Chapter VII (1)

I pray you, what is the nest to me,
My empty nest?
And what is the shore where I stood to see
My boat sail down to the west?
Can I call that home where I anchor yet,
Though my good man has sailed?
Can I call that home where my nest was set,
Now all its hope hath failed?
Nay, but the port where my sailor went,
And the land where my nestlings be:
There is the home where my thoughts are sent,
The only home for me--
Ah me!

A COTTAGE IN A CHINE.

We reached the place by night,
And heard the waves breaking:
They came to meet us with candles alight
To show the path we were taking.
A myrtle, trained on the gate, was white
With tufted flowers down shaking.

With head beneath her wing,
A little wren was sleeping--
So near, I had found it an easy thing
To steal her for my keeping
From the myrtle-bough that with easy swing
Across the path was sweeping.

Down rocky steps rough-hewed,
Where cup-mosses flowered,
And under the trees, all twisted and rude,
Wherewith the dell was dowered,
They led us, where deep in its solitude
Lay the cottage, leaf-embowered.

The thatch was all bespread
With climbing passion-flowers;
They were wet, and glistened with raindrops, shed
That day in genial showers.
"Was never a sweeter nest," we said,
"Than this little nest of ours."

We laid us down to sleep:
But as for me--waking,
I marked the plunge of the muffled deep
On its sandy reaches breaking;
For heart-joyance doth sometimes keep
From slumber, like heart-aching.

And I was glad that night,
With no reason ready,
To give my own heart for its deep delight,
That flowed like some tidal eddy,
Or shone like a star that was rising bright
With comforting radiance steady.

But on a sudden--hark!
Music struck asunder
Those meshes of bliss, and I wept in the dark,
So sweet was the unseen wonder;
So swiftly it touched, as if struck at a mark,
The trouble that joy kept under.

I rose--the moon outshone:
I saw the sea heaving,
And a little vessel sailing alone,
The small crisp wavelet cleaving;
'Twas she as she sailed to her port unknown--
Was that track of sweetness leaving.

We know they music made
In heaven, ere man's creation;
But when God threw it down to us that strayed
It dropt with lamentation,
And ever since doth its sweetness shade
With sighs for its first station.

Its joy suggests regret--
Its most for more is yearning;
And it brings to the soul that its voice hath met,
No rest that cadence learning,
But a conscious part in the sighs that fret
Its nature for returning.

O Eve, sweet Eve! methought
When sometimes comfort winning,
As she watched the first children's tender sport,
Sole joy born since her sinning,
If a bird anear them sang, it brought
The pang as at beginning.

While swam the unshed tear,
Her prattlers little heeding,
Would murmur, "This bird, with its carol clear.
When the red clay was kneaden,
And God made Adam our father dear,
Sang to him thus in Eden."

The moon went in--the sky
And earth and sea hiding,
I laid me down, with the yearning sigh
Of that strain in my heart abiding;
I slept, and the barque that had sailed so nigh
In my dream was ever gliding.

I slept, but waked amazed,
With sudden noise frighted,
And voices without, and a flash that dazed
My eyes from candles lighted.
"Ah! surely," methought, "by these shouts upraised
Some travellers are benighted."

A voice was at my side--
"Waken, madam, waken!
The long prayed-for ship at her anchor doth ride.
Let the child from its rest be taken,
For the captain doth weary for babe and for bride--
Waken, madam, waken!

"The home you left but late,
He speeds to it light-hearted;
By the wires he sent this news, and straight
To you with it they started."
O joy for a yearning heart too great,
O union for the parted!

We rose up in the night,
The morning star was shining;
We carried the child in its slumber light
Out by the myrtles twining:
Orion over the sea hung bright,
And glorious in declining.

Mother, to meet her son,
Smiled first, then wept the rather;
And wife, to bind up those links undone,
And cherished words to gather,
And to show the face of her little one,
That had never seen its father.

That cottage in a chine
We were not to behold it;
But there may the purest of sunbeams shine,
May freshest flowers enfold it,
For sake of the news which our hearts must twine
With the bower where we were told it!

Now oft, left lone again,
Sit mother and sit daughter,
And bless the good ship that sailed over the main,
And the favoring winds that brought her;
While still some new beauty they fable and feign
For the cottage by the water.

PERSEPHONE.

(Written for THE PORTFOLIO SOCIETY, January, 1862.

Subject given--"Light and Shade.")

She stepped upon Sicilian grass, Demeter's daughter fresh and fair, A child of light, a radiant lass, And gamesome as the morning air. The daffodils were fair to see, They nodded lightly on the lea, Persephone--Persephone!

Lo! one she marked of rarer growth Than orchis or anemone; For it the maiden left them both, And parted from her company. Drawn nigh she deemed it fairer still, And stooped to gather by the rill The daffodil, the daffodil.

What ailed the meadow that it shook? What ailed the air of Sicily? She wondered by the brattling brook, And trembled with the trembling lea. "The coal-black horses rise--they rise: O mother, mother!" low she cries-- Persephone--Persephone!

"O light, light, light!" she cries, "farewell; The coal-black horses wait for me. O shade of shades, where I must dwell, Demeter, mother, far from thee! Ah, fated doom that I fulfil! Ah, fateful flower beside the rill! The daffodil, the daffodil!"

What ails her that she comes not home? Demeter seeks her far and wide, And gloomy-browed doth ceaseless roam From many a morn till eventide. "My life, immortal though it be, Is nought," she cries, "for want of thee, Persephone--Persephone!

"Meadows of Enna, let the rain No longer drop to feed your rills, Nor dew refresh the fields again, With all their nodding daffodils! Fade, fade and droop, O lilied lea, Where thou, dear heart, wert reft from me-- Persephone--Persephone!"

She reigns upon her dusky throne, Mid shades of heroes dread to see; Among the dead she breathes alone, Persephone--Persephone! Or seated on the Elysian hill She dreams of earthly daylight still, And murmurs of the daffodil.

A voice in Hades soundeth clear, The shadows mourn and fill below; It cries--"Thou Lord of Hades, hear, And let Demeter's daughter go. The tender corn upon the lea Droops in her goddess gloom when she Cries for her lost Persephone.

"From land to land she raging flies, The green fruit falleth in her wake, And harvest fields beneath her eyes To earth the grain unripened shake. Arise, and set the maiden free; Why should the world such sorrow dree By reason of Persephone?"

He takes the cleft pomegranate seeds: "Love, eat with me this parting day;" Then bids them fetch the coal-black steeds-- "Demeter's daughter, wouldst away?" The gates of Hades set her free: "She will return full soon," saith he-- "My wife, my wife Persephone."

Low laughs the dark king on his throne-- "I gave her of pomegranate seeds." Demeter's daughter stands alone Upon the fair Eleusian meads. Her mother meets her. "Hail!" saith she; "And doth our daylight dazzle thee, My love, my child Persephone?

"What moved thee, daughter, to forsake Thy fellow-maids that fatal morn, And give thy dark lord power to take Thee living to his realm forlorn?" Her lips reply without her will, As one addressed who slumbereth still-- "The daffodil, the daffodil!"

Her eyelids droop with light oppressed, And sunny wafts that round her stir, Her cheek upon her mother's breast-- Demeter's kisses comfort her. Calm Queen of Hades, art thou she Who stepped so lightly on the lea-- Persephone, Persephone?

When, in her destined course, the moon Meets the deep shadow of this world, And laboring on doth seem to swoon Through awful wastes of dimness whirled-- Emerged at length, no trace hath she Of that dark hour of destiny, Still silvery sweet--Persephone.

The greater world may near the less, And draw it through her weltering shade, But not one biding trace impress Of all the darkness that she made; The greater soul that draweth thee Hath left his shadow plain to see On thy fair face, Persephone!

Demeter sighs, but sure 'tis well The wife should love her destiny: They part, and yet, as legends tell, She mourns her lost Persephone; While chant the maids of Enna still-- "O fateful flower beside the rill-- The daffodil, the daffodil!"

A SEA SONG.

Old Albion sat on a crag of late.
And sang out--"Ahoy! ahoy!
Long, life to the captain, good luck to the mate.
And this to my sailor boy!
Come over, come home,
Through the salt sea foam,
My sailor, my sailor boy.

"Here's a crown to be given away, I ween,
A crown for my sailor's head,
And all for the worth of a widowed queen,
And the love of the noble dead;
And the fear and fame
Of the island's name
Where my boy was born and bred.

"Content thee, content thee, let it alone,
Thou marked for a choice so rare;
Though treaties be treaties, never a throne
Was proffered for cause as fair.
Yet come to me home,
Through the salt sea foam,
For the Greek must ask elsewhere.

"'Tis a pity, my sailor, but who can tell?
Many lands they look to me;
One of these might be wanting a Prince as well,
But that's as hereafter may be."
She raised her white head
And laughed; and she said
"That's as hereafter may be."

BROTHERS, AND A SERMON.

It was a village built in a green rent, Between two cliffs that skirt the dangerous bay A reef of level rock runs out to sea, And you may lie on it and look sheer down, Just where the "Grace of Sunderland" was lost, And see the elastic banners of the dulse Rock softly, and the orange star-fish creep Across the laver, and the mackerel shoot Over and under it, like silver boats Turning at will and plying under water.

There on that reef we lay upon our breasts, My brother and I, and half the village lads, For an old fisherman had called to us With "Sirs, the syle be come." "And what are they?" My brother said. "Good lack!" the old man cried, And shook his head; "To think you gentlefolk Should ask what syle be! Look you; I can't say What syle be called in your fine dictionaries, Nor what name God Almighty calls them by When their food's ready and He sends them south: But our folk call them syle, and nought but syle, And when they're grown, why then we call them herring. I tell you, Sir, the water is as full Of them as pastures be of blades of grass; You'll draw a score out in a landing net, And none of them be longer than a pin.

"Syle! ay, indeed, we should be badly off, I reckon, and so would God Almighty's gulls," He grumbled on in his quaint piety, "And all His other birds, if He should say I will not drive my syle into the south; The fisher folk may do without my syle, And do without the shoals of fish it draws To follow and feed on it." This said, we made Our peace with him by means of two small coins, And down we ran and lay upon the reef, And saw the swimming infants, emerald green, In separate shoals, the scarcely turning ebb Bringing them in; while sleek, and not intent On chase, but taking that which came to hand, The full-fed mackerel and the gurnet swam Between; and settling on the polished sea, A thousand snow-white gulls sat lovingly In social rings, and twittered while they fed. The village dogs and ours, elate and brave, Lay looking over, barking at the fish; Fast, fast the silver creatures took the bait, And when they heaved and floundered on the rock, In beauteous misery, a sudden pat Some shaggy pup would deal, then back away, At distance eye them with sagacious doubt, And shrink half frighted from the slippery things.

And so we lay from ebb-tide, till the flow Rose high enough to drive us from the reef; The fisher lads went home across the sand; We climbed the cliff, and sat an hour or more, Talking and looking down. It was not talk Of much significance, except for this-- That we had more in common than of old, For both were tired, I with overwork. He with inaction; I was glad at heart To rest, and he was glad to have an ear That he could grumble to, and half in jest Rail at entails, deplore the fate of heirs, And the misfortune of a good estate-- Misfortune that was sure to pull him down, Make him a dreamy, selfish, useless man: Indeed he felt himself deteriorate Already. Thereupon he sent down showers Of clattering stones, to emphasize his words, And leap the cliffs and tumble noisily Into the seething wave. And as for me, I railed at him and at ingratitude, While rifling of the basket he had slung Across his shoulders; then with right good will We fell to work, and feasted like the gods, Like laborers, or like eager workhouse folk At Yuletide dinner; or, to say the whole At once, like tired, hungry, healthy youth, Until the meal being o'er, the tilted flask Drained of its latest drop, the meat and bread And ruddy cherries eaten, and the dogs Mumbling the bones, this elder brother of mine-- This man, that never felt an ache or pain In his broad, well-knit frame, and never knew The trouble of an unforgiven grudge, The sting of a regretted meanness, nor The desperate struggle of the unendowed For place and for possession--he began To sing a rhyme that he himself had wrought; Sending it out with cogitative pause, As if the scene where he had shaped it first Had rolled it back on him, and meeting it Thus unaware, he was of doubtful mind Whether his dignity it well beseemed To sing of pretty maiden:

Goldilocks sat on the grass,
Tying up of posies rare;
Hardly could a sunbeam pass
Through the cloud that was her hair.
Purple orchis lasteth long,
Primrose flowers are pale and clear;
O the maiden sang a song
It would do you good to hear!

Sad before her leaned the boy,
"Goldilocks that I love well,
Happy creature, fair and coy,
Think o' me, sweet Amabel."
Goldilocks she shook apart,
Looked with doubtful, doubtful eyes;
Like a blossom in her heart,
Opened out her first surprise.

As a gloriole sign o' grace,
Goldilocks, ah fall and flow,
On the blooming, childlike face,
Dimple, dimple, come and go.
Give her time; on grass and sky
Let her gaze if she be fain:
As they looked ere he drew nigh,
They will never look again.

Ah! the playtime she has known,
While her goldilocks grew long,
Is it like a nestling flown,
Childhood over like a song?
Yes, the boy may clear his brow,
Though she thinks to say him nay,
When she sighs, "I cannot now--
Come again some other day."

"Hold! there," he cried, half angry with himself; "That ending goes amiss:" then turned again To the old argument that we had held-- "Now look you!" said my brother, "You may talk Till, weary of the talk, I answer 'Ay, There's reason in your words;' and you may talk Till I go on to say, 'This should be so;' And you may talk till I shall further own 'It _is_ so; yes, I am a lucky dog!' Yet not the less shall I next morning wake. And with a natural and fervent sigh, Such as you never heaved, I shall exclaim 'What an unlucky dog I am!'" And here He broke into a laugh. "But as for you-- You! on all hands you have the best of me; Men have not robbed _you_ of your birthright--work, Nor ravaged in old days a peaceful field, Nor wedded heiresses against their will, Nor sinned, nor slaved, nor stooped, nor overreached, That you might drone a useless life away 'Mid half a score of bleak and barren farms And half a dozen bogs." "O rare!" I cried; "His wrongs go nigh to make him eloquent: Now we behold how far bad actions reach! Because five hundred years ago a Knight Drove geese and beeves out from a Franklin's yard Because three hundred years ago a squire-- Against her will, and for her fair estate-- Married a very ugly red-haired maid, The blest inheritor of all their pelf, While in the full enjoyment of the same, Sighs on his own confession every day. He cracks no egg without a moral sigh, Nor eats of beef, but thinking on that wrong; Then, yet the more to be revenged on them, And shame their ancient pride, if they should know, Works hard as any horse for his degree, And takes to writing verses." "Ay," he said, Half laughing at himself. "Yet you and I, But for those tresses which enrich us yet With somewhat of the hue that partial fame Calls auburn when it shines on heads of heirs, But when it flames round brows of younger sons, Just red--mere red; why, but for this, I say, And but for selfish getting of the land, And beggarly entailing it, we two, To-day well fed, well grown, well dressed, well read, We might have been two horny-handed boors-- Lean, clumsy, ignorant, and ragged boors-- Planning for moonlight nights a poaching scheme, Or soiling our dull souls and consciences With plans for pilfering a cottage roost.

"What, chorus! are you dumb? you should have cried, 'So good comes out of evil;'" and with that, As if all pauses it was natural To seize for songs, his voice broke out again:

Coo, dove, to thy married mate--
She has two warm eggs in her nest:
Tell her the hours are few to wait
Ere life shall dawn on their rest;
And thy young shall peck at the shells, elate
With a dream of her brooding breast.

Coo, dove, for she counts the hours,
Her fair wings ache for flight:
By day the apple has grown in the flowers,
And the moon has grown by night,
And the white drift settled from hawthorn bowers,
Yet they will not seek the light.

Coo, dove; but what of the sky?
And what if the storm-wind swell,
And the reeling branch come down from on high
To the grass where daisies dwell,
And the brood beloved should with them lie
Or ever they break the shell?

Coo, dove; and yet black clouds lower,
Like fate, on the far-off sea:
Thunder and wind they bear to thy bower,
As on wings of destiny.
Ah, what if they break in an evil hour,
As they broke over mine and me?

What next?--we started like to girls, for lo! The creaking voice, more harsh than rusty crane, Of one who stooped behind us, cried aloud "Good lack! how sweet the gentleman does sing-- So loud and sweet, 'tis like to split his throat. Why, Mike's a child to him, a two years child-- Chrisom child." "Who's Mike?" my brother growled A little roughly. Quoth the fisherman-- "Mike, Sir? he's just a fisher lad, no more; But he can sing, when he takes on to sing, So loud there's not a sparrow in the spire But needs must hear. Sir, if I might make bold, I'd ask what song that was you sung. My mate, As we were shoving off the mackerel boats, Said he, 'I'll wager that's the sort o' song They kept their hearts up with in the Crimea,'"

"There, fisherman," quoth I, "he showed his wit, Your mate; he marked the sound of savage war-- Gunpowder, groans, hot-shot, and bursting shells, And 'murderous messages,' delivered by Spent balls that break the heads of dreaming men."

"Ay, ay, Sir!" quoth the fisherman. "Have done!" My brother. And I--"The gift belongs to few Of sending farther than the words can reach Their spirit and expression;" still--"Have done!" He cried; and then "I rolled the rubbish out More loudly than the meaning warranted, To air my lungs--I thought not on the words."

Then said the fisherman, who missed the point, "So Mike rolls out the psalm; you'll hear him, Sir, Please God you live till Sunday." "Even so: And you, too, fisherman; for here, they say, You are all church-goers." "Surely, Sir," quoth he, Took off his hat, and stroked his old white head And wrinkled face; then sitting by us said, As one that utters with a quiet mind Unchallenged truth--"'Tis lucky for the boats."

The boats! 'tis lucky for the boats! Our eyes Were drawn to him as either fain would say, What! do they send the psalm up in the spire, And pray because 'tis lucky for the boats?

But he, the brown old man, the wrinkled man, That all his life had been a church-goer, Familiar with celestial cadences, Informed of all he could receive, and sure Of all he understood--he sat content, And we kept silence. In his reverend face There was a simpleness we could not sound; Much truth had passed him overhead; some error He had trod under foot;--God comfort him! He could not learn of us, for we were young And he was old, and so we gave it up; And the sun went into the west, and down Upon the water stooped an orange cloud, And the pale milky reaches flushed, as glad To wear its colors; and the sultry air Went out to sea, and puffed the sails of ships With thymy wafts, the breath of trodden grass: It took moreover music, for across The heather belt and over pasture land Came the sweet monotone of one slow bell, And parted time into divisions rare, Whereof each morsel brought its own delight.

"They ring for service," quoth the fisherman; "Our parson preaches in the church to-night."

"And do the people go?" my brother asked.

"Ay, Sir; they count it mean to stay away, He takes it so to heart. He's a rare man, Our parson; half a head above us all"

"That's a great gift, and notable," said I.

"Ay, Sir; and when he was a younger man He went out in the lifeboat very oft, Before the 'Grace of Sunderland' was wrecked. He's never been his own man since that hour: For there were thirty men aboard of her, Anigh as close as you are now to me, And ne'er a one was saved. They're lying now, With two small children, in a row: the church And yard are full of seamen's graves, and few Have any names. She bumped upon the reef; Our parson, my young son, and several more Were lashed together with a two-inch rope, And crept along to her; their mates ashore Ready to haul them in. The gale was high, The sea was all a boiling seething froth, And God Almighty's guns were going off, And the land trembled.

"When she took the ground, She went to pieces like a lock of hay Tossed from a pitchfork. Ere it came to that, The captain reeled on deck with two small things, One in each arm--his little lad and lass. Their hair was long, and blew before his face, Or else we thought he had been saved; he fell, But held them fast. The crew, poor luckless souls! The breakers licked them off; and some were crushed, Some swallowed in the yeast, some flung up dead, The dear breath beaten out of them: not one Jumped from the wreck upon the reef to catch The hands that strained to reach, but tumbled back With eyes wide open. But the captain lay And clung--the only man alive. They prayed-- 'For God's sake, captain, throw the children here!' 'Throw them!' our parson cried; and then she struck And he threw one, a pretty two years child; But the gale dashed him on the slippery verge, And down he went. They say they heard him cry.

"Then he rose up and took the other one, And all our men reached out their hungry arms, And cried out, 'Throw her! throw her!' and he did: He threw her right against the parson's breast, And all at once a sea broke over them, And they that saw it from the shore have said It struck the wreck, and piecemeal scattered it, Just as a woman might the lump of salt That 'twixt her hands into the kneading pan She breaks and crumbles on her rising bread.

"We hauled our men in: two of them were dead-- The sea had beaten them, their heads hung down; Our parson's arms were empty, for the wave Had torn away the pretty, pretty lamb; We often see him stand beside her grave: But 'twas no fault of his, no fault of his.

"I ask your pardon, Sirs, I prate and prate, And never have I said what brought me here. Sirs, if you want a boat to-morrow morn, I'm bold to say there's ne'er a boat like mine."

"Ay, that was what we wanted," we replied; "A boat, his boat;" and off he went, well pleased.

We, too, rose up (the crimson in the sky Flushing our faces), and went sauntering on, And thought to reach our lodging, by the cliff. And up and down among the heather beds, And up and down between the sheaves we sped, Doubling and winding; for a long ravine Ran up into the land and cut us off, Pushing out slippery ledges for the birds. And rent with many a crevice, where the wind Had laid up drifts of empty eggshells, swept From the bare berths of gulls and guillemots.

So as it chanced we lighted on a path That led into a nutwood; and our talk Was louder than beseemed, if we had known, With argument and laughter; for the path, As we sped onward, took a sudden turn Abrupt, and we came out on churchyard grass, And close upon a porch, and face to face With those within, and with the thirty graves. We heard the voice of one who preached within, And stopped. "Come on," my brother whispered me; "It were more decent that we enter now; Come on! we'll hear this rare old demigod: I like strong men and large; I like gray heads, And grand gruff voices, hoarse though this may be With shouting in the storm." It was not hoarse, The voice that preached to those few fishermen And women, nursing mothers with the babes Hushed on their breasts; and yet it held them not: Their drowsy eyes were drawn to look at us, Till, having leaned our rods against the wall, And left the dogs at watch, we entered, sat, And were apprised that, though he saw us not, The parson knew that he had lost the eyes And ears of those before him, for he made A pause--a long dead pause, and dropped his arms, And stood awaiting, till I felt the red Mount to my brow. And a soft fluttering stir Passed over all, and every mother hushed The babe beneath her shawl, and he turned round And met our eyes, unused to diffidence, But diffident of his; then with a sigh Fronted the folk, lifted his grand gray head, And said, as one that pondered now the words He had been preaching on with new surprise, And found fresh marvel in their sound, "Behold! Behold!" saith He, "I stand at the door and knock."

Then said the parson: "What! and shall He wait, And must He wait, not only till we say, 'Good Lord, the house is clean, the hearth is swept. The children sleep, the mackerel-boats are in, And all the nets are mended; therefore I Will slowly to the door and open it:' But must He also wait where still, behold! He stands and knocks, while we do say, 'Good Lord. The gentlefolk are come to worship here, And I will up and open to Thee soon; But first I pray a little longer wait, For I am taken up with them; my eyes Must needs regard the fashion of their clothes, And count the gains I think to make by them; Forsooth, they are of much account, good Lord! Therefore have patience with me--wait, dear Lord Or come again?' What! must He wait for THIS-- For this? Ay, He doth wait for this, and still, Waiting for this, He, patient, raileth not; Waiting for this, e'en this He saith, 'Behold! I stand at the door and knock,' O patient hand! Knocking and waiting--knocking in the night When work is done! I charge you, by the sea Whereby you fill your children's mouths, and by The might of Him that made it--fishermen! I charge you, mothers! by the mother's milk He drew, and by His Father, God over all. Blessed forever, that ye answer Him! Open the door with shame, if ye have sinned; If ye be sorry, open it with sighs. Albeit the place be bare for poverty, And comfortless for lack of plenishing, Be not abashed for that, but open it, And take Him in that comes to sup with thee; 'Behold!' He saith, 'I stand at the door and knock.'

"Now, hear me: there be troubles in this world That no man can escape, and there is one That lieth hard and heavy on my soul, Concerning that which is to come:-- I say As a man that knows what earthly trouble means, I will not bear this ONE--I cannot bear This ONE--I cannot bear the weight of you-- You--every one of you, body and soul; You, with the care you suffer, and the loss That you sustain; you, with the growing up To peril, maybe with the growing old To want, unless before I stand with you At the great white throne, I may be free of all, And utter to the full what shall discharge Mine obligation: nay, I will not wait A day, for every time the black clouds rise, And the gale freshens, still I search my soul To find if there be aught that can persuade To good, or aught forsooth that can beguile From evil, that I (miserable man! If that be so) have left unsaid, undone.

"So that when any risen from sunken wrecks, Or rolled in by the billows to the edge Of the everlasting strand, what time the sea Gives up her dead, shall meet me, they may say Never, 'Old man, you told us not of this; You left us fisher lads that had to toil Ever in danger of the secret stab Of rocks, far deadlier than the dagger; winds Of breath more murderous than the cannon's; wave Mighty to rock us to our death; and gulfs, Ready beneath to suck and swallow us in: This crime be on your head; and as for us-- What shall we do? 'but rather--nay, not so, I will not think it; I will leave the dead, Appealing but to life: I am afraid Of you, but not so much if you have sinned As for the doubt if sin shall be forgiven. The day was, I have been afraid of pride-- Hard man's hard pride; but now I am afraid Of man's humility, I counsel you, By the great God's great humbleness, and by His pity, be not humble over-much. See! I will show at whose unopened doors He stands and knocks, that you may never says 'I am too mean, too ignorant, too lost; He knocks at other doors, but not at mine.'

"See here! it is the night! it is the night! And snow lies thickly, white untrodden snow, And the wan moon upon a casement shines-- A casement crusted o'er with frosty leaves, That make her ray less bright along the floor. A woman sits, with hands upon her knees, Poor tired soul! and she has nought to do, For there is neither fire nor candle-light: The driftwood ash lies cold upon her hearth, The rushlight flickered down an hour ago; Her children wail a little in their sleep For cold and hunger, and, as if that sound Was not enough, another comes to her, Over God's undefiled snow--a song-- Nay, never hang your heads--I say, a song. And doth she curse the alehouse, and the sots That drink the night out and their earnings there, And drink their manly strength and courage down, And drink away the little children's bread, And starve her, starving by the self-same act Her tender suckling, that with piteous eye Looks in her face, till scarcely she has heart To work, and earn the scanty bit and drop That feed the others? Does she curse the song? I think not, fishermen; I have not heard Such women curse. God's curse is curse enough. To-morrow she will say a bitter thing, Pulling her sleeve down lest the bruises show-- A bitter thing, but meant for an excuse-- 'My master is not worse than many men:' But now, ay, now she sitteth dumb and still; No food, no comfort, cold and poverty Bearing her down. My heart is sore for her; How long, how long? When troubles come of God, When men are frozen out of work, when wives Are sick, when working fathers fail and die, When boats go down at sea--then nought behoves Like patience; but for troubles wrought of men Patience is hard--I tell you it is hard.

"O thou poor soul! it is the night--the night; Against thy door drifts up the silent snow, Blocking thy threshold: 'Fall' thou sayest, 'fall, fall Cold snow, and lie and be trod underfoot. Am not I fallen? wake up and pipe, O wind, Dull wind, and heat and bluster at my door: Merciful wind, sing me a hoarse rough song, For there is other music made to-night That I would fain not hear. Wake, thou still sea, Heavily plunge. Shoot on, white waterfall. O, I could long like thy cold icicles Freeze, freeze, and hang upon the frosty clift And not complain, so I might melt at last In the warm summer sun, as thou wilt do!

"'But woe is me! I think there is no sun; My sun is sunken, and the night grows dark: None care for me. The children cry for bread, And I have none, and nought can comfort me; Even if the heavens were free to such as I, It were not much, for death is long to wait, And heaven is far to go!'

"And speak'st thou thus, Despairing of the sun that sets to thee, And of the earthly love that wanes to thee, And of the heaven that lieth far from thee? Peace, peace, fond fool! One draweth near thy door Whose footsteps leave no print across the snow; Thy sun has risen with comfort in his face, The smile of heaven, to warm thy frozen heart, And bless with saintly hand. What! is it long To wait, and far to go? Thou shalt not go; Behold, across the snow to thee He comes, Thy heaven descends, and is it long to wait? Thou shalt not wait: 'This night, this night,' he saith, 'I stand at the door and knock.'

"It is enough--can such an one be here-- Yea, here? O God forgive you, fishermen! One! is there only one? But do thou know, O woman pale for want, if thou art here, That on thy lot much thought is spent in heaven; And, coveting the heart a hard man broke, One standeth patient, watching in the night, And waiting in the daytime. What shall be If thou wilt answer? He will smile on thee, One smile of His shall be enough to heal The wound of man's neglect; and He will sigh, Pitying the trouble which that sigh shall cure; And He will speak--speak in the desolate nigh In the dark night: 'For me a thorny crown Men wove, and nails were driven in my hands And feet: there was an earthquake, and I died I died, and am alive for evermore.

"'I died for thee; for thee I am alive, And my humanity doth mourn for thee, For thou art mine; and all thy little ones, They, too, are mine, are mine. Behold, the house Is dark, but there is brightness where the sons Of God are singing, and, behold, the heart Is troubled: yet the nations walk in white; They have forgotten how to weep; and thou Shalt also come, and I will foster thee And satisfy thy soul; and thou shall warm Thy trembling life beneath the smile of God. A little while--it is a little while-- A little while, and I will comfort thee; I go away, but I will come again.'

"But hear me yet. There was a poor old man Who sat and listened to the raging sea, And heard it thunder, lunging at the cliffs As like to tear them down. He lay at night; And 'Lord have mercy on the lads,' said he, 'That sailed at noon, though they be none of mine! For when the gale gets up, and when the wind Flings at the window, when it beats the roof, And lulls and stops and rouses up again, And cuts the crest clean off the plunging wave. And scatters it like feathers up the field, Why, then I think of my two lads: my lads That would have worked and never let me want, And never let me take the parish pay. No, none of mine; my lads were drowned at sea-- My two--before the most of these wore born. I know how sharp that cuts, since my poor wife Walked up and down, and still walked up and down. And I walked after, and one could not hear A word the other said, for wind and sea That raged and beat and thundered in the night-- The awfullest, the longest, lightest night That ever parents had to spend--a moon That shone like daylight on the breaking wave. Ah me! and other men have lost their lads, And other women wiped their poor dead mouths, And got them home and dried them in the house, And seen the driftwood lie along the coast, That was a tidy boat but one day back. And seen next tide the neighbors gather it To lay it on their fires. Ay, I was strong And able-bodied--loved my work;--but now I am a useless hull: 'tis time I sank; I am in all men's way; I trouble them; I am a trouble to myself: but yet I feel for mariners of stormy nights, And feel for wives that watch ashore. Ay, ay! If I had learning I would pray the Lord To bring them in: but I'm no scholar, no; Book-learning is a world too hard for me: But I make bold to say, 'O Lord, good Lord, I am a broken-down poor man, a fool To speak to Thee: but in the Book 'tis writ, As I hear say from others that can read, How, when Thou camest, Thou didst love the sea, And live with fisherfolk, whereby 'tis sure Thou knowest all the peril they go through. And all their trouble. As for me, good Lord, I have no boat; I am too old, too old-- My lads are drowned; I buried my poor wife; My little lasses died so long ago That mostly I forget what they were like. Thou knowest, Lord; they were such little ones. I know they went to Thee, but I forget Their faces, though I missed them sore. O Lord, I was a strong man; I have drawn good food And made good money out of Thy great sea: But yet I cried for them at nights; and now, Although I be so old, I miss my lads, And there be many folk this stormy night Heavy with fear for theirs. Merciful Lord, Comfort them; save their honest boys, their pride, And let them hear next ebb the blessedest, Best sound--the boat-keels grating on the sand. I cannot pray with finer words: I know Nothing; I have no learning, cannot learn-- Too old, too old. They say I want for nought, I have the parish pay; but I am dull Of hearing, and the fire scarce warms me through. God save me, I have been a sinful man-- And save the lives of them that still can work, For they are good to me; ay, good to me. But, Lord, I am a trouble! and I sit, And I am lonesome, and the nights are few That any think to come and draw a chair, And sit in my poor place and talk a while. Why should they come, forsooth? Only the wind Knocks at my door, O long and loud it knocks, The only thing God made that has a mind To enter in.'

"Yea, thus the old man spake: These were the last words of his aged mouth-- BUT ONE DID KNOCK. One came to sup with him, That humble, weak, old man; knocked at his door In the rough pauses of the laboring wind. I tell you that One knocked while it was dark. Save where their foaming passion had made white Those livid seething billows. What He said In that poor place where He did talk a while, I cannot tell: but this I am assured, That when the neighbors came the morrow morn, What time the wind had bated, and the sun Shone on the old man's floor, they saw the smile He passed away in, and they said, 'He looks As he had woke and seen the face of Christ, And with that rapturous smile held out his arms To come to Him!'

"Can such an one be here, So old, so weak, so ignorant, so frail? The Lord be good to thee, thou poor old man; It would be hard with thee if heaven were shut To such as have not learning! Nay, nay, nay, He condescends to them of low estate; To such as are despised He cometh down, Stands at the door and knocks.

"Yet bear with me. I have a message; I have more to say. Shall sorrow win His pity, and not sin-- That burden ten times heavier to be borne? What think you? Shall the virtuous have His care Alone? O virtuous women, think not scorn. For you may lift your faces everywhere; And now that it grows dusk, and I can see None though they front me straight, I fain would tell A certain thing to you. I say to _you_; And if it doth concern you, as methinks It doth, then surely it concerneth all. I say that there was once--I say not here-- I say that there was once a castaway, And she was weeping, weeping bitterly; Kneeling, and crying with a heart-sick cry That choked itself in sobs--'O my good name! Oh my good name!' And none did hear her cry! Nay; and it lightened, and the storm-bolts fell, And the rain splashed upon the roof, and still She, storm-tost as the storming elements-- She cried with an exceeding bitter cry, 'O my good name!' And then the thunder-cloud Stooped low and burst in darkness overhead, And rolled, and rocked her on her knees, and shook The frail foundations of her dwelling-place. But she--if any neighbors had come in (None did): if any neighbors had come in, They might have seen her crying on her knees. And sobbing 'Lost, lost, lost!' beating her breast-- Her breast forever pricked with cruel thorns. The wounds whereof could neither balm assuage Nor any patience heal--beating her brow, Which ached, it had been bent so long to hide From level eyes, whose meaning was contempt.

"O ye good women, it is hard to leave The paths of virtue, and return again. What if this sinner wept, and none of you Comforted her? And what if she did strive To mend, and none of you believed her strife. Nor looked upon her? Mark, I do not say, Though it was hard, you therefore were to blame; That she had aught against you, though your feet Never drew near her door. But I beseech Your patience. Once in old Jerusalem A woman kneeled at consecrated feet, Kissed them, and washed them with her tears. What then? I think that yet our Lord is pitiful: I think I see the castaway e'en now! And she is not alone: the heavy rain Splashes without, and sullen thunder rolls, But she is lying at the sacred feet Of One transfigured.

"And her tears flow down, Down to her lips,--her lips that kiss the print Of nails; and love is like to break her heart! Love and repentance--for it still doth work Sore in her soul to think, to think that she, Even she, did pierce the sacred, sacred feet. And bruise the thorn-crowned head.

"O Lord, our Lord, How great is Thy compassion. Come, good Lord, For we will open. Come this night, good Lord; Stand at the door and knock.

"And is this all?-- Trouble, old age and simpleness, and sin-- This all? It might be all some other night; But this night, if a voice said 'Give account Whom hast thou with thee?' then must I reply, 'Young manhood have I, beautiful youth and strength, Rich with all treasure drawn up from the crypt Where lies the learning of the ancient world-- Brave with all thoughts that poets fling upon The strand of life, as driftweed after storms: Doubtless familiar with Thy mountain heads, And the dread purity of Alpine snows, Doubtless familiar with Thy works concealed For ages from mankind--outlying worlds, And many moonèd spheres--and Thy great store Of stars, more thick than mealy dust which here Powders the pale leaves of Auriculas. This do I know, but, Lord, I know not more. Not more concerning them--concerning Thee, I know Thy bounty; where Thou givest much Standing without, if any call Thee in Thou givest more.' Speak, then, O rich and strong: Open, O happy young, ere yet the hand Of Him that knocks, wearied at last, forbear; The patient foot its thankless quest refrain, The wounded heart for evermore withdraw."

I have heard many speak, but this one man-- So anxious not to go to heaven alone-- This one man I remember, and his look, Till twilight overshadowed him. He ceased. And out in darkness with the fisherfolk We passed and stumbled over mounds of moss, And heard, but did not see, the passing beck. Ah, graceless heart, would that it could regain From the dim storehouse of sensations past The impress full of tender awe, that night, Which fell on me! It was as if the Christ Had been drawn down from heaven to track us home, And any of the footsteps following us Might have been His.

A WEDDING SONG.

Come up the broad river, the Thames, my Dane,
My Dane with the beautiful eyes!
Thousands and thousands await thee full fain,
And talk of the wind and the skies.
Fear not from folk and from country to part,
O, I swear it is wisely done:
For (I said) I will bear me by thee, sweetheart,
As becometh my father's son.

Great London was shouting as I went down.
"She is worthy," I said, "of this;
What shall I give who have promised a crown?
O, first I will give her a kiss."
So I kissed her and brought her, my Dane, my Dane,
Through the waving wonderful crowd:
Thousands and thousands, they shouted amain,
Like mighty thunders and loud.

And they said, "He is young, the lad we love,
The heir of the Isles is young:
How we deem of his mother, and one gone above,
Can neither be said nor sung.

"He brings us a pledge--he will do his part
With the best of his race and name;"--
And I will, for I look to live, sweetheart,
As may suit with my mother's fame.

THE FOUR BRIDGES.

I love this gray old church, the low, long nave, The ivied chancel and the slender spire; No less its shadow on each heaving grave, With growing osier bound, or living brier; I love those yew-tree trunks, where stand arrayed So many deep-cut names of youth and maid.

A simple custom this--I love it well-- A carved betrothal and a pledge of truth; How many an eve, their linkèd names to spell, Beneath the yew-trees sat our village youth! When work was over, and the new-cut hay Sent wafts of balm from meadows where it lay.

Ah! many an eve, while I was yet a boy, Some village hind has beckoned me aside, And sought mine aid, with shy and awkward joy, To carve the letters of his rustic bride, And make them clear to read as graven stone, Deep in the yew-tree's trunk beside his own.

For none could carve like me, and here they stand. Fathers and mothers of this present race: And underscored by some less practised hand, That fain the story of its line would trace, With children's names, and number, and the day When any called to God have passed away.

I look upon them, and I turn aside, As oft when carving them I did erewhile; And there I see those wooden bridges wide That cross the marshy hollow; there the stile In reeds embedded, and the swelling down, And the white road towards the distant town.

But those old bridges claim another look. Our brattling river tumbles through the one; The second spans a shallow, weedy brook; Beneath the others, and beneath the sun, Lie two long stilly pools, and on their breasts Picture their wooden piles, encased in swallows' nests.

And round about them grows a fringe of reeds, And then a floating crown of lily-flowers, And yet within small silver-budded weeds; But each clear centre evermore embowers A deeper sky, where, stooping, you may see The little minnows darting restlessly.

My heart is bitter, lilies, at your sweet;
Why did the dewdrop fringe your chalices?
Why in your beauty are you thus complete,
You silver ships--you floating palaces?
O! if need be, you must allure man's eye,
Yet wherefore blossom here? O why? O why?

O! O! the world is wide, you lily flowers, It hath warm forests, cleft by stilly pools, Where every night bathe crowds of stars; and bowers Of spicery hang over. Sweet air cools And shakes the lilies among those stars that lie: Why are not ye content to reign there? Why?

That chain of bridges, it were hard to tell How it is linked with all my early joy. There was a little foot that I loved well, It danced across them when I was a boy; There was a careless voice that used to sing; There was a child, a sweet and happy thing.

Oft through that matted wood of oak and birch She came from yonder house upon the hill; She crossed the wooden bridges to the church, And watched, with village girls, my boasted skill: But loved to watch the floating lilies best, Or linger, peering in a swallow's nest;

Linger and linger, with her wistful eyes Drawn to the lily-buds that lay so white And soft on crimson water; for the skies Would crimson, and the little cloudlets bright Would all be flung among the flowers sheer down, To flush the spaces of their clustering crown.

Till the green rushes--O, so glossy green-- The rushes, they would whisper, rustle, shake; And forth on floating gauze, no jewelled queen So rich, the green-eyed dragon-flies would break, And hover on the flowers--aërial things, With little rainbows flickering on their wings.

Ah! my heart dear! the polished pools lie still, Like lanes of water reddened by the west, Till, swooping down from yon o'erhanging hill, The bold marsh harrier wets her tawny breast; We scared her oft in childhood from her prey, And the old eager thoughts rise fresh as yesterday.

To yonder copse by moonlight I did go, In luxury of mischief, half afraid, To steal the great owl's brood, her downy snow, Her screaming imps to seize, the while she preyed With yellow, cruel eyes, whose radiant glare, Fell with their mother rage, I might not dare.

Panting I lay till her great fanning wings
Troubled the dreams of rock-doves, slumbering nigh,
And she and her fierce mate, like evil things,
Skimmed the dusk fields; then rising, with a cry
Of fear, joy, triumph, darted on my prey.
And tore it from the nest and fled away.

But afterward, belated in the wood, I saw her moping on the rifled tree, And my heart smote me for her, while I stood Awakened from my careless reverie; So white she looked, with moonlight round her shed. So motherlike she drooped and hung her head.