Poems. Volume 1

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.
 
 
She looked so white, she looked so sweet:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
She looked so pure he fell at her feet:
   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 stood before him pale and tall:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
Her eyes between his, she told him all:
   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.
 
 
The old grey mother she dressed the bier:
   Red rose and white in the garden;
With a shivering chin and never a tear:
   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.
 

MARIAN

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.
 

BY MORNING TWILIGHT

 
   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!
 

SHEMSELNIHAR

 
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.
 
 
Far away, far away, where the wandering scents
   Of all flowers are sweetest, white mountains among,
There my kindred abide in their green and blue tents:
   Bear me to them, my lover! they lost me so young.
Let us slip down the stream and leap steed till afar
None question thy claim upon 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 THROUGH THE TALL TWIN ELM-TREES

 
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.
 

THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE

 
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.
 

ODE TO THE SPIRIT OF EARTH IN AUTUMN

 
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.
 
 
      Not long the silence followed:
   The voice that issues from thy breast,
      O glorious South-west,
   Along the gloom-horizon holloa’d;
Warning the valleys with a mellow roar
Through flapping wings; then sharp the woodland bore
   A shudder and a noise of hands:
   A thousand horns from some far vale
   In ambush sounding on the gale.
   Forth from the cloven sky came bands
Of revel-gathering spirits; trooping down,
Some rode the tree-tops; some on torn cloud-strips
   Burst screaming thro’ the lighted town:
And scudding seaward, some fell on big ships:
   Or mounting the sea-horses blew
   Bright foam-flakes on the black review
   Of heaving hulls and burying beaks.
 
 
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.
 
 
   Night on the rolling foliage fell:
   But I, who love old hymning night,
   And know the Dryad voices well,
   Discerned them as their leaves took flight,
   Like souls to wander after death:
   Great armies in imperial dyes,
   And mad to tread the air and rise,
   The savage freedom of the skies
   To taste before they rot.  And here,
   Like frail white-bodied girls in fear,
   The birches swung from shrieks to sighs;
   The aspens, laughers at a breath,
   In showering spray-falls mixed their cries,
   Or raked a savage ocean-strand
   With one incessant drowning screech.
   Here stood a solitary beech,
   That gave its gold with open hand,
   And all its branches, toning chill,
   Did seem to shut their teeth right fast,
   To shriek more mercilessly shrill,
   And match the fierceness of the blast.
 
 
   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!
 
 
      There is a curtain o’er us.
   For once, good souls, we’ll not pretend
   To be aught better than her who bore us,
   And is our only visible friend.
   Hark to her laughter! who laughs like this,
   Can she be dead, or rooted in pain?
   She has been slain by the narrow brain,
   But for us who love her she lives again.
      Can she die?  O, take her kiss!
 
 
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.
 
 
The pipe of the Faun comes on their track
And the weltering alleys overflow
With musical shrieks and wind-wedded hair.
The riotous companies melt to a pair.
   Bless them, mother of kindness!
 
 
   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.
 
 
Great Mother Nature! teach me, like thee,
To kiss the season and shun regrets.
And am I more than the mother who bore,
Mock me not with thy harmony!
   Teach me to blot regrets,
   Great Mother! me inspire
   With faith that forward sets
   But feeds the living fire,
   Faith that never frets
   For vagueness in the form.
   In life, O keep me warm!
   For, what is human grief?
   And what do men desire?
Teach me to feel myself the tree,
   And not the withered leaf.
Fixed am I and await the dark to-be
   And O, green bounteous Earth!
Bacchante Mother! stern to those
Who live not in thy heart of mirth;
Death shall I shrink from, loving thee?
Into the breast that gives the rose,
   Shall I with shuddering fall?
 
 
   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.
 
 
And may not men to this attain?
That the joy of motion, the rapture of being,
Shall throw strong light when our season is fleeing,
Nor quicken aged blood in vain,
At the gates of the vault, on the verge of the plain?
Life thoroughly lived is a fact in the brain,
   While eyes are left for seeing.
Behold, in yon stripped Autumn, shivering grey,
   Earth knows no desolation.
   She smells regeneration
   In the moist breath of decay.
 
 
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.
 

MARTIN’S PUZZLE

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

 
For if angels can look on such sights—never mind!
   When you’re next to blaspheming, it’s best to be mum.
The parson declares that her woes weren’t designed;
   But, then, with the parson it’s all kingdom-come.
Lose a leg, save a soul—a convenient text;
   I call it Tea doctrine, not savouring of God.
When poor little Molly wants ‘chastening,’ why, next
   The Archangel Michael might taste of the rod.
 

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

 
What I ask is, Why persecute such a poor dear,
   If there’s Law above all?  Answer that if you can!
Irreligious I’m not; but I look on this sphere
   As a place where a man should just think like a man.
It isn’t fair dealing!  But, contrariwise,
   Do bullets in battle the wicked select?
Why, then it’s all chance-work!  And yet, in her eyes,
   She holds a fixed something by which I am checked.
 

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!
 

X

 
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.