Poems of the Past and the Present Read Online

Our conditions mend;

In a change of mates we shall both rejoice;

I hoped that it thus might end!

IX

A quick divorce; she will make him hers,

And I wed mine.

So Time rights all things in long, long years –

Or rather she, by her bold design!

I admire a woman no balk deters:

She has blessed my life, in fine.

X

I shall build new rooms for my new true bride,

Let the bygone be:

By now, no doubt, she has crossed the tide

With the man to her mind. Far happier she

In some warm vineland by his side

Than ever she was with me.«

The Seasons of Her Year

I

Winter is white on turf and tree,

And birds are fled;

But summer songsters pipe to me,

And petals spread,

For what I dreamt of secretly

His lips have said!

II

O 'tis a fine May morn, they say,

And blooms have blown;

But wild and wintry is my day,

My song-birds moan;

For he who vowed leaves me to pay

Alone – alone!

The Milkmaid

Under a daisied bank

There stands a rich red ruminating cow,

And hard against her flank

A cotton-hooded milkmaid bends her brow.

The flowery river-ooze

Upheaves and falls; the milk purrs in the pail;

Few pilgrims but would choose

The peace of such a life in such a vale.

The maid breathes words – to vent,

It seems, her sense of Nature's scenery,

Of whose life, sentiment,

And essence, very part itself is she.

She bends a glance of pain,

And, at a moment, lets escape a tear;

Is it that passing train,

Whose alien whirr offends her country ear? –

Nay! Phyllis does not dwell

On visual and familiar things like these;

What moves her is the spell

Of inner themes and inner poetries:

Could but by Sunday morn

Her gay new gown come, meads might dry to dun,

Trains shriek till cars were torn,

If Fred would not prefer that Other One.

The Levelled Churchyard

»O Passenger, pray list and catch

Our sighs and piteous groans,

Half stifled in this jumbled patch

Of wrenched memorial stones!

We late-lamented, resting here,

Are mixed to human jam,

And each to each exclaims in fear,

›I know not which I am!‹

The wicked people have annexed

The verses on the good;

A roaring drunkard sports the text

Teetotal Tommy should!

Where we are huddled none can trace,

And if our names remain,

They pave some path or porch or place

Where we have never lain!

Here's not a modest maiden elf

But dreads the final Trumpet,

Lest half of her should rise herself,

And half some sturdy strumpet!

From restorations of Thy fane,

From smoothings of Thy sward,

From zealous Churchmen's pick and plane

Deliver us O Lord! Amen!«

The Ruined Maid

»O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!

Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?

And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?« –

»O didn't you know I'd been ruined?« said she.

– »You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,

Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;

And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!« –

»Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined,« said she.

– »At home in the barton you said ›thee‹ and ›thou‹,

And ›thik oon‹, and ›theäs oon‹, and ›t'other‹; but now

Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!« –

»Some polish is gained with one's ruin,« said she.

– »Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak

But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,

And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!« –

»We never do work when we're ruined,« said she.

– »You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,

And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem

To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!« –

»True. One's pretty lively when ruined,« said she.

– »I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,

And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!« –

»My dear – a raw country girl, such as you be,

Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined,« said she.

Westbourne Park Villas, 1866

The Respectable Burgher

On »The Higher Criticism«

Since Reverend Doctors now declare

That clerks and people must prepare

To doubt if Adam ever were;

To hold the flood a local scare;

To argue, though the stolid stare,

That everything had happened ere

The prophets to its happening sware;

That David was no giant-slayer,

Nor one to call a God-obeyer

In certain details we could spare,

But rather was a debonair

Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player:

That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair,

And gave the Church no thought whate'er,

That Esther with her royal wear,

And Mordecai, the son of Jair,

And Joshua's triumphs, Job's despair,

And Balaam's ass's bitter blare;

Nebuchadnezzar's furnace-flare,

And Daniel and the den affair,

And other stories rich and rare,

Were writ to make old doctrine wear

Something of a romantic air:

That the Nain widow's only heir,

And Lazarus with cadaverous glare

(As done in oils by Piombo's care)

Did not return from Sheol's lair:

That Jael set a fiendish snare,

That Pontius Pilate acted square,

That never a sword cut Malchus' ear;

And (but for shame I must forbear)

That –– did not reappear! ...

– Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair,

All churchgoing will I forswear,

And sit on Sundays in my chair,

And read that moderate man Voltaire.

Architectural Masks

I

There is a house with ivied walls,

And mullioned windows worn and old,

And the long dwellers in those halls

Have souls that know but sordid calls,

And daily dote on gold.

II

In blazing brick and plated show

Not far away a ›villa‹ gleams,

And here a family few may know,

With book and pencil, viol and bow,

Lead inner lives of dreams.

III

The philosophic passers say,

»See that old mansion mossed and fair,

Poetic souls therein are they:

And O that gaudy box! Away,

You vulgar people there.«

The Tenant-for-Life

The sun said, watching my watering-pot:

»Some morn you'll pass away;

These flowers and plants I parch up hot –

Who'll water them that day?

Those banks and beds whose shape your eye

Has planned in line so true,

New hands will change, unreasoning why

Such shape seemed best to you.

Within your house will strangers sit,

And wonder how first it came;

They'll talk of their schemes for improving it,

And will not mention your name.

They'll care not how, or when, or at what

You sighed, laughed, suffered here,

Though you feel more in an hour of the spot

Than they will feel in a year.

As I look on at you here, now,

Shall I look on at these;

But as to our old times, avow

No knowledge – hold my peace! ...

O friend, it matters not, I say;

Bethink ye, I have shined

On nobler ones than you, and they

Are dead men out of mind!«

The King's Experiment

It was a wet wan hour in spring,

And Nature met King Doom beside a lane,

Wherein Hodge tramped, all blithely ballading

The Mother's smiling reign.

»Why warbles he that skies are fair

And coombs alight,« she cried, »and fallows gay,

When I have placed no sunshine in the air

Or glow on earth to-day?«

»'Tis in the comedy of things

That such should be,« returned the one of Doom;

»Charge now the scene with brightest blazonings,

And he shall call them gloom.«

She gave the word: the sunbeams broke,

All Froomside shone, the hedgebirds raised a strain;

And later Hodge, upon the midday stroke,

Returned along the lane,

Low murmuring: »O this bitter scene,

And thrice accurst horizon hung with gloom!

How deadly like this sky, these fields, these treen,

To trappings of the tomb!«

The Beldame then: »The fool and blind!

Such mad perverseness who may apprehend?« –

»Nay; there's no madness in it; thou shalt find

Thy law there,« said her friend.

»When Hodge went forth 'twas to his Love,

To make her, ere this eve, his wedded prize,

And Earth, despite the heaviness above,

Was bright as Paradise.

But I sent on my messenger,

With cunning arrows poisonous and keen,

To take forthwith her laughing life from her,

And dull her little een,

And white her cheek, and still her breath,

Ere her too buoyant Hodge had reached her side;

So, when he came, he clasped her but in death,

And never as his bride.

And there's the humour, as I said;

Thy dreary dawn he saw as gleaming gold,

And in thy glistening green and radiant red

Funereal gloom and cold.«

The Tree

An Old Man's Story

I

Its roots are bristling in the air

Like some mad Earth-god's spiny hair;

The loud south-wester's swell and yell

Smote it at midnight, and it fell.

Thus ends the tree

Where Some One sat with me.

II

Its boughs, which none but darers trod,

A child may step on from the sod,

And twigs that earliest met the dawn

Are lit the last upon the lawn.

Cart off the tree

Beneath whose trunk sat we!

III

Yes, there we sat: she cooed content,

And bats ringed round, and daylight went;

The gnarl, our seat, is wrenched and sunk,

Prone that queer pocket in the trunk

Where lay the key

To her pale mystery.

IV

»Years back, within this pocket-hole

I found, my Love, a hurried scrawl

Meant not for me,« at length said I;

»I glanced thereat, and let it lie:

The words were three –

›Beloved, I agree.‹

V

Who placed it here; to what request

It gave assent, I never guessed.

Some prayer of some hot heart, no doubt,

To some coy maiden hereabout,

Just as, maybe,

With you, Sweet Heart, and me.«

VI

She waited, till with quickened breath

She spoke, as one who banisheth

Reserves that lovecraft heeds so well,

To ease some mighty wish to tell:

»'Twas I,« said she,

»Who wrote thus clinchingly.

VII

My lover's wife – aye, wife – knew nought

Of what we felt, and bore, and thought. ...

He'd said: ›I wed with thee or die:

She stands between, 'tis true. But why?

Do thou agree,

And – she shall cease to be.‹

VIII

How I held back, how love supreme

Involved me madly in his scheme

Why should I say? ... I wrote assent

(You found it hid) to his intent. ...

She – died. ... But he

Came not to wed with me.

IX

O shrink not, Love! – Had these eyes seen

But once thine own, such had not been!

But we were strangers. ... Thus the plot

Cleared passion's path. – Why came he not

To wed with me? ...

He wived the gibbet-tree.«

X

– Under that oak of heretofore

Sat Sweetheart mine with me no more:

By many a Fiord, and Strom, and Fleuve

Have I since wandered. ... Soon, for love,

Distraught went she –

'Twas said for love of me.

Her Late Husband

(King's Hintock, 182 –)

»No – not where I shall make my own;

But dig his grave just by

The woman's with the initialed stone –

As near as he can lie –

After whose death he seemed to ail,

Though none considered why.

And when I also claim a nook,

And your feet tread me in,

Bestow me, in my maiden name,

Among my kith and kin,

That strangers gazing may not dream

I did a husband win.«

»Widow, your wish shall be obeyed:

Though, thought I, certainly

You'd lay him where your folk are laid,

And your grave, too, will be,

As custom hath it; you to right,

And on the left hand he.«

»Aye, sexton; such the Hintock rule,

And none has said it nay;

But now you find a native here

Eschews that ancient way ...

And it may be, some Christmas night,

When angels walk, they'll say:

›O strange interment! Civilized lands

Afford few types thereof;

Here is a man who takes his rest

Beside his very Love,

Beside the one who was his wife

In our sight up above!‹«

The Self-Unseeing

Here is the ancient floor,

Footworn and hollowed and thin,

Here was the former door

Where the dead feet walked in.

She sat here in her chair,

Smiling into the fire;

He who played stood there,

Bowing it higher and higher.

Childlike, I danced in a dream;

Blessings emblazoned that day;

Everything glowed with a gleam;

Yet we were looking away!

In Tenebris I

»Percussus sum sicut fœnum, et aruit cor meum.« –

Ps. CI

Wintertime nighs;

But my bereavement-pain

It cannot bring again:

Twice no one dies.

Flower-petals flee;

But, since it once hath been,

No more that severing scene

Can harrow me.

Birds faint in dread:

I shall not lose old strength

In the lone frost's black length:

Strength long since fled!

Leaves freeze to dun;

But friends can not turn cold

This season as of old

For him with none.

Tempests may scath;

But love can not make smart

Again this year his heart

Who no heart hath.

Black is night's cope;

But death will not appal

One who, past doubtings all,

Waits in unhope.

In Tenebris II

»Considerabam ad dexteram, et videbam; et non erat qui cognosceret me. ... non est qui requirat animam meam.« –

Ps. CXLI

When the clouds' swoln bosoms echo back the shouts of the many and strong

That things are all as they best may be, save a few to be right ere long,

And my eyes have not the vision in them to discern what to these is so clear,

The blot seems straightway in me alone; one better he were not here.

The stout upstanders say, All's well with us: ruers have nought to rue!

And what the potent say so oft, can it fail to be somewhat true?

Breezily go they, breezily come; their dust smokes around their career,

Till I think I am one born out of due time, who has no calling here.

Their dawns bring lusty joys, it seems; their evenings all that is sweet;

Our times are blessed times, they cry: Life shapes it as is most meet,

And nothing is much the matter; there are many smiles to a tear;

Then what is the matter is I, I say. Why should such an one be here? ...

Let him in whose ears the low-voiced Best is killed by the clash of the First,

Who holds that if way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst,

Who feels that delight is a delicate growth cramped by crookedness, custom, and fear,

Get him up and be gone as one shaped awry; he disturbs the order here.

In Tenebris III

»Heu mihi, quia incolatus meus prolongatus est! Habitavi cum habitantibus Cedar. Multum incola fuit anima mea.« –

Ps. CXIX

There have been times when I well might have passed and the ending have come –

Points in my path when the dark might have stolen on me, artless, unrueing –

Ere I had learnt that the world was a welter of futile doing:

Such had been times when I well might have passed, and the ending have come!

Say, on the noon when the half-sunny hours told that April was nigh,

And I upgathered and cast forth the snow from the crocus-border,

Fashioned and furbished the soil into a summer-seeming order,

Glowing in gladsome faith that I quickened the year thereby.

Or on that loneliest of eves when afar and benighted we stood,

She who upheld me and I, in the midmost of Egdon together,

Confident I in her watching and ward through the blackening heather,

Deeming her matchless in might and with measureless scope endued.

Or on that winter-wild night when, reclined by the chimney-nook quoin,

Slowly a drowse overgat me, the smallest and feeblest of folk there,

Weak from my baptism of pain; when at times and anon I awoke there –

Heard of a world wheeling on, with no listing or longing to join.

Even then! while unweeting that vision could vex or that knowledge could numb,

That sweets to the mouth in the belly are bitter, and tart, and untoward,

Then, on some dim-coloured scene should my briefly raised curtain have lowered,

Then might the Voice that is law have said »Cease!« and the ending have come.

The Church-Builder

I

The church flings forth a battled shade

Over the moon-blanched sward;

The church; my gift; whereto I paid

My all in hand and hoard;

Lavished my gains

With stintless pains

To glorify the Lord.

II

I squared the broad foundations in

Of ashlared masonry;

I moulded mullions thick and thin,

Hewed fillet and ogee:

I circleted

Each sculptured head

With nimb and canopy.

III

I called in many a craftsmaster

To fix emblazoned glass,

To figure Cross and Sepulchre

On dossal, boss, and brass.

My gold all spent,

My jewels went

To gem the cups of Mass.

IV

I borrowed deep to carve the screen

And raise the ivoried Rood;

I parted with my small demesne

To make my owings good.

Heir-looms unpriced

I sacrificed,

Until debt-free I stood.

V

So closed the task. »Deathless the Creed

Here substanced!« said my soul:

»I heard me bidden to this deed,

And straight obeyed the call.

Illume this fane,

That not in vain

I build it, Lord of all!«

VI

But, as it chanced me, then and there

Did dire misfortunes burst;

My home went waste for lack of care,

My sons rebelled and curst;

Till I confessed

That aims the best

Were looking like the worst.

VII

Enkindled by my votive work

No burning faith I find;

The deeper thinkers sneer and smirk,

And give my toil no mind;

From nod and wink

I read they think

That I am fool and blind.

VIII

My gift to God seems futile, quite;

The world moves as erstwhile;

And powerful Wrong on feeble Right

Tramples in olden style.

My faith burns down,

I see no crown;

But Cares, and Griefs, and Guile.

IX

So now, the remedy? Yea, this:

I gently swing the door

Here, of my fane – no soul to wis –

And cross the patterned floor

To the rood-screen

That stands between

The nave and inner chore.

X

The rich red windows dim the moon,

But little light need I;

I mount the prie-dieu, lately hewn

From woods of rarest dye;

Then from below

My garment, so,

I draw this cord, and tie

XI

One end thereof around the beam

Midway 'twixt Cross and truss:

I noose the nethermost extreme,

And in ten seconds thus

I journey hence –

To that land whence

No rumour reaches us.

XII

Well: Here at morn they'll light on one

Dangling in mockery

Of what he spent his substance on

Blindly and uselessly! ...

»He might« they'll say,

»Have built, some way,

A cheaper gallows-tree!«

The Lost Pyx

A Mediæval Legend

Some say the spot is banned: that the pillar Cross-and-Hand

Attests to a deed of hell;

But of else than of bale is the mystic tale

That ancient Vale-folk tell.

Ere Cernel's Abbey ceased hereabout there dwelt a priest,

(In later life sub-prior

Of the brotherhood there, whose bones are now bare

In the field that was Cernel choir).

One night in his cell at the foot of yon dell

The priest heard a frequent cry:

»Go, father, in haste to the cot on the waste,

And shrive a man waiting to die.«

Said the priest in a shout to the caller without,

»The night howls, the tree-trunks bow;

One may barely by day track so rugged a way,

And can I then do so now?«

No further word from the dark was heard,

And the priest moved never a limb;

And he slept and dreamed; till a Visage seemed

To frown from Heaven at him.

In a sweat he arose; and the storm shrieked shrill,

And smote as in savage joy;

While High-Stoy trees twanged to Bubb-Down Hill,

And Bubb-Down to High-Stoy.

There seemed not a holy thing in hail,

Nor shape of light or love,

From the Abbey north of Blackmore Vale

To the Abbey south thereof.

Yet he plodded thence through the dark immense,

And with many a stumbling stride

Through copse and briar climbed nigh and nigher

To the cot and the sick man's side.

When he would have unslung the Vessels uphung

To his arm in the steep ascent,

He made loud moan: the Pyx was gone

Of the Blessed Sacrament.

Then in dolorous dread he beat his head:

»No earthly prize or pelf

Is the thing I've lost in tempest tossed,

But the Body of Christ Himself!«

He thought of the Visage his dream revealed,

And turned towards whence he came,

Hands groping the ground along foot-track and field,

And head in a heat of shame.

Till here on the hill, betwixt vill and vill,

He noted a clear straight ray

Stretching down from the sky to a spot hard by,

Which shone with the light of day.

And gathered around the illumined ground

Were common beasts and rare,

All kneeling at gaze, and in pause profound

Attent on an object there.

'Twas the Pyx, unharmed 'mid the circling rows

Of Blackmore's hairy throng,

Whereof were oxen, sheep, and does,

And hares from the brakes among;

And badgers grey, and conies keen,

And squirrels of the tree,

And many a member seldom seen

Of Nature's family.

The ireful winds that scoured and swept

Through coppice, clump, and dell,

Within that holy circle slept

Calm as in hermit's cell.

Then the priest bent likewise to the sod

And thanked the Lord of Love,

And Blessed Mary, Mother of God,

And all the saints above.

And turning straight with his priceless freight,

He reached the dying one,

Whose passing sprite had been stayed for the rite

Without which bliss hath none.

And when by grace the priest won place,

And served the Abbey well,

He reared this stone to mark where shone

That midnight miracle.

Tess's Lament

I

I would that folk forgot me quite,

Forgot me quite!

I would that I could shrink from sight,

And no more see the sun.

Would it were time to say farewell,

To claim my nook, to need my knell,

Time for them all to stand and tell

Of my day's work as done.

II

Ah! dairy where I lived so long,

I lived so long;

Where I would rise up staunch and strong,

And lie down hopefully.

'Twas there within the chimney-seat

He watched me to the clock's slow beat –

Loved me, and learnt to call me Sweet,

And whispered words to me.

III

And now he's gone; and now he's gone; ...

And now he's gone!

The flowers we potted perhaps are thrown

To rot upon the farm.

And where we had our supper-fire

May now grow nettle, dock, and briar,

And all the place be mould and mire

So cozy once and warm.

IV

And it was I who did it all,

Who did it all;

'Twas I who made the blow to fall

On him who thought no guile.

Well, it is finished – past, and he

Has left me to my misery,

And I must take my Cross on me

For wronging him awhile.

V

How gay we looked that day we wed,

That day we wed!

»May joy be with ye!« they all said

A-standing by the durn.

I wonder what they say o'us now,

And if they know my lot; and how

She feels who milks my favourite cow,

And takes my place at churn!

VI

It wears me out to think of it,

To think of it;

I cannot bear my fate as writ,

I'd have my life unbe;

Would turn my memory to a blot,

Make every relic of me rot,

My doings be as they were not,

And gone all trace of me!

The Supplanter

A Tale

I

He bends his travel-tarnished feet

To where she wastes in clay:

From day-dawn until eve he fares

Along the wintry way;

From day-dawn until eve he bears

A wreath of blooms and bay.

II

»Are these the gravestone shapes that meet

My forward-straining view?

Or forms that cross a window-blind

In circle, knot, and queue:

Gay forms, that cross and whirl and wind

To music throbbing through?« –

III

»The Keeper of the Field of Tombs

Dwells by its gateway-pier;

He celebrates with feast and dance

His daughter's twentieth year:

He celebrates with wine of France

The birthday of his dear.« –

IV

»The gates are shut when evening glooms:

Lay down your wreath, sad wight;

To-morrow is a time more fit

For placing flowers aright:

The morning is the time for it;

Come, wake with us to-night!« –

V

He drops his wreath, and enters in,

And sits, and shares their cheer. –

»I fain would foot with you, young man,

Before all others here;

I fain would foot it for a span

With such a cavalier!«

VI

She coaxes, clasps, nor fails to win

His first-unwilling hand:

The merry music strikes its staves,

The dancers quickly band;

And with the Damsel of the Graves

He duly takes his stand.

VII

»You dance divinely, stranger swain,

Such grace I've never known.

O longer stay! Breathe not adieu

And leave me here alone!

O longer stay: to her be true

Whose heart is all your own!« –

VIII

»I mark a phantom through the pane,

That beckons in despair,

Its mouth all drawn with heavy moan –

Her to whom once I sware!« –

»Nay; 'tis the lately carven stone

Of some strange girl laid there!« –

IX

»I see white flowers upon the floor

Betrodden to a clot;

My wreath were they?« – »Nay; love me much,

Swear you'll forget me not!

'Twas but a wreath! Full many such

Are brought here and forgot.«

. . .

X

The watches of the night grow hoar,

He wakens with the sun;

»Now could I kill thee here!« he says,

»For winning me from one

Who ever in her living days

Was pure as cloistered nun!«

XI

She cowers; and, rising, roves he then

Afar for many a mile,

For evermore to be apart

From her who could beguile

His senses by her burning heart,

And win his love awhile.

XII

A year beholds him wend again

To her who wastes in clay;

From day-dawn until eve he fares

Along the wintry way,

From day-dawn until eve repairs

Towards her mound to pray.

XIII

And there he sets him to fulfil

His frustrate first intent:

And lay upon her bed, at last,

The offering earlier meant:

When, on his stooping figure, ghast

And haggard eyes are bent.

XIV

»O surely for a little while

You can be kind to me.

For do you love her, do you hate,

She knows not – cares not she:

Only the living feel the weight

Of loveless misery!

XV

I own my sin; I've paid its cost,

Being outcast, shamed, and bare:

I give you daily my whole heart,

Your child my tender care,

I pour you prayers; this life apart

Is more than I can bear!«

XVI

He turns – unpitying, passion-tossed;

»I know you not!« he cries,

»Nor know your child. I knew this maid,

But she's in Paradise!«

And he has vanished in the shade

From her beseeching eyes.

Imitations, etc

Sapphic Fragment

»Thou shalt be – Nothing.« –

Omar Khayýam

»Tombless, with no remembrance.« –

W. Shakespeare

Dead shalt thou lie; and nought

Be told of thee or thought,

For thou hast plucked not of the Muses' tree:

And even in Hades' halls

Amidst thy fellow-thralls

No friendly shade thy shade shall company!

Catullus: XXXI

(After passing Sirmione, April 1887)

Sirmio, thou dearest dear of strands

That Neptune strokes in lake and sea,

With what high joy from stranger lands

Doth thy old friend set foot on thee!

Yea, barely seems it true to me

That no Bithynia holds me now,

But calmly and assuringly

Around me stretchest homely Thou.

Is there a scene more sweet than when

Our clinging cares are undercast,

And, worn by alien moils and men,

The long untrodden sill repassed,

We press the pined for couch at last,

And find a full repayment there?

Then hail, sweet Sirmio; thou that wast,

And art, mine own unrivalled Fair!

After Schiller

Knight, a true sister-love

This heart retains;

Ask me no other love,

That way lie pains!

Calm must I view thee come,

Calm see thee go;

Tale-telling tears of thine

I must not know!

Song from Heine

I scanned her picture, dreaming,

Till each dear line and hue

Was imaged, to my seeming,

As if it lived anew.

Her lips began to borrow

Their former wondrous smile;

Her fair eyes, faint with sorrow,

Grew sparkling as erstwhile.

Such tears as often ran not

Ran then, my love, for thee;

And O, believe I cannot

That thou art lost to me!

From Victor Hugo

Child, were I king, I'd yield my royal rule,

My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due,

My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,

My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool,

For a glance from you!

Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs,

Angels, the demons abject under me,

Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs,

Time, space, all would I give – aye, upper spheres,

For a kiss from thee!

Cardinal Bembo's Epitaph on Raphael

Here's one in whom Nature feared – faint at such vying –

Eclipse while he lived, and decease at his dying.

Retrospect

I Have Lived with Shades

I

I have lived with Shades so long,

And talked to them so oft,

Since forth from cot and croft

I went mankind among,

That sometimes they

In their dim style

Will pause awhile

To hear my say;

II

And take me by the hand,

And lead me through their rooms

In the To-be, where Dooms

Half-wove and shapeless stand:

And show from there

The dwindled dust

And rot and rust

Of things that were.

III

»Now turn,« they said to me

One day: »Look whence we came,

And signify his name

Who gazes thence at thee.« –

– »Nor name nor race

Know I, or can,«

I said, »Of man

So commonplace.

IV

He moves me not at all;

I note no ray or jot

Of rareness in his lot,

Or star exceptional.

Into the dim

Dead throngs around

He'll sink, nor sound

Be left of him.«

V

»Yet,« said they, »his frail speech,

Hath accents pitched like thine –

Thy mould and his define

A likeness each to each –

But go! Deep pain

Alas, would be

His name to thee,

And told in vain!«

Memory and I

»O memory, where is now my youth,

Who used to say that life was truth?«

»I saw him in a crumbled cot

Beneath a tottering tree;

That he as phantom lingers there

Is only known to me.«

»O Memory, where is now my joy,

Who lived with me in sweet employ?«

»I saw him in gaunt gardens lone,

Where laughter used to be;

That he as phantom wanders there

Is known to none but me.«

»O Memory, where is now my hope,

Who charged with deeds my skill and scope?«

»I saw her in a tomb of tomes,

Where dreams are wont to be;

That she as spectre haunteth there

Is only known to me.«

»O Memory, where is now my faith,

One time a champion, now a wraith?«

»I saw her in a ravaged aisle,

Bowed down on bended knee;

That her poor ghost outflickers there

Is known to none but me.«

»O Memory, where is now my love,

That rayed me as a god above?«

»I saw her in an ageing shape

Where beauty used to be;

That her fond phantom lingers there

Is only known to me.«

AAGNOSTOI TEOI

Long have I framed weak phantasies of Thee,

O Willer masked and dumb!

Who makest Life become, –

As though by labouring all-unknowingly,

Like one whom reveries numb.

How much of consciousness informs Thy will,

Thy biddings, as if blind,

Of death-inducing kind,

Nought shows to us ephemeral ones who fill

But moments in Thy mind.

Perhaps Thy ancient rote-restricted ways

Thy ripening rule transcends;

That listless effort tends

To grow percipient with advance of days,

And with percipience mends.

For, in unwonted purlieus, far and nigh,

At whiles or short or long,

May be discerned a wrong

Dying as of self-slaughter; whereat I

Would raise my voice in song.