The White Sail, and Other Poems

IN memory of dear Mendelssohn, the loving song I made
Fain would I sing for you, my own, but that I am afraid,
Aye, truly, sore afraid:

For sweet as was its every tone, once freed to mortal ears,
In memory of dear Mendelssohn, the ghostly wand of tears
Would yet be strong to break my song,
Thro’ all these after-years!

AGLAUS.

THE ash hath no perfidious mind;
The open fields are just and kind;
Tho’ loves betray, I hear this way
The feathery step of the faithful wind.

Thorn-apple, bayberry and rose
Around me, talismanic, close:
The frosty flakes, the thunder-quakes,
Are bulwarks twain of my year’s repose.

No struggle, no delight, no moan,
But at my hearthstone I have known!
All thoughts that pass, as in a glass
The gods have bared to me for mine own.

Wisdom, the sought and unpossessed,
Hath of her own will been my guest;
Not smoking feud, but quietude
My heart hath chosen, at her behest.

‘This is of men the happiest man
Who hath his plot Arcadian,’
Apollo cried, my gates beside,
‘Nor ever wanders beyond its span.’

Now, like my sheep, I seek the fold;
My hair is shaken in the cold;
The night is nigh; but ere I die,
Bear witness, brothers! that young and old,

My name I wear without regret:
The Home-Keeper am I, and yet
At every inn my feet have been,
Above all travellers I am set.

Tho’ ocean currents by me purled,
The sails of my desire were furled.
What pilgrims crave, three acres gave;
And I, Aglaus, have seen the world!

Thou wert among Thessalia’s hoofy host,
Their radiant shepherd stroked thee with a sigh;
When falchioned Perseus spied the Æthiop coast,
Unto his love’s sad feet thy cheek was nigh;
And all thy blood beat high
With woodland Rhœcus at the brink of bliss;
Thy leaf the Naiad plucked by Thyamis,
And she, the straying maid, the bride beguiled of Dis.

These, these are gone. The air is wan and cold,
The choric gladness of the woods is fled:
But thou, aye dove-like, rapt in memories old,
Inclinest to the ground thy fragile head,
In ardor and in dread.
Searcher of yesternight! how wilt thou find
In any dolven aisle or cavern blind,
In any ocean-hall, the glory left behind?

June’s butterfly, poised o’er his budded sweet,
Is scarce so quiet-winged, betimes, as thou.
Fail twilight’s thrill, and noonday’s wavy heat
To kiss the fever from thy downcast brow.
Ah, cease that vigil now!
No west nor east thine unhoused vision keeps,
Nor yet in heaven’s pale purpureal deeps
Of worlds unnavigate, the dream of childhood sleeps.

Flower of the joyous realm! thy rivers lave
Their once proud valleys with forgetful moan;
Thy kindred nod on many a trodden grave
Among marmorean altars overthrown;
For thou art left alone,
Alone and dying, duped for love’s extreme:
Hope not! thy Greece is over, as a dream;
Stay not! but follow her down Time’s star-lucent stream.

Less art thou of the earth than of the air,
A frail outshaken splendor of the morn;
Dimmest desire, the softest throb of prayer,
Impels thee out of bondage to thy bourn:
Ere thou art half forlorn,
Farewell, farewell! for from thy golden stem
Thou slippest like a wild enchanter’s gem.
Swift are the garden-ghosts, and swiftest thou of them!

Yea, speed thy freeborn life no doubts debar,
O blossom-breath of that which was delight!
In cooling whirl and undulation far
The wind shall be thy bearer all the night
Thro’ ether trembling-white:
And I that clung with thee, as exiles may
Whose too slight roots in every zephyr sway,
Thy little soul salute along her homeward way!

A PASSING SONG.

WHERE thrums the bee and the honeysuckle hovers,
Gather, golden lasses, to a roundelay;
Dance, dance, yokefellows and lovers,
Headlong down the garden, in the heart of May!
Youth is slipping, dripping, pearl on pearl, away.

Dance! what if last year Winnie’s cheek were rounder?
Dance! tho’ that foot, Hal, were nimbler yesterday.
Spread the full sail! for soon the ship must founder;
Flaunt the red rose! soon the canker-worm has sway:
Youth is slipping, dripping, pearl on pearl, away.

See the dial shifting, hear the night-birds calling!
Dance, you starry striplings! round the fountain-spray;
With its mellow music out of sunshine falling,
With its precious waters trickling into clay,
Youth is slipping, dripping, pearl on pearl, away!

IN TIME.

HER little dumb child, for whom hope was none
In any mind, she watched from sun to sun,
Until three years her mighty faith had run;

Then, in an agony of love, laid by
The bright head from her breast, and went to lie
’Neath cedarn shadows, and the wintry sky,

Not having, for her long desire and prayer,
One sign from those shut lips, so rosy-fair
It seemed all eloquence must nestle there.

That day, to her near grave, thro’ frost and sleet,
He, following from his toys on truant feet,
Cried: ‘Mother, mother!’ joyous and most sweet.

And as their souls ached in them at the word,
The father lifted his new-wakened bird
With one rapt tear, that now at last she heard!

THE WILD RIDE.

I HEAR in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day, the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses;
All night, from their cells, the importunate tramping and neighing.

Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle,
Straight, grim, and abreast, vault our weather-worn, galloping legion,
With a stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him.

The road is thro’ dolor and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:
What odds? We are knights, and our souls are but bent on the riding!

I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day, the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses;
All night, from their cells, the importunate tramping and neighing.

We spur to a land of no name, out-racing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark, like the sparks from the anvil.
Thou leadest, O God! All’s well with Thy troopers that follow.

THE LIGHT OF THE HOUSE.

BEYOND the cheat of Time, here where you died, you live;
You pace the garden-walks secure and sensitive;
You linger on the stair: Love’s lonely pulses leap!
The harpsichord is shaken, the dogs look up from sleep.

Years after, and years after, you keep your heirdom still,
Your winning youth about you, your joyous force and skill,
Unvexed, unapprehended, with waking sense adored;
And still the house is happy that hath so dear a lord.

To every quiet inmate, strong in the cheer you brought,
Your name is as a spell midway of speech and thought;
And unto whoso knocks, an awe-struck visitor,
The sunshine that was you floods all the open door!

A LAST WORD ON SHELLEY.

EACH ninth hierarchal wave, a league of sound,
To phantom shreds the hostile crags confound,
To wreck on wreck forlorn. The crags remain.

Smile at the storm for our safe poet’s sake!
Not ever this ordainèd world shall break
That mounting, foolish, foam-bright heart again.

IMMUNITY.

LEAF of the deep-leaved holly-tree,
Long spared the weather-god’s disdain,
Have not thy brothers borne for thee
June’s inavertible raging rain?

And they are beautiful and hale,
Those sun-veined revellers; and thou
Still crippled, still afraid and pale,
Sole discord of the singing bough!

PAULA’S EPITAPH.

GO you by with gentle tread.
This was Paula, who is dead:
Eyes dark-lustrous to the look
As a leaf-pavilioned brook,
Voice upon the ear to cling
Sweeter than the cithern-string;
Whose shy spirit, unaware
Loosed into refreshful air,
With it took for talisman,
Climbing past the starry van,
Names to which the heavens do ope,
Candor, Chastity, and Hope.

JOHN BROWN: A PARADOX.

COMPASSIONATE eyes had our brave John Brown,
And a craggy stern forehead, a militant frown;
He, the storm-bow of peace. Give him volley on volley,
The fool who redeemed us once of our folly,
And the smiter that healed us, our right John Brown!

Too vehement, verily, was John Brown!
For waiting is statesmanlike; his the renown
Of the holy rash arm, the equipper and starter
Of freedmen; aye, call him fanatic and martyr:
He can carry both halos, our plain John Brown.

A scandalous stumbling-block was John Brown,
And a jeer; but ah! soon from the terrified town,
In his bleeding track made over hilltop and hollow,
Wise armies and councils were eager to follow,
And the children’s lips chanted our lost John Brown.

Star-led for us, stumbled and groped John Brown,
Star-led, in the awful morasses to drown;
And the trumpet that rang for a nation’s upheaval,
From the thought that was just, thro’ the deed that was evil,
Was blown with the breath of this dumb John Brown!

Bared heads and a pledge unto mad John Brown!
Now the curse is allayed, now the dragon is down,
Now we see, clear enough, looking back at the onset,
Christianity’s flood-tide and Chivalry’s sunset
In the old broken heart of our hanged John Brown!

S O N N E T S

APRIL DESIRE.

WHILE in these spacious fields is my sojourn,
Needs must I bless the blossomy outbreak
Of earth’s pent beauty, and for old love’s sake
Trembling, the bees’ on-coming chant discern;
Hail the rash hyacinth, the ambushed fern,
High-bannered boughs that green defiance make,
And watch from sheathing ice the brave Spring take
Her broad, bright river-blade. Ah! then, in turn
Long-hushèd forces stir in me; I feel
All the most sharp unrest of the young year;
Fain would my spirit, too, like idling steel
Be snatched from its dull scabbard, for a strife
With cold oppressions! straightway, if not here,
In consummated freedom, ampler life.

TWOFOLD SERVICE.

CHAMPIONS of men with brawny fist and lung,
You righteous! with eyes oped and utterance terse,
Whose greed of energies would fain disperse
Ere any mould be cast, or roundel sung,
Your gentler brothers still at play among
The smirch and jangle of the universe,
Mere fool-blind trespassers for you to curse,
The Sabbath-breakers, the unchristened young;—
Peace! These, too, know: these are as ye employed,
Nor of laborious help and value void,
Living; who, faithful to their fellows’ need,
Fling life away for truth, art, fatherland,
Like a gold largess from a princely hand,
Without one trading thought of heavenly meed.

IN THE GYMNASIUM.

I LEAN against a pillar in the sun,
The sandals loose on mine arrested feet,
While from their paths orbicular the fleet
Slim racers drop like stars. O loveliest one,
Lender of sixfold wings the while I run,
Whose tortoise-lyre saves yet for me its sweet
Cyllenic suasions old, to thy dim seat
Glory and grace! the votive rites are done.
Thy sole rememberer honey hath, nor palm,
Libation none, nor lamb to lead to thee,
Ah, Maia’s son! once god, and once aye-living.
Here stood thy shrine: here chants my heart in calm
Sad as the centralmost weird wave’s at sea,
Hermes! thy last June pæan and thanksgiving.

A SALUTATION.

HIGH-HEARTED Surrey! I do love your ways,
Venturous, frank, romantic, vehement,
All with inviolate honor sealed and blent,
To the axe-edge that cleft your soldier-bays:
I love your youth, your friendships, whims, and frays;
Your strict, sweet verse, with its imperious bent,
Heard as in dreams from some old harper’s tent,
And stirring in the listener’s brain for days.
Good father-poet! if to-night there be
At Framlingham none save the north-wind’s sighs,
No guard but moonlight’s crossed and trailing spears,
Smile yet upon the pilgrim named like me,
Close at your gates, whose fond and weary eyes
Sought not one other down three hundred years!

AT A SYMPHONY.

OH, I would have these tongues oracular
Dip into silence, tease no more, let be!
They madden, like some choral of the free
Gusty and sweet against a prison-bar.
To earth the boast that her gold empires are,
The menace of delicious death to me,
Great Undesign, strong as by God’s decree,
Piercing the heart with beauty from afar!
Music too winning to the sense forlorn!
Of what angelic lineage was she born,
Bred in what rapture?—These her sires and friends:
Censure, Denial, Gloom, and Hunger’s throe.
Praised be the Spirit that thro’ thee, Schubert! so
Wrests evil unto wholly heavenly ends.

SLEEP.

O GLORIOUS tide, O hospitable tide
On whose moon-heaving breast my head hath lain,
Lest I, all eased of wounds and washed of stain
Thro’ holy hours, be yet unsatisfied,
Loose me betimes! for in my soul abide
Urgings of memory; and exile’s pain
Weighs on me, as the spirit of one slain
May throb for the old strife wherein he died.

Often and evermore, across the sea
Of dark and dreams, to fatherlands of day
O speed me! like that outworn king erewhile
From kind Phæacia shoreward borne; for me,
Thy loving healèd Greek, thou too shall lay
Beneath the olive boughs of mine own isle.

THE ATONING YESTERDAY.

YE daffodilian days, whose fallen towers
Shielded our paradisal prime from ill,
Fair past, fair motherhood! let come what will,
We, being yours, defy the anarch powers.
For us the happy tidings fell, in showers
Enjewelling the wind from every hill;
We drained the sun against the winter’s chill;
Our ways were barricadoed in with flowers:

And if from skyey minsters now unhoused,
Earth’s massy workings at the forge we hear,
The black roll of the congregated sea,
And war’s live hoof: O yet, last year, last year
We were the lark-lulled shepherdlings, that drowsed
Grave-deep, at noon, in grass of Arcady!

‘RUSSIA UNDER THE CZARS.’

OF thraldom and the accursèd diadem
In that vast snow-land, shout the passionate tale;
Touch graybeards in the mart, bid braggarts quail,
And rouse the student lone from his old phlegm
To breathe the self-same sacred air with them,
Spirits supreme, our brothers! whose avail
Is sacrifice. Nay, make no woman’s wail:
Rome is re-born! whom kings dare not contemn.
On Neva’s shore-streets tho’ high blood be spent,
There this lorn world’s renascent hopes are meeting:
In camp is Mucius, at the bridge, Horatius;
Regulus walks in gyves, magnificent;
And thence men hear—O sound sublime and gracious!
The unquelled heart of Cæsar’s Brutus beating.

FOUR SONNETS FROM ‘LA VITA NUOVA.’

I.

‘Io mi sentii svegliar dentro allo core.’

WITHIN my bosom, from long apathy,
Love’s mood of tenderness extreme awoke,
And spying him far off, mine eye bespoke
Love’s self, so joyous scarce it seemèd he,
Crying: ‘Now, verily, pay thy vows to me!’
And bright thro’ every word his smile outbroke.
Then stood we twain, I in my liege lord’s yoke,
Watching the path he came by, soon to see
The Lady Joan and Lady Beatrice
Nearing our very nook, each marvel close
Following her peer, all beauty else above;
And Love said, in a voice like Memory’s:
‘The first is Spring; but she that with her goes,
My counterpart, bears my own name of Love!’

II.

‘Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare.’

SO chaste, so noble looks that lady mine
Saluting on her way, that tongues of some
Are mute a-tremble, and the eyes that clomb
High as her eyes, abashed, their gaze decline.
Thro’ perils of heard praise she moves benign,
Armored in her own meekness, as if come
Hither from Heaven, to give our Christendom
Even of a miracle the vouch divine.
So with beholders doth her worth avail,
It sheds, thro’ sight, a sweetness on the soul,
(Alas! how told to one that felt it never?)
And from her presence seemeth to exhale
A breath half-solace and of love the whole,
That saith to the bowed spirit ‘Sigh!’ forever.

III.

‘Era venuta nella mente mia.’

THERE came upon my mind remembrances
Of my lost lady, who for her reward
Is now set safe, by Heaven’s Most Highest Lord,
In kingdoms of the meek, where Mary is.
And Love, whose own are her dear memories,
Called to the sighs in my heart’s wreckage stored:
‘Go!’ whereby outwardly, with one accord,
Not having ever other vent than this,
Plaining athwart my breast they flocked to air,
With speech that, oft recalled, draws unaware
The darkened tears into my mournful eyes;
And those that came in greatest anguish thence
Sang: ‘O most glorious Intelligence!
Thou art one year this day in Paradise.’

IV.

‘Deh peregrini, che pensosi andate.’

YE pilgrims, who with pensive aspect go
Thinking, perhaps, of bygone things and dear,
Come you from lands so very far from here
As unto us who watch your port would show?
For that you weep not outright, filing slow
Thro’ the mid-highway of this city drear,
You even as gentle stranger-folk appear,
Who of the common sorrow nothing know!
Would you but linger, would you but be told,
Pledge with its thousand sighs my soul doth give
That you, likewise, should travel on heart-broken:
Ah, we have lost our Beatrice! Behold,
What least soever word be of her spoken,
The tears must follow now from all that live.

University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

The White Sail, and Other Poems

About This Book

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