Ballads and Songs by Bessie Rayner Belloc
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Victorian Women Writers ProjectBallads and Songs (1863): a machine-readable transcription Belloc, Bessie Rayner (1829-1925)

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Ballads and Songs by Bessie Rayner Belloc 216 p. Bell and Daldy London

1863

The transcribed copy is from the Northwestern University Library.

All quotation marks, hyphens, dashes, apostrophes and colons have been transcribed as entity references.

All apostrophes and single right quotation marks are encoded as ’.

Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed; all hyphens are encoded as “-” and em dashes as —.

The publisher’s advertisement following p.216 has been omitted.

French

Latin

13-Jan-1999

W. Charles Morrow, contributing editor.

finished data entry, encoding and proofing

22-Jan-1999

Perry Willett, general editor.

finished TEI-conformant encoding and proofing

BALLADS AND SONGS. BY BESSIE RAYNER PARKES. LONDON: BELL AND DALDY, 186, FLEET STREET.

1863.

Page v

DEDICATION.

THOSE whom these Poems may concern

Will each their own true portion know; No cause that other eyes should learn

The reason why I penned them so. But if—I think there is—there be

One thread of thought that runs throughout, One heart remembered tenderly,

One echo caught from strains devout;— If through the busy Week of Years,

To which these scattered thoughts belong, One constant image still appears,

Reflected in my casual song;— Dear critic, for whose eyes I wrote the greater part, Take to thyself the book I give, with all my heart.

Page vii

CONTENTS.

THE Palace and the Colliery 1

The Fate of Sir John Franklin 5

The Soldier’s Return 11

The City of Refuge 15

The Black Death 19

The Ballad of the King’s Daughter 22

Robin Hood 27

New Year’s Wishes 30

Up the River 34

Farmhouse Gardens 46

Carisbrooke Chimes 49

St. Laurence, Undercliff 53

The Wind amid the Trees 55

A Midsummer Night’s Dream 58

At First 61

A Dropped Trinket 64

In an Album 66

The Old Chateau 68

Robert Burns 70

Peace 77

Prayer 79

Magic Rings 81

The Mersey and the Irwell 84

The World of Art 88

Page viii

Voluntaries 99

The Cloud-Face 106

The First Primrose 108

Autumn Violets 111

The Little Bird 114

Symbols 116

Fate 120

Unspoken 122

To-morrow 125

King Arthur 127

Firelight 130

Absence 136

The Dead Love 138

Two Artists 142

The Cathedral 145

On a Group of Justice and Charity 149

“What Distance parteth Thee and Me?” 151

For Adelaide 154

ITALY.

Rome 159

St. John Lateran 164

The Lateran Cloisters 166

The Coelian Hill 169

The Appian Way 172

The Desolation of Veii 175

Gibson’s Studio 179

Minerva Medica 182

Two Graves 185

ALGIERS.

Too Late 189

Under the Olives 192

Page 1

THE PALACE AND THE COLLIERY.

WHEN within that silken-curtained room,

The dear Husband of our State lay dying, All the land was shrouded with that gloom,

Every household echoed to that crying.

“Think of all those children,” said the parents;

“One in Prussia, one across the sea; One far south, and five within the palace;

Little Beatrice on her MOTHER’S knee,

Page 2

“Just as in the portraits we see daily.”

Ah, what fellow-feeling touched the land! What a mist of tears went up to Windsor,

For a grief that all could understand!

In the churches on that Sunday morning,

Trembling congregations heard the prayer With his name omitted, for the first time

Since we placed the youthful bridegroom there.

All that week upon the roads and markets

Gathered groups of listening heads were seen— And we heard the “women in the railways”

Talk in tearful whispers of “the Queen.”

Ere a month had passed, a royal message

Flies electric through the anxious crowd; But this time it is the Queen commissions

Words of fellow-feeling, deep, not loud.

Page 3

“Is there any hope that we can save them?”

Asked the WIDOW of those death-struck wives. “Any hope!” But hark! the throbbing answer:

“No! the Lord hath taken all their lives.”

All those “canny fellows,” all the husbands,

Sweethearts, striplings, children even, slept A not unpeaceful slumber, seated patient

While the deadly vapour on them crept.

Twice within a month the Lord has smitten

England with a very heavy hand; Twice hath roused all hearts with tender mourning

For a grief that all can understand.

But if Love possesses any healing,

It has sprung to life amidst these woes; Taught the nation what a fellow-feeling

Through the pulses of a people flows.

Page 4

And although the price has been most bitter,

England gains a truth in making known To her millions that a common nature

Tends the cottage hearth and fills the throne.

January 27, 1862.

Page 5

THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

IN summer, eighteen fifty-eight,

A ship sailed out from Aberdeen; A gilded pet for summer state

The little Fox had been.

But ringing hammers night and day

Her coat of iron mail did fix, Before they sent the Fox away

With sailors twenty-six.

I call them sailors every one,

Since all were true in time of need; A very little band to run

Great risk for doubtful meed.

Page 6

True English hearts sent food and drink,

And every thing the crew could store, And every blessing heart could think

Pursued them from the shore.

And so, across the great salt deep,

From Aberdeen they steamed away; And, doubling Greenland’s ice-clogged steep,

Pushed up to Baffin’s Bay.

But there the cruel ice grew thick,

And hemmed them in, and hemmed them round; The little Fox she could not pick

Her way into the Sound,

Which opens westwards towards the Bay,

And leads to endless mysteries, And kept for many a weary day

The secret of the seas.

Page 7

So, being finally beset,

Her prow was wedged as in a vice; And month by month was never wet

Amidst those leagues of ice.

For eight long months seemed motionless,

While game and tale the gloom beguiles; Yet she, in darkness and distress,

Drifted a thousand miles!

All down the length of Baffin’s Bay,

A southern drift the Fox did keep, Till darkness melted quite away,

And she into the deep.

A solemn and an awful track

That silent passage seems to me, From midnight and the Frozen Pack,

To sunshine and the sea!

Page 8

And then the gallant little ship

Put joyfully into the shore, And soon her slender paddles dip

In Northern seas once more.

This time the summer days were long,

The little Fox is very wise, And soon she paddles, safe and strong,

Beneath the western skies.

Now Heaven direct her in her track,

And send some sure and guiding breeze, Or she will never bring us back

The secret of the seas.

She struggles up the Northern route,

The Northern ice is hard and broad; The little Fox must put about

And seek some other road.

Page 9

But, though she struggles day and night,

She cannot reach the wished-for land; The captain and his men alight

Upon a frozen strand.

An awful thing it was to be

Alone upon the icy plain, Which broadens imperceptibly

Into an icy main!

And then they sledged both east and north,

And then they sledged both south and west, Till the dread doubt which drove them forth

At last was set at rest.

What did they find? A paper, scored

With English writing, English names, (How long by English hearts deplored!)

Signed Crosier and Fitzjames!

Page 10

Scant record of their hungry grief

That blotted page supplied; But one faint gleam of sad relief—

The day when Franklin died.

At least he died within his cot,

While kindly eyes were watching there; We know no tribute was forgot,

They buried him with prayer.

And thus the secret of the seas

Was yielded to their quest, The mystery of mysteries

Was solved and set at rest.

Page 11

THE SOLDIER’S RETURN.

THEY came across the distant hills

With trumpet, pipe, and drum; And all the air with welcome fills,

Which deepens as they come.

It flashes down the river-banks,

And broadens on the plain, A voice of universal thanks

To greet them home again.

Tall Richard’s brother spies him out,

A head above the crowd;

Page 12

And sweetheart John is clasped about

By one who weeps aloud.

Wives find their husbands, sons their sires,

Each man they seek is there; Ah! bright fulfilment of desires

Fast changing to despair!

Yet no! a pressure in the rear—

A something which they hide— A long black something on a bier,

With cap and sword beside;— A woman rushing, wild with fear,

To draw the veil aside!

And, when she saw the stricken face,

She did not weep or wail; But just recoiled a little space,

And grew a shade more pale.

Page 13

And in her eyes a terror strained,

And on her mouth there fell The tremble of a spirit pained

More than the flesh could tell.

A sudden changing, past all speech,

That was not grief or fear, Something which words will never reach—

The look when Death is near.

Though she was old and he was young,

And neither called by name, By that death-light upon them flung,

Their faces were the same!

And all the happy, joyous crowd,

Struck with a sudden dread, Turned, with a whisper growing loud,

To where she faced her dead.

Page 14

And as she sank, with reverent hands

They laid her by her son: For the dread Priest, whom nought withstands,

Had linked their years in one.

Page 15

THE CITY OF REFUGE.

“Then ye shall appoint you cities to be Cities of Refuge for you; that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares…

“Ye shall give three cities on this side Jordan, and three cities shall ye give in the land of Canaan, which shall be Cities of Refuge.”

THE law which was given abides,

By mountain and valley and wood, The slayer is fleeing, and after him rides

The wrathful Avenger of Blood!

His eyes are aghast with alarm,

His mouth is agape with his dread; In his ears the quick steps that pursue him for harm

Are blent with the shrieks of the dead.

Page 16

And his fancy runs shuddering back,

To measure each mile of his flying, Till it comes to the end of the terrible track

Where the man whom he murdered is lying.

At the sight of his own right hand

His sick heart throbs and flutters He urges his horse with a fierce command,

As thus to himself he mutters:—

“It was dawn when I laid him low,

And the dawn is approaching again; I have fled from the sound of the blow,

But it echoes and echoes in vain.

“No water has slackened my thirst,

My lips are unstrengthened by food; And after my footstep accurst

Swift flies the Avenger of Blood.

Page 17

“The olives gleam white in the chill night-wind, Mile after mile that I leave behind, I am just as near to the dead white thing Which I left in the shade of the vineyard-spring. And I see her come through the branching vines, Flying across their burdened lines; And I see the smile on her tender face As she welcomes him to the trysting-place; And I hate him worst of the sons of men, I hate him worse than I hated him then! What is that noise on the chill night-wind? The Avenger of Blood who rides behind! Through the valley, and over the hill, Galloping, galloping, galloping still, Swimming the river that runs between, Shouting his curses, himself unseen. There is the city across the plain! Fair-built city, but built in vain! I see the gate in the tall white tower—

Page 18

He has gained a mile in the last half hour; Another mile ere I reach the gate— Another five minutes will be too late! Clattering onwards, swift and sure, Rides the pursuer, of prey secure. Onward and onward, nearer and nearer, Walls of the city shine clearer and clearer! The click of the hoof comes sharp on the wind I know he is cursing me just behind; I know what the scowl in his eyes is like; I know he has lifted his sword to strike. I ride and he rides, and he rides and I ride, The gate of the city is opened wide, I leap with a bound from the flash of his sword, My life is secure in the law of the Lord! The gate of the city is dropped in his face, I drop from my horse in the midst of the place, The tide of his anger is turned at the flood— Turn backward, turn backward, Avenger of Blood!”

Page 19

THE BLACK DEATH.

“From plague, pestilence, and sudden death—Good Lord, deliver us!”

WHAT is it? a speck in the distance,

A rumour that flies in the air, Too faint to be met by resistance,

Too strong to be braved by despair.

Just whispered about the street-corners,

Just traced by the timorous pen; Like some scandal breathed out by suborners,

Which poisons the spirit of men.

Where is it? but yesterday even

A man galloped in from the plain, His eyes were a terrible leaven

Of horror, suspicion, and pain.

Page 20

He galloped straight up to the Town House,

And none heard the news which he said; Thank God for the miles he had ridden,

For the horse which he rode dropped dead!

The rumour grows darker and darker,

Each moment the agony swells; Some say, “‘Tis the trade of the doctors;”

And some, “They have poisoned the wells.”

A threatening doom o’er the city,

It hangs like a terrible sword; No man for his fellow has pity,

When both dread the curse of the Lord.

To-night there’s a crowd in the market,

But scattered like leaves on the blast; A moment may drive them asunder—

For whom will this night be the last?

Page 21

No wonder they start in their slumbers,

Or count every tremulous breath; Alas! who can reckon the numbers

To be reaped in the harvest of Death,

When the fear that now floats like a vapour,

So shadowy, formless, and vague, Is wrought up to a terrible presence,

And named, not in whispers, The Plague?

Page 22

THE BALLAD OF THE KING’S DAUGHTER.

[How the King’s Daughter, having married me, a peasant, for love, heareth of the death of her only brother, and taketh her little son to the king.]

I.

SHE twisted up her royal lengths

Of fallen hair with a silver pin, Her eyes were frowning, molten depths

Which stirred to flame when I looked within;

Dressed in a gown of velvet black,

With a diamond clasp, and a silver band, Walked from the door with a stately step,

And our young son held by his mother’s hand.

Page 23

Walter ran by his mother’s side,

More like in his eyes to her than me; The queen would have bartered her ivory throne

For such a blossom of royalty.

Heavily over the far-hill tops

Booms the bell in the minster-tower, From city to city between the hills

Echo the bells at the burial hour.

“Amen!” saith the bough in the ten-mile forest;

“Amen!” saith the sea from its cavernous bed; “Amen!” saith the people when bowed at the sorest;

“Who is dead?” said the rooks, “who is dead? who is dead?”

The young man is dead, in his strength, in his beauty,

His curls lie loose on his white-fringed pall; Loud cry the people and priests at the altar,

Soft wails the requiem over them all.

Page 24

Low in the midst of the Church of the Merciful

Lieth the young man, gone to his rest, His sword is sheathed and his coronet broken,

Flowers of yesterday cover his breast.

“Babe, child, brave youth!” wept the Queen in her closet;

“Heir of my name!” sighed the King on his throne; “Who leads us to battle?” cried they of the market;

“My lover!” looked one face as cold as a stone.

Slow tolled the bells from the north to the southern sea,

Winds caught them up with a desolate cry, Solemn he lies under darkening arches,

The hand of eternity pressed on each eye.

Page 25

II.

The market-cross, with its sculptured Christ,

‘Mid the crush and the trample stood steady and strong; The welded masses of voiceless folk

As a sea at midnight rolled along.

Booming bells, as they struck the ear,

Died away in the silent skies; Gossiping women were dumb with fear,

And each gabled house was alive with eyes.

But lo! in the distance a shadowy file,

They move to the beat of a muffled drum; The waves recede as for Israel’s march,

And the thick crowd mutters, “They come, they come.”

Where the bier was borne by the central fount,

She stood as still as the carven stone,

Page 26

Saying, “O King, behold my boy,

His smile is the dead’s, and his eye is your own.

“From my broad domain in one true man’s heart,

From the home I chose of mine own free will, I give you my jewel to wear in your crown.”

Then snatching him back for one last long fill

Of his rippling smiles, they heard her say,

With a haughty glance at her marriage-ring, “Well is my home by the forester’s hearth,

But Walter, my son, is the heir of a king.”

When the shadows fell on our quiet pool,

And the birds were asleep in the firs overhead, She returned alone, but her face was white,

And her step as the step of one waked from the dead.

Page 27

ROBIN HOOD.

IN a fair wood like this, where the beeches are growing,

Brave Robin Hood hunted in days of old; Down his broad shoulders his brown locks fell flowing,

His cap was of green, with a tassel of gold.

His eye was as blue as the sky in Midsummer,

Ruddy his cheek as the oak-leaves in June, Hearty his voice as he hailed the new-comer,

Tender to maidens in changeable tune.

His step had a strength, and his smile had a sweetness,

His spirit was wrought of the sun and the breeze,

Page 28

He moved as a man framed in nature’s completeness,

And grew unabashed with the growth of the trees.

And ever to poets, who walk in the gloaming,

His horn is still heard in the prime of the year; Last eve he went with us, unseen, in our roaming,

And thrilled with his presence the shy troops of deer.

When the warm sun sank down in a golden declining,

And night clomb the slopes and the firs to their tops, And the faint stars to meet her did brighten their shining,

And the heat was refined into diamond drops;

Then Robin stole forth in his quaint forest-fashion—

For dear to the heart of all poets is he— And in mystical whispers awakened the passion

Which slumbers within for a life that were free.

Page 29

We follow the lead unawares of his spirit,

He tells us the tales which we heard in past time; Ah! why should we forfeit this earth we inherit,

For lives which we cannot expand into rhyme!

I think, as I lie in the shade of the beeches,

How lived and how loved this old hero of song; I would we could follow the lesson he teaches,

And dwell, as he dwelt, these wild thickets among.

At least for a while, till we caught up the meaning

The beeches breathe out in the wealth of their growth, Width in their nobleness, love in their leaning,

And peace at the heart from the fulness of both.

Page 30

NEW YEAR’S WISHES.

CHRISTMAS is over, and Christmas cheer;— What shall we wish you, O reader dear? What do you want for your Happy New Year? People of every age and state Have somewhat they fain would ask of Fate; If you had but a slave of the lamp or the ring, And could rub him up instantly, what should he bring? Whatever it be, if we can but guess it, We’ll wish from our hearts that you each may possess it. We’ll wish for the Queen that her boys and her girls May be bright as diamonds and fair as pearls;

Page 31

That virtue and learning, hand in hand, May fill her counsels and rule her land, That the sky of her life be bright above her, And her days be long with the lieges that love her. We’ll wish that the Lords may pass good laws, And the Commons be strong in each righteous cause; That army and navy alike may be The best of defences by land and sea; That every bishop may rule in peace Over a flourishing diocese, And every pastor heartily strive To save the souls of his flock alive; That those who hunger in body or soul This year be fed with a Christian dole; That the little children be taught to read, And a harvest reaped from the sower’s seed. We’ll wish to the sickly the toughest of lives, To maidens, husbands—to bachelors, wives— That babes may increase in strength and grace,

Page 32

And bloom like flowers in their parents’ face; That the fool may grow wise ere he yet be old, And the purse that lacks find a store of gold, And the hand that has it a will to spend, And the heart that loveth not, grace to mend. We’ll wish for workers of each degree To earn and eat in prosperity; Plenty of coals at the poor man’s door, Plenty of grain on the farmer’s floor, Plenty of fees to the learned professions, Plenty of railways through landed possessions, Plenty of cargoes brought home on the breeze By the quickest of ships on the calmest of seas, Unpacked at the docks to the merchant’s content, And sold in the market at fifty per cent. And we wish, O dear reader, all jesting apart, That mercy and love may grow strong in your heart, That dearer than riches, or what they can buy, Be the creed which shall help you to live or to die.

Page 33

That whatever your portion of joy or of sorrow, Meted out in the year which is born with to-morrow, Its close shall behold you, with common accord, Gather’d into one fold, in the love of the Lord.

Dec. 31, 1859.

Page 34

UP THE RIVER.

TIS April! ‘Tis a holyday! and they shut close yester-even The golden gates of Sydenham with the clang of iron bars; The terraces lie shadowless beneath the smile of Heaven, And trodden but by chasing clouds, and the silent feet of stars. ‘Tis April! ‘Tis a holyday! and the halls of the Museum Have nothing noisier than the ghosts of Pharaohs on their floors; The mastodons and elephants feel very dull to see them,

Page 35

And stare with idle eyeballs at the unresponsive doors. But the river still is open, and its gentle tide comes flowing With a thousand tender whispers of the everlasting sea; And I know that in the woodlands all the early flowers are blowing, And breathing out sweet messages to Laurence and to me. The sun is mounting towards the noon, and up above the towers Of the Abbey and the Parliament the sky’s without a flaw. A most disloyal thing it were to disobey the flowers, So, Laurence, get your Sunday-hat, and clear your brains of law. I dearly love this London, this royal northern London,

Page 36

And am up in all its history, to Brutus and to Lud; But I wish that certain Puritan simplicities were undone, That the houses had more gable-ends, and the river less of mud. And often, as I wander in the fine new squares, I ponder The reason why men like to live in long white plastered rows, And sigh for our old streets, like those across the Channel yonder, At Bruges or at Antwerp, such as everybody knows. But our river still is beautiful, rejoicing in the quaintest Old corners for a painter (till the new quays are begun). See there the line of distant hills, and where the blue is faintest,

Page 37

The brown sails of the barges lie slanting in the sun. Here’s a steamer—now we’re in it—one is passing every minute; There’s the palace of St. Stephen, which they call “a dream in stone;” But I think, beyond all question, it was in an indigestion That the architect devised those scrolls whose language is unknown. Now we pass the Lollards’ Tower as we glide upon our journey, And think of Wicliffe’s ashes scattered wide across the sea; Pass the site of ancient Ranelagh, which (vide Fanny Burney) Brings up the tales we read at school to Laurence and to me. At last we get to Putney, and we rush across the river,

Page 38

The gentle rural river, flowing softly through the grass; And we walk more fast than ever, for our nerves are in a quiver, Till we mount the hill of Wimbledon, and see the shadows pass Athwart the budding chestnuts, and clear brown water lying, Fill’d with the click of insects, among the yellowing gorse; Here there is no human creature, and the only living feature Of all this glorious common is that idle old white horse; And he is very happy, cropping herbage fresh and sappy, And stretching out his tired legs through all the lonely day,— And the lark is up on high, singing madly in the sky,—

Page 39

Ah! I see a parasol from that cottage slowly stroll, And a little dog come barking with a little child at play,— And, Laurence, look in yonder hedge—is it—it is white May! Oh! I see the fields of Warwick, and the tower of old St. Mary’s— The grand grey tower which Wren designed—and the common melts away; I am on the lilied Avon, and among the Stratford fairies, I am on my own dear Avon, a happy child at play;— I remember—this is Middlesex—sweet vision, wilt not stay? Dear Laurence, jump across the stream and bring that branch of May. It is, indeed, a day of days, the sunlight grows more mellow, As the sun goes softly sloping down towards the woods of Combe;

Page 40

The sky is blue, the hills are blue, the budding gorse is yellow, And all the air is happy with a mixture of perfume. Oh, Laurence! when a judge, and wise in all the learned fudge Of that book I shut this morning, and on your way to riches, When, in ample wig and sleeve, your guineas you receive, They’ll not be half so golden as the primrose in these ditches. See, they drop about the ground, and sing without a sound, Thick clusters of anemones, and primrose-roots by dozens; Saucy blooms without a measure blow in wantonness of pleasure, And nobody to know it but two wandering London cousins;

Page 41

So they blow from day to day as if in weariless devotion, And gaze full-browed upon the sky through all their lonely hours; Ah! none but eyes of Londoners could brim with such emotion— We almost feel inclined to kneel and offer thanks for flowers! The gracious, golden primroses! the starry, white anemones! Fill up the basket right and left, we’ve beggars for the hoard. Let’s sing a refrain in this wood, “May Ruskin rule his enemies!” (I think that we are trespassing—but never mind the board!) There scampers off a rabbit! If you catch that cruel habit Of trenching on God’s glorious woods with a murder-loaded gun,

Page 42

I give you warning, Laurence, I shall hold you in abhorrence, And we two cousins from that day are surely one and one! I hate a sporting gentleman—now, don’t quote Isaak Walton; And, if you seek the woodlands, take a basket or a book; If you want to catch a linnet, try if salt has virtue in it, But leave dear bunny scatheless, and poor fish without a hook. For if you touch the dainty things with any evil meaning, And scatter blood and agony through these bright woodland bowers, Bethink you of a sleepless Eye from highest Heaven leaning— Don’t dare go down upon your knee and offer thanks for flowers.

Page 43

The sun is sinking in the west, let’s leave the wood behind us, Across the road, and up the steps, see here is Richmond Park; Let’s plunge amid the ferny glades, where only deer can find us— It wants an hour to sunset yet, and two before it’s dark. See! the fairy roofs of Sydenham! they are gleaming in the distance, The silver roofs of Sydenham in the far enchanted land; We’ll burst those gates some summer-morn, in spite of all resistance, And hear the organ pealing out the anthem as we planned; The palms shall wave their fan-like leaves, the eastern flowers shall tremble, And think it is the desert-wind in the volume of the sound;

Page 44

We’ll have a special service there when first the crowds assemble, And happy feet on Christ’s own day shall consecrate the ground. There, now we’re on the terrace; see, this regal Thames is winding Among its poplared islands with a slow majestic pace; We should see the towers of Windsor if the sun were not so blinding, It casts a glow on all the trees, and a glory on your face. Golden is the landscape, and the river, and the people, The cedar-stems are molten now the sun is going down,— Let’s keep the vision as it is; the clock in yonder steeple Reminds us it is getting late, and we’re miles away from town;

Page 45

I just see the towers of London, the far, faint towers of London; We’ll jump into the second class, beside that satin gown. See! we run beside the river, on its breast the last rays quiver; Oh, what an April holyday! and all for half-a-crown!

Page 46

FARMHOUSE GARDENS.

OH, dear to me the simple flowers

Which bloom in gardens such as these, Let jasmine shine in ladies’ bowers,

And myrtle fringe the southern seas;

Let gentians star primćval rocks,

And pierce the late-dissolving snow; But give me gilly-flowers and stocks,

And those sweet gardens where they grow.

I like grey walls with ivy hung,

And roofs where flickering shadows play, Old apple-trees, where birds have sung

While generations pass’d away.

Page 47

Thick hedges shaven fine and neat,

And wild ones where the woodbine creeps, All clumps of blossom smelling sweet,

All grassy banks where sunshine sleeps.

Tall firs, like sturdy sentinels,

Elms habited by cawing rooks, And lilies ringing various bells

To prayer and praise in shady nooks.

Let India boast her fan-leafed palm,

And Lebanon her cedar-trees, Give me a summer Sunday’s calm,

And garden fill’d with flowers like these;

And any song that I can sing

Will overflood my lips in rhyme; My heart, possess’d of every thing,

Forget the sense of space and time;

Page 48

All sorrow softly melt away,

Dissolving in a rainbow shower; And I, for one long happy day,

Dream that I am a sinless flower.

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CARISBROOKE CHIMES.

CARISBROOKE Church on the fifth of November

Flung out the silver hid deep in her chimes; This was her burden, “Be pleased to remember

The ill which they did in papistical times!”

Over the woods and the fields rich with tillage,

That fairest of islands embellishing still, People who walked in the streets of the village

Might hear the sweet echoes chime back from the hill.

I think, my old church, you are somewhat ungracious,

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And do not remember from whence you descended; Who planned you so skilfully, framed you so spacious,

And laid your stone walls with zeal pious and splendid!

What was the fount of that bountiful spirit

Which fashioned each porch to the innermost Throne? Who pierced the fair windows whose light we inherit,

And carved the quaint heads of your corbels of stone?

Do you forget how the people rejoicčd

When first you stood finished, the crown of the vale? What hymns of thanksgiving rose myriad-voicčd,

What rich scent of incense was borne on the gale?

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Or have you forgotten how red were the roses

Which wreathed the new altar now ancient and gray? Ah! many a witness around you reposes,

Whose dead lips, unsealed, would remember that day!

Pacing the churchyard by moonlight in summer,

Watching the rainbow when green leaves turn sere, I think to the heart of a thoughtful new-comer,

Each trace of the old Faith should surely be dear.

All she did here was both noble and tender—

God save her living core—peace to her dust; Inspired by her beauty, amazed by her splendour,

The poet at least can afford to be just.

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And I cannot endure to hear you assuring, At the top of your voice, (though a sweet one, ‘tis true!) The mother who rear’d you with love so enduring, That she and her children are nothing to you.

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ST. LAURENCE, UNDERCLIFF.

ST. LAURENCE is a church beside the sea,

Kissed by the southern wind perpetually. Those who may care to make and keep my grave,

There, if they love me, they shall bury me.

It is the tiniest church in all the land,

By some old Catholic devoutly planned; Over its belfry and its little porch

The ivy trickles down on either hand.

It is the season when green leaves turn sere;

To me the loveliest time in all the year; And he who lingers by the churchyard-wall,

He will not wonder why it seems so dear.

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What is this place like on an autumn-day?—

One whom I love well, who is far away, A soul with which each tint would softly blend,

From flame-tipped russet to the tenderest grey.

If ever I from that belovčd heart,

By evil Fate—such is—were doomed to part, I should not struggle with this bitter world; *

Take me, St. Laurence, hide me where thou art!

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THE WIND AMID THE TREES.

THE skies were dark and bright,

Like the eyes that I love best, When I looked into the night

From a window at the west.

And the night was still and clear,

Save for whispered litanies, Breaking faintly on the ear

From the wind amid the trees!

In silence soft and deep,

On their stalklets every one, Hung the little flowers asleep;

The birds to roost had gone.

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Not the fluttering of a feather,

Or the faintest chirp from these, As they nestled close together,

Though the wind was in the trees!

Too faint to wake the sleeper,

Too soft to stir the flowers, Just as voiceless prayers are deeper,

It murmured on for hours.

And I whispered, low and near,

“When I’m gone beyond the seas, Think how I held it dear,

That wind amid the trees!”

And now this grey November,

Though your groves are thin and bare, I know that you’ll remember,

When you hear it murmuring there.

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Dear island hearts that listen,

There’s a message in the breeze, And the voice of one who loves you

In the wind amid the trees!

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A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.

(OBERON loquitur.)

ALAS! they have stolen my Fairy Princess, And where they have hidden her I cannot guess. But my life is so lonely without her, I ride Up by the mountain and down by the tide; I’ve asked of her Father, I’ve asked of her Mother, But they cannot tell, or they will not discover, And Men, when I question them, laugh me to scorn, And no one has seen her since yesterday morn! I went to the wood, and I asked of the Leaves; But they have a whispering way that deceives; And the Oak and the Elm, when they will, can entwine,

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The thickest of screens with the Ivy and Vine. I went to the Wind, who replied with a scoff, He had met her, ‘twas true; but a longish way off! And then the wild fellow swept over the hill, And all in the wake of his bluster was still. I went to the Water, who promised a vision, Then suddenly rippled in bursts of derision, And asked if I thought he was likely to know Who had look’d in his mirror an hour ago! (But ah! if one moment she smiled in my eyes, Within them for ever the memory lies!) I went to the Flowers; but the secrets she knows Are tightly curled up in the heart of the Rose, And nothing that lovers can swear or forget Is ever betrayed by the dear Mignonette. The pale Water-lily lies open and bare, So openly calm that no story is there; The Hawthorn is busy in painting her bloom, And shakes her frail head with a burst of perfume;

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Not one of the Flowers, alas! will confess Whatever they know of my Fairy Princess.

O wonderful Nature! I know you have hidden This delicate darling away from my sight, I dread that you will not restore her unbidden By spells which my tongue cannot conjure aright! What is it you want? A fond heart? It is hers. A life? All that duty allows is her own. By the passionate longing which suddenly stirs The depths of my heart—do not leave me alone! My past? it is thrilled by the sound of her voice— My future? is what she will give me—no more— My present? alas, it can only rejoice In the sight of a face which you will not restore! Ah! moved by my pleading, the merciful mother Has spared me the longing that fearfully kills; And shown me in dreaming, my love, and no other, Where she lies fast asleep—in the heart of the hills!

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AT FIRST.

IS there anything— Nightingales that sing— Violets in the spring—

As at first?

Sun and moon arise, But our accustomed eyes Have grown more coldly wise

Than at first!

All the woods are green, And yet I think the scene Is not as it hath been—

At the first!

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Where sight or thought can range, Something just a little strange, Ah! so little! yet a change

From the first!

My Friends! all you that hear! Let me whisper in your ear, Do you love all you held dear

At the first?

Have you come to hold as nought What you blindly, fondly thought By God’s special blessing brought

At the first?

Just as, being dead of pain, It were awfully in vain To bid love, even, live again

As at first!

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Nay; even could we choose, Would we seek the hopes we lose— Or the cheating show refuse

From the first?

Ah! my heart! it may not be;— Yet I often dream I see All the treasures dear to me

Safely nursed,

(All so bitterly deplored,)— With their early light restored, In the keeping of the Lord

—As at first!

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A DROPPED TRINKET.

AT Reigate, underneath the trees, The autumn ferns were crisped with brown; And, fluttering on a fitful breeze, The autumn-leaves came softly down. As underneath a tree we stopped, An ornament of gold I dropped,— Searched for in vain by wistful eyes; For there until this hour it lies Beneath some curving fern. Winter will bury it with leaves, And if some future spring upheaves A golden blossom on the sprout, A fallen acorn then puts out

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My little gem, obscured so long, May wake a wandering poet’s song, Who, heedless of his steps, may pass, And there, amidst the tangled grass, Its shining may discern.

Just so some little word may fall From some one lip, forgot by all; Buried beneath a thousand days, While every season overlays Its freshness more and more. At length some thought, profound and slow, Within the public heart shall grow, Such life and force from many a pen, And shape its inner life for men, Who add it to their store. And when its breathing depths are stirred, Lo! in its bosom—lies the word!

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IN AN ALBUM.

A SMILE and a tear were disputing one day

On their different merits and skill; It grieves me to state that in furious debate

These friends should behave themselves ill.

But Reason stepped in with her magical wand,

And bade both the disputants cease, Severely did chide for their folly and pride,

And sternly insisted on peace.

“Ye are equal,” she said, “then why wrangle so loud?

Ye are equal in charms and in powers;

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For the sun might decline on the rosebeds to shine,

If the rain did not water the flowers.

“And, if one seems to triumph, the other may rest

Undisturbed by the ghost of a fear; For the heart which a smile can most surely beguile,

Is ever most touched by a tear.”

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THE OLD CHATEAU.

THROUGH these closecut alleys

Paced Gabrielle; At her side, in royal pride,

Henri bon et bel. Ah! my love across the sea,

Dost thou love me as well?

On such an Autumn night,

Long years ago, Fell the shadows on the meadows

Of this old chateau; All along the gabled roof

The moonlight lay like snow.

Trembling with a world

Of hope and fears,

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She would wait by this old gate

Watching through her tears, While he rode from Paris streets,

Unguarded by his peers.

He, as he came riding on,

Knew full well Where she stood outside this wood;

Many a song doth tell How she loved this knightly king,

La charmante Gabrielle!

Clash and clang of swords

Soon dies away, Shrined apart in a people’s heart

Love lives alway; France will not forget this name,

Gabriele d’Estrées!

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ROBERT BURNS.

WRITTEN FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH, JANUARY 25, 1859.

A HUNDRED years ago, when George was King, The second monarch of his race and name, The man was born whom we are met to sing Because he won by verse a world-wide fame. The gentle pasture-country, whence he came, To-day is vocal with his vigorous song; Our rudest western isles repeat the same,— And English voices will the strain prolong Where’er are heard the accents of the English tongue.

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To inarticulate yearnings of the heart He gave a voice which millions learnt to use; And those who lisped the music of his art Must not forego this day the grateful dues His country owes unto that manly muse. All household love, all patriotic fire, He sang in noble words none can refuse To adopt into their speech, a fond desire, Nursed early in his heart and quivering in his lyre.

Born of a peasant, as a peasant bred, He drank the simplest milk from Nature’s breast; Him as a weančd child the old dame fed With other lore she wots of, unconfessed; Of fairies, brownies, kelpies, and the rest; Her children, and not less than we her own; Whom I, indeed, do think she loves the best, As being beyond our pale cast out alone; All these to little Robert early she made known.

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And in imagination he abode Much with these beings of the middle air; Often the witch’s broom-stick he bestrode, Or to their feasts with warlocks did repair; To meet with ghosts he did not quite despair,— But inly cherished this unearthly lore, Which for a poet is beyond compare. So the boy brooded o’er his hidden store, And wrapped himself in eerie visions more and more.

Yet none the less, as being a son of toil, To hardest daily labour was he bound; His lot it was to till a thankless soil, And wrestle bread from the unwilling ground, Weaving young verses to the ploughshare’s sound. Scant fare and scanty clothing had the child, Who one day should be great and famous found; But songful spirits early on him smiled, And with their spells a poor and struggling youth beguiled.

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While yet his summers were but scarce fifteen, Love found him standing midst the shocks of corn; Nor thence unto his latest hour I ween Did the dear goddess leave him quite forlorn; And do not thou, O Christian, think it scorn, If I believe that with transfigured feet She waited on the slopes beyond the dawn, And being herself redeemed, those two did meet And walk the heavenly hills in raiment fair and sweet.

For the youth’s heart, though often led astray, Had yet high instincts for the true and pure, And gradually cast out its gods of clay, And shunned the unclean form of each allure. The names of husband and of sire assure Sweet natural safeguards against evil thought; But much, alas, this poet must endure, Ere from the ways of sin he can be brought, And find the household rest his better nature sought.

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Amidst the revel of ungodly men Too often that melodious voice was heard; The fire-tipped satire of that matchless pen Too oft a lower loyalty preferred, When better conscience in his bosom stirred. His clear descent from all the bards of eld, The great commission which his soul revered, Often as these high thoughts within him swelled,— Alas, how lightly yet were his Insignia held!

Then great men flattered him, and wise men saw Amazed the ploughman in their middle stand, With lips uncultured treat of social law, And bear him with the noblest of the land; He who must win his bread by toil of hand! Old Edinburgh flung wide her haughtiest doors, And crowned him whom she could not understand; And Burns found welcome on those thronging floors, While Beauty lavished smiles, and Wit his richest stores.

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And yet they held not out a helping hand, But left him, ruthless, to the flail and plough. The modest independence he had planned, How shall he win that simple guerdon now! Must poverty’s cold hand depress him low? How many bitter thoughts and carking cares Must weigh on that imperial brain and brow! Alone the burden of his days he bears, And when he thinks on Jean, the husband’s heart despairs.

At length the humble post he needs he gains; His wife and children, exiled from his arms, Are once more his, a balm for all his pains; And Home and Poesie have surely charms, Far from great cities and their spiritual harms. Alas! alas! ‘tis but a few short years Ere cruel fate each envious tongue disarms;

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And he whom each low heart in secret fears, Lies dead in manhood’s prime, ‘mid Scotland’s useless tears.

What is the moral of this simple tale? Nations! who know your great men ere they die,— At least let your unwonted love avail, That they in obscure poorness shall not lie; But, as you deem them great, exalt them high! And ye, O poets, when you read the same, Seek not the gauds of human dignity; Your food and raiment, and the poet’s name,— These should be all you need! not this world’s wealth or fame!

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PEACE.

THE steadfast coursing of the stars,

The waves that ripple to the shore, The vigorous trees which year by year

Spread upwards more and more;

The jewel forming in the mine,

The snow that falls so soft and light, The rising and the setting sun,

The growing glooms of night;

All natural things both live and move

In natural peace that is their own; Only in our disordered life

Almost is she unknown.

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She is not rest, nor sleep, nor death;

Order and motion ever stand To carry out her firm behests

As guards at her right hand.

And something of her living force

Fashions the lips when Christians say To Him Whose strength sustains the world,

“Give us Thy Peace, we pray!”

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PRAYER.

WE pray for earth and earthly things,

Surely such prayer is nought, A bended knee, a lifted voice

Unmixed with holy thought. To pray for grandeur, power, or gain— Surely such praying is in vain.

We pray for life when death is nigh,

It is an earnest prayer; But often when ‘tis on the lip

Submission wanteth there. We say, “Thy Will,” but know too well How does the frail fond heart rebel!

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When human creatures pray for light,

The prayer is very good, It surely dawns—and if for grace,

It welleth as a flood; Yet selfish yearnings half control The purest and the noblest soul.

Prayer owns one test which they alone

Can utter with unshrinking voice, Who, rendering up each earthly joy,

Can yet find reason to rejoice; That of the Godhead’s sorrowing Son— “Father, Thy will, not Mine, be done.”

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MAGIC RINGS.

WE read in our childhood of rings which were wrought

By magical fires in the heart of the hills; Which could whirl one through space with the quickness of thought,

And heal with a touch the most deadly of ills! But the one which I coveted more than the rest,

Was always described as a beautiful blue, Which changed in a moment if used as a test,

And called to distinguish the false from the true.

If I had but this ring on my finger to-day,

And could ask it each question that burns on my tongue,

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Dare I listen unshrinking to all it could say,

Dare I use it like those which are fabled in song! And if it turned green when applied to the root

Of a hope which I held, or a heart which I cherished, Could I turn in my path, shake the dust from my foot,

And fling them aside like a rose that has perished?

Oh! frail as we are, all our life is a chain

Of links which half-hidden yet strengthen the rest, No poor little dream is created in vain,

If we saw what was true, should we do what was best? And if we could conjure the shadows that lurk

In the corners of life into being and form, Would they leave us the calmness that fits us for work,

Or rob us of courage to weather the storm?

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Ah, friend of my heart! if a fairy in play

Should give you a ring which would whisper of me, I pray you to cast the temptation away;—

Since you trust in my love, let it be! let it be! Restore it, sweet heart, to the hand whence it came,

Although it may be the most beautiful blue, And cease not to trust me and love me the same,

Nor peril the test—if we knew! if we knew!

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THE MERSEY AND THE IRWELL.

Suggested by a very curious and interesting model of the little town of Liverpool, as it existed in the earlier part of the last century.

A CENTURY since, the Mersey flowed

Unburdened to the sea; In the blue air no smoky cloud

Hung over wood and lea, Where the old church with the fretted tower

Had a hamlet round its knee.

And all along the eastern way

The sheep fed on the track; The grass grew quietly all the day,

Only the rooks were black; And the pedlar frightened the lambs at play

With his knapsack on his back.

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Where blended Irk and Irwell streamed

While Britons pitched the tent, Where legionary helmets gleamed,

And Norman bows were bent, An ancient shrine was once esteemed

Where pilgrims daily went.

A century since, the pedlar still

Somewhat of this might know, Might see the weekly markets fill

And the people ebb and flow Beneath St. Mary’s on the hill

A hundred years ago.

Since then a vast and filmy veil

Is o’er the landscape drawn, Through which the sunset hues look pale,

And grey the roseate dawn; And the fair face of hill and dale

Is apt to seem forlorn.

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Smoke, rising from a thousand fires,

Hides all that past from view; Vainly the prophet’s heart aspires,

It hides the future too; And the England of our slow-paced sires

Is thought upon by few.

Yet man lives not by bread alone—

How shall he live by gold? The answer comes in a sudden moan

Of sickness, hunger, and cold; And lo! the seed of a new life sown

In the ruins of the old!

The human heart, which seemed so dead,

Wakes with a sudden start; To right and left we hear it said,

“Nay; ‘tis a noble heart,” And the angels whisper overhead,

“There’s a new shrine in the mart!”

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And though it be long since daisies grew

Where Irk and Irwell flow, If human love springs up anew,

And angels come and go, What matters it that the skies were blue

A hundred years ago?

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THE WORLD OF ART.

INSCRIBED TO A.M.H. AND ALL TRUE ARTISTS.

THOU that wouldst enter here, Hold thy breath inward with an holy fear; Put off thy shoes, thou in this place wilt see The outward symbol of Divinity; And so much of the mystery of things As man may fathom with the light he brings: A faint and flickering light, which can but show The dim uncertain form of all we know; Yet ever and anon shall fire from God Flash on the Artists as they humbly plod, Revealing more than knowledge; they must write With firm recording hand the momentary sight.

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Thou that wouldst enter here, Fashion thy being with an aim austere; Leave thou thy bitterness of heart behind— Leave thou the wretched questions of the mind— Take of grief, only such as, inly worn, Hath grown incorporate, a blossomed thorn— Take of love, only such as, nursed in prayer, Serves to thy spirit as an altar stair— All base ambitions see that thou forsake— All the bright armour of a Christian take— Turn thy face forward ever, cast thy lot With saints and martyrs, and repent it not!

Thou must be open to all influence, Whether of brain, or heart, or soul, or sense; Thou must have nerves more subtle than the strings Of that mysterious harp which sobs and sings Under the elements, yet hold the sway,— Summon and master dreams which shall not pass away.

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Be humble in interpreting the light, Like some clear window undiscerned by sight, Save in its boundary arch, too sadly small For that clear glory which might lighten all. Yet confident as one who holds a torch, And conquers darkness in a midnight church For some small space around; be faithful, true, As one who, standing under heaven’s blue, Sees truly all things visible—far skies, And the fair flowery earth that near him lies— And gives them truly back, nor fails to know More noble those above than this below.

O Artist! Sculptor! Poet! go thy way With far more trembling care than others may! Thou art anointed to as high a place, Wilt thou but know it, as a man may grace. Great is the lot assigned thee, great the task As even the most heroic soul dare ask:

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Great be thy heart to meet it; it demands A watchful spirit and untiring hands. Not thine alone the burden and the care,— Not thine alone the duty and the prayer,— All earth prays with thee that thy hands be pure, Thy work untainted and its teaching sure.

He who profanely touches things divine, Carving base cups for sacramental wine; Spoiling each sacred, sweet, and tender thought, Bringing all natural gifts to worse than nought, Wringing the heart of matter forth to show What coarse and sensual meanings lurk below; Or rather trailing his own evil mood Over the innocent beauty God called good; Placing on all he fingers such a mark As proves his inner soul defiled and dark; Sings the sad song our fallen hearts rehearse, And spends his blessing to record the curse.

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That he was born, is sorrow! Like a blight Is Art’s false priest, he darkens all our light, He poisons what were else our healing springs, And casts a slur on all most holy things.

Oh, far from all who labour and who pray, Be such an awful vision swept away! Better to perish as the poor field flower, Which lives its beautiful unconscious hour; Better to be that grass whose rock-sown blades Utterly wither ere full summer fades; Better to live unknown and die unwept, In darkest, humblest shades of nature kept; Better to know no hope, no power, no love, No grace of earth below, nor heaven above, Better the darkest doom can fall on us, Better to have no life than use it thus! But to the watchful eyes and praying hearts Of those who nobly sought and used the Arts,

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Whose very names all noble things suggest, What shall Earth give them? Lo! they stand confessed The intellectual kings of Man. Oh! more, Ten thousand times more bright the crowns they wore Than any kings of Men; ‘twas theirs to be Prophets and poets of the mystery; They bore the brightness and the diadem Which He who call’d them servants gave to them. Calm are the nights, and happy are the days, Of those who sing His love or paint His praise; For them this glorious world reveals her sign, The mystic warrant of her birth divine, Unseen of duller eyes; for them are born Fresh forms of beauty every eve and morn; For them is nature but a shadowy veil Of that white Throne before which suns are pale, And the light blackness: clearly they discern, And nobly render all the truths they learn,

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Being with truth infused; happy is he Who cannot measure what he strives to be!

O world of Art! O Shrine Wherein we treasure all we hold divine,

How art thou blest! Whoso is weary in this world of care, Finds in thy presence a perpetual prayer

And patient rest; Finds a reminder of those things which bide When we and all our phantasms drop aside Into the gulf of death, a hope sublime, A realm unfading set apart from time. Did the great heart of Faith itself decay,— Were Cross and Church and Altar swept away,— Thou from thy treasury couldst that faith restore, And light the Lamp of Sacrifice once more!

O thou fair world of Art!

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From whence my soul would never fain depart, But dwell up there and be Numbered among that goodly company, No tint of whose bright freshness can decay, Nor any silver utterance die away! There lives whatever in past time befel, There all that Sagas or that Epics tell, All the great deeds that thrill a nation’s heart Live, bright and deathless, in the world of Art! All beauty ever dreamt, all faith, all hope, Hath there a glorious scope; All of heroic, exquisite, or splendid— There Raffaelle walks a king with all his peers attended; There the grand Sibyls sit, in whose dark eyes Creation’s unredeemčd promise lies, And thunderous prophets of gigantic mould Wail us degenerate from the days of old. There the fair woman of Venetian prime

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Glows as when first she unveiled her face to Time, And bade him spare that beauty from the tomb;— He gave her Titian, and reversed the doom! Our heavenly types, who move in sacred story, Cast on the threshold a diviner glory, And from one central figure, as a sun, Streams of the heavenly radiance earthward run; Cradled on lilies as a Child He lies, And sleeps amidst a chorus of the skies, Or waxes fair beside a Virgin’s knee, And walks in thoughtful prime by Galilee.

Many are there we know, Who visit us in dreams we love them so— The gracious poet and the stern-eyed saint, And martyrs whom no flame could cause to faint, Maidens and youths whom love did bind in one, (That golden thread which doth through ages run,)

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Pale matrons mourning in their widow weeds, And babes whose promise gave a pledge for deeds.

Ah! thou fair world of Art, From whence my soul would never fain depart, Thy skies are ever grand! They cast the shadow of immortal gloom, Or glow and throb with supernatural bloom, And open infinite vistas to the enchanted land. Thy broad transparent river rolls along, And every ripple breaks into a song; On the green banks, where happy lovers go, The golden apples grow, And the fair fabulous birds of ancient tale Warble their magic music without fail; While winds that tremble round thy peaks of fire, Bring down rich echoes of the angelic choir.

Ah, thou fair world of Art!

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Happy are they who dwell in thee apart, Who, being dead, yet live,—and cannot die,— In blessed and blessing immortality; Happy all bred in thine ethereal air, And all deemed worthy of translation there! Happy the meanest servitor who waits Humbly expectant of thine awful gates. Thou! nobler conquest than a world-wide throne, Who dost with more than royal sway enrich thine own!

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VOLUNTARIES.

BEHOLD, O Lord! these unhewn stones

Piled rudely for thy mighty towers, And I, condemned to work alone,

Possessor of few fleeting hours; Not on the carven cornices

Shall ever mark of mine belong, But I might place the lowest range—

Then for my labour make me strong!

I shall not live when this dear race

Shall widen to its nobler scope; Nor dare I say I know my soul

Will see fulfilment of its hope;

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But if I fail this faith to win,

Nor think the crown reserved for me, If these few days be all Thou giv’st,

Help them to pass in serving Thee!

I know not of myself, my soul

Is stranger to me than the smile On some beloved face; no lights

In future days these days beguile; I only know I live to learn,

To love, to struggle, to endure— When all my sight is swathed in mist,

Thou and my work alone are sure!

But art not Thou enough! unseen,

Unproved, unknown, but ever near; The days are interfused with Thee,

And every day in Thee is dear!

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Lord of my life! I dare to live

Where thousands of thy children be, Living to live by Thy dear power,

And if I sleep to sleep in Thee!

1851.

Like berries on some inner bough,

Which swell, grow red, and straight decay, Finding for beauty no employ,

Till all their fitness fades away; Yet join some elemental force

And fatten soil for other trees— How often seem our human lives

Useless, or useful but as these.

Whether, of earthly children, sires,

Men toil and store—or whether, crossed In that most ardent of desires,

The current of their lives seem lost,

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Whether the task be duly done,

Or the strong word unnoticed fall, God counts His workmen one by one,

And surely, too, He uses all.

No life is lost, no hope is vain,

No prayer without a sequent deed, He turns all seeming loss to gain,

And finds a soil for every seed. Some fleeting glance He doth endow,

He sanctifies some casual word, Unconscious gifts His children show,

For all is potent with the Lord.

We only see the outer thing,

The secret heart of force ignore, Lo! from some harsh ungenial Spring

Full Summer blossoms forth the more!

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Deep lie the channels of God’s grace,

Deep lies the mystery of use, He setteth in the chiefest place

That stone the builders all refuse.

The links of time are counted up,

And all were nought if one were broken; He knows the drops in every cup,

No word remains as if unspoken; We do not guess what we achieve,

Dim is the ending of our course, Our faintest impulse may receive

The aid of supernatural force.

Half blind amidst the stir of things,

But safe in following out the law, We know not what a moment brings,

Nor which way blows the burning straw.

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When earth’s great heart hath ceased to beat,

And all is finished as foreshown, Marshalled before the Judgment Seat,

Then shall we know as we are known.

1853.

Lord! If on earth Thou hast a Church,

And dost with fulness dwell therein, Let me not wander past the porch,

And dwell forlorn in outer sin. But whether it be straitly built,

Or, wide as all the world, embrace Each soul that hates Thy hated guilt,

And watches for Thy quickening grace;—

Wherever Thine appointed fold

Doth like the gates of Morning stand, And, flinging back its bars of gold,

Show glimpses of the heavenly land—

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Oh! thither guide my wandering feet,

And grant me sight, and keep me strong, That, wrapt in Thy communion sweet,

I fail not from Thy saints among.

So, stable in my inner mind,

With peace at heart whate’er befall, May I abide amidst my kind;

Accepting, trusting, using all Which Thou dost in Thy love decree,

And by Thy will before me cast; Til the true life bestowed by Thee

Shall be by Thee resumed at last.

1855.

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THE CLOUD-FACE.

PAINTED on a little cloud,

Opposite the sunset sky, Far above the high-piled crowd,

Sailing slowly softly by,— I saw a face, its tender rose

Framed in braids of golden hair; A beauty underived of earth,

Was pictured and suggested there.

Oh, beautiful beyond my thought!

Oh, beautiful beyond my dream! Half fading in the tremulous nought,

Half merging in the golden gleam;

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Spiritual as the blue, blue sky,

And rich as any western ray, Most like some woman of the past,

Whose memory knoweth no decay;

Yet humanly expressioned, full

Of all that Nature teacheth, power, And grace, and love, and tender joy,

Unconscious as of any flower. Was it some heavenly minister?

Or memory of mine own, more fair! The golden braids were lost in stars,

The cloud-face melted into air!

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THE FIRST PRIMROSE.

LITTLE yellow darling,

Delicate and pale, Can thy gentle loveliness

Brook such a wintry gale, That nestled by this rushing stream, Thou sleepest like a lost sunbeam!

Little yellow darling,

At the breath of your perfume, I sit within that quiet nook

Where many sisters bloom; And all believing, (who does not!) Pore on the lays of Walter Scott.

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Such old romantic fancies

Your perfume brings to me, Half of the proud baronial times,

And half of woodland free. A blended vision strangely wrought Of where I was and what I thought.

The thick green boughs above me wave,

The falling foam-drops leap, And lazily unto the bank

The happy cattle creep. Where thou, the first of Spring’s fair daughters, Art wet with spray of dancing waters.

How many a joyous noontide walk,

And evening frolic wild, Of which thou wert the treasure-trove

While I was yet a child, Is with thy tender beauty blent, And wafted on thy pale pure scent!

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No clouded thought of darker hours

My dreaming spirit grieves;— (Which for us all clings round some flowers

And lurks within their leaves,) Or meets me, greeting thee again To cause a gladness dashed with pain.

But days as innocent as thou,

As peacefully employed, Which left no shadow on my brow,

I there with thee enjoyed; And year by year thy smiles once more Something of that bright dawn restore.

Sleep quietly, fair bud of hope,

To wake thee were a crime, Unfold in all thy simple scope

For all the appointed time— Some other eye than mine may bless The teaching in thy loveliness.

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AUTUMN VIOLETS.

TIMID strangers, I can fancy

How amidst the hedge ye grew, While the gusty winds of Autumn

Coloured leaves upon ye blew, And the robin-redbreasts gaily

O’er your fragrant precincts flew.

I can see your mossy dwelling,

Where, beneath my native skies, Hang the sprays of scarlet berries

Gorgeous with autumnal dyes, While above and all around you

Hover rainbow-tinted flies.

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I can see the little children

With blue eyes and locks of gold, Hunting for you through the meadows,

Though the fitful breeze blow cold, Shouting in their baby gladness

When they find thy buds unfold.

And I see the running streamlet,

Where in Spring the daisies bloom, Ye are here, but they are absent,

Frightened at the coming gloom; Ye are like the blossoms planted

Tenderly about a tomb.

And, just so, recall the moments

When, beneath the minster clang, We, ere yet we knew a sorrow,

With the robin-redbreast sang, And the sound of childish laughter

Through the peaceful meadows rang.

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Other flowers perhaps are brighter,

Other scents as sweet may be, None recall a happier pastime,

Or a scene more fair to see; Therefore have I joined your beauty

With this simple melody.

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THE LITTLE BIRD.

A LITTLE bird sat on a greenwood tree, And out of a holy book read he,

His native notes adorning; ‘Twas thus he warbled till close of light, “Sorrow endureth but for the night,

Joy cometh in the morning.”

A little bird sat on a greenwood tree, And out of a holy book read he,

“O ye of little faith, Ceaselessly thus to tremble when Not even the sparrows, much less men,

Unheeded fall in death!”

A little bird sat on a greenwood tree, And out of a holy book read he,

Look not to the morrow;

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Each day fit strength for its burden brings, And they who have treasure in heavenly things

A heavenly strength can borrow!”

A little bird sat on a greenwood tree, And out of a holy book read he,

“No heighth nor any depth, Nor power, nor principality Can come between that Heart and thee,

Which watched while others slept!”

Little bird on the greenwood tree, Read till the volume ended be,

Words of holy measure; When the earth is peopled by righteous men, And the sheep are folded within the pen By Christ the Shepherd, and not till then

Warble for thy pleasure.

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SYMBOLS.

IT is not the rose, though the rose is red,

And as full of love as a flower can be, And the lily she bows her stately head

With a certain grace, but is not like thee! And the purple pansy opens wide

Her clear bright eye for whoever may see, So her velvety bloom and her jewelled pride,

They have not the look which is dear to me!

The jessamine, she is too pale and too slender,

The violet dear is too timid by far; The summer-born sweet-pea, though clinging and tender,

Is no more like thee than the earth to a star

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Of whom poets aver that the distance would lend her

That beautiful radiance we worship afar;— But I seek for a flower whose immaculate splendour

Is changelessly true as the flame-spirits are.

The little blue flower which true lovers adore,

Which blooms by the banks of the murmuring stream, Might daintily pave thy luxurious floor,

But it is not the flower which I saw in my dream. Each depth of the wild wood is blossoming o’er

With delicate riches, yet ever they seem Too fairily vagrant in nurture, the more

As I seek for a courtly repose in my theme.

This is the time when the year’s in its prime,

And the rich honeysuckle is blent with the clover, When Nature yearns for the poet’s rhyme,

And the sweetbrier breaks into kisses all over;

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When young fawns leap to the tender chime

Of their mother’s bells, and quick eyes discover How the rabbits run and the squirrels climb,

And we look at the earth with a smile of a lover.

But wait for a while till the summer is past,

And woods have a rumour that prophesies death— A sombre foreshadowing borne on the blast,

Which comes in a moment and dies at a breath;— A something, a nothing, which touches the leaves,

And haunts the hot meadows at noon like a wraith, And crisps the broad cornfields just bare of their sheaves—

And I’ll show you my blossom and say what it saith.

The flower that I love is both solemn and rare,

The deep-hearted purple it wears in disdain; When other gay blossoms are flaunting and fair,

It spreads out its petals like triumphing pain.

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Its white is for pureness, its green is for hope,

All golden its fruit in the soft chilly air;— The dream it suggests is of infinite scope,

For the Cross and the Passion are symbolised there!

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FATE.

FATE brooded darkly o’er the ancient world,

Athens and Rome beneath her shadow dwelt; The snaky terror of her eye lay curled

In every joy the trembling peoples felt.

What though the skies were blue, and all their light

Fell full upon the many-coloured crowd; When the wrapt audience heard with vague affright

Flying Orestes wail his doom aloud?

Vainly for them the Alban hills were green,

Or groves of Academe besprent with flowers, If the dread Deity, with shears unseen,

Might cut the quivering thread of mortal hours.

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Her throne was mystery—and men fled the place,

But now, behold transfigured what they saw! Sublimely changed for us that awful Face

Which Faith has recognised and christened Law.

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UNSPOKEN.

WHEN sitting softly, hand in hand,

Twilight unbars the gates of speech, And whispered words sink deeplier down

Than daylight utterances can reach;—

A something yet remains to say,

Unspoken by the trembling tongue— Thoughts which like summer lightning play,

Or music wandering after song.

Then kneeling, nestling, silently

I clasp you, darling, in my arms, Dream of the face I cannot see,

And feel a thousand vague alarms,

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Born equally in heart and brain,

Surge up, and fill my eyes with tears; I count that heart not over-wise

Which cannot nurse a thousand fears.

“Children are fed on milk and praise,”

And love by love’s communion lives, By happy hours of happy days,

By what it takes and what it gives.

It does not grow by spoken word,

Nor it can spoken word express, And vows which may its strength record,

Can neither make it more nor less.

But through a look, and in a tone,

And when my darling smiles on me, I see the luminous shadow thrown,

Which curtains this great mystery.

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A mystery which we shall not know

Till earth and stars have passed away; And spiritual fires, which faintly glow,

Shall brighten into perfect day.

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TO-MORROW.

AS a ripple on the water,

As the wind across the grass, As the shadows of a vapour,

As the breath upon a glass,

As starlight in the morning,

As cloudlets in the day, Or visions in the sunset,

We are—and pass away.

We waken throbbing music,

But cannot bid it linger; It fades away like fairy harp

When touched by fairy finger.

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And the very words we utter

Sink to silence one by one, Not the same, although repeated,

And never more undone.

Link by link the generations

Live, and love, and smile, and weep, They awaken from oblivion,

And vanish—into sleep.

What they build, how swiftly crumbled!

What they swear, forsworn how soon! And the children of the morning

Are the grown men of the noon.

But the grown men of the noon,

Where at evening will they be?— To-morrow they will only claim

A grave;—and a memory?

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KING ARTHUR.

WHEN good King Arthur ruled this land,

He dwelt at Caerleon-upon-Usk; He held it with an armed right hand,

And drank red wine from dawn till dusk.

How stalwart were the warriors then,

In our time no such maidens are; King Arthur was the first of men,

The fairest dame Queen Guenevar.

When Merlin waved his silver wand,

None dared dispute its awful spells; On summer-nights the moonlit strand

Was musical with fairy bells.

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And all the knights in Arthur’s Court

Made glorious that enchanted spot; And who was first in every sport—

Ah, who was loved but Launcelot!

How bright the armour which they wore

When setting out at morning-tide,— The silken banners which they bore,

By gentle hands were wrought and dyed.

And who shall rise, and who shall fall,

When they the robber-bands assail; And whose pure hands shall duty call

To seek and find the holy Grail!

Fair company of noble knights

That ride in that mysterious land, And celebrate your mystic rites

With stainless sword in stainless hand!

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Ah, where is Caerleon-upon-Usk!

Though somewhere in the south of Wales,— The wanderer there, at gathering dusk,

When dreaming o’er these ancient tales,—

Will hardly see such lovely dames,

Will hardly meet such noble men, Till bards and prophets prove their claims,

And good King Arthur—comes again!

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FIRELIGHT.

‘TIS dark, and I fancy

A ring at the bell,— My heart leapeth up

With a throb and a swell; Is it a footstep

Away in the street,— Or only the sound

Of my own heart’s beat?

Silence is living

And breathes in my ear; Twilight is long

In this Spring of the year:

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Still she is lingering,

Tender and wan;— Deeper—and deeper!

Now she is gone!

Brooding alone

With my head on my hand; Watching the fall

Of the fast-flowing sand, The sand which falls ever

When others drop tears, To measure the fall

Of my fast-flowing years;—

Brooding alone

With my eyes on the fire, The tick of the clock

Rises higher and higher;

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Nervously catching

The beat of my breast, And changing its note

Like a creature possessed.

Articulate meanings

It struggles to speak, Ere one can catch them

They shiver and break;— My books on the shelf,

And my prints on the wall, A fantastical goblin

Makes sport of them all!

My shadow is dancing,

The thing that is I Comes nearer, grows larger

In wavering by:

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I think it will utter

My thought or my name, Seizing something of life

In this flickering flame!

I seem to be wrapped

In the shadow of Death; To tremble and faint

At the ice of its breath; I know not whence comes it,

What name it deserves, Of God or the Devil,

Or only the nerves!

But if he would come

It would vanish away, He would call back my soul

With the warm voice of day;

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The fear and the terror,

They could not abide; I know he is true

When he sits by my side.

He will bring the new book,

He will bring the new thought, He will leave me the richer

For all he has brought; He will fill my heart fuller,

And widen its scope, And leave me for comfort

Both memory and hope.

The dread is recoiling,

There’s health in the air, The clock strikes the hour,

I awake!—I am—where?—

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In the land of the Living,

Where happy hearts be, And, oh! ‘tis my love

Who is coming to me!

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ABSENCE.

I AM not lonely, O my Love,

Save in so far I have not thee, Without whose smile the changeful days

Are all alike to me.

Yet while the Winter blooms to Spring,

And Summer doth to Autumn wane, I will not say their various wealth

Is lavished forth in vain.

Since Nature hath November days,

Wherein she broods on future flowers, We may not put less noble use

To any time of ours.

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Their own soft lights and tender glooms

To poet’s eye and poet’s ear, Hath every feeling of the heart,

And season of the year.

Ah! pondering on the hours I gain,

And counting up the hours I lose, I find them both so full of love,

I scarce know which to choose.

With thee the joy is almost pain,

And swift the days fleet by; I find thee not in sight more dear,

Nor less in absence nigh.

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THE DEAD LOVE.

POOR Love! It died a sudden death While yet ‘twas filled with hope and joy; No lingering failure of the breath, No cruel doubt did it annoy; Till in one evil hour it fell, Struck by a dull shaft weighted well.

I took it up so dead and cold, I smoothed its garments’ silken fold;— No living Love so dear, so fair! The glimmer of its drooping hair Cast a pale light upon my breast; I crossed its hands in sign of rest, And in them laid the sweetest flower That Summer brings us in her dower,

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Sweet as the Love that perished there, And burning even as my despair.

Thus placed in decent order all, I wrapped it in a stainless pall, And bore it on my heart alway; Its sweetness kept it from decay, But well-nigh chilled my heart away; Yet so it to my life had grown I could not lay the burden down. How often on that dreary road I fainted with mine awful load! Too many years it was to me A saintship and a company, A blessing, an idolatry, To lay it where I could not see.

Then spake my conscience of remorse, “This lies upon thee like a curse;

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Thine arms are full, thine heart is dull, Lay down thine ill lest it grow worse, Grow heavier as thou weaker grow, And crush thee with a weight of snow.”

Poor Love! Its dead face looked reproach, It seemed to feel the foe’s approach, The foe Oblivion, worse than death— I warmed it with my living breath, I said, “Fear not, thou poor dead thing! More precious than all Time can bring; Thee shall the tenderest thoughts embalm In memory’s safe embracing calm; Where only hushful breezes blow From the far shores of long ago; Bringing soft scent of summer flowers And music of the golden hours, And loving words which echo still Through silence (which they cannot fill).

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For thee the present and the past Shall melt into one moment;—last, O mournful Love! that still dost dread Oblivion for the voiceless dead— A cross for a memorial Of sweetness issuing forth from gall, Of use from loss, of health from pain, And from spent tears the noblest gain, I will erect, and lilies three Will twine about its foot; so be, O dearest Love! content, that I May walk once more in liberty. So shall my deeds, in this regret And earnest fondness strongly set, Cling round the happy past, and be One fresh perpetual song of Thee!”

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TWO ARTISTS.

WITHIN a little room

Doth one dear Painter sit, ‘Tis fringed with Summer bloom,

And the ivy drops o’er it: Down doth the ivy drop,

To all the arts akin; Shy little birds will stop

And slily peep therein. The clouds are curious!

So is the upper blue; And the tall tree-tops that laugh at us

Bend their great heads to you. Of cloud and tree and spray

The faint wall-shadow dances,

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Murmurs the summer wind alway,

Envious of your sweet fancies! Here doth full silence reign

Through all the golden morn, While dreams flit in and out again

Ere Art’s fair child is born.

Out on the far hill-side,

Begirt with curling fern, Where chasing clouds do ride,

Doth the other Painter learn. There’s neither rock nor tree,

Nor restive mountain-stream, Cloud-peak nor valley

Cut by a slanting beam;— There’s no flood on the meadow,

There’s no bird in the sky, Nor deep mid-forest shadow,

But fills this Painter’s eye.

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Perched on a crazy paling,

Deep in a hawthorn hedge, Or briny air inhaling

Which whirls by ocean edge;— Wherever Nature calls

Will this brave artist speed, And I!—whate’er befalls,

Follow like Ganymede!

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THE CATHEDRAL.

FINE and strong

‘T has stood for long, Jetting up its slender lances Far athwart the archčd sky, On whose tops the sunshine glances, While the birds wing brightly by.

Fine and strong,

A sculptured song

Of forest hours,

Boughs, fruit, and flowers. The oak, the vine, the summer rose, With buds and bells no herbist knows, Twisting round each great stone column, With its aspect high and solemn.

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Fine and strong,

Thick trees among. Statue fretted, each stern King Girt about with royal ring On his brow, and sceptre-laden With his royal arms engraven;

For all time,

A form sublime;

Never moving,

Grieving, loving, Ever looking calmly down From his post as from a throne, But one calmer than his own.

Carven niche,

Wrought in rich Knotted angles interlacing, Holds each fast in its enchasing, Divided by a slender shaft. Many a face grotesque has laughed

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Ages from the pipes. A Virgin Stands upon the porch’s margin,

And the Child

Thus long has smiled, Praying the weary and the poor To come unto His Father’s door. Many warriors hereabout Lie, some with crossčd hands devout, Under the blue sky, but others The great inner aisle-roof covers. Ah! within ‘tis all divine,

With softened shine

From every pane

Whose gorgeous stain

Lies upon

The pavement stone, Telling many an awful story Of the martyr-days divine; While a dim torch-lighted glory

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Streams from every pictured shrine; And the anthem slowly rolls Over the assembled souls,

With a free

Full melody. God Almighty framed this church In the artist’s mind I think; Beauty’s fountains none may search, Save who religiously will drink.

This for the Spirit

To inherit

Built he humbly,

Ay, and dumbly. We can but say some man once thought In this wise, nought else is known,— And with long endeavour wrought His thoughts divinely into stone!

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ON A GROUP OF JUSTICE AND CHARITY.

WHAT do the scales of Justice hold,

Poised even in that steady hand?—

What is that measure closely scanned? Is one side weighted down with gold? Or is she clamorous for her right?

Surely for that she bides too still! Rather, it seems to me, her sight

Is cognisant of good and ill. With level brows this Justice stands

And weighs her duties one by one;— And if she pleads, or if commands,

It is lest these be left undone,

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Or slurred through weakness and constraint;—

This noble Justice was not bred In hearts defiled with any taint

Of selfish seeking, dark and dead. Give, if you will, another name

To those fine scales so nicely hung, And call her Conscience, and proclaim

Her sovereign right with every tongue— But, because she is mortal, trust

Her not alone, lest, too severe, She take account with diamond dust

Of baser metal; her beside

Let loving Charity abide, With her young children gathered near.

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WHAT DISTANCE PARTETH THEE AND ME?

WHAT distance parteth thee and me!

It is not space, it is not time— Death hath not put between our souls

His mystery cruel and sublime. The love I bore thee thrills me yet

In ancient dearness unforgot, Yet day by day my heart implores

For that—which cometh not.

Time, touching all with tender hand,

Will doubtless heal this hurt of mine, Including this torn human love

In yearnings more divine.

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Time, bringing blossom to the rose,

And seed-time unto flowers, Will doubtless take the sting from out

These long impatient hours.

In the cool shadow of his wings

Our feverish sorrows sink to sleep, He gives us faith in nobler things

Than Nature, but doth keep, As in some tower made strong to hold

A king’s rich gems, above The earthly air which waxeth cold,

Our tender human love.

Then noble Time, in whom I trust,

More noble Love, my strength and stay, I will beseech thee till thou must

To my strong hope give way;

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But this I know thou wilt not do,

How stern soe’er thou be, Thou canst not, while my heart is true,

Wring all my hope from me.

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FOR ADELAIDE.

WHO is the Poet? He who sings Of high, abstruse, and hidden things,— Or rather he who with a liberal voice Does with the glad hearts of all earth rejoice? O sweetest Singer! rather would I be Gifted with thy kind human melody, Than weave mysterious rhymes and such as seem Born in the dim depths of some sage’s dream. But I have no such art; they will not choose The utterance of my harsh ungenial muse For any cradle chant; I shall not aid The mournful mother or the loving maid To find relief in song. I shall not be Placed side by side, O Poet dear, with thee

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In any grateful thoughts, yet be it known By all who read how much thou hast mine own! When, with bent brow and all too anxious heart, I walk with hurrying step the crowded mart, And look abroad on men with faithless eyes, Then do sweet snatches of thy song arise, And float into my heart like melodies Down dropping from the far blue deeps of heaven, Or sweet bells wafted over fields at even. Therefore, if thanks for any gifts be due, If any service be esteemčd true, If any virtues do to verse belong, Take thou the Poet’s name, by right of song! Suffer that I, who never yet did give False words to that dear art by which I live, Pluck down bright bay-leaves from the eternal tree, And place them where they have true right to be!

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ITALY.

Page 159

ROME.

IF ever I in Rome should dwell—

Rome, the desired of all my heart— Amidst that world loved long and well,

The infinite world of ancient art;

And there, by graves so dear to fame,

A dreaming poet, cast my lot; What voice within would whisper shame,

Were England and her needs forgot!

So to myself, with museful mouth,

I said long since—the while I paced, With heart that trembled towards the south,

Through London’s coiled and stony waste—

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How doubly dreary seemed the smoke,

The sunless noon, the starless even, When o’er my dream a vision broke—

Italy! or the Courts of Heaven!

Now, walking on this Pincian Hill,

And watching where the day declines, (Gilding the Cross of Peter still)

By Monte Mario’s fringe of pines,—

Almost, I think, the heart might grow

Forgetful of its earlier ties, And all its life-blood learn to flow

Familiar with Italian skies.

Not with the love of brain or soul,

But with that fiery strength we use In leaning towards the strong control

Of what we must, not what we choose.

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As mother for child, as wife for spouse,

As one long exiled yearns for home, As sinner for the Heavenly House,

So yearned, so loved I thee, O Rome!

Now I have seen thee—seen the plains,

The desolate plains where thou dost lie; Where many a rock-built tomb complains

Of some great name or race gone by.

And past the walls that round thee sweep

Have daily ridden. Walls sublime! Which girdle in thy power, and keep

Inviolate from the hands of Time.

Just touched and softened by decay,

Each gate some glorious year recalls; Kings! Consuls! Emperors! Saints! were they

Who, mile by mile, linked walls to walls.

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All ancient cities, though great they be,

(And London counts by tens of tens), Seem pigmy towns compared to thee;

While Lincoln, throned amidst her fens,

And York upon her meadow-side,

(A thousand milestones on her road), Are footprints, just to show the stride

With which the giant Cćsar strode!

Yet here, where Cćsar lies in state,

Amidst the cypress and the rose, A lovelier mountain mourns his fate,

A nobler river swiftlier flows.

Oh, starlit streets of ancient Rome,

Baptized in blood of Christian men! Happy the hearts that call ye home,

And feet that toward ye turn again!

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I oft in dreams shall seem to see

Hills where the olive and the vine Fall rippling down to meet the sea;

Or underneath the branching pine

Shall watch the storm-clouds sweeping by,

Down from the Alban Mount in swirls, And, blackening all the vaulted sky,

Rush tangling through our sculptor’s curls.

Ah! not too distant fall that day

When I, a pilgrim far from home, Shall hear upon the Aurelian Way,

“Allons, postillon, vite! ŕ Rome.”

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ST. JOHN LATERAN.

OF temples built by mortal hands,

Give honour to the Lateran first; ‘Twas here the hope of many lands—

The infant Church—was nursed:

And grew unto a great estate,

And waxed strong in grace and power, With Christ for Head and Faithful Mate,

And Learning for her dower.

Since first this house to Him was raised,

Three times five hundred years have run; For this let Constantine be praised,

An English mother’s son!

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He with his own imperial sword

Did dig foundations broad and deep, That henceforth in His hand the Lord

Rome and her hills should keep.

In after ages, one by one,

Arose the altars vowed to Heaven; Each crest is sacred now, but none

Like this of all the Seven!

Behold she stands! The Mother Church!

A queen among her countless peers! Ah! open be that sacred porch

For thrice five hundred years!

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THE LATERAN CLOISTERS.

THE very roses, thick with bloom,

Are golden in the golden light; What sanctifies that belt of gloom?

What makes this court so bright?

Are other pillars half so rich,

So dainty delicate as these, Which curl and twist like woodland niche

Set in a frame of trees!

Two legendary stones are here,

And cast a mystery round the spot; Let none to whom his Lord is dear

Say, he believes them not!

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Behold the well where Jesus stayed,

(The heart which questioned also nigh!) And, “wearied with His journey,” bade

To Fountains never dry.

Until for her who stood beside

His words alone sufficed, And as she went her way, she cried,

“But is not this the Christ!”

See measured on that pillar’s round

The stature of His sacred Head; Let that be counted holy ground

Of which such things are said.

And do not weigh what men believe,

When thus from age to age is told A tale which eager hearts receive

With love that grows not cold.

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A garden blessed by many prayers,

And centuries of sacred fame, A pilgrim’s tender footstep spares,

If only for the claim!

So pluck the golden Lateran rose

Which blooms about each ancient stone;— And Faith which towards a legend flows

Shall not be left alone!

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THE COELIAN HILL.

OF all the seven which Rome doth boast,

(Fair hills and nobly crowned!) I love the Coelian Hill the most,

And think it holy ground.

‘Twas here the deacon Laurence died,

And here was Gregory’s cell; The heart by honours sorely tried

Remembered it right well;

And as his pious envoys bore

The British cross on high, He, like a sailor turned from shore,

Looked backward with a sigh,

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And though he held within his hand

The Church from east to west, He thought of all the Christian land

This Coelian Hill the best.

I cannot tell, I know not why,

But Rome from hence doth wear Peculiar brightness in the sky

And beauty in the air.

A dreamy light is in the trees,

The winding walks are still, And quietly the perfumed breeze

Creeps o’er the Coelian Hill.

As tranquil convents faintly chime

The passing hours of prayer, They give the only hints that time

Has marked its progress there.

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The martyr’s home, the saint’s retreat

Have filled the place with rest, The centuries with silent feet

Have touched its leafy crest;

And Gregory, rising from his sleep,

Himself would scarcely know That past of his was buried deep

A thousand years ago!

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THE APPIAN WAY.

ACROSS the broad Campagna fell

The softly dropping rain, Obscured the hills I love so well,

And blotted out the plain.

As those grey mists came sweeping by,

I seemed to see the ghosts Of gallant Roman cavalry

Ride rallying to their posts.

The best of Rome was buried here,

Yet lonely is the way! No living race esteems it dear—

No pilgrim comes to pray.

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The nameless tombs are overthrown

And open to the air, And scarce the very race is known

Of nobles resting there.

A dreary double file of graves

That stretch across the land,— The thick wild grass above them waves,

A fence on either hand;

And, quivering o’er the traveller’s head,

The long electric wires Wail faint and sweet about the dead,

A dirge which never tires.

Pale shades that walk the Elysian groves

Would chant with tones like these, Whose minor music softly moves

Responsive to the breeze.

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When homeward bent at twilight hours

A yearning thrills through me;— That long dim line of distant towers,

Like mountains seen at sea!—

How oft it rises in my heart,

A vision soft and grey,— But never rendered yet by art—

Rome from the Appian Way!

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THE DESOLATION OF VEII.

TWAS on a Sabbath morning that we wandered in the wood, Where near three thousand years ago the ancient Veii stood; There’s not a sound of life there now, where wandering alleys meet, The cyclamen and violet grow purple in the street! The glens are deep and leafy, the fields are green and bare, And only scattered pottery tells that arts and trade were there, And looking towards the Alban Mount across the solemn plains, The ground on which we stand is all of Veii that remains.

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A hundred thousand people once dwelt upon this hill, Within their many towered walls the hum was never still. The sculptor and the armourer worked as soon as it was light, And watchman unto watchman called through all the starry night. They had laws and arts, and customs, and altars to revere, They buried with a solemn care the dead whom they held dear, Whom they crowned with golden ivy and with oak-leaves never sere. And the city on the hill-top where this people had their home, Was a larger town than Athens and a mightier town than Rome. A wondrous place is Veii, and the grandeur of her past

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Will linger in these solitudes and crown her to the last. Still I see her in a vision, though her very streets are ploughed, See the faces of her people, hear the voices of her crowd, See the waving of her banners, hear the tramp of armed men, Where nothing but the waterfall is dashing down the glen. Other cities have their columned hills and fragments of their walls, Or at least their ruined temples, on which the moonlight falls. Other cities have their solemn sights, to which the pilgrim turns, And some altar of tradition where a lamp for ever burns; A ballad or a legend, or a few memorial stones,

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And a breath of living history to re-animate their bones. But of Veii, strong and beautiful, these silent stones are all, Save her graves within the hill-side and a patch of ruined wall, And the rocks cut sheer to guard her, and the streams that flow the same, And (foreign to the pilgrim’s lips) the accents of her name!

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GIBSON’S STUDIO.

IN a garden filled with sunshine,

Deep in the heart of Rome, Came the exiled gods of Hellas,

And made themselves a home.

Came Venus, apple-laden—

Came Psyche, clad with wings— And creatures born of wood and stream—

And every Muse that sings.

To them came flying, one by one,

The Hours with noiseless feet; But they lingered all together—

They found the place so sweet!

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If you have chanced to lose them,

Go look among the flowers, And somewhere in that garden

You’ll find those wandering Hours!

From every shady portal

Shy forms are peeping round; An arch delight is on their brows,

But in their lips no sound.

To come and walk among them

Soothes all the soul with peace; There are no shadows in the hearts

Of these fair gods of Greece!

The murmur of the outer world

Can never reach them here; The roses blossom round them,

And the fountain trickles near;—

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Calm types of Nature’s innocence,

Apart from our control, With quietness for atmosphere,

And beauty for a soul!

The heights of old Olympus

Were grand with storm and shine; The gods who ruled the pagan world

Had port and mien divine.

But the younger ones and gentler

With willing hearts have come To dwell within this garden,

Deep in the heart of Rome.

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MINERVA MEDICA.

FOR E.B.

IN ancient Rome a temple stands,

Around whose aged feet The tide flows up from many lands,

And eddies through the street.

The human tide that ceaseless pours

To break its waves on Rome, And gathers from a thousand shores

Its scallop shells and foam.

That temple’s shrines are empty now,

Its altars dark and bare, The goddess of the marble brow

No longer worshipped there,

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No longer wings her spells abroad

The fevered pulse to heal, And unrelenting, if implored,

Were deaf to each appeal.

“Restore, restore,” she seems to say,

“The homage which ye gave, And when laborious pains ye pay,

I will consent to save.”

Her home was on the radiant shores

Where snow-white Athens shines; How beautiful her servitors,

How stately were her shrines!

And how, from farthest east to west,

And by the unknown sea, What goddess was so well beloved,

So much revered, as she!

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A sweeter faith is now enshrined

In Athens and in Rome; Her honours everywhere declined—

Her priests without a home.

And even what she nobly taught,

And what she symbolled then, Is banished out of human thought,

And quite forgot by men.

And yet methinks her statue stands,

And makes a mute appeal, “Give helpful blessing, all ye Lands,

On Women bent to heal.”

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TWO GRAVES.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, drowned July 8, 1822.

MARY WOLSTONCRAFT SHELLEY, died Feb. 1, 1851.

In death they are not divided.

TWO graves within one year I saw,

Where sleep, a thousand miles apart, Husband and wife, whose living law

Was but to know one soul, one heart.

He sleeps beneath the Roman rose

And violets, like his verse divine; She, where the tenderest snowdrop blows,

Amidst the heather and the pine.

And yet we hope they are not here,

But where the heavenly lilies bloom,

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And amaranth, to the angels dear,

Mocks our pale buds which deck the tomb.

There no dark cypress grows nor pine,

Where they, the husband and the wife, Their long-dissevered lives entwine,

And dwell beneath the Tree of Life!

Page 187

ALGIERS.

Page 189

TOO LATE.

The scene is at Algiers, where a Christian slave is working at the mole which protects the harbour.

THE palms are yellowing in the Autumn heat,

I hate the ripple of that tideless sea, But worse the line where sky and water meet, And the north wind that brings no help to me.

It only blows the clouds

And ships that in their shrouds Carry no ransom for my dull despair;

As day by day I pace

Through this accursed place, The sunlight settles with a mocking glare On me constrained to breathe this deadly air.

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How many months have gone since last my sails

(Or is it days? or years? I do not know,) Threaded the busy harbour of Marseilles?

How long since first I fell on this great woe?

By my grey hair it should be long ago.

And since she cometh not,

Perhaps she hath forgot, And only plucks the grapes that idly hang

Over the southern wall,

And hears the owlets call, Just as they answered us when once we sang.

I wonder if she sings those songs alone— I hear that matchless treble in my dreams

Till gradually it takes a deeper tone;— And when I wake and shriek—the guttural screams

Of these dark demons sound

Up from the inner ground, Fulfilling their abominable rites—

Was it her voice I heard?—

Or the warbling of a bird?— Or music circling round the altar lights?

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I think this dreadful town is like a rock

Which stands up pitiless before the sea, Hewn, in the surface of its single block,

With countless crannies for its tenantry

Of evil birds of prey;

Cruel and dark are they As any vultures that pick out the slain,—

These men of stealthy tread

And heavy eyes of lead, And soft slow voices strung for giving pain.

What is the meaning of that dim grey speck

Which nears so steadily this awful shore! I see a sail—a prow—a flag—a deck—

God! do I see or do I fancy more!

A woman with the crew!

Brown hair and eyes of blue! And in her hand the gold which buys my fate!”—

Breathless she urged the men,

She sprang to shore—but then Reeling he fell—the ransom came too late!

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UNDER THE OLIVES.

SEATED in a Moorish garden

On the Sahel of Algiers, Wandering breezes brought the burden

Of its history in past years. Lost amidst the mist of ages,

Its first chronicles arise; Yonder is the chain of Atlas,

And the pagan paradise!

Past these shores the wise Phoenicians

Coasted outwards towards the west, Hoping there to find Atlantis,

And the Islands of the Blest.

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Somewhere in these mystic valleys

Grew the golden-fruited trees, Which the wandering son of Zeus

Stole from the Hesperides.

Many monsters, famed in story,

Had their habitations here, Scaly coats and tresses hoary

Struck adventurous souls with fear. Not far off lived Polyphemus,

Glaring with his single eye; Sailors wrecked upon these waters

Only gained their brink to die.

But if ever, while carousing,

Rescued travellers told their feats,— How the elephants came browsing

From the inner desert-heats—

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How the dragons and the griffins

Likewise howled along the shore— Those who listened bade their footsteps

Seek those dreadful realms no more!

When the veil of History rises,

Carthage owns the glorious state, Planted with the Arts of Commerce,

And the men who made her great. Rivalled only by Etruria,

She was mistress of the main; Still we have the solemn treaty,

Drawn in brass betwixt them twain.

One among her many daughters,

Iol at her altars prayed; Merchants, storm-struck on the waters,

Sought this harbour when afraid.

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All this coast of ancient Afric

Bore her sway and owned her name; To her western port of Iol

Buyers flocked and sellers came.

Yearly swarming populations

Poured through Carthage’ busy gates, Bearing forth the seed of nations;

And her ships bore living freights Costlier far than pearl or coral,—

Hardy, brave, adventurous men! As our exiles cling to England,

Sons of Carthage loved her then.

They, when working mines in Cornwall—

Gathering ivory near the Line— Pressing grapes from vines of Cadiz—

Also thought her gods divine!

Page 196

These blue peaks and golden valleys,

Those white waves of northern foam, Also had their groups of eager,

Loving hearts, who called her “home.”

But, “Delenda est Carthago!”

Was the threat proclaimed of yore,— Scarce a bird now flaps his pinion,

White-winged vessels dance no more. Heaps of stone, o’ergrown with brambles,

Mutely eloquent, attest Men who once called Carthage mother

Sleep forgotten on her breast.

Lo! a troop of white-robed Arabs,

Passing in a silent file, Fix the eye which else would vainly

Range the plain from mile to mile.

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Not a dwelling known to Carthage!

Not one temple on the hill! Empty lie the land-locked harbours,

Margins bare, and waters still!

Empty graves, through which the hyena

Ranges, laughing at decay, Strike their dark and dangerous labyrinth

Inward from the light of day. And such utter desolation

Triumphs here, it may be said, That of this forgotten nation

Even the graves give up their dead!

On which summit was the Byrsa

Scipio fought five days to gain? Here is nought but what the footstep

In five minutes might attain.

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Can it be that once a million

People dwelt upon this plain!

Such is Carthage, lying eastward

Ten days’ journey from Algiers; On the grassy slopes of Iol

Lie two thousand nameless years. Dead her sailors, sunk her vessels,

Merchants seek her marts no more; I have walked ‘midst broken columns

Strewed about her sounding shore.

And I have retraced the story,

How across that bright blue sea, Clove the sharp prows, keen for glory,

Straight from distant Italy,

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Manned by warriors whose unbounded

Thirst for conquest nerved them well; And the state by Dido founded

Vainly struggled, sadly fell.

Even as the walls of Veii

Fell beneath a Latin wile, Carthage also lowered her sceptre

From the Atlantic to the Nile. This was then called old Numidia,

Underneath the Roman sway;— Ere through centuries dark with bloodshed

Rose the Crescent of the Dey.

Once these hills were crowned with villas,

Ripe with harvest all these plains; Scarce a trace of Roman splendour

Or Athenian art remains.

Page 200

Little dreams the colon d’Afrique,

Roughly ploughing round his home, These ravines ‘midst which he labours

Once were “granaries of Rome.”

From this harbour of Icosium

Passed the many-oared trireme, Laden with colonial produce

Bound for Ostia’s yellow stream. Sacks of corn, and oil of olives,

Strings of dates and jars of wine, Such the tribute yearly rendered

Hence unto Mount Palatine.

Now, across that waste of waters,

Sailless is the lonely sea, Not a vessel tracks the pathway,

Rome, betwixt Algiers and thee!

Page 201

For the pulses of a people

With their rulers rise and fall, And Numidia gives her harvest

To defray the tax of Gaul!

What is that red cloud ascending,

Scarcely bigger than a hand, From where sea and sky are blending,

Till it hovers o’er the land? See! the mists are slowly dwining,

We shall see its brightness soon! ‘Tis no cloud with silver lining,

But the perfect crescent moon!

‘Tis the emblem of the Prophet

Hanging in a violet sky, While amidst the cloudy olives

Breaks the jackal’s evening cry.

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Just as if to help my story,

Signs and sounds came into play, Crescent of a fearful glory!

War-cry of a beast of prey!

Dark and dreadful is the legend

Of a thousand years of crime, Since the writer of the Koran,

Flying, marked the flight of Time. Since, from depths of far Arabia,

Rolled the fierce, resistless throng, And the race was to the swift one,

And the battle to the strong.

As I sit within this garden,

All the air is soft and sweet; Endless length of famous waters

Roll to northward at my feet—

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Waters where the pirate vessels,

Year by year and hour by hour, Swept across a trembling ocean,

Seeking what they might devour!

Still in sunlight lies the city,

Here and there a palm-tree waves Over Moorish mosque and rampart,

Over nameless Christian graves. These fair clumps of winter roses

Once drank dew of bitter tears; Christian hearts grew sick with sunshine

On the Sahel of Algiers!

Yet how gallant is the poem

Of the triumph of the Cross! How the ranks of instant martyrs

In the front filled up the loss!

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How the slave died in the bagnio!

The crusader at his post! And for each priest struck, another

Served the altar and the Host!

Hither came the good St. Vincent,

Brought a captive o’er the sea, Slave unto a learned doctor

For two weary years was he; Next he served the gentle lady,

Wife to an apostate lord; But, behold, his prayers were fruitful,

And he brought them to accord!

In these prisons languished hundreds;—

Oft the mystic sound of wails, Wafted over leagues of ocean,

Wept and murmured past Marseilles.

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In the chapels shook the tapers

As the spirit-wind passed by, And the noblest swords in Europe

Leapt responsive to the cry.

When, at length, the Sails of Rescue

Loomed upon the northern wave, All the voices of the martyrs

Welcome breathed from this their grave. Past the town, and round the mountains,

See the stately fleet advance;— And the children of St. Louis

Plant the fleurs-de-lis of France!

Seated in a Moorish garden

On the Sahel of Algiers, I can hear a tender burden,

Like the music of the spheres.

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Not from any mortal voices

Could that tender music come! No! It is a strain familiar—

‘Tis the hymn we sing at home!

As it soars above the olives,

Drops below the pine-clad hills, What a vast and tender memory

Mine imagination fills! From the grave where She lay buried,

Fifteen hundred years are rolled, And the Church of St. Augustine

Steps regenerate as of old!

Hippo lies a shapeless ruin,

All her ramparts overthrown; Yet, wherever men are Christians,

Her great Bishop’s name is known.

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Over Hippo blow the breezes,

Sighing from the great blue sea;— Yet of all our living preachers

Who so powerful as he?

Once, upon a Sabbath morning,

I at Bona heard the bells In a chorus—as the water

Sharply ebbs and softly swells. And to me it seemed the mountains

Echoed back a sweet refrain, That the ruined church of Hippo

Harboured prayer and praise again!

When the bared bowed head of Jerome

Fell before the flashing sword;— When both Marcellin and Cyril

To the last confessed the Lord;—

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When St. Felix fell at Carthage,

Struck with clubs; and in the flames Saints Severian and Aquila

(Married lovers) knit their names

In a more immortal linking,

As twin martyrs for the faith; When St. Marcian at Cherchell

Faced the cruel teeth of death;— They did more than bear brave witness

To the glorious hearts of old; They laid the strong foundation

Of the universal Fold.

In that great stone ring at Cherchell

Grass has muffled all the ground; All the circling seats are empty,

Not a motion or a sound!

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Pause! O feet that here tread lightly!

Hush! O voice discoursing here! Spirits of the just made perfect

Doubtless often linger here!

What if in that calm arena

Where the sunbeams softly sleep, You, with many an aching bosom,

Dared not cry and could not weep! What if Marcian wore the features—

Dear blue eyes and soft brown hair,— And you saw the savage creatures

Leap infuriate from their lair?—

Yet, O dreadful dream of Cherchell!

That was what was undergone In that circle where the fruit-trees

Like a faint reflexion shone.

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Now for every martyr noted

In the list I read to-day, Is a tender special mention

When Algerian Christians pray.

Down the hill I see the belfry

And the quaint old Moorish porch; Hark! the little bell is swinging,

Calling willing feet to church. Down the lane between the olives,

Then across the wide white road; Stranger, if your heart is heavy,

Take it to that hushed abode,

Where the lamp burns ever dimly

All throughout the sunny day, But shines clear upon the arches

As the twilight fades away.

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You will find the weight drop from you,—

Leave it there among the flowers, Which beneath the Christian altar

Mark the change of Christian hours.

Quaint old court of True Believer,

All thy truth is overthrown! Servants of another Master

Now have claimed thee for their own; Built His altar, placed around it

Irises and asphodels;— Where to-morrow some new glory

Will unfold its buds and bells.

Sitting in this golden stillness

All my thoughts turn back to them Who in such an Eastern sunshine

Worshipped at Jerusalem!

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Are They then a Living Presence,

After all these changing years? Hark, how many bells are ringing

On the Sahel of Algiers!

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NOTES TO UNDER THE OLIVES.

THE Sahel of Algiers is the range of hills lying between the sea and the Atlas Mountains. They are of an average elevation of 600 feet, but occasionally attain much greater height. This belt of hills is exceedingly rich and fertile in vegetation, and is cut by numerous deep ravines whose sides are clothed with large olive-trees, with ilex, lentisk, aloes, cactuses, and a profuse undergrowth of shrubs and wild flowers. In some places a narrow plain intervenes between the hills and the sea, but at the town itself this plain becomes a mere strip covered by the great square and two streets east and west, at the back of which the houses mount the hill abruptly, divided by steep narrow streets, which frequently break off into steps, and up which no vehicle can pass. On each side of the town the slopes are dotted with country houses and lovely gardens. The Gardens of the Hesperides are placed by the poets somewhere at the feet of the Atlas Mountains, whose snowy summits can be seen from the Sahel of Algiers.

Carthagenian history affords our first record of this part of the northern coast of Africa. It is uncertain whether any town then occupied the exact site of Algiers; but Iol, situated

Page 214 rather more to the west, near to the modern site of Cherchell, was a flourishing colony; and the coast-line belonged to the Carthaginian rule. The familiar story of the fall of Carthage has been lately illustrated by Dr. Davis’s excavations on the deserted plain where once the imperial city stood. In 1857 the writer visited this plain with an English party, to whom Dr. Davis explained his operations. The site of the Byrsa, or citadel, has been a subject of vivid contention among antiquaries; and the traveller, looking over the immense tract of undulating ground, covered with shapeless lumps of ruins, can discover no elevation sufficiently marked to settle the question. We were told of a hill honeycombed with graves, and dangerous from the wild beasts infesting the labyrinth; we saw the huge underground cisterns described more than a hundred years ago by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; and—more impressive than any thing else—a huge flight of steps, partly hewn in the living rock, and partly aided by blocks of masonry, which steps led from the summit of a low cliff, once crowned by a temple, down to the sea-shore. Nothing in architecture is so suggestive of the presence of man as a flight of steps, and nothing so expressive of utter desolation as such a vast, grass-grown, half-obliterated flight of steps, trodden by human feet no more.

The next era commemorated in this poem is that of Roman domination. We know that a Roman port named Icosium occupied the exact site of the town at Algiers, and the quaint old Moorish Museum in the heart of the town contains numer-Page 215 ous Roman statues and inscriptions which have been dug up in the city and its neighbourhood. The great plain of the Metidja, 30 miles broad and 100 miles long, which separated the Sahel from the Atlas Mountains, and which is now rendered barren by fever, was once covered with cornfields, and was called the Granary of Rome. Communication was then, of course, frequent between Rome and Africa; there is now no means of communication, except by a return to Marseilles.

The poem next touches upon the old glories of the Christian Church in Africa. St. Augustin, born in the fourth century at Tagaste, not far from Carthage, was converted by the incessant prayers of his mother, St. Monica, and lived and died Bishop of Hippo. Hippo is now entirely ruined and deserted, and the nearest modern town is Bona, which, like many other of these coast settlements, is half French, half Moorish. The remains of a fine old Roman aqueduct connect Bona with historic times, and give to the church-bells, ringing out loud and sweet to call the French population to divine service, the effect of being in some sense an echo of the past.

The long roll of African martyrdoms is not unfamiliar to readers of history. The African Jerome, beheaded; Cyril, burnt alive with nine others; Marcelin, executed at Carthage; St. Felix, beaten to death; St. Severin and his wife St. Aquila, burnt at Julia Cćsarea (the Roman name of Iol, now the modern Cherchell); and Marciana, the virgin martyr, devoured by wild beasts in the great stone amphitheatre of the same city, on the 11th of July, about the year 305, are a few out of hundreds of lives sacrificed and names recorded.

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Christianity, trampled out by the barbarians who overran the Roman settlements, and still farther excluded by the Mahometan Conquest, was only kept alive on these wild and beautiful shores by the European slaves who were constantly captured by the pirates, and by the devoted ministers of religion who came from Italy and Spain to lose their lives at short successive intervals while ministering to the captives.

The re-establishment of Christianity, under French rule, in 1830—the conquest of Algiers having been the last act of the Government of Charles the Tenth—and the gradual development of the ecclesiastical and educational institutions of the three provinces of Algeria, afford a deeply interesting spectacle to those who recall the ancient history of the Church in Africa.

THE END. CHISWICK PRESS:—PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.

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