This edition is limited to 750 copies for England
and America.

POEMS
BY
LIONEL JOHNSON.

POEMS

BY

LIONEL JOHNSON

1895

LONDON * ELKIN MATHEWS
BOSTON * COPELAND & DAY

TO THE HONOURED AND GREATLY LOVED SAINT
MARY COLLEGE OF WINCHESTER NEAR
WINCHESTER A WYKEHAMIST
COME OF WYKEHAMISTS
I DEDICATE THIS
BOOK.

Gulielmum Wickamum, ut optimum parentem agnosco, suscipio, colo, cui si quid in me doctrinae, virtutis, pietatis, et Catholicae religionis, maxime acceptum refero. Quippe qui ab ineunte aetate, in Wintoniensi primum, deinde et Oxontensi eius collegio, ad omnem ingenii, doctrinae, et pietatis cultum capessendum institutus sim.

HARPSFIELD.

CONTENTS.

[WINCHESTER]
[TO MORFYDD]
[PLATO IN LONDON]
[IN FALMOUTH HARBOUR]
[A FRIEND]
[A BURDEN OF EASTER VIGIL]
[BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS]
[LALEHAM]
[OUR LADY OF FRANCE]
[IN MEMORY]
[THE PRECEPT OF SILENCE]
[HILL AND VALE]
[GWYNEDD]
[A CORNISH NIGHT]
[MYSTIC AND CAVALIER]
[PARNELL]
[IN ENGLAND]
[TO OCEAN HAZARD: GIPSY]
[UPON A DRAWING]
[THE ROMAN STAGE]
["TO WEEP IRISH"]
[SUMMER STORM]
[TO A TRAVELLER]
[IN MEMORY OF M. B.]
[HAWTHORNE]
[GLORIES]
[LINES TO A LADY UPON HER THIRD BIRTHDAY]
[CELTIC SPEECH]
[WAYS OF WAR]
[THE COMING OF WAR]
[IRELAND'S DEAD]
[HARMONIES]
[THE LAST MUSIC]
[A DREAM OF YOUTH]
[ROMANS]
[THE TROOPSHIP]
[DEAD]
[SANCTA SILVARUM]
[BAGLEY WOOD]
[CORONA CRUCIS]
[A SONG OF ISRAEL]
[THE DARK ANGEL]
[A FRIEND]
[TO A PASSIONIST]
[ADVENTUS DOMINI]
[MEN OF ASSISI]
[MEN OF AQUINO]
[LUCRETIUS]
[ENTHUSIASTS]
[CADGWITH]
[VISIONS]
[TO LEO XIII.]
[AT THE BURIAL OF CARDINAL MANNING]
[VIGILS]
[THE CHURCH OF A DREAM]
[THE AGE OF A DREAM]
[OXFORD NIGHTS]
[TO A SPANISH FRIEND]
[TO MY PATRONS]
[BRONTË]
[COMFORT]
[MOEL FAMMAU]
[SORTES VIRGILIANAE]
[CONSOLATION]
[ORACLES]
[THE DESTROYER OF A SOUL]
[OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS]
[ASH WEDNESDAY]
[DESIDERIA]
[ARMA VIRUMQUE]
[THE DAY OF COMING DAYS]
[RENEGADE]
[WALES]
[HARVEST]
[TO CERTAIN FRIENDS]
[THE PETITION]
[THE CLASSICS]
[APRIL]
[A PROSELYTE]
[BEYOND]
[EXPERIENCE]
[ESCAPE]
[TRENTALS]
[THE RED WIND]
[SERTORIUS]
[SAINT COLUMBA]
[BELLS]

POEMS

WINCHESTER.

To the fairest!
Then to thee
Consecrate and bounden be,
Winchester! this verse of mine.
Ah, that loveliness of thine!
To have lived enchaunted years
Free from sorrows, free from fears,
Where thy Tower's great shadow falls
Over those proud buttressed walls;
Whence a purpling glory pours
From high heaven's inheritors,
Throned within the arching stone!
To have wandered, hushed, alone,
Gently round thy fair, fern-grown
Chauntry of the Lilies, lying
Where the soft night winds go sighing
Round thy Cloisters, in moonlight
Branching dark, or touched with white:
Round old, chill aisles, where moon-smitten
Blanches the Orate, written
Under each worn, old-world face
Graven on Death's holy place!

To the noblest!
None but thee.
Blest our living eyes, that see
Half a thousand years fulfilled
Of that age, which Wykeham willed
Thee to win; yet all unworn,
As upon that first March morn,
When thine honoured city saw
Thy young beauty without flaw,
Born within her water-flowing,
Ancient hollows, by wind-blowing
Hills enfolded ever more.
Thee, that lord of splendid lore,
Orient from old Hellas' shore,
Grocyn, had to mother: thee,
Monumental majesty
Of most high philosophy
Honours, in thy wizard Browne:
Tender Otway's dear renown,
Mover of a perfect pity,
Victim of the iron city,
Thine to cherish is: and thee,
Laureate of Liberty;
Harper of the Highland faith,
Elf, and faery, and wan wraith;
Chaunting softly, chaunting slowly,
Minstrel of all melancholy;
Master of all melody,
Made to cling round memory;
Passion's poet, Evening's voice,
Collins glorified. Rejoice,
Mother! in thy sons: for all
Love thine immemorial
Name, august and musical.
Not least he, who left thy side,
For his sire's, thine earlier pride,
Arnold: whom we mourn to-day,
Prince of song, and gone away
To his brothers of the bay:
Thine the love of all his years;
His be now thy praising tears.

To the dearest!
Ah, to thee!
Hast thou not in all to me
Mother, more than mother, been?
Well toward thee may Mary Queen
Bend her with a mother's mien;
Who so rarely dost express
An inspiring tenderness,
Woven with thy sterner strain,
Prelude of the world's true pain.
But two years, and still my feet
Found thy very stones more sweet,
Than the richest fields elsewhere:
Two years, and thy sacred air
Still poured balm upon me, when
Nearer drew the world of men;
When the passions, one by one,
All sprang upward to the sun:
Two years have I lived, still thine;
Lost, thy presence! gone, that shrine,
Where six years, what years! were mine.
Music is the thought of thee;
Fragrance, all thy memory.
Those thy rugged Chambers old,
In their gloom and rudeness, hold
Dear remembrances of gold.
Some first blossoming of flowers
Made delight of all the hours;
Greatness, beauty, all things fair
Made the spirit of thine air:
Old years live with thee; thy sons
Walk with high companions.
Then, the natural joy of earth,
Joy of very health and birth!
Hills, upon a summer noon:
Water Meads, on eves of June:
Chamber Court, beneath the moon:
Days of spring, on Twyford Down,
Or when autumn woods grew brown;
As they looked, when here came Keats,
Chaunting of autumnal sweets;
Through this city of old haunts,
Murmuring immortal chaunts;
As when Pope, art's earlier king,
Here, a child, did nought but sing;
Sang, a child, by nature's rule,
Round the trees of Twyford School:
Hours of sun beside Mead's Wall,
Ere the may begin to fall;
Watching the rooks rise and soar,
High from lime and sycamore:
Wanderings by old-world ways,
Walks and streets of ancient days;
Closes, churches, arches, halls,
Vanished men's memorials.
There was beauty, there was grace,
Each place was an holy place:
There the kindly fates allowed
Me too room; and made me proud,
Prouder name I have not wist!
With the name of Wykehamist.
These thy joys: and more than these:
Ah, to watch beneath thy trees,
Through long twilights linden-scented,
Sunsets, lingering, lamented,
In the purple west; prevented,
Ere they fell, by evening star!
Ah, long nights of Winter! far
Leaps and roars the faggot fire;
Ruddy smoke rolls higher, higher,
Broken through by flame's desire;
Circling faces glow, all eyes
Take the light; deep radiance flies,
Merrily flushing overhead
Names of brothers, long since fled;
And fresh clusters, in their stead,
Jubilant round fierce forest flame.
Friendship too must make her claim:
But what songs, what memories end,
When they tell of friend on friend?
And for them, I thank thy name.

Love alone of gifts, no shame
Lessens, and I love thee: yet
Sound it but of echoes, let
This my maiden music be,
Of the love I bear to thee,
Witness and interpreter,
Mother mine: loved Winchester!

1888.

TO MORFYDD.

A voice on the winds,
A voice by the waters,
Wanders and cries:
Oh! what are the winds?
And what are the waters?
Mine are your eyes!

Western the winds are,
And western the waters,
Where the light lies:
Oh! what are the winds?
And what are the waters?
Mine are your eyes!

Cold, cold, grow the winds,
And wild grow the waters,
Where the sun dies:
Oh! what are the winds?
And what are the waters?
Mine are your eyes!

And down the night winds,
And down the night waters,
The music flies:
Oh! what are the winds?
And what are the waters?
Cold be the winds,
And wild be the waters,
So mine be your eyes!

1891

PLATO IN LONDON.

To Campbell Dodgson.

The pure flame of one taper fall
Over the old and comely page:
No harsher light disturb at all
This converse with a treasured sage.
Seemly, and fair, and of the best,
If Plato be our guest,
Should things befall.

Without, a world of noise and cold:
Here, the soft burning of the fire.
And Plato walks, where heavens unfold,
About the home of his desire.
From his own city of high things,
He shows to us, and brings,
Truth of fine gold.

The hours pass; and the fire burns low;
The clear flame dwindles into death:
Shut then the book with care; and so,
Take leave of Plato, with hushed breath:
A little, by the falling gleams,
Tarry the gracious dreams:
And they too go.

Lean from the window to the air:
Hear London's voice upon the night!
Thou hast bold converse with things rare:
Look now upon another sight!
The calm stars, in their living skies:
And then, these surging cries,
This restless glare!

That starry music, starry fire,
High above all our noise and glare:
The image of our long desire,
The beauty, and the strength, are there.
And Plato's thought lives, true and clear,
In as august a sphere:
Perchance, far higher.

1889.

IN FALMOUTH HARBOUR.

To Frank Mathew.

I.

The large, calm harbour lies below
Long, terraced lines of circling light:
Without, the deep sea currents flow:
And here are stars, and night.

No sight, no sound, no living stir,
But such as perfect the still bay:
So hushed it is, the voyager
Shrinks at the thought of day.

We glide by many a lanterned mast;
Our mournful horns blow wild to warn
Yon looming pier: the sailors cast
Their ropes, and watch for morn.

Strange murmurs from the sleeping town,
And sudden creak of lonely oars
Crossing the water, travel down
The roadstead, the dim shores.

A charm is on the silent bay;
Charms of the sea, charms of the land.
Memories of open wind convey
Peace to this harbour strand.

Far off, Saint David's crags descend
On seas of desolate storm: and far
From this pure rest, the Land's drear End,
And ruining waters, are.

Well was it worth to have each hour
Of high and perilous blowing wind:
For here, for now, deep peace hath power
To conquer the worn mind.

I have passed over the rough sea,
And over the white harbour bar:
And this is Death's dreamland to me,
Led hither by a star.

And what shall dawn be? Hush thee, nay!
Soft, soft is night, and calm and still:
Save that day cometh, what of day
Knowest thou: good, or ill?

Content thee! Not the annulling light
Of any pitiless dawn is here;
Thou art alone with ancient night:
And all the stars are clear.

Only the night air, and the dream;
Only the far, sweet-smelling wave;
The stilly sounds, the circling gleam,
And thine: and thine a grave.

1887.

II.

Hence, by stern thoughts and strong winds borne,
Voyaged, with faith that could not fail,
Who cried: Lead, kindly Light! forlorn
Beneath a stranger sail.

Becalmed upon a classic sea;
Wandering through eternal Rome;
Fighting with Death in Sicily:
He hungered for his home.

These northern waves, these island airs!
Dreams of these haunted his full heart:
Their love inspired his songs and prayers,
Bidding him play his part.

The freedom of the living dead;
The service of a living pain:
He chose between them, bowed his head,
And counted sorrow, gain.

Ah, sweetest soul of all! whose choice
Was golden with the light of lights:
But us doubt's melancholy voice,
Wandering in gloom, unites.

Ah, sweetest soul of all! whose voice
Hailed morning, and the sun's increase:
We of the restless night rejoice,
We also, at thy peace.

1887.

A FRIEND.

To H. B. Irving.

All, that he came to give,
He gave, and went again:
I have seen one man live,
I have seen one man reign,
With all the graces in his train.

As one of us, he wrought
Things of the common hour:
Whence was the charmed soul brought,
That gave each act such power;
The natural beauty of a flower?

Magnificence and grace,
Excellent courtesy:
A brightness on the face,
Airs of high memory:
Whence came all these, to such as he?

Like young Shakespearian kings,
He won the adoring throng:
And, as Apollo sings,
He triumphed with a song:
Triumphed, and sang, and passed along.

With a light word, he took
The hearts of men in thrall:
And, with a golden look,
Welcomed them, at his call
Giving their love, their strength, their all.

No man less proud than he,
Nor cared for homage less:
Only, he could not be
Far off from happiness:
Nature was bound to his success.

Weary, the cares, the jars,
The lets, of every day:
But the heavens filled with stars,
Chanced he upon the way:
And where he stayed, all joy would stay.

Now, when sad night draws down,
When the austere stars burn:
Roaming the vast live town,
My thoughts and memories yearn
Toward him, who never will return.

Yet have I seen him live,
And owned my friend, a king:
All that he came to give,
He gave: and I, who sing
His praise, bring all I have to bring.

1889.

A BURDEN OF EASTER VIGIL.

Awhile meet Doubt and Faith:
For either sigheth and saith,
That He is dead
To-day: the linen cloths cover His head,
That hath, at last, whereon to rest; a rocky bed.

Come! for the pangs are done,
That overcast the sun,
So bright to-day!
And moved the Roman soldier: come away!
Hath sorrow more to weep? Hath pity more to say?

Why wilt thou linger yet?
Think on dark Olivet;
On Calvary stem:
Think, from the happy birth at Bethlehem,
To this last woe and passion at Jerusalem!

This only can be said:
He loved us all; is dead;
May rise again.
But if He rise not? Over the far main,
The sun of glory falls indeed: the stars are plain.

1888.

BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES
AT CHARING CROSS.

To William Watson.

Sombre and rich, the skies;
Great glooms, and starry plains.
Gently the night wind sighs;
Else a vast silence reigns.

The splendid silence clings
Around me: and around
The saddest of all kings
Crowned, and again discrowned.

Comely and calm, he rides
Hard by his own Whitehall:
Only the night wind glides:
No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.

Gone, too, his Court: and yet,
The stars his courtiers are:
Stars in their stations set;
And every wandering star.

Alone he rides, alone,
The fair and fatal king:
Dark night is all his own,
That strange and solemn thing.

Which are more full of fate:
The stars; or those sad eyes?
Which are more still and great:
Those brows; or the dark skies?

Although his whole heart yearn
In passionate tragedy:
Never was face so stern
With sweet austerity.

Vanquished in life, his death
By beauty made amends:
The passing of his breath
Won his defeated ends.

Brief life, and hapless? Nay:
Through death, life grew sublime.
Speak after sentence? Yea:
And to the end of time.

Armoured he rides, his head
Bare to the stars of doom:
He triumphs now, the dead,
Beholding London's gloom.

Our wearier spirit faints,
Vexed in the world's employ:
His soul was of the saints;
And art to him was joy.

King, tried in fires of woe!
Men hunger for thy grace:
And through the night I go,
Loving thy mournful face.

Yet, when the city sleeps;
When all the cries are still:
The stars and heavenly deeps
Work out a perfect will.

1889

LALEHAM.

To Arthur Galton.

Only one voice could sing aright
His brother poet, lost in night:
His voice, who lies not far away,
The pure and perfect voice of Gray.
The sleep of humble men he sang,
For whom the tolling church bells rang
Over their silent fields and vales,
Whence no rude sound their calm assails.
He knew their melancholy rest,
And peaceful sleep, on earth's kind breast;
Their patient lives, their common doom,
The beauty of their simple tomb.
One thing he left unsung: how some,
To share those village slumbers, come:
Whose voices filled the world with joy,
Who made high thoughts their one employ.
Ah, loving hearts! Too great to prize
Things whereon most men set their eyes:
The applauding crowd; the golden lure
Of wealth, insatiate and unsure;
A life of noise! a restless death:
The sanctities of life's last breath
Profaned with ritual pride and state;
Last pageant of the little great!
But these, to whom all crowns of song,
And all immortal praise, belong,
Turn from each garish sight and sound,
To lay them down in humble ground:
Choosing that still, enchaunted sleep
To be, where kindly natures keep:
In sound of pleasant water rills,
In shadows of the solemn hills.
Earth's heart, earth's hidden way, they knew:
Now on their grave light falls her dew.
The music of her soul was theirs:
They sleep beneath her sweetest airs.

Beside the broad, gray Thames one lies,
With whom a spring of beauty dies:
Among the willows, the pure wind
Calls all his wistful song to mind;
And, as the calm, strong river flows,
With it his mightier music goes;
But those winds cool, those waters lave,
The country of his chosen grave.
Go past the cottage flowers, and see,
Where Arnold held it good to be!
Half church, half cottage, comely stands
An holy house, from Norman hands:
By rustic Time well taught to wear
Some lowly, meditative air:
Long ages of a pastoral race
Have softened sternness into grace;
And many a touch of simpler use
From Norman strength hath set it loose.
Here, under old, red-fruited yews,
And summer suns, and autumn dews,
With his lost children at his side,
Sleeps Arnold: Still those waters glide,
Those winds blow softly down their breast:
But he, who loved them, is at rest.

1889

OUR LADY OF FRANCE.

To Ernest Dowson.

Leave we awhile without the turmoil of the town;
Leave we the sullen gloom, the faces full of care:
Stay we awhile and dream, within this place of prayer,
Stay we, and pray, and dream: till in our hearts die down
Thoughts of the world, unkind and weary: till Christ crown
Laborious day with love. Hark! on the fragrant air,
Music of France, voices of France, fall piercing fair:
Poor France, where Mary star shines, lest her children drown.

Our Lady of France! dost thou inhabit here? Behold,
What sullen gloom invests this city strange to thee!
In Seine, and pleasant Loire, thou gloriest from of old;
Thou rulest rich Provence; lovest the Breton sea:
What dost thou far from home? Nay! here my children fold
Their exiled hands in orison, and long for me.

1891.

IN MEMORY.

I.

Under the clear December sun,
Perishing and cold,
Sleep, Malise! who hast early won
Light of sacred gold.
Sleep, be at rest: we still will keep
Dear love for thee lain down to sleep.

Youth, loving faces, holy toil,
These death takes from thee:
But of our love, none shall despoil
Thy fair soul set free.
The labours of thy love are done:
Thy labour's crown of love is won.

Sleep, Malise! While the winds blow yet
Over thy quiet grave:
We, labouring deathward, will forget
Thee never: wherefore have
Hope, and pure patience: we, too, come
Presently to thee, in thine home.

1885.

II.

Ah! fair face gone from sight,
With all its light
Of eyes, that pierced the deep
Of human night!
Ah! fair face calm in sleep.

Ah! fair lips hushed in death!
Now their glad breath
Breathes not upon our air
Music, that saith
Love only, and things fair.

Ah! lost brother! Ah! sweet
Still hands and feet!
May those feet haste to reach,
Those hands to greet,
Us, where love needs no speech.

1886.

III.

Sea-gulls, wheeling, swooping, crying,
Crying over Maes Garmon side!
Cold is the wind for your white wings' flying:
Cold and dim is our gray springtide.

But an hundred miles and more away,
In the old, sweet city,
Birds of spring are singing to the May,
Their old, sweet ditty.

There he lies, whom I loved so well,
And lies, whom I love so dearly:
At thought of his youth, our buds will swell;
Of his face, our sun shine clearly.

Sea-gulls, wheeling, swooping, crying,
Crying over Maes Garmon side!
Spirits of fire with him are flying,
Souls of flame, to the Crucified.

Yet, far away from the ancient places,
Ancient pleasures, and ancient days:
He too thinks of our exiled faces,
Far away from his whiter ways.

Sea-gulls, over Maes Garmon side,
Flying and crying! flying and crying!
You and all creatures, since Malise died,
I have loved the more, both singing and sighing.

1887.

IV.

Glimmering lake, waters of Windermere!
Winchester your name must be:
Or is all an evening dream?
Nay! Winton waters wander here,
Delighting me,
Down through that ancient bridge, that old-world stream.

I lean against the old, pillared balustrade:
Now upon the red, worn mill,
Now upon the rapid race,
Poring: or where, within the shade
Of freshly chill,
Low arches, wallflowers hide their homely grace.

Swiftly descend those waters of the weir:
Sweeping past old cottages,
Curving round, ah, happy tide!
Into sight of towers most dear,
Of ancient trees
Loved all by heart: glad stream, who there may glide!

Farewell, whom I have loved so in gone years!
Up the little climbing street,
To the memoried Church I pass,
Church of Saint John: whence loving tears
Made the way sweet,
Saddest of ways, unto the holy grass.

Up the slow hill, people and holy Cross
Bore thee to the sleeping place,
Malise! whom thy lovers weep.
Spring lilies crown from the soft moss
Thy silent face,
All peaceful, Malise! in thy perfect sleep.

Ah! far away, far by the watered vale,
By the seaward-rolling hills,
Lies he, by the gray-towered walls.
Northern calm lake, wild northern dale,
Gently fulfils,
Each, its serene enchauntment: and night falls.

Windermere gleams: as would some shadowy space
Out from willowed dream-world drawn.
Under the pure silence, earth
Looks up to heaven, with tranquil face:
And patient dawn,
Behind the purple hills, dreams toward the birth.

V.

To think of thee, Malise! at Christmas time!
The Glory of the world comes down on earth,
Malise! at Christmas: but the Yule bells chime
Over thy perfect sleep: and though Christ's birth
Wake other men to melody of heart,
Thou in their happy music hast no part.

Or dost thou wake awhile, to feel thy gloom
Illuminated by the shepherds' light?
To stretch out longing hands from thy still tomb,
And think on days, that were: before that night
Fell on thee, Malise? and the world as well
Was darkened over us, when that night fell!

1888.

VI.

Whenas I knew not clearly, how to think,
Malise! about thee dead: God showed the way.
Thine holy soul among soft fires can drink
The dew of all the prayers, that I can pray.

Prayers for thy sake shall pierce thy prison gate;
Prayers to the Mother of Misericord:
Mary, the mighty, the immaculate;
Mary, whose soul welcomed the appointed sword.

Malise! thy dear face from my wall looks down:
The Crucifix above its beauty lies.
Now, while I look and long, I see a crown
Bright on thy brow, and heaven within thine eyes,

1892.

THE PRECEPT OF SILENCE.

I know you: solitary griefs,
Desolate passions, aching hours!
I know you: tremulous beliefs,
Agonized hopes, and ashen flowers!

The winds are sometimes sad to me;
The starry spaces, full of fear:
Mine is the sorrow on the sea,
And mine the sigh of places drear.

Some players upon plaintive strings
Publish their wistfulness abroad:
I have not spoken of these things,
Save to one man, and unto God.

1893.

HILL AND VALE.

Not on the river plains
Wilt thou breathe loving air,
O mountain spirit fine!
Here the calm soul maintains
Calm: but no joy like thine,
On hill-tops bleak and bare,
Whose breath is fierce and rare.

Were beauty all thy need,
Here were an haunt for thee.
The broad laborious weald,
An eye's delight indeed,
Spreads from rich field to field:
And full streams wander free
Under the alder tree.

Throw thee upon the grass,
The daisied grass, and gaze
Far to the warm blue mist:
Feel, how the soft hours pass
Over, before they wist,
Into whole day: and days
Dream on in sunny haze.

Each old, sweet, country scent
Comes, as old music might
Upon thee: old, sweet sounds
Go, as they ever went,
Over the red corn grounds:
Still sweeping scythes delight
Charmed hearing and charmed sight

Gentle thy life would be:
To watch at morning dew
Fresh water-lilies: tell,
How bears the walnut tree:
Find the first foxglove bell,
Spare the last harebell blue:
And wander the wold through.

Another love is thine:
For thee the far world spied
From the far mountain top:
Keen scented, sounding pine,
The purple heather crop:
And night's great glorious tide
Of stars and clouds allied.

1887.

GWYNEDD.

To Ernest Rhys.

The children of the mingling mists: can they,
Born by the melancholy hills, love thee,
Royal and joyous light? From dawn of day,
We watch the trailing shadows of the waste,
The waste moors, or the ever-mourning sea:
What, though in speedy splendour thou hast raced
Over the heather or wild wave, a ray
Of travelling glory and swift bloom? Still thou
Inhabitest the mighty morning's brow:
And hast thy flaming and celestial way,
Afar from our sad beauties, in thine haste.

Have thou thy circling triumph of the skies,
Horseman of Goldwhite Footsteps! Yet all fire
Lives not with thee: for part is in our eyes,
Beholding the loved beauty of cold hills:
And part is patron of dear home desire,
Flashing upon the central hearth: it fills
Ingle and black-benched nook with radiances,
Hearts with responding spirit, ears with deep
Delicious music of the ruddy leap,
And streaming strength, and kindling confluences:
The hearth glows, and the cavernous chimney thrills,

Pale with great heat, panting to crimson gloom,
Quiver the deeps of the rich fire: see there!
Was not that your fair face, in burning bloom
Wrought by the art of fire? O happy art!
That sets in living flames a face so fair:
The face, whose changes dominate mine heart,
And with a look speak my delight or doom:
Nay, now not doom, for I am only thine,
And one in thee and me the fire divine!
The fire, that wants the whole vast world for room:
Yet dwells in us contented and apart.

The flames' red dance is done: and we crouch close
With shadowy faces to the dull, red glow.
Your darkling loveliness is like the rose,
Its dusky petals, and its bower of soft
Sweet inner darkness, where the dew lies low:
And now one tongue of flame leaps up aloft,
Brightening your brows: and now it fails, and throws
A play of flushing shadows, the rich mist
Of purple grapes, that many a sun hath kissed;
The delicate darkness, that with autumn grows
On red ripe apples in a mossy croft.

Nay! leave such idle southern imageries,
Vineyard and orchard, flowers and mellow fruit:
Great store is ours of mountain mysteries.
Look, where the embers fade, from ruddy gold
Into gray ashes falling without bruit!
Yet is that ruddy lustre bought and sold,
Elf with elf trafficking his merchandise:
Deep at the strong foot of the eagles' pass,
They store the haunting treasure, and amass
The spirit of dead fire: there still it lies,
Phantom wealth, goodlier than Ophir old.

Across the moor, over the purple bells,
Over the heather blossom, the rain drives:
Art fired enough to dare the blowing fells,
And ford the brawling brooks? Ah, come we then!
Great good it is to see, how beauty thrives
For desolate moorland and for moorland men;
To smell scents, rarer than soft honey cells,
From bruised wild thyme, pine bark, or mouldering peat;
To watch the crawling gray clouds drift, and meet
Midway the ragged cliffs. O mountain spells,
Calling us forth, by hill, and moor, and glen!

Calling us forth, to be with earth again,
Her memories, her splendours, her desires!
The fires of the hearth are fallen: now the rain
Stirs its delight of waters, as the flame
Stirred its delight of heat and spirited fires.
Come! by the lintel listen: clouds proclaim,
That thunder is their vast voice: the winds wane,
That all the storm may gather strength, and strive
Once more in their great breath to be alive;
And fill the angry air with such a strain,
As filled the world's war, when the world first came.

Desolate Cornwall, desolate Brittany,
Are up in vehement wind and vehement wave:
Ancient delights are on their ancient sea,
And nature's violent graces waken there;
And there goes loveliness about the grave,
And death means dreaming, not life's long despair.
Our sister lands are they, one people we,
Cornwall desolate, Brittany desolate,
And Wales: to us is granted to be great:
Because, as winds and seas and flames are free,
We too have freedom full, as wild and rare.

And therefore, on a night of heavenly fires;
And therefore, on a windy hour of noon;
Our soul, like nature's eager soul, aspires,
Finding all thunders and all winds our friends:
And like the moving sea, love we the moon;
And life in us the way of nature wends,
Ardent as nature's own, that never tires.
Born of wild land, children of mountains, we
Fear neither ruining earth, nor stormy sea:
Even as men told in Athens, of our sires:
And as it shall be, till the old world ends.

Your eyes but brighten to the streaming wind,
But lighten to the sighing air, but break
To tears before the labouring hills: your mind
Moves with the passionate spirit of the land.
Now crystal is your soul, now flame: a lake,
Proud and calm, with high scaurs on either hand;
Or a swift lance of lightning, to strike blind.
True child of Gwynedd, child of wilds and fields!
To you earth clings, to you strange nature yields
Far learning, sudden light, fierce fire: these find
Home in your heart, and thoughts that understand.

We will not wander from this land; we will
Be wise together, and accept our world:
This world of the gray cottage by the hill,
This gorge, this lusty air, this loneliness:
The calm of drifting clouds; the pine-tops whirled
And swayed along the ridges. Here distress
Dreams, and delight dreams: dreaming, we can fill
All solitary haunts with prophecy,
All heights with holiness and mystery;
Our hearts with understanding, and our will
With love of nature's law and loveliness.

Old voices call, old pleasures lure: for now
The wet earth breathes ancient fair fragrance forth;
And dying gales hang in the branches, blow
And fall, and blow again: our widest home
Is with rich winds of West, loud winds of North,
Sweeping beneath a gray and vasty dome.
Not with the hearth, whose consolations go,
Our home of homes: but where our eyes grown tired
Of straitened joys, with stretching joys are fired:
Joys of the rolling moor and cloudy brow,
Or worn, precipitous bastions of the foam.

Our fires are fallen from their blossoming height,
And linger in sad embers: but gray bloom
Is on the heather, an enchaunting light
Of purple dusk and vesper air: rich rain
Falls on our hearts, through eve and gentle gloom,
More than upon our foreheads. The world's pain
And joy of storm are proven our delight,
And peace enthroned for ever: ours the mirth,
And melancholy of this ancient earth:
Ours are the mild airs and the starred twilight;
And we, who love them, are not all in vain.

1888

A CORNISH NIGHT.

To William Butler Yeats.

Merry the night, you riders of the wild!
A merry night to ride your wilderness.
Come you from visionary haunts, enisled
Amid the northern waters pitiless,
Over these cliffs white-heathered? Upon mild
Midnights of dewy June, oh, rare to press
Past moonlit fields of white bean-flowers! nor less
To wander beside falling waves, beguiled
By soft winds into still dreams! Yet confess,
You chivalries of air, unreconciled
To the warm, breathing world! what ghostly stress
Compels your visit unto sorrow's child?

What would you here? For here you have no part:
Only the sad voices of wind and sea
Are prophets here to any wistful heart:
Or white flowers found upon a glimmering lea.
What would you here? Sweep onward, and depart
Over the ocean into Brittany,
Where old faith is, and older mystery!
Though this be western land, we have no art
To welcome spirits in community:
Trafficking, in an high celestial mart,
Slumber for wondrous knowledge: setting free
Our souls, that strain and agonize and start.

The wind hath cried to me, all the long day,
That you were coming, chivalries of air!
Between the waters and the starry way.
Fair lies the sea about a land, as fair:
Moonlight and west winds move upon the bay
Gently: now down the rough path sweet it were
To clamber, and so launching out to fare
Forth for the heart of sea and night, away
From hard earth's loud uproar, and harder care!
But you at will about the winds can stray:
Or bid the wandering stars of midnight bear
You company: or with the seven stay.

And yet you came for me! So the wind cried,
So my soul knows: else why am I awake
With expectation and desire, beside
The soothed sea's murmuring nocturnal lake?
Not sleep, but storm, welcomes a widowed bride:
Storms of sad certainty, vain want, that make
Vigil perpetual mine; so that I take
The gusty night in place of him, who died,
To clasp me home to heart. That cannot break,
The eternal heart of nature far and wide!
So now, your message! while the clear stars shake
Within the gleaming sea, shake and abide.

So now, your message! Breathe words from the wave,
Or breathe words from the field, into mine ears:
Or from the sleeping shades of a cold grave
Bring comfortable solace for my tears.
Something of my love's heart could nature save:
Some rich delight to spice the tasteless years,
Some hope to light the valley of lone fears.
Hear! I am left alone, to bear and brave
The sounding storms: but you, from starry spheres,
From wild wood haunts, give me, as love once gave
Joy from his home celestial, so, love's peers!
Give peace awhile to me, sorrow's poor slave!

In sorrow's order I dwell passionist,
Cloistered by tossing sea on weary land.
O vain love! vain, to claim me votarist:
O vain my heart! that will not understand,
He is dead! I am lonely! Love in a Mist
My flower is: and salt tangle of the strand,
The crownals woven by this failing hand:
In the dark kingdom, walking where I list,
I walk where Lethe glides against the sand.
But vain love is a constant lutanist,
Playing old airs, and able to withstand
Sweet sleep: vain love, thou loyal melodist!

You wanderers! Would I were wandering
Under the white moon with you, or among
The invisible stars with you! Would I might sing
Over the charmed sea your enchaunting song,
Song of old autumn, and of radiant spring:
Might sing, how earth the mother suffers long;
How the great winds are wild, yet do no wrong;
How the most frail bloom is at heart a king!
I could endure then, strenuous and strong:
But now, O spirits of the air! I bring
Before you my waste soul: why will you throng
About me, save to take even such a thing?

Only for this you ride the midnight gloom,
Above the ancient isles of the old main.
The spray leaps on the hidden rocks of doom:
The ripples break, and wail away again
Upon the gathering wave: gaunt headlands loom
In the lone distance of the heaving plain.
And now, until the calm, the still stars wane,
You wait upon my heart, my heart a tomb.
Though I dream, life and dreams are alike vain!
Then love me, tell me news of dear death: whom
Circle you, but a soul astray, one fain
To leave this close world for death's larger room?

If barren be the promise I desire,
The promise that I shall not always go
In living solitariness: break fire
Out of the night, and lay me swiftly low!
Soft spirits! you have wings to waft me higher,
Than touch of each my most familiar woe:
Am I unworthy, you should raise me so?
If barren be that trust, my dreams inspire
Only despair; my brooding heart must grow
Heavy with miseries; a mourning quire,
To tell the heavy hours, how sad, how slow,
Are all their footsteps, of whose sound I tire.

Bright seafire runs about a plunging keel
On vehement nights: and where black danger lies,
Gleam the torn breakers. But all days reveal
Drear dooms for me, nor any nights disguise
Their menace: never rolls the thunder peal
Through my worn watch, nor lightning past mine eyes
Leaps from the blue gloom of its mother skies,
One hour alone, but all, while sad stars wheel.
This hour, was it a lie, that bade me rise;
Some laughing dream, that whispered me to steal
Into the sea-sweet night, where the wind cries,
And find the comfort, that I cannot feel?

My lord hath gone your way perpetual:
Whether you be great spirits of the dead,
Or spirits you, that never were in thrall
To perishing bodies, dust-born, dustward led.
Sweet shadows! passing by this ocean wall,
Tarry to pour some balm upon mine head,
Some pity for a woman, who hath wed
With weariness and loneliness, from fall
To fall, from bitter snows to maybloom red:
The hayfields hear, the cornlands hear, my call!
From weariness toward weariness I tread;
And hunger for the end: the end of all.

1888

MYSTIC AND CAVALIER.

To Herbert Percy Horne.

Go from me: I am one of those, who fall.
What! hath no cold wind swept your heart at all,
In my sad company? Before the end,
Go from me, dear my friend!

Yours are the victories of light: your feet
Rest from good toil, where rest is brave and sweet.
But after warfare in a mourning gloom,
I rest in clouds of doom.

Have you not read so, looking in these eyes?
Is it the common light of the pure skies,
Lights up their shadowy depths? The end is set:
Though the end be not yet.

When gracious music stirs, and all is bright,
And beauty triumphs through a courtly night;
When I too joy, a man like other men:
Yet, am I like them, then?

And in the battle, when the horsemen sweep
Against a thousand deaths, and fall on sleep:
Who ever sought that sudden calm, if I
Sought not? Yet, could not die.

Seek with thine eyes to pierce this crystal sphere:
Canst read a fate there, prosperous and clear?
Only the mists, only the weeping clouds:
Dimness, and airy shrouds.

Beneath, what angels are at work? What powers
Prepare the secret of the fatal hours?
See! the mists tremble, and the clouds are stirred:
When comes the calling word?

The clouds are breaking from the crystal ball,
Breaking and clearing: and I look to fall.
When the cold winds and airs of portent sweep,
My spirit may have sleep.

O rich and sounding voices of the air!
Interpreters and prophets of despair:
Priests of a fearful sacrament! I come,
To make with you mine home.

1889

PARNELL.

To John McGrath.

The wail of Irish winds,
The cry of Irish seas:
Eternal sorrow finds
Eternal voice in these.

I cannot praise our dead,
Whom Ireland weeps so well:
Her morning light, that fled;
Her morning star, that fell.

She of the mournful eyes
Waits, and no dark clouds break:
Waits, and her strong son lies
Dead, for her holy sake.

Her heart is sorrow's home.
And hath been from of old:
An host of griefs hath come,
To make that heart their fold.

Ah, the sad autumn day,
When the last sad troop came
Swift down the ancient way,
Keening a chieftain's name!

Gray hope was there, and dread;
Anger, and love in tears:
They mourned the dear and dead,
Dirge of the ruined years.

Home to her heart she drew
The mourning company:
Old sorrows met the new,
In sad fraternity.

A mother, and forget?
Nay! all her children's fate
Ireland remembers yet,
With love insatiate.

She hears the heavy bells:
Hears, and with passionate breath
Eternally she tells
A rosary of death.

Faithful and true is she,
The mother of us all:
Faithful and true! may we
Fail her not, though we fall.

Her son, our brother, lies
Dead, for her holy sake:
But from the dead arise
Voices, that bid us wake.

Not his, to hail the dawn:
His but the herald's part.
Be ours to see withdrawn
Night from our mother's heart.

1893.

IN ENGLAND.

To Charles Furse.

Bright Hellas lies far hence,
Far the Sicilian sea:
But England's excellence
Is fair enough for me.

I love and understand
One joy: with staff and scrip
To walk a wild west land,
The winds my fellowship.

For all the winds will blow,
Across a lonely face,
Rough wisdom, good to know:
An high and heartening grace.

Wind, on the open down!
Riding the wind, the moon:
From town to country town,
I go from noon to noon.

Cities of ancient spires,
Glorious against high noon;
August at sunset fires;
Austere beneath the moon.

Old, rain-washed, red-roofed streets,
Fresh with the soft South-west:
Where dreaming memory meets
Brave men long since at rest.

Evening, from out the green
Wet boughs of clustered lime.
Pours fragrance rich and keen,
Balming the stilly time.

Old ramparts, gray and stern;
But comely clothed upon
With wealth of moss and fern,
And scarlet snapdragon.

Harbours of swaying masts,
Beneath the vesper star:
Each high-swung lantern casts
A quivering ray afar.

From round the ancient quay,
Ring songs with rough refrains:
Strong music of the sea,
Chaunted in lusty strains.

Freshness of early spray,
Blown on me off the sea:
Morning breaks chilly gray,
And storm is like to be.

A cliff of rent, black rock,
About whose stern height flies
The wrangling sea-gull flock,
With querulous, thin cries.

The sea-gulls' wrangling cry
Around the black cliff rings:
I watch them wheel and fly,
A snowstorm of white wings.

With savoury blossoms graced,
A craggy, rusted height:
Where thrift and samphire taste
The sea and wind and light.

A light prow plunges: red,
Red as the ruddy sand,
The tall sail fills: well sped,
The fair boat leaves the land.

I wander with delight
Among the great sea gales:
Exulting in their might,
They thunder through the vales.

Cries of the North-west wind,
Crying from roseless lands:
From countries cold and blind,
Hard seas and unsunned strands.

A dark forest, where freeze
My very dreams: gaunt rows
Rise up, the forest trees;
Black, from a waste of snows.

Long, fragrant pine tree bands,
Behind whose black, straight ranks
The dusky red sun stands,
On clouds in purple banks.

In tree-tops the worn gale
Hangs, weakened to a sigh:
The rooks with sunrise hail
From out the tree-tops fly.

A deep wood, where the air
Hangs in a stilly trance:
While on rich fernbanks fair
The sunlights flash and dance.

I hear the woodland folks,
Each well-swung axe's blow:
And boughs of mighty oaks,
Murmuring to and fro.

My step fills, as I go,
Shy rabbits with quick fears:
I see the sunlight glow
Red through their startled ears.

Mild, red-brown April woods.
When spring is in the air:
And a soft spirit broods
In patience, everywhere.

Primroses fill the fields,
And birds' light matin cries:
The lingering darkness yields,
Before the sun's uprise.

Deep meadows, white with dew,
Where faeries well may dance;
Or the quaint fawnskin crew,
Play in a red moon's glance.

Quivering poplar trees,
Silvered upon the wind:
In watermeads and leas,
With silver streams entwined.

Waters in alder shade,
Where green lights break and gleam
Betwixt my fingers, laid
Upon the rippling stream.

In merry prime of June,
Birds sun themselves and sing:
Mine heart beats to the tune;
The world is on the wing.

The sun, golden and strong,
Leaps: and in flying choirs
The birds make morning song,
Across the morning fires.

Old gardens, where long hours
But find me happier,
Beside the misty flowers
Of purple lavender.

Heaped with a sweet hay load,
Curved, yellow waggons pass
Slow down the high-hedged road;
I watch them from the grass:

A pleasant village noise
Breaks the still air: and all
The summer spirit joys,
Before the first leaves fall.

Red wreckage of the rose,
Over a gusty lawn:
While in the orchard close,
Fruits redden to their dawn.

September's wintering air,
When fruits and flowers have fled
From mountain valleys bare,
Save rowan berries red.

These joys, and such as these,
Are England's and are mine:
Within the English seas,
My days have been divine.

Oh! Hellas lies far hence,
Far the blue Sicel sea:
But England's excellence
Is more than they to me.

1892.

TO OCEAN HAZARD: GIPSY.

Burning fire, or blowing wind;
Starry night, or glowing sun:
All these thou dost bring to mind,
All these match thee, one by one:
Ocean is thy name, most fair!
Strangest name, for thee to bear.

Daughter of the sun, and child
Of the wind upon the waste;
Daughter of the field and wild:
Thee, what oceans have embraced?
What great waves have cradled thee,
That thy name is of the sea?

In thy beauty, the red earth,
Full of gold and jewel stone,
Flames and burns: thy happy birth
Made and marked thee for her own.
Winds held triumph in the trees:
Thou wast lying on earth's knees.

For thine ancient people keep
Still their march from land to land:
Ever upon earth they sleep,
Woods and fields on either hand.
Not upon the barren sea
Have thy people dandled thee.

Closer they, than other men,
To the heart of earth have come:
First the wilderness, and then
Field and forest, gave them home:
All their days, their hearts, they must
Give to earth: and then their dust.

Was it, that they heard the sea
In the surging pinewood's voice:
As they pondered names, for thee
Fair enough; so made their choice,
Hailed thee Ocean, hailed thee queen
Over glades of tossing green?

1888

UPON A DRAWING.

To Manmohan Ghose.

Not in the crystal air of a Greek glen,
Not in the houses of imperial Rome,
Lived he, who wore this beauty among men:
No classic city was his ancient home.
What happy country claims his fair youth then,
Her pride? and what his fortunate lineage?
Here is no common man of every day,
This man, whose full and gleaming eyes assuage
Never their longing, be that what it may:
Of dreamland only he is citizen,
Beyond the flying of the last sea's foam.

Set him beneath the Athenian olive trees,
To speak with Marathonians: or to task
The wise serenity of Socrates;
Asking, what other men dare never ask.
Love of his country and his gods? Not these
The master thoughts, that comfort his strange heart,
When life grows difficult, and the lights dim:
In him is no simplicity, but art
Is all in all, for life and death, to him:
And whoso looks upon that fair face, sees
No nature there: only a magic mask.

Or set this man beside the Roman lords,
To vote upon the fate of Catiline;
Or in a battle of stout Roman swords,
Where strength and virtue were one thing divine:
Or bind him to the cross with Punic cords.
Think you, this unknown and mysterious man
Had played the Roman, with that wistful smile,
Those looks not moulded on a Roman plan,
But full of witcheries and secret guile?
Think you, those lips had framed true Roman words,
Whose very curves have something Sibylline?

Thou wouldst but laugh, were one to question thee:
Laugh with malign, bright eyes, and curious joy.
Thou'rt fallen in love with thine own mystery!
And yet thou art no Sibyl, but a boy.
What wondrous land within the unvoyaged sea
Haunts then thy thoughts, thy memories, thy dreams?
Nay! be my friend; and share with me thy past:
If haply I may catch enchaunting gleams,
Catch marvellous music, while our friendship last:
Tell me thy visions: though their true home be
Some land, that was a legend in old Troy.

1890.

THE ROMAN STAGE.

To Hugh Orange.

A man of marble holds the throne,
With looks composed and resolute:
Till death, a prince whom princes own,
Draws near to touch the marble mute.

The play is over: good my friends!
Murmur the pale lips: your applause!
With what a grace the actor ends:
How loyal to dramatic laws!

A brooding beauty on his brow;
Irony brooding over sin:
The next imperial actor now
Bids the satiric piece begin.

"TO WEEP IRISH."

To the Rev. Dr. William Barry.

Long Irish melancholy of lament!
Voice of the sorrow, that is on the sea:
Voice of that ancient mourning music sent
From Rama childless: the world wails in thee.

The sadness of all beauty at the heart,
The appealing of all souls unto the skies,
The longing locked in each man's breast apart,
Weep in the melody of thine old cries.

Mother of tears! sweet Mother of sad sighs!
All mourners of the world weep Irish, weep
Ever with thee: while burdened time still runs,
Sorrows reach God through thee, and ask for sleep.

And though thine own unsleeping sorrow yet
Live to the end of burdened time, in pain:
Still sing the song of sorrow! and forget
The sorrow, in the solace, of the strain.

1893.

SUMMER STORM.

To Harold Child.

The wind, hark! the wind in the angry woods:
And low clouds purple the west: there broods
Thunder, thunder; and rain will fall;
Fresh fragrance cling to the wind from all
Roses holding water wells,
Laurels gleaming to the gusty air;
Wilding mosses of the dells,
Drenched hayfields, and dripping hedgerows fair.

The wind, hark! the wind dying again:
The wind's voice matches the far-off main,
In sighing cadences: Pan will wake,
Pan in the forest, whose rich pipes make
Music to the folding flowers,
In the pure eve, where no hot spells are:
Those be favourable hours
Hymned by Pan beneath the shepherd star.

1887.

TO A TRAVELLER.

The mountains, and the lonely death at last
Upon the lonely mountains: O strong friend!
The wandering over, and the labour passed,
Thou art indeed at rest:
Earth gave thee of her best,
That labour and this end.

Earth was thy mother, and her true son thou:
Earth called thee to a knowledge of her ways,
Upon the great hills, up the great streams: now
Upon earth's kindly breast
Thou art indeed at rest:
Thou, and thine arduous days.

Fare thee well, O strong heart! The tranquil night
Looks calmly on thee: and the sun pours down
His glory over thee, O heart of might!
Earth gives thee perfect rest:
Earth, whom thy swift feet pressed:
Earth, whom the vast stars crown.

1889.

IN MEMORY OF M. B.

Old age, that dwelt upon thy years
With softest and with stateliest grace,
Hath sealed thine eyes, hath closed thine ears,
And stilled the sweetness of thy face.

That gentle and that gracious look
Sleeps now, and wears a marble calm:
Death took no more away, but took
All cares away, and left the balm

Of pure repose and peacefulness
Upon thy forehead touched by time:
So shall I know thee, none the less
Than earth unwintered, come the prime.

Gone, the white snows, the lingering leaves,
That once endeared the wintry days:
But the new bloom of spring receives
The old love, and has an equal praise.

Fare then thee well! In Winchester,
Sleep thy last fearless sleep serene.
Friends fail me not; but kindlier
Can no friend be, than thou hast been.

The city that we two loved best,
No fairer place of sleep for thee:
There lay thee down, and take thy rest,
And this farewell of love from me.

1888

HAWTHORNE.

To Walter Alison Phillips.

Ten years ago I heard; ten, have I loved;
Thine haunting voice borne over the waste sea.
Was it thy melancholy spirit moved
Mine, with those gray dreams, that invested thee?
Or was it, that thy beauty first reproved
The imperfect fancies, that looked fair to me?

Thou hast both secrets: for to thee are known
The fatal sorrows binding life and death:
And thou hast found, on winds of passage blown,
That music, which is sorrow's perfect breath:
So, all thy beauty takes a solemn tone,
And art, is all thy melancholy saith.

Now therefore is thy voice abroad for me,
When through dark woodlands murmuring sounds make way:
Thy voice, and voices of the sounding sea,
Stir in the branches, as none other may:
All pensive loneliness is full of thee,
And each mysterious, each autumnal day.

Hesperian soul! Well hadst thou in the West
Thine hermitage and meditative place:
In mild, retiring fields thou wast at rest,
Calmed by old winds, touched with aerial grace:
Fields, whence old magic simples filled thy breast,
And unforgotten fragrance balmed thy face.