Chapter VI

Whenas I knew not clearly, how to think,
Malise! about thee dead: God showed the way.
Thine holy soul among soft fires can drink
The dew of all the prayers, that I can pray.

Prayers for thy sake shall pierce thy prison gate;
Prayers to the Mother of Misericord:
Mary, the mighty, the immaculate;
Mary, whose soul welcomed the appointed sword.

Malise! thy dear face from my wall looks down:
The Crucifix above its beauty lies.
Now, while I look and long, I see a crown
Bright on thy brow, and heaven within thine eyes,

1892.

THE PRECEPT OF SILENCE.

I know you: solitary griefs,
Desolate passions, aching hours!
I know you: tremulous beliefs,
Agonized hopes, and ashen flowers!

The winds are sometimes sad to me;
The starry spaces, full of fear:
Mine is the sorrow on the sea,
And mine the sigh of places drear.

Some players upon plaintive strings
Publish their wistfulness abroad:
I have not spoken of these things,
Save to one man, and unto God.

1893.

HILL AND VALE.

Not on the river plains
Wilt thou breathe loving air,
O mountain spirit fine!
Here the calm soul maintains
Calm: but no joy like thine,
On hill-tops bleak and bare,
Whose breath is fierce and rare.

Were beauty all thy need,
Here were an haunt for thee.
The broad laborious weald,
An eye's delight indeed,
Spreads from rich field to field:
And full streams wander free
Under the alder tree.

Throw thee upon the grass,
The daisied grass, and gaze
Far to the warm blue mist:
Feel, how the soft hours pass
Over, before they wist,
Into whole day: and days
Dream on in sunny haze.

Each old, sweet, country scent
Comes, as old music might
Upon thee: old, sweet sounds
Go, as they ever went,
Over the red corn grounds:
Still sweeping scythes delight
Charmed hearing and charmed sight

Gentle thy life would be:
To watch at morning dew
Fresh water-lilies: tell,
How bears the walnut tree:
Find the first foxglove bell,
Spare the last harebell blue:
And wander the wold through.

Another love is thine:
For thee the far world spied
From the far mountain top:
Keen scented, sounding pine,
The purple heather crop:
And night's great glorious tide
Of stars and clouds allied.

1887.

GWYNEDD.

_To Ernest Rhys._

The children of the mingling mists: can they,
Born by the melancholy hills, love thee,
Royal and joyous light? From dawn of day,
We watch the trailing shadows of the waste,
The waste moors, or the ever-mourning sea:
What, though in speedy splendour thou hast raced
Over the heather or wild wave, a ray
Of travelling glory and swift bloom? Still thou
Inhabitest the mighty morning's brow:
And hast thy flaming and celestial way,
Afar from our sad beauties, in thine haste.

Have thou thy circling triumph of the skies,
Horseman of Goldwhite Footsteps! Yet all fire
Lives not with thee: for part is in our eyes,
Beholding the loved beauty of cold hills:
And part is patron of dear home desire,
Flashing upon the central hearth: it fills
Ingle and black-benched nook with radiances,
Hearts with responding spirit, ears with deep
Delicious music of the ruddy leap,
And streaming strength, and kindling confluences:
The hearth glows, and the cavernous chimney thrills,

Pale with great heat, panting to crimson gloom,
Quiver the deeps of the rich fire: see there!
Was not that your fair face, in burning bloom
Wrought by the art of fire? O happy art!
That sets in living flames a face so fair:
The face, whose changes dominate mine heart,
And with a look speak my delight or doom:
Nay, now not doom, for I am only thine,
And one in thee and me the fire divine!
The fire, that wants the whole vast world for room:
Yet dwells in us contented and apart.

The flames' red dance is done: and we crouch close
With shadowy faces to the dull, red glow.
Your darkling loveliness is like the rose,
Its dusky petals, and its bower of soft
Sweet inner darkness, where the dew lies low:
And now one tongue of flame leaps up aloft,
Brightening your brows: and now it fails, and throws
A play of flushing shadows, the rich mist
Of purple grapes, that many a sun hath kissed;
The delicate darkness, that with autumn grows
On red ripe apples in a mossy croft.

Nay! leave such idle southern imageries,
Vineyard and orchard, flowers and mellow fruit:
Great store is ours of mountain mysteries.
Look, where the embers fade, from ruddy gold
Into gray ashes falling without bruit!
Yet is that ruddy lustre bought and sold,
Elf with elf trafficking his merchandise:
Deep at the strong foot of the eagles' pass,
They store the haunting treasure, and amass
The spirit of dead fire: there still it lies,
Phantom wealth, goodlier than Ophir old.

Across the moor, over the purple bells,
Over the heather blossom, the rain drives:
Art fired enough to dare the blowing fells,
And ford the brawling brooks? Ah, come we then!
Great good it is to see, how beauty thrives
For desolate moorland and for moorland men;
To smell scents, rarer than soft honey cells,
From bruised wild thyme, pine bark, or mouldering peat;
To watch the crawling gray clouds drift, and meet
Midway the ragged cliffs. O mountain spells,
Calling us forth, by hill, and moor, and glen!

Calling us forth, to be with earth again,
Her memories, her splendours, her desires!
The fires of the hearth are fallen: now the rain
Stirs its delight of waters, as the flame
Stirred its delight of heat and spirited fires.
Come! by the lintel listen: clouds proclaim,
That thunder is their vast voice: the winds wane,
That all the storm may gather strength, and strive
Once more in their great breath to be alive;
And fill the angry air with such a strain,
As filled the world's war, when the world first came.

Desolate Cornwall, desolate Brittany,
Are up in vehement wind and vehement wave:
Ancient delights are on their ancient sea,
And nature's violent graces waken there;
And there goes loveliness about the grave,
And death means dreaming, not life's long despair.
Our sister lands are they, one people we,
Cornwall desolate, Brittany desolate,
And Wales: to us is granted to be great:
Because, as winds and seas and flames are free,
We too have freedom full, as wild and rare.

And therefore, on a night of heavenly fires;
And therefore, on a windy hour of noon;
Our soul, like nature's eager soul, aspires,
Finding all thunders and all winds our friends:
And like the moving sea, love we the moon;
And life in us the way of nature wends,
Ardent as nature's own, that never tires.
Born of wild land, children of mountains, we
Fear neither ruining earth, nor stormy sea:
Even as men told in Athens, of our sires:
And as it shall be, till the old world ends.

Your eyes but brighten to the streaming wind,
But lighten to the sighing air, but break
To tears before the labouring hills: your mind
Moves with the passionate spirit of the land.
Now crystal is your soul, now flame: a lake,
Proud and calm, with high scaurs on either hand;
Or a swift lance of lightning, to strike blind.
True child of Gwynedd, child of wilds and fields!
To you earth clings, to you strange nature yields
Far learning, sudden light, fierce fire: these find
Home in your heart, and thoughts that understand.

We will not wander from this land; we will
Be wise together, and accept our world:
This world of the gray cottage by the hill,
This gorge, this lusty air, this loneliness:
The calm of drifting clouds; the pine-tops whirled
And swayed along the ridges. Here distress
Dreams, and delight dreams: dreaming, we can fill
All solitary haunts with prophecy,
All heights with holiness and mystery;
Our hearts with understanding, and our will
With love of nature's law and loveliness.

Old voices call, old pleasures lure: for now
The wet earth breathes ancient fair fragrance forth;
And dying gales hang in the branches, blow
And fall, and blow again: our widest home
Is with rich winds of West, loud winds of North,
Sweeping beneath a gray and vasty dome.
Not with the hearth, whose consolations go,
Our home of homes: but where our eyes grown tired
Of straitened joys, with stretching joys are fired:
Joys of the rolling moor and cloudy brow,
Or worn, precipitous bastions of the foam.

Our fires are fallen from their blossoming height,
And linger in sad embers: but gray bloom
Is on the heather, an enchaunting light
Of purple dusk and vesper air: rich rain
Falls on our hearts, through eve and gentle gloom,
More than upon our foreheads. The world's pain
And joy of storm are proven our delight,
And peace enthroned for ever: ours the mirth,
And melancholy of this ancient earth:
Ours are the mild airs and the starred twilight;
And we, who love them, are not all in vain.

1888

A CORNISH NIGHT.

_To William Butler Yeats._

Merry the night, you riders of the wild!
A merry night to ride your wilderness.
Come you from visionary haunts, enisled
Amid the northern waters pitiless,
Over these cliffs white-heathered? Upon mild
Midnights of dewy June, oh, rare to press
Past moonlit fields of white bean-flowers! nor less
To wander beside falling waves, beguiled
By soft winds into still dreams! Yet confess,
You chivalries of air, unreconciled
To the warm, breathing world! what ghostly stress
Compels your visit unto sorrow's child?

What would you here? For here you have no part:
Only the sad voices of wind and sea
Are prophets here to any wistful heart:
Or white flowers found upon a glimmering lea.
What would you here? Sweep onward, and depart
Over the ocean into Brittany,
Where old faith is, and older mystery!
Though this be western land, we have no art
To welcome spirits in community:
Trafficking, in an high celestial mart,
Slumber for wondrous knowledge: setting free
Our souls, that strain and agonize and start.

The wind hath cried to me, all the long day,
That you were coming, chivalries of air!
Between the waters and the starry way.
Fair lies the sea about a land, as fair:
Moonlight and west winds move upon the bay
Gently: now down the rough path sweet it were
To clamber, and so launching out to fare
Forth for the heart of sea and night, away
From hard earth's loud uproar, and harder care!
But you at will about the winds can stray:
Or bid the wandering stars of midnight bear
You company: or with the seven stay.

And yet you came for me! So the wind cried,
So my soul knows: else why am I awake
With expectation and desire, beside
The soothed sea's murmuring nocturnal lake?
Not sleep, but storm, welcomes a widowed bride:
Storms of sad certainty, vain want, that make
Vigil perpetual mine; so that I take
The gusty night in place of him, who died,
To clasp me home to heart. That cannot break,
The eternal heart of nature far and wide!
So now, your message! while the clear stars shake
Within the gleaming sea, shake and abide.

So now, your message! Breathe words from the wave,
Or breathe words from the field, into mine ears:
Or from the sleeping shades of a cold grave
Bring comfortable solace for my tears.
Something of my love's heart could nature save:
Some rich delight to spice the tasteless years,
Some hope to light the valley of lone fears.
Hear! I am left alone, to bear and brave
The sounding storms: but you, from starry spheres,
From wild wood haunts, give me, as love once gave
Joy from his home celestial, so, love's peers!
Give peace awhile to me, sorrow's poor slave!

In sorrow's order I dwell passionist,
Cloistered by tossing sea on weary land.
O vain love! vain, to claim me votarist:
O vain my heart! that will not understand,
_He is dead! I am lonely!_ Love in a Mist
My flower is: and salt tangle of the strand,
The crownals woven by this failing hand:
In the dark kingdom, walking where I list,
I walk where Lethe glides against the sand.
But vain love is a constant lutanist,
Playing old airs, and able to withstand
Sweet sleep: vain love, thou loyal melodist!

You wanderers! Would I were wandering
Under the white moon with you, or among
The invisible stars with you! Would I might sing
Over the charmed sea your enchaunting song,
Song of old autumn, and of radiant spring:
Might sing, how earth the mother suffers long;
How the great winds are wild, yet do no wrong;
How the most frail bloom is at heart a king!
I could endure then, strenuous and strong:
But now, O spirits of the air! I bring
Before you my waste soul: why will you throng
About me, save to take even such a thing?

Only for this you ride the midnight gloom,
Above the ancient isles of the old main.
The spray leaps on the hidden rocks of doom:
The ripples break, and wail away again
Upon the gathering wave: gaunt headlands loom
In the lone distance of the heaving plain.
And now, until the calm, the still stars wane,
You wait upon my heart, my heart a tomb.
Though I dream, life and dreams are alike vain!
Then love me, tell me news of dear death: whom
Circle you, but a soul astray, one fain
To leave this close world for death's larger room?

If barren be the promise I desire,
The promise that I shall not always go
In living solitariness: break fire
Out of the night, and lay me swiftly low!
Soft spirits! you have wings to waft me higher,
Than touch of each my most familiar woe:
Am I unworthy, you should raise me so?
If barren be that trust, my dreams inspire
Only despair; my brooding heart must grow
Heavy with miseries; a mourning quire,
To tell the heavy hours, how sad, how slow,
Are all their footsteps, of whose sound I tire.

Bright seafire runs about a plunging keel
On vehement nights: and where black danger lies,
Gleam the torn breakers. But all days reveal
Drear dooms for me, nor any nights disguise
Their menace: never rolls the thunder peal
Through my worn watch, nor lightning past mine eyes
Leaps from the blue gloom of its mother skies,
One hour alone, but all, while sad stars wheel.
This hour, was it a lie, that bade me rise;
Some laughing dream, that whispered me to steal
Into the sea-sweet night, where the wind cries,
And find the comfort, that I cannot feel?

My lord hath gone your way perpetual:
Whether you be great spirits of the dead,
Or spirits you, that never were in thrall
To perishing bodies, dust-born, dustward led.
Sweet shadows! passing by this ocean wall,
Tarry to pour some balm upon mine head,
Some pity for a woman, who hath wed
With weariness and loneliness, from fall
To fall, from bitter snows to maybloom red:
The hayfields hear, the cornlands hear, my call!
From weariness toward weariness I tread;
And hunger for the end: the end of all.

1888

MYSTIC AND CAVALIER.

_To Herbert Percy Horne._

Go from me: I am one of those, who fall.
What! hath no cold wind swept your heart at all,
In my sad company? Before the end,
Go from me, dear my friend!

Yours are the victories of light: your feet
Rest from good toil, where rest is brave and sweet.
But after warfare in a mourning gloom,
I rest in clouds of doom.

Have you not read so, looking in these eyes?
Is it the common light of the pure skies,
Lights up their shadowy depths? The end is set:
Though the end be not yet.

When gracious music stirs, and all is bright,
And beauty triumphs through a courtly night;
When I too joy, a man like other men:
Yet, am I like them, then?

And in the battle, when the horsemen sweep
Against a thousand deaths, and fall on sleep:
Who ever sought that sudden calm, if I
Sought not? Yet, could not die.

Seek with thine eyes to pierce this crystal sphere:
Canst read a fate there, prosperous and clear?
Only the mists, only the weeping clouds:
Dimness, and airy shrouds.

Beneath, what angels are at work? What powers
Prepare the secret of the fatal hours?
See! the mists tremble, and the clouds are stirred:
When comes the calling word?

The clouds are breaking from the crystal ball,
Breaking and clearing: and I look to fall.
When the cold winds and airs of portent sweep,
My spirit may have sleep.

O rich and sounding voices of the air!
Interpreters and prophets of despair:
Priests of a fearful sacrament! I come,
To make with you mine home.

1889

PARNELL.

_To John McGrath._

The wail of Irish winds,
The cry of Irish seas:
Eternal sorrow finds
Eternal voice in these.

I cannot praise our dead,
Whom Ireland weeps so well:
Her morning light, that fled;
Her morning star, that fell.

She of the mournful eyes
Waits, and no dark clouds break:
Waits, and her strong son lies
Dead, for her holy sake.

Her heart is sorrow's home.
And hath been from of old:
An host of griefs hath come,
To make that heart their fold.

Ah, the sad autumn day,
When the last sad troop came
Swift down the ancient way,
Keening a chieftain's name!

Gray hope was there, and dread;
Anger, and love in tears:
They mourned the dear and dead,
Dirge of the ruined years.

Home to her heart she drew
The mourning company:
Old sorrows met the new,
In sad fraternity.

A mother, and forget?
Nay! all her children's fate
Ireland remembers yet,
With love insatiate.

She hears the heavy bells:
Hears, and with passionate breath
Eternally she tells
A rosary of death.

Faithful and true is she,
The mother of us all:
Faithful and true! may we
Fail her not, though we fall.

Her son, our brother, lies
Dead, for her holy sake:
But from the dead arise
Voices, that bid us wake.

Not his, to hail the dawn:
His but the herald's part.
Be ours to see withdrawn
Night from our mother's heart.

1893.

IN ENGLAND.

_To Charles Furse._

Bright Hellas lies far hence,
Far the Sicilian sea:
But England's excellence
Is fair enough for me.

I love and understand
One joy: with staff and scrip
To walk a wild west land,
The winds my fellowship.

For all the winds will blow,
Across a lonely face,
Rough wisdom, good to know:
An high and heartening grace.

Wind, on the open down!
Riding the wind, the moon:
From town to country town,
I go from noon to noon.

Cities of ancient spires,
Glorious against high noon;
August at sunset fires;
Austere beneath the moon.

Old, rain-washed, red-roofed streets,
Fresh with the soft South-west:
Where dreaming memory meets
Brave men long since at rest.

Evening, from out the green
Wet boughs of clustered lime.
Pours fragrance rich and keen,
Balming the stilly time.

Old ramparts, gray and stern;
But comely clothed upon
With wealth of moss and fern,
And scarlet snapdragon.

Harbours of swaying masts,
Beneath the vesper star:
Each high-swung lantern casts
A quivering ray afar.

From round the ancient quay,
Ring songs with rough refrains:
Strong music of the sea,
Chaunted in lusty strains.

Freshness of early spray,
Blown on me off the sea:
Morning breaks chilly gray,
And storm is like to be.

A cliff of rent, black rock,
About whose stern height flies
The wrangling sea-gull flock,
With querulous, thin cries.

The sea-gulls' wrangling cry
Around the black cliff rings:
I watch them wheel and fly,
A snowstorm of white wings.

With savoury blossoms graced,
A craggy, rusted height:
Where thrift and samphire taste
The sea and wind and light.

A light prow plunges: red,
Red as the ruddy sand,
The tall sail fills: well sped,
The fair boat leaves the land.

I wander with delight
Among the great sea gales:
Exulting in their might,
They thunder through the vales.

Cries of the North-west wind,
Crying from roseless lands:
From countries cold and blind,
Hard seas and unsunned strands.

A dark forest, where freeze
My very dreams: gaunt rows
Rise up, the forest trees;
Black, from a waste of snows.

Long, fragrant pine tree bands,
Behind whose black, straight ranks
The dusky red sun stands,
On clouds in purple banks.

In tree-tops the worn gale
Hangs, weakened to a sigh:
The rooks with sunrise hail
From out the tree-tops fly.

A deep wood, where the air
Hangs in a stilly trance:
While on rich fernbanks fair
The sunlights flash and dance.

I hear the woodland folks,
Each well-swung axe's blow:
And boughs of mighty oaks,
Murmuring to and fro.

My step fills, as I go,
Shy rabbits with quick fears:
I see the sunlight glow
Red through their startled ears.

Mild, red-brown April woods.
When spring is in the air:
And a soft spirit broods
In patience, everywhere.

Primroses fill the fields,
And birds' light matin cries:
The lingering darkness yields,
Before the sun's uprise.

Deep meadows, white with dew,
Where faeries well may dance;
Or the quaint fawnskin crew,
Play in a red moon's glance.

Quivering poplar trees,
Silvered upon the wind:
In watermeads and leas,
With silver streams entwined.

Waters in alder shade,
Where green lights break and gleam
Betwixt my fingers, laid
Upon the rippling stream.

In merry prime of June,
Birds sun themselves and sing:
Mine heart beats to the tune;
The world is on the wing.

The sun, golden and strong,
Leaps: and in flying choirs
The birds make morning song,
Across the morning fires.

Old gardens, where long hours
But find me happier,
Beside the misty flowers
Of purple lavender.

Heaped with a sweet hay load,
Curved, yellow waggons pass
Slow down the high-hedged road;
I watch them from the grass:

A pleasant village noise
Breaks the still air: and all
The summer spirit joys,
Before the first leaves fall.

Red wreckage of the rose,
Over a gusty lawn:
While in the orchard close,
Fruits redden to their dawn.

September's wintering air,
When fruits and flowers have fled
From mountain valleys bare,
Save rowan berries red.

These joys, and such as these,
Are England's and are mine:
Within the English seas,
My days have been divine.

Oh! Hellas lies far hence,
Far the blue Sicel sea:
But England's excellence
Is more than they to me.

1892.

TO OCEAN HAZARD: GIPSY.

Burning fire, or blowing wind;
Starry night, or glowing sun:
All these thou dost bring to mind,
All these match thee, one by one:
Ocean is thy name, most fair!
Strangest name, for thee to bear.

Daughter of the sun, and child
Of the wind upon the waste;
Daughter of the field and wild:
Thee, what oceans have embraced?
What great waves have cradled thee,
That thy name is of the sea?

In thy beauty, the red earth,
Full of gold and jewel stone,
Flames and burns: thy happy birth
Made and marked thee for her own.
Winds held triumph in the trees:
Thou wast lying on earth's knees.

For thine ancient people keep
Still their march from land to land:
Ever upon earth they sleep,
Woods and fields on either hand.
Not upon the barren sea
Have thy people dandled thee.

Closer they, than other men,
To the heart of earth have come:
First the wilderness, and then
Field and forest, gave them home:
All their days, their hearts, they must
Give to earth: and then their dust.

Was it, that they heard the sea
In the surging pinewood's voice:
As they pondered names, for thee
Fair enough; so made their choice,
Hailed thee Ocean, hailed thee queen
Over glades of tossing green?

1888

UPON A DRAWING.

_To Manmohan Ghose._

Not in the crystal air of a Greek glen,
Not in the houses of imperial Rome,
Lived he, who wore this beauty among men:
No classic city was his ancient home.
What happy country claims his fair youth then,
Her pride? and what his fortunate lineage?
Here is no common man of every day,
This man, whose full and gleaming eyes assuage
Never their longing, be that what it may:
Of dreamland only he is citizen,
Beyond the flying of the last sea's foam.

Set him beneath the Athenian olive trees,
To speak with Marathonians: or to task
The wise serenity of Socrates;
Asking, what other men dare never ask.
Love of his country and his gods? Not these
The master thoughts, that comfort his strange heart,
When life grows difficult, and the lights dim:
In him is no simplicity, but art
Is all in all, for life and death, to him:
And whoso looks upon that fair face, sees
No nature there: only a magic mask.

Or set this man beside the Roman lords,
To vote upon the fate of Catiline;
Or in a battle of stout Roman swords,
Where strength and virtue were one thing divine:
Or bind him to the cross with Punic cords.
Think you, this unknown and mysterious man
Had played the Roman, with that wistful smile,
Those looks not moulded on a Roman plan,
But full of witcheries and secret guile?
Think you, those lips had framed true Roman words,
Whose very curves have something Sibylline?

Thou wouldst but laugh, were one to question thee:
Laugh with malign, bright eyes, and curious joy.
Thou'rt fallen in love with thine own mystery!
And yet thou art no Sibyl, but a boy.
What wondrous land within the unvoyaged sea
Haunts then thy thoughts, thy memories, thy dreams?
Nay! be my friend; and share with me thy past:
If haply I may catch enchaunting gleams,
Catch marvellous music, while our friendship last:
Tell me thy visions: though their true home be
Some land, that was a legend in old Troy.

1890.

THE ROMAN STAGE.

_To Hugh Orange._

A man of marble holds the throne,
With looks composed and resolute:
Till death, a prince whom princes own,
Draws near to touch the marble mute.

_The play is over: good my friends!_
Murmur the pale lips: _your applause!_
With what a grace the actor ends:
How loyal to dramatic laws!

A brooding beauty on his brow;
Irony brooding over sin:
The next imperial actor now
Bids the satiric piece begin.

"TO WEEP IRISH."

_To the Rev. Dr. William Barry._

Long Irish melancholy of lament!
Voice of the sorrow, that is on the sea:
Voice of that ancient mourning music sent
From Rama childless: the world wails in thee.

The sadness of all beauty at the heart,
The appealing of all souls unto the skies,
The longing locked in each man's breast apart,
Weep in the melody of thine old cries.

Mother of tears! sweet Mother of sad sighs!
All mourners of the world weep Irish, weep
Ever with thee: while burdened time still runs,
Sorrows reach God through thee, and ask for sleep.

And though thine own unsleeping sorrow yet
Live to the end of burdened time, in pain:
Still sing the song of sorrow! and forget
The sorrow, in the solace, of the strain.

1893.

SUMMER STORM.

_To Harold Child._

The wind, hark! the wind in the angry woods:
And low clouds purple the west: there broods
Thunder, thunder; and rain will fall;
Fresh fragrance cling to the wind from all
Roses holding water wells,
Laurels gleaming to the gusty air;
Wilding mosses of the dells,
Drenched hayfields, and dripping hedgerows fair.

The wind, hark! the wind dying again:
The wind's voice matches the far-off main,
In sighing cadences: Pan will wake,
Pan in the forest, whose rich pipes make
Music to the folding flowers,
In the pure eve, where no hot spells are:
Those be favourable hours
Hymned by Pan beneath the shepherd star.

1887.

TO A TRAVELLER.

The mountains, and the lonely death at last
Upon the lonely mountains: O strong friend!
The wandering over, and the labour passed,
Thou art indeed at rest:
Earth gave thee of her best,
That labour and this end.

Earth was thy mother, and her true son thou:
Earth called thee to a knowledge of her ways,
Upon the great hills, up the great streams: now
Upon earth's kindly breast
Thou art indeed at rest:
Thou, and thine arduous days.

Fare thee well, O strong heart! The tranquil night
Looks calmly on thee: and the sun pours down
His glory over thee, O heart of might!
Earth gives thee perfect rest:
Earth, whom thy swift feet pressed:
Earth, whom the vast stars crown.

1889.

IN MEMORY OF M. B.

Old age, that dwelt upon thy years
With softest and with stateliest grace,
Hath sealed thine eyes, hath closed thine ears,
And stilled the sweetness of thy face.

That gentle and that gracious look
Sleeps now, and wears a marble calm:
Death took no more away, but took
All cares away, and left the balm

Of pure repose and peacefulness
Upon thy forehead touched by time:
So shall I know thee, none the less
Than earth unwintered, come the prime.

Gone, the white snows, the lingering leaves,
That once endeared the wintry days:
But the new bloom of spring receives
The old love, and has an equal praise.

Fare then thee well! In Winchester,
Sleep thy last fearless sleep serene.
Friends fail me not; but kindlier
Can no friend be, than thou hast been.

The city that we two loved best,
No fairer place of sleep for thee:
There lay thee down, and take thy rest,
And this farewell of love from me.

1888

HAWTHORNE.

_To Walter Alison Phillips._

Ten years ago I heard; ten, have I loved;
Thine haunting voice borne over the waste sea.
Was it thy melancholy spirit moved
Mine, with those gray dreams, that invested thee?
Or was it, that thy beauty first reproved
The imperfect fancies, that looked fair to me?

Thou hast both secrets: for to thee are known
The fatal sorrows binding life and death:
And thou hast found, on winds of passage blown,
That music, which is sorrow's perfect breath:
So, all thy beauty takes a solemn tone,
And art, is all thy melancholy saith.

Now therefore is thy voice abroad for me,
When through dark woodlands murmuring sounds make way:
Thy voice, and voices of the sounding sea,
Stir in the branches, as none other may:
All pensive loneliness is full of thee,
And each mysterious, each autumnal day.

Hesperian soul! Well hadst thou in the West
Thine hermitage and meditative place:
In mild, retiring fields thou wast at rest,
Calmed by old winds, touched with aerial grace:
Fields, whence old magic simples filled thy breast,
And unforgotten fragrance balmed thy face.

1889

GLORIES.

_To Theodore Peters._

Roses from Paestan rosaries!
More goodly red and white was she:
Her red and white were harmonies,
Not matched upon a Paestan tree.

Ivories blaunched in Alban air!
She lies more purely blaunched than you:
No Alban whiteness doth she wear,
But death's perfection of that hue.

Nay! now the rivalry is done,
Of red, and white, and whiter still:
She hath a glory from that sun,
Who falls not from Olympus hill.

1893.

LINES TO A LADY UPON HER THIRD BIRTHDAY.

Dear Cousin: to be three years old,
Is to have found the Age of Gold:
That Age foregone! that Age foretold!
What wondrous names, then, wait thy choice,
High sounding for thine helpless voice!
I choose instead: and hail in thee
A queen of lilied Arcady,
Or lady of Hesperides:
Or, if Utopia lie near these,
Utopian thou, by right divine,
On whom all stars of favour shine.
Vainly the cold Lycean sage
Withheld his praise from childhood's age;
Denied thine happiness to thee;
Nor as a little child would be!
Man to the world he could present,
Magnanimous, magnificent:
Children, he knew not: for of thee
Dreamed not his calm philosophy;
Or Pythias was no Dorothy!
Thou hast good right to laugh in scorn
At us, of simple dreams forlorn:
At us, whose disenchaunted eyes
Imagination dare despise.
Thou hast that freshness, early born,
Which roses have; or billowy corn,
Waving, and washed in dews of morn:
And yet, no flower of woodlands wild,
But overwhelming London's child!
About thy sleep are heard the feet
And turmoil of the sounding street:
Thou hearest not! The land of dreams
More closely lies, and clearlier gleams.
Thou watchest, with thy grave eyes gray,
Our world, with looks of far away:
Eyes, that consent to look on things
Unlike their own imaginings;
And, looking, weave round all, they see,
Charms of their own sweet sorcery.
Thus very London thou dost change
To wonderland, all fair and strange:
The ugliness and uproar seem
To soften, at a child's pure dream:
And each poor dusty garden yields
The fresh delight of cowslip fields.
What is the secret, and the spell?
Thou knowest: for thou hast it well.
Wilt thou not pity us, and break
Thy silent dreaming, for our sake?
Wilt thou not teach us, how to make
Worlds of delight from things of nought,
Or fetched from faery land, and wrought
With flowers and lovely imageries?
Pity us! for such wisdom dies:
Pity thyself! youth flies, youth flies.
Thou comest to the desert plain,
Where no dreams follow in thy train:
They leave thee at the pleasaunce close;
Lonely the haggard pathway goes.
Thou wilt look back, and see them, deep
In the fair glades, where thou didst keep
Thy summer court, thy summer sleep:
But thou wilt never see them more,
Till death the golden dreams restore.
Now, ere the hard, dull hours begin
Their sad, destroying work within
Thy childhood's delicate memory,
Wilt thou not tell us, Dorothy?
Nay! thou art in conspiracy
With all those faeries, children styled,
To keep the secret of the child.
Ah! to be only three years old!
That is indeed an Age of Gold:
And, care not for mine idle fears!
Thou need'st not lose it: the far years,
Touching with love and gentle tears
The treasures of thy memory,
May mould them into poetry.
Then, of those deep eyes, gray and grave,
The world will be a willing slave:
Then, all the dreams of dear dreamland
Wait with their music at thine hand,
And beauty come at thy command.
But now, what counts the will of time?
Enough, thou livest! And this rhyme,
Unworthy of the Golden Age,
Yet hails thee, in that heritage,
Happy and fair: then, come what may,
Thou hast the firstfruits of the day.
Fair fall each morn to thee! And I,
Despite all dark fates, Dorothy!
Will prove me thine affectionate
Cousin, and loyal Laureate.

1889

CELTIC SPEECH.

_To Dr. Douglas Hyde._

Never forgetful silence fall on thee,
Nor younger voices overtake thee,
Nor echoes from thine ancient hills forsake thee;
Old music heard by Mona of the sea:
And where with moving melodies there break thee
Pastoral Conway, venerable Dee.

Like music lives, nor may that music die,
Still in the far, fair Gaelic places:
The speech, so wistful with its kindly graces,
Holy Croagh Patrick knows, and holy Hy:
The speech, that wakes the soul in withered faces,
And wakes remembrance of great things gone by.

Like music by the desolate Land's End
Mournful forgetfulness hath broken:
No more words kindred to the winds are spoken,
Where upon iron cliffs whole seas expend
That strength, whereof the unalterable token
Remains wild music, even to the world's end.

1887.

WAYS OF WAR.

_To John O'Leary._

A terrible and splendid trust
Heartens the host of Inisfail:
Their dream is of the swift sword-thrust,
A lightning glory of the Gael.

Croagh Patrick is the place of prayers,
And Tara the assembling place:
But each sweet wind of Ireland bears
The trump of battle on its race.

From Dursey Isle to Donegal,
From Howth to Achill, the glad noise
Rings: and the heirs of glory fall,
Or victory crowns their fighting joys.

A dream! a dream! an ancient dream!
Yet, ere peace come to Inisfail,
Some weapons on some field must gleam,
Some burning glory fire the Gael.

That field may lie beneath the sun,
Fair for the treading of an host:
That field in realms of thought be won,
And armed minds do their uttermost:

Some way, to faithful Inisfail,
Shall come the majesty and awe
Of martial truth, that must prevail
To lay on all the eternal law.

1893.

THE COMING OF WAR.

_To John Davidson._

Gather the people, for the battle breaks:
From camping grounds above the valley,
Gather the men-at-arms, and bid them rally:
Because the morn, the battle, wakes.
High throned above the mountains and the main,
Triumphs the sun: far down, the pasture plain
To trampling armour shakes.

This was the meaning of those plenteous years,
Those unarmed years of peace unbroken:
Flashing war crowns them! Now war's trump hath spoken
This final glory in our ears.
The old blood of our pastoral fathers now
Riots about our heart, and through our brow:
Their sons can have no fears.

This was our whispering and haunting dream,
When cornfields flourished, red and golden:
When vines hung purple, nor could be withholden
The radiant outburst of their stream.
Earth cried to us, that all her laboured store
Was ours: that she had more to give, and more:
For nothing, did we deem?

We give her back the glory of this hour.
O sun and earth! O strength and beauty!
We use you now, we thank you now: our duty
We stand to do, mailed in your power.
A little people of a favoured land,
Helmed with the blessing of the morn we stand:
Our life is at its flower.

Gather the people, let the battle break:
An hundred peaceful years are over.
Now march each man to battle, as a lover:
For him, whom death shall overtake!
Sleeping upon this field, about his gloom
Voices shall pierce, to thrill his sacred tomb,
Of pride for his great sake.

With melody about us: heart and feet
Responding to one mighty measure;
Glad with the splendour of an holy pleasure;
Swayed, one and all, as wind sways wheat:
Answering the sunlight with our eyes aglow;
Serene, and proud, and passionate, we go
Through airs of morning sweet.

Let no man dare to be disheartened now!
We challenge death beyond denial.
Against the host of death we make our trial:
Lord God of Hosts! do thou,
Who gavest us the fulness of thy sun
On fields of peace, perfect war's work begun:
Warriors, to thee we bow.

O life-blood of remembrance! Long ago
This land upheld our ancient fathers:
And for this land, their land, our land, now gathers
One fellowship against the foe.
The spears flash: be they as our mothers' eyes!
The trump sounds: hearken to our fathers' cries!
March we to battle so.

1889

IRELAND'S DEAD.

_To John O'Mahony._

Immemorial Holy Land!
At thine hand, thy sons await
Any fate: they understand
Thee, the all compassionate.

Be it death for thee, they grieve
Nought, to leave the fight aside:
Thou their pride, they undeceive
Death, by death unterrified.

Mother, dear and fair to us,
Ever thus to be adored!
Is thy sword grown timorous,
Mother of misericord?

For thy dead is grief on thee?
Can it be, thou dost repent,
That they went, thy chivalry,
Those sad ways magnificent?

What, and if their heart's blood flow?
Gladly so, with love divine,
Since not thine the overthrow,
They thy fields incarnadine.

Hearts afire with one sweet flame,
One loved name, thine host adores:
Conquerors, they overcame
Death, high Heaven's inheritors.

For their loyal love, nought less,
Than the stress of death, sufficed:
Now with Christ, in blessedness,
Triumph they, imparadised.

Mother, with so dear blood stained!
Freedom gained through love befall
Thee, by thraldom unprofaned,
Perfect and imperial!

Still the ancient voices ring:
Faith they bring, and fear repel.
Time shall tell thy triumphing,
Victress and invincible!

1893.

HARMONIES.

_To Vincent O'Sullivan._

I.

Sweet music lingers
From her harpstrings on her fingers,
When they rest in mine:
And her clear glances
Help the music, whereto dances,
Trembling with an hope divine,
Every heart: and chiefly mine.

Could she discover
All her heart to any lover,
She who sways them all?
Yet her hand trembles,
Laid in mine: and scarce dissembles,
That its music looks to fall
Into mine, and Love end all.

1889