Chapter III

Mightiest-minded of the Roman race,
Lucretius!
In thy predestined, purgatory place,
Where thou and thine Iphigenia wait:
What think'st thou of the Vision and the Fate,
Wherewith the Christ makes all thine outcries vain?
Art learning Christ through sweet and bitter pain,
Lucretius?

Heaviest-hearted of the sons of men,
Lucretius!
Well couldst thou justify severe thoughts then,
Considering thy lamentable Rome:
But thou wilt come to an imperial home,
With walls of jasper, past the walls of fire:
To God's proud City, and thine heart's desire,
Lucretius!

1887.

ENTHUSIASTS.

_To the Rev. Percy Dearmer._

Let your swords flash, and wound the golden air of God:
Bright steel, to meet and cleave the splendour of His sun!
Now is a war of wars in majesty begun:
Red shall the cornfields ripen, where our horses trod,
Where scythe nor sickle swept, but smote war's iron rod:
Where the stars rose and set, and saw the blood still run.
So shall men tell of us, and dread our deeds, though done:
New annals yet shall praise time's fiercest period.

Let your swords flash, and wound the glowing air: now play
A glorious dance of death, with clash and gleam of sword.
Did Syrian sun and moon stand still on Israel's day?
Those orbs halt over Ajalon at Joshua's word?
Of us, who ride for God, shall Christian children say:
_To battle, see! flash by armed angels of the Lord._

1891.

CADGWITH.

_To Laurence Binyon._

_Man is a shadow's dream!_
Opulent Pindar saith:
Yet man may win a gleam
Of glory, before death.

Saith golden Shakespeare: _Man
Is a dream's shadow!_ Yet,
Though death do all death can,
His soul toward life is set.

I, living with delight
This rich autumnal day,
Mark the gulls' curving flight
Across the black-girt bay.

And the sea's working men,
The fisher-folk, I mark
Haul down their boats, and then
Launch for the deep sea dark.

Far out the strange ships go:
Their broad sails flashing red
As flame, or white as snow:
The ships, as David said.

Winds rush and waters roll:
Their strength, their beauty, brings
Into mine heart the whole
Magnificence of things:

That men are counted worth
A part upon this sea,
A part upon this earth,
Exalts and heartens me.

Ah, Glaucus, soul of man!
Encrusted by each tide,
That, since the seas began,
Hath surged against thy side:

Encumbering thee with weed,
And tangle of the wave!
Yet canst thou rise at need,
And thy strong beauty save!

Tides of the world in vain
Desire to vanquish thee:
Prostrate, thou canst again
Rise, lord of earth and sea:

Rise, lord of sea and earth,
And winds, and starry night.
Thine is the greater birth
And origin of light.

1892.

II.

My windows open to the autumn night,
In vain I watched for sleep to visit me:
How should sleep dull mine ears, and dim my sight,
Who saw the stars, and listened to the sea?

Ah, how the City of our God is fair!
If, without sea, and starless though it be,
For joy of the majestic beauty there,
Men shall not miss the stars, nor mourn the sea.

1892.

III.

Mary Star of the Sea!
Look on this little place:
Bless the kind fisher race,
Mary Star of the Sea!

Send harvest from the deep,
Mary Star of the Sea!
Mary Star of the Sea!
Let not these women weep.

Mary Star of the Sea!
Give wife and mother joy
In husband and in boy:
Mary Star of the Sea!

With intercession save,
Mary Star of the Sea!
Mary Star of the Sea!
These children of the wave.

Mary Star of the Sea!
Pour peace upon the wild
Waves, make their murmurs mild:
Mary Star of the Sea!

Now in thy mercy pray,
Mary Star of the Sea!
Mary Star of the Sea!
For sailors far away.

Mary Star of the Sea!
Now be thy great prayers said
For all poor seamen dead:
Mary Star of the Sea!

1892

VISIONS.

_To Mrs. de Paravicini._

I.

Each in his proper gloom;
Each in his dark, just place:
The builders of their doom
Hide, each his awful face.

Not less than saints, are they
Heirs of Eternity:
Perfect, their dreadful way;
A deathless company.

Lost! lost! fallen and lost!
With fierce wrath ever fresh:
Each suffers in the ghost
The sorrows of the flesh.

O miracle of sin!
That makes itself an home,
So utter black within,
Thither Light cannot come!

O mighty house of hate!
Stablished and guarded so,
Love cannot pass the gate,
Even to dull its woe!

Now, Christ compassionate!
Now, bruise me with thy rod:
Lest I be mine own fate,
And kill the Love of God.

1893.

II.

O place of happy pains,
And land of dear desires!
Where Love divine detains
Glad souls among sweet fires.

Where sweet, white fires embrace
The red-scarred, red-stained soul:
That it may see God's Face,
Perfectly white and whole.

While with still hope they bear
Those ardent agonies:
Earth pleads for them, in prayer
And wistful charities.

O place of patient pains,
And land of brave desires!
Us now God's Will detains
Far from those holy fires.

Us the sad world rings round
With passionate flames impure:
We tread an impious ground,
And hunger, and endure:

That, earth's ordeal done,
Those white, sweet fires may fit
Us for our home, and One,
Who is the Light of it.

1892.