A Century of Emblems

WINTER IN MAY.

Winter! black-browed and bearded with the snows,
We thought thee vexed with April's wanton ways
Brooding afar amid the Arctic floes,
Or with new icebergs fringing dreary bays.

Loyal we honoured thy appointed time,
And crowned thee January's lawful king;
Why falls thy crushing sceptre edged with rime
Upon the verdant loveliness of spring?

We think of Holbein's pencil, quaint and coarse,
And that weird skeleton in ghastly pride
Haling to doom with such superfluous force
All in her flowery youth the virgin bride.

THE SOLITARY.

Aweary of his worldly life,
The tempter to elude,
The hermit flies from work and strife
To desert solitude.

But there, alas! finds no repose
From Fancy's Comus crew,
Since dream he must, where'er he goes,
With nothing else to do.

Would'st drive such imps from heart and brain,
Take, then, the ancient way,
Prescribed in many a holy strain,
And work as well as pray.

THE GOLDEN MEAN.

All inaccessible a Tree arose
Amid the shining mountains of Cathay,
Its head was capp'd with numbing mists and snows,
Around its root a fiery whirlpool lay;

But midway 'twixt the furnace and the cloud
Bright fruits were by the keen-eyed watchers seen;
"There," cried the sage to the excited crowd,
"Behold the treasures of the Golden Mean."

Then girt he some with wings, and won to skill
Through many a fall between the earth and sun,
The wings bore names—th' indomitable Will,
And Faith—by these the glorious prize they won.

AUTUMN.

He sat among the yellowing trees,
Low winds to beech and oak did call,
Murmuring of Nature's old decrees
And yearly tribute to the Fall.

Now is there silence all around,
And you may hear the branches cast
Their offerings on the fragrant ground,
'Tis here an acorn, there a mast.

And thus in life's autumnal grove,
At intervals, with bated breath,
We hear the ripe ones whom we love
Drop to the quiet home of death.

JUSTISSIMA TELLUS.

Dear mother Earth, no usurer thou,
Since all who heed thy liberal law,
For every dint of spade or plough
On vale or heath or mountain brow,
A full and punctual interest draw.

And still thy richest sheaves are they
Which, in the ripeness of the years,
The angel-reapers bear away
To glory and eternal day,
When nought of thee but dust appears.

Thrice happy they who trace the line
In every quickening field and grove
Of heaven's munificent design,
The recompense of life divine
For toiling days of faithful love.

THE FLINTY FIELD.

You scorn our hill of glittering flints
As though 'twere sown with dragon's teeth,
For that the surface gives no hints,
No hopes of genial growth beneath.

Judge not the surface, bide the hour
When He, whose grace can melt the rock,
Shall bid o'er every flint to tower
A hundred-headed golden shock.

HOME AND ABROAD.

Black and white in a windy war—
Lo! wave devouring wave,
And wilder as we look afar
The ocean monsters rave.

But here, within this sheltering bight,
A glossy sheet upcurls
In whispering cadence low and light,
Its rainbows fringed with pearls.

Secluded thus from outer brawl,
In unambitious ease,
Be ours the lowly home where all
Is tuned to love and peace.

DISTANT SOUNDS.

The children at their evening play
Shout from the village street;
The wind blows all that's rude away,
The rest is gay and sweet.

So from our garden seat on high,
We love the sound to hear,
For distance that enchants the eye
Can fascinate the ear.

Trills that distract us from the cage
Were in the woods a joy;
Who scans too narrowly life's page
Will many a boon destroy.

THE FRIENDLY THORN.

I thought an asp had stung my hand
While thridding Narnis' fragrant wood,
When lo! in purpling blushes grand,
As if my homage to command,
The queen of all wild roses stood.

The captive beauty soon I bound
My lady's bosom to adorn,—
Beauty whose joy I ne'er had found,
Upon that tangled briery mound,
But for the sharp and friendly thorn.

So hearts that slept from hour to hour,
Pierced to the quick by sorrow's cry,
Awake to fresh inspiring power,
And clasp Faith's brightest purest flower,
The rose divine of Charity.

HAPPINESS.

To figure true felicity
This picture doth intend,
A pleasant road, sweet company,
And God's house at the end.

BRIDEGROOM TO BRIDE.

To the happy all things are heavenly.

Where'er I turn this blessed day,
'Tis heaven and sunshine every way;
With heavenly songs and heavenly hues,
Mingle the birds, and flowers, and dews.
Lo! here within the crystal moat
Heaven's clouds like radiant islands float,
And high above the golden hill
Smiles heavenly summer blue and still.
I gaze into thy loving eyes,
Heaven there in twofold azure lies;
And when I glance into my heart,
'Tis heaven indeed—for there thou art!

THE EAR-RING.

An ear-ring you devise
For your affianced girl;
No diamond will suffice,
Nor wealth of lustrous pearl,

But call her "dearest dear,"
Swear nought your love shall sever,
If true, you deck her ear
With gems that shine for ever.

THE GARDEN POOL.

Charmed by the lily's golden eye,
I rest upon this margin cool,
And think what leagues of azure sky
Are mirrored in the tiny pool.

Delicious emblem of the mind
Whose fancy rules this bright parterre,
Ever 'mid sweetest flowers I find
The depths of heaven reflected there.

THE SCARECROW.

"O Bella! what strange wight is there,
Dark on the evening sky,
With flowing cloak, and streaming hair,
And head so grandly high?

I feel a throbbing at my heart,
For William 'tis too soon;
See how he waves his arms apart
Saluting the new moon!

Oh, clear as daylight is the truth,
Blinder than bats were we,
It is the long-haired foreign youth
Who sang last night to me.

He sang of Fatherland and Rhine;
Hush, O provoking cow!
I heard the sweet preluding line,
The whispering notes, I vow."

But nearer as they drew to see,
O phantasy forlorn!
They find for love and melody
A scarecrow in the corn.

WE JUDGE OTHERS BY OURSELVES.

Here within this golden grove,
Paved with many a purple flower,
Here I sit and wait my love
Through the May-day's parting hour.

Where the budding gnomons throw
Lengthening shadows far and near,
Mute I sit as man of snow,
Till my darling's voice I hear.

Ah! your mirth my passion stirs,
Mine who am so old and frail;
Bear with me, O lusty sirs!
For my love's the nightingale.

THE LAY FIGURE.

Vanità che par persona.—Dante, Inf. 6.

There smirks in many a painter's room,
With padded limbs and varnished face,
A quaint machine that can assume
Each attitude that art would trace.

This doll adult, when featly tired,
Can all that's great or fair display,
Warrior, or dame, or saint inspired,
Prince, troubadour, or lovely may.

And far beyond the studio's bound,
In court and camp, in church or mart,
Living machines like this are found,
Which lure the eye but mock the heart.

On wooden-headed soulless guys
We see such draping splendours thrust;
But raise the robe, and all surprise
Closes in pity and disgust.

THE WINDMILL.

That windmill with its sails at rest
A thing immovable appears,
And o'er the little hamlet nest
The symbol of Salvation rears.

But when its arms the breezes spurn,
'Tis Fortune's wheel we image there;
Reared and depress'd they show in turn
Hope, joy, dejection, and despair.

Unstable souls, the Church at peace,
Seem steadfast thus in high resolve,
But in her storms and perils—these
Through many a shifting phase revolve.

FAIRIES AND FACTORIES.

They crush with piles and tear with thundering wheel
The rainbow arches from the torrent's spray;
The frightened Fairies, sure of no appeal,
Pair off in mournful minuets away.

So drudging life stamps out with daily pain
Our brightest, lightest fancies one by one;
Oh, may we hope to see them shine again
Beyond this working world, beyond the sun!

RIGHTEOUS OVERMUCH.

The youthful Furius sped so fast
Before his folly's roaring wind,
His wildest mates he overpass'd,
And health and sense were left behind.

Now turned fanatic devotee
He deems his mother church too slow,
So charters some new craft that he
A readier way to Heaven may go.

Take heed, my Furius, lest you sail
For love and patience all too fast,
Without their convoy faith may quail
A prey to pirate pride at last.

INEXPERIENCE.

Eye of stranger magnifies danger.

"Adown the dreadful glacis madly borne,
Against that foaming barricado cast,
The barque is doomed! and with a hissing scorn
The surge will dance upon the foundering mast."

The landsman thus; the seaman smiles, quoth he,
"The barque and wave, together mount and fall;
The horse upholds his rider, so will she
Career in triumph o'er the watery brawl.

"Oft inexperience brandeth for a bane
That which for noble uses wisdom gave;
The path I hail to glory or to gain
To you, untried, reflects an ocean grave."

THE SUNKEN IRON-CLAD.

O concentration of brute force!
Rhinoceros of the deeps!
O ugly Delos on whose shores
No soft Latona sleeps!

Scant room in thee for birth or love
'Mid monsters furnace-born,
The iron-throated guns above,
Below, the ripping horn.

Heaven grant ere long we find in thee
An emblem of all war
Beneath the waves of Time's deep sea
Buried for evermore!

THE MASTER'S WILL.

Two Caravels to sea were gone,
Two striplings passed the city gate;
A shattered hull returns alone,
A brother wails a brother's fate.

But who elects for good or ill?
Distrust not mercy though bereft;
Though storm winds shriek the Master's will,
One taken and the other left.

NOW OR NEVER.

He who loses luck abuses.

We stalked the great stag down the glen,
Once more, alas! I failed to kill;
Such is the lot of luckless men,
Despite their energy and skill.
And now he's safe beyond our ken
Upon the steep and misty hill.

He'll come again, but not to-day,
Where meet in one the foaming burns,
While I in fortune's windy play
Am tossed afar from braes and ferns,
So plaineth he who throws away
The happy chance that ne'er returns.

LABOUR LOST.

The roads were rock, the sky was flame,
The seething mob filled strand and quay,
Where came an ancient curious dame
Three leagues afoot the launch to see.

Now as she stooped amid the crowd,
Stooped to remove a galling stone,
She heard a shouting rash and loud;
She raised her head—the launch was gone.

O dame! as thou art such are they
Who after years of care and cost,
The burning hope of many a day
By one ignoble stoop have lost.

THE LOST FISH.

"Ah!" cries the boy, "was never seen
A fish like that which broke my rod,
Such weight, such breadth of scaly sheen,
A sucking whale he might have been,
A grampus or Newfoundland cod."

Thus in our aims we all are boys,
And Fortune's present grace abuse;
For, ever of all earthly toys,
Love, honours, triumph, gain, or joys,
The richest is the one we lose.

STRIKING THE TENT.

This quaint round bower, this sheltering canvas cave,
In which we ate and slept, and prayed, and planned,
Falls in a moment, when to yonder slave
Expectant of the sign my hand I wave,
All limp and shapeless on the desert sand.

Depart in peace, O wanderer of Useit!
Rejoicing in thy strength the mountain tread,
Yet never may'st thou this memento slight;
Erect to-day for labour and delight,
To-morrow prone among the dusty dead.

THE TURKISH BRIDGE.

Whene'er we saw the arches gleam,
We shouted trending down the ridge,
"Better by far to ford the stream,
Than trust the doubtful Turkish bridge."

Such, are false promises believed;
Such, confidence and love betrayed;
Such those who having once deceived
A warning offer, not an aid.

THE CROCODILE.

This monstrous Effet on the solid ground
Right on and on can work his easy way,
But in his cramping plates of armour bound,
Slowly and sorely wheels his length around,
And so eludes him every nimble prey.

So have we known through prejudice and use,
A mind that crawls in one pernicious groove,
A dreary tunnel with the narrowest views,
A cumbrous mind inflexibly obtuse,
Which reason cannot turn nor feeling move.

THE MOUNTAINS OF EL TIH.

The pilgrim on the bleached El Tih
Stares at the rocky wall awhile,
Nor through the shadeless glare can see,
Rift, pathway, or defile.

Yet, just one burning corner past,
Behold the glittering cliffs dispart;
He finds himself ascending fast
Into the mountain's heart.

When troubles thus a barrier raise,
Oh, yield not to despair or wrath,
Press for the turn; by His own ways
Great God will show the path.

DAMASCUS IN THE EVENING.

The dream of an enchanted home
Set in an emerald frame,
Peach bloom, and topaz walls, and dome,
And minarets of flame;
So the great city flashed on us,
Descending Antilibanus.

From lower slopes a change we see;
The towers, like white-stoled maids,
All bleached to purest ivory,
Arise from purple shades:
So the great city smiled on us,
Descending Antilibanus.

But soon within her gates we found
The grace and glory gone:
Darkness for splendour all around,
And clay for precious stone.
Was this the joy that beamed on us,
Descending Antilibanus?

Again a change—a door we pass—
O magical surprise!
Fount, lamps, divans, arcaded glass,
A traveller's paradise!
Emblems of life and death with us
We brought from Antilibanus.

THE TWO GOATS.

Two goats met on an Alpine ridge,
Sharp, sheer, and horrible to see;
One crouched and formed a living bridge,
And so they passed unscathed and free.

That both might prosper one must bend,
Oh, learn the lesson, reader mine!
So shalt thou compass mercy's end,
And so conform to love divine.

THE ARAB WELL.

Ah me! it is a cruel spell
For Truth as for mankind,
If to the depth of yonder well
The goddess be consigned.

For there the sex in daily rout
With scandal taint the air;
No lying rumour runs about
But hath a mother there.

Dumb Truth the while in that dark place
A laughing-stock is laid;
They dash the bucket in her face,
Widow, and wife, and maid.

THE DEAD CROCODILE.

Upon the bank of ancient Nile,
A shoal of Arab boys
Belaboured a dead crocodile,
With oriental noise.

They cursed his mother and his beard,
They cursed his spotted sire,
They kicked, and smote, and spat, and jeered,
And pelted him with mire.

They lashed a cord around his jaws,
They sat astride his back,
They twisted round his webbed claws,
And made the sinews crack.

When all at once the cold dead thing,
As by Galvani's art,
Its flabby tail appeared to swing
With momentary start.

Away, away, fled every one,
Round corners and up trees,
And left the monster all alone
In death's unbroken peace.

Emblem of cowardice is here,
Patent to mind and eye:
What they deserve such wretches fear,
Without a danger nigh.

THE HYÆNA.

I saw a foul hyæna led,
Two slaves his snout had bound,
Captured within a tomb they said,
And showed his jaws still reeking red
With blood from holy ground.

Vile scribblers in their greed of gold,
Thus through death's cerements thrust,
'Mid scandals there obscene and old,
And tales of darkness best untold,
Battening on filthy dust.

GRATITUDE.

The Moslem who accepts your alms
Thanks God alone, the kind and true;
The Frank, if guerdon cross his palms,
Thanks only you.

Both kindness here, and grace above,
Duly should every heart confess;
And they who slight a brother's love,
Slight God's no less.

THE NUBIAN BOATMEN.

These bronze-armed slaves so lithe and strong,
Row on for many a glassy mile
Through burning hours, and all the while
They praise in sweet recurring song,
"The Lord that brings the Nile."

O thou, recumbent traveller, note
Approval of their simple ways,
Who lighten toil with pious lays;
'Twere ill adown life's stream to float
Without or work or praise.

THE CHRISTIAN PILGRIM.

Now the Christian pilgrim wanders
'Mid ravines of sin and care;
On the craggy ledge he ponders,
Probing all with staff of prayer.

Freshened by the wayside fountain
With the flag of peace still furled,
Lo! he hails the shining mountain
O'er the ruins of the world.

There upon the heights of glory,
Lettered on the golden clay,
He shall read Earth's complex story
And his banner float for aye.

THE FORGET-ME-NOT.

Among the meadow-grasses dank
That fringe the running stream,
This little flower begems the bank
With turquoise-coloured gleam.

Emblem of many a mortal's lot,
Who, tracking bygone years,
Still finds the sweet Forget-me-not
Fast by the fount of tears.

TEXTS ON TOMBSTONES.

Where round our church the pious stones
Watch the green pillows of the dead,
Pass not, but read in reverent tones
The silent Scripture overhead.

From desert peak the storm-cloud poured
Light on the tables of the Law,
But sunshine here o'er flowers and sward
Reveals the grace that softens awe.

And faith will greet on many a tomb
An emblem of His loving speech
Who said, if every mouth were dumb
The very stones His truth would teach.

ROSE GARDEN AT ASHRIDGE.

Softly at noontide one reposes
When sunshine melts the thought to dream,
Within this labyrinth of roses
Whose centre is the fountain's gleam.

We match our mortal life and beauty,
With this ineffable array
Of creatures free from sin and duty,
Delicious even in decay;

And love, in you, O blooms and fountain,
A brilliant emblem here to own
Of souls upon the shining mountain,
Exulting round the Mercy throne,

Where, lovelier than the loveliest flowers,
And all like you in God's employ,
They shine their everlasting hours,
And shed around a glorious joy.

A Century of Emblems

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