Hec., 444-483)

 

Song sung by the captive women of Troy on the beach at Aulis, while the Achæans were there storm-bound through the wrath of dishonoured Achilles, and waiting for a fair wind to bring them home.

 

STROPH

O fair wind blowing from the sea!

Who through the dark and mist dost guide

The ships that on the billows ride,

Unto what land, ah, misery!

Shall I be borne, across what stormy wave,

Or to whose house a purchased slave?

 

O sea-wind blowing fair and fast

Is it unto the Dorian strand,

Or to those far and fabled shores,

Where great Apidanus outpours

His streams upon the fertile land,

Or shall I tread the Phthian sand,

Borne by the swift breath of the blast?

 

ANTISROPH

O blowing wind! you bring my sorrow near,

For surely borne with splashing of the oar,

And hidden in some galley-prison drear

I shall be led unto that distant shore

Where the tall palm-tree first took root, and made,

With clustering laurel leaves, a pleasant shade

For Leto when with travail great she bore

A god and goddess in Love's bitter fight,

Her body's anguish, and her soul's delight.

 

It may be in Delos,

Encircled of seas,

I shall sing with some maids

From the Cyclades,

 

Of Artemis goddess

And queen and maiden,

Sing of the gold

In her hair heavy-laden.

 

Sing of her hunting,

Her arrows and bow,

And in singing find solace

From weeping and woe.

 

STROPH B

Or it may be my bitter doom

To stand a handmaid at the loom,

In distant Athens of supreme renown;

And weave some wondrous tapestry,

Or work in bright embroidery,

Upon the crocus flowered robe and saffron-coloured gown,

The flying horses wrought in gold,

The silver chariot onward rolled

That bears Athena through the Town;

Or the warring giants that strove to climb

From earth to heaven to reign as kings,

And Zeus the conquering son of Time

Borne on the hurricane's eagle wings;

And the lightning flame and the bolts that fell

From the risen cloud at the god's behest,

And hurled the rebels to darkness of hell,

To a sleep without slumber or waking or rest.

 

ANTISTROPH B

 

Alas! our children's sorrow, and their pain

In slavery.

Alas! our warrior sires nobly slain

For liberty.

Alas! our country's glory, and the name

Of Troy's fair town;

By the lances and the fighting and the flame

Tall Troy is down.

 

I shall pass with my soul over-laden,

To a land far away and unseen,

For Asia is slave and handmaiden,

Europa is Mistress and Queen.

Without love, or love's holiest treasure,

I shall pass into Hades abhorred,

To the grave as my chamber of pleasure,

To death as my Lover and Lord.

 

A Fragment from the Agamemnon of Æschylos

(Lines 1140-1173)

The scene is the court-yard of the Palace at Argos. Agamemnon has already entered the House of Doom, and Clytemnestra has followed close on his heels. Cassandra is left alone upon the stage. The conscious terror of death and the burden of prophecy lie heavy upon her; terrible signs and visions greet her approach. She sees blood upon the lintel, and the smell of blood scares her, as some bird, from the door. The ghosts of the murdered children come to mourn with her. Her second sight pierces the Palace walls; she sees the fatal bath, the tramelling net, and the axe sharpened for her own ruin and her lord's.

But not even in the hour of her last anguish is Apollo merciful; her warnings are unheeded, her prophetic utterances made mock of.

The orchestra is filled with a chorus of old men weak, foolish, irresolute. They do not believe the weird woman of mystery till the hour for help is past, and the cry of Agamemnon echoes from the house, »Oh me! I am stricken with a stroke of death.«

 

Chorus

Thy prophecies are but a lying tale,

For cruel gods have brought thee to this state,

And of thyself and thine own wretched fate

Sing you this song and these unhallowed lays,

Like the brown bird of grief insatiate

Crying for sorrow of its dreary days;

Crying for Itys, Itys, in the vale –

The nightingale! The nightingale!

 

Cassandra

Yet I would that to me they had given

The fate of that singer so clear,

Fleet wings to fly up unto heaven,

Away from all mourning and fear;

For ruin and slaughter await me – the cleaving with

sword and the spear.

 

Chorus

 

Whence come these crowding fancies on thy brain,

Sent by some god it may be, yet for naught?

Why dost thou sing with evil-tongued refrain,

Moulding thy terrors to this hideous strain

With shrill, sad cries, as if by death distraught?

Why dost thou tread that path of prophecy,

Where, upon either hand,

Landmarks for ever stand

With horrid legend for all men to see?

 

Cassandra

O bitter bridegroom who didst bear

Ruin to those that loved thee true!

O holy stream Scamander, where

With gentle nurturement I grew

In the first days, when life and love were new.

And now – and now – it seems that I must lie

In the dark land that never sees the sun;

Sing my sad songs of fruitless prophecy

By the black stream Cokytos that doth run

Through long, low hills of dreary Acheron.

 

Chorus

Ah, but thy word is clear!

Even a child among men,

Even a child might see

What is lying hidden here.

Ah! I am smitten deep

To the heart with a deadly blow

At the evil fate of the maid,

At the cry of her song of woe!

Sorrows for her to bear!

Wonders for me to hear!

 

Cassandra

O my poor land laid waste with flame and fire!

O ruined city overthrown by fate!

Ah, what availed the offerings of my Sire

To keep the foreign foemen from the gate!

Ah, what availed the herds of pasturing kine

To save my country from the wrath divine!

Ah, neither prayer nor priest availèd aught,

Nor the strong captains that so stoutly fought,

For the tall town lies desolate and low.

And I, the singer of this song of woe,

Know, by the fires burning in my brain,

That Death, the healer of all earthly pain,

Is close at hand! I will not shirk the blow.

 

Impressions

1
Le Jardin

The lily's withered chalice falls

Around its rod of dusty gold,

And from the beech-trees on the wold

The last wood-pigeon coos and calls.

 

The gaudy leonine sunflower

Hangs black and barren on its stalk,

And down the windy garden walk

The dead leaves scatter, – hour by hour.

 

Pale privet-petals white as milk

Are blown into a snowy mass:

The roses lie upon the grass

Like little shreds of crimson silk.

 

2
La Mer

A white mist drifts across the shrouds,

A wild moon in this wintry sky

Gleams like an angry lion's eye

Out of a mane of tawny clouds.

 

The muffled steersman at the wheel

Is but a shadow in the gloom; –

And in the throbbing engine-room

Leap the long rods of polished steel.

 

The shattered storm has left its trace

Upon this huge and heaving dome,

For the thin threads of yellow foam

Float on the waves like ravelled lace.

 

The Artist's Dream

or

 

San Artysty

From the Polish of Madame Helena Modjeska

I too have had my dreams: ay, known indeed

The crowded visions of a fiery youth

Which haunt me still.

 

. . . . . .

 

Methought that once I lay

Within some garden close, what time the Spring

Breaks like a bird from Winter, and the sky

Is sapphire-vaulted. The pure air was soft,

And the deep grass I lay on soft as air.

The strange and secret life of the young trees

Swelled in the green and tender bark, or burst

To buds of sheathèd emerald; violets

Peered from their nooks of hiding, half afraid

Of their own loveliness; the vermeil rose

Opened its heart, and the bright star-flower

Shone like a star of morning. Butterflies,

In painted liveries of brown and gold,

Took the shy bluebells as their pavilions

And seats of pleasaunce; overhead a bird

Made snow of all the blossoms as it flew

To charm the woods with singing: the whole world

Seemed waking to delight!

And yet – and yet –

My soul was filled with leaden heaviness:

I had no joy in Nature; what to me,

Ambition's slave, was crimson-stainèd rose

Or the gold-sceptred crocus? The bright bird

Sang out of tune for me, and the sweet flowers

Seemed but a pageant, and an unreal show

That mocked my heart; for, like the fabled snake

That stings itself to anguish, so I lay

Self-tortured, self-tormented.

The day crept

Unheeded on the dial, till the sun

Dropt, purple-sailed, into the gorgeous East,

When, from the fiery heart of that great orb,

Came One whose shape of beauty far outshone

The most bright vision of this common earth,

Girt was she in a robe more white than flame

Or furnace-heated brass; upon her head

She bare a laurel crown, and, like a star

That falls from the high heaven suddenly,

Passed to my side.

Then kneeling low, I cried

»O much-desired! O long-waited for!

Immortal Glory! Great world-conqueror!

Oh, let me not die crownless; once, at least,

Let thine imperial laurels bind my brows,

Ignoble else. Once let the clarion note

And trump of loud ambition sound my name

And for the rest I care not.«

Then to me,

In gentle voice, the angel made reply:

»Child, ignorant of the true happiness,

Nor knowing life's best wisdom, thou wert made

For light and love and laughter, not to waste

Thy youth in shooting arrows at the sun,

Or nurturing that ambition in thy soul

Whose deadly poison will infect thy heart,

Marring all joy and gladness! Tarry here

In the sweet confines of this garden-close

Whose level meads and glades delectable

Invite for pleasure; the wild bird that wakes

These silent dells with sudden melody,

Shall be thy playmate; and each flower that blows

Shall twine itself unbidden in thy hair –

Garland more meet for thee than the dread weight

Of Glory's laurel wreath.«

»Ah! fruitless gifts,«

I cried, unheeding of her prudent word,

»Are all such mortal flowers, whose brief lives

Are bounded by the dawn and setting sun.

The anger of the noon can wound the rose,

And the rain rob the crocus of its gold;

But thine immortal coronal of Fame,

Thy crown of deathless laurel, this alone

Age cannot harm, nor winter's icy tooth

Pierce to its hurt, nor common things profane.«

No answer made the angel, but her face

Dimmed with the mists of pity.

Then methought

That from mine eyes, wherein ambition's torch

Burned with its latest and most ardent flame,

Flashed forth two level beams of straitened light,

Beneath whose fulgent fires the laurel crown

Twisted and curled, as when the Sirian star

Withers the ripening corn, and one pale leaf

Fell on my brow; and I leapt up and felt

The mighty pulse of Fame, and heard far off

The sound of many nations praising me!

 

. . .

 

One fiery-coloured moment of great life!

And then – how barren was the nation's praise!

How vain the trump of Glory! Bitter thorns

Were in that laurel leaf, whose toothèd barbs

Burned and bit deep till fire and red flame

Seemed to feed full upon my brain, and make

The garden a bare desert.

With wild hands

I strove to tear it from my bleeding brow,

But all in vain; and with a dolorous cry

That paled the lingering stars before their time,

I waked at last, and saw the timorous dawn

Peer with grey face into my darkened room,

And would have deemed it a mere idle dream

But for this restless pain that gnaws my heart,

And the red wounds of thorns upon my brow.

 

Désespoir

The seasons send their ruin as they go,

For in the spring the narciss shows its head

Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red,

And in the autumn purple violets blow,

And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow;

Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again

And this grey land grow green with summer rain

And send up cowslips for some boy to mow.

 

But what of life whose bitter hungry sea

Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night

Covers the days which never more return?

Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn

We lose too soon, and only find delight

In withered husks of some dead memory.

 

Ravenna

(Newdigate Prize Poem)
1

A year ago I breathed the Italian air, –

And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair, –

These fields made golden with the flower of March,

The throstle singing on the feathered larch,

The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,

The little clouds that race across the sky;

And fair the violet's gentle drooping head,

The primrose, pale for love uncomforted,

The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar,

The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon of fire

Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring);

And all the flowers of our English Spring,

Fond snowdrops, and the bright-starred daffodil.

Up starts the lark beside the murmuring mill,

And breaks the gossamer-threads of early dew;

And down the river, like a flame of blue,

Keen as an arrow flies the water-king,

While the brown linnets in the greenwood sing.

A year ago! – it seems a little time

Since last I saw that lordly southern clime,

Where flower and fruit to purple radiance blow,

And like bright lamps the fabled apples glow.

Full Spring it was – and by rich flowering vines,

Dark olive-groves and noble forest-pines,

I rode at will; the moist glad air was sweet,

The white road rang beneath my horse's feet,

And musing on Ravenna's ancient name,

I watched the day till, marked with wounds of flame,

The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.

 

O how my heart with boyish passion burned,

When far away across the sedge and mere

I saw that Holy City rising clear,

Crowned with her crown of towers! – On and on

I galloped, racing with the setting sun,

And ere the crimson after-glow was passed,

I stood within Ravenna's walls at last!

 

2

How strangely still! no sound of life or joy

Startles the air; no laughing shepherd-boy

Pipes on his reed, nor ever through the day

Comes the glad sound of children at their play:

O sad, and sweet, and silent! surely here

A man might dwell apart from troublous fear,

Watching the tide of seasons as they flow

From amorous Spring to Winter's rain and snow,

And have no thought of sorrow; – here, indeed,

Are Lethe's waters, and that fatal weed

Which makes a man forget his fatherland.

 

Ay! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand,

Like Proserpine, with poppy-laden head,

Guarding the holy ashes of the dead.

For though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased,

Thy noble dead are with thee! – they at least

Are faithful to thine honour: – guard them well,

O childless city! for a mighty spell,

To wake men's hearts to dreams of things sublime,

Are the lone tombs where rest the Great of Time.

 

3

Yon lonely pillar, rising on the plain,

Marks where the bravest knight of France was slain, –

The Prince of chivalry, the Lord of war,

Gaston de Foix: for some untimely star

Led him against thy city, and he fell,

As falls some forest-lion fighting well.

Taken from life while life and love were new,

He lies beneath God's seamless veil of blue;

Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o'er his head,

And oleanders bloom to deeper red,

Where his bright youth flowed crimson on the ground.

 

Look farther north unto that broken mound –

There, prisoned now within a lordly tomb

Raised by a daughter's hand, in lonely gloom,

Huge-limbed Theodoric, the Gothic king,

Sleeps after all his weary conquering.

Time hath not spared his ruin, – wind and rain

Have broken down his stronghold, and again

We see that Death is mighty lord of all,

And king and clown to ashen dust must fall.

 

Mighty indeed their glory! yet to me

Barbaric king, or knight of chivalry,

Or the great queen herself, were poor and vain,

Beside the grave where Dante rests from pain.

His gilded shrine lies open to the air;

And cunning sculptor's hands have carven there

The calm white brow, as calm as earliest morn,

The eyes that flashed with passionate love and scorn,

The lips that sang of Heaven and of Hell,

The almond-face which Giotto drew so well,

The weary face of Dante; – to this day,

Here in his place of resting, far away

From Arno's yellow waters, rushing down

Through the wide bridges of that fairy town,

Where the tall tower of Giotto seems to rise

A marble lily under sapphire skies!

Alas! my Dante! thou hast known the pain

Of meaner lives, – the exile's galling chain,

How steep the stairs within kings' houses are,

And all the petty miseries which mar

Man's nobler nature with the sense of wrong.

Yet this dull world is grateful for thy song;

Our nations do thee homage, – even she,

That cruel queen of vine-clad Tuscany,

Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow,

Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now,

And begs in vain the ashes of her son.

 

O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:

Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice;

Ravenna guards thine ashes: sleep in peace.

 

4

How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!

No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls.

The broken chain lies rusting on the door,

And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:

Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run

By the stone lions blinking in the sun.

Byron dwelt here in love and revelry

For two long years – a second Anthony,

Who of the world another Actium made!

Yet suffered not his royal soul to fade,

Or lyre to break, or lance to grow less keen,

'Neath any wiles of an Egyptian queen.

For from the East there came a mighty cry,

And Greece stood up to fight for Liberty,

And called him from Ravenna: never knight

Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight!

None fell more bravely on ensanguined field,

Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield!

O Hellas! Hellas! in thine hour of pride,

Thy day of might, remember him who died

To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain:

O Salamis! O lone Platæan plain!

O tossing waves of wild Eubœan sea!

O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylæ!

He loved you well – ay, not alone in word,

Who freely gave to thee his lyre and sword,

Like Æschylos at well-fought Marathon:

 

And England, too, shall glory in her son,

Her warrior-poet, first in song and fight.

No longer now shall Slander's venomed spite

Crawl like a snake across his perfect name,

Or mar the lordly scutcheon of his fame.

 

For as the olive-garland of the race,

Which lights with joy each eager runner's face,

As the red cross which saveth men in war,

As a flame-bearded beacon seen from far

By mariners upon a storm-tossed sea, –

Such was his love for Greece and Liberty!

 

Byron, thy crowns are ever fresh and green:

Red leaves of rose from Sapphic Mitylene

Shall bind thy brows; the myrtle blooms for thee,

In hidden glades by lonely Castaly;

The laurels wait thy coming: all are thine,

And round thy head one perfect wreath will twine.

 

5

The pine-tops rocked before the evening breeze

With the hoarse murmur of the wintry seas,

And the tall stems were streaked with amber, bright; –

I wandered through the wood in wild delight,

Some startled bird, with fluttering wings and fleet,

Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet,

Like silver crowns, the pale narcissi lay,

And small birds sang on every twining spray.

O waving trees, O forest liberty!

Within your haunts at least a man is free,

And half forgets the weary world of strife:

The blood flows hotter, and a sense of life

Wales i' the quickening veins, while once again

The woods are filled with gods we fancied slain.

Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see

Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy

Amid the reeds! some startled Dryad-maid

In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,

The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face

Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,

White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,

And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!

Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.

 

O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream!

Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,

The evening chimes, the convent's vesper bell,

Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.

Alas! alas! these sweet and honied hours

Had whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea,

And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane.

 

6

O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told

Of thy great glories in the days of old:

Two thousand years have passed since thou didst see

Cæsar ride forth to royal victory.

Mighty thy name when Rome's lean eagles flew

From Britain's isles to far Euphrates blue;

And of the peoples thou wast noble queen,

Till in thy streets the Goth and Hun were seen.

Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea,

Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery!

No longer now upon thy swelling tide,

Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys ride!

For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float,

The weary shepherd pipes his mournful note;

And the white sheep are free to come and go

Where Adria's purple waters used to flow.

 

O fair! O sad! O Queen uncomforted!

In ruined loveliness thou liest dead,

Alone of all thy sisters; for at last

Italia's royal warrior hath passed

Rome's lordliest entrance, and hath worn his crown

In the high temples of the Eternal Town!

The Palatine hath welcomed back her king,

And with his name the seven mountains ring!

 

And Naples hath outlived her dream of pain,

And mocks her tyrant! Venice lives again,

New risen from the waters! and the cry

Of Light and Truth, of Love and Liberty,

Is heard in lordly Genoa, and where

The marble spires of Milan wound the air,

Rings from the Alps to the Sicilian shore,

And Dante's dream is now a dream no more.

 

But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all,

Thy ruined palaces are but a pall

That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name

Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame

Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun

Of new Italia! for the night is done,

The night of dark oppression, and the day

Hath dawned in passionate splendour: far away

The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,

Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand

Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy,

From the far West unto the Eastern sea.

 

I know, indeed, that sons of thine have died

In Lissa's waters, by the mountain-side

Of Aspromonte, on Novara's plain, –

Nor have thy children died for thee in vain:

And yet, methinks, thou hast not drunk this wine

From grapes new-crushed of Liberty divine,

Thou hast not followed that immortal Star

Which leads the people forth to deeds of war.

Weary of life, thou liest in silent sleep,

As one who marks the lengthening shadows creep,

Careless of all the hurrying hours that run,

Mourning some day of glory, for the sun

Of Freedom hath not shewn to thee his face,

And thou hast caught no flambeau in the race.

 

Yet wake not from thy slumbers, – rest thee well,

Amidst thy fields of amber asphodel,

Thy lily-sprinkled meadows, – rest thee there,

To mock all human greatness: who would dare

To vent the paltry sorrows of his life

Before thy ruins, or to praise the strife

Of kings' ambition, and the barren pride

Of warring nations! wert not thou the Bride

Of the wild Lord of Adria's stormy sea!

The Queen of double Empires! and to thee

Were not the nations given as thy prey!

And now – thy gates lie open night and day,

The grass grows green on every tower and hall,

The ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall;

And where thy mailèd warriors stood at rest

The midnight owl hath made her secret nest.

O fallen! fallen! from thy high estate,

O city trammelled in the toils of Fate,

Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days,

But a dull shield, a crown of withered bays!

 

Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears,

From tranquil tower can watch the coming years;

Who can foretell what joys the day shall bring,

Or why before the dawn the linnets sing?

Thou, even thou, mayst wake, as wakes the rose

To crimson splendour from its grave of snows;

As the rich corn-fields rise to red and gold

From these brown lands, now stiff with Winter's cold;

As from the storm-rack comes a perfect star!

 

O much-loved city! I have wandered far

From the wave-circled islands of my home;

Have seen the gloomy mystery of the Dome

Rise slowly from the drear Campagna's way,

Clothed in the royal purple of the day:

I from the city of the violet crown

Have watched the sun by Corinth's hill go down,

And marked the ›myriad laughter‹ of the sea

From starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady;

Yet back to thee returns my perfect love,

As to its forest-nest the evening dove.

 

O poet's city! one who scarce has seen

Some twenty summers cast their doublets green

For Autumn's livery, would seek in vain

To wake his lyre to sing a louder strain,

Or tell thy days of glory; – poor indeed

Is the low murmur of the shepherd's reed,

Where the loud clarion's blast should shake the sky,

And flame across the heavens! and to try

Such lofty themes were folly: yet I know

That never felt my heart a nobler glow

Than when I woke the silence of thy street

With clamorous trampling of my horse's feet,

And saw the city which now I try to sing,

After long days of weary travelling.

 

7

Adieu, Ravenna! but a year ago,

I stood and watched the crimson sunset glow

From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain:

The sky was as a shield that caught the stain

Of blood and battle from the dying sun,

And in the west the circling clouds had spun

A royal robe, which some great God might wear,

While into ocean-seas of purple air

Sank the gold galley of the Lord of Light.

 

Yet here the gentle stillness of the night

Brings back the swelling tide of memory,

And wakes again my passionate love for thee:

Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come

On meadow and tree the Summer's lordly bloom;

And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow,

And send up lilies for some boy to mow.

Then before long the Summer's conqueror,

Rich Autumn-time, the season's usurer,

Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,

And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze;

And after that the Winter cold and drear.

So runs the perfect cycle of the year.

And so from youth to manhood do we go,

And fall to weary days and locks of snow.

Love only knows no winter; never dies:

Nor cares for frowning storms or leaden skies,

And mine for thee shall never pass away,

Though my weak lips may falter in my lay.

 

Adieu! Adieu! yon silent evening star,

The night's ambassador, doth gleam afar,

And bid the shepherd bring his flocks to fold.

Perchance before our in and seas of gold

Are garnered by the reapers into sheaves,

Perchance before I see the Autumn leaves,

I may behold thy city; and lay down

Low at thy feet the poet's laurel crown.

 

Adieu! Adieu! yon silver lamp, the moon,

Which turns our midnight into perfect noon,

Doth surely light thy towers, guarding well

Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell.

 

The Sphinx

In a dim corner of my room for longer than my fancy thinks

A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through the shifting gloom.

 

Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she does not stir

For silver moons are naught to her and naught to her the suns that reel.

 

Red follows grey across the air, the waves of moonlight ebb and flow

But with the Dawn she does not go and in the night-time she is there.

 

Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and all the while this curious cat

Lies couching on the Chinese mat with eyes of satin rimmed with gold.

 

Upon the mat she lies and leers and on the tawny throat of her

Flutters the soft and silky fur or ripples to her pointed ears.

 

Come forth, my lovely seneschal! so somnolent, so statuesque!

Come forth you exquisite grotesque! half woman and half animal!

 

Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx! And put your head upon my knee!

And let me stroke your throat and see your body spotted like the Lynx!

 

And let me touch those curving claws of yellow ivory and grasp

The tail that like a monstrous Asp coils round your heavy velvet paws!

 

A thousand weary centuries are thine while I have hardly seen

Some twenty summers cast their green for Autumn's gaudy liveries.

 

But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the great sand-stone obelisks,

And you have talked with Basilisks, and you have looked on Hippogriffs.

 

O tell me, were you standing by when Isis to Osiris knelt?

And did you watch the Egyptian melt her union for Antony

 

And drink the jewel-drunken wine and bend her head in mimic awe

To see the huge proconsul draw the salted tunny from the brine?

 

And did you mark the Cyprian kiss white Adon on his catafalque?

And did you follow Amenalk, the God of Heliopolis?

 

And did you talk with Thoth, and did you hear the moon-horned Io weep?

And know the painted kings who sleep beneath the wedge-shaped Pyramid?

 

Lift up your large black satin eyes which are like cushions where one sinks!

Fawn at my feet, fantastic Sphinx! and sing me all your memories!

 

Sing to me of the Jewish maid who wandered with the Holy Child,

And how you led them through the wild, and how they slept beneath your shade.

 

Sing to me of that odorous green eve when crouching by the marge

You heard from Adrian's gilded barge the laughter of Antinous

 

And lapped the stream and fed your drouth and watched with hot and hungry stare

The ivory body of that rare young slave with his pomegranate mouth!

 

Sing to me of the Labyrinth in which the twiformed bull was stalled!

Sing to me of the night you crawled across the temple's granite plinth

 

When through the purple corridors the screaming scarlet Ibis flew

In terror, and a horrid dew dripped from the moaning Mandragores,

 

And the great torpid crocodile within the tank shed slimy tears,

And tare the jewels from his ears and staggered back into the Nile,

 

And the priests cursed you with shrill psalms as in your claws you seized their snake

And crept away with it to slake your passion by the shuddering palms.

 

Who were your lovers? who were they who wrestled for you in the dust?

Which was the vessel of your Lust? What Leman had you, every day?

 

Did giant Lizards come and crouch before you on the reedy banks?

Did Gryphons with great metal flanks leap on you in your trampled couch?

 

Did monstrous hippopotami come sidling toward you in the mist?

Did gilt-scaled dragons writhe and twist with passion as you passed them by?

 

And from the brick-built Lycian tomb what horrible Chimera came

With fearful heads and fearful flame to breed new wonders from your womb?

 

Or had you shameful secret quests and did you harry to your home

Some Nereid coiled in amber foam with curious rock crystal breasts?

 

Or did you treading through the froth call to the brown Sidonian

For tidings of Leviathan, Leviathan or Behemoth?

 

Or did you when the sun was set climb up the cactus-covered slope

To meet your swarthy Ethiop whose body was of polished jet?

 

Or did you while the earthen skiffs dropped down the grey Nilotic flats

At twilight and the flickering bats flew round the temple's triple glyphs

 

Steal to the border of the bar and swim across the silent lake

And slink into the vault and make the Pyramid your lúpanar

 

Till from each black sarcophagus rose up the painted swathed dead?

Or did you lure unto your bed the ivory-horned Tragelaphos?

 

Or did you love the god of flies who plagued the Hebrews and was splashed

With wine unto the waist? or Pasht, who had green beryls for her eyes?

 

Or that young god, the Tyrian, who was more amorous than the dove

Of Ashtaroth? or did you love the god of the Assyrian

 

Whose wings, like strange transparent talc, rose high above his hawk-faced head,

Painted with silver and with red and ribbed with rods of Oreichalch?

 

Or did huge Apis from his car leap down and lay before your feet

Big blossoms of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured nenuphar?

 

How subtle-secret is your smile! Did you love none then? Nay, I know

Great Ammon was your bedfellow! He lay with you beside the Nile!

 

The river-horses in the slime trumpeted when they saw him come

Odorous with Syrian galbanum and smeared with spikenard and with thyme.

 

He came along the river bank like some tall galley argent-sailed,

He strode across the waters, mailed in beauty, and the waters sank.

 

He strode across the desert sand: he reached the valley where you lay:

He waited till the dawn of day: then touched your black breasts with his hand.

 

You kissed his mouth with mouths of flame: you made the hornèd god your own:

You stood behind him on his throne: you called him by his secret name.

 

You whispered monstrous oracles into the caverns of his ears:

With blood of goats and blood of steers you taught him monstrous miracles.

 

White Ammon was your bedfellow! Your chamber was the steaming Nile!

And with your curved archaic smile you watched his passion come and go.

 

With Syrian oils his brows were bright: and widespread as a tent at noon

His marble limbs made pale the moon and lent the day a larger light.

 

His long hair was nine cubits' span and coloured like that yellow gem

Which hidden in their garment's hem the merchants bring from Kurdistan.

 

His face was as the must that lies upon a vat of new-made wine:

The seas could not insapphirine the perfect azure of his eyes.

 

His thick soft throat was white as milk and threaded with thin veins of blue:

And curious pearls like frozen dew were broidered on his flowing silk.

 

On pearl and porphyry pedestalled he was too bright to look upon:

For on his ivory breast there shone the wondrous ocean-emerald,

 

That mystic moonlit jewel which some diver of the Colchian caves

Had found beneath the blackening waves and carried to the Colchian witch.

 

Before his gilded galiot ran naked vine-wreathed corybants,

And lines of swaying elephants knelt down to draw his chariot,

 

And lines of swarthy Nubians bare up his litter as he rode

Down the great granite-paven road between the nodding peacock fans.

 

The merchants brought him steatite from Sidon in their painted ships:

The meanest cup that touched his lips was fashioned from a chrysolite.

 

The merchants brought him cedar chests of rich apparel bound with cords;

His train was borne by Memphian lords: young kings were glad to be his guests.

 

Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Ammon's altar day and night,

Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through Ammon's carven house – and now

 

Foul snake and speckled adder with their young ones crawl from stone to stone

For ruined is the house and prone the great rosemarble monolith!

 

Wild ass or trotting jackal comes and couches in the mouldering gates:

Wild satyrs call unto their mates across the fallen fluted drums.

 

And on the summit of the pile the blue-faced ape of Horus sits

And gibbers while the fig-tree spits the pillars of the peristyle.

 

The god is scattered here and there: deep hidden in the windy sand

I saw his giant granite hand still clenched in impotent despair.

 

And many a wandering caravan of stately negroes silken-shawled,

Crossing the desert halts appalled before the neck that none can span.

 

And many a bearded Bedouin draws back his yellow-striped burnous

To gaze upon the Titan thews of him who was thy paladin.

 

Go, seek his fragments on the moor and wash them in the evening dew,

And from their pieces make anew thy mutilated paramour!

 

Go, seek them where they lie alone and from their broken pieces make

Thy bruisèd bedfellow! And wake mad passions in the senseless stone!

 

Charm his dull ear with Syrian hymns! he loved your body! oh, be kind,

Pour spikenard on his hair, and wind soft rolls of linen round his limbs!

 

Wind round his head the figured coins! stain with red fruits those pallid lips!

Weave purple for his shrunken hips! and purple for his barren loins!

 

Away to Egypt! Have no fear. Only one God has ever died.

Only one God has let His side be wounded by a soldier's spear.

 

But these, thy lovers, are not dead. Still by the hundred-cubit gate

Dog-faced Anubis sits in state with lotus-lilies for thy head.

 

Still from his chair of porphyry gaunt Memnon strains his lidless eyes

Across the empty land, and cries each yellow morning unto thee.

 

And Nilus with his broken horn lies in his black and oozy bed

And till thy coming will not spread his waters on the withering corn.

 

Your lovers are not dead, I know. They will rise up and hear your voice

And clash their cymbals and rejoice and run to kiss your mouth! And so,

 

Set wings upon your argosies! Set horses to your ebon car!

Back to your Nile! Or if you are grown sick of dead divinities

 

Follow some roving lion's spoor across the copper-coloured plain,

Reach out and hale him by the mane and bid him be your paramour!

 

Couch by his side upon the grass and set your white teeth in his throat

And when you hear his dying note lash your long flanks of polished brass

 

And take a tiger for your mate, whose amber sides are flecked with black,

And ride upon his gilded back in triumph through the Theban gate,

 

And toy with him in amorous jests, and when he turns, and snarls, and gnaws,

O smite him with your jasper claws! and bruise him with your agate breasts!

 

Why are you tarrying? Get hence! I weary of your sullen ways,

I weary of your steadfast gaze, your somnolent magnificence.

 

Your horrible and heavy breath makes the light flicker in the lamp,

And on my brow I feel the damp and dreadful dews of night and death.

 

Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver in some stagnant lake,

Your tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances to fantastic tunes,

 

Your pulse makes poisonous melodies, and your black throat is like the hole

Left by some torch or burning coal on Saracenic tapestries.

 

Away! The sulphur-coloured stars are hurrying through the Western gate!

Away! Or if may be too late to climb their silent silver cars!

 

See, the dawn shivers round the grey gilt-dialled towers, and the rain

Streams down each diamonded pane and blurs with tears the wannish day.

 

What snake-tressed fury fresh from Hell, with uncouth gestures and unclean,

Stole from the poppy-drowsy queen and led you to a student's cell?

 

What songless tongueless ghost of sin crept through the curtains of the night,

And saw my taper turning bright, and knocked, and bade you enter in?

 

Are there not others more accursed, whiter with leprosies than I?

Are Abana and Pharphar dry that you come here to slake your thirst?

 

Get hence, you loathsome mystery! Hideous animal, get hence!

You wake in me each bestial sense, you make me what I would not be.

 

You make my creed a barren sham, you wake foul dreams of sensual life,

And Atys with his blood-stained knife were better than the thing I am.

 

False Sphinx! False Sphinx! By reedy Styx old Charon, leaning on his oar,

Waits for my coin. Go thou before, and leave me to my crucifix,

 

Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches the world with wearied eyes,

And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps for every soul in vain.

 

Le Jardin des Tuileries

This winter air is keen and cold,

And keen and cold this winter sun,

But round my chair the children run

Like little things of dancing gold.

 

Sometimes about the painted kiosk

The mimic soldiers strut and stride,

Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide

In the bleak tangles of the bosk.

 

And sometimes, while the old nurse cons

Her book, they steal across the square,

And launch their paper navies where

Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.

 

And now in mimic flight they flee,

And now they rush, a boisterous band –

And, tiny hand on tiny hand,

Climb up the black and leafless tree.

 

Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,

And children climbed me, for their sake

Though it be winter I would break

Into spring blossoms white and blue!

 

The Ballad of Reading Gaol

1

He did not wear his scarlet coat,

For blood and wine are red,

And blood and wine were on his hands

When they found him with the dead,

The poor dead woman whom he loved,

And murdered in her bed.

 

He walked amongst the Trial Men

In a suit of shabby grey;

A cricket cap was on his head,

And his step seemed light and gay;

But I never saw a man who looked

So wistfully at the day.

 

I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of blue

Which prisoners call the sky,

And at every drifting cloud that went

With sails of silver by.

 

I walked, with other souls in pain,

Within another ring,

And was wondering if the man had done

A great or little thing,

When a voice behind me whispered low,

»That fellow's got to swing.«

 

Dear Christ! the very prison walls

Suddenly seemed to reel,

And the sky above my head became

Like a casque of scorching steel;

And, though I was a soul in pain,

My pain I could not feel.

 

I only knew what hunted thought

Quickened his step, and why

He looked upon the garish day

With such a wistful eve;

The man had killed the thing he loved,

And so he had to die.

 

*

 

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word.

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!

 

Some kill their love when they are young,

And some when they are old;

Some strangle with the hands of Lust,

Some with the hands of Gold:

The kindest use a knife, because

The dead so soon grow cold.

 

Some love too little, some too long,

Some sell, and others buy;

Some do the deed with many tears,

And some without a sigh:

For each man kills the thing he loves,

Yet each man does not die.

 

He does not die a death of shame

On a day of dark disgrace,

Nor have a noose about his neck,

Nor a cloth upon his face,

Nor drop feet foremost through the floor

Into an empty space.

 

He does not sit with silent men

Who watch him night and day;

Who watch him when he tries to weep,

And when he tries to pray;

Who watch him lest himself should rob

The prison of its prey.

 

He does not wake at dawn to see

Dread figures throng his room,

The shivering Chaplain robed in white,

The Sheriff stern with gloom,

And the Governor all in shiny black,

With the yellow face of Doom.

 

He does not rise in piteous haste

To put on convict-clothes,

While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes

Each new and nerve-twitched pose,

Fingering a watch whose little ticks

Are like horrible hammer-blows.

 

He does not feel that sickening thirst

That sands one's throat, before

The hangman with his gardener's gloves

Comes through the padded door,

And binds one with three leathern thongs,

That the throat may thirst no more.

 

He does not bend his head to hear

The Burial Office read,

Nor, while the anguish of his soul

Tells him he is not dead,

Cross his own coffin, as he moves

Into the hideous shed.

 

He does not stare upon the air

Through a little roof of glass:

He does not pray with lips of clay

For his agony to pass;

Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek

The kiss of Caiaphas.

 

2

Six weeks the guardsman walked the yard,

In the suit of shabby grey:

His cricket cap was on his head,

And his step seemed light and gay,

But I never saw a man who looked

So wistfully at the day.

 

I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of blue

Which prisoners call the sky,

And at every wandering cloud that trailed

Its ravelled fleeces by.

 

He did not wring his hands, as do

Those witless men who dare

To try to rear the changeling Hope

In the cave of black Despair:

He only looked upon the sun,

And drank the morning air.

 

He did not wring his hands nor weep,

Nor did he peek or pine,

But he drank the air as though it held

Some healthful anodyne;

With open mouth he drank the sun

As though it had been wine!

 

And I and all the souls in pain,

Who tramped the other ring,

Forgot if we ourselves had done

A great or little thing,

And watched with gaze of dull amaze

The man who had to swing.

 

For strange it was to see him pass

With a step so light and gay,

And strange it was to see him look

So wistfully at the day,

And strange it was to think that he

Had such a debt to pay.

 

*

 

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves

That in the spring-time shoot;

But grim to see is the gallows-tree,

With its adder-bitten root,

And, green or dry, a man must die

Before it bears its fruit!

 

The loftiest place is that seat of grace

For which all worldlings try:

But who would stand in hempen band

Upon a scaffold high,

And through a murderer's collar take

His last look at the sky?

 

It is sweet to dance to violins

When Love and Life are fair:

To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes

Is delicate and rare:

But it is not sweet with nimble feet

To dance upon the air!

 

So with curious eyes and sick surmise

We watched him day by day,

And wondered if each one of us

Would end the self-same way,

For none can tell to what red Hell

His sightless soul may stray.

 

At last the dead man walked no more

Amongst the Trial Men,

And I knew that he was standing up

In the black dock's dreadful pen,

And that never would I see his face

For weal or woe again.

 

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm

We had crossed each other's way:

But we made no sign, we said no word,

We had no word to say;

For we did not meet in the holy night,

But in the shameful day.

 

A prison wall was round us born,

Two outcast men we were:

The world had thrust us from its heart,

And God from out His care:

And the iron gin that waits for Sin

Had caught us in its snare.

 

 

3

In Debtor's Yard the stones are hard,

And the dripping wall is high,

So it was there he took the air

Beneath the leaden sky,

And by each side a Warder walked,

For fear the man might die.

 

Or else he sat with those who watched

His anguish night and day;

Who watched him when he rose to weep,

And when he crouched to pray;

Who watched him lest himself should rob

Their scaffold of its prey.

 

The Governor was strong upon

The Regulations Act:

The Doctor said that Death was but

A scientific fact:

And twice a day the Chaplain called,

And left a little tract.

 

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,

And drank his quart of beer:

His soul was resolute, and held

No hiding-place for fear;

He often said that he was glad

The hangman's day was near.

 

But why he said so strange a thing

No warder dared to ask:

For he to whom a watcher's doom

Is given as his task,

Must set a lock upon his lips,

And make his face a mask.

 

Or else he might be moved, and try

To comfort or console:

And what should Human Pity do

Pent up in Murderers' Hole?

What word of grace in such a place

Could help a brother's soul?

 

With slouch and swing around the ring

We trod the Fools' Parade!

We did not care: we knew we were

The Devil's Own Brigade:

And shaven head and feet of lead

Make a merry masquerade.

 

We tore the tarry rope to shreds

With blunt and bleeding nails;

We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,

And cleaned the shining rails:

And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,

And clattered with the pails.

 

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,

We turned the dusty drill:

We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,

And sweated on the mill:

But in the heart of every man

Terror was lying still.

 

So still it lay that every day

Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:

And we forgot the bitter lot

That waits for fool and knave,

Till once, as we tramped in from work,

We passed an open grave.

 

With yawning mouth the yellow hole

Gaped for a living thing;

The very mud cried out for blood

To the thirsty asphalte ring:

And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair

Some prisoner had to swing.

 

Right in we went, with soul intent

On Death and Dread and Doom:

The hangman, with his little bag,

Went shuffling through the gloom:

And I trembled as I groped my way

Into my numbered tomb.

 

*

 

That night the empty corridors

Were full of forms of Fear,

And up and down the iron town

Stole feet we could not hear,

And through the bars that hide the stars

White faces seemed to peer.

 

He lay as one who lies and dreams

In a pleasant meadow-land,

The watchers watched him as he slept,

And could not understand

How one could sleep so sweet a sleep

With a hangman close at hand.

 

But there is no sleep when men must weep

Who never yet have wept:

So we – the fool, the fraud, the knave –

That endless vigil kept,

And through each brain on hands of pain

Another's terror crept.

 

Alas! it is a fearful thing

To feel another's guilt!

For, right within, the Sword of Sin

Pierced to its poisoned hilt,

And as molten lead were the tears we shed

For the blood we had not spilt.

 

The warders with their shoes of felt

Crept by each padlocked door,

And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,

Grey figures on the floor,

And wondered why men knelt to pray

Who never prayed before.

 

All through the night we knelt and prayed,

Mad mourners of a corse!

The troubled plumes of midnight were

The plumes upon a hearse:

And bitter wine upon a sponge

Was the savour of Remorse.

 

*

 

The grey cock crew, the red cock crew,

But never came the day:

And crooked shapes of Terror crouched,

In the corners where we lay:

And each evil sprite that walks by night

Before us seemed to play.

 

They glided past, they glided fast,

Like travellers through a mist:

They mocked the moon in a rigadoon

Of delicate turn and twist,

And with formal pace and loathsome grace

The phantoms kept their tryst.

 

With mop and mow, we saw them go,

Slim shadows hand in hand:

About, about, in ghostly rout

They trod a saraband:

And the damned grotesques made arabesques,

Like the wind upon the sand!

 

With the pirouettes of marionettes,

They tripped on pointed tread:

But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,

As their grisly masque they led,

And loud they sang, and long they sang.

For they sang to wake the dead.

 

»Oho!« they cried, »The world is wide,

But fettered limbs go lame!

And once, or twice, to throw the dice

Is a gentlemanly game,

But he does not win who plays with Sin

In the secret House of Shame.«

 

No things of air these antics were,

That frolicked with such glee:

To men whose lives were held in gyves,

And whose feet might not go free,

Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things

Most terrible to see.

 

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;

Some wheeled in smirking pairs;

With the mincing step of a demirep

Some sidled up the stairs:

And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,

Each helped us at our prayers.

 

The morning wind began to moan,

But still the night went on:

Through its giant loom the web of gloom

Crept till each thread was spun:

And, as we prayed, we grew afraid

Of the Justice of the Sun.

 

The moaning wind went wandering round

The weeping prison-wall:

Till like a wheel of turning steel

We felt the minutes crawl:

O moaning wind! what had we done

To have such a seneschal?

 

At last I saw the shadowed bars,

Like a lattice wrought in lead,

Move right across the whitewashed wall

That faced my three-plank bed,

And I knew that somewhere in the world

God's dreadful dawn was red.

 

At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,

At seven all was still,

But the sough and swing of a mighty wing

The prison seemed to fill,

For the Lord of Death with icy breath

Had entered in to kill.

 

He did not pass in purple pomp,

Nor ride a moon-white steed.

Three yards of cord and a sliding board

Are all the gallows' need:

So with rope of shame the Herald came

To do the secret deed.

 

We were as men who through a fen

Of filthy darkness grope:

We did not dare to breathe a prayer,

Or to give our anguish scope:

Something was dead in each of us,

And what was dead was Hope.

 

For Man's grim Justice goes its way,

And will not swerve aside:

It slays the weak, it slays the strong,

It has a deadly stride:

With iron heel it slays the strong,

The monstrous parricide!

 

We waited for the stroke of eight:

Each tongue was thick with thirst:

For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate

That makes a man accursed,

And Fate will use a running noose

For the best man and the worst.

 

We had no other thing to do,

Save to wait for the sign to come:

So, like things of stone in a valley lone,

Quiet we sat and dumb:

But each man's heart beat thick and quick,

Like a madman on a drum!

 

With sudden shock the prison-clock

Smote on the shivering air,

And from all the gaol rose up a wail

Of impotent despair,

Like the sound that frightened marshes hear

From some leper in his lair.

 

And as one sees most fearful things

In the crystal of a dream,

We saw the greasy hempen rope

Hooked to the blackened beam,

And heard the prayer the hangman's snare

Strangled into a scream.

 

And all the woe that moved him so

That he gave that bitter cry,

And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,

None knew so well as I:

For he who lives more lives than one

More deaths than one must die.

 

4

There is no chapel on the day

On which they hang a man:

The Chaplain's heart is far too sick,

Or his face is far too wan,

Or there is that written in his eyes

Which none should look upon.

 

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,

And then they rang the bell,

And the warders with their jingling keys

Opened each listening cell,

And down the iron stair we tramped,

Each from his separate Hell.

 

Out into God's sweet air we went,

But not in wonted way,

For this man's face was white with fear,

And that man's face was grey,

And I never saw sad men who looked

So wistfully at the day.

 

I never saw sad men who looked

With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of blue

We prisoners called the sky,

And at every happy cloud that passed

In such strange freedom by.

 

But there were those amongst us all

Who walked with downcast head,

And knew that, had each got his due,

They should have died instead:

He had but killed a thing that lived,

Whilst they had killed the dead.

 

For he who sins a second time

Wakes a dead soul to pain,

And draws it from its spotted shroud,

And makes it bleed again,

And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,

And makes it bleed in vain!

 

*

 

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb

With crooked arrows starred,

Silently we went round and round

The slippery asphalte yard;

Silently we went round and round,

And no man spoke a word.

 

Silently we went round and round,

And through each hollow mind

The Memory of dreadful things

Rushed like a dreadful wind,

And Horror stalked before each man,

And Terror crept behind.

 

*

 

The warders strutted up and down,

And watched their herd of brutes,

Their uniforms were spick and span,

And they wore their Sunday suits,

But we knew the work they had been at,

By the quicklime on their boots.

 

For where a grave had opened wide,

There was no grave at all:

Only a stretch of mud and sand

By the hideous prison-wall,

And a little heap of burning lime,

That the man should have his pall.

 

For he has a pall, this wretched man,

Such as few men can claim:

Deep down below a prison-yard,

Naked for greater shame,

He lies, with fetters on each foot,

Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

 

And all the while the burning lime

Eats flesh and bone away,

It eats the brittle bone by night,

And the soft flesh by day,

It eats the flesh and bone by turns,

But it eats the heart alway.

 

*

 

For three long years they will not sow

Or root or seedling there:

For three long years the unblessed spot

Will sterile be and bare,

And look upon the wondering sky

With unreproachful stare.

 

They think a murderer's heart would taint

Each simple seed they sow.

It is not true! God's kindly earth

Is kindlier than men know,

And the red rose would but blow more red,

The white rose whiter blow.

 

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!

Out of his heart a white!

For who can say by what strange way,

Christ brings His will to light,

Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore

Bloomed in the great Pope's sight?

 

But neither milk-white rose nor red

May bloom in prison-air;

The shard, the pebble, and the flint,

Are what they give us there:

For flowers have been known to heal

A common man's despair.

 

So never will wine-red rose or white,

Petal by petal, fall

On that stretch of mud and sand that lies

By the hideous prison-wall,

To tell the men who tramp the yard

That God's Son died for all.

 

Yet though the hideous prison-wall

Still hems him round and round,

And a spirit may not walk by night

That is with fetters bound,

And a spirit may but weep that lies

In such unholy ground,

 

He is at peace – this wretched man –

At peace, or will be soon:

There is no thing to make him mad,

Nor does Terror walk at noon,

For the lampless Earth in which he lies

Has neither Sun nor Moom.

 

They hanged him as a beast is hanged!

They did not even toll

A requiem that might have brought

Rest to his startled soul,

But hurriedly they took him out,

And hid him in a hole.

 

The warders stripped him of his clothes,

And gave him to the flies:

They mocked the swollen purple throat,

And the stark and staring eyes:

And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud

In which the convict lies.

 

The Chaplain would not kneel to pray

By his dishonoured grave:

Nor mark it with that blessed Cross

That Christ for sinners gave,

Because the man was one of those

Whom Christ came down to save.

 

Yet all is well; he has but passed

To life's appointed bourne:

And alien tears will fill for him

Pity's long-broken urn,

For his mourners will be outcast men,

And outcasts always mourn

 

5

I know not whether Laws be right,

Or whether Laws be wrong;

All that we know who lie in gaol

Is that the wall is strong;

And that each day is like a year,

A year whose days are long.

 

But this I know, that every Law

That men hath made for Man,

Since first Man took his brother's life,

And the sad world began,

But straws the wheat and saves the chaff

With a most evil fan.

 

This too I know – and wise it were

If each could know the same –

That every prison that men build

Is built with bricks of shame,

And bound with bars lest Christ should see

How men their brothers maim.

 

With bars they blur the gracious moon,

And blind the goodly sun;

And they do well to hide their Hell,

For in it things are done

That Son of God nor son of Man

Ever should look upon!

 

*

 

The vilest deeds like poison weeds,

Bloom well in prison-air;

It is only what is good in Man

That wastes and withers there:

Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,

And the Warder is Despair.

 

For they starve the little frightened child

Till it weeps both night and day:

And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,

And gibe the old and grey,

And some grow mad, and all grow bad,

And none a word may say.

 

Each narrow cell in which we dwell

Is a foul and dark latrine,

And the fetid breath of living Death

Chokes up each grated screen,

And all, but Lust, is turned to dust

In Humanity's machine.

 

The brackish water that we drink

Creeps with a loathsome slime,

And the bitter bread they weigh in scales

Is full of chalk and lime,

And Sleep will not lie down, but walks

Wild-eyed, and cries to Time.

 

*

 

But though lean Hunger and green Thirst

Like asp with adder fight,

We have little care of prison fare,

For what chills and kills outright

Is that every stone one lifts by day

Becomes one's heart by night.

 

With midnight always in one's heart,

And twilight in one's cell,

We turn the crank, or tear the rope,

Each in his separate Hell,

And the silence is more awful far

Than the sound of a brazen bell.

 

And never a human voice comes near

To speak a gentle word:

And the eye that watches through the door

Is pitiless and hard:

And by all forgot, we rot and rot,

With soul and body marred.

 

And thus we rust Life's iron chain

Degraded and alone:

And some men curse, and some men weep,

And some men make no moan:

But God's eternal Laws are kind

And break the heart of stone.

 

And every human heart that breaks,

In prison-cell or yard,

Is as that broken box that gave

Its treasure to the Lord,

And filled the unclean leper's house

With the scent of costliest nard.

 

Ah! happy they whose hearts can break

And peace of pardon win!

How else may man make straight his plan

And cleanse his soul from Sin?

How else but through a broken heart

May Lord Christ enter in?

 

*

 

And he of the swollen purple throat,

And the stark and staring eyes,

Waits for the holy hands that took

The Thief to Paradise;

And a broken and a contrite heart

The Lord will not despise.

 

The man in red who reads the Law

Gave him three weeks of life,

Three little weeks in which to heal

His soul of his soul's strife,

And cleanse from every blot of blood

The hand that held the knife.

 

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,

The hand that held the steel:

For only blood can wipe out blood,

And only tears can heal:

And the crimson stain that was of Cain

Became Christ's snow-white seal.

 

6

In Reading gaol by Reading town

There is a pit of shame,

And in it lies a wretched man

Eaten by teeth of flame,

In a burning winding-sheet he lies,

And his grave has got no name.

 

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,

In silence let him lie:

No need to waste the foolish tear,

Or heave the windy sigh:

The man had killed the thing he loved,

And so he had to die.

 

And all men kill the thing they love,

By all let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!

 

AAILINON, AAILINON AEIPE, TO DAEU NIKATO

O well for him who lives at ease

With garnered gold in wide domain,

Nor heeds the splashing of the rain,

The crashing down of forest trees.

 

O well for him who ne'er hath known

The travail of the hungry years,

A father grey with grief and tears,

A mother weeping all alone.

 

But well for him whose foot hath trod

The weary road of toil and strife,

Yet from the sorrows of his life

Builds ladders to be nearer God.

 

.