Poems — Volume 1

I think she sleeps: it must be sleep, when low
Hangs that abandoned arm toward the floor;
The face turned with it.  Now make fast the door.
Sleep on: it is your husband, not your foe.
The Poet’s black stage-lion of wronged love
Frights not our modern dames:—well if he did!
Now will I pour new light upon that lid,
Full-sloping like the breasts beneath.  ‘Sweet dove,
Your sleep is pure.  Nay, pardon: I disturb.
I do not? good!’  Her waking infant-stare
Grows woman to the burden my hands bear:
Her own handwriting to me when no curb
Was left on Passion’s tongue.  She trembles through;
A woman’s tremble—the whole instrument:—
I show another letter lately sent.
The words are very like: the name is new.

In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour,
When in the firelight steadily aglow,
Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow
Among the clicking coals.  Our library-bower
That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat
As lovers to whom Time is whispering.
From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing:
The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat.
Well knew we that Life’s greatest treasure lay
With us, and of it was our talk.  ‘Ah, yes!
Love dies!’ I said: I never thought it less.
She yearned to me that sentence to unsay.
Then when the fire domed blackening, I found
Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift
Up the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift:—
Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound!

At dinner, she is hostess, I am host.
Went the feast ever cheerfuller?  She keeps
The Topic over intellectual deeps
In buoyancy afloat.  They see no ghost.
With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball:
It is in truth a most contagious game:
Hiding the Skeleton, shall be its name.
Such play as this the devils might appal!
But here’s the greater wonder; in that we,
Enamoured of an acting nought can tire,
Each other, like true hypocrites, admire;
Warm-lighted looks, Love’s ephemerioe,
Shoot gaily o’er the dishes and the wine.
We waken envy of our happy lot.
Fast, sweet, and golden, shows the marriage-knot.
Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine.

Here Jack and Tom are paired with Moll and Meg.
Curved open to the river-reach is seen
A country merry-making on the green.
Fair space for signal shakings of the leg.
That little screwy fiddler from his booth,
Whence flows one nut-brown stream, commands the joints
Of all who caper here at various points.
I have known rustic revels in my youth:
The May-fly pleasures of a mind at ease.
An early goddess was a country lass:
A charmed Amphion-oak she tripped the grass.
What life was that I lived?  The life of these?
Heaven keep them happy!  Nature they seem near.
They must, I think, be wiser than I am;
They have the secret of the bull and lamb.
’Tis true that when we trace its source, ’tis beer.

No state is enviable.  To the luck alone
Of some few favoured men I would put claim.
I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame.
Have I not felt her heart as ’twere my own
Beat thro’ me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell!
But I could hurt her cruelly!  Can I let
My Love’s old time-piece to another set,
Swear it can’t stop, and must for ever swell?
Sure, that’s one way Love drifts into the mart
Where goat-legged buyers throng.  I see not plain:—
My meaning is, it must not be again.
Great God! the maddest gambler throws his heart.
If any state be enviable on earth,
’Tis yon born idiot’s, who, as days go by,
Still rubs his hands before him, like a fly,
In a queer sort of meditative mirth.

I am not of those miserable males
Who sniff at vice and, daring not to snap,
Do therefore hope for heaven.  I take the hap
Of all my deeds.  The wind that fills my sails
Propels; but I am helmsman.  Am I wrecked,
I know the devil has sufficient weight
To bear: I lay it not on him, or fate.
Besides, he’s damned.  That man I do suspect
A coward, who would burden the poor deuce
With what ensues from his own slipperiness.
I have just found a wanton-scented tress
In an old desk, dusty for lack of use.
Of days and nights it is demonstrative,
That, like some aged star, gleam luridly.
If for those times I must ask charity,
Have I not any charity to give?

We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn;
My friend being third.  He who at love once laughed
Is in the weak rib by a fatal shaft
Struck through, and tells his passion’s bashful dawn
And radiant culmination, glorious crown,
When ‘this’ she said: went ‘thus’: most wondrous she.
Our eyes grow white, encountering: that we are three,
Forgetful; then together we look down.
But he demands our blessing; is convinced
That words of wedded lovers must bring good.
We question; if we dare! or if we should!
And pat him, with light laugh.  We have not winced.
Next, she has fallen.  Fainting points the sign
To happy things in wedlock.  When she wakes,
She looks the star that thro’ the cedar shakes:
Her lost moist hand clings mortally to mine.

What may the woman labour to confess?
There is about her mouth a nervous twitch.
’Tis something to be told, or hidden:—which?
I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess.
She has desires of touch, as if to feel
That all the household things are things she knew.
She stops before the glass.  What sight in view?
A face that seems the latest to reveal!
For she turns from it hastily, and tossed
Irresolute steals shadow-like to where
I stand; and wavering pale before me there,
Her tears fall still as oak-leaves after frost.
She will not speak.  I will not ask.  We are
League-sundered by the silent gulf between.
You burly lovers on the village green,
Yours is a lower, and a happier star!

’Tis Christmas weather, and a country house
Receives us: rooms are full: we can but get
An attic-crib.  Such lovers will not fret
At that, it is half-said.  The great carouse
Knocks hard upon the midnight’s hollow door,
But when I knock at hers, I see the pit.
Why did I come here in that dullard fit?
I enter, and lie couched upon the floor.
Passing, I caught the coverlet’s quick beat:—
Come, Shame, burn to my soul! and Pride, and Pain—
Foul demons that have tortured me, enchain!
Out in the freezing darkness the lambs bleat.
The small bird stiffens in the low starlight.
I know not how, but shuddering as I slept,
I dreamed a banished angel to me crept:
My feet were nourished on her breasts all night.

The misery is greater, as I live!
To know her flesh so pure, so keen her sense,
That she does penance now for no offence,
Save against Love.  The less can I forgive!
The less can I forgive, though I adore
That cruel lovely pallor which surrounds
Her footsteps; and the low vibrating sounds
That come on me, as from a magic shore.
Low are they, but most subtle to find out
The shrinking soul.  Madam, ’tis understood
When women play upon their womanhood,
It means, a Season gone.  And yet I doubt
But I am duped.  That nun-like look waylays
My fancy.  Oh!  I do but wait a sign!
Pluck out the eyes of pride! thy mouth to mine!
Never! though I die thirsting.  Go thy ways!

You like not that French novel?  Tell me why.
You think it quite unnatural.  Let us see.
The actors are, it seems, the usual three:
Husband, and wife, and lover.  She—but fie!
In England we’ll not hear of it.  Edmond,
The lover, her devout chagrin doth share;
Blanc-mange and absinthe are his penitent fare,
Till his pale aspect makes her over-fond:
So, to preclude fresh sin, he tries rosbif.
Meantime the husband is no more abused:
Auguste forgives her ere the tear is used.
Then hangeth all on one tremendous If:—
If she will choose between them.  She does choose;
And takes her husband, like a proper wife.
Unnatural?  My dear, these things are life:
And life, some think, is worthy of the Muse.

Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies,
Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve
He views the rosy dawn.  In vain they weave
The fatal web below while far he flies.
But when the arrow strikes him, there’s a change.
He moves but in the track of his spent pain,
Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain,
Binding him to the ground, with narrow range.
A subtle serpent then has Love become.
I had the eagle in my bosom erst:
Henceforward with the serpent I am cursed.
I can interpret where the mouth is dumb.
Speak, and I see the side-lie of a truth.
Perchance my heart may pardon you this deed:
But be no coward:—you that made Love bleed,
You must bear all the venom of his tooth!

Distraction is the panacea, Sir!
I hear my oracle of Medicine say.
Doctor! that same specific yesterday
I tried, and the result will not deter
A second trial.  Is the devil’s line
Of golden hair, or raven black, composed?
And does a cheek, like any sea-shell rosed,
Or clear as widowed sky, seem most divine?
No matter, so I taste forgetfulness.
And if the devil snare me, body and mind,
Here gratefully I score:—he seemëd kind,
When not a soul would comfort my distress!
O sweet new world, in which I rise new made!
O Lady, once I gave love: now I take!
Lady, I must be flattered.  Shouldst thou wake
The passion of a demon, be not afraid.

I must be flattered.  The imperious
Desire speaks out.  Lady, I am content
To play with you the game of Sentiment,
And with you enter on paths perilous;
But if across your beauty I throw light,
To make it threefold, it must be all mine.
First secret; then avowed.  For I must shine
Envied,—I, lessened in my proper sight!
Be watchful of your beauty, Lady dear!
How much hangs on that lamp you cannot tell.
Most earnestly I pray you, tend it well:
And men shall see me as a burning sphere;
And men shall mark you eyeing me, and groan
To be the God of such a grand sunflower!
I feel the promptings of Satanic power,
While you do homage unto me alone.

Am I failing?  For no longer can I cast
A glory round about this head of gold.
Glory she wears, but springing from the mould;
Not like the consecration of the Past!
Is my soul beggared?  Something more than earth
I cry for still: I cannot be at peace
In having Love upon a mortal lease.
I cannot take the woman at her worth!
Where is the ancient wealth wherewith I clothed
Our human nakedness, and could endow
With spiritual splendour a white brow
That else had grinned at me the fact I loathed?
A kiss is but a kiss now! and no wave
Of a great flood that whirls me to the sea.
But, as you will! we’ll sit contentedly,
And eat our pot of honey on the grave.

What are we first?  First, animals; and next
Intelligences at a leap; on whom
Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb,
And all that draweth on the tomb for text.
Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun:
Beneath whose light the shadow loses form.
We are the lords of life, and life is warm.
Intelligence and instinct now are one.
But nature says: ‘My children most they seem
When they least know me: therefore I decree
That they shall suffer.’  Swift doth young Love flee,
And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream.
Then if we study Nature we are wise.
Thus do the few who live but with the day:
The scientific animals are they.—
Lady, this is my sonnet to your eyes.

This golden head has wit in it.  I live
Again, and a far higher life, near her.
Some women like a young philosopher;
Perchance because he is diminutive.
For woman’s manly god must not exceed
Proportions of the natural nursing size.
Great poets and great sages draw no prize
With women: but the little lap-dog breed,
Who can be hugged, or on a mantel-piece
Perched up for adoration, these obtain
Her homage.  And of this we men are vain?
Of this!  ’Tis ordered for the world’s increase!
Small flattery!  Yet she has that rare gift
To beauty, Common Sense.  I am approved.
It is not half so nice as being loved,
And yet I do prefer it.  What’s my drift?

Full faith I have she holds that rarest gift
To beauty, Common Sense.  To see her lie
With her fair visage an inverted sky
Bloom-covered, while the underlids uplift,
Would almost wreck the faith; but when her mouth
(Can it kiss sweetly? sweetly!) would address
The inner me that thirsts for her no less,
And has so long been languishing in drouth,
I feel that I am matched; that I am man!
One restless corner of my heart or head,
That holds a dying something never dead,
Still frets, though Nature giveth all she can.
It means, that woman is not, I opine,
Her sex’s antidote.  Who seeks the asp
For serpent’s bites?  ’Twould calm me could I clasp
Shrieking Bacchantes with their souls of wine!

‘In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen
The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce
Prone Lucifer, descending.  Looked he fierce,
Showing the fight a fair one?  Too serene!
The young Pharsalians did not disarray
Less willingly their locks of floating silk:
That suckling mouth of his upon the milk
Of heaven might still be feasting through the fray.
Oh, Raphael! when men the Fiend do fight,
They conquer not upon such easy terms.
Half serpent in the struggle grow these worms.
And does he grow half human, all is right.’
This to my Lady in a distant spot,
Upon the theme: While mind is mastering clay,
Gross clay invades it.  If the spy you play,
My wife, read this!  Strange love talk, is it not?

Madam would speak with me.  So, now it comes:
The Deluge or else Fire!  She’s well; she thanks
My husbandship.  Our chain on silence clanks.
Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.
Am I quite well?  Most excellent in health!
The journals, too, I diligently peruse.
Vesuvius is expected to give news:
Niagara is no noisier.  By stealth
Our eyes dart scrutinizing snakes.  She’s glad
I’m happy, says her quivering under-lip.
‘And are not you?’  ‘How can I be?’  ‘Take ship!
For happiness is somewhere to be had.’
‘Nowhere for me!’  Her voice is barely heard.
I am not melted, and make no pretence.
With commonplace I freeze her, tongue and sense.
Niagara or Vesuvius is deferred.

It is no vulgar nature I have wived.
Secretive, sensitive, she takes a wound
Deep to her soul, as if the sense had swooned,
And not a thought of vengeance had survived.
No confidences has she: but relief
Must come to one whose suffering is acute.
O have a care of natures that are mute!
They punish you in acts: their steps are brief.
What is she doing?  What does she demand
From Providence or me?  She is not one
Long to endure this torpidly, and shun
The drugs that crowd about a woman’s hand.
At Forfeits during snow we played, and I
Must kiss her.  ‘Well performed!’ I said: then she:
‘’Tis hardly worth the money, you agree?’
Save her?  What for?  To act this wedded lie!

My Lady unto Madam makes her bow.
The charm of women is, that even while
You’re probed by them for tears, you yet may smile,
Nay, laugh outright, as I have done just now.
The interview was gracious: they anoint
(To me aside) each other with fine praise:
Discriminating compliments they raise,
That hit with wondrous aim on the weak point:
My Lady’s nose of Nature might complain.
It is not fashioned aptly to express
Her character of large-browed steadfastness.
But Madam says: Thereof she may be vain!
Now, Madam’s faulty feature is a glazed
And inaccessible eye, that has soft fires,
Wide gates, at love-time, only.  This admires
My Lady.  At the two I stand amazed.

Along the garden terrace, under which
A purple valley (lighted at its edge
By smoky torch-flame on the long cloud-ledge
Whereunder dropped the chariot) glimmers rich,
A quiet company we pace, and wait
The dinner-bell in prae-digestive calm.
So sweet up violet banks the Southern balm
Breathes round, we care not if the bell be late:
Though here and there grey seniors question Time
In irritable coughings.  With slow foot
The low rosed moon, the face of Music mute,
Begins among her silent bars to climb.
As in and out, in silvery dusk, we thread,
I hear the laugh of Madam, and discern
My Lady’s heel before me at each turn.
Our tragedy, is it alive or dead?

Give to imagination some pure light
In human form to fix it, or you shame
The devils with that hideous human game:—
Imagination urging appetite!
Thus fallen have earth’s greatest Gogmagogs,
Who dazzle us, whom we can not revere:
Imagination is the charioteer
That, in default of better, drives the hogs.
So, therefore, my dear Lady, let me love!
My soul is arrowy to the light in you.
You know me that I never can renew
The bond that woman broke: what would you have?
’Tis Love, or Vileness! not a choice between,
Save petrifaction!  What does Pity here?
She killed a thing, and now it’s dead, ’tis dear.
Oh, when you counsel me, think what you mean!

She yields: my Lady in her noblest mood
Has yielded: she, my golden-crownëd rose!
The bride of every sense! more sweet than those
Who breathe the violet breath of maidenhood.
O visage of still music in the sky!
Soft moon!  I feel thy song, my fairest friend!
True harmony within can apprehend
Dumb harmony without.  And hark! ’tis nigh!
Belief has struck the note of sound: a gleam
Of living silver shows me where she shook
Her long white fingers down the shadowy brook,
That sings her song, half waking, half in dream.
What two come here to mar this heavenly tune?
A man is one: the woman bears my name,
And honour.  Their hands touch!  Am I still tame?
God, what a dancing spectre seems the moon!

I bade my Lady think what she might mean.
Know I my meaning, I?  Can I love one,
And yet be jealous of another?  None
Commits such folly.  Terrible Love, I ween,
Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave
The lightless seas of selfishness amain:
Seas that in a man’s heart have no rain
To fall and still them.  Peace can I achieve,
By turning to this fountain-source of woe,
This woman, who’s to Love as fire to wood?
She breathed the violet breath of maidenhood
Against my kisses once! but I say, No!
The thing is mocked at!  Helplessly afloat,
I know not what I do, whereto I strive.
The dread that my old love may be alive
Has seized my nursling new love by the throat.

How many a thing which we cast to the ground,
When others pick it up becomes a gem!
We grasp at all the wealth it is to them;
And by reflected light its worth is found.
Yet for us still ’tis nothing! and that zeal
Of false appreciation quickly fades.
This truth is little known to human shades,
How rare from their own instinct ’tis to feel!
They waste the soul with spurious desire,
That is not the ripe flame upon the bough.
We two have taken up a lifeless vow
To rob a living passion: dust for fire!
Madam is grave, and eyes the clock that tells
Approaching midnight.  We have struck despair
Into two hearts.  O, look we like a pair
Who for fresh nuptials joyfully yield all else?

I am to follow her.  There is much grace
In woman when thus bent on martyrdom.
They think that dignity of soul may come,
Perchance, with dignity of body.  Base!
But I was taken by that air of cold
And statuesque sedateness, when she said
‘I’m going’; lit a taper, bowed her head,
And went, as with the stride of Pallas bold.
Fleshly indifference horrible!  The hands
Of Time now signal: O, she’s safe from me!
Within those secret walls what do I see?
Where first she set the taper down she stands:
Not Pallas: Hebe shamed!  Thoughts black as death
Like a stirred pool in sunshine break.  Her wrists
I catch: she faltering, as she half resists,
‘You love . . .? love . . .? love . . .?’ all on an indrawn breath.

Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like
Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave!
Here is a fitting spot to dig Love’s grave;
Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike,
And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand:
In hearing of the ocean, and in sight
Of those ribbed wind-streaks running into white.
If I the death of Love had deeply planned,
I never could have made it half so sure,
As by the unblest kisses which upbraid
The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade!
’Tis morning: but no morning can restore
What we have forfeited.  I see no sin:
The wrong is mixed.  In tragic life, God wot,
No villain need be!  Passions spin the plot:
We are betrayed by what is false within.

They say, that Pity in Love’s service dwells,
A porter at the rosy temple’s gate.
I missed him going: but it is my fate
To come upon him now beside his wells;
Whereby I know that I Love’s temple leave,
And that the purple doors have closed behind.
Poor soul! if, in those early days unkind,
Thy power to sting had been but power to grieve,
We now might with an equal spirit meet,
And not be matched like innocence and vice.
She for the Temple’s worship has paid price,
And takes the coin of Pity as a cheat.
She sees through simulation to the bone:
What’s best in her impels her to the worst:
Never, she cries, shall Pity soothe Love’s thirst,
Or foul hypocrisy for truth atone!

It is the season of the sweet wild rose,
My Lady’s emblem in the heart of me!
So golden-crownëd shines she gloriously,
And with that softest dream of blood she glows;
Mild as an evening heaven round Hesper bright!
I pluck the flower, and smell it, and revive
The time when in her eyes I stood alive.
I seem to look upon it out of Night.
Here’s Madam, stepping hastily.  Her whims
Bid her demand the flower, which I let drop.
As I proceed, I feel her sharply stop,
And crush it under heel with trembling limbs.
She joins me in a cat-like way, and talks
Of company, and even condescends
To utter laughing scandal of old friends.
These are the summer days, and these our walks.

At last we parley: we so strangely dumb
In such a close communion!  It befell
About the sounding of the Matin-bell,
And lo! her place was vacant, and the hum
Of loneliness was round me.  Then I rose,
And my disordered brain did guide my foot
To that old wood where our first love-salute
Was interchanged: the source of many throes!
There did I see her, not alone.  I moved
Toward her, and made proffer of my arm.
She took it simply, with no rude alarm;
And that disturbing shadow passed reproved.
I felt the pained speech coming, and declared
My firm belief in her, ere she could speak.
A ghastly morning came into her cheek,
While with a widening soul on me she stared.

We saw the swallows gathering in the sky,
And in the osier-isle we heard them noise.
We had not to look back on summer joys,
Or forward to a summer of bright dye:
But in the largeness of the evening earth
Our spirits grew as we went side by side.
The hour became her husband and my bride.
Love, that had robbed us so, thus blessed our dearth!
The pilgrims of the year waxed very loud
In multitudinous chatterings, as the flood
Full brown came from the West, and like pale blood
Expanded to the upper crimson cloud.
Love, that had robbed us of immortal things,
This little moment mercifully gave,
Where I have seen across the twilight wave
The swan sail with her young beneath her wings.

Their sense is with their senses all mixed in,
Destroyed by subtleties these women are!
More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar
Utterly this fair garden we might win.
Behold!  I looked for peace, and thought it near.
Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each.
We drank the pure daylight of honest speech.
Alas! that was the fatal draught, I fear.
For when of my lost Lady came the word,
This woman, O this agony of flesh!
Jealous devotion bade her break the mesh,
That I might seek that other like a bird.
I do adore the nobleness! despise
The act!  She has gone forth, I know not where.
Will the hard world my sentience of her share
I feel the truth; so let the world surmise.

He found her by the ocean’s moaning verge,
Nor any wicked change in her discerned;
And she believed his old love had returned,
Which was her exultation, and her scourge.
She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed
The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry.
She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh,
And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed.
She dared not say, ‘This is my breast: look in.’
But there’s a strength to help the desperate weak.
That night he learned how silence best can speak
The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin.
About the middle of the night her call
Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed.
‘Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!’ she said.
Lethe had passed those lips, and he knew all.

Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:
The union of this ever-diverse pair!
These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.
Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,
They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:
But they fed not on the advancing hours:
Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.
Then each applied to each that fatal knife,
Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life!—
In tragic hints here see what evermore
Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean’s force,
Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,
To throw that faint thin fine upon the shore!

   ‘Sirs! may I shake your hands?
      My countrymen, I see!
   I’ve lived in foreign lands
      Till England’s Heaven to me.
A hearty shake will do me good,
And freshen up my sluggish blood.’

Into his hard right hand we struck,
Gave the shake, and wish’d him luck.

   ‘—From Austria I come,
      An English wife to win,
   And find an English home,
      And live and die therein.
Great Lord! how many a year I’ve pined
To drink old ale and speak my mind!’

Loud rang our laughter, and the shout
Hills round the Meuse-boat echoed about.

   ‘—Ay, no offence: laugh on,
      Young gentlemen: I’ll join.
   Had you to exile gone,
      Where free speech is base coin,
You’d sigh to see the jolly nose
Where Freedom’s native liquor flows!’

He this time the laughter led,
Dabbling his oily bullet head.

Gravely he seem’d, with gaze intense,
Putting the question to common sense.

   ‘—Why, there’s the ale-house bench:
      The furze-flower shining round:
   And there’s my waiting-wench,
      As lissome as a hound.
With “hail Britannia!” ere I drink,
I’ll kiss her with an artful wink.’

Fair flash’d the foreign landscape while
We breath’d again our native Isle.

   ‘—The geese may swim hard-by;
      They gabble, and you talk:
   You’re sure there’s not a spy
      To mark your name with chalk.
My heart’s an oak, and it won’t grow
In flower-pots, foreigners must know.’

Pensive he stood: then shook his head
Sadly; held out his fist, and said:

   ‘—You’ve heard that Hungary’s floor’d?
      They’ve got her on the ground.
   A traitor broke her sword:
      Two despots held her bound.
I’ve seen her gasping her last hope:
I’ve seen her sons strung up b’ the rope.

   ‘Take money for my hire
      From butchers?—not the man!
   I’ve got some natural fire,
      And don’t flash in the pan;—
A few ideas I reveal’d:—
’Twas well old England stood my shield!

   ‘Said I, “The Lord of Hosts
      Have mercy on your land!
   I see those dangling ghosts,—
      And you may keep command,
And hang, and shoot, and have your day:
They hold your bill, and you must pay.

   ‘“You’ve sent them where they’re strong,
      You carrion Double-Head!
   I hear them sound a gong
      In Heaven above!”—I said.
“My God, what feathers won’t you moult
For this!” says I: and then I bolt.

   ‘The Bird’s a beastly Bird,
      And what is more, a fool.
   I shake hands with the herd
      That flock beneath his rule.
They’re kindly; and their land is fine.
I thought it rarer once than mine.

   ‘It tingles to your scalps,
      To think of it, my boys!
   Confusion on their Alps,
      And all their baby toys!
The mountains Britain boasts are men:
And scale you them, my brethren!’

Cluck, went his tongue; his fingers, snap.
Britons were proved all heights to cap.

   And we who worshipp’d crags,
      Where purple splendours burn’d,
   Our idol saw in rags,
      And right about were turn’d.
Horizons rich with trembling spires
On violet twilights lost their fires.

   And heights where morning wakes
      With one cheek over snow;—
   And iron-wallèd lakes
      Where sits the white moon low;—
For us on youthful travel bent,
The robing picturesque was rent.

   And yet we liked him well;
      We laugh’d with honest hearts:—
   He shock’d some inner spell,
      And rous’d discordant parts.
We echoed what we half abjured:
And hating, smilingly endured.

   Moreover, could we be
      To our dear land disloyal?
   And were not also we
      Of History’s blood-Royal?
We glow’d to think how donkeys graze
In England, thrilling at their brays.

   For there a man may view
      An aspect more sublime
   Than Alps against the blue:—
      The morning eyes of Time!
The very Ass participates
The glory Freedom radiates!

I

Captive on a foreign shore,
Far from Ilion’s hoary wave,
Agamemnon’s bridal slave
Speaks Futurity no more:
Death is busy with her grave.

II

Thick as water, bursts remote
Round her ears the alien din,
While her little sullen chin
Fills the hollows of her throat:
Silent lie her slaughter’d kin.

III

Once to many a pealing shriek,
Lo, from Ilion’s topmost tower,
Ilion’s fierce prophetic flower
Cried the coming of the Greek!
Black in Hades sits the hour.

IV

Eyeing phantoms of the Past,
Folded like a prophet’s scroll,
In the deep’s long shoreward roll
Here she sees the anchor cast:
Backward moves her sunless soul.

Chieftains, brethren of her joy,
Shades, the white light in their eyes
Slanting to her lips, arise,
Crowding quick the plains of Troy:
Now they tell her not she lies.

VI

O the bliss upon the plains,
Where the joining heroes clashed
Shield and spear, and, unabashed,
Challenged with hot chariot-reins
Gods!—they glimmer ocean-washed.

VII

Alien voices round the ships,
Thick as water, shouting Home.
Argives, pale as midnight foam,
Wax before her awful lips:
White as stars that front the gloom.

VIII

Like a torch-flame that by day
Up the daylight twists, and, pale,
Catches air in leaps that fail,
Crushed by the inveterate ray,
Through her shines the Ten-Years’ Tale.

IX

Once to many a pealing shriek,
Lo, from Ilion’s topmost tower,
Ilion’s fierce prophetic flower
Cried the coming of the Greek!
Black in Hades sits the hour.

Still upon her sunless soul
Gleams the narrow hidden space
Forward, where her fiery race
Falters on its ashen goal:
Still the Future strikes her face.

XI

See toward the conqueror’s car
Step the purple Queen whose hate
Wraps red-armed her royal mate
With his Asian tempest-star:
Now Cassandra views her Fate.

XII

King of men! the blinded host
Shout:—she lifts her brooding chin:
Glad along the joyous din
Smiles the grand majestic ghost:
Clytemnestra leads him in.

XIII

Lo, their smoky limbs aloof,
Shadowing heaven and the seas,
Fates and Furies, tangling Threes,
Tear and mix above the roof:
Fates and fierce Eumenides.

XIV

Is the prophetess with rods
Beaten, that she writhes in air?
With the Gods who never spare,
Wrestling with the unsparing Gods,
Lone, her body struggles there.

Like the snaky torch-flame white,
Levelled as aloft it twists,
She, her soaring arms, and wrists
Drooping, struggles with the light,
Helios, bright above all mists!

XVI

In his orb she sees the tower,
Dusk against its flaming rims,
Where of old her wretched limbs
Twisted with the stolen power:
Ilium all the lustre dims!

XVII

O the bliss upon the plains,
Where the joining heroes clashed
Shield and spear, and, unabashed,
Challenged with hot chariot-reins
Gods!—they glimmer ocean-washed.

XVIII

Thrice the Sun-god’s name she calls;
Shrieks the deed that shames the sky;
Like a fountain leaping high,
Falling as a fountain falls:
Lo, the blazing wheels go by!

XIX

Captive on a foreign shore,
Far from Ilion’s hoary wave,
Agamemnon’s bridal slave
Speaks Futurity no more:
Death is busy with her grave.

   On my darling’s bosom
Has dropped a living rosy bud,
   Fair as brilliant Hesper
   Against the brimming flood.
            She handles him,
            She dandles him,
   She fondles him and eyes him:
And if upon a tear he wakes,
   With many a kiss she dries him:
She covets every move he makes,
   And never enough can prize him.
            Ah, the young Usurper!
            I yield my golden throne:
            Such angel bands attend his hands
            To claim it for his own.

I

The old grey mother she thrummed on her knee:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
And which of the handsome young men shall it be?
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

My daughter, come hither, come hither to me:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Come, point me your finger on him that you see:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

O mother, my mother, it never can be:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
For I shall bring shame on the man marries me:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

Now let your tongue be deep as the sea:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
And the man’ll jump for you, right briskly will he:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

Tall Margaret wept bitterly:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
And as her parent bade did she:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

O the handsome young man dropped down on his knee:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Pale Margaret gave him her hand, woe’s me!
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

O mother, my mother, this thing I must say:
   There is a rose in the garden;
Ere he lies on the breast where that other lay:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

Now, folly, my daughter, for men are men:
   There is a rose in the garden;
You marry them blindfold, I tell you again:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

O mother, but when he kisses me!
   There is a rose in the garden;
My child, ’tis which shall sweetest be!
   And the bird sings over the roses.

O mother, but when I awake in the morn!
   There is a rose in the garden;
My child, you are his, and the ring is worn:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

Tall Margaret sighed and loosened a tress:
   There is a rose in the garden;
Poor comfort she had of her comeliness
   And the bird sings over the roses.

My mother will sink if this thing be said:
   There is a rose in the garden;
That my first betrothed came thrice to my bed;
   And the bird sings over the roses.

He died on my shoulder the third cold night:
   There is a rose in the garden;
I dragged his body all through the moonlight:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

O neither to heaven, nor yet to hell:
   There is a rose in the garden;
Could I follow the lover I loved so well!
   And the bird sings over the roses.

III

The bridesmaids slept in their chambers apart:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Tall Margaret walked with her thumping heart:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

The frill of her nightgown below the left breast:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Had fall’n like a cloud of the moonlighted West:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

But where the West-cloud breaks to a star:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Pale Margaret’s breast showed a winding scar:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

O few are the brides with such a sign!
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Though I went mad the fault was mine:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

I must speak to him under this roof to-night:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
I shall burn to death if I speak in the light:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

I will stab my honour under his eye:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Though I bleed to the death, I shall let out the lie:
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

O happy my bridesmaids! white sleep is with you!
   There is a rose that’s ready;
Had he chosen among you he might sleep too!
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

O happy my bridesmaids! your breasts are clean:
   There is a rose that’s ready;
You carry no mark of what has been!
   There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.

IV

An hour before the chilly beam:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
The bridegroom started out of a dream:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

He went to the door, and there espied:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
The figure of his silent bride:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

He went to the door, and let her in:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
Whiter looked she than a child of sin:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

He fell at her feet with love and awe:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
A stainless body of light he saw:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

O Margaret, say you are not of the dead!
   Red rose and white in the garden;
My bride! by the angels at night are you led?
   And the bird sings over the roses.

I am not led by the angels about:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
But I have a devil within to let out:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

O Margaret! my bride and saint!
   Red rose and white in the garden;
There is on you no earthly taint:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

I am no saint, and no bride can I be:
   Red rose and while in the garden;
Until I have opened my bosom to thee:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

To catch at her heart she laid one hand:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
She told the tale where she did stand:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

She saw how her body grow freckled and foul:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
She heard from the woods the hooting owl:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

With never a quiver her mouth did speak:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
O when she had done she stood so meek!
   And the bird sings over the roses.

The bridegroom stamped and called her vile:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
He did but waken a little smile:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

The bridegroom raged and called her foul:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
She heard from the woods the hooting owl:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

He muttered a name full bitter and sore:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
She fell in a lump on the still dead floor:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

O great was the wonder, and loud the wail:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
When through the household flew the tale:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

O had you but done as I bade you, my child!
   Red rose and white in the garden;
You would not have died and been reviled:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

The bridegroom he hung at midnight by the bier:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
He eyed the white girl thro’ a dazzling tear:
   And the bird sings over the roses.

O had you been false as the women who stray:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
You would not be now with the Angels of Day!
   And the bird sings over the roses.

I

She can be as wise as we,
   And wiser when she wishes;
She can knit with cunning wit,
   And dress the homely dishes.
She can flourish staff or pen,
   And deal a wound that lingers;
She can talk the talk of men,
   And touch with thrilling fingers.

II

Match her ye across the sea,
   Natures fond and fiery;
Ye who zest the turtle’s nest
   With the eagle’s eyrie.
Soft and loving is her soul,
   Swift and lofty soaring;
Mixing with its dove-like dole
   Passionate adoring.

III

Such a she who’ll match with me?
   In flying or pursuing,
Subtle wiles are in her smiles
   To set the world a-wooing.
She is steadfast as a star,
   And yet the maddest maiden:
She can wage a gallant war,
   And give the peace of Eden.

   Night, like a dying mother,
   Eyes her young offspring, Day.
   The birds are dreamily piping.
   And O, my love, my darling!
      The night is life ebb’d away:
      Away beyond our reach!
A sea that has cast us pale on the beach;
   Weeds with the weeds and the pebbles
That hear the lone tamarisk rooted in sand
                     Sway
   With the song of the sea to the land.

UNKNOWN FAIR FACES

Though I am faithful to my loves lived through,
And place them among Memory’s great stars,
Where burns a face like Hesper: one like Mars:
Of visages I get a moment’s view,
Sweet eyes that in the heaven of me, too,
Ascend, tho’ virgin to my life they passed.
Lo, these within my destiny seem glassed
At times so bright, I wish that Hope were new.
A gracious freckled lady, tall and grave,
Went, in a shawl voluminous and white,
Last sunset by; and going sow’d a glance.
Earth is too poor to hold a second chance;
I will not ask for more than Fortune gave:
My heart she goes from—never from my sight!

O my lover! the night like a broad smooth wave
   Bears us onward, and morn, a black rock, shines wet.
How I shuddered—I knew not that I was a slave,
   Till I looked on thy face:—then I writhed in the net.
Then I felt like a thing caught by fire, that her star
Glowed dark on the bosom of Shemselnihar.

And he came, whose I am: O my lover! he came:
   And his slave, still so envied of women, was I:
And I turned as a hissing leaf spits from the flame,
   Yes, I shrivelled to dust from him, haggard and dry.
O forgive her:—she was but as dead lilies are:
The life of her heart fled from Shemselnihar.

Yet with thee like a full throbbing rose how I bloom!
   Like a rose by the fountain whose showering we hear,
As we lie, O my lover! in this rich gloom,
   Smelling faint the cool breath of the lemon-groves near.
As we lie gazing out on that glowing great star—
Ah! dark on the bosom of Shemselnihar.

Yet with thee am I not as an arm of the vine,
   Firm to bind thee, to cherish thee, feed thee sweet?
Swear an oath on my lip to let none disentwine
   The life that here fawns to give warmth to thy feet.
I on thine, thus! no more shall that jewelled Head jar
The music thou breathest on Shemselnihar.

O that long note the bulbul gave out—meaning love!
   O my lover, hark to him and think it my voice!
The blue night like a great bell-flower from above
   Drooping low and gold-eyed: O, but hear him rejoice!
Can it be?  ’twas a flash! that accurst scimitàr
In thought even cuts thee from Shemselnihar.

Yes, I would that, less generous, he would oppress,
   He would chain me, upbraid me, burn deep brands for hate,
Than with this mask of freedom and gorgeousness
   Bespangle my slavery, mock my strange fate.
Would, would, would, O my lover, he knew—dared debar
Thy coming, and earn curse of Shemselnihar!

A roar thro’ the tall twin elm-trees
   The mustering storm betrayed:
The South-wind seized the willow
   That over the water swayed.

Then fell the steady deluge
   In which I strove to doze,
Hearing all night at my window
   The knock of the winter rose.

The rainy rose of winter!
   An outcast it must pine.
And from thy bosom outcast
   Am I, dear lady mine.

WHEN I WOULD IMAGE

When I would image her features,
   Comes up a shrouded head:
I touch the outlines, shrinking;
   She seems of the wandering dead.

But when love asks for nothing,
   And lies on his bed of snow,
The face slips under my eyelids,
   All in its living glow.

Like a dark cathedral city,
   Whose spires, and domes, and towers
Quiver in violet lightnings,
   My soul basks on for hours.

Thy greatest knew thee, Mother Earth; unsoured
He knew thy sons.  He probed from hell to hell
Of human passions, but of love deflowered
His wisdom was not, for he knew thee well.
Thence came the honeyed corner at his lips,
The conquering smile wherein his spirit sails
Calm as the God who the white sea-wave whips,
Yet full of speech and intershifting tales,
Close mirrors of us: thence had he the laugh
We feel is thine: broad as ten thousand beeves
At pasture! thence thy songs, that winnow chaff
From grain, bid sick Philosophy’s last leaves
Whirl, if they have no response—they enforced
To fatten Earth when from her soul divorced.

CONTINUED

How smiles he at a generation ranked
In gloomy noddings over life!  They pass.
Not he to feed upon a breast unthanked,
Or eye a beauteous face in a cracked glass.
But he can spy that little twist of brain
Which moved some weighty leader of the blind,
Unwitting ’twas the goad of personal pain,
To view in curst eclipse our Mother’s mind,
And show us of some rigid harridan
The wretched bondmen till the end of time.
O lived the Master now to paint us Man,
That little twist of brain would ring a chime
Of whence it came and what it caused, to start
Thunders of laughter, clearing air and heart.