s: Under the low-browed tempest's eye of ire,


s: That ere it lightened smote a coward heart,


s: Earth nerved her chastened son to hail athwart


s: All ventures perilous his shrouded Sire;


s: But when the mind, the cherishable mind,


s: The multitude's grave shepherd, took full flight,


s: Himself as mirror raised among his kind,


s: He saw, and first of brotherhood had sight:


s: Knew that his force to fly, his will to see,


s: His heart enlarged beyond its ribbed domain,


s: Which held conjoined the hostile rival twain,


s: Awake to earth, to heaven, and plumb the deep


s: The mastering mind in him, by tempests blown,


s: By traitor inmates baited, upward burned;


s: Perforce of growth, the Master mind discerned,


s: The Great Unseen, nowise the Dark Unknown.


s: In wilderness, where bitter was his need:


s: For light and air, he struck through crimson mire.


s: And viewed an army, once the seeming doomed,


s: His prize from tidal battles lost or won,


s: No prayer, save for strength to keep his ground,


s: Heard of the Highest; never battle's close,


s: The victory complete and victor crowned:


s: Nor solace in defeat, save from that sense


s: Of strength well spent, which is the strength renewed.


s: God being there while he his fight maintains;


s: Throughout his mind the Master Mind being there,


s: Her dust, if with his conscience he plays knave,


s: And bids the Passions on the Pleasures browse:-


s: That mystery to simple springs resolved.


s: Shows Nature's savage riddles kindly solved.


s: In iron laws, though rapturous fair her face.


s: Back to the primal brute shall he retrace


s: His path, doth he permit to force her chains


s: A soft Persuader coursing through his veins,


s: A splendid bloodless knight to gain the skies,


s: A blood-hot son of Earth by all her signs,


s: As peaches, that have caught the sun's uprise


s: And kissed warm gold till noonday, even as vines.


s: Earth fills him with her juices, without fear


s: That she will cast him drunken down the steeps.


s: He sows for bread, and she in spirit reaps:


s: With him enwound, his brave ambition hers:


s: Pricked to race past the pride in giant limb,


s: Proud in her primal sons, when crags they hurled,


s: Were thunder spitting lightnings on the world


s: In daily deeds, and she their evening Muse.


s: This man, this hero, works not to destroy;


s: This godlike--as the rock in ocean stands; -


s: How strength may serve for purity is shown


s: When he himself can scourge to make it clean.


s: Withal his pitch of pride would not disown


s: A sober world that walks the balanced mean


s: Between its tempters, rarely overthrown:


s: And such at times his army's march has been.


s: Near is he to great Nature in the thought


s: That nought save apparition knows the death;


s: To the God-lighted mind of man 'tis nought.


s: She counts not loss a word of any weight;


s: It may befal his passions and his greeds


s: To lose their treasures, like the vein that bleeds,


s: But life gone breathless will she reinstate.


s: Close on the heart of Earth his bosom beats,


s: Alive to breast a future wrapped in haze,


s: Strike camp, and onward, like the wind's cloud-fleets.


s: Unresting she, unresting he, from change


s: To change, as rain of cloud, as fruit of rain;


s: She feels her blood-tree throbbing in her grain,


s: Yet skyward branched, with loftier mark and range.


s: No miracle the sprout of wheat from clod,


s: She knows, nor growth of man in grisly brute;


s: But he, the flower at head and soil at root,


s: And that way seems he bound; that way the road,


s: With his dark-lantern mind, unled, alone,


s: Wearifully through forest-tracts unsown,


s: He travels, urged by some internal goad.


s: Dares he behold the thing he is, what thing


s: He would become is in his mind its child;


s: Astir, demanding birth to light and wing;


s: For battle prompt, by pleasure unbeguiled.


s: So moves he forth in faith, if he has made


s: His mind God's temple, dedicate to truth.


s: Earth's nourishing delights, no more gainsaid,


s: He tastes, as doth the bridegroom rich in youth.


s: Then knows he Love, that beckons and controls;


s: Then match in him who holds his tempters fast,


s: The body's love and mind's, whereof the soul's.


s: Then Earth her man for woman finds at last,


s: To speed the pair unto her goal of goals.


s: Or is't the widowed's dream of her new mate?


s: Seen has she virulent days of heat in flood;


s: His rough refractory off on kicking heels


s: To rear; the man dragged rearward, shamed, amazed;


s: And as a torrent stream where cattle grazed,


s: His tumbled world.  What, then, the faith she feels?


s: May not his aspect, like her own so fair


s: And he, the once wild ocean storming sky,


s: Be rebel at the core?  What hope is there?


s: 'Tis that in each recovery he preserves,


s: Sense of his march ahead, more brightly lit;


s: He less the shaken thing of lusts and nerves;


s: With such a grasp upon his brute as tells


s: Of wisdom from that vile relapsing spun.


s: Resplendent springs, to faith refreshed compels.


s: Unto that love must we through fire attain,


s: Which those two held as breath of common air;


s: The hands of whom were given in bond elsewhere;


s: Midway the road of our life's term they met,


s: Nor cared that beauty stood in mutual eyes;


s: To them it was revealed how they had found


s: The flower to plant in sanctuary ground.


s: For either, what most lived within each breast


s: Demanding righteousness approved them good.


s: She leaned on a strong arm, and little feared


s: Her heart at intervals while Love looked blank,


s: Their tempter's moment o'er the black abyss,


s: Across the narrow plank--he could abjure.


s: Then came a day that clipped for him the thread,


s: And their first touch of lips, as he lay cold,


s: Was all of earthly in their love untold,


s: Beyond all earthly known to them who wed.


s: So has there come the gust at South-west flung


s: By sudden volt on eves of freezing mist,


s: When sister snowflake sister snowdrop kissed,


s: And one passed out, and one the bell-head hung.


s: That white star with the front of angel she;


s: He casts round her, and knows his hour of rest


s: Incomplete, were the light for which he dies,


s: Less like joy of the dove that wings to nest.


s: Lustrous momently, near on earth she sinks;


s: Life's full throb over breathless and abased:


s: Yet stand they, though impalpable the links,


s: One, more one than the bridally embraced.


s: If that thou hast the gift of strength, then know


s: A hopeless wrestler shall thy soul contend.


s: Seen, too clear and historic within us, our sins of omission


s: Frown when the Autumn days strike us all ruthlessly bare.


s: They of our mortal diseases find never healing physician;


s: Errors they of the soul, past the one hope to repair.


s: Even the limp-legged beggar a sick desperado has flattered


s: Back to a half-sloughed life cheered by the mere human tone.


s: Beneath the vans of doom did men pass in.


s: Heroic who came out; for round them hung


s: A wavering phantom's red volcano tongue,


s: With league-long lizard tail and fishy fin:


s: Old Earth's original Dragon; there retired


s: To his last fastness; overthrown by few.


s: Then man to play devorant straight was fired.


s: While pillared darkness hatched malicious life


s: And wary slid the glance from ear to ear.


s: In chillness, like a clouded lantern-ray,


s: The forest's heart of fog on mossed morass,


s: Revealed where lured the swallower byway.


s: Dead outlook, flattened back with hard rebound


s: Off walls of distance, left each mounted height.


s: It seemed a giant hag-fiend, churning spite


s: Through friendless wastes, through treacherous woodland, slow


s: The feet sustained by track of feet pursued


s: Pained steps, and found the common brotherhood


s: By sign of Heaven indifferent, Nature foe.


s: And long-frocked men, called Brothers, there abode.


s: They pointed up, bowed head, and dug and sowed;


s: Whereof was shelter, loaf, and warm firelight.


s: What words they taught were nails to scratch the head.


s: Benignant works explained the chanting brood.


s: As one might think a star that heavenward led.


s: Like some gold flower nightly inward curled,


s: Where gentle maidens fled a roaring world,


s: Or played with it, and had their white retreat.


s: Into big books of metal clasps they pored.


s: They governed, even as men; they welcomed lays.


s: The treasures women are whose aim is praise,


s: Was shown in them:  the Garden half restored.


s: A deluge billow scoured the land off seas,


s: With widened jaws, and slaughter was its foam.


s: For food, for clothing, ambush, refuge, home,


s: The lesser savage offered bogs and trees.


s: Whence reverence round grey-haired story grew:


s: And inmost spots of ancient horror shone


s: As temples under beams of trials bygone;


s: For in them sang brave times with God in view.


s: Till now trim homesteads bordered spaces green,


s: Like night's first little stars through clearing showers.


s: Was rumoured how a castle's falcon towers


s: The wilderness commanded with fierce mien.


s: Therein a serious Baron stuck his lance;


s: For minstrel songs a beauteous Dame would pout.


s: Gay knights and sombre, felon or devout,


s: Pricked onward, bound for their unsung romance.


s: It might be that two errant lords across


s: The block of each came edged, and at sharp cry


s: They charged forthwith, the better man to try.


s: One rode his way, one couched on quiet moss.


s: Perchance a lady sweet, whose lord lay slain,


s: Swift should her hero come, like lightning's blue!


s: She prayed for him, as crackling drought for rain.


s: As we, that ere the worst her hero haps,


s: Of Angels guided, nigh that loathly den:


s: Where long forlorn the lone dog whines and yaps.


s: By daylight now the forest fear could read


s: Itself, and at new wonders chuckling went.


s: Straight for the roebuck's neck the bowman spent


s: A dart that laughed at distance and at speed.


s: Rang forth of merry dingles round the tors;


s: And deftest hand was he from foreign wars,


s: But soon he hailed the home-bred yeoman mate.


s: Before the blackbird pecked the turf they woke;


s: At dawn the deer's wet nostrils blew their last.


s: To forest, haunt of runs and prime repast,


s: With paying blows, the yokel strained his yoke.


s: On grassy sweeps and flying arrows, thick


s: As swallows o'er smooth streams, and sighed him sick


s: For thinking that his dearer home was there.


s: Familiar, still unseized, the forest sprang


s: An old-world echo, like no mortal thing.


s: The hunter's horn might wind a jocund ring,


s: Some shadow lurked aloof of ancient time;


s: Some warning haunted any sound prolonged,


s: As though the leagues of woodland held them wronged


s: To hear an axe and see a township climb.


s: Had voice when lowered heavens drummed for gales.


s: At midnight a small people danced the dales,


s: So thin that they might dwindle through a sieve


s: Ringed mushrooms told of them, and in their throats,


s: Old wives that gathered herbs and knew too much.


s: The pensioned forester beside his crutch,


s: Struck showers from embers at those bodeful notes.


s: Came then the one, all ear, all eye, all heart;


s: The forest wreathed the city's drama-mart.


s: There found he in new form that Dragon old,


s: From tangled solitudes expelled; and taught


s: For either's breath the needs of either told.


s: Now deep in woods, with song no sermon's drone,


s: He showed what charm the human concourse works:


s: Amid the press of men, what virtue lurks


s: Where bubble sacred wells of wildness lone.


s: Due boundaries of realms from Nature won,


s: Either the mission hie on or stoutly do fight with the foemen?


s: I, not hither I fared on account of the spear-armed Trojans,


s: Pledged to the combat; they unto me have in nowise a harm done;


s: Never have they, of a truth, come lifting my horses or oxen;


s: Never in deep-soiled Phthia, the nurser of heroes, my harvests


s: Ravaged, they; for between us is numbered full many a darksome


s: Mountain, ay, therewith too the stretch of the windy sea-waters.


s: O hugely shameless! thee did we follow to hearten thee, justice


s: Worse, it is thou whose threat 'tis to ravish my prize from me,


s: Won with much labour, the which my gift from the sons of Achaia.


s: Never, in sooth, have I known my prize equal thine when Achaians


s: Gave some flourishing populous Trojan town up to pillage.


s: Homeward go with my beaked ships now, and I hold not in prospect,


s: Sooth, more easy it seems, down the lengthened array of Achaians,


s: Nay, but I tell thee, and I do swear a big oath on it likewise:


s: No more sprouting; for round it all clean has the sharp metal


s: Leaves and the bark; ay, verify now do the sons of Achaia,


s: Loud will the cry for Achilles burst from the sons of Achaia


s: Rage-wrung, thou, that in nought thou didst honour the flower of


s: Like as a terrible fire feeds fast on a forest enormous,


s: Up on a mountain height, and the blaze of it radiates round far,


s: So on the bright blest arms of the host in their march did the


s: Gleam wide round through the circle of air right up to the sky-


s: They, now, as when swarm thick in the air multitudinous winged


s: Off that Asian mead, by the flow of the waters of Kaistros;


s: Hither and yon fly they, and rejoicing in pride of their pinions,


s: So those numerous tribes from their ships and their shelterings


s: On that plain of Scamander, and horrible rumbled beneath them


s: Stopped they then on the fair-flower'd field of Scamander, their


s: Many as leaves and the blossoms born of the flowerful season.


s: Even as countless hot-pressed flies in their multitudes traverse,


s: Also, full of their milk, in the bountiful season of spring-time;


s: Prompt for the dash at the Trojan host, with the passion to crush


s: Those, likewise, as the goatherds, eyeing their vast flocks of


s: Easily one from the other when all get mixed o'er the pasture,


s: So did the chieftains rank them here there in their places for


s: Hard on the push of the fray; and among them King Agamemnon,


s: He, for his eyes and his head, as when Zeus glows glad in his


s: He with the girdle of Ares, he with the breast of Poseidon.


s: These, then, he left, and away where ranks were now clashing the


s: Onward rushed, and with him rushed all of the bright-greaved


s: Foot then footmen slew, that were flying from direful compulsion,


s: Up off the plain, raised up cloud-thick by the thundering horse-


s: Now, as when fire voracious catches the unclipped wood-land,


s: This way bears it and that the great whirl of the wind, and the


s: Trojans fell; and in numbers amany the horses, neck-stiffened,


s: Rattled their vacant cars down the roadway gaps of the war-field,


s: Flat upon earth, far dearer to vultures than to their home-mates.


s: Forth of his ambush leapt, and he vaunted him, uttering thiswise:


s: They all frighted of thee, as the goats bleat in flight from a


s: Then unto him untroubled made answer stout Diomedes:


s: "Bow-puller, jiber, thy bow for thy glorying, spyer at virgins!


s: If that thou dared'st face me here out in the open with weapons,


s: Reck I as were that stroke from a woman or some pettish infant.


s: Aye flies blunted the dart of the man that's emasculate,


s: Otherwise hits, forth flying from me, and but strikes it the


s: Rotting, round him the birds, more numerous they than the women."


s: They then to fountain-abundant Ida, mother of wild beasts,


s: Came, and they first left ocean to fare over mainland at Lektos,


s: Where underneath of their feet waved loftiest growths of the


s: There hung Hypnos fast, ere the vision of Zeus was observant,


s: Mounted upon a tall pine-tree, tallest of pines that on Ida


s: Lustily spring off soil for the shoot up aloft into aether.


s: There did he sit well-cloaked by the wide-branched pine for


s: That loud bird, in his form like, that perched high up in the


s: Chalkis is named by the Gods, but of mortals known as Kymindis.


s: Not the sea-wave so bellows abroad when it bursts upon shingle,


s: Whipped from the sea's deeps up by the terrible blast of the


s: Nay, nor is ever the roar of the fierce fire's rush so arousing,


s: Down along mountain-glades, when it surges to kindle a woodland;


s: As rose then stupendous the Trojan's cry and Achaians',


s: So now the horses of Aiakides, off wide of the war-ground,


s: Wept, since first they were ware of their charioteer overthrown


s: Cast down low in the whirl of the dust under man-slaying Hector.


s: Sooth, meanwhile, then did Automedon, brave son of Diores,


s: Coax entreatingly, hurriedly; whiles did he angrily threaten.


s: Vainly, for these would not to the ships, to the Hellespont


s: Backward turn, nor be whipped to the battle among the Achaians.


s: Nay, as a pillar remains immovable, fixed on the tombstone,


s: Haply, of some dead man or it may be a woman there-under;


s: Even like hard stood they there attached to the glorious war-car,


s: Now when the issue of Kronos beheld that sorrow, his head shook


s: Pitying them for their grief, these words then he spake in his


s: "Why, ye hapless, gave we to Peleus you, to a mortal


s: Master; ye that are ageless both, ye both of you deathless!


s: Was it that ye among men most wretched should come to have heart-


s: 'Tis most true, than the race of these men is there wretcheder


s: Aught over earth's range found that is gifted with breath and has


s: THE MARES OF THE CAMARGUE--From the 'Mireio' of Mistral


s: Floating upon their necks along the heavens away.


s: Nor bitter spur that rips the flanks subdue


s: The mares of the Camargue.  I have known,


s: Led off, their saline pastures far from view:


s: They have flung their riders to the ground,


s: Of long marsh-leagues devour'd, and then,


s: After ten years of slavery just to breathe salt sea


s: Of old escaped from Neptune's car, full sure,


s: Still with the white foam fleck'd are they,


s: The stallions of Camargue, all joyful in the roar;


s: Their tails that drag the dust, and back


s: Scratch up the earth, and feel, entering their flesh, where he,


s: And shatters to their depths the abysses of the sea.


s: Yonder's the man with his life in his hand,


s: Legs on the march for whatever the land,


s: Laurels he clasps in the words 'duty done,'


s: Exquisite humour! that gives him a naming


s: A love that springs from heart and brain


s: Have sought, who played the lofty brute,


s: That truth once scored on Britain's breast


s: To tone old veins with streams of youth,


s: Henceforth, and we shall prove that truth.


s: Thy land 'twixt flame and darkness heaves,


s: Showing the blade wherewith Fate cleaves,


s: What word for them thy voice would spell,


s: Not thine to raise the avenger's shriek,


s: Which cries and flees, with whimpering lip,


s: That poets dream and noblest souls desire.


s: And VICTORY in his ear sang gracious Death.


s: That day, to bear his wreath, the end achieved.


s: To whom through life his glove was thrown,


s: Half risen but to be hurled to ground, and now


s: Like a ripe field of wheat where once drove plough


s: All bounteous as she is fair, we think of those


s: Who blew the breath of life into her frame:


s: Her Brain, her Soul, her Sword; and set her free


s: From ruinous discords, with one lustrous aim.


s: That aim, albeit they were of minds diverse,


s: Conjoined them, not to strive without surcease;


s: For them could be no babblement of peace


s: While lay their country under Slavery's curse.


s: They felt her pulsing body made the prey.


s: Wherefore they struck, and had to count their dead.


s: To try new issues, holding faith unswerved,


s: Promise they gathered from the rich blood shed.


s: As living, rose; for proof that huge brute Force


s: Now breaking up the crust of temporal strife,


s: Who reads their acts enshrined in History, sees


s: The Rebels men heart-vowed to hallowed life.


s: Pure as the Archangel's cleaving Darkness thro',


s: The Sword he sees, the keen unwearied Sword,


s: A single blade against a circling horde,


s: And aye for Freedom and the trampled few.


s: From exile, was his God's command to smite,


s: As for a swim in sea he joined the fight,


s: With radiant face, full sure that he did well.


s: Behold a warrior dealing mortal strokes,


s: Whose nature was a child's:  amid his foes


s: A wary trickster:  at the battle's close,


s: No gentler friend this leopard dashed with fox.


s: The story of these deeds, and speed his race


s: The noble cause and trust to another sun.


s: This day, by grace of his good sword in part.


s: For guard of beauty, all too sweet a prize.


s: Earth gave him:  blessed be the Earth that gave.


s: Earth's Master crowned his honest work on earth:


s: Proudly Italia names his place of birth:


s: Shrinks to the level of roads and meads:


s: She is only a plain princess of the weeds,


s: Who love her, that has not a spot of deceit,


s: On any fair breast she would die in an hour.


s: By guilty gods, more fell his foul intent.


s: Well may we meet when drilled for deeds:


s: The pained responses seen in lakeside reeds.


s: Its shadows chase with draughts of hippocras.


s: Let the world hear that we know what is best.


s: That something of a dubious future tell.


s: May blow from temporal heavens overcast.


s: Alert, and braced the whole land's length,


s: For friend or foe; to succour, not to harm.


s: Whose claim to live justiciary Fates deny.


s: His ire in air, and preferably be friend.


s: To snatch an envied treasure as a right.


s: Shall she be with a foreign drug defiled?


s: The nations miss a light of leading rare.


s: As we lay in our boat with oars unshipped.


s: It seemed neither cloud nor water awake,


s: And forth of the low black curtain slipped


s: For the daughters of earth as fabled of yore:


s: Dark heavens to gleam with the fire of a sun


s: And witness it, ye of the privileged space,


s: Said the flash; and the mountains, as from an abyss


s: For quivering seconds leaped up to attest


s: That given, received, renewed was the kiss;


s: The lips to lips and the breast to breast;


s: As an eagle at prey, and pure as the prayer


s: To be guarded through darkness by spirits of air,


s: Ere setting the sails of sleep till day.


s: Above loose threads one sanctioning star,


s: The wonder of what had been witnessed, sealed,


s: Are the depths alight, the heavens revealed,


s: Where on to the Alps the muteness passed.


s: The Tree of Life, may reach when, rooted fast,


s: His branching stem points way to upper air


s: And skyward still aspires, we see in him


s: Made Morning, by old Darkness urged to the abyss;


s: A voice that down three centuries onward rolls;


s: Onward will roll while lives our English tongue,


s: Since Piety won Heaven's ear on Israel's harp.


s: The face of Earth, the soul of Earth, her charm,


s: Of mortals with blind hope by passion swayed,


s: His mind embraced, the while on trodden soil,


s: Our temporal fray, whereof is vital fruit,


s: And, choosing armoury of the Scholar, stood


s: Beside his peers to raise the voice for Freedom:


s: To meet on heights or plains the Sophister


s: Whose spirit breathed high Heaven, and drew thence


s: Beneath the shifting tides, her heart, her brain,


s: The smile she wears, the faith she holds, her best,


s: Would live full-toned in the grand delivery


s: Crashing its breakers under Ida's frown,


s: Inspired:  yet worthier he, whose instrument


s: Whereof have come the marvellous harmonies,


s: Which, with his lofty theme, of infinite range,


s: For Belial, the adroit, is in our midst;


s: Mammon, more swoln to squeeze the slavish sweat


s: From hopeless toil:  and overshadowingly


s: (Aggrandized, monstrous in his grinning mask


s: Of hypocritical Peace,) inveterate Moloch


s: Subscribe, and as they speak their Milton's name,


s: Rays of his glory on their foreheads bear.


s: From mounts that show it more than dreams.


s: She, generous, craves your generous dole;


s: With heart for heart and hands all round.


s: Would England know where strength is found.


s: She dwelt where 'twixt low-beaten thorns


s: There was more life than breath can give,


s: From labours through the night, outworn,


s: We see, whose eyes to heights are raised,


s: And the world's wise may deem us crazed.


s: This love of nature, that allures to take


s: Of larger scope than our hard measures make,


s: Cherish it as thy school for when on thee


s: How Glory sat on Bondage for its throne;


s: How men, like dazzled insects, through the mould


s: Still worked their way, and bled to keep their own.


s: We know them, as they strove and wrought and yearned;


s: Their hopes, their fears; what page of Life they wist:


s: At whiles their vision upon us was turned,


s: Baffled by shapes limmed loosely on thick mist.


s: Beneath the fortress bulk of Power they bent


s: Blunt heads, adoring or in shackled hate,


s: All save the rebel hymned him; and it meant


s: From this he drew fresh appetite for sway,


s: And of it fell:  whereat was chorus raised,


s: 'Twas dreamed by some the deluge would ensue,


s: So trembling was the tension long constrained;


s: A spirit of faith was in the chosen few,


s: That steps to the millennium had been gained.


s: But mainly the rich business of the hour,


s: Their sight, made blind by urgency of blood,


s: Embraced; and facts, the passing sweet or sour,


s: To them were solid things that nought withstood.


s: Their facts are going headlong on the tides,


s: Like commas on a line of History's page;


s: Nor that which once they took for Truth abides,


s: Save in the form of youth enlarged from age.


s: Meantime give ear to woodland notes around,


s: Look on our Earth full-breasted to our sun:


s: So was it when their poets heard the sound,


s: Beheld the scene:  in them our days are one.


s: What figures will be shown the century hence?


s: What lands intact?  We do but know that Power


s: From piety divorced, though seen immense,


s: Shall sink on envy of the humblest flower.


s: Our cry for cradled Peace, while men are still


s: The three-parts brute which smothers the divine,


s: Heaven answers:  Guard it with forethoughtful will,


s: Or buy it; all your gains from War resign.


s: May see, unwarned by hint of friendly gods,


s: Between a hermit crab at all points armed,


s: On the boughs or sweet between earth and sky,


s: My heart shot into the breast of the bird.


s: And a life in wrinkles again is stirred,


s: My heart shoots into the breast of the bird,


s: As it will for sheer love till the last long sigh.


s: When I remember, friend, whom lost I call,


s: In your good eyes; how full of heart for all,


s: Then see I round you Death his shadows dense


s: Divide, and at your feet his emblems fall.


s: For surely are you one with the white host,


s: Through the great love of Earth they had:  lo, these,


s: Like beams that throw the path on tossing seas,


s: Can bid us feel we keep them in the ghost,


s: Partakers of a strife they joyed to share.


s: Who call her Mother and who calls her Wife


s: Look on her grave and see not Death but Life.


s: To them that knew her, there is vital flame


s: In these the simple letters of her name.


s: To them that knew her not, be it but said,


s: Thou our beloved and light of Earth hast crossed


s: The sea of darkness to the yonder shore.


s: There dost thou shine a light transferred, not lost,


s: Through love to kindle in our souls the more.


s: Of men he would have raised to light he fell:


s: In soul he conquered with those nerveless hands.


s: His country's pride and her abasement knell


s: The Man of England circled by the sands.


s: A fountain of our sweetest, quick to spring


s: To gladden blue forgets him; near he hides.


s: Grander than crowned head's mortuary dome:


s: The ever-flowering common heart for home.


s: From his quaint tenement, quits hates and loves.


s: In that hound's arch dwarf-legged on boxing-gloves.


s: And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier.


s: Our words are sobs, our cry of praise a tear:


s: We see a spirit on Earth's loftiest peak


s: Shine, and wing hence the way he makes more clear:


s: See a great Tree of Life that never sere


s: Dropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak.


s: Such ending is not Death:  such living shows


s: From one big heart, to conquer man's old foes:


s: The coward, and the tyrant, and the force


s: Of all those weedy monsters raising heads


s: When Song is murk from springs of turbid source.


s: When comes the lighted day for men to read


s: Life's meaning, with the work before their hands


s: Till this good gift of breath from debt is freed,


s: Earth will not hear her children's wailful bands


s: Deplore the chieftain fall'n in sob and dirge;


s: Nor they look where is darkness, but on high.


s: The sun that dropped down our horizon's verge


s: Illumes his labours through the travelled sky,


s: Now seen in sum, most glorious; and 'tis known


s: By what our warrior wrought we hold him fast.


s: A splendid image built of man has flown;


s: His deeds inspired of God outstep a Past.


s: Ours the great privilege to have had one


s: Of that strong soul now ranked with God's Elect


s: Her heart upon her people's heart she spent;


s: Hence is she Royalty's lodestar to direct.


s: The peace is hers, of whom all lands have praised


s: And gave new readings to the Title, Queen.


s: Long with us, now she leaves us; she has rest


s: They pass in constant service though they sleep;


s: The self gone out of them, therewith the pain:


s: Read that, who still to spell our earth remain.


s: Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio,


s: Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summits,


s: Unto the sun and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth,


s: 'Tis but to prove limitation, and measure a cord, that we travel;


s: 'Tis but to change idle fancies for memories wilfully falser;


s: 'Tis but to go and have been.'--Come, little bark! let us go.


s: Dear Eustatio, I write that you may write me an answer,


s: Or at the least to put us again en rapport with each other.


s: Rome disappoints me much,--St Peter's, perhaps, in especial;


s: Only the Arch of Titus and view from the Lateran please me:


s: This, however, perhaps is the weather, which truly is horrid.


s: Greece must be better, surely; and yet I am feeling so spiteful,


s: Rome disappoints me much; I hardly as yet understand it, but


s: RUBBISHY seems the word that most exactly would suit it.


s: All the foolish destructions, and all the sillier savings,


s: All the incongruous things of past incompatible ages,


s: Seem to be treasured up here to make fools of present and future.


s: It is a blessing, no doubt, to be rid, at least for a time, of


s: What one thinks one is, or thinks that others suppose one;


s: Yet, in despite of all, we turn like fools to the English.


s: Rome disappoints me still; but I shrink and adapt myself to it.


s: Somehow a tyrannous sense of a superincumbent oppression


s: Still, wherever I go, accompanies ever, and makes me


s: Feel like a tree (shall I say?) buried under a ruin of brickwork.


s: Merely a marvellous mass of broken and castaway wine-pots.


s: Ye gods! what do I want with this rubbish of ages departed,


s: Yet of solidity much, but of splendour little is extant:


s: At last, dearest Louisa, I take up my pen to address you.


s: Here we are, you see, with the seven-and-seventy boxes,


s: Courier, Papa and Mamma, the children, and Mary and Susan:


s: Rome is a wonderful place, but Mary shall tell you about it;


s: Not very gay, however; the English are mostly at Naples;


s: There are the A.'s, we hear, and most of the W. party.


s: George, however, is come; did I tell you about his mustachios?


s: Adieu, dearest Louise,--evermore your faithful Georgina.


s: Who can a Mr. Claude be whom George has taken to be with?


s: Very stupid, I think, but George says so VERY clever.


s: No, the Christian faith, as at any rate I understood it,


s: With its humiliations and exaltations combining,


s: Exaltations sublime, and yet diviner abasements,


s: Aspirations from something most shameful here upon earth and


s: Is not here, O Rome, in any of these thy churches;


s: Is not here, but in Freiburg, or Rheims, or Westminster Abbey.


s: What in thy Dome I find, in all thy recenter efforts,


s: Is a something, I think, more RATIONAL far, more earthly,


s: Actual, less ideal, devout not in scorn and refusal,


s: But in a positive, calm, Stoic-Epicurean acceptance.


s: This I begin to detect in St. Peter's and some of the churches,


s: Mostly in all that I see of the sixteenth-century masters;


s: Overlaid of course with infinite gauds and gewgaws,


s: Innocent, playful follies, the toys and trinkets of childhood,


s: Forced on maturer years, as the serious one thing needful,


s: By the barbarian will of the rigid and ignorant Spaniard.


s: Curious work, meantime, re-entering society: how we


s: Walk a livelong day, great Heaven, and watch our shadows!


s: What our shadows seem, forsooth, we will ourselves be.


s: Do I look like that? you think me that: then I AM that.


s: Lo you, for forty days from the windows of heaven it fell; the


s: Waters prevail on the earth yet more for a hundred and fifty;


s: Are they abating at last? the doves that are sent to explore are


s: Wearily fain to return, at the best with a leaflet of promise,--


s: O my tolerant soul, be still! but you talk of barbarians,


s: Alaric, Attila, Genseric;--why, they came, they killed, they


s: Here, with emasculate pupils and gimcrack churches of Gesu,


s: Pseudo-learning and lies, confessional-boxes and postures,--


s: Here, with metallic beliefs and regimental devotions,--


s: Here, overcrusting with slime, perverting, defacing, debasing,


s: Michael Angelo's Dome, that had hung the Pantheon in heaven,


s: Raphael's Joys and Graces, and thy clear stars, Galileo!


s: Which of three Misses Trevellyn it is that Vernon shall marry


s: So that he trifles with Mary's shawl, ties Susan's bonnet,


s: Dances with all, but at home is most, they say, with Georgina,


s: Who is, however, TOO silly in my apprehension for Vernon.


s: I, as before when I wrote, continue to see them a little;


s: Not that I like them much or care a bajocco for Vernon,


s: But I am slow at Italian, have not many English acquaintance,


s: And I am asked, in short, and am not good at excuses.


s: Middle-class people these, bankers very likely, not wholly


s: Neither man's aristocracy this, nor God's, God knoweth!


s: Grandly among county people to introduce at assemblies


s: To the unpennied cadets our cousins with excellent fortunes.


s: Ah, what a shame, indeed, to abuse these most worthy people!


s: Painfully made, to perform the old ritual service of manners?


s: Dear, dear, what do I say? but, alas! just now, like Iago,


s: I can be nothing at all, if it is not critical wholly;


s: So in fantastic height, in coxcomb exaltation,


s: Here in the garden I walk, can freely concede to the Maker


s: That the works of His hand are all very good: His creatures,


s: But for Adam there is not found an help-meet for him.


s: No, great Dome of Agrippa, thou art not Christian! canst not,


s: Here as I walk, do I dream of the Christian belfries above them?


s: And with the bow to his shoulder faithful


s: The oak forest and the wood that bore him,


s: Yet it is pleasant, I own it, to be in their company; pleasant,


s: Whatever else it may be, to abide in the feminine presence.


s: Meat and drink and life, and music, filling with sweetness,


s: Thrilling with melody sweet, with harmonies strange overwhelming,


s: This were enough, I could think; and truly with glad resignation


s: Nephews and nieces! alas, for as yet I have none! and, moreover,


s: No sort of proper provision is made for that most patriotic,


s: Most meritorious subject, the childless and bachelor uncle.


s: Ye, too, marvellous Twain, that erect on the Monte Cavallo


s: Stand as instinct with life in the might of immutable manhood,--


s: O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas.


s: Are ye Christian too? to convert and redeem and renew you,


s: And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble,


s: Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers,


s: Ye unto whom far and near come posting the Christian pilgrims,


s: Ye that are ranged in the halls of the mystic Christian Pontiff,


s: Are ye also baptized? are ye of the kingdom of Heaven?


s: These are the facts.  The uncle, the elder brother, the squire (a


s: Cornwall, of course; 'Papa is in business,' Mary informs me;


s: He's a good sensible man, whatever his trade is.  The mother


s: Is it contemptible, Eustace--I'm perfectly ready to think so,--


s: Is it,--the horrible pleasure of pleasing inferior people?


s: I am ashamed of my own self; and yet true it is, if disgraceful,


s: I, who have always failed,--I, trust me, can suit the Trevellyns;


s: And I am glad to be liked, and like in return very kindly.


s: Higher and manners more perfect than Susan or Mary Trevellyn.


s: Well, I know, after all, it is only juxtaposition,--


s: Juxtaposition, in short; and what is juxtaposition?


s: But I have made the step, have quitted the ship of Ulysses;


s: Quitted the sea and the shore, passed into the magical island;


s: Yet on my lips is the moly, medicinal, offered of Hermes.


s: I have come into the precinct, the labyrinth closes around me,


s: Path into path rounding slyly; I pace slowly on, and the fancy,


s: Still, wheresoever I swing, wherever to shore, or to shelf, or


s: Floor of cavern untrodden, shell sprinkled, enchanting, I know I


s: Yet shall one time feel the strong cord tighten about me,--


s: Yet shall plant firm foot on the broad lofty spaces I quit, shall


s: Dearest Louisa,--Inquire, if you please, about Mr. Claude ----.


s: He has been once at R., and remembers meeting the H.'s.


s: Harriet L., perhaps, may be able to tell you about him.


s: It is an awkward youth, but still with very good manners;


s: Certainly once he spoke of a daily service he went to.


s: Adieu again,--evermore, my dearest, your loving Georgina.


s: He is what people call, I suppose, a superior man, and


s: Certainly seems so to me; but I think he is terribly selfish.


s: Alba, thou findest me still, and, Alba, thou findest me ever,


s: Now from the Capitol steps, now over Titus's Arch,


s: Or from a Vatican window, or bridge, or the high Coliseum,


s: Clear by the garlanded line cut of the Flavian ring.


s: Is it religion?  I ask me; or is it a vain superstition?


s: Slavery abject and gross? service, too feeble, of truth?


s: Is it an idol I bow to, or is it a god that I worship?


s: Do I sink back on the old, or do I soar from the mean?


s: So through the city I wander and question, unsatisfied ever,


s: Reverent so I accept, doubtful because I revere.


s: Is it illusion? or does there a spirit from perfecter ages,


s: Here, even yet, amid loss, change, and corruption abide?


s: Lives in the exquisite grace of the column disjointed and single,


s: Is it illusion or not that attracteth the pilgrim transalpine,


s: Brings him a dullard and dunce hither to pry and to stare?


s: Is it illusion or not that allures the barbarian stranger,


s: What do the people say, and what does the government do?--you


s: I, who nor meddle nor make in politics,--I who sincerely


s: Put not my trust in leagues nor any suffrage by ballot,


s: Never predicted Parisian millenniums, never beheld a


s: New Jerusalem coming down dressed like a bride out of heaven


s: What, with the German restored, with Sicily safe to the Bourbon,


s: Not leave one poor corner for native Italian exertion?


s: France, it is foully done! and you, poor foolish England,--


s: Dulce it is, and decorum, no doubt, for the country to fall,--to


s: Precious creature, himself.  Nature sent him here to abide here;


s: Else why send him at all?  Nature wants him still, it is likely;


s: On the whole, we are meant to look after ourselves; it is certain


s: Care for his own dear life, and see to his own preservation;


s: Over and under and round us; we open our shells to imbibe our


s: He is passed from Monterone, at Santa Severa


s: He hath laid up his guns.  But the Virgin, the Daughter of Roma,


s: Will they fight?  I believe it.  Alas! 'tis ephemeral folly,


s: Vain and ephemeral folly, of course, compared with pictures,


s: Statues, and antique gems!--Indeed: and yet indeed too,


s: Terre en produit de nouveaux contre vous tous prets a se battre;


s: Dreamt of great indignations and angers transcendental,


s: Dreamt of a sword at my side and a battle-horse underneath me.


s: Now supposing the French or the Neapolitan soldier


s: Should by some evil chance come exploring the Maison Serny


s: (Where the family English are all to assemble for safety),


s: Am I prepared to lay down my life for the British female?


s: No, if it should be at all, it should be on the barricades there;


s: Sooner far should it be for this vapour of Italy's freedom,


s: Sooner far by the side of the d----d and dirty plebeians.


s: And to appear, I suppose, were but common civility.  Yes, and


s: Truly I do not desire they should either be killed or offended.


s: What I cannot feel now, am I to suppose that I shall feel?


s: Am I not free to attend for the ripe and indubious instinct?


s: Am I forbidden to wait for the clear and lawful perception?


s: Is it the calling of man to surrender his knowledge and insight,


s: Some plain visible task shall yet for our hands be assigned us,--


s: Quit our own fireside hopes at the alien call of a neighbour,


s: To the mere possible shadow of Deity offer the victim?


s: And is all this, my friend, but a weak and ignoble refining,


s: Wholly unworthy the head or the heart of Your Own Correspondent?


s: Yes, we are fighting at last, it appears.  This morning as usual,


s: And, for to-day is their day, of the Campidoglio Marbles;


s: Caffe-latte! I call to the waiter,--and Non c'e latte,


s: This is the answer he makes me, and this is the sign of a battle.


s: Worthy than me of attention.  I wait for my milkless nero,


s: Free to observe undistracted all sorts and sizes of persons,


s: Something is really afloat.  Ere I leave, the Caffe is empty,


s: Empty too the streets, in all its length the Corso


s: Empty, and empty I see to my right and left the Condotti.


s: Twelve o'clock, on the Pincian Hill, with lots of English,


s: Germans, Americans, French,--the Frenchmen, too, are protected,--


s: So we stand and stare, and see, to the left of St. Peter's,


s: Smoke, from the cannon, white,--but that is at intervals only,--


s: Black, from a burning house, we suppose, by the Cavalleggieri;


s: And we believe we discern some lines of men descending


s: Down through the vineyard-slopes, and catch a bayonet gleaming.


s: Every ten minutes, however,--in this there is no misconception,--


s: So we watch and sit, and, indeed, it begins to be tiresome.--


s: All this smoke is outside; when it has come to the inside,


s: It will be time, perhaps, to descend and retreat to our houses.


s: Half-past one, or two.  The report of small arms frequent,


s: Sharp and savage indeed; that cannot all be for nothing:


s: So we watch and wonder; but guessing is tiresome, very.


s: Weary of wondering, watching, and guessing, and gossiping idly,


s: Down I go, and pass through the quiet streets with the knots of


s: National Guards patrolling, and flags hanging out at the windows,


s: Irish family moving en masse to the Maison Serny,


s: After endeavouring idly to minister balm to the trembling


s: Quinquagenarian fears of two lone British spinsters,


s: Go to make sure of my dinner before the enemy enter.


s: But by this there are signs of stragglers returning; and voices


s: Talk, though you don't believe it, of guns and prisoners taken;


s: And on the walls you read the first bulletin of the morning.--


s: This is all that I saw, and all that I know of the battle.


s: Victory!  Victory!--Yes! ah, yes, thou republican Zion,


s: Truly the kings of the earth are gathered and gone by together;


s: Easier, easier far, to intone the chant of the martyr


s: Than to indite any paean of any victory.  Death may


s: Why, it is over.  The smoke of the sacrifice rises to heaven,


s: Of a sweet savour, no doubt, to Somebody; but on the altar,


s: Lo, there is nothing remaining but ashes and dirt and ill odour.


s: So it stands, you perceive; the labial muscles that swelled with


s: Vehement evolution of yesterday Marseillaises,


s: Articulations sublime of defiance and scorning, to-day col-


s: Lapse and languidly mumble, while men and women and papers


s: So, I have seen a man killed!  An experience that, among others!


s: Yes, I suppose I have; although I can hardly be certain,


s: And in a court of justice could never declare I had seen it.


s: But a man was killed, I am told, in a place where I saw


s: Something; a man was killed, I am told, and I saw something.


s: I was returning home from St. Peter's; Murray, as usual,


s: Under my arm, I remember; had crossed the St. Angelo bridge; and


s: Moving towards the Condotti, had got to the first barricade, when


s: Of a sensation of movement opposing me,--tendency this way


s: So I turned, and, before I turned, caught sight of stragglers


s: Heading a crowd, it is plain, that is coming behind that corner.


s: Looking up, I see windows filled with heads; the Piazza,


s: Into which you remember the Ponte St. Angelo enters,


s: Since I passed, has thickened with curious groups; and now the


s: Crowd is coming, has turned, has crossed that last barricade, is


s: The Neapolitan army,'--and thus explains the proceeding.


s: You didn't see the dead man?  No;--I began to be doubtful;


s: I was in black myself, and didn't know what mightn't happen,--


s: But a National Guard close by me, outside of the hubbub,


s: Broke his sword with slashing a broad hat covered with dust,--and


s: If I rightly remember, it happened on that afternoon when


s: Word of the nearer approach of a new Neapolitan army


s: First was spread.  I began to bethink me of Paris Septembers,


s: Say they were only escaping; a Priest, it is currently stated,


s: Stabbed a National Guard on the very Piazza Colonna:


s: History, Rumour of Rumours, I leave to thee to determine!


s: But I am thankful to say the government seems to have strength to


s: So by the narrow streets to the Ponte Rotto, and onwards


s: Thence by the Temple of Vesta, away to the great Coliseum,


s: Which at the full of the moon is an object worthy a visit.


s: This is a man, you know, who came from America with him,


s: Out of the woods, I suppose, and uses a lasso in fighting,


s: Which is, I don't quite know, but a sort of noose, I imagine;


s: This he throws on the heads of the enemy's men in a battle,


s: Pulls them into his reach, and then most cruelly kills them:


s: Mary does not believe, but we heard it from an Italian.


s: Mary allows she was wrong about Mr. Claude BEING SELFISH;


s: He was MOST useful and kind on the terrible thirtieth of April.


s: Mary has seen thus far.--I am really so angry, Louisa,--


s: It is most curious to see what a power a few calm words (in


s: Merely a brief proclamation) appear to possess on the people.


s: Order is perfect, and peace; the city is utterly tranquil;


s: And one cannot conceive that this easy and nonchalant crowd, that


s: Could in a moment be changed to a flood as of molten lava,


s: Boil into deadly wrath and wild homicidal delusion.


s: Ah, 'tis an excellent race,--and even in old degradation,


s: Under a rule that enforces to flattery, lying, and cheating,


s: E'en under Pope and Priest, a nice and natural people.


s: I am in love, meantime, you think; no doubt you would think so.


s: Never, however you urge it, however you tempt her, consents to


s: Step from ideas and fancies and loving sensations to those vain


s: Conscious understandings that vex the minds of mankind.


s: I am in love, you say; I do not think so, exactly.


s: There are two different kinds, I believe, of human attraction:


s: One which simply disturbs, unsettles, and makes you uneasy,


s: And another that poises, retains, and fixes and holds you.


s: I have no doubt, for myself, in giving my voice for the latter.


s: I do not wish to be moved, but growing where I was growing,


s: There more truly to grow, to live where as yet I had languished.


s: I do not like being moved: for the will is excited; and action


s: Is a most dangerous thing; I tremble for something factitious,


s: Some malpractice of heart and illegitimate process;


s: Wherefore and how I am certain, I hardly can tell; but it IS so.


s: She doesn't like me, Eustace; I think she never will like me.


s: Is it my fault, as it is my misfortune, my ways are not her ways?


s: Wherefore should they, either?  I am sure I do not desire it.


s: (Care about me, indeed! and do I really expect it?)


s: But my manner offends; my ways are wholly repugnant;


s: Every word that I utter estranges, hurts, and repels her;


s: Every moment of bliss that I gain, in her exquisite presence,


s: Folly, to which I am prone, of loving where it is easy.


s: Not that I mind very much!  Why should I?  I am not in love, and


s: Am prepared, I think, if not by previous habit,


s: Yet in the spirit beforehand for this and all that is like it;


s: It is an easier matter for us contemplative creatures,


s: Us upon whom the pressure of action is laid so lightly;


s: We, discontented indeed with things in particular, idle,


s: Seizing the nearest arm to comfort, help, and support us.


s: Yet, after all, my Eustace, I know but little about it.


s: All I can say for myself, for present alike and for past, is,


s: Mary Trevellyn, Eustace, is certainly worth your acquaintance.


s: You couldn't come, I suppose, as far as Florence to see her?


s: ......  To-morrow we're starting for Florence,


s: Truly rejoiced, you may guess, to escape from republican terrors;


s: Through Siena, and Georgy to follow and join us by Leghorn.


s: Dearest Louise, indeed it is very alarming; but, trust me


s: Ever, whatever may change, to remain your loving Georgina.


s: All I can say for myself is, alas! that he rather repels me.


s: There! I think him agreeable, but also a little repulsive.


s: So be content, dear Louisa; for one satisfactory marriage


s: Surely will do in one year for the family you would establish


s: Neither Susan nor I shall afford you the joy of a second.


s: Mr. Claude, you must know, is behaving a little bit better;


s: I shall, however, get George, before he goes, to say something.


s: Dearest Louise, how delightful to bring young people together!


s: Is it Florence we follow, or are we to tarry yet longer,


s: E'en amid clamour of arms, here in the city of old,


s: Yet to the wondrous St. Peter's, and yet to the solemn Rotunda,


s: Mingling with heroes and gods, yet to the Vatican Walls,


s: Where, under mulberry-branches, the diligent rivulet sparkles,


s: Or amid cotton and maize peasants their water-works ply,


s: Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated,


s: Why doesn't Mr. Claude come with us? you ask.--We don't know,


s: He was so ready before, when we asked him to come and escort us.


s: Certainly he is odd, my dear Miss Roper.  To change so


s: Suddenly, just for a whim, was not quite fair to the party,--


s: Not quite right.  I declare, I really almost am offended:


s: I, his great friend, as you say, have doubtless a title to be so.


s: Yes, my dear Miss Roper, I certainly called him repulsive;


s: So I think him, but cannot be sure I have used the expression


s: Quite as your pupil should; yet he does most truly repel me.


s: Was it to you I made use of the word? or who was it told you?


s: Yes, repulsive; observe, it is but when he talks of ideas


s: That he is quite unaffected, and free, and expansive, and easy;


s: I could pronounce him simply a cold intellectual being.--


s: When does he make advances?--He thinks that women should woo him;


s: That mere common and may-be indifferent soil it is set in?


s: Would it have force to develop and open its young cotyledons,


s: Were it endowed with a sense of the general scheme of existence?


s: While from Marseilles in the steamer we voyage to Civita Vecchia,


s: Standing, uplifted, alone on the heaving poop of the vessel,


s: Looking around on the waste of the rushing incurious billows,


s: Lo, it looked at me there from the face of a Triton in marble.


s: It is the simpler thought, and I can believe it the truer.


s: Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages.


s: Farewell, Politics, utterly!  What can I do?  I cannot


s: Fight, you know; and to talk I am wholly ashamed.  And although I


s: No, whatever befalls, I will hide, will ignore or forget it.


s: In the third, just at present I'm studying ancient marbles;


s: In the fourth, I consider I owe my life to my country;


s: In the fifth--I forget, but four good reasons are ample.


s: Sanguis martyrum semen Ecclesiae; though it would seem this


s: Church is indeed of the purely Invisible, Kingdom-come kind:


s: Militant here on earth!  Triumphant, of course, then, elsewhere!


s: Ah, good Heaven, but I would I were out far away from the pother!


s: Not, as we read in the words of the olden-time inspiration,


s: Are there two several trees in the place we are set to abide in;


s: But on the apex most high of the Tree of Life in the Garden,


s: Budding, unfolding, and falling, decaying and flowering ever,


s: Rose sympathetic in grief to his love-lorn Laodamia,


s: Ye over stormy seas leading long and dreary processions,


s: Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages.


s: Dearest Miss Roper,--Alas! we are all at Florence quite safe, and


s: Only I hope and trust without any fight in the city.


s: Do you see Mr. Claude?--I thought he might do something for you.


s: I am quite sure on occasion he really would wish to be useful.


s: What is he doing? I wonder;--still studying Vatican marbles?


s: Letters, I hope, pass through.  We trust your brother is better.


s: Juxtaposition, in fine; and what is juxtaposition?


s: Look you, we travel along in the railway-carriage or steamer,


s: And, pour passer le temps, till the tedious journey be ended,


s: Lay aside paper or book, to talk with the girl that is next one;


s: And, pour passer le temps, with the terminus all but in prospect,


s: Ah, did we really accept with a perfect heart the illusion!


s: Ah, did we really believe that the Present indeed is the Only!


s: Whose great tranquil depths unconscious the wind-tost surface


s: Think you we men could submit to live and move as we do here?


s: Scarcely can hope to attain upon earth to an Actual Abstract,


s: Leaving to God contemplation, to His hands knowledge confiding,


s: Sure that in us if it perish, in Him it abideth and dies not,


s: Let us in His sight accomplish our petty particular doings,--


s: Yes, and contented sit down to the victual that He has provided.


s: Allah is great, no doubt, and Juxtaposition his prophet.


s: Ah, but the women, alas! they don't look at it that way.


s: Juxtaposition is great;--but, my friend, I fear me, the maiden


s: That she is but for a space, an ad-interim solace and pleasure,--


s: Since we cannot escape, must we even submit to deceive you?


s: Since, so cruel is truth, sincerity shocks and revolts you,


s: Juxtaposition is great,--but, you tell me, affinity greater.


s: Ah, my friend, there are many affinities, greater and lesser,


s: Stronger and weaker; and each, by the favour of juxtaposition,


s: Vir sum, nihil faeminei,--and e'en to the uttermost circle,


s: All that is Nature's is I, and I all things that are Nature's.


s: Yes, as I walk, I behold, in a luminous, large intuition,


s: That I can be and become anything that I meet with or look at:


s: I am the ox in the dray, the ass with the garden-stuff panniers;


s: I am the dog in the doorway, the kitten that plays in the window,


s: Swallow above me that twitters, and fly that is buzzing about me;


s: And as I walk on my way, I behold them consorting and coupling;


s: Faithful it seemeth, and fond, very fond, very probably faithful,


s: Life is beautiful, Eustace, entrancing, enchanting to look at;


s: Even so beautiful Earth; and could we eliminate only


s: This vile hungering impulse, this demon within us of craving,


s: Life were beatitude, living a perfect divine satisfaction.


s: Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters:


s: So let me offer a single and celibatarian phrase, a


s: Tribute to those whom perhaps you do not believe I can honour.


s: Every debt in this kind, disclaim every claim, and dishonour,


s: When to shuffle I came, to compromise, not meet, engagements,


s: Lo, with her calm eyes there she met me and knew nothing of it,--


s: Knew not of debt--ah, no, I believe you, for excellent reasons.


s: HANG this thinking, at last! what good is it? oh, and what evil!


s: Oh, what mischief and pain! like a clock in a sick man's chamber,


s: Tibur is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio


s: Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyrical cadence;


s: Tibur and Anio's tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever,


s: With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain,


s: Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:--


s: So not seeing I sang; so seeing and listening say I,


s: Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl,


s: Here with Albunea's home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me; [*]


s: Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters,


s: Tivoli's waters and rocks; and fair unto Monte Gennaro


s: Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace:--


s: So not seeing I sang; so now--Nor seeing, nor hearing,


s: Neither by waterfall lulled, nor folded in sylvan embraces,


s: Neither by cell of the Sibyl, nor stepping the Monte Gennaro,


s: Seated on Anio's bank, nor sipping Bandusian waters,


s: But on Montorio's height, with these weary soldiers by me,


s: Waiting till Oudinot enter, to reinstate Pope and Tourist.


s: Et praeceps Anio, et Tibuni lucus, et uda


s: It would extremely relieve--Your ever affectionate Mary.


s: Here is your letter arrived this moment, just as I wanted.


s: Ah, my dearest Miss Roper, do just as you fancy about it.


s: If you think it sincerer to tell him I know of it, do so.


s: Though I should most extremely dislike it, I know I could manage.


s: Do as you please; you know I trust implicitly to you.


s: Say whatever is right and needful for ending the matter.


s: Only don't tell Mr. Claude, what I will tell you as a secret,


s: That I should like very well to show him myself I forget it.


s: I am to say that the wedding is finally settled for Tuesday.


s: Ah, my dear Miss Roper, you surely, surely can manage


s: Not to let it appear that I know of that odious matter.


s: It would be pleasanter far for myself to treat it exactly


s: As if it had not occurred: and I do not think he would like it.


s: I must remember to add, that as soon as the wedding is over


s: We shall be off, I believe, in a hurry, and travel to Milan;


s: There to meet friends of Papa's, I am told, at the Croce di Malta


s: Yes, on Montorio's height for a last farewell of the city,--


s: So it appears; though then I was quite uncertain about it.


s: So, however, it was.  And now to explain the proceeding.


s: I was to go, as I told you, I think, with the people to Florence.


s: Made some uneasy remarks, as we walked to our lodging together,


s: As to intentions forsooth, and so forth.  I was astounded,


s: Why, I made this a pretence, and wrote that they must excuse me.


s: How could I go?  Great Heavens! to conduct a permitted flirtation


s: Well, but I now, by a series of fine diplomatic inquiries,


s: Find from a sort of relation, a good and sensible woman,


s: Who is remaining at Rome with a brother too ill for removal,


s: Tibur I have not seen, nor the lakes that of old I had dreamt of;


s: Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace;


s: Tibur I shall not see;--but something better I shall see.


s: Twice I have tried before, and failed in getting the horses;


s: Therefore farewell, ye hills, and ye, ye envineyarded ruins!


s: Therefore farewell, ye walls, palaces, pillars, and domes!


s: Therefore farewell, far seen, ye peaks of the mythic Albano,


s: Seen from Montorio's height, Tibur and Aesula's hills!


s: Eastward, or Northward, or West?  I wander and ask as I wander;


s: Weary, yet eager and sure, Where shall I come to my love?


s: Whitherward hasten to seek her?  Ye daughters of Italy, tell me,


s: Graceful and tender and dark, is she consorting with you?


s: Italy, farewell I bid thee! for whither she leads me, I follow.


s: Farewell the vineyard! for I, where I but guess her, must go;


s: Weariness welcome, and labour, wherever it be, if at last it


s: Bring me in mountain or plain into the sight of my love.


s: Gone from Florence; indeed! and that is truly provoking;--


s: Gone to Milan, it seems; then I go also to Milan.


s: Five days now departed; but they can travel but slowly;--


s: Off go we to-night,--and the Venus go to the Devil!


s: Gone to Como, they said; and I have posted to Como.


s: There was a letter left; but the cameriere had lost it.


s: Could it have been for me?  They came, however, to Como,


s: And from Como went by the boat,--perhaps to the Spluegen,--


s: Or to the Stelvio, say, and the Tyrol; also it might be


s: By Porlezza across to Lugano, and so to the Simplon


s: Possibly, or the St. Gothard,--or possibly, too, to Baveno,


s: Orta, Turin, and elsewhere.  Indeed, I am greatly bewildered.


s: I have been up the Spluegen, and on the Stelvio also:


s: There is a tide, at least, in the LOVE affairs of mortals,


s: Which, when taken at flood, leads on to the happiest fortune,--


s: Leads to the marriage-morn and the orange-flowers and the altar,


s: Pitiful fool that I was, to stand fiddle-faddling in that way!


s: I have returned and found their names in the book at Como.


s: Certain it is I was right, and yet I am also in error.


s: Added in feminine hand, I read, By the boat to Bellaggio.--


s: So to Bellaggio again, with the words of he writing to aid me.


s: Yet at Bellaggio I find no trace, no sort of remembrance.


s: So I am here, and wait, and know every hour will remove them.


s: I have but one chance left,--and that is going to Florence.


s: But it is cruel to turn.  The mountains seem to demand me,--


s: Peak and valley from far to beckon and motion me onward.


s: Somewhere amid their folds she passes whom fain I would follow;


s: Somewhere amid those heights she haply calls me to seek her.


s: For the sense of the thing is simply to hurry to Florence,


s: Dear Miss Roper,--By this you are safely away, we are hoping,


s: Many a league from Rome; ere long we trust we shall see you.


s: How have you travelled? I wonder;--was Mr. Claude your companion?


s: So by the Mount St. Gothard; we meant to go by Porlezza,


s: After we left the hotel, on the very way to the steamer.


s: So we have seen, I fear, not one of the lakes in perfection.


s: Well, he is not come, and now, I suppose, he will not come.


s: Went from Milan to Como, three days before we expected.


s: But I thought, if he came all the way to Milan, he really


s: Ought not to be disappointed: and so I wrote three lines to


s: Say I had heard he was coming, desirous of joining our party;--


s: If so, then I said, we had started for Como, and meant to


s: Did he not think it worth while to come to Milan?  He knew (you


s: There is a home on the shore of the Alpine sea, that upswelling


s: High up the mountain-sides spreads in the hollow between;


s: Italy, utter the word, and the olive and vine will allure not,--


s: Wilderness, forest, and snow will not the passage impede;


s: Italy, unto thy cities receding, the clue to recover,


s: Hither, recovered the clue, shall not the traveller haste?


s: There is a city, upbuilt on the quays of the turbulent Arno,


s: Under Fiesole's heights,--thither are we to return?


s: There is a city that fringes the curve of the inflowing waters,


s: Under the perilous hill fringes the beautiful bay,--


s: Parthenope, do they call thee?--the Siren, Neapolis, seated


s: Under Vesevus's hill,--are we receding to thee?--


s: Sicily, Greece, will invite, and the Orient;--or are we turn to


s: England, which may after all be for its children the best?


s: So you are really free, and living in quiet at Florence;


s: That is delightful news; you travelled slowly and safely;


s: Mr. Claude got you out; took rooms at Florence before you;


s: Wrote from Milan to say so; had left directly for Milan,


s: You are quite sure, you say, he asked you about our intentions;


s: You had not heard as yet of Lucerne, but told him of Como.--


s: Well, perhaps he will come; however, I will not expect it.


s: What one wants, I suppose, is to predetermine the action,


s: So as to make it entail, not a chance belief, but the true one.


s: Eustace, the Ropers are gone, and no one can tell me about them.


s: Pisa, they say they think, and so I follow to Pisa,


s: Hither and thither inquiring.  I weary of making inquiries.


s: I am ashamed, I declare, of asking people about it.--


s: But it is idle, moping, and thinking, and trying to fix her


s: I have settled to stay at Florence to wait for your answer.


s: You are at Lucca baths, you tell me, to stay for the summer;


s: Florence was quite too hot; you can't move further at present.


s: Will you not come, do you think, before the summer is over?


s: Mr. C. got you out with very considerable trouble;


s: And he was useful and kind, and seemed so happy to serve you.


s: Didn't stay with you long, but talked very openly to you;


s: Made you almost his confessor, without appearing to know it,--


s: What about?--and you say you didn't need his confessions.


s: O my dear Miss Roper, I dare not trust what you tell me!


s: Will he come, do you think?  I am really so sorry for him.


s: They didn't give him my letter at Milan, I feel pretty certain.


s: You had told him Bellaggio.  We didn't go to Bellaggio;


s: So he would miss our track, and perhaps never come to Lugano,


s: Where we were written in full, To Lucerne across the St. Gothard.


s: I will walk on my way, accept the chances that meet me,


s: Freely encounter the world, imbibe these alien airs, and


s: Never ask if new feelings and thoughts are of her or of others.


s: Is she not changing herself?--the old image would only delude me.


s: I shall be doing, I think, somehow, what she will be doing;--


s: Utterly vain is, alas! this attempt at the Absolute,--wholly!


s: I, who believed not in her, because I would fain believe nothing,


s: I, who refused to enfasten the roots of my floating existence


s: Worthy a nobler heart than a fool such as I could have given her.


s: Whether One really exist to hear or do anything for them,--


s: Simply impelled by the need of the moment to turn to a Being


s: In a conception of whom there is freedom from all limitation,--


s: So in your image I turn to an ens rationis of friendship,


s: Even so write in your name I know not to whom nor in what wise.


s: There was a time, methought it was but lately departed,


s: When, if a thing was denied me, I felt I was bound to attempt it;


s: There was a time, indeed, when I had not retired thus early,


s: Languidly thus, from pursuit of a purpose I once had adopted,


s: It is over, all that!  I am a coward, and know it.


s: Courage in me could be only factitious, unnatural, useless.


s: Comfort has come to me here in the dreary streets of the city,


s: Comfort--how do you think?--with a barrel-organ to bring it.


s: Moping along the streets, and cursing my day as I wandered,


s: All of a sudden my ear met the sound of an English psalm-tune,


s: Comfort me it did, till indeed I was very near crying.


s: Ah, there is some great truth, partial, very likely, but needful,


s: Comfort, however it come, in the dreary streets of the city.


s: What with trusting myself and seeking support from within me,


s: Almost I could believe I had gained a religious assurance,


s: Formed in my own poor soul a great moral basis to rest on.


s: Ah, but indeed I see, I feel it factitious entirely;


s: I refuse, reject, and put it utterly from me;


s: I will look straight out, see things, not try to evade them;


s: Fact shall be fact for me, and the Truth the Truth as ever,


s: Flexible, changeable, vague, and multiform, and doubtful.-


s: Off, and depart to the void, thou subtle, fanatical tempter!


s: I shall behold thee again (is it so?) at a new visitation,


s: O ill genius thou!  I shall at my life's dissolution


s: (When the pulses are weak, and the feeble light of the reason


s: Flickers, an unfed flame retiring slow from the socket),


s: Low on a sick-bed laid, hear one, as it were, at the doorway,


s: And, looking up, see thee standing by, looking emptily at me;


s: I shall entreat thee then, though now I dare to refuse thee,--


s: Pale and pitiful now, but terrible then to the dying.--


s: Well, I will see thee again, and while I can, will repel thee.


s: Rome is fallen, I hear, the gallant Medici taken,


s: Noble Manara slain, and Garibaldi has lost il Moro;--


s: Rome is fallen; and fallen, or falling, heroical Venice.


s: I, meanwhile, for the loss of a single small chit of a girl, sit


s: Moping and mourning here,--for her, and myself much smaller.


s: Whither depart the souls of the brave that die in the battle,


s: Italy; feebly and faintly, and but with the lips, can lament the


s: Wreck of the Lombard youth, and the victory of the oppressor.


s: Whither depart the brave?--God knows; I certainly do not.


s: He has not come as yet; and now I must not expect it.


s: You have written, you say, to friends at Florence, to see him,


s: If he perhaps should return;--but that is surely unlikely.


s: Has he not written to you?--he did not know your direction.


s: Oh, how strange never once to have told him where you were going!


s: If what you say he said was true, why has he not done so?


s: Is he gone back to Rome, do you think, to his Vatican marbles?--


s: O my dear Miss Roper, forgive me! do not be angry!--


s: I shall expect nothing more.--Ever yours, your affectionate Mary.


s: I cannot stay at Florence, not even to wait for a letter.


s: Galleries only oppress me.  Remembrance of hope I had cherished


s: Oh, I knew it of old, and knew it, I thought, to perfection,


s: If there is any one thing in the world to preclude all kindness


s: It is the need of it,--it is this sad, self-defeating dependence.


s: Is not I WILL, but I MUST.  I must,--I must,--and I do it.


s: After all, do I know that I really cared so about her?


s: Do whatever I will, I cannot call up her image;


s: For when I close my eyes, I see, very likely, St. Peter's,


s: Or the Pantheon facade, or Michel Angelo's figures,


s: Or, at a wish, when I please, the Alban hills and the Forum,--


s: But that face, those eyes,--ah, no, never anything like them;


s: Only, try as I will, a sort of featureless outline,


s: And a pale blank orb, which no recollection will add to.


s: After all, perhaps there was something factitious about it;


s: I have had pain, it is true: I have wept; and so have the actors.


s: At the last moment I have your letter, for which I was waiting;


s: I have taken my place, and see no good in inquiries.


s: Do nothing more, good Eustace, I pray you.  It only will vex me.


s: Great is Fate, and is best.  I believe in Providence partly.


s: What is ordained is right, and all that happens is ordered.


s: Ah, no, that isn't it.  But yet I retain my conclusion.


s: I will go where I am led, and will not dictate to the chances.


s: Do nothing more, I beg.  If you love me, forbear interfering.


s: Shall we come out of it all, some day, as one does from a tunnel?


s: We shall behold clear day, the trees and meadows about us,


s: And the faces of friends, and the eyes we loved looking at us?


s: Who knows?  Who can say?  It will not do to suppose it.


s: Rome will be here, and the Pope the custode of Vatican marbles.


s: I have no heart, however, for any marble or fresco;


s: I have essayed it in vain; 'tis in vain as yet to essay it:


s: But I may haply resume some day my studies in this kind;


s: Let us seek Knowledge;--the rest may come and go as it happens.


s: Knowledge is hard to seek, and harder yet to adhere to.


s: Knowledge is painful often; and yet when we know we are happy.


s: Seek it, and leave mere Faith and Love to come with the chances.


s: As for Hope,--to-morrow I hope to be starting for Naples.


s: Rome will not do, I see, for many very good reasons.


s: Oh, and you see I know so exactly how he would take it:


s: I myself could not help, perhaps, thinking only too much of;


s: He would resign himself, and go.  I see it exactly.


s: So I also submit, although in a different manner.


s: Can you not really come?  We go very shortly to England.


s: So go forth to the world, to the good report and the evil!


s: Go, little book! thy tale, is it not evil and good?


s: Go, and if strangers revile, pass quietly by without answer.


s: Go, and if curious friends ask of thy rearing and age,


s: Say, 'I am flitting about many years from brain unto brain of


s: Feeble and restless youths born to inglorious days:


s: But,' so finish the word, 'I was writ in a Roman chamber,


s: When from Janiculan heights thundered the cannon of France.'


s: Some of the poems included in this volume have appeared in


s: "Poetry", and other papers, English and American.


s: "Make a song, father, a new little song,


s: I've ridden cock-horse to Banbury Cross,


s: But where are there any like Nancy and Jenny,


s: Till at last his soul flew out by the hole


s: That the fierce drink burned inside him.


s: But he made good cheer with headstrong beer,


s: Have you spent the money I gave you to-day?


s: A fourpence on cakes, two pennies that away


s: The lake of yellow brimstone boil for you in Hell,


s: Tell the truth now, John, ere the falsehood swell,


s: I'll lie no more to you, father, what is the need?


s: With sixpence for a near seat, money's worth indeed,


s: Grief to you, shame or grief, here is the story--


s: It was colour, scents, music, a tragic glory,


s: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, title of the tale:


s: A tall, glum fellow, velvet cloaked, with a shirt of mail,


s: All the furies of fate circled round the man,


s: There was old murder done before play began,


s: There were grave-diggers delving, they brought up bones,


s: All the players shouted in full, kingly tones,


s: Oh, there were ladies there radiant like day,


s: Great sounding words were tossed about like hay


s: How the plot turned about I watched in vain,


s: As one and all they faded, poisoned or slain,


s: Father, you'll drive me forth never to return,


s: I shall wear great boots, shall strut and shout,


s: The fame of my name shall go ringing about


s: Horror that your Prince found, John may you find,


s: Dying before the house in such torture of mind


s: While they clap and stamp at your nightly fate,


s: The curse that drags at you, until Hell's gate.


s: From flower to flower, from tree to tree,


s: Their plumage, broke the trembling sound,


s: They craned their necks, they fluttered wings,


s: They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred


s: "Whist, silly fool, be off," they shout,


s: "Or we'll come pluck your feathers out."


s: Jarred horrid notes and the jangling jay


s: He wakes the gale that tears your trees,


s: That, grim and scowling:  his beard spreads


s: Yet shout and crack your whip, be harsh!


s: This is a wild land, country of my choice,


s: With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare.


s: Seldom in these acres is heard any voice


s: But voice of cold water that runs here and there


s: Through rocks and lank heather growing without care.


s: No mice in the heath run nor no birds cry


s: For fear of the dark speck that floats in the sky.


s: He soars and he hovers rocking on his wings,


s: He scans his wide parish with a sharp eye,


s: He catches the trembling of small hidden things,


s: He tears them in pieces, dropping from the sky:


s: Where life is but nourished from water and rock


s: A hardy adventure, full of fear and shock.


s: Time has never journeyed to this lost land,


s: Crakeberries and heather bloom out of date,


s: The rocks jut, the streams flow singing on either hand,


s: Careless if the season be early or late.


s: The skies wander overhead, now blue, now slate:


s: Winter would be known by his cold cutting snow


s: Yet this is my country be loved by me best,


s: The first land that rose from Chaos and the Flood,


s: Nursing no fat valleys for comfort and rest,


s: Trampled by no hard hooves, stained with no blood.


s: Bold immortal country whose hill tops have stood


s: Strongholds for the proud gods when on earth they go,


s: Terror for fat burghers in far plains below.


s: Frowning over the riddle that Daniel told,


s: Down through the mist hung garden, below a feeble sun,


s: The King of Persia walked:  oh, the chilling cold!


s: His mind was webbed with a grey shroud vapour-spun.


s: Here for the pride of his soaring eagle heart,


s: Here for his great hand searching the skies for food,


s: Here for his courtship of Heaven's high stars he shall smart,


s: Nebuchadnezzar shall fall, crawl, be subdued.


s: Hot sun struck through the vapour, leaf strewn mould


s: Breathed sweet decay:  old Earth called for her child.


s: Mist drew off from his mind, Sun scattered gold,


s: Warmth came and earthy motives fresh and wild.


s: Down on his knees he sinks, the stiff-necked King,


s: Stoops and kneels and grovels, chin to the mud.


s: Out from his changed heart flutter on startled wing


s: The fancy birds of his Pride, Honour, Kinglihood.


s: He crawls, he grunts, he is beast-like, frogs and snails


s: His diet, and grass, and water with hand for cup.


s: He herds with brutes that have hooves and horns and tails,


s: He roars in his anger, he scratches, he looks not up.


s: "Give us Rain, Rain," said the bean and the pea,


s: But the Sun smiles bravely and encouragingly,


s: "Give us Peace, Peace," said the peoples oppressed,


s: But the Flags fly and the Drums beat, denying rest,


s: And the children starve, they shiver in rags.


s: "Mother, the heavens are bright like brass,


s: With labouring breath the soldiers pass,


s: "But mother, see, they faint with thirst,


s: Mighte feed them on thy braines.--Skelton.)


s: And ghosts of ghosts and last year's snow


s: Where is the landlord of old Hawk and Buckle,


s: And what of Master Straddler this hot summer weather?


s: He's along in the tap-room with broad cheeks a-chuckle,


s: And ten bold companions all drinking together.


s: Where is the daughter of old Hawk and Buckle,


s: And what of Mistress Jenny this hot summer weather?


s: She sits in the parlour with smell of honeysuckle,


s: Trimming her bonnet with red ostrich feather.


s: Where is the ostler of old Hawk and Buckle,


s: And what of Willy Jakeman this hot summer weather?


s: He is rubbing his eyes with a slow and lazy knuckle


s: As he wakes from his nap on a bank of fresh heather.


s: Where is the page boy of old Hawk and Buckle,


s: And what of our young Charlie this hot summer weather?


s: He is bobbing for tiddlers in a little trickle-truckle,


s: With his line and his hook and his breeches of leather.


s: Where is the grey goat of old Hawk and Buckle,


s: And what of pretty Nanny this hot summer weather?


s: She stays not contented with little or with muckle,


s: Straining for daisies at the end of her tether.


s: For this is our motto at old Hawk and Buckle,


s: We cling to it close and we sing all together,


s: "Every man for himself at our old Hawk and Buckle,


s: And devil take the hindmost this hot summer weather."


s: Drifting with bare mast and lone tiller,


s: That cupboard stands in your sunny chamber,


s: White clothes for an unborn baby, mother,


s: Come close to me, dear Annie, while I bind a lover's knot.


s: A tale of burning love between a kettle and a pot.


s: The pot was stalwart iron and the kettle trusty tin,


s: Forget that kettle, Jamie, and that pot of boiling broth,


s: I know a dismal story of a candle and a moth.


s: For while your pot is boiling and while your kettle sings


s: My moth makes love to candle flame and burns away his wings.


s: Your moth, I envy, Annie, that died by candle flame,


s: But here are two more lovers, unto no damage came.


s: There was a cuckoo loved a clock and found her always true.


s: As the pot boiled for the kettle, as the kettle for the pot,


s: So boils my love within me till my breast is glowing hot.


s: As the moth died for the candle, so could I die for you.


s: And a bird of the East that will not sing.


s: "God be praised you are back," says she,


s: And a bird of the East that will not sing:


s: What more can you want, dear girl, from me?"


s: "God be praised you are back," said she,


s: "You can keep your pearls and your gold earring,


s: And your bird of the East that will not sing,


s: Than heathenish gew-gaw toys?" says she,


s: Here's flowery taffeta for Mary's new gown:


s: Pearly buttons for you, Mary, all the way down,


s: Mary, here I've bought you a green gingham shade


s: And a silk purse brocaded with roses gold and blue,


s: You'll learn to hold them proudly like colours on parade.


s: No banker's wife in all the town half so grand as you.


s: I've bought for young Diccon a long walking-stick,


s: Yellow gloves, well tanned, at Woodstock village made.


s: Strutting by your sister's side with the same parade.


s: On Sunday to church you go, each with a book of prayer:


s: Then up the street and down the aisles, everywhere you'll see


s: Of all the honours paid around, how small is Virtue's share.


s: How large the share of Vulgar Pride in peacock finery.


s: And soon the lines grew smooth and round


s: Till though long lost are stone and slate,


s: So these same rhymes shall still be told


s: Cried, "'Tis the old man from the moon."


s: She found the poor soul stretched stone-dead.


s: Good-night to the meadow, farewell to the nine o'clock Sun,


s: "He loves me not, loves me, he loves me not" (O jealous one!)


s: "He loves me, he loves me not, loves me"--O soft nights of June,


s: A bird sang for love on the cherry-bough:  up swam the Moon.


s: And Fraulein laughed, "Ho, ho!  Ho, ho!"


s: And a man killed his friend; they fought


s: Where right is wrong, but strength is right,


s: Where weak things must creep underground,


s: Of song or music, that would grieve her,


s: Two bright eyes through the window stare,


s: When buds come striking through the bough,


s: Gulp down your wine, old friends of mine,


s: Roar through the darkness, stamp and sing


s: He had met hours of the clock he never guessed  before--


s: Bone-chilling, hungry hours when the gods sleep and snore,


s: Bequeathing earth and heaven to ghosts, and will not hear,


s: And will not hear man groan chained to the sodden ground,


s: Rotting alive; in feather beds they slumbered sound.


s: When noisome smells of day were sicklied by cold night,


s: When sentries froze and muttered; when beyond the wire


s: Blank shadows crawled and tumbled, shaking, tricking the sight,


s: When impotent hatred of Life stifled desire,


s: Then soared the sudden rocket, broke in blanching showers.


s: O lagging watch!  O dawn!  O hope-forsaken hours!


s: How often with numbed heart, stale lips, venting his rage


s: He swore he'd be a dolt, a traitor, a damned fool,


s: If, when the guns stopped, ever again from youth to age


s: He broke the early-rising, early-sleeping rule.


s: No, though more bestial enemies roused a fouler war


s: Never again would he bear this, no never more!


s: "Rise with the cheerful sun, go to bed with the same,


s: Work in your field or kailyard all the shining day,


s: But," he said, "never more in quest of wealth, honour, fame,


s: Search the small hours of night before the East goes grey.


s: A healthy mind, a honest heart, a wise man leaves


s: Those ugly impious times to ghosts, devils, soldiers, thieves."


s: Poor fool, knowing too well deep in his heart


s: That he'll be ready again if urgent orders come,


s: To quit his rye and cabbages, kiss his wife and part


s: At the first sullen rapping of the awakened drum,


s: Ready once more to sweat with fear and brace for the shock,


s: To greet beneath a falling flare the jests of the clock.


s: I've seen them twitch, draw breath, grope, sigh,


s: They stamp and prance with sobbing breath,


s: In woods that fledge the round hill-shoulder


s: Leaves shoot and open, fall and moulder,


s: And while the leaves above them hissed with


s: Rose their four voices, smooth and round,


s: Fierce burned the sun, yet cheeks were pale,


s: They sang, they swore, they plunged in haste,


s: Stumbling and shouting through the waste;


s: The choir breaks up with jest and shout,


s: Senseless and limp like slaughtered sheep.


s: With bristling chin and whiskered hands,


s: Groaned "Mother!  Mother!" like a child,


s: While that poor innocent in man's clothes


s: Die wholesome then, since you must fight.


s: Hate not, strike, fear not, stare Death out!


s: But Kate says, "Cut that anger and fear,


s: With laughing children and the running deer


s: Everything they took from my new poem book


s: Certain of these poems appeared first in "Poetry" and "Others"


s: When the evening is spread out against the sky


s: Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,


s: Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels


s: And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:


s: Streets that follow like a tedious argument


s: To lead you to an overwhelming question ...


s: The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,


s: The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,


s: Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,


s: Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,


s: Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,


s: Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,


s: And seeing that it was a soft October night,


s: Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.


s: For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,


s: To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;


s: There will be time to murder and create,


s: And time for all the works and days of hands


s: That lift and drop a question on your plate;


s: And for a hundred visions and revisions,


s: To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"


s: Time to turn back and descend the stair,


s: With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--


s: (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")


s: My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,


s: My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--


s: (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")


s: For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.


s: For I have known them all already, known them all:


s: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,


s: I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;


s: I know the voices dying with a dying fall


s: And I have known the eyes already, known them all--


s: The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,


s: And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,


s: When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,


s: To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?


s: And I have known the arms already, known them all--


s: Arms that are braceleted and white and bare


s: (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)


s: Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.


s: Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets


s: And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes


s: Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...


s: I should have been a pair of ragged claws


s: Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.


s: And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!


s: Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.


s: Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?


s: But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,


s: I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,


s: And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,


s: And would it have been worth it, after all,


s: Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,


s: To have bitten off the matter with a smile,


s: To have squeezed the universe into a ball


s: To roll it toward some overwhelming question,


s: To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,


s: Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--


s: Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;


s: After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,


s: It is impossible to say just what I mean!


s: If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,


s: And turning toward the window, should say:


s: No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;


s: To swell a progress, start a scene or two,


s: Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,


s: Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;


s: I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.


s: Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?


s: I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.


s: I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.


s: I do not think that they will sing to me.


s: I have seen them riding seaward on the waves


s: Combing the white hair of the waves blown back


s: When the wind blows the water white and black.


s: We have lingered in the chambers of the sea


s: By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown


s: Till human voices wake us, and we drown.


s: Fornication: but that was in another country,


s: Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon


s: You have the scene arrange itself--as it will seem to do--


s: With "I have saved this afternoon for you";


s: And four wax candles in the darkened room,


s: Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,


s: Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.


s: We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole


s: Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger tips.


s: "So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul


s: Should be resurrected only among friends


s: Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom


s: That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room."


s: Among velleities and carefully caught regrets


s: "You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,


s: And how, how rare and strange it is, to find


s: In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,


s: (For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind!


s: To find a friend who has these qualities,


s: Those qualities upon which friendship lives.


s: How much it means that I say this to you--


s: Without these friendships--life, what cauchemar!"


s: Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own,


s: That is at least one definite "false note."


s: --Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,


s: Correct our watches by the public clocks.


s: Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.


s: And twists one in her fingers while she talks.


s: "Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know


s: What life is, you who hold it in your hands";


s: "You let it flow from you, you let it flow,


s: And smiles at situations which it cannot see."


s: "Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall


s: My buried life, and Paris in the Spring,


s: I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world


s: To be wonderful and youthful, after all."


s: The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune


s: Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:


s: Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.


s: You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel.


s: You will go on, and when you have prevailed


s: You can say: at this point many a one has failed.


s: But what have I, but what have I, my friend,


s: To give you, what can you receive from me?


s: Of one about to reach her journey's end.


s: I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...."


s: I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends


s: Reading the comics and the sporting page.


s: An English countess goes upon the stage.


s: Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired


s: With the smell of hyacinths across the garden


s: Recalling things that other people have desired.


s: The October night comes down; returning as before


s: Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease


s: I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door


s: And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.


s: "And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?


s: You hardly know when you are coming back,


s: My smile falls heavily among the bric-a-brac.


s: My self-possession flares up for a second;


s: "I have been wondering frequently of late


s: (But our beginnings never know our ends!)


s: Why we have not developed into friends."


s: I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark


s: My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark.


s: "For everybody said so, all our friends,


s: They all were sure our feelings would relate


s: So closely! I myself can hardly understand.


s: I shall sit here, serving tea to friends."


s: Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance--


s: Well! and what if she should die some afternoon,


s: Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose;


s: Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand


s: With the smoke coming down above the housetops;


s: Not knowing what to feel or if I understand


s: Would she not have the advantage, after all?


s: This music is successful with a "dying fall"


s: You dozed, and watched the night revealing


s: And the light crept up between the shutters,


s: And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,


s: His soul stretched tight across the skies


s: And short square fingers stuffing pipes,


s: Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;


s: Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door


s: Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left


s: "Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,


s: Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.


s: I could see nothing behind that child's eye.


s: Trying to peer through lighted shutters,


s: Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.


s: The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,


s: The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall


s: Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life."


s: They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,


s: And along the trampled edges of the street


s: I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids


s: Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,


s: And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts


s: And vanishes along the level of the roofs.


s: The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript


s: Sway in the blind like a field of ripe corn.


s: When evening quickens faintly in the street,


s: And to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript,


s: I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning


s: Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld


s: If the street were time and he at the end of the street,


s: And lived in a small house near a fashionable square


s: Cared for by servants to the number of four.


s: Now when she died there was silence in heaven


s: The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet--


s: He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before.


s: But shortly afterwards the parrot died too.


s: The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece,


s: And the footman sat upon the dining-table


s: Holding the second housemaid on his knees--


s: Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived.


s: And her aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it,


s: Matthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith,


s: When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States


s: I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,


s: In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah's


s: He laughed like an irresponsible foetus.


s: I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chair,


s: I heard the beat of centaurs' hoofs over the hard turf


s: As his dry and passionate talk devoured the afternoon.


s: "He is a charming man"--"But after all what did he mean?"--


s: "He has pointed ears ... he must be unbalanced,"--


s: "There was something he said that I might have challenged."


s: Of dowager Mrs. Phlaccus, and Professor and Mrs. Cheetah


s: I remember a slice of lemon and a bitten macaroon.


s: gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and


s: I observe: "Our sentimental friend the moon


s: To light poor travellers to their distress."


s: And I then: "Some one frames upon the keys


s: That exquisite nocturne, with which we explain


s: The night and moonshine; music which we seize


s: Giving our vagrant moods the slightest twist


s: At a stroke our mad poetics to confute--"


s: Stand on the highest pavement of the stair--


s: Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair--


s: Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise--


s: With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:


s: But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.


s: So I would have had her stand and grieve,


s: As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised


s: As the mind deserts the body it has used.


s: Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.


s: She turned away, but with the autumn weather


s: Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.


s: And I wonder how they should have been together!


s: I should have lost a gesture and a pose.


s: The troubled midnight and the noon's repose.


s: As lovers, banished from their lady's face


s: Fashion a ghostly sweetness in its place,


s: Up from the kerchief floats the virgin neck:


s: To let one thought's light footfall smooth


s: Tread near the living, consecrated thing, -