Poems. Volume 3

Iliad, xiv, 283

HYPNOS ON IDAThey then to fountain-abundant Ida, mother of wild beasts,Came, and they first left ocean to fare over mainland at Lektos,Where underneath of their feet waved loftiest growths of the woodland.There hung Hypnos fast, ere the vision of Zeus was observant,Mounted upon a tall pine-tree, tallest of pines that on IdaLustily spring off soil for the shoot up aloft into aether.There did he sit well-cloaked by the wide-branched pine for concealment,That loud bird, in his form like, that perched high up in the mountains,Chalkis is named by the Gods, but of mortals known as Kymindis.

Iliad, xvii, 426

CLASH IN ARMS OF THE ACHAIANS AND TROJANSNot the sea-wave so bellows abroad when it bursts upon shingle,Whipped from the sea’s deeps up by the terrible blast of the Northwind;Nay, nor is ever the roar of the fierce fire’s rush so arousing,Down along mountain-glades, when it surges to kindle a woodland;Nay, nor so tonant thunders the stress of the gale in the oak-trees’Foliage-tresses high, when it rages to raveing its utmost;As rose then stupendous the Trojan’s cry and Achaians’,Dread upshouting as one when together they clashed in the conflict.

Iliad, xvii, 426

THE HORSES OF ACHILLESSo now the horses of Aiakides, off wide of the war-ground,Wept, since first they were ware of their charioteer overthrown there,Cast down low in the whirl of the dust under man-slaying Hector.Sooth, meanwhile, then did Automedon, brave son of Diores,Oft, on the one hand, urge them with flicks of the swift whip, and oft, too,Coax entreatingly, hurriedly; whiles did he angrily threaten.Vainly, for these would not to the ships, to the Hellespont spacious,Backward turn, nor be whipped to the battle among the Achaians.Nay, as a pillar remains immovable, fixed on the tombstone,Haply, of some dead man or it may be a woman there-under;Even like hard stood they there attached to the glorious war-car,Earthward bowed with their heads; and of them so lamenting incessantRan the hot teardrops downward on to the earth from their eyelids,Mourning their charioteer; all their lustrous manes dusty-clotted,Right side and left of the yoke-ring tossed, to the breadth of the yoke-bow.   Now when the issue of Kronos beheld that sorrow, his head shookPitying them for their grief, these words then he spake in his bosom;“Why, ye hapless, gave we to Peleus you, to a mortalMaster; ye that are ageless both, ye both of you deathless!Was it that ye among men most wretched should come to have heart-grief?’Tis most true, than the race of these men is there wretcheder nowhereAught over earth’s range found that is gifted with breath and has movement.”

THE MARES OF THE CAMARGUE

FROM THE ‘MIRÈIO’ OF MISTRAL   A hundred mares, all white! their manes   Like mace-reed of the marshy plains   Thick-tufted, wavy, free o’ the shears:   And when the fiery squadron rears   Bursting at speed, each mane appears   Even as the white scarf of a fayFloating upon their necks along the heavens away.   O race of humankind, take shame!   For never yet a hand could tame,   Nor bitter spur that rips the flanks subdue   The mares of the Camargue.  I have known,   By treason snared, some captives shown;   Expatriate from their native Rhone,Led off, their saline pastures far from view:   And on a day, with prompt rebound,   They have flung their riders to the ground,   And at a single gallop, scouring free,   Wide-nostril’d to the wind, twice ten   Of long marsh-leagues devour’d, and then,   Back to the Vacarés again,After ten years of slavery just to breathe salt sea   For of this savage race unbent,   The ocean is the element.   Of old escaped from Neptune’s car, full sure,   Still with the white foam fleck’d are they,   And when the sea puffs black from grey,   And ships part cables, loudly neighThe stallions of Camargue, all joyful in the roar;   And keen as a whip they lash and crack   Their tails that drag the dust, and back   Scratch up the earth, and feel, entering their flesh, where he,   The God, drives deep his trident teeth,   Who in one horror, above, beneath,   Bids storm and watery deluge seethe,And shatters to their depths the abysses of the sea. Cant. iv.

‘ATKINS’

Yonder’s the man with his life in his hand,Legs on the march for whatever the land,   Or to the slaughter, or to the maiming,      Getting the dole of a dog for pay.Laurels he clasps in the words ‘duty done,’England his heart under every sun:—   Exquisite humour! that gives him a naming      Base to the ear as an ass’s bray.

THE VOYAGE OF THE ‘OPHIR’

Men of our race, we send you oneRound whom Victoria’s holy nameIs halo from the sunken sunOf her grand Summer’s day aflame.The heart of your loved Motherland,To them she loves as her own blood,This Flower of Ocean bears in hand,   Assured of gift as good.Forth for our Southern shores the fleetWhich crowns a nation’s wisdom steams,That there may Briton Briton greet,And stamp as fact Imperial dreams.Across the globe, from sea to sea,The long smoke-pennon trails above,Writes over sky how wise will be   The Power that trusts to love.A love that springs from heart and brainIn union gives for ripest fruitThe concord Kings and States in vainHave sought, who played the lofty brute,And fondly deeming they possessed,On force relied, and found it break:That truth once scored on Britain’s breast   Now keeps her mind awake.Australian, Canadian,To tone old veins with streams of youth,Our trust be on the best in manHenceforth, and we shall prove that truth.Prove to a world of brows down-bentThat in the Britain thus endowed,Imperial means beneficent,   And strength to service vowed.

THE CRISIS

Spirit of Russia, now has comeThe day when thou canst not be dumb.Around thee foams the torrent tide,Above thee its fell fountain, Pride.The senseless rock awaits thy wordTo crumble; shall it be unheard?Already, like a tempest-sun,That shoots the flare and shuts to dun,Thy land ’twixt flame and darkness heaves,Showing the blade wherewith Fate cleaves,If mortals in high courage failAt the one breath before the gale.Those rulers in all forms of lust,Who trod thy children down to dustOn the red Sunday, know right wellWhat word for them thy voice would spell,What quick perdition for them weave,Did they in such a voice believe.Not thine to raise the avenger’s shriek,Nor turn to them a Tolstoi cheek;Nor menace him, the waverer still,Man of much heart and little will,The criminal of his high seat,Whose plea of Guiltless judges it.For him thy voice shall bring to handSalvation, and to thy torn land,Seen on the breakers.  Now has comeThe day when thou canst not be dumb,Spirit of Russia:—those who bindThy limbs and iron-cap thy mind,Take thee for quaking flesh, misdoubtThat thou art of the rabble routWhich cries and flees, with whimpering lip,From reckless gun and brutal whip;But he who has at heart the deedsOf thy heroic offspring readsIn them a soul; not given to shrinkFrom peril on the abyss’s brink;With never dread of murderous power;With view beyond the crimson hour;Neither an instinct-driven might,Nor visionary erudite;A soul; that art thou.  It remainsFor thee to stay thy children’s veins,The countertides of hate arrest,Give to thy sons a breathing breast,And Him resembling, in His sight,Say to thy land, Let there be Light.

OCTOBER 21, 1905

   The hundred years have passed, and he   Whose name appeased a nation’s fears,   As with a hand laid over sea;   To thunder through the foeman’s ears   Defeat before his blast of fire;   Lives in the immortalityThat poets dream and noblest souls desire.   Never did nation’s need evoke   Hero like him for aid, the while   A Continent was cannon-smoke   Or peace in slavery: this one Isle   Reflecting Nature: this one man   Her sea-hound and her mortal stroke,With war-worn body aye in battle’s van.   And do we love him well, as well   As he his country, we may greet,   With hand on steel, our passing bell   Nigh on the swing, for prelude sweet   To the music heard when his last breath   Hung on its ebb beside the knell,And Victory in his ear sang gracious Death.   Ah, day of glory! day of tears!   Day of a people bowed as one!   Behold across those hundred years   The lion flash of gun at gun:   Our bitter pride; our love bereaved;   What pall of cloud o’ercame our sunThat day, to bear his wreath, the end achieved.   Joy that no more with murder’s frown   The ancient rivals bark apart.   Now Nelson to brave France is shown   A hero after her own heart:   And he now scanning that quick race,   To whom through life his glove was thrown,Would know a sister spirit to embrace.

THE CENTENARY OF GARIBALDI

We who have seen Italia in the throes,Half risen but to be hurled to ground, and nowLike a ripe field of wheat where once drove ploughAll bounteous as she is fair, we think of thoseWho blew the breath of life into her frame:Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi: Three:Her Brain, her Soul, her Sword; and set her freeFrom ruinous discords, with one lustrous aim.That aim, albeit they were of minds diverse,Conjoined them, not to strive without surcease;For them could be no babblement of peaceWhile lay their country under Slavery’s curse.The set of torn Italia’s glorious dayWas ever sunrise in each filial breast.Of eagle beaks by righteousness unblestThey felt her pulsing body made the prey.Wherefore they struck, and had to count their dead.With bitter smile of resolution nervedTo try new issues, holding faith unswerved,Promise they gathered from the rich blood shed.In them Italia, visible to us thenAs living, rose; for proof that huge brute ForceHas never being from celestial source,And is the lord of cravens, not of men.Now breaking up the crust of temporal strife,Who reads their acts enshrined in History, seesThat Tyrants were the Revolutionaries,The Rebels men heart-vowed to hallowed life.Pure as the Archangel’s cleaving Darkness thro’,The Sword he sees, the keen unwearied Sword,A single blade against a circling horde,And aye for Freedom and the trampled few.The cry of Liberty from dungeon cell,From exile, was his God’s command to smite,As for a swim in sea he joined the fight,With radiant face, full sure that he did well.Behold a warrior dealing mortal strokes,Whose nature was a child’s: amid his foesA wary trickster: at the battle’s close,No gentler friend this leopard dashed with fox.Down the long roll of History will runThe story of these deeds, and speed his raceBeneath defeat more hotly to embraceThe noble cause and trust to another sun.And lo, that sun is in Italia’s skiesThis day, by grace of his good sword in part.It beckons her to keep a warrior heartFor guard of beauty, all too sweet a prize.Earth gave him: blessèd be the Earth that gave.Earth’s Master crowned his honest work on earth:Proudly Italia names his place of birth:The bosom of Humanity his grave.

THE WILD ROSE

High climbs June’s wild rose,Her bush all blooms in a swarm;And swift from the bud she blows,In a day when the wooer is warm;Frank to receive and give,Her bosom is open to bee and sun:Pride she has none,Nor shame she knows;Happy to live.Unlike those of the garden nigh,Her queenly sisters enthroned by art;Loosening petals one by oneTo the fiery Passion’s dartSuperbly shy.For them in some glory of hair,Or nest of the heaving mounds to lie,Or path of the bride bestrew.Ever are they the theme for song.But nought of that is her share.Hardly from wayfarers tramping along,A glance they care not to renew.And she at a word of the claims of kinShrinks to the level of roads and meads:She is only a plain princess of the weeds,As an outcast witless of sin:Much disregarded, save by the fewWho love her, that has not a spot of deceit,No promise of sweet beyond sweet,Often descending to sour.On any fair breast she would die in an hour.Praises she scarce could bear,Were any wild poet to praise.Her aim is to rise into light and air.One of the darlings of Earth, no more,And little it seems in the dusty ways,Unless to the grasses nodding beneath;The bird clapping wings to soar,The clouds of an evetide’s wreath.

THE CALL

   Under what spell are we debased      By fears for our inviolate Isle,   Whose record is of dangers faced      And flung to heel with even smile?Is it a vaster force, a subtler guile?   They say Exercitus designs      To match the famed Salsipotent   Where on her sceptre she reclines;      Awake: but were a slumber sentBy guilty gods, more fell his foul intent.   The subtler web, the vaster foe,      Well may we meet when drilled for deeds:   But in these days of wealth at flow,      A word of breezy warning breedsThe pained responses seen in lakeside reeds.   We fain would stand contemplative,      All innocent as meadow grass;   In human goodness fain believe,      Believe a cloud is formed to pass;Its shadows chase with draughts of hippocras.   Others have gone; the way they went      Sweet sunny now, and safe our nest.   Humanity, enlightenment,      Against the warning hum protest:Let the world hear that we know what is best.   So do the beatific speak;      Yet have they ears, and eyes as well;   And if not with a paler cheek,      They feel the shivers in them dwell,That something of a dubious future tell.   For huge possessions render slack      The power we need to hold them fast;   Save when a quickened heart shall make      Our people one, to meet what blastMay blow from temporal heavens overcast.   Our people one!  Nor they with strength      Dependent on a single arm:   Alert, and braced the whole land’s length,      Rejoicing in their manhood’s charmFor friend or foe; to succour, not to harm.   Has ever weakness won esteem?      Or counts it as a prized ally?   They who have read in History deem      It ranks among the slavish fry,Whose claim to live justiciary Fates deny.   It can not be declared we are      A nation till from end to end   The land can show such front to war      As bids a crouching foe expendHis ire in air, and preferably be friend.   We dreading him, we do him wrong;      For fears discolour, fears invite.   Like him, our task is to be strong;      Unlike him, claiming not by mightTo snatch an envied treasure as a right.   So may a stouter brotherhood      At home be signalled over sea   For righteous, and be understood,      Nay, welcomed, when ’tis shown that weAll duties have embraced in being free.   This Britain slumbering, she is rich;      Lies placid as a cradled child;   At times with an uneasy twitch,      That tells of dreams unduly wild.Shall she be with a foreign drug defiled?   The grandeur of her deeds recall;      Look on her face so kindly fair:   This Britain! and were she to fall,      Mankind would breathe a harsher air,The nations miss a light of leading rare.

ON COMO

A rainless darkness drew o’er the lakeAs we lay in our boat with oars unshipped.It seemed neither cloud nor water awake,And forth of the low black curtain slippedThunderless lightning.  Scoff no moreAt angels imagined in downward flightFor the daughters of earth as fabled of yore:Here was beauty might well inviteDark heavens to gleam with the fire of a sunResurgent; here the exchanged embraceWorthy of heaven and earth made one.And witness it, ye of the privileged space,Said the flash; and the mountains, as from an abyssFor quivering seconds leaped up to attestThat given, received, renewed was the kiss;The lips to lips and the breast to breast;All in a glory of ecstasy, swiftAs an eagle at prey, and pure as the prayerOf an infant bidden joined hands upliftTo be guarded through darkness by spirits of air,Ere setting the sails of sleep till day.Slowly the low cloud swung, and farIt panted along its mirrored way;Above loose threads one sanctioning star,The wonder of what had been witnessed, sealed,And with me still as in crystal glassedAre the depths alight, the heavens revealed,Where on to the Alps the muteness passed.

MILTON

DECEMBER 9, 1608: DECEMBER 9, 1908

What splendour of imperial station man,The Tree of Life, may reach when, rooted fast,His branching stem points way to upper airAnd skyward still aspires, we see in himWho sang for us the Archangelical host,Made Morning, by old Darkness urged to the abyss;A voice that down three centuries onward rolls;Onward will roll while lives our English tongue,In the devout of music unsurpassedSince Piety won Heaven’s ear on Israel’s harp.The face of Earth, the soul of Earth, her charm,Her dread austerity; the quavering fateOf mortals with blind hope by passion swayed,His mind embraced, the while on trodden soil,Defender of the Commonwealth, he joinedOur temporal fray, whereof is vital fruit,And, choosing armoury of the Scholar, stoodBeside his peers to raise the voice for Freedom:Nor has fair Liberty a champion armedTo meet on heights or plains the SophisterThroughout the ages, equal to this man,Whose spirit breathed high Heaven, and drew thenceThe ethereal sword to smite.               Were England sunkBeneath the shifting tides, her heart, her brain,The smile she wears, the faith she holds, her best,Would live full-toned in the grand deliveryOf his cathedral speech: an utteranceAlmost divine, and such as Hellespont,Crashing its breakers under Ida’s frown,Inspired: yet worthier he, whose instrumentWas by comparison the coarse reed-pipe;Whereof have come the marvellous harmonies,Which, with his lofty theme, of infinite range,Abash, entrance, exalt.               We need him now,This latest Age in repetition cries:For Belial, the adroit, is in our midst;Mammon, more swoln to squeeze the slavish sweatFrom hopeless toil: and overshadowingly(Aggrandized, monstrous in his grinning maskOf hypocritical Peace,) inveterate MolochRemains the great example.               Homage to himHis debtor band, innumerable as wavesRunning all golden from an eastern sun,Joyfully render, in deep reverenceSubscribe, and as they speak their Milton’s name,Rays of his glory on their foreheads bear.

IRELAND

Fire in her ashes Ireland feels   And in her veins a glow of heat.To her the lost old time, appeals   For resurrection, good to greet:Not as a shape with spectral eyes,   But humanly maternal, youngIn all that quickens pride, and wise   To speak the best her bards have sung.You read her as a land distraught,   Where bitterest rebel passions seethe.Look with a core of heart in thought,   For so is known the truth beneath.She came to you a loathing bride,   And it has been no happy bed.Believe in her as friend, allied   By bonds as close as those who wed.Her speech is held for hatred’s cry;   Her silence tells of treason hid:Were it her aim to burst the tie,   She sees what iron laws forbid.Excess of heart obscures from view   A head as keen as yours to count.Trust her, that she may prove her true   In links whereof is love the fount.May she not call herself her own?   That is her cry, and thence her spitsOf fury, thence her graceless tone   At justice given in bits and bits.The limbs once raw with gnawing chains   Will fret at silken when God’s beamsOf Freedom beckon o’er the plains   From mounts that show it more than dreams.She, generous, craves your generous dole;   That will not rouse the crack of doom.It ends the blundering past control   Simply to give her elbow-room.Her offspring feels they are a race,   To be a nation is their claim;Yet stronger bound in your embrace   Than when the tie was but a name.A nation she, and formed to charm,   With heart for heart and hands all round.No longer England’s broken arm,   Would England know where strength is found.And strength to-day is England’s need;   To-morrow it may be for bothSalvation: heed the portents, heed   The warnings; free the mind from sloth.Too long the pair have danced in mud,   With no advance from sun to sun.Ah, what a bounding course of blood   Has England with an Ireland one!Behold yon shadow cross the downs,   And off away to yeasty seas.Lightly will fly old rancour’s frowns   When solid with high heart stand these.

THE YEARS HAD WORN THEIR SEASONS’ BELT

The years had worn their seasons’ belt,   From bud to rosy prime,Since Nellie by the larch-pole knelt   And helped the hop to climb.Most diligent of teachers then,   But now with all to learn,She breathed beyond a thought of men,   Though formed to make men burn.She dwelt where ’twixt low-beaten thorns   Two mill-blades, like a snail,Enormous, with inquiring horns,   Looked down on half the vale.You know the grey of dew on grass   Ere with the young sun fired,And you know well the thirst one has   For the coming and desired.Quick in our ring she leapt, and gave   Her hand to left, to right.No claim on her had any, save   To feed the joy of sight.For man and maid a laughing word   She tossed, in notes as clearAs when the February bird   Sings out that Spring is near.Of what befell behind that scone,   Let none who knows reveal.In ballad days she might have been   A heroine rousing steel.On us did she bestow the hour,   And fixed it firm in thought;Her spirit like a meadow flower   That gives, and asks for nought.She seemed to make the sunlight stay   And show her in its pride.O she was fair as a beech in May   With the sun on the yonder side.There was more life than breath can give,   In the looks in her fair form;For little can we say we live   Until the heart is warm.

FRAGMENTS

Open horizons round,O mounting mind, to scenes unsung,Wherein shall walk a lusty Time:Our Earth is young;Of measure without bound;Infinite are the heights to climb,The depths to sound.A wilding little stubble flowerThe sickle scorned which cut for wheat,Such was our hope in that dark hourWhen nought save uses held the street,And daily pleasures, daily needs,With barren vision, looked ahead.And still the same result of seedsGave likeness ’twixt the live and dead.From labours through the night, outworn,Above the hills the front of mornWe see, whose eyes to heights are raised,And the world’s wise may deem us crazed.While yet her lord lies under seas,She takes us as the wind the trees’Delighted leafage; all in songWe mount to her, to her belong.This love of nature, that allures to takeIrregularity for harmonyOf larger scope than our hard measures make,Cherish it as thy school for when on theeThe ills of life descend.

IL Y A CENT ANS

That march of the funereal Past behold;   How Glory sat on Bondage for its throne;How men, like dazzled insects, through the mould   Still worked their way, and bled to keep their own.We know them, as they strove and wrought and yearned;   Their hopes, their fears; what page of Life they wist:At whiles their vision upon us was turned,   Baffled by shapes limmed loosely on thick mist.Beneath the fortress bulk of Power they bent   Blunt heads, adoring or in shackled hate,All save the rebel hymned him; and it meant   A world submitting to incarnate Fate.From this he drew fresh appetite for sway,   And of it fell: whereat was chorus raised,How surely shall a mad ambition pay   Dues to Humanity, erewhile amazed.’Twas dreamed by some the deluge would ensue,   So trembling was the tension long constrained;A spirit of faith was in the chosen few,   That steps to the millennium had been gained.But mainly the rich business of the hour,   Their sight, made blind by urgency of blood,Embraced; and facts, the passing sweet or sour,   To them were solid things that nought withstood.Their facts are going headlong on the tides,   Like commas on a line of History’s page;Nor that which once they took for Truth abides,   Save in the form of youth enlarged from age.Meantime give ear to woodland notes around,   Look on our Earth full-breasted to our sun:So was it when their poets heard the sound,   Beheld the scene: in them our days are one.What figures will be shown the century hence?   What lands intact?  We do but know that PowerFrom piety divorced, though seen immense,   Shall sink on envy of the humblest flower.Our cry for cradled Peace, while men are still   The three-parts brute which smothers the divine,Heaven answers: Guard it with forethoughtful will,   Or buy it; all your gains from War resign.A land, not indefensibly alarmed,   May see, unwarned by hint of friendly gods,Between a hermit crab at all points armed,   And one without a shell, decisive odds.

YOUTH IN AGE

Once I was part of the music I heard   On the boughs or sweet between earth and sky,For joy of the beating of wings on high   My heart shot into the breast of the bird.I hear it now and I see it fly,   And a life in wrinkles again is stirred,My heart shoots into the breast of the bird,   As it will for sheer love till the last long sigh.

EPITAPHS