Chapter II

The sun smiles down upon her distress
With a tyrant smile most pitiless,
As she stitches away in her tatter'd dress,
With a song on her lips, that sinks in a sigh.

Yet, scorning her dusty window pane,
For all his pride, in love he is fain
Soft gold on her golden hair to rain;
But no sunlight may soften that soulless stare.

I read her yearning and weary sigh,
And the eyes that would be, but are not, dry;
And I catch the voice of that voiceless cry
For a moment to rest, for a moment to weep.

She, the darling of Want and Woe,
Why was she sent, save to work and to go
With feet that will ever more weary grow?
Whither? she has not a moment to care!

The Undine of olden days, I read,
By the love of a soul from her trammels was freed:
Knows there another such dolorous need?
Sure on the earth lingers yet such a soul!

ARTHUR S. CRIPPS.

A DREAM

My dead love came to me, and said,
'God gives me one hour's rest,
To spend with thee on earth again:
How shall we spend it best?'

'Why, as of old,' I said; and so
We quarrell'd, as of old:
But, when I turn'd to make my peace,
That one short hour was told.

STEPHEN PHILLIPS.

* * * * *

Thou who hast follow'd far with eyes of love
The shy and virgin sights of Spring to-day,
Sad soul, what dost thou in this happy grove?
Hast thou no pipe to touch, no strain to play,
Where Nature smiles so fair and seems to ask a lay?

Ah! she needs none! she is too beautiful.
How should I sing her? for my heart would tire,
Seeking a lovelier verse each time to cull,
In striving still to pitch my music higher:
Lovelier than any muse is she who gives the fire!

No impulse I beseech; my strains are vile:
To escape thee, Nature, restless here I rove.
Look not so sweet on me, avert thy smile!
O cease at length this fever'd breast to move!
I have loved thee in vain; I cannot speak my love.

Here sense with apathy seems gently wed:
The gloom is starr'd with flowers; the unseen trees
Spread thick and softly real above my head;
And the far birds add music to the peace,
In this dark place of sleep, where whispers never cease.

Hush, then, my pipe; vain is thy passion here;
Vain is the burning bosom of desire!
Forever hush'd, let me this silence hear,
As a sad Muse in the melodious choir
Hushes her voice, to catch the happier voices by her.

Deep-shaded will I lie, and deeper yet
In night, where not a leaf its neighbour knows;
Forget the shining of the stars, forget
The vernal visitation of the rose;
And, far from all delights, prepare my heart's repose.

Strive how I may, I cannot slumber so:
Still burns that sleepless beauty on the mind;
Still insupportable those visions glow;
And hark! my spirit's aspirations find
An answer in the leaves, a warning on the wind.

'O crave not silence thou! too soon, too sure,
Shall Autumn come, and through these branches weep:
Soon birds shall cease, and flowers no more endure;
And thou beneath the mould unwilling creep,
And silent soon shalt be in that eternal sleep.

'Green still it is, where that fair goddess strays;
Then follow, till around thee all be sere.
Lose not a vision of her passing face;
Nor miss the sound of her soft robes, that here
Sweep over the wet leaves of the fast-falling year.'

MANMOHAN GHOSE.

ORESTES

Me in far lands did Justice call, cold queen
Among the dead, who after heat and haste
At length have leisure for her steadfast voice,
That gathers peace from the great deeps of hell.
She call'd me, saying: 'I heard a cry by night!
Go thou, and question not; within thy halls
My will awaits fulfilment. Lo, the dead
Cries out before me in the under-world.
Seek not to justify thyself: in me
Be strong, and I will show thee wise in time;
For, though my face be dark, yet unto those
Who truly follow me through storm or shine,
For these the veil shall fall, and they shall see
They walked with Wisdom, though they knew her not.'
So sped I home; and from the under-world
Forever came a wind that fill'd my sails,
Cold, like a spirit! and ever her still voice
Spoke over shoreless seas and fathomless deeps,
And in great calms, as from a colder world;
Nor slack'd I sail by day, nor yet when night
Fell on my running keel, and now would burn,
With all her eyes, my errand into me.
So sped I on, fill'd with a voice divine:
And hardly wist I whom I was to slay,
My mother! but a vague, heroic dream
Possess'd me; fired to do the will of gods,
I lost the man in minister of Heaven;
Nor took I note of sandbank, nor of storm,
Nor of the ocean's thunders, when the shores
All round had faded, leaving me alone:
I knew I could not die, till I had slain!
But, when I came once more upon the land
That rear'd me, all the sweetness of old days
Came back on me: I stood, as from a dream
Waked to a sudden, sad reality.
And when, far off, I saw those ancient towers,
The palaces and places of my youth,
I long'd to fall into my mother's arms,
And tell a thousand tales of near escapes.
And lo! the nurse, that fondled me of yore,
Fell with glad tears upon my neck, and told
How she, and how my mother, all this while
Had dream'd of all I was to do, and said
How dear I should be to my mother's eyes.
Her words shook me, but shook not my resolve.
For even then there came that sterner voice,
Echoing to what was highest in the soul.
Then, like to those who have a work on earth,
And put far from them lips of wife or child,
And gird them to the accomplishment; so I
Strode in, nor saw at all mine ancient halls;
And struck my father's murderess, not my mother.
And, when I had smitten, lo, the strength of gods
Pass'd from me, and the old, familiar halls
Reel'd back on me; dim statues, that of old
Holding my mother's hand I marvell'd at,
And questioned her of each. And she lies there,
My mother! ay, my mother now; O hair
That once I play'd with in these halls! O eyes
That for a moment knew me as I came,
And lighten'd up, and trembled into love;
The next were darkened by my hand! Ah me!
Ye will not look upon me in that world.
Yet thou, perchance, art happier, if thou go'st
Into some land of wind and drifting leaves,
To sleep without a star; but as for me,
Hell hungers, and the restless Furies wait.
Then the dark Curse, that sits upon the towers,
Bow'd down her awful head, thus satisfied,
And I fled forth, a murderer, through the world.

STEPHEN PHILLIPS.

THE SEASONS' COMFORT

Dry thine eyes, Doll! the stars above us shine;
God of His goodness made them mine and thine;
His silver have we gotten, and His gold,
Whilst there's a sun to call us in the morn
To ply the hook among amid the yellow corn,
That such a mine of pretty gems doth hold:
For there's the poppy half in sorrow,
Greeting sleepy-eyed the morrow,
And the corn-flower, dainty tire for a sweetheart sunny-poll'd.

Dry thine eyes, Doll! the woods are all our own,
The woods that soon shall take a braver tone,
What time the frosts first silver Nature's hair;
The birds shall sing their best for thee and me;
And every sunrise listeners will we be,
And so of singing get the goodliest share;
When the thrushes sing so sweetly,
We would fain be footing featly,
But our hearts dance time instead in the throbbing matin air.

Dry thine eyes, Doll! there's Love to feed our fire,
Not for the buying, but for the desire;
Winter ne'er quenched a blaze so bravely fed.
And Sleep, I wot, will grudge us not his best:
In winter earlier sink the suns to rest,
And eke the sooner shall our toils be sped;
When in the embers glowing
There'll be love-charms worth the knowing,
Or, at Yule-tide, mazes threaded, with the mistletoe o'erhead.

ARTHUR S. CRIPPS.

* * * * *

O Summer sun, O moving trees!
O cheerful human noise, O busy glittering street!
What hour shall Fate in all the future find,
Or what delights, ever to equal these:
Only to taste the warmth, the light, the wind,
Only to be alive, and feel that life is sweet?

LAURENCE BINYON.

MENTEM MORTALIA TANGUNT

Now lonely is the wood:
No flower now lingers, none!
The virgin sisterhood
Of roses, all are gone;
Now Autumn sheds her latest leaf;
And in my heart is grief.

Ah me, for all earth rears,
The appointed bound is placed!
After a thousand years
The great oak falls at last:
And thou, more lovely, canst not stay,
Sweet rose, beyond thy day.

Our life is not the life
Of roses and of leaves;
Else wherefore this deep strife,
This pain, our soul conceives?
The fall of ev'n such short-lived things
To us some sorrow brings.

And yet, plant, bird, and fly
Feel no such hidden fire.
Happy they live; and die
Happy, with no desire.
They in their brief life have fulfill'd
All Nature in them will'd.

And were we also made
Of like terrestrial mould
We should not be afraid,
Nor feel the grave so cold;
But, all oblivious of our fate,
Live sweetly out our date.

For the great mother loves
Her children far too well;
These longings that she moves
Their own fulfilment tell:
She would not burden us with aught
We really needed not.

O, not in vain she gave
To the wild birds their wings!
They spread them forth, and have
Heaven for their wanderings.
But we, to whom no wings are given
Why seek we for a Heaven?

And, when far o'er us fly
Those voyagers of the air,
Why must we gaze, and sigh,
_O would that I were there?_
Why are we restless, ill content,
Tied to one element?

'Tis not that in our tears
Some happier life we crave;
Our happiest, sweetest years
Mysterious moments have:
The sense of our brief human lot
Clings to us, haunts our thought.

O then this pleasant earth
Seems but an alien thing:
Faint grows her busy mirth;
Far hence our thoughts take wing:
For some enduring home we cry!
She cannot satisfy,

Or bind us: only ties
Immortal found can bless;
Only in loving eyes
We see our happiness;
Only upon a loving breast
Our souls find any rest.

Why thirsts the spirit so
For life? what moves it thus?
'Tis _her_ voice; yes, I know,
'Tis Nature cries in us:
'Tis no unholy strife of ours
Against forbidding powers.

What though we gaze with fear,
So blank death seems to be;
What though no land appear
Beyond that lonely sea;
Still in our hearts her cry doth stay;
She will find out a way.

So in the chrysalis
Slumber those lovely wings;
So from the shell it is
The dazzling pearl she brings:
Her glorious works she works alone,
Unfathom'd and unknown!

MANMOHAN GHOSE.