Poems — Volume 1

Fair Mother Earth lay on her back last night,
To gaze her fill on Autumn’s sunset skies,
When at a waving of the fallen light
Sprang realms of rosy fruitage o’er her eyes.
A lustrous heavenly orchard hung the West,
Wherein the blood of Eden bloomed again:
Red were the myriad cherub-mouths that pressed,
Among the clusters, rich with song, full fain,
But dumb, because that overmastering spell
Of rapture held them dumb: then, here and there,
A golden harp lost strings; a crimson shell
Burnt grey; and sheaves of lustre fell to air.
The illimitable eagerness of hue
Bronzed, and the beamy winged bloom that flew
’Mid those bunched fruits and thronging figures failed.
A green-edged lake of saffron touched the blue,
With isles of fireless purple lying through:
And Fancy on that lake to seek lost treasures sailed.

Still on the farthest line, with outpuffed cheeks,
’Twixt dark and utter dark, the great wind drew
From heaven that disenchanted harmony
To join earth’s laughter in the midnight blind:
Booming a distant chorus to the shrieks
               Preluding him: then he,
His mantle streaming thunderingly behind,
Across the yellow realm of stiffened Day,
Shot thro’ the woodland alleys signals three;
   And with the pressure of a sea
Plunged broad upon the vale that under lay.

   But heard I a low swell that noised
   Of far-off ocean, I was ’ware
   Of pines upon their wide roots poised,
   Whom never madness in the air
   Can draw to more than loftier stress
   Of mournfulness, not mournfulness
   For melancholy, but Joy’s excess,
That singing on the lap of sorrow faints:
   And Peace, as in the hearts of saints
   Who chant unto the Lord their God;
Deep Peace below upon the muffled sod,
The stillness of the sea’s unswaying floor,
   Could I be sole there not to see
   The life within the life awake;
   The spirit bursting from the tree,
   And rising from the troubled lake?
   Pour, let the wines of Heaven pour!
   The Golden Harp is struck once more,
   And all its music is for me!
   Pour, let the wines of Heaven pour!
   And, ho, for a night of Pagan glee!

The crimson-footed nymph is panting up the glade,
With the wine-jar at her arm-pit, and the drunken ivy-braid
Round her forehead, breasts, and thighs: starts a Satyr, and they speed:
Hear the crushing of the leaves: hear the cracking of the bough!
And the whistling of the bramble, the piping of the weed!

   But the bull-voiced oak is battling now:
   The storm has seized him half-asleep,
   And round him the wild woodland throngs
   To hear the fury of his songs,
   The uproar of an outraged deep.
   He wakes to find a wrestling giant
   Trunk to trunk and limb to limb,
   And on his rooted force reliant
   He laughs and grasps the broadened giant,
   And twist and roll the Anakim;
And multitudes, acclaiming to the cloud,
   Cry which is breaking, which is bowed.

   Away, for the cymbals clash aloft
   In the circles of pine, on the moss-floor soft.
   The nymphs of the woodland are gathering there.
   They huddle the leaves, and trample, and toss;
   They swing in the branches, they roll in the moss,
   They blow the seed on the air.
   Back to back they stand and blow
   The winged seed on the cradling air,
   A fountain of leaves over bosom and back.

   A star has nodded through
   The depths of the flying blue.
   Time only to plant the light
   Of a memory in the blindness.
   But time to show me the sight
   Of my life thro’ the curtain of night;
   Shining a moment, and mixed
   With the onward-hurrying stream,
   Whose pressure is darkness to me;
   Behind the curtain, fixed,
   Beams with endless beam
   That star on the changing sea.

   Earth, the mother of all,
   Moves on her stedfast way,
   Gathering, flinging, sowing.
   Mortals, we live in her day,
   She in her children is growing.

She can lead us, only she,
Unto God’s footstool, whither she reaches:
Loved, enjoyed, her gifts must be,
Reverenced the truths she teaches,
Ere a man may hope that he
Ever can attain the glee
Of things without a destiny!

   She knows not loss:
   She feels but her need,
   Who the winged seed
   With the leaf doth toss.

Prophetic of the coming joy and strife,
   Like the wild western war-chief sinking
   Calm to the end he eyes unblinking,
Her voice is jubilant in ebbing life.

   He for his happy hunting-fields
   Forgets the droning chant, and yields
   His numbered breaths to exultation
   In the proud anticipation:
   Shouting the glories of his nation,
   Shouting the grandeur of his race,
   Shouting his own great deeds of daring:
   And when at last death grasps his face,
   And stiffened on the ground in peace
He lies with all his painted terrors glaring;
Hushed are the tribe to hear a threading cry:
   Not from the dead man;
   Not from the standers-by:
   The spirit of the red man
Is welcomed by his fathers up on high.

I

There she goes up the street with her book in her hand,
   And her Good morning, Martin!  Ay, lass, how d’ye do?
Very well, thank you, Martin!—I can’t understand!
   I might just as well never have cobbled a shoe!
I can’t understand it.  She talks like a song;
   Her voice takes your ear like the ring of a glass;
She seems to give gladness while limping along,
   Yet sinner ne’er suffer’d like that little lass.

II

First, a fool of a boy ran her down with a cart.
   Then, her fool of a father—a blacksmith by trade—
Why the deuce does he tell us it half broke his heart?
   His heart!—where’s the leg of the poor little maid!
Well, that’s not enough; they must push her downstairs,
   To make her go crooked: but why count the list?
If it’s right to suppose that our human affairs
   Are all order’d by heaven—there, bang goes my fist!

III

IV

But, to see the poor darling go limping for miles
   To read books to sick people!—and just of an age
When girls learn the meaning of ribands and smiles!
   Makes me feel like a squirrel that turns in a cage.
The more I push thinking the more I revolve:
   I never get farther:—and as to her face,
It starts up when near on my puzzle I solve,
   And says, ‘This crush’d body seems such a sad case.’

V

Not that she’s for complaining: she reads to earn pence;
   And from those who can’t pay, simple thanks are enough.
Does she leave lamentation for chaps without sense?
   Howsoever, she’s made up of wonderful stuff.
Ay, the soul in her body must be a stout cord;
   She sings little hymns at the close of the day,
Though she has but three fingers to lift to the Lord,
   And only one leg to kneel down with to pray.

VI

VII

Yonder riband of sunshine aslope on the wall,
   If you eye it a minute ’ll have the same look:
So kind! and so merciful!  God of us all!
   It’s the very same lesson we get from the Book.
Then, is Life but a trial?  Is that what is meant?
   Some must toil, and some perish, for others below:
The injustice to each spreads a common content;
   Ay!  I’ve lost it again, for it can’t be quite so.

VIII

She’s the victim of fools: that seems nearer the mark.
   On earth there are engines and numerous fools.
Why the Lord can permit them, we’re still in the dark;
   He does, and in some sort of way they’re His tools.
It’s a roundabout way, with respect let me add,
   If Molly goes crippled that we may be taught:
But, perhaps, it’s the only way, though it’s so bad;
   In that case we’ll bow down our heads,—as we ought.

IX

But the worst of me is, that when I bow my head,
   I perceive a thought wriggling away in the dust,
And I follow its tracks, quite forgetful, instead
   Of humble acceptance: for, question I must!
Here’s a creature made carefully—carefully made!
   Put together with craft, and then stamped on, and why?
The answer seems nowhere: it’s discord that’s played.
   The sky’s a blue dish!—an implacable sky!

Stop a moment.  I seize an idea from the pit.
   They tell us that discord, though discord, alone,
Can be harmony when the notes properly fit:
   Am I judging all things from a single false tone?
Is the Universe one immense Organ, that rolls
   From devils to angels?  I’m blind with the sight.
It pours such a splendour on heaps of poor souls!
   I might try at kneeling with Molly to-night.

FOOTNOTES