Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Anyway, it seemed to me I'd struck the world's pump-handle!
"Back with that three ha'pence, Bill," I mutters, "or you're lost."
Back I hurries thro' the dusk where, shining like a candle,
Pale before the sunset stood that fairy finger-post.
_Sir, she wasn't there!_ I'd struck the place where all roads crost,
All the roads in all the world.
She couldn't yet have trotted
Even to the ... Hist! a stealthy step behind? A ghost?
_Swish_! A flying noose had caught me round the neck! Garotted!
Back I staggered, clutching at the moonbeams, yus, almost
Throttled! Sir, I boast
Bill is tough, but ... when it comes to throttling by a ghost!

* * * *

XVIII

Winged like a butterfly, tall and slender
Out It steps with the rope on its arm.
"Crumbs," I says, "all right! I surrender!
When have I crossed you or done you harm?
_Ef_ you're a sperrit," I says, "O, crikey,
_Ef_ you're a sperrit, get hence, vamoose!"
Sweet as music, she spoke--"I'm Psyche!"--
Choking me still with her silken noose.

XIX

Straight at the word from the ferns and blossoms
Fretting the moon-rise over the downs,
Little blue wings and little white bosoms,
Little white faces with golden crowns
Peeped, and the colours came twinkling round me,
Laughed, and the turf grew purple with thyme,
Danced, and the sweet crushed scents nigh drowned me,
Sang, and the hare-bells rang in chime.

XX

All around me, gliding and gleaming,
Fair as a fallen sunset-sky,
Butterfly wings came drifting, dreaming,
Clouds of the little folk clustered nigh,
Little white hands like pearls uplifted
Cords of silk in shimmering skeins,
Cast them about me and dreamily drifted
Winding me round with their soft warm chains.

XXI

Round and round me they dizzily floated,
Binding me faster with every turn:
Crumbs, my pals would have grinned and gloated
Watching me over that fringe of fern,
Bill, with his battered old hat outstanding
Black as a foam-swept rock to the moon,
Bill, like a rainbow of silks expanding
Into a beautiful big cocoon,--

XXII

Big as a cloud, though his hat still crowned him,
Yus, and his old boots bulged below:
Seas of colour went shimmering round him,
Dancing, glimmering, glancing a-glow!
Bill knew well what them elves were at, sir,--
Ain't you an en-to-mol-o-gist?
Well, despite of his old black hat, sir,
Bill was _becoming--a chrysalist_.

* * * *

XXIII

Muffled, smothered in a sea of emerald and opal,
Down a dazzling gulf of dreams I sank and sank away,
Wound about with twenty thousand yards of silken rope, all
Shimmering into crimson, glimmering into grey,
Drowsing, waking, living, dying, just as you regards it,
Buried in a sunset-cloud, or cloud of breaking day,
'Cording as from East or West yourself might look towards it,
Losing, gaining, lost in darkness, ragged, grimy, gay,
'And-cuffed, not to say
Gagged, but both my shoulders budding, sprouting white as May.

XXIV

Sprouting like the milky buds o' hawthorn in the night-time,
Pouting like the snowy buds o' roses in July,
Spreading in my chrysalist and waiting for the right time,
When--I thought--they'd bust to wings and Bill would rise and fly,
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, as if it came in answer,
Sweeping o'er my head again the tide o' dreams went by,--
_I must get to Piddinghoe to-morrow if I can, sir,_
_Tick, tack_, a crackle in my chrysalist, a cry!
Then the warm blue sky
Bust the shell, and out crept Bill--a blooming butterfly!

* * * *

XXV

Blue as a corn-flower, blazed the zenith: the deepening East like a
scarlet poppy
Burned while, dazzled with golden bloom, white clouds like daisies,
green seas like wheat,
Gripping the sign-post, first, I climbs, to sun my wings, which were
wrinkled and floppy,
Spreading 'em white o'er the words _No Road_, and hanging fast by
my six black feet.

XXVI

Still on my head was the battered old beaver, but through it my clubbed
antennae slanted,
("Feelers" yourself would probably call 'em) my battered old boots were
hardly seen
Under the golden fluff of the tail! It was Bill, sir, Bill, though
highly enchanted,
Spreading his beautiful snow-white pinions, tipped with orange, and
veined with green.

XXVII

Yus, old Bill was an Orange-tip, a spirit in glory, a blooming Psyche!
New, it was new from East to West this rummy old world that I dreamed
I knew,
How can I tell you the things that I saw with my--what shall _I_ call 'em?
--"feelers?"--O, crikey,
"FEELERS?" You know how the man born blind described such colours as
scarlet or blue.

XXVIII

"Scarlet," he says, "is the sound of a trumpet, blue is a flute,"
for he hasn't a notion!
No, nor nobody living on earth can tell it him plain, if he
hasn't the sight!
That's how it stands with ragged old Bill, a-drift and a-dream on
a measureless ocean,
Gifted wi' fifteen new-born senses, and seeing you blind to their
new strange light.

XXIX

How can I tell you? Sir, you must wait, till you die like Bill, ere
you understand it!
Only--I saw--the same as a bee that strikes to his hive ten leagues away--
Straight as a die, while I winked and blinked on that sun-warmed wood and my
wings expanded
(Whistler drawings that men call wings)--I saw--and I flew--that's all
I can say.

XXX

Flew over leagues of whispering wonder, fairy forests and flowery palaces,
Love-lorn casements, delicate kingdoms, beautiful flaming thoughts
of--Him;
Feasts of a million blue-mailed angels lifting their honey-and-wine-brimmed
chalices,
Throned upon clouds--(which you'd call white clover) down to the
world's most rosiest rim.

XXXI

New and new and new and new, the white o' the cliffs and the wind
in the heather,
Yus, and the sea-gulls flying like flakes of the sea that flashed
to the new-born day,
Song, song, song, song, quivering up in the wild blue weather,
Thousands of seraphim singing together, and me just flying
and--_knowing my way_.

XXXII

Straight as a die to Piddinghoe's dolphin, and there I drops in a
cottage garden,
There, on a sun-warmed window-sill, I winks and peeps, for the
window was wide!
Crumbs, he was there and fast in her arms and a-begging his poor
old mother's pardon,
There with his lips on her old grey hair, and her head on his breast
while she laughed and cried,--

XXXIII

"_One and nine-pence that old tramp gave me, or else I should never have
reached you, sonny,
Never, and you just leaving the village to-day and meaning to
cross the sea,
One and nine-pence he gave me, I paid for the farmer's lift with
half o' the money!
Here's the ten-pence halfpenny, sonny, 'twill pay for our little
'ouse-warming tea._"

* * * *

XXXIV

_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, out into the garden
Toddles that old Fairy with his arm about her--so,
Cuddling of her still, and still a-begging of her pardon,
While she says "I wish the corn-flower king could only know!
Bless him, bless him, once again," she says and softly gazes
Up to heaven, a-smiling in her mutch as white as snow,
All among her gilly-flowers and stocks and double daisies,
Mignonette, forget-me-not,... _Twenty years ago_,
All a rosy glow,
_This is how it was_, she said, _Twenty years ago_.

* * * *

XXXV

Once again I seemed to wake, the vision it had fled, sir,
There I lay upon the downs: the sky was like a peach;
Yus, with twelve bokays of corn-flowers blue beside my bed, sir,
More than usual 'andsome, so they'd bring me two-pence each.
Easy as a poet's dreams they blossomed round my head, sir,
All I had to do was just to lift my hand and reach,
Tie 'em with a bit of string, and earn my blooming bread, sir,
Selling little nose-gays on the bare-foot Brighton beach,
Nose-gays _and_ a speech,
All about the bright blue eyes they matched on Brighton beach.

XXXVI

Overhead the singing lark and underfoot the heather,
Far and blue in front of us the unplumbed sky,
Me and stick and bundle, O, we jogs along together,
(Changeable the weather? Well, it ain't all pie!)
Weather's like a woman, sir, and if she wants to quarrel,
If her eyes begin to flash and hair begins to fly,
You've to wait a little, then--the story has a moral--
Ain't the sunny kisses all the sweeter by and bye?--
(Crumbs, it's 'ot and dry!
Thank you, sir! Thank you, sir!) the sweeter by and bye.

XXXVII

So the world's my sweetheart and I sort of want to squeeze 'er.
Toffs 'ull get no chance of heaven, take 'em in the lump!
Never laid in hay-fields when the dawn came over-sea, sir?
Guess it's true that story 'bout the needle and the hump!
Never crept into a stack because the wind was blowing,
Hollered out a nest and closed the door-way with a clump,
Laid and heard the whisper of the silence, growing, growing,
Watched a thousand wheeling stars and wondered if they'd bump?
What I say would stump
Joshua! But I've done it, sir. Don't think I'm off my chump.

XXXVIII

If you try and lay, sir, with your face turned up to wonder,
Up to twenty million miles of stars that roll like one,
Right across to God knows where, and you just huddled under
Like a little beetle with no business of his own,
There you'd hear--like growing grass--a funny silent sound, sir,
Mixed with curious crackles in a steady undertone,
Just the sound of twenty billion stars a-going round, sir,
Yus, and you beneath 'em like a wise old ant, alone,
Ant upon a stone,
Waving of his antlers, on the Sussex downs, alone.

ON THE DOWNS

Wide-eyed our childhood roamed the world
Knee-deep in blowing grass,
And watched the white clouds crisply curled
Above the mountain-pass,
And lay among the purple thyme
And from its fragrance caught
Strange hints from some elusive clime
Beyond the bounds of thought.

Glimpses of fair forgotten things
Beyond the gates of birth,
Half-caught from far off ancient springs
In heaven, and half of earth;
And coloured like a fairy-tale
And whispering evermore
Half memories from the half-fenced pale
Of lives we lived before.

Here, weary of the roaring town
A-while may I return
And while the west wind roams the down
Lie still, lie still and learn:
Here are green leagues of murmuring wheat
With blue skies overhead,
And, all around, the winds are sweet
With May-bloom, white and red.

And, to and fro, the bee still hums
His low unchanging song,
And the same rustling whisper comes
As through the ages long:
Through all the thousands of the years
That same sweet rumour flows,
With dreaming skies and gleaming tears
And kisses and the rose.

Once more the children throng the lanes,
Themselves like flowers, to weave
Their garlands and their daisy-chains
And listen and believe
The tale of _Once-upon-a-time_,
And hear the _Long-ago_
And _Happy-ever-after_ chime
Because it must be so.

And by those thousands of the years
It is, though scarce we see,
Dazed with the rainbows of our tears,
Their steadfast unity,
It is, or life's disjointed schemes,
These stones, these ferns unfurled
With such deep care--a madman's dreams
Were wisdom to this world!

Dust into dust! Lie still and learn,
Hear how the ages sing
The solemn joy of our return
To that which makes the Spring:
Even as we came, with childhood's trust,
Wide-eyed we go, to Thee
Who holdest In Thy sacred dust
The heavenly Springs to be.

A MAY-DAY CAROL

What is the loveliest light that Spring
Rosily parting her robe of grey
Girdled with leaflet green, can fling
Over the fields where her white feet stray?
What is the merriest promise of May
Flung o'er the dew-drenched April flowers?
Tell me, you on the pear-tree spray--
_Carol of birds between the showers_.

What can life at its lightest bring
Better than this on its brightest day?
How should we fetter the white-throat's wing
Wild with joy of its woodland way?
Sweet, should love for an hour delay,
Swift, while the primrose-time is ours!
What is the lover's royallest lay?--
_Carol of birds between the showers_.

What is the murmur of bees a-swing?
What is the laugh of a child at play?
What is the song that the angels sing?
(Where were the tune could the sweet notes stay
Longer than this, to kiss and betray?)
Nay, on the blue sky's topmost towers,
What is the song of the seraphim? Say--
_Carol of birds between the showers._

Thread the stars on a silver string,
(So did they sing in Bethlehem's bowers!)
Mirth for a little one, grief for a king,
_Carol of birds between the showers_.

THE CALL OF THE SPRING

Come, choose your road and away, my lad,
Come, choose your road and away!
We'll out of the town by the road's bright crown
As it dips to the dazzling day.
It's a long white road for the weary;
But it rolls through the heart of the May.

Though many a road would merrily ring
To the tramp of your marching feet,
All roads are one from the day that's done,
And the miles are swift and sweet,
And the graves of your friends are the mile-stones
To the land where all roads meet.

But the call that you hear this day, my lad,
Is the Spring's old bugle of mirth
When the year's green fire in a soul's desire
Is brought like a rose to the birth;
And knights ride out to adventure
As the flowers break out of the earth.

Over the sweet-smelling mountain-passes
The clouds lie brightly curled;
The wild-flowers cling to the crags and swing
With cataract-dews impearled;
And the way, the way that you choose this day
Is the way to the end of the world.

It rolls from the golden long ago
To the land that we ne'er shall find;
And it's uphill here, but it's downhill there,
For the road is wise and kind,
And all rough places and cheerless faces
Will soon be left behind.

Come, choose your road and away, away,
We'll follow the gipsy sun,
For it's soon, too soon to the end of the day,
And the day is well begun;
And the road rolls on through the heart of the May,
And there's never a May but one.

There's a fir-wood here, and a dog-rose there,
And a note of the mating dove;
And a glimpse, maybe, of the warm blue sea,
And the warm white clouds above;
And warm to your breast in a tenderer nest
Your sweetheart's little glove.

There's not much better to win, my lad,
There's not much better to win!
You have lived, you have loved, you have fought, you have proved
The worth of folly and sin;
So now come out of the City's rout,
Come out of the dust and the din.

Come out,--a bundle and stick is all
You'll need to carry along,
If your heart can carry a kindly word,
And your lips can carry a song;
You may leave the lave to the keep o' the grave,
If your lips can carry a song!

_Come, choose your road and away, my lad,
Come, choose your road and away!
We'll out of the town by the road's bright crown,
As it dips to the sapphire day!
All roads may meet at the world's end,
But, hey for the heart of the May!
Come, choose your road and away, dear lad,
Come choose your road and away._

A DEVONSHIRE DITTY

I

In a leafy lane of Devon
There's a cottage that I know,
Then a garden--then, a grey old crumbling wall,
And the wall's the wall of heaven
(Where I hardly care to go)
And there isn't any fiery sword at all.

II

But I never went to heaven.
There was right good reason why,
For they sent a shining angel to me there,
An angel, down in Devon,
(Clad in muslin by the bye)
With the halo of the sunshine on her hair.

III

Ah, whate'er the darkness covers,
And whate'er we sing or say,
Would you climb the wall of heaven an hour too soon
If you knew a place for lovers
Where the apple-blossoms stray
Out of heaven to sway and whisper to the moon?

IV

When we die--we'll think of Devon
Where the garden's all aglow
With the flowers that stray across the grey old wall:
Then we'll climb it, out of heaven,
From the other side, you know,
Straggle over it from heaven
With the apple-blossom snow,
Tumble back again to Devon
Laugh and love as long ago,
Where there isn't any fiery sword at all.

BACCHUS AND THE PIRATES

Half a hundred terrible pig-tails, pirates famous in song and story,
Hoisting the old black flag once more, in a palmy harbour of Caribbee,
"Farewell" we waved to our brown-skinned lasses, and chorussing out to
the billows of glory,
Billows a-glitter with rum and gold, we followed the sunset over the sea.

_While earth goes round, let rum go round,
Our capstan song we sung:
Half a hundred broad-sheet pirates
When the world was young!_

Sea-roads plated with pieces of eight that rolled to a heaven by rum
made mellow,
Heaved and coloured our barque's black nose where the Lascar sang
to a twinkling star,
And the tangled bow-sprit plunged and dipped its point in the west's
wild red and yellow,
Till the curved white moon crept out astern like a naked knife
from a blue cymar.

_While earth goes round, let rum go round,
Our capstan song we sung:
Half a hundred terrible pirates
When the world was young!_

Half a hundred tarry pig-tails, Teach, the chewer of glass, had taught us,
Taught us to balance the plank ye walk, your little plank-bridge
to Kingdom Come:
Half a score had sailed with Flint, and a dozen or so the devil
had brought us
Back from the pit where Blackbeard lay, in Beelzebub's bosom,
a-screech for rum.

_While earth goes round, let rum go round,
Our capstan song we sung:
Half a hundred piping pirates
When the world was young!_

There was Captain Hook (of whom ye have heard--so called from his terrible
cold steel twister,
His own right hand having gone to a shark with a taste for skippers
on pirate-trips),
There was Silver himself, with his cruel crutch, and the blind man Pew,
with a phiz like a blister,
Gouged and white and dreadfully dried in the reek of a thousand
burning ships.

_While earth goes round, let rum go round,
Our capstan song we sung:
Half a hundred cut-throat pirates
When the world was young!_

With our silver buckles and French cocked hats and our skirted coats
(they were growing greener,
But green and gold look well when spliced! We'd trimmed 'em up
wi' some fine fresh lace)
Bravely over the seas we danced to the horn-pipe tune of a concertina,
Cutlasses jetting beneath our skirts and cambric handkerchiefs
all in place.

_While earth goes round, let rum go round,
Our capstan song we sung:
Half a hundred elegant pirates
When the world was young!_

And our black prow grated, one golden noon, on the happiest isle of
the Happy Islands,
An isle of Paradise, fair as a gem, on the sparkling breast of the
wine-dark deep,
An isle of blossom and yellow sand, and enchanted vines on the purple
highlands,
Wi' grapes like melons, nay clustering suns, a-sprawl over cliffs in
their noonday sleep.

_While earth goes round let rum go round,
Our capstan song we sung:
Half a hundred dream-struck pirates
When the world was young!_

And lo! on the soft warm edge of the sand, where the sea like wine
in a golden noggin
Creamed, and the rainbow-bubbles clung to his flame-red hair,
a white youth lay,
Sleeping; and now, as his drowsy grip relaxed, the cup that he
squeezed his grog in
Slipped from his hand and its purple dregs were mixed with the flames
and flakes of spray.

_While earth goes round, let rum go round,
Our capstan song we sung:
Half a hundred diffident pirates
When the world was young!_

And we suddenly saw (had we seen them before? They were coloured like
sand or the pelt on his shoulders)
His head was pillowed on two great leopards, whose breathing rose
and sank with his own;
Now a pirate is bold, but the vision was rum and would _call_ for rum
in the best of beholders,
And it seemed we had seen Him before, in a dream, with that flame-red
hair and that vine-leaf crown.

_And the earth went round, and the rum went round,
And softlier now we sung:
Half a hundred awe-struck pirates
When the world was young!_

Now Timothy Hook (of whom ye have heard, with his talon of steel)
our doughty skipper,
A man that, in youth being brought up pious, had many a book on
his cabin-shelf,
Suddenly caught at a comrade's hand with the tearing claws of his
cold steel flipper
And cried, "Great Thunder and Brimstone, boys, I've hit it at last!
_'Tis Bacchus himself._"

_And the earth went round, and the rum went round,
And never a word we sung:
Half a hundred tottering pirates
When the world was young!_

He flung his French cocked hat i' the foam (though its lace was the best
of his wearing apparel):
We stared at him--Bacchus! The sea reeled round like a wine-vat
splashing with purple dreams,
And the sunset-skies were dashed with blood of the grape as the sun
like a new-staved barrel
Flooded the tumbling West with wine and spattered the clouds with
crimson gleams.

_And the earth went round, and our heads went round,
And never a word we sung:
Half a hundred staggering pirates
When the world was young!_

Down to the ship for a fishing-net our crafty Hook sent Silver leaping;
Back he came on his pounding crutch, for all the world like a kangaroo;
And we caught the net and up to the Sleeper on hands and knees we all
went creeping,
Flung it across him and staked it down! 'Twas the best of our dreams
and the dream was true.

_And the earth went round, and the rum went round,
And loudly now we sung:
Half a hundred jubilant pirates
When the world was young!_

We had caught our god, and we got him aboard ere he woke (he was more
than a little heavy);
Glittering, beautiful, flushed he lay in the lurching bows of
the old black barque,
As the sunset died and the white moon dawned, and we saw on the island
a star-bright bevy
Of naked Bacchanals stealing to watch through the whispering vines in
the purple dark!

_While earth goes round, let rum go round,
Our capstan song we sung:
Half a hundred innocent pirates
When the world was young!_

Beautiful under the sailing moon, in the tangled net, with the leopards
beside him,
Snared like a wild young red-lipped merman, wilful, petulant,
flushed he lay;
While Silver and Hook in their big sea-boots and their boat-cloaks
guarded and gleefully eyed him,
Thinking what Bacchus might do for a seaman, like standing him drinks,
as a man might say.

_While earth goes round, let rum go round,
We sailed away and sung:
Half a hundred fanciful pirates
When the world was young!_

All the grog that ever was heard of, gods, was it stowed in our
sure possession?
O, the pictures that broached the skies and poured their colours
across our dreams!
O, the thoughts that tapped the sunset, and rolled like a great
torchlight procession
Down our throats in a glory of glories, a roaring splendour
of golden streams!

_And the earth went round, and the stars went round,
As we hauled the sheets and sung:
Half a hundred infinite pirates
When the world was young!_

Beautiful, white, at the break of day, He woke and, the net in a
smoke dissolving,
He rose like a flame, with his yellow-eyed pards and his
flame-red hair like a windy dawn,
And the crew kept back, respectful like, till the leopards advanced
with their eyes revolving,
Then up the rigging went Silver and Hook, and the rest of us followed
with case-knives drawn.

_While earth goes round, let rum go round,
Our cross-tree song we sung:
Half a hundred terrified pirates
When the world was young!_

And "Take me home to my happy island!" he says. "Not I," sings Hook,
"by thunder;
We'll take you home to a happier isle, our palmy harbour of Caribbee!"
"You won't!" says Bacchus, and quick as a dream the planks of the deck just
heaved asunder,
And a mighty Vine came straggling up that grew from the depths of
the wine-dark sea.

_And the sea went round, and the skies went round,
As our cross-tree song we sung:
Half a hundred horrified pirates
When the world was young!_

We were anchored fast as an oak on land, and the branches clutched and
the tendrils quickened,
And bound us writhing like snakes to the spars! Ay, we hacked with our
knives at the boughs in vain,
And Bacchus laughed loud on the decks below, as ever the tough sprays
tightened and thickened,
And the blazing hours went by, and we gaped with thirst and our ribs
were racked with pain

_And the skies went round, and the sea swam round,
And we knew not what we sung:
Half a hundred lunatic pirates
When the world was young!_

Bunch upon bunch of sunlike grapes, as we writhed and struggled and raved
and strangled,
Bunch upon bunch of gold and purple daubed its bloom on our baked
black lips.
Clustering grapes, O, bigger than pumpkins, just out of reach they
bobbed and dangled
Over the vine-entangled sails of that most dumbfounded of pirate ships!

_And the sun went round, and the moon came round,
And mocked us where we hung:
Half a hundred maniac pirates
When the world was young!_

Over the waters the white moon winked its bruised old eye at our
bowery prison,
When suddenly we were aware of a light such as never a moon
or a ship's lamp throws,
And a shallop of pearl, like a Nautilus shell, came shimmering up
as by magic arisen,
With sails: of silk and a glory around it that turned the sea
to a rippling rose.

_And our heads went round, and the stars went round,
At the song that cruiser sung:
Half a hundred goggle-eyed pirates
When the world was young!_

Half a hundred rose-white Bacchanals hauled the ropes of that rosy cruiser!
Over the seas they came and laid their little white hands on the old
black barque;
And Bacchus he ups and he steps aboard: "Hi, stop!" cries Hook,
"you frantic old boozer!
Belay, below there, don't you go and leave poor pirates to
die in the dark!"

_And the moon went round, and the stars went round,
As they all pushed off and sung:
Half a hundred ribbonless Bacchanals
When the world was young!_

Over the seas they went and Bacchus he stands, with his yellow-eyed
leopards beside him,
High on the poop of rose and pearl, and kisses his hand to us,
pleasant as pie!
While the Bacchanals danced to their tambourines, and the vine-leaves
flew, and Hook just eyed him
Once, as a man that was brought up pious, and scornfully hollers,
"_Well, you ain't shy!_"

_For all around him, vine-leaf crowned,
The wild white Bacchanals flung!
Nor it wasn't a sight for respectable pirates
When the world was young!_

All around that rainbow-Nautilus rippled the bloom of a thousand roses,
Nay, but the sparkle of fairy sea-nymphs breasting a fairy-like
sea of wine,
Swimming around it in murmuring thousands, with white arms tossing;
till--all that _we_ knows is
The light went out, and the night was dark, and the grapes had
burst and their juice was--brine!

_And the vines that bound our bodies round
Were plain wet ropes that clung,
Squeezing the light out o' fifty pirates
When the world was young!_

Over the seas in the pomp of dawn a king's ship came with her proud
flag flying.
Cloud upon cloud we watched her tower with her belts and her crowded
zones of sail;
And an A.B. perched in a white crow's nest, with a brass-rimmed
spy-glass quietly spying,
As we swallowed the lumps in our choking throats and uttered
our last faint feeble hail!

_And our heads went round as the ship went round,
And we thought how coves had swung:
All for playing at broad-sheet pirates
When the world was young!_

Half a hundred trembling corsairs, all cut loose, but a trifle giddy,
We lands on their trim white decks at last and the bo'sun he whistles us
good hot grog,
And we tries to confess, but there wasn't a soul from the Admiral's
self to the gold-laced middy
But says, "They're delirious still, poor chaps," and the Cap'n he
enters the fact in his log,

_That his boat's crew found us nearly drowned
In a barrel without a bung--
Half a hundred suffering sea-cooks
When the world was young!_

So we sailed by Execution Dock, where the swinging pirates haughty
and scornful
Rattled their chains, and on Margate beach we came like a school-treat
safe to land;
And one of us took to religion at once; and the rest of the crew, tho'
their hearts were mournful,
Capered about as Christy Minstrels, while Hook conducted the big
brass band.

_And the sun went round, and the moon went round,
And, O, 'twas a thought that stung!
There was none to believe we were broad-sheet pirates
When the world was young!_

Ah, yet (if ye stand me a noggin of rum) shall the old Blue Dolphin echo
the story!
We'll hoist the white cross-bones again in our palmy harbour of Caribbee!
We'll wave farewell to our brown-skinned lasses and, chorussing out to the
billows of glory,
Billows a-glitter with rum and gold, we'll follow the sunset over the sea!

_While earth goes round, let rum go round!
O, sing it as we sung!
Half a hundred terrible pirates
When the world was young!_

THE NEWSPAPER BOY

I

Elf of the City, a lean little hollow-eyed boy
Ragged and tattered, but lithe as a slip of the Spring,
Under the lamp-light he runs with a reckless joy
Shouting a murderer's doom or the death of a King.

Out of the darkness he leaps like a wild strange hint,
Herald of tragedy, comedy, crime and despair,
Waving a poster that hurls you, in fierce black print
One word _Mystery_, under the lamp's white glare.

II

Elf of the night of the City he darts with his crew
Out of a vaporous furnace of colour that wreathes
Magical letters a-flicker from crimson to blue
High overhead. All round him the mad world seethes.
Hansoms, like cantering beetles, with diamond eyes
Run through the moons of it; busses in yellow and red
Hoot; and St. Paul's is a bubble afloat in the skies,
Watching the pale moths flit and the dark death's head.

III

Painted and powdered they shimmer and rustle and stream
Westward, the night moths, masks of the Magdalen! See,
Puck of the revels, he leaps through the sinister dream
Waving his elfin evangel of _Mystery_,
Puck of the bubble or dome of their scoffing or trust,
Puck of the fairy-like tower with the clock in its face,
Puck of an Empire that whirls on a pellet of dust
Bearing his elfin device thro' the splendours of space.

IV

_Mystery_--is it the scribble of doom on the dark,
Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, again?
_Mystery_--is it a scrap of remembrance, a spark
Burning still in the fog of a blind world's brain?
Elf of the gossamer tangles of shadow and light,
Wild electrical webs and the battle that rolls
League upon perishing league thro' the ravenous night,
Breaker on perishing breaker of human souls.

V

Soaked in the colours, a flake of the flying spray
Flung over wreckage and yeast of the murderous town,
Onward he flaunts it, innocent, vicious and gay,
Prophet of prayers that are stifled and loves that drown,
Urchin and sprat of the City that roars like a sea
Surging around him in hunger and splendour and shame,
Cruelty, luxury, madness, he leaps in his glee
Out of the mazes of mist and the vistas of flame.

VI

Ragged and tattered he scurries away in the gloom:
Over the thundering traffic a moment his cry
Mystery! Mystery!--reckless of death and doom
Rings; and the great wheels roll and the world goes by.
Lost, is it lost, that hollow-eyed flash of the light?--
Poor little face flying by with the word that saves,
Pale little mouth of the mask of the measureless night,
Shrilling the heart of it, lost like the foam on its waves!

THE TWO WORLDS

This outer world is but the pictured scroll
Of worlds within the soul,
A coloured chart, a blazoned missal-book
Whereon who rightly look
May spell the splendours with their mortal eyes
And steer to Paradise.

O, well for him that knows and early knows
In his own soul the rose
Secretly burgeons, of this earthly flower
The heavenly paramour:
And all these fairy dreams of green-wood fern,
These waves that break and yearn,
Shadows and hieroglyphs, hills, clouds and seas,
Faces and flowers and trees,
Terrestrial picture-parables, relate
Each to its heavenly mate.

O, well for him that finds in sky and sea
This two-fold mystery,
And loses not (as painfully he spells
The fine-spun syllables)
The cadences, the burning inner gleam,
The poet's heavenly dream.

Well for the poet if this earthly chart
Be printed in his heart,
When to his world of spirit woods and seas
With eager face he flees
And treads the untrodden fields of unknown flowers
And threads the angelic bowers,
And hears that unheard nightingale whose moan
Trembles within his own,
And lovers murmuring in the leafy lanes
Of his own joys and pains.

For though he voyages further than the flight
Of earthly day and night,
Traversing to the sky's remotest ends
A world that he transcends,
Safe, he shall hear the hidden breakers roar
Against the mystic shore;
Shall roam the yellow sands where sirens bare
Their breasts and wind their hair;
Shall with their perfumed tresses blind his eyes,
And still possess the skies.

He, where the deep unearthly jungles are,
Beneath his Eastern star
Shall pass the tawny lion in his den
And cross the quaking fen.
He learnt his path (and treads it undefiled)
When, as a little child,
He bent his head with long and loving looks
O'er earthly picture-books.
His earthly love nestles against his side,
His young celestial guide.

GORSE

Between my face and the warm blue sky
The crisp white clouds go sailing by,
And the only sound is the sound of your breathing,
The song of a bird and the sea's long sigh.

Here, on the downs, as a tale re-told
The sprays of the gorse are a-blaze with gold,
As of old, on the sea-washed hills of my boyhood,
Breathing the same sweet scent as of old.

Under a ragged golden spray
The great sea sparkles far away,
Beautiful, bright, as my heart remembers
Many a dazzle of waves in May.

Long ago as I watched them shine
Under the boughs of fir and pine,
Here I watch them to-day and wonder,
Here, with my love's hand warm in mine.

The soft wings pass that we used to chase,
Dreams that I dreamed had left not a trace,
The same, the same, with the bars of crimson
The green-veined white, with its floating grace,

The same to the least bright fleck on their wings!
And I close my eyes, and a lost bird sings,
And a far sea sighs, and the old sweet fragrance
Wraps me round with the dear dead springs,

Wraps me round with the springs to be
When lovers that think not of you or me
Laugh, but our eyes will be closed in darkness,
Closed to the sky and the gorse and the sea,

And the same great glory of ragged gold
Once more, once more, as a tale re-told
Shall whisper their hearts with the same sweet fragrance
And their warm hands cling, as of old, as of old.

Dead and un-born, the same blue skies
Cover us! Love, as I read your eyes,
Do I not know whose love enfolds us,
As we fold the past in our memories,

Past, present, future, the old and the new?
From the depths of the grave a cry breaks through
And trembles, a sky-lark blind in the azure,
The depths of the all-enfolding blue.

O, resurrection of folded years
Deep in our hearts, with your smiles and tears,
Dead and un-born shall not He remember
Who folds our cry in His heart, and hears.

FOR THE EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY OF GEORGE MEREDITH

A health, a ringing health, unto the king
Of all our hearts to-day! But what proud song
Should follow on the thought, nor do him wrong?
Except the sea were harp, each mirthful string
The lovely lightning of the nights of Spring,
And Dawn the lonely listener, glad and grave
With colours of the sea-shell and the wave
In brightening eye and cheek, there is none to sing!

Drink to him, as men upon an Alpine peak
Brim one immortal cup of crimson wine,
And into it drop one pure cold crust of snow,
Then hold it up, too rapturously to speak
And drink--to the mountains, line on glittering line,
Surging away into the sunset-glow.

IN MEMORY OF SWINBURNE

I

April from shore to shore, from sea to sea,
April in heaven and on the springing spray
Buoyant with birds that sing to welcome May
And April in those eyes that mourn for thee:
"This is my singing month; my hawthorn tree
Burgeons once more," we seemed to hear thee say,
"This is my singing month: my fingers stray
Over the lute. What shall the music be?"

And April answered with too great a song
For mortal lips to sing or hearts to hear,
Heard only of that high invisible throng
For whom thy song makes April all the year!
"My singing month, what bringest thou?" Her breath
Swooned with all music, and she answered--"Death."

II

Ah, but on earth,--"can'st thou, too, die,"
Low she whispers, "lover of mine?"
April, queen over earth and sky
Whispers, her trembling lashes shine:
"Wings of the sea, good-bye, good-bye,
Down to the dim sea-line."

Home to the heart of thine old-world lover,
Home to thy "fair green-girdled" sea!
There shall thy soul with the sea-birds hover,
Free of the deep as their wings are free;
Free, for the grave-flowers only cover
This, the dark cage of thee.

Thee, the storm-bird, nightingale-souled,
Brother of Sappho, the seas reclaim!
Age upon age have the great waves rolled
Mad with her music, exultant, aflame;
Thee, thee too, shall their glory enfold,
Lit with thy snow-winged fame.

Back, thro' the years, fleets the sea-bird's wing:
_Sappho, of old time, once_,--ah, hark!
So did he love her of old and sing!
Listen, he flies to her, back thro' the dark!
_Sappho, of old time, once_.... Yea, Spring
Calls him home to her, hark!

_Sappho, long since, in the years far sped,
Sappho, I loved thee!_ Did I not seem
Fosterling only of earth? I have fled,
Fled to thee, sister. Time is a dream!
Shelley is here with us! Death lies dead!
Ah, how the bright waves gleam.

Wide was the cage-door, idly swinging;
April touched me and whispered "Come."
Out and away to the great deep winging,
Sister, I flashed to thee over the foam,
Out to the sea of Eternity, singing
"Mother, thy child comes home."

* * * *

Ah, but how shall we welcome May
Here where the wing of song droops low,
Here by the last green swinging spray
Brushed by the sea-bird's wings of snow,
We that gazed on his glorious way
Out where the great winds blow?

_Here upon earth--"can'st thou, too, die,
Lover of life and lover of mine?"
April, conquering earth and sky
Whispers, her trembling lashes shine:
"Wings of the sea, good-bye, good-bye,
Down to the dim sea-line."_

ON THE DEATH OF FRANCIS THOMPSON

I

How grandly glow the bays
Purpureally enwound
With those rich thorns, the brows
How infinitely crowned
That now thro' Death's dark house
Have passed with royal gaze:
Purpureally enwound
How grandly glow the bays.

II

Sweet, sweet and three-fold sweet,
Pulsing with three-fold pain,
Where the lark fails of flight
Soared the celestial strain;
Beyond the sapphire height
Flew the gold-winged feet,
Beautiful, pierced with pain,
Sweet, sweet and three-fold sweet;

III

And where _Is not_ and _Is_
Are wed in one sweet Name,
And the world's rootless vine
With dew of stars a-flame
Laughs, from those deep divine
Impossibilities,
Our reason all to shame--
_This cannot be, but is;_

IV

Into the Vast, the Deep
Beyond all mortal sight,
The Nothingness that conceived
The worlds of day and night,
The Nothingness that heaved
Pure sides in virgin sleep,
Brought out of Darkness, light;
And man from out the Deep.

V

Into that Mystery
Let not thine hand be thrust:
Nothingness is a world
Thy science well may trust ...
But lo, a leaf unfurled,
Nay, a cry mocking thee
From the first grain of dust--
_I am, yet cannot be!_

VI

Adventuring un-afraid
Into that last deep shrine,
Must not the child-heart see
Its deepest symbol shine,
The world's Birth-mystery,
Whereto the suns are shade?
Lo, the white breast divine--
The holy Mother-maid!

VII

How miss that Sacrifice,
That cross of Yea and Nay,
That paradox of heaven
Whose palms point either way,
Through each a nail being driven
That the arms out-span the skies
And our earth-dust this day
Out-sweeten Paradise.

VIII

We part the seamless robe,
Our wisdom would divide
The raiment of the King,
Our spear is in His side,
Even while the angels sing
Around our perishing globe,
And Death re-knits in pride
The seamless purple robe.

* * * *

IX

_How grandly glow the bays
Purpureally enwound
With those rich thorns, the brows
How infinitely crowned
That now thro' Death's dark house
Have passed with royal gaze:
Purpureally enwound
How grandly glow the bays._

IN MEMORY OF MEREDITH

I

High on the mountains, who stands proudly, clad with the light of May,
Rich as the dawn, deep-hearted as night, diamond-bright as day,
Who, while the slopes of the beautiful valley throb with our muffled tread
Who, with the hill-flowers wound in her tresses, welcomes our
deathless dead?

II

Is it not she whom he sought so long thro' the high lawns dewy and sweet,
Up thro' the crags and the glittering snows faint-flushed with her
rosy feet,
Is it not she--the queen of our night--crowned by the unseen sun,
Artemis, she that can see the light, when light upon earth is none?

III

Huntress, queen of the dark of the world (no darker at night than noon)
Beauty immortal and undefiled, the Eternal sun's white moon,
Only by thee and thy silver shafts for a flash can our hearts discern,
Pierced to the quick, the love, the love that still thro' the dark
doth yearn.

IV

What to his soul were the hill-flowers, what the gold at the break of day
Shot thro' the red-stemmed firs to the lake where the swimmer
clove his way,
What were the quivering harmonies showered from the heaven-tossed heart
of the lark,
Artemis, Huntress, what were these but thy keen shafts cleaving the dark?

V

Frost of the hedge-row, flash of the jasmine, sparkle of dew on the leaf,
Seas lit wide by the summer lightning, shafts from thy diamond sheaf,
Deeply they pierced him, deeply he loved thee, now has he found thy soul,
Artemis, thine, in this bridal peal, where we hear but the death-bell toll.

THE TESTIMONY OF ART

As earth, sad earth, thrusts many a gloomy cape
Into the sea's bright colour and living glee,
So do we strive to embay that mystery
Which earthly hands must ever let escape;
The Word we seek for is the golden shape
That shall enshrine the Soul we cannot see,
A temporal chalice of Eternity
Purple with beating blood of the hallowed grape.

Once was it wine and sacramental bread
Whereby we knew the power that through Him smiled
When, in one still small utterance, He hurled
The Eternities beneath His feet and said
With lips, O meek as any little child,
_Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world._

THE SCHOLARS

Where is the scholar whose clear mind can hold
The floral text of one sweet April mead?--
The flowing lines, which few can spell indeed
Though most will note the scarlet and the gold
Around the flourishing capitals grandly scrolled;
But ah, the subtle cadences that need
The lover's heart, the lover's heart to read,
And ah, the songs unsung, the tales untold.

Poor fools-capped scholars--grammar keeps us close,
The primers thrall us, and our eyes grow dim:
When will old Master Science hear the call,
Bid us run free with life in every limb
To breathe the poems and hear the last red rose
Gossiping over God's grey garden-wall?

RESURRECTION

Once more I hear the everlasting sea
Breathing beneath the mountain's fragrant breast,
_Come unto Me, come unto Me,
And I will give you rest._

We have destroyed the Temple and in three days
He hath rebuilt it--all things are made new:
And hark what wild throats pour His praise
Beneath the boundless blue.

We plucked down all His altars, cried aloud
And gashed ourselves for little gods of clay!
Yon floating cloud was but a cloud,
The May no more than May.

We plucked down all His altars, left not one
Save where, perchance (and ah, the joy was fleet),
We laid our garlands in the sun
At the white Sea-born's feet.

We plucked down all His altars, not to make
The small praise greater, but the great praise less,
We sealed all fountains where the soul could slake
Its thirst and weariness.

"Love" was too small, too human to be found
In that transcendent source whence love was born:
We talked of "forces": heaven was crowned
With philosophic thorn.

"Your God is in your image," we cried, but O,
'Twas only man's own deepest heart ye gave,
Knowing that He transcended all ye know,
While we--we dug His grave.

Denied Him even the crown on our own brow,
E'en these poor symbols of His loftier reign,
Levelled His Temple with the dust, and now
He is risen, He is risen again,

Risen, like this resurrection of the year,
This grand ascension of the choral spring,
Which those harp-crowded heavens bend to hear
And meet upon the wing.

"He is dead," we cried, and even amid that gloom
The wintry veil was rent! The new-born day
Showed us the Angel seated in the tomb
And the stone rolled away.

It is the hour! We challenge heaven above
Now, to deny our slight ephemeral breath
Joy, anguish, and that everlasting love
Which triumphs over death.

A JAPANESE LOVE-SONG

I

The young moon is white,
But the willows are blue:
Your small lips are red,
But the great clouds are grey:
The waves are so many
That whisper to you;
But my love is only
One flight of spray.

II

The bright drops are many,
The dark wave is one:
The dark wave subsides,
And the bright sea remains!
And wherever, O singing
Maid, you may run,
You are one with the world
For all your pains.

III

Though the great skies are dark,
And your small feet are white,
Though your wide eyes are blue
And the closed poppies red,
Tho' the kisses are many
That colour the night,
They are linked like pearls
On one golden thread.

IV

Were the grey clouds not made
For the red of your mouth;
The ages for flight
Of the butterfly years;
The sweet of the peach
For the pale lips of drouth,
The sunlight of smiles
For the shadow of tears?

V

Love, Love is the thread
That has pierced them with bliss!
All their hues are but notes
In one world-wide tune:
Lips, willows, and waves,
We are one as we kiss,
And your face and the flowers
Faint away in the moon.

THE TWO PAINTERS

(A TALE OF OLD JAPAN.)

I

Yoichi Tenko, the painter,
Dwelt by the purple sea,
Painting the peacock islands
Under his willow-tree:
Also in temples he painted
Dragons of old Japan,
With a child to look at the pictures--
Little O Kimi San.

Kimi, the child of his brother,
Bright as the moon in May,
White as a lotus lily,
Pink as a plum-tree spray,
Linking her soft arm round him
Sang to his heart for an hour,
Kissed him with ripples of laughter
And lips of the cherry flower.

Child of the old pearl-fisher
Lost in his junk at sea,
Kimi was loved of Tenko
As his own child might be,
Yoichi Tenko the painter,
Wrinkled and grey and old,
Teacher of many disciples
That paid for his dreams with gold.

II

Peonies, peonies crowned the May!
Clad in blue and white array
Came Sawara to the school
Under the silvery willow-tree,
All to learn of Tenko!
Riding on a milk-white mule,
Young and poor and proud was he,
Lissom as a cherry spray
(Peonies, peonies, crowned the day!)
And he rode the golden way
To the school of Tenko.

Swift to learn, beneath his hand
Soon he watched his wonderland
Growing cloud by magic cloud,
Under the silvery willow-tree
In the school of Tenko:
Kimi watched him, young and proud,
Painting by the purple sea,
Lying on the golden sand
Watched his golden wings expand!
(None but Love will understand
All she hid from Tenko.)

He could paint her tree and flower,
Sea and spray and wizard's tower,
With one stroke, now hard, now soft,
Under the silvery willow-tree
In the school of Tenko:
He could fling a bird aloft,
Splash a dragon in the sea,
Crown a princess in her bower,
With one stroke of magic power;
And she watched him, hour by hour,
In the school of Tenko.

Yoichi Tenko, wondering, scanned
All the work of that young hand,
Gazed his kakemonos o'er,
Under the silvery willow-tree
In the school of Tenko:
"I can teach you nothing more,
Thought or craft or mystery;
Let your golden wings expand,
They will shadow half the land,
All the world's at your command,
Come no more to Tenko."

_Lying on the golden sand,
Kimi watched his wings expand;
Wept.--He could not understand
Why she wept, said Tenko._

III

So, in her blue kimono,
Pale as the sickle moon
Glimmered thro' soft plum-branches
Blue in the dusk of June,
Stole she, willing and waning,
Frightened and unafraid,--
"Take me with you, Sawara,
Over the sea," she said.

Small and sadly beseeching,
Under the willow-tree,
Glimmered her face like a foam-flake
Drifting over the sea:
Pale as a drifting blossom,
Lifted her face to his eyes:
Slowly he gathered and held her
Under the drifting skies.

Poor little face cast backward,
Better to see his own,
Earth and heaven went past them
Drifting: they two, alone
Stood, immortal. He whispered--
"Nothing can part us two!"
Backward her sad little face went
Drifting, and dreamed it true.

"Others are happy," she murmured,
"Maidens and men I have seen;
You are my king, Sawara,
O, let me be your queen!
If I am all too lowly,"
Sadly she strove to smile,
"Let me follow your footsteps,
Your slave for a little while."

Surely, he thought, I have painted
Nothing so fair as this
Moonlit almond blossom
Sweet to fold and kiss,
Brow that is filled with music,
Shell of a faery sea,
Eyes like the holy violets
Brimmed with dew for me.

"Wait for Sawara," he whispered,
"Does not his whole heart yearn
Now to his moon-bright maiden?
Wait, for he will return
Rich as the wave on the moon's path
Rushing to claim his bride!"
So they plighted their promise,
And the ebbing sea-wave sighed.

IV

Moon and flower and butterfly,
Earth and heaven went drifting by,
Three long years while Kimi dreamed
Under the silvery willow-tree
In the school of Tenko,
Steadfast while the whole world streamed
Past her tow'rds Eternity;
Steadfast till with one great cry,
Ringing to the gods on high,
Golden wings should blind the sky
And bring him back to Tenko.

Three long years and nought to say
"Sweet, I come the golden way,
Riding royally to the school
Under the silvery willow-tree
Claim my bride of Tenko;
Silver bells on a milk-white mule,
Rose-red sails on an emerald sea!" ...
Kimi sometimes went to pray
In the temple nigh the bay,
Dreamed all night and gazed all day
Over the sea from Tenko.

Far away his growing fame
Lit the clouds. No message came
From the sky, whereon she gazed
Under the silvery willow-tree
Far away from Tenko!
Small white hands in the temple raised
Pleaded with the Mystery,--
"Stick of incense in the flame,
Though my love forget my name,
Help him, bless him, all the same,
And ... bring him back to Tenko!"

_Rose-white temple nigh the bay,
Hush! for Kimi comes to pray,
Dream all night and gaze all day
Over the sea from Tenko._

V