TO
MRS. ELTON
OF WHITE STAUNTON.

The painted Briton built his mound,
And left his celts and clay,
On yon fair slope of sunlit ground
That fronts your garden gay;
The Roman came, he bore the sway,
He bullied, bought, and sold,
Your fountain sweeps his works away
Beside your manor old!

The Roman fell: his firm-set bound
Became the Saxon’s stay;
The bells made music all around
For monks in cloisters grey,
Till fled the monks in disarray
From their warm chantry’s fold,
Old Abbots slumber as they may,
Beside your manor old!

Envoy.

Creeds, empires, peoples, all decay,
Down into darkness, rolled;
May life that’s fleet be sweet, I pray,
Beside your manor old.

In twilight of the longest day
   I lingered over Lucian,
Till ere the dawn a dreamy way
   My spirit found, untrod of man,
Between the green sky and the grey.

Amid the soft dusk suddenly
   More light than air I seemed to sail,
Afloat upon the ocean sky,
   While through the faint blue, clear and pale,
I saw the mountain clouds go by:
   My barque had thought for helm and sail,
And one mist wreath for canopy.

Then from a starry island set
   Where one swift tide of wind there flows,
Came scent of lily and violet,
   Narcissus, hyacinth, and rose,
Laurel, and myrtle buds, and vine,
So delicate is the air and fine:
And forests of all fragrant trees
   Sloped seaward from the central hill,
And ever clamorous were these

Between the daylight and the dark
   That island lies in silver air,
And suddenly my magic barque
   Wheeled, and ran in, and grounded there;
And by me stood the sentinel
   Of them who in the island dwell;
      All smiling did he bind my hands,
      With rushes green and rosy bands,
They have no harsher bonds than these
   The people of the pleasant lands
Within the wash of the airy seas!

There was no heavy heat, no cold,
   The dwellers there wax never old,
      Nor wither with the waning time,
But each man keeps that age he had
      When first he won the fairy clime.
The Night falls never from on high,
   Nor ever burns the heat of noon.
But such soft light eternally
   Shines, as in silver dawns of June
Before the Sun hath climbed the sky!

Then did a new soul in me wake,
The dead men’s bread I feared to break,
Their fruit I would not taste indeed
Were it but a pomegranate seed.
Nay, not with these I made my choice
To dwell for ever and rejoice,
For otherwhere the River rolls
That girds the home of Christian souls,
And these my whole heart seeks are found
On otherwise enchanted ground.

L’Envoi.

To E. W. G.

(Who also had rhymed on the Fortune Islands of Lucian).

(THE UNFORTUNATE ISLANDS.)

The jaded light of late July
   Shone yellow down the dusty Strand,
The anxious people bustled by,
Policeman, Pressman, you and I,
   And thieves, and judges of the land.

So swift they strode they had not time
   To mark the humours of the Town,
But I, that mused an idle rhyme,
   Looked here and there, and up and down,
And many a rapid cart I spied
   That drew, as fast as ponies can,
The Newspapers of either side,
   These joys of every Englishman!

’Midst these, but ah, more slow of speed,
   A biggish box of sanguine hue
Was tugged on a velocipede,
   And in and out the crowd, and through,
An earnest stripling urged it well
Perched on a cranky tricycle!

A seedy tricycle he rode,
   Perchance some three miles in the hour,
But, on the big red box that glowed
   Behind him, was a name of Power,
Justice, (I read it e’er I wist,)
The Organ of the Socialist!

“Ah splendid Vision, golden time,
An end of hunger, cold, and crime.
An end of Rent, an end of Rank,
An end of balance at the Bank,
An end of everything that’s meant
To bring Investors five per cent!”

St. Andrews by the Northern sea,
   A haunted town it is to me!
A little city, worn and grey,
   The grey North Ocean girds it round.
And o’er the rocks, and up the bay,
   The long sea-rollers surge and sound.
And still the thin and biting spray
   Drives down the melancholy street,
And still endure, and still decay,
   Towers that the salt winds vainly beat.
Ghost-like and shadowy they stand
Dim mirrored in the wet sea-sand.

O, broken minster, looking forth
   Beyond the bay, above the town,
O, winter of the kindly North,
   O, college of the scarlet gown,
And shining sands beside the sea,
   And stretch of links beyond the sand,
Once more I watch you, and to me
   It is as if I touched his hand!

A land of waters green and clear,
   Of willows and of poplars tall,
And, in the spring time of the year,
   The white may breaking over all,
And Pleasure quick to come at call.
   And summer rides by marsh and wold,
And Autumn with her crimson pall
   About the towers of Magdalen rolled;
And strange enchantments from the past,
   And memories of the friends of old,
And strong Tradition, binding fast
   The “flying terms” with bands of gold,—

IN MEMORIAM S. F. A.

The call of homing rooks, the shrill
   Song of some bird that watches late,
The cries of children break the still
   Sad twilight by the churchyard gate.

And o’er your far-off tomb the grey
   Sad twilight broods, and from the trees
The rooks call on their homeward way,
   And are you heedless quite of these?

The clustered rowan berries red
   And Autumn’s may, the clematis,
They droop above your dreaming head,
   And these, and all things must you miss?

Yes, rest beyond all dreaming deep,
   Or labour, nearer the Divine,
And pure from fret, and smooth as sleep,
   And gentle as thy soul, is thine!

So let it be!  But could I know
   That thou in this soft autumn eve,
This hush of earth that pleased thee so,
   Hadst pleasure still, I might not grieve.

Our youth began with tears and sighs,
With seeking what we could not find;
Our verses all were threnodies,
In elegiacs still we whined;
Our ears were deaf, our eyes were blind,
We sought and knew not what we sought.
We marvel, now we look behind:
Life’s more amusing than we thought!

Though youth “turns spectre-thin and dies,”
To mourn for youth we’re not inclined;
We set our souls on salmon flies,
We whistle where we once repined.
Confound the woes of human-kind!
By Heaven we’re “well deceived,” I wot;
Who hum, contented or resigned,
“Life’s more amusing than we thought!”

Envoy.

O nate mecum, worn and lined
Our faces show, but that is naught;
Our hearts are young ’neath wrinkled rind:
Life’s more amusing than we thought!

THE ANGLER’S APOLOGY.

Just one cast more! how many a year
   Beside how many a pool and stream,
Beneath the falling leaves and sere,
   I’ve sighed, reeled up, and dreamed my dream!

Dreamed of the sport since April first
   Her hands fulfilled of flowers and snow,
Adown the pastoral valleys burst
   Where Ettrick and where Teviot flow.

Dreamed of the singing showers that break,
   And sting the lochs, or near or far,
And rouse the trout, and stir “the take”
   From Urigil to Lochinvar.

* * * * *

Brief are man’s days at best; perchance
   I waste my own, who have not seen
The castled palaces of France
   Shine on the Loire in summer green.

And clear and fleet Eurotas still,
   You tell me, laves his reedy shore,
And flows beneath his fabled hill
   Where Dian drave the chase of yore.

And “like a horse unbroken” yet
   The yellow stream with rush and foam,
’Neath tower, and bridge, and parapet,
   Girdles his ancient mistress, Rome!

Nay, Spring I’d meet by Tweed or Ail,
   And Summer by Loch Assynt’s deep,
And Autumn in that lonely vale
   Where wedded Avons westward sweep,

Or where, amid the empty fields,
   Among the bracken of the glen,
Her yellow wreath October yields,
   To crown the crystal brows of Ken.

Unseen, Eurotas, southward steal,
   Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide,
You never heard the ringing reel,
   The music of the water side!

My cradle song,—nor other hymn
   I’d choose, nor gentler requiem dear
Than Tweed’s, that through death’s twilight dim,
   Mourned in the latest Minstrel’s ear!

SONNET.

(AFTER RICHEPIN.)

Light has flown!
Through the grey
The wind’s way
The sea’s moan
Sound alone!
   For the day
   These repay
And atone!

Scarce I know,
Listening so
   To the streams
      Of the sea,
   If old dreams
      Sing to me!

TO C. H. ARKCOLL

When strawberry pottles are common and cheap,
Ere elms be black, or limes be sere,
When midnight dances are murdering sleep,
Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!
And far from Fleet Street, far from here,
The Summer is Queen in the length of the land,
And moonlit nights they are soft and clear,
When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

When big trout late in the twilight leap,
When cuckoo clamoureth far and near,
When glittering scythes in the hayfield reap,
Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!
And it’s oh to sail, with the wind to steer,
Where kine knee deep in the water stand,
On a Highland loch, on a Lowland mere,
When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

Envoy.

Friend, with the fops while we dawdle here,
Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!
And the Summer runs out, like grains of sand,
When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

Between the moonlight and the fire
In winter twilights long ago,
What ghosts we raised for your desire
To make your merry blood run slow!
How old, how grave, how wise we grow!
No Christmas ghost can make us chill,
Save those that troop in mournful row,
The ghosts we all can raise at will!

Oh, children of the village choir,
Your carols on the midnight throw,
Oh bright across the mist and mire
Ye ruddy hearths of Christmas glow!
Beat back the dread, beat down the woe,
Let’s cheerily descend the hill;
Be welcome all, to come or go,
The ghosts we all can raise at will!

Envoy.

Friend, sursum corda, soon or slow
We part, like guests who’ve joyed their fill;
Forget them not, nor mourn them so,
The ghosts we all can raise at will!

SONNET

Love died here
Long ago;—
O’er his bier,
   Lying low,
   Poppies throw;
      Shed no tear;
      Year by year,
   Roses blow!

Year by year,
Adon—dear
   To Love’s Queen—
      Does not die!
   Wakes when green
      May is nigh!

She has just “put her gown on” at Girton,
   She is learned in Latin and Greek,
But lawn tennis she plays with a skirt on
   That the prudish remark with a shriek.
In her accents, perhaps, she is weak
   (Ladies are, one observes with a sigh),
But in Algebra—there she’s unique,
   But her forte’s to evaluate π.

She has lectured on Scopas and Myrton,
   Coins, vases, mosaics, the antique,
Old tiles with the secular dirt on,
   Old marbles with noses to seek.
And her Cobet she quotes by the week,
   And she’s written on κεν and on καὶ,
And her service is swift and oblique,
   But her forte’s to evaluate π.

Envoy.

Princess, like a rose is her cheek,
   And her eyes are as blue as the sky,
And I’d speak, had I courage to speak,
   But—her forte’s to evaluate pi.

Ye wells, ye founts that fall
From the steep mountain wall,
   That fall, and flash, and fleet
      With silver feet,

Ye woods, ye streams that lave
The meadows with your wave,
   Ye hills, and valley fair,
      Attend my prayer!

When Heaven and Fate decree
My latest hour for me,
   When I must pass away
      From pleasant day,

Only a laurel tree
Shall shade the grave of me,
   Only Apollo’s bough
      Shall guard me now!

Now shall I be at rest
Among the spirits blest,
   The happy dead that dwell—
      Where,—who may tell?

The snow and wind and hail
May never there prevail,
   Nor ever thunder fall
      Nor storm at all.

There shall I ever hear
Alcaeus’ music clear,
   And sweetest of all things
      There Sappho sings.

(The village in the bay of Spezia, near which Shelley was living before the wreck of the Don Juan.)

Mid April seemed like some November day,
   When through the glassy waters, dull as lead,
Our boat, like shadowy barques that bear the dead,
   Slipped down the long shores of the Spezian bay,
   Rounded a point,—and San Terenzo lay
Before us, that gay village, yellow and red,
The roof that covered Shelley’s homeless head,—
   His house, a place deserted, bleak and grey.

1880.

My Love dwelt in a Northern land.
   A grey tower in a forest green
Was hers, and far on either hand
   The long wash of the waves was seen,
And leagues on leagues of yellow sand,
   The woven forest boughs between!

And through the silver Northern night
   The sunset slowly died away,
And herds of strange deer, lily-white,
   Stole forth among the branches grey;
About the coming of the light,
   They fled like ghosts before the day!

I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves
   Among the shining salmon-flies;
A song for summer-time that grieves
   I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves.
   Between grey sea and golden sheaves,
Beneath the soft wet Morvern skies,
I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves
   Among the shining salmon-flies.

TO C. H. ARKCOLL

Though Dan Virgil enjoyed himself best
   With the scent of the limes, when the bees
Hummed low ’round the doves in their nest,
   While the vintagers lay at their ease,
Had he sung in our northern degrees,
   He’d have sought a securer retreat,
He’d have dwelt, where the heart of us flees,
   With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

Oh, the broom has a chivalrous crest
   And the daffodil’s fair on the leas,
And the soul of the Southron might rest,
   And be perfectly happy with these;
But we, that were nursed on the knees
   Of the hills of the North, we would fleet
Where our hearts might their longing appease
   With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

Ah Constance, the land of our quest
   It is far from the sounds of the street,
Where the Kingdom of Galloway’s blest
   With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

(TO M. JOSEPH BOULMIER, AUTHOR OF “LES VILLANELLES.”)

Villanelle, why art thou mute?
      Hath the singer ceased to sing?
Hath the Master lost his lute?

Many a pipe and scrannel flute
      On the breeze their discords fling;
Villanelle, why art thou mute?

Sound of tumult and dispute,
      Noise of war the echoes bring;
Hath the Master lost his lute?

Fading leaf and falling fruit
      Say, “The year is on the wing,
Hath the Master lost his lute?”

Ere the axe lie at the root,
      Ere the winter come as king,
Villanelle, why art thou mute?
Hath the Master lost his lute?

Αίαῖ ταὶ μαλάχαι μέν ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾱπον ὄλωνται
ὕστερον άυ ζώοντι καὶ εἰς ἔτος ἄλλο φύοντι
άμμες δ’ οι μεγάλοι καὶ χαρτερί οι σοφοὶ ἄνδρες
ὁππότε πρᾱτα θάνωμες άνάχοοι ἔν χθονὶ χοίλα
‘εύδομες ἔυ μάλα μαχρὸν ἀπέμονα νήγρετον ‘ύπνον.

Alas, for us no second spring,
   Like mallows in the garden-bed,
For these the grave has lost his sting,
   Alas, for us no second spring,
   Who sleep without awakening,
And, dead, for ever more are dead,
   Alas, for us no second spring,
      Like mallows in the garden-bed!

TO T. W. LANG.

The burden of hard hitting: slog away!
Here shalt thou make a “five” and there a “four,”
And then upon thy bat shalt lean, and say,
That thou art in for an uncommon score.
Yea, the loud ring applauding thee shall roar,
And thou to rival Thornton shalt aspire,
When lo, the Umpire gives thee “leg before,”—
“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

The burden of long fielding, when the clay
Clings to thy shoon in sudden shower’s downpour,
And running still thou stumblest, or the ray
Of blazing suns doth bite and burn thee sore,
And blind thee till, forgetful of thy lore,
Thou dost most mournfully misjudge a “skyer,”
And lose a match the Fates cannot restore,—
“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

Envoy.

Alas, yet liefer on Youth’s hither shore
Would I be some poor Player on scant hire,
Than King among the old, who play no more,—
“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

“It is told of the last Lovers which watched May-night in the forest, before men brought the tidings of the Gospel to this land, that they beheld no Fairies, nor Dwarfs, nor no such Thing, but the very Venus herself, who bade them ‘make such cheer as they might, for’ said she, ‘I shall live no more in these Woods, nor shall ye endure to see another May time.’”—Edmund Gorliot, “Of Phantasies and Omens,” p. 149.  (1573.)

“Whence do ye come, with the dew on your hair?
From what far land are the boughs ye bear,
   The blossoms and buds upon breasts and tresses,
The light burned white in your faces fair?”

“In a falling fane have we built our house,
With the dying Gods we have held carouse,
   And our lips are wan from their wild caresses,
Our hands are filled with their holy boughs.

She was not decked as for glee and game,
She was not veiled with the veil of flame,
   The saffron veil of the Bride that covers
The face that is flushed with her joy and shame.

On the laden branches the scent and dew
Mingled and met, and as snow to strew
   The woodland rides and the fragrant grasses,
White flowers fell as the night wind blew.

Tears and kisses on lips and eyes
Mingled and met amid laughter and sighs
   For grief that abides, and joy that passes,
For pain that tarries and mirth that flies.

“Ye have made your choice, and the better part,
Ye chose” she said, “and the wiser art;
   In the wild May night drank all the measure,
The perfect pleasure of heart and heart.

“Ye shall walk no more with the May,” she said,
“Shall your love endure though the Gods be dead?
   Shall the flitting flocks, mine own, my chosen,
Sing as of old, and be happy and wed?

“Yea, they are glad as of old; but you,
Fair and fleet as the dawn or the dew,
   Abide no more, for the springs are frozen,
And fled the Gods that ye loved and knew.

“Though the flowers in your golden hair be bright,
Your golden hair shall be waste and white
On faded brows ere another May time
   Bring the spring, but no more delight.”

The sacred keep of Ilion is rent
By shaft and pit; foiled waters wander slow
Through plains where Simois and Scamander went
   To war with Gods and heroes long ago.
   Not yet to tired Cassandra, lying low
In rich Mycenæ, do the Fates relent:
   The bones of Agamemnon are a show,
And ruined is his royal monument.

The dust and awful treasures of the Dead,
   Hath Learning scattered wide, but vainly thee,
Homer, she meteth with her tool of lead,
   And strives to rend thy songs; too blind to see
The crown that burns on thine immortal head
   Of indivisible supremacy!

LUI.

Ah lady, lady, leave the creeping mist,
   And leave the iron castle by the sea!

ELLE.

Nay, from the sea there came a ghost that kissed
   My lips, and so I cannot come to thee!

LUI.

Ah lady, leave the cruel landward wind
   That crusts the blighted flowers with bitter foam!

ELLE.

Nay, for his arms are cold and strong to bind,
   And I must dwell with him and make my home!

Come, for the Spring is fair in Joyous Guard
   And down deep alleys sweet birds sing again.

ELLE.

But I must tarry with the winter hard,
   And with the bitter memory of pain,
Although the Spring be fair in Joyous Guard,
   And in the gardens glad birds sing again!

The incident is from the Love Stories of Parthenius, who preserved fragments of a lost epic on the expedition of Achilles against Lesbos, an island allied with Troy.

The daughter of the Lesbian king
   Within her bower she watched the war,
Far off she heard the arrows ring,
   The smitten harness ring afar;
And, fighting from the foremost car,
   Saw one that smote where all must flee;
More fair than the Immortals are
   He seemed to fair Pisidicê!

She took a gift into her hand,
   As one that had a boon to crave;
She stole across the ruined land
   Where lay the dead without a grave,
And to Achilles’ hand she gave
   Her gift, the secret postern’s key.
“To-morrow let me be thy slave!”
   Moaned to her love Pisidicê.

In havens of that haunted coast,
   Amid the myrtles of the shore,
The moon sees many a maiden ghost
   Love’s outcast now and evermore.
The silence hears the shades deplore
   Their hour of dear-bought love; but thee
The waves lull, ’neath thine olives hoar,
   To dreamless rest, Pisidicê!