THE EDITORS OF THE PHILOLOGICAL MUSEUM

But Cytherea, studious to invent
Arts yet untried, upon new counsels bent,
Resolves that Cupid, changed in form and face
To young Ascanius, should assume his place;
Present the maddening gifts, and kindle heat
Of passion at the bosom's inmost seat.
She dreads the treacherous house, the double tongue;
She burns, she frets by Juno's rancour stung;
The calm of night is powerless to remove
These cares, and thus she speaks to winged Love:

"O son, my strength, my power! who dost despise
(What, save thyself, none dares through earth and skies)
The giant-quelling bolts of Jove, I flee,
O son, a suppliant to thy deity!
What perils meet Aeneas in his course,
How Juno's hate with unrelenting force
Pursues thy brothe...

Avaunt all specious pliancy of mind
In men of low degree, all smooth pretense!
I better like a blunt indifference,
And self-respecting slowness, disinclined
To win me at first sight: and be there joined
Patience and temperance with this high reserve,
Honour that knows the path and will not swerve;
Affections, which, if put to proof, are kind;
And piety towards God. Such men of old
Were England's native growth; and, throughout Spain
(Thanks to high God) forests of such remain:
Then for that Country let our hopes be bold;
For matched with these shall policy prove vain,
Her arts, her strength, her iron, and her gold.

        Sweet friends, receive my offering. You will find
        Against each worded page a white page set:--
        This is the mirror of each friendly mind
        Reflecting that. In this book we are met.
        Make it, dear hearts, of worth to you indeed:--
        Let your white page be ground, my print be seed,
        Growing to golden ears, that faith and hope shall feed.

        YOUR OLD SOUL

Was the aim frustrated by force or guile,
When giants scooped from out the rocky ground,
Tier under tier, this semicirque profound?
(Giants the same who built in Erin's isle
That Causeway with incomparable toil!)
Oh, had this vast theatric structure wound
With finished sweep into a perfect round,
No mightier work had gained the plausive smile
Of all-beholding Phoebus! But, alas,
Vain earth! false world! Foundations must be laid
In Heaven; for, 'mid the wreck of IS and WAS,
Things incomplete and purposes betrayed
Make sadder transits o'er thought's optic glass
Than noblest objects utterly decayed.

The Babe was laid in the Manger
Between the gentle kine,
All safe from cold and danger,
"But it was not so with mine,
(With mine! With mine!)
"Is it well with the child, is it well?"
The waiting mother prayed.
"For I know not how he fell,
And I know not where he is laid."

A Star stood forth in Heaven;
The Watchers ran to see
The Sign of the Promise given,
"But there comes no sign to me.
(To me! To me!)
"My child died in the dark.
Is it well with the child, is it well?
There was none to tend him or mark,
And I know not how he fell."

The Cross was raised on high;
The Mother grieved beside,
"But the Mother saw Him die
And took Him when He died.
(He died! He died!)
"Seemly and undefiled
His burial-place was made,...

If GOD should say to me, Behold! -
    Yea, who shall doubt? -
They who love others more than me,
Shall I not turn, as oft of old,
My face from them and cast them out?
So let it be with thee, behold! -
I should not care, for in your face
    Is all GOD'S grace.

If GOD should say to me, Behold! -
    Is it not well? -
They who have other gods than me,
Shall I not bid them, as of old,
Depart into the outer HELL?
So let it be with thee, behold! -
I should not care, for in your eyes
    Is PARADISE.

Few and precious are the words which the lips of Wisdom utter:
To what shall then' rarity be likened? What price shall count their worth?
Perfect and much to be desired, and giving joy with riches.
No lovely tiling on earth can picture all their beauty.
They be chance pearls, flung among the rocks by the sullen waters of Oblivion,
Which Diligence loveth to gather, and hang around the neck of Memory;
They be white-winged seeds of happiness, wafted from the islands of the blessed.
Which Thought carefully tendeth, in the kindly garden of the heart;

They be sproutings of an harvest for eternity, bursting through the tilth of time,
Green promise of the golden wheat, that yieldeth angels' food;
They be drops of the crystal dew, which the wings of seraphs scatter,
When on some brighter...

The full-orbed Paschal moon; dark shadows flung
On the brown Lenten earth; tall spectral trees
Stand in their huge and naked strength erect,
And stretch wild arms towards the gleaming sky.
A motionless girl-figure, face upraised
In the strong moonlight, cold and passionless.

    *    *    *    *    *

A proud spring sunset; opal-tinted sky,
Save where the western purple, pale and faint
With longing for her fickle Love, - content
Had merged herself into his burning red.
A fair young maiden, clad in velvet robe
Of sombre green, stands in the golden glow,
One hand held up to shade her dazzled eyes,
A bunch of white Narcissus at her throat.

    *    *    *    *    *

November's day, dark, leaden, lowering, -
Grey purple shadows fading on...

‘Courage!’ he said, and pointed toward the land,
‘This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.’
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush’d: and, dew’d with sho...

Liete e pensose, accompagnate e sole.

NOT FINDING HER WITH HER FRIENDS, HE ASKS THEM WHY SHE IS ABSENT.


P.    Pensive and glad, accompanied, alone,
        Ladies who cheat the time with converse gay,
        Where does my life, where does my death delay?
        Why not with you her form, as usual, shown?
L. Glad are we her rare lustre to have known,
        And sad from her dear company to stay,
        Which jealousy and envy keep away
        O'er other's bliss, as their own ill who moan.
P. Who lovers can restrain, or give them law?
L. No one the soul, harshness and rage the frame;
        As erst in us, this now in her appears.
        As oft the face, betrays the heart, we saw
        Clouds that, obscuring her...

Out of the noise of tired people working,
Harried with thoughts of war and lists of dead,
His beauty met me like a fresh wind blowing,
Clean boyish beauty and high-held head.
Eyes that told secrets, lips that would not tell them,
Fearless and shy the young unwearied eyes,
Men die by millions now, because God blunders,
Yet to have made this boy he must be wise.

"And has the Sun his flaming chariot driven
Two hundred times around the ring of heaven,
Since Science first, with all her sacred train,
Beneath yon roof began her heavenly reign?
While thus I mused, methought, before mine eyes,
The Power of Education seemed to rise;
Not she whose rigid precepts trained the boy
Dead to the sense of every finer joy;
Nor that vile wretch who bade the tender age
Spurn Reason's law and humour Passion's rage;
But she who trains the generous British youth
In the bright paths of fair majestic Truth:
Emerging slow from Academus' grove
In heavenly majesty she seemed to move.
Stern was her forehead, but a smile serene
'Softened the terrors of her awful mien.'
Close at her side were all the powers, designed
To curb, exalt, reform th...

Nature, what heart may here by thee,
    Most truly brave be styled?
The tender mother's it must be,
    When struggling for her child!

A Scottish tale, of serious truth,
    Will make the maxim clear,
I heard it from a shepherd youth,
    As nature's self sincere.

On Scotland's wildest, loneliest ground,
    The subject of my tale
Liv'd, where incumbent mountains frown'd
    High o'er her peaceful vale.

The heroine of nature, she
    No vain ambition knew,
Her bairns and goats she nurs'd with glee,
    To love and labour true.

Her hut within the valley stood,
    Where thin grass grew alone,
No shade had she from lofty wood.
    But much from towering stone.

For o'er her vale a mountain's crown,
    In lo...

Let us be drunk, and for a while forget,
Forget, and, ceasing even from regret,
Live without reason and despite of rhyme,
As in a dream preposterous and sublime,
Where place and hour and means for once are met.

Where is the use of effort?    Love and debt
And disappointment have us in a net.
Let us break out, and taste the morning prime . . .
Let us be drunk.

In vain our little hour we strut and fret,
And mouth our wretched parts as for a bet:
We cannot please the tragicaster Time.
To gain the crystal sphere, the silver dime,
Where Sympathy sits dimpling on us yet,
Let us be drunk!



***



When you are old, and I am passed away -
Passed, and your face, your golden face, is gray -
I think, whate'er the end, ...

For ages on our river borders,
These tassels in their tawny bloom,
And willowy studs of downy silver,
Have prophesied of Spring to come.

For ages have the unbound waters
Smiled on them from their pebbly hem,
And the clear carol of the robin
And song of bluebird welcomed them.

But never yet from smiling river,
Or song of early bird, have they
Been greeted with a gladder welcome
Than whispers from my heart to-day.

They break the spell of cold and darkness,
The weary watch of sleepless pain;
And from my heart, as from the river,
The ice of winter melts again.

Thanks, Mary! for this wild-wood token
Of Freya’s footsteps drawing near;
Almost, as in the rune of Asgard,
The growing of the grass I hear.

It is as if the ...

I.

Eagle-heart, child-heart, bonnie lad o' dreams,
Far away thy soul hears passion-throated Art
        Singing where the future lies
        Wrapped in hues of Paradise,
        Pleading with her poignant note
        That forever seems to float
Farther down the vista that is calling to thy heart.
        Hearken! From the heights
        Where thy soul alights
Bend thine ear to listen for the lute of Love is sighing:
        "Eagle-heart, child-heart,
        Love is love, and art is art;
        Answer while thy lips are red;
        Wilt thou have a barren bed?
        Choose between us which to wed:
Answer, for thy bride awaits, and fragile hours are flying!"


II.

Eagle-heart, child-heart, bonnie lad o' dreams,
Far aw...

Why is the nameless sorrowing look
So often thought a whim?
God-willed, the willow shades the brook,
The gray owl sings a hymn;

Sadly the winds change, and the rain
Comes where the sunlight fell:
Sad is our story, told again,
Which past years told so well!

Why not love sorrow and the glance
That ends in silent tears?
If we count up the world's mischance,
Grieving is in arrears.

Why should I know why I could weep?
The old urns cannot read
The names they wear of kings they keep
In ashes; both are dead.

And like an urn the heart must hold
Aims of an age gone by:
What the aims were we are not told;
We hold them, who knows why?

Is mine the part of no companion hand
Of help, except my shadow's silent self?
A moonlight traveller in Fancy's land
Of leering gnome and hollow-laughing elf;

Whose forests deepen and whose moon goes down,
When Night's blind shadow shall usurp my own;
And, mid the dust and wreck of some old town,
The City of Dreams, I grope and fall alone.