s: The months that were freighted with passion,


s: Or the heart that grows sick for lost blisses


s: Have you burned up the touch of warm fingers


s: That thrilled through each pulse and each vein,


s: Or the sound of a voice that still lingers


s: You have put all the lights out, and yet,


s: Though the curtain, rung down, has descended,


s: Ah, no! they will turn in their sleeping


s: With a strange restless pain in their hearts,


s: And in darkness, and anguish, and weeping,


s: Will dream they are playing their parts.


s: Five long Summers have passed since then -


s: Who have played the suitor a Summer day.


s: But, nevertheless, when I heard your name,


s: There burned in my bosom a sudden flame,


s: That carried me back to the day that is flown.


s: I was sitting again by the laughing brook,


s: And my heart was fluttering under your look -


s: Again your breath, like a South wind, fanned


s: My cheek, where the blushes came and went;


s: And the tender clasp of your strong, warm hand


s: Again you were mine by Love's own right -


s: When somebody mentioned your name to me.


s: Just for the moment I thought you mine -


s: The tale remembered seemed half divine -


s: Though I held it lightly enough when told.


s: The past seemed fairer than when it was near,


s: As "blessings brighten when taking flight;"


s: And just for the moment I held you dear -


s: When somebody mentioned your name last night.


s: The folds of her garment fell round her,


s: Well proportioned and graceful I found her,


s: From the hem of her robe peeped one sandal -


s: She looked--said its curve was "aesthetic."


s: Woke thoughts that were daring and tender:


s: "Well, yes," she said over her shoulder:


s: Lie still and rest, in that serene repose


s: That on this holy morning comes to those


s: Who have been burdened with the cares which make


s: The sad heart weary and the tired head ache.


s: Awake! arise!  Cast off thy drowsy dreams!


s: Red in the East, behold the Morning gleams.


s: "As Monday goes, so goes the week," dames say.


s: Refreshed, renewed, use well the initial day.


s: Another morning's banners are unfurled -


s: It holds new laurels for thy soul to win;


s: Mar not its grace by slothfulness or sin,


s: Half-way unto the end--the week's high noon.


s: The morning hours do speed away so soon!


s: And, when the noon is reached, however bright,


s: So well the week has sped, hast thou a friend,


s: Go spend an hour in converse.  It will lend


s: To pause a little sometimes in the strife.


s: From feasts abstain; be temperate, and pray;


s: Fast if thou wilt; and yet, throughout the day,


s: Not many hours are left thee for thy work -


s: Now with the almost finished task make haste.


s: So near the night thou hast no time to waste.


s: Post up accounts, and let thy Soul's eyes look


s: For flaws and errors in Life's ledger-book.


s: As I sit here alone, from the dark corners there


s: And they stand at my side and they lean on my chair.


s: That lighted my days with a fanciful glow.


s: That strangled her life out.  Hope was slain long ago.


s: With its skeleton face and expressionless eyes,


s: And mocks me, and jeers me with sobs and with sighs.


s: A frail, fragile thing, and I prized it too much,


s: Clasped it close, and it died at the withering touch.


s: Born with joy, reared with hope, died in pain and unrest,


s: All the others--this ghost:  yet a ghost at the best.


s: Would forget all these dead:  but the gibbering host


s: In each shadowy corner there lurketh a ghost.


s: My thoughts soar not as they ought to soar,


s: They are dragged down earthward by little things,


s: As a lark might be tangled among the weeds.


s: But more like a fisherman's light at sea;


s: Then suddenly lost in the gloom of night.


s: It is always troubled, and ofttimes sad -


s: And the heights I had thought I should reach one day


s: Grow dimmer and dimmer, and farther away.


s: My heart finds never the longed-for rest;


s: Its worldly striving, its greed for gold,


s: Chilled and frightened the calm-eyed guest,


s: The spendthrift who wastes them too soon,


s: The youth who goes seeking for pleasure,


s: All priests with their creeds and their croaking,


s: The gay who find aught to wake laughter,


s: We know not what lies in us, till we seek;


s: Men dive for pearls--they are not found on shore,


s: The hillsides most unpromising and bleak


s: Down in the depths and silence thou mayst find


s: Sink thou a shaft into the mine of thought;


s: Be patient, like the seekers after gold;


s: However dulled by earth, each human mind


s: Holds somewhere gems of beauty and of light


s: "By-and-bye," the maiden sighed--"by-and-bye


s: He will come back by-and-bye--by-and-bye."


s: When she greets me by-and-bye--by-and-bye."


s: Thou'lt repay me by-and-bye--by-and-bye."


s: Fleeting years of time have sped--hurried by -


s: Keep the promised "by-and-bye"--by-and-bye?


s: All through the night time, and all through the day time,


s: Dreading the morning and dreading the night,


s: Nearer and nearer we drift to the May time


s: Leaves on the linden, and sun on the meadow,


s: Green in the garden, and bloom everywhere,


s: Gloom in my heart, and a terrible shadow,


s: Walks by me, sits by me, stands by my chair.


s: Oh, but the birds by the brooklet are cheery,


s: Oh, but the woods show such delicate greens,


s: Strange how you droop and how soon you are weary -


s: Too well I know what that weariness means.


s: But how could I know in the crisp winter weather


s: (Though sometimes I noticed a catch in your breath),


s: Riding and singing and dancing together,


s: How could I know you were racing with death?


s: How could I know when we danced until morning,


s: And you were the gayest of all the gay crowd -


s: With only that shortness of breath for a warning,


s: How could I know that you danced for a shroud?


s: Whirling and whirling through moonlight and starlight.


s: Rocking as lightly as boats on the wave,


s: Down in your eyes shone a deep light--a far light,


s: How could I know 'twas the light to your grave?


s: Day by day, day by day, nearing and nearing,


s: Hid under greenness, and beauty and bloom,


s: Cometh the shape and the shadow I'm fearing,


s: "Over the May hill" is waiting your tomb.


s: The season of mirth and of music is over -


s: I have danced my last dance, I have sung my last song,


s: My heart and my love will be lying ere long


s: Dear friend, I pray thee, if thou wouldst be proving


s: Make me no vows.  Lip-service is not loving;


s: Swear not to me that nothing can divide us -


s: But when distrust and envy creep beside us


s: Say not to me the depths of thy devotion


s: But watch, lest doubt or some unkind emotion


s: I'm sick of words:  they are so lightly spoken,


s: I'd rather feel thy trust in me unbroken


s: If all the little proofs of trust are heeded,


s: But no one listened the dull wheel's din.


s: And sang of a life that was fair and sweet,


s: While the spinner sat with a steadfast look,


s: The singer sang on with a rose in her hair,


s: And the spinner spun on with a dull despair


s: And loud the praise of the spinner rang.


s: The world has forgotten the singer's name -


s: But far o'er the ocean the spinner's fame


s: Come to me, Love!  Come on the wings of the wind!


s: Fly as the ring-dove would fly to his mate!


s: Leave all your cares and your sorrows behind!


s: Leave all the fears of your future to Fate!


s: Come! and our skies shall be glad with the gold


s: That paled into gray when you parted from me.


s: Come! but remember that, just as of old,


s: You must be bound, Love, and I must be free.


s: Life has lost savour since you and I parted;


s: I have been lonely, and you have been sad.


s: Youth is too brief to be sorrowful-hearted -


s: Come! and again let us laugh and be glad.


s: Lips should not sigh that are fashioned to kiss -


s: Breasts should not ache that joy's secrets have found.


s: Come! but remember, in spite of all this,


s: I must be free, Love, while you must be bound.


s: You must be bound to be true while you live,


s: You must ask only for that which I give -


s: Come!  I am lonely, and long for your smile,


s: Bring back the lost lovely Summer to me!


s: That you must be bound, Love, and I must be free.


s: "The ropes, the ropes!  Apollo send us ropes,"


s: Chrispinus cried, "or death attends our hopes."


s: Then panic reigned, and many a mournful sound


s: Hurt the cleft air; for where could ropes be found?


s: As her own son, a youth of noble height.


s: A little child was clinging to her knee -


s: She loosed his twining arms and put him down,


s: And her dark eyes flashed with a sudden light.


s: How like a queen she stood! her royal crown,


s: The rich dark masses of her splendid hair.


s: Just flecked with spots of sunshine here and there,


s: Twined round her brow; 'twas like a coronet,


s: Where gems of gold lie bedded deep in jet.


s: She loosed the comb that held the shining strands,


s: And threaded out the meshes with her hands.


s: The purple mass fell to her garment's hem.


s: "Give me thy sword, Julianus!"  And her son


s: Unsheathed the blade (that had not left his side


s: Save when it sought a foeman's blood to shed),


s: With the white beauty of her firm fair hand


s: She clasped the hilt; then severed, one by one,


s: Her gold-flecked purple tresses.  Strand on strand,


s: Free e'en as foes had fallen by that blade,


s: Robbed of its massive wealth of curl and coil,


s: Yet like some antique model, rose her head


s: And pointed to the shining mound of hair;


s: "Apollo makes swift answer to thy prayer,


s: Chrispinus.  Quick! now, soldiers, to thy toil!"


s: Forth from a thousand throats what seemed one voice


s: Rose shrilly, filling all the air with cheer.


s: "Lo!" quoth the foe, "our enemies rejoice!"


s: Well might the Thracian giant quake with fear!


s: For while skilled hands caught up the gleaming threads


s: And bound them into cords, a hundred heads


s: Yielded their beauteous tresses to the sword,


s: And cast them down to swell the precious hoard.


s: What would I ask the kindly fates to give


s: To crown her life, if I could have my way?


s: Give her not greatness.  For great souls must stand


s: Cleft rocks that show the great Creator's hand,


s: Give her not genius.  Spare her the cruel pain


s: Of finding her whole life a prey for daws;


s: Of hearing with quickened sense and burning brain


s: Give her not perfect beauty's gifts.  For then


s: Her truthful mirror would infuse her mind


s: With love for self, and for the praise of men,


s: But make her fair and comely to the sight,


s: Give her more heart than brain, more love than pride.


s: Let her be tender-thoughted, cheerful, bright,


s: Into this restless world of toil and strife,


s: Nay, Romney, nay--I will not hear you say


s: Those words again:  "I love you, love you sweet!"


s: You are profane--blasphemous.  I repeat,


s: You love with all your heart?  Well, that may be;


s: Some cups are fashioned shallow.  Should I try


s: To quench my thirst from one of those, when dry -


s: I who have had a full bowl proffered me -


s: A new bowl brimming with a draught divine,


s: One single taste thrilled to the finger-tips?


s: With this poor sweetened water you call wine?


s: And though I spilled the nectar ere 'twas quaffed,


s: I would die of my thirst ere I would wet


s: My burning lips with any meaner draught.


s: So leave me, Romney.  One who has seen a play


s: A little brown house like a ground-bird's nest,


s: Hid among grasses, and vines, and trees,


s: Sifts through the vine-made window screen -


s: On home-made carpets and gray-hung walls.


s: The humming-bird comes to the window-sill.


s: And am waked at morn, in my snow-white bed,


s: The little brown house, like a ground-bird's nest?


s: "How does Bradstreet rate his standing?"


s: I am stirred by the dream of an afternoon


s: Of a perfect day--though it was not June;


s: And a bronze-brown head, and lips like wine


s: And the glow on your cheek as we rode away


s: And a love-light shone in your eyes of brown -


s: That glowed with wonderful crimson dyes;


s: And with soul and spirit, and heart and eyes,


s: Was it only a part you had learned to play,


s: I would willingly die without one regret


s: Could I bring back the day whose sun has set -


s: With its dimpled face turned to the light;


s: When thy hand touches mine, through all the mesh


s: Shoot swift delights that border on keen pains:


s: A comrade to my thought, thy ready brain


s: Delves down and makes its inmost meaning plain:


s: When hands and eyes are hid by seas that roll


s: Wide wastes between us, still so near thou art


s: In heart and brain and spirit makes thee mine.


s: Though leaves may drop and stars may fall;


s: The Fates have hearts and they can feel -


s: Lines to a Movement in Mozart's E-flat Symphony


s: "Men who march away" (Song of the Soldiers)


s: An Appeal to America on behalf of the Belgian Destitute


s: And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see


s: And throws our mind back on us, and our heart,


s: Works well in these night hours of ache;


s: Are tincts we never see ourselves once take


s: May catch his last thoughts, whole life foul or fair,


s: Forty Augusts--aye, and several more--ago,


s: When I paced the headlands loosed from dull employ,


s: The waves huzza'd like a multitude below


s: Blankly I walked there a double decade after,


s: When thwarts had flung their toils in front of me,


s: And I heard the waters wagging in a long ironic laughter


s: Wheeling change has set me again standing where


s: Once I heard the waves huzza at Lammas-tide;


s: But they supplicate now--like a congregation there


s: And the rain came down like silken strings


s: That Swithin's day.  Each gutter and spout


s: We were irked by the scene, by our own selves; yes,


s: Singing one-voiced a Tate-and-Brady psalm


s: We watched the elms, we watched the rooks,


s: Between the whiles of glancing at our books,


s: That I have gained by subtle thought on things


s: There floated the sounds of church-chiming,


s: Till there came, as a break in the loneness,


s: Greater, wiser, may part there than we three


s: Of the churchgoers through the still meadows


s: What a play was played under their eyes there


s: Here's the mould of a musical bird long passed from light,


s: Which over the earth before man came was winging;


s: There's a contralto voice I heard last night,


s: That lodges in me still with its sweet singing.


s: Such a dream is Time that the coo of this ancient bird


s: Has perished not, but is blent, or will be blending


s: Mid visionless wilds of space with the voice that I heard,


s: In the full-fugued song of the universe unending.


s: I met you first--ah, when did I first meet you?


s: When I was full of wonder, and innocent,


s: Standing meek-eyed with those of choric bent,


s: Much riper in years I met you--in a temple


s: Where summer sunset streamed upon our shapes,


s: And you spread over me like a gauze that drapes,


s: But you had been stripped of some of your old vesture


s: By Monk, or another.  Now you wore no frill,


s: And at first you startled me.  But I knew you still,


s: I grew accustomed to you thus.  And you hailed me


s: Through one who evoked you often.  Then at last


s: Your raiser was borne off, and I mourned you had passed


s: But you waylaid me.  I rose and went as a ghost goes,


s: And said, eyes-full "I'll never hear it again!


s: It is overmuch for scathed and memoried men


s: Now, a new stirrer of tones calls you up before me


s: And wakes your speech, as she of Endor did


s: (When sought by Saul who, in disguises hid,


s: So, your quired oracles beat till they make me tremble


s: As I discern your mien in the old attire,


s: Here in these turmoiled years of belligerent fire


s: Which had ruled us from birthtime to meet


s: "I am leaving you . . . Farewell!" I said,


s: Even then the scale might have been turned


s: The portrait he looked at so, and sighed;


s: And there was the likeness--yes, my own!


s: I was chafed that he loved not the me then living,


s: Could you ever have dreamed the heart of woman


s: Perhaps not ever.  Your slighted weakness


s: Would hold your life's blood at their call.


s: Whose mode was crude, though whose dim purport


s: And the portraits of our fore-folk hung around;


s: "Was it not you?" said she.  "A sigh did sound."


s: And how it came to us we could not guess;


s: Still hearkening; but thenceforth was silentness.


s: Said we, "must be surely this; that they repine


s: And unable to keep up their sturdy line."


s: There was a stunted handpost just on the crest,


s: She was tired, and we stopped in the twilight-time for her rest,


s: She leant back, being so weary, against its stem,


s: Each open palm stretched out to each end of them,


s: Her white-clothed form at this dim-lit cease of day


s: In my gaze at her from the midst of the dusty way,


s: I do not think she heard.  Loosing thence she said,


s: "I am rested now.--Something strange came into my head;


s: And wordless we moved onward down from the hill


s: And looking back we could see the handpost still


s: "It struck her too," I thought, for as if afraid


s: Till she said, "I did not think how 'twould look in the shade,


s: I, lightly:  "There's nothing in it.  For YOU, anyhow!"


s: --"O I know there is not," said she . . .


s: "Yet I wonder .  .  . If no one is bodily crucified now,


s: And we dragged on and on, while we seemed to see


s: Her crucified, as she had wondered if she might be


s: When the spring comes round, and a certain day


s: Looks out from the brume by the eastern copsetrees


s: A day of like date I once lived through,


s: With the quiet sense that bring they must


s: Such throbs as at first, till I house with dust,


s: How smartly the quarters of the hour march by


s: Ding-dong; and before I have traced a cusp's eye,


s: Just so did he clang here before I came,


s: Through the Minster's cavernous hollows--the same


s: Tale of hours never more to be will he deliver


s: Yes; the next "Come, come," draws them out from their posts,


s: And they gather, and one shade appears, and another,


s: See--a Courtenay stands by his quatre-foiled tomb,


s: And a Saxon king by the presbytery chamber;


s: Maybe they have met for a parle on some plan


s: I catch their cheepings, though thinner than


s: The overhead creak of a passager's pinion


s: Or perhaps they speak to the yet unborn,


s: And pick up the drawing that slipped from my hand,


s: And feel for the pencil I dropped in the cranny


s: Bright baffling Soul, least capturable of themes,


s: Thou, who display'dst a life of common-place,


s: Leaving no intimate word or personal trace


s: Still shalt remain at heart unread eternally.


s: Through human orbits thy discourse to-day,


s: Despite thy formal pilgrimage, throbs on


s: And, like the wind, with all-uncared effect


s: Not fore-desired, in tracks unchosen and unchecked.


s: And yet, at thy last breath, with mindless note


s: The borough clocks but samely tongued the hour,


s: The Avon just as always glassed the tower,


s: Thy age was published on thy passing-bell


s: With other dwellers' deaths accorded a like knell.


s: And at the strokes some townsman (met, maybe,


s: And thereon queried by some squire's good dame


s: Driving in shopward) may have given thy name,


s: With, "Yes, a worthy man and well-to-do;


s: I knew him but by just a neighbour's nod, 'tis true.


s: "I' faith, few knew him much here, save by word,


s: He having elsewhere led his busier life;


s: Though to be sure he left with us his wife."


s: --"Ah, one of the tradesmen's sons, I now recall . . .


s: We did not know him . . . Well, good-day.  Death comes to all."


s: So, like a strange bright bird we sometimes find


s: To mingle with the barn-door brood awhile,


s: Then vanish from their homely domicile -


s: Lodged there a radiant guest, and sped for ever thence.


s: I had not thought what ghosts would walk


s: I lipped rough rhymes of chance, not choice,


s: Through the wide dusk:  "Lift up your eyes,


s: "Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round -


s: Or far and strange--black, dwarfed, and browned,


s: The glade is well-screened--eh?--against alarm;


s: My husband.  Two must come; one only go,'


s: And we'll proceed without more waste of words


s: And the swords clicked and scraped, and the onsets sped;


s: Till the husband fell; and his shirt was red


s: With streams from his heart's hot cistern.  Nought


s: Could save him now; and the other, wrought


s: Your wife assured you; and 't had better been


s: Could move his foeman more--now Death's deaf thrall -


s: To the wife, thus guised; for the young page was she.


s: He never guessed . . . We mount and ride


s: The hours may be a dragging load upon him,


s: Of the night-time?  He might liven at the sound


s: Of your string, revealing you had not forgone him.


s: Did you, tucked beneath his chin, to his bowing


s: Caught the strains that at his fingering low or higher


s: From your four thin threads and eff-holes came outflowing.


s: That chanced to find him bent to lute a measure,


s: And the psalm of duty shelved for trill of pleasure.


s: That screens him in those Mournful Meads hereunder,


s: Where no viol is touched for songs or serenades,


s: No bowing wakes a congregation's wonder.


s: To yearning concords taught you in your glory;


s: I have watched while your scrubbings, this early morning,


s: With your bucket of water, and mop, and brush,


s: That has smeared her during the smokes of winter


s: You have washed her down with motherly care -


s: To the very hem of the robes that drape her -


s: I read you are hired by the City guardians -


s: What you have done would have been my doing,


s: "But alas, she died in this distant place


s: Myself to her side! . . . And in love of my darling,


s: I think of the slope where the rabbits fed,


s: Of the fuchsias ringing their bells of red -


s: Between the blooms where the sod basked bright,


s: Was another and yet more eyesome sight -


s: I shall seek those beauties in the spring,


s: When thoughts were strung too thick to speak,


s: And the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone.


s: In that week there was heard a singing -


s: And forth from the casement were candles flinging


s: Radiance that fell on the deodar and lit up the path thereby.


s: As it trilled out warm from the singer's throat,


s: In a tedious trampling crowd yet later -


s: In a crowd uncaring what time might fate her,


s: Mid murks of night I stood to await her,


s: And the twanging of iron wheels gave out the signal that she was


s: The blurred lamps wanning her face the while,


s: Who shall unseal the years, the years! -


s: The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me.


s: Strange gloomy households often at odds,


s: We flew by meads and mountains northerly! -


s: Yea, to such freshness, fairness, fulness, fineness, freeness,


s: We looked together upon the pestered sea! -


s: Yea, to such surging, swaying, sighing, swelling, shrinking,


s: We eyed each other and feared futurity! -


s: Yea, to such bodings, broodings, beatings, blanchings, blessings,


s: Away from the prancing folk, by the strawberry-tree! -


s: Yea, to such rashness, ratheness, rareness, ripeness, richness,


s: "Qui deridetur ab amico suo sicut ego."--JOB.


s: In the seventies I was bearing in my breast,


s: Certain starry thoughts that threw a magic light


s: On the worktimes and the soundless hours of rest


s: In the seventies; aye, I bore them in my breast


s: In the seventies when my neighbours--even my friend -


s: Heads were shaken, and I heard the words, "Alas,


s: For his onward years and name unless he mend!"


s: In the seventies, when my neighbours and my friend


s: In the seventies those who met me did not know


s: That immuned me from the chillings of mis-prision


s: And the damps that choked my goings to and fro


s: In the seventies; yea, those nodders did not know


s: In the seventies nought could darken or destroy it,


s: Though as delicate as lamp-worm's lucency;


s: Neither mist nor murk could weaken or alloy it


s: In the seventies!--could not darken or destroy it,


s: As mine; and as I bent there, half-unrobed,


s: The uncurtained panes of my window-square let in the watery light


s: Like a drifting dolphin's eye seen through a lapping wave.


s: And the hieroglyphs of this spouse tied to that,


s: The branches seemed to twist into a seared and cynic face


s: Which winked and tokened towards the window like a Mage


s: And in it a long perspective I could trace


s: Of my begetters, dwindling backward each past each


s: Whose names had since been inked down in their place


s: Generation and generation of my mien, and build, and brow.


s: That every heave and coil and move I made


s: Within my brain, and in my mood and speech,


s: As long forestalled by their so making it;


s: The first of them, the primest fuglemen of my line,


s: Being fogged in far antiqueness past surmise and reason's reach.


s: "I am merest mimicker and counterfeit! -


s: --The cynic twist of the page thereat unknit


s: Back to its normal figure, having wrought its purport wry,


s: The Mage's mirror left the window-square,


s: And the stained moon and drift retook their places there.


s: At midnight, in the room where he lay dead


s: Whom in his life I had never clearly read,


s: I thought if I could peer into that citadel


s: His heart, I should at last know full and well


s: What hereto had been known to him alone,


s: Despite our long sit-out of years foreflown,


s: "And if," I said, "I do this for his memory's sake,


s: It would not wound him, even if he could wake."


s: With a calm confidence the whole long while


s: That I, withdrawing his heart, held it and, bit by bit,


s: Perused the unguessed things found written on it.


s: It was inscribed like a terrestrial sphere


s: With quaint vermiculations close and clear -


s: His graving.  Had I known, would I have risked the stroke


s: Its reading brought, and my own heart nigh broke!


s: Yes, there at last, eyes opened, did I see


s: There were his truth, his simple singlemindedness,


s: Strained, maybe, by time's storms, but there no less.


s: There were the daily deeds from sun to sun


s: In blindness, but good faith, that he had done;


s: There were regrets, at instances wherein he swerved


s: (As he conceived) from cherishings I had deserved.


s: There were old hours all figured down as bliss -


s: Those spent with me--(how little had I thought this!)


s: There those when, at my absence, whether he slept or waked,


s: (Though I knew not 'twas so!) his spirit ached.


s: There that when we were severed, how day dulled


s: Till time joined us anew, was chronicled:


s: And arguments and battlings in defence of me


s: That heart recorded clearly and ruddily.


s: While pierced the morning pink and then the gray


s: Into each dreary room and corridor around,


s: Where I shall wait, but his step will not sound.


s: Some green, some yellow, and some pale brown;


s: The bushes that veiled it once have grown


s: Through whose lank limbs I see too clearly


s: And instead of a voice that called, "Come in, Dears,"


s: When the cloud shut down on the morning shine,


s: Where, years back, one had lived I knew;


s: And partners shall dance down the middle


s: And we'll sip the mead, cyder, and rum!"


s: From the night came the oddest of answers:


s: And headstones all ranged up as dancers,


s: She is known by shape and song," I said,


s: Strange, startling, was it then to learn


s: Through the joints of the quivering door


s: They came, the brothers, and took two chairs


s: We pictured the meek mild creatures where


s: The flame crept up the portrait line by line


s: As it lay on the coals in the silence of night's profound,


s: And along the marge of the silkwork superfine,


s: And gnawed at the delicate bosom's defenceless round.


s: Then I vented a cry of hurt, and averted my eyes;


s: The spectacle was one that I could not bear,


s: But, compelled to heed, I again looked furtive-wise


s: Till the flame had eaten her breasts, and mouth, and hair.


s: "Thank God, she is out of it now!" I said at last,


s: In a great relief of heart when the thing was done


s: And nothing was left of the picture unsheathed from the past


s: But the ashen ghost of the card it had figured on.


s: She was a woman long hid amid packs of years,


s: She might have been living or dead; she was lost to my sight,


s: Was done in a casual clearance of life's arrears;


s: But I felt as if I had put her to death that night! . . .


s: - Well; she knew nothing thereof did she survive,


s: And suffered nothing if numbered among the dead;


s: Did she feel a smart, and with vague strange anguish strive?


s: If in heaven, did she smile at me sadly and shake her head?


s: It was at the very date to which we have come,


s: When, at a like minute, the sun had upswum,


s: And the same path stretched here that people now follow,


s: And beyond the same green hillock and hollow


s: And the same man pilgrims now hereby who pilgrimed here that day.


s: Let so much be said of the date-day's sameness;


s: And stoops like a pedlar afflicted with lameness,


s: And the joints of that wall were not enshrouded


s: And the garth up afar was not overcrowded


s: And the man's eyes then were not so sunk that you saw the socket-


s: And chattered, he white-hatted, she in brown,


s: In such a place, there was nothing to let them know


s: Her house looked cold from the foggy lea,


s: And the square of each window a dull black blur


s: Seemed matching mine at the lack of her.


s: The black squares grew to be squares of light


s: As the eyeshade swathed the house and lawn,


s: There was glee within.  And I found that night


s: That led from my abode to a spot yew-boughed;


s: Yellowly the sun sloped low down to westward,


s: Then, amid the shadow of that livid sad east,


s: Where the light was least, and a gate stood wide,


s: Something flashed the fire of the sun that was facing it,


s: Looking hard and harder I knew what it meant -


s: The sudden shine sent from the livid east scene;


s: It meant the west mirrored by the coffin of my friend there,


s: To take his last journey forth--he who in his prime


s: Trudged so many a time from that gate athwart the land!


s: Thus a farewell to me he signalled on his grave-way,


s: That house in the trees with the shady lawn."


s: "--If, child, you knew what there goes on


s: Why, a phantom abides there, the last of its race,


s: And music and laughter like floods of light


s: Through which there pass, in fleet arrays,


s: Of joys and sorrows, of earth and heaven,


s: What then?  Joy-jaunts, impassioned flings,


s: Had stilled the sweet Saint-Peter's chimes


s: While I stood back that I might pencil it


s: My draught, leaving for curious quizzings yet


s: Of moisture, hooded, only her outline shown,


s: Yet her rainy form is the Genius still of the spot,


s: Though the place now knows her no more, and has known her not


s: But show the escarpments stark and stiff


s: Let me sooner pass from sight of the sky


s: With how strange aspect would there creep


s: Time's finger should have stretched to show


s: But the Immanent Doer's That doth not know,


s: The train draws forth from the station-yard,


s: To greet friends gaily; then is gone . . .


s: All neighbour scenes as so much blankness


s: With sweet things I shall have to practise,


s: And as evenly spaced as if measured, although


s: While the fallow ploughland turned up nigh


s: Horses were drinking and floundering in the pond,


s: Yet these were not the spectacles at all that he conned,


s: Such was the thing in his eye, walking there,


s: A close light, displacing the gray of the morning air,


s: And the tokens that the dark was taking wing;


s: And was it not the radiance of a purpose rare


s: What became of that light?  I wonder still its fate!


s: Did it struggle frail and frailer to a beam emaciate?


s: Or did it travel on, to be a new young dreamer's freight,


s: When nighted birds break off their song,


s: Yea, that which once could breathe and plead! -


s: The swallows flew in the curves of an eight


s: And through the stream-shine ripped his way;


s: Of the self-struck notes, I did not hear,


s: To the mindless lyre that played indoors


s: Though still the posts and walls and road


s: Flung back their sense of the hot-faced sun,


s: And had walked by Stourside Mill, where broad


s: Swart bats, whose wings, be-webbed and tanned,


s: Whirred like the wheels of ancient clocks:


s: I thought it.  That there watched hard by


s: Reticulations creep upon the slack stream's face


s: The current clucks smartly into each hollow place


s: That years of flood have scrabbled in the pier's sodden base;


s: On a roof stand the swallows ranged in wistful waiting rows,


s: Till they arrow off and drop like stones


s: Among the eyot-withies at whose foot the river flows;


s: And beneath the roof is she who in the dark world shows


s: "The king and the queen will stand to the child;


s: With my lord so faithful at Court so long,


s: And the beef will be a whole-roast bullock,


s: And the servants will have a feast in the hall,


s: "While from Jordan's stream by a traveller,


s: And by caravan, stage-coach, wain, and waggon


s: The morning came.  To the park of the peer


s: And the font was filled with the Jordan water,


s: And the household awaited their guests before


s: But when they went to the silk-lined cot


s: "What's now to be done?  We can disappoint not


s: "Even now they approach the chestnut-drive!


s: "Well, since we can't christen the child alive,


s: By God we shall have to christen him dead!"


s: Thus, breath-forsaken, a corpse was taken


s: And the king knew not, nor the queen, God wot,


s: That they answered for one returned to clay


s: That date from the days of their mothers' mothers,


s: Hands behind hands, growing paler and paler,


s: On the clock's dull dial a foggy finger,


s: With tentative touches that lift and linger


s: In the wont of a moth on a summer night,


s: On this old viol, too, fingers are dancing -


s: As whilom--just over the strings by the nut,


s: And I see a face by that box for tinder,


s: Well, well.  It is best to be up and doing,


s: The white and green was a daisied field,


s: She laughed and said:  "Out there, to me,


s: "I am playing my oldest tunes," declared she,


s: - Why she should think just then she'd play them


s: When I returned from the town at nightfall


s: It's the very last time," she said in closing;


s: I thought of her playing her tunes right through;


s: And I felt she had known of what was coming,


s: Well, what is he doing now?  Hoi, there!"


s: Hoi, Watchman!  I'm here.  When comes he?


s: "And I saw the figure and visage of Madness seeking for a home."


s: There are three folk driving in a quaint old chaise,


s: And the cliff-side track looks green and fair;


s: As they drop down towards the puffins' lair


s: But another with the three rides on, I see,


s: No:  it's not anybody you think of.  Next


s: A dwelling appears by a slow sweet stream


s: Where two sit happy and half in the dark:


s: They read, helped out by a frail-wick'd gleam,


s: But one sits with them whom they don't mark,


s: No:  not whom you knew and name.  And now


s: I discern gay diners in a mansion-place,


s: And the guests dropping wit--pert, prim, or choice,


s: And the hostess's tender and laughing face,


s: No:  it's not from the stranger you met once.  Ah,


s: Yet a goodlier scene than that succeeds;


s: People on a lawn--quite a crowd of them.  Yes,


s: And they chatter and ramble as fancy leads;


s: To a blithe speech made; save one, mirthless,


s: Nay:  it's not the pale Form your imagings raise,


s: That waits on us all at a destined time,


s: It is not the Fourth Figure the Furnace showed,


s: It is that under which best lives corrode;


s: Which bloomed and bore striped apples by the peck


s: In climbings upward inch by inch, lies now


s: Where the bark chars is where, one year,


s: Then overgrew the wound.  But now, at last,


s: Just as she was, her foot near mine on the bending limb,


s: Ah--it's the skeleton of a lady's sunshade,


s: Twenty years have gone with their livers and diers


s: Since it was silked in its white or pink.


s: Noonshine riddles the ribs of the sunshade,


s: In its coffin of stone, unseen till to-day.


s: Where is the woman who carried that sun-shade


s: Thoughts perhaps bent on a love-stratagem,


s: Softening yet more the already soft face!


s: Is the fair woman who carried that sunshade


s: And does she regret--if regret dust can -


s: The vain things thought when she flourished this?


s: While blithely spoke the wind to the little sycamore tree.


s: While fiercely girds the wind at the long-limbed sycamore tree!


s: That jailed a goldfinch.  All was silence save


s: Of him or her who placed it there, and why,


s: "That same first fiddler who leads the orchestra to-night


s: He bears the same babe-like smile of self-centred delight,


s: Same trinket on watch-chain, same ring on the hand with the bow.


s: "But his face, if regarded, is woefully wanner, and drier,


s: And his once dark beard has grown straggling and gray;


s: Yet a blissful existence he seems to have led with his lyre,


s: In a trance of his own, where no wearing or tearing had sway.


s: "Mid these wax figures, who nothing can do, it may seem


s: That to do but a little thing counts a great deal;


s: Ah, but he played staunchly--that fiddler--whoever he was,


s: With the innocent heart and the soul-touching string:


s: They crush together--a rustling heap of flesh -


s: Of more than flesh, a heap of souls; and then


s: Like the pink petals of a too sanguine rose


s: Though all alike in their tinsel livery,


s: And indistinguishable at a sweeping glance,


s: A world of her own has each one underneath,


s: Daughters, wives, mistresses; honest or false, sold, bought;


s: Hearts of all sizes; gay, fond, gushing, or penned,


s: Links in a one-pulsed chain, all showing one smile,


s: And boils the dew to smoke by the paddock-path;


s: Five of us; dark He, fair He, dark She, fair She, I,


s: The greens are sobered and cattle at rest; but not


s: Four of us; fair She, dark She, fair He, I, are there,


s: Through moors, briar-meshed plantations, clay-pits yellow,


s: Three of us:  fair He, fair She, I, as heretofore,


s: The fingers of birch and beech are skeleton-thin,


s: Two of us; fair She, I.  But no more left to go


s: The home-bound foot-folk wrap their snow-flaked heads,


s: One of us . . . Dark and fair He, dark and fair She, gone:


s: As the swell cleaves through caves unseen.


s: Say I:  "Though broad this wild terrene,


s: "Thou shouldst have said her sea-bord one."


s: The wind outshrieks from points and peaks:


s: "Here, westward, where it downs, mean ye!"


s: "Thy Love is one thou'st not yet known."


s: With the candles mooning each face . . .


s: How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!


s: And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.


s: And brightest things that are theirs . . .


s: Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.


s: This after-sunset is a sight for seeing,


s: Cliff-heads of craggy cloud surrounding it.


s: You may; for there are strange strange things in being,


s: Yet if that chasm of splendour claim your presence


s: Which glows between the ash cloud and the dun,


s: Changed to a firmament-riding earthless essence


s: All too unlike the fond and fragile creature


s: Then known to me . . . Well, shall I say it plain?


s: But still would grieve on, missing you, still feature


s: And the blackbirds plump large as the rooks are, almost,


s: Where they used to dip bills at the dawn ere her figure was lost


s: To these coasts, now my prison close-barred.


s: Of sweet-william; no training the clambering rose


s: Now bowering the pathway, whereon it swings gaily and blows


s: Or along over Whitesheet to Wynyard's green Gap,


s: To the right against Sedgmoor, and Corton-Hill's far-distant cap,


s: Was in mood and in voice, and the candles were lit,


s: Where, then, is Molly, who's no more with me?


s: Thinking thus, there's a many-flamed star in the air,


s: The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds,


s: Free of sly sour winds is the fret of each bush


s: Yet the snowdrop's face betrays no gloom,


s: And the primrose pants in its heedless push,


s: Though the myrtle asks if it's worth the fight


s: From the selfsame bough as at last year's prime,


s: And grumbling winds that passed thereby.


s: She'd shone, but could not find her there.


s: 'Twas as if his corpulent figure slopped


s: With the shake of his walking when he stopped,


s: And, though the night's pinch grew acute,


s: "Alas, my friend," he said with a smile,


s: And I asked again.  But he shook his head;


s: Would I could this gross sheath discard,


s: Somebody in the dawning passing through,


s: "Nay:  you saw nought.  He passed invisibly."


s: Somebody muttering firm in a language new


s: "No:  you catch not his tongue who has entered there."


s: His breath like a clammy draught, as if it drew


s: "No:  none who breathes at all does the door conceal."


s: With a message to one in there of something due?


s: "Yea he; and he brought such; and you'll know him anon."


s: With a red string like a long thin scarf;


s: And then I saw that the giant was blind,


s: And the dwarf a shrewd-eyed little thing;


s: The giant, mild, timid, obeyed the string


s: (Perhaps--I know not--reproaching weakly)


s: And have thought it the sorriest of pantomimes,


s: (I'm a mere student sketching the mediaeval)


s: Your father's? . . . Well, all pay the debt that paid he!"


s: "Young man, O must I tell!--My husband's!  And under


s: Its date left vacant till my heirs should fill it,


s: Stating me faithful till my last breath."


s: - "Madam, that you are a widow wakes my wonder!"


s: We've just come home.  And I am sick and saddened


s: And will he think--think that I should have tarried?


s: "I may add, surely,--with no wish to harm him -


s: And when he comes to church next Sunday morning,


s: And sees that written . . . O dear, O dear!


s: - "Madam, I swear your beauty will disarm him!"


s: O, his speech that chilled the love-birds,


s: Of things we had done ere days were dim,


s: Shall I be rushing where bright eyes be?


s: Shall I be watching the stars of heaven,


s: "The very last time I ever was here," he said,


s: "I saw much less of the quick than I saw of the dead."


s: - He was a man I had met with somewhere before,


s: But how or when I now could recall no more.


s: "The hazy mazy moonlight at one in the morning


s: Spread out as a sea across the frozen snow,


s: Glazed to live sparkles like the great breastplate adorning


s: The priest of the Temple, with Urim and Thummim aglow.


s: "The yew-tree arms, glued hard to the stiff stark air,


s: Hung still in the village sky as theatre-scenes


s: When I came by the churchyard wall, and halted there


s: At a shut-in sound of fiddles and tambourines.


s: "And as I stood hearkening, dulcimers, haut-boys, and shawms,


s: And violoncellos, and a three-stringed double-bass,


s: Joined in, and were intermixed with a singing of psalms;


s: And I looked over at the dead men's dwelling-place.


s: "Through the shine of the slippery snow I now could see,


s: As it were through a crystal roof, a great company


s: Of the dead minueting in stately step underground


s: To the tune of the instruments I had before heard sound.


s: "It was 'Eden New,' and dancing they sang in a chore,


s: 'We are out of it all!--yea, in Little-Ease cramped no more!'


s: And their shrouded figures pacing with joy I could see


s: "And I lifted my head quite dazed from the churchyard wall


s: And I doubted not that it warned I should soon have my call.


s: But--" . . . Then in the ashes he emptied the dregs of his cup,


s: And onward he went, and the darkness swallowed him up.


s: Yea, beglimpsed through the quaint quarried glass


s: When they'd cry, perhaps, "There sits his shade


s: I thought, my Heart, that you had healed


s: Then the Vision of her who cut them came,


s: In the churchyard at the moon's half-height,


s: Were the bodies of men from far and wide


s: Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead.


s: "The sense of waiting here strikes strong;


s: Everyone's waiting, waiting, it seems to me;


s: "O we are waiting for one called God," said they,


s: "(Though by some the Will, or Force, or Laws;


s: And, vaguely, by some, the Ultimate Cause;)


s: Waiting for him to see us before we are clay.


s: Yes; waiting, waiting, for God TO KNOW IT" . . .


s: "To know how things have been going on earth and below it:


s: Of himself in consciousness of Life's tears,


s: To tell that what he could mindlessly show


s: In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy,


s: Played down on his listless form and face,


s: Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going,


s: In the band of his hat the journeying boy


s: Around his neck bore the key of his box,


s: That twinkled gleams of the lamp's sad beams


s: What past can be yours, O journeying boy


s: Knows your soul a sphere, O journeying boy,


s: Whence with spacious vision you mark and mete


s: This region of sin that you find you in,


s: At the shiver of morning, a little before the false dawn,


s: The curve hewn off her cheek as by an adze;


s: At the shiver of morning a little before the false dawn


s: Her speechless eyeing reached across the chamber,


s: One a white lady sighing, "Why am I sad!"


s: To him who sighed back, "Sad, my Love, am I!"


s: And speechlessly the old moon conned the chamber,


s: While their large-pupilled vision swept the scene there,


s: Something fell sheer, and crashed, and from the floor


s: Lay glittering at the pair with a shattered gaze,


s: With a start they saw that it was an old-time pier-glass


s: Its silvering blemished,--yes, as if worn away


s: By the eyes of the countless dead who had smirked at it


s: Ere these two ever knew that old-time pier-glass


s: As he looked, his bride like a moth skimmed forth, and kneeling


s: Gathered the pieces under the moon's sly ray,


s: Till he entreated, hasting to where she was kneeling,


s: "Long years of sorrow this means!" breathed the lady


s: And she lifted one pale hand across her eyes.


s: "Don't trouble, Love; it's nothing," the bridegroom said.


s: "Long years of sorrow for us!" murmured the lady,


s: And the Spirits Ironic laughed behind the wainscot,


s: It's good," said the Spirits Ironic, "to tickle their minds


s: With a portent of their wedlock's after-grinds."


s: And the Spirits of Pity sighed behind the wainscot,


s: "More, what shall happen to prove the truth of the portent?"


s: --"Oh; in brief, they will fade till old,


s: And their loves grow numbed ere death, by the cark of care."


s: - "But nought see we that asks for portents there? -


s: 'Tis the lot of all."--"Well, no less true is a portent


s: But nought can quench, but nought can drown


s: Upon his mound; and she lives just below.


s: And our lives were cleft, because I said


s: She was hard, unfeeling, caring but to wed.


s: Well, to see this sight I have fared these miles,


s: And her firelight smiles from her window there,


s: Whom he left his mother to cherish with tender care!


s: Who spurned me for seeing what he could not see.


s: There were few in the railway waiting-room.


s: About its walls were framed and varnished


s: Pictures of liners, fly-blown, tarnished.


s: For travellers' reading, if suchwise bent.


s: And, thronging the Gospel of Saint John,


s: Were figures--additions, multiplications -


s: By some one scrawled, with sundry emendations;


s: And whilst I wondered if there could have been


s: And stood over me and the scribbled book


s: They were parting as they believed for ever.


s: Who laughed at the fly-blown pictures there.


s: When we get there it's 'most sure to be fine,


s: And the band will play, and the sun will shine!"


s: As we waited and still no train came in;


s: But the words of the child in the squalid room


s: And I said:  "What is this giddying place,


s: Can the light and air be made more clear,


s: And looked back at den, ditch and river,


s: He saw the portrait of his enemy, offered


s: At auction in a street he journeyed nigh,


s: That enemy, now late dead, who in his life-time


s: "To get that picture, pleased be God, I'll try,


s: And so he bought the painting.  Driving homeward,


s: "The frame will come in useful," he declared,


s: "The rest is fuel."  On his arrival, weary,


s: Asked what he bore with him, and how he fared,


s: He said he had bid for a picture, though he cared


s: Would burn the canvas, which could well be spared,


s: Next day some other duty found him busy;


s: The foe was laid his face against the wall;


s: But on the next he set himself to loosen


s: The straining-strips.  And then a casual call


s: And thus the picture waited, day by day,


s: Its owner's pleasure, like a wretched thrall,


s: Until a month and more had slipped away.


s: And then upon a morn he found it shifted,


s: "Why did you take on you to hang that picture?


s: You know it was the frame I bought it for."


s: And I just hitched it there."--"Well, it must go:


s: Remind me 'tis to do.  The frame I'll stow."


s: But things become forgotten.  In the shadow


s: Of the dark corner hung it by its string,


s: And there it stayed--once noticed by its owner,


s: Who said, "Ah me--I must destroy that thing!"


s: But when he died, there, none remembering,


s: It hung, till moved to prominence, as one sees;


s: "I thought they were the bitterest enemies?"


s: With days of gloom, and movements stressed,


s: With target-circles that quivered and crossed


s: When from within there swelled and paused


s: In the meadows we used to wander through;


s: Rake rolls into heaps that the pitchfork rears;


s: The waggon pursues with its toppling pack.


s: You would not ask while it bites in keen


s: "A spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up."


s: "I can make the clock of the years go backward,


s: Then younger, younger she freshed, to the year


s: It is enough--let her stay thus always!"


s: "She were dead as before!  The memory of her


s: That broods in the garden white and lone,


s: And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows


s: From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,


s: To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders


s: And I said:  "I am sure you are standing behind me,


s: Though how do you get into this old track?"


s: And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf


s: As a sad response; and to keep down grief


s: But I thought once more:  "Nay, I'll not unvision


s: And left her behind me throwing her shade,


s: My head unturned lest my dream should fade.


s: For that lady I knew!  Through the heats I have shaded her,


s: Drawn to her songsters when summer has jaded her,


s: When my shadow first lured her, I'd donned my new bravery


s: Of greenth:  'twas my all.  Now I shiver in slavery,


s: I could tempt her chair under me.  Much did I treasure her


s: During those days she had nothing to pleasure her;


s: "These Gothic windows, how they wear me out


s: With cusp and foil, and nothing straight or square,


s: Crude colours, leaden borders roundabout,


s: And fitting in Peter here, and Matthew there!


s: Martha I paint, and dream of Hera's brow,


s: "A summer-house fair stands hidden where


s: Round the restful flock, and the things said there,


s: And I grew to accept as the day wore pale


s: Had kept me from youth and through manhood till lately


s: May haply have bent me to stand and to show not


s: And I warmed, until living aloofly loomed duller


s: And showed its beams burning from pole to horizon


s: And thus re-illumed have no humour for letting


s: Minds, yearnings, worse and better parts


s: - We have eaten your bread, you have eaten ours,


s: We have loved your burgs, your pines' green moan,


s: Fair Rhine-stream, and its storied towers;


s: We have nursed no dreams to shed your blood,


s: We have matched your might not rancorously,


s: I dreamt that people from the Land of Chimes


s: Arrived one autumn morning with their bells,


s: To hoist them on the towers and citadels


s: Of my own country, that the musical rhymes


s: Amid the market's daily stir and stress,


s: And the night's empty star-lit silentness,


s: Might solace souls of this and kindred climes.


s: The visioned ones, but pale and full of fear;


s: From Bruges they came, and Antwerp, and Ostend,


s: No carillons in their train.  Foes of mad mood


s: Had shattered these to shards amid the gear


s: Of ravaged roof, and smouldering gable-end.


s: We here, full-charged with our own maimed and dead,


s: And coiled in throbbing conflicts slow and sore,


s: Of souls forlorn upon the facing shore! -


s: Where naked, gaunt, in endless band on band


s: To your great country that, with scant delay,


s: You must, perforce, ease them in their loud need:


s: We know that nearer first your duty lies;


s: But--is it much to ask that you let plead


s: Your lovingkindness with you--wooing-wise -


s: Albeit that aught you owe, and must repay,


s: From rail-track and from highway, and I heard


s: In field and farmstead many an ancient word


s: Of local lineage like "Thu bist,"  "Er war,"


s: "Ich woll," "Er sholl," and by-talk similar,


s: Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird


s: At England's very loins, thereunto spurred


s: By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.


s: Then seemed a Heart crying:  "Whosoever they be


s: At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame


s: Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we,


s: May their familiars grow to shun their name,


s: "Would that I'd not drawn breath here!" some one said,


s: "To stalk upon this stage of evil deeds,


s: Where purposelessly month by month proceeds


s: A play so sorely shaped and blood-bespread."


s: Yet had his spark not quickened, but lain dead


s: To the gross spectacles of this our day,


s: And never put on the proffered cloak of clay,


s: He had but known not things now manifested;


s: Life would have swirled the same.  Morns would have dawned


s: On the uprooting by the night-gun's stroke


s: Of what the yester noonshine brought to flower;


s: Brown martial brows in dying throes have wanned


s: Despite his absence; hearts no fewer been broke


s: With an old horse that stumbles and nods


s: Where the starved Egdon pine-trees had thinned,


s: With the heather that twitched in the wind;


s: But he looked on indifferent to sights such as these,


s: Unswayed by love, friendship, home joy or home sorrow,


s: And wondered to what he would march on the morrow.


s: The crazed household-clock with its whirr


s: Who had striven from his birth for his good;


s: But he still only asked the spring starlight, the breeze,


s: What great thing or small thing his history would borrow


s: From that Game with Death he would play on the morrow.


s: When the heath wore the robe of late summer,


s: For him who had joined in that game overseas


s: Where Death stood to win, though his name was to borrow


s: A brightness therefrom not to fade on the morrow.


s: Often when warring for he wist not what,


s: Has tendered water, wiped the burning cheek,


s: And cooled the lips so black and clammed and hot;


s: Then gone his way, and maybe quite forgot


s: The deed of grace amid the roar and reek;


s: Yet larger vision than loud arms bespeak


s: He there has reached, although he has known it not.


s: For natural mindsight, triumphing in the act


s: Has thuswise muffled victory's peal of pride,


s: Rended to ribands policy's specious page


s: That deals but with evasion, code, and pact,


s: With a chivalrous sense of Should and Ought,


s: Let us fight fair--for our own best or worst;


s: Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst


s: Shall rule!  Let us, by modes once called accurst,


s: To lift, a back to bend.  It must not be


s: In times like these that vaguely linger we


s: To air our vaunts and hopes; and leave our land


s: - Say, then, "I come!" and go, O women and men


s: Of palace, ploughshare, easel, counter, pen;


s: That scareless, scathless, England still may stand.


s: Would years but let me stir as once I stirred


s: At many a dawn to take the forward track,


s: And with a stride plunged on to enterprize,


s: I now would speed like yester wind that whirred


s: Through yielding pines; and serve with never a slack,


s: So loud for promptness all around outcries!


s: The dead woman lay in her first night's grave,


s: And twilight fell from the clouds' concave,


s: And those she had asked to forgive forgave.


s: By the heaped white shapes of wreath and cross,


s: But you've been a good good friend to me!"


s: Rose a plaintive voice from the sod below:


s: What is it that makes you approve me so?"


s: To his friend, when won by your blandishment:


s: "'I would change for that lass here and now!


s: To my present Love, and contrive somehow


s: Whose eyes have the light, whose lips the curl,


s: "--And this is why that by ceasing to be -


s: Though never your countenance did I see -


s: "And I pray each hour for your soul's repose


s: No lover will clasp when his campaigns close."


s: That said, with a thin and far-off sigh:


s: "O sweetheart, neither shall I clasp you,


s: For the foe this day has pierced me through,


s: "And forget not when the night-wind's whine


s: Calls over this turf where her limbs recline,


s: There was a cry by the white-flowered mound,


s: Which tiredly the spectral pines intone!


s: To pale Europe; and tiredly the pines intone.


s: In death-mains, but to swell and swell again


s: All Lords of War whose sanctuaries enshrine


s: To feuds . . . Yea, grieves my heart, as then I said,


s: --"The utterance grew, and flapped like flame,


s: And the heavens mutely masked as 'twere in shame


s: And the love-looks and laughters unpenned,


s: The housebuilding, furnishing, planting,


s: "Just the same in bright weathers or bleak;")


s: Working out as One planned it should work


s: Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,


s: "He was a man who used to notice such things"?


s: If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,


s: The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight


s: Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,


s: "To him this must have been a familiar sight."


s: If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,


s: When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,


s: But he could do little for them; and now he is gone"?


s: Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,


s: Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,


s: "He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"?


s: And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,


s: Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,


s: "He hears it not now, but used to notice such things"?


s: The world is full of selfishness and greed.


s: Yea, mortal, earth of thy good help has need.


s: Mine ear is hurt by harsh and evil speech.


s: There is but one convincing way to teach.


s: On every hand is wretchedness and grief,


s: Lord, I would give my fellow men relief.


s: Lord, I look outward and grow sick at heart,


s: Who is the strong?  Not he who puts to test


s: His sinews with the strong and proves the best;


s: But he who dwells where weaklings congregate,


s: And never lets his splendid strength abate.


s: Who is the good?  Not he who walks each day


s: With moral men along the high, clean way;


s: But he who jostles gilded sin and shame,


s: Yet will not sell his honour or his name.


s: Who is the wise?  Not he who from the start


s: But he who looks in Folly's tempting eyes,


s: And turns away, perceiving her disguise.


s: Who is serene?  Not he who flees his kind,


s: Some mountain fastness, or some cave to find;


s: But he who in the city's noisiest scene,


s: Affirm the mind, the messenger of the hour,


s: To speed between thee and the source of power.


s: They stood before the Angel at the gate;


s: The Angel asked:  'Why should you enter in?'


s: One said:  'On earth my place was high and great;'


s: And one:  'I warned my fellow-men from sin;'


s: I scorned my life and lived in love with death.'


s: And one stood silent.  'Speak!' the Angel said;


s: 'What earthly deed has sent you here to-day?'


s: 'Alas!  I did but follow where they led,'


s: He answered sadly:  'I had lost my way -


s: So new the country, and so strange my flight;


s: I only sought for guidance and for light.'


s: 'You have no passport?'  'None,' the answer came.


s: 'I loved the earth, tho' lowly was my lot.


s: I strove to keep my record free from blame,


s: So, Angel, drive me from the heavenly gate.'


s: The Angel swung the portal wide and free,


s: And took the sorrowing stranger by the hand.


s: 'Nay, you alone,' he said, 'shall come with me,


s: Of what God gave, you built your paradise;


s: Behold your mansion waiting in the skies.'


s: A thousand creeds may perish and pass by;


s: There is no word whereby to speak His name


s: But petty men have mouthed it into shame.


s: I lift mine eyes, and with a river's force


s: My love's full tide goes sweeping on its course


s: To that supreme and all-embracing Source.


s: Then back through all those thirsting channels roll


s: As little streams before the flood-tide flee,


s: Oh, a word is a gem, or a stone, or a song,


s: You may choose your word like a connoisseur,


s: But the word that sways, and stirs, and stays,


s: You may work on your word a thousand weeks,


s: That all unsought, leaps forth white hot,


s: You may hammer away on the anvil of thought,


s: But unless you are stirred to the depths, that word


s: For the word that comes from the brain alone,


s: Your spirit from its path should swerve,


s: Look in; and learn the wrong, and right,


s: I'd rather feed, and shelter full a score,


s: Than hide behind the black portcullis, doubt,


s: And run the risk of barring one Truth out.


s: Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act,


s: I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.


s: On my soul's door, the latch-string hangs outside;


s: Within, the lighted candle.  Let me guide


s: Some errant follies, on their wandering way,


s: Rather, than Wisdom give no welcoming ray.


s: God, what a glory, is this consciousness,


s: Of life on life, that comes to those who seek!


s: Nor would I, if I might, to others speak,


s: The fulness of that knowledge.  It can bless,


s: Only the eager souls, that willing, press


s: Not to the dull, the doubting, or the weak,


s: That in the start, demands the end be shown,


s: And at each step, stops waiting for a sign;


s: But to the tireless toiler toward the goal,


s: Shall the great miracles of God be known


s: Strong corner stones of purpose, and prepare


s: Great blocks of wisdom, cut from past despair.


s: Work on with patience.  Though thy toil be slow,


s: Believe in God--in thine own self believe.


s: All that thou hast desired thou shalt achieve.


s: BE STILL:  Be stiller yet; and listen.  Set the screen


s: And seal your lips with some all-sacred word.


s: Breathe 'God,' in any tongue--it means the same;


s: LOVE ABSOLUTE:  Think, feel, absorb the thought;


s: (A spark from God's creative centre caught)


s: Shall permeate your being, and shall glow,


s: Increasing in its splendour, till, YOU KNOW.


s: The knowledge comes; the power is far too great,


s: No soul is worthy till it learns to wait.


s: Day after day be patient, then, oh, soul;


s: Month after month--till, lo! the goal! the goal!


s: Live, and thou shalt receive.  Give thoughts of cheer,


s: Of courage and success, to friend and stranger.


s: And from a thousand sources, far and near,


s: Strength will be sent thee in thy hour of danger.


s: Give words of comfort, of defence, and hope,


s: To mortals crushed by sorrow and by error.


s: And though thy feet through shadowy paths may grope,


s: Thou shalt not walk in loneliness or terror.


s: Give of thy gold, though small thy portion be.


s: Gold rusts and shrivels in the hand that keeps it.


s: It grows in one that opens wide and free.


s: Who sows his harvest is the one who reaps it.


s: Give of thy love, nor wait to know the worth


s: Of what thou lovest; and ask no returning.


s: And wheresoe'er thy pathway leads on earth,


s: There thou shalt find the lamp of love-light burning.


s: Is dull and shrivelled ere its race is run.


s: Must tremble first before the north wind's breath.


s: The life that neither grief nor burden knows


s: Is dwarfed in sympathy before its close.


s: The life that grows majestic with the years


s: Must taste the bitter tonic found in tears.


s: Fear is the twin of Faith's sworn foe, Distrust.


s: If one breaks in your heart the other must.


s: Who walks with Fear adown life's road will meet


s: His boon companions, Failure and Defeat.


s: With mien undaunted, and he turns and flies.


s: The missing link of Love has left a void.


s: Supply the link, and earth with Heaven will join


s: Hell is wherever Love is not, and Heaven


s: Can lead thee into realms of joy and peace.


s: Unless the humblest creatures on the earth


s: There is no sudden entrance into Heaven.


s: There was a thought he hid from all men's eyes,


s: And by his prudent life and deeds of worth


s: But when he reached a dark unsightly door


s: Beyond the grave, there stood his secret thought.


s: It was the mansion he had built and brought


s: An unkind tale was whispered in his ear.


s: His thoughts were food that helped a falsehood thrive,


s: Years dawned and died.  One day by venom's tongue


s: He cried aloud, nor dreamed the lie was spawn


s: Each mental wave we send out from the mind,


s: Completes its circuit, then with added force


s: Know this, ye restless denizens of earth,


s: Know this, ye seekers after joy and mirth,


s: Three things there are, eternal in their worth.


s: Love, that outreaches to the humblest things;


s: Work that is glad, in what it does and brings;


s: And faith that soars upon unwearied wings.


s: Divine the Powers that on this trio wait.


s: Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate.


s: Love, Work, and Faith--these three alone are great.


s: That word illstarred, no page has marred;


s: Lean on thyself until thy strength is tried;


s: Then ask God's help; it will not be denied.


s: Use thine own sight to see the way to go;


s: When darkness falls ask God the path to show.


s: Think for thyself and reason out thy plan;


s: God has His work and thou hast thine, oh, man.


s: All thine immortal powers bring into play;


s: Think, act, strive, reason, then look up and pray.


s: Who climbs the mountain does not always climb.


s: The winding road slants downward many a time;


s: Yet each descent is higher than the last.


s: Has thy path fallen?  That will soon be past.


s: Beyond the curve the way leads up and on.


s: Think not thy goal forever lost or gone.


s: Keep moving forward; if thine aim is right


s: Thou canst not miss the shining mountain height.


s: Who would attain to summits still and fair,


s: Must nerve himself through valleys of despair.


s: (Suggested by the book of Mr. Ed. C. Randall.)


s: From zone to zone, from sphere to sphere,


s: And dark or bright, those souls must tread


s: And heavens of love our lives have shed.


s: With thoughts that bless or thoughts that curse,


s: Vast fields, where living facts will feed


s: All those whose patience proves their need


s: The year's four changing seasons brought


s: She loved the tasks that filled each day -


s: With eager arms stretched forth to greet,


s: Came one she loved and mourned in youth;


s: 'All this,' Love murmured, 'is your own.'


s: And questioned whence and where and why,


s: Love answered thus:  'All Heaven is made


s: By thoughts on earth; your walls were laid,


s: From lower planes to these high spheres;


s: And through the love you sent from earth


s: Ah! earth needs heaven, but heaven indeed


s: That came to swell love's welcoming song -


s: Symphonic Studies  Prelude, I., II., III., IV., V., VI.,


s: Publisher's note: Thanks are due to the Editors of "The Century,"


s: allowing the poems published by them to be reprinted in these


s: EMMA LAZARUS. (Written for "The Century Magazine")


s: sensibilities, whose imagination, not yet focused by reality,


s: In this connection a name would suggest itself even if it did not


s: "What simple things be these the soul to raise


s: To bounding joy, and make young pulses beat


s: With nameless pleasure, finding life so sweet!"


s: And over ruined fields the storm hath come."


s: "The mystic winged and flickering butterfly,


s: Ah! who can tell to what strange paradise,


s: To what undreamed-of fields and lofty skies!"


s: assert herself or claim any prerogative,--something even morbid


s: That plays upon the grass, to feel (and sigh


s: With perfect pleasure) the mild breeze stir


s: She gives us the breath of the pines and of the cool, salt seas,


s: With gazing at the large, bright, breathing sea."


s: "Although, generally speaking, I do not think it advisable


s: to take celebrated men, especially poets and artists, as a


s: subject for a novel, still I am truly glad to say that I


s: have read your book with the liveliest interest.  It is


s: very sincere and very poetical at the same time; the life


s: and spirit of Germany have no secrets for you, and your


s: characters are drawn with a pencil as delicate as it is


s: strong.  I feel very proud of the approbation you give to


s: my works, and of the influence you kindly attribute to them


s: on your own talent; an author who write as you do is not


s: a pupil in art any more; he is not far from being himself


s: This awful joy in mine own heart is love."


s: "While you are here the one thing real to me


s: under such adverse conditions seems little short of a miracle,


s: has been deprived of the natural means of development and


s: progress, and has remained a stationary force.  The next


s: hundred years will, in our opinion be the test of their


s: vitality as a people; the phase of toleration upon which


s: they are only now entering will prove whether or not they


s: Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law


s: Even they who shrunk, even they who slept,


s: The dead forms burst their bonds and lived again. She sings "Rosh


s: "Kindle the taper like the steadfast star


s: Ablaze on Evening's forehead o'er the earth,


s: An eight-fold splendor shine above thy hearth.


s: Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre,


s: Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn;


s: Chant psalms of victory till the heart take fire,


s: "What! can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried


s: Is as a tale that's told, an ancient song?


s: Of psalmist, priest, and prophet?  Can the breath


s: Open the graves, and clothe the ribs of death?


s: Yea, Prophesy, the Lord hath said again:


s: Say to the wind, come forth and breathe afresh,


s: Even that they may live, upon these slain,


s: And bone to bone shall leap, and flesh to flesh.


s: The spirit is not dead, proclaim the word.


s: Where lay dead bones a host of armed men stand!


s: I ope your graves, my people, saith the Lord,


s: And I shall place you living in your land."


s: "Have you no smile to welcome love with, Liebhaid?


s: Afraid of my own heart, my unfathomed joy,


s: "What good shall come, forswearing kith and God,


s: To follow the allurements of the heart?"


s: How shall I pray for strength to love him less


s: I am all Israel's now.  Till this cloud pass,


s: I have no thought, no passion, no desire,


s: "The misers! they will take their gems and gold


s: "Our feet stand within thy gates, O Zion!


s: These flames that would eclipse it dark as blots


s: Of candle-light against the blazing sun.


s: We die a thousand deaths,--drown, bleed, and burn.


s: Yet the wild winds cherish the sacred seed,


s: Brave through our bright example, virtuous


s: Lest our great memory fall in disrepute."


s: The "Dance to Death" was published, along with other poems and


s: "I am fully persuaded that all suggested solutions other


s: than this are but temporary palliatives.... The idea


s: formulated by George Eliot has already sunk into the minds


s: rapidity.  'The idea that I am possessed with,' says Deronda,


s: 'is that of restoring a political existence to my people;


s: making them a nation again, giving them a national centre,


s: such as the English have, though they, too, are scattered


s: over the face of the globe.  That task which presents itself


s: to me as a duty.... I am resolved to devote my life to


s: prophetess who wrote the above words have lived but till


s: to-day to see the ever-increasing necessity of adopting her


s: inspired counsel,... she would have been herself astonished


s: at the flame enkindled by her seed of fire, and the practical


s: shape which the movement projected by her poetic vision is


s: now passionately holding up the mirror for the shortcomings and


s: "Every student of the Hebrew language is aware that we have


s: in the conjugation of our verbs a mode known as the 'intensive


s: voice,' which, by means of an almost imperceptible modification


s: of vowel-points, intensifies the meaning of the primitive root.


s: in connection with the people among whom they dwell.  They are


s: the 'intensive form' of any nationality whose language and


s: customs they adopt.... Influenced by the same causes, they


s: represent the same results; but the deeper lights and shadows


s: of the Oriental temperament throw their failings, as well as


s: their virtues, into more prominent relief."


s: In drawing the epistles to a close, February 24, 1883, she thus


s: summarizes the special objects she has had in view:--


s: "My chief aim has been to contribute my mite towards arousing


s: First, in a return to varied pursuits and broad system of


s: physical and intellectual education adopted by our ancestors;


s: Second, in a more fraternal and practical movement towards


s: favored than our own; Third, in a closer and wider study of


s: Hebrew literature and history and finally, in a truer recognition


s: which Judaism is founded, and which should draw into harmonious


s: "Our last day on board ship was a vision of beauty from


s: morning till night,--the sea like a mirror and the sky


s: dazzling with light.  In the afternoon we passed a ship


s: in full sail, near enough to exchange salutes and cheers.


s: After tossing about for six days without seeing a human


s: being, except those on our vessel, even this was a sensation.


s: Then an hour or two before sunset came the great sensation


s: of--land!  At first, nothing but a shadow on the far horizon,


s: like the ghost of a ship; two or three widely scattered rocks


s: which were the promontories of Ireland, and sooner than we


s: expected we were steaming along low-lying purple hills."


s: The journey to Chester gives her "the first glimpse of mellow


s: England,"--a surprise which is yet no surprise, so well known and


s: "I have neither ability, energy, nor purpose," she writes. "It is


s: And now once more we come upon that keen zest of enjoyment, that


s: "wiping out all other places and impressions, and opening


s: a whole new world of sensations.  I am wild with the


s: excitement of this tremendous place.  I have been here a


s: week, and have seen the Vatican and the Capitoline Museums,


s: and the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's, besides the ruins


s: on the streets and on the hills, and the graves of Shelley


s: "It is all heart-breaking.  I don't only mean those beautiful


s: graves, overgrown with acanthus and violets, but the mutilated


s: the glowing sunshine under the Roman blue sky."


s: "and the far-away past, that seems so sad and strange and


s: near.  I am even out of humor with pictures; a bit of broken


s: stone or a  fragment of a bas-relief, or a Corinthian column


s: standing out against this lapis-lazuli sky, or a tremendous


s: arch, are the only things I can look at for the moment,--


s: except the Sistine Chapel, which is as gigantic as the rest,


s: and forces itself upon you with equal might."


s: incongruity. Her works bear the imprint of her character, and her


s: "The epochs of our life are not in the facts, but in the


s: silent thought by the wayside as we walk."--Emerson


s: Sweet empty sky of June without a stain,


s: Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills,


s: Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain,


s: That each dark copse and hollow overfills;


s: The rippling laugh of unseen, rain-fed rills,


s: Weeds delicate-flowered, white and pink and gold,


s: The gray, austere old earth renews her youth


s: With dew-lines, sunshine, gossamer, and haze.


s: How still she lies and dreams, and veils the truth,


s: While all is fresh as in the early days!


s: What simple things be these the soul to raise


s: To bounding joy, and make young pulses beat,


s: With nameless pleasure finding life so sweet.


s: On such a golden morning forth there floats,


s: Between the soft earth and the softer sky,


s: In the warm air adust with glistening motes,


s: The mystic winged and flickering butterfly,


s: Nor dreams of fairer fields or loftier skies.


s: Thin summer rain on grass and bush and hedge,


s: Reddening the road and deepening the green


s: On wide, blurred lawn, and in close-tangled sedge;


s: Veiling in gray the landscape stretched between


s: These low broad meadows and the pale hills seen


s: In these transparent-clouded, gentle skies,


s: Wherethrough the moist beams of the soft June sun


s: No note of grief in swollen brooks that run,


s: No hint of woe in this subdued, calm tone


s: For the lost beauty of the gracious morn;


s: For brighter suns in joyous days unborn,


s: Now while brief showers ruffle grass and corn,


s: And all the earth lies shadowed, grave, and wet;


s: From pure content of all unbroken bliss,


s: To dream the future void of grief and pain,


s: More sweet for knowledge that the present is


s: Not all complete, with mist and clouds and rain.


s: Look westward o'er the steaming rain-washed slopes,


s: Those lustrous clouds, as glorious as our hopes,


s: Softened with feathery fleece of downy gold,


s: In all fantastic, huddled shapes uprolled,


s: Floating like dreams, and melting silently,


s: The eye is filled with beauty, and the heart


s: Rejoiced with sense of life and peace renewed;


s: And yet at such an hour as this, upstart


s: Vague myriad longing, restless, unsubdued,


s: And causeless tears from melancholy mood,


s: Strange discontent with earth's and nature's best,


s: Desires and yearnings that may find no rest.


s: Serene was morning with clear, winnowed air,


s: But threatening soon the low, blue mass of cloud


s: Rose in the west, with mutterings faint and rare


s: At first, but waxing frequent and more loud.


s: Thick sultry mists the distant hill-tops shroud;


s: The sunshine dies; athwart black skies of lead


s: Flash noiselessly thin threads of lightning red.


s: Breathless the earth seems waiting some wild blow,


s: Dreaded, but far too close to ward or shun.


s: Scared birds aloft fly aimless, and below


s: Naught stirs in fields whence light and life are gone,


s: Save floating leaves, with wisps of straw and down,


s: Upon the heavy air; 'neath blue-black skies,


s: Livid and yellow the green landscape lies.


s: And all the while the dreadful thunder breaks,


s: With gathering might, that angry echoes wakes,


s: And earth and heaven with unused clamor fills.


s: O'erhead still flame those strange electric thrills.


s: A moment more,--behold! yon bolt struck home,


s: And over ruined fields the storm hath come!


s: When the stunned soul can first lift tired eyes


s: On her changed world of ruin, waste and wrack,


s: Ah, what a pang of aching sharp surprise


s: Brings all sweet memories of the lost past back,


s: With wild self-pitying grief of one betrayed,


s: Duped in a land of dreams where Truth is dead!


s: Are these the heavens that she deemed were kind?


s: Is this the world that yesterday was fair?


s: Be these who pass her by, as vague as air?


s: What go they seeking? there is naught to find.


s: Let them come nigh and hearken her despair.


s: And where her heart throbbed, is a cold dead stone.


s: Part of herself, part of the whole hard scheme,


s: For all the teeming world looks void and vain.


s: She knows the loneliness of all her years.


s: There is no comfort looking forth nor back,


s: The present gives the lie to all her past.


s: Will cruel time restore what she doth lack?


s: Why was no shadow of this doom forecast?


s: Ah! she hath played with many a keen-edged thing;


s: Naught is too small and soft to turn and sting.


s: No earthly task appears beyond her power,


s: Yea, she hath looked Truth grimly face to face,


s: And drained unto the lees the proffered cup.


s: This silence is not patience, nor the grace


s: But mere acceptance fraught with keenest pain,


s: Seeing that all her struggles must be vain.


s: Her future clear and terrible outlies,--


s: This burden to be borne through all her days,


s: This crown of thorns pressed down above her eyes,


s: This weight of trouble she may never raise.


s: Knowing such things are, she endures her fate.


s: To cling to such poor stays as will abide


s: (Although the waves be wild and angry still)


s: No fear of further loss, no hope of gain,


s: All stupor of surprise hath passed away;


s: She sees, with clearer vision than before,


s: A world far off of light and laughter gay,


s: Folk come and go, and reach her in no wise,


s: Mere flitting phantoms to her heavy eyes.


s: All outward things, that once seemed part of her,


s: Fall from her, like the leaves in autumn shed.


s: She feels as one embalmed in spice and myrrh,


s: With the heart eaten out, a long time dead;


s: Unchanged without, the features and the form;


s: By her own prowess she must stand or fall,


s: This grief is to be conquered day by day.


s: Who could befriend her? who could make this small,


s: Or her strength great? she meets it as she may.


s: She dreams not they may ever cease nor wane.


s: It comes not in such wise as she had deemed,


s: Else might she still have clung to her despair.


s: More tender, grateful than she could have dreamed,


s: Fond hands passed pitying over brows and hair,


s: And gentle words borne softly through the air,


s: Calming her weary sense and wildered mind,


s: By welcome, dear communion with her kind.


s: Ah! she forswore all words as empty lies;


s: What speech could help, encourage, or repair?


s: Yet when she meets these grave, indulgent eyes,


s: Fulfilled with pity, simplest words are fair,


s: Caressing, meaningless, that do not dare


s: To compensate or mend, but merely soothe


s: With hopeful visions after bitter Truth.


s: One who through conquered trouble had grown wise,


s: To read the grief unspoken, unexpressed,


s: The misery of the blank and heavy eyes,--


s: Or through youth's infinite compassion guessed


s: The heavy burden,--such a one brought rest,


s: And bade her lay aside her doubts and fears,


s: While the hard pain dissolved in blessed tears.


s: The passion of despair is quelled at last;


s: The wild self-pity, these are also past;


s: She knows not what may come, but she is strong;


s: She feels she hath not aught to lose nor gain,


s: Her patience is the essence of all pain.


s: As one who sits beside a lapsing stream,


s: She sees the flow of changeless day by day,


s: Too sick and tired to think, too sad to dream,


s: Nor cares how soon the waters slip away,


s: Nor where they lead; at the wise God's decree,


s: Than in the tumults of the anguish wild,


s: That made her curse all things beneath the skies;


s: No question, no reproaches, no complaint,


s: Hers is the holy calm of some meek saint.


s: Her languid pulses thrill with sudden hope,


s: And life in statelier vistas seems to ope,


s: What doth she know?  She is subdued and mild,


s: How may joy dawn?  In what undreamed-of hour,


s: May the light break with splendor of surprise,


s: A baseless hope, yet vivid, keen, and bright,


s: As the wild lightning in the starless night.


s: She knows not whence it came, nor where it passed,


s: But it revealed, in one brief flash of flame,


s: A heaven so high, a world so rich and vast,


s: That, full of meek contrition and mute shame,


s: She bows her head, and bides the certain dawn.


s: 'T is not alone that black and yawning void


s: That makes her heart ache with this hungry pain,


s: But the glad sense of life hath been destroyed,


s: Yet myriad serious blessings with grave grace


s: Arise on every side to fill their place.


s: For much abides in her so lonely life,--


s: Love where least looked for, quiet after strife,


s: For the new meaning of the earth and skies.


s: The nameless charm about all things hath died,


s: Subtle as aureole round a shadow's head,


s: Yet though the glory and the joy be fled,


s: 'T is much her own endurance to have weighed,


s: And wrestled with God's angels, unafraid.


s: She feels outwearied, as though o'er her head


s: A storm of mighty billows broke and passed.


s: Whose hand upheld her?  Who her footsteps led


s: To this green haven of sweet rest at last?


s: What strength was hers, unreckoned and unknown?


s: What love sustained when she was most alone?


s: To reach, with groping arms outstretched in prayer,


s: Something to cling to, to uplift her higher


s: From this low world of coward fear and care,


s: At one with God's, accepting his decree.


s: Yet strangely brave in Evil's very face,


s: She deems this want must needs be satisfied,


s: Though here all slips from out her weak embrace.


s: With her own dream her prayer she answereth.


s: But stubborn work; she may not shun her task.


s: After the first compassion, none will spare


s: Her portion and her work achieved, to ask.


s: She pleads for respite,--she will come ere long


s: When, resting by the roadside, she is strong.


s: Nay, for the hurrying throng of passers-by


s: Will crush her with their onward-rolling stream.


s: Much must be done before the brief light die;


s: She may not loiter, rapt in the vain dream.


s: With unused trembling hands, and faltering feet,


s: She staggers forth, her lot assigned to meet.


s: But when she fills her days with duties done,


s: Strange vigor comes, she is restored to health.


s: New aims, new interests rise with each new sun,


s: And life still holds for her unbounded wealth.


s: All that seemed hard and toilsome now proves small,


s: And naught may daunt her,--she hath strength for all.


s: How strange, in some brief interval of rest,


s: Backward to look on her far-stretching past.


s: To see how much is conquered and repressed,


s: The shadow is not lifted,--but her faith,


s: Strong from life's miracles, now turns toward death.


s: Though much be dark where once rare splendor shone,


s: Yet the new light has touched high peaks unguessed


s: In her gold, mist-bathed dawn, and one by one


s: New outlooks loom from many a mountain crest.


s: She breathes a loftier, purer atmosphere,


s: And life's entangled paths grow straight and clear.


s: Nor will Death prove an all-unwelcome guest;


s: The struggle has been toilsome to this end,


s: Sleep will be sweet, and after labor rest,


s: And all will be atoned with him to friend.


s: Much must be reconciled, much justified,


s: And yet she feels she will be satisfied.


s: Checkered with storm and sunshine, gloom and light,


s: Now passing in pure, cloudless skies away,


s: Withdrawing into silence of blank night.


s: Thick shadows settle on the landscape bright,


s: Like the weird cloud of death that falls apace


s: On the still features of the passive face.


s: The touch that stopped the beating of the heart.


s: With dauntless faith and courage therewithal,


s: On such a golden evening forth there floats,


s: Between the grave earth and the glowing sky


s: In the clear air, unvexed with hazy motes,


s: The mystic-winged and flickering butterfly,


s: Ah! who can tell to what strange paradise,


s: To what undreamed-of fields and lofty skies!


s: Our leaders will we hail from over seas,


s: Master and kings from feudal monarchies,


s: Too long hath been our mistress and our queen.


s: Too deep a love for her, our hearts within.


s: With the brave exploits of her children strong,


s: And with the matchless music of her song.


s: To alien legends, and their strains prolong.


s: With heroes, cities, legends of her own;


s: Of snow-peaked mounts, the wid'ning vale's expanse,


s: Large prairies where free herds of horses prance,


s: These stately rivers, each with many a mouth,


s: The exquisite beauty of the soft-aired south,


s: Luxuriant forests' lush and splendid growth.


s: To chant on prairies 'neath this brilliant sky.


s: It suiteth not, upon this western plain,


s: Out voice or spirit; we should stir again


s: The scarlet creeper reddens over graves,


s: Among the solemn trees enlooped with vines;


s: The noble souls of half a million braves,


s: Earnest and eloquent, sincere and strong,


s: Not all unmeet? with fitting dirge and song


s: The placid, measureless sky serenely fair,


s: The laughter of the breeze among the leaves,


s: The bars of sunlight slanting through the trees,


s: The reckless wild-flowers blooming everywhere,


s: Each tree that trembles to its leafy head


s: With nervous life, revives within our mind,


s: Tender as flowers of May, the thoughts of those


s: Who lie beneath the living beauty, dead,--


s: Blessings and tears of aching thankfulness,


s: Soft flowers for the graves in wreaths enwove,


s: Not less illustrious, who are living yet?


s: Calmly, serenely from the whole world's gaze,


s: They who have scaled the mountain, with content


s: Sublime, descend to live upon the plain;


s: Steadfast as though they breathed the mountain-air


s: Who, having filled their day with chivalry,


s: Withdraw and keep their simpleness intact,


s: Or harvesting the plenteous, yellow grains,


s: Gathering ripe vintage of dusk bunches blue,


s: Armed against hindrance, weariness, defeat,


s: With dauntless purpose not to serve or yield,


s: Maimed, helpless, lingering still through suffering years,


s: Of the dear fellow-martyrs they survive?


s: Not o'er the dead, but over these, your tears,


s: The lovely, cultured landscape, waving grain,


s: Wide haughty rivers, and pale, English skies.


s: Who lifts a swart face, looks upon the plain,--


s: Thus in the common fields and streets they stand;


s: The light that on the past and distant gleams,


s: They cast upon the present and the near,


s: With antique virtues from some mystic land,


s: He who could beard the lion in his lair,


s: To bind him for a girl, and tame the boar,


s: And drive these beasts before his chariot,


s: Might wed Alcestis.  For her low brows' sake,


s: Her hairs' soft undulations of warm gold,


s: Her eyes clear color and pure virgin mouth,


s: Though many would draw bow or shiver spear,


s: Yet none dared meet the intolerable eye,


s: Whose broad, fat pastures spread their ample fields


s: Down to the sheer edge of Amphrysus' stream,


s: Who laughed, disdainful, at the father's pride,


s: That set such value on one milk-faced child.


s: One morning, as he rode alone and passed


s: Through the green twilight of Thessalian woods,


s: Between two pendulous branches interlocked,


s: As through an open casement, he descried


s: A goddess, as he deemed,--in truth a maid.


s: A favorite hound, her floral face inclined


s: That pressed his snout against her cheek and gazed


s: Wistfully, with his keen, sagacious eyes.


s: One arm with lax embrace the neck enwreathed,


s: With polished roundness near the sleek, gray skin.


s: Admetus, fixed with wonder, dare not pass,


s: And sacred girlhood, but his fretful steed


s: Snuffed the air, and champed and pawed the ground;


s: And hearing this, the maiden raised her head.


s: No let or hindrance then might stop the king,


s: Once having looked upon those supreme eyes.


s: The drooping boughs disparting, forth he sped,


s: And then drew in his steed, to ask the path,


s: Although each river-cloven vale, with streams


s: Each hallowed mountain, the abode of gods,


s: Pelion and Ossa fringed with haunted groves,


s: The height, spring-crowned, of dedicate Olympus,


s: And pleasant sun-fed vineyards, were to him


s: Nathless he paused and asked the maid what path


s: Might lead him from the forest.  She replied,


s: But still he tarried, and with sportsman's praise


s: Admired the hound and stooped to stroke its head,


s: And asked her if she hunted.  Nay, not she:


s: Her father Pelias hunted in these woods,


s: Where there was royal game.  He knew her now,--


s: Alcestis,--and he left her with due thanks:


s: And lions to his chariot.  What was that


s: In the broad stagnant marsh, and sent his darts


s: In its tough, quivering flank, and saw its death,


s: To river-pastures of his flocks and herds


s: Admetus rode, where sweet-breathed cattle grazed,


s: Heifers and goats and kids, and foolish sheep


s: Dotted cool, spacious meadows with bent heads,


s: And necks' soft wool broken in yellow flakes,


s: Nibbling sharp-toothed the rich, thick-growing blades.


s: One herdsman kept the innumerable droves--


s: In listless posture on a vine-grown rock.


s: Around him huddled kids and sheep that left


s: The mother's udder for his nighest grass,


s: Which sprouted with fresh verdure where he sat.


s: And yet dull neighboring rustics never guessed


s: Although with him they acted as he willed,


s: Renouncing shepherds' silly pranks and quips,


s: Because his very presence made them grave.


s: Amphryssius, after their translucent stream,


s: They called him, but Admetus knew his name,--


s: Hyperion, god of sun and song and silver speech,


s: To Zeus in sending violent darts of death,


s: The one-eyed forgers of the thunderbolt.


s: For shepherd's crook he held the living rod


s: Of twisted serpents, later Hermes' wand.


s: Him sought the king, discovering soon hard by,


s: Watching the restless grasses blow and wave,


s: Regretting nothing, living with the hour:


s: For him, who had his light and song within,


s: Was naught that did not shine, and all things sang.


s: To win Alcestis, which the god vouchsafed,


s: Granting with smiles, as grant all gods, who smite


s: With stern hand, sparing not for piteousness,


s: Led with loose rein the beasts as tame as kine,


s: And townsfolk thronged within the city streets,


s: As round a god; and mothers showed their babes,


s: And maidens loved the crowned intrepid youth,


s: And men aloud worship, though the very god


s: Who wrought the wonder dwelled unnoted nigh,


s: Then Pelias, seeing this would be his son,


s: As he had vowed, called for his wife and child.


s: A warm flush spreading o'er her eager face


s: And knowing him her suitor and the king.


s: And these with mated hearts and mutual love


s: Lived a life blameless, beautiful: the king


s: Ordaining justice in the gates; the queen,


s: With grateful offerings to the household gods,


s: Wise with the wisdom of the pure in heart.


s: One child she bore,--Eumelus,--and he throve.


s: Yet none the less because they sacrificed


s: The firstlings of their flocks and fruits and flowers,


s: Did trouble come; for sickness seized the king.


s: With languid limbs, despite his ancient strength


s: Of sinew, and his skill with spear and sword.


s: His father, Pheres: his unconscious child


s: They brought him, while forlorn Alcestis sat


s: Discouraged, with the face of desolation.


s: The jealous gods would bind his mouth from speech,


s: And smite his vigorous frame with impotence;


s: And ruin with bitter ashes, worms, and dust,


s: The beauty of his crowned, exalted head.


s: He knew her presence,--soon he would not know,


s: Nor feel her hand in his lie warm and close,


s: Exhausted with long vigils, thus the queen


s: Held hard and grievous thoughts, till heavy sleep


s: Possessed her weary sense, and she dreamed.


s: And even in her dream her trouble lived,


s: To all the gods for help, when came across


s: The waste of air and land, from distant skies,


s: Her aching heart with tremor of strange joy:


s: A god dwells with you: seek, and you shall find."


s: Weak as the dead, Admetus lay there still;


s: And passed beyond the mourners' curious eyes,


s: Seeking Amphryssius in the meadow-lands.


s: She found him with the godlike mien of one


s: "I come, Hyperion, with incessant tears,


s: To crave the life of my dear lord the king.


s: And ye, the gods, will miss him when the fires


s: Upon your shrines, unfed, neglected die.


s: Who will pour large libations in your names,


s: Where once a splendid spirit offered praise.


s: Grant me this boon divine, and I will beat


s: With prayer at morning's gates, before they ope


s: Unto thy silver-hoofed and flame-eyed steeds.


s: With full throat salt with tears, and looked on him,


s: And with a sudden cry of awe fell prone,


s: The supreme aureole radiant round his brow,


s: Divine refulgences on his face,--his eyes


s: Awful with splendor, and his august head


s: With blinding brilliance crowned by vivid flame.


s: Then in a voice that charmed the listening air:


s: On Death, who is the servant of the Fates.


s: The grace of thy fair womanhood and youth,


s: And sue the insatiate sisters for this life.


s: Yet hope not blindly: loth are these to change


s: Their purpose; neither will they freely give,


s: But haggling lend or sell: perchance the price


s: Will counterveil the boon.  Consider this.


s: Now rise and look upon me."  And she rose,