Collected Poems: Volume Two

It is my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes—
So was it sung one golden hour
Among the woodbine wreaths;
And yet, though wet with living dew,
The song seemed far more sweet than true.

Blind creatures of the sun and air
I dreamed it but a dream
That, like Narcissus, would confer
With self in every stream,
And to the leaves and boughs impart
The tremors of a human heart.

To-day a golden pinion stirred
The world's Bethesda pool,
And I believed the song I heard
Nor put my heart to school;
And through the rainbows of the dream
I saw the gates of Eden gleam.

The rain had ceased. The great hills rolled
In silence to the deep:
The gorse in waves of green and gold
Perfumed their lonely sleep;
And, at my feet, one elfin flower
Drooped, blind with glories of the shower.

I stooped—a giant from the sky—
Above its piteous shield,
And, suddenly, the dream went by,
And there—was heaven revealed!
I stooped to pluck it; but my hand
Paused, mid-way, o'er its fairyland.

Not of mine own was that strange voice,
"Pluck—tear a star from heaven!"
Mine only was the awful choice
To scoff and be forgiven
Or hear the very grass I trod
Whispering the gentle thoughts of God.

I know not if the hill-flower's place
Beneath that mighty sky,
Its lonely and aspiring grace,
Its beauty born to die,
Touched me, I know it seemed to be
Cherished by all Eternity.

Man, doomed to crush at every stride
A hundred lives like this
Which by their weakness were allied,
If by naught else, to his,
Can only for a flash discern
What passion through the whole doth yearn.

Not into words can I distil
The pity or the pain
Which hallowing all that lonely hill
Cried out "Refrain, refrain,"
Then breathed from earth and sky and sea,
"Herein you did it unto Me."

Somewhile that hill was heaven's own breast,
The flower its joy and grief,
Hugged close and fostered and caressed
In every brief bright leaf:
And, ere I went thro' sun and dew,
I leant and gently touched it, too.

ACTÆON

"Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed
And bound his forehead with Proserpine's hair."

—Browning (Pauline)

Light of beauty, O, "perfect in whiteness,"
Softly suffused thro' the world's dark shrouds,
Kindling them all as they pass by thy brightness,—
Hills, men, cities,—a pageant of clouds,
Thou to whom Life and Time surrender
All earth's forms as to heaven's deep care,
Who shall pierce to thy naked splendour,
Bind his brows with thy hair?

Swift thro' the sprays when Spring grew bolder
Young Actæon swept to the chase!
Golden the fawn-skin, back from the shoulder
Flowing, set free the limbs' lithe grace,
Muscles of satin that rippled like sunny
Streams—a hunter, a young athlete,
Scattering dews and crushing out honey
Under his sandalled feet.

III

Sunset softened the crags of the mountain,
Silence melted the hunter's heart,
Only the sob of a falling fountain
Pulsed in a deep ravine apart:
All the forest seemed waiting breathless,
Eager to whisper the dying day
Some rich word that should utter the deathless
Secret of youth and May.

Down, as to May thro' the flowers that attend her,
Slowly, on tip-toe, down the ravine
Fair as the sun-god, poising a slender
Spear like a moon-shaft silver and green,
Stole he! Ah, did the oak-wood ponder
Youth's glad dream in its heart of gloom?
Dryad or fawn was it started yonder?
Ah, what whisper of doom?

Gold, thro' the ferns as he gazed and listened,
Shone the soul of the wood's deep dream,
One bright glade and a pool that glistened
Full in the face of the sun's last gleam,— Gold in the heart of a violet dingle!
Young Actæon, beware! beware!
Who shall track, while the pulses tingle,
Spring to her woodland lair?

See, at his feet, what mystical quiver,
Maiden's girdle and robe of snow,
Tossed aside by the green glen-river
Ere she bathed in the pool below?
All the fragrance of April meets him
Full in the face with its young sweet breath;
Yet, as he steals to the glade, there greets him—
Hush, what whisper of death?

VII

Lo, in the violets, lazily dreaming,
Young Diana, the huntress, lies:
One white side thro' the violets gleaming
Heaves and sinks with her golden sighs,
One white breast like a diamond crownet
Couched in a velvet casket glows,
One white arm, tho' the violets drown it,
Thrills their purple with rose.

VIII

Buried in fragrance, the half-moon flashes,
Beautiful, clouded, from head to heel:
One white foot in the warm wave plashes,
Violets tremble and half reveal,
Half conceal, as they kiss, the slender
Slope and curve of her sleeping limbs:
Violets bury one half the splendour
Still, as thro' heaven, she swims.

Cold as the white rose waking at daybreak
Lifts the light of her lovely face,
Poised on an arm she watches the spray break
Over the slim white ankle's grace,
Watches the wave that sleeplessly tosses
Kissing the pure foot's pink sea-shells,
Watches the long-leaved heaven-dark mosses
Drowning their star-bright bells.

Swift as the Spring where the South has brightened
Earth with bloom in one passionate night,
Swift as the violet heavens had lightened
Swift to perfection, blinding, white,
Dian arose: and Actæon saw her,
Only he since the world began!
Only in dreams could Endymion draw her
Down to the heart of man.

Fair as the dawn upon Himalaya
Anger flashed from her cheek's pure rose,
Alpine peaks at the passage of Maia
Flushed not fair as her breasts' white snows.
Ah, fair form of the heaven's completeness,
Who shall sing thee or who shall say
Whence that "high perfection of sweetness,"
Perfect to save or slay?

XII

Perfect in beauty, beauty the portal
Here on earth to the world's deep shrine,
Beauty hidden in all things mortal,
Who shall mingle his eyes with thine? Thou, to whom Life and Death surrender
All earth's forms as to heaven's deep care,
Who shall pierce to thy naked splendour,
Bind his brows with thy hair?

XIII

Beauty, perfect in blinding whiteness,
Softly suffused thro' the world's dark shrouds,
Kindling them all as they pass by her brightness,—
Hills, men, cities,—a pageant of clouds,
She, the unchanging, shepherds their changes,
Bids them mingle and form and flow,
Flowers and flocks and the great hill-ranges
Follow her cry and go.

XIV

Swift as the sweet June lightning flashes,
Down she stoops to the purpling pool,
Sudden and swift her white hand dashes
Rainbow mists in his eyes! "Ah, fool!
Hunter," she cries to the young Actæon,
"Change to the hunted, rise and fly,
Swift ere the wild pack utter its pæan,
Swift for thy hounds draw nigh!"

Lo, as he trembles, the greenwood branches
Dusk his brows with their antlered pride!
Lo, as a stag thrown back on its haunches
Quivers, with velvet nostrils wide,
Lo, he changes! The soft fur darkens
Down to the fetlock's lifted fear!—
Hounds are baying!—he snuffs and hearkens,
"Fly, for the stag is here!"

XVI

Swift as he leapt thro' the ferns, Actæon,
Young Actæon, the lordly stag,
Full and mellow the deep-mouthed pæan
Swelled behind him from crag to crag:
Well he remembered that sweet throat leading,
Wild with terror he raced and strained,
On thro' the darkness, thorn-swept, bleeding:
Ever they gained and gained!

XVII

Death, like a darkling huntsman holloed—
Swift, Actæon!—desire and shame
Leading the pack of the passions followed.
Red jaws frothing with white-hot flame,
Volleying out of the glen, they leapt up,
Snapped and fell short of the foam-flecked thighs ...
Inch by terrible inch they crept up,
Shadows with blood-shot eyes.

XVIII

Still with his great heart bursting asunder
Still thro' the night he struggled and bled;
Suddenly round him the pack's low thunder
Surged, the hounds that his own hand fed
Fastened in his throat, with red jaws drinking
Deep!—for a moment his antlered pride
Soared o'er their passionate seas, then, sinking,
Fell for the fangs to divide.

XIX

Light of beauty, O, perfect in whiteness,
Softly suffused thro' the years' dark veils,
Kindling them all as they pass by her brightness,
Filling our hearts with her old-world tales, She, the unchanging, shepherds their changes,
Bids them mingle and form and flow,
Flowers and flocks and the great hill-ranges
Follow her cry and go.

Still, in the violets, lazily dreaming
Young Diana, the huntress, lies:
One white side thro' the violets gleaming
Heaves and sinks with her golden sighs;
One white breast like a diamond crownet
Couched in a velvet casket glows,
One white arm, tho' the violets drown it,
Thrills their purple with rose.

LUCIFER'S FEAST

(A EUROPEAN NIGHTMARE.)

To celebrate the ascent of man, one gorgeous night
Lucifer gave a feast.
Its world-bewildering light
Danced in Belshazzar's tomb, and the old kings dead and gone
Felt their dust creep to jewels in crumbling Babylon.

Two nations were His guests—the top and flower of Time,
The fore-front of an age which now had learned to climb
The slopes where Newton knelt, the heights that Shakespeare trod,
The mountains whence Beethoven rolled the voice of God.

Lucifer's feasting-lamps were like the morning stars,
But at the board-head shone the blood-red lamp of Mars.

League upon glittering league, white front and flabby face
Bent o'er the groaning board. Twelve brave men droned the grace;
But with instinctive tact, in courtesy to their Host,
Omitted God the Son and God the Holy Ghost,
And to the God of Battles raised their humble prayers. Then, then, like thunder, all the guests drew up their chairs.
By each a drinking-cup, yellow, almost, as gold.
(The blue eye-sockets gave the thumbs a good firm hold)
Adorned the flowery board. Could even brave men shrink?

Why if the cups were skulls, they had red wine to drink!
And had not each a napkin, white and peaked and proud,
Waiting to wipe his mouth? A napkin? Nay, a shroud!
This was a giant's feast, on hell's imperial scale.
The blades glistened.

The shrouds—O, in one snowy gale,
The pink hands fluttered them out, and spread them on their knees.
Who knew what gouts might drop, what filthy flakes of grease,
Now that o'er every shoulder, through the coiling steam,
Inhuman faces peered, with wolfish eyes a-gleam,
And grey-faced vampire Lusts that whinneyed in each ear
Hints of the hideous courses?

None may name them here?
None? And we may not see! The distant cauldrons cloak
The lava-coloured plains with clouds of umber smoke.
Nay, by that shrapnel-light, by those wild shooting stars
That rip the clouds away with fiercer fire than Mars,
They are painted sharp as death. If these can eat and drink
Chatter and laugh and rattle their knives, why should we shrink
From empty names? We know those ghastly gleams are true:
Why should Christ cry again—They know not what they do?
They, heirs of all the ages, sons of Shakespeare's land,
They, brothers of Beethoven, smiling, cultured, bland,
Whisper with sidling heads to ghouls with bloody lips.

Each takes upon his plate a small round thing that drips
And quivers, a child's heart.

Miles on miles
The glittering table bends o'er that first course, and smiles;
For, through the wreaths of smoke, the grey Lusts bear aloft
The second course, on leaden chargers, large and soft,
Bodies of women, steaming in an opal mist,
Red-branded here and there where vampire-teeth have kissed.

But white as pig's flesh, newly killed, and cleanly dressed,
A lemon in each mouth and roses round each breast,
Emblems to show how deeply, sweetly satisfied,
The breasts, the lips, can sleep, whose children fought and died
For—what? For country? God, once more Thy shrapnel-light!

Let those dark slaughter-houses burst upon our sight,
These kitchens are too clean, too near the tiring room!
Let Thy white shrapnel rend those filthier veils of gloom,
Rip the last fogs away and strip the foul thing bare!
One lightning-picture—see—yon bayonet-bristling square
Mown down, mown down, mown down, wild swathes of crimson wheat,
The white-eyed charge, the blast, the terrible retreat,
The blood-greased wheels of cannon thundering into line
O'er that red writhe of pain, rent groin and shattered spine,
The moaning faceless face that kissed its child last night,
The raw pulp of the heart that beat for love's delight,
The heap of twisting bodies, clotted and congealed
In one red huddle of anguish on the loathsome field,
The seas of obscene slaughter spewing their blood-red yeast,
Multitudes pouring out their entrails for the feast,
Knowing not why, but dying, they think, for some high cause,
Dying for "hearth and home," their flags, their creeds, their laws.
Ask of the Bulls and Bears, ask if they understand
How both great grappling armies bleed for their own land;
For in that faith they die! These hoodwinked thousands die
Simply as heroes, gulled by hell's profoundest lie.
Who keeps the slaughter-house? Not these, not these who gain
Nought but the sergeant's shilling and the homeless pain!
Who pulls the ropes? Not these, who buy their crust of bread
With the salt sweat of labour! These but bury their dead
Then sweat again for food!

Christ, is the hour not come,
To send forth one great voice and strike this dark hell dumb,
A voice to out-crash the cannon, one united cry
To sweep these wild-beast standards down that stain the sky,

To hurl these Lions and Bears and Eagles to their doom,
One voice, one heart, one soul, one fire that shall consume
The last red reeking shreds that flicker against the blast
And purge the Augean stalls we call "our glorious past"!
One voice from dawn and sunset, one almighty voice,
Full-throated as the sea—ye sons o' the earth, rejoice!
Beneath the all-loving sky, confederate kings ye stand,
Fling open wide the gates o' the world-wide Fatherland.

* * * *

Poor fools, we dare not dream it! We that pule and whine
Of art and science, we, whose great souls leave no shrine
Unshattered, we that climb the Sinai Shakespeare trod,
The Olivets where Beethoven walked and talked with God,
We that have weighed the stars and reined the lightning, we
That stare thro' heaven and plant our footsteps in the sea,
We whose great souls have risen so far above the creeds
That we can jest at Christ and leave Him where He bleeds,
A legend of the dark, a tale so false or true
That howsoe'er we jest at Him, the jest sounds new.
(Our weariest dinner-tables never tire of that!
Let the clown sport with Christ, never the jest falls flat!)
Poor fools, we dare not dream a dream so strange, so great,
As on this ball of dust to found one "world-wide state,"
To float one common flag above our little lands,
And ere our little sun grows cold to clasp our hands
In friendship for a moment!

* * * *

Hark, the violins
Are swooning through the mist. The great blue band begins,
Playing, in dainty scorn, a hymn we used to know,
How long was it, ten thousand thousand years ago?

There is a green hill far away
Beside a City wall!—
And O, the music swung a-stray
With a solemn dying fall;
For it was a pleasant jest to play
Hymns in the Devil's Hall.

And yet, and yet, if aught be true,
This dream we left behind,
This childish Christ, be-mocked anew
To please the men of mind,
Yet hung so far beyond the flight
Of our most lofty thought
That—Lucifer laughed at us that night.
Not with us, as he ought.

Beneath the blood-red lamp of Mars,
Cloaked with a scarlet cloud
He gazed along the line of stars
Above the guzzling crowd:
Sinister, thunder-scarred, he raised
His great world-wandering eyes,
And on some distant vision gazed
Beyond our cloudy skies.

"Poor bats," he sneered, "their jungle-dark
Civilisation's noon!
Poor wolves, that hunt in packs and bark
Beneath the grinning moon;
Poor fools, that cast the cross away,
Before they break the sword;
Poor sots, who take the night for day;
Have mercy on me, Lord.

"Beyond their wisdom's deepest skies
I see Thee hanging yet,
The love still hungering in Thine eyes,
Thy plaited crown still wet!
Thine arms outstretched to fold them all
Beneath Thy sheltering breast;
But—since they will not hear Thy call,
Lord, I forbear to jest.

"Lord, I forbear! The day I fell
I fell at least thro' pride!
Rather than these should share my hell
Take me, thou Crucified! O, let me share Thy cross of grief,
And let me work Thy will,
As morning star, or dying thief.
Thy fallen angel still.

"Lord, I forbear! For Thee, at least,
In pain so like to mine,
The mighty meaning of their feast
Is plain as bread and wine:
O, smile once more, far off, alone!
Since these nor hear nor see,
From my deep hell, so like Thine own,
Lord Christ, I pity Thee."

Yet once again, he thought, they shall be fully tried,
If they be devils or fools too light for hell's deep pride.

The champ of teeth was over, and the reeking room
Gaped for the speeches now. Across the sulphurous fume
Lucifer gave a sign. The guests stood thundering up!
"Gentlemen, charge your glasses!"
Every yellow cup
Frothed with the crimson blood. They brandished them on high!
"Gentlemen, drink to those who fight and know not why!"

And in the bubbling blood each nose was buried deep.
"Gentlemen, drink to those who sowed that we might reap!
Drink to the pomp, pride, circumstance, of glorious war,
The grand self-sacrifice that made us what we are!
And drink to the peace-lovers who believe that peace
Is War, red, bloody War; for War can never cease
Unless we drain the veins of peace to fatten War!
Gentlemen, drink to the brains that made us what we are!
Drink to self-sacrifice that helps us all to shake
The world with tramp of armies. Germany, awake!
England, awake! Shakespeare's, Beethoven's Fatherland,
Are you not both aware, do you not understand, Self-sacrifice is competition? It is the law
Of Life, and so, though both of you are wholly right,
Self-sacrifice requires that both of you should fight."
And "Hoch! hoch! hoch!" they cried; and "Hip, hip, hip, Hurrah!"

This raised the gorge of Lucifer. With one deep "Bah,"
Above those croaking toads he towered like Gabriel;

Then straightway left the table and went home to hell.

VETERANS

(WRITTEN FOR THE RELIEF FUND OF THE CRIMEAN VETERANS.)

When the last charge sounds
And the battle thunders o'er the plain,
Thunders o'er the trenches where the red streams flow,
Will it not be well with us,
Veterans, veterans,
If, beneath your torn old flag, we burst upon the foe?

When the last post sounds
And the night is on the battle-field,
Night and rest at last from all the tumult of our wars,
Will it not be well with us,
Veterans, veterans,
If, with duty done like yours, we lie beneath the stars?

III

When the great reveille sounds
For the terrible last Sabaoth,
All the legions of the dead shall hear the trumpet ring!
Will it not be well with us,
Veterans, veterans,
If, beneath your torn old flag, we rise to meet our King?

THE QUEST RENEWED

It is too soon, too soon, though time be brief,
Quite to forswear thy quest,
O Light, whose farewell dyes the falling leaf,
Fades thro' the fading west.

Thou'rt flown too soon! I stretch my hands out still,
O, Light of Life, to Thee,
Who leav'st an Olivet in each far blue hill,
A sorrow on every sea.

It is too soon, here while the loud world roars
For wealth and power and fame,
Too soon quite to forget those other shores
Afar, from whence I came;

Too soon even to forget the first dear dream
Dreamed far away, when tears could freely flow;
And life seemed infinite, as that sky's great gleam
Deepened, to which I go;

Too soon even to forget the fluttering fire
And those old books beside the friendly hearth,
When time seemed endless as my own desire,
And angels walked our earth;

Too soon quite to forget amid the throng
What once the silent hills, the sounding beach
Taught me—where singing was the prize of song,
And heaven within my reach.

It is too soon amid the cynic sneers,
The sophist smiles, the greedy mouths and hands,
Quite to forget the light of those dead years
And my lost mountain-lands;

Too soon to lose that everlasting hope
(For so it seemed) of youth in love's pure reign,
Though while I linger on this darkening slope
Nought seems quite worth the pain.

It is too soon for me to break that trust,
O, Light of Light, flown far past sun and moon,
Burn back thro' this dark panoply of dust;
Or let me follow—soon.

THE LIGHTS OF HOME

Pilot, how far from home?—
Not far, not far to-night,
A flight of spray, a sea-bird's flight,
A flight of tossing foam,
And then the lights of home!—

And, yet again, how far?
And seems the way so brief?
Those lights beyond the roaring reef
Were lights of moon and star,
Far, far, none knows how far!

Pilot, how far from home?—
The great stars pass away
Before Him as a flight of spray,
Moons as a flight of foam!
I see the lights of home.

NEW POEMS

'TWEEN THE LIGHTS

"The Nine men's morrice is filled up with mud ...
From our debate, from our dissension."

—Shakespeare

Fairies, come back! We have not seen
Your dusky foot-prints on the green
This many a year. No frolic now
Shakes the dew from the hawthorn-bough.
Never a man and never a maid
Spies you in the blue-bell shade;
Yet, where the nine men's morrice stood,
Our spades are clearing out the mud.

Chorus.—Come, little irised heralds, fling
Earth's Eden-gates apart, and sing
The bright eyes and the cordial hand
Of brotherhood thro' all our land.

Fairies, come back! Our pomp of gold,
Our blazing noon, grows grey and old;
The scornful glittering ages wane:
Forgive, forget, come back again.
This is our England's Hallowe'en!
Come, trip it, trip it o'er the green,
Trip it, amidst the roaring mart,
In the still meadows of the heart.