Inspirational

(Inscribed to Madame Lucy Escott.)


As you glided and glided before us that time,
A mystical, magical maiden,
We fancied we looked on a face from the clime
Where the poets have builded their Aidenn!
And oh, the sweet shadows! And oh, the warm gleams
Which lay on the land of our beautiful dreams,
While we walked by the margins of musical streams
And heard your wild warbling around us!

We forgot what we were when we stood with the trees
Near the banks of those silvery waters;
As ever in fragments they came on the breeze,
The songs of old Rhine and his daughters!
And then you would pass with those radiant eyes
Which flashed like a light in the tropical skies
And ah! the bright thoughts that would sparkle and rise
While we heard your wild warbling...

I dreamt that people from the Land of Chimes
Arrived one autumn morning with their bells,
To hoist them on the towers and citadels
Of my own country, that the musical rhymes

Rung by them into space at meted times
Amid the market's daily stir and stress,
And the night's empty star-lit silentness,
Might solace souls of this and kindred climes.

Then I awoke; and lo, before me stood
The visioned ones, but pale and full of fear;
From Bruges they came, and Antwerp, and Ostend,

No carillons in their train. Foes of mad mood
Had shattered these to shards amid the gear
Of ravaged roof, and smouldering gable-end.

October 18, 1914.

I used to know a monk, a hermit, a saint. He lived only for the sweetness of prayer; and steeping himself in it, he would stand so long on the cold floor of the church that his legs below the knees grew numb and senseless as blocks of wood. He did not feel them; he stood on and prayed.

I understood him, and perhaps envied him; but let him too understand me and not condemn me; me, for whom his joys are inaccessible.

He has attained to annihilating himself, his hateful ego; but I too; it's not from egoism, I pray not.

My ego, may be, is even more burdensome and more odious to me, than his to him.

He has found wherein to forget himself ... but I, too, find the same, though not so continuously.

He does not lie ... but neither do I lie.

November 1879.

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
    I shun the thought that lurks in all delight-
    The thought of thee-and in the blue Heaven's height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.

Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
    This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright;
    But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
    When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
    And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,

Must doff my will as raiment laid away,-
    With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
    I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

(AFTER HEINE.)

Thou little village curate,
    Come quick, and do not wait;
We'll sit and talk together,
    So sweetly tete-a-tete.

Oh do not fear the railway
    Because it seems so big--
Dost thou not daily trust thee
    Unto thy little gig.

This house is full of painters,
    And half shut up and black;
But rooms the very snuggest
    Lie hidden at the back.
            Come! come! come!

By the bodies and minds and souls that rot in a common sty
In the city’s offal-holes, where the dregs of its horrors lie;
By the prayers that bubble out, but never ascend to God,
We swear the tyrants of earth to rout with tongue and with pen and sword!

By the child that sees the light where the pestilent air stagnates,
And the woman worn and white who under the street-lamp waits;
By the horror of vice that thrives in the dens of the wretched poor,
We swear to strike when the time arrives for all that is good and pure.

By the rights that were always ours, the rights that we ne’er enjoyed,
And the gloomy cloud that lowers on the brows of the unemployed;
By the struggling mothers and wives and the girls on the streets of sin,
We swear to strike when the time arrives, for our ...

We buried old Bob where the bloodwoods wave
At the foot of the Eaglehawk;
We fashioned a cross on the old man's grave
For fear that his ghost might walk;
We carved his name on a bloodwood tree
With the date of his sad decease
And in place of "Died from effects of spree"
We wrote "May he rest in peace".

For Bob was known on the Overland,
A regular old bush wag,
Tramping along in the dust and sand,
Humping his well-worn swag.
He would camp for days in the river-bed,
And loiter and "fish for whales".
"I'm into the swagman's yard," he said.
"And I never shall find the rails."

But he found the rails on that summer night
For a better place, or worse,
As we watched by turns in the flickering light
With an old black gin for nurse.
The b...

'A Library in a garden! The phrase seems to contain the whole felicity of man.' - Mr. EDMUND GOSSE in Gossip in a Library.

A world of books amid a world of green,
Sweet song without, sweet song again within
Flowers in the garden, in the folios too:
O happy Bookman, let me live with you!

“Turn out, boys!”, “What’s up with our super to-night?
The man’s mad, Two hours to daybreak I’d swear,
Stark mad, why, there isn’t a glimmer of light.”
“Take Bolingbroke, Alec, give Jack the young mare;
Look sharp. A large vessel lies jamm’d on the reef,
And many on board still, and some wash’d on shore.
Ride straight with the news, they may send some relief
From the township; and we, we can do little more.
You, Alec, you know the near cuts; you can cross
‘The Sugarloaf’ ford with a scramble, I think;
Don’t spare the blood filly, nor yet the black horse;
Should the wind rise, God help them! the ship will soon sink.
Old Peter’s away down the paddock, to drive
The nags to the stockyard as fast as he can,
A life and death matter; so, lads, look alive.”
Half-dress’d, i...

    I tried to win the nomination
    For president of the County-board
    And I made speeches all over the County
    Denouncing Solomon Purple, my rival,
    As an enemy of the people,
    In league with the master-foes of man.
    Young idealists, broken warriors,
    Hobbling on one crutch of hope,
    Souls that stake their all on the truth,
    Losers of worlds at heaven's bidding,
    Flocked about me and followed my voice
    As the savior of the County.
    But Solomon won the nomination;
    And then I faced about,
    And rallied my followers to his standard,
    And made him victor, made him King
    Of the Golden Mountain with the door
    Which closed on my heels just as I entered,
    Flattered by Solomon's invitation,
    To be ...

Welcome, O truant stork!
And where have you been so long?
And do you bring that grace of spring
That filleth my heart with song?

Descend upon my roof--
Bide on this ash content;
I would have you know what cruel woe
Befell me when you went.

All up in the moody sky
(A shifting threat o'er head!)
They were breaking the snow and bidding it go
Cover the beautiful dead.

Came snow on garden spot,
Came snow on mere and wold,
Came the withering breath of white robed death,
And the once warm earth was cold.

Stork, the tender rose tree,
That bloometh when you are here,
Trembled and sighed like a waiting bride--
Then drooped on a virgin bier.

But the brook that hath seen you come
Leaps forth with a hearty shout,
...

("Comme le matin rit sur les roses.")

[Bk. I. xii.]


The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses - lo, the little lovers -
That kiss the buds and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings
That go and come, and fly, and peep, and hide
With muffled music, murmured far and wide!
Ah, Springtime, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy Mays,
Of the proud hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that men wound,
The messages of love that mortals write,
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April, and before the Maytime
Shredded and flown, playthings for the winds' playtime.
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters ...

She's an enchanting little Israelite,
A world of hidden dimples! - Dusky-eyed,
A starry-glancing daughter of the Bride,
With hair escaped from some Arabian Night,
Her lip is red, her cheek is golden-white,
Her nose a scimitar; and, set aside
The bamboo hat she cocks with so much pride,
Her dress a dream of daintiness and delight.
And when she passes with the dreadful boys
And romping girls, the cockneys loud and crude,
My thought, to the Minories tied yet moved to range
The Land o' the Sun, commingles with the noise
Of magian drums and scents of sandalwood
A touch Sidonian - modern - taking - strange!

My son, if you go to the races to battle with Ikey and Mo,
Remember, it's seldom the pigeon can pick out the eye of the crow;
Remember, they live by the business; remember, my son, and go slow.

If ever an owner should tell you, "Back mine", don't you be such a flat.
He knows his own cunning no doubt, does he know what the others are at?
Find out what he's frightened of most, and invest a few dollars on that.

Walk not in the track of the trainer, nor hang round the rails at his stall.
His wisdom belongs to his patron, shall he give it to one and to all?
When the stable is served he may tell you, and his words are like jewels let fall.

Run wide of the tipster, who whispers that Borak is sure to be first,
He tells the next mug that he meets with a tale with the placings reve...

The barberry burns, the rose-hip crimsons warm,
And haw and sumach hedge the hill with fire,
Down which the road winds, worn of hoof and tire,
Only the blueberry-picker plods now from the farm.
Here once the quarry-driver, brown of arm,
Wielded the whip when, deep in mud and mire,
The axle strained, and earned his daily hire,
Labouring bareheaded in both sun and storm.
Wild-cherry now and blackberry and bay
Usurp the place: the wild-rose, undisturbed,
Riots, where once the workman earned his wage,
Whose old hands rest now, like this granite grey,
These rocks, whose stubborn will whilom he curbed,
Hard as the toil that was his heritage.

The lily's withered chalice falls
Around its rod of dusty gold,
And from the beech-trees on the wold
The last wood-pigeon coos and calls.

The gaudy leonine sunflower
Hangs black and barren on its stalk,
And down the windy garden walk
The dead leaves scatter, - hour by hour.

Pale privet-petals white as milk
Are blown into a snowy mass:
The roses lie upon the grass
Like little shreds of crimson silk.

When I love you
A new language springs up,
New cities, new countries discovered.
The hours breathe like puppies,
Wheat grows between the pages of books,
Birds fly from your eyes with tiding of honey,
Caravans ride from your breasts carrying Indian herbs,
The mangoes fall all around, the forests catch fire
And Nubian drums beat.

When I love you your breasts shake off their shame,
Turn into lightning and thunder, a sword, a sandy storm.
When I love you the Arab cities leap up and demonstrate
Against the ages of repression
And the ages
Of revenge against the laws of the tribe.
And I, when I love you,
March against ugliness,
Against the kings of salt,
Against the institutionalization of the desert.
And I shall continue to love you until the wo...

    O, could I give thee India's wealth,
        As I this trifle send!
    Because thy joy in both would be
        To share them with a friend.

    But golden sands did never grace
        The Heliconian stream;
    Then take what gold could never buy,
        An honest Bard's esteem.