Chapter I: LOVE the oak-grove where the Druid’s knife

Cut down the mistletoe in days of old;
I love the elms around the convent fold
Where souls escape the dust of highway life.

I love to watch the tiny milk-white spires
That on the chestnut branches lift their head;
I love to see the rowan growing red
With clusters bright as frosty winter fires.

But better still I love you, firs that crest
The lonely hill above the moaning firth,
Beside the path where bluebells gently nod.

To your grey arms, ere sunset leaves the West,
I can confide each sorrow at its birth,
For you have known the waves and storms of God.

XIV GOOD-BYE

SING me one more villanelle,
Light as elfin foot that brushes
Through the ferns and foxgloves of the fairy dell.

Come where woodland spices smell,
Where the wild rose faintly flushes,
Sing me one more villanelle.

Rare as snowy heather bell,
Sweet as melody of thrushes
Through the ferns and foxgloves of the fairy dell.

When the shade creeps up the fell
Mid the parting sun’s last blushes,
Sing me one more villanelle.

Sing it to the curfew knell,
Where the streamlet plays with rushes
Through the ferns and foxgloves of the fairy dell.

Let it breathe no sad farewell,
Only mirth with silent hushes.
Sing me one more villanelle
Through the ferns and foxgloves of the fairy dell.

XV THE FAIRY GLEN REVISITED

THAT pure and shy retreat
A Tartar would have spared,
But not that lawyer cur from Inverness,
Who thought its sylvan virgin loveliness
Would bring him gold if rudely bared
And hawked upon the street.

There children checked their race
And crept on tiptoed feet,
Lest they should break upon the rainbow rings
Of fairies glinting through transparent wings,
Or kindly wizard come to meet
A maid with lovelorn face.

No snow nor stinging sleet
Could chill the fairies’ bath;
So close the vaulting was with fir and larch
Which laid deep carpets underneath their arch,
That on the fairies’ silent path
No blast could ever beat.

Mid foam more white than fleece
The waterfall rang sweet,
It made each rocky cup a rippling well,
It coyly dived and peeped along the dell,
Then ran the rising sea to greet,
And greeting found its peace.

And now the cold and heat
Scourge all the glen with ire;
The broken boughs have choked the sobbing stream,
The silver birch is but a sodden beam,
The fairies’ path is sunk in mire,
The moss has left their seat.

Flash sorrow and disdain
For this most sordid feat,
You whom Burns taught to love a daisy’s face,
And Scott to love the mountains’ gloom and grace;
Or say they scattered chaff for wheat,
And sang their songs in vain.

XVI WAITING

BASED ON THE GAELIC FEAR A’ BHÀTA

THE year may change its time,
But still I climb
The cliff above the sea,
And look with eyes half dim with rain,
To know if God has brought again
My lover back to me.

When darkness downward glides
And slowly hides
The fading hills of blue,
I never bar the cottage door
Without one look across the moor,
A look of hope for you.

Sometimes when I am free
I seek the quay
Soon after break of day,
And find a newly harboured boat,
And ask if you are still afloat
Near home or far away.

I ask if you are well,
And they can tell
My heart is set on you:
And then they call me just a fool,
A baby in the world’s hard school
To give you love so true.

You promised me silk gowns
From Lowland towns,
And rings of twisted gold;
And, best of all, your picture bound
With stones to hem its beauty round
That I might kiss and hold.

My love is not the flower
Of one short hour;
You were my childhood’s pride;
Your image is my dream by night,
By day if ever put to flight
It comes back like the tide.

The swan upon the lake
When robbers take
Her young, is left to moan;
None tends her wounds or heeds her cry,
She wails her loss and waits to die:
Like her I cry alone.

XVII NEAR HAARLEM

TRIUMPHANTLY it soars, that full-domed sky,
Of lucent turquoise fading into pearl;
And here the happy birds their brown wings furl
By waters that lisp seaward dreamily.

Beyond these plains of silver and of green,
Amid the floating vapours of the town
The vast grey church uplifts its belfry crown,
A chiselled shrine through incense dimly seen.

The burdened barges trust the smiling flood,
Calm wraps the distance of reclining dunes,
The tower rings peace in soft alternate tones.

And who that hears the bells’ low luting tunes,
Now thinks of Haarlem’s siege and starving moans,
Or how these brooks once bubbled with brave blood?

XVIII THE TOMB OF ST. AUGUSTINE AT PAVIA

BENEATH the low barbaric Lombard apse
It rises like a ridge of Alpine snow,
And wry-wheeled ages with uneasy lapse
Creak past its majesty, and go.

Such music as leaves Milan’s marble spires
To mount towards a greater whiter throne,
Or tempts to earth again seraphic choirs,
Is at Augustine’s shrine unknown.

No wave of pilgrim footsteps surges here,
No sheaf of tapers lifts its votive gleam,
The half-taught critic comes not with his sneer,
When I draw nigh, dear saint, to dream.

Enough if far-off sounds of children’s glee
Bid me to “take and read” God’s open call,
Or some sad Monnica pray here to see
Her son, like thee, a second Paul.

XIX MODERN FLORENCE

HARD by the home of Dante’s infant life
I saw a Yankee “Kake Walk” advertised;
Within San Miniato’s pillared aisle
A Japanese was peering unsurprised;
Where Michelangelo set “Dawn” and “Night,”
And her, most blest, whose softly sculptured smile
Glows with a maiden’s and a mother’s light,
A German Jew was nagging with his wife.

XX TO DANTE

THE Church divided and the Empire fell,
Grave Dante, but thy verse in magic grows
And charms men upward to the snow-white Rose
Of heaven from the mire and grief of hell.

No lonely isle of dull forgetfulness
Hides Beatrice within its shadowed gloom,
For ’mid the petals of thy Rose’s bloom
Time’s hand has set that pearl of loveliness.

Though patched and powdered poets could not taste
Thy limpid sweetness, and exposed thy fame
To meet the leering Frenchman’s cynic air,

Thy love was fair without brocade or paste,
Thyself too great to need a gilded name;
Thy Comedy and God survive Voltaire.

XXI TO PETRARCH

YES, Petrarch, we most certainly believe
That you who wore your heart upon your sleeve,
Did love your love for Laura, and the eye
Of public fame, at which your sonnets fly,
Like skyward larks that court the genial sun;
And o’er the tears you treasured one by one
You downward bent with all a statue’s grace
To see reflections of your tearful face.
But none redeemed by love will e’er consent
To say you tasted of love’s sacrament.

XXII TO A LADY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

IN MEMORY OF METASTASIO

NICE, though your lips of coral
Now are dust;
And the schoolboy scans the moral
Graven on your broken bust

In the gilt barocco chapel
After Mass;
Where ten coats with broidered lappel
Bent when Nice used to pass.

Still perchance your spirit hovers
Where the lute
And the voices of your lovers
Chimed, but now are gone and mute.

Where the lonely arbour’s hollow
Shadier grows,
And the butterflies can follow
Fearlessly to kiss the rose.

And you smile because a poet
À la mode
Flouted you; and then, we know it,
Wrote an abject palinode.

For your hands, though light as feathers,
Held him tight:
Love was made to last all weathers,
Not to change with day and night.

XXIII THE “LIBERAL” DIVINE

THE “middle path” meets every need,
The Stagirite and Buddha say;
I won’t doubt more than half the creed
Nor wear a costume wholly lay.

XXIV THE QUARREL

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF FRAGONARD

ON the elm tree she was swinging,
Just beyond the hedge of yew;
But she slowly ceased from singing,
From her breast a pink she drew.

Buttoning his coat of satin,
Off he strode towards the woods,
Tartly quoting Virgil’s Latin,
That a woman’s made of moods.

Long ago within God’s garden
Both were wrapped in long lone sleep,
Heeding not if hoar frosts harden,
Or the autumn leaves fall deep.

Laugh not at the statue calling
Phyllis with her marble muff,
Nor the marble cupids sprawling
On a cloud of powder puff.

Laugh not at his hermit fashions
Nor the book unwarmed by hope;
Say not that it shows the passions
Of a stony misanthrope.

For they loved while they were living,
Loved with love untold, unheard;
Though they parted unforgiving,
Each too proud to say a word.

XXV THE OLD FOUNTAIN

ONE gay glint of rose and silver flounces
In a deep green dell,
Where a streamlet bubbles down and bounces
From a Triton’s mossy shell.

One more dance ere sunset on the mountain
Laughing says, “Too late”;
One sweet lute that tinkled with the fountain
Called two hearts to court their fate.

Some small raindrops, just to tease the Triton,
Mischievously fell;
Some one spoke a jest that quenched the light on
Eyes that he had long loved well.

That dark night he cursed the love he brought her,
Though it made his soul;
And she sobbed an echo to the water
Brimming in the fountain bowl.

XXVI LOVE AND DEATH

ONCE toward a sunlit garden, laden
With the lime trees’ scented breath,
Came to watch a merry youth and maiden,
Love and Death.

At their bosoms Love threw fragrant posies,
Tossed them laughing low and blithe,
In the background Death amid the roses
Moved his scythe.

Ere the latest rose the path was strewing,
Her sweet maiden soul was fled;
He beside her grave his cheeks bedewing,
Bent his head.

Sobbing Love then thought to give him pleasure,
Bade his curse on Death attend;
But the youth begged Death who held his treasure
Be his friend.

Death as friend might give the old completeness
Time could give to him no more,
Death, not Love alone, the former sweetness
Might restore.

Love then saw the youth was worthier loving,
Dowered with a stronger grace;
And with downcast eyelids shyly moving,
Kissed Death’s face.

XXVII VIOLETS

WHERE burning tapers hold
White suppliant hands from arms of gold
Around the Host; there no one sets
Sweet violets.

Fair roses droop and die
In halls of dance and minstrelsy;
But who within those walls has met
The violet?

Where faintly smiles the sun
Through chequered skies on beech groves dun,
There hides in vales sequestered yet
The violet.

Where I shall lie asleep,
Some friend, perhaps, a tear will weep,
And if our love knew no regrets,
Strew violets.

XXVIII THE GARDENS OF THE SOUL

IN a restless land beside a river
Stands a stone enclosure tall,
Rich the finder is, and rich the giver
Of the key to pierce that wall.

Once within, you drink the clearest pleasures,
And your sorrow change for ease;
Ancient bards enchant you with their measures,
Sweetly sighs the Highland breeze.

Next amid the orange trees and cedars
Bearded Homer deigns to roam,
Musing tales of marching Argive leaders,
And Ulysses welcomed home.

Here where daffodils their crowns are bending
On a lawn of English green,
Milton gravely sits to tell the ending
Of angelic strifes unseen.

Here the almond bloom for ever blushes,
And Italian fountains rise;
While the wine of dawn their dewdrops flushes,
Dante speaks of Paradise.

But beyond where any poet paces,
Grows a gnarled grey olive grove,
Where the furthest stars have veiled their faces,
Weeping for eternal Love.

XXIX A MAN TO CHILDISH THINGS

WHERE are the domes of pure mysterious gold,
And myriad angel wings in ordered flight
My childish gaze could once at eve behold
Before the mountains melted into night?

Where is the island, shy abode of bliss,
Which seemed through summer haze to rise and float,
The isle which merchant fleets could never kiss,
But once stood still for Brendan’s hermit boat?

Where are my paladins with souls of snow,
Whose swords were fashioned at no mortal forge,
The men who rode where Arthur bade them go
To meet the dragon in his dungeon gorge?

O happy, happy dreams, ye were no lies,
No true apostle made me put away
Such “childish things,” which mirrored to mine eyes
Faith, Hope and Love. I call you back to stay.

XXX THE KNIGHT

HE was so courteous to the paynim horde,
Men doubted if he served the Lord
Or held the faith of Christ.
They said he proudly scorned life’s sweetest prize,
Who never played with sparkling eyes
Or kept an evening tryst.

Their god of love was but Cupidity,
Their Lord an idol vanity
With mail below his vest:
While he, true knight, believed in Christ alone,
And though they thought his heart a stone,
Made love a hero’s quest.

XXXI HOPES

TO have lived just like a man
And done what one man can,
Not basking like a dog in summer dust;
Nor like a butterfly
That flaunts and flutters by,
Till showers have dimmed its silver wings with rust.

To have lightened some stiff load
Of men upon the road—
May some remember I am flesh and blood!
To have dried some children’s tears,
And slain some women’s fears
That bid them crouch beneath a brooding flood.

To have known the throbbing stars,
And traced the ancient scars
That streams have ploughed upon the mountain side;
To have sung songs passing sweet,
And sung with lasting heat
As pure as that of stars that burn and bide.

To have said the simply true,
Although to preach the new
Might win me prizes and the world’s caress;
To have been misunderstood,
If so the common good
Might bear more harvest through my loneliness.

To have learnt that love is light
In rain and fog and night,
For eyes that sadly peer and feet that plod:
To have found all life a song
Of rapture calm and strong,
And found the music of the song was God.

XXXII THE PATH

TO buzzing lecture halls his steps he bent,
Where all the paths to God were well discussed,
Or faith and reason weighed with balance just,
Till he was dizzy with strong argument.
He saw philosophers who shook their fists,
And broke commandment nine;
He saw the Sadducean alchemists
Draw water out of wine;
He saw the knife-eyed Pharisees
Adjusting their phylacteries:
But never found the gate where he could see
The One in Three.

He watched the hills as dawn unlocked the day,
And felt vibrating o’er the low green lea
The breath of lilac and of hawthorn tree,
While gold laburnums rocked each pendent spray.
He saw the sun salute the moon afar,
And felt their common soul;
He heard the song of star to sister star
Around the sky’s deep bowl;
He watched the waves withdraw their foam,
He watched the rivers wending home:
He found the One, and yet he could not see
The One in Three.

Still doubting he beheld a brother man,
Whom he ignored and scorned to think akin;
But now a sudden breath of love within
Drove him to serve, and humbly he began.
His hands that worked in love were torn with red,
He shrank not at the sight,
For he who suffered saw a Heart that bled
Become his beacon-light.
Thus brother to the Son of God
With life from heaven on earth he trod:
The Life, the Light, the Love, he knew to be
The One in Three.

XXXIII THE CALL TO BETHLEHEM

SHEPHERDS, come to Bethlehem,
Pluck yon bush of Christmas rose,
Weave a dainty diadem.

From my flute with tuneful stem
Music warbles as it flows,
“Shepherds, come to Bethlehem.”

Lo, upon the mountain’s hem
Ruby clouds above the snows
Weave a dainty diadem.

Seek not proud Jerusalem,
Where the empty temple shows;
Shepherds, come to Bethlehem.

Christ without a crown or gem
Lies on straw while winter blows;
Weave a dainty diadem.

Christ will not our gift condemn;
All our poverty He knows.
Shepherds, come to Bethlehem,
Weave a dainty diadem.

XXXIV A CHRISTMAS LULLABY

ADAPTED FROM THE SPANISH

STARS,
Stay your bright amethyst cars,
Flee not away,
Wait till the day,
Come and adore.

Flowers,
Born in the morning’s first hours,
Stars of the earth,
Bloom for Christ’s birth,
Come and adore.

Birds,
Songs are far fresher than words,
Christ is your Sun,
Sing every one,
Come and adore.

Streams,
Whisper in tune with Christ’s dreams,
Throw your sweet spells
From crystal bells,
Come and adore.

Breeze,
Say to all lands and all seas,
“This merry morn,
Jesus is born,
Come and adore.”

Child,
Seeking the lost on the wild,
Though Thou dost sleep,
Smile on thy sheep
Come to adore.

XXXV TO THE HOLY CHILD

AS PAINTED BY RAPHAEL

O LORD, Thyself hast taught that sight is not belief;
And yet within Thine eyes I see eternity,
The love which told the dying thief
That he should rest in Paradise
Is there, though Thou art still a Child at Mary’s knee;
The joy of perfect sacrifice
Is there, and that unfathomed grief
In which our griefs have sunk like tears in one wide sea.

XXXVI MATER AMABILIS

AS PAINTED BY BOTTICELLI

MARY, on the Prince of peace thy gladness
Gleams from radiant eyes;
But their light is touched with passing sadness,
Like our English summer skies.

Angels’ arms above thy head are holding
Crowns of golden stars;
But the baby hands thy breast enfolding
Show to thee their future scars.

Lilies cense thee with their exhalations,
But thy heart has guessed
Slanders of the scoffing generations
Who will call thee cursed, not blessed.

So when clouds of faint foreboding sorrow
From an unknown sea
Come to warn me of a broken morrow,
Mother Mary, pray for me.

XXXVII SAINT STEPHEN