Chapter II

And yet, what of the sorrowing years,
Their clouds and difficult event?
Here is a kindlier way than tears,
A fairer way than discontent:
The passionate remembrances,
That wake at bidding of the air:
Fancies, and dreams, and fragrances,
That charmed us, when they were.

So breathed the hay, so the rose bloomed,
Ah! what a thousand years ago!
So long imprisoned and entombed,
Out of our hearts the old joys flow:
Peace! present sorrows: lie you still!
You shall not grow to memories:
The ancient hours live yet, to kill
The sorry hour, that is.

1887.

THE DESTROYER OF A SOUL.

_To ----._

I hate you with a necessary hate.
First, I sought patience: passionate was she:
My patience turned in very scorn of me,
That I should dare forgive a sin so great,
As this, through which I sit disconsolate;
Mourning for that live soul, I used to see;
Soul of a saint, whose friend I used to be:
Till you came by! a cold, corrupting, fate.

Why come you now? You, whom I cannot cease
With pure and perfect hate to hate? Go, ring
The death-bell with a deep, triumphant toll!
Say you, my friend sits by me still? Ah, peace!
Call you this thing my friend? this nameless thing?
This living body, hiding its dead soul?

1892.

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS.

_Upon reading the poem of that name in the Underwoods
of Mr. Stevenson._

Far from the world, far from delight,
Distinguishing not day from night;
Vowed to one sacrifice of all
The happy things, that men befall;
Pleading one sacrifice, before
Whom sun and sea and wind adore;
Far from earth's comfort, far away,
We cry to God, we cry and pray
For men, who have the common day.
Dance, merry world! and sing: but we,
Hearing, remember Calvary:
Get gold, and thrive you! but the sun
Once paled; and the centurion
Said: _This dead man was God's own Son_.
Think you, we shrink from common toil,
Works of the mart, works of the soil;
That, prisoners of strong despair,
We breathe this melancholy air;
Forgetting the dear calls of race,
And bonds of house, and ties of place;
That, cowards, from the field we turn,
And heavenward, in our weakness, yearn?
Unjust! unkind! while you despise
Our lonely years, our mournful cries:
You are the happier for our prayer;
The guerdon of our souls, you share.
Not in such feebleness of heart,
We play our solitary part;
Not fugitives of battle, we
Hide from the world, and let things be:
But rather, looking over earth,
Between the bounds of death and birth;
And sad at heart, for sorrow and sin,
We wondered, where might help begin.
And on our wonder came God's choice,
A sudden light, a clarion voice,
Clearing the dark, and sounding clear:
And we obeyed: behold us, here!
In prison bound, but with your chains:
Sufferers, but of alien pains.
Merry the world, and thrives apace,
Each in his customary place:
Sailors upon the carrying sea,
Shepherds upon the pasture lea,
And merchants of the town; and they,
Who march to death, the fighting way;
And there are lovers in the spring,
With those, who dance, and those, who sing:
The commonwealth of every day.
Eastward and westward, far away.
Once the sun paled; once cried aloud
The Roman, from beneath the cloud:
_This day the Son of God is dead!_
Yet heed men, what the Roman said?
They heed not: we then heed for them,
The mindless of Jerusalem;
Careless, they live and die: but we
Care, in their stead, for Calvary.
O joyous men and women! strong,
To urge the wheel of life along,
With strenuous arm, and cheerful strain,
And wisdom of laborious brain:
We give our life, our heart, our breath,
That you may live to conquer death;
That, past your tomb, with souls in health,
Joy may be yours, and blessed wealth;
Through vigils of the painful night,
Our spirits with your tempters fight:
For you, for you, we live alone,
Where no joy comes, where cold winds moan:
Nor friends have we, nor have we foes;
Our Queen is of the lonely Snows.
Ah! and sometimes, our prayers between,
Come sudden thoughts of what hath been:
Dreams! And from dreams, once more we fall
To prayer: _God save, Christ keep, them all._
And thou, who knowest not these things,
Hearken, what news our message brings!
Our toils, thy joy of life forgot:
Our lives of prayer forget thee not.

1887.

ASH WEDNESDAY.

_To the Rev. Father Strappini, S.J._

Ashen cross traced on brow!
Iron cross hid in breast!
Have power, bring patience, now:
Bid passion be at rest.

O sad, dear, days of Lent!
Now lengthen your gray hours:
If so we may repent,
Before the time of flowers.

Majestical, austere,
The sanctuaries look stern:
All silent! all severe!
Save where the lone lamps burn.

Imprisoned there above
The world's indifferency:
Still waits Eternal Love,
With wounds from Calvary.

Come! mourning companies;
Come! to sad Christ draw near:
Come! sin's confederacies;
Lay down your malice here.

Here is the healing place,
And here the place of peace:
Sorrow is sweet with grace
Here, and here sin hath cease.

1893.

DESIDERIA.

_To Mrs. Hinkson._

The angels of the sunlight clothe
In England the corn's golden ears,
Round me: yet would that I to-day
Saw sunlight on the Hill of Howth,
And sunlight on the Golden Spears,
And sunlight upon Dublin Bay.

In hunger of the heart I loathe
These happy fields: I turn with tears
Of love and longing, far away:
To where the heathered Hill of Howth
Stands guardian, with the Golden Spears,
Above the blue of Dublin Bay.

1894.

ARMA VIRUMQUE.

_To Edmund Phipps._

Ah! the keen, blue-bladed sword,
In the strong hands of thy lord
Living, vibrating, inspired!
Thou hast drunk the draught desired,
Blood of battle: now, restored
To the shrouding sheath, thou hatest,
For the trump of war thou waitest.

But thy bright steel grows not dim,
While thou hangest yet by him,
In whose hands thou hast thy life.
Fear not! Thou shalt swell more strife,
Ere death come: last foe most grim!
And shalt lie, that onset over,
Close beside thy lord and lover.

1889.

THE DAY OF COMING DAYS.

_To J. P. Quinn._

Bright seas cast far upon her shore
White flowers of flying spray:
The blossoms of her fields are more,
Than blossomed yesterday:
The music of her winds and birds
Alone can tell the triumph words,
Her children cannot say.

The stars from solemn deeps look down
In favour and delight:
The glories of her day, they crown
With splendours of her night:
The queen of the adoring Gael,
Their radiant mother, Inisfail,
Reigns, by divinest right.

1894.

RENEGADE.

_To Arthur Chamberlain._

But all that now is over.
Dreamers of dreams shall not in me discover
Fallen remembrances of Holy Land;
Looks in mine eyes, that seem to understand
A banished secret; in my common mien,
A charmed communion with high things unseen

For all that now is over.
Mere merchant of earth's market-place, no lover,
I keep the dusty, trodden road of all.
Though broken echoes fill the mart, and call
Back to my silent memories: down chill air
They die away, and leave me to my care.

Since all that now is over,
And not at any cost can I recover
The abdicated throne, the abandoned crown:
I sit me at the heart of the vast town,
To wear old love looks down to the dull look,
Befitting love unthought on, or forsook.

1887.

WALES.

_To T. W. Rolleston._

Mother of holy fire! Mother of holy dew!
Thy children of the mist, the moor, the mountain side,
These change not from thine heart, these to thine heart allied:
These, that rely on thee, as blossoms on the blue.
O passionate, dark faces, melancholy's hue!
O deep, gray eyes, so tragic with the fires they hide!
Sweet Mother, in whose light these live! thou dost abide,
Star of the West, pale to the world: these know thee true.

No alien hearts may know that magic, which acquaints
Thy soul with splendid passion, a great fire of dreams;
Thine heart with lovelier sorrow, than the wistful sea.
Voices of Celtic singers and of Celtic Saints
Live on the ancient air: their royal sunlight gleams
On moorland Merioneth and on sacred Dee.

1890.

HARVEST.

_To Nowell Smith._

Not now the rejoicing face of summer glows
In splendour to a blue and splendid sky:
For now hath died each lingering wild rose
Off tangled river banks: and autumn shows
Fields of red corn, that on the downside lie
Beneath a gentle mist, a golden haze.
So shrouded, the red cornlands take an air
Trembling with warm wind: sickle-girt, forth fare
Harvesting hinds, with swift arms brown and bare;
Revering well toil's venerable ways.

Most golden music is among the corn,
Played by the winds wavering over it:
A murmuring sound, as when against the morn,
Orient upon calm seas, their noise is borne
Innumerably rippling and sunlit.
Most golden music is in either tide:
And this of radiant corn, before it fall,
Wills not that summer die unmusical,
By no rich surge of murmurs glorified:
Nay! the fields rock and rustle, sounding all
Praise of the fruitful earth on every side.

Good, through the yellow fields to ponder long:
Good, long to meditate the stilly sight.
Afar shone down a brazen sunlight strong,
Over the harvested hillside, along
The laboured meadows, burning with great light:
The air trembled with overflow of heat
In the low valley, where no movement was
Of soft-blown wind, ruffling the scytheless grass
Thick-growing by the waters, cool and sweet:
No swing of boughs; there were no airs to pass
Caressing them: all winds failed, when all wheat,

All fair crops murmuring their soft acclaim,
Fell, golden rank on golden rank, and lay
Ruddily heaped along the earth: the flame
Of delicate poppies, rich and frail, became
Wan dying weed; convolvulus, astray
Out from its hedgerows far into the field,
In clinging coils of leaf and tender bloom,
Shared with the stalks it clung and clasped, their doom.
So went the work: so gave the ripened weald
Its fruits and pleasant flowers; and made a room,
Wherein fresh winds might wave a fresh year's yield.

1886.

TO CERTAIN FRIENDS.

I thank Eternal God, that you are mine,
Who are His too: courageous and divine
Must friendship be, through this great grace of God;
And have Eternity for period.

1892

THE PETITION.

_To Selwyn Image._

Fair, gracious, daughter of those skies,
Wherein nor star, nor angel, flies
More radiant than thy royal beauty:
To thee the Hours bring all they have
Of rich, and wonderful, and brave:
Yet do they but their natural duty.

Excelling all, thou cancellest
Their praise, and art alone the best:
Alone the theme of prayers and praises.
Wilt thou not bow thee, and be kind,
As lilies to a pleading wind,
When fragrance the wan air amazes?

The holy angels of God's court
With humble men still deign consort:
For dear love's piteous sake discarding
Their state and their celestial home,
To company poor souls, that roam
Sad and distraught, for lack of guarding.

Fair, gracious, daughter of the spheres!
Be not more proud than those thy peers,
Citizens of so high a city!
Behold the captive of thy chains:
Turn from thy palace to his pains,
And keep thy prisoner by pity.

1892.

THE CLASSICS.

_To Ion Thynne._

Fain to know golden things, fain to grow wise,
Fain to achieve the secret of fair souls:
His thought, scarce other lore need solemnize,
Whom Virgil calms, whom Sophocles controls:

Whose conscience Æschylus, a warrior voice,
Enchaunted hath with majesties of doom:
Whose melancholy mood can best rejoice,
When Horace sings, and roses bower the tomb:

Who, following Caesar unto death, discerns
What bitter cause was Rome's, to mourn that day:
With austere Tacitus for master, learns
The look of empire in its proud decay:

Whom dread Lucretius of the mighty line
Hath awed, but not borne down: who loves the flame,
That leaped within Catullus the divine,
His glory, and his beauty, and his shame:

Who dreams with Plato and, transcending dreams,
Mounts to the perfect City of true God:
Who hails its marvellous and haunting gleams,
Treading the steady air, as Plato trod:

Who with Thucydides pursues the way,
Feeling the heart-beats of the ages gone:
Till fall the clouds upon the Attic day,
And Syracuse draw tears for Marathon:

To whom these golden things best give delight:
The music of most sad Simonides;
Propertius' ardent graces; and the might
Of Pindar chaunting by the olive trees:

Livy, and Roman consuls purple swathed:
Plutarch, and heroes of the ancient earth:
And Aristophanes, whose laughter scathed
The souls of fools, and pealed in lyric mirth:

Æolian rose-leaves blown from Sappho's isle;
Secular glories of Lycean thought:
Sallies of Lucian, bidding wisdom smile;
Angers of Juvenal, divinely wrought:

Pleasant, and elegant, and garrulous,
Pliny: crowned Marcus, wistful and still strong:
Sicilian seas and their Theocritus,
Pastoral singer of the last Greek song:

Herodotus, all simple and all wise:
Demosthenes, a lightning flame of scorn:
The surge of Cicero, that never dies:
And Homer, grand against the ancient morn.

1890.

APRIL.

_To Richard Le Gallienne._

A pleasant heat breathes off the scented grass,
From bright green blades, and shining daisies:
Now give we joy, who sometime cried, Alas!
Now set we forth our melodies, and sing
Soft praises to the spring,
Musical praises.

The flying winds are lovely with the sun:
Now all in sweet and dainty fashion
Goes life: for royal seasons are begun.
Now each new day and each new promise add
Fresh cause of being glad,
With vernal passion.

Few leaves upon the branches dare the spring:
But many buds are making ready,
Trusting the sun, their perfect summer king.
Likewise we put away our wintry cares:
We hear but happy airs;
Our hopes are steady.

Cold were the crystal rivers, bitter cold;
And snows upon the iron mountains;
And withering leaves upon the trodden mould.
Hark to the crystal voices of the rills,
Falling among the hills,
From secret fountains!

Long not for June with roses: nor for nights
Loud with tumultuary thunder:
Those hours wax heavy with their fierce delights.
But April is all bright, and gives us first,
Before the roses burst,
Her joy and wonder.

Clear lie the fields, and fade into blue air:
Here, sweet concerted birds are singing
Around this lawn of sweet grass, warm and fair.
And holy music, through the waving trees,
Comes gently down the breeze,
Where bells are ringing.

1889.

A PROSELYTE.

Heart of magnificent desire:
O equal of the lordly sun!
Since thou hast cast on me thy fire,
My cloistral peace, so hardly won,
Breaks from its trance:
One glance
From thee hath all its joy undone.

Of lonely quiet was my dream;
Day gliding into fellow day,
With the mere motion of a stream:
But now in vehement disarray
Go time and thought,
Distraught
With passion kindled at thy ray.

Heart of tumultuary might,
O greater than the mountain flame,
That leaps upon the fearful night!
On me thy devastation came,
Sudden and swift;
A gift
Of joyous torment without name.

Thy spirit stings my spirit: thou
Takest by storm and ecstasy
The cloister of my soul. And now,
With ardour that is agony,
I do thy will;
Yet still
Hear voices of calm memory.

1894.

BEYOND.

All was for you: and you are dead.
For, came there sorrow, came there splendour,
You still were mine, and I yours only:
Then on my breast lay down your head,
Triumphant in its dear surrender:
One were we then: though one, not lonely.

Oh, is it you are dead,
Both! both dead, since we are asunder:
You, sleeping: I, for ever walking
Through the dark valley, hard and dry.
At times I hear the mourning thunder:
And voices, in the shadows, talking.

Dear, are there dreams among the dead:
Or is it all a perfect slumber?
But I must dream and dream to madness.
Mine eyes are dark, now yours are fled:
Yet see they sorrows without number,
Waiting upon one perfect sadness.

So long, the melancholy vale!
So full, these weary winds, of sorrow!
So harsh, all things! For what counts pity?
Still, as each twilight glimmers pale
Upon the borders of each morrow,
I near me to your sleeping city.

EXPERIENCE.

_To George Arthur Greene._

The burden of the long gone years: the weight,
The lifeless weight, of miserable things
Done long ago, not done with: the live stings
Left by old joys, follies provoking fate,
Showing their sad side, when it is too late:
Dread burden, that remorseless knowledge brings
To men, remorseful! But the burden clings:
And that remorse declares that bitter state.

Wisdom of ages! Wisdom of old age!
Written, and spoken of, and prophesied,
The common record of humanity!
Oh, vain! The springtime is our heritage
First, and the sunlight on the flowing tide:
Then, that old truth's confirming misery.

1889.

ESCAPE.

_To Charles Weekes._

She bared her spirit to her sorrow:
On the circling hills the morrow
Trembled, but it broke not forth:
Winds blew from the snowy North.

_My soul! my sorrow! What wind bloweth,
Knows the wayless way, it goeth?
But before all else, we know
Death's way is the way to go._

She knew no more than that: she only
Knew, that she was left and lonely.
Left? But she had loved! And lone?
She had loved! But love had gone.

So out into the wintry weather
Soul and sorrow fled together:
On the moor day found her dead:
Snow on hands, and heart, and head.

1888.

TRENTALS.

_To Charles Sayle._

Now these lovers twain be dead,
And together buried:
Masses only shall be said.
Hush thee, weary melancholy!
Music comes, more rich and holy:
Through the aged church shall sound
Words, by ancient prophets found;
Burdens in an ancient tongue,
By the fasting Mass-priest sung.

Gray, without, the autumn air:
But pale candles here prepare,
Pale as wasted golden hair.
Let the quire with mourning descant
Cry: _In pace requiescant!_
For they loved the things of God.
Now, where solemn feet have trod,
Sleep they well: and wait the end,
Lover by lover, friend by friend.

1889.

THE RED WIND.

_To Dr. Todhunter._

Red Wind from out the East:
Red Wind of blight and blood!
Ah, when wilt thou have ceased
Thy bitter, stormy flood?

Red Wind from over sea,
Scourging our lonely land!
What Angel loosened thee
Out of his iron hand?

Red Wind! whose word of might
Winged thee with wings of flame?
O fire of mournful night,
What is thy master's name?

Red Wind! who bade thee burn,
Branding our hearts? Who bade
Thee on and never turn,
Till waste our souls were laid?

Red Wind! from out the West
Pour winds of Paradise:
Winds of eternal rest,
That weary souls entice.

Wind of the East! Red Wind!
Thou witherest the soft breath
Of Paradise the kind:
Red Wind of burning death!

O Red Wind! hear God's voice:
Hear thou, and fall, and cease.
Let Inisfail rejoice
In her Hesperian peace.

1894.

SERTORIUS.

_To Basil Williams._

Beyond the straits of Hercules,
Behold! the strange Hesperian seas,
A glittering waste at break of dawn:
High on the westward plunging prow,
What dreams are on thy spirit now,
Sertorius of the milk-white fawn?

Not sorrow, to have done with home!
The mourning destinies of Rome
Have exiled Rome's last hope with thee:
Nor dost thou think on thy lost Spain.
What stirs thee on the unknown main?
What wilt thou from the virgin sea?

Hailed by the faithless voice of Spain,
The lightning warrior come again,
Where wilt thou seek the flash of swords,
Voyaging toward the set of sun?
Though Rome the splendid East hath won,
Here thou wilt find no Roman lords.

No Tingis here lifts fortress walls;
And here no Lusitania calls:
What hath the barren sea to give?
Yet high designs enchaunt thee still;
The winds are loyal to thy will:
Not yet art thou too tired, to live.

No trader thou, to northern isles,
Whom mischief-making gold beguiles
To sunless and unkindly coasts:
What spirit pilots thee thus far
From the tempestuous tides of war,
Beyond the surging of the hosts?

Nay! this thy secret will must be.
Over the visionary sea,
Thy sails are set for perfect rest:
Surely thy pure and holy fawn
Hath whispered of an ancient lawn,
Far hidden down the solemn West.

A gracious pleasaunce of calm things;
There rose-leaves fall by rippling springs:
And captains of the older time,
Touched with mild light, or gently sleep,
Or in the orchard shadows keep
Old friendships of the golden prime.

The far seas brighten with gray gleams:
O winds of morning! O fair dreams!
Will not that land rise up at noon?
There, casting Roman mail away,
Age long to watch the falling day,
And silvery sea, and silvern moon.

Dreams! for they slew thee: Dreams! they lured
Thee down to death and doom assured:
And we were proud to fall with thee.
Now, shadows of the men we were,
Westward indeed we voyage here,
Unto the end of all the sea.

Woe! for the fatal, festal board:
Woe! for the signal of the sword,
The wine-cup dashed upon the ground:
We are but sad, eternal ghosts,
Passing far off from human coasts,
To the wan land eternal bound.

1889.

SAINT COLUMBA.

_To Dr. Sigerson._

Dead is Columba: the world's arch
Gleams with a lighting of strange fires.
They flash and run, they leap and march,
Signs of a Saint's fulfilled desires.

Live is Columba: golden crowned,
Sceptred with Mary lilies, shod
With angel flames, and girded round
With white of snow, he goes to God.

No more the gray eyes long to see
The oakwoods of their Inisfail;
Where the white angels hovering be:
And ah, the birds in every vale!

No more for him thy fierce winds blow,
Iona of the angry sea!
Gone, the white glories of thy snow,
And white spray flying over thee!

Now, far from the gray sea, and far
From sea-worn rocks and sea-birds' cries,
Columba hails the morning star,
That shines in never nighted skies.

High in the perfect Land of Morn,
He listens to the chaunting air:
The Land, where music is not born,
For music is eternal there.

There, bent before the burning Throne,
He lauds the Lover of the Gael:
_Sweet Christ! Whom Patrick's children own:
Glory be Thine from Inisfail!_

1894.

BELLS.

_To John Little._

From far away! from far away!
But whence, you will not say:
Melancholy bells, appealing chimes,
Voices of lands and times!

Your toll, O melancholy bells!
Over the valley swells:
O touching chimes! your dying sighs
Travel our tranquil skies.

But whence? And whither fade away
Your echoes from our day?
You take our hearts with gentle pain,
Tremble, and pass again.

Could we lay hold upon your haunts,
The birthplace of your chaunts:
Were we in dreamland, deathland, then?
We, sad and wondering men?

1887.

PRINTED AT THE CHISWICK PRESS

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