The Ascent of Man

POEMS OF THE OPEN AIR

"Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,Whether the summer clothe the general earthWith greenness, or the redbreast sit and singBetwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch."S. T. Coleridge.

THE SOWER

The winds had hushed at last as by command;The quiet sky above,With its grey clouds spread o'er the fallow land,Sat brooding like a doveThere was no motion in the air, no soundWithin the tree-tops stirred,Save when some last leaf, fluttering to the ground,Dropped like a wounded bird:Or when the swart rooks in a gathering crowdWith clamorous noises wheeled,Hovering awhile, then swooped with wranglings loudDown on the stubbly field.For now the big-thewed horses, toiling slowIn straining couples yoked,Patiently dragged the ploughshare to and froTill their wet haunches smoked.Till the stiff acre, broken into clods,Bruised by the harrow's tooth,Lay lightly shaken, with its humid sodsRanged into furrows smooth.There looming lone, from rise to set of sun,Without or pause or speed,Solemnly striding by the furrows dun,The sower sows the seed.The sower sows the seed, which mouldering,Deep coffined in the earth,Is buried now, but with the future springWill quicken into birth.Oh, poles of birth and death! Controlling PowersOf human toil and need!On this fair earth all men are surely sowers,Surely all life is seed!All life is seed, dropped in Time's yawning furrow,Which with slow sprout and shoot,In the revolving world's unfathomed morrow,Will blossom and bear fruit.

A SPRING SONG

Dark sod pierced by flames of flowers,Dead wood freshly quickening,Bright skies dusked with sudden showers,Lit by rainbows on the wing.Cuckoo calls and young lambs' bleatingNimble airs which coyly bringLittle gusts of tender greetingFrom shy nooks where violets cling.Half-fledged buds and birds and vernalFields of grass dew-glistening;Evanescent life's eternalResurrection, bridal Spring!

APRIL RAIN

The April rain, the April rain,Comes slanting down in fitful showers,Then from the furrow shoots the grain,And banks are fledged with nestling flowers;And in grey shaw and woodland bowersThe cuckoo through the April rainCalls once again.The April sun, the April sun,Glints through the rain in fitful splendour,And in grey shaw and woodland dunThe little leaves spring forth and tenderTheir infant hands, yet weak and slender,For warmth towards the April sun,One after one.And between shower and shine hath birthThe rainbow's evanescent glory;Heaven's light that breaks on mists of earth!Frail symbol of our human story,It flowers through showers where, looming hoary,The rain-clouds flash with April mirth,Like Life on earth.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

There was intoxication in the air;The wind, keen blowing from across the seas,O'er leagues of new-ploughed land and heathery leas,Smelt of wild gorse whose gold flamed everywhere.An undertone of song pulsed far and near,The soaring larks filled heaven with ecstasies,And, like a living clock among the trees,The shouting cuckoo struck the time of year.For now the Sun had found the earth once more,And woke the Sleeping Beauty with a kiss;Who thrilled with light of love in every pore,Opened her flower-blue eyes, and looked in his.Then all things felt life fluttering at their core —The world shook mystical in lambent bliss.

APPLE-BLOSSOM

Blossom of the apple trees!Mossy trunks all gnarled and hoary,Grey boughs tipped with rose-veined glory,Clustered petals soft as fleeceGarlanding old apple trees!How you gleam at break of day!When the coy sun, glancing rarely,Pouts and sparkles in the pearlyPendulous dewdrops, twinkling gayOn each dancing leaf and spray.Through your latticed boughs on high,Framed in rosy wreaths, one catchesBrief kaleidoscopic snatchesOf deep lapis-lazuliIn the April-coloured sky.When the sundown's dying brandLeaves your beauty to the tenderMagic spells of moonlight splendour,Glimmering clouds of bloom you stand,Turning earth to fairyland.Cease, wild winds, O, cease to blow!Apple-blossom, fluttering, flying,Palely on the green turf lying,Vanishing like winter snow;Swift as joy to come and go.

THE MUSIC-LESSON

A thrush alit on a young-leaved spray,And, lightly clinging,It rocked in its singingAs the rapturous notes rose loud and gay;And with liquid shakes,And trills and breaks,Rippled through blossoming boughs of May.Like a ball of fluff, with a warm brown throatAnd throbbing bosom,'Mid the apple-blossom,The new-fledged nestling sat learning by roteTo echo the songSo tender and strong,As it feebly put in its frail little note.O blissfullest lesson amid the green grove!The low wind crispethThe leaves, where lispethThe shy little bird with its parent above;Two voices that mingleAnd make but a singleHymn of rejoicing in praise of their love.

THE TEAMSTER

With slow and slouching gait Sam leads the team;He stoops i' the shoulders, worn with work not years;One only passion has he, it would seem —The passion for the horses which he rears:He names them as one would some household pet,May, Violet.He thinks them quite as sensible as men;As nice as women, but not near so skittish;He fondles, cossets, scolds them now and then,Nay, gravely talks as if they knew good British:You hear him call from dawn to set of sun,"Goo back! Com on!"Sam never seems depressed nor yet elate,Like Nature's self he goes his punctual round;On Sundays, smoking by his garden gate,For hours he'll stand, with eyes upon the ground,Like some tired cart-horse in a field alone,And still as stone.Yet, howsoever stolid he may seem,Sam has his tragic background, weird and wildLike some adventure in a drunkard's dream.Impossible, you'd swear, for one so mild:Yet village gossips dawdling o'er their aleStill tell the tale.In his young days Sam loved a servant-maid,A girl with happy eyes like hazel brooksThat dance i' the sun, cheeks as if newly madeOf pouting roses coyly hid in nooks,And warm brown hair that wantoned into curl:A fresh-blown girl.Sam came a-courting while the year was blithe,When wet browed mowers, stepping out in tune,With level stroke and rhythmic swing of scythe,Smote down the proud grass in the pomp of June,And wagons, half-tipped over, seemed to swayWith loads of hay.The elder bush beside the orchard croftBrimmed over with its bloom like curds and cream;From out grey nests high in the granary loftBlack clusters of small heads with callow screamPeered open-beaked, as swallows flashed alongTo feed their young.Ripening towards the harvest swelled the wheat,Lush cherries dangled 'gainst the latticed panes;The roads were baking in the windless heat,And dust had floured the glossy country lanes,One sun-hushed, light-flushed Sunday afternoonThe last of June.When, with his thumping heart all out of joint,And pulses beating like a stroller's drum,Sam screwed his courage to the sticking pointAnd asked his blushing sweetheart if she'd comeTo Titsey Fair; he meant to coax coy MayTo name the day.But her rich master snapped his thumb and sworeThe girl was not for him! Should not go out!And, whistling to his dogs, slammed-to the doorClose in Sam's face, and left him dazed withoutIn the fierce sunshine, blazing in his pathLike fire of wrath.Unheeding, he went forth with hot wild eyesPast fields of feathery oats and wine-red clover;Unheeded, larks soared singing to the skies,Or rang the plaintive cry of rising plover;Unheeded, pheasants with a startled soundWhirred from the ground.On, on he went by acres full of grain,By trees and meadows reeling past his sight,As to a man whirled onwards in a trainThe land with spinning hedgerows seems in flight;At last he stopped and leant a long, long whileAgainst a stile.Hours passed; the clock struck ten; a hush of night,In which even wind and water seemed at peace;But here and there a glimmering cottage lightShone like a glowworm through the slumberous trees;Or from some far-off homestead through the darkA watch-dog's bark.But all at once Sam gave a stifled cry:"There's fire," he muttered, "fire upon the hills!"No fire – but as the late moon rose on highHer light looked smoke-red as through belching mills:No fire – but moonlight turning in his pathTo fire of wrath.He looked abroad with eyes that gave the mistA lurid tinge above the breadths of grainOwned by May's master. Then he shook his fist,Still muttering, "Fire!" and measured o'er againThe road he'd come, where, lapped in moonlight, layHuge ricks of hay.There he paused glaring. Then he turned and wanedLike mist into the misty, moon-soaked night,Where the pale silvery fields were blotched and stainedWith strange fantastic shadows. But what lightIs that which leaps up, flickering lithe and long,With licking tongue!Hungry it darts and hisses, twists and turns,And with each minute shoots up high and higher,Till, wrapped in flames, the mighty hayrick burnsAnd sends its sparks on to a neighbouring byre,Where, frightened at the hot, tremendous glow,The cattle low.And rick on rick takes fire; and next a stye,Whence through the smoke the little pigs rush out;The house-dog barks; then, with a startled cry,The window is flung open, shout on shoutWakes the hard-sleeping farm where man and maidStart up dismayed.And with wild faces wavering in the glare,In nightcaps, bedgowns, clothes half huddled onSome to the pump, some to the duck-pond tearIn frantic haste, while others splashing runWith pails, or turn the hose with flame-scorched faceUpon the blaze.At last, when some wan streaks began to showIn the chill darkness of the sky, the fireWent out, subdued but for the sputtering glowOf sparks among wet ashes. Barn and byreWere safe, but swallowed all the summer mathBy fire of wrath.Still haggard from the night's wild work and pale,Farm-men and women stood in whispering knots,Regaled with foaming mugs of nut-brown ale;Firing his oaths about like vicious shots,The farmer hissed out now and then: "Gad damn!It's that black Sam."They had him up and taxed him with the crime;Denying naught, he sulked and held his peace;And so, a branded convict, in due time,Handcuffed and cropped, they shipped him over-seas:Seven years of shame sliced from his labourer's lifeAs with a knife.But through it all the image of a girlWith hazel eyes like pebbled waters clear,And warm brown hair that wantoned into curl,Kept his heart sweet through many a galling year,Like to a bit of lavender long pressedIn some black chest.At last his time was up, and Sam returnedTo his dear village with its single street,Where, in the sooty forge, the fire still burned,As, hammering on the anvil, red with heat,The smith wrought at a shoe with tongues aglow,Blow upon blow.There stood the church, with peals for death and birth,Its ancient spire o'ertopping ancient trees,And there the graves and mounds of unknown earth,Gathered like little children round its knees;There was "The Bull," with sign above the door,And sanded floor.Unrecognized Sam took his glass of beer,And picked up gossip which the men let fall:How Farmer Clow had failed, and one named SteerHad taken on the land, repairs and all;And how the Kimber girl was to be wedTo Betsy's Ned.Sam heard no more, flung down his pence, and tookThe way down to the well-remembered stile;There, in the gloaming by the trysting brook,He came upon his May – with just that smileFor sheep-faced Ned, that light in happy eyes:Oh, sugared lies!He came upon them with black-knitted browsAnd clenched brown hands, and muttered huskily:"Oh, little May, are those your true love's vowsYou swore to keep while I was over-sea?"Then crying, turned upon the other one,"Com on, com on."Then they fell to with faces set for fight,And hit each other hard with rustic pride;But Sam, whose arm with iron force could smite,Knocked his cowed rival down, and won his bride.May wept and smiled, swayed like a wild red roseAs the wind blows.She married Sam, who loved her with a wildStrong love he could not put to words – too deepFor her to gauge; but with her first-born childMay dropped off, flower-like, into the long sleep,And left him nothing but the memory ofHis little love.Since then the silent teamster lives alone,The trusted headman of his master Steer;One only passion seems he still to own —The passion for the foals he has to rear;And still the prettiest, full of life and play,Is little May.

A HIGHLAND VILLAGE

Clear shining after the rain,The sun bursts the clouds asunder,And the hollow-rumbling thunderGroans like a loaded wainAs, deep in the Grampians yonder,He grumbles now and again.Whenever the breezes shiverThe leaves where the rain-drops quiver,Each bough and bush and brierBreaks into living fire,Till every tree is brightWith blossom bursts of light.From golden roof and spoutBrown waters gurgle and splutter,And rush down the flooded gutterWhere the village children shout,As barefoot they splash in and outThe water with tireless patter.The bald little Highland streetIs all alive and a-glitter;The air blows keen and sweetFrom the field where the swallows twitter;Old wives on the doorsteps meet,At the corner the young maids titter.And the reapers hasten again,Ere quite the daylight waneTo shake out the barley sheaves;While through the twinkling leavesThe harvest moon upheavesClear shining after the rain.

ON A FORSAKEN LARK'S NEST

Lo, where left 'mid the sheaves, cut down by the iron-fanged reaper,Eating its way as it clangs fast through the wavering wheat,Lies the nest of a lark, whose little brown eggs could not keep herAs she, affrighted and scared, fled from the harvester's feet.Ah, what a heartful of song that now will never awaken,Closely packed in the shell, awaited love's fostering,That should have quickened to life what, now a-cold and forsaken,Never, enamoured of light, will meet the dawn on the wing.Ah, what pæans of joy, what raptures no mortal can measure,Sweet as honey that's sealed in the cells of the honey-comb,Would have ascended on high in jets of mellifluous pleasure,Would have dropped from the clouds to nest in its gold-curtained home.Poor, pathetic brown eggs! Oh, pulses that never will quicken!Music mute in the shell that hath been turned to a tomb!Many a sweet human singer, chilled and adversity-stricken,Withers benumbed in a world his joy might have helped to illume.

REAPERS

Sun-tanned men and women, toiling there together;Seven I count in all, in yon field of wheat,Where the rich ripe ears in the harvest weatherGlow an orange gold through the sweltering heat.Busy life is still, sunk in brooding leisure:Birds have hushed their singing in the hushed tree-tops;Not a single cloud mars the flawless azure;Not a shadow moves o'er the moveless crops;In the glassy shallows, that no breath is creasing,Chestnut-coloured cows in the rushes dankStand like cows of bronze, save when they flick the teasingFlies with switch of tail from each quivering flank.Nature takes a rest – even her bees are sleeping,And the silent wood seems a church that's shut;But these human creatures cease not from their reapingWhile the corn stands high, waiting to be cut.

APPLE-GATHERING

Essex flats are pink with clover,Kent is crowned with flaunting hops,Whitely shine the cliffs of Dover,Yellow wave the Midland crops;Sussex Downs the flocks grow sleek on,But, for me, I love to standWhere the Herefordshire beaconWatches o'er his orchard land.Where now sun, now shadow dapples —As it wavers in the breeze —Clumps of fresh-complexioned applesOn the heavy-laden trees:Red and yellow, streaked and hoary,Russet-coated, pale or brown —Some are dipped in sunset glory,And some painted by the dawn.What profusion, what abundance!Not a twig but has its fruits;High in air some in the sun dance,Some lie scattered near the roots.These the hasty winds have takenAre a green, untimely crop;Those by burly rustics shakenFall with loud resounding plop.In this mellow autumn weather,Ruddy 'mid the long green grass,Heaped-up baskets stand together,Filled by many a blowsy lass.Red and yellow, streaked and hoary,Pile them on the granary floors,Till the yule-log's flame in gloryLoudly up the chimney roars;Till gay troops of children, lightlyTripping in with shouts of glee,See ripe apples dangling brightlyOn the red-lit Christmas-tree.

THE SONGS OF SUMMER

The songs of summer are over and past!The swallow's forsaken the dripping eaves;Ruined and black 'mid the sodden leavesThe nests are rudely swung in the blast:And ever the wind like a soul in painKnocks and knocks at the window-pane.The songs of summer are over and past!Woe's me for a music sweeter than theirs —The quick, light bound of a step on the stairs,The greeting of lovers too sweet to last:And ever the wind like a soul in painKnocks and knocks at the window-pane.

AUTUMN TINTS

Coral-coloured yew-berriesStrew the garden ways,Hollyhocks and sunflowersMake a dazzling blazeIn these latter days.Marigolds by cottage doorsFlaunt their golden pride,Crimson-punctured bramble leavesDapple far and wideThe green mountain-side.Far away, on hilly slopesWhere fleet rivulets run,Miles on miles of tangled fern,Burnished by the sun,Glow a copper dun.For the year that's on the wane,Gathering all its fire,Flares up through the kindling worldAs, ere they expire,Flames leap high and higher.

GREEN LEAVES AND SERE

Three tall poplars beside the poolShiver and moan in the gusty blast,The carded clouds are blown like wool,And the yellowing leaves fly thick and fast.The leaves, now driven before the blast,Now flung by fits on the curdling pool,Are tossed heaven-high and dropped at lastAs if at the whim of a jabbering fool.O leaves, once rustling green and cool!Two met here where one moans aghastWith wild heart heaving towards the past:Three tall poplars beside the pool.

THE HUNTER'S MOON

The Hunter's Moon rides high,High o'er the close-cropped plain;Across the desert skyThe herded clouds amainScamper tumultuously,Chased by the hounding windThat yelps behind.The clamorous hunt is done,Warm-housed the kennelled pack;One huntsman rides aloneWith dangling bridle slack;He wakes a hollow tone,Far echoing to his hornIn clefts forlorn.The Hunter's Moon rides low,Her course is nearly sped.Where is the panting roe?Where hath the wild deer fled?Hunter and hunted nowLie in oblivion deep:Dead or asleep.

THE PASSING YEAR

No breath of wind stirs in the painted leaves,The meadows are as stirless as the sky,Like a Saint's halo golden vapours lieAbove the restful valley's garnered sheaves.The journeying Sun, like one who fondly grieves,Above the hills seems loitering with a sigh,As loth to bid the fruitful earth good-bye,On these hushed hours of luminous autumn eves.There is a pathos in his softening glow,Which like a benediction seems to hoverO'er the tranced earth, ere he must sink belowAnd leave her widowed of her radiant Lover,A frost-bound sleeper in a shroud of snowWhile winter winds howl a wild dirge above her.

THE ROBIN REDBREAST

The year's grown songless! No glad pipings thrillThe hedge-row elms, whose wind-worn branches showerTheir leaves on the sere grass, where some late flowerIn golden chalice hoards the sunlight still.Our summer guests, whose raptures used to fillEach apple-blossomed garth and honeyed bower,Have in adversity's inclement hourAbandoned us to bleak November's chill.But hearken! Yonder russet bird amongThe crimson clusters of the homely thornStill bubbles o'er with little rills of song —A blending of sweet hope and resignation:Even so, when life of love and youth is shorn,One friend becomes its last, best consolation.

THE RED SUNSETS, 1883

The boding sky was charactered with cloud,The scripture of the storm – but high in air,Where the unfathomed zenith still was bare,A pure expanse of rose-flushed violet glowedAnd, kindling into crimson light, o'erflowedThe hurrying wrack with such a blood-red glare,That heaven, igniting, wildly seemed to flareOn the dazed eyes of many an awe-struck crowd.And in far lands folk presaged with blanched lipsDisastrous wars, earthquakes, and foundering shipsSuch whelming floods as never dykes could stem,Or some proud empire's ruin and eclipse:Lo, such a sky, they cried, as burned o'er themOnce lit the sacking of Jerusalem!

THE RED SUNSETS, 1883

The twilight heavens are flushed with gathering light,And o'er wet roofs and huddling streets belowHang with a strange Apocalyptic glowOn the black fringes of the wintry night.Such bursts of glory may have rapt the sightOf him to whom on Patmos long agoThe visionary angel came to showThat heavenly city built of chrysolite.And lo, three factory hands begrimed with soot,Aflame with the red splendour, marvelling stand,And gaze with lifted faces awed and mute.Starved of earth's beauty by Man's grudging hand,O toilers, robbed of labour's golden fruit,Ye, too, may feast in Nature's fairyland.

ON THE LIGHTHOUSE AT ANTIBES

A stormy light of sunset glows and glaresBetween two banks of cloud, and o'er the brineThy fair lamp on the sky's carnation lineAlone on the lone promontory flares:Friend of the Fisher who at nightfall faresWhere lurk false reefs masked by the hyalineOf dimpling waves, within whose smile divineDeath lies in wait behind Circean snares.The evening knows thee ere the evening star;Or sees thy flame sole Regent of the bight,When storm, hoarse rumoured by the hills afar,Makes mariners steer landward by thy light,Which shows through shock of hostile nature's warHow man keeps watch o'er man through deadliest night.CAGNESON THE RIVIERAIn tortuous windings up the steep inclineThe sombre street toils to the village square,Whose antique walls in stone and moulding bearDumb witness to the Moor. Afar off shine,With tier on tier, cutting heaven's blue divine,The snowy Alps; and lower the hills are fair,With wave-green olives rippling down to whereGold clusters hang and leaves of sunburnt vine.You may perchance, I never shall forgetWhen, between twofold glory of land and sea,We leant together o'er the old parapet,And saw the sun go down. For, oh, to me,The beauty of that beautiful strange placeWas its reflection beaming from your face.

A WINTER LANDSCAPE

All night, all day, in dizzy, downward flight,Fell the wild-whirling, vague, chaotic snow,Till every landmark of the earth below,Trees, moorlands, roads, and each familiar sightWere blotted out by the bewildering white.And winds, now shrieking loud, now whimpering low,Seemed lamentations for the world-old woeThat death must swallow life, and darkness light.But all at once the rack was blown away,The snowstorm hushing ended in a sigh;Then like a flame the crescent moon on highLeaped forth among the planets; pure as they,Earth vied in whiteness with the Milky Way:Herself a star beneath the starry sky.

LOVE IN EXILE

"Whatever way my days decline,I felt and feel, tho' left alone,His being working in mine own,The footsteps of his life in mine."Lord Tennyson.

SONGS

IThou walkest with me as the spirit-lightOf the hushed moon, high o'er a snowy hill,Walks with the houseless traveller all the night,When trees are tongueless and when mute the rill.Moon of my soul, O phantasm of delight,Thou walkest with me still.The vestal flame of quenchless memory burnsIn my soul's sanctuary. Yea, still for theeMy bitter heart hath yearned, as moonward yearnsEach separate wave-pulse of the clamorous sea:My Moon of love, to whom for ever turnsThe life that aches through me.III was again beside my Love in dream:Earth was so beautiful, the moon was shining;The muffled voice of many a cataract streamCame like a love-song, as, with arms entwining,Our hearts were mixed in unison supreme.The wind lay spell-bound in each pillared pine,The tasselled larches had no sound or motion,As my whole life was sinking into thine —Sinking into a deep, unfathomed oceanOf infinite love – uncircumscribed, divine.Night held her breath, it seemed, with all her stars:Eternal eyes that watched in mute compassionOur little lives o'erleap their mortal bars,Fused in the fulness of immortal passion,A passion as immortal as the stars.There was no longer any thee or me;No sense of self, no wish or incompleteness;The moment, rounded to Eternity,Annihilated time's destructive fleetness:For all but love itself had ceased to be.IIII am athirst, but not for wine;The drink I long for is divine,Poured only from your eyes in mine.I hunger, but the bread I want,Of which my blood and brain are scant,Is your sweet speech, for which I pant.I am a-cold, and lagging lame,Life creeps along my languid frame;Your love would fan it into flame.Heaven's in that little word – your love!It makes my heart coo like a dove,My tears fall as I think thereof.IVI would I were the glow-worm, thou the flower,That I might fill thy cup with glimmering light;I would I were the bird, and thou the bower,To sing thee songs throughout the summer night.I would I were a pine tree deeply rooted,And thou the lofty, cloud-beleaguered rock,Still, while the blasts of heaven around us hooted,To cleave to thee and weather every shock.I would I were the rill, and thou the river;So might I, leaping from some headlong steep,With all my waters lost in thine for ever,Be hurried onwards to the unfathomed deep.I would – what would I not? O foolish dreaming!My words are but as leaves by autumn shed,That, in the faded moonlight idly gleaming,Drop on the grave where all our love lies dead.VDost thou remember ever, for my sake,When we two rowed upon the rock-bound lake?How the wind-fretted waters blew their sprayAbout our brows like blossom-falls of MayOne memorable day?Dost thou remember the glad mouth that cried —"Were it not sweet to die now side by side,To lie together tangled in the deepClose as the heart-beat to the heart – so keepThe everlasting sleep?"Dost thou remember? Ah, such death as thisHad set the seal upon my heart's young bliss!But, wrenched asunder, severed and apart,Life knew a deadlier death: the blighting smartWhich only kills the heart.VIO moon, large golden summer moon,Hanging between the linden trees,Which in the intermittent breezeBeat with the rhythmic pulse of June!O night-air, scented through and throughWith honey-coloured flower of lime,Sweet now as in that other timeWhen all my heart was sweet as you!The sorcery of this breathing bloomWorks like enchantment in my brain,Till, shuddering back to life again,My dead self rises from its tomb.And, lovely with the love of yore,Its white ghost haunts the moon-white ways;But, when it meets me face to face,Flies trembling to the grave once more.VIIWhy will you haunt me unawares,And walk into my sleep,Pacing its shadowy thoroughfares,Where long-dried perfume scents the airs,While ghosts of sorrow creep,Where on Hope's ruined altar-stairs,With ineffectual beams,The Moon of Memory coldly glaresUpon the land of dreams?My yearning eyes were fain to lookUpon your hidden face;Their love, alas! you could not brook,But in your own you mutely tookMy hand, and for a spaceYou wrung it till I throbbed and shook,And woke with wildest moanAnd wet face channelled like a brookWith your tears or my own.VIIIWhen you wake from troubled slumbersWith a dream-bewildered brain,And old leaves which no man numbersChattering tap against the pane;And the midnight wind is wailingTill your very life seems quailingAs the long gusts shudder and sigh:Know you not that homeless cryIs my love's, which cannot die,Wailing through Eternity?When beside the glowing embers,Sitting in the twilight lone,Drop on drop you hear November'sMelancholy monotone,As the heavy rain comes sweeping,With a sound of weeping, weeping,Till your blood is chilled with fears;Know you not those falling tears,Flowing fast through years on years,For my sobs within your ears?When with dolorous moan the billowsSurge around where, far and wide,Leagues on leagues of sea-worn hollowsThrob with thunders of the tide,And the weary waves in breakingFill you, thrill you, as with achingMemories of our love of yoreWhere you pace the sounding shore,Hear you not, through roll and roar,Soul call soul for evermore?IXIn a lonesome burial-placeCrouched a mourner white of face;Wild her eyes – unheedingCircling pomp of night and day —Ever crying, "Well away,Love lies a-bleeding!"And her sighs were like a knell,And her tears for ever fell,With their warm rain feedingThat purpureal flower, alas!Trailing prostrate in the grass,Love lies a-bleeding.Through the yews' black-tufted gloomCrimson light dripped on the tomb,Funeral shadows breeding:In the sky the sun's light shedDyed the earth one awful red —Love lies a-bleeding.Came grey mists, and blanching cloudBore one universal shroud;Came the bowed moon leading,From the infinite afarStar that rumoured unto star —Love lies a-bleeding.XOn life's long round by chance I foundA dell impearled with dew,Where hyacinths, gushing from the ground,Lent to the earth heaven's native hueOf holy blue.I sought that plot of azure lightOnce more in gloomy hours;But snow had fallen overnightAnd wrapped in mortuary whiteMy fairy ring of flowers.XIAh, yesterday was dark and drear,My heart was deadly sore;Without thy love it seemed, my Dear,That I could live no more.And yet I laugh and sing to-day;Care or care not for me,Thou canst not take the love awayWith which I worship thee.And if to-morrow, Dear, I live,My heart I shall not break:For still I hold it that to giveIs sweeter than to take.XIIYea, the roses are still on fireWith the bygone heat of July,Though the least little wind drifting byShake a rose-leaf or two from the brier,Be it never so soft a sigh.Ember of love still glows and lingersDeep at the red heart's smouldering core;With the sudden passionate throb of yoreWe shook as our eyes and clinging fingersMet once only to meet no more.XIIIWe met as strangers on life's lonely way,And yet it seemed we knew each other well;There was no end to what thou hadst to say,Or to the thousand things I found to tell.My heart, long silent, at thy voice that dayChimed in my breast like to a silver bell.How much we spoke, and yet still left untoldSome secret half revealed within our eyes:Didst thou not love me once in ages old?Had I not called thee with importunate cries,And, like a child left sobbing in the cold,Listened to catch from far thy fond replies?We met as strangers, and as such we part;Yet all my life seems leaving me with thine;Ah, to be clasped once only heart to heart,If only once to feel that thou wert mine!These lips are locked, and yet I know thou artThat all in all for which my soul did pine.XIVYou make the sunshine of my heartAnd its tempestuous shower;Sometimes the thought of you is likeA lilac bush in flower,Yea, honey-sweet as hives in May.And then the pang of it will strikeMy bosom with a fiery smart,As though love's deeply planted dartDrained all its life away.My thoughts hum round you, Dear, like beesAbout a bank of thyme,Or round the yellow blossoms ofThe heavy-scented lime.Ah, sweeter you than honeydew,Yet dark the ways of love,For it has robbed my soul of peace,And marred my life and turned heart's-easeInto funereal rue.XVDear, when I look into your eyesMy hurts are healed, my heart grows whole;The barren places in my soul,Like waste lands under April skies,Break into flower beneath your eyes.Ah, life grows lovely where you are;Only to think of you gives lightTo my dark heart, within whose nightYour image, though you bide afar,Glows like a lake-reflected star.Dare I crave more than only this:A thrill of love, a transient smileTo gladden all my world awhile?No more, alas! Is mortal blissNot transient as a lover's kiss?XVIAh, if you knew how soon and lateMy eyes long for a sight of you,Sometimes in passing by my gateYou'd linger until fall of dew,If you but knew!Ah, if you knew how sick and soreMy life flags for the want of you,Straightway you'd enter at the doorAnd clasp my hand between your two,If you but knew!Ah, if you knew how lost and loneI watch and weep and wait for you,You'd press my heart close to your ownTill love had healed me through and through,If you but knew!XVIIYour looks have touched my soul with brightIneffable emotion;As moonbeams on a stormy nightIllume with transitory lightA seagull on her lonely flightAcross the lonely ocean.Fluttering from out the gloom and roar,On fitful wing she flies,Moon-white above the moon-washed shore;Then, drowned in darkness as before,She's lost, as I when lit no moreBy your beloved eyes.XVIIIOh, brown Eyes with long black lashes,Young brown Eyes,Depths of night from which there flashesLightning as of summer skies,Beautiful brown Eyes!In your veiled mysterious splendourPassion liesSleeping, but with sudden tenderDreams that fill with vague surmiseBeautiful brown Eyes.All my soul, with yearning shaken,Asks in sighs —Who will see your heart awaken,Love's divine sunriseIn those young brown Eyes?XIXOnce on a golden day,In the golden month of May,I gave my heart away —Little birds were singing.I culled my heart in truth,Wet with the dews of youth,For love to take, forsooth —Little flowers were springing.Love sweetly laughed at this,And between kiss and kissFled with my heart in his:Winds warmly blowing.And with his sun and showerLove kept my heart in flower,As in the greenest bowerRose richly glowing.Till, worn at evensong,Love dropped my heart amongStones by the way ere long;Misprizèd token.There in the wind and rain,Trampled and rent in twain,Ne'er to be whole again,My heart lies broken.XXWhat magic is there in thy mien,What sorcery in thy smile,Which charms away all cark and care,Which turns the foul days into fair,And for a little whileChanges this disenchanted sceneFrom the sere leaf into the green,Transmuting with love's golden wandThis beggared life to fairyland?My heart goes forth to thee, oh friend,As some poor pilgrim to a shrine,A pilgrim who has come from farTo seek his spirit's folding star,And sees the taper shine;The goal to which his wanderings tend,Where want and weariness shall end,And kneels ecstatically blestBecause his heart hath entered rest.