P O E M S

BY

MATTHEW   ARNOLD.

NEW AND COMPLETE EDITION.

NEW YORK:
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.,
No. 13 Astor Place.

CONTENTS.

EARLY POEMS.   PAGE Sonnets

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Quiet Work" 1 To a Friend" 2 Shakspeare" 2 Written in Emerson’s Essays" 3 Written in Butler’s Sermons" 3 To the Duke of Wellington" 4 “In Harmony with Nature” 5 To George Cruikshank" 5 To a Republican Friend, 1848" 6 Continued" 7 Religious Isolation" 7 Mycerinus 8 The Church of Brou

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  I. The Castle" 12  II. The Church" 16 III. The Tomb" 18 A Modern Sappho 19 Requiescat 21 Youth and Calm 22 A Memory-Picture 23 The New Sirens 25 The Voice 34 Youth’s Agitations 36 The World’s Triumphs 36 Stagirius 37 Human Life 39 To a Gypsy Child by the Seashore 40 A Question 43 In Utrumque Paratus 43 The World and the Quietist 45 The Second Best 46 Consolation 47 Resignation 49 NARRATIVE POEMS. Sohrab and Rustum 59 The Sick King in Bokhara 86 Balder Dead

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  I. Sending" 94  II. Journey to the Dead" 104 III. Funeral" 114 Tristram and Iseult

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  I. Tristram" 131  II. Iseult of Ireland" 143 III. Iseult of Brittany" 150 Saint Brandan 157 The Neckan 160 The Forsaken Merman 162 SONNETS. Austerity of Poetry 167 A Picture at Newstead 167 Rachel: I., II., III 168 Worldly Place 170 East London 170 West London 171 East and West 171 The Better Part 172 The Divinity 172 Immortality 173 The Good Shepherd with the Kid 173 Monica’s Last Prayer 174 LYRIC AND DRAMATIC POEMS. Switzerland   I. Meeting" 175  II. Parting" 176 III. A Farewell" 179  IV. Isolation. To Marguerite" 182   V. To Marguerite. Continued" 183  VI. Absence" 184 VII. The Terrace at Berne" 185 The Strayed Reveller 187 Fragment of an “Antigone” 197 Fragment of Chorus of a “Dejaneira” 201 Early Death and Fame 202 Philomela 202 Urania 204 Euphrosyne 205 Calais Sands 206 Faded Leaves

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  I. The River" 207  II. Too Late" 208 III. Separation" 208  IV. On the Rhine" 209   V. Longing" 209 Despondency 210 Self-Deception 210 Dover Beach 211 Growing Old 213 The Progress of Poesy 214 Pis Aller 214 The Last Word 215 A Nameless Epitaph 215 Empedocles on Etna 216 Bacchanalia; or, The New Age 254 Epilogue to Lessing’s Laocoön 258 Persistency of Poetry 264 A Caution to Poets 264 The Youth of Nature 265 The Youth of Man 269 Palladium 273 Progress 273 Revolutions 275 Self-Dependence 276 Morality 277 A Summer Night 278 The Buried Life 281 Lines written in Kensington Gardens 284 A Wish 286 The Future 288 ELEGIAC POEMS. The Scholar-Gypsy 291 Thyrsis 299 Memorial Verses 307 Stanzas in Memory of Edward Quillinan 310 Stanzas from Carnac 311 A Southern Night 312 Haworth Churchyard 317 Epilogue 321 Rugby Chapel 321 Heine’s Grave 328 Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse 335 Stanzas in Memory of the Author of “Obermann” 342 Obermann Once More 348 Notes 361

EARLY POEMS.

SONNETS.

QUIET WORK.

One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, One lesson which in every wind is blown, One lesson of two duties kept at one Though the loud world proclaim their enmity,—

Of toil unsevered from tranquillity; Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows Far noisier schemes, accomplished in repose, Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.

Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring, Man’s senseless uproar mingling with his toil, Still do thy quiet ministers move on,

Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting; Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil, Laborers that shall not fail, when man is gone.

TO A FRIEND.

Who prop, thou ask’st, in these bad days, my mind?— He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men, Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,[1] And Tmolus hill, and Smyrna bay, though blind.

Much he, whose friendship I not long since won, That halting slave, who in Nicopolis Taught Arrian, when Vespasian’s brutal son Cleared Rome of what most shamed him. But be his

My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul, From first youth tested up to extreme old age, Business could not make dull, nor passion wild;

Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole; The mellow glory of the Attic stage, Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child.

SHAKSPEARE.

Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask. Thou smilest, and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foiled searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honored, self-secure, Didst tread on earth unguessed at.—Better so!

All pains the immortal spirit must endure, All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.

WRITTEN IN EMERSON’S ESSAYS.

“O monstrous, dead, unprofitable world, That thou canst hear, and hearing hold thy way! A voice oracular hath pealed to-day, To-day a hero’s banner is unfurled;

Hast thou no lip for welcome?”—So I said. Man after man, the world smiled and passed by; A smile of wistful incredulity, As though one spake of life unto the dead,—

Scornful, and strange, and sorrowful, and full Of bitter knowledge. Yet the will is free; Strong is the soul, and wise, and beautiful;

The seeds of godlike power are in us still; Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will!— Dumb judges, answer, truth or mockery?

WRITTEN IN BUTLER’S SERMONS.

Affections, Instincts, Principles, and Powers, Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control,— So men, unravelling God’s harmonious whole, Rend in a thousand shreds this life of ours.

Vain labor! Deep and broad, where none may see, Spring the foundations of that shadowy throne Where man’s one nature, queen-like, sits alone, Centred in a majestic unity;

And rays her powers, like sister-islands seen Linking their coral arms under the sea, Or clustered peaks with plunging gulfs between,

Spanned by aërial arches all of gold, Whereo’er the chariot-wheels of life are rolled In cloudy circles to eternity.

TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED.

Because thou hast believed, the wheels of life Stand never idle, but go always round; Not by their hands, who vex the patient ground, Moved only; but by genius, in the strife

Of all its chafing torrents after thaw, Urged; and to feed whose movement, spinning sand, The feeble sons of pleasure set their hand; And, in this vision of the general law,

Hast labored, but with purpose; hast become Laborious, persevering, serious, firm,— For this, thy track across the fretful foam

Of vehement actions without scope or term, Called history, keeps a splendor; due to wit, Which saw one clew to life, and followed it.

IN HARMONY WITH NATURE.

TO A PREACHER.

“In harmony with Nature?” Restless fool, Who with such heat dost preach what were to thee, When true, the last impossibility,— To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool!

Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, And in that more lie all his hopes of good. Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood; Nature is stubborn, man would fain adore;

Nature is fickle, man hath need of rest; Nature forgives no debt, and fears no grave; Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest.

Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends; Nature and man can never be fast friends. Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave!

TO GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

ON SEEING, IN THE COUNTRY, HIS PICTURE OF “THE BOTTLE.”

Artist, whose hand, with horror winged, hath torn From the rank life of towns this leaf! and flung The prodigy of full-blown crime among Valleys and men to middle fortune born, Not innocent, indeed, yet not forlorn,— Say, what shall calm us when such guests intrude Like comets on the heavenly solitude? Shall breathless glades, cheered by shy Dian’s horn,

Cold-bubbling springs, or caves? Not so! The soul Breasts her own griefs; and, urged too fiercely, says, “Why tremble? True, the nobleness of man

May be by man effaced; man can control To pain, to death, the bent of his own days. Know thou the worst! So much, not more, he can.”

TO A REPUBLICAN FRIEND, 1848.

God knows it, I am with you. If to prize Those virtues, prized and practised by too few, But prized, but loved, but eminent in you, Man’s fundamental life; if to despise

The barren optimistic sophistries Of comfortable moles, whom what they do Teaches the limit of the just and true (And for such doing they require not eyes);

If sadness at the long heart-wasting show Wherein earth’s great ones are disquieted; If thoughts, not idle, while before me flow

The armies of the homeless and unfed,— If these are yours, if this is what you are, Then am I yours, and what you feel, I share.

CONTINUED.

Yet, when I muse on what life is, I seem Rather to patience prompted, than that proud Prospect of hope which France proclaims so loud,— France, famed in all great arts, in none supreme;

Seeing this vale, this earth, whereon we dream, Is on all sides o’ershadowed by the high Uno’erleaped mountains of necessity, Sparing us narrower margin than we deem.

Nor will that day dawn at a human nod, When, bursting through the network superposed By selfish occupation,—plot and plan,

Lust, avarice, envy,—liberated man, All difference with his fellow-mortal closed, Shall be left standing face to face with God.

RELIGIOUS ISOLATION.

TO THE SAME FRIEND.

Children (as such forgive them) have I known, Ever in their own eager pastime bent To make the incurious bystander, intent On his own swarming thoughts, an interest own,—

Too fearful or too fond to play alone. Do thou, whom light in thine own inmost soul (Not less thy boast) illuminates, control Wishes unworthy of a man full-grown.

What though the holy secret, which moulds thee, Moulds not the solid earth? though never winds Have whispered it to the complaining sea,

Nature’s great law, and law of all men’s minds? To its own impulse every creature stirs: Live by thy light, and earth will live by hers!

MYCERINUS.[2]

“Not by the justice that my father spurned, Not for the thousands whom my father slew, Altars unfed and temples overturned, Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due; Fell this dread voice from lips that cannot lie, Stern sentence of the Powers of Destiny.

“I will unfold my sentence and my crime. My crime,—that, rapt in reverential awe, I sate obedient, in the fiery prime Of youth, self-governed, at the feet of Law; Ennobling this dull pomp, the life of kings, By contemplation of diviner things.

“My father loved injustice, and lived long; Crowned with gray hairs he died, and full of sway. I loved the good he scorned, and hated wrong— The gods declare my recompense to-day. I looked for life more lasting, rule more high; And when six years are measured, lo, I die!

“Yet surely, O my people, did I deem Man’s justice from the all-just gods was given; A light that from some upper fount did beam, Some better archetype, whose seat was heaven; A light that, shining from the blest abodes, Did shadow somewhat of the life of gods.

“Mere phantoms of man’s self-tormenting heart, Which on the sweets that woo it dares not feed! Vain dreams, which quench our pleasures, then depart, When the duped soul, self-mastered, claims its meed; When, on the strenuous just man, Heaven bestows, Crown of his struggling life, an unjust close!

“Seems it so light a thing, then, austere powers, To spurn man’s common lure, life’s pleasant things? Seems there no joy in dances crowned with flowers, Love free to range, and regal banquetings? Bend ye on these indeed an unmoved eye, Not gods, but ghosts, in frozen apathy?

“Or is it that some force, too stern, too strong, Even for yourselves to conquer or beguile, Bears earth and heaven and men and gods along, Like the broad volume of the insurgent Nile? And the great powers we serve, themselves may be Slaves of a tyrannous necessity?

“Or in mid-heaven, perhaps, your golden cars, Where earthly voice climbs never, wing their flight, And in wild hunt, through mazy tracts of stars, Sweep in the sounding stillness of the night? Or in deaf ease, on thrones of dazzling sheen, Drinking deep draughts of joy, ye dwell serene?

“Oh, wherefore cheat our youth, if thus it be, Of one short joy, one lust, one pleasant dream? Stringing vain words of powers we cannot see, Blind divinations of a will supreme; Lost labor! when the circumambient gloom But hides, if gods, gods careless of our doom?

“The rest I give to joy. Even while I speak, My sand runs short; and as yon star-shot ray, Hemmed by two banks of cloud, peers pale and weak, Now, as the barrier closes, dies away,— Even so do past and future intertwine, Blotting this six years’ space, which yet is mine.

“Six years,—six little years,—six drops of time! Yet suns shall rise, and many moons shall wane, And old men die, and young men pass their prime, And languid pleasure fade and flower again, And the dull gods behold, ere these are flown, Revels more deep, joy keener than their own.

“Into the silence of the groves and woods I will go forth; though something would I say,— Something,—yet what, I know not: for the gods The doom they pass revoke not nor delay; And prayers and gifts and tears are fruitless all, And the night waxes, and the shadows fall.

“Ye men of Egypt, ye have heard your king! I go, and I return not. But the will Of the great gods is plain; and ye must bring Ill deeds, ill passions, zealous to fulfil Their pleasure, to their feet; and reap their praise,— The praise of gods, rich boon! and length of days.”

—So spake he, half in anger, half in scorn; And one loud cry of grief and of amaze Broke from his sorrowing people; so he spake, And turning, left them there: and with brief pause, Girt with a throng of revellers, bent his way To the cool region of the groves he loved. There by the river-banks he wandered on, From palm-grove on to palm-grove, happy trees, Their smooth tops shining sunward, and beneath Burying their unsunned stems in grass and flowers; Where in one dream the feverish time of youth Might fade in slumber, and the feet of joy Might wander all day long and never tire. Here came the king, holding high feast, at morn, Rose-crowned; and ever, when the sun went down, A hundred lamps beamed in the tranquil gloom, From tree to tree all through the twinkling grove, Revealing all the tumult of the feast,— Flushed guests, and golden goblets foamed with wine; While the deep-burnished foliage overhead Splintered the silver arrows of the moon. It may be that sometimes his wondering soul From the loud joyful laughter of his lips Might shrink half startled, like a guilty man Who wrestles with his dream; as some pale shape, Gliding half hidden through the dusky stems, Would thrust a hand before the lifted bowl, Whispering, A little space, and thou art mine! It may be, on that joyless feast his eye Dwelt with mere outward seeming; he, within, Took measure of his soul, and knew its strength, And by that silent knowledge, day by day, Was calmed, ennobled, comforted, sustained. It may be; but not less his brow was smooth, And his clear laugh fled ringing through the gloom, And his mirth quailed not at the mild reproof Sighed out by winter’s sad tranquillity; Nor, palled with its own fulness, ebbed and died In the rich languor of long summer-days; Nor withered when the palm-tree plumes, that roofed With their mild dark his grassy banquet-hall, Bent to the cold winds of the showerless spring; No, nor grew dark when autumn brought the clouds. So six long years he revelled, night and day. And when the mirth waxed loudest, with dull sound Sometimes from the grove’s centre echoes came, To tell his wondering people of their king; In the still night, across the steaming flats, Mixed with the murmur of the moving Nile.

THE CHURCH OF BROU.

I.
The Castle.

Down the Savoy valleys sounding, Echoing round this castle old, ’Mid the distant mountain-chalets Hark! what bell for church is tolled?

In the bright October morning Savoy’s Duke had left his bride. From the castle, past the drawbridge, Flowed the hunters’ merry tide.

Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering. Gay, her smiling lord to greet, From her mullioned chamber-casement Smiles the Duchess Marguerite.

From Vienna, by the Danube, Here she came, a bride, in spring. Now the autumn crisps the forest; Hunters gather, bugles ring.

Hounds are pulling, prickers swearing, Horses fret, and boar-spears glance. Off!—They sweep the marshy forests, Westward on the side of France.

Hark! the game’s on foot; they scatter! Down the forest-ridings lone, Furious, single horsemen gallop. Hark! a shout—a crash—a groan!

Pale and breathless, came the hunters— On the turf dead lies the boar. God! the duke lies stretched beside him, Senseless, weltering in his gore.

In the dull October evening, Down the leaf-strewn forest-road, To the castle, past the drawbridge, Came the hunters with their load.

In the hall, with sconces blazing, Ladies waiting round her seat, Clothed in smiles, beneath the dais Sate the Duchess Marguerite.

Hark! below the gates unbarring! Tramp of men, and quick commands! “’Tis my lord come back from hunting;” And the duchess claps her hands.

Slow and tired, came the hunters; Stopped in darkness in the court. “Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters! To the hall! What sport, what sport?”

Slow they entered with their master; In the hall they laid him down. On his coat were leaves and blood-stains, On his brow an angry frown.

Dead her princely youthful husband Lay before his youthful wife, Bloody ’neath the flaring sconces— And the sight froze all her life.

In Vienna, by the Danube, Kings hold revel, gallants meet. Gay of old amid the gayest Was the Duchess Marguerite.

In Vienna, by the Danube, Feast and dance her youth beguiled. Till that hour she never sorrowed; But from then she never smiled.

’Mid the Savoy mountain-valleys, Far from town or haunt of man, Stands a lonely church, unfinished, Which the Duchess Maud began.

Old, that duchess stern began it, In gray age, with palsied hands; But she died while it was building, And the church unfinished stands,—

Stands as erst the builders left it, When she sank into her grave; Mountain greensward paves the chancel, Harebells flower in the nave.

“In my castle all is sorrow,” Said the Duchess Marguerite then: “Guide me, some one, to the mountain; We will build the church again.”

Sandalled palmers, faring homeward, Austrian knights from Syria came. “Austrian wanderers bring, O warders! Homage to your Austrian dame.”

From the gate the warders answered,— “Gone, O knights, is she you knew! Dead our duke, and gone his duchess; Seek her at the church of Brou.”

Austrian knights and march-worn palmers Climb the winding mountain-way; Reach the valley, where the fabric Rises higher day by day.

Stones are sawing, hammers ringing; On the work the bright sun shines; In the Savoy mountain-meadows, By the stream, below the pines.

On her palfrey white the duchess Sate, and watched her working train,— Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders, German masons, smiths from Spain.

Clad in black, on her white palfrey, Her old architect beside,— There they found her in the mountains, Morn and noon and eventide.

There she sate, and watched the builders, Till the church was roofed and done; Last of all, the builders reared her In the nave a tomb of stone.

On the tomb two forms they sculptured, Lifelike in the marble pale,— One, the duke in helm and armor; One, the duchess in her veil.

Round the tomb the carved stone fret-work Was at Easter-tide put on. Then the duchess closed her labors; And she died at the St. John.

II.
The Church.

Upon the glistening leaden roof Of the new pile, the sunlight shines; The stream goes leaping by. The hills are clothed with pines sun-proof; ’Mid bright green fields, below the pines, Stands the church on high. What church is this, from men aloof? ’Tis the Church of Brou.

At sunrise, from their dewy lair Crossing the stream, the kine are seen Round the wall to stray,— The churchyard wall that clips the square Of open hill-sward fresh and green Where last year they lay. But all things now are ordered fair Round the Church of Brou.

On Sundays, at the matin-chime, The Alpine peasants, two and three, Climb up here to pray; Burghers and dames, at summer’s prime, Ride out to church from Chambery, Dight with mantles gay. But else it is a lonely time Round the Church of Brou.

On Sundays, too, a priest doth come From the walled town beyond the pass, Down the mountain-way; And then you hear the organ’s hum, You hear the white-robed priest say mass, And the people pray. But else the woods and fields are dumb Round the Church of Brou.

And after church, when mass is done, The people to the nave repair Round the tomb to stray; And marvel at the forms of stone, And praise the chiselled broideries rare— Then they drop away. The princely pair are left alone In the Church of Brou.

III.
The Tomb.

So rest, forever rest, O princely pair! In your high church, ’mid the still mountain-air, Where horn, and hound, and vassals, never come. Only the blessed saints are smiling dumb From the rich painted windows of the nave On aisle, and transept, and your marble grave; Where thou, young prince, shalt never more arise From the fringed mattress where thy duchess lies, On autumn-mornings, when the bugle sounds, And ride across the drawbridge with thy hounds To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve; And thou, O princess, shalt no more receive, Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state, The jaded hunters with their bloody freight, Coming benighted to the castle-gate. So sleep, forever sleep, O marble pair! Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair On the carved western front a flood of light Streams from the setting sun, and colors bright Prophets, transfigured saints, and martyrs brave, In the vast western window of the nave; And on the pavement round the tomb there glints A checker-work of glowing sapphire-tints, And amethyst, and ruby,—then unclose Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose, And from your broidered pillows lift your heads, And rise upon your cold white marble beds; And looking down on the warm rosy tints Which checker, at your feet, the illumined flints, Say, What is this? we are in bliss—forgiven— Behold the pavement of the courts of heaven! Or let it be on autumn-nights, when rain Doth rustlingly above your heads complain On the smooth leaden roof, and on the walls Shedding her pensive light at intervals The moon through the clere-story windows shines, And the wind washes through the mountain-pines,— Then, gazing up ’mid the dim pillars high, The foliaged marble forest where ye lie, Hush, ye will say, it is eternity! This is the glimmering verge of heaven, and these The columns of the heavenly palaces. And in the sweeping of the wind your ear The passage of the angels’ wings will hear, And on the lichen-crusted leads above The rustle of the eternal rain of love.

A MODERN SAPPHO.

They are gone—all is still! Foolish heart, dost thou quiver? Nothing stirs on the lawn but the quick lilac-shade.

Far up shines the house, and beneath flows the river: Here lean, my head, on this cold balustrade!

Ere he come,—ere the boat by the shining-branched border Of dark elms shoot round, dropping down the proud stream,— Let me pause, let me strive, in myself make some order, Ere their boat-music sound, ere their broidered flags gleam.

Last night we stood earnestly talking together: She entered—that moment his eyes turned from me! Fastened on her dark hair, and her wreath of white heather. As yesterday was, so to-morrow will be.

Their love, let me know, must grow strong and yet stronger, Their passion burn more, ere it ceases to burn. They must love—while they must! but the hearts that love longer Are rare—ah! most loves but flow once, and return.

I shall suffer—but they will outlive their affection; I shall weep—but their love will be cooling; and he, As he drifts to fatigue, discontent, and dejection, Will be brought, thou poor heart, how much nearer to thee!

For cold is his eye to mere beauty, who, breaking The strong band which passion around him hath furled, Disenchanted by habit, and newly awaking, Looks languidly round on a gloom-buried world.

Through that gloom he will see but a shadow appearing, Perceive but a voice as I come to his side; —But deeper their voice grows, and nobler their bearing, Whose youth in the fires of anguish hath died.

So, to wait! But what notes down the wind, hark! are driving? ’Tis he! ’tis their flag, shooting round by the trees! —Let my turn, if it will come, be swift in arriving! Ah! hope cannot long lighten torments like these.

Hast thou yet dealt him, O life, thy full measure? World, have thy children yet bowed at his knee? Hast thou with myrtle-leaf crowned him, O pleasure? —Crown, crown him quickly, and leave him for me.

REQUIESCAT.

Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew: In quiet she reposes; Ah! would that I did too!

Her mirth the world required; She bathed it in smiles of glee. But her heart was tired, tired, And now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning, In mazes of heat and sound; But for peace her soul was yearning, And now peace laps her round.

Her cabined, ample spirit, It fluttered and failed for breath; To-night it doth inherit The vasty hall of death.

YOUTH AND CALM.

’Tis death! and peace indeed is here, And ease from shame, and rest from fear. There’s nothing can dismarble now The smoothness of that limpid brow. But is a calm like this, in truth, The crowning end of life and youth? And when this boon rewards the dead, Are all debts paid, has all been said? And is the heart of youth so light, Its step so firm, its eye so bright, Because on its hot brow there blows A wind of promise and repose From the far grave, to which it goes; Because it has the hope to come, One day, to harbor in the tomb? Ah, no! the bliss youth dreams is one For daylight, for the cheerful sun, For feeling nerves and living breath; Youth dreams a bliss on this side death. It dreams a rest, if not more deep, More grateful than this marble sleep; It hears a voice within it tell,— Calm’s not life’s crown, though calm is well. ’Tis all, perhaps, which man acquires, But ’tis not what our youth desires.

A MEMORY-PICTURE.

Laugh, my friends, and without blame Lightly quit what lightly came; Rich to-morrow as to-day, Spend as madly as you may! I, with little land to stir, Am the exacter laborer. Ere the parting hour go by, Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Once I said, “A face is gone If too hotly mused upon; And our best impressions are Those that do themselves repair.” Many a face I so let flee— Ah!-is faded utterly. Ere the parting hour go by, Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Marguerite says, “As last year went, So the coming year’ll be spent; Some day next year, I shall be, Entering heedless, kissed by thee.” Ah, I hope! yet, once away, What may chain us, who can say? Ere the parting hour go by, Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint that lilac kerchief, bound Her soft face, her hair around; Tied under the archest chin Mockery ever ambushed in. Let the fluttering fringes streak All her pale, sweet-rounded cheek. Ere the parting hour go by, Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint that figure’s pliant grace As she toward me leaned her face, Half refused and half resigned, Murmuring, “Art thou still unkind?” Many a broken promise then Was new made—to break again. Ere the parting hour go by, Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint those eyes, so blue, so kind, Eager tell-tales of her mind; Paint, with their impetuous stress Of inquiring tenderness, Those frank eyes, where deep doth be An angelic gravity. Ere the parting hour go by, Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

What! my friends, these feeble lines Show, you say, my love declines? To paint ill as I have done, Proves forgetfulness begun? Time’s gay minions, pleased you see, Time, your master, governs me; Pleased, you mock the fruitless cry,— “Quick, thy tablets, Memory!”

Ah, too true! Time’s current strong Leaves us true to nothing long. Yet, if little stays with man, Ah, retain we all we can! If the clear impression dies, Ah, the dim remembrance prize! Ere the parting hour go by, Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

THE NEW SIRENS.

In the cedar-shadow sleeping, Where cool grass and fragrant glooms Late at eve had lured me, creeping From your darkened palace rooms,— I, who in your train at morning Strolled and sang with joyful mind, Heard, in slumber, sounds of warning; Saw the hoarse boughs labor in the wind.

Who are they, O pensive Graces, (For I dreamed they wore your forms) Who on shores and sea-washed places Scoop the shelves and fret the storms? Who, when ships are that way tending, Troop across the flushing sands, To all reefs and narrows wending, With blown tresses, and with beckoning hands?

Yet I see, the howling levels Of the deep are not your lair; And your tragic-vaunted revels Are less lonely than they were. Like those kings with treasure steering From the jewelled lands of dawn, Troops, with gold and gifts, appearing, Stream all day through your enchanted lawn.

And we too, from upland valleys, Where some Muse with half-curved frown Leans her ear to your mad sallies Which the charmed winds never drown; By faint music guided, ranging The scared glens, we wandered on, Left our awful laurels hanging, And came heaped with myrtles to your throne.

From the dragon-wardered fountains Where the springs of knowledge are, From the watchers on the mountains, And the bright and morning star; We are exiles, we are falling, We have lost them at your call— O ye false ones, at your calling Seeking ceiled chambers and a palace-hall!

Are the accents of your luring More melodious than of yore? Are those frail forms more enduring Than the charms Ulysses bore? That we sought you with rejoicings, Till at evening we descry At a pause of Siren voicings These vexed branches and this howling sky?...

. . . . . . . . . .

Oh, your pardon! The uncouthness Of that primal age is gone, And the skin of dazzling smoothness Screens not now a heart of stone. Love has flushed those cruel faces; And those slackened arms forego The delight of death-embraces, And yon whitening bone-mounds do not grow.

“Ah!” you say; “the large appearance Of man’s labor is but vain, And we plead as stanch adherence Due to pleasure as to pain.” Pointing to earth’s careworn creatures, “Come,” you murmur with a sigh: “Ah! we own diviner features, Loftier bearing, and a prouder eye.

“Come,” you say, “the hours were dreary; Life without love does not fade; Vain it wastes, and we grew weary In the slumbrous cedarn shade. Round our hearts with long caresses, With low sighings, Silence stole, And her load of steaming tresses Weighed, like Ossa, on the aery soul.

“Come,” you say, “the soul is fainting Till she search and learn her own, And the wisdom of man’s painting Leaves her riddle half unknown. Come,” you say, “the brain is seeking, While the princely heart is dead; Yet this gleaned, when gods were speaking, Rarer secrets than the toiling head.

“Come,” you say, “opinion trembles, Judgment shifts, convictions go; Life dries up, the heart dissembles: Only, what we feel, we know. Hath your wisdom known emotions? Will it weep our burning tears? Hath it drunk of our love-potions Crowning moments with the weight of years?”

I am dumb. Alas! too soon all Man’s grave reasons disappear! Yet, I think, at God’s tribunal Some large answer you shall hear. But for me, my thoughts are straying Where at sunrise, through your vines, On these lawns I saw you playing, Hanging garlands on your odorous pines;

When your showering locks inwound you, And your heavenly eyes shone through; When the pine-boughs yielded round you, And your brows were starred with dew; And immortal forms, to meet you, Down the statued alleys came, And through golden horns, to greet you, Blew such music as a god may frame.

Yes, I muse! And if the dawning Into daylight never grew, If the glistering wings of morning On the dry noon shook their dew, If the fits of joy were longer, Or the day were sooner done, Or, perhaps, if hope were stronger, No weak nursling of an earthly sun ... Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens, Dusk the hall with yew!

. . . . . . . . . .

For a bound was set to meetings, And the sombre day dragged on; And the burst of joyful greetings, And the joyful dawn, were gone. For the eye grows filled with gazing, And on raptures follow calms; And those warm locks men were praising Drooped, unbraided, on your listless arms.

Storms unsmoothed your folded valleys, And made all your cedars frown; Leaves were whirling in the alleys Which your lovers wandered down. —Sitting cheerless in your bowers, The hands propping the sunk head, Do they gall you, the long hours, And the hungry thought that must be fed?

Is the pleasure that is tasted Patient of a long review? Will the fire joy hath wasted, Mused on, warm the heart anew? —Or, are those old thoughts returning, Guests the dull sense never knew, Stars, set deep, yet inly burning, Germs, your untrimmed passion overgrew?

Once, like us, you took your station, Watchers for a purer fire; But you drooped in expectation, And you wearied in desire. When the first rose flush was steeping All the frore peak’s awful crown, Shepherds say, they found you sleeping In some windless valley, farther down.

Then you wept, and slowly raising Your dozed eyelids, sought again, Half in doubt, they say, and gazing Sadly back, the seats of men; Snatched a turbid inspiration From some transient earthly sun, And proclaimed your vain ovation For those mimic raptures you had won....

. . . . . . . . . .

With a sad, majestic motion, With a stately, slow surprise, From their earthward-bound devotion Lifting up your languid eyes— Would you freeze my louder boldness, Dumbly smiling as you go, One faint frown of distant coldness Flitting fast across each marble brow?

Do I brighten at your sorrow, O sweet pleaders? doth my lot Find assurance in to-morrow Of one joy which you have not? Oh, speak once, and shame my sadness! Let this sobbing, Phrygian strain, Mocked and baffled by your gladness, Mar the music of your feasts in vain!

. . . . . . . . . .

Scent, and song, and light, and flowers! Gust on gust, the harsh winds blow— Come, bind up those ringlet showers! Roses for that dreaming brow! Come, once more that ancient lightness, Glancing feet, and eager eyes! Let your broad lamps flash the brightness Which the sorrow-stricken day denies.

Through black depths of serried shadows, Up cold aisles of buried glade; In the mist of river-meadows Where the looming deer are laid; From your dazzled windows streaming, From your humming festal room, Deep and far, a broken gleaming Reels and shivers on the ruffled gloom.

Where I stand, the grass is glowing: Doubtless you are passing fair! But I hear the north wind blowing, And I feel the cold night-air, Can I look on your sweet faces, And your proud heads backward thrown, From this dusk of leaf-strewn places With the dumb woods and the night alone?

Yet, indeed, this flux of guesses,— Mad delight, and frozen calms,— Mirth to-day, and vine-bound tresses, And to-morrow—folded palms; Is this all? this balanced measure? Could life run no happier way? Joyous at the height of pleasure, Passive at the nadir of dismay?

But, indeed, this proud possession, This far-reaching, magic chain, Linking in a mad succession Fits of joy and fits of pain,— Have you seen it at the closing? Have you tracked its clouded ways? Can your eyes, while fools are dozing, Drop, with mine, adown life’s latter days?

When a dreary light is wading Through this waste of sunless greens, When the flashing lights are fading On the peerless cheek of queens, When the mean shall no more sorrow, And the proudest no more smile; While the dawning of the morrow Widens slowly westward all that while?

Then, when change itself is over, When the slow tide sets one way, Shall you find the radiant lover, Even by moments, of to-day? The eye wanders, faith is failing: Oh, loose hands, and let it be! Proudly, like a king bewailing, Oh, let fall one tear, and set us free!

All true speech and large avowal Which the jealous soul concedes; All man’s heart which brooks bestowal, All frank faith which passion breeds,— These we had, and we gave truly; Doubt not, what we had, we gave! False we were not, nor unruly; Lodgers in the forest and the cave.

Long we wandered with you, feeding Our rapt souls on your replies, In a wistful silence reading All the meaning of your eyes. By moss-bordered statues sitting, By well-heads, in summer days. But we turn, our eyes are flitting— See, the white east, and the morning-rays!

And you too, O worshipped Graces, Sylvan gods of this fair shade! Is there doubt on divine faces? Are the blessed gods dismayed? Can men worship the wan features, The sunk eyes, the wailing tone, Of unsphered, discrownèd creatures, Souls as little godlike as their own?

Come, loose hands! The wingèd fleetness Of immortal feet is gone; And your scents have shed their sweetness, And your flowers are overblown. And your jewelled gauds surrender Half their glories to the day; Freely did they flash their splendor, Freely gave it—but it dies away.

In the pines, the thrush is waking; Lo, yon orient hill in flames! Scores of true-love-knots are breaking At divorce which it proclaims. When the lamps are paled at morning, Heart quits heart, and hand quits hand. Cold in that unlovely dawning, Loveless, rayless, joyless, you shall stand!

Pluck no more red roses, maidens, Leave the lilies in their dew; Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens, Dusk, oh, dusk the hall with yew! —Shall I seek, that I may scorn her, Her I loved at eventide? Shall I ask, what faded mourner Stands, at daybreak, weeping by my side?... Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens! Dusk the hall with yew!

THE VOICE.

As the kindling glances, Queen-like and clear, Which the bright moon lances From her tranquil sphere At the sleepless waters Of a lonely mere, On the wild whirling waves, mournfully, mournfully, Shiver and die; As the tears of sorrow Mothers have shed— Prayers that to-morrow Shall in vain be sped When the flower they flow for Lies frozen and dead— Fall on the throbbing brow, fall on the burning breast, Bringing no rest;

Like bright waves that fall With a lifelike motion On the lifeless margin of the sparkling ocean; A wild rose climbing up a mouldering wall; A gush of sunbeams through a ruined hall; Strains of glad music at a funeral,— So sad, and with so wild a start To this deep-sobered heart, So anxiously and painfully, So drearily and doubtfully, And, oh! with such intolerable change Of thought, such contrast strange, O unforgotten voice, thy accents come, Like wanderers from the world’s extremity, Unto their ancient home!

In vain, all, all in vain, They beat upon mine ear again,— Those melancholy tones so sweet and still; Those lute-like tones which in the bygone year Did steal into mine ear; Blew such a thrilling summons to my will, Yet could not shake it; Made my tost heart its very life-blood spill, Yet could not break it.

YOUTH’S AGITATIONS.

When I shall be divorced, some ten years hence, From this poor present self which I am now; When youth has done its tedious vain expense Of passions that forever ebb and flow:

Shall I not joy youth’s heats are left behind, And breathe more happy in an even clime? Ah, no! for then I shall begin to find A thousand virtues in this hated time!

Then I shall wish its agitations back, And all its thwarting currents of desire; Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack, And call this hurrying fever, generous fire;

And sigh that one thing only has been lent To youth and age in common,—discontent.

THE WORLD’S TRIUMPHS.

So far as I conceive the world’s rebuke To him addressed who would recast her new, Not from herself her fame of strength she took, But from their weakness who would work her rue.

“Behold,” she cries, “so many rages lulled, So many fiery spirits quite cooled down; Look how so many valors, long undulled, After short commerce with me, fear my frown!

Thou too, when thou against my crimes wouldst cry, Let thy foreboded homage check thy tongue!”— The world speaks well; yet might her foe reply, “Are wills so weak? then let not mine wait long!

Hast thou so rare a poison? let me be Keener to slay thee, lest thou poison me!”

STAGIRIUS.[3]

Thou, who dost dwell alone; Thou, who dost know thine own; Thou, to whom all are known From the cradle to the grave,— Save, oh! save. From the world’s temptations, From tribulations, From that fierce anguish Wherein we languish, From that torpor deep Wherein we lie asleep, Heavy as death, cold as the grave, Save, oh! save.

When the soul, growing clearer, Sees God no nearer; When the soul, mounting higher, To God comes no nigher; But the arch-fiend Pride Mounts at her side, Foiling her high emprise, Sealing her eagle eyes, And, when she fain would soar, Makes idols to adore, Changing the pure emotion Of her high devotion, To a skin-deep sense Of her own eloquence; Strong to deceive, strong to enslave,— Save, oh! save.

From the ingrained fashion Of this earthly nature That mars thy creature; From grief that is but passion, From mirth that is but feigning, From tears that bring no healing, From wild and weak complaining, Thine old strength revealing, Save, oh! save. From doubt, where all is double; Where wise men are not strong, Where comfort turns to trouble, Where just men suffer wrong; Where sorrow treads on joy, Where sweet things soonest cloy, Where faiths are built on dust, Where love is half mistrust, Hungry, and barren, and sharp as the sea,— Oh! set us free. Oh, let the false dream fly, Where our sick souls do lie Tossing continually! Oh, where thy voice doth come, Let all doubts be dumb, Let all words be mild, All strifes be reconciled, All pains beguiled! Light bring no blindness, Love no unkindness, Knowledge no ruin, Fear no undoing! From the cradle to the grave, Save, oh! save.

HUMAN LIFE.

What mortal, when he saw, Life’s voyage done, his heavenly Friend, Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly,— “I have kept uninfringed my nature’s law; The inly-written chart thou gavest me, To guide me, I have steered by to the end”?

Ah! let us make no claim, On life’s incognizable sea, To too exact a steering of our way; Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim, If some fair coast has lured us to make stay, Or some friend hailed us to keep company.

Ay! we would each fain drive At random, and not steer by rule. Weakness! and worse, weakness bestowed in vain! Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive; We rush by coasts where we had lief remain: Man cannot, though he would, live chance’s fool.

No! as the foaming swath Of torn-up water, on the main, Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar On either side the black deep-furrowed path Cut by an onward-laboring vessel’s prore, And never touches the ship-side again;

Even so we leave behind, As, chartered by some unknown Powers, We stem across the sea of life by night, The joys which were not for our use designed,— The friends to whom we had no natural right, The homes that were not destined to be ours.

TO A GYPSY CHILD BY THE SEASHORE;

DOUGLAS, ISLE OF MAN.

Who taught this pleading to unpractised eyes? Who hid such import in an infant’s gloom? Who lent thee, child, this meditative guise? Who massed, round that slight brow, these clouds of doom?

Lo! sails that gleam a moment, and are gone; The swinging waters, and the clustered pier. Not idly earth and ocean labor on, Nor idly do these sea-birds hover near.

But thou, whom superfluity of joy Wafts not from thine own thoughts, nor longings vain, Nor weariness, the full-fed soul’s annoy, Remaining in thy hunger and in thy pain; Thou, drugging pain by patience; half averse From thine own mother’s breast, that knows not thee; With eyes which sought thine eyes thou didst converse, And that soul-searching vision fell on me.

Glooms that go deep as thine, I have not known; Moods of fantastic sadness, nothing worth. Thy sorrow and thy calmness are thine own; Glooms that enhance and glorify this earth.

What mood wears like complexion to thy woe? His, who in mountain glens, at noon of day, Sits rapt, and hears the battle break below? —Ah! thine was not the shelter, but the fray.

Some exile’s, mindful how the past was glad? Some angel’s, in an alien planet born? —No exile’s dream was ever half so sad, Nor any angel’s sorrow so forlorn.

Is the calm thine of stoic souls, who weigh Life well, and find it wanting, nor deplore; But in disdainful silence turn away, Stand mute, self-centred, stern, and dream no more?

Or do I wait, to hear some gray-haired king Unravel all his many-colored lore; Whose mind hath known all arts of governing, Mused much, loved life a little, loathed it more?

Down the pale cheek, long lines of shadow slope, Which years, and curious thought, and suffering give. —Thou hast foreknown the vanity of hope, Foreseen thy harvest, yet proceed’st to live.

O meek anticipant of that sure pain Whose sureness gray-haired scholars hardly learn! What wonder shall time breed, to swell thy strain? What heavens, what earth, what suns, shalt thou discern?

Ere the long night, whose stillness brooks no star, Match that funereal aspect with her pall, I think thou wilt have fathomed life too far, Have known too much—or else forgotten all.

The Guide of our dark steps, a triple veil Betwixt our senses and our sorrow keeps; Hath sown with cloudless passages the tale Of grief, and eased us with a thousand sleeps.

Ah! not the nectarous poppy lovers use, Not daily labor’s dull, Lethæan spring, Oblivion in lost angels can infuse Of the soiled glory, and the trailing wing;

And though thou glean, what strenuous gleaners may, In the thronged fields where winning comes by strife; And though the just sun gild, as mortals pray, Some reaches of thy storm-vexed stream of life;

Though that blank sunshine blind thee; though the cloud That severed the world’s march and thine, be gone; Though ease dulls grace, and wisdom be too proud To halve a lodging that was all her own,—

Once, ere thy day go down, thou shalt discern, Oh, once, ere night, in thy success, thy chain! Ere the long evening close, thou shalt return, And wear this majesty of grief again.

A QUESTION.

TO FAUSTA.

Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows Like the wave; Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men. Love lends life a little grace, A few sad smiles; and then Both are laid in one cold place,— In the grave.

Dreams dawn and fly, friends smile and die Like spring flowers; Our vaunted life is one long funeral. Men dig graves with bitter tears For their dead hopes; and all, Mazed with doubts and sick with fears, Count the hours.

We count the hours! These dreams of ours, False and hollow, Do we go hence, and find they are not dead? Joys we dimly apprehend Faces that smiled and fled, Hopes born here, and born to end, Shall we follow?

IN UTRUMQUE PARATUS.

If, in the silent mind of One all-pure, At first imagined lay The sacred world; and by procession sure From those still deeps, in form and color drest, Seasons alternating, and night and day, The long-mused thought to north, south, east, and west, Took then its all-seen way;

Oh, waking on a world which thus-wise springs! Whether it needs thee count Betwixt thy waking and the birth of things Ages or hours—oh, waking on life’s stream! By lonely pureness to the all-pure fount (Only by this thou canst) the colored dream Of life remount!

Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow, And faint the city gleams; Rare the lone pastoral huts—marvel not thou! The solemn peaks but to the stars are known,— But to the stars, and the cold lunar beams; Alone the sun arises, and alone Spring the great streams.

But, if the wild unfathered mass no birth In divine seats hath known; In the blank, echoing solitude, if Earth, Rocking her obscure body to and fro, Ceases not from all time to heave and groan, Unfruitful oft, and at her happiest throe Forms, what she forms, alone;

Oh, seeming sole to awake, thy sun-bathed head Piercing the solemn cloud Round thy still dreaming brother-world outspread! O man, whom Earth, thy long-vexed mother, bare Not without joy,—so radiant, so endowed (Such happy issue crowned her painful care),— Be not too proud!

Oh, when most self-exalted most alone, Chief dreamer, own thy dream! Thy brother-world stirs at thy feet unknown; Who hath a monarch’s hath no brother’s part— Yet doth thine inmost soul with yearning teem. Oh, what a spasm shakes the dreamer’s heart! “I, too, but seem.”

THE WORLD AND THE QUIETIST.

TO CRITIAS.

“Why, when the world’s great mind Hath finally inclined, Why,” you say, Critias, “be debating still? Why, with these mournful rhymes Learned in more languid climes, Blame our activity Who, with such passionate will, Are what we mean to be?”

Critias, long since, I know (For Fate decreed it so), Long since the world hath set its heart to live; Long since, with credulous zeal It turns life’s mighty wheel, Still doth for laborers send Who still their labor give, And still expects an end.

Yet, as the wheel flies round, With no ungrateful sound Do adverse voices fall on the world’s ear. Deafened by his own stir, The rugged laborer Caught not till then a sense So glowing and so near Of his omnipotence.

So, when the feast grew loud In Susa’s palace proud, A white-robed slave stole to the great king’s side. He spake—the great king heard; Felt the slow-rolling word Swell his attentive soul; Breathed deeply as it died, And drained his mighty bowl.

THE SECOND BEST.

Moderate tasks and moderate leisure, Quiet living, strict-kept measure Both in suffering and in pleasure,— ’Tis for this thy nature yearns.

But so many books thou readest, But so many schemes thou breedest, But so many wishes feedest, That thy poor head almost turns.

And (the world’s so madly jangled, Human things so fast entangled) Nature’s wish must now be strangled For that best which she discerns.

So it must be! yet, while leading A strained life, while over-feeding, Like the rest, his wit with reading, No small profit that man earns,—

Who through all he meets can steer him, Can reject what cannot clear him, Cling to what can truly cheer him; Who each day more surely learns

That an impulse, from the distance Of his deepest, best existence, To the words, “Hope, Light, Persistence,” Strongly sets and truly burns.

CONSOLATION.

Mist clogs the sunshine. Smoky dwarf houses Hem me round everywhere; A vague dejection Weighs down my soul.

Yet, while I languish, Everywhere countless Prospects unroll themselves, And countless beings Pass countless moods.

Far hence, in Asia, On the smooth convent-roofs, On the gold terraces, Of holy Lassa, Bright shines the sun.

Gray time-worn marbles Hold the pure Muses; In their cool gallery, By yellow Tiber, They still look fair.

Strange unloved uproar[A] Shrills round their portal; Yet not on Helicon Kept they more cloudless Their noble calm.

Through sun-proof alleys In a lone, sand-hemmed City of Africa, A blind, led beggar, Age-bowed, asks alms.

No bolder robber Erst abode ambushed Deep in the sandy waste; No clearer eyesight Spied prey afar.

Saharan sand-winds Seared his keen eyeballs; Spent is the spoil he won. For him the present Holds only pain.

Two young, fair lovers, Where the warm June-wind, Fresh from the summer fields Plays fondly round them, Stand, tranced in joy.

With sweet, joined voices, And with eyes brimming, “Ah!” they cry, “Destiny, Prolong the present! Time, stand still here!”

The prompt stern goddess Shakes her head, frowning: Time gives his hour-glass Its due reversal; Their hour is gone.

With weak indulgence Did the just goddess Lengthen their happiness, She lengthened also Distress elsewhere.

The hour whose happy Unalloyed moments I would eternalize, Ten thousand mourners Well pleased see end.

The bleak, stern hour, Whose severe moments I would annihilate, Is passed by others In warmth, light, joy.

Time, so complained of, Who to no one man Shows partiality, Brings round to all men Some undimmed hours.

[A] Written during the siege of Rome by the French, 1849.

RESIGNATION.

TO FAUSTA.

To die be given us, or attain! Fierce work it were, to do again.

So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, prayed At burning noon; so warriors said, Scarfed with the cross, who watched the miles Of dust which wreathed their struggling files Down Lydian mountains; so, when snows Round Alpine summits, eddying, rose, The Goth, bound Rome-wards; so the Hun, Crouched on his saddle, while the sun Went lurid down o’er flooded plains Through which the groaning Danube strains To the drear Euxine: so pray all, Whom labors, self-ordained, inthrall; Because they to themselves propose On this side the all-common close A goal which, gained, may give repose. So pray they; and to stand again Where they stood once, to them were pain; Pain to thread back and to renew Past straits, and currents long steered through.

But milder natures, and more free,— Whom an unblamed serenity Hath freed from passions, and the state Of struggle these necessitate; Whom schooling of the stubborn mind Hath made, or birth hath found, resigned,— These mourn not, that their goings pay Obedience to the passing day. These claim not every laughing hour For handmaid to their striding power; Each in her turn, with torch upreared, To await their march; and when appeared, Through the cold gloom, with measured race, To usher for a destined space (Her own sweet errands all foregone) The too imperious traveller on. These, Fausta, ask not this; nor thou, Time’s chafing prisoner, ask it now!

We left just ten years since, you say, That wayside inn we left to-day.[4] Our jovial host, as forth we fare, Shouts greeting from his easy-chair. High on a bank our leader stands, Reviews and ranks his motley bands, Makes clear our goal to every eye,— The valley’s western boundary. A gate swings to! our tide hath flowed Already from the silent road. The valley-pastures, one by one, Are threaded, quiet in the sun; And now, beyond the rude stone bridge, Slopes gracious up the western ridge. Its woody border, and the last Of its dark upland farms, is past; Cool farms, with open-lying stores, Under their burnished sycamores,— All past! and through the trees we glide Emerging on the green hillside. There climbing hangs, a far-seen sign, Our wavering, many-colored line; There winds, up-streaming slowly still Over the summit of the hill. And now, in front, behold outspread Those upper regions we must tread,— Mild hollows, and clear heathy swells, The cheerful silence of the fells.

Some two hours’ march, with serious air, Through the deep noontide heats we fare; The red-grouse, springing at our sound, Skims, now and then, the shining ground; No life, save his and ours, intrudes Upon these breathless solitudes. Oh, joy! again the farms appear. Cool shade is there, and rustic cheer; There springs the brook will guide us down, Bright comrade, to the noisy town. Lingering, we follow down; we gain The town, the highway, and the plain. And many a mile of dusty way, Parched and road-worn, we made that day; But, Fausta, I remember well, That as the balmy darkness fell, We bathed our hands with speechless glee, That night, in the wide-glimmering sea.

Once more we tread this self-same road, Fausta, which ten years since we trod; Alone we tread it, you and I, Ghosts of that boisterous company. Here, where the brook shines, near its head, In its clear, shallow, turf-fringed bed; Here, whence the eye first sees, far down, Capped with faint smoke, the noisy town,— Here sit we, and again unroll, Though slowly, the familiar whole. The solemn wastes of heathy hill Sleep in the July sunshine still; The self-same shadows now, as then, Play through this grassy upland glen; The loose dark stones on the green way Lie strewn, it seems, where then they lay; On this mild bank above the stream, (You crush them!) the blue gentians gleam. Still this wild brook, the rushes cool, The sailing foam, the shining pool! These are not changed; and we, you say, Are scarce more changed, in truth, than they.

The gypsies, whom we met below, They too have long roamed to and fro; They ramble, leaving, where they pass, Their fragments on the cumbered grass. And often to some kindly place Chance guides the migratory race, Where, though long wanderings intervene, They recognize a former scene. The dingy tents are pitched; the fires Give to the wind their wavering spires; In dark knots crouch round the wild flame Their children, as when first they came; They see their shackled beasts again Move, browsing, up the gray-walled lane. Signs are not wanting, which might raise The ghost in them of former days,— Signs are not wanting, if they would; Suggestions to disquietude. For them, for all, time’s busy touch, While it mends little, troubles much. Their joints grow stiffer—but the year Runs his old round of dubious cheer; Chilly they grow—yet winds in March, Still, sharp as ever, freeze and parch; They must live still—and yet, God knows, Crowded and keen the country grows; It seems as if, in their decay, The law grew stronger every day. So might they reason, so compare, Fausta, times past with times that are; But no! they rubbed through yesterday In their hereditary way, And they will rub through, if they can, To-morrow on the self-same plan, Till death arrive to supersede, For them, vicissitude and need.

The poet, to whose mighty heart Heaven doth a quicker pulse impart, Subdues that energy to scan Not his own course, but that of man. Though he move mountains, though his day Be passed on the proud heights of sway, Though he hath loosed a thousand chains, Though he hath borne immortal pains, Action and suffering though he know,— He hath not lived, if he lives so. He sees, in some great-historied land, A ruler of the people stand, Sees his strong thought in fiery flood Roll through the heaving multitude, Exults—yet for no moment’s space Envies the all-regarded place. Beautiful eyes meet his, and he Bears to admire uncravingly; They pass: he, mingled with the crowd, Is in their far-off triumphs proud.

From some high station he looks down, At sunset, on a populous town; Surveys each happy group which fleets, Toil ended, through the shining streets,— Each with some errand of its own,— And does not say, I am alone. He sees the gentle stir of birth When morning purifies the earth; He leans upon a gate, and sees The pastures, and the quiet trees. Low, woody hill, with gracious bound, Folds the still valley almost round; The cuckoo, loud on some high lawn, Is answered from the depth of dawn; In the hedge straggling to the stream, Pale, dew-drenched, half-shut roses gleam. But, where the farther side slopes down, He sees the drowsy new-waked clown In his white quaint-embroidered frock Make, whistling, toward his mist-wreathed flock, Slowly, behind his heavy tread, The wet, flowered grass heaves up its head. Leaned on his gate, he gazes: tears Are in his eyes, and in his ears The murmur of a thousand years. Before him he sees life unroll, A placid and continuous whole,— That general life, which does not cease, Whose secret is not joy, but peace; That life, whose dumb wish is not missed If birth proceeds, if things subsist; The life of plants, and stones, and rain, The life he craves—if not in vain Fate gave, what chance shall not control, His sad lucidity of soul.

You listen; but that wandering smile, Fausta, betrays you cold the while! Your eyes pursue the bells of foam Washed, eddying, from this bank, their home. Those gypsies—so your thoughts I scan— Are less, the poet more, than man. They feel not, though they move and see. Deeper the poet feels; but he Breathes, when he will, immortal air, Where Orpheus and where Homer are. In the day’s life, whose iron round Hems us all in, he is not bound; He leaves his kind, o’erleaps their pen, And flees the common life of men. He escapes thence, but we abide. Not deep the poet sees, but wide.

The world in which we live and move Outlasts aversion, outlasts love, Outlasts each effort, interest, hope, Remorse, grief, joy; and, were the scope Of these affections wider made, Man still would see, and see dismayed, Beyond his passion’s widest range, Far regions of eternal change. Nay, and since death, which wipes out man, Finds him with many an unsolved plan, With much unknown, and much untried, Wonder not dead, and thirst not dried, Still gazing on the ever full Eternal mundane spectacle,— This world in which we draw our breath, In some sense, Fausta, outlasts death.

Blame thou not, therefore, him who dares Judge vain beforehand human cares; Whose natural insight can discern What through experience others learn; Who needs not love and power, to know Love transient, power an unreal show; Who treads at ease life’s uncheered ways: Him blame not, Fausta, rather praise! Rather thyself for some aim pray, Nobler than this, to fill the day; Rather that heart, which burns in thee, Ask, not to amuse, but to set free; Be passionate hopes not ill resigned For quiet, and a fearless mind. And though fate grudge to thee and me The poet’s rapt security, Yet they, believe me, who await No gifts from chance, have conquered fate. They, winning room to see and hear, And to men’s business not too near, Through clouds of individual strife Draw homeward to the general life. Like leaves by suns not yet uncurled; To the wise, foolish; to the world, Weak: yet not weak, I might reply, Not foolish, Fausta, in His eye, To whom each moment in its race, Crowd as we will its neutral space, Is but a quiet watershed Whence, equally, the seas of life and death are fed.

Enough, we live! and if a life With large results so little rife, Though bearable, seem hardly worth This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth; Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread, The solemn hills around us spread, This stream which falls incessantly, The strange-scrawled rocks, the lonely sky, If I might lend their life a voice, Seem to bear rather than rejoice. And even could the intemperate prayer Man iterates, while these forbear, For movement, for an ampler sphere, Pierce Fate’s impenetrable ear; Not milder is the general lot Because our spirits have forgot, In action’s dizzying eddy whirled, The something that infects the world.

NARRATIVE POEMS.

SOHRAB AND RUSTUM.[5]

AN EPISODE.

And the first gray of morning filled the east, And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream. But all the Tartar camp along the stream Was hushed, and still the men were plunged in sleep. Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed: But when the gray dawn stole into his tent, He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword, And took his horseman’s cloak, and left his tent, And went abroad into the cold wet fog, Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa’s tent. Through the black Tartar tents he passed, which stood Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o’erflow When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere; Through the black tents he passed, o’er that low strand, And to a hillock came, a little back From the stream’s brink,—the spot where first a boat, Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land. The men of former times had crowned the top With a clay fort; but that was fallen, and now The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa’s tent, A dome of laths, and o’er it felts were spread. And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent, And found the old man sleeping on his bed Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms. And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step Was dulled; for he slept light, an old man’s sleep; And he rose quickly on one arm, and said,— “Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn. Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?” But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said,— “Thou know’st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I. The sun has not yet risen, and the foe Sleep: but I sleep not; all night long I lie Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee. For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son, In Samarcand, before the army marched; And I will tell thee what my heart desires. Thou know’st if, since from Ader-baijan first I came among the Tartars, and bore arms, I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown, At my boy’s years, the courage of a man. This too thou know’st, that while I still bear on The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world, And beat the Persians back on every field, I seek one man, one man, and one alone,— Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet, Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field, His not unworthy, not inglorious son. So I long hoped, but him I never find. Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask. Let the two armies rest to-day; but I Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords To meet me, man to man: if I prevail, Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall— Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin. Dim is the rumor of a common fight, Where host meets host, and many names are sunk; But of a single combat fame speaks clear.” He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand Of the young man in his, and sighed, and said,— “O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine! Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs, And share the battle’s common chance with us Who love thee, but must press forever first, In single fight incurring single risk, To find a father thou hast never seen? That were far best, my son, to stay with us Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war, And when ’tis truce, then in Afrasiab’s towns. But if this one desire indeed rules all, To seek out Rustum—seek him not through fight! Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms, O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son! But far hence seek him, for he is not here. For now it is not as when I was young, When Rustum was in front of every fray: But now he keeps apart, and sits at home, In Seistan, with Zal, his father old; Whether that his own mighty strength at last Feels the abhorred approaches of old age; Or in some quarrel with the Persian king. There go!—Thou wilt not? Yet my heart forebodes Danger or death awaits thee on this field. Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost To us; fain therefore send thee hence in peace To seek thy father, not seek single fights In vain. But who can keep the lion’s cub From ravening, and who govern Rustum’s son? Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires.” So said he, and dropped Sohrab’s hand, and left His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay; And o’er his chilly limbs his woollen coat He passed, and tied his sandals on his feet, And threw a white cloak round him, and he took In his right hand a ruler’s staff, no sword; And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap, Black, glossy, curled, the fleece of Kara-Kul; And raised the curtain of his tent, and called His herald to his side, and went abroad. The sun by this had risen, and cleared the fog From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands. And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed Into the open plain: so Haman bade,— Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled The host, and still was in his lusty prime. From their black tents, long files of horse, they streamed; As when some gray November morn the files, In marching order spread, of long-necked cranes Stream over Casbin and the southern slopes Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries, Or some frore Caspian reed-bed, southward bound For the warm Persian seaboard,—so they streamed. The Tartars of the Oxus, the king’s guard, First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears; Large men, large steeds, who from Bokhara come And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares. Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns of the south, The Tukas, and the lances of Salore, And those from Attruck and the Caspian sands; Light men and on light steeds, who only drink The acrid milk of camels, and their wells. And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came From far, and a more doubtful service owned,— The Tartars of Ferghana, from the banks Of the Jaxartes, men with scanty beards And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes Who roam o’er Kipchak and the northern waste, Kalmucks and unkempt Kuzzaks, tribes who stray Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes, Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere,— These all filed out from camp into the plain. And on the other side the Persians formed,— First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seemed, The Ilyats of Khorassan; and behind, The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot, Marshalled battalions bright in burnished steel. But Peran-Wisa with his herald came, Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front, And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks. And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back, He took his spear, and to the front he came, And checked his ranks, and fixed them where they stood. And the old Tartar came upon the sand Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said,— “Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear! Let there be truce between the hosts to-day. But choose a champion from the Persian lords To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man.” As in the country, on a morn in June, When the dew glistens on the pearled ears, A shiver runs through the deep corn for joy,— So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said, A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved. But as a troop of pedlers from Cabool Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, That vast sky-neighboring mountain of milk snow; Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves Slake their parched throats with sugared mulberries; In single file they move, and stop their breath, For fear they should dislodge the o’erhanging snows,— So the pale Persians held their breath with fear. And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up To counsel; Gudurz and Zoarrah came, And Feraburz, who ruled the Persian host Second, and was the uncle of the king; These came and counselled, and then Gudurz said,— “Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up, Yet champion have we none to match this youth. He has the wild stag’s foot, the lion’s heart. But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits And sullen, and has pitched his tents apart. Him will I seek, and carry to his ear The Tartar challenge, and this young man’s name; Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight. Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up.” So spake he; and Ferood stood forth and cried,— “Old man, be it agreed as thou hast said! Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man.” He spake; and Peran-Wisa turned, and strode Back through the opening squadrons to his tent. But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran, And crossed the camp which lay behind, and reached, Out on the sands beyond it, Rustum’s tents. Of scarlet cloth they were, and glittering gay, Just pitched; the high pavilion in the midst Was Rustum’s, and his men lay camped around. And Gudurz entered Rustum’s tent, and found Rustum; his morning meal was done, but still The table stood before him, charged with food,— A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread, And dark-green melons; and there Rustum sate Listless, and held a falcon on his wrist, And played with it; but Gudurz came and stood Before him; and he looked, and saw him stand, And with a cry sprang up, and dropped the bird, And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said,— “Welcome! these eyes could see no better sight. What news? but sit down first, and eat and drink.” But Gudurz stood in the tent-door, and said,— “Not now. A time will come to eat and drink, But not to-day: to-day has other needs. The armies are drawn out, and stand at gaze; For, from the Tartars is a challenge brought To pick a champion from the Persian lords To fight their champion—and thou know’st his name: Sohrab men call him, but his birth is hid. O Rustum, like thy might is this young man’s! He has the wild stag’s foot, the lion’s heart; And he is young, and Iran’s chiefs are old, Or else too weak; and all eyes turn to thee. Come down and help us, Rustum, or we lose!” He spoke; but Rustum answered with a smile,— “Go to! if Iran’s chiefs are old, then I Am older. If the young are weak, the king Errs strangely; for the king, for Kai Khosroo, Himself is young, and honors younger men, And lets the aged moulder to their graves. Rustum he loves no more, but loves the young: The young may rise at Sohrab’s vaunts, not I. For what care I, though all speak Sohrab’s fame? For would that I myself had such a son, And not that one slight helpless girl I have!— A son so famed, so brave, to send to war, And I to tarry with the snow-haired Zal, My father, whom the robber Afghans vex, And clip his borders short, and drive his herds, And he has none to guard his weak old age. There would I go, and hang my armor up, And with my great name fence that weak old man, And spend the goodly treasures I have got, And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab’s fame, And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings, And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no more.” He spoke, and smiled; and Gudurz made reply,— “What then, O Rustum, will men say to this, When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks, Hidest thy face? Take heed lest men should say,— Like some old miser, Rustum hoards his fame, And shuns to peril it with younger men.” And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply,— “O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words? Thou knowest better words than this to say. What is one more, one less, obscure or famed, Valiant or craven, young or old, to me? Are not they mortal? am not I myself? But who for men of naught would do great deeds? Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame! But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms: Let not men say of Rustum, he was matched In single fight with any mortal man.” He spoke, and frowned; and Gudurz turned, and ran Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy,— Fear at his wrath, but joy that Rustum came. But Rustum strode to his tent-door, and called His followers in, and bade them bring his arms, And clad himself in steel. The arms he chose Were plain, and on his shield was no device; Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold, And, from the fluted spine a-top, a plume Of horse-hair waved, a scarlet horse-hair plume. So armed, he issued forth; and Ruksh, his horse, Followed him like a faithful hound at heel,— Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the earth, The horse whom Rustum on a foray once Did in Bokhara by the river find A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home, And reared him; a bright bay, with lofty crest, Dight with a saddle-cloth of broidered green Crusted with gold, and on the ground were worked All beasts of chase, all beasts which hunters know. So followed, Rustum left his tents, and crossed The camp, and to the Persian host appeared. And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts Hailed; but the Tartars knew not who he was. And dear as the wet diver to the eyes Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore, By sandy Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf, Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night, Having made up his tale of precious pearls, Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands,— So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came. And Rustum to the Persian front advanced; And Sohrab armed in Haman’s tent, and came. And as a-field the reapers cut a swath Down through the middle of a rich man’s corn, And on each side are squares of standing corn, And in the midst a stubble short and bare,— So on each side were squares of men, with spears Bristling, and in the midst the open sand. And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came. As some rich woman, on a winter’s morn, Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge Who with numb blackened fingers makes her fire,— At cock-crow, on a starlit winter’s morn, When the frost flowers the whitened window-panes,— And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth All the most valiant chiefs; long he perused His spirited air, and wondered who he was. For very young he seemed, tenderly reared; Like some young cypress, tall and dark and straight, Which in a queen’s secluded garden throws Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf, By midnight, to a bubbling fountain’s sound,— So slender Sohrab seemed, so softly reared. And a deep pity entered Rustum’s soul As he beheld him coming; and he stood, And beckoned to him with his hand, and said,— “O thou young man, the air of heaven is soft, And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold! Heaven’s air is better than the cold dead grave. Behold me! I am vast, and clad in iron, And tried; and I have stood on many a field Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe: Never was that field lost, or that foe saved. O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death? Be governed: quit the Tartar host, and come To Iran, and be as my son to me, And fight beneath my banner till I die! There are no youths in Iran brave as thou.” So he spake, mildly. Sohrab heard his voice, The mighty voice of Rustum, and he saw His giant figure planted on the sand, Sole, like some single tower, which a chief Hath builded on the waste in former years Against the robbers; and he saw that head, Streaked with its first gray hairs; hope filled his soul, And he ran forward, and embraced his knees, And clasped his hand within his own, and said,— “Oh, by thy father’s head! by thine own soul! Art thou not Rustum? Speak! art thou not he?” But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth, And turned away, and spake to his own soul,— “Ah me! I muse what this young fox may mean! False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys. For if I now confess this thing he asks, And hide it not, but say, Rustum is here! He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes; But he will find some pretext not to fight, And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts, A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way. And on a feast-tide, in Afrasiab’s hall In Samarcand, he will arise and cry,— ‘I challenged once, when the two armies camped Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords To cope with me in single fight; but they Shrank, only Rustum dared; then he and I Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.’ So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud; Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me.” And then he turned, and sternly spake aloud,— “Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast called By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt, or yield! Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight? Rash boy, men look on Rustum’s face, and flee! For well I know, that did great Rustum stand Before thy face this day, and were revealed, There would be then no talk of fighting more. But being what I am, I tell thee this,— Do thou record it in thine inmost soul: Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt, and yield, Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer-floods, Oxus in summer wash them all away.” He spoke; and Sohrab answered, on his feet,— “Art thou so fierce? Thou wilt not fight me so! I am no girl, to be made pale by words. Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum stand Here on this field, there were no fighting then. But Rustum is far hence, and we stand here. Begin! thou art more vast, more dread than I; And thou art proved, I know, and I am young— But yet success sways with the breath of Heaven. And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know. For we are all, like swimmers in the sea, Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate, Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall; And whether it will heave us up to land, Or whether it will roll us out to sea,— Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death,— We know not, and no search will make us know: Only the event will teach us in its hour.” He spoke; and Rustum answered not, but hurled His spear: down from the shoulder, down it came, As on some partridge in the corn a hawk, That long has towered in the airy clouds, Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come, And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear Hissed, and went quivering down into the sand, Which it sent flying wide. Then Sohrab threw In turn, and full struck Rustum’s shield; sharp rang, The iron plates rang sharp, but turned the spear. And Rustum seized his club, which none but he Could wield; an unlopped trunk it was, and huge, Still rough,—like those which men in treeless plains To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers, Hyphasis or Hydaspes, when, high up By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack, And strewn the channels with torn boughs,—so huge The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside, Lithe as the glancing snake, and the club came Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum’s hand. And Rustum followed his own blow, and fell To his knees, and with his fingers clutched the sand. And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword, And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand; But he looked on, and smiled, nor bared his sword, But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said,— “Thou strik’st too hard! that club of thine will float Upon the summer-floods, and not my bones. But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I; No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul. Thou say’st thou art not Rustum; be it so! Who art thou, then, that canst so touch my soul? Boy as I am, I have seen battles too,— Have waded foremost in their bloody waves, And heard their hollow roar of dying men; But never was my heart thus touched before. Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the heart? O thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven! Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears, And make a truce, and sit upon this sand, And pledge each other in red wine, like friends, And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum’s deeds. There are enough foes in the Persian host, Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang; Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou Mayst fight; fight them, when they confront thy spear! But oh, let there be peace ’twixt thee and me!” He ceased; but while he spake, Rustum had risen, And stood erect, trembling with rage; his club He left to lie, but had regained his spear, Whose fiery point now in his mailed right hand Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn-star, The baleful sign of fevers; dust had soiled His stately crest, and dimmed his glittering arms. His breast heaved, his lips foamed, and twice his voice Was choked with rage; at last these words broke way:— “Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands! Curled minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words! Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more! Thou art not in Afrasiab’s gardens now With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance; But on the Oxus-sands, and in the dance Of battle, and with me, who make no play Of war: I fight it out, and hand to hand. Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine! Remember all thy valor; try thy feints And cunning! all the pity I had is gone, Because thou hast shamed me before both the hosts With thy light skipping tricks and thy girl’s wiles.” He spoke; and Sohrab kindled at his taunts, And he too drew his sword; at once they rushed Together, as two eagles on one prey Come rushing down together from the clouds, One from the east, one from the west; their shields Dashed with a clang together, and a din Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters Make often in the forest’s heart at morn, Of hewing axes, crashing trees,—such blows Rustum and Sohrab on each other hailed. And you would say that sun and stars took part In that unnatural conflict: for a cloud Grew suddenly in heaven, and darked the sun Over the fighters’ heads; and a wind rose Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain, And in a sandy whirlwind wrapped the pair. In gloom they twain were wrapped, and they alone; For both the on-looking hosts on either hand Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure, And the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream. But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes And laboring breath. First Rustum struck the shield Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear Rent the tough plates, but failed to reach the skin, And Rustum plucked it back with angry groan. Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum’s helm, Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest He shore away, and that proud horse-hair plume, Never till now defiled, sank to the dust; And Rustum bowed his head. But then the gloom Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air, And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh the horse, Who stood at hand, uttered a dreadful cry: No horse’s cry was that, most like the roar Of some pained desert-lion, who all day Has trailed the hunter’s javelin in his side, And comes at night to die upon the sand; The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear, And Oxus curdled as it crossed his stream. But Sohrab heard, and quailed not, but rushed on, And struck again; and again Rustum bowed His head; but this time all the blade, like glass, Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm, And in the hand the hilt remained alone. Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyes Glared, and he shook on high his menacing spear, And shouted, Rustum! Sohrab heard that shout, And shrank amazed: back he recoiled one step, And scanned with blinking eyes the advancing form; And then he stood bewildered, and he dropped His covering shield, and the spear pierced his side. He reeled, and staggering back sank to the ground. And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell, And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair,— Saw Rustum standing safe upon his feet, And Sohrab wounded on the bloody sand. Then, with a bitter smile, Rustum began,— “Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse, And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab’s tent; Or else that the great Rustum would come down Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move His heart to take a gift, and let thee go. And then that all the Tartar host would praise Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame, To glad thy father in his weak old age. Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man! Dearer to the red jackals shalt thou be Than to thy friends, and to thy father old.” And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied,— “Unknown thou art, yet thy fierce vaunt is vain. Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man! No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. For, were I matched with ten such men as thee, And I were that which till to-day I was, They should be lying here, I standing there. But that belovèd name unnerved my arm,— That name, and something, I confess, in thee, Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield Fall; and thy spear transfixed an unarmed foe. And now thou boastest, and insult’st my fate. But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear: The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death! My father, whom I seek through all the world, He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!” As when some hunter in the spring hath found A breeding eagle sitting on her nest, Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake, And pierced her with an arrow as she rose, And followed her to find her where she fell Far off; anon her mate comes winging back From hunting, and a great way off descries His huddling young left sole; at that, he checks His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps Circles above his eyry, with loud screams Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she Lies dying, with the arrow in her side, In some far stony gorge out of his ken, A heap of fluttering feathers,—never more Shall the lake glass her, flying over it; Never the black and dripping precipices Echo her stormy scream as she sails by,— As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood Over his dying son, and knew him not. And with a cold, incredulous voice, he said,— “What prate is this of fathers and revenge? The mighty Rustum never had a son.” And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied,— “Ah, yes, he had! and that lost son am I. Surely the news will one day reach his ear,— Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long, Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here; And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee. Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son! What will that grief, what will that vengeance, be? Oh, could I live till I that grief had seen! Yet him I pity not so much, but her, My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells With that old king, her father, who grows gray With age, and rules over the valiant Koords. Her most I pity, who no more will see Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp, With spoils and honor, when the war is done. But a dark rumor will be bruited up, From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear; And then will that defenceless woman learn That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more; But that in battle with a nameless foe, By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain.” He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, Thinking of her he left, and his own death. He spoke; but Rustum listened, plunged in thought. Nor did he yet believe it was his son Who spoke, although he called back names he knew; For he had had sure tidings that the babe Which was in Ader-baijan born to him Had been a puny girl, no boy at all— So that sad mother sent him word, for fear Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms. And so he deemed that either Sohrab took, By a false boast, the style of Rustum’s son; Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. So deemed he: yet he listened, plunged in thought; And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide Of the bright rocking ocean sets to shore At the full moon; tears gathered in his eyes; For he remembered his own early youth, And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn, The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries A far, bright city, smitten by the sun, Through many rolling clouds,—so Rustum saw His youth; saw Sohrab’s mother in her bloom; And that old king, her father, who loved well His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child With joy; and all the pleasant life they led, They three, in that long-distant summer-time,— The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt And hound, and morn on those delightful hills In Ader-baijan. And he saw that youth, Of age and looks to be his own dear son, Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand; Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe Of an unskilful gardener has been cut, Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed, And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, On the mown, dying grass,—so Sohrab lay, Lovely in death, upon the common sand. And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said,— “O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved! Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men Have told thee false: thou art not Rustum’s son. For Rustum had no son: one child he had,— But one,—a girl; who with her mother now Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us,— Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war.” But Sohrab answered him in wrath; for now The anguish of the deep-fixed spear grew fierce, And he desired to draw forth the steel, And let the blood flow free, and so to die. But first he would convince his stubborn foe; And, rising sternly on one arm, he said,— “Man, who art thou who dost deny my words? Truth sits upon the lips of dying men; And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine. I tell thee, pricked upon this arm I bear That seal which Rustum to my mother gave, That she might prick it on the babe she bore.” He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum’s cheeks, And his knees tottered, and he smote his hand Against his breast, his heavy mailèd hand, That the hard iron corslet clanked aloud; And to his heart he pressed the other hand, And in a hollow voice he spake, and said,— “Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie! If thou show this, then art thou Rustum’s son.” Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm, And showed a sign in faint vermilion points Pricked; as a cunning workman, in Pekin, Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase, An emperor’s gift,—at early morn he paints, And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands,— So delicately pricked the sign appeared On Sohrab’s arm, the sign of Rustum’s seal. It was that griffin which of old reared Zal, Rustum’s great father, whom they left to die, A helpless babe, among the mountain rocks; Him that kind creature found, and reared, and loved; Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign. And Sohrab bared that image on his arm, And himself scanned it long with mournful eyes, And then he touched it with his hand, and said,— “How say’st thou? Is that sign the proper sign Of Rustum’s son, or of some other man’s?” He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood Speechless; and then he uttered one sharp cry,— O boy—thy father! and his voice choked there. And then a dark cloud passed before his eyes, And his head swam, and he sank down to earth. But Sohrab crawled to where he lay, and cast His arms about his neck, and kissed his lips, And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks, Trying to call him back to life; and life Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes, And they stood wide with horror; and he seized In both his hands the dust which lay around, And threw it on his head, and smirched his hair,— His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms; And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast, And his sobs choked him; and he clutched his sword, To draw it, and forever let life out. But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, And with a soothing voice he spake, and said,— “Father, forbear! for I but meet to-day The doom which at my birth was written down In Heaven, and thou art Heaven’s unconscious hand. Surely my heart cried out that it was thou, When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too, I know it! But fate trod those promptings down Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged The strife, and hurled me on my father’s spear. But let us speak no more of this. I find My father, let me feel that I have found! Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks, And wash them with thy tears, and say, My son! Quick, quick! for numbered are my sands of life, And swift; for like the lightning to this field I came, and like the wind I go away,— Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind; But it was writ in Heaven that this should be.” So said he; and his voice released the heart Of Rustum, and his tears broke forth; he cast His arms round his son’s neck, and wept aloud, And kissed him. And awe fell on both the hosts, When they saw Rustum’s grief; and Ruksh, the horse, With his head bowing to the ground, and mane Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe First to the one, then to the other, moved His head, as if inquiring what their grief Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes, The big warm tears rolled down, and caked the sand. But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said,— “Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet Should then have rotted on their nimble joints, When first they bore thy master to this field!” But Sohrab looked upon the horse, and said,— “Is this, then, Ruksh? How often, in past days, My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed, My terrible father’s terrible horse! and said, That I should one day find thy lord and thee. Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane! O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I! For thou hast gone where I shall never go, And snuffed the breezes of my father’s home. And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, And seen the River of Helmund, and the Lake Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food, Corn in a golden platter, soaked with wine, And said, O Ruksh! bear Rustum well! But I Have never known my grandsire’s furrowed face, Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan, Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream; But lodged among my father’s foes, and seen Afrasiab’s cities only, Samarcand, Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste, And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk The desert rivers, Moorghab and Tejend, Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep, The northern Sir; and this great Oxus stream, The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die.” Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewailed,— “Oh that its waves were flowing over me! Oh that I saw its grains of yellow silt Roll tumbling in the current o’er my head!” But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied,— “Desire not that, my father! thou must live. For some are born to do great deeds, and live As some are born to be obscured, and die. Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, And reap a second glory in thine age; Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine. But come! thou seest this great host of men Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these! Let me entreat for them: what have they done? They followed me, my hope, my fame, my star. Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. But me thou must bear hence, not send with them, But carry me with thee to Seistan, And place me on a bed, and mourn for me,— Thou, and the snow-haired Zal, and all thy friends. And thou must lay me in that lovely earth, And heap a stately mound above my bones, And plant a far-seen pillar over all; That so the passing horseman on the waste May see my tomb a great way off, and cry,— Sohrab, the mighty Rustum’s son, lies there, Whom his great father did in ignorance kill! And I be not forgotten in my grave.” And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied,— “Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab my son, So shall it be; for I will burn my tents, And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, And carry thee away to Seistan, And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends. And I will lay thee in that lovely earth, And heap a stately mound above thy bones, And plant a far-seen pillar over all, And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go! Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace! What should I do with slaying any more? For would that all whom I have ever slain Might be once more alive,—my bitterest foes, And they who were called champions in their time, And through whose death I won that fame I have,— And I were nothing but a common man, A poor, mean soldier, and without renown, So thou mightest live too, my son, my son! Or rather would that I, even I myself, Might now be lying on this bloody sand, Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine, Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou; And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan; And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine; And say, O son, I weep thee not too sore, For willingly, I know, thou met’st thine end! But now in blood and battles was my youth, And full of blood and battles is my age, And I shall never end this life of blood.” Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied,— “A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man! But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now, Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day, When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo, Returning home over the salt blue sea, From laying thy dear master in his grave.” And Rustum gazed in Sohrab’s face, and said,— “Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea! Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure.” He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased His wound’s imperious anguish; but the blood Came welling from the open gash, and life Flowed with the stream; all down his cold white side The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soiled, Like the soiled tissue of white violets Left, freshly gathered, on their native bank, By children whom their nurses call with haste In-doors from the sun’s eye; his head drooped low, His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay,— White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps, Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame, Convulsed him back to life, he opened them, And fixed them feebly on his father’s face; Till now all strength was ebbed, and from his limbs Unwillingly the spirit fled away, Regretting the warm mansion which it left, And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world. So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead; And the great Rustum drew his horseman’s cloak Down o’er his face, and sate by his dead son. As those black granite pillars, once high-reared By Jemshid in Persepolis, to bear His house, now ’mid their broken flights of steps Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side,— So in the sand lay Rustum by his son. And night came down over the solemn waste, And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, And darkened all; and a cold fog, with night, Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose, As of a great assembly loosed, and fires Began to twinkle through the fog; for now Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal; The Persians took it on the open sands Southward, the Tartars by the river-marge; And Rustum and his son were left alone.

But the majestic river floated on, Out of the mist and hum of that low land, Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste, Under the solitary moon; he flowed Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè, Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many a league The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles,— Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, A foiled circuitous wanderer,—till at last The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

THE SICK KING IN BOKHARA.

HUSSEIN.

O most just vizier, send away The cloth-merchants, and let them be, Them and their dues, this day! the king Is ill at ease, and calls for thee.

THE VIZIER.

O merchants, tarry yet a day Here in Bokhara! but at noon To-morrow come, and ye shall pay Each fortieth web of cloth to me, As the law is, and go your way.

O Hussein, lead me to the king! Thou teller of sweet tales, thine own, Ferdousi’s, and the others’, lead! How is it with my lord?

HUSSEIN.

Alone, Ever since prayer-time, he doth wait, O vizier! without lying down, In the great window of the gate, Looking into the Registàn, Where through the sellers’ booths the slaves Are this way bringing the dead man O vizier, here is the king’s door!

THE KING.

O vizier, I may bury him?

THE VIZIER.

O king, thou know’st, I have been sick These many days, and heard no thing (For Allah shut my ears and mind), Not even what thou dost, O king! Wherefore, that I may counsel thee, Let Hussein, if thou wilt, make haste To speak in order what hath chanced.

THE KING.

O vizier, be it as thou say’st!

HUSSEIN.

Three days since, at the time of prayer, A certain Moollah, with his robe All rent, and dust upon his hair, Watched my lord’s coming forth, and pushed The golden mace-bearers aside, And fell at the king’s feet, and cried,—

“Justice, O king, and on myself! On this great sinner, who did break The law, and by the law must die! Vengeance, O king!”

But the king spake: “What fool is this, that hurts our ears With folly? or what drunken slave? My guards, what! prick him with your spears! Prick me the fellow from the path!”

As the king said, so was it done, And to the mosque my lord passed on.

But on the morrow, when the king Went forth again, the holy book Carried before him, as is right, And through the square his way he took;

My man comes running, flecked with blood From yesterday, and falling down Cries out most earnestly, “O king, My lord, O king, do right, I pray!

“How canst thou, ere thou hear, discern If I speak folly? but a king, Whether a thing be great or small, Like Allah, hears and judges all.

“Wherefore hear thou! Thou know’st, how fierce In these last days the sun hath burned; That the green water in the tanks Is to a putrid puddle turned; And the canal, that from the stream Of Samarcand is brought this way, Wastes and runs thinner every day.

‘Now I at nightfall had gone forth Alone, and in a darksome place Under some mulberry-trees I found A little pool; and in short space With all the water that was there I filled my pitcher, and stole home Unseen; and having drink to spare, I hid the can behind the door, And went up on the roof to sleep.

“But in the night, which was with wind And burning dust, again I creep Down, having fever, for a drink.

“Now, meanwhile had my brethren found The water-pitcher, where it stood Behind the door upon the ground, And called my mother; and they all, As they were thirsty, and the night Most sultry, drained the pitcher there; That they sate with it, in my sight, Their lips still wet, when I came down.

“Now mark! I, being fevered, sick, (Most unblest also), at that sight Brake forth, and cursed them—dost thou hear?— One was my mother.—— Now do right!”

But my lord mused a space, and said,— “Send him away, sirs, and make on! It is some madman,” the king said. As the king bade, so was it done.

The morrow, at the self-same hour, In the king’s path, behold, the man, Not kneeling, sternly fixed! He stood Right opposite, and thus began, Frowning grim down: “Thou wicked king, Most deaf where thou shouldst most give ear! What! must I howl in the next world, Because thou wilt not listen here?

“What! wilt thou pray, and get thee grace, And all grace shall to me be grudged? Nay, but I swear, from this thy path I will not stir till I be judged!”

Then they who stood about the king Drew close together, and conferred; Till that the king stood forth, and said, “Before the priests thou shalt be heard.”

But when the Ulemas were met, And the thing heard, they doubted not; But sentenced him, as the law is, To die by stoning on the spot.

Now the king charged us secretly: “Stoned must he be, the law stands so. Yet, if he seek to fly, give way: Hinder him not, but let him go.”

So saying, the king took a stone, And cast it softly; but the man, With a great joy upon his face, Kneeled down, and cried not, neither ran.

So they, whose lot it was, cast stones, That they flew thick, and bruised him sore. But he praised Allah with loud voice, And remained kneeling as before.

My lord had covered up his face; But when one told him, “He is dead,” Turning him quickly to go in, “Bring thou to me his corpse,” he said.

And truly, while I speak, O king, I hear the bearers on the stair: Wilt thou they straightway bring him in? —Ho! enter ye who tarry there!

THE VIZIER.

O king, in this I praise thee not! Now must I call thy grief not wise. Is he thy friend, or of thy blood, To find such favor in thine eyes?

Nay, were he thine own mother’s son, Still thou art king, and the law stands. It were not meet the balance swerved, The sword were broken in thy hands.

But being nothing, as he is, Why for no cause make sad thy face? Lo, I am old! three kings ere thee Have I seen reigning in this place.

But who, through all this length of time, Could bear the burden of his years, If he for strangers pained his heart Not less than those who merit tears?

Fathers we must have, wife and child, And grievous is the grief for these; This pain alone, which must be borne, Makes the head white, and bows the knees.

But other loads than this his own, One man is not well made to bear. Besides, to each are his own friends, To mourn with him, and show him care.

Look, this is but one single place, Though it be great; all the earth round, If a man bear to have it so, Things which might vex him shall be found.

Upon the Russian frontier, where The watchers of two armies stand Near one another, many a man, Seeking a prey unto his hand,

Hath snatched a little fair-haired slave; They snatch also, towards Mervè, The Shiah dogs, who pasture sheep, And up from thence to Orgunjè.

And these all, laboring for a lord, Eat not the fruit of their own hands; Which is the heaviest of all plagues, To that man’s mind who understands.

The kaffirs also (whom God curse!) Vex one another, night and day; There are the lepers, and all sick; There are the poor, who faint alway.

All these have sorrow, and keep still, Whilst other men make cheer, and sing. Wilt thou have pity on all these? No, nor on this dead dog, O king!

THE KING.

O vizier, thou art old, I young! Clear in these things I cannot see. My head is burning, and a heat Is in my skin which angers me.

But hear ye this, ye sons of men! They that bear rule, and are obeyed, Unto a rule more strong than theirs Are in their turn obedient made.

In vain therefore, with wistful eyes Gazing up hither, the poor man, Who loiters by the high-heaped booths, Below there, in the Registàn,—

Says, “Happy he who lodges there! With silken raiment, store of rice, And for this drought, all kinds of fruits, Grape-sirup, squares of colored ice,—

“With cherries served in drifts of snow.” In vain hath a king power to build Houses, arcades, enamelled mosques; And to make orchard-closes, filled

With curious fruit-trees brought from far, With cisterns for the winter-rain, And, in the desert, spacious inns In divers places,—if that pain

Is not more lightened, which he feels, If his will be not satisfied; And that it be not, from all time The law is planted, to abide.

Thou wast a sinner, thou poor man! Thou wast athirst; and didst not see, That, though we take what we desire, We must not snatch it eagerly.

And I have meat and drink at will, And rooms of treasures, not a few. But I am sick, nor heed I these; And what I would, I cannot do.

Even the great honor which I have, When I am dead, will soon grow still; So have I neither joy, nor fame. But what I can do, that I will.

I have a fretted brick-work tomb Upon a hill on the right hand, Hard by a close of apricots, Upon the road of Samarcand;

Thither, O vizier, will I bear This man my pity could not save, And, plucking up the marble flags, There lay his body in my grave.

Bring water, nard, and linen-rolls! Wash off all blood, set smooth each limb! Then say, “He was not wholly vile, Because a king shall bury him.”

BALDER DEAD.[6]

I. SENDING.

So on the floor lay Balder dead; and round Lay thickly strewn swords, axes, darts, and spears, Which all the gods in sport had idly thrown At Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clove; But in his breast stood fixed the fatal bough Of mistletoe, which Lok the Accuser gave To Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw threw— ’Gainst that alone had Balder’s life no charm. And all the gods and all the heroes came, And stood round Balder on the bloody floor, Weeping and wailing; and Valhalla rang Up to its golden roof with sobs and cries; And on the tables stood the untasted meats, And in the horns and gold-rimmed sculls the wine. And now would night have fallen, and found them yet Wailing; but otherwise was Odin’s will. And thus the Father of the ages spake:— “Enough of tears, ye gods, enough of wail! Not to lament in was Valhalla made. If any here might weep for Balder’s death, I most might weep, his father; such a son I lose to-day, so bright, so loved a god. But he has met that doom which long ago The Nornies, when his mother bare him, spun, And fate set seal, that so his end must be. Balder has met his death, and ye survive. Weep him an hour, but what can grief avail? For ye yourselves, ye gods, shall meet your doom,— All ye who hear me, and inhabit heaven, And I too, Odin too, the lord of all. But ours we shall not meet, when that day comes, With women’s tears and weak complaining cries: Why should we meet another’s portion so? Rather it fits you, having wept your hour, With cold dry eyes, and hearts composed and stern, To live, as erst, your daily life in heaven. By me shall vengeance on the murderer Lok, The foe, the accuser, whom, though gods, we hate, Be strictly cared for, in the appointed day. Meanwhile, to-morrow, when the morning dawns, Bring wood to the seashore to Balder’s ship, And on the deck build high a funeral pile, And on the top lay Balder’s corpse, and put Fire to the wood, and send him out to sea To burn; for that is what the dead desire.” So spake the king of gods, and straightway rose, And mounted his horse Sleipner, whom he rode; And from the hall of heaven he rode away To Lidskialf, and sate upon his throne, The mount, from whence his eye surveys the world. And far from heaven he turned his shining orbs To look on Midgard, and the earth, and men. And on the conjuring Lapps he bent his gaze, Whom antlered reindeer pull over the snow; And on the Finns, the gentlest of mankind, Fair men, who live in holes under the ground; Nor did he look once more to Ida’s plain, Nor toward Valhalla and the sorrowing gods; For well he knew the gods would heed his word, And cease to mourn, and think of Balder’s pyre. But in Valhalla all the gods went back From around Balder, all the heroes went; And left his body stretched upon the floor. And on their golden chairs they sate again, Beside the tables, in the hall of heaven; And before each the cooks who served them placed New messes of the boar Serimner’s flesh, And the Valkyries crowned their horns with mead. So they, with pent-up hearts and tearless eyes, Wailing no more, in silence ate and drank, While twilight fell, and sacred night came on. But the blind Hoder left the feasting gods In Odin’s hall, and went through Asgard streets, And past the haven where the gods have moored Their ships, and through the gate, beyond the wall; Though sightless, yet his own mind led the god. Down to the margin of the roaring sea He came, and sadly went along the sand, Between the waves and black o’erhanging cliffs Where in and out the screaming seafowl fly; Until he came to where a gully breaks Through the cliff-wall, and a fresh stream runs down From the high moors behind, and meets the sea. There, in the glen, Fensaler stands, the house Of Frea, honored mother of the gods, And shows its lighted windows to the main. There he went up, and passed the open doors; And in the hall he found those women old, The prophetesses, who by rite eterne On Frea’s hearth feed high the sacred fire Both night and day; and by the inner wall Upon her golden chair the mother sate, With folded hands, revolving things to come. To her drew Hoder near, and spake, and said,— “Mother, a child of bale thou bar’st in me! For, first, thou barest me with blinded eyes, Sightless and helpless, wandering weak in heaven; And, after that, of ignorant witless mind Thou barest me, and unforeseeing soul; That I alone must take the branch from Lok, The foe, the accuser, whom, though gods, we hate, And cast it at the dear-loved Balder’s breast, At whom the gods in sport their weapons threw. ’Gainst that alone had Balder’s life no charm. Now therefore what to attempt, or whither fly, For who will bear my hateful sight in heaven? Can I, O mother, bring them Balder back? Or—for thou know’st the fates, and things allowed— Can I with Hela’s power a compact strike, And make exchange, and give my life for his?” He spoke: the mother of the gods replied,— “Hoder, ill-fated, child of bale, my son, Sightless in soul and eye, what words are these? That one, long portioned with his doom of death, Should change his lot, and fill another’s life, And Hela yield to this, and let him go! On Balder, Death hath laid her hand, not thee; Nor doth she count this life a price for that. For many gods in heaven, not thou alone, Would freely die to purchase Balder back, And wend themselves to Hela’s gloomy realm. For not so gladsome is that life in heaven Which gods and heroes lead, in feast and fray, Waiting the darkness of the final times, That one should grudge its loss for Balder’s sake,— Balder their joy, so bright, so loved a god. But fate withstands, and laws forbid this way. Yet in my secret mind one way I know, Nor do I judge if it shall win or fail; But much must still be tried, which shall but fail.” And the blind Hoder answered her, and said,— “What way is this, O mother, that thou show’st? Is it a matter which a god might try?” And straight the mother of the gods replied,— “There is a way which leads to Hela’s realm, Untrodden, lonely, far from light and heaven. Who goes that way must take no other horse To ride, but Sleipner, Odin’s horse, alone. Nor must he choose that common path of gods Which every day they come and go in heaven, O’er the bridge Bifrost, where is Heimdall’s watch, Past Midgard fortress, down to earth and men. But he must tread a dark untravelled road Which branches from the north of heaven, and ride Nine days, nine nights, toward the northern ice, Through valleys deep-ingulfed with roaring streams. And he will reach on the tenth morn a bridge Which spans with golden arches Giall’s stream, Not Bifrost, but that bridge a damsel keeps, Who tells the passing troops of dead their way To the low shore of ghosts, and Hela’s realm. And she will bid him northward steer his course. Then he will journey through no lighted land, Nor see the sun arise, nor see it set; But he must ever watch the northern Bear, Who from her frozen height with jealous eye Confronts the Dog and Hunter in the south, And is alone not dipt in ocean’s stream; And straight he will come down to ocean’s strand,— Ocean, whose watery ring infolds the world, And on whose marge the ancient giants dwell. But he will reach its unknown northern shore, Far, far beyond the outmost giant’s home, At the chinked fields of ice, the wastes of snow. And he must fare across the dismal ice Northward, until he meets a stretching wall Barring his way, and in the wall a grate. But then he must dismount, and on the ice Tighten the girths of Sleipner, Odin’s horse, And make him leap the grate, and come within. And he will see stretch round him Hela’s realm, The plains of Niflheim, where dwell the dead, And hear the roaring of the streams of hell. And he will see the feeble, shadowy tribes, And Balder sitting crowned, and Hela’s throne. Then must he not regard the wailful ghosts Who all will flit, like eddying leaves, around; But he must straight accost their solemn queen, And pay her homage, and entreat with prayers, Telling her all that grief they have in heaven For Balder, whom she holds by right below; If haply he may melt her heart with words, And make her yield, and give him Balder back.” She spoke; but Hoder answered her and said,— “Mother, a dreadful way is this thou show’st; No journey for a sightless god to go!” And straight the mother of the gods replied,— “Therefore thyself thou shalt not go, my son. But he whom first thou meetest when thou com’st To Asgard, and declar’st this hidden way, Shall go; and I will be his guide unseen.” She spoke, and on her face let fall her veil, And bowed her head, and sate with folded hands. But at the central hearth those women old, Who while the mother spake had ceased their toil, Began again to heap the sacred fire. And Hoder turned, and left his mother’s house, Fensaler, whose lit windows look to sea; And came again down to the roaring waves, And back along the beach to Asgard went, Pondering on that which Frea said should be. But night came down, and darkened Asgard streets. Then from their loathèd feast the gods arose, And lighted torches, and took up the corpse Of Balder from the floor of Odin’s hall, And laid it on a bier, and bare him home Through the fast-darkening streets to his own house Breidablik, on whose columns Balder graved The enchantments that recall the dead to life. For wise he was, and many curious arts, Postures of runes, and healing herbs he knew; Unhappy! but that art he did not know, To keep his own life safe, and see the sun. There to his hall the gods brought Balder home, And each bespake him as he laid him down,— “Would that ourselves, O Balder, we were borne Home to our halls, with torchlight, by our kin, So thou might’st live, and still delight the gods!” They spake, and each went home to his own house. But there was one, the first of all the gods For speed, and Hermod was his name in heaven; Most fleet he was, but now he went the last, Heavy in heart for Balder, to his house Which he in Asgard built him, there to dwell, Against the harbor, by the city-wall. Him the blind Hoder met, as he came up From the sea cityward, and knew his step; Nor yet could Hermod see his brother’s face, For it grew dark; but Hoder touched his arm. And as a spray of honeysuckle-flowers Brushes across a tired traveller’s face Who shuffles through the deep dew-moistened dust, On a May evening, in the darkened lanes, And starts him, that he thinks a ghost went by,— So Hoder brushed by Hermod’s side, and said,— “Take Sleipner, Hermod, and set forth with dawn To Hela’s kingdom, to ask Balder back; And they shall be thy guides, who have the power.” He spake, and brushed soft by, and disappeared. And Hermod gazed into the night, and said,— “Who is it utters through the dark his best So quickly, and will wait for no reply? The voice was like the unhappy Hoder’s voice. Howbeit I will see, and do his hest; For there rang note divine in that command.” So speaking, the fleet-footed Hermod came Home, and lay down to sleep in his own house; And all the gods lay down in their own homes. And Hoder too came home, distraught with grief, Loathing to meet, at dawn, the other gods; And he went in, and shut the door, and fixed His sword upright, and fell on it, and died. But from the hill of Lidskialf Odin rose,— The throne from which his eye surveys the world,— And mounted Sleipner, and in darkness rode To Asgard. And the stars came out in heaven, High over Asgard, to light home the king. But fiercely Odin galloped, moved in heart; And swift to Asgard, to the gate, he came; And terribly the hoofs of Sleipner rang Along the flinty floor of Asgard streets; And the gods trembled on their golden beds Hearing the wrathful Father coming home,— For dread, for like a whirlwind, Odin came. And to Valhalla’s gate he rode, and left Sleipner; and Sleipner went to his own stall; And in Valhalla Odin laid him down. But in Breidablik Nanna, Balder’s wife, Came with the goddesses who wrought her will, And stood by Balder lying on his bier. And at his head and feet she stationed scalds Who in their lives were famous for their song; These o’er the corpse intoned a plaintive strain, A dirge,—and Nanna and her train replied. And far into the night they wailed their dirge; But when their souls were satisfied with wail, They went, and laid them down, and Nanna went Into an upper chamber, and lay down; And Frea sealed her tired lids with sleep. And ’twas when night is bordering hard on dawn, When air is chilliest, and the stars sunk low; Then Balder’s spirit through the gloom drew near, In garb, in form, in feature, as he was, Alive; and still the rays were round his head Which were his glorious mark in heaven; he stood Over against the curtain of the bed, And gazed on Nanna as she slept, and spake,— “Poor lamb, thou sleepest, and forgett’st thy woe! Tears stand upon the lashes of thine eyes, Tears wet the pillow by thy cheek; but thou, Like a young child, hast cried thyself to sleep. Sleep on; I watch thee, and am here to aid. Alive I kept not far from thee, dear soul! Neither do I neglect thee now, though dead. For with to-morrow’s dawn the gods prepare To gather wood, and build a funeral-pile Upon my ship, and burn my corpse with fire, That sad, sole honor of the dead; and thee They think to burn, and all my choicest wealth, With me, for thus ordains the common rite. But it shall not be so; but mild, but swift, But painless, shall a stroke from Frea come, To cut thy thread of life, and free thy soul, And they shall burn thy corpse with mine, not thee. And well I know that by no stroke of death, Tardy or swift, wouldst thou be loath to die, So it restored thee, Nanna, to my side, Whom thou so well hast loved; but I can smooth Thy way, and this, at least, my prayers avail. Yes, and I fain would altogether ward Death from thy head, and with the gods in heaven Prolong thy life, though not by thee desired; But right bars this, not only thy desire. Yet dreary, Nanna, is the life they lead In that dim world, in Hela’s mouldering realm; And doleful are the ghosts, the troops of dead, Whom Hela with austere control presides. For of the race of gods is no one there, Save me alone, and Hela, solemn queen. For all the nobler souls of mortal men On battle-field have met their death, and now Feast in Valhalla, in my father’s hall: Only the inglorious sort are there below; The old, the cowards, and the weak are there,— Men spent by sickness, or obscure decay. But even there, O Nanna, we might find Some solace in each other’s look and speech, Wandering together through that gloomy world, And talking of the life we led in heaven, While we yet lived, among the other gods.” He spake, and straight his lineaments began To fade; and Nanna in her sleep stretched out Her arms towards him with a cry; but he Mournfully shook his head, and disappeared. And as the woodman sees a little smoke Hang in the air afield, and disappear, So Balder faded in the night away. And Nanna on her bed sank back; but then Frea, the mother of the gods, with stroke Painless and swift, set free her airy soul, Which took, on Balder’s track, the way below; And instantly the sacred morn appeared.

II. JOURNEY TO THE DEAD.

Forth from the east, up the ascent of heaven, Day drove his courser with the shining mane; And in Valhalla, from his gable-perch, The golden-crested cock began to crow. Hereafter, in the blackest dead of night, With shrill and dismal cries that bird shall crow, Warning the gods that foes draw nigh to heaven; But now he crew at dawn, a cheerful note, To wake the gods and heroes to their tasks. And all the gods and all the heroes woke. And from their beds the heroes rose, and donned Their arms, and led their horses from the stall, And mounted them, and in Valhalla’s court Were ranged; and then the daily fray began. And all day long they there are hacked and hewn ’Mid dust, and groans, and limbs lopped off, and blood; But all at night return to Odin’s hall Woundless and fresh: such lot is theirs in heaven. And the Valkyries on their steeds went forth Toward earth and fights of men; and at their side Skulda, the youngest of the Nornies, rode; And over Bifrost, where is Heimdall’s watch, Past Midgard fortress, down to earth they came; There through some battle-field, where men fall fast, Their horses fetlock-deep in blood, they ride, And pick the bravest warriors out for death, Whom they bring back with them at night to heaven, To glad the gods, and feast in Odin’s hall. But the gods went not now, as otherwhile, Into the tilt-yard, where the heroes fought, To feast their eyes with looking on the fray; Nor did they to their judgment-place repair By the ash Igdrasil, in Ida’s plain, Where they hold council, and give laws for men. But they went, Odin first, the rest behind, To the hall Gladheim, which is built of gold; Where are in circle ranged twelve golden chairs, And in the midst one higher, Odin’s throne. There all the gods in silence sate them down; And thus the Father of the ages spake:— “Go quickly, gods, bring wood to the seashore, With all which it beseems the dead to have, And make a funeral-pile on Balder’s ship; On the twelfth day the gods shall burn his corpse. But, Hermod, thou take Sleipner, and ride down To Hela’s kingdom, to ask Balder back.” So said he; and the gods arose, and took Axes and ropes, and at their head came Thor, Shouldering his hammer, which the giants know. Forth wended they, and drave their steeds before. And up the dewy mountain tracks they fared To the dark forests, in the early dawn; And up and down, and side and slant they roamed. And from the glens all day an echo came Of crashing falls; for with his hammer Thor Smote ’mid the rocks the lichen-bearded pines, And burst their roots, while to their tops the gods Made fast the woven ropes, and haled them down, And lopped their boughs, and clove them on the sward, And bound the logs behind their steeds to draw, And drave them homeward; and the snorting steeds Went straining through the crackling brushwood down, And by the darkling forest-paths the gods Followed, and on their shoulders carried boughs. And they came out upon the plain, and passed Asgard, and led their horses to the beach, And loosed them of their loads on the seashore, And ranged the wood in stacks by Balder’s ship; And every god went home to his own house.

But when the gods were to the forest gone, Hermod led Sleipner from Valhalla forth, And saddled him: before that, Sleipner brooked No meaner hand than Odin’s on his mane, On his broad back no lesser rider bore; Yet docile now he stood at Hermod’s side, Arching his neck, and glad to be bestrode, Knowing the god they went to seek, how dear. But Hermod mounted him, and sadly fared In silence up the dark untravelled road Which branches from the north of heaven, and went All day; and daylight waned, and night came on. And all that night he rode, and journeyed so, Nine days, nine nights, toward the northern ice, Through valleys deep-ingulfed, by roaring streams. And on the tenth morn he beheld the bridge Which spans with golden arches Giall’s stream, And on the bridge a damsel watching armed, In the strait passage, at the farther end, Where the road issues between walling rocks. Scant space that warder left for passers-by; But as when cowherds in October drive Their kine across a snowy mountain pass To winter pasture on the southern side, And on the ridge a wagon chokes the way, Wedged in the snow; then painfully the hinds With goad and shouting urge their cattle past, Plunging through deep untrodden banks of snow To right and left, and warm steam fills the air,— So on the bridge that damsel blocked the way, And questioned Hermod as he came, and said,— “Who art thou on thy black and fiery horse, Under whose hoofs the bridge o’er Giall’s stream Rumbles and shakes? Tell me thy race and home. But yester-morn, five troops of dead passed by, Bound on their way below to Hela’s realm, Nor shook the bridge so much as thou alone. And thou hast flesh and color on thy cheeks, Like men who live, and draw the vital air; Nor look’st thou pale and wan, like men deceased, Souls bound below, my daily passers here.” And the fleet-footed Hermod answered her,— “O damsel, Hermod am I called, the son Of Odin; and my high-roofed house is built Far hence, in Asgard, in the city of gods; And Sleipner, Odin’s horse, is this I ride. And I come, sent this road on Balder’s track: Say, then, if he hath crossed thy bridge or no?” He spake; the warder of the bridge replied,— “O Hermod, rarely do the feet of gods Or of the horses of the gods resound Upon my bridge; and, when they cross, I know. Balder hath gone this way, and ta’en the road Below there, to the north, toward Hela’s realm. From here the cold white mist can be discerned, Not lit with sun, but through the darksome air By the dim vapor-blotted light of stars, Which hangs over the ice where lies the road. For in that ice are lost those northern streams, Freezing and ridging in their onward flow, Which from the fountain of Vergelmer run, The spring that bubbles up by Hela’s throne. There are the joyless seats, the haunt of ghosts, Hela’s pale swarms; and there was Balder bound. Ride on! pass free! but he by this is there.” She spake, and stepped aside, and left him room. And Hermod greeted her, and galloped by Across the bridge; then she took post again. But northward Hermod rode, the way below; And o’er a darksome tract, which knows no sun, But by the blotted light of stars, he fared. And he came down to ocean’s northern strand, At the drear ice, beyond the giants’ home. Thence on he journeyed o’er the fields of ice Still north, until he met a stretching wall Barring his way, and in the wall a grate. Then he dismounted, and drew tight the girths, On the smooth ice, of Sleipner, Odin’s horse, And made him leap the grate, and came within. And he beheld spread round him Hela’s realm, The plains of Niflheim, where dwell the dead, And heard the thunder of the streams of hell. For near the wall the river of Roaring flows, Outmost; the others near the centre run,— The Storm, the Abyss, the Howling, and the Pain; These flow by Hela’s throne, and near their spring. And from the dark flocked up the shadowy tribes; And as the swallows crowd the bulrush-beds Of some clear river, issuing from a lake, On autumn-days, before they cross the sea; And to each bulrush-crest a swallow hangs Swinging, and others skim the river-streams, And their quick twittering fills the banks and shores,— So around Hermod swarmed the twittering ghosts. Women, and infants, and young men who died Too soon for fame, with white ungraven shields; And old men, known to glory, but their star Betrayed them, and of wasting age they died, Not wounds; yet, dying, they their armor wore, And now have chief regard in Hela’s realm. Behind flocked wrangling up a piteous crew, Greeted of none, disfeatured and forlorn,— Cowards, who were in sloughs interred alive; And round them still the wattled hurdles hung Wherewith they stamped them down, and trod them deep, To hide their shameful memory from men. But all he passed unhailed, and reached the throne Of Hela, and saw, near it, Balder crowned, And Hela set thereon, with countenance stern; And thus bespake him first the solemn queen:— “Unhappy, how hast thou endured to leave The light, and journey to the cheerless land Where idly flit about the feeble shades? How didst thou cross the bridge o’er Giall’s stream, Being alive, and come to ocean’s shore? Or how o’erleap the grate that bars the wall?” She spake; but down off Sleipner Hermod sprang, And fell before her feet, and clasped her knees; And spake, and mild entreated her, and said,— “O Hela, wherefore should the gods declare Their errands to each other, or the ways They go? the errand and the way is known. Thou know’st, thou know’st, what grief we have in heaven For Balder, whom thou hold’st by right below. Restore him! for what part fulfils he here? Shall he shed cheer over the cheerless seats, And touch the apathetic ghosts with joy? Not for such end, O queen, thou hold’st thy realm. For heaven was Balder born, the city of gods And heroes, where they live in light and joy. Thither restore him, for his place is there!” He spoke; and grave replied the solemn queen,— “Hermod, for he thou art, thou son of heaven! A strange unlikely errand, sure, is thine. Do the gods send to me to make them blest? Small bliss my race hath of the gods obtained. Three mighty children to my father Lok Did Angerbode, the giantess, bring forth,— Fenris the wolf, the serpent huge, and me. Of these the serpent in the sea ye cast, Who since in your despite hath waxed amain, And now with gleaming ring infolds the world; Me on this cheerless nether world ye threw, And gave me nine unlighted realms to rule; While on his island in the lake afar, Made fast to the bored crag, by wile not strength Subdued, with limber chains lives Fenris bound. Lok still subsists in heaven, our father wise, Your mate, though loathed, and feasts in Odin’s hall; But him too foes await, and netted snares, And in a cave a bed of needle-rocks, And o’er his visage serpents dropping gall. Yet he shall one day rise, and burst his bonds, And with himself set us his offspring free, When he guides Muspel’s children to their bourne. Till then in peril or in pain we live, Wrought by the gods—and ask the gods our aid? Howbeit, we abide our day: till then, We do not as some feebler haters do,— Seek to afflict our foes with petty pangs, Helpless to better us, or ruin them. Come, then! if Balder was so dear beloved, And this is true, and such a loss is heaven’s,— Hear how to heaven may Balder be restored. Show me through all the world the signs of grief! Fails but one thing to grieve, here Balder stops! Let all that lives and moves upon the earth Weep him, and all that is without life weep; Let gods, men, brutes, beweep him; plants and stones. So shall I know the lost was dear indeed, And bend my heart, and give him back to heaven.” She spake; and Hermod answered her, and said,— “Hela, such as thou say’st, the terms shall be. But come, declare me this, and truly tell: May I, ere I depart, bid Balder hail, Or is it here withheld to greet the dead?” He spake; and straightway Hela answered him,— “Hermod, greet Balder if thou wilt, and hold Converse; his speech remains, though he be dead.” And straight to Balder Hermod turned, and spake: “Even in the abode of death, O Balder, hail! Thou hear’st, if hearing, like as speech, is thine, The terms of thy releasement hence to heaven; Fear nothing but that all shall be fulfilled. For not unmindful of thee are the gods, Who see the light, and blest in Asgard dwell; Even here they seek thee out, in Hela’s realm. And, sure, of all the happiest far art thou Who ever have been known in earth or heaven: Alive, thou wast of gods the most beloved; And now thou sittest crowned by Hela’s side, Here, and hast honor among all the dead.” He spake; and Balder uttered him reply, But feebly, as a voice far off; he said,— “Hermod the nimble, gild me not my death! Better to live a serf, a captured man, Who scatters rushes in a master’s hall, Than be a crowned king here, and rule the dead. And now I count not of these terms as safe To be fulfilled, nor my return as sure, Though I be loved, and many mourn my death; For double-minded ever was the seed Of Lok, and double are the gifts they give. Howbeit, report thy message; and therewith, To Odin, to my father, take this ring, Memorial of me, whether saved or no; And tell the heaven-born gods how thou hast seen Me sitting here below by Hela’s side, Crowned, having honor among all the dead.” He spake, and raised his hand, and gave the ring. And with inscrutable regard the queen Of hell beheld them, and the ghosts stood dumb. But Hermod took the ring, and yet once more Kneeled and did homage to the solemn queen; Then mounted Sleipner, and set forth to ride Back, through the astonished tribes of dead, to heaven. And to the wall he came, and found the grate Lifted, and issued on the fields of ice. And o’er the ice he fared to ocean’s strand, And up from thence, a wet and misty road, To the armed damsel’s bridge, and Giall’s stream. Worse was that way to go than to return, For him: for others, all return is barred. Nine days he took to go, two to return, And on the twelfth morn saw the light of heaven. And as a traveller in the early dawn To the steep edge of some great valley comes, Through which a river flows, and sees, beneath, Clouds of white rolling vapors fill the vale, But o’er them, on the farther slope, descries Vineyards, and crofts, and pastures, bright with sun,— So Hermod, o’er the fog between, saw heaven. And Sleipner snorted, for he smelt the air Of heaven; and mightily, as winged, he flew. And Hermod saw the towers of Asgard rise; And he drew near, and heard no living voice In Asgard; and the golden halls were dumb. Then Hermod knew what labor held the gods; And through the empty streets he rode, and passed Under the gate-house to the sands, and found The gods on the seashore by Balder’s ship.

III. FUNERAL.

The gods held talk together, grouped in knots, Round Balder’s corpse, which they had thither borne; And Hermod came down towards them from the gate. And Lok, the father of the serpent, first Beheld him come, and to his neighbor spake,— “See, here is Hermod, who comes single back From hell; and shall I tell thee how he seems? Like as a farmer, who hath lost his dog, Some morn, at market, in a crowded town,— Through many streets the poor beast runs in vain, And follows this man after that, for hours; And late at evening, spent and panting, falls Before a stranger’s threshold, not his home, With flanks a-tremble, and his slender tongue Hangs quivering out between his dust-smeared jaws, And piteously he eyes the passers-by; But home his master comes to his own farm, Far in the country, wondering where he is,— So Hermod comes to-day unfollowed home.” And straight his neighbor, moved with wrath, replied,— “Deceiver! fair in form, but false in heart! Enemy, mocker, whom, though gods, we hate,— Peace, lest our father Odin hear thee gibe! Would I might see him snatch thee in his hand, And bind thy carcass, like a bale, with cords, And hurl thee in a lake, to sink or swim! If clear from plotting Balder’s death, to swim; But deep, if thou devisedst it, to drown, And perish, against fate, before thy day.” So they two soft to one another spake. But Odin looked toward the land, and saw His messenger; and he stood forth, and cried. And Hermod came, and leapt from Sleipner down, And in his father’s hand put Sleipner’s rein, And greeted Odin and the gods, and said,— “Odin, my father, and ye, gods of heaven! Lo, home, having performed your will, I come. Into the joyless kingdom have I been, Below, and looked upon the shadowy tribes Of ghosts, and communed with their solemn queen; And to your prayer she sends you this reply:— Show her through all the world the signs of grief! Fails but one thing to grieve, there Balder stops! Let gods, men, brutes, beweep him; plants and stones. So shall she know your loss was dear indeed, And bend her heart, and give you Balder back.” He spoke, and all the gods to Odin looked; And straight the Father of the ages said,— “Ye gods, these terms may keep another day. But now put on your arms, and mount your steeds, And in procession all come near, and weep Balder; for that is what the dead desire. When ye enough have wept, then build a pile Of the heaped wood, and burn his corpse with fire Out of our sight; that we may turn from grief, And lead, as erst, our daily life in heaven.” He spoke, and the gods armed; and Odin donned His dazzling corslet and his helm of gold, And led the way on Sleipner; and the rest Followed, in tears, their father and their king. And thrice in arms around the dead they rode, Weeping; the sands were wetted, and their arms, With their thick-falling tears,—so good a friend They mourned that day, so bright, so loved a god. And Odin came, and laid his kingly hands On Balder’s breast, and thus began the wail:— “Farewell, O Balder, bright and loved, my son! In that great day, the twilight of the gods, When Muspel’s children shall beleaguer heaven, Then we shall miss thy counsel and thy arm.” Thou camest near the next, O warrior Thor! Shouldering thy hammer, in thy chariot drawn, Swaying the long-haired goats with silvered rein; And over Balder’s corpse these words didst say:— “Brother, thou dwellest in the darksome land, And talkest with the feeble tribes of ghosts, Now, and I know not how they prize thee there— But here, I know, thou wilt be missed and mourned. For haughty spirits and high wraths are rife Among the gods and heroes here in heaven, As among those whose joy and work is war; And daily strifes arise, and angry words. But from thy lips, O Balder, night or day, Heard no one ever an injurious word To god or hero, but thou keptest back The others, laboring to compose their brawls. Be ye then kind, as Balder too was kind! For we lose him, who smoothed all strife in heaven.” He spake, and all the gods assenting wailed. And Freya next came nigh, with golden tears; The loveliest goddess she in heaven, by all Most honored after Frea, Odin’s wife. Her long ago the wandering Oder took To mate, but left her to roam distant lands; Since then she seeks him, and weeps tears of gold. Names hath she many; Vanadis on earth They call her, Freya is her name in heaven; She in her hands took Balder’s head, and spake,— “Balder, my brother, thou art gone a road Unknown and long, and haply on that way My long-lost wandering Oder thou hast met, For in the paths of heaven he is not found. Oh! if it be so, tell him what thou wast To his neglected wife, and what he is, And wring his heart with shame, to hear thy word! For he, my husband, left me here to pine, Not long a wife, when his unquiet heart First drove him from me into distant lands; Since then I vainly seek him through the world, And weep from shore to shore my golden tears, But neither god nor mortal heeds my pain. Thou only, Balder, wast forever kind, To take my hand, and wipe my tears, and say,— Weep not, O Freya, weep no golden tears! One day the wandering Oder will return, Or thou wilt find him in thy faithful search, On some great road, or resting in an inn, Or at a ford, or sleeping by a tree. So Balder said; but Oder, well I know, My truant Oder I shall see no more To the world’s end; and Balder now is gone, And I am left uncomforted in heaven.” She spake, and all the goddesses bewailed. Last from among the heroes one came near, No god, but of the hero-troop the chief,— Regner, who swept the northern sea with fleets, And ruled o’er Denmark and the heathy isles, Living; but Ella captured him and slew,— A king, whose fame then filled the vast of heaven: Now time obscures it, and men’s later deeds. He last approached the corpse, and spake and said,— “Balder, there yet are many scalds in heaven Still left, and that chief scald, thy brother Brage, Whom we may bid to sing, though thou art gone. And all these gladly, while we drink, we hear, After the feast is done, in Odin’s hall; But they harp ever on one string, and wake Remembrance in our soul of wars alone, Such as on earth we valiantly have waged, And blood, and ringing blows, and violent death. But when thou sangest, Balder, thou didst strike Another note, and, like a bird in spring, Thy voice of joyance minded us, and youth, And wife, and children, and our ancient home. Yes, and I too remembered then no more My dungeon, where the serpents stung me dead, Nor Ella’s victory on the English coast; But I heard Thora laugh in Gothland Isle, And saw my shepherdess, Aslauga, tend Her flock along the white Norwegian beach. Tears started to mine eyes with yearning joy. Therefore with grateful heart I mourn thee dead.” So Regner spake, and all the heroes groaned. But now the sun had passed the height of heaven, And soon had all that day been spent in wail; But then the Father of the ages said,— “Ye gods, there well may be too much of wail! Bring now the gathered wood to Balder’s ship; Heap on the deck the logs, and build the pyre.” But when the gods and heroes heard, they brought The wood to Balder’s ship, and built a pile, Full the deck’s breadth, and lofty; then the corpse Of Balder on the highest top they laid, With Nanna on his right, and on his left Hoder, his brother, whom his own hand slew. And they set jars of wine and oil to lean Against the bodies, and stuck torches near, Splinters of pine-wood, soaked with turpentine; And brought his arms and gold, and all his stuff, And slew the dogs who at his table fed, And his horse, Balder’s horse, whom most he loved, And threw them on the pyre; and Odin threw A last choice gift thereon, his golden ring. The mast they fixed, and hoisted up the sails; Then they put fire to the wood; and Thor Set his stout shoulder hard against the stern To push the ship through the thick sand; sparks flew From the deep trench she ploughed, so strong a god Furrowed it; and the water gurgled in. And the ship floated on the waves, and rocked. But in the hills a strong east-wind arose, And came down moaning to the sea; first squalls Ran black o’er the sea’s face, then steady rushed The breeze, and filled the sails, and blew the fire. And wreathed in smoke the ship stood out to sea. Soon with a roaring rose the mighty fire, And the pile crackled; and between the logs Sharp quivering tongues of flame shot out, and leapt, Curling and darting, higher, until they licked The summit of the pile, the dead, the mast, And ate the shrivelling sails; but still the ship Drove on, ablaze above her hull with fire. And the gods stood upon the beach, and gazed. And while they gazed, the sun went lurid down Into the smoke-wrapt sea, and night came on. Then the wind fell, with night, and there was calm; But through the dark they watched the burning ship Still carried o’er the distant waters on, Farther and farther, like an eye of fire. And long, in the far dark, blazed Balder’s pile; But fainter, as the stars rose high, it flared; The bodies were consumed, ash choked the pile. And as, in a decaying winter-fire, A charred log, falling, makes a shower of sparks,— So with a shower of sparks the pile fell in, Reddening the sea around; and all was dark. But the gods went by starlight up the shore To Asgard, and sate down in Odin’s hall At table, and the funeral-feast began. All night they ate the boar Serimner’s flesh, And from their horns, with silver rimmed, drank mead, Silent, and waited for the sacred morn. And morning over all the world was spread. Then from their loathèd feast the gods arose, And took their horses, and set forth to ride O’er the bridge Bifrost, where is Heimdall’s watch, To the ash Igdrasil, and Ida’s plain. Thor came on foot, the rest on horseback rode. And they found Mimir sitting by his fount Of wisdom, which beneath the ash-tree springs; And saw the Nornies watering the roots Of that world-shadowing tree with honey-dew. There came the gods, and sate them down on stones; And thus the Father of the ages said:— “Ye gods, the terms ye know, which Hermod brought. Accept them or reject them! both have grounds. Accept them, and they bind us, unfulfilled, To leave forever Balder in the grave, An unrecovered prisoner, shade with shades. But how, ye say, should the fulfilment fail?— Smooth sound the terms, and light to be fulfilled; For dear-beloved was Balder while he lived In heaven and earth, and who would grudge him tears? But from the traitorous seed of Lok they come, These terms, and I suspect some hidden fraud. Bethink ye, gods, is there no other way? Speak, were not this a way, the way for gods,— If I, if Odin, clad in radiant arms, Mounted on Sleipner, with the warrior Thor Drawn in his car beside me, and my sons, All the strong brood of heaven, to swell my train, Should make irruption into Hela’s realm, And set the fields of gloom ablaze with light, And bring in triumph Balder back to heaven?” He spake, and his fierce sons applauded loud. But Frea, mother of the gods, arose, Daughter and wife of Odin; thus she said:— “Odin, thou whirlwind, what a threat is this! Thou threatenest what transcends thy might, even thine. For of all powers the mightiest far art thou, Lord over men on earth, and gods in heaven; Yet even from thee thyself hath been withheld One thing,—to undo what thou thyself hast ruled. For all which hath been fixed was fixed by thee. In the beginning, ere the gods were born, Before the heavens were builded, thou didst slay The giant Ymir, whom the abyss brought forth,— Thou and thy brethren fierce, the sons of Bor,— And cast his trunk to choke the abysmal void. But of his flesh and members thou didst build The earth and ocean, and above them heaven. And from the flaming world, where Muspel reigns, Thou sent’st and fetchedst fire, and madest lights, Sun, moon, and stars, which thou hast hung in heaven, Dividing clear the paths of night and day. And Asgard thou didst build, and Midgard fort; Then me thou mad’st; of us the gods were born. Last, walking by the sea, thou foundest spars Of wood, and framedst men, who till the earth, Or on the sea, the field of pirates, sail. And all the race of Ymir thou didst drown, Save one, Bergelmer: he on shipboard fled Thy deluge, and from him the giants sprang. But all that brood thou hast removed far off, And set by ocean’s utmost marge to dwell. But Hela into Niflheim thou threw’st, And gav’st her nine unlighted worlds to rule, A queen, and empire over all the dead. That empire wilt thou now invade, light up Her darkness, from her grasp a subject tear? Try it; but I, for one, will not applaud. Nor do I merit, Odin, thou shouldst slight Me and my words, though thou be first in heaven; For I too am a goddess, born of thee, Thine eldest, and of me the gods are sprung; And all that is to come I know, but lock In mine own breast, and have to none revealed. Come, then! since Hela holds by right her prey, But offers terms for his release to heaven, Accept the chance: thou canst no more obtain. Send through the world thy messengers; entreat All living and unliving things to weep For Balder: if thou haply thus may’st melt Hela, and win the loved one back to heaven.” She spake, and on her face let fall her veil, And bowed her head, and sate with folded hands. Nor did the all-ruling Odin slight her word; Straightway he spake, and thus addressed the gods:— “Go quickly forth through all the world, and pray All living and unliving things to weep Balder, if haply he may thus be won.” When the gods heard, they straight arose, and took Their horses, and rode forth through all the world. North, south, east, west, they struck, and roamed the world, Entreating all things to weep Balder’s death; And all that lived, and all without life, wept. And as in winter, when the frost breaks up, At winter’s end, before the spring begins, And a warm west-wind blows, and thaw sets in, After an hour a dripping sound is heard In all the forests, and the soft-strewn snow Under the trees is dibbled thick with holes, And from the boughs the snow-loads shuffle down; And, in fields sloping to the south, dark plots Of grass peep out amid surrounding snow, And widen, and the peasant’s heart is glad,— So through the world was heard a dripping noise Of all things weeping to bring Balder back; And there fell joy upon the gods to hear. But Hermod rode with Niord, whom he took To show him spits and beaches of the sea Far off, where some unwarned might fail to weep,— Niord, the god of storms, whom fishers know; Not born in heaven, he was in Vanheim reared, With men, but lives a hostage with the gods; He knows each frith, and every rocky creek Fringed with dark pines, and sands where seafowl scream,— They two scoured every coast, and all things wept. And they rode home together, through the wood Of Jarnvid, which to east of Midgard lies Bordering the giants, where the trees are iron; There in the wood before a cave they came, Where sate, in the cave’s mouth, a skinny hag, Toothless and old; she gibes the passers-by. Thok is she called, but now Lok wore her shape. She greeted them the first, and laughed, and said,— “Ye gods, good lack, is it so dull in heaven, That ye come pleasuring to Thok’s iron wood? Lovers of change ye are, fastidious sprites. Look, as in some boor’s yard a sweet-breathed cow, Whose manger is stuffed full of good fresh hay, Snuffs at it daintily, and stoops her head To chew the straw, her litter, at her feet,— So ye grow squeamish, gods, and sniff at heaven!” She spake; but Hermod answered her, and said,— “Thok, not for gibes we come, we come for tears. Balder is dead, and Hela holds her prey, But will restore if all things give him tears. Begrudge not thine! to all was Balder dear.” Then, with a louder laugh, the hag replied,— “Is Balder dead? and do ye come for tears? Thok with dry eyes will weep o’er Balder’s pyre. Weep him all other things, if weep they will: I weep him not! let Hela keep her prey.” She spake, and to the cavern’s depth she fled, Mocking; and Hermod knew their toil was vain. And as seafaring men, who long have wrought In the great deep for gain, at last come home, And towards evening see the headlands rise Of their dear country, and can plain descry A fire of withered furze which boys have lit Upon the cliffs, or smoke of burning weeds Out of a tilled field inland: then the wind Catches them, and drives out again to sea; And they go long days tossing up and down Over the gray sea-ridges, and the glimpse Of port they had makes bitterer far their toil,— So the gods’ cross was bitterer for their joy. Then, sad at heart, to Niord Hermod spake,— “It is the accuser Lok, who flouts us all! Ride back, and tell in heaven this heavy news; I must again below, to Hela’s realm.” He spoke, and Niord set forth back to heaven. But northward Hermod rode, the way below, The way he knew; and traversed Giall’s stream, And down to ocean groped, and crossed the ice, And came beneath the wall, and found the grate Still lifted: well was his return foreknown. And once more Hermod saw around him spread The joyless plains, and heard the streams of hell. But as he entered, on the extremest bound Of Niflheim, he saw one ghost come near, Hovering, and stopping oft, as if afraid,— Hoder, the unhappy, whom his own hand slew. And Hermod looked, and knew his brother’s ghost, And called him by his name, and sternly said,— “Hoder, ill-fated, blind in heart and eyes! Why tarriest thou to plunge thee in the gulf Of the deep inner gloom, but flittest here, In twilight, on the lonely verge of hell, Far from the other ghosts, and Hela’s throne? Doubtless thou fearest to meet Balder’s voice, Thy brother, whom through folly thou didst slay.” He spoke; but Hoder answered him, and said,— “Hermod the nimble, dost thou still pursue The unhappy with reproach, even in the grave? For this I died, and fled beneath the gloom, Not daily to endure abhorring gods, Nor with a hateful presence cumber heaven; And canst thou not, even here, pass pitying by? No less than Balder have I lost the light Of heaven, and communion with my kin; I too had once a wife, and once a child, And substance, and a golden house in heaven: But all I left of my own act, and fled Below; and dost thou hate me even here? Balder upbraids me not, nor hates at all, Though he has cause, have any cause; but he, When that with downcast looks I hither came, Stretched forth his hand, and with benignant voice, Welcome, he said, if there be welcome here, Brother and fellow-sport of Lok with me! And not to offend thee, Hermod, nor to force My hated converse on thee, came I up From the deep gloom, where I will now return; But earnestly I longed to hover near, Not too far off, when that thou camest by; To feel the presence of a brother god, And hear the passage of a horse of heaven, For the last time—for here thou com’st no more.” He spake, and turned to go to the inner gloom. But Hermod stayed him with mild words, and said,— “Thou doest well to chide me, Hoder blind! Truly thou say’st, the planning guilty mind Was Lok’s: the unwitting hand alone was thine. But gods are like the sons of men in this: When they have woe, they blame the nearest cause. Howbeit stay, and be appeased; and tell, Sits Balder still in pomp by Hela’s side, Or is he mingled with the unnumbered dead?” And the blind Hoder answered him and spake,— “His place of state remains by Hela’s side, But empty; for his wife, for Nanna, came Lately below, and joined him; and the pair Frequent the still recesses of the realm Of Hela, and hold converse undisturbed. But they too, doubtless, will have breathed the balm Which floats before a visitant from heaven, And have drawn upward to this verge of hell.” He spake; and, as he ceased, a puff of wind Rolled heavily the leaden mist aside Round where they stood, and they beheld two forms Make toward them o’er the stretching cloudy plain. And Hermod straight perceived them, who they were,— Balder and Nanna; and to Balder said,— “Balder, too truly thou foresaw’st a snare! Lok triumphs still, and Hela keeps her prey. No more to Asgard shalt thou come, nor lodge In thy own house Breidablik, nor enjoy The love all bear toward thee, nor train up Forset, thy son, to be beloved like thee. Here must thou lie, and wait an endless age. Therefore for the last time, O Balder, hail!” He spake; and Balder answered him, and said,— “Hail and farewell! for here thou com’st no more. Yet mourn not for me, Hermod, when thou sitt’st In heaven, nor let the other gods lament, As wholly to be pitied, quite forlorn. For Nanna hath rejoined me, who of old, In heaven, was seldom parted from my side; And still the acceptance follows me, which crowned My former life, and cheers me even here. The iron frown of Hela is relaxed When I draw nigh, and the wan tribes of dead Love me, and gladly bring for my award Their ineffectual feuds and feeble hates,— Shadows of hates, but they distress them still.” And the fleet-footed Hermod made reply,— “Thou hast, then, all the solace death allows,— Esteem and function; and so far is well. Yet here thou liest, Balder, underground, Rusting forever; and the years roll on, The generations pass, the ages grow, And bring us nearer to the final day When from the south shall march the fiery band, And cross the bridge of heaven, with Lok for guide, And Fenris at his heel with broken chain; While from the east the giant Rymer steers His ship, and the great serpent makes to land; And all are marshalled in one flaming square Against the gods, upon the plains of heaven. I mourn thee, that thou canst not help us then.” He spake; but Balder answered him, and said,— “Mourn not for me! Mourn, Hermod, for the gods; Mourn for the men on earth, the gods in heaven, Who live, and with their eyes shall see that day! The day will come, when fall shall Asgard’s towers, And Odin, and his sons, the seed of heaven; But what were I, to save them in that hour? If strength might save them, could not Odin save, My father, and his pride, the warrior Thor, Vidar the silent, the impetuous Tyr? I, what were I, when these can naught avail? Yet, doubtless, when the day of battle comes, And the two hosts are marshalled, and in heaven The golden-crested cock shall sound alarm, And his black brother-bird from hence reply, And bucklers clash, and spears begin to pour,— Longing will stir within my breast, though vain. But not to me so grievous as, I know, To other gods it were, is my enforced Absence from fields where I could nothing aid; For I am long since weary of your storm Of carnage, and find, Hermod, in your life Something too much of war and broils, which make Life one perpetual fight, a bath of blood. Mine eyes are dizzy with the arrowy hail; Mine ears are stunned with blows, and sick for calm. Inactive therefore let me lie, in gloom, Unarmed, inglorious; I attend the course Of ages, and my late return to light, In times less alien to a spirit mild, In new-recovered seats, the happier day.” He spake, and the fleet Hermod thus replied:— “Brother, what seats are these, what happier day? Tell me, that I may ponder it when gone.” And the ray-crownèd Balder answered him,— “Far to the south, beyond the blue, there spreads Another heaven, the boundless. No one yet Hath reached it. There hereafter shall arise The second Asgard, with another name. Thither, when o’er this present earth and heavens The tempest of the latter days hath swept, And they from sight have disappeared and sunk, Shall a small remnant of the gods repair; Hoder and I shall join them from the grave. There re-assembling we shall see emerge From the bright ocean at our feet an earth More fresh, more verdant than the last, with fruits Self-springing, and a seed of man preserved, Who then shall live in peace, as now in war. But we in heaven shall find again with joy The ruined palaces of Odin, seats Familiar, halls where we have supped of old; Re-enter them with wonder, never fill Our eyes with gazing, and rebuild with tears. And we shall tread once more the well-known plain Of Ida, and among the grass shall find The golden dice wherewith we played of yore; And that will bring to mind the former life And pastime of the gods, the wise discourse Of Odin, the delights of other days. O Hermod, pray that thou may’st join us then! Such for the future is my hope; meanwhile, I rest the thrall of Hela, and endure Death, and the gloom which round me even now Thickens, and to its inner gulf recalls. Farewell, for longer speech is not allowed!” He spoke, and waved farewell, and gave his hand To Nanna; and she gave their brother blind Her hand, in turn, for guidance; and the three Departed o’er the cloudy plain, and soon Faded from sight into the interior gloom. But Hermod stood beside his drooping horse, Mute, gazing after them in tears; and fain, Fain had he followed their receding steps, Though they to death were bound, and he to heaven, Then: but a power he could not break withheld. And as a stork which idle boys have trapped, And tied him in a yard, at autumn sees Flocks of his kind pass flying o’er his head To warmer lands, and coasts that keep the sun; He strains to join their flight, and from his shed Follows them with a long complaining cry,— So Hermod gazed, and yearned to join his kin.

At last he sighed, and set forth back to heaven.

TRISTRAM AND ISEULT.[7]

I.
Tristram.

TRISTRAM.

Is she not come? The messenger was sure. Prop me upon the pillows once again. Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure. —Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane! What lights will those out to the northward be?

THE PAGE.

The lanterns of the fishing-boats at sea.

TRISTRAM.

Soft—who is that, stands by the dying fire?

THE PAGE.

Iseult.

TRISTRAM.

Ah! not the Iseult I desire. . . . . . . . . . .

What knight is this so weak and pale, Though the locks are yet brown on his noble head, Propped on pillows in his bed, Gazing seaward for the light Of some ship that fights the gale On this wild December night? Over the sick man’s feet is spread A dark green forest-dress; A gold harp leans against the bed, Ruddy in the fire’s light. I know him by his harp of gold, Famous in Arthur’s court of old; I know him by his forest-dress,— The peerless hunter, harper, knight, Tristram of Lyoness.

What lady is this, whose silk attire Gleams so rich in the light of the fire? The ringlets on her shoulders lying In their flitting lustre vying With the clasp of burnished gold Which her heavy robe doth hold. Her looks are mild, her fingers slight As the driven snow are white; But her cheeks are sunk and pale. Is it that the bleak sea-gale Beating from the Atlantic sea On this coast of Brittany, Nips too keenly the sweet flower? Is it that a deep fatigue Hath come on her, a chilly fear, Passing all her youthful hour Spinning with her maidens here, Listlessly through the window-bars Gazing seawards many a league From her lonely shore-built tower, While the knights are at the wars? Or, perhaps, has her young heart Felt already some deeper smart, Of those that in secret the heart-strings rive, Leaving her sunk and pale, though fair? Who is this snowdrop by the sea?— I know her by her mildness rare, Her snow-white hands, her golden hair; I know her by her rich silk dress, And her fragile loveliness,— The sweetest Christian soul alive, Iseult of Brittany.

Iseult of Brittany? but where Is that other Iseult fair, That proud, first Iseult, Cornwall’s queen? She, whom Tristram’s ship of yore From Ireland to Cornwall bore, To Tyntagel, to the side Of King Marc, to be his bride? She who, as they voyaged, quaffed With Tristram that spiced magic draught Which since then forever rolls Through their blood, and binds their souls, Working love, but working teen? There were two Iseults who did sway Each her hour of Tristram’s day; But one possessed his waning time, The other his resplendent prime. Behold her here, the patient flower, Who possessed his darker hour! Iseult of the snow-white hand Watches pale by Tristram’s bed. She is here who had his gloom: Where art thou who hadst his bloom? One such kiss as those of yore Might thy dying knight restore! Does the love-draught work no more? Art thou cold, or false, or dead, Iseult of Ireland? . . . . . . . . . .

Loud howls the wind, sharp patters the rain, And the knight sinks back on his pillows again; He is weak with fever and pain, And his spirit is not clear. Hark! he mutters in his sleep, As he wanders far from here, Changes place and time of year, And his closèd eye doth sweep O’er some fair unwintry sea, Not this fierce Atlantic deep, While he mutters brokenly,—

TRISTRAM.

The calm sea shines, loose hang the vessel’s sails; Before us are the sweet green fields of Wales, And overhead the cloudless sky of May. “Ah! would I were in those green fields at play, Not pent on shipboard this delicious day! Tristram, I pray thee, of thy courtesy, Reach me my golden cup that stands by thee, But pledge me in it first for courtesy.” Ha! dost thou start? are thy lips blanched like mine Child, ’tis no water this, ’tis poisoned wine! Iseult!... . . . . . . . . . .

Ah, sweet angels, let him dream! Keep his eyelids; let him seem Not this fever-wasted wight Thinned and paled before his time, But the brilliant youthful knight In the glory of his prime, Sitting in the gilded barge, At thy side, thou lovely charge, Bending gayly o’er thy hand, Iseult of Ireland! And she too, that princess fair, If her bloom be now less rare, Let her have her youth again, Let her be as she was then! Let her have her proud dark eyes, And her petulant quick replies; Let her sweep her dazzling hand With its gesture of command, And shake back her raven hair With the old imperious air! As of old, so let her be, That first Iseult, princess bright, Chatting with her youthful knight As he steers her o’er the sea, Quitting at her father’s will The green isle where she was bred, And her bower in Ireland, For the surge-beat Cornish strand; Where the prince whom she must wed Dwells on loud Tyntagel’s hill, High above the sounding sea. And that golden cup her mother Gave her, that her future lord, Gave her, that King Marc and she, Might drink it on their marriage-day, And forever love each other,— Let her, as she sits on board, —Ah! sweet saints, unwittingly!— See it shine, and take it up, And to Tristram laughing say,— “Sir Tristram, of thy courtesy, Pledge me in my golden cup.” Let them drink it; let their hands Tremble, and their cheeks be flame, As they feel the fatal bands Of a love they dare not name, With a wild delicious pain, Twine about their hearts again! Let the early summer be Once more round them, and the sea Blue, and o’er its mirror kind Let the breath of the May-wind, Wandering through their drooping sails, Die on the green fields of Wales; Let a dream like this restore What his eye must see no more.

TRISTRAM.

Chill blows the wind, the pleasaunce-walks are drear: Madcap, what jest was this, to meet me here? Were feet like those made for so wild a way? The southern winter-parlor, by my fay, Had been the likeliest trysting-place to-day!— “Tristram!—nay, nay—thou must not take my hand!— Tristram!—sweet love!—we are betrayed—out-planned. Fly—save thyself—save me! I dare not stay.” One last kiss first!—“’Tis vain—to horse—away!” . . . . . . . . . .

Ah! sweet saints, his dream doth move Faster surely than it should, From the fever in his blood! All the spring-time of his love Is already gone and past, And instead thereof is seen Its winter, which endureth still,— Tyntagel on its surge-beat hill, The pleasaunce-walks, the weeping queen, The flying leaves, the straining blast, And that long, wild kiss,—their last. And this rough December-night, And his burning fever-pain, Mingle with his hurrying dream, Till they rule it; till he seem The pressed fugitive again, The love-desperate, banished knight, With a fire in his brain, Flying o’er the stormy main. —Whither does he wander now? Haply in his dreams the wind Wafts him here, and lets him find The lovely orphan child again In her castle by the coast; The youngest, fairest chatelaine, That this realm of France can boast, Our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea,— Iseult of Brittany. And—for through the haggard air, The stained arms, the matted hair, Of that stranger-knight ill-starred, There gleamed something which recalled The Tristram who in better days Was Launcelot’s guest at Joyous Gard— Welcomed here, and here installed, Tended of his fever here, Haply he seems again to move His young guardian’s heart with love, In his exiled loneliness, In his stately, deep distress, Without a word, without a tear. —Ah! ’tis well he should retrace His tranquil life in this lone place; His gentle bearing at the side Of his timid youthful bride; His long rambles by the shore On winter-evenings, when the roar Of the near waves came, sadly grand, Through the dark, up the drowned sand; Or his endless reveries In the woods, where the gleams play On the grass under the trees, Passing the long summer’s day Idle as a mossy stone In the forest-depths alone, The chase neglected, and his hound Couched beside him on the ground. —Ah! what trouble’s on his brow? Hither let him wander now; Hither, to the quiet hours Passed among these heaths of ours By the gray Atlantic sea,— Hours, if not of ecstasy, From violent anguish surely free!

TRISTRAM.

All red with blood the whirling river flows, The wide plain rings, the dazed air throbs with blows. Upon us are the chivalry of Rome; Their spears are down, their steeds are bathed in foam. “Up, Tristram, up!” men cry, “thou moonstruck knight! What foul fiend rides thee? On into the fight!” —Above the din, her voice is in my ears; I see her form glide through the crossing spears.— Iseult!... . . . . . . . . . .

Ah! he wanders forth again; We cannot keep him: now, as then, There’s a secret in his breast Which will never let him rest. These musing fits in the green wood, They cloud the brain, they dull the blood! —His sword is sharp, his horse is good; Beyond the mountains will he see The famous towns of Italy, And label with the blessed sign The heathen Saxons on the Rhine. At Arthur’s side he fights once more With the Roman Emperor. There’s many a gay knight where he goes Will help him to forget his care; The march, the leaguer, heaven’s blithe air, The neighing steeds, the ringing blows,— Sick pining comes not where these are. —Ah! what boots it, that the jest Lightens every other brow, What, that every other breast Dances as the trumpets blow, If one’s own heart beats not light On the waves of the tossed fight, If one’s self cannot get free From the clog of misery? Thy lovely youthful wife grows pale Watching by the salt sea-tide, With her children at her side, For the gleam of thy white sail. Home, Tristram, to thy halls again! To our lonely sea complain, To our forests tell thy pain.

TRISTRAM.

All round the forest sweeps off, black in shade, But it is moonlight in the open glade; And in the bottom of the glade shine clear The forest-chapel and the fountain near. —I think I have a fever in my blood; Come, let me leave the shadow of this wood, Ride down, and bathe my hot brow in the flood. —Mild shines the cold spring in the moon’s clear light. God! ’tis her face plays in the waters bright! “Fair love,” she says, “canst thou forget so soon, At this soft hour, under this sweet moon?”— Iseult!... . . . . . . . . . .

Ah, poor soul! if this be so, Only death can balm thy woe. The solitudes of the green wood Had no medicine for thy mood; The rushing battle cleared thy blood As little as did solitude. —Ah! his eyelids slowly break Their hot seals, and let him wake; What new change shall we now see? A happier? Worse it cannot be.

TRISTRAM.

Is my page here? Come, turn me to the fire! Upon the window-panes the moon shines bright; The wind is down; but she’ll not come to-night. Ah, no! she is asleep in Cornwall now, Far hence; her dreams are fair, smooth is her brow. Of me she recks not, nor my vain desire. —I have had dreams, I have had dreams, my page, Would take a score years from a strong man’s age; And with a blood like mine, will leave, I fear, Scant leisure for a second messenger. —My princess, art thou there? Sweet, ’tis too late! To bed, and sleep! my fever is gone by; To-night my page shall keep me company. Where do the children sleep? kiss them for me! Poor child, thou art almost as pale as I: This comes of nursing long and watching late. To bed—good night! . . . . . . . . . .

She left the gleam-lit fireplace, She came to the bedside; She took his hands in hers, her tears Down on her slender fingers rained. She raised her eyes upon his face, Not with a look of wounded pride, A look as if the heart complained; Her look was like a sad embrace,— The gaze of one who can divine A grief, and sympathize. Sweet flower! thy children’s eyes Are not more innocent than thine.

But they sleep in sheltered rest, Like helpless birds in the warm nest, On the castle’s southern side; Where feebly comes the mournful roar Of buffeting wind and surging tide Through many a room and corridor. —Full on their window the moon’s ray Makes their chamber as bright as day. It shines upon the blank white walls, And on the snowy pillow falls, And on two angel-heads doth play Turned to each other; the eyes closed, The lashes on the cheeks reposed. Round each sweet brow the cap close-set Hardly lets peep the golden hair; Through the soft-opened lips, the air Scarcely moves the coverlet. One little wandering arm is thrown At random on the counterpane, And often the fingers close in haste As if their baby-owner chased The butterflies again. This stir they have, and this alone; But else they are so still! —Ah, tired madcaps! you lie still; But were you at the window now, To look forth on the fairy sight Of your illumined haunts by night, To see the park-glades where you play Far lovelier than they are by day, To see the sparkle on the eaves, And upon every giant-bough Of those old oaks, whose wet red leaves Are jewelled with bright drops of rain,— How would your voices run again! And far beyond the sparkling trees Of the castle-park, one sees The bare heaths spreading, clear as day, Moor behind moor, far, far away, Into the heart of Brittany. And here and there, locked by the land, Long inlets of smooth glittering sea, And many a stretch of watery sand All shining in the white moonbeams. But you see fairer in your dreams! What voices are these on the clear night air? What lights in the court, what steps on the stair?

TRISTRAM AND ISEULT.

II. Iseult of Ireland.

TRISTRAM.

Raise the light, my page! that I may see her.— Thou art come at last, then, haughty queen! Long I’ve waited, long I’ve fought my fever; Late thou comest, cruel thou hast been.

ISEULT.

Blame me not, poor sufferer! that I tarried: Bound I was, I could not break the band. Chide not with the past, but feel the present; I am here, we meet, I hold thy hand.

TRISTRAM.

Thou art come, indeed; thou hast rejoined me; Thou hast dared it—but too late to save. Fear not now that men should tax thine honor! I am dying; build (thou may’st) my grave.

ISEULT.

Tristram, ah! for love of heaven, speak kindly! What! I hear these bitter words from thee? Sick with grief I am, and faint with travel; Take my hand—dear Tristram, look on me!

TRISTRAM.

I forgot, thou comest from thy voyage; Yes, the spray is on thy cloak and hair. But thy dark eyes are not dimmed, proud Iseult! And thy beauty never was more fair.

ISEULT.

Ah, harsh flatterer! let alone my beauty! I, like thee, have left my youth afar. Take my hand, and touch these wasted fingers; See my cheek and lips, how white they are!

TRISTRAM.

Thou art paler; but thy sweet charm, Iseult, Would not fade with the dull years away. Ah, how fair thou standest in the moonlight! I forgive thee, Iseult! thou wilt stay?

ISEULT.

Fear me not, I will be always with thee; I will watch thee, tend thee, soothe thy pain; Sing thee tales of true, long-parted lovers, Joined at evening of their days again.

TRISTRAM.

No, thou shalt not speak! I should be finding Something altered in thy courtly tone. Sit—sit by me! I will think, we’ve lived so In the green wood, all our lives, alone.

ISEULT.

Altered, Tristram? Not in courts, believe me, Love like mine is altered in the breast: Courtly life is light, and cannot reach it; Ah! it lives, because so deep-suppressed!

What! thou think’st men speak in courtly chambers Words by which the wretched are consoled? What! thou think’st this aching brow was cooler, Circled, Tristram, by a band of gold?

Royal state with Marc, my deep-wronged husband,— That was bliss to make my sorrows flee! Silken courtiers whispering honeyed nothings,— Those were friends to make me false to thee!

Ah! on which, if both our lots were balanced, Was indeed the heaviest burden thrown,— Thee, a pining exile in thy forest, Me, a smiling queen upon my throne?

Vain and strange debate, where both have suffered Both have passed a youth repressed and sad, Both have brought their anxious day to evening, And have now short space for being glad!

Joined we are henceforth; nor will thy people Nor thy younger Iseult take it ill, That a former rival shares her office, When she sees her humbled, pale, and still.

I, a faded watcher by thy pillow, I, a statue on thy chapel-floor, Poured in prayer before the Virgin-Mother, Rouse no anger, make no rivals more.

She will cry, “Is this the foe I dreaded? This his idol, this that royal bride? Ah! an hour of health would purge his eyesight! Stay, pale queen, forever by my side.”

Hush, no words! that smile, I see, forgives me. I am now thy nurse, I bid thee sleep. Close thine eyes: this flooding moonlight blinds them. Nay, all’s well again! thou must not weep.

TRISTRAM.

I am happy! yet I feel there’s something Swells my heart, and takes my breath away. Through a mist I see thee; near—come nearer! Bend—bend down! I yet have much to say.

ISEULT.

Heaven! his head sinks back upon the pillow.— Tristram! Tristram! let thy heart not fail! Call on God and on the holy angels! What, love, courage!—Christ! he is so pale.

TRISTRAM.

Hush, ’tis vain: I feel my end approaching. This is what my mother said should be, When the fierce pains took her in the forest, The deep draughts of death, in bearing me.

“Son,” she said, “thy name shall be of sorrow; Tristram art thou called for my death’s sake.” So she said, and died in the drear forest. Grief since then his home with me doth make.

I am dying. Start not, nor look wildly! Me, thy living friend, thou canst not save. But, since living we were ununited, Go not far, O Iseult! from my grave.

Close mine eyes, then seek the princess Iseult; Speak her fair, she is of royal blood. Say, I charged her, that thou stay beside me: She will grant it; she is kind and good.

Now to sail the seas of death I leave thee— One last kiss upon the living shore!

ISEULT.

Tristram! Tristram! stay—receive me with thee! Iseult leaves thee, Tristram! nevermore. . . . . . . . . . .

You see them clear—the moon shines bright. Slow, slow and softly, where she stood, She sinks upon the ground; her hood Had fallen back, her arms outspread Still hold her lover’s hands; her head Is bowed, half-buried, on the bed. O’er the blanched sheet, her raven hair Lies in disordered streams; and there, Strung like white stars, the pearls still are; And the golden bracelets, heavy and rare, Flash on her white arms still,— The very same which yesternight Flashed in the silver sconces’ light, When the feast was gay and the laughter loud In Tyntagel’s palace proud. But then they decked a restless ghost With hot-flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes, And quivering lips on which the tide Of courtly speech abruptly died, And a glance which over the crowded floor, The dancers, and the festive host, Flew ever to the door; That the knights eyed her in surprise, And the dames whispered scoffingly,— “Her moods, good lack, they pass like showers! But yesternight and she would be As pale and still as withered flowers; And now to-night she laughs and speaks, And has a color in her cheeks. Christ keep us from such fantasy!”—

Yes, now the longing is o’erpast, Which, dogged by fear and fought by shame. Shook her weak bosom day and night, Consumed her beauty like a flame, And dimmed it like the desert-blast. And though the curtains hide her face, Yet, were it lifted to the light, The sweet expression of her brow Would charm the gazer, till his thought Erased the ravages of time, Filled up the hollow cheek, and brought A freshness back as of her prime,— So healing is her quiet now; So perfectly the lines express A tranquil, settled loveliness, Her younger rival’s purest grace.

The air of the December-night Steals coldly around the chamber bright, Where those lifeless lovers be. Swinging with it, in the light Flaps the ghost-like tapestry. And on the arras wrought you see A stately huntsman, clad in green, And round him a fresh forest-scene. On that clear forest-knoll he stays, With his pack round him, and delays. He stares and stares, with troubled face, At this huge, gleam-lit fireplace, At that bright, iron-figured door, And those blown rushes on the floor. He gazes down into the room With heated cheeks and flurried air, And to himself he seems to say,— “What place is this, and who are they? Who is that kneeling lady fair? And on his pillows that pale knight Who seems of marble on a tomb? How comes it here, this chamber bright, Through whose mullioned windows clear The castle-court all wet with rain, The drawbridge and the moat appear, And then the beach, and, marked with spray, The sunken reefs, and far away The unquiet bright Atlantic plain? —What! has some glamour made me sleep, And sent me with my dogs to sweep, By night, with boisterous bugle-peal, Through some old, sea-side, knightly hall, Not in the free green wood at all? That knight’s asleep, and at her prayer That lady by the bed doth kneel— Then hush, thou boisterous bugle-peal! —The wild boar rustles in his lair; The fierce hounds snuff the tainted air; But lord and hounds keep rooted there.

Cheer, cheer thy dogs into the brake, O hunter! and without a fear Thy golden-tasselled bugle blow, And through the glades thy pastime take— For thou wilt rouse no sleepers here! For these thou seest are unmoved; Cold, cold as those who lived and loved A thousand years ago.

TRISTRAM AND ISEULT.

III.
Iseult of Brittany.

A year had flown, and o’er the sea away, In Cornwall, Tristram and Queen Iseult lay; In King Marc’s chapel, in Tyntagel old: There in a ship they bore those lovers cold.

The young surviving Iseult, one bright day, Had wandered forth. Her children were at play In a green circular hollow in the heath Which borders the seashore; a country path Creeps over it from the tilled fields behind. The hollow’s grassy banks are soft-inclined; And to one standing on them, far and near The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear Over the waste. This cirque of open ground Is light and green; the heather, which all round Creeps thickly, grows not here; but the pale grass Is strewn with rocks and many a shivered mass Of veined white-gleaming quartz, and here and there Dotted with holly-trees and juniper. In the smooth centre of the opening stood Three hollies side by side, and made a screen, Warm with the winter-sun, of burnished green With scarlet berries gemmed, the fell-fare’s food. Under the glittering hollies Iseult stands, Watching her children play: their little hands Are busy gathering spars of quartz, and streams Of stagshorn for their hats; anon, with screams Of mad delight they drop their spoils, and bound Among the holly-clumps and broken ground, Racing full speed, and startling in their rush The fell-fares and the speckled missel-thrush Out of their glossy coverts; but when now Their cheeks were flushed, and over each hot brow, Under the feathered hats of the sweet pair, In blinding masses showered the golden hair, Then Iseult called them to her, and the three Clustered under the holly-screen, and she Told them an old-world Breton history.

Warm in their mantles wrapped, the three stood there, Under the hollies, in the clear still air,— Mantles with those rich furs deep glistering Which Venice ships do from swart Egypt bring. Long they stayed still, then, pacing at their ease, Moved up and down under the glossy trees; But still, as they pursued their warm dry road, From Iseult’s lips the unbroken story flowed, And still the children listened, their blue eyes Fixed on their mother’s face in wide surprise. Nor did their looks stray once to the sea-side, Nor to the brown heaths round them, bright and wide, Nor to the snow, which, though ’twas all away From the open heath, still by the hedgerows lay, Nor to the shining sea-fowl, that with screams Bore up from where the bright Atlantic gleams, Swooping to landward; nor to where, quite clear, The fell-fares settled on the thickets near. And they would still have listened, till dark night Came keen and chill down on the heather bright; But when the red glow on the sea grew cold, And the gray turrets of the castle old Looked sternly through the frosty evening-air, Then Iseult took by the hand those children fair, And brought her tale to an end, and found the path, And led them home over the darkening heath. And is she happy? Does she see unmoved The days in which she might have lived and loved Slip without bringing bliss slowly away, One after one, to-morrow like to-day? Joy has not found her yet, nor ever will: Is it this thought which makes her mien so still, Her features so fatigued, her eyes, though sweet, So sunk, so rarely lifted save to meet Her children’s? She moves slow; her voice alone Hath yet an infantine and silver tone, But even that comes languidly; in truth, She seems one dying in a mask of youth. And now she will go home, and softly lay Her laughing children in their beds, and play A while with them before they sleep; and then She’ll light her silver lamp,—which fishermen Dragging their nets through the rough waves afar, Along this iron coast, know like a star,— And take her broidery-frame, and there she’ll sit Hour after hour, her gold curls sweeping it; Lifting her soft-bent head only to mind Her children, or to listen to the wind. And when the clock peals midnight, she will move Her work away, and let her fingers rove Across the shaggy brows of Tristram’s hound, Who lies, guarding her feet, along the ground; Or else she will fall musing, her blue eyes Fixed, her slight hands clasped on her lap; then rise, And at her prie-dieu kneel, until she have told Her rosary-beads of ebony tipped with gold; Then to her soft sleep—and to-morrow’ll be To-day’s exact repeated effigy. Yes, it is lonely for her in her hall. The children, and the gray-haired seneschal, Her women, and Sir Tristram’s aged hound, Are there the sole companions to be found. But these she loves; and noisier life than this She would find ill to bear, weak as she is. She has her children, too, and night and day Is with them; and the wide heaths where they play, The hollies, and the cliff, and the sea-shore, The sand, the sea-birds, and the distant sails, These are to her dear as to them; the tales With which this day the children she beguiled She gleaned from Breton grandames, when a child, In every hut along this sea-coast wild; She herself loves them still, and, when they are told, Can forget all to hear them, as of old.

Dear saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear, Not suffering, which shuts up eye and ear To all that has delighted them before, And lets us be what we were once no more. No: we may suffer deeply, yet retain Power to be moved and soothed, for all our pain, By what of old pleased us, and will again. No: ’tis the gradual furnace of the world, In whose hot air our spirits are upcurled Until they crumble, or else grow like steel, Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring; Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel, But takes away the power: this can avail, By drying up our joy in every thing, To make our former pleasures all seem stale. This, or some tyrannous single thought, some fit Of passion, which subdues our souls to it, Till for its sake alone we live and move,— Call it ambition, or remorse, or love,— This too can change us wholly, and make seem All which we did before, shadow and dream. And yet, I swear, it angers me to see How this fool passion gulls men potently; Being, in truth, but a diseased unrest, And an unnatural overheat at best. How they are full of languor and distress Not having it; which when they do possess, They straightway are burnt up with fume and care, And spend their lives in posting here and there Where this plague drives them; and have little ease, Are furious with themselves, and hard to please. Like that bald Cæsar, the famed Roman wight, Who wept at reading of a Grecian knight Who made a name at younger years than he; Or that renowned mirror of chivalry, Prince Alexander, Philip’s peerless son, Who carried the great war from Macedon Into the Soudan’s realm, and thundered on To die at thirty-five in Babylon.

What tale did Iseult to the children say, Under the hollies, that bright winter’s day?

She told them of the fairy-haunted land Away the other side of Brittany, Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea; Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande, Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps, Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps. For here he came with the fay Vivian, One April, when the warm days first began. He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend, On her white palfrey; here he met his end, In these lone sylvan glades, that April-day. This tale of Merlin and the lovely fay Was the one Iseult chose, and she brought clear Before the children’s fancy him and her.

Blowing between the stems, the forest-air Had loosened the brown locks of Vivian’s hair, Which played on her flushed cheek, and her blue eyes Sparkled with mocking glee and exercise. Her palfrey’s flanks were mired and bathed in sweat, For they had travelled far and not stopped yet. A brier in that tangled wilderness Had scored her white right hand, which she allows To rest ungloved on her green riding-dress; The other warded off the drooping boughs. But still she chatted on, with her blue eyes Fixed full on Merlin’s face, her stately prize. Her ’havior had the morning’s fresh clear grace, The spirit of the woods was in her face; She looked so witching fair, that learned wight Forgot his craft, and his best wits took flight, And he grew fond, and eager to obey His mistress, use her empire as she may.

They came to where the brushwood ceased, and day Peered ’twixt the stems; and the ground broke away In a sloped sward down to a brawling brook. And up as high as where they stood to look On the brook’s farther side was clear; but then The underwood and trees began again. This open glen was studded thick with thorns Then white with blossom; and you saw the horns, Through last year’s fern, of the shy fallow-deer Who come at noon down to the water here. You saw the bright-eyed squirrels dart along Under the thorns on the green sward; and strong The blackbird whistled from the dingles near, And the weird chipping of the woodpecker Rang lonelily and sharp; the sky was fair, And a fresh breath of spring stirred everywhere. Merlin and Vivian stopped on the slope’s brow, To gaze on the light sea of leaf and bough Which glistering plays all round them, lone and mild, As if to itself the quiet forest smiled. Upon the brow-top grew a thorn, and here The grass was dry and mossed, and you saw clear Across the hollow; white anemones Starred the cool turf, and clumps of primroses Ran out from the dark underwood behind. No fairer resting-place a man could find. “Here let us halt,” said Merlin then; and she Nodded, and tied her palfrey to a tree.

They sate them down together, and a sleep Fell upon Merlin, more like death, so deep. Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose, And from her brown-locked head the wimple throws, And takes it in her hand, and waves it over The blossomed thorn-tree and her sleeping lover. Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple round, And made a little plot of magic ground. And in that daisied circle, as men say, Is Merlin prisoner till the judgment-day; But she herself whither she will can rove— For she was passing weary of his love.

SAINT BRANDAN.

Saint Brandan sails the northern main; The brotherhoods of saints are glad. He greets them once, he sails again; So late! such storms! The saint is mad!

He heard, across the howling seas, Chime convent-bells on wintry nights; He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides, Twinkle the monastery-lights;

But north, still north, Saint Brandan steered; And now no bells, no convents more! The hurtling Polar lights are neared, The sea without a human shore.

At last (it was the Christmas-night; Stars shone after a day of storm) He sees float past an iceberg white, And on it—Christ!—a living form.

That furtive mien, that scowling eye, Of hair that red and tufted fell, It is—oh, where shall Brandan fly?— The traitor Judas, out of hell!

Palsied with terror, Brandan sate; The moon was bright, the iceberg near. He hears a voice sigh humbly, “Wait! By high permission I am here.

“One moment wait, thou holy man! On earth my crime, my death, they knew; My name is under all men’s ban: Ah! tell them of my respite too.

“Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night (It was the first after I came, Breathing self-murder, frenzy, spite, To rue my guilt in endless flame),—

“I felt, as I in torment lay ’Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power, An angel touch mine arm, and say,— Go hence, and cool thyself an hour!

“‘Ah! whence this mercy, Lord?’ I said. The leper recollect, said he, Who asked the passers-by for aid, In Joppa, and thy charity.

“Then I remembered how I went, In Joppa, through the public street, One morn when the sirocco spent Its storms of dust with burning heat; “And in the street a leper sate, Shivering with fever, naked, old; Sand raked his sores from heel to pate, The hot wind fevered him fivefold.

“He gazed upon me as I passed, And murmured, Help me, or I die! To the poor wretch my cloak I cast, Saw him look eased, and hurried by.

“O Brandan! think what grace divine, What blessing must full goodness shower, When fragment of it small, like mine, Hath such inestimable power!

“Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I Did that chance act of good, that one! Then went my way to kill and lie, Forgot my good as soon as done.

“That germ of kindness, in the womb Of mercy caught, did not expire; Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom, And friends me in the pit of fire.

“Once every year, when carols wake, On earth, the Christmas-night’s repose, Arising from the sinner’s lake, I journey to these healing snows.

“I stanch with ice my burning breast, With silence balm my whirling brain. O Brandan! to this hour of rest, That Joppan leper’s ease was pain.”

Tears started to Saint Brandan’s eyes; He bowed his head, he breathed a prayer, Then looked—and lo, the frosty skies! The iceberg, and no Judas there!

THE NECKAN.

In summer, on the headlands, The Baltic Sea along, Sits Neckan with his harp of gold, And sings his plaintive song.

Green rolls, beneath the headlands, Green rolls the Baltic Sea; And there, below the Neckan’s feet, His wife and children be.

He sings not of the ocean, Its shells and roses pale: Of earth, of earth, the Neckan sings, He hath no other tale.

He sits upon the headlands, And sings a mournful stave Of all he saw and felt on earth, Far from the kind sea-wave.

Sings how, a knight, he wandered By castle, field, and town; But earthly knights have harder hearts Than the sea-children own.

Sings of his earthly bridal, Priest, knights, and ladies gay. “And who art thou,” the priest began, “Sir Knight, who wedd’st to-day?”

“I am no knight,” he answered; “From the sea-waves I come.” The knights drew sword, the ladies screamed, The surpliced priest stood dumb.

He sings how from the chapel He vanished with his bride, And bore her down to the sea-halls, Beneath the salt sea-tide.

He sings how she sits weeping ’Mid shells that round her lie. “False Neckan shares my bed,” she weeps; “No Christian mate have I.”

He sings how through the billows He rose to earth again, And sought a priest to sign the cross, That Neckan heaven might gain.

He sings how, on an evening, Beneath the birch-trees cool, He sate and played his harp of gold, Beside the river-pool.

Beside the pool sate Neckan, Tears filled his mild blue eye. On his white mule, across the bridge, A cassocked priest rode by.

“Why sitt’st thou there, O Neckan, And play’st thy harp of gold? Sooner shall this my staff bear leaves, Than thou shalt heaven behold.”

But, lo! the staff, it budded; It greened, it branched, it waved. “O ruth of God!” the priest cried out, “This lost sea-creature saved!”

The cassocked priest rode onwards, And vanished with his mule; And Neckan in the twilight gray Wept by the river-pool.

He wept, “The earth hath kindness, The sea, the starry poles; Earth, sea, and sky, and God above,— But, ah! not human souls!”

In summer, on the headlands, The Baltic Sea along, Sits Neckan with his harp of gold, And sings this plaintive song.

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN.

Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below! Now my brothers call from the bay, Now the great winds shoreward blow, Now the salt tides seaward flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. Children dear, let us away! This way, this way!

Call her once before you go,— Call once yet! In a voice that she will know,— “Margaret! Margaret!” Children’s voices should be dear (Call once more) to a mother’s ear; Children’s voices, wild with pain,— Surely she will come again! Call her once, and come away; This way, this way! “Mother dear, we cannot stay! The wild white horses foam and fret.” Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down; Call no more! One last look at the white-walled town, And the little gray church on the windy shore; Then come down! She will not come, though you call all day; Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday We heard the sweet bells over the bay,— In the caverns where we lay, Through the surf and through the swell, The far-off sound of a silver bell? Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep; Where the spent lights quiver and gleam, Where the salt weed sways in the stream, Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round, Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground; Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, Dry their mail and bask in the brine; Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye? When did music come this way? Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away? Once she sate with you and me, On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, And the youngest sate on her knee. She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well, When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea; She said, “I must go, for my kinsfolk pray In the little gray church on the shore to-day. ’Twill be Easter-time in the world—ah me! And I lose my poor soul, merman! here with thee.” I said, “Go up, dear heart, through the waves; Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!” She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.

Children dear, was it yesterday? Children dear, were we long alone? “The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; Long prayers,” I said, “in the world they say; Come!” I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay. We went up the beach, by the sandy down Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-walled town; Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still, To the little gray church on the windy hill. From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, But we stood without in the cold blowing airs. We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn with rains, And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes. She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: “Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here! Dear heart,” I said, “we are long alone; The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.” But, ah! she gave me never a look, For her eyes were sealed to the holy book. Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. Come away, children, call no more! Come away, come down, call no more!

Down, down, down! Down to the depths of the sea! She sits at her wheel in the humming town, Singing most joyfully. Hark what she sings: “O joy, O joy, For the humming street, and the child with its toy! For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; For the wheel where I spun, And the blessed light of the sun!” And so she sings her fill, Singing most joyfully, Till the spindle drops from her hand, And the whizzing wheel stands still. She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, And over the sand at the sea; And her eyes are set in a stare; And anon there breaks a sigh, And anon there drops a tear, From a sorrow-clouded eye, And a heart sorrow-laden, A long, long sigh, For the cold strange eyes of a little mermaiden, And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away, children; Come, children, come down! The hoarse wind blows colder; Lights shine in the town. She will start from her slumber When gusts shake the door: She will hear the winds howling, Will hear the waves roar. We shall see, while above us The waves roar and whirl, A ceiling of amber, A pavement of pearl. Singing, “Here came a mortal, But faithless was she! And alone dwell forever The kings of the sea.”

But, children, at midnight, When soft the winds blow, When clear falls the moonlight, When spring-tides are low; When sweet airs come seaward From heaths starred with broom, And high rocks throw mildly On the blanched sands a gloom; Up the still, glistening beaches, Up the creeks we will hie, Over banks of bright seaweed The ebb-tide leaves dry. We will gaze, from the sand-hills, At the white sleeping town; At the church on the hill-side, And then come back down, Singing, “There dwells a loved one, But cruel is she! She left lonely forever The kings of the sea.”

SONNETS.

AUSTERITY OF POETRY.

That son of Italy who tried to blow,[8] Ere Dante came, the trump of sacred song, In his light youth amid a festal throng Sate with his bride to see a public show.

Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow Youth like a star; and what to youth belong,— Gay raiment sparkling gauds, elation strong. A prop gave way! crash fell a platform! Lo,

Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay! Shuddering, they drew her garments off—and found A robe of sackcloth next the smooth, white skin.

Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay, Radiant, adorned outside; a hidden ground Of thought and of austerity within.

A PICTURE AT NEWSTEAD.

What made my heart, at Newstead, fullest swell?— ’Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry Stormily sweet, his Titan-agony; It was the sight of that Lord Arundel Who struck, in heat, his child he loved so well, And his child’s reason flickered, and did die. Painted (he willed it) in the gallery They hang; the picture doth the story tell.

Behold the stern, mailed father, staff in hand! The little fair-haired son, with vacant gaze, Where no more lights of sense or knowledge are!

Methinks the woe, which made that father stand Baring his dumb remorse to future days, Was woe than Byron’s woe more tragic far.

RACHEL.

I.

In Paris all looked hot and like to fade; Sere, in the garden of the Tuileries, Sere with September, drooped the chestnut-trees; was dawn, a brougham rolled through the streets, and made

Halt at the white and silent colonnade Of the French Theatre. Worn with disease, Rachel, with eyes no gazing can appease, Sate in the brougham, and those blank walls surveyed.

She follows the gay world, whose swarms have fled To Switzerland, to Baden, to the Rhine; Why stops she by this empty playhouse drear?

Ah! where the spirit its highest life hath led, All spots, matched with that spot, are less divine; And Rachel’s Switzerland, her Rhine, is here!

II.

Unto a lonely villa, in a dell Above the fragrant warm Provençal shore, The dying Rachel in a chair they bore Up the steep pine-plumed paths of the Estrelle,

And laid her in a stately room, where fell The shadow of a marble Muse of yore,— The rose-crowned queen of legendary lore, Polymnia,—full on her death-bed. ’Twas well!

The fret and misery of our northern towns, In this her life’s last day, our poor, our pain, Our jangle of false wits, our climate’s frowns,

Do for this radiant Greek-souled artist cease: Sole object of her dying eyes remain The beauty and the glorious art of Greece.

III.

Sprung from the blood of Israel’s scattered race, At a mean inn in German Aarau born, To forms from antique Greece and Rome uptorn, Tricked out with a Parisian speech and face,

Imparting life renewed, old classic grace; Then soothing with thy Christian strain forlorn, A-Kempis! her departing soul outworn, While by her bedside Hebrew rites have place,—

Ah! not the radiant spirit of Greece alone She had—one power, which made her breast its home. In her, like us, there clashed, contending powers,

Germany, France, Christ, Moses, Athens, Rome. The strife, the mixture in her soul, are ours; Her genius and her glory are her own.

WORLDLY PLACE.

Even in a palace, life may be led well! So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,

Our freedom for a little bread we sell, And drudge under some foolish master’s ken Who rates us if we peer outside our pen,— Matched with a palace, is not this a hell?

Even in a palace! On his truth sincere, Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came; And when my ill-schooled spirit is aflame

Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win, I’ll stop, and say, “There were no succor here! The aids to noble life are all within.”

EAST LONDON.

’Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, And the pale weaver, through his windows seen In Spitalfields, looked thrice dispirited.

I met a preacher there I knew, and said,— “Ill and o’erworked, how fare you in this scene?” “Bravely!” said he; “for I of late have been Much cheered with thoughts of Christ, the living bread.”

O human soul! as long as thou canst so Set up a mark of everlasting light, Above the howling senses’ ebb and flow,

To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam,— Not with lost toil thou laborest through the night! Thou mak’st the heaven thou hop’st indeed thy home.

WEST LONDON.

Crouched on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square, A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied; A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare.

Some laboring-men, whose work lay somewhere there, Passed opposite; she touched her girl, who hied Across, and begged, and came back satisfied. The rich she had let pass with frozen stare.

Thought I, “Above her state this spirit towers; She will not ask of aliens, but of friends, Of sharers in a common human fate.

She turns from that cold succor, which attends The unknown little from the unknowing great, And points us to a better time than ours.”

EAST AND WEST.

In the bare midst of Anglesey they show Two springs which close by one another play; And, “Thirteen hundred years agone,” they say, “Two saints met often where those waters flow.

One came from Penmon westward, and a glow Whitened his face from the sun’s fronting ray; Eastward the other, from the dying day, And he with unsunned face did always go.”

Seiriol the Bright, Kybi the Dark! men said. The seer from the East was then in light, The seer from the West was then in shade. Ah! now ’tis changed. In conquering sunshine bright The man of the bold West now comes arrayed: He of the mystic East is touched with night.

THE BETTER PART.

Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man, How angrily thou spurn’st all simpler fare! “Christ,” some one says, “was human as we are; No judge eyes us from heaven, our sin to scan;

We live no more, when we have done our span.” “Well, then, for Christ,” thou answerest, “who can care? From sin which Heaven records not, why forbear? Live we like brutes our life without a plan!”

So answerest thou; but why not rather say,— “Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high! Sits there no judge in heaven, our sin to see?

More strictly, then, the inward judge obey! Was Christ a man like us? Ah! let us try If we then, too, can be such men as he!”

THE DIVINITY.

“Yes, write it in the rock,” Saint Bernard said, “Grave it on brass with adamantine pen! ’Tis God himself becomes apparent, when God’s wisdom and God’s goodness are displayed;

For God of these his attributes is made.”— Well spake the impetuous saint, and bore of men The suffrage captive: now not one in ten Recalls the obscure opposer he outweighed.[9]

God’s wisdom and God’s goodness! Ay, but fools Mis-define these till God knows them no more. Wisdom and goodness, they are God!—what schools

Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore? This no saint preaches, and this no Church rules; ’Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.

IMMORTALITY.

Foiled by our fellow-men, depressed, outworn, We leave the brutal world to take its way, And, Patience! in another life, we say, The world shall be thrust down, and we upborne.

And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn The world’s poor, routed leavings? or will they Who failed under the heat of this life’s day Support the fervors of the heavenly morn?

No, no! the energy of life may be Kept on after the grave, but not begun; And he who flagged not in the earthly strife,

From strength to strength advancing,—only he, His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH THE KID.

He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save. So rang Tertullian’s sentence, on the side Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried,[10] “Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave.” So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed, The infant Church! of love she felt the tide Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave.

And then she smiled; and in the Catacombs, With eye suffused but heart inspired true, On those walls subterranean, where she hid

Her head ’mid ignominy, death, and tombs, She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew— And on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid.

MONICA’S LAST PRAYER.[11]

“Ah! could thy grave at home, at Carthage, be!”

Care not for that, and lay me where I fall!

Everywhere heard will be the judgment-call;

But at God’s altar, oh! remember me.

Thus Monica, and died in Italy.

Yet fervent had her longing been, through all

Her course, for home at last, and burial

With her own husband, by the Libyan sea.

Had been! but at the end, to her pure soul

All tie with all beside seemed vain and cheap,

And union before God the only care.

Creeds pass, rites change, no altar standeth whole.

Yet we her memory, as she prayed, will keep,

Keep by this: Life in God, and union there!

LYRIC AND DRAMATIC POEMS.

SWITZERLAND.

I. MEETING.

Again I see my bliss at hand, The town, the lake, are here; My Marguerite smiles upon the strand,[12] Unaltered with the year.

I know that graceful figure fair, That cheek of languid hue; I know that soft, enkerchiefed hair, And those sweet eyes of blue.

Again I spring to make my choice; Again in tones of ire I hear a God’s tremendous voice,— “Be counselled, and retire.”

Ye guiding Powers who join and part, What would ye have with me? Ah, warn some more ambitious heart, And let the peaceful be!

II. PARTING.

Ye storm-winds of autumn! Who rush by, who shake The window, and ruffle The gleam-lighted lake; Who cross to the hillside Thin-sprinkled with farms, Where the high woods strip sadly Their yellowing arms,— Ye are bound for the mountains! Ah! with you let me go Where your cold, distant barrier, The vast range of snow, Through the loose clouds lifts dimly Its white peaks in air. How deep is their stillness! Ah! would I were there!

But on the stairs what voice is this I hear, Buoyant as morning, and as morning clear? Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn? Or was it from some sun-flecked mountain brook That the sweet voice its upland clearness took? Ah! it comes nearer— Sweet notes, this way!

Hark! fast by the window The rushing winds go, To the ice-cumbered gorges, The vast seas of snow! There the torrents drive upward Their rock-strangled hum; There the avalanche thunders The hoarse torrent dumb. —I come, O ye mountains! Ye torrents, I come!

But who is this, by the half-opened door, Whose figure casts a shadow on the floor? The sweet blue eyes—the soft, ash-colored hair— The cheeks that still their gentle paleness wear— The lovely lips, with their arched smile that tells The unconquered joy in which her spirit dwells— Ah! they bend nearer— Sweet lips, this way!

Hark! the wind rushes past us! Ah! with that let me go To the clear, waning hill-side, Unspotted by snow, There to watch, o’er the sunk vale, The frore mountain wall, Where the niched snow-bed sprays down Its powdery fall. There its dusky blue clusters The aconite spreads; There the pines slope, the cloud-strips Hung soft in their heads. No life but, at moments, The mountain bee’s hum. —I come, O ye mountains! Ye pine-woods, I come!

Forgive me! forgive me! Ah, Marguerite, fain Would these arms reach to clasp thee! But see! ’tis in vain.

In the void air, towards thee, My stretched arms are cast; But a sea rolls between us,— Our different past!

To the lips, ah! of others Those lips have been prest, And others, ere I was, Were strained to that breast.

Far, far from each other Our spirits have grown. And what heart knows another? Ah! who knows his own?

Blow, ye winds! lift me with you! I come to the wild. Fold closely, O Nature! Thine arms round thy child.

To thee only God granted A heart ever new,— To all always open, To all always true.

Ah! calm me, restore me; And dry up my tears On thy high mountain platforms, Where morn first appears;

Where the white mists, forever, Are spread and upfurled,— In the stir of the forces Whence issued the world.

III. A FAREWELL.

My horse’s feet beside the lake, Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay, Sent echoes through the night to wake Each glistening strand, each heath-fringed bay.

The poplar avenue was passed, And the roofed bridge that spans the stream; Up the steep street I hurried fast, Led by thy taper’s starlike beam.

I came! I saw thee rise! the blood Poured flushing to thy languid cheek. Locked in each other’s arms we stood, In tears, with hearts too full to speak.

Days flew; ah, soon I could discern A trouble in thine altered air! Thy hand lay languidly in mine, Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare.

I blame thee not! This heart, I know, To be long loved was never framed; For something in its depths doth glow Too strange, too restless, too untamed.

And women,—things that live and move Mined by the fever of the soul,— They seek to find in those they love Stern strength, and promise of control.

They ask not kindness, gentle ways; These they themselves have tried and known: They ask a soul which never sways With the blind gusts that shake their own.

I too have felt the load I bore In a too strong emotion’s sway; I too have wished, no woman more, This starting, feverish heart away.

I too have longed for trenchant force, And will like a dividing spear; Have praised the keen, unscrupulous course, Which knows no doubt, which feels no fear.

But in the world I learnt, what there Thou too wilt surely one day prove,— That will, that energy, though rare, Are yet far, far less rare than love.

Go, then! till time and fate impress This truth on thee, be mine no more! They will! for thou, I feel, not less Than I, wast destined to this lore.

We school our manners, act our parts; But He, who sees us through and through, Knows that the bent of both our hearts Was to be gentle, tranquil, true.

And though we wear out life, alas! Distracted as a homeless wind, In beating where we must not pass, In seeking what we shall not find;

Yet we shall one day gain, life past, Clear prospect o’er our being’s whole; Shall see ourselves, and learn at last Our true affinities of soul.

We shall not then deny a course To every thought the mass ignore; We shall not then call hardness force, Nor lightness wisdom any more.

Then, in the eternal Father’s smile, Our soothed, encouraged souls will dare To seem as free from pride and guile, As good, as generous, as they are.

Then we shall know our friends! Though much Will have been lost,—the help in strife, The thousand sweet, still joys of such As hand in hand face earthly life,—

Though these be lost, there will be yet A sympathy august and pure; Ennobled by a vast regret, And by contrition sealed thrice sure.

And we, whose ways were unlike here, May then more neighboring courses ply; May to each other be brought near, And greet across infinity.

How sweet, unreached by earthly jars, My sister! to maintain with thee The hush among the shining stars, The calm upon the moonlit sea!

How sweet to feel, on the boon air, All our unquiet pulses cease! To feel that nothing can impair The gentleness, the thirst for peace,—

The gentleness too rudely hurled On this wild earth of hate and fear; The thirst for peace, a raving world Would never let us satiate here.

IV. ISOLATION. TO MARGUERITE.

We were apart: yet, day by day, I bade my heart more constant be. I bade it keep the world away, And grow a home for only thee; Nor feared but thy love likewise grew, Like mine, each day, more tried, more true.

The fault was grave! I might have known, What far too soon, alas! I learned,— The heart can bind itself alone, And faith may oft be unreturned. Self-swayed our feelings ebb and swell. Thou lov’st no more. Farewell! Farewell!

Farewell!—And thou, thou lonely heart, Which never yet without remorse Even for a moment didst depart From thy remote and spherèd course To haunt the place where passions reign,— Back to thy solitude again!

Back! with the conscious thrill of shame Which Luna felt, that summer-night, Flash through her pure immortal frame, When she forsook the starry height To hang o’er Endymion’s sleep Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep.

Yet she, chaste queen, had never proved How vain a thing is mortal love, Wandering in heaven, far removed; But thou hast long had place to prove This truth,—to prove, and make thine own: “Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone.”

Or, if not quite alone, yet they Which touch thee are unmating things,— Ocean and clouds and night and day; Lorn autumns and triumphant springs; And life, and others’ joy and pain, And love, if love, of happier men.

Of happier men; for they, at least, Have dreamed two human hearts might blend In one, and were through faith released From isolation without end Prolonged; nor knew, although not less Alone than thou, their loneliness.

V. TO MARGUERITE. CONTINUED.

Yes! in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone. The islands feel the enclasping flow, And then their endless bounds they know.

But when the moon their hollows lights, And they are swept by balms of spring, And in their glens, on starry nights, The nightingales divinely sing; And lovely notes, from shore to shore, Across the sounds and channels pour,—

Oh! then a longing like despair Is to their farthest caverns sent; For surely once, they feel, we were Parts of a single continent! Now round us spreads the watery plain: Oh, might our marges meet again!

Who ordered that their longing’s fire Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled? Who renders vain their deep desire?— A God, a God their severance ruled! And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.

VI. ABSENCE.

In this fair stranger’s eyes of gray, Thine eyes, my love! I see. I shiver; for the passing day Had borne me far from thee.

This is the curse of life! that not A nobler, calmer train Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot Our passions from our brain;

But each day brings its petty dust, Our soon-choked souls to fill; And we forget because we must, And not because we will.

I struggle towards the light; and ye, Once-longed-for storms of love! If with the light ye cannot be, I bear that ye remove.

I struggle towards the light; but oh, While yet the night is chill, Upon time’s barren, stormy flow, Stay with me, Marguerite, still!

VII. THE TERRACE AT BERNE.

(COMPOSED TEN YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING.)

Ten years! and to my waking eye Once more the roofs of Berne appear; The rocky banks, the terrace high, The stream! and do I linger here?

The clouds are on the Oberland, The Jungfrau snows look faint and far; But bright are those green fields at hand, And through those fields comes down the Aar,

And from the blue twin-lakes it comes, Flows by the town, the churchyard fair; And ’neath the garden-walk it hums, The house! and is my Marguerite there

Ah! shall I see thee, while a flush Of startled pleasure floods thy brow, Quick through the oleanders brush, And clap thy hands, and cry, ’Tis thou!

Or hast thou long since wandered back, Daughter of France! to France, thy home; And flitted down the flowery track Where feet like thine too lightly come?

Doth riotous laughter now replace Thy smile, and rouge, with stony glare, Thy cheek’s soft hue, and fluttering lace The kerchief that inwound thy hair?

Or is it over? art thou dead?— Dead!—and no warning shiver ran Across my heart, to say thy thread Of life was cut, and closed thy span!

Could from earth’s ways that figure slight Be lost, and I not feel ’twas so? Of that fresh voice the gay delight Fail from earth’s air, and I not know?

Or shall I find thee still, but changed, But not the Marguerite of thy prime? With all thy being re-arranged,— Passed through the crucible of time;

With spirit vanished, beauty waned, And hardly yet a glance, a tone, A gesture—any thing—retained Of all that was my Marguerite’s own?

I will not know! For wherefore try, To things by mortal course that live, A shadowy durability, For which they were not meant, to give?

Like driftwood spars, which meet and pass Upon the boundless ocean-plain, So on the sea of life, alas! Man meets man,—meets, and quits again.

I knew it when my life was young; I feel it still now youth is o’er. —The mists are on the mountain hung, And Marguerite I shall see no more.

THE STRAYED REVELLER.

THE PORTICO OF CIRCE’S PALACE. EVENING.

A Youth. Circe.

THE YOUTH.

Faster, faster, O Circe, goddess, Let the wild, thronging train, The bright procession Of eddying forms, Sweep through my soul!

Thou standest, smiling Down on me! thy right arm, Leaned up against the column there, Props thy soft cheek; Thy left holds, hanging loosely, The deep cup, ivy-cinctured, I held but now.

Is it then evening So soon? I see, the night-dews, Clustered in thick beads, dim The agate brooch-stones On thy white shoulder; The cool night-wind, too, Blows through the portico, Stirs thy hair, goddess, Waves thy white robe!

CIRCE.

Whence art thou, sleeper?

THE YOUTH.

When the white dawn first Through the rough fir-planks Of my hut, by the chestnuts, Up at the valley-head, Came breaking, goddess! I sprang up, I threw round me My dappled fawn-skin; Passing out, from the wet turf, Where they lay, by the hut door, I snatched up my vine-crown, my fir-staff, All drenched in dew,— Came swift down to join The rout early gathered In the town, round the temple, Iacchus’ white fane On yonder hill.

Quick I passed, following The woodcutters’ cart-track Down the dark valley. I saw On my left, through the beeches, Thy palace, goddess, Smokeless, empty! Trembling, I entered; beheld The court all silent, The lions sleeping, On the altar this bowl. I drank, goddess! And sank down here, sleeping, On the steps of thy portico.

CIRCE.

Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou? Thou lovest it, then, my wine? Wouldst more of it? See how glows, Through the delicate, flushed marble, The red creaming liquor, Strewn with dark seeds! Drink, then! I chide thee not, Deny thee not my bowl. Come, stretch forth thy hand, then—so! Drink—drink again!

THE YOUTH.

Thanks, gracious one! Ah, the sweet fumes again! More soft, ah me! More subtle-winding, Than Pan’s flute-music! Faint—faint! Ah me, Again the sweet sleep!

CIRCE.

Hist! Thou—within there! Come forth, Ulysses! Art tired with hunting? While we range the woodland, See what the day brings.

ULYSSES.

Ever new magic! Hast thou then lured hither, Wonderful goddess, by thy art, The young, languid-eyed Ampelus, Iacchus’ darling, Or some youth beloved of Pan, Of Pan and the nymphs; That he sits, bending downward His white, delicate neck To the ivy-wreathed marge Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves That crown his hair, Falling forward, mingling With the dark ivy-plants; His fawn-skin, half untied, Smeared with red wine-stains? Who is he, That he sits, overweighed By fumes of wine and sleep, So late, in thy portico? What youth, goddess,—what guest Of gods or mortals?

CIRCE.

Hist! he wakes! I lured him not hither, Ulysses. Nay, ask him!

THE YOUTH.

Who speaks? Ah! who comes forth To thy side, goddess, from within? How shall I name him,— This spare, dark-featured, Quick-eyed stranger? Ah! and I see too His sailor’s bonnet, His short coat, travel-tarnished, With one arm bare!— Art thou not he, whom fame This long time rumors The favored guest of Circe, brought by the waves? Art thou he, stranger,— The wise Ulysses, Laertes’ son?

ULYSSES.

I am Ulysses. And thou too, sleeper? Thy voice is sweet. It may be thou hast followed Through the islands some divine bard, By age taught many things,— Age, and the Muses; And heard him delighting The chiefs and people In the banquet, and learned his songs, Of gods and heroes, Of war and arts, And peopled cities, Inland, or built By the gray sea. If so, then hail! I honor and welcome thee.

THE YOUTH.

The gods are happy. They turn on all sides Their shining eyes, And see below them The earth and men.

They see Tiresias Sitting, staff in hand, On the warm, grassy Asopus bank, His robe drawn over His old sightless head, Revolving inly The doom of Thebes.

They see the centaurs In the upper glens Of Pelion, in the streams Where red-berried ashes fringe The clear-brown shallow pools, With streaming flanks, and heads Reared proudly, snuffing The mountain wind.

They see the Indian Drifting, knife in hand, His frail boat moored to A floating isle thick-matted With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants, And the dark cucumber. He reaps and stows them, Drifting—drifting; round him, Round his green harvest-plot, Flow the cool lake-waves, The mountains ring them.

They see the Scythian On the wide steppe, unharnessing His wheeled house at noon. He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal,— Mares’ milk, and bread Baked on the embers. All around, The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starred With saffron and the yellow hollyhock And flag-leaved iris-flowers. Sitting in his cart He makes his meal; before him, for long miles, Alive with bright green lizards, And the springing bustard-fowl, The track, a straight black line, Furrows the rich soil; here and there Clusters of lonely mounds Topped with rough-hewn, Gray, rain-bleared statues, overpeer The sunny waste.

They see the ferry On the broad, clay-laden Lone Chorasmian stream; thereon, With snort and strain, Two horses, strongly swimming, tow The ferry-boat, with woven ropes To either bow Firm-harnessed by the mane; a chief, With shout and shaken spear, Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern The cowering merchants in long robes Sit pale beside their wealth Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops, Of gold and ivory, Of turquoise-earth, and amethyst, Jasper and chalcedony, And milk-barred onyx-stones. The loaded boat swings groaning In the yellow eddies; The gods behold them.

They see the heroes Sitting in the dark ship On the foamless, long-heaving, Violet sea, At sunset nearing The Happy Islands.

These things, Ulysses, The wise bards also Behold, and sing. But oh, what labor! O prince, what pain!

They too can see Tiresias; but the gods, Who gave them vision, Added this law: That they should bear too His groping blindness, His dark foreboding, His scorned white hairs; Bear Hera’s anger Through a life lengthened To seven ages.

They see the centaurs On Pelion: then they feel, They too, the maddening wine Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain They feel the biting spears Of the grim Lapithæ, and Theseus, drive, Drive crashing through their bones; they feel, High on a jutting rock in the red stream, Alcmena’s dreadful son Ply his bow. Such a price The gods exact for song: To become what we sing.

They see the Indian On his mountain lake; but squalls Make their skiff reel, and worms In the unkind spring have gnawn Their melon-harvest to the heart. They see The Scythian; but long frosts Parch them in winter-time on the bare steppe, Till they too fade like grass; they crawl Like shadows forth in spring.

They see the merchants On the Oxus-stream; but care Must visit first them too, and make them pale: Whether, through whirling sand, A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst Upon their caravan; or greedy kings, In the walled cities the way passes through, Crushed them with tolls; or fever-airs, On some great river’s marge, Mown them down, far from home.

They see the heroes Near harbor; but they share Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,— Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy; Or where the echoing oars Of Argo first Startled the unknown sea.

The old Silenus Came, lolling in the sunshine, From the dewy forest-coverts, This way, at noon. Sitting by me, while his fauns Down at the water-side Sprinkled and smoothed His drooping garland, He told me these things.

But I, Ulysses, Sitting on the warm steps, Looking over the valley, All day long, have seen, Without pain, without labor, Sometimes a wild-haired mænad, Sometimes a faun with torches, And sometimes, for a moment, Passing through the dark stems Flowing-robed, the beloved, The desired, the divine, Beloved Iacchus.

Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars! Ah, glimmering water, Fitful earth-murmur, Dreaming woods! Ah, golden-haired, strangely smiling goddess, And thou, proved, much-enduring, Wave-tossed wanderer! Who can stand still? Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me— The cup again!

Faster, faster, O Circe, goddess, Let the wild, thronging train, The bright procession Of eddying forms, Sweep through my soul!

FRAGMENT OF AN “ANTIGONE.”

THE CHORUS.

Well hath he done who hath seized happiness! For little do the all-containing hours, Though opulent, freely give,— Who, weighing that life well Fortune presents unprayed, Declines her ministry, and carves his own; And, justice not infringed, Makes his own welfare his unswerved-from law.

He does well too, who keeps that clew the mild Birth-goddess and the austere Fates first gave. For, from the day when these Bring him, a weeping child, First to the light, and mark A country for him, kinsfolk, and a home, Unguided he remains, Till the Fates come again, this time with death.

In little companies, And, our own place once left, Ignorant where to stand, or whom to avoid, By city and household grouped, we live; and many shocks Our order heaven-ordained Must every day endure,— Voyages, exiles, hates, dissensions, wars. Besides what waste he makes, The all-hated, order-breaking, Without friend, city, or home,— Death, who dissevers all.

Him then I praise, who dares To self-selected good Prefer obedience to the primal law Which consecrates the ties of blood; for these, indeed, Are to the gods a care: That touches but himself. For every day man may be linked and loosed With strangers; but the bond Original, deep-inwound, Of blood, can he not bind, Nor, if fate binds, not bear.

But hush! Hæmon, whom Antigone, Robbing herself of life in burying, Against Creon’s law, Polynices, Robs of a loved bride,—pale, imploring, Waiting her passage, Forth from the palace hitherward comes.

HÆMON.

No, no, old men, Creon I curse not! I weep, Thebans, One than Creon crueller far! For he, he, at least, by slaying her, August laws doth mightily vindicate; But thou, too bold, headstrong, pitiless!— Ah me!—honorest more than thy lover, O Antigone! A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse.

THE CHORUS.

Nor was the love untrue Which the Dawn-Goddess bore To that fair youth she erst, Leaving the salt sea-beds, And coming flushed over the stormy frith Of loud Euripus, saw,— Saw and snatched, wild with love, From the pine-dotted spurs Of Parnes, where thy waves, Asopus! gleam rock-hemmed,— The Hunter of the Tanagræan Field.[13]

But him, in his sweet prime, By severance immature, By Artemis’ soft shafts, She, though a goddess born, Saw in the rocky isle of Delos die. Such end o’ertook that love. For she desired to make Immortal mortal man, And blend his happy life, Far from the gods, with hers; To him postponing an eternal law.

HÆMON.

But like me, she, wroth, complaining, Succumbed to the envy of unkind gods; And, her beautiful arms unclasping, Her fair youth unwillingly gave.

THE CHORUS.

Nor, though enthroned too high To fear assault of envious gods, His beloved Argive seer would Zeus retain From his appointed end

In this our Thebes; but when His flying steeds came near To cross the steep Ismenian glen, The broad earth opened, and whelmed them and him, And through the void air sang At large his enemy’s spear.

And fain would Zeus have saved his tired son, Beholding him where the Two Pillars stand O’er the sun-reddened western straits,[14] Or at his work in that dim lower world. Fain would he have recalled The fraudulent oath which bound To a much feebler wight the heroic man.

But he preferred fate to his strong desire. Nor did there need less than the burning pile Under the towering Trachis crags, And the Spercheios vale, shaken with groans, And the roused Maliac gulf, And scared Œtæan snows, To achieve his son’s deliverance, O my child!

FRAGMENT OF CHORUS OF A “DEJANEIRA.”

O frivolous mind of man, Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts! Though man bewails you not, How I bewail you!

Little in your prosperity Do you seek counsel of the gods. Proud, ignorant, self-adored, you live alone. In profound silence stern, Among their savage gorges and cold springs, Unvisited remain The great oracular shrines.

Thither in your adversity Do you betake yourselves for light, But strangely misinterpret all you hear. For you will not put on New hearts with the inquirer’s holy robe, And purged, considerate minds.

And him on whom, at the end Of toil and dolour untold, The gods have said that repose At last shall descend undisturbed,— Him you expect to behold In an easy old age, in a happy home: No end but this you praise.

But him on whom, in the prime Of life, with vigor undimmed, With unspent mind, and a soul Unworn, undebased, undecayed, Mournfully grating, the gates Of the city of death have forever closed,— Him, I count him, well-starred.

EARLY DEATH AND FAME.

For him who must see many years, I praise the life which slips away Out of the light, and mutely; which avoids Fame, and her less fair followers, envy, strife, Stupid detraction, jealousy, cabal, Insincere praises; which descends The quiet mossy track to age.

But when immature death Beckons too early the guest From the half-tried banquet of life, Young, in the bloom of his days; Leaves no leisure to press, Slow and surely, the sweets Of a tranquil life in the shade,— Fuller for him be the hours! Give him emotion, though pain! Let him live, let him feel, I have lived. Heap up his moments with life! Triple his pulses with fame!

PHILOMELA.

Hark! ah, the nightingale— The tawny-throated! Hark! from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark! what pain!

O wanderer from a Grecian shore, Still, after many years, in distant lands, Still nourishing in thy bewildered brain That wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, old-world pain, Say, will it never heal? And can this fragrant lawn With its cool trees, and night, And the sweet, tranquil Thames, And moonshine, and the dew, To thy racked heart and brain Afford no balm?

Dost thou to-night behold, Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild? Dost thou again peruse With hot cheeks and seared eyes The too clear web, and thy dumb sister’s shame? Dost thou once more assay Thy flight, and feel come over thee, Poor fugitive, the feathery change. Once more, and once more seem to make resound With love and hate, triumph and agony, Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale? Listen, Eugenia,— How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! Again—thou hearest? Eternal passion! Eternal pain!

URANIA.

She smiles and smiles, and will not sigh, While we for hopeless passion die; Yet she could love, those eyes declare, Were but men nobler than they are.

Eagerly once her gracious ken Was turned upon the sons of men; But light the serious visage grew grew— She looked, and smiled, and saw them through.

Our petty souls, our strutting wits, Our labored, puny passion-fits,— Ah, may she scorn them still, till we Scorn them as bitterly as she!

Yet show her once, ye heavenly Powers, One of some worthier race than ours! One for whose sake she once might prove How deeply she who scorns can love.

His eyes be like the starry lights, His voice like sounds of summer nights; In all his lovely mien let pierce The magic of the universe!

And she to him will reach her hand, And gazing in his eyes will stand, And know her friend, and weep for glee, And cry, Long, long I’ve looked for thee.

Then will she weep: with smiles, till then, Coldly she mocks the sons of men; Till then, her lovely eyes maintain Their pure, unwavering, deep disdain.

EUPHROSYNE.

I must not say that she was true, Yet let me say that she was fair; And they, that lovely face who view, They should not ask if truth be there.

Truth—what is truth? Two bleeding hearts, Wounded by men, by fortune tried, Outwearied with their lonely parts, Vow to beat henceforth side by side.

The world to them was stern and drear, Their lot was but to weep and moan; Ah! let them keep their faith sincere, For neither could subsist alone.

But souls whom some benignant breath Hath charmed at birth from gloom and care,— These ask no love, these plight no faith, For they are happy as they are.

The world to them may homage make, And garlands for their forehead weave; And what the world can give, they take— But they bring more than they receive.

They shine upon the world; their ears To one demand alone are coy: They will not give us love and tears, They bring us light and warmth and joy.

On one she smiled, and he was blest; She smiles elsewhere—we make a din! But ’twas not love which heaved her breast, Fair child! it was the bliss within.

CALAIS SANDS.

A thousand knights have reined their steeds To watch this line of sand-hills run, Along the never-silent strait, To Calais glittering in the sun;

To look toward Ardres’ Golden Field Across this wide aërial plain, Which glows as if the Middle Age Were gorgeous upon earth again.

Oh, that to share this famous scene, I saw, upon the open sand, Thy lovely presence at my side,— Thy shawl, thy look, thy smile, thy hand!

How exquisite thy voice would come, My darling, on this lonely air! How sweetly would the fresh sea-breeze Shake loose some band of soft brown hair!

Yet now my glance but once hath roved O’er Calais and its famous plain; To England’s cliffs my gaze is turned, O’er the blue strait mine eyes I strain.

Thou comest! Yes! the vessel’s cloud Hangs dark upon the rolling sea. Oh that yon sea-bird’s wings were mine, To win one instant’s glimpse of thee!

I must not spring to grasp thy hand, To woo thy smile, to seek thine eye; But I may stand far off, and gaze, And watch thee pass unconscious by,—

And spell thy looks, and guess thy thoughts, Mixed with the idlers on the pier. Ah! might I always rest unseen, So I might have thee always near!

To-morrow hurry through the fields Of Flanders to the storied Rhine! To-night those soft-fringed eyes shall close Beneath one roof, my queen! with mine.

FADED LEAVES.

I. THE RIVER.

Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat Under the rustling poplars’ shade; Silent the swans beside us float: None speaks, none heeds; ah, turn thy head!

Let those arch eyes now softly shine, That mocking mouth grow sweetly bland; Ah! let them rest, those eyes, on mine! On mine let rest that lovely hand!

My pent-up tears oppress my brain, My heart is swoln with love unsaid. Ah! let me weep, and tell my pain, And on thy shoulder rest my head!

Before I die,—before the soul, Which now is mine, must re-attain Immunity from my control, And wander round the world again; Before this teased, o’er-labored heart Forever leaves its vain employ, Dead to its deep habitual smart, And dead to hopes of future joy.

II. TOO LATE

Each on his own strict line we move, And some find death ere they find love; So far apart their lives are thrown From the twin soul that halves their own.

And sometimes, by still harder fate, The lovers meet, but meet too late. —Thy heart is mine! True, true! ah, true! —Then, love, thy hand! Ah, no! adieu!

III. SEPARATION.

Stop! not to me, at this bitter departing, Speak of the sure consolations of time! Fresh be the wound, still-renewed be its smarting, So but thy image endure in its prime!

But if the steadfast commandment of Nature Wills that remembrance should always decay; If the loved form and the deep-cherished feature Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away,—

Me let no half-effaced memories cumber; Fled, fled at once, be all vestige of thee! Deep be the darkness, and still be the slumber; Dead be the past and its phantoms to me!

Then, when we meet, and thy look strays toward me, Scanning my face and the changes wrought there; Who, let me say, is this stranger regards me, With the gray eyes, and the lovely brown hair?

IV. ON THE RHINE.

Vain is the effort to forget. Some day I shall be cold, I know, As is the eternal moon-lit snow Of the high Alps, to which I go; But ah! not yet, not yet!

Vain is the agony of grief. ’Tis true, indeed, an iron knot Ties straitly up from mine thy lot; And, were it snapped—thou lov’st me not! But is despair relief?

A while let me with thought have done. And as this brimmed unwrinkled Rhine, And that far purple mountain line, Lie sweetly in the look divine Of the slow-sinking sun;

So let me lie, and, calm as they, Let beam upon my inward view Those eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue,— Eyes too expressive to be blue, Too lovely to be gray.

Ah, quiet, all things feel thy balm! Those blue hills too, this river’s flow, Were restless once, but long ago. Tamed is their turbulent youthful glow; Their joy is in their calm.

V. LONGING.

Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times, A messenger from radiant climes, And smile on thy new world, and be As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth, Come now, and let me dream it truth; And part my hair, and kiss my brow, And say, My love! why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day.

DESPONDENCY.

The thoughts that rain their steady glow Like stars on life’s cold sea, Which others know, or say they know,— They never shone for me.

Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit’s sky, But they will not remain. They light me once, they hurry by, And never come again.

SELF-DECEPTION.

Say, what blinds us, that we claim the glory Of possessing powers not our share? —Since man woke on earth, he knows his story; But, before we woke on earth, we were.

Long, long since, undowered yet, our spirit Roamed, ere birth, the treasuries of God; Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit, Asked an outfit for its earthly road.

Then, as now, this tremulous, eager being Strained and longed, and grasped each gift it saw; Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing Staved us back, and gave our choice the law.

Ah! whose hand that day through heaven guided Man’s new spirit, since it was not we? Ah! who swayed our choice, and who decided What our gifts and what our wants should be?

For, alas! he left us each retaining Shreds of gifts which he refused in full; Still these waste us with their hopeless straining, Still the attempt to use them proves them null.

And on earth we wander, groping, reeling; Powers stir in us, stir and disappear. Ah! and he, who placed our master-feeling, Failed to place that master-feeling clear.

We but dream we have our wished-for powers; Ends we seek, we never shall attain. Ah! some power exists there, which is ours? Some end is there, we indeed may gain?

DOVER BEACH.

The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched sand, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery: we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

GROWING OLD.

What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? —Yes, but not this alone.

Is it to feel our strength— Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more loosely strung?

Yes, this, and more; but not, Ah! ’tis not what in youth we dreamed ’twould be. ’Tis not to have our life Mellowed and softened as with sunset-glow,— A golden day’s decline.

’Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And heart profoundly stirred; And weep, and feel the fulness of the past, The years that are no more.

It is to spend long days, And not once feel that we were ever young; It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain.

It is to suffer this, And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. Deep in our hidden heart Festers the dull remembrance of a change, But no emotion,—none.

It is—last stage of all— When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost, Which blamed the living man.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A VARIATION.

Youth rambles on life’s arid mount, And strikes the rock, and finds the vein, And brings the water from the fount,— The fount which shall not flow again.

The man mature with labor chops For the bright stream a channel grand, And sees not that the sacred drops Ran off and vanished out of hand.

And then the old man totters nigh, And feebly rakes among the stones. The mount is mute, the channel dry; And down he lays his weary bones.

PIS ALLER.

“Man is blind because of sin; Revelation makes him sure: Without that, who looks within Looks in vain, for all’s obscure.”

Nay, look closer into man! Tell me, can you find indeed Nothing sure, no moral plan Clear prescribed, without your creed?

“No, I nothing can perceive! Without that, all’s dark for men. That, or nothing, I believe.”— For God’s sake, believe it, then!

THE LAST WORD.

Creep into thy narrow bed,— Creep, and let no more be said. Vain thy onset! all stands fast. Thou thyself must break at last.

Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired: best be still.

They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee? Better men fared thus before thee; Fired their ringing shot, and passed, Hotly charged—and sank at last.

Charge once more, then, and be dumb! Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall!

A NAMELESS EPITAPH.

Ask not my name, O friend! That Being only, which hath known each man From the beginning, can Remember each unto the end.

EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA.

A DRAMATIC POEM.

PERSONS.

Empedocles. Pausanias, a Physician. Callicles, a young Harp-player.

The Scene of the Poem is on Mount Etna; at first in the forest region, afterwards on the summit of the mountain.

ACT I.

Scene I.—Morning. A Pass in the forest region of Etna.

CALLICLES (alone, resting on a rock by the path).

The mules, I think, will not be here this hour: They feel the cool wet turf under their feet By the stream-side, after the dusty lanes In which they have toiled all night from Catana, And scarcely will they budge a yard. O Pan, How gracious is the mountain at this hour! A thousand times have I been here alone, Or with the revellers from the mountain towns, But never on so fair a morn. The sun Is shining on the brilliant mountain crests, And on the highest pines; but farther down, Here in the valley, is in shade; the sward Is dark, and on the stream the mist still hangs; One sees one’s footprints crushed in the wet grass, One’s breath curls in the air; and on these pines That climb from the stream’s edge, the long gray tufts, Which the goats love, are jewelled thick with dew. Here will I stay till the slow litter comes. I have my harp too: that is well.—Apollo! What mortal could be sick or sorry here? I know not in what mind Empedocles, Whose mules I followed, may be coming up; But if, as most men say, he is half mad With exile, and with brooding on his wrongs, Pausanias, his sage friend, who mounts with him, Could scarce have lighted on a lovelier cure. The mules must be below, far down. I hear Their tinkling bells, mixed with the song of birds, Rise faintly to me: now it stops!—Who’s here? Pausanias! and on foot? alone?

PAUSANIAS.

And thou, then? I left thee supping with Peisianax, With thy head full of wine, and thy hair crowned, Touching thy harp as the whim came on thee, And praised and spoiled by master and by guests Almost as much as the new dancing-girl. Why hast thou followed us?

CALLICLES.

The night was hot, And the feast past its prime: so we slipped out, Some of us, to the portico to breathe,— Peisianax, thou know’st, drinks late,—and then, As I was lifting my soiled garland off, I saw the mules and litter in the court, And in the litter sate Empedocles; Thou too wast with him. Straightway I sped home; I saddled my white mule, and all night long Through the cool lovely country followed you, Passed you a little since as morning dawned, And have this hour sate by the torrent here, Till the slow mules should climb in sight again. And now?

PAUSANIAS.

And now, back to the town with speed! Crouch in the wood first, till the mules have passed; They do but halt, they will be here anon. Thou must be viewless to Empedocles; Save mine, he must not meet a human eye. One of his moods is on him that thou know’st; I think, thou wouldst not vex him.

CALLICLES.

No; and yet I would fain stay, and help thee tend him. Once He knew me well, and would oft notice me; And still, I know not how, he draws me to him, And I could watch him with his proud sad face, His flowing locks and gold-encircled brow And kingly gait, forever; such a spell In his severe looks, such a majesty As drew of old the people after him, In Agrigentum and Olympia, When his star reigned, before his banishment, Is potent still on me in his decline. But, O Pausanias, he is changed of late: There is a settled trouble in his air Admits no momentary brightening now; And when he comes among his friends at feasts, ’Tis as an orphan among prosperous boys. Thou know’st of old he loved this harp of mine, When first he sojourned with Peisianax; He is now always moody, and I fear him; But I would serve him, soothe him, if I could, Dared one but try.

PAUSANIAS.

Thou wast a kind child ever. He loves thee, but he must not see thee now. Thou hast indeed a rare touch on thy harp; He loves that in thee, too; there was a time (But that is past), he would have paid thy strain With music to have drawn the stars from heaven. He has his harp and laurel with him still; But he has laid the use of music by, And all which might relax his settled gloom. Yet thou may’st try thy playing, if thou wilt, But thou must keep unseen: follow us on, But at a distance! in these solitudes, In this clear mountain air, a voice will rise, Though from afar, distinctly; it may soothe him. Play when we halt; and when the evening comes, And I must leave him (for his pleasure is To be left musing these soft nights alone In the high unfrequented mountain spots), Then watch him, for he ranges swift and far, Sometimes to Etna’s top, and to the cone; But hide thee in the rocks a great way down, And try thy noblest strains, my Callicles, With the sweet night to help thy harmony! Thou wilt earn my thanks sure, and perhaps his.

CALLICLES.

More than a day and night, Pausanias, Of this fair summer-weather, on these hills, Would I bestow to help Empedocles. That needs no thanks: one is far better here Than in the broiling city in these heats. But tell me, how hast thou persuaded him In this his present fierce, man-hating mood, To bring thee out with him alone on Etna?

PAUSANIAS.

Thou hast heard all men speaking of Pantheia, The woman who at Agrigentum lay Thirty long days in a cold trance of death, And whom Empedocles called back to life. Thou art too young to note it, but his power Swells with the swelling evil of this time, And holds men mute to see where it will rise. He could stay swift diseases in old days, Chain madmen by the music of his lyre, Cleanse to sweet airs the breath of poisonous streams, And in the mountain chinks inter the winds. This he could do of old; but now, since all Clouds and grows daily worse in Sicily, Since broils tear us in twain, since this new swarm Of sophists has got empire in our schools Where he was paramount, since he is banished, And lives a lonely man in triple gloom,— He grasps the very reins of life and death. I asked him of Pantheia yesterday, When we were gathered with Peisianax; And he made answer, I should come at night On Etna here, and be alone with him, And he would tell me, as his old, tried friend, Who still was faithful, what might profit me,— That is, the secret of this miracle.

CALLICLES.

Bah! Thou a doctor! Thou art superstitious. Simple Pausanias, ’twas no miracle! Pantheia, for I know her kinsmen well, Was subject to these trances from a girl. Empedocles would say so, did he deign; But he still lets the people, whom he scorns, Gape and cry wizard at him, if they list. But thou, thou art no company for him: Thou art as cross, as soured as himself. Thou hast some wrong from thine own citizens, And then thy friend is banished; and on that, Straightway thou fallest to arraign the times, As if the sky was impious not to fall. The sophists are no enemies of his; I hear, Gorgias, their chief, speaks nobly of him, As of his gifted master, and once friend. He is too scornful, too high-wrought, too bitter. ’Tis not the times, ’tis not the sophists, vex him: There is some root of suffering in himself, Some secret and unfollowed vein of woe, Which makes the time look black and sad to him. Pester him not, in this his sombre mood, With questionings about an idle tale, But lead him through the lovely mountain paths, And keep his mind from preying on itself, And talk to him of things at hand and common, Not miracles! thou art a learned man, But credulous of fables as a girl.

PAUSANIAS.

And thou, a boy whose tongue outruns his knowledge, And on whose lightness blame is thrown away. Enough of this! I see the litter wind Up by the torrent-side, under the pines. I must rejoin Empedocles. Do thou Crouch in the brushwood till the mules have passed; Then play thy kind part well. Farewell till night!

Scene II.—Noon. A Glen on the highest skirts of the woody region of Etna.

EMPEDOCLES.    PAUSANIAS.