Robert F. Murray (Author of the Scarlet Gown): His Poems; with a Memoir

REQUIEM

 
For thee the birds shall never sing again,
   Nor fresh green leaves come out upon the tree,
The brook shall no more murmur the refrain
      For thee.
 
 
Thou liest underneath the windswept lea,
   Thou dreamest not of pleasure or of pain,
Thou dreadest no to-morrow that shall be.
 
 
Deep rest is thine, unbroken by the rain,
   Ay, or the thunder.  Brother, canst thou see
The tears that night and morning fall in vain
      For thee?
 

THOU ART QUEEN

 
Thou art queen to every eye,
   When the fairest maids convene.
Envy’s self can not deny
   Thou art queen.
 
 
In thy step thy right is seen,
   In thy beauty pure and high,
In thy grace of air and mien.
 
 
Thine unworthy vassal I,
   Lay my hands thy hands between;
Kneeling at thy feet I cry
   Thou art queen!
 

IN TIME OF DOUBT

 
‘In the shadow of Thy wings, O Lord of Hosts, whom I extol,
I will put my trust for ever,’ so the kingly David sings.
‘Thou shalt help me, Thou shalt save me, only
   Thou shalt keep me whole,
      In the shadow of Thy wings.’
 
 
In our ears this voice triumphant, like a blowing trumpet, rings,
But our hearts have heard another, as of funeral bells that toll,
‘God of David where to find Thee?’  No reply the question brings.
 
 
Shadows are there overhead, but they are of the clouds that roll,
   Blotting out the sun from sight, and overwhelming earthly things.
Oh, that we might feel Thy presence!  Surely we could rest our soul
      In the shadow of Thy wings.
 

THE GARDEN OF SIN

 
I know the garden-close of sin,
   The cloying fruits, the noxious flowers,
   I long have roamed the walks and bowers,
Desiring what no man shall win:
 
 
A secret place to shelter in,
   When soon or late the angry powers
   Come down to seek the wretch who cowers,
Expecting judgment to begin.
 
 
The pleasure long has passed away
   From flowers and fruit, each hour I dread
      My doom will find me where I lie.
I dare not go, I dare not stay.
   Without the walks, my hope is dead,
      Within them, I myself must die.
 

URSULA

 
There is a village in a southern land,
By rounded hills closed in on every hand.
The streets slope steeply to the market-square,
Long lines of white-washed houses, clean and fair,
With roofs irregular, and steps of stone
Ascending to the front of every one.
The people swarthy, idle, full of mirth,
Live mostly by the tillage of the earth.
 
 
Upon the northern hill-top, looking down,
Like some sequestered saint upon the town,
Stands the great convent.
 
 
      On a summer night,
Ten years ago, the moon with rising light
Made all the convent towers as clear as day,
While still in deepest shade the village lay.
Both light and shadow with repose were filled,
The village sounds, the convent bells were stilled.
No foot in all the streets was now astir,
And in the convent none kept watch but her
Whom they called Ursula.  The moonlight fell
Brightly around her in the lonely cell.
Her eyes were dark, and full of unshed woe,
Like mountain tarns which cannot overflow,
Surcharged with rain, and round about the eyes
Deep rings recorded sleepless nights, and cries
Stifled before their birth.  Her brow was pale,
And like a marble temple in a vale
Of cypress trees, shone shadowed by her hair.
So still she was, that had you seen her there,
You might have thought you were beholding death.
Her lips were parted, but if any breath
Came from between them, it were hard to know
By any movement of her breast of snow.
 
 
But when the summer night was now far spent,
She kneeled upon the floor.  Her head she leant
Down on the cold stone of the window-seat.
God knows if there were any vital heat
In those pale brows, or if they chilled the stone.
And as she knelt, she made a bitter moan,
With words that issued from a bitter soul, —
‘O Mary, Mother, and is this thy goal,
Thy peace which waiteth for the world-worn heart?
Is it for this I live and die apart
From all that once I knew?  O Holy God,
Is this the blessed chastening of Thy rod,
Which only wounds to heal?  Is this the cross
That I must carry, counting all for loss
Which once was precious in the world to me?
If Thou be God, blot out my memory,
And let me come, forsaking all, to Thee.
But here, though that old world beholds me not,
Here, though I seek Thee through my lonely lot,
Here, though I fast, do penance day by day,
Kneel at Thy feet, and ever watch and pray,
Beloved forms from that forsaken world
Revisit me.  The pale blue smoke is curled
Up from the dwellings of the sons of men.
I see it, and all my heart turns back again
From seeking Thee, to find the forms I love.
 
 
‘Thou, with Thy saints abiding far above,
What canst Thou know of this, my earthly pain?
They said to me, Thou shalt be born again,
And learn that worldly things are nothing worth,
In that new state.  O God, is this new birth,
Birth of the spirit dying to the flesh?
Are these the living waters which refresh
The thirsty spirit, that it thirst no more?
Still all my life is thirsting to the core.
Thou canst not satisfy, if this be Thou.
And yet I dream, or I remember how,
Before I came here, while I tarried yet
Among the friends they tell me to forget,
I never seemed to seek Thee, but I found
Thou wert in all the loveliness around,
And most of all in hearts that loved me well.
 
 
‘And then I came to seek Thee in this cell,
To crucify my worldliness and pride,
To lay my heart’s affections all aside,
As carnal hindrances which held my soul
From hasting unencumbered to her goal.
And all this have I done, or else have striven
To do, obeying the behest of Heaven,
And my reward is bitterness.  I seem
To wander always in a feverish dream
On plains where there is only sun and sand,
No rock or tree in all the weary land,
My thirst unquenchable, my heart burnt dry.
And still in my parched throat I faintly cry,
Deliver me, O Lord: bow down Thine ear!
 
 
‘He will not answer me.  He does not hear.
I am alone within the universe.
Oh for a strength of will to rise and curse
God, and defy Him here to strike me dead!
But my heart fails me, and I bow my head,
And cry to Him for mercy, still in vain.
Oh for some sudden agony of pain,
To make such insurrection in my soul
That I might burst all bondage of control,
Be for one moment as the beasts that die,
And pour my life in one blaspheming cry!’
 
 
The morning came, and all the convent towers
Were gilt with glory by the golden hours.
But where was Ursula?  The sisters came
With quiet footsteps, calling her by name,
But there was none that answered.  In her cell,
The glad, illuminating sunshine fell
On form and face, and showed that she was dead.
‘May Christ receive her soul!’ the sisters said,
And spoke in whispers of her holy life,
And how God’s mercy spared her pain and strife,
And gave this quiet death.  The face was still,
Like a tired child’s, that lies and sleeps its fill.
 

UNDESIRED REVENGE

 
Sorrow and sin have worked their will
   For years upon your sovereign face,
   And yet it keeps a faded trace
Of its unequalled beauty still,
   As ruined sanctuaries hold
   A crumbled trace of perfect mould
In shrines which saints no longer fill.
 
 
I knew you in your splendid morn,
   Oh, how imperiously sweet!
   I bowed and worshipped at your feet,
And you received my love with scorn.
   Now I scorn you.  It is a change,
   When I consider it, how strange
That you, not I, should be forlorn.
 
 
Do you suppose I have no pain
   To see you play this sorry part,
   With faded face and broken heart,
And life lived utterly in vain?
   Oh would to God that you once more
   Might scorn me as you did of yore,
And I might worship you again!
 

POETS

 
Children of earth are we,
Lovers of land and sea,
Of hill, of brook, of tree,
   Of all things fair;
Of all things dark or bright,
Born of the day and night,
Red rose and lily white
   And dusky hair.
 
 
Yet not alone from earth
Do we derive our birth.
What were our singing worth
   Were this the whole?
Somewhere from heaven afar
Hath dropped a fiery star,
Which makes us what we are,
   Which is our soul.
 

A PRESENTIMENT

 
It seems a little word to say —
   Farewell – but may it not, when said,
   Be like the kiss we give the dead,
Before they pass the doors for aye?
 
 
Who knows if, on some after day,
   Your lips shall utter in its stead
   A welcome, and the broken thread
Be joined again, the selfsame way?
 
 
The word is said, I turn to go,
   But on the threshold seem to hear
      A sound as of a passing bell,
Tolling monotonous and slow,
   Which strikes despair upon my ear,
      And says it is a last farewell.
 

A BIRTHDAY GIFT

 
No gift I bring but worship, and the love
   Which all must bear to lovely souls and pure,
   Those lights, that, when all else is dark, endure;
Stars in the night, to lift our eyes above;
 
 
To lift our eyes and hearts, and make us move
   Less doubtful, though our journey be obscure,
   Less fearful of its ending, being sure
That they watch over us, where’er we rove.
 
 
And though my gift itself have little worth,
   Yet worth it gains from her to whom ’tis given,
      As a weak flower gets colour from the sun.
Or rather, as when angels walk the earth,
   All things they look on take the look of heaven —
      For of those blessed angels thou art one.
 

CYCLAMEN

 
I had a plant which would not thrive,
   Although I watered it with care,
   I could not save the blossoms fair,
Nor even keep the leaves alive.
 
 
I strove till it was vain to strive.
   I gave it light, I gave it air,
   I sought from skill and counsel rare
The means to make it yet survive.
 
 
A lady sent it me, to prove
   She held my friendship in esteem;
      I would not have it as she said,
I wanted it to be for love;
   And now not even friends we seem,
      And now the cyclamen is dead.
 

LOVE RECALLED IN SLEEP

 
There was a time when in your face
   There dwelt such power, and in your smile
I know not what of magic grace;
   They held me captive for a while.
 
 
Ah, then I listened for your voice!
   Like music every word did fall,
Making the hearts of men rejoice,
   And mine rejoiced the most of all.
 
 
At sight of you, my soul took flame.
   But now, alas! the spell is fled.
Is it that you are not the same,
   Or only that my love is dead?
 
 
I know not – but last night I dreamed
   That you were walking by my side,
And sweet, as once you were, you seemed,
   And all my heart was glorified.
 
 
Your head against my shoulder lay,
   And round your waist my arm was pressed,
And as we walked a well-known way,
   Love was between us both confessed.
 
 
But when with dawn I woke from sleep,
   And slow came back the unlovely truth,
I wept, as an old man might weep
   For the lost paradise of youth.
 

FOOTSTEPS IN THE STREET

 
Oh, will the footsteps never be done?
      The insolent feet
      Thronging the street,
Forsaken now of the only one.
 
 
The only one out of all the throng,
      Whose footfall I knew,
      And could tell it so true,
That I leapt to see as she passed along,
 
 
As she passed along with her beautiful face,
      Which knew full well
      Though it did not tell,
That I was there in the window-space.
 
 
Now my sense is never so clear.
      It cheats my heart,
      Making me start
A thousand times, when she is not near.
 
 
When she is not near, but so far away,
      I could not come
      To the place of her home,
Though I travelled and sought for a month and a day.
 
 
Do you wonder then if I wish the street
      Were grown with grass,
      And no foot might pass
Till she treads it again with her sacred feet?
 

FOR A PRESENT OF ROSES

 
Crimson and cream and white —
   My room is a garden of roses!
Centre and left and right,
   Three several splendid posies.
 
 
As the sender is, they are sweet,
   These lovely gifts of your sending,
With the stifling summer heat
   Their delicate fragrance blending.
 
 
What more can my heart desire?
   Has it lost the power to be grateful?
Is it only a burnt-out fire,
   Whose ashes are dull and hateful?
 
 
Yet still to itself it doth say,
   ‘I should have loved far better
To have found, coming in to-day,
   The merest scrap of a letter.’
 

IN TIME OF SORROW

 
Despair is in the suns that shine,
   And in the rains that fall,
This sad forsaken soul of mine
   Is weary of them all.
 
 
They fall and shine on alien streets
   From those I love and know.
I cannot hear amid the heats
   The North Sea’s freshening flow
 
 
The people hurry up and down,
   Like ghosts that cannot lie;
And wandering through the phantom town
   The weariest ghost am I.
 

A NEW SONG TO AN OLD TUNE – FROM VICTOR HUGO

 
If a pleasant lawn there grow
   By the showers caressed,
Where in all the seasons blow
   Flowers gaily dressed,
Where by handfuls one may win
Lilies, woodbine, jessamine,
I will make a path therein
   For thy feet to rest.
 
 
If there live in honour’s sway
   An all-loving breast
Whose devotion cannot stray,
   Never gloom-oppressed —
If this noble breast still wake
For a worthy motive’s sake,
There a pillow I will make
   For thy head to rest.
 
 
If there be a dream of love,
   Dream that God has blest,
Yielding daily treasure-trove
   Of delightful zest,
With the scent of roses filled,
With the soul’s communion thrilled,
There, oh! there a nest I’ll build
   For thy heart to rest.
 

THE FIDDLER

 
There’s a fiddler in the street,
   And the children all are dancing:
Two dozen lightsome feet
   Springing and prancing.
 
 
Pleasure he gives to you,
   Dance then, and spare not!
For the poor fiddler’s due,
   Know not and care not.
 
 
While you are prancing,
   Let the fiddler play.
When you’re tired of dancing
   He may go away.
 

THE FIRST MEETING

 
Last night for the first time, O Heart’s Delight,
   I held your hand a moment in my own,
   The dearest moment which my soul has known,
Since I beheld and loved you at first sight.
 
 
I left you, and I wandered in the night,
   Under the rain, beside the ocean’s moan.
   All was black dark, but in the north alone
There was a glimmer of the Northern Light.
 
 
My heart was singing like a happy bird,
   Glad of the present, and from forethought free,
Save for one note amid its music heard:
   God grant, whatever end of this may be,
That when the tale is told, the final word
   May be of peace and benison to thee.
 

A CRITICISM OF CRITICS

 
How often have the critics, trained
   To look upon the sky
Through telescopes securely chained,
   Forgot the naked eye.
 
 
Within the compass of their glass
   Each smallest star they knew,
And not a meteor could pass
   But they were looking through.
 
 
When a new planet shed its rays
   Beyond their field of vision,
And simple folk ran out to gaze,
   They laughed in high derision.
 
 
They railed upon the senseless throng
   Who cheered the brave new light.
And yet the learned men were wrong,
   The simple folk were right.
 

MY LADY

 
My Lady of all ladies!  Queen by right
   Of tender beauty; full of gentle moods;
   With eyes that look divine beatitudes,
Large eyes illumined with her spirit’s light;
 
 
Lips that are lovely both by sound and sight,
   Breathing such music as the dove, which broods
   Within the dark and silence of the woods,
Croons to the mate that is her heart’s delight.
 
 
Where is a line, in cloud or wave or hill,
   To match the curve which rounds her soft-flushed cheek?
      A colour, in the sky of morn or of even,
To match that flush?  Ah, let me now be still!
   If of her spirit I should strive to speak,
      I should come short, as earth comes short of heaven.
 

PARTNERSHIP IN FAME

 
Love, when the present is become the past,
   And dust has covered all that now is new,
   When many a fame has faded out of view,
And many a later fame is fading fast —
 
 
If then these songs of mine might hope to last,
   Which sing most sweetly when they sing of you,
   Though queen and empress wore oblivion’s hue,
Your loveliness would not be overcast.
 
 
Now, while the present stays with you and me,
   In love’s copartnery our hearts combine,
      Life’s loss and gain in equal shares to take.
Partners in fame our memories then would be:
   Your name remembered for my songs; and mine
      Still unforgotten for your sweetness’ sake.
 

A CHRISTMAS FANCY

 
      Early on Christmas Day,
      Love, as awake I lay,
And heard the Christmas bells ring sweet and clearly,
      My heart stole through the gloom
      Into your silent room,
And whispered to your heart, ‘I love you dearly.’
 
 
      There, in the dark profound,
      Your heart was sleeping sound,
And dreaming some fair dream of summer weather.
      At my heart’s word it woke,
      And, ere the morning broke,
They sang a Christmas carol both together.
 
 
      Glory to God on high!
      Stars of the morning sky,
Sing as ye sang upon the first creation,
      When all the Sons of God
      Shouted for joy abroad,
And earth was laid upon a sure foundation.
 
 
      Glory to God again!
      Peace and goodwill to men,
And kindly feeling all the wide world over,
      Where friends with joy and mirth
      Meet round the Christmas hearth,
Or dreams of home the solitary rover.
 
 
      Glory to God!  True hearts,
      Lo, now the dark departs,
And morning on the snow-clad hills grows grey.
      Oh, may love’s dawning light
      Kindled from loveless night,
Shine more and more unto the perfect day!