s: To the chaste queen shall we the news convey?


s: Or hears she, and with blessings loads the day?"


s: "Dismiss that care, for to the royal bride


s: And straight resumed his seat); while round him bows


s: Each faithful youth, and breathes out ardent vows:


s: Then all beneath their father take their place,


s: Rank'd by their ages, and the banquet grace.


s: Now flying Fame the swift report had spread


s: Through all the city, of the suitors dead,


s: In throngs they rise, and to the palace crowd;


s: Their sighs were many and the tumult loud.


s: Weeping they bear the mangled heaps of slain;


s: Inhume the natives in their native plain,


s: The rest in ships are wafted o'er the main.


s: Then sad in council all the seniors sate,


s: Big was his eye with tears, his heart with woes:


s: Down his wan cheek the trickling torrent ran,


s: As mixing words with sighs he thus began:


s: "Great deeds, O friends! this wondrous man has wrought,


s: And mighty blessings to his country brought!


s: With ships he parted, and a numerous train,


s: Those, and their ships, he buried in the main.


s: Now he returns, and first essays his hand


s: In the best blood of all his native land.


s: Haste, then, and ere to neighbouring Pyle he flies,


s: Shame to this age, and all that shall succeed!


s: If unrevenged your sons and brothers bleed.


s: Prove that we live, by vengeance on his head,


s: Or sink at once forgotten with the dead."


s: Here ceased he, but indignant tears let fall


s: When from the palace to the wondering throng


s: (Restless and early sleep's soft bands they broke);


s: And Medon first the assembled chiefs bespoke;


s: "Hear me, ye peers and elders of the land,


s: Who deem this act the work of mortal hand;


s: As o'er the heaps of death Ulysses strode,


s: These eyes, these eyes beheld a present god,


s: Who now before him, now beside him stood,


s: Fought as he fought, and mark'd his way with blood:


s: In vain old Mentor's form the god belied;


s: 'Twas Heaven that struck, and Heaven was on his side."


s: (Reverend and wise, whose comprehensive view


s: At once the present and the future knew):


s: "Me too, ye fathers, hear! from you proceed


s: The ills ye mourn; your own the guilty deed.


s: Ye gave your sons, your lawless sons, the rein


s: (Oft warn'd by Mentor and myself in vain);


s: An absent hero's bed they sought to soil,


s: An absent hero's wealth they made their spoil;


s: The offence was great, the punishment was just.


s: Weigh then my counsels in an equal scale,


s: Nor rush to ruin. Justice will prevail."


s: His moderate words some better minds persuade:


s: They part, and join him: but the number stay'd.


s: They storm, they shout, with hasty frenzy fired,


s: They case their limbs in brass; to arms they run;


s: They meet: Eupithes heads the frantic train.


s: Fierce for his son, he breathes his threats in air;


s: Fate bears them not, and Death attends him there.


s: This pass'd on earth, while in the realms above


s: "May I presume to search thy secret soul?


s: Say, hast thou doom'd to this divided state


s: Declare thy purpose, for thy will is fate."


s: "Is not thy thought my own? (the god replies


s: Who rolls the thunder o'er the vaulted skies;)


s: Hath not long since thy knowing soul decreed


s: The chief's return should make the guilty bleed.


s: 'Tis done, and at thy will the Fates succeed.


s: Has slain the suitors, Heaven shall bless the land.


s: None now the kindred of the unjust shall own;


s: Forgot the slaughter'd brother and the son:


s: Each future day increase of wealth shall bring,


s: And o'er the past Oblivion stretch her wing.


s: His people blessing, by his people bless'd.


s: Let all be peace."--He said, and gave the nod


s: That binds the Fates; the sanction of the god


s: Descended Pallas from the Olympian hill.


s: The rage of hunger and of thirst repress'd:


s: Stood in the way, and at a glance beheld


s: The foe approach, embattled on the field.


s: With backward step he hastens to the bower,


s: And tells the news. They arm with all their power.


s: Four friends alone Ulysses' cause embrace,


s: And six were all the sons of Dolius' race:


s: And, still more old, in arms Laertes shone.


s: Trembling with warmth, the hoary heroes stand,


s: The opening gates at once their war display:


s: Fierce they rush forth: Ulysses leads the way.


s: That moment joins them with celestial aid,


s: In Mentor's form, the Jove-descended maid:


s: The suffering hero felt his patient breast


s: Swell with new joy, and thus his son address'd:


s: "Behold, Telemachus! (nor fear the sight,)


s: The brave embattled, the grim front of fight!


s: The valiant with the valiant must contend.


s: Shame not the line whence glorious you descend.


s: Wide o'er the world their martial fame was spread;


s: Regard thyself, the living and the dead."


s: "Thy eyes, great father! on this battle cast,


s: Shall learn from me Penelope was chaste."


s: Good old Laertes heard with panting joy.


s: "And bless'd! thrice bless'd this happy day! (he cries,)


s: The day that shows me, ere I close my eyes,


s: Strive for fair virtue, and contest for fame!"


s: "Son of Arcesius, reverend warrior, hear!


s: Jove and Jove's daughter first implore in prayer,


s: Then, whirling high, discharge thy lance in air."


s: She said, infusing courage with the word.


s: Jove and Jove's daughter then the chief implored,


s: And, whirling high, dismiss'd the lance in air.


s: Full at Eupithes drove the deathful spear:


s: The brass-cheek'd helmet opens to the wound;


s: He falls, earth thunders, and his arms resound.


s: Before the father and the conquering son


s: Heaps rush on heaps, they fight, they drop, they run


s: Now by the sword, and now the javelin, fall


s: The rebel race, and death had swallow'd all;


s: But from on high the blue-eyed virgin cried;


s: Her awful voice detain'd the headlong tide:


s: "Forbear, ye nations, your mad hands forbear


s: From mutual slaughter; Peace descends to spare."


s: Fear shook the nations: at the voice divine


s: They drop their javelins, and their rage resign.


s: All scatter'd round their glittering weapons lie;


s: Some fall to earth, and some confusedly fly.


s: With dreadful shouts Ulysses pour'd along,


s: But Jove's red arm the burning thunder aims:


s: Blazing they fell, and at her feet expired;


s: Then stopped the goddess, trembled and retired.


s: "Descended from the gods! Ulysses, cease;


s: Offend not Jove: obey, and give the peace."


s: The king obey'd. The virgin-seed of Jove,


s: In Mentor's form, confirm'd the full accord,


s: And willing nations knew their lawful lord.


s: Of the miscellaneous collection of verse that follows, only four


s: The pieces are in a large degree dramatic or personative in


s: conception; and this even where they are not obviously so.


s: The dates attached to some of the poems do not apply to the rough


s: rather than for their intrinsic qualities.


s: Change and chancefulness in my flowering youthtime,


s: Wrought us fellow-like, and despite divergence,


s: "Cherish him can I while the true one forthcome -


s: Come the rich fulfiller of my prevision;


s: Life is roomy yet, and the odds unbounded."


s: Thwart my wistful way did a damsel saunter,


s: Fair, the while unformed to be all-eclipsing;


s: "Maiden meet," held I, "till arise my forefelt


s: Long a visioned hermitage deep desiring,


s: Tenements uncouth I was fain to house in;


s: "Let such lodging be for a breath-while," thought I,


s: "Then, high handiwork will I make my life-deed,


s: Truth and Light outshow; but the ripe time pending,


s: Intermissive aim at the thing sufficeth."


s: Mistress, friend, place, aims to be bettered straightway,


s: Bettered not has Fate or my hand's achieving;


s: Sole the showance those of my onward earth-track -


s: If but some vengeful god would call to me


s: From up the sky, and laugh:  "Thou suffering thing,


s: That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"


s: Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die,


s: Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.


s: But not so.  How arrives it joy lies slain,


s: And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?


s: - Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,


s: And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan . . .


s: These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown


s: In vision I roamed the flashing Firmament,


s: So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan,


s: As though with an awed sense of such ostent;


s: And as I thought my spirit ranged on and on


s: In footless traverse through ghast heights of sky,


s: To the last chambers of the monstrous Dome,


s: Where stars the brightest here to darkness die:


s: Then, any spot on our own Earth seemed Home!


s: And the sick grief that you were far away


s: Grew pleasant thankfulness that you were near?


s: Who might have been, set on some outstep sphere,


s: Locked in that Universe taciturn and drear.


s: When you paced forth, to wait maternity,


s: A dream of other offspring held my mind,


s: Compounded of us twain as Love designed;


s: Rare forms, that corporate now will never be!


s: Should I, too, wed as slave to Mode's decree,


s: And each thus found apart, of false desire,


s: A stolid line, whom no high aims will fire


s: As had fired ours could ever have mingled we;


s: And, grieved that lives so matched should mis-compose,


s: Each mourn the double waste; and question dare


s: To the Great Dame whence incarnation flows.


s: Why those high-purposed children never were:


s: What will she answer?  That she does not care


s: If the race all such sovereign types unknows.


s: Snow-bound in woodland, a mournful word,


s: Dropt now and then from the bill of a bird,


s: Reached me on wind-wafts; and thus I heard,


s: "I planned her a nest in a leafless tree,


s: "Fear-filled, I stayed me till summer-tide,


s: But alas! her love for me waned and died,


s: Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less


s: Here, far away, than when I tarried near;


s: I even smile old smiles--with listlessness -


s: Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere.


s: A thought too strange to house within my brain


s: - That I will not show zeal again to learn


s: Your griefs, and sharing them, renew my pain . . .


s: That shapes its lawless figure on the main,


s: And each new impulse tends to make outflee


s: The unseemly instinct that had lodgment here;


s: Yet, comrade old, can bitterer knowledge be


s: Than that, though banned, such instinct was in me!


s: And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,


s: And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,


s: --They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.


s: And some words played between us to and fro -


s: The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing


s: Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,


s: And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me


s: Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,


s: But they stand round with griefless eye,


s: Part seemed she of the effulgent thought


s: The two were silent in a sunless church,


s: Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,


s: And wasted carvings passed antique research;


s: And nothing broke the clock's dull monotones.


s: So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand,


s: - For he was soon to die,--he softly said,


s: "Tell me you love me!"--holding hard her hand.


s: She would have given a world to breathe "yes" truly,


s: So much his life seemed handing on her mind,


s: And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly


s: 'Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind.


s: But the sad need thereof, his nearing death,


s: So mocked humanity that she shamed to prize


s: A world conditioned thus, or care for breath


s: Where Nature such dilemmas could devise.


s: Though I waste watches framing words to fetter


s: Some spirit to mine own in clasp and kiss,


s: Out of the night there looms a sense 'twere better


s: To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.


s: For winning love we win the risk of losing,


s: And losing love is as one's life were riven;


s: It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using


s: Let me then feel no more the fateful thrilling


s: That devastates the love-worn wooer's frame,


s: The hot ado of fevered hopes, the chilling


s: So may I live no junctive law fulfilling,


s: And my heart's table bear no woman's name.


s: When you shall see me in the toils of Time,


s: My eyes no longer stars as in their prime,


s: When in your being heart concedes to mind,


s: And judgment, though you scarce its process know,


s: Recalls the excellencies I once enshrined,


s: And you are irked that they have withered so:


s: Remembering that with me lies not the blame,


s: That Sportsman Time but rears his brood to kill,


s: One who would die to spare you touch of ill! -


s: Will you not grant to old affection's claim


s: The hand of friendship down Life's sunless hill?


s: Perhaps, long hence, when I have passed away,


s: Some other's feature, accent, thought like mine,


s: Will carry you back to what I used to say,


s: And bring some memory of your love's decline.


s: Then you may pause awhile and think, "Poor jade!"


s: To one who could resign her all to you -


s: That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed,


s: Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me,


s: But the Whole Life wherein my part was played;


s: A Thought--as I in yours but seem to be.


s: I will be faithful to thee; aye, I will!


s: And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye


s: One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!


s: I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime


s: Of manhood who deal gently with me here;


s: Who work their love's fulfilment, I appear


s: Numb as a vane that cankers on its point,


s: True to the wind that kissed ere canker came;


s: Despised by souls of Now, who would disjoint


s: The mind from memory, and make Life all aim,


s: For giving love and getting love of thee -


s: Feeding a heart that else mine own had fed!


s: How much I love I know not, life not known,


s: But this I know, my being is but thine own--


s: Ungrasped, though helped by nigh-regarding eyes;


s: Who see unrecked what I so dearly prize?


s: The more it shapes its moan in selfish-wise.


s: When Rich Men find their wealth a curse,


s: And fill therewith the Poor Man's purse;


s: BY CORP'L TULLIDGE:  see "The Trumpet-Major"


s: And from our mortars tons of iron hummed


s: (The Duke o' Yark our then Commander been)


s: That French and English spilled each other's gore;


s: --Few dreamt how far would roll the roar


s: A hundred thousand balls and bombs were fleen;


s: A shell was slent to shards anighst my ears:


s: And shut my gapen skull, and washed en clean,


s: "We've fetched en back to quick from dead;


s: But never more on earth while rose is red


s: O' bees; and don' know when the cuckoo comes;


s: There be some volk whose judgment o' en is mean;


s: My wownds come back, as though new wownds I'd had;


s: Is now the on'y Town I care to be in . . .


s: Good Lord, if Nick should bomb the walls


s: As though at home there were spectres rife?


s: From first to last 'twas a proud career!


s: And your sunny years with a gracious wife


s: "I watched her to-day; a more comely maid,


s: As she danced in her muslin bowed with blue,


s: - "Aye, aye; I watched her this day, too,


s: When we of the Line and Forlorn-hope van,


s: "She's a score less three; so about was SHE -


s: The maiden I wronged in Peninsular days . . .


s: You may prate of your prowess in lusty times,


s: But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays,


s: "We'd stormed it at night, by the vlanker-light


s: Of burning towers, and the mortar's boom:


s: We'd topped the breach; but had failed to stay,


s: For our files were misled by the baffling gloom;


s: "So, out of the trenches, with features set,


s: On that hot, still morning, in measured pace,


s: Past the fauss'bray, scarp, up the curtain-face,


s: "From the battened hornwork the cannoneers


s: "Five hours did we storm, five hours re-form,


s: As Death cooled those hot blood pricked on;


s: Till our cause was helped by a woe within:


s: They swayed from the summit we'd leapt upon,


s: "On end for plunder, 'mid rain and thunder


s: That burst with the lull of our cannonade,


s: We vamped the streets in the stifling air -


s: Our hunger unsoothed, our thirst unstayed -


s: "Down the stony steps of the house-fronts white


s: We rolled rich puncheons of Spanish grape,


s: Till at length, with the fire of the wine alight,


s: I pursued to the chamber she called her own;


s: And I heard the words of prayer she sent


s: In her own soft language . . . Seemingly


s: "So, to-day I stand with a God-set brand


s: Like Cain's, when he wandered from kindred's ken . . .


s: I served through the war that made Europe free;


s: I wived me in peace-year.  But, hid from men,


s: As though at home there were spectres rife;


s: And 'tis coals of fire that a gracious wife


s: Should have brought me a daughter dear!"


s: (As sung by MR. CHARLES CHARRINGTON in the play of "The Three


s: For my customers I tie, and take 'em up on high,


s: A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing,


s: For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en,


s: The sun had wheeled from Grey's to Dammer's Crest,


s: And still I mused on that Thing imminent:


s: At length I sought the High-street to the West.


s: And my wrecked face, and shaped my nearing friend


s: Like one of those the Furnace held unshent.


s: "I've news concerning her," he said.  "Attend.


s: They fly to-night at the late moon's first gleam:


s: Watch with thy steel:  two righteous thrusts will end


s: Her shameless visions and his passioned dream.


s: I'll watch with thee, to testify thy wrong -


s: To aid, maybe.--Law consecrates the scheme."


s: Till I replied:  "Since it has come to this


s: I'll do it!  But alone.  I can be strong."


s: Three hours past Curfew, when the Froom's mild hiss


s: Reigned sole, undulled by whirr of merchandize,


s: From Pummery-Tout to where the Gibbet is,


s: I crossed my pleasaunce hard by Glyd'path Rise,


s: And stood beneath the wall.  Eleven strokes went,


s: And to the door they came, contrariwise,


s: And met in clasp so close I had but bent


s: Their two souls loose upon the firmament.


s: But something held my arm.  "A moment yet


s: As pray-time ere you wantons die!" I said;


s: And then they saw me.  Swift her gaze was set


s: Had she thrown look of love so thorough-sped! . . .


s: At once she flung her faint form shieldingly


s: On his, against the vengeance of my vows;


s: The which o'erruling, her shape shielded he.


s: Blanked by such love, I stood as in a drowse,


s: And the slow moon edged from the upland nigh,


s: My sad thoughts moving thuswise:  "I may house


s: But licensed tyrant to this bonded pair?


s: Says Charity, Do as ye would be done by." . . .


s: I bade them stay.  And, as if brain and breast


s: Were passive, they walked with me to the stair.


s: Inside the house none watched; and on we prest


s: Her beauty, his,--and mine own mien unblest;


s: Till at her room I turned.  "Madam," I said,


s: "Have you the wherewithal for this?  Pray speak.


s: Love fills no cupboard.  You'll need daily bread."


s: "We've nothing, sire," said she; "and nothing seek.


s: 'Twere base in me to rob my lord unware;


s: Our hands will earn a pittance week by week."


s: And next I saw she'd piled her raiment rare


s: Within the garde-robes, and her household purse,


s: And stood in homespun.  Now grown wholly hers,


s: And him the choicest of her robes diverse.


s: "I'll take you to the doorway in the wall,


s: And then adieu," I to them.  "Friends, withdraw."


s: They did so; and she went--beyond recall.


s: Their moonlit figures--slow, as in surprise -


s: Descend the slope, and vanish on the haw.


s: "'Fool,' some will say," I thought.  "But who is wise,


s: Save God alone, to weigh my reasons why?"


s: - "Hast thou struck home?" came with the boughs' night-sighs.


s: It was my friend.  "I have struck well.  They fly,


s: But carry wounds that none can cicatrize."


s: - "Not mortal?" said he.  "Lingering--worse," said I.


s: Scene:  The Master-tradesmen's Parlour at the Old Ship Inn,


s: - "Ah! . . . Well, I had thought till my cheek was wet


s: "To the march that yon street-fiddler plies:


s: She'd heard from the trumpets, when the Allies


s: "My father was one of the German Hussars,


s: Long quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars,


s: Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plain


s: And of all that was suffered there! . . .


s: "--'Twas a time of alarms.  Three Chiefs-at-arms


s: And by numbers' might, for in equal fight


s: "October's deep dew its wet gossamer threw


s: "Hard by, in the City, the One, care-tossed,


s: "He had speech that night on the morrow's designs


s: While the belt of flames from the enemy's lines


s: "Three sky-lights then from the girdling trine


s: "'Twas seen how the French watch-fires that night


s: And the Three rejoiced, for they read in the sight


s: "The first battle nighed on the low Southern side;


s: The nearing of the third on the North was heard:


s: "Against the first band did the Emperor stand;


s: Marmont against the third gave the order-word:


s: "Fifty thousand sturdy souls on those trampled plains and knolls,


s: And were lotted their shares in a quarrel not theirs,


s: "'O,' the old folks said, 'ye Preachers stern!


s: When will men's swords to ploughshares turn?


s: "--The clash of horse and man which that day began,


s: "From the City towers the Confederate Powers


s: 'But give me a third of their strength, I'd fill


s: Save that ever upspread from the dark deathbed


s: "Hard had striven brave Ney, the true Bertrand,


s: "But, as in the dream of one sick to death


s: That pens him, body and limbs and breath,


s: Through these dire nights, a creeping crush


s: 'Twas where the Pleiss' and Elster run -


s: "The nineteenth dawned.  Down street and Platz


s: "When there surged on the sky an earthen wave,


s: "Then stayed the strife.  The remnants wound


s: "While in cavalcade, with band and blade,


s: And the town was theirs . . . Ay, as simple maid,


s: "And whenever those notes in the street begin,


s: And her acting of how the Allies marched in,


s: - THIERS:  Histoire de l'Empire.  "Waterloo."


s: Good Father! . . . 'Twas an eve in middle June,


s: By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn


s: Three nights ere this, with columned corps he'd crossed


s: To move on Brussels, where the English host


s: The yestertide we'd heard the gloomy gun


s: From Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dun


s: Albeit therein--as lated tongues bespoke -


s: And Prussia's Line and Landwehr, though unbroke,


s: And at next noon-time Grouchy slowly passed


s: We hoped thenceforth no army, small or vast,


s: When, reassured at length, we went to rest -


s: But what was this that broke our humble ease?


s: At which a horseman stood in martial guise -


s: Had I seen Grouchy?  Yes?  Which track took he?


s: Fulfilment would ensure gold pieces three,


s: "I bear the Emperor's mandate," then he said,


s: And next the Prussians.  This to set afoot


s: I joined him in the mist; but, pausing, sought


s: Grouchy had made for Wavre; and yet, on thought,


s: I mused:  "If Grouchy thus instructed be,


s: My farm is stript.  While, as for pieces three,


s: "Grouchy unwarned, moreo'er, the English win,


s: They buy, not borrow."--Hence did I begin


s: By Joidoigne, near to east, as we ondrew,


s: And eastward faced I with him, though I knew


s: Near Ottignies we passed, across the Dyle


s: And thence direct toward Pervez and Noville


s: "I doubt thy conduct, man! no track is here -


s: Thereat he scowled on me, and pranced me near,


s: "Nay, Captain, hold!  We skirt, not trace the course


s: "As we go, yonder went he, with his force


s: - At length noon nighed; when west, from Saint-John's-Mound,


s: And from Saint-Lambert's upland, chapel-crowned,


s: Then to the wayless wet gray ground he leapt;


s: He turned to pistol me.  I sprang, and drew


s: And 'twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew,


s: His requiem the corn-blade's husky note -


s: - Two armies writhe in coils of red and blue,


s: From Goumont, past the front of Waterloo,


s: The Guard Imperial wavered on the height;


s: "I sent," he said, "to Grouchy yesternight,


s: 'Twas then, Good Father, that the French espied,


s: The men of Blucher.  But the Emperor cried,


s: And meanwhile Vand'leur, Vivian, Maitland, Kempt,


s: But Grouchy--mis-sent, blamed, yet blame-exempt -


s: By even, slain or struck, Michel the strong,


s: Smart Guyot, Reil-le, l'Heriter, Friant,


s: Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled Lobau


s: As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they sped


s: Safe was my stock; my capple cow unslain;


s: But Grouchy far at Wavre all day had lain,


s: O Saints, why such false witness had I borne


s: So now, being old, my children eye askance


s: And crave my mite; till, worn with tarriance,


s: To Almighty God henceforth I stand confessed,


s: A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;


s: That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,


s: Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes on


s: While marching south hard by, to still her fears,


s: In royal George's town at six that morn;


s: And betwixt its wharves and this retreat were ten good miles of


s: And broached the spiced and brewed, Dear;


s: Those strike with aim who strike for wives and sons!


s: If he SHOULD be rumoured anchoring in the Road,


s: Crossbelts, priming-horn, stock, bay'net,  blackball, clay,


s: And they parted there as morning stroked the panes;


s: And the Volunteer went on, and turned, and twirled his glove for


s: As if, perhaps, uplighted ever since he'd homeward bound him;


s: Car and chariot met he, faring fast inland;


s: "Why courting misadventure shoreward roam?


s: Think the Barrow-Beacon must have met my eyes--


s: We might bear it with us to a covert near;


s: Among the crowfoot tufts the river bore,


s: But that a thought of Holy Writ occurred,


s: To march a-coast, or guard my weak ones near?


s: Give this bird a flight according, that I thence know to elect me


s: Bore due to southward, crossing by the Froom,


s: And Durnover Great-Field and Fort, the soldier clear advising -


s: Up the steep Ridge-way, hearkening betwixt whiles;


s: Till, nearing coast and harbour, he beheld the shore-line planted


s: With Regulars in thousands, were enmassed to meet the Foemen,


s: Were there; of neighbour-natives, Michel, Smith,


s: Meggs, Bingham, Gambier, Cunningham, roused by the hued nocturnal


s: The fleet had paused; his subtle combinations had been parried


s: No alarms, the Volunteer, in modest bliss,


s: Te Deum sang with wife and friends:  "We praise Thee, Lord,


s: 'Twas a death-bed summons, and forth I went


s: By the way of the Western Wall, so drear


s: On that winter night, and sought a gate -


s: And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,


s: I thought of the man who had left her lone -


s: That home-things wear when there's aught amiss;


s: From the stairway floated the rise and fall


s: Her life was the price she would pay for that whine -


s: For a child by the man she did not love.


s: And smiled her thanks--though nigh too weak -


s: "'Twas to see you before I go--he'll condone


s: Such a natural thing now my time's not much--


s: He has not been kind . . . I will speak no blame,


s: Maybe if we'd wedded you'd now repine! . . .


s: But I treated you ill.  I was punished.  Farewell!


s: "As a wife I was true.  But, such my unease


s: That, could I insert a deed back in Time,


s: I'd make her yours, to secure your care;


s: - When I had left, and the swinging trees


s: Rang above me, as lauding her candid say,


s: In the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned,


s: Had her husband's heed.  His tendance spent,


s: And I still went thitherward in the gloam;


s: And the rumour flew that the lame lone child


s: Whom she wished for its safety child of mine,


s: Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused,


s: One eve as I stood at my spot of thought


s: In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,


s: Her husband neared; and to shun his view


s: To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced -


s: Scarce night the sun's gold touch displaced


s: From the vast Rotund and the neighbouring dead


s: When her husband followed; bowed; half-passed,


s: "It is noised that you visit my first wife's tomb.


s: Now, I gave her an honoured name to bear


s: While living, when dead.  So I've claim to ask


s: "There's decency even in death, I assume;


s: She had sighed that she wished (lest the child should pine


s: "That you thought it yours is the way of men;


s: You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me?


s: "Save that, if you'll hand me my little maid,


s: I'll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil.


s: Think it more than a friendly act none can;


s: "If not, and you'll put it to ball or blade -


s: I'll meet you here . . . But think of it,


s: - Well, I went away, hoping; but nought I heard


s: Of my stroke for the child, till there greeted me


s: Next a writing came:  "Since the child was the fruit


s: And I did.  And I gave the child my love,


s: And the child loved me, and estranged us none.


s: But compunctions loomed; for I'd harmed the dead


s: - Yet though, God wot, I am sinner enough,


s: Perhaps this wrong for her darling's good


s: When, in the street, with flush of fears,


s: "Alas for chastened thoughts!" she said;


s: And yet those notes--they thrill me through,


s: As "Theirs" had done ('twas handed down)


s: That night the throbbing "Soldier's Joy,"


s: Beside her spouse; till springtide blood


s: Seemed scouring through her like a flood


s: She rose, and rayed, and decked her head


s: She knocked, but found her further stride


s: "Gay Granny, whence come you?" he cried;


s: They seized and whirled her 'mid the maze,


s: Hour chased each hour, and night advanced;


s: They cheered her as she soared and swooped,


s: (She'd learnt ere art in dancing drooped


s: The favourite Quick-step "Speed the Plough" -


s: "The Duke of York's," "The Fairy Dance,"


s: "The Bridge of Lodi" (brought from France),


s: Their footsteps died as she leant there,


s: She kissed him long, as when, just wooed,


s: - "Who saves his life shall lose it, friends!"


s: That he had come and they'd been stayed,


s: I mark the months in liveries dank and dry,


s: And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by.


s: On hills where morning rains have hissed;


s: Pallidly rising when the summer droughts are done.


s: I have seen the lightning-blade, the leaping star,


s: And trodden where abysmal fires and snow-cones are.


s: To weigh the sun, and fix the hour each planet dips.


s: I witness fellow earth-men surge and strive;


s: Death's soothing finger, sorrow's smart;


s: - All the vast various moils that mean a world alive.


s: But that I fain would wot of shuns my sense -


s: Those sights of which old prophets tell,


s: Vouchsafed to their unheed, denied my long suspense.


s: Outbreathing softly:  that were blest enlightenment;


s: Or, if a dead Love's lips, whom dreams reveal


s: Should leave some print to prove her spirit-kisses real;


s: Or, when Earth's Frail lie bleeding of her Strong,


s: And drop one plume as pledge that Heaven inscrolls the wrong.


s: - There are who, rapt to heights of tranced trust,


s: Of heart to heart returning after dust to dust.


s: Such scope is granted not to lives like mine . . .


s: I have lain in dead men's beds, have walked


s: The tombs of those with whom I'd talked,


s: Called many a gone and goodly one to shape a sign,


s: And panted for response.  But none replies;


s: And Nescience mutely muses:  When a man falls he lies.


s: The dead bore the name--though a rare one -


s: Passing heaths, and the House of Long Sieging,


s: That tops the fair fane of Poore's olden


s: Whereon the bleak hill-graves of Chieftains


s: Which trails its pale riband down Wessex


s: And by Weatherbury Castle, and thencefrom


s: No highwayman's trot blew the night-wind


s: The Nine-Pillared Cromlech, the Bride-streams,


s: - "Then, where dwells the Canon's kinswoman,


s: ('Twas hard to repress my heart-heavings


s: Ten miles hence, beside the great Highway -


s: Too ghastly had grown those first tidings


s: Her liquor-fired face, her thick accents


s: "Inurned and at peace, lost but sainted,


s: Depraved--'tis for Christ's poor dependent


s: And lynchets, and sepultured Chieftains,


s: A feeling stirred in me and strengthened


s: That Death stole intact her young dearness


s: Even now, when the knaps ring with rhythms


s: And feel that with slumber half-conscious


s: She said:  "'Tis seven years since I died:


s: She smiled and went.  Since then she comes


s: By this I gained his strength and height


s: Being bark-bound, flagged, snapped, fell outright,


s: The black lean land, of featureless contour,


s: "This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one


s: I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught


s: The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought,


s: Against the horizon's dim-discerned wheel


s: That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel


s: "'Tis a dead spot, where even the light lies spent


s: "Yea--but await awhile!" he cried.  "Ho-ho! -


s: I looked.  There, too, sat night:  Heaven's radiant show


s: William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,


s: And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now!


s: They've a way of whispering to me--fellow-wight who yet abide -


s: Of a ripple under archways, or a lone cave's stillicide:


s: "We have triumphed:  this achievement turns the bane to antidote,


s: - Many thought-worn eves and morrows to a morrow free of thought.


s: You may wed my spouse, my children's memory of me may decry."


s: Who are wedded, born, divided; if your lives beat slow or swift.


s: "Curious not the least are we if our intents you make or mar,


s: If the City stage still passes, if the weirs still roar afar."


s: (Why, none witteth), and ignoring all that haps beneath the moon,


s: And the Squire, and Lady Susan, murmur mildly to me now.


s: No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby


s: What scenes spread around her last days,


s: Did her gifts and compassions enray and enarch her sweet ways


s: Or did life-light decline from her years,


s: Her full day-star; unease, or regret, or forebodings, or fears


s: As my relic; yet haply the best of her--fined in my brain


s: And, kindling, laughed at life and care,


s: We said:  "We'll set such sorts as these!"


s: - We knew with night the wish would cease.


s: "Words!" mused we.  "Passed the mortal door,


s: Our thoughts will reach this nook no more."


s: Now that my page upcloses, doomed, maybe,


s: My sombre image, warped by insidious heave


s: Of those less forthright, must lose place in thee.


s: So be it.  I have borne such.  Let thy dreams


s: And yield their space to shine of smugger things;


s: Till I shape to thee but in fitful gleams,


s: And then surcease.  Truth will be truth alway.


s: Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother's;


s: My light in thee would outglow all in others;


s: The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,


s: No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;


s: Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;


s: Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn,


s: Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne.


s: "We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!


s: Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?


s: Of Godhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone?


s: We the Forlorn Hope over which Achievement strides?"


s: Thus things around.  No answerer I . . .


s: Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death neighbours nigh.


s: That He who breathes All's Well to these


s: "Thy husband--poor, poor Heart!--is dead--


s: - "Ha, ha--go away!  'Tis a tale, methink,


s: "I've known thee many a year, Kit Twink,


s: So unwontedly sad was the merry man's face -


s: That she gazed and gazed; and then could trace


s: And stood; and you heard the wind-swept sedge


s: 'What a slovenly hussif!' it will be said,


s: And amazed that a wife struck to widowhood


s: But a fortnight thence she could take no food,


s: They had long met o' Zundays--her true love and she -


s: And at junketings, maypoles, and flings;


s: But she bode wi' a thirtover uncle, and he


s: Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be


s: Naibour Sweatley--a gaffer oft weak at the knee


s: From taking o' sommat more cheerful than tea -


s: She cried, "O pray pity me!"  Nought would he hear;


s: She chid when her Love was for clinking off wi' her.


s: The pa'son was told, as the season drew near


s: To throw over pu'pit the names of the peair


s: The wedding-day dawned and the morning drew on;


s: The evening was passed, and when midnight had gone


s: The folks horned out, "God save the King," and anon


s: The lover Tim Tankens mourned heart-sick and drear


s: He roamed in the dark ath'art field, mound, and mere,


s: And, a'most without knowing it, found himself near


s: The house of the tranter, and now of his Dear,


s: Where the lantern-light showed 'em arrived.


s: The bride sought her cham'er so calm and so pale


s: That a Northern had thought her resigned;


s: But to eyes that had seen her in tide-times of weal,


s: Like the white cloud o' smoke, the red battle-field's vail,


s: The bridegroom yet laitered a beaker to drain,


s: When the candle-snoff kindled some chaff from his grain -


s: Flames spread, and red vlankers, wi' might and wi' main,


s: And round beams, thatch, and chimley-tun roar.


s: Young Tim away yond, rafted up by the light,


s: Till he comes to the orchet, when crooping thereright


s: In the lewth of a codlin-tree, bivering wi' fright,


s: Wi' on'y her night-rail to screen her from sight,


s: Her cwold little figure half-naked he views


s: Her light-tripping totties, her ten little tooes,


s: All bare and besprinkled wi' Fall's chilly dews,


s: While her great gallied eyes, through her hair hanging loose,


s: She eyed en; and, as when a weir-hatch is drawn,


s: With a rushing of sobs in a shower were strawn,


s: Till her power to pour 'em seemed wasted and gone


s: "O Tim, my OWN Tim I must call 'ee--I will!


s: All the world ha' turned round on me so!


s: Can you help her who loved 'ee, though acting so ill?


s: Can you pity her misery--feel for her still?


s: When worse than her body so quivering and chill


s: "I think I mid almost ha' borne it," she said,


s: But O, to be slave to thik husbird for bread,


s: And then, upon top o' that, driven to wed,


s: And then, upon top o' that, burnt out o' bed,


s: Tim's soul like a lion 'ithin en outsprung -


s: (Tim had a great soul when his feelings were wrung)--


s: And his warm working-jacket about her he flung,


s: Made a back, horsed her up, till behind him she clung


s: Like a chiel on a gipsy, her figure uphung


s: Over piggeries, and mixens, and apples, and hay,


s: And finding bylong where a halter-path lay,


s: At dawn reached Tim's house, on'y seen on their way


s: By a naibour or two who were up wi' the day;


s: Then tender Tim Tankens he searched here and there


s: For some garment to clothe her fair skin;


s: But though he had breeches and waistcoats to spare,


s: He had nothing quite seemly for Barbree to wear,


s: Who, half shrammed to death, stood and cried on a chair


s: There was one thing to do, and that one thing he did,


s: And she took 'em perforce; and while in 'em she slid,


s: Tim turned to the winder, as modesty bid,


s: Thinking, "O that the picter my duty keeps hid


s: In the tallet he stowed her; there huddied she lay,


s: Shortening sleeves, legs, and tails to her limbs;


s: But most o' the time in a mortal bad way,


s: Well knowing that there'd be the divel to pay


s: If 'twere found that, instead o' the elements' prey,


s: "Where's the tranter?" said men and boys; "where can er be?"


s: "Where's the tranter?" said Barbree alone.


s: "Where on e'th is the tranter?" said everybod-y:


s: They sifted the dust of his perished roof-tree,


s: Then the uncle cried, "Lord, pray have mercy on me!"


s: But before 'twas complete, and till sure she was free,


s: Barbree drew up her loft-ladder, tight turned her key -


s: Tim bringing up breakfast and dinner and tea -


s: Then followed the custom-kept rout, shout, and flare


s: Of a skimmington-ride through the naibourhood, ere


s: Folk had proof o' wold Sweatley's decay.


s: Whereupon decent people all stood in a stare,


s: Saying Tim and his lodger should risk it, and pair:


s: So he took her to church.  An' some laughing lads there


s: Cried to Tim, "After Sweatley!"  She said, "I declare


s: She sought the Studios, beckoning to her side


s: An arch-designer, for she planned to build.


s: He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled


s: With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view,


s: "In true accord with prudent fashionings


s: And thwarting not the law of stable things,


s: "Shape me," she said, "high halls with tracery


s: Of buds, and travelling bees, may come in through,


s: The note of birds, and singings of the sea,


s: "Cede all these buds and birds, the zephyr's call,


s: And scents, and hues, and things that falter all,


s: And choose as best the close and surly wall,


s: "Then frame," she cried, "wide fronts of crystal glass,


s: That I may show my laughter and my light -


s: Light like the sun's by day, the stars' by night -


s: Till rival heart-queens, envying, wail, 'Alas,


s: Whose facile foresight pierced her dire;


s: "Where shall abide the soul when, sick of glee,


s: It shrinks, and hides, and prays no eye may see?


s: Those house them best who house for secrecy,


s: "A little chamber, then, with swan and dove


s: Ranged thickly, and engrailed with rare device


s: Wherein my Love may greet me, I my Love,


s: "An hour will come when sight of such sweet nook


s: Would bring a bitterness too sharp to brook,


s: When brighter eyes have won away his look;


s: Then said she faintly:  "O, contrive some way -


s: Some narrow winding turret, quite mine own,


s: To reach a loft where I may grieve alone!


s: It is a slight thing; hence do not, I pray,


s: "I must even fashion as my rule declares,


s: To wit:  Give space (since life ends unawares)


s: To hale a coffined corpse adown the stairs;


s: And shaped their thoughts by common rules.


s: "Winning their hearts, my kind will give


s: Such press of power had brought much gold


s: Then thanked his God he'd traced his track


s: For incensed love breathes quick and dies,


s: But this Fair read him; whence he failed


s: Before we part to alien thoughts and aims,


s: Permit the one brief word the occasion claims:


s: - When mumming and grave projects are allied,


s: Commanded most our musings; least the play:


s: Frail human flowerets, sicklied by the shade,


s: In winning some short spell of upland breeze,


s: Or strengthening sunlight on the level leas.


s: Who has not marked, where the full cheek should be,


s: Lymphatic pallor where the pink should glow,


s: And where the throb of transport, pulses low? -


s: Most tragical of shapes from Pole to Line,


s: O wondering child, unwitting Time's design,


s: Why should Art add to Nature's quandary,


s: Instance the proof in victims such as these.


s: Launched into thoroughfares too thronged before,


s: Mothered by those whose protest is "No more!"


s: Vitalized without option:  who shall say


s: That did Life hang on choosing--Yea or Nay -


s: They had not scorned it with such penalty,


s: The down, the cornland, and the stretching green -


s: Space--the child's heaven:  scenes which at least ensure


s: Some palliative for ill they cannot cure.


s: Dear friends--now moved by this poor show of ours


s: To make your own long joy in buds and bowers


s: For one brief while the joy of infant eyes,


s: You have our thanks!--may your reward include


s: More than our thanks, far more:  their gratitude.


s: Moments the mightiest pass uncalendared,


s: In backward Time outgave the deedful word


s: "Let one be born and throned whose mould shall constitute


s: The norm of every royal-reckoned attribute,"


s: But in due days the purposed Life outshone -


s: --Her waxing seasons bloomed with deeds well done,


s: Yet may the deed of hers most bright in eyes to be


s: Lie hid from ours--as in the All-One's thought lay she -


s: Here, where Vespasian's legions struck the sands,


s: Convincing triumphs over neighbour lands,


s: Vaster battalions press for further strands,


s: Which this late age of thought, and pact, and code,


s: Still fails to mend.--Now deckward tramp the bands,


s: Yellow as autumn leaves, alive as spring;


s: None dubious of the cause, none murmuring,


s: Wives, sisters, parents, wave white hands and smile,


s: As if they knew not that they weep the while.


s: While the far farewell music thins and fails,


s: And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine -


s: All smalling slowly to the gray sea line -


s: And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,


s: Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,


s: Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men


s: To seeming words that ask and ask again:


s: "How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels


s: Must your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these,


s: That are as puppets in a playing hand? -


s: Whereof we dream, have play in each proud land,


s: And patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand


s: Bondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas?"


s: "The quay recedes.   Hurrah!  Ahead we go! . . .


s: It's true I've been accustomed now to home,


s: And joints get rusty, and one's limbs may grow


s: "But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain;


s: There's not a little steel beneath the rust;


s: My years mount somewhat, but here's to't again!


s: "God knows that for myself I've scanty care;


s: Past scrimmages have proved as much to all;


s: In Eastern lands and South I've had my share


s: "And where those villains ripped me in the flitch


s: I'm apt at change of wind to feel a twitch,


s: "And what my mirror shows me in the morning


s: Has more of blotch and wrinkle than of bloom;


s: My eyes, too, heretofore all glasses scorning,


s: "Now sounds 'The Girl I've left behind me,'--Ah,


s: The years, the ardours, wakened by that tune!


s: Time was when, with the crowd's farewell 'Hurrah!'


s: "But now it's late to leave behind me one


s: Who if, poor soul, her man goes underground,


s: "She's waving from the wharfside, palely grieving,


s: As down we draw . . . Her tears make little show,


s: Yet now she suffers more than at my leaving


s: "I pray those left at home will care for her!


s: I shall come back; I have before; though when


s: The Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother,


s: O it was sad enough, weak enough, mad enough -


s: Light in their loving as soldiers can be -


s: First to risk choosing them, leave alone losing them


s: Now, in far battle, beyond the South Sea! . . .


s: - Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly


s: Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire,


s: They stepping steadily--only too readily! -


s: Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher.


s: Great guns were gleaming there, living things seeming there,


s: Cloaked in their tar-cloths, upmouthed to the night;


s: Wheels wet and yellow from axle to felloe,


s: Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight.


s: Lit our pale faces outstretched for one kiss,


s: While we stood prest to them, with a last quest to them


s: Not to court perils that honour could miss.


s: Sharp were those sighs of ours, blinded these eyes of ours,


s: All we loved.   Aid for them each woman prayed for them,


s: Treading back slowly the track of their march.


s: Someone said:  "Nevermore will they come:  evermore


s: Are they now lost to us."  O it was wrong!


s: Though may be hard their ways, some Hand will guard their ways,


s: Bear them through safely, in brief time or long.


s: - Yet, voices haunting us, daunting us, taunting us,


s: Hint in the night-time when life beats are low


s: Other and graver things . . . Hold we to braver things,


s: Wait we, in trust, what Time's fulness shall show.


s: Last year I called this world of gain-givings


s: The darkest thinkable, and questioned sadly


s: If my own land could heave its pulse less gladly,


s: So charged it seemed with circumstance whence springs


s: Yet at that censured time no heart was rent


s: Or feature blanched of parent, wife, or daughter


s: By hourly blazoned sheets of listed slaughter;


s: Death waited Nature's wont; Peace smiled unshent


s: South of the Line, inland from far Durban,


s: A mouldering soldier lies--your countryman.


s: And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans


s: Nightly to clear Canopus:  "I would know


s: By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law


s: Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,


s: Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,


s: But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."


s: He--has fallen--in the far South Land . . .


s: A letter is brought whose lines disclose


s: Fresh--firm--penned in highest feather -


s: And of home-planned jaunts by brake and burn


s: And with darkness and silence the spirit was on me


s: Whose base took its rest amid everlong motion


s: Soon from out of the Southward seemed nearing


s: And in softness and smoothness well-nigh beyond hearing


s: And they bore to the bluff, and alighted -


s: Frameless souls none might touch or might hold -


s: On the ledge by the turreted lantern, farsighted


s: And I heard them say "Home!" and I knew them


s: And I neared in my awe, and gave heedfulness to them


s: Then, it seemed, there approached from the northward


s: O my men?"  Said they, "Aye!  We bear homeward and hearthward


s: "I've flown there before you," he said then:


s: Some pray that, ere dying, your faith had grown firmer,


s: Had told him no stories to woo him and whet him


s: "And, General, how hold out our sweethearts,


s: Them in sables for heroes.   Some fickle and fleet hearts


s: "And our wives?" quoth another resignedly,


s: Fresh as new--deeds of fondness or fret;


s: Ancient words that were kindly expressed or unkindly,


s: Of our lives--held by us as scarce part of our story,


s: But the rest:  "Fame we prized till to-day;


s: Yet that hearts keep us green for old kindness we prize now


s: Bore to northward for home:  those of bitter traditions


s: That engulphing, ghast, sinister place -


s: Whither headlong they plunged, to the fathomless regions


s: And the spirits of those who were homing


s: And the whirr of their wayfaring thinned


s: And surceased on the sky, and but left in the gloaming


s: Should wait, and wish, but greet no more


s: Flashed on each murk and murderous meeting-time,


s: On bruise and blood-hole, scar and seam,


s: On blade and bolt, he flung his fulgid beam:


s: And storied hero onward, knew his sheen;


s: But new light spread.  That god's gold nimb


s: And blazon have waned dimmer and more dim;


s: His spell, that penmen's pleadings dealt a stroke,


s: Were sown by those more excellent than he,


s: Long known, though long contemned till then -


s: Souls have grown seers, and thought out-brings


s: They do and dare, but tensely--pale of brow;


s: Wherefore, at whiles, as 'twere in ancient mould


s: He looms, bepatched with paint and lath;


s: Heave careless of the deep wrong done to thee


s: When from Torino's track I saw thy face first flash on me.


s: Gleam all unconscious how, wide-lipped, up-browed,


s: I first beheld thee clad--not as the Beauty but the Dowd.


s: Out from a deep-delved way my vision lit


s: On housebacks pink, green, ochreous--where a slit


s: And thereacross waved fishwives' high-hung smocks,


s: Chrome kerchiefs, scarlet hose, darned underfrocks;


s: Whereat I grieve, Superba! . . . Afterhours


s: Went far to mend these marrings of thy soul-subliming powers.


s: But, Queen, such squalid undress none should see,


s: Those dream-endangering eyewounds no more be


s: Where lovers first behold thy form in pilgrimage to thee.


s: (The neighbourhood of Leghorn:  March, 1887)


s: The dust of the lark that Shelley heard,


s: And made immortal through times to be; -


s: Lived its meek life; then, one day, fell -


s: And how it perished, when piped farewell,


s: Of a grape on the slopes of yon inland scene.


s: I traced the Circus whose gray stones incline


s: Till came a child who showed an ancient coin


s: She lightly passed; nor did she once opine


s: How, better than all books, she had raised for me


s: Through the vast years of Caesar's sceptred line.


s: 'Twas but to delve, and straightway there to find


s: Coins of like impress.  As with one half blind


s: Whom common simples cure, her act flashed home


s: The power, the pride, the reach of perished Rome.


s: We walked where Victor Jove was shrined awhile,


s: And passed to Livia's rich red mural show,


s: Whence, thridding cave and Criptoportico,


s: The outer sense, and shape itself as though


s: It wore its marble hues, its pristine glow


s: When lo, swift hands, on strings nigh over-head,


s: It stirred me as I stood, in Caesar's house,


s: Raised the old routs Imperial lyres had led,


s: And blended pulsing life with lives long done,


s: Till Time seemed fiction, Past and Present one.


s: These numbered cliffs and gnarls of masonry


s: Whereof each arch, entablature, and dome


s: Express, as though they were an open tome


s: The singing workmen shape and set and join


s: Their frail new mansion's stuccoed cove and quoin


s: With no apparent sense that years abrade,


s: Though each rent wall their feeble works invade


s: Once shamed all such in power of pier and groin.


s: I sat in the Muses' Hall at the mid of the day,


s: And it seemed to grow still, and the people to pass away,


s: And the chiselled shapes to combine in a haze of sun,


s: Till beside a Carrara column there gleamed forth One.


s: She was nor this nor that of those beings divine,


s: But each and the whole--an essence of all the Nine;


s: With tentative foot she neared to my halting-place,


s: A pensive smile on her sweet, small, marvellous face.


s: "Regarded so long, we render thee sad?" said she.


s: "Not you," sighed I, "but my own inconstancy!


s: I worship each and each; in the morning one,


s: "To-day my soul clasps Form; but where is my troth


s: Of yesternight with Tune:  can one cleave to both?"


s: - "Be not perturbed," said she.  "Though apart in fame,


s: As I and my sisters are one, those, too, are the same.


s: - "But my loves go further--to Story, and Dance, and Hymn,


s: The lover of all in a sun-sweep is fool to whim -


s: Is swayed like a river-weed as the ripples run!"


s: - "Nay, wight, thou sway'st not.  These are but phases of one;


s: "And that one is I; and I am projected from thee,


s: One that out of thy brain and heart thou causest to be -


s: Extern to thee nothing.  Grieve not, nor thyself becall,


s: Woo where thou wilt; and rejoice thou canst love at all!


s: Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous


s: For me he is a man who died and was interred


s: Nor till, far down in Time, beside it found their rest


s: I know not.  This I know:  in death all silently


s: To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street,


s: Should mark, through Time, where two immortal Shades abide;


s: Formal in pose, but grave and grand withal:


s: He contemplates a volume stout and tall,


s: And far lamps fleck him through the thin acacias.


s: With "It is finished!"  And at the alley's end


s: He turns, and soon on me his glances bend;


s: And, as from earth, comes speech--small, muted, yet composed.


s: --Do pens but slily further her advance?


s: May one not speed her but in phrase askance?


s: Do scribes aver the Comic to be Reverend still?


s: At whom sage Milton's wormwood words were hurled:


s: Never without ill-fame to him who gives her birth'?"


s: Thirty-two years since, up against the sun,


s: Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight,


s: Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height,


s: And four lives paid for what the seven had won.


s: They were the first by whom the deed was done,


s: And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight


s: To that day's tragic feat of manly might,


s: As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.


s: Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soon


s: Thou watch'dst each night the planets lift and lower;


s: Thou gleam'dst to Joshua's pausing sun and moon,


s: And brav'dst the tokening sky when Caesar's power


s: Approached its bloody end:  yea, saw'st that Noon


s: When darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour.


s: Yet while here and there they thrid them


s: And scored with prints of perished hands,


s: When mid-autumn's moan shook the night-time,


s: Till airs from the needle-thicks brought me


s: Weary plaint that Mankind, in these late days,


s: "As to read my defects with a god-glance,


s: "Man's mountings of mind-sight I checked not,


s: "'Give me,' he has said, 'but the matter


s: From creatures more keen than those crude ones


s: "I rue it! . . . His guileless forerunners,


s: 'Every best thing,' said they, 'to best purpose


s: "No more such! . . . My species are dwindling,


s: My children have aped mine own slaughters


s: "Let me grow, then, but mildews and mandrakes,


s: We clamoured thee that thou would'st please


s: - Man's race shall end, dost threaten thou?


s: And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively,


s: Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe,


s: Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends


s: Further and further from the nooks the twilight's stride extends,


s: Have I wrought, pondered, planned; no one thing asking blame or


s: Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays -


s: And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set,


s: That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime,


s: To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime,


s: In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose,


s: Of that enkindling ardency from whose maturer glows


s: By momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope to be


s: And undervoicings of this loss to man's futurity


s: Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,


s: Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine


s: With the torn troubled form I know as thine,


s: So small a shade, and Heaven's high human scheme


s: Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?


s: Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,


s: Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,


s: Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?


s: SCENE.--A sad-coloured landscape, Waddon Vale


s: "O Time, whence comes the Mother's moody look amid her labours,


s: As of one who all unwittingly has wounded where she loves?


s: Why weaves she not her world-webs to according lutes and tabors,


s: With nevermore this too remorseful air upon her face,


s: - "Her look is but her story:  construe not its symbols keenly:


s: In her wonderworks yea surely has she wounded where she loves.


s: The sense of ills misdealt for blisses blanks the mien most


s: Self-smitings kill self-joys; and everywhere beneath the sun


s: Into her would-be perfect motions, modes, effects, and features


s: Admitting cramps, black humours, wan decay, and baleful blights,


s: That sightless are those orbs of hers?--which bar to her


s: "She whispers it in each pathetic strenuous slow endeavour,


s: When in mothering she unwittingly sets wounds on what she loves;


s: Yet her primal doom pursues her, faultful, fatal is she ever;


s: Though so deft and nigh to vision is her facile finger-touch


s: "Deal, then, her groping skill no scorn, no note of malediction;


s: Not long on thee will press the hand that hurts the lives it


s: And while she dares dead-reckoning on, in darkness of affliction,


s: And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace,


s: I have known it long, and know, too, well


s: As though I had schemed a world of strife,


s: Here and there the watch-towers knell it


s: Hearts that are happiest hold not by it;


s: Better we let, then, the old view reign;


s: Since there is peace in it, why decry it?


s: Note not the pigment the while that the painting determines


s: - "I would not freeze thee, shorn one," cried


s: - "Come hither, Son," I heard Death say;


s: When wilt thou wake, O Mother, wake and see -


s: As one who, held in trance, has laboured long


s: By vacant rote and prepossession strong -


s: The coils that thou hast wrought unwittingly;


s: Fair growths, foul cankers, right enmeshed with wrong,


s: Strange orchestras of victim-shriek and song,


s: And curious blends of ache and ecstasy? -


s: Should that morn come, and show thy opened eyes


s: All that Life's palpitating tissues feel,


s: How wilt thou bear thyself in thy surprise? -


s: Wilt thou destroy, in one wild shock of shame,


s: Thy whole high heaving firmamental frame,


s: Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win


s: --"The Earth, say'st thou?  The Human race?


s: Nay:  I have no remembrance of such place:


s: Thou spak'st the word, and mad'st it all." -


s: "The Earth of men--let me bethink me . . . Yea!


s: So named . . . It perished, surely--not a wrack


s: Of its own act the threads were snapt whereby


s: When sudden silence on that side ensued,


s: Earth's race should think that one whose call


s: Frames, daily, shining spheres of flawless stuff


s: "But say'st thou 'tis by pangs distraught,


s: Deep grieved am I that injury should be wrought


s: "Thou should'st have learnt that Not to Mend


s: Hence, Messengers! and straightway put an end


s: - Oh, childish thought! . . . Yet oft it comes to me


s: To Time and Chance, and seem'st straightway


s: 'Tis plain Thou meant'st that we should win


s: Might but Thy sense flash down the skies


s: But, seeing how much Thy creatures bear -


s: Thou'dst heal the ills with quickest care


s: Then, since Thou mak'st not these things be,


s: Breathe not, hid Heart:  cease silently,


s: And Time-wraiths turn our songsingings to fear.


s: Thou canst not mend these things if thou dost come.


s: And put it to thee:  Wilt thou take Life so?


s: Though skies spout fire and blood and nations quake.


s: Of earth's wide wold for thee, where not


s: No man can change the common lot to rare.


s: In full for thee; can dream thou'lt find


s: - "Nay:  though thy bride remains inside


s: Thus still she vouched, and still I said,


s: The sprite resumed:  "Thou hast transferred


s: Con the dead page as 'twere live love:  press on!


s: Cold wisdom's words will ease thy track for thee;


s: Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wan


s: But if thy object Fame's far summits be,


s: That missed both dream and substance, stop and see


s: How absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes!


s: A name whose glory-gleam will but advise


s: Invidious minds to quench it with their own,


s: And over which the kindliest will but stay


s: A moment, musing, "He, too, had his day!"


s: And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb. -


s: Yet less for loss of your dear presence there


s: Than that I thus found lacking in your make


s: Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake


s: Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,


s: - I know and knew it.  But, unto the store


s: To add yet this:  Once, you, a woman, came


s: To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be


s: Since first it was my fate to know thee!


s: - Have the slow years not brought to view


s: Since first it was my fate to know thee?


s: That your free heart should ache for me!


s: Learns love, learns shame . . . Of sinners two


s: To call for bells, and sally forth arrayed


s: For marriage-rites -- discussed, decried, delayed


s: By feints that Time still serves for dallyings,


s: The day being so far spent, so low the sun,


s: The undone thing will soon be as the done,


s: Our cheeks are worn, our early brown is gray;


s: When, meet or part we, none says yea or nay,


s: We still can climb old Yell'ham's wooded mounds


s: Together, as each season steals its rounds


s: As mates in Mellstock churchyard we can lie,


s: Till the last crash of all things low and high


s: And my dream was scared, and expired on a moan,


s: Of those bereft.  Then said I:  "This must be


s: Its life in theirs.  But less its shine excelled


s: And found him--shrunk, alas! into a thin


s: If aught of him remain unperished still;


s: "Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are ye distrest,


s: But that our future second death is drear;


s: When, with the living, memory of us numbs,


s: Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;


s: Nor shape nor thought of theirs canst thou descry


s: Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;


s: Are blest with dear recall; as yet, alway


s: First memory, then oblivion's turbid sea;


s: Like men foregone, shall we merge into those


s: To show in life that world-awakening scope


s: Granted the few whose memory none lets die,


s: Things true, things lovely, things of good report


s: We neither shunned nor sought . . . We see our bourne,


s: Staunch, strenuous souls who scarce believe


s: And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:


s: On this scene enter--winged, horned, and spined -


s: At this point of time, at this point in space.


s: Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.


s: "God's humblest, they!" I muse.  Yet why?


s: They know Earth-secrets that know not I.


s: Around the house.  The flakes fly!--faster


s: Around the house.  The flakes fly faster,


s: These shapes that now bereave and bleed us?


s: They are not those who used to feed us, -


s: For would they not fair terms concede us?


s: Rook.--Throughout the field I find no grain;


s: Starling.--Aye:  patient pecking now is vain


s: Pigeon.--Nor will be, comrade, till it rain,


s: Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,


s: That all he could for flowers was being done,


s: Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,


s: An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,


s: That I could think there trembled through


s: Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness,


s: I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain


s: And quakes, and shoots, and stifling hotness, blent


s: With webby waxing things and waning things


s: To this foul way?" I asked with weakening breath.


s: "At last!" I cried.  "The all-delivering door!"


s: And then, I knew not how, it grew less near


s: And tediously the day returned, and sky,


s: Old circumstance resumed its former show,


s: Scarce conscious of my late distress . . .  And yet


s: Those backward steps through pain I cannot view


s: Of waxing shapes and waning, passed before,


s: And those grim aisles, must be traversed again


s: In Casterbridge there stood a noble pile,


s: Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade


s: In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed. -


s: It smiled the long street down for near a mile


s: The stately beauties of its roof and wall


s: Passed into sordid hands.  Condemned to fall


s: And all that art had wove in antique style.


s: Among the hired dismantlers entered there


s: When charged therewith he gazed, and answered bold:


s: I will not help lay low a house so fair!


s: "Hunger is hard.  But since the terms be such -


s: No wage, or labour stained with the disgrace


s: I'll do without your dole.  Life is not much!


s: Dismissed with sneers he backed his tools and went,


s: And wandered workless; for it seemed unwise


s: To close with one who dared to criticize


s: To work where they were placed rude men were meant.


s: Years whiled.  He aged, sank, sickened, and was not:


s: And curst is gone."  None sighed to hear his knell,


s: His name, his rugged face, were soon forgot.


s: The stones of that fair hall lie far and wide,


s: "His protest lives where deathless things abide!"


s: "Soul!  Shall I see thy face," she said,


s: To a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower,


s: She quickened her feet, and met him where


s: And they clasped, and mounted, and cleft the air


s: Upon whirling wheels; till the will to bind


s: Her life with his made the moments there


s: Miles slid, and the sight of the port upgrew


s: When slipping its bond the bracelet flew


s: I would still lose all for your dear, dear sake;


s: My heart is thine, friend!  But my track


s: He appealed.  But they parted, weak and wan:


s: And she heard in the waves as the daytide wore,


s: And read in the leer of the sun that shone,


s: She homed as she came, at the dip of eve


s: Regaining the Hall she had sworn to leave . . .


s: And she entered her chamber, there to grieve


s: From the lawn without rose her husband's voice


s: Her going is good.  Our conditions mend;


s: In a change of mates we shall both rejoice;


s: "A quick divorce; she will make him hers,


s: So Time rights all things in long, long years -


s: "I shall build new rooms for my new true bride,


s: By now, no doubt, she has crossed the tide


s: With the man to her mind.  Far happier she


s: A cotton-hooded milkmaid bends her brow.


s: Upheaves and falls; the milk purrs in the pail;


s: The peace of such a life in such a vale.


s: It seems, her sense of Nature's scenery,


s: Whose alien whirr offends her country ear? -


s: On visual and familiar things like these;


s: Her gay new gown come, meads might dry to dun,


s: If Fred would not prefer that Other One.


s: "O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!


s: Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?


s: And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" -


s: "O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.


s: - "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,


s: Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;


s: And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" -


s: "Yes:  that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.


s: - "At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'


s: And 'thik oon,' and 'theas oon,' and 't'other'; but now


s: Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!" -


s: "Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.


s: - "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak,


s: But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,


s: And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!" -


s: "We never do work when we're ruined," said she.


s: - "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,


s: And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem


s: To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!" -


s: "True.  There's an advantage in ruin," said she.


s: - "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,


s: And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" -


s: "My dear--a raw country girl, such as you be,


s: Isn't equal to that.  You ain't ruined," said she.


s: And gave the Church no thought whate'er;


s: - Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair,


s: These flowers and plants I parch up hot -


s: "Those banks and beds whose shape your eye


s: They'll talk of their schemes for improving it,


s: "They'll care not how, or when, or at what


s: Though you feel more in an hour of the spot


s: Wherein Hodge trudged, all blithely ballading


s: And coombs alight," she cried, "and fallows gay,


s: When I have placed no sunshine in the air


s: That such should be," returned the one of Doom;


s: "Charge now the scene with brightest blazonings,


s: All Froomside shone, the hedgebirds raised a song;


s: And later Hodge, upon the midday stroke,


s: And thrice accurst horizon hung with gloom!


s: How deadly like this sky, these fields, these treen,


s: Such mad perverseness who may apprehend?" -


s: "Nay; there's no madness in it; thou shalt find


s: "When Hodge went forth 'twas to his Love,


s: To make her, ere this eve, his wedded prize,


s: To take forthwith her laughing life from her,


s: "And white her cheek, and still her breath,


s: Ere her too buoyant Hodge had reached her side;


s: So, when he came, he clasped her but in death,


s: Thy dreary dawn he saw as gleaming gold,


s: And in thy glistening green and radiant red


s: And bats ringed round, and daylight went;


s: The gnarl, our seat, is wrenched and sunk,


s: Some prayer of some hot heart, no doubt,


s: "My lover's wife--aye, wife!--knew nought


s: Of what we felt, and bore, and thought . . .


s: She stands between, 'tis true.  But why?


s: "O shrink not, Love!--Had these eyes seen


s: But we were strangers . . . Thus the plot


s: Cleared passion's path.--Why came he not


s: Have I since wandered . . . Soon, for love,


s: "Percussus sum sicut foenum, et aruit cor meum."


s: And what the potent say so oft, can it fail to be somewhat true?


s: Breezily go they, breezily come; their dust smokes around their


s: And nothing is much the matter; there are many smiles to a tear;


s: Get him up and be gone as one shaped awry; he disturbs the order


s: "Heu mihi, quia incolatus meus prolongatus est!  Habitavi cum


s: habitantibus Cedar; multum incola fuit aninia mea."--Ps. cxix.


s: Points in my path when the dark might have stolen on me, artless,


s: Ere I had learnt that the world was a welter of futile doing:


s: Such had been times when I well might have passed, and the ending


s: Fashioned and furbished the soil into a summer-seeming order,


s: Glowing in gladsome faith that I quickened the year thereby.


s: Or on that loneliest of eves when afar and benighted we stood,


s: She who upheld me and I, in the midmost of Egdon together,


s: Or on that winter-wild night when, reclined by the chimney-nook


s: That sweets to the mouth in the belly are bitter, and tart, and


s: Then, on some dim-coloured scene should my briefly raised curtain


s: So closed the task.  "Deathless the Creed


s: Well:  Here at morn they'll light on one


s: Some say the spot is banned; that the pillar Cross-and-Hand


s: But of else than of bale is the mystic tale


s: Ere Cernel's Abbey ceased hereabout there dwelt a priest,


s: Of the brotherhood there, whose bones are now bare


s: One night in his cell at the foot of yon dell


s: "Go, father, in haste to the cot on the waste,


s: Said the priest in a shout to the caller without,


s: One may barely by day track so rugged a way,


s: No further word from the dark was heard,


s: And he slept and dreamed; till a Visage seemed


s: In a sweat he arose; and the storm shrieked shrill,


s: While High-Stoy trees twanged to Bubb-Down Hill,


s: Yet he plodded thence through the dark immense,


s: Through copse and briar climbed nigh and nigher


s: When he would have unslung the Vessels uphung


s: Then in dolorous dread he beat his head:


s: Is the thing I've lost in tempest tossed,


s: He thought of the Visage his dream revealed,


s: Hands groping the ground along foot-track and field,


s: Till here on the hill, betwixt vill and vill,


s: Stretching down from the sky to a spot hard by,


s: And gathered around the illumined ground


s: All kneeling at gaze, and in pause profound


s: 'Twas the Pyx, unharmed 'mid the circling rows


s: Then the priest bent likewise to the sod


s: And turning straight with his priceless freight,


s: Whose passing sprite had been stayed for the rite


s: He reared this stone to mark where shone


s: Where I would rise up stanch and strong,


s: He watched me to the clock's slow beat -


s: And now he's gone; and now he's gone; . . .


s: The flowers we potted p'rhaps are thrown


s: "Are these the gravestone shapes that meet


s: Gay forms, that cross and whirl and wind


s: "The gates are shut when evening glooms:


s: My wreath were they?"--"Nay; love me much,


s: "Nor know your child.  I knew this maid,


s: "Thou shalt be--Nothing."--OMAR KHAYYAM.


s: "Tombless, with no remembrance."--W. SHAKESPEARE.


s: For thou hast plucked not of the Muses' tree:


s: No friendly shade thy shade shall company!


s: Then hail, sweet Sirmio; thou that wast,


s: Child, were I king, I'd yield my royal rule,


s: My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due,


s: My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,


s: My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool,


s: Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs,


s: Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs,


s: Time, space, all would I give--aye, upper spheres,


s: Here's one in whom Nature feared--faint at such vying -


s: Eclipse while he lived, and decease at his dying.


s: Who charged with deeds my skill and scope?"


s: Long have I framed weak phantasies of Thee,


s: How much of consciousness informs Thy will


s: Nought shows to us ephemeral ones who fill


s: Perhaps Thy ancient rote-restricted ways


s: To grow percipient with advance of days,


s: For, in unwonted purlieus, far and nigh,


s: {3}  On a lonely table-land above the Vale of Blackmore, between


s: Come hither, lads, and hearken, for a tale there is to tell,


s: For then--laugh not, but listen to this strange tale of mine -


s: All folk that are in England shall be better lodged than swine.


s: Nor yet come home in the even too faint and weary to stand.


s: Men in that time a-coming shall work and have no fear


s: For to-morrow's lack of earning and the hunger-wolf anear.


s: I tell you this for a wonder, that no man then shall be glad


s: Of his fellow's fall and mishap to snatch at the work he had.


s: For that which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed,


s: Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed no seed.


s: And what wealth then shall be left us when none shall gather gold


s: Nay, what save the lovely city, and the little house on the hill,


s: And the homes of ancient stories, the tombs of the mighty dead;


s: And the painter's hand of wonder; and the marvellous fiddle-bow,


s: And the banded choirs of music:  all those that do and know.


s: How long shall they reproach us where crowd on crowd they dwell,


s: Poor ghosts of the wicked city, the gold-crushed hungry hell?


s: Through squalid life they laboured, in sordid grief they died,


s: Those sons of a mighty mother, those props of England's pride.


s: But many a million cometh, and shall they be better or worse?


s: It is we must answer and hasten, and open wide the door


s: Come, then, since all things call us, the living and the dead,


s: And o'er the weltering tangle a glimmering light is shed.


s: Come, then, let us cast off fooling, and put by ease and rest,


s: For the CAUSE alone is worthy till the good days bring the best.


s: Come, join in the only battle wherein no man can fail,


s: Where whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still prevail.


s: Ah! come, cast off all fooling, for this, at least, we know:


s: That the Dawn and the Day is coming, and forth the Banners go.


s: I heard men saying, Leave hope and praying,


s: To-day and to-morrow bring fear and sorrow,


s: When Earth was younger mid toil and hunger,


s: In hope we strove, and our hands were strong;


s: Then great men led us, with words they fed us,


s: Bids us grind treasure and fashion pleasure


s: Where home is a hovel and dull we grovel,


s: Where no babe we cherish, lest its very soul perish;


s: Where our mirth is crime, our love a snare.


s: Who now shall lead us, what god shall heed us


s: As we lie in the hell our hands have won?


s: For us are no rulers but fools and befoolers,


s: The great are fallen, the wise men gone.


s: I heard men saying, Leave tears and praying,


s: Are we not stronger than the rich and the wronger,


s: Come, shoulder to shoulder ere the world grows older!


s: Hope is before us, the long years that bore us


s: Let dead hearts tarry and trade and marry,


s: And trembling nurse their dreams of mirth,


s: While we the living our lives are giving


s: Come, shoulder to shoulder ere earth grows older


s: Hear a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing nigh,


s: When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live, and some to die!


s: He that dies shall not die lonely, many an one hath gone before;


s: Nothing ancient is their story, e'en but yesterday they bled,


s: Youngest they of earth's beloved, last of all the valiant dead.


s: E'en the tidings we are telling was the tale they had to tell,


s: Named and nameless all live in us; one and all they lead us yet


s: Every pain to count for nothing, every sorrow to forget.


s: Hearken how they cry, "O happy, happy ye that ye were born


s: In the sad slow night's departing, in the rising of the morn.


s: Ah, it may be!  Oft meseemeth, in the days that yet shall be,


s: When no slave of gold abideth 'twixt the breadth of sea to sea,


s: Some shall pause awhile and ponder on the bitter days of old,


s: Ere the toil of strife and battle overthrew the curse of gold;


s: There amidst the world new-builded shall our earthly deeds abide,


s: Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear?


s: All the wide world is their dwelling, every corner of the earth.


s: All for thee this day--and ever.  What reward for them is meet


s: O ye rich men hear and tremble! for with words the sound is rife:


s: "Is it war, then?  Will ye perish as the dry wood in the fire?


s: Is it peace?  Then be ye of us, let your hope be our desire.


s: Come and live! for life awaketh, and the world shall never tire;


s: "On we march then, we the workers, and the rumour that ye hear


s: Is the blended sound of battle and deliv'rance drawing near;


s: For the hope of every creature is the banner that we bear,


s: Come, comrades, come, your glasses clink;


s: Down among the dead men, down among the dead men,


s: There's liquor left; come, let's be kind,


s: The Day?  Ah, friends, late grows the night;


s: Drink strife in hope while lasteth breath,


s: What cometh here from west to east awending?


s: And who are these, the marchers stern and slow?


s: We bear the message that the rich are sending


s: Aback to those who bade them wake and know.


s: Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,


s: But one and all if they would dusk the day.


s: We asked them for a life of toilsome earning,


s: They bade us bide their leisure for our bread;


s: We craved to speak to tell our woeful learning:


s: We come back speechless, bearing back our dead.


s: They will not learn; they have no ears to hearken.


s: They turn their faces from the eyes of fate;


s: Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that darken.


s: But, lo! this dead man knocking at the gate.


s: Here lies the sign that we shall break our prison;


s: Amidst the storm he won a prisoner's rest;


s: Brings us our day of work to win the best.


s: O Earth, once again cometh Spring to deliver


s: Thy winter-worn heart, O thou friend of the Sun;


s: Fair blossom the meadows from river to river


s: And the birds sing their triumph o'er winter undone.


s: O Earth, how a-toiling thou singest thy labour


s: And upholdest the flower-crowned cup of thy bliss,


s: As when in the feast-tide drinks neighbour to neighbour


s: And all words are gleeful, and nought is amiss.


s: But we, we, O Mother, through long generations,


s: We have toiled and been fruitful, but never with thee


s: Might we raise up our bowed heads and cry to the nations


s: To look on our beauty, and hearken our glee.


s: Unlovely of aspect, heart-sick and a-weary


s: On the season's fair pageant all dim-eyed we gaze;


s: Of thy fairness we fashion a prison-house dreary


s: And in sorrow wear over each day of our days.


s: O children!  O toilers, what foemen beleaguer


s: The House I have built you, the Home I have won?


s: Full great are my gifts, and my hands are all eager


s: To fill every heart with the deeds I have done.


s: The foemen are born of thy body, O Mother,


s: In our shape are they shapen, their voice is the same;


s: And the thought of their hearts is as ours and no other;


s: It is they of our own house that bring us to shame.


s: Are ye few?  Are they many?  What words have ye spoken


s: To bid your own brethren remember the Earth?


s: What deeds have ye done that the bonds should be broken,


s: And men dwell together in good-will and mirth?


s: They are few, we are many:  and yet, O our Mother,


s: Many years were we wordless and nought was our deed,


s: But now the word flitteth from brother to brother:


s: We have furrowed the acres and scattered the seed.


s: Win on then unyielding, through fair and foul weather,


s: And pass not a day that your deed shall avail.


s: And in hope every spring-tide come gather together


s: That unto the Earth ye may tell all your tale.


s: Then this shall I promise, that I am abiding


s: The day of your triumph, the ending of gloom,


s: And no wealth that ye will then my hand shall be hiding


s: And the tears of the spring into roses shall bloom.


s: Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding


s: With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun;


s: Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding


s: The green-growing acres with increase begun.


s: Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying


s: Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the field;


s: Love mingles with love, and no evil is weighing


s: On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed.


s: From township to township, o'er down and by tillage


s: Far, far have we wandered and long was the day,


s: But now cometh eve at the end of the village,


s: Where over the grey wall the church riseth grey.


s: There is wind in the twilight; in the white road before us


s: The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about;


s: The moon's rim is rising, a star glitters o'er us,


s: And the vane on the spire-top is swinging in doubt.


s: Down there dips the highway, toward the bridge crossing over


s: The brook that runs on to the Thames and the sea.


s: Draw closer, my sweet, we are lover and lover;


s: This eve art thou given to gladness and me.


s: Shall we be glad always?  Come closer and hearken:


s: Three fields further on, as they told me down there,


s: When the young moon has set, if the March sky should darken,


s: We might see from the hill-top the great city's glare.


s: Hark, the wind in the elm-boughs!  From London it bloweth,


s: And telling of gold, and of hope and unrest;


s: Of power that helps not; of wisdom that knoweth,


s: But teacheth not aught of the worst and the best.


s: Of the rich men it telleth, and strange is the story


s: How they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide;


s: And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory


s: Has been but a burden they scarce might abide.


s: Hark! the March wind again of a people is telling;


s: Of the life that they live there, so haggard and grim,


s: That if we and our love amidst them had been dwelling


s: My fondness had faltered, thy beauty grown dim.


s: This land we have loved in our love and our leisure


s: For them hangs in heaven, high out of their reach;


s: The wide hills o'er the sea-plain for them have no pleasure,


s: The grey homes of their fathers no story to teach.


s: The singers have sung and the builders have builded,


s: The painters have fashioned their tales of delight;


s: For what and for whom hath the world's book been gilded,


s: When all is for these but the blackness of night?


s: How long and for what is their patience abiding?


s: How oft and how oft shall their story be told,


s: While the hope that none seeketh in darkness is hiding


s: And in grief and in sorrow the world groweth old?


s: Come back to the inn, love, and the lights and the fire,


s: And the fiddler's old tune and the shuffling of feet;


s: For there in a while shall be rest and desire,


s: And there shall the morrow's uprising be sweet.


s: Yet, love, as we wend the wind bloweth behind us


s: And beareth the last tale it telleth to-night,


s: How here in the spring-tide the message shall find us;


s: For the hope that none seeketh is coming to light.


s: Like the seed of midwinter, unheeded, unperished,


s: Like the autumn-sown wheat 'neath the snow lying green,


s: Like the love that o'ertook us, unawares and uncherished,


s: Like the babe 'neath thy girdle that groweth unseen,


s: So the hope of the people now buddeth and groweth -


s: Rest fadeth before it, and blindness and fear;


s: It biddeth us learn all the wisdom it knoweth;


s: It hath found us and held us, and biddeth us hear:


s: For it beareth the message:  "Rise up on the morrow


s: And go on your ways toward the doubt and the strife;


s: Join hope to our hope and blend sorrow with sorrow,


s: And seek for men's love in the short days of life."


s: But lo, the old inn, and the lights and the fire,


s: And the fiddler's old tune and the shuffling of feet;


s: Soon for us shall be quiet and rest and desire,


s: And to-morrow's uprising to deeds shall be sweet.


s: On seeing 'The House of Julia' at Herculaneum


s: When silence flees before the voice of Love,


s: Of what expression does that god approve?


s: Is dulcet song or flowing verse his choice,


s: Or stately prose, made regal by his voice?


s: Speaks Love in couplets, or in epics grand?


s: There is no language that Love does not speak:


s: With hope triumphant and with doubt morose,


s: His varying moods all forms of speech employ.


s: He rings the changes on the poet's strain.


s: Can Love the passion of his heart rehearse.


s: All speech, all language, is inadequate,


s: There are no words with Love commensurate.


s: Between the little Here and larger Yonder,


s: Where faithful spirits love-enchained may wander,


s: Till some remembering soul from earth has fled.


s: From sphere to sphere, where wondrous angels are.


s: Not many spirits in that realm are waiting;


s: Can hold them from the longer, higher quest.


s: And after grief has wept itself to sleep,


s: Few hearts on earth their vital memories keep.


s: Should I pass on, across the mystic border,


s: Let thy love link me to that pallid land;


s: I would not seek the heavens of finer order


s: Until thy barque had left this coarser strand.


s: Though straight to Him, were they not shared by thee.


s: Wert thou first called (dear God, how could I bear it?)


s: I should enchain thee with my love, I know.


s: Not great enough am I to free thy spirit


s: From all these tender ties, and bid thee go.


s: Nor would a soul, unselfish as thine own,


s: Forget so soon, and speed to heaven alone.


s: On earth we find no joy in ways diverging;


s: How could we find it in the worlds unseen?


s: I know old memories from my bosom surging,


s: Would keep thee waiting in that Land Between,


s: A path of stars, in our great search for God.


s: Midway upon the route, he paused athirst


s: He saw cool waters gleaming, and a sweet


s: A tender dream, long in his bosom nursed,


s: Spread love's illusive verdure for his feet;


s: The barren sands changed into golden wheat;


s: The way grew glad that late had seemed accursed.


s: She shone, the woman wonder, on his soul;


s: The garden spot, for which men toil and wait;


s: The house of rest, that is each heart's demand;


s: But when, at last, he reached the gleaming goal,


s: When it boasts of its wealth the loudest,


s: When its mien is the gayest and proudest.


s: Skilled mariner, and counted sane and wise,


s: That was a curious thing which chanced to me,


s: With favouring winds and blue unshadowed skies,


s: Led by the faithful beacon of Love's eyes,


s: Past reef and shoal, my life-boat bounded free


s: And fearless of all changes that might be


s: Under calm waves, where many a sunk rock lies.


s: Strained at the sails, as in a cyclone's blast;


s: And battled with an unseen current's force,


s: For we had entered when the night was dark


s: That old tempestuous Gulf Stream of the Past.


s: But for love's eyes, I had not kept the course.


s: Upon that youthful forehead, and he drew


s: The hearts of women, as the sun draws dew.


s: Love feeds love's thirst as wine feeds love of wine;


s: Which makes men drunken like the subtle brew


s: Of kisses crushed by kisses; and he grew


s: And passion's sea had grown an ebbing tide,


s: Full cup that seemed the sweetest of them all -


s: The warm red mouth that mocked him and denied.


s: The world an abject vassal to her charms,


s: Yet love she knew not, till upon this isle


s: Not Theseus, who plucked her lips' first kiss,


s: Such answering passion in her heart could rouse,


s: Or wake such tumult in her soul as this.


s: Let come what will, let Greece and Asia meet,


s: Let heroes die and kingdoms run with gore;


s: Let devastation spread from shore to shore -


s: Resplendent Helen finds her bondage sweet.


s: The whole world fights her battles, while she lies


s: Sunned in the fervour of young Paris' eyes.


s: Helen survives, with youth and beauty fled.


s: Dethroned and driven from her high estate,


s: And knows at last an unloved woman's lot.


s: The world's fair wonder, from her palace flies


s: The furies follow, and great Helen dies,


s: A death of horror, for the pride of Troy.


s: Lais when young, and all her charms in flower,


s: Lais, whose beauty was the fateful light


s: That led great ships to anchor in the night


s: And bring their priceless cargoes to her bower,


s: Lais yet found her cup of sweet turned sour.


s: Great Plato's pupil, from his lofty height,


s: Sweet wonder of her, and defied her power.


s: She snared the world in nets of subtle wiles:


s: The proud, the famed, all clamoured at her gate;


s: Wisdom sought madness, in her favouring smiles;


s: Now was she made the laughing-stock of fate:


s: One loosed her clinging arms, and bade her go.


s: Lais, the erstwhile courted pleasure queen,


s: One tossed her coins; she took them and passed on.


s: Down by the harbour sloped a terraced lawn,


s: Where fountains played; she paused to view the scene.


s: A marble palace stood in bowers of green


s: 'Twas here of old she revelled till the dawn.


s: Through yonder portico her lovers came -


s: Hero and statesman, athlete, merchant, sage;


s: They flung the whole world's treasures at her feet


s: And faded like a phantom down the street.


s: And it's good-bye worry and good-bye hurry


s: And it's good-bye to letters from our lessers and our betters,


s: But the glow of your eye shows the sun is high,


s: And the smile on your mouth says the course is south


s: There is bloom and mirth all over the earth,


s: The touch of your hand will make the land


s: I wrenched from a passing comet in its flight,


s: By that great force of two mad hearts aflame,


s: A soul incarnate, back to earth you came,


s: To glow like star-dust for a little night.


s: Deep shadows hide you wholly from our sight;


s: The centuries leave nothing but your name,


s: Tinged with the lustre of a splendid shame,


s: That blazed oblivion with rebellious light.


s: The mighty passion that became your cause,


s: Still burns its lengthening path across the years;


s: We feel its raptures, and we see its tears


s: Time keeps that deathless story ever new;


s: Yet finds no answer, when we ask of you.


s: Where Heloise dreamed through her broken rest,


s: That baby lips pulled at her undried breast.


s: Of those long vigils and the tears that fell


s: When aching arms reached out in fruitless quest,


s: As after flight, wings brood an empty nest.


s: (So well I know that sorrow, ah, so well.)


s: Across the centuries there comes no sound


s: Of that vast anguish; not one sigh or word


s: The sea of silence, lasting and profound.


s: Yet to each heart, that once has felt this grief,


s: Sad Memory restores Time's missing leaf.


s: But what of you?  Who took the mother's place


s: When sweet expanding love its object sought?


s: Was there a voice to tell her tragic lot,


s: Was yours a cloistered seeking after grace?


s: To burn again in you and leave their trace?


s: Conceived in nature's bold primordial way


s: Baptized in fire, with some great part to play.


s: What was that part, and wherefore hid from us,


s: When I shall meet God's generous dispensers


s: Of all the riches in the heavenly store,


s: Those lesser gods, who act as Recompensers


s: For loneliness and loss upon this shore,


s: Methinks abashed, and somewhat hesitating,


s: My soul its wish and longing will declare.


s: Lest they reply:  'Here are no bounties waiting:


s: We gave on earth, your portion and your share.'


s: Then shall I answer:  'Yea, I do remember


s: My June was always longer than December,


s: My sun was always stronger than my cloud,


s: My yesterday seemed less than my to-morrow,


s: The crown looked always larger than the cross.


s: 'I have known love, in all its radiant splendour,


s: I trod no road that did not bloom with tender


s: And fragrant blossoms, planted by some friend.


s: And those material things we call successes,


s: In modest measure, crowned my earthly lot.


s: Yet was there one sweet happiness that blesses


s: The life of woman, which to me came not.


s: 'I knew the hope of motherhood; a season


s: I felt a fluttering heart beat 'neath my own;


s: A little cry--then silence.  For that reason


s: I dare, to you, my only wish make known.


s: The babe who grew to angelhood in heaven,


s: I never watched unfold from child to man.


s: That motherhood, which was God's primal plan.


s: 'All womankind He meant to share its glories;


s: He meant us all to nurse our babes to rest.


s: To croon them songs, to tell them sleepy stories,


s: Else why the wonder of a woman's breast?


s: He must provide for all earth's cheated mothers


s: In His vast heavens of shining sphere on sphere,


s: And with my son, there must be many others -


s: My spirit children who will claim me here.


s: 'Fair creatures by my loving thoughts created -


s: Too finely fashioned for a mortal birth -


s: Between the borders of two worlds they waited


s: Until they saw my spirit leave the earth.


s: In God's great nursery they must be waiting


s: As the grey twilight, tiptoed down the deep


s: And shadowy valley, to the day's dark end,


s: She whom I thought my ever-faithful friend,


s: Fair-browed, calm-eyed and mother-bosomed Sleep,


s: Met me with smiles.  'Poor longing heart, I keep


s: Sweet joy for you,' she murmured.  'I will send


s: One whom you love, with your own soul to blend


s: In visions, as the night hours onward creep.'


s: I trusted her; and watched by starry beams,


s: I slumbered soundly, free from all alarms.