Chapter I: KNEAD and I spin, but my life is low the while,

Oh, I long to be alone, and walk abroad a mile,
Yet if I walk alone, and think of naught at all,
Why from me that ’s young should the wild tears fall?

The shower-stricken earth, the earth-colored streams,
They breathe on me awake, and moan to me in dreams,
And yonder ivy fondling the broke castle-wall,
It pulls upon my heart till the wild tears fall.

The cabin-door looks down a furze-lighted hill,
And far as Leighlin Cross the fields are green and still;
But once I hear the blackbird in Leighlin hedges call,
The foolishness is on me, and the wild tears fall!

II

’Tis the time o’ the year, if the quicken-bough be staunch,
The green, like a breaker, rolls steady up the branch,
And surges in the spaces, and floods the trunk, and heaves
In little angry spray that is the under-white of leaves;
And from the thorn in companies the foamy petals fall,
And waves of jolly ivy wink along a windy wall.

’Tis the time o’ the year the marsh is full of sound,
And good and glorious it is to smell the living ground.
The crimson-headed catkin shakes above the pasture-bars,
The daisy takes the middle field and spangles it with stars,
And down the bank into the lane the primroses do crowd,
All colored like the twilight moon, and spreading like a cloud!

’Tis the time o’ the year, in early light and glad,
The lark has a music to drive a lover mad;
The downs are dripping nightly, the breathèd damps arise,
Deliciously the freshets cool the grayling’s golden eyes,
And lying in a row against the chilly north, the sheep
Inclose a place without a wind for tender lambs to sleep.

’Tis the time o’ the year I turn upon the height
To watch from my harrow the dance of going light;
And if before the sun be hid, come slowly up the vale
Honora with her dimpled throat, Honora with her pail,
Hey, but there ’s many a March for me, and many and many a lass!
I fall to work and song again, and let Honora pass.

_The Japanese Anemone_

ALL summer the breath of the roses around
Exhales with a delicate, passionate sound;
And when from a trellis, in holiday places,
They croon and cajole, with their slumberous faces,
A lad in the lane must slacken his paces.

Fragrance of these is a voice in a bower:
But low by the wall is my odorless flower,
So pure, so controlled, not a fume is above her,
That poet or bee should delay there and hover;
For she is a silence, and therefore I love her.

And never a mortal by morn or midnight
Is called to her hid little house of delight;
And she keeps from the wind, on his pillages olden,
Upon a true stalk in rough weather upholden,
Her winter-white gourd with the hollow moon-golden.

While ardors of roses contend and increase,
Methinks she has found how noble is peace,
Like a spirit besought from the world to dissever,
Not absent to men, tho’ resumed by the Giver,
And dead long ago, being lovely for ever.

_Tryste Noel_

THE Ox he openeth wide the Doore
And from the Snowe he calls her inne,
And he hath seen her Smile therefore,
Our Ladye without Sinne.
Now soone from Sleepe
A Starre shall leap,
And soone arrive both King and Hinde;
_Amen, Amen_:
But O, the place co’d I but finde!

The Ox hath husht his voyce and bent
Trewe eyes of Pitty ore the Mow,
And on his lovelie Neck, forspent,
The Blessed lays her Browe.
Around her feet
Full Warme and Sweete
His bowerie Breath doth meeklie dwell;
_Amen, Amen_:
But sore am I with Vaine Travèl!

The Ox is host in Juda’s stall,
And Host of more than onelie one,
For close she gathereth withal
Our Lorde her littel Sonne.
Glad Hinde and King
Their Gyfte may bring
But wo’d to-night my Teares were there,
_Amen, Amen_:
Between her Bosom and His hayre!

_A Talisman_

TAKE Temperance to thy breast,
While yet is the hour of choosing,
As arbitress exquisite
Of all that shall thee betide;
For better than fortune’s best
Is mastery in the using,
And sweeter than anything sweet
The art to lay it aside!

_Heathenesse_

NO round boy-satyr, racing from the mere,
Shakes on the mountain-lawn his dripping head
This many a May, your sister being dead,
Ye Christian folk! your sister great and dear.
To breathe her name, to think how sad-sincere
Was all her searching, straying, dreaming, dread,
How of her natural night was Plato bred,
A star to keep the ways of honor clear,
Who will not sigh for her? who can forget
Not only unto campèd Israel,
Nor martyr-maids that as a bridegroom met
The Roman lion’s roar, salvation fell?
To Him be most of praise that He is yet
Your God thro’ gods not inaccessible.

_For Izaak Walton_

WHAT trout shall coax the rod of yore
In Itchen stream to dip?
What lover of her banks restore
That sweet Socratic lip?
Old fishing and wishing
Are over many a year.
O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.

Again the foamy shallows fill,
The quiet clouds amass,
And soft as bees by Catherine Hill
At dawn the anglers pass,
And follow the hollow,
In boughs to disappear.
O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.

Nay, rise not now, nor with them take
One silver-freckled fool!
Thy sons to-day bring each an ache
For ancient arts to cool.
But, father, lie rather
Unhurt and idle near;
O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.

While thought of thee to men is yet
A sylvan playfellow,
Ne’er by thy marble they forget
In pious cheer to go.
As air falls, the prayer falls
O’er kingly Winchester:
O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.

_Sherman: “An Horatian Ode”_

THIS was the truest man of men,
The early-armored citizen,
Who had, with most of sight,
Most passion for the right;

Who first forecasting treason’s scope
Able to sap the Founders’ hope,
First to the laic arm
Cried ultimate alarm;

Who bent upon his guns the while
A misconceived and aching smile,
And felt, thro’ havoc’s part,
A torment of the heart,

Sure, when he cut the moated South
From Shiloh to Savannah’s mouth,
Braved grandly to the end,
To conquer like a friend;

In whom the Commonwealth withstood
Again the Carolinian blood,
The beautiful proud line
Beneath an evil sign,

And taught his foes and doubters still
How fatal is a good man’s will,
That like a sun or sod
Thinks not itself, but God!

Many the captains of our wrath
Sought thus the pious civic path,
Knowing in what a land
Their destiny was planned,

And after, with a forward sense,
A simple Roman excellence,
Pledge in their spirit bore
That war should be no more.

Thrice Roman he, who saw the shock
(Calm as a weather-wrinkled rock,)
Roll in the Georgian fen;
And steadfast aye as then

In plenitude of old control
That asked, secure of his own soul,
No pardon and no aid,
If clear his way were made,

Would have nor seat nor bays, nor bring
The Cæsar in him to be king,
But with abstracted ear
Rode pleased without a cheer.

Now he declines from peace and age,
And home, his triple heritage,
The last and dearest head
Of all our perfect dead,

O what if sorrow cannot reach
Far in the shallow fords of speech,
But leads us silent round
The sad Missouri ground,

Where on her hero Freedom lays
The scroll and blazon of her praise,
And bids to him belong
Arms trailing, and a song,

And broken flags with ruined dyes
(Bright once in young and dying eyes),
Against the morn to shake
For love’s familiar sake?

The blessèd broken flags unfurled
Above a healed and happier world!
There let them droop, and be
His tent of victory;

There, in each year’s auguster light,
Lean in, and loose their red and white,
Like apple-blossoms strewn
Upon his burial-stone.

For nothing more, the ages thro’,
Can nature or the nation do
For him who helped retrieve
Our life, as we believe,

Save that we also, trooping by
In sound yet of his battle-cry,
Safeguard with general mind
Our pact as brothers kind,

And, ever nearer to our star,
Adore indeed not what we are,
But wise reprovings hold
Thankworthier than gold;

And bear in faith and rapture such
As can eternal issues touch,
Whole from the final field,
Our father Sherman’s shield.

_When on the Marge of Evening_

WHEN on the marge of evening the last blue light is broken,
And winds of dreamy odor are loosened from afar,
Or when my lattice opens, before the lark has spoken,
On dim laburnum-blossoms, and morning’s dying star,

I think of thee, (O mine the more if other eyes be sleeping!)
Whose great and noonday splendor the many share and see,
While sacred and forever, some perfect law is keeping
The late and early twilight alone and sweet for me.

_Rooks in New College Gardens_

THRO’ rosy cloud, and over thorny towers,
Their wings with all the autumn distance filled,
From Isis’ valley border hundred-hilled,
The rooks are crowding home as evening lowers:
Not for men only and their musing hours,
By battled walls did gracious Wykeham build
These dewy spaces early sown and stilled,
These dearest inland melancholy bowers.

Blest birds! A book held open on the knee
Below, is all they know of Adam’s blight:
With surer art the while, and simpler rite,
They follow Truth in some monastic tree,
Where breathe against their innocent breasts by night
The scholar’s star, the star of sanctity.

_Open, Time_

OPEN, Time, and let him pass
Shortly where his feet would be!
Like a leaf at Michaelmas
Swooning from the tree,

Ere its hour the manly mind
Trembles in a sure decrease,
Nor the body now can find
Any hold on peace.

Take him, weak and overworn;
Fold about his dying dream
Boyhood, and the April morn,
And the rolling stream:

Weather on a sunny ridge,
Showery weather, far from here;
Under some deep-ivied bridge,
Water rushing clear:

Water quick to cross and part,
(Golden light on silver sound),
Weather that was next his heart
All the world around!

Soon upon his vision break
These, in their remembered blue;
He shall toil no more, but wake
Young, in air he knew.

He has done with roofs and men.
Open, Time, and let him pass,
Vague and innocent again,
Into country grass.

_The Knight Errant (Donatello’s Saint George)_

SPIRITS of old that bore me,
And set me, meek of mind,
Between great dreams before me,
And deeds as great behind,
Knowing humanity my star
As first abroad I ride,
Shall help me wear, with every scar,
Honor at eventide.

Let claws of lightning clutch me
From summer’s groaning cloud,
Or ever malice touch me,
And glory make me proud.
O give my youth, my faith, my sword,
Choice of the heart’s desire:
A short life in the saddle, Lord!
Not long life by the fire.

Forethought and recollection
Rivet mine armor gay!
The passion for perfection
Redeem my failing way!
The arrows of the tragic time
From sudden ambush cast,
With calm angelic touches ope
My Paradise at last!

I fear no breathing bowman,
But only, east and west,
The awful other foeman
Impowered in my breast.
The outer fray in the sun shall be,
The inner beneath the moon;
And may Our Lady lend to me
Sight of the Dragon soon!

_To a Dog’s Memory_

THE gusty morns are here,
When all the reeds ride low with level spear;
And on such nights as lured us far of yore,
Down rocky alleys yet, and thro’ the pine,
The Hound-star and the pagan Hunter shine:
But I and thou, ah, field-fellow of mine,
Together roam no more.

Soft showers go laden now
With odors of the sappy orchard-bough,
And brooks begin to brawl along the march;
The late frost steams from hollow sedges high;
The finch is come, the flame-blue dragon-fly,
The cowslip’s common gold that children spy,
The plume upon the larch.

There is a music fills
The oaks of Belmont and the Wayland hills
Southward to Dewing’s little bubbly stream,
The heavenly weather’s call! Oh, who alive
Hastes not to start, delays not to arrive,
Having free feet that never felt a gyve
Weigh, even in a dream?

But thou, instead, hast found
The sunless April uplands underground,
And still, wherever thou art, I must be.
My beautiful! arise in might and mirth,
For we were tameless travellers from our birth;
Arise against thy narrow door of earth,
And keep the watch for me.

_A Seventeenth-Century Song_

SHE alone of Shepherdesses
With her blue disdayning eyes,
Wo’d not hark a Kyng that dresses
All his lute in sighes:
Yet to winne
Katheryn,
I elect for mine Emprise.

None is like her, none above her,
Who so lifts my youth in me,
That a littel more to love her
Were to leave her free!
But to winne
Katheryn,
Is mine utmost love’s degree.

Distaunce, cold, delay, and danger,
Build the four walles of her bower;
She ’s noe Sweete for any stranger,
She ’s noe valley flower:
And to winne
Katheryn,
To her height my heart can Tower!

Uppe to Beautie’s promontory
I will climb, nor loudlie call
Perfect and escaping glory
Folly, if I fall:
Well to winne
Katheryn!
To be worth her is my all.

_On the Pre-Reformation Churches about Oxford_

I

IMPERIAL Iffley, Cumnor bowered in green,
And Templar Sandford in the boatman’s call,
And sweet-belled Appleton, and Wytham wall
That doth upon adoring ivies lean;
Meek Binsey; Dorchester where streams convene
Bidding on graves her solemn shadow fall;
Clear Cassington that soars perpetual;
Holton and Hampton, and ye towers between:
If one of all in your sad courts that come,
Belovèd and disparted! be your own,
Kin to the souls ye had, while time endures,
Known to each exiled, each estrangèd stone
Home in the quarries of old Christendom,--
Ah, mark him: he will lay his cheek to yours.

II

Is this the end? is this the pilgrim’s day
For dread, for dereliction, and for tears?
Rather, from grass and air and many spheres
In prophecy his spirit sinks away;
And under English eaves, more still than they,
Far-off, incoming, wonderful, he hears
The long-arrested and believing years
Carry the sea-wall! Shall he, sighing, say,
“Farewell to Faith, for she is dead at best
Who had such beauty”? or with kisses lain
For witness on her darkened doors, go by
With a new psalm: “O banished light so nigh!
Of them was I who bore thee and who blest;
Even here remember me when thou shalt reign.”

_The Still of the Year_

UP from the willow-root
Subduing agonies leap;
The squirrel and the purple moth
Turn over amid their sleep;
The icicled rocks aloft
Burn saffron and blue alway,
And trickling and tinkling
The snows of the drift decay.
O mine is the head must hang
And share the immortal pang!
Winter or spring is fair;
Thaw ’s hard to bear.
Heigho! my heart ’s sick.

Sweet is cherry-time, sweet
A shower, a bobolink,
And the little trillium-blossom
Tucked under her leaf to think;
But here in the vast unborn
Is the bitterest place to be,
Till striving and longing
Shall quicken the earth and me.
What change inscrutable
Is nigh us, we know not well;
Gone is the strength to sigh
Either to live or die.
Heigho! my heart ’s sick.

_A Foot-note to a Famous Lyric_

TRUE love’s own talisman, which here
Shakespeare and Sidney failed to teach,
A steel-and-velvet Cavalier
Gave to our Saxon speech:

Chief miracle of theme and touch
That upstart enviers adore:
_I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more_.

No critic born since Charles was king
But sighed in smiling, as he read:
“Here ’s theft of the supremest thing
A poet might have said!”

Young knight and wit and beau, who won
Mid war’s adventure, ladies’ praise,
Was’t well of you, ere you had done,
To blight our modern bays?

O yet to you, whose random hand
Struck from the dark whole gems like these,
Archaic beauty, never planned
Nor reared by wan degrees,

Which leaves an artist poor, and art
An earldom richer all her years;
To you, dead on your shield apart,
Be “Ave!” passed in tears.

How shall this singing era spurn
Her master, and in lauds be loath?
Your worth, your work, bid us discern
Light exquisite in both.

’T was virtue’s breath inflamed your lyre,
Heroic from the heart it ran;
Nor for the shedding of such fire
Lives since a manlier man.

And till your strophe sweet and bold
So lovely aye, so lonely long,
Love’s self outdo, dear Lovelace! hold
The pinnacles of song.

_T. W. P. 1819-1892_

FRIEND who hast gone, and dost enrich to-day
New England brightly building far away,
And crown her liberal walk
With company more choice, and sweeter talk,

Look not on Fame, but Peace; and in a bower
Receive at last her fulness and her power:
Nor wholly, pure of heart!
Forget thy few, who would be where thou art.

_Summum Bonum_

WAITING on Him who knows us and our need,
Most need have we to dare not, nor desire,
But as He giveth, softly to suspire
Against His gift, with no inglorious greed,
For this is joy, tho’ still our joys recede;
And, as in octaves of a noble lyre,
To move our minds with His, and clearer, higher,
Sound forth our fate; for this is strength indeed.

Thanks to His love let earth and man dispense
In smoke of worship when the heart is stillest,
A praying more than prayer: “Great good have I,
Till it be greater good to lay it by;
Nor can I lose peace, power, permanence,
For these smile on me from the thing Thou willest!”

_Saint Florent-le-Vieil_

THE spacious open vale, the vale of doom,
Is full of autumn sunset; blue and strong
The semicirque of water sweeps among
Her lofty acres, each a martyr’s tomb;
And slowly, slowly, melt into the gloom
Two little idling clouds, that look for long
Like roseleaf bodies of two babes in song
Correggio left to flush a convent room.

Dear hill deflowered in the frantic war!
In my day, rather, have I seen thee blest
With pastoral roofs to break the darker crest
Of apple-woods by many-islèd Loire,
And fires that still suffuse the lower west,
Blanching the beauty of thine evening star.

_Hylas_

JAR in arm, they bade him rove
Thro’ the alder’s long alcove,
Where the hid spring musically
Gushes to the ample valley.
(There ’s a bird on the under bough
Fluting evermore and now:
“Keep--young!” but who knows how?)

Down the woodland corridor,
Odors deepened more and more;
Blossomed dogwood, in the briers,
Struck her faint delicious fires;
Miles of April passed between
Crevices of closing green,
And the moth, the violet-lover,
By the wellside saw him hover.

Ah, the slippery sylvan dark!
Never after shall he mark
Noisy ploughmen drinking, drinking,
On his drownèd cheek down-sinking;
Quit of serving is that wild,
Absent, and bewitchèd child,
Unto action, age, and danger,
Thrice a thousand years a stranger.

Fathoms low, the naiads sing
In a birthday welcoming;
Water-white their breasts, and o’er him,
Water-gray, their eyes adore him.
(There ’s a bird on the under bough
Fluting evermore and now:
“Keep--young!” but who knows how?)

_Nocturne_

THE sun that hurt his lovers from on high
Is fallen; she more merciful is nigh,
The blessèd one whose beauty’s even glow
Gave never wound to any shepherd’s eye.
Above our pausing boat in shallows drifted,
Alone her plaintive form ascends the sky.

O sing! the water-golds are deepening now,
A hush is come upon the beechen bough;
She shines the while on thee, as saint to saint
Sweet interchanged adorings may allow:
Sing, dearest, with that lily throat uplifted;
They are so like, the holy Moon and thou!

_The Kings_

A MAN said unto his angel:
“My spirits are fallen thro’,
And I cannot carry this battle,
O brother! what shall I do?

“The terrible Kings are on me,
With spears that are deadly bright,
Against me so from the cradle
Do fate and my fathers fight.”

Then said to the man his angel:
“Thou wavering, foolish soul,
Back to the ranks! What matter
To win or to lose the whole,

“As judged by the little judges
Who hearken not well, nor see?
Not thus, by the outer issue,
The Wise shall interpret thee.

“Thy will is the very, the only,
The solemn event of things;
The weakest of hearts defying
Is stronger than all these Kings.

“Tho’ out of the past they gather,
Mind’s Doubt and Bodily Pain,
And pallid Thirst of the Spirit
That is kin to the other twain,

“And Grief, in a cloud of banners,
And ringletted Vain Desires,
And Vice, with the spoils upon him
Of thee and thy beaten sires,

“While Kings of eternal evil
Yet darken the hills about,
Thy part is with broken sabre
To rise on the last redoubt;

“To fear not sensible failure,
Nor covet the game at all,
But fighting, fighting, fighting,
Die, driven against the wall!”

ALEXANDRIANA

_Alexandriana_

I