A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass

          The wind is singing through the trees to-night,
           A deep-voiced song of rushing cadences
           And crashing intervals.  No summer breeze
          Is this, though hot July is at its height,
          Gone is her gentler music; with delight
           She listens to this booming like the seas,
           These elemental, loud necessities
          Which call to her to answer their swift might.
           Above the tossing trees shines down a star,
           Quietly bright; this wild, tumultuous joy
          Quickens nor dims its splendour.  And my mind,
           O Star! is filled with your white light, from far,
           So suffer me this one night to enjoy
          The freedom of the onward sweeping wind.

          The path runs straight between the flowering rows,
           A moonlit path, hemmed in by beds of bloom,
           Where phlox and marigolds dispute for room
          With tall, red dahlias and the briar rose.
          'T is reckless prodigality which throws
           Into the night these wafts of rich perfume
           Which sweep across the garden like a plume.
          Over the trees a single bright star glows.
           Dear garden of my childhood, here my years
          Have run away like little grains of sand;
           The moments of my life, its hopes and fears
          Have all found utterance here, where now I stand;
           My eyes ache with the weight of unshed tears,
          You are my home, do you not understand?

          How is it that, being gone, you fill my days,
           And all the long nights are made glad by thee?
           No loneliness is this, nor misery,
          But great content that these should be the ways
          Whereby the Fancy, dreaming as she strays,
           Makes bright and present what she would would be.
           And who shall say if the reality
          Is not with dreams so pregnant.  For delays
           And hindrances may bar the wished-for end;
          A thousand misconceptions may prevent
           Our souls from coming near enough to blend;
          Let me but think we have the same intent,
           That each one needs to call the other, "friend!"
          It may be vain illusion.  I'm content.

          I ask but one thing of you, only one,
           That always you will be my dream of you;
           That never shall I wake to find untrue
          All this I have believed and rested on,
          Forever vanished, like a vision gone
           Out into the night.  Alas, how few
           There are who strike in us a chord we knew
          Existed, but so seldom heard its tone
           We tremble at the half-forgotten sound.
          The world is full of rude awakenings
           And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground,
          Yet still our human longing vainly clings
           To a belief in beauty through all wrongs.
           O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs!

          What torture lurks within a single thought
          When grown too constant, and however kind,
          However welcome still, the weary mind
          Aches with its presence.  Dull remembrance taught
          Remembers on unceasingly; unsought
          The old delight is with us but to find
          That all recurring joy is pain refined,
          Become a habit, and we struggle, caught.
          You lie upon my heart as on a nest,
          Folded in peace, for you can never know
          How crushed I am with having you at rest
          Heavy upon my life.  I love you so
          You bind my freedom from its rightful quest.
          In mercy lift your drooping wings and go.

          I do not care to talk to you although
           Your speech evokes a thousand sympathies,
           And all my being's silent harmonies
          Wake trembling into music.  When you go
          It is as if some sudden, dreadful blow
           Had severed all the strings with savage ease.
           No, do not talk; but let us rather seize
          This intimate gift of silence which we know.
           Others may guess your thoughts from what you say,
          As storms are guessed from clouds where darkness broods.
           To me the very essence of the day
          Reveals its inner purpose and its moods;
           As poplars feel the rain and then straightway
          Reverse their leaves and shimmer through the woods.

          My heart is tuned to sorrow, and the strings
           Vibrate most readily to minor chords,
           Searching and sad; my mind is stuffed with words
          Which voice the passion and the ache of things:
          Illusions beating with their baffled wings
           Against the walls of circumstance, and hoards
           Of torn desires, broken joys; records
          Of all a bruised life's maimed imaginings.
           Now you are come!  You tremble like a star
          Poised where, behind earth's rim, the sun has set.
             Your voice has sung across my heart, but numb
           And mute, I have no tones to answer.  Far
          Within I kneel before you, speechless yet,
             And life ablaze with beauty, I am dumb.

          How empty seems the town now you are gone!
           A wilderness of sad streets, where gaunt walls
           Hide nothing to desire; sunshine falls
          Eery, distorted, as it long had shone
          On white, dead faces tombed in halls of stone.
           The whir of motors, stricken through with calls
           Of playing boys, floats up at intervals;
          But all these noises blur to one long moan.
           What quest is worth pursuing?  And how strange
          That other men still go accustomed ways!
             I hate their interest in the things they do.
           A spectre-horde repeating without change
          An old routine.  Alone I know the days
             Are still-born, and the world stopped, lacking you.

          All night I wrestled with a memory
           Which knocked insurgent at the gates of thought.
           The crumbled wreck of years behind has wrought
          Its disillusion; now I only cry
          For peace, for power to forget the lie
           Which hope too long has whispered.  So I sought
           The sleep which would not come, and night was fraught
          With old emotions weeping silently.
          I heard your voice again, and knew the things
           Which you had promised proved an empty vaunt.
          I felt your clinging hands while night's broad wings
          Cherished our love in darkness.  From the lawn
           A sudden, quivering birdnote, like a taunt.
          My arms held nothing but the empty dawn.

          I learnt to write to you in happier days,
           And every letter was a piece I chipped
           From off my heart, a fragment newly clipped
          From the mosaic of life; its blues and grays,
          Its throbbing reds, I gave to earn your praise.
           To make a pavement for your feet I stripped
           My soul for you to walk upon, and slipped
          Beneath your steps to soften all your ways.
           But now my letters are like blossoms pale
          We strew upon a grave with hopeless tears.
           I ask no recompense, I shall not fail
          Although you do not heed; the long, sad years
           Still pass, and still I scatter flowers frail,
          And whisper words of love which no one hears.

          Throughout the echoing chambers of my brain
           I hear your words in mournful cadence toll
           Like some slow passing-bell which warns the soul
          Of sundering darkness.  Unrelenting, fain
          To batter down resistance, fall again
           Stroke after stroke, insistent diastole,
           The bitter blows of truth, until the whole
          Is hammered into fact made strangely plain.
           Where shall I look for comfort?  Not to you.
            Our worlds are drawn apart, our spirit's suns
          Divided, and the light of mine burnt dim.
           Now in the haunted twilight I must do
            Your will.  I grasp the cup which over-runs,
          And with my trembling lips I touch the rim.

               "'I can't get out', said the starling."
                              Sterne's 'Sentimental Journey'.

          Forever the impenetrable wall
           Of self confines my poor rebellious soul,
           I never see the towering white clouds roll
          Before a sturdy wind, save through the small
          Barred window of my jail.  I live a thrall
           With all my outer life a clipped, square hole,
           Rectangular; a fraction of a scroll
          Unwound and winding like a worsted ball.
           My thoughts are grown uneager and depressed
            Through being always mine, my fancy's wings
          Are moulted and the feathers blown away.
           I weary for desires never guessed,
            For alien passions, strange imaginings,
          To be some other person for a day.

          White, glittering sunlight fills the market square,
           Spotted and sprigged with shadows.  Double rows
           Of bartering booths spread out their tempting shows
          Of globed and golden fruit, the morning air
          Smells sweet with ripeness, on the pavement there
           A wicker basket gapes and overflows
           Spilling out cool, blue plums.  The market glows,
          And flaunts, and clatters in its busy care.
           A stately minster at the northern side
          Lifts its twin spires to the distant sky,
           Pinnacled, carved and buttressed; through the wide
          Arched doorway peals an organ, suddenly —
           Crashing, triumphant in its pregnant tide,
          Quenching the square in vibrant harmony.

                 GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  CLOUGH
                  A NATIVE OF LIVERPOOL,
            DIED SUDDENLY OF "STRANGER'S FEVER"
                      NOV'R 5th 1843
                          AGED 22

          He died of "Stranger's Fever" when his youth
           Had scarcely melted into manhood, so
           The chiselled legend runs; a brother's woe
          Laid bare for epitaph.  The savage ruth
          Of a sunny, bright, but alien land, uncouth
           With cruel caressing dealt a mortal blow,
           And by this summer sea where flowers grow
          In tropic splendor, witness to the truth
          Of ineradicable race he lies.
           The law of duty urged that he should roam,
          Should sail from fog and chilly airs to skies
           Clear with deceitful welcome.  He had come
          With proud resolve, but still his lonely eyes
           Ached with fatigue at never seeing home.

          Poor foolish monarch, vacillating, vain,
           Decaying victim of a race of kings,
           Swift Destiny shook out her purple wings
          And caught him in their shadow; not again
          Could furtive plotting smear another stain
           Across his tarnished honour.  Smoulderings
           Of sacrificial fires burst their rings
          And blotted out in smoke his lost domain.
          Bereft of courtiers, only with his queen,
           From empty palace down to empty quay.
          No challenge screamed from hostile carabine.
           A single vessel waited, shadowy;
           All night she ploughed her solitary way
          Beneath the stars, and through a tranquil sea.

          Great master!  Boyish, sympathetic man!
           Whose orbed and ripened genius lightly hung
           From life's slim, twisted tendril and there swung
          In crimson-sphered completeness; guardian
          Of crystal portals through whose openings fan
           The spiced winds which blew when earth was young,
           Scattering wreaths of stars, as Jove once flung
          A golden shower from heights cerulean.
           Crumbled before thy majesty we bow.
            Forget thy empurpled state, thy panoply
          Of greatness, and be merciful and near;
           A youth who trudged the highroad we tread now
            Singing the miles behind him; so may we
          Faint throbbings of thy music overhear.

                   The Boston Athenaeum

          Thou dear and well-loved haunt of happy hours,
          How often in some distant gallery,
          Gained by a little painful spiral stair,
          Far from the halls and corridors where throng
          The crowd of casual readers, have I passed
          Long, peaceful hours seated on the floor
          Of some retired nook, all lined with books,
          Where reverie and quiet reign supreme!
          Above, below, on every side, high shelved
          From careless grasp of transient interest,
          Stand books we can but dimly see, their charm
          Much greater that their titles are unread;
          While on a level with the dusty floor
          Others are ranged in orderly confusion,
          And we must stoop in painful posture while
          We read their names and learn their histories.
          The little gallery winds round about
          The middle of a most secluded room,
          Midway between the ceiling and the floor.
          A type of those high thoughts, which while we read
          Hover between the earth and furthest heaven
          As fancy wills, leaving the printed page;
          For books but give the theme, our hearts the rest,
          Enriching simple words with unguessed harmony
          And overtones of thought we only know.
          And as we sit long hours quietly,
          Reading at times, and at times simply dreaming,
          The very room itself becomes a friend,
          The confidant of intimate hopes and fears;
          A place where are engendered pleasant thoughts,
          And possibilities before unguessed
          Come to fruition born of sympathy.
          And as in some gay garden stretched upon
          A genial southern slope, warmed by the sun,
          The flowers give their fragrance joyously
          To the caressing touch of the hot noon;
          So books give up the all of what they mean
          Only in a congenial atmosphere,
          Only when touched by reverent hands, and read
          By those who love and feel as well as think.
          For books are more than books, they are the life,
          The very heart and core of ages past,
          The reason why men lived, and worked, and died,
          The essence and quintessence of their lives.
          And we may know them better, and divine
          The inner motives whence their actions sprang,
          Far better than the men who only knew
          Their bodily presence, the soul forever hid
          From those with no ability to see.
          They wait here quietly for us to come
          And find them out, and know them for our friends;
          These men who toiled and wrote only for this,
          To leave behind such modicum of truth
          As each perceived and each alone could tell.
          Silently waiting that from time to time
          It may be given them to illuminate
          Dull daily facts with pristine radiance
          For some long-waited-for affinity
          Who lingers yet in the deep womb of time.
          The shifting sun pierces the young green leaves
          Of elm trees, newly coming into bud,
          And splashes on the floor and on the books
          Through old, high, rounded windows, dim with age.
          The noisy city-sounds of modern life
          Float softened to us across the old graveyard.
          The room is filled with a warm, mellow light,
          No garish colours jar on our content,
          The books upon the shelves are old and worn.
          'T was no belated effort nor attempt
          To keep abreast with old as well as new
          That placed them here, tricked in a modern guise,
          Easily got, and held in light esteem.
          Our fathers' fathers, slowly and carefully
          Gathered them, one by one, when they were new
          And a delighted world received their thoughts
          Hungrily; while we but love the more,
          Because they are so old and grown so dear!
          The backs of tarnished gold, the faded boards,
          The slightly yellowing page, the strange old type,
          All speak the fashion of another age;
          The thoughts peculiar to the man who wrote
          Arrayed in garb peculiar to the time;
          As though the idiom of a man were caught
          Imprisoned in the idiom of a race.
          A nothing truly, yet a link that binds
          All ages to their own inheritance,
          And stretching backward, dim and dimmer still,
          Is lost in a remote antiquity.
          Grapes do not come of thorns nor figs of thistles,
          And even a great poet's divinest thought
          Is coloured by the world he knows and sees.
          The little intimate things of every day,
          The trivial nothings that we think not of,
          These go to make a part of each man's life;
          As much a part as do the larger thoughts
          He takes account of.  Nay, the little things
          Of daily life it is which mold, and shape,
          And make him apt for noble deeds and true.
          And as we read some much-loved masterpiece,
          Read it as long ago the author read,
          With eyes that brimmed with tears as he saw
          The message he believed in stamped in type
          Inviolable for the slow-coming years;
          We know a certain subtle sympathy,
          We seem to clasp his hand across the past,
          His words become related to the time,
          He is at one with his own glorious creed
          And all that in his world was dared and done.
          The long, still, fruitful hours slip away
          Shedding their influences as they pass;
          We know ourselves the richer to have sat
          Upon this dusty floor and dreamed our dreams.
          No other place to us were quite the same,
          No other dreams so potent in their charm,
          For this is ours!  Every twist and turn
          Of every narrow stair is known and loved;
          Each nook and cranny is our very own;
          The dear, old, sleepy place is full of spells
          For us, by right of long inheritance.
          The building simply bodies forth a thought
          Peculiarly inherent to the race.
          And we, descendants of that elder time,
          Have learnt to love the very form in which
          The thought has been embodied to our years.
          And here we feel that we are not alone,
          We too are one with our own richest past;
          And here that veiled, but ever smouldering fire
          Of race, which rarely seen yet never dies,
          Springs up afresh and warms us with its heat.
          And must they take away this treasure house,
          To us so full of thoughts and memories;
          To all the world beside a dismal place
          Lacking in all this modern age requires
          To tempt along the unfamiliar paths
          And leafy lanes of old time literatures?
          It takes some time for moss and vines to grow
          And warmly cover gaunt and chill stone walls
          Of stately buildings from the cold North Wind.
          The lichen of affection takes as long,
          Or longer, ere it lovingly enfolds
          A place which since without it were bereft,
          All stript and bare, shorn of its chiefest grace.
          For what to us were halls and corridors
          However large and fitting, if we part
          With this which is our birthright; if we lose
          A sentiment profound, unsoundable,
          Which Time's slow ripening alone can make,
          And man's blind foolishness so quickly mar.

          Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
           Sing me a song, O Please!
          A song of ships, and sailor men,
           And parrots, and tropical trees,

          Of islands lost in the Spanish Main
          Which no man ever may find again,
          Of fishes and corals under the waves,
          And seahorses stabled in great green caves.

          Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
          Sing of the things you know so well.

          Near where I live there is a lake
          As blue as blue can be, winds make
          It dance as they go blowing by.
          I think it curtseys to the sky.

          It's just a lake of lovely flowers
          And my Mamma says they are ours;
          But they are not like those we grow
          To be our very own, you know.

          We have a splendid garden, there
          Are lots of flowers everywhere;
          Roses, and pinks, and four o'clocks
          And hollyhocks, and evening stocks.

          Mamma lets us pick them, but never
          Must we pick any gentians — ever!
          For if we carried them away
          They'd die of homesickness that day.

          My Grandpapa lives in a wonderful house
           With a great many windows and doors,
          There are stairs that go up, and stairs that go down,
           And such beautiful, slippery floors.

          But of all of the rooms, even mother's and mine,
           And the bookroom, and parlour and all,
          I like the green dining-room so much the best
           Because of its ceiling and wall.

          Right over your head is a funny round hole
           With apples and pears falling through;
          There's a big bunch of grapes all purply and sweet,
           And melons and pineapples too.

          They tumble and tumble, but never come down
           Though I've stood underneath a long while
          With my mouth open wide, for I always have hoped
           Just a cherry would drop from the pile.

          No matter how early I run there to look
           It has always begun to fall through;
          And one night when at bedtime I crept in to see,
           It was falling by candle-light too.

          I am sure they are magical fruits, and each one
           Makes you hear things, or see things, or go
          Forever invisible; but it's no use,
           And of course I shall just never know.

          For the ladder's too heavy to lift, and the chairs
           Are not nearly so tall as I need.
          I've given up hope, and I feel I shall die
           Without having accomplished the deed.

          It's a little bit sad, when you seem very near
           To adventures and things of that sort,
          Which nearly begin, and then don't; and you know
           It is only because you are short.

          Slipping softly through the sky
           Little horned, happy moon,
          Can you hear me up so high?
           Will you come down soon?

          On my nursery window-sill
           Will you stay your steady flight?
          And then float away with me
           Through the summer night?

          Brushing over tops of trees,
           Playing hide and seek with stars,
          Peeping up through shiny clouds
           At Jupiter or Mars.

          I shall fill my lap with roses
           Gathered in the milky way,
          All to carry home to mother.
           Oh! what will she say!

          Little rocking, sailing moon,
           Do you hear me shout — Ahoy!
          Just a little nearer, moon,
           To please a little boy.

          High up in the apple tree climbing I go,
          With the sky above me, the earth below.
          Each branch is the step of a wonderful stair
          Which leads to the town I see shining up there.

          Climbing, climbing, higher and higher,
          The branches blow and I see a spire,
          The gleam of a turret, the glint of a dome,
          All sparkling and bright, like white sea foam.

          On and on, from bough to bough,
          The leaves are thick, but I push my way through;
          Before, I have always had to stop,
          But to-day I am sure I shall reach the top.

          Today to the end of the marvelous stair,
          Where those glittering pinacles flash in the air!
          Climbing, climbing, higher I go,
          With the sky close above me, the earth far below.

          Naughty little speckled trout,
          Can't I coax you to come out?
          Is it such great fun to play
          In the water every day?

          Do you pull the Naiads' hair
          Hiding in the lilies there?
          Do you hunt for fishes' eggs,
          Or watch tadpoles grow their legs?

          Do the little trouts have school
          In some deep sun-glinted pool,
          And in recess play at tag
          Round that bed of purple flag?

          I have tried so hard to catch you,
          Hours and hours I've sat to watch you;
          But you never will come out,
          Naughty little speckled trout!

          He shouts in the sails of the ships at sea,
          He steals the down from the honeybee,
          He makes the forest trees rustle and sing,
          He twirls my kite till it breaks its string.
             Laughing, dancing, sunny wind,
             Whistling, howling, rainy wind,
             North, South, East and West,
             Each is the wind I like the best.

          He calls up the fog and hides the hills,
          He whirls the wings of the great windmills,
          The weathercocks love him and turn to discover
          His whereabouts — but he's gone, the rover!
             Laughing, dancing, sunny wind,
             Whistling, howling, rainy wind,
             North, South, East and West,
             Each is the wind I like the best.

          The pine trees toss him their cones with glee,
          The flowers bend low in courtesy,
          Each wave flings up a shower of pearls,
          The flag in front of the school unfurls.
             Laughing, dancing, sunny wind,
             Whistling, howling, rainy wind,
             North, South, East and West,
             Each is the wind I like the best.

          By day you cannot see the sky
          For it is up so very high.
          You look and look, but it's so blue
          That you can never see right through.

          But when night comes it is quite plain,
          And all the stars are there again.
          They seem just like old friends to me,
          I've known them all my life you see.

          There is the dipper first, and there
          Is Cassiopeia in her chair,
          Orion's belt, the Milky Way,
          And lots I know but cannot say.

          One group looks like a swarm of bees,
          Papa says they're the Pleiades;
          But I think they must be the toy
          Of some nice little angel boy.

          Perhaps his jackstones which to-day
          He has forgot to put away,
          And left them lying on the sky
          Where he will find them bye and bye.

          I wish he'd come and play with me.
          We'd have such fun, for it would be
          A most unusual thing for boys
          To feel that they had stars for toys!