The Gardener's Daughter; Or, The Pictures


  This morning is the morning of the day,
  When I and Eustace from the city went
  To see the Gardener's Daughter; I and he,
  Brothers in Art; a friendship so complete
  Portion'd in halves between us, that we grew
  The fable of the city where we dwelt.
  My Eustace might have sat for Hercules;
  So muscular he spread, so broad of breast.
  He, by some law that holds in love, and draws
  The greater to the lesser, long desired
  A certain miracle of symmetry,
  A miniature of loveliness, all grace
  Summ'd up and closed in little;--Juliet, she
  So light of foot, so light of spirit--oh, she
  To me myself, for some three careless moons,
  The summer pilot of an empty heart
  Unto the shores of nothing! Know you not
  Such touches are but embassies of love,
  To tamper with the feelings, ere he found
  Empire for life? but Eustace painted her,
  And said to me, she sitting with us then,
  "When will _you_ paint like this?" and I replied,
  (My words were half in earnest, half in jest),
  "'Tis not your work, but Love's. Love, unperceived,
  A more ideal Artist he than all,
  Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes
  Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair
  More black than ashbuds in the front of March."
  And Juliet answer'd laughing, "Go and see
  The Gardener's daughter: trust me, after that,
  You scarce can fail to match his masterpiece ".
  And up we rose, and on the spur we went.
  Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite
  Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.
  News from the humming city comes to it
  In sound of funeral or of marriage bells;
  And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear
  The windy clanging of the minster clock;
  Although between it and the garden lies
  A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream,
  That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar,
  Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on,
  Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge
  Crown'd with the minster-towers.

                                  The fields between
  Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder'd kine,
  And all about the large lime feathers low,
  The lime a summer home of murmurous wings.
  In that still place she, hoarded in herself,
  Grew, seldom seen: not less among us lived
  Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard
  Of Rose, the Gardener's daughter? Where was he,
  So blunt in memory, so old at heart,
  At such a distance from his youth in grief,
  That, having seen, forgot? The common mouth,
  So gross to express delight, in praise of her
  Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love,
  And Beauty such a mistress of the world.
  And if I said that Fancy, led by Love,
  Would play with flying forms and images,
  Yet this is also true, that, long before
  I look'd upon her, when I heard her name
  My heart was like a prophet to my heart,
  And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes,
  That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds,
  Born out of everything I heard and saw,
  Flutter'd about my senses and my soul;
  And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm
  To one that travels quickly, made the air
  Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought,
  That verged upon them sweeter than the dream
  Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark East,
  Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn.
  And sure this orbit of the memory folds
  For ever in itself the day we went
  To see her. All the land in flowery squares,
  Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind,
  Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud
  Drew downward: but all else of heaven was pure
  Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge,
  And May with me from head to heel. And now,
  As tho' 'twere yesterday, as tho' it were
  The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound
  (For those old Mays had thrice the life of these),
  Rings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze,
  And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood,
  Leaning his horns into the neighbour field,
  And lowing to his fellows. From the woods
  Came voices of the well-contented doves.
  The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy,
  But shook his song together as he near'd
  His happy home, the ground. To left and right,
  The cuckoo told his name to all the hills;
  The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm;
  The redcap whistled; and the nightingale
  Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of day.
  And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said to me,
  "Hear how the bushes echo! by my life,
  These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they sing
  Like poets, from the vanity of song?
  Or have they any sense of why they sing?
  And would they praise the heavens for what they have?"
  And I made answer, "Were there nothing else
  For which to praise the heavens but only love,
  That only love were cause enough for praise".
  Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my thought,
  And on we went; but ere an hour had pass'd,
  We reach'd a meadow slanting to the North;
  Down which a well-worn pathway courted us
  To one green wicket in a privet hedge;
  This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk
  Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned;
  And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew
  Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool.
  The garden stretches southward. In the midst
  A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade.
  The garden-glasses shone, and momently
  The twinkling laurel scatter'd silver lights.
  "Eustace," I said, "This wonder keeps the house."
  He nodded, but a moment afterwards
  He cried, "Look! look!" Before he ceased I turn'd,
  And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there.
  For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose,
  That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught,
  And blown across the walk. One arm aloft--
  Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the shape--
  Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood.
  A single stream of all her soft brown hair
  Pour'd on one side: the shadow of the flowers
  Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering
  Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist--
  Ah, happy shade--and still went wavering down,
  But, ere it touch'd a foot, that might have danced
  The greensward into greener circles, dipt,
  And mix'd with shadows of the common ground!
  But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn'd
  Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe-bloom,
  And doubled his own warmth against her lips,
  And on the bounteous wave of such a breast
  As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade,
  She stood, a sight to make an old man young.
  So rapt, we near'd the house; but she, a Rose
  In roses, mingled with her fragrant toil,
  Nor heard us come, nor from her tendance turn'd
  Into the world without; till close at hand,
  And almost ere I knew mine own intent,
  This murmur broke the stillness of that air
  Which brooded round about her: "Ah, one rose,
  One rose, but one, by those fair fingers cull'd,
  Were worth a hundred kisses press'd on lips
  Less exquisite than thine." She look'd: but all
  Suffused with blushes--neither self-possess'd
  Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that,
  Divided in a graceful quiet--paused,
  And dropt the branch she held, and turning, wound
  Her looser hair in braid, and stirr'd her lips
  For some sweet answer, tho' no answer came,
  Nor yet refused the rose, but granted it,
  And moved away, and left me, statue-like,
  In act to render thanks. I, that whole day,
  Saw her no more, altho' I linger'd there
  Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star
  Beam'd thro' the thicken'd cedar in the dusk.
  So home we went, and all the livelong way
  With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me.
  "Now," said he, "will you climb the top of Art;
  You cannot fail but work in hues to dim
  The Titianic Flora. Will you match
  My Juliet? you, not you,--the Master,
  Love, A more ideal Artist he than all."

  So home I went, but could not sleep for joy,
  Reading her perfect features in the gloom,
  Kissing the rose she gave me o'er and o'er,
  And shaping faithful record of the glance
  That graced the giving--such a noise of life
  Swarm'd in the golden present, such a voice
  Call'd to me from the years to come, and such
  A length of bright horizon rimm'd the dark.
  And all that night I heard the watchmen peal
  The sliding season: all that night I heard
  The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours.
  The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good,
  O'er the mute city stole with folded wings,
  Distilling odours on me as they went
  To greet their fairer sisters of the East.

  Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all,
  Made this night thus. Henceforward squall nor storm
  Could keep me from that Eden where she dwelt.
  Light pretexts drew me: sometimes a
  Dutch love For tulips; then for roses, moss or musk,
  To grace my city-rooms; or fruits and cream
  Served in the weeping elm; and more and more
  A word could bring the colour to my cheek;
  A thought would fill my eyes with happy dew;
  Love trebled life within me, and with each
  The year increased. The daughters of the year,
  One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd:
  Each garlanded with her peculiar flower
  Danced into light, and died into the shade;
  And each in passing touch'd with some new grace
  Or seem'd to touch her, so that day by day,
  Like one that never can be wholly known,
  Her beauty grew; till Autumn brought an hour
  For Eustace, when I heard his deep "I will,"
  Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold
  From thence thro' all the worlds: but I rose up
  Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes
  Felt earth as air beneath me, till I reach'd
  The wicket-gate, and found her standing there.
  There sat we down upon a garden mound,
  Two mutually enfolded; Love, the third,
  Between us, in the circle of his arms
  Enwound us both; and over many a range
  Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers,
  Across a hazy glimmer of the west,
  Reveal'd their shining windows: from them clash'd
  The bells; we listen'd; with the time we play'd;
  We spoke of other things; we coursed about
  The subject most at heart, more near and near,
  Like doves about a dovecote, wheeling round
  The central wish, until we settled there.
  Then, in that time and place, I spoke to her,
  Requiring, tho' I knew it was mine own,
  Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear,
  Requiring at her hand the greatest gift,
  A woman's heart, the heart of her I loved;
  And in that time and place she answer'd me,
  And in the compass of three little words,
  More musical than ever came in one,
  The silver fragments of a broken voice,
  Made me most happy, faltering "I am thine".
  Shall I cease here? Is this enough to say
  That my desire, like all strongest hopes,
  By its own energy fulfilled itself,
  Merged in completion? Would you learn at full
  How passion rose thro' circumstantial grades
  Beyond all grades develop'd? and indeed
  I had not staid so long to tell you all,
  But while I mused came Memory with sad eyes,
  Holding the folded annals of my youth;
  And while I mused, Love with knit brows went by,
  And with a flying finger swept my lips,
  And spake, "Be wise: not easily forgiven
  Are those, who setting wide the doors, that bar
  The secret bridal chambers of the heart.
  Let in the day". Here, then, my words have end.
  Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells--
  Of that which came between, more sweet than each,
  In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves
  That tremble round a nightingale--in sighs
  Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utterance,
  Stole from her sister Sorrow. Might I not tell
  Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given,
  And vows, where there was never need of vows,
  And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap
  Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above
  The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale
  Sow'd all their mystic gulfs with fleeting stars;
  Or while the balmy glooming, crescent-lit,
  Spread the light haze along the river-shores,
  And in the hollows; or as once we met
  Unheedful, tho' beneath a whispering rain
  Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind,
  And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep.
  But this whole hour your eyes have been intent
  On that veil'd picture--veil'd, for what it holds
  May not be dwelt on by the common day.
  This prelude has prepared thee. Raise thy soul;
  Make thine heart ready with thine eyes: the time
  Is come to raise the veil. Behold her there,
  As I beheld her ere she knew my heart,
  My first, last love; the idol of my youth,
  The darling of my manhood, and, alas!
  Now the most blessed memory of mine age.

Dora



  With farmer Allan at the farm abode
  William and Dora. William was his son,
  And she his niece. He often look'd at them,
  And often thought "I'll make them man and wife".
  Now Dora felt her uncle's will in all,
  And yearn'd towards William; but the youth, because
  He had been always with her in the house,
  Thought not of Dora. Then there came a day
  When Allan call'd his son, and said,
  "My son: I married late, but I would wish to see
  My grandchild on my knees before I die:
  And I have set my heart upon a match.
  Now therefore look to Dora; she is well
  To look to; thrifty too beyond her age.
  She is my brother's daughter: he and I
  Had once hard words, and parted, and he died
  In foreign lands; but for his sake I bred
  His daughter Dora: take her for your wife;
  For I have wish'd this marriage, night and day,
  For many years." But William answer'd short;
  "I cannot marry Dora; by my life,
  I will not marry Dora". Then the old man
  Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said:
  "You will not, boy! you dare to answer thus!
  But in my time a father's word was law,
  And so it shall be now for me. Look to it;
  Consider, William: take a month to think,
  And let me have an answer to my wish;
  Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack,
  And never more darken my doors again."
  But William answer'd madly; bit his lips,
  And broke away. The more he look'd at her
  The less he liked her; and his ways were harsh;
  But Dora bore them meekly. Then before
  The month was out he left his father's house,
  And hired himself to work within the fields;
  And half in love, half spite, he woo'd and wed
  A labourer's daughter, Mary Morrison.

  Then, when the bells were ringing,
  Allan call'd His niece and said: "My girl, I love you well;
  But if you speak with him that was my son,
  Or change a word with her he calls his wife,
  My home is none of yours. My will is law."
  And Dora promised, being meek. She thought,
  "It cannot be: my uncle's mind will change!"

  And days went on, and there was born a boy
  To William; then distresses came on him;
  And day by day he pass'd his father's gate,
  Heart-broken, and his father helped him not.
  But Dora stored what little she could save,
  And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know
  Who sent it; till at last a fever seized
  On William, and in harvest time he died.

  Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat
  And look'd with tears upon her boy, and thought
  Hard things of Dora. Dora came and said:
  "I have obey'd my uncle until now,
  And I have sinn'd, for it was all thro' me
  This evil came on William at the first.
  But, Mary, for the sake of him that's gone,
  And for your sake, the woman that he chose,
  And for this orphan, I am come to you:
  You know there has not been for these five years
  So full a harvest, let me take the boy,
  And I will set him in my uncle's eye
  Among the wheat; that when his heart is glad
  Of the full harvest, he may see the boy,
  And bless him for the sake of him that's gone."
  And Dora took the child, and went her way
  Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound
  That was unsown, where many poppies grew.
  Far off the farmer came into the field
  And spied her not; for none of all his men
  Dare tell him Dora waited with the child;
  And Dora would have risen and gone to him,
  But her heart fail'd her; and the reapers reap'd
  And the sun fell, and all the land was dark.
  But when the morrow came, she rose and took
  The child once more, and sat upon the mound;
  And made a little wreath of all the flowers
  That grew about, and tied it round his hat
  To make him pleasing in her uncle's eye.
  Then when the farmer passed into the field
  He spied her, and he left his men at work,
  And came and said: "Where were you yesterday?
  Whose child is that? What are you doing here?"
  So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground,
  And answer'd softly, "This is William's child?"
  "And did I not," said Allan, "did I not
  Forbid you, Dora?" Dora said again:
  "Do with me as you will, but take the child
  And bless him for the sake of him that's gone!"
  And Allan said: "I see it is a trick
  Got up betwixt you and the woman there.
  I must be taught my duty, and by you!
  You knew my word was law, and yet you dared
  To slight it. Well--for I will take the boy;
  But go you hence, and never see me more."
  So saying, he took the boy, that cried aloud
  And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers fell
  At Dora's feet. She bow'd upon her hands,
  And the boy's cry came to her from the field,
  More and more distant. She bow'd down her head,
  Remembering the day when first she came,
  And all the things that had been. She bow'd down
  And wept in secret; and the reapers reap'd,
  And the sun fell, and all the land was dark.
  Then Dora went to Mary's house, and stood
  Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy
  Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise
  To God, that help'd her in her widowhood.
  And Dora said, "My uncle took the boy;
  But, Mary, let me live and work with you:
  He says that he will never see me more".
  Then answer'd Mary, "This shall never be,
  That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself:
  And, now, I think, he shall not have the boy,
  For he will teach him hardness, and to slight
  His mother; therefore thou and I will go,
  And I will have my boy, and bring him home;
  And I will beg of him to take thee back;
  But if he will not take thee back again,
  Then thou and I will live within one house,
  And work for William's child until he grows
  Of age to help us." So the women kiss'd
  Each other, and set out, and reach'd the farm.
  The door was off the latch: they peep'd, and saw
  The boy set up betwixt his grandsire's knees,
  Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm,
  And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks,
  Like one that loved him; and the lad stretch'd out
  And babbled for the golden seal, that hung
  From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the fire.
  Then they came in: but when the boy beheld
  His mother, he cried out to come to her:
  And Allan set him down, and Mary said:
  "O Father!--if you let me call you so--
  I never came a-begging for myself,
  Or William, or this child; but now I come
  For Dora: take her back; she loves you well.
  O Sir, when William died, he died at peace
  With all men; for I ask'd him, and he said,
  He could not ever rue his marrying me--
  I have been a patient wife: but, Sir, he said
  That he was wrong to cross his father thus:
  'God bless him!' he said, 'and may he never know
  The troubles I have gone thro'!' Then he turn'd
  His face and pass'd--unhappy that I am!
  But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you
  Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight
  His father's memory; and take Dora back,
  And let all this be as it was before."
  So Mary said, and Dora hid her face
  By Mary. There was silence in the room;
  And all at once the old man burst in sobs:
  "I have been to blame--to blame. I have kill'd my son.
  I have kill'd him--but I loved him--my dear son.
  May God forgive me!--I have been to blame.
  Kiss me, my children."  Then they clung about
  The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times.
  And all the man was broken with remorse;
  And all his love came back a hundredfold;
  And for three hours he sobb'd o'er William's child,
  Thinking of William. So those four abode
  Within one house together; and as years
  Went forward, Mary took another mate;
  But Dora lived unmarried till her death.

Audley Court


  "The Bull, the Fleece are cramm'd, and not a room
  For love or money. Let us picnic there
  At Audley Court." I spoke, while Audley feast
  Humm'd like a hive all round the narrow quay,
  To Francis, with a basket on his arm,
  To Francis just alighted from the boat,
  And breathing of the sea. "With all my heart,"
  Said Francis. Then we shoulder'd thro' the swarm,
  And rounded by the stillness of the beach
  To where the bay runs up its latest horn.
  We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp'd
  The flat red granite; so by many a sweep
  Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach'd
  The griffin-guarded gates and pass'd thro' all
  The pillar'd dusk of sounding sycamores
  And cross'd the garden to the gardener's lodge,
  With all its casements bedded, and its walls
  And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine.
  There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid
  A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound,
  Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home,
  And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly-made,
  Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay,
  Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks
  Imbedded and injellied; last with these,
  A flask of cider from his father's vats,
  Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat
  And talk'd old matters over; who was dead,
  Who married, who was like to be, and how
  The races went, and who would rent the hall:
  Then touch'd upon the game, how scarce it was
  This season; glancing thence, discuss'd the farm,
  The fourfield system, and the price of grain;
  And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split,
  And came again together on the king
  With heated faces; till he laugh'd aloud;
  And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung
  To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang--
  "Oh! who would fight and march and counter-march,
  Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field,
  And shovell'd up into a bloody trench
  Where no one knows? but let me live my life.
  "Oh! who would cast and balance at a desk,
  Perch'd like a crow upon a three-legg'd stool,
  Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints
  Are full of chalk? but let me live my life.
  "Who'd serve the state? for if I carved my name
  Upon the cliffs that guard my native land,
  I might as well have traced it in the sands;
  The sea wastes all: but let me live my life.
  "Oh! who would love? I wooed a woman once,
  But she was sharper than an eastern wind,
  And all my heart turn'd from her, as a thorn
  Turns from the sea: but let me live my life."
  He sang his song, and I replied with mine:
  I found it in a volume, all of songs,
  Knock'd down to me, when old Sir Robert's pride,
  His books--the more the pity, so I said--
  Came to the hammer here in March--and this--
  I set the words, and added names I knew.
  "Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep and dream of me:
  Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister's arm,
  And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine.
  "Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm;
  Emilia, fairer than all else but thou,
  For thou art fairer than all else that is.
  "Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast:
  Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip:
  I go to-night: I come to-morrow morn.
  "I go, but I return: I would I were
  The pilot of the darkness and the dream.
  Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me."
  So sang we each to either, Francis Hale,
  The farmer's son who lived across the bay,
  My friend; and I, that having wherewithal,
  And in the fallow leisure of my life
  A rolling stone of here and everywhere,
  Did what I would; but ere the night we rose
  And saunter'd home beneath a moon that, just
  In crescent, dimly rain'd about the leaf
  Twilights of airy silver, till we reach'd
  The limit of the hills; and as we sank
  From rock to rock upon the gloomy quay,
  The town was hush'd beneath us: lower down
  The bay was oily-calm: the harbour buoy
  With one green sparkle ever and anon
  Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart.

Walking to the Mail



'John'.  I'm glad I walk'd.
         How fresh the meadows look
         Above the river, and, but a month ago,
         The whole hill-side was redder than a fox.
         Is yon plantation where this byway joins
         The turnpike? [1]

'James'. Yes.

'John'.  And when does this come by?

'James'. The mail? At one o'clock.

'John'.  What is it now?

James'.  A quarter to.

'John'.  Whose house is that I see? [2]
         No, not the County Member's with the vane:
         Up higher with the yewtree by it, and half
         A score of gables.

'James'. That? Sir Edward Head's:
         But he's abroad: the place is to be sold.

'John'.  Oh, his. He was not broken?

'James'. No, sir, he,
         Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood
         That veil'd the world with jaundice, hid his face
         From all men, and commercing with himself,
         He lost the sense that handles daily life--
         That keeps us all in order more or less--
         And sick of home went overseas for change.

'John'.  And whither?

'James'. Nay, who knows? he's here and there.
         But let him go; his devil goes with him,
         As well as with his tenant, Jockey Dawes.

'John'.  What's that?

'James-. You saw the man--on Monday, was it?--[3]
         There by the hump-back'd willow; half stands up
         And bristles; half has fall'n and made a bridge;
         And there he caught the younker tickling trout--
         Caught in 'flagrante'--what's the Latin word?--
         'Delicto'; but his house, for so they say,
         Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook
         The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors,
         And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay'd:
         The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs,
         And all his household stuff; and with his boy
         Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt,
         Sets out, [4] and meets a friend who hails him,
         "What! You're flitting!" "Yes, we're flitting," says the ghost
         (For they had pack'd the thing among the beds).
         "Oh, well," says he, "you flitting with us too--
         Jack, turn the horses' heads and home again". [5]

'John'.  He left 'his' wife behind; for so I heard.

'James'. He left her, yes. I met my lady once:
         A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs.

'John'.  Oh, yet, but I remember, ten years back--
         'Tis now at least ten years--and then she was--
         You could not light upon a sweeter thing:
         A body slight and round and like a pear
         In growing, modest eyes, a hand a foot
         Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin
         As clean and white as privet when it flowers.

'James'. Ay, ay, the blossom fades and they that loved
         At first like dove and dove were cat and dog.
         She was the daughter of a cottager,
         Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride,
         New things and old, himself and her, she sour'd
         To what she is: a nature never kind!
         Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they say.
         Kind nature is the best: those manners next
         That fit us like a nature second-hand;
         Which are indeed the manners of the great.

'John'.  But I had heard it was this bill that past,
         And fear of change at home, that drove him hence.

'James'. That was the last drop in the cup of gall.
         I once was near him, when his bailiff brought
         A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince
         As from a venomous thing: he thought himself
         A mark for all, and shudder'd, lest a cry
         Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes
         Should see the raw mechanic's bloody thumbs
         Sweat on his blazon'd chairs; but, sir, you know
         That these two parties still divide the world--
         Of those that want, and those that have: and still
         The same old sore breaks out from age to age
         With much the same result. Now I myself, [6]
         A Tory to the quick, was as a boy
         Destructive, when I had not what I would.
         I was at school--a college in the South:
         There lived a flayflint near; we stole his fruit,
         His hens, his eggs; but there was law for 'us';
         We paid in person. He had a sow, sir. She,
         With meditative grunts of much content, [7]
         Lay great with pig, wallowing in sun and mud.
         By night we dragg'd her to the college tower
         From her warm bed, and up the corkscrew stair
         With hand and rope we haled the groaning sow,
         And on the leads we kept her till she pigg'd.
         Large range of prospect had the mother sow,
         And but for daily loss of one she loved,
         As one by one we took them--but for this--
         As never sow was higher in this world--
         Might have been happy: but what lot is pure!
         We took them all, till she was left alone
         Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine,
         And so return'd unfarrowed to her sty.

'John.'  They found you out?

'James.' Not they.

'John.'  Well--after all--What know we of the secret of a man?
         His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound,
         That we should mimic this raw fool the world,
         Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites,
         As ruthless as a baby with a worm,
         As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows
         To Pity--more from ignorance than will,
         But put your best foot forward, or I fear
         That we shall miss the mail: and here it comes
         With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand
         As you shall see--three pyebalds and a roan.



[Footnote 1: 1842.

'John'.  I'm glad I walk'd. How fresh the country looks!
         Is yonder planting where this byway joins
         The turnpike?]


[Footnote 2: Thus 1843 to 1850:--

'John'.  Whose house is that I see
         Beyond the watermills?

'James'. Sir Edward Head's: But he's abroad, etc.]


[Footnote 3: Thus 1842 to 1851:--

'James'. You saw the man but yesterday:
         He pick'd the pebble from your horse's foot.
         His house was haunted by a jolly ghost
         That rummaged like a rat.]

The Early Poems of Edwin Morris; Or, The Lake




  O Me, my pleasant rambles by the lake,
  My sweet, wild, fresh three-quarters of a year,
  My one Oasis in the dust and drouth
  Of city life! I was a sketcher then:
  See here, my doing: curves of mountain, bridge,
  Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built
  When men knew how to build, upon a rock,
  With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock:
  And here, new-comers in an ancient hold,
  New-comers from the Mersey, millionaires,
  Here lived the Hills--a Tudor-chimnied bulk
  Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.
  O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake
  With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull
  The curate; he was fatter than his cure.

  But Edwin Morris, he that knew the names,
  Long-learned names of agaric, moss and fern,
  Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks,
  Who taught me how to skate, to row, to swim,
  Who read me rhymes elaborately good,
  His own--I call'd him Crichton, for he seem'd
  All-perfect, finish'd to the finger nail.
  And once I ask'd him of his early life,
  And his first passion; and he answer'd me;
  And well his words became him: was he not
  A full-cell'd honeycomb of eloquence
  Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke.

  "My love for Nature is as old as I;
  But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that,
  And three rich sennights more, my love for her.
  My love for Nature and my love for her,
  Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew,
  Twin-sisters differently beautiful.
  To some full music rose and sank the sun,
  And some full music seem'd to move and change
  With all the varied changes of the dark,
  And either twilight and the day between;
  For daily hope fulfill'd, to rise again
  Revolving toward fulfilment, made it sweet
  To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to breathe."

  Or this or something like to this he spoke.
  Then said the fat-faced curate Edward Bull,
  "I take it, God made the woman for the man,
  And for the good and increase of the world,
  A pretty face is well, and this is well,
  To have a dame indoors, that trims us up,
  And keeps us tight; but these unreal ways
  Seem but the theme of writers, and indeed
  Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid stuff.
  I say, God made the woman for the man,
  And for the good and increase of the world."

  "Parson," said I, "you pitch the pipe too low:
  But I have sudden touches, and can run
  My faith beyond my practice into his:
  Tho' if, in dancing after Letty Hill,
  I do not hear the bells upon my cap,
  I scarce hear other music: yet say on.
  What should one give to light on such a dream?"
  I ask'd him half-sardonically.
  "Give? Give all thou art," he answer'd, and a light
  Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek;
  "I would have hid her needle in my heart,
  To save her little finger from a scratch
  No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear
  Her lightest breaths: her least remark was worth
  The experience of the wise. I went and came;
  Her voice fled always thro' the summer land;
  I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days!
  The flower of each, those moments when we met,
  The crown of all, we met to part no more."

  Were not his words delicious, I a beast
  To take them as I did? but something jarr'd;
  Whether he spoke too largely; that there seem'd
  A touch of something false, some self-conceit,
  Or over-smoothness: howsoe'er it was,
  He scarcely hit my humour, and I said:--

  "Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone
  Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me,
  As in the Latin song I learnt at school,
  Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left?
  But you can talk: yours is a kindly vein:
  I have I think--Heaven knows--as much within;
  Have or should have, but for a thought or two,
  That like a purple beech among the greens
  Looks out of place: 'tis from no want in her:
  It is my shyness, or my self-distrust,
  Or something of a wayward modern mind
  Dissecting passion. Time will set me right."

  So spoke I knowing not the things that were.
  Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull:
  "God made the woman for the use of man,
  And for the good and increase of the world".
  And I and Edwin laugh'd; and now we paused
  About the windings of the marge to hear
  The soft wind blowing over meadowy holms
  And alders, garden-isles; and now we left
  The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran
  By ripply shallows of the lisping lake,
  Delighted with the freshness and the sound.
  But, when the bracken rusted on their crags,
  My suit had wither'd, nipt to death by him
  That was a God, and is a lawyer's clerk,
  The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles.

  'Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no more:
  She sent a note, the seal an _Elle vous suit_,
  The close "Your Letty, only yours"; and this
  Thrice underscored. The friendly mist of morn
  Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran
  My craft aground, and heard with beating heart
  The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel;
  And out I stept, and up I crept: she moved,
  Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering flowers:
  Then low and sweet I whistled thrice; and she,
  She turn'd, we closed, we kiss'd, swore faith, I breathed
  In some new planet: a silent cousin stole
  Upon us and departed: "Leave," she cried,
  "O leave me!" "Never, dearest, never: here
  I brave the worst:" and while we stood like fools
  Embracing, all at once a score of pugs
  And poodles yell'd within, and out they came
  Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. "What, with him!
  "Go" (shrill'd the cottonspinning chorus) "him!"
  I choked. Again they shriek'd the burthen "Him!"
  Again with hands of wild rejection "Go!--
  Girl, get you in!" She went--and in one month
  They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds,
  To lands in Kent and messuages in York,
  And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile
  And educated whisker. But for me,
  They set an ancient creditor to work:
  It seems I broke a close with force and arms:
  There came a mystic token from the king
  To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy!
  I read, and fled by night, and flying turn'd:
  Her taper glimmer'd in the lake below:
  I turn'd once more, close-button'd to the storm;
  So left the place, left Edwin, nor have seen
  Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared to hear.
  Nor cared to hear? perhaps; yet long ago
  I have pardon'd little Letty; not indeed,
  It may be, for her own dear sake but this,
  She seems a part of those fresh days to me;
  For in the dust and drouth of London life
  She moves among my visions of the lake,
  While the prime swallow dips his wing, or then
  While the gold-lily blows, and overhead
  The light cloud smoulders on the summer crag.

St. Simeon Stylites



  Altho' I be the basest of mankind,
  From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin,
  Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet
  For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy,
  I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold
  Of saintdom, and to clamour, morn and sob,
  Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer,
  Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin.
  Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God,
  This not be all in vain that thrice ten years,
  Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs,
  In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold,
  In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and cramps,
  A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud,
  Patient on this tall pillar I have borne
  Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow;
  And I had hoped that ere this period closed
  Thou wouldst have caught me up into Thy rest,
  Denying not these weather-beaten limbs
  The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm.
  O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe,
  Not whisper, any murmur of complaint.
  Pain heap'd ten-hundred-fold to this, were still
  Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear,
  Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush'd
  My spirit flat before thee. O Lord, Lord,
  Thou knowest I bore this better at the first,
  For I was strong and hale of body then;
  And tho' my teeth, which now are dropt away,
  Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard
  Was tagg'd with icy fringes in the moon,
  I drown'd the whoopings of the owl with sound
  Of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes saw
  An angel stand and watch me, as I sang.
  Now am I feeble grown; my end draws nigh;
  I hope my end draws nigh: half deaf I am,
  So that I scarce can hear the people hum
  About the column's base, and almost blind,
  And scarce can recognise the fields I know;
  And both my thighs are rotted with the dew;
  Yet cease I not to clamour and to cry,
  While my stiff spine can hold my weary head,
  Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone,
  Have mercy, mercy: take away my sin.
  O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul,
  Who may be saved? who is it may be saved?
  Who may be made a saint, if I fail here?
  Show me the man hath suffered more than I.
  For did not all thy martyrs die one death?
  For either they were stoned, or crucified,
  Or burn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or sawn
  In twain beneath the ribs; but I die here
  To-day, and whole years long, a life of death.
  Bear witness, if I could have found a way
  (And heedfully I sifted all my thought)
  More slowly-painful to subdue this home
  Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate,
  I had not stinted practice, O my God.
  For not alone this pillar-punishment,
  Not this alone I bore: but while I lived
  In the white convent down the valley there,
  For many weeks about my loins I wore
  The rope that haled the buckets from the well,
  Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose;
  And spake not of it to a single soul,
  Until the ulcer, eating thro' my skin,
  Betray'd my secret penance, so that all
  My brethren marvell'd greatly. More than this
  I bore, whereof, O God, thou knowest all.
  Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee,
  I lived up there on yonder mountain side.
  My right leg chain'd into the crag, I lay
  Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones;
  Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, and twice
  Black'd with thy branding thunder, and sometimes
  Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not,
  Except the spare chance-gift of those that came
  To touch my body and be heal'd, and live:
  And they say then that I work'd miracles,
  Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind,
  Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, O God,
  Knowest alone whether this was or no.
  Have mercy, mercy; cover all my sin.

  Then, that I might be more alone with thee,
  Three years I lived upon a pillar, high
  Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve;
  And twice three years I crouch'd on one that rose
  Twenty by measure; last of all, I grew
  Twice ten long weary weary years to this,
  That numbers forty cubits from the soil.
  I think that I have borne as much as this--
  Or else I dream--and for so long a time,
  If I may measure time by yon slow light,
  And this high dial, which my sorrow crowns--
  So much--even so. And yet I know not well,
  For that the evil ones comes here, and say,
  "Fall down, O Simeon: thou hast suffer'd long
  For ages and for ages!" then they prate
  Of penances I cannot have gone thro',
  Perplexing me with lies; and oft I fall,
  Maybe for months, in such blind lethargies,
  That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are choked. But yet
  Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints
  Enjoy themselves in Heaven, and men on earth
  House in the shade of comfortable roofs,
  Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food,
  And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls,
  I, 'tween the spring and downfall of the light,
  Bow down one thousand and two hundred times,
  To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints;
  Or in the night, after a little sleep,
  I wake: the chill stars sparkle; I am wet
  With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost.
  I wear an undress'd goatskin on my back;
  A grazing iron collar grinds my neck;
  And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross,
  And strive and wrestle with thee till I die:
  O mercy, mercy! wash away my sin.
  O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am;
  A sinful man, conceived and born in sin:
  'Tis their own doing; this is none of mine;
  Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this,
  That here come those that worship me? Ha! ha!
  They think that I am somewhat. What am I?
  The silly people take me for a saint,
  And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers:
  And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here)
  Have all in all endured as much, and more
  Than many just and holy men, whose names
  Are register'd and calendar'd for saints.
  Good people, you do ill to kneel to me.
  What is it I can have done to merit this?
  I am a sinner viler than you all.
  It may be I have wrought some miracles,
  And cured some halt and maim'd; but what of that?
  It may be, no one, even among the saints,
  May match his pains with mine; but what of that?
  Yet do not rise: for you may look on me,
  And in your looking you may kneel to God.
  Speak! is there any of you halt or maim'd?
  I think you know I have some power with Heaven
  From my long penance: let him speak his wish.
  Yes, I can heal. Power goes forth from me.
  They say that they are heal'd. Ah, hark! they shout
  "St. Simeon Stylites". Why, if so,
  God reaps a harvest in me. O my soul,
  God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be,
  Can I work miracles and not be saved?
  This is not told of any. They were saints.
  It cannot be but that I shall be saved;
  Yea, crown'd a saint. They shout, "Behold a saint!"
  And lower voices saint me from above.
  Courage, St. Simeon! This dull chrysalis
  Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death
  Spreads more and more and more, that God hath now
  Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all
  My mortal archives. O my sons, my sons,
  I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname Stylites, among men;
  I, Simeon, The watcher on the column till the end;
  I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes;
  I, whose bald brows in silent hours become
  Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now
  From my high nest of penance here proclaim
  That Pontius and Iscariot by my side
  Show'd like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay,
  A vessel full of sin: all hell beneath
  Made me boil over. Devils pluck'd my sleeve;
  Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me.
  I smote them with the cross; they swarm'd again.
  In bed like monstrous apes they crush'd my chest:
  They flapp'd my light out as I read: I saw
  Their faces grow between me and my book:
  With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine
  They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left,
  And by this way I'scaped them. Mortify
  Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns;
  Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast
  Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps,
  With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain,
  Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that still
  Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise:
  God only thro' his bounty hath thought fit,
  Among the powers and princes of this world,
  To make me an example to mankind,
  Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say
  But that a time may come--yea, even now,
  Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs
  Of life--I say, that time is at the doors
  When you may worship me without reproach;
  For I will leave my relics in your land,
  And you may carve a shrine about my dust,
  And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones,
  When I am gather'd to the glorious saints.
  While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain
  Ran shrivelling thro' me, and a cloudlike change,
  In passing, with a grosser film made thick
  These heavy, horny eyes. The end! the end!
  Surely the end! What's here? a shape, a shade,
  A flash of light. Is that the angel there
  That holds a crown? Come, blessed brother, come,
  I know thy glittering face. I waited long;
  My brows are ready. What! deny it now?
  Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it. Christ!
  'Tis gone: 'tis here again; the crown! the crown!
  So now 'tis fitted on and grows to me,
  And from it melt the dews of Paradise,
  Sweet! sweet! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense.
  Ah! let me not be fool'd, sweet saints: I trust
  That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven.
  Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God,
  Among you there, and let him presently
  Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft,
  And climbing up into my airy home,
  Deliver me the blessed sacrament;
  For by the warning of the Holy Ghost,
  I prophesy that I shall die to-night,
  A quarter before twelve. But thou, O Lord,
  Aid all this foolish people; let them take
  Example, pattern: lead them to thy light.

The Talking Oak



  Once more the gate behind me falls;
  Once more before my face
  I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls,
  That stand within the chace.

  Beyond the lodge the city lies,
  Beneath its drift of smoke;
  And ah! with what delighted eyes
  I turn to yonder oak.

  For when my passion first began,
  Ere that, which in me burn'd,
  The love, that makes me thrice a man,
  Could hope itself return'd;

  To yonder oak within the field
  I spoke without restraint,
  And with a larger faith appeal'd
  Than Papist unto Saint.

  For oft I talk'd with him apart,
  And told him of my choice,
  Until he plagiarised a heart,
  And answer'd with a voice.

  Tho' what he whisper'd, under Heaven
  None else could understand;
  I found him garrulously given,
  A babbler in the land.

  But since I heard him make reply
  Is many a weary hour;
  'Twere well to question him, and try
  If yet he keeps the power.

  Hail, hidden to the knees in fern,
  Broad Oak of Sumner-chace,
  Whose topmost branches can discern
  The roofs of Sumner-place!

  Say thou, whereon I carved her name,
  If ever maid or spouse,
  As fair as my Olivia, came
  To rest beneath thy boughs.--

  "O Walter, I have shelter'd here
  Whatever maiden grace
  The good old Summers, year by year,
  Made ripe in Sumner-chace:

  "Old Summers, when the monk was fat,
  And, issuing shorn and sleek,
  Would twist his girdle tight, and pat
  The girls upon the cheek.

  "Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence,
  And number'd bead, and shrift,
  Bluff Harry broke into the spence,
  And turn'd the cowls adrift:

  "And I have seen some score of those
  Fresh faces, that would thrive
  When his man-minded offset rose
  To chase the deer at five;

  "And all that from the town would stroll,
  Till that wild wind made work
  In which the gloomy brewer's soul
  Went by me, like a stork:

  "The slight she-slips of loyal blood,
  And others, passing praise,
  Strait-laced, but all too full in bud
  For puritanic stays:

  "And I have shadow'd many a group
  Of beauties, that were born
  In teacup-times of hood and hoop,
  Or while the patch was worn;

  "And, leg and arm with love-knots gay,
  About me leap'd and laugh'd
  The Modish Cupid of the day,
  And shrill'd his tinsel shaft.

  "I swear (and else may insects prick
  Each leaf into a gall)
  This girl, for whom your heart is sick,
  Is three times worth them all;

  "For those and theirs, by Nature's law,
  Have faded long ago;
  But in these latter springs I saw
  Your own Olivia blow,

  "From when she gamboll'd on the greens,
  A baby-germ, to when
  The maiden blossoms of her teens
  Could number five from ten.

  "I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain
  (And hear me with thine ears),
  That, tho' I circle in the grain
  Five hundred rings of years--

  "Yet, since I first could cast a shade,
  Did never creature pass
  So slightly, musically made,
  So light upon the grass:

  "For as to fairies, that will flit
  To make the greensward fresh,
  I hold them exquisitely knit,
  But far too spare of flesh."

  Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern,
  And overlook the chace;
  And from thy topmost branch discern
  The roofs of Sumner-place.

  But thou, whereon I carved her name,
  That oft hast heard my vows,
  Declare when last Olivia came
  To sport beneath thy boughs.

  "O yesterday, you know, the fair
  Was holden at the town;
  Her father left his good arm-chair,
  And rode his hunter down.

  "And with him Albert came on his.
  I look'd at him with joy:
  As cowslip unto oxlip is,
  So seems she to the boy.

  "An hour had past--and, sitting straight
  Within the low-wheel'd chaise,
  Her mother trundled to the gate
  Behind the dappled grays.

  "But, as for her, she stay'd at home,
  And on the roof she went,
  And down the way you use to come,
  She look'd with discontent.

  "She left the novel half-uncut
  Upon the rosewood shelf;
  She left the new piano shut:
  She could not please herself.

  "Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,
  And livelier than a lark
  She sent her voice thro' all the holt
  Before her, and the park.

  "A light wind chased her on the wing,
  And in the chase grew wild,
  As close as might be would he cling
  About the darling child:

  "But light as any wind that blows
  So fleetly did she stir,
  The flower she touch'd on dipt and rose,
  And turn'd to look at her.

  "And here she came, and round me play'd,
  And sang to me the whole
  Of those three stanzas that you made
  About my 'giant bole';

  "And in a fit of frolic mirth
  She strove to span my waist:
  Alas, I was so broad of girth,
  I could not be embraced.

  "I wish'd myself the fair young beech
  That here beside me stands,
  That round me, clasping each in each,
  She might have lock'd her hands.

  "Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet
  As woodbine's fragile hold,
  Or when I feel about my feet
  The berried briony fold."

  O muffle round thy knees with fern,
  And shadow Sumner-chace!
  Long may thy topmost branch discern
  The roofs of Sumner-place!

  But tell me, did she read the name
  I carved with many vows
  When last with throbbing heart I came
  To rest beneath thy boughs?

  "O yes, she wander'd round and round
  These knotted knees of mine,
  And found, and kiss'd the name she found,
  And sweetly murmur'd thine.

  "A teardrop trembled from its source,
  And down my surface crept.
  My sense of touch is something coarse,
  But I believe she wept.

  "Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light,
  She glanced across the plain;
  But not a creature was in sight:
  She kiss'd me once again.

  "Her kisses were so close and kind,
  That, trust me on my word,
  Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,
  But yet my sap was stirr'd:

  "And even into my inmost ring
  A pleasure I discern'd
  Like those blind motions of the Spring,
  That show the year is turn'd.

  "Thrice-happy he that may caress
  The ringlet's waving balm
  The cushions of whose touch may press
  The maiden's tender palm.

  "I, rooted here among the groves,
  But languidly adjust
  My vapid vegetable loves
  With anthers and with dust:

  "For, ah! my friend, the days were brief
  Whereof the poets talk,
  When that, which breathes within the leaf,
  Could slip its bark and walk.

  "But could I, as in times foregone,
  From spray, and branch, and stem,
  Have suck'd and gather'd into one
  The life that spreads in them,

  "She had not found me so remiss;
  But lightly issuing thro',
  I would have paid her kiss for kiss
  With usury thereto."

  O flourish high, with leafy towers,
  And overlook the lea,
  Pursue thy loves among the bowers,
  But leave thou mine to me.

  O flourish, hidden deep in fern,
  Old oak, I love thee well;
  A thousand thanks for what I learn
  And what remains to tell.

  "'Tis little more: the day was warm;
  At last, tired out with play,
  She sank her head upon her arm,
  And at my feet she lay.

  "Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves.
  I breathed upon her eyes
  Thro' all the summer of my leaves
  A welcome mix'd with sighs.

  "I took the swarming sound of life--
  The music from the town--
  The murmurs of the drum and fife
  And lull'd them in my own.

  "Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,
  To light her shaded eye;
  A second flutter'd round her lip
  Like a golden butterfly;

  "A third would glimmer on her neck
  To make the necklace shine;
  Another slid, a sunny fleck,
  From head to ancle fine.

  "Then close and dark my arms I spread,
  And shadow'd all her rest--
  Dropt dews upon her golden head,
  An acorn in her breast.

  "But in a pet she started up,
  And pluck'd it out, and drew
  My little oakling from the cup,
  And flung him in the dew.

  "And yet it was a graceful gift--
  I felt a pang within
  As when I see the woodman lift
  His axe to slay my kin.

  "I shook him down because he was
  The finest on the tree.
  He lies beside thee on the grass.
  O kiss him once for me.

  "O kiss him twice and thrice for me,
  That have no lips to kiss,
  For never yet was oak on lea
  Shall grow so fair as this."

  Step deeper yet in herb and fern,
  Look further thro' the chace,
  Spread upward till thy boughs discern
  The front of Sumner-place.

  This fruit of thine by Love is blest,
  That but a moment lay
  Where fairer fruit of Love may rest
  Some happy future day.

  I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,
  The warmth it thence shall win
  To riper life may magnetise
  The baby-oak within.

  But thou, while kingdoms overset,
  Or lapse from hand to hand,
  Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet
  Thine acorn in the land.

  May never saw dismember thee,
  Nor wielded axe disjoint,
  That art the fairest-spoken tree
  From here to Lizard-point.

  O rock upon thy towery top
  All throats that gurgle sweet!
  All starry culmination drop
  Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!

  All grass of silky feather grow--
  And while he sinks or swells
  The full south-breeze around thee blow
  The sound of minster bells.

  The fat earth feed thy branchy root,
  That under deeply strikes!
  The northern morning o'er thee shoot
  High up, in silver spikes!

  Nor ever lightning char thy grain,
  But, rolling as in sleep,
  Low thunders bring the mellow rain,
  That makes thee broad and deep!

  And hear me swear a solemn oath,
  That only by thy side
  Will I to Olive plight my troth,
  And gain her for my bride.

  And when my marriage morn may fall,
  She, Dryad-like, shall wear
  Alternate leaf and acorn-ball
  In wreath about her hair.

  And I will work in prose and rhyme,
  And praise thee more in both
  Than bard has honour'd beech or lime,
  Or that Thessalian growth, [6]

  In which the swarthy ringdove sat,
  And mystic sentence spoke;
  And more than England honours that,
  Thy famous brother-oak,

  Wherein the younger Charles abode
  Till all the paths were dim,
  And far below the Roundhead rode,
  And humm'd a surly hymn.

Love and Duty



  Of love that never found his earthly close,
  What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts?
  Or all the same as if he had not been?
  Not so. Shall Error in the round of time
  Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout
  For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself
  Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law
  System and empire? Sin itself be found
  The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?
  And only he, this wonder, dead, become
  Mere highway dust? or year by year alone
  Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
  Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself!
  If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,
  Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
  The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days,
  The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
  The set gray life, and apathetic end.
  But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
  O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
  Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.
  The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon
  Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring
  The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit
  Of wisdom. Wait: my faith is large in Time,
  And that which shapes it to some perfect end.
  Will some one say, then why not ill for good?
  Why took ye not your pastime? To that man
  My work shall answer, since I knew the right
  And did it; for a man is not as God,
  But then most Godlike being most a man.--
  So let me think 'tis well for thee and me--
  Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine
  Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow
  To feel it! For how hard it seem'd to me,
  When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears, would dwell
  One earnest, earnest moment upon mine,
  Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice,
  Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep
  My own full-tuned,--hold passion in a leash,
  And not leap forth and fall about thy neck,
  And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!)
  Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh'd
  Upon my brain, my senses, and my soul!
  For love himself took part against himself
  To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love--
  O this world's curse--beloved but hated--came Like
  Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine,
  And crying, "Who is this? behold thy bride,"
  She push'd me from thee.

                          If the sense is hard
  To alien ears, I did not speak to these--
  No, not to thee, but to thyself in me:
  Hard is my doom and thine: thou knowest it all.
  Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak,
  To have spoken once? It could not but be well.
  The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good,
  The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill,
  And all good things from evil, brought the night
  In which we sat together and alone,
  And to the want, that hollow'd all the heart,
  Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye,
  That burn'd upon its object thro' such tears
  As flow but once a life. The trance gave way
  To those caresses, when a hundred times
  In that last kiss, which never was the last,
  Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died.
  Then follow'd counsel, comfort and the words
  That make a man feel strong in speaking truth;
  Till now the dark was worn, and overhead
  The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd
  In that brief night; the summer night, that paused
  Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung
  Love-charm'd to listen: all the wheels of Time
  Spun round in station, but the end had come.
  O then like those, who clench their nerves to rush
  Upon their dissolution, we two rose,
  There-closing like an individual life--
  In one blind cry of passion and of pain,
  Like bitter accusation ev'n to death,
  Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it,
  And bade adieu for ever. Live--yet live--
  Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all
  Life needs for life is possible to will--
  Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by
  My blessing! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts
  Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou
  For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold,
  If not to be forgotten--not at once--
  Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams,
  O might it come like one that looks content,
  With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth,
  And point thee forward to a distant light,
  Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart
  And leave thee frëer, till thou wake refresh'd,
  Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown
  Full quire, and morning driv'n her plow of pearl
  Far furrowing into light the mounded rack,
  Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea.

The Golden Year



  Well, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote:
  It was last summer on a tour in Wales:
  Old James was with me: we that day had been
  Up Snowdon; and I wish'd for Leonard there,
  And found him in Llanberis: then we crost
  Between the lakes, and clamber'd half-way up
  The counterside; and that same song of his
  He told me; for I banter'd him, and swore
  They said he lived shut up within himself,
  A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days,
  That, setting the _how much_ before the _how_,
  Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, "Give,
  Cram us with all," but count not me the herd!
  To which "They call me what they will," he said:
  "But I was born too late: the fair new forms,
  That float about the threshold of an age,
  Like truths of Science waiting to be caught--
  Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown'd--
  Are taken by the forelock. Let it be.
  But if you care indeed to listen, hear
  These measured words, my work of yestermorn.
  "We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move;
  The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun;
  The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse;
  And human things returning on themselves
  Move onward, leading up the golden year.
  "Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can bud,
  Are but as poets' seasons when they flower,
  Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore,
  Have ebb and flow conditioning their march,
  And slow and sure comes up the golden year.
  "When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps,
  But smit with freer light shall slowly melt
  In many streams to fatten lower lands,
  And light shall spread, and man be liker man
  Thro' all the season of the golden year.
  "Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens?
  If all the world were falcons, what of that?
  The wonder of the eagle were the less,
  But he not less the eagle. Happy days
  Roll onward, leading up the golden year.
  "Fly happy happy sails and bear the Press;
  Fly happy with the mission of the Cross;
  Knit land to land, and blowing havenward
  With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll,
  Enrich the markets of the golden year.
  "But we grow old! Ah! when shall all men's good
  Be each man's rule, and universal Peace
  Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
  And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
  Thro' all the circle of the golden year?"
  Thus far he flow'd, and ended; whereupon
  "Ah, folly!" in mimic cadence answer'd James--
  "Ah, folly! for it lies so far away.
  Not in our time, nor in our children's time,
  'Tis like the second world to us that live;
  'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven
  As on this vision of the golden year."
  With that he struck his staff against the rocks
  And broke it,--James,--you know him,--old, but full
  Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet,
  And like an oaken stock in winter woods,
  O'erflourished with the hoary clematis:
  Then added, all in heat: "What stuff is this!
  Old writers push'd the happy season back,--
  The more fools they,--we forward: dreamers both:
  You most, that in an age, when every hour
  Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death,
  Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt
  Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip
  His hand into the bag: but well I know
  That unto him who works, and feels he works,
  This same grand year is ever at the doors."
  He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast
  The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap
  And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff.

Ulysses



  It little profits that an idle king,
  By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
  Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
  Unequal laws unto a savage race,
  That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
  I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
  Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
  Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
  That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
  Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
  Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
  For always roaming with a hungry heart
  Much have I seen and known; cities of men
  And manners, climates, councils, governments,
  Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
  And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
  Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
  I am a part of all that I have met;
  Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
  Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
  For ever and for ever when I move.
  How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
  To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
  As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
  Were all too little, and of one to me
  Little remains: but every hour is saved
  From that eternal silence, something more,
  A bringer of new things; and vile it were
  For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
  And this gray spirit yearning in desire
  To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
  Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

  This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
  To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle--
  Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
  This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
  A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
  Subdue them to the useful and the good.
  Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
  Of common duties, decent not to fail
  In offices of tenderness, and pay
  Meet adoration to my household gods,
  When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
  There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
  There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
  Souls that have toil'd and wrought, and thought with me--
  That ever with a frolic welcome took
  The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
  Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
  Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
  Death closes all; but something ere the end,
  Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
  Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
  The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
  The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
  Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
  'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
  Push off, and sitting well in order smite
  The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
  To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
  Of all the western stars, until I die.
  It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
  It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
  And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
  Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
  We are not now that strength which in old days
  Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
  One equal temper of heroic hearts,
  Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.