Poems

EURYDICE

“Now must this waste of vain desire have end:Fetter these thoughts which traverse to and froThe road which has no issue! We are judged.O wherefore could I not uphold his heart?Why claimed I not some partnership with himIn the strict test, urging my right of wife?How have I let him fall? I, knowing theeMy Orpheus, bounteous giver of rich gifts,Not all inured in practice of the will,Worthier than I, yet weaker to sustainAn inner certitude against the blankAnd silence of the senses; so no moreMy heart helps thine, and henceforth there remainsNo gift to thee from me, who would give all,Only the memory of me growing faintUntil I seem a thing incredible,Some high, sweet dream, which was not, nor could be.Ay, and in idle fields of asphodelMust it not be that I shall fade indeed,No memory of me, but myself; these handsCeasing from mastery and use, my thoughtsLosing distinction in the vague, sweet air,The heart’s swift pulses slackening to the sobOf the forgetful river, with no deedPre-eminent to dare and to achieve,No joy for climbing to, no clear resolveFrom which the soul swerves never, no ill thingTo rid the world of, till I am no moreEurydice, and shouldst thou at thy timeDescend, and hope to find a helpmate here,I were grown slavish, like the girls men buySoft-bodied, foolish-faced, luxurious-eyed,And meet to be another thing than wife.Would that it had been thus: when the song ceasedAnd laughterless Aidoneus lifted upThe face, and turned his grave persistent eyesUpon the singer, I had forward steppedAnd spoken—‘King! he has wrought well, nor failed,Who ever heard divine large song like this,Keener than sunbeam, wider than the air,And shapely as the mould of faultless fruit?And now his heart upon the gale of songSoars with wide wing, and he is strong for flight,Not strong for treading with the careful foot:Grant me the naked trial of the willDivested of all colour, scents and song:The deed concerns the wife; I claim my share.’O then because Persephone was byWith shadowed eyes when Orpheus sang of flowers,He would have yielded. And I stepping forthFrom the clear radiance of the singer’s heights,Made calm through vision of his wider truth,And strengthened by deep beauty to hold fastThe presences of the invisible things,Had led the way. I know how in that moodHe leans on me as babe on mother’s breast,Nor could he choose but let his foot descendWhere mine left lightest pressure; so are passedThe brute three-visaged, and the flowerless ways,Nor have I turned my head; and now beholdThe greyness of remote terrestrial light,And I step swifter. Does he follow still?O surely since his will embraces mineCloser than clinging hand can clasp a hand:No need to turn and dull with visible proofThe certitude that soul relies on soul!So speed we to the day; and now we touchWarm grass, and drink the Sun. O Earth, O Sun,Not you I need, but Orpheus’ breast, and weepThe gladdest tears that ever woman shed,And may be weak awhile, and need to knowThe sustenance and comfort of his arms.Self-foolery of dreams; come bitter truth.Yet he has sung at least a perfect songWhile the Gods heard him, and I stood besideO not applauding, but at last content,Fearless for him, and calm through perfect joy,Seeing at length his foot upon the heightsOf highest song, by me discerned from far,Now suddenly attained in confidentAnd errorless ascension. Did I askThe lesser joy, lips’ touch and clasping arms,Or was not this salvation? For I urgedAlways, in jealous service to his art,‘Now thou hast told their secrets to the treesOf which they muse through lullèd summer nights;Thou hast gazed downwards in the formless gulfOf the brute-mind, and canst control the willOf snake, and brooding panther fiery-eyed,And lark in middle heaven: leave these behind!And let some careless singer of the fieldsSet to the shallow sound of cymbal-strokeThe Faun a-dance; some less true-tempered soul,Which cannot shape to harmony augustThe splendour and the tumult of the world,Inflame to frenzy of delirious rageThe Mœnad’s breast; yea, and the hearts of men,Smoke of whose fire upcurls from little roofs,Let singers of the wine-cup and the roast,The whirling spear, the toy-like chariot-race,And bickering counsel of contending kingsDelight them: leave thou these; sing thou for Gods.’And thou hast sung for Gods; and I have heard.I shall not fade beneath this sunless sky,Mixed in the wandering, ineffectual tribe;For these have known no moment when the soulStood vindicated, laying sudden handsOn immortality of joy, and loveWhich sought not, saw not, knew not, could not knowThe instruments of sense; I shall not fade.Yea, and thy face detains me evermoreWithin the realm of light. Love, wherefore blameThy heart because it sought me? Could the years’Whole sum of various fashioned happinessExceed the measure of that eager faceImportunate and pure, still lit with song,Turning from song to comfort of my love,And thirsty for my presence? We are saved!Yield Heracles, thou brawn and thews of Zeus,Yield up thy glory on Thessalian ground,Competitor of Death in single strife!The lyre methinks outdoes the club and fist,And beauty’s ingress the outrageous forceOf tyrant though beneficent; supremeThis feat remains, a memory shaped for Gods.Nor canst thou wholly lose me from thy life;Still I am with thee; still my hand keeps thine;Now I restrain from too intemperate griefBeing a portion of the thoughts that claimThy service; now I urge with that good painWhich wastes and feeds the spirit, a desireUnending; now I lurk within thy willAs vigour; now am gleaming through the worldAs beauty; and if greater thoughts must layTheir solemn light on thee, outshining mine,And in some far faint-gleaming hour of HellI stand unknown and muffled by the boatLeaning an eager ear to catch some speechOf thee, and if some comer tell aloudHow Orpheus who had loved EurydiceWas summoned by the Gods to fill with joyAnd clamour of celestial song the courtsOf bright Olympus,—I, with pang of prideAnd pain dissolved in rapture, will returnAppeased, with sense of conquest stern and high.”But while she spoke, upon a chestnut trunkFallen from cliffs of Thracian RhodopeSat Orpheus, for he deemed himself alone,And sang. But bands of wild-eyed women roamedThe hills, whom he had passed with calm disdain.And now the shrilling Berecynthian pipeSounded, blown horn, and frantic female cries:He ceased from song and looked for the event.

BY THE SEA

I. THE ASSUMPTION

Why would the open sky not be deniedPossession of me, when I sat to-dayRock-couched, and round my feet the soft slave lay,My singing Sea, dark-bosom’d, dusky-eyed?She breathed low mystery of song, she sighed,And stirred herself, and set lithe limbs to playIn blandishing serpent-wreaths, and would betrayAn anklet gleaming, or a swaying side.Why could she not detain me? Why must IDevote myself to the dread Heaven, adoreThe spacious pureness, the large ardour? whySprang forth my heart as though all wanderingsHad end? To what last bliss did I upsoarBeating on indefatigable wings?

II. THE ARTIST’S WAITING

Tender impatience quickening, quickening;O heart within me that art grown a sea,How vexed with longing all thy live waves be,How broken with desire! A ceaseless wingO’er every green sea-ridge goes fluttering,And there are cries and long reluctancy,Swift ardours, and the clash of waters free,Fain for the coming of some perfect Thing.Emerge white Wonder, be thou born a Queen!Let shine the splendours of thy lovelinessFrom the brow’s radiance to the equal poiseOf calm, victorious feet; let thy sereneCommand go forth; replenish with strong joysThe spaces and the sea-deeps measureless.

III. COUNSELLORS

Who are chief counsellors of me? Who knowMy heart’s desire and every secret thing?Three of one fellowship: the encompassingStrong Sea, who mindful of Earth’s ancient woeStill surges on with swift, undaunted flowThat no sad shore should lack his comforting;And next the serene Sky, whether he ringWith flawless blue a wilderness, or showTranced in the Twilight’s arms his fair child-star;Third of the three, eldest and lordliest,Love, all whose wings are wide above my head,Whose eyes are clearer heavens, whose lips have saidLow words more rare than the quired sea-songs are,—O Love, high things and stern thou counsellest.

IV. EVENING

Light ebbs from off the Earth; the fields are strange,Dusk, trackless, tenantless; now the mute skyResigns itself to Night and Memory,And no wind will yon sunken clouds derange,No glory enrapture them; from cot or grangeThe rare voice ceases; one long-breathèd sigh,And steeped in summer sleep the world must lie;All things are acquiescing in the change.Hush! while the vaulted hollow of the nightDeepens, what voice is this the sea sends forth,Disconsolate iterance, a passionless moan?Ah! now the Day is gone, and tyrannous Light,And the calm presence of fruit-bearing Earth:Cry, Sea! it is thy hour; thou art alone.

V. JOY

Spring-tides of Pleasure in the blood, keen thrillOf eager nerves,—but ended as a dream;Look! the wind quickens, and the long waves gleamShoreward, and all this deep noon hour will fillEach lone sea-cave with mirth immeasurable,Huge sport of Ocean’s brood; yet eve’s red skyFades o’er spent waters, weltering sullenly,The dank piled weed, the sand-waste grey and still.Sad Pleasure in the moon’s control! But JoyIs stable; is discovered law; the birthOf dreadful light; life’s one imperative way;The rigour hid in song; flowers’ strict employWhich turn to meet their sun; the roll of EarthSwift and perpetual through the night and day.

VI. OCEAN

More than bare mountains ’neath a naked sky,Or star-enchanted hollows of the nightWhen clouds are riven, or the most sacred lightOf summer dawns, art thou a mysteryAnd awe and terror and delight, O sea!Our Earth is simple-hearted, sad to-dayBeneath the hush of snow, next morning gayBecause west-winds have promised to the leaViolets and cuckoo-buds; and sweetly theseLive innocent lives, each flower in its green field,Joying as children in sun, air, and sleep.But thou art terrible, with the unrevealedBurden of dim lamentful prophecies,And thy lone life is passionate and deep.

VII. NEWS FOR LONDON

Whence may I glean a just return, my friend,For tidings of your great world hither borne?What garbs of new opinion men have wornI wot not, nor what fame world-without-endSprouted last night, nor know I to contendFor Irving or the Italian; but forlornIn this odd angle of the isle from mornTill eve, nor sow, nor reap, nor get, nor spend.Yet have I heard the sea-gulls scream for gleeTreading the drenched rock-ridges, and the galeHiss over tremulous heath-bells, while the beeDriven sidelong quested low; and I have seenThe live sea-hollows, and moving mounds grey-green,And watched the flying foam-bow flush and fail.

AMONG THE ROCKS

Never can we be strangers, you and I,Nor quite disown our mysteries of kin,Grey Sea-rocks, since I sat an hour to-dayCompanion of the Ocean and of you.I, sensitive soft flesh a thorn invades,The light breath of a rose can win aside,Flesh fashioned to be hourly tried and thrill’d,Delighted, tortured, to betray whose wardThe unready heart is ruler, still surprised,With emissary flushes swift and false,And tremulous to touches of the stars.You, spiny ridges of the land, rude backs,Clawless and wingless, half-created things,Monsters at ease before the sun and sea,Untamed, unshrinking, unpersuadable,My kindred.For the wide-delivering wombWhich casts abroad a mammoth as a man,And still conceals the new and better birth,Bore me and you. Old parents of the SphinxWhat words primeval murmured in my earsTo-day between the lapping of the waves?What recognitions flashed and disappeared?What rare faint touches passed of sympathyFrom you to me, from me to you? What senseOf the ancestral things shadowed the heart,Cloud-like, and with the pleasure of a cloud.Therefore I know from henceforth that the shrillShort crying of the sea-lark when his feetTouch where the wave slips off the shining sandPierces you; and the wide and luminous airImpregnate with sharp sea smells is to youA passion and allurement; and the sunAt mid-day loads your sense with drowsy warmth,And in the waver and echo of your caves,You cherish memories of the billowy chaunt,And ponder its dim prophecy.And I,—Lo here I strike upon the granite too,Something is here austere and obdurateAs you are, something rugged and untamed.A strength behind the will. I am not allThe shapely, agile creature named a man,So artful, with the quick-conceiving brain,Nerve-network, and the hand to grasp and hold,Most dexterous of kinds that wage the strifeOf being through the years. I am not allThis creature with the various heart, aliveTo curious joys, rare anguish, skilled in shames,Prides, hatreds, loves, fears, frauds, the heart which turnsA sudden venomous asp, the heart which bleedsThe red, great drops of glad self-sacrifice.Pierce below these and seek the primal layer!Behind Apollo loom the Earth-born Ones,Half-god, half-brute; behind this symmetry,This versatility of heart and brainA strength abides, sustaining thought and love,Untamed, unshrinking, unpersuadable,At ease before the powers of Earth and Heaven,Equal to any, of no younger years,Calm as the greatest, haughty as the best,Of imprescriptible authority.Down upon you I sink, and leave myself,My vain, frail self, and find repose on you,Prime Force, whether amassed through myriad yearsFrom dear accretions of dead ancestry,Or ever welling from the source of thingsIn undulation vast and unperceived,Down upon you I sink and lose myself!My child that shouts and races on the sandYour cry restores me. Have I been with Pan,Kissing the hoofs of his goat-majesty?You come, no granite of the nether earth,Bright sea-flower rather, shining foam that flies,Yet sweet as blossom of our inland fields.

TO A YEAR

Fly, Year, not backward down blind gulfs of night,Thick with the swarm of miscreated things:Forth, flying year, through calms and broader light,Clear-eyed, strong-bosom’d year, on strenuous wings;Bearing a song more high-intoned, more holyThan the wild Swan’s melodious melancholy,More rapturous than the atom lark outflings.I follow on slow foot and unsubdued:Have I not heard thy cry across the wind?Not seen thee, Slayer of the serpent brood,—Error, and doubt, and death, and anguish blind?I follow, I shall know thee by thy plumesFlame-tipped, when on that morn of conquered tombs,I praise amidst my years the doom assigned.

A SONG OF THE NEW DAY

The tender Sorrows of the twilight leave me,And shall I want the fanning of smooth wings?Shall I not miss sweet sorrows? Will it grieve meTo hear no cooing from soft dove-like things?Let Evening hear them! O wide Dawn uprisen,Know me all thine; and ye, whose level flightHas pierced the drear hours and the cloudy prison,Cry for the pathless spaces and the light!

SWALLOWS

Wide fields of air left luminous,Though now the uplands comprehendHow the sun’s loss is ultimate:The silence grows; but still to usFrom yon air-winnowing breasts elateThe tiny shrieks of glee descend.Deft wings, each moment is resignedSome touch of day, some pulse of light,While yet in poised, delicious curve,Ecstatic doublings down the wind,Light dash and dip and sidelong swerve,You try each dainty trick of flight.Will not your airy glee relentAt all? The aimless frolic cease?Know ye no touch of quelling pain,Nor joy’s more strict admonishment,No tender awe at day-light’s wane,Ye slaves of delicate caprice?Hush, once again that cry intense!High-venturing spirits have your will!Urge the last freak, prolong your glee,Keen voyagers, while still the immenseSea-spaces haunt your memory,With zests and pangs ineffable.Not in the sunshine of old woodsYe won your warrant to be gayBy duteous, sweet observances,Who dared through darkening solitudes,And ’mid the hiss of alien seas,The larger ordinance obey.

MEMORIALS OF TRAVEL

I. COACHING

(In Scotland)Where have I been this perfect summer day,—Or fortnight is it, since I rose from bed,Devour’d that kippered fish, the oatmeal bread,And mounted to this box? O bowl awaySwift stagers through the dusk, I will not say“Enough,” nor care where I have been or be,Nor know one name of hill, or lake, or lea,Or moor, or glen! Were not the clouds at playNameless among the hills, and fair as dreams?On such a day we must love things not words,And memory take or leave them as they are.On such a day! What unimagined streamsAre in the world, how many haunts of birds,What fields and flowers,—and what an evening Star!

II. IN A MOUNTAIN PASS

(In Scotland)To what wild blasts of tyrannous harmonyUprose these rocky walls, mass threatening mass,Dusk, shapeless shapes, around a desolate pass?What deep heart of the ancient hills set freeThe passion, the desire, the destinyOf this lost stream? Yon clouds that break and form,Light vanward squadrons of the joyous storm,They gather hither from what untrack’d sea?Primeval kindred! here the mind regainsIts vantage ground against the world; here thoughtWings up the silent waste of air on broadUndaunted pinion; man’s imperial painsAre ours, and visiting fears, and joy unsought,Native resolve, and partnership with God.

III. THE CASTLE

(In Scotland)The tenderest ripple touched and touched the shore;The tenderest light was in the western sky;—Its one soft phrase, closing reluctantly,The sea articulated o’er and o’erTo comfort all tired things; and one might pore,Till mere oblivion took the heart and eye,On that slow-fading, amber radiancyPast the long levels of the ocean-floor.A turn,—the castle fronted me, four-square,Holding its seaward crag, abrupt, intenseAgainst the west, an apparition boldOf naked human will; I stood aware,With sea and sky, of powers unowned of sense,Presences awful, vast, and uncontrolled.

IV. Άισθητιχή φαντασία

(In Ireland)The sound is in my ears of mountain streams!I cannot close my lids but some grey rentOf wildered rock, some water’s clear descentIn shattering crystal, pine-trees soft as dreamsWaving perpetually, the sudden gleamsOf remote sea, a dear surprise of flowers,Some grace or wonder of to-day’s long hoursStraightway possesses the moved sense, which teemsWith fantasy unbid. O fair, large day!The unpractised sense brings heavings from a seaOf life too broad, and yet the billows range,The elusive footing glides. Come, Sleep, allayThe trouble with thy heaviest balms, and changeThese pulsing visions to still Memory.

V. ON THE SEA-CLIFF

(In Ireland)Ruins of a church with its miraculous well,O’er which the Christ, a squat-limbed dwarf of stone,Great-eyed, and huddled on his cross, has knownThe sea-mists and the sunshine, stars that fellAnd stars that rose, fierce winter’s chronicle,And centuries of dead summers. From his throneFronting the dawn the elf has ruled alone,And saved this region fair from pagan hell.Turn! June’s great joy abroad; each bird, flower, streamLoves life, loves love; wide ocean amorouslySpreads to the sun’s embrace; the dulse-weeds sway,The glad gulls are afloat. Grey Christ to-dayOur ban on thee! Rise, let the white breasts gleam,Unvanquished Venus of the northern sea!

VI. ASCETIC NATURE

(In Ireland)Passion and song, and the adornèd hoursOf floral loveliness, hopes grown most sweet,And generous patience in the ripening heat,A mother’s bosom, a bride’s face of flowers—Knows Nature aught so fair? Witness ye PowersWhich rule the virgin heart of this retreatTo rarer issues, ye who render meetEarth, purged and pure, for gracious heavenly dowers!The luminous pale lake, the pearl-grey sky,The wave that gravely murmurs meek desires,The abashed yet lit expectance of the whole,—These and their beauty speak of earthly firesLong quenched, clear aims, deliberate sanctity,—O’er the white forehead lo! the aureole.

VII. RELICS

(In Switzerland)What relic of the dear, dead yesterdayShall my heart keep? The visionary lightOf dawn? Alas! it is a thing too bright,God does not give such memories away.Nor choose I one fair flower of those that swayTo the chill breathing of the waterfallIn rocky angles black with scattering spray,Fair though no sunbeam lays its coronalOf light on their pale brows; nor glacier-gleamI choose, nor eve’s red glamour; ’twas at noonResting I found this speedwell, while a stream,That knew the immemorial inland croon,Sang in my ears, and lulled me to a dreamOf English meadows, and one perfect June.

VIII. ON THE PIER OF BOULOGNE

(A Reminiscence of 1870)A venal singer to a thrumming noteChanted the civic war-song, that red flowerOf melody seized in a sudden hourBy frenzied winds of change, and borne afloatA live light in the storm; and now by roteTo a cold crowd, while vague and sad the tideLoomed after sunset and the grey gulls cried,The verses quavered from a hireling throat.Wherefore should English eyes their right forbear,Or droop for smitten France? let the tossed sou,Before they turn, be quittance for the stare.O Lady, who, clear-voiced, with impulse trueTo lift that cry “To Arms!” alone would dare,My heart received a golden alms from you!

IX. DOVER

(In a Field)A joy has met me on this English groundI looked not for. O gladness, fields still green!Listen,—the going of a murmurous soundAlong the corn; there is not to be seenIn all the land a single pilèd sheafOr line of grain new-fallen, and not a treeHas felt as yet within its lightest leafThe year’s despair; nay, Summer saves for meHer bright, late flowers. O my Summer-timeNamed low as lost, I turn, and find you here—Where else but in our blessed English climeThat lingers o’er the sweet days of the year,Days of long dreaming under spacious skiesEre melancholy winds of Autumn rise.

AN AUTUMN SONG

Long Autumn rain;White mists which choke the vale, and blot the sidesOf the bewildered hills; in all the plainNo field agleam where the gold pageant was,And silent o’er a tangle of drenched grassThe blackbird glides.In the heart,—fire,Fire and clear air and cries of water-springs,And large, pure winds; all April’s quick desire,All June’s possession; a most fearless EarthDrinking great ardours; and the rapturous birthOf wingèd things.

BURDENS

Are sorrows hard to bear,—the ruinOf flowers, the rotting of red fruit,A love’s decease, a life’s undoing,And summer slain, and song-birds mute,And skies of snow and bitter air?These things, you deem, are hard to bear.But ah, the burden, the delightOf dreadful joys! Noon opening wide,Golden and great; the gulfs of night,Fair deaths, and rent veils cast aside,Strong soul to strong soul rendered up,And silence filling like a cup.

SONG

(From “’Tis Pity she’s a Queen.”—A.D. 1610.)

ACT IV. SCENE 2

The Lady Margaret, with Susan and Lucy; Lady M. at her embroidery frame, singingGirls, when I am gone away,On this bosom strewOnly flowers meek and pale,And the yew.Lay these hands down by my side,Let my face be bare;Bind a kerchief round the face,Smooth my hair.Let my bier be borne at dawn,Summer grows so sweet,Deep into the forest greenWhere boughs meet.Then pass away, and let me lieOne long, warm, sweet dayThere alone with face upturn’d,One sweet day.While the morning light grows broad,While noon sleepeth sound,While the evening falls and faints,While the world goes round.Susan. Whence had you this song, lady?L. Mar. Out of the air;From no one an it be not from the windThat goes at noonday in the sycamore trees.—When said the tardy page he would return?Susan. By twelve, upon this very hour.L. Mar. Look now,The sand falls down the glass with even pace,The shadows lie like yesterday’s. NothingIs wrong with the world. You are a part of it,—I stand within a magic circle charm’dFrom reach of anything, shut in from you,Leagues from my needle, and this frame I touch,Waiting till doomsday come—[Knocking heard] The messenger!Quick, I will wait you here, and hold my heartReady for death, or too much ravishment.[Exeunt both Girls.]How the little sand-hill slides and slides; how manyRed grains would drop while a man’s keen knife drawnAcross one’s heart let the red life out?Susan. [returning] Lady!L. Mar. I know it by your eyes. O do not fearTo tell all punctually: I am carved of stone.

BY THE WINDOW

Still deep into the West I gazed; the lightClear, spiritual, tranquil as a birdWide-winged that soars on the smooth gale and sleeps,Was it from sun far-set or moon unrisen?Whether from moon, or sun, or angel’s faceIt held my heart from motion, stayed my blood,Betrayed each rising thought to quiet deathAlong the blind charm’d way to nothingness,Lull’d the last nerve that ached. It was a skyMade for a man to waste his will upon,To be received as wiser than all toil,And much more fair. And what was strife of men?And what was time?Then came a certain thing.Are intimations for the elected soulDubious, obscure, of unauthentic powerSince ghostly to the intellectual eye,Shapeless to thinking? Nay, but are not weServile to words and an usurping brain,Infidels of our own high mysteries,Until the senses thicken and lose the world,Until the imprisoned soul forgets to see,And spreads blind fingers forth to reach the day,Which once drank light, and fed on angels’ food?It happened swiftly, came and straight was gone.One standing on some aery balconyAnd looking down upon a swarming crowdSees one man beckon to him with finger-tipWhile eyes meet eyes; he turns and looks again—The man is lost, and the crowd sways and swarms.Shall such an one say “Thus ’tis proved a dream,And no hand beckoned, no eyes met my own?”Neither can I say this. There was a hint,A thrill, a summons faint yet absolute,Which ran across the West; the sky was touch’d,And failed not to respond. Does a hand passLightly across your hair? you feel it passNot half so heavy as a cobweb’s weight,Although you never stir; so felt the skyNot unaware of the Presence, so my soulScarce less aware. And if I cannot sayThe meaning and monition, words are weakWhich will not paint the small wing of a moth,Nor bear a subtile odour to the brain,And much less serve the soul in her large needs.I cannot tell the meaning, but a changeWas wrought in me; it was not the one manWho come to the luminous window to gaze forth,And who moved back into the darkened roomWith awe upon his heart and tender hope;From some deep well of life tears rose; the throngOf dusty cares, hopes, pleasures, prides fell off,And from a sacred solitude I gazedDeep, deep into the liquid eyes of Life.