Songs From Pippa Passes


Day!
Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last:
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,                                10
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.


    All service ranks the same with God:
    If now, as formerly He trod
    Paradise, His presence fills
    Our earth, each only as God wills
    Can work--God's puppets, best and worst,
    Are we: there is no last nor first.

      The year's at the spring
      And day's at the morn:                                                 20
      Morning's at seven;
      The hillside's dew-pearled;
      The lark's on the wing;
      The snail's on the thorn:
      God's in His heaven--
      All's right with the world!



Give her but a least excuse to love me!
  When--where--
How--can this arm establish her above me,
  If fortune fixed her as my lady there,                                     30
There already, to eternally reprove me?
  ("Hist!"--said Kate the queen;
But "Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
  "'Tis only a page that carols unseen,
Crumbling your hounds their messes!")

Is she wronged?--To the rescue of her honour,
  My heart!
Is she poor?--What costs it to be styled a donor?
  Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.
But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!
  ("Nay, list!"--bade Kate the queen;                                        41
And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
  "'Tis only a page that carols unseen,
Fitting your hawks their jesses!")

The Lost Leader


Just for a handful of silver he left us,
  Just for a riband to stick in his coat--
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
  Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
  So much was theirs who so little allowed;
How all our copper had gone for his service!
  Rags--were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
  Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,                                     10
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
  Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare° was of us, Milton° was for us,                                 °13
  Burns,° Shelley,° were with us,--they watch from their graves!            °14
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
  He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering--not through his presence;
  Songs may inspirit us,--not from his lyre:
Deeds will be done,--while he boasts his quiescence,
  Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:                            20
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
  One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels,
  One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!
  There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,
Forced praise on our part--the glimmer of twilight,
  Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him--strike gallantly,
  Menace our heart ere we master his own;                                    30
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
  Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

Apparent Failure

"We shall soon lose a celebrated building."
                     --_Paris Newspaper_.



No, for I'll save it! Seven years since
  I passed through Paris, stopped a day
To see the baptism of your Prince,°                                          °3
  Saw, made my bow, and went my way:
Walking the heat and headache off,
  I took the Seine-side, you surmise,
Thought of the Congress,° Gortschakoff,°                                     °7
  Cavour's° appeal and Buol's° replies,                                      °8
  So sauntered till--what met my eyes?

Only the Doric little Morgue!                                                10
  The dead-house where you show your drowned:
Petrarch's Vaucluse° makes proud the Sorgue,°                               °12
  Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.
One pays one's debt° in such a case;                                        °14
  I plucked up heart and entered,--stalked,
Keeping a tolerable face
  Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:
  Let them! No Briton's to be balked!

First came the silent gazers; next,
  A screen of glass, we're thankful for;                                     20
Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text,
  The three men who did most abhor
Their life in Paris yesterday,
  So killed themselves: and now, enthroned
Each on his copper couch, they lay
  Fronting me, waiting to be owned.
  I thought, and think, their sin's atoned.

Poor men, God made, and all for that!
  The reverence struck me; o'er each head
Religiously was hung its hat,                                                30
  Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,
Sacred from touch: each had his berth,
  His bounds, his proper place of rest,
Who last night tenanted on earth
  Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,--
  Unless the plain asphalt seemed best.

How did it happen, my poor boy?
  You wanted to be Buonaparte
And have the Tuileries° for toy,                                            °39
 And could not, so it broke your heart?                                      40
You, old one by his side, I judge,
  Were, red as blood, a socialist,
A leveller! Does the Empire grudge
  You've gained what no Republic missed?
  Be quiet, and unclench your fist!

And this--why, he was red in vain,
  Or black,--poor fellow that is blue°!                                     °47
What fancy was it, turned your brain?
  Oh, women were the prize for you!
Money gets women, cards and dice                                             50
  Get money, and ill-luck gets just
The copper couch and one clear nice
  Cool squirt of water o'er your bust,
  The right thing to extinguish lust!

It's wiser being good than bad;
  It's safer being meek than fierce:
It's fitter being sane than mad.
  My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
  That, after Last, returns the First,                                       60
Tho' a wide compass round be fetched;
  That what began best, can't end worst,
  Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.

Fears And Scruples


Here's my case. Of old I used to love him.
  This same unseen friend, before I knew:
Dream there was none like him, none above him,--
  Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.

Loved I not his letters° full of beauty?                                     °5
  Not his actions famous far and wide?
Absent, he would know I vowed him duty,
  Present, he would find me at his side.

Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters,
  Only knew of actions by hearsay:                                           10
He himself was busied with my betters;
  What of that? My turn must come some day.

"Some day" proving--no day! Here's the puzzle.
  Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain?
He's so busied! If I could but muzzle
  People's foolish mouths that give me pain!

"Letters?" (hear them!) "You a judge of writing?
  Ask the experts!--How they shake the head
O'er these characters, your friend's inditing--
  Call them forgery from A to Z°!                                           °20

"Actions? Where's your certain proof" (they bother)
  "He, of all you find so great and good,
He, he only, claims this, that, the other
  Action--claimed by men, a multitude?"

I can simply wish I might refute you,
  Wish my friend would,--by a word, a wink,--
Bid me stop that foolish mouth,--you brute you!
  He keeps absent,--why, I cannot think.

Never mind! Tho' foolishness may flout me.
  One thing's sure enough; 'tis neither frost,                               30
No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me
  Thanks for truth--tho' falsehood, gained--tho' lost.

All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier,
  For that dream's sake! How forget the thrill
Thro' and thro' me as I thought, "The gladlier
  Lives my friend because I love him still!"

Ah, but there's a menace some one utters!
  "What and if your friend at home play tricks?
Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters?
  Mean your eyes should pierce thro' solid bricks?                           40

'What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy?
  Lay on you the blame that bricks--conceal?
Say '_At least I saw who did not see me,
  Does see now, and presently shall feel_'?"

"Why, that makes your friend a monster!" say you;
  "Had his house no window? At first nod,
Would you not have hailed him?" Hush, I pray you!
  What if this friend happen to be--God?

Instans Tyrannus


Of the million or two, more or less,
I rule and possess,
One man, for some cause undefined,
Was least to my mind.

I struck him, he grovelled of course--
For, what was his force?
I pinned him to earth with my weight
And persistence of hate;
And he lay, would not moan, would not curse,
As his lot might be worse.                                                   10

"Were the object less mean? would he stand
At the swing of my hand!
For obscurity helps him, and blots
The hole where he squats."
So, I set my five wits on the stretch.
To inveigle the wretch.
All in vain! Gold and jewels I threw,
Still he couched there perdue;
I tempted his blood and his flesh,
Hid in roses my mesh,                                                        20
Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth:
Still he kept to his filth.

Had he kith now or kin, were access
To his heart, did I press:
Just a son or a mother to seize!
No such booty as these.
Were it simply a friend to pursue
'Mid my million or two,
Who could pay me, in person or pelf,
What he owes me himself!                                                     30
No: I could not but smile thro' my chafe:
For the fellow lay safe
As his mates do, the midge and the nit,
--Thro' minuteness, to wit.

Then a humour more great took its place
At the thought of his face:
The droop, the low cares of the mouth,
The trouble uncouth
'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain
To put out of its pain,                                                      40
And, "no!" I admonished myself,
"Is one mocked by an elf.
Is one baffled by toad or by rat?
The gravamen's° in that!                                                    °44
How the lion, who crouches to suit
His back to my foot,
Would admire that I stand in debate!
But the small turns the great
If it vexes you,--that is the thing!
Toad or rat vex the king?                                                    50
Tho' I waste half my realm to unearth
Toad or rat, 'tis well worth!"

So, I soberly laid my last plan
To extinguish the man.
Round his creep-hole, with never a break
Ran my fires for his sake;
Overhead, did my thunder combine
With my under-ground mine:
Till I looked from my labour content
To enjoy the event.                                                          60

When sudden ... how think ye, the end?
Did I say "without friend?"
Say rather, from marge to blue marge
The whole sky grew his targe
With the sun's self for visible boss,
While an Arm ran across
Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast!
Where the wretch was safe prest!
Do you see! Just my vengeance complete,                                     °69
The man sprang to his feet,                                                  70
Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed!
--So, _I_ was afraid!

The Patriot
An Old Story


It was roses, roses, all the way,
  With myrtle mixed in my path like mad;
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
  The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.

The air broke into a mist with bells,
  The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels--
  But give me your sun from yonder skies!"
They had answered "And afterward, what else?"                                10

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
  To give it my loving friends to keep!
Naught man could do, have I left undone:
  And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.

There's nobody on the house-tops now--
  Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
  At the Shambles' Gate--or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.                                         20

I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
  A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
  For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

Thus I entered, and thus I go!
  In triumphs, people have dropped down dead,
"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe
  Me? "--God might question; now instead,
'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so. 

The Boy and the Angel


Morning, evening, noon, and night,
"Praise God!" sang Theocrite.

Then to his poor trade he turned,
Whereby the daily meal was earned.

Hard he laboured, long and well;
O'er his work the boy's curls fell.

But ever, at each period,
He stopped and sang, "Praise God!"

Then back again his curls he threw,
And cheerful turned to work anew.                                            10

Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done;
I doubt not thou art heard, my son:

"As well as if thy voice to-day
Were praising God, the Pope's great way.

"This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome
Praises God from Peter's dome."

Said Theocrite, "Would God that I
Might praise Him that great way, and die!"

Night passed, day shone,
And Theocrite was gone.                                                      20

With God a day endures alway,
A thousand years are but a day.

God said in heaven, "Nor day nor night
Now brings the voice of my delight."°                                       °24

Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth,
Spread his wings and sank to earth;

Entered, in flesh, the empty cell,
Lived there, and played the craftsman well;

And morning, evening, noon, and night,
Praised God in place of Theocrite.                                           30

And from a boy, to youth he grew:
The man put off the stripling's hue:

The man matured and fell away
Into the season of decay:

And ever o'er the trade he bent,
And ever lived on earth content.

(He did God's will; to him, all one
If on the earth or in the sun.)

God said, "A praise is in mine ear;
There is no doubt in it, no fear:                                            40

"So sing old worlds, and so
New worlds that from my footstool go.

"Clearer loves sound other ways:
I miss my little human praise."

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell
The flesh disguise, remained the cell.

'Twas Easter day: he flew to Rome,
And paused above Saint Peter's dome.

In the tiring-room close by
The great outer gallery,                                                     50

With his holy vestments dight,
Stood the new Pope, Theocrite:

And all his past career
Came back upon him clear,

Since when, a boy, he plied his trade,
Till on his life the sickness weighed;

And in his cell, when death drew near,
An angel in a dream brought cheer:

And rising from the sickness drear,
He grew a priest, and now stood here.                                        60

To the East with praise he turned,
And on his sight the angel burned.

"I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell,
And set thee here; I did not well.

"Vainly I left my angel-sphere,
Vain was thy dream of many a year,

"Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped--
Creation's chorus stopped!

"Go back and praise again
The early way, while I remain.                                               70

"With that weak voice of our disdain,
Take up creation's pausing strain.

"Back to the cell and poor employ:
Resume the craftsman and the boy!"

Theocrite grew old at home;
A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome.

One vanished as the other died:
They sought God side by side.

Memorabilia


Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
  And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
  How strange it seems and new!

But you were living before that,
  And also you are living after;
And the memory I started at--
  My starting moves your laughter!

I crossed a moor with a name of its own
  And a certain use in the world, no doubt,                                  10
Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone
  'Mid the blank miles round about.

For there I picked upon the heather
  And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
  Well, I forget the rest.

Why I Am a Liberal


"Why?" Because all I haply can and do,
  All that I am now, all I hope to be,--
  Whence comes it save from fortune setting free
Body and soul the purpose to pursue,
God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,
  Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,
  These shall I bid men--each in his degree
Also God-guided--bear, and gayly too?
  But little do or can the best of us:
That little is achieved thro' Liberty.                                       10
  Who then dares hold, emancipated thus,
His fellow shall continue bound? not I,
  Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss
A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why."

Prospice


Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat,
  The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
  I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
  The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
  Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
  And the barriers fall,                                                     10
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
  The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more,
  The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
  And bade me creep past,
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
  The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
  Of pain, darkness, and cold.                                               20
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
  The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
  Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
  Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
  And with God be the rest!