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

BELOW HER WINDOW

Where she sleeps, no moonlight shines   No pale beam unbidden creeps.Darkest shade the place enshrines      Where she sleeps.Like a diamond in the deeps   Of the rich unopened minesThere her lovely rest she keeps.Though the jealous dark confines   All her beauty, Love’s heart leaps.His unerring thought divines      Where she sleeps.

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 seeThe 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 stoneAscending 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 lightMade 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 herWhom they called Ursula.  The moonlight fellBrightly 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 eyesDeep rings recorded sleepless nights, and criesStifled before their birth.  Her brow was pale,And like a marble temple in a valeOf 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 breathCame from between them, it were hard to knowBy any movement of her breast of snow.But when the summer night was now far spent,She kneeled upon the floor.  Her head she leantDown on the cold stone of the window-seat.God knows if there were any vital heatIn 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 apartFrom all that once I knew?  O Holy God,Is this the blessed chastening of Thy rod,Which only wounds to heal?  Is this the crossThat I must carry, counting all for lossWhich 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 worldRevisit me.  The pale blue smoke is curledUp from the dwellings of the sons of men.I see it, and all my heart turns back againFrom 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 refreshThe 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 yetAmong the friends they tell me to forget,I never seemed to seek Thee, but I foundThou 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 soulFrom hasting unencumbered to her goal.And all this have I done, or else have strivenTo do, obeying the behest of Heaven,And my reward is bitterness.  I seemTo wander always in a feverish dreamOn 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 curseGod, 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 soulThat 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 towersWere gilt with glory by the golden hours.But where was Ursula?  The sisters cameWith quiet footsteps, calling her by name,But there was none that answered.  In her cell,The glad, illuminating sunshine fellOn 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 traceOf its unequalled beauty still,   As ruined sanctuaries hold   A crumbled trace of perfect mouldIn 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 strangeThat 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 earthDo we derive our birth.What were our singing worth   Were this the whole?Somewhere from heaven afarHath 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 threadBe 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 sureThat 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 rareThe 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 smileI 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 startA 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 passTill 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 betterTo 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 flowThe 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 winLilies, woodbine, jessamine,I will make a path therein   For thy feet to rest.If there live in honour’s sway   An all-loving breastWhose devotion cannot stray,   Never gloom-oppressed —If this noble breast still wakeFor 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 aloneThere 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 skyThrough 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!

THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

Oh, who may this dead warrior be   That to his grave they bring?’Tis William, Duke of Normandy,   The conqueror and king.Across the sea, with fire and sword,   The English crown he won;The lawless Scots they owned him lord,   But now his rule is done.A king should die from length of years,   A conqueror in the field,A king amid his people’s tears,   A conqueror on his shield.But he, who ruled by sword and flame,   Who swore to ravage France,Like some poor serf without a name,   Has died by mere mischance.To Caen now he comes to sleep,   The minster bells they toll,A solemn sound it is and deep,   May God receive his soul!With priests that chant a wailing hymn,   He slowly comes this way,To where the painted windows dim   The lively light of day.He enters in.  The townsfolk stand   In reverent silence round,To see the lord of all the land   Take house in narrow ground.While, in the dwelling-place he seeks,   To lay him they prepare,One Asselin FitzArthur speaks,   And bids the priests forbear.‘The ground whereon this abbey stands   Is mine,’ he cries, ‘by right.’Twas wrested from my father’s hands   By lawlessness and might.Duke William took the land away,   To build this minster high.Bury the robber where ye may,   But here he shall not lie.’The holy brethren bid him cease;   But he will not be stilled,And soon the house of God’s own peace   With noise and strife is filled.And some cry shame on Asselin,   Such tumult to excite,Some say, it was Duke William’s sin,   And Asselin does right.But he round whom their quarrels keep,   Lies still and takes no heed.No strife can mar a dead man’s sleep,   And this is rest indeed.Now Asselin at length is won   The land’s full price to take,And let the burial rites go on,   And so a peace they make.When Harold, king of Englishmen,   Was killed in Senlac fight,Duke William would not yield him then   A Christian grave or rite.Because he fought for keeping free   His kingdom and his throne,No Christian rite nor grave had he   In land that was his own.And just it is, this Duke unkind,   Now he has come to die,In plundered land should hardly find   Sufficient space to lie.

THE DEATH OF WILLIAM RUFUS

The Red King’s gone a-hunting, in the woods his father madeFor the tall red deer to wander through the thicket and the glade,The King and Walter Tyrrel, Prince Henry and the restAre all gone out upon the sport the Red King loves the best.Last night, when they were feasting in the royal banquet-hall,De Breteuil told a dream he had, that evil would befallIf the King should go to-morrow to the hunting of the deer,And while he spoke, the fiery face grew well-nigh pale to hear.He drank until the fire came back, and all his heart was brave,Then bade them keep such woman’s tales to tell an English slave,For he would hunt to-morrow, though a thousand dreams foretoldAll the sorrow and the mischief De Breteuil’s brain could hold.So the Red King’s gone a-hunting, for all that they could do,And an arrow in the greenwood made De Breteuil’s dream come true.They said ’twas Walter Tyrrel, and so it may have been,But there’s many walk the forest when the leaves are thick and green.There’s many walk the forest, who would gladly see the sport,When the King goes out a-hunting with the nobles of his court,And when the nobles scatter, and the King is left alone,There are thickets where an English slave might string his bow unknown.The forest laws are cruel, and the time is hard as steelTo English slaves, trod down and bruised beneath the Norman heel.Like worms they writhe, but by-and-by the Norman heel may learnThere are worms that carry poison, and that are not slow to turn.The lords came back, by one and two, from straying far apart,And they found the Red King lying with an arrow in his heart.Who should have done the deed, but him by whom it first was seen?So they said ’twas Walter Tyrrel, and so it may have been.They cried upon Prince Henry, the brother of the King,And he came up the greenwood, and rode into the ring.He looked upon his brother’s face, and then he turned away,And galloped off to Winchester, where all the treasure lay.‘God strike me,’ cried De Breteuil, ‘but brothers’ blood is thin!And why should ours be thicker that are neither kith nor kin?’They spurred their horses in the flank, and swiftly thence they passed,But Walter Tyrrel lingered and forsook his liege the last.They say it was enchantment, that fixed him to the scene,To look upon his traitor’s work, and so it may have been.But presently he got to horse, and took the seaward way,And all alone within the glade, in state the Red King lay.Then a creaking cart came slowly, which a charcoal-burner drove.He found the dead man lying, a ghastly treasure-trove;He raised the corpse for charity, and on his wagon laid,And so the Red King drove in state from out the forest glade.His hair was like a yellow flame about the bloated face,The blood had stained his tunic from the fatal arrow-place.Not good to look upon was he, in life, nor yet when dead.The driver of the cart drove on, and never turned his head.When next the nobles throng at night the royal banquet-hall,Another King will rule the feast, the drinking and the brawl,While Walter Tyrrel walks alone upon the Norman shore,And the Red King in the forest will chase the deer no more.

AFTER WATERLOO

On the field of Waterloo we made Napoleon rue   That ever out of Elba he decided for to come,For we finished him that day, and he had to run away,   And yield himself to Maitland on the Billy-ruffium.’Twas a stubborn fight, no doubt, and the fortune wheeled about,   And the brave Mossoos kept coming most uncomfortable near,And says Wellington the hero, as his hopes went down to zero,   ‘I wish to God that Blooker or the night was only here!’But Blooker came at length, and we broke Napoleon’s strength,   And the flower of his army – that’s the old Imperial Guard —They made a final sally, but they found they could not rally,   And at last they broke and fled, after fighting bitter hard.Now Napoleon he had thought, when a British ship he sought,   And gave himself uncalled-for, in a manner, you might say,He’d be treated like a king with the best of every thing,   And maybe have a palace for to live in every day.He was treated very well, as became a noble swell,   But we couldn’t leave him loose, not in Europe anywhere,For we knew he would be making some gigantic undertaking,   While the trustful British lion was reposing in his lair.We tried him once before near the European shore,   Having planted him in Elba, where he promised to remain,But when he saw his chance, why, he bolted off to France,   And he made a lot of trouble – but it wouldn’t do again.Says the Prince to him, ‘You know, far away you’ll have to go,   To a pleasant little island off the coast of Africay,Where they tell me that the view of the ocean deep and blue,   Is remarkable extensive, and it’s there you’ll have to stay.’So Napoleon wiped his eye, and he wished the Prince good-bye,   And being stony-broke, made the best of it he could,And they kept him snugly pensioned, where his Royal Highness mentioned,   And Napoleon Boneyparty is provided for for good.Now of that I don’t complain, but I ask and ask in vain,   Why me, a British soldier, as has lost a useful armThrough fighting of the foe, when the trumpets ceased to blow,   Should be forced to feed the pigs on a little Surrey farm,While him as fought with us, and created such a fuss,   And in the whole of Europe did a mighty deal of harm,Should be kept upon a rock, like a precious fighting cock,   And be found in beer and baccy, which would suit me to a charm?