Vallombrosa! I longed in thy shadiest wood
To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor,
To listen to Anio's precipitous flood,
When the stillness of evening hath deepened its roar;
To range through the Temples of Paestum, to muse
In Pompeii preserved by her burial in earth;
On pictures to gaze where they drank in their hues;
And murmur sweet songs on the ground of their birth.

The beauty of Florence, the grandeur of Rome,
Could I leave them unseen, and not yield to regret?
With a hope (and no more) for a season to come,
Which ne'er may discharge the magnificent debt?
Thou fortunate Region! whose Greatness inurned
Awoke to new life from its ashes and dust;
Twice-glorified fields! if in sadness I turned
From your infinite marvels, the sadness was just.
...

MUSE.
Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre;
The buds are bursting on the wild sweet-briar.
To-night the Spring is born - the breeze takes fire.
Expectant of the dawn behold the thrush,
Perched on the fresh branch of the first green bush;
Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre.


POET.
How black it looks within the vale!
I thought a muffled form did sail
Above the tree-tops, through the air.
It seemed from yonder field to pass,
Its foot just grazed the tender grass;
A vision strange and fair it was.
It melts and is no longer there.


MUSE.
My poet, take thy lyre; upon the lawn
Night rocks the zephyr on her veiled, soft breast.
The rose, still virgin, holds herself withdrawn
From the winged, irised wasp with love possessed.

Part First

Ancient
True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
A ferlie he spied wi' his ee;
And there he saw a lady bright,
Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.

Her skirt was o the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o the velvet fyne,
At ilka tett of her horse's mane
Hang fifty siller bells and nine.

True Thomas he pulld aff his cap,
And louted low down to his knee:
"All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven!
For thy peer on earth I never did see."

"O no, O no, Thomas," she said,
"That name does not belang to me;
I am but the queen of fair Elfland,
That am hither come to visit thee.

"Harp and carp, Thomas," she said,
"Harp and carp, along wi' me,
And if ye dare to kiss my lips,
Sure of your bodie I will be!"

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...

So ancient to myself I seem,
I might have crossed grave Styx's stream
A year ago; -
My word, 'tis so; -
And now be wandering with my sires
In that rare world we wonder o'er,
Half disbelieve, and prize the more!

Yet spruce I am, and still can mix
My wits with all the sparkling tricks,
A youth and girl
At twenty's whirl
Play round each other's bosom fires,
On this brisk earth I once enjoyed: -
But now I'm otherwise employed!

Am I a thing without a name;
A sort of dummy in the game?
"Not young, not old:"
A world is told
Of misery in that lengthened phrase;
Yet, gad, although my coat be smooth,
My forehead's wrinkled, - that's the truth!

I hardly know which road to go.
With youth? Perhaps. With age? Oh no!
Well,...

A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew saw
On Carmel prophesying rain, began
To lift itself o’er wooded Cardigan,
Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flaw

Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beat
Down the long valley’s murmuring pines, and woke
The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke
Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains’ feet.

Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness swept
Over the rough pine-bearded Asquam range;
A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange,
From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped.

One moment, as if challenging the storm,
Chocorua’s tall, defiant sentinel
Looked from his watch-tower; then the shadow fell,
And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form.

And over all the still unhidden sun,
Weavi...

Batt he gets children, not for love to rear 'em;
But out of hope his wife might die to bear 'em.

    Well, don't you see this was the way of it:
    We bought the farm with what he inherited,
    And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning
    His fathers mind against the rest of them.
    And we never had any peace with our treasure.
    The murrain took the cattle, and the crops failed.
    And lightning struck the granary.
    So we mortgaged the farm to keep going.
    And he grew silent and was worried all the time.
    Then some of the neighbors refused to speak to us,
    And took sides with his brothers and sisters.
    And I had no place to turn, as one may say to himself,
    At an earlier time in life;
    "No matter, So and so is my friend, or I can shake this off
    With a little trip to Decatur."
    Then the dreadfulest smells infeste...

Comrade, yet a little further I would go before the night
Closes round and chills in darkness all the glorious sunset light -
Yet a little, by the cliff there, till the stately home I see
Of the man who once was with us, comrade once with you and me!
Nay, but leave me, pass alone there; stay awhile and gaze again
On the various-jewelled waters and the dreamy southern main,
For the evening breeze is sighing in the quiet of the hills
Moving down in cliff and terrace to the singing sweet sea-rills,
While the river, silent-stealing, thro' the copse and thro' the lea
Winds her waveless way eternal to the welcome of the sea.
Yes, within that green-clad homestead, gardened grounds and velvet ease
Of a home where culture reigneth and the chambers whisper peace,
Is the man, the seer and s...

A just man's like a rock that turns the wrath
Of all the raging waves into a froth.

Of mortal parents is the Hero born
By whom the undaunted Tyrolese are led?
Or is it Tell's great Spirit, from the dead
Returned to animate an age forlorn?
He comes like Phoebus through the gates of morn
When dreary darkness is discomfited,
Yet mark his modest state! upon his head,
That simple crest, a heron's plume, is worn.
O Liberty! they stagger at the shock
From van to rear, and with one mind would flee,
But half their host is buried: rock on rock
Descends: beneath this godlike Warrior, see!
Hills, torrents, woods, embodied to bemock
The Tyrant, and confound his cruelty.

The typewriter ticketh no more in the twilight;
The mother of poets is sitting alone;
Only the katydid teases the noonday;
Where are the good-for-naught wanderbirds flown?

Tom's in the North with his purple impressions;
Dickon's in London a-building his fame;
Fred's in the mountains a-minding his cattle;
Kavanagh's teaching and preaching and game.

Over in Kingscroft a toiler is writing,
The boyish Old Man whom no fate ever floored;
Karl's in New York with his briefs and his logic,
That subtile mind like a velvet-sheathed sword.

Blomidon welcomes his brother in silence;
Grand Pré is luring him back to her breast;
Faint and far off are the cries of the city,
There in the country of infinite rest.

All of them turn in their wide vagabondage...

O many-toned rain!
O myriad sweet voices of the rain!
How welcome is its delicate overture
At evening, when the moist and glowing west
Seals all things with cool promise of night's rest.

At first it would allure
The earth to kinder mood,
With dainty flattering
Of soft, sweet pattering:
Faintly now you hear the tramp
Of the fine drops, falling damp
On the dry, sun-seasoned ground
And the thirsty leaves, resound.
But anon, imbued
With a sudden, bounding access
Of passion, it relaxes
All timider persuasion.
And, with nor pretext nor occasion,
Its wooing redoubles;
And pounds the ground, and bubbles
In sputtering spray,
Flinging itself in a fury
Of flashing white away;
Till the dusty road,
Dank-perfumed, is o'erflowed;...

I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once fair and stately palace,
Radiant palace, reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion,
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.

II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This, all this, was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away.

III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.<...

Wansfell! this Household has a favoured lot,
Living with liberty on thee to gaze,
To watch while Morn first crowns thee with her rays,
Or when along thy breast serenely float
Evening's angelic clouds. Yet ne'er a note
Hath sounded (shame upon the Bard!) thy praise
For all that thou, as if from heaven, hast brought
Of glory lavished on our quiet days.
Bountiful Son of Earth! when we are gone
From every object dear to mortal sight,
As soon we shall be, may these words attest
How oft, to elevate our spirits, shone
Thy visionary majesties of light,
How in thy pensive glooms our hearts found rest.

Murmur of living!
Stir of existence!
Soul of the world!
Make, oh make yourselves felt
To the dying spirit of Youth.
Come, like the breath of the spring.
Leave not a human soul
To grow old in darkness and pain.
Only the living can feel you
But leave us not while we live

(Near Tooting Common)



I

While rain, with eve in partnership,
Descended darkly, drip, drip, drip,
Beyond the last lone lamp I passed
    Walking slowly, whispering sadly,
    Two linked loiterers, wan, downcast:
Some heavy thought constrained each face,
And blinded them to time and place.

II

The pair seemed lovers, yet absorbed
In mental scenes no longer orbed
By love's young rays. Each countenance
    As it slowly, as it sadly
    Caught the lamplight's yellow glance
Held in suspense a misery
At things which had been or might be.

III

When I retrod that watery way
Some hours beyond the droop of day,
Still I found pacing there the twain
    Just as slowly, just as sadly,
    Heedless o...

Fresh from piano, school, and books,
A happy girl with rosy looks
    Young Plowman wooed and won; despite
Her pretty, pouting prejudice,
Her deep distaste for rural bliss
    Or countryfied delight.

Romance through all her nature ran -
Indeed, to wed a husband-man
    Suffused her ardent maiden thought;
But lofty fancy dwelt upon
A new "Queen Anne," a terraced lawn,
    A city's corner lot.

Her lily fingers that so well
Could paint a scene - in aquarelle -
    Or broider plush with leaves and vines,
No more of real labor knew
Than waxen petals of the dew
    On native eglantines.

Anon, with lapse of tender ways
That emphasized the courting days,
    The housewife in her apron blue,
As mistress of her new abode,
...