
Our workman's jacket or our monarch's crown!
To him alike the country and the town,
Barbaric hordes or civilized nations,
Men of all names and ranks and occupations,
Squire, parson, lawyer, Jones, or Smith, or Brown!
He stops the carter: the uplifted whip
Falls dreamily among the horses' straw;
He stops the helmsman, and the gallant ship
Holdeth to westward by another law;
No one will see him, no one ever saw,
But he sees all and lets not any slip.

The joys that touched thee once, be mine!
The sympathies of sky and sea,
The friendships of each rock and pine,
That made thy lonely life, ah me!
In Tempe or in Gargaphie.

Such joy as thou didst feel when first,
On some wild crag, thou stood'st alone
To watch the mountain tempest burst,
With streaming thunder, lightning-sown,
On Latmos or on Pelion.

Thy awe! when, crowned with vastness, Night
And Silence ruled the deep's abyss;
And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white
Breasts of the starry maids who kiss
Pale feet of moony Artemis.

Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weeds
Of Arethusa, thou didst hear
The music of the wind-swept reeds;
And down dim forest-ways drew near
Shy herds of slim Arcadian deer.

Thy wisdom...

The joys that touched thee once, be mine!
The sympathies of sky and sea,
The friendships of each rock and pine,
That made thy lonely life, ah me!
In Tempe or in Gargaphie.

Such joy as thou didst feel when first,
On some wild crag, thou stood'st alone
To watch the mountain tempest burst,
With streaming thunder, lightning-sown,
On Latmos or on Pelion.

Thy awe! when, crowned with vastness, Night
And Silence ruled the deep's abyss;
And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white
Breasts of the starry maids who kiss
Pale feet of moony Artemis.

Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weeds
Of Arethusa, thou didst hear
The music of the wind-swept reeds;
And down dim forest-ways drew near
Shy herds of slim Arcadian deer.

Thy wisdom...

The light has left the hill-side. Yesterday
These skies shewed blue against the dusky trees,
The leaves' soft murmur in the evening breeze
Was music, and the waves danced in the bay.
Then was my heart, as ever, far away
With you, - and I could see you as one sees
A mirrored face, - and happiness and ease
And hope were mine, in spite of long delay.

After these months of waiting, this is all!
Hope, dead, lies coffined, shrouded in despair,
With all the blessings of the outer air
Forgot, 'neath the black covering of a pall.
Only the darkening of the woodland ways,
A heart's low moaning over wasted days.

Why should we sigh o'er a summer that's dead -
    Let us think of the summer to be.
It always better to look ahead,
For the rose will come again just as red
    And just as fair to see.

Why should we weep o'er a pleasure past -
        Let us look for the pleasure to be.
New shells on the shore by new waves are cast;
Let us prize each new joy more than the last,
    And laugh if the old joy flee.

What folly to die for a love that was -
    Let us live for the one to be.
For time is passing, and will not pause;
How foolish the shore were it sad because
    One wave ebbed out to sea.

Then let us not sing of a year that is fled -
    Though dear its memory be:
For though summer and pleasure and love seem dead,
Love will be sweet, and ...

[A room in a private house.    A maiden sitting before a fire meditating.]

MAIDEN

Now have I fully fixed upon my part.
Good-bye to dreams; for me a life of art!
Beloved art!    Oh, realm serene and fair,
Above the mean and sordid world of care,
Above earth's small ambitions and desires!
Art! art! the very word my soul inspires!
From foolish memories it sets me free.
Not what has been, but that which is to be
Absorbs me now.    Adieu to vain regret!
The bow is tensely drawn - the target set.
[A knock at the door.]

MAID (aside)

The night is dark and chill; the hour is late.
(Aloud)
Who knocks upon my door?

A Voice Outside

'Tis I, your fate!

MAID

Thou dost deceive, not me, but thine own self.

At length, my friend, the far-sent letters come,
Charged with thy kindness, to their destin'd home,
They come, at length, from Deva's2 Western side,
Where prone she seeks the salt Vergivian tide.3
Trust me, my joy is great that thou shouldst be,
Though born of foreign race, yet born for me,
And that my sprightly friend, now free to roam,
Must seek again so soon his wonted home.
I well content, where Thames with refluent tide
My native city laves, meantime reside,
Nor zeal nor duty, now, my steps impell
To reedy Cam,4 and my forbidden cell.5
Nor aught of pleasure in those fields have I,
That, to the musing bard, all shade deny.
Tis time, that I, a pedant's threats6 disdain,
And fly from wrongs, my soul will ne'e...

Was never form and never face
So sweet to SEYD as only grace
Which did not slumber like a stone,
But hovered gleaming and was gone.
Beauty chased he everywhere,
In flame, in storm, in clouds of air.
He smote the lake to feed his eye
With the beryl beam of the broken wave;
He flung in pebbles well to hear
The moment's music which they gave.
Oft pealed for him a lofty tone
From nodding pole and belting zone.
He heard a voice none else could hear
From centred and from errant sphere.
The quaking earth did quake in rhyme,
Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime.
In dens of passion, and pits of woe,
He saw strong Eros struggling through,
To sun the dark and solve the curse,
And beam to the bounds of the universe.
While thus to love he gave his days

Here, five feet deep, lies on his back
A cobbler, starmonger, and quack;
Who to the stars, in pure good will,
Does to his best look upward still.
Weep, all you customers that use
His pills, his almanacks, or shoes;
And you that did your fortunes seek,
Step to his grave but once a-week;
This earth, which bears his body's print,
You'll find has so much virtue in't,
That I durst pawn my ears, 'twill tell
Whate'er concerns you full as well,
In physic, stolen goods, or love,
As he himself could, when above.

Year after year the artist wrought
    With earnest, loving care,
The music flooding all his soul
    To pour upon the air.

For this no metal was too rare,
    He counted not the cost;
Nor deemed the years in which he toiled
    As labor vainly lost.

When morning flushed with crimson light
    The golden gates of day,
He longed to fill the air with chimes
    Sweet as a matin's lay.

And when the sun was sinking low
    Within the distant West,
He gladly heard the bells he wrought
    Herald the hour of rest.

The music of a thousand harps
    Could never be so dear
As when those solemn chants and thrills
    Fell on his list'ning ear.

He poured his soul into their chimes,
    And felt his toil repaid;
...

(Clerk of Love, 1170.)

His Plaint To Venus Of The Coming Years.

"Plus ne suis ce que j'ay esté
Et ne le sçaurois jamais estre;
Mon beau printemps et mon esté
Ont fait le saut par la fenestre."


Queen Venus, round whose feet,
To tend thy sacred fire,
With service bitter-sweet
Nor youths nor maidens tire;--
Goddess, whose bounties be
Large as the un-oared sea;--

Mother, whose eldest born
First stirred his stammering tongue,
In the world's youngest morn,
When the first daisies sprung:--
Whose last, when Time shall die,
In the same grave shall lie:--

Hear thou one suppliant more!
Must I, thy Bard, grow old,
Bent, with the temples frore,
Not jocund be nor bold,
To tune for folk in May
Ballad and ...