Kitabı oku: «Rhymes a la Mode»

BALLADE DEDICATORY

TO

MRS. ELTON

OF WHITE STAUNTON

 
Thepainted 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!
 
 
But still his crumbling urns are found
Within the window-bay,
Where once he listened to the sound
That lulls you day by day; —
The sound of summer winds at play,
The noise of waters cold
To Yarty wandering on their way,
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.
 

THE FORTUNATE ISLANDS

A DREAM IN JUNE

 
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.
 
 
Like torches on a marble floor
   Reflected, so the wild stars shone,
Within the abysmal hyaline,
   Till the day widened more and more,
And sank to sunset, and was gone,
And then, as burning beacons shine
   On summits of a mountain isle,
      A light to folk on sea that fare,
   So the sky’s beacons for a while
      Burned in these islands of the air.
 
 
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
 
 
With singing of glad birds; and still
   Such music came as in the woods
Most lonely, consecrate to Pan,
   The Wind makes, in his many moods,
Upon the pipes some shepherd Man,
   Hangs up, in thanks for victory!
On these shall mortals play no more,
   But the Wind doth touch them, over and o’er,
And the Wind’s breath in the reeds will sigh.
 
 
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!
 
 
Then was I to their city led:
   Now all of ivory and gold
The great walls were that garlanded
The temples in their shining fold,
   (Each fane of beryl built, and each
   Girt with its grove of shadowy beech,)
And all about the town, and through,
There flowed a River fed with dew,
   As sweet as roses, and as clear
      As mountain crystals pure and cold,
And with his waves that water kissed
The gleaming altars of amethyst
   That smoke with victims all the year,
And sacred are to the Gods of old.
 
 
There sat three Judges by the Gate,
   And I was led before the Three,
And they but looked on me, and straight
   The rosy bonds fell down from me
   Who, being innocent, was free;
And I might wander at my will
About that City on the hill,
   Among the happy people clad
      In purple weeds of woven air
Hued like the webs that Twilight weaves
At shut of languid summer eves
   So light their raiment seemed; and glad
Was every face I looked on there!
 
 
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!
 
 
Within these pleasant streets and wide,
   The souls of Heroes go and come,
Even they that fell on either side
   Beneath the walls of Ilium;
And sunlike in that shadowy isle
The face of Helen and her smile
   Makes glad the souls of them that knew
Grief for her sake a little while!
And all true Greeks and wise are there;
And with his hand upon the hair
   Of Phaedo, saw I Socrates,
About him many youths and fair,
   Hylas, Narcissus, and with these
Him whom the quoit of Phoebus slew
   By fleet Eurotas, unaware!
 
 
All these their mirth and pleasure made
   Within the plain Elysian,
      The fairest meadow that may be,
With all green fragrant trees for shade
   And every scented wind to fan,
      And sweetest flowers to strew the lea;
The soft Winds are their servants fleet
   To fetch them every fruit at will
   And water from the river chill;
And every bird that singeth sweet
   Throstle, and merle, and nightingale
   Brings blossoms from the dewy vale, —
Lily, and rose, and asphodel —
   With these doth each guest twine his crown
   And wreathe his cup, and lay him down
      Beside some friend he loveth well.
 
 
There with the shining Souls I lay
When, lo, a Voice that seemed to say,
   In far-off haunts of Memory,
Whoso death taste the Dead Men’s bread,
Shall dwell for ever with these Dead,
   Nor ever shall his body lie
Beside his friends, on the grey hill
Where rains weep, and the curlews shrill
   And the brown water wanders by!
 
 
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.
 
 
Even so I put the cup away,
   The vision wavered, dimmed, and broke,
   And, nowise sorrowing, I woke
While, grey among the ruins grey
Chill through the dwellings of the dead,
   The Dawn crept o’er the Northern sea,
Then, in a moment, flushed to red,
   Flushed all the broken minster old,
   And turned the shattered stones to gold,
And wakened half the world with me!
 

L’Envoi

To E. W. G

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

 
Each in the self-same field we glean
The field of the Samosatene,
Each something takes and something leaves
   And this must choose, and that forego
In Lucian’s visionary sheaves,
   To twine a modern posy so;
But all any gleanings, truth to tell,
Are mixed with mournful asphodel,
While yours are wreathed with poppies red,
   With flowers that Helen’s feet have kissed,
With leaves of vine that garlanded
   The Syrian Pantagruelist,
The sage who laughed the world away,
   Who mocked at Gods, and men, and care,
More sweet of voice than Rabelais,
   And lighter-hearted than Voltaire.
 

THE NEW MILLENIUM

(THE UNFORTUNATE ISLANDS.)

A VISION IN THE STRAND

 
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!
 
 
The Standard here, the Echo there,
And cultured ev’ning papers fair,
With din and fuss and shout and blare
Through all the eager land they bare,
   The rumours of our little span.
 
 
’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!
 
 
The paper carts fled fleetly by
   And vanished up the roaring Strand,
And eager purchasers drew nigh
   Each with his penny in his hand,
But Justice, scarce more fleet than I,
   Began to permeate the land,
And dark, methinks, the twilight fell,
   Or ever Justice reached Pall Mall.
 
 
Oh Man, (I stopped to moralize,)
   How eager thou to fight with Fate,
To bring Astraea from the skies;
   Yet ah, how too inadequate
The means by which thou fain wouldst cope
With Laws and Morals, King and Pope!
“Justice!” – how prompt the witling’s sneer, —
“Justice!  Thou wouldst have Justice here!
And each poor man should be a squire,
Each with his competence a year,
Each with sufficient beef and beer,
   And all things matched to his desire,
While all the Middle Classes should
   With every vile Capitalist
Be clean reformed away for good,
   And vanish like a morning mist!
 
 
“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!”
 
 
How fair doth Justice seem, I cried,
   Yet oh, how strong the embattled powers
That war against on every side
   Justice, and this great dream of ours,
And what have we to plead our cause
’Gainst Masters, Capital, and laws,
What but a big red box indeed,
With copies of a weekly screed,
   That’s slowly jolted, up and down,
Behind an old velocipede
   To clamour Justice through the town:
How touchingly inadequate
These arms wherewith we’d vanquish Fate!
 
 
Nay, the old Order shall endure
   And little change the years shall know,
And still the Many shall be poor,
   And still the Poor shall dwell in woe;
Firm in the iron Law of things
   The strong shall be the wealthy still,
And (called Capitalists or Kings)
   Shall seize and hoard the fruits of skill.
Leaving the weaker for their gain,
   Leaving the gentler for their prize
Such dens and husks as beasts disdain, —
   Till slowly from the wrinkled skies
The fireless frozen Sun shall wane,
Nor Summer come with golden grain;
   Till men be glad, mid frost and snow
To live such equal lives of pain
   As now the hutted Eskimo!
Then none shall plough nor garner seed,
   Then, on some last sad human shore,
Equality shall reign indeed,
   The Rich shall be with us no more,
Thus, and not otherwise, shall come
The new, the true Millennium!
 

ALMAE MATRES

(ST. ANDREWS, 1862. OXFORD, 1865)

 
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.
 
 
St. Leonard’s chapel, long ago
   We loitered idly where the tall
Fresh budded mountain ashes blow
   Within thy desecrated wall:
The tough roots rent the tomb below,
   The April birds sang clamorous,
We did not dream, we could not know
   How hardly Fate would deal with us!
 
 
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!
 
 
And therefore art thou yet more dear,
   O, little city, grey and sere,
Though shrunken from thine ancient pride
   And lonely by thy lonely sea,
Than these fair halls on Isis’ side,
   Where Youth an hour came back to me!
 
 
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, —
 
 
All these hath Oxford: all are dear,
   But dearer far the little town,
The drifting surf, the wintry year,
   The college of the scarlet gown,
      St. Andrews by the Northern sea,
      That is a haunted town to me!
 

DESIDERIUM

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?
 
 
Ah, you that loved the twilight air,
   The dim lit hour of quiet best,
At last, at last you have your share
   Of what life gave so seldom, rest!
 
 
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.
 

RHYMES A LA MODE

BALLADE OF MIDDLE AGE

 
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!
 
 
Oh, foolish youth, untimely wise!
Oh, phantoms of the sickly mind!
What? not content with seas and skies,
With rainy clouds and southern wind,
With common cares and faces kind,
With pains and joys each morning brought?
Ah, old, and worn, and tired we find
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 LAST CAST

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.
 
 
Dreamed of the kind propitious sky
   O’er Ari Innes brooding grey;
The sea trout, rushing at the fly,
   Breaks the black wave with sudden spray!
 

* * * * *

 
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!
 
 
I may not see them, but I doubt
   If seen I’d find them half so fair
As ripples of the rising trout
   That feed beneath the elms of Yair.
 
 
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!
 
 
Though Gods have walked your woods among,
   Though nymphs have fled your banks along;
You speak not that familiar tongue
   Tweed murmurs like my cradle song.
 
 
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!
 

TWILIGHT

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!
 

BALLADE OF SUMMER

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 clamour that doves in the lindens keep
Mingles with musical plash of the weir,
Where drowned green tresses of crowsfoot creep,
Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!
And better a crust and a beaker of beer,
With rose-hung hedges on either hand,
Than a palace in town and a prince’s cheer,
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!
 

BALLADE OF CHRISTMAS GHOSTS

 
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!
 
 
The beasts can talk in barn and byre
On Christmas Eve, old legends know,
As year by year the years retire,
We men fall silent then I trow,
Such sights hath Memory to show,
Such voices from the silence thrill,
Such shapes return with Christmas snow, —
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!
 

LOVE’S EASTER

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!
 

BALLADE OF THE GIRTON GIRL

 
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 can talk about putting a “spirt on”
   (I admit, an unmaidenly freak),
And she dearly delighteth to flirt on
   A punt in some shadowy creek;
Should her bark, by mischance, spring a leak,
   She can swim as a swallow can fly;
She can fence, she can put with a cleek,
   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.
 

RONSARD’S GRAVE

 
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,
 
 
I ask that none my break
The marble for my sake,
   Wishful to make more fair
      My sepulchre.
 
 
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.
 
 
But always fadeless there
The woods are green and fair,
   And faithful ever more
      Spring to that shore!
 
 
There shall I ever hear
Alcaeus’ music clear,
   And sweetest of all things
      There Sappho sings.
 

SAN TERENZO

(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.
 
 
The waves broke on the door-step; fishermen
   Cast their long nets, and drew, and cast again.
   Deep in the ilex woods we wandered free,
When suddenly the forest glades were stirred
   With waving pinions, and a great sea bird
Flew forth, like Shelley’s spirit, to the sea!
 

1880.

ROMANCE

 
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 know not if the forest green
   Still girdles round that castle grey;
I know not if the boughs between
   The white deer vanish ere the day;
Above my Love the grass is green,
   My heart is colder than the clay!
 

BALLADE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY

 
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

 
Let them boast of Arabia, oppressed
   By the odour of myrrh on the breeze;
In the isles of the East and the West
   That are sweet with the cinnamon trees
Let the sandal-wood perfume the seas;
   Give the roses to Rhodes and to Crete,
We are more than content, if you please,
   With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!
 
 
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!
 

Envoy

 
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!
 

VILLANELLE

(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?
 
 
Once he sang of bud and shoot
      In the season of the Spring;
Villanelle, why art thou mute?
 
 
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?
 

TRIOLETS AFTER MOSCHUS

 
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!
 
 
Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave
   That boast themselves the sons of men!
Once they go down into the grave —
   Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave, —
   They perish and have none to save,
   They are sown, and are not raised again;
Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave,
   That boast themselves the sons of men!
 

BALLADE OF CRICKET

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 much bowling, when the stay
Of all thy team is “collared,” swift or slower,
When “bailers” break not in their wonted way,
And “yorkers” come not off as here-to-fore,
When length balls shoot no more, ah never more,
When all deliveries lose their former fire,
When bats seem broader than the broad barn-door, —
“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!”
 

THE LAST MAYING

“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.
 
 
As we crossed the lawn in the dying day
No fairy led us to meet the May,
   But the very Goddess loved by lovers,
In mourning raiment of green and grey.
 
 
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.
 
 
It chanced as the dawning grew to grey
Pale and sad on our homeward way,
   With weary lips, and palled with pleasure
The Goddess met us, farewell to say.
 
 
“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.
 
 
Ye shall never know Summer again like this;
Ye shall play no more with the Fauns, I wis,
   No more in the nymphs’ and dryads’ playtime
Shall echo and answer kiss and kiss.
 
 
“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.”
 

HOMERIC UNITY

 
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!
 

IN TINTAGEL

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!
 

LUI

 
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!
 

PISIDICÊ

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 saw, she loved him, and her heart
   Before Achilles, Peleus’ son,
Threw all its guarded gates apart,
   A maiden fortress lightly won!
And, ere that day of fight was done,
   No more of land or faith recked she,
But joyed in her new life begun, —
   Her life of love, 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.
 
 
Ere dawn the Argives’ clarion call
   Rang down Methymna’s burning street;
They slew the sleeping warriors all,
   They drove the women to the fleet,
Save one, that to Achilles’ feet
   Clung, but, in sudden wrath, cried he:
“For her no doom but death is meet,”
   And there men stoned 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!
 

FROM THE EAST TO THE WEST

 
Returning from what other seas
   Dost thou renew thy murmuring,
Weak Tide, and hast thou aught of these
   To tell, the shores where float and cling
My love, my hope, my memories?
 
 
Say does my lady wake to note
   The gold light into silver die?
Or do thy waves make lullaby,
   While dreams of hers, like angels, float
Through star-sown spaces of the sky?
 
 
Ah, would such angels came to me
   That dreams of mine might speak with hers,
Nor wake the slumber of the sea
With words as low as winds that be
   Awake among the gossamers!
 

LOVE THE VAMPIRE

Ο ΕΡΩΤΑΣ ’Σ ΤΟΝ ΤΑΦΟ

 
   The level sands and grey,
   Stretch leagues and leagues away,
Down to the border line of sky and foam,
   A spark of sunset burns,
   The grey tide-water turns,
Back, like a ghost from her forbidden home!
 
 
   Here, without pyre or bier,
   Light Love was buried here,
Alas, his grave was wide and deep enough,
   Thrice, with averted head,
   We cast dust on the dead,
And left him to his rest.  An end of Love.
 
 
   “No stone to roll away,
   No seal of snow or clay,
Only soft dust above his wearied eyes,
   But though the sudden sound
   Of Doom should shake the ground,
And graves give up their ghosts, he will not rise!”
 
 
   So each to each we said!
   Ah, but to either bed
Set far apart in lands of North and South,
   Love as a Vampire came
   With haggard eyes aflame,
And kissed us with the kisses of his mouth!
 
 
   Thenceforth in dreams must we
   Each other’s shadow see
Wand’ring unsatisfied in empty lands,
   Still the desirèd face
   Fleets from the vain embrace,
And still the shape evades the longing hands.
 

BALLADE OF THE BOOK-MAN’S PARADISE

 
There is a Heaven, or here, or there, —
A Heaven there is, for me and you,
Where bargains meet for purses spare,
Like ours, are not so far and few.
Thuanus’ bees go humming through
The learned groves, ’neath rainless skies,
O’er volumes old and volumes new,
Within that Book-man’s Paradise!
 
 
There treasures bound for Longepierre
Keep brilliant their morocco blue,
There Hookes’ Amanda is not rare,
Nor early tracts upon Peru!
Racine is common as Rotrou,
No Shakespeare Quarto search defies,
And Caxtons grow as blossoms grew,
Within that Book-man’s Paradise!
 
 
There’s Eve, – not our first mother fair, —
But Clovis Eve, a binder true;
Thither does Bauzonnet repair,
Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup!
But never come the cropping crew
That dock a volume’s honest size,
Nor they that “letter” backs askew,
Within that Book-man’s Paradise!
 

Envoy

 
Friend, do not Heber and De Thou,
And Scott, and Southey, kind and wise,
La chasse au bouquin still pursue
Within that Book-man’s Paradise?
 

BALLADE OF A FRIAR

(Clement Marot’s Frère Lubin, though translated by Longfellow and others, has not hitherto been rendered into the original measure, of ballade à double refrain.)

 
Some ten or twenty times a day,
To bustle to the town with speed,
To dabble in what dirt he may, —
Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!
But any sober life to lead
Upon an exemplary plan,
Requires a Christian indeed, —
Le Frère Lubin is not the man!
 
 
Another’s wealth on his to lay,
With all the craft of guile and greed,
To leave you bare of pence or pay, —
Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!
But watch him with the closest heed,
And dun him with what force you can, —
He’ll not refund, howe’er you plead, —
Le Frère Lubin is not the man!
 
 
An honest girl to lead astray,
With subtle saw and promised meed,
Requires no cunning crone and grey, —
Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!
He preaches an ascetic creed,
But, – try him with the water can —
A dog will drink, whate’er his breed, —
Le Frère Lubin is not the man!
 

Envoy

 
In good to fail, in ill succeed,
Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!
In honest works to lead the van,
Le Frère Lubin is not the man!
 

BALLADE OF NEGLECTED MERIT. ¹

 
I have scribbled in verse and in prose,
I have painted “arrangements in greens,”
And my name is familiar to those
Who take in the high class magazines;
I compose; I’ve invented machines;
I have written an “Essay on Rhyme”;
For my county I played, in my teens,
But – I am not in “Men of the Time!”
 
 
I have lived, as a chief, with the Crows;
I have “interviewed” Princes and Queens;
I have climbed the Caucasian snows;
I abstain, like the ancients, from beans, —
I’ve a guess what Pythagoras means,
When he says that to eat them’s a crime, —
I have lectured upon the Essenes,
But – I am not in “Men of the Time!”
 
 
I’ve a fancy as morbid as Poe’s,
I can tell what is meant by “Shebeens,”
I have breasted the river that flows
Through the land of the wild Gadarenes;
I can gossip with Burton on skenes,
I can imitate Irving (the Mime),
And my sketches are quainter than Keene’s,
But – I am not in “Men of the Time!”
 

Envoy

 
So the tower of mine eminence leans
Like the Pisan, and mud is its lime;
I’m acquainted with Dukes and with Deans,
But – I am not in “Men of the Time!”
 

BALLADE OF RAILWAY NOVELS

 
Let others praise analysis
   And revel in a “cultured” style,
And follow the subjective Miss ²
   From Boston to the banks of Nile,
Rejoice in anti-British bile,
   And weep for fickle hero’s woe,
These twain have shortened many a mile,
   Miss Braddon and Gaboriau.
 
 
These damsels of “Democracy’s,”
   How long they stop at every stile!
They smile, and we are told, I wis,
   Ten subtle reasons why they smile.
Give me your villains deeply vile,
   Give me Lecoq, Jottrat, and Co.,
Great artists of the ruse and wile,
   Miss Braddon and Gaboriau!
 
 
Oh, novel readers, tell me this,
   Can prose that’s polished by the file,
Like great Boisgobey’s mysteries,
   Wet days and weary ways beguile,
And man to living reconcile,
   Like these whose every trick we know?
The agony how high they pile,
   Miss Braddon and Gaboriau!
 

Envoy

 
Ah, friend, how many and many a while
   They’ve made the slow time fleetly flow,
And solaced pain and charmed exile,
   Miss Braddon and Gaboriau.
 

THE CLOUD CHORUS

(FROM ARISTOPHANES.)

Socrates speaks

 
Hither, come hither, ye Clouds renowned, and unveil yourselves here;
Come, though ye dwell on the sacred crests of Olympian snow,
Or whether ye dance with the Nereid choir in the gardens clear,
Or whether your golden urns are dipped in Nile’s overflow,
Or whether you dwell by Mæotis mere
Or the snows of Mimas, arise! appear!
And hearken to us, and accept our gifts ere ye rise and go.
 

The Clouds sing

 
Immortal Clouds from the echoing shore
Of the father of streams, from the sounding sea,
Dewy and fleet, let us rise and soar.
Dewy and gleaming, and fleet are we!
Let us look on the tree-clad mountain crest,
   On the sacred earth where the fruits rejoice,
On the waters that murmur east and west
   On the tumbling sea with his moaning voice,
For unwearied glitters the Eye of the Air,
   And the bright rays gleam;
Then cast we our shadows of mist, and fare
In our deathless shapes to glance everywhere
   From the height of the heaven, on the land and air,
      And the Ocean stream.
 
 
Let us on, ye Maidens that bring the Rain,
   Let us gaze on Pallas’ citadel,
      In the country of Cecrops, fair and dear
      The mystic land of the holy cell,
   Where the Rites unspoken securely dwell,
      And the gifts of the Gods that know not stain
And a people of mortals that know not fear.
For the temples tall, and the statues fair,
And the feasts of the Gods are holiest there,
The feasts of Immortals, the chaplets of flowers
   And the Bromian mirth at the coming of spring,
And the musical voices that fill the hours,
   And the dancing feet of the Maids that sing!