Chapter VI: Epilogue (1)

Carol, every violet has
Heaven for a looking-glass!

Every little valley lies
Under many-clouded skies;
Every little cottage stands
Girt about with boundless lands.
Every little glimmering pond
Claims the mighty shores beyond--
Shores no seamen ever hailed,
Seas no ship has ever sailed.

All the shores when day is done
Fade into the setting sun,
So the story tries to teach
More than can be told in speech.

Beauty is a fading flower,
Truth is but a wizard's tower,
Where a solemn death-bell tolls,
And a forest round it rolls.

We have come by curious ways
To the Light that holds the days;
We have sought in haunts of fear
For that all-enfolding sphere:
And lo! it was not far, but near.

We have found, O foolish-fond,
The shore that has no shore beyond.

Deep in every heart it lies
With its untranscended skies;
For what heaven should bend above
Hearts that own the heaven of love?

Carol, Carol, we have come
Back to heaven, back to home.

APES AND IVORY

Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong,
Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song,
Masts of gold and sails of satin, shimmering out of the East,
O, Love has little need of you now to make his heart a feast.

Or is it an elephant, white as milk and bearing a severed head
That tatters his broad soft wrinkled flank in tawdry patches of red,
With a negro giant to walk beside and a temple dome above,
Where ruby and emerald shatter the sun,--is it these that should
please my love?

Or is it a palace of pomegranates, where ivory-limbed young slaves
Lure a luxury out of the noon in the swooning fountain's waves;
Or couch like cats and sun themselves on the warm white marble brink?
O, Love has little to ask of these, this day in May, I think.

Is it Lebanon cedars or purple fruits of the honeyed southron air,
Spikenard, saffron, roses of Sharon, cinnamon, calamus, myrrh,
A bed of spices, a fountain of waters, or the wild white wings of
a dove,
Now, when the winter is over and gone, is it these that should
please my love?

The leaves outburst on the hazel-bough and the hawthorn's heaped
wi' flower,
And God has bidden the crisp clouds build my love a lordlier tower,
Taller than Lebanon, whiter than snow, in the fresh blue skies above;
And the wild rose wakes in the winding lanes of the radiant land
I love.

_Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong,
Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song,
Masts of gold and sails of satin, shimmering out of the East,
O, Love has little need of you now to make his heart a feast._

A SONG OF SHERWOOD

Sherwood in the twilight, is Robin Hood awake?
Grey and ghostly shadows are gliding through the brake,
Shadows of the dappled deer, dreaming of the morn,
Dreaming of a shadowy man that winds a shadowy horn.

Robin Hood is here again: all his merry thieves
Hear a ghostly bugle-note shivering through the leaves,
Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Merry, merry England has kissed the lips of June:
All the wings of fairyland were here beneath the moon,
Like a flight of rose-leaves fluttering in a mist
Of opal and ruby and pearl and amethyst.

Merry, merry England is waking as of old,
With eyes of blither hazel and hair of brighter gold:
For Robin Hood is here again beneath the bursting spray
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Love is in the greenwood building him a house
Of wild rose and hawthorn and honeysuckle boughs:
Love is in the greenwood, dawn is in the skies,
And Marian is waiting with a glory in her eyes.

Hark! The dazzled laverock climbs the golden steep!
Marian is waiting: is Robin Hood asleep?
Round the fairy grass-rings frolic elf and fay,
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Oberon, Oberon, rake away the gold,
Rake away the red leaves, roll away the mould,
Rake away the gold leaves, roll away the red,
And wake Will Scarlett from his leafy forest bed.

Friar Tuck and Little John are riding down together
With quarter-staff and drinking-can and grey goose-feather.
The dead are coming back again, the years are rolled away
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Softly over Sherwood the south wind blows.
All the heart of England hid in every rose
Hears across the greenwood the sunny whisper leap,
Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?

Hark, the voice of England wakes him as of old
And, shattering the silence with a cry of brighter gold
Bugles in the greenwood echo from the steep,
_Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?_

Where the deer are gliding down the shadowy glen
All across the glades of fern he calls his merry men--
Doublets of the Lincoln green glancing through the May
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day--

Calls them and they answer: from aisles of oak and ash
Rings the _Follow! Follow!_ and the boughs begin to crash,
The ferns begin to flutter and the flowers begin to fly,
And through the crimson dawning the robber band goes by.

_Robin! Robin! Robin!_ All his merry thieves
Answer as the bugle-note shivers through the leaves,
Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

THE WORLD'S MAY-QUEEN

I

Whither away is the Spring to-day?
To England, to England!
In France they heard the South wind say,
"She's off on a quest for a Queen o' the May,
So she's over the hills far away,
To England!"

And why did she fly with her golden feet
To England, to England?
In Italy, too, they heard the sweet
Roses whisper and flutter and beat--
"She's an old and a true, true love to greet
In England!"

A moon ago there came a cry
From England, from England,
Faintly, fondly it faltered nigh
The throne of the Spring in the Southern sky,
And it whispered "Come," and the world went by,
And with one long loving blissful sigh
The Spring was away to England!

II

When Spring comes back to England
And crowns her brows with May,
Round the merry moonlit world
She goes the greenwood way:
She throws a rose to Italy,
A fleur-de-lys to France;
But round her regal morris-ring
The seas of England dance.

When Spring comes back to England
And dons her robe of green,
There's many a nation garlanded
But England is the Queen;
She's Queen, she's Queen of all the world
Beneath the laughing sky,
For the nations go a-Maying
When they hear the New Year cry--

"Come over the water to England,
My old love, my new love,
Come over the water to England,
In showers of flowery rain;
Come over the water to England,
April, my true love;
And tell the heart of England
The Spring is here again!"

III

So it's here, she is here with her eyes of blue
In England, In England!
She has brought us the rainbows with her, too,
And a glory of shimmering glimmering dew
And a heaven of quivering scent and hue
And a lily for me and a rose for you
In England.

There's many a wanderer far away
From England, from England,
Will toss upon his couch and say--
Though Spain is proud and France is gay,
And there's many a foot on the primrose way,
The world has never a Queen o' the May
But England.

IV

When Drake went out to seek for gold
Across the uncharted sea,
And saw the Western skies unfold
Their veils of mystery;
To lure him through the fevered hours
As nigh to death he lay,
There floated o'er the foreign flowers
A breath of English May:

And back to Devon shores again
His dreaming spirit flew
Over the splendid Spanish Main
To haunts his childhood knew,
Whispering "God forgive the blind
Desire that bade me roam,
I've sailed around the world to find
The sweetest way to home."

V

And it's whither away is the Spring to-day?
To England, to England!
In France you'll hear the South wind say,
"She off on a quest for a Queen o' the May,
So she's over the hills and far away,
To England!"

She's flown with the swallows across the sea
To England, to England!
For there's many a land of the brave and free
But never a home o' the hawthorn-tree,
And never a Queen o' the May for me
But England!

And round the fairy revels whirl
In England, in England!
And the buds outbreak and the leaves unfurl,
And where the crisp white cloudlets curl
The Dawn comes up like a primrose girl
With a crowd of flowers in a basket of pearl
For England!

PIRATES

Come to me, you with the laughing face, in the night as I lie
Dreaming of days that are dead and of joys gone by;
Come to me, comrade, come through the slow-dropping rain,
Come from your grave in the darkness and let us be pirates again.

Let us be boys together to-night, and pretend as of old
We are pirates at rest in a cave among huge heaps of gold,
Red Spanish doubloons and great pieces of eight, and muskets
and swords,
And a smoky red camp-fire to glint, you know how, on our
ill-gotten hoards.

The old cave in the fir-wood that slopes down the hills to the sea
Still is haunted, perhaps, by young pirates as wicked as we:
Though the fir with the magpie's big mud-plastered nest used to hide
it so well,
And the boys in the gang had to swear that they never would tell.

Ah, that tree; I have sat in its boughs and looked seaward for hours.
I remember the creak of its branches, the scent of the flowers
That climbed round the mouth of the cave. It is odd I recall
Those little things best, that I scarcely took heed of at all.

I remember how brightly the brass on the butt of my spy-glass gleamed
As I climbed through the purple heather and thyme to our eyrie
and dreamed;
I remember the smooth glossy sun-burn that darkened our faces
and hands
As we gazed at the merchantmen sailing away to those wonderful lands.

I remember the long, slow sigh of the sea as we raced in the sun,
To dry ourselves after our swimming; and how we would run
With a cry and a crash through the foam as it creamed on the shore,
Then back to bask in the warm dry gold of the sand once more.

Come to me, you with the laughing face, in the gloom as I lie
Dreaming of days that are dead and of joys gone by;
Let us be boys together to-night and pretend as of old
We are pirates at rest in a cave among great heaps of gold.

Come; you shall be chief. We'll not quarrel, the time flies so fast.
There are ships to be grappled, there's blood to be shed, ere our
playtime be past.
No; perhaps we _will_ quarrel, just once, or it scarcely will seem
So like the old days that have flown from us both like a dream.

Still; you shall be chief in the end; and then we'll go home
To the hearth and the tea and the books that we loved: ah, but come,
Come to me, come through the night and the slow-dropping rain;
Come, old friend, come thro' the darkness and let us be playmates again.

A SONG OF ENGLAND

There is a song of England that none shall ever sing;
So sweet it is and fleet it is
That none whose words are not as fleet as birds upon the wing,
And regal as her mountains,
And radiant as the fountains
Of rainbow-coloured sea-spray that every wave can fling
Against the cliffs of England, the sturdy cliffs of England,
Could more than seem to dream of it,
Or catch one flying gleam of it,
Above the seas of England that never cease to sing.

There is a song of England that only lovers know;
So rare it is and fair it is,
O, like a fairy rose it is upon a drift of snow,
So cold and sweet and sunny,
So full of hidden honey,
So like a flight of butterflies where rose and lily blow
Along the lanes of England, the leafy lanes of England;
When flowers are at their vespers
And full of little whispers,
The boys and girls of England shall sing it as they go.

There is a song of England that only love may sing,
So sure it is and pure it is;
And seaward with the sea-mew it spreads a whiter wing,
And with the sky-lark hovers
Above the tryst of lovers,
Above the kiss and whisper that led the lovely Spring
Through all the glades of England, the ferny glades of England,
Until the way enwound her
With sprays of May, and crowned her
With stars of frosty blossom in a merry morris-ring.

There is a song of England that haunts her hours of rest:
The calm of it and balm of it
Are breathed from every hedgerow that blushes to the West
From the cottage doors that nightly
Cast their welcome out so brightly
On the lanes where laughing children are lifted and caressed
By the tenderest hands in England, hard and blistered hands of England:
And from the restful sighing
Of the sleepers that are lying
With the arms of God around them on the night's contented breast.

There is a song of England that wanders on the wind;
So sad it is and glad it is
That men who hear it madden and their eyes are wet and blind,
For the lowlands and the highlands
Of the unforgotten islands,
For the Islands of the Blesséd and the rest they cannot find
As they grope in dreams to England and the love they left in England;
Little feet that danced to meet them
And the lips that used to greet them,
And the watcher at the window in the home they left behind.

There is a song of England that thrills the beating blood
With burning cries and yearning
Tides of hidden aspiration hardly known or understood;
Aspirations of the creature
Tow'rds the unity of Nature;
Sudden chivalries revealing whence the longing is renewed
In the men that live for England, live and love and die for England:
By the light of their desire
They shall blindly blunder higher,
To a wider, grander Kingdom and a deeper, nobler Good.

There is a song of England that only heaven can hear;
So gloriously victorious,
It soars above the choral stars that sing the Golden Year;
Till even the cloudy shadows
That wander o'er her meadows
In silent purple harmonies declare His glory there,
Along the hills of England, the billowy hills of England;
While heaven rolls and ranges
Through all the myriad changes
That mirror God in music to the mortal eye and ear.

_There is a song of England that none shall ever sing;
So sweet it is and fleet it is
That none whose words are not as fleet as birds upon the wing,
And regal as her mountains,
And radiant as her fountains
Of rainbow-coloured sea-spray that every wave can fling
Against the cliffs of England, the sturdy cliffs of England,
Could more than seem to dream of it,
Or catch one flying gleam of it,
Above the seas of England that never cease to sing._

THE OLD SCEPTIC

I am weary of disbelieving: why should I wound my love
To pleasure a sophist's pride in a graven image of truth?
I will go back to my home, with the clouds and the stars above,
And the heaven I used to know, and the God of my buried youth.

I will go back to the home where of old in my boyish pride
I pierced my father's heart with a murmur of unbelief.
He only looked in my face as I spoke, but his mute eyes cried
Night after night in my dreams; and he died in grief, in grief.

Books? I have read the books, the books that we write ourselves,
Extolling our love of an abstract truth and our pride of debate:
I will go back to the love of the cotter who sings as he delves,
To that childish infinite love and the God above fact and date.

To that ignorant infinite God who colours the meaningless flowers,
To that lawless infinite Poet who crowns the law with the crime;
To the Weaver who covers the world with a garment of wonderful hours,
And holds in His hand like threads the tales and the truths of time.

Is the faith of the cotter so simple and narrow as this? Ah, well,
It is hardly so narrow as yours who daub and plaster with dyes
The shining mirrors of heaven, the shadowy mirrors of hell,
And blot out the dark deep vision, if it seem to be framed with lies.

No faith I hurl against you, no fact to freeze your sneers.
Only the doubt you taught me to weld in the fires of youth
Leaps to my hand like the flaming sword of nineteen hundred years,
The sword of the high God's answer, _O Pilate, what is truth?_

Your laughter has killed more hearts than ever were pierced with swords,
Ever you daub new mirrors and turn the old to the wall;
And more than blood is lost in the weary battle of words;
For creeds are many; but God is One, and contains them all.

Ah, why should we strive or cry? Surely the end is close!
Hold by your little truths: deem your triumph complete!
But nothing is true or false in the infinite heart of the rose;
And the earth is a little dust that clings to our travelling feet.

I will go back to my home and look at the wayside flowers,
And hear from the wayside cabins the kind old hymns again,
Where Christ holds out His arms in the quiet evening hours,
And the light of the chapel porches broods on the peaceful lane.

And there I shall hear men praying the deep old foolish prayers,
And there I shall see, once more, the fond old faith confessed,
And the strange old light on their faces who hear as a blind man hears,--
_Come unto Me, ye weary, and I will give you rest._

I will go back and believe in the deep old foolish tales,
And pray the simple prayers that I learned at my mother's knee,
Where the Sabbath tolls its peace thro' the breathless mountain-vales,
And the sunset's evening hymn hallows the listening sea.

THE DEATH OF CHOPIN

Sing to me! Ah, remember how
Poor Heine here in Paris leant
Watching me play at the fall of day
And following where the music went,
Till that old cloud upon his brow
Was almost smoothed away.

"Do roses in the moonlight flame
Like this and this?" he said and smiled;
Then bent his head as o'er his dead
Brother might breathe some little child
The accustomed old half-jesting name,
With all its mockery fled,

Like summer lightnings, far away,
In heaven. O, what Bohemian nights
We passed down there for that brief year
When art revealed her last delights;
And then, that night, that night in May
When Hugo came to hear!

"Do roses in the moonlight glow
Like this and this?" I could not see
His eyes, and yet--they were quite wet,
Blinded, I think! What should I be
If in that hour I did not know
My own diviner debt?

For God has made this world of ours
Out of His own exceeding pain,
As here in art man's bleeding heart
Slow drop by drop completes the strain;
And dreams of death make sweet the flowers
Where lovers meet to part.

Recall, recall my little room
Where all the masters came that night,
Came just to hear me, Meyerbeer,
Lamartine, Balzac; and no light
But my two candles in the gloom;
Though she, she too was there,

George Sand. This music once unlocked
My heart, she took the gold she prized:
Her novel gleams no richer: dreams
Like mine are best unanalysed:
And she forgets her poor bemocked
Prince Karol, now, it seems.

I was Prince Karol; yes, and Liszt
Count Salvator Albani: she
My Floriani--all so far
Away!--My dreams are like the sea
That round Majorca sighed and kissed
Each softly mirrored star.

O, what a golden round of hours
Our island villa knew: we two
Alone with sky and sea, the sigh
Of waves, the warm unfathomed blue;
With what a chain of nights like flowers
We bound Love, she and I.

What music, what harmonious
Glad triumphs of the world's desire
Where passion yearns to God and burns
Earth's dross out with its own pure fire,
Or tolls like some deep angelus
Through Death's divine nocturnes.

"Do roses in the moonlight glow
Like this and this?" What did she think
Of him whose hands at Love's command
Made Life as honey o'er the brink
Of Death drip slow, darkling and slow?
Ah, did she understand?

She studied every sob she heard,
She watched each dying hope she found;
And yet she understood not one
Poor sorrow there that like a wound
Gaped, bleeding, pleading--for one word--
No? And the dream was done.

For her--I am "wrapped in incense gloom,
In drifting clouds and golden light;"
Once I was shod with fire and trod
Beethoven's path through storm and night:
It is too late now to resume
My monologue with God.

Well, my lost love, you were so kind
In those old days: ah, yes; you came
When I was ill! In dreams you still
Will come? (Do roses always flame
By moonlight, thus?) I, too, grow blind
With wondering if she will.

Yet, Floriani, what am I
To you, though love was life to me?
My life consumed like some perfumed
Pale altar-flame beside the sea:
You stood and smiled and watched it die!
You, you whom it illumed,
Could you not feed it with your love?
Am I not starving here and now?
Sing, sing! I'd miss no smile or kiss--
No roses in Majorca glow
Like this and this--so death may prove
Best--ah, how sweet life is!

SONG

(AFTER THE FRENCH OF ROSTAND)

O, many a lover sighs
Beneath the summer skies
For black or hazel eyes
All day.
No light of hope can mar
My whiter brighter star;
I love a Princess far
Away.

Now you that haste to meet
Your love's returning feet
Must plead for every sweet
Caress;
But, day and night and day,
Without a prayer to pray,
I love my far away
Princess.

BUTTERFLIES

Sun-child, as you watched the rain
Beat the pane,
Saw the garden of your dreams
Where the clove carnation grows
And the rose
Veiled with shimmering shades and gleams,
Mirrored colours, mystic gleams,
Fairy dreams,
Drifting in your radiant eyes
Half in earnest asked, that day,
Half in play,
Where were all the butterflies?

Where were all the butterflies
When the skies
Clouded and their bowers of clover
Bowed beneath the golden shower?
Every flower
Shook and the rose was brimming over.

Ah, the dog-rose trembling over
Thyme and clover,
How it glitters in the sun,
Now the hare-bells lift again
Bright with rain
After all the showers are done!

See, when all the showers are done,
How the sun
Softly smiling o'er the scene
Bids the white wings come and go
To and fro
Through the maze of gold and green.

Magic webs of gold and green
Rainbow sheen
Mesh the maze of flower and fern,
Cuckoo-grass and meadow-sweet,
And the wheat
Where the crimson poppies burn.

Ay; and where the poppies burn,
They return
All across the dreamy downs,
Little wings that flutter and beat
O'er the sweet
Bluffs the purple clover crowns.

Where the fairy clover crowns
Dreamy downs,
And amidst the golden grass
Buttercups and daisies blow
To and fro
When the shadowy billows pass;

Time has watched them pause and pass
Where Love was;
Ah, what fairy butterflies,
Little wild incarnate blisses,
Coloured kisses,
Floating under azure skies!

Under those eternal skies
See, they rise:
Mottled wings of moony sheen,
Wings in whitest star-shine dipped,
Orange tipped,
Eyed with black and veined with green.

They were fairies plumed with green
Rainbow-sheen
Ere Time bade their host begone
From that palace built of roses
Which still dozes
In the greenwood all alone.

In the greenwood all alone
And unknown:
Now they roam these mortal dells
Wondering where that happy glade is,
Painted Ladies,
Admirals, and Tortoise-shells,

O, Fritillaries, Admirals,
Tortoise-shells;
You, like fragments of the skies
Fringed with Autumn's richest hues,
Dainty blues
Patterned with mosaic dyes;
Oh, and you whose peacock dyes
Gleam with eyes;
You, whose wings of burnished copper
Burn upon the sunburnt brae
Where all day
Whirrs the hot and grey grasshopper;

While the grey grasshopper whirrs
In the furze,
You that with your sulphur wings
Melt into the gold perfume
Of the broom
Where the linnet sits and sings;

You that, as a poet sings,
On your wings
Image forth the dreams of earth,
Quickening them in form and hue
To the new
Glory of a brighter birth;

You that bring to a brighter birth
Dust and earth,
Rapt to glory on your wings,
All transfigured in the white
Living light
Shed from out the soul of things;

Heralds of the soul of things,
You whose wings
Carry heaven through every glade;
Thus transfigured from the petals
Death unsettles,
Little souls of leaf and blade;

You that mimic bud and blade,
Light and shade;
Tinted souls of leaf and stone,
Flower and sunny bank of sand,
Fairyland
Calls her children to their own;
Calls them back into their own
Great unknown;
Where the harmonies they cull
On their wings are made complete
As they beat
Through the Gate called Beautiful.

SONG OF THE WOODEN-LEGGED FIDDLER

(PORTSMOUTH 1805)

I lived in a cottage adown in the West
When I was a boy, a boy;
But I knew no peace and I took no rest
Though the roses nigh smothered my snug little nest;
For the smell of the sea
Was much rarer to me,
And the life of a sailor was all my joy.

CHORUS.--_The life of a sailor was all my joy!_

My mother she wept, and she begged me to stay
Anchored for life to her apron-string,
And soon she would want me to help with the hay;
So I bided her time, then I flitted away
On a night of delight in the following spring,
With a pair of stout shoon
And a seafaring tune
And a bundle and stick in the light of the moon,
Down the long road
To Portsmouth I strode,
To fight like a sailor for country and king.

CHORUS.--_To fight like a sailor for country and king._

And now that my feet are turned homeward again
My heart is still crying Ahoy! Ahoy!
And my thoughts are still out on the Spanish main
A-chasing the frigates of France and Spain,
For at heart an old sailor is always a boy;
And his nose will still itch
For the powder and pitch
Till the days when he can't tell t'other from which,
Nor a grin o' the guns from a glint o' the sea,
Nor a skipper like Nelson from lubbers like me.

CHORUS.--_Nor a skipper like Nelson from lubbers like me._

Ay! Now that I'm old I'm as bold as the best,
And the life of a sailor is all my joy;
Though I've swapped my leg
For a wooden peg
And my head is as bald as a new-laid egg,
The smell of the sea
Is like victuals to me,
And I think in the grave I'll be crying Ahoy!
For, though my old carcass is ready to rest,
At heart an old sailor is always a boy.

CHORUS.--_At heart an old sailor is always a boy._

THE FISHER-GIRL

Where the old grey churchyard slopes to the sea,
On the sunny side of a mossed headstone;
Watching the wild white butterflies pass
Through the fairy forests of grass,
Two little children with brown legs bare
Were merrily, merrily
Weaving a wonderful daisy-chain,
And chanting the rhyme that was graven there
Over and over and over again;
While the warm wind came and played with their hair
And laughed and was gone
Out, far out to the foam-flowered lea
Like an ocean-wandering memory.

_Eighteen hundred and forty-three,
Dan Trevennick was lost at sea;
And, buried here at her husband's side
Lies the body of Joan, his bride,
Who, a little while after she lost him, died._

This was the rhyme that was graven there,
And the children chanted it quietly;
As the warm wind came and played with their hair,
And rustled the golden grasses against the stone,
And laughed and was gone
To waken the wild white flowers of the sea,
And sing a song of the days that were,
A song of memory, gay and blind
As the sun on the graves that it left behind;
For this, ah this, was the song of the wind.

I

She sat on the tarred old jetty, with a sailor's careless ease,
And the clear waves danced around her feet and kissed her tawny knees;
Her head was bare, and her thick black hair was coiled behind a throat
Chiselled as hard and bright and bold as the bow of a sailing boat.

II

Her eyes were blue, and her jersey was blue as the lapping,
slapping seas,
And the rose in her cheek was painted red by the brisk Atlantic breeze;
And she sat and waited her father's craft, while Dan Trevennick's eyes
Were sheepishly watching her sunlit smiles and her soft contented
sighs.

III

For he thought he would give up his good black pipe and his evening
glasses of beer,
And blunder to chapel on Sundays again for a holy Christian year,
To hold that foot in his hard rough hand and kiss the least of
its toes:
Then he swore at himself for a great damned fool; which he probably
was, God knows.

IV

Often in summer twilights, too, he would sit on a coil of rope,
As the stars came out in their twinkling crowds to play with wonder
and hope,
While he watched the side of her clear-cut face as she sat on the
jetty and fished,
And even to help her coil her line was more than he hoped or wished.

V

But once or twice o'er the dark green tide he saw with a solemn
delight,
Hooked and splashing after her line, a flash and a streak of white;
As hand over hand she hauled it up, a great black conger eel,
For Dan Trevennick to kill as it squirmed with its head beneath
his heel.

VI

And at last, with a crash and a sunset cry from the low soft evening
star,
A shadowy schooner suddenly loomed o'er the dark green oily bar;
With fairy-like spars and misty masts in the golden dusk of gloaming,
Where the last white seamew's wide-spread wings were wistfully
westward roaming;

VII

Then the song of the foreign seamen rose in the magical evening air,
Faint and far away, as it seemed, but they knew it was, ah, so near;
Far away as her heart from Dan's as he sheepishly drew to her side,
And near as her heart when he kissed the lips of his newly promised
bride.

VIII

And when they were riding away in the train on the night of their
honeymoon,
What a whisper tingled against her cheek as it blushed like a
rose in June;
For she said, "I am tired and ready for bed," and Dan said, "So
am I;"
And she murmured, "Are you tired, too, poor Dan?" and he answered
her, "No, dear, why?"

IX

It was never a problem-play, at least, and the end of it all is this;
They were drowned in the bliss of their ignorance and buried the rest
in a kiss;
And they loved one another their whole life long, as lovers will
often do;
For it never was only the fairy-tales that rang so royally true.

X

_The rose in her cheek was painted red by the brisk Atlantic breeze;
Her eyes were blue, and her jersey was blue as the lapping, slapping
seas;
Her head was bare, and her thick black hair was coiled behind a throat
Chiselled as hard and bright and bold as the bow of a sailing boat._

XI

_Eighteen hundred and forty-three,
Dan Trevennick was lost at sea;
And, buried here at her husband's side
Lies the body of Joan, his bride,
Who, a little while after she lost him, died._

A SONG OF TWO BURDENS

The round brown sails were reefed and struggling home
Over the glitter and gloom of the angry deep:
Dark in the cottage she sang, "Soon, soon, he will come,
Dreamikin, Drowsy-head, sleep, my little one, sleep."

Over the glitter and gloom of the angry deep
Was it only a dream or a shadow that vanished away?
"Lullaby, little one, sleep, my little one, sleep."
She sang in a dream as the shadows covered the day.

Was it only a sail or a shadow that vanished away?
The boats come home: there is one that will never return;
But she sang in a dream as the shadows buried the day;
And she set the supper and begged the fire to burn.

The boats come home; but one will never return;
And a strangled cry went up from the struggling sea.
She sank on her knees and begged the fire to burn,
"Burn, oh burn, for my love is coming to me!"

A strangled cry went up from the struggling sea,
A cry where the ghastly surf to the moon-dawn rolled;
"Burn, oh burn; for my love is coming to me,
His hands will be scarred with the ropes and starved with the cold."

A strangled cry where the foam in the moonlight rolled,
A bitter cry from the heart of the ghastly sea;
"His hands will be frozen, the night is dark and cold,
Burn, oh burn, for my love is coming to me."

One cry to God from the soul of the shuddering sea,
One moment of stifling lips and struggling hands;
"Burn, oh burn; for my love is coming to me;
And oh, I think the little one understands."

One moment of stifling lips and struggling hands,
Then only the glitter and gloom of the angry deep;
"And oh, I think the little one understands;
Dreamikin, Drowsy-head, sleep, my little one, sleep."

EARTH-BOUND

Ghosts? Love would fain believe,
Earth being so fair, the dead might wish to return!
Is it so strange if, even in heaven, they yearn
For the May-time and the dreams it used to give?

Through dark abysms of Space,
From strange new spheres where Death has called them now
May they not, with a crown on every brow,
Still cry to the loved earth's lost familiar face?

We two, love, we should come
Seeking a little refuge from the light
Of the blinding terrible star-sown Infinite,
Seeking some sheltering roof, some four-walled home,

From that too high, too wide
Communion with the universe and God,
How glad to creep back to some lane we trod
Hemmed in with a hawthorn hedge on either side.

Fresh from death's boundless birth,
How fond the circled vision of the sea
Would seem to souls tired of Infinity,
How kind the soft blue boundaries of earth,

How rich the nodding spray
Of pale green leaves that made the sapphire deep
A background to the dreams of that brief sleep
We called our life when heaven was far away.

How strange would be the sight
Of the little towns and twisted streets again,
Where all the hurrying works and ways of men
Would seem a children's game for our delight.

What boundless heaven could give
This joy in the strait austere restraints of earth,
Whereof the dead have felt the immortal dearth
Who look upon God's face and cannot live?

Our ghosts would clutch at flowers
As drowning men at straws, for fear the sea
Should sweep them back to God's Eternity,
Still clinging to the day that once was ours.

No more with fevered brain
Plunging across the gulfs of Space and Time
Would we revisit this our earthly clime
We two, if we could ever come again;

Not as we came of old,
But reverencing the flesh we now despise
And gazing out with consecrated eyes,
Each of us glad of the other's hand to hold.

So we should wander nigh
Our mortal home, and see its little roof
Keeping the deep eternal night aloof
And yielding us a refuge from the sky.

We should steal in, once more,
Under the cloudy lilac at the gate,
Up the walled garden, then with hearts elate
Forget the stars and close our cottage door.

Oh then, as children use
To make themselves a little hiding-place,
We would rejoice in narrowness of space,
And God should give us nothing more to lose.

How good it all would seem
To souls that from the æonian ebb and flow
Came down to hear once more the to and fro
Swing o' the clock dictate its hourly theme.

How dear the strange recall
From vast antiphonies of joy and pain
Beyond the grave, to these old books again,
That cosy lamp, those pictures on the wall.

Home! Home! The old desire!
We would shut out the innumerable skies,
Draw close the curtains, then with patient eyes
Bend o'er the hearth; laugh at our memories,
Or watch them crumbling in the crimson fire.

ART, THE HERALD

"The voice of one crying in the wilderness"

I

Beyond; beyond; and yet again beyond!
What went ye out to seek, oh foolish-fond?
Is not the heart of all things here and now?
Is not the circle infinite, and the centre
Everywhere, if ye would but hear and enter?
Come; the porch bends and the great pillars bow.

II

Come; come and see the secret of the sun;
The sorrow that holds the warring worlds in one;
The pain that holds Eternity in an hour;
One God in every seed self-sacrificed,
One star-eyed, star-crowned universal Christ,
Re-crucified in every wayside flower.

THE OPTIMIST

Teach me to live and to forgive
The death that all must die
Who pass in slumber through this heaven
Of earth and sea and sky;
Who live by grace of Time and Space
At which their peace is priced;
And cast their lots upon the robe
That wraps the cosmic Christ;

Who cannot see the world-wide Tree
Where Love lies bleeding still;
This universal cross of God
Our star-crowned Igdrasil.

Teach me to live; I do not ask
For length of earthly days,
Or that my heaven-appointed task
Should fall in pleasant ways;

If in this hour of warmth and light
The last great knell were knolled;
If Death should close mine eyes to-night
And all the tale be told;

While I have lips to speak or sing
And power to draw this breath,
Shall I not praise my Lord and King
Above all else, for death?

When on a golden eve he drove
His keenest sorrow deep
Deep in my heart, and called it love;
I did not wince or weep.

A wild Hosanna shook the world
And wakened all the sky,
As through a white and burning light
Her passionate face went by.

When on a golden dawn he called
My best beloved away,
I did not shrink or stand appalled
Before the hopeless day.

The joy of that triumphant dearth
And anguish cannot die;
The joy that casts aside this earth
For immortality.

I would not change one word of doom
Upon the dreadful scroll,
That gave her body to the tomb
And freed her fettered soul.

For now each idle breeze can bring
The kiss I never seek;
The nightingale has heard her sing,
The rose caressed her cheek.

And every pang of every grief
That ruled my soul an hour,
Has given new splendours to the leaf,
New glories to the flower;

And melting earth into the heaven
Whose inmost heart is pain,
Has drawn the veils apart and given
Her soul to mine again.

A POST-IMPRESSION

I

He sat with his foolish mouth agape at the golden glare of the sea,
And his wizened and wintry flaxen locks fluttered around his ears,
And his foolish infinite eyes were full of the sky's own glitter
and glee,
As he dandled an old Dutch Doll on his knee and sang the song of
the spheres.

II

_Blue and red and yellow and green they are melting away in the white;
Hey! but the wise old world was wrong and my idiot heart was right;
Yes; and the merry-go-round of the stars rolls to my cracked old tune,
Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the moon._

III

Then he cradled his doll on his crooning heart and cried as a sea-bird
cries;
And the hot sun reeled like a drunken god through the violent violet
vault:
And the hillside cottage that danced to the deep debauch of the
perfumed skies
Grew palsied and white in the purple heath as a pillar of Dead
Sea salt.

IV

There were three gaunt sun-flowers nigh his chair: they were yellow as
death and tall;
And they threw their sharp blue shadowy stars on the blind white
wizard wall;
And they nodded their heads to the weird old hymn that daunted the light
of the noon,
_Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the moon._

V

The little dog laughed and leered with the white of his eye as he
sidled away
To stare at the dwarfish hunchback waves that crawled to the foot of
the hill,
For his master's infinite mind was wide to the wealth of the night
and the day;
The walls were down: it was one with the Deep that only a God
can fill.

VI

Then a tiny maiden of ten sweet summers arrived with a song and
a smile,
And she swung on the elfin garden-gate and sung to the sea for
a while,
And a phantom face went weeping by and a ghost began to croon
_Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the moon._

VII

And she followed a butterfly up to his chair; and the moon-calf caught
at her hand
And stared at her wide blue startled eyes and muttered, "My dear,
I have been,
In fact, I am there at this moment, I think, in a wonderful fairy-land:"
And he bent and he whispered it low in her ear--"_I know why the
grass is green._

VIII

"I know why the daisy is white, my dear, I know why the seas are blue;
I know that the world is a dream, my dear, and I know that the dream
is true;
I know why the rose and the toad-stool grow, as a curse and a
crimson boon,
_Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the moon._

IX

"If I gaze at a rose, do you know, it grows till it overshadows
the earth,
Like a wonderful Tree of Knowledge, my dear, the Tree of our evil
and good;
But I dare not tell you the terrible vision that gave the toad-stool
birth,
The dream of a heart that breaks, my dear, and a Tree that is
bitter with blood.

X

"Oh, Love may wander wide as the wind that blows from sea to sea,
But a wooden dream, for me, my dear, and a painted memory;
For the God that has bidden the toad-stool grow has writ in his
cosmic rune,
_Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the moon._"

XI

Then he stared at the child and he laughed aloud, and she suddenly
screamed and fled,
As he dreamed of enticing her out thro' the ferns to a quarry
that gapped the hill,
To hurtle her down and grin as her gold hair scattered around
her head
Far, far below, like a sunflower disk, so crimson-spattered
and still.

XII

"Ah, hush!" he cried; and his dark old eyes were wet with a sacred love
As he kissed the wooden face of his doll and winked at the skies above,
"I know, I know why the toad-stools grow, and the rest of the world
will, soon;
_Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the moon._"

XIII

"_Blue and red and yellow and green they are all mixed up in the white;
Hey! but the wise old world was wrong and my idiot heart was right;
Yes; and the merry-go-round of the stars rolls to my cracked old tune,
Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the moon._"

THE BARREL-ORGAN

There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street
In the City as the sun sinks low;
And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet
And fulfilled it with the sunset glow;
And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain
That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light;
And they've given it a glory and a part to play again
In the Symphony that rules the day and night.

And now it's marching onward through the realms of old romance,
And trolling out a fond familiar tune,
And now it's roaring cannon down to fight the King of France,
And now it's prattling softly to the moon,
And all around the organ there's a sea without a shore
Of human joys and wonders and regrets;
To remember and to recompense the music evermore
For what the cold machinery forgets....

Yes; as the music changes,
Like a prismatic glass,
It takes the light and ranges
Through all the moods that pass;
Dissects the common carnival
Of passions and regrets,
And gives the world a glimpse of all
The colours it forgets.

And there _La Traviata_ sighs
Another sadder song;
And there _Il Trovatore_ cries
A tale of deeper wrong;
And bolder knights to battle go
With sword and shield and lance,
Than ever here on earth below
Have whirled into--_a dance_!--

Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume,
The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!)
And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world's a blaze of sky
The cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.

The Dorian nightingale is rare and yet they say you'll hear him there
At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)
The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo
And golden-eyed _tu-whit, tu-whoo_ of owls that ogle London.

For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn't heard
At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)
And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are out
You'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorussing for London:--

_Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)_

And then the troubadour begins to thrill the golden street,
In the City as the sun sinks low;
And in all the gaudy busses there are scores of weary feet
Marking time, sweet time, with a dull mechanic beat,
And a thousand hearts are plunging to a love they'll never meet,
Through the meadows of the sunset, through the poppies and the wheat,
In the land where the dead dreams go.

Verdi, Verdi, when you wrote _Il Trovatore_ did you dream
Of the City when the sun sinks low,
Of the organ and the monkey and the many-coloured stream
On the Piccadilly pavement, of the myriad eyes that seem
To be litten for a moment with a wild Italian gleam
As _A che la morte_ parodies the world's eternal theme
And pulses with the sunset-glow.

There's a thief, perhaps, that listens with a face of frozen stone
In the City as the sun sinks low;
There's a portly man of business with a balance of his own,
There's a clerk and there's a butcher of a soft reposeful tone.
And they're all of them returning to the heavens they have known:
They are crammed and jammed in busses and--they're each of them alone
In the land where the dead dreams go.

There's a very modish woman and her smile is very bland
In the City as the sun sinks low;
And her hansom jingles onward, but her little jewelled hand
Is clenched a little tighter and she cannot understand
What she wants or why she wanders to that undiscovered land,
For the parties there are not at all the sort of thing she planned,
In the land where the dead dreams go.

There's a rowing man that listens and his heart is crying out
In the City as the sun sinks low;
For the barge, the eight, the Isis, and the coach's whoop and shout,
For the minute-gun, the counting and the long dishevelled rout,
For the howl along the tow-path and a fate that's still in doubt,
For a roughened oar to handle and a race to think about
In the land where the dead dreams go.

There's a labourer that listens to the voices of the dead
In the City as the sun sinks low;
And his hand begins to tremble and his face to smoulder red
As he sees a loafer watching him and--there he turns his head
And stares into the sunset where his April love is fled,
For he hears her softly singing and his lonely soul is led
Through the land where the dead dreams go.

There's an old and haggard demi-rep, it's ringing in her ears,
In the City as the sun sinks low;
With the wild and empty sorrow of the love that blights and sears,
Oh, and if she hurries onward, then be sure, be sure she hears,
Hears and bears the bitter burden of the unforgotten years,
And her laugh's a little harsher and her eyes are brimmed with tears
For the land where the dead dreams go.

There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street
In the City as the sun sinks low;
Though the music's only Verdi there's a world to make it sweet
Just as yonder yellow sunset where the earth and heaven meet
Mellows all the sooty City! Hark, a hundred thousand feet
Are marching on to glory through the poppies and the wheat
In the land where the dead dreams go.

So it's Jeremiah, Jeremiah,
What have you to say
When you meet the garland girls
Tripping on their way?

All around my gala hat
I wear a wreath of roses
(A long and lonely year it is
I've waited for the May!)
If any one should ask you,
The reason why I wear it is--
My own love, my true love
Is coming home to-day.

And it's buy a bunch of violets for the lady
(_It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!_)
Buy a bunch of violets for the lady
While the sky burns blue above:

On the other side the street you'll find it shady
(_It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!_)
But buy a bunch of violets for the lady,
And tell her she's your own true love.

There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street
In the City as the sun sinks glittering and slow;
And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet
And enriched it with the harmonies that make a song complete
In the deeper heavens of music where the night and morning meet,
As it dies into the sunset-glow;
And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain
That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light,
And they've given it a glory and a part to play again
In the Symphony that rules the day and night.

And there, as the music changes,
The song runs round again.
Once more it turns and ranges
Through all its joy and pain,
Dissects the common carnival
Of passions and regrets;
And the wheeling world remembers all
The wheeling song forgets.

Once more _La Traviata_ sighs
Another sadder song:
Once more _Il Trovatore_ cries
A tale of deeper wrong;
Once more the knights to battle go
With sword and shield and lance
Till once, once more, the shattered foe
Has whirled into--_a dance_!