Locksley Hall



  Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn:
  Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.

  'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
  Dreary gleams  about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

  Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
  And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

  Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
  Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

  Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
  Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

  Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
  With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

  When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
  When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

  When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
  Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.--

  In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
  In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

  In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
  In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

  Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,
  And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.

  And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
  Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

  On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,
  As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

  And she turn'd--her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs--
  All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes--

  Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong";
  Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee
    long".

  Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
  Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

  Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
  Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of
    sight.

  Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,
  And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.

  Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
  And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips.

  O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
  O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!

  Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,
  Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

  Is it well to wish thee happy?--having known me--to decline
  On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!

  Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
  What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay.

  As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,
  And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

  He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
  Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

  What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine.
  Go to him: it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand in thine.

  It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought:
  Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.

  He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand--
  Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand!

  Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace,
  Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.

  Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
  Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

  Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule!
  Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool!

  Well--'tis well that I should bluster!--Hadst thou less unworthy
    proved--
  Would to God--for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

  Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?
  I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at the root.

  Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come
  As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

  Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind?
  Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

  I remember one that perish'd: sweetly did she speak and move:
  Such a one do I remember, whom to look it was to love.

  Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?
  No--she never loved me truly: love is love for evermore.

  Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings,
  That a sorrow's crown of sorro is remembering happier things.

  Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,
  In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

  Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,
  Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

  Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,
  To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

  Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years,
  And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;

  And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.
  Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to thy rest again.

  Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry,
  'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

  Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest.
  Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

  O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.
  Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.

  O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,
  With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

  "They were dangerous guides the feelings--she herself was not exempt--
  Truly, she herself had suffer'd"--Perish in thy self-contempt!

  Overlive it--lower yet--be happy! wherefore should I care,
  I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

  What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?
  Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

  Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow.
  I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?

  I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,
  When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with
    sound.

  But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels,
  And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

  Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.
  Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!

  Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,
  When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;

  Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,
  Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

  And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,
  Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;

  And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,
  Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men;

  Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
  That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall
    do:

  For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
  Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

  Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
  Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

  Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
  From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

  Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
  With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunderstorm;
   

  Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
  In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

  There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
  And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

  So I triumph'd, ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry,
  Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;

  Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint,
  Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point:

  Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher,
  Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.

  Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
  And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.

  What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,
  Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?

  Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,
  And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

  Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,
  Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.

  Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn,
  They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:

  Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
  I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.

  Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain--
   
  Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:

  Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine,
  Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine--

  Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat
  Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;

  Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd;--
  I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.

  Or to burst all links of habit--there to wander far away,
  On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.

  Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
  Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

  Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,
  Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from
    the crag;

  Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree--
  Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

  There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,
  In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.

  There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and
    breathing-space;
  I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.

  Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run,
  Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;

  Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks.
  Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books--

  Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I _know_ my words are wild,
  But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.

  _I_, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,
  Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!

  Mated with a squalid savage--what to me were sun or clime?
  I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time--

  I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
  Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!

  Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range.
  Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves
    of change.

  Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day:
  Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

  Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun:
  Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the
    Sun-

  O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.
  Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet.

  Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall!
  Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

  Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,
  Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

  Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;
  For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.

Godiva


  I waited for the train at Coventry;
  I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
  To match the three tall spires; and there I shaped
  The city's ancient legend into this:_
  Not only we, the latest seed of Time,
  New men, that in the flying of a wheel
  Cry down the past, not only we, that prate
  Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,
  And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she
  Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
  The woman of a thousand summers back,
  Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
  In Coventry: for when he laid a tax
  Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
  Their children, clamouring, "If we pay, we starve!"
  She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode
  About the hall, among his dogs, alone,
  His beard a foot before him, and his hair
  A yard behind. She told him of their tears,
  And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax, they starve".
  Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,
  "You would not let your little finger ache
  For such as _these?_"--"But I would die," said she.
  He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul;
  Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear;
  "O ay, ay, ay, you talk!"--"Alas!" she said,
  "But prove me what it is I would not do."
  And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,
  He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town,
  And I repeal it"; and nodding as in scorn,
  He parted, with great strides among his dogs.
  So left alone, the passions of her mind,
  As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
  Made war upon each other for an hour,
  Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
  And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
  The hard condition; but that she would loose
  The people: therefore, as they loved her well,
  From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
  No eye look down, she passing; but that all
  Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd.
  Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
  Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt,
  The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
  She linger'd, looking like a summer moon
  Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
  And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee;
  Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
  Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
  From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd
  The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt
  In purple blazon'd with armorial gold.
  Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
  The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,
  And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
  The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout
  Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
  Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot
  Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls
  Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
  Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
  Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw
  The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field
  Gleam thro' the Gothic archways in the wall.
  Then she rode back cloth'd on with chastity:
  And one low churl, compact of thankless earth,
  The fatal byword of all years to come,
  Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
  Peep'd--but his eyes, before they had their will,
  Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head,
  And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait
  On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused;
  And she, that knew not, pass'd: and all at once,
  With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon
  Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers,
  One after one: but even then she gain'd
  Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd,
  To meet her lord, she took the tax away,
  And built herself an everlasting name.

The Two Voices



  A still small voice spake unto me,
  "Thou art so full of misery,
  Were it not better not to be?"

  Then to the still small voice I said;
  "Let me not cast in endless shade
  What is so wonderfully made".

  To which the voice did urge reply;
  "To-day I saw the dragon-fly
  Come from the wells where he did lie.

  "An inner impulse rent the veil
  Of his old husk: from head to tail
  Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.

  "He dried his wings: like gauze they grew:
  Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew
  A living flash of light he flew."

  I said, "When first the world began
  Young Nature thro' five cycles ran,
  And in the sixth she moulded man.

  "She gave him mind, the lordliest
  Proportion, and, above the rest,
  Dominion in the head and breast."

  Thereto the silent voice replied;
  "Self-blinded are you by your pride:
  Look up thro' night: the world is wide.

  "This truth within thy mind rehearse,
  That in a boundless universe
  Is boundless better, boundless worse.

  "Think you this mould of hopes and fears
  Could find no statelier than his peers
  In yonder hundred million spheres?"

  It spake, moreover, in my mind:
  "Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind,
  Yet is there plenty of the kind".

  Then did my response clearer fall:
  "No compound of this earthly ball
  Is like another, all in all".

  To which he answer'd scoffingly;
  "Good soul! suppose I grant it thee,
  Who'll weep for thy deficiency?

  "Or will one beam be less intense,
  When thy peculiar difference
  Is cancell'd in the world of sense?"

  I would have said, "Thou canst not know,"
  But my full heart, that work'd below,
  Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow.

  Again the voice spake unto me:
  "Thou art so steep'd in misery,
  Surely 'twere better not to be.

  "Thine anguish will not let thee sleep,
  Nor any train of reason keep:
  Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep."

  I said, "The years with change advance:
  If I make dark my countenance,
  I shut my life from happier chance.

  "Some turn this sickness yet might take,
  Ev'n yet." But he: "What drug can make
  A wither'd palsy cease to shake?"

  I wept, "Tho' I should die, I know
  That all about the thorn will blow
  In tufts of rosy-tinted snow;

  "And men, thro' novel spheres of thought
  Still moving after truth long sought,
  Will learn new things when I am not."

  "Yet," said the secret voice, "some time,
  Sooner or later, will gray prime
  Make thy grass hoar with early rime.

  "Not less swift souls that yearn for light,
  Rapt after heaven's starry flight,
  Would sweep the tracts of day and night.

  "Not less the bee would range her cells,
  The furzy prickle fire the dells,
  The foxglove cluster dappled bells."

  I said that "all the years invent;
  Each month is various to present
  The world with some development.

  "Were this not well, to bide mine hour,
  Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower
  How grows the day of human power?"

  "The highest-mounted mind," he said,
  "Still sees the sacred morning spread
  The silent summit overhead.

  "Will thirty seasons render plain
  Those lonely lights that still remain,
  Just breaking over land and main?

  "Or make that morn, from his cold crown
  And crystal silence creeping down,
  Flood with full daylight glebe and town?

  "Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let
  Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set
  In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet.

  "Thou hast not gain'd a real height,
  Nor art thou nearer to the light,
  Because the scale is infinite.

  "'Twere better not to breathe or speak,
  Than cry for strength, remaining weak,
  And seem to find, but still to seek.

  "Moreover, but to seem to find
  Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd,
  A healthy frame, a quiet mind."

  I said, "When I am gone away,
  'He dared not tarry,' men will say,
  Doing dishonour to my clay."

  "This is more vile," he made reply,
  "To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh,
  Than once from dread of pain to die.

  "Sick art thou--a divided will
  Still heaping on the fear of ill
  The fear of men, a coward still.

  "Do men love thee? Art thou so bound
  To men, that how thy name may sound
  Will vex thee lying underground?

  "The memory of the wither'd leaf
  In endless time is scarce more brief
  Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf.

  "Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust;
  The right ear, that is fill'd with dust,
  Hears little of the false or just."

  "Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried,
  "From emptiness and the waste wide
  Of that abyss, or scornful pride!

  "Nay--rather yet that I could raise
  One hope that warm'd me in the days
  While still I yearn'd for human praise.

  "When, wide in soul, and bold of tongue,
  Among the tents I paused and sung,
  The distant battle flash'd and rung.

  "I sung the joyful Paean clear,
  And, sitting, burnish'd without fear
  The brand, the buckler, and the spear--

  "Waiting to strive a happy strife,
  To war with falsehood to the knife,
  And not to lose the good of life--

  "Some hidden principle to move,
  To put together, part and prove,
  And mete the bounds of hate and love--

  "As far as might be, to carve out
  Free space for every human doubt,
  That the whole mind might orb about--

  "To search thro' all I felt or saw,
  The springs of life, the depths of awe,
  And reach the law within the law:

  "At least, not rotting like a weed,
  But, having sown some generous seed,
  Fruitful of further thought and deed,

  "To pass, when Life her light withdraws,
  Not void of righteous self-applause,
  Nor in a merely selfish cause--

  "In some good cause, not in mine own,
  To perish, wept for, honour'd, known,
  And like a warrior overthrown;

  "Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears,
  When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears
  His country's war-song thrill his ears:

  "Then dying of a mortal stroke,
  What time the foeman's line is broke.
  And all the war is roll'd in smoke."

  "Yea!" said the voice, "thy dream was good,
  While thou abodest in the bud.
  It was the stirring of the blood.

  "If Nature put not forth her power
  About the opening of the flower,
  Who is it that could live an hour?

  "Then comes the check, the change, the fall.
  Pain rises up, old pleasures pall.
  There is one remedy for all.

  "Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain,
  Link'd month to month with such a chain
  Of knitted purport, all were vain.

  "Thou hadst not between death and birth
  Dissolved the riddle of the earth.
  So were thy labour little worth.

  "That men with knowledge merely play'd,
  I told thee--hardly nigher made,
  Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade;

  "Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind,
  Named man, may hope some truth to find,
  That bears relation to the mind.

  "For every worm beneath the moon
  Draws different threads, and late and soon
  Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.

  "Cry, faint not: either Truth is born
  Beyond the polar gleam forlorn,
  Or in the gateways of the morn.

  "Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope
  Beyond the furthest nights of hope,
  Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope.

  "Sometimes a little corner shines,
  As over rainy mist inclines
  A gleaming crag with belts of pines.

  "I will go forward, sayest thou,
  I shall not fail to find her now.
  Look up, the fold is on her brow.

  "If straight thy track, or if oblique,
  Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike,
  Embracing cloud, Ixion-like;

  "And owning but a little more
  Than beasts, abidest lame and poor,
  Calling thyself a little lower

  "Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl!
  Why inch by inch to darkness crawl?
  There is one remedy for all."

  "O dull, one-sided voice," said I,
  "Wilt thou make everything a lie,
  To flatter me that I may die?

  "I know that age to age succeeds,
  Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds,
  A dust of systems and of creeds.

  "I cannot hide that some have striven,
  Achieving calm, to whom was given
  The joy that mixes man with Heaven:

  "Who, rowing hard against the stream,
  Saw distant gates of Eden gleam,
  And did not dream it was a dream";

  "But heard, by secret transport led,
  Ev'n in the charnels of the dead,
  The murmur of the fountain-head--

  "Which did accomplish their desire,--
  Bore and forbore, and did not tire,
  Like Stephen, an unquenched fire.

  "He heeded not reviling tones,
  Nor sold his heart to idle moans,
  Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones:

  "But looking upward, full of grace,
  He pray'd, and from a happy place
  God's glory smote him on the face."

  The sullen answer slid betwixt:
  "Not that the grounds of hope were fix'd,
  The elements were kindlier mix'd."

  I said, "I toil beneath the curse,
  But, knowing not the universe,
  I fear to slide from bad to worse.

  "And that, in seeking to undo
  One riddle, and to find the true,
  I knit a hundred others new:

  "Or that this anguish fleeting hence,
  Unmanacled from bonds of sense,
  Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence:

  "For I go, weak from suffering here;
  Naked I go, and void of cheer:
  What is it that I may not fear?"

  "Consider well," the voice replied,
  "His face, that two hours since hath died;
  Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride?

  "Will he obey when one commands?
  Or answer should one press his hands?
  He answers not, nor understands.

  "His palms are folded on his breast:
  There is no other thing express'd
  But long disquiet merged in rest.

  "His lips are very mild and meek:
  Tho' one should smite him on the cheek,
  And on the mouth, he will not speak.

  "His little daughter, whose sweet face
  He kiss'd, taking his last embrace,
  Becomes dishonour to her race--

  "His sons grow up that bear his name,
  Some grow to honour, some to shame,--
  But he is chill to praise or blame.

  "He will not hear the north wind rave,
  Nor, moaning, household shelter crave
  From winter rains that beat his grave.

  "High up the vapours fold and swim:
  About him broods the twilight dim:
  The place he knew forgetteth him."

  "If all be dark, vague voice," I said,
  "These things are wrapt in doubt and dread,
  Nor canst thou show the dead are dead.

  "The sap dries up: the plant declines.
  A deeper tale my heart divines.
  Know I not Death? the outward signs?

  "I found him when my years were few;
  A shadow on the graves I knew,
  And darkness in the village yew.

  "From grave to grave the shadow crept:
  In her still place the morning wept:
  Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept.

  "The simple senses crown'd his head:
  'Omega! thou art Lord,' they
  said; 'We find no motion in the dead.'

  "Why, if man rot in dreamless ease,
  Should that plain fact, as taught by these,
  Not make him sure that he shall cease?

  "Who forged that other influence,
  That heat of inward evidence,
  By which he doubts against the sense?

  "He owns the fatal gift of eyes,
  That read his spirit blindly wise,
  Not simple as a thing that dies.

  "Here sits he shaping wings to fly:
  His heart forebodes a mystery:
  He names the name Eternity.

  "That type of Perfect in his mind
  In Nature can he nowhere find.
  He sows himself in every wind.

  "He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend,
  And thro' thick veils to apprehend
  A labour working to an end.

  "The end and the beginning vex
  His reason: many things perplex,
  With motions, checks, and counterchecks.

  "He knows a baseness in his blood
  At such strange war with something good,
  He may not do the thing he would.

  "Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn.
  Vast images in glimmering dawn,
  Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.

  "Ah! sure within him and without,
  Could his dark wisdom find it out,
  There must be answer to his doubt.

  "But thou canst answer not again.
  With thine own weapon art thou slain,
  Or thou wilt answer but in vain.

  "The doubt would rest, I dare not solve.
  In the same circle we revolve.
  Assurance only breeds resolve."

  As when a billow, blown against,
  Falls back, the voice with which I fenced
  A little ceased, but recommenced.

  "Where wert thou when thy father play'd
  In his free field, and pastime made,
  A merry boy in sun and shade?

  "A merry boy they called him then.
  He sat upon the knees of men
  In days that never come again,

  "Before the little ducts began
  To feed thy bones with lime, and ran
  Their course, till thou wert also man:

  "Who took a wife, who rear'd his race,
  Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face,
  Whose troubles number with his days:

  "A life of nothings, nothing-worth,
  From that first nothing ere his birth
  To that last nothing under earth!"

  "These words," I said, "are like the rest,
  No certain clearness, but at best
  A vague suspicion of the breast:

  "But if I grant, thou might'st defend
  The thesis which thy words intend--
  That to begin implies to end;

  "Yet how should I for certain hold,
  Because my memory is so cold,
  That I first was in human mould?

  "I cannot make this matter plain,
  But I would shoot, howe'er in vain,
  A random arrow from the brain.

  "It may be that no life is found,
  Which only to one engine bound
  Falls off, but cycles always round.

  "As old mythologies relate,
  Some draught of Lethe might await
  The slipping thro' from state to state.

  "As here we find in trances, men
  Forget the dream that happens then,
  Until they fall in trance again.

  "So might we, if our state were such
  As one before, remember much,
  For those two likes might meet and touch.

  "But, if I lapsed from nobler place,
  Some legend of a fallen race
  Alone might hint of my disgrace;

  "Some vague emotion of delight
  In gazing up an Alpine height,
  Some yearning toward the lamps of night.

  "Or if thro' lower lives I came--
  Tho' all experience past became
  Consolidate in mind and frame--

  "I might forget my weaker lot;
  For is not our first year forgot?
  The haunts of memory echo not.

  "And men, whose reason long was blind,
  From cells of madness unconfined,
  Oft lose whole years of darker mind.

  "Much more, if first I floated free,
  As naked essence, must I be
  Incompetent of memory:

  "For memory dealing but with time,
  And he with matter, could she climb
  Beyond her own material prime?

  "Moreover, something is or seems,
  That touches me with mystic gleams,
  Like glimpses of forgotten dreams--

  "Of something felt, like something here;
  Of something done, I know not where;
  Such as no language may declare."

  The still voice laugh'd. "I talk," said he,
  "Not with thy dreams.
  Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality."

  "But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark,
  Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark,
  By making all the horizon dark.

  "Why not set forth, if I should do
  This rashness, that which might ensue
  With this old soul in organs new?

  "Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
  No life that breathes with human breath
  Has ever truly long'd for death.

  "'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,
  Oh life, not death, for which we pant;
  More life, and fuller, that I want."

  I ceased, and sat as one forlorn.
  Then said the voice, in quiet scorn,
  "Behold it is the Sabbath morn".

  And I arose, and I released
  The casement, and the light increased
  With freshness in the dawning east.

  Like soften'd airs that blowing steal,
  When meres begin to uncongeal,
  The sweet church bells began to peal.

  On to God's house the people prest:
  Passing the place where each must rest,
  Each enter'd like a welcome guest.

  One walk'd between his wife and child,
  With measur'd footfall firm and mild,
  And now and then he gravely smiled.

  The prudent partner of his blood
  Lean'd on him, faithful, gentle, good,
  Wearing the rose of womanhood.

  And in their double love secure,
  The little maiden walk'd demure,
  Pacing with downward eyelids pure.

  These three made unity so sweet,
  My frozen heart began to beat,
  Remembering its ancient heat.

  I blest them, and they wander'd on:
  I spoke, but answer came there none:
  The dull and bitter voice was gone.

  A second voice was at mine ear,
  A little whisper silver-clear,
  A murmur, "Be of better cheer".

  As from some blissful neighbourhood,
  A notice faintly understood,
  "I see the end, and know the good".

  A little hint to solace woe,
  A hint, a whisper breathing low,
  "I may not speak of what I know".

  Like an Aeolian harp that wakes
  No certain air, but overtakes
  Far thought with music that it makes:

  Such seem'd the whisper at my side:
  "What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried.
  "A hidden hope," the voice replied:

  So heavenly-toned, that in that hour
  From out my sullen heart a power
  Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,

  To feel, altho' no tongue can prove
  That every cloud, that spreads above
  And veileth love, itself is love.

  And forth into the fields I went,
  And Nature's living motion lent
  The pulse of hope to discontent.

  I wonder'd at the bounteous hours,
  The slow result of winter showers:
  You scarce could see the grass for flowers.

  I wonder'd, while I paced along:
  The woods were fill'd so full with song,
  There seem'd no room for sense of wrong.

  So variously seem'd all things wrought,
  I marvell'd how the mind was brought
  To anchor by one gloomy thought;

  And wherefore rather I made choice
  To commune with that barren voice,
  Than him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!"

Prologue


    O, Lady Flora, let me speak:
    A pleasant hour has past away
    While, dreaming on your damask cheek,
    The dewy sister-eyelids lay.

    As by the lattice you reclined,
    I went thro' many wayward moods
    To see you dreaming--and, behind,
    A summer crisp with shining woods.
    And I too dream'd, until at last
    Across my fancy, brooding warm,
    The reflex of a legend past,
    And loosely settled into form.
    And would you have the thought I had,
    And see the vision that I saw,
    Then take the broidery-frame, and add
    A crimson to the quaint Macaw,
    And I will tell it. Turn your face,
    Nor look with that too-earnest eye--
    The rhymes are dazzled from their place,
    And order'd words asunder fly.

 The Sleeping palace


    1

    The varying year with blade and sheaf
    Clothes and reclothes the happy plains;
    Here rests the sap within the leaf,
    Here stays the blood along the veins.
    Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl'd,
    Faint murmurs from the meadows come,
    Like hints and echoes of the world
    To spirits folded in the womb.


    2

    Soft lustre bathes the range of urns
    On every slanting terrace-lawn.
    The fountain to his place returns
    Deep in the garden lake withdrawn.
    Here droops the banner on the tower,
    On the hall-hearths the festal fires,
    The peacock in his laurel bower,
    The parrot in his gilded wires.


    3

    Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs:
    In these, in those the life is stay'd.
    The mantles from the golden pegs
    Droop sleepily: no sound is made,
    Not even of a gnat that sings.
    More like a picture seemeth all
    Than those old portraits of old kings,
    That watch the sleepers from the wall.


    4

    Here sits the Butler with a flask
    Between his knees, half-drain'd; and there
    The wrinkled steward at his task,
    The maid-of-honour blooming fair:
    The page has caught her hand in his:
    Her lips are sever'd as to speak:
    His own are pouted to a kiss:
    The blush is fix'd upon her cheek.


    5

    Till all the hundred summers pass,
    The beams, that thro' the Oriel shine,
    Make prisms in every carven glass,
    And beaker brimm'd with noble wine.
    Each baron at the banquet sleeps,
    Grave faces gather'd in a ring.
    His state the king reposing keeps.
    He must have been a jovial king.


    6

    All round a hedge upshoots, and shows
    At distance like a little wood;
    Thorns, ivies, woodbine, misletoes,
    And grapes with bunches red as blood;
    All creeping plants, a wall of green
    Close-matted, bur and brake and briar,
    And glimpsing over these, just seen,
    High up, the topmost palace-spire.


    7

    When will the hundred summers die,
    And thought and time be born again,
    And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,
    Bring truth that sways the soul of men?
    Here all things in there place remain,
    As all were order'd, ages since.
    Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain,
    And bring the fated fairy Prince.

The Sleeping Beauty


    1

    Year after year unto her feet,
    She lying on her couch alone,
    Across the purpled coverlet,
    The maiden's jet-black hair has grown,
    On either side her tranced form
    Forth streaming from a braid of pearl:
    The slumbrous light is rich and warm,
    And moves not on the rounded curl.


    2

    The silk star-broider'd coverlid
    Unto her limbs itself doth mould
    Languidly ever; and, amid
    Her full black ringlets downward roll'd,
    Glows forth each softly-shadow'd arm,
    With bracelets of the diamond bright:
    Her constant beauty doth inform
    Stillness with love, and day with light.


    3

    She sleeps: her breathings are not heard
    In palace chambers far apart.
    The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd
    That lie upon her charmed heart.
    She sleeps: on either hand upswells
    The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest:
    She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells
    A perfect form in perfect rest.

The Arrival


    1

    All precious things, discover'd late,
    To those that seek them issue forth;
    For love in sequel works with fate,
    And draws the veil from hidden worth.
    He travels far from other skies
    His mantle glitters on the rocks--
    A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes,
    And lighter footed than the fox.


    2

    The bodies and the bones of those
    That strove in other days to pass,
    Are wither'd in the thorny close,
    Or scatter'd blanching on the grass.
    He gazes on the silent dead:
    "They perish'd in their daring deeds."
    This proverb flashes thro' his head,
    "The many fail: the one succeeds".


    3

    He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks:
    He breaks the hedge: he enters there:
    The colour flies into his cheeks:
    He trusts to light on something fair;
    For all his life the charm did talk
    About his path, and hover near
    With words of promise in his walk,
    And whisper'd voices at his ear.


    4

    More close and close his footsteps wind;
    The Magic Music in his heart
    Beats quick and quicker, till he find
    The quiet chamber far apart.
    His spirit flutters like a lark,
    He stoops--to kiss her--on his knee.
    "Love, if thy tresses be so dark,
    How dark those hidden eyes must be!

The Revival


    1

    A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt.
    There rose a noise of striking clocks,
    And feet that ran, and doors that clapt,
    And barking dogs, and crowing cocks;
    A fuller light illumined all,
    A breeze thro' all the garden swept,
    A sudden hubbub shook the hall,
    And sixty feet the fountain leapt.


    2

    The hedge broke in, the banner blew,
    The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd,
    The fire shot up, the martin flew,
    The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd,
    The maid and page renew'd their strife,
    The palace bang'd, and buzz'd and clackt,
    And all the long-pent stream of life
    Dash'd downward in a cataract.


    3

    And last with these the king awoke,
    And in his chair himself uprear'd,
    And yawn'd, and rubb'd his face, and spoke,
    "By holy rood, a royal beard!
    How say you? we have slept, my lords,
    My beard has grown into my lap."
    The barons swore, with many words,
    'Twas but an after-dinner's nap.


    4

    "Pardy," return'd the king, "but still
    My joints are something stiff or so.
    My lord, and shall we pass the bill
    I mention'd half an hour ago?"
    The chancellor, sedate and vain,
    In courteous words return'd reply:
    But dallied with his golden chain,
    And, smiling, put the question by.

 The Departure


    1

    And on her lover's arm she leant,
    And round her waist she felt it fold,
    And far across the hills they went
    In that new world which is the old:
    Across the hills and far away
    Beyond their utmost purple rim,
    And deep into the dying day
    The happy princess follow'd him.


    2

    "I'd sleep another hundred years,
    O love, for such another kiss;"
    "O wake for ever, love," she hears,
    "O love, 'twas such as this and this."
    And o'er them many a sliding star,
    And many a merry wind was borne,
    And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar,
    The twilight melted into morn.


    3

    "O eyes long laid in happy sleep!"
    "O happy sleep, that lightly fled!"
    "O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!"
    "O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!"
    And o'er them many a flowing range
    Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark,
    And, rapt thro' many a rosy change,
    The twilight died into the dark.


    4

    "A hundred summers! can it be?
    And whither goest thou, tell me where?"
    "O seek my father's court with me!
    For there are greater wonders there."
    And o'er the hills, and far away
    Beyond their utmost purple rim,
    Beyond the night across the day,
    Thro' all the world she follow'd him.

  Moral


    1

    So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
    And if you find no moral there,
    Go, look in any glass and say,
    What moral is in being fair.
    Oh, to what uses shall we put
    The wildweed-flower that simply blows?
    And is there any moral shut
    Within the bosom of the rose?


    2

    But any man that walks the mead,
    In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,
    According as his humours lead,
    A meaning suited to his mind.
    And liberal applications lie
    In Art like Nature, dearest friend;
    So 'twere to cramp its use, if I
    Should hook it to some useful end.