Poems. Volume 1

SONG

I would I were the drop of rain   That falls into the dancing rill,For I should seek the river then,   And roll below the wooded hill,      Until I reached the sea.And O, to be the river swift   That wrestles with the wilful tide,   And fling the briny weeds asideThat o’er the foamy billows drift,      Until I came to thee!I would that after weary strife,   And storm beneath the piping wind,The current of my true fresh life   Might come unmingled, unimbrined,      To where thou floatest free.Might find thee in some amber clime,   Where sunlight dazzles on the sail,   And dreaming of our plighted valeMight seal the dream, and bless the time,      With maiden kisses three.

SONG

Come to me in any shape!   As a victor crown’d with vine,In thy curls the clustering grape,—      Or a vanquished slave:’Tis thy coming that I crave,   And thy folding serpent twine,               Close and dumb;Ne’er from that would I escape;Come to me in any shape!               Only come!Only come, and in my breast   Hide thy shame or show thy pride;In my bosom be caressed,      Never more to part;Come into my yearning heart;   I, the serpent, golden-eyed,               Twine round thee;Twine thee with no venomed test;Absence makes the venomed nest;               Come to me!Come to me, my lover, come!   Violets on the tender stemDie and wither in their bloom,      Under dewy grass;Come, my lover, or, alas!   I shall die, shall die like them,               Frail and lone;Come to me, my lover, come!Let thy bosom be my tomb:               Come, my own!

THE SHIPWRECK OF IDOMENEUS

Swept from his fleet upon that fatal nightWhen great Poseidon’s sudden-veering wrathScattered the happy homeward-floating GreeksLike foam-flakes off the waves, the King of CreteHeld lofty commune with the dark Sea-god.His brows were crowned with victory, his cheeksWere flushed with triumph, but the mighty joyOf Troy’s destruction and his own great deedsPassed, for the thoughts of home were dearer now,And sweet the memory of wife and child,And weary now the ten long, foreign years,And terrible the doubt of short delay—More terrible, O Gods! he cried, but stopped;Then raised his voice upon the storm and prayed.O thou, if injured, injured not by me,Poseidon! whom sea-deities obeyAnd mortals worship, hear me! for indeedIt was our oath to aid the cause of Greece,Not unespoused by Gods, and most of allBy thee, if gentle currents, havens calm,Fair winds and prosperous voyage, and the ShapeImpersonate in many a perilous hour,Both in the stately councils of the Kings,And when the husky battle murmured thick,May testify of services performed!But now the seas are haggard with thy wrath,Thy breath is tempest! never at the shoresOf hostile Ilium did thy stormful browsBetray such fierce magnificence! not evenOn that wild day when, mad with torch and glare,The frantic crowds with eyes like starving wolvesBurst from their ports impregnable, a streamOf headlong fury toward the hissing deep;Where then full-armed I stood in guard, compactBeside thee, and alone, with brand and spear,We held at bay the swarming brood, and pouredBlood of choice warriors on the foot-ploughed sands!Thou, meantime, dark with conflict, as a cloudThat thickens in the bosom of the WestOver quenched sunset, circled round with flame,Huge as a billow running from the windsLong distances, till with black shipwreck swoln,It flings its angry mane about the sky.And like that billow heaving ere it burst;And like that cloud urged by impulsive stormWith charge of thunder, lightning, and the drenchOf torrents, thou in all thy majestyOf mightiness didst fall upon the war!Remember that great moment!  Nor forgetThe aid I gave thee; how my ready spearFlew swiftly seconding thy mortal stroke,Where’er the press was hottest; never slackedMy arm its duty, nor mine eye its aim,Though terribly they compassed us, and stoodThick as an Autumn forest, whose brown hair,Lustrous with sunlight, by the still increaseOf heat to glowing heat conceives like zealOf radiance, till at the pitch of noon’Tis seized with conflagration and distendsHorridly over leagues of doom’d domain;Mingling the screams of birds, the cries of brutes,The wail of creatures in the covert pent,Howls, yells, and shrieks of agony, the hissOf seething sap, and crash of falling boughsTogether in its dull voracious roar.   So closely and so fearfully they throng’d,Savage with phantasies of victory,A sea of dusky shapes; for day had passedAnd night fell on their darkened faces, redWith fight and torchflare; shrill the resonant airWith eager shouts, and hoarse with angry groans;While over all the dense and sullen boom,The din and murmur of the myriads,Rolled with its awful intervals, as thoughThe battle breathed, or as against the shoreWaves gather back to heave themselves anew.That night sleep dropped not from the dreary skies,Nor could the prowess of our chiefs opposeThat sea of raging men.  But what were they?Or what is man opposed to thee?  Its hopesAre wrecks, himself the drowning, drifting weedThat wanders on thy waters; such as IWho see the scattered remnants of my fleet,Remembering the day when first we sailed,Each glad ship shining like the morning starWith promise for the world.  Oh! such as IThus darkly drifting on the drowning waves.O God of waters! ’tis a dreadful thingTo suffer for an evil unrevealed;Dreadful it is to hear the perishing cryOf those we love; the silence that succeedsHow dreadful!  Still my trust is fixed on theeFor those that still remain and for myself.And if I hear thy swift foam-snorting steedsDrawing thy dusky chariot, as inThe pauses of the wind I seem to hear,Deaf thou art not to my entreating prayer!Haste then to give us help, for closely nowCrete whispers in my ears, and all my bloodRuns keen and warm for home, and I have yearning,Such yearning as I never felt before,To see again my wife, my little son,My Queen, my pretty nursling of five years,The darling of my hopes, our dearest pledgeOf marriage, and our brightest prize of love,Whose parting cry rings clearest in my heart.O lay this horror, much-offended God!And making all as fair and firm as whenWe trusted to thy mighty depths of old,—I vow to sacrifice the first whom ZeusShall prompt to hail us from the white seashoreAnd welcome our return to royal Crete,An offering, Poseidon, unto thee!Amid the din of elemental strife,No voice may pierce but Deity supreme:And Deity supreme alone can hear,Above the hurricane’s discordant shrieks,The cry of agonized humanity.Not unappeased was He who smites the waves,When to his stormy ears the warrior’s vowEntered, and from his foamy pinnacleTumultuous he beheld the prostrate form,And knew the mighty heart.  Awhile he gazed,As doubtful of his purpose, and the storm,Conscious of that divine debate, withheldIts fierce emotion, in the luminous gloomOf those so dark irradiating eyes!Beneath whose wavering lustre shone revealedThe tumult of the purpling deeps, and allThe throbbing of the tempest, as it paused,Slowly subsiding, seeming to awaitThe sudden signal, as a faithful houndPants with the forepaws stretched before its nose,Athwart the greensward, after an eager chase;Its hot tongue thrust to cool, its foamy jawsOpen to let the swift breath come and go,Its quick interrogating eyes fixed keenUpon the huntsman’s countenance, and everLashing its sharp impatient tail with haste:Prompt at the slightest sign to scour away,And hang itself afresh by the bleeding fangs,Upon the neck of some death-singled stag,Whose royal antlers, eyes, and stumbling kneesWill supplicate the Gods in mute despair.This time not mute, nor yet in vain this time!For still the burden of the earnest voiceAnd all the vivid glories it revokedSank in the God, with that absorbed suspenseFelt only by the Olympians, whose mindsUnbounded like our mortal brain, perceiveAll things complete, the end, the aim of all;To whom the crown and consequence of deedsAre ever present with the deed itself.And now the pouring surges, vast and smooth,Grew weary of restraint, and heaved themselvesHeadlong beneath him, breaking at his feetWith wild importunate cries and angry wail;Like crowds that shout for bread and hunger more.And now the surface of their rolling backsWas ridged with foam-topt furrows, rising highAnd dashing wildly, like to fiery steeds,Fresh from the Thracian or Thessalian plains,High-blooded mares just tempering to the bit,Whose manes at full-speed stream upon the winds,And in whose delicate nostrils when the gustBreathes of their native plains, they ramp and rear,Frothing the curb, and bounding from the earth,As though the Sun-god’s chariot aloneWere fit to follow in their flashing track.Anon with gathering stature to the heightOf those colossal giants, doomed long sinceTo torturous grief and penance, that assailedThe sky-throned courts of Zeus, and climbing, daredFor once in a world the Olympic wrath, and bravedThe electric spirit which from his clenching handPierces the dark-veined earth, and with a touchIs death to mortals, fearfully they grew!And with like purpose of audacityThreatened Titanic fury to the God.Such was the agitation of the seaBeneath Poseidon’s thought-revolving brows,Storming for signal.  But no signal came.And as when men, who congregate to hearSome proclamation from the regal fount,With eager questioning and anxious phraseBetray the expectation of their hearts,Till after many hours of fretful sloth,Weary with much delay, they hold discourseIn sullen groups and cloudy masses, stirredWith rage irresolute and whispering plot,Known more by indication than by word,And understood alone by those whose mindsParticipate;—even so the restless wavesBegan to lose all sense of servitude,And worked with rebel passions, bursting, nowTo right, and now to left, but evermoreSubdued with influence, and controlled with dreadOf that inviolate Authority.Then, swiftly as he mused, the impetuous GodSeized on the pausing reins, his coursers plunged,His brows resumed the grandeur of their ire;Throughout his vast divinity the deepsConcurrent thrilled with action, and away,As sweeps a thunder-cloud across the skyIn harvest-time, preluded by dull blasts;Or some black-visaged whirlwind, whose wide foldsRush, wrestling on with all ’twixt heaven and earth,Darkling he hurried, and his distant voice,Not softened by delay, was heard in tonesDistinctly terrible, still following upIts rapid utterance of tremendous wrathWith hoarse reverberations; like the roarOf lions when they hunger, and awakeThe sullen echoes from their forest sleep,To speed the ravenous noise from hill to hillAnd startle victims; but more awful, He,Scudding across the hills that rise and sink,With foam, and splash, and cataracts of spray,Clothed in majestic splendour; girt aboutWith Sea-gods and swift creatures of the sea;Their briny eyes blind with the showering drops;Their stormy locks, salt tongues, and scaly backs,Quivering in harmony with the tempest, fierceAnd eager with tempestuous delight;—He like a moving rock above them allSolemnly towering while fitful gleamsBrake from his dense black forehead, which display’dThe enduring chiefs as their distracted fleetsTossed, toiling with the waters, climbing high,And plunging downward with determined beaks,In lurid anguish; but the Cretan kingAnd all his crew were ’ware of under-tides,That for the groaning vessel made a path,On which the impending and precipitous wavesFell not, nor suck’d to their abysmal gorge.O, happy they to feel the mighty God,Without his whelming presence near: to feelSafety and sweet relief from such despair,And gushing of their weary hopes once moreWithin their fond warm hearts, tired limbs, and eyesHeavy with much fatigue and want of sleep!Prayers did not lack; like mountain springs they came,After the earth has drunk the drenching rains,And throws her fresh-born jets into the sunWith joyous sparkles;—for there needed notEvidence more serene of instant grace,Immortal mercy! and the sense which followsDivine interposition, when the shockOf danger hath been thwarted by the Gods,Visibly, and through supplication deep,—Rose in them, chiefly in the royal mindOf him whose interceding vow had saved.Tears from that great heroic soul sprang up;Not painful as in grief, nor smarting keenWith shame of weeping; but calm, fresh, and sweet;Such as in lofty spirits rise, and wedThe nature of the woman to the man;A sight most lovely to the Gods!  They fellLike showers of starlight from his steadfast eyes,As ever towards the prow he gazed, nor movedOne muscle, with firm lips and level lids,Motionless; while the winds sang in his ears,And took the length of his brown hair in streamsBehind him.  Thus the hours passed, and the oarsPlied without pause, and nothing but the soundOf the dull rowlocks and still watery sough,Far off, the carnage of the storm, was heard.For nothing spake the mariners in their toil,And all the captains of the war were dumb:Too much oppressed with wonder, too much thrilledBy their great chieftain’s silence, to disturbSuch meditation with poor human speech.Meantime the moon through slips of driving cloudCame forth, and glanced athwart the seas a pathOf dusky splendour, like the Hadean brows,When with Elysian passion they beholdPersephone’s complacent hueless cheeks.Soon gathering strength and lustre, as a shipThat swims into some blue and open bayWith bright full-bosomed sails, the radiant carOf Artemis advanced, and on the wavesSparkled like arrows from her silver bowThe keenness of her pure and tender gaze.Then, slowly, one by one the chiefs sought rest;The watches being set, and men to relieveThe rowers at midseason.  Fair it wasTo see them as they lay!  Some up the prow,Some round the helm, in open-handed sleep;With casques unloosed, and bucklers put aside;The ten years’ tale of war upon their cheeks,Where clung the salt wet locks, and on their breastsBeards, the thick growth of many a proud campaign;And on their brows the bright invisible crownVictory sheds from her own radiant form,As o’er her favourites’ heads she sings and soars.But dreams came not so calmly; as aroundTurbulent shores wild waves and swamping surfPrevail, while seaward, on the tranquil deeps,Reign placid surfaces and solemn peace,So, from the troubled strands of memory, theyLaunched and were tossed, long ere they found the tidesThat lead to the gentle bosoms of pure rest.And like to one who from a ghostly watchIn a lone house where murder hath been done,And secret violations, pale with stealthEmerges, staggering on the first chill gustWherewith the morning greets him, feeling notIts balmy freshness on his bloodless cheek,—But swift to hide his midnight face afar,’Mongst the old woods and timid-glancing flowersHastens, till on the fresh reviving breastsOf tender Dryads folded he forgetsThe pallid witness of those nameless things,In renovated senses lapt, and joinsThe full, keen joyance of the day, so theyFrom sights and sounds of battle smeared with blood,And shrieking souls on Acheron’s bleak tides,And wail of execrating kindred, slidInto oblivious slumber and a senseOf satiate deliciousness complete.Leave them, O Muse, in that so happy sleep!Leave them to reap the harvest of their toil,While fast in moonlight the glad vessel glides,As if instinctive to its forest home.O Muse, that in all sorrows and all joys,Rapturous bliss and suffering divine,Dwellest with equal fervour, in the calmOf thy serene philosophy, albeitThy gentle nature is of joy alone,And loves the pipings of the happy fields,Better than all the great parade and pompWhich forms the train of heroes and of kings,And sows, too frequently, the tragic seedsThat choke with sobs thy singing,—turn awayThy lustrous eyes back to the oath-bound man!For as a shepherd stands above his flock,The lofty figure of the king is seen,Standing above his warriors as they sleep:And still as from a rock grey waters gush,While still the rock is passionless and dark,Nor moves one feature of its giant face,The tears fall from his eyes, and he stirs not.And O, bright Muse! forget not thou to foldIn thy prophetic sympathy the thoughtOf him whose destiny has heard its doom:The Sacrifice thro’ whom the ship is saved.Haply that Sacrifice is sleeping now,And dreams of glad tomorrows.  Haply now,His hopes are keenest, and his fervent bloodRichest with youth, and love, and fond regard!Round him the circle of affections blooms,And in some happy nest of home he lives,One name oft uttering in delighted ears,Mother! at which the heart of men are kinWith reverence and yearning.  Haply, too,That other name, twin holy, twin revered,He whispers often to the passing windsThat blow toward the Asiatic coasts;For Crete has sent her bravest to the war,And multitudes pressed forward to that rank,Men with sad weeping wives and little ones.That other name—O Father! who art thou,Thus doomed to lose the star of thy last days?It may be the sole flower of thy life,And that of all who now look up to thee!O Father, Father! unto thee even nowFate cries; the future with imploring voiceCries ‘Save me,’ ‘Save me,’ though thou hearest not.And O thou Sacrifice, foredoomed by Zeus;Even now the dark inexorable deedIs dealing its relentless stroke, and vainAre prayers, and tears, and struggles, and despair!The mother’s tears, the nation’s stormful grief,The people’s indignation and revenge!Vain the last childlike pleading voice for life,The quick resolve, the young heroic brow,So like, so like, and vainly beautiful!Oh! whosoe’er ye are the Muse says not,And sees not, but the Gods look down on both.

THE LONGEST DAY

On yonder hills soft twilight dwells   And Hesper burns where sunset dies,Moist and chill the woodland smells   From the fern-covered hollows uprise;   Darkness drops not from the skies,But shadows of darkness are flung o’er the vale   From the boughs of the chestnut, the oak, and the elm,While night in yon lines of eastern pines   Preserves alone her inviolate realm         Against the twilight pale.Say, then say, what is this day,   That it lingers thus with half-closed eyes,When the sunset is quenched and the orient ray   Of the roseate moon doth rise,   Like a midnight sun o’er the skies!’Tis the longest, the longest of all the glad year,   The longest in life and the fairest in hue,When day and night, in bridal light,   Mingle their beings beneath the sweet blue,         And bless the balmy air!Upward to this starry height   The culminating seasons rolled;On one slope green with spring delight,   The other with harvest gold,   And treasures of Autumn untold:And on this highest throne of the midsummer now   The waning but deathless day doth dream,With a rapturous grace, as tho’ from the face   Of the unveiled infinity, lo, a far beam         Had fall’n on her dim-flushed brow!Prolong, prolong that tide of song,   O leafy nightingale and thrush!Still, earnest-throated blackcap, throng   The woods with that emulous gush   Of notes in tumultuous rush.Ye summer souls, raise up one voice!   A charm is afloat all over the land;The ripe year doth fall to the Spirit of all,   Who blesses it with outstretched hand;         Ye summer souls, rejoice!

TO ROBIN REDBREAST

Merrily ’mid the faded leaves,   O Robin of the bright red breast!Cheerily over the Autumn eaves,   Thy note is heard, bonny bird;Sent to cheer us, and kindly endear us   To what would be a sorrowful time   Without thee in the weltering clime:   Merry art thou in the boughs of the lime,      While thy fadeless waistcoat glows on thy breast,      In Autumn’s reddest livery drest.A merry song, a cheery song!   In the boughs above, on the sward below,Chirping and singing the live day long,   While the maple in grief sheds its fiery leaf,And all the trees waning, with bitter complaining,   Chestnut, and elm, and sycamore,   Catch the wild gust in their arms, and roar   Like the sea on a stormy shore,      Till wailfully they let it go,      And weep themselves naked and weary with woe.Merrily, cheerily, joyously still   Pours out the crimson-crested tide.The set of the season burns bright on the hill,   Where the foliage dead falls yellow and red,Picturing vainly, but foretelling plainly   The wealth of cottage warmth that comes   When the frost gleams and the blood numbs,   And then, bonny Robin, I’ll spread thee out crumbs      In my garden porch for thy redbreast pride,      The song and the ensign of dear fireside.

SONG

The daisy now is out upon the green;   And in the grassy lanes   The child of April rains,The sweet fresh-hearted violet, is smelt and loved unseen.Along the brooks and meads, the daffodil   Its yellow richness spreads,   And by the fountain-headsOf rivers, cowslips cluster round, and over every hill.The crocus and the primrose may have gone,   The snowdrop may be low,   But soon the purple glowOf hyacinths will fill the copse, and lilies watch the dawn.And in the sweetness of the budding year,   The cuckoo’s woodland call,   The skylark over all,And then at eve, the nightingale, is doubly sweet and dear.My soul is singing with the happy birds,   And all my human powers   Are blooming with the flowers,My foot is on the fields and downs, among the flocks and herds.Deep in the forest where the foliage droops,   I wander, fill’d with joy.   Again as when a boy,The sunny vistas tempt me on with dim delicious hopes.The sunny vistas, dim with hurrying shade,   And old romantic haze:—   Again as in past days,The spirit of immortal Spring doth every sense pervade.Oh! do not say that this will ever cease;—   This joy of woods and fields,   This youth that nature yields,Will never speak to me in vain, tho’ soundly rapt in peace.

SUNRISE

The clouds are withdrawnAnd their thin-rippled mist,That stream’d o’er the lawnTo the drowsy-eyed west.Cold and greyThey slept in the way,And shrank from the rayOf the chariot East:But now they are gone,And the bounding lightLeaps thro’ the barsOf doubtful dawn;Blinding the stars,And blessing the sight;Shedding delightOn all below;Glimmering fields,And wakening wealds,And rising lark,And meadows dark,And idle rills,And labouring mills,And far-distant hillsOf the fawn and the doe.The sun is cheeredAnd his path is cleared,As he steps to the airFrom his emerald cave,His heel in the wave,Most bright and bare;In the tide of the skyHis radiant hairFrom his temples fairBlown back on high;As forward he bends,And upward ascends,Timely and true,To the breast of the blue;His warm red lipsKissing the dew,Which sweetened dripsOn his flower cupholders;Every hueFrom his gleaming shouldersShining anewWith colour sky-born,As it washes and dipsIn the pride of the morn.Robes of azure,Fringed with amber,Fold upon foldOf purple and gold,Vine-leaf bloom,And the grape’s ripe gloom,When season deepIn noontide leisure,With clustering heapThe tendrils clamberFull in the faceOf his hot embrace,Fill’d with the gleamsOf his firmest beams.Autumn flushes,Roseate blushes,Vermeil tinges,Violet fringes,Every hueOf his flower cupholders,O’er the clear etherMingled together,Shining anewFrom his gleaming shoulders!Circling aboutIn a coronal rout,And floating behind,The way of the wind,As forward he bends,And upward ascends,Timely and true,To the breast of the blue.His bright neck curved,His clear limbs nerved,Diamond keenOn his front serene,While each white arm strainsTo the racing reins,As plunging, eyes flashing,Dripping, and dashing,His steeds triple grownRear up to his throne,Ruffling the restOf the sea’s blue breast,From his flooding, flaming crimson crest!

PICTURES OF THE RHINE

I   The spirit of Romance dies not to those   Who hold a kindred spirit in their souls:   Even as the odorous life within the rose   Lives in the scattered leaflets and controls   Mysterious adoration, so there glows   Above dead things a thing that cannot die;   Faint as the glimmer of a tearful eye,   Ere the orb fills and all the sorrow flows.   Beauty renews itself in many ways;   The flower is fading while the new bud blows;   And this dear land as true a symbol shows,   While o’er it like a mellow sunset strays   The legendary splendour of old days,   In visible, inviolate repose.II   About a mile behind the viny banks,   How sweet it was, upon a sloping green,   Sunspread, and shaded with a branching screen,   To lie in peace half-murmuring words of thanks!   To see the mountains on each other climb,   With spaces for rich meadows flowery bright;   The winding river freshening the sight   At intervals, the trees in leafy prime;   The distant village-roofs of blue and white,   With intersections of quaint-fashioned beams   All slanting crosswise, and the feudal gleams   Of ruined turrets, barren in the light;—   To watch the changing clouds, like clime in clime;Oh sweet to lie and bless the luxury of time.III   Fresh blows the early breeze, our sail is full;   A merry morning and a mighty tide.   Cheerily O! and past St. Goar we glide,   Half hid in misty dawn and mountain cool.   The river is our own! and now the sun   In saffron clothes the warming atmosphere;   The sky lifts up her white veil like a nun,   And looks upon the landscape blue and clear;—   The lark is up; the hills, the vines in sight;   The river broadens with his waking bliss   And throws up islands to behold the light;   Voices begin to rise, all hues to kiss;—   Was ever such a happy morn as this!Birds sing, we shout, flowers breathe, trees shine with one delight!IV   Between the two white breasts of her we love,   A dewy blushing rose will sometimes spring;   Thus Nonnenwerth like an enchanted thing   Rises mid-stream the crystal depths above.   On either side the waters heave and swell,   But all is calm within the little Isle;   Content it is to give its holy smile,   And bless with peace the lives that in it dwell.   Most dear on the dark grass beneath its bower   Of kindred trees embracing branch and bough,   To dream of fairy foot and sudden flower;   Or haply with a twilight on the brow,   To muse upon the legendary hour,And Roland’s lonely love and Hildegard’s sad vow.V   Hark! how the bitter winter breezes blow   Round the sharp rocks and o’er the half-lifted wave,   While all the rocky woodland branches rave   Shrill with the piercing cold, and every cave,   Along the icy water-margin low,   Rings bubbling with the whirling overflow;   And sharp the echoes answer distant cries   Of dawning daylight and the dim sunrise,   And the gloom-coloured clouds that stain the skies   With pictures of a warmth, and frozen glow   Spread over endless fields of sheeted snow;   And white untrodden mountains shining cold,   And muffled footpaths winding thro’ the wold,O’er which those wintry gusts cease not to howl and blow.VI   Rare is the loveliness of slow decay!   With youth and beauty all must be desired,   But ’tis the charm of things long past away,   They leave, alone, the light they have inspired:   The calmness of a picture; Memory now   Is the sole life among the ruins grey,   And like a phantom in fantastic play   She wanders with rank weeds stuck on her brow,   Over grass-hidden caves and turret-tops,   Herself almost as tottering as they;   While, to the steps of Time, her latest props   Fall stone by stone, and in the Sun’s hot ray   All that remains stands up in rugged pride,And bridal vines drink in his juices on each side.