Poems. Volume 1

THE CROWN OF LOVE

 
O might I load my arms with thee,
   Like that young lover of Romance
Who loved and gained so gloriously
   The fair Princess of France!
 
 
Because he dared to love so high,
   He, bearing her dear weight, shall speed
To where the mountain touched on sky:
   So the proud king decreed.
 
 
Unhalting he must bear her on,
   Nor pause a space to gather breath,
And on the height she will be won;
   And she was won in death!
 
 
Red the far summit flames with morn,
   While in the plain a glistening Court
Surrounds the king who practised scorn
   Through such a mask of sport.
 
 
She leans into his arms; she lets
   Her lovely shape be clasped: he fares.
God speed him whole!  The knights make bets:
   The ladies lift soft prayers.
 
 
O have you seen the deer at chase?
   O have you seen the wounded kite?
So boundingly he runs the race,
   So wavering grows his flight.
 
 
—My lover! linger here, and slake
   Thy thirst, or me thou wilt not win.
—See’st thou the tumbled heavens? they break!
   They beckon us up and in.
 
 
—Ah, hero-love! unloose thy hold:
   O drop me like a curséd thing.
—See’st thou the crowded swards of gold?
   They wave to us Rose and Ring.
 
 
—O death-white mouth!  O cast me down!
   Thou diest?  Then with thee I die.
—See’st thou the angels with their Crown?
   We twain have reached the sky.
 

THE HEAD OF BRAN THE BLEST

I

 
When the Head of Bran
   Was firm on British shoulders,
God made a man!
   Cried all beholders.
 
 
Steel could not resist
   The weight his arm would rattle;
He, with naked fist,
   Has brain’d a knight in battle.
 
 
He marched on the foe,
   And never counted numbers;
Foreign widows know
   The hosts he sent to slumbers.
 
 
As a street you scan,
   That’s towered by the steeple,
So the Head of Bran
   Rose o’er his people.
 

II

 
‘Death’s my neighbour,’
   Quoth Bran the Blest;
‘Christian labour
   Brings Christian rest.
From the trunk sever
   The Head of Bran,
That which never
   Has bent to man!
 
 
‘That which never
   To men has bowed
Shall live ever
   To shame the shroud:
Shall live ever
   To face the foe;
Sever it, sever,
   And with one blow.
 
 
‘Be it written,
   That all I wrought
Was for Britain,
   In deed and thought:
Be it written,
   That while I die,
Glory to Britain!
   Is my last cry.
 
 
‘Glory to Britain!
   Death echoes me round.
Glory to Britain!
   The world shall resound.
Glory to Britain!
   In ruin and fall,
Glory to Britain!
   Is heard over all.’
 

III

 
Burn, Sun, down the sea!
Bran lies low with thee.
 
 
Burst, Morn, from the main!
Bran so shall rise again.
 
 
Blow, Wind, from the field!
Bran’s Head is the Briton’s shield.
 
 
Beam, Star, in the West!
Bright burns the Head of Bran the Blest.
 

IV

 
Crimson-footed, like the stork,
   From great ruts of slaughter,
Warriors of the Golden Torque
   Cross the lifting water.
Princes seven, enchaining hands,
   Bear the live head homeward.
Lo! it speaks, and still commands:
   Gazing out far foamward.
 
 
Fiery words of lightning sense
   Down the hollows thunder;
Forest hostels know not whence
   Comes the speech, and wonder.
City-Castles, on the steep,
   Where the faithful Seven
House at midnight, hear, in sleep,
   Laughter under heaven.
 
 
Lilies, swimming on the mere,
   In the castle shadow,
Under draw their heads, and Fear
   Walks the misty meadow.
Tremble not! it is not Death
   Pledging dark espousal:
’Tis the Head of endless breath,
   Challenging carousal!
 
 
Brim the horn! a health is drunk,
   Now, that shall keep going:
Life is but the pebble sunk;
   Deeds, the circle growing!
Fill, and pledge the Head of Bran!
   While his lead they follow,
Long shall heads in Britain plan
   Speech Death cannot swallow!
 

THE MEETING

 
The old coach-road through a common of furze,
   With knolls of pine, ran white;
Berries of autumn, with thistles, and burrs,
   And spider-threads, droop’d in the light.
 
 
The light in a thin blue veil peered sick;
   The sheep grazed close and still;
The smoke of a farm by a yellow rick
   Curled lazily under a hill.
 
 
No fly shook the round of the silver net;
   No insect the swift bird chased;
Only two travellers moved and met
   Across that hazy waste.
 
 
One was a girl with a babe that throve,
   Her ruin and her bliss;
One was a youth with a lawless love,
   Who clasped it the more for this.
 
 
The girl for her babe hummed prayerful speech;
   The youth for his love did pray;
Each cast a wistful look on each,
   And either went their way.
 

THE BEGGAR’S SOLILOQUY

I

 
Now, this, to my notion, is pleasant cheer,
   To lie all alone on a ragged heath,
Where your nose isn’t sniffing for bones or beer,
   But a peat-fire smells like a garden beneath.
The cottagers bustle about the door,
   And the girl at the window ties her strings.
She’s a dish for a man who’s a mind to be poor;
   Lord! women are such expensive things.
 

II

 
We don’t marry beggars, says she: why, no:
   It seems that to make ’em is what you do;
And as I can cook, and scour, and sew,
   I needn’t pay half my victuals for you.
A man for himself should be able to scratch,
   But tickling’s a luxury:—love, indeed!
Love burns as long as the lucifer match,
   Wedlock’s the candle!  Now, that’s my creed.
 

III

 
The church-bells sound water-like over the wheat;
   And up the long path troop pair after pair.
The man’s well-brushed, and the woman looks neat:
   It’s man and woman everywhere!
Unless, like me, you lie here flat,
   With a donkey for friend, you must have a wife:
She pulls out your hair, but she brushes your hat.
   Appearances make the best half of life.
 

IV

 
You nice little madam! you know you’re nice.
   I remember hearing a parson say
You’re a plateful of vanity pepper’d with vice;
   You chap at the gate thinks t’ other way.
On his waistcoat you read both his head and his heart:
   There’s a whole week’s wages there figured in gold!
Yes! when you turn round you may well give a start:
   It’s fun to a fellow who’s getting old.
 

V

 
Now, that’s a good craft, weaving waistcoats and flowers,
   And selling of ribbons, and scenting of lard:
It gives you a house to get in from the showers,
   And food when your appetite jockeys you hard.
You live a respectable man; but I ask
   If it’s worth the trouble?  You use your tools,
And spend your time, and what’s your task?
   Why, to make a slide for a couple of fools.
 

VI

 
You can’t match the colour o’ these heath mounds,
   Nor better that peat-fire’s agreeable smell.
I’m clothed-like with natural sights and sounds;
   To myself I’m in tune: I hope you’re as well.
You jolly old cot! though you don’t own coal:
   It’s a generous pot that’s boiled with peat.
Let the Lord Mayor o’ London roast oxen whole:
   His smoke, at least, don’t smell so sweet.
 

VII

 
I’m not a low Radical, hating the laws,
   Who’d the aristocracy rebuke.
I talk o’ the Lord Mayor o’ London because
   I once was on intimate terms with his cook.
I served him a turn, and got pensioned on scraps,
   And, Lord, Sir! didn’t I envy his place,
Till Death knock’d him down with the softest of taps,
   And I knew what was meant by a tallowy face!
 

VIII

 
On the contrary, I’m Conservative quite;
   There’s beggars in Scripture ’mongst Gentiles and Jews:
It’s nonsense, trying to set things right,
   For if people will give, why, who’ll refuse?
That stopping old custom wakes my spleen:
   The poor and the rich both in giving agree:
Your tight-fisted shopman’s the Radical mean:
   There’s nothing in common ’twixt him and me.
 

IX

 
He says I’m no use! but I won’t reply.
   You’re lucky not being of use to him!
On week-days he’s playing at Spider and Fly,
   And on Sundays he sings about Cherubim!
Nailing shillings to counters is his chief work:
   He nods now and then at the name on his door:
But judge of us two, at a bow and a smirk,
   I think I’m his match: and I’m honest—that’s more.
 

X

 
No use! well, I mayn’t be.  You ring a pig’s snout,
   And then call the animal glutton!  Now, he,
Mr. Shopman, he’s nought but a pipe and a spout
   Who won’t let the goods o’ this world pass free.
This blazing blue weather all round the brown crop,
   He can’t enjoy! all but cash he hates.
He’s only a snail that crawls under his shop;
   Though he has got the ear o’ the magistrates.
 

XI

 
Now, giving and taking’s a proper exchange,
   Like question and answer: you’re both content.
But buying and selling seems always strange;
   You’re hostile, and that’s the thing that’s meant.
It’s man against man—you’re almost brutes;
   There’s here no thanks, and there’s there no pride.
If Charity’s Christian, don’t blame my pursuits,
   I carry a touchstone by which you’re tried.
 

XII

 
—‘Take it,’ says she, ‘it’s all I’ve got’:
   I remember a girl in London streets:
She stood by a coffee-stall, nice and hot,
   My belly was like a lamb that bleats.
Says I to myself, as her shilling I seized,
   You haven’t a character here, my dear!
But for making a rascal like me so pleased,
   I’ll give you one, in a better sphere!
 

XIII

 
And that’s where it is—she made me feel
   I was a rascal: but people who scorn,
And tell a poor patch-breech he isn’t genteel,
   Why, they make him kick up—and he treads on a corn.
It isn’t liking, it’s curst ill-luck,
   Drives half of us into the begging-trade:
If for taking to water you praise a duck,
   For taking to beer why a man upbraid?
 

XIV

 
The sermon’s over: they’re out of the porch,
   And it’s time for me to move a leg;
But in general people who come from church,
   And have called themselves sinners, hate chaps to beg.
I’ll wager they’ll all of ’em dine to-day!
   I was easy half a minute ago.
If that isn’t pig that’s baking away,
   May I perish!—we’re never contented—heigho!
 

BY THE ROSANNA
TO F. M

Stanzer Thal, Tyrol

 

 
The old grey Alp has caught the cloud,
And the torrent river sings aloud;
The glacier-green Rosanna sings
An organ song of its upper springs.
Foaming under the tiers of pine,
I see it dash down the dark ravine,
And it tumbles the rocks in boisterous play,
With an earnest will to find its way.
Sharp it throws out an emerald shoulder,
   And, thundering ever of the mountain,
Slaps in sport some giant boulder,
   And tops it in a silver fountain.
A chain of foam from end to end,
And a solitude so deep, my friend,
You may forget that man abides
Beyond the great mute mountain-sides.
Yet to me, in this high-walled solitude
Of river and rock and forest rude,
The roaring voice through the long white chain
Is the voice of the world of bubble and brain.
 

PHANTASY

I

 
Within a Temple of the Toes,
   Where twirled the passionate Wili,
I saw full many a market rose,
   And sighed for my village lily.
 

II

 
With cynical Adrian then I took flight
   To that old dead city whose carol
Bursts out like a reveller’s loud in the night,
   As he sits astride his barrel.
 

III

 
We two were bound the Alps to scale,
   Up the rock-reflecting river;
Old times blew thro’ me like a gale,
   And kept my thoughts in a quiver.
 

IV

 
Hawking ruin, wood-slope, and vine
   Reeled silver-laced under my vision,
And into me passed, with the green-eyed wine
   Knocking hard at my head for admission.
 

V

 
I held the village lily cheap,
   And the dream around her idle:
Lo, quietly as I lay to sleep,
   The bells led me off to a bridal.
 

VI

 
My bride wore the hood of a Béguine,
   And mine was the foot to falter;
Three cowled monks, rat-eyed, were seen;
   The Cross was of bones o’er the altar.
 

VII

 
The Cross was of bones; the priest that read,
   A spectacled necromancer:
But at the fourth word, the bride I led
   Changed to an Opera dancer.
 

VIII

 
A young ballet-beauty, who perked in her place,
   A darling of pink and spangles;
One fair foot level with her face,
   And the hearts of men at her ankles.
 

IX

 
She whirled, she twirled, the mock-priest grinned,
   And quickly his mask unriddled;
’Twas Adrian! loud his old laughter dinned;
   Then he seized a fiddle, and fiddled.
 

X

 
He fiddled, he glowed with the bottomless fire,
   Like Sathanas in feature:
All through me he fiddled a wolfish desire
   To dance with that bright creature.
 

XI

 
And gathering courage I said to my soul,
   Throttle the thing that hinders!
When the three cowled monks, from black as coal,
   Waxed hot as furnace-cinders.
 

XII

 
They caught her up, twirling: they leapt between-whiles:
   The fiddler flickered with laughter:
Profanely they flew down the awful aisles,
   Where I went sliding after.
 

XIII

 
Down the awful aisles, by the fretted walls,
   Beneath the Gothic arches:—
King Skull in the black confessionals
   Sat rub-a-dub-dubbing his marches.
 

XIV

 
Then the silent cold stone warriors frowned,
   The pictured saints strode forward:
A whirlwind swept them from holy ground;
   A tempest puffed them nor’ward.
 

XV

 
They shot through the great cathedral door;
   Like mallards they traversed ocean:
And gazing below, on its boiling floor,
   I marked a horrid commotion.
 

XVI

 
Down a forest’s long alleys they spun like tops:
   It seemed that for ages and ages,
Thro’ the Book of Life bereft of stops,
   They waltzed continuous pages.
 

XVII

 
And ages after, scarce awake,
   And my blood with the fever fretting,
I stood alone by a forest-lake,
   Whose shadows the moon were netting.
 

XVIII

 
Lilies, golden and white, by the curls
   Of their broad flat leaves hung swaying.
A wreath of languid twining girls
   Streamed upward, long locks disarraying.
 

XIX

 
Their cheeks had the satin frost-glow of the moon;
   Their eyes the fire of Sirius.
They circled, and droned a monotonous tune,
   Abandoned to love delirious.
 

XX

 
Like lengths of convolvulus torn from the hedge,
   And trailing the highway over,
The dreamy-eyed mistresses circled the sedge,
   And called for a lover, a lover!
 

XXI

 
I sank, I rose through seas of eyes,
   In odorous swathes delicious:
They fanned me with impetuous sighs,
   They hit me with kisses vicious.
 

XXII

 
My ears were spelled, my neck was coiled,
   And I with their fury was glowing,
When the marbly waters bubbled and boiled
   At a watery noise of crowing.
 

XXIII

 
They dragged me low and low to the lake:
   Their kisses more stormily showered;
On the emerald brink, in the white moon’s wake,
   An earthly damsel cowered.
 

XXIV

 
Fresh heart-sobs shook her knitted hands
   Beneath a tiny suckling,
As one by one of the doleful bands
   Dived like a fairy duckling.
 

XXV

 
And now my turn had come—O me!
   What wisdom was mine that second!
I dropped on the adorer’s knee;
   To that sweet figure I beckoned.
 

XXVI

 
Save me! save me! for now I know
   The powers that Nature gave me,
And the value of honest love I know:—
   My village lily! save me!
 

XXVII

 
Come ’twixt me and the sisterhood,
   While the passion-born phantoms are fleeing!
Oh, he that is true to flesh and blood
   Is true to his own being!
 

XXVIII

 
And he that is false to flesh and blood
   Is false to the star within him:
And the mad and hungry sisterhood
   All under the tides shall win him!
 

XXIX

 
My village lily! save me! save!
   For strength is with the holy:—
Already I shuddered to feel the wave,
   As I kept sinking slowly:—
 

XXX

 
I felt the cold wave and the under-tug
   Of the Brides, when—starting and shrinking—
Lo, Adrian tilts the water-jug!
   And Bruges with morn is blinking.
 

XXXI

 
Merrily sparkles sunny prime
   On gabled peak and arbour:
Merrily rattles belfry-chime
   The song of Sevilla’s Barber.
 

THE OLD CHARTIST

I

 
Whate’er I be, old England is my dam!
   So there’s my answer to the judges, clear.
I’m nothing of a fox, nor of a lamb;
   I don’t know how to bleat nor how to leer:
               I’m for the nation!
   That’s why you see me by the wayside here,
      Returning home from transportation.
 

II

 
It’s Summer in her bath this morn, I think.
   I’m fresh as dew, and chirpy as the birds:
And just for joy to see old England wink
   Thro’ leaves again, I could harangue the herds:
               Isn’t it something
   To speak out like a man when you’ve got words,
      And prove you’re not a stupid dumb thing?
 

III

 
They shipp’d me of for it; I’m here again.
   Old England is my dam, whate’er I be!
Says I, I’ll tramp it home, and see the grain:
   If you see well, you’re king of what you see:
               Eyesight is having,
   If you’re not given, I said, to gluttony.
      Such talk to ignorance sounds as raving.
 

IV

 
You dear old brook, that from his Grace’s park
   Come bounding! on you run near my old town:
My lord can’t lock the water; nor the lark,
   Unless he kills him, can my lord keep down.
               Up, is the song-note!
   I’ve tried it, too:—for comfort and renown,
      I rather pitch’d upon the wrong note.
 

V

 
I’m not ashamed: Not beaten’s still my boast:
   Again I’ll rouse the people up to strike.
But home’s where different politics jar most.
   Respectability the women like.
               This form, or that form,—
   The Government may be hungry pike,
      But don’t you mount a Chartist platform!
 

VI

 
Well, well!  Not beaten—spite of them, I shout;
   And my estate is suffering for the Cause.—
No,—what is yon brown water-rat about,
   Who washes his old poll with busy paws?
               What does he mean by’t?
   It’s like defying all our natural laws,
      For him to hope that he’ll get clean by’t.
 

VII

 
His seat is on a mud-bank, and his trade
   Is dirt:—he’s quite contemptible; and yet
The fellow’s all as anxious as a maid
   To show a decent dress, and dry the wet.
               Now it’s his whisker,
   And now his nose, and ear: he seems to get
      Each moment at the motion brisker!
 

VIII

 
To see him squat like little chaps at school,
   I could let fly a laugh with all my might.
He peers, hangs both his fore-paws:—bless that fool,
   He’s bobbing at his frill now!—what a sight!
               Licking the dish up,
   As if he thought to pass from black to white,
      Like parson into lawny bishop.
 

IX

 
The elms and yellow reed-flags in the sun,
   Look on quite grave:—the sunlight flecks his side;
And links of bindweed-flowers round him run,
   And shine up doubled with him in the tide.
               I’m nearly splitting,
   But nature seems like seconding his pride,
      And thinks that his behaviour’s fitting.
 

X

 
That isle o’ mud looks baking dry with gold.
   His needle-muzzle still works out and in.
It really is a wonder to behold,
   And makes me feel the bristles of my chin.
               Judged by appearance,
   I fancy of the two I’m nearer Sin,
      And might as well commence a clearance.
 

XI

 
And that’s what my fine daughter said:—she meant:
   Pray, hold your tongue, and wear a Sunday face.
Her husband, the young linendraper, spent
   Much argument thereon:—I’m their disgrace.
               Bother the couple!
   I feel superior to a chap whose place
      Commands him to be neat and supple.
 

XII

 
But if I go and say to my old hen:
   I’ll mend the gentry’s boots, and keep discreet,
Until they grow too violent,—why, then,
   A warmer welcome I might chance to meet:
               Warmer and better.
   And if she fancies her old cock is beat,
      And drops upon her knees—so let her!
 

XIII

 
She suffered for me:—women, you’ll observe,
   Don’t suffer for a Cause, but for a man.
When I was in the dock she show’d her nerve:
   I saw beneath her shawl my old tea-can
               Trembling . . . she brought it
   To screw me for my work: she loath’d my plan,
      And therefore doubly kind I thought it.
 

XIV

 
I’ve never lost the taste of that same tea:
   That liquor on my logic floats like oil,
When I state facts, and fellows disagree.
   For human creatures all are in a coil;
               All may want pardon.
   I see a day when every pot will boil
      Harmonious in one great Tea-garden!
 

XV

 
We wait the setting of the Dandy’s day,
   Before that time!—He’s furbishing his dress,—
He will be ready for it!—and I say,
   That yon old dandy rat amid the cress,—
               Thanks to hard labour!—
   If cleanliness is next to godliness,
      The old fat fellow’s heaven’s neighbour!
 

XVI

 
You teach me a fine lesson, my old boy!
   I’ve looked on my superiors far too long,
And small has been my profit as my joy.
   You’ve done the right while I’ve denounced the wrong.
               Prosper me later!
   Like you I will despise the sniggering throng,
      And please myself and my Creator.
 

XVII

 
I’ll bring the linendraper and his wife
   Some day to see you; taking off my hat.
Should they ask why, I’ll answer: in my life
   I never found so true a democrat.
               Base occupation
   Can’t rob you of your own esteem, old rat!
      I’ll preach you to the British nation.
 

SONG ²

 
      Should thy love die;
   O bury it not under ice-blue eyes!
      And lips that deny,
   With a scornful surprise,
The life it once lived in thy breast when it wore no disguise.
 
 
      Should thy love die;
   O bury it where the sweet wild-flowers blow!
      And breezes go by,
   With no whisper of woe;
And strange feet cannot guess of the anguish that slumbers below.
 
 
      Should thy love die;
   O wander once more to the haunt of the bee!
      Where the foliaged sky
   Is most sacred to see,
And thy being first felt its wild birth like a wind-wakened tree.
 
 
      Should thy love die;
   O dissemble it! smile! let the rose hide the thorn!
      While the lark sings on high,
   And no thing looks forlorn,
Bury it, bury it, bury it where it was born.