Victor James Daley

What shall a man remember
In days when he is old,
And Life is a dying ember,
And Fame a story told?

Power, that came to leave him?
Wealth, to the wild waves blown?
Fame, that came to deceive him?
Ah, no! Sweet Love alone!

Honour, and Wealth, and Power
May all like dreams depart,
But Love is a fadeless flower
Whose roots are in the heart.

A child came singing through the dusty town
A song so sweet that all men stayed to hear,
Forgetting for a space their ancient fear
Of evil days and death and fortune’s frown.

She sang of Winter dead and Spring new-born
In the green fields beyond the far hills’ bound;
And how this fair Spring, coming blossom-crowned,
Would cross the city’s threshold on the morn.

And each caged bird in every house anigh,
Even as she sang, caught up the glad refrain
Of Love and Hope and fair days come again,
Till all who heard forgot they had to die.

And all the ghosts of buried woes were laid
That heard the song of this sweet sorceress;
The Past grew to a dream of old distress,
And merry were the hearts of man and maid.

So, at the first faint blush of ten...

I am the Vision and the Dream
Of trembling Age, and yearning Youth;
I am the Sorceress Supreme.
I am Illusion; I am Truth.

I am the Queen to whom belongs
The royal right great gifts to give;
I am the Singer of the Songs
That lure men on to live and live.

There is no music like to mine;
I sing in green, and gold and red;
I pour from secret casks the wine
That cheers the cold hearts of the dead.

My harp it has a thousand tones,
And makes the world with joy a-flood;
The old men feel it in their bones,
And life leaps laughing in their blood.

The sourest mortal all in vain
Shall try from me to keep apart;
I have no commerce with his brain,
I storm the fortress of his heart.

I am the Soul of things to come;
I ma...

I learnt the language of the birds,
A new St Francis I would be;
But, when I understood their words,
The birds were preaching unto me.

’Tis said that the Passion Flower,
With its figures of spear and sword
And hammer and nails, is a symbol
Of the Woe of our Blessed Lord.

So still in the Heart of Beauty
Has been hidden, since Life drew breath,
The sword and the spear of Anguish,
And the hammer and nails of Death.

Lo, upon the carpet, where
Throned upon a heap of slain
Blue-eyed dolls of beauty rare
(Ah, they pleaded all in vain!)
Sits the Infant Tamerlane!

Broken toys upon the floor
Scattered lie, a ruined rout.
Thus from all things evermore
Are, the fact is past a doubt,
Hidden virtues hammered out.

Poet’s page, or statesman’s bust,
Nothing comes to him amiss;
Everything he clutches must,
’Tis his simple dream of bliss!
Suffer his analysis.

O my little Tamerlane,
Infantile Iconoclast,
Is your small barbaric brain
Not o’erawed by the amassed
Wit and Wisdom of the Past?

Type are you of that which springs
Ever forth when comes the need,
Overthrowing thrones and kings,
Faithless altar, sapless creed;
Sowing f...

The narrow, thorny path he trod.
“Enter into My joy,” said God.
The sad ascetic shook his head;
“I’ve lost all taste for joy,” he said.

There is a saying of renown,
"God made the country, man the town."
Well, everybody to his trade!
But man likes best the thing he made.
The town has little space to spare;
The country has both space and air;
The town's confined, the country free,
Yet, spite of all, the town for me.

For when the hills are grey and night is falling,
And the winds sigh drearily,
I hear the city calling, calling, calling,
With a voice like the great sea.

I used to think I'd like to be
A hermit living lonesomely,
Apart from human care or ken,
Afar from. all the haunts of men:
Then I would read in Nature's book,
And drink clear water from the brook,
And live a life of sweet content,
In hollow tree, or cave, or tent.

This was a dream of callow You...

The wan light of a stormy dawn
Gleamed on a tossing ship:
It was the In Memoriam
Upon a mourning trip.

Wild waves were on the windward bow,
And breakers on the lee;
And through her sides the women heard
The seething of the sea.

“O Captain!” cried a widow fair,
Her plump white hands clasped she,
“Thinkst thou, if drowned in this dread storm,
That savèd we shall be?”

“You speak in riddles, lady dear,
How savèd can we be
If we are drowned?” “Alas, I mean
In Paradise!” said she.

“O I’ve sailed North, and I’ve sailed South”
(He was a godless wight),
“But boy or man, since my days began,
That shore I ne’er did sight!”

The Captain told the First Mate bold
What that fair lady said;
The First Mate sneered in h...

The days go by, the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms,
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!

Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they,
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?

My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly...

All silent is the room,
There is no stir of breath,
Save mine, as in the gloom
I sit alone with Death.

Short life it had, the sweet,
Small babe here lying dead,
With tapers at its feet
And tapers at its head.

Dear little hands, too frail
Their grasp on life to hold;
Dear little mouth so pale,
So solemn, and so cold;

Small feet that nevermore
About the house shall run;
Thy little life is o’er!
Thy little journey done!

Sweet infant, dead too soon,
Thou shalt no more behold
The face of sun or moon,
Or starlight clear and cold;

Nor know, where thou art gone,
The mournfulness and mirth
We know who dwell upon
This sad, glad, mad, old earth.

The foolish hopes and fond
That cheat us to th...

Within his office, smiling.
Sat JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN,
But all the screws of Birmingham
Were working in his brain.

The heart within his bosom
Was as a millstone hard;
His eye was cold and cruel,
His face was frozen lard.

He had the map of Africa
Upon his table spread:
He took a brush, and with the same
He painted it blood-red.

He heard no moan of widows,
But only the hurrah
Of charging lines and squadrons
And 'Rule Britannia.'

A white dove to his window
With branch of olive sped
He took a ruler in his hand,
And struck the white dove dead.

It fell upon a summer night
The village folk were soundly sleeping,
Unconscious of the glamour white
In which the moon all things was steeping;
One window only showed a light;
Behind it, silent vigil keeping,
Sat Margaret, as one in trance,
The dark-eyed daughter of the Manse.

A flood of strange, sweet thoughts was surging
Her passionate heart and brain within.
At last, some secret impulse urging,
She laid aside her garment thin,
And from its snowy folds emerging,
Like Lamia from the serpent-skin,
She stood before her mirror bright
Naked, and lovely as the night.

Her dark hair o’er her shoulders flowing
Might well have been a silken pall
O’er Galatea’s image glowing
To life and love: she was withal
The lamplight o’er her radianc...

The waters make a music low:
The river reeds
Are trembling to the tunes of long ago,
Dead days and deeds

Become alive again, as on
I float, and float,
Through shadows of the golden summers gone
And springs remote.

Above my head the trees bloom out
In white and red
Great blossoms, that make glad the air about;
And old suns shed

Their rays athwart them. Ah, the light
Is bright and fair!
No suns that shine upon me now are bright
As those suns were.

And, gazing down into the stream,
I see a face,
As sweet as buds that blossom in a dream,
Ere sorrows chase

Fair dreams from men, and send in lieu
Sad thoughts. A wreath
Of blue-bells binds the head, a bluer blue
The eyes beneath.

This is my li...

Methought I came unto a world-wide plain
Where souls stood thick as grain at harvest-tide,
And many reapers, full of pious pride,
With rapid scythe-sweeps mowed them down amain;
And zealous binders bound them up like grain
In sheaves: the reapers at each onward stride
Trod many souls down. These the binders eyed
With careless looks or glances of disdain.
But, following slow, a patient Gleaner came
And gathered all the Binders cast aside,
And made fair sheaves thereof. Whereat I cried:
“Why gather these? Who art thou? Name thy name!”
The Gleaner in a sad, sweet voice replied:
“The outcasts’ Saviour, for these, too, I died.”

Last night, as one who hears a tragic jest,
I woke from dreams, half-laughing, half in tears;
Methought that I had journeyed in the spheres
And stood upon the Planet of the Blest!
And found thereon a folk who prayed with zest
Exceeding, and through all their painful years,
Like strong souls struggled on, ’mid hopes and fears;
“Where dwell the gods,” they said, “we shall find rest.”
The gods? What gods, I thought, are these who so
Inspire their worshippers with faith that flowers
Immortal, and who make them keep aglow
The flames for ever on their altar-towers?
“Where dwell these gods of yours?” I asked, and lo!
They pointed upward to this earth of ours!

By the road, near her father’s dwelling,
There groweth a hawthorn tree:
Its blossoms are fair and fragrant
As the love that I cast from me.

It is all a-bloom this morning
In the sunny silentness,
And grows by the roadside, radiant
As a bride in her bridal dress.

But ah me! at sight of its blossoms
No pleasant memories start:
I see but the thorns beneath them,
And the thorns they pierce my heart.

Who are these strange small folk,
These that come to our homes as kings,
Asking nor leave nor grace,
Bending our necks to their yoke,
Taking the highest place,
And mastery of all things?

Whence they come none may know,
But a wondrous land it must be;
Angels in exile they!
Here in this dull world below
Creatures of sinful clay
We feel near their purity.

Clearer their young eyes are
Than the dew in the cups of flowers
Gleaming, when shines at dawn,
Faintly, the morning’s one star,
Eyes whose still gaze, indrawn,
Sees things unseen by ours.

Deep in those orbs serene,
Little planets be-ringed and bright,
Mysteries marvellous lie:
Known unto us they might mean
Faith, without fear, to die,
All sure of the waiting ...