All poems occur as DIV0. Sonnets are attributed as "type=sonnets";
the rest are "type=poem". All quotation marks, hyphens, dashes, apostrophes and colons have been transcribed as entity references. All
<lg> (line groups) are attributed as cantos, stanzas, couplets, verse paragraphs, etc. All poems with regularly indented lines use the
attribute "rend" in the <l> tag, with the value "indent1" for one tab stop, "indent2" for two tab stops, etc. All split lines are
attributed as "type=i" for the initial portion, and "type=f" for the final portion.
All apostrophes and single right quotation marks are encoded as ’.
Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed; all hyphens are encoded as ‐ and em dashes as —.
(illustration)
(note)
Appended to the present volume will be found a selection of Personal and Press Opinions on the Works of Constance Naden.
(foreword)
(part)
(part)
The above affirmation of Monism and denial of dual subject and object is taken from T. Bailey Saunders's, M.A. (Oxon.), profound
article on "The Origin of Reason," in No. 160 of the Open Court*. It
seems completely to bear out the scientific veridity of my title, and of Hylo-Idealism, that on the apparitional, phenomenal, or
relative theory of the universe, to which we have alone access, Self is to Self, further than which research is vain, the Be-all and
End-all of sentient and non-sentient existence. Hence religion is seen to have run its baneful course, and to be superseded by
reason,
___________________Reprinted (revised) from theMonist, of Chicago, for January, 1894,
edited by Dr. Paul Carus, Ph.D.
___________________See also a lengthy and serious review of that able thinker's
"Translations from Schopenhauer" in the London Athenæum for October 4th, 1890.
Page ix
on which Mr. Saunders so lucidly discourses. For, if Self be all-in all, there can be no room, in such a pleroma, for any Latria or worship, in the religious sense of the word, except Narcissus-like self-worship.
We are thus thrown back on, and face to face with, mere physical conditions, out of which ideal concepts
proceed, while rigidly excluding all those misnamed "spiritual" ones, which hitherto have played so
momentous a rôle in the destiny of humanity
*. We thus make hygiene, as defined by Dr. Parkes in the solemn introduction to his manual of
that last (and first) of the sciences, as not merely bodily sanitation, though that is already much, but as supreme culture of mind and body
(or, to be more scientifically precise, of body merely, including brain), the all-sufficing surrogate of Divine worship. The old
adage, mens sana in corpore sano, should thus read corpus
sanum = mens sana, merely. This Volte face turns every extant ethical and mental view
topsy-turvy. As it must do by exploding "thing" altogether, and by substituting our own
thoughts for objects of all kinds. It is true, or it may be granted, that there is an objective or distal aspect of subjective
thought. But that fact, or admission, in no degree in-
___________________It is significant and suggestive that no terms have ever been coined to express
animistic concepts. Even Spirit, Soul, Lord, God, etc., are purely materialistic ones.
Page x
validates the position that the only objects cognisable are those incorporated with, and by, the subject self, from which all "things" proceed. This interpretation of the universe is, inter alia multa, that of the emancipated Baccalaureus in the second part of Goethe's "Faust," as enunciated in the lines thus translated by the late Constance Naden:--
"I tell you this is Youth's [Man's] supreme vocation!
Before me was no world--'tis my
creation:
'Twas I who raised the Sun from out the sea;
The Moon began her changeful course with me.
I gave the
signal on that primal night
When all the host of heaven burst forth in light.
Who but MYSELF saves
Man from the dominion
Of dogmas cramping, crushing, Philistianian?"
Indeed, it is the very first and last principle of common sense and common place that, before a "thing" is
perceptible, it must be made sensible, and where can sensibility (consciousness) lie
except in the sensorium which manifests that property? On the ground alone of consciousness or
sensation being a somatic office or function it can only be, like all other organic functions, an emanation of the self, and hence we are
coerced into the conclusion that all things are but forms of the Ego itself, at once both Creator and
Creation.
This non-animism thus makes each unit of humanity all that has, in pre-scientific minds where Absolutism
and Dualism is the watchword of the intellect, been predicated as Divine. Where reason, based on positive science, comes into play, or, in other words, when man ceases to be an infant, religion or Theism disappears as a childish illusion utterly incompatible with right reason and rational ethics. All religious ideals and systems-- none more than the Christian--are based on hideous immorality. For what can be more iniquitous than the doctrine of the Atonement--i.e., of the vicarious sacrifice of a sinless victim for a sinful criminal? But preceding this ethical crux is the logical fiction. For how can the Parthenogenetic birth of Christ redeem him from the primeval "curse" entailed on all mankind by the mythical "disobedience" of our federal head and representative? From this "curse" virgins are no more exempt than their grandmothers, and thus, on its own data, Christianity is "hoist with its own petard." Indeed, a replica of Adam's abiogenetic "creation" would not serve, since earth and air partook of the "curse" entailed on our "first parents." No God is needed since man is seen to be an Autochthon, and, as such, an Anteus, who derives all the faculties required for existence out of the telluric matrix or humus (living earth) from which he sprang.
As long as the absolute doctrine of dual existence vitiated philosophy--a dual factor, in the guise of an animating principle was, or
seemed, a desideratum. But
since the inductive biological theory, which defines life as the sum of the organic functions and a physiological state, was established, man can quite rest content in the satisfactory creed that he himself--each for each-- is his own law, standard, criterion, and final court of appeal. Clericals of all denominations are then seen to be self-evidently "kicking against the pricks," when, in our fin de siècle age, they attempt to bolster up the obsolete anachronism of animism (Dualism)--a quite impossible task, as I have before shown--from the incompatibility of two such factors as matter, and what they are pleased to call "spirit," re-acting on each other.
It is, I repeat, a case of pure fetishism or ghostism--the same in essence that induced the ancients to
formulate their Lares and Penates, Dryads, etc., and, in short, to feign a god, or goddess, for every phenomenon from Jove, launcher of the
thunderbolts, to Cloacina of the sewers!
Pope, even, in his "Essay on Man," written many years after the appearance of Newton's "Principia," could
not rid himself of the notion that "ruling angels" were required to regulate the spheres. And, long after Pope, poets invoked
their muse as a source of inspiration separate from themselves! But, in our age, all such confusion of thought is a really inexcusable
blunder, which must, sooner or later, prove a Nemesis to that vicious civilisation which fosters so palpable a delusion.
Assume, as now we must do, that all objects and ideas, great and small, including the abstract terms, Time, Space, and Immortality, etc., are Brain products, that Cerebration and Thought, or Mind, are one, and the seemingly paradoxical Unity and Identity for which I plead in the title of this exordium is seen to be a categoric imperative. It really is a physiological version of Kant's negation of Thing in Itself, from which, how ever, he recanted in all his works subsequent to the first edition of the "Critique of Pure Reason." It was rendered perfectly certain more than sixty years ago--a full lustre before its present opponent, Mr. Gladstone, entered public life--by Wöhler, when he artificially manufactured organic-- i.e., "living" out of inorganic--i.e., pseudo-dead, compounds; a perfect proof that a vital Principle or Anima, in the sense of what is falsely interpreted as "Soul," in the religious sense of the Anglo-Saxon term for Life, is a fiction of the human imagination. An omnipotent, disposing Deity must be as much of a fetish as the Pantheon of Olympus. As is clearly seen from so many of these dispositions being failures, as lunacy, suicide, disease, premature death, and other multiform forms of Demoniac Evil. Anti-theism, therefore, not merely Atheism, as in the eighteenth century, ought to be the charter of our present state; the Latin motto at the head of this Foreword being perfectly expugnable.
Devout nations and communities-- i.e., in which the public mind is addicted to religious
exercises of Prayer, Praise, and Spiritualism (other-worldism) generally, are always tardigrade, and even retrograde. This rule is
well exemplified in the records of the Protestant Reformation. When Luther visited Rome, saturated as he was with the diabolic and other
superstitions of a Thuringian forest coal-burner, he was filled with disgust at the Atheism then prevalent amid the priesthood and
cultured classes. The former openly scoffed at the Christian mysteries as cochonerie. He
introduced into his creed, which so long has imposed on Northern Europe and New England, all these degrading
arcana. So that, for more than two hundred years, Germany, especially, fell quite to the rear,
as compared with France and England, in ethical and intellectual progress. Till the peace of Westphalia in 1648, at the close of the Thirty
Years' War, all was, in that vast region, pure chaos. Indeed, till Frederic the Great's time, a century later, things were little
better. Even to the very close of his reign that "first of German sons," who was himself a noted Voltairean, as Schiller
pathetically laments in his fine poem, "The German Muse," cherished the opinion, which subsequent events have proved so delusive,
that the Germans were "irreclaimable barbarians," as he also held Shakespeare to be, whose dramas he thought only fit for the
savages of Canada. And this though in his
own lifetime Kant, Schelling, Fichte, Bürger, Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Richter, and Schiller's "Robbers," which last, no doubt, was especially distasteful to the great king, were already above the horizon. David Hume, it will be remembered, delivered a similar verdict upon the English "barbarians on the banks of the Thames." He held them as already quite below the pale of Philosophy--a verdict fully corroborated by Lord Bacon in his essay on "The True Greatness of Kingdoms," and on "The Wisdom of the Ancients." Commerce he especially held to flourish during the disruption and decay of nations.
R. Lewins, M.D., Surgeon Lieut.-Col. (Retired). Army and Navy Club, Pall Mall.
(contents)
(dedication)
YE who received me, when your hearts were sore,
With double welcome, since I came in lieu
Of one whose fond embrace I never knew--
Your child, my mother, dear for evermore--
Who scarce had time to greet the babe she bore,
But, dying in her spring, bequeathed to you,
Her father and her mother, guardians true,
One little life, to tend when hers was o'er:
Ye who have watched me from my infant days
With tenderest love and care, who treasure yet
Quaint sayings, sketches rude, and childish lays;
Accept this wreath, entwined in April hours:
Yours was the garden where the seed was set,
To you I dedicate the opening flowers.
___________________This Dedication and the Motto on the next page were originally prefixed to Miss Naden's first
volume of poems, "Songs and Sonnets of Springtime."
"Nicht länger wollen diesen Lieder leben
Mit schönern Fantasien es umgeben,
Zur fernen Nachwelt wollen sie nicht schweben,
Des Augenblickes Lust hat sie geboren
THE ASTRONOMER, Etc.
Page 3
WHITE, cold, and sacred is my chosen home,
A seat for gods, a mount divine;
And from the height of this eternal dome,
Sky, sea, and earth are mine.
All these I love, but only heaven is near,
Only the tranquil stars I know;
I see the map of earth, but never hear
Life's tumult far below.
Bright hieroglyphs I read in heaven's book;
But oft, with eyes too dim for these,
In half-regretful ignorance I look
On common fields and trees.
Scant fare for wife and child the fisher gains
From yon broad belt of lucent grey;
Rude peasants till those green and golden plains;
Am I more wise than they?
Oh, far less glad! And yet, could I descend
And breathe the lowland air again,
How should I find a brother or a friend
'Mid earth-contented men?
Though, while I sat beside my household fire,
Some dear, dear hand should clasp my own,
Must I not pine with home-sick, sharp desire
For this my mountain throne?
I were impatient of the narrowed skies,
Yes, even of the clasping hand;
And she, sad gazing in my restless eyes,
Would haply understand,
And know my fevered yearning to depart,
To dwell once more alone and free:
Well might I love, yet needs must break the heart
That puts its trust in me.
Yet hope and ecstasy desert me not,
But coldly shine, like moonlit snows;
This earthly dream, renounced yet unforgot,
To heavenly splendour grows.
For oft, when sleep has lulled a brain o'erwrought,
Strange light across my brow is thrown;
The glorious incarnation of my thought,
Urania stands alone.
She, passionless, of no fond woman born,
Towers awful in her virgin grace;
Calmly she smiles; the first faint rose of morn
Flushes her sovereign face.
Her atmosphere of white unswerving rays
Athwart the fading moonlight swims;
Rare vapour, like a comet's luminous haze,
Floats round her argent limbs.
Her clear celestial eyes look deep in mine,
Her brow and breast gleam icy pure;
She whispers--"Be thy heart my secret shrine,
So shall thy strength endure.
"So shall thy god-like wisdom soar above
All rainbow hues of grief or mirth,
And I will love thee as the stars do love
Even thy distant earth."
Then her eyes lighten, then her voice thrills clear,
But life and death contend in me;
And still she speaks, but now I may not hear;
Shines, but I dare not see.
How shall immortal splendour wed the gaze
Of man, who knows but that which seems,
Whose sight were blinded, if the sun should blaze
With unrefracted beams?
Void were the earth and formless, if arrayed
In purity of perfect white;
All things are clear by colour and by shade,
Glorious with lack of light.
But what is she, whose beauty makes me blind,
Whose voice is like the voice of Fate?
What, save a lustrous mirage of the mind,
My slave, whom I create?
Yet from such dear illusions Wisdom springs,
Though these may fade she shall not die;
In fabled forms of heroes and of kings,
E'en yet we map the sky.
Slow-conquering Truth loves well the joyous noon,
But silent midnight gave her birth;
The cone of darkness that o'ershades the moon
Revealed the orbëd earth.
Man knelt to constellated suns supreme,
But as he knelt to golden clods,
Nor, till he ceased to worship, e'er could dream
The greatness of his gods.
He wove for all the planets as they passed
Strange legends, wrought of love and youth,
While o'er the poet-soul was vaguely cast
A shadow of the truth.
Kinsman is he to all the stars that burn
Mirrored in eyes of sleepless awe;
And from his brotherhood with dust, may learn
The heavens' living law.
Nor shall the essences of Truth and Might
Sleep ever in thick darkness furled:
Yon dim horizon bounds my present sight,
Not the eternal world.
When the skies glitter, when the earth is cold,
In some divine and voiceless hour,
The heavens vanish, and mine eyes behold
The elemental Power.
Now has the breath of God my being thrilled;
Within, around, His word I hear:
For all the universe my heart is filled
With love that casts out fear.
In one deep gaze to concentrate the whole
Of that which was, is now, shall be,
To feel it like the thought of mine own soul,
Such power is given to me.
My sight, love-strengthened, Time and Space controls;
No more are Force and Will at strife;
Beyond the sun I pass; around me rolls
Infinite-circled Life.
This realm where he his destined orbit keeps,
This world of planet-ruling spheres,
Borne onward with its Pleiad-centre, sweeps
Through unimagined years.
In suns, that shining for some nobler race
Their twin-born light commingled give,
And through black depths of interstellar space
A boundless life I live.
To me the orbs their fiery past reveal,
With each minutest change designed;
Till, in this harmony of worlds, I feel
The future of mankind,
When each shall aid the universal plan,
When every deed its end shall serve,
When e'en the wildest comet-thought of man
Shall flash in ordered curve,
When mighty souls, that burst all prison bars,
Shall their diviner selves obey,
When man shall hold communion with the stars,
Constant and calm as they,
When every heart shall perfect peace attain,
And every mind celestial scope;
Such were mine own, save for this hungry pain,
This lack of earth-born hope.
I were content, though palsied, sightless, dumb,
If, blasting toil-worn brain and eye,
The heights and depths of human joy to come
Shone clear, before I die.
OH, listen, for my soul can bear no more;
I crave not pardon; that I cannot win:
Yet hear me, Father, for I must outpour
My tale of deadly sin.
This night I passed through dim and loathsome lairs,
Where dwell foul wretches, that I feared to see:
Yet would to God my lot were such as theirs!
They have not sinned like me.
And then I saw that lovely girl who stood
Here, where I stand, some venial fault to show:
I was as fair, as innocently good,
One long, long year ago.
High thoughts were mine, and yearnings to endure
Some noble grief, and conquer heaven by pain:
Alas, I was a child; my prayers were pure,
Yet they were all in vain.
Love came and stirred my breast; not fierce or vile,
But springing stainless, like some mountain stream;
And I was happy for a little while,
And lived as in a dream.
Thou art a priest, and dwellest far apart;
In vain I speak of joys thou hast not known:
Even to him I scarce could show my heart,
Although it was his own.
Nay, look not in my face! One night he came,
And I sprang forward, giddy with delight:
Father! His blood-stained hands! His eyes aflame!
His features deadly white!
Ah, wherefore ask me more? Some hated foe--
But 'tis a common tale--thou knowest all:
A word, a gesture; then a sudden blow;
And then--a dead man's fall.
Dumbly I heard, and could not weep or sigh;
Gone was all power of motion, e'en of breath;
But from my heart rose up one silent cry,
My first wild prayer for death.
"Farewell," he said, "farewell! Yet bury deep
My bloody secret, that it shall not rise;
Or it will track and slay me, though I sleep
Nameless, 'neath foreign skies."
Such boon he craved of me, his promised wife:
Earth's hope, heaven's joy, for him I lost the whole:
Some give but love, and some have given life,
But I gave up my soul.
"Embrace me not," I said. But ere he went
One long impassioned kiss he gave me yet:
Still, still we loved--oh, Father, I repent--
Would God I could forget!
Ah, not to fiery love would Christ deny
The gift of mercy that I cannot seek:
Father, a guiltless man was doomed to die,
And yet I did not speak.
Mine was the sin; for me it was he died,
Slain for the murder that my Love had wrought:
How blest was he, when Death's gate opened wide,
And Heaven appeared unsought!
But I, who dared no seek the Virgin's shrine,
Whose very faith was madness and despair,
Lived lonely, exiled far from Love Divine,
From peace, from hope, from prayer.
None dreamt that I consumed with secret fire,
Nor knew the sin that withered up my youth:
I wasted with a passionate desire
Only to tell the truth.
But now they say that he I love is dead;
Calmly I listen; see, my cheeks are dry;
My heart is palsied, all my tears are shed;
And yet I would not die.
Let me do penances to save his soul,
And pray thy God to lay the guilt on me;
Strong is my spirit; I can bear the whole,
If that will set him free.
For could my expiating woe and shame
Raise him to Paradise, with Christ to dwell,
Then were there joy in purgatorial flame--
Nay, there were Heaven in Hell.
And then, perchance, when countless years are past,
Ages of torment in some fiery sea,
The grace of God may reach to me at last;
Yes, even unto me.
WELL have ye spoken, but the words ye said
Stir in my constant soul nor love, nor rage;
Through you my life is bare, my joy is dead,
Yet speak I calmly, as a Roman sage.
Behold the myriad orbs, whose light from far
Darts through the spherëd heavens, when day is done:
What if the dwellers in yon faintest star
Deem its weak light more glorious than the sun?
And were it granted those dim eyes to share
The glow of noon that glads our earth and sea,
Would they not hate the white unpitying glare,
And choose to dream in daylight, e'en as ye?
Clear truth to vulgar minds no comfort yields;
The fair old myths have served their purpose well:
Is Heaven more bright than our Elysian fields?
And was not Tartarus sufficient Hell?
Till now, the ancient symbols have sufficed;
But there is room for all; the world is wide:
Zeno was great, and so, perchance, was Christ,
And so were Plato, and a score beside.
If I were young, I might adore with you;
But knowledge calms the heart, and clears the eye:
A thousand faiths there are, but none is true,
And I am weary, and shall shortly die.
It is not rest, to stand for evermore
And chant with myriads round a flaming throne;
I cave not this your heaven; my life is o'er,
And I would slumber, silent and alone.
Ye cannot give me back my one desire:
How have ye changed my daughter, my delight!
Since I, forsooth, must writhe in quenchless fire,
While she sings anthems, clad in vestal white!
I have not warred with doctrines, but with deeds;
In fair and generous mood I met you first;
I hated not her teachers, nor their creeds,
And yet she scorns me as a thing accursed.
She deems my lordly house unclean, defiled;
She scarce will sip my wine, or taste my bread.
Ye boast of virgin martyrs--if my child
Die for her faith, my vengeance on your head!
Ye sons of slaves, unworthy to be free!
Calmly I speak, yet fear me, crafty priests!
I will rouse the people--they shall see
Your bodies hacked with knives, or torn by beasts.
Go, eat and drink, and call your feast divine;
But, if my daughter dies, ye shall not live:
The ancient Roman spirit still is mine,
And I forget not, neither can forgive.
DESPAIRING and alone,
Where mountain winds make moan,
My days are spent:
Each sacred wood and cave
Is a forgotten grave
Where none lament.
This is my native sod,
But to a stranger God
My people pray;
Till to myself I seem
A scarce remembered dream
When morn is gray.
I know not what I seek;
My heart is cold and weak,
My eyes are dim:
Across the vale I hear
An anthem glad and clear,
The Christians' hymn.
Oh, Christ, to whom they sing,
Thou art not yet the King
Of this wild spot;
I am too weary now
At new-made shrines to bow;
I know Thee not.
They say, when death is o'er
Man lives for evermore
In heaven or hell;
They call Thee Love and Light:
Alas! they may be right,
I cannot tell.
But if in truth Thou live,
If to mankind Thou give
Life, motion, breath;
If Love and Light Thou be,
No longer torture me,
But grant me death.
Give me not heaven, but rest;
In earth's all-sheltering breast
Hide me from scorn:
The gods I served are slain;
My life is lived in vain;
Why was I born?
Gone is the ancient race;
Earth has not any place
For such as I:
Nothing is true but grief;
I have outlived belief,
Then let me die.
These dim, deserted skies
To aged heart and eyes
No comfort give:
Woe to my hoary head!
Woe! for the gods are dead,
And yet I live.
SILENCE is mine, and everlasting peace;
My heart is empty, waiting for its Lord;
All hope, all passion, all desire shall cease,
And loss of self shall be my last reward.
For I would lose my life, my thought, my will;
The love and hate, the grief and joy of earth:
I watch and pray, and am for ever still;
So shall I find the death, which yet is birth.
Yet once I loved to hear the wild birds sing,
I knew the hedge-row blossoms all by name;
Keen sight was mine, to trace the budding spring,
Clear voice, for songs of joy when summer came.
Too dear I held each earthly sight and sound,
Too well I loved each fair created thing,
And when I prayed to Him I had not found,
I called Him in my heart "the mountains' King."
All, all is past--gone, every vain delight;
No beauty tempts me in this lonely cell:
Yet why, O Lord, were earth and sky so bright,
Winning the soul that in Thyself should dwell?
Often my heart recalls the sacred time
When fell the tresses of my nut-brown hair;
But then will come--O God, forgive the crime!--
That guilty question--Can I still be fair?
I cannot quite forget that I am young;
I sometimes long to see my mother's face:
Oh, when I left her, how she wept, and clung
About my neck in agonized embrace!
And there was one--Ah, no, the thought is sin--
Why come these thronging forms of earthly grace?
Close, close, my heart! Thou shalt not let them in,
To break the stillness of this holy place.
Oh, Mary, Mother, help me to endure!
I am a woman, with a heart like thine:
But no--thy nature is too high and pure,
Thou canst not feel these low-born pangs of mine.
Oh, for the vision of the Master's face!
Oh, for the music of the heavenly throng!
I have but lived on earth a little space,
And yet I cry, "How long, O Lord, how long?"
IN lonely toil my manhood has been spent,
Spurning all ties of home, all joyance free;
And now my heart is sick, my frame is bent,
And I would sleep, but rest is not for me.
Two gifts I seek, two wondrous powers unknown
Shall yield their treasures to my dauntless mind;
The meaner, boundless wealth to me alone;
The nobler, endless life for all mankind.
My star of distant hope doth far transcend
All dew-drop glories, that around me lie:
With Nature I will struggle to the end;
Conquer I must, though conquering I should die.
Though I should die, ere I have tasted life,
Losing the heritage I give to all;
Though, as I grasp the trophy of the strife,
My battle-wearied arm should powerless fall.
I conquer still, though strength may not be mine
To drink the cup my dying hand prepares;
My life, but not my triumph I resign,
For all mankind shall be my deathless heirs.
I care not who the victor's crown may wear,
I care not, though my bones neglected lie:
This is my latest, this my only prayer--
Come life, come death, let not my wisdom die.
Yet oh! sweet Life, for whom I long have served,
Whose glorious beauty I from far have seen,
Not this reward thy votary deserved,
Not this thy warrior's guerdon should have been.
Oh no, it cannot be! for I shall live,
And priceless bounty royally impart,
And life and love, and wealth and gladness give,
Dug from the treasure cavern of my heart.
I still will hope, and struggle for the crown;
Night shall not come, before I grasp the truth;
For I will yet behold my just renown,
And feel at last the fresh delight of youth.
BEFORE the noblest from his genius wrought
The sculptor stood: with awe, but not with pride,
He saw the image of his highest thought,
His inner self, transfigured, purified.
He spoke with sad emotion, half concealed,
Like one who sorrows, but would fain rejoice;
No glad content was in his eye revealed,
Nor any thought of triumph in his voice.
"This is my grand ideal. 'Twas for this
I gave my strength, while yet an eager boy;
Leaving fresh mirth for some diviner bliss,
Trusting to Hope my fair estate of joy.
"But hope is gone for ever. I am left
With this sublime fulfilment of my dreams;
Not of the midnight loveliness bereft,
Yet clear and steadfast in the noonday beams.
"Oh, that some charm were wanting! that some stain
Marred the ideal grace that my vision wore!
For I may live, but cannot hope again,
And I may toil, but shall advance no more.
"I saw my rival frown, his cheek turn pale,
In envy of the fame so dearly bought;
But this I know--the hope of those who fail
Is better than the victory they sought.
"Yet in my heart some new delights may spring,
As humble flowers on lordly ruins live;
Still shall my work some tranquil pleasures bring,
Though not the ecstasy it once could give.
"I do not grieve that glowing youth is spent,
Nor would I quench the yet remaining fire;
Since lofty joy dwells not with calm content,
Nor peaceful happiness with strong desire."
I hold thee nothing dearer than the rest.
Nay, tell me not thy strong young heart will break
If to thy prayer such cold response I make;
It will not break--hearts cannot break, I know,
Or this weak heart had broken long ago.
Ah no! I would not love thee, if I could;
And when I cry, in some rebellious mood,
"To live for others is to live alone;
Oh, for a love that is not gratitude,
Oh, for a little joy that is my own!"
Then shall I think of thee, and shall be strong,
Knowing thee noblest, best, yet undesired:
Ah, for what other, by what passion fired,
Could I desert my life-work, loved so long?
I marvel grief like thine can move me still,
Who have seen death, and worse than death, ere now--
Nay, look not glad, rise up; thou shalt not bow
Thy knee, as if these tears thy hope fulfil:
Farewell! I am not bound by any vow;
This is the voice of mine own steadfast will.
SHE kneels with folded hands, as though she prayed;
Over her pure, pale cheek the moonlight streams,
And o'er the slender form, in white arrayed;
Her room is consecrate to bridal dreams,
And she is like some lonely priestess-maid,
Believing, though her god be silent long,
And in his temple chanting secret song.
"To heaven I lift my longing eyes,
Knowing that yonder tranquil moon
Is bright for you in western skies.
And has she power your soul to tune
In subtlest harmony divine
With all the passioned thoughts of mine?
"Nay, rather let her give you rest,
In peace to sleep, with joy to wake;
Yet, if a dream the slumber break,
Dream of my yearning lips and breast,
Hungered and lone, far off and sad,
But dream them near, and dream them glad!"
Now has she slept; nor fell there any blight
Over her beauty from those wakeful hours;
Her darkest grief was but a moonlit night,
Tuneful with birds, and sweet with summer flowers,
Closed by an early daybreak of delight;
And now she lifts anew her matin chant,
With all the garden conjubilant.
"The morning sunshine floods my room,
its tender glow my brow has kissed,
And scattered all the night-born gloom;
Yon, floating, thin, translucent mist,
Pierced through and through with living gold
Makes lovelier what it half enshrouds,
And you in distant skies behold
The self-same sun, but other clouds.
"Trim English lowlands bloom for me,
For you, Atlantic waves are bright;
For both, o'er earth, and sky, and sea,
Through thought and passion, mind and heart,
Still streams the same all-glorious light:
Earth's barriers keep us far apart,
But we are one at heaven's height."
ONLY a woman's letter, brown with age,
Yet breathing deathless love, too strong and deep
E'er to be told, save by the written page,
That cannot blush, or hesitate, or weep:
Only a letter, treasured by the dead;
Voiceful, yet ever powerless to impart
Its hidden melodies to any heart
Alien from hers who wrote, from his who read;
Save as a lute long silent, waked at last
By heedless fingers, or by winds that thrill
The chords untuned, may feebly murmur still
Some love-sweet echoes from the tuneful past.
Take my one treasure: take, and ever keep
My whole heart's love: nor shall the gift be vain,
Although it cannot bring you rest from pain,
Nor glad forgetfulness, nor tranquil sleep.
Oh, that my power were boundless as my love!
Then would I give to him I hold so dear
Joys faintly dreamt by many an ancient seer,
Chanting sweet fables of the heavens above.
"Alas," I thought, "such dreams are all too bright,
Too poor am I, of god-like gifts to sing;"
But you have said that even these I bring;
You tell me, that to raptured touch and sight,
I seem the essence of ethereal Spring,
The incarnation of perfume and light.
Wherefore I will not grieve, but gladly twine
Amid your mellow fruit my virgin flowers:
All have their time for love, and this is ours;
Let us rejoice, while yet the sun doth shine.
MY God, who art the God of loneliness,
Who, Life of human souls, art yet alone,
Who, Lord of joy, dost bear the world's distress,
Come Thou, and quench my being in Thine own;
Come, in this mute cathedral make Thy throne
While moonlight through the blazoned window streams,
Where kings and saints a ceaseless vigil keep;
Their reflex glories, like celestial dreams,
Haunt the grey carven brows of those who sleep,
Illuming changeless eyes, that will not wake and weep.
Thy sleep, O Christ, hath sanctified their calm;
Their hands point upward; yet nor wish nor care
Doth move Thy tranquil souls to join the psalm
Sung in this ancient home of tears and prayer.
Yes, these are dead; but I, who live and breathe,
Would learn of them, and dying would bequeath
A memory of one, who deaf to sound
Communed with Silence, guardian of all truth;
Who, with divinest midnight compassed round,
The secret soul of earth and heaven found,
And knew the heart of death, wherein are life and youth.
For this one hope I wrestle, day and night;
In this one faith I joined thy chosen saints,
And left my virgin love, my young delight,
An earth-born cloud, that seemed most fair and white
Until I looked beyond, and saw the sun,
And blinded by his beams, desired not sight.
Now might I dream that heaven is almost won,
Save that yon pale Madonna's plaintive smile
Thrills me with anguish, till my spirit faints,
Till, even in this lone cathedral aisle,
A sad voice murmurs--"Didst thou scorn thy life
For love of God? and hath He sealed thy choice?
A main contented, or a happy wife
I might have been." Hush, Lord, this bitter voice.
I am not worthy, save of Thy disdain,
Yet unto Thee have I performed my vow,
And tortured soul and sense, and prayed for pain;
It cannot be that Thou wilt scorn me now,
That thou hast let me toil and agonize in vain.
Not martyrdom I crave, nor length of days;
But grant me, Lord, ere this frail form decays,
The perfect union that my soul has sought,
The ecstasy that knows nor prayer nor praise,
The raptured silence, unprofaned by thought.
No more wilt Thou in heavenly dreams appear,
When of Thy mystic Essence I am part,
For mine own soul I see not, nor can hear
Even the pulsings of this fevered heart,
Fevered and weary; but full calm is near;
Almighty calm, in endless being blest,
Infinitude of life, too deep for aught save rest.
THERE was a land, where all men lived in dreams,
Where heaven was hid by vapours, grey or gold;
Yet real seemed their life, as our life seems,
And lovers wooed, and merchants bought and sold;
But e'en 'mid feast, and song, and soft caress,
Each heart was sore with utter weariness.
And some were rich, some miserably poor,
And each for other felt a dull contempt;
And some were fools, of loftiest wisdom sure,
And some seemed wise, but no man knew he dreamt;
If any woke, men shrank with angry fear,
Or smiling said, "What doth this dreamer here?"
But at the last, one minstrel boy awoke,
And strove to rouse his fellows, but in vain;
Till, strong and flushed with hope, away he broke,
And left them revelling in mirthful pain:
His hands were trembling from a last embrace,
Yet somewhat sternly smiled the youthful face.
His golden singing-robes were cast aside,
The roses all were shed, that wreathed his brow;
No more 'mid guilty dreams might he abide,
Who in his heart had sworn a solemn vow
To find the ancient innocent again
In some far land unknown of weary men.
No kindred nature deemed his purpose good;
The vision and the promise were his own:
High hills he climbed; through many a tangled wood
He cut his way, in darkness and alone,
Or built a trembling bridge where wild waves tossed,
Or in a fragile boat the surges crossed.
On sandy plains he saw fair miraged lakes,
And oft he hungered, and was oft athirst;
Through haunts of savage beasts and venomed snakes
He roamed, still bravest when the path was worst;
Toiling for heedless kinsfolk unforgot,
For those delirious hearts, that knew him not.
But when he next shall speak, they must awake;
Or if this last best triumph may not be,
Yet will he struggle, e'en for life's dear sake--
What lustre blinds him? Has he strength to see
That primal Heaven on Earth, desired so long,
Won with no joy-burst, greeted with no song?
Oh, glorious recompense for vanished youth,
For love untasted, for the silenced lyre!
This is indeed that ancient land of truth,
Nobler than thought, more lovely than desire:
The snow-crowned heights are girt with blossoms sweet,
And grass lies cool beneath his fevered feet.
But is there respite here for soul and flesh?
Are yonder glades but homes of idle calm?
This is no dreamland--here the wind blows fresh,
Lulling the sense with no voluptuous balm;
Full life inspires the pilgrim's heart and eyes
From yon bright waves, yon high unclouded skies.
Shall he not twine fresh garlands for his head,
And seek new singing-robes of quaint device?
Here roses blush, more delicately red
Than e'er he dreamed the flowers of Paradise,
And in this lovely land is plenteous store
Of gems and gold, more rich than once he wore.
Ah no! Exulting 'neath yon radiant sky
For youth's forgotten songs he oft may yearn;
But the unflinching hand, the wakeful eye,
Still tireless to their lonely task shall turn:
Ere his limbs fail, ere his strong heart be dumb,
Let him make plain the path, that all may come.
BRING snow-white lilies, pallid heart-flushed roses,
Enwreath her brow with heavy-scented flowers;
In soft undreaming sleep her head reposes,
While, unregretted, pass the sunlit hours.
Few sorrows did she know--and all are over;
A thousand joys--but they are all forgot:
Her life was one fair dream of friend and lover;
And they were false--ah, well, she knows it not.
Look in her face, and lose thy dread of dying;
Weep not, that rest will come, that toil will cease:
Is it not well, to lie as she is lying,
In utter silence, and in perfect peace?
Canst thou repine that sentient days are numbered?
Death is unconscious Life, that waits for birth:
So didst thou live, while yet thy embryo slumbered,
Senseless, unbreathing, e'en as heaven and earth.
Then shrink no more from Death, though Life be gladness,
Nor seek him, restless in thy lonely pain:
The law of joy ordains each hour of sadness,
And firm or frail, thou canst not live in vain.
What though thy name by no sad lips be spoken,
And no fond heart shall keep thy memory green?
Thou yet shalt leave thine own enduring token,
For earth is not as though thou ne'er hadst been.
See yon broad current, hasting to the ocean,
Its ripples glorious in the western red:
Each wavelet passes, trackless; yet its motion
Has changed for evermore the river bed.
Ah, wherefore weep, although the form and fashion
Of what thou seemest, fades like sunset flame?
The uncreated Source of toil and passion,
Through everlasting change abides the same.
Yes, thou shalt die: but these almighty forces,
That meet to form thee, live for evermore:
They hold the suns in their eternal courses,
And shape the tiny sand-grains on the shore.
Be calmly glad, thine own true kindred seeing
In fire and storm, in flowers with dew impearled;
Rejoice in thine imperishable being,
One with the Essence of the boundless world.
EVIL has brought forth good, but good in turn
Brings evil forth, and painfully we learn
The rich resulting harmony of life:
Triumphant glories, that most brightly burn,
Last not the longest; for the worth of strife
Consists not in the crown the victors earn.
The man who truly strives can never fail;
For though at set of sun
The battle is not won,
And he is left, despairing and alone;
Yet through the gloom, when flesh and spirit quail,
New radiance flashes, e'en to hope unknown.
He that can walk in darkness, will not slip
Although some bright surprise
At first may blind his eyes;
The ancient glow comes back to heart and lip,
And tears remembered make his laughter wise.
Fresh love and joy, not seeking, he shall find,
While Truth at last her promised garland weaves,
Not of gay roses or green laurels twined,
But bright with scarlet berries, amber leaves.
In some fair glade he seems awhile to rest,
All Dead Sea fruits forgot;
Wild songsters chant, while breezes blow;
His path is overgrown, his brow caressed
By blossoms, that he did not sow,
And foliage, that he tended not.
And what though once, in vain yet noble quest,
With burning feet and eyeballs dim,
He strove to scale volcanic heights of power?
Since on the fertile terrace grew for him
Wisdom and Love, rich fruit and glorious flower.
OH, fatal fruits, nurtured with tears and blood!
To taste your richness, we have given youth,
Unshadowed mirth, and calm credulity;
Your heavy perfume spoils the wild-flower scent
Wafted around us by the winds of heaven.
Ye steal the young delight, that was so sweet,
The simple, thoughtless joy in all things fair,
Giving instead a weary questioning,
A striving for what cannot be attained,
A cloudy vision of the inner life.
We might have lingered in our paradise,
Hearing no music sadder than the notes
Of dreamy birds; while Hope and Memory,
Still young and fair and gaily innocent,
Still undefiled by any touch of doubt,
Together trod the dewy meads of life.
Thus said I, in unreasoning complaint,
Bitterly railing on the friends I love
Because their voice and sweet companionship
Must bring the grief that ever comes with joy.
My heart was full: each common sight and sound
Seemed fraught with mournful meaning; and the earth
Was like a hopeless bride, bedecked in vain
With gems and flowers, for one who will not come.
What wonder I rebelled against the art
That taught me thus to think in metaphors,
And gave me reasons for my soul's unrest?
For I remembered not that it had drawn
My higher nature forth, and given voice
To secret melody. I missed the truth
That knowledge is a greater thing than mirth.
And aspiration more than happiness.
PRECIOUS glimpses through the future's curtain
He may catch, who sees the past unveiled;
Else, in seeking for a goal uncertain,
Blindly groping, will and heart had failed.
What were love, its faded flowers uncherished?
What were life, its bygone days forgot?
Memory may live, when hope has perished;
Hope were dead, if we remembered not.
All our past, in colours soft and tender,
Stretches backward, till it melts in night;
While the future, robed in hazy splendour,
Shows us transient phantoms of delight;
Glorified reflections of the present;
Spirits of the days that once have been;
Hopes of bright perfection, when life's crescent
Fills the orbëd outline, dimly seen.
Yesterday's delights will haunt to-morrow,
Subtle essences of vanished joys,
Till the spectre of remembered sorrow
Their ethereal witchery destroys.
Rays of memory have sunned our pleasure;
In the self-same light regret will spring;
Sorrow is man's burden, yet his treasure;
Proves him servant, yet proclaims him king.
Sharpest anguish, meaner things besetting,
Finds a perfect and a swift relief:
Man alone, immortal, unforgetting
Wears the sombre coronal of grief.
In his heart a quenchless fire is burning,
Kindled ere his conscious life began:
Lord of restless thought and noble yearning
Reigns in loneliness the soul of man.
Yet the earth must yield him free communion,
Heights of heaven his daring hope must gain,
Till he joy in that eternal union
Which the struggling spirit may attain.
Linking Past, and Present, and Hereafter
Man shall find a staff, where seems a rod:
Solemn memories, that check his laughter,
Draw him nearer to the heart of God.
HATH Wisdom made thee weep? Be yet more wise,
And sing for joy. The blind man, gaining sight,
Says haply, "Would I ne'er had seen the light!
This world is all so strange, my 'wildered eyes
Know nought of fair or foul: ah, dear content,
Ere any spectre came to me at night,
When, watched and soothed by unimagined skies,
My dreams were nought but music and sweet scent.
Now must I link to faithful touch and tone
A wondrous alien form, unloved, unknown,
And try to read the face that may be sweet
When I have learnt its language--not till then.
E'en if I shut my eyes, am blind again,
And strive, undoubting, that dear voice to greet,
To trust the hand, that still must guide my feet,
The phantom that I know not comes between;
I must look up--I, who was blind from birth,
And conning wistfully her face and mien,
Interpret mystic features by clear voice,
Loving the song, must love the plumage too,
And make the rose's scent explain its hue:
Thus, keeping faith in beauty, I rejoice,
(Or hope for joy) in green fields, heavens blue,
In all my new-found plenty, felt as dearth,
In all enigmas of this visible earth."
Ah, think ye not, if that poor man be wise,
He will exult because his night is past,
Saying "Although it come to baffled eyes,
Yet light is good, and shall be sweet at last:
From this new face, that even now grows dear,
I shall but learn more richly cadenced love,
And all this foreign world, around, above,
Shall float like music to my inward ear;
Amid all discords, through all thunder-strife,
My soul shall glory in perfected life."
IN pleasant shade I walk, while sunshine lies
On many a distant slope,
And far above me, gold-green summits rise,
Like steadfast towers of Hope.
My hands are full of wreathëd bryony,
And bracken from the hill;
And sated with the beauty that I see
My very heart is still.
Lonely I step o'er this elastic sod;
All living things are dumb;
But whispering of heights I have not trod
The mountain breezes come.
Only a little while my heart can rest,
A little while forget
The rugged paths to many a sun-lit crest
That must be mounted yet.
Take, wild fresh winds, my fading flowers and fern;
These joys I may not keep:
Sweet slumberous glade, farewell! When I return,
It will be time for sleep.
NO more I long for April's fitful sheen,
For little fluttering lives, that passed in June,
For leaves and flowers, by sad October lost;
Since now in ecstasy mine eyes have seen
The rich blue heaven of a summer noon
O'er dazzling trees, thick-robed with mossy frost.
Amid the leafless hedge-rows jewel-twined,
Great trunks and boughs, not crystal-clad as they,
Like black majestic arches I behold;
All wreathed and crowned with woven sprays, defined
In every tender shade of pearly grey,
And radiant white, that glitters into gold.
Around the mighty limbs all gnarled and bowed,
The oak-tree twigs are finely interlaced;
The willows droop in bright cascades of foam,
Each distant tree, a white and feathery cloud,
The nearer branches, delicately traced,
And gleaming pure against the azure dome.
The winds are hushed--there comes no murmuring breeze
To stir the poplar's lofty sun-lit cone,
Or myriad branchlets of the wide-spread beech:
Through this all-glorious temple of the trees,
As through the house of God, I walk alone;
A silence, as of worship, is their speech.
The birds are waking music in my heart,
A voiceless chant, more sweet than they can sing;
My thoughts are sunbeams; all my being thrills
With that exultant joy whose name is Spring.
THE deep enchantment of the summer-tide
Lay o'er the earth, and hill and valley dreamed,
And all the trees with light were glorified,
That through the half-transparent foliage gleamed.
The sunbeams brightly pierced the deep-red beech,
Kindling the sombre leaves to scarlet flame:
Like half-articulate, melodious speech, |
The thousand murmurs of the noonday came.
All sounds were mingled in one dreamy tune;
All joys were fused in one supreme delight:
No hope, no fear, profaned that lustrous noon,
Nor any dim forebodings of the night.
It was a poet's paradise of rest,
Where, for a season, heart and brain might sleep:
Not now by passion and by thought possessed,
Yet ripening golden grain, that they must reap.
Grain to be harvested with anxious toil,
Winnowed and crushed, till fullest worth be won:
But first, in light and heat, the fruitful soil
Receives the inspiration of the sun.
And even night, with depth of mystic gloom,
And even Autumn, with its slow decay,
Bring no more solemn message than the bloom
And joyful splendour of a summer day.
To each grand thought, some beauteous form replies;
The soul, exalted to its noblest height,
Grows, like the pure, illimitable skies,
The chosen home of Mystery and Light.
THE radiant colours in the west are paling;
Fast fades the gold, and green, and crimson light,
And softly comes, each trivial object veiling,
The all-ennobling mystery of night.
This is the hour of thought and silent musing,
When poets' fancies tender buds unfold;
Like the sweet primrose of the twilight, choosing
To spend on evening noonday's gift of gold.
These blossoms hide within their deep recesses
Treasures the wandering wind can never seize;
Not all its inner wealth the flower confesses,
Nor gives its choicest perfume to the breeze.
What wizard's wand can charm the secret sweetness
From the fair prison, where it lies concealed?
What poet's lay can show in grand completeness
The inmost heart, by human speech revealed?
We twine the spell of rich harmonious numbers,
We conjure up the graceful words in vain:
Our lighter fancies waken from their slumbers;
Without a voice the noblest thoughts remain.
So dash the restless billows of the ocean,
But bring no tidings of the tranquil deep;
Above, are endless tumult and commotion;
Below, are silence and eternal sleep.
Beneath the realms that human skill discloses,
Where Life and Death have ceased their ancient fight,
The deep foundation of the earth reposes,
A temple sacred to primæval night.
In wild rejoicing, and in vengeful madness,
Men haste o'er vale and mountain, sea and shore,
But calmly, underneath their grief and gladness,
The earth's great secret lies for evermore.
Above, the sky with myriad stars is gleaming;
Fair in their light the sleeping land appears;
And yet that radiance, o'er the earth down-streaming,
Tells not the wonders of the distant spheres.
And far beyond the realms of starlight glory
Are mysteries too high for Fancy's wing,
Nameless alike in science and in story
In all that sage can tell or poet sing.
As height and depth alike transcends our Vision,
The human soul whence clearest lustre beams,
Has yet its Hades and its fields Elysian,
Revealed alone in symbols and in dreams.
For there are griefs, that none has ever spoken,
Joys, that no mortal tongue has power to tell;
The silence of the soul must be unbroken
Till to the speech of earth we bid farewell.
I MURMUR songs of past delight,
To tunes of present pain:
Around me is the empty night
That answers not again.
My thoughts were better told by tears,
And yet I scorn to weep:
Forgetting hopes, forgetting fears,
My eyes and heart shall sleep.
Yet must I see, in visions wild,
The joys I cannot gain,
And, like a little lonely child,
Stretch out my arms in vain.
THEY told me she was still the same,
In form, and mind, and heart;
With freshly-dawning joy I came,
And now in grief depart.
Still round the forehead, smooth and white,
The golden tresses twine,
The face is fair, the step is light,
As when I called her mine.
And yet the mouth that once I kissed
Is not the same as then;
The smile of love I never missed
Comes not for me again.
More measured is the silver voice,
The words more fitly said;
But while she speaks, I half rejoice
To feel my love is dead.
The eyes are deeper than before,
And far more subtly sweet;
And yet I pray that mine no more
Their altered glance may meet.
My dream is past. I loved a child,
The woman I resign;
The world and she are reconciled,
And now she is not mine.
SOFT blows the breeze, the sun shines bright,
The birds sing loud and gay;
But from the castle on the height
Sounds forth a blither lay.
The hall is decked with flowerets fair,
The gates are opened wide,
To welcome home that youthful pair,
Sir Lancelot and his bride.
The lingering hours pass slowly by,
The blossoms droop and fade;
And many a bright impatient eye
Looks down the rocky glade.
"Look forth, my son, adown the height,"
Outspeaks a harper old;
"Methought I saw a helmet bright
Flash back the sunset's gold.
"Sir Lancelot's band draw nigh, my sire,
Their hundred helmets gleam,
And like a line of living fire
They ford the shallow stream.
"Hurrah! hurrah! they come, they come!
But why so slow and sad?
Why march they not to beat of drum,
With shouts and laughter glad?
"Oh, sweet and sad their music streams,
In cadence low and long;
More like a funeral dirge it seems
Than a gay bridal song."
"Look forth again," the old man said,
"Thy sight is strong and clear;
What bear they on that narrow bed,
That looks so like a bier?"
"I see the gleam of golden hair,
As slowly on they ride:
For weird in beauty, strangely fair,
They bring Sir Lancelot's bride.
"They bear her through the rocky dale;
Methinks they sigh and weep:
My lady's cheek is deadly pale--
Oh, say, can that be sleep?
"She lies in all her loveliness,
A fair yet awful sight;
And that is not her bridal dress,
That gleams so ghastly white.
"The light falls on her lily cheek,
And on her golden head--
Oh, hush, or but in whispers speak:
Say not--that she is dead!
"Alas, alas! in deep despair
Sir Lancelot's head is bowed:
He hides his face; he cannot bear
To see the snow-white shroud."
Within the hall the flowerets fair
Ere now have drooped and died;
Fit welcome to that mournful pair,
Sir Lancelot and his bride.
The morn shall come with brighter flowers,
The lark shall warble gay;
But never more shall Lancelot's towers
Send forth a gladsome lay.
SLOWLY, with dream-like sadness, tolled
The monastery bell;
The Abbot of those cloisters old
Lay dead within his cell.
The monks were gathered round his bed;
Solemn and still they stood;
The fearful presence of the dead
Awed that stern brotherhood.
They gazed upon his hoary head,
And on his noble brow;
They saw the form whence life had fled--
Where was the spirit now?
Strong will was his, a nature stern,
That loved nor wine nor gold:
Did youthful passion ever burn
Within that bosom cold?
The monks had loosed his rugged vest,
While yet alive he lay:
What saw they on that wasted breast
That gleamed so golden gay?
No shining cross, no image fair,
Those eager brethren found;
Only a tress of golden hair,
With a black ribbon bound.
They gazed upon that witness dumb,
That told of love and death;
Some spake with scorn, with pity some,
But all with bated breath.
"Lay it again upon his breast,"
An ancient brother said;
"His soul hath entered into rest;
Judge not the silent dead.
"Long hath he lived a life apart
From every earthly snare;
Yet who shall say what aching heart
Throbbed 'neath his shirt of hair?
"Blame not his long-enduring love,
Nor call it weak and vain,
But pray that he, in realms above,
May meet his bride again."
They buried him beneath the shade
Of cloisters grey and old;
And near his silent heart they laid
That treasured lock of gold.
Luc. xvii. 21.
ICH bin ein Sonnenkind, und strebe immer
Hinauf zum ew'gen Licht;
Der Erdentag, der enge Wolkenschimmer
Stillt meine Sehnsucht nicht.
Genügt es mir, auf Bergeshöh' zu wohnen,
Der scheuen Gemse gleich?
Nein! wo kein Adler schwebte, muss ich thronen,
Wie in der Ahnherrn Reich.
Zerreissen will ich die geträumten Schleier
Des Stoffs, des Raums, der Zeit,
Und mich ergiessen, frei und immer freier,
In die Unendlichkeit.
Nie soll es mir an Brüdergeistern fehlen,
Wie hier im Lügenrauch;
Das todte Weltall will ich selbst beseelen,
Mit leichtem Gotteshauch.
Der Wind verstärkt sich nur durch eignes Wehen,
Die That gebiert die Kraft:
Ich bin noch nicht. Erst kann der Mensch entstehen,
Wenn er als Gott erschafft.
Umsonst! Was hilft's, dass sich der Wahrheit Funkeln
Zu vollem Tag vermehrt?
Selbst auf dem Sonnenthron muss sich verdunkeln
Das Herz, das stets begehrt.
Wie sollt' ich laben mein verdurstet Wesen
Mit leerem, schwankem Schein?
Nur an der Erde Brust kann ich genesen
Von scharfer Himmelspein.
Verzeih' mir, o Natur, das kind'sche Lallen,
Den rasenden Gesang:
Doch was bist Du, als nur das Wiederhallen
Vom alten Seelenklang?
Der kühne Dichtertraum ist nicht verloren,
Er war zu eng, zu bleich:
Nur in des Menschen Seele wird geboren
Das Erd- und Himmelreich.
SAW ye that spinster gaunt and grey,
Whose aspect stern might well dismay
A bombardier stout-hearted?
The golden hair, the blooming face,
And all a maiden's tender grace
Long, long from her have parted.
A Doctor she--her sole delight
To order draughts as black as night,
Powders, and pills, and lotions;
Her very glance might cast a spell
Transmuting Sherry and Moselle
To chill and acrid potions.
Yet if some rash presumptuous man
Her early life should dare to scan,
Strange things he might discover;
For in the bloom of sweet seventeen
She wandered through the meadows green
To meet a boyish lover.
She did not give him Jesuit's bark,
To brighten up his vital spark,
Nor ipecacuanha,
Nor chlorodyne, nor camomile,
But blushing looks, and many a smile,
And kisses sweet as manna.
But ah! the maiden's heart grew cold,
Perhaps she thought the youth too bold,
Perhaps his views had shocked her;
In anger, scorn, caprice, or pride,
She left her old companion's side
To be a Lady Doctor.
She threw away the faded flowers,
Gathered amid the woodland bowers,
Her lover's parting token:
If suffering bodies we relieve,
What need for wounded souls to grieve?
Why mourn, though hearts be broken?
She cared not, though with frequent moan
He wandered through the woods alone
Dreaming of past affection:
She valued at the lowest price
Men neither patients for advice
Nor subjects for dissection.
She studied hard for her degree;
At length the coveted M.D.
Was to her name appended;
Joy to that Doctor, young and fair,
With rosy cheeks and golden hair,
Learning with beauty blended.
Diseases man can scarce endure
A lady's glance may quickly cure,
E'en though the pains be chronic;
Where'er that maiden bright was seen
Her eye surpassed the best quinine,
Her smile became a tonic.
But soon, too soon, the hand of care
Sprinkled with snow her golden hair,
Her face grew worn and jaded;
Forgotten was each maiden wile,
She scarce remembered how to smile,
Her roses all were faded.
And now, she looks so grim and stern,
We wonder any heart could burn
For one so uninviting;
No gentle sympathy she shows,
She seems a man in woman's clothes,
All female graces slighting.
Yet blame her not, for she has known
The woe of living all alone,
In friendless, dreary sadness;
She longs for what she once disdained,
And sighs to think she might have gained
A home of love and gladness.
TO-DAY I've discovered a treasure
Tied up with a ribbon of blue;
That record of pain and of pleasure,
A packet of old billets-doux.
The note-paper, quite out of fashion,
The date of ten summers ago,
Recall the unreasoning passion
Of juvenile rapture and woe.
No face was so lovely as Minnie's,
I praised it in prose and in verse;
Her curls were like piles of new guineas--
Alas, she had none in her purse!
I loved her for beauty and kindness,
I grieved when I fancied her cold,
But Cupid, quite cured of his blindness,
Now takes a good aim at the gold.
To fair Lady Flora, the heiress,
I've offered my love and my life;
Repenting of ancient vagaries,
I'll settle to wealth and a wife.
The heat of my boyhood is banished
Alike from my heart and my head;
The comet for ever has vanished,
But fireworks will answer instead.
I've kept all my ardent effusions,
Appeal, protestation, and vow:
I'm cured of my youthful delusions,
And can't write such love-letters now.
The thing was excessively silly,
But then we were only eighteen,
And she was all rose-bud and lily,
And I was uncommonly green.
I'm happy to say she was fickle,
She blighted my love with a frown;
It withered, ere Time with his sickle
Could cut the first blossoming down.
We parted--how well I remember
That gloomy yet fortunate day!
It seemed like the ghost of December,
Aroused by the frolics of May.
I shook myself loose from her fetters--
(I did not express it so then);
'Twas well she returned me the letters,
For now I can use them again.
I am not afraid of detection,
I cast all my scruples away;
The embers of former affection
Shall kindle the fire of to-day.
ALAS, for the blight of my fancies!
Alas, for the fall of my pride!
I planned, in my girlish romances,
To be a philosopher's bride.
I pictured him learned and witty,
The sage and the lover combined,
Not scorning to say I was pretty,
Nor only adoring my mind.
No elderly, spectacled Mentor,
But one who would worship and woo;
Perhaps I might take an inventor,
Or even a poet would do.
And tender and gay and well-favoured,
My fate overtook me at last:
I saw, and I heard, and I wavered,
I smiled, and my freedom was past.
He promised to love me for ever,
He pleaded, and what could I say?
I thought he must surely be clever,
For he is an Oxford M.A.
But now, I begin to discover
My visions are fatally marred;
Perfection itself as a lover,
He's neither a sage nor a bard.
He's mastered the usual knowledge,
And says it's a terrible bore;
He formed his opinions at college,
Then why should he think any more?
My logic he sets at defiance,
Declares that my Latin's no use,
And when I begin to talk Science
He calls me a dear little goose.
He says that my lips are too rosy
To speak in a language that's dead,
And all that is dismal and prosy
Should fly from so sunny a head.
He scoffs at each grave occupation,
Turns everything off with a pun;
And says that his sole calculation
Is how to make two into one.
He says Mathematics may vary,
Geometry cease to be true,
But scorning the slightest vagary
He still will continue to woo.
He says that the sun may stop action,
But he will not swerve from his course;
For love is his law of attraction,
A smile his centripetal force.
His levity's truly terrific,
And often I think we must part,
But compliments so scientific
Recapture my fluttering heart.
Yet sometimes 'tis very confusing,
This conflict of love and of lore--
But hark! I must cease from my musing,
For that is his knock at the door!
THE poet in theory worships the moon,
But how can he linger, to gaze on her light?
With proof-sheets and copy the table is strewn,
A poem lies there, to be finished to-night.
He silently watches the queen of the sky,
But orbs more prosaic must dawn for him soon--
The gas must be lighted; he turns with a sigh,
Lets down his venetians and shuts out the moon.
"This is but a symbol," he sadly exclaims,
"Heaven's glory must yield to the lustre of earth;
More golden, less distant, less pure are the flames
That shine for the world over sorrow and mirth.
When Wisdom sublime sheds her beams o'er the night,
I turn with a sigh from the coveted boon,
And choosing instead a more practical light
Let down my venetians and shut out the moon."
He sits to his desk and he mutters "Alas,
My muse will not oaken, and yet I must write!"
But great is Diana: venetians and gas
Have not been sufficient to banish her quite.
She peeps through the blinds and is bright as before,
He smiles and he blesses the hint opportune,
And feels he can still, when his labour is o'er,
Draw up his venetians and welcome the moon.
"EDITH is fair," the painter said,
"Her cheek so richly glows,
My palette ne'er could match the red
Of that pure damask rose.
"Perchance, the evening rain-drops light,
Soft sprinkling from above,
Have caught the sunset's colour bright,
And borne it to my love.
"In distant regions I must seek
For tints before unknown,
Ere I can paint the brilliant cheek
That blooms for me alone."
All this his little sister heard,
Who frolicked by his side;
To check such theories absurd,
That gay young sprite replied:
"Oh, I can tell you where to get
That pretty crimson bloom,
For in a bottle it is set
In Cousin Edith's room.
"I'm sure that I could find the place,
If you want some to keep;
I watched her put it on her face--
She didn't see me peep!
"So nicely she laid on the pink,
As well as you could do,
And really, I almost think
She is an artist, too."
The maddened painter tore his hair,
And vowed he ne'er would wed,
And never since, to maiden fair,
A tender word has said.
Bright ruby cheeks, and skin of pearl,
He knows a shower may spoil,
And when he wants a blooming girl
Paints one himself in oil.
"I'LL don my kerchief blue," she said,
"And wear my Sunday gown,
For every morn, with lightsome tread
A youth goes by to town.
"And ever as he passes by,
Methinks he walks more slow,
And glances up, with wistful eye,
To where I sit and sew.
"And sometimes, with a tender sound
He whistles soft and low;
How can that gentle youth have found
That I love music so?
"His flashing eyes reveal his soul,
They are so very bright;
And ever in his button-hole
He sticks a lily white.
"He never dons a flaunting rose,
But always wears the same;
Perhaps it is because he knows
That Lily is my name!
"I'll wear a wreath of lilies white
Methinks, when I'm a bride--
Oh, here he comes, with footstep light--
But--who walks at his side?
"It's some one in a scarlet shawl;
Perhaps he calls her fair,
But I don't think she's nice at all:
I hate that yellow hair!
"How can he walk with such a fright?
Oh dear, what shall I do?
He's given her that blossom white!
Is her name Lily too?
"But now I look at him, he seems
Less handsome than before;
His eyes have lost their radiant gleams,
His voice is sweet no more.
"His hair, methinks, is getting red,
His nose less straight appears:
I could not such a creature wed,
Though he should sue for years!
"And other youths for me may sigh,
And I may love again,
But never, never more will I
Watch at the window-pane!"
FAREWELL oh mocking Wind! No more I mix
Thine airy substance with my world, the Tree:
Farewell, oh Carbon, that I cannot fix,
And Oxygen, that I no more set free!
They tell me I have helped the trunk to grow,
The roots to suck the earth, the boughs to fork,
The fruits to ripen--well, it may be so,
But I am dying, and shall soon be cork.
Dead, sapless cork! yet I remember still
My moist and merry life in windy March;
How green I was! how full of chlorophyll!
But soon it shrivelled, leaving only starch.
___________________* Towards the end of summer, the cells immediately beneath the epidermis of a young shoot usually become
converted into cork. Their green colour is changed to brown, and the walls are rendered almost impervious to water, so that vital functions
are no longer possible.
Page 99
Blest epoch! when transparent and elastic,
My membrane scarce restrained its endoplast,
When, homogeneous, semi-fluid, plastic,
My vital molecules rotated fast.
Dry as I am, I once was young and tender,
Alive with chemic yearnings; then, alas!
What thoughtless joy was mine, in spring tide splendour,
To decompose carbonic acid gas!
Oh, had I sunk to inorganic slumber,
And left the atoms to their gaseous glee!
The greatest pleasure of the greatest number
My life may serve--but what is that to me?
Backward I look, as o'er a fearful chasm,
To days when I rejoiced to live and grow;
Now less and less becomes my protoplasm,
My nucleus divided long ago.
My wall grows thicker, dryer--oh to issue
From this dark prison, where compressed I dwell,
To live, no more a part of any tissue,
But a primordial protoplasmic cell!
A cell amoeboid, drifting from its mother,
Naked and houseless in the cruel storm,
Having no aid of sister or of brother,
Nor any cellulose to keep it warm;
Yet having freedom! Nay, the dream I banish,
The time of cell-division long is past;
Slowly and surely, all my contents vanish,
My walls are waterproof--I'm cork at last!
THEY'VE left me alone in the garden,
So I'll talk to that dear little wren--
Mr. Beetle! I do beg your pardon,
I was very near killing you, then.
I'll tell you a tale, Mrs. Robin,
Please do not be frightened at all--
A tale about Neddy and Dobbin--
She's gone! she's flown over the wall!
That wall must be very old--maybe
They're the children of Israel's bricks;
It was built before I was a baby,
And now--only think--I am six!
Six years old! What a beautiful swallow,
Catching flies! How I wish he could speak!
He's gone down to that house in the hollow;
I went there to dinner last week.
I could stay in that garden for ever,
And make friends with the beeches and limes:
I saw Dr. Jones--he's so clever;
He writes to the papers sometimes!
He looked at me hard through his glasses,
And said, "Now make plenty of noise,
Have a regular romp with my lasses,
And be petted and teased by the boys."
He said that my curls wanted rumpling,
My cheeks should be red and not pink,
He called me a sweet little dumpling--
He's very insulting, I think.
'Twas Nurse that had made me so tidy,
And how can I help being small?
He gave me some roses on Friday;
Perhaps he is nice, after all.
I stayed with the children till seven;
They're kind, but so dreadfully rough!
There were ten of them--I made eleven--
We played Tick, French and English, and Buff.
The girls are as bad as their brothers,
They teased me, and played me such tricks!
But Maude isn't rude like the others,
She says I look older than six.
She showed me her dog and her kittens,
And the birds, and the fish in the pool:
She crochets her scarves and her mittens,
And goes to Miss Trimmington's school.
She mustn't make blunders or stammer,
Or stoop when she sits on the bench;
She knows History, Science, and Grammar,
Geography, Tables, and French.
She takes pepper and mustard at dinner,
She may ask for plum-pudding again:
I wish I were taller and thinner,
I wish--how I wish--I were ten!
She has brothers and sisters--a dozen--
And Rover, and Pussy, and Poll;
But I haven't even a cousin,
I've only Mamma, and my doll.
Papa's out all day in the City,
And I'm often in bed when he comes:
He's so tired and so grave--what a pity!
When will he have finished his sums?
I wish there were more of us, only
It's nice to play just what I please;
And when I am mopish and lonely
I always can talk to the trees.
Mamma says, "Sweet flowers will not tarry,
But trees are companions for life."
I wish that great lime-tree could marry,
With me for his dear little wife!
Sometimes, when I shoot at the sparrows
(I don't want to hit them, they know),
I peel his small twigs for my arrows,
And bend a strong branch for my bow.
If he died, oh, how much I should miss him!
(It's only his dry sticks I peel)
I put my arms round him and kiss him,
And sometimes I think he can feel.
Those beautiful green caterpillars
Live here, that Nurse cannot endure;
And the birds--cruel butterfly-killers!
But they don't know it's wrong, I am sure.
I make tales about flying and creeping
About branches, and berries, and flowers;
And at night, when I ought to be sleeping,
I wake and lie thinking for hours.
I keep quiet, that Nurse may not scold me,
And think, while the stars twinkle bright,
Of the tales that Aunt Mary has told me,
And wonder--who comes here at night?
I fancy the fairies make merry,
With thorns for their knives and their forks;
They have currants for bottles of sherry,
And the little brown heads are the corks.
A leaf makes the tent they sit under,
Their ball-room's a white lily-cup:
Shall I know all about them, I wonder,
For certain, when I am grown up?
Far over the seas and the mountains
There's a wonderful country of light;
My new home--full of castles and fountains;
My Dolly goes there every night.
I've seen it in dreams--there are plenty
Of birds and beasts, talking in verse;
I shall take Mamma there when I'm twenty,
And Papa, and Aunt Mary, and Nurse.
Papa will look glad, when I show him
Such new and such beautiful things;
He'll be pleased when I write my grand poem,
And paint a bright angel with wings.
I'll swim, with a mermaid and merman,
Through the seas and the ocean so broad;
I'll learn French, and Italian, and German,
And soon be as clever as Maude.
I'll often have tea at Aunt Mary's,
With marmalade--orange and quince:
I'll visit the queen of the fairies,
And then I will marry a prince.
WITH bounding heart, with eyes and cheeks aglow.
Not caring how the frost may stab and sting,
I haste along, where leafless branches fling
Their clear blue shadows o'er the sun-lit snow.
For though I count sad Winter as my foe,
Within my heart I can create the Spring,
Can hear sweet music, ere the thrushes sing,
And see white flowers, before the pear-buds blow.
These homely scenes, whence first my childish eye
Its own ideal form of beauty chose,
I love for ever; leaves and blossoms die,
But this ethereal image lingers yet;
And if I grieved, I could but grieve for those
Who know not spring, or having known, forget.
SWEET household hyacinth, whose dainty breath
Steals through my spirit like an April dream!
Each day I watch another snowy gleam,
That dawns and brightens through thine emerald sheath:
The encircling air, the water from beneath,
The fireside glow, the pallid noon-day beam,
Arise transfigured in thy white raceme,
Safe from the New Year's wind, whose touch were death.
The bells of Spring are not so sweet and fair,
For they with wind and rain and hail must cope,
That all too soon their tender life destroy;
But thou, warm sheltered from the frosty air,
Art like some delicate and hidden hope,
More full and fragrant than the promised joy.
FAIR, sunny-hearted child of many tears!
Thou, while thy mother Earth forsaken slept,
Didst gather to thyself pure hopes, that crept
Through stormy dreams; and now the sun appears,
White buds reflect each rare faint smile, that cheers
The home where thine unshapen germ was kept,
Safe in deep midnight, while the heavens wept,
Or hung the shuddering trees with frosty spears.
Now springs to life and light each buried joy,
With broken music and with tearful glow,
With drooping blossoms, winter-pale and coy;
For Love shall soon fulfil her long desire--
Her face and breast are memories of snow,
Her heart, like thine, is lit with vestal fire.
THE blackbird sits and pipes his love-notes clear
In yon dark tracery of budding sprays,
Sharply defined against the distant haze,
But soon 'mid fresh green leaves to disappear:
Now soft, now keen, the wind breathes hope and fear,
While with unsheltered almond flowers It plays:
The skies are sad, remembering winter days,
But birds and blossoms know that Spring is here.
I, too, foresee her glory, and rejoice;
Though to my heart she comes in wintry guise,
Dark-robed, slow-stepping; for in eye and voice
Are promises of music and of light,
And I can wait till smiles shall come for sighs,
And golden hues for grey, and bloom for blight.
YE little birds, that chant your love so loud,
Your careless hearts are not so glad as mine,
For he who sings because the sun doth shine
Is robbed of joy by every murky cloud;
And ye, sweet heralds of the summer crowd
Of unremembered flowers, whose tints combine
To light the meadows--ye grow pale and pine,
When by cold winds your radiant heads are bowed.
From you, from all fair creatures of the earth,
I do but gain the beauty that I give;
Your form, your music, in my soul have birth,
And in my very life your colours live;
And when the sunlight fades, and ye depart,
I hold your joy within my secret heart.
CLEAR, golden, soft, the spring-tide sunshine beams,
With tranquil splendour piercing grove and dingle,
As though bright morning, noon, and eve could mingle
In some eternal home of daylight dreams;
Even as though this radiance were not fleeting,
But shone for ever from the slumbering skies,
Calming with tender light impassioned eyes,
And sleepless brain, and heart too strongly beating.
Yet cold March winds prepared these breezes warm,
And heralded this glow of April weather,
And soon dim flakes of cloud will float together,
Till earth be sad once more with rain and storm;
For all fresh glory must be born of strife,
And still perfection were but death in life.
AT last, coy Spring, concede one festal day
To us who yearn thy beauty to behold;
These pallid leaves, that peer above the mould,
Perfume and brighten; lanes and woods array
With hawthorn, that was wont to bloom in May,
White-petalled, crimson-anthered; lilies cold,
With drooping bells that hide their central gold,
And sun-bright buttercups and cowslips gay.
Long have we listened to a song of death,
That wild winds chant o'er living seeds entombed:
Sing thou of life; inspire us with thy breath;
Transfuse thy lustre e'en through clouds and showers;
Our hearts shall glow, like dells by thee illumed,
Whose shadows are but images of flowers.
THROUGH dreamful meads, that still his spirit keep,
Roamed the boy-poet, when the morn was young,