Death

Oh Sea, that with infinite sadness, and infinite yearning
Liftest thy crystal forehead toward the unpitying stars,--
Evermore ebbing and flowing, and evermore returning
Over thy fathomless depths, and treacherous island bars:--

Oh thou complaining sea, that fillest the wide void spaces
Of the blue nebulous air with thy perpetual moan,
Day and night, day and night, out of thy desolate places--
Tell me thy terrible secret, oh Sea! what hast thou done.

Sometimes in the merry mornings, with the sunshine's golden wonder
Glancing along thy cheek, unwrinkled of any wind,
Thou seemest to be at peace, stifling thy great heart under
A face of absolute calm,--with danger and death behind!

But I hear thy voice at midnight, smiting the awful silence
With the long suspir...

Picture and book remain,
An acre of green grass
For air and exercise,
Now strength of body goes;
Midnight, an old house
Where nothing stirs but a mouse.

My temptation is quiet.
Here at life's end
Neither loose imagination,
Nor the mill of the mind
Consuming its rag and bonc,
Can make the truth known.

Grant me an old man's frenzy,
Myself must I remake
Till I am Timon and Lear
Or that William Blake
Who beat upon the wall
Till Truth obeyed his call;

A mind Michael Angelo knew
That can pierce the clouds,
Or inspired by frenzy
Shake the dead in their shrouds;
Forgotten else by mankind,
An old man's eagle mind.

Mary sat in the corner dreaming,
Dim was the room and low,
While in the dusk, the saw went screaming
To and fro.

Jesus and Joseph toiled together,
Mary was watching them,
Thinking of kings in the wintry weather
At Bethlehem.

Mary sat in the corner thinking,
Jesus had grown a man;
One by one her hopes were sinking
As the years ran.

Jesus and Joseph toiled together,
Mary’s thoughts were far
Angels sang in the wintry weather
Under a star.

Mary sat in the corner weeping,
Bitter and hot her tears
Little faith were the angels keeping
All the years.

That way look, my Infant, lo!
What a pretty baby-show!
See the kitten on the wall,
Sporting with the leaves that fall,
Withered leaves, one, two, and three
From the lofty elder-tree!
Through the calm and frosty air
Of this morning bright and fair,
Eddying round and round they sink
Softly, slowly: one might think,
From the motions that are made,
Every little leaf conveyed
Sylph or Faery hither tending,
To this lower world descending,
Each invisible and mute,
In his wavering parachute.
But the Kitten, how she starts,
Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!
First at one, and then its fellow
Just as light and just as yellow;
There are many now, now one
Now they stop and there are none
What intenseness of desire
In her upward eye of...

Kinsman beloved, and as a son, by me!
When I behold the fruit of thy regard,
The sculptured form of my old favourite bard,
I reverence feel for him, and love for thee:
Joy too and grief—much joy that there should be,
Wise men and learn’d, who grudge not to reward
With some applause my bold attempt and hard,
Which others scorn; critics by courtesy.
The grief is this, that, sunk in Homer’s mine,
I lose my precious years, now soon to fail,
Handling his gold, which, howsoe’er it shine,
Proves dross when balanced in the Christian scale.
Be wiser thou—like our forefather Donne,
Seek heavenly wealth, and work for God alone.

I.
Stand still, true poet that you are!
I know you; let me try and draw you.
Some night you’ll fail us: when afar
You rise, remember one man saw you,
Knew you, and named a star!

II.
My star, God’s glow-worm! Why extend
That loving hand of his which leads you
Yet locks you safe from end to end
Of this dark world, unless he needs you,
Just saves your light to spend?

III.
His clenched hand shall unclose at last,
I know, and let out all the beauty:
My poet holds the future fast,
Accepts the coming ages’ duty,
Their present for this past.

IV.
That day, the earth’s feast-master’s brow
Shall clear, to God the chalice raising;
“Others give best at first, but thou
“Forever set’st our table praising,
“Keep’st the good...

Poor, little, pretty, fluttering thing,
Must we no longer live together?
And dost thou prune thy trembling wing,
To take thy flight thou know'st not whither?
Thy humorous vein, thy pleasing folly,
Lies all neglected, all forgot:
And pensive, wavering, melancholy,
Thou dread'st and hop'st thou know'st not what.

When we have laid aside our last endeavour,
    And said farewell to one or two that weep,
And issued from the house of life for ever,
    To find a lodging in the house of sleep--

With eyes fast shut, in sunless chambers lying,
    With folded arms unmoved upon the breast,
Beyond the noise of sorrow and of crying,
    Beyond the dread of dreaming, shall we rest?

Or shall there come at last desire of waking,
    To walk again on hillsides that we know,
When sunrise through the cold white mist is breaking,
    Or in the stillness of the after-glow?

Shall there be yearning for the sound of voices,
    The sight of faces, and the touch of hands,
The will that works, the spirit that rejoices,
    The heart that feels, the mind that understands?
<...

O Saw ye not fair Ines?
She's gone into the West,
To dazzle when the sun is down,
And rob the world of rest:
She took our daylight with her,
The smiles that we love best,
With morning blushes on her cheek,
And pearls upon her breast.

O turn again, fair Ines,
Before the fall of night,
For fear the moon should shine alone,
And stars unrivall'd bright;
And blessed will the lover be
That walks beneath their light,
And breathes the love against thy cheek
I dare not even write!

Would I had been, fair Ines,
That gallant cavalier,
Who rode so gaily by thy side,
And whisper'd thee so near!
Were there no bonny dames at home,
Or no true lovers here,
That he should cross the seas to win
The dearest of the dear?

I s...

She's milking in the rain and dark,
As did her mother in the past.
The wretched shed of poles and bark,
Rent by the wind, is leaking fast.
She sees the “home-roof” black and low,
Where, balefully, the hut-fire gleams,
And, like her mother, long ago,
She has her dreams; she has her dreams.
The daybreak haunts the dreary scene,
The brooding ridge, the blue-grey bush,
The “yard” where all her years have been,
Is ankle-deep in dung and slush;
She shivers as the hour drags on,
Her threadbare dress of sackcloth seems,
But, like her mother, years agone,
She has her dreams; she has her dreams.

The sullen “breakfast” where they cut
The blackened “junk.” The lowering face,
As though a crime were in the hut,
As though a curse was on the place;
T...

One with the ruined sunset,
The strange forsaken sands,
What is it waits, and wanders,
And signs with desparate hands?

What is it calls in the twilight -
Calls as its chance were vain?
The cry of a gull sent seaward
Or the voice of an ancient pain?

The red ghost of the sunset,
It walks them as its own,
These dreary and desolate reaches . . .
But O, that it walked alone!

And must I sing? what subject shall I chuse?
Or whose great name in Poets heaven use?
For the more countenance to my active Muse?


Hercules? alas his bones are yet sore,
With his old earthly labours. T'exact more,
Of his dull god-head, were sinne. Ile implore


Phoebus? No. tend thy cart still. Envious day
Shall not give out, that I have made thee stay,
And foundred thy hot teame, to tune my lay.


Nor will I begge of thee, Lord of the vine,
To raise my spirits with thy conjuring wine,
In the greene circle of thy Ivie twine.


Pallas, nor thee I call on, mankind maid,
That, at thy birth, mad'st the poore Smith affraid,
Who, with his axe, thy fathers mid-wife plaid.


Goe, crampe dull Mars, light Venus, when he snor...

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
Restored our Earth to joy,
Have you departed, every one,
And left a desert sky?

All through the night, your glorious eyes
Were gazing down in mine,
And, with a full heart's thankful sighs,
I blessed that watch divine.

I was at peace, and drank your beams
As they were life to me;
And revelled in my changeful dreams,
Like petrel on the sea.

Thought followed thought, star followed star,
Through boundless regions, on;
While one sweet influence, near and far,
Thrilled through, and proved us one!

Why did the morning dawn to break
So great, so pure, a spell;
And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,
Where your cool radiance fell?

Blood-red, he rose, and, arrow-straight,
His fierce...

On this high altar, fringed with ferns
    That darken against the sky,
The dawn in lonely beauty burns
    And all our evils die.

The struggling sea that roared below
    Is quieter than the dew,
Quieter than the clouds that flow
    Across the stainless blue.

On this bare crest, the angels kneel
    And breathe the sweets that rise
From flowers too little to reveal
    Their beauty to our eyes.

I have seen Edens on the earth
    With queenly blooms arrayed;
But here the fairest come to birth,
    The smallest flowers He made.

O, high above the sounding pine,
    And richer, sweeter far,
The wild thyme wakes. The celandine
    Looks at the morning star.

They may not see the heavens unfold.
    They breath...

Hope smiled when your nativity was cast,
Children of Summer! Ye fresh Flowers that brave
What Summer here escapes not, the fierce wave,
And whole artillery of the western blast,
Battering the Temple's front, its long-drawn nave
Smiting, as if each moment were their last.
But ye, bright Flowers on frieze and architrave
Survive, and once again the Pile stands fast:
Calm as the Universe, from specular towers
Of heaven contemplated by Spirits pure
With mute astonishment, it stands sustained
Through every part in symmetry, to endure,
Unhurt, the assault of Time with all his hours,
As the supreme Artificer ordained.

A MIDDLE-AGE INTERLUDE.


I.

PREADMONISHETH THE ABBOT DEODAET.

The Lord, we look to once for all,
Is the Lord we should look at, all at once:
He knows not to vary, saith Saint Paul,
Nor the shadow of turning, for the nonce.
See him no other than as he is:
Give both the infinitudes their due,
Infinite mercy, but, I wis,
As infinite a justice too.
[Organ: plagal-cadence.]
As infinite a justice too.

II.

ONE SINGETH.

John, Master of the Temple of God,
Falling to sin the Unknown Sin,
What he bought of Emperor Aldabrod,
He sold it to Sultan Saladin,
Till, caught by Pope Clement, a-buzzing there,
Hornet-prince of the mad wasps’ hive,
And clipt of his wings in Paris square,
They bring him now...

I know where lurk
The eyes of Fear;
I, I alone,
Where shadowy-clear,
Watching for me,
Lurks Fear.

'Tis ever still
And dark, despite
All singing and
All candlelight,
'Tis ever cold,
And night.

He touches me;
Says quietly,
"Stir not, nor whisper,
I am nigh;
Walk noiseless on,
I am by!"

He drives me
As a dog a sheep;
Like a cold stone
I cannot weep.
He lifts me
Hot from sleep

In marble hands
To where on high
The jewelled horror
Of his eye
Dares me to struggle
Or cry.

No breast wherein
To chase away
That watchful shape!
Vain, vain to say
"Haunt not with night
The Day!"

Honor and pity for the smitten field,
The valorous ranks mown down like precious corn,
Whose want must famish love morn after morn,
Till Death, the good physician, shall have healed
The craving and the tearspent eyelids sealed.
Proud be the homes that for each cannon-torn,
Encrimsoned rampart have been left forlorn;
Holy the knells o'er fallen patriots pealed.

But they, above the battle, throng a space
Of starry silences and silver rest.
Commingled ghosts, they press like brothers through
White, dove-winged portals, where one Father's face
Atones their passion, as the ethereal blue
Serenes the fiery glows of east and west.